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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 3 days ago

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Epilogue: I Don't Want To Lose Your Lovelight

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you never expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team.

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 10.8K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), Illusions to past sex, Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Teasing, Fluff, LOVE, Talks of Pregnancy/thinking about pregnancy, little bit of self-deprecating thought. Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Listen While You Read🪴: Lovelight by ABBA

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Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

A/N: Well here we are... The people have spoken and I will be leaving the happy version as is! Enjoy!

One Year Later

“I don’t understand why we need to have a realtor to look at apartments. Why can’t we just camp out in front of a nice apartment building and wait for an ambulance to wheel someone out like everyone else?” You huff looking down at the apartment listing on your phone that Ben was taking you to. “Or better yet, we could use Apartments.com. I trust Jeff Goldblum with my life.”

Who doesn't? The man is a national treasure.

"The guy from the movie about the dinosaurs?" Ben asks easing his car into traffic before taking a right.

Sunlight filtered through the windshield and down onto your lap illuminating the embroidered patches of flowers on your favorite blue jeans, the same jeans that were getting just a little tight at the top and the ones you wouldn't be able to wear for the next 6 months or so. You smile to yourself at the thought, and drop your left hand to your stomach that was just starting to swell beneath your botanical printed t-shirt, brushing a thumb over the soft fabric.

This year had been full of surprises, some good, some bad, but you didn’t care. Through the good and the bad, Ben had been there for you just as you had been there for him.

If someone had asked you what you thought your life was going to look like, it wouldn't have been this, but you were so blindingly happy that you didn't care. Ben might not have been the person that you imagined yourself with, but that was the funny thing about love, it could come with whispered breaths, soft caresses, and gentle promises or sneak up behind you and hit you over the back of the head with a frying pan.

There was no in between and your ears were still ringing from when it smacked you.

Ben quit his job at Vought over the phone the morning after the two of you finally realized what you should have known the moment you let Ben stay in your apartment the first time. It had been surreal waking up with him in your bed, his body hard and unyielding, curved around yours as if he wished to protect you while he was asleep. It was the same way you remembered from the morning you woke up with him on the couch when Darren was crashing in your room.

That night had seemed so far away then, an unpleasant flicker of emotion swelling when you thought of your brother, but then dissipated the longer you stared at Ben.

In the sweet relief of sleep he looked younger. His dark hair fell forward into his face, his bearded cheek laid gently on the pillow, and his usual frown pulled down into a neutral expression, but he looked just as handsome as he always did. Ben hadn't woken up until you raised his hand to your mouth and kissed the inside of his palm gently. And the smile he gave you when he did made you wish to exist in that moment with him forever. The look on his face then was so unlike the man you'd seen in the heat of battle the first time you met and everything like the man you'd fallen in love with.

Stan Edgar had been furious, said that Ben was purposely trying to make him look bad, but Ben didn't give a fuck what Stan thought of him, the only thing he cared about was curled against his chest, and was holding his hand to her lips.

Jake opened up the new plant shop re-named "Please Don't Die The Revenge," a title Jake and you had thought up after drinking way too many brightly colored margaritas at happy hour while Ben sulked and wished he was anywhere else.

However, Ben thought it was adorable how much of a light weight you were, and lead you home while you made jokes, giggled, and whispered things into his ear that only tested his restraint. Your boyfriend might be a lot of things, but he didn't want to take advantage of you when you were like that, especially not when you couldn't remember that you had feet and wouldn't stop crying until he took your shoes off and showed you that you still had them.

When Jake re-opened the shop, he insisted that you were going to be a partner, not an employee, and when he'd told you, you'd burst into tears while Ben grumbled under his breath something not worth repeating. Ben still didn't like Jake, and despite your numerous insistences for Ben to be nice, Ben was just as sullen around him as he had been since the first day they met. However, now Jake was used to it so you no longer felt the need to apologize.

You'd also decided to retire from working with Butcher, something that Ben wholeheartedly agreed with, especially now that you were pregnant. Sometimes you'd help out with something on the computer, but never in taking down a supe. It made you happier to work in the plant shop anyway, but didn't make you worry any less about Ben or everyone else.

The shop was doing well, and on weekends the store partnered with other businesses to host a block wide farmer's market, where you sold fruit, vegetables, dried herbs, hand crocheted goods, and jars of jam while Jake took the weekend off to visit his new girlfriend that he'd met when he went home for Christmas.

Ben may or may not have encouraged Jake to call her and you were sure it was so that Jake didn't get any ideas about how much time the two of you were spending together. You had an inkling that Ben still believed that you liked Jake no matter how many times that you proved to Ben you didn't. You didn’t think that there was any competition between Ben and Jake, not when being with Ben made you feel alive in the best way and being with Jake was like being with an overactive golden doodle.

However, despite how many times you told Ben that he didn't need to come with you on his days off, he would sit beside you frowning, but following your movements with his eyes while you helped customers. Every so often you'd see a half-smile twitch on the end of his lips, happy that you were happy- but not happy to be there. It was a theme with your boyfriend, but you knew it stemmed from how much he loved you. Being in the plant shop and seeing Jake reminded you of that, because Ben had made sure that the shop re-opened for you and he had saved Jake's life for you. Ben had done more for you in the time that you'd been together than anyone else that you'd allowed into your life and into your bed.

Ben was it for you, and you were going to prove it every day for the rest of your life to him if that was what it took.

Days at the farmer’s market were fun. You would close down for an hour so Ben and you could wander to different booths to see what everyone else was selling.

Those days always felt normal. It reminded you of the farmer's market that your hometown had each Saturday and the same ones you dragged Annie to at the crack of dawn to get the first sample of freshly churned honey butter or the first sample of strawberry ice cream. When Ben and you walked hand in hand through the crowded marketplace stopping along the way to sample fruit, cheese, honey, and whatever else you could find with the warm sun on you back, it was the happiest you'd ever felt.

It was what you'd always wanted, the kind of relationship you’d longed to have for so long, the same one you’d seen growing up with your parents and grandparents, and the one you'd thought you'd never have.

You could see yourself marrying Ben. Odd given the first time you met, you'd thought he was just a big grumpy brute of a man with the attitude of a caveman and the impatience of a toddler. But now things were different, Ben was your caveman with an impatience of a toddler, and you'd never felt this way about anyone else.

You'd never wanted anyone like you wanted Ben and couldn't see a future without him in it. Even in the earlier months the two of you were dating, you could see your life unfolding before your eyes. It felt crazy because you’d never been one to rush into anything, but with Ben the things that used to hold you back from jumping into the great unknown disappeared.

These days the unknown seemed to grow larger and larger by the minute, but instead of feeling uncomfortable about not knowing, you felt free.

Of course, the pregnancy was holding the gold medal for biggest source of the unknown.

It had been a surprise to find out that you were pregnant two and a half months ago. Not completely, given how enthusiastic, insatiable, and eager your boyfriend was when it came to sex or really how you were when it came to him.

In all honesty, you couldn't blame it all on Ben.

You were just as responsible for this as him given how much you seemed to want him all the time. Surprising, because you were never like this with your high school boyfriend or in any of the other sporadic relationships you'd had in the past, but you supposed that it was just Ben, that there was something about him that made you lose all sense of self-control. You also figured that you let the self-control drive long enough when you refused to admit how much you cared about him and now you owed it to yourself to throw it all out the window and lose yourself in everything he was.

That being said, you were terrified the moment you found out you were pregnant. Ben had been away on a mission and you'd had to wait a week for him to get back while you sat with your grandmother on your couch for days. You hadn't wanted to tell Ben yet and especially not over the phone.

It didn't seem like something you said over the phone anyway.

Your grandmother had shown up a few hours after you took the seventh test, because you hoped that there was some kind of mistake with the first six. She'd seen the future before you had a chance to pick up the phone and give her a call, but you were grateful that she was there.

You needed her.

Annie would have come too, but she was out of town on the same mission that Ben was. And you were afraid to call for fear that Ben would hear you say it over the phone with his supe hearing. Texting her that you were pregnant meant that it would be in print somewhere with evidence and you didn't want the possibility of Ben seeing it on Annie's phone.

That last part seemed a little far fetched, because you didn't know why Ben would have Annie's phone, but you were allowing yourself to have a mini-freak out, you were pregnant.

But no matter how many scenarios you discussed with your grandmother, it always came back to one thing, you loved Ben and you wanted to have a baby with him. You just weren't sure of the timing.

The two of you had only been together for ten months then, and although you couldn't imagine yourself with anyone else, you were hesitant.

Ben was still adjusting to everything in the future and introducing a kid into his life could be chaotic and messy. You also weren't sure if it was a good idea given how insane Ben's life had been for the past forty years and how hard you were trying to give him a sense of normalcy in the time you'd been together.

But then you'd thought about it more.

The shop was doing well, you loved Ben, he loved you, you did want kids, and you were so happy that it made you believe that it was the right time.

Ben had been excited when you told him, but then you both realized the bigger dilemma, your apartment. It was already small with the two of you, Rex, and Bean. Ben didn't fit in the shower or in your bed and he barely fit in your kitchen when the two of you were standing in it, which meant that adding a kid to the mix would only make the apartment smaller.

You'd looked at an apartment five months ago, only because you saw how excited he was about something so mundane and it made your heart warm to see that he wanted to build a life with you, but you had hated the apartment. It reminded you of the terrible one he'd had at Vought.

And the one Ben was taking you to see today wasn't much better. This was number seventeen and you didn't have high hopes.

Ben takes a left turn, going over a speed bump that you somehow can't feel inside the cab. His car was fancier than what you were used to and brand new. Ben had proudly told you that they weren't selling them in the United States yet, which begged the question: how in the hell had he gotten it? It had enough switches inside to make you fear about the probability of an ejector seat.

The first time he’d picked you up in it, you were grateful he’d opened the door for you when you tried to get out because you were sure that it would have taken you twenty minutes to figure that out on your own. You’d thought that Ben would have at least sprung for a car that was more low tech or something that reminded him of the life he had in the past, but no.

And now he was talking about getting another car for you that was higher off the ground to make sure that the baby would be safe. He kept saying how he didn't like you walking around when he wasn't there to go with you and a car would be safer, despite your protests that you liked walking and didn't need a car.

You never thought that Ben would be this overprotective, you should have, given how he acted like a helicopter parent after everything with Elijah, but he was.

The pregnancy only made it worse.

He never let you walk in your neighborhood or to work without him, claiming that it "wasn't safe" as if you weren't a supe and couldn't handle yourself. Whenever you went to the grocery store Ben tagged along frowning at whoever walked by with a shopping cart as if they were a threat. When somebody dropped a glass pickle jar two aisles over a few days ago and Ben had grabbed you and put you behind him so fast it made you dizzy.

Now whenever you tried to leave the apartment, Ben insisted that he could do whatever errand it was that you were going to do faster, and he was always reluctant to leave you at the plant shop, stating that you "shouldn't be lifting things." You'd even caught him reading one of your pregnancy books when he thought you were in the shower and he'd lied and said that it fell on the floor and he was 'just picking it up.' That didn't explain how he knew exactly what you should be eating and what vitamins you needed to take.

But instead of teasing Ben about it, you kept your mouth shut because you thought it was cute how much Ben cared about you and how excited he was about the baby. You knew that he'd been waiting for this for much longer than you.

You'd woken up a few days ago with Ben's head on your stomach listening to the baby's heart-beat while he thought you were asleep murmuring things under his breath that you couldn’t hear.

It was those moments that made any anxiety you had about being a parent fade, because you knew that you weren't alone in this, that Ben was with you and he wasn't going anywhere.

“He’s an amazing actor and he’s definitely going on the list of people I’m allowed to cheat on you with.” You snort mind flitting to images of Jeff Goldblum lounging on a table clad in black, looking much too sexy for someone who was attacked by a t-rex.

“You realize that no matter how long that list gets you’re still not allowed to do that right?” Ben glances over at you with a frown.

Ben looked good today. His dark hair was a little longer than usual- he kept saying that he needed to get a haircut but never did-, he was wearing a pair of sunglasses that made him look dangerous and sexy, and the blue jeans he was wearing were some of your favorites. They were worn in just right and each time Ben wore them it made it difficult for you to form a single sentence. Of course, the thing that made you want to jump his bones even more was the fact that Ben was wearing the dark green sweater you made him for Christmas.

You had been so scared to give it to him, but since that day, Ben wore it whenever he could, and whenever the two of you were out and he would get a compliment, because he always did, Ben would say proudly "my girlfriend made it for me."

“Sure. Just like I’m sure that no matter how long that list gets for you, if you ever cheat on me I’ll castrate you.” You reply, scrolling to a different listing on your phone. This one had a nice view of Central Park, but the living room looked big enough to park four SUV's in. It was too much, too big, and too cold.

No matter how many different apartments you looked at in person or online, you never seemed to find one that felt like home. In each one you'd found something that you didn't agree with, whether it be the bathroom, the lack of a washer/dryer, the neighborhood, or the layout, nothing felt right and you were starting to worry. At this rate you were sure that your child would be old enough to move out before the two of you found somewhere to live. You wanted a place that reminded you of your home back in Illinois with your grandmother, someplace that felt warm, someplace that you could see yourself raising a family, and something that felt permanent.

Your fingers go to the locket around your neck, rubbing your thumb over the cool metal surface, tracing the grooves and pattern on the front to ease your anxiety. It had been Ben's mother's, one of the only things that he had left of her, but it was something that he wanted you to have. It was the most important gift that you'd ever gotten in your entire life, because you knew what it represented. Your boyfriend might not be good with his words or expressing his emotions, but this locket said everything he couldn't.

Ben's eyes trace over where you sit. "What's wrong Petals?"

"Nothing-"

Ben sighs "You've got that scrunch between your eyebrows sweetheart. We both know you can't lie to me."

You hesitate. "I don't like that we haven't found a place yet."

"That why you can't sleep?"

You bite the inside of your cheek and look down at your lap. You didn't know that Ben had noticed how you weren't sleeping well and it had nothing to do with not being able to find an apartment.

At first you thought that it was the pregnancy, as if the almost constant morning sickness wasn't enough, making you have worse dreams than normal was the icing on top of the cake. You'd had nightmares in the past about your parents, but these dreams were different. They were all about your brother Darren and each time he stood in front of you his skin and flesh melted away leaving nothing more than a flickering outline that buzzed and popped like a hot stove before it fizzled up and disappeared.

You had no idea what it meant, but you didn’t want to bring it up to Ben, not when he was so happy. So you choose not to answer his question.

"We're going to find a place, this just takes time." He continues.

"Not for me. Not usually. I chose my last apartment within a weekend-"

"And look at how shitty it is!" Ben huffs. "I can't believe that you lived there as long as you did without getting mugged."

"I am able to handle myself. And if you recall you have seen me fight off muggers."

Ben's frown deepens. "Don't remind me." You watch his eyes flick down to where your hand rests gently on your abdomen. "Look Petals, I know you like our apartment, but it's not just us anymore."

"I know."

"I don't want to raise our kid in that building with Mike blowing out my fucking eardrums every morning. And I could do without his mother trying to hump my leg like a bitch in heat every time I take out the trash."

Your eyes water just a little when Ben says the word ‘our.’ It solidified the thought that you weren’t alone in this, that Ben wasn’t going to leave you. You didn't really believe that he would, but it was nice to be reminded once in a while.

"Aww she's your biggest fan. And I seem to remember you being into older women before we were together-"

"And I seem to remember you saying that you would castrate me if I cheated on you."

"I will castrate you, but Mike's mother doesn't count. She's your hall pass, just like Jeff Goldblum is mine."

"No, he's not."

"Debatable."

"Petals." Ben growls, throwing you a dark look from over the console that sends a shiver down your spine.

Before Ben you never thought that jealousy was attractive, didn't think that it was cute when your high school boyfriend Newton got jealous when someone else talked to you, but Ben could make even the most annoying things look sexy.

"You should keep your eyes on the road Gramps, wouldn't want to get in an accident."

"I don't fucking care. Keep talking like that sweetheart and I'm going to pull the car over and make sure that my name is the only one on those perfect lips."

You arch an eyebrow in a silent challenge. "Promise?"

"And you say it's me that always gets us into trouble." Ben chuckles with a dark look.

The car comes to a stop and you turn away from Ben's hypnotic gaze to stare out the window, expecting to see the beautiful all glass front of the apartment that was way out of your price range, but instead the car is sitting outside a house in quiet neighborhood overhung with large trees that weave together in a canopy over the street.

The house is three stories, made of red brick, the small yard in front is fenced with black wrought iron with a garden box lying beyond the metal spikes where someone has tried to grow plants, but was not having any success. There's a dark painted archway over the black door that boldly has the number of the home written in gold, and a large round window dominates the space to the left of the door cut into the red brick, that is partially obscured by a mass of tangled vines which cling to the outside of the house.

"So we're going to have sex in your car outside of this house? Feels like the homeowner's association will have a field day." You watch a couple walk past with matching dalmatians and cashmere sweaters. "Or we'd get arrested for public indecency when fido and fido's girlfriend call 911."

"Maybe later."

"Well then why did you stop? Did you get lost?" You turn to look at him. "It's okay if you did, I won't make fun of you-" You pause. "Never mind, I can't promise that."

Ben rolls his eyes. "No, I didn't get lost. I wanted you to see this place."

"Ben this is a house." You emphasize the word, your eyes widening. "Remember when we had the conversation about trying to get an apartment so I could at least help you with the rent."

It had been an awkward conversation, you felt bad about making him try to reign in something that made him so excited.

