#and because my thoughts are probably really boring to anyone outside of my head

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Another important storytelling skill (at least in my writing process) is learning how to pare away what's not needed. I always start with a basic idea that needs fleshing out. Then after I flesh out several aspects of the story, I need to examine that sprawl and figure out which pieces are the important ones--the ones that support the main plot, character and thematic threads of the story--and then prune away the unnecessary ones that distract from that.

With fairy tale retellings, there's an extra layer to this process. Fairy tales come with certain plot points and iconic images, and you want to include as many of them as possible. But fairy tales are allowed to have stuff happen "just because", while a retelling needs to make all these pieces fit together in a coherent character and thematic arc. There are many ways to adapt different elements, and you need to figure out which approaches allow each element to make the most sense in your story. Your story, unlike the original fairy tale, needs to have a point--a theme or arc that it's highlighting--and the story choices you make need to serve that. If a certain piece doesn't make sense with that arc, it's best to take out or alter that element rather than force it in where it doesn't fit.

Crafting, arranging, and paring away all these pieces is an ongoing and layered process--part sculpting, part jigsaw puzzle. And a retelling has an extra layer of difficulty, because it can be tough to determine which elements are serving the story and which ones you're just shoving in because they're part of the original fairy tale.

"The Goose Girl" can be a difficult story to retell, because it has a lot of iconic elements that don't really connect to the main plotline. Most retellings that try to shove in everything have at least one element that's a poor fit in the storyworld, or gloss over a piece of it by making it metaphorical or whatever. Part of the challenge I set myself was trying to keep all the elements in the story, but in creative ways that didn't break the world and mood I was crafting. I did develop explanations for every element, most of which I rather liked. But I've come to the conclusion that the story will be better served if I pare some of them away to focus on the story that I really want to tell.

So the thing that keeps attracting me back to this story idea is the politics. This story is all about differing ideas of leadership. How should a leader conduct themselves? What actions is a leader justified in taking to preserve power? How do ideals balance with practicalities? The handmaid's ruthless seizure of power seems to have left her the victor, while the real princess's morals leave her powerless. The princess has to decide which actions she is justified and willing to take to get her crown back; she has to decide what kind of leader she is going to be. And these questions are all tangled up with the personal relationships--after such a devastating betrayal from her handmaid, the princess has to decide just how far she is willing to trust this foreign trickster king who's offering help.

You'll notice there's not much magic in that plotline. That doesn't mean there can't be. I've tried weaving in some subtle magical explanations for things like the princess's inability to reveal the truth, or her ability to control the wind. But the more I consider it, the more this worldbuilding seems like a distraction from the very grounded, political, personal plotline I actually care about. It feels like these elements are just tacked on because they exist in the original fairy tale. It feels much more fitting to have cultural or character explanations for most of these elements--at most, some minor magical elements, or hints that there could be magic explanations even if the characters aren't quite sure. This keeps the focus on the choices and characters of these people instead of on the magical elements that are hemming them in. I need to focus on these three central characters--the princess, the handmaid, and the king--and how their differing philosophies interact to draw out the theme and bring about the final resolution. If that means losing a few pieces of the original fairy tale, so be it. What matters is keeping the elements that allow me to tell my story.

[drunkenkissesatdusk]

LIKE LIKE!

pairings — grumpy!damian wayne — al ghul x sunshine!reader

warnings — they’re teenagers in the modern era of course they’re gonna curse (but not a lot), isn’t EXACTLY grumpy x sunshine but it’s okay it’s my one shot 👅

summary — friendship only gets you so far with mutual feelings and the shared yearning for more than that.

notes — hi guys

━━━━━━━ YOU’D MET DAMIAN WHEN school started, in the same advisory you two were paired up since neither of you really had friends. it didn’t bother either of you, since you actually got along.

he was pretty quiet, moody, and didn’t like anyone at school. you were the exact opposite. you were loud, cheerful, and got along with everything. that obviously didn’t mean you were necessarily friends with them.

what made you and Damian click so well was probably the fact that he only really seemed to like you — even if it wasn’t obvious.

even if he didn’t talk, didn’t smile, didn’t seem to have a sliver of an emotion, he still liked you. another thing he’d never been good at was explaining his emotions. he practically despised everyone because they treated him like some sort of bomb.

you pushed his buttons, messed around with him, and always gave him a little bit of a hard time. he didn’t hate it, he could never hate anything you did.

it was probably three months into your friendship with Damian that you hung out with him outside of school. he asked if you could come over, and you happily agreed. the day was normal, except you weren’t picked up by your guardian, rather — you went with Damian.

“hello, i’m Alfred.” you thought he was nice, an old British man that Damian told you had always worked for his family. if anything, he must’ve practically been a part of the family.

you, of course, introduced yourself. it was polite. Alfred seemed taken aback, and the look (or feeling) didn’t leave him when you turned and began talking Damian’s ear off.

the boy, however, seemed to have absolutely no problem with that. he seemed to be hanging on every word, Alfred could see the mixture of fondness and love in Damian’s eyes when he looked at you — too bad you were both as oblivious as ever.

at Wayne manor, you wore a smile as you walked behind Damian and into the large house. he waited for you to take your shoes off after him, his hands stealing away your heavy bag and throwing it over his unoccupied shoulder.

you were then introduced to Richard Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Bruce Wayne. of course, you’d always known who Bruce was — your guardian worked for him now, a feature you didn’t leave out.

Damian, not liking anyone here (except, obviously, you), tugged at your arm. you understood what he meant, even with a lack of words, and promptly excused the two of you.

Damian’s room was pretty plain, and you jokingly shook your head. “who knew you were so boring?” you teased, sitting next to him on his large bed.

you didn’t know then, but Damian actually had you here for a reason. for awhile now, he had found you in his every waking thought. it’s like you had overridden his normal thoughts, becoming the only thing he could comfortably think about.

it had proven difficult during patrol, his performance was lacking and he needed to do something to soothe his thoughts so no one saw Robin as weak.

“i wanted to talk to you, actually.” he muttered. it stopped your thoughts, and you turned to him curiously. he didn’t speak much, and you never pressured him to. when he did, you didn’t make a huge deal of it.

“what’s up?” you hummed, eyes locking in on him.

“i uh… listen, you don’t have to… y’know, feel the same? but… but i really, really like… you.” his sentence was awkward, which made you smile. he didn’t know, but you sure knew, you were head over heels for him.

“i like you too, Damian.” you laughed softly, letting your hand drop to his leg.

“holy shit, really?” he looked up, his normally inexpressive face suddenly unable to find an emotion, settling on utter disbelief and pure excitement.

“yeah.” you smiled fondly at him.

“does this… does this mean—” you cut him off, nodding. he reached forwards and tackled you in a hug, placing a soft kiss on your collarbone. suddenly, he stood up, jumping around happily.

“fuck yes.” he muttered, you began laughing.

this was the most important moment of your teenage years, your boyfriend, jumping around in excitement, because he was with you.

he tackled you into another hug, and you remained glued together until you had to leave.

you slept well with a huge grin planted across your face.

masterlist — reminder that asks / requests are open!!

[futurewdclandonorris]

Dinner Reservation | Lando Norris⁴

Pairings: Lando Norris x girlfriend!reader

Summary: you had plans to go out, Lando had other. Watch what happens when you tell him no

Warnings: barely any plot just smut, light dom Lando, kinda bratty both Lando and the reader, and assholes too (idk what came over me, I thought I was being funny) some cringe bits for the sake of the 'plot' but we move, kinda long that's why I included word count, hint of exhibitionism, unprotected sex

Word count: 5389

A/N: Okay, I really need to learn how to write summaries, if anyone wants to be my editor you can hit me up. Perks are you get to see the original copy before I rewrite it for tumblr

Credits to @twinkodium for prompting this idea and brainstorming it with me ♥

You stepped out of the shower with nothing, but a towel wrapped around your body. Not bringing any clothes with you, you proceeded out of the bathroom to the bedroom you shared with your boyfriend. He was sprawled out on the bed, obviously dissatisfied about something–still in his hoodie and black sweats–but the moment you opened the door, his whole demeanor changed, his hungry eyes following you as you strolled across the room to your still unpacked suitcase. Bending down to get your underwear, you felt two arms wrap around your waist, stopping you mid motion.

You smirked, popping your behind and pressing it harder against his pelvis as you fished a pair of panties from the case. He lowly grunted, removing your hair from one shoulder to another, which gave him a clean access for planting a kiss on your neck.

"Plans canceled, why don't you get on the bed for me, gorgeous?" he murmured against your skin.

You tried to sustain your smile, finding the whole situation amusing. Getting a hold of yourself, you turned around to face him.

"We can't cancel plans just because you suddenly got horny." you playfully rolled your eyes. "They're waiting for us."

The plan was to go out and grab dinner with Oscar and Lily. Something like a double date and get together outside business hours.

"They can wait." he still had that stupid grin on his face, brushing his fingertips over the side of yours, his eyes roaming all over your features.

"No, they can't. You're acting like a spoiled child, you know that?" you teased, giving him a playful shove. "Now go get ready, we're already late as it is. They're probably wondering where we are." you urged and knowing there was no point further arguing with you, he scoffed and walked over to the dresser.

"You're acting like we don't spend three weekends a month with them," he protested, buttoning his shirt only a halfway up. "But fine. If you won't listen to me now, I'll bend you over that goddamn dinner table and fuck you in front of everyone. Maybe that will be more appealing to you-"

"Don't be ridiculous." you snorted a laugh.

"Say I won't do it." he stood tall and incredibly close in front of you, his eyes boring into yours making you feel smaller than you were. And you could swear, you didn't know if your wetness was from the shower or somethin else entirely different.

"Please, dress up, sweetheart." he finished, his voice somewhat mocking, leaving you to clutch your panties to your chest standing in the middle of the room.

This whole ordeal may or may have not resulted in you changing the outfit you had in mind from the top. Instead of an orange sundress, you slipped into a white linen bodycon dress that perfectly hugged your curves, cut out sides exposing your toned waist and highlighting your hip bones. Deep v neck brought exposure to your cleavage as well.

Studying yourself in the mirror, the material was so thin it was almost see through. Lando absolutely hated loved this dress. You completed the look with some white sandals. You were in the process of putting on your gold earrings when Lando walked in.

"Are you anywhere near do-" he choked out, eyes turning a darker shade of green as they scanned you from head to toe. He cleared his throat before speaking "You look amazing, darling." he complimented, with a little bitter taste to the pet name he just called you, obviously not approving of the attire. Jackpot.

"Thank you, darling." you grinned as you walked up to him and pecked his cheek, completely ignoring the fact he was fuming.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Lead the way." you responded, your lips still curved into a smile, and laced your hands together.

On the drive to the restaurant, his knuckles turned completely white from how strong his grip on the steering wheel was. His eyes never darted from the road, not even once. No hand holding nor even one kiss at the red light. But instead, you drove in silence, only soft music playing from the radio making any noise as you tried to hide your satisfaction, which you will probably come to regret later, looking out the window.

As expected, Oscar and Lily arrived before you. You apologized for keeping them waiting, but they said they only just got there a few minutes ago due to traffic. A waiter immediately approached you and had your orders right under way in a few moments.

During dinner, Lando wasn't completely ignoring you, but he wasn't really paying attention or engaging with you either. Which didn't come off as strange or like something was wrong between you. You girls had your girl talk and boys had their boy talk. Lily couldn't always attend a race weekend and it's been a while since you last saw her. But there was a mischievous spark in his eyes, only someone who had known him for years could notice, telling you he was planning something.

First, he'd casually drop his hand on your thigh under the table and just rest it there, and then remove it without a second thought, continuing his conversation with Oscar like nothing happened. After a while, he'd put it back on, only higher this time and gently grasp the skin, his thumb drawing circles. Your muscles tensed and made you jump in your seat. He noticed, of course, without sparing you a second glance and dragged his palm up and down your inner thigh like that was going to soothe you. He stopped and left you alone once more when your main course arrived.

While waiting for dessert, his fingers brushed the fabric of your panties without previous warning that made you gasp audibly and place your elbows on the table to support your forehead with your hands, making all cutlery clank. That finally drove some confused looks from Oscar and Lily.

"Are you alright?" Lily asked, curiosity getting the best of her cause this wasn't the first time you jumped in your seat during the conversation.

"I'm fine." you breathed, faking a smile. You turned towards Lando and hissed, covering your mouth "What are you doing?"

He leaned closer into your side, his lips brushing your earlobe as he whispered "I'm thinking about having my dessert now." his fingers still feathered over you. You gave him a wide eyed look. "Say I won't do it." he repeated his words from earlier that instantly made you blush.

"You... you're crazy." you whispered back, glancing sideways at the confused faces around you, most likely thinking you were talking about the weather. God, you hoped they were thinking you were talking about the weather.

"Say it." he insisted, his palm coming to a stop on your pussy.

You bit your lip, getting a clear image of him bending you over the table while Lily, Oscar and the waiter looked on as Lando fucked you right in front of them. It made you wet and you hated yourself for it.

"I... I'm saying it." you mumbled.

"What?" he took a sip of his drink.

"I'm saying it." you leaned closer as the people around you were now completely involved in their own conversations, acting like they didn't hear you the first time. "I'm saying you won't do it." maybe one thing Lando often forgets is how stubbornly bratty you can get.

Lando started, but was interrupted by the waiter coming to pick up your dessert orders. He only quickly added that you will settle this later. The Great Dessert Debate concluded after you were done with your meals. Lily was lobbying for ice cream, Oscar insisting on sorbet, Lando not really giving a damn as long as he wasn't going to have cake and you, of course, wanted something naughty. Oscar finally convinced Lily that sorbet would taste better than ice cream and they decided to get it to-go to bring home. You sighed and ordered cheesecake eventually.

"I changed my mind." Lando started. "I won't be having any dessert here." he smirked and glanced at you.

Idle as he was, he didn't waste an opportunity to dip his hand between your thighs once more and stroke you up and down as soon as you dipped your spoon in your cheesecake. You could've made a scene, but how you were practically purring in your seat, you decided not to.

"Don't move and finish your little treat," he murmured and brought his lips to your cheek and kissed it. "I'm sure sugar will give you enough energy for what's about to come later." you could almost choke as you swallowed.

He squeezed your thigh again under the table, giving you a once over and letting his eyes settle on your mouth. You knew what he was trying to do. He was attempting to turn you on in public while everyone else was almost done with their desserts and it worked, damn it. He didn't stop touching you until dessert was over and the bill was paid, but this time he slid his palm all the way up to your slit and stroked you through the fabric while you were busy–struggling–saying goodbye to Lily and Oscar.

You almost didn't want to get in the car with him, but to drag him to the nearest restroom and have him there. You were just on the verge of exploding, burning and dying a death of a thousand orgasms that needed to be let out, and let out now.

He put the car in drive, with you sitting right next to him, still wet and hard and throbbing. You didn't bother to keep your voice low this time. You huffed and fumed, wanting nothing more than to choke his pretty little neck.

"What is wrong with you?" you hissed.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, looking at you out of the corner of his eye to avoid a car accident with a grin on his face. He really is fucking crazy, you thought.

"You're so damn frustrating. Why haven't you touched me yet?"

"I'm touching you now." he smirked.

"You asshole! You're not touching me-Ah!" you yelped as he dug his thumb into your wetness and began rubbing you, his left hand steadily steering. You spread your legs as far as the car allowed and pulled your knee up, giving him as much access as you could.

"Oh god..." you relaxed and succumbed to your pleasure, making his thumb work at its full potential.

His other fingers were busy playing with your pussy, tracing the fabric to your entrance, but never actually going inside. You were breathing heavily as his fingers grazed closer to your clit each time he would repeat his movements. His thumb found your clit and started massaging it while his pointer and middle finger pulled your panties to the side and slipped in, parting your walls. You shuddered and moaned, but kept your eyes on the road ahead of you.

The way he was touching you was incredible, you were so wet that you could already feel the heat radiating from your skin. And he was doing all that while driving. One hand on the steering wheel, the other one down your panties.

He looked really hot, you had to admit to yourself, as you bit your lip glancing over at him. His eyes fixed on the road, concentration evident on his face as he drilled into you with his right hand. You wanted to lean over and kiss him.

His fingers curled inside of you, hitting that spot. Pumping in and out, you were getting more and more jerky in the passenger seat, only the seat belt restraining you from bucking your hips forward. It was getting so good, so painfully good when he pulled his fingers out of you.

"Don't do that." you whined, as he noticed your hips jerking and tried to move his hand to make you come.

"What?"

"That," you breathed, "Pull your fingers out of me."

He chuckled and put his palm over your pussy again, stroking you from the top. You started getting wetter and your breaths got faster and louder.

"Lando... Please! Don't." you muttered, knowing that in a matter of minutes you'd achieve sweet release.

He continued nonetheless, his nails scratching your skin every time the pad of his thumb would meet with your clitoris. You groaned and spread your legs wider, moaning Lando's name as you came.

"Seriously?" he chuckled again, stopping at the red light.

"Shut up." you glared at him and puffed your disheveled hair out of your face. He was still smiling. "That was not funny." you hissed, removing his hand from you.

