#and the bit about wanting to know how things end is interesting

[invoncible]

♡ THINK I NEED SOMEONE OLDER ... ! (CECIL VER.) cw. suggestive towards the end

— as requested. i've gotten a few asks for some cecil, conquest, and nolan stuff so i'm gonna make this a mini series! the next part will probs be conquest ? i imagine you're controversially young for them in comparison. because lets be real these guys are fossils. — i probs got him ooc IM SORRY

cecil is a private man. nobody knows about your relationship, and that's how he liked it.

you were a secretary at the pentagon, a well-to-do front line desk worker that loved your low maintenance job that allowed you great pay, easy hours, and lots of benefits. 

the first time you met, he came in to work grumbling as usual about all the shit he had to deal with... until he saw your bright smile over the counter. 

"hiii!" you sprung up from your seat, offering him a coffee. "director stedman, good to see you today."

his name and 'good to see you today' rarely coincided. being the guy that made all the hard decisions didn’t leave much room for camaraderie—no one got buddy buddy with the guy in charge (except donald). 

he accepted the coffee on autopilot while scrutinizing you. you were a new face, at least to his knowledge. first day, maybe? wanting to make a good impression on the boss?

"thanks." he muttered, taking a sip and trying to hide his surprise when it was made just how he liked it. he was too picky for it to be a lucky guess, so you probably asked around... for information on him... interesting. he had to be careful with you. 

he caught your eyes over the rim of the cup; you were watching him with an equal intensity, searching for any microexpressions that would affirm you did a good job. your lips quirked up in a smug little smile when you managed to pull approval from his facade, smoothing down your pants as you dropped into your seat again. 

"have a good day, sir." you hummed, eyes flickering up to him as he walked away. 

"yeah." he cleared his throat, more confused than anything. 

he brushed it off as a fluke—again, he thought you were new and wanting to make a great first impression. which you did, by the way, but his intrigue grew when you just didn't stop.

every morning without fail, you had his coffee ready, a sweet little greeting, a warm smile. it became a comfort for him, but he didn't even allow himself to go down that road of ... affection. because you were you and he was him. 

"so, how about that secretary, sir?" donald asked him one day. 

"what about 'em, donald?" cecil sighed, but he was itching to talk about it, too. his thoughts drifted to you more often than he’d like, and it was becoming a biiit of a problem. 

“nothing.”

“you brought it up. clearly you had something to say.” cecil pinched the bridge of his nose. “so talk.”

donald’s lips quirked up ever so slightly. “are you aware they only prepare coffee for you?”

no, he wasn’t aware. it’d become so normal that he hadn’t even considered that. he might as well be hyper-aware, now. breaking people down to their innermost desires and principles were his trade, and his analytical mind was not lost on you. and so, every morning without fail, he talked a bit. went beyond the ‘have a nice day’ thing you’ve both grown comfortable with.  

you perked up in your seat upon seeing cecil walk in, another thing that endeared you to him. “director—”

“how do you like your coffee?”

you blinked, thrown off by the change in routine. “um… i like to try something different each time, i guess..?”

“if you had to choose.” he murmured, delicately accepting the warm cup from your outstretched hand. “humor me.”

that was where it started. from then on, he showed up with your coffee, performing an amicable exchange of sorts (he had ulterior motives, of course) and while you two sipped on the hot invigorating brew, you talked about how you ended up here, what you did outside work, places you’ve traveled… emphasis on you because he wasn’t going to spoil this slice of heaven with his troublesome past.

“it’s a good deal, you know?” you hummed, swirling the cup in your hand. “nice desk all to myself, easy admin work, no one annoying to handle for the most part.”

“for the most part?” he inquired, leaning over the counter. 

you waved him off as you sipped from your cup. he frowned and chucked his empty cup in the garbage behind your desk. 

“tell me.”

you laughed softly, tossing your cup along his, licking your lips of the residual taste. “mm. you have bigger things to deal with, director. things that needed your attention…” you trailed off, glancing at your screen. “what, an hour or so ago?”

“is it the end of the world?”

“no.”

“then the team can handle it.” cecil’s lips parted in a smug smile, his words holding a finality you couldn’t help but listen to. you couldn’t suppress the warm feeling pooling in your gut. “tell me. that’s an order.”

“oh?” you reacted verbally, your eyes widening, the firm command making your heart flutter. “since when do you give me orders?”

“since i care about harassment in my building.” he shot back before allowing himself to be impressed with your audacity. since i care about you. 

you giggle softly and he takes a moment to commit the sound to memory. 

“i’m just kidding,” you stand and jog your papers against the desk surface, preparing to make your rounds with the freshly printed documents. “you are my boss, after all.”

yeah… he is your boss. but with you, he often felt like you were in charge. 

you’d be lying to say this wasn’t your plan all along. you saw him when you came in for your job interview and decided to try your luck. you didn’t expect it to work, much less work well. you had him wrapped around your finger! at first, it was just a fun way to pass the time at your desk; now it was something you looked forward to everyday.

“it’s just some analyst from upstairs that comes to bug me.” you shrug with a roll of your eyes. “just stands there and talks for hours.”

“isn’t that what i do?” the question left his mouth before he could stop it, and he instantly regretted it. the more he talked to you, the less of a filter he had, rarely thinking things over before speaking and impulsively saying what’s on his mind. 

your lips spread in a small, mischievous smile, a glint in your eye. “you’re different. i like you.”

you’d become more and more forward and it was getting harder for him to dismiss the hints you dropped. the man’s been around, and he wasn’t so dumb to be blind to what you were doing. what you were trying to get him to feel. although considering that he was your boss, he was simply content with the song and dance you had right now.

he watched you walk away until you disappeared from his sight with a heavy sigh.

side note, you never saw that analyst again. 

there was one day you weren’t at your desk, and your absence rang some alarms in his head. he’d been sneaking looks at your records and would know if you requested time off. more than that, you would have told him.

he was about to walk off when he heard the doors behind him burst open and the rapid clack clack clack of shoes racing across the floor. 

he turned to watch you, looking deliciously disheveled might he add, with a raise of his brow. “y/n—“

“i’m sorry!” you stop in front of him to catch your breath. “i didn’t get your coffee today—“

“that’s fine,” cecil said lowly, his expression amused. “you run a fucking marathon or something?”

“—i got up late and… and… damn, that’s the first time i’ve sprinted in a while. fuck.” you bent over your knees, panting. “there was traffic and a whole line at the coffee shop—someone knocked it out of my hand when i was leaving—“

“hey.” he set your coffee down on the counter behind him, putting his hands on hips. “you don’t have to apologize. it was nice you even started to do that in the first place, doll.”

your eyes snap to the cup he got you, a frown tugging on your lips. “but you—“

“don’t worry about it.” 

“okay, but—“

“i said don’t worry. that’s an order.”

you huffed a breathless laugh as you straightened up. “i’m beginning to think you just like telling me what to do.” (he did.)

your odd relationship with the director came to a head at a workplace get together. a rare moment of respite which was really a space for the entire department to wallow in their misery together rather than alone.

cecil never came to these things until he knew you’d be at them. he figured he’d drop in just to scope things out, and he wasn’t sure what he expected but he definitely did not expect you, and many others, to be piss drunk. 

you recognized him through the dim light, brightening up as you usually do. you stumbled over, jostled by the packed bodies pushing and pulling you through the crowd.

“easy.” cecil murmured, coaxing the glass out of your hand. “damn, you’re wasted.” he commented more to himself than you, a short incredulous laugh slipping through his lips. 

