#and he can’t afford the petrol

[intheorangebedroom]

Tonight you belong to me, chapter 1

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town. 

Guilt is a wild trip, but so is desire. How the hell did you end up in this divvy motel? And now, what's next?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, orange besties 🧡 PLEASE, see series masterlist for extensive trigger warnings. Now I'm off to disappear for another month, heehee. To anyone who celebrates anything, happy whatever you celebrate. Ily 🧡

@frannyzooey And to you, Kelli… Thank you 🧡 Thank for your help on this chapter, without you it wouldn’t exist. Arguably, without you I wouldn’t exist (my gothic ass) and without you I would certainly not be writing at all. You’re the kindest, most generous, most beautiful person I’ve ever met, you shine so brightly and I love you more than all the Frankies from all the universes put together 🧡✨

Word count: 6.5k

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Chapter 1: Dirt

Guilt, you’re about to find out, is an interesting feeling. 

A viscous, gluey business that sticks to your skin and clings to your frame. It’s a prickling tickle under your armpits, a rigidity in your legs. It’s a tightness in your shoulders, and it pulls on your face. It has a density, and it’s tangible, not only do you feel it, you see it in every mirror, every reflective surface. 

A pervasive, shape-shifting torment that unfurls gradually, and comes in many colorful shades, when you begin to take in the gravity and the ramifications of your actions. 

The first wave is darkened by fear, black as petrol, trickling down your insides when he says his name. 

Frankie.

Like an invitation, an opening. Gaping, abysmal, pulling you in and you remain silent, struggling on the edge of it, grasping for balance. Drawn in, but too stunned to let go and dive in yet.

It’s a violent crimson, next, shame creeping over you when you walk back inside the bar to retrieve your purse. 

Facing Mark is difficult, but talking to him is beyond your strength. You gesture toward the handbag waiting for you on the other side of the counter. He hands it to you in appraising silence, judgmental, surely, and you smile, or you wince, you can’t even tell. With shaky hands, you fumble inside it for your wallet, his green gaze strained on your face. 

You know that your entire appearance gives away the narrative of what just took place in the back lot of his establishment. Your face is flushed, your lips swollen, your hair undone. Your clothes are rumpled and in his eyes, you will from now on and forever be this woman. 

After what feels like several minutes, he takes pity on you, and reiterates his offer. You’re good, he says. Sweetheart. The first pint’s on him. 

You don’t stay long enough for a second drink, however. 

Back outside into the muggy night, you crumble onto the passenger seat of your car. The polyester lining of your skirt clings to the bare skin at the back of your thighs, damp with sweat and what is left of your inconsequential desire, and you feel appallingly filthy, bone-deep disgusting. 

Guilt washes over you in blue waves of regret, welling under your eyelids when you notice that the red truck is gone. And with it, the gaping, abysmal possibilities of another you, reinvented with him. 

The shaking starts as you’re driving, trembling hands gripping the steering wheel. A brutal, chilling comedown, guilt experienced in bright and blinding yellow at the belated realization of your betrayal. 

How easily, how rapidly you forgot, trapped under Frankie’s gaze, coming undone between Frankie’s hands, that your life isn’t truly yours. That it has never been. You’re not on your own, no matter how much you long to be. You have never been afforded the privilege of independence, nor do you possess the necessary strength to break free from your family. 

And who has Frankie betrayed? What faceless, nameless woman has he gone back to? Remorse blends in with envy and resentment, painting green ring-shaped stains in your peripheral vision as you get out of your car and into the lobby of your building. 

Eyes to the floor, you step into the elevator, this oversized coffin lined with mirrors reflecting your image with a silent scoff. There’s dust from the gravel on your leather pumps. 

Inside your apartment, the clickety-click of your heels on the tiled floor bounces off the walls of your skull. You hate that sound, eminently cold and giving away your presence. 

The living-room television is on, probably set to a news channel, most likely broadcasting a financial show in which white men over 50 listen to the sound of their own voice and debate about obscure economical regulations you’re supposed to care about. 

Adrian’s already here. Uncharacteristically early. Friday evenings usually mean late night poker or whatever his own excuse is to get away from your cribless home.

Hoping to go unnoticed so as to avoid him, you take off your shoes, but it’s too late. He calls out your name from the kitchen, his intonation surprised but cheerful. 

Head hanging low, heartbeat picking up, you make a silent dash for the upstairs bathroom, remorse so pungent you fear no shower can ever wash it off your skin.  

Under the scolding high-pressure stream, you scrub your body raw with a soapless loofah, but there is no scrubbing away the feeling of those hands over your skin. 

Eyes drifting closed, you lean your forehead against the anthracite marble of your Italian shower, and let your chest heave around a suppressed sob. 

Guilt, shame, and remorse are powerless to outweigh your want, undeterred, unabated, unquenched. 

Back in the parking lot, it had been a moment before you were able to push away from the side of the truck and stand upright. He stood there, silent and immobile in front of you. Waiting, as if to shield you from the street and the rest of the world. Silence hanging charged and heavy between you, as you wouldn’t offer your name in return. 

When you started moving toward the bar’s entrance, he stepped aside, and that’s when your body moved of its own volition. You took his hand in yours, palm against palm, trembling fingers wrapped around his knuckles.

“Can I see you again?” you asked, pleaded, begged. You didn’t recognize your voice.

He swallowed hard, shook his head at you for the third time, and squeezed your hand in his bigger one. 

“I don’t think so. You know that’s not a good idea,” he said. 

—

Grief settles like dust over the first weeks of September. 

You are surprised, almost shocked, to observe how little your life has changed. You get up in the morning, you shower and get dressed, drink coffee, go to work. You attend meetings about maritime trade regulation, sitting at your father’s side, go over endless spreadsheets detailing import-export profit and loss, you pretend to understand them, and you pretend to care, like a pretty human puppet. 

You come home at night, skip dinner when you can. You lie in bed next to Adrian. You seek out warmth where there is none. You perform sex without satisfaction. 

There has been no question asked. No suspicion, no doubt cast. 

You wear the same clothes, drive along the same roads, walk around the same hallways. 

And no one seems to notice that you are different. That you experienced imperious want and incandescent pleasure. That you carry a secret. Nestled, dormant and quiet, between your lungs, like a wild and unknown creature. 

Whatever part of him you welcomed inside you transformed the hollowed spaces of your existence. It redefined the void, creating a place of your own where to curate your new desires. 

His lips on your lips, your body molded into his, and pressed against your hips, an unfulfilled promise for more. 

In the palm of your hand, the ghost sensation of Frankie’s hold, now forever gone and lost, and your highlighted loneliness feels like a barless prison. On your own, always, again, to divert the old familiar pain of being you.

Weeks go by. The guilt recedes, and sadness takes its place, like clockwork, like physics. Like a new sort of weight coating your limbs. A nostalgic longing without any object. 

In the idle moments of your day, when you’re stuck in traffic, in a meeting, or in a conversation, your mind wanders back to him. The solid slope of his shoulders. The strong span of his back. Muscles bunching up under your grip. His scent, his curls, his taste. An organic trace seared into your being. 

His rebuttal, after he’d given you so much, felt less like a rejection than like a refusal to heed a deeply rooted instinct. 

His stare was no longer hard and cold. It carried only sorrow and loss. 

Does he think of you like you think of him? Does he miss the contact of your skin, or the abandon of your kiss? 

Did he walk away from your embrace with something to keep, like you did? 

Day after day, summer fades into fall, the change hardly perceptible through the consistently sweltering weather. 

Day after day, focusing becomes tricky, finding sleep more and more difficult and your train of thought turns downright maniacal. 

Ava’s calls go straight to voicemail.

More often than not, you start drinking as soon as you come home to fence off the tears of exhaustion, hoping Adrian won’t notice. Another line you had promised yourself never to cross, and under the combined effects of the alcohol and the antidepressants, you feel drowsy and dizzy, increasingly disconnected from your reality. A nagging sting settles on the left side of your lower abdomen. But you don’t mind the pain as much as you mind turning into your mother.

Some days, you think you’d like nothing more than to give way, allow yourself to drown into the proven refuge of self-abuse. Whenever you indulge the thought, soothing images spring to mind, oil on canvas, deep green, tender brown. Ophelia, crowned with wild flowers and rings of violets, sleeping peacefully in a shallow stream. 

When you finally return to the Hole in the Wall, it’s only with the hope of hindering your impending tailspin.

In the parking, after turning off the ignition, you sit in your car for the whole of five minutes, staring numbly at the dark lot where the red truck had been parked.

Mark’s hesitant greeting puzzles you; by now you have lost most of your ability to read people’s reactions. 

You walk to the counter and choose to sit on one of the high stools. Somewhere deep down, you enjoy his distance; you relish the sadistic pleasure of reliving the humiliation you felt standing before him, freshly fucked dumb on a total stranger’s fingers. 

Besides, you’ll take the attention, however uncomfortable it may be.

“Long time no see,” Mark says, and you produce a poorly executed smile. 

“I don’t know… two weeks? I’ve been busy,” you add as a way of apologizing.

“It’s been a month,” he replies curtly.

You try a brown ale, this time, rich and bitter. He busies himself behind the counter, cleaning and wiping, while you drain your glass in silence. You haven’t eaten all day, and you’re drinking too fast. Nausea laps against your diaphragm. It’s the last missing scene from this scenario: you, throwing up in the toilet of his bar. 

You’re considering leaving when he speaks again. 

“Trucker hat dude came by.”

Your head shots up and you glare at him, eyes widening under your pinched brow, a new wave of sickness nudging further up. He gauges your face, twirling a towel inside a pint glass, waiting for your answer, but when you give him none, he goes on.  

“Did he…” he starts, and his eyes slowly go back and forth between yours, “he didn’t hurt you or anything? Cause if he did, if you wanna press charges, I can—“

“No,” you cut him off, “god no, I’m fine. I’m perfectly ok,” you add unnecessarily when his gaze narrows. 

He pauses for a moment, like he’s the only one who can judge if you are, indeed, perfectly ok, before he faces away from you to put back the clean glasses on the lower shelves behind him.  

When he’s done, he turns back around, props his hands low on his hips, and for the first time since you’ve entered the place, he stands perfectly still. 

“He’s been asking about you.”

Between your lungs, the creature begins to stir. 

“He came back,” you say, surprisingly matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Asked if you come here every Friday.”

Piece by piece, your mind starts swiveling, sluggish and blunt after being successfully dulled out by the past couple of weeks of excessive drinking. You picture his tall figure standing in the small bar, perhaps he sat on the stool you’re sitting on now? Did he lift his cap to comb his hair with his fingers before he spoke?

Mark is talking again, and it’s a conscious effort to bring your attention back to his words.

“Asked if you always come on your own. If I know your name.”

“I never told you my name,” you panic, “what did you tell him?”

“I see your name every week on your AmEx Gold, sweetheart, but I kindly told him to go fuck himself,” he scoffs.

His sardonic tone snaps you out of your drifting daydreaming. Your face immediately hardens. You sit up straight, drawing further away from him and he seems to change his mind. He’s softer when he speaks next. 

“Look, I don’t know what’s the lowdown between you two, you understand? And anyway, I’m not in the habit of discussing my regulars with just about anyone. That kinda goes against the job’s ethics, you know what I mean?”

You shrug away the rational, albeit patronizing explanation with a huff of annoyance. You feel more alert than you have in weeks.  

“When was that?” you ask.

“Last week. Thursday, I think.”

“Shit.” 

Mark lets out a heavy sigh, resembling that of an exhausted father, and he opens the cash register. 

“He left a note for you.”

