#and a pile of garbage to fill space :)

[quimiri]

teamfortes :)

[luvevee]

Personal bitching but I'm unfollowing/blocking anyone in sight that posts about f/naf. Idc if you just got into it or it's a niche you've liked for a while, it's a literal dumpsterfire all the way to the core and I'm not tolerating it around me after 7 years of encouraged braindamage from the creator/fanspace surrounding it all ✨

[mako-island-moon-pool]

Why am I flipping tf out over my roommate going into my room when I wasn't home and leaving a package on my bed it's literally not a big deal and they were trying to be helpful but I am shaking right now I should be happy I got my new favorite shirt but I'm so angry

[ak-vintage]

Wash & Fold

Pairing: Ezra x f!reader

Prompt: Two strangers discover they’ve been swapping items unknowingly through a communal space, each leaving an X in return until curiosity forces a meeting.

Summary: After discovering some unfamiliar clothes in your laundry (and losing some of your own in return), you begin exchanging messages with another resident in your apartment complex.

Word Count: 15.5K

Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Modern AU, unspecified age gap (Ezra is intended to be older, but use your own imagination on how much older), no use of Y/N, minimal descriptions of reader character, second-person POV, reader is getting over a recent breakup, mildly pervy Ezra, pleasure dom Ezra, SMUT (dry humping, vaginal fingering, squirting, biting, unprotected P in V sex, overstimulation, creampie, Ezra’s filthy yapping and filthy fucking).

Written for @jolapeno’s Dear-uary Epistolary Writing Challenge. Dividers by @saradika-graphics.

Read on AO3 | Main Masterlist

You have never considered yourself to be an especially domestic person.

Sure, you are a decent cook, but the handful of recipes you rotate between each week require little in the way of culinary skills. The ingredients are simple and cheap, the prep work is minimal, and the actual cooking involves nothing more than a couple of burners on the stovetop or perhaps a slow cooker if you’re feeling especially ambitious. The final products are always serviceable, but nothing more complex or skillful than what a college student might be able to achieve in their first apartment.

You’re a reluctant cleaner, as well. Your dishes tend to pile in the sink for days before you work up the gumption to scrub them, and you’re embarrassed to admit to the amount of time you have gone without vacuuming your carpets or mopping your kitchen floor. When you make plans to have friends over – or god forbid a date – you often have been guilty of racing around your apartment at the last possible minute, frantically cleaning things that ought to have been cleaned ages ago. It seems the potential shame of someone else thinking you lived in a messy home is the only motivator strong enough to get you into gear.

But there is perhaps one domestic task in which you find genuine joy. Laundry.

You love the ritual of it – the simple satisfaction of sorting, the methodical, repetitive action of folding, the tidy little piles of underwear and socks and pajamas and jeans spread out over the surface of your bed as you worked. You love watching the way your dresser goes from barren to pleasingly full as the soft drone of your current audiobook or a favorite podcast drifts through your headphones. You even love the scent of your detergent – it’s a small luxury, but you notice it every time you open your closet, and it never fails to make you smile.

Every Sunday morning, the routine is the same, and with it comes a meditative calm that always helps you center and reset yourself for the coming week. You’ve found yourself leaning on the consistency, the predictability of it all even moreso in recent weeks, which is why when you encounter a peculiar piece of clothing mixed in with your clean laundry, still warm from the dryer downstairs, you almost toss the thing straight into the garbage.

It's a large men’s sock – charcoal gray, crew length, and heavily worn. It sports two holes, one in the toe and one in the heel, and the knit fabric has pilled so intensely that from far away, it almost looks speckled. A ragged piece of clothing if you’ve ever seen one and nothing like anything in your own wardrobe. Instantly, you presume it must be his.

The mere thought of him leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and you eye the offending sock with reproach. Eight months of your life wasted on a man who could never seem to remember your takeout order, who called your master’s degree cute, who always had some new excuse to not introduce you to the gaggle of fellow finance bros constantly blowing up his phone and filling his evenings with cocktail hours and “networking events.”

Looking back on it now, you can be more honest with yourself about all the things you had ignored in the moment – all the little red flags that might have been passable on their own but combined with everything else painted a picture of a man who saw you as a convenience rather than a privilege, a little something to be kept on the side, held at arm’s length until he grew bored of you and moved on. And he had moved on, in the tritest way possible – with an intern from his office named Kyleigh.

You are eager to do the same, to pack the lackluster memories of him away in a box and shove that box so far into the back of your mind that you forget it even exists. This sock, sticking out bizarrely in the basket of soft creams and delicate blushes that you favor, has derailed those efforts. You’ve been doing so well avoiding thoughts of him.

You toss it into the paper grocery bag you have tucked into the corner of your bedroom, the one containing the handful of little things you’ve found around your apartment in the three weeks since his departure that you know belong to him. A blue silk tie. A bulky black phone charger that is incompatible with your phone model. A half-used tube of plain, unflavored Chapstick. A dogeared copy of Atomic Habits. And now this sock.

You have no idea how it ended up in your hamper in the first place, but it hardly matters, you decide. You refuse to let the thought of it – or the man it belongs to – darken your peaceful morning any longer. You’ll get the bag of stuff back to him at some point. Until then, he’ll simply have to make do with a missing sock.

What begins as a singular sock, however, quickly becomes more as over the next several weeks, you continue to discover foreign items of clothing in your laundry.

First, another sock, this one navy blue and even more worn than the first, the fabric loose and shapeless with time. Then, a pair of maroon men’s athletic shorts with frayed, raw hems around the legs and worn-out elastic at the waist. A ribbed undershirt in age-patinaed white comes next, and then finally, a true treasure – the softest, most perfectly worn-in gray t-shirt. It is oversized (for you, anyway) and pure cotton, stretched and softened with countless washes and wears so that it pools like butter in your hands, and for the first time, it occurs to you that there is no way that these mysterious items of clothing are relics of your relationship that you had simply missed on your first pass through your apartment to gather his things. Your ex, for one, had had many flaws, but hanging on to shabby, hole-riddled clothing that was nearly falling apart was not one of them. And for another thing, you feel certain that you would have known if your ex had owned a t-shirt like this one while you were together. If he had, you would have stolen it for yourself a long time ago.

For lack of something better to do with them, the navy sock, basketball shorts, and undershirt all make their way into the paper bag anyway. The t-shirt, however, gets folded neatly and added to your pajama drawer. Some poor man in your apartment building may be missing it now, but in a building with over a hundred units and only one basement laundry facility, you cannot imagine the complexities of attempting to reunite it with its owner.

His loss will simply have to be your gain.

The week following the fortuitous discovery of the most perfect t-shirt known to man, you encounter another disruption to your sacred routine, though this time, rather than a mysterious item of clothing somehow joining your basket, it comes in the form of a hand-written note.

The laundry facility in your apartment complex is nothing to speak of, and for as much as you enjoy this particular chore, you prefer to spend as little time in the dingy, windowless room as you can manage. Two rows of stainless steel, coin-operated washers abut each other down the center of the linoleum-tiled square, while matching dryers stack two high and six wide against the far wall. The air there is stuffy, warm and humid and smelling strongly of bleach, and the constant hum and rumble of the machines is almost more than the noise cancelling in your headphones can handle.

Typically, you don’t choose to linger – you grab your favorite washers as quickly as you can manage, and you set a timer on your phone for the duration of the wash so you can return to your apartment to wait out the cycle. Today, however, as you are slotting your collection of quarters into your machines, something out of place catches your eye.

Stuck to the wall of dryers is a crumpled piece of lined paper, clearly ripped from a spiralbound notebook and scribbled on in haste. You cock your head at the sight, frowning. You’re certain it must have been left by a fellow resident, for any messages from the complex’s management would have at least been typed and printed out.

Internally, you roll  your eyes – how often had a passive aggressive note left in a common area actually resulted in changed behavior? You came across them on occasion, in the mail room or in the lounge or in one of the elevators, and whatever it was the poster was disgruntled about only ever seemed to worsen after that. Still, once you have your washers going, you can’t help but approach the dryers to get a better look at the curious thing.

Your suspicions are quickly confirmed – it is from another tenant, written in a tight, hurried scrawl in dry, patchy blue ink and taped to the steel face of one of the dryers with a raggedly-torn piece of masking tape. It reads:

You find yourself quirking a puzzled smile as you read, the corners of your lips curling up at the writer’s flowery word choice. It’s almost comically formal for something clearly written in a rush, and the juxtaposition of the courtly language with the humble, jagged-edged notebook paper sparks your intrigue. Of course, there’s also the matter of the handful of mysterious garments you have been collecting. You can’t help but wonder whether this…loquacious neighbor of yours is the owner of the scruffy clothing items slowly collecting dust in the corner of your bedroom.

That would be another odd comparison, you think. That someone so meticulous with their words should be so careless with their clothing. You suppose you shouldn’t judge – perhaps he simply cannot afford to replace his things when they wear through. But still, you can’t reconcile the image you have created in your mind of the author of this note with the unkempt man who owns the clothes that keep ending up in your laundry.

It might be worth responding if only to satisfy your growing curiosity.

When you return to the laundry room to move your clothes from the washers to the dryers, you bring with you a bright pink, oversized sticky note from your favorite stationary set and attach it to the wrinkled piece of notebook paper.

Your curiosity drives you back down into the laundry room the next day.

It’s rare for you to deviate from your routine like this, but there’s something that feels almost fantastical about this nameless, faceless exchange. The author of that note might be someone you have encountered a thousand times without ever knowing.

The thought inspires your imagination, makes you think of fairytales and fate and all kinds of other childish things. Perhaps you have crossed paths with this stranger – with their funny, fanciful language and their unkempt presentation – in the mail room or in the elevator or outside the leasing office. You trade courteous hellos and the occasional polite smile with your neighbors when you see them, but you have never intentionally sought any of them out before. This person could be anyone, and that has you making your way back to the basement long before your next planned laundry day.

The moment you enter the stuffy, grimy little room, your eyes go straight for the wall of dryers where the last note was left. A smile splits your face almost immediately. The note from yesterday is gone, as is your bright pink reply. In their place, another torn piece of notebook paper has been left, this time stuck to the face of the dryer with a clear strip of packing tape. More secure, more intentional, like whoever had left it had intended for it to be able to stick in place for a long time even in the humid, poorly-ventilated space.

Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in anticipation, you’re thankful to be the only person in the room as you eagerly dart over to read it.

In the same hurried penmanship as the previous note, this one reads:

A rush of satisfaction floods you as you read. This is the mysterious owner of the clothes you’ve been finding! You must have a washer or dryer preference in common, you think, if his belongings continue to be mixed in with yours. You can see how it could happen, particularly if he was in a rush. A dark colored sock left in the bottom of the drum or stuck to the side after a spin cycle wasn’t unheard of.

Perhaps you ought to do a better job of checking your machines before blindly dumping your clothes in…

You also feel confident now that this is, in fact, a man that you’re dealing with, which makes his choice of vocabulary all the more intriguing. Not that there is anything especially feminine about his choice of words, but more that the men you find yourself spending time with tend to get their intellectual stimulation from manosphere podcasts and YouTube comedians. This man writes like a scholar, like a patron of the arts, like a Regency-era lordling. It is as refreshing as it is puzzling, and the sparkling prose combined with the mystery of the whole thing has you feeling rather enchanted.

And, perhaps the greatest victory of all, is that E makes no mention whatsoever of your new favorite t-shirt. The thin, buttery-soft thing has become a staple of your loungewear collection over the last few weeks. The way it falls over your skin so perfectly, the way it wraps itself around you like a friend – you can’t imagine parting with it now. Thankfully, it sounds like you won’t have to.

Pulling your pink pad of sticky notes out of your bag, you excitedly pen your reply.

Several more days pass before your now-daily trips to the laundry room finally bear fruit.

It’s Saturday morning, and rather than finding a new piece of crinkled notebook paper in place of the old, instead you find that someone has written on your pink sticky note, adding their own message to the bottom of the scrap of stationary. You recognize the handwriting immediately, though it’s even more irregular than usual. Scribbled in the lower right corner of the note, it reads:

In cramped, halting, angular strokes, a phone number has been added to the bottom of the note – even smaller than the words he somehow managed to fit on the same sheet of paper as your own. But by some miracle, with a squint and a turn of your head, you’re able to read it, and you pull your phone out of your pocket to quickly save it in your contacts.

laundry neighbor🧦, you call him in your address book with a smirk, and you decide to shoot him a text when you arrive back at your apartment. In the meantime, however, you are quick to yank both of the old notes off of the dryer, crumple them up into a ball, and toss them into the nearby garbage can.

As you catch the elevator back to your floor, you can’t help but wonder about the kind of man who was perfectly comfortable leaving his personal phone number in a public space for anyone to read and do with as they chose, but who drew the line at retrieving a small stack of holey, threadbare clothes from the same public space. You can’t imagine who in their right mind would want to steal the things that you had inadvertently collected from this man over the last several weeks; in fact, you feel confident that if you had ever seen them there while doing your own washing, you wouldn’t have spared them a second thought.

If anything, you think, if they had been left there long enough, I might have taken the liberty of throwing them in the trash.

Still, you suppose there’s no accounting for taste. And E had admitted to being superstitious about the shorts in particular, so perhaps this strange man was simply a creature of habit, one who did not part with such things easily.

A creature of habit who keeps strange hours and writes like someone from a different century. No matter how much you try, you simply cannot make heads or tails of this mysterious man.

Several hours pass before you receive a reply from the enigmatic E. You’re preparing to settle in for the night, a book and a glass of wine in hand, when your phone vibrates in the pocket of your pajama pants. Digging it out, you quirk a curious smile at what you see.

hi e! saw your response to my note about your clothes. when would be a good time for us to meet up so i can get those back to you? Ah! Good morning, little bird! I suppose I should say good evening, though it is my morning. Apologies for the delayed reply. As I mentioned, I keep odd hours. I would be available to meet with you tonight after my shift, if you are amenable? I typically return home around 4 in the morning.

You make no attempt to smother the incredulous laugh that bubbles up in your chest as his suggestion. What kind of person tried to make plans for 4:00 in the morning? You couldn’t imagine dragging yourself out of bed in the middle of the night to meet with a stranger just to hand off a couple socks. Shaking your head, you’re quick to type out a reply.

4 am??? 😳 you weren’t kidding, those are some weird hours 😅 sorry dude i will def be asleep at 4 😪 how about this time tomorrow? if you work nights, would you be awake then?

Three bouncing dots appear at the bottom of the screen, flashing in and out of existence a handful of times before his message finally coalesces.

An astute observation and suggestion. Ordinarily, yes, I would. But unfortunately, I have already agreed to an extended shift tomorrow to cover for a colleague.

A frown knits across your brow, your thumb tapping against the edge of your wine glass as you ponder your options. In your mind, you run through your schedule for the week, matching it up against what little  you know of E’s availability. It’s a challenging fit. A brief flash of irritation passes through you at the strange man’s stubbornness. If only he would allow you to simply leave the clothes in the laundry room – then he could collect them at his leisure, and the issue would resolve itself.

However, as you begin to type up precisely that suggestion (with no small amount of snark), you find yourself pausing.

If you leave the clothes for him to pick up on his own, you may never have the opportunity to meet him, to finally put a face and a voice to the person behind the notes. As it stands, you don’t even know this man’s name, but this odd little exchange easily has become the most entertaining thing to happen to you in a long time. It’s been a nice distraction from the absence of your ex, strangely making you feel a little less alone.

Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in contemplation, you delete the message you had been typing and compose another one instead.

You would put the ball in his court, put the responsibility on him to coordinate a plan for you to connect. The moment the message marks as delivered, you see those bouncing dots appear again. His reply is quick, as though he had been waiting on the other end of the line the whole time you deliberated. The thought has a strange warmth settling in your chest, blooming in your cheeks.

ok no worries. you wanna just text me whenever you’re free and we’ll see when our schedules line up? i’m pretty flexible but it sounds like we might work opposite hours 😅 Indeed, a common occurrence, I’m afraid, but such is the life of a bartender. But yes, I will be in touch. I appreciate you looking after my things until we can arrange a meeting! I am in your debt for your patience.

Your flush deepens at the compliment, and you cannot fight the grin that tugs at your lips. Flatterer, you think to yourself.

not a problem! we’ll make it work eventually 😊

Not ten seconds passes, and then:

Looking forward to it, little bird. Enjoy the rest of your evening. you too 😊 have a good shift

Good morning, little bird! The sun is rising, and I am preparing to retire. Do you perhaps wish to meet in the lobby before then? I’m unsure of your schedule, but I know many of the other tenants are departing for work at this time. sorry e 🙁 I left about 20 min ago, got a workout class on monday mornings. sleep well!

Thoughts of the man who has ostensibly become your pen pal linger at the back of your mind throughout your work day. It’s been a while since you received a “good morning” text from anyone, though you are quick to scold yourself for the little flutter that thought sets off in your stomach.

You think of the appalling collection of socks and lounge clothes, now removed from the bag of your ex’s belongings and taking pride of place on your kitchen counter, right next to the entrance to your apartment. That, truly, is all you know about him, you remind yourself – that he wears socks with holes in them and shorts with no elastic and undershirts with pit and neck stains. Not exactly the most appealing prospect.

Not that there ought to be anything appealing about him. He could be barely out of school. He could be an old man. He could be married. If his glittering prose and flattering pet names have charmed you, then you have no one but yourself and your own fanciful imagination to blame.

Of course, none of these musings stop you from shooting off a quick text to him on your way home from work.

hey! i’m headed home now, you awake? could meet up downstairs in 15?

To your disappointment, your message remains unread for several more hours. It isn’t until you’re queueing up your third episode of your favorite syndicated reality show, wrapped in a blanket and cradling a late-night bowl of ice cream in your lap, that you receive a response.

Apologies once again, birdie. By the time I noticed your message, I was already in the car. Thank you for keeping in contact – your diligence for a neighbor you do not even know is admirable. lol i try 🤷‍♀️ 😊

The next time you hear from E, it is early in the morning. You’re barely awake, eyes still bleary as you prepare yourself a cup of coffee, and the notification that greets you when you open your phone for the first time is two new messages from him, sent a couple hours ago.

I am certain you will not see this until morning, but be cautious using the northeast elevator tomorrow. It is making the most bizarre noise, and the door is rather sluggish on opening. Just now, I was nearly unable to fit through to exit the car when I reached my floor. I have informed maintenance, but I am sure you know as well as I how long it takes that old codger to get anything done. If it is not blocked for use by the time you leave tomorrow, I would suggest waiting until the other is available.

Your chest warms at the consideration, that he would have such a harrowing experience and think to warn you against it. Fully awake now, you thumb a reply and send it off, hoping he sees it when he wakes tonight for his shift.

omg thanks for the heads up! glad you’re okay and didn’t get stuck!

Later, after safely making your way downstairs and over to the parking deck, you cannot seem to stop yourself from sending another.

there is an out of service sign on it now, thank god! have a good sleep e!

[Attached: JPG] fyi reno crew in the lobby today. idk if you have your car in the deck but you may wanna take the side exit and walk around. the workers gave me a dirty look for walking on the unsealed floor lol Awful rude of them. You couldn’t have known. If management didn’t want tenants in the lobby today, perhaps they ought to have put up proper signage. Thank you for the message, birdie. I will do as you suggested. I hope you had a pleasant day at work. …what is it that you do for a living, if you don’t mind my asking? i’m a librarian 🤓 📚 !!! Forgive my ineloquence. I was unaware I have been corresponding with a scholar! lmao says the man who writes like someone out of an austen novel I will take that as a compliment! Do you enjoy it? the way you talk or being a librarian? 😉 Clever girl. 😏 Both. Either. yes very much! to both 😇 and how do you know i’m a girl? all you know for sure is we live in the same building. i could be anyone 👀 The way you speak is decidedly feminine, though you’re right, I should not make such assumptions. I apologize if I have offended you. No disrespect was intended. 😂 you’re fine, just giving you a hard time. you assumed correctly anyway how about you? do you enjoy what you do? It certainly is not my first choice of occupation, but it pays enough for me to make my way through the world, which is a privilege in itself. It also helps that I am quite good at it, if I do say so myself. lol nothing wrong with knowing yourself! what would be your first choice? if not bartending? I would be an academic. I do love books. well if you ever find yourself awake during normal business hours you’re welcome at the library anytime. we have a few of those 😉 Cheeky bird.

Things continue in this vein for several more days – courteous, neighborly messages about things happening around the complex that turn into brief, companionable conversations. Missed offers to meet, incompatible schedules, sleep and work and fitness classes and plans with friends somehow always seeming to come at the worst possible moments. You find yourself equal parts aggravated and entertained by what has turned into a never-ending game of phone tag with someone who you still, somehow, have never met. It wasn’t exactly what you had signed up for when you responded to the bedraggled little note in the laundry room, but you couldn’t say you were disappointed at how things had turned out.

