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An anger management idea
Danny wanted to strangle Ghostwriter. Being subjected to participate in a yearly Christmas story was one thing, but this was over the line. In no universe would he be okay with Jazz staring as the main love interest in the Christmas hallmark story Ghostwriter orchestrated.
(Sorry it took me so long, my tryhard self decided to make a rhyme 💀 read the dialogue to the tune of ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’. Every ‘;’ is a new line of the poem, but the full poem is below.)
Jazz hummed and danced around cheerfully. She was trying on skirts and outfits, with Danny miserably tapping away on a phone without any notifications. As she twirled in front of her mirror, she said, “It’s the day before Christmas, there’s so much holiday cheer; I’m meeting up with a boy today, I haven’t had a date in years!”
Danny scowled fiercely and looked up from his phone. “He better be perfect, and treat you with care; Or I’ll sic Dan and Dani on him, see if he dares!”
Jazz giggled. “You don’t need to worry, I’ll be careful, little bro; He’s the most charming boy I’ve ever met, I can’t wait to go!”
Danny rubbed at his forehead, seething. A few days ago, he had accidentally pissed off the Ghostwriter again, who had cursed him again to teach him some holiday cheer. Now everyone was forced to rhyme and even worse, because Danny had been handling the Ghost Zone, he had been unable to prevent Jazz from being asked out by some asshole with a motorbike named Jason.
It was infuriating! Hadn’t she learned her lesson about bad boys on bikes?!
“This damn, stupid curse, I’ll kill the Ghostwriter…” Danny grumbled. “If I didn’t have to rhyme, I would’ve been beside her; To stop her from meeting that boy just a few days ago; And now she’s off to a date, a date on Christmas Eve, she goes!; Away from my family, leaving me all alone; He’s the worst! The absolute worst! He had better atone!”
Jazz turned, a small and sad smile on her face as she caught the last words of his rhyme. “Oh, Danny, I promise it’ll be okay.” She perked up with a new idea. “You can come with me! It’ll be a fun day!”
Danny stared at her in horror. Come with her? To her date?!
“No thanks! I don’t care! This is the worst month ever!; I don’t care if you go, I’d rather be lonely forever!”
Jazz sat on her bed beside him, smiling softly. “Danny, I understand. But it’ll be Christmas soon and you shouldn’t be by yourself; Come with me and Jason, we’ll buy you every toy on the shelves!; We’ll drink chocolate and eat cake; Watch movies and go ice skate!; Jason wouldn’t care, he’s kind like that; You won’t be a third wheel, we can all chitchat!; I promise you, he’s nice and just a great guy; You’ll have a great time, and I don’t speak lies!”
Danny struggled to think, trying to imagine it. He wanted to go with her. Everyone else was busy with their own things, so all he had this week was his sister with him. And everything she said sounded really appealing.
Eventually, he conceded. “… fine, but you can’t leave me behind; You said you’d buy me toys and you promised he’d be kind.”
Jazz cheered. “I promise, I promise! Oh, I can’t wait!; For later today, for me and my date!; With a boy that I like and my favorite brother too; This will be the best Christmas ever, I promise you!”
Danny huffed but couldn’t help but smile. He swore to himself softly, “Fine. I hope that you’re happy; If he makes you sad, he better run quickly; Because even if I hate Christmas, you’re still my sister; So Jason better be nice, or he’ll know why they call me a trickster!”
(Full poem below)
“It’s the day before Christmas, there’s so much holiday cheer
I’m meeting up with a boy today, I haven’t had a date in years!”
“He better be perfect, and treat you with care,
Or I’ll sic Dan and Dani on him, see if he dares!”
“You don’t need to worry, I’ll be careful, little bro.
He’s the most charming boy I’ve ever met, I can’t wait to go!”
“This damn, stupid curse, I’ll kill the Ghostwriter…
If I didn’t have to rhyme, I would’ve been beside her…
To stop her from meeting that boy just a few days ago
And now she’s off to a date, a date on Christmas Eve, she goes!
Away from my family, leaving me all alone
He’s the worst! The absolute worst! He had better atone!”
“Oh, Danny, I promise it’ll be okay.
You can come with me! It’ll be a fun day!”
“No thanks! I don’t care! This is the worst month ever!
I don’t care if you go, I’d rather be lonely forever!”
“Danny, I understand. But it’ll be Christmas soon and you shouldn’t be by yourself
Come with me and Jason, we’ll buy you every toy on the shelves!
We’ll drink chocolate and eat cake
Watch movies and go ice skate!
Jason wouldn’t care, he’s kind like that.
You won’t be a third wheel, we can all chitchat!
I promise you, he’s nice and just a great guy
You’ll have a great time, and I don’t speak lies!”
“… fine, but you can’t leave me behind
You said you’d buy me toys and you promised he’d be kind”
“I promise, I promise! Oh, I can’t wait!
For later today, for me and my date!
With a boy that I like and my favorite brother too,
This will be the best Christmas ever, I promise you!”
“Fine. I hope that you’re happy.
If he makes you sad, he better run quickly
Because even if I hate Christmas, you’re still my sister
So Jason better be nice, or he’ll know why they call me a trickster!”
#dc x dp#dp x dc#dpxdc#dcxdp#danny phantom x dc#dp x dc crossover#ask#danny fenton#jazz fenton#anon ask#jason todd#why am I so extra istg#ty for the ask <3#it was fun tho lmao#anger management ship#hardcover ship#jason x jazz#christmas
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Jason Todd: Dad Mode Activated
There’s a new dynamic in the Batfamily, and nobody saw it coming. Jason Todd—Red Hood, former Robin, perennial black sheep of the Wayne family—has apparently decided that Tim Drake is his son. And no one, least of all Tim, knows what to do about it.
It starts subtly, if you can call Jason “subtle.” He starts showing up when Tim’s been too busy to eat, tossing him a burger or some takeout with a gruff, “Eat, Replacement.” He’s there when Tim’s working himself to the bone, slamming the laptop shut and growling about how his kid isn’t going to die of exhaustion on his watch. When Tim’s in over his head, Jason’s suddenly there, guns blazing, a protective shadow with a deadly smirk.
Tim’s confused. Very confused. Jason has always been... antagonistic, at best. But now he’s... scolding him? Encouraging him? Telling him he’s proud when Tim does something impressive? The man even started calling him “kid” instead of “Replacement,” which is somehow worse because it makes Tim feel all warm and fuzzy inside. What is happening?
Eventually, Tim asks. And Jason, in true Jason fashion, gives an explanation that doesn’t explain much at all.
“Look, Dick’s already treating Damian like his own kid, Bruce is busy helping Duke figure out his place in the family, Cass and Babs are practically attached at the hip—like sisters or something. And you?” Jason shrugs. “You’re my kid.”
Tim stares. “I’m your what?”
“My kid,” Jason repeats, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re smart, you’re resourceful, you’ve got my stubbornness—which, yeah, is annoying—and someone’s gotta make sure you don’t get yourself killed. Congrats, kid. You’ve been adopted.”
It doesn’t really explain anything, but Tim decides not to argue. After all, Jason’s kind of a good dad? He feeds Tim, checks in on him, teaches him things like how to hotwire a car (Tim already knows, but Jason’s so enthusiastic about it that Tim doesn’t have the heart to tell him). And Jason has his back in a way that feels steady, solid. Like he’s not going anywhere.
The thing is, Jason doesn’t stop there. He starts talking about Tim in ways that make Tim want to crawl under a rock. To Roy, to Kory, to anyone who’ll listen. “My kid’s a genius,” Jason brags, his voice filled with so much pride it makes Tim’s chest ache. “Runs a whole company and saves Gotham on the side. Kid’s got a brain the size of the Batcomputer.”
And it’s not just talk. Jason drags Tim along to meet-ups with other vigilantes or allies, casually introducing him like a proud dad at a PTA meeting. “This is Tim,” Jason says, grinning ear to ear. “My kid. Smartest of the bunch, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Tim flushes, stammering out an awkward, “Uh, hi,” while Jason beams like he’s just presented a Nobel Prize winner.
The height of Tim’s mortification comes when Jason introduces him to Talia—not as a fellow vigilante or even a respected ally, but as his son. Talia, who had become something of a mother figure to Jason after the Pit, is apparently now being roped into her new role as a grandmother. Jason insists it’s only right that she meet her “grandkid” and treat Tim accordingly. Tim, meanwhile, wants to disappear into the floor while Jason beams with unrestrained pride.
“Yeah, this is my boy,” Jason says, arms crossed, radiating smug pride. “Smart, resourceful, better than Bruce—don’t even try to deny it.”
Tim wants the floor to open up and swallow him. But he also can’t help feeling... warm. Embarrassed, yes, but also kind of happy. Jason’s over-the-top pride is ridiculous, but it’s genuine. It’s not something Tim’s used to—someone being proud of him just for being himself.
And of course, Jason’s newfound dad energy throws the rest of the family into chaos.
Bruce tries to scold Tim about something minor—maybe staying out too late on patrol—and Tim just raises an eyebrow. “I’m gonna tell my dad,” he says, completely deadpan. And then he does. Jason shows up at the Batcave later, tearing into Bruce about how his kid doesn’t need this kind of negativity in his life, and Bruce is left speechless.
Damian tries to insult Tim, calling him a weak link or some other scathing remark, and Tim smirks. “Careful, Damian. I’m your nephew now. Better watch your mouth, or Uncle Jason might have something to say about it.”
Even Dick’s thrown off by it. “Jay,” he says one day, watching Jason shove a plate of food at Tim with all the grace of a brick. “You do realize Tim isn’t actually your son, right?”
Jason glares at him. “He’s mine. I’m the dad here. You’ve got Demon Spawn, I’ve got Tim. Deal with it.”
Tim doesn’t understand how or why this happened, but honestly? He’s not complaining. Jason might not be the most conventional parent, but he’s a damn good one. And for Tim, who’s always felt a little lost in the shuffle of the chaotic Wayne family, having someone claim him so fiercely, so completely, feels... nice.
So yeah. Jason Todd: Red Hood, vigilante, crime lord, accidental dad. Who would’ve thought?
#tim drake#jason todd#batfam#jason adopts tim#imagine jason gets together with roy and they get to co-parent both their chaotic children together#tim and lian would get along like a house on fire#kory would be such a good aunt for the both of them#bruce gets whiplash from tim being his son to becoming his grandson#how did this happen?!#jason is a good dad#damian cant berate tim without getting into trouble with jason#dick is baffled by the new dynamic
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LADS Xavier: Seasonal Moods | SFW
I've been feeling really off the past few days with a swirl of negative, self deprecating emotions, and decided to attempt to cheer myself up by writing some comfort. The newest event with Xavier really drove home the point to me that he would be the best at helping his depressed partner.
I know I'm probably not the only one who feels like this, and with winter being here I know a lot of us with year round depression if getting hit a bit harder than normal, so if this is you, I hope you can find a little comfort with this fic. Remember you're loved and cherished and the voices in your head feeding you all these negative thoughts are lying to you.
Anyways, I didn't proof read this as I didn't have the energy so I apologize for typos.
❧ Pairings: Xavier x Reader ❧ Warnings: Depressed Reader, Non Sexual Intimacy, Non Sexual Nudity ❧ Synopsis: Sometimes seasons make sad moods worse, but sometimes people in your life can help make it a little better. ❧ Word Count: 2.2k
Disclaimer: This is an original fan work for “Love and Deepspace”. Do not repost on other platforms or plagiarize. All characters shown in this fic is 18+.
Blog Information | Masterlist
Xavier
Seasonal Moods
You were feeling…some sort of way. It wasn’t a particularly good feeling in you, in fact you’d say it was rather the opposite of good. You felt dreadful, and for no reason other than it was winter. You had less sunlight, colder weather, and with that sometimes came a certain melancholic sadness that washed over you. You just felt…horrible.
Whenever you saw your friends together it felt more like they were almost ignoring you, even Tara seemed more distant from you. You knew logically it was all in your head, that these things weren’t happening, but it didn’t make you feel any better. It was like you were looking at every outing through a glass, you were there but there was something separating you from all the others.
You felt like you couldn’t reach out even if you wanted to. When everyone was having fun it felt like you bringing anything up would ruin the atmosphere. So you began distancing yourself as much as possible. Putting your phone on silent and saying you were asleep or busy when questioned why you didn’t answer, claiming you had something going on when invited out, the whole works. If you were forced to reply in message threads, it was easy enough to have some self confidence and fire at least. As long as you didn’t come face to face with others, most thought you were doing just fine. It did work, for the most part.
There was just one person who didn’t buy the facade.
Xavier.
How he always managed to know when something was slightly off with your mood was a quality in him you both admired and hated. He was your hunting partner, your neighbor, your friend, and possibly something more, but you two hadn’t had that discussion yet. You probably had just spent so much time together in the past few months he was able to easily tell when you were acting different. It shouldn't have surprised you, not with how observant he always seemed to be when it came to you.
You just wished he didn’t care so much, that he couldn’t tell you were depressed. That way you could easily distance yourself from him like you did with everyone else until you worked out your own thoughts and emotions. Sure it might’ve taken all winter to begin feeling better, but at least he didn’t have to see you like this.
He had made a surprise visit while you were in your bed, scrolling through funny videos in an attempt to distract yourself from your thoughts. You had managed to slip up at work and gotten a very minor injury, but it was enough to force you to take a few days off. You hated that more than anything. At least at work it kept you busy so you didn’t have time to deal with your emotions. When you were at home by yourself it seemed to only amplify the darker thoughts in your head.
“Hey,” his soft voice had startled you at first and you flinched, locking your phone and putting it against your chest. You closed your eyes, hoping he hadn’t seen you were awake on your phone. You were laying on your side, facing away from the door to your bedroom, so there was a…low chance.
Then you felt the bed dipping as he sat down, and you felt his hand threading through your hair so gently you leaned into it, “There we are, you are awake after all.” He said, the laugh he had was a little airy and you finally glanced at him. He was wearing his signature white hoodie at the moment and his hair was a little disheveled as if he just woke up a few minutes ago, “How are you feeling?”
“My side hurts, but other than that it’s fine. I can sleep it off.” You quickly said, slowly leaning away from his hand and placing your head back on the pillow.
“Have you already changed the bandages?”
“Yes.”
“Have you eaten today.”
Silence filled the air as you thought about that. You didn’t even know what time it was, let alone if you hadn’t eaten. The days were melding together, so you weren’t sure. You could see the sun was setting beyond the horizon…or perhaps it was just coming up. You had been doing nothing but bed rotting the past few days, sleeping on and off, and only getting up when you needed to use the restroom or when you realized how dry your throat was. When was the last time you even showered?
“I’ll take that as a no.” He said with another laugh, but this time it was less enthusiastic, “How about I go make you something real fast.”
This had you grabbing his wrist quickly, stopping him in his tracks, “What are you planning on making?” while Xavier had slowly gotten better at cooking foods, using things like the oven or stove top was still a hit or miss situation.
“It’s a bit chilly today so how about some ramen?” he suggested. Xavier could see the way your shoulders seemed to sag in relief at his suggestion. You weren’t particularly hungry, but you knew food would probably be good.
“That sounds good to me.”
“Alright, wait here, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Xavier ran his hands through your hair again, scratching at your scalp and you wanted to flinch away. It was probably oily and gross and you didn’t want him to feel it.
You felt the bed shift again as he got up and the door closed behind him, leaving you alone again. You stared at the wall in silence, wondering if maybe you should get up and tell him he can go home, that you were capable of taking care of yourself right now. It would be a lie, sure, but you didn’t want him fretting over you. You didn’t deserve his attention when you were the one who dug this self deprecating hole yourself.
You didn’t have the energy though, and instead just laid there and waited for him to come back. Once again you didn’t know how much time had passed, it could’ve been hours or even seconds, it all felt relatively the same to you. The door opened back and you could smell the savory ramen, he had made one of your favorite flavors…again he was far too observant. The bed dipped and you heard items being placed on the nightstand next to you.
“Come on, let me help you sit up.” Xavier said, slowly lifting your body into a sitting up position. You felt him grabbing pillows to help prop you up in the bed and you sighed when the warm ramen was placed in your hands alongside chopsticks, “Eat up, I’m sure you’re starving without even realizing it.” He said. You glanced back at him, noticing how he was eating as well, blowing on the steaming noodles before taking a bite.
You followed the motions, noticing that, for some odd reason, the food tasted a little better than usual. The moment you took the first bite it was like your body kick started and you realized you were pretty damn hungry. You two ate in silence side by side on your bed, and by the time you finished you were being handed a nice cool glass of water to sip on. He let you just be for the time being, not saying anything but just being there. He helped clean up the empty containers and when he came back to the room he was shifting you again, picking you up.
Your hands found purchase around his shoulders, “Xavier, what are you doing?” you quickly ask, not understanding why you were suddenly being carried somewhere.
“To the shower.” It was simple enough of a statement, but you felt a wash of shame overtaking you. So he had noticed, of course he did.
You gave a strained laugh, “I must smell pretty bad if you’re dragging me to the shower…sorry about that.” You murmured, trying to make light of the situation.
“You don’t smell bad,” He quickly stated, “and even if you did, I don’t mind.” The door to the bathroom opened and he placed you on top of the counter, “I just realized you probably hadn’t had the energy to do it, so I’m helping.”
Your face felt a bit hotter now as you avoided him, “I’m not that injured.” You muttered under your breath.
“It’s not the injury I’m worried about.” Xavier was already working your clothes off, tossing the fabrics you’d been wearing for days off to the laundry basket you kept in the bathroom. It was almost overflowing with clothes at this point, and while you wanted to be embarrassed being stripped bare in front of him, his eyes weren’t focused on your body. He was more focused on taking care of you, which you didn’t know if it made you feel better or worse.
“Then why are you fussing over me so much if it’s not because of the injury?” you finally asked, watching as he went to turn the shower on to a warm temperature.