Now that you were part owner of the plant shop you were getting a little more money and didn't need to rely so heavily on Ben, but you still didn't like taking his money. Your grandmother had always instilled in you the importance of being independent and you'd never relied on someone the way you relied on Ben.

You'd always felt the need to prepare yourself for the worst, for having a back up plan if things didn't work out, and you were realizing just how much weight you put on your shoulders each day. Ben wanted to lighten the load, you knew that, but you were trying your best to put more trust in him, inching out from beneath the piano on your shoulders by letting him do more and more for you.

It was still hard.

"Petals." Ben touches your cheek, eyes softening and making your next words dry up. He didn't often do things like that in public, but each time he did it made you feel like warm butter on a hot stove.

When Ben had started calling you that a year ago it annoyed you to no end, but now he said it affectionately, with love and hope in his eyes, and it stirred something deep down.

"Let’s just look at this one. And if you don't like it, I promise I'll drive to whatever apartment you want me to okay?"

"But it's a-" You protest, but you lean into his touch.

"I know it's a house."

"Are you sure? They say that the eyes are the first thing to go, especially with someone your age Gramps."

He huffs out a breath in annoyance. "I don't know why I put up with this shit."

"Because you loooveee me." You coo poking his cheek.

The look in Ben's eyes softens again, slowly tracing down your form to your belly again, before coming back up to your face. "Only because you annoy me so much."

"Exactly." You reach for what you believe is the door handle and Ben's smile drops into a frown.

You retract your hand. “It’s not the door handle is it?”

“Not in case you want to crawl out the window.”

“I do like to make an entrance.”

“You always do baby. Even when you’re not trying.” Ben winks and gets out of the car, walking around the back to open the door for you.

“Thank you.” You say taking his hand without hesitation.

The house looks even bigger when you gaze up at it from the sidewalk, but you can't help but admit that the house is beautiful in it's own way. It has more character than the other ones on the street that look like carbon copies of one another. It wore it's weirdness like a badge of honor, just like you always had.

And even with the small garden out front filled with dead plants that rot in the wooden garden box and the tangled vines that cover the circular front window, you can see the potential it has.

"I like the trees." You say, gesturing with the hand that's not holding on to Ben's at the canopy of large oak trees over the road that block the brilliant sunlight and leave the imprint of their outstretched branches on the pavement.

"I thought you would." Ben squeezes your hand.

"So where's our realtor?" You glance around the empty road for the sleek black Mercedes that "Tina," aka the most nosy woman in the world and your realtor, drove, but you don't see it.

"She said that she wanted to give us some space." He tugs you forward, opening the gate as he does.

"Thank God. If she tried to touch my stomach one more time or eye fuck you when she thought I wasn't looking, I was going to perform open heart surgery on her with her stilettos."

"Would have loved to see that Petals. Maybe I should have let her come today."

"Do you remember how strong Homelander was? Because I'm about to show you that he was nothing compared to a pregnant woman scorned." You warn, but Ben only laughs at you.

Your gaze falls to the attempted garden. Rosebushes, lavender, tulips, and many other flowers lie in states of decay choked with weeds, while other plants that you can't identify lie shriveled up and brown on the darkened soil. It tugs at your heart to see them that way, unloved and uncared for, left to curl up and die.

You feel your eyes shift to green calling forth the flowers, bringing them to the light, drawing them upwards to unfurl in the light of the sun and absorb the healing rays. The plants brighten and explode with pops of color that fuse the front of the house with new life and jasmine flowers bloom along the ivy that crawls up the side of the house sending the comforting smell over you as it takes on a more controlled woven tapestry rather than the chaotic snarl it was moments ago. Bougainvillea stretches up to weave itself above the front door, the dark red blooms contrasting with the black door. The circular window winks at you, and through the glass you can just barely see a hint of lightly painted walls beyond.

Your gaze falls to the small area in front of the house.

You could see yourself out here wearing your gardening hat with Bean and Rex sunning themselves in the sunlight while you weed with sweat sticking your shirt to your back and while dirt stains your fingers. Your eyes flick to the empty front steps, imagining Ben and you sitting there with cups of coffee steaming beside the two of you, with your head against his shoulder reading the paper he has open in front of him.

No, not thinking that. This is a house. Ben and I are looking for an apartment.

"Couldn't help yourself could you Petals?" Ben murmurs, dragging your attention back to him.

"No. Though I might want a commission from helping the seller with the curb appeal."

Ben rolls his eyes, but pulls you up the cheerful concrete steps to the black door before he takes a key from his pocket.

You eye it suspiciously.

"Tina gave it to me." He says with a shrug.

"That better be the only thing she gave you." Your eyes narrow, thinking of all the things that Tina could have done to your boyfriend when you weren't around.

"Jealous?" Ben's smile slips into a smirk. "Need I remind you of all the things you said you were going to let Jeff Goldblum do to you?"

"Need I remind you about the threat of castration?"

Ben leans down towards you, his breath warm against your ear, so close that you could smell his cologne. "We both know that you like what I do to you too much to cut it off Petals, especially now."

A pleasurable shiver traces your spine with his words and as much as you hated to admit it, Ben was right. As insatiable as you'd been for Ben before you were pregnant, now it had only multiplied ten fold.

In the first few weeks of your pregnancy you couldn’t have imagined wanting to have sex with Ben, the near constant morning sickness, swollen breasts, and nausea left little to be desired, but as you slowly began to inch into your second trimester you felt a change. It was like a switch had flipped. Yes the morning sickness came in waves, but your hormones bumped around inside from sick, to sad, to angry, to loving, to aroused so fast it didn’t matter for long and you were both reaping the benefits. Ben was eager to help you in any way he could and due to his supe enhancements he was able to keep up and keep you more than happy.

You fist your hand in the front of his shirt to pull his face down to yours, lips inches apart, your eyes narrowed, but pupils blown with lust. "Don't tease me right now Gramps."

"Wouldn't dream of it doll." Ben purrs, his eyes darkening.

Fuck.

You didn’t want to give in, but whenever Ben looked at you like that it made your skin heat and your heartbeat feel like thunder, vibrating through your entire body.

Ben leans towards you, but just before your lips touch his, he scoops you up into his arms and crosses the threshold.

“Ben what the hell are you doing?” You laugh, pushing at his chest.

“What? Was I not supposed to carry you across?” He pretends to be surprised.

“That’s only if we’re married dummy and this isn’t our house.”

“Oh well then it’s good practice.” Ben smirks and finally kisses you, drawing you tighter against his chest for a few precious seconds. It wasn't the kiss you expected a moment ago, this kiss was hungry, but not rushed, passionate, but not aggressive, and yet it was all consuming.

You sigh into his mouth, holding the front of his shirt tightly. You’d never gotten used to how it felt to kiss him, how everything else melted away except for him and you. Even when you’d hated him, Ben still knew exactly how to kiss you to take away all your inhibitions.

You could easily see yourself spending the rest of your life with him. And given the revelation that you potentially could live forever, it meant even more. You know that it made Ben feel good too. That he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to be alone ever again, that he could love someone the way he loved you and be unafraid of losing you.

Ben pulls back a wide smirk on his face. "I'm sorry wasn't that what you wanted? For me to bring you inside?" The look in his eyes shifts to amusement with his taunt. "Or were you thinking about me fucking you against the front door for fido and his girlfriend to see?"

"Shut up." Your cheeks heat in embarrassment that your boyfriend could read you that well.

"Because I didn’t think you were into that kind of thing Petals, but if you want we can go back outside and-"

You force his face down to yours, shutting him up the only way you know how. Ben groans into your mouth as your hands work their way up into his hair to hold him in place, your lips fervently moving against his as the warmth of arousal begins to thrum through your veins and pool in the pit of your stomach.

You pull back out of breath, fingers still tangled in Ben's long hair, your gaze locking on his. Ben's eyes are dark, lips curved up into a knowing smirk that, if Ben wasn't holding you in his arms, would make your legs give out. One of his arms is underneath your knees, but the other is around your chest, and you can feel Ben's hand fitting comfortably over the bump hidden beneath your t-shirt, absorbing the steady thud of your child's heartbeat against the palm of his hand. Something lurked behind the familiar green in his eyes, something that you could feel bubbling up in your own chest the longer you stared at him.

"Come on I want you to see the house." Ben mutters pressing one more kiss against your lips before he gently places you on the hardwood floor.

"I know. Stop distracting me." You say as you flip your hair over your shoulder.

"I'm a wonderful distraction. Wouldn't mind distracting you a little longer." His arm comes up to wrap tight around your waist, pulling your back into his chest. Ben’s lips trail down to your neck, nipping at the smooth flesh of your throat.

“Ben.” You half moan, leaning back into him. "Please."

"I know baby." He hums. "But lets look at the house first. After I'll give you what you need."

"Tease." You mutter under your breath earning a chuckle from Ben.

The two of you are standing in a foyer with a large staircase in front of you that leads to the second and third story of the house. A lightly painted hallway stretches beyond it, and a living room lies to the left through a wide doorway. The interior of the house is a mix of old and new, vintage and modern, with warm colored hardwood floors running throughout, lightly painted walls, and with dark colored wooden baseboards and door frames.

It reminded you of your grandmother's house back in Illinois and even without furniture the inside of this house felt like home. It wasn't drafty, too white, too new, too old, or too cold- it existed in the perfect harmony that Ben and you had been looking for since you started looking for an apartment.

No. This is a house. This is the complete opposite of what Ben and I are looking for.

You remind yourself as you walk into the small room to the left of the front door. There's a giant fireplace on the opposite wall with neatly placed built ins on either side. Natural sunlight came through the large circular window on the front of the house, giving you a view of the garden you'd reinvigorated with new life and the quiet street overhung with trees outside.

You could see yourself reading quietly on a plush armchair in the corner while Bean and Rex sunned themselves on the wooden floors or sitting on a couch and cuddling with Ben under a blanket in front of the fireplace when it got too cold outside, nestling into his warmth to keep the chill at bay.

You drift through the other doorway across from the circular window that leads into a dining room area. It has the same wonderfully natural colored hardwood floor so soft you were sure that it would feel like butter beneath your bare feet. You run a finger tip over the wooden doorway, feeling the smooth, strong wood beneath your hand. You could still see notches in the boards from where another family had measured how tall their children were growing with every passing year and it made you smile to yourself.

This house had character, had a history. It wasn't built in haste to house a population of people who probably would spend more time out than in, it was built with love and care, and had charm. It was what the apartments that Ben and you had seen wasn't.

Ben hovers behind you silently, watching you move through the space with curiosity. He drinking in your expressions and trying to see what you thought. You had no idea how he found this place, not when the two of you had been looking at huge modern apartments in buildings that weren't more than a year old.

The kitchen is even more impressive.

It's modern, with stainless steel appliances, light granite countertops, and a dark green backsplash, but somehow still holds some of the vintage charm that merges seamlessly together with the new appliances.

You could see yourself making jams for the farmer's market at the stove, making dinner for your family or sitting with Annie at the counter with glasses of wine lamenting over everything Hughie and Ben did to annoy the two of you while secretly loving them all the more for it. You could see yourself dancing with Ben to ABBA while the lights were low and he got home from work, just as you had seen your parents do years ago and imagined a vase filled with flowers on the counter that Ben brought home just because he felt like it, not because it was a special occasion. Ben did that for you every week, brought home flowers because he knew how much they made you smile.

"This kitchen is huge!" You exclaim, spreading your arms out to twirl in a circle. "Annie and Hughie could fit in here too!"

Ben frowns at your mention of Hughie.

"What?" You lean over the counter to stare at Ben. "You know that if we get a bigger place they're going to come over for dinner more often right? I'm thinking Friday nights they could come over for dinner and a movie-"

It was a tradition that your parents had started, that Annie and you carried on when they died, and now Ben picked up the slack. Spending Friday nights on the couch under a blanket eating greasy pizza out of the box had seemed like a foreign concept for Ben, but now it was him that always made sure that he was home on Friday nights to make it to movie night so you could cuddle up against him under the warm blankets.

"I think we see them enough." Ben leans on his side of the counter across from you with a frown. "Plus, I thought that you would like a kitchen a little bit bigger to make me dinner."

“Or maybe," You tap your chin as if deep in thought, eyes narrowing. "The kitchen is big enough for you to start pulling your weight. Doing the dishes, cleaning up, trying to make dinner for your pregnant girlfriend-“ You count off on your fingers.

“How long are you going to use that excuse?”

“For the next 7ish months or so."

Ben huffs out a laugh and rolls his eyes at you, while you continue to move through the kitchen.

There's a giant living area just beyond that you can imagine Ben and you sitting on the couch in front of a TV watching another one of his ridiculous films or see you and your child sitting on the couch reading a book together while Ben sits beside you with his arm around your shoulders. You didn't know the sex of the baby, wanted to wait a little longer to see how things progressed before you found out.

But each day it became more real.

You could hear the pitter patter of feet across the floor and the squeals of an imaginary child racing through with Ben hot on their heels trying to catch them, could see a child with a smaller Rex wrapped around the back of their shoulders feeding him bits of strawberries, and could see a child in a highchair while Ben and you tried to feed them spaghetti. Your left hand drops to your belly again as you think of what the future could look like and the longer that you stand inside this house the more you can see yourself living here with Ben, having a life here together.

You hadn't seen that anywhere else that the two of you had gone to see in the past few months. It made all of this even more real.

I'm going to be a mom.

The thought lodged in the back of your throat. You were excited, but you were also a little worried. You didn't know the first thing about being a mom and no matter how many books you read or how many blogs you found, you felt underprepared.

Not to mention you could still remember all the videos that you'd had to watch in middle school about childbirth that were made to scare students into being celibate and it only made your anxiety worse.

"What are you thinking about Petals?" Ben asks, coming around the counter and turning you in his arms. His face is twisted into a concerned frown.

Tears were building behind your eyes now, your emotions getting the best of you. It was easy for you to cry about nothing at all, but this was different. Your future was slipping through your fingers, unfolding in front of you in this house. It reminded you of how you'd felt for the past few years when all you wanted was to fall in love and be loved by someone. The lovesick feeling that followed you around as you tried your best to find a man who would make you happy the way that Hughie made Annie happy, but never seemed to find the right one before you met Ben.

"This place it's perfect, but-"

"But what?" Ben's thumb brushes the tears away, eyes focused on you. Whenever Ben looked at you like that you thought that he could see through you to the pieces that no one else ever cared to uncover.

"It's a house." You breathe leaning into his touch.

"And you don't like it?"

"No, I love it." You whisper, but you feel a little frustrated. "I can see us here. See a ridiculously big Christmas tree in that corner," You point to the living room. "See breakfasts on this counter," you gently slide your hand along the marble countertop. "See us watching movies in the living room on our couch and see our kids running around outside in that back yard." You gesture to the all glass back wall of the house where there's a finished patio and a surprisingly large lawn outside, but stranger is the giant greenhouse that sits just beyond.

"So what's the problem?"

"I mean… it's not what we talked about. Can we even afford this?"

You knew that Ben could afford it, you just weren't sure about you.

Ben is quiet for a minute, before he takes your hand and tugs you in the direction of the backyard. "I want you to see something."

"Something? The house isn't-"

"There's one more thing." He squeezes your hand and takes you outside.

There is a canopy of trees that shields the patio from the sun overhead that has begun to descend behind the houses on the street, the clouds turning a burnished gold in the light as it says goodbye.

The two of you follow the path of stones neatly laid in the lush grass, leading to the greenhouse that looks much bigger than it did from inside. It easily reaches to the second story of the house and has a black iron skeleton that holds together the pieces of glass artfully placed in different shapes and sizes.

Ben turns to look at you. "Close your eyes."

"What?"

"Do you trust me Petals?" He looks at you, his green eyes catching yours, wide and open. You knew that he knew the answer to that question, but you also knew that Ben never believed that someone like you could or should trust him.

You promised yourself when the two of you started dating that you would make Ben feel special each day the same way he made you feel special and made Ben understand that you loved him and you weren't going anywhere.

The things that Countess did to him still weighed on his heart, but you were happy to see that after one year with you, Ben was different. He was more open to telling you what he was feeling, (one word answers), he was more open to sharing memories with you, (only a sentence usually), and Ben was getting comfortable using the word "love." It had taken him a solid three months to say it, but Ben didn't need to say it, you knew it was true long before he uttered it aloud.

"Of course I do." You lean into him, your free hand coming to rest on his chest. There was a slight chill on the edge of the wind, a promise of winter, but the warmth of Ben's body shields you from the breeze.

"Then close your eyes." He repeats.

There's something dancing in his expression that you can't place, but your gaze travels down to his shoulders and you realize that Ben is nervous. You'd never seen your boyfriend nervous in a while, the last time was when he gave you the locket that hung between your collar bones.

But you do as he says and he brings you inside. "Okay, open."

When you do, your heart stutters to a stop in shock.

The greenhouse isn't empty. There are rows of citrus trees with lemons, oranges, and tangerines, apple trees with bright red fruit, potted blueberry plants, vegetables, and herb plants sitting on low tables, woven vines of raspberry and blackberry plants on trellises that cover the walls, and a collection of potted strawberry plants one of which is in a pot that looks a lot like the one that Darren broke when he came through the window of your apartment one year ago.

There's a circular staircase to the left of the door that would take you up to a second story where there are even more plants, but also a sitting area that feels warm and bright, and has a fan hanging over to make sure that it stayed just a little cool in the warm month. It would be the perfect place to read and relax, more so than the room inside you noticed when you walked into the house.

