#and i think it went well when i did it one time last semester!

[that-was-anticlimactic]

friends!!! what is a writing skill you wish you learned in school? like... it could be something specific in grammar/grammar-related, maybe about how to revise, maybe you wish you learned about different/specific genres, maybe how to write setting... whatever it may be!!! i'm doing a thing on tuesdays and would LOVE y'all's opinions on what kind of stuff to find to add for them to choose!

[playingonedchess]

what the fuck why on earth did i come up with that

[wcters]

𝗧𝗘𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗚𝗘𝗥 𝗜𝗡 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘

pairing: lando norris x fem!reader

word count: 2k+

summary: your relationship with lando through the teenage years

warnings: pda, established relationship, mostly fluff, some angst | i know lando moved to glastonbury later in his life but 🤫 i also wrote this in 2 hours instead of doing because i got excited and had an idea

     You and Lando had first met when you were teenagers. Him being a lanky teenage boy with puffy cheeks and curly hair, and you being a young girl with frizzy hair and a youthful look in your eyes. It wasn’t a surprise to anyone when you first started dating, it’s like you both were on the same wavelength.

You still remember the day you met him ━━ how could you not? You two went to the same school so you knew who each other was, and you had heard of him from people around the town talking about his karting career. Your parents were family friends with the Norris’s, and they never failed to talk about how proud they were of their children.

It was the start of school after the 2013 summer break. You had quite a small friend group in school so when you had classes with no one you were friends with, you tended to be quiet and focus on your school work. That resulted in you being forced to sit next to the rowdy kids. Why? You didn’t know. It’s not like it changed them, and it just bothered you. It was one of those times, and it was Lando who was put next to you. Him and his friend group tended to be the disruptive bunch. They weren’t bad people or bad at school, just got a little too loud at times and forgot to pay attention.

You were sat in the middle row of your math class. The seat next to you was empty at the start of class, but at the end it wasn’t. Lando and his friends got a little too loud and he was “punished” by being put next to you so he couldn’t talk with his friends. You looked at him when he made his way over, but that was it. He was cute ━━ you could admit it. And it didn’t hurt that someone cute was being put next to you, but you shook your feelings off and forced yourself to focus. At them end of class when you were grabbing your things, a hand poked your shoulder. You turned around and came face-to-face with the Norris boy. He looked a little nervous, fidgety and a small smile on his face. You tilted your head. “Hey ━━ I uh ━━ didn’t have enough time to finish some of the notes. Do you mind if I borrow some of yours?”

You were a little surprised, you didn’t think he cared that much about school. Most kids wouldn’t bother getting down a little bit you missed ━━ not even you ━━ but he did. You smiled and nodded. “Sure,” you told him as you grabbed the paper out of your binder and gave it to him, “just return it once you’re done?” He nodded. The next day in class, he walked over to you and gave the paper pack, and you figured he would go back to his friends because the seat want permanent, but he didn’t. He put his bag on the ground and sat in the seat next to you. He did that, every day, for the rest of the year.

You two got to know each other well. You learned more about his competitive karting career and his family, while you told him about your family and friends. Nothing ever happened between you two, you were just friends. You had a crush on him, but you convinced yourself it was your mind tricking you because it was your first friend that was a boy. He thought the same, but he didn’t not believe his, he just didn’t act on it.

It was summer break, a year after you met him, when you realized you did like him. You were chatting with your grandma at her house as you were helping her sting stuff around the house. She had asked about your school semesters and how it was. You rambled on and on, not realizing that you mostly takes about Lando. It wasn’t until you were putting one of the last boxes down for her that it finally hit. “You must really like that boy, no?” You looked at her weird. “All you did was talk about him. You must like him.” It was when she said that that you had a moment of realization. After you finished helping her you went home to your mom and talked to her, confused on how to deal with this newfound information. She just laughed and gave you a hug, telling you that almost every teenage girl goes through this with someone in their life. That made you feel a bit better.

Your friendship turned into something more a couple weeks after that. The Norris family had invited your family to come watch one of Lando’s races at Buckmore Park. Your parents agreed as they wanted to catch up . . . You agreed because you wanted to see Lando. He did well, coming 5th place. You could tell he wasn’t happy about, but you were. You and your family met up with him at the end of the race. He wasn’t looking too happy, but when he saw you his face lit up. When you congratulated him he blushed. Your families talked for a bit ━━ mostly about how summer break was going ━━ and you were about to leave when Lando called out your name.

Your family continued to leave, saying they would meet up with you at the car with your mom winking at you. You blushed. At first there was some awkward silence, and then he asked “would you like to go on a date?” You were a bit shocked, not expecting it, and you were nervous. What did people do on dates anyway? You know adults went out to eat and drink but you were fifteen! You completely forgot that you had to answer his question, and he started sputtering out words saying that you didn’t have to, and he was sorry before you interrupted him with a “yes.” It was his turn to look surprise.

You went on a date the next week, both of you unknowingly doing the same thing and panicking to your parents beforehand. It went fine, a bit awkward ━━ obviously ━━ but you thought it was cute. You went out for icecream and walked around Bristol. Halfway through the date he slipped his hand into yours, and you accepted it, but didn’t dare to look him in the eye.

After that, you two were inseparable. You two were always together, and practically lived at each others houses. Sometimes ━━ for weeks on end ━━ your parents never saw you a lot because you were always at Lando’s house. His parents always updated yours on how you were, and they trusted you. During an interview for Drive to Survive, your parents swore during those times they only saw you in the morning and night, the rest of the time you were with Lando. This would switch between you staying at his and him staying at yours.

Though Lando wouldn’t admit it when he was a teenager, he would do anything for you. If you asked him to jump off a bridge, he wouldn’t even ask why, he’s just do it. There are so many pictures on your phone and Polaroids of him in “embarrassing” situations ━━ like one where he had a face mask on and his nails painted. You keep that one in the back of your phone case. He would let you braid his hair, practice makeup on him, help him with his skincare, and so many other things. This would always be in the secrecy of your room and when your families weren’t there because he dreaded the day his family saw him like that.

He had no idea that you had shown his sisters and parents almost every single one. They promised to keep it quiet, and they did. You also know they won’t tell him that they have some of those pictures on their phones. It’s a secret between you and them, a need to know thing.

Whenever you had sleepovers at his house, you would stay with his sisters because you weren’t allowed to be with him ━━ for good reason ━━ and because you loved his sisters. As you got older, you bonded more with them, helping them out with boy problems and girl problems, because everyone had those girls in high school who made your life a living hell. You broke down crying when you found out they were moving to Glastonbury. How would you survive without not being able to hug your boyfriend? How would you cope without the gossip sessions with his sisters? The talks about your life over helping Cisca with dinner and talking politics with Adam? Laughing at embarrassing moments of Lando with his brother?

Before that, you had put off getting your license. You walked or took buses to most places, and it saved you money. When you found out they were moving though, you made it your life’s mission it get your license and a car. You were on moving day, helping the family with setting things up and cleaning up the place. You still remember the dinner you had that night. It wasn’t fancy, just Chinese takeout on a table in the half put together living room, but it was one of the moments where you truly felt like family. It wasn’t that you hadn’t before, but it was the private ness of the situation that really hit your heart. You begged to stay over, not caring that it was a school night, but you couldn’t. You hugged everyone goodbye with teary eyes, kissing Lando, and promising to be back soon.

And you were. When you had that car, you spent an unbelievable amount of money on gas. You drove to his house almost every weekend. Sometimes he would come over to your house, but it was mostly you going over there out of convenience. If Lando wanted to go to yours, he’d probably have to pile all of his siblings in the car, while you didn’t have to do that. Besides driving to Glastonbury, your car was also used as a pick me up. Whenever something happened with his sisters, you’d be there in a heartbeat, telling them to get in ━━ telling Lando he can’t come with him grumbling something under his breath ━━ and you’d go and grab food. Whatever they needed, you were there ready to do it? Boy problems? Junk food and a sad playlist. School problems? Listening to them vent and giving them advice. Period problems? That depended on that they wanted. You even remember one time on March break Flo had an experience with a boy and you took her to a rage room . . . It was so fun, and you definitely did it again with Cisca.

While you were there for all the important events in Lando’s life, he was the same. He was there when your grandma died, and you swore he was one of the few things that kept you together. He was there when you graduated high school and got accepted into your dream school.

Your relationship stayed the same throughout his whole career, you to where you both were now, living in Monaco. You still acted like teenagers, jokingly fighting over little things and teasing each other. Your love baver wavered, it stayed the same for each other, maybe even became stronger. There were periods in your relationship like when he first started in Formula One and you moved to college that it was tricky, but you go through it. You always would.

As you sat on the sofa in your home and twirled the ring on your finger, you remembered the whole of your relationship and the future of it. You were broken out of your trance by a kiss on your head. You hummed, not turning to look at him. “She’s gone to bed. She’s been changed and given her bottle. You smiled and looked up at him, “thank you.” He kissed you on your lips, “of course. You ready to go to bed, Mrs. Norris?” You chuckled and got up, walking around to the couch to meet him in his arms.

“Always, Mr. Norris, always.”

[andhumanslovedstories]

I am not closely following the election results tonight, but I am occasionally seeing flashes of them out of the corner of my eye. The most obvious sign that things aren’t going well right now is the complete lack of celebrating on my dash. I know what tumblr looks like when it’s happy. Maybe I’ll go to bed tonight and see something different in the morning. I hope to god that is the case. But I’m thinking about the way I’m thinking right now, and I want to get some stuff down before the future kicks in.

In 2016 I was in a period of my life I affectionately refer to as as my fuckup era. I wasn’t even fucking up really. More just chilling out and falling short of the vague expectations I’d had about what I was supposed to be doing after I graduated college. While my friends from college rented apartments in the city and got jobs that didn’t supply you with a uniform shirt, I lived at home and worked as a barista at a fancy movie theater. That’s a real job you can do for almost five years. I didn’t have a clue what the back half of my twenties should look like. The only long term plan I had in my life was moving out west with my best friend, and my plan for finding a job once I was out there was basically to cross my fingers and hope.

Those days weren’t bad on the whole, but it felt like I was not actually living a life so much as I was goofing off in the waiting room. Sometimes that felt embarrassing, sometimes it felt fun, and sometimes it felt like I was completely pointless to the world.

On 2016’s Election Day, I went to bed early. After watching the votes come in, I needed the night to be over. I woke in a world that felt different than it had been the night before—not just in the actuality of who would be president but down to its foundations. I realized for the first time how much hope I’d had in human nature because now I didn’t feel it anymore. It’s almost silly when I think about it—so many horrible things had already happened that year, people had done horrible things as long as there have been people, and I didn’t think I was naive to that—but something clicked into place that morning.

It felt the same way my world had changed a year earlier, in 2015 during my last semester of college. My college victory lap felt like a prolonged downward spiral. Very early in the morning on a Monday, after pulling an all-nighter and overwhelmed by self-loathing that I could not just motivate myself to work on a paper that had been my only thought all weekend, I self-harmed for the first time in a way that was impossible to pretend it was anything else. Earlier that weekend, I’d tried staving off the urges drawing or writing on my arm, something that did (and does) usually work. I’d written this quote in silver sharpie on my forearm: “Good is not a thing you are. It's a thing you do.”

I picked that quote from the Ms. Marvel comics and liked the words so much, I thought that I wouldn’t be willing to purposefully mess it up by hurting myself there. Didn’t work. They just made me feel more ashamed of myself as I did it.

That was the worst I had ever felt. Then, on the Friday of that week, a friend of mine was senselessly, brutally murdered.

It doesn’t feel now like there was ever a time before her death. My memoir class is now where I wrote about her. My favorite professor is now the one who held me as I cried. My final thesis, the culmination of my history degree, never got finished and certainly never got polished. I turned it what I had and got an A minus. Sometimes I think of rereading that paper to see if that’s the grade it actually deserved. We hadn’t been the closest friends, but my name was still on the email admin sent to professors, listing students who might be emotionally affected by this tragic event. Grace’s murder hangs over every memory I have with her and everything she ever touched. It feels like its own type of obliteration to leave her reduced to her death.

Grace wanted to be a lawyer because she believed in justice and also liked arguing. She could be rude when she wasn’t interested in what you were saying. When you caught her attention, you felt like the most fascinating person in the room. She was so proud of being Jewish. I watched her become proud of being gay. She was so universally friendly that it took me a year to realize that she actually liked specifically me. She had a somewhat silly laugh and an astonishingly luminous smile.

I thought less of the world and the people in it because of how she died. Trump’s election in 2016 felt like that.

After he won, I left stasis. From November through December, I thought harder about my future than I ever had before. Who did I want to be? What did I most value? What did I think was worth protecting? What work wouldn’t kill me to do? At one point, in presumably a fit of madness, I thought, “what if I got into politics.” Epiphany eventually hit me. By the time of Trump’s inauguration, I was already enrolled at community college, getting my pre-reqs for nursing school.

Now it’s election night again, eight years later. I live on the west coast with my best friend, in a house that we bought together. I work as a nurse in a hospital in a city where there are homeless encampments off every highway and someone begging for change on every corner. Meanwhile, there’s Palestine. Meanwhile there’s Sudan. Meanwhile refugees drown in the sea and border patrol shoots jugs of water. Even hurricanes have human cruelty now.

I don’t think people are inherently good or the universe inherently kind. But I am very good at tricking myself into thinking it for a little while, and when I do, I can remember the a specific feeling from Friday of my senior year, from that morning in November— how fucking hard the disappointment hit me because I had expected people to be better than this. It makes me want to be better than that.

I believe, and hope that I always will, that we can make a better world. I don’t know what it looks like, but I think I will see it in my lifetime. Those of us who can believe such things owe a bit of that naïveté to the world—not to excuse atrocities or think them impossible but to believe that we can stop them at all. You have to have a couple people sprinkled around who are genuinely shocked when people do bad things. It’s not that the pessimists are wrong, but you need the occasional counterbalance. I want to be a reasonable cynic’s pleasant surprise.

Every shift, I interact with people at their lowest and worst. I see the direct pipeline from pain to anger to violence, and how fragile that pipeline can be. So many situations can be changed by things as small as a warm blanket or a kind word. Violence can be quite easy to avert. Crises can be quite simply to resolve. Even when I know that whatever I do that shift will not change the circumstances of a person’s life, I think that what I do that shift still matters.

I’m lying in bed, writing this post instead of looking at the news. I wonder how tonight will change me. Been thinking about what I’ll do if Trump wins. Been thinking about how whatever I think I need to do under Trump will still need to be done if Harris clutches out a victory. I guess this is a pessimist’s optimism: to a degree the election doesn’t matter. Good is not a thing you are. It is a thing you do. Our better world will always take a lot of work.

But please god please, why can’t it be just a little easier to do it?

[azsazz]

All's Well That Ends Well

Hockey!Azriel x Figure Skater!Reader

Summary: Anon Req: our figure skater bby would totally wear azzies jersey over her pretty sparkly dress if he wanted her to 🥺

Warnings: None.

Word Count: 1,044

Notes: Belongs to the Shut Out & Penance & Out of Order world

_________________________________________

Raucous clapping and cheering surround you.

Your chest heaves from exertion, but it’s a good feeling, one that goes all the way to your bones, one you know will linger for days. That’s okay, because you nailed your performance today. This competition is in the bag.

The smile you’d been forcing onto your face for the entirety of your routine turns into a real grin at the noise. You pull yourself from your ending stance, taking a quick skate around the rink one last time, waving to those in the stands. The energy in the arena is insane and you’re really feeling it, a splitting smile on your face that falters when you meet the familiar hazel gaze of Azriel.

He’s not supposed to be here.

The Velaris Bat’s have one of their most important games of the season tonight against the Springview Wolves, their rival team of almost four decades. You have no idea how the feud started and don’t care to know; something about a broken bone or a girlfriend being stolen, you have no idea and didn’t care to listen when Cassian tried explaining it to you one night at the local dive bar you’d run into a few of the players at. 

You’d turned right the fuck around when you saw them and pulled out your phone to text your friends to meet up with you somewhere else because you see enough of the hockey team whilst having to share one rink, but Azriel had caught you before you could dip outside and all but dragged you into the back alley for some precarious touching that you were not going to say no to.

You’ve been a little tense lately leading up to your competition. No one would have blamed you for what you did with the sexy hockey player.

Azriel looks proud. There’s a slight lift to the corner of his mouth, the most emotion he’ll show in public like this, even though he thrives off of the chaos of the arena when he plays. His hazel eyes sparkle as they track you, how you only have eyes for him as you skate closer, a frown on your face, no doubt wondering why the hell he’s here instead of warming up for his own game that’s set to start in a few minutes.

He couldn’t miss your performance, though. The one you’ve been raving about all semester. The one you were worried about all night a few nights ago when his head was buried between your legs. Not even that could keep you from thinking about your performance today, immediately after he’d drawn multiple orgasms from you, you went right back worrying.

Shifting on your skates, you fly toward the door. Ice sprays when you shift, stopping abruptly before passing through the door, ignoring your coach in favor of rushing over to where Azriel’s standing stock still.

“What are you doing here?” you exclaim, falling into his arms when he opens them. Your heart flutters at the feeling of his strong hands warm on your hips. He’s here, he’s really fucking here.

He’s dressed in his hockey gear, and it’s clear that instead of hitting the ice with his team he’s snuck to the finally finished rink to watch your routine. 

“Don’t worry about it, baby,” he whispers, and Azriel can’t help but pull you further into him. Can’t help but to dip down and capture you in a kiss so searing that it fully takes your breath away. It’s a little awkward, because of all of the padding he has on, but the both of you make it work. He adores the blush that stains your cheeks pink when you pull away, and it really is a shame he has his cup on right now, because his erection is pressing painfully against it. “Cass and Rhys are covering for me. I couldn’t miss this.”

“Really?” Tears fill your eyes. He’s proven himself to you, time after time, that he’s here for you, even though the both of you aren’t anything more than friends who like the feeling of each other’s fingers and tongues, hands, and intimate parts. “But your game, it’s important.” 

“I’ll make it before puck drop,” Azriel reassures, “If I leave, well, now actually. I just needed to see you. Wanted to give you this.” You hadn’t noticed the jersey hanging over his arm, but when Azriel holds it up, showing off the number eight and his last name to you. “I hate to cover up your dress because you look sexy as fuck,” he murmurs, drinking you in once again. The feeling of his hot gaze makes your knees weak. “But I’m a selfish man. I can’t have anyone else looking at you like this, baby. And I want to see my name on your back.”

Fuck, does he have a way with words.

“Okay,” you breathe, letting Azriel help you into the black and purple jersey. It drapes long over your body, the fabric swallowing you, but you don’t care because the look in Azriel’s eyes is pure fire. “How do I look?” You ask innocently, giving him a twirl and reveling in his agonized groan. 

“Tell me you’re mine tonight,” He asks gruffly, pulling you back into him by the fabric of the jersey. You move into him easily, wrapping your arms around his neck. Azriel’s breath is hot across your lips, and if you weren’t in the middle of a competition, you’d let him take you right now. “We’ll both have something to celebrate.” 

Your brows furrow in confusion and Azriel grins, tilting his head to the scoreboard behind you with your scores. You currently hold the top score for the competition, with only a few skaters left to go. Holy shit you’re in first place. 

You squeal, jumping up and down in his arms. Indeed, you’ll have something to celebrate tonight, when the Bat’s take home their win, and you with your own.

“Yes, Az. I’m yours,” you whisper, accepting his kiss. “Now, go beat the Wolves. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“You better be,” Azriel says with a wink and a teasing pinch to your ass. “I need my good luck charm there to help me win.”

_________________________________________

Hockey!AU Tag (will be tagged for any hockey fic, no matter paring):

@whyonearthisyourusernamethi-blog @going-through-shit @crazylokonugget @lilah-asteria @girl-who-writes-stuff @moosemahboi @sherayuki @lyinginameadow @acourtofatboydreams @blackthorngirl @shadowsingercassia @evergreenlark @hannzoaks @bloodicka @whyshouldihaveanam3 @elle4404 @cherry-cin @quinzzelx @blackthorngirl @i-am-infinite @feerique

[heart4gyu]

wet dreamz pt.2 || jake x reader

[ part 1 here ]

note: it’s finally here !! i want to point out that jake is much softer (?) than i intended but i love him like this.. he’s my lover boy 🫂 anyway i rly hope you guys enjoy this because i had to scrap the original and start over omg it was a mess and work got in the way too TT but i definitely have some more jake coming soon that im so excited for !! leave ur thoughts & suggestions too plsss 🙏 [i haven’t proofread im so sleepyyyy bye]

after you sent jake that last text, inviting him over to your place, he didn’t respond. which was understandable considering jake never knew how to respond when you flirted with him, always blushing and stuttering out an awkward reply.

so as you got ready to meet up with some friends, putting on a small black dress and your favorite sparkly heels, you were surprised to hear a couple knocks at your door. even more surprised when you found jake standing there, holding a beautiful bouquet of flowers.