He began taking his own clothes off as he answered you, “You haven’t been yourself lately. Tara had even come up to me and asked if you were alright. I was going to wait a bit and see if you’d reach out, but I can’t wait too long when I knew you were here by yourself.” He explained, “You haven’t answered my messages like normal, and any time I try to make plans you say your busy, I got worried.”
His words were earnest and made you feel even worse about yourself. Congratulations to you, you’ve managed to make the sweetest man you knew feel bad and worry over nothing.
“I’m sorry…” it was all you could say as he began dragging you into the shower. His hands were already working on getting your hair wet so he could properly wash it for you. He didn’t know your entire hair routine, but at the very least your scalp would be clean. Anything else could be taken care of when you felt better.
“Don’t apologize.” He said, his words a bit sterner, “I’m not upset with you. You’re allowed to reach out whenever you want, or not at all. It won’t change the fact that I care about you and wanted to make sure you were okay.” He explained.
“If I hadn’t been so distant though, you wouldn’t be so worried.” You explained, “It’s my fault.”
“Is it also your fault that your brain decided to make you sad for no reason?”
“Yes.”
“No, it isn’t.” He said, rinsing out shampoo from your hair and putting in some conditioner, “It’s not. Sometimes things just happen. I wanted to be here for you, it’s as simple as that. I’ll continue being here for you as well, whether your sad or happy, and that’s of my own free will. You have nothing to apologize for, besides, I like being able to take care of you like this. I wish it were under better circumstances, but that’s no fault of yours.” He explained.
You didn’t know what to say, honestly, so you didn’t say anything at all. Instead you just let him wash you, and then you were being wrapped up in a fluffy towel and dried. The hoodie he had some in was placed over you, the smell of him taking over your senses. He put on the blue shirt he always wore underneath it and finished getting you two dressed. He went back to carrying you, but instead of going to your bedroom, he carried you out into your living room.
There were a lot of things you expected, but seeing a giant blanket fort with fairy lights, the TV on with a movie already prepared, and some soothing smells coming from an oil diffuser that you were certain you didn’t own…it hadn’t been what you expected.
He placed you down onto the soft blankets and you noticed a box of mini cupcakes next to you, all of them having cute designs in an assortment of flavors, “Tara bought those for you,” Xavier said, “She said when you’re feeling better she wants to take you to this new bakery that opened up, that’s where those came from.”
“I should message her soon.”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate hearing from you, but for now.” You felt Xavier getting into the fort with you, pulling you against his chest as he started an older movie. It had cartoon characters and you recognized it as one of your favorites growing up. You were certain you had only spoke of it once with him, but of course he remembered, “Let’s just relax for the rest of the night, okay?” he said.
“Ya…I like the sound of that.” You got out. You still felt a bit numb, still felt off. It did make you feel better though, especially when you saw some lights from his evol, a little bunny he made, bouncing around. It was enough to make you genuinely smile for the first time in a while. Perhaps…being taken care of wasn’t so bad.
#loveanddeepspace#love and deepspace#Xavier Love and Deepspace#Lnds#Lnds Xavier#lnds x reader#x reader#reader insert#xavier x reader#l&ds#l&ds xavier#l&ds xavier x reader#lads x reader#lads xavier#lads xavier x reader
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When I saw the snippet where Mc was being just plain mean, I came running to ask you how would it go if an argument breaks out between Mc and C because Mc is a little too condescending about C's broken knee which leads to them getting called out for being an arrogant jackass? My Mc means well but god they're such an asshole 😭
the only clearly audible sound in C’s suite was the low hum of the heater working overtime against the december chill.
but you could still hear C’s uneven steps, their limp heavier than usual as they crossed the room. you supposed that ever since they had told you about it, they’d gotten more comfortable about not hiding it from you anymore.
yeah, the limp wasn’t new, but it was worse tonight. C’s gait was uneven, jagged, every step catching slightly as if the bones in their knee were grinding against each other. you’d been watching it for weeks now, how they soldiered through it, jaw tight and posture straight, as though sheer willpower could replace cartilage.
tonight, though, after watching them wince when they thought you weren’t looking, you decided it was enough.
“C,” you began, and they stopped in their tracks. the way they turned, furrowed brows and jaw clenched, should have been enough warning to stop you from saying the next words. but you were you—brazen, brilliant, thoughtless. “i noticed you’re limping worse than usual. maybe it’s time to consider getting a cane.”
you saw their expression hardened immediately, but you kept going, your voice infuriatingly calm, like a teacher correcting a student.
“it would make things easier for you, don’t you think? i mean, i know it’s not ideal, but considering the structural integrity of your knee—”
“the structural integrity of my knee?” C repeated your words incredulously. “you’re really pulling out your SAT vocabulary for this, aren’t you?”
“what are you talking about?” you asked, your own voice rising now, confused about their reaction. “i’m just trying to help, C. god, i don’t know why you have to make everything so difficult.”
“are you this fucking dense?” C’s voice cracked on the word, and they took a step closer to you, their hands clenched at their sides. “you think i want to be like this? you think i don’t know how i look, how i walk? i don’t need your—” they broke off, shaking their head, their face a mask of barely-contained fury.
“i never said any of that,” you said, but it didn’t seem to matter.
“no,” C said, their voice cold. “you didn’t have to.”
you could feel the argument spiraling out of control, but you didn’t know how to stop it. instead, you reached for something—anything—to regain the upper hand.
“you’re being obstinate,” you said, and the word felt strange in your mouth, too big, too formal, but you didn’t care. “you’re acting like an overly sensitive child.”
C’s eyes narrowed, and they let out a harsh, humorless laugh.
“obstinate,” they repeated, rolling the word around like it was a sour taste in their mouth. “jesus christ, could you sound any more condescending? do you ever stop trying to sound like you swallowed a thesaurus? what, you think using words like that makes you better than me? smarter than me?”
“that’s just how i talk,” you snapped, your voice sharp and venomous, the words spilling out before you could think them through. “i’m sorry if it’s not simple enough for you to understand. i’m sorry you always jump to conclusions without hearing me out. i’m sorry that your father never bothered to teach you words like that—he was too busy bashing your head against the wall of your old house while you apologized for even existing.”
the room went silent.
C stared at you, their mouth slightly open, their chest rising and falling like they couldn’t quite catch their breath. their face was now pale, and their chalcedony green eyes blazed with something that wasn’t just anger—it was hurt. deep, raw, soul-deep hurt that made your heart squeeze uncomfortably.
“fuck you,” they said finally, their voice low and trembling with barely-contained fury and tears. “fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.”
“C—” you started, but they flinched when you stepped closer, their body jerking like you were the one who struck them.
“don’t,” they said, their voice sharp and broken all at once. “don’t fucking touch me.”
and then they were gone, the door slamming behind them so hard it rattled the walls.
you stood there, the words still hot on your tongue, searing and damning. you could still see the look on their face, the way their eyes had gone wide and vulnerable, the way they’d looked at you like you’d taken something sacred and smashed it to pieces.
you sank onto the couch, your head in your hands, the weight of your regret pressing down on you like a boulder. you hadn’t meant it. you hadn’t meant any of it. but meaning didn’t matter now. the damage was done.
you’d known—instantly, the moment the words left your mouth—that you’d crossed a line. not just crossed it, obliterated it. and now, the consequences were as painful as the regret slicing through you.
and you were alone, left to drown in the bitter aftertaste of your own words.
#so... how is everyone doing?#this was short and sweet 😋#don’t forget to like and subscribe 🫶🏻#out-of-touch MCs are a different breed#if: the ballad of the young gods#interactive fiction#interactive novel#interactive story#twine wip#ro: c lacroix#ro scenarios#the scenario is heavily inspired by chapter 38 of the raven boys#the quo
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oooh i have thoughts about codependent golden trio, stay with me for a second:
- ron and hermione slowly training harry out of his touch aversion by consistently showering him with small, gentle, touches. they never make it a Thing, it’s so casual harry himself forgets it’s happening a bit, but it’s crucial for him to become comfortable with being touched by anyone
- slowly, as years go by and harry’s nightmares become worse, ron progressively moves from calling his name, to waking him up, to putting a hand on his shoulder(s), to practically moving into his bed to wrap himself around harry. the first time it happened, ron’s face was fire truck red and harry was baffled to the point of incoherence (and for a second, it seemed like all their progress so far would be undone) but as before, they slowly chipped away at harry’s defences with steady support
- hermione, who was able to tweak the protean charm for the DA, created a more specific one more her and ron. if the nightmares were particularly bad, he would ping for her and she would immediately bustle up to the boys dorms. this is rly how she became so comfortable up there and after a bit, the other boys realised why she was there and let her go about the golden trio business in peace.
- and so you have harry waking up with ron and hermione in his bed pretty regularly. they were able to figure out how to expand it pretty early on (combination of some theorising and dobby’s magic) so now all that’s left is figuring out nightly configurations. more often than not, it’s either hermione or ron in the middle bc harry cannot abide being boxed in both ends. but both of them always have an arm of leg on some part of harry, as if to reassure him, even in sleep, that they will never let go.
- some point on fifth year, when he’s so fucked by the voldy visions, the only way he gets any sleep is when ron’s tucked him under his arm and on his lap, or hermione has her hands carding through his hair and head on her thigh, turned towards her stomach as if protecting him from the world. he falls asleep in the common room armchair in front of the fire with ron’s hand around his calf, massaging lightly, and hermione perched on one side of it, arm around his shoulders.
- during the horcrux hunt, this only became more common. there were very few nights they did not sleep in the same bed. privacy was almost nonexistent. they often had to bathe one another when they couldn’t get out of bed due to the grief, or went catatonic with shock etc etc.
- after the war is when people slowly started realising their tendency to be so close. until then, no one really paid attention to these three kids, atleast not so closely. but now all eyes are on them. and so the adults, the order and the weasleys and remus and sirius, see how they go into the same room at the end of the day, come out of it together in the morning. how harry using the bathroom doesn’t stop hermione from going in to brush her teeth, or ron walks around in just a towel without any hesitation when it’s the two of them but yelps and covers up when anyone else walks in.
- they see how hermione hates having her hair touched but will happily fall into a light doze when one of the boys is playing with it, and harry, who will go stiff as a board when someone so much as brushes against his side, will literally melt into a puddle when ron or hermione hug him tight. they’ve never seen ron as calm, or as settled, as when he’s around the other two—he has a purpose, and it’s never been more clearer than in those moments.
#harry potter#hermione granger#ron weasley#golden trio friendship#gonna be honest i wanted this to be a fic#of like. outsider pov#esp adults (say the order) finding out how close these three get#and being scandalised#and they’re like??? it’s a trauma response bro chill tf out??#also just ron and hermione being protective of harry is so dear to me#we love to see it#i clearly have so so many feels about this haha#maybe one day i will be able to expand who knows#in the meantime#if anyone has any fic recs with something similar- PLEASEEEEEE#i beg#send it across to me!#pen’s notes
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Can't help it...
Part 9
inumaki x f!reader
pairing: inumaki x f!reader
summary: Transferring to a new school is tough, but having your three best friends there makes it easier. Things get even more interesting when you start falling for the mysterious boy who rides his motorcycle to school every day. What will happen next?
genre/warnings: [18+] Characters are aged up. Story contains cursing, new friends, alcohol, college!au, no curse!au, dark humour, SMAU and written parts, fluff, smut.
Inumaki's POV:
I’ve been staring at the ceiling for what feels like hours now, and I don’t understand why I can’t sleep. I mean, I’ve always had issues with sleeping—insomnia’s been my constant companion for as long as I can remember—but I thought it was getting better. This past week, for the first time in years, I actually slept well. It was odd, sure, but I wasn’t complaining.
But tonight? Tonight, it’s back to the old ways.
Back to no sleep.
I sighed, running a hand through my hair as I glanced over at the clock.
4 a.m.
Great.
Should I even bother going to school later? Maybe I should just skip. But then… I wouldn’t see y/n.
Fuck.
The thought of not seeing her tomorrow... or today, technically... made my chest tighten in a way I didn’t want to think too much about. I let out another frustrated sigh and turned my head to look at my phone on the nightstand. For a moment, I just stared at it, my mind running through all the reasons why texting her at this hour would be a terrible idea.
She’s probably asleep. You’ll wake her up. She’ll think you’re being annoying. Just leave her alone.
But then again… what if she’s awake too? What if she’s thinking about me the way I’m thinking about her right now?
Before I could overthink it anymore, I grabbed my phone, my thumb hesitating over the keyboard. I typed out a message and stared at it for a second, debating whether or not to hit send.
This is stupid. She’s not awake. You’ll look like an idiot.
But my thumb pressed send before I could talk myself out of it.
Hey… you up?
I tossed my phone on the bed beside me and ran a hand over my face, already regretting it. But now all I could do was wait.
Honestly, I was kind of hoping she would respond. It’s not like I can sleep, so maybe talking to her would help. But at the same time… I kind of hope she doesn’t even see my message. Because… what if I’m being too much?
What if she sees it, rolls her eyes, and thinks I’m just some guy who can’t get a grip? Someone who’s bothering her at 4 a.m. for no reason?
I sighed, staring at the faint glow of my phone screen as it sat on the bed next to me. What was I expecting? That she’d magically be awake, texting back right away? And if she did… what would I even say?
Hey, I can’t stop thinking about you?
Yeah, right. That would go over well.
I shook my head, feeling the frustration bubble up in my chest. Why was she in my head so much? Why couldn’t I just… let it go? Ignore it? Pretend I wasn’t thinking about the way she looked at me earlier, or the way her voice shook just a little when she was mad?
I groaned softly, rolling over onto my side and staring at the phone again. One minute passed. Then another. The screen stayed dark, and the silence stretched on. Maybe this was for the best. Maybe it was better if she didn’t answer.
Because if she did… I wasn’t sure what I’d say next. Or worse, what I’d admit.
But then, to my surprise, my phone buzzed.
I blinked, staring at it for a moment as if I’d imagined the notification. The screen lit up, her name glowing back at me. My heart skipped a beat, and I hesitated before picking it up, as if seeing her response would somehow make this real.
WARNING: SMUT (18+ ONLY) & HEAVY FLIRTING/TEASING
A/N
things are getting veryyy spicy now 👀
hope you enjoyed this little tease
im so sorry this took so look... it was very unexpected ive just been extremely busy and honestly haven't had the energy to write much
yes this is very short butttt i kinda just want some of yalls opinion on this... like would you actually wanna read the smut (next part)
ik its late ASF BUT ENJOY IT PLEASE OR ELSE ILL CRY FR
TAG LIST <3
@madaqueue @mikko-mikko @arabella0001 @swarachxle @s3ns4ti0n4l @jdgfsgdgdvf @tomikixd @arabella0001 @emotionalasf @unofficialsapphire @miowxh @hansl0ver @miowxh
#jjk#jjk fanfic#jujutsu kaisen#jjk x reader#fluff#jjk smut#jjk inumaki#inumaki toge#inumaki x reader#inumaki smau#jujutsu kaisen inumaki#jjk fluff#jujutsu kaisen smau#jujustsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen smut#jujutsu kaisen x you#jjk x y/n#inumaki x y/n#toge fluff#toge x reader#toge smut#toge smau#toge x you#toge x y/n#toge inumaki#motorcycle#biker guy#bikerlife#moto#bikerlove
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more equestrian dreamling for you
-
Hob should have expected that Roderick would insist on getting Ruby out to competitions far sooner than was advisable. Dream had made progress with the horse, gotten it to relax a little bit, but that didn’t mean it was a good idea to throw Ruby into a new, chaotic environment. Roderick wanted what he wanted, though, and as he was the horse’s owner Dream was still somewhat beholden to that. At least, if he wanted to be the one training it.
So here they were at a competition.
It couldn’t possibly have been worse conditions. The yard was busy, the competition arena surrounded by people, the loudspeaker was shrieking intermittently and the wind was whipping every flag, blanket, and banner into a fury. Nevertheless Dream was in the warmup ring, trotting Ruby around.
Everything was… okay so far, Hob thought. Ruby was trotting around with relative calm, Dream weaving him around the other horses warming up. Other horses being there probably helped matters. Back home Dream had already noticed that Ruby seemed calmer when other horses were around, and had taken to having Hob hack Ellie in the ring while he was riding Ruby so the horse wouldn’t be alone in the arena.
Roderick was on the other side of the warmup ring from Hob, yelling at Dream over the wind, but Dream seemed to be ignoring him.
Alex came up beside Hob, watching nervously. “Will it go well?” he asked.
“Dunno,” Hob said. Dream’s skill was considerable, but horses were always inherently unpredictable. And Ruby even more so than normal.
“But, I thought he was—”
“What your father doesn’t get,” Hob told him, “is that horse training isn’t a linear input-output situation. You can’t just make what you want happen. No matter how much money you throw at it. And especially if you rush.”
“My father always gets what he wants,” Alex said quietly. Hob felt kind of bad for the kid. Must have been rough to have a father like Roderick Burgess.
“We’ll see,” Hob said.
When Dream’s ride came up in the queue, he stopped beside Hob at the ring entrance. Hob handed him a bottle of water, and Dream drank.
“Can’t convince you to postpone?” Hob said, already knowing the answer. At least Ruby had behaved during the warmup, that was something.
Dream handed the water back, shaking his head. “I would rather fight other battles than argue over one competition. Besides, if he performs poorly, perhaps Roderick will finally acknowledge the folly of his expectations.”
Hob doubted that. “Just keep on your toes.”
“Don’t worry, I am aware he is going to look sideways at the crowds, and the flags, and the judge’s booth, and so on.” He sighed. “I miss Jessamy.”
“You’ll get Ruby there too, eventually.”
“Perhaps if Roderick gets out of the way.” The ring steward was summoning him, so with that he walked Ruby off to the competition ring. Hob followed at a distance, taking up his spot by the ring to watch.
The first half of Dream’s test went… relatively well, all things considered. Ruby was spooky, trying to move away from anything that moved outside the ring, and Hob could see Dream fighting to keep him on the rail. The horse seemed more tense, too, without any other horses around, but with the exception of a little jigging and sidestepping at certain corners, Dream managed to mostly keep him focused.