On the bottom floor there is a potting bench surrounded by flowering plants pushed against the right wall where new tools hang and colorful pots are placed. There's also an obscene amount of bagged potting soil stacked up higher than you are tall just to the left of it.

You gently lay your hand on the wood of the bench to feel how soft it is. The wood has been sanded down to be smooth as silk and you look to the right to see that next to it, is a identical bench but smaller with tools made of plastic for a child and a small apron that matched the one hanging from a hook fastened to the greenhouse wall.

Is that for-

The thought stutters to a halt. You didn't understand why this was here. A greenhouse in New York City wasn't odd, but the fact that there was one almost two stories tall and contained everything you might need to expand the farmer's market you had grown to love so much at the back of this house was odd.

There's a potted gardenia sitting on top of the bench and the bright smell brings the gentle comfort of home as the delicate flowers bend towards you.

Being in here is the same way you feel whenever you're in the plant shop. You could feel the new life curling beneath the soul, feel the thrum of energy from the plants that turned towards you expectantly, and feel the way your powers reached out to them to offer a healing hand.

"Ben, why is this here?" You ask confused.

Ben clears his throat. "You know I hate that fucker, but he works fast."

"Who?" You turn to him.

"Jake." Ben says simply. He's leaning against the doorway watching you with an unreadable expression.

"Jake did this?" You gesture to the greenhouse full of plants, enough plants that you would be able to supply the farmer's market each week without batting an eye. Now, you used the plants in your apartment, but there never seemed to be enough to keep up with the demand, but here-

Wait a minute this is crazy. This isn't our house. What the hell is going on?

“I thought you needed a little more product and he told me he’d take care of it.”

"But why was Jake-"

"I figured it out Petals, why none of those other places felt right." He interrupts. "I didn't get it before, why you didn't like the apartments we went to see, why you kept finding something wrong with them. Fuck, I made fun of you for saying shit like 'the ceiling is too high,' but as soon as I found this place I knew it was right."

"What are you talking about?" You still didn't understand why any of this was here.

Why would Ben want Jake to bring all these plants here if we're just looking at this house.

“I lied." Ben crosses his arms over his chest and rolls his shoulders as if it makes him uncomfortable to admit it.

“About what?” You frown.

Ben didn't like lying to you, you knew that, and you liked how brutally honest Ben was about everything. Trust was a two way street between the two of you, and just as Ben didn't lie to you, you didn't lie to him- well… Ben always seemed to know when you were lying, but that didn't change the fact that you didn't like lying to him.

“I didn’t tell Tina not to come today and we were never going to see that apartment. I told you that to get you to come with me.”

“Why?” You draw out the word still confused.

“Because I already bought this house.” Ben smiles tightly.

“You WHAT?!” You screech eyes widening. “Why?!”

“For the same reason you said Petals, it’s perfect.”

“But- But-" You don't know how to respond to what he's admitted. "You said we were just looking! That this place is-"

Ben shakes his head with a sigh as he takes a step closer to where you stand. "It's funny that I lived this long and still somehow happened to fall in love with someone a little more old-fashioned, but I fucking love that about you, that you're not like anyone else." He reaches across the space to take your hand in his, the warm calloused palm fitting perfectly over yours.

"What does that have to do with the house?”

"Apartments don't feel permanent, not to you, they feel temporary, but a house… it makes this real." Ben swallows. "And I want this to be real."

You blink in confusion, worried about him. "Ben, what are you talking about?" You squeeze his hand trying to comfort him. "This is real." Your free hand comes up to cup his bearded cheek, that prickles against your skin. "I love you. Nothing is going to change that. Not the baby or where we live or-"

"I know that." He laughs. "I mean this." Ben gestures with his free hand to the greenhouse and then back at the home behind the two of you. "There's room for our kid and for as many as you'll let me give you. There's room for Diana, and even though I know she'd rather die in that house in Illinois than move here, I'm going to try my damndest to get her here so she can be with you. I know how much you miss her. And as much as I hate the idea, there's even room for Annie and fucking Hughie if they want to stay the night." He grumbles with a sigh. "It's a good neighborhood, so I won't have to worry about you getting mugged or some shit when I'm stuck with that British fuck somewhere else, and it's close to schools that my old man would have probably liked, but I want our kids to be safe and have a good education."

“But-“

“I know it’s a house.” Ben breathes. “But just listen for a minute.”

You swallow the lump in the back of your throat, more tears building in your eyes. It was hard to be angry with him over something that you wanted as much as he did. And the truth was, you weren't angry with him for buying the house. It again represented the one thing that you'd told Ben that night at Vought, that you liked gifts that meant something, and standing here in the greenhouse that Ben had made sure was filled with enough plants to support your dream in the backyard of the house Ben bought not only for you but for your children, made you want to melt into a puddle.

Because Ben was ensuring the two of you had a future, that your children had a future, and you didn't think that you could love him any more than you already did.

“When I took you to Vought I didn't know any better. I was comparing you to the women I used to fuck around with and what they would have wanted, what they would have thought was special." Ben's jaw tightens and you wonder if he's thinking about Countess. "But I wanted to give you that life because I thought it's what you would want and because I wanted to take care of you, but I was wrong." Ben gestures with his free hand back to the house again and then looks at you, the sunlight catching the flecks of gold in his eyes like stars. "This is what you want Petals. This life. A house on a quiet street away from it all where you can garden and read and exist in a world that isn't fucked up with supes and compound V."

You’re speechless now, tears trailing down your cheeks.

“I’ve lived in a lot of different places and I forgot what it was like to have a home and for the longest time I didn’t understand what I was missing. I had money, I had fame, I had women willing to do whatever I wanted, and I had people worshipping me, but I was missing something.” He trails his thumb over your cheek again with a soft smile. “Turns out it was you. You’re fucking annoying, you get under my skin, you make me feel like a complete asshole when I make you cry, you somehow find some little thing to complain about when I do something for you-“

“Again why do you always sound like you’re insulting me whenever you try to confess how you feel?” You laugh, but it comes out more of a sob.

“Shut up.” Ben rolls his eyes with a sigh, but there’s not bite to his words. “You always interrupt me.”

“Because you always insult me!” You rub at your eyes with the back of your hand.

“I have told you on numerous fucking occasions that I’m not good with words!”

“But-“

“Shh.” He puts his hands on your cheeks. “You're so different than anyone I've ever met. You drive me fucking crazy. Any other man would have jumped off a building by now, but-“ He shakes his head with a wide smile. “I fucking love it and I'm so fucking lucky that you decided to love me."

"You didn't give me much choice. It was you that insisted on living in my shitty apartment." You breathe, your hands moving up the soft fabric of his t-shirt to rest against his chest. "I did my best to drive you away, but you wouldn't leave. And you call me stubborn."

"Nothing you could have done would have driven me away Petals." His hand falls to where yours rests on his chest, and gently holds your wrist. "Nothing you can do will drive me away. Not now, not ever."

The love in his eyes makes your lungs stop working. He was looking at you the way you always wanted someone to, as if he could see past flesh and bone and into your soul and saw your worth, as if Ben saw every little piece of you that you tried to hide and didn't care.

"And nothing that you've done will drive me away Ben." You whisper leaning in to him. "You can't change the past."

"I know." He swallows tightening his grip on your wrist. “And I know you keep saying that you don’t want me to pay for everything because you want to be more independent, and you’re worried that we can’t afford this, but fuck even if you told me you wanted to stay in that shitty apartment building, I’d buy the whole thing and make everyone leave just to make sure that you and our kid is safe."

Determination flickers in his eyes and you believe it, because you know that Ben would do anything for you.

"But I knew the moment I saw this house that this was what you wanted, that this life is what you've wanted. I know that you like to do things for yourself, but I didn’t buy the house because I didn't think that you couldn’t help me… it’s because I wanted to do this for you. I like doing things for you because I love you.”

"I love you too." You smile up at him a little misty eyed, but happy.

Ben's jaw tightens for a moment before he says his next words. "I'm not going to lie, I've imagined this kind of life before when I was with Countess."

You fight the wave of anger that surges with her name in your chest. You hated her for what she did to Ben and what she did to your grandmother, and wished that before Ben blew her to kingdom come, you had an hour with her to show her what it was like to get poison ivy shoved up her ass.

But it was unusual of Ben to mention her. He didn't often bring her up in conversation.

"I started imagining it after I visited Diana. I saw how happy she was with your grandfather and with your dad when he was a kid. I wanted that. But each time I tried to imagine what it was like with Countess, it never fit, something was wrong. And I know now that it's because it wasn't with you. It never looked like the life we have together and I wouldn't trade that for another second of fame."

"Ben-" You breathe his name, tears cresting over your cheeks.

"The moment I walked in the front door of this place I knew it was right. I knew this was the place that we were going to raise our children. I see us here too Petals. I see myself coming through the front door and you fucking tackling me because you can't wait long enough for me to close the door. I see us on the couch in front of the fire making love. I see you upstairs in the nursery painting the walls with paint in your hair even though I told you I was going to do it. I see you singing a fucking ABBA song while you rock our child in your arms. And I see you out here in this greenhouse doing what you love and me being happy because I know you're safe and I don't have to worry that I'm going to get home and you won't be there or worse." Ben's jaw tightens at the thought. "I want this with you for the rest of my life and I don't care if I sound like a fucking pussy for admitting that."

Ben drops down to one knee

"Wait what are you-" You begin to say, but Ben pulls a small box out of his pocket that makes you forget how to breathe entirely.

"So I’m asking you to let me give this to you and to our children, because I feel like I’m finally coming home and I don’t want to be anywhere else, just with you."

You stand there for a moment speechless, staring down at where Ben is on one knee. "Are you asking me to move in with you?" You try to smirk at your joke, remembering what Ben asked you the night he came home.

"No." Ben smiles opening the box. "I'm asking you to marry me."

You'd like to say that the ring is beautiful, but truthfully you don't look at it. As soon as the words are out of Ben's mouth you throw yourself against him so hard that he loses his balance and tumbles back onto the pavement, while catching you on top of him to make sure that no part of you hits the ground and make sure the baby is safe.

"Wha-" He begins to say, but you shut him up, your mouth falling against his so hard that you think that you hear the click of your teeth, but you can't stop.

Not when the man below you has your whole heart and had it the second you let him spend the night in your apartment all those months ago, not when he has been everything you needed for so long that the thought of him leaving would destroy you, and not when he is the only person in the world who sees all of you and asked for more.

Ben's body relaxes under yours as he deepens the kiss, drinking you in like he can't get enough, his hands coming up to hold you tighter against him, before he flips you over onto the ground as gently as he can so he's hovering over you. His dark hair is falling forward into his face, eyes bright with mischief, as he stares down at you.

"Is that a yes?" He smirks.

"It's a maybe." Your hands entwine at the back of his neck. "If you reconsider the hall pass option with Jeff Goldblum."

Ben kisses you so hard you see stars. “You’re so fucking annoying.”

"You know you love it, and I plan on annoying you for the rest of my life Gramps. You should get used to it."

"Do you promise Petals?" Ben breathes against your lips, eyes focused on yours.

"I promise. You're stuck with me."

"I can't imagine anything better sweetheart." He kisses you again, but pulls back with a unreadable expression. "Are you mad I lied?” He breathes against your lips.

“No. Because I lied too.”

“About what?” Ben looks confused.

“All of this. It isn’t what I imagined. It isn't what I thought falling in love would look like. It isn't what I expected and it's different than what I told you at that fundraiser.” Your fingers curl into the hair at the nape of his neck to hold him above you, refusing to let him go for even a second.

Ben's smirk drops into a worried frown that you kiss away, the warmth of his body around you like a warm bath.

“It’s better.” You breathe against his lips, watching the way his eyes brighten.

When he looked at you like that it made you feel like you'd swallowed the sun and it was bursting out of your fingertips. You never wanted to lose his lovelight and you wanted to spend the rest of your life being his.

The world outside the greenhouse falls away and you're left with Ben, the man you couldn't help but fall head over heels with the night you decided to take a chance.

A/N: I'm not crying, it's just raining on my face 😭. This reader and this version of Soldier Boy hold such a special place in my heart. Oh goodness I didn't think that we'd ever get here, but wow😊. This fic series wasn't just me writing, it was me being filled with the constant love and support of all of y'all helping me towards the goal and I am so grateful for everyone who reblogged, commented, liked, and loved the story just as much as I did 💗. I could not have done this without y'all. I am going to write a mini-series for them and I have some fic ideas for the two of them, so it is not goodbye completely, it's just I'll see you in a little while. Seriously though, thank you so much to everyone 🥰

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admirationandromantics · 2 days ago

Text

Best Friend's Brother

This request is literally 10 days old, which, to some, might not seem as a long time. For me however, it is. I'm sorry, but as I've described, I'm just trying to balance writing and school right now, so I'll be writing a little less than before.

Word count: 1,6k (unedited)

could u write a best friend older brother trope josh x reader. luv you works btww xx -anon

I knock on the door, waiting for Beth to open up. We’d planned a movie night while her parents were gone, and Hannah was at Sam’s. Josh was still home, but she told me he wouldn’t be a bother, and would probably stay in his room the whole night.

I have met him many times before, and would even call us friends. Though at the same time, I often wonder if he looks at me like another baby sister, despite only being one year apart. He often gives me a hard time, teasing me and joking around, but most times, I don’t mind. I usually also hope that he never means anything with his small occasional comments, because nothing will happen either way. My best friend’s brother? That would be a problem just waiting to happen.

Josh and I have been drunk together, partied together and been on get togethers together, though I’m not familiar with everyone in their group yet.

I stand outside, my patience running low in the cold weather, wishing I brought a scarf. I hear footsteps coming from inside. Finally. The door unlocks, and a broad, tan Josh in a thin rolled up sweater and some sweatpants stands there, arm against the doorframe. He gives a small smile, looking me over.

“Well, look who decided to come while the parents are out” he coos, a small whistling sound coming out of his lips.

“Well, hello Joshua, care to let me in?”

He smiles, contemplating whether to make this difficult or not. I look around, sighing and waiting for an answer, thinking about shouting Beth’s name and telling her that her brother is being a prick. Luckily, he opens the door further, making space for me to walk inside. “Thank you” I say, trying to hide my smile a bit. I’ve been here many times before, so I immediately know where to hang my coat and leave everything else. Josh keeps standing there, watching me.

“Beth is out, said something about getting snacks for your movie night” He explains, and I nod. The store is not far from here, so she will probably be back soon.

“Well then, do you know which movie she’s got planned?”

“Of course I do, I’m the one who helps pick them out”

I give him a curious and sceptical look, not having heard this before. He keeps his gaze locked on my gaze, a small smirk playing on his lips.

“Have you?”

“Every time”

My mouth opens a little. Beth is always talking about her great taste in movies, never having mentioned this before.

“No, are you serious? Beth has never given you any credit”

“Little sisters… what do you expect?”

I hum, not knowing how to respond to that. I walk inside, him following closely as I sit myself by the kitchen counter.

“So, what movie have you chosen then?” I ask, looking up at him again. Instead of sitting, he just leans against the counter with one arm, body turned my way. I can’t help my gaze, looking over his revealed forearms.

“Something a bit different than usual…” he smirks, eyes following my gaze down to his arms. I break free, leaning forward a bit.

“Okay, what movie?”

“A scary one”

“No”

“Oh yes”

I whine, leaning back again. I hate scary movies, I hate jumpscares and gore. Why can’t people just like normal, funny, cozy stuff?

“Josh, are you serious?”

“And there we go, you’re starting to use my nickname”

“Joshua! Are you serious?”

“Well, that lasted for long”

I sigh, rolling my eyes. This is not how I want to spend my night, and considering that the walk home will be dark and scary, this movie will definitely fuel my fears.

“Hey, calm down, it’s a good movie, maybe you just haven’t seen a good scary movie yet, this one might change your mind about the whole genre” He smiles, a hand going to my arm. I can't help the small blush coming from the touch, his fingers warm and comforting. I don’t want to do this, but I really can’t object when Beth is the one getting everything ready, and I just need to show up and have a good time. Or pretend I’m having a good time.

The door opens, and his hand is immediately removed as Beth comes in, a big bag in her hands. She doesn’t notice me at first.

“Beth!” I exclaim, and she lifts her head, nose a little red from the cold outside.

“Hey, oh sorry, I didn’t have time to go earlier today”

“That’s completely fine, here, let me take it” I state, walking over and taking the bag from her hands as she starts undressing.

“My brother didn’t bother you?”

I look over at him, and he just gives a small laugh, shaking his head and putting his hands up defensively.

“No, he was fine”

“Good, now, let's go” She smiles, leading me away from him, into their living room. She finds a couple of bowls, letting me distribute the snack in them as she works on getting the movie going.

“Okay, so I know you’re not a scary movie-person, but I know this one is really good, so please, keep an open mind”

I laugh a little, thinking back on the fact that Josh is the one who actually picked this out.

“I’ll keep an open mind then”

“Great”

The movie starts, and we both sit down, a blanket over us as the lights dim. At first, the movie seems fine, the occasional jump scare, which scares me much more than it does Beth. Still, I keep watching, body tense and uncomfortable, but I can’t take my eyes off it. We’re in the middle when someone gets violently cut up, and the camera doesn’t bother to show us anything else than the blood and flesh flying everywhere, the gore not stopping. I take a breath, pulling my eyes from the screen and standing up.

“I just need to use the bathroom”

“Gonna puke?”

I laugh a little, the tension in my shoulders easing as she talks.

