#also I made friends with a couple of birds and got right up close to them and even gently pet one

[i-may-be-an-emu]

On my little trip so far I have seen:

Rainbow pride flag

rainbow painted across the bottom of two post boxes (next to each other)

⚧️ this symbol on a homemade sticker in a public bathroom

the same symbol on another sticker on a street sign but this one seemed to be printed

[edit: the second sticker was also homemade]

numerous posters with rainbow banners or rainbow love hearts talking about inclusivity and saying stuff along the lines of “you’re welcome and safe here” (i see these a lot where I live too but it’s nice to see them where I am traveling)

I hope I see more stuff like this :)

[firewasabeast]

i know you didn't ask for prompts but if you get a chance could you write something where tommy is in trouble (maybe during the bees chaos) and kinda has to rescue himself? like his helicopter crashes or something idk! sorry if this is a bother!

well this became a whole thing, so thanks for that! Also, you can send prompts anytime. I can't promise when I'll get to them, but I always try.

ao3 link

He was used to waking up to the sound of birds. He had a tree right by his window and, while none of them ever made a nest, there were plenty of birds that liked to stop by for a visit.

He'd worried about it when Evan first started staying over. Some people hated the sound of the chirps first thing in the morning, often starting before the sun was up.

But the first time Tommy woke up with Evan in his house, expecting him to be beside him in bed, he was surprised to find him squatted down and staring out the window.

“Morning.” Tommy's voice was husky of the morning. He blinked a few times to adjust to the sunlight shining in from the open window.

Evan turned to him with a smile. “You have blue birds. I think I saw a cardinal too, earlier. It was quick though. A finch got a worm in the dirt by the roots.” He looked back, nearly pressing his forehead to the glass, “This is so cool.”

Tommy was pretty sure he felt his heart swell twice it's size that day. He's also pretty sure that was the moment he fell in love. He didn't say it then, waited a couple more months for that. They'd only really been going out for a few weeks at that point, but he still felt it.

And it was a damn good feeling.

Everyday with Evan was a good feeling. He loved going out with him, or staying home. Loved to hear him go on rants about whatever research he'd been doing lately. He loved coming home to Evan cooking in his kitchen, or napping on his couch. He loved the texts they'd send each other during shifts. Tommy would often get ragged on about how often his phone would ding. “Are y'all sexting again?” his co-worker would ask with a snort. Tommy never told them that, most of the time, Evan was actually sending him the most G-rated photos of all time, and it was absolutely adorable. Like the one where he was holding a baby duck that they'd saved. Or the one where he was frying pork chops and had to take a selfie with them because they turned out so good. Or the one where Christopher dropped by the station for a visit and Evan snapped a picture with him while Chris was mid eye-roll. Those were his favorites.

He loved the phone calls with Evan too. It didn't matter if they'd been with each other all night, and left for work at the same time, and would be seeing one another right after their shift was over. When it was a quiet day at work, they were always reaching into their pockets to call one another. Sometimes at the same time.

Tommy loved the parts of Evan that Evan didn't love about himself. He loved that Evan was clingy, love that he talked a lot, loved that when he got something on his mind he had to do it and it had to be done right.

Tommy loved how aggressively he loved his family and friends.

He loved the grumpy side of Evan, and loved that Evan seemed to love Tommy's grumpy side too.

He also loved the look on Evan's face when he was about to come. Loved how their bodies fit together so perfectly, like they were made for each other.

Loved how easily he blushed. Loved falling asleep next to him, their bodies tangled together in one way or another. He loved waking up beside Evan. Getting to see his hair all tousled and the little drips of drool that would escape down the side of his mouth.

“That's a lot of things to love about a person,” Evan whispered into the darkness of the room. “Although I will forever deny the fact that I drool, thank you very much.”

Which, maybe the room wasn't actually dark, because Tommy still had his eyes closed.

He scrunched his face up, confused. “Was I talking out loud?” he asked.

“Mhm.” He could feel Evan's breath on his face. “Do you really love all that about me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then you should open your eyes.”

That was an odd request. It all felt odd, actually. Because when he and Evan woke up together, Evan always had a hand on him somewhere. His chest, his arm, his back, running up and down his side. Somewhere. But this time Tommy felt nothing.

Well, not nothing, exactly. He felt damp, actually. He felt damp and sticky and hot. Hotter than usual, but cold at the same time?

“What?” He mumbled out, confused.

“I said you should open your eyes.”

“Wh- Why?”

“Tommy!” Evan's voice was louder now, like he had a megaphone to Tommy's ear. “Open your eyes!”

Tommy's head jerked up in surprise, wincing from the sound. “Mmm,” he groaned. His body hurt all over. He didn't remember feeling sick before he went to bed.

But the more he thought about it, he didn't really remember going to bed.

He blinked his eyes open slowly. They felt so dry and scratchy, almost like they had sand in them. When they finally focused he expected to see his clock to his left, the time shining back at him. Expected to have Evan beside him, or cooking some elaborate breakfast in the kitchen.

Expected to see sunlight shining from between his curtains.

Instead all he saw was rocks, mud, and leaves.

Did they go camping? He definitely didn't remember that. And why the hell wouldn't they at least have a tent?

“Ev- Evan?” God, talking hurt. Felt like his throat was on fire.

He was lying on his stomach, but there was no pillow under his head. There was something there though. Something shielding his head from the mud and rocks and twigs below it.

He reached up with the hand closest to his head, the one that didn't feel like it had its own pulse, and felt his head.

A helmet.

That's when it came rushing back to him.

Emergency.

All hands on deck.

Transport aircraft to nearby facility.

Bees?

Bees.

He'd been flying a helicopter to a nearby rendezvous point. Every fire department in the district would be there.

All to fight the bees.

Sounded downright insane to him at the time. I mean, they were bees. Weren't we supposed to be saving those?

It wasn't until his bird made direct contact with the swarm that he realized the severity of the problem.

Tommy carefully unbuckled his helmet, letting it drop off his head.

He tried to focus on all the things that hurt, although it probably would have been easier to take count of the places on his body that didn't hurt.

There was a cold, sticky substance on the back of his neck. Blood, he was sure. His right arm had to be broken. He couldn't seem to move it, but the thump thump thump feeling that came from it was impossible not to notice.

His back was jammed, but nothing felt broken there. He could wiggle his toes a little, but his left ankle was definitely sprained.

Something... something was poking his side.

It was hard to get in a good breath, hard to keep his eyes open, but he forced himself to roll over so he could check his side.

“God!” He exclaimed through panted breaths as he turned, eyes squeezed shut against the pain. He looked down at his side to see a branch, about as round as a nickel, maybe five or six inches long, sticking out. “Damn it,” he gasped out. His good hand shakily reached out to touch around the wound, where blood was seeping out in a slow but steady stream.

He didn't try to pull it out. He knew better than that. He had no idea how deep the branch was pierced inside him, and no clue what it might have punctured.

All he knew was that it hurt like hell.

And the whole situation was almost too much for his brain to take.

He had so many questions.

Most importantly, where the hell was the helicopter?

He must've fallen out of it before it crashed to the ground, wherever it crashed.

His energy was draining quickly. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and wait for sleep to take over. Wait for rescue, whenever it may come.

So, he let his eyes close. Let the pain begin to wash away. Let himself float until-

“I said open your damn eyes, Tommy!”

There was Evan's voice again, shouting at him so loudly.

Tommy's eyes jerked back open and the pain returned full force.

He couldn't stay here.

Couldn't let those damn, stupid ass bees win.

Couldn't imagine the embarrassment of people asking, “What happened? How'd he die?” and someone having to explain that it was bees! Sure, he survived war, but it was the bees that got him.

Hell no.

Plus, dying in general might not have meant much a few months ago.

But it meant a lot now.

Because now he had a boyfriend with abandonment issues, and he needed to get back to him.

So he pushed himself up to his knees, let a groan escape between his gritted teeth, and stood on his feet.

If he let out a yell or two, who needed to know?

And maybe this would be the point in therapy where his therapist would tell him you're worth surviving because you're a human being who deserves to live, not just because you're with someone. But screw that, because if Evan was the only thing that made him get out of this with his life, than that would have to be enough.

He was dizzy, it hurt to put pressure on his leg, there was more blood on his clothes than he cared to see, and he was pretty sure he'd also lost some hearing in his right ear.

He pressed his hand against the wound on his side the best he could without disturbing the branch. A whine escaped him and tears welled in his eyes. He'd been hurt before, been in pain before, but never like this. This was another level.

“Move,” he told himself, voice barely above a whisper. “Just move.”

So that's what he did. He began to walk, or limp, through the trees of wherever the hell he was in the hopes he was going in the right direction.

His body was cold, shivering even as sweat dripped down his face.

His teeth chattered and it felt like his insides were vibrating.

At one point he practically fell against a tree, barely kept upright by his legs that were getting weaker by the second.

He took a minute to breathe, nearly closed his eyes. But Evan's voice stopped him again.

So, he walked. He walked and he walked and then... and then he could smell something.

Not just something.

Fire.

And the world around him was fuzzier.

But it wasn't his eyes playing tricks. It was smoke.

The helicopter.

It had to be.

He picked up the pace. They might not have been able to find him, but maybe they had found-

“He's not here, Buckley.” God, Tommy hated that voice. “We'll put out a search for him but it's unlikely he survived this. Gotta face the facts, we lose people sometimes.”

“Whoa!” Another voice cut in. Sounded like Chimney. He liked that voice. “He's not worth it, Buck. We'll keep looking, okay? We'll keep looking.”

A few more steps and he could see them. Blurry, but there. He cleared his throat. “Look f- for who?”

At least thirty heads whipped in his direction.

“Oh my God, Tommy!” Now, that was a voice he loved.

He was surrounded in seconds, but Evan was first one there. The one to bring a hand to his back and cradle him as his body gave out. He was the one to help him to the ground while Chimney and Hen worked on his body, shouting things back and forth at one another.

A part of him wanted to close his eyes then, let them do their thing, but he didn't. He kept them open, and right on Evan, because that's what he'd want him to do.

*****

When Tommy woke up hours, or maybe days, later, it was in a hospital room. He wasn't exactly sure when he'd fallen asleep, or passed out, but it was clear that surgery had happened at some point. He'd blame the anesthesia, not all the trauma, for his loss of time.

Evan was in a chair beside him, holding onto his good hand, head resting by Tommy's thigh on the bed. Even in his sleep, he must've noticed something change with Tommy because he popped up quickly.

“Tommy,” he breathed out, and it looked like a year's worth of anxiety released in that breath. “H- Hi.”

Tommy managed a smile. “Hi.” His throat felt like sandpaper.

“Let me get you some ice.”

Tommy nearly pouted at the loss of Evan's touch, but he was back by Tommy's side in an instant, slipping a couple of ice chips into his mouth.

And oh my God did that ever feel good.

Evan's hand returned to Tommy's, and all felt right in the world again. He'd hear what all happened to him later. Didn't seem to care right now. He was alive, and he was with Evan, and he needed to tell him some things before he forgot them.

“You saved my life.”

Evan's eyebrows furrowed. “No, that was all you. We wouldn't have found you if you didn't find us first.”

Tommy pursed his lips together, shaking his head. “No,” he replied simply. “You.”

Evan smiled, held onto his hand a little tighter. Tommy knew what Evan was thinking. You're high as a kite right now and don't really know what you're talking about.

But that was the thing. His voice might be a little gravely, and his speech a bit slower than normal, but he never felt more clear-headed.

He needed Evan to know.

“Have I ever told you all the reasons I love you?”

Evan tilted his head, his smile growing even more. “No, I- I... I don't think you have.” There was that blush Tommy loved so much.

He took a deep breath. “Number one...”

[kikyoupdates]

Infatuated ⭑˚💌⭑ 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒

yandere!bnha x reader

yandere, reverse harem, bnha x fem!reader, slowburn, slowburn yandere

Your Quirk is rather unique. It plays out almost like a game, giving you missions and goals that help you become stronger. On top of that, you also have the ability to charm those around you. It sounds innocent enough on paper, and you can’t help but revel in the attention everyone keeps showering you with. But what happens when their feelings give way to something more sinister?

story masterlist | next

“Alright, keep marching straight ahead! The Bakugou Adventure Team is nearing its destination!”

Leading the charge is none other than Katsuki, the most fearless and headstrong kid in the neighborhood. He's never shy about saying whatever what's on his mind, and that, coupled with his natural take-charge attitude, makes countless other kids gravitate towards him. 

One of those kids, of course, is you.

It hasn't been long since you’ve moved into the neighborhood, but Katsuki has such a strong presence that you found out about him and his crew almost immediately. They get up to all sorts of fun stuff, and being new to this part of the city, you have to admit that it feels nice to have made friends so quickly.

At first, Katsuki was a bit resistant to you joining his circle. He insisted that there was a strict no girl policy, but it didn't take very long for him to give in. Since then, you’ve gotten into the habit of hanging out with him and the rest of his friends pretty much constantly.

Right now, you are all trudging through the forest, on a very important quest to retrieve a powerful weapon.

“It’s close,” Katsuki says, grinning ear-to-ear. “I can feel that the sword is hidden somewhere nearby. But we have to be careful! There are probably enemies waiting to ambush us. I hope you’re all ready to put up a fight.”

Katsuki’s closest friend, and also his most devoted follower, is a freckled boy named Izuku, who nods vigorously in agreement.

“W-We’re ready!” Izuku insists, voice trembling a bit. “We’ve got Kacchan on our side, after all. There’s no way we can lose. You think so too... right, [Name]?”

Now it's your turn to respond with a vigorous nod.

“If anyone dares to mess with us, we’ll kick all their butts!” you proudly exclaim, punching your little fist in the air.

“That’s right,” Katsuki beams back. “Don’t do anything crazy, though. You’re not as strong as I am, so if it comes down to it, I’ll protect you.”

You can't help but blush. “Alright. Thank you, Katsuki.”

Onwards you march, clearing more and more of the forest. Most four-year-olds probably wouldn’t feel so comfortable in such a place, but Katsuki has made it clear that nothing scares him. Even mysterious areas hidden by countless trees and bushes hardly even faze him.

True to his word, Katsuki eventually lets out a gasp. “There it is!” he cries out, pointing towards the ground ahead. “The sword is right there!”

Since you are only children, your imaginations play a big role in making this quest seem a lot more grandiose than it actually is. In truth, the “sword” is really just a massive stick, but being out here without any parental supervision has already gotten to your heads and makes you all feel as though you are brave, valiant adventurers. Thus, you have no qualms whatsoever about pretending that the stick is the most impressive sword you’ve ever laid eyes on.

“Enemies!” you exclaim, referring of course to the little birds that are pecking at the ground, right next to where the stick is. “They’re trying to keep us from getting our hands on the sword!”

Katsuki balls up his fists. “Well, they can try all they want, but they won’t stop us. Bakugou Adventure Team, it’s time! Fall into the attack formation we planned out before! Come on, let’s get them!”

There are five of you in total, and upon Katsuki’s signal, you all sprint straight at the birds while making battle cries, causing them to scatter. It only takes a few seconds to clear the area, and once Katsuki has ascertained that they're all gone, he picks up the stick and lifts it above his head with a victorious grin.

“Heh,” he chuckles. “That was easy as pie. They never stood a chance. Good job, team. Well, I obviously fought off the most enemies, but still.”

“Katsuki, you’re so cool,” you gush. “Thanks to you, we’re the strongest adventure team ever!”

His smirk seems impossible to contain. “Duh! You guys won’t ever need to worry about anything so long as I’m around. If anyone ever tries to mess with you, just let me know, and I’ll set ‘em straight.”

“Kacchan really is awesome,” Izuku can't help but marvel. His green eyes are glossy and wide, full of admiration. Well, pretty much everyone looks up to Katsuki, so you definitely understand where he's coming from.

Feeling emboldened by your victory against those vicious enemies, you walk over to Katsuki, then promptly kiss him on the cheek

“Thank you for protecting all of us,” you say shyly.

What follows is that Katsuki’s cheeks break out into the most violent shade of crimson you’ve ever seen. It even gives his deep red eyes a run for their money.

He jolts back almost immediately, letting out a strangled little yelp.

“W-What was that for?!” he stammers.

“For protecting us,” you say again, suddenly feeling quite embarrassed. “Um... I’m sorry. I just really wanted to thank you for being such an awesome leader. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Are you mad now...?”

Katsuki gulps. “I-I’m not mad. You just surprised me, jeez.”

Two of the other neighborhood kids are already oohing and awing, going on about how Katsuki had cooties now. Of course, he's quick to shut them up, but that doesn't make his blush disappear any faster. Izuku is the quietest of the bunch, mostly because he appears to be incredibly embarrassed based on what he just witnessed. He's even covering his eyes with his hands, peering out from between his fingers.

Your face feels quite hot after what you’ve just done, but as it just so happens, your embarrassment doesn't last.

Because something else catches your attention. 

[𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞, 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫! 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐛𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐯𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝.]

[𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨𝐮 𝐊𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐢?]

You furrow your brows. “Hey, guys,” you say. “What’s this weird stuff that just popped up all of a sudden?” 

You are met with nothing but looks of confusion. 

“Um... what are you talking about?” Izuku frowns. “I don’t see anything.”

“Right there,” you insist, pointing to the screen in front of you. “There’s this screen with all kinds of writing on it.”

Everyone shakes their heads, which makes you feel incredibly self-conscious about the whole thing. Are you really just imagining it? Katsuki likes to tease you at times, but Izuku isn't the type to play pranks on others, so if even he is saying he can't see the screen, then they're probably telling the truth.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” you mumble, casting your head downwards. “I swear I can actually see it... I’m not crazy.”

Katsuki stares at you for a few moments longer, eventually letting out a chuckle. “Oh! I get it. The screen you’re seeing must be some sort of alert for our new quest. So, go ahead, [Name]. Tell us what our next quest is.”

He thinks I’m still playing around.

While it's incredibly frustrating that no one believes you, there is still another thing you can try.

[𝐔𝐬𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨𝐮 𝐊𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐢?]

>>[𝐘𝐄𝐒]

Nothing really happens once you make your selection, and you're starting to think that maybe you really are going crazy.

But within a few moments, Katsuki suddenly collapses to the ground.

“Ugh,” he groans, clutching his head. “What’s going on...? I feel dizzy all of a sudden...”

Panicked, you drop to your knees beside him. “Katsuki!” you cry out worriedly. “Are you okay? Does something hurt?”

His gaze is glassy and unfocused, and his cheeks are only getting redder by the second. It looks like he’s just started burning up with a violent fever. When you wrap your arm around his back to try and help him rise to his feet, he flinches, as if your touch is electric.

“I-I’m fine,” he says, but he doesn't sound all that convincing. Then again, Katsuki is the type to never want help from anyone. He's always determined to shoulder everything on his own, because of how strong he is.

Under normal circumstances, he probably would’ve gotten quite annoyed that you were offering to help him, but he doesn't seem entirely like himself right now.

Guilt sets in when you realized you are probably to blame for it.

Is it because I used that charm ability on him? Is that why he’s not feeling well all of a sudden? 

You can't fully explain it, because you still don't even understand what that weird screen you’ve seen is supposed to be, but you doubt it's mere coincidence.

Katsuki eventually shakes you off and collects his bearings, although he still looks rather unstable on his feet. You hope that whatever this is, it'll pass soon.

Izuku leans closer to you and whispers in your ear. “Is Kacchan going to be alright? He’s not looking too good...”

You part your lips to respond, but don't quite have the chance to form the words in time.

Katsuki has already shoved Izuku onto the ground.

“Get away from her,” he grits out, and something about the look in his crimson eyes deeply unsettles you.

Small tears rise to Izuku’s eyes, and he just barely manages to wipe them away before they spill over. “I-I’m sorry,” he splutters, even though he can't seem to understand what he did wrong.

Katsuki’s lips split into a grimace. He looks incredibly angry. He’s always had quite a bit of a temper, but you can't recall him ever being this upset. Completely out of nowhere, too. It doesn't make any sense.

“Don’t get so close to [Name],” Katsuki hisses. He takes a few steps forward, clenching his fist as if he's ready to outright punch the freckled boy, but he doesn't make it very far before swaying unsteadily and falling over a second time.

This time, he's out cold.

“Oh my god! Katsuki just fainted!”

Panic ensues. You are only a bunch of preschoolers, and none of you know what you're supposed to do in a situation like this. You all desperately try to shake Katsuki awake, even lightly slap his face a few times to try and jolt him back to his senses, but nothing works.

You end up having to carry him back to his parents, who promptly tuck him into bed and promise that they'll keep an eye on his condition.

Izuku sniffles, unable to mask his concern. “I-I’ve never seen something like that happen to Kacchan before. I really hope he’s going to be okay.”

You don't say anything. You can't. After all, you have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason this happened is because of the choice you made.

It's strange, though. Even though you can't exactly understand how you caused Katsuki to faint, you assume that ability of yours had something to do with it. But then why did he get angry at Izuku all of a sudden? That part just doesn't make any sense.

You don't know it yet, but your Quirk has just manifested for the first time, and while most kids are thrilled to obtain their powers, yours will end up causing more harm than good.

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[bbrissonn]

𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐚 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭? - 𝐥𝐮𝐤𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐞𝐬

summary: in which you tell the tucrotte boy about your relationship

disclaimer: english is not my first language and this is not proofread so please excuse any errors and if any words are missing add them in your head :) also this is a work of fiction, this doesn’t reflect how these boys act in real life, and it isn’t how i imagine them acting 

warnings: couple of swear words, not proofread,  

pairing: luke hughes x y/n zegras (lemon au)

wc: 1.7k

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-MID JUNE '23-

Being Trevor’s little sister, Alex Turcotte was no stranger to you, no he was practically another brother to you. The two hockey players have always been close during their NTDP days, but their bond only grower closer and deeper as they arrived in their neighboring cities to start their professional hockey careers. At first, the two were always together, getting tattoos at the same time, something you teased them about, going to check out cars, everything they did, the other was right next to him. 

Over the time, your own friendship with the Chicago native grew, and he was the first person you’d talk to whenever you had problems you didn’t want your actual brothers to know about. He was one of the first to know about your new friendship with the youngest Hughes, the defenceman also seeing the Turcotte boy as an older brother since he lived with them for two years. It was safe to say Alex was over the moon when he found out his “adopted little siblings”, as he liked to call the two of you, were finally friends. 