—

An address. Written in all caps, black ink on a white piece of paper torn from a lined notebook. No phone number, not date, no time… and no name. Just the address. Under the feeble cabin light of your car, the paper looks old, like it’s been carried around tucked inside a wallet for years, and time has turned it yellow. 

The coordinates on the dashboard GPS are identical to the ones on the paper. They were identical back in the parking, at the bar, when you typed them in; they were identical at every single red light you stopped at and checked. And they’re still identical now, glowing in blue letters, cold and synthetic, above the message You have reached your destination.

You raise your head again and stare at the building in front of you. 

It’s a motel. One floor, L shaped, slightly sloping roof. With wrought iron details, a porch hanging low and square wooden pillars demarcating each room, nine of them in total. On the right, underneath a bare bulb, a large ice machine gleams like a beacon for lost time-travelers, next to a pay phone with a cut-off cord and a missing receiver. On the rear end of the building, to the left, above what looks like the reception, a 4 feet tall sign spells MOTEL in red neon letters. 

At its height, the place probably looked nice. But that was a rough 55, 60 years ago, you estimate. Now it’s nearly derelict, with visible cracks streaking the yellowing walls, several broken drainpipes, and a missing number on the door of room 7. 

If you cared about these kinds of things, you’d figure that the diversion of the main road further south is responsible for the motel’s decaying state. 

Your attention is elsewhere, as usual. The parking lot is deserted, save for three vehicles. The red truck is here, parked a couple of places away to your right. Engine off. Empty. 

The drive here from the Hall in the Wall was nearly an hour long. The car cruised along poorly lit, narrow two-lane roads, lined with luxuriant vegetation, dense and confining in the pitch darkness of the suburban night. You’ve lived in Tampa your entire life and have never set a foot in this part of the Bay Area. Technically, you’re not even in Tampa anymore. 

He’s inside one of these rooms, somewhere. Waiting for you, and that thought alone makes your breathing difficult and your hands clammy.

What now? What’s next? Are you supposed to walk up to the reception and ask about him?  A tall man wearing a trucker hat? Frankie?

And what will happen, once you’ve found him?

This is ridiculous. Sordid. It’s gone too far, whatever that is. A motel outside of town. The worst possible cliché. The most degrading place. 

Between your lungs, the creature is clawing at your chest. 

You shift nervously on the creaking leather seat, exhaling long and shaky, no longer repressing the memory of his sturdy fingers curling inside your warmth, of his tongue swirling inside your mouth. The instant intimacy of your furtive encounter, that turning point, when he briefly relinquished his control. 

A chorus of voices rumbles like tumbling boulders inside your head, a cacophony of rules and guidelines, tacit and unspoken, ingrained and internalized. But with every passing minute staring at the bright motel sign, your resolve grows surer. 

The yellow curtains ripple behind the rectangular window of room number 2 and you quickly pull the key out of the ignition. Grabbing your phone from the dashboard, you stuff it inside your purse, which you slide under the driver's seat. 

Eyes locked on the curtains, you make a fast-paced beeline to the door. Around you, the night is bustling with the sounds and noises of the invisible wildlife. Revealing nothing, containing so much. 

With a quick rattle of your heels, you step under the porch, hand extended and ready to knock on the door when it opens for you. 

Oh he’s broad, so much broader than you even remembered, blocking the entire doorway with his frame, blue jeans, black shirt, and this goddamn hat that’s already haunting your dreams and your nightmares. 

Looking down on you, irate, defiant, daring you to push him aside and enter. Behind him, the room is plunged in darkness. Above you, the porch lights cast a warm hue on his face, that fails to soften his expression. The crease between his brow is deeper than your fears. 

You take a step closer, on instinct, but he moves to the side as if to avoid any contact with you and you enter the dark bedroom, carried by your momentum.

Guilt will come back to you later, sporadically, in episodes, but for the most part, you forfeit it wholly when you cross the threshold of room number 2.

He closes the door behind you and flicks up the toggle switch near the door frame. Two quaint lampshades blink to life on the headboard, casting a warm, subdued light. There’s no AC, or he hasn’t turned it on, and the atmosphere inside the room is already stifling, charged with his scent.  

“Took you long enough. Thought you wanted to see me,” he grunts, and the creature purrs inside your chest. 

“I did. I do.”

Stopping in the middle of the room, you turn around to face him. He’s standing tall and firm and mighty, feet planted apart on the carpeted floor, arms crossed over his chest. Yet you note his hands are splayed across his biceps, as if he were attempting to hug himself.

Perhaps that’s when you convince yourself Frankie is not his real name. Somehow, it makes it easier to believe you’re not the object of his ire. 

“Your friend didn’t tell you–”

“He’s not my friend,” you interrupt. “I only got your note earlier. Tonight.”

You let the implication sink in and your gaze travels down to the dip at the base of his neck and back up. The square, yellow bedroom provides you with the brightest environment you’ve ever had the leisure of observing him in. 

He’s beautiful, stunning, really, with unique and complex features. Almost pretty, but in a reluctant way, as if it was irrelevant to the life he’s chosen and led. His face speaks so loud, washed over by so many emotions, frustration, doubt and anger, and that lingering sadness in his dark eyes that tugs at your heart and twitches your fingers. 

“What’s your name?” he asks, tilting his chin in your direction.

Janet Leigh’s face pops up in black and white inside your mind, driving through a curtain of strident violins, skittish eyes flicking between the road ahead of her and the rearview mirror. 

“Marion,” you answer, inexplicably. 

“Marion,” he repeats, and you know he knows you’re lying. 

Unable to hold his gaze, you look away to the side, and he gives you time to take in the surroundings. The medium size bed with a stained, synthetic bedspread, the practical, shipped furniture, an angular chair and a desk surmounted by a rectangular framed mirror, the antique cathodic TV set hanging from the wall in the corner. The brown carpet. The yellow curtains. The painting of the Appalachian. 

And whatever your face says then makes him huff.

“Not what you expected? How did you think this was gonna be? How do you think these things go?”

You look at him again, stunned, lost, hurt maybe, that he should recognize you for what you don’t want to be. 

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before,” you tell him in a small voice. 

He shakes his head, like you aimed to wound, and unconsciously, your fingers find your sternum, jittery, anxious to appease this wild creature scrabbling against your rib cage. 

“I shouldn’t be here,” he mutters hoarsely, shaking his head again, or still, “and you shouldn’t be here either, this is bullshit.”

And he’s right, once more, he is right, neither of you should be here. All the lines you walked, all the rules you abided by, meeting expectations and doing as you were told, and you still end up here, on the outskirts of town, in this gloomy motel. Facing this stranger, begging to surrender to him, with your heart in your hand and your life on your lips. 

Eyes strained on his, you move closer, cautious, with your palms upward, as if he were to jolt and scurry away if you were too sudden. If you tame him, perhaps you will tame the wild creature between your lungs as well.

Drawn to his skin, you brush the tips of your fingers along his bicep, and the taut muscle thrums under the freckled, tanned surface of him.

He’s holding his breath, hardened face, hardened stare, deepening crease, and your fingers skate up along the slope of his arm until they meet his hand. 

He’s difficult to catch, you think, even when willing to be caught, but it’s now very clear what you want for yourself. You want him. 

It matters not that he belongs to somebody else. If you’re here, it’s because he wants you too. Despair and desire have brought you together, combined, conjoined, converging.  

Your hand travels round to the back of his arm, soft and feather-like, up under the hem of his t-shirt, lifting his sleeve. His eyes are boring into yours. You lick your lips, slowly, and lower them to his skin. A light kiss, testing, tender and wet, and underneath it, a tremor. 

There’s a terrible density to his body. He’s tension and heat. Pressing your parted lips to his shoulder, you let your tongue peek out between them. You take in the tangy taste of him, it travels through your body like lava, like syrup, heavy and sticky and sweet and it pools down between your hips.

He’s completely still, eerily so. Emboldened, hopeful, you tug on his t-shirt, tentatively at first, and when he doesn’t stop you, when he unfolds his arms, you pull it off his frame, the hat coming off with it. You suck in a sharp breath at the sight of his naked head full of curls, lush and tousled. You want to run your fingers through them. You know that’s probably not a good idea. 

His chest, broad and solid, fills your vision, and your hands fly to his sternum where you press them, chasing something invisible, roaming up the plane of his chest, as delicately as possible. Your fingertips drum lightly along his collarbone, as if you were seeing him with your hands, as if all your senses were necessary to take in the whole of him. 

His frown turns imploring, his breathing shallow. 

“Tell me your name,” he murmurs, his deep baritone a pleading husk.

“You can call me whatever you like,” you answer, lifting his hand and taking his two first fingers into your mouth, eyelids fluttering. You cradle them with the flat of your tongue, brushing against the callous tips of them, saliva flooding your mouth around the salty taste. A moan escapes you, imperceptible, and his jaw ticks around a curse, something you don’t make out, something in Spanish, you’re too dazed with want, too dumb with thirst. 

Fire licks up your spine when he moves, fast and sure. His hand tangles in your hair and he sharply tugs your head back, his fingers popping out of your mouth with a hanging thread of saliva. His face has become a threat, a warning, a promise. He’ll give you what you want until you regret asking for it.

His mouth crushes yours, teeth colliding, and his tongue is inside you, swirling and licking. 

Like a dam that gives, his strength breaks and sweeps over you, crushing you into his chest with his hold and his kiss, fingers gripping your hair, your ass, and you let him have it, let him bruise your flesh with his need, scraping your fingernails up his arms, on his back. 

You’re smiling into the kiss, with relief and eagerness, squirming into him and he hardens his hold before releasing you, swift and sudden, grabbing your blouse and pulling it up in a feverish movement that you follow, lifting your arms like a docile little girl. A seam of the silky fabric rips around your shoulders. You don’t notice it. 

His face dives into the crook of your neck, the scruff of his beard grating your skin, and he sinks in his teeth, sucking hard and feral, and at first, you melt into it, before you remember. You force his chest away with both palms, whining, urgent, plaintive, “I can’t– can’t have marks,” when what you really want is to be covered in him. 

It makes him chuckle, and it sounds like a growl, so terribly dark, so profoundly disillusioned, that you shiver in the heat of his body. He squeezes your breasts through the thin cotton of your bra, it’s brutal and it hurts like retaliation.

“Get fucking naked, Marion.” 

Drawing away from him, you start working the button and zip fly of your skirt with fumbling fingers, blood beating fast and booming in your eardrums, while he toes off his shoes and undoes his belt buckle. Hard metal, the same one that was scraping against your belly when he was crushing you into his red truck, into white-hot pleasure. 

His skin looks amber and smooth under the mellow lighting, the harmonious muscles you guessed under his shirt on the very first night highlighted in shadows. A soft belly, and a long, sideways scar on his left side. Would he tell you the history of his wounds? Will you ever have the chance to ask? 

Your skirt crumples at your feet, you’re lost in the sight of him, arms falling limp at your sides. Self-consciousness skirts the edges of your lust. This body that you neglect and ignore at best, despise and mistreat if given the chance, will it be worth anything to him? Will he want you like you want him? With determination. Without dignity.  

When he pulls down his jeans and his boxer briefs in one deft motion, your eyes widen, but he’s grabbing your arm already, spinning you around like a doll and throwing you onto the bedspread. He climbs on the bed after you, the mattress dips with his weight. 

His firm hands spread your legs; he’s manhandled other bodies before yours, the skill evident with his dexterity, the experience obvious in his assurance, and you want to be all of them at once, lovers and enemies. 