At this point, the novelty of the clothes taking up space on your kitchen counter has faded, the little pile melting into the background and simply becoming part of your daily scenery, and every time you see E’s moniker and the little sock emoji come across your phone screen, you can’t help but smile. It’s been the best distraction you could have asked for, though a part of you knows that such a sentiment is leaning further away from whimsical and more toward delusional.

Perhaps that’s why when the charming, fresh-faced barista at your favorite coffee shop finally works up the gumption to ask for your number, you give it to him.

Perhaps that’s why when that same barista asks you out for dinner and drinks, you agree.

Little bird, I have tremendous news! The coworker whose shift I covered a while back has offered to return the favor. I am available this evening to collect my laundry from you. When would be best for us to meet? oh e i’m sorry ☹️ this would have been a great night for it too! but i actually have a date. i’ll be gone most of the evening. I see. Not to worry, birdie. I hope you enjoy yourself. thanks 😊 i hope so too lol

You’re nothing but a lump of dry mouth and regret the next morning when the cheerful little buzz of your phone draws you out from under the downy refuge of your blankets. Your curtains are pulled tight, though a bit of the late morning sunshine still manages to spill through the gaps around the window frame, and you frown at it venomously as though your stare could will the light to dampen itself in spite of the idyllic weather.

Dragging the brightness of your phone screen all the way down, you open your notifications with a grumble.

How do you fare this morning? [Attached: GIF] Haha! That well? Not the pleasant evening you were hoping for, little bird? date was boring he was so boring drank too much trying to make it fun Ah, I see. In my experience, a good breakfast and an electrolyte-boosting beverage would do you well.

You glance over at your bedside table where two bottles of pale blue liquid sit, leaving rings of condensation on the painted wood surface. One is half empty, the other still unopened.

doordashed a couple bottles of gatorade. too hungover to make breakfast.

Less than 30 seconds later, another notification appears at the top of your screen.

Venmo: @Ezra-1982 paid you $20 “🍳🥓🥞” Order yourself the “Farmer’s Combo” from the diner on 35th. Have them add cheddar to the scrambled eggs. You will not regret it.

Ezra.

His name is Ezra.

Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, forcing the fog from your throbbing head, you tap out your reply as quickly as you can manage.

omg you did not have to do that Perhaps not, but you deserve nothing less after such a lackluster experience.

The unexpected generosity has you melting, as does the sweetness of his words. After the disappointment of your first foray back into the dating world, such kindness from a total stranger was equally surprising and moving. It makes you want to share it all with him, to explain in detail all of the various ways in which the barista had been a terrible choice. His stilted manner, his excessive fondness for vodka Redbulls, his awkward sense of humor…

ugh you can say that again he sucked so bad e omg idk why i said yes to him in the first place

His sloppy mouth, his grabby hands, his clumsy fingers, his complete lack of interest in making sure you came…

The way he had completely and utterly failed to keep quiet as he stumbled out the door in the middle of the night.

def should not have brought him home

You pause for a moment, the words of your most recent message staring back at you from your phone screen as though taunting you. The blush rising in your cheeks is enough to make your blankets feel suddenly stifling, and your stomach drops at the realization that E – Ezra, your neighbor, a man you have never met but on whom you are quickly developing a bit of a schoolgirl crush – is going to read it. The two of you have never discussed anything like this before. Even in your little occasional flirtations, there has never been even the suggestion of anything sexual.

This unknown stranger really does not need to know anything about your sex life, you decide.

However, just as you are about to recall the message, you watch in horror as the “delivered” status flips to “read.”

A wave of nerves floods your system, pushing out the last of the grogginess still clouding your mind, and try as you might, you can think of no excuse you could spin, no joke you could tell.

shit was hoping you hadn’t read that yet Alas, little bird. There is no need to be embarrassed. sorry idk why i’m trying to gossip w/ you like one of my girlfriends. plz forget i said anything i don’t wanna make this any weirder

For a handful of long, tense moments, your message remains unanswered. You watch, vaguely nauseous, as the three bouncing dots appear, then disappear, then reappear again. After a breathlessly long time of no typing at all, another notification pops up at the top of your screen.

Venmo: @Ezra-1984 paid you $5 “☕” Add a latte to your order from the diner. I find that everything looks a bit brighter after a good cup of coffee. Even a night of disappointing congress.

Your cheeks flare to life once again, the flush reaching from the tips of your ears down your neck to your chest. “Congress,” he called it. What a classy, delicate word for the sweaty, inept fumbling you had experienced last night in this very bed.

Which reminds you. You need to wash your sheets.

💀💀💀 thank you e 🙈💗

[Attached: JPG] holy shit this food is incredible. it’s bringing me back to life. also 10/10 recommendation on the eggs and the latte. you’re the best e, thank you You’re most welcome, little bird. Be gentle with yourself today. i will 🤗

any chance i could grab you before you go to work tonight? feeling much more human, got your clothes all ready to go by the door I have underestimated you, birdie. I must stop doing that. I did not assume you would have any interest in social interaction today given the state you were in this morning. I am already at the bar. ah ok no worries i really will get your clothes back to you, e. i promise. I know you will, sweetheart. I trust you.

You feel a bit crazed as you dig through the drawers of your dresser, rummaging through the neatly folded piles of clothing with such frustrated carelessness that you know you’re going to have to reorganize it all later. It isn’t like you to misplace something like this – you’re meticulous about your clothes, far more so than you are in any other area of your life (except perhaps your work). The idea of anything just up and disappearing from your wardrobe is unheard of.

Perhaps, if it were anything else, it wouldn’t bother you so much. Perhaps, if tomorrow was any other day, you wouldn’t mind choosing something else to wear. But it does, and you do.

You have another date tomorrow night.

Not a repeat of the disastrous liaison with the barista, thank god, but a friend of a friend, someone you encountered occasionally at parties or bars who often offered to buy you drinks and smiled at you a little too long to be strictly friendly. You had never taken his flirtations especially seriously, but after the unmitigated failure that was your last attempt at getting back into the dating scene, your ego admittedly is feeling a bit bruised. It makes you willing to give him a real shot. Even if it winds up being underwhelming, you feel certain that anything would be better than the fucking barista.

Which means that you need those god-forsaken panties.

They’re your favorites – the cheeky, lacy, baby pink pair that stretched over your skin so softly, that framed the globes of your ass so delicately you couldn’t help but feel every inch a woman in them.

Pulling them on over your hips is a one-way ticket to feeling your sexiest, most feminine self, and you can’t imagine going on a first date without them to boost your confidence. And you just washed them – they should be right at the top of the pile, nestled precisely in your top dresser drawer, exactly where they belong. And yet…they aren’t.

Collapsing onto your bed in an aggravated heap, you tug your phone out of the pocket of your lounge shorts. Opening your messages, you tap on your conversation with E and fire off a quick text before you can think better of it. The flush that follows arrives not far behind, part of you a bit mortified at what you’re about to ask your faceless neighbor. But you’re desperate, and you know he will help you if he can.

i have a longshot of a question for you Please, shoot! did you happen to do laundry last night? I did, indeed! Why do you ask? did you use the same washers and dryers you normally do? I always use the same machines. You’ve got me terribly curious now, little bird. What’s this about? would you mind checking your dried clothes for me? i seem to be the one missing something this time. i know the chances of them ending up with you are slim but i had to at least ask lol Of course, hold on a beat.

A few tense, nerve-wracking minutes pass as you stare at your phone, tapping your foot anxiously, chewing on your lower lip as you wait. You doubt he has them. What would be the chances? Your apartment building has over a hundred units – there was no way with all of the other residents whose faces you had never seen, whose names you did not know, that E had been the one to use the same machines directly after you.

And yet…what if he had?

What if your favorite panties are currently tangled in his laundry basket, all mixed up with his well-loved shirts and shorts and jeans and socks? What if he goes to check for them, and the little flash of baby pink peeks out at him from between the grays and the navys and the olive greens, all feminine and delicate and sweet?

What if this mysterious man, who calls you his “little bird” and who has managed to thoroughly charm you over notes and texts and money for coffee, was about to catch a glimpse of your underwear for the first time, and you’re not even there to see his face when he does?

[Attached: JPG] You wouldn’t happen to be missing these delicious little things, would you, birdie?

And there they are – draped over a calloused palm, dangling from thick, long, achingly masculine fingers. The blushing pink color of the lacy fabric contrasts stunningly with his tanned skin, and although you wouldn’t describe yourself as being particularly petite, the size of his hand somehow manages to make them look delicate in his grip.

The flush in your cheeks spreads instantly, making your ears burn, your chest feel tight and hot. Low in your abdomen, something stirs, something that had woken a handful of other times before – like when he had called you a “clever girl” or a “cheeky bird.” You had wondered then – what this man looked like, what he sounded like, whether he was as attractive in reality as you pictured him in your mind. Even without seeing his face, you feel now you know with certainty. You don’t have to wonder anymore.

Anyone with hands like that would turn your head. Knowing they were attached to someone who spoke to you like someone out of a regency-era novel is the final straw.

omg e Am I to take that as a yes? yeah those are mine 💀🙈 Are you at home, by chance?

You frown, your heartrate picking up as it beats a tattoo against the insides of your ribs.

yeah i’m here. why? Well, I am clearly in the building, as well. I will be for the rest of the evening. Would you be amenable to coming over? I would happily come to you if you would prefer, but I would understand if you wish for your precise unit number to remain unknown.

Oh, god.

You take a deep, steadying breath and will your hands not to shake at the sudden wave of nerves twisting your belly into knots. He wants to meet you. Finally. And right now.

ok. yeah i’ll come to you if that’s okay Of course. I’m in apartment 802. Come on over whenever you’re ready.

The frown between your brows deepens. 802? You’re in unit 902. Is it possible…

Has E been directly beneath you this entire time? Is it possible that not only does he share a building with you, but he is your downstairs neighbor?

wait. 802??? …yes?

He is. E – Ezra, your correct yourself (if you’re going to meet the man, you ought to be able to call him by his name) – lives directly below you. At least you know precisely how to get to him, you muse as you type out your response.

ok just making sure. be there in 10.

The next few minutes are spent in a flurry – brushing your teeth, fluffing your hair, refreshing your perfume, and confirming that you haven’t accumulated any unknown stains on your favorite oversized gray t-shirt or your shorts. You contemplate briefly whether you should change your clothes before making your way down to Ezra’s apartment, but ultimately you decide against it. Your lounge clothes are cute, and wouldn’t it be odd, you think, to show up on his doorstep looking like you felt the need to dress up for something when he knows your routine enough by now to know that you wouldn’t be leaving the complex today?

As you tuck your bare feet into your favorite pair of slides, you consider that you might be overthinking things.

It takes you another minute to gather your phone, your keys, and the small stack of his clothes that you are embarrassed to note has started to collect a fine layer of dust. The sight serves as a stark reminder of what this really is, all it has ever really been – a neighbor doing a favor for another neighbor. The return of items lost, even though the loss was weeks ago now. That is all your acquaintance with Ezra really is, at the end of the day. It’s friendly, but it is also impersonal.

These reminders to yourself ring hollow in your mind as you make your way to the stairwell. You don’t believe them, and you can’t help but hope that Ezra won’t, either.

The man that answers the door of apartment 802 looks both exactly like and nothing like you pictured.

He opens the door with confidence, an open and charming smile splitting his face the moment he lays eyes on you. He takes you in with a sweep of his dark, soulful eyes, tanned skin crinkling at their corners as he grins, and nothing could have prepared you for the way your heart begins to race as you do the same. Fuck, he is so handsome. Wild, dark brown hair, shorter on the sides and back than on the top, sticking up every which way with a single shock of blonde directly over his right eye. A prominent, Romanesque nose perched over a pair of full, soft-looking lips. Patchy, scruffy facial hair. A thin, pale scar twisting across his left cheek.

He looks like a creative, like a scoundrel – an artist or an activist or a rebellious academic who refuses to play by the rules. Precisely your type, you think, heat pooling low in your belly.

As you take in his attire, it immediately becomes apparent that the clothes you hold in your hands are an excellent representation of the rest of his wardrobe. He’s barefoot, a pair of navy-blue athletic shorts hanging low and loose on his narrow hips, and the black t-shirt that stretches snugly across his impossibly broad chest is heavily faded with many washes and sports several tiny holes along the seams.

Another hole, this one much larger than the rest, reveals itself as he shifts to rest his arm high against the doorframe. Leaning over you with casual self-assurance, the man tracks the way your gaze immediately darts to his underarm with the move. You can see the thick, dark hair of his armpit through the gap in the fabric, and the strangely intimate sight almost instantly brings a flush to your cheeks.

“Well, now,” he croons, slow and long and with an accent that flusters you even more. “Either you’ve found yourself on the wrong doorstep, or you must be the mysterious little bird that’s been chirping so sweetly in my ear every day for the last month.” He drops his grip on the old brass doorknob and extends his hand to you. It’s the same hand that had been photographed holding your panties mere minutes before – big, broad-palmed, calloused. “Name’s Ezra. What’s yours, birdie?”

You accept the handshake with minimal hesitation, offering him your name in return. “I’m, uh. I’m glad we could finally make this work,” you stammer. “I was kind of starting to feel like I had taken your stuff hostage.” 

To that, Ezra chuckles, and the warm rasp of the sound settles itself somewhere beneath your navel. “Your willingness to be so flexible and communicative is deeply appreciated,” he drawls. “I’m sure most people in your position wouldn’t have been so accommodating.”

The earnestness of his words has you feeling almost bashful as you quickly reassure him, “Oh, I didn’t mind, really. You were the one who had to go without your stuff for this long. It was the least I could do.”

“See, that is precisely what I mean. Sweet as sugar and twice as lovely.” The man winks, offering you another charismatic smile, and you can’t smother the flustered chuckle that bubbles up in your chest.

There is a moment then when the two of you stand in silence – just the span of a heartbeat where you look at each other through the archway of his apartment door, him inside, you outside, each of you sizing up the other, quietly putting a face to all of the little pleasantries you’ve exchanged over the past weeks. That moment stretches, becomes two, and you watch as something akin to a blush, the first vulnerability he has displayed thus far, blooms across the tips of his ears.

Just before the quiet begins to edge into awkwardness, Ezra claps his hands and steps back away from the doorframe, sweeping his arms in a wide, beckoning gesture.

“Well, let us not delay any longer, shall we?” he says brightly. “Come, birdie, step inside, and I’ll retrieve your own garments which have gone astray.”

You hesitate only a moment before accepting his invitation, and as you cross the threshold, he closes the door behind you. You think that perhaps the sound of the knob catching in its place ought to make you nervous – after all, you have never really met this man before today and now here you are, alone with him in his home. But instead, the way your pulse picks up speed feels more like anticipation than fear.

As you hover in the narrow entryway, you notice that the floorplan of his unit is perfectly identical to yours. The open kitchen, the modest living room, the short hallway down which you knew you would find a single bedroom and bathroom. You’ve never been inside another unit in this building before, and it feels almost surreal as you take in a space that bears so many resemblances to your own while still very clearly being inhabited by someone else.

Ezra seems oblivious to your observations. Instead, he is all business as he retreats without preamble down the hallway toward his bedroom. You stare after him, confused for an instant as to why he would just leave you alone, but then you realize –

Your panties are in his bedroom.

Trying desperately to distract yourself from that brain-melting thought, you allow yourself to glance around the place. Your first impression is of the almost overwhelming number of plants that take up the living space. You recognize a few – snake plants and ZZ plants in mismatched pots on every available flat surface, spider plants and pothos dangling from macrame hangers in front of the windows, a lush monstera taking up most of the western corner, a fiddle-leaf fig standing sentinel by the sliding glass door. The rest you couldn’t even begin to guess at, but the overall effect is one of a vibrant oasis of greenery, and you can’t help but be impressed.

“Wow, you have so many plants!” you gasp, wandering deeper into the apartment as you marvel at your surroundings.

Ezra’s voice is muffled as he replies from the bedroom, “Indeed. This side of the building gets such abundant sunshine during the day, but I don’t often have the opportunity to enjoy it. It somehow feels less wasteful to know that another living thing is reaping the benefits.”

“Huh. Never thought about it like that.” You feel a charmed smile tugging at your mouth. “Maybe I should get a few.”

His decorating taste is clearly eclectic, almost every item found in the dusty labyrinth of a thrift store or at an estate sale. There’s a vintage sofa in burnt orange corduroy that has plainly seen better days, a cracked leather armchair that looks like it once belonged in the study of some wealthy professor, and an overflowing bookshelf stuffed to the brim with books of all sizes and levels of wear. Butted up against the kitchen island is a little 1960s dining table with a single chair, the surface of which is littered with several abandoned, half-drunk cups of coffee. You also can’t help but smirk as you notice the chunky green ashtray on the coffee table in the very center of the living room with a partially-smoked joint resting in the middle.

“It’s quite a rewarding past time. I would encourage anyone with the time and the interest to try their hand at plant guardianship.” He emerges from the bedroom as he speaks, the smallest scrap of pale pink lace visible in the clench of his right fist. “Does your dwelling get light such as this?” he asks, gesturing at the tall windows, the sliding door leading out onto the balcony, the streaming sunlight painting the room a pale gold.

The question jerks you back to the present, reminds you why you’re here and of the strange coincidence you had discovered just before coming down to meet him.

“Actually… You know, it’s funny. Mine is almost exactly the same.”

Ezra quirks a dark, prominent brow at you, his expression pleasantly interested. “Is that so?”

“It’s, uh. Actually why I wanted to verify your unit number.” You rub the back of your neck, suddenly feeling strangely self-conscious. “I’m in 902.”

The man goes still at your confession, and the look of intrigue on his face shifts to a frown. He’s quiet for a moment, pursing his lips, before echoing, “…902?”

You nod. “Yeah. I’m directly above you.” Pointing to the white, spackled surface over your heads, you add, “My floor is your ceiling.”

A pause, and then a slow, creeping grin spreads across his roguish face, warping the thin white scar across his cheek. His dark eyes shine with something like awe as he murmurs, “Fascinating.”

“I know! What are the chances, right?”

“You are the unfortunate neighbor who has such abysmal luck with men.”

All good humor leaves your body then, and you find yourself blinking dumbly back him. His unexpected words hang in the air for a moment, and as you take a deep breath, you manage to stammer, “…What?”

Ezra’s grin transforms into something closer to a smirk, a knowing gleam darkening his gaze. “There was a man a while back, a frequent visitor. I could hear the weight of his footsteps often.” With slow, even steps, he approaches you, closing the distance between you with every word he drawls. “And sometimes, on the weekends, I would be woken from my sleep during the day to the sound of your bedframe squeaking and scraping across the floor, directly above me. You put on quite the performance for him, all those little cries and moans.” His words have the gentle flush you’ve worn since he opened the door flaring to life once again, and you fight the urge to cover your cheeks with your palms, to hide your eyes from his.

“Did he ever figure out that they were all fabricated?” he rasps, leaning into your space as he comes to stand before you. He whispers the question like something asked in the strictest confidence, like the two of you are gossiping together over a bottle of wine or a pot of tea. It’s ingratiating as much as it is humiliating, and the casual intimacy is enough to have your stomach clenching in your abdomen.

“I-I don’t know what you mean.” Your words lack conviction even to your own ears. You have never been a skilled liar, but this attempt is truly abysmal.

Deep wrinkles form between Ezra’s brows as he frowns at you, his tone taking on the soft timbre of reproach. “Oh, come now, little bird. I know the difference between manufactured pleasure and the real thing. Now, the unfortunate boy you drunkenly brought back to your domicile a few nights ago, the one that you said, and I quote, ‘sucked so bad.’ You didn’t even attempt such a performance for him, though if I recall, he was rather loud.” He looks you up and down, that perceptive gaze tracing from the top for your head to the tips of your toes and back again. “And it’s no wonder you did not find your rapture with him, birdie, he lacked all sense of rhythm.”

Involuntarily, you are thrown back to that regrettable night – the awkward barista’s sharp, angular body hovering over you, his too-wet kisses, his grabby, wandering hands, his irregular thrusts, the barely-lukewarm interest all of it inspired…

You do cover your cheeks then, spinning on your heel to break his all-too-discerning stare. “Oh…my god.”

But Ezra is undeterred. He continues, “When we conversed the next morning, I did think it an odd coincidence that you should describe such an underwhelming night when I knew for certain my upstairs neighbor had had much the same experience. Imagine my surprise to learn that it was not a coincidence at all.”

Swallowing thickly, you shake your head, as though the motion might erase the last few moments and somehow bring you back to a time when you did not know that this man – your neighbor, your friend, the person you have been casually crushing on in spite of never having seen him before today – has not only been hearing you have sex for the last several months but also has known all this time that it was bad sex. Somehow that little detail makes it all the more appalling, though you aren’t certain you could explain how.