When you and Luke got together, you both wanted to tell Alex more than anyone else, but you both knew how bad he was at keeping secrets, getting too excited about them and blurring them out without even noticing. So, it was a mutual decision to not tell him before your brothers, not wanting him to tell your real siblings about your relationship. 

You were pretty good at acting like nothing was going on whenever he’d question you about the Hughes boy, but for Luke, that was a different story. The boy stuttered everything he’d have to answer the simplest question about you, how you were doing, how your classes were, it all made Luke so nervous. 

The worst time was when Alex called him while the two of you were studying in his room together, you could hear his voice coming from Luke’s phone speaker slightly, holding back a laugh as you heard your name being said. Your boyfriend looking at you with wide eyes, stuttering over his words as he informed the Turcotte boy that you were right next to him. 

Their call ended with Alex asking the young boy to tell you he’d be calling soon, and Luke waisted no time hanging the phone and letting out a loud sigh as a laugh erupted from you. For the next week or so, you took every chance you got to tease him about how nervous he was, his face growing red everytime you’d mention it. 

Now, here you sat on the dock of Jack and Quinn’s home in Michigan, your feet barely touching the water as birds sang in the air, the sound of the family a couple of houses over swimming being heard. It was early in the morning, none of the boys were up yet, having stayed up late last night considering today was a day off, meaning you had peace and quiet for what felt like the first time in almost a week. 

You had been invited by the middle Hughes brother months ago when they were planning this, before you and Luke we’re even together, still in the early stage of your friendship. But, even if Jack hadn’t personally invited you, Luke would’ve asked you to come, or Trevor would’ve dragged you there, tired of hearing Cole complain about how excited he was to see his favorite Swifty, the boy deciding to buy you tickets to the show in Detroit for your birthday. 

You had now been a resident of the Hughes’ brothers lake house for almost two weeks now, and sneaking around the boys had been pretty easy so far. They weren’t the smartest out there, and they also just never knew what was going on around them, making it pretty easy for you two to sneak around at night or even during the day. You and Luke both thought you were doing amazing at keeping your relationship a secret from the boys, well at least from his brothers and Cole, Alex though, he was different. 

Whenever you and your boyfriend would be sitting next to each other on the boat, casually talking, the boy would always be looking over at the two of you. You ignored it though, thinking it was probably just weird for him to actually see the two of interacting for the first time, but that all quickly changed the night before your brother was supposed to arrive in Michigan. 

You were sitting at the end of the dock, your feet barely touching the water as your eyes were stucked on the sunset in front of you. The lake was quiet, it always was during this time of day, most families either eating a late dinner outside or already starting a firecamp, which is what the boys were doing at the moment. 

Firecamp time mainly included them arguing about who got to do what, and at first you would just watch and laugh, but eventually you grew tired of their childish bickering and decided the dock would be where you spent your time while you waited for them to do done. You liked to consider it your alone time for the day, considering the house was never silent until everyone went to sleep and the noise would start again early in the morning before they left to train. 

You used the hours they were gone to sleep, since sleep hand’t came until the early hours of the morning staying up late in Luke’s room until the boy fell asleep before slipping back into yours, that you’d soon be sharing with Trevor. 

“Hey.” Alex said, sitting down next to you. His voice made you jump slightly, lost in your thoughts, a small chuckle leaving his mouth at his reaction. “Sorry.”

“You’re good.” You told him, smiling slightly at him before focusing back on the sight in front of you. 

“You okay?” The boy asked after a couple of minutes of silence, his words making you look over at him with a confused look on your face. 

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like there’s something… weird going on with you.” He mumbled. You bit the inside of your cheek slightly before looking back in front of you, the action going unnoticed by the older boy. 

“I am normal.” You said confused, making Alex let out a laugh. 

“That’s not what I meant, Y/N/N. It just feels like you’re hiding something, that’s what I meant by weird.” He explained after his laugh died down. You once again bit your the inside of your cheek, this time your action didn’t go unnoticed by the hockey player. His elbow nudge when he noticed how silent you were being. “Talk to me.” 

“Can you keep a secret?” You whispered, your eyes now focused on the water below your feet. 

“Mh-hm.” 

“Luke and I are dating.” You admitted, your voice low, almost scared someone would hear. The boy next to you stayed quiet for a while, making you a little worried. 

“Old news.” Alex said after almost a minute, making your head whip towards him with wide eyes. “Z couldn’t shut up about it, freaked out a little when he found out you two were already at the L word stage.” 

“Trev told you?” 

“Told all of us, we all know. That’s why I thought something was wrong, you and Luke weren’t acting like Trev describe the two of you. Asked Moose about it, why you were acting weird, said he thought you were acting pretty normal.” The curly headed boy explained, a soft grin on his face. 

“Trev’s an asshole, I told him not to tell anyone.” 

“You really expected him to be able to keep any kind of secret? He spammed our groupchat at like midnight, Jack wasn’t happy to get woken up.”

“How’d Jack react?” 

“I think he’s scared. If something bad happens between you two, it’s gonna be weird for him and Z to act like nothing happened. And if nothing bad happens, he’s scared he’s gonna be stuck being brother’s in-law with him.” The boy explained. A part of you almost started feeling guilty for maybe ruinning your brother’s friendship, but you knew Luke was the one for you. 

“Ellen said he’s never seen him like this.” You admitted, a smile of your own appearing on your face as your cheeks became a slight shade of pink. 

“Can’t believe you didn’t tell me though, how long as it been?” 

“Almost six months. December 14th.” You told him, a small gasp leaving his mouth. 

“I am wounded!” He exclaimed, his right hand coming up to rest on top of his heart, making you roll your eyes. “We’ve only known since like April!” 

~

After a couple of minutes of talking about your relationship with the youngest Hughes boy, you and Alex made your way back to the firecamp after Cole had called out for them. Once you had made it back, you saw Luke standing along in the kitchen, his back facing the outside. You excused yourself quietly before making your way in with a grin on your face. 

Since the patio door was always left open, your boyfriend didn’t hear you, so when he felt a pair of arms wrap around his waist, it’s safe to say he freaked out a little. The cup he was holding fell on the counter, the drink he had made spilling everywhere as a yelp left his mouth. 

“It’s just me Lemon.” You mumbled as you poked your head above his shoulder, standing on your tippy toes. His body turned slightly, grabbing your waist before bringing you in front of him, a yelp of your own echoing in the kitchen. 

Before the defensemen had time to say anything, you quickly connected your lips together. You hands reaching to the back of his head and his neck, holding his body close to yours as your lips moved together. Whistles and howlers could be heard from the boys outside, making Luke pull away from you. 

“What’re you―” 

“They know, Lu, they’ve known. Since April, because Trevor can’t keep his fucking mouth shut.” You explained, Luke smiling down at your brightly before connecting your lips again. His arms now completely wrapped around your waist as he pulled your body to his as possible. 

“I love you, Munchkin.” 

“I love you more, Lemon.”

[crash-and-cure]

Every Minute, Every Hour (Yandere!Austin!Elvis x Reader)

Summary: You were out. You were out goddamnit. How was he here?

A/N: Soooo.... It’s been awhile. Writer’s block is an absolute son of a bitch. So this is based on an idea I had and requested to @venus-haze a couple months ago and which I almost completely forgot about until I got this request and I decided two birds and all that. I also acknowledge that there was another similar request made a while back, to the person who requested it don’t worry, I do have plans for it. 

Warnings: Yandere!Elvis so expect themes of obsessive, manipulative, jealous, and delusional behavior. Dubious Consent in regards to coersion being involved. Loss of virginity. Explicit sexual content depicted that includes Penetrative sex (m/f), oral sex (f.recieving), female mastubation, slight dumbification, and implied anal play. Brief depictions of choking. Touch-starvation. Mentions of Pregnancy. Referenced cheating on Elvis' part. Self-loathing. Stockholm Syndrome(?) Probably more that I am blanking on. Period-typical homophobia and closeted characters depicted. Please do not interact if you are under 18. 

Word Count: 19.8K

Masterlist

----------

You look like an angel (look like an angel)

Walk like an angel (walk like an angel)

Talk like an angel

But I got wise

You’re the devi-

It takes you longer than you would have liked to reach the radio and turn it off. And it’s only as you reach it do you realize how odd it looks from the outside when you see a customer looking at you funny. 

“Not much of a fan,” you say with an admittedly pathetic smile on your face. 

“I can see that,” he replies with an awkward smile, before going back to browsing the books. 

You bashfully turn the radio back on and quickly try to turn the knob to anything even remotely comprehensible, but it’s just your luck that this is the only station you get decent reception on in the store. With no other choice but to simply grin and bear it you put the volume on low and return to reading your book. 

You do keep an eye on your final customer of the evening, and hope he hurries up so you can finally close up for the day. Susan had been complaining about a migraine since lunch and Gina was caring for her upstairs and so it was on you to close up the shop on your own today. 

You feel embarrassed to have been seen that way but that all falls away when you hear the shop bell ring, only to be immediately followed by tiny rapid footsteps and an excited little “mama!” and you grab onto the counter before your little two and a half foot terror can knock out from behind you. Which ends up being the right call as you feel her head butt your knees and locking her arms around them nearly knocking you down.  

“Mama! Mama!” she squealed, practically vibrating, she was so excited to see you. 

“Rosie! Rosie!” you say, equally as happy to see her though you do a far better job at reining it in. She takes your hands in hers as you crouch down to look at her, and take stock. Her hair is askew with the ribbons you had tied in place this morning holding on for dear life in her beautiful curls, her face is smudgy with what you’re hoping is chocolate, and one of her socks is just gone, but both shoes are in place so you can only imagine how your little hellion managed that. Overall this is the best condition Rosie has returned to you in, after a long day with Jenny.

“Mama, Aunty Jenny took me to the Candy store!” she says, showing off the candy bracelets on her tiny wrists. 

“Really,” you say, shooting a look at your friend for giving her so much sugar before bed. The woman in question has the courtesy to at least look a little guilty about it, before giving a small laugh. 

“Mm-hmm. And we saw Danny at the playground and we-we saw Uncle Lee’s friends, and then we listened to a lotta music, and we saw a movie about a wizard and there was no one else in the whole room, and then-then…” she rapidly rambles on but you pepper her face in kisses before she can pass out from the lack of oxygen. She giggles uncontrollably and tries to squirm out of your grip, but you gotta get in one good raspberry on her cheek before you let her go.

“Alright, why don’t you go upstairs and help Aunty Gina finish up dinner,” you tell her with a smile on your face. Her “help” in the kitchen is typically watching and holding spoons and spatulas on a step stool, but she’s at an age where she believes the whole dish would fall apart without her important contribution to it, so she goes rushing to the stairs. 

But she quickly comes running back while taking the uneaten bracelet off of her wrist. “Danny said to give this to you for your birthday,” she declares. Ever since meeting Jenny’s nephew she’s seemed to hang on to every word of his, and though you’ve never met the boy he seems to be a good kid, always polite and saying hello through your daughter, but has, as you've heard, an extreme affinity towards spinning a few too many fantastical stories. But your daughter is far too young to see him as anything but a friend so you doubt you have anything to worry about as of right now. 

She’s always so eager to tell you about everything, and you’re just as eager to listen. Your folks never wanted to hear anything from you, and you pray that your attentiveness will pay off one day when she is never afraid to come to you with your troubles. Maybe if you had that with your mother you wouldn’t be where you were.

“Well tell him I said thank you,” you say, as you pull it on your wrist, placing a small kiss on her forehead before she books it back to the stairs behind the counter. As you stand back up, to your surprise you find the customer now at the counter with a good stack of books. 

“Sorry to bother Miss…ummm…” the customer says nervously. 

“Love,” you clarify for him. “Y/N Love.”

He gives a shy smile at that, “Well Miss Love, I’m ‘bout ready to check out so…” he says gesturing to his tower of books. 

“Of course,” you answer and you begin to ring him up. He’s got quite a few so at least he makes the extra time staying down here somewhat worth it. 

“Whatcha readin’ there,” he asks you, pointing to the open book you’ve left to your side. You show him your copy of We have always lived in the castle. “I-is it any good?”

“I would say so,” you answer. Though that ending did hit a little too close to home, you think to yourself. 

“So umm, d-do you like to read?” he asks hesitantly as he quietly adds a copy of the book to his pile. 

“I’d be in the wrong business if I didn’t,” you joke, and he laughs a little too hard. “How ‘bout you?” you ask, wanting to not have an awkward silence, as you’re not even halfway through the stack. 

“Yeah, I-I love reading though I don’t got a lotta time for it these days,” he says with a guilty smile on his face. 

“Why’s that?” you ask, since it seems to be the only way this conversation could go. 

“I-I just started my residency at Charity Hospital,” he says bashfully rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m Sam by the way,” apparently realizing that he hadn’t made the proper introductions. 

“Y/N,” you say, giving him a small nod and a smile. “And congratulations on your residency,” you're almost done with the final few books, but you may or may not be taking your time to finish them up, wanting to prolong the conversation you’re having for a bit. 

“Thank you, and I- well, umm… I couldn’t help but overhear your daughter, but umm… Happy Birthday,” he says ducking his head, a bit embarrassed at his own admission. 

“Oh, thank you,” you say, your face heating up slightly that he had heard. 

“Your Husband’s a lucky man,” he says, though he does steal a quick glance at you, no doubt trying to gauge your reaction.

So this is what it’s about, you think to yourself. “I’m actually not…” you trail off, and hope that he gets the message. 

“Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” he stated before his eyes widened as he realized what he just said. “I-I mean not glad like I’m happy that you-you’re not married, bu-but glad li-like I’m relieved that I hav-haven’t been trying to build up the courage to talk to a cute girl for the past few weeks only to find out she’s married already.” he blathers on and you can’t help but laugh. 

Your heart does flutter a bit at his confession. Everything about this feels like it should be perfect. Unfortunately for the both of you, you finally get a good look at his icy blue eyes that are a little too familiar for comfort, and it feels like your throat closes up. 

You can feel your stomach churning (and not just from the baby that fills it) and cold regret for not buying an extra pair of socks as you sit at the Greyhound terminal in Nashville, your feet starting practically turning into ice blocks. That cold November morning you had made a show of telling everybody you were gonna make a quick trip down to the shops for some eggs, now you’re almost a full state away praying that the bus gets here soon, jumping every time a set of headlights passes by and you're just barely keeping dry underneath the metal canopy. 

But for as cold as you are physically, your chest starts to heat up at the prospect that you’re so close to freedom from an even colder gaze. When the bus does get there you hardly sleep a wink afraid to let your guard down even now. You know how well he could sabotage your plans if he was so inclined, from small things like spoiling the surprise party you had planned for him to the major of ruining your chances to get into another school. 

You know he’s half a world away yet that still does little knowing what the most loyal of his are willing to do for him. It’s not until you finally make it to the train station in Atlanta that’ll take you down to New Orleans that you finally give in to your heavy eyelids, willing to trust strangers with your safety, aware they can’t hurt you any worse than those you know have done. 

You shake your head as you’re brought back to the present, and you hear him say something, “I’m sorry what?” you covertly wiggle your toes as you try to ground yourself and get sensation back in them as though you were just getting them out of the cold.

“I was just sayin’ there’s this club down on Bourbon that I been meanin’ to check out since movin’ down here, and I was hopin’ a local such as yourself could show me ‘round these parts,” he says, a nervous but hopeful smile on his lips. 

For a moment you can almost imagine saying yes to him, how he would take you out on the town, how he would kiss you, how he would throw your daughter up in the air. How maybe you could be happy with him.

But like a looming black cloud, in spite of the lowered volume, you hear what the new station is now playing, clear as a bell.

Oh please come to my arms and say you'll love me forever

For with the dawn, you'll be gone 

It’s almost as though He’s following you, serving as a constant reminder of what you did, and that you’re never allowed to imagine being with another man. You wordlessly turn off the radio before you’re forced to listen anymore. “Uhh, I-I’m sorry, I-I really don’t go out much,” you say, trying to shut this down as gently as you could. 

“Oh-uhh, that’s fine I umm,” he says, pivoting hard. “I’m more of a movie guy myself, I hear he’s got a new one out, and we can go and watch anything but that,” he gives a small laugh pointing to the radio, but quickly drops it upon seeing your grim expression. 

Without knowing it Sam just shut the coffin on any potential happenings between the two of you. “I’m sorry, it’s late and I gotta close up for the night,��� you say softly, and he’s smart enough to take the hint. 

“O-of course,” he says looking down at the books he has in his hands. “But can you promise you’ll think about it?” he asks as he reaches the door to look back at you. 

Even before you open your mouth, you already know that your next words are going to make you lose a customer forever. “There’s nothing to think about,” you say, trying to feign apathy. Harsh as your words may be, you know this is far kinder to him in the long run as opposed to getting more involved with you. 

You watch him leave the store with a sagging shoulders and a long face, before you feel a hand meet violently with the back of your head, and you swivel around to see Jenny with an exasperated look on her face. “So a handsome, single, doctor who loves to read, and doesn’t mind that you already got a kid, asks you out and you say…” she trails off, seeming to only get more offended with every dreamy quality he had. 

“Don’tchu get like that Jenny,” you defend yourself, as you stomp to the door in order to flip the sign to closed and lock up for the night. “I’ve got a daughter to worry about and I don’t have time for a boyfriend right now.”

“Well newsflash Y/N,” she argues, “Rosie needs a daddy.”

You feel your hackles rising at that statement. “No she doesn’t,” you state firmly, not wanting to raise your voice, because you know better than anyone how easy it is to be overheard.

She deflates a little at your obvious fury at this line of questioning, before letting out a long tired sigh. “It’s just that… when we were at the park today… she asked me why she didn’t have one. And she… she just kept pressing,” she says obviously ashamed that she hurt you, but wanting to get across her reasoning. “What am I supposed to say to that? Especially when you won’t tell nobody what happened. I only got her to drop it when I took her to the candy shop.”

You feel guilty for snapping at your friend. Jenny Hodge had been an absolute godsend since you met her almost a year ago, when she and her new husband, Lee, had moved down from Alabama. Her arrival had coincided when Rosie started becoming aggressively mobile and insisted that running was the only way to get around anymore. And because she felt she needed practice with being a Mama before she had one of her own, she insisted on being your one and only babysitter, in exchange for free books every so often. 

The story around the block is that you are were the young widow who “tragically” lost her husband in an accident before he ever had the chance to meet your beautiful daughter, and with no one in the world left to turn to, you ended up on your “spinster” aunt and her “good friend” Susan’s doorstep. And Jenny, since hearing your story, has by far been your most fervent supporter outside of this house, with her support primarily coming in two flavors: 1) helping you with your daughter so she isn’t so cooped up in the store while you work and 2) trying to set you up with any moderately successful man.

“Y/N,” she says softly. “I get that it’s hard to get back out there, but you need to think about the bigger picture, because it’s only a matter of time before she starts asking you.”

You know she’s right, and that’s the worst part about it. Your little Rosie Love is a stubborn one, not to mention smart, always has been. Didn’t want to walk because she wanted to run. Hated her diaper so much she learned how to unpin it when she was barely a year old. Wanted to try to feed herself when she first took to solid food, and would snatch the spoon out of your hand when she could. She’s broken out of every play pen she’s ever been in. Hell, she was almost two weeks overdue, and the doctors were forced to induce you, she didn’t want to come out until she was good and ready.

She, like someone else you knew, is capable of throwing a wrench into any plan you make. For as endearing as it can be, it is all the more frustrating knowing exactly where she gets it from. 

With a long defeated sigh, you concede to her point and thank her for both her input and for being a good friend this past year. And maybe someday you’ll be ready to find another husband.

She has a wide cheshire-cat like grin as you say that, “And I’mma ‘bout to be a better one,” she practically sings. “Lee’s friend is in town, and I think you two would hit it off.” 

“And I think we wouldn’t,” you state, putting books back where they belong. 

“C’mon Y/N, I thought we were past this,” she whines.

“I did say someday, not today,” you emphasize.

“Y/N, your birthday’s comin’ up soon, and it ain’t like you’re gettin’ any younger. Besides Lee and I are already trying for a baby, so I ain’t gonna be so available much longer neither,” she says in a soft voice holding your hands in hers. “And you need to find someone you can rely on too, it’s not like you wanna end up like your Aunt Gina”

You say nothing not wanting to say anything incriminating about the relationship between your Aunts, as for all that you trust Jenny, you don’t trust her enough with somebody else’s secrets. 

“Just promise me you'll think about it at least,” she pleads, hands clasped over your own. 

What is it about people that, not trusting you when you answer the first time, and thinking given enough time you’ll come around? 

Yet you're no better as you let out a long tired sigh, before ultimately agreeing, if only to get her off your back. Or so you tell yourself. 

She tells you a bit about the man she has in mind for you, or more accurately she keeps insisting how perfect the two of you would be together.  In her mind it’ll be love at first sight, how he’ll love and accept Rosie as his own immediately, how she guarantees that you’ll be married within a year and be trying to give Rosie a little brother or sister. You have to bodily shove her out the door by that point lest she get into any more specifics in her attempt to sway you. 

Jenny’s a little older than you, but she is very much a romantic at heart, you suppose, though that’s the benefit of things going right in your life. 

But your story went wrong. 

“Why you in such a hurry to get out girl?” your accomplice would ask as he handed you the money (He had made it a point of order that you were never to handle any) the day before your escape. 

“There’s someone else,” you say simply, because it’s true and if they were to ever betray your trust this would be worse on them than on you. 

You got away with quite a bit back in the day like getting out of trouble for making out in a dark empty classroom by claiming to have been caught by surprise by your monthlies and now you couldn’t bear the thought of being seen like this. Or when you got hired by the library for the summer after you approached the front desk and claimed to be the new hire ready for her first day of training and nobody really bothered to check in with anybody else. Even that one time when you confidently strolled backstage at a music hall He had wanted to perform all to sneak them in through the back door and convinced just enough people that his band was meant to perform that night.

Your ability to make up stories on the fly and map things out in your head had led you to believe that you would make for a pretty good mystery writer. You had even tried to go to school to be one, though you told everyone it was to be a teacher, a far more respectable and womanly job.

Well not everyone.

He certainly knew. 