“mhmm.” you slurred, head thumping into his chest. 

“okay.” he whispered, downing the rest of your glass and setting it aside to free up his hands. can’t let good wine go to waste. a thought passed through his head as he swallowed the beverage: this must be what you taste like right now. pump the brakes, loverboy.

he propped you back upright by your shoulders. “how ‘bout we lay off the drinks?”

“whatever you say, boss.” you hummed, a buzzed smile on your lips.

“you want a ride?”

your clumsy hands wrapped around his tie, pressing into him and tugging him forward by the loose fabric. “you offering?” 

holy shit. his eyes flickered to your delicate fingers, the same ones he’s watched type away at a keyboard, walk up and up and up his red tie. “no.” he said curtly.  

“‘nd i don’t mean a car.” you hiccup.

he paused, wondering if you realized you were talking to him, not some other co-worker. “i know.” 

you sigh dramatically, leaning into him. “you should give me your number.”

cecil groaned, shaking his head. now he knew you needed to get some water in you and sleep your intoxication off. you were saying nonsense. “let’s get you out of here, kid, i’ll call you a cab.”

“no. m’serious,” you pushed, lips pursed in a pout. “i want your number.”

his steely blue eyes narrowed at you, searching your face even as you swayed from side to side. “no, you don’t.” 

you scoffed and knocked your head against his shoulder, clinging to his arm for support as he walked you out of the gathering. “whyyyy…” you mumbled.

cecil dialed someone on his phone, holding it up to his ear as it rang. “you’re drunk, y/n. you’re not thinking straight.”

“i am!” you retorted petulantly, tugging on his arm and pulling the phone away from his head. “i’ve wanted it for a while, just took a little liquid courage to ask…” you trailed off, eyes drooping. “we have coffee dates all the time, what’s so different if—”

“woah, woah, woah.” he stopped you, “dates?” he echoed incredulously. 

you bite your lip, peering up at him while his response buffered in your inebriated mind. after a moment, you nodded. “uh-huh.”

“those aren’t dates, kid.” this bitch was lying through his teeth. he considered them dates, too, but anything to keep a semblance of control over the situation. 

“might as well be. ‘nd stop calling me that.” you scrunched up your nose in distaste. he’s never called you ‘kid’ before this and you’re beginning to think it’s his way of putting distance between you. 

“i’ll call you whatever the fuck i want.” he snapped, growing defensive. he liked your little game, the fun will-they-won’t-they thing you two had going on, but now that it was becoming real to him… now that you were forcing him to confront the feelings he knew he had for you, he had to build his walls back up again—even if it pushed you away in the process. 

“yeah? cuz you’re my boss?” you managed to shoot back, still gripping onto him for support. 

“look at that, you got it. was that so hard?” he scoffed, turning away from you to prevent himself from caving. your shiny eyes in the darkness and tinted lips from the drinks made him want to throw caution to the wind. “i know you think you want something from me… trust me, sweetheart, i’m doing you a favor.”

you roll your eyes. “cuz you’re so noble like that.”

cecil’s eyes narrowed, getting into your space. he walked into you, unintentionally guiding your back into a wall. “mock me all you want, doll. the moment you lie in bed with me is the moment you’re erased from existence. i won’t allow anything to happen to you, and i’ll do everything to prevent that from happening.”

“okay?” 

he put his hands on his hips. “i don’t think you understand. i don’t do anything half-assed.”

you giggled drunkenly. “and that’s supposed to be a threat?”

“you know i love when you talk, but shut up for a second,” cecil closed his eyes like he was trying to gather himself. you always had a knack for undermining his authority. but in retrospect, he made it way too easy to do so. when he looked at you again, something had shifted.

“this isn’t a game to me,” he muttered, voice quieter now, but no less intense.

you blinked up at him, suddenly realizing how close he was—not just physically, but in a way that made your heart stutter. you were finally on the precipice of what you’d been building up to since you met him. 

cecil exhaled sharply, running a hand over his face like he was trying to keep himself in check. “i’ve spent months convincing myself i should keep you at arm’s length.” his hand curled around your wrist, not hard, but firm enough to make your breath catch. “if you push me…” he trailed off, leaning in closer… and closer… his nose brushed against yours and that singular touch sent a jolt of clarity into him. 

he pulled back, stepping back and shaking his head with a click of his tongue. “this is reckless.”

“cuz you’re my boss?” you offered, finally finding your voice, your mind no longer occupied by his proximity or the scent of his cologne. 

“uh-huh. and i can’t be your boss if i’m with you like that.” cecil adjusted his tie and shirt. “also. you’re drunk.”

“i’m not that drunk.” 

“drunk enough.” he shot back with a raise of his brow. 

“cecil.” you step towards him, reaching out to him. your heart swelled when he didn’t try to evade you. your hand fastened around his wrist. “i’m telling you i’m not. scrub me from your records for all i care. keep an eye on me. i know you do that already, anyway. the only thing that’s changing is that we’re both getting what we want. i don’t want you to just be my boss.”

he groaned, turning away from you despite the tether you had on his arm. “don’t say that shit.”

“what? that i want you?”

“will you stop?” cecil turned to you, a scowl on his face. 

your lips split into a grin. his instructions never really worked on you. “do you want me to?”

cecil rolled his eyes. obviously the answer was no. “...fuck.” he cursed before dragging you outside, storming across the parking lot.

he stood next to his car. “last chance to back—”

“fuck no.” you scoffed with that stupid grin of yours and cecil wasted no time ripping the back door open and shoving you into the back seats. he quickly followed you inside. 

his breath hitched as you clambered onto his lap, hands landing on your hips. for a brief moment, he hesitated—just a fraction of a second before he kissed you. 

it was rough and desperate and months in the making, like he couldn’t get close enough, like he couldn’t pull you in fast enough. his hands slid down the curve of your ass, pulling you up further on his lap as he let his legs shift apart. your fingers tangled in his hair as you pulled him deeper.

“you’re so fucking annoying,” he growled against your lips, his grip tightening around you contrary to his declaration. 

you laughed brightly. “you're taking me to coffee tomorrow. but for now... still up for that ride?”

© invoncible

[melanchoire]

stepdaughter chaewon who acts innocent with her stepmom but in reality she is a perv and somehow a dom with her mommy? like she comes back home bc of uni vacations and it’s fascinated by the woman, of course she gets her way with the older woman with the excuse “nobody has to know” or “i just want to make you feel good” while she push down her on the couch to eat her out until she squirts on her pretty face :((, her dad has always been a careless man so he tends to leave both unattended for days so when you both are a whole weekend alone bc he left for some business trip, chaewon would sneak into her mommy’s bedroom and wake her up with sweet kisses on her face and lips and saying “i don’t like mommy being alone” just for the kiss to go down her neck, tits and pussy and of course both end up having a heated night fucking (plsss add scissoring and 69 pose if you can, of course with chaewon on top)

cw: dubcon, scissoring, titsucking.

chaewon returns home from a short college vacation with her friends and finds that her father has started dating a new woman?? after his parents’ divorce a couple of years ago, his father never dared to try to have something with a woman again after being devastated when his ex-lover cheated on him with another man and leave him after a short time, but apparently, he was giving love a new chance and deciding to start a new life from scratch. but of course, chaewon didn’t expect her father to be dating a woman who looked young and like a complete milf...