“This is mortifying,” you mutter, almost to yourself, the words coming out smothered and strange as you slip your fingers over your eyes, palms pressing against your mouth.

Before you manage to disappear into yourself, however, a large, warm, calloused hand wraps itself around one of your wrists and draws your hand away from your face.

“Nonsense, birdie, nothing at all to be embarrassed about.” His voice is low and gentle as he bids you to look at him. “If anyone ought to feel any humiliation in this scenario, it ought to be those incompetent fools granted the unparalleled privilege of getting the share the bed of a kind, intelligent, and heart-stoppingly beautiful young woman such as yourself.”

Your brows draw upward in surprise, and you drop both your hands, thoroughly disarmed and taken aback by his words. “T-Thank you, E. You’re sweet.”

Shifting on his feet, the man inches just that little bit closer to you, enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off of him, enough that you’re overwhelmed by the scent of him. Something woodsy and green, deep and fresh and colored with an inescapable undertone of sweat. You think it ought to be repellant, being this close to a strange man who undeniably smells like he didn’t bother to put any deodorant on this morning, but instead, it just makes you feel a little weak in the knees.

 Ezra smells like a man, like a sweaty man in the middle of a dense, evergreen forest, and it makes some primal part of you, deep inside, ache and throb and want.

You startle softly as he gently takes ahold of your chin between his thumb and forefinger, the touch pulling you out of your reverie and forcing you to meet his eyes. God, his skin is so warm, his dark brown eyes so beautiful and earnest. You couldn’t look away even if you wanted to.

“Far as I can tell,” he croons, his accent elongating and softening his words in a way that has your heartbeat stuttering, “it’s been a tragically long time since you were properly satisfied. And that’s just a cryin’ shame.”

With the most delicate pressure, he slowly, tenderly tugs your chin forward and upward. You can feel his breath on your cheek, on your lips, hot and damp and smelling of spearmint. The sensation has your eyelids flagging, your mouth parting. He’s so close now, a hairsbreadth away. You wonder what his stubble will feel like, whether it will leave friction burns on the tender skin of your jaw.

You’ve never slept with a man with facial hair before, you think to yourself. Would he leave those same burns under your breasts, on the insides of your thighs, too?

The moment the thought crosses your mind, you rip yourself out of his grip with a gasp, practically throwing yourself backward and colliding with the edge of the coffee table. The edge catches against the backs of your calves, and you stumble, rattling the ash tray and sending the half-smoked joint rolling across the table.  

“Birdie! Are you – ”

You brush off his concern, retreat to the kitchen in a flurry of excuses.

You don’t know this man, you remind yourself, willing your heartbeat to stop racing, the space between your thighs to stop throbbing. Prior to five minutes ago, you had never even seen his face, and you were about to kiss him? And not only that, but you’re already thinking about fucking him?

Sure, the E you knew was kind. Intelligent, well-mannered, thoughtful. Wickedly funny. All things you looked for in a potential partner. But was all of that real? Was this man – Ezra – the same man you thought you knew?

He follows you into the kitchen, handsome face pinched with contrition, dark eyes wide and shining. “I apologize if I – ”

But you do not let him finish. Instead, you gather up the little pile of clothes you had brought for him and thrust them in his direction. “Here – your clothes,” you say hurriedly, avoiding his eyes. “All the socks, the undershirt, and the shorts. So if I could just get my – ”

This time, it is Ezra who cuts you off. “Your lacy little unmentionables?”

He opens his fist, and you watch as your favorite pair of panties tumbles from his grip and dangles tantalizingly in mid-air, his thick index finger threaded through the gusset.

Abandoning his stack of laundry on the kitchen counter, you lunge for them, but he sees you coming a mile away. He yanks them out of your reach before your fingers can close around them, like a child on the playground teasing another with a coveted toy, and you stare at him incredulously.

“Ah, ah,” he tsks, his smile placid, almost smug as he watches your frustration and embarrassment grow. “You know, until I saw you on my doorstep, I wasn’t certain, but now that you’re here, I’m afraid there’s one more thing I’m going to need if you want these delightful delicates back.”

Unsure whether to blame your pounding pulse on anger, humiliation, or arousal, you can do nothing but blink back at him. “What?”

“Your shirt,” he specifies, gesturing to the oversized gray t-shirt currently draped over your frame. “Or, perhaps more accurately, my shirt.”

“This is my shirt,” you snap venomously. You are certain now – it’s anger. It has to be. The audacity of this man –

But Ezra is unperturbed, unmoved by your vitriol. His tone is calm and matter-of-fact as he replies, “No, little bird, it’s mine. Lost about the same time as the rest of articles you recovered from the laundry facility.”

You shake your head in confusion. “But…you never mentioned – in your notes, you always just said – ”

“I know, that it is true, but I was mistaken.” He glances down at the pair of underwear in his hand, allowing the intricate fabric to slip between his fingers and pool in his palm as he speaks. “You see, the shirt you’re wearing is not one I reached for often. It’s even older than those shorts you’ve been looking after for me. It took me well over a week to notice that it had disappeared from my wardrobe, as well.” His eyes flick back up to yours, dark lashes lowering as he studies you. “By that time, you had already established which of my items you had in your possession. It never occurred to me to ask if you had the shirt, as well.”

Your jaw works, mouth opening and closing as you struggle with how to respond. You think back to the day you found this shirt, tangled up in one of your bath towels fresh from the dryer, the same day you had found the sweat-stained undershirt. You couldn’t believe your luck, couldn’t believe the soft, perfectly-aged flawlessness of it – the way it had caressed your skin, the way it draped so effortlessly over your shoulders and skimmed your curves so delicately. It had never once occurred to you that this shirt might have been owned by the same person as the undershirt that had clearly seen better days.

“But… This is my favorite shirt,” you murmur despondently, all the fight leaving you as you run your fingertips over the hem.

Ezra’s gaze follows your touch, tracing across the edge of the shirt with an almost feverish gleam. “I can see why,” he rasps, his tongue coming out to wet his plush lower lip. “It is…enchanting on you. But I really must insist. You see, if I allow you to keep it, I will be plagued for the rest of my days by thoughts of you in this shirt – my shirt. And it will surely drive me mad.”

Your eyes snap to his, and for the first time, you feel as though you are able to glimpse a sliver of the man beneath the fanciful language and the slovenly clothes and the cluttered, eclectic apartment. Ezra has an edge to him, a ferocity he keeps well-hidden, but as he allows himself to take you in, you can see it – something animalistic, something raw and ragged and hungry. You watch as his hand clenches tightly around your panties, his thumb rubbing possessively over the little satin bow on the front, and all at once, the anger and embarrassment warring in your chest falls away, leaving only burning need in its wake.

You had never felt anything like this – this crackling electricity, this smoldering desire – with your ex. And certainly never with that worthless barista. This feels primal, a dangerous compliment to the silliness of the swooning, blushing infatuation you had felt for him before today.

How were you supposed to stand strong, to not give in to him when you had fascination, affection, and lust all working against you?

Did it really matter that you had never seen his face until this afternoon?

You’re certain that your conflict must be showing on your face because Ezra looks ready to charge across the kitchen and throw you up onto the kitchen counter at a single word from you. He’s twitchy and eager, his fingers spasming down by his sides, his fist clenching around your panties so hard you can see his knuckles turning pale.

“Come on now, birdie,” he urges, the stretch of silence almost seeming to cause him physical pain. “Have mercy on an old man and hand it over.”

His words have you swallowing thickly, a wave of heat flooding your chest and spreading to the apex of your thighs. You shift on your feet, pressing  your thighs together in an unconscious search for friction, but he spots it – of course, he does. You watch as a muscle in his jaw jumps at the sight, his nostrils flaring as though to catch a whiff of your scent, and god, there’s that animal again – that feral savagery that you never would have known he possessed if you hadn’t coaxed it out of him. He’s beautiful like this, you think, just on the ragged edge of his self-control; it is that look that has you crossing your arms over your chest and drawing your t-shirt up and over your head.

The man blinks heavily, releasing a long, shuddering breath as you hold the shirt out to him by its collar. You dangle it from your fingertips, just as he had your panties, and he looks on with burning eyes as you let it drop to the floor in a puddle of gray cotton.

“Gods above, girl, look at you.”

You have no more words to describe the look on Ezra’s face. He looks enraptured, like a man in thrall, and you resist the urge to cover yourself. Your plain cotton bralette is easily one of the least glamorous underthings in your collection, but with the way he drinks in your figure, you would think that you had just revealed the most intricate, salacious piece of lingerie the man had ever seen. It makes you feel beautiful, powerful, and in control for the first time since you stepped through his door.

“Happy now?” you ask, your voice coming out weaker, breathier than you had intended. Your words are confident, almost taunting, but your tone betrays that you are just as affected by this game you’re playing as he is.

The smallest hint of a smile quirks the corner of his mouth. “I am, indeed. And yet now I fear I will find myself plagued by thoughts of another subject but a…similar flavor.”

With one last sweep of his gaze, the look like a caress as it trails across your body, he takes a step forward, then another, then another. When he finally stands no more than a handful of inches from you, he crouches down and scoops the abandoned shirt off the tiled kitchen floor. Heart in your throat, pulse in your pussy, you watch as he slowly rises back to his full height, brings the shirt to his face, and inhales.

“Goddammit,” he growls, eyes falling shut as he breathes in the soft fabric. “Smell so sweet, little bird. And it’s still warm.”

Your stomach bottoms out at that, the desperation in his voice like a drug that has your knees weakening beneath you. You’re so wet now; you can feel it slicking your panties, dampening your little cotton shorts.

“Ezra.” It spills softly from your mouth like a plea, unbidden and unashamed, and he nods slowly, eyes still closed, as though drinking in the sound of your need like water. 

“I do so enjoy the sound of my name on your lips,” he admits. He makes no attempt to hide his own hunger anymore, and it calls to the one in you, stoked so confidently and carefully by his words. “Would you like me to see if I can make you say it again?”

Ezra kisses like a man starved. You’ve never experienced a need like his, the heat and the urgency of it a physical thing, dragging its silvered claws along your nerve endings, leaving you with no choice but to melt into him as he ravages your mouth. Desperation drips from his tongue past your lips, radiates from his hands into the very marrow of your bones. There’s something almost unhinged in the way he grips back of your neck, the way he runs his fingers through your hair, the way he eats at your mouth with a decadence that has you whimpering. It’s terrifying and thrilling in equal measure – that he could have such an effect on you so immediately.

He had lamented how long it had been since you had been “properly satisfied.” From the way he touches you, you wonder if he ever has.

“Gods, birdie,” he groans, dragging his mouth across the edge of your jaw to your ear, catching the soft little lobe between his teeth. “The sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted. What divinity is responsible for bringing you to my doorstep?”

You can do nothing but sigh in reply, the heat of his breath on your neck sending sparkling shivers down your spine. You cling to him tighter, dig your nails into the cotton of his T-shirt, and he groans at the dull bite of them embedding themselves in the ropey muscles of his shoulders.

“Hnng – the delicate little bird has claws.” He drops both hands to your ass with a smack, each one taking a broad palmful of your cheeks, and grips you so hard you can feel your pussy lips start to spread with them. Your face burns as you realize that he almost certainly can feel your heat on his fingertips – he’s mere inches from the core of you, the only thing separating his touch from your cunt the thin, damp layers of your shorts and panties.

“You should know…” he murmurs into the soft, vulnerable patch of skin behind your ear. “I am going to wring every. last. ounce. of pleasure out of you. I want to savor every drop of it. And if you even think about attempting to placate me with one of those fake little cries I know you favor, I can assure you, I will know, and I will not stand for it. Do you understand?”

You nod, sliding your fingers up into his dark, unruly hair. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”

The scruff of his beard scrapes along your neck as he grins. “Atta girl. Now. Hold on tight.” And with little warning, Ezra slips his hands down to the underside of your ass cheeks and lifts you into the air. You let out a little yelp, your legs wrapping around his waist on instinct alone, and the hum of his laughter sings in your veins as he carries you to the bedroom.

“There she is. That’s what you needed, isn’t it?”

“Ezra…!”

“Fuck, sweet girl, I know. Keep on grinding for me. Keep going ‘til I say so.”

He has you on his lap, knees on either side of his hips as you straddle him in the center of his bed. His torso is propped up on an abundant pile of pillows stacked artlessly against the wall behind him, and his hands haven’t left your tits in countless minutes. He has no headboard, you notice absently, just a thin photo-realistic tapestry depicting a moss-covered forest hanging at the head of the bed, but as off-putting as you would find that under normal circumstances, in this moment, you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Feels so good,” you whimper, head thrown back, eyes drifting shut, hips working, working, working over the sizeable bulge pressing insistently against your cunt through the fabric of your clothes. He’s so hard beneath you, and his hands – his broad, thick, calloused hands – are performing magic on your nipples.

He had long since pulled down the flimsy cups of your bralette, allowing the soft swell of your breasts to spill over the tops, and after drawing the tips of them into achingly hard points with his tongue, he has contented himself with endlessly rubbing, pinching, and tugging at them while you grind against him. The constant stimulation is driving you insane – every caress of his thumb is like a crackling arm of lightning arcing down your nerve endings to your slick, swollen clit, and every thrust of your hips has the leaking head of his cock catching on that clit, and god damn, you’ve never come just from dry humping before, but you feel dangerously close to doing so right here in this near-stranger’s bed, all over his lap.

And Ezra knows it, too. With a smug, filthy smirk, he nods slowly, encouragingly. “Yeah, it does. Can feel you soaking me through my shorts.”

You pant, leaning back to brace your palms on his knees behind you, shifting your angle, seeking more of his hardness. The moan that leaves your mouth as you find the perfect position would be embarrassing if you weren’t so far gone. As it is, it barely even registers. “Oh my god, oh my god – ”

Your neighbor shakes his head, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he traps each of your nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and squeezes, making your hips judder. “No god here, baby. Goddess, maybe. Never seen anything that made me believe in the almighty quite so much as you.”

His praise sends a wave of heat through you, and you can feel sweat starting to bloom along your hairline, under your breasts, in the creases of your thighs. Fuck, your legs are burning, your hips are sore from being spread so wide over him, and god, why won’t he just fuck you already?!

“Ezra, please – ”

“You can come like this, birdie.” His voice is low, strained and rasping but somehow steady. “Come just like this, and then I’m all yours.”

And he’s right – it doesn’t take much longer for it all to become just too much. His torturous attentions on your tits, the low, rich, rasping drawl of his encouragements, the impossibly hard and thick length of him pressing so perfectly against your dripping pussy – all of it stokes the flames in your belly, winds that coil deep inside. In the end, all it takes the wet drag of his tongue against your neck and a whispered “let go, little bird, I got you” in your ear, and you are gone.

Ezra’s hand comes up to cup the side of your face as you come down, his thumb stroking your cheek with surprising tenderness as you whimper and sigh and shake under his grip. “There she is,” he croons, all gentle warmth. “How’d that feel?”

All you can manage in reply is a weak nod. You list forward, seeking his mouth with your own, and you feel him grin into the kiss as you slot your lips against his.

“Fuck, E, please?” you murmur, fingers finding the short, wild strands of hair at the base of his skull and tugging gently.

“Please?” He echoes the word into your mouth, his breath hot on your face as he traces the tip of his prominent nose along yours. His eyes are heavy-lidded, his pupils blown wide, but they shine with good humor just the same. “Please what, baby?”

“Fuck me.” You sound petulant, demanding, almost childlike to your own ears.

With a warm chuckle, his slick tongue darts out to flick playfully at the seam of your open, panting mouth. “Soon. Very soon.”

“I dare not admit to how many times I thought about this. It would surely ruin your good opinion of me.”

You can barely string together enough brain cells to process Ezra’s words, let alone form a coherent response.

You’ve shed the remainder of your clothes, as has he, and you’ve traded places now – your reclined torso supported by the pile of pillows against the wall while your neighbor kneels on the mattress between your spread legs. He pumps his cock – even thicker than you had guessed, flushed ruddy and dripping pearls of precum – with one hand, while the other busies itself between your legs. The stretch of his first two fingers is incredible, the gentle, focused swirl of his thumb on your clit only adding to the sensation. It’s so delicious you can’t keep still, your hips grinding and thrusting to meet his touch.  

Eyes fluttering with overwhelm, weak little moans dropping from your open mouth, you stammer, “Y-You thought about this?”

He nods, that blonde shock of hair over his right eye bobbing with the motion. “I did, indeed. Couldn’t help myself, gods forgive me.” His dark, burning gaze remains focused on your cunt, intent on not missing a moment of the way his fingers glisten with your wetness. The intensity of that stare makes you tremble. “From that very first missive I found in the laundry facility. That…precious pink stationary, with the strawberries around the outside. It smelled sweet. Damn near drove myself mad thinking about it.”

Fuck, his fingers – they keep dragging against something inside you – something along the front wall of your pussy, something you know exists but have never found a partner who was interested in seeking it out. The feeling is foreign but completely spine-melting, a pleasure so deep and round and full that you can barely keep your eyes from slipping shut.

“I wondered what you might look like, what you might sound like. I wondered if you got as much satisfaction from our correspondence as I did. I wondered whether you enjoyed it when I dared to flirt, even if it was just a little bit.” His gaze flicks up to yours briefly, his hand still working his cock, his fingers still buried in your wetness. “Did you, little bird? Did you like when I flirted with you?”

You nod, blinking heavily as you try to hold his eye contact. “Yes,” you sigh, the sound coming out high-pitched and whining. “I did, I liked it.”

“And what about now? Do you like this? Do you like how I toy with your captivating little cunt?”

You moan and nod again. “I do, yes, E, fuck.”

The desperation in your voice makes Ezra smile. “She’s so pretty, sweetheart. So soft and juicy, spilling down my fingers like a ripe little peach in the middle of summer.” He pulls his fingers from you then, and you yelp in protest, your hands flying to his wrist to try to drag him back inside you. But he brushes off your grip like a harmless pest. Instead, he sticks out his tongue and drags his pointer and middle finger across it, leaving a trail of your milky slickness across his tastebuds. “Sticky. Sweet. Rich,” he groans, eyelids dropping closed, losing himself in the taste of you for a moment. “Full to bursting.”

He seems to remember himself, to finally hear your pleas of protest, and it takes him no more than half a beat to slip his fingers back inside you once again. “I want one more moment of ecstasy from you, birdie,” he growls, and you feel your deepest muscles clench down around him at the sound. “Let me watch you fall one more time, and then I will give you this cock.”

You nod again, your head bobbling on your neck as weakly as a newborn’s, and the grin he gives you in return in positively filthy.

“Excellent.”

The stroke of his fingers changes then, no more drugging, hypnotic in and out, no more tender swirl around your over-sensitive bundle of nerves. Instead, he starts to press on that soft, spongy, elusive spot deep within you, the pressure strong and insistent. Your back arches at the sensation, your hands flying out to grip onto his bare, freckled shoulders to hold yourself steady, but even the heat of his skin under your fingers isn’t enough to ground you. Instead, all you can do is drop little rhythmic moans synched with the motion of his hand. He jacks his wrist up and down, quick and firm and unrelenting, his fingertips pressing releasing pressing releasing pressing releasing, and slowly, steadily, something begins to build in you.

It’s searing hot and molten, pooling in your abdomen and leaking into your bloodstream. Your chest flushes, then you neck, then your face, and you swear your limbs are going numb as the pressure below your navel ratchets higher and higher.

“Ez-Ezra,” you whine. “That feels – I – ”

Somewhere at the edges of your awareness, you can sense him nodding, can feel the heat of his stare as he watches you. “I know, I know. Don’t fret now. You can give in to it. Feels good to surrender.”

A bolt of adrenaline rushes through you as that pressure morphs, transforms into the sudden, immediate, and desperate need to pee. The feeling mortifies you, and you shy away from it immediately, hips squirming away from his touch as you try not to embarrass yourself in front of this man you just met, but before you can get far, Ezra abandons his grip on his cock and instead uses that hand to push down hard on your lower stomach, holding you in place.

“Ah! Ezra!”

“Don’t fight your rapture, girl,” he rumbles. “Give me all that sweet nectar.”

Your orgasm hits you like a freight train.

It bowls you over, knocking the wind from your lungs, robbing the voice from your throat, and you can’t even manage to cry out as that dam inside you breaks and you flood his hand. Liquid gushes from you with such force that you can hear it hit his forearm, his knees, his bedsheets. He groans deep in his chest, resonant and victorious, but it sounds far away to you, like you’ve dunked your head underwater or filled your ear canals with cotton fluff. You’re so lost to your own ecstasy, you can hardly be bothered to acknowledge him, but still his miraculous fingers fuck you through the throes of it.

As you drift back to awareness, as your eyes blink open, you find that your nails have left deep, blood-red crescents in the tanned skin of his shoulders, and Ezra is gazing at you with something like pride shining in his dark eyes.