His hand rubs over your damp panties and you buck into it, trying to raise yourself on your elbows to turn around. You want to see his face as he touches you, see his reaction at the evidence of your arousal, you want to watch his eyes when his cock breaches you, but he presses a large hand between your shoulder blades and pins you into the mattress with a grunt. 

He’s unlike anyone you’ve known before, brisk and rough and domineering, and you blush at your inexperience, at his irreverence, when he yanks your panties to the side and spits on your folds. The sheer obscenity feels like a reward for coming this far.  

Sprawling your arms forward, bunching the slippery fabric of the bedspread in your fists, you brace yourself, the round tip of his cock lining up at your entrance. 

He shoves himself inside you to the base, and you cry out at the blinding intrusion, the strength of his thrust hauling your body forward on the bed. With a harsh grasp, he slides you back down on his length and you bite down another cry, flesh gushing through the splayed fingers clutching your hips. 

Crouching over you, he presses his forehead heavy against the back of your head.

“Don’t move,” he hisses through clenched teeth, “don’t fucking move.”

His cock pulsates angry and swollen inside your throbbing pussy, his chest pressing down on your back with each uneven, shaky breath burning your nape.

Sitting back, he wraps his right hand around the strap of your bra and twists it around his fist, pulling on it for leverage as he begins to fuck into you. The thin elastic bands bite into your shoulders, raspy vibrations echoing from your throat straight into the bedding with each of his rhythmic pushes forward. 

He’s too much, too fast, too sudden. And he picks up the pace, forcing your right leg up with his knee and angling up his strokes, reaching deeper inside your core. He’s going to puncture your body from the inside, and you contract tight and rigid around his length, writhing underneath him, until he leans into your neck, close to your ear with a command, voice low and gravelly. 

“You want it, just fucking take it, then.” 

That wild thing inside your chest is swelling, madly swirling, your slick floods around his drilling length. Closing your eyes, the side of your face smearing makeup on the bedspread, you nod with just enough strength to exhale a breathless yes. 

Yes. Yes, you want it, just like so. You want to be used, shattered, obliterated by this man.

And so you relent. Curling your fists and sinking your fingernails into your palms, as the pain turns to pleasure and he rams into your taut heat, rams against your cervix, bending you backward, spine ready to snap with each forceful shove. 

The room is filled with the explicit sounds and noises of your emerging dirty secret. The relentless smack of his hips against your ass, the lewd squelch of his cock slamming in and out of your cunt, the creaking bedding, his feral groans, your grateful moans.

He’s miles away from you, but that’s what you came here for, drain the sadness from his eyes, make it yours, understand. If you’re only going to have him once, then you want it all. 

But his rhythm is faltering already, and it stops abruptly. He releases his grip on you and pulls out with a loud curse, leaving you empty, for all those things you never wanted in the first place to fill you up again.

You feel his knuckles brushing against the swell of your ass as he strokes himself into his release. He loses his balance, and braces his hand next to your face to catch himself as come spurts hot and rich into the curve of your arched back. 

He slaps his cock into the cleft of your cheeks once, twice, pumping out the last drops of his spend, and he collapses next to you, with a grunt when his back hits the bed, his chest heaving with exertion. 

Unshed tears weigh down your eyelids. Your heart rattles against your rib cage, frantic and irregular. Your blood is thick as molasses, of amber and gold, coursing dense and languid down your limbs, but your nerves are crackling like electrical wires of blue and purple. 

The creature between your lungs has tripled in size and your sore cunt throbs with your suspended orgasm. 

Sunk into the mattress, you’re unable to round your back or turn your head towards him. Everything hurts. Everything is alive.  

Reaching back blindly, you dip the tip of your fingers into the pool of his spend, and bring them back to your lips. Tasting him with delight and a quiet, strengthless moan. 

The mattress moves with him as he shifts on the bed, and you feel the warmth of his large hand covering the expanse of your lower back. 

Before you can relax into it, he flips you on your back with an easy strength, and you wince with the sudden change of position. What a mess you must look like, flushed face, sweat-damp hair, clotted mascara. 

He’s heavy, in his straddle of your thighs. He brings his hand to your mouth, and you open up for him, pulling out your tongue to lick his come-coated palm, wrapping your lips around his fingers as they glide over the hot wet muscle. You swallow his essence with fluttering eyelids, grateful, tears rolling down your temples. 

The soft light catches at the sheen of sweat gleaming over his chest, like he’s made of gold, leaning over you like a magnificent and merciful god, like you’ll grant him everything, and you bask into his radiance, your lips pursed into a new smile around his digits. 

The frown that hasn’t left his brow softens ever so slightly. His throat bobs, corded muscles, pebbled skin, the tension barely relieved. His fingers slip out of your mouth and come to cup your chin, so gentle your mind fails to comprehend. His touch lingers, warm and relenting and it becomes a caress, trailing down the line of your throat and coming to rest over your beating pulse at the base of your neck. 

“Are you real?” he asks, sorrow blurring his dark eyes. 

“I don’t know,” you murmur, beading sweat, beading tears. “Make me be.”

He breathes in deeply, and perhaps it’s the first time in years he breathes in so freely.  

“Okay,” he nods.

Slowly, with the tip of his tongue darting between his parted lips, he tugs down your bra to the side. His calloused palm finds the soft swell of your breast, and his warmth radiates through your skin. His hold strengthens, he pinches your nipples with his two first fingers, the ones you took in your mouth earlier, harder, until your mouth goes slack with pleasure and with pain, and you keep smiling at him through it all.

Loose, trustful, pliant, you watch as he drags your panties down along your damp skin and spreads your thighs. He pauses, eyes on your core and you lie still, exposed and opened, feeling no shame. 

His curls, matted with sweat, are stuck in locks to his forehead. Where was he, when you were still hopeful? Were you too young for him, then?

He dives between your hips, and his teeth bite into the soft skin of your inner thigh. You jerk, palm pushing feebly onto the crown of his head and he freezes, eyes shut, like he doesn’t have enough willpower to let go, like too much of his control has already waned and thawed.

“Please,” you coo, “please. I’ll get in so much trouble.”

And your heart sinks a little with apprehension because, surely, he’ll scoff at you again, but instead he just lets go, bringing his fingers to your swollen folds to part them. 

A small whimpering sound escapes you when he latches his lips around your clit, but the sensation is nothing like what you anticipated. Of his previous roughness, only the bruising digging of his fingers into the plush of your hips remains.

His mouth is warm and soothing, a liquid caress, the touch from the tip of his tongue precise but gentle. He shifts with a soft groan, applying more pressure and you keen, head trashed back into the bed. Instantly, he adjusts his grasp, pulling you closer to his face, suckling on your clit with more insistence. 

The smooth skin of your calves brushes over his shoulders, your heels digging into the muscles of his back and you’re reminded of that first night again, when he swiveled around to meet your gaze, soft sad eyes, hard cold stare. Your orgasm builds up fast, embarrassingly so, encouraged by his heavy breathing fanning the soft curls on your mound.

The wild creature melts into your blood and flows down to your core, branching out to every nerve from the top of your head to the tip of your toes. And when you come, you come sharp and bright, with your hand clasped over your mouth to muffle a loud mewl and your back arched from the bed. 

He forsakes his restored restraint when you recoil from the overstimulation, hardening his hold and fastening his mouth over your cunt to lap up your release, tongue diving in, greedy, burning your walls. 

You’re still shaking with the aftershock when he releases you and rises above your trembling body. Lying his forehead on your belly, heavy head, heavy breathing, sweat dripping on your skin, he stays there until his breathing slows down, falling in rhythm with yours. You reach down for his hair, threading your fingers through his curls, at last, and he gives in, leans into the tenderness of your touch. 

A stray tear slides down into your hairline and it’s over, he’s gone, standing up, his broad back turned to you, gathering his clothes and dressing up. 

The notion of the world around you resurfaces. Outside, tucked away in the heart of the night, countless other wild creatures dwell and carry on, moved by fear or desire, and you lie still in that crushing knowledge. Soon, you will have to leave this bed, confront your solitude to theirs.

You roll to your side and curl up on yourself, drifting with the soft droning from the sleeping creature between your lungs and the sweet soreness thrumming between your hips. 

He’s at the door, putting his hat back on, when you call out his name. 

“Frankie.” 

It passes your lips for the very first time, a long kept secret, a forbidden vow, a usurped oath, and immediately you want to say it again. You want it to be real. You want it to be yours.

Frankie pauses and tilts his head towards the bed without facing you completely. 

“Thank you,” you say.

He opens the door to a draft of air wafting in, charged with the salty, humid scent of the faraway bay. He’s about to cross the threshold, and disappear into the night, when he speaks. 

“The room is paid for til morning. I’ll see you next Friday.”

****

Additional note: I woke up on day and decided to build a multiverse of orange bedroom Frankies 🧡 For those who've read PTMY, can you spot all the clues? This Frankie is really pissed off, though, but I kinda like it. I hope you'll like it too 🧡

Taglist (thank you 🧡): @elegantduckturtle @mashomasho @lola766 @flowersandpotplantsandsunshine @nicolethered @littleone65 @bands-tv-movies-is-me @the-rambling-nerd @saintbedelia @pedrostories @trickstersp8 @all-the-way-down-here @deadmantis @hbc8 @princessdjarin @harriedandharassed @girlofchaos @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts @your-voice-is-mellifluous @mylostloversbookmarks @readingiskeepingmegoing @lovesbiggerthanpride @youandmeand5bucks-blog @sarcasm-theotherwhitemeat @southernbe @blackvelveteen1339 @anoverwhelmingdin @casa-boiardi @nandan11 @jessthebaker @pedroshotwifey @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @noisynightmarepoetry

[hannahssimblr]

A sliver of light hovers above the horizon. A glow, hardly even there, rests atop the sea as waves drag rounded pebbles along the shore with a soft shh. I can’t sleep. I crawled out of bed after three and walked straight to the water's edge without shoes, to find the sand cool and white beneath the glow of the quarter moon. I sit watching the sun graze the bottom of the sky like paint bleeding onto tissue. 

Sleep evades me sometimes for reasons I cannot explain. Insomnia arrives like this. It's like all those intense feelings and urges in my body. I can't verbalise them. I sit in boxer shorts and a hoodie on this final spit of beach before the coast turns to a cliff, and try to think of some poignant reason for my lack of sleep, only to come up with everything. There are a million reasons why. All the time, all at once, but then why only sometimes? And why tonight in particular?

Sometime around four, I change into a pair of shorts and run the length of the beach as the sun rises, pushing myself until sweat rolls from my body and there is fire in my lungs. I return to my end of the beach on shaky legs and take my clothes off, all of them, because the beach house is quiet and nobody is watching. Then I wade into the sea and float there with the waves lapping under my chin until the early birds sing and my hands and feet go numb. 

After a shower I collapse on my bed and sleep until close to midday, when I wake up to an empty house, starving, and with no food in the fridge. There is a message on my phone from Jen. 

Good morning lazy bones  Gone to the tennis court and then we’ll be on the beach, probably  See you around later? 

I forage the cupboards for something, but by the looks of it, the last of the food has been ravaged by the others, leaving nothing behind but crumbs and dirty plates, stacked up in the sink as usual. Someone should clean that eventually. 

When I locate my wallet among the random books and electronics heaped on the kitchen table, I zip open the coin pocket to find just a twenty-cent piece and a few useless coppers. I used the last of the money on my debit card at the petrol station yesterday. I know because I tried to buy some snacks and the only thing I could afford was cherry cola Tic Tacs which were rationed out between the three of us. I swear under my breath and call my dad. 

He’s already pissed off when he picks up. 