at first, she was surprised to learn your age because you didn't look like someone in their early thirties. there was obviously some maturity in your features, which looked somewhat marked and serious. but she would never have guessed you were that age! also, chaewon gets a little annoyed at her dad for dating someone and having a certain age difference, i mean, he was in his early forties and you were in your early thirties, but chaewon was a bit of a hypocrite because she was in her early twenties and wouldn't mind dating you despite the age difference of around ten years! after all, who wouldn't want to go out with a hot older woman?

chaewon is playing the role of a sweet and good girl, pretending to be interested in her stepmother just so you will tell her things about your private life so she can get to know you better… she even has the nerve to ask you about your youth, getting you to show her pictures of when you used to be in your twenties, and you hadn’t changed at all! although you didn’t have the same soft, adolescent features and now you looked more mature and like a real woman, her head was spinning just seeing that as time went by you were getting hotter and hotter

she also blackmails you when her father leaves the house for business trips, always being super touchy with you and trying to convince you to let her calm your needs because her father was “too old” to be able to take care of pleasing you as you deserve :( chaewon knows how to fake it very well because at some point you’re considering her proposal no matter how crazy it seems! but you always try to reason with her when chaewon starts wanting to keep her words, trying to convince her that it’s a bad idea and she is just confusing her feelings and thoughts, but she refuses to listen to you! insisting more and more to the point of practically pressuring you to accept her proposal

chaewon sneaking into your room at night, almost drooling at the beautiful silk nightgown you were sleeping in… she would climb into bed, lying down next to you and shamelessly sliding her hands over your body while kissing your lips and starting to leave a trail of kisses all over your neck 😵‍💫 being sleepy at first, you give in to his touch because you think it’s your husband waking you up to let you know he is coming home, but no! you open your eyes to find chaewon on top of you, looking straight into your eyes as she slides her hands under her nightgown and cups your tits 😳

TITSUCKING i’m sorry but chaewon has longed ever since she first saw you to be able to get a real glimpse of your tits because no matter if she was wearing a t-shirt or something more covering like a sweater the curve of your breasts was present in the clothing 🫣 chaewon would always blatantly stare at your chest at every opportunity she could, for example when you were making dinner and putting the dishes on the table; her saying a soft “thank you” as you serve the food on her plate and leave it in front of her, but the moment you lean over to give her the plate, she immediately lowers her gaze to your cleavage because she can see your tits through the neck of your shirt?? it’s a shame that it’s a moment that passes in less than five seconds :(

chaewon degrading you and making you humiliate yourself while she is on top of you fucking you 😩 saying shit like “can daddy fuck you as good as i do?” while she grinds her pussy against yours in a way that has your clit constantly rubbing against hers in a way that makes you writhe on the mattress 😵‍💫 she grins like a maniac when she sees you nodding desperately, your hair scattered on the pillow and your face completely flushed and tears of pleasure running down your cheeks :( she was enjoying having you around like a silly little toy when you were always super sweet to her, treating her like a princess and behaving much better than her mother could in the short time she was present in her life, but she had another vision of you! feeling her panties get soaked every time you called her “sweetheart” or “dear” when they were just sweet terms to address your stepdaughter or someone young you care about! and she was enjoying how the loving and affectionate nicknames came out of your lips every time you begged her to please go faster and stop teasing you

and the moment her father comes home she is helping you prepare dinner! your lover smiling warmly at the loving moment between step mother and step daughter, enjoying how you two have a nice relationship and don’t seem to have a rivalry like other mothers and daughters would have 🥰 giving you a kiss on the lips and announcing that he would go take a shower to relax, only for the moment he left the room, chaewon pushed you against the kitchen counter, getting on her knees and announcing with her eyes that she was “hungry” and she wanted a delicious pre-dinner dish 🤗

[croquettish]

Why Henry pushes Hans away at first

I keep thinking about Henry pushing Hans away after he kisses him and why he might do that. After much rumination I think I might have figured it out (though anyone is welcome to chime in with their own ideas!!!).

Apologies in advance-- this got quite long, as it analyzes Henry's view of Hans' romantic behavior through both games and the DLCs (expect spoilers).

ETA: I've expounded a bit on all of this here and here as well!

Henry, better than just about anyone, knows that Hans is a massive flirt.

In Next to Godliness, Hans justifies his desire to go to the bathhouse by mentioning Klara and how pretty she is:

Upon arriving at the bathhouse, Henry learns that Hans hired a bathhouse wench and did his best to undress her via dice before failing and thus recruiting Henry into it.

Zdena tells Henry that Hans regularly goes about such behavior there, so much so that the other girls there are used to it:

We get other little nudge nudge wink winks from Hans who is very determined to show off his masculinity and just how straight he is:

At this point Klara enters the picture, and we learn due to the events that follow that she's the one woman at the bathhouse who doesn't act as a sex worker there in any capacity. Henry would most likely take notice of the fact that the one woman who doesn't let Hans have what he wants is also the one that he likes best.

He then declares that Klara deserves flowers and asks Henry to get her some. Now, if that ain't blurring the lines already...

Fast-forward to The Amorous Adventures of Sir Hans Capon when Hans declares passionate love of a woman he barely knows but who he again insists is different from other women:

He insists that secret courtship is all the rage right now in France and as a result he just has to get in on that trend. Nothing about this sounds sincere to Henry, but Hans is very insistent that no, she's the one! There's no station but the heart! So much so that he wants to gift her his great-grandmother's necklace.

When Henry delivers the necklace, Hans informs him that he already knew of this happening after the fact on account of his spies having informed him of this already.

He insists that he wants her feelings to grow naturally and that he's not planning on doing all of this too fast:

Henry is to get him a potion that'll guarantee his success because Karolina is just that worthy of his affections. He further insists that even if that potion makes every woman faint at his feet, he's only interested in one.

Things don't go entirely according to plan and quite frankly, a lot of this could be seen through the gayest lens possible, but at one point while headed to the rendezvous point, Hans asks Henry about his conquests, prompting Henry to have the option to deflect. Hans surely has had so many more conquests than he, after all!

Wow! Hans must be very invested in this!

Along the way to Karolina's house they come across another, and Hans makes this comment, which might have tipped Henry off to a certain extent (if he hadn't been already tbh) just how in love Hans really is:

So... what you're saying, Hans, is that if she was available, we'd be doing this same song and dance with her?

Huh!

Things go... uniquely over at Karolina's house with Henry feeding him lines of poetry from a bush (to varying degrees of success), and we're treated to these lovely line from Hans:

Depending on which lines Henry fed him, the quest can either end successfully or not. If it is successful, Henry checks on him again the next morning and asks him how things went. He declares:

Well! That sure sounds promising. And so magnanimous of you, Henry! He asks when Hans will see her again and is told the following:

Henry is, understandably, baffled at this.

Hans insists that he had good reason for just ditching the love of his life, namely the fact that she turned out to be illiterate:

Personally, the Hansry shipper in me absolutely thrives at this because oh, Henry is worthy of his poetry? He's giving bawdy poetry to Henry? This could not possibly gayer! (said tam from the past, who had not yet experienced just how gay KCD2 would get)

(Mind you, the poetry is fucking godawful, as we later see again in KCD2 when he actually does write poetry about Henry.)

We fast-forward again.

After their breakup in KCD2, Henry finds him again at the wedding (if not sooner), at one point having what looks like a date with a woman he has given another affectionate nickname:

And then keeps flirting with this girl right in front of Henry's salad after a bit more drama:

As soon as Henry leaves, he goes back to his date.

In other words, Henry knows Hans. He has had his number since early in the first game.