Knew about your talent for planning and story-telling, and was practically always in awe to see it in action. But this recognition came at the expense that he was aware of your tricks and he always knew how to throw you off just enough to make any plans you made go belly up. Whether it was something relatively small like figuring out you were planning a surprise party to the major… like when you tried to end things the first time around.

He called you almost every night when he was on tour, and you had done your best to relay all that was going on back in Memphis. And in spite of his insistence that he wants to hear about it, you suspect that he wasn’t being truthful. He especially seemed disgruntled when you made any mention of doing anything with anyone else. Your friends, his friends, even your own family weren’t safe from his ire.  

When He was here you would do everything together, yet now that you tell him about all that you’d been doing, there is a slight but noticeable edge when he speaks to you over the phone. Everytime you mention how you went to the movie theater or you went to the record store or the bookshop, it was almost always met with a solemn “we used to do that together.” 

You would have gone with him, had your parents let you, and He knows that so you don’t understand why he’s so sore about the fact that you’re not simply sitting on your hands back home waiting for him to return. 

So in an effort to spare his feelings you asked him about the things he was doing, you even go out of your way to say how happy you were when he was telling you about all of the fun things he had done on the road. You’re happy to hear it all and you thought 

You miss him just as fiercely but you don’t want it to stop you from living. 

But when you got your acceptance letter, you saw the writing on the wall. You both were going in different directions: you were going to be studying, were barely going to be home and his star just kept growing and growing each day taking him further out and making him harder to reach. You know you wanted this and you begin to suspect you may want it more than you want to stay with him, if staying with him meant being alone all the same. 

This was only confirmed in the weeks leading up to Prom when you couldn’t get a straight answer out of him of whether or not He would be able to make it. It was on you to practically plan everything down to what he would wear, while his whole contribution was to show up- maybe?

Whether He did show up or not that night, you thought the result would be the same with you officially breaking things off between you two. But you still held out hope that at least if he did come you would have one last good memory. 

And to your relief He does make it, but he’s a little off the whole night. Not in the sense that his mind is elsewhere, more like he’s trying to commit everything about the night into memory, and looking at you with sad eyes when he thinks you’re not looking. 

It all comes to a head when you’re parked outside of your house, and you’re sitting in a loaded silence with him at the wheel. He’s gripping onto that thing for dear life and you’re wondering if maybe you should save it, but you think you know yourself well enough to know that if you don’t say it now, you won't say it ever. 

So as he’s opening his mouth to say something, you cut him off with his name. 

“...I-I got accepted to Southwestern,” you blurted out to him and He looked so confused at your admission, but you push through. “I start in the fall, so I’m not gonna be home much anymore, and with y-you being on the road so much, I think it best that we-”

“Marry me,” he blurts out, panic etched across his face.

Your jaw is left practically on the floor as that was the last thing you ever expected out of his mouth. 

You would later find out that he went to Prom with the same intention as you did but it was in that moment that he realized you weren’t going to wait for him to come back did he want to lock you down. But you didn’t see that in the moment. 

What you saw at the time was the declaration that he was just as committed as you were, and so overwhelmed by the love you still felt for him at the time, you had no choice but to give an emphatic yes to him. 

“We’re gonna figure this out baby,” He promises with a kiss. 

That was the first time you tried to leave him.

“-Danny’s a real good singer Aunty. He told me he lives in Neverland and one day he would take me and-and he told me this is the only place in the whole word that they sell peanut butter cups,” you would hear as you made your way up the stairs connecting to the apartment above the store. You look into the small kitchen where you see your little girl sitting on the counter talking her aunt’s ear off idly dangling her little feet while holding a spatula you're not entirely sure is necessary. Gina looks over to you and gives you a playfully exasperated look, and you simply shrug your shoulders before moving into the small kitchen to pepper your little one's face in kisses. 

“Alright sticky missy,” you announce, blowing a raspberry on her cheek and swiping the utensil out of her hand as she trills in delight. “You go wash up for dinner now, ya’ hear, and go wake up Aunty, I think she’ll feel alot better seeing you.”

“Ok Mama,” she says. She is utterly fearless as she slides herself to get off of the counter, and lands on her feet below. You can’t help the swell of pride that bubbles up in your chest seeing it, how brave your little girl is. You hope that you can take it as a sign that you’re doing ok at this motherhood thing. 

Gina likes to say that you were just as bold at that age with the confidence of someone so sure they can take on the world, and in quieter moments she’ll lament how you lost that in you. You would be offended if you didn’t already know when exactly you lost it. 

She had always been your favorite Aunt until you were about twelve and and your father would coldly tell you she died and was in hell now. Rather than a funeral, the family got together to destroy her things and swear to never speak of her again. 

That didn’t stop her from visiting you one last time and telling you she was moving down to New Orleans with her friend Susan. She would take you to your favorite bookstore one last time in Memphis and promised that if you ever needed a place to stay, to not even hesitate to come, because she knew better than anyone what your family would do to girls who stepped out of line. 

For years the only evidence that she was even alive was the annual birthday and Christmas gift you would get from her all under the guise of Nancy Drew books stamped with the name of a bookstore all the way in New Orleans. You cherished them and it’s one of the few things you took after your parents kicked you out. 

You only wished you had taken the offer when your father had kicked you out and you were forced to rely on someone else. 

“So I hear you broke another heart,” Gina idly says as she starts scooping some rice onto a plate.

You let out a long sigh, “When did Jenny find the time to tell you?” You’re more amazed than annoyed considering she didn’t leave your sight once down stairs. 

“Jenny?” she says, raising a brow. “No Sue told me earlier how Lou from King’s Cafe ‘s been askin’ after you.”

Lou who always had extra beignets to give away when you took Rosie for a walk in the mornings. He recently asked if you had ever been on the Algiers ferry, and how beautiful it looked at night.

…You’ve been taking a different route to the playground since then. 

“Is my love life just everybody’s business,” you ask frustrated that you weren’t even given a five minute break from this. 

“In this house: yes,” she states, a grin on her face. 

“Gina if this is about me movin’ out, you can talk to me, I’m a big girl,” you insist, trying to deflect and not have to think about it anymore. 

“Sweetheart,” she says solemnly, placing a hand on your cheek. I may not be your mama, but I do think that you need to think about what’s best for Rosie,” she insists as she puts place mats down on the table. 

Gina’s a little closer to the situation than Jenny, as she had asked no questions as to why you all of a sudden needed a place to stay far from your parents with nary a husband or boyfriend in sight to take responsibility for the baby growing within you. She had also been the one to help spread the tragic young widow narrative, and for as much of a gossip she can be, you know she’s a steel trap for secrets that matter. 

“What does me getting, or not getting, a boyfriend have to do with Rosie?”

“A boyfriend? Nothing,” she dismisses. “A husband on the other hand…”she says with a smile.

“Don’tchu come talkin’ to me ‘bout gettin’ a husband,” you say, handing her another plate of food. 

She laughs at that, “It’s not just about you gettin’ a husband, it’s about Rosie gettin’ a father,” she insists amused at your mulishness. 

“Not you too,” you mourn what you thought was going to be a quiet evening. 

“I’m just sayin’ that every child deserves two parents,” putting the lid back on the pot. 

“She’s got three mama’s,” you counter.

“No,” she says waving the wooden spoon in front of your face. “She’s got one mama and two grandmas that spoil her rotten behind your back.” You open your mouth to protest, until she quickly follows up with, “Oh speak of the devil herself,” as you see your little troublemaker dragging Susan by the hand to the table, whom you had to bully into taking a rest to somewhat alleviate the migraine she had been having for most of the day.

Your daughter can talk for hours if left unchecked and you're eager to hear all of it as she bounces from subject to subject at the dinner table. You had always felt somewhat guilty intruding on their space, but Gina insists nothing of the sort and Susan jokes that the two of them are getting the full kid/grandkid experience through you and Rosie, since the traditional way ain’t for them.

Between bites she regaled the three of you with all that she did today which included seeing a dog, the playground being shiny, spinning around so fast on the merry-go-round she almost went into space, made friends with some of the ducks, saw another dog, Danny gave her his popcorn, got a lot of candy from the candy shop, and gave some jelly beans to the last dog she saw today, but only the green ones she doesn’t like, and then feeling bad about it and giving it some of the red ones to even it out.

She doesn’t mention anything to you about asking Jenny about why she doesn't have a daddy, and you breathe a sigh of relief at the first break you’ve had all day. Some may say you indulge her too much, but all three grown women at this table know exactly how it feels to have their thoughts and feelings ignored, and you all had come to the mutual understanding that Rosie would never have to feel this way in this house.

“Mama, I forgot to tell you,” Rosie states after she shoveled the last of her food into her mouth. “Barbie got a new job today!” she delights as she thrusts the doll in your face. 

“Really?” you say trying to match even a quarter of her excitement. “Is she mmm… a firefighter?”

“No!” she squeals, delighted in the game you play with her. 

Making a big show of putting a finger to your temple and closing one eye, apparently deep in thought, you ask, “Is she a… detective?” 

“No that was yesterday!” she’s practically buzzing to tell you, but holds it in to keep this game going.

“Oh!” you say, pretending to have a lightbulb moment. “She’s a wizard!” You know your daughter well enough, so you’re reasonably confident in your guess knowing that Jenny took her to see that Disney movie today. 

“No,” she laughs, “She’s an actress, but she also sings in all her movies.”

“O-oh,” you say, genuinely caught off guard by that. “Why’s that?” It’s certainly not an unusual thing for a little girl to declare, but for your daughter it most definitely was. When she declared what Barbie was going to be it was always influenced by something she saw that day. Sometimes she was a baker, sometimes a ballerina, even one memorable time a bus driver, but this is a first. Even when she has seen movies with actors in it she didn’t quite understand the concept that those aren’t their real jobs on screen, and she would pick that, which is why you guessed wizard.

“Because Danny does that,” she declares, as she starts to make Barbie dance on the dinner table.

And then it made sense, your daughter’s friend, Danny, who according to Jenny, has a penchant for making up stories. To your daughter the boy’s been a cowboy, a soldier, he’s as strong as superman, can play any instrument, and now apparently is a famous actor. 

You give an amused huff, “I see Danny’s at it again,” you state, as you take her plate. It’s a literal miracle that Jenny’s impromptu trip to the candy store didn’t spoil her appetite, and but you don’t know how much of an appetite she’ll have for dessert so you decide to just split a slice of King cake with her. 

“At what mama?” she asks as Gina wipes some of her food off her face. 

“He’s telling stories again,” you say as you bring Gina and Susan their dessert plates. 

“No he’s not,” she states, furrowing her brow, and you can’t help but quirk a smile at how stressed she looks as you sit down. “I saw it myself.” 

“I’m sure you did, but Honey, it's just… sometimes boys have a habit of telling… tall tales,” you suppose that’s the nice way of putting it. It’s a fine line you walk with her, wanting to have her believe in herself most of all, but also wanting her to not believe everything she’s told, especially by boys. You’re the textbook example of what happens to supposedly smart girls who get in too deep with charming boys.

“But it’s true mama,” she insists, raising her voice a bit. 

“Sweetheart, I think he means, he wants to be that when he grows up,” you try to gently justify, as you subtly try to nudge the fork closer to her. 

“No mama, I saw it,” she asserts, getting progressively more upset defending her friend. “He is a famous actor and he was singing and dancing at the theater.”

“And I’m sure he’s gonna be a big star one day when he’s all grown up,” you try to assuage how worked up she’s getting. “But I don’t think he’s one right now.” 

“No mama!” she yells at the top of her lungs, angry tears streaming down her face. “You’re a liar!” You feel your stomach drop to the floor and she herself looks shocked at what she just said. She proceeds to cry even harder before turning tail and running straight into the room you share with her and slamming the door as hard as she could. 

When you were far enough away, and somewhat comfortable in your new environment in Your Aunties home, the first thing you did was read nearly every book about motherhood you could find. You were determined to do this right as you had made the unilateral decision for your baby to only have one parent. So you decided as a means of making up for it you would be all the parent she would need. 

Doubt creeps into the back of your throat that you made the wrong decision and that you in fact were not enough on your own and that she never would have done that if He were around. 

“You want me to go talk to her?” Gina would ask after hearing your door slam shut. 

As bad as you want to say yes from the exhausting day you’ve had so far, you’re not about to foist your duties as a mother off onto her right now. She understands but you don’t miss the pointed look she gives to Sue, as she walks away to clean up dinner, and you bury your hand in your face hoping if you wish hard enough this day will finally come to a close. 

“I remember the first time I yelled at my mama,” Sue off-handedly says after a few minutes. “Always too scared that that wretched woman would beat me black and blue if I was ever less than perfect,” she takes a sip of her tea. “And she did just that when I got fed up with all her teasing about me getting a boyfriend.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“What I’m gettin’ at is… I was never comfortable enough with my own mother to be angry with her.”

“Am I bad at this?” 

“You’re still new at this Hon,” she reassures you. “There's a big difference.”

Despite the fact that Gina was the one related to you by blood, Sue’s the only one in the world who even has an inkling as to what exactly you left behind. And that is only because she was a front row spectator to it.

You had managed to get permission to leave the hotel room for a few hours while He was on set that day. He had brought you down from Memphis, not wanting you so far out of reach and yet you were still pretty much kept confined. You had long since exhausted the books you had brought for the trip, and you were practically itching to get out. 

Books were your only escape from this place. Where you could vicariously solve a mystery or meet royalty or stop a war or any other number of exciting things in your head. But inevitably you close the book and the story ends and your back in this fucking hotel room. 

You realize by getting more books you're just masking a symptom rather than actually treating the illness. You couldn’t take it anymore and had begged Him to at least let you go to a bookstore to keep you occupied, because by that point you were willing to pay the price for it. 

Sue had been the only one in the store the day but you hadn’t really taken notice of her, your eyes had been darting around everywhere trying to find Gina. Sonny was in there as well, as you were only able to bargain your way to being in here and picking out the books, but not enough to be able to enter the store alone. Sonny had been the one to pull the short straw and had been put on Y/N duty today. Usually that consisted of sitting in the hotel and making sure you didn’t go anywhere while also completely ignoring you.

Everybody knows the story of the last guy that paid a little too much attention to you. You still couldn’t look at raw ground beef without crying.

Outside of the occasional gathering you don’t really interact with anybody out of the immediate vicinity of home. It’s funny how He can put you in a room filled to the brim with his people yet make you feel so alone at the same time. It would be amazing if it didn’t make you feel so awful at the same time. 

It’s a terrible thing He does, but it’s made all the worse that so many people can see what he’s doing keeping you prisoner and isolated and yet no one will ever dare breach it 

If anything they actually help him as they all report to him practically what you did that day, do their best to talk you out of leaving the room, and even when you do insist on going off on your own, the men are quick to remind you that He won’t like it one bit. They won’t physically stop you, (they know the worst thing they can do is put their hands on you) but you know that’s where their “help” begins and ends. 

At one point you even tried to play ball and asked for His permission last time you were in LA and you had wanted to go to the Griffith Observatory. You had asked in advance, agreed to only being there for two hours, and even gave in to being essentially chaperoned from a distance. Initially He had agreed to the terms and You thought you had done good and maybe you were finally coming to somewhat of a middle ground with him. 

But in the days leading up to the trip He would ask for favors in return. They all just happened to be things you had refused to do for him up until that point. When you refused He would at first seemingly accept your answer, and then He would idly remind you of your upcoming trip before asking you again. You weren’t stupid enough to miss the connection and so you did what you thought you had to do for just the slightest taste of freedom.

Who are you kidding?

You practically begged and did tricks for Him like a dog for just the slightest bit of slack on your leash. 

You could barely move the morning of the trip both physically and emotionally drained from what he had you do the night before, but you still persevered if only to make all that you went through worth it.

It wasn’t worth it. 

Everything you saw that day was completely soured by what you had to do to get there. Every step felt like agony, and you had to make a conscious effort to not walk funny. And before you knew it the two hours were up and Red was telling you it was time to leave. 

You don’t know what’s worse, the punishments or the favors. 

You had to go the favor route today as otherwise he would have simply sent for someone to get you whatever books they could find, rather than letting you pick. You already know you’re going to get it when he finds out you went to a different bookstore than initially planned. You thought you could at the very least make it worth it by seeing one familiar face, but even fate denied you that as Gina was nowhere to be seen. 

It was cold enough to justify wearing something to cover up most of the bruises, but that didn’t mean they were all hidden. You wouldn’t know it at the time but your skittishness coupled with the bruises struck a chord with Susan before you fully checked out of the store.

“I’m sorry if this sounds like an odd question but ummm…” you say, glancing around, making sure that Sonny was too far to hear. “Does Gina work here?”

Sue immediately tenses up, and you curse your caginess, as you reassure her that you’re Gina’s niece, Y/N. She seems to relax hearing that so at least she knows that you try to maintain a good relationship, sporadic your letters may be. 

“What happened there honey?” she asks, gesturing to your wrist that has a ring of bruises on it, which you quickly move to hide. You internally curse yourself for your sloppiness. He doesn’t mean to hurt you but he tends to lose himself and be a little rougher especially when he’s worried about something else. 

He’s been a little rougher for a few months now.

“Oh-ummm,” you steal a glance at Sonny, who was making his way to the counter. “Yes I am ready to check out.” Gesturing to the three towers of books you’ve managed to accumulate.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Sue nor does she miss Sonny's statement of remembering the rules as to what you’re allowed to get, if her disapproving look is anything to go by. He’s fine with you reading but doesn’t like you reading books that will put “ideas” in your head. 

You don’t exactly know what that means as the standards seem to change depending on His mood and it’s always a gamble as to what he will or won’t allow you to have. You fear the day He grows the same hatred for fictional men that he has for any man within your vicinity. 

You're genuinely sad when it comes time to pay, (Well Sonny pays, He doesn’t like the idea of you handling money), and then Susan does something you could never have anticipated in a million years as Sonny grabs one stack and goes to put it in the car. 

You wished it had been anybody but Sonny that day. His last girlfriend, whom he swore he was gonna make Mrs. Sonny West, had made the mistake of trying to befriend you outside of gatherings. She stopped by the house frequently just to visit and even invited you out to the salon. 

And it was your mistake to believe you could have a friend that he would finally approve of. Friend or family, He eventually found something to disapprove of for everybody close to you previously. You thought that because she was already nominally part of the group, it would be fine to go.  

He made it clear by the time you got home that it wasn’t. 

You never saw her again after that and Sonny’s resented you ever since. You can hardly blame him, it’s easier to point the finger at you for not anticipating the unspoken rules, as opposed to the man who signs his checks and makes the rules. 

You know that even the slightest toe out of line will be reported back to Him in the worst light. So you had to be on your best behavior. 

“Y’know I highly recommend this book,” Sue says, sliding the book she had been reading at the counter to you. 

Wide Sargasso Sea, the cover reads.

“Oh thank you but I already paid,” you say, almost afraid of this conversation. “And besides I already have enough books.”

“Sweetheart you can never have too many,” she insists and without looking opens it up to the first page where you see a little handwritten note. She closes it up before you can see what it says and slyly slots it in the middle of a stack. 

Later on when you feel sufficiently safe enough to look at it you nearly burst into tears.

In case you need help

feel free to call

(xxx-xxxx)

Such a small thing really, but it’s the most human connection you’ve had with anyone else but Him in a long time. 

You spend the next hour or two committing that string of numbers to memory before you proceed to rip out that page, shred it, and flush the remnants down the toilet. 

Even when you were burning the number into your brain, you never thought you would have ever had the guts to use it. Back when you thought you could accept what looked to be your fate. 

It would be unfair to say it was all bad, after all there was a reason you did fall for Him in the first place. When you would read mysteries and He would listen to you criticize the culprits' plans and schemes and he would look in awe at how you would’ve gotten away with it. Or how fun it was to sneak out with him, your family none the wiser. Even when things got bad and it felt like He was the only one that would talk to you for days, you cherished it because it truly felt like he was your life line. 

When things were good they were great, it was just when they were bad did you start to recognize them. 

Things were bad a lot towards the end. 

Gladys had been one of the few willing to go to bat for you, and perhaps the only one who He would listen to. She was the only one who could set him straight when he got huffy at the thought of you having some basic independence of being able to go outside and not needing to be watched like a child all the time. 

She was the one you went to with your suspicions and early symptoms, when you were too afraid to go to the doctor that reported right back to Him. 

She had also been the only one who knew your fears about having this baby. In your mind there were a total of two possibilities for the life the baby would live. One that they would live a life like yours, isolated within the walls of the house under their fathers obsessive gaze, never to experience the outside world. Or two He would hate the baby on principle and see it as just competition for your time and attention like he did with everybody else.

She did her best to try to quell your fears, trying to assert He would never do either of those things, especially, the last one. 

But you saw it in her eyes how she knows how sour He would get when he would come home to find you playing with his younger cousins. How He gets when someone new so much as looks your way a beat too long, or has the gall to get your attention.

How you’re barely allowed to talk to other girls your own age and that’s only saved for special occasions when his friends bring their girlfriends and He’s otherwise occupied. And even then He has a penchant for just removing you from them just to have you sit with him, and you’re out in the awkward position of being the odd one out in his group.

How when you did gather up the nerve to bring up the topic of babies to him one night his answer was “I ain’t ready to share ya’ darlin’, I don’t think I’ll eva be.”

But your most hard-hitting evidence was what happened to your dog, Hardy. He had been an old stray you saw skulking around the property, and whom you took in when He was touring. Hardy didn’t have much of an interest in running around or playing fetch, just sitting by your side and eating treats. 

Everything was good until He returned. You knew it was gonna be trouble the moment He walked through the door and saw you scratching the dog’s belly. Inspite of the fact that Hardy was usually tolerant of strangers, something about Him immediately put the usually placid dog on edge. You immediately got to work on trying to find some sort of compromise in regards to him, and offered everything from making Hardy a permanently outside dog to even being willing to have him be boarded with a family member while He was home. 

You had asked Gladys where Hardy was the very next morning when you couldn’t find him anywhere, only to be told that He had taken him out for a walk. You didn’t have the heart to be told a lie when He returned alone.

He started taking you with him at that point, and you hardly knew a moment's peace after that.

Your attention is not your own to freely give away, let alone your affection, He expects it all to go to him. He did lord knows what to a dog that had had the misfortune of occupying some of your time when he was there, you hardly wanted to chance the life of a baby that would need all of it. 