“Jude, what is it? I’m in the middle of something.”

“I need more money.”

“Already? What are you doing down there? I bet you’re putting it all into those stupid arcade machines, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m eighteen years old. I’m not doing that.” I’m also banned from the arcade, which he should know after the interminable speech he gave me about decorum and respect in the aftermath. 

“I put five hundred euros on that card.”

“Yeah, I dunno, I used it.”

“It was supposed to last the entire summer.”

I sigh, “It didn’t.” As he’s ranting in my right ear, I begin to wonder what I really did do with all the money. I suppose there was all of the alcohol, the takeaways, the junk food, that PlayStation game I bought, and the earphones for my iPod since I was careless with my old ones on the beach. Oh yeah, and I bought those running shoes too. I suppose that wasn’t a necessary purchase, I just wanted them.

Yesterday I bought everything for Jen and Evie, all of their tickets, food and drinks… I have a vague, passing thought that I might not be very good at managing money and that maybe I should have done accounting or something at school like my mom suggested instead of randomly choosing geography. I’m also aware that it’s completely fine. Once Christopher has finished going on about it he’ll simply send more. We just have to go through this charade first.

I wait for a gap in his mad diatribe and say casually, “So can you send me some?”

There’s a clatter in the background and I imagine him tossing his little weighty engraved silver pen across his desk. He grits his teeth, “What do you need?”

“I dunno, another few hundred. I want to book tickets to this festival in August, too, I think they’re, like, two-fifty, so.”

“A festival?” He really doesn't need to act like we’re discussing satanic rituals, but I continue as though I'm talking to a normal man. 

“Yeah, I want to enjoy my last summer in Ireland and all that.”

He makes some flabbergasted sound in response, which is obviously stupid because he has all the money in the world, and this whole thing is an exercise in control and power.

“So, a thousand?” I venture, resting my phone on my shoulder so I can pick some dirt out from under my nails. 

“Yes. Later.”

“No, I need it now, there’s no food in the house and I’m hungry.”

He taps furiously on the keyboard of his computer, “Fine.”

“Hm?”

“Fine. I said fine. I’m transferring it.”

“Thanks.”

The line goes dead. 

Beginning // Prev // Next

[theworldsafuckingslaughterhouse]

Here is a rant I wrote

The other day I found this angry rant on my laptop I must have written a few years ago, so here it is. (*It's written as though it was being said on stage in much the way a standup comedian might perform it)

Hello yes hi how are we all?

You’re out! In the real world. Experiencing a real thing. Not watching the coloured box of death. The little metal shouty thing that’s invaded all our lives!

I can’t even watch Television anymore, it’s become too out of touch. It’s insane the things they think we should be watching. You see it with marketing you know, these adverts. Once upon a time, advertisements made sense. They were straight forward, using logical people to sell you useful things. You’d be sitting there covered in fresh blood and a woman with big hair would say, “Get the stains out in 2 hours with minimal scrubbing! Ajax” or whatever. So you’d buy the thing. Because it made sense and you needed it anyway and you didn’t feel tricked.

Now they approach it in a different way. It’s much more aggressive and manipulative. You have a woman doing the dishes and then the husband comes home from work or school or wherever they go and he says, “Beverly I don’t love you anymore.” And she turns, this image of Mary Berry in a polka dot dress and says, “I’m sleeping with your father. Hahahaha.” And shoots him in the head. And then it goes, “Ajax, because you deserve better” or something like that and it feels a little… detached from reality. They stopped selling us products and started selling us these dreams of what they think we want. I remember when cooking shows made sense. A woman would come out and show you how to set the timer on your microwave so the chicken didn’t dry out too much or come alive or something. Now they’ve fetishized the baked beans to such an extent that kids turn to their parents at dinner time and say, “Is it fried in truffle oil? No? Then I’m not having it. Would you at least making a fucking effort Mother.”

And all this fetishized nonsense has pushed the price up. I remember when you didn’t need a second mortgage just to afford a bag of onions. I remember when I could by onions and tomatoes in the same month. And they didn’t have to be organic! You used to be able to choose. You could choose between buying organic or not starving, and it was a decision we all got to make each week.

Then there’s these home living shows, do you ever try to watch these? The young couple who had a significant family member die, inherited a few million and decided to convert an abandoned petrol station into a 2 bedroom bungalow with a chocolate swimming pool and walk in freezer. Again, we fetishized houses so the market went crazy and now you have to be a lawyer-prostitute to afford one.

So what do they do to help us deal with the disappointment? Drugs! “Do you ever get thirsty?” a man in a white coat who looks vaguely like the eldest child from Home Improvement asks. Looking up from your jug of rum you say, “Yes! Yes I do.”

Well you might have OLDD or Oral Liquid Digesting Dysfunction.

Shit, you think, what can I do about it?

Next comes a lovely image of a man taking his shoes off at the beach and the voice over goes, “For just the price of a small corvette each year, we can help you feel like this guy with sand between his toes.” And your drunken self struggles with this notion. But meanwhile you’re already signing up to a 12 year subscription and purchasing the loose-your-pills insurance plan at the same time.

So this idea of tv aspirations just isn’t sustainable. You can’t be gods like the presenters you watch. You can never purchase enough shit to be king. And if you try and set your aspirations where they want you to, you’ll end up a withered corpse gripping a box of golden cornflakes in a public bathroom being eaten alive by wolves.

Thank you very much.

[bisluthq]

Lets be real Taylor probably offered to pay for the suite and he was like nope. Can you imagine if Taylor paid? all the news article saying how he's cheap?

for all we know they went halvsies and she’s reimbursed part direct to him like how tf would we know? Why does it matter? Why do we care how they deal with their finances??? He absolutely CAN afford it. He can’t afford spending upwards of a mil daily (Taylor tbh can lol) but he can do a big splurge on his biggest night of the year.

Again, given I’m in a relationship with an income discrepancy (not that my bf has Travis money lol or even fwiw Joe Alwyn money but he earns well) I’ve had a lot of convos about shit like this. He does pay more in terms of bottom line. But like beyond my household contributions (groceries, utility share, some of the reno costs) that doesn’t mean I haven’t taken us on a weekend away (I did, to a nice place, and I paid for everything except petrol because we went in his car and yes he offered to go halvsies at least but I said no) or that I don’t pay for dinners out (I’m actually likelier to pay for nicer ones because he likes to go out like twice a week for a meal and that gets a bit steep for me but I’d still be going out if we weren’t together so if we go somewhere nice I tend to pay) or that I don’t pay for all takeouts (which we do in lieu of meals out some weeks or if we’re both busy because he hates like dealing with the apps or the delivery people so I just do it) or that I don’t cover most of our streaming subscriptions (I had them before we moved in so like I just pay those). Where we’ve gone away and he’s paid for it, I try cover the meals as much as possible (unless he beats me to the bill). At the end of the day, I’m still paying significantly less but it’s not like I’m not trying and it works for us.

I also feel the need to justify it a lot though and I’ve had friends - especially female friends actually - assume he pays a lot more than he does towards me because income and age gap. A friend of mine is having a big birthday this year and wants to do a weeklong girls’ trip and I was like “that sounds amazing but I can’t really swing it because I wasn’t working for part of last year” and she was like “but didn’t he give you money??” and I was like “not like an allowance lol” and then she was like “well just ask him to cover part” and I was like “I don’t feel comfortable doing that at all” and she got really pissy with me so idk I’m further relating to all of the dudes Taylor’s dating who obviously can’t afford all that she can and where obviously she’s gonna pay more but like that’s really none of our business and I don’t think any of them want a free ride.

Travis can afford to pay for this suite for one night in a whole year. It won’t financially destroy him. The house he bought, similarly, was a good investment since he’s still got to be in KC for a couple years at least and generally property appreciates so idk man. If he buys a private island just for them I’ll be like “Travis dude chill” but rn he seems to be acting quite sensibly and if they move in obviously it won’t be 50/50 - Taylor will pay more - but that doesn’t mean he won’t contribute as far as he can.

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

New BYD Dolphin DRIVEN: the small, affordable electric car we’ve been waiting for? | Electrifying

Electrifying

If you’re in the market for a small, efficient and affordable electric car, you don’t need me to tell you that options are thin on the ground. In stark contrast to the petrol car market, where cheap runabouts are easy to come by, those wanting to switch to electric power have precious few to choose from. However, that could be about to change with the arrival of cars like the BYD Dolphin. Thanks to low production costs and what’s known in the industry as a ‘vertical supply’ chains (which means one company builds and makes everything from the microchips to the mirrors) Chinese brands are perfectly placed to brings their products to the market at prices that European carmakers simply can’t match. The Dolphin is set to follow the Atto 3 into UK showrooms by the end of 2023 and has the potential to be a real game-changer. With precious few rivals (the MINI is set to be replaced,  the Fiat 500e is gorgeous but expensive and the Renault Zoe (complete with an alarming zero star EuroNCAP safety rating) has long since passed its prime. In many ways, the Dolphin is aiming at an open goal. Equipped with a 60kWh battery and with a WLTP range of 265 miles, the £27,000 (estimated) big supermini could be an unbeatable package. Join Mike as he takes a look round the new European-spec Dolphin and takes a right-hand drive prototype for a drive. Will the Dolphin be on your shortlist? Let us know in the comments below.

P.S. Ups! Surprise, surprise! Affordable EV is here in Europe! For years, legacy automakers have been fooling buyers, trying to tell everyone that it is impossible to produce a decent-sized, decent-range electric car at a reasonable price...What a shame, famous and influential legacy automakers are losing the battle for the affordable electric car market in Europe with a loud bang....

The affordable BYD Dolphin electric hatchback  will be a real reminder of that, Europe's main legacy automakers (Renault, Stellantis and VW could have done, but they didn't..., and failed miserably... 

[gossipinfo]

We can’t be paying this huge amount, and you people are still robbing us” – Adeniyi Johnson cries out after what happened to him

Adeniyi Johnson, a Nollywood actor, has made a strong plea to fuel station owners. He said that this is their season and time in an Instagram post, but he pleaded with them to be kind to them. He told them to trust their meters and that he couldn’t afford to buy petrol at those prices when people kept robbing them. “Dear filling station owners. We know it’s your time and season but at least do…

[kiss-my-freckle]

– Caverns of Chaos –

Elena Gilbert: Run run run run run run run!

Rebekah: Um, Elena? I grew up in these caves. And I can smell you. And hear your heartbeat. And see in the dark. And outrun a car.

Elena Gilbert: Yeah, but you can’t come into the Magic Cavern of Vampires Not Invited, can you?

Rebekah: …Bitch.

– Meredith’s Murdertorium –

Meredith Fell: Well, you’ve got a concussion, several contusions, a broken rib, and a bruised ego.

Alaric Saltzman: So … sympathy sex?

– Mystic Falls Home for Immolated Wiccans –

Stefan Salvatore: Wait, so how do we know they’re going to be here?

Damon Salvatore: Because this is the only other set we could afford. But before we go storming in snapping necks and taking names, let’s discuss the idea of actually letting Esther carry out her plan. I mean, all of the Originals would die, you’d get your revenge, and the only thing we’d lose is Elena. And let’s face it, you don’t care, and she’s a suicide bunny.

Stefan Salvatore: Yeah, but then we wouldn’t have a love triangle, and then we wouldn’t have millions of teenage girls tuning in every week, and then we wouldn’t have jobs, so …

Damon Salvatore: Right! Bennetside it is! So who gets to do the deed?

Stefan Salvatore: Eh, flip a coin or something. It’s not like I care.