Hob started to think maybe his worries had been overblown. They weren’t going to earn the highest score by any means, Ruby was still far too inconsistent and tense for that, but it would be fine as a starting point. Honestly, Hob didn’t much care about the horse’s success in competition. All he really cared about was Dream’s safety.
He finally relaxed a bit once they were past the halfway point of the test and nothing had gone terribly wrong. Meanwhile, by the arena entrance, Roderick stood with arms crossed, eyes like ice. Clearly having the exact opposite experience as Hob, growing more tense with each mistake Dream and Ruby made.
Hob was really growing to hate that man. If there was one thing that terrible fall had instilled in Hob, it was the belief that none of this competition stuff was really that serious. Of course they wanted to do well. Of course he wanted Dream to do well. But he would rather see Dream perform so badly that he quit upper level competition forever than see Dream hurt. After falling with Ellie, Hob hadn’t cared about any title they’d ever won together. He’d only cared that they were both alive.
He never wanted to try to make Dream do anything, though. And Dream was a very good rider. Hob took comfort in that.
He kept watching the test, keeping half an eye on Roderick on the other end of the ring.
Dream cantered in a big circle across the middle of the ring, then up the long side of the arena towards Hob. The wind gusted, blowing papers about, ruffling Ruby’s tail. And just as Dream and Ruby were passing one of the flags, the wind cracked through it. Like the sound of a whip.
Ruby spooked sideways, head thrown up, eyes rolling. Dream kept his seat, but before he could get him settled, another huge gust of wind blew loose papers across the ring, and one caught Ruby right in the face.
The horse reared, head tossed, stumbling backwards, throwing itself off balance in its panic. Dream leaned forward to counterbalance but it was too late, Ruby had stepped too far under himself.
Hob was already running by the time he toppled over sideways.
He lost sight of Dream in the resulting scramble of limbs as Ruby thrashed in panic and clambered back to his feet. At least he didn’t fully flip over backwards on him, Hob thought, panic rising in his throat, at least—
Hob had seen Dream come off a horse only once before, when Jessamy had tripped on a hack out in the woods and unseated him. She’d just stood there afterwards, looking down at him on the ground as if wondering what on earth he was doing, as Dream brushed pine needles and dirt off his clothes.
Ruby, meanwhile, bolted out of the arena and was out of Hob’s sight in seconds.
Hob missed Jessamy, too.
He didn’t chase the horse, though. He kept running for Dream. Dream who he could see now, still on the ground. Who hadn’t popped back up, brushing dirt off his jacket, like he had that time with Jessamy.
Alex tried to follow Hob, stumbling uncertainly, but Hob pointed him in the other direction. “No! Go help catch the horse!”
Alex ran off after Ruby, looking shaken, and Hob skidded to a stop in the sand beside Dream. He knelt down by Dream’s collapsed form.
Dream wasn’t obviously mangled by hoof prints, though his eyes were closed. But when Hob called his name, his face scrunched up in pain. Dazed, then, not unconscious. That was good. Thank God.
“Dream,” he called again. He touched Dream’s cheek with a light hand, but didn’t dare move him. “Dream?”
Finally, Dream’s eyes opened, slowly focusing on Hob’s face. “…Hob.”
“Yeah, darling,” Hob said, with a relieved smile.
Dream started to try to sit up, but Hob pressed him back down. “No, don’t move. Stay there. He fucking trampled you.”
“Barely,” Dream muttered, but settled back down. “What spooked him? I did not see it.”
“Flags. Papers flying around.”
Dream sighed, closing his eyes again. “Typical. I warned Roderick.”
“Roderick’s incapable of listening to anyone but himself.” He took Dream’s hands in his own. “Squeeze my hands?”
Dream obligingly squeezed Hob’s fingers, then let go.
“Good. Move your toes?” In the distance, he could see the actual show medics running towards them. Hob had first aid training too though, at least. Another thing he’d picked up after getting crushed into the ground.
Dream moved his legs, but grimaced.
“Alright, where did he get you?” Hob said. “I know you’re hurt somewhere or you’d have fought me more about getting up.”
“I expect you will find a hoof print here,” Dream said, touching his thigh, and Hob winced. “I. Hit my head on the ground. My… chest hurts.”
Anxiety swooped through Hob’s belly, but he tried to stay calm, for Dream’s sake. He had been wearing a helmet, at least. And he was lucid. That was good.
Finally the show medics were crouched next to them. Hob could tell they would have preferred if he got out of the way, but he didn’t leave, though he tried to make some room for them. And he kept Dream’s attention as one of them eased his helmet off so he could lie flat.
The helmet had a sizable dent in it. Hob winced.
“Did they catch Ruby?” Dream asked.
“No clue.”
Dream chuckled. “You don’t care at all, do you?”
“I’d rather he not get hit by a car or something, but no, I care more about you right now.” They were in the middle of a huge equestrian park, anyway. Probably Ruby would get bored and start grazing somewhere and someone would catch up to him eventually. “He looked fine when he got up, anyway.”
“It’s not his fault, Hob,” Dream said.
“I know.” Hob looked around, but Roderick was nowhere in sight. Typical. “It’s someone’s fault, though.”
“We can handle Roderick later.”
One of the medics asked Dream a few questions, then wrapped a c-collar around his neck. He was surprisingly docile about it, which Hob found worrying. Dream was never docile.
Hob was forced to move back a few feet as the medics got Dream on a stretcher. They hadn’t even considered just getting him on his feet. Fuck. Fuck.
Dream cried out as they moved him, a short, sharp cry of pain, quickly cut off. Hob rushed back over to him, taking his hand.
“I’m fine,” Dream said, finally breathing out again. “Go. Make sure the horse is okay? I am fine.”
“Fuck that,” Hob said. “I’m going with you. I’ll text Alex, make sure they get Ruby sorted.”
Dream smiled faintly, and Hob knew that, no matter what Dream might have said, it was the right call.
He rode with Dream to the hospital. He kept going back and forth on whether he should be worried or not. It could all just be some nasty bruises. That was probably the case with Dream’s thigh, considering he’d apparently been stepped on but wasn’t complaining much about the pain. Hob was worried about his head, but thankfully he didn’t seem too concussed, and hadn’t been knocked out. He hadn’t gotten a good look at Dream’s chest yet, since his shirt and show coat were still on. He hoped it wasn’t too bad. God.
He still held onto Dream’s hand the whole ride, watching him wince whenever the ambulance hit a bump in the road.
“Did you know,” Dream said when they’d almost arrived, “I have never been taken to A&E in an ambulance before?”
“Never?”
“No. It’s been… a long time since I’ve been hurt falling off. I broke my wrist once as a child. But my riding instructor drove me to hospital.”
His riding instructor. Not even one of his parents.
“Well, new experiences all around,” Hob said, trying to be cheery and not think too much about Dream’s childhood, which always made him feel terribly sad.
“I’m not enjoying it,” Dream said, closing his eyes again where he lay on the stretcher, and Hob laughed, leaning down to kiss his forehead.
When they arrived, and were waiting to be seen, Hob occupied himself getting Dream’s riding boots off. They were custom fit, and Dream would be peeved if the hospital staff tried to cut them off. Dream watched him with an amused quirk of the brow. “Will you do my show coat as well?”
“No,” Hob said. He wasn’t mucking around with Dream’s chest.
“Breeches?”
“They will definitely get the wrong idea if I do that.”
Dream laughed. “Perhaps I want them to get the wrong idea.”
“Dream.”
Dream only laughed again. Hob swatted his hand when he came to sit beside him again. “You mustn’t be feeling too badly if you’re trying to make jokes.”
“Maybe I’m just coping.”
“Poor darling.” He leaned over to give Dream a light kiss. “You’ll be alright.”
Dream gave him a weak smile.
Fortunately it turned out that Dream’s neck was fine, and he was able to take the c-collar off. They also let him take off his own clothes—with some help from Hob—before any further testing, so his beloved, tailored show coat wasn’t lost to scissor butchery. Hob also updated him, long-sufferingly, on Ruby, after Alex texted him to let him know that the horse had eventually been found—as Hob had predicted—grazing in a far corner of the property.
“We will have to work with some flags at home,” Dream said, and Hob wanted to bang his head into a wall. But then both of them would be concussed, and someone had to drive the rig home, and if Hob let Alex drive they would all die in a ditch. So he refrained from giving himself a head injury out of exasperation.
“Maybe on the ground, first,” he said instead.
“Well, of course,” said Dream.
His leg wasn’t broken, just bore a hoof print shaped bruise, and his concussion was mild—thank God for helmets and soft arena footing. He’d fractured two ribs—“Mildly!” Dream said, when Hob expressed concern about it, and Hob once again contemplated cracking his own head open on the wall—and they wanted to keep him for a night just in case.
If Hob’s madman of a husband was going to insist on continuing to ride this horse, Hob was going to make him start wearing a body protector. At least Hob had learned something from his own fall.
Eventually, all the tests were done, and they were left alone for some time. They’d originally been supposed to go home tonight, but Hob had managed to arrange another night’s stall for Ruby, and called Matthew to make sure their horses back home were taken care of. Horses made everything so complicated. But there was no way he was leaving Dream.
“You should get a hotel for the night,” Dream said, looking at Hob with tired eyes from where he was now lying in a proper hospital bed.
“And spare myself the entertainment of you on pain meds?”
“The meds are frankly unnecessary,” Dream complained.
Hob thought the way he’d been wincing every time he breathed suggested otherwise, but what did he know.
“Hey, if someone offers you a good time, take it,” he said, and Dream quirked a smile.
Hob took his hand, twined their fingers together, kissed his knuckles. “Hey,” he said. “It’s gonna be okay. Yeah?”
Dream’s smile wavered. “When he flipped on me. I did see my life flash before my eyes.”
Hob saw his life flash before his eyes, too. Which was to say, he saw Dream’s death flash before his eyes.
“It’s scary,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
At least Ellie had, as far as Hob had seen on video, done her best not to trample him when she got up. Ruby, it seemed, had had no such presence of mind.
“I am glad you were there,” Dream said. “Not that I wish for you to have had to watch. But. When I… found myself on the ground. I.” He closed his eyes, shying away from the feeling.
Hob squeezed his hand. “Hey. Dream.”
“I. It hurt. Well, at first it didn’t hurt, because I had the wind knocked out of me, but it hurt after and— it’s silly.” He finally opened his eyes again, looking a bit embarrassed. “But I just wanted my husband.”
“It’s not silly.” Hob clutched Dream’s hand close. “It’s okay. Didn’t you know I just wanted to get to you, too?”
Dream gave him a fragile smile. Hob didn’t want him to move too much, so he leaned in and pressed his forehead to Dream’s, resting beside him on the pillow.
“So,” Dream said. “I am guessing we did not win.”
Hob snorted. “Pretty sure you got a zero. Levade wasn’t in the test, Dream. Overachiever.”
Dream laughed, clutching at his chest in pain, but laughed nevertheless.
“Next time you can try trick riding where they actually want you to throw yourself on the floor. You can do one of those pony races where you have to jump off and grab an egg and get back on.”
“I did those as a child,” Dream said. “It was more fun than this.”
“I bet.”
Dream closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against Hob’s. “I am only riding Jessamy for a while.”
“You’re not riding at all for a while.”
Dream grumbled. “Now you are a rule follower?”
“Yup. But trust me, by tomorrow, you won’t be thinking about horses at all.”
Dream groaned. “You will tend me in my infirmity?”
“Of course.”
Then Dream smiled. The pain meds were definitely starting to make him a little loopy, Hob thought. “Good husband,” he said, and awkwardly pet Hob’s hair.
“Go to sleep, you.”
Eventually he did get Dream to sleep, God bless pain meds. But sleep didn’t find Hob for some time. He sat up, watching Dream. The rise and fall of his chest. The beep of the heart monitor on his finger.
All told, the damage wasn’t too bad. Definitely not as bad as it could have been. As he’d feared it would be. But Hob kept seeing the fall in the back of his mind. The flashing moment when Ruby toppled and Dream disappeared from his sight. Over and over and over.
He leaned on the bed, head in his hands. Thought about it for a long, long time. How much it hurt to be the one watching it happen. Worrying. Always worrying.
Eventually, he fell asleep, hunched in his awkward position on the bed that would definitely make his shoulder ache come morning. But he wasn’t about to move a single muscle.
#drama#equestrian au#dreamling#it's so busy at work i could die. but i always make time to post fic#my writing
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Threads of Desire: A Christmas to Remember - Chapter 3
Summary: Y/N goes to Maggie's apartment to pick up something for work, but is shocked when she discovers a secret that Maggie is keeping. After the day she had, Y/N goes to visit with her friend Daryl Dixon who does what he can to make her feel better.
Characters: Daryl Dixon, the reader (OC), Maggie Greene, Negan Smith (only heavily mentioned), etc.
AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61111030/chapters/157163035
Warnings: Swearing, Cheating, Angst, Pretty heavy dirty talk, Implied Sex, Smut, etc.
Notes: This chapter doesn't have Negan in it, but he is mentioned. I quickly edited this. I wanted to have more of this up, but life got busy so everything may not be up by Christmas. But I'll do my best to get up the chapters as quickly as I can.
Moving through the streets of New York, Y/N cussed to herself when she worked to keep herself from falling. Of fucking course it had to be snowing right now. It fit her mood and everything that was happening. The sound of her phone going off made her frown when she reached for it to see that Negan was calling her. Rejecting the call, she was quick to put her head down and keep walking. But then immediately after he was calling her back again. Shoving her phone into her purse, she ignored the call not wanting to talk to Negan after everything.
Avoiding Negan now would be her only option with how big of a fool she made of herself tonight. After everything, there were two things she was feeling more than anything right now. Regret and anger. Regret that she let herself get to the point that she did tonight. She had worked so hard to keep her mouth shut about Maggie and how miserable she was. Putting on a façade for the last four years was something she had gotten good at, but she suddenly let go of all that in just a few hours. And anger that the person she thought was her best friend purposely went out of her way to break her heart. Hearing that Maggie was the one to pursue Negan after promising that she wouldn’t was devastating. The sad thing was though? It wasn’t hard to believe. It had become more than obvious that Maggie didn’t care for Y/N in the way that she cared about Maggie. For some reason, it always felt like a competition in life between the two of them. One that Y/N never played along with, but for some reason Maggie was. Maggie had to have the best of everything. And she had won. In her own little game, she won. Maggie had Y/N’s dream job. Maggie was dating the man that Y/N had fallen in love with.
Getting to Maggie’s apartment, Y/N dug inside of her purse to find the keys. Walking inside, the woman at the front desk already knew who she was. They didn’t know her as Maggie’s friend, but as the woman that worked for Maggie. By now? She had been back and forth in Maggie’s apartment so much that the whole staff that worked in that building knew who Y/N was.
Heading up on the elevator, she closed her eyes tightly and tipped her head back when she heard her phone buzzing again in her purse. Undoubtedly that had to be Negan. Who knows how many times he had called at this point. Jumping out of the car at a red light had to be a bit of a shocker for him, but she didn’t care. Everything had become awkward and it was more than enough for one night.
Once more today, she found herself soaked from the snow. This time though? It was much worse. Instead of being in comfortable clothes, she was in a nice dress with just her jacket that didn’t close in the front.
A ding filled the air to alert her that she was on Maggie’s floor. Moving through the hallway, she headed for Maggie’s apartment and sighed. Considering Maggie hadn’t been texting her off the hook about the event tonight, she assumed Maggie was still at the dinner meeting. Opening up the door, Y/N stepped into the apartment feeling her heart rate escalate. Loud breaths and smacking sounds were filling the air drawing Y/N’s attention toward the kitchen where Maggie was laid out across the kitchen table having someone pounding into her.
“Oh shit, I am so sorry,” Y/N immediately apologized hearing Maggie gasp out once she realized that it was Y/N that was there. Stumbling out of the apartment, Y/N was quick to close the door shut behind her. Embarrassment flooded her veins when she headed back toward the elevator. But as she stood in front of the elevator, that feeling soon changed to anger. A moment later the door to Maggie’s apartment pulled open and Maggie was wearing an oversize t-shirt that she had obviously pulled on. Glancing to Maggie, Y/N shook her head and bit back what she honestly wanted to say. “I had no idea you were in there. I was just coming to pick up the project folder for tomorrow because the meeting you had at the end of the week got pushed forward to tomorrow. I didn’t want you to forget it, so I was dropping by to pick it up to make sure you had it.”
“We need to talk,” Maggie stressed with the elevator doors opening. There was a redness flooding into her cheeks with a thin layer of sweat covering her body. There was worry in Maggie’s green eyes when Y/N shook her head. “No, you need to come with me.”
“I don’t need to do anything. Just remember to bring your project with you in the morning or the meeting isn’t going to go very well,” Y/N went to leave, but Maggie grabbed a tight hold of Y/N’s wrist dragging her back to the apartment. “Maggie, I don’t want to hear it.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Maggie pushed Y/N into her apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. Y/N’s heart was pounding inside of her chest while Maggie attempted to gather herself. “And…you…you can’t tell Negan.”
“Tell Negan what?” she blurt out, dramatically shrugging her shoulders and throwing her hands up in the air. “That you’re cheating on him and fucking someone else?”
“Yeah, I knew you would be like this,” Maggie rolled her eyes, folding her arms out in front of her chest. “You’re my best friend, so therefore you have to be on my side of things. You can’t tell Negan what you saw today. Because one, that would break his heart and two…you just…well, you just can’t tell him.”
“I don’t lie to Negan,” Y/N declared, venom in her tone with Maggie rolling her eyes at the response. “What the hell are you even doing anyways? Negan is perfect. What are you doing fucking around on him?”
“Your undying loyalty to Negan is a little fucking pathetic Y/N. I hope you realize that,” Maggie hissed, throwing her right hand about. Whoever Maggie was screwing was in the background getting into something which had the both of them distracted for a moment, but Maggie pulled Y/N back in to focus on her. “Listen, Negan is the man that I want to marry, but I’m still young. I want to be able to have some fun before I ever consider doing something like that.”