"I agree." he said, undeterred by your actions. He brought the hand that was on your pussy up to his mouth and licked his fingers clean. "Mm, now this is what I call dessert." he moaned, licking his lips and savoring the taste. "And that was your first orgasm of the night, babe."

"You're an asshole." you pouted.

"So you've told me." he drove off, his hand coming back to rub your thigh.

"Lando, I'm serious," you grabbed his fingers and pushed them away. "Stop."

"Babe, you should really learn to finish what you start." he said, his cottage cheese fingers now replaced by the dripping wetness of his mouth. "Did you forget?"

"I hate you."

"You love me."

"I'm marrying you for your money."

"And your body." he added, letting his fingers lick your inner thigh.

"You bastard."

"We still have business to run when we get home." he announced, glancing quickly over at you. But your eyes were already half-lidded and there was a pleasant ache between your legs.

"Just drive." you muttered.

"I'm serious." he lightly chuckled, putting his right hand on your leg and rubbing you solidly through your skirt.

"We'll see." you adjusted yourself in the seat. You closed your eyes as you made yourself comfortable, enjoying the rest of the ride home.

Like he knew you needed a bit more rest, he took a longer route home. Pulling into your driveway, you smirked as the lights illuminated your face. You cleared your throat and fixed your skirt before exiting the car and sauntering over to the front of the house without giving a second glance to Lando. You made sure to sway your hips a little extra to grab his attention which worked, considering you were already unlocking the front door when you heard a soft click of his car door, meaning he stayed behind. Your feet were killing you and you only got to kick off one shoe when a pair of strong arms wrapped around you.

"Back where we started," he whispered.

"Something like that." you smiled, your hand grabbing the nape of his neck as you kicked the other shoe off. You stood flat on your bare feet, significantly shorter than him now.

He traced your shoulder with kisses up to your neck, his palms riding up your waist to cup your breasts. A low moan escaped you as he thumbed your nipple. You let your head fall back on his shoulder as your hips began to grind against him.

"I want you." you breathed into his ear.

He was hard against you and you could already feel yourself dripping wet for him. He turned you around, smashing your lips together as he picked you up and carried you to the living room couch. He sat down with you straddling him, your kissing already turned into a heavy make out session, his tongue exploring the depths of your mouth and vice versa.

One hand on your hip helping you rock back and forth, the other one on your jaw and throat, choking lightly and keeping your head in place. His hips buckled up as you sped your movements, making him hiss into your mouth and bite harder on your lower lip. You let out a soft cry, but didn't let that stop you.

Now both of his hands roamed the open back of your dress, his face pressed flat in your cleavage until he brought one of his hands and tugged harshly down at the top of your dress, afraid you heard something snap.

"Oh, did I rip it? Did I rip it for good this time?" he got a bit too overly excited for your liking.

"Yeah, I think one of my straps snapped." you breathed, flustered.

"Thank god!" he exclaimed, rubbing his nose in your cleavage. "I've been waiting for this day."

"I didn't realize you were such a fan of this dress." you sarcastically remarked, rolling your eyes, knowing damn well how he felt about it. You glanced down and saw he had torn the top of the dress almost to your belly button.

"Sorry." he grinned.

"No, you're not." you couldn't help but laugh. "You're going to make me buy a new one." you said, trying to push his face back into your cleavage.

"I'll pay for it." he nodded. You shook your head dismissively, deciding to let the subject go.

Coming up to your breasts, he pressed his palms over them before rubbing his thumbs over your nipples. You moaned as he did, his breath hot on your skin. He moved his mouth to suck on your left breast, closing his eyes and taking in your scent. You let your hand fall to his waist, pulling at his belt. He glanced up, his eyes meeting yours, but only for a moment, before his tongue swirled around your right nipple. Your breath hitched when he grazed you with his teeth, your right hand tugging on his curls. He let your nipple pop out of his mouth before dragging his teeth over your skin, the sensation sending electric currents through you.

"I have an idea-"

"Oh no-"

"Can you stand up for me, please, love?" he innocently grinned up at you.

Just out of pure curiosity you listened to him. He turned you around so that your back was facing him.

"You're going to rip the rest off me, aren't you?"

"Guilty." he pulled the remaining strap down. Your hands were on the couch now, bracing yourself and waiting for his next move.

"You're so dirty." you said, unable to resist sounding disappointed.

"And you're so wet." he said, his fingers pressed up against your drenched panties.

"Shut up." you shuddered, his breath warming the back of your neck.

The fire in you was burning now. You felt his hands snake around your neck and his hot breath on your ear.

"Just because I don't like this dress doesn't mean I don't love you. I love you so much." he whispered.

"I love you more." you replied, relaxed.

He leaned in and kissed your back, all the way down your spine, making you shudder at the feeling of his soft lips against your skin. His hands gently grabbed the remaining fabric of the dress on your hips and in one swift motion, tore it off your body.

"Whoops," he said, dropping the shreds that once made up a dress on the floor.

"You tease." you smirked over your shoulder.

"You love it."

You nodded. You felt his hands gently grab your hips as he pushed you forward a bit and stood up behind you. One of his hands spread across your lower back and the other reached down to grasp on your thigh. He pulled you back against him and you could feel his hardness in between your ass cheeks as he kissed your shoulder. You felt his hand wander up your inner thigh and lightly graze your clit. You moaned in approval and he took that as a cue to keep going. He slipped a finger or two inside you and it was almost instant that he was tapping your g-spot.

"Lando." you breathed, fully leaning on him for support.

"Yes, love?" his voice was deep and low.

"I want you." you whined for the second time that evening.

"And you'll have me." he said, without providing much information on when that will be.

He laid you back on the couch, opening your legs to slide his arms in between your thighs. He lifted your butt off the couch and you wrapped your arms tight around his neck, anticipating the moment where he'd have his face between your legs.

He descended on top of you, his lips kissing your neck before moving over to your ear. His teeth grazed your earlobe and you shuddered as he sucked.

"More." you panted, your fingers clawing at his shirt.

He smirked, giving your ear one last lick before moving his attention to your lips. His rough hands maneuvered over your skin, finally gripping your breasts and pinching your nipples. Your hands cupped his face as he roughly bit down on your lower lip, then moving to your jaw and then your neck.

You pulled off his dress shirt as he attacked your neck with his mouth and his teeth. Your eyes fluttered close as his teeth sank into your shoulder. He pulled away, leaving a series of hickeys on your skin. He climbed back on top of you, his hands snaking down to grab your ass. He looked into your eyes, biting down on his lip as he pushed his hardness into your thigh. You wiggled your hips, getting impatient for him to be inside of you.

"So impatient," he remarked. "Can't you see I'm trying to take my time with you?"

"This is torture." you said instead.

"Now, baby," he said, kissing his way down from in between your chest to your stomach. "No need for dramatics."

Positioning his face just above your pussy, he gently removed your panties as he pushed your legs a bit more forward, angling you just the way he wanted you. Without previous warning, he ran his hot tongue all over you. Oh, god, real torture begins now, you thought.

A moan chocked in your throat as your mouth hung agape. It didn't take long for him to start lapping around your folds, suck on your clit and fuck into your entrance with his pointy tongue. You were a squirmy and moany mess, one hand pulling on his hair, the othe one gripping the couch, but he didn't cease. In fact, it only encouraged him to flick his tongue over your sensitivity and keep tasting you up.

Thighs shaking and repeatedly panting his name, your climax arrived sooner that you anticipated. He licked you clean one last time before getting on top of you once more and kissing you, making you taste yourself on his lips. You sank your teeth into his bottom lip as you sucked on it, receiving a moan into your mouth from him. He gave you a few more pecks before pulling you up by your arms into his embrace.

"What do you say we take this to the bedroom?" he questioned.

You nodded, resting your head on his shoulder as he carried you like a child in his arms, your legs wrapped around his waist.

He dropped you on the bed and fumbled with his pants. That gave you an opportunity to quickly get on your knees and take his belt off and unbutton his pants. He got the hint, taking them down. You rested your head on his thigh, looking up at him–pouting–as you stroked the bulge in his boxers. You probably couldn't count how many times he actually got a boner this evening and had to fight it. His lips parted, shaky breaths escaping him.

"Please..." he begged, fingers raking through your hair.

He didn't have to tell you twice to take his boxers off. After all, you could no longer deny him his pleasure after everything you've put him through this evening. He deserved his little treat. His length sprung forward and you rested it on your tongue. He shuddered, holding your head as you bobbed on him. You started going faster and it wasn't long before you could feel him twitching in your mouth.

You usually didn't do this, but you wanted to tease him as much as you could. When you felt him starting to lose his grip, you stopped and smiled as you looked up at him. Strands of saliva connected your mouth to his cock. He looked at you with a desperate look, his hands holding your head still.

"Why did you stop?" he asked, his voice husky.

"Because you wanted to," you said, beaming.

He shook his head dismissively, returning a smile. You wrapped your lips around his tip again, sucking on him as hard as you could. His head fell back onto his shoulder, his eyes closed in ecstasy. You gripped him in your hands, stroking him as you bobbed your head up and down.

You stopped when it felt like his cock was about to burst. You let go and looked up at him and he caught you before you could say anything. He pulled you up and his lips crashed onto yours. The taste of him was still on your tongue, but you didn't mind. He kissed you tighter, his hands wrapped around your body, his fingers clawing at your lower back.

"Please, stop fucking teasing me." he groaned.

"I'm sorry." I pouted. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Want to show me just how sorry you are? Huh?" he grabbed your jaw, fixing your eyes on him. You nodded in response, this play only turning you on. "I'm going to fuck you right here." he muttered, his voice husky with lust. "Right on this bed, where I have fucked you numerous times before." he took your arms and pinned them to your sides. "Don't. Fight. Me." he warned, making sure not to repeat previous mistakes.

You shook your head and let out a nervous giggle.

"That's my girl." he leaned forward to kiss you again.

You moaned into it, pressing your body against him. His palm rubbed up your leg, parting it wider as he went to your thigh. He held your leg as he slipped it over his shoulder, his fingers brushing faintly over you, your hips bucking against him, urging him to go. He obliged by slipping two fingers. Your back arched up, your head falling back as you groaned.

"So wet for me." he grinned.

"You just don't know what you do to me." you explained, rocking your hips, enjoying the feeling of his fingers filling you up.

"I'll show you what I'm going to do to you." he claimed, gripping your hand and intertwining your fingers. His other hand was working its way further up your thigh and stopping above your knee.

"Do it, Lando." you pleaded.

He hoisted your other leg over his shoulder as well, changing the angle of your body and pushed himself into you. You twisted your head to look at him, your mouth hanging open as you let out a loud cry.

"Oh, fuck me, Lando..." you said breathily.

"Say my name." he rocked his hips faster.

"Lando," you gasped, your thighs beginning to shake.

"Louder." he commanded, squeezing your ass in his hands. "You're louder when you come."

"Lan... Lando!" you moaned, throwing your head back again.

The feeling was so overwhelming that you could feel yourself on the brink of climax. Your thighs started to shake violently and your stomach felt like it was being tickled on the inside. You moaned his name, trying to stifle a scream as you felt the most intense orgasm wash over you. You felt like you were going to pass out. It really had to be the most incredible feeling you ever experienced. You could feel him still hunched over you, filling you up.

"Lay down," he ordered.

"I can't even move," you gasped. "I'm numb."

"Good." he chuckled. "It means you enjoyed yourself."

"What about you?" you asked him.

"I'm covered in you." he kissed you. "That's more than enough."

"I want to make you feel good." you said, trying to catch your breath.

"That's something I'll have to work for." he smirked at you, rolling his cock inside you.

You bit your lip to keep you from moaning as you twisted your hips and dug your nails into his skin. He started kissing and sucking on your neck and your hands fell to his shoulders.

"I think you've had enough fun." he said, nibbling on your ear.

"Too much is never enough." you giggled. "Just stay inside me." you whispered as you put your arms back around his neck.

"I can do that." he smiled before kissing you.

He started thrusting in and out of you slowly, changing the angle again. You moaned into the kiss, your arms tightening around him. You started rocking your hips in sync with his thrusts, filling you up even more. He let go of your arms and cupped your face, still kissing you. You moved your hands to his neck and tangled your fingers into his hair.

"Oh, my god," you moaned into his mouth. "This feels so good."

"Tell me what you feel," he said between kisses.

"I feel full." you said breathily. "Like your cock is stretching me out." this dirty talk made you giggle.

"Tell me how it feels filling you up." he encouraged.

"I feel like I'm ready to burst," you said, shuddering. "I love it."

He pushed into you deeper and his lips found your collar bone.

"Good," he groaned. "I want you to feel good."

"I do." you breathed. "Oh, my god, I do." your eyes rolled back.

"Are you going to come again?" he asked, changing the speed of his thrusts.

"I don't know." you said. "Don't stop." you hugged him closer.

You felt the muscles in your body tightening and you knew you were about to climax again. He pulled back and looked down at you.

"Stay with me." he said, thrusting harder.

"I can't." you moaned.

He lifted you up, changing the position again. He slid out of you slightly then pushed in hard, hitting you in the right spot.

"Oh, fuck," you moaned, arms falling back to your side. "Fuck!" you screamed.

"Good girl," he pulled your face up and kissed you.

You came so hard that your vision went blurry and you felt like passing out again. You could feel him still thrusting into you, trying to keep pace. You bucked against him, your hips constricting as he came inside of you, groaning your name. He put you back down on the bed, his hands still on your body, gently rubbing your skin. You felt like you were on top of the world.

"I love you." you said, turning your head to face him. "So much."

"I love you." he replied, kissing your forehead.

"I'm sorry if I was a bit bratty today." you snuggled closer to him.

"Nah, I deserved it." he played with your fingers on his stomach. "And if I didn't, I know why you do it anyway." he shot you a quick glance.

"Oh, really?" you challenged.

"Uh huh. Don't get me wrong, it's hot and all, but babe, if you want me to fuck you hard all you have to do is ask."

"You're unbelievable." you shoved his shoulder and turned around, getting further away from him as possible. "Let's see the next time I behave like that and you don't get anything." you tucked yourself in with a duvet.

"Babe," he called and rolled his body closer to yours, hugging you from behind. "It was a joke. With some truth in it, but you know-"

You turned around just to hit his chest."

"Asshole."

"Princess."

You snuggled into the crook of his neck as he rested his chin on top of your head, your limbs tangled together.

"Prick."

"Babygirl."

"Wanker."

"If you want round three just say that." even though you both laughed, you still hit him with your fist.

"Fucking idiot."

"Love of my life."

You're not sure when exactly did he stop whispering names of endearment in your ear for you fell asleep in his arms to the sound of his voice with a hint of a smile plastered on your face.

[xervn]

like a french girl 🎨

part 1 - paint me | part 2 | art major ellie x dance major reader | ellie photo

ao3 link

summary: ellie had been struggling with finding the perfect model for her art final. that was until she saw you.

18+ MDNI | 2.2k words | tags; college au, pining, only a little explicit, no use of y/n, not proofread

disclaimer: not an art or dance major, don't shoot!

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Scribble, scratch, throw. This has been Ellie’s routine since she moved onto campus.

Why? Her professor told her that she draws the human body like it’s lifeless. Ranting about how they’re too one-dimensional and have no depth, her lines are too sharp or not sharp enough; flat and boring in looks and in feeling. 

Now listen, Ellie has nothing against criticism. She respects her professor and she’s aware that her drawings lack “vitality”. It’s been something she’s struggled with for a while now, an effect of some recent events and overall adjusting to college life. 

Ellie isn’t unable to grasp the anatomy of the body, in fact it’s the opposite. She knows the human body is complex and needs thorough observation. The way the sun hits the skin, the hairs on a knuckle, the creases of a smile. Wide, small, big, tall; no two bodies are exactly the same. 

Really, the imagery is so clear to her, but she finds it impossible to transfer the life and motion of the body onto a piece of paper without truly understanding the person. The way she sees it, every body has a story, and in order to make a good piece she needs to know that story.

Since art school is filled to the brim with inspiring, exciting, and vibrant people, she has, of course, tried to talk with them. She attempted to get to know the models, ask them general questions and hope something clicks. Unfortunately, that has yet to happen. She can’t really ask her friends either without it getting awkward. Imagine, “ Oh, hey guys! Can you guys get naked and pose in one spot for my homework?”   Hear how weird that sounds? Even though she’s sure Jesse would definitely be down, she values her eyes.

 Any “muse” she could possibly ever want was right in front of her, so why was it really impossible for her to find one?

 Well, because Ellie didn’t find anyone interesting enough. She’s not shallow or anything, it has nothing to do with how the model looked, Ellie has had several good-looking models. It was more about how she perceived them. It’s just that she hasn’t seen a model that made her ask questions like: “ How’d they get that scar?”  “ What does that tattoo mean?” Stuff like that.

The last interesting model she had was probably a fucking homeless guy she shared a blunt with outside a gas station many moons ago. Till this day, he might be one of her best pieces. There’s not a lot of moments like that here.