“jake, what are you doing here?” you asked, feeling yourself blush, the flowers throwing you off your game a bit. no guy had ever turned up with flowers for you, especially without occasion. it was sweet.

“you- you invited me,” he says, his pretty eyes holding eye contact better than he usually does. you’d never felt this nervousness for a guy before. but you’d guess he was doing no better considering the way he was trying so hard not to look down at your low cut dress and exposed thighs.

“oh yeah… you just didn’t respond so i thought- um… do you wanna come in?” you cut yourself off, stepping aside to make room for him. he nodded as he stepped inside, looking around.

“sorry i didn’t respond… i was kinda nervous. i mean not that i’ve never- you know i just- well i don’t know why i didn’t respond actually. and you look just really pretty right now- well you always look pretty but-” he went on, stumbling cutely before you interrupted him with a laugh.

“it’s okay jakey. i was gonna go out but we could just stay here if you’d like,” you offered to which he nodded, eagerly. so you led him to your bedroom where you noticed that he didn’t look around as much. and it was cute how nervous he really did look.

“these are for you,” he said, finally handing you the bouquet. and you smiled as you thanked him, putting them on your bedside table.

“they’re beautiful... why don’t you sit on my bed so i can go change into something more comfortable,” you said, and he obeyed right away. you couldn’t help but smile to yourself as you entered your bathroom because, yes, you’ve had plenty of guys in your room but something about jake was different.

you felt shy for him and he wasn’t as easy for you to get as all the others. you’d talked with him for months. you got to know him the entire semester. as with all the other guys, you didn’t really have to put in all that much work before having them in your bed.

the moment jake heard the lock of the bathroom door, he let out a sigh he didn’t know he’d been holding in. he wasn’t completely inexperienced and he was never this nervous but he had been trying so hard to forget about his dream that it was hard to focus on anything else.

he looked around now, noting that your room was different than he’d pictured but still fit you so well. and it wasn’t just your pillows but the whole room smelled like you, he was engulfed in it and he loved it.

when you stepped back out in a small pajama set, he felt his heart skip a beat and a tightness in his stomach. and you loved the way he stared at you as you walked up to him. you stood right between his legs and looked down at him innocently.

“what are you thinking, jakey,” you said, placing your hands on his shoulders. he swallowed, dryly, as he looked up into your eyes. he felt like he couldn’t breathe and even though he desperately wanted to, he didn’t think to touch you yet.

“y/n… i really like you. but before anything happens, i wanna say that i don’t want this to be a one time thing,” he admitted, quietly, not breaking eye contact. you nodded, running a hand through his hair, making him close his eyes at your touch.

“trust me, i don’t want it to be one time either,” you said, your hand wrapping around to cup his cheek. he leaned in to your touch but shook his head after a second, looking up into your eyes more seriously this time.

“i mean, i want to take you on dates and i don’t want to see other people. i just wanna be yours… i want you to be just mine,” he said, his eyes nervously watching for your response. you nodded at him with a smile and he felt relieved.

“are you asking to be my boyfriend, sim jaeyun?” you asked, smiling so brightly his shoulders relaxed in response.

“yes i am, what do you say?” he said, a hopeful look in his eyes. you watched his hands messing with the material of his jeans as his leg anxiously bounced.

“hmm…” you started, reaching down to grab both of his hands in yours. he didn’t break eye contact even when you placed his hands on your hips. “i think it took you long enough.”

“is that a yes?” he asked, a smile on his lips as you placed a knee on either side of his thighs. you cupped his face, unable to keep the smile off of your own face.

“yes! now please kiss me already,” you said, more of a demand than a request. and he just smiled as you both leaned in.

your lips finally connecting after having waited for so long. and he was gone right away, you could tell with the way he sighed loudly as you tilted your head for a better angle.

the kiss was messy, probably from his lack of experience, but still heated and passionate from the very start. a desperate moan slipping from his lips when your tongue made its way into his mouth.

you bit at his bottom lip, making eye contact as you pulled it back. with your eyes now open you could see how his chest quickly rose and fell, and how he was begging for you with his eyes.

his hands that were frozen at your hips now moving around to squeeze at your ass. he lifted a hand up to leave a firm smack there, a satisfied smirk on his lips when you let out a small gasp.

“sit back there,” you said, standing up from his lap and pointing to your headboard with your chin. he obeyed quickly as you rummaged through your bedside table for a condom.

he watched you search for a while before, “i- i brought some,” he said, lifting his hips off the bed to take the row of condoms out of his front pocket. a blush dusting his cheeks at his words.

“oh! well i’m glad you came prepared… i was just gonna let you hit it raw,” you said, playfully, crawling back over to him. and he didn’t know how but he just got even harder in his jeans.

you sat back on your knees as you took off your shirt and then bottoms revealing a pretty pink matching set. his mouth felt dry, he licked his lips as he stared down at you. you tilted your head, expectantly, when his eyes finally made their way back up to yours.

he let out a small ‘oh’ when he finally got the hint, taking his shirt off and reaching down to unbutton his pants. you let yourself take a moment and admire his build; his strong shoulders, defined abs, his sculpted thighs flexed as he lifted himself to get his jeans off.

you didn’t know how a shy, nerdy guy like him could be hiding such a build but all you knew was you hit the jackpot. even more so when he sat back against your pillows and his bulge became even more apparent through his underwear. your face heating up now as he watched you eating him up with your eyes.

you situated yourself back over his lap still not sitting down just yet. you leaned down taking his lips in yours and he took the chance to drag his hands along your waist and hips, playing with the lace of your panties.

you could kiss him forever, with his plush lips you really didn’t mind. he seemed to be growing a bit impatient though, pulling your hips down onto his abruptly, causing a moan to rip from your throat as you felt his bulge come into contact with your clothed heat.

he quickly took the chance to slip his tongue into your mouth, grinding up into you repeatedly. you through your head back, letting the soft moans fall from your lips wanting to encourage him more.

“please i’ll do anything you want me to, just tell me,” he said, pressing you flush down onto his cock and holding you there. you dropped your head down onto his shoulder, shaking your head.

“i just wanna ride you, right now,” you said, and he probably gulped but you couldn’t really focus on how cute that was with how huge he felt still pressed up against you.

so as you reached over to rip a condom from the strip he worked on taking both of your bottoms off. still being very gentle with you as he slid them down your legs, admiring every inch of your skin.

as for you, you were right: he was huge. you slid the condom onto his length and he hissed at the contact. once it was on and you lined yourself up, he stopped you one last time to press a kiss to your lips. a sweet kiss that you couldn’t help melt into.

he pressed a kiss on your cheek, down your neck, your shoulder, your chest, your bra, and one last one right above your belly button. he sat back and looked up to give you a satisfied smile, letting you know that you could continue.

you gave his cock a couple strokes and finally slipped his tip right past your lips, causing you both to moan out. he sat up almost immediately and you placed your hands on his shoulders for the extra support.

inch by inch, you took him in until finally you were sat on his lap again. you let out a deep breath and his eyes were squeezed shut as he tried his best to hold back. but all he could think about was how much better this felt than his dream.

“you’re so tight,” he moaned, resting his head onto your shoulder, still managing to place a gentle kiss there. he was holding back so much, he felt so desperate for you. “baby, could you please move a bit?”

the petname falling from his lips so effortlessly, you couldn’t help the moan that slipped out of your mouth as you started to rock yourself back and forth on him. his hands squeezed at the skin of your waist as you let out a breathy ‘yes’, putting his head back on the headboard.

when you finally started to bounce on his cock, he was a whining mess. you thought his moans were pretty, well the whines that left his throat were addictive. you wanted to do whatever you could to keep hearing them.

you lifted yourself all the way to the tip and dropped all the way back down as quick as your legs could take you, grinding onto him in all directions. and he was so perfectly responsive, just what you wanted to hear; the ‘don’t stop’s and ‘feels too good’s leaving him were too encouraging.

you couldn’t bring yourself to stop even as your thighs started to shake because you could feel his cock pulsing inside of you and you wanted to make him cum so badly. but it seemed he had the same idea.

suddenly he lifted your hips off of him, pulling out slowly, a groan falling from both of your lips. he gently laid you back down onto your pillows, not forgetting to place a gentle kiss right at the center of your chest. “… i didn’t get to make you cum,” you said, a bit disappointed.

“i know, pretty,” he said, kissing your pout away, “but i said i’d take care of you.” you felt yourself blush at his words, luckily he was preoccupied with lining himself up again.

“wait,” you said, pushing him back a bit by his chest. you reached down, slowly pulling the condom off of his length and tossing it to the side.

before he could speak again you wrapped your arms around his shoulders, your legs also lifting up to engulf his waist, pulling him closer. his forehead resting on yours as he eyed you curiously, “i want you to come in me,” you said, quietly.

he squeezed his eyes shut, groaning. he kissed you, rougher than all the other kisses before. “you can’t say those kind of things to me, angel, i won’t be able to hold back.”

“please don’t hold back jakey, do whatever you dream of,” you said, your eyes begging. jake swears his heart stopped for a second. he just couldn’t believe it, this was so different from his dream but also so much better.

he took a deep breath, his hand shaking as he lined himself back up at your entrance. when he pushed all the way back in at once, he swore he was in heaven. nothing could compare to how he felt so deep in you right now, so warm and tight. was he having deja vu?

he shook his head, he didn’t have to be reminded of that dream anymore cause this? nothing could beat this.

he thrusted into you hard and fast, immediately setting a brutal pace. and you loved it, not being able to do anything other than scream and moan out his name. he wasn’t much better moaning and muttering praises at your ear.

you scratched at his back helplessly as his thrust somehow got harder, his release definitely building up again. you pulled at his hair, bringing his face in front of yours and smashing your lips together once again. the kiss more intimate in this position, despite both of you being moaning messes.

he reached a hand down to rub circles at your clit, your hand following after to help guide him. he quickly found the rhythm you wanted and matched his thrust to it. you couldn’t believe how good he was already, and couldn’t imagine how this could get any better.

he kissed and sucked at your neck, searching for the spot you liked best, already wanting to familiarize himself with every part of your body. you moaned out his name as you felt the coil in your stomach come undone. finally releasing around him as he continued chasing his own high.

he came soon after as he felt your walls clench around him so tightly, filling you up so perfectly. he held himself up, not wanting to put his full weight on you and gently pulled out when both of your breathing regulated.

he laid down beside you, still in disbelief, his dazed expression making you laugh. he looked over at you with a smile, pulling your chin towards him to place a gentle kiss on your lips. he didn’t think he’d ever get enough of kissing you.

he kissed you again and again, not wanting to pull his lips off of yours. “wait! i need to clean you up,” he said abruptly, sitting up.

“oh yeah, um… there’s a little towel in my bathroom,” you said, rising up onto your elbows. you watched as his eyebows scrunched together and he just shook his head.

“no, i don’t need a towel,” he said, and you couldn’t help but smile at his cute tone… well cute until he was getting comfortable between your legs again, laying down right in front of your leaking core. somehow a sweet, innocent look still on his face.

[rustedhearts]

happy xmas (70s!steve harrington x fem!reader)

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿˚

summary: steve can't find a present for his girlfriend, so he asks the only other girl he knows: you. but searching for the perfect present for nancy turns into steve's chance to find the perfect present for you.

uses she/her pronouns and female anatomy.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿ ˚

❅ the most wonderful time of the year ❅ the only living boy in indiana

tags: ignore that I think I messed up my own timeline, I literally do not care, fluff, mutual pining.

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿ ˚

recommended listening: silver joy, damien jurado

⊹₊ ˚ ₊⊹hawkins, indiana. december 23rd, 1975 ⊹₊ ˚ ₊⊹

Christmas break was a godsend this year. After your first semester in community college spent lugging textbooks from the library, and spending countless long evenings studying for exams, you needed the four blissful weeks at home. In silence. In bed.

Which is where you were, snuggled under a heavy pile of your warmest blankets pulled from the linen closet when the first snow fell—when the silence of your warm little home was interrupted by an incessant clanging. You shot up in bed, immediately craning to peer through your fogged-up bedroom window.

Your parents weren't due home until this evening. They still had to work, the poor bastards—but you had the whole place to yourself until then. And you planned on spending it alternating between your bed and the couch, where you'd spend an hour browsing through the TV guide for Christmas specials before deciding on one. Simply because you had absolutely nowhere to be and absolutely nothing to do.

Steve, on the other hand, did.

You huffed at the sight of him bounding down the front steps, kicking up tufts of snow as he went. He found the top of your head in the window and waved a gloved hand, beckoning you down. You groaned, fitfully kicking the covers to the end of your bed to march toward the window.

"Steve, I swear to God. I told you I'm having a day at home," you called down to him once the window was open.

The afternoon sun blared down on his wind-bitten cheeks, turned a rosy shade of pink. The wind billowed through his chestnut hair and pushed it off his forehead. God, he needed a new coat. New gloves, too. You spotted holes in both items, but knew well enough how much Steve cared about that wool-lined suede coat. Maybe your gift would be mending it for him. But lord knew how material Steve could be.

He cinched his brows together and cupped his hands over his eyes as he called up to you. "But I'm havin' a crisis! You have to help me."

Your fingers were catching cold curled over the windowsill, sitting in piles of icicles and last night's snow. In only the pajamas you went to bed in, you were in no place to stand in the open window and argue.

"Jesus," you huffed. "Just...come up, I gotta get changed."

You pulled back into your bedroom and shimmied the window shut with a rusty shriek. Steve grinned and jogged up the front steps toward the door. You scowled as you threw the covers over your rumpled bed, knowing you would not be enjoying the comfort and warmth of those clean sheets today like you'd hoped.

Instead, you discarded your pajamas and tugged on a pair of jeans and a sweater as Steve slammed the front door and headed upstairs.

"Okay, so—" Steve flung the door open and flopped on the end of your bed, boots discarded downstairs. "—I've been to like every store in town and I cannot find a present for Nancy."

You dropped the balled up socks in your hand and turned around, eyes narrowed at the boy hunched on your bed. "I am not going Christmas shopping for your girlfriend."

The pink returned to Steve's cheeks, eyes rounded like dough balls. "What? Come on, you're the only other girl I know!"

You scoffed, sitting on the carpet to roll your socks on. "That is not true."

He huffed, playing with the loose strings on his gloved fingers. "Well, no, but...you're the only one who can, like, help me. You and Nancy are really similar, you'll know what she likes!"

You adjusted the seam over your toes and glanced at Steve in your periphery. He truly did sound desperate. But that didn't change the fact that you'd have to spend the day you set aside to sleep and relax shopping for another girl. Steve's girlfriend, no less. The girl you weren't sure was right for your best friend anyway. Never mind the fact that she was a total priss, you were pretty sure she had feelings for another guy.

And Steve, with all his jealousy and possession issues, didn't seem to see it.

"We are not alike," you mumbled, plucking at the cotton of your socks.

"Whatever," Steve huffed. "Just...can you help me? It's gotta be something nice."

A deep breath ballooned in your chest. When you released it, it flung the hair out of your eyes. Steve watched you intently, socked foot bouncing on the floor. The wood beneath it squeaked in that spot, and the carpet muffled the sound to morph it into a groan.

You pushed off the floor and crossed your arms. "Fine. But you're buying me a pretzel at the mall. And a Pepsi."

Steve leapt to his feet, gloved hands outstretched to grab you by the shoulders. The grin on his face nuzzled into your cheek where he pressed a loud kiss.

"Yes, thank you. I'll buy you two! Okay, come on, come on."

He rushed the open door and hurried back downstairs for his boots. You sighed, pulling your discarded gloves and earmuffs from their place on your dresser.

"Come onnn!" Steve called from the bottom of the steps.

"Oh my god, I'm coming!"

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧ ︵‿₊୨୧₊‿˚

"You know, why did you wait until two days before Christmas to ask me to help you, Steve?"

The pretzel you made Steve buy you before you even stepped foot into a store was perfectly soft and buttery. The salt tingled on your tongue beautifully, and it was almost enough to help smooth the irritation this whole dilemma caused.

Except it was two days before Christmas and the mall was packed. You had to shuffle through hordes of people and you were already sweating through your layers. Someone nearly pushed you near the candy store and a little girl sneezed on your shoes.

The pretzel was simply not enough to save you from all that.

"I thought I could find somethin' by myself." Steve shrugged, taking a sip of the Pepsi.

He got a large so you could share, but he was hogging most of it.

"What, nothing said Nancy to you?"

The pair of you rounded the corner near Orange Julius, where blenders whirred over the jingle of Christmas music emitting from Sears. The fluorescent lights were warmed with giant globes of soft white light and the trees of multi-colored bulbs. They had tinsel and garland and ornaments everywhere, and if you weren't so upset with Steve, you might've found it wonderful. Sears was your happy place, after all.

So if Nancy really was like you, she'd find something worthy of Christmas there, too.

"Not really. She's very....particular."

"Mm," you hummed, ripping off another bite of your pretzel. "Do you think I'm particular then?"

Steve shot you a look, brow quirked. "No, you're picky. There's a big difference."

"I am not!" you gasped, shoving at his padded arm. "I just...like what I like."

"Yeah. You're high maintenance."

You scowled into your pretzel, reaching over to snatch the Pepsi cup from his hand. "Hey."

"No, it's okay. It's what makes you, you," he assured, looping his arm around your shoulders to give you a shake, tucked into his side.

You huffed, attaching your mouth to the chewed-up straw. Steve's anxious affliction came in the form of an oral fixation, usually attached to a cigarette between his lips.

"I don't know how you put up with me," you droned dryly.

Steve chuckled, giving you a squeeze with his arm. "Ah, you're alright."

In Sears, you let Steve hold the Pepsi again as you roamed the aisles. You steered clear of appliances entirely, knowing Nancy likely didn't use hot rollers and certainly didn't need a blender for Christmas. You headed to the clothing department first, knowing from the catalog that came a few weeks ago that they had a pretty good selection this year.

"So, what's your budget, Harrington?"

Steve leaned against a stand and shrugged. "Dunno, whatever."

You raised a brow, peering at him over the neck of an argyle cable knit. "Oh, fancy man with his big boy job, huh?"

Steve rolled his eyes, gnawing on the straw again. "Whatever."

You folded the sweater and placed it back on the table, pulling the gloves off your fingers with your teeth. You tucked them in your coat pocket and moved onto the next table, peering through the selection of fabrics and options. Steve followed quietly, glancing casually but absently. You pulled the Pepsi from his hands when the straw chewing became loud.

"What about this?" he asked, pulling a fuzzy pink sweater up like roadkill, plucked between two fingers. "You think she'd like this?"

You hid your smile behind a sip of Pepsi. "Um...I guess, yeah."

"Well...would you wear it?" Steve held it out by the shoulders, letting the sweater hang loose.

You looked it over, tipping your head. "Probably not. But I don't really wear pink, I think Nancy does."

"Oh, right."

Steve placed it back on the table in a rumpled ball. You huffed, shoving the cup against his chest.

"What are you, a heathen? Fold it, Harrington, Jesus."

He was quiet a moment, watching you fluff and fold an item you didn’t plan to buy.

"Are you sure you don't wear pink?"

"Have you seen me wear pink?"

Hearing his sharp intake of know-it-all breath, you whirled around and added an addendum. "After the age of seven?"

Steve closed his mouth. You plucked the cup from his hand and flashed a tight-lipped smile.

"Exactly. Come on, let's go over here."

He followed you across the snow-slicked tile, boots squeaking as he went. He watched you pause and tip your head at a brown coat in the men's section, only to turn back toward the women's. He eyed it as he followed you blindly.

"What about you?"

You felt the sleeve of a plum-colored cardigan. "What about me?"

"What do you like getting for Christmas?"

You tossed him a bewildered glance. "You know I love my Mrs. Harrington popcorn tin every year."

Steve chuckled, twisting the plastic straw of the Pepsi cup between two fingers. "Yeah, but...I don't know, what's one thing you've always really wanted, but never got?"

You watched him twist the straw, and hung the sweater back on the rack. "Um...I don't know."