“If you want to have that kind of life, then why are you dragging Negan along?” Y/N blurt out, every muscle in her body tensing up when she reached for her jacket that was wet. Pulling it off, she tossed it aside onto the counter and Maggie gave her a once over. “What?!”
“You wore that tonight?” Maggie seemed to be stunned with how she looked, but soon realized that she was distracted and pulled herself back into the moment. “Y/N, I like Negan. A lot. Okay? Negan is not someone I want to give up. He’s very good at sex and you know he has a big dick. That’s not really something people want to lose.”
“Wow,” nothing more could escape Y/N’s lips. “Just…wow.”
“Give me a fucking break,” Maggie scoffed, throwing her hands up in the air. “I know you have your little crush on Negan, but I’m your best friend. Your loyalty should lie with me. Not him. Fuck, it’s because of me that you actually got to see Negan naked at all. You never would have if it wasn’t for me. So maybe you should be a little thankful toward me and show me some appreciation.”
“I’m sorry, but what?” Y/N couldn’t help but laugh at how out of the field that comment was. “So now I shouldn’t tell Negan about you fucking someone else because I was able to see Negan’s dick with your help?”
“I’m not wrong,” Maggie stressed her feelings toward Y/N eliciting an eye roll from her longtime friend. “You had the hots for him for so fucking long and I’m sure that getting to see him naked around the apartment all the time helped fuel your little fantasies of him.”
“Wow, you can go fuck yourself Maggie,” Y/N snarled attempting to move around Maggie only to hear the sound of something being dropped behind them. Looking over her shoulder, Y/N let out a loud exhale when she saw Guy Vixen walking around Maggie’s kitchen completely naked. A breath caught in her throat realizing that it was their boss that she had walked in on fucking Maggie. “Holy shit.”
“I know you told me to wait in your bedroom, but…I didn’t want to,” Guy’s thick accent slurred from his lips, waving his hand about after he grabbed a glass for himself. “I was thirsty and I got sick of waiting for you and…”
Guy paused when his eyes connected with Y/N’s. Moving around the bar that was at the center of the kitchen, he stopped when he stood before her, “Oh hello. Look at you. You are ravishing. Maggie, who is this. Is she a gift? Something that we can both play with?”
“I uh…” Y/N dropped her head down to see that Guy was still very much up from the action that she had interrupted. An uncomfortable breath escaped her throat when Guy lifted his hand to drag his finger down over the center of her chest toward her breasts. “I work for you. Well, I work with Maggie.”
“Oh! You’re that cute little thing from this morning?” Guy questioned, closing the distance between the two of them. “Fuck honey, if I knew you looked like that under all those clothes I would have invited you a long time ago.”
“Guy!” Maggie snapped, but it didn’t draw the brown eyes of their boss to pull from Y/N. Tugging slightly at the material of Y/N’s dress had it pulling forward with Guy attempting to get a look at Y/N’s breasts. “She’s not here as a third!”
“She may have not come with the intentions of being a third, but now that she’s hear soaking wet…” Guy swept his fingers down over her arms, stepping forward causing Y/N to take one step back. “Don’t be shy. I have enough in me to share with the both of you. You can ask Maggie, she’s tried him many times. And he delivers every time.”
“And suddenly we are talking about your dick in third person,” Y/N felt her face grow hot with her boss like this before her. This was the man that she admired growing up. The person that inspired her to even get into the business. So to say this was uncomfortable? It was an understatement. Not that Guy wasn’t good looking. He was incredibly good looking. And he didn’t look bad naked. He had a very chiseled physique. Unlike Negan, you could tell that he worked out a lot. And his rippled abdomen, buff chest and veins that were prominent in his arms showed it.
Noticing that she was staring at his arm, Guy flexed his arm slightly to bulge his bicep, flashing her a bright smile. “You like the way that looks? Little offended that you are looking there and not at my penis, but the arms and chest are nice so I don’t blame you for getting a look in.”
“Maggie,” she spoke her friend’s name feeling cornered when Guy blocked her in, placing both of his hands on the wall beside her. “Mr. Vixen?”
“Just Guy,” he smiled, letting out a disappointed breath when Maggie worked her way between the two of them. Pressing into Guy’s chest had him rolling his eyes and throwing his hands up in the air. “Come on Maggie. Have a little fun here. You two are hot. I’m hot. I think the three of us could really have fun. You two can make out a little. I’d love to come on her tits.”
Lowering her head, Y/N looked down at her breasts and wondered if she had really kept them hidden that much since people had been so drawn to them tonight.
“Guy, it’s not going to happen. We aren’t those kind of…friends,” Maggie suggested, not sure how to get the man to back off in the least. “Just go back to my room and I’ll be there in a few minutes. I promise.”
“You get me excited for something more only to turn me down and disappoint me,” Guy pouted, palming down over the center of his chest toward his mid abdomen. Locking eyes with Y/N, he threw his hand up in the air and smiled. “Since Maggie is a buzzkill, if you ever decide that you want to have sex, just come see me at work. I’m not kidding when I tell you that I’d love to come all over your tits. They are incredible.”
“Guy!” Maggie interrupted him after Y/N let out a nervous laugh at how forward he was being. “Anyone else and you’d be worrying about a massive sexual harassment charge right now.”
“I’m telling the woman that I’d like to fuck her. I don’t think that’s bad,” Guy stressed, stumbling back toward Maggie’s room with Maggie pushing into him. Waving his hand at Maggie, Guy got her to step away from him and he laughed. “Fine! Be that way. But I’m just letting her know that I mean it. The offer is on the table.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Y/N gave Guy an answer with him pointing at her, smiling over the top when he headed back into Maggie’s bedroom. Once he was in, Maggie slowly turned to look at Y/N. “Things make so much more sense now. Although, I did think he was gay so that’s surprising.”
“He’s pansexual,” Maggie alerted Y/N suddenly feeling awkward about the exchange between Guy and Y/N since she was just having sex with the guy. “I’m not sleeping with him because he’s the boss. We’ve been doing this off and on because…”
“I didn’t even suggest that, but now that you put it out there…” Y/N breathed out, folding her arms in front of her chest knowing that it did come off strange that Maggie was in fact fucking the boss.
“Don’t even start with me,” Maggie warned throwing her finger out at Y/N who leaned back against the wall. “You can tell that he’s very…forward. And it’s easy to fall for it with the way that he looks. So I don’t want to hear that I’m screwing my way to the top.”
“I never said that,” Y/N reminded Maggie feeling a sense of happiness in the moment that Maggie felt bad about the situation. “You did.”
“Regardless, you really have no right to judge me,” Maggie claimed, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. A sound of frustration fell deep from within her. “I know you’re just jumping at the idea to tell Negan I’m cheating on him so you can get your nails into him.”
“Get my nails into him?” Y/N repeated, a fire building up in her veins. “You know, Negan told me a few interesting stories tonight. Here you are begging me to be your best friend and be loyal to you, but Negan let me in on some things that made me realize just how much of my best friend that you aren’t.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Maggie wondered, her eyebrow arching when she braced her hands on the counter.
“You knew how much I liked him,” Y/N spoke quietly, trying to make sure that Guy didn’t hear their fight about another man. “I told you how in love with him I was and you still went after him. You swore to me that you wouldn’t. You even promised me that after he brought you those flowers that you wouldn’t let anything else happen, but then you did. And I thought it was on him, so that’s why I never really held you responsible. But tonight he told me that you kept coming back to his class to flirt with him. That you’re the one that kept coming. That you were the one that swore to him that I wouldn’t be coming home the night you fucked him on the couch. You knew I was coming home. You set it up so I could see what you had done…”
“I…” Maggie looked like she was going to rip into her, but stopped when she thought about what Y/N had said. “You know what? I’m not even going to fight about it. Yeah. I went after Negan. For four years, I had to listen to you whine about how in love you were with this guy. And then I walk in to see how fucking hot he is. And after four years? You didn’t try a fucking thing. So I didn’t see the big deal. Negan was hot. You weren’t making your move. That’s not my fault. Plus, it’s not like I had to work that hard to get him to come to me. You can be in love with someone all you want, but that doesn’t mean that he has the same feelings toward you. Which he obviously didn’t. It’s not you that Negan has feelings for Y/N, it’s me. You were never going to hook up with Negan in the first place. I needed you to realize that so you could fucking move on with your life. Instead, you’ve remained incredibly loyal to him and his daughter, but you’re never going to get what you want. Even if you do run off to him and tattle on me about what you saw here. It’s been eight years Y/N. If it hasn’t happened yet, it’s never going to. You’re not his type. And he doesn’t like you like that.”
Parting her lips, Y/N went to say something, but felt that lump returning to her throat again. Maggie was right. She witnessed that firsthand tonight. Negan didn’t like her like that. So what could she honestly say to combat that?
“It’s your fault for not trying first,” Maggie stuck to her guns about the situation with Negan, tipping her head from side to side. “Not that he would have said yes because…trust me. If he didn’t want you when you were taking care of his kid, he was never going to want you. You’re just a glorified nanny Y/N.”
“Fuck you Maggie,” she shook her head, trying to get Maggie to move but Maggie wasn’t budging. Frustrated, Y/N stepped back and shook her head. “You are the worst fucking friend in the world. You know that?”
“Why? Because I have the things that you want but never fought hard enough to have?” Maggie snapped back, closing the distance between the two of them. “What exactly makes me a bad friend, huh? As far as I’m concerned, I’m the best fucking thing that happened to you. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be nowhere. I’m the one that brought you into Vixen. I make it possible for you to live in the city that you always dreamt of living in. I’m the one that makes sure you put food in your mouth. I allowed you to fill your dirty little fantasies to finally get to see Negan naked in the ways that you wanted. When I look at it? I’m the best friend you’ve got. All of those things I can take away from you in an instant. Your job. Your home. And with one conversation with Negan, I can take him and Jordyn away from you too. So why don’t you show me some gratitude instead of threatening me over a crush you were too much of a pussy to try anything with.”
Backing down, Y/N started to feel small again realizing that Maggie was right. This job was the only thing keeping her in New York City. Talking to Negan tonight confirmed with her that she couldn’t get a job to fall back on. If she lost her job, she would lose her apartment which meant she would have to leave the city. And after hearing all the people talking about Maggie at work tonight with Negan, she knew that with the proper persuasion, Maggie probably could have Negan kick her out of Jordyn’s life.
“That’s what I thought. Big and bad until reality smacks you upside the head,” Maggie grumbled under her breath with the color flooding into Y/N’s face. “For fuck’s sake. I have been dating Negan for four years and you still have that fucking crush controlling you. If you haven’t figured it out in eight years, it’s time for you to wake the fuck up. He doesn’t want you Y/N. So what is running to him and telling him that you found me sleeping with someone else going to do?”
“Is Guy the only one?” Y/N inquired getting a laugh from Maggie in return. “That’s a no.”
“Does it matter how many people I’m sleeping with on the side?” Maggie pushed, stealing a quick look to her bedroom to see that Guy was laid out across her bed skimming through things on his phone. “It wouldn’t change the conversation regardless. You should be loyal to me. Not him. Yes, I’m sleeping around with multiple people. No, I don’t want to stop it. It’s not cheating if it’s not an emotional relationship with someone. Then I would feel like I was cheating on Negan. Otherwise, it is what it is.”
“Negan deserves better than this Maggie,” Y/N alerted Maggie of how she felt about the situation, even knowing that Negan would never want to be with her.
“You don’t really know him Y/N. So don’t tell me what he does and does not deserve,” Maggie snapped at Y/N, rolling her eyes at the comment in general. “Negan isn’t the Mr. Wonderful that you think he is. I’m going to assume that you don’t know all of him because the way at which you are his loyal little dog shows it.”
“I know Negan isn’t perfect,” she countered, shaking her head at the idea that she didn’t know all the parts of Negan. She was around him for four years before Maggie ever came around. “I’m pretty sure I know him more than you do.”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t,” Maggie corrected her, tipping her head from side to side. “Come back to me when you’ve had him balls deep inside of you and then we’ll talk.”
“You think that having sex with someone means you know them more?” Y/N breathed out with Maggie licking her lips in an arrogant sweep. “That’s very ignorant.”
“Whatever Y/N. I don’t care to have this conversation anymore. I’m busy and I’d like to get back to my night,” Maggie hissed out, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. “I just need to know if I should expect you telling Negan about this or not. So what’s it going to be? You going to go running to him? Tell him everything? Because if you plan on running to him, you don’t have to show up to work tomorrow. You’ll be looking to find yourself a new job instead.”
Staying quiet, Y/N knew that she had to swallow her pride and keep this to herself. No matter how much she hated her job, she loved this city more and she loved Jordyn. Maggie had the power to make her lose both things. Moving around Maggie, Y/N reached for her jacket that she had thrown on the counter. Pulling it back on, she went to leave only for Maggie to call out to her.
Stopping, she waited for Maggie who moved into her office. Coming back out with the project that she had showed up for, Maggie held it out to her and bit down on her bottom lip, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah,” Y/N accepted the folder, her eyes narrowing when Maggie offered up a big smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
And with that, she left.
----
There was no question that it would have been for the best if Y/N went directly home. It was late at night. She was drunk. Things were emotional. More than anything she should have been sleeping all of this off. Undoubtedly she would be having an early morning tomorrow. One where Maggie would likely give her endless amounts of shit after everything that happened tonight. Yet, she found herself headed somewhere else. Everything felt like it was spinning and she was almost afraid to go home to be alone. Right now she was experiencing everything so strongly that she knew she needed to talk to someone.
Tomorrow was going to be hard. It went against everything that she was to keep something like this from Negan. But Maggie was right about a lot of things. And she needed to talk to someone who could help her through this. Someone who understood what she was going through and knew most of the details. And there was only one person in the world that she had been completely open with about everything. That was her friend Daryl Dixon.
Y/N had also met Daryl during her freshman year of college. After getting an art degree there, Daryl worked at the college for years. A few of the professors ended up liking him so they hooked him up with a job on campus. Pretty quickly, they hit it off after meeting at a party. They were always running into each other after their first meet and it felt like the world was just telling both of them that they were meant to be in each other's lives. Even though he was older than her, they just clicked. Back when she was in college Daryl, Maggie and Negan were the three people she was the closest too. Daryl knew everything. And he was the only person that she could be completely honest with about things.
Unlike Negan and Maggie, she and Daryl had more in common. They were both very passionate about their work, but neither of them were making the kind of money that Negan and Maggie were. Daryl lived in a studio apartment in the Meat Packing District of New York City. After leaving Maggie’s apartment in the upper East side, she got a ride to his apartment. Yes, it was late at night, but she was pretty certain that he would be awake. Daryl didn’t usually sleep much. These were the hours when he thought his creativity spiked. Just like her, Daryl’s brain often never had time to silence itself.
Sluggishly moving through the hallways, Y/N stopped when she reached Daryl’s door. Pressing forward, she heard the faint sounds of music playing alerting her to the fact that he was very much awake. Knocking at the door loud enough for him to hear, she waited. Holding her shoes in one hand, she leaned against the wall across from his door. Movement inside let her know that Daryl heard her. It didn’t take long for him to unlock the door and slide it open with a heavy thud.
Standing before her, Daryl was completely shirtless wearing only a pair of torn, weathered down blue jeans. The button in his jeans was undone and his hair was a mess. There some paint splattered over both his torso and his hands that made her smirk when she saw it. A cigarette was loosely hanging from between his lips, with his eyebrows bouncing up when their eyes finally locked.
“What in God’s name are you wearing?” Daryl snorted, his head tipping to the side as he lifted his arm to rest it against the doorframe. Gazing over her body, Daryl couldn’t but be amused seeing her dressed in what she was. Especially since he had never really seen her like that in his time being near her. “Did you come from some kinda party or somethin’?”
Instead of saying anything, a long exhale escaped her throat and when he finally noticed the expression in her eyes, Daryl knew that she needed him. Stepping aside, without question, Daryl waved her forward motioning her into his apartment.
“I take it you had a hard day?” Daryl commented, pulling his cigarette from between his lips after she lowered down just enough to walk under his arm and into his apartment. Grunting out, Daryl closed his door with a firm slam, locking things up behind him. Dragging his bare feet along the floor, Daryl headed back toward the painting that he was working on leaving her standing at the middle of his mostly empty apartment.
Daryl was a simple man. Truthfully? If Daryl would have decorated the place a little nicer, this could have been a beautiful apartment. It had huge windows that looked upon the city and it was a lot of space. On the left side of Daryl’s apartment was a very simple bed and a dresser for him to keep his clothes. At the opposite side was the kitchen area where Daryl had a bar set up where he could sit and eat. Near the middle was a single couch that had an older television sitting out before it. And toward the back of his apartment was where Daryl kept his studio for his art. This was the place that Daryl worked out of. So there were plenty of art supplies, canvases and things of that nature. Since it was Christmas time, Daryl had what she would have guessed to be a five-foot artificial Christmas tree at the opposite corner of where his bed was at the left side of the apartment. The star that was on top of it looked like it had seen better days. There were no ornaments on the tree. It just had the white lights that likely came with the tree when Daryl had bought it. Along with that, there was a line of string lights that Daryl had hung up around the bedroom area of his apartment.
“I like what you’ve done with the place for Christmas,” she pointed toward the lights provoking a grunt to fall from Daryl’s throat while he continued painting whatever it was he was working on. “It’s very much in the Christmas spirit.”
“At least I put something up,” Daryl grumbled under his breath, with his cigarette still hanging from his lips. “You mentioned the place being depressing the last time you were here, so I decided to brighten the place up a bit.”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic. I was impressed,” she implied, stepping forward across his apartment. Curling her arms around her, she realized that she was freezing. “I’m sorry for coming here. I just didn’t know where else to go. And I didn’t want to go home.”
“You never have to apologize to me. You’re always welcome in my home,” Daryl declared, tossing his cigarette into the ashtray that was in the distance. Rubbing his hands together, Daryl cleared his throat and shrugged. Really Daryl didn’t seem too bothered at the idea of having her there. “I enjoy the company.”