However in spite of all of that, you thought with her by your side you would be able to weather his reaction, whatever it may be. Even if your worst fear came to be and He didn’t really want anything to do with the baby, you could at least have someone to love the baby just as fiercely even when you were otherwise occupied by Him. It wasn’t necessarily fair, but you could somewhat see the function of it, and in spite of the weariness he’s instilled in you by that point, you were still reasonably confident in your ability to plan for the long term.

And then Gladys died.

And you were left to navigate the hardest thing you could face alone. 

“Ain’t nobody ever talks about how hard this can be. Or how easy it is to mess up,” Sue continues as she polishes off her plate. “But maybe…” she prods. “If you had a partner to help ease the load, you wouldn’t doubt yourself so much.”

You groan at this point wanting to truly be done with this day already. “Not this again,” you bemoan. 

“Honey,” she says with a firm but comforting grip on your shoulder. “I know a thing or two about leaving bad things behind, but I do think sometimes you need to let someone else in to help you recover,” she says. And almost like they rehearsed it, Gina comes in with a mug of tea, and a kiss to Susan’s forehead as she demands she go back to bed to rest up.

You want to argue back that you did a good enough job of recovering by yourself, but that’s hardly fair to say considering how you were about as helpless as Rosie herself that first year and a half you were here. You had thought that you would’ve been out of here maybe a couple months after giving birth, and been in a completely new place with no ties whatsoever. But the reality is that there’s no possible way you or Rosie would have survived without the help they were so willing to give. 

And that’s all they’re trying to do now. 

You take a minute to fully gather yourself, as you realize you being upset won’t help Rosie in the slightest. You also pick up the slice of cake, as you don’t want her to think she’s being punished for being upset with you. 

You find her hiding underneath the blankets of the bed you share with her and you can only hear sniffling at this point. You try to approach this delicately, as this is new territory for the both of you, so you place the cake on the nightstand, crawl underneath the sheets with her, and allow for her to come to you. Luckily you don’t have to wait for long.

“Mama!” she cries as she buries her face in your bosom, her tears already soaking through the cotton material. “Mama, I didn’t mean it! Please don’t be mad! I’m sorry Mama! Please don’t leave.”

“Sweetheart it’s okay,” you reassure her, running your nails up and down her back, as it always did the trick of settling her down when she was a baby. “Mama’s not goin’ anywhere without you. I’m always gonna be with you.” You hardly put her down her first year of life, going against all the books and holding her at just about every possible moment, so you can hardly fathom where she got this idea in her head that you would leave if you got upset with her. But remembering what Jenny had told you earlier, you have the sneaking suspicion it is related to her noticing the lack of a father in her life. 

“I’m sorry mama! I’m sorry…” she repeats over and over again, and for each time you make sure to reassure her that nothing she could ever do would make you leave. 

Finally when she’s tired herself out and her eyes are red and raw do you finally speak. “Rosie, it’s okay to be mad, but it’s not okay to be mean, because you’re mad,” you say softly to her running your nails on her back, something that has always soothed her. 

She rubs her eyes and wipes her runny nose before looking up at you again, and gives a groggy “I understand Mama.” 

“Good,” you say, kissing her forehead. “Now can you help me finish this cake.” 

You see her eyes widen before she eagerly grabs the fork and dives right in. With your help, it’s not long before it’s almost entirely gone and when she takes that final bite of the cake she goes wide-eyed sticking her fingers in her mouth to pick out the errant piece. “What’s this Mama?” she says holding the little porcelain baby up. 

“Oh you found it Rosie,” you say excitedly, “This means you’re going to have good luck.”

“... Like a wish?”

“Sort of,” you answer.

She gives an excited shriek before she clasps the little figurine in her hands and whispers something almost inaudible to it, with the only recognizable words being “Danny” and “Neverland.” You’re slightly disappointed that your lesson hadn’t quite landed today, but you choose to leave it for now, as you don’t see the harm in wishing to go to a non-existent magical place. 

Once teeth are brushed and pajamas are put on, Rosie settles into bed, but not before making sure you’re not about to break your long-held tradition of storytime. She’s the type of kid who when she likes one story she demands to hear it over and over again. 

And lately she’s latched onto Rapunzel. 

The whole concept does unsettle you greatly, for how close it is to your story. But whatever qualms you have with the story you’re not gonna deny your daughter, because your problems are your own cross to bear, not hers. 

As you read it you get to the part where the witch mother casts her out of the tower and she wanders the forests with her children. You wonder if Rapunzel ever found joy in those years away from the mother who isolated her, away from the prince who could have taken advantage of her. She survived not only on her own, but kept others alive as well. WHat did she do? Did she forage and hunt for her babies, did she find a village where she could work to support her family? 

Sometimes you wonder if she did truly live happily after the end of the story, or if she traded one cage for another as you did before. 

Your daughter is long asleep by the time you reach the happily ever after part of the story. She’s still in the habit of sucking her thumb at night, so you gently remove it, and put one of her favorite stuffies in her arms. And that marks the end of your daily duties, so in theory you should be able to finally fall asleep and be done with this day. 

In theory.

In actuality you creep out of the bed you share with your daughter into the single bathroom of the apartment. Usually her steady breathing tends to be enough to get you to fall asleep, it’s been that way ever since she was a baby, but you’re left feeling agitated having had to think of Him more than usual today. 

Not just because of the song on the radio, but Rosie’s outburst reminded you far too much of her father. It feels like the worst injustice that she mimics someone who isn’t even here.

Now that ain’t my fault now is it darlin’? A familiar voice whispers in your mind. You feel a shudder run down your spine at the thought of him, not to mention the way you shamefully feel yourself pool within your underwear. You slide down the bathroom door, out of sight of the mirror, as though that will prevent you from facing what you’re about to do. You even close your eyes for good measure as your hand reaches your folds and your fingers caress the slick outer lips of your pussy. 

You had tried to ignore this part of yourself for so long. You justified it during your pregnancy, as your body had been making you want to do other stupid things like sleep right in the middle of the store or eat paint chips. Even after giving birth and your inner feelings remaining unchanged, you justified it by thinking you were just particularly lonely, and for all that he kept you isolated, you were never alone when you were with him. Or that he was the only man you ever knew that way so he’s all you had to go off of in order to satisfy these urges.

For as much as your mind curses Him for ever coming into your life, even after all these years, your body has yet to catch up. 

You’re far from unique in your desire for him, but it’s especially shameful for you as you know what he’s truly like. It’s like scratching a mosquito bite, you may know that it’ll just make the itching worse, but dear god did it feel good in the moment. 

But even that is far from an accurate description as you plunge your on fingers into your sopping channel in a poor imitation of what you remember. 

You bite your lip in an effort to keep noises at bay but it just makes you concentrate on the wet squelching sounds echoing through the bathroom as you plunge your fingers into yourself. The sharp sting of pain forcing your mind back to where you experience the most of it. 

“You’re so sweet darlin’,” he purrs, his jaw glistening from your juices having just made a feast of you for the past hour or so. He had made it a game to see how close he could bring you without actually letting you cum, something he tends to do when someone looks your way for a little too long, as though he means to re-establish his claim over you. That only he can give you pleasure like this but take it away on a whim if he chooses. 

“No more…” you beg, new tears forming and following the trail previously set, your lips undoubtedly bruised from how much you have been chewing on them throughout. “Please,” your thighs aching from the death grip he has them in, undoubtedly leaving bruises for you to feel in the morning. 

“Alright,” he says seemingly conceding. But before you can breathe a sigh of relief, he continues, “we’ll switch it up for tonight.”

He flips you over to your front, spreads your legs wide open again, and dives right back in. 

You can’t help the way you’re left trembling from the memory, but what does shake you somewhat is the when you realize that it’s not simply the ghost of the memory that is making you feel that bruising pressure on your inner thigh, but in fact your own hand keeping it there. 

Still the masochist within you that yearns for the ghost of a man you once thought you knew takes a hold and refuses to let go now that you’re so close to release. So you give in and continue your frantic movements biting down hard on your lip to prevent any errant cries from leaving, and grip onto your thigh for dear life, even now trying to deny yourself that you want him here with you.

As you’re coming down from your high, you fight back your tears of shame. Trying to remind yourself why you left in the first place. How for all the moments he made you feel amazing, they weren’t worth the amount of grief he caused you on a near day-to-day basis.

Grief he’s still causing you more like it. 

You don’t think you could have written a better love story in the beginning. You met him when your eyes locked on each other from across your favorite bookstore back in Memphis. He had oh so shyly approached you and asked what you were reading, a bit starry eyed as he listened. Back then and arguably still the concept of a man listening to you was such a novel and unique thing to experience. 

It progressed from there, hand-holding in the school hallway, shared milkshakes at the local diner, and Sunday dinners with his family. Of course there were the less than wholesome aspects of your relationship of stray hands when no one was looking and heated kisses after a particularly rousing performance.

Truly the hallmarks of the greatest love story the world had ever seen. 

If only you knew how wrong a love story can go, because your story went very wrong. 

You vividly remember your first time with him.

Undoubtedly the cruelest thing he ever did to you.

You were never supposed to find out about the other girls, well that’s not true. The newspapers sure knew about them but he had convinced you that it was all nonsense and that he would never do that to you. All of his friends knew, hell even some of their girlfriends knew, but ideally you were never supposed to find out. 

But the only chink in the armor was that there was in fact someone who had wanted you out as soon as he stepped in. Fact of the matter is that he was practically giddy as he told you what your fiance had been doing on the road up until that point. You were heartbroken and humiliated as to what he did and even more so when you learned he had been gearing up to break up with you the night he proposed, but only stopped when he realized that you wouldn’t be waiting for him, once his career settled.

He had been calling your house non-stop and sending his friends over all with the mission to coax you into talking to him. Worse still he even got your own friends in on it and now you can’t have a single conversation with any of them that doesn’t turn into them telling you how sorry he feels for hurting you and how he desperately wants you back. 

The only people, aside from his manager, that were happy at this development were your parents. They had liked him up until he started to really take off in his career, and they wanted none of the controversy, especially when it came to your squeaky clean, good girl image they had for you. 

They’ve been walking around with the smuggest “I told you so” looks ever since you announced that you were done with him. If only they knew their good girl had been sneaking in her boyfriend for the past three years and had a whole routine for doing so.

But the downside to this is that He was just as aware of the routine as you were. And despite it having been awhile he evidently remembered enough as he stood outside your window, right after all the lights in your house had gone out. 

“Get outta here,” you hiss at him, opening the window just a crack. “You’re gonna wake up my parents.”

“Baby I gotta talk to you,” he pleads, his face utterly heartbroken. Guilt eats at you, knowing how there were days you wished you could go back to not knowing at all. But then you get angry at not only him but yourself for these thoughts. 

If only all of your love for him had died the moment you found out, you would’ve had the strength to shut the window on him that night, and your life probably would’ve taken a very different course. 

But no, you’re hurt and you felt that you had to have the final word. “Talk to one a your other girls,” you say as you move to close your window but he beats you to it and ends up opening it wider, allowing for him to fully step into your space. 

“Get out,” you say severely. “Get out, or I’ll scream.” 

“Darlin’, please listen,” he begs.

“Don’tchu ‘baby’ ‘darlin’ me,” you whisper-yell. 

“I swear things’ll be different this time round,” he pleads, clasping his hands in yours. 

“I’m done with your nonsense, I want you outta my house and outta my life.” tears are already streaming down your face and you make no motion to wipe them away. If he’s gonna hurt you like this he deserves to know. 

He looks at you. Truly looks at you and sees that you’re dead serious about this, that for you there is no coming back from this. 

“Okay,” he says solemnly, looking down at you more defeated than you’ve ever seen him, unfelled tears doting his eyes, and his bottom lip trembling. 

That takes you by surprise, but you try not to show it. “Good,” you say, trying to stamp down the urge to be mad that he’s not fighting harder. There is a hurricane of emotions going through your entire being, hating him and loving him at the same time, but you recognize that you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being able to sort through said emotions while he’s here. 

“But…”

“But?” you say, confused as to what more there is to say. 

“Let me have you,” he begs breathlessly, stepping closer to you, boxing you into the wall behind you. “Just for tonight,” he clarifies as though that’s gonna make it better.

That offends you but you can’t afford to raise your voice so you hiss at him that it’s not as though you didn’t offer when he was here. “I ain’t ever gonna forgive myself for bein’ so stupid and steppin’ out on you, I-I thought I had more time, tha-that we’d got the rest of our lives together,” he says his voice painfully small, and his eyes pleading with you to agree. 

Your heart swells hearing his words, pleading with your brain to forgive him seeing how much pain the thought of never being with you again is causing the both of you. Another, unmentionable part is also hounding your brain to accept his offer if only for the fact that you had wanted this yourself for so long.

“If-If I do that…” you say in a low voice, your face burning as to what the both of you want but aren’t saying aloud. “Then you’ll leave and never come back?” though even as you say that you’re not exactly sure how you feel over that prospect.

“Just one night sweetheart,” he begs, giving you a quick desperate kiss to your lips. “One night to know what a life with you could’ve been like, and I’ll be outta yer hair forever,” he says with a quick peck to your lips. 

He makes it almost sound romantic, not like he’s quite literally backing you into a corner, and coaxing you into something you’re not sure you want just so that you would finally know peace from him. But that's far from your mind as that little bit of contact does something to you and it’s like opening the floodgates for all the feelings for him you’ve been trying to bury. 

It feels like you're transported to almost a year ago when, he would sneak his way back into your room after having said his goodbyes to your family and parking his car around the corner out of view. How you both move your blankets and pillows onto the floor to avoid the creaky springs of your mattress, how you both keep your voices low, and muffle most sounds with the pillows, how he kicks off his shoes and unbuttons his shirt before slowly undressing you, your body being treated like a present to unwrap. 

Like this it’s easy to forget what he did, easy to forget the pain he’s caused when he’s treating you so sweetly. Kissing every inch of skin, nipping at your sensitive skin every so often, before laving at the bruising area with his tongue. You bite down on your lip hard, willing yourself to keep a cap on the filthy moans and declarations of love alike. 

You had done things with him before but it had never felt quite like this. He had always been insistent that you wait until the wedding night for that, wanting to savor you and all you had to offer before the time came. Which made it feel all the worse when you did find out about those other girls. Your friends had tried to justify it by saying that he was just getting in some “practice” for you, but that hardly made it feel any better. 

But the way he touches you, so sure of his newfound skills, it’s almost easy to forgive him. He treats you almost deceptively sweet, and for as hard as you try to keep yourself quiet, you admittedly don’t do a great job at it. But you manage to keep a good enough lid on yourself. But as it goes on it feels like he himself forgets that he had to do the same, as moans and groans alike continue to escape from his mouth. 

That should’ve been your first clue that he was up to something, but by then as he continues to bury himself deeper and deeper into you, you can’t focus on much else. Had you been thinking straight you would remember he arguably has better control of himself than you do, as he often would tease you over it. 

But in the moment that’s not what you’re thinking about. All you had on your brain was him, and how good and right he felt.

If you could go back in time you think you would’ve strangled your younger, far more naive self, as now in retrospect it became clear what he was planning on doing. He had no qualms to exposing what you had done already with him if it meant merely getting a chance to talk to you, why wouldn’t he take the opportunity to go full scorched earth if given the chance. 

He continues his steady rhythm, and when he whispers in your ear, “It’s only ever gonna be you, darlin’,” you find yourself letting out a silent scream. Your eyes screwed shut, so lost in the pleasure of it all, you would only get the tail-end of the disdainful look he would give upon failing to get you to crack. 

Still you vividly remember how conflicted you did feel in the moment, how for all that it felt good, it also made your stomach turn, for all the hurt he’s caused you yet how deceptively sweet he could be to you. It just gave you a serious case of whiplash. 

But you were so focused on keeping as quiet as possible not even being able to fathom the heap of trouble you would be in should your parents ever find out. You could hardly fathom the agent of your destruction laid within you, but it wasn’t until it was too late did it truly click. 

That devious look he had in his eyes, the one that spoke nothing but trouble. The very same look that seemingly first trapped you all those years ago when you caught it staring at you from across the bookstore. He picked up his rhythm, not allowing for you to fully recover, from the last time, as he pistons into you seeking out release for himself.

You were so dizzy in that moment you didn’t register how he raised his hand onto your night table, before quickly slamming it three times into the wall. 

The very wall you shared with your parents. 

Even in the moment you didn’t fully recognize what he had just done, everything sort of blurring together. Before you can even hope to get your bearings, he’s spinning the both of you around so that you now were on top of him, his fingers digging bruises into your hips, as he thrusts back up into you, no longer trying to feign tenderness, as he seems to rip another climax from you as he lets an unrestrained groan fall from his lips, while your inner walls tighten around him. 

Even in your haze, you realize that this is bad, and you manage to gather yourself enough to slap your hand over his mouth, but that does little to muffle the singer. Especially as it seems as though he's hellbent to be heard. “What did you just do?” you ask unbelieving, frozen in fear even as you hear the muffled shouts of your father through the wall. You feel underneath your palm as his mouth curls into a grin, as he shudders and you feel his hot seed burn you from within. And that’s when you hear the powerful footfalls of your father burst out of his room before he slams open your bedroom door. 

You can only imagine the image you make at that moment, naked sitting astride the nearly fully clothed boy you had sworn up and down for weeks you were done for good with. “What in the hell is going on in here!” your father shouts at the top of his lungs.

Everything after that happens in a blur of your fathers harsh shouts and the sharp sting that comes from your mothers hand across your face as she calls you a whore. By the time it’s all said and done you’re on your knees at the front door begging them to let you back into the house. 

“Take her with you,” your daddy practically spat at him as he tossed you to your knees outside of what was once your home. “I didn’t raise no whores, and you seem to now be in the business a collectin’ them.” 

You can almost hear the sound of a rattlesnake as his arm coils around your shoulder, laying his jacket over your weeping form like a gentleman. “Don’tchu worry baby,” he whispers in your ear. 

He’s almost angelic in his appearance, playing the savior role well, having escaped your home relatively unscathed and in remarkably high-spirits for the situation. But you don’t have much of a choice in the moment, remembering Gina’s words of how easily this family will toss aside wayward women, but it never truly sunk in that you were liable to become one. 

He would tell everybody that your daddy had thrown you out after asserting that you still wanted to be with Him in spite of all of that he’s done, and your folks practically disowned you for it. You let him say what he wants because you don’t see a point in telling the truth and if you’re being honest, part of you wants to believe it. It was a far more romantic story than what had actually happened. 

As you’re coming down from your second and somehow less satisfying orgasm, does the guilt start to creep in. Even after all these years you still yearn for his touch. 

But that is so much easier to admit than the alternative of missing Him.

It eats at you that you still think of Him like this after all that he did to you, and worse still it’s almost like you want him to come back.

Your heart practically leaps out your chest when you hear a soft knock at the door and for one horrifying second you think you’ve somehow summoned him to you. 

“Mama…” you hear a small voice whimper behind the locked door, and you breathe a sigh of relief. “Mama, I threw up.”

You don’t know if it’s a consolidation of three different people telling you the same thing in one day, the culmination of your late night loneliness for the past four or so years, or the noxious fumes of the truly unholy combination of stomach acid, red beans, and Jelly Beans that you had to clean up in your sleep deprived state, but you come to the conclusion that you can no longer do this by yourself. 

Being a mother tended to be enough of a deterrent to most men in the city, which didn’t bother you one bit, but it did make you feel all the worse when you did meet the few who were still willing even after learning about Rosie. 

Sam or Lou may very well have been as nice and understanding as they seemed to be, but because of Him, you now look suspiciously at every man trying to get close. 

Perhaps the women in your life were onto something and it is about time for you to move on with your life. Because if you resolve yourself to being for all intents and purposes a shut-in who never knew another man’s touch other than His, then you ran for nothing. 

So it’s with a semi-defeated sigh that you tell Jenny the next morning to send over Lee’s friend to the shop while you’re working to “see how it goes.” 

You do admittedly put a little more effort into your appearance than you would on an average day and you perk up every time a man who looked close to your age walked in. But if any of them were sent by Jenny they didn’t mention it. 

You only ever had one boyfriend when you were a teen, so it feels more than a bit intimidating to go into this, but you can’t deny yourself a life anymore. 

Afterall if you don’t then you may as well have stayed in Memphis. 

The day goes by and of the few men that do enter the shop, of the few that seem interested in you, none of them knew who Jenny was.  

It’s well past closing and feeling both tired and rejected, however the bane of your existence you call Jenny has yet to return, so you instead just flip the sign without properly locking up and hope they’ll be back soon. This isn’t necessarily unusual but you’re just eager for this day to end and hope that a nice cuddle with your daughter will be enough to lift your spirits. 

But for now there are books that need to be out back.

Soon you finally hear the shop bell ring, but instead of the comforting tiny footsteps or the recognizable clack of Jenny’s heels, you instead hear an unfamiliar pattern of heavy footsteps over the low volume of the radio. You look between the shelves from where you’re stocking books in the back and while you can’t make out specific details you see what is undoubtedly the shape of a man standing at the counter. 

“I’m sorry Sir,” you announce still from behind the shelf. “We’re closed for the evening, but please feel free to return tomorrow.” 

“Oh I ain’t going anywhere sweetheart,” a voice drawls.

A voice you would recognize anywhere.

You think you begin to understand at that moment why some animals will chew off their own arms to escape a trap. After all, what is a limb or two in the face of inevitable doom? And even when they do eventually die, they will at least go with their head held high knowing that they did all that they could, because better dead than captured.

But you stand there frozen, barely capable of breathing at a steady rate. You feel like every drop of blood has been drained from your body. Like someone reached into your lungs and snatched the air right out of them. Like your bones have lost all integrity and you’re only kept standing by the mere fact you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. 

He is here. 

Elvis is here.

Not only that but the footsteps getting louder tell you he is getting closer. 

Fuck.

Your mind is going a million miles an hour to try to get out of this, but all of them fall flat when you remember your daughter is not here and if you were to run that would just leave her in his clutches. So rather than act on any plan, you walk out from behind the bookshelf, because there is no point fighting the inevitable. 

You’re hoping your look isn’t so much deer in the headlights and more awestruck and in disbelief that he found you. Which is true to some extent as you thought you had been so careful all these years, so all you can muster out when you see him for the first time is a pathetic little “h-how?”

Your hackles raise slightly as you see him reach behind him, and to your surprise he pulls out an old battered copy of Nancy Drew. You’re so confused for a second until you recognize it as yours. 