Your throat is dry and hoarse as you stutter, “I didn’t know – I’ve never – ”

“That’s my girl,” he whispers, dropping a surprisingly tender kiss to the very tip of your nose. “Lie back now. I’ve got one last trick up my sleeve.”

“Shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”

He’s so deep inside you now, thick and long and throbbing, and tears are starting to gather at the corners of your eyes from the stretch and the force of him. He has your knees hooked over his shoulders, your hands braced against the bare wall above you to keep your head from bumping into it, and between your legs, Ezra pants and sweats and grinds his teeth as he pounds into you with enough force to rock the bedframe.

“In all my time…on this green earth…never felt anything like you, birdie. What did this old man…ever do…to deserves something so sweet? So…soft. So wet. So fucking…tight, goddammit, sweetheart – ”

From the moment he slipped inside you, he hasn’t shut up. Not that you want him to, but you’ve never had a bed partner be quite so vocal before. You think it might take some getting used to, though if what you’ve experienced with him so far is anything to go off of, you feel confident that it would be worth it for the orgasms alone. This man treats your pleasure like it’s his, like he gets just as much out of watching you fall apart as you do experiencing it. It’s intoxicating, making you want to deliver for him just as badly as he clearly wants to for you.

Your pussy feels swollen and almost achy, your clit throbbing with the paired sensations of pain and pleasure with every grind of his pubic bone against yours. You’re exhausted, your vision hazy, your mouth parched, your hips sore. If he manages to make you come even one more time, you think you might actually pass out.

And yet, you fight to keep your eyelids open, to keep your gaze on him. Your cunt still drools for him in spite of your overwhelm, and you’re gripped with the bone-deep need to stay the course. You want to make him feel as good as he makes you feel. You want to be good for him.

He deserves it, you think. He deserves everything you can offer him and more.

“All those theatrical moans, those high-pitched cries,” he continues, voice dropping to a husky growl as he drags the tip of his nose along the soft, supple skin of your calf. “Where are they now, little bird, eh? Turns out when someone really fucks you right, you go almost totally quiet. Isn’t that so?”

You gasp out a soft, strained, “Mm hm.”

Ezra’s teeth flash as he grins, sweat dripping from his brow, slicking down both blonde and brown hair to the surface of his forehead. “I know, baby. Dick so good, you can’t even make a sound.”

He shifts slightly, bearing the weight of his upper body on one hand instead two as the other delicately brushes  your wild hair out of your face. You’re sure you’re a sight, all folded up like this under him, drenched in your own sweat and his, your hair tangled and your eyes fighting not to cross in pleasure.

“Thought about you so many times, birdie. Thought about the girl that made those sounds, too,” he confesses. He’s breathing heavily, his pace never slowing, never stopping. You can feel the flex of his abdomen as he thrusts, can feel the delectable friction of the tip of his cock against your tender G-spot. “What cosmic alignment…what turn of fortune…that you and that girl should be one and the same.”

“E-Ezra. It’s – it’s so – ”

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” His fingertips are so gentle against your cheek, a spine-melting contrast to the rough, powerful, insistent way he pounds into your body. Fuck, his cock is so good – you clench down around him involuntarily, the weight and the girth and the heft of him pressing so perfectly against every swollen, over-worked nerve ending within you. “But I told you – every last drop, remember? And you’ve still got one more to give me. I can feel it.”

On instinct, you shake your head, a whine bubbling up in your throat as your vision starts to blur. “Can’t – it’s too much – ”

“You can.” Ezra’s voice is breathless but firm, leaving no room for negotiation.

“But – ”

He groans your name then, and the sound of it on his lips forces your eyes open once more. “I can feel this precious little pussy clamping down on me. She’s speaking to me, baby. She wants to come, doesn’t she? One more time? She wants to squirt her delicious nectar all over me, I can tell.”  

You have no more brain power left to formulate a response. A weak, whining “fuck” is all you can manage.

“It’s all right, little bird.” The wicked smirk on his face is audible in his voice. “You don’t have to say a thing. I can do all the talking for now – you just relax.”

Before long, that pressure returns – that weighty, swollen, urgent sensation low in your abdomen, the one that makes you seize up on instinct, one of your hands flying to his hip as though to push him away. But you are entirely too weak and overwhelmed to have much of an effect. Instead, Ezra just nods knowingly and chuckles.

“Right there? Is that what this pussy needs to give up her treasures?” He holds steady, hitting the exact same spot over and over and over, and you can’t help but whimper through clenched teeth. “Breathe, birdie. Breathe deep and let go.”

You’re too far gone to even consider disobeying.

You do as he says – dropping your jaw, drawing a deep, soothing breath into your lungs, feeling your belly rise with it, feeling your diaphragm stretch, and like magic, all of the resistant tension in your hips and core releases, and you’re coming.

You’re thighs-trembling, neck-straining, hands-clenching, cunt-gushing coming. Your mouth open on a silent scream, you ride the tidal wave with half-awareness, barely hearing Ezra’s babbled praises, barely feeling the vital grip of his fingers around your hips, barely sensing the bloom of warmth deep inside you as he fills you with his cum. The only sensation that breaks through it all is the sharp pinch of his teeth biting into the soft flesh of your inner thigh. But you don’t mind – you think you might actually relish the bruise that is sure to come later.

The world is hazy as you come down – the late afternoon sun streaming through Ezra’s window casts long shadows across the bed, and you notice belatedly that the two of you have cast every single pillow and blanket onto the floor during your tryst. You shiver as the sweat between you begins to cool, and for the first time, you start to feel the sopping wet mess you have made of his fitted sheet as it sticks to you unpleasantly. You hope he has a waterproof mattress cover underneath it – otherwise, he is in for a very expensive steam cleaning bill.

Even in your growing discomfort, however, you cannot bring yourself to move. Every muscle in your body feels wrung out; every joint feels weak and wobbly. And your mind – your mind is blissfully, delightfully blank. You smile faintly, allowing your fingertips to trail leisurely over your chest, your stomach, your hips. You are entirely sated, and it is glorious.

Ezra, for his part, appears to feel the same. He braces himself over you with lax, rounded shoulders, his head hanging loose on his neck, his eyes closed, silent at last. His softening cock still rests inside you, but you don’t mind it – he’s warm, and you’re starting to chill. Not for the first time, you’re struck by how beautiful he is. So much more so than you ever could have imagined when you first responded to that crinkled little note in the laundry room.

When he finally withdraws from you, he lets out a soft, rasping groan, and between your legs, you feel the slick warmth of his cum dripping out of your swollen, sensitive hole. You catch him watching it for a moment, a faint smile lifting the corner of his mouth, before he collapses onto the bed next to you with a sigh.

“Well, birdie,” he quips after a moment of satisfied silence, “I suppose I have some more laundry to do, eh?”

His words surprise a laugh from you, the motion forcing even more of his cum to slip down between your ass cheeks. “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea,” you say with a tired smile, turning on your side to face him. “I can help, if you want.”

His grin broadens, and he shoots you a cheeky, crinkle-eyed wink. “No need, sweetheart. I know how to clean up my own messes.”

It’s hours later when your phone vibrates on your night stand, pulling you from your shallow, restless sleep. The time reads nearly midnight, but you rub the grit from your eyes anyway as you scan the message lighting up the screen.

The next time I fuck you, little bird, you’re wearing those lacy panties.

A delicious thrill trips down your spine at Ezra’s words. Drawing your lower lip between your teeth, you thumb a quick reply.

🤭 on one condition i want to wear the tshirt too 😜 Oh, you mean MY t-shirt? no MY tshirt 😇

[keerysfreckles]

tasm! peter parker who takes pictures of you any chance he gets.. and reader finds those pics with cute lil captions of whatever she was doing in that moment

pictures - peter parker (tasm)

pairing: peter parker x f!reader

warnings: use of y/n and she/her pronouns, pure fluff :)

a/n: I LOVE THIS SM OMG andrews peter will always have a special place in my heart <33

꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱

in the middle of impulsively deep cleaning y/n and peter's shared apartment, y/n was standing in peter's closet. he had a pile of clothes inside it that he was meaning to donate. y/n was in the process of grabbing all of the clothes and tossing them into a garbage bag. peter was somewhere in the apartment, but y/n was focused on her own task.

she looked around the closet once before leaving, to see if she sees anything peter hasn't used in over a year.

y/n stands on her tip toes to grab a pair of shoes on the top shelf that were worn out, and she knew peter hasn't worn them since high school.

standing back up on her tip toes, her hand flails around the space on the shelf slightly, as she tries to feel for any other things she can donate. however, her eyebrows furrow once she feels an unfamiliar box.

she grabs it at an awkward angle, before knealing on the ground and taking the lid off.

firstly, y/n's confused, once she sees the box filled with polaroid pictures. she rakes her fingers through all the pictures in the box, and notices they're all of her.

she giggled at the realization that peter was always taking her picture.

she lifted one, and saw it was of her decorating the christmas tree. the bottom was labeled with peter's messy handwriting, 'christmas 2019'.

she picked another one out of the box. her back was facing the camera, and she guessed she was cooking something, seeing a plate full of food next to her on the counter, as she stood in front of the stove. after reading the caption peter had written, she was right, it was when she cooked pancakes for her and peter.

y/n continued looking through the pictures. her heart only warmed after looking at them.

"y/n?" peter's voice echoed in his room.

"in here!" she called back, making peter walk into his closet.

"oh, you found those," peter kneels down besides y/n, with a shy smile on his face.

y/n looks at one with peter looking over her shoulder. he took the picture in front of the mirror, well y/n was the one holding the camera, as peter had his face buried into her neck.

y/n remember that day very vividly. it was the day peter asked her to officially be his girlfriend. they had just gotten back from their first date, and peter thought y/n looked absolutely adorable wearing his pajama pants, so he insisted to take a picture.

"this doesn't really look like cleaning to me," peter chuckles, noticing how distracted y/n had gotten.

"oh shush," she giggles, "what have you been doing this whole time?"

"i was actually cleaning the kitchen. just like you said you were going to go through donations, which clearly is going so well," peter laughs while gesturing to what y/n was doing.

peter kisses the top of her head, before standing up, "since i love you, i'll let it slide just this once."

y/n only giggles again, and waves goodbye to peter before he walks out of his room.

even though she knew she had more cleaning to do, she went back to her previous task, her smile never leaving her face.

[stylesonfilms]

ink & innocence - 18 *

word count: 5.5k

hiii! i might start making little outfit/vibe inspos for certain chapters. :-) enjoy my first smut chapter! also i'm too lazy to write the kind of smut the story entails but they dont fully do it here !! enjoyyy!

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

"Come see me soon, okay?" 

Harry leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips. Aspen nodded, buried in Harry's shirt shr had stolen. He brushed a few strands of hair behind her ear before leaning down to press another kiss to her lips. "Bye, sugar. See you later, yeah?" 

As Harry disappeared down the hall, Aspen turned around and closed the door with a content sigh. Her eyes scanned over the empty solo cups and her now empty apartment, as Isobel headed home with Zayn. 

Aspen stood in the now-quiet apartment, the stillness a stark contrast to the lively chaos that had filled the space just hours ago. Her fingers brushed over her lips, still tingling from Harry's goodbye kiss. She hugged his oversized shirt tighter around herself, inhaling the faint scent of his cologne that lingered on the fabric—a mix of cedarwood and something uniquely him.

The girl glanced around the room, taking in the aftermath of their gathering. Solo cups dotted the coffee table, a few crumpled napkins lay on the floor, and the faint scent of alcohol and chips hung in the air. A soft smile played on her lips as she started tidying up, her mind replaying moments from the night.

As she moved through the space, Aspen carefully stacked the cups into a pile, tossing them into the trash bag she had retrieved from the kitchen. Her hands worked methodically, but her mind drifted. She thought about Harry, the way he had looked at her tonight with such tenderness, the way he always seemed to know how to make her feel special even in a room full of people. Her heart fluttered as she recalled the warmth of his touch, the way his deep laugh filled the room like a melody she never wanted to stop hearing.

Aspen carried the garbage bag to the kitchen and began wiping down the counters, humming softly to herself. Her thoughts shifted to how natural it felt to have Harry in her space, to share these moments of quiet intimacy with him. The apartment felt emptier now that he was gone, but the warmth he left behind lingered.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Later that evening, Aspen stood in her bedroom, sorting through her wardrobe. The sun was beginning to set, casting a soft golden light through the sheer curtains. Her hair was pinned back with delicate clips to keep it out of her face as she sat at her vanity, organizing her makeup. She decided on a soft, natural look, something that felt effortless but made her feel confident.

As she swept a rosy blush across her cheeks, her thoughts wandered back to Harry. She smiled faintly, recalling the way he had stolen her juice box earlier. His playful grin, the way he teased her without ever crossing a line—it all made her feel seen, cared for. The way he said goodbye lingered in her mind. Come see me soon, okay? The words felt like a promise, one she was eager to keep. Harry had a lonely night at the shop tonight, just wanting to finish up on some paperwork and hopefully a few sketches and he noted multiple times how he would love Aspen's company.

Aspen moved to her closet and pulled out a satin floral long skirt she hadn’t worn in a while. She had just gotten off of her time of the month and was looking forward to dressing up a bit anyways. The fabric shimmered subtly in the evening light, the delicate pattern of soft pinks and greens feeling perfect for the warm evening ahead. She paired it with a white lace tank top, forgoing a bra, as the intricate details of the lace added a touch of elegance and femininity.

The girl sat on her bed for a moment, just smiling to herself as she thought of Harry. Harry, Harry, Harry. She was still in complete awe of him and how he was her boyfriend. If anyone were to ask the girl when she first heard of him, she would absolutely deny the possibility of her even coming close to Harry Styles or vice versa, but now she wouldn't have it any other way. Everything from his tattoos which were delicately and intricately placed, each with a story, she was sure, to the change of polish every week or two that lingered on his fingernails, to his gorgeous curls. She could go on and on, thinking about the sharp curve of his brows or the glint in his green eyes when he looked at her. How he would spin his lip ring around mid conversation while he was thinking, or how he would twist his rings using the sides of the surrounding fingers. 

Aspen fluttered her eyes shut and, something she had never done, pressed her thighs together. She surprised herself at first, sitting fully up. A red hot rushed to her cheeks as the thought settled into her mind. She was a virgin, but she wasn't stupid. The girl brushed her hair back and cleared her throat, her cheeks still on fire yet she chose to brush it out of her head for now.

She stood in front of her full-length mirror, adjusting the waistband of the skirt and smoothing down the tank top. The outfit made her feel beautiful, but it also made her think about what Harry might say when he saw her. Would he notice the way the fabric flowed around her legs, or the way the lace hugged her figure? The thought made her cheeks flush slightly, but she smiled at herself in the mirror.

Slipping on a pair of simple sandals, she added a few accessories—a dainty gold necklace and matching earrings. She spritzed on her favorite perfume, a light floral scent, and stepped back to look at herself one last time. Satisfied, she grabbed her phone and sent Harry a quick text:

Aspen: on my way!! x

With that, Aspen grabbed her bag and headed toward the door, feeling a mix of excitement and anticipation to see her boyfriend once again.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

Aspen pushed open the glass door of the tattoo shop, the soft chime of the bell announcing her arrival. The space was dimly lit, the warm glow of the overhead lights bouncing off the red-accented walls. Artwork adorned the space, each piece vibrant and unique, a reflection of Zayn and Harry’s creative talents. The faint scent of disinfectant mingled with the earthy aroma of leather chairs and faint whiffs of ink.

She spotted Harry in his office through the partially open door, hunched over his desk. His dark curls peeked out from under a backwards baseball cap, and his black Rage Against the Machine shirt clung to his broad shoulders. He was scribbling something in his sketchbook, a slight furrow in his brow as he concentrated. The sight of him, so absorbed in his work, brought a soft smile to Aspen’s face.

Harry glanced up as she approached, his features softening instantly. He stood, his grin spreading wide as his eyes trailed over her outfit. “Bloody hell, you look gorgeous,” he said, setting his pencil down and walking toward her. His hands found her hips instinctively, his thumbs brushing over the silky fabric of her skirt. “This skirt is... somethin' else,” he murmured, his voice low as he leaned down to kiss her softly.

Aspen’s cheeks flushed at his touch, her fingers lightly resting on his chest. “Thank you,” she whispered, her smile shy but genuine.

Harry pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, his expression tender. “You’re going to distract me all night, you know that?”

Before she could respond, the sharp ring of the shop’s phone interrupted them. Harry groaned, resting his forehead against hers briefly before pulling away. “Hold that thought,” he said with a smirk, heading to the desk in the corner of the office.

Aspen watched as he picked up the receiver. “Yeah?” he said, his tone lightening when he realized it was Niall. Harry leaned back in his chair, one foot propped on the desk as he talked, his free hand gesturing animatedly.

Aspen wandered over to the small sofa tucked against the wall and sat down, pulling a book from her bag. She opened it to the bookmarked page, but her eyes kept drifting to Harry. He looked so at ease, effortlessly charming even in mundane moments like this. His fingers tapped rhythmically on the desk as he talked, his head tilting slightly when he laughed at something Niall said.

She tried to focus on the words in front of her, but the steady cadence of Harry’s voice was comforting, a background melody she couldn’t ignore. Eventually, she gave up on reading altogether, her gaze settling on him. There was something magnetic about the way he worked—how his hand moved fluidly across the paper when he returned to his sketches, how his brows furrowed slightly in concentration.

Harry hung up the phone after a few minutes, spinning his chair to face her. He caught her staring and grinned. “Am I that fascinating?” he teased, setting his sketchbook down and leaning back in his chair.

Aspen shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips. “Maybe a little,” she admitted, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.

Harry chuckled, standing up and stretching before walking over to sit beside her with his folders and pens. “You know, you’re not exactly subtle,” he said, his tone teasing but affectionate.

She laughed softly, leaning her head against his shoulder. “I just like being here with you,” she said quietly. “Even if it’s just sitting in silence.”

Harry wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer. “Yeah,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Me too, sugar. Me too.”

The two of them sat there, the hum of the shop and the occasional scratching of Harry’s pencil filling the room. Aspen didn’t need to read her book, and Harry didn’t need to say much. Their presence was enough, a silent rhythm of comfort and understanding that neither of them wanted to break.

However, thoughts from earlier flooded her mind, when she had been sitting in her bed. How her thoughts got lost in a sea of Harry, his hands, his looks, his mouth. A blush crept back onto her cheeks, hidden by her hair as she diverted her gaze to the book she was reading in hopes it would distract her. But nothing seemed to work, as Aspen kept going back to him. She swore she could close her eyes and feel his lips on her neck. 

Aspen shifted slightly on the sofa, her cheeks burning as the memory of Harry's lips brushed against her mind. She clenched the book a little tighter, willing herself to focus on the words in front of her, but it was hopeless. Every time she tried, her thoughts would drift back to him—the way his hands lingered on her hips, the way his voice dropped an octave when he spoke her name, the way his lips felt impossibly soft against hers.

The idea of making a move felt both thrilling and terrifying. Harry was always so open, so unabashedly affectionate, yet Aspen still found herself hesitant. What if she crossed an unspoken boundary? What if her desire was too much, too forward? But then again, wasn’t Harry the one who looked at her like she was his entire world? He was always finding ways to touch her, always leaving her feeling like she was the only person who mattered. Maybe—just maybe—he was waiting for her to take the lead.

Her heart raced at the thought, her pulse quickening as she stole a glance at him. He was focused on his sketchbook again, the faint crease in his brow signaling his concentration. Aspen admired the way his fingers moved so effortlessly, the veins in his hands visible as he worked. Her stomach flipped as she imagined what those hands might feel like trailing up her back, pulling her closer. The thought sent a shiver down her spine, and she quickly looked away, burying her face in her book to hide her flushed cheeks.

Should I just do it? she wondered, biting her lip nervously. Harry had always been patient with her, never pushing her beyond what she was comfortable with. But maybe it was time for her to show him that she wanted him just as much—that she wasn’t afraid to meet him halfway.

Finally, she closed the book carefully and set it beside her, her hands nervously fiddling in her lap. "Harry?," She squeaked out eventually. He didn't look up, sharing a slight glance but stayed concentrated on his book. "Yeah, babe?"

"Are you.. busy?" The girl nervously bit the inside of her lip, her eyes darting from his concentrated look to the book and how his hands moved, mentally cursing herself. Of course he was busy, you idi--.

"No, baby. Not really. Why? What's up?" Oh. Okay, good.

Aspen swallowed and shifted in her seat to turn towards Harry, and his hand around her gently caressed her bare shoulder, her cardigan laid beside her. With a breath, she finally spoke. If he said no, he would be nice about it, at least. Plus, it was just Harry. But that was the exact issue. It was Harry.