"Oh, come on. Like...you know I've always wanted that one super rare press of The Stones'—"

"Yes, Steve, I know."

Steve ignored your eye roll, taking one large step forward toward the jewelry case you were peering into. “Well, so, what’s your rare press? The one thing you really want?”

You glanced at him through your lashes, head still angled toward the array of rings and bracelets. Your cheeks illuminated by the fluorescents, fingers collecting the glimmer of a strand of lit garland wrapped around the glass of the jewelry case—it all suddenly made Steve begin gnawing at the Pepsi straw again.

"Why are you asking me this?"

Steve huffed, leaning back against the warm case until you pushed him off. "Jesus, is it so hard for you to answer one question?"

You straightened up again and stepped away from the jewelry. Nancy seemed like a jewelry girl, but you were becoming increasingly more frustrated in your search—though at this point, your eyes were simply grazing items. Everything that piqued your interest didn't seem like something Nancy was worthy of. And the mere thought of your spite for the girl gave you pause.

So, how could Steve be so sweet in this moment when you were standing there plotting revenge on Nancy Wheeler through means of shitty Christmas gifts?

"Fine," you mumbled. "Um...you know that I always think it's the thought that counts—"

"God," Steve groaned, tipping his head back dramatically as he followed you into the next department. "Okay, Mother Teresa."

Your elbow jammed into his side and caused Steve to yelp. "I mean it! Sure, I might be particular—"

"Picky—"

"—but just the thought of someone thinking of me, or having me in mind when they find something...that's what makes a gift special. You know? Like when you went to that bookstore in Indianapolis and got me that journal. You didn't get it because you knew I wanted it, you got it because it made you think of me."

Steve swallowed, grinding his teeth over the flimsy plastic of the straw. You twirled a coat around on its hanger and inspected the back. As your hand swept over the tweed, Steve felt the bite of pretzel he took crawling its way back up.

"So..." He tapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth, tasting the sweetness lining his cheeks. God, was he gonna be sick because of this?

And what was this? He knew it wasn't the normal, platonic ache all best friends of any gender felt. He knew it was abnormal, actually, to listen to you speak and suddenly feel so overcome with something that it made him want to flee. But what was that something?

It certainly couldn't be what he was thinking.

"Your rare press is...something thoughtful?"

You giggled, hanging the coat back up. The metal hanger shrieked over the rack. "No, I guess if I had to have a rare press, it'd be one of my grandma's handmade blankets. She made one for my mom and all her siblings when they went off to college or moved out, and...I don't know, I guess I'm still sad I'll never get my own now that she's gone."

When Steve only hummed, you turned to find him leaning against a tinsel-wrapped column near the aisle.

"I guess that's something thoughtful, too," you added.

Steve had the straw back in his mouth again, and he bobbed his head affirmatively. You turned away and scanned the store before you. You suddenly couldn't be here any longer, and when a bit of yellow caught your eye, you rushed for it.

It was a soft sweater, with embroidered flowers on the sleeves and tortoise shell buttons. You pulled one from the table and held it out to Steve, who had just caught up to you from across the store.

"What—"

"—here. Nancy looks nice in yellow. Something thoughtful, too."

Steve took the bundle of yellow in his grasp. You took the Pepsi cup, now mangled by his teeth and crushed by his hand, and took a sip through the gnawed opening.

"Come on, let's go pay. The lines are wrapped around already."

⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹⊹₊ ˚‧⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨୧₊‿ ˚

⊹₊ ˚ ₊⊹ christmas eve. ⊹₊ ˚ ₊⊹

You watched through the fog of your living room window as Steve's BMW pulled into his driveway. He wore his nicer coat that day, buttoned snugly against his throat. At the passenger side, he offered his hand to an equally-bundled Nancy, dark curls billowing in the afternoon breeze. Their breaths echoed whitely against the grey sky, noses and cheeks already wind-whipped pink.

You let the curtains fall back into place when they disappeared through his front door.

"Honey, want to help me hang the popcorn?" your mother asked, holding a strand of popcorn and cranberry garland between two hands.

You pressed your socked feet into the carpet and met her near the tree. "Sure, mom."

And every walk around the tree to fix an ornament or fluff a branch, or tread to the dining room for a cube of cheese from the platter your parents set out for their friends later, came with a glance through the window toward Steve's house.

So, when the cheese began to curdle in your stomach, and the sound of Christmas carols crackling through your father's record player was not enough to distract you from what was going on next door, you went into the living room and peeked around the corner.

"Hey, mom? I think I'm gonna go lie down. Wake me when everyone's here?"

Your mother looked up from the tin of ornaments she was rifling through, placed on the floor at her knees. She had on her nicest tweed dress and white blouse, hair twisted and pinned neatly at the back of her head. The Christmas party was your parents' favorite event of the year. You wouldn't miss it out of heartache—but your body was calling you to bed.

"Oh, okay, sweetheart. Are you feeling alright?"

You nodded, flashing your most convincing smile. "Yeah, just tired from all that shopping yesterday. I'll see you guys in a bit."

And you crawled into bed, even in your dress. Tight-clad feet wiggled near the edge of the bed, nestled beneath the pile of blankets you abandoned yesterday. Their warmth weighed down on you blissfully. The crackle of your father's record player and the choir of the Christmas carols faded in the distance. The howl of the wind grew quiet as the afternoon lulled. It only whispered, softly, through the bareness of the trees and the cracks in your window.

Before you shut your eyes, you looked off toward the glass. The center fogged with the kiss between radiator heat and the frozen world outside. Snow gathered around the edges like lace border. From this angle, you could see only the spindly edges of the tree branch tops. How snow sat like dollops of whipped cream on their ends.

The world was quiet, cold, and empty. And it was exactly what you needed.

⊹₊ ˚ ₊⊹

Steve came when you were fast asleep. He knocked on the front door with a gloved fist, keeping his sloppily-wrapped gift behind his back. The grin on his face slipped when the door opened to your mother, who winced with a finger to her lips.

"Hi, Steven."

"Hi, Sandra. Is she around?"

"She's sleeping," she whispered, giving another wince.

Steve nodded, smile absent now. "Oh, okay. Um...do you mind if I just put this outside her door?"

Your mother looked at the lumpy shape in Steve's hands, wrapped in shiny red paper and a golden bow. Her wincing ceased instantly and she perked up with a grin.

"Oh, how lovely, Steven. You're such a sweet boy, you know?"

Steve chuckled, cheeks burning.

"You sure you don't want to just wait, give it to her tomorrow?" she asked.

Steve placed both hands around the present, gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he gazed down. "Um...no, that's okay. Kind of wanted her to have it tonight, and we're going to my grandparents' in a bit."

"Well, alright. Come on in, you can head up."

Steve thanked your mother and stepped inside. He shook his boots off on the mat and unlaced them quickly. He shook your father's hand, complimented the festivities of your home's first floor, and tiptoed toward the staircase.

The hallway darkened near your bedroom. He paused outside of the door, listening to the sounds of your home for a moment. Your parents conversing downstairs over the jazzy toot of a Christmas song. The heater rattling a little at the end of the hall. You gave no sign of life on the other side of the door.

So, Steve found himself opening it. Quietly, knowing it tended to whine on the hinges at a certain distance. He opened it just enough to slip through, and then found himself standing there. In the center of your bedroom, socked feet weighing down the carpet. You used to draw shapes in the fibers when you were younger, lying on your stomachs with your feet kicking behind you. You'd write each other messages in the pink, giggling when you guessed them exactly.

In your bed— cheek squished against a plaid pillow, hair fussed about, mouth open to breathe softly—you looked just like that little girl again. The one who called him Stevie. The one he spent afternoons that felt like years with.

It's strange how different time felt when you were children. How much more if it you had. How simple and unperverted it was, not yet burdened with the difficulties of life and that odd, aching feeling.

As Steve placed the lumpy present wrapped messily in red at the foot of your bed, he imagined that little girl opening it when she woke, and the smile on her face that he would never see.

It left him with an even bigger ache in his chest as he slipped back into the hallway and headed down for his boots.

But it would have pleased him to know that when you woke at four o'clock, and your bedroom was nearly dark with evening, you shuffled to sit and stared at that red present in wonder. You brought it to your lap and ran your finger over the scratchy glitter of the bright, gold bow.

There was a sticky note taped to the top, complete with what you instantly recognized as Steve's scraggly handwriting.

Your rare press.

— Steve

You chuckled softly, and tore the paper as carefully as you could. Before all of it had even been removed, goosebumps traveled beneath the sleeves of your dress. A gasp left your mouth, and you discarded the paper toward the other side of your bed to leave only your rare press in your hands.

Stripes of purple—an array of dark to light, boysenberry, violet, mauve, lavender—wove through gaps the size of tiny, feminine fingers. It was soft and heavy in your palms, exactly the weight of the one strewn over the couch in the living room. With the wavy edges of a Harrington afghan, seen in the many rooms touched by his grandmother.

Though yours was gone, Steve had one that loved to offer her magic hand.

You brought the blanket to your chest and hugged it close. Wonderfully, it smelled like Steve.

Leftover Winston, a warm amber musk, and the woodsy pine of a Christmas tree.

It was enough to make you get out of bed and lay the layers of blankets neatly. And folded just-so over the end of your mattress, you placed your purple present for all to see.

And it smelled wonderfully of Steve.

[haikyu-mp4]

Lucky misunderstanding

word count; 974 – gn!reader I think

Not usually favouring sports, you’re in the journalism club to make use of your great eye for design and writing. After watching one of your school’s volleyball team’s official games last season, you took notice of the boring brochures they handed out with the players’ information. You hadn’t yet chosen what to do for your project this semester and decided to lend your talents to making a better representation of the team’s charms and talents. What you didn’t expect to get out of the project was a date.

You received permission from their coach and captain and set up some equipment to take your photos in a room adjacent to the gym during practice. Hopefully, you can encourage them all to pose confidently. In order to not disturb their whole practice, you ask one grade to join you at a time, starting with the first-years and ending with the third-years. Good luck!

Having seen how strategic and tactical Seijoh are on the court, you thought the photoshoot would go by pretty quickly and smoothly. You didn’t account for Yahaba and Kuotani being this difficult. They were egging each other on and making it hard for you to get any shots where they weren’t wearing angry frowns.

That’s why you at least hoped the third years would be easier. Calm, confident and collected.

Well.. they sure were confident. At least you were laughing, watching how they played around and criticised each others’ poses. Iwaizumi seemed to keep his distance, though, only coming out of his shell to throw some comments at Oikawa.

He went last, straightening out his uniform and standing in the spot you wanted him to. “Let’s get this over with.”

You shrugged and held up the camera, but put it down again. He was just staring sternly at the lens. “Could you give me some confidence?” you asked. “Where’s the smug guy that beats everyone in arm wrestling?”

The effect is instant and the other guys are thrilled to spot Iwa’s red ears. “Yea, Iwa! Where are the muscles?” Makki cooed and giggled. You looked away from the boy and down at your hands for a second. Is he mocking you? “Just think of how y/n is staring at you through the lens.” he continued teasing before Mattsun roughly patted his shoulder to make him stop, even though he was chuckling too.

Do they know about your crush? Did you bust yourself with that comment? Have they heard a rumour? How embarrassing! That’s the worry that swirled in your head as you cleared your throat and looked shyly at Iwaizumi. The ace himself nearly growled, pushing his sleeves up and walking towards his friends with a threatening “you three better run” slipping between his teeth.

The boys all took his advice and ran out, clearly terrified of the muscly ace as he started running at them until they were all out of the room. He took in a deep breath and turned back, glancing between you and the floor as he stood in front of you again.

“I’m sorry-“

“I’m sorry.” The two of you said at the same time, making both of you lift your gazes to meet each other’s in surprise.

“Why are you sorry? They were being stupid,” he mumbled with a weak chuckle as if trying to brush it off. You cleared your throat again, looking away and down at the camera.

“You probably just want to get this over with, I didn’t think they would make you uncomfortable,” you rambled, not sure if you should address your crush or leave it unspoken and let the poor boy escape you.

“I’m not! They just know I get… flustered… around you,” he admitted hesitantly, finally meeting your eyes again and tucking his hands in his pockets.

Thinking back, Oikawa had mumbled something about Iwa-chan loving this when you asked him if he approved your project. Your path didn’t cross with Iwaizumi’s that often at school, but when it did you would always stop for a short chat and it would fill you with happy energy for the rest of the day. That’s how you developed your crush, which might have created some inspiration for this project as well.

You were surprised and trying to sort out your thoughts as your mouth opened and closed like a fish. “Let’s just get this over with, forget what I said,” he said, already regretting his little confession when you didn’t respond.

“I thought they were teasing me for my crush on you.” You chuckled under your breath before lifting the camera. All you saw was a very surprised Iwaizumi.

“Huh?”

“Makki kept commenting on how I was looking at you and your freaking muscles and I just thought they must be teasing me for it.” you rambled again, looking away and cursing mentally at how you were never finishing the photoshoot at this rate.

“They were teasing because I like you,” he said, letting the whole sentence out in one breath. You only caught every word because you were desperately listening to him.

“Really?” was all you managed to say, even chuckling a bit at the misunderstanding.

He chuckled too, rubbing his face with both hands before glancing at you to see your reaction. “Really.”

“Then I think you should let me finish my project and take me out on a date later,” you declared, biting the inside of your lip in anticipation.

He straightened up and gave you a determined look. “I like the way you think.”

So you did finish taking the photos, maybe even sneaking in a shy little first kiss before he had to go back to practice. He told you to wait for him after practice and you both parted ways with rosy cheeks.

Maybe just this once he should thank Makki for being so insufferable.

the Flyer Series ║ masterlist

/taglist: @cottonlemonade @dira333 @cosmiicdust @nagi-core

[artificial-transmutations]

4k! Dropout Dorm 1

Hey guys! And there is even more big news today!

It seems like yesterday I celebrated 3k followers, and now, all of a sudden, I have just reached 4k! Honestly, I'm at a loss for words. I'm really happy (and a bit bewildered) that so many of you want to read my stories!

As a celebration, I will receive one previously exclusive four-part story from my once membership site (now a tip jar) here on tumblr, with new pictures! The writing is more than a year old, but I decided not to adjust it to preserve the original charm, so please don't mind the rough edges here and there. And now, enjoy

Dropout Dorm

The line in front of Marvin was long and Marvin was unhappy with himself. He should have come earlier! Who could have known that it was customary to be that early for dorm room assignment? Well, that was an easy question. Obviously, every student in front of him. 

He wasn't technically the last one to arrive, since there was one other guy that came even later, but the two of them marked the end of the queue. The student behind him, a brown haired young man with a narrow face, studied him carefully, before extending a hand.

"Hi!", he said. "I'm Aiden."

"Marvin", answered Marvin. He wasn't the outgoing type.

"Pleased to meet you, Marvin!", Aiden smiled. "So, we'll be rooming together, I suppose."

"We are?" How did Aiden know?

"I'm pretty sure we are." Aiden nodded. "College rules dictate that rooming is determined by order of appearance on the registration day. Since there are 84 people in the line in front of you, and always two are called into the office at a time, it is only logical that we will be roommates."

That made sense. Marvin didn't bother to count the line yet, but he wasn't entirely unhappy. The person directly in front of him looked like the typical meathead jock type, while the thin man behind him proved that he was capable of logic reasoning.

So, Marvin smiled. "Great. I'm looking forward to it, you seem like a good roommate! I'm majoring in computer sciences, what about you?"

Aiden grinned. "Mathematics. Sorry, that's hard to hide for me."

The grin was genuine, and Marvin and Aiden used the waiting time to get to know each other better. To Marvin's delight, Aiden was quite nerdy himself and wasn't keen on partying or taking girls home - which qualified him as a good rooming choice even more. 

Finally, they were called into the secretary’s office, where a woman with large glasses looked at them.

"You are the last ones?"

Marvin nodded and the woman sighed.

"Good. Well, here is the bad news: You too should look for a room elsewhere, outside the campus."

Marvin was confused. Why was that?

Aiden verbalized his question: "Why? Aren't there any rooms left?"

The woman sighed again. "Technically, there is one room left, and you can have it, but... room 148 has a bit of a bad reputation."

"How can a room have a bad reputation?" Aiden asked quizzically.

"Look, the room is called the 'dropout dorm'. For whatever reason, no student that ever took that room graduated. Most dropped out in the same or the following semester.

Aiden looked at Marvin, who, in turn looked at Aiden. How to put it delicately, Marvin asked himself, but Aiden was quicker again, just being honest:

"So, it's just superstition?"

The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe. Maybe not. I can only tell you what happened to students in the years before."

"Did you always offer this room last?" Marvin asked and the woman nodded. He exchanged another look with Aiden and then smiled. "Thank you for your concerns, but I think we'll take the risk."

After the formalities were over, they got their keys and went up to their new room. It was located on the second floor, and when Aiden opened the door, he saw a big window facing the lake and the sun shining brightly through it.

"So, why do you think this is the 'dropout dorm'?" Aiden asked.

Marvin smiled. "Because it is the 'dropout dorm'. You see, there had probably been one or two dropouts in this room. Then, someone decided that the room was bad luck or something like that, and they started to offer it to the last students. Now, usually, the last ones in line are those students who care about their studies the least."

"Except in this year" Aiden added.

"Exactly. So, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. They gave the 'dropout dorm' to the students with the worst starting conditions, and they dropped out, fueling the myth of the 'dropout dorm'."

"Flawless reasoning", Aiden congratulated. "Now, do you have a preference on which side of the room you want?"

Both young men settled in quickly and moved their stuff to their dorm room over the course of the day. It wasn't a bad room at all: It had a small bathroom with a shower, and a nice view from the window. Most importantly, though, it had two nice, big desks, which were quickly filled with books on Aiden's side of the room, and a powerful PC on Marvin's side. The day passed quickly, and it became time for bed. 

Aiden was slightly amused, as Marvin went into the bathroom to get changed and emerged in pajamas. He certainly didn't judge Marvin for being an introvert, but Aiden had given up pajamas a few years ago and slept in boxers since then. Still, that was nothing of his business.

Both their dreams were restless and although Aiden couldn't remember what exactly he had dreamed off, when he woke up the next morning to the sound of the shower running, he found himself with a bad case of morning wood. It was rare for Aiden to be aroused, but right now, he felt outright horny. His dick throbbed against his boxers and the outline was clearly visible since he had untangled himself from his blanked in his sleep. He just hoped that Marvin hadn't noticed.

When Aiden accidentally brushed against his erection, that was already forming a wet patch in his boxers from precum, he would have almost moaned out load. Damn, was this thing sensitive today. He looked at the bathroom. Marvin had left the door open, probably by accident. He could see the naked body of the other man moving under the stream of water and quickly drew back his head.

It looked like Marvin would still be busy for a while, so this was his chance! Aiden quickly disposed of his boxers and wrapped his right hand around his member, careful not to make noise. It was really difficult since he wanted to moan loudly so bad, but he could control himself. 

He quickly moved his hand up and down, rolling back his eyes. This felt just so good! Wave after wave of pleasure rocked through him and he was already close when he heard the water stop. It took an awful lot of willpower to pry his hand from his prick for a moment, to peek at the bathroom door. Marvin was drying up. If he hurried up, he still had time to finish. His hand went back to his erection, and he pumped on. He threw his head back as he came - in complete silence, but with wide spurts all over his chest.

Aiden had no time to recover though, as only a split second later, Marvin stepped out of the bathroom. Lightning-fast, Aiden covered himself with the blanket, soiling it with his cum in the process. Marvin hadn't seen anything, right?

"Good morning!" Marvin said, the towel around his hips, but stopped in the middle of the room. "Does it smell weird here?"

Stay tuned for the rest of the short series, following Marvin and Aiden on their inevitable journey, posted soon.

Read the next part here

[yeonbinwyd]

how you’ve been?

pairing: fem!reader x softdom! taehyun

synopsis: you and taehyun broke up a few months ago. He’s been missing you since but you would much rather not waste your time since he has so many other obligations at the moment.

genre (w/tags): smut, minors dni, breeding kink

Word count 1,494

a/n: I’ve been seeing so many taehyun edits it was his time LOL

It had been a while since you seen Taehyun on campus. Maybe he was purposely avoiding you. Maybe you were avoiding him. You would just go to class and go straight home. He did all the extra things. He was always left on campus throughout the day. It drove you insane since it seemed like he didn’t have time for dates or really take the time to spend with you. You wanted more than that. Everyone had been pushing you together since you both had came from the same high school but you’re a few years older. You also heard he’s also had a crush on you too. You both had a lot of mutual friends. Since you’re in your last semester, you don’t have a lot of classes and a full time job already lined up. Taehyun just wanted to enjoy his time there. You two just didn’t see eye to eye and it was obvious. When he initially asked you out, you were surprised. You didn’t seem like his type at all. He was cute and sweet so you went along with it. Dating him was fun while it lasted as well as it felt like you guys were getting close. You guys even talked about a future together but it just didn’t work.