One of the many that Gina would send you periodically when you lived with your parents.

One of the many that had the name of this very store stamped to the inner cover. 

One of the many you took with you when you were kicked out.

One of the many left behind at Graceland. 

Fuck.

You want to kick yourself both for being so careless in your haste to leave, but you have no time for that as he says, “I ain’t as smart as you baby, but I figured out your breadcrumbs eventually.”

He thinks you wanted him to find you. 

Didn’tchu though?

“E-Elvis…” you whisper, the single name somehow feeling wrong as it comes out of your mouth. You’ve avoided even thinking about it all these years, as though if you try hard enough you’ll be able to purge him from your mind and thus from your life. As though simply uttering it will somehow summon him. 

That theory isn’t disproven as he, as usual, wastes no time in getting straight to what he came here for, his long legs carrying himself to you as he moves to engulf you within his arms. You stave off the immediate instinct of putting your hands up and allow this to happen, remembering what used to happen when you would deny him. 

He even goes so far as to spin you around, and you lose your footing and have to rely on him in order to not face plant onto the floor. But this works all the better to create the image of the long-lost lovers joyfully reuniting after so long. 

But as he gazes into your eyes, it isn’t fully complete until he leans down to capture your lips. You would like to say you had to force yourself not to flinch away, but even you would know you’re not that good of a liar.

It’s a kiss for the ages truly, both all-consuming and yet leaving you longing for more. The pitfall of having denied getting close to anyone these past few years now show themselves full-force as you on instinct lean full-force into his touch, and welcome his kiss, even fully knowing how precarious your situation is.  

All these years you never could’ve imagined how much you could miss touch- how much you could miss his touch. The kiss itself isn’t even broken until he roughly moves you against the bookshelf and forces his thigh between yours and your left gasping for air as you feel him for the first time. 

And you can’t help the little whine that leaves your lips before you gather yourself once more to look him in the eyes. 

“Did’ya miss me sweetheart?” he whispers against your lips. 

“I…” you say, tears welling in your eyes. “I’ve thought about you every night.” 

This is not a lie.

His fond expression doesn’t crack an inch as you say that, but before you can sigh an internal breath of relief, you feel a tight grip on your wrist as well as on your jaw.

“Then where’ve you been all these years,” he says, low and dangerous. 

It’s certainly not an unfair question to ask. But you’ve been prepared to answer this question since the moment you stepped foot outside of Graceland for a quick errand.

You don’t know what he knows yet, and that’s terrifying.   

“I…I…” you say in a quiet voice, all your years of preparation failing you when you needed it the most. 

In the back of your mind, though you are loath to admit it, you think you always knew this day was coming, that he would find you, and the only thing you could do was to try to lessen the blowback you would experience. It’s why yours and your daughter’s last name is Love. It’s why you never tried to get involved with another man. It’s why you even made that goddamn deal in the first place. 

“I’m going to disappear,” you say, casually taking a sip of your tea, not truly a fan of the taste, but lately it’s been one of the few things your sensitive stomach could handle. “And you’re gonna help me do that.” You couldn’t just ask anyone for help on this, you were surrounded only by sychophants who would do practically anything for Elvis, so you had to look elsewhere to the person whose only side he was on, was his own. 

“And why would I help you?” The Colonel said, idly stirring his coffee, but obviously trying to mask the spark of interest in his eyes. For as much of a slimeball as he can be, you would be a fool to not acknowledge that he’s a decent enough businessman at the end of the day to recognize  a good deal when he sees one. 

“Because you want me gone as much as I wanna be gone,” you state. He hated that Elvis kept you around, even more so when Elvis made it clear he had no intention of staying a bachelor once he finished service. 

Truly under any other circumstance he would be the last person in this house you would confide in, but though your desires were very different they did often run parallel. Something you realized when he talked Elvis out of eloping right before he got shipped out and into a long engagement. Truly the greatest boon you’ve been given since you’ve gotten here, the lack of recognizability or association with the rockstar will serve your purposes all the better.

“Can’t argue with that logic girl,” he says, taking a bite out of the muffins you had baked this morning as a peace offering to him. “Why do you even need my help?” he questions.

“Because I need someone to make sure that he doesn’t ever find me,” you declare, you had practiced this in your head so many times, too afraid to ever voice it aloud or write it down should any of it get back to him. Even an Ocean away you still feel his breath on the back of your neck, with the only safe place being inside your head. 

You had excused yourself from following him to Germany by feigning sickness with the promise that you would join him as soon as you felt better. Which wasn’t hard to do considering your symptoms before he left, left you practically bedridden.

Ever since you figured out your… condition (it felt too scary to even think in your head, let alone voice out loud), your mind had been running rampant with all of the possibilities of how he would react. None of which you're willing to risk coming to fruition. 

“And if I said No?” he asks, but from the look in his eyes he’s all but ready to pack your bags himself. Part of you feels guilty to leave the boy you once loved with such a man, but you have bigger things to worry about now. 

“You’re absolutely free to say no, Parker,” you assure, but he’s savvy enough to know that’s not the end of it. You don’t know whether it’s you mimicking the late Gladys Presley, or something that comes natural with becoming a mother, however you do know you need to assert yourself now of all times, not just for your sake but your baby’s. “Regardless of your help or not, I’m gonna to leave. Now whether I’m gone for twenty minutes or twenty years, will all depend on you, but know that this will also determine how long you’ll be able to keep your position as Manager.” 

He seems to bristle at your words, “And how do you figure dat Lil’ Miss?” he says with a dangerous look in his eyes as you seem to threaten the only thing he happens to care about. But once you do explain it he looks at you with no small amount of respect in his eyes as he mulls over your plan. “Quite devious,” he comments, literally tipping his hat at you. “I think I’m beginnin’ to get what he sees in you.” 

You're far from proud of your plan, and the slimeball’s admiration of it doesn’t help either, but you know for a fact it will work, and Parker is gonna make damn sure that he doesn’t ever find you. 

You made that plan practically bulletproof, but you never factored into account that you would choke in the moment that it truly matters. “Elvis I…” you trail off, trying to swallow the lump in your throat, clutching your hands on his shirt to keep yourself somewhat steady, trembling from the effort it takes to maintain that makeshift barrier. You’re either about to give the performance of a lifetime or… or…

No 

You can’t think like that otherwise…

This has to work. 

Your brain is going a million miles a minute, trying to remind yourself that you have to make this work if you have any hope of getting out of this without him ever having a chance of finding her.

But in real time you watch as this notion turns to ash in your mouth. 

You feel as your blood freezes in your veins when you hear the door slam open only to be followed by the familiar little dashing footsteps. Your heart drops into your stomach as you hear your daughter stop dead in her tracks and you want to throw up at the thought of him laying eyes on her. This is truly what all your nightmares have been building up to, but even they paled in comparison to the reality of what would actually happen. 

“Danny!!!” she squeals at the top of her lungs, before sprinting right into the arms of the man you were so desperately running from. You’re too shocked to do anything about it at the moment, and only watch in horror as something beyond your worst nightmare plays out before your very eyes. 

Even when your instincts kick in to keep her away from him, he casually moves your hands out of the way as he easily scoops her up and over his head, practically playing keep away as you try to take her back. “Is today the day!?!?” she squeals, wrapping her arms around his neck as best she could, giving him a kiss on the cheek, none the wiser at the danger the two of you were in.

“It sure is baby girl,” he says with a mile wide grin on his face. “Why don’tcha go pack everything you’re gonna need in Neverland?” You don’t miss the way his eyes slide your way, no doubt trying to gauge your reaction. 

She squeals in delight, as she jumps out of his arms and makes her way to the stairs, completely oblivious to your state. 

Everything your daughter ever said about “Danny” suddenly makes a whole lot more sense, and you can’t help but want to kick yourself for not paying attention. You thought she was safe with Jenny, you want to throw up at the thought that you unintentionally sent her into the lion's den without her.

She doesn’t even have the decency to face you in that moment, seeing her right outside the window, in Lee’s arms -or Charlie as you would later learn- pointedly not looking in. 

You don’t have the luxury of being mad as you feel his attention focus back on you in that moment. 

“Now…,” he says as he brings your face closer to his, tenderly grabbing your chin, wiping away a tear. “You wanna try again, sweetheart,” he grins maliciously, knowing you’ll have no choice but to be “honest.” 

And that’s it you have only one card left to play and you pray whatever forces that have written the story of your life will be merciful and let this plan work as you hoped it would all those years ago.

You fall to your knees and begin to sob uncontrollably into your palms. It’s actually easier than you had initially hoped, it in fact takes more effort not to cry when you think about him. It’s a miracle you’ve been able to stay this intelligible up to this point.

“Elvis,” you cry, trying to sound as pathetic and heartbroken as you possibly could. “Elvis I-I-I’m so sorry,” you stutter trying to really sell it. “He-he told me that you kn-knew and you didn’t want me anymore,” you hiccup for good measure. “Ho-how you couldn’t have a baby weighing you down, and that-that if I ever came back, he would make sure I would lose her for good.”

You start to hyperventilate, but it’s far from intentional, as you know your very life is at stake in this moment. If he doesn’t believe you… you can’t think like that. 

You know him well enough to know that he won’t believe your words specifically, but he does believe in the world he’s created in his head. That regardless of what you feel, what you say, or even what you do, you love him and want to be with him- always. It’s just others preventing that from happening. It was the women who tempted him on the road, and then it was your family speaking poison in your ear, and then it was the men he couldn’t trust to not look your way. It was never you personally, regardless of how he would sometimes lash out at you, you wanted to be there because he wanted you to be there. 

In the back of your mind when you had just barely begun to formulate leaving, you knew it would be foolish to believe there wasn’t a chance, no matter how slim, that he would find you. And you knew that it wouldn’t go without punishment should he ever find you should it ever occur. So you had to formulate a plan not just to leave, but how best to set yourself up if he ever returned. 

(There have been some nights that you lay awake believing that you prepared so well not because you were paranoid, but because it was an inevitability.)

You hear his clothes shift as he kneels down before you, and he takes your chin into his hand though much gentler this time. 

“Who’s ‘he’” he demands, voice as cold as a tomb. 

He’s buying it, you think, though you have no time to celebrate. You let out a truly pathetic little blubber through your tears, purposefully unintelligible trying to sell the emotions. 

“Who?” he asks, softer this time around, but no less urgent.

“The co-” you cut yourself off taking a deep steady breath. “The Colonel,” you whisper as though you fear speaking his name aloud will bring him to this very spot.

Parker’s far from innocent but you feel a slight twinge of guilt that his downfall would be for something he didn’t do as opposed to all the things he had done. But you can’t think like that anymore, it was gonna be either him or you. 

Someone would need to suffer because of what you did, and you would be damned before it was you or your daughter. 

And so Parker is now the villain who cruelly kept you and your daughter away from him, and not that you wanted so desperately to get away from him that you practically disappeared off the face of the Earth. But it seems like a fair trade. Parker loses his job, you lose your life. Maybe not in the literal sense, but in all the ways that matter you’ll be gone. 

You don’t relax at all when you feel him gently cup your face in his hands to softly wipe your tears away. You look upon the devastatingly handsome man, as he looks as if he means to take you in his arms to never let you go.“Don’tchu worry baby,” he says, wiping your tears away. “You don’t gotta worry bout that rat bastard no more.” You let out a small cry, hoping it sounds more out of relief than out of devastation to his words. “So now you and Rosie can come home,” he states with a delusional smile on his face. 

Despite the fact that you knew this would realistically end one of two ways, you can’t help but balk at the words. You try your best to smile at his words, but even you realize how hollow that gesture is, in spite of the part you know you’re meant to play in the moment, between the two of you, only one of you is an actor.

He’s having none of it as you feel the previously gentle hand cupping your face wrap around your throat. “Now. You. And. Rosie. Can. Come. Home.” he grits out, his grip around your neck tightening with each word emphasized. 

He knows what your answer is, no doubt he’s just trying to rub salt in the wound knowing that it’s not a choice he’s giving you. This is all the proof you need that he doesn’t fully believe you, but is willing to play along. Leaving may have been forgivable, staying away for so long is another matter entirely. 

He’s just punishing you for not being as enthusiastic as you should be at the prospect of coming “home,” as you should be.

You’re not playing pretend well enough.

“Mama!” Rosie squeals excitedly and when he lets go, you turn to see her making her way back downstairs, her favorite blanket now a makeshift rucksack of what you assume to be all toys dragging behind her. “Mama it worked!” she said, as she ran full tilt toward you, holding something in her palm. “Danny’s gonna take us to Neverland today.”

You see the little porcelain baby from the king cake and you find yourself wishing you were anywhere else. But you know better than to believe in wishes.

“Can we go now?” she says, her little hand grasping one of Elvis’ fingers and shaking furiously. “Now please,” she begs, before he scoops her up into his arms and propping her on his hip. He holds her close and you're forced to face what you have been ignoring all these years. The shape of the nose, the way her lips curl in such a specific way, there is only one place she could have gotten all of that from. It feels like just your luck that your child would be practically a carbon copy of the man you so desperately tried to get away from. Really it was only a matter of time before someone figured it out. 

“Now hold ya’ horses yittle,” chucking her under the chin in a far too familiar manner, as she giggles in his arms. “Yer mama’s gotta get ready herself.”

“I… do…” you say, playing along, trying to keep a cap on your distress for your daughter's sake. “I-I gotta pack a few more things baby,” you say, giving her a kiss on her forehead, hoping she misses the tears in your eyes. “I’ll b-be right back.” you manage to stutter out.

“Don’t worry sweetheart,” his voice so saccharine sweet it makes our teeth ache. “We’ll be right here.” 

As you turn around you feel a hard smack on your ass, and you fully stop, burning in humiliation that he would treat you like that, especially in front of your daughter. 

The humiliation only further ramps up as you walk up the stairs, and you can feel the slick already gathering between your thighs. Less out of titillation you believe and more out of a defense mechanism, knowing what will more than likely happen the second he's able to get you alone.

Or is it?

It doesn’t feel real as you step into the upstairs apartment, you see Gina at the stove and Sue filling out a crossword puzzle, her glasses threatening to fall off her nose, none of which suggests they have any idea of what’s going on downstairs. You’re almost angry about that, like it would’ve been easier to walk away from them if they had also been in on it as well. 

“Where’s Rosie so eager to rush off to?” Sue asks idly, not looking up from the paper.

“Oh ummm…” you say, trying to think on your feet for a decent enough lie. “ Sh-she’s going to a sleepover with-with Jenny.” 

You’re usually a better liar than this, but him being so close again has you all out of sorts tonight. Not to mention your mind is running rampant with all the worst case scenarios possible at the moment with the most egregious being that he’s gonna take her and run, forcing you to chase him down the same way he’s undoubtedly done for you these past few years. You’re practically feeling every second tick by, fearing the longer you take the greater the chances will be that they’re both gone. 

Is that how he felt when he was away from you? A small voice in your head asks. It’s an awful roiling feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you couldn’t even begin to imagine how it would feel if the person you loved most wasn’t where you left them. Would he be so cruel to do that to you?

“Did that fella Jenny setchu up with ever show up?” Gina asks, wiping her hands on her apron. 

“Ye-yeah and… and I’m gonna get dinner with him,” you swallow, the lie tasting like bile in your mouth. As you turn to your room, already mentally mapping where the important documents were in your bedroom, preparing to pack a few outfits for Rosie, and whatever other odds and ends you would need. 

Your answer catches Gina off guard, and Sue immediately looks up from the paper sharing a look with your other Aunt. “Ain’t that a little fast, Hon?” 

“Maybe…” you say, hesitating as you try to hold back your tears. 

“Ya don’t gotta go if you ain’t ready for it,” Sue says behind you, putting a hand on your shoulder, that you flinch away from. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong If it’s still a little too early for you.” 

That’s the worst part about it. You know they would fight tooth and nail for both you and Rosie if you just asked. But you know the type of mess Elvis can and will bring into this house should you decide to fight him on this. After all they’ve done for you, keeping them out of the type of spectacle he brings is the least you can do.

“I have to go,” you say sternly. 

One look at your squared back shoulders and your far away look they know there’s no stopping this. You hold back your tears as you accept their hug and accept their well wishes. You say your goodbyes promising to be back soon, unsure if you will ever see them again, and you put on your biggest fakest smile as you let go of them, wanting to at least leave them with one happy memory.

Relief floods your entire being seeing her at the bottom of the steps, only for the dread to return seeing him there with her. Especially when you hear the story he’s telling her. You don’t miss the glance he steals your way before focusing on your daughter once again. “I thought to myself, ‘thas the girl whose gonna be mine.’”

“Like-like love at first sight,” Rosie asks, and you can practically hear the stars in her eyes.

“Exactly yittle,” he drawls out. “Took her awhile to figure it out though but she learned eventually. Now we’re all gonna go home.” His eyes slide right off her and cut directly to you. Her eyes follow him and she quickly scurries off of him to reach you. 

“You ready Mama?” she asks you as she takes you by the hand leading you to the door where you see a car parked right out front.  It may as well have been a hearse in your mind. 

You pick her up and you look down the darkened streets and you briefly flirt with the idea of just sprinting and never looking back. But the hand on your elbow guiding you to the car puts a halt to those thoughts. 

You still don’t know how much of your story he does actually believe, so you sit yourself down in the car without so much as a fuss and resolve yourself to your fate. Though that doesn’t stop you from seating yourself in the middle and placing Rosie by the window, as you still aren’t totally out of the mindset of keeping her as far away from him as possible. Neither of them seem to mind as she eagerly presses tiny hands up to the glass in awe of the nightlife of New Orleans, while he slithers an arm over your shoulder bringing you closer to him. 

As you contemplate what your life will look like from now on, you pass by so many places you’ve become familiar with these last four years, but what nearly breaks you are the unfamiliar places. Record stores, movie theaters, restaurants, and so many other places you avoided all due to an irrational belief that he would somehow be there. You did your best to limit your time in the outside world to only when you absolutely had to be out. 

Maybe that’s why you were so willing to trust Jenny and her altruistic generosity to watch over your daughter and take her places you were too anxious to venture to. 

You caged yourself into your new seemingly better life, but you didn't live at all. You were hiding. Always so afraid that he would somehow find you, you neglected to live. You put yourself in a different cage and convinced yourself you were free. 

“Mama? Mama, why are you crying?” your sweet little girl asks. 

But you’re gonna do what you’ve always done for your daughter. What you’ve always done when it comes to Elvis. You’re going to play pretend. 

“Mama’s just so happy we’re going baby,” you say with a solemn kiss to her forehead as his grip further tightens on your shoulder. 

“I know what’ll cheer you up!” she declares and completely unaware of the salt she’s about to pour on your wounds, she pulls something out of her little rucksack. “Danny, do you know the story of ‘Punzel?”

“Can’t say that I do darlin’” he says, eyeing you over her head. She sets the Grimm fairy tale book down on her lap and opens it to the worn pages she’s seemed to memorize by heart. She proceeds to read to the both of you, in the sense that she recites the story she’s heard maybe half-a-million times before word-for-word, going off pictures more than the actual words on the page to know where she’s at in the story. You try your best to focus on the book for your daughter's sake, but it’s nearly impossible to do when you feel Elvis' familiar bruising grip on your inner thigh. 

You shoot him a look and grab a hold of his wandering hand, trying to signal for him to stop and pay attention to Rosie. He gives a mirthful smile to you as he feels the slick there and seemingly tightens his grip in retribution, as though he wants to get a head start on re-establishing his claim over you. You in response bite your cheek and bear it, until at one point it nearly becomes too much and one lone tear rolls down your cheek and onto the page of the prince wandering blindly through the forest.  

Your daughter is far too sweet for her own good, as she notices this and gives you a gentle pat on your cheek, trying to comfort you the same you’ve done for her before. 

“Don’t worry Mama,” she reassures you, mirroring what you’ve done for her when a story gets her a little too worked up. “They always live happy ever after.”

You give a shuddering sigh as Elvis finally let’s go of your thigh. You clutch onto that little porcelain figure in your pocket and hope she’s right.

You make it to Memphis in record time, Rosie having long since tired herself out, is wrapped securely in your arms, but you’ll find no suh peace with his arm coiled around your shoulder as he sadistically whispers how Rosie’ll have a blast meeting the rest of his family while the two of you get “reacquainted,” of course he used more colorful language but you don’t want to have to think about that for right now. 

When the familiar gates come into view 

“Ahh, my baby missed home that bad,” he whispers, giving a deceptively sweet kiss to your tear-stricken cheek. “Why don’tcha hand the ‘lil one over to me and you just head up to bed and get ready for me?”

Despite the questioning lilt in his tone you know for a fact he’s not asking. And so going against all of your instincts screaming in your head, you let go of your daughter and watch as he takes a hold of her. To your relief she’s at the very least on the same floor as you, but you can only hope that she, at the very least, will sleep through the rest of the night, because you doubt he’ll let you out even a minute sooner than he has to. 

The bedroom has changed in many ways since you’ve been gone, though the most striking thing  was how your side of the bed looks as though it were converted into a little shrine for you. Small baubles and trinkets you left behind on the stand, you even find an old nightgown of yours on your side of the bed, the last thing he ever saw you in. It doesn’t fit you like it used to, having and breastfeeding a baby will do that to you, but you put it on all the same knowing he will want to see you in it. 

Looking at yourself in the mirror, seeing your breasts straining against the silk material and the bruises peeking out beneath the scandalously short hemline, it really does settle in that this was all inevitable. This is the very same image you saw the night before he left for Germany.

The same image that confirmed your decision to leave in the first place. 

This moment, feels like the dread you always felt when getting to the last few pages of a book. As things were wrapping up and you would have to face the harsh reality of your situation...

You’re back in the fucking hotel room.

You won’t even have the luxury of daydreaming of your escape, because there is no world where you leave without Rosie, and he knows that. He knows she’s the reason you ran, and knows that without her you’re never gonna run again. That’s why he went to the lengths he did to endear himself to her first before you ever had an inkling as to what was going on. 

Your thoughts turn to Jenny, and how you entrusted what you loved the most to her, only to have her spit in your face by turning around practically handing her over to him on a platter. Either she knew that he was her father and didn’t bother to question why you were so desperate to get away that you faked a whole other life, or she didn’t and handed over your daughter to a stranger. You don’t know which is worse. 