"I was thinking we could try something new." Now, Harry wasn't looking at her, but he didn't have to for her to know how attentive he was. He always responded, and his shoulder touches grounded her even more. 

"Oh, yeah? What're we thinkin', daredevil? Ready to go t'the duck park?" He grinned, amusing himself now. She only huffed and swatted his arm lightly. He knew that was a fear of hers. Has nobody seen how scary ducks are, especially when they're heavily food driven?!

"No," she squeaked, a pink rush rising to her cheeks from her neck. "I..." Come on, Aspen. "I was thinking we could try something new." Despite her shy and stuttered movements, her hand moved further up his arm and rested on his chest. 

"Oh." Now that got Harry's attention. He glanced down at the hand on his chest, closing his book with the pencil between and setting it to the side. The mans tongue poked out to wet his lips as he took her hand, shifting himself to look at her. With scattered kisses to her knuckles, he asked her, "And what is it that you want to try?"

Aspen felt a wave of relief hit her. It wasn't explicitly stated yet that he would want to, but at least he didn't tell her to bug off and that he would rather work. But who was Aspen kidding? Harry would walk away from a burning building full of innocent lives if it meant Aspen offered him a kiss.

"I don't know yet," the girl squeaked, but Harry's hand that came to tilt her chin up stopped her from looking away shyly. "I don't... think we should go all the way yet, but maybe.. something small. Steps, I guess." She sucked in a breath in embarrassment.

The word 'yet' strangely went straight down Harry's spine. It made him feel more than good to know she trusted him enough to let them get that far eventually. The mans thumb grazed under her bottom lip, his green eyes flickering over her soft features. A small smile cracked his lips.

"Yeah? We can do tha', baby. I agree with you, not jus' yet, but there's plenty we could do, yeah? Thank you f'trusting me, Asp." The man kissed her knuckles again before he tilted his head down to capture her lips between his in a slow kiss. 

"If y'don't know, why don't we start how we usually do? And I'll go slow, won't skip a step or anythin'. You can tell me what's okay, 'nd wha's not okay. But I want words when I ask you something, okay? 's important to know what you like and don't like, it helps the both of us feel good." Aspen nodded, but quickly replaced it with a 'yes' which made Harry smile some more. 

Carefully, Harry got them into a position where he could comfortably hover above her and made she was settled and comfortable under him. Her arms snaked around the mans broad shoulders when he came down to slot their lips together. Harry moved his lips carefully with hers, taking it slow, though he was always ready to have her. 

He swiped his tongue along her bottom lip and like routine, she opened for him. The man's tongue carded through her mouth, a content sound escaping his nose at the feeling. She was warm, and she never failed to taste sweet. He hoped he could say that about something else tonight, too.

Just before Aspen could turn her head and deepen the kiss, Harry began to trail his kisses down her neck. It was normal for him to break off, but this time, his kisses were different. They were slow and he seemed to drag them out, grazing his teeth near the curve of her neck. Harry took her heavy breaths as a sign for him to keep going. He used his teeth teasingly a few times more, brushing over that special spot that always elicited a perfect sound from her, this time no different.

He smirked slightly, kissing over the area. "Tell me if y'want to stop," His voice trailed off into her neck as she tilted to give him more access. Harry's wet lips parted and he slowly latched onto  the side of her neck. After a second or two, the feeling of his teeth over the spot came and she gasped. It wasn't uncomfortable, but surely was different. Her eyes fluttered closed as she let out a small whimper when he repeated the action slightly lower, except she felt the slick of his tongue up her neck and over the marks he left. 

Harry sat up on his knee slightly and set a hand on the curve of her shoulder, his thumb brushing  over the two small bites he left with a satisfied smirk. "There, now you're mine," the man muttered as he leaned back down to get back to work, trailing his kisses down her collarbones. 

"Always been yours, Har.." She breathed out, her hands swarming his curls now. He groaned against her skin at Aspen's words, nudging her with his nose before he kissed along the hem of her tank top. A leather sofa wouldn't exactly be the best to lay down shirtless, so he continued to trail his kisses down the center of her chest.

When Aspen mustered the strength to open her eyes once more, she swore she could pass out at the sight. He was looking back up at her, his mouth blotting kisses over her tits, lips grazing over her nipples through her tank top. "Is this okay?" He muttered, and Aspen almost shouted a big yes.

"Y-yeah," the girl nodded, playing with the curls between her hand under the cusp of his hat. She licked her lips slowly, her brows furrowing slightly when she felt Harry's lips wrap around her bud over her shirt. Aspen gasped and lifted her chest to match Harry, his free hand coming up to cup her breast. He kept a firm squeeze, his thumb occasionally brushing over her nipple while his mouth continued with their wet kisses down her stomach.

She was perfect, Harry thought. Every curve, every sound, how soft she was. The way she seemed to respond seemed perfect to him, like music to his ears. The man shifted his body, now planted between her legs with his arms holding him up by her hips. "Do you remember what I told you? Tell me whe--."

"Yes, Harry. I know, just... keep going. It's okay." Harry chuckled softly at her eagerness, but with more of a confident base, his hands folded up the end of her shirt to expose her stomach, where his lips immediately landed. 

Harry mouthed wet kisses over, trailing down to the hem of her skirt. While his lips moved, the both of his hands slid down her clothed thigh under they reached the end of her skirt where they slipped under slowly. As his hands traveled back up her bare legs and her glorious thighs, the skirt bunched over her hips perfectly. When Harry had pulled back to sit up, he couldn't help but have his eyes roam over her body. They took in her red lips and flustered face, her damp tank top, her exposed soft skin of her stomach, and her white panties, a pretty pink bow sitting on the front hem. 

Aspen blushed at the sudden exposure, but didn't halt him. If she knew her skirt would be coming up, she wouldn't put on something prettier. But Harry didn't seem to mind as the word "fuck" fell off his lips while his hands took ahold of her thighs to slowly spread them. He looked back up at her to see if she was uncomfortable at all, but nothing looked off so he continued. 

"Now, I know you told me to shut up," Harry teased his words, which made her puff out a 'I didn't say shut up', "but I want t'tell you what I plan to do." The mans hands came to rest on her hips, his thumbs slowly coming to a close over the front of her panties. He hummed, running his fingers over the soft mound while he looked up at her once more. "Look at me."

Aspen peeled her eyes open, swallowing to ease her dry throat and she looked down at Harry, with a new flicker in his eyes. Want. 

"Good girl," He kissed her knee, his hands sliding up the soft sides of her thighs before they returned to their original position. Aspen's heart fluttered at the pet name, followed by a coil in her stomach. 

"I don't have to take these off, but I want to touch you. Over your clit, maybe inside you a bit. And then 'm going to use my tongue to lick you, or eat you out. 'S that sounding okay?"

Aspen swallowed once more and took a breath in through her nose. She couldn't even focus on being nervous or embarrassed anymore, just how Harry's thumb gently tapped over her. "Yes, that's... that's okay." She nodded. 

Harry's lips turned up into a smile and he kissed her knee once more, his fingers now running down the fold of her pussy through her panties. "Good. Don't forget what I told you."

Aspen wasn't sure which part he was talking about, as she would prefer if he would be more show than talk. Almost on cue, his thumb pressed over her clothed clit, which sent a thrill up her spine. She gasped softly, lying back down with a new thump in her heart which she swore she and Harry could feel between her legs.

Harry kept the light pressure as he ran up and down her slit over the white cotton panties, dipping a bit deeper when he brushed over her entrance. He licked his lips as he was met with the immediate mush of wet. She was wet for him and he couldn't help but think for how long.

The man's finger hooked onto the side of her panties with one hand, slowly peeling it to the side. Harry couldn't help but stare. She was so... perfect. The man tucked the fabric into the side of her thigh, his fingers now focused on pulling her open. Harry wasn't some sick freak, but she genuinely was crafted perfectly. Her soft skin and lips that held her beautiful pink insides, her sweet bud of her clit on full show between her folds. Okay, maybe he was a sick freak. But just for her.

He groaned softly at the bundle of slick that coated her entirely. Without a second thought, his thumb dipped down between her folds and over her entrance, collecting the slick to travel back up over her clit. It was like the feeling was an immediate shock. With each small, teasing swirl, Aspen whimpered. Fueled by her reaction, the man added a bit more pressure, fully giving into his touches now. The girl's lips broke out into a moan, her hips buckling ever so slightly. 

"How does it feel, Aspen?" Hearing her name snapped her half out of reality, and breathy moans continued to follow in her response. "I-it' feels good, Harry. Really... good." She licked her lips and whined once more at the loss of contact, just to feel the pad of his thumb prodding at her entrance. She gasped out a moan, the soft squelches of the repeated action hitting Harry's ears beautifully. 

Harry licked his lips, deciding he couldn't wait any longer. It had been a long time since he felt the want to do this to a woman, but with Aspen, he kind of knew from the moment he saw her. There was no way he could avoid that. In fact, most times when he had his fist wrapped around himself, thoughts of eating her out would flood his mind. The orgasm wasn't that hard to chase after that, but the guilt was sure hard to shake.

Now, Harry got to experience it first hand. He ducked his head down between her thighs, his hands sliding along the sides of her thighs so his arms could snake around her folded legs. The man's breath fanned out over the girl's inner thighs, his lips lightly scattering kisses on the inside of her thighs and down to just outside where she needed.

"Harry," Aspen whispered, more in want than to call him. Yet he looked up, his lips still working kisses onto the inside of her thighs. She almost fainted at the sight. She shook her head and fell back once more, her now bare foot grazing along his back. "Please..."

Satisfied, Harry pressed a flat kiss to her clit, which sent a pleasurable shock through her. His tongue flattened out along the curve of her pussy before he skillfully dipped in between and along her folds. He avoided her clit for a few teasing moment, melting into the sweet warmth of her cunt. Harry let out a moan on his own at just the feeling on his mouth, eyes flickering up to look at her through the hard peaks of her nipples to see how her reddened lips fell open. 

The man closed his eyes and took a breath, swiping the muscle over her clit with ease and focused on swirls for a moment. Aspen continued her breathless moans, the rest falling into her palm. Once Harry noticed, he was quick to reach up and tug her arm away to reveal her breathy and needy moans. A whimper followed by a grind of her hips followed when his tongue prodded at her entrance. Slowly, he inched the tip of his tongue in and groaned against her, working his tongue back up to her clit.

Aspen felt like she was on fire. Everything she never knew she could feel, she was feeling with Harry. She gasped at the cool of his lip ring, replaced by a small cry of a moan when his tongue entered her once again. The heels of her feet dug into his shoulder blades, her hands finding home in his curls once she fumbled with the hat to toss it aside. 

When Harry gave a particular dip inside her entrance and a sweet swirl over her clit, Aspen's manicured nails wrapped around his curls and pulled at them slightly, which drew out a groan from Harry. "S-sorry," she squeaked, letting go of her grip. 

He popped off with a wet noise, his lips shining with her wet. "Do what you want, okay? I enjoy it," Harry promised before he was face deep into her thighs once more. Taking his word, her fingers curled around his hair. With every jolt to her body, every arch, she tugged at his curls. And every time he had moaned or groaned, the vibration only added to the pleasure. 

It wasn't long until Aspen felt a coil in her stomach. "H-Harry, stop, I-I have to--."

Aspen couldn't define the feeling. The intense pressure mixed with what Harry was giving her had her chest rising quick and high, her thighs threatening to close, only to have Harry pull them back open. Harry shook his head, flattening his tongue back over her clit as she did so. "You're jus' gonna cum, trust y'self." His hands worked soothing motions over the girls thighs while his words muttered out over her slick cunt. 

Aspen's eyes screwed shut, her grip on his curls tightening as she rolled her hips. "H-Harry!" She cried out, her hips faltering while Harry practically drank her in. She came quick and with ease, her orgasm ripping through her. His motions were fluid and quick yet sent so many shocks up her body to the point she couldn't move. 

Harry continued to slowly and gently lap her clean, taking in everything she gave until she started to shy away and whimper. "H-hurts," she gasped, yet something about it made her want Harry to stay there.

The man pulled up with trailing kisses over her heat and inner thighs, his lips and chin slick with her mess. Harry licked his lips and flashed her a lopsided grin. His thumbs worked slow and careful shapes into her thighs, trying to soothe her. Aspens bent legs fell flat as she tried to regulate her breathing, cheeks burning red. 

"You did so, so good," Harry praised as he leaned over to kiss her lips softly multiple times until she giggled breathlessly against his. "God, Aspen. 'M so proud of you, y'have no idea."

Harry lingered above Aspen, brushing a strand of damp hair from her forehead as he gazed down at her with a tenderness that made her heart ache. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her body still trembling from the aftermath of what they had just shared. His praise echoed in her mind, wrapping around her like a comforting embrace, though her cheeks were still flushed with embarrassment and exhilaration.

“You okay?” Harry asked softly, his voice low and warm. His hand cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing over her skin in soothing strokes.

Aspen nodded, her lips curving into a small, shy smile. “Yeah,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “I’m so okay.”

Harry’s grin widened, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he leaned down to press a lingering kiss to her forehead. “Stay here, sugar. I’ll be right back,” he murmured, his words a gentle promise.

Reluctantly, he pulled away, slipping off the couch and disappearing into the bathroom just outside of his office. Aspen shifted slightly, wincing as the sensitive skin of her thighs protested the movement. She reached for the hem of the skirt she wore, intending to tug it down, but her hands faltered as the vulnerability of the moment settled over her. Despite her initial shyness, she felt an overwhelming sense of trust—an intimacy she had never experienced before.

Harry returned moments later with a warm washcloth and a glass of water. He set the glass on the table beside them and knelt by the end of the couch, his expression soft and intent as he reached for her. “Let me take care of you, yeah?” he said, his voice filled with quiet devotion.

Aspen hesitated for a moment, then nodded, her trust in him overriding her embarrassment. Harry carefully lifted her legs, his touch gentle as he cleaned her with the washcloth. He worked with a focused tenderness, his movements unhurried and respectful, as if he understood the weight of her vulnerability. After each wipe, he left a grateful kiss.

“You’re amazing, y’know that?” Harry said softly, his eyes flicking up to meet hers as he pressed the cloth against her skin. “So beautiful. So perfect.”

Aspen’s lips parted, her breath catching at his words. She felt a tear slip down her cheek, not from sadness but from the overwhelming emotion of the moment. Her lips cracked into a lazy smile regardless. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “For... everything.”

Harry’s brows knit together in concern as he reached up to brush the tear away with his thumb. “No need t'thank me,” he said, his voice firm yet gentle. “I meant every word, Asp baby. 'M the lucky one here.”

After he was finished, Harry set the washcloth aside and climbed back onto the couch, pulling Aspen into his arms. She melted against him, her cheek resting against his chest as his fingers traced soothing patterns on her back. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her ear was grounding, and she felt herself relax completely in his embrace.

“Drink some water for me, yeah?” Harry coaxed, reaching for the glass on the nightstand. He held it to her lips, watching with a small smile as she obediently took a sip.

As the minutes passed, the silence between them was filled with an unspoken understanding, a bond that felt unbreakable. Harry pressed a kiss to the top of her head, his lips lingering as he whispered, “I’ll always take care 'f you, Asp. Always.”

Aspen tightened her arms around him, her heart swelling with gratitude and love. In that moment, she knew with certainty that Harry wasn’t just her partner—he was her safe place, her home. And for the first time in a long time, she felt truly and completely cherished.

She made a mental note to definitely return the favor soon.

[ultimate-chickennougat]

| Your Salaryman Husband | (Vol 4)

Vol 1 Vol 2 Vol 3 (Not Required) Vol 5 Vol 6 Vol 7 Vol 8 Vol 9

Salaryman!Kento x Housewife!Reader

When you get sick...

Word Count: 1.1k CW: SFW, Domestic Fluff, fem!Reader, Y/n is sick, Nanami takes off his shirt (nondescriptive)

A/n: Maybe you should meet Gojo sometime soon... idk... thoughts.

You mostly stayed inside the confines of your home, so getting sick wasn’t a common occurrence. 

Food was always prepared well, with vegetables washed and meat cooked properly. The house was regularly dusted and vacuumed, sheets and pillowcases thrown in the washing machine at least once per week. 

Nanami’s routine had certain protections as well, sitting a comfortable distance away from clients and coworkers while at meetings, and being in a partitioned office space in a quiet corner of the building during the work day. 

Despite these things, the sudden cold front seemed to disagree with your immune system, as you were now snuggled up in bed with a box of tissues. 

��Kento, darling, I can sleep in the guest bedroom, it’s fine,” you argued through your sniffles and occasional cough. He walked over to the side of the bed and pushed a few more pillows under your head. “It’s fine, it would take too much work to move things. You’re tired, so go to sleep,” he muttered, a slight chuckle leaving his mouth at your willingness. “You know I’m perfectly alright with sleeping here with you, you know,” you lightly pushed him away as he sat on the bed. “You’ll get sick too, and you have work,” you grabbed another tissue.

“I could always take some time off, I have some sick days in my contract,” Nanami smiled, feeling your forehead. “I’m glad you can still take care of yourself, but I’m here too. Just rely on me a little, Y/n,” he stood up and left to grab you some water.

It was the evening after a long day at work, when Nanami found you in an unwell state. Dinner on the stove was half cooked, sitting there, as you had quit for his sake when the sneezing onset. His poor wife, already asleep and shivering on the couch by the time he got home.  

Nanami picked you up, your arms wrapped lazily around his neck as he carried you to your shared room and laid you down. You woke up shortly after the covers were pulled over your body, head peaking out from the growing mass of blankets and pillows surrounding you. Two more were still awaiting their place behind your head. 

Now he was in the kitchen, turning on the stove to medium high and clicking the start button on the timer, which was already set to the final 15 minutes it needed until done. You had already felt a bit off that morning, something that he kept in mind all day, especially as he rushed home. Hence, a simple chicken soup was on the menu. 

He filled up a big glass with water, and took out two bowls from the cabinet, moving back to stir the soup that was bubbling.

You closed your eyes, enjoying the smell of soup that floated through the air. Dinner would be ready soon, so there was no point in going back to sleep, not that you weren’t close to dozing off already. Nanami came back clearing the nightstand of clutter and setting the box of tissues on the bed next to you. A chair was pulled up next to the nightstand, and two bowls were placed on it. 

You sat up comfortably, still surrounded by cozy blankets as you met your husband’s gaze. “I hate to admit it, you seem so miserable, but you’re very cute when you’re sick,” he laughed as you blushed. “I am not, I’m quite disgusting actually, darling,” you pointed to the pile of used tissues sitting in the garbage can. “I don’t think it’s disgusting at all, my love,” He grabbed your hand softly, and guided it to your spoon. 

“The soup is delicious, you’ll feel better if you eat,” he watched as you brought a spoonful to your mouth, a soft hum left your lips in agreement, it was quite good and easy to finish.

“Thank you, Kento,” you smiled, pulling the blankets off as you stood up to get ready for bed. “No you don’t,” he grabbed your waist and pulled you back onto the mound of pillows. “If you need something, I can get it for you,” you frowned, letting out a few coughs. “Besides I won’t be here tomorrow during work, so you should rest up while I am.” He stacked up your dishes and left, returning shortly.

“Which nightgown?” he asked, rifling through the dresses in your closet. “The pink short one,” you replied softly, voice slightly rough from your sore throat. He grabbed it and brought it over to you. “Do you need help changing?” He asked plainly, as you laughed. “I can do it myself, Mr. Nanami,” He sighed in defeat, unbuttoning his shirt to get ready himself.

“Well I don’t want you getting off this bed.” You shook your head in disagreement. “I still have to brush my teeth,” you whined, as he left you to finish getting ready in the bathroom, on your own, as he wiped down the nightstand with a wet cloth and changed. 

You came back, dressed for bed with your hair tied up in hopes of keeping cool throughout the night. Tossing yourself onto the blankets, you crawled under the covers enjoying the comfortable mattress the two of you had bought together. 

Nanami leaned down from beside the bed, his hand under your chin lifting your face, as he gently kissed your forehead. “I’m glad you don’t have a fever,” He murmured, lips still close to your skin. “I probably just have a cold, I guess,” you responded, snaking your hand down to grip his free one. “You should still stay away from me,” Nanami backed off from you, sitting down. 

“I don’t mind getting sick, it causes no problems,” he offered with a smirk. “But if you do really care so much… I’ll offer a compromise,” a look of surprise overtook your face as you awaited his proposal. “At least I get to sit here until you fall asleep, hmm?” you nodded, still longing for his presence, even at a distance. 

He kissed your cheek as you drifted to sleep, a smile still on your face and your breath slow and heavy as he could hear the congestion. 

“Goodnight, my love,” he sat still, lounging back into the chair. Little did he know it would be two more hours of watching you before he himself fell asleep, still sitting in that chair by your side.