It was Friday, finally you had your last class for the day and was ready to go home. Your professor asked you to stay since he had some questions for you about the assignment you turned in. You sighed but agreed. talking with him lasted a lot longer than expected. You finally race out the door but cross paths with Taehyun. You gave a thin lip smile while looking down trying to walk past.

“I’ve always hated that smile you do.” He chuckles. You look up at him and see a bright smile on his face. “I miss it though.” He admits. At this point, you stop in your tracks. As you turn back, he looks you dead in the eye. The two of you keep eye contact for a bit. His boba pearl eyes were your only weakness.

“I’ve really missed you” Taehyun admits again taking a few steps closer to you. The eye contact deepens. Reality sinks back in.

“I’ve got to get going” you try and slip away. Taking off without a second thought, you get going down the hall. He’s left in front of class, not even wanting to go anymore.

After that whole ordeal, your skin was begging for some self care. You took a bath, with a face mask, starting to wind down. Just as you were about to get relaxed in bed, You hear the doorbell. You heard the footsteps of your housemate going to the door. All you can hear is your housemate dab someone up like they haven’t seen this person in so long.

“Hey Y/n! Guess who’s here?” Your housemate calls out. You manage to leave your room, face mask still on.

“It’s Taehyun. “ Kai coos. He’s all smiles but you were horrified.

“Oh god Kai. Thanks for the warning” You snatch the mask off your face.

“Hey. I couldn’t stop thinking about you earlier. Thought I’d stop by.” Taehyun confesses. Yours and Kai’s eyes widen. Kai was a good mutual friend of his too.

“And I thought you’d be here to see me.” Kai gives a fake sigh in sarcasm leaving the two of you alone together.

“Could we talk?” Taehyun innocently eyes you up and down. You cave, letting him inside. You both take a seat in the living room, the same one that holds all the memories of you two together.

“It’s been a few months…” he starts. You nod in silence. You don’t even know what to say, how to respond.

“I quit swim and soccer.”

“What? You love those sports. Why did you quit?”

“You were right. I had too much going on. Now I can just focus on school.” He explains. “I also just wanted to let you know that I’ve been thinking about you and us a lot. I know you’ve probably moved on but I’d hate myself if I never got a chance to tell you.” Taehyun looks at you with those eyes again. He really means it too.

“I’ve been missing you too. “You finally break your silence. He smiles so bright, his dimple shows through. That cute face of his was hard to stay mad at. He scoots closer to you, grabbing your hand.

“I’m sorry for how we ended things and how I treated you. Hurting you was the last thing I intended on doing. I was just kinda..”

“Self centered” you chime in. You both laugh.

“Yeah I can admit that now. I know this doesn’t make up for the past but just know you were the only one I ever thought about a future with.” He reveals. Those words felt like the first time hearing them. When you heard them the first time too, it made your stomach tie in a knot. You instinctively squeeze his hand. He took it as a sign, started to lean in for a kiss. You meet his lips with yours, cupping his face. A couple of pecks turned into a tongue war very quickly. His strong arms, begin to hug you close. Kai catches you two mid kiss and slips out the front door, really leaving you two alone. Taehyun lifts you, instinctively, you wrap your legs around him. He guides the two of you to your room, gently setting you down on your bed. Without wasting any time, you peel off each other’s clothes. He takes in the beauty of the curves that he missed.

“You’re so sexy” he compliments. Taehyun begins to leave kisses all over your body. First your neck, traveling all over. He can’t help but squeeze your stomach too. It’s his favorite place. You lie down to let him continue. He loves taking his time with you. Making sure every inch of you gets the love it deserves. Taehyun reaches your bikini line, his kisses get more aggressive.

“Can I get a taste?” He requests. You nod giving him the ok. Before you know it, he was exploring your cunt with his tongue. Your eyes rolled back in pleasure. The kisses were mixed with his tongue grazing you and his pillowy lips. Taehyun was in love with your pussy. He didn’t know how to control himself.

“Let me fuck you baby. Let me show you how much I want you.” Taehyun begs. Sex with him wasn’t like this before. He was nervous and didn’t talk much before. Something changed in him. He sat up before you, slowly taking the plunge inside you. Now he’s throwing his head back, unable to breathe, he feels so good. Taehyun starts to move but is gentle to start. He knew the animal inside him would come out but he wanted to make sure his angel was safe first. He picked up the pace with light strokes but even then drove him insane. Your soft moans were igniting him. Unable to contain himself, he picks you up, you wrap your legs around him again. He starts thrusting upwards while kissing you on the mouth.

“You’re mine. I’ll make you mine.” He manages to say in between kisses. His thrusts were becoming more rough, with each one getting deeper. You felt your grip getting weaker so he set you down but turned you around. Still standing, he fucks you from behind, holding on to your hips and stomach. You could feel his pumps in your tummy. He wasn’t letting up.

“You’re taking me so well baby. You’re such a good girl.” He grabs your neck, bringing you back to kiss him. Your moans filling the room. You started to cum but Taehyun wasn’t ready to let you go. He could feel you getting tighter around him. He lifts your legs up, holstering you as he continues. He turns you in front of your full length mirror. You see the two of you in full view.

“See how pretty you are? Oh god I need to keep you. Let me put this baby in you” he demands. At this point you’re seeing stars but he’s still going. Your cum dripping down his leg. You nod in agreement, unable to speak. His strokes pick up, his pants become louder and higher. He finally cums, shooting his far in you. The warmth fills you up. He sets you down in the bed while cuddling you. You’re still unable to think straight. Taehyun didn’t let go. Maybe he meant it?

[obaex]

four - hockey player!ex!rafe cameron (pt. 2)

summary: with the stakes of your relationship on the line, can rafe pull off the impossible to win you back?

word count: 6k 🫣

a/n: i love you all for the love on this lil' series!! ♡ toxic hockey rafe has me in a chokehold, so i promise this will not be the last you see of him!! apologies in advance, you will basically be attending a full hockey game here, i tried my best to explain all the lingo!

(part one)

The arena was packed even though you were there early, arriving alone because the other girlfriends and wives were always late, which simply wasn't in your DNA.

Your dad was a coach growing up, so you spent countless hours in empty rinks, arenas and stands; his rule for games was that you were in your seat early enough to see the starting lineup and the national anthem, no exceptions. Truth be told you liked being there when the lights went down, when the music amped up, you loved the anticipation of a new game.

You didn't mind sitting in the cold seat, hands wrapped around a cup of hot chocolate that you got from the same concession stand every time. Hockey players were notoriously superstitious and by extension now you were too; just like they had their pregame rituals, so did you: same parking spot in the VIP lot, same hot chocolate from the same concession stand, same seat in section 106. You were in the lower bowl of the arena, a few rows back from the ice, facing the bench, nearly eye-level with the team.

You let your mind wander and tried not to think about Rafe but it was impossible, this place was Rafe to you; from the feeling of the cold air on your cheeks and fingers, to the damp and crisp smell of the ice and the sounds of the fans and ambient pregame music, all of it was a part of your love story, all of it was him. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt like you thought it would, rather it felt like coming home after a semester at college, foreign but familiar.

You swiped at your phone, a nervous tick, even though you knew there wouldn't be anything there, which was a good thing, Rafe needed to be focused on the game, so you slid your phone into the cupholder next to you and resorted to tapping your heeled foot nervously.

The seats around you filled quickly and sure enough the other girlfriends and wives arrived just as the lights were dimming, offering cheek kisses and sympathetic hugs, well aware of your situation. Your best friend Morgan slid in next to you, pulling you into her side.

"It's selfish, but I'm glad you're here" she said, loud enough to be heard over the music and the announcer as her brown eyes traced your face sympathetically.

"I'm fine" you lied with a forced smile. Totally fine you thought. Not the love of my life who broke my heart then skated over it trying to win me back in the middle of the semifinals.

You decided to keep all of that to yourself, because truthfully it was ridiculous. It was juvenile. And it was never going to happen. And you didn't want it to happen anyway, you reassured yourself. Right?

You shook your head as you turned your attention to the starting lineup as Rafe's name boomed over the loudspeaker, the cheering noticeably louder from the crowd. He was a fan favorite, beloved for his fast and aggressive style of play. He wasn't afraid to two-hand someone when the referee wasn't looking, to stand up for his team, to battle for the puck. He was chippy, gritty, and he's on the first line tonight you thought to yourself, a spot reserved for the very best players, putting them in the best scoring position. But surely that's not in any way related to our deal... you mused.

You stood on your tiptoes to see him over the crowd in front of you. He was standing at center ice under the spotlight, his helmet tucked under his arm as he shuffled side to side on his skates, face unsmiling, focused as he looked between his feet and the empty ice in front of him. Your heart leapt uncontrollably at the sight of him; God he's beautiful you thought as your body hummed in recognition and longing, completely betraying you.

The tension and animosity in the arena were thick. You had faced the opposing team a few times in the regular season and it did not end well.

As in, you'd lost every time.

As in, Rafe left the last game with a five-minute major penalty and a black eye after an all-out brawl.

Now the fans were itching for a rematch and you were simply hoping for everyone to leave in one piece. That was the difference between being a fan and being someone who cared deeply for the boys on the ice, it wasn't a spectacle to you anymore. You watched as Rafe's wingers Nick and Andrew stood beside him, followed by two defensemen and your goalie as the national anthem wrapped up.

Everyone took their seats as the lights came back on and the music came on again too, urging the fans around you to cheer, and for you to resume the incessant tapping of your foot as you leaned forward in your seat, laser focused on the guys lining up for the faceoff.

"Girl, you good?" Morgan asked, taking in your nervous energy.

"Hmm?" you responded distractedly, barely glancing at her. "Yeah, yeah m'fine" you said.

You were always more into the game than the other girls, but that didn't account for the clear tension and anxiety rolling off of you in waves, nor the way you were immaculately dressed, which didn't go unnoticed either.

Rafe skated to center ice, equally sized with the opponent at faceoff as the referee dropped the puck. It had barely clattered to the ice before Rafe had gained possession, shouldering his opponent out of the way and barreling towards the offensive zone with a burst of energy like a gunshot that had the crowd almost immediately back on their feet, pulling you along with them.

"OK, I'm sorry, what is happening here?" Morgan said as she watched him.

He was a man possessed, head down, focused, ignoring his teammates as they called for the puck to set up a play, like he was trying to do it all himself. Like he was trying to score. He flipped the puck towards the goalie, who blocked it and possession shifted as he skated backwards on defense, your heart settling in your chest.

Rafe always played with intensity, but with the way he was playing now, he wouldn't make it through the first period. You thought there would be a reprieve on defense, but he was diving for the puck, playing to steal rather than defending his zone. He looked like a maniac.

Until it worked.

The crowd was back on their feet as he and Nick had a breakaway two-on-one, both of them racing towards the net together with only one defender standing between them and the goalie, the rest of their teammates striding to catch up with them. Nick called for the puck, slapping his stick on the ice, but Rafe deked the defender, faking him out before approaching the goalie and tipping the puck into the small pocket over his shoulder, swishing it effortlessly into the net.

The arena erupted as the goal horn blared and you found yourself jumping up and down, overcome with excitement and emotion. You could physically feel your heart beating. This is totally normal you thought. It's totally fine to score a goal in the first two minutes of the game, on his first shift, against the toughest team in the league.

You watched players pile on him in celebration before they all skated back to the bench, bumping fists with their team before taking a seat on the bench. Your eyes were glued to him, and his were on the jumbotron above center ice, watching his own replay before the coach approached him, grasping his shoulder angrily, and you could imagine why. He had been reckless, he had been lucky. Rafe nodded, but ultimately shook him off and refocused on the resumed play. Players zoomed in front of you and your eyes zipped to follow them before you glanced ever so briefly back at Rafe, who was unmistakably looking at you and smiling.

You swallowed to hide the emotions on your face, not giving him a single inch as you focused on the play.

You loved watching hockey, but it felt different when Rafe was on the ice, like he was a magnet, the only thing you could focus on, and his next shift was no different. He was playing like a madman and within seconds you could hear the coach shouting. Rafe turned up emptyhanded this time and the coach was visibly angry as Rafe skated to the bench, going so far as to yell back at him, which had you holding your breath; you had never seen him do that before.

Nick reached for Rafe's shoulder to calm him down and then they started bickering back and forth. Your attention was now split between the two of them and the action on the ice when you saw Nick physically rear back at something Rafe had said, the motion grabbing your full focus. Nick covered his face with his gloved hands, looking back at Rafe and then repeating the motion before he glanced up at the stands, at you, and shook his head, resigned. Were they talking about you!?! you thought. Had Rafe just told him what's going on?

You were so caught up that you missed the play as the other team scored. The game was tied 1-1. The arena echoed with boos as their bench erupted in cheers. You looked up at the clock: 2 minutes left in the first period.

Rafe and Nick got onto the ice for their last shift and the second the puck dropped, they were off as a duo, Nick's intensity now matching Rafe's own; they were bodying guys, tag-teaming as they raced into the offensive zone. Nick had the puck and passed to Rafe, and almost immediately Rafe was cornered by two extremely large defensemen who pinned him to the boards as they tried to steal the puck. But he wouldn't relent, throwing his elbows and trying to wiggle free, desperate and angry as the buzzer sounded for the end of the period.

And yet they didn't let him go. The crowd started shouting and everyone was on their feet as Rafe dropped his stick, turned and grabbed them both by the front of their jerseys, shoving them as the benches emptied and other players joined in, piling on top of one another until you lost sight of Rafe in a mess of limbs, equipment and jerseys. You were craning to see over the ecstatic fans, egging on the fight as the referees raced to break it up, pulling bodies off of one another until they reached Rafe.

His helmet had come off and as the referees skated him towards the locker room, he was shouting at the opposing team who skated after him, riling each other up before he yanked himself out of the ref's grasp and marched off the ice through the tunnel.

Period 1: Game Tied. 1-1.

You let out a deep sigh before collapsing back in your seat. You took a shaky inhale before exhaling and you felt a set of eyes on you.

You turned to see Morgan looking at you with an eyebrow arched.

"You're really going to sit here and act like you don't know what's going on? I know that boy texts you his every thought."

You opened your mouth, an excuse, a lie ready before she interrupted you.

"-- And I KNOW you didn't block him like you said you were going to, so don't try me. What the hell is going on?"

You bit your lip at that, glancing between her and the ice where the zamboni was running clean lines across the cold surface.

You gave a halfhearted shrug, "You know how much he wants to win, how much this means to him."

She doubled down her glare.

You sighed, avoiding her gaze before looking back to her.

"I made a deal with him" you nearly whispered.

A few of the other girls snuck by you both, causing you to shift in your seats as she leaned in and whisper-shouted at you:

"I'm sorry what!"

"If he scores four goals tonight, I said I'd get back together with him."

"You're joking" she said flatly. "Please tell me you're joking."

You pursed your lips with a small shake of your head.

"The two of you" she said as she let out an exasperated laugh. "Unbelievable. You can't stay away from each other and yet you’re willing to bet the stakes of your relationship on a game. I can't" she said, throwing her hands up in defeat.

She paused, getting serious for a moment.

"Are you sure you even want to get back with him, is that really such a good idea hun?"

"Morgan, he's never going to score four goals, it's like, impossible."

"Are you watching the same game I am?" she said emphatically. "Cause your mans sure is gonna try and you better ask yourself what you're going to do if he does."

There was a whisper of truth to what she was saying. It was probably impossible, but not completely out of reach. And what would you do? Your heart trilled. You would be ecstatic the devil on your shoulder said. You would be screwed said the angel.

Your phone buzzed in the cupholder next to you and swiped it open.

You grasped at your phone. Rafe never had his phone between periods, none of the players did, it was basically sacrilegious. They had just enough time to get treatment, catch their breath, hydrate and listen to their coach and he was on his phone!? You put yours down and tried to rearrange the smile creeping onto your face as you saw the teams rejoining the ice for the second period.

Just like before, Rafe was off like a rocket, but the other team was on to him this time, doubling his defensive coverage, making it nearly impossible for him to skate, let alone make a play. He had put a target on his back with the fight at the end of the first period, so even when he didn't have the puck, you could see the other players go after him, a stick in his skates, a slash at his side, heads turning to chirp at him as they lined up for faceoffs. But he didn't slow down for a moment, battling twice as hard now, coming back to the bench after each shift uncharacteristically exhausted, heaving with his elbows on his knees.

You watched him and felt overcome with emotions as the realization hit you: Rafe wasn't good at expressing himself, he wasn't a 'feelings' person, he didn't always know what to say, which is why sometimes words came better to him over texts when he had more time to think about it. But hockey? Hockey was his language. He couldn't tell you how sorry he was, how much he wanted to fight for this, but he could show you. He could play for you, he was playing for you, putting his body on the line, trying his all-out hardest, not a single person in the arena could deny that as they watched him tonight. He wanted this. Badly. Which meant he wanted you, badly. You felt a flush of warmth in your cheeks that had nothing to do with your lukewarm hot chocolate as you watched him slide up the bench for his next shift.

You looked up at the jumbotron. There were only 12 minutes left in the second period, and the game was still tied at 1-1.

What were you going to do if he scored four goals?

What were you going to do if he didn't? felt like the more pressing question. He was running out of time. If something didn't happen now, he would have one period left to score 3 goals, and that was simply not going to happen. I shouldn't have made the number so high you thought guiltily.

Your eyes glanced back to the ice as he clambered over the boards in the midst of a shift change. He was skating methodically, not slower, but maybe more strategically and you were sure his energy was waning even if it didn't look like it.

Suddenly, Nick picked the puck off an opponent and Rafe raced to skate with him, crossing into the offensive zone with several of their teammates. Nick had a wide open shot, and he brought his stick back for a slapshot before turning at the very last moment and passing to Rafe who had positioned himself near the goalie. The puck banked off his stick and ricocheted into the goal.

You were on your feet again, jumping up and down in Morgan's arms as the boys piled onto each other. The crowd was alive again as the team took a 2-1 lead, 5 minutes left now in the second period.

Morgan looked at you, shaking her head before shouting something you couldn't hear over the crowd. You shook your head back before she leaned in closer.

"Is Nick in on this shit?" she yelled.

You looked at her, confused.

"Why else wouldn't he take that shot? It was wide open."

The idea of Rafe recruiting his best friend and linemate into this made you lightheaded and giddy. As you looked back at the bench, the two of them were shoulder to shoulder, looking right at you and Nick waved, a goofy little smile on his face for the briefest of seconds before his attention returned to the game.

Period 2: Eagles winning. 2-1.

The period ended and you spent the last intermission glued to your seat as everyone around you got up to get food and drinks, your mind spinning.

One period. Twenty minutes left for Rafe to score 2 goals. It was still nearly impossible, but didn't feel as insurmountable as before and you still weren't sure what you wanted the outcome to be. You were staring into middle space, questioning your entire relationship when your phone buzzed again in your cupholder. You swiped it open.

Two hearts.

Two goals.

You smiled widely, rolling your eyes before giggling like a little girl. You wanted to respond, and your fingers lingered over your screen, but he still had no business being on his phone, and what could you possibly say anyway?? "Nevermind!! Let's get back together despite all the shit you put me through!"

Ugh.

The third period was simultaneously the slowest and quickest 20 minutes of your life.

Rafe was battling, and the other team battled back, getting chippier and chippier as the teams exchanged penalties and breakaways, but the score stayed the same. You could feel the crowd's excitement at the prospect of scraping through this game with a one-goal lead; a good enough result to make them happy, but you couldn't deny the disappointment you felt as you were playing an entirely different game.

As time whittled down you felt yourself getting emotional as the odds were stacked against Rafe, stacked against both of you. Ten minutes. Eight. Five. Three. You could feel the familiar burn of tears behind your eyes as your foot continued to tap, eyes glancing anxiously between Rafe, the bench, the players and the jumbotron that counted down the time unceasingly.