In his eyes, based on the knowledge he has, Hans is an incorrigible flirt who doesn't take love seriously whatsoever. As my gf pointed out, this vibe of "love? I never knew love till now!" [five minutes later] "love? I never knew love till—" can be VERY indicative of queerness. Of course you haven't found the right girl because you're not looking for a girl at all!

Even in his godawful poetry in the second game, Hans admits that

He's a flirt, he sleeps around a lot, he claims that any given woman is the love of his life one moment before being discarded the next...

To Henry, this could easily look like something Hans did on impulse and based only on the fear of losing Henry. Something he didn't mean. Something that could fuck up both of their lives just because of one of Hans' whims. Worse yet, what if he did it just because he was horny and wanted to let off some steam in light of all the anxiety surrounding the circumstances of that moment?

Knowing Hans, he could have kissed him for so many reasons that aren't just that he wanted to kiss Henry because he's hopelessly in love with him.

So Henry pushes him away (for his own good, most likely), walks away, and then--

Hears how genuinely distraught Hans sounds. If his Amorous Adventure with Karolina fails, he knows what Hans sounds like if he's rejected. And it's sure as shit not like this. Things like that usually just don't seem to affect him at all, rolling off him like water off a duck's back.

He expected Hans to brush this off and for him to move on more or less instantly. To scoff at Henry's rejection.

But he doesn't.

And faced with a remorseful and distraught-sounding Hans, he locks the door and turns around. Doesn't even hesitate for one second longer.

[yaseraphine]

pick a card 10 - who is your future lover ? a full portrait

masterlist / ko-fi

my last reading : what's next in love ?

This is a general reading. Take what resonates and leave the rest.

ANNOUNCEMENT : Like I already mentionned in previous posts, I will soon open my tarot services (Ko-fi shop). Over the course of the beginning of next week, more information will be posted. The week after (7/04 to 13/04), I will publish the rules and all the technicalities that concern the tarot services. So if you're interested in having a personal reading with me, stay tuned for new info in the coming days !

Pile 1

Who are they ?

Core personality : Fixed - Stability, Persistence, Loyalty and Dependability

The core personality of your future lover is that they are a stable, loyal and dependable person. They probably have prominent fixed energies in their birth chart (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius). Mainly fire and earth fixed energies. This person is really masculine, no matter what their gender is.

They are really headstrong, and do not like when things don’t go their way. They usually are the leader of the group. They are really good at managing money, and any material things in general. They can enjoy luxurious things, but aren’t overconsumers. 

They are more traditional in their values, some might be religious. 

They are the type to want to get married one day, HOWEVER I feel like now , and that is only for half of the people who picked this pile, they might not be exactly ready for a long term relationship. They still have issues to work on. For the other half of the people here, they are ready and are actively seeking a long term relationship. The person in this second group is really stable at the time, has a pretty good salary (some could even be quite rich) and they are looking to settle down. For the other group, the reason why they are not ready to settle yet is because your person is probably younger and does not have a stable situation at the moment. 

A random fact that I am picking up on is that they like wearing costumes, and smell GOOD. You probably recognize them the moment they enter a room because of the smell that comes in. I don't know how to explain, they just have a strong signature scent. 

Some of them could LOVE working, maybe some are even workaholics. I am just getting that they hate staying inside doing nothing. They are just really active people, the type to wake up at 5am or 6am on a Sunday morning to run or go hiking lol If you aren’t like this, my fellow Pile 1, they will help you go out of your comfort zone for sure.

Light attribute(s) : The Emperor

It follows what I said above, but this person is really masculine and a true go-getter. Really confident in themselves and their own abilities. They start a lot of projects and make sure they finish them in time. Probably quite extraverted, like getting attention (but only positive attention they don’t like embarrassing themselves in public lol I mean pretty understandable).

Again, they are a leader, they like to initiate things, they could plan your dates. 

Their primary love language could be acts of service. Despite being a bit individualistic, they are surprisingly super service oriented. Could have 6th house placements. 

They take care of their bodies, and I am getting that they are really good cooks. 

Honestly pile 1, you will end up being pampered by this person. I am seeing a man carrying a girl on his shoulder because the girl feet hurts after wearing heels for too long lmaoo I am just seeing those (a bit cringy to me sorry) videos, especially on Douyin (help-) of those dark romance couples (without the TOXICITY OK) where the girl gets princess treatment lol If you like that, then it’s a dream come true for you. 

(this list was more a description of positive facts about them then their light attributes but anyways lol)

Shadow attribute(s) : 4 of wands (and ace of wands)

They have a tendency to be really controlling. This person has a hard time handling their anger, or more so frustration when things don’t go as planned in their lives. This usually results in them panicking and they end up kind of lashing out on the people around them. Now, to reassure you, this person is not abusive or manipulative at all, they are a really honest and straight person. When I say they “have a hard time handling their anger” it is usually momentary and they genuinely excuse themselves afterwards. They are quite self-aware of their shadow traits it seems, because I kept on seeing them being ashamed of their anger issues. I feel like they are working on these issues consistently, and they are always walking towards healing these issues because I am really picking up that this person made tremendous efforts these past few years.

Another downside is that they can be too impulsive at times. They do have some patience though, but, sometimes, they get a lot of ideas and want to rush things instead of letting divine timing play out. 

They also are a little bit too competitive and can take stupid games a bit too seriously lmaoo They are the type to flip the monopoly game board and accuse people of cheating, the kind to reread the rules and fact check them online to see if the penalty they got is fair or not. If you are like that too, this will be a funny pair haha If you aren’t, this might become really tiring at some point.

They also might be a little too cocky or ego driven at times.

MBTI : ESFJ 

Life path : Life path 1 , The Warrior

Life motto : "Life is simple, get into the moment."

What do they look like ? Their vibe ? essence ? 

Kibbe body type : Natural / Yang-Balanced 

Here’s a description of this body type (i found this on reddit, but it does the work so don’t judge me) 

“NATURAL: Usually of sturdy or athletic build. Face may be craggy with irregular features, or perhaps has a square jaw and wide-set eyes or simply a rugged and outdoorsy look. Might have freckles, and hair is rarely glossy.”

Face type essence

Romantic : keywords of this face type essence => indulgence, alluring, sensual, curvier, glamour, luxury, soft, and lush lips.

House Nine (+ Saturn) - Spiritual Growth 

So, I am getting that your person, if they’re a man, most likely looks like those stereotypical handsome men in perfume ads.* I heard “handsome squidward” lmaooo. Go watch Addison Rae’s Diet Pepsi music video. I am getting the guy in the video probably looks like your future lover. Congrats, pile 1, you’re about to bag a hot one lol

They just generally look really sensual. They moisturize their skin thoroughly , both face and body, so they are glistening 24/7. I am getting that they look wet ?? They also probably wear gel on their hair, maybe enjoy having this ‘wet hair type of look”. Most likely has a goatee or a goatee with a mustache. 

For women, I am not really picking up on much. The people that chose this pile are most likely going to date a man. 

But, if I can say something is that, no matter their gender, this person could look racially ambiguous. 

They also have a really daddy-like appearance (i am saying that because they have strong Sun, Jupiter and Saturn energies. really stereotypically masculine.). They also look reliable, intimidating and intense. This person might have Saturn in the first house or are cancer or capricorn rising. Even Leo risings or sagittarius risings for some. 

*note : perfume or cologne or just scent is a big thing in this pile. This person or you or both of you could have a particular relationships with perfumes, and scent in general. You or them might work in a perfume shop, or something related to that field. This person might collect a lot of perfume and have a signature scent. Beware because their signature perfume IS NOT a popular one, really obscure high class brand (or they custom made it for some even). You might meet this person when you buy a new perfume, or when you decide to have your own signature scent. 