“No, but if there’s no important information in this sequence, please feel free to skip it, I'll be quick” I say, already making my way to the yellow-lighted hallway. It's light, in contrast to the room I was just in, and that makes me ease up a little more. Gosh, if this was to keep going, I wouldn’t dare walking home tonight.

Suddenly, I hear a click, and the light goes away, leaving me in the dark hallway. I stop, looking around, unsure about what just happened. Another breath escapes my lips, reminding me that I can’t keep holding my breath everytime something startling happens. The hallway looks empty both ways, so I continue further, crossing my fingers that the light in the bathroom at least works.

Before I can react, a couple of strong arms grab me from behind, caging me. I’m about to yell out, but as if anticipating it, the hand goes over my mouth, muffling my screams. I’m slammed into the wall, not too hard, luckily, but I close my eyes before the impact arrives. As I open them again, a smiling Josh is standing in front of me, biting his lips to hold in his laugh. My heart is still beating fast, breaths coming in and out in a rapid manner. I grab his hand roughly, dragging it off my mouth.

“Joshua Washington! Are you fucking insane??��

He bursts out laughing, arms against the wall beside me, holding himself up as he leans over. I shake my head, mouth still a little open in shock, whilst he can’t stop laughing.

“Maybe, but you should’ve seen your face!” He chuckles, one of his hands going to his stomach to compose himself. It’s probably hurting right now from all the laughter.

“Joshua! What the hell is wrong with you!?”

“Okay, okay, calm down, just a little prank on my part” He smiles, finally calming down.

“I have been watching a fucking horror movie, and you pull this shit?”

He bites his lip again, tilting his head a bit to examine me.

“Oh, come on now, you’re totally thinking it’s funny”

“No, I’m not”

“Or you’re into it or something…”

“Wait, what, no I’m not, what kind of sick-”

Before I can process what’s happening, his lips are on me. I feel his breath, his body close, soft lips moving ove mine. My heart is still beating rapidly, but oddly enough, it calms with the way he’s touching me. Tender and carefully, not like himself at all. His hand goes to my waist, body pressing mine into the wall, opening his mouth a little. I hear a little groan leaving his throat. He pulls away, faces close as his eyes go over me, looking up and down. I almost think he looks a little vulnerable, but his signature smirk finds its way to his lips again.

“Well then, calmer now?”

I look at him, confused, conflicted. I scoff, shaking my head a bit.

“No, I think I need a little more help” I state, hand going to the back of his neck, pulling him into me again. Capturing his lips on mine, already opening my mouth. He does the same, one hand on my hips, pulling me into him.

“Hey, finished in the bathroom soon? I’ve paused the movie, the gore is over!” Beth shouts from the living room. We both pull away from each other and look over to the living room, luckily not seeing her there. I look back at him, seeing his chest heaving, hot breaths coming from his mouth. He turns, looking into my eyes.

“Guess we better finish calming you down later” He smiles, pushing himself off me and the wall, walking back to his room.

Fuck, what have I gotten myself into?

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cherrygirlfriend · 2 days ago

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helping hand pairing: pogue!reader x bsf!sarah synopsis: sarah's new boyfriend can't get her off :( but her best friend can :) warnings: smut, drinking, bottom sarah & top reader wc: 2k MDNI! since people keep asking "how can you be a lesbian when you just write for men???" well here damn!!! jk i really just wanted to write for this princess <3 originally posted 01/06/2025

you and sarah had known each other for years, and even though you couldn't seem more different, you were inseparable. everyone thought that sarah was a 'perfect prissy princess', you knew she was just like you. the kook had always been rough around the edges, even if she hid it under expensive clothes and boys she'd date until she got bored of them. meanwhile, you wore your coarse manners right on your sleeve. everyone on figure 8 and the cut alike was confused as to how sarah could be friends with someone like you.

"it's some expensive crap i stole from rose." sarah sighed, throwing down a bottle of red wine on the bed before laying down next to you, the springs off the mattress creaking under her weight as you threw an old playboy magazine you'd stolen from your father onto the floor, grabbing the wine and reading the label.

"chateau lafit- whatthefuck...?" you read with furrowed brows. sarah took a peek at the bottle and let out a small chuckle.

"château lafite-rothschild. year 2017."

"if i can't pronounce it then it's definitely fancy, expensive shit." you chuckled softly, "but you do know that i don't own one of those fancy-ass wine bottle openers? i usually just drink those seven-dollar screw cap ones. ten-dollar if i'm feeling fancy."

"of course. that's why i brought this." the blonde held up a wine bottle opener with a smirk, proceeding to open the contraption like she'd done it a hundred times before.

the two of you proceeded to pass around the bottle of wine, drinking straight out of the bottle as the two of you were talking, and you tried your best to tune out the annoyance you felt when sarah was ranting about some guy she had been seeing, staring up at the band posters hung up on your wall. you told yourself that it wasn't jealousy, that you were just irritated she was focusing on some guy instead of talking about something actually interesting. you'd always been good at lying to yourself.

but then, she said something that piqued your interest.

"i mean, he can't even get me to come!" sarah exclaimed, taking a swig out of the bottle of wine in irritation.

"really?" you raised your brows with a small chuckle.

"half the time he doesn't even know where my clit is."

you let out a snort, grabbing the bottle of wine from her and taking a swig; you were never too into red wine, but whatever swanky shit she had taken from rose was actually good, sarah's cherry-flavored lipgloss staining the lip of the bottle, making you imagine how it'd be like to taste it from her full lips, your eyes drifting from her brown ones down to the lips you'd dreamt of multiple times, wondering how they'd feel, how much you wanted to have your lips pressed against hers, to tease her mouth open with your tongue.

"it's not funny!" sarah's lips formed those words, yet she started laughing, revealing her teeth that you'd wanted her to sink into your skin while your fingers-

you shook the thoughts out of your head and snorted once again, "you should break up with him. or get used to never getting off by another person again."

"i'd feel bad breaking up because of sexual compatibility."

"sarah, you broke up with a guy because he wore 'weird socks'. which, by the way, i do." you pointed to your feet, adorned in blue socks that were decorated with spongebobs.

"when you do it, it's cute. when a guy does it, it's... eugh."

"maybe you just think i'm cute." you grinned, taking another swig out of the bottle before passing it to the blonde who simply rolled her eyes and took a large swig before passing it back. drinking with sarah was always the worst; it always made you focus on her lips, on the way her neck bobbed when she swallowed, how the more she drank, a small drop of the alcohol would stay on her lips, the girl swiping it away with her finger and making it disappear by sucking the tip of her finger into her mouth.

"could be." sarah grinned, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "i've always thought that if i was gonna be with a girl it'd be you."

you nearly choked on the expensive wine as you heard the blonde say that, coughing and sputtering as you looked at the amused smile that took over her lips at your reaction, the girl biting down on her lower lip.

"you know, i'd totally be down," you put the bottle on your nightstand, narrowing your eyes and cocking your head to the side, "but you couldn't handle me." you said in a challenging tone, crossing your arms in front of your chest.

"oh, yeah?" sarah said, leaning closer to you, pressing her cleavage together with her arms, and you weren't completely sure if she was doing it intentionally or not. "why do you figure?"

you brought your finger to her chin, pulling her even closer until her lips were only a breath away from yours, slowly letting your hand travel down her neck, feeling her pounding heart under your fingertips. "because the moment i touch you..." you whisper, pressing a featherlight peck on her lips, "you're gonna unravel."

sarah's pupils were blown wide, flickering between your eyes and your lips, the girl letting out a warm breath, her hand going to rest on your jaw "i bet i won't."

you pressed your lips on hers, hungrily, like you'd die of starvation if you didn't devour her right in that spot. one of your hands went to her waist, tugging her closer to you, while the other one tangled into her blonde hair.

it felt as if time stopped as your tongues danced, the girl tasting of the red wine you'd shared and the remnants of her cherry lip gloss, your layers of clothing slowly disappearing while the two of you were tangled into one another until you were both in your underwear, your lips trailing down her neck to her collarbone as your hand was kneading her breast through her lacy bra, sarah letting out soft whimpers, once that you'd spent so long wondering what they sounded like.

your lips pressed kisses on her chest, sarah's head thrown back as you mumbled against the flesh of her breast, "can i take this off?" your fingers trailing over the lace of her bra, goosebumps appearing on her soft skin.

"mmhm. yeah." the girl hummed, and you could feel her heart racing against your hand as you unclasped her bra, sliding it down her arms painfully slowly before discarding it on the floor, looking at her bared breasts with your bottom lip between your teeth to stop yourself from letting out a moan. slowly, you brought your lips down to her nipple, rolling your tongue around it and listening to the pretty noises sarah was letting out, pressing a gentle kiss on the hardened bud before sucking it into your mouth, twirling your tongue around it while your other hand's fingers pinched her other nipple, sarah letting out moans that had you soaking. "oh, f-fuck…"

you hummed against her nipple, sending vibrations down her body, before you let it out of your mouth with a wet pop, smirking at how unraveled sarah already looked under you, her eyes hazy as she looked at you. settling yourself between her legs, you looked down at the wet patch on her red, lacy panties, making you hungry. you pressed your thumb at her puffy clit, rolling it through her panties. "you want me to take these off?"

"mmhm…" sarah mumbled, biting down on her lower lip.

"yeah?" you let out a teasing chuckle, adding pressure onto your thumb as you rolled it over her clothed clit, "how badly?"

"ugh, please…" she groaned, "please, just take 'em off."

you let out another chuckle, "so desperate for me." but you still hooked your fingers around the waistband of her panties, sarah lifting up her hips to help you take them off, and you slowly slid them down her legs. instead of throwing the pair on the floor with the rest of your clothes, you placed it in your nightstand drawer, "i'm keeping those."

you spread her legs even further, settling yourself back between them as you looked down at her pussy, glistening with her arousal. you gave her puffy clit a flick, causing the girl's back to arch on the bed, "please..." she mumbled, making you let out a small chuckle.

"i wanna taste you..." you spoke softly as you moved to lay on your stomach, sarah lifting up her head to look at you as you hook your arms under her thighs.

you licked a stripe up her wet slit, letting a moan against her cunt; you'd spent so many nights imagining how it might feel, how she might taste, involuntarily rutting your hips against the bed for some friction, your grasp on her thighs tightening as you sucked on her puffy clit. in reality; none of your fantasies matched up to the real thing. you were completely lost in her, only caring about the pretty noises leaving sarah's lips, the breathy moans, your name turning high-pitched when you touched her just right.

you brought your ringed fingers to her entrance, the girl so slick with arousal that your middle- and ring fingers slid into her like a dream, sarah clenching around your digits, "so fucking wet f'me, hm?" you chuckled against her clit as you stilled your fingers inside of sarah, her back arching off the bed, "you're the best thing i've ever tasted, i swear..."

"please..." she whined, and you slowly started pumping your long fingers in and out of her, your other hand holding onto her thigh so tightly you were sure it'd leave a mark shaped like your hand as you continued flicking her clit with your tongue, moving your fingers in and out of her, arching inside of her until you felt your fingers bump against the spongy spot inside of her, sarah's legs starting to twitch, the girl involuntarily trying to close them as soon as you did.

you let out a chuckle, now continuing to move with more purpose and confidence, arching your fingers as her walls slowly clenched around you, looking up to see the girl's face twisted in bliss before bringing your lips back to her clit, grinding your hips against your mattress, letting out a moan that vibrated throughout your best friend's body.

feeling her hand twisting in your hair, softly tugging told you enough, causing you to slightly pick up your pace as sarah stuttered "i-i'm c-c-"

"shhh..." you mumbled against her clit, "just let it happen... so good f'me..."

you continued moving your fingers inside of sarah until the girl let out a loud moan of your name, arching her back off the bed, her walls clenching around your fingers so tightly it felt like she had imprisoned them inside of her. you slowed down your movements but didn't halt them, wanting the girl to be able to come down from her high before you did, and once the pulsing around your fingers slowed down, you pulled your soaked fingers out of sarah, wrinkled from how aroused she'd been, letting go of her clit with a small pop, pressing a soft peck on it.

you kissed your way up her stomach, leaving small, wet prints on her tanned skin until you were face-to-face with her, sarah looking at you dazedly as you smiled and let out a small chuckle, a gesture that she returned almost immediately, the sides of your noses bumping together when you slowly brought your lips to hers, and unlike your first kiss, this one was soft, tender, and slow.

"so." you spoke against her lips, looking into her dark eyes, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "did i unravel you? or do i need to do that again?"

"you did..." sarah mumbled breathlessly looking at you behind her half-lidded eyes, "but i wouldn't say no to you unraveling me again."

#old account repost !!!#sarah cameron #outer banks #sarah cameron x reader #sarah cameron x you #sarah cameron x female reader #sarah cameron fanfiction #sarah cameron fic #outer banks fanfiction #obx #outer banks smut #sarah cameron smut #wlw smut

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luvvyouforever · 2 days ago

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vampire!emily prentiss

you are mine, you shall be mine, you and i are one for ever. ꨄ

-carmilla, sheridan le fanu

content: vampire au, wlw imagined when writing, lowk sugar mommy dynamic, sex, possessive, blood, feeding.

𖤐 uses her immortality to enjoy all that life has to offer. indulges in expensive trips, luxurious fabrics, international delicacies, and art collection. her home is always beautiful no matter where she lives and becomes her own personal museum. probably has storage units around the world holding her keepsakes.

𖤐 works for fun rather than for money. creates new lives for herself when she gets bored with one. essentially builds an entire character and lives as her in some new place. will change her hair or her entire style so she's not recognized.

𖤐 if she had some way to just ethically source blood like premade bags or something along those lines, she would. but if those options aren't available, she will feed and drain the worst, almost like a vigilante.

𖤐 she is suchhhh a seductress, luring people in for pleasure and company easily. all she has to do is attend an event dressed to the nines and lean against a table before she has people crawling to her.

𖤐 when she meets you, she's entranced immediately. thinks about you all night long, dreaming of touching your skin and brushing your hair away and feeling your lips on hers. she tries not to let herself wonder what your blood tastes like but she can't help it when you're close and she can smell it.

𖤐 spoils you to no end, but makes sure she's buying you the best of the best. she's so good at being rich and enjoying luxury that she practically has to teach you. she shows you what expensive fabrics feel like and makes some expensive drink for you saying this is the only way you can enjoy vodka.

𖤐 i think she confesses to you that she's a vampire rather than you finding it out in some dramatic fashion. she feels herself becoming more attached to you and she's lived so long that she knows it's better to be upfront about it to keep you.

𖤐 i like to think that if there was some way to have you eternally and let you live alongside her for the rest of her life, she would want that, but she would make sure you're really sure. eternity is not what everyone makes it out to be, she says. but she would be so heartbroken if you said no, knowing she has to watch you age.

𖤐 loves teasing you by dragging her sharp teeth along your skin, sending shivers down your entire body as you think about how powerful she is, what she's truly capable of. enjoys making you come completely undone for her.

𖤐 she has so much experience and knows exactly what to do to make your body sing for her. she can draw it out for an entire night, keeping you down on the bed, making you finish around her till you're a babbling mess. or she can take you against the kitchen counter quickly, having you leave for work in record time.

𖤐 is very possessive and claiming of you. she gets angry at someone's touch against you, even more so if they've been so close to you that she can smell them. licks along your neck, muttering 'mine' the whole way up.

𖤐 will totally gift you something that makes it glaringly clear that you're taken. she'll gift you a locket with her initial carved into it, or an ornate ring she picked up centuries ago. you wear it with pride, so happy to have been gifted something beautiful, but she's smirking as she feels her possessiveness quelled a little bit.

freaky vampire blood stuff below i'm sorry (no i'm not):

𖤐 it would take multiple conversations for her to be comfortable with feeding from you. she likes strict boundaries and open discussion and prioritizes your health over anything. she informs you about how you're gonna feel, how the process will work, everything. when she receives another confirmation from you, she can't help but feel excited that she finally gets to taste you.

𖤐 the first time she does it, she makes it an intimate experience as if it was your first time having sex. makes it dark in the room, lays you down on the plush bed and crawls on top of you. she asks for permission one more time and when you readily give it to her, she bends down and gently seeks her teeth into your neck.

𖤐 from that moment, she's obsessed. she dreams about your taste and craves it all the time. but if nothing, she's great at self-control. she holds herself off until you've recovered, then she will practically crawl to you, begging for another taste. it's the most submissive you've ever seen her.

𖤐 she lost her mind when, as she was about to cum during sex, you lifted your neck, offering her the perfect spot to sink her mouth onto. she finishes just at the moment that your blood fills her. she never wants to leave your side.

#criminal minds #emily prentiss #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss x female reader #emily prentiss smut #ssa emily prentiss #criminal minds smut #criminal minds x reader #paget brewster #wlw #vampire #vampire emily prentiss

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thecurioustale · 3 days ago

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The same can also be said of the period that I think we are emerging out of, the "Internet Wild West" or whatever you want to call it. It's something that I and many others have been aware of as far back as the 1990s (and longer for some).

On the early Internet it was understood by all who gave thought to the matter that this wonderful, new, free world we had created and were now beginning to settle would only be able to go so far before it inevitably got tamed. There would be rules. There would be law. The Wild West analogy was very prominent for me.