Nonetheless, Ellie saw this developing– extremely lame— personal requirement of hers annoying as shit. It’s holding her back big time, but she couldn’t help it even if she really wanted to.

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It’s practically useless to keep trying. The tiny voice in Ellie's head presses her to keep going, keep failing, but enough is enough. She is seriously burnt out and any more of this might kill her. The only thing that could help right now is a meaty slice of pizza and a blunt as soon as she thought of it.

Ellie clears out her desk, knocking the stack of crumpled paper into a conveniently placed trash can; a placement made from her constant trials and errors. She pushes up, and stretches widely, obnoxiously groaning like an old man by the end of it. She quickly tidied herself up, tying up half of her hair into a ponytail and throwing on a dark-green flannel shirt she had to sniff before wearing over her plain white tee. She takes a quick look into her floor-length mirror, making sure she looks presentable before grabbing what she needs to head out.

Just as her hand reached for the silver knob, Ellie felt this overwhelming urge to look back. God, she knows what she is going to look back at, but she really hopes she doesn’t. Unfortunately, her eyes land on her sketchbook, laid flat on the desk underneath a lamp’s warm light. She shouldn’t.

She needs a break. She knows she needs a break, but there is a twinge of hope, faith, lodged somewhere inside her. The same faith that’s kept her from dropping out every day for the past four months. Ellie groans as she drags her feet to her desk where she whisks up the brown book and shoves it in her tote bag with an accompanying pencil. She swivels back to the door and strolls out, silently praying her mood improves in the next hour.

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The cafeteria was surprisingly crowded, but Ellie managed to get her pizza without saying ‘fuck it’ to the line. Still, the thought of eating between this buzzing mess when she was in such a shitty mood turned her off. Thankfully, she knew that everyone would be everywhere but the upstairs balcony, especially during this chilly time of year. No sane person would eat out there, and she’s not particularly sane. Ellie saunters off to the balcony and sits herself at a small table facing the view.

It only took a glance around before she came to the realization that the view is not really a view. There’s only a dorm a few feet away, directly across. It’s a large brick-laid, generic building with wide windows. If it weren’t for the blinds, the view into a room would probably be good enough to read a label on something. Ellie’s freckled face grimaces at the thought, imagining what it’d be like if someone watched her rage as she messed up her homework over and over from this distance. Despite that, she thought it’d probably be a pretty good spot to live in. It’s close to the cafeteria and probably a lot bigger than her 1x1 dorm.

With a twinge of curiosity piquing her mind, Ellie glimpses over the windows, and for the most part, they are all closed.

All closed, but yours.

Yours doesn’t even have blinds. You’re on the 3rd floor and almost completely unobscured in a black camisole, sitting on your questionably roomy windowsill with a leg perched up. Ellie can see the fairy lights strung up in your bedroom, and a line of succulents closer to the window; ordered by size, which she briefly thought was cute. 

You aren’t facing the window, so she can only see your back. What she could see, though, is you doing your hair, occasionally swaying to what she can only imagine is music. Your room is high, but low enough for her to identify you if she had the pleasure of knowing you. Knowing you, reverberates in her head. Does she know you? Has she met you before? Amongst that babble, there is one more question she is slowly trying to gather an answer to. 

Time passes, most definitely shorter than Ellie would have thought passed. Her eyes have been glued on you the whole time, she even forgot about her, now freezing cold, pizza just so she could gawk at you. She still hasn’t seen your face yet, barely even a glimpse, but she already thinks you are stupidly beautiful just by the way you move.

From the graciousness of your movements alone, she thought there was no way in hell you didn’t know she was watching. At some point, your arms got tired, so you smoothly rolled your aching shoulders back; stretching into an arched, effortlessly perfect posture. Ellie’s eyes traced that slight curve of your back as if you’d disappear if she broke off from you.

There is no way it gets better from that, is what she thinks to herself, only to be shut up immediately after when she sees that perfectness of your back stay as you bend over and shift onto both knees to grab something far away, bringing your shorts in view. So short— so tight , they could easily be mistaken for panties. 

It was unexpected to say the least, Ellie could feel her face heating up and had to look around her to see if anyone else could see what she was seeing right now. Ellie wondered about the practicality of those shorts, wondered what exactly they were supposed to cover, leering at the plush of your ass peeking out. She thoughtlessly lets her jaw drop before muttering out a low, impressed, and barely over a whisper, “Well, fuck.”

You must’ve noticed your shorts riding up, since you quickly pulled them down after you grabbed what you wanted. Ellie clears her throat, internally scolding herself for being so gross— so perverted. Her brows furrow in embarrassment from all the dirty thoughts she brewed up in that moment. But for some reason, she still doesn’t look away. Well, there’s a list of reasons for her to look away, but she feels like ignoring it. 

Then a cold gust of wind bites past her face, clearly a sign from the universe that she should snap out of it, and snap out of it she does. 

What the hell happened to her? What is it about you that she keeps leaning into? Suddenly something clicks in her brain. After months of creative agony, something finally clicked. She has sat here completely fascinated by you and she couldn’t tell sooner?

In all honesty, to say she is just “interested” in you would be an understatement. Yeah, now she thinks you’re the perfect model for her final, but she wants to know you beyond just the drawing. A plus is that you just happened to be hot, and Ellie has never been attracted to a subject before, so the whole thing was new and exciting to her. Just the thought of drawing you made her remember why she loved art so much.  Ellie reaches for her tote bag sitting in an empty seat beside her, pulling out her sketchbook with more enthusiasm than she probably ever has. She sets the book down, opening up a blank page with one hand and tightening her grip on her pencil in the other.

She looks back up at your window, ready to sketch your life onto paper and..  Shit. You’re looking back.

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Today has been a good day for you, your teacher chose  you to teach the choreo you’ve been working on for weeks to your classmates. It was an obvious ego booster for you. You felt good and you wanted to look good too, even if you weren’t going out anywhere. It was just one of those nights. You wanted to experiment with your hair, thinking maybe you’ll do something new before your next practice. Dye it, cut it.. something.

It’s been a while since you started, and after several wrist and shoulder cramps, you were finally finished. You take a look into your hand mirror, peering at your reflection. You’re satisfied now, looking exactly how you’re feeling if you minus the dingy sleep clothes you’re in. 

♫ My heart, I never be, I never see, I never know. ♫

Grimes? Really? You pout, upset that your playlist didn’t magically read your mood. What you need is real 2000’s hot girl music. Britney Spears, Nelly Furtado, or Beyoncé for crying out loud.

“Alexa, skip!” You shout across the room, just loud enough for the device to hear. 

The stupid thing doesn’t even light up, so you call out a few more times but to no avail. Isn’t the whole point of that thing to be voice automated? You sigh and look around for your phone, and seeing it’s nowhere in front of you, you figure it’s behind. You twist your torso to find your phone behind you and luckily you do. As you pick it up, you casually glance out the window without any expectations. 

Did you see a figure in the blur as you looked away? You question your eyes, but you decide to take another look and just find out for yourself.

You peer back down and your eyes meet with someone else’s. The sudden eye contact between you and this woman instantly mortified you. Your heart sunk, and all you could do was raise your brows stupidly. She was surprised too, even in the dim light you could see her shocked expression boring back at you. Not only that, it went on for way longer than it should have. Any normal person would’ve looked away, but her eyes lingered on you before she hastily turned away. 

You’ve been sitting here, dressing up your hair, listening to your music without a care in the world. Far too absorbed in yourself to realize there’s someone outside your window. You slide off your windowsill and out of sight. Just as your bottom finally hits the wood floor, you feel the coldness of it against your skin and you’re immediately conscious of the fact that your ass was literally out at some point. 

The poor girl was trying to eat her food and you were bending over in front of your window like a harlot. It certainly didn’t help that she looked kinda hot. Did she? You peeked over your windowsill, hoping to get another look to really assess her hotness, but she was already gone. Whatever, maybe she didn’t see? But she looked embarrassed… embarrassed for you probably!

You hide your face in your hands and topple to the side, letting out a fake sob. Oh, god. You can already imagine Dina’s face when you tell her. You couldn’t help but burst out laughing at that thought. That was humiliating as shit, but it’s whatever. It’s not like you’ll see her again. 

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side note: if you have any tropes you'd like to see w/ this universe pls do drop an ask 🤭

click 4 more!

[bokutosbabe]

Is your top artist/song thing still open? Because if it still is, my top song is GUILTY by TAEMIN. Hehehe!

(also found out abt this bc you reblogged a post of mine teehee!! Thought it was interesting so I wanna give it a go!!)

it is still open! and omg!! that's so cool!

if your top song was GUILTY by TAEMIN i'd pair you with...

sae itoshi

જ⁀♡⊹｡° wanna take a bite

♡ a/n — for my spotify wrapped event

♡ content — sae itoshi x gn! reader, gn! reader, lowkey probably ooc sae, manipulative(?) sae, reader and sae have CRAZY tension, implied situationship

♡ synopsis — sae itoshi is a calm man, but when he doesn't get what he wants, that can change.

There was something terrifying about Sae Itoshi, and it wasn’t his skill on the pitch.

It was the way he looked at you—sharp, unrelenting, and just a little bit cruel. Like he knew you didn’t belong here, standing in his orbit, but he didn’t care.

You’d promised yourself you wouldn’t get involved with him, not when you’d heard the stories of what he was like: cold, calculating, impossible to read. Sae Itoshi didn’t need anyone, and he made that abundantly clear to everyone around him.

So why was he here now, leaning against the doorframe of your apartment like he owned the place?

“You’ve been ignoring me,” he said, his voice low, almost bored. But his eyes—they betrayed him. They burned with something too dangerous to name.

It'd been a week since you'd last seen Sae anywhere outside of the soccer field. A week since you'd told yourself you weren't going to be his plaything, something he could have whenever he wanted.

“Maybe you should take the hint,” you replied, trying to keep your voice steady.

He smirked, a slow, infuriating curve of his lips that made your chest tighten. “You’re bad at lying.”

You crossed your arms, refusing to let him get the upper hand. “And you’re bad at leaving people alone.”

He pushed off the doorframe, stepping closer. His presence was overwhelming, like a storm rolling in. You couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, as he closed the distance between you.

“You think I don’t know what I’m doing to you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Your stomach twisted, the guilt bubbling up like bile. You hated the way he got under your skin, the way he made you feel alive and hollow at the same time. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to happen.

“This is wrong, Sae,” you said, but your voice wavered.

“Maybe,” he admitted, tilting his head as his eyes searched yours. “But you don’t really want me to stop, do you?”

Your breath hitched, and for a moment, you hated him. You hated how easily he unraveled you, how he turned every one of your carefully constructed walls to rubble with just a glance.

But he was right. You didn’t want him to stop.

And that was the worst part.

When he leaned in, close enough for you to feel the warmth of his breath, you knew you were past the point of no return. His presence consumed you, leaving no room for anything else, and for a moment, you let yourself forget the guilt clawing at your chest.

Because Sae Itoshi was a mistake you were willing to make.

i really have a bad habit of making sae ooc i'm sorry

i hope you like it anyways!

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

[from-the-clouds]

bad liars (savior complex ii) - joel miller x f!reader

part one | masterlist | song inspo |

Baby, you're a vampire You want blood and I promised...

summary: It's been a month since Joel has last seen you, fully healed since your last interaction. But you haven't spoken...at all. Your radio silence becomes cause for concern when he hears about an outbreak of Infected at the hospital where you work. There's enough explanation in this part that you could read it on it's own, probably, but I'd highly recommend reading part one first to get the full experience. pairing: joel miller x f!reader words: 7.9k warnings: SMUT - 18+ ONLY, minors DNI. (porn w/ plot, unprotected sex, oral, rough sex, dirty talk, praise kink, age gap. dom/sub dynamics.) Heavy angst, multiple POVs, implied drug abuse, alcohol use, canon-typical suffering! Blood mention. Both reader/Joel are insanely emotionally unavailable, and love to lie to themselves and each other! (please dm for specifics if you have any questions). a/n: Ya'll loved savior complex and I'm so happy! Literally don't think I've had a fic get that many notes before, i had so many requests for a part two and because it felt like i left things open-ended enough, this came to me pretty easily! It might be the horniest thing I've ever written and also very angsty (what's new?)....but I think you'll like the ending <3 Special to @ay0nha for letting me yell at you about my writing and to @zbeez-outlet for the wonderful idea.

Joel exhales and runs his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair – the tips of which were frozen together from standing outside for so long. It had gotten cold out. Very cold. Boston always did this time of year, and because of it, people stayed in, and crime in the QZ dropped, making it a safer place - though that wasn’t saying much. 

Of course, the cold didn’t stop him from dealing. It did make his job a hell of a lot more difficult, since FEDRA was bored, out looking for trouble, and didn’t have more pressing matters to attend to. Although today, he must’ve been in luck, because the only sign of FEDRA had been helicopters and tanks that were clearly on a mission, driving to the opposite side of the QZ. Good, he had thought. A distraction. 

Joel leans back against the brick wall of the alleyway, pulling the hood of his jacket up over his ears, stares at the ice in the cracks of the pavement. When he hears the crunch of gravel underfoot, he straightens.

The man approaching looks nervously over his shoulder, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his flimsy sweatshirt. Dave, a customer of his for some time. 

“You’re late,” Joel doesn’t bother with a proper greeting.

“I know, I know, I got held up on my way here,” Dave answers, immediately beginning his excuse. “They cleared out the hospital because of an outbreak, that whole area was locked down so I had to take the long way.”

“Outbreak?” Joel tilts his head.

“Infected. I guess a bunch of hospital staff got bit. FEDRA had to go in and put them all down.” 

Joel feels a distant pang of concern somewhere in the back of his head. “How many?”

Dave shrugs, scratching the back of his neck. “I don’t know, man, that’s all I know. It’s not like they’ll ever tell anyone what actually happened.”

Joel can’t help but think of you. He knows a couple people who work at the hospital, most of them through smuggling, but you’re the only one who he’s really able to bring to mind at the moment.

“So, can we, uh…”

Joel pulls the plastic baggie out from his pockets, fishing out the pills. On his end, Dave produces a wad of credits, his shoulders sagging in relief once they’ve made the trade and the drugs are in his hand. He takes one immediately, shoves the rest in his pocket. “Thanks man, I’ll see you next week?”

Leaning back against the wall, he nods, and watches his customer disappear down the alleyway. 

The second Dave is out of sight, Joel’s chest tightens, and he takes a deep breath. There’s no reason why news of Infected at the hospital should concern him. If FEDRA had been called in – they would’ve gunned down anything that moved until it was under control. He knew, better than anyone, that they would do unspeakable things in the name of keeping order. Innocent people probably died, but the dead can’t get infected.

It had been about a month since Joel had last seen you, after he’d gotten beaten within an inch of his life and ended up on your doorstep, and you were the only person that could help. It hadn’t gone at all how he expected it would – at the end of the day, he had been surprised by your tenderness. 

Still, despite that you’d let him take you on the edge of your bed, legs wrapped around him, bouncing on his cock, he wouldn’t really say that it changed anything about your relationship. He had actually been kind of afraid that it would, that your attitude towards him would shift to something more amicable.

But you hadn’t spoken to him in a month. Joel had told you he owed you one after you stitched him up, and had anticipated that you’d take him up on his offer pretty quickly. There were so many things he could do for you to make your situation better. Maybe you’d need credits…. Medicine…. Food…. Booze… Pills, something, but you haven’t reached out. You could just be biding your time until you really need the favor.

Still, the radio silence takes him aback. He should be relieved that you aren’t talking to him. But nothing? Even if it’s not about a favor…he wants some kind of confirmation that you’d both made a mistake. After all that, did you really expect nothing from him?

It dawns on him there’s now a chance you’ll never speak to him again, because you’re one of the ones that FEDRA killed. Or worse….you had gotten bit. 

Joel passes by the hospital, taking the long way home. Everything is locked down, taped off. There’s a crowd around the place – family members, he assumes, pleading with FEDRA agents for information and getting nothing in return.

“Go home. I’m sure they’ll turn up,” he hears one of them say to a weeping woman. It’s useless to ask for an honest answer, for one of them to actually care. 

Joel could go home. He could crush a couple pills, snort them, and quell the burn with a couple drinks. He could fall into restless sleep and wake up the next day as he always did, go about his business as usual. Survive. One day at a time. 

Would he ever get confirmation that you’re alive? Because at this rate, he’s not sure he’ll ever know either way. 

The feeling is going to linger. He hates it. Were you gone? If you are, he can handle knowing. Its somehow worse not to. 

He tries to justify it to himself. You’re one of his solid connections to the hospital, you’d traded with him for medical supplies before. This is business, really, if he thinks about it that way. If you’re dead, he and Tess need to find someone else to work with. 

Joel decides to take a detour on the way back to his place.

It’s past curfew when he arrives at your apartment, the sun has long since dipped below the horizon and with that comes an even harsher cold. Boston winters, he thinks to himself. If he is capable of missing anything, he’d say he missed Texas. Before all this, the last place he’d be caught dead was on the East Coast. 