Morgan reached for you, winding her arm around yours and grabbing your hand, a sad smile on her lips. You both knew this wasn't going to happen. There was just no way. You could sense that Rafe could feel it too, he was getting more and more desperate, scrambling after the puck, making sloppy mistakes that made you feel guilty, the most so when the other team scored… tying the game.

And then what felt like the final twist of the knife: with less than 1 minute left, they scored again, capitalizing on the dashed morale of the Eagles to take the lead 3-2. It was like someone sucked the air out of the arena. Rafe was on the ice, on his knees and all of the players looked so defeated.

Fuck fuck fuck was all you could think as they regrouped with their coach to come up with their last play, their last chance to tie the game. You leaned forward, desperately trying to read lips as if you could somehow decipher the plan. The ref blew the whistle and the coach sent guys on the ice, leaving Rafe behind, and your stomach dropped: he wasn't even going to get a chance.

Rafe argued and you could see him yelling and gesturing wildly as the coach yelled back. The ref blew the whistle again and you knew they were dangerously close to getting a delay of game penalty. A ripple of confusion went through the crowd as they watched the argument unfold and you wished you could sink into your seat and disappear.

The coach shouted something that seemed final before Rafe took one look at him, ignored him and skated onto the ice, swapping with Nick who slid onto the bench, head bowed, ashamed, as the coach berated him.

At this point, Rafe had been on the ice way longer than he should have, he was making mistakes, and now he was putting his career, his contract on the line as he stepped up to take the faceoff.

The puck dropped and the battle ensued as the teams fought back and forth. Their team took a shot on goal that had you holding your breath as the time ticked down.

There were less than 20 seconds left as the puck rebounded towards Rafe and he guided it with his stick, taking off down the ice faster than you'd ever seen him skate; in just three strides he had nearly covered the length of the rink, leaving all of the other players trailing behind him as he squared off with the goalie.

"Ten! Nine! Eight!" the crowd shouted.

You were on your feet, grasping Morgan's arm for dear life, certain you were leaving a mark as you continued to hold your breath.

Rafe shot the puck and it hit the goalie's leg pad, but bounded right back to him.

"Three! Two!"

He shot again and the goalie fell forward, but the crowd behind the goalie erupted and the official lit the lamp behind the goal - he had scored.

The puck had slid between the goalie's legs and Rafe exploded with energy, ripping down the ice and jumping into the glass in front of you as his team piled on top of him and the crowd went ballistic as fans threw their hats onto the ice to celebrate his hat trick - three goals scored.

You were jumping and screaming with the other girls, a few tears escaping your eyes in relief and excitement, overwhelmed at the entire situation.

Three goals.

He'd scored three damn goals, a new career record for him. And now they were in overtime.

Period 3: Game tied 3-3. End of regulation play.

"Wait! Wait! What the hell happens now!?" Morgan asked breathless, looking to you as the only girl that knew a thing about the rules.

"Overtime" you huffed, trying to calm yourself. "Another 20 minutes, first team to score wins."

"Was that part of the deal?" she asked.

"It wasn't not part of the deal?" you said. "We didn't really get into specifics" you laughed, rolling your eyes.

You glanced at the bench as both teams hydrated and listened to the coaches. Rafe's teammates were still all over him, smacking his helmet, arms slung around him. The coach said something to him and he put his hands up in surrender as he sat on the bench and his teammates took the ice.

Your eyes were glued to Rafe but unlike before his didn't meet yours and for a second, you didn't know how to take that. You craved that acknowledgement from him, but you also recognized the look on his face; he was totally 100% focused, eyes fixed on the action on the ice. He wants to win you thought. Or maybe his focus was for something else.

Within a few minutes, his line was up and they jumped on the ice. He was playing smart now, conservative, concentrated and gathered, a stark difference from before. He was strong on defense, backing his team up as they played perfectly off of each other, which paid off when Nick stole the puck and shouted as he passed the puck up the boards to Rafe who sprinted after it, just a stride in front of a defender.

"Oh my god" you heard Morgan mutter as everyone stood to their feet and even though the roar of the crowd was deafening, you swore you could hear every scrape of Rafe's skate against the ice, the clatter of the puck as the play moved in slow motion to the beat of your heart.

Another stride and Rafe was alone in the offensive zone, the defender just a hair behind him.

Was this really happening? Was he about to end the game, to score a fourth goal?

Another stride and he was eyeing the goalie, lining up his shot.

He maneuvered his stick and just as he was about to shoot, the defender dove, thrusting his stick in Rafe's path, causing them both to tumble onto the ice and into the goalie, the puck sliding away, abandoned as the refs blew their whistles. No goal.

Rafe was down for only a second before he stood up, grabbed his stick and swung it with full force, snapping it in half over the boards in front of him in rage and frustration, causing the fans behind the glass to jump and spill their beer on each other.

Two of the refs were frantically skating towards him, waving their arms and blowing their whistles, but your eyes drifted to the head referee who was standing next to the officials box, watching a small computer screen, a replay. Almost immediately he nodded, handed back the screen and raised his fisted hands over his head and crossed them and you let out an uncontrollable shout of excitement as you grabbed for Morgan.

"What! Oh my god! What is going on!!?" she shouted back, and all you could do was laugh and shout as you jumped up and down and pointed to the referee.

"You are the ONLY ONE HERE who knows what that means!" she shouted. "What does it mean!!!?"

"A PENALTY SHOT!" you shouted back.

Your eyes shot back to Rafe who had clocked the same thing and was skating back to the bench. The equipment manager handed him a new stick and now the arena was abuzz with the same information as the announcer explained that Rafe would have the chance to score one on one against the goalie, with all of the other players off the ice. A golden opportunity.

The fans were ballistic. You could barely hear yourself think, could barely process your emotions as you struggled onto your tiptoes again to see over the raised hands and jumping fans as Rafe skated methodically to center ice, alone.

He skated back and forth, side to side with crisp turns like a predatory shark before he stopped at center ice, hands on his stick on his knees, eyeing the goalie before his head turned slowly and he looked right at you. Even amidst the chaos, you could see his signature smirk before he refocused and gathered the puck in his stick.

He was going to score.

You just knew it. You knew by the look on his face, by the stride of his skates, by the confidence in his gait.

"He's going to score" you said out loud, quietly, to yourself, a revelation before you turned to Morgan who was solely focused on the scene unfolding on the ice. You tugged on her sleeve, desperate for her to understand the weight of what you had just said.

"He's going to score, Morgan" you said, louder, matter-of-factly.

"Well SHIT I hope so!!!!" she shouted back without looking at you, now completely wrapped up in the game.

She didn't understand.

He was going to score.

And that meant he was going to be yours again.

Your eyes found the ice and you watched as he approached the goalie, goading him out of the goal, faking him out before wrapping the puck around his leg and tipping it upward.

The goalie dove backwards at the last minute and 15,000 fans held their breath as his gloved hand extended, brushing the edge of the puck, causing it to wobble, but without enough force to change the course of fate as the puck swooshed into the net.

The goal lamp lit up.

The goal horn sounded.

And if you thought the arena was loud before, it reached a new level as fans screamed, shouted, jumped up and down and embraced each other.

You felt realization ripple over you, your gaze stuck on the ice. Stuck on the image of the goalie flat on his back, defeated. Stuck to Rafe who had ripped his helmet off, discarded as he let out a roar of victory before getting bombarded by his teammates who piled on him in celebration.

End of OT. Eagles win 4-3.

Morgan yanked you into her by your shoulders, hugging you and jumping up and down, but an unexplainable calm had settled over you, gluing your feet to the ground.

You should be excited, you were, but instead you felt like you were having an out-of-body experience. What the hell had just happened? Rafe had scored four goals, had led his team to the finals. Had he done it for himself? Of course. But wasn't a part of it for you too?

You turned and looked back at the ice, desperate to catch his eye, to talk to him, to figure this out as chaos rained around you. The players skated to center ice with their sticks raised to salute the fans before skating away, Rafe leading them quickly into the tunnel without so much as a look at you. Not even a cheeky smile or a blown kiss, which you used to get after every game. What the fuck.

Morgan shook your shoulder.

"Babes, now what?!" she asked, excited, curious, anxious.

You looked at her, lost. You had no idea. Did you text him? Were you just back together again? How did this work?

The lights dimmed as the announcer drew the crowd back in to introduce the three stars of the game - recognizing the three standout players of the night. The third star was your goalie, who stopped an unimaginable number of shots and you cheered for him as he skated solo onto the ice in a spotlight, taking a spin around the ice before tossing a t-shirt into the crowd to an excited fan.

Your heart was hammering in your chest, your mind incapable of thinking of anything but Rafe. You grabbed your phone. No new texts. The players were all in the locker room by now. Sure, they were partying and celebrating, but if he had time to text you in the middle of the game, couldn't he text you now??

Nick was the second star of the game and you glanced up from your phone to see him doing the familiar skate around the ice, waving to Morgan who blew him a kiss back, but you glanced back at your phone, willing a text to appear, opening and closing your texts, refreshing the app, messing with your wifi. Surely it was the internet connection you thought, now desperate to hear from him.

"Come on Cameron" you murmured to yourself.

"Okay, what is he doing?" you heard Morgan laugh and you looked down to the ice to see Nick still circling around, backwards, forwards, pumping up the crowd who roared around him as he gathered a t-shirt to throw. You were thrilled for him, really, but you resumed your focus on your phone. Should I turn it off and turn it back on again? you thought.

The lights dimmed further and the deep voice of the announcer reverberated, "Ladies and gentlemen, your first star of the game, with an unprecedented four goals, including your game winner--"

"Uhhh YN" you heard Morgan say.

But you were too distracted, too afraid to look away from your phone in case you missed a text coming through.

"--Rafe Cameron!!!" the announcer said, the spotlight shining on the tunnel, and your eyes shot up at the sound of his name, only to find the ice empty.

You felt Morgan tug harshly on your sleeve and when you finally looked back to her your stomach barrel-rolled and your heart shot into your throat.

Standing unmistakably next to her in the aisle was Rafe, still fully suited in his gear and pads, towering over everyone like a giant, his skates traded for his training shoes. Pieces of his hair were clinging to his forehead and his face was rosy with exertion, sweat dripping down his temple in rivulets.

He was smiling confidently at you, and unlike the last time you had seen him in your car, his eyes were unwavering and transfixed on yours, even when the fans around you turned around and noticed he was there, even when phones were whipped out and shouts and cheers went up, he ignored them; he only had eyes for you.

"How--" you started to say, your phone completely forgotten as he started to nudge his way past the people at the end of your row to walk fully into the seats next to you.

"Ohmygod, ohymgod" Morgan was saying as she clambered out of the way of his bulky frame and suddenly he was towering in front of you.

He was breathing heavily; with how quickly he made it up here it was no wonder he had been sprinting off the ice and into the tunnel. His face searched yours, eyes twinkling, flitting over your lips, searching for a sign, a signal, a hint of how you were feeling. And you weren't sure you could have expressed it even if you could form words.

He leaned down next to your ear and you could feel the sweat and the heat radiating off of him.

"That was four" he said, breathless and husky before pulling back, but not as far as before, his nose brushing yours.

The spotlight was sweeping the empty ice, looking for him as the announcer tried awkwardly to fill the air time, wondering where he was.

All you could do was meet his gaze, staring into his crystal blue eyes.

And all you could see was your Rafe.

Sure, he had his issues, but you knew he was sincere, you knew he was trying and you acknowledged that despite everything he was probably the love of your life.

"We didn't agree on overtime goals" you said loudly back at him to be heard over the crowd.

For a moment you could see fear, panic and a hint of hurt cross his face; if you didn't know him as well as you did you wouldn't have seen it, it was nearly indetectable. But he took one look at your sly smile, your blushing cheeks, your eyes rimmed with tears.

"C'mere" he said roughly, ignoring you as his warm and sweaty hands that smelled unmistakably like his gloves grabbed your face and pulled you towards him as his lips enveloped yours, engulfing you, bold, brazen and completely unabashed as he full on made out with you, chaotically, his tongue slipping into your mouth, even when you tried to wiggle away, more out of a sense of decorum than anything as a feeling seeped through every inch of you like he was mending every wound in your body.

He was sweating all over you at this point, but you didn't care. You could feel it dripping on you. You could taste it in his kiss, mixed with the tang of yellow gatorade and your fingers grasped for purchase on his jersey as you tried to balance yourself against the force of him pressing into you.

The crowd around you erupted, as the flash of pictures being taken lit the two of you. He was unrelenting and you could feel yourself flushing as much from his attention as from the heat radiating off of him. It definitely went on longer than it should have, longer than any right-minded couple would have made out in front of thousands of fans before he paused just long enough, his lips still hovering on yours and said through a growl, "You're mine, baby."

taglist: @gillybear17, @palmwinemami, @moremaybank, @one-sweet-gubler, @m-indkiller, @ihe4rttwd, @diary-of-jj, @crlsummer, @jjsbank444, @rafescurtainbangz, @romiiq, @dkjndfnmdfmdmnd, @warriorblu, @ietss, @tiaamberxx, @zyafics, @maybankslover, @saintchxx4, @akirkland, @cameronspecial, @f4ll-for-you, @diduzzula, @user123453226780536, @zizuras, @imabigback, @rowans-posts, @mymultiveres, @drewsphswife, @fangirlwithlou

[coconutdays]

emotion

s. you get stuck in your crush/study buddy's room during a freak storm.

w.c. 1.8k

w. gn! reader (I thought a fem reader when writing this, but then I noticed that I didn't really make it gender coded! so I figured it was a plus it came out this way!) , suna! x reader , fluff! suggestive! bc there is some steamy kissing and of the making out

a/n: Earth spun a wheel between Rin, Osamu, and Atsumu for me to write for and it so conveniently picked Suna Rin

Ending up in the same room as your classmate/crush during a storm, at night, with no electricity had never been on your bingo card for the year. Yet, here you were, blinking back into reality seconds after the lights just went out.

"Shit" Suna sighs. You can hear him start to move, making out the shadow of his body standing up and moving towards his beside drawer.

"I have a candle in here." He mutters, the obvious rummaging being heard before it ceases after you somewhat see a cylindrical shape in his left hand. The smell of paraffin going up into flames accompanies the slight bit of light coming from the match he just lit, it fades away the moment he blows out the match after getting the candle to light.

It isn't much, the light coming from the medium sized candle, but it lets you fawn over his face, his entire being. It's a flattering light and it sets a mood you wish you could do something about.

"You think the Professor will cancel the test?" He shivers a little when he sits down across from you again, rubbing his hands together.

That's the reason you were here in the first place, to study for that damn test.

Suna had sat next to you at the beginning the semester after getting there at the last minute and the last open seat had been the one next to yours. Ever since then, you had exchanged small talk and numbers with each other. It happened frequently, befriending the people sitting next to you in class, some days it was a great help to ask each other if the other had done the homework, understood yesterday's lecture, or if they had notes because one of you couldn't go to class that day.

But you only got excited when Suna asked you for your version of the notes from the previous lecture. Everyone always complimented your penmanship, but the first time he got your notes for reference against his, he sent a text:

lol you write really pretty

You smiled to yourself at it when he sent it and could only send a thank you back.

He didn't really befriend anyone else in the class and neither did you because of it. You didn't have the chance to when any free time in the class where the professor hadn't started lecture yet was taken up by conversation he tried striking up with you. It automatically made you study buddies by the time this first test came around.

"Well if it looks like the rest of the campus, or at least half of us lost electricity too, then it might be a no brainer to save it for another time."

He lets out a puff of air as a sarcastic laugh at the situation, "It's like that shit you say. Being delulu is the--"

"Solulu." You finish for him, giggling.

He lets out a 'heh' and leans forward while hugging himself even tighter, "Sorry you got stuck here. The storm really came out of nowhere."

"I'm sorry I got stuck here." You counter, your body starting to shiver at the increasingly cold air filling up the room with harsh cold rain storming just a window away and no heater to protect against it. "I'm in your room after all."

"It's fine," He says, his eyes acting a bit more fox-like than usual as he stares you down before he adds, "Let me give you one of my hoodies, it's getting cold."

And before you can interject and say that won't be necessary, which it really won't--you don't need Suna's hoodie, you're fine freezing to death if it means you don't have to breathe in his intoxicating scent clinging to your skin--he's getting up and walking to his closet.

As quickly as he gets up, he's coming back and handing you a hoodie, the specifics of it like the color or design not something your eyes couldn't register at the moment.

"Thanks." You meep out, basking in the moment your head first slips through it and you feel the hoodie envelop you. You didn't know what was keeping you warm now, the actual material draped over your body or the fact that it was Suna's and he had worn it before, it was his.

When you look back at him and squint a little, you can tell he's wearing one of his own too. One he rarely wore--yes you noted how frequently he wore his hoodies, you couldn't help but make the observation.

"Well if we think tomorrow's test is gonna be cancelled..." Suna drags on, "We can play Mario Kart on my switch?"

You weren't one to frequently come across the opportunity to play on a switch, so you asked, "It can work without wifi?"

"Yea, " He nods, "it's the only I can think of to keep us occupied while we wait to see if the electricity comes back any time soon."

You can think of something else.

And so does he, but he won't tell you that either.

While he gets up to get his console from his desk, you nervously near his bed.

"Hey, Suna, can I play on your bed?"

A shiver runs up his spine and his eyes go wide as he's disconnecting any unnecessary wires from his switch. Time stands still for him and-

"Suna?"

"Yea!" He manages to blurt out like it's not big deal as he comes back to you with the console in hand. When he joins you in sitting on his bed, next to you, propping up the little screen across from both of you, he says, "And you can call me Rintaro. If you want."

You lean over a bit to look at him curiously, noticing a slight change in his demeanor, as if he had something else busying his mind. His eyes seemed caught up in a thought.

"Sure."

That small observation of yours became a thing of the past soon after you had finished playing two matches against him.

He had become your worst enemy.

"You do not let me catch a break!" You laugh and yell at the same time, shoving him with your shoulder.

"Just because you don't play it often, doesn't mean I have to go easy on you." He defends himself, smirking as he looks at you from the corner of his eye while he picks a new map to play on.

You toss your controller to his side of the bed to throw an over exaggerated fit.

"Well now I don't wanna play if I'm gonna keep getting bullied like this." You haughtily huff and cross your arms

Suna jokingly rolls his eyes and is about to ridicule you when you're both suddenly enveloped in darkness again.

The candle must've gone out.

And for some reason, the lack of light made for a lack of noise in the space between the both of you. The rumbles coming from the storm outside filled the void between the both of you and eventually closed the space between you two when a monstrous crack of thunder and lightning made you yelp and grab onto whatever was near.

The shock of the sudden noise had you breathing a bit quick and with your arms around Suna's torso, who instinctively put his arms around you too.

It was quiet, yet not at the same time.

The roaring storm outside was noisy enough,

but you and your study buddy weren't saying anything.

Your hands can feel how sturdy he is underneath the layers of his shirt and hoodie. He's big, an obvious fact considering he is tall and a volleyball player for the school, but it seems so much more prominent when your hand feels so small compared to his huge back.

His breath tickles your ear and you move your head back when you shiver because of it.

His face is now in front of yours because of it. And now you're both in a position to kiss. You can feel his body and mind contemplating it, by the way his head moves a little and how his breath starts to sound. You don't doubt that you're probably doing the same.

When you feel his hand squeeze around your hip, you give him a small peck on the lips. It took all of your courage and some of the intensity from the moment to do it.

You have no opportunity to berate yourself for doing it when he chases after your mouth immediately when you're about to pull away.

And now you're making out with...

"Suna." You sigh, feeling him manhandle you onto his lap

"Rin." He breathes quickly before he reaches for your mouth again.

You can't help the mewl you let out from savoring the moment like the repeated relief of taking off your shoes after a long day of walking.

"Rin." You repeat after him.

Rintaro, Rin, is breathing just as heavily against you as you are. He's going as far as you are, whatever you do, he does in return. When you swipe your tongue against his lips, he does the same, except you open your mouth to him when he does.

And now you're both kissing with tongue.

You moan particularly loud and he juts his hips up into you right before he pulls away from you, the look in his eyes something you so agonizingly wish you could see right now.

"I like you a lot." He confesses, moving his hands down to slither across your thighs and hold them there.

"I like you a lot too." You say back, gripping onto the hem of his hoodie.

"Yea?" Rin breathes against you, going back in to kiss you

"Mhm." You sigh in relief.

"Fuck, "He can't help but push up into you, "You're so fucking pretty."

"You think so?"

"Know so." He groans and heads towards your neck for an assault, holding you in place by the back of your neck. "I want you so bad."