“You told me that you hate being around people. You’ve said that many times,” she reminded him, getting him to roll his eyes at her comment. “You’re a loner. You like to remind me of that all the time.”
“Yeah, I hate most people. Just not you. You’re different,” Daryl muttered under his breath, simply shrugging his shoulders as he spoke. Once his blue eyes looked upon her again, Daryl frowned and pushed his chair away from his canvas that he was working on. “Do you want some pajama pants and a t-shirt? You look wet.”
“Are they clean?” she teased getting the middle finger from him in response. It made her laugh as he stood up from the seat with a groan.
Heading toward the bedroom area, Daryl pulled open one of his drawers. Pushing through some of his things, he grabbed a t-shirt and then opened another drawer for the pajama pants. Holding them at his side, Daryl approached her and held it out to her.
“They are freshly washed, I promise you,” Daryl scoffed, his face scrunching up in irritation when he threw them out to her and she laughed when she caught them.
“Thank you,” she muttered, looking down at the clothes. They did in fact smell like they were freshly washed, but she couldn’t help giving him a hard time since most of his things were covered in paint. A lot of people would give Daryl a hard time about looking dirty so he always got annoyed at those kind of comments.
“I happen to think I smell great you know,” Daryl reasoned with her looking to his hands to gaze upon the paint that was covering them. “Let me go clean up and wash this paint off of me while you change. After you get that dress off of you, we can throw it up in the bathroom to dry. I have some coffee on if you want something to help you warm up.”
“That’d be great,” she appreciated how quick he was to help her. This was like Daryl though. He’d happily welcome her into his apartment, no questions asked.
Watching him closely, she started to take off her clothes while he walked off into the bathroom. In the distance she could see his reflection in the mirror while he worked to scrub at the paint over his hands. By the time she was dressed in what he had given her, Daryl was waiting for her by the bathroom to help her get her dress up to help it dry. Motioning her toward the kitchen area of his apartment, Daryl grabbed her a mug when she went for the coffee. Setting it down on the counter, Daryl headed back toward the painting that he was working on leaving her there to prepare her coffee the way she wanted it. What amused her about Daryl is that he had two mugs. One that was his and one that he kept for her when she came over.
Grabbing one of the stray chairs that was in Daryl’s apartment, she was careful to hold the mug in one hand while she dragged her chair over beside Daryl to get a look at the painting he was working on. Taking a seat, she got comfortable and took a minute to gaze upon his art. It was a stunning portrait of a woman. And it was big. What surprised her about Daryl was how he didn’t have more jobs than he did. When Daryl did portraits, they were incredible. He was a hell of an artist and she was always impressed with the things that he was working on.
“You are so talented,” she blurt out, eliciting a scoff from Daryl who never really thought much of himself to begin with. “She’s a pretty girl. Who is she?”
“It’s a commission piece,” he answered, his fingers curling around the seat that he was on. Bracing his weight, Daryl joined her in looking at the painting. “There is something about it that doesn’t feel right.”
“You say that about all of your pieces,” she reminded him, cupping her coffee mug in her hands hoping to warm up with it there. Even though the coffee might help her sober up, she just preferred the warmth of the mug there for now. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Or not hard enough,” he countered, his right eyebrow arching up when he turned to look at her. A stray piece of his dark hair fell into his eyes. Pushing it back behind his ear, Daryl looked upon her expectantly. “Okay, so spill your guts. What happened? I know Christmas is the worst time of the year for you with work.”
“Are you sure you’re okay with me venting to you?” she wondered, showing a sense of worry about coming to Daryl only to complain about her life. Standing up from the stool that he was on, Daryl grabbed one of his normal chairs and pulled it in front of her. Turning it around, Daryl straddled the chair and lowered down, crossing his arms over the top part of the back of the chair.
“When have I ever had a problem with you talking to me?” Daryl seemed frustrated that she would even ask him that. Shaking his head, Daryl sighed loudly and lowered his head to rest his chin on his arms. “After this long, I think you know I will listen to you anytime you want to talk.”
“I don’t know Daryl. I just feel bad that I always come to you when I’m upset. I just think you may be my only real friend at this point,” she confessed to him, hating to say it but it was how she felt. Daryl was the only person that she had a bond with where it didn’t feel fake with him. There was nothing about their relationship that was conditional. “I don’t want you thinking you’re my last resort. Because you’re not. I appreciate you and everything you do for me. You’re just the only person that makes me feel like I can really be me. The only person that I can be honest with.”
“That’s because I am,” Daryl snorted, giving her a wrinkle of his nose. It had her smiling when he threw his hand up in the air. It was blunt, but he probably wasn’t wrong. “But that’s okay because you are the only person that I feel that way with too. So go for it. Tell me what’s up.”
“Before I go off and make myself look bad, do you have something that you want to talk about first?” she wanted to open the door to give Daryl the opportunity to talk about his life so she didn’t feel like such an asshole about things.
Chuckling at the idea, Daryl shook his head and nodded toward his painting, “What you see behind me is the only difference in my life right now. Same old, same old. Just painting. I’m a very boring person.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” she refused, shaking her head in response.
“You’re delaying talking about why you are here,” Daryl pushed, tapping his hands against the back of the chair with his blue eyes narrowing. “So go ahead.”
“I’m just…not happy,” she whispered, having a hard time looking Daryl in the eye when she finally admitted things to him. “Every day, I find myself hating my life more and more. I used to be able to hold it in, but today, I just…I let a lot of it slip and that’s not like me.”
“Everyone has their breaking point. You just waited four years to have yours,” Daryl thought aloud, “I’m surprised it took you this long. I would have erupted in the first year from all of it. The first day really. Maggie really needs to be knocked on her ass.”
“Daryl,” she couldn’t help but be amused at how simply he said things. Shrugging dramatically, Daryl didn’t seem to care that his comment sounded harsh. “I can’t do that.”
“Oh, you can do that. And you should do that, you just won’t,” Daryl stressed, throwing his hands about while he spoke. “You just won’t. All because of a stupid promise you gave her father. I doubt her father knew that she was such a cunt. And I don’t think he’d want you being miserable to make sure his daughter had a good life.”
“Touché,” she exhaled loudly, knowing that Daryl hated Maggie. In her years of being close to both Daryl and Maggie, it was very obvious that the both of them heavily disliked each other. And they always did. Not once did they let up on it.
“I don’t know why you hold so tightly to that promise,” Daryl’s southern drawl had her sighing loudly. “Never did I understand it. I don’t think he expected you to make yourself miserable to lift his daughter up when she didn’t deserve it. He’d probably want you to put Maggie in her place.”
“Hershel was the closest thing to a father figure I had in my life for a long time,” she reminded Daryl, but that was a response that he never really went for. There was always an excuse she had as to why she continued to let things go with Maggie and he hated that. “You know I’m alone.”
“First of all, fuck you. You’re not alone. You have me,” Daryl grumbled under his breath, leaning back enough to place his hand in over the center of his bare chest. “Second, just because you’re alone doesn’t mean you have to suffer through this bullshit.”
“I don’t really think I can put up with much of her bullshit anymore,” she acknowledged, the lump in her throat growing along with the ache in her chest. After tonight she felt like her tolerance was completely starting to disappear. “I have finally realized that Maggie was never really my friend in the first place.”
“No shit,” Daryl scoffed, his nose wrinkling in disgust. That was something he tried to convince her for a very long time, but she never seemed to open her eyes to the truth. So to hear her talking like that made Daryl happy. “I’ve always told you that. Anyone with eyes can tell she uses you to make herself feel better. Common sense Y/N. She stole your work in order to get a job.”
“She said that was an accident,” she alerted Daryl who grumbled a slew of curse words under his breath.
“Right,” Daryl bit down on his bottom lip, his body tensing up because there was no way he believed that comment. And really? She didn’t either. It did feel purposeful at the time. “She took the job you always wanted. The job she didn’t even want. She just did it to do it. Now, she wants it cus’ she likes the attention it gets her and she still uses you all the time.”
Giving a single nod, she knew that Daryl wasn’t wrong.
“A friend don’t fuck the guy you’ve been in love with for years either,” Daryl slurred, his southern tone growing deeper with him lifting his hand to wave it about to make a point. “Maggie wants to hurt you because hurting you proves she’s better than you. And you let her hurt you. We both know she’s a fucking cunt.”
Sighing loudly, Y/N forced herself to look down at the ground. There was a warmth flooding into her face and she hated to admit Daryl was right, but she knew he was correct all along, “You’re not wrong.”
“I’m happy you’re finally agreeing with me, but what did she do to make you say fuck this?” Daryl inquired, his eyebrow arching up in curiosity. “Usually, you put up more of a fight than this for Maggie.”
“It’s a buildup of things. The abuse I take every day. The lack of acknowledgement or credit for the work that I do and the ideas I provide her with. It was no different today than the rest of the days, but today she was supposed to do an event for Negan. Be a key speaker at an event to try to get donations for the college we used to go to,” she educated Daryl on how her day began. “Apparently she had a sudden meeting that she couldn’t miss. So she told me to step in for her. Didn’t ask me. And like I always do, I saved Maggie’s ass. I went to this event and I started talking to Negan. I was very blunt with him tonight. I couldn’t hold it in about being miserable. And I couldn’t hold in my feelings about Maggie. I just let them rip. I asked him why he fell for Maggie and he told me that the day after she met him she kept going back every day to flirt with him. Saying she was very blunt about it. Persistent. And the day that I found them having sex together on our couch in our apartment, Maggie told Negan that I would be gone all night because I would be spending time with you. Maggie knew very well that I would be coming home. She staged it so I would see it.”
“See, this is what I’m saying,” Daryl scowled, his blue eyes narrowing. “The bitch deserves to get knocked on her ass. She’s not your friend. She never was. And Negan needs a swift kick to the balls for falling for it.”
“She promised me that she wouldn’t let things go any further. She knew how much I loved him and she still did that,” she felt her heart breaking considering this was the person that she took care of more than anyone, other than Jordyn. For so long she thought Maggie was her best friend, but no one had ever hurt her as much as Maggie had. “I asked Negan what he loved about her today, what it was that drew him to her. It’s obvious that he’s head over heels in love with her. Just the way other people talk about her says he can’t stop talking about her. And then I asked him what he thought about me.”
“You’re just asking to be hurt,” Daryl hissed at the idea of whatever it was that Negan said because now it was starting to make sense why she looked so upset. “I hate that piece of shit too.”
“He told me that he got with Maggie because she reminded him of Lucille and that she was the first person to show interest,” she recalled what it was that Negan had said while they were together. “I can’t imagine he didn’t know how I felt about him.”
“Unless he was fucking stupid,” Daryl declared getting her to laugh at how firmly he made that statement.
“He told me that he views me as his angel. The woman who saved him. And like I’m the mother to his daughter,” she informed Daryl what Negan had said, breaking it down in not so many words. “And then I asked him why he didn’t try to hook up with me. He uh…he laughed.”
“I told you I never liked that motherfucker,” Daryl put emphasis on his words, throwing his hand about when he spoke. “I know you think that he’s this special guy, but he always rubbed me the wrong way. Allowing you to take care of his daughter while he was off having a mental fucking breakdown and then fucking your best friend? Fuck that dude Y/N. I don’t understand why you are so head over heels for him in the first place. The one time I sat in his class, I felt like he was the most arrogant prick I’d ever listened to. The ego on him was fucking huge.”
“There are parts of him that I know that other people don’t,” she was quick to defend Negan, but then she even rolled her eyes at her own comment. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about things because he doesn’t feel the same way about me and I know that. Tonight confirmed it for me. But it doesn’t stop there.”
“Oh boy,” Daryl couldn’t believe that there was more. Especially after the whole Negan thing. Knowing that Negan confirmed that he didn’t like her like that should have been the main thing to devastate her. If there was something worse, Daryl knew it had to be bad.
“I went to pick up something for work,” Y/N nodded in the direction of the things she brought with her from Maggie’s house. “I walked in on Maggie having sex with our boss. And I mean, he was really giving it to her. Good. The first thing she jumped on was begging me to not tell Negan. But then her begging went to her down talking me putting me in a corner. She threatened to take away my job if I told Negan about her having an affair. I guess it’s pretty normal for her to fuck a lot of people. She told me that if I told Negan what I saw, she would get Jordyn taken away from me. She would take away my job. And I’d be forced to leave New York because I’d have no income.”
“That’s when you should have said fuck you Maggie, I’m calling his ass right now,” Daryl snorted, his throat tensing up along with the muscles in his chest. Tossing his hand up, he pointed at her when he saw the color flooding into her face. “But you didn’t.”
“She is capable of that Daryl. I can’t get another job. I’ve been a glorified slave over the last four years. And then I asked Negan today if he could get me a job in the film industry and he told me it was pretty much impossible,” she repeated what Negan had told her earlier getting Daryl to roll his eyes. Dropping his head down, Daryl grumbled under his breath and shook his head. “I need my paycheck. I can’t keep my apartment if I lose my job. And you know how much Jordyn means to me.”
“I’ve seen you with Jordyn. That little girl would not allow that to happen. Maggie could shit talk you to Negan, but Jordyn loves you. You are unfortunately like that little girl’s mother. You co-parent a child with Negan without having the man nut in you,” Daryl rambled on, getting a tiny laugh from her throat at how forward he was about things. “And your job? So what? Lose your job. I’ll move you in here with me until we can get you on your feet. You’re talented. Your talent will speak for itself eventually. And if you can’t get something, I can talk to Carol.”
“We’re not going to get the help of that woman that you had an affair with when you were younger,” she frowned at the suggestion of it making Daryl laugh. That was something Daryl always said to her when she was upset. “I know the two of you are like good friends now, but it would feel weird.”
“She works at the rival company of Vixen,” Daryl reminded Y/N of the hookup that he had who could help her. “I’m sure if we wanted to, we could give her some of your work and she’d easily get you a job there. You would be like their secret weapon against Guy Vixen and fucking Maggie Greene. There are options. Do not let that woman overrule your life.”
“It’s Jordyn I’m the most worried about,” she knew that the other things were bad, but it was Negan’s daughter that left the lasting impression on her. “I know how much Negan loves Maggie. If she wants me out of their lives, I’ll lose that little girl. And I’m not really her mother so it will be easy for Maggie to achieve.”
“God,” Daryl huffed out, lifting his hand to bury his head at the center of it. “Why did you have to fall for Negan? Falling for me would have been so much easier.”
“Yes, I know,” she sighed loudly, falling back against her chair with Daryl slowly lifting his head. Arching his eyebrow, Daryl’s blue eyes locked on hers and she shook her head. “You remind me of that all the time.”
“I was head over heels in love with you when we first met,” Daryl stated, biting down on his bottom lip recalling what it was like for him when he first met her. “If you would have just fallen for me instead of that prick, things would have been a whole lot easier for you.”
“But I don’t think we would have been this close,” she spoke honestly, her eyebrows furrowing with Daryl speaking up about them getting together again.
“You know the first time that you slept with me was when you found Maggie and Negan together, right?” Daryl pointed out, leaning back in the chair drawing attention to his chest and it made her suck in a sharp breath of air. “I took advantage that night and it was wrong.”
“I was throwing myself at you hard and I knew how you felt about me. So if someone is bad in the relationship, it was me,” she defended Daryl who tipped his head to the side, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “I thought that was the way to make myself feel better. Sex with you makes me feel better.”
“So is that why you’re here? You want to have sex?” Daryl offered causing her to smirk and have color flood into her face further. “I’m not joking. Us having sex has helped you feel better multiple times. I have a brand-new pack of condoms in the nightstand. We can get naked, turn off the lights. Open up the windows and let the light from the city flood in. Keep the tree and the string lights on. And we can have sex during the winter storm. It can be a whole new experience for you.”
Biting at her bottom lip, she gave Daryl a look that had him huffing out. Throwing his hands up in the air, he shook his head and tapped his hands against the chair again, “We have sex all the time Y/N. I don’t get why you’re second guessing it now.”
“We have sex when we’re horny Daryl. I don’t trust random strangers,” she admitted to him, an ache flooding her chest with the expression that he had over his features. “Plus, you’re my best friend. I feel like if we continue to have sex, the lines are going to blur.”
“If that was the case, the lines blurred a long time ago because we’ve had sex a lot,” Daryl countered, sucking at his bottom lip, his blue eyes locking with hers and it made her heart skip a beat. “I think it’s so good because we are close.”
“It sounds like you’re the one that might want the sex,” she noted, licking her lips when she started to consider Daryl’s offer.
“So what if I do? It makes both of us feel good for a while. I’m telling you, if Negan knew how good you were at riding a cock, he would give up Maggie in an instant,” Daryl spouted off getting her to choke at how blunt he was being about the sex life that they had shared together. “I’m just saying, I’ve never nutted so hard in my life.”
“Thanks Daryl,” she snickered at the thought, shaking her head when she considered what Daryl was offering. “I guess, just with Negan…I’ve never felt so unwanted in my life.”
“Then come here,” Daryl wiggled his fingers about, getting up from the chair and moving over toward the bed. Dropping down on the bottom of it, Daryl started to push at his jeans working them down his legs. It had her staring out at him from where she was seated on the chair. “I’ll make you feel wanted. Show you the things you wish he would.”
“Sex doesn’t fix things Daryl. It feels good for a small amount of time, but that’s it,” she reasoned with Daryl, getting up from the chair that she was seated in to stare down at him as she approached the bed. “These are genuine things that I’m worried about. Things that…”
“Things that aren’t going to go away overnight. Nothing I say is going to fix these things cus’ you are going to do what you want to do at the end of the day,” Daryl grumbled under his breath, outstretching his fingers toward the nightstand. Pulling open the top drawer, he pulled out the pack of condoms and snagged one of the foil packages from it. “You want to feel special. I see it in the way that you are looking at me. Let me make you feel special.”