Where I erred, personally, was twofold: First, and at a more face-value level, I erred in thinking that this taming would come in the form of external regulation by the government. That didn't happen; the government in the US has mostly not been functional in the 21st century on these matters, and has done almost nothing to regulate the Internet in this time. (The few relevant laws they did pass have mostly been dreadful.) Instead, law and order came to the Internet because a handful of companies took control of nearly the entirety of most people's experience as Internet users—i.e., through social media, e-commerce, and streaming services—and, by controlling these services, they control the user experience. The people running these companies are the ones who have brought order to the Internet, not legally but mechanically through the user experience and through the enforcement of their oppressive EULAs and Terms of Service. The Internet wasn't tamed by wise, Enlightenment principles. It was extruded into obedience through a horrifying abasement of human dignity, at the hands of "tech bros" who, in retrospect, are a hell of a lot stupider than most of us thought. Even the smart ones, it turns out, were stupid all along. Most of them, anyway. I was never a fan of Zuckerberg, Page, et al., but I admired what they built—and in my defense what they built was once promising and new. But I was stupid too to believe in it like I did. Or "young" maybe is the fairer word. Hell, maybe you could apply it of some of them as well.

On a more abstract level, I also erred in thinking that the taming of the Internet Wild West would result in a new era of the Internet that was not a clear step down from what it had been in the Wild West years—that the well-ordered future would merely be different. Maybe, with technological improvements, it would even be better! And in some ways it is better: We usually don't have videos getting stuck buffering anymore. Files download faster. Certain activities have become much more convenient (or possible at all), like managing payments and making purchases and having video calls. But, on the whole, the modern Internet use paradigm is way, WAY worse. Because it is dehumanizing, radicalizing, and disinformative. And I didn't expect that. I thought humanity had grown to be smarter than that. I was wrong.

Yes, though, to the OP's thesis: Times of change do not last. With the taming of the Internet we have built a world that is far worse than the one we built ourselves out of. Now we're going to be paying the consequences of that folly for a long time to come. I for one am meeting this new world by gradually becoming so sickened by much of the online experience that I am disengaging from it, presumably permanently. I am increasingly refusing to be a part of it. I flat-out would not be here on Tumblr today if I were not trying to build an audience for my creative work. Not that I don't enjoy plenty of what I see here, and Tumblr is honestly one of the least-offensive social media platforms, but the broader landscape of social media, and the way it has poisoned our society, disgusts me so much nowadays that I almost can't stand it on principle. The Internet had so much potential. And technically it still does, abandoned deep down. But I don't think I'll see most of that neglected potential realized in my lifetime, and it may never happen at all.

As far as the OP's point about the unrealism of fictional settings having "times of change" lasting for long periods of time, I don't care about that at all. If you want to do a Wild West setting that lasts a thousand years, go for it. Every story is allowed to have its gimmicks and its conceits. Yes, some stories concerned with realism, verisimilitude, and internal consistency would be restricted from depicting a transitional period as a long-lasting, "stable" period. (There's really no such thing as a "stable" period; there are only times when change is modest and repetitive enough to be gentle and familiar. Maybe there's some room to argue about this on the basis of the notion that the pace of change has increased steadily throughout human history as our population and technology have increased, but even that wouldn't really be able to make any claims about stability in the past three thousand years, and certainly not in the past fifteen hundred.) But most stories are not going to be encumbered by this limitation, and can do whatever they like.

There are certain very specific, unsustainable periods of history.

The Golden Age of Piracy lasted from the 1650s to the 1730s, and was really three different waves of piracy that all had their own specific causes and characters. My personal favorite has always been the post-Spanish Succession period, when a bunch of sailors and privateers were left unemployed and turned en masse to piracy since those were the skills they'd picked up during the war. This supply of pirates was obviously non-renewable.

The Wild West lasted between 1865 and 1895, depending on who you ask, not even a full human lifetime. It's a very narrow band of time, and of course it wasn't sustainable, there was only so much land to colonize.

There are lots of these times of change, conquest, colonization, and war, particularly in the last three hundred years. I always think they're interesting, mostly in how quickly the course of history moves on to some other relatively more steady state.

There's a thing that speculative fiction does where it stretches specific periods out to extremes, most notably with Medieval Stasis, but I think it's far funnier when applied to these tiny slices of history that have ballooned in the public consciousness. Either it takes heroic feats of worldbuilding to make it make sense, or everyone is just sort of okay with the idea of a Golden Age of Piracy that's implied to have lasted for a millennia.

#Philosophy of Internet #Philosophy of history #Philosophy of writing #Internet Wild West

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brightlotusmoon · 1 day ago

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A few years ago, I was talking to my dad on the phone when he very happily told me that he had just learned a new word.

On one of his news programs they’d used the word “nonbinary.” Immediately upon hearing it, he said, he “went to the Google machine to look it up” because he really wanted to know what it meant.

He went on to tell me how wonderful he thought it was that language is expanding in order to better describe the human experience rather than pigeon-holing people into boxes into which they do not necessarily fit.

“In my day,” he said, “there were just two terms, but it’s apparent that that was not enough. So, nonbinary … I was very pleased to learn what that means.”

When I first shared the story, I wrote, “A lot of us grew up with pretty rigid ideas about the world, ourselves, and the universality of our own experiences. Eventually, if we’re lucky, we come across something that pushes us to expand, to take in new information, to broaden our perspectives.

What we’ve seen lately is a whole lot of shutting down in the face of that new information. Insecurity masquerading as certainty, fear cloaked in the robes of righteous indignation. Denial, refusal, bigotry (both overt and insidious.)

But then there’s my dad. An 84 year-old man, walking a whole other path. An open, loving, curious path. A path that says, hey, isn’t it wonderful that language is expanding in order to better describe the human experience rather than pigeon-holing people into boxes into which they do not necessarily fit?

A path that does not just accept, but celebrates that progress.”

But there’s important context that I left out. Because while these words and the concepts they represent may be new to some of us, they sure as hell aren’t actually new. They’re not radical or really even mildly progressive. They’ve been around far longer than any of us.

One of far too many examples to count comes from the people whose land we inhabit. The Anishinaabe people have been around since long before the United States existed and their language, Anishinaabemowin is gender-neutral. Rather than relying on a false binary, it contains myriad words to describe an entire spectrum of gender identities, experiences, and expressions.

In that context, our language really isn’t expanding at all. It’s simply returning to its roots.

No matter what happens or what those in positions of power attempt to dictate, human beings will remain who we are, and will continue to exist on a wild, messy, astoundingly beautiful spectrum.

{image is a graphic from Enby Delia featuring a heart in the trans flag colors and reading, “Your validity is not dictated by an executive order.”}

#i love you

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creature-wizard · 3 days ago

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I'm gonna post my controversial thoughts about Jesus 'cause they've been stewing in my head for awhile and I gotta let 'em out.

This isn't going to be me just hating on Jesus for the sake of it. However, it's also challenging to orthodox views of who Jesus is, and I can't say it's all going to be flattering.

Read ahead or don't; but if you do, don't say I didn't warn you.

So. My controversial thoughts on Jesus basically come down to: I think he was a complicated human being, living in a complicated time, responding in a way that made sense to him.

I've read the Gospels with particular attention on Jesus's character, and... in terms of his overall personality and behavior? He reminds me a lot of self-styled spiritual leaders who have a lot of wonderful high-minded ideals where some things are concerned, but are also kinda up their own asses at times. Like the way his followers will ask him some normal question or respond to something in a completely normal way, and he treats them like they're stupid because they didn't manage to clock his quite frankly incomprehensible headspace.

Of course, the narratives are on Jesus's side, so we're supposed to believe that if these guys had just read the Scriptures a little better or had been in a holier headspace, they'd have immediately figured it out. But lots of life experience has taught me that this isn't how anything works. I've also met people who act like this, and I have learned that they are often best avoided, and never to be taken seriously as spiritual teachers.

Also, some of the stuff the Gospels have him doing and saying suggest to me that he may have been prone to mood swings. Like he says a lot of great things about love and compassion! But then he also says a lot of stuff that's just... kinda mean, if not vindictive. Which, that's a characteristic shared by a lot of spiritual leader types that I have come to learn are not the kind of people you want to get too close to.

When I look past the miracles (a number of which are very easily demonstrated to have been embellishments of somewhat less glamorous historical fact), the overall picture I see is someone who had the same kind of charisma as a lot of the people I research. These people also want you to believe that their odd, erratic, and even mean behavior is a manifestation of their divine or enlightened nature.

Do I think this means Jesus was incapable of having good opinions, or that he never said anything worth our attention? No, absolutely not! Again, I think he was a guy, living in a time, doing his best. Sometimes he was a dick, sometimes he threw out bangers. I think love and compassion are supremely important, but I also don't think he has a monopoly on it. (I also think Christianity thinking it knows love better than anyone else and believing it can provide the best access to it is kind of an ego issue.)

And of course, I don't expect to talk anyone out of being Christian with this, nor is that even my aim. These are just my personal opinions based on my observations, that's all.

#personal #jesus #when you look past the miracles he's a surprisingly average guy #i wouldn't crucify him but i wouldn't make him my king either

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reverieblondie · 3 days ago

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As someone who will just start tearing up if someone raises their voice at me while they're angry (even if it's not at me), I can't help but wonder how Rolan would react to falling for someone like that.

A/N: Thank you for this request! So I some drabbles similar to this here so if your interested check it out! But I'm always willing to write more for Rolan so I hope you enjoy!

He can't believe you're actually trying to talk to him, the udder nerve after what you caused.

Asking about his family! Rolan feels like he could burst at any moment, you daring to udder Cal and Lias' names.

"They are my responsibility!" He snaps bitterly, his voice rising to a yell.

Rolan then sees a flicker of something change in your expression—true remorse. It's in your eyes; he can see it steadily rising as you stare at each other. Finally, you break, first darting your eyes to the floor.

"I... I am so sorry... I won't rest till they come back." Rolan Catches the tremble in your voice. And there's an aching twist in his chest before he scoffs it off.

"Save it... just... leave me alone...."

Without another word, he hears you step away; Rolan chugs down the last of his drink as the wobble in your voice echoes in his ears.

It's hard to breathe, hard to see, and hell, with every step, it gets harder to even move.

Rolan can feel that not only is he drained of magic, but he's also drained of energy.

Protect them, watch over them, your family too... Those words told to him so long ago are what keep him going forward, holding tight onto his torch in a knuckle-paling grip. He has to find them, he has to... they are all he has left! His family!

As the panic in his chest swells, adrenaline gives him energy back to his limbs. Rolan begins to run through the shadows blindly, his eyes set forward, and he ignores everything around him. That desperation causes his misstep, forcing him to the ground instantly. Sitting up with a hiss, he quickly remembers where he is scrambling for his torch. As soon as he has it back in his grasp, he sees the inky, wet shadow demons slivering at his heels.

Managing to pull some energy, he thunderwaves the creature back before scrambling to his feet. Standing, he sees his surroundings—and out of everything. Rolan's fist tightens as he looks at what he's sure is his fate.

He will fight, but he knows his body will be unrecognizable after this land gets a hold of his corpse. He gritted his teeth... that will probably be best... He doesn't want Cal and Lia seeing him that way. He suddenly thinks of your words, face... your smile at the party.....

Please let her save them and do what he shamefully could not.

Once cornered with nowhere to go, he closes his eyes... It's over... it's done.....

'Rolan!"

The sound of his name forces his eyes to see you, your face one of panic as it's locked on him... Your hands tremble with sparks of fire as the shadows melt before him... You're here… You found him, saved him... always having to be saved...

Rolan grimaces as you run to him, your voice a blur behind his racing thoughts... then when it's all too much, it bursts out of him.

"Damn it all!" he snaps in your face, "Out of all the people, it's you saving me! Can I do nothing!" Rolan throws his hands in his hair, tugging on his hair till it's loosening.

How did you even find me?" Rolan growls again. His eyes meet yours, and the rest of his tantrum dies in his throat.

Tears rush from your eyes over your flushed cheeks, your breath hiccuping as you try to speak, "I-I am... sorry... pl- please don't yell Ro-Rolan... I was so...scared... you were g-gone!"

Rolan's eyes flick from you to your party. He's in shock that you're crying, but they act like this is common! You're supposed to be a hero, but you're crying!

He's making you cry! Instinctively, Rolan reaches for it, but he pauses before he can touch your skin. You're balling, and he's the one who feels helpless.

Rolan sighs a standing breath as he clenches his fists out to his sides. "Please, stop crying." His head hangs lower, and he brings his hands to his face. "Please... I won't yell; just please stop."

His sensitive ears hear you steading and swallowing down your tears. Finally, he peaks back up to your puffy tear-stained face... Rolan's chest aches at the helpless sight of you. With another sigh, he relents to you," Fine... I will go back... I know when I've been bested. Wipe away your tears."

Sniffling and stuttering, you finally speak again. "I will find them."

Rolan looks over you; somehow, despite how you look, he knows you will... "Please do..."

Everyone is in uproar as they reunite. Rolan pushes through the crowd, looking frantic. When he finally sees Cal and Lia, he wraps his arms around them both in the tightest hug he can manage. The moment is a refreshing wave of relief before suddenly he pushes himself back.

"What the hell, you ass! What were you thinking!" He yelled at them, letting all his pent-up emotions free.

"We were kidnapped by crazy cultists!" Lia challenges, of course, and they start to bicker, but Cal is wrapping them before it can get to a fever pitch. All in a hug once more.

"We are all here and safe... that's all that matters." Rolan and Lia stay quiet. He's right. They are safe and together…

"How could we ever thank her..." Lia says as she looks out from the embrace, Rolan looks over to see you smiling at it all. He feels his cheeks redden, and before he knows it, he's marching over to you.

"Hey!" he says a bit louder and harsher than intended. As soon as that reaches you, your eyes water. Rolan pauses with a gulp. Bloody hells, he doesn't want you to cry again! Your eyes are so full of tears, your breaths stuttering and short. The thought alone brings his stomach to knots.

Rolan lets a long sigh go through his nose before his next move. He steps closer and wraps his arms around you tightly. A slight gasp leaves your lips before he feels you rest your head on his chest, holding him back in return. Rolan holds you in his thankful embrace, trying to ignore Cal and Lias whistling.

It's one of the most stressful days he's had since becoming Archmage and the fall of the absolute. The customers, the shop, usually it's all so easy to handle, but today, it feels like a pile of rocks on his shoulders. Rolan just needed a minute of quiet... just a second to breathe…

Then, in a flash, a novice wizard sets off a grease spell in the shop. Rolan stands next to you with a growl in his throat. Before he can yell, though, he looks over at your worried expression... He can't yell... So he does the next best thing.

With a sigh, Rolan holds his arms to you, his sign of, 'Hold me. before I break.' As you hold him, he feels it all start to melt away. His crybaby hero knows exactly how to melt away all his frustrations.

#askreverie #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 rolan #baldurs gate 3 #rolan bg3 #rolan #bg3 fanfiction #rolan x reader #rolan fanfic #rolan nation #rolan x tav #baldurs gate 3 rolan #bg3 fanfic #baldurs gate #baldursgate

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strqyr · 1 day ago

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you know what i would have liked to see? ruby having mixed feelings about being "special" thanks to the silver eyes—struggling with it, even.

she's the girl who didn't want to be seen as special when it was just about attending beacon two years earlier than most; she just wanted to be a normal girl with normal knees.

and then, after the fall, she learns about the silver eyes from qrow; about how they make her special, just like her mother was, how those with silver eyes were destined to be warriors, the best of the best.

think about the doubt ruby would have. her eyes were the first thing ozpin mentioned to her; were they the only reason she was allowed to attend beacon early? if the stories are real and she was always destined to become a warrior, a huntress, how much of a choice did she really have in the matter?

maybe she'd shut it all out, ignoring what makes her "special"—it's not like she has to use this newfound power, right?—in favor of being normal; could even have a late-night conversation after failing to fall asleep with her father about it, her desperate plea to just be normal, how she never asked for this nor did she want it, all her doubts on the table—and perhaps, offering some insight to the audience to how tai and especially summer felt about it, if ruby being born with silver eyes was a motivating factor in her choices—, her father reassuring her that she can be anything she wants to be, and nothing is going to change that.

so ruby ignores what makes her "special".

but her friends wonder about that light on top of the beacon tower, asking her about, and ruby avoids the question. pretends not to know anything about it, and everything is fine. . . until tyrian attacks, qrow shows up, and it becomes clear that even if ruby herself ignored what her eyes are capable of, others won't.

there's no getting rid of her eyes, so might as well embrace it, then.

so, once in mistral city, she asks qrow, and while he doesn't have personal experience on the matter, he can pass down what summer knew and had told her team about silver eyes, acting as a great opportunity to learn more about summer, her past and view of the world.

perhaps the light not being means to destroy evil, but a way to protect people was something summer lived by, making ruby feel worse, another dint in her armor for failing to live up to her mother when her own mindset going into the conversation is "how do i laser beam monsters with my eyeballs?"

the way her eyes would be another burden on her shoulders—one she never asked for, and one she cannot get rid of. looking for ways to hide; should she wear her hood more? should she look into getting a mask of some kind?

there's just so much that could be done with the silver eyes story-wise, not just with ruby, but as a way to learn more about summer via taiyang and qrow without it being like "okay kiddos, time to learn about summer rose!"

but, to get back to ruby: imagine if her ascending wasn't about. . . that, but about her desire to be normal, to be rid of the silver and in place have literally any other color, please and thank you, to be rid of another burden, another expectation for being "special". ruby weighing her options: would it be worth the cost of her memories, to have that peace of mind?

thank you for coming to my ted talk 🫡

#rwby #ruby rose #*gently pats ruby* this girl can fit so much angst in her #love that for her

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zorilleerrant · 21 hours ago

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"You consider me your priestess?" the girl - the old woman, now, but you can still see her rosy cheeks the first time she came to visit you - asks you. It's hard to determine her tone of voice. She doesn't sound offended, at least, although she also doesn't sound like she believes you're a god. That, at least, is expected.