Pile 2

Who are they ?

Core personality : Uranus - Radically change

Before pulling any cards, I already felt a strong rebellious energy from this person. This is most likely someone who lives on the edge with a unique job. A DJ, an OF girlie, or just a sex worker in general. Some of them could work in sex shops ? I am getting someone that actually MAKES the models for new dildos or sex toys. Like a sex toy artist ? creator ? (does that even exist ?). They could also be a psychic, a medium, or a tarot reader that works exclusively with sexual energy ? Some of them could also be strippers or exotic dancers. I am getting the movie Anora might be relevant for some here. This is going to be hyper specific but they could be a photographer that takes pictures of dead animals or corpses ? Generally speaking, this person works in a really taboo and unexpected industry. They probably have multiple streams of income. This person, despite being so freedom seeking, and loving novelty and thrill chasing, is really business minded and actually surprisingly stable (financially). They probably are really comfortable materially speaking. I am sensing that a lot of people judge them, but at the same time envy them because they are courageous enough to be unapologetically themselves and go beyond what is expected to be free financially and in general.

This person probably has capricorn, aquarius and sagittarius placements. Really sarcastic, a bit unpredictable, funny but can have the "foot in the mouth" syndrome. Some might love to swear like a sailor. Probably has a dry sense of humour. Could have grown up in poverty. One of their parents could have died when they were young. Some were adopted. Whatever the case may be, this person had a really tough childhood and upbringing that made them passionate about making their own money and creating their own life and reality. People that harshly judge them don’t understand the pain they had to go through to be where they are at right now. This person is a warrior of life honestly.

Light attribute(s) : Eight of Wands - Vehuel “The Great and Exalted God”

This person is extremely passionate and driven. They have no problems planning and jumping in action right away. They don’t overthink and waste time ruminating. They are a go getter and life made them learn the harsh way that if you wait too long, the opportunities will unfortunately pass you by just like the wind. You have to grab them when you can.

I don’t know how this is a light attribute but they are hot, and they know how to present themselves in a hot way ? They know how to preserve that “hotness” and use it at their advantage. They have an incredible sense of style, and know what fits them or not. Even if most of them have (most likely) an alternative lifestyle and style fashion wise, they know how to make it look good and make other people validate their style. Like they understand the rules of society and they play with it. Despite not fitting in, they know how to make themselves fit in enough to play around with capitalism. This is super interesting to be honest. This person is most likely a Capricorn Sun. Really good at knowing the social expectations and understanding “human nature” and the game of money, and how to play with it. I am hearing “making capitalism my bitch” lol and the quote in the background of Lisa’s Money music video “ Money is an incredible servant but a terrible master” or something like that. (They are a really materialistic person it seems)

Shadow attribute(s) : 4 of Pentacles 

Well…. I knew this energy would come up for their shadow side…Yes, they know how to make “capitalism their bitch”, but they are nonetheless really greedy and stingy with their money. They are an overtly materialistic individual, who is obsessed with money and finances. Money is ALWAYS on their mind. So much so that, as you saw in the “Core personality” section of this reading, their entire self surrounds around making money, ways to make money, how to make money and how to make even more money,.. 

This person is honestly The Devil archetype… Could have a machiavellistic way of thinking. They are the type to think that the means justify the ends. This could in turn make them quite sadistic and selfish. They could also suffer from addictions they don’t address : could be smoking cigarettes, weed, alcohol, sex or drugs. I am getting most of them, they are a little bit addicted to all of the things I listed above. 

Now. I know a lot of you are probably freaking out while reading this (which is totally understandable) but I feel most of you guys who picked this pile are like this too OR are in their way of becoming like this, having this lifestyle (making your own money in unusual ways, partying, hanging out with alt people, people who live unique lifestyles,;..).If you don’t resonate with that, this may not be your pile. 

MBTI : ESFP

Life path : Life path 11 - The Illuminator/Psychic (+ Life path 8 - The Influencer)

Life motto : "You decide who you are" and "You grow through what you go through."

What do they look like ? Their vibe ? essence ? 

Kibbe body type  : Gamine 

If woman : “The Gamine body type is defined by an even combination of yin and yang opposites and is the overall combination of a sharply delicate physicality along with a fresh and spicy essence.

Body type is straight. Lithe and lean, tends toward sinewy musculature. Tends toward flatness in bust and hips (unless overweight). May be very leggy. Possibly slightly short-waisted.”

If man : Small in stature, boyish face and body and perpetually young-looking. 

Face type essence : Classic => keywords of this face type essence : elegant, simple looking, balance, symmetry, timeless, basic, default settings face, neutral, conservative (what lol), controlled looking, formal

House Two - Physical security, Possessions, Material Values

This person looks poor and rich at the same time. they wear grunge clothes, from charity shops, clothes with stitches and holes in them, tear up clothes,.. It is both intentional (it is their style) but also because they don’t give a shit if they look “homeless”. They like that look. 

Despite making pretty decent amounts of money, and trying their best to appear good in society so that they can benefit from the system, they don’t spend much on clothes. I think this careless attitude towards the way they dress is what makes them stand out, and oddly enough, in a good way. It’s like their style is messy but they look effortlessly good. 

Not much stands out when it comes to their face. They look pretty normal. I feel like it is their stature, their body, their clothing style and the way they carry themselves that stands out. 

Some of them might not be particularly pretty or handsome, but they are still quite attractive, just for other reasons than their physical beauty. 

They could have prominent eye bags, some don’t care about having greasy hair and messy buns, tangled hair. They are not gross by any means, like, they take showers. They might just not be the cleanest and most hygienic person out there. I am sensing that, especially if they are a man, they walk like a GTA character. They have the GTA walk basically. For women, they have the BBL walk (lol) or they also walk like characters in GTA, specifically GTA strippers. 

Pile 3

Who are they ?

Core personality : 

Pile 3… How do I say this.. It was almost impossible to get one card for their core personality. Every card that fell felt really off to me, like it didn’t make sense. Especially since all of them were extremely contradictory : Pluto and House ten wanted to fall first, then the Leo card was at the top of the deck. I reshuffled and the Mutable card fell??? Which, if you don’t know, is a completely opposite energy from the previous cards (Pluto and Leo being fixed energies, and House Ten cardinal and earthy, so really assertive and kind of fixed in a way). Then I reshuffled because I was REALLY confused just to have the Fire card (the fire signs card) ??!! This whole messy process of trying to get their core personality is telling that this person has MANY layers, and that one card just would not be enough to describe them. At first, they might appear confident, like a go-getter (the Fire card), but then, you see this flexible, more, light-hearted and adaptable energy coming from them once you get to know them more (the Mutable signs card). But then, you discover this deeply driven and influential, career oriented, boss bitch side of them when you dig even deeper. For a majority of you though, this process would most likely be the other way around  : first, you see how intense, dark and career oriented they are. They appear almost famous, with a resting b*tch face, and a no bs attitude. Really intimidating at first. But then, you’re getting surprised once you talk to them by discovering how super chill and friendly they actually are. But then, you get surprised again once you discover that this person can actually be the life of the party, really lighthearted and down to have a blast at any moment. They are not just calculating, overtly serious and too intense. They also know how to have fun, and are really good at it. I am seriously getting that your future lover is/or might be really good at twerking. lol No matter their gender, they are a pro at throwing it back. They really are a fun and complex individual.