Joel raps on your front door. He forgets how shitty your building is, that you sleep here alone every night, listening to your neighbors arguing through the thin walls, shady characters slinking out of shadows in the dimly-lit hallway,

A few seconds pass. When he hears nothing behind your door, he knocks again, a little louder. 

More time passes. He knocks again, louder. Maybe you didn’t hear him. 

Nothing. He does it again. Could you be asleep? His jaw clenches.

Still nothing, and Joel knocks even louder. Maybe you’re not even here, and you work nights, and he’s just missed you as you head out for another shift. But he knows that’s unlikely. Since he’s known you, you’ve never worked nights. So where the fuck were you?

Joel’s pounds on your door, yells your name into its chipping paint. He listens for something, anything, on the other side, and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, but he keeps going The side of his fist starts to hurt, but he can’t stop himself. He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he hears one of your neighbors yelling from the end of the hallway. 

‘Shut the fuck up!’

Joel doesn’t hear exactly where the voice comes from, but it’s enough to snap him out of it. He halts his movements, his forehead falling against hollow wood, and in the silence, hears his heart pounding in his ears. 

“Fuck!” he kicks the wall just outside the frame of your door so hard the drywall gives, leaving a hole behind. “Fuck.”

He stares at the result of his outburst for an undetermined amount of time. You were all alone. To his knowledge, you had no immediate family to inform. Who would be around to remember you? He’d never really know for sure what had happened. 

“Joel?”

He looks up, his hands still clenched tightly into fists. When he sees that it’s you, standing at the end of the hallway, they loosen. 

You look horrible - haggard, tired, your hair tangled and matted. As you move closer to him, he doesn’t miss the way your shoulders are hunched underneath the weight of your backpack. But once you’re standing in front of him, you straighten, lift your chin. 

“What is this?” you ask. “What are you doing here?”

There’s no animosity in your tone, he thinks. You might be trying to put some in there, but you don’t have the energy to do so, so it just comes out sounding very flat.

Joel realizes, suddenly, that he doesn’t have a reason. A real reason that wouldn’t….give him away. He puts his hands on his hips, thinks desperately. You do nothing to help.

When he settles in silence, offers you nothing, you just sigh and shake your head. Your teeth are chattering, lips cracked from the cold, and you seem desperate to get into shelter, twisting your key into your lock and opening the front door. Once you step inside, you flick on the lights. He follows you, closes the door behind you both, and locks it.

“Oh, yeah, come on in, I guess,” you say over your shoulder. 

Joel crosses his arms, standing in your kitchen. 

“What, am I in trouble or something?” you ask. “Because if I am, you’re gonna have to wait until I’ve showered.”

“It can wait,” Joel says, and sits at one of your kitchen chairs. 

You shrug off of your backpack and leave it on a chair, then unbutton your coat, tossing it on top. Joel swallows hard when he sees the damage it’s been hiding. Your scrubs are dirty, tattered in some places, one of the sleeves hanging, partially ripped off. And they’re covered in dried blood. It’s smeared on your arms, on the back of your neck. Not yours, he hopes. 

What the fuck happened to you? You don’t turn to see his reaction, don’t look over your shoulder to see if he’s going to ask about it. It’s almost like he’s not even there, and you clearly wish he isn’t. 

He realizes then, that he has the confirmation he’s looking for. You made it out alive. He doesn’t actually need anything else from you. And you’ve given him a perfect out. He can leave while you’re in the shower. 

But he doesn’t. Not when he hears the shower start, or the screech of the curtain across the metal rod, the sound of water hitting the basin. He stays there, motionless, until you duck out of the bathroom with your arms wrapped around yourself, wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, hair damp and teeth chattering. 

You pad with bare feet onto the tiled area of the kitchen, brushing past him. 

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asks. 

You finally look at him, like you’re surprised he spoke up, or even asked the question. A choked, bitter laugh leaves you, and you shift your attention away from him, reaching into your cabinet for a bottle of bourbon. “Pass.”

You pour yourself a whiskey, and Joel watches you throw it back in one go, your nose scrunching up, your hand clasping into a fist as you take the shot. The taste doesn’t stop you from pouring another drink and gulping that one down, too, without as much of a reaction as the first. It’s only when you start pouring the third that he intervenes, standing and crossing the room to cover the glass with his hand before you can grab it. 

“Slow down,” he says.

“I know you’re not telling me what to do in my own home.” Your mouth opens as you look up at him, incredulous. 

Joel looks past you, shakes his head. He supposes your right, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch the self-destructive behavior, which is funny considering how often he engages in it himself. He gives in, removes his hand from your glass. “At least…pour me one. You shouldn’t drink alone.”

Your expression softens slightly, and he’s able to see all the pain you’re hiding, just for a flash, before you turn to retrieve a second glass from your cabinet. 

Once you hand him the whiskey, he sits in the middle of the tiny loveseat you’ve got in your front room, expecting you to sit in the armchair across from it. Instead, you approach with your own drink, nudge his knee with your own, and Joel slides over to make room so you can fall onto the couch beside him. Much closer than he’d expected. 

It’s surprisingly good bourbon, and he wonders how many times you’d wasted it by downing it like you just had, instead of taking your time, savoring. He waits for you to get settled before he speaks again.

“What happened to you?” he tries once more, a little softer this time. 

There’s some contemplation on your end, you look at him for a moment, then at your glass, then back up at him again. He can almost see you trying to figure out how much you’re going to share, but he wants to know everything.

“There was an accident at the hospital,” you answer, finally. 

Joel slings his arm over the back of the couch, angles his body towards where you’re curled up, legs tucked underneath you. I’m listening.

Your voice stays even, blase. “A guard at the border broke protocol…and someone who was infected was brought in. By the time we realized, it was too late….”

“Were you hurt?” 

“Almost.” you say. “I mean, yes, actually, I’m a little scratched up, but…it’s not as bad as it could’ve been.”

Your teeth start chattering again. Joel wonders if it’s because of the cold, or your nerves. Figures it’s probably both.

“My coworker turned and I uhm….I had to…” you say into your glass, your free hand flexing like it’s trying to shake off some unpleasant muscle memory. “I had no choice.”

“I understand,” For whatever reason, he spares you from telling the story. To him, taking down Infected was nothing. But to you…“What else?” he presses.

You shrug, avoiding his eyes, one of your arms coming to grip at your opposite shoulder. “I can’t really remember. A bunch of people died. FEDRA came in and just started gunning everything down….” you shook your head, and straightened up.

“I heard about that,” Joel offers.

“Wait…you knew about this?”

“Yeah.”

“So then why are you here, asking m-” the rest of your sentence drops off, your lips parted slightly. The look on your face shifts, slowly. Your eyes narrow. Remorse turns into something more neutral, then into curiosity. “Oh my god….you were worried about me.”

“No.”

“Yes, you fucking were,” your lips curl slightly, it’s not quite a smile, but it’s something close to amusement. 

“No,” Joel defends himself. “I wanted to hear what happened from someone–”

“No you didn’t,” you interject, but he raises his voice to finish his thought.

“–who actually works there, not FEDRA’s propaganda.”

“No you did not. You’re checking up on me. You came over here after curfew to see if I was–”

“Enough,” Joel growls with enough conviction that it shuts you up, and he’s grateful, but its not enough to wipe the self-satisfied look on your face, because it doesn’t.

“What are we, like, friends now?”

He doesn’t answer, and slugs back the rest of his whiskey.

“Or would that be too much for you?” You don’t wait long for him to give you an answer, probably because you know he won’t respond. “I mean, if we’re both being honest–” He definitely wasn’t being honest. “–Today was really fucked up.”

You’re leaning forward now, some of the space between you is gone. And though you’re trying to give the impression that you’re unphased by everything, your hand is clenched tightly around your glass, and you avoid his eyes. It’s painful to watch you resist the urge to trust him. Not that he’s ever given you a good enough reason to – he knows he doesn’t deserve it, but he wants it anyways.

“It’s funny…” you say after a while. “I remember thinking that I didn’t want to die. At least… not like that. I’ve never felt that before…That’s something, isn’t it?” you ask him. 

Joel looks at you, and is surprised at the vulnerability in your expression, sees you looking for some kind of validation from him. “....It is.” 

You finish off your drink, and put the empty glass on the coffee table, shift closer to him.

“It looks like you healed up okay,” you say, after a spell. “How’s your shoulder?”

“A little sore, nothing I can’t handle.”

“Did you take those antibiotics?”

“Yes.”

“Good. And I can’t even tell you had a black eye.”

“I’m fine,” Joel asserts. 

Another shiver wracks your body, and he can tell this one is actually from the chill – your apartment is cold as fuck, it even is starting to bother him. 

“Don’t you have a heater?”

“Kinda,” you glance over at the radiator in the corner. “Sometimes it works.”

“What do you do when it’s colder than this?” It was only November, things would only get worse. 

You shrug. “I don’t know….just be colder, I guess.”

Joel imagines you curled up in your bed alone, wrapped in a thin comforter, shaking in front of him like you are now. He winces. 

“How long are you going to stay?” you ask, changing the subject.

“I should probably go now.”

You nod, scoot closer. “But maybe…” you trail off, contemplating. 

Joel sits up straighter, prompting you when you don’t speak again. “Maybe what?”

“Maybe you could stick around for a little while longer.” There’s a warm hand, yours, that lands on his thigh, and he recoils like you’ve touched him with a fire iron. He rises to his feet. 

“Hey,” you stand along with him, step in front of him to block the pathway to the door. He could easily get past you, obviously, but it’s not as simple as that. 

Of course he’s fucking thought about what happened the last time he was here – his arms around your waist, his mouth on your neck, your chest, your hands on his shoulders, whining his name. A freak accident, a glitch in the matrix, a statistically improbable thing. 

“What?” he asks as you step forward, the fingers on your free hand sliding into the belt loops of his pants. He feels blood rush to his cheeks, to other places. And you’re still fucking shivering. You look so fucking miserable, he wants to yell at you to put on a coat, to wrap yourself in a blanket, in his arms. 

“Joel,” you say his name softly, tilting your head up, leaning close. And then your hand is on the side of his face, and he realizes you’re fucking pleading with him. He knows what you want, but he has a feeling this isn’t just about sex. You’re looking for comfort, as if he’s capable of giving it. 

“We made a mistake…once,” he tells you. “We’re not going to make it again.”

He says it to hurt you, but it doesn’t work. It’s like you knew it was coming all along. “I knew what I was doing,” you answer, earnest. “Didn’t you?”

Yes. You glance down at his hands, which are squeezed into fists so tightly, his knuckles are white. If he’s not rigid, he’s not sure how he’ll be able to resist. He wants you. God, he wants you. He never thought he’d be able to have you again. 

“I could help you loosen up.”

Joel’s walking on the edge of a one-thousand foot cliff and hoping his foot slips. He wants to surrender. The only thing he thinks might save him is to say the meanest thing he can. Maybe you’d get turned off.

“Listen to yourself,” he says, finding the strength to meet your eyes. “You want me so bad, you sound pathetic.”

“Asshole,” you step closer, your mouth twitches, your lips are inches apart. “Do you think I care what you think about me?”

Joel realizes his plan has backfired. But he really only has himself to blame, he should’ve known better. With you, he’s never in as much control as he wants to be, and deep down, he likes it. 

“Go lie down on the bed.”

It’s the only thing that seems to shock you. “What?” 

“I won’t ask you again,” Joel steps backwards, crosses his arms. “Go lie down.” 

──────

If you told yourself a couple months ago that one day you’d find yourself pinned down by Joel Miller, you’d think it’d be because he was about to kill you. Maybe because you cheated him out of something, maybe because you did something else to piss him off – it didn’t really matter. Regardless of how fucked up it was, that idea would seem more dignified than what was happening now. 

Your back is being pressed deeper into the lumpy old mattress, and he’s on you. His mouth is warm, hot, wet, and dragging down your neck, nipping, sucking, licking. Your hands are itching to reach out, to skate down his torso, trace along his jawline, tug at his hair, but you can’t because he’s got them pinned above you with only one of his own. Anytime you try to fight him, his grip only grows stronger. 

It was shameful, really, but you had asked for this – begged for it, basically. There were a number of reasons why – one of which was to blow off some steam after a near death experience, the other because you’d fucked him before and it had been good, much to your dismay. There was also a third reason that you weren’t interested in acknowledging now. 

After the night Joel had gotten jumped, and you’d taken care of him, everything has changed. It’s a cliche, but true. You’d known what you were doing when it happened, and had no regrets. But it was probably not supposed to happen again, and you tried to keep it that way, more for his sake than anyone else’s. But….he was the one who showed up tonight after he’d heard what had happened. It wasn’t nothing.

Joel pulls away from you so abruptly that you gasp, shivering in the wake of his impossible warmth. 

“Sit up,” he instructs, and you turn to find him at the end of the bed, arms crossed. 

You obey, mostly just for the view. You hope to admire him, fresh from kissing you – flush skin, wet lips, tousled hair. Only he’s frustratingly stoic, unsullied – like he hadn’t been touching you at all. 

“Look at me,” he says, and you do. 

“This doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s nothing,” you agree. 

“I won’t be gentle.”

“I don’t want you to be gentle.”

“Good,” you watch his shoulders loosen, just a little, and he takes one step backwards, his eyes tracing down your body and then back up. “Strip for me….” 

You aren’t dressed sexy at all, you remember, a sweatshirt and sweatpants. If you had thought this through a little more, you might’ve tried to make it nicer for him. “....Okay.”

“Start with your shirt,” he says, and you grab at the hem, but he snaps at you. “Ah-ah….slower.”

You swallow, nod, and carefully lift the fabric, dragging it up over your stomach, over the swell of your breasts, revealing your tight, thin white tank top. 

“That’s it, nice and slow.” 

Joel’s voice is soft but stern, a low rasp that makes your cunt clench around nothing, and he’s not even touching you. The sweatshirt is pulled over your head, falling somewhere on the crumpled bedspread. 

Languidly, you lean back, shifting your weight to get off the mattress, and Joel palms himself through his jeans. You can see where he’s straining against the denim, and you find it hard to tear your gaze away as you go to pull off your sweatpants. Joel stops you again. 

“Turn around.”

You do, and you’re sure he has a nice view of your ass as you slide them over your hips, bending over to let the fleece pool around your ankles. Slowly, you rise back up, looking at him over your shoulder for approval. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs. Your stomach flips. A month ago, you would’ve done anything to get him to stay away from you, and now, you’re terrified to disappoint him. 

That’s the problem. You’d spent most of the day fighting for your life — literally. But even after standing behind a barricade of heavily-armed FEDRA soldiers outside the hospital, you didn’t feel as safe as you did when you saw Joel at your door. You need him. For now, at least.

“Now the shirt,” he tilts his head towards the mattress, nodding encouragingly.

You get back on the bed, sitting back on your heels, and begin to pull the tank top up. It’s your last layer up top, you’re not wearing a bra, and you’re feeling a little vulnerable with him just watching you, fully clothed and composed, your gaze falling down to look at the threadbare linens. 

“Eyes up,” he instructs. “Look at me.”

Taking in a shaky inhale, you do. It’s not easy. Everything about him looks dark, animalistic. A coiled ball of energy, waiting to pounce.

But, even when you’re bare before him, he doesn’t. 

“Lie back, close your eyes.”

Of course, you don’t refuse, settling your head against the pillows. 

There’s a sound of a belt – his belt, unbuckling, the snap of a button, the dip of the bed where he kneels when he comes to hover over you. Two hands land on top of your thighs, pressing the backs against his denim-clad knees, thumbs pushing your legs further apart. 

And then…nothing. He’s still. He’s still for so long, that you actually think that something’s wrong. When you open your eyes, you’re met with a view of the underside of his jaw. You can just make out the pinched expression he’s wearing as he looks down upon you. Disdain, maybe…but it’s not meant for you, it’s for someone else….him.

“Joel,” you murmur. Instinctually, you reach for his hand.

The second it makes contact, he smacks your hand away so hard your whole body jolts. “I told you to close your eyes.”

“Sorry,” you mumble quickly, closing them again. 

You are well aware that he’s actively working through shit, probably doing some kind of mental gymnastics to rationalize why it’s okay to fuck you again, which, when you really think about it is kind of….pathetic. It’s the only thing that makes you feel any sort of power in a situation where you’ll surrender everything else. It’s a fair exchange. 

Maybe, on a different day, you would want it softer. You’d like to think he’s capable of that, even though he seems determined he isn’t. Luckily, you don’t want it softer. After today, you want to be so far gone you can’t think. 

Joel answers by leaning down and catching you in a bruising kiss. Finally. You press yourself against him cause you’re freezing and he’s so warm, and you frantically begin to unbutton the flannel he’s wearing, making it about halfway down before he pins your hands above you again.

“Slow down.”

You whine, a little frustrated because all you want to do is touch him. The fingers on his free hand hook around the elastic of your underwear, and he starts to drag them over the curve of your ass. 

He’s got to be joking with how deliberately he’s moving, anticipation only building underneath his featherlight touches.

When he’s got your panties around your ankles, you slide your legs together so he can pull them off entirely, keeping them closed as his weight shifts, and your thighs are pulled back apart.