You wave your hand vaguely. You didn't get the gesture quite right, but humans always change their body language, and it's been too long since you needed to be human for anything. "It's not that you are. But you're the closest I've had in generations, and I would mark you one, if you want me to." You sit, casually, on a bench that wasn't there a moment before, hoping she'll do the same.

The old woman eyes it suspiciously. She's been here for every birthday since she found the place, and many informal days besides, and she knows there was never a bench here. Still, with a weary sigh, she sits beside you. "I'd like that, I think. I never had the test scores to join any of the big priesthoods. Get one over on them, a little bit." She laughs, and her teen years, writing scathing takedowns of theological papers, come back into view for a moment.

You touch her hand. There's a spark of magic. You don't need to, you never used to, but humans are more skeptical these days, and even your most devoted follower doesn't remember the old ways.

For a moment fleeting even by her standards, you wonder if she might have brought them back. But the fishing town isn't what it once was, and no one much makes the hike up here anymore, save curious children and nostalgic adults.

"Do you want me to do anything?" your priestess asks you, a wry smiling wrinkling the still plump curve of her cheeks. "Carry a sign, maybe? Rush into the town and curse their names for not giving you your due respect? I can do a mean scolding these days."

You laugh, hand still resting over hers. "If you like." The idea of her running among the fishmongers, giving over amulets with every sale, making rude gestures when they're refused, is incomparable. The only thing she really needs is The Book, though. You fold open your altar, the way she's done so many times, and bring out the box she admired enough to start polishing gently when she came to visit, telling you about her travels and her art.

"Oh, you again," your priestess says, in delight, laying a delicate hand on the smooth wood. "I learned woodworking and inlay because of you, you little scamp." When she draws her fingers down the sides, this time, the box opens, with a click she can barely hear. Her ears aren't what they once were. Her gasp is the same as it ever was, though, and she taps The Book reverently.

"I never had many rules, even back in the beginning," you tell her, opening the cover so she knows it's safe. "What ones I had don't matter so much, I think - although I'd ask you to be careful where you summon storms, if you try it." You don't know if she has the power for that, anymore. She delved deep into magic in her mid-life crisis, but you've rarely seen her use it since, and you don't know if hers has waned or blossomed in her twilight years.

She looks over the spells. She can read the annotations, still, at least. "It's a lot of power for one person." She flexes her fingers, summoning wisps of what might be the core of some major working, if she concentrated a little harder. "Would you mind if I taught these to people? Not to join your priesthood, mind, just so there could be a little more magic in the world."

You pause. You should have considered that. Many of your siblings have left their words and their magics to the world as their respect faded away, and even more have begun recovery as lost arts. You didn't know your priestess was a teacher. You knew she'd taught a few times, when the calling struck her, but never that she felt the need in her heart. "Of course," you say. The spells are mostly weak now, you think. The time for hiding them is long past. If there's something in there that can help, so be it.

She grins at you. Her teeth are still hardy, and the candlelight flashes pleasingly against them. "Of course you'd mind, or of course you wouldn't? Don't give me any loopholes, now, Your Divinity," she laughs at her own joke, the way she started doing when she broke free of childish attempts at maturity, but still, she waits for your answer, taking your hand in hers again.

"Share them however you'd like," you tell her, knowing that it means she'll record it down to scans and recreations, "the knowledge within is yours." It's clear she'll get years of delight out of it. You don't know how much she might change the world of the handful of enthusiasts she chooses to work with her. It's a nice bookend for a life full of adventure, you think, a discovery like that.

She kisses the book, gently, on the gilded cover. Then, almost as an afterthought, she kisses your cheek as well. "Thank you," she says. Then she opens it again, absorbed in the pages, well past when the evening grows dark. You keep the candles burning higher for her, so she never has to stop her perusal. It's soothing, to watch a priestess once again hard at work. She looks up. "Is this the gift?"

"What?" you ask, caught off guard. Even through all your disciples, you never managed to learn which times connect to each other in the mind of a human. You'd thought that question long forgotten, and hadn't planned on answering right now.

"The gift you said you wanted to give me. Is The Book the gift?" she asks, in confusion. Books are wonderful, powerful things, of course, but they aren't secret. Hidden, often, and protected, and sometimes held to only the most intimate of worshipers, but they're nothing unexpected, not for a deity to give.

You lean back on the bench you never rose from, and wonder if you should bring in desks for those she plans to teach. "No. I was going to offer you your choice of afterlife, when the time comes." You watch her as she frowns. You wonder if she already has an answer in mind. You wonder if she knew since she was knee high with a scraped arm, or since she was a teenager bent on escaping her classmates, or since she was learning to grow and just choosing her passion. She just looks at you, not answering.

Then, weary minutes later - weary for her, where each night brings aches the day didn't; you're happy to wait - she asks, almost rudely, "not soon, I hope?" Her chin juts out as it used to.

"Not so soon for you," you say, thoughtfully, "although too soon for me, I must admit."

She nods, still cradling The Book carefully. "I thought, once you'd made me your priestess, I'd end up going where all your servants go," she says, sounding, of all thing, patient about it. You don't know how much she knows about your afterlife. You've never discussed it with her. Even when you were popular, once, that was never much of the details that caught people's eye.

"Normally only monks go there," you say, not that you'd discourage her, if she wanted to stay always by your side. "It's a place for quiet contemplation, mostly. Even of my priesthood, only the ones who valued their silence ever stayed." You can see her, in a long gown, roaming the halls in a circle, thinking. You can't see her enjoying it for more than a short time.

"You'd have to send me away," she says, ruefully. Then she pauses to think. "You won't pick for me? I can pick?"

Still, you think, she might have you picking her home, anyway. So many of yours did. Even the ones who earned the highest honors left everything in your hands, and here she is a priestess of moments only, ready to upset everything. Or nothing, if you ask her not to. You close her hands around The Book again.

"Think on it," you say, and wait for next year.

While other god's shrines are magnificent, yours is a bit too humbling. And yet a little girl visits you every year after stumbling upon it, never missing a year even as she grows old. Deeply moved, you decide to give her a parting gift greater than what any other God would dare to give.

#look I said something #my writing

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greenwitchfromthewoods · 6 hours ago

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you in my eyes [5] l Javier Peña

Summary: you weren't friends and you certainly weren't planning anything more together

Warnings: smut, fingering, kissing, enemies (?) to lovers, misogyny and sexism at work, some bad language, Murphy shows up, alcohol

A/N: I don't know how many people read this series, but I wanted to add another chapter. Maybe I can make someone happy with it.

your feedback is very important to me and I want to thank you for all the reblogs, comments and likes. I secretly hope you like this story.🖤 sorry for all the mistakes

[previous chapter]

[masterlist]

You turned down the TV and sat up on the couch, someone was knocking on the door. It was already late Friday evening, which you decided to spend at home. After Messina announced that O'Connell had been urgently called to the States, you felt calmer. That's why you didn’t go to any pub or place like that.

The knock repeated and you finally approached the door.

"Javier?" the man on the other side smiled “What are you doing here?”

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked, a little confused.

"No. But it's late. Is something wrong?"

He raised his hand, in which he held the bottle of whiskey, and waved it, smiling slyly.

"I won the bet," he boasted.

You crossed your arms over your chest and leaned against the door frame, looking at him with interest. Peña was pleased to note that you were wearing a green baggy t-shirt, probably from the department's supply, and your hair was still damp from the shower. You looked nice.

"There was a bet, back at the office. The guys were betting on when O'Connell would give up and come home." Javier explained. "And I won."

"You bet he'd leave right now?"

"No. I said someone would punch him in the face."

You burst out laughing. And even Peña laughed, still holding his bottle in front of you.

"We're partners, so you deserve it, too."

"Oh! How generous of you! You flatter me, Agent Peña."

You bit your lip as if you were thinking about something, then gently pushed the door open, nodding slightly.

He entered the room, bringing with him the smell of cologne and cigarette smoke.

"I wasn't expecting guests." You announced, pulling glasses out of the cabinet.

"I was wondering if I'd find you home." He mumbled, unscrewing the bottle and giving you a furtive glance. "Didn't you want to go out somewhere?"

You put the glasses down on the coffee table with a clatter and sat down on the couch, pulling your legs under you. "I wasn't in the mood. I think I'll skip places like that for a while."

Javier poured the amber liquid into the glasses and handed one to you, sitting next to you.

"¡Salud!" He raised his glass in a toast, and you did the same. "What are we drinking to?"

"Peace of mind." You replied. "Unless you have other suggestions?"

"Naah. That's good too."

You tipped the glasses down and Javier filled them again.

"Nobody's waiting for you?" you asked as he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and lit one. "I think you'd find better company than me."

"Oh! I definitely would!" Javier chuckled, blowing a wisp of smoke from his mouth. "Don't tell anyone I came here, you'll only ruin my reputation."

You laughed and covered your eyes with your hand as if you were thinking about something. "God! Can you imagine that?" Javier raised his eyebrows expectantly. "What the girls in the office say about you, what the guys say about me... And what would they say if we started sleeping together? Damn! Loise would go gray in an hour."

"Murphy would beat the shit out of me." Javier stated, sipping his drink. "He probably thinks you're too good for me."

"And he's right." you shrugged "I could be with the commander, but I'd trade him for a simple agent? Sorry, Peña, no chance."

"Fuck, you're a menace." he snorted, shaking his head in disbelief.

It was nice. He sat with you, talked about work and life. Melancholic stories from your past life, no plans for the future, because where you were you didn't really plan anything. Neither of you delved deeper, because why would you, it was just a friendly conversation over a Friday night drink.

After the third glass, he noticed your legs, exactly when you got up to go to the bathroom. The skimpy shorts gave Javier room for imagination. His eyes, dark as night, followed you involuntarily, and then he cleared his throat.

The alcohol was coursing through his veins, he felt hot, so he took off his jacket and threw it on the armchair next to him, rested his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. He didn't even hear you come back. Only the feeling of you sitting down next to him, the smell of your shampoo caught his attention.

"I'm a terrible housekeeper." you stated finishing your drink, Javier raised his head looking at you with interest "I don't have anything to eat, nothing I could give you." you pouted and he chuckled.

"Please, hermosa." he sighed "If I wanted to eat something, I would take you out for dinner. I have a hard time believing you cook anything yourself, to be honest."

You raised your eyebrows in surprise "You're suggesting that..."

"I'm not suggesting anything." he interrupted you and instinctively placed his hand on your thigh, stroking it gently "You just work a lot, like me."

"Maybe if we had someone to cook for sometime..." you pondered, completely not noticing his gesture, which only made Javier not withdraw his hand "Murphy and Connie, they definitely cook."

"Not as often as they both might claim." he raised an eyebrow and you laughed "But Connie is good at it. Anyway, you'll find out tomorrow."

"It's nice that they invited me, I guess..." you lowered your eyes, feeling a bit embarrassed "I mean... We don't know each other that well, right?"

Peña frowned.

"What the hell are you talking about? If it wasn't for you, they would still be collecting our fragments from the surrounding trees by now."

"Don't say that."

"But it's true." he moved closer to you, his hand moved higher, now resting on your hip, his thumb stroking your body hidden under your shirt. Neither of you felt embarrassed by this, maybe it was because of the drinks you had, or maybe it was that night. "You're doing a great job here. Everyone can see it."

"They think I'm a slut." you mumbled almost incomprehensibly and Javier had to tilt his head slightly to hear your words "No matter what I do, I'm labeled an easy girl. You know... I try not to worry about it, people will always talk, but sometimes... Sometimes it hurts."

He grabbed your chin and lifted it slightly. Beautiful brown eyes stared at you intently. "The most important thing is what you think about yourself. Double standards suck, you said so yourself and you were right. Surely if I say you're the coolest chica in the office, it won't change anything, right?"

You rolled your eyes. "Please..."

"And you have the prettiest legs." Peña added quickly, you chuckled "Your smile is also very pretty. And when you're excited about something, your eyes widen and shine so nicely." you snorted, your hand closing over his, which was still holding your chin. "And when you yelled at me the first time, I got hard."

The smile disappeared from your lips, which slightly widened in surprise. You fell silent, both of you a little surprised by this bold confession.

"Javier..."

His name was quieter than a whisper, but he heard it clearly. He leaned even closer. Warm breath brushed your lips.

"This is really a very bad idea." you said with difficulty.

"You can stop me, hermosa." His lips lightly brushed yours, you closed your eyelids, inhaling the air.

"Did I really make you hard?"

"Mhmm..." you didn't see the smile of satisfaction on his lips. "They call it difficult working conditions."

It was a split second and you felt his lips on yours. All dilemmas disappeared, and when you kissed him back he knew he was gone. Your hands instantly found their way to his face, your fingers tangled in soft hair and you pulled him closer, parting your lips.

An invitation that Javier read flawlessly. His tongue slipped into your mouth, you tasted the whiskey, and that was even more captivating for him. The kisses were intense, deep as if you both could finally give vent to what had been brewing inside you for a long time. You felt him squeeze your buttock and you moaned, but his tongue effectively muffled you. So you didn't wait for anything more, in an instant you slid onto his lap and clung to his body. Javier felt your breasts under the thin T-shirt, you didn't have a bra. He knew that, of course he had already glanced at your breasts, but when he felt it…

You pulled away from his lips for a moment and looked into his dark eyes.

"You can back out at any time. No hard feelings." you said. "I don't want you to feel..."

"Used?" Javier laughed quietly. "I guess I'm the one who should be saying things like that, don't you think?" his hands gripped your buttocks tighter, making you feel the bulge in his jeans.

"Oh!"

"That's a clear answer, I guess."

He lifted himself up and his lips captured yours again. The excitement grew in your lower abdomen with every passing second, with every kiss and touch. His strong hands shamelessly slid under your shirt, first stroking your back, and after a moment he grabbed your breasts. He kneaded your tits, rolled your nipples between his fingers, and you moaned as much as his tongue in your mouth would allow you.

"Take it off." he ordered, tugging at your shirt.

"Do it yourself."

"You're something else, you know that?"

You bit your lip, smiling obediently, raising your arms up so the shirt could be removed. Javier kissed you the second your lips peeked out from behind your collar. Damn, he was a threat to you.

Large hands explored your body, testing every inch of it, teasing every nerve. Could you want more? God, you didn't have to ask, he wanted to give it all to you.

When he slid his hand into your shorts, you gasped loudly.

"Fuck, you've got a real pool here, sweetheart." he mumbled, smiling slyly. "Would you like me to take care of that?"

A nod.

"Words, hermosa. Just words."

"Yes, please."

He ran his fingers over your folds, hot and wet, knowing perfectly well that he would be able to slide them inside without a problem. And so he did. And when you threw your head back, sighing quietly, he marveled at how wonderful the sight was.

Hot lips closed over one of your nipples, sucking and teasing with his tongue, fingers moving in and out, searching for that spot that could take you apart.

"Shit, Javier..." you moaned.

You clenched your fingers in his hair, hips rising slowly and rhythmically as he finger fucked you. Why did this have to feel so good? You couldn't remember the last time you felt like this, when someone had made you feel so...

"Oh fuck!"

"I think I found it." Javier chuckled, kissing your cleavage, your skin was slightly salty from sweat but still smelled of soft soap and you "I'm holding you, hermosa, take what you need."

He crossed his fingers with his thumb massaging your clit, the pressure was perfect and soon he felt your walls clench around his fingers, your body tensing and you held your breath for a moment feeling the pleasure spread through your body.

You rested your head on Javier's shoulder breathing deeply, his hands stroking your thighs sending a pleasant shiver through your heated skin.

"That was the first one." Peña finally spoke.

"The first one?" you lifted your head and looked at him curiously "Planning more of these?"

"Oh, sweetheart..." he sighed, brushing the strands of hair from your face, then bringing his lips to yours and stealing a tender kiss "At least two more tonight." another kiss "Two in the morning." another one "And how much more will you allow me to have with you, because - fuck - I want to see you cum again. I knew I'd get in trouble with you."

Your hand stroked the back of his neck, you could probably let him have a little more of you.

It was like an addiction. Javier was addicted, and you were his best drug. Before he knew it, you were crawling under his skin, coursing through his veins, and rushing to his head. Sometimes it felt like every time he saw you, his addiction grew.

His fingerprints were all over your body, and he proudly wore yours, even though no one was around to see it. You kept the fact that you were dating a secret, even though you never talked about it like that.

God! You never thought you could fall for a guy like that, and even more so that you would let him do things like that to you. Because sex with Javier was on another level.

Never before, no one had made you feel so desired, enough, beautiful, and fulfilled. Peña gave you the best orgasms, the ones that left you silent for a moment afterwards because you couldn't form a grammatically correct sentence in your head. The sleep problems disappeared and lazy mornings were something you loved doing with him.

His sleepy eyes, his hot body, his ruffled hair... In the dictionary, next to the word 'sex', they should have put a picture of Javier, you were sure of that.

In your apartment or in his, in the car in the parking lot, or at work in some tight space, because you wanted a quickie. It was getting more and more intense and what you were feeling was starting to scare you a little. A little over three weeks since O'Connell left, and you felt really good. For a while.

The information about the mole in the office was bothering Messina and she had talked to you about it many times. You promised that you would revolve around it, but for some time you hadn't found any new leads. It was frustrating.

"I talked to informants, but no one would tell me anything." You muttered one evening, resigned.

Peña opened a beer and sat down with his ordered food. "Maybe you're looking in the wrong places? Maybe it's not some higher agent or something?"