Damon Salvatore: Okay, heads you kill her, tails I sit this one out!

Stefan Salvatore: Wait a second …

– Caverns of Chaos –

Rebekah: Hi Elena! You’re right, I can’t get into the Magic Cavern, so instead I thought I’d douse you with petrol and throw lit matches at you!

Elena Gilbert: …

Rebekah: Petrol? Matches?

Elena Gilbert: …

Rebekah: Oh Jesus it’s gasoline! I covered you in gasoline and now I”m throwing fire at you and if you don’t come out here I’m going to burn you to death! God, what does Damon see in you?

Elena Gilbert: Oh! Well, now that I understand your plot, allow me to counter! Instead of killing me now, why don’t you keep me alive and torture me for years and years!

Rebekah: You are truly an idiot. But you have a point.

– Mystic Falls Home for Immolated Wiccans –

Elijah: Hi mom!

Kol: Beautiful moon, right?

Klaus: Pleasant evening, isn’t it?

Esther: Well, I see you have discovered my plot to rid the world of the evil I unleashed, by turning you human and then telepathically killing you. But! You did not foresee me creating a Magic Circle of Not Entering, with me and Finn in the center, where we are protected from your unclean hands! Even you, Elijah, with your claims of nobility, are a disgrace and an abomination!

Elijah: Can’t we just throw rocks at her until she’s dead or something?

Klaus: Nah, it’ll be more dramatic if one of the Salvatores has to murder a Bennet.

Kol: He’s right, let’s go with that.

– Mystic Falls Home for Immolated Wiccans – Suit of Slaughter –

Stefan Salvatore: Hi Bonnie! Elena’s in danger, and I need you to stop Esther’s spell!

Bonnie Bennet: Um, yeah. About that. You do realize that I can’t light candles reliably, and you want me to go toe-to-toe with the oldest, baddest Mother on the planet?

Stefan Salvatore: Yeah, you’re right. Well, I guess I’m just going to have to find another way …

Bonnie Bennet: D-:

The Lady of the Manor: Snap her neck! Snap her neck!

Thomas: You are the ripper. You’ve spent the entire season establishing your badass rep, your lack of morals, and your willingness to murder anything that got between you and Klaus. Do not pussy out now. Do not back down. Do not toss out an entire season’s worth of character development. God damn it Stefan, you are the ripper, and now is the time to break. Her. Goddamn. Neck.

The Lady of the Manor: Snaperneck snaperneck snaperneck!

Damon Salvatore: Yeah right, like my brother is every going to be anything more than Elena’s lap dog. Super Damon feeding Abby my blood and snapping her neck and making her a vampire powers activate!

– Mystic Falls Home for Immolated Wiccans –

Esther: “I should have let them die from SIDS, but Bennets help me kill my kids!”

Elijah: …

Klaus: …

Kol: …

Esther: Oh, poop.

– Caverns of Chaos –

Rebekah: Okay, Elena, the Salvatores stopped Mommy from being the next subject on Nancy Grace, so you’re free to go!

Elena Gilbert: Yay!

Rebekah: Also, you’re right … it’s going to be a lot more fun slowly torturing you over the next seventy years!

Elena Gilbert: Poop!

– Bennet Bungalow – Trundle Bed of Transition

Caroline Forbes: Hi Elena! Abby is transitioning and Bonnie is mourning, so you should probably go away now! And also stock up on anti-wiccan plot devices, because the chances of Bonnie seeking vengeance on someone for this is about 100%!

Elena Gilbert: But I don’t understand! I got everything I wanted! Why is anyone upset?

– Castle Salvatore –

Stefan Salvatore: Hey Damon! Thanks for murdering a Bennet for me, even though I lost that coin toss!

Damon Salvatore: Oh, it’s cool. I mean, I could tell you haven’t had a drop of human blood since …. ?

Stefan Salvatore: I threatened to drive Elena off Dead Parent Bridge and I had an epiphany and realized what a monster I had become and I swore to atone for my evil ways and become a better man and protect Elena and love Elena and do sex to Elena and Elena Elena Elena!

Stefan Salvatore’s Hero Hairdo: Hi guys! I’m back!

Damon Salvatore’s Eyebrows: Oh Jesus, not him again.

Damon Salvatore: Anyway, I’m better off being the bad guy, and those sorority chicks aren’t going to bang themselves, so …

– The Gilbert House – Notes from Nobles –

Elijah (in a note): Dear Elena, Sorry about the whole “trapped in a cave and nearly immolated by Rebekah” thing. Totally my bad. I hope you can forgive me. I also hope the producers can see fit to give me my own show, tentatively titled “The Elijah is Better Than You Hour.” -xoxo Elijah

– Mikaelson Mansion –

Rebekah: Hi guys! Wanna see the photos I took of Elena in the cave? The ones where she had to pee but was too embarrassed to go in front of me are priceless.

Elijah: Yeah, I’d love to, but this show doesn’t have enough angst or brooding, so I’m going to go in the corner and glower for a few episodes.

Klaus: I, on the other hand, could really use something to distract me from thoughts of murdering Caroline in her sleep.

Rebekah: Great! Check this one out! It’s … a painting of the White Oak of Vampire Slaughter?

Klaus: And a Aztec Jewish Viking Moon Calendar that says this drawing was done three hundred years after we “destroyed” it?

Rebekah: We’re still in danger!

Klaus: I knew we shouldn’t have used an off-brand herbicide!

Rebekah: Curse you Grow-No-Mo!

– Meredith’s Murdertorium –

Alaric Saltzman: That’s odd … medical files from all of the murder victims, police records, a blood covered knife, dossiers on the Mystic Falls Watcher’s Council … wait a second …

Meredith Fell: Oops! I let all my incriminating evidence laying around again! Tee hee! Bang!

lmfao!!

[crimechannels]

By • Olalekan Fagbade   Subsidy removal: Bicycles dealers make brisk businesses as economy bites harder   Some bicycles dealers in Bauchi are making brisk businesses due to increase patronage ocasioned by the hikes in pump price and transport fare. A check by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi metropolis showed that most of the workers, students and businessmen have resorted to cycling since the Federal Government ended fuel subsidy regime in the country. NAN checks at the Central market Bauchi showed that the demand for new bicycles and repair of the old ones had increased by about 70 per cent as the number of the cyclists keep surging. Bicycle riding is becoming more popular among the residents in the area as it proved to be cost effective, ease transportation difficulties and improve health condition. The trend provided opportunities for the bicycles dealers and repairers to make more money from the trade. Alhaji Mudi Jahun, a bicycle dealer, said that he was recording high sales due to increased patronage of bicycles in Bauchi and adjourning communities. He said the trade in bicycles recorded significant boom with hike in petrol prices and transport fare. “We noticed business boom with increase in the price of petrol. “I sold about two bicycles daily as against before when I hardly sold one bicycle within a week. “Bicycles for adult are the most preferred unlike the ones for the children. “We thank God, we are making good sales of bicycles and its spare parts,” he said. Jahun said that a bicycle for adult now sold between N25,000 and N30,000 as against its former price of N20,000. Corroborating Jahun, Audu Gimba, a bicycle repairer, said that he was enjoying appreciable patronage in view of the increasing demand of his services. He said that many people had brought their old bicycles for repair on daily basis. “The number of bicycles has increased, even the old ones kept for years at home had been brought for repairs.   Before the fuel subsidy removal, I spent the whole day without any customer coming for repairs. “Now, many bicycle owners are coming, I’m overwhelmed with work,” he said Also, Mr Saminu Musa, a worker, said that he resorted to use of bicycle as he could not afford exorbitant fuel prices. He noted that most of the aumobile owners had jacked off their cars and resorted to either bicycles or public transportation. “I repaired my bicycle and that of my children, my car is already parked, I can’t afford to buy fuel”. A trader, Ali Habib, said that he opted to trekking from his home to the market daily. “The tricycle and motorcycle riders increased their charges due to fuel price hike. “Things are hard nowadays, therefore, I prefer trekking to save cost,”  he said. (NAN) #Bicyclessellersmakingbriskbusinessinbauchi #fuelsubsidy

[hardynwa]

Nigerians face hardship after fuel prices surge

Fuel prices have almost tripled across Africa’s most populous nation after newly elected President Bola Tinubu announced Monday that subsidies were “gone”. This has triggered an increase in transportation costs, sending food prices soaring while electricity has become more costly for those using generators. Commuting to work in Lagos, Nigeria’s megacity of some 20 million people, has long been a hellish affair, but a surge in petrol prices is making it even worse.Lagos minibus driver Abdullah Akinyode said he felt “guilty” that he had to double his prices and that the situation was “very difficult.””Salaries are not increasing,” said the 38-year-old, and so “people are not going out of their homes.”Nigeria is oil-rich but has meagre refining capacity. For years, it has swapped crude for refined oil from abroad, which it then subsidises for its domestic market. This causes a huge drain on revenue, foreign exchange and has contributed to ballooning debt. While experts have long advocated for the removal of the costly subsidies and applauded the new government’s move, concerns are mounting about the absence of measures to mitigate the inflationary impact on food, power and transport. ‘People can’t cope!’ At the busy Utako market in the capital Abuja, Bo Eze, 45, is sitting on big bags of garri (a staple food in Nigeria made of cassava) stacked inside a minibus. With a 45-minute drive to the market, he has had to increase his prices after petrol soared from about 190 to more than 500 naira per litre. “One bag of 50 kg was 35,000 naira (about 75 dollars) before and now it’s 45,500 (about 98 dollars), People can’t cope!,” he said. His friend, Augustin Ede, who sells goat meat nearby said it had grown more expensive to transport the animals. “I used to buy 15 goats to sell but now I buy seven,” said the 60-year-old, looking irritated and pointing at the carcasses lined up on a wooden table. Customer Prudence Ekuvero is eyeing goat neck to cook at home. Not all prices have increased at the market and some people are rushing to buy as much as they can now, anticipating a rise. Electricity cost Amnesty International Nigeria has warned that while “countries are required to eventually remove all fossil fuel subsidies,” it was vital the move was “accompanied by social cushioning and protection measures.” Even before the subsidy removal, more than 80 million people lived below the poverty line in Nigeria according to the World Bank. The United Nations has warned that over a quarter of those are facing acute hunger this year. In the northern city of Kano, where temperatures are high this time of the year, Shehu Ahmad has to spend his evenings in the dark and with fans off after the petrol price surge. Electricity supply is often erratic in Nigeria and many people like the 48-year-old accountant have generators, but now they are becoming too costly to operate. “Fueling a generator to lighten our homes and power our fans at night has suddenly become a luxury we cannot afford. “Last night, no house on our street put on their generator,” he narrated. The increased cost of power is also having an impact on businesses and their employees. “I went to work this morning but my boss asked me to return home. There was no work because of the lack of electricity,” said Mustapha Abubakar, an IT intern. “I have no idea what measures they will introduce,” said the 21-year-old, after his company told him they could not afford to pay for petrol and that the firm would “have to readjust.” Read the full article

[chubby-chikorita]

so my dad isn’t coming to my 18th birthday ✌️

[thessalian]

Thess vs Victim-Blaming

So there’s this jackass Tory MP Lee Anderson. His constituency’s food bank oblige people to sign up for cooking and budgeting courses before they’re allowed to pick up food parcels. Because, he says, “There’s no massive need for food banks in this country; it’s just that nobody knows how to cook anymore! You can cook a meal from scratch for 30 pence!” He says a day; I think he means per person.

Either way...

Once I got past the rage, I did actually have some rebuttals for all of that. Which I tend to fire at the people who agree with him in my hearing / reading.