[putiflowy]

Movie Night! - Mettaton x GN! Reader

Warnings: This fanfic is so cozy it doesn't need warnings expect for a warning warning that there is no warning.

Characters: Mettaton, Papyrus, Sans, Undyne, Alphys and gender neutral reader.

A bit of context: You are living in the skeleton house and you are friends with Alphys and Undyne. You are also a human. That's it.

Words: More than 2k! (I'm a yapper)

...

"Are there swords in this movie?" Asked Undyne with enthusiasm about the CD Alphys was holding between her claws. If the answer was 'yes', then Undyne would not shut up throught the entire movie. If the answer was 'no', she would be asleep in no time.

"I haven't watched it, dear." The small doctor softly pulled her girlfriend's arm so she would sit with her on the purple futon Papyrus had left for them. You observed the couple's behavior up close. On the one hand, Undyne was fighting for space. On the other hand, Alphys wanted to be even closer to her.

"Hey, there is still space here." You pointed the green sofa you were sitting at with Sans. However, the girls decided that it was better to stay together.

"I can't wait to see it!" You told Sans trying to make it obvious that you were excited. Undyne and Alphys had found a movie in the garbage that seemed to be compatible with Papyrus' CD player. After all this time in the ruins, you missed human movies. You could not complain though, there was a popular celebrity among the monsters that filled your day with entertainment. His dances and all of the energy he put into the show made everyone go crazy. The reason you were so thrilled was not only the movie, but the tiny probability of Mettaton making his appeareance on this very same night! Alphys had invited him, but it was getting late.

"May I?" Undyne asked taking the movie from her girlfriend's hands.

"If there is anything interesting... wake me up." Said Sans opening his eye for one second before falling asleep again.

"Wait!" You stopped her from putting the CD inside the rusty player.

"What?" She sounded angry from the way she spit that word.

"The snacks are not ready yet!" With that excuse you rushed into Papyrus' kitchen to see if there was something else to prepare.

"(Y/N)!" Papyrus happily smiled when you appeared through the door. You hugged his waist from behind and watched how he carefully cut some sandwiches in skull shapes. Luckily, there was still a lot to prepare.

"Need a hand?" You took a knife and copied his movements.

"THAT'S NOT BAD, (Y/N)!" He clapped his hands emitting a bony sound. "NOW CUT 298 MORE AND WE'LL BE DONE!"

"Papyrus..." You placed your hands on his cheeks trying to bring him back to reality. "It's just you, Undyne, Alphys, Sans and me... and maybe Mettaton. I'm not sure if he can eat, though. So, we won't need that much food."

"IS 183 A REASONABLE NUMBER?"

"Let's make 10 more sandwiches, okay?" You softly grasped his cheek as you looked at the pile of sandwiches he already made.

"ALRIGHT!" Papyrus quickly listened to your demands and placed the cheese on each slice of bread. You repeated the same thing with the slices of pickles for the eye sockets of the bread craneum. Looking at the watch of the kitchen, there was still time for Mettaton to come before you finished the last 10 sandwiches. However, as time passed, you grew more impatient.

"Is he coming?" You raised your eyebrows as you watched the tall skeleton open an XL bag of extra crispy chips and pour it all into a small bowl. Helping him prepare the snacks for your guests was just an excuse to give Mettaton some extra time.

"WHO?" Papyrus opened his mouth confused by your question.

"Mettaton."

"I DON'T KNOW, (Y/N)!" The skeleton sounded almost ofended by your question.

"He hasn't answered Alphys' text and it's already past 9. I don't think he's coming..." You sounded resigned as you said that.

"IF HE WANTED TO COME HE WOULD ALREADY BE HERE!" He had a point.

"You're right, Papyrus..." Despite of the hopes you had, it was not likely for him to show up.

"Have you finished those sandwiches? I'm hungry." Sans made his appearence.

"JUST WAIT A MINUTE, BROTHER. THEY ARE ALMOST READY!" Papyrus answered as calmly as he could.

"Ok, ok..." Sans took some of the chips that had fallen from the bowl to his mouth and then walked to the fridge. "We will need some drinks with all of this food." He took a look into the refrigerator and saw nothing but a can of sweet cherry soda. "Can you get more soda? We are out of drinks." Sans said as he took the last can of soda and opened it in front of you.

"Hey, that was mine you fucking bonehead!"

"You can always buy more." You placed your hands around his neck as if you were going to choke him. He chuckled in return and softly moved your hands away from him.

...

"Acid fruit explossion... orange juice... sweet cherry soda... black boba tea... mew mew drink..." You rewatched the shopping list as you held all of the drinks in one arm. On your way to pay for the groceries you found a familiar man waiting in line putting some similar drinks into a tote bag. The man was no other than Mettaton himself. In metal and wires. He was standing there like a diva in a bright pink fur coat and some sunglasess for a bit of incognito mode. As you placed all of the drinks on the counter he took notice of your existence. He lifted his pink tinted glasses to check you out.

"Oh, hi... (Y/n), right?" He asked with a grin on his face. You didn't know how he knew your name. Maybe Alphys had talked to him about you?

"Yes, that's me!" You wanted to keep making eye contact with him, but you had to break it in order to pay for your drinks.

"I hope I'm not too late for the movie night. I wanted to make it up with some drinks and snacks so you guys would not be angry with me..." He explained and you nodded still amazed that you were there in front of the guy you saw on TV. As you two made your way out of the supermarket, he took two long cans of coconut water and offered you one.

"Cheers!" He said in a humorous way before taking a sip from his can. On the way back, you managed to exchange some words with him. Nothing meaningful, but it made you feel more comfortable in his presence. Outside of the TV he was a humble and caring guy. You learned that Mettaton was a big fan of the human traditions, that's why his hotel had so much references to your world (even if some of them did not match reality). You missed some of the things you left up there. Nevertheless, you had built a strong community with amazing people and you could say you enjoyed everything about the life in the underground (except for the vitamin D deficiency).

...

"Finally!" Sans exclaimed as he opened the door for you and took the bag you were carrying. He hadn't seen Mettaton who was right behind you.

"Hi, darling!" Mettaton took off his glasses and leaned over to give Sans a tender hug. The short skeleton patted his back in return.

"METTAAAAAAAAA!" Alphys shouted from the living room as she ran towards Mettaton. Their hug lasted longer as Alphys and him hadn't seen in a long time. Mettaton parted when his back started to hurt. He was still sore from yesterday's amazing dance show.

"HELLO, FRIEND!" Papyrus happily hugged Mettaton.

"Darling!" Mettaton gave him a peck on his cheek which made him blush. There was so much affection going on. So much you wished you hadn't gone to the grocery shop so you could receive some. The last one to get hugged was Undyne, it was short but seen from your perspective it made you envious. Next time Sans was getting the drinks.

"(Y/N), I HAVE A MISSION FOR YOU!" Papyrus caught you attention by placing a hand on your shoulder. He needed you to help him get all the snacks on the table. You quickly accepted the mission and saluted him like a soldier to his general. Once you arrived to the kitchen you saw an even bigger pile of sandwiches.

"Did you make more sandwiches?" You asked even if you already knew the answer.

"I PREPARED A 100 MORE, JUST LIKE YOU WANTED!" You shrugged it off and took the giantic tray of skeleton sandwiches with both hands. In order to arrive to the living room you had to walk very slowly. You didn't want to cause a mess after all the effort he had put into those sandwiches.

"Careful!" You said loudly so no one would get in your way. Mettaton appeared in front of you and placed his hands near yours to help you with the tray. You could feel a metallic finger softly stroke against the side of your hand. Even if it was unintentional, it made you blush.

"Are you expecting more guests?" Mettaton asked crocking his neck as the pile of sandwiches was blocking his view.

"No. It seems that Papyrus doesn't want us to be hungry." You both laughed and placed the tray in the center of the wooden table. Mettaton sat confortably on the sofa, not so far from Sans. He left a space in between for you to sit in.

"Where are you going, dear?" The robot asked confused as he patted the empty space he left for you.

"Oh, there is more!"

"More???" He exclaimed surprised standing up again to help you.

"Don't worry, it's not that much. I can handle it." As you walked away, Alphys noticed that Mettaton was watching you. Containing her laughter, she decided to tease him about it. To her surpirse, the robot confidently asked if you were single. Alphys quickly left her girlfriend's side to sit next to Mettaton and sip in the gossip.

"What? I like them. Is that a big deal?" Mettaton raised an eyebrow confused as Alphys covered her mouth and giggled.

"N-No!" She held back her excitement.

"Can you answer the question, darling? Yes or no?" Mettaton brought his face closer to Alphys' waiting for an answer.

"I'm sorry! W-When I get excited... I... I... cannot contain my la-" As the doctor was not colaborating, he decided to shake her abruptly.

"STOP IT! YES, THEY ARE SINGLE. RELEASE HER RIGHT NOW!" Undyne stood up to defend her girlfriend and Mettaton quickly let her go. He sat Alphys and dusted off her shoulders as an apology. With a polite smile on his face, they continued talking.

"Are you interested in going on a... d-date with them?" This conversation felt like a new Mad Mew Mew movie release for Alphys.

"I'm not sure if you are their type..." Undyne scratched her shiny forehead as she tought about you two.

"What's even their type?" Sans woke up to listen to the gossip.

"Might be humans. They are a human after all..." Undyne felt proud with her point.

"B-But... there are no humans in here. Aaaaaaand... Mettaton has the resemblance of a human!" The doctor explained her theory with no conviction.

"Looks like you are stuck in a love circuit!" Sans tried to make everyone laugh with his pun but it did not work. No one laughed. "Didn't you guys like my 'byte' sized joke?" Still no laughs.

"No!" Undyne said directly. "Anyway... You two don't have much in common. Look at (Y/n)! They spend their time on the internet like a weird lo-" Undyne stopped talking when she noticed her girlfriend was crossing her arms.

"Well, you can always give it a try. Take Alphys and Undyne as an example of an incompatible couple who is still together!" Sans laughed on his own.

"YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET YOUR WORDS!" Undyne exclaimed ofended throwing a pillow onto his face. Sans hugged the pillow tightly to his chest and fell asleep again. "Don't listen to him. You have to date that nerd. Nerds are the best partners!"

"Yeah, I think they will l-like you." Alphys muttered and blushed at what her girlfriend words.

"Thanks, beauties! I'll give it a try and see where it goes." Right when he finished thanking them Papyrus and you appeared through the door with more snacks. After placing the chips on the table, the great Papyrus decided to sit on the floor. You decided to do the same but Alphys stood up and offered you her place right next to Mettaton.

"Y-You c-can sit in here i-if you want to (Y/n)! I w-was sitting with U-Undyne and... uh I w-was h-here because... ugh... well... I..." Her face was getting sweaty. She didn't know how to finish the sentence.

"Sandwich!" Undyne saved her. "She wanted a sandwich. Hungry. Yes." Undyne moved her eyes from side to side and hugged Alphys tightly to her chest. Now that there was an empty seat, you happily took it. Despite of the terrible secret savers Mettaton had, you had no clue of his interest towards you.

"GIVE ME THE MOVIE!" Papyrus ordered as he quickly inserted the disk in the slot. Once he played all the necessary buttons, the movie started. It was from a human director you did not know anything about. Everyone was super invested in the first minutes of the movie, but as time passed, the movie was not getting any better. The only thing that kept you awake was the ocassional comentaries Mettaton made to say how we would make the movie more interesting. Despite of his silly ideas, you would kill to see that on the screen. The review you made was clear, it deserved to be in the garbage where the girls found it. The others made some non verbal feedback. For example, Papyrus went to his bedroom to play some games on his computer. After all day cooking, he had a well deserved rest and he could not stand boring actors. Sans slept through the entire movie and left to his bedroom to continue once it ended. The girls would not stop cuddling to avoid watching the movie. They also congratulated Mettaton for the great work in his shows.

"You know what was good about this movie? It made me grateful for being trapped in the underground." Undyne was honest.

"The animes are good though." Alphys tried to soften it up as she put on her winter jacket.

"Well, not all human movies are like this. Right, (Y/n)?" Mettaton tried to defend you as if you had created that monstruosity (in the bad sense of the word).

"We have (favourite movie). So, yes." You scratched you arm and walked with everyone to the front door.

"My uber will be here soon, darling. It was nice to meet you finally." He bended slightly and extended his arms to give you a tender hug. His hug was tight so you could not move and wrap your arms around his body. Despite not being able to breath, you enjoyed every second of it. In his robotic form, he was rough and did not control his strength, but somehow his hug made your heart warm.

The hug was soon interrupted by Alphys and Undyne who were leaving through the door. It was just Mettaton and you now. As the uber was still on his way, you waited with him on the porch. Even if it was dark outside, you could still see his features. He rested his back against the wooden wall of the house and checked his phone to see the hour.

"I didn't know there were uber drivers in here too."

"Well, there are no uber drivers. It's just one of my employees (BurgerPants)." He explained with a smile.

"Hey, Mettaton." That caught his attention. "I hope to see you again soon." The only reason you confesed your desire to meet him again was because you saw a car approaching from the distance. You even started waving at him like an idiot.

"Darling, that's not my car."

"Oh..." You fidgeted the awkwarness away with the lace of your sweatshirt.

"And I would love to see you again too." He brused a synthetic strand of hair over his ear. "You can come to my show anytime. I'll get you front row seats."

"That would be great..." Now you were the one brushing a strand of hair over your ear.

"Hey, I mean it. I would love to see you again, darling." You weren't sure what to answer. But you did not have to. You smiled nervously and stayed still as you were not believing any of this was happening. Mettaton's fingers softly trailed down your check. Ending with a soft brush of his thumb in your chin. "Can I kiss you?" That caught you off of guard. You could see his eyes scanning your lips, waiting patiently for an answer. Waiting for permission. The answer he was waiting did not arrive as expected. However, you approached your fingers to his lips to know how they felt like first in order to decide wheter you kiss them or not. Even if you could not resist yourself from kissing him, you wanted to tease him a little bit. Just to see how he would handle it. How he would react to your teasing.

"Yes." You hummed and pressed your lips on his softly.

[monstersinthecosmos]

Vamptember Day 17 - You Made a Mess

{deaf center - the clearing}

You made a mess.

Marius doesn’t say it out loud. 

He just stands there in the doorway, his eyes passing back and forth across the space, unsure where to even start. Pointing out the obvious won’t help, anyway. Criticizing isn’t productive and he’s not sure Daniel would even comprehend it in the first place.

The paints are all knocked over, though. Tools where they shouldn’t be and the chemical smell of the matte sealer permeating the air from where it’s spilled across the floor.

Daniel sits in the center of it all, balancing things into a sculpture of sorts. Holding all of it very still while the glue sets.

“What are you making?” Marius asks. Gently and uncritical, both curious and concerned, willing to nurture if it will bring him back to the surface.

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look up. Leans in to blow on the piece he’s building to dry it faster.  

How had he managed to ransack every last bit of Marius’s supplies and yet still filled in the gaps with garbage? Seems like he’s twisted together discarded bits of wrapper and strips of cardboard. A loose thread from the carpet. The spiked back leg of a cockroach. HIs hand hovers over his pile of debris, as if each found object is precious as he decides which to select next. 

The question doesn’t register in him. Marius listens for an answer, even if Daniel chooses silence. His brain instead throbs quietly with the instructions for himself. This angle and that angle and the glue here and structure there and pieces and parts and pieces and parts and pieces and parts. The thought doesn’t come together with language, but he settles into it, into to the reality of their nature. 

Lestat calls it the Savage Garden, but to Daniel it’s just pieces and parts. His hands hold so still, move so carefully, completely inhuman as he attempts to invent balance.

He wonders if Armand has seen this. If he knows it’s gotten this bad. Even with their minds locked from one another, it’s impossible not to see the way he’s deteriorating. 

Marius takes a step closer. Slowly, to gauge Daniel’s response, to make sure he’s not intruding. Daniel’s focus never wavers, though, as Marius edges around the perimeter of the room, towards the work table and open cabinet doors. He ties his hair back and rolls up his sleeves, unsure where he wants to begin.

But Daniel makes some sense, he thinks. Something about order and about balance. Pieces and parts. He looks again towards the sculpture, designed with such unique precision, and begins tidying the table from left to right. A piece at a time, in little parts. One by one, chiseling away until there’s balance again.

Daniel’s thoughts ripple in pleasure, wordless between them, connected for long enough that Marius thinks there’s hope. 

[bomberqueen17]

doings

so. I'm home from the farm and now i have to yet again rearrange a bunch of my house. cut for wittering about personal stuff.

Dude's company laid off most of his team a while back, and as a result, decided it was a bit silly to keep renting office space for now just him and one other guy to come into some of the time. Dude genuinely did go in four days a week, but he had to agree it was really pretty dumb to rent an entire office suite for him to sit in sometimes.

the company didn't want any of the furnishings. they wanted some of the networking equipment, but-- the previous company, before it was acquired, had bought most of the office furniture. this company didn't care about it. so they sent dude one of those big foam-padded locking hard-sided cases to load the networking equipment into, and told him to leave behind whatever he didn't want in that office, and they'd negotiate with the landlord about disposing of it. (This is normal; when they moved into that suite, under the previous company, the previous tenants had abandoned it full of furniture and garbage, and dude's folks had just picked out what of the garbage they felt they could use-- mostly, chairs-- and the landlord cleared out the rest.)

Dude of course asked his former coworkers if any of them wanted their desks or chairs. One of them is kind of a hoarder, so he actually rented a Uhaul to get the desks out-- they were super nice work tables actually, very large and heavy, and there were eight. I wanted one, and he was perfectly happy to drop one of them off in our garage, and didn't even want us to reimburse him for part of the Uhaul. He has a use for two more, and the other five are just... in a storage unit somewhere.... if you need a really nice workbench lmk i know a guy who has some. LOL.

(No they're SUCH a pain in the ass to move.)

So anyway yesterday was the day Dude had agreed with the landlord he'd be clearing out the space and turning over the keys. he was going to do it by himself, but I was like.... how are you gonna turn in the parking pass and then get your car out of the garage it's in? well he'd have to pay for parking someplace. hmmm no. and like.... some of that shit is heavy. no.

so I went in with him. I cleaned the fridge really thoroughly, went through the kitchen cabinets and threw out garbage etc., while he took down all the networking equipment and wrapped it all in bubble wrap and put it in the giant hard case.

there wasn't enough packing material. here my years of expertise working in the shipping department of a camera store came into play. We wound up using whole clean rolls of paper towels to fill in around the sides of the case, and then could close it and know everything in it was held firmly and would not rattle.

He inventoried the chairs. Two were still the original expensive Steelcase chairs the first company had bought them, so we took those. There was a really sturdy folding table with adjustable heights that I insisted we take. And then there were the rest of the rolls of (brand-name!!) paper towels, and assorted other things that I thought we'd use. We put all the garbage into a pile near the door for the custodial staff, making sure to put anything that was *not* garbage far away so it wasn't ambiguous. There were a number of large monitors and things around that we had no use for, so we left them. I threw out empty packaging where i found it, and broken power adapters, but left a box of assorted power cords and other cables. We left the whiteboards, markers, and erasers. Left the dish soap, left the clean dishes and wire rack that held them. I threw out most of the huge pile of takeout utensils that had been accumulated, but left a small curated selection including a set of metal utensils someone had obviously brought in from home and abandoned.

It was pouring rain, but we wheeled everything out balanced on the office chairs all down the block in the rain, and went out for pho on the way home. And now we have several nice office chairs and I'm going to throw out my two worst antique-salvage ones that don't roll, once I decide which are my worst two.

And that folding table is going to hold a sewing machine, because I had been using the desk in our home office on the days when Dude was going in to the office, and I obviously can't do that anymore.

I'm also trying like heck to clear out one sorta quadrant of the basement to fit the work table (it was really never ideal as a desk, adjustable-height to Not Quite Low Enough, and it's 30" deep but also 96" long which is ridiculous). I want it as a counter-height workspace for cutting fabric, although I'd prefer something 36" wide.... but it'll do... but that means I need to clear out a bunch of stuff and make room and....

well I seem somewhere to have lost my ability to sort things. I was never great at it, and by now it's just. Gone. Idon't know how to determine what items go together. I'm great at organizing a work kit-- my purse for example, every single item in it has a designated spot and that's fantastic and i am always prepared with the things I need in my purse. My car, I made a seat-back organizer and it works fantastically well and holds every thing I need in it and I have now several times saved the day because i knew right where The THing was.