Light attribute(s) : Six of Pentacles and Nine of Cups (again, one card wasn’t enough for them.. Pile 3, you’re person is giving me a headache lmaooo)

This person is extremely generous and charitable. They know how to share their blessings with others, especially the ones in need. Your future lover probably has volunteered at least once in their lives. They probably are really active in their local community to help the ones in need, or just to volunteer because they want to. 

This person is grateful for their life and their opportunities. They know how to accept life’s blessings with open warms and be grateful for them. They are generally speaking a more positive and optimistic person and they know things will get better eventually.

Shadow attribute(s) : 7 of Swords

The card literally flew away and I didn’t even shuffle… Be warned pile 3.. (don’t freak out I am just playing)

So, this person might have a tendency to not always tell the truth to keep the harmony. They might be a bit too nice. They will withhold certain information, lie and deceit just to not make someone mad. The problem in this is that at the end, everyone gets mad because they all got lied to someway somehow. This reminds me of the first season of Arcane and how Jayce was trying to appeal to the Juries (or whatever they are called) and Mel but at the same time there was his OG friend, Viktor, that he let down. Because Jayce is a people pleaser, and was trying to do what was right, he got lost in other people’s expectations and let down his friends to then let down the people he was trying to appeal to once he realized the situation he put himself into. (It’s been a while since I watched the first season of Arcane so maybe it is not 100% what happened but you get the core message)

MBTI : ESTJ, ESFJ, ISTP

Life path : Life path 9 - The Sage (+ Life path 33 - The Spiritual Teacher)

Life motto : "Go where you are wanted" (are they really acting on their life motto… that is the question)

What do they look like ? Their vibe ? essence ? 

Kibbe body type  : Soft Gamine, Theatrical Romantic

“The Soft Gamine silhouette can be described as staccato, animated, and with clean curves." Soft Gamines are typically petite and compact, with a slightly boyish figure.

Face type essence : Ethereal => keywords about this face type essence : maturity, wisdom, purity, old soul, outwordly, magical, ancient, unusual looking

Mutable - Surrender, fluidity and welcoming change

Their looks could vary a lot for each of you I am getting. They could look racially ambiguous, look friendly, almost angel-like for some.

I am honestly not picking up on much for their appearance because I feel like their appearance doesn’t (or shouldn’t ?) matter. It is like you will like the way they look regardless, probably also because this might not be your usual physical type. 

I am also getting that this person will look like the way you want them to look like ? I know this sounds insane but I kept on getting images of the Sims or games where you can manually create and customize your characters. It is like you customized them by yourself in the subconscious realm. Not what you dreamt of consciously, which are physical ideals that are usually driven mostly by the ego. No, this person will actually look like what your higher self has been cooking up and manifesting (without your consent lol) behind your back. So, even if they’re not your physical type, you will be subconsciously attracted to them because it is your higher self’s type.

I even think that some of you will feel super physically and/or sexually attracted to this person initially, which might shock you because it feels like it is coming out of nowhere lol

Okay Pile 3, your pile was a little wild but really fun to do ! Sorry if it is slightly shorter than the other piles. I just feel like your guardian angels and your higher self are purposefully gatekeeping some info away from me intentionally. 

Pile 4

Who are they ?

Core personality : Chiron - Hurt and Heal (+ Capricorn)

I am getting that this person was deeply wounded in the past, but has healed tremendously ever since. This person was born with a heavy karmic burden. They always felt like their presence was too “loud”, that they took too much space, like they were the elephant in the room. I am picking up this person could have a capricorn rising with saturn and chiron in the first house. Their entire being and identity is filtered through the painful and restrictive energy of Chiron and Saturn. The SOUR album of Olivia Rodrigo could be relevant for some of them or you/ or just both of you. I am saying that because, to do your pile, I stopped watching a SOUR album reaction on youtube lol I actually think Olivia Rodrigo is herself a Capricron rising with Chiron in the first house (poor her). Anyways. This person has a unique connection to music. They probably have a huge vinyl collection, and are extremely cultured in music history. They love listening to all sorts of music genres and are really open minded. They might be a bit awkward or shy at first, but you will instantly be impressed by their music knowledge. They actually might know how to play a few instruments. I am getting the bass, but also the drums. Also with the picture of your pile, they could be a Dj, or are friends with people who work in the music industry/field. They might be themselves in the music industry. I am getting if they’re a man, they probably have a grungy style of clothing, they wear shirts of metal bands, and have longer hair. If you see them play, they’ll be quite lowkey, just the bass player at the back. They love music, and even if they are an artist, they are not looking for fame at all. They enjoy being mostly unknown, or just known in their small local community. Random but you might meet them and they’re playing the drums or bass in a cover of jealousy, jealousy by Olivia Rodrigo.

I am getting a lot of “sad girl” music (not the best term, just angsty and sad music made by women). From the start by Laufey is coming up. This person might have always been in one sided love situations. Poor them, they seem so sweet ;/ Don’t ever tell me they aren’t shitty placements to have when there is this person as an example.. 

I think this person has always stayed resilient despite the pain that Saturn and Chiron is causing them. Like the heartbreaks never made them bitter. This person is really emotionally strong, honestly. They know how to not take things too seriously. They are really good at handling rejection.

Light attribute(s) : Four of Cups

This person is really patient. They know how to weigh the pros and the cons and not take everything at face value. 

They are really good at reading between the lines, and know how to take a step back when needed. 

They aren’t desperate, and they understand the concept of boundaries really well. 

They are also really realistic and always make sure not to jump to conclusions. 

If you are a really stressed individual, they are the best fit for you. They are extremely empathetic and patient, and they know that it is completely useless to say “calm down” to someone who is in the midst of having a panic attack lol 

They are really educated in mental health too. I am getting this is most likely a bisexual man, some are cis men, some are trans men, I just think this person is actively part of the LGBTQ+ community. Really left wing. Some might even be marxist, far left. Either way, they are really politicized and are concerned for society. I don’t know i felt drawn to put this in the light attributes lmaoo it is more so a fact about them, but if you share the same political views, it actually makes sense.

Shadow attribute(s) : 7 of Wands

They might have a hard time handling conflict and might have a tendency sometimes to run away from issues, or put them under the rug until the problems all come together flooding at them and they don’t know what to do. 

They might sometimes easily get overwhelmed and need a lot of alone time because of that. 

They are not the best at voicing their problems. They are not really verbal generally speaking, which could be frustrating for people who are direct and literal. 

MBTI : INFJ ( I am getting strong Kurt Cobain vibes from your person. Such a sensitive soul <3)

Life path : Life Path 1 - The Warrior (+ Life path 6 - The Nurturer)

Life motto : "it comes and goes.." / "I am divinely protected at all times <3"

What do they look like ? Their vibe ? essence ? 

Kibbe body type : Flamboyant natural

“These men are masculine, but share the Dramatic height and longer bones. They have broad, blunt shoulders and broader chests than the Dramatics. / They have broadness in some parts of their bodies, and wider bones (wider hands and feet, sharp jaw-lines, larger noses). When they pack on muscle, their body becomes a T-shape”

Face type essence : Romantic => keywords of this face type essence => indulgence, alluring, sensual, curvier, glamour, luxury, soft, and lush lips.

Saturn - Feel restricted, Experience struggle, Learn Hard Work and Patience

This person’s bone structure really sticks out. If they’re a man (which is most likely for most of you here), they have a larger waist, like their waist isn’t defined at all. They are most likely either average-short height or quite tall. Not skinny, not fat or chubby. They are slim-thick I am getting ??! I don’t know if you can say that for a man though ?(I don’t think so but bear with me lmaoo). Like they are not slim and have abs, but they don’t have a beer belly either. They are "normal" I guess.