For meat, we’re talking about off-cuts. Those tend to take rather longer to cook than the average, because they tend to be tough. Now, in a household where the kids are too little for that kind of cooking and the parents have been at work (at one of possibly several jobs) ... who the hell has the time? Come to that, who the hell has the energy? When people are working too hard for too little already, they’re not going to be able to put off bedtime - especially not for their kids - to cook a meal.

Of course, people might talk about just putting it into a slow-cooker, and that brings us to another issue: equipment. A lot of cooking from scratch requires things like roasting pans, baking dishes, crock-pots. Now, you can get those things cheap, but they’ll fall apart faster for being cheap, and need to be replaced a lot more often, at more expense. That’s if they can manage the outlay in the first place. And honestly, even if they can afford these things, where the fuck are they going to find the space? I live in a pretty decently-sized flat and my kitchen is the approximate size of a postage stamp, and I have issues trying to find space for everything I have, never mind what I need for easier, cheaper meals. Anyone in a less comparatively luxurious living space is going to have a lot more problems with that.

This 30p figure probably comes with the concept of buying in bulk and a lot of division. So let’s talk about buying in bulk. First, it requires you having the cash to make the initial investment in it. Yeah, that huge bag of rice will make a lot of meals, but can you afford the initial outlay on that huge bag of rice? If you’re relying on a food bank right now, probably not. Then there’s perishables, which you can’t buy in bulk unless you have a decently-sized freezer. Do not underestimate the number of people in this country who have a refrigerator the approximate size of a mini-fridge with a freezer with the storage capacity of a toaster oven. There’s also getting it all home, which is difficult if you do not have a car, which a lot of people don’t. And honestly, even if they do, with the price of petrol lately, anything they save on that kind of shopping will just be blown in petrol fees.

And finally, let’s talk about the amount of energy - electricity or gas - that it takes to cook these meals from scratch. Energy prices have more than doubled lately. No hyperbole. People are asking food banks not to give them carrots or potatoes not because they don’t know how to cook them, but because they can’t afford to cook them with energy prices this high. We’re talking about a situation where old ladies are riding the bus all day because they can’t afford to heat their homes; the energy consumption of an electric kettle feels like too much for people, never mind cooking tough off-cuts of meat, or lentils.

These are the things that no one’s talking about anywhere near enough. They talk about compassion and everything, and that’s fine as far as it goes. Thing is, the logical fallacy of the situation shouldn’t be ignored either. People can look up a recipe on Google (hell, I can cook and I turn to the internet for recipes quite often), but that doesn’t solve all of the rest of the above. I’m tired of the victim-blaming. People shouldn’t need to prove that they can cook / budget before being permitted a food bank parcel. They shouldn’t be obliged to ‘show willing’ by taking a class, either. A lot of those people already have jobs and cutting into what little free time they have while some teacher tells them to do things they have literally no time or money to do because the initial outlay of both is too high for any of this to be viable ... it just feels cruel. So that’s where the compassion comes in, yes. Still, pure logic says this is stupid. If people can’t afford the initial outlay for ingredients and cookware, or the petrol / delivery fees to get bulk food home, or the very energy required to cook it both in terms of gas / electric and of personal spoons reserves, then all of the cooking and budgeting courses in the world won’t help.

Lee Anderson spends thousands on staff per month, by the way. I’d bet a cook is in there somewhere. Not to mention that the Houses of Parliament have subsidised meals. So the politicians on six-figure salaries have their gourmet meals heavily subsidised and they grudge people who are barely making ends meet with multiple jobs a food parcel unless they at least appear to accept the blame for their plight instead of blaming the people whose economic policies and Brexit have put us in this mess in the first fucking place.

They’re still looking for ways to “ease the cost of living challenge” (yeah, they insist it’s a challenge, not a crisis) ... but they’re still trying to find ones that don’t cost them or any of their wealthy donors money. The best they’ve come up with so far is to make a lot of civil servants redundant because “Covid is over and Brexit is done so we don’t need them”. Except those first two points aren’t true. Covid is not over - we just don’t see the numbers anymore because testing is no longer free, and the news outlets are more fired up about Ukraine and the Northern Ireland Protocol debacle. Brexit is not over - we still haven’t set up our own checks on EU goods because we haven’t got around to the infrastructure needed for doing so, and now the “oven-ready deal” that Johnson and Frost were so gung-ho over back in the day is being called a “travesty” that “the EU forced us into” and now those involved are saying, “We’re going to do what we want and break our international agreements and if the EU starts a trade war, it’s their fault for not letting us do whatever we want with no consequences!” (No, seriously, they keep saying that the EU would be “silly” to “shoot themselves in the foot” by imposing sanctions or cutting trade entirely with the UK, when we’re the ones who’d actually suffer. Our government is only world-beating in its gaslighting.)

So, yeah, they want to make more people unemployed in the middle of this mess. Because the Tories Be Like That. And we’d never see the money we supposedly saved by no longer paying those civil servants anyway. They’re taking cues on making their finances look good from the video game industry, this government.

...HEEEEEEEEEEELP.

[overly-b]

Say It Again - JJ Maybank

In which JJ questions if he is deserving of you and your love. 

Warnings: swearing, sad JJ, fluff, awful editing don’t come for me

Word Count: 3.5k(whoops) 

Author's note: this is my first time writing in so long, be gentle with me friends. I know that a lot of people have done similar prompts of JJ feeling undeserving of love and the reader helps him through it, so this is a little bit unoriginal but, this is my take on it. 

Bold italics is a flash back. 

Thank you to @maybe-maybanks​ to the late night inspiration!

not my gif

As you, Kie and Pope approached the yard of the chateau, it became undeniably clear that JJ had gone off the rails with extravagant spending since you had seen him last. 

“What did you do JJ?” Pope questions the boy sitting in the hot tub. Looking at you through his sunglasses, he smirks. 

“I got a jet going straight in my butt right now” He ignores Pope. “Y’all, should get in here immediately, you hear me?” His sentence slurs slightly. “Salud!” He toasts his plastic champagne flute in the air, but opts to take a swig from the bottle in his other hand. 

JJ scans the faces of his three friends, eyes lingering at yours a moment longer than Kie and Popes. 

You see, just days ago, after getting arrested, then beaten by his father, JJ found you, and poured his heart out, to find that you shared his feelings, and the two of you started seeing each other in secret. 

Being that it was a secret, the two of you had yet to put any kind of label on it, but you loved that blonde boy to the ends of the earth, despite what had happened earlier that day. 

“You know what, that's exactly what I’m gonna do. Go off, by myself.”  

You watched as JJ began walking away. Pope attempted to stop him, but Sarah and John B had halted his efforts. You stood silently fuming at the actions of the boy you had such strong feelings for. How could he be doing something like this? This wasn’t the JJ you knew, had been friends with for years, and were now in love with. Though if you were being honest with yourself, you had loved him for years prior. 

“JJ!” You seethed, shaking off John B’s attempts to hold you back from running after him. He was already a good distance away from the group, he probably couldn’t even hear you yelling, so you started speed walking. It soon became apparent that he was simply ignoring you. 

“JJ!” You were merely twenty feet from him, screaming at his back. “JJ stop!” His strides continued. 

“You were real quiet back there princess, finally decide to comment?” You stepped in front of him, shoving his shoulders to force his walk to a stop. “What the fuck Y/N!” 

“What the fuck me? What the fuck you! What has gotten into you right now JJ what are you doing?” 

“Nothing has gotten into me Y/N I’m simply paying back what I owe.” He states, trying to walk past you. 

“By stealing the money from the drug dealer that just jumped us?” Your brows raise as you interrogate him. 

“He jumped us, he has this coming.” He nonchalantly shrugs his shoulders, succeeding in getting past you, as you stand shocked by his words. 

“JJ you and I both know that you’re not that goddamned stupid.” His steps slow, he stands still. “Stealing money from a drug dealer? JJ I know that you owe money because of Pope but this isn’t right! You’re better than this-” 

“Am I?” He turns on his heels to face you again, this time squaring his shoulders to be purposeful in standing tall over you. Him standing over you made you feel small in comparison to the raging blond. “Am I better than this?” He repeats his question. 

“JJ what are you-” 

“Because I’m starting to think that you, and your high standards, and your perfect life, only think that I am better than this because you want me to be better than this.” 

You knew what he was referring to. You were by no means a kook, but your family was financially stable enough to afford a nice house, you had your own car, and if you wanted, you could afford to go to college on the mainland. Your life was unlike most lives on the cut, but JJ knew that your life was far from perfect. 

“What the hell-” 

“And that if we’re gonna be together,  you need me to be better than this so that I can fit in with your life.” You had no idea what he meant. Your life was on the cut, with the Pouges, with him, and the difference of financial well beings of your familys never changed that before, so why was it now? 

“What the fuck JJ stop-” 

“Well you know what Y/N! I’m not better than this, this is who I am! I get into fights, I steal, I have a criminal record, when I get hit, I hit back this is who I am!” 

“We both know that stealing twenty five thousand dollars from a drug dealer is never going to make anything better.” You attempt to reason with him. “This isn’t hitting back this is loading the gun that's already in your face!” 

“Y/N I have to!” He spits. “I know you could never understand being in so much debt but this is my only option.” His words hit you like a punch to the stomach. He looks down to his boots before continuing. “So I’m sorry that I’m not what you pictured as a boyfriend, but this is what I do Y/N. Maybe you trying to fight it means you deserve better than me.” 

And just like that, it was clear that he was more mad with himself then he was with you. However, everything that he said was uncalled for, and nasty, and he had no right. You watch as he storms away, even more tense than before, and you couldn’t help but wonder how this affects your newfound relationship. You blink away the water from your eyes, and do your best to compose yourself as you slowly wander back to your friends. 

“How much did this cost?” Pope asks. Your head was spinning as he listed all of the things that he had purchased since he left you standing in the woods. 

“Uh, well. With the generator, the petrol, and, oh, hey, express delivery,” You knew the answer before he even had time to speak. “Pretty much all of it, yeah.” 

“All of it?” Pope exclaims. 

“Oh my god” You whisper, mostly to yourself, rubbing your forehead with your palm. 

“Yeah all of it.” 

“You spent all the money in one day?” “Yeah burned a hole right through my pocket.” He confidently explains. “But, I mean like come on guys, look at this!”  The tone in his voice told you that he was holding back, it was alway his biggest tell when he would hold back his feelings. “Finest in jet based massage therapy, that's what they told me.” 

The three of you are left speechless. 

“Kie what? Can’t a man have a little luxury in life?” JJ still could not bring himself to look you in the eyes for more than a moment. “Come on, all this scrimping’ and scraping’” you notice his voice falter again. “I mean like, guys, we, you only live once. Right?” JJ finally locks eyes with you, and he reacts spastically, your dreaded look having the gravest effect on him.  

“Y/N, stop, why are you looking at me like that?” He knew full well, but he was trying too hard not to show it. “I know that you’re mad about earlier okay, but, everything is fine now!” His voice was louder now, concealing the breakdown you knew was coming, sooner or later, here with the three of you or somewhere else. “Enough of this emotional shit. Get in the Cat’s Ass come on.” He smiles, waving you to join him. 

“The what?” Kie furrows her brows. 

“The Cat’s Ass.” JJ smugly replies, proud of himself. “That's what I named her. Oh hey yo, I almost forgot,” JJ leans forward, pressing a button that makes water spray across the tub, and even more colorful lights flash in front of him. “Huh! Yeah that's right, disco mode, thats right baby!” His eyes scan yours, noticing that they were clouding with tears. He quickly looks away from you, not wanting to see the damage that he had done, and was still doing. 