But that's notably not sorting. I can organize, but i can't sort. I need to distinguish among all these things and put them into large storage containers so that I can later retrieve individual items from larger containers. I don't know what category the items are. All the helpful advice people give me about how to organize things, how to tidy a space, involve doing some kind of sorting. I can't sort things. Poeple are like "just pick one thing you know needs to go X and do it!" and i'm like. That's sorting! That is sorting. I don't know how to sort. I can't categorize items. i can only interact with them individually. "This is a thing I will need. This is a thing I will not." That's sorting. I can make like, one decision like that in a day, and even that I will question. Making piles of objects by category means I have a one-object-deep layer over my entire work surface within a short period of time, and then I take everything I took out of the box to sort, shrug, sweep it back into the box, and give up, having achieved literally nothing except for having wasted the entire time I spent working on it. So all the "can't you just" advice people give me is Not Helpful and unfortunately I am all out of the grace to appreciate the sentiment behind it, which is nobody's fault but is also the incontrovertible truth.

So if you have advice, maybe don't, unless you have a good way to like, reconceptualize the entire exercise, which I have not thought of, and which is NOT "throw it all out", thanks, I don't need that one either and I won't be nice about it. FYI.

I have attempted to recognize things that are actual garbage, and discard them, but that's about as clever as I can manage to be. SO it's a work in progress and it's going slower than I want and mostly, it's just me taking piles and moving them to a different area of the basement, thereby rendering that part of the basement unusable. Blergh.

But if i can get this table into position, then I will have a work surface, and incidentally will have rendered that whole area of the basement, which is lined with huge wire shelves I purchased intending to organize myself with and then never managed to do so and instead filled with unsorted junk, accessible, and so if I ever find either medication that helps me, or a friend to help me, or a new brain lying around somewhere that I can co-opt and use, I will be able to (in fantasy cuckoo-land) organize some of this junk onto those shelves. I can hope. And then it would be a usable workspace. With a nice work table. Isn't that a compelling fantasy???

I've covered the card tables I was using to cut fabric on with boxes in the meantime, meaning I can't work on any sewing projects, but the card tables were at a height such that I could spend about seven to eight minutes cutting fabric on them and then be crippled with crunchy lower back pain for twelve hours, so let's be real here I was not getting a whole lot done with that setup anyway.

Anyway the other new challenge is that both dude and i need to come up with some kind of schedule for our days because we're both cooped up fairly unstructured in this house and it's got to be something or we'll both lose our minds.

[applejuicebegood]

HELLO!!! It is I! I’ve been thinking… if you’d be able to do an Irish!fem!reader who has all these Irish dancing trophies and the little dresses and shoes from when she was small, cuz I still do 😭, and reader gets so embarrassed because she can’t do it anymore and the boys insist on doing the walls of limerick with her!!!! Thank you!!!!

Platonic!141 x Reader - Sweet Music

Fem!Reader

A/N: OK, I am actually so fucking sorry this took forever. I was caught up with mock exams but they are over! And I shall be writing more! I had alot of fun writing this even tho I didn't do ur ask justice. I really hope that you enjoy it tho Teddy! Thank you for being the actual best and being so patient and kind! Masterlist

Cw: Brief mentions of alcohol, Reader has a dog Word Count: 1624

Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick

‘You got the last box?’ 

‘Yea.. yes! Don’t worry’ You struggled to grip the dusty cardboard against your body, your foot catching your ankle on the last step of the attic later. Earlier that day, you had asked Kyle to help with the daunting task of breaking open your sealed off attic and clearing it for storage of your military gear. Getting rid of whatever your mother had decided what was best to collect and hoard before she left. You both were able to clear out the majority of the space that afternoon, choking on the kicked up dust and cobwebs. You had piled the boxes in your living room, circling your couch and chairs. You dog, Jax, strutted around the constructed towers, cautiously bending his head to sniff the stale cardboard. As you huffed the final box atop a stack that was starting to bleed into your kitchen, both you and Gaz admired your efforts with your hands resting on your hips. ‘You wanna crack em’ open?’ ‘Let me get the wine first’ You could hear Kyle snicker behind you as you made your way to the kitchen. Returning with two glasses and one of your more expensive bottles of chilled red in hand, you settled yourself on the carpeted floor. Your head resting against the seated cushion of the couch. You handed Gaz the bottles and glasses and in trade he handed you a box cutter. The echo of the wine filling the glasses was drowned by the blade of your knife ripping through the packaging tape lining the top of the box settled in front of you. Gaz did the same with a pair of kitchen scissors. You took a generous swig of your glass before diving your hands into the brown packing paper. Jax had settled his head on Kyle’s thighs, watching him unwrap a picture frame, starting a pile of garbage packing paper to be burned in your wood stove. ‘Oh-hoo.. What’s this?’ You lifted your head from the unwrapped shot-glasses to see that Gaz held a small rusted golden plaque in his hands. Your name scrawled in chipped cursive across the bottom of the frame. ‘Holy, haven’t seen that in forever. This must be my old dancing stuff’ ‘Wha- you did dance?’ ‘Surprised are you? Mom signed me up for it to get me outta the house.. I only continued with it cause’ Nan wanted me to get closer to my “gaelic roots” as she put it’ 

You scooted over to sit next to him, your hand instinctively finding Jax’s ears to scratch behind. You reached into the box and pulled out a bound pile of plaid. Undoing the twine, you unfolded a deep green plaid skirt, the seam stitched golden by your grandmother's hand. You ran your fingers down the trailing glint, it was as if you could feel your grandmother's touch holding down the fabric as she delicately thred it through her sewing machine. You could hear her sighs and coo’s of approval as you stumbled out of your bedroom, wearing the skirt for the first time. ‘So! Keep or give away?’ Kyle said before taking a swig of his own wine. He pulled another box closer to him, a small cloud of dust kicking up from his scissors gilding across the cardboard. 

‘Keep for now, might get rid of the trophies but I can gives the dresses to Emi’ ‘She’d really like that’ Kyle said smiling back at you, his rich chocolate eyes highlighted in the early evening sun. You held the small dress close to your chest for a moment before setting it beside you, in the now ‘keep’ pile. 

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley

You could feel the cold of the metal seat through the lining of your tactical pants. The weight of your combat vest held you down against the bench. It was cold, the air thick with the smell of gasoline and salt. The warm brush of your lieutenant's arm against the side of yours was the only thing reminding you that there would be a bed and a warm meal to hopefully return too after this mission. It was just you and Simon on the installed benches in the transport plane, the rest of the squad just offloading moments before. ‘Leave is com’in up.. plans?’  Simon's thick, graveled baritone cut through your coms, bringing you back into the familiar state of heightened awareness. 

‘Oh.. umm.. Just gunna head back home.. Emi has a dance recital ‘week before Christmas and Mari wants me to drive her north for a weekend with her girlfriend, I told her no but she’s been begging me over the phone so-’ ‘Friends?’ Simon asked, looking over at you. You glanced up at his eyes, darkened and blood-shot. The deep onset of the pale skull mask making them appear blended into the dirtied black fabric of the hood. ‘No.. my sisters, I thought I told you- hold on’ You smiled as you reached around and dug out from a small back pocket in your vest a chipped golden photo case. Excitement brewed within you at the chance to discuss your little family. Clicking it open and holding it up for Simon, he held it between his large gloved fingers. You focused back on his eyes, watching as they looked over the photos set into the sides of the case. The first being a blurred still of Mari holding your infant sister a few days after she was born. You were able to catch her mid laugh, her smile drawn tight, deepening her dimpled cheeks. Emi was swaddled in her lap, her soft chubby cheeks poking out from the quilted blanket she was wrapped in. The second photo was an old-black and white still of your grandmother when she was younger, her hair swooped elegantly over her forehead. It was the same photo that was kept in your grandfather's wallet, given to you after he passed. Behind it was a small swath of deep green plaid fabric. Simon ran his thumb over the black crossing lines, looking back to you with confusion. ‘Oh.. that umm.. Was a piece of one of my dancing dresses.. Nan made them for me and.. I don’t know, keeping it with me is a sort of reminder I guess’ You say taking the golden frame back from him, shutting it with a click. You rubbed your thumb over the scratches and dents in the metal, a testament to the many trips the case took with you throughout your multiple deployments and missions. ‘Dancing?’ ‘Ha… yea.. Mom umm.. She had me do it throughout primary’ ‘I.. wasn’t expecting that..’ Simon mumbles, shifting on the metal bench. ‘What? Do I not look like a child dance prodigy?’ You say, nudging his arm with your elbow. ‘No just… god.. cannot picture you.. I mean-’ You tried to hold back the ripple of amusement from your lips, watching the metaphorical gears turn in Simon's head. He quickly glanced back at you, confirming your clear enjoyment in his confusion. You leaned your head back against the metal wall, thumbing the photo case before tucking it back into the pocket of your vest. It was within these small moments of reprieve from tactical expectations that you wished you could put Simon, and the rest of your team's photo within the case alongside your sisters. 

John ‘Soap’ MacTavish 

‘Johnny! Food’s here!’ You call up from your living room, placing the hot paper bags on the low coffee table. You expected to hear his harsh footsteps down the creaking wooden stairs. Yet, only the sound of the dimmed slow piano crackling from your record player and the high-pitched thrum of late evening summer crickets filled the air. ‘Johnny!’ You shouted, unpacking the food. ‘Where..? God..’ You groaned, looking towards the hallway stairwell. You trudged up the stairs, two at a time. Your feet bouncing down the carpeted hallway, the dark glow of the evening sunset casting a dim glow from the hallway window. ‘John..?’ You said, poking your head into one of the spare bedrooms. ‘In here!’ Relief broke in your chest like the shell of an egg as you heard your sergeant's rough voice from your bedroom. You hadn’t been able to yet undo the familiar anxiety that comes with the lack of response from your teammates, an anxiety bred from being their stand-by medic. 

You pushed open your bedroom door, the hinges squeaking. You had stopped using this room as yours a long time ago. It was now more a storage shed for your sister's old clothes and your military gear. You found John standing by an old dresser, dusty plaques and trophies covering the top of the mahogany wood. You watched as John held one of the frames in his large scarred hand. ‘What did ya find?’ You ask, standing by his shoulder while stuffing your hands in your pockets. ‘You should've told me you did dance’ He said, placing the frame back down. The picture he was looking at was an old, sunbleached still of you as a child, standing in a plaid dress next to your grandmother who was holding your then infant sister. Your smile held a few dark spots as you had just started losing your baby teeth.

‘Why’s that?’ You say, picking up another photo, you used the sleeve of your sweater to rub the dust from the shiny metal frame. ‘Well because my gran’ forced me into it too’ ‘Shut up’ You say, placing the cleaned frame back down with a thump. ‘Im serious, once we fly up with Roach, me’ sister’ll show you the photos’ ‘That is.. I never would have guessed’ ‘Can say the same thing for you Bonnie’ 

[godesssiri]

I wanted to give some advice to people who are near enough to help areas affected by the recent hurricanes and haven't been affected themselves. I live in New Zealand and last year my home town was devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle, I live 4 hours away and was organizing to get things in to people who needed them.

Look on Facebook. Groups will be organizing and sharing information about what donations are needed and where to bring them to. A determined middle-aged woman will be helping hundreds of people out of her garage or whatever empty space she's been able to sweet-talk or brow-beat some business man into loaning her.

Donate material goods that are actually needed right now. It's tempting to go 'I've got no money but I can clean out my wardrobe and give stuff'. Please don't. I saw several charities turning stuff away because SO MUCH had been dumped on them.

Right now things that you can actually give from your own homes if you have them to give or if you can appeal to your community:

Big and tall men's clothing, they'll get loads of women's and kids stuff but there will be a shortage of larger men's clothes so if you are a larger man or know one you can hit up, they'll be grateful.

Sturdy footwear, particularly rubber boots - they've got a lot of mud to slog through and they need to protect their feet.

Protective clothing, work gloves, hard hats, high vis gear.

Camping lights, head-lights, solar-lights. If they're without power these are all much safer than candles.

Monitor local Facebook groups and see if they're appealing for anything in particular.

In a few months to a year or so they're going to need everything else so if you want to help but all you've got to give is your old fridge or a pile of blankets then just hold off until people are asking for those things. Once they have a safe place to live they'll need help filling it. Keep following any Facebook groups that form and be prepared to help later.

If you can buy things to take in or get local businesses to donate or however you go about providing new things, stuff that's gonna be really helpful right now:

Prepacked food that's easy to heat up on a barbeque or camp stove. Pouches, meals in a can, just add boiling water, anything you'd take camping. Ingredients aren't really helpful right now for people who are using all their energy to survive and don't have extra to make a meal.

Milk powder. You can make up just as much as you need and don't need to worry about refrigerating it.

Bottled water.

Baby formula.

Diapers

Toilet-paper

Baby wipes. The wastewater systems will be a mess so they're probably being advised to avoid showering even if they have running water. Baby wipes are a good way to keep reasonably clean.

Clorox wipes or similar products. Just as they're having trouble keeping themselves clean it's also a challenge to keep their environment clean.

Heavy duty garbage bags. There's a lot of spoiled food, soaked/rotting paper/fabric/building materials, that need to be contained until they can be gotten rid of. Landfill is likely affected so the best they'll be able to do is seal it up in heavy duty plastic until there's somewhere they can dump it.

Camp stove gas canisters

Batteries

Pet food

Tortillas. They keep longer than leavened bread, there's a million things you can do with them, and they're way more compact for transport. (When we had the car full to the roof with stuff we were taking in to our family, I was so proud when I realized we could transport 300 tortillas in the spaces under the driver's and passenger's seats.)

Over the counter meds - there'll be lots of people doing work that's making them very sore. Also basic first aid stuff, it'd be a bitch if you survived the hurricane uninjured only to end up with an infection that you got from a splinter while cleaning up.

If you're delivering things yourself then avoid staying in the area for too long unless you're actually taking part in the clean up. Take everything that you'll need while you're there. When you leave offer to take trash out with you.

People who've been through a disaster like this will need help long term so if you can't help right now don't feel bad, keep an eye on the situation and eventually something will come up that you can help with.

[owlespresso]

scarlet venom to keep in jam jars sometimes you feel like an ant beneath his gaze.

Vil makes a face at the red stains on your hands and upper arms. You laugh at the way his nose wrinkles. The tart scent of fresh cherry fills the humble Ramshackle kitchen, the oven thrummed to life behind you.

“You don’t pit a whole batch of cherries without making a little bit of a mess,” you tell him with a crooked smile. You don’t have a pitter, so you’ve opted to do it with your bare (and meticulously cleaned) hands. You gently hold each morsel by the stem to squeeze each pit out. A growing pile of them sits atop several layers of paper towel to the side of your cutting board. You’re almost done with this batch. Only two more to go. “What’re you making that face for? It’ll wash right off.”

“You could have put on some gloves,” he retorts. Reaching over, he pinches the space below your thumb between forefinger and thumb, one of the only unblemished parts of your hand. He lifts your hand to inspect it with a pitched brow, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “This will take days to wash out, and all to make something you could have bought from the school store.” He relinquishes you, still wearing a dour pout.

“It’s fresher when you make it yourself,” you tut. “And more satisfying.”

“That may be true, but I need you pristine for tomorrow’s luncheon. You agreed to attend as my plus one, remember?” Vil gives you a pointed look. 

Ah, right. Something about a fancy meal with his castmates on this upcoming project. You weren’t sure if it was actually a movie. In your defense, Vil always seems to have a dozen or more projects on his plate at any given time, and you tend to promise him whatever he wants as soon as he asks for it. How could you say “no” to that prying glare and air of innate superiority? 

“Y-Yeah, of course! Don’t worry. These hands’ll be clean as a whistle in time for tomorrow!” you assure him, hoping he doesn’t catch the slight tremble in your chipper chirp. He definitely does not believe you, and he doesn’t do you the service of pretending to. Not even for a second. 

“Hm. I should hope so,” he says, looking down his nose at you, lips set in a stern expression that says “you had better”.

You figured he would leave, but he lingers in your kitchen, looking completely and utterly out of place. A peacock among a group of hens. A marble statue in the middle of a garbage dump. A somewhat peaceable silence lingers as you finish pitting the cherries, dropping each one into a pot above the stove. The recipe is simple. All it calls for is cherries, lemon juice and water over a burner. It’s a wonder, you think, how a simple three ingredients can make something so delicious.

Well, your kitchen isn’t a dump. You had worked hard to forge it into what it is now. You tore out those floorboards with your own hands, gutted the cabinets and sinks and slotted new ones in with trembling hands and assistance from a select few friends. Jack and Deuce, in particular, had been indispensable during the project. Your kitchen, you realize as you stir the pot, is a mark of pride and hard work. 

Hard work that will be rendered meaningless once you find a way home. What will become of Ramshackle once you are gone? Will they once again shutter the windows and let nature reclaim its aged wood and stone? 

Vil says your name, then, hardly an inch from your ear. You jolt, spatula clattering against the edge of the pot. He’s leaned up against the counter, closer than he’d been before.

“W-What is it?” you stammer. Your palm presses flat to your chest in an attempt to soothe the erratic thrumming of your heart, jumpstarted by the brief jolt of adrenaline. 

“I’ve been calling you for the past minute, dear,” Vil murmurs quietly. The dulcet tone of his voice soothes your animal panic. There is no threat here, the thalamus concludes, whispering the amygdala back to sweet sleep. 

“Sorry, I just…” What do you tell him? That you’re plagued by the knowledge that all you build will one day be rendered to ash? That the steady march of time has already always worried you, but your limited time here only makes the dread worse?

“I wonder where you go, sometimes,” Vil murmurs quietly. He grasps your chin delicately, cups it between forefinger and thumb–and the thoughts stop. “You get the most far away look in your eyes, and no matter how much I call out to you, you don’t seem to hear until I’m right in front of you.”

“I just get lost in thought,” you mumble, for lack of anything better to say. Your brain stalls out, thoughts jumbled as you desperately reach for a more eloquent reply. You find none, of course, made entirely stupid by the mere touch of his hand. The silken skin of his hand so perilously close to your throat. He could feel the rabbit wild thrum of your pulse if they slid barely a few inches lower. You swallow, and his eyes dart down to track the motion. Pinpoint reaction like a predator prepared to pounce. 

“And you also get lost in crowds,” Vil replies wryly, breaking the tension.

That was one time, you want to argue, even if that one time resulted in him fervently trying to locate you amongst a throng of festival goers for the better part of an hour. Afterwards, he mandated a strict hand-holding policy that remains in effect to this day. You worry for his career. What’ll happen if he’s seen so close to you? Surely, he has legions of adoring fans who thrive off of imagining themselves on his arm. Will it hurt his image? Or his standing in the industry?

He doesn’t seem to be much bothered.

He delicately taps you on the nose, and you’re snapped from your winding train of thought. Probably for the better.

“Your spacing out has its charms, but not when you’re watching over a boiling pot,” he says crisply, and your eyes go wide, snapping back to the pot. Thankfully, it has not exploded or boiled over or congealed into one, solid mass in your absence. You doubt such a thing is possible–but if there’s one thing you know, it’s to never look away from your cooking. 

“You’re the one distracting me,” you grouse. There is no bite behind it. Hardly even a bark. 

You give the brewing jam another stir, finding the consistency a little too watery. You stare into the crimson mixture with a hawkish, searching gaze.

[jello-bbq]

Near Death, Again

(Platonic! Tsu'tey x Avatar! Reader) (Platonic! Jake x Avatar! Reader)

Unwitting people find themselves sharing a fondness for the dreamwalker child. Mystery surrounds their injuries and the sleep from which they have not woken. (2.3k)

I am pulling this straight out of the garbage pile and making it all up. Does anyone actually like this. Also forget to mention that reader is like, 17-ish? To me at least, imagine them however you want. Blood and injury tw.

"I told you not to push too much, we could lose it! It could die!"

"What do you care!?"

"I spent millions of dollars on that little investment at least be fucking delicate!"

A small room, barely enough to sit in. The yelling reverberated over the concrete walls, unheard by the child who kept their hands over their ears. Even so, there could be no silence.

They felt as if every thought had a voice, and among the thousands that swarmed their head, each screamed at full volume. Suffocating. It felt suffocating.

The metal door creaked open, washing the small space with light and revealing the massacre. The source of the argument.

Blood spewed from the child's ears. From their mouth. From their eyes, unseeing as the red filled their vision.

"Look at it! It's bleeding everywhere, are you even sure it will survive the night?"

The child remained oblivious. Or maybe the thoughts just left no space for anything else to be recognized.

"Ma'am, I can assure you that it will survive. We've done a lot more brutal things-"

"Brutal! Do you think I swat a fly and call it brutality? I'm talking about it's survival, I have spent too much on this for it to fail. Don't push it."

"Well, fix it so it won't fail or don't push it? With all due respect, it's one or the other so just how much do you want this to succeed?"

The door shut again, enclosing the flood of crimson.

Barely a second is taken to consider the words. "Fine, fix it." Those final words rang through the air as the sound of footsteps fell away.

It would be hours before anyone would open the door again. Dragging the small, unconscious body, almost indiscernible with the blood wrapping it in different shades of red.

"How's it doing?"

"Still breathing, sir."

"Good, take it away."