You also can’t forget how she was perhaps the most vehement about you dating again, which you can’t even begin to understand if she was working for him the whole time. But you can’t put it above him that he wouldn’t have Jenny push the issue if only to further twist the knife if you ever did take up her offer. As though to remind you that you never had a chance of moving on. 

Because it always goes back to him.

You want to hide from it all and you give into the urge, and crawl under the silky sheets of the bed, for all the good it will do to protect you. 

Monsters don’t hide under your bed. They crawl into it. Those are your last conscious thoughts as you feel the bed shift 

“Welcome home Satnin,” he whispers before you feel the sheets being ripped away from you.

Taglist

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[neteyamkink]

neteyam finding his mate touchin herself but she cant get herself off without him but neteyam decides to punish her by making her touch herself while he watches 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

i’m gonna combine these two and kill two birds with one stone (also i forgot to include the part where he makes her touch her self while he watches i’m sorry i’m so stupid LMFAO i’ll make that another day)

parings: aged up! neteyam x fem!reader

warnings: perv neteyam :(, masturbation, voyeurism??, “i love you”, he calls u princess, uhh i think that’s it idk, i rushed ending sorry 😞

Neteyam didn’t know what it was about his best friend that he found so intriguing. Actually, I should say he didn’t know what wasn’t so intriguing about you. He was obsessed with you and everyone around you knew it but you. Glances that linger a little too long, the way he tugged his bottom lip in between his teeth when he saw you, and the way he was so protective over you all gave it away.

It was undeniable that he was in love with his best friend. He knew it too, but he never spoke up too afraid to ruin your perfect friendship. I mean what if you didn’t want to go on late-night walks with him anymore? or ride your ikrans for hours without a destination? He couldn’t have that. He needed you in his life.

This all changed when he happened to catch his best friend with her hand between her legs whimpering his name.

One late night he decided he’ll pop up to your hut and ask if you wanted to go on a walk. It wasn’t unusual for him to do this either. You two normally popped up at each other's houses unannounced, because that was just how close you were.

He stepped up to your door ready to knock right before he heard the most angelic two little words he’s ever heard before. “fuck, Neteyam,” you moaned. He stood there frozen in time, eyes wide before blinking a couple of times and putting his ear up to the door. Surely he wasn’t hearing this right, right?

“Please, Neteyam,” you whined. Okay, he was definitely not going crazy you were definitely moaning his name. What the hell is going on? before he made a move he needed to know if what he thought was going on was going on.

His feet carried him to the side of your hut and to the tiny opening you called a window. He cupped his hands around his eyes and leaned into the window to get a better look. And there you were in all of your glory, legs spread, fingers pawing at your clit hungry for release, hand covering your sinful mouth.

Neteyam almost lost his balance and held onto the mud wall for support. He couldn’t believe his eyes or ears. His very own best friend touching herself thinking about him? He pinched himself to make sure this wasn’t a dream. He tried to come up with reasonable explanations for this, but the only one he could think of is maybe his best friend saw him the same way he saw her.

His thoughts were interrupted by the pulsating in his lower region. He looked down at his loincloth to his boner. He was so painfully hard to the thought of you getting off to him and now he got to look at it. He couldn’t help, but reach his hand down and palm himself through his loincloth. It felt so wrong, but he couldn’t help it. His cock was throbbing with need and he had to do something about it right?

“nmpfff, Neteyam,” you moaned making his ears perk up and his face grow hot. Fuck you were so hot, the way your face contorted with pleasure, and your pretty moans sounded like they were sung by eywa herself.

You looked like you were struggling. Poor y/n couldn’t even get herself off. You were so needy for him that you couldn’t think of anything else but his cock and the way you knew you would never have it. You two were best friends, and of course, he would never see you that way. That’s How you ended up with your dainty hands circling your pretty clit dreaming of the slim chance you could ever have the real thing.

Before he could stop himself his feet were carrying him back to your door and his hands were balled in a fist. He took a breath preparing himself to either make or break your whole relationship. Then he was knocking on your door, knuckles hitting against the wood in a song-like tune.

“fuck,” you cursed under your breath. You scrambled to your feet and attempted to fix your clothes. Your heavy breathing and messy hair would give you away. Without another thought, you practically ran to your door opening it without asking who was there first. When you opened your door to see your best friend your face grew hot thinking of what events just went down 45 seconds ago.

“I didn’t expect-” you started, but before you could finish Neteyam was grabbing your cheeks and shoving his lips on yours. Even though you were shocked you didn’t hesitate to return the kiss. He pushed you into your hut shutting the door behind him.

“You could've asked me for help,” he smirks speaking up in between kisses.

you pause and put your hands on his chest pushing yourself away from him. “how did you,” you trailed off eyes searching around your hut and landing on the window without curtains. fuck, you thought.

“yeah…” Neteyam responded assuming you figured it out based on the way your gaze landed on the window.

You swallowed before cupping his face and pulling him back into the heated kiss. He wasted no time trailing his fingers down your stomach and curling his fingers around the waistband of your loincloth. every hair on your body stood up and a chill ran through your spine. His touch was electric.

A small moan left your pretty lips as he swiped his finger down your slit, his cold touch made you shiver.

“heard you moaning my name, you’re this wet just thinkin’ about me?” Neteyam began circling your clit. you hummed sweetly in response and let him lead you to your bed, he laid you down on the soft surface breaking contact for a second. You whine at the sudden loss of his body heat. you needed him as close as he could be. Your hands reached up to him and pulled him down with you. His knee slipped between your legs and his hand found its way back to your clit.

“So needy for me hm? Poor baby couldn’t even get herself off hm?” he hummed against your neck making your whole body vibrate. You needed him. Every inch of him right now.

“Please teyam, I need you,” you whimpered, pawing at his dick. You circled your fingers around his waistband desperately scrambling to pull his loincloth off. The sinful feeling of his pretty little best friend begging for him to fuck her went straight to his dick, making his painful erection even more unbearable.

“Tell me what you want, pretty girl,” he cooed, kissing down your neck and onto your collarbone. He slipped one of his fingers inside you, making a small gasp leave your lips. You’ve never felt like this before, his big fingers filled you up way better than yours. But you needed more. you needed him.

“need your dick, tete,” you choked out, trying to mask your moans with your words. The feeling of his soft lips leaving sweet kisses on you, and his fingers pumping in and out of you at a slow pace was pure euphoria.

Your desperation turned him on so much he couldn’t tease you anymore, or he was afraid he would cum right here and now without you even touching him. He reached down to his cock and lined it up with your entrance, slowly dragging it up and down to get him wet with your juices. He tried not to throw his head back in pleasure as you let out a desperate whine.

“Please, teyam,” you begged, and as soon as the words left your lips he was slipping inside of you. You tugged your bottom lip between your teeth as you threw your head back. He let out a low groan and continued to kiss your neck as he thrusted in and out of you. His pace was slow and steady, he wanted to take in every second of this experience. He was finally getting to fuck his best friend and make love even. He didn’t just want to fuck you, he wanted to saviour you, take you in and breathe you out.

“Been waiting for this for so long, you feel so good,” he whimpered into your skin. You reached your hands up to his hair tugging on it softly. Your legs lifted and wrapped around his hips, pulling closer to you and pushing him deeper inside you.

“take me just like that, princess,” he moaned pushing himself deeper into you. His pace began to get faster and faster due to his growing impatience. When his hand slipped down past your stomach and onto your clit you became just as impatient as him.

“feels so good, teyam,” You whimpered throwing your head back in pleasure and tugging at the roots of his hair. A strange coil in your stomach began to tighten with every thrust and every circle around your clit. You had been waiting for this moment too. the moment that your best friend would finally realize that you were in love with him and he would make love to you ever so sweetly.

His thrusts grew sloppy, and he knew he was about to cum. “I love you. every since the day I met you, I’ve loved you,” he confessed, burying his head in your neck.

“I love you too, teyam,” you pulled him closer and with that, he was shooting his hot seed into you. He didn’t mean to cum before you, but fuck those five words sent him over the edge. He fucked you through his climax, and soon after him you were coming undone underneath him. Your back arched off of your bed and your moans were the only thing that filled his ears. Pure pleasure and bliss shot through your body.

“There you go. Breath, princess, breathe,” he cooed at you as you came down from your high. You listened to him and tried to catch your breath, your body still convulsing underneath him. “I love you,” he kissed you, shushing your soft whimpers.

[the-90s-music-colosseum]

Round 2 Group D Match 6

expand for propaganda! (major wall of text warning)

Henry Rollins:

"Honestly, Johnny Mnemonic Henry with the glasses and the lab coat was pretty hot"

"A wonderful physical specimen. Plus he’s really funny and weird….best hot ones interview of all time."

"I want him to run me over with a bus"

Stephen Malkmus:

"i can't even stand stephen malkmus but there's a very special girl out there who needs this win"

"My perpetually stoned, nonsensical girlfriend...if we don't invent the time machine soon I might die. He's like 6 ft tall so unfortunately I'd be like one of those birds that ride on giraffes and eat bugs out of their fur. And then I'd die in a weed accident during the recording of Wowee Zowee? Before that though I'd spend 25 hrs a day in bed with him. Alright thanks"

"Stephen Malkmus chronically addicted to moaning and gasping in Pavement songs like he’s getting the best dicking down of his life in the back of the tour bus while everyone else is asleep"

"This is the indie-label match, right? Then it has to be Malkmus, he *made* the scene. And he's still releasing excellent music today. He's just the most influential rockstar of the 90s."

"my gay pavement fan uncle gets out of prison tonight and he knows you ratted him out in '06. the only way to make this right is to vote for stephen"

"Pretty please vote for him, my friend loves him and he really wants him to win"

""There were times he refused to speak to his bandmates, pulling a jacket over his head and referring to himself as "the little bitch"." I have also heard him refer to himself as a brat, a queen, a primadonna, a sociopath, and a narcissist. All of these descriptors have made me want to slam him against a wall and turn his neck fun new colors."

"I mean, Pavement is THEE indie band of the 90s. The lowkey snark, Koreaaaa, so much style that it's wasted. And Malkmus is an understated cool rockstar: the hair, the face, Silver Jews! He never ever sold out. He's the 90s."

"the most beautiful man ever he looks like a gorgeous fairytale prince. he has been hot since he emerged on the scene and continues to be so as their reunion tour comes to a close. stephen forever"

"we have to consider the autism swagger. find me a pavement write up that doesn’t spend three paragraphs waxing lyrical on his inability to make eye contact. find me a YouTube comment section that doesn’t have hoards of moms swooning over his flat affect. his refusal to wear anything more formal than a flannel for the first decade of his career? genuinely culturally influential. 30 glorious years of expressionless performances. sunglasses in the dark. so many straight men falling over themselves for him they made a joke about it in the Barbie movie. raw tbh sex appeal. and he’s got a great nose"

"he had a couple of unfortunate haircuts during this period but highkey i would break both of my arms to just be able to make out with him. please vote for SM my life is in danger if you don't"

[razorblade180]

A Book of Love

[Steam Bird]

Aether:Hey Charlotte! You wanted to see me? Is there an article you want to run by me before publishing?

Charlotte:No it’s not an “Eligible Adventurers” incident. I uhh…wanted to give you something and have a quick escape of I got too embarrassed.

Aether:…*stands in front of the door*

Charlotte: Gasp! My escape route!

Aether:Your honesty is both wonderful and your enemy. Anyways, what gift could be so embarrassing.

The reporter pulled out a very hefty scrap book with Aether’s emblem on the front. His mind couldn’t help but wander off to the last time Charlotte gave him surprise polaroids. His face went red.

Aether:Ummm I gotta ask. Is that book safe to open in public?

Charlotte:This gift is nothing like that last gift. Well…in spirit I guess it is, but far more safe! Have a look!

Despite not being inspired with confidence, Aether took the book and opened the first page. The words “Tales of Fontaine” were in bold blue letters above a collage of photos of himself. There was him before court. Another fishing with Freminet; there was even a tea party photo with Navia.

Aether turned the page to find many more moments like him and Paimon at a magic show and the time he swam with otters. Charlotte had even collected more dynamic photos of him in the midst of battle among friends and the more exciting part of the court cases.

Charlotte:Feels like yesterday when that happened. Now you’re off to Natlan soon, right? *smiles* Aether, I’m truly grateful for being apart of your amazing adventure. It’s one thing to be told about it, and another to live it. It wasn’t always grand for you; there’s a thousand pictures I never took that showed the rough times few ever get hear about from an adventurer.

Aether:Hehe, it comes with the job…

Charlotte:I know. I also know that Natlan will be no different, which is why I made the book. Whenever you’re down, I wanted you to have a way to remember the fun side of adventuring; the memories you made in this land of justice.

Aether:Charlotte, this is…beyond incredible. There’s so much here. Why the heck would you be embarrassed by this!? It’s awesome.

Charlotte:*red*Because of the red tab…

Aether:Red tab?

He looked at the side of the pages and found it. The tab skipped more than half the pages and led him to “Tales of Us.” First thing of note was a photo of the first time they met in Mondstadt with the caption, “New Friends wherever you go.” The next photo was them on their first date here. Specifically, it was the photo of him blushing while attempting to drink his coffee and avoid eye contact. “I think he likes me” was written underneath.

Aether couldn’t help but laugh sheepishly. His eyes went towards the photo of her on their second date when he had playfully given her a rainbow rose. He remember snapping this bashful photo of her a couple minutes after doing it. The caption read, “I know I like him.” First dance, dinner dates, strolls, fishing, so many little miscellaneous moments of them together perfectly captured on several pages. Aether kept flipping through as Charlotte looked at the floor to keep her cool.

Charlotte:I remember telling you and Paimon that if the world were to end tomorrow, I’d still do my job. I maintain that thought. However, if I were lucky enough to know you were close by, I’d make sure everything I had to do was finished then race your way for the final moments without fail. Aether, I really, truly…*looks up* huh? Hey! You’re crying!!!

Damn straight he was! If he were Neuvillette, it would be pouring! The boy had two streams running down his face.

Aether:Of course I’m crying! This gift is so fucking sweet! This might be the nicest thing I’ve ever gotten! I’m not used to farewells like this. I always try to smile and say “see you later!” *sniffles*

Charlotte:…Pfft hehe. Is that right?

Smiling fondly, Charlotte stepped closer and gently wiped the tears away. To think her gift would move him so. Aether was always full of surprises, but that’s what she loved about him. Slowly, she leaned in, kissing him and holding in a giggle when she felt him kiss back just as quickly. She wasn’t great at long confessions anyways and frankly, neither of them needed it. Their lips parted but they remained in each other’s arms while pressing their foreheads against one another and continuing to smile.

Charlotte:See you later, Aether.

Aether:Until next time, Charlotte.

[christopher-bangnaldoskzz]

Soft Dom Bangchan x Female Reader Sub!

Genre: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Word count: 3k

Warnings: oral sex (female and male reserving), fingering, orgasms, sexual content included I am going to say this is strictly 18+ MDNI fan fiction. 

Summary:A sub needs a dom, a dom wants a sub but what happens when feelings overlap with contracts and love creeps in? Will a contract remain only a contract? Or are emotions like love too hard to keep in check?

A/N: would also like to dedicate this story to @daceydeath, thank you for always putting up with my deluluness, also thank you for putting up with my drama fill life honestly. I wouldn’t be still writing if it wasn’t for you encouraging me. Also thank you so much for writing my summary xx

Y/N POV 

Chris drives you back to your house, spitting out the front. “Wait, I’m going to walk you to your door”, he smiled, getting out and opening your door. 

Chris walked you up the steps as you found your keys. "So you sure you don’t want me to come in?” He said, walking closer, making you fumble for the correct key. 

You said, "I'm sure," after you had found the key and putting it in the lock. 

“Not even a goodbye kiss for your master?” He said, raising his eyebrows.

“Nope”, you smile in his face before opening your door, Chris grabbing your wrist. 

You turn your head to look at him as he leans in. You pull your wrist free and step inside. Knowing full well Chris won’t come inside. “I’ll see you Friday,” you said before closing the door in his face. 

…………

CHAN POV 

“Hey, Grace…..could you maybe help me with something?” I had 3 days to get everything Y/N needed in order to feel comfortable at my house. 

“Sure, Channie, anything for you” Grace was a fantastic friend.

“I need Y/N to feel welcome, so could you help me maybe do some shopping for whatever she needs?" I wasn’t sure what I needed for her as I'd never provided anything for my girls before. However, I wanted to change things up this time. 

“Oh, okay....when do you need me?” She was eager to help. 

“Today if we could” I didn’t want her to think I was too excited. Honestly, I’m probably the most excited I’ve been. 

“Sure, give me an hour. I’ll meet you at the shop," she said before hanging up the phone. 

…….

I had a shower and got ready to head out to the shops. My palms are sweating. Am I doing the right thing? Am I moving too fast? Am I coming on too strong right now? 

These are the questions replayed in my mind all the way to the shopping centre. I sit outside the food court waiting for Grace to show up. 

“Channie”, I hear, looking up to see Grace walking towards me with a massive smile on her face. 

“Hey, Grace," I smile, but hiding my nerves is difficult. 

“What’s wrong, Channie?” She said, brushing my shoulder 

“do you think I've made the right choice….this isn’t coming on too strong, is it?” I was worried Y/N might not like my jester and leave me. 

“She will love it….hell, buy me some clothes. I’ll be your sub,” she winked at me. Grace was a rather charming person. 

“Ha, funny,” I said sarcastically.

She shook her head at me “okay, so let’s start with clothes”, she smiled as she grabbed my wrist.

Walking into the lingerie shop with Grace was probably the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve done. “Channie, these are so cute," she says as she points to the lace products. Imagining Y/N in these made my cock twitch in my pants “yeah, they are….do they have black and red” I smiled at Grace, who was jumping up and down. 

“Do you know what size you are looking for?” the shop assistant asked. I looked over at Grace, who knew precisely what size Y/N was. 

Grace grabbed a couple more things from the shop that Y/N might like, and as the shop assistant rang the clothes up, she said. “So, are you two love birds up to anything today?” 

Grace laughed. "Oh, we aren’t dating. These are for his girlfriend." She looked so shocked. 

“Oh, I’m sorry…usually couples come in to buy this stuff,” she said, packing it all in a bag. 

“It’s all good…how much did that come to?" I said, pulling my card out.

“$398,” she said as I tapped my card. 

“Thanks,” I said, grabbing the bag from her hand. Grace linked her arm with mine as we left. 

“So, clothes next”, she said, dragging me into a clothes shop. Grace liked to spend money, especially on other people.

“Here, Channie…she’ll need all of these”, handing me so many different kinds of shirts, shorts, sweatpants, hoodies. You name it, she pulled it off the rack. 

“Okay, I think we are done in here”, she smiled, leading me over to the counter.

“I don’t want to know….just tap my card,” I said, giving it to the girl before she could tell me the price. 

“Would you like a receipt?” she asked as I took my hand away from my face. 

Could you possibly put it in the bag?" I asked, closing my eyes because of the length of it. 

The girl rolled it up and placed it in one of the bags. "Thank you for your help," Grace said, smiling as she handed me the bags. 

“Please tell me this is it,” I said, begging at this point for my poor wallet. 

“Now, the essentials” what could she possibly mean by essentials? 

"Essential?" I ran after her. God, she is quick on her feet. 

“Shampoo, face wash, you know, stuff like that,” she said as she walked into a supermarket. 

I was at this point struggling to carry all the bags, so I grabbed a troll and followed her through the store. 

Ring ring 

“Oh, look who it is…must be her lunch break” Grace waved the phone in my face showing me Y/N's name. What could she be calling her about? Why isn’t she calling me on her break? 

“Hey babe,” she said, answering.

“She’s not yours”, I growled softly so only Grace should hear. Grace shoots me a look of confusion.

“So, did you sign the contract?” My ears perked up at the question. “Oh wow…..so it went well then?” What could she say if only Grace would turn the volume up so I could hear.

“Put it on the speaker", I whisper to her, and she turns away. First, who does she think she is? That’s my sub she’s speaking to. Second, THAT'S MY SUB. 

I tried to get closer, so I could hear, “YOU ARE KIDDING….HE DID WHAT TO YOU?…. I didn’t think Channie had it in him.”

“Oh fuck, they are definitely talking about what happened." Grace places her hand on my face and pushes me away for more space. 

My sweetheart, I'll call you back when I'm done....I'm just shopping. We can talk more, Channie, later." she replied. 

“Okay, you have to tell me what she said?" 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?" she scoffed. She’s not planning to tell me anything. 

“I would, actually," I scoffed back. I’ll call Y/N later. 

“Okay, we are done here”, all the different body washes and hair ties. 

“She’s lucky to have you, Channie,” Grace said softly as she waited for me outside the shop. 

“Well, that’s it, you have everything”, she smiled, hugging me tightly. 

“Honestly…thanks for your help today”, I smiled. I can’t, however, let go of what Y/Ns send about me.” Seriously, what did she say?” Grace just laughed as she walked off. 

……..

Y/N POV

Sitting alone in your house on this cold Wednesday night at roughly 7pm, you began to think about Chris and what he might be doing. 

“Fuck it, I’m trying to call him,” you said as you picked up your phone.

He answered within two rings. “Hello,” he said, breathing heavily. 

“Oh, sorry, did I interrupt something?” You felt stupid for calling.

“No…I’m just practising…what’s up….are you okay?” 

“Yeah…I uh….just wanted to uh.... see if you were still ok for Friday?” You panicked, god why did you say it like that? 

“Hahaha….I haven’t forgotten about it….I’ll be there at 5pm" you could hear the smile forming as he spoke. 

“Oh okay…..good…that was all really,” you said before hanging up on him. 

He called back immediately and said, "Hello." 

“Rule number one…..never hang up on me again”, he growled down the phone. Your body got goosebumps.

“Sorry, master”, you said, your voice shaking. 

“Good girl," he whispered down the phone line. The music faded into the background as he stepped outside. 

"Are you sure you're okay?......does my baby girl need anything?" You needed something from him, but how would you get him here? 

“I do actually….did you, uh, maybe, want to come over?” Without being too forward, Chris should hopefully get the hint. 

He was fumbling around for his stuff as he replied, "Oh ah...me coming to yours?". 

“Sir,” you said down the line.

"Mmm" he replied 

“After practice is fine”, you giggle.