Their limbs could be quite long too. Like their arms are super long, so  it almost looks like their hands are touching their knees ? It is really hard to explain.

Some of them could have a hunchback or a posture problem. Like they have scoliosis and sit in a really particular way. 

Some of them could have a roman nose, their nose might be bigger in general. I am seeing that one jewish stand-up comedian, he always comes up in my Youtube reels lol I think he has an italian name (ok I found him his name is Gianmarco Soresi , he is really funny lol. He is known for his elbows I think, like there is a running inside joke about his elbows. I know this is weird but look him up, he has really long limbs. They might have a similar vibe to him, the way they carry himself ,their humor, the way they interact with other people, etc…

Pile 5

Who are they ?

Core personality : 

Currently shuffling to get one oracle card for their core personality, and, just like Pile 3, it is REALLY confusing. Two cards fell first, then 1 card that had nothing to do with the two first ones fell and then yet another one that had even LESS correlation to what I previously shuffled fell.

What I am getting from this confusing shuffling is that this person is a shapeshifter, a chameleon, a social butterfly (but not a frivolous one). They kind of remind me of Jayce from Arcane in a way (go read Pile 3 if you want, because I just mentioned Jayce too in Pile 3’s reading, there are a lot of mirroring between the two piles). What I am getting though is that they are really calculated and intentional in the way they display this “social butterfly” energy. They are not just social to be social, or in a “ I am so happy to be there yolo slayy”. They keep track of every single one of their connections, how it is going, etc… Really good communicator. Extraverted and a bit controlling (they just have a tight schedule and are well organised so it’s not excessive.). I also heard “Social engineer”. This person is really good at socializing, understanding people’s motives and using it to their and the community’s advantage. They know how to act and with who, what to say and how to say it according to each person they meet. Now, I do not think they are manipulative in a bad way. They are honest, generally, but could lie by omission when needed. This person could also smell good lol (random I know). I am getting most of the people who chose this pile’s future lover will be a man, but a man with heavy Libra/ feminine energies. I am seeing Siwon from the K-pop group Super Junior. So, this person could be a bit conservative or more traditional in their values (because Siwon, if I am not mistaken, is a huge christian for better and (mostly) for worse…) Your person could be homophobic or hold certain views that were taught to them from a really young age; You know those “christian values”. Let me share with you something Choi Siwon said about homosexuality in an interview back in 2007  : “While I respect all genders, I do not wish to acknowledge homosexuals as I have been taught that God created Man and Woman with specific characteristics and duties”. I am getting a minority of you could think the same, but a majority actually are dying inside reading this (honestly, me too). This relationship could be a karmic one (karmic does not mean bad by the way) that teaches them to be more flexible with their values, and accept more progress and diversity? This person could’ve been groomed to think that way since they were a child. I think deep down they are a really open minded soul. This person could have a north node in gemini or the 3rd house : they could be really preachy and stuck in their own belief system. Really resistant to change and progress. (they don’t have to be conservative/christian it could also be any belief they are clinging onto). Your presence in their life could shift their view and push them out of this stubborn preachy “I am right you are wrong, my truth is THE truth” kind of mindset. To reassure you : NO YOU WILL NOT BE A BOB/BARBARA THE BUILDER. Most of you know your worth, and if this person doesn’t want to change, you know damn well it’s their problem and not yours. You will not try to “fix” them by any means. (needed to make this precision because some people could think I am describing a savior/martyr dynamic when really it is a teacher/student dynamic (you being the teacher, of course). There won’t be any kind of power imbalances so don’t worry (and you can also always choose to not enter in this relationship when the opportunity presents itself to you)

Light attribute(s) : Temperance

This person is really patient and diligent. 

This person is also really spiritual and aware of concepts such as “divine timing”; They know that rejection is divine protection and are able to not take things at heart. 

They know how to see the bigger picture. 

They are extremely good teachers/mentors/gurus , and are good at sharing spiritual knowledge. They are really wise.

Shadow attribute(s) : 5 of Swords

They could be a bit sneaky. Like they do things behind people’s back, and hide some stuff to get what they want. It is just the shadow side of their social engineer personality. 

They could sacrifice too much, sometimes go to excess to get recognition and success. 

They LOVE positive attention and compliments, so, they could overdo it or act as if they have more than they actually do just to impress people.

They have a bit of ego paired with some self esteem issues that makes them seek out external validation a bit too much. They could also let other people decide for themselves in the way that they want to make sure everything they do or/and say is socially accepted/acceptable. 

They just want to fit in and they hate being the weirdo/ the scapegoat. It might actually be one of their worst fears : to be left out of the group, to not be in the “in” crowd, the popular crowd. This is a shadow because they have a hard time expressing their own desires and to do whatever they want/be authentically themselves. 

MBTI : ENFJ

Life path : Life Path 6

Life motto : "Control how you respond to things sent to destroy your peace."

What do they look like ? Their vibe ? essence ? 

Kibbe body type : Natural 

(this pile feels like a mix of Pile 1 and Pile 3. Go read them if you hesitated with those piles/or just to see additional messages)

Natural / Yang-Balanced 

Here’s a description of this body type (i found this on reddit, but it does the work so don’t judge me) 

“NATURAL: Usually of sturdy or athletic build. Face may be craggy with irregular features, or perhaps has a square jaw and wide-set eyes or simply a rugged and outdoorsy look. Might have freckles, and hair is rarely glossy.”

Face type essence : Ingenue

Keywords associated with this face type essence :  Cute, Idealism, Youthful, Femininity, Small, Sweet, Pretty, Gentle, Innocence, delicate

Sagittarius - Optimism, Exploration and Freedom

They probably are really “thick”. They probably are more on the muscular side, some could be muscular and  chubby at the same time. They just look taller or bigger than average, they have a “big” energy when they enter any room. They just naturally take more space. Really “larger than life” appearance/ vibe. Their thighs and legs are the most prominent part of their bodies. They are taller than average. 

Pile 6

Sorry in advance Pile 6, your reading is a bit cryptical at times. The energy of your future lover is really hard to grasp onto but I think that is on purpose. You will know more about them just as you get to know them.

Who are they ?

Core personality : Pluto - Transform / Libra - Consideration, Fairness and Harmony

This person has a really transformative and intense personality, but at the same time they are really balanced and harmonious ? They are healthily obsessive, they seek harmony in the secrets, the taboo. Everything that is dark and hidden, they express it artistically, they show the darkness diplomatically. 

I don’t really know though, I think their energy is really hard to get. Really enigmatic individual. They might wake up one day, and be a person to then wake up the day after and be another person. It is like they consistently “die”. They never cling to a specific identity or personality. They are everlastingly changing. But, them being in a constant state of change doesn’t make them chaotic either. They shed their old skin/ die really harmoniously. Their constant changes aren’t messy and abrupt. They tend to be really quiet and really observant. Like a feline waiting to pounce on their prey at any moment. This person could be really attractive like magnetic, almost high fashion model attractiveness. When they walk by, everyone turns their heads to admire their lethal confidence, theri sharp aura, and their deadly stare. 

This person is probably an artist too : a painter, a poet and a writer. They probably have many artistic talents that they indulge in a lot. I am picking up that this person is probably an 8th houser (have 3 or more planets in the 8th house) with a stellium of planets in Libra (sign of beauty, art and harmony). They know how to create divinely and they have an amazing artistic flair. They are amazing with their hands. Their hands could actually be their most attractive feature.