You grind your hips against him, turned on by the confession, "I want you bad too."

BOOM!

And you get scared shitless by the bitchy thunder again, dragging you away from the intensity of your increasingly intense makeout session with Rintaro and into a breathless heap of laughter with him. He had fallen back onto the bed, dragging you down with him and into his arms, snuggled into the crook of his neck.

"Does this mean I can finally follow you on Instagram?"

"Huh?" You're still dazed from the oxygen sucking of a makeout you just shared with him

"I found it a long time ago, but you never gave it to me so I didn't wanna seem like a stalker. You looked really pretty in your post last week though. I like pink on you."

"Stalker!"

[gatorbites-imagines]

Hi I see your requests are open!

Could you do a Flash ( Barry Allen) x alien reader?

Where the Reader's true form looks like the Martians, but dark purples and cool greys?

Apart of the Reader's culture, is rough housing. So they like to spar and chase around Barry. Though, apart of their rough housing is pinning. So everytime they spar, Reader pins Barry to the ground or wall, making him extremely flustered.

-Crow

Barry Allen x Alien Male reader

Headcanons

We are back after kinktober, finally. Guess who handed in their last psychology assignment of the year, now it’s just my religion project and exams and I’ll be free until next semester.

For the martian appearance, I went with the more, what should I call it?? lizard? Plant? Looking? Appearance, you see in young justice.

Your species was from Mercury, meaning you were extremely hot blooded, which lead to your kind being, what should I say, competitive by nature. Martians and Mercurians descended from the same place, which is why your species were similar in some ways like appearance.

Unlike martians, you couldn’t shapeshift. Mercurians did have the ability of intangibility, power negation, and power amplification, along with the same type of telepathy and telekinesis you would find in martians.

Unlike the greens and other similar colours you would find on Mars, your people were cooler colours in contrast of the warm colours of your home planet. Every member of your species possessed different patterns in their skin as well, which wasn’t easily spotted by the naked eye.

It helped your people identify each other, and some of the spirit mediums claimed to be able to tell your future off these patterns, think like reading someone’s destiny in their palm.

The Mercurians had stayed away from earth as long as it had existed, but after larger and larger enemies showed up in your part of the galaxy, your people joined in on fighting them off.

You were the 6th child of the ruler of your planet at the time, your parent having been chosen as leader through democracy for many hundred years because of how just they were. But because of this, and your interest in interworld communication, you were the one sent to earth.

Here you met the justice league. The first person you got along with was of course J'onn J'onzz, and his niece M'gann M'orzz, as your people and culture were similar in some ways, and your people descended from the same origin.

Your inability to shapeshift made it hard for you to take part in human culture, even as you bonded with the other members of the league, like superman, the many green lanterns, M'ganns teammates, and so on and so forth.

It was on one of the days you were growing antsy for anything to happen that you fell into conversation with Barry, The Flash, as he was called. Talking to him calmed some of the fidgetiness in your body, there was just something about him and how fast he talked when he was passionate about a subject, that cooled your inner flames.

It also helped that he ran hot, as earth was much much colder than your home planet of Mercury. You also would never admit how it made your Mercurian vocal cords trill when he raved about your purple colour, and how it shifted in the sunlight.

J'onn teased you quite a lot as you started developing feelings for the speedster. You denied it vehemently, but even M'gann could tell and would tease you as well. All of this happened over your telepathy of course, so no one else on the team seemed to pick up on it, except for Batman, since he saw pretty much everything.

After some time, Barry seemed to pick up on your inability to stay still, or how you were always found in the gym beating up the equipment. It was J'onn who explained your people’s culture to him, and how roughhousing was the way your people bonded.

Because of this roughhousing not happening, you didn’t feel as close to the league as you would be able too. And Barry, who had started to develop feelings for you in return, found himself wondering if you might be interested in a sparring match.

When he finally summoned up the courage to ask, he didn’t even have time to doubt his act of asking, as you launched yourself at him like an overexcited cat, immediately wrestling him to the ground.

Barry hadn’t thought this fully through, as he found himself being pinned to the floor, the wall, the ceiling once or twice, throughout this sparring. He became so flustered that he almost forgot about his speed.

There was just something about how excited you seemed to be that someone finally wanted to roughhouse and spar with you, and the trills and chirps that rang from your chest and throat instinctually, only made him want to keep doing it.

This kept up for some time, both of you taking time out of your schedules to roughhouse at least once a week. And over time Barry was able to keep up, even though he still found himself blushing and sputtering when you pinned him just right.

J'onn ended up telling the rest of the team what was up, and roughhousing became part of the usual sparring when you were involved, for team bonding.

But what you and Barry had was something special, just between you two. And when you started adding your hidden stripes to his suits stitching, no one would be the wiser, except for maybe J'onn, who just seemed amused.

Your people didn’t kiss, you didn’t really have the lips, but you wanted to try it. Kissing Barry the first time after pinning him to the floor once again, had been a little awkward. Lips pressed against teeth, not much of the romantic liplocking you had seen in earth movies.

But Barry seemed just as passionate after realizing what was up, his arms immediately wrapping around you and kissing you back as passionately.

The roughhousing continued even as you started dating, and when the team found a way to let you alter your shape to a human one, you two would go on dates.

There were moments you felt self-conscious about your appearance, as many humans were more attractive, but Barry was always quick to wrestle you into his arms to tell you he loved you for who you were, and that he didn’t care about that stuff, and you were handsome to him.

Lets just say the first time Barry met your family it lead to a huge family wide roughhousing and wrestling, and he had to resort to using his speed more than once to not get mobbed by your family who wanted to bond with him and get to know him since you loved him so much.

[theemporium]

It was supposed to be an innocent meeting.

You were a good student—an excellent one even. You chose your classes wisely, you didn’t let your grade drop and fluctuate much. You were sweet to your professors, you volunteered when you had free time, you excelled in your extracurriculars. You were the model student, the kind of student that other college students envied because you made it look so easy even if it was far from it.

Professor Sebastian Vettel’s class on apiology was right up your alley. You knew you were leaning more towards the environmental sciences for your major, but it also worked well with the credits you needed for the semester. And maybe it sounded a little cocky, but you didn’t think you would have much trouble in the class of one of the university’s most beloved professors. 

But you were wrong. 

You were struggling. You were struggling badly and it was starting to affect your overall grade for the year. And after receiving a disappointing mark on the last paper, you had sent Professor Vettel a pleading email for any extra credit projects that could help you boost your grade up. 

You tried not to feel disheartened when he replied that he doesn’t really do extra credit projects, but he advised you to visit his office on a Thursday night, just after his office hours. He told you he could see your potential and he just wanted to help a bright student shine in a class where you could be excelling in. 

You didn’t hesitate to accept his offer, thanking him immensely when you did.

You tried to ignore the way your heart stuttered when you walked through his office door after knocking, finding him sitting behind his desk. The top of his shirt was unbuttoned and exposing his chest, his sleeves were rolled to his elbows and, maybe it was the ambient light of the lamp beside him, but he looked far more casual and relaxed than he did in his classes. 

He greeted you with a soft smile and gestured towards the seat across from where you quickly settled down, tucking your hands under your thighs as you tried to ease the tightness in your chests. 

You hadn’t even meant to daze out when he started going over your last paper, but his words were going in one ear and out the other, and you just couldn’t focus on the words coming out his mouth when your eyes were so focused on the shape of his lips as he moved. It took an embarrassingly long time for you to realise he had stopped speaking, just looking at you expectantly as you flushed under his gaze.

“Come here.”

You blinked. “What?” 

“Come here,” he repeated again as he nodded towards his side of the desk. “I think it will help you to understand your mistakes if we look over it together.” 

“I—” You started but you cut yourself short as you hesitantly stood up, making your way around the desk. You paused as you stood by his seat, keeping your hands together as you glanced down at his laptop before glancing back at him. “Should I move a seat—”

“Sit down,” he said, his voice soft and commanding.

Your brows furrowed together. “What?”

“Sit down,” Sebastian repeated, his eyes darting down to his lap before looking back at you. “I won’t repeat myself.”

And maybe you should have just walked out of the office. Or even drag a chair around like you assumed he would want you to do. Maybe you should have done a lot of other logical things, but logic was never your forte when you were around Professor Vettel.

You cautiously lowered yourself onto his lap, perched on the edge like you were afraid to fully put your weight on him. And he let that slide—for a while at least. 

But as the minutes passed, his hands went from resting on the armrests to casually holding onto your waist. He leaned forward to point something out on his laptop, his lips right by your ear as he spoke but when he sat back, he pulled you back with him until your back was flushed against his chest. 

And despite your better judgement, you couldn’t help but give into every single one of his touches. 

“You’re squirming.”

You blinked, feeling your cheeks burn as you rose to stand up. “I’m sorry—”

His grip tightened on your waist, keeping your ass pressed against him. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” he continued, his thumbs rubbing up and down in a soothing movement. “I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable.” 

“I am, sir.” 

His hands fisted the material of your skirt in his hands. “Are you?” 

“Yes,” you breathed out, your eyes fluttering shut when you felt his warm palms on your thighs. “Sir—”

“Is there a problem?” He asked, his voice dropping a little as you resisted the urge to clench your thighs together.

“Should we be doing this?” You whispered.

“Do you want me to stop?” Sebastian retorted.

“No,” you said, a little high-pitched and whiny as your hand darted out to grip his wrist, to keep his hands on you. “Don’t…don’t stop.”

Because you didn’t want him to stop even if a part of you knew it was wrong. You didn’t want him to stop as his hands trailed up your thighs and under your skirt. You didn’t want him to stop as his fingers lightly teased you over your cotton panties. You didn’t want him to stop as he slowly slid your panties down your legs until they pooled at your ankles, his fingers buried deep inside you before you could even kick them off.

“Please,” you sobbed, your face tucked into the crook of his neck as you squirmed on his lap. But he didn’t give in.

“You wanted to discuss your paper,” Sebastian said, lightly slapping your inner thigh until your teary eyes were focused on his laptop screen again. “Don’t be greedy now, schatz.”

“Sir,” you whined, your hips bucking against his palm but he didn’t move his fingers. 

“Good girls only get to come when they do their work,” Sebastian continued, trying to bite back his smirk as you leaked down his wrist and your own thighs. “Do you want to be a good girl?”

You nodded, whimpering. 

“Then, focus on the screen. And then maybe I’ll let you come, if you’re a good student f’me, yeah?”

And it was far from the last paper you would meet Professor Vettel to discuss in his office after his office hours.

.

[cinnamonest]

OMG I MISSED YOUR WRITINGS ON SCARAMOUCHE SO MUCH!!

Please I need the version with camgirl reader x incel Scaramouche 🛐

And I hope you are well !!! <3

The way I was gonna make this a fairly simple post and then I got carried away and now it's 9k words WHOOPS

Anyway YES anon, I am on the slut girl x virgin boy agenda... although since I already have a camgirl, this time I went with like an onlyf*ns/e-girl darling + college AU >:3

//noncon, cyberstalking, blackmail, harassment, misogyny, sadism, nipple/ass stuff, revenge porn/leaking, darling is portrayed as being feminine + implied to have a bf

---

You tell yourself it's just to get you through college.

That's how you convinced yourself to start the account — regular camming requires a schedule and streaming and all that, which you'd rather not do, whereas the other outlets let you sell subscriptions for photos and videos, and there was a decent market out there, so you took your best shot, did some work to advertise yourself on mainstream social sites, and hey, it worked. You soon find yourself with a steady stream of income, and all you have to do is masturbate on camera and take a few posed photos of your body.

A few years of some extra income, and then you'll be done, get a better job, and you can delete the account and scrub the internet clean of any trace of the matter. Maybe some guy out there will keep some of the photos, but it can't be that bad.

This way, you can focus on your academics, which a regular part-time job would be too time-consuming for. You don’t have to worry about scheduling classes around a work schedule, either, which allows you to be more choosy on your class schedule, ensuring you get the later classes and don’t have to wake up early each day.

Except one, where you had no choice but to take the early class, as the other sections filled up fast. It’s one of those required tech-involved ones, you just picked from the list at random — one of those big classes with hundreds of people in a huge auditorium, any degree of personalism drowned by the sheer number of people. It’s a male-dominated subject field, and the body of attending students when you walk in clearly reflects that, so you just sit down in the very back at the first unclaimed seat you can find, pausing to say good morning to the boy next to you, who only briefly looks your way in acknowledgement.

The professor goes over the generic first-day material — that yes, you need the expensive textbook, that yes, he will check attendance, and no, he will not give you extra credit at the last minute at the end of the semester, so on and so on… and—

—you’ll be working with the person next to you for the rest of the semester.

Even-numbered seats, the person to your immediate left, odd-numbered seats, to your immediate right. You turn and smile at the guy you’re thus assigned to, the same one you spoke to a few moments ago — once again, he just glances over at you and nods with some vague acknowledgement and then resumes doing what he’s been doing since the professor started, which is scrolling on his phone beneath the desk, only half-paying attention. That does not bode well for your predictions of how equally-yoked you’ll be in your work ethic… but no big deal.

It's one of those classes with a midterm and final project that you work on throughout the semester, rather than tests… which, hey, that could be fun, you tell yourself. You think you can get along. He doesn’t seem to care about what's going on around him much, which is not exactly good, but isn’t bad.

That dopey, happy demeanor… so obnoxious… ugh, you’ve got a notebook (an aesthetic, pretty one at that), and you're pulling it out on the first day of class? For what?

Except you aren’t reading him all that well at all. Unbeknownst to you, his eyes shift over to you and your activities throughout the class. And the reality is he very much does care.

That is, from the very second he lays eyes on you, you irritate him.

Then you write the class and your name at the top of the page all cutesy and artsy-looking, and then— God, now you're pulling out the multiple colors of highlighters and pens. Is that— is that one of those sparkly gel pens? Oh, it is. You’re making a little header with today’s date for your notes with it. Just kill him now. This is practically psychological torture.

Thus, while from your perspective, it feels like he barely pays you a second thought, in reality the rest of the period for him is spent just stewing in a stream of bitter, jaded thoughts.

Look at you with your… girl clothes and girl pens and girl notebook… you probably think you're so cute, spending money on dumb stuff like that… and smiling like an idiot. What are you so happy for. Why are you even taking this class when you'll just be bad at it. Why are you dressed like you put effort into it. Just pick up one of the sweatshirts laying on your bedroom floor like a reasonable person. And why do you smell so nice too.

He mulls over the negativity for the remainder of the class period, totally zoned out until people start packing up, which is the cue to leave.

Except you stop him before he can make a quick exit, holding out your phone, open to a new entry in your contacts.

Ah, since we'll need to work on the project, I can text you…

Right. That. Ugh.

The awkward discomfort of standing there and entering a name and number while you stand there with that dumb little nervous smile is only made more upsetting by the bitter realization that this will mark the first time he's ever had his number in a girl's phone before. Great, now he's going to be depressed for the rest of the day, and it's your fault.

You say thanks and smile again and your hands brush against his when you take your phone back and it makes him physically flinch in recoil — and you definitely noticed it, you mumble a little ah, sorry as if you're trying to make it even more awkward, now he's got to live with the humiliation of that too, and it's still your fault. Clearly, you are going to be nothing but a source of frustration.

And even once he's moped all the way back to the the comfort of his nice, dark apartment, he still can't escape your torment — no sooner does he flop down into bed than his phone goes off…

>Hi! Just wanted to make sure you can save my number too!

You add the little smiling emoji. It makes his eye twitch.

Trying to act all nice and sweet as if you're not only being pleasant because you're forced to work together. He knows full well you'd be all bitchy and demanding and hypersensitive in any other context, and probably all snobbish too, probably would barely pay him any mind.

Even if you are genuinely sweet, that in and of itself is still basically torturing him. Because what’s the point in you being sweet if you’re not going to give him anything more than that? With that in mind, even your niceness is just a cruel tease.

And why would you even be so happy to begin with? Doesn't being a girl suck? If he was something so weak and inferior and unintelligent, he'd be even more miserable about life, and that's really saying something. Maybe it's one of those things where you're so dumb that you lack self-awareness, so you can live a life of ignorant bliss... at the same time, the notion that you’re unaware of how inferior you are is equally frustrating. You should know, that knowledge should weigh on your mind all the time.

The frustration makes his chest feel tight, makes him grind his teeth… naturally, he has to get it out somehow, and there's a very convenient means to do so.

The imageboards he frequents almost always have a “leaked images” thread up and running, communities where they post e-girls’ nudes and revenge porn. The wrongness of it, of course, is the appeal.

Besides, they all deserve it. Some are images originally sent to boyfriends, posted as an act of revenge after cheating or dumping the guy (so it's deserved, really), others are leaked videos and photos from various pay-to-view networks and websites (also deserved, for being a whore), and finally some are just creepshots in public places (deserved once more, for dressing that way).

And the endless amount of the content and surprisingly good tagging system means that one can find any sort of content, and for the leaked porn accounts, it includes the girl's username and links to more of her, so you can see more of the same girl.

Like with this one, that just so happens to catch his eye. There's a whole page where some guy has paid for every single photo this girl has made, and put it out there for everyone to see for free. It's solo stuff, too, which is preferred — seeing couples making videos together, thereby watching the girl love on some guy, is depressing — and getting off to it is much more satisfying than any of the other girls on this thread, considering she looks like you.

…A lot, actually.

He's already memorized your annoying, pretty little face. The title of the video has the words “college girl” in it, too. Adds to the immersion, can feel like it’s really you, degrading yourself like that… of course, when it’s over, he has to deal with the reality that it isn’t, but the momentary pretending is cathartic.

And sure enough, as the first week passes, you quickly prove just as irritating as he initially suspected. You smile at him and talk to him every class, for some unknown, malicious ulterior motive. Are you trying to be belittling? Or are you trying to make him like you so that he'll do favors for you? Or is it for your own amusement?

Either way, the obvious deceit of it all is sickening. It's a commonly known female behavior. You try to come across as so sweet when in reality it's all an act, and you have some horrible reason for it. He just doesn't know what the reason is in your case yet. It would be better to be a bad person outright — the slimy underhanded fakeness of it all is what makes that type of evil so contemptible.

You, though, you’re just a bit puzzled. Normally, being nice to people works well… but this guy keeps sort of glaring at you… maybe that’s just how his face naturally is? But then, he also doesn’t talk very nice either. Not particularly mean, per se, but you can sort of sense an irritation, like you’ve done something wrong… you try to make the best of it, tell yourself you’re just imagining it. Besides, if he really didn’t like you, he wouldn’t respond when you talk to him, or would sit elsewhere, right? It’s not like you have to maintain the same seats all semester, as long as you work on the required material outside of class. So, you tell yourself, he must just be one of those people that naturally has that demeanor.

You’re not nearly as aware of it, but he makes his own observations of you too. You don’t check your phone nearly as much as he does, but every now and then, you look at something or another, and he always makes sure to subtly turn his eyes to see… it’s usually something stupid, like texts from friends, or worse, what appears to be a boyfriend, some male name you text often.

The first time you’re forced to meet outside of class, at the library per your suggestion — a very awkward interaction, but you seem to be fairly unbothered — you take a moment to check it when it vibrates. You’re sitting at an angle that makes it difficult for him to see without moving in a way that would catch your attention, but by pretending to take a swig of whatever can of liquid caffeine he has today (you had the audacity to comment how unhealthy it is), that he can tilt his head enough just to barely make out your screen without being noticed.

Your phone is open to an email.

The words flash across the screen for just a split second before you turn the screen off, but that one second is enough to make out the top of the screen. Enough time for the ‘hello, (username),’ preface to the email right beneath a very familiar blue logo to register with his brain.

He nearly chokes.

It takes every ounce of willpower to even try to hide the natural reaction — his eyes widen, he goes tense, he has to turn his torso away and pretend to fish something out of his cluttered bottomless void of a backpack whilst trying to refrain from coughing.

But then again, you put the phone away so quickly once you saw what it was… and the video from the other day…?

No. That can't be right.

There's no way. There's no way, there's no way, there's no way.

He can’t get back to his own place fast enough. Dropping the keys trying to unlock the door out of excitement, immediately whipping out his own phone, and he’s on the bookmarks tab before he can even sit down. Back to the leaks site, scrolling down to the tags where they put the girl’s username.

You’re wholly unbothered, going right back to talking to him in that overly-sweet tone, so nice, so frustrating, so torturous. You’re saying something. He has to get you to repeat yourself… no, it was just some pointless question about the homework.