Sinking his fingers into his boxers that he was wearing, Daryl pushed the material down his body by lifting his hips up. Letting the material pool at his ankles, he kicked it aside and wiggled his finger at her again, “You know I’m drunk.”
“I’m never not drunk,” Daryl slurred with a grunt, his blue eyes watching her closely when she looked down at his naked body. By having the discussion that they were, Daryl was somewhat erect. “It’s not like either one of us would be taking advantage of the other. We’re two friends that enjoy having sex together. You’re looking for someone to make you feel good. I enjoy any time I get to spend with you. If this isn’t what you want, I’ll just as happily lay down in bed with you and we can talk the rest of the night.”
Biting down on his bottom lip, Daryl watched her movements as she stepped forward. Moving for the windows, she pulled apart the curtains to let the light in from the outside. Heading next for the lights, she turned them off only allowing the city lights to flood into his apartment along with the Christmas lights. Stepping in front of Daryl, she felt her heart rate quicken with the way that he was staring up at her in the shadows. Working out of his t-shirt, she tossed it onto the bed and then worked on the pajama pants. There was something in the way that he looked at her that made her feel seen. That made her feel special.
“Do you think I have nice breasts?” she wondered, standing before Daryl naked and it made him smirk. Since those were the main topic of tonight, it was something that had been on her mind a lot. “Because tonight, everyone kept talking about them. I didn’t realize how capable they were of drawing attention.”
“I think you already know the answer to that question,” Daryl braced himself when she moved carefully in over him. Pressing his hands in over her sides, Daryl gave her hips a firm squeeze with her right arm hooking loosely around his muscular shoulders. “They are nice breasts. So of course they could make anyone do anything. You should use them more often.”
Pulling her in over his lap, Daryl reached for the condom that he grabbed being careful to work open the foil packaging. Faintly, her hands dragged down over his shoulders toward his chest. Caressing up over the side of his neck had Daryl tipping his head to the side and she pampered his neck with tiny kisses. Sucking in a sharp breath of air, Daryl’s eyes came to a tight close before forcing himself to focus. Working his condom on, Daryl grunted and curled his arm around her waist to pull her firmly in over him. Clasping her chin between his thumb and index finger, Daryl got her to lock eyes with him and he dragged his thumb over her bottom lip.
“I wish you allowed yourself to see you the way I always saw you,” Daryl slurred, lifting up enough to capture her lips in a lingering kiss. Reaching between the two of them with his free hand, he helped to lead his body to hers. It had her eyes closing tightly, the warmth of her breath vibrating against his when she moaned at their bodies being joined together. Hovering his lips over hers, Daryl brushed his thumb at the side of her neck and tipped his head back. “You are so much more than you give yourself credit for.”
Allowing her to make the first move, Daryl was silent when she took her time lifting her hips and then slowly lowered them over him. Staring up at her with awe, he was breathless with the way that her head tipped back. A rush of pleasure flooded into her face and it was something he knew that he was addicted to. Palming down over her back, Daryl stopped when his hands squeezed firmly at her bottom helping to aid her movement over his rigid length, “You’d be the most arrogant woman alive if you gave yourself that opportunity.”
“You wouldn’t like me arrogant,” she hushed him, pressing wet kisses over his bottom lip. Cupping his face in her hands, she allowed her right hand to caress in over the side of his neck. Sinking her fingers into his hair had him tipping his head back with her lips hovering in over his. “You like me the way I am.”
“But I’d rather you happy,” Daryl commented, his eyelids growing heavy with his sharp breathing filling the dark room with their bodies moving in unison. Winces fell from Daryl’s throat when her movements gradually grew harder and faster. Dropping his head down, Daryl rest it against the side of her neck with her clinging firmly to him. “Negan is a goddamn fool.”
“I think I’m the fool,” she alerted him, tugging firmly at his mid-length hair. Bouncing her hips over him harder had Daryl moaning against her flesh, the warmth of his breath causing chills down her spine. “I should have known that he’d never love me or want me.”
“Then that’s his loss,” Daryl grunted, forcefully rolling her over onto her back. Crawling carefully in over her, Daryl hooked his arm around her, bringing them closer together. With his free hand, he swept his thumb in over her jawline and let out a tremoring breath. “Anyone with half a brain would see how special you are. He had eight years to see it and he never made a move. So that’s his loss. Don’t forget how special you are. How beautiful you are.”
Daryl’s thrusts were slow, his breathing broken with every roll of his hips against hers. Meeting her in small kisses over and over, Daryl cradled her head tenderly. Lowering in closer to her, he braced his weight and started to move faster having her pants fill the air. Nibbling at her bottom lip, he groaned with her fingers digging into his flesh.
“Look at me,” he breathed, curling his fingers around the back of her neck, his lips hovering over hers. Just close enough for his lips to skim faintly at her bottom lip. “Never doubt how perfect you are.”
Lifting up, she stole a kiss from Daryl’s lips knowing that this was a bad way to do things. What should have been a onetime thing between them had grown to be pretty consistent. With how she knew Daryl felt about her, it made her feel like a bad person every time she let this happen. Daryl never hid his feelings from her. So for him to know that she was head over heels in love with Negan, yet she was still having sex with Daryl pretty frequently felt wrong. But there was something about the way that Daryl looked at her. Touched her. Spoke to her. It all made her feel special. Something she hadn’t felt in many years.
And that’s why she had trouble turning him down. Not only tonight but all the other nights before. Although, she needed this more than she even knew. Because Daryl was the only person that made her feel seen and tonight proved that.
----
Tags: @slutlanna976 @fuckthis-and-fuckthat @jennydehavilland @pixelb4rbie @ibelongtonegan
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#Daryl Dixon#Norman Reedus#Daryl Dixon x reader#Daryl Dixon fanfiction#The Walking Dead#The walking Dead fanfiction#twd fanfiction#Negan Smith#Negan#Negan fanfiction#Negan x reader#Negan x you#daryl dixon x you#Daryl Dixon Imagine#Negan Imagine#Jeffrey Dean Morgan
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Forgiven: joYOUs | CEO Steve/f!Reader series Part III
MCU MASTERLIST | STEVE MASTERLIST | Ro Roll | Prev Fic
Summary: You and Steve Rogers have been dating for a little over two months, and it's been wonderful. Through it all you've asked yourself if it could possibly be real--but when he finally invites you to stay over at his apartment, you realize that being 'real' has as much to do with his complicated issues at work as it does being a Hallmark movie protagonist brought to life.
WC/Warnings: 5,200 // explicit sex
As 6/7 of my Ro Roll badly-belated-birthday fics for @ronearoundblindly, joYOUs is part III in my CEO Steve and f!Freader series. This story also (more lightly than intended) is written for the 'first fall of snow' prompt for @the-slumberparty's December Daze!
Can be read standalone!
Excerpt:
“I have a confession to make,” Steve says in an apologetic tone.
Your mind springs to swift and miserable action: Somehow his good guy persona is a sham and he’s actually a real-life Christian Grey (honestly, you’d try it). This is all a bet and your naive honesty is embarrassing (horrifyingly plausible)...
Steve says, “--happened to it, I have no idea what, but the food’s ruined. We’re going to have to get take-out.”
His warm apologetic tone heats your fears into float-away steam, and you rush to reconnect with reality. “I’m sorry that happened, but I’m here for you, not your food,” you stammer out, only fully hearing what you’ve said once it’s already out there. “Shit, that came out--”
“--perfectly,” Steve laughs.
Joyous
You’ve tried not to read anything into the 36 hours of no-contact since Steve left on his business trip. He had warned you that he would be ‘can’t check the phone’ kind of busy, but you also know that his stress has ramped up considerably with the holidays coming up. You suspect that the café project hadn’t been enough of a respite--but you’d promised yourself not to push him too hard about his burnout, and that includes acting like it’s no big deal that you haven’t talked for a while.
Just normal early relationship stuff, really.
That all drops away like an uncomfortable bra after a long day at work when you get a text at 10 PM Friday night.
🪴🪴🪴: We still on for tomorrow at 7? I’ve been thinking about you since the plane took off from LaGuardia.
🪴🪴🪴: Whoops i
🪴🪴🪴: was only supposed to send that first part.
🪴🪴🪴: Hit enter too e
🪴🪴🪴: Buck give me back the phone. Don’t send her anything, okay? You’re hopeless, man. You have to leave some mystery. If she had any idea how much you talked about her while we were gone, she’d probably quit her job and leave the state. What’s. Oh shit it’s recording. How do I make it. Give it back. Bucky I mean it just put it down before you screwdriver
Screwdriver?
The (thrilling) mess of words take a minute or two to detangle, and once you parse the dictated back-and-forth, you realize that Steve’s subsequent silence is probably mortification. Adorable mortification.
The phone rings on silent mode, buzzing wildly in your hand. Surprise makes you drop it on your lap like it’s alive-- which it might as well be, because the vibration sends it jittering across your indulgent silk pajamas and onto the floor.
“Shit!” you gasp out, knowing that any delay in answering will probably make everything much worse. You scramble off the bed in a move so inelegant your sister calls out asking if you’ve joined her in Broken Leg Land. “I’m fine, just an idiot!” you holler, finally grabbing the phone from your crumpled position on the bedroom floor.
“That’s not true at all!” Steve Rogers’ voice echoes from the speakers. You must have brushed the ‘answer’ part when you picked it up, because of course that would happen.
“Oh my god, is there a deity of phones I’ve badly wronged today?” you gasp out, bringing the thing gingerly up to your ear. Thankfully, he’s chuckling, and damn, it’s sexy.
“Seems like it. Should we call this a draw?” he suggests, adding, “I evicted the phone thief, sorry about that. He just wants what’s best for me.”
“Which would be… screwdrivers?” you offer, grinning despite your rational brain screaming at you not to sound overeager. “You somehow don’t strike me as an orange juice and vodka kind of guy.”
“You’re right, and that was a nice deflect.” There’s gratitude as well as sheepishness in Steve’s voice. When paired with the ‘forbidden truths’ in the dictated texts, you may be sitting on the floor in twisted-up PJs, but your mind and heart are floating on a cloud somewhere high above Manhattan. “Should I send a car tomorrow?”
Surprise snarls the response in your throat into a twisted um-cough combo that is entirely indelicate. “Sorry, yes, that, yes,” you manage, kicking yourself. He runs a company, having a car service probably doesn’t seem impersonal to him, even though he’s always picked you up or met you somewhere before this. The Maiden Aunt in your brain tries to argue that the magic is over, but she’s drowned out by College TA, who thinks this is a step up in statistical importance.
Some girls get a devil on their shoulder, but you ended up with a pessimist and an overachiever.
“How about a do-over,” Steve says, interrupting your mental chaos. “Can I pick you up tomorrow?”
“Yes!” you say in a flood of relief. “I’m sorry, you said ‘send a car’ and all I could picture was one of those movies where someone in livery holds up a piece of paper with my name--”
He interrupts before you can gnaw past the foot in your mouth and up onto the ankle.
“I don’t mind driving, don’t worry. See you at seven, then.” With that, CEO Eye, Ear, and Heart Candy hangs up, leaving you in a flustered, anticipatory mess on the floor in your bedroom.
Jennie gives you relentless shit over that whole sequence of events, but she also gives you access to her closet. You’ve already run through your handful of fancy dresses on dates with Steve, and everything else gives you ‘someday I might go clubbing’ or ‘student on a budget’ vibes.
Your sister’s tastes run more expensive than yours, and she’s always been a fan of modular clothing-- skirts that wrap around, blouses with 3x as much fabric as necessary that end up folding and twisting into a masterpiece, etc. It’s worked out well for her while she’s laid up with a broken leg, but the unusual style might help you keep up appearances. You choose a black form-fitting pants topped with a silky wraparound blouse; hopefully they’ll look sophisticated enough for your first visit to Steve’s apartment.
True to form, Jennie makes three ‘wrapped present’ jokes about the two ribbon-tied sections of your shirt before you make it out the door.
Steve is waiting beside his car when you come outside. He’s clearly come from work, wearing tailored trousers and a crisp white shirt that looks so good you’re practically overheating in the brisk winter air. Then he smiles at you, and your body takes a detour from ‘visit to Arizona’ straight down to ‘the Brazilian Rainforest,’ all innuendo included.
Oblivious to your secretly disrespectful ogling, Steve moves to escort you to your car door, standing deliciously close by as he opens it. His aftershave smells heady and masculine, distracting enough that you turn your heel a little bit on the seam of the sidewalk. Your unbuttoned coat swings back and his hand moves to steady you, fingers tangling in the red ribbon holding your blouse together on that side.
“Oh!” you gasp, half because of his sheer strength and half because good god, if that bow comes undone on the street you’re not sure how much you’re even going to care right now. You gently grasp his hand (finding that, yep, the sizzling live wire connection on physical contact is still active), salvaging the knot for the sake of your sanity.
“Wow,” Steve breathes in a low voice that sends its resonance whizzing through your whole body. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” you murmur intelligently.
You’re never going to tell your sister how many mental seconds it’s taken you to go from 0 to head over heels for this man.
“Do you need me to adjust the buckle? You were making a face,” Steve explains.
“Oh, no, I was coming up with something suitably embarrassing to text my nagging sister so she doesn’t send me ‘romantic suggestions’ all night,” you admit. “She means well, but I think she’s been watching too many Hallmark Christmas movies. Nothing I do or say will measure up!”
He chuckles. “I won’t comment on what my own nag might have to say on the outcome of the evening.”
“You mean the professional phone thief? He owes you, not the other way around! Telling secrets on dictation while your friend’s planning to bring a girl home-- and then sending it? Hung, drawn, and quartered.”
“Well, the method of delivery may have been terrible,” Steve says, looking over at you while paused at a red light, “--but none of that was a secret.”
The light changes, and just like Jennie’s favorite movies, he holds your gaze instead of driving on. You’re suddenly very aware of everywhere your clothing touches you, especially at your chest, where the fabric of your blouse clings to your curves. When you pull in a breath, Steve’s attention dips down to appreciate them, too.
“Eyes on the road, CEO Eye Candy,” you tease (not for the first time), and his expression scrunches up into easy laughter.
There’s an older, well-dressed couple in the parking garage to his building when you arrive, and the four of you ride the elevator up together until you and Steve step out. Just before the doors close, you catch the woman looking up at her husband fondly, nodding toward the two of you. No pressure! you think to yourself again, but then Steve opens the door to his apartment and smiles with such honest happiness that you forget everything else but him.
Just like he is, the main room is a charming mix of vintage and modern, with warm wood accents and high-tech amenities. There’s something both open and intimate that hits you right away; the floor is dotted with comforting rugs, the walls with bookcases, creating cozy little nooks, but the lamplight is warm and inviting throughout.
“I need to start the oven,” Steve says with a light touch to your arm, gesturing to take your coat. You nod and hand it over before you step farther in, finally letting yourself glance beyond the bookshelves of classics and the homey crochet afghan to the view.
It’s completely captivating. The wall of windows face east, showing the lively cityscape to glorious effect (and you can’t help but picture what the sunrise would look like!). It suddenly hits you that you’re in Steve’s space. There are no phones to ring and save you from a misstep, no waitress to break the tension, no dog running past chasing its ball in the grass.
If he sees just how far gone you are on him already, will Steve think you’re a gold-digger, or will he understand that you can’t help but be dazzled and drawn in by the kind of man he is, not the things he surrounds himself with?
“Are you all right?” Steve asks. You startle, making eye contact with his reflection in the window, and something about the intimacy of that makes you tell the absolute truth.
“I’m realizing there are no flowerpots to hide behind.”
He smiles and moves closer, one hand casually in his pocket. When he’s just near enough that you can feel his warmth through the back of your blouse, Steve tips his head in a move that bleeds sincerity, still holding your gaze.
“What if you didn’t have to hide?”
You can’t look away. “What if that doesn’t make me any less shy?”
“Makes it all the more rewarding to earn that smile of yours,” Steve says, moving to face you instead of the view.
The weight of where you are, who you’re with, and how much it means to you keeps your gaze glued to the view outside the window, but the city lights blur a little with the frequency of your blinking. You want to reassure him that the shyness is good actually, that it means you really like him, that what he thinks about you is important--
“I have a confession to make,” Steve says in an apologetic tone.
Your mind springs to swift and miserable action: Somehow his good guy persona is a sham and he’s actually a real-life Christian Grey (honestly, you’d try it). This is all a bet and your naive honesty is embarrassing (horrifyingly plausible)...
Steve says, “--happened to it, I have no idea what, but the food’s ruined. We’re going to have to get take-out.”
His warm apologetic tone heats your fears into float-away steam, and you rush to reconnect with reality. “I’m sorry that happened, but I’m here for you, not your food,” you stammer out, only fully hearing what you’ve said once it’s already out there. “Shit, that came out--”
“--perfectly,” Steve laughs. You can’t help but toss him the Skeptical Eyebrow, despite your heart voting on the ‘melt’ option. “I’m being serious,” he goes on. “Honesty is in rare supply for much of my day-to-day. Suppliers expect us to push for cheaper materials, manufacturers are uncomfortable with flexible deadlines, and we’ve fired multiple product designers who get upset by how much we rely on end-user feedback.” He lets out a long sigh, punctuating it with a rueful laugh. “I felt more relaxed with the construction crew than I do with my so-called ‘peers.’”
The frustrated defeat in his tone makes you step close to tuck yourself up against his side, hugging him with an arm around his back. Steve’s arm comes around you right away, and god, you wish you could bottle that feeling. The two of you have shared quite a few toe-curling kisses, but physical affection like this is exciting, despite being prompted by Steve’s ongoing business concerns.
It’s easy to believe that this part of your life isn’t real when you’re at work answering phones and giving directions. You’re never prepared for the way Steve tips your life upside down, and in a way that makes moments like this more magical. Late at night, you do sometimes worry your job at his company makes it harder for him to disconnect.
With his heartbeat thrumming under your cheek and his arm tucked around you, that concern feels as far away as the streetlights visible across the city. There’s still a thread of tenseness in his embrace that tells you he’s not as relaxed as you are. You might not have the money to take him out for a fancy dinner or attend an exclusive event, but you can show him he’s wanted.