“You’re already so wet for me,” he doesn’t need to feel you to see it clear as day, with you spread open in front of him. “So fucking desperate.”

He’s all-but glaring at you, like you’ve done something wrong, and for a minute, your eyes flick away, just for a second of relief from the tension.

“What, are you embarrassed?” he asks. 

“N-no,” you stammer, though it was supposed to sound confident. 

Thankfully, he doesn’t press you, his head dipping down to press his lips to your knee, then an inch higher, then an inch higher, then higher – keeping his eyes locked on yours the whole time, an arm winding around your thigh.

“I wanted to do this last time.” A confession. 

“Yeah?” you sigh, trembling. It’s maybe the nicest thing he’s said to you, but you can’t even acknowledge it, because you’re buzzing.

He turns his face, his beard scraping along sensitive skin. “Mhm,” his deep rasp vibrates directly to your cunt, and when his head dips down, you close your eyes – it might just be better to focus on only one sensation at a time, you’re not sure you can handle seeing what he’s about to do.

Joel’s mouth is on you the second you do, and you gasp. He licks up the seam of your lips, mouth latching around your clit, swirling with his tongue, and back down – firm, determined, practiced. You try to buck up, but he has an arm locked around your hips. 

He removes himself from you just enough to utter two words. “Stay still.”

You want to protest, but you realize that he’s let go of your hands, and it gives you the opportunity to thread your fingers into his hair, while you dig your heels into the broad expanse of his back, and he groans, tongue curling into you. 

“I’ve thought about this,” you gasp, answering his earlier admission.

“When?”

“At night. More than once.”

“Fuck,” Joel growls, and you wheeze when he works one finger into you, forcing you to take it along with his next words. “You know how fuckin’ bad that is? Dreamin’ about a man nearly twice your age?”

“I d-don’t care, I want you anyway. Y-you can do whatever you want to me,” It’s too early to be past the point of speaking coherently, it really is, but you’re already there. 

“F-fuck,” Joel repeats himself, and pushes another finger inside you next to the first, the stretch almost uncomfortable, but quickly fading to pleasure. “I’m going to.”

You’re not the going to tell him, though, that he’s the first man whose ever gone down on you, because you’re a little fucking scared for some reason. It’s intimate, very intimate, more than you expected. 

The truth is, you weren’t actually very experienced at all. You could count on one hand the number of partners you’d had, and still not use all of your fingers. While some of them were good enough, they all paled in comparison to Joel. There had never been anyone like Joel. 

His fingers curl as his tongue swirls around your clit and you cry out, inhale sharply. Minute by minute, you’re getting wetter and wetter – can hear yourself with each twist of his fingers inside you, bearing down on him. 

“You taste so fuckin’ good,” he grunts, and your eyes flutter open just for a second, just to see his forehead, dark eyes staring back at you, and his hips dipping, rutting against the mattress. God he’s getting himself off to this. As hot as it is, the thought of not getting to feel him inside you causes a rush of anger. 

“F-feels so good,” you’re right there, already, and it’s pitiful.

“I know, baby, I know,” he says. “You’re already so close, aren’t you?”

Instead of answering, you just nod, gasping. Joel works you right up to the precipice, hands tightening in his hair, hips lifting off the bed – and then he slows a little –  just enough – to pull you back off the edge, and you let out a humiliating sob.

“Shhh!” he hisses with his mouth still on you, resuming the steady pace he had going. A little sigh of relief when you feel your release approaching again. He just lost his rhythm for a moment, it was nothing.

Again, he’s got you right there, you’re so close, hips jerking, breathing in short, sharp pants, something molten working its way up your spine. “Joel, that’s it, please I-”

He falters again – just enough. And it’s gone again.

You realize, with dismay, that he knows exactly what he’s doing. He hadn’t lost his rhythm. He’s doing this on purpose. 

If someone asked – not that anyone would – you wouldn’t be able to recall how long he keeps you in that state, being dragged and dangled, but denied the privilege of falling. It’s torture. 

And at first, you try to be patient. You figure he’ll grow tired, desperate, and eventually want to move on. But apparently, he doesn’t want to move on. He’s content to keep you this way for as long as he sees fit, and you can’t handle it any longer. It’s starting to hurt.

“Please, Joel, let me-” you gasp.

“Let you what?” he pulls back from you, frustratingly too soon, once again.

“Let me come, please, I’ll do anything, I’ll be good, please, please-”

“Just a little longer,” he dismisses you.

All you can do is pant and writhe, completely at his mercy. He keeps going like that, and you’ve stopped trying to filter yourself, the sounds he makes as he laves at you are obscene, you can see yourself glistening on his chin, and can feel the sheets damp beneath you. At this point, he’s enjoying this more than you are.

“Joel,” you plead with him again. “It’s too much, I c-can’t. Just, please I really need-”

“You wanna come for me, baby?” he asks. You nod ferociously. 

“Yes, please, please,” 

“You’re so fucking sweet when you beg, you know that? ” he murmurs. “Wish you were like this all the time.”

“Fuck off,” you manage, feeling heat rise to your cheeks. You should do this to me more often. 

Joel chuckles, and it vibrates just right, his fingers curling again and you moan, hands tightening in his hair. He’s focused now, you can tell because the constant stream of filth he’s been whispering has finally stopped. He’s persistent.

You’re unable to stay quiet, continuing to whimper just like that and please don’t stop over and over. And then all at once, every muscle in your body grows tense and you cry out, cunt pulsing around him so tightly that his fingers slow. “There you go, pretty girl, that’s it.” 

You whisper his name as he continues to fuck his fingers into you, riding you through your orgasm and licking up the mess you’ve made. 

At some point in the aftermath, Joel withdraws from you, and you hear the sting of his zipper. It takes a moment, but you’re able to see him through heavily lidded eyes, kneeling in front of you with his shirt unbuttoned all the way, pants around his ankles, jerking himself slowly in his hand. God he’s fucking huge, how had you forgotten about that? He’s a vision, beard still wet with you, looking down, watching your chest rise and fall. In that moment you realize two things. One, even though you’ve already come, you somehow want him even more than you had before, and two, you’ve never wanted to suck a dick so bad in your life. 

So you sit up, crawl towards him, and reach out with one hand to take him in your palm. He lets you, sighing, closing down his eyes. First, you have to kiss him, so you rise to your knees, and he pulls you into his arms, one of them winding around your waist, the other coming to rest at the small of your back. “You take such good care of me,” you whisper. 

He grimaces at the words like they’re an insult. You expect him to retaliate, to tell you that you shouldn’t say that sort of thing, but he never does. So you kiss him, gently, bringing your free hand to the side of his face. Once again, he lets you, and you taste yourself when his tongue presses into you mouth. You run your thumb over the head of his cock, and he hums against your touch, almost contentedly.

You’re doing whatever you want to him, and you’re shocked he hasn’t put a stop to it. It could be satisfying enough, you think, just to keep kissing him like this. Still, you sink back towards the bed to test things further. You’re about to wrap your mouth around him, but he pulls you off by your hair, so quickly, so hard that you yelp.

“No.” he says firmly. “Lie back.”

“But I just wanted to-”  

“No.” 

You consider trying to reason with him, but decide it won’t be worth whatever he’d do if you continue to argue.

Joel braces himself with one hand above your shoulder, the other wrapped around his cock, slowly teasing you by rubbing himself up and down a few times, before he gives in, finally pushing into you.

“Oh, fuck,” you gasp at the stretch, reaching out grasp at his bicep, arching your back. He’d prepped you, and it was still too much. 

“You can take it,” he says, pressing deeper into you. His hips are all the way flush with yours, he’s to the hilt, and he still snaps them even further, once, holding you there, so deep, you feel like you’re choking on him. “See? There you go.”

It seems like you can’t quite catch your breath, and you squirm underneath him for some kind of friction, some kind of relief from how intense it all is. You can feel him throbbing inside you, feel how badly his own body is begging him to move, but he doesn’t. 

“Joel,” you cradle the back of his head, look him in the eyes. “Move, please.”

He doesn’t answer, he just brings his hand to grip your jaw, his thumb and forefinger pressing into the soft flesh of your cheeks. 

“Please?” you murmur again, and his thumb slips into your mouth, silencing you. You suck on it obediently, and after you do, he finally gives you what you want.

──────

Joel told you he wouldn’t be gentle, and he isn’t. 

He hadn’t been able to do this last time. Taste you, spread you open, fuck you properly. His hips snap against yours – ferociously, unrelenting, over and over. You’ve been going at it for awhile now, and he actually wants you to break. He wants you to tell him to slow down, to be a little more tender, not press into you so deep, so hard, so that if he listens, it wouldn’t mean he’s breaking his own promise. He’s got to be rough with you, because he’s afraid of what could happen if he’s not.

But you don’t break. You fucking take it, take him, each time, again and again, your nails digging into arms, your legs locked around his hips. Each time he delves into you, you’re getting wetter and wetter, and yet, you’re still so fucking tight. He doesn’t understand it. It’s been a long fucking time since he’s been with a woman like you – and you might be the best he’s ever had. 

You’re not even making any noise – you’re just panting, gasping in Joel’s ear as you cling to him, and that’s all. He can’t even look you in the eyes. If he does, he knows you’ll see everything that’s wrong with him, and still beg for him to give you more. 

Two hands land on either side of his face, turning his head so you can kiss him. Despite how he’s treating you, you keep trying to connect, to ground yourself. For as much as he wants to refuse, it feels too cruel to deny you. He lets you lock your lips with his own, feels your cunt clutch him even tighter. It’s impossible for you to kiss for more than a few seconds at a time without it getting broken up by a whimper here and there. You’re getting close again, he’s started to get better at recognizing it.

“You’re fucking so perfect on me, baby, you feel that?” he asks, and you nod, breathless. “Taking me so well, such a good fucking girl-”

A gasp from you cuts him off, your eyes squeezing shut as you are taken over by your climax. Joel groans and does everything he can not to come when you start pulsing around him, holding him closer, since there’s nothing else to do. It’s way too intimate…because it’s missionary, and he should’ve known better than to start off like this. 

Pulling out of you is the hardest thing he’s had to do in a while, and he ignores your noises of protest now that he’s left you empty. Then, he flips you onto your stomach. He takes a moment to admire the curve of your ass, how it dips into your waist….to him, your body is perfect, and you’re young, your skin still supple and smooth. There are still places he hasn’t gotten his mouth on, and it’s a shame, he thinks, but tonight his patience is wearing thin. Joel pulls you back until you’re on your knees, and slides back inside. There’s a little resistance, you whimper, but it’s easier than the first time. He wraps an arm around your waist, the other across your chest, and starts to jerk his hips upwards, into you. 

“Oh fuck, Joel,” you sigh in relief.

“I know, I know.”

You drop your head back until it falls against his shoulder, winding your arm back so you can pull at his hair, which kind of fucking hurts, but he likes it. 

Ultimately, you’re pretty easy to please, and it’s not long before he feels the telltale flutter of your walls as you drip down over him, soaking his lap. 

“You’re making a fucking mess, baby. You gonna come for me again?”

All you can do is plead with him. “I can’t, Joel. I can’t do it again, please just-”

“Yes, you can,” he interjects. “I know you can, baby, don’t worry…I’ll help you.”

“O-okay.’ 

He slows the roll of his hips just a little, focuses on deeper, longer strokes, and lets the hand that’s currently squeezing one of your tits fall to where your bodies are joined, finding your clit immediately.

You whine, arching back against him, the swell of your ass packed against his lower stomach. He sees a single tear leaking from the corner of your eye and feels a little guilty for what he’s doing to you. Only a little, though. 

Without any warning, for the third time, you’re coming around him – easier than the last time, like always – and he uses the feeling of you throbbing around him to chase his own release, his hand clapping over your mouth to muffle your moans as he becomes increasingly frantic. 

He turns his head, rakes his teeth along your exposed neck, and sinks them into your pulse point with a groan. Your breath is hot against him when you whimper in response. 

“Just a little more, honey.” He’s so close. You bob your head, though you’ve nearly gone limp in his arms.

Like last time, Joel knows it’s a bad idea, but he’s not going to pull out. The thought of deliberately coming inside you is actually what sends him over the edge, and he’s cursing and moaning your name. You whine at the feeling of him pulsing inside of you, arching back for more, even though he can tell you’re exhausted. 

It’s fucking freezing in your apartment, and yet, his skin is damp with sweat when he finally regains some awareness of his surroundings. He’s panting, you’re sniffling, a weak smile on your face as you catch your breath. Before he can stop himself, he presses his lips to your cheek. 

Joel tilts you both forward – very tentatively, keeping an arm wrapped around your waist. At some point, your hand settled over top of his, and you threaded your fingers between his own, holding his hand across your stomach. You keep it there, even after you’ve settled onto the bed.  

It takes a few minutes before either of you move, but it’s you who gives in first, wriggling out from where he’s got you trapped partially underneath him. 

You retreat to the bathroom, like you did last time. Somewhere during your coupling the linens have slid down the bed, and Joel settles back against the pillows, throwing an arm behind his head.  Now that he’s stopped sweating, he’s just cold, and he reaches to pull the bedspread over him. He should leave, he thinks, before you come out and ask him to. Beat you to the punch. Maybe while you’re still in the bathroom. 

A few minutes later, and you return from the bathroom, dressed again in sweats. He hears you pour yourself a glass of water, gulping it down. You flick off the lamp on your bedside table, and fall into bed next to him, lying rigidly on your back. He should reach out, pull you against him, let you settle in his arms. Instead, Joel rolls over on his side. 

It’s terrible how beautiful you are, he thinks, watching you stare up at the ceiling, hugging yourself. So beautiful, and fucking smart. You’re strong, too, but not as strong as he wishes you were. Of course, no one could ever be that strong.

He whispers your name. You turn your head, pupils still blown wide with lingering lust.

“You need to learn to defend yourself, to shoot a gun, to fight,” he says. “After today.”

“What?” you roll to face him. 

“You said you didn’t want to die,” Joel continues. “So you need to learn. ‘Case something like that happens again.”

“Oh yeah? Lemme guess, you’re gonna teach me?” your voice is a little hoarse after what he’d done to you, and you smirk at him.

“Yes.” It sobers you up, that he’s not fucking with you, or giving you a hard time. “I owe you, remember?” 

“You do.” 

“So…. I’ll teach you.” 

“....Okay.” 

“Alright.”

Joel rolls over to his opposite side, and you’re left staring at his back. Arms wrapped around 

himself in a tight hug, he waits for you to tell him to go.

You never do. 

Instead, he feels the heat of your body as you curl up against him, slotting one of your legs between his own. Your hand grazes up his ribs, over his bicep – a gentle, quick massage – before you tuck your arm underneath his own, your palm flat against his heart. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, frozen at how tender the embrace is. It’s a foreign feeling, he can’t remember the last time someone touched him like this. 

The tip of your nose hits the nape of his neck, and he can feel your shuddery exhale.

“I’m cold,” you say, like it’s obvious, lips brushing featherlight against his skin. “And if you’re staying, you might as well make yourself useful.”

He can’t roll over and wrap his arms around you. He can’t kiss your forehead or play with your hair or murmur into your ear. He can’t offer you anything in return. Joel decides, though, if he’s going to accept comfort from anyone, it’s going to be from you.

──────

taglist (basically if you asked for a pt 2 on the last part i tagged you): @bbyanarchist @dlwrish @imaginewrites24 @captain-yellow-96 @daisyintheskyewithdiamonds @sludgec0r33 @c0wb0ym3nace

[novarex]

Allright, I'm doing DROW SMASH OR PASS, Legend of Drizzt and Waf of the Spider Queen characters. I've seen this back in the tags and I want to play.

Drizzt Do'Urden - PASS - idk, he's not really my type, and he's just a little bit boring. It would also feel wrong somehow, and I don't know how to explain it. I mean... I wouldn't say no if he asked, but Cattie-Brie would have to be dead and I'd probably ask if he's sure like 10x.

Jarlaxle Baenre - SITUATIONAL - Don't get me wrong, he's lovely, but his personality is too close to mine, and there isn't enough air in one room for the both of us. But get me drunk, and I'd do it for sure.

Gromph Baenre - SMASH - Slamming the smash button until it breaks. If you know me at all you know I'm in love with this pathetic wizard man. He is both brilliant and stupid, and just the right amount of sarcastic, arrogant, sad, and pathetic. I would marry him. He wouldn't get a moment of peace because I'd be trying to entice him into bed 24/7. It's like he was written specifically for me to fall in love with. When he went missing in WOTSQ, I would have turned the city to rubble and made the rivers run red with blood looking for him. I know Cattie-Brie was pissy about the suggestive fantasies he put in her head with psionics, but I would literally learn psionics just to play a game of horny thoughts tag all day.

Zaknafein Do'Urden - SITUATIONAL - a bit too self righteous for my taste, and I think I'd probably get on his nerves. But I'd never turn down that legendary dick if I had a few shots in me. He's got some anger issues I'd prefer to steer clear of.