To hell with that, that’s not even remotely important anymore… but he can’t voice that thought out loud, so he’s forced to tolerate the torment of waiting out the rest of your meeting until you finally say you’ll have to keep working later.

The usernames match. The one in your email was the exact same as the one now on the screen.

…

It's one of those moments where what's in front of him is so surreal, he's left so stunned, that he just sits there for a second, completely still, blinking and taking it in. Something that's too perfect to be real. This can't be actually happening, he's mistaken.

And thus he's just left perfectly still, a stupor of disbelief, sitting there in the darkness of the room with only the harsh light of phone screen shining up on his face as it slowly sinks in. It takes a minute — this is just the sort of thing that doesn't happen, it's far too perfect, he has to convince himself it isn't a dream.

And once it registers as reality, it feels exhilarating.

For one, it proves every suspicion right. He really did have a valid reason to be distrusting of your innocent girl act. To think, this whole time you were trying to fool him into believing you were good.

But all along, you were whoring out online, and basically, the fact that you're not upfront about that to someone you barely know is the same as outright lying about it.

Up until this point, life has just been so boring, so disappointing, just going through day to day… even college was just a thing to do because it's what everyone else does. But now? Now he has something exciting. A sudden sense of something meaningful, even if only as an outlet for pure, unadulterated malice.

As for you, well, you get a… well, a follower, but certainly not a fan.

The boy is a world-class hater. It's not passive hating, it's active hating. There is actual effort being put in here, and a lot of it at that.

In terms of the content itself, it's nothing you haven't seen before — some guy leaving comments and DMs calling you a whore and a slut and every nasty name one can conjure, saying you've ruined any hopes of a relationship by doing this, why would anyone ever date you when they can see you naked for a few bucks, telling you to get a real job, blah blah… fairly generic. A lot of the verbiage is certainly non-original, and more or less recycled, specific choices of words and phrases and lingo you know you’ve seen before in those pockets of the internet where certain types of men congregate.

But the sheer dedication to it is what catches you off guard. You're pretty sure this guy is more dedicated to harassing you than you are to the job itself. There's messages from all hours of the day, and you're certain after a short time that he makes multiple accounts for the sole purpose of harassing you. Not to mention he follows or adds you on everything — all the socials you've linked (you keep several associated to your account to lure in horny guys from mainstream sites), adds you on discord and any other messaging app you have (and you have no way of knowing which users are legitimate or if it's him, so you have to add them back and wait to find out each time). One of which you didn't even have listed on your page, so you realize he would have had to go through various apps and search the multiple variations of your username you use until finding you.

Telling him to fuck off accomplishes nothing, in fact he seems to derive great satisfaction from making you upset about it. Tells you that you should be glad — you wanted male attention, right? You wouldn't be posting yourself getting off and flashing your tits on camera for the world to see if you didn't, slut. He adds that insult to just about everything he says to you.

Blocking him only leads to him making new accounts (and then mocking you for trying to block him). You even reached out to a customer support team on one of your social media apps and got him permanently IP banned, which he then immediately circumvented in less than a few hours, making sure to inform you that changing one's IP is so easy and you're so dumb for thinking that would do anything.

But why you, specifically? Why decide to torment you out of every other girl doing this stuff? You don't know. You never asked for this. You never did anything wrong to anyone. You even scrolled back on your social accounts to see if you ever said anything someone could take offensively or had a negative interaction with someone, but found nothing. There's nothing to explain why this one man in particular has decided to come after you specifically, nothing you can think of at least. It feels like the universe just hates you.

It's actually kinda sad. You almost feel bad for this guy, who apparently has so much time to spare and nothing better to do than harass the same girl on the internet day in and day out. You did once shoot back a reply of don’t you have anything better to do?, which actually did make him stop… for about ten hours or so, then it was right back to it.

It's deserved, though, he thinks. E-girls are reprehensible. Taking advantage of guys’ loneliness for money.

Infuriating that you advertise something that he— well, that most guys want so bad, but don't actually give the real thing, only a simulation of it. Make them drool over you, while you hide behind the safety of the screen, far away from what those guys would do to you if they could get their hands on you.

And you know that too, don't you? You know how defenseless you are, know how much danger you'd be in if you teased without putting out like that to a guy in real life, and you do it anyway knowing you're untouchable, you must be so smug about it. Infuriating.

He's not like those simps of yours though, he finds you too morally reprehensible to be drawn to the curves of your body and the parts of you that you post and the sounds you make and how easy it is to imagine the softness of your skin and the way you feel and your warmth and the way you look directly into the camera as you moan and it feels like eye contact—

Anyway, he has standards. And self-respect.

Besides, he knows from stalking your social accounts — including your real ones with your real identity attached, separate from the others — that you have something like a boyfriend. Some guy who shows up in your pictures a lot. What a pathetic idiot. Who lets their girlfriend do this sort of thing? Even disregarding that, does this guy not know you’re meeting with him for your project too? He would never allow you to do something like that, were it him in that position. You must go after spineless guys who will let you walk all over them or something, and would only even accept boyfriends that allow you to do what you do.

That’s why, see, he would never accept something like that. Sure, there would be positives, like getting to see that sweet annoying smile and hear your happy obnoxious precious voice each and every day, and getting to touch you and be around you all the time, and you probably do really nice things for the person you’re with too, and he could always just force you to delete the accounts and never post yourself online again— but, whatever.

Point is, he’s better than stooping so low. He’ll keep living a respectable life, just like he does now — so he thinks as the phone alarm goes off, one of many set reminders to go send you more messages.

It's an awkward relationship, but you're pretty sure he doesn't hate you or anything, which is good. He's hard to read — he seems perpetually either bored or irritated, always slouched over, always maintaining that ‘I really wish I weren't here right now’ tone of voice, lots of heavy sighs or tsks scattered into his speech. Even when you agree to meet at the library to work on the homework and midterm project, he quickly establishes a pattern of being at least ten to fifteen minutes late (without any acknowledgement or apology at that), and frankly, you do the vast majority of the actual work, he just slaps his name on the corner next to yours once it's done.

The torment detracts from your sleep. You're late to your class more than once, trying to sneak in unnoticed by the professor and mumbling apologies to the students you have to slip by to get to your seat. Your partner doesn't seem to care much, at least — he just lazily glances over at you with a flat expression, then goes back to scrolling (he doesn't need to take notes, you'll just send him yours anyway).

He does step in to help when it's too difficult, you can't solve the problem yourself… which is how you realize that, in spite of being remarkably low-effort, he actually does understand the material, much better than you do at that. It's a bit embarrassing, since he makes it out to be so simple, but at least it somewhat compensates for all the work you do.

He's not particularly mean about it, he's just… not nice. The tone and choice of words tends to be not-so-subtly making you out to be dumb for not getting it, or that it's easy, or otherwise belittling.

…You really don't get that one? It's the exact same thing as the last one.

You give a sheepish smile and rub the back of your head.

Aha… sorry…

But it gets done, and that's what matters. You just walk away from each meeting feeling like an idiot, which isn't exactly a great feeling.

But even though you initially felt like the guy didn’t care for you, you quickly notice that he’s started to walk all the way back to your place after your meetings while you talk. You supposed he wouldn’t do that if he didn’t at least somewhat enjoy your company.

And you do try to make conversation. You ask about what other classes he takes…only to learn that he doesn't go to any other classes, since this is the only one where attending is required. He did the math, and he just has to do good on the finals for the other classes to pass, no need to show up for the tests and quizzes and lectures and stuff… and he did research into the professors to find ones where past students confirm they recycle the exact same tests and the past ones are posted online, and he's already got a good cheating method that's only been caught once in all the years he's used it… so there's no point in showing up, he says.

It's a very different mentality than yours, but you try to smile and refrain from saying anything negative. And you try interests and social life as topics, but quickly glean from what little he says that the guy has none of the latter and more or less just a phone and gaming addiction for the former.

Which you have no trouble believing, because good God, does the boy have a totally fried attention span. Even in your meetings, you swear he can't go five minutes without staring at his phone.

Oh, you like that too…?

That does end up helping you find a means to try and get closer. You manage to find one opening, something flash across the screen for some upcoming game. One you've been looking forward to as well.

Huh? You can’t like that thing. He likes that thing. It's not for females. It’s for people with good taste… it’s good… you can’t… someone like you would never be able to properly appreciate it… and now you’re just babbling away with that dumb smile while he’s going through a psychological crisis and rethinking every choice in life because of you. Does this put you two on the same intellectual level...? No, of course not, he has to quickly shake off any such doubts.

You were hoping to get a positive reaction, but you get silent bewilderment in his expression at first, for just a second.

Still, you’re supposed to be boring and a normie… you can’t just suddenly shatter the image of you he’s already constructed… and from the way you're talking about it, you know too much to just be pretending to like something for attention (which is the obvious automatic assumption for when females like media that's actually good and worth consuming).

Devastating. Now he has to consider the possibility that you do have interests and a personality besides being deceitfully sweet and whoring online.

But from your perspective, he just crosses his arms and shrugs.

Kind of, I guess.

And God, then you smile at him again. Every time you do that, it gives him some godawful tight-chested feeling, like you’re trying to kill him with psychic damage.

What gives you the right to be so happy right now anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be in constant distress, now? Is he not doing good enough of a job at tormenting you? You seemed upset, but clearly not upset enough, if you’re still emotionally stable enough to be nice to him. He has to break you, make you too distraught to even go on.

Online, you’re so mean, you never have anything nice to say, even though he’s not that mean to you — well, he could be worse, at least, which is basically the same thing.

Actually, he decides, how you behave in real life will be a good standard of how good he’s doing at making your life miserable. Once it starts to noticeably affect you even in real life, that means it’s sufficient.

But you prove resilient. Each day, you seem to get up, summon some resolve to still enjoy your life, and are still pleasant and friendly… or maybe you’re just really good at acting. Yes, obviously that’s it, since your whole sweetness thing is just an act in the first place.

On your end, the harassment gets worse. It comes in all hours of the day — does this guy not sleep? It’s almost hard to believe someone hates you this much, or even has the energy to keep this up… you start trying to just ignore it.

You tried threatening to report the guy for harassment, but he points out that he hasn’t threatened you with any real harm, and only targeted your public accounts, so no laws broken… and he’s already prepared by taking measures to— well, you don’t understand the spew of lingo that follows, but you gather that the jist is that it would be very difficult to trace him.

So you start to ignore it. You try your best to just not let it get to you, let the comments and messages go without acknowledgement or response. It’s actually somewhat relieving, if you just pretend it doesn’t exist. At first, when you start ignoring him, the messages get more frequent.

But then, it goes quiet for a day. Just around twenty-four hours, you don't get messages, nor comments.

It should make you feel relieved, you think, but it doesn't. Quite the opposite — you feel uneasy. Like something will happen.

He's getting bored, you see. You don't react as strongly anymore as you used to. You used to get so upset at all the messages he sent, and it was so fun to watch how you'd get all defensive and angry in your replies.

Then your replies got shorter, and now— what gives your the right to ignore him? It infuriates him. Dumb whore, treating him like you think you're so much better… or, the gut-wrenching thought passes through his mind, maybe you're busy, you’re probably visiting the guys you sleep around with, since someone like you could never be loyal to that boyfriend he's certain you have.

The only option is to progress things further. He has to think about that. He didn't really have a plan on where to go from here, but now he's started to think about the bigger picture, what he wants in the long term… and that's not going to go over well for you.

It takes some work and digging on his end, but it's worth it.

It's around three in the morning when your phone goes off. It just barely manages to wake you up. You think to yourself that you should remember to turn off the notifications for messaging apps… but for now, you sit up, groggily unlocking your phone. Seeing who the message is from, though, snaps you into full alertness.

A message that makes you go stiff, staring at your phone wide-eyed and slack-jawed, a cold knot of dread forming in your gut that quickly turns to an electrifying surge of pure panic as you read.

The name of your academic institution. The names, emails and phone numbers of your immediate family members. Your full, real name — and your address, down to the unit number.

Your heart sinks into your stomach. The glaring light hurts your tired eyes, but you can't look away.

You know he's just waiting on a response. Probably knows you're panicking, but knows you have no choice but to comply — and you're forced to give him the satisfaction of seeing you type back.

>What do you want from me?

It's only a few seconds before you get a reply.

>From now on, do what I want

>Or I ruin your life.

You hesitate a while before responding. Poor you, you must be so scared now that you're finally getting what you deserve. And even then, you just send back a ‘fine,’ even though it took you so long to respond. You were probably trying to think of how to respond, probably typed out longer potential replies, but decided on that to seem tough or something. That's actually almost endearing.

And oh, it's so, so satisfying to finally see you crumble, even if just a bit, the next day. For you to come shuffling into class for once with a downtrodden, nervous expression, making your way over to your spot without the usual greeting.

…Except that's also irritating. What makes you think you can just not say hello, now that you've established a routine of doing so every day of this class? For all you know, he's just the person you know in real life, so you're basically willingly choosing to potentially disappoint him. Not that you are disappointing him, but like, if he actually cared about your dumb little daily greeting, then he would be. He even gives you several extra seconds, and you still don't do it.

You're still fidgeting nervously, lost in thought when the mumbling directed at you pulls you out of your thoughts.

…Something wrong with you?

You seem to realize your sullen energy and attempt to fix it with a twitching, obviously forced smile.

O-oh, no, I'm just tired, haha… good morning!

He doesn't say anything back, just turns back to phone-scrolling as usual. You realize your melancholy must be showing on your face.

You're being overdramatic, too, he thinks. He didn't even give you any demands yet, since he decided it would be more fun to make you wait in suspense for a few hours or so. Seeing you squirm is funny, but really, you're acting like it's so much worse than it is. What a weakling, so sensitive.

It's just gonna be stuff you're used to anyway…

Which is somewhat true. You're used to the demand for private, custom content.

Men pay you sometimes incredible amounts of money for the stuff. Usually, the customization is about personalization — sometimes it's kind of sad, wanting you to say their name or that you love them while you look at the camera, and sometimes it's just more niche fetish stuff, like pictures of your feet or wearing a weird costume.

But everything this mystery man wants is different — the personalization has to do with the fact that it's painful, humiliating, or both. Moreover, he's never content with the first try.

Stuffing your holes with toys and sitting down on them so they go all the way in, specifically, ‘as many as you can fit’ — but even after the painful effort of getting one in each hole—

>That's not enough.

You can fit at least one more somewhere. And you're intentionally using the smaller toys, aren't you? You won't be able to do that next time, so don't try that again.

Then there's the command to get those clamps on your nipples you used in a video of yours a long time ago, the ones connected to each other by a chain, and to tighten them then pull hard enough for them to come off. You have to take a few deep breaths to summon the ability to do it, and even then, it takes a few tugs to get them to come off. By the time they do, your nipples are swollen and red and your eyes are watery from the sting, but nonetheless, a message comes through within a minute of sending the video.

>You didn't tighten them all the way first.

>Do it over.

Or the one to deep throat that one huge toy you have, the one you used in this one video a long time ago — which you now regret ever posting, since there's a reason that you never used that monstrosity again, much less in your throat. At first you're not even sure you can fit it into your mouth, but you force it somehow.

On and on the demands come. He's not paying for any of it, of course, but the premise is the same.

Still, it's not enough. Come on, you didn't even get it very far in, you have to at least get half down your throat. And you didn't hold the phone close enough, can't hear your gagging choking sounds.

>Do it again.

The timing is often terrible, shortly before or after your classes, or odd hours of the night, forcing you to stop whatever you're doing to meet the demand. Thankfully, though, at least you've never gotten a message from him during your meetups with your class partner — you're certain your distress would show on your face, and it would be hard to come up with an excuse for it.

It becomes such routine, and all happens so quickly, it feels surreal, like you're just forced to accept it and go with it. There’s no time to really process it, as you have to get back to doing your school work and going to class and trying to keep up with your regular video content, it's all so overwhelming, yet so simple, you just have to do what you have to do.

One moment you're slapping yourself in the face while you bounce up and down on a toy so long that it bruises your insides for some jerk that's blackmailing you, and running to class the next, desperately trying to rub at the marks on your face to make them go away.

You're worried that the stress is beginning to show. Your most recent quiz scores are lower than usual, you're getting less sleep. Your insides are always sore. You're paranoid and uneasy, and you know it has to be somewhat evident.

Some of the individual demands have lasting consequences, too. Once you were commanded to choke yourself with a belt on camera, specifically until it left bruises… which you begged and protested against because you had one of your class partner meet-ups scheduled for later the same day, but your tormentor said he didn't care and insisted, so you did it, forcing yourself to go through it… and sending an additional picture at the end just to show the purplish marks in detail, up close.

It wasn't the end of the world for your meeting though — the weather wasn't right for it, but you found something that covered your neck up, at least, so the bruises didn't show. That much, at least, allows you to be at ease… although your classmate seems to be in a particularly bad mood that day.

On another occasion, you find yourself laying on your side, gasping and wincing trying to force one of the larger toys you have into your ass, all the way to the base as instructed, toes curling as you pump it back and forth, in and out… only to be told you weren't supposed to touch yourself while you did it, so, predictably, you have to do it again, the ring of muscle clenching down as it's stretched — and, of course, the act leaves a remnant sensation lasting the rest of the day. You have to rush it too, or you'll be late, due to the horrible timing of the command.

You manage to get to class, but when you move to sit, an ache of pain runs up your spine from your poor abused hole, and you wince, face grimacing at the pain.

It doesn't go unnoticed. The guy next to you, ever observant to everything except the professor, casts a lazy glance over to you, looks you up and down before asking what’s the matter, albeit in a half-caring, bored tone of voice…

You give the oh, nothing, I'm fine! response, stammer out something about hurting your leg yesterday, and he merely gives you an 'ah' of acknowledgement before turning his gaze back down… he rests his chin against his hand so that his mouth is covered up, but you swear, you can detect a slight grin from the shape of his eyes. You suppose it checks out that he'd find your clumsiness amusing, even if it's a lie.

On and on it goes. All the time. Day in, day out. It starts off as once per day, but then your tormentor starts piling smaller requests on top of those. Even beyond the daily video, you get increasingly frequent messages at all times of the day — to take a picture of your tits or ass, or a short video of you fingering yourself, or some sort of angle or pose of your body, writing something on your skin, so on and so on.

He doesn't accept any delays, either. You only get a few minutes to fulfill a demand before getting an impatient follow-up asking what the hold up is. Sleep isn't an excuse either, so you're told, so you have to start turning your phone on loud at night to wake you if need be.

You sense a growing impatience. The frequency increases still, as does the intensity of the content you're forced to make. It's as if it's building up to something — surely it has to reach a limit, or he has to get bored, or he'll ditch you and find a new outlet for his sadistic thrills, you hope. You just hope it ends in a way that's positive for you… but you're afraid of the opposite. What if even after all this, he just ruins your life anyway? It's a very real possibility, one you begin considering increasingly as you think over the whole situation.

The increasing severity and number of demands makes you feel like he's getting more upset, as if you're doing something that makes him mad, even though you have no idea what that could be.

You are right, though.

He's also noticed how much more frequently he gets the urge to demand something from you. How much more the itch has grown, the compulsive need to see you hurting and degrading yourself more and more. You've long since passed the point where he has more videos and photos of you all to himself than those available online — he's been counting — but it's still not enough.

And with the realizations that he's engaging with you more, he realizes that he's also thinking about you more.

No, “more” isn't quite accurate. All the time. Constantly. You never leave his head, everything else feels like a distraction.

And that's only more infuriating. He's very self-aware, realizes it's getting worse, realizes you essentially occupy his thoughts every waking second.

Even then, the distractions aren't working. At one point he realized he literally cannot stop himself from messaging you, it's a compulsion, a need, and the realization of his own lack of self-control regarding it is maddening. He actively tried, told himself to wait until the next day, but just couldn't. Even if he plays games or watches whatever brain-rotting media he tries to consume, his thoughts keep drifting to you. Hell, ever since latching onto you, he’s stopped harassing other random women online in general, and that was pretty much one of his biggest hobbies in the past.

What gives you the right? To get inside his head like that? Make him constantly distracted and wondering about what you're doing, forcing him to keep tabs on you? What makes you think you can just come into his life and control him like this, and think you'll get away with it? You've more or less taken advantage of an innocent person who did nothing wrong to you. Used your body to exploit his weaknesses and manipulate him into doing all this.

You don't get to do that. You have to be held accountable.