“So what you’re saying is that we should brainstorm another building project for the lobby? Preferably within sightlines of the front desk?”
You get to feel his laugh before you hear it.
“Oh, I wish. I’ve actually started looking into Habitat For Humanity, a couple of other hands-on charities,” Steve tells you, squeezing you tighter against him for a second or two. “They’ve got experience with higher profile contributors, safety concerns, that sort of thing.”
The moment hangs. Humor isn’t enough.
“That doesn’t solve the underlying problem though, because the problem isn’t you,” you realize aloud.
“You’re right.” Steve kisses your hairline, but you can sense that his metaphorically held breath isn’t going to release like this. You’re struck by the rightness of your reflection; the two of you fit together so well visually that it’s easy to miss his job insecurities and your uncertain future. Movement beyond the surface catches your eye, and you realize it’s the perfect way to break the tension.
“Oh! It’s snowing!”
“Those are some giant snowflakes.” He hugs you to him briefly before stepping over to a small panel on the wall. “May I?”
The more time you spend with him, the braver you feel. “I’m going to say yes, even though I don’t know what you’re asking.”
Steve’s answering smile is blindingly handsome. “Watch,” he says, nodding to the view. A second later the lights in the room dim or shut off, heightening the glowing cityscape outside. There’s a beauty to the familiar hodgepodge of buildings, more so with the fairy dust of snow drifting down from above.
“It’s like a snowglobe,” you say, tearing your eyes away from the scene to look at Steve. To your surprise, he’s not looking outside, he’s looking at you.
“May I?” he asks again. Heart pounding, you nod, and he walks toward you, his features thrown into sharp relief by the dim light. When Steve finally reaches you, the anticipation has doused you with fuel set alight by the touch of his hand at your cheek.
This kiss is nothing like the gentle exploration that was your first with Steve. Where then you were still learning each other, this is knowledge. He lifts you up against him effortlessly, his thumb tangling with the ties of your blouse in a way that pulls it taut against your breasts. You let out a gasp as he kisses his way down from your neck over to the neckline of your blouse, making a begging sound of his own.
It sounds like enough of a ‘May I?’ that you whisper, “Yes.”
In three large strides he’s at the couch, setting you onto your feet as he sweeps the afghan and pillows out of the way. When he turns to face you again, you offer him the end of the ribbon tie holding your blouse together.
The reverence with which Steve pulls it loose is sexy as hell, but you absolutely adore the way he locks eyes with you and keeps your gaze when the fabric falls away. You pull in a ragged breath, and his gaze sharpens.
“What do you want?” he asks, his own answer ringing in the undertones.
You want everything, as far into the future as fate allows, but you force yourself to focus on the here and now. “I-- God, I just want you. I want-- oh!” You press your lips together to stop yourself, shy again. There’s honesty, and then there’s honesty. In that confident but gentle way he has, Steve knows exactly what to say.
“Whatever it is, yes.”
He takes your hand and backs the few inches to the couch, sitting down and tugging gently, a clear but respectful invitation. Steve takes a few seconds to just look at you, his eyes tracing across your features and down to the structure of your blouse. He’d mentioned his sketchbook at one of your early-on dates but never elaborated; now the way he unerringly follows each ribbon with his eyes, fingertips, and then lips make you feel like a work of art.
By the time your shirt drops to the floor, you’re practically drunk on the honest arousal you can taste on his lips--and you’re still mostly dressed! One thing you’re certain of: no one will ever make you feel as much like a medieval harlot and an object of worship at the same time like Steve Rogers.
Reluctantly, you draw back from his addictive kisses, pulling his hand from your cheek to briefly kiss his palm. “I’m going to ask you something, and you’re going to answer me without trying to smooth anything over, got it?”
Steve’s gaze darkens with an amused sort of interest. “I’ll see where you’re going with this, but you should know that there are two places I like to be in charge: the boardroom and the bedroom.”
His tone is gentle, but with an undercurrent of steel. You’re completely unable to stop the way your breath catches and your thighs clench. Sweet fires of hell, this man is perfect.
“It’s a deal,” you manage to squeak out.
“Go on, then.” Steve lifts a hand to brush his thumb along your hairline, down your cheek to press against your lips, dragging them open. From there, he continues to where the swell of your breast meets the lace of your bra, skirting your nipple by lifting his hand up to clasp with the other hand behind his head. Throughout, his gaze holds yours, intense and commanding.
“Sure, show me up, like I’m going to remember anything more than my own name, at this point,” you whisper-whine.
“I used it a few times on my recent trip.” His soft admission is in direct contrast to his casual, confident body language. You’re starting to realize there’s a stronger dichotomy to Steve than you thought. Will you get to have the kind, thoughtful boyfriend who saves you from an evening of elitist tedium and a fierce, possessive lover?
Will you survive, if so?
“Tell me. I’m getting a little jealous of whatever it is you’re thinking about,” Steve intones.
You stop biting your lip and grin. “I’m filing away these new pieces of information about you. Just… don’t ask me where I’m filing them.”
“Oh, I will.”
His voice is like a caress that cascades over you, pausing at your most sensitive places. You shiver, both for your own acknowledgment of the sexual tension and for him to appreciate his effect on you. After letting out a breath that’s more like a yearning sigh, you set your hands on the top button of his dress shirt. With Steve’s steady gaze on you, though, you’re questioning yourself.
“My plan sounds stupid in my head now, with you oozing all of this confidence.”
Immediately, his hand covers yours, setting off sparks with every swipe of his thumb on your skin. “At work it’s a facade, a persona, even--and not a flattering one. I didn’t think I could shake it off, the night of the gala. It’s more natural when--” He interrupts himself by pulling you in for a deep, passionate kiss.
“You’re not faking it here,” you observe minutes later. The whole concept is knocking you sideways, but-- “Okay, I need to tell you I’m picturing you in one of those tailored suits commanding a room of powerful people and that is just sexy as hell.”
He rocks his hips up into you. “I’ll let them know--but, roll back a minute. What was your plan? Better yet,” Steve interrupts himself, setting a heavy hand on your hip to hold you still as he grinds up against you again. “Show me.”
His confidence is literally rubbing off on you. “All right, but fair warning: it’s very ‘over-eager receptionist peeks at you between decorative plants.’” As soon as the words are out of your mouth, his warm hand travels from your hip around and down, fingertips pushing aside your waistbands to firmly grip your ass.
“I know exactly who I’m here with.”
There’s enough of the altruistic, spend-a-week-building-with-the-bros tone in his voice to be reassuring, and you nod.
“Right, then.” Briskly, with the heat of arousal singing through you from every point of contact, you unbutton the top button of his dress shirt. “You’re kind.” Button two: “You’re moral and fair.” Your eyes are focused on your ‘work,’ but you can see Steve break into a smile. At button three, you’re almost halfway down. “You’re a hard worker.”
Steve lets out a deep ‘Mmmm’ sound. Thanks to his ass-grab leverage, he blatantly moves your hips in time with his for a cycle of thrusts that leave you breathless. You can’t look at him, so you clear your throat like a prudish schoolmarm and meticulously unbutton #4.
“You’re good at your… job.” It takes a little while to free this button, so you end up worrying your lower lip with your teeth as you try. Once you’re finished, with anticipation lifting every single hair follicle on your body, only then do you make eye contact.
He mutters ‘fuck’ and reaches between the two of you to unbuckle his belt, popping his trouser snap with an expression that challenges you to object.
There are two shirt buttons left.
You’re completely out of your depth, as desperate to come as you may have ever been in your entire existence, and you have zero idea what else to say--but you reach for button number five.
You wet your lips. Slowly.
Steve grips the couch with his free hand-- but the one he’s holding onto you with is still firm and not at all bruising (not that you’d mind. You’ll paint yourself with this man’s passion if he lets you).
“You’re passionate.”
He makes a cut-off sort of growl in the back of his throat when you move to the last button. You can see the heavy bulge of his cock in his boxer briefs just an inch away from your palms. In a perfect world, you’d say ‘fuck it’ to coming up with another word. In a perfect world, you’d reward both of you by giving up and sliding to your knees, demonstrating exactly how much you appreciate this tall, sexy, beast of an honorable man--and then you have an idea.
Your borrowed pants have a simple clasp, and you move your hands slowly from Steve’s last remaining shirt button to release it, incidentally dragging across his straining cock as you do so. The blatant teasing gets ‘worse’ when you draw down your zipper, nudging, rubbing, and pressing until it’s fully unzipped.
Throughout, Steve’s hand on your ass remains steady, but his breathing grows more and more ragged.
Finally, you lift your hands up and away, denying him any more contact before dropping down to reach for the last button.
“You--” he rumbles, but you interrupt him with two words.
“You’re patient.”
With a practically incomprehensible oath that thoroughly refutes your last impudent compliment, Steve shoves down your loosened clothing and angles the two of you to the side on the couch, all in a single action. Then he sinks two fingers inside you roughly, both of you groaning at the desperate, glorious pleasure of it.
You cram a fist in your mouth, but he stops in the middle of his one-handed shucking of his pants and boxers to yank your fist free.
“All through that shitty conference I imagined the noises you’d make tonight,” Steve grits out, looking down at you with naked desire in his eyes. He twists his fingers mid thrust, and you can’t help but cry out, your hips chasing every movement his talented, devastating fingers perform on you.
You’re already so close. The white-hot, catastrophic release starts to cloud your vision, stayed only by your delayed understanding of what he just said.
“Wait, you’re saying during the--”
Steve kicks the last inches of his lower clothing free and swaps hands deftly, spreading your arousal on his cock with an ‘Mmmm’ of pleasure so filthy you flutter around his fingers in pre-orgasmic shock.
“Thinking about you genuinely kept me sane, and I'm going to turn those daydreams into reality,” he rasps, a modern Greek god with the morals of a saint and the body of a satyr, as if you could ever do anything but gratefully worship him.
You mouth something like the word “Yes,” too desperate for anything more coherent.
The pleasure that follows his first deep thrust is ruinous. You forget everything but Steve, the taste of praise on his lips, the delight his touch chases across your skin, and most of all, the power he arches into you, music and mayhem and meaning, all at once. By the time you’re shuddering around each other you’ve ended up on the floor in front of his couch--and you only notice because Steve’s got a hand cradling the back of your head.
“I’m out of adjectives,” you whisper weakly. “All of the good ones. Most of the naughty ones. Fuck, other languages, too. Even extinct ones. You’re fluent in everything.”
Steve pulls you to his chest and does something athletic that ends with you on the couch beside him, his soft homemade afghan covering the most pertinent parts of your nakedness.
“You make me want to be fluent in everything,” he murmurs. “And, thank you.” Steve grabs his shirt and holds it in front of his crotch. “I’ll get a washcloth.”
He’s jogging farther into the apartment before you can respond, but something about his protective actions trigger a flurry of realization, something you should be--
Oh.
The fall of snow past the giant picture windows brings reality crashing into you. You just had glorious, intense, messy sex in a room that is visible from other nearby buildings!
Steve reappears with a soft-looking washcloth. He’s wearing pajama pants, with what looks like a matching long-sleeved top slung over his shoulder.
“I forgot about the windows,” you say in a small voice, taking the washcloth and using it under the afghan.
“Oh, right,” he says in a completely un-worried voice. Steve looks over at you, sees the half-scared expression on your face, and his demeanor sort of… softens. It’s both obvious and hard to quantify, and it hits you that he’s almost certainly done that before, even if you hadn’t noticed. You imagine there’s a lot of things his clothes and a carefully-crafted facial expression would cover for. He sits down beside you on the couch and offers you the shirt as he says, “The couch is recessed enough into the room that it’s not very visible, I think, but I wasn’t thinking, and I should have asked you about that. I’m sorry.”
He looks like he’s about to say something else, and you ask him about that while pulling on his proffered pajama top, juggling the blanket in the process.
“Would it be strange to say I get very… goals-oriented?” he asks, rueful and amused in equal measure.
“How much different a ‘persona’ are we talking, here?”
The question is meant playfully, but Steve takes long enough to answer that you can feel the warmth of the washcloth start to fade in your hand.
“Too different for comfort, I’m coming to realize.”
He reaches for the washcloth, but you pull it close and get up, gesturing for him to lead you to wherever you can rinse it out. On the way, you can’t help but eye the windows in a new way, perhaps as unintentional adversaries.
“I haven’t let myself be truly seen in a long time,” Steve says as you drape the rinsed washcloth on a drying rack in the dimly-lit kitchen area. “The reason is--well, it might be insulting, but it’s honest.”
You resist the urge to hug your arms around yourself. He’s given you a shirt to wear that matches his, and you were serious with those compliments earlier, despite the pleasure-wrought desperation you felt as you spoke them. “Go on?”
“You’re yourself with me. Not fawning. There’s no facade, no attempt to pretend you have more money or influence. That’s rare. Precious even.”
His statement stings, despite everything that’s happened tonight, despite the way his compliment hews off the rough edges. There’s no derision or judgment in his tone, so you smile at him, albeit stiffly.
“I don’t really have a way to hide those things. I’m me. I figured if you were bothered by--” you wince, feeling a sense of inferiority rise up inside you (dropped out of college, pulled out of your internship, entry-level job, depleted nest-egg, caregiver for your sister, baggage, baggage, baggage) before you wrestle it all back down. “--any of that, you’d move on, and I wouldn’t be able to stop you.”
“I don’t want to move on,” Steve says firmly, brushing his hand over your hair as if to adjust the disarray that came from putting on his shirt. “I want to move forward, even if that means you can see through some of the windows I usually cover with curtains. Will you be exclusive with me?”
“I’d really like that,” you whisper, overcome. “And not just because you fuck like a complete god.”
The words slip out before you can fucking stop them, and you gasp, the tidal wave of your social inferiority to a man like Steve coming blasting through all the tentative bridges you’ve just built. You hear buzzing in your ears, your vision is misted over with regret--but seconds later, you realize he’s laughing.
“Okay I swear on every single deity that exists, I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud! I’m so sorry,” you groan, your relief over his amusement barely tempering the metallic tang of adrenaline on your tongue.
Your… your boyfriend Steve Rogers takes your hand in his and lifts it up, bowing over it before kissing it with more chivalry than a whole season of Game of Thrones. Even one of the early ones.
“Sweetheart, you’re forgiven.”
<- Previous story...
#navy and roo's sleepover#steve rogers x reader#steve rogers x f!reader#steve rogers x you#captain america x f!reader#captain america x you#captain america x reader#ceo steve#steve rogers smut#captain america smut#humor#smut#romance#established relationship#mcu fanfic#mcu fic#marvel fanfic#marvel fic#marvel fanfiction#mcu fanfiction
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https://www.tumblr.com/brf-rumortrackinganon/770399973941624832/of-course-he-doesnt-want-to-throw-away-his-own?source=share
Yikes! Could it be because he thinks he's above everyone and thinks anything he takes he should get for free? And the shoes and clothes are an attempt to make it seem like he's just a regular guy with a blue-blood?
Probably. I was reading this Buzzfeed listicle about celebrities and Hollywood secrets. One of the things that kept popping up was that a lot of people in Hollywood get comped so much that they expect everything to be free. I think that's part of Harry's mentality - he got a lot growing up because he was famous and royal, so he thinks he should get everything he wants for free or cheap.
As for the clothes and shoes - he doesn't care. Genuinely doesn't and is absolutely gobsmacked that anyone should. Says so in Spare:
It doesn't matter that he dried his clothes on the radiator or whether it's a believable story or not. Not caring about your clothes doesn't make you cool or busy; it tells the people you're meeting that you don't care enough about them and they're not worth your time and effort. It's even worse when you're working on behalf of the crown representing your grandmother, the literal head of state - it's implying that the crown doesn't think those people/places/events aren't worth their time and attention. It's the age-old adage: to get respect, you have to show it. And wrinkled, ill-fitting clothing when meeting people who have less than you isn't it.
But the story in Spare about how he prefers to bargain shop at TK Maxx is definitely meant to endear him as an average regular guy, aka the royal everyone wants to go out for a beer with. He prides himself on being "the relatable one" (but doesn't realize how tone-deaf it is when he talks about six million dollars of private security annually, a 14-bedroom mansion, and private flights with Elton John).
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cg ! vander headcanons !!
requested by anon. struggling atm but i feel worse not being productive at all so thought i'd try my hand at these. i won't be making a lot of vander content as i'm just not as familiar with him and feel less comfortable writing about men but he's so dad so just this once let me cook ! apologies if he's ooc i did my best.. not proofread ヾ(_ _*) any mistakes are on me. my posts will definitely be slower during this time , please be patient with me i'm doing my best but motivations and energy are both low and i have some personal things going on keeping me busy. arcane masterlist here , upcoming list here
vander's favorite nickname from you is "papa" or "papa bear" but he's not picky. whatever his little one wants to call him is cool with him. he prefers masculine titles but is not opposed to being called "mama" if it would make you happy.
vander is always mixing you up delicious milk concoctions. you never know what flavor you're going to get , he likes to surprise you , but they're always so yummy !
vander always makes you your lunches , leaving you notes like the one in the picture in the brown paper bag. he always makes you a special sandwich and is sure to add both a fruit and a treat in your lunch.
vander loves cooking for you ! he's always making you good hearty meals , whistling as he does so. if you show interest he's happy to include you , letting you stir a sauce or giving you the honors of being the taste tester. "hmm.. whaddaya think it needs , kiddo?" he wears silly aprons which make you giggle but he takes his cooking very seriously.
vander tries to make you handmade little stuffed animals. i imagine him making silly ones with button eyes like the ones in the photo. they tend to be fairly crude but are made with the utmost care and love ! he'll sheepishly scratch the back of his neck , a bit embarrassed when he gives them to you , fingers covered in bandages due to him continuously poking himself with the sewing needles. "they're not much but..." "I LOVE IT PAPA !" you interrupt , thanking him over and over. he chuckles , patting your head. "you're very welcome."
vander always knows how to deal with your big feelings even when you don't. he's really good at getting you calmed down and is a great listener , always knowing when you need to talk. "i'm here, kid." he assures you , wrapping you up in one of his signature bear hugs. "i'm right here." he'll stay with you , patting your back in his typical gentle but firm manner.
papa vander who loves to tell you stories. whether it's about his life or made up he tells amazing ones , you refuse to go to sleep without one. he likes to read to you as well , using an impressive array of voices for each character.
vander being so big and buff can be used to your advantage. he's always carrying you around on his shoulders , making you clap with delight as you survey the world from up high. he can scoop you up with ease - if you're ever to doze off or are feeling too small to walk by yourself he picks you up as though you weigh nothing, cradling you in his big arms.
the kind of papa who is always teaching you new things. he's constantly cheering you on , so proud when you get the hang of something new. clapping you on the shoulder , beaming down at you. "that's my boy/girl/kid."
papa vander who tells EVERYONE at the last drop about you. he's so proud to be your papa , showing everyone the pictures of you he keeps in his wallet , telling them stories about your adventures together.