Kimmuriel Oblodra - PASS - I just don't think he'd be into it. I would also be incredibly uncomfortable with him having that much access to my thoughts. Unless, of course, he's into the wild fantasies that my brain cooks up...and in that case... we might turn this into a smash.

Rai'gy Bondalek - PASS - Strong possibility that he'd just make me self conscious. He's certainly intriguing, but he'd hate me for sure.

Dinin Do'Urden - SMASH - Dinin, my love. I would scoop him up and take him to a cottage in the woods and make sure his belly is full and his balls are empty and have all of his babies. I would brutally torture and maim anyone who ever dared to hurt him. I would burn cities to ash and end bloodlines for him. Dinin deserves so much better. I'm desperate for more Dinin, especially after the events of Lolth’s Warrior.

Rizzen Do'Urden - SMASH - I'd keep him as a pet. What malice did to him is unforgivable.

Nalfein Do'Urden - SMASH - I don't even know why other than he's pathetic in thre way that I like.

Beniago Baenre - SMASH - He's adorable. I would insist on him in his natural drow form, however. I bet he's a good lover too. In One Eyed Jax, Jarlaxle teases him a bit because he's definitely into human women. He smart, personable, and he definitely knows how to please a woman.

Braelin Janquay - SMASH - He deserves everything. I find him irresistibly adorable. He's spent more of his life outside of Menzoberranzan than in and has a pretty strong disdain for Lolthian culture. He is smart and clever and Jarlaxle adores him. Braelin has also suffered a lot and remains so loyal to Jarlaxle. Everything about him is attractive to me. He has quickly rocketed to my 3rd favorite, with Gromph as my #1 and Dinin as a very close #2.

Valas Hune - SMASH - I feel like we might genuinely get along. He'd be good to go camping with somewhere far from everyone else. I really thrive with one on one interactions, especially someone who needs personal space too.

Ravel Xorlarrin - SMASH- I have amended this to smash. He has grown on me considerably. He's clever and not easily intimidated. I respect that.

Brack'thal Xorlarrin - SMASH - Ok, I know he's only in one book (Charon's Claw) but he checks all of the "he's pathetic and tragic in all the right ways" boxes. His whole story makes me want to swoop him up and carry him off. Charon's Claw starts off so strong with him being kicked around that I just immediately wanted to protect him. His whole story just has me in a grip. It's really a shame we only got one book of him.

Tiago Baenre - HARD PASS - Fuck no. No way. I mean maybe if it gave me the opportunity to cut his throat, then I would make that sacrifice. He's the only irredeemable fuck face I can't find anything to like about. I'd kick him in the nuts.

Dantrag Baenre - SMASH - He definitely knows how to fuck. He's big too, which would be extra fun. I also have a weakness for Baenre boys.

Berg'inyon Baenre - SMASH - He seems like he'd know what he's doing, and if he didn't, he'd learn real quick.

Pharaun Mizzrym - SMASH - Let me be clear... I would not trust him at all. But come on, you know that sex has to be amazing. He knows what he's doing, is so good that he's an arrogant shit about it, and you'll definitely have a lot of orgasms. You know your legs won't work for a week after. There's a reason he's such a pain in Gromp's ass and it's because he's a wildly competent shitass.

Ryld Argith - MAYBE - He's just so practical it hurts. He also just doesn't seem to care that much about anyone other than Pharaun.

Nimor Imphrazel - SMASH - Half drow half dragon rabble rouser? Absolutely sign me the fuck up.

Allright. I'm not sure if I've missed anyone.

Tagging @vspin, @grandma-kei, @drizztdohurtin, and anyone else who wants to play. Feel free just to do the ones you know or add to it. I know I just did dudes.

[wonbriiize]

pairing; wonbin x reader

genre; fluff, friends to lovers

warnings; a bit of cursing, mentions of blood + a few other (small) horror related things

note; it‘s a bit long again i‘m sorry ㅠㅠ i think i just have a habit of writing a lot lmao,, anyway thank you guys already for taking the time to read this <3

for you

in which you go to the amusement park with your friends and you decide to go into the haunted house as pairs. although one of your friends (wonbin) is scared of it, he pulls himself together because he doesn’t want you to go with anyone else…

“come on, it’s going to be so much fun. let’s go in pairs of two!” you suggest excitedly.

“then i‘m going to go with sohee,” seunghan puts his arm around his best friend who nods in agreement. shotaro and sungchan look at each other, already declaring that they’re the second pair. “i really don’t want to go with anton,” eunsok rolls his eyes in annoyance. anton laughs, knowing that eunsok is just joking. they love teasing each other. “oh, stop lying, there’s no one else you’d rather go with than me.” “well, if that thought makes you sleep at night..” eunsok can’t help but to smile.

you look over to wonbin who looks like he would rather jump off a cliff then to go inside the haunted house. shit, you had forgotten that he’s afraid of those things.

“wonbin, you probably don’t want to go, right?” sungchan asks him. everybody knows that wonbin is scared of horror related things.

wonbin shakes his head. “not really. i will just wait outside.”

“then who’s going to go with *y/n*?” shotaro looks over to you, feeling sorry since you don’t have a partner.

“i love haunted houses so i don’t mind going twice,” anton says, smiling over to you. “wouldn’t it be too boring for you the second time?” it was a very nice thought of anton but you don’t want him to feel like he’s wasting his time. anton shrugs. “no, it’s fine. i’ll keep myself entertained with laughing at you for being scared.” “this won’t happen, i don’t get scared easily,” you stick your tongue out to anton and he laughs.

throughout your whole conversation with anton, wonbin kept watching the two of you. he isn’t going to let that happen. if anyone should go with you, it should be him. he decides that his love for you is bigger than his fear of haunted houses.

“i changed my mind, i will go with *y/n*,” wonbin announces, stepping forward.

it’s an understatement to say that everyone was shocked. no, everyone was more than just shocked. sungchan almost chokes on the juice he is drinking right now. “park wonbin is this really you?”

wonbin looks confused with everyone’s reactions. “okay, it’s no biggie, you all can stop acting like this.” “i think this isn’t wonbin, he probably got abducted by aliens and this is just a clone or something,” seunghan actually looks terrified. wonbin smacks his head lightly. “oh, get a grip! so are we doing this or not?”

everyone was still pretty shocked, but you guys nod and start walking to the haunted house.

pair after pair, all of you go inside. first it was seunghan and sohee‘s turn. when they walk out of it, seunghan was laughing but sohee seriously looks like he has seen real ghosts inside. it is the same with shotaro and sungchan. sungchan has the biggest smile on his face but shotaro keeps clinging onto him because he is actually afraid.

after eunseok and anton come out, wonbin and you get ready to go inside.

eunsok and anton both don’t look that bothered so it gives you a good feeling that you won’t be that scared either (you have the same horror tolerance as the two of them). wonbin on the other hand is trying to control himself so no one sees how scared he already is.

“you know some of them run after you with fake knives,” eunseok whispers once we walk past them.

“are you serious?” wonbins eyes look like they might fall out.

eunseok doesn’t reply anything, he just winks and leaves wonbin and you alone in front of the haunted house.

you take a look at wonbin and notice how he’s trying his best to look calm, but he’s failing miserably. his expression is exposing that he’s afraid.

when wonbin feels you intertwining your arms together, he instantly feels at ease. you notice that, which makes you smile.

“ready?”

“no, but let’s go,” wonbin takes one last deep breath and you two start walking into the haunted house.

it’s so dark you guys can barely see anything. there’s something hanging down from the roof, it looks like a spiderweb. all of sudden, you feel something on your head and you scream, scaring wonbin as well. he starts screaming with you.

“WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING??”

“THERE IS SOMETHING ON MY HEAD TAKE IT AWAY!!”

you stop screaming when wonbin pulls you closer. he looks over your head. “there is nothing.” “i swear i felt something.”“well whatever it was, it’s gone now,” wonbin steps back but you notice that he’s holding your hand. trying to play it cool, you clear your throat. “okay let’s move on.”

both of you walk, hand in hand, further into the haunted house. sometimes, there’s a few jumpscares which makes you both scream, but so far, there’s nothing too scary in this haunted house. even wonbin is doing fine.

“it’s not that bad actually,” he says. “i know right. it’s kind of fun,” you admit. “why did you change your mind though?”

“what do you mean?”

“why did you decide that you wanted to go into the haunted house too?”

this question catches wonbin offguard. he takes a few minutes to answer. “do you want me to be honest?”

okay, you think, this is getting deep now. you didn’t expect him to be that serious.

“uhm.. yeah?”

wonbin stops walking and turns around to you, still holding your hand.

“it’s ‘cause i didn’t want anyone else to go with you,” he admits, looking straight into your eyes. “it’s either me or no one. i changed my mind to prove to you that this is how much i like you.. i‘m willing to face my fears for you.”

now this catches you offguard.

wonbin has never said something like that ever before to you. sure, you did think that maybe there’s something true about what the guys have said to you.. wonbin likes you, they said. like, when sungchan came up to you a while ago and said that whenever anyone of them mentions your name, wonbin starts having the biggest smile on his face. of course he tries to hide it but he’s very bad at doing so.

another time, shotaro sat down next to you on the couch and whispered that wonbin has a crush on you. of course you thought that he was joking, but shortly after that, wonbin squeezed himself between the two of you. there was literally no space left but wonbin still didn’t care.

so yeah, you have thought about the possibility of him liking you.. you just never thought that it’s actually true.

the second you open your mouth to say something, your eyes wander to what’s standing right behind wonbin; a clown. smeared with blood all over his face. grinning like crazy. walking closer to you and wonbin.

you start screaming. “OH MY GOD.”

“okay well, you don’t need to make it that obvious that you don’t like me in that way,” wonbin looks down, letting go of your hand.

“SHUT UP AND LOOK,” you grab his shoulders, turning him around so he can see the bloody clown that‘s walking towards you two.

wonbin might have let out a scream that was even louder than yours.

“HOLY SHIT,” he turns back around to you.

you grab his hand. “RUN!”

the two of you start running, not looking back. you don’t even know if the clown is still chasing you, but you don’t care. running while holding hands with wonbin might just be your favorite thing in the world now. he‘s much faster than you so it’s hard for you to keep up with him, but he’s not letting you behind, he’s keeping you close.

arriving at the end of the haunted house, you both stop running. a person wearing a ghost costume approaches you, thanking you both for visiting the haunted house.

walking out of it, you guys are still holding hands. you secretly hope that wonbin will never let go. you don’t want him to.

“thank you for doing this,” you say. “for facing your fears.”

wonbin smiles, but he’s avoiding your gaze.

“this just made me like you way more than i did before. and i already liked you a lot.”

now, wonbin looks at you. his eyes are sparkling. he can’t believe what you just said.

“for you, i would do everything.”

he bends down to give you a short kiss, which leaves you wanting more. you want to keep him this close forever.

“but i won’t ever go to a haunted house again,” wonbin says, smirking against your lips before he kisses you again.

[stararch4ngelqueen]

i saw this couple on the train and his gf fell asleep on him and she just looked at her fondly and took off his jacket to put around her and i damn near burst into fucking tears because what the actual fuck-

ANYWAY

soft!simon reading to reader about something that interests him and she just...falls asleep on him (she could be tired from work or wvr) and he just looks at her like shes the only girl in the world????? please???? i need to heal my heart rn

<3333333

This isn’t proofread, as I risked my sanity typing this out on a long car drive. I hope you like it!

Time written - 5:43 p.m

“That’s a lot of paperwork.” Your comment reaches his ears after he hands you a mug of apple clove tea, cuddled up cozy in a warm gray comforter on the couch.

“It is,” he mutters, carrying with him a thick journal half full of pages he needed to continue. Such as a man like him to bring work home, wanting to keep an eye on you as you fought this seasonal cold.

“That looks like a thousand words.”

“Probably is.”

“What’s it about?” You ask while sipping your hot beverage, tasting orange blossom honey he used to sweeten your beverage.

“Boring stuff, love.” He comments after getting comfortable beside you, clicking his pen in case he needed to use it. “Not worth your time, just drink your tea.”

“Tell me.” You insist without force, resisting the urge to peer over at his blue and black handwriting.

Simon ponders for a good while, mindlessly tapping his pen along thick paper. He figured you’d ask once he brought out this old journal when inspiration struck, but to speak of it? That was a little new.

“It’s a … manuscript,” he decides to call it with the slightest bit of hesitation. “Or a draft. Thought of writing a novel at some point.”

“Really?” Your head meets his, watching him nod slowly.

“Mhm. Mostly short stories. Not ‘bout my life, no. Just … about a boy.”

“A boy?” Your smile permeates through your words, making him sheepishly tilt his head with a nervous grin.

“A boy with a stray dog. They have an adventure in the woods, that sorta stuff.”

“Sounds cute,” you smile, finding the idea of Simon writing a story endearing. Maybe this took his mind off his work stress, our about his own personal struggles in general.

“Can I hear some of it?”

Simon’s lips flatten in thought before he sets the pet down, proceeding to flip through a few pages.

“I’ve never showed anyone this,” he peers at you. “So, don’t laugh.”

“I won’t,” you smile with a mild giddiness whilst getting more comfortable.

Simon proceeds to relay a short paragraph he had written just a couple weeks back. Back when he barely had the time to think much of this journal, but felt the ever so endearing writing urge at a late hour of the night.

He remembers you had gone to bed early that night after cooking him dinner. The snow was dense outside, covering all the piles of withered, colored leaves that had long since fallen from hibernating trees.

“Through brittle cold air and dense fogs resides a canopy made of broken trees; the roof made of crunchy leaves, the steps made of cracked stones. Upon the center of the canopy laid a small puppy, no more than seven or eight months old. It’s fur was slick, her eyes a bright blue. She sat waiting for the boy, proceeding to greet him like an old friend that had left for a long time.”

Simon pauses, realizing his cheeks had grown a bit warm. Clearing his throat a bit, he turns his attention to the next paragraph, purposely avoiding the adoring look in your eyes after reading such a creation.

“The puppy clung to his side like a burr, waddling along with no promise of food. The boy gave nothing in return, other than carrying her in his arms when her legs were too tired to continue.”

“The boy was in search of an old well, said to be in the midst of fir trees in the center of a mushroom circle. Once he finds the well, he’s told to look inside for all his desires to come true.”

“He wandered for hours and hours until he found what he sought; a broken well with dried, dead vines clinging to the rocks. The boy leans over, peering inside to an apparition of a siren staring back in the water’s reflection. She smiles, singing promises of riches and cures to all sickness he knows, for all she requires is for him to reach for her hands fifty feet down below into the cavern.”

“He desired nothing more until the puppy bit into his pant leg, the strength of her tiny, curly body bracing him back from making such a jump. To the boy, who promised not even an ounce of bread to such a minor companion, broke his blindness to the siren’s secret demise.”

“Such a small little thing opened his eyes just in time before the stones cave in, swallowing up the well without its promised child. In return for the pup’s bravery in saving his life, the boy carried her in his arms, promising a warm bed and home cooked meal all the way back home.”

A faint, heavy pressure rests along his shoulder, your slumped head nearly slipping off of his shoulder.

He’s quiet for the longest time, gazing down at the reason he enjoys coming home each day. The sweetest, most heartwarming woman he’s had the pleasure of laying his eyes on.

A chorus of angels erupted from your lungs with every word you spoke, your pretty head full of ideas and phrases that never left his mind running dry with boredom. You were a strong, incredibly beautiful woman, whom sometimes reminded him of a bouncing puppy by his side during your private moments within your own home.

Especially now, snuggled up in his arms, your affected nasals interfering with your breathing just a bit. The cold medicine did it’s job in helping you sleep, so Simon was more than content. Especially as he chose to believe your mind was affected by a cold medicine’s side effect rather than pure boredom.

Softly, he hums as he removes the still warm mug from your hands, readjusting the blanket over your shoulders.

“Told ya so, sweetheart.” He murmurs, running two rugged fingers through your hair before peering outside, frost coating the window pane as pure white snow blankets the earth just outside.

[glubsurleseuil]

Don't be scared - Chapter 3

A Pennywise X F!Reader fanfic. Previous - Next - First

This chapter is horrible and I'm sorry.

Chapter warning: Slight violence.

(Note: It was translated by Deepl, English is not my mother tongue, so I apologise for any mistakes. If you want to correct me, don't hesitate!)

(Note 2: I don't know where I found this gif anymore, sorry.)

The house you're in is old. Not just because it seems to be crumbling into dust, nor because it's mostly home to spiders and rats today. The structure is old, probably Victorian with Gothic touches here and there. The fact is, you've had time to visit it several times, the clown not having visited you since your altercation. That was several hours ago now, maybe even a whole day has passed, impossible to say without any landmarks.

During your time in this creaky house, you've noticed several things. Firstly, there's no way to get out, or even to see the outside - all the windows are far too filthy, no matter which room.

Next, most of the rooms are normal, if you forget the general decrepitude, and there's only one you want to avoid at all costs: the room with the clown dolls. You've been there once, but you don't intend to do it again.

Then, even if it seems completely unthinkable, the house has running water. Cold, admittedly, and the pressure leaves something to be desired, but you were able to relieve yourself in the toilet without too much trouble. You even took the risk of drinking it, and so far, so good.