You're constantly making him worry about you, what you're doing, who you're talking to, and not knowing is a maddening feeling. It feels like nausea, a sick feeling that completely consumes the mind, rendering it incapable of doing or focusing on anything else, only cycling the same obsessive rage and worry and paranoia until it becomes unbearable.

But there's a way to get rid of that, and give you what you deserve, and get what you owe him all at the same time.

He waits, only another week or so — a frustrating week, but spent planning ahead and gathering necessary stuff — but finally, given the timing, you send a text he was hoping you'd send asking about meeting up again, to finish up the project as the end of the semester approaches.

You're a bit caught off-guard by the message, not to mention how quickly he replies.

>Come over here.

You hesitate, re-reading to try and ensure that you're understanding correctly, and finally ask for clarification that he means to his place.

He says yes. Something about how he's supposed to have something delivered that he'll have to sign, and so he has to be at the apartment when that happens, so, y'know, best for you to come over.

Which is nice.

It's just… odd.

Inviting you over, even if for a required activity, feels very out of line with the person you've come to know, however surface-level said knowing may be. Then again, maybe this is the guy's way of trying to be nice. Everyone expresses appreciation differently.

You're still thinking on it when he adds another text saying that his roommate will be there, preemptively apologizes for any disturbance that will cause… well, you figure if someone else is there, it can’t be anything sinister. That helps you make up your mind, so you agree. At this point, you know each other well enough to warrant trust.

…It’s still pretty awkward, though. The apartment is about like a picture you would expect to see uploaded to the internet as a joke about male living spaces. Borderline barren, barring the computer and the bare minimum furniture and appliances needed to survive, plus some clothes and empty cans and such strewn in various places across the floor, all dark lighting and void of color.

That being said, you quickly realize the apartment is only a studio, and there’s only one bed. The roommate doesn't exist.

And something just feels wrong, in a way you can’t articulate. Like your instincts are urging you to leave. You feel uneasy. Goosebumps spread across your skin. Are you just being paranoid…?

There is something else, though, that immediately catches your attention. You notice that the wall isn’t exposed, rather, most of the room is covered with a layer of some sort of paneling, lining the wall almost as thoroughly as wallpaper. You inquire what it is.

Soundproofing.

An unpleasant answer, but he wouldn’t be so upfront about it unless it was for harmless reasons. You refrain from inquiring about the other odd things you start to notice — locks on some cabinets despite seemingly living alone, a roll of tape sitting on the desk with no discernable purpose.

As awkward as the tension is, you really have no option but to sit on the bed, as its the only surface other than the floor. You try not to contemplate how often the average college-aged boy washes bedsheets.

It occurs to you, though, that right now would be the worst possible timing for a message from your unknown harasser, and you certainly can’t take any photos or videos here… thus, just as you sit down and begin to work, you pick up your phone from where you set yours next to his, and type out a quick message, basically pleading with the unknown man to leave you along for the next few hours, because, as you explain, you literally can’t do anything for the time being.

You read it over, and hit send.

And before you can even put the phone back down, there's a vibration a mere arms-length away from you, as the other phone in the room lights up.

And there, in the notification that pops up on the screen, are the very words you just sent.

…

…

There's a few seconds where nothing happens.

Both your heads naturally turn to the sound the moment it happens, but after that, it's just… still. You’re frozen still, he’s frozen still. Both your eyes go wide, and the quiet seconds pass, processing the information before you.

And then, he sighs, body relaxing, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, muttering as if met with some major inconvenience.

God, why do you have to make this more difficult.

Besides, he already turned the lock that locks you in from the inside, even though you probably weren’t aware of what it was, so you’re already trapped anyway. And you squeal, of course, predictably, but that’s what the soundproof panels are for.

He's not particularly worried like he would have been any other time — this was the plan now anyway, but you're throwing things off schedule. Yet another transgression to hold you accountable for.

You do try to run. You at least deserve that much credit. He was so close to considering you a genuine marvel of human evolution, with how nonfunctional your survival instincts seemed to be.

But you’re sitting with your legs folded, so, you don’t have the time required to stand any chance of hopping up and running. The moment your legs start to move to stand, he’s already got you by the arm.

You even seemed to process everything a bit quicker than he would have thought. Maybe you’re not that stupid after all, just… a little less.

You still are incredibly stupid though. He’s almost surprised you agreed to come. So naive, so dumb, so trusting.

And so loud. Squealing like a little animal caught by a predator — which, well, isn’t too far off, but it still hurts his ears.

Shut up, shut up, shut up…

You can hear the growling voice in your ear, even now that he has your face pressed into the mattress, arm latched around your waist. You’re squirming so hard too, but even fighting with all the strength you can summon, it feels like trying to push back a brick wall. He seems to notice as much as you do.

…Is that actually the best you can do?

Not the first time he’s said those words to you — though before, it was over text, mocking you into filling all those perverse desires. It feels far more biting now.

And it’s so, so, so satisfying to see you realize just how dumb you are, as you put everything together. To watch you slowly grasp everything, realize just how badly you’ve fucked up. He even flips you onto your back just to see your face go through all the stages of emotion. It’s hilarious, and adorable too. The confusion and betrayal and panic and anger.

Oh, you get so mad. It’s actually the best part. You’re practically snarling now, reaching up to try and claw at him, kicking, baring your teeth. Any traces of the sweet demeanor you once held is long gone as you lash out… and then, a purely and entirely euphoric transition to fear.

Aw. Poor thing. After you struggle so much, your breathing gets faster, the fury dissipates as your eyes well with tears. The demands to let you go turn to miserable little pleas.

Maybe you can go back and forth. Maybe if he taunts you again you’ll get angry once more, and then if he slaps you you’ll get meek and fearful again? That would be nice, to have reliable ways to switch your emotions around, as if controlling them with a button. There will be plenty of time to find out later.

But now he gets the opportunity to finally tell you how long you made him wait for this. Mocks you for how naive you were. Brings up specifics from all those videos you sent him. Did you think it would just be left at that? Did you really not realize it wouldn’t be enough? No, of course you didn’t, and that’s why you ended up coming here like the dumb little slut you are.

And look, you even wore something so easy to flip up, practically easy access. You just have no shame at all, do you. See, it goes in perfectly because you’ve been using those toys for those videos, and… ah, so that’s— that’s what it feels like… holy shit… this is what you basically robbed him of all this time? Now you’ll really have to suffer to make up for it…

Well, you wouldn’t get it. It’s about what you did subconsciously, mind games and all that. His torment was intentional on your end, and that’s what matters. Now you'll get to spend a very very long time atoning for it. You should be happy. You won't even have to worry about making money anymore.

This wouldn’t be happening to you if you didn’t do what you did to him, you know. It’s your fault. He tells you so. And when you look up at him, eyes welled with tears, stammering out a question of what he means—

What did I ever d-do to you…?

—he realizes that it’s… difficult to give that question a concrete answer.

What did you do, really...?

The only problem that remains is how you rushed things. He was at least going to wait until you finished the project, but now it’s incomplete… do professors grant extensions if your partner goes missing…?

[bingwriterxo]

the shakespeare exhibit - part 8

pairing: tara carpenter x reader

summary: in which you and tara both have things to talk about

warnings: mentions of stabbing, talks of substance abuse and verbal abuse

word count: 2700+

previous part | next part

Finals season was in full swing at Blackmore University, sending its students into poor sleep schedules and even worse diets as they attempted to cram a semester’s worth of information into their brains.

You and Tara, unfortunately, were no exception. For the past week, the two of you had holed yourselves up in either the library or one of your apartments, your noses stuck in your books and your hands fumbling around for an energy drink whenever you needed a pick-me-up.

The only time you had taken a break was to celebrate Tara’s 20th birthday, but even then it was hardly a celebration. You had gathered all of her friends at her apartment, had a small party consisting of drinks and movies, and then went right back to studying, Tara in tow.

Safe to say, the stress levels were at an all-time-high, especially for Tara, who was experiencing her first round of finals in university. You had offered her a few studying tips, since you had already gone through the struggles of freshman-year exams the year prior, before immersing yourself in your own revision.

You were in the midst of reviewing for your Romantic Literature course--the last final that you had for the semester--when your mother called you, leading you to slip out of Tara’s bedroom and into the hallway to speak to her.

Tara sat at her desk, grumbling as she tried to study for her Introduction to Literature course. This is just as stupid as it was when I was studying for the midterm, she thought, eyes scanning her notes about Emily Dickinson. Maybe it’s even more stupid now.

Your voice broke her concentration as you walked back into her room, and she twisted her chair around to face you. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll ask her, alright?” You rolled your eyes and pointed at your phone, mouthing, she talks so much. Tara giggled softly, extending her arms for you to stand between, and you sighed as you slid into place, her fingers rubbing over your hips. “Okay. Yup. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Right. Okay, bye, mom.”

“What was that all about?” Tara asked when you hung up, throwing your phone onto her desk. “Did Eddie pull another prank on the Dylan Thomas statue again?”

You chuckled, thinking about the photo that your brother had sent you the week before—he had put a wig, makeup, and a shaving-cream beard on the statue of your grandfather’s late friend. “No, no. The statue garden has gone untouched this week.”

She shook her head, a grin on her face. “I still can’t believe you guys have a statue garden,” she said. But of course her family does. Because why wouldn’t they?

“Well, my dad’s always been big into statues. Like, when he was younger, he--” You cut yourself off. “That’s not important. Anyway, my mom invited us to spend Christmas at the house.” Tara’s eyes lit up, a type of joy that she didn’t know existed rushing through her. Us? she thought. I’ve been invited to family Christmas? “Do you want to go--”

“Yes!” she exclaimed immediately, nodding her head fervently. “Please, yes.” Shit, I’ll need to buy presents. What the hell do you get for kids who could buy anything they’ve ever wanted?

You giggled at her enthusiasm and tilted your head. “Are you sure you and Sam aren’t going back to California for the holidays?” you asked.

Back to California? Back to…Woodsboro? She furrowed her eyebrows, biting her bottom lip. “Why would we go to Cali?”

You squirmed a little where you stood. What’s she so nervous about? she wondered. “I just thought you might want to see your mom?” Your voice pitched on the last word, and Tara tensed, her arms falling to her sides. You frowned and reached out, but she pulled back, swallowing.

“No, there’s--we’re not--no,” she stammered out, her voice short. She shook her head. “I’ll be here.”

You nodded. “Okay.”

Tara wanted the conversation to be over, but your lips were pursed like you still had something you wanted to say. “What?” she asked.

You shook your head. “Nothing!”

She clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes at you. “No, you look like you have something to say. What?”

“I just…you’ve never spoken about her. Maybe we could--”

That’s because there’s nothing to say.” She’s good for nothing, she thought. “I don’t like to talk about her.” I’d rather read Shakespeare, which is really saying something.

“But--”

“No.” Her voice was stern, clear-cut, and she watched as you deflated a little, your eyes flitting around the room. She sighed, running a hand down her face. “I’m not doing this right now, okay? I’m not talking about her.”

“Tar…” The nickname came out as a coo, soft and careful and meant to be comforting, but it ignited a strange irritation beneath Tara’s skin, and something in her snapped.

“Listen, we can’t all have a perfect-fucking-family, okay?” she shouted, and you flinched, taking a step back, your eyes widening at her sudden outburst. “Just because you have parents who are there and who care doesn’t mean everyone does! I mean, Jesus, my mom didn’t even come to see me last year after--” After Amber stabbed me half-to-death, she finished in her head.

The air was tense, quiet. You stood in front of her, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth, and Tara cursed herself when she noticed that your hands were trembling slightly.

“Baby…” She reached out for you, but her fingers met open air as you shook your head and crossed the room to grab your things from her bed.

“It’s fine. I--I shouldn’t have pushed,” you rushed out, your voice shaking. You threw your notebook and laptop into your backpack hastily before hurrying to the door. Tara stood, desperate to do something to stop you from leaving, but she didn’t get the chance as you said, “I’m sorry.” Of course she’d apologize when I snapped at her. “I’ll see you later, yeah?”

The door shutting behind you pulled all the air from Tara’s lungs, and she fell back into her chair, holding her face in her hands.

“God fucking damnit,” she groaned. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

* * *

Hours later--during which Tara had sat in her bed and moped--there was a knock on her bedroom door. For a brief second, she thought it was you. But there would be no reason for her to come back after I got mad at her, she reminded herself, and any hope she had disappeared when Sam walked into the room, a frown on her face.

“I thought Y/N was staying for dinner so you two could study through it,” Sam said, bringing Tara’s attention right back to the fact that you had left. She stepped into the room, her arms crossed over her chest, and asked, “What happened? You’re all”--she gestured at Tara--“sad.”

Tara huffed, glaring at her sister. “Nothing,” she grumbled.

Sam scoffed. “Oh, please. You and Y/N have been attached at the hip since the start of finals.” She shook her head. “Scratch that--since you two began dating. So, what happened, Tara?”

Stupid Sam, being a good older sister. Tara sighed and relented. “She asked about mom.”

“Oh.” Sam frowned. “And what did you say?”

“I--” Was a bad girlfriend and got mad at her for no reason, Tara thought, shame seeping into her veins. “I snapped at her. I didn’t mean to. It’s just…mom’s a tough topic, and it’s even harder because Y/N’s family-life is so perfect.” She clenched her jaw and glanced away, ignoring the spark of jealous lighting in her chest. “She’s got two parents who are there, and they have money, and she’s just…” Perfect.

Sam tilted her head, walking over and sitting beside Tara. “You know, it wasn’t easy for me to tell Danny about mom, either. He’s in the same boat as Y/N--well, not the super rich family part, but his parents are together and there.” She shrugged. “It’s hard not to envy that, but she’s your girlfriend, so you’ll need to talk to her about mom at some point. She deserves to know.”

Tara nodded, hanging her head. “I know. I feel horrible for getting upset with her.” She gestured lamely at her phone. “I tried texting and calling her, but…” She pointed across the room, where your phone still sat on her desk. “Obviously that didn’t work.”

Sam hummed. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Tara. Maybe she just needed a minute.” She rested her hand on Tara’s shoulder. “Plus, she’ll need her phone.”

“What if she comes back and breaks up with me?” Tara asked, looking up at Sam with wide eyes. What if she never speaks to me again? she thought. What if this is it? What if--

“Every couple has arguments, Tara.” Sam smiled softly at her. “She’s not going to break up with you over this. That girl’s head over heels for you, even more than you are for her. It’s gonna be okay, okay?”

Tara bit the inside of her cheek. “Yeah, okay,” she said, not missing the sorrow in her own voice. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” Sam stood, her hands on her hips and her head tilted. “Now, should we get Chinese food or pizza?”

* * *

Sam was right: you did just need a minute.

It was as Tara was getting ready for bed that she heard a knock on the front door. Sam’ll deal with it, she decided as she climbed beneath her sheets, ready to lay in the darkness and wallow for a while. Just as she was reaching over to turn off her bedside lamp, a certain name caught her attention.

“Oh, hi, Y/N!” Sam said loudly from the living room, and Tara knew she had raised her voice so that she would know who was at the door. She sat up immediately. Y/N is here? What? There was some mumbling before Sam’s voice came again. “Yeah, she’s in her room. Go ahead.”

Moments later, there were soft knocks against her bedroom door, and Tara scrambled out of her bed, rushing across the room to open the door for you. There you stood, your lips pulled in a downturned smile and your eyes wide with worry.

“Hey, pretty girl,” you muttered. You were still wearing the same clothes from the day, and your backpack was still hanging off your shoulders. Did she not go home? she wondered, furrowing her eyebrows. You pulled your arm out from behind you, revealing a small bouquet of flowers. “Got you these.”

Tara blinked. She bought me flowers?!  “I--Thanks?” She took them from your outstretched hand. “What are you doing here?”

“I said I’d see you later, didn’t I?” you tried to joke, but your voice was strained, like you were trying to be careful, and Tara felt guilt prick at her knowing that she was the cause. “Could I come in?”

“Oh, yeah. Of course. Always,” she rushed out, moving to her bed to sit. She placed the flowers on her bedside table and watched as you sat in front of her, fingers playing with her blanket. “So, what’s up?” ‘What’s up?’ Really? That’s the best I can do?

You sighed, a shaky breath falling from your lips. “I want to apologize,” you said. “I didn’t mean to push you into talking about your mom earlier. I know she’s a touchy subject.”

Tara frowned. “Why are you apologizing? I’m sorry for shouting at you. I shouldn’t have done that.”

You shook your head, glancing up and finally making eye-contact with her. “No, it’s okay. You didn’t want to talk about her. And, that’s okay.” You shrugged and offered her a comforting smile. “You don’t have to tell me about her…ever, if you don’t want to.”

“I should, though. I mean, we should talk about her.”

“Tara, you really don’t have to--”

“No, I--I want to.” Want’s a strong word, she thought. But I should.

“Okay,” you said, nodding and giving her your full attention. “You have the floor.”

She sighed heavily. “Well, my dad left when I was 8. My mom started working more so that she could afford Sam and I, but it turned more into an obsession for her, I think. Next thing I knew, she was never there. Sam left home when I was 13, and it was just me.” She shrugged, glancing down and fiddling with her fingers. “Then, Sam came back after I was attacked, and my mom wouldn’t talk to her, so we made the choice to cut her off. I haven’t spoken to her since we moved.”

Tara clicked her tongue, looking back up at you. To her surprise, your face wasn’t full of the pity she was used to seeing after telling people about her past; you were watching her carefully, looking close to tears.

“So, that’s that,” she said awkwardly.

You inhaled sharply, blinking your glassy eyes away. “You didn’t deserve any of that, Tar, and I’m sorry that you had to deal with it.” You reached out, your hand cupping her cheek, and she leaned into your touch. “I’m so happy that you’ve found your family.”

Her heart fluttered at your words, her mind flashing to Sam and Mindy and Chad. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I am, too. I really love those guys.” And I’ve found you, too, she thought. You make it all complete.

You grinned, and she practically melted into her mattress. “Good. They’re good--all of them.”

She giggled. “C’mere.” She wrapped her arms around your shoulders and pulled you to lay down with her, your face nuzzled into her neck. She laughed at the feeling of your nose against her skin, and said, “I love you. Like, a lot.”

Your arms wrapped around her waist, and you squeezed lightly. “I love you, like, a lot, too.” You sighed into her. “And I’m sorry for leaving like that earlier. I just…I don’t do well with raised voices.”

Huh? Suddenly, she was on high alert. Why not? What happened? “Any particular reason?”

You twisted in her hold so that you could lay beside her, your gaze trained on the ceiling. She scooted down so that her head was level with yours and looked at you, tracing your side profile with her eyes. So pretty, she thought. Wait, stay on topic, Tara.

You clenched your jaw. “We’ve never talked about it, but, um, my dad…” You closed your eyes. “When I was younger, my dad had a big drinking problem.” Her eyebrows furrowed. Her dad? That man? Really? “He was never physical,” you said, shaking your head lightly. “But he had a temper when he was drunk, and everything I did was always wrong.”

“Oh, Y/N,” she sighed, intertwining her fingers with yours. Your grip was tight, like she would float away if you didn’t hold on.

“He’d yell a lot, at me, at my mom.” Oh, baby. Your thumb rubbed over the skin of her hand. “But he’s good now. He got better after the boys were born--got sober. He hasn’t had a drink since.” You turned your head, looking back at her.

“He’s not, like, obsessed with apples, or anything,” you said. What does that have to do with the conversation? she wondered. “But, he eats them a lot when we have parties. That was his thing--eat an apple when he wanted a drink. It stuck, so we keep the fridge stocked, and any time someone sees him even look in the direction of alcohol, we get him an apple.” You smiled. “He eats them begrudgingly, but he’ll never have an apple out of his own volition now.”

Tara chuckled softly. “I’m happy he’s better now, but I’m sorry you dealt with that. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

You shrugged, leaning closer so that your forehead rested against her cheek. “It’s okay now. I’m alright,” you promised. “Just…never buy that man an apple, alright?” you joked, easing the tension in the air.

“Deal,” she agreed, nudging your head up. She leaned in, kissed you, and said, “I guess no family’s perfect after all, huh?” when she pulled away.

“I guess not.” You grinned, leaning up on your elbow to hover over her. “But, maybe ours could be the first.”

Her heart practically stopped, and she couldn’t help the smile that took over her face. Ours? she thought. She felt like she wanted to burst from the amount of joy that came with that thought. Yeah. Ours.

“Okay.” She pushed herself up and kissed you again. “Ours will be the first.”