#U^ェ^U#arcane#arcane agere#vander#vander arcane#fandom agere#agere writing#agere headcanons#agere#age regression#fictional cg#sfw interaction only#sfw agere#agere blog#agere community#arcane x reader#vander x reader
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Hello, Eli! ❤️
First off, your work gives me LIFE 😩 I love the way you write 🥹❤️
Secondly, I would like to request a afab reader x sub!dino (Seventeen) where the reader is older than him (like maybe a couple years at most, a year at the least)?
And if you’re comfortable, maybe he has a thing for calling her “Noona” inside and outside of the bedroom? 😁
If you’re only comfortable with doing the older!afab reader x sub!dino that’s totally fine! Please do with whatever is in your comfort zone ❤️
Thank you and love your work again! 🥹
- Anon 💚
hii anonie ! first thank you so much for this, it means a lot to me and i'm really glad you like my work that much ❤️ honestly, sub men are my weakness so it was no problem at all writing this, i'm sorry it took me so long to get to it but i hope you'll like it nonetheless, love you ❤️
CHAN with a NOONA KINK who had always been attracted to older women, and whose obsession only got worse as soon as he met you. you were the most beautiful human being he had ever seen, smart too, very funny and a dancer - exactly his type and more.
the first time you had told him you thought he was cute, chan felt like he might faint. but then, the first time he got a taste of your pussy, he got addicted for life. the noona thing was just some teasing at first, just because he knew you hated to be reminded of your age. but as time went on, he came to like it as a term of endearment. he called you "his noona" in front of his members and friends without any shame, he was proud and grateful to be able to call someone like you his - and he made it everyone else's business. and in the end, you came to like it too. it was especially very cute when you called him out for it and he blushed and became so shy.
the first time he called you that in bed, it shocked the both of you. you had been edging him for a while and chan was barely holding on to the last piece of his sanity, cheeks flushed and covered in tears, desperate, needy whine slipping past his lips. "please, please, please ! i need to cum noona, please…" you stopped moving your hand around his cock, and slapped his own over his mouth, embarrassment written all over his face. "you want noona to make you cum ?" you asked with a grin on your face, and chan hesitantly nodded, moaning as soon as you started to stroke him again. "then go on baby, be a good boy and cum for noona." you whispered against his ear, and chan didn't need more than that to cover your hand in his sticky release.
you calling yourself "noona" made chan hard every time, but you couldn't deny how wet it made you whenever he moaned the petname in a broken voice. either way, chan always made sure to claim his amazing noona, and you always made sure to reward him just as he liked it.
#eli answering your questions#eli's anonie#💚anon#seventeen#seventeen x reader#seventeen smut#seventeen hard hours#seventeen hard thoughts#lee chan#chan x reader#chan smut#chan hard hours#chan hard thoughts#dino x reader#dino smut#dino hard hours#dino hard thoughts
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"This story reveals a new playbook for waging a far-reaching and largely undetectable smear campaign in the digital age." Megan Twohey, NYT investagative reporting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jE4.sYdZ.Ah3sVs-lnJ9z&smid=url-share
Being uninterested in current US celebrity gossip means that this story kind of whizzed past me this summer. I didn't sit up to take notice. Neither of these people is Jimin, so I tuned it out. Yesterday's court filing, however, finally caught my attention. That's revealed is fascinating if not outrightly horrifying.
The media has fully invested in our attention. It's become their biggest commodity and tool. Propaganda at its finest. We've seen cases like this before where two parties start up a smear campaign to tarnish someone's good reputation to sway public opinion. Oftentimes, these cases are a battle between a man and a woman. Think of Brad Pitt vs. Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard or, more recently, Trumpelstiltskin vs. Ms. Harris. Can we even go as far as to include MHJ and Hybe/Bang in this category? Or, the people vs. anyone they want to tarnish?
Public opinion is such a fickle thing. It's entirely malleable in the hands of the 'right' people. Anyone willing and unscrupulous enough to go the extra mile.
Park Jimin was just as recently as last week been the target of online hate campaigns. Helloo Min Yoongi? Kim Namjoon?!?! Basically, every Tannie has been wrung through the wringer like this to serve a voracious narrative. In their case, it was other fandoms fanning the flames of hate for the media to serve, but it's all meant to destroy a person's reputation.
I bring this article up because it's a good reminder of how much influence PR firms have when they want to change a narrative in order to suit their highest bidder. It makes me wonder how much of the bad press we hear (chatter online) is fully fabricated, maybe partly based on the public's incentive to dislike a certain person, and how important it is to read between the lines. To stay critical in your online interactions and in your dissemina of reports. Keep thinking for yourself. Your opinion can't become cement, in either direction.
Isn't it funny how PR playbooks have been exposed this year? Remember MHJ and her text exchanges about how best to go on the attack? Her confidence when talking to her co-conspirator as opposed to her demeanor during her presser? We are the ones being catered to! Our dumb minds are unwilling or unable to parse through to the truth. It's not surprising seeing as it's often very hard to figure out who's lying about whom.
I know some people love certainty, look at the nonsense questions most jikook bloggers get asked about, but it's better to stay flexible in how secure you feel about anything so as not to be surprised or dissapointed in the long run. Trust your gut when it comes to forming an opinion on someone or something and ask yourself, 'Why?' Why am I being asked to hate or voice my dislike on a celebrity whom I know nothing about? Why am I being driven towards a conclusion that serves but ONE narrative?
Come on, people, this happens to 'us' in this K-pop/ARMY fandom community as well..if not worse.
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marauders hc #4
lily evans.
she has it all. perfect grades, hair that catches the light just right, a smile that makes everyone feel warm and safe. she’s the dependable friend, the one you go to when you need advice or a shoulder to cry on. she’s the sunshine girl, with a prefect badge on her chest and the most popular boy at school hopelessly in love with her.
but no one asks how lily evans is doing. because why would they? she’s fine. she’s always fine.
except she’s not.
her home is a battlefield. petunia’s sharp words cut deeper than anyone realizes. she doesn’t even have to yell anymore—just the disappointed looks, the cold silences, the way she acts like lily doesn’t exist. like she never mattered. freak, unnatural, worthless.
the war creeps closer every day, and lily feels it like a noose tightening around her neck. her parents are muggles—targets. every owl, every headline feels like it could be the one that changes everything. but she doesn’t talk about it. she doesn’t cry. she can’t. everyone is counting on her to be strong.
so she bottles it all up. she smiles, she nods, she listens. but the weight inside her chest gets heavier and heavier, pressing down on her ribs until she can’t breathe.
so she starts cutting because she needs to feel something that isn’t this crushing emptiness. the sharp sting is quick, almost clean, and for a moment, it’s like she’s in control of the chaos. but then the guilt sets in. the shame. what kind of person does this to themselves? she’s disgusted, but she can’t stop.
then there’s the food. at first, it’s not deliberate. she skips a meal here and there because she’s “too busy.” but then she realizes how light it makes her feel, how empty. it’s like she’s disappearing from the inside out, and that feels like a kind of freedom.
every day, she tells herself she wants to die. not dramatically, not in the heat of the moment—just this quiet, persistent whisper at the back of her mind. what if you just… stopped? she thinks about it when she’s brushing her teeth, or walking to class, or lying in bed at night. what if you didn’t have to do this anymore?
sometimes, it’s vivid. she imagines the ways she could do it, running through the details in her mind. the astronomy tower maybe? but then the shame kicks in, this hot, suffocating wave that makes her stomach churn. you’re selfish enough already. don’t make it worse.
but other times, it’s just this hollow ache, this desperate longing for everything to stop. it’s not even about dying—it’s about escaping. she feels like she’s drowning in everyone else’s expectations, their problems, their pain, and she’s so tired of carrying it all. she just wants it to end.
and yet, she doesn’t do it. she calls herself a coward for it, berates herself for being too weak to follow through. you can do everything else perfectly, but you can’t even do this. it’s another thing to hate about herself, another way she feels like she’s failing.
but deep down, she knows why she doesn’t do it. she keeps going because she doesn’t know how to stop. because there’s a part of her that still hopes, even when she hates herself for it. because no matter how much she wants to disappear, there’s a part of her that’s terrified of being forgotten.
she lays in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this is it. is this what life is supposed to be? when will it get better? when will i be free?
but the next morning, she gets up. she smiles. she listens to her friends. she carries their burdens and hides her own because someone has to, and who else is there?
lily evans: the girl who can do anything. except fall apart.
#wow#this got dark lol#i wanted to write more relatable lily#and this is what came out so#tw sui ideation#tw suic1de#tw sui thoughts#tw skipping meals#tw s3lf harm#tw sh#tw cutting#cherry<3#lily evans#marauders#marauders era#the marauders#harry potter#the marauders era#mwpp era#lily potter#lily evans potter#lily evans hc#lily evans headcanons#lily potter hc#lily potter headcanon#lily evans headcanon#marauders headcanon#dead gay wizards#marauders incorrect quotes#young marauders
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@things-arent-what-they-seem66
He wanted his babies back. It wasn’t fair that they were cruelly taken from him and now the angels still refused to let him see them. No, it was more like they didn’t even know where they were. Adam: Please I beg of you let me search for my sons! A mother cannot live without their children. Adam pleaded with the angels. A young looking angel that appeared to be the high seraphim lookalike stepped forward. Emily: He’s right, if he was created to be a mother and co-create life then if we were to deny him his own children we would simply be committing cruelty. I even volunteer myself to help search for Cain and Abel
Sera: No Emily! Your place is here in Heaven. The fact of the matter is that we have no time nor resources to search for souls we don’t even know exist. Micheal: She is right.
The warrior of Heaven himself stepped forward as everyone else stepped out of his way. Bowing their heads in respect while doing so. This was the first time Adam got a good look at his mate’s brother. He definitely can see they were twins.
However, while Lucifer had a short stature and his eyes were filled with warmth when he gazed at Adam. Micheal towered over the first omega and stared down at him that chilled him to his bones.
Micheal: While it is unfortunate of your son’s passing they simply were not worthy of Heaven’s golden gates. Especially your eldest. Adam growled at the archangel
Adam: Watch yourself, that’s my son you’re talking about.
Micheal: (raises eyebrow) I would have thought your punishment would have made you submissive. Yet you still act against your nature.
Micheal grabbed onto the first man’s arm harshly and dug his nails in. Before leaning down and whispering
Micheal: I don’t care if they were your children Adam. You have done your duties and fulfillment of life and for that you earn paradise. But that doesn’t make you any more equal than the dirt that you came from. Now wipe your tears away and control yourself. You will see your other children soon. If they behave. If not then you already know their fates.
He let the omega go dropping him onto the ground as the youngest seraphim Emily rushed to his side. He turned to leave before giving his final piece.
Micheal: One last thing Adam. He glared down at the shaking man with the fury of a thousand suns. Don’t you ever in your life speak to me or anyone who is superior to you and your kind ever again. Or there will be dire consequences.
And so the warrior of Heaven left leaving behind a soul whose heart shattered once again.
—
Over the years as more souls descended in the dark pits of Hell. The population grew and with it so did Its power. Which in turn made Lucifer and Lilith more powerful and mighty. Since they were connected to Hell like no one else. Not even Cain and he was the first to descend after death.
Speaking of Cain, his life in Hell was exactly that Hell. While Lucifer was busy managing the affairs of the humans Lilith was busy tormenting him any chance she got. Regardless of the fact that she could not physically strike him or face Lucifer’s wrath she took to cutting him with something worse, her words.
She would abuse the defenseless boy, always reminding him of what he did. How his mother probably hates him for what he did to his own brother. It didn’t stop there, every little mistake or error that he made she would criticize harshly. Then of course there were all the names she called him.
Murderer
Mistake
Stain
Bastard
The last one was her personal favorite. Always reminding him that since she was the Queen around here and Lucifer chose her his mother was nothing more than a fun time that ended with him being made.
He tried to talk to his father about this but every time ended with his saying he was too busy or say he would listen only to tune him out. Was he really that unimportant to his father?
Things only got worse once Lilith started to sing to the sinners. Telling them that they were more than just demons. They were superior to the angels. He knew that she was just using them for her own gain. For what he wasn’t sure.
One thing he did know was that they were eating out the palm of her hand. It was as if she grew popular and beloved by the day. Which only served to fuel his resentment. Couldn’t they see she was nothing more than a lying back stabbing cruel demoness!? It didn’t matter though, he had no one to turn to. Not one single friend. Not even his own father.
He thought he would simply be alone for all eternity. In the castle with only an abusive step mother and absent father.
Then, as if he was being watched over, a group of angels fell from the Heavens. They were delivered into the darkness and into the royal family’s life. Especially Cain’s.
The First Anti-Christ
@things-arent-what-they-seem66
(excuse me for the long prologue)
Anti Christ, the child of the fallen one, the devil. Everyone knows of the name and what it means. However, they don’t know of WHO that child is do they? Everyone thinks that the child will make themselves known as they bring on the end of humanity. What people don’t realize is that the anti-Christ has already walked upon the Earth.
In fact he was the first to be born on the planet. You see he was one of the very first humans. The very first child and son of the mother of humanity, Adam the first omega. His name was Cain.
Now many must be wondering on how this came to be. Why did it happen. How and why did the first omega manage to give birth to the fallen one’s offspring. All will be explained here, in this story.
A long, long, long, time ago when the Earth was still young the creator of it had decided on what its final inhabitants would be. They were called humans, the very first of their kind. He made them into something special. With their names came their designations.
Lilith the first woman and alpha
Adam the first man and omega
He made the two to be companions, to watch over another as one would for a friend or as he hoped like siblings. However, his other creations had other plans. While the Lord was busy attending to his purpose of watching over the universe. The other creations, the angels went down to the humans and they told the two that they were more than just companions. They told them that they were mates and they would bring forth true humanity.
Both were confused and asked how? The angels told them that once a month Adam’s womb would welcome Lilith’s seed and instructed him for when the time came for Adam to lay on his back and to spread his legs for his mate. When they heard of this both were rather disgusted by it. They hadn’t known each other for long but they simply weren’t compatible in that way. They couldn’t even bother to be friends for they both had too many differences that often clashed with each other.
While Adam was energetic and outgoing, Lilith was reserved and careful. It would often cause arguments from the two, especially when it came to their duties. Their first duties, of naming and caring for everything in the garden. Lilith thought Adam to be immature. Adam thought Lilith to be demanding. Both seemed to think that nothing was ever good enough for each person. One thing they both could agree on is that they did not wish to be mates.
Still Adam did not wish to upset the angels and simply bowed his head and nodded submissively. They began to explain other sets of rules that both were to follow. Lilith as the alpha was to always provide and care for her omega. Adam as the omega was to always follow her way and submit to his alpha. Both were to bring children into this world.
Lilith would become the father of humanity. While Adam would become the mother of humanity.
Lilith, disgusted at the thought, disagreed wholeheartedly. She fled from the garden and away from the omega. Hoping to never set another foot in there again. She was found by someone, an angel of the Lord himself, whom she would soon call a friend and sometime after that a husband. Though she didn’t trust him at first she eventually told the angel of why she ran from paradise.
The angel was shocked and confused. Why would his siblings do that? Why would they mess with his Father’s creations that way? He wanted so badly to go up there and tell his Father of what they had done to Lilith. He knew that they would somehow find a way to pin the blame onto him.
That is why he came up with a new plan. To meet and talk to Lilith’s supposed mate. What he didn’t know at the time was that the omega was actually his true mate.
He crept into the garden, careful not to aware the elders of his presence. What awaited him in the garden was not what he expected. A true beauty, one that took his breath away. Though he had thought Lilith to be pretty. She was nothing compared to Adam.
His soft brown hair, honeyed eyes that sparkled, and tan skin that was splattered by freckles. His Lucious curves was enough to drive him insane. The angel managed to open his mouth and introduced himself. His name was Lucifer, the angel of light and God’s most favored son.
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Spent this last week tired and in pain and I want to draw about it, but unfortunately aforementioned condition of being tired and in pain makes drawing impossible, so I guess I just have to suffer instead. Why this.
#i mean i know why this it's the hypermobility#but this is a new record for number of joints that hurt at once#hands and in particular thumbs; elbows; shoulders; and feet if i spend too long standing up#i can't currently use my thumbs because the thumb braces are the only thing stopping the pain getting worse#and that means no drawing because i can't hold a pencil#no piano or video games either which are other go-to distractions#i can't hold my phone properly#and i can only type in short bursts with fingers and no thumbs#i hate not being able to use my hands properly#the whole hypermobility thing has been causing me more and more problems lately and it sucks#i really need to get back to the doctor about it#but i'm so damn busy with work this month that i haven't had the time#and being so busy is just making things worse#driving is getting harder and i'm really worried that's going to become a problem#at least the thumb braces help with the pain#and physically prevent me from doing the things that'll make it worse#even if those things include. basically all of my hobbies#fuck this honestly#starting to come to terms with the fact that i am. a bit more physically disabled that previously assumed#happy disability pride month to me i guess :/#personal stuff
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