Finally, you've found a well in the cellar. An old, half-collapsed stone well with a pestilential smell. You've thought about getting going down it, eventually, if you really have no other choice and if at least it's possible…

After a while, you really got the feeling you were going round in circles, bored even. Hunger began to make itself felt, and you were able to more or less calm it with water. You also wanted to take care of your wounds, especially the one on the back of your head, but you concluded that it wasn't a big deal, so as not to admit that it healed on its own…

You've found a bookcase next to the fireplace, but the books it contains are strange… The only one in English is 'House of leaves', a book you tried to read once and it made you lose your head. You didn't want to repeat the experience.

After a while, as you sit idly on the sofa, sleep catches up with you and you fall asleep in spite of yourself. You've had that dream again, and this time you're able to recall it with unnerving accuracy: You're in the forest, getting closer to the big oak tree, it's daytime but Derry and the surrounding area are engulfed in thick gray smoke, like the remains of an old fire. It's hard to breathe and your eyes are undeniably watering. In this sad, gray landscape, you catch a glimpse of color: a red balloon. You rush to grab the string and it carries you upwards. When you finally break through the cloud of intoxicating smoke stuck to Derry, you see the lights and colors of the sky, dazzling you with a magnificence you simply can't describe.

You wake up at this point, wondering what the clown - for you no longer doubt, he's the one responsible for these dreams - is trying to convey to you. Maybe he's trying to reassure you, so you won't be afraid anymore? That would be consistent with his requests. Or maybe he knows about your paralyzing fear of heights and you always wake up before he drops you and you crash like a bird poop in the dusty Derry of your dream.

In any case, at least you feel rested, despite your situation and…

One second. You don't remember covering yourself up before falling asleep. Where did that blanket come from…?

For a moment, you hold your breath, attentive to the slightest noise in the house. But apart from a few creaks from the old wood it's made of, you hear nothing that would suggest anyone's there. Suddenly, a scent tickles your nostrils. It's not a musty smell or old dust, no. Quite the opposite, in fact. Your stomach growls, encouraging you to follow the scent and forget about being careful.

In the kitchen, on the table in the center of the room, you find the culprit of that delicious smell: a children's menu from McDonald's. You resist the urge to throw yourself on it. You move closer, checking every corner of the room to make sure no one's there. Then you stare at the menu box. Red and yellow, just like you remember. Is this for you? You don't hesitate long; you don't have to answer to that damn clown.

The smell becomes more intense as you open the box, and your stomach gurgles again. You grab the first thing that comes along, the French fries, and devour them without manners. Then you slow down for the hamburger, savoring it a little more until you're halfway through, when your eyes land on the toy still in the box. You pick it up with an unsure hand, bringing it closer to make sure it's not a dream. It's a Ronald Clown figurine, or so you first thought. But no, it's the clown, your clown (your clown?). What did he say his name was again? Pennywise? Yes, it's a figurine of him in Ronald's clothes, about the size of your palm, with a sign between his hands that reads…. You guessed it…

DON'T BE SCARED

Your eyebrows furrow in a mixture of puzzlement and exasperation as you watch every detail of the toy between your fingers, as if expecting to see it move. After a while, when you realize that it's indeed plastic, you toss it across the room with annoyance and it bangs loudly against the door of the old, worn fridge.

You bite into your hamburger once more, then a slow grinding noise makes you stop in your tracks. You turn slowly towards the fridge and your eyes widen in terror at the sight before them: the clown, Pennywise, his body curled up and twisted in a way impossible even for a contortionist, is wedged into the fridge, looking at you with his head upside down. You move backwards at an extremely slow speed, your body paralyzed by a kind of terror mixed with fascination, as he emerges from the fridge, turning his limbs at impossible angles to get back upright. When he's done, smiling and leaning slightly forward as if waiting for your reaction. In fact, you hesitate between running away and applauding.

When you don't react, the clown's smile turns into a disappointed pout and he straightens up. Then his eyes alternate between you and the toy at his feet, as annoyance twists his features dramatically and he picks it up with a theatrical gesture to place it on the table.

"This is a gift." He says to you in a deeply offended tone.

You're not sure how to react and it takes you several seconds to reply.

"Sorry, I'm not a child anymore."

Your words only darken his gaze, which changes from a sulky expression to real anger. He takes a heavy step towards you and you drop your burger, really backing away this time. You find yourself trapped in a corner of the room, with nothing to defend yourself, and your anguish mounts as his face contorts into an inhuman grimace.

"Stop. Being. SCARED!"

Pennywise jumps on you, slamming your arm against a wall and grabbing your chin before sniffing loudly. You see his eyes roll back and his teeth become as thin as toothpicks as he opens his mouth, drool dripping from his lips.

You scream and push him away as best you can with your free arm and legs, but there's nowhere to run. You watch him shake his head and speak sharp words you don't understand. As he turns to face you once more, the clown has regained a more normal appearance and is contorting himself as if to restrain himself from attacking you again. He swallows doubtfully before speaking.

"If you continue to offer me such irresistible fear… I'll have to eat you."

In your brain, a light goes on. You tilt your head to the side as you look at him, silently repeating your question to yourself several times before asking it aloud.

"You mean… it's my fear that makes you want to eat me?"

An incredulous smile lights up Pennywise's face and he starts clapping, hopping and giggling like a real clown.

"Oh oh oh! Well done! You've finally figured it out, clever girl! You've earned my toy!"

He's clearly making fun of you and, even if it annoys you, it has the merit of calming your fear. You cross your arms in annoyance, waiting for him to finish his act, which he eventually does.

"Now… Now you can help me." His eyes light up like a child's at Christmas.

"Help you?"

"Yes, that's why I'm keeping you alive, after all. You see, for ages I've been playing with humans, haunting their dreams, their nightmares, terrorizing them with their greatest fears and then devouring them."

He pauses, clearly enjoying the fearful look you're giving him.

"It was fun, yes. A lot of fun. Until those filthy… Losers got in the way. That they spoiled Pennywise's fun and forced me to hibernate early and…"

The clown's eyes grow distant, empty, and you get the impression that it's costing him to finish his sentence.

"…they killed me. Just when Pennywise had missed them so much… and we still had a lot of games to play…"

He turns his head sharply towards you, annoyed again.

"But it doesn't matter because now Pennywise doesn't need them anymore. Pennywise found you and you're going to help me understand what they did to me. To understand what's changed and why playing with human fears isn't fun anymore."

His words are totally confusing for you and you haven't understood how you could be useful, but you understand that it's a subject that affects him and he seems very angry, so you prefer not to say anything for the moment. At your lack of reaction, the clown approaches you again, more slowly.

"I won't hurt you if you help me. And if you're not scared…*

You hesitate, but do you really have a choice? Even though you don't really know what you're accepting, you finally nod. He seems happy with it, because he smiles at you and you notice that his sharp teeth have disappeared, that they now resemble rabbit teeth.

"Excellent! I'll come back later. You can occupy yourself by playing with the toy." He says before leaving the room towards the staircase that leads to the cellar where the well is.

Silence returns and you're still stuck in a corner of the kitchen, processing what's just happened. You conclude that you need to find a way out quickly, or risk spending the rest of your life helping a demon clown figure out who-knows-what, and spending your free time playing with Happy Meal toys featuring him.

[reiderwriter]

Unlovable

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reider Warnings: angst, canon death, cheating, implied infidelity, whump, angst, spoilers for Season 8 of Criminal Minds, mentions of shooting/ murder/ suicide/ general case facts. Summary: A stalking case brings back some bad memories for the BAU, but as the newbie, you're not sure why until you start recalling past case files you've read through. A/N: I wrote this as part of @tobias-hankel 's Pre-Whumptober Challenge, so it's short and sweet because I'm not great at angst, but it was a great challenge! I think this will probably be my last fic that mentions Maeve for at least a while because I'm getting a bit bored of writing around her lol, but let me know what you think with a like, comment, reblog, or message in my inbox!

It had been a few months since you’d joined the team, and you’d really thought you’d settled in well. After all, you’d worked on enough of their paperwork in your prior desk job to think you had a good grasp of everyone on the team’s working styles.

Until this case. They’d all been tense since the stalking case was called in, and you couldn’t figure out why. A girl had been taken captive by her stalker, whose identity had been so far unknown to the police department. As you sat talking through the possible suspects, you’d realized suddenly that you were the newcomer, an outsider in the team.

“Why is everyone so tense, we’ve worked cases like this one before, we can do this and save her.” You were hopeful of course, looking around the room to see if anyone else would agree.

“Each case is different, Y/N, you know that.” Morgan was the only one to reply, the others shooting careful glances around the room.

“But everyone is so tense for this one specifically, and I just don’t get it.”

“You read our case files, right?” Reid spoke up from the other side of the room. He’d been particularly tense on this one, and it was really his attitude that was worrying you the most. You’d become fast friends with him when you joined the team, and he was always happy and engaging with you. But there was something about this case that made him cold and distant and it was really rubbing you the wrong way.

“Yeah, I read all of them, but I don’t have an eidetic memory, so please, catch me up.”

“Maeve Donovan, does that ring a bell?” He almost spat the words out, but you were so thankful that he was even talking to you that you responded enthusiastically.

“Oh, of course, I read that case file. She was killed by her stalker, right? But we can’t base every case off our bad experiences, especially since that case had unforeseen circumstances.”

“Y/N,” Morgan gently warned you, but you were deaf to him as your eyes locked on Reid.

“Unforeseen circumstances?”

“She engaged in a relationship with an FBI Agent to help prioritize her case despite the fiance she had, which made her hard to track down to help. And her stalker was experiencing some serious delusions so you couldn’t stop her from killing both of them, but that’s a single case, and you’ve all worked at least ten other stalking cases in the past.

The air was sucked out of the room as Spencer stormed out, not bothering to tell you where you’d gone wrong. JJ trailed behind after him, going to pick up the pieces as the rest of them stared at you pityingly.

“Did I- Did I say something wrong?” You asked, but most of them just shook their heads and walked out.

“The agent she was dating was Reid. He offered to die instead of her, but that set her stalker off and that’s why she killed the both of them.” With each of Morgan’s words, you felt your heart drop.

“I didn’t-” You started but he cut you off with a pat on your shoulder.

“None of us were the greatest fans of Maeve after our investigation, but you weren’t here after she died. The kid was in pieces, and he still can’t really talk about it without some of those emotions creeping back in. Just… be a bit more understanding.”

You spend the rest of the case trying to apologize to Reid, but he avoids you like the plague, frustrating you to no end. You corner him one night on the way to his room, but he snaps at you with such violence you have to turn and run away before you let yourself cry in front of him.

Your resentment for Maeve grows as you watch him work though, seeing him become an empty shell of a man as he gets lost in his memory trying to save the new victim. You’re angry that she died, angry that she put him in that position, angry that no one forced him off the case, that no one foresaw the negative effect that this would have on him when it ended badly. You’re angry that she loved him first because your heart aches without his company.

Thankfully, the case ends well, and you manage to save the girl who has been abducted. You don’t even want to think about what that would mean for Reid, having to see the dead body of another girl knowing he couldn’t save them either. He practically runs off the jet when you land back at Quantico as you try, once again, to apologize.

Penelope comforts you at your desk as you cry, desperate to make things right. She’s the one who slips you his address, and not even an hour later, you feel like a shell of a person driving directly there, not stopping to worry about whether he’ll even see you.

When he opens the door, he doesn’t look surprised to see you. He doesn’t look anything at all, emotionally drained from the last week. You thought you would apologize right then and there, and leave, but he turns back into his apartment and you have to follow him in, saying nothing as he sets himself beside a chessboard again.

“Spencer…” you start, but you have to stop to swallow the lump forming in your throat. “I didn’t know you were the agent. I wouldn’t have said what I did had I known.”

“Would you still think it?” He asked sharply, and you can feel the anger in his voice. He’s trying to control it, but he’s never been the best at masking his emotions with his team members.

“Spencer, please, I’m trying to apologize.”

“Would you have looked at me with pitying eyes? The FBI Agent who couldn’t even save his girlfriend from a stalker. The girlfriend who probably didn’t even love him either because what is there to love about-”

“Spencer! Stop putting words in my mouth.” Your tone is harsh but it gets him to finally look up at you. His tone was angry, but his eyes were all despair, shining with tears as he tried, so hard, to pull himself together. He’s failing.

“Why am I so unlovable? What about me is so difficult to love?” Your heart breaks at his words. The way he says it sounds like he is genuinely searching for an answer, his eyes darting between your own as his body sinks in on itself, and you sink with him, wrapping your arms around him and pulling him into you.

“Nothing. Nothing, Spencer, you are so loved. You need to know that I love you, that we all love you, Spencer.” Your voice breaks a little at your confession, as you suddenly realize how true those words are.

“But she still died. I had to have done something wrong, but I play it back again in my head, every conversation and-” he breaks down in sobs then, his entire body shaking with the weight of his grief. The wound isn’t new but it runs deep, and you quietly sob beside him, knowing no matter how much you love him it won’t be enough to replace the love he lost with her.

[kalinara]

So I had a thought about Scott/Jean vs. Logan/Jean ship dynamics, in the 616 universe and I felt the need to share it. (Without scans for once because I am not at my primary computer. Alas.)

Disclaimer: I am a Scott/Jean fan (I'm sure anyone who's been to my blog is shocked) and I've never really seen the appeal of Logan/Jean outside of a throuple context. That bias will likely come through in this thought.

But anyway, something I find really interesting is how Scott/Jean and Logan/Jean kind of reverse a very common YA fantasy love triangle dynamic.

I mean, reverse is kind of a funny thing to say here, because I think both ships long predate the kind of YA fiction trends that I'm talking about, but it's still kind of funny.

Anyway, this is the trend that I'm thinking about: in many YA fantasy books, there is a female protagonist that is somehow caught in two worlds. Maybe she's secretly a faerie raised by humans. Or she's half elf, half human. But raised human. Basically, the idea is that the female character is an ordinary human girl until something happens that reveals that she has this whole other magical life and potential.

And in many of these books, there is something resembling a love triangle. The girl's got a boyfriend who is an ordinary human. He's in love with her as a human and helps her keep connected to her human side. He's usually conventional and a bit boring. Then there's the bad boy magic guy. He's the one who encourages her to embrace her elf/faerie/whatever magic side. Go wild with your sparkly chaotic magic.

Inevitably the boring dude loses out to the bad boy, because really, there's no competition.

But that's why Scott/Jean and Logan/Jean are kind of funny from that perspective. Because in this badly imagined comparison, Jean is of course, that ordinary girl. Now, she IS a mutant, so she's already not completely baseline ordinary. But we could look at the Phoenix as kind of her whole magical other self.

Scott, of course, is the conventional bland original love interest whose known her since her youth. Logan, of course, is the bad boy, wild guy she meets as an adult.

But the actual dynamics of the relationship are the OPPOSITE of the YA cliches.

Because Logan, for all his wildness, is a pretty conventional romantic. Oh, he's got the dramatic self-loathing and pining, but generally, he's a "bring flowers to the lady" kind of guy. At least with her. She's "Jeannie". She's normal and kind and sweet and she brings out the best in him and makes him want to be a better guy.

I don't know if we ever really get a clear idea of Logan's feelings about Jean AS the Phoenix in 616. Probably because back during the Phoenix/Dark Phoenix Saga, Jean/Logan wasn't really a thing. He liked her, but she seemed primarily disgusted by him. (This got retroactively remedied in some of the X-Men classic stories that rewrote a few of those scenes to add some pining and reciprocity. But that's after the fact.) Basically, during the time when we were supposed to see Jean and the Phoenix as essentially aspects of the same person, Logan wasn't a romantic factor at all.

By the time Jean/Logan was a thing, the Phoenix was narratively a separate entity, and Logan's never particularly been in favor of it. He is, however, very into Jean as the girl next door. The human side of her.

But Scott, on the other hand, has always been MASSIVELY into Jean as the Phoenix. He never really seemed that put off by the Dark Phoenix. He was happy to propose marriage just before the Shi'ar decided to poke their heads in and make everything more difficult, and that was AFTER the woman nearly killed them all and ate a star.

There's at least one point in an X-Factor issue, when Scott's admittedly running very hot and cold (mostly due to the Maddie issue), where Jean outright accuses him of loving the Phoenix more than he loves her.

Claremont's had that moment of connection at the orphanage, and we've had at least a couple of Phoenix comes back stories that involved her directly coming for him (Endsong was my favorite. Scott gets her to back down by having Kitty's hand phased through his chest. Such a stupid fucking plan, Scott).

And there was a scene that, back when it came out, got Scott a fair bit of criticism. In New X-Men, to Emma, he vents something about Jean's wardrobe, the mom sweaters verses the Black Queen's corset. Now this was Scott at his most traumatized and self-destructive/self-loathing. I don't think he was literally saying that he preferred her when she was being mentally influenced (especially since she almost killed him at the time). I THINK it was more of an indicator of the out of control way he was feeling, and how her attempt to project normalcy and repress the wilder/more passionate/more powerful aspects of herself were something that he felt very alienated from..