"But all this information that's been leaking..." you sighed.

“Honestly, many people have access to it. Hermosa, stop stabbing your food with fork and start eating,” he replied, gesturing to your plate.

However, your gaze drifted away for a moment. Javier noticed it after a moment, huffed impatiently. "Hermosa." he repeated warningly.

"Hmm?"

"You'll have cold food." he shook his head in disbelief. "I really don't know why I'm here with you."

You looked up from your plate and smiled. Your foot, under the table, slowly slid up his leg and headed for his crotch, rubbing it lightly. "I think I know why."

He raised an eyebrow expectantly. It was nice, what was between you. Although neither of you named it. The sex was fucking amazing, you could talk or not talk at all and Javier loved it. You didn't pressure him, you didn't expect declarations or confessions. You took what he gave you, you gave just as much.

And eventually both of you started eating more or less regularly, although the last attempt at cooking ended in burnt chicken, because when Javier came back from work he had a strong urge to get into your panties.

He grabbed you at the ankle and squeezed lightly which made you smile, he loved it. You spent quite a lot of time together and he slowly started to notice the little things he liked about you. Your smile was his favorite though.

"Murphy and I have to go out of town. We'll be gone for a few days." he said watching you as you reached for his beer and took a few sips.

"Anything important? Do you have new sources?" you asked, frowning.

Javier nodded "Yeah, we want to check them out. We also need to watch one guy."

"Okay. Just watch your backs. I won't be able to save your asses there." You squealed as he gripped your calf tighter and pulled you so hard you almost fell off the chair "Peña! Fuck you!"

"You wish." he chuckled, but then turned serious "You watch your back too, hermosa. Promise me that."

And you promised, and then you gave him something so he wouldn't forget about you and would have something to think about when he and Murphy were out of town.

"Will you miss me?"

You shook your head. "I don't think so."

"I think you will." Javier stopped the car in front of the office building and turned off the engine.

It was still early, the streets were empty. You were enjoying your last moments together. His hand on your thigh squeezed you lightly, it was nice.

"Tell me you'll miss me." He looked at you with a gentle smile and those eyes of a poor puppy. "I know you have a soft spot for me."

"You wish!" you chuckled.

"I will."

There was something in his tone of voice that made the laughter die on your lips. Those ambiguous sentences made your heart beat faster, but you calmed it down every time. You didn't want it to happen so soon. And what was that anyway?

"Maybe a little." You finally sighed, his lips stretched into a smile.

"Kiss me, hermosa."

It wasn't a request, more of an order, but you didn't mind. Javier moved closer, you stroked his cheek tenderly, and then you let his lips brush yours. At first gently, because he was teasing you, and he loved doing that. Finally, you curled your fingers in his hair and Javier slid his tongue between your lips, you moaned. His hand grabbed your waist as if he wanted to pull you even closer. Damn, he kissed like a dream.

Another brush of lips, another tender touch. Finally, he rested his forehead against yours and sighed. "Maybe we still have time, huh? Murphy will definitely be late."

"I don't think so." you replied quietly.

"He's always late."

“But not today.”

Javier looked at you, surprised, and then turned around. Steve was standing in front of the hood of his car, his glasses slid down his nose and he looked at you with disbelief on his face.

You opened the door. "I guess I'll go now." you said, smiling uncertainly, "Take care of yourselves."

"You too, hermosa." Javier replied, sitting down in his seat and putting on his glasses.

Steve nodded in your direction, then walked over to the car. "Really?" he asked, staring at his friend, "You and her? Really?"

Peña didn't even look at him, "Get in."

"Is that why you haven't been so annoying lately?" Murphy chuckled, but got in and closed the door with a soft click.

The engine started and the car slowly rolled down the road.

It was strange. They managed to come back a day early. He wanted to surprise you. He even bought some oranges, which you liked so much lately. But the apartment door was closed. Javier kept knocking for a while. He glanced at his watch. It was late, so you should have…

"She left." The older man peeked out from behind the neighboring door and glared at Javier.

"Long time ago?" he asked, surprised.

The man shrugged. "I don't remember. But she looked really nice." He smiled slightly. “You must have been late, boy. If she’s not here yet…”

Javier nodded and quickly went down the stairs. Something strange tightened his insides. He didn't expect this...

☆☆☆☆

Thank you for your time.

taglist: @qpiiee @missladym1981 @axshadows @djappleblush @picketniffler @txmel @wowitsafemale @cheekychaos28 @underneath-the-sky-again @misstokyo7love

#pedro pascal #javier peña x reader #javier peña #javier pena x reader #you in my eyes series

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siriuslylantsov · 4 hours ago

Text

morning glory

pairing: spencer reid x reader

description: following the events of drunken confessions. the next morning after spencer tells you he loves you, albeit drunk and half asleep, you don't know if he means it.

tags: fluff, gn!reader, hangover but i dont dwell on it, whiny!spencer (lol), so so soft, r is so unsure but she just needs reassurance.

a/n: omg my first pt 2 as per popular demand (3 people asked), happy reading!

wc: 1.6k

i love you.

three words that bounce from one end to the other in your head, like a pendulum, reverberating across the hard surface of your skull. it echoes through the small space of your ear canal, taking up entirely too much space. it repeats with the beat of your pulse, heart thudding in a steady rhythm.

suffice it to say, you barely slept. running the words over and over for some kind of clarity. instead you preoccupied yourself with watching spencer sleep, like you are now.

with the sunrise, came light. light that filtered through the curtains just enough that you could see his face. his lips are slightly parted, soft puffs of air that don’t quite reach you. they’re pulled down minutely, in a little frown, seemingly how his face falls when he's unconscious. it's sweet. his eyebrows twitch, creasing momentarily, you wonder if he’s dreaming, or if it's a nightmare.

your fingers itch to reach out and touch him, soothe the line. but he's so peaceful, you don't know if you want to wake him up. you never get to see him like this, without the weight of the world on his shoulders, unthinking. so you stall a bit, let the wave of serenity pass before it comes crashing down in the form of a violent hangover.

you probably stay like that for an hour, an hour spent admiring his features. it's easier than confronting what he said. he’d stayed in the same position all night, curled up on his side, facing you. you’re leaning on your elbow now, looking down at him from above. his face moves, nuzzling into the pillow beneath his head. it causes that same stubborn strand of hair to fall loose.

you give in and touch him this time, tucking the piece behind his ear. you trace a finger over his brow bone and then down the slope of his perfect nose. this causes him to stir, eyes fluttering open as he takes in his surroundings before they land on you. they instantly soften.

“morning,” you whisper, wary of your volume.

“hey,” he croaks, voice riddled in sleep. all his features pull up, twisted in a grimace as his head throbs. he rolls onto his back, bringing his fingers up to his temple, rubbing the pads of them in between his eyebrows.

“where's your aspirin?”

he hums in thought, or in pain, it's uncertain. “the um- drawer,” he points beside him aimlessly, eyes still closed. he's about to move to get it but you stop him, leaning over his body to reach the bedside table next to him. you reach over him, hovering awkwardly over his body. you shiver imperceptibly when his hand settles on your waist for support, an unconscious action, you suppose. when you find it, you give him a pill and he swallows, his hand falls back to his side.

“what time is it?” he grumbles.

“quarter to twelve,” you respond, barring a quick look at the analog clock that sat on his dresser.

he harrumphs, something of acknowledgement. you didn’t think he’d be this grumpy waking up but you don't mind, it's awfully cute.

“it’s so bright,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut further, if possible.

“your eyes are closed.”

“my retinas are burning,” he whines, throwing his arm over his eyes to shield him from the sunlight in a thespian flourish.

“so dramatic,” you huff as you get up to close the curtains, the smile in your voice irrefutably evident. you peek out the window first, your car is still parked outside, you stayed the night!

when you sit back down on the bed, his head seeks you out, laying gently on your lap. you card a hand through his hair, the action seemingly appropriate. he lets out a hum, satisfied.

“do you remember much from last night?” you ask, trying to come off casual, the question is loaded to say the least. plus, you don't know if alcohol affects an eidetic memory the same way. maybe he remembers everything, like always.

“no,” he says with a little shrug. “well, i remember going to the bar and morgan spilling a shot on his shirt but that's it.”

oh. so not that differently.

“well, i'm sure he’ll appreciate you remembering that,” you chuckle, ruffling his hair. with a long sigh, you decide to not bring it up. it’ll come back to him, surely. you’ll wait for him to come to you about it.

you lift his head off your lap and let him sink back into the pillows. “how about you freshen up and i’ll make you some toast?”

his eyes peek open, barely. “yes please,” he replies meekly, a small smile in tow.

you put slices of bread into the toaster on his counter, leaning against it as you wait. what happens if he doesn't remember? will you tell him? how do you even bring that up?

hey spencer! last night you told me you love me. do you?

the loud spring of the toaster startles you back to the moment. behind his bedroom door, you can hear the faint sound of his shower running and you remember you’re still in his clothes. god, you're gonna have to wear yesterday's clothes back home. you mindlessly take the hot toast out and set it on a plate, wincing when you hold them for too long. you put 2 more slices of bread in, for you of course.

you decide to make some eggs too, pulling the carton out of the fridge and getting a pan from beside his sink. you move with surprising ease through his kitchen, like you’d been there before. you haven't, but again, it's so easy with spencer, it apparently extends to his home too. you hum absentmindedly, cracking an egg into a bowl and beating it with a fork. you don’t know it yet but spencer's watching you, having finished his shower.

it all comes back to him slowly, as he puts on a new change of clothes, skin still a little damp.

asking penelope for a drink, drinking it, thinking, thinking about you, you showing up? maybe he was magic. you sitting with him, talking to him, taking him home. he remembers stumbling up the stairs, his arm thrown haphazardly over your shoulders and yours hooked around his waist.

“you're so nice, y’know?”

“yeah? you won't think so tomorrow morning.”

you tucked him in, stayed when he asked you to. you told him about your breakup and he told you, oh, he told you he loved you.

shit.

he has to make this right. he's quick to feed his arm into the last sleeve and walk out of his room. however, he stops when he sees you. swaying lightly, humming a tune he recognises from last night, standing there in his clothes. he thinks he might die. clearly, he wasn’t paying much at all when he woke up earlier. damn headache.

“i told you i loved you.”

your head snaps in his direction, unaware of his presence. you jump a little before calming. “yeah... you did,” you confirm, trying to keep your tone light. it wasn't a question but you still answer. he remembers.

“and you told me to tell you again when i wake up,” he recalls.

you chuckle quietly, “i didn't realise you heard that.”

“i did.”

you nod, slowly, expectantly, for him to say something else, anything else.

“i love you.” there it is.

“you mean that?” your voice comes out way smaller than you intended. he still hasn't moved.

“of course i do,” he says with a sigh, inching his way closer. you look like you're going to spook.

“okay,” you breathe, looking down at your fingers, you begin to ramble. “it's just, last night- you were drunk and sleepy and well, tired and i didnt know if you were being honest or just saying it on whim.”

he's suddenly in front of you and you can't look at him. he's fine with that, it makes it slightly easier.

“hey, i mean it. i love you. i’m sorry i said it how i did, it wasn't fair. and you don't have to say anything back, i just- want you to know.”

you look up at him now, eyes searching, and when you find sincerity in his eyes, you soften, muttering out a quiet “okay.” your lips twist to the side, trying not to smile, but glee fills out every nook and cranny of your body. he takes this as a good sign and lets out the breath he didn't realise he was holding, smiling back at you.

“so,” you start, seemingly casual. “how do you take your eggs?”

spencer laughs, amused by your change in topic. he nods toward the bowl of already beaten eggs, “scrambled.”

you nod, firmly. you pick up the bowl and move to the stovetop, but not before grabbing his fingers with your free hand and pulling him with you.

your thumb glides along the curve of his forefinger as you hold it between your bodies, waiting for the pan to heat up. you’re biting your lip so much, you think you might draw blood. you’re unbearably happy. and you think you’re doing a good job of hiding it but you’re not. spencer can see the way you giddily twitch by his side, opting on not saying anything about it as he smiles softly.

“you love me,” you tease, singsong, dragging out the ‘love’. your head leans against his shoulder.

“mhm,” he confirms. ”you’re never gonna let me live this down, huh?”

“nope,” you chirp, pressing a chaste kiss to his shirt.

reblogs and replies are appreciated | m.list

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid fluff #fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid one shot #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fanfiction #mgg #matthew gray gubler

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smile-files · 3 days ago

Text

your friend, your servant

(a short hurt/comfort fic with henry and dalston, not long after the events of miracle mask)

...

a gentle knock on the door.

how unusual, thought alphonse dalston. nobody ever visited. well, aside from those couple times dandy old hershel showed up during the masked gentleman investigation, but that was weeks ago. he sat up and paused, wondering he if he was just hearing things; with a shrug, he settled back down.

another knock.

with a groan, dalston begrudgingly hauled himself off of the couch, where he'd been oh-so-comfortably reading a book, which he closed and placed on the side table. "i'm comin', i'm comin'," he called as he made for the door, straightening out his shirt on the way.

upon swinging the door open, he found the last man he'd ever thought he'd see standing in front of him.

"good morning, mr dalston," greeted henry ledore, in his typical flat affect.

"what the hell are you doing here, ledore?" dalston asked loudly, standing in the doorway. really, what the hell WAS he doing there? ledore, of all people…

henry cleared his throat. "i understand you own a large property and only enlist the help of one servant. i can help maintain your estate."

dalston was left agape. "…what?"

"i can repeat myself, if you wish." eternally patient henry. damn him. "i apologize if my language was unclear…"

"no, i understand what you said, ledore," dalston snapped, "i just don't understand why you said it. why on earth would someone of your stature be crawling to me for work? as a servant, no less?"

henry laughed lightly. "you forget, mr dalston, that all of my wealth belongs to master randall."

"yes, right…" dalston's voice tapered off in thought. henry ledore, his financial competitor for the past 18 years, didn't even want any of the massive fortune he'd built - that which dalston had been so long trying to exceed. their rivalry was entirely one-sided. "but that doesn't make you a servant," dalston continued. "again."

"i never stopped being a servant," henry said. "my 'stature', if you'd like to call it that, was always master randall's."

"then why aren't you licking bratscot's boots right now?" dalston asked with a smirk. "i mean, since you have been so obsessively dedicated to the boy all this time, i'd think you'd be chomping at the bit to be working for him again."

a sigh. "he wasn't so keen on the idea of my resuming work as his servant. that is why i've come to you, mr dalston." henry's gaze was intense, determined.

dalston shook his head, baffled. "and if i turned you down too, would you go to some other rich sap and ask them the same?"

"i'm afraid they all regard me too highly to ever allow me a position beneath them, no matter how illogical that may seem."

"illogical, eh…?" dalston paused. "…hey, then why'd you think i'd accept? because i've sullied your good name in public, repeatedly? ha!" with a laugh, and a hearty pat on henry's back, dalston finally let him into the house.

dalston resumed his seat on the couch, leaving henry standing awkwardly in the entryway. he picked up his book and began leafing through it.

"y'know, it is kinda infuriating," he mused, smiling, "that you upstaged me at literally everything then revealed you weren't even doing it on purpose. there i was, thinking i had some fighting chance of beating you and rubbing it in your face, but now i know you never even cared about what i was doing. all you cared about was your 'master randall'."

"my apologies for seeming aloof," henry replied. "you are correct, mr dalston: preparing for master randall's return was my top priority. unfortunately, i could pay little mind to other affairs."

"including your old friend dalston?" dalston grinned. "was i too far beneath your lofty, noble goals?"

henry gave a start. "i did not realize you saw us as friends. i apologize for not treating you with more warmth."

"of course we're friends, ledore! what on earth are you talking about?" dalston shut his book and put it down. "come, sit. stop standing there like a piece of furniture."

obeying, henry came around to sit next to dalston on the couch. it was, indeed, a comfortable couch; henry smiled to himself.

"i admit," dalston said, "for a while i did think you were a slimy, greedy little bastard. i saw you building a fortune off of those ruins bratscot wouldn't shut up about, with his girl as your wife no less… i mean, you never told me why you were doing any of this! really, can you expect me not to call you a snake?"

"the most important thing was for me to help master randall," henry replied, unhelpfully. "though you, too, were romantically interested in angela, were you not? i understand our 'marriage' may have upset you on a more personal level."

dalston continued, ignoring henry's apology. "and y'know, as kids, i'd always talk about making it big in the hospitality business… but there you were, with your chain of luxury hotels, bringing in the bills! getting rich off of my dream! why, so i started my own hotel chain here in monte d'or too, and i started being massively successful, just like you - except you never batted an eye. mr ledore was too big for me now. and then you accused me of destroying monte d'or? ha! you really shouldn't be surprised i hated your guts. because you never explained a damn thing…"

henry opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off.

"and what's it all for now? heh, i'm getting pissy with a saint." dalston laughed. "at least now i know i was wrong to hate you. that's nice, at least, so we can go back to being chums. no hard feelings, eh?" he nudged henry with his elbow.

"i harbor no ill-will towards you, mr dalston," henry stated. "your reaction to my behavior was due and deserved. i hope i can be a better friend to you in future, now that i am not so preoccupied."

dalston grunted, but spoke not a word. they sat in silence.

"y'know," dalston said at length, "i was glad when mr bratscot kicked you out. and i was glad you became independent. he'd shut you up in that house for hours, only sending you out to do chores… i was hoping that with all of that out of the way we'd finally get to see you again."

dalston was staring in the middle distance, and henry did the same, not knowing what to say.