After only a day of rest, they were taken again into the lab and ended up with the same fate. Bleeding onto the tiles with no space in their head to even feel hurt.

To that child, screams were not abnormal. In fact, more concern rose when there were no screams. How could there not be in a place so intent on practicing cruelty?

The sounds didn't bother them. That's all they were. Sounds. Ones they couldn't even connect to faces. The company took enough measures to ensure that but perhaps left the children in close enough quarters that the screams would serve to keep them in line. Who knows.

They certainly didn't. Why would they waste time thinking about such things when they could barely think for themselves?

Two sharp knocks on the door. The squeak of the metal flap. The slide of the tray against the tile. Those were the only sounds they cared for.

They stood from the cramped bed, which had barely been enough as a child. Even more so as they grew older. But that night, as they squeezed dry the plastic containing the same tasteless paste that had been served for years, the screaming suddenly sounded different.

It took a moment to realize why. These were not screams of children.

That night the sounds stopped. No knocks on the door. No tray of questionable food sliding in. No screams.

It didn't take long to realize what happened. They were abandoned. The screams that night had been of worry. And if they thought hard enough, they could remember some of the words.

'Found us', 'hide', 'leave those to die'.

Of course, 'those' pertained to them.

And to however many kids sat in locked cells in that long hallway.

Kids raised in the bunker alongside them. Bred in little tubes and nourished into willing war machines. Or they would have been, if the scientists could only get their experiments right.

They couldn't remember how long it took. How long they laid on that cold tile floor wishing that they were bleeding out instead of starving.

Then, the door creaked open.

They were pulled out of the cramped room that held their life. A gloved hand tugging at their arm harshly. Lights shining at their face. Blurred figures. The ever so present smell of blood. The ache of walking after being still for so long. The wish to be carried which couldn't be voiced.

Those were the things they could remember, nothing else. Not how they got to the RDA. Not how many children there were in the truck that brought them over. Not even how they ended up in a soft bed that didn't stink of blood.

The reason for it all?

The experiment program had been leaked. This resulted in the sudden abandonment. Someone in the bunker grew a conscience and spread it to the public, which caused outrage.

The rest ran before they could be caught. The whistleblower died for the crime of seeking justice. And the government had fucked up enough that they only found the bunker three days later.

Many of the younger children were dead by then.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

When they awoke, they didn't relish the soft bed. They instead felt the absence of blood, and it made theirs run cold.

The only explanation they could think of for the lack of the sharp smell was that it had yet to be introduced. And with them being the only one in the room, it could only be their blood that would end up spilt.

That thinking brought them to a situation. A knee on the back of a man's neck. His arms held tight in their shaking hands.

"Everything's okay, you're okay. You're fine." The man tried to be soothing, his voice sounding weird as half his face remained closely acquainted with the floor.

The tone only set off more alarms in their head, their knee coming down harsher. "Quiet."

The man didn't listen. "They're gone. Those scumbags that did all that to you and those kids, they're locked up. You're not in that bunker anymore."

"Quiet," they repeated.

The door slid open. They took advantage of the person's surprise and ran for it, not thinking of anything as they wove through the halls.

The experiments had come through, doing the work for them so they need not think for themselves.

But a failed test subject, barefoot and in a new environment, could only get so far.

They were back in the room in thirty minutes, proud at least of the injuries it took to get them back there.

The window wouldn't break. They tried it the moment the door shut. So they settled for hiding under the bed, a fallacy on their part as they couldn't run for the door fast enough when it opened.

"Kiddo?"

A man entered, the same one they pinned down the first time. They could only see the lower half of his legs, but they could tell he looked around the room before crouching.

They had half a mind to lunge at him then when he offered a smile. "Hey, no hard feelings about earlier. I get that you're scared and that's understandable." He only smiled brighter when they glared, furthering their confusion.

"I'll just-" he moved back, sitting against the wall opposite the bed. "I'll stay here if you don't mind."

They thought that was it, and went back to reviewing the building's blurry layout that they somehow pieced together from the brief stint outside.

"What's your name?"

No reply.

"How old are you?"

Silence.

The man sighed. He moved, they assumed to get up and get out but he instead lay down on his side, catching their eye. "Hi. My name's Tommy."

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

"They're gonna get through this," Jake told no one in particular, eating dinner alone in the empty cafeteria. He repeated that over and over in his head.

Sometimes it felt like the only thing he could think. Even though his lessons with Neytiri continued, he always found his way back to that one thought.

It felt bad enough not knowing anything. But not having anything to say felt worse.

He had to keep telling Neytiri that he didn't know why they weren't waking up.

Nobody knew why. Not the medical doctors. Or the science doctors. Or anyone.

He didn't understand. Especially when he wheeled himself over to their room. They looked fine. Like he could shake them awake.

"You're gonna wake up, right kid?"

They didn't answer him except with more of the same, uniform breathing.

Jake hated it at first. It reminded him of his days in the VA. Unable to do anything but listen to patients beside him who had it much worse. But now he realized that it at least meant they were alive. And he would take that over nothing.

He took the yogurt cup from his otherwise empty tray, placing it in the fridge, beside the others he'd saved up with every meal.

"You have to wake up."

He fell asleep in that room just like he did the three nights before, sitting by their bedside holding their hand.

°•°••°•°••°•°

Tsu'tey did much of the same. Though he himself needed to rest, he insisted on watching over their body. He knew that should they wake, it would be in their other body first but he snuck off to their tent anyway just in case.

So much so that the healers placed his bed in their tent, if only to no longer deal with coaxing him back to his tent whenever he went to theirs. Which was often.

He no longer joined the morning hunt. Or hunted at all. Spending all his time beside them instead.

"No changes?"

Someone pulled back the tent flap, allowing him a brief view of the outside. When did night fall?

"Nothing."

Zeyko nodded and began unwrapping the bandages as she did every night, changing them out for new ones.

She worked carefully.

As each layer slowly unraveled, her touch grew softer. Almost feather-like near their skin, as if one wrong move and they would break.

He never talked to Zeyko before the accident. Nothing that would count as a conversation anyway. Nods of acknowledgement, gestures of greeting, a grunt or two whenever she'd have to patch him up.

They were too different, and so they held a silent agreement. To not step over the line, to fulfill separate duties, to act with the barest friendliness only if needed but to not be friends.

An agreement that Tsu'tey had with many as he kept all at arm's length.

But now the two held a new agreement. Nothing that asked anything of either of them. Just an agreement. Unspoken, perhaps even unheard.

Both cared for the dreamwalker.

°•°••°•°••°•°••°•°

The dreamwalker in question could not have had a more fitting name. They were stuck in dreams. Walking amongst figments of imagination. Talking with memories. Walking. Walking. Walking.

Time didn't exist wherever they were, at least not in the binding way it did elsewhere.

They walked and walked. Never feeling tired. Never in the same place. Through memories that weren't theirs. And pasts that had occurred long before them.

"Why are you here, child?"

They didn't understand. It felt exactly like when their head couldn't keep up. A fuzzy feeling, like mold growing in their brain. The words began to make sense separately, slowly, understanding forming in the back of their mind as they continued walking.

Each step wakened them. Like their consciousness had spilled all over and now it had begun to creep back into the crevices of their being.

Again, they were asked. "What are you here for?"

They couldn't answer. But the question had them realizing they were running now, and all at once their thoughts came rushing back.

"What?"

Nothing.

For a second they feared they had imagined it.

"So you have awoken, you were in quite the deep sleep."

"Yes," they murmured, looking around. A forest. "Yes, I suppose I was."

They blinked, and they were in the mountains, floating over the trees.

"Where am I?"

"You are with me. You are safe."

Even without asking, a name tugged at their mind. They were in the forest again.

"Why am I here?"

"To learn, perhaps. You are an interesting one." They blinked again, opening their eyes to a river. "The path you have chosen, it will be hard."

"I haven't chosen any path." Another mountaintop.

The faceless voice smiled, they knew this in the way one knows things in dreams. A feeling, more than a thought or deduction. "You have chosen, stepping into danger for one of mine. He would have been welcomed home otherwise."

The world began to crumble, flickering like a light. The voice kept going, strangely calming, even as they began to fall. "You and Jake Sully, yes I think we can find a use for you. I will help you."

They fell continuously, knowing this even while hearing and feeling nothing. They were falling through the inky black.

It felt nice. Like laying in the sand and letting waves lap at your body.

The feeling was strange. They knew it didn't belong. Not with them.

This thought tugged at them. A rope tied around their waist, guiding their fall somewhere. As it did, they began to feel more things tugging at them. More and more. Until they were shooting through the ink.

The dark began to lift gradually.

Their eyes blinked open. All memory of what just happened began to fade. Like a word you know but cannot remember.

They blinked again, taking in their surroundings. A hospital room. Nighttime. Something beeping. They tried to stand, limbs moving in slow motion. They didn't realize their hand slipping from someone else's. Though they felt the warmth, brows furrowing as they wiggled their fingers.

It felt strange. Like they were in that moment between dreaming and awake. Everything felt strange.

Another movement caught their eye. A movement they couldn't control.

"Tommy?"

[dearmrsawyer]

my GARDEN is DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It took 2 years but we made it 🎉🎉🎉 its life story under the cut

last year i dug up all the roses that the previous owners of this house had planted in this space. I HATE ROSE PLANTS. They're VERMIN. It took me a year (interrupted by la niña) to finally get them all out because i had to dig so far down to remove as much root system as i could. i learned that after the first attempt at removing them, where they all simply grew back because i left too many roots in tact 🙃 due to continued la niña last summer i wasn't able to get the space all the way ready so i spent autumn weeding everything that grew in the rain, digging about a foot into the ground to remove as much old dirt (and more roots) as i could, and tidying up everything we'd dumped there while the space was disused. I had pictures of that stage in the process but i can't find them, just know it looked like a garbage dump hahaha. i got all that done right as the temperature started to drop so i laid out a bunch of tarps to minimise the number of weeds that would grow back over winter and waited.

and then! SPRING. I ordered the soil back in September, 8 cubic metres of it which was definitely more than i needed sdkjlgfdkj but how am i supposed to know what a cubic metre is 😅 i was SO excited when it arrived (first photo), quickly followed by 'oh god i need to move all of this myself.' thankfully we had great weather in september so i could use every free moment i had for two weeks shoveling it into our wheelbarrow and then wheeling it down to tip into the garden area (the conclusion of my work in photo 2 lol). It was only at that point that i was like oh boy okay i REALLY have too much soil here. i filled up every single pot i could find and i added some more dirt to to our citrus tree garden in the courtyard since the existing soil had settled by that point and could use a top up. it still felt like way more than i had planned to buy BUT i thought you know what would be good, i could create tiers to organise the vegetables by how deep their roots grow! i laid down a couple of layers of newspaper to deter anything from the existing dirt growing up into my new soil and then started flattening it out. when we first moved in here there was a tonne of random building material around that the previous owners left behind, and we never got rid of it because we figured a purpose would eventually arise. and my garden was it. i collected all the cement blocks and bricks down the side/behind the house, plus the random lattices that had been piled up where our yard meets the neighbour's, and a scrap of fence leftover from the one we put alongside our driveway last year. There were also heaps of random planks of wood, and some logs from a tree that we trimmed earlier in the year. and i used ALL of it (picture three).

Then a couple of weeks ago i finally got to plant my seeds :D (final product, final photo) the tall section up the back is for the deep root veges, so i've planted pumpkin and cucumber there. in the middle i've planted zucchini, cabbage, cauliflower, silverbeet, radish and green beans. and the shallowest area down the bottom has beetroot, celery, lettuce, broccoli and snow peas. also a passionfruit plant in the corner :) i've also scattered flower seeds all over as i've read that it helps to attract pollinators/insects that will eat other insects that want to eat my vegetables. i've put a couple of flowering herbs into pots down there too, and i marked where i planted everything with sticks so i can remember dskfdklj also i drew myself a map.

i'm so thrilled with it :') its such a good space and now it will be useful! there's a good chance some of my seeds won't sprout as they're a couple of years old, but some of them are new and anyway i don't care, whatever grows will grow and whatever doesn't i'll try again in autumn. its just so exciting to have a garden to tend again, i know that i need to be able to just put my hands in dirt sometimes, it is a very helpful outlet, and also will maybe save us grocery money \o/

[sisterspooky1013]

How to Feel

Rated T | 1942 words | Read it here on AO3

CW for mention of suicidal ideation

Mulder sighs and rolls to his side, resting his cheek against the worn fabric of the couch cushion. It smells like sweat and mildew, and a little like his own unwashed ass. It smells like failure, which is fitting.

His eyes slowly drag around the remains of their home—the skeleton of a life they worked so hard to build. There are unnatural looking blank spaces all over the place, glaring at him like missing front teeth. Her favorite oversized armchair, that stupid little magazine rack she fell in love with at the flea market, a bucket whose sole purpose was to house umbrellas. Useless things. Unnecessary things. Things he never expected to miss.

Does he miss them? He notices their absence. They remind him that she is no longer here. That she won’t walk through the door at half-past six and drop her bag on the side table—which is also now gone—with a weary sigh. She won’t give him a disappointed glance as she goes to the kitchen to make herself dinner and then eats it in silence—alone—at the table. He hadn’t realized the way that her comings and goings marked the passing of time in his days until she was gone, and it all started to run together like the red T-shirt he put in with the whites.

He also notices that the laundry has begun to pile up.

“Do you even miss me?” she’d asked on the phone last week, her voice warbled with tears and hurt. Or it may have been yesterday, it’s hard to say. She’s not here to mark the passing of time for him anymore.

“Of course,” he’d said flatly, and the lurch of her wracking sob made him cringe.

He wishes he knew the right things to say, but it seems clear that in order to say the right things, he needs to feel the right things. He needs to feel guilty for the ways that he failed her. He needs to miss her so acutely that he finds the motivation to do the laundry and wash his ass. Once, he chartered a plane to Antarctica off nothing but a set of coordinates and the overwhelming desire to find out how her kiss tastes. More recently, she asked him to take the garbage out and he groaned as though she’d shot him (again). She took the garbage out herself.

He heaves himself up into a sitting position and feels the blood drain from his head. He stays like that for an indiscernible amount of time, staring at a perfectly circular clean spot on an otherwise dusty bookshelf. He tries to remember what was there before, what left the blank space. A vase, perhaps. Scully liked vases, especially when he filled them with flowers. It’s been a while since he did that. Years, probably.

It bothers him that he can’t remember. Every evening they’d sit here, watching TV or reading. Sometimes she’d slip her feet into his lap and nudge his balls with her heel, her own little subtle Scully come-on. More than a handful of times they made love right on the couch, too caught up to move to the bedroom. Hundreds of times he’s looked at that shelf, but he cannot for the life of him remember what used to live there.

“I’m not happy, Mulder.”

He’d turned his head slowly to look at her, his reaction lethargic. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, and he’d found himself surprised by her state. He wanted to ask her what happened, but then he realized that what happened was him.

“I’m sorry,” he’d uttered uselessly, feeling like an emotionally stunted tin man.

And he was. He is. He’s very, very sorry. But being sorry isn’t a feeling, it turns out. All you have to do in order to be sorry is to wish that things were different, which he does. He wishes he were different. He’s wished that for most of his life, save for one heavenly slice of time where someone who he loved beyond words or measure loved him back exactly as he is. Or was, anyway.

With a grunt, he launches himself up off the couch and plods over to the bookshelf. The blank circle is about five inches in diameter, flanked by his Star Trek DVDs and a framed picture of Samantha. It bothers him, makes him feel crazy, because there is an accompanying blank spot in his head where the information should be.

He feels annoyed. That’s something.

There was a space of time where he felt everything, to the point of overwhelm. He was despondent, agonized, miserable in a way that made him realize that every prior experience of “sad” was anodyne by comparison. He seriously considered whether continuing to be alive was the right choice for him. At that point, Scully was the only reason he had to keep going. It was the overpowering desire to avoid hurting her in a way she could never recover from that kept him waking up each day, kept him trying to make things better. And then one day, he didn’t feel so sad anymore. This would have been a good thing, except in addition to not feeling sad, he didn’t feel happy. He didn’t feel anything. He still doesn’t, not that he hasn’t tried.

It’s a bit like trying your hand at telekinesis, which he’s done an embarrassingly large number of times. You stare at the item, willing it with every fiber of your being to move. You realize that you’re not sure what you’re supposed to be engaging: what sense, or system, or muscle does one activate in order to move objects with their mind? You stare harder and harder, begging it to move, but it won’t. It can’t. You can’t make it, no matter how badly you want it to.

When she left, it was like a dream. He watched from the sidelines as she loaded the last of her things into her car and turned back to look at him one final time. He wanted to scream, to slap himself so he’d snap out of this trance and stop the only good thing that ever happened to him from walking out of his life. But his shoes were full of concrete and his hands made of lead, and he couldn’t bring himself to move.

“Drive carefully,” he’d offered, and then watched as the final spark of hope extinguished from her eyes.

He grabs the cordless phone off the cradle and returns to the couch, settling back into the well-worn indent his body has molded into the cushions. He dials her number and closes his eyes, pretending that she’s just out running errands and the house isn’t full of blank spots.

“Mulder?” she asks urgently upon answering, her voice full of concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he assures her casually. “I just wanted—are you busy?”

She heaves a sigh, the one that means she’s both relieved and irritated. It’s a special one born of necessity after they began working together.

“No,” she says, defeated. “What do you need?”

“What used to be on the bookshelf? Next to the picture of Samantha. I can’t remember and it’s driving me crazy.”

There’s a long silence filled with the crackle of her thoughts. It used to be his white noise, the sound he fell asleep to. He wonders if she’ll stay on the phone and let him listen to it if he asks nicely. He hasn’t slept well in a while.

“Are you eating, Mulder? Are you—” She clears her throat and takes a breath. “Are you taking care of yourself?”

He hasn’t eaten today. He can’t remember the last time he showered. Those things just don’t seem very important right now. Nothing does.

“Uh huh,” he says noncommittally.

Another crackling stretch. He yawns and burrows deeper into the cushions.

“I worry about you,” she whispers, like it’s a confession.

It hits his ear and slips down to the floor, disappearing between the drafty floorboards he never got around to fixing. He just can’t absorb it, can’t take it in. Her worry, her fear, her love. He’s impervious to it, which would be frustrating if that were an emotion he could access.

“I know,” he answers. “Do you remember what was on the bookshelf?”

He pictures her looking at her new bookshelf in her new place. He hasn’t been invited over and he has no idea what it’s like, so he just ends up picturing her in her apartment back in Georgetown. It makes him feel a little bit warm thinking of her there, curled up on her striped couch with a glass of wine.

“A coffee mug,” she says after a time. “Full of pebbles.”

“Oh,” he says, his eyebrows furrowing. “I forgot about that.”

“Yeah,” she says tightly. “I know.”

“Thanks,” he tells her. “It was gonna bug me all day.”

More crackles. He waits.

“It’s 11:00 pm, Mulder.”

She’s not here to mark the passing of time.

“I know. Sorry to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

He waits until she hangs up before he kills his end of the line. He does remember a little town with a winding river running through the middle of it. Maybe it was in Colorado, or Idaho. They sat on the bank of the river for hours, sipping from a drugstore bottle of whiskey and sorting the smooth, water-worn stones into little piles by color.

“I miss having a home,” she’d admitted as the sun began to slip behind the trees, slashing yellow stripes of light across the gently flowing water and her summer-freckled skin. She turned to look at him, seeking connection and comfort. Her vulnerability always felt like a secret that she trusted him to keep. He’d already met his daily quota for platitudes and empty expressions of optimism, so he just reached out and grabbed her hand. That seemed to be enough.

The next day, he was killing time in a gift shop that also served as the town’s laundromat, waiting for his jeans to dry, when he found a kitschy little mug that made him smile. He bought it for her and wrapped it in old newspapers, hiding it in the bottom of his bag until their final day in that particular town. She was always melancholy when it was time to go.

“Home is wherever I’m with you,” she read off the face of the mug, and by the time she lifted her head to look at him, tears were spilling out of her eyes.

She filled it with her favorite rocks from beside the river, the ones that reminded her of Missy and her mother. Some that she said reminded her of him. She hauled it around with her to countless other cities until she had a real home to display it in. It occupied the bookshelf until the day she realized that the home they’d found in each other had depreciated into a haunted house full of his ghosts.

Mulder thinks about the mug, about the blank spot on the shelf, and his chest becomes painfully tight. He thinks about how much she trusted him, right from the start, and how deeply he’s betrayed that trust. He thinks about the miracle of her love. The unlikely chance that he found her in the first place. And he feels so fucking awful, so guilty, so terrified that he’s ruined everything. His eyes burn and his throat closes up, and he sucks in a ragged breath. He feels so afraid that he’ll never get her back.

He feels.

It’s a start.

Tagging @today-in-fic