“Right….haha…I’ll come over after practice”, he pulsed momentarily. “I’ll be there for at least another hour.” 

“That’s okay…I’ll see you soon.” 

……..

Knock knock 

"Come," you say, getting off your couch and walking towards the door. 

You opened the door, and there he was with his fluffy, freshly washed hair. "Hey", you smiled softly at him. 

“Sorry I had to shower,” he said as you opened the door to let him in. 

He stepped in and removed his shoes. "Should we watch a movie?" You know full well why you invited him over.

“Oh yeah…that sounds good” was he playing it cool or did he have no idea what you were up to? 

You take his hand and walk him over to the couch. He sat down as you walked to get some drinks. “Have you eaten?” 

“No, actually, I forgot," you think as you stare at how cute and fluffy he seems, and your heart starts beating a little bit faster. 

“Ramen?” You said, picking up a packet of dry noodles.

“Oh yes, please”, he smiled as you filled the pot with boiling water. 

You make the ramen handing Chris the bowl with chopsticks.” hope it tastes okay” you smile as he takes his first bite.

“Oh my god….this is amazing,” he says, chewing. 

“It’s just instant ramen," you laughed. 

"It doesn't matter. This is so perfect”, he continues. 

He sat and ate the ramen while you scrolled through Netflix, looking for something to watch. “Thank you,” he said, placing his bowl on the table. You turn your head towards him. 

He leans in and pecks your lips. You chase him as he pulls away. “Oh, I see….is this why my baby girl invited me over?” He finally caught on. 

You nod your head “yes, sir…..I need you,” as you run your hands up his thighs. “Please, Sir…..I’m desperate” Chris completely ignored you. It wasn’t until your lips hovered over his mouth that he grabbed your hands. 

“Ah, ah, ah…baby girl….this is not how it works….you don’t just get what you want because you start whining and pleading… if you want me to fuck you…. You're going to have to use that mouth first” you slide off the couch and onto the floor.

“What do you want me to do? Please sir,” you say softly, sitting on your legs before him. You look down at the ground and wait for his command.

Chris slowly pats your head “there’s my sweet girl” he uses his finger to lift your chin as he leans down. Suddenly, his lips hover over yours, and his breath hits your mouth as he says, "Undo my belt.". 

He sits back and slumps his body backwards, readjusting his hips so his clothed member is now inches away from you. “Go on….not so confident now, aren't we?" he says, looking down at his belt, then flicking his eyes back to you. 

You slowly unbuckle his belt pulling it out and dropping it on the floor “good….now undo my jeans” you loved how in control he was, knowing exactly what he wanted. Once again, slowly undo his jeans, pulling the jeans and his underwear down. He lifts his lower body so they both come off, revealing his huge cock. You gulp at the size, grab his shaft and hold it as you gradually lean in and start to lick his balls. 

"Mmmmm, baby girl”, he would moan, getting comfortable on your couch. 

You start to pop and suck his balls, making his cock erect. "Fuck, you are making me so hard,” he says, combing your hair.

Using your tongue you lick up from his striatum to the head wrapping your lips around his cock. 

Sucking the head of his penis while slowly playing with his balls. You begin to take more of him in your mouth, making eye contact as you bob. 

"Shit," he growled deeply. You could feel the vibration of the growl. His hands rack through your hair as he holds it in front of your face. 

His grunts continue as you begin to lick up his shaft. “Do you like that master?” You say, his head tilting back as he hums “you are doing so well” you smile as you continue, this time popping his balls in your mouth. His body twitches as he begins to get goosebumps on his legs. 

“Does sir want to come for me?” You whine as you start to pump his cock with your hand. 

“Not yet…keep going” he can barely get the words out. 

You take him deeper so the tip of his cock reaches the back of your throat. As he bucks his hips, you begin to gag slightly, and your eyes water. As he realizes his load down your throat, he says, "That's it ba...". 

“God….you are such a good girl”, he moans as he gets his breath back. His words give you goosebumps all over your body. 

“Come here,” he says, helping you up from the floor and pulling you onto his lap. 

You straddle him, your clothes vagina sitting on top of his throbbing shaft. He tucks your hair behind your ears. “Good girl”, he kept humming as he placed kisses down your jawline to your neck. 

“Don’t you think I deserve a reward, Channie?” you say, running your fingers through his hair. 

“Mmmmmmm”, he hums into your neck, gently kissing your neck and pulling your shirt down your shoulder, exposing your skin. 

“Take this off”, he growls as you rush to

Lift off your shirt.

Chris kisses down your collarbones and pulls your bra cup to the side, revealing your nipples. 

He uses his tongue to flick your nipple, your head flinging back as you moan. Chan shoves his mouth around your breast and sucks it, using his tongue to swirl and flick your nipples. 

You start to grind your hips, making his cock harden again. He unclips your bra and rolls it down your arms laying you down on the couch. 

CHAN POV 

Why do I always find myself giving in to her? She makes me so weak. Her lying in front of me half naked. I couldn’t help myself. "Take your pants off”, I growled as I latch back onto her breast. I could feel her beneath me squirming to pull them down. I sat up to help her remove her clothes. "Where's your bedroom?” This couch was too small for my liking.

“Down the hall and to the right”, she was out of breath. 

“Excellent,” I said while I pulled my pants back up and buttoned them. I picked her up off the couch, and she wrapped her legs around my hips. 

I carry her into the room and lay her on her bed, her legs still wrapped around me. "Let go”, I say, pushing her hips down. She unwrapped her legs as I knelt on the ground. By holding her hips to my face, I pulled her body closer to mine. 

Placing pressure on her lower stomach, I kissed her inner thighs. It has been a while since I’ve gone down on any girl, and needless to say, I was hungry for it. 

She was trying to move her hips while I slowly traced my lips closer to her core. "Don't move….or there’s no reward”, I would say, trying to assert some sort of control.

She immediately stops what she’s doing. "Good girl,” I say before I part her dripping lips with my tongue. 

Holding her stomach, I can feel her breath as she tries to hold back her moans. I lick upwards, swirling my tongue around her entrance before sucking her clit. 

“Mmmmm, sir, please”, she moaned as she ran her fingers through my hair. In most cases, I would not allow her to do this, but this once, I’ll let her massage my scalp. 

“Right there," she moans. I begin to pop and suck on her clit. At this point, she really couldn’t control her body movements. I wrap my arms underneath her and lock them in place so her lower body doesn't squirm as much. Her hand moves from my hair to grip the bed, and she lets go, her arousal dripping from her centre as I ride her through her high. 

“You taste so good,” I say, kissing her stomach, but I’m not done yet. It would be rude of me to just let her finish once. After all, she took care of me first. 

Y/N POV 

His fingers trace your inner thigh. He grabs your thigh and squeezes as he spreads your legs further apart. You gasp as he trances his fingers over your dripping pussy. “You started it”, he whispered into your ear. That should teach you to underestimate a pleasure dom. 

He kisses your ear before whispering, “does my baby need more?” You nod your head as he slowly slides his fingers into your core. 

"Oh," you moan as your body arches, allowing his fingers to slide deeper inside you. 

Using his thumb to circle your already-stimulated clit, he begins to finger you. Multiple orgasms are something you struggled having with your other doms. However, Chris seemed to achieve it quite quickly.

“Shit”, you breathe out as your body starts to shake. Chris would kiss you as he pressed harder on your clit while curling his fingers inside you hitting your G-spot perfectly. 

Moaning into his mouth, his breath brushing against your lips, "cum" he said, making you reliase around his fingers. It amazed you how easily he could make you orgasm without trying. 

“Good girl”, he smiled before kissing you again, pulling his fingers out. 

Fully satisfied with yourself, you begin to giggle. "What?" Chan says, placing his hand on your hips.

“That wasn’t a part of my plan tonight”, you grin before pecking his lips. 

He began to laugh “well, that will teach you” he rolled you on top of his body, and you are now sitting directly on his clothed groin. 

You lean down to kiss him while you begin to roll your hips. Chris broke the kiss “we will get you cleaned up... were is your bathroom” 

A/N: thank you all for reading as always liking, rebloging and commenting is appreciated. 

Master Taglist : @bellamuerte1987 @nightrayseishina @shellyyy177​  @9900z @armystay89 @dreamstarsandskz @fosfopirite @neyangi @princesspanda16 @krishastumblernow @agnes-king @bangtanmix73 @djeniryuu @calicanbeevil @khemrose @fawnpeaks @missrobyn81 @dreambelieveinme @umbreonwolfy​ @jisungiexx

[wisteria-lodge]

badger primary + rapid fire/actor bird secondary

Hi! I’ve passively loved this system for a couple of years now but it’s only now that I’ve discovered that you actually do real people sorts! Anyway, I am pretty sure of being a Snake primary, but I’ll have you be the judge of that.

My Dad is a double Snake, however, my Mum I think is a Badger/Lion and this obviously creates a lot of conflict between them. I really care about both of them and though me & dad understand each other better on a fundamental level, he can also be quite a harsh and manipulative person (he has the typical Snake secondary thing where he tells you whatever you want to hear until you get close to him or he’s exhausted enough  to let the masks drop, and at that point he becomes quite harsh, which my Badger/Lion mum does NOT like, and she especially doesn’t like how “fake” he is), and my Mum always reacted very negatively to my behaving like him. 

A Double Snake and and Badger Lion could easily have periods of looking very similar, and very in sync, and then just… circumstances change and they couldn’t be more different. That’s a tricky one to navigate. So you’ve got a bit of cultural negativity surrounding Snake secondary, noted. 

So I kind of spent most of my life feeling torn because the two people I cared about the most had very opposing expectations of my personality

Definitely getting inklings of a Loyalist primary (Badger or Snake.) 

my Mum’s love in particular felt very conditional even though she was always very supportive of all my intellectual endeavors.

I spent the first 18-ish years of my life with “saying whatever I need to get what I want” as my primary strategy in life 

Definitely sounds quite Snake secondary (sounds a lot like your Dad’s Snake.) 

 and constructing a “cool, popular girl” personality that would give me enough social capital to get whatever I want.

Oooh, have we got some Bird secondary going on? Because this sounds like it could be Actor Bird. The very conscious way you went about building “Cool, Popular Girl” (even using words like “constructing”) and fact that this persona has a name, probably had a costume, and is purpose-built for a specific environment, not a specific person... sounds very Bird.

What I wanted, though, wasn’t anything particularly ambitious: I’m very conflict averse so I made shit up to avoid conflict. 

I associate this with Snake and Bird, the two “I move” secondaries. They’re water, flowing around obstacles. Lions and oddly Badgers are far more likely to pick fights. 

I wanted to be have strong “ride or die” friendships with people I could protect and who could protect me in turn (I first wrote “group of friends” but I now realize that I kind of struggle with groups of people - I just never have the feeling of being part of a group, just having ties with individual people, so I guess I want to be part of a group in the sense of having ties of affection and loyalty with several people who also have them with each other).

This is such heavily Snake primary-coded language, that I’m kinda wondering if that’s on purpose, and you’re looking for a specific answer from me… :) 

However, because what I got from my mum and, quite honestly, the media I liked was basically “my personality=villain.” I tended to seek out other people perceived as “villains” as some way because I felt that they would accept me more easily. 

I wish it weren’t the case, but you’re right, that’s a common thing. Especially if you’re a Double Snake or a Snake Bird, which I think are your two most likely sortings right now. 

I also really hated people who treated their friends badly or arrogantly and tended to bully them 

I mean that’s the human thing, but it’s definitely something that would bother a Loyalist (Snake or Badger primary) a LOT. 

there was this one swotty girl who was constantly looking down at her friends and treating them badly, and I just decided to make her life living hell because I was so morally affronted by it. 

I’d love to know exactly what your strategies were, because that would tell me a lot about your secondary. But there does seem to be a suggestion that there was a Mean-Girls-stye *plan* here, which kind of makes me think Bird. 

Another friend also abandoned us and found another friend group where everyone was basically in love with him and he was using them for attention seeking purposes and I also reacted to this quite harshly.

“Abandon” is a very dramatic word to describe a friend [entering a slight fuckboy phase?] and switching friend groups. 

The thing is, I also tended to abandon some people, which doesn’t clash well a Snake primary, I guess? One of my HS friend groups were really quite asshole-ish, and I ended up ditching them, but that was because I felt like they were treating other close people (of theirs, not mine) badly? 

Okay. So here’s what I think is going on. You’re a Badger. Hear me out. 

Yes, I think that your Badger looked like a Snake for a good long while. But you’re close to your Dad, and your Dad’s a Snake, and young Badgers will do that, look like authority figures or beloved people in their community. It really hurts you that your parents are not a united unit, not a community. A Snake would have an easier time just having separate relationships with each of them, even if they didn’t get along. Same thing with your friend that switched friend groups. That’s a very Badger way of looking at the situation. The Snake thing would be, well - he’s your friend, and it doesn’t really matter what group he’s him. But a Badger would want him to stay in the better group, the group that was better for him. 

You hate it when people mistreat their group. You hate bullies (Captain America style.) That’s all Badger. You also talk about multiple, conflicting groups of friends, and that whole “Cool Popular Girl” - I mean, it’s not exclusive to Badger primaries, bit it is definitely a very common way for High School Badger primaries to present. 

I had also decided to start taking school and stuff more seriously and I just kind of felt like their affection would be conditional on my bad bitch persona, got scared and ran? It was a long time ago, I don’t really remember.

This is Bird secondary thing. Getting “suck” in a persona, and worrying that people only like you / you only have value because of it. 

The turnpoint came when I met my first serious boyfriend, who is definitely a Snake secondary but I’m honestly not sure if he’s a Snake or a Bird primary.

The so far elaborately constructed web of lies and reputation building that was my life led to the downfall of our relationship, because it combined with some external circumstances made trust difficult

You have a complicated relationship with Snake secondaries, but you yourself are a Bird. “Construction,” “reputation building,” the web metaphor… it sounds like a Bird. That’s just not how Snake secondaries think. 

what I somehow got out of it was a deep fear of betrayal and abandonment 

and possibly Burned your primary a little bit (probably another reason you’re picking Snake for yourself, Burnt Badgers look like Snakes. 

and the impression that if I wanted people to love me and stay by my side, I should be very open about who I am (so that I’m sure that it’s me that they’re loyal to and not their personal image of me), and just try to be the kind of kind, morally upstanding person that people couldn’t fault for anything.

These are two mutually exclusive goals. If you’re totally honest and open about who you are (the Lion secondary thing) - then you will absolutely ruffle some feathers and rub people the wrong way. It’s a totally different approach than being the “kind [person] that people couldn’t fault for anything.” (Which is more of a badger thing.)

Forcing myself to act like this led to a plethora of mental health issues because being very open about who I am is just… not who I am? 

You also just set yourself for failure. There is literally no way you could have achieved what you set out to achieve. And how is “forcing” yourself to act a certain way more open and genuine? It sounds like you built a Badger secondary model out of fear, and just sat in it for a while.

And it was very anxiety-inducing for me. Even now, when my mental health is much better and I’ve settled into who I am, I like showing off my playfulness and wit and keeping the rest of my personality behind a neutrally charming mask.

And that’s… good? Normal? That’s also very Bird. Just have a charming, Badger-flavored ‘customer service’ face that you wear as you go through the world. Go into Neutral when you feel comfortable. (Birds go into Neutral very much like Snakes do, but the change usually isn’t as dramatic.) 

Also, my success until that point was based on a lot of improvisation and quick thinking, and while I kept that to a point, it also always led to a bunch of moral panic because in my head, being this kind of person is what gets you abandoned.

Rapid-Fire Bird. There’s a little bit of your Bird coming through here, in that you want a foundation, you don’t want to just do the Snake thing. 

Anyway, I was a psychology major (I always liked understanding how people tick and how to get them to see or do what  you want them to without having to explicitly argue with them or convince them)

Very Bird. 

but I felt alienated with the “bleeding heart helping profession!!” people around me.

I am not at all surprised that the profession skews Badger secondary, and that it did not feel at all good being around all those Badger secondaries... when you’ve got such a messy relationship with your Badger model. 

I eventually settled for doing research on children growing up in harsh circumstances who develop externalizing symptoms, but it was just because throughout my life I met a lot of people like that and a lot of my close people are “misunderstood” because they sometimes behave harshly due to their harsh upbringings, so I wanted to vindicate them in a way, as well as vindicate myself because I cared about explaining why people sometimes act less than morally and yet can still be loyal and worthy of love and not automatically “bad people”.

I love this for you. It seems like this would just fit into your primary so nicely. You’ve got a category of people, who are your people and you’re going to vindicate them, and protect them - especially from other people seeking to dehumanize them. It’s so Badger, but in that lovely universal way. 

In the meanwhile, I kind of developed a Badger primary model, I guess, in that I do dedicate a lot of my time to helping people

… or you were a Badger all along…

 and being kind and open and inviting

yeah, that has absolutely nothing to do with being a Badger primary. I’m serious. That’s just your neutrally-charming mask. 

but whenever this is put to the test my Snake loyalties always always come first. 

I honestly haven’t seen this so far. The only individuals you’ve talked about are your parents (who bothered you by not being a group, your fuckboy friend (who left the group) and your first boyfriend, who you broke up with. 

And I also still always get morally outraged when people are disloyal to their close ones or treat them badly, 

This your primary talking. (your why, what gets you out of bed in the morning)

whereas the general kindness and the work I put in towards making sure the world is a kinder, fairer place is just something that I do, no emotional attachment to it, and I don’t expect other people to do it at all.

This is your badger secondary model talking. (how you go about doing things, how you present to the world.) Both Badger, yes. EXTREMELY different. 

I honestly don’t think a lot about morality, aside from the generic “be kind and try not to fuck people over unless you really have to”

I mean, you did just say. “I also still always get morally outraged when people are disloyal to their close ones or treat them badly.” I think you just must not consider that sort of thing… really morality, in some way. But Badgers get their morality from their group. Their highest moral good is to make sure the group is doing okay. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. 

rationally constructing a system of morality or trying to arrive at some kind of internal hunch both feel kind of empty to me? 

Because you’re not a Bird or Lion primary? Of course it does. 

Now, as for the secondary, my knee jerk reaction is to say Bird because I’m in research, and ever since childhood I’ve always been a very logical person. I’ve eventually learned to be quite systemic in my problem solving process because I need it for research, but what I like about this career is the problem solving aspect of it, like you have a goal (for example, an effective psychosocial information or the acquisition of a certain kind of information) and you have to figure out how to get to that information. Basically the most efficient way of getting from A to B.

 I make sure to be systemic and thorough and analytical because it’s the most surefire way to get things right in my line of work, but I also take pleasure in kind of categorizing and putting information in order, and connecting it along different lines. I also really care about proper methodology and not half-assing things to get the results that you want, because I think that the results that you want are the results that are accurate and useful in the real world, not the ones that make you look better.

Wait, am I a double Snake?

Okay, now you’ve got ME worried - I must have really screwed up explaining something, because how can you write something THAT bird secondary, love systems as much as you do… and arrive at the conclusion that you’re a Snake? 

What I know for sure is that I absolutely do not identify with “knowledge for knowledge’s sake”, but I do have a really broad criteria for what “useful knowledge” is because I’m capable of thinking quite abstractly, so I can see the utility of almost anything.

That is very, very, very Bird. I’m starting to see the problem though. “Knowledge for knowledge’s sake” is an older phrase that owes more to the parent system than I would like, but it does essentially mean “no knowledge is wasted, the most useful way to solve problems is to preemptively hoard knowledge.” 

What I am really also passionate about is presenting things in the right way. I love writing, and I love public speaking, because I get to put myself in the other person’s shoes, imagine how they will “receive” what I’m saying and then tailor my presentation or short story or whatever to lead them to the conclusion that I want them to reach. But I dislike manipulating people with this: the conclusions that I want them to reach are the ones that I personally consider accurate, not the ones that benefit me.

First thing, you sound like an absolutely incredible person, and by pretty much any metric you want to use, a *good* person. (And no, that’s not because the way you’ve written this is manipulating me. This is my little game, I’m good at it.) 

What I can tell you that tailoring a presentation to an audience - that’s just a Rapid-Fire Bird who knows their stuff doing trick-shots, and I bet it’s beautiful to see. You are delivering information in a way that the audience can properly take in, because you know both your audience and your information well enough to do that, and that is incredible. 

My knee-jerk reaction is always to improvise, but I feel like this makes me come off as a “fake” person if I change my mind on what I said later (I change my mind A LOT), so I try not to say what sounds good in the moment because it will bite me in the ass later and lead to a reputation of a flaky, fake person, I guess?

Not 100% sure what you mean here. Changing your mind… is just a personality trait, it doesn’t really have to do with why you do things or how you do them. I think you would call tailoring your presentations improvisation, and I really wouldn’t. It’s not improvisation, it’s just looks like improvisation because you’ve come up with a hundred different ways to say this thing, and then on the day you can pick the one that works the best. If you had to do the same thing, but not in your preferred subject matter/environment, it would be basically impossible.

But I also really pride myself on my logical and thorough assessments of situations, and I tend to like thinking things through when I get the chance for it, often postponing decisions until I’ve thought about all the eventual longterm consequences of all the courses of action I might take. 

Bird. 

What trips me up is my trauma-induced fixation with being “honest” and avoiding “lies”, which are more about their eventual inefficacy and worthlessness and less about their moral rightness or wrongness (and also because manipulative=bad, as my Mum spent all of my life saying). My line of thinking is, “Things built on lies or self-delusion always crash down and burn, and it is right that they do so that more stable and honest things can take place”

What are you building on lies? If anyone’s work has a solid foundation, it’s yours. And as we’ve previously discussed, even IF you were doing your mom’s brash Lion secondary thing, wouldn’t that be in a lie in itself, because it’s not your natural presentation, it’s something you need to force yourself to do? 

but I also kind of use it to do shady shit - like I don’t feel morally wrong in hitting up a man in a relationship, because if he really cares about his woman the only person who’ll get burned is me and if he doesn’t I saved her the trouble of wasting more of her time on him?

This is actually a really interesting aside, because it’s you telling me how you handle a moral issue (that makes it a Primary thing.) 

Is it wrong to hit on a married man? Your answer is No: either you get turned down because he’s staying faithful, and that’s your own personal risk, or he cheats, in which case he’s kind of … dehumanizing himself? And therefore you are doing his partner a favor because she can now get rid of this unhealthy member of her community. There’s a logic there, and it’s a kind of ruthless Badger primary logic. 