“JJ,” Your voice is low and hushed as you blink back tears. 

“Are you kidding me?” Popes harsh voice overpowers yours, cutting off you and your tears. “You could have paid for restitution!” 

“Or literally given it to any charity” Kie fumes at the sight before her. 

“Guys,” You mutter, wanting them to stop being so hard on the broken boy you secretly called yours. You were mad too, if not more than Pope and Kie due to your argument. However, you could see straight through the smug grins and happy fasad that JJ was trying to project. He was hurting, and you knew it wasn’t just about the fight the two of you shared. 

“Or better yet, you could have helped us buy supplies to get the rest of the gold out of the well!” 

“Guys!” You spoke up louder this time, only to be cut off by JJ. 

“Okay well you know I didn’t do that!” As JJ’s swimsuit clad body surfaces from the hot water, you are confronted with what you knew would be there, and the tears pour from your eyes. “I got a hot tub!” JJ shakes in what appears to be anger, but you know it isn't anger he's reeling from. “For my friends,” 

Kie and Pope gape at JJ’s bruised abdomen and instantly connect the dots as to who is responsible. 

“I bought a hot tub for my friends.” He repeats. “You know what, no, you know what, screw friends. I got a hot tub for my family.” 

“JJ what the hell-” Kie gasps.

“I got this for you! Guys look what I did for you! Alright?” JJ spins and gestures to everything he bought. “Look at this!” When he turns back, he finds that you were no longer holding back the tears your eyes once held. 

“Y/N stop being emotional don’t, don’t cry okay? I know that I hurt you before,” His voice fails him as he recalls the words that he said to you. “But I did this for you,” He hangs his head, he knows how bad he fucked up, and it was hitting him all at once that this was not the way that he needed to make things right. This was not the way back to you, and the high of his twenty five thousand dollar spending spree was dissapating at his realisation, and at the sight of you before him. 

“I mean, it’s sweet right?” JJ hadn't even realized that as he began talking, you had climbed into the hot tub. He looks into your eyes for a moment as you stand before him, and lets out a sob as you gently wrap your arms around him. His forehead falls to your shoulder, and  all of his pent up energy released in the form of tears and heaves. 

“I’m sorry. Baby I’m so sorry.” He whimpers to you, only for you to shush him tenderly. Kie and Pope share a confused glance at the nickname. “I couldn’t do it.” You rub his hair and hold him close as he convulses. “I can’t take it anymore!” JJ wails, your tears land on his shoulders, and his tears land on yours. “I was gonna kill him!” 

Kie is next to join you, jumping into the steaming water and embracing the both of you. Pope follows. 

“I just want to do the right thing.” 

“Shh, JJ, I know. I know” You coo him, trying to calm his weeping. 

After minutes of holding him, Kie announces that she has to head home, and Pope offers to drive her. JJ rests in a nearly catatonic state in your arms, no doubt exhausted and knowing JJ, not ready to face the fact that he just broke down in front of his friends. 

The pair leaves bidding reassuring words to JJ, and a few more hugs. 

You are left in the hot tub, holding the blond boy as he clutches onto you. He wasn’t crying anymore, but his breaths were rapid and heavy as he was shaken, the events of the day had caught up to him in the form of you and your tears. He begins to spew soft “I’m sorry”s and other apologises, but his panic makes him stutter and his sentences start to lack direction. 

You shush him and direct the boy to listen to your heartbeat, trying your best to bring his shattered thoughts back to earth. 

“JJ, we should get out of the hottub.” You tell him, to which he simply sniffles and nods, unsure of how to speak to you after the horrible things he said to you, and his inability to form a proper apology. He knew that you were nothing like he had depicted, yet he said what he said, and there was no taking it back. 

His skin was red from the overheated water, and it itched with chlorine, so as the two of you entered the chateau, you started the shower. 

“You should rinse off the chlorine.” You told him, not sure of how to speak to him either. He followed your order and stripped of his bathing suit. You were able to track down clothes for him to sleep in, and as you waltzed back into the bathroom, you decided you couldn’t leave him alone in the shower.  

Taking off your soaked clothes quickly, you slip into the shower to find JJ standing still under the water. You snake your arms around his torso, careful of the bruises pressing your chest to his back. His hands find yours he holds them tight. You place a kiss on his spine, then rest your head where your lips touched. 

“I’m so sorry” He croaked, his voice was tired, worn out from the day. 

“JJ-” 

“No stop Y/N” He turns around to face you, grabbing your face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I should have never said any of those things about you, none of them were true, it's just that, its,” He stumbles on his words. You rub his back to ground him again, he takes a deep breath. “It's just that you do deserve better than me.” 

“JJ please-” He doesn’t let you continue. 

“No you do, Y/N you do. You deserve so much better than me, than this life, than what I can give you. You don’t deserve some, broken kid that's never getting off the cut, you don’t deserve, to, have to watch as I steal money from drug dealers, you don’t deserve any of the shit that I know that I put you through you just, you deserve better, better than someone who doesn’t come close to deserving you.” 

The tears streaming down both of your faces mix with the water coming from the shower and you have no idea how to make his saddening speech stop. 

“JJ” You sob, he pauses. “You deserve so much more, than what your life has given you. You deserve to be happy, you deserve to be loved JJ, you deserve everything that you want, why can’t you see that?” 

And instantly you feel stupid for asking. JJ’s eyes wander and find the bruises littering his body, answering your question. You stifle another sob as your eyes graze his battered skin. 

“Listen to me.” You demand his attention. “You are not worthless.” His eyes divert from yours as he realises what you’re referring to. “JJ look at me,” After a moment or two, his gaze wearily finds yours. “You are not worthless, you are worthy of love, and affection, and someone who takes care of you, and not only are you worthy but you deserve it too. Do you hear me?” 

JJ swallows thickly, nodding in acceptance of your beautiful words. He embraces you tightly, having no words of his own. No one had ever made him feel like this. No one had ever made him feel worthy of the good that was before him. 

He was hesitant to think that he deserved you. To him, no one was good enough to actually deserve you, especially not him. However your speech made him open to the idea that maybe he was at least worthy of your love. 

Your love. 

You both realised in the same moment that the word was shared between you. You had never shared the faithful declaration of love to each other since you had been together romantically, and yet now you had mentioned love twice in the span of thirty seconds. JJ smiled as he held you. You loved him, and this was one of the ways that you showed it. 

“Let's get the chlorine out of your hair J.” 

He let you massage his scalp with the shampoo that he's seen you use before to get pool chemicals out of your hair. He didn’t really know what it did or how it was different from other shampoos but, it smelled like you and he loved getting his head rubbed. His breathing was still shaky, but he finally felt some of his anxiety from the day wearing off. Fighting with you was something he never wanted to do again. Fighting with his dad was something he knew he would have to do the next time he went home. He elected to ignore those thoughts, as your fingers worked magic on his hair, seemingly drawing all of the negative ideas out of his head along with the chlorine. 

As JJ rinsed his hair of soap, he noticed you reaching for the bottle again, no doubt to wash your own hair. He holds out his hand, wordlessly asking if he could wash your hair for you, like you had done for him. This makes you grin as you hand him the bottle. JJ then realises that he doesn’t really know how to do what you did for him. That kind of small, soft, intimate touching was foreign to him. 

He squeezes way too much shampoo into his hand, but you pay that no mind. He starts slow, trying to remember the way your fingers moved on his scalp, but in the end knowing that he just wasn’t good at giving head massages. 

“I used way too much.” He states, watching as suds continue to produce from your locks.  

“It’s okay.” You hum watching the bubbles disappear down the drain. “I set out clothes for you when you’re ready, I’m probably gonna be another minute” You tell him, referring to the other bottles you had in the shower that you still had to use. 

“Okay, thank you” He kisses you as he exits the shower. You finish up quickly, wanting to be next to him, and hoping that his thoughts as he sits alone don’t carry him away like they had before. 

You find that he left his tee shirt for you, like he had on nights before. You wear the shirt that smelled of him along with a pair of comfortable running shorts and head to the spare bedroom of the chateau that JJ called his most nights. 

You spot JJ sitting at the edge of the bed, waiting for you. You slowly and carefully climb onto his lap, straddling him and holding his head close to your chest. You notice anxiety still radiating off of him. 

“Hey,” You start softly. “It’s okay, everythings okay-” 

“I love you” He states bluntly as he picks up his head from your chest. 

“What?” You stumble, surprised at his outburst. 

“I love you, and I want to be with you, like, publically, or whatever. I wanna tell the Pouges and-” before he starts rambling, you stop him. 

“I love you too JJ.” This pauses him. 

“Say it again.” 

You giggle, but inhale, knowing that he needs to hear it. 

“JJ.” You start. “I love you.” 

He lets out a breath you didn’t realize he was holding, eyes watering for the millionth time. 

“I still don’t think that I deserve this.” He admits, looking into your eyes with his crystal clear blue ones. 

“You do.” You push his hair back from his face. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you that you do.” 

He was hesitant to accept everything that you had said to him that day, but he never doubted that you would give him your all. This was all he needed to know before he allowed himself fully over to you, kissing you with more desperation and love than ever before. 

“I love you so much.” You muttered into his lips, and from that day on, you would say it again and again, as many times as he needed to hear it. A constant reminder to him that he was deserving and worthy of good, of love, and of you.

Taglist:  @maybe-maybanks​  @myrandom-fandomlife​

[ivysimagines]

Hey, love. 💞 I hope you’re having a WONDERFUL day! Can I request a Blurb w/ JJ x Fem! Reader? The Reader is John B’s younger sister, and it’s the Hot Tub Scene? JJ and the Reader planned on being married in the future. JJ fantasized buying her a gargantuan engagement ring, but the pair acknowledged they wouldn’t be able to afford it. However, alongside the Hot Tub, Generators, and Delivery, he bought her an engagement ring too? Angst w/ Fluff, please? Thank you! 💞

of course I can! sorry it took me a bit to get to this. I’ve had bad allergies n haven’t been in the mood to write. anyways, the scenario isn’t exactly the way it is in the episode but i made it pretty similar.

pairing: JJ Maybank x Fem! Reader

request: above.

warning: mentions of abuse, cussing, angst w/ fluff, and underage drinking.

-

Title: Catch

-

(thoughts are in italics and bold!)

I sit in the backseat of Pope’s truck listening to trees rustling and the tires driving over the old rocky pavement.

They seriously need to get this road redone.

“Guys, this has gotta be done before my scholarship interview in the morning” Pope says.

I roll my eyes.

Will he ever shut up about that?

Like, he’s smart as fuck.

You’ll get a scholarship somewhere.

“Oh my god, Pope” i say, making it clear i’m annoyed.

“What, Y/N?”

“Guys, no fighting” kiara adds while reaching for her seatbelt buckle.

Okay mom.

Pope parks his truck near some trees.

We all unbuckle our seatbelts quickly and hop out.

Pope and Kie are talking about the plan to get the gold.

I hate that John B gets into this shit.

This is exactly how our dad died.

He can’t die or I’ll have no one.

I walk to the back of the truck and slip my phone into my back pocket.

I lean against the truck while Pope and Kie talk.

I shoo away some nats.

“Damn nats” I say as I kill one.

I hear Kie laugh a little.

Suddenly a shit ton of lights come on around us.

We hear a whirring sound.

“What the hell?” Pope says.

I look over to them and back at the lights.

“Who the hell is that?” kie adds.

We all begin walking towards the center of all the lights hoping to find whoever the fuck did this.

I walk behind them and we hear a cork pop.