"but then you shut yourself up in those ruins," dalston went on, "and then in the reunion inn, or in your study, doing to yourself what was done to you… except i thought you were being the cruel master over yourself like mr bratscot. selfish. choosing money over the rest of us."

henry bit his lip.

"why did you never explain anything? i know i would tease you when we were kids, but…" dalston paused, his expression softening. "why, do you not think we're friends, ledore? is that why you were confused earlier? …is that why you never told me about anything?"

a brief silence. "i assure you, my inability to justify my actions to you was not meant to be a personal slight. and… i am pleased that you think we're friends. but i was not expecting you to say so."

dalston smiled sadly. "but do you want me to think we're friends? do you want to be friends, ledore?"

"it is your decision, mr dalston."

"if i said we weren't, i don't think you'd get upset and disagree with me."

"i apologize."

dalston sighed. here he was, getting pissy with a saint again…

they sat in silence for a moment, uncomfortable with each others' sadness.

suddenly, dalston met henry's gaze. "you were my friend before anything else. you could never be my servant."

in turn, henry stood up with a sigh. "then i must bid you good day, mr dalston. i apologize for bothering you."

dalston grabbed his hand with both of his and pulled henry back down onto the couch.

"do you seriously not know how to be friends with someone without being their inferior?" dalston asked, incredulous, henry now forced to make eye contact. "you don't have to leave my house just because you're not working for me. what, is that why you left yours?"

henry's hand was still in dalston's grasp. he'd been startled by the whole motion, by dalston begging for his company with his hands. eyes wide, henry didn't know what to say. his mind was on the feeling of being wanted there, on that couch. of his hand in dalston's grasp.

"you're very good at saying nothing." dalston exhaled and released henry, expecting him to stand up again. he closed his eyes, expecting henry to be gone when he opened them.

"master randall has always been my closest friend. he's always treated me like his brother, and yet he was always still my master."

"hm?" dalston opened an eyelid, curious.

indeed, henry's gaze had travelled to the door… but he'd stayed, perching himself uncomfortably on the edge of the couch; though he still faced away from dalston. "the two have always been the same to me," he continued in a soft voice.

dalston sat up and listened to him, eyes fully open.

henry bit his lip and continued. "do you think master randall and i would've been real brothers if he weren't my master? if he were just… randall?"

"he's always seen you as his real brother."

henry said nothing for a moment.

so dalston waited.

"it is true," henry murmured after a while, "if you said we weren't friends, i wouldn't disagree with you."

"oh yeah?" dalston replied quietly.

"yes. though i would still be sad." he smiled unhappily. "though i suppose that wouldn't mean anything, if i never explained it?"

"i'd think you hated me."

"and i wouldn't blame you."

suddenly, dalston pulled henry to his side and hugged him tight, arms wrapped around his thin form. henry was initially frozen like a deer in headlights, just as he was when dalston had grabbed him before…

henry's mind raced. he is holding me. he wants me to stay. i am in his house. i am on his property. i am doing something wrong. i should leave. he is holding me. he wants me stay. i am wanted here. i am wanted here. i am wanted here. i am wanted here.

…henry let himself sink into the warmth of being wanted. he became nearly limp with relief, as if his loneliness were an old, cramped exoskeleton dalston had gently slit into and helped him shed, letting the vulnerable, delicate animal within finally feel the heat of the sun, so similar to the heat which had always pulsed in his heart… he felt so weak, yet so alive, within dalston's embrace… and so tired… it took a lot out of him, letting himself be loved, instead of hiding himself away…

dalston was amused to find henry fallen asleep, but smiled to himself. he let me hold him, he thought. he wants to be here. and look… now he gets to dream again…

he gently laid henry down on the couch, shifting over to make room. he settled in with his book again, just as he was before henry had ever arrived… except now someone got to be comfortable on the couch with him. he was glad henry had visited.

#melonposting #professor layton #henry ledore #alphonse dalston #fanfic #sorry i think it's becoming very apparent how obsessed i am with henry ledore. i wasn't lying about him being my favorite #i like picking at his sadness. and in this i pick at dalston's sadness too #or what i assume to be his sadness anyway... we don't actually know much about him #lalala i need to be killed #familial ranhen #<- not the main focus but it is mentioned and important!!

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majimasleftasscheek · 2 days ago

Note

Who/where did you get your back tattoo done if you don’t mind me asking? I am looking to get Kiryu’s one day, and was wondering where you found someone who did such a good job!

I got mine at a local place (hotrod tattoo, AZ, artist Chuy) tho if you're looking to get something for yourself done, I would rec checking out artist portfolios at places of your choosing and seeing which you prefer! tbh a lot of this will come down to what you want out of the tat and what the artist is willing to do 👀

so like, for me, I wanted majima's tat done 1:1, style matching and all so it took me a few tries to find an artist who was willing to emulate the art exactly since some artists prefer doing their own thing or whatnot. the guy I found had a portfolio full of tats from other media in 1:1 styles as well as in general such a broad range of styles that I felt convinced he could get me exactly what I wanted 😊 plus he had a few japanese style tats so I could see how he'd handle things like the dark clouds typical of these tats (which is like 70% of majima's lol)

so if you're looking for kiryu's I would say ask yourself do you want it 1:1, or an interpretation, or something else, etc and go from there when you're looking for an artist and make it *very* clear your intentions just so communication is smooth and no one misinterprets things. and definitely don't settle if you're not 100% happy with whoever you find! I had to go thru multiple people and talk to them about the process till I really felt comfortable with the guy I finally picked. since these sorts of tats are huge af and expensive, defo make sure you have no regrets or hesitations when you start 👌

also thank you! I love my tat so much hougghghhg

#I know some ppl be like uhh you want just a generic thing copied from a character LIKE YES ACTUALLY I DO #I'm very neurotic about things matching so finding someone who could do the art style exactly was v important to me #the first guy I went to only did interpretations so I wasn't really happy with the tbh ugly version of majima's hannya he wanted to do #no hate @ him or anything I just really didn't like his style of masks #majima's tat is my first and only tat atm so chuy did a lot to make sure I was 100% about it and explained everything so that was nice #sometimes you also wanna vibe with the artist. the first guy wasn't really a comfy experience talking to tbh #at some point I wanna go back to chuy to get my sleeves done a bit longer with like kiryu's dragon mixed in #gotta do more kazumaji rep cuz illness and all #blog mod

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unicyclehippo · 18 hours ago

Note

Hey, Ollie, you mentioned AGES ago that Show Me the Way Home (Avatrice) had a second chapter, it just wasn't perfect yet-- do you think you'll ever post it? Or is that officially an abandoned fic?

its not abandoned, i actually did some minor editing on it the other day. the problem is that its a very seasonally locked piece in my mind & also im lazy & also a perfectionist & also i want to watch wn again before i keep writing it bc i need to rmbr what the characters are like & basically any one of those obstacles are enough to shut me right down so.

it actually is a four part story & if u want, i can share a little with u now? maybe that'll make me feel better for not posting it yet lmao

thursday 22nd december

// 6:55 //

Beatrice stood by the doorway of her apartment, phone in hand and duffel bag at her feet, and wished she was already at her parent’s holiday home.

It wasn’t that she thought their reunion would be simple or pleasant; it was more that today had started hot and was getting hotter and her parents kept their home at a crisp twenty-three degrees at all hours of the day and night, environmental impact be damned. As the humidity clung to her, a bead of sweat rolling down the back of her neck, Beatrice’s thoughts drifted to the crystal blue pool and the ocean wind that would blow up from the cove and she checked her phone again for any word from her driver.

Camila’s voice travelled from the kitchen. ‘Maybe you should take the can opener with you. I mean, what if you need to open a can and you don’t have one? There might be beans. Baked beans, cannellini beans, red kidney beans.’

‘I’m sure my parents have one. They do have a kitchen. And a personal chef.’

Camila heard her. The apartment was too small for her not to have heard but she continued listing off every tinned item she could think of.

‘Lentils, obviously. Diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, peeled tomatoes, puréed tomatoes.’ There was a long pause. Beatrice wondered if Camila was reading the labels of what they had in the pantry; if she was, those lentils had been there for a very long time. ‘Tinned peaches.’

‘I think those come with a tab now,’ Beatrice pointed out. She kept her voice mild, not really wanting to draw Camila’s attention to her hiding place by the door.

At some point over the last few days, the nerves buzzing under Beatrice’s skin had jumped ship and now Camila was the one pacing the confines of their apartment. She’d picked over every inch of the house in search of things Beatrice might need—which ranged from the useful, like the good phone charger she’d “found” (definitely hadn’t stolen out of her room a month ago) to what could be charitably called not useful, like the can opener—and now she stood at the end of the hall bearing the can opener and a dark frown befitting a serial killer.

Beatrice cleared her throat. Carefully, she said, ‘I really don’t think I need it.’

Camila looked down at her weapon. ‘Oh. Right. No, sure, of course not.’ She tossed it backward into the living room; it missed the couch, landing instead on the floor with a loud thud, the sound of their rental bond being instantly halved. Beatrice winced. Camila seemed not to have noticed, though, and with her hands now empty she returned to chewing nervously at her thumb nail. She scanned the living room, hawkish, before fixing her attention on Beatrice once more.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

‘Camila…’

‘Because you don’t have to. You know that, don’t you? It’s not your only option—you could come home with me again! My parents would love it, we’d all love it, I promise. And you wouldn’t be intruding at all, I swear. The boys ask about you all the time and when you’re coming to visit again.’

‘They’re very sweet.’

‘Sweet! When they want something, sure! They’re still hoping you’ll teach them how to throw people—they bring up your match with Conner every time I call home.’

‘Tell them I’ll think about it.’

‘That can be your Christmas present for them. And Pop, he says you’re the only good one of the bunch.’

‘It’s because I don’t talk.’

‘I know. Poor guy. Christmas in a household of me’s. It’s so loud we have to mime everything for him.’

Beatrice smiled. ‘He turns off his hearing aids.’

‘What? That sneak!’

‘Don’t tell him I was the one that dobbed him in.’

‘It’ll be the very first thing I say—then you won’t be his favourite anymore and the rest of us will have a fair shot.’ Laughter shone in her eyes; it faded a little as she stared at Beatrice, gaze flicking down to the duffel at her feet. ‘I’m serious, Bea. You could call up your parents and tell them you’re not coming anymore. I’d prefer you tell them to go fuck themselves but.’ She sucked in a breath, shook her head. ‘Bea. Don’t waste your time on them. Spend your holiday with people who want you around. Who love you.’

It was a tempting offer. Of course it was.

From the day they met, Camila had been Beatrice’s friend; from the second, her sister. She’d gone out of her way to be all that a sister could be—kind, understanding, supportive, deeply irritating—and offered it all without cost. Her family was just the same.

Beatrice remembered last Christmas fondly. The singing, the laughter, her chair squashed up to the end of the table next to Camila’s, the friendly chatter, the elbows bumping, the squabbles breaking out, the yet more guests arriving and pulling up a chair, the pass the salt, pass the butter, pass the damn water would you I’m dying over here, where’s the champagne, Arthur we don’t need another bottle of champagne it’s not even midday for Christssake, Beatrice do you want a second serve help yourself sweetheart, when do we open the presents. It had been loud, sometimes overwhelming, and wonderful all the same.

But.

Beatrice shook her head.

Camila sighed. ‘I had to try, obviously.’

‘I know. Thank you.’ She set her hand on Camila’s wrist and squeezed. ‘I appreciate it, very much. Please tell them… Please tell everyone I miss them and that I’ll see them soon.’

‘You mean for your surprise birthday party?’

Beatrice smiled. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

‘Good. Because mum’s going to need a menu from you—’

‘I thought we agreed we’d buy the food, Camila, I’m not making your mum cook for me.’

‘She likes to cook for her kids. Unless you want me to tell her you’d prefer eating a stranger’s food over hers?’ Beatrice scowled at the bold threat. ‘That’s what I thought. Pick what you want and I’ll tell her. Better yet, text her yourself.’

‘If I know your mother, she has something in mind already.’

‘More like eleven somethings.’

They shared an identical grin. Camila’s mother had a small habit of going overboard for parties and events. A buzz broke the moment. They both glanced down at Beatrice’s phone.

Mr. Morris I have arrived

Beatrice Thank you. I will be there momentarily.

Beatrice nodded. This was it. She slid her phone into her pocket. ‘Mister Morris is here. I should go.’ To Camila’s suddenly stricken expression, she soothed, ‘It will be fine, Camila.’ And, because she was not completely oblivious to Camila’s concern, ‘I will be fine.’

‘I know that. Of course I know that. But I want—you don’t have to be just fine. You should be having fun. You’re my best friend, Bea, I want you to be happy.’

Beatrice paused. She struggled for a moment to think of a way to explain the purpose of this holiday to Camila, explain her purpose, in a way that she would understand and accept.

‘It means so much,’ she began, carefully, ‘to be welcome in your family. But they will always be your family.’

‘Bea…’

‘You and they are all beyond generous.’ She held up a hand to stop Camila interrupting. ‘I know they love me, and I love them. I do love Christmas with your family. It’s always wonderful and comfortable and fun.’ She paused, considering her words. ‘But this is - this is about me,’ she admitted with difficulty, and was rewarded for the effort when Camila softened. ‘I want to go. I need to find out whether I have a place with them or not. And I’ve been so uncertain of how it might turn out that I haven’t tried. But this invitation is an opportunity. One would like to make the most of.’

Camila grabbed both of her hands and pulled her close. Very intensely, she said, ‘Okay.'

'Okay? Just like that?' Beatrice asked, doubtful.

'Yeah. I’m not going to say I understand because I don’t. It honestly makes me furious and a little bit sick to think of you going back to them. But I love you and I trust you and I want you to call me if you need anything. And whatever happens, Beatrice, you always have a place with me. Always.’

Beatrice smiled. Shifted so that she was the one holding Camila’s hands. Her friend wouldn’t let her go willingly and there was a big part of Beatrice that wanted to let herself be held tight and give in to her friend’s protectiveness, to be bundled safely up into Camila’s terrifying little car and trundling off to visit family.

It was hard to pull free.

Beatrice stepped back and opened the door.

‘There’s no need to fret, Camila. I’ll have Ava with me, remember?’

‘Yeah. I know. It’ll be great, you’ll see.’ The tightness around her eyes told Beatrice she didn’t quite believe her own words. ‘And you’ll call me.’

‘Every day.’

With one last hug, Beatrice picked up her bags and left.

// 7:03 //

The town car waited for her outside the apartment. It was sleek and black, washed and polished; the only evidence of the recent storms were faint specks of grey mud deep in the tyre wells.

Beatrice stopped at the bottom of the stairs, observing the car and its driver—Mister Morris, patiently stood at the kerb—and swallowed around a lump in her throat. He looked the same as when she had left. A little more silver in his hair.

He might not have changed much but she had. Now that she was grown (or perhaps, now that she was not in that household), she found herself full of questions—where was it that Mister Morris had driven from? Where did he live? Had the storms been bad on his side of town? How had he passed the time? Had they lost power? (She and Camila had huddled in their living room—it was, Camila had insisted, the perfect weather for a marathon of gory slashers—and the rain had hammered against the windows with frightening strength but had done no damage. She knew others had not been so fortunate.) Most pressing of all, how had he been? Questions that could not be answered by hiding.

Beatrice gripped the strap of her duffel and, setting her shoulders, marched to meet him.

‘Good morning, Mister Morris.’

‘Miss Turner,’ he greeted her, his smile small but true. ‘A pleasure to see you again. How are you?’

‘Quite well, thank you.’ Then, keeping her tone light and brisk, ‘And yourself?’

‘Very well, Miss Turner. Very well.’ It looked as if he wanted to say something more but then he only smiled and cleared his throat. ‘Your luggage, Miss?’

‘I can see to it myself.’

Beatrice stashed her duffel in the boot then folded herself neatly into the backseat. Mr. Morris retook the driver’s seat. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Beatrice fixed her eyes on the headrest in front of her.

‘We have another stop to make, Mr Morris.’

‘Yes, miss. Do you have the address?’

‘I do.’ She ran a finger along the inside of her watchband, rubbing away the sweat that had gathered there. She made it a notch tighter, then loosened once more. ‘They are - That is to say, she is my—’

Mr. Morris met her eyes in the rear-view mirror. His were green and kind. The kindness did not make it easier to say.

‘She is my girlfriend.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘Oh.’

‘Though your mother used slightly different terminology. Companion, I believe she said.’ He kept his eyes locked onto the rearview mirror. When Beatrice glanced into it again, he said warmly, ‘Congratulations, miss. That’s wonderful. I’m very glad to hear it.’

When she had been younger, there had been a stretch of time where running away had seemed very appealing. Each time she attempted it, Beatrice had never made it further than the park four streets from her home. She’d been too pragmatic, even at ten years old, but she’d also been stubborn so Beatrice had say there in the swing until someone noticed; whomever did notice, it was always Mr. Morris who collected her. She was reminded of it as he started the engine. The sound of its growl scared old memories out of hiding—she remembered how the plastic swing creaked, the feel of the metal chain in her little hands, how the gravel of the park entry had crunched beneath the town car tyres. How the headlights had washed over her and away with the tilt of his park and how invisible she’d felt when the lights turned off. Like a ghost haunting the playground.

Beatrice stared thoughtfully at his back, remembering how he would climb out of the car and sit next to her on a too-small swing until she’d been ready to return.

‘Thank you, Mr Morris.’

He nodded. Then, ‘I do still need her address, miss.’

‘Oh. Yes, of course.’

#tagging my stories #warrior nun #avatrice

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