So not sure if Snake or Badger secondary?

Bird. 

P.S. After some self-reflection, I realized that I’m probably not a Bird secondary

I’m listening. 

because I really hate following plans and situations where I have to rely on concrete skills and not abstract problem solving terrify me. OTOH I am very proud of my general ability to assess a situation and act appropriately.

Not sure how you’re distinguishing between “concrete skills” and “abstract problem solving.” From what you’ve been telling me, it sounds like you need the concrete skills before you can do the abstract problem solving, as in they work together. 

I’m also known as the person who changes PowerPoint slides in the middle of a conference based on whoever’s speaking before her and adapting her speech accordingly, which freaks the shit out of my coworkers, so I guess any “planning” type is probably out for old me 

That’s the most Rapid Fire Bird thing I ever heard. You made a plan. The PowerPoint and the speech exist. You’re just adapting them on the fly, based on previously-existing knowledge. I’m starting to think that you’re one of those Bird secondaries who is SUCH a loud Bird secondary, that it can be hard to get your head the idea that your skills are skills, and not sort of neutral abilities that everyone has. 

my latent distaste towards being a Snake secondary is my burny oppressive bullshit against anything that’s not “stalwart honesty and consistency” that I’ve been imposing on myself for years.

which I really wish you didn’t feel like you had to. 

Because I do love winging it and just saying whatever’s the most situationally appropriate thing regardless of how much it reflects me and I’ve just been treating any kind of play acting like a recovering alcoholic treats drink so I no longer even remember how it feels anymore lol.

I hope you find a way to play with your Actor Bird, at some point. One more little thing before I sign off though - thinking of actions as “situationally appropriate” is a very Actor Bird secondary thing to do. Snakes don’t go that big. Snakes think - what response do I want from this person, in this moment, and how do I get it? They also constantly reset. Snake secondaries have this “seducer” reputation because they generally are better one-on-one, or in small groups. Even Snake secondary actors will talk about the way they perceive the whole audience as one “person” … it’s all very interesting, but a very different way of approaching the world than the way you do.

[arrimorr]

Hello! Lately I've gotten a huge inspo boost from your personal projects (especially... birbs....) and fanart

and I started to wonder — what media was the most inspiring for you? How did different fandoms influence you and your art direction?

I simply adore the range of different media that you post and talk about (like starting with scifi and ending with forest whimsy) but I feel like there are still some general trends in your artwork! How would you describe your taste(?) in art direction? Or perhaps it's something not possible to grasp and put into words?

Love your artwork!! Best wishes!!! <3

First of all, THANK YOU for this question, it's really really touching that someone is interested in stuff like this. Also SORRY for not answering for so long, because you are right and this IS a difficult question, partly because I view my art direction and media taste as two separate things. If you want to hear more about...birds...and my thought process behind their development, I made a podcast about them after the second episode released. I'm making a guess that you must follow me somewhere else given that you know about my game, so, if you speak the language I won't name you can listen to my rambling in my vk group.

If we are talking about fandoms I think I was REEEALLY affected by Over the Garden wall and Gravity falls as a kid. As well as a bunch of horror stories, I think "pen pal" was the first horror story that made me fall in love with the genre as well as the concept of kids facing situations that even adults may find difficult to handle. I generally love child adventures that have a darker theme to them. This is present in my...birds...game only in emotional manner, BUT, both of my next games are going to be more direct horror stories, so I hope to play with this a bit more in the future. (Also my friend said that "the left right game" explains a lot about things that I like and write and this IS my favourite horror story of all time so...like, cmon, my next game is literally going to be a creepy roadtrip adventure and this isn't even the first horror roadtrip im going to write)

Tonally I'm really inspired by things made by Davey Wreden (the Stanley parable, The Beginners Guide), One (mp100, opm) and Toby Fox. I just love how these guys manage to create silly light-hearted experiences that are pack full with often times difficult emotions. This is something I REEEALLY want to achieve in my stories. Also the Beginners guide became a really big deal for me as a kid because of the way this game literally spoke with the player. Up until the last couple of years I viewed art solely as a way to reduce loneliness and feel a connection with other people, even through the screen, so my main goal with birdcatchers was to recreate this feeling of personal conversation, even if less direct.

If we're talking about visual style, I'm really inspired by Brecht Evens and Plastiboo, and I got into mixed media because of Чистотел in vk. I won't say that Im anywhere close to these people but they are very inspiring for me. Anyways - my current "philosophy" in art is that I want my pictures to have more air in them and also spend as little time on them as possible. This is easy for me in traditional art (for example these chalk thingies), but still not so much in digital, however you can see that I'm kinda doing the same unfinished line art and blurry colouring thing with it too.

[icaruskeyartist]

Once again, this is @pillowspace's AU that I'm kinda going AWOL with. I just want to make something a little more cheerful after leaving Y/N struggling to get home last night.

Clone AU is being a bit prickly, but I think that's mostly cause I want to draw for it rn and I'm still in the throes of color separations whenever I have a spare moment on my tablet. But that'll be done soonish I think? By the end of the week for sure because I need to start making my mylar sheets soon.

Time Loop whump fic will likely be pecked away at throughout the day to deal with school stress. This is just a quick palette cleanser since to me HD Y/N is a bit in the middle personality-wise.

TL is a lot more extraverted and kind, and Clone is the one most likely to cause the DCA to experience the first animatronic heart attack if they ever spoke because every other word would be fuck. HD is one of those people who recognizes the struggle they're in, but they can also find the good moments and appreciate them all the more while giving the bird to everything making life actively harder for them and their little brother.

"You sure you're fine." Gretchen sounds doubtful, but you smile and keep working.

"Positive. Look, nothing really happened in the grand scheme of things, right? I'm not hurt."

"Your hand is bruised, and you had to cancel your cards," Gretchen says, and to prove a point, she grabs your hand.

You flinch, pulling back. "I made it home in one piece and nothing really valuable got stolen," you reply archly, shoving the last of the books towards your friend. "Go put these away. I need to check the computer room to make sure no one needs help."

"This conversation isn't over," Gretchen warns, even as she pushes the cart away. The library is fairly quiet at this point in the day, early in the afternoon, before school is let out and you all get inundated with kids and teens looking to kill a couple hours before their parents get home. It's the perfect time to make sure everything is clean and ready for kids to play.

The computer room is actually pretty quiet, though there is one brightly colored splotch of a person in the corner. You can hear them tapping slowly at the keyboard as you check each computer, wiping things down and logging out of a couple accounts. Eventually, you've made it to the corner with the stranger, struck by just how tall they are.

"Is everything all right?" you ask brightly.

"O-oh!" The stranger is clearly startled, so you take an extra step back, just for safety. "Yes, sorry. I think we, I, signed up for an hour? Has time. passed that fast?"

"No, sorry. There's a timer in the corner, here." You tap at the monitor helpfully. "I didn't mean to confuse you. I just wanted to know if you needed any help."

The stranger doesn't reply, instead fidgeting with what you're guessing is a scarf around their face. "Is your hand okay?" They ask, and you quickly withdraw it, tucking it close to your chest. "I don't mean to pry. It just looks painful."

"Ah, well." You grimace, remembering that Gretchen is going to be on you the moment she's done with her returns. It's easier to hide in the computer room, and besides, what's the likelihood this stranger will talk to her? You decide to sit, still achey from last night and exhausted from a lack of sleep. "I was mugged last night."

"You were what?" The horror in their voice is less grating than it was with your friend, and when you smile, it just feels tired, not forced. "You can't possibly be okay after that!"

"I kind of have to be. It's making some of my duties today a little harder though. I can't exactly balance heavy boxes with this hand, and my coworkers are sweet, but if I don't do my work, I think they're going to send me home." You curl and uncurl your hand slowly, biting the inside of your cheek to keep from grimacing. "And I need the money, so. Here we are, you know?"

"Here we are," they agree, a bit distractedly. They pecked at the computer a little longer, apparently thinking as they suddenly turn back to you. "I can help you move those boxes. I-if you'd like I mean."

"Oh?" You pause, thinking. "Oh, uh. Sure! If you're sure that is. I --- yeah, it'd be really helpful, but you don't have to. You signed up for the computer and oh fuck, I've just started spilling my guts out to you."

They flinch when you curse, muttering something in the middle of your rambling before holding up one gloved (gloves indoors?) hand. "It's all right. We, I, like to help. Just point us in the right direction."

"Okay," you saw, drawing the word out until it's more a sound than a word. "You can help this time. But I'm going to have to do something in return."

"That's not really---"

"Nuh uh," you interrupt, wagging a finger (from the unbruised hand), in front of their face. "Fair's fair, and if you're helping me, I'm helping you. Consider this a rain check."

"Fine," they say, turning to log out of the computer. When they stand, you feel very, very small. "Lead the way, Mx. Librarian."

"That's Librarian Clerk to you," you say, a little teasingly. You do take point, walking through the library to where you and Gretchen had packed away the Halloween decorations. "And what do I call you?"

"Sun," they say, and they take the first of three boxes without so much as a grunt of exertion. Tall and strong. If you were a lesser person, you would be jealous. Maybe you are anyway.

"Sun," you repeat, and it's an unusual name for this unusual not-quite-a-stranger. You lead them towards the back, fiddling with your keys to find the one for the storage closet. "It's very nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too."

[sieglinde-freud]

Can I get you started on the derailment of Duncan and Courtney?

what is this, a total drama vent blog now? but yeah you can :) under cut

i think the derailment of courtney is like five thousand times more annoying than duncan but that might j be bc i dont really like duncan (hes fine in island, kinda boring in action (didnt deserve his win idgaf that shouldve been harold there. yes im still mad lindsay went home instead of him in rock n rule), and the entirety of that mid section of world tour just revolving around him and the stupid love triangle drama is SO annoying. and then he makes final five FOR WHAT??? FOR WHAT???? im sick of his ass. what was i talking about. right) but either way theyre both two very major characters so its just really sad to see them both fall victim to horrible characterization? cuz you start in island right and in general island is a lot more grounded than the other seasons and leans more into the fact that theyre all 2000’s teenage stereotypes so in island theyre just the good ol cliche good girl/bad boy couple its iconic, its cute, WAY more entertaining than gwent (but they get a pass cuz gwen was basically the main character of that season. u go girl. go get that bag AND that boring wet dog man) and its just nice. courtney shows signs of being controlling but for the most part duncan’s attitude gets courtney to loosen up a bit and have fun and courtney made duncan a better person.

and then action happens and then courtney is like. rightfully mad she got screwed out of the season after harold gets her kicked off and no one gaf but its like. you can see where this could go and it doesnt look great. not much happens for duncan except he gets more insufferable bc they didnt give him any friends this season? unlike when he geoff and dj to bounce off of now he just picks fights with harold and the other gaffers which IS funny but. basically action is where the red flags start being put up. their relationship is. fine. like i liked it at the time but knowing where it heads is upsetting. anyways

then u get to world tour and theyre close to their island dynamic again (with the exception of gwen being there…) but then duncan quits first episode which i think was actually a great choice bc of how courtney finally gets to stand on her own as a character without him (i actually really like duncney. but her character was always tied to him in some way yk?) and make her own friends and it was looking great! until i see london and everything goes to shit. dude comes back, cheats on courtney, and then everyone on that god forsaken plane gets involved. first of all, ISLAND DUNCAN WOULD NEVER??? no fucking way. not even action duncan. dude was HOOKED on her crazy ass. AND FOR GWEN?!?! who has never been the same since island but thats a different thing. but they had literally zero romantic chemistry. all they have in common is that theyre both alt kids. NOT EVEN THE SAME KIND OF ALTERNATIVE! just alt. ugh. and then courtney gets sent into a spiral which, is a valid reaction to getting cheated on i do not blame her. and w/ someone you thought was ur friend like i GET IT. and i am on her side. but then her character goes back to ONLY EVER BEING ABOUT DUNCAN except this time its how much she hates him and her character just. pauses! she doesnt go anywhere else from i see london until shes eliminated inn… what was it. chinese fakeout? like shes just a hater who makes zero meaningful relationships aside from getting played by alejandro and shes just. like its just. its not good. and to know that any of this only happened bc the producers forced a duncney break up. girl sit DOWNNN

and then all stars just tramples them even more. since when has duncan ever gave a shit what people think of him? jojo siwa acting ass with this “im a bad boy!1!!!!” act island duncan would never. and then courtney. ohh courtney. she got flushed down a toilet force feeding herself ice cream with bird shit on it. all i gotta say (but also. nerfed bc she literally has an iron stomach in chinese fake out. whatever)

i still love them though. well, i love courtney. duncans alright but still neither of them deserved any of that

[booktomoviebrawl]

We are not judging how bad the movie is, we are judging which adapted the book the worst. There are good movies that are bad adaptions.

Propaganda below the cut (spoilers may apply)

Ella Enchanted:

Literally just They Would Not Fucking Say That the whole time. Also wtf is up with the holding hands and singing with the ogres??? BOOK ELLA HELPED GET THEM KILLED

The movie completely missed the point of the book. The characters were changed, the plot was changed, the message was changed!! The book is a coming of age story that expands upon Cinderella, explaining all bizarre set ups on the story. Ella's autonomy is taken away from her constantly and it is a horrible struggle for her! In the movie, it is mostly treated as a joke. And we don't see Ella come up with creative ways to defy her curse, like she does in the book. The romance in the movie is a strange "not like other girls" story we see over and over again in movies. In the book, it is a friendship formed by two people who have a lack of control in their lives and become close friends who then fall in love after years of knowing each other. There are more reasons it was a bad adaptation but those are my main points of contention as of right now.

The book was subtle, witty and generally amazing. Ella is a strong character, the exploration of her grief over losing her mother takes up a good 1/3 of the book, all the characters are complex and interesting, and she and Prince Charmont are a romantic couple who actually like each other. Its messaging is about autonomy and strength of will, and its world is rich and interesting and well-built with all its magical creatures. Meanwhile, the movie strips out all of the complexities, completely changes the plot from Cinderella to Hamlet, makes Ella and Char a standard Bickering Romcom Couple, and makes its message more about "we all need to get along!" by making all the fantasy races boring and one-note. As a movie, it's...meh, but as an adaptation, THEY MURDERED MY GIRL!

Fahrenheit 451:

The attempt to modernize the story to include the internet really didn’t work. Neither did replacing the book people painstakingly preserving knowledge with dumb technobabble about rewriting a bird’s DNA to include the text of every book ever written. Worst of all was what they did to Clarisse McClellan; turning her from a blithe spirit who inspires Montag to be a better person into a traitor selling out the book people. They also aged her up to make her a love interest for Montag because of course they did.

Okay so I don't remember the plots that well since I only watched the movie once in middle school BUT I do remember how VISCERALLY ANGRY the movie made me feel. For one, they didn't stick to the plot of the book AT ALL. The movie killed the protag, Guy Montag, at the end, when he got to live and rebuild society in the book. In addition, there was a character, Clarisse McClellan, who was a teenage girl (and possibly a daughter figure to Montag) in the books, but then was aged up to be Montag's LOVE INTEREST in the movie, which felt incredibly gross to me. There are probably other things that I'm missing, but these are the two that I remember.

The original book is a perfect example of what happens when you suppress the written word. It focused less on the relationship with humans and technology and more on the freedom of press access. In a world only a few books are allowed, that would also mean only a few ideas would be.

Now I’m talking about the modern movie by HBO. The wife is gone, who stood as an amazing parallel to Guy Montag’s thoughts of her just being okay with living in her dystopia while Guy questioned it. The girl is now a love interested, while in the book she was there to help Montag explore his worldview more. Also, books was more about censorship than human’s relationship with technology. Yes there are themes of it. But the movie makes Montag into a social media star.

Speaking of Clarisse (the girl), she’s a traitor to the resistance in the movie, she tells Montag where the books of the old lady are. It’s the resistance against a world where free speech is limited. And the old lady goes “heres the code word” *sets herself on fire* while in the book after the books are set ablaze she just burns with them.

the books are also in the DNA of a bird.

Like what the fuck is this movie Fahrenheit 451 is an A-B type of story! If it ain’t broke. Don’t fix it

[abliafina-18782]

Raspberry Beret

Pairing: Iceman X Maverick

Author's note: Written for the Top Gun Soulmate Month! My prompt was "matching symbols with your soulmate" and it was so much fun to write😊 I hope it all makes sense😂 Goose lives in this one because I say so, also my personal headcanon is that Iceman is Polish and I made that a central part of this story. If you don't like the headcanon you can skip this fic.

Warning: None other than some angst

Word count: ~6,6k

Symbols were stupid. Everyone had a symbol that was supposed to help them find their one and only, their true match. You would think that a symbol would be something meaningful, like a sun or a mountain top, except life was never that easy. Symbols were stupid and so were the soulmates attached to them. The very definition of a soulmate sounded like made-up crap, a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner, and you couldn't convince Maverick Mitchell otherwise.

The symbol was always an object and the parties in question would have no idea about it until it clicked. There was a science to it, a bogus science if you asked Maverick. Like what gender your soulmate might end up being if you met in spring versus fall. Whether or not you got a platonic or romantic soulmate depended on the symbol’s color. Connecting with your soulmate was different for everybody; gossip magazines abused the ever-loving light out of it. They would pitch the meeting of your soulmate as something magical, something out of a storybook romance. Covers would try and lure bystanders in with pretty sentences like:

“Your soulmate is an integral part of you, someone you'll meet when the time is right, someone you can be your most authentic self with.”

“Your soulmate is your other half, the one who completes you the way you complete them. Like fingerprints, no two soulmates are alike.”

“Your soulmate comes to you in clues of three, here’s how to recognize them.”

Sure, Maverick wouldn't mind meeting his soulmate, he just refused to deal with letting the stars align and everything clicks bullshit. Maverick despised that click with a passion, he couldn't get over how everyone painted it as something it wasn't. Growing up, he’d been fed stories about how your soulmate would complete you and allow you to blossom and be your true self. He didn't need any pompous soulmate to be himself, Maverick knew precisely who he was. A naval aviator and a damn good one at that.

Perhaps that’s what drew Maverick to Naval Aviation. On the ground, it gave him structure and a sense of purpose. Apart from feeling connected with a father he never knew, being up in the air gave him a sense of freedom. Being up in the air, away from any earthly attachments, made him feel as light as a bird. Up in the air, Maverick was in charge of his fate. Up in the air, he didn't have to face the judgemental looks of his peers.

As a child, Maverick was relentlessly bullied for being an orphan. Losing his mother to cancer after losing his father to war at age 3 and spending most of his childhood in different homes made him an outcast to other people. The freak that couldn’t understand love because he didn’t have someone. Maverick remembered his first crush. It was a boy in his first-grade class, a cute thing with blonde hair and freckles. The kid was the opposite of Maverick, he preferred to play indoors or read a good book, while Maverick wanted to climb trees or play sports. He’d played together with Maverick on occasion but eventually stopped and told him he had only played with Maverick out of pity.

No one stuck around long enough to give him a chance. A few weeks here, a couple of months there. None of the homes wanted him. He was too messy, too energetic, too weird, his hair unruly, and his teeth crooked. Something always made the foster homes turn their backs on Maverick. Perhaps he was meant to always be alone? Maverick learned quickly not to get attached, people only disappointed him in the end.

Continue reading

[thepaintedsable]

Two spreads this time! Plus a reference sheet for a character and some other artfight prep in the form of my thumbnail marker! I guess I could use a digital one, but I think it’s more fun if I use a silly little physical note to keep them consistent. :)

Close-ups, character design/ref, and general AF prep under the cut!

FOWLE R!!! This guy is like… a derivative of a character I’ve had in my head forever. He got created in my scribbles room draw the other guy (who is a lot more human. A LOT. I can’t draw him lmfaoo.), and even though it wasn’t good enough for the other character I really, really liked this design. I’ve posted about him here, and I might post his original sketch page after I complete Sketchbook 29. I’m still deciding if I should go back and post all the other spreads, or just continue with my new sketchbooks only.

His story is still a work in progress, but I’m leaning towards guy who got trapped in a spell because he worked in the castle of a king who pissed some very magic monster off (think the Beauty and the Beast curse? Kinda.), probably because the king was low key pulling a Gaston and decorating his castle with monster mounts or something (general asshat too. Treats his people like dogs.), and while everyone is dealing with this poorly, Fowler takes it as a chance to fly off and actually take the chance to have a better life for himself. He was being treated very poorly as a person, and he ends up adapting very well to the change. :) Also the curse can’t be broken unless everyone works together, and he is so ready to tell the king to kick rocks. Irony probably comes into the fact he was named for his family’s profession of hunting bird monsters. If he was born this way, I think he’d been named Blackberry or something.

Art fight thumbnail thing!!! I’m team Stardust!!! I made one of these last year, but it was just a little sticky note that said the year and my handle. I’m not into the whole “OLD ART” thumbnails (although I don’t mind when others do it!), so I’d rather just put one of these on top of the art for the thumbnail right off the bat.

Art fight thing again, Dubwool, sheared Dubwool, some reference prep for Fowler, bird?????, and journaling stuff.

Dubwool is my buddy in Pokémon Go, because I think it is very funny that he is absolutely huge. He is just one big sheep, y’s-sir. I only play because a couple of my friends use it to keep in touch, in a way. Dubwool replaced my shiny shadow scyther because I really, really want to evolve that mf into scizor to make his shiny more obvious (scyther shiny really is just olive green vs piss green) and I have enough candies but I need an object thing and it’s very tragic. Needed to replace it with something that brings more joy, even though I barely open that game on my own accord.

Plush drawing! That mushroom cap was sewn in :) Also “The Moss” slaps. More Fowler stuff. And I finally broke down an drew a spider-sona-thing; don’t ask, but I had a Spider-Man nightmare and it put the thought in my brain. He does not have a name, but he is based on a spiny orb weaver and is not beating the villain accusations. Worm, who was surprisingly not birthed from a nightmare, is just a little guy. Then more journaling, but emotional edition™. Stress + boredom yum yum wonderful combo that should not exist. These feelings shouldn’t even overlap, but they sure do yes-sir-e. I have not touched a video game and enjoyed it in months and I think a good horror game I haven’t spoiled myself to might fix whatever is going on with me rn. I am drawing too much.