(There were a lot of interesting Jean-and-Phoenix elements going on in that run, alongside Scott's trauma, and Emma's...many issues. It's worth a reread, though not all of it is a comfortable reread..)

There's a reason that the "psychic affair" started with Emma wearing the guise of the Phoenix.

And of course, the more powerful Jean is, the more Scott seems to be into it. This is the man who has, more than once, used "my wife could kick your ass" to win a confrontation. He's clearly turned on when she ignites a star.

It's not that Scott is ONLY into the Phoenix though. He loves Jean too, and we've seen that 100 times over in the 90s and in Krakoa and how they interact on a day to day basis. But to him, her power is an important part of her. And it's hot when she embraces it.

I feel like this may be the fundamental reason that Jean/Logan never really took off as a pairing, even when there was ample opportunity (except in the context of polyamory). Because for all that Logan has that bad boy sex appeal, he doesn't really work as a power fantasy. Not every girl is into civilizing the wild man, after all. Some really want to cut loose with them instead.

And well, when that's not an option, a quiet conventional man who'll happily hold your flower while YOU cut loose, that's got its appeal too.

[gurugirl]

Part 4 Sneak Peek - Can We Start Over

1200 word sneaky below. 👀 Part 4 comes out this Wednesday!

“Why would I sign this? It only protects you?”

Harry reached for his coffee and took a sip before responding, “Because I’m telling you to sign it. Because I’m your boss. Because I need you to keep quiet about what you’ve seen if you’re going to work for me.”

You shook your head and sat the paper down on his desk before picking up your coffee mug and sipping it slowly then taking a deep breath for what you were about to tell this asshole, “I’m not signing it. You either trust me or you don’t. And if you don’t then I’ll leave right now and you can find someone else to be your bitch. I’m not someone you can just walk all over. I’m not taking the fall for you ever.”

“Is this really how it’s going to be? You’re willing to walk away from this job because of an NDA?”

You nodded, “Absolutely. It’s an insult to me and my character. I take this job seriously and you know that. This is you trying to exert your power over me and I’m not falling for it.”

Harry stood up from his desk and walked to his window with his back to you as you stayed seated comfortably and took another drink of your coffee.

On the outside, you appeared calm but on the inside, you were freaking out. This could be it. You would probably be losing your job now that you were taking a stand against Harry.

“I didn’t want it to be like this, Y/n. I thought maybe you’d understand the need for this agreement,” he turned toward you and walked to his desk, putting his palms down on the wood with his eyes on you, “Sign it. Please.”

You laughed and sat your mug down before standing up from your chair, “No.”

Harry rubbed his hands over his face, “God damnit!” He paced toward his bookshelf and back, “I need you to sign that. I’m gonna be honest here and say I don’t want to have to find anyone to replace you. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

You crossed your arms over your chest, “I’m not signing it, Harry. I already told you that if you feel like you can’t trust me at my word I’m out.”

Harry rounded the desk and stood in front of you, “I trust you but this,” he pointed at the document, “needs to get signed.”

Shaking your head you let out an incredulous laugh, “You know what? I don’t need any of this. You and your shady deals… the way you treat me–“

“How do I treat you? Hm?” He blocked you from stepping away from him.

You swallowed, “You’re not nice. Just because I felt uncomfortable after we had sex, you got your ego hurt or whatever and so you’re taking it out on me and… acting like I did something wrong.”

“I’m treating you the way you want to be treated, Y/n. This is exactly what you wanted. Is it not? Because you know what’s going to happen if we get too friendly again. So it’s this or the alternative.”

You tried to step to the side and move around him but he followed, staying directly in your path, “You’re not leaving this room until you sign that,” he pointed at his desk as his eyes bore into you.

“You can’t make me sign that, Harry. You have no power over this situation and you know it.”

“I don’t want to fire you, Y/n. Please just sign it.” He sounded defeated.

You pushed at his arm lightly to get him to move out of your way but he wrapped his hands under your forearms to hold you in place, “Y/n, look at me.”

You huffed and looked up at him, held in place by his hands and speaking through clenched teeth, “What?”

“I need this from you. Okay? It’s me. You can trust me. I know you know that. I might not be the nicest person to you but that’s just so we can maintain a professional relationship like you want. Please, Y/n.”

You couldn't understand why it was so important to him. If he trusted you he wouldn’t need it. But he did seem desperate.

“I can’t sign that. That’s incriminating to me if anything were to ever get out. My signature with a promise of silence? No. No way.”

Harry looked up at the ceiling and groaned before he looked back down at you his hands moving up to your upper arms, holding you still, “I’ll give you a raise. I’ll make it worth your while, Y/n. What do you want from me? What will it take to get you to sign it?”

You pulled your brows together and shook your head, “There’s nothing you can do to get me to sign that, Harry. This is a matter of trust. And it’s an insult. Another fucking insult from you.”

“No. It’s not an insult. It’s not personal. I trust you. I do. I swear.”

“Then you don’t need that do you?”

He was standing too close and his fingers were digging into your shirt over your skin and it felt like you couldn’t breathe. You noticed the stubble along his jaw and the darker patch of growth above his lip. Normally he was quite clean-shaven. Sometimes he’d let it go for a few days and you had to admit, you kind of liked the overgrown, unkempt look.

“Y/n,” he closed his eyes and you saw him clench his jaw before he looked back down at you, stepping in closer, “I… fine. You don’t have to sign it today. I can’t lose you or have you walk out on me. If we can trust each other then we can make this work. Will you take some time to at least consider signing it?”

You sighed and looked down at his shirt for an escape from his gaze, “I don’t know. I don’t think I can ever sign that.”

He released one of your arms and put his hand on your chin, pushing your eyes back up to his, “Just don’t walk out, okay? I’m worried you’re gonna quit and I’m gonna be fucked without you.”

You hated that you loved his hands on you. All it took was his nearness and his soft eyes looking into yours. But you didn't know how to respond exactly. You were glad he wasn’t going to make you sign it, yet. But how long did you have before he was badgering you about it again? You were still going to say no.

“If you trust me, you don’t need my signature on that document. I’ll never put pen to that paper, Harry.”

“Y/n…” his voice came out in a whisper as he moved his other hand up to your face, his thumb at your temple, “I just want to know you’ll stay. Forget the document right now.”

Even though you knew what was happening you couldn’t figure out why you weren’t trying to stop it. Why you weren’t pushing him away and telling him to keep his hands to himself.

“I’m here right now aren’t I?” You whispered back to him and suddenly your hands were on his forearms as he cupped your face in his hands and everything around you turned into a blur when his mouth found yours.

What do you think happens in part 4? I wonder if anyone has any guesses. Would love to hear your theories! 👀

CWSO tags: @theastrologie @sassamanda77 @princessaxoxo @eiffelmezarry @justfattiethings

[ask-nijiro-nanase]

IMPORTANT MOD POST

TW: mentions of scu/cide, de/th threats, light homophobia, hate talk and generally harsh language and themes please read at your own discretion (this was hastily put together because I have work in like ten minutes please ignore spelling errors im stressed)

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So this happened i guess, these are screenshots i took from the past few days of hate asks i have been receiving for the past week and a notification screenshot i got from around when i started receiving these, and a photo of an ask i got that I had sent to a friend joking about this person consistency of sending me a hate comment several times a day, every day. I made a strict rule for myself that id just delete hate asks and not let them bother me and I have been, at the start i simply deleted these asks and hoped this person (who i assume is the same person repeatedly sending in these using the anon feature) would get bored and leave me alone, which obviously they didn't /: i feel pretty crappy since i kept telling myself that i was just going to ignore and delete these anon asks over and over again but here i am, not ignoring them breaking my own rule, it's only been around five days of this which seems kinda pathetic ig at least it feels pathetic that i couldnt just ignore this person but i have been getting around anywhere from one to six asks a day like this depending on the day, when this first started i was getting a lot of them which I just deleted but as time has went on the asks have reduced to two or three a day but it hasnt stopped completely

over the time I have actually been receiving this I quickly noticed that these are baseless comments, something you could say to hate on pretty much anyone with a roleplay blog. There were no specifics, and also I don't use tumblr ver often so it's not like i really interact with people on here outside this blog, this person does not know me and I certainly don't know them i've kinda been stewing with my thoughts and overthinking on why I started receiving hat and maybe this is completely out there and a wild guess but this person could want attention on them, even if their anon they know that this post I'm making right now, is about them, or they might just want to start shit, honestly I could be completely off and maybe this person had some weird personal motive what do i know at this point???

with the time I've been giving myself thinking about this I have just gotten really in my head and I was very worried that maybe making a post and acknowledging this anon would almost be encouraging the behaviour? and kinda the only reason I'm actually talking about this now is because I'm going to be taking a small break, I am okay ofc, just think a small break would be good for me but this means I probably wont even be checking my ask box or really responding to any messages, comments, reblogs, I'm just going to step back for a little while and focus on other things in my life that need my attention Touching on a few topics from the last time this was an issue with a different blog, the character and I are minors, you're threatening a CHILD even if I wasn't under 18 these are still just horrible things to say to someone and I really really don't want this to be a common thing or a consistent issue because I like doing this, it's fun and I enjoy talking to people on here, anon or not, I'm sure a lot of the other people who have rp blogs do as well and people like this shouldn't ruin that for them, let people do what they want to do on here it isn't disrupting or hurting anything. I'm honestly just dumbfounded I guess to why this even happening? I don't thing I've done anything 'disgusting' 'gross' or otherwise wrong, i really don't want to turn anon off because I love talking to the really nice people who interact with me on anon and I don't want to ruin it for those incredibly kind people because of one person making some nasty comments

If the person who sent me those asks is reading this, please please know that this isn't the right way to get attention or feel better about anything, in general it does nothing good of any sort, it genuinely can hurt people and if you're doing it because you actually feel that way about roleplay blogs, just block those blogs it's really not that hard. Sending in hateful messages like that doesn't give you any sort of good attention, this is something serious and horrible to do and I pity you because something must have brought you to think this is just okay? normal? It's not it's pathetic and I hope that one day you can understand how much your words could affect the people around you. personally i like to think I'm not someone who can be super effected by words, especially online since I know people will be a lot harsher when hiding behind a screen, but to think you could've said this to someone who was genuinely really struggling with their mental health and could've taken your comments to heart is sickening, please reflect on yourself because this behaviour is not only childish but cruel.

--

and to anyone that sent in asks recently I'm super sorry I haven't been able to reply, I have a lot on my plate right now, super busy not only with mid-semester tests and projects coming up due but I have work on top of that and I really haven't found time to answer them, I quickly just wrote up this post so there are probably spelling errors but I'm way too burnt out to fix them right now have a good day and take care of yourself everyone I don't know when I plan on revisiting this blog but I shouldn't be away for too long, promise also sorry if this whole post is just me kind of rambling I just feel kinda lost and I don't even really know how to go about this, ive never done a rp blog before and i have never received hate on any of my blogs before i have no idea what im even doing at this point

[i-need-a-slurpee]

Fellas I've been working tirelessly in my lab to bring you guys a new crackship

Tell me what you think of Yusuke and the green pencil case kid that sits behind akira.

NOW HEAR ME OUT

It makes no sense and honestly this is all one big bit I have going on but listen here's the set up.

For those of you who don't know this is green pencil case kid

He doesn't have a name but he does have a green pencil case (not seen in this image) he's seen practically everything Akira has done on his desk. He can see Akira making his infiltration tools, texting in class and he can definitely see Mona just sitting in his desk. He knows Akira's weird but he doesn't say anything, he minds his own business and doesn't snitch which is why we like him.

Now with this information in mind let me set the scene!

Green pencil case kid is walking out of Shujin ready to head home for the day when he sees that weird kid with the desk cat meeting up with a very handsome blue haired stranger outside of the school. Bro is instantly captivated by resident pretty boy Yusuke and realizes he has to get this guy's number. How's he gonna do it?

He asks Akira, plain and simple. Now Akira is extremely skeptical of green pencil case guy because he's never so much as talked to him and yet here he is asking for one of his best friends' numbers. Akira is very protective of his friends so he wouldn't just go around giving out their numbers to anyone who asked. He realizes though that his classroom shenanigans have probably given his table neighbor multiple headaches so he compromises. He's gonna get to know green pencil case guy for the rest of the week to determine whether or not he's trustworthy enough to have Yusuke's number.

The week is hell for poor green pencil case boy as Akira drags him to weirdest places he's ever been. A hole in the wall cafe, a weapons shop, a sketchy clinic, and jazz club with some strange detective that has some weird tension going on with Akira. He realizes he might've been third wheeling their date but he doesn't want to dwell on that actually. Either way he ends up joining in on all of Akira's shenanigans throughout the week. By the end he's exhausted but content because Akira actually gave him Yusuke's number!

He learns a lot about this handsome blue haired stranger mostly that he's just as weird as Akira but it doesn't bother him at all, he's used to weird people at this point. He's a lot less intense in his hobbies though, rather than having to run around for different part time jobs or having homoerotic jazz nights Yusuke paints! He attends Kosei high and is an excellent artist.

Their first date is to an art exhibit where green pencil case kid reveals he's an amateur artist himself, all he does is doodle in class when he has the time. They're simple but they give him something to do when he gets bored and Yusuke, ever the art enthusiast, absolutely loves them. Yusuke thinks he doodles capture his artistic vision wonderfully, they're fairly simple but it's fitting for green pencil case guy. Speaking of the pencil case, Yusuke loves the color and how it stands out from the rest of green pencil case guy's supplies. He says it's a good reflection of the artistic side green pencil case kid hides from the world, his life is simple and mundane but there's that color that he has added to his own life. Something that is entirely his and proof that he exists outside of what might seem like a greater narrative.

Green pencil case guy appreciates Yusuke's words more than he thought he would. He's always felt very insignificant around his peers, like he didn't have a purpose like they did. He realizes just how perceptive Yusuke is, which is another thing he likes about him.

Needless to say they go on more art dates.

Listen I know it's really stupid but they're important to me okay. I'm gonna give them the love story of the summer. Yusuke and green pencil case kid for the win 💪

[wasyago]

some rambles about gillion trans headcanons and other stuff

im realizing that i write these posts because i have no one to talk about riptide with, so this is like a monolog that is meant to be a dialog? sort of? the point is, the thought process is unpredictable and this is just everything that goes through my head and not like a structural point or anything and some things are random and not uhhh pretty(?). i dont even know why im writing these disclaimers, no one cares probably?

anyway. so, if gillion was a trans man, how would that work?

did he know from the young age, before the elders even, that he was a boy? was it just an obvious thing for him and his family? was he loved and accepted? and when the elders took him away, did they accept him as well? did they even see him for a kid/a person he was, or did they only think about the prophecy and didn't care what gender The One was? when gillion got older, did he get his top surgery inside the walls of the palace without anyone questioning him or looking down upon? or did he have to sneak out? probably definitely not sneak out, im not sure gillion ever left the palace or seen the world outside much. did he even get top surgery?

that's an interesting question to me actually, because if tritons (in this campaign at least) hatch from eggs, do females even have bigger boobs? technically no, right? do they even have boobs? i mean, they do have chest muscles and stuff, but do they have nipples? the one time i drew gill without a shirt i didn't draw him any, so im gonna say "no" for now. sorry im huge bore when it comes to these types of questions, i don't even know why actually... is it weird?

uhh what was i talking about... so i guess yeah, if female and male tritons don't have that different of a body structure, gillion probably didn't even need a top surgery to begin with. and maybe he didn't experience much in terms of dysphoria, which honestly? good for him, he had enough going on already...

but if gillion wasn't trans before the elders? if he was fine with his gender, he was only five after all, he had better fiveyearold things to worry about. what happened after he was taken away? was it his own realization, just at an older age?

or was it forced on him by the elders? (its definitely a darker concept and would be out of character for the elders, but as an alternative universe I think its interesting as well). because "the chosen one", the hero of the prophecy, the one who will decide the fate of the world and who will protect the undersea, in the eyes of the elders could've only be a man (if they were misogynistic). and when they come to this family and they see a 5 y.o. girl, what can they feel except disappointment? they will try anyway though, because what are they supposed to do? and if they need a man for a prophecy they will get him one way or another...

again, a darker concept, and i think i like it like an au better than a headcanon for the main campaign. because it's ooc and brings up slightly different topics from the original.

at the end i think i wont headcanon gill as trans? (although who knows, maybe I'll come around eventually, we'll see) maybe as nonbinary or a secret third thing though. gillion to me doesn't feel like a "man" man, his gender is "a guy" i don't know how to explain it hdgsbbs (maybe im just projecting idk o_o)

I love it when people hc him as trans tho, its very sweet!!!!!!! and i believe he does have the top surgery scars in the official art? so like, pop off king lets go???? (actually i just checked and no he doesn't, but im gonna think he does anyway)

im a little scared to re read this post and i think i'll delete it later probably, but uhhh yeah... again, just rambling and thinking out loud (not out loud but you get what i mean. writing all this down or drawing something really helps me to think and figure things out, so that's why)