I cross my arms and nearly trip over a stick.

We stop and I see it’s my boyfriend, JJ Maybank.

“What did you do JJ?” Pope asks him clearly concerned.

JJ smiles a little, “i’ve got a jet going straight in my butt right now.”

“Y’all should get in immediately, you hear me?”

He grabs three glasses and pours the champagne.

I can tell he’s avoiding looking at me.

“Salud!” he says as he raises the champagne.

“How much did this cost?” Pope asks.

I look back and forth between Pope and JJ.

“Uh. well, with the generator, the petrol, and oh, hey, express delivery...uh, i’d say pretty much all of it”

“All of it?”

“Yeah, all of it”

He looks over at me and then back at Pope.

“You spent all of the money in one day?”

“Yeah, burned a hole right through my pocket. But I mean like, come on guys, like, look at this! Finest in jet-based massage therapy, at least that’s what they told me.”

I stare at JJ with a look of disappointment.

JJ looks over to me.

“Babe, what?” JJ asks.

“Can’t a man have a little luxury in his life! C’mon, all this scrimpin’ and scrapin’..i mean like...guys, we- y’know you only live once, right?” JJ says.

I look at Pope and Kie.

“Like, y/n couldn’t you use some fun in your life? You’ve been all down and shit since your-” he stops himself before finishing his sentence.

Asshole.

“Alright, enough of this emotional shit. Get in the cat’s ass. Come on.” he adds.

“In the what?” Kie asks.

“...in the cat’s ass. That’s what i named her” JJ says while looking off to the side.

It’s quiet for a maximum of 3 seconds.

“Oh, hey, yo, i almost forgot-”

JJ reaches forward and flips a switch and it turns on some disco ball.

“Yeah, that’s right, i know. Disco mode, baby” he says.

“Are you kidding me?!” Pope says in an agitated tone.

“You could’ve paid for restitution!” Pope yells.

“Or literally given it to any charity!” Kie adds.

“Or added it to a fucking fund to get the hell out of here!” i yell.

JJ looks right at me.

“Or bought supplies to get the rest of the damn gold out of the well!” (pope)

JJ turns away and rubs his face.

“Okay, well, you know what?” JJ yells.

He stands up revealing purple and red marks on his stomach.

All these different thoughts began racing through my mind and I could feel my heartbeat speeding up.

Oh my god.

He said things were getting better at home.

...i’m gonna kill that motherfucker.

How can he do that shit to his own fucking kid?

Maybe it’s a good thing my mom dipped and my dad’s dead.

“I didn’t do that!” JJ yells.

“I got a hot tub! For my friends- you know what? No, screw friends. I got a hot tub for my family!”

I look at him and tears start forming.

He looks over to me.

“And, I got something especially for you” he says as he reaches into his swim trunks pocket.

I look at him and he pulls out something small.

“Catch” (JJ)

I open my hands and catch a ring in my hand.

I take a look at it.

It’s not just any ring.

It’s a gargantuan engagement ring.

Holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit

I look up at him.

“JJ…”

It’s silent for a few seconds.

I walk over to the hot tub and step on the ladder.

I get inside with him as he rants about ‘everything being fine’.

I pull him into a tight hug.

He starts crying into me.

“I love you” i whisper into his ear.

I rub his back.

It’s quiet as we hug.

Kie and Pope get in with us and we all hug JJ.

“I just wanna do the right thing and I thought-” he says.

“We know, we know. It’s okay, love” i say.

After a few minutes JJ calms down and Pope and Kie leave us.

*now sitting on the edge of the hot tub talking to JJ*

I mess with the ring in my fingers.

“JJ...I don't need some fancy ring” i say.

“I know, but I wanted such an..important ring to be nice”

I look over at him.

“So, this is an engagement ring?”

He smiles at me and nods.

“I know we’re still teenagers and...obviously you can’t exactly get parental consent. Plus, John B would totally kill me if we got married this young. But, we can still be engaged.” he says.

I smile at him and look back down.

“You know, you haven’t asked me”

He sighs and laughs softly.

He takes the ring from out of my hand and looks at me.

“Alright, Y/N Routledge, will you make me literally the happiest man in the world and marry me in a few years?”

I smile at him and bite my lip a little.

“Definitely, one thousand percent”

He smiles and grabs my left hand softly.

He slips the ring onto my ring finger and then places his hand on my face.

We kiss a couple times before I pull away.

I look at the ring on my finger.

Holy shit.

I’m like...engaged now.

What the fuck?

I contain my excitement and just smile.

“So, we could get married when we turn 18...or whenever using our share of the 400 mil and then get the fuck out of here. Away from the obx, away from the pogue bullshit, just...everything” he says.

I stare at him for a few seconds.

“Okay, as long as we can get a dog”

He smiles and nods.

“Named willow?”

“Of course, whatever you want” he says.

I smile at him and we kiss again.

We continue our night together and eventually head to my house.

-

Hope you enjoy!

Once again, request whatever you would like.

I will also be experimenting with thing like ‘dating ___ would include…’ (i love those types of things lmao)

I might start writing a lot for atypical since i’ve gone back into my atypical phase (13rw as well but idk if ima write for that series or not).

Thanks for readinggg!

Upload schedule:

Monday @ 10 am (EST)

Wednesday @ 3 pm (EST)

Friday @ 8 pm (EST)

There may be random uploads here and there.

If you request something I will upload it on one of those days.

BYEEE <33

[merelygifted]

Sri Lanka MPs leave Gotabaya Rajapaksa-led coalition - BBC News

More than 40 MPs have left Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's coalition government.

MPs from parties aligned with Mr Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) led coalition said they would now independently represent themselves.

The move comes as the South Asian nation is grappling with power cuts and shortages because of an economic and foreign exchange crisis.

This has led to mass protests demanding Mr Rajapaksa's resignation.

It is unclear what the implications of the MPs' actions are at this point. They have distanced themselves from the government, but have not extended support to the opposition.

It could, however, call into question the prime minister's authority over the parliament.

Mr Rajapaksa's cabinet has already resigned, but both the president and his brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, have so far refused to step down.

Instead, the president called on opposition parties to help him form a national government and accept cabinet portfolios.

They have all refused and have reiterated demands for him to resign.

"What the people want is for this president and the entire government to step down," said Sajith Premadasa, leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, Sri Lanka's main opposition alliance.

Angry Sri Lankans want president to go

On Tuesday, a freshly appointed finance minister also announced he was quitting the job, less than 24 hours after accepting the post.

Ali Sabry, a close ally of President Rajapaksa, said he would give up his parliament seat for someone outside politics who might be "suitable to handle the situation".

Meanwhile, anti-government protests continued on Tuesday in major cities across the country.

"People can't afford their daily rice, their dhal, their basic necessities. People can't get on buses to come to work, to go to school," one protester told the BBC.

"How much worse can it get? There's no petrol, there's no diesel, kids can't sit their exams because there's no paper," said another.   ...

[bearballing]

one of our coworkers (an installer) had a heart attack on friday - he’s ok now, he got out of the hospital on sunday - and the other installer is his wife so obv she is taking care of him,

which means all the fucking installs have to be done by me (designer, production for small things) and another guy who is specifically Not an installer because starbucks 473851 just HAS to have their fucking drive through sign which by the way is nowhere near the drive through, there are 3 other fast food places between it and the drive through, and it HAAAAS to be today when it’s fucking 90F and we don’t know how to do anything but thank god it was easier than expected but with still taking 2 strips in hell city traffic and almost dying of heat stroke agaiiinnnnnnnnn PAY ME MORE PAY ME MORE PAY ME MORE.

we’ve barely had time to be like shit dude has anyone checked in with tom today how’s he doing is he feeling better than yesterday.

then i get drenched getting petrol on the way home (lol florida weather) and i’ve just got out the shower and sat down and it’s fucking 6:10pm and i gotta make dinner and then spend brain energy on helping my wife fucking plead with doctors to let her have a hysterectomy because DUHHHH WHAT IF YOUR HUSBAND WANTS KIDS (am trans, can’t get people pregnant, had a hysto myself, recommends them to anyone) WHAT IF U CHANGE YOUR MIND WHEN YOURE 30 40 50 WHAT IF YOU REGRET IT die. on top of the news about roe and everything else. on top of trying to afford everything because SHIT KEEPS BREAKING etc

how we doing today. i’m having a time.

[hardynwa]

"20 years after democracy, Nigeria producing poverty, misery — Peter Obi cries out

WORRIED about the fuel shortages, scarcity of new naira notes, among other problems bedeviling the country, the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, has said 20 years after Nigeria’s democracy was gotten, the country has produced poverty, out of school children, misery, among others for the Nigerian people. Obi stated this when he played host to Nigeria National Council 2023 meeting of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International, held at the National Christian Center, NCC, on Friday, in Abuja. Describing the 2023 general elections as existential, Obi said stories in Nigeria have never been beyond pain and suffering of the poor masses, stating that Nigeria should not get it wrong in the forthcoming elections. He said Nigeria qualified for a failed state, explaining that with the spate of insecurity in the country, the current administration has lost control over its territory. He said: “I believe that this year’s election for Nigeria is an existential election. We have gotten to a point where we can no longer afford to do anything wrong otherwise all of us would be refugees. “We have gotten to a point where some of us don’t know what people go through. I was in Jigawa, Sokoto, Kebbi, everywhere I go you see Nigerians at ATMs to take their own hard earned money that is not even worth anything but they can’t get it. I see Nigerians queuing up for fuel, when we are an oil producing country. “You now live in a country that has qualified for a failed state. The two most important ingredients of a failed state is when you don’t have control over your territory. We are no longer in control of Nigeria today. None of you can travel through Kaduna road without people checking if you’ve arrived successfully, you can’t go by air without your family phoning your to confirm if you’ve arrived, you can’t go by train. “The second is when you are no longer in control of your economy. The bread we used to buy for 400, is now over 1000. Nobody knows the cost of petrol. Rice today costs about 40-50,000. So, your country has failed. “We have over 133 million people living in multidimensional poverty. A country of 220 million has over 60 percent of the population living in poverty. We have more people living in poverty than India and China. These two countries have 2.8billion people. Our unemployment is 35 percent for a country of this size, youth unemployment is even worse at 55 per cent. Everything is headed south and in the past 20 years of our democracy, all we have produced is insecurity, poverty, out of school children, misery, pain on our people. This cumulative effect of leadership failure over the years. “Nigeria can be secured. The enemy is no longer formidable. They are not. Anyone who says criminals are more formidable than Nigerians, that’s a lie. What is lacking is leadership, what is lacking is being able to organise our security architecture. I have interviewed all the security agencies and I have found out they can do the job if they can be equipped, manned and supported. “We have removed poverty. We have a factor endowment of every region that can make this country to be very productive but we chose to go by the sharing formula instead of the production formula. So this country needs to be moved from production to consumption. It must happen. We have borrowed money without anybody asking what the money was borrowed for. “My dear people, get involved. This is a case where lunatics have taken over the asylum and we must rescue it from them. If not, it will consume everyone. It is good we are praying, it is good that we are going everything for the election but I think it is time for us to be righteous in dealing with people stealing public money.” He, therefore, pleaded with Nigerians across religious and ethnic boards to get involved by voting a candidate with character, completers and mental capacity to take the country to Uhuru. He urged all political party members in APC, PDP, among others to look away party affiliation, and vote for the best candidate. On his part, the National President of the Full Gospel Businessmen Fellowship International, Arc. Ifeanyi Odedo, while commending Peter Obi for gracing the occasion, urged the congregants to be wise during the 2023 election. Read the full article