Light attribute(s) : The Devil

Well… this is an interesting card that fell for their LIGHT attributes lol This person is so mysterious to read omg

So, this person is really comfortable in their shadow. Even though they probably don't know what a “shadow” side is, they’ve explored it and they went into the depths of it already. 

They aren’t scared to face their demons. They are extremely honest and real, and are highly aware of their toxic traits and shadow side and don’t bother hiding them away. 

I just think that their honesty and transparency is the thing that sticks out the most. Their lightest attributes is found in their own exploration of their shadow side

Shadow attribute(s) : Queen of Pentacles

okay.. I heard something really weird but this person could be a sex addict ?? I just think it only applies to a minority of you though. But I don't think it means they are literally addicted to the act, they just are obsessed with the concept of "sex" and sexuality in general. This obsession might make them a hard person to have a "mundane" conversation with.

I think they could just be overtly disconnected to their bodies. They could try to mesh too much with their spiritual side that they forget their bodies. 

They could also be too fixated on the darker sides of life, on the deep and hidden that they forget to do mundane things. Like they cannot uphold a casual conversation, they can only interact when the subject is death or sex. There is just an imbalance in their energy. They pour too much energy in things that are transcendental so they forget the materialistic side of life.

In summery, they are just too obsessed with taboo topics (death, sex,...)

MBTI : ESFP

Life path : Life path 6 - The Nurturer

Life motto : "it comes and goes." / "when you get tired, learn to rest, not quit.”

What do they look like ? Their vibe ? essence ? 

Kibbe body type : Flamboyant natural or Soft Dramatic, Romantic and Classic ALL at the same time (mainly the first two though) (this person’s face card is LETHAL)

Face type essence : Gamine, Dramatic and Romantic (they are a mix of all of those)

Gamine => Quirky, Playful, boyish, dramatic, childlike, rebellious, whimsical, creative, youthful

Dramatic => Danger, sharp, narrow, boldness, wildness, theatrical, extravagance

Romantic => keywords of this face type essence => indulgence, alluring, sensual, curvier, glamour, luxury, soft, and lush lips.

Classic => Elegant, balance, controlled looking, symmetry, timeless, basic, default setting face, conservative, formal, neutral

Capricorn - Ambition, Realism and Methodical Steps (+ House Twelve - Spirituality, Transcendence, Karma, Sacrificial service, and healing)

This person looks ETHEREAL. High fashion niche brand model look. They look straight out of an anime, a webtoon and a runway AT THE SAME TIME. Many people could be jealous of them because of how good-looking they are. 

All I am hearing is “FACE CARD ? LETHAL.”. This person has a really intimidating energy, a striking aura and an authoritative vibe. Their depths and contradictions melt together and show up in such a way in their faces, and body, and the way they walk, talk , and look at people in a really fascinating way. Everyone thinks they’re good looking, but not everyone admits it out of jealousy. 

Some of them could have clear skin, or acne that looks aesthetic on their faces ? I’ve been seeing angel oracle cards (like angel michael,..) in my head so they probably look like an angel themselves. Go search for Mannerism paintings/art/painters. They remind me of those erotic homosexual (really sensual and sexual) paintings of the Renaissance.

⋆.˚🦋༘⋆stay blessed everyone⋆.˚🦋༘⋆

[steppenwolfslair]

No people are not wrong that Nevecanis feels canon rather than Rookanis

An analysis (and vent) on the poor writing of the whole romance situation. A long post for those that want to read. I need to get it out of my system because more than anything this ruined my first playthrough. I know this has been talked to bits but i was recently reminded of this and it ruined things for me again while playing.

NO NEVE HATE ALLOWED, don't come here with that home wrecker bullshit.

First let's start of with saying i will be looking at what the actual text and game shows me here, no hc's, no fics just the pure canon. When the in your face text actively contradicts all of the ”subtext” a lot of people like to throw around it isn’t subtext, it's wishful thinking and making things up. We are sticking to the WRITING.

No Neve isn't a distraction, it isn't a casual relationship meant to fail. It is supposed to be genuine, Lucanis by the end of the game does love Neve and Neve loves Lucanis. Endgame convos show us this, especially if one of them dies. It isn't lust or distraction or whatever, it is a real genuine relationship. We are shown this through many lines of banter and interactions. And Spite likes Neve too i don't know where this started but Spite is fine with Neve. Stop reducing Neve and making shit up because some people just can’t handle the fact that the writing for all of this isn’t well done.

Now there is the first coffee date which i LOVE and shows that Lucanis isn't an awkward bumbling ''doesn't know intimacy'' dummy, he can flirt, he can show that he likes Rook but the game after this scene completely forgets that.

There is a very weird personalty split with nevecanis and rookanis when ti comes to Lucanis later in the game.

The problem is this: Lucanis actively pursues Neve, flirts and shows interest. He is completely capable of showing it, he isn't the closed off traumatized assassin people paint him, the game shows us this repeatedly. With Rook it is the complete opposite, stonewalled and disinterested, if someone acted like that way to your flirting you would leave them alone because you would think you were making them uncomfortable which is what it often feels like with Lucanis and Rook.

There are few moments besides the very end game that Lucanis actually reciprocates feelings, one is the lean in kiss that amounts to nothing that is never talked about and addressed and one is a RECYCLED Neve scene that is actually very sweet and insightful when it's about her but with Rook it flows incredibly awkwardly like it's missing half it's conversation. Yes acts of service are a way to show love but this is literally a recycled scene that seems far more friendly than romantic because it WAS meant to be friendly (and like i said lucanis is very capable of being romantic, he isn't an awkward little uwu i don't know how any of this works type). And then to add salt to the wound Nevecanis actually gets a follow up scene to that which confirms their feelings for each other, they get an ACTUAL verbal lock in scene that Rook doesn't.

Then we go on to the banter, Rookanis gets three lines of romance banter through the whole game with three different characters which are... fine. While Taash gets a whole series of banters with Neve same as Lucanis with others. If in party they constantly have little tid bits about what they do together and how their relationship actually progresses. Rookanis doesn't get any actual progression. Hell nevecanis banter with Taash actually talks about spites whole deal in the relationship which is never mentioned AT ALL with Rookanis. The post Talon conversation is mostly about spite with a VERY awkward lucanis standing next to Rook scene and a ''whatever this is'' I'm sorry but after all that game time this is what the relationship is? “Whatever”? And then after a whole bunch of nothing I’m sorry the end game scenes and convos are completely out of nowhere.

And don't even get me started on that little flower comment in the grove, that one legit made me sad that Lucanis wants to get flowers for Neve but a Rook version of that doesn't exist. It made me so pissed that no one writing it thought “maybe the player would like something like this”

Sure we save him from the mind prison, Rook is obviously close to Lucanis and definitely friends with him but if you had Neve and Lucanis in your party a lot like I did (and no matter what some people claim they very much flirt with each other) Neve showing up in there 100% feels like another nod to the fact that he is very much interested in HER. There is a little nice sincere bit of dialogue in there for Rook that however feels disjointed because this man has been ignoring me for most of the game at this point.

I'm sorry but the writers did an abysmal job with this relationship. More on Lucanis' side since his content is cut to shreds because from what I've been told Neve doesn't elicit the feeling of being ''the second choice''. They gave me a love interest who is more actively interested through a lot of the game in someone else and then gave them more content, in fact used Rook as a bad fill in for Neve's content.

So with the actual game you are very correct at being bitter, disappointed and robbed of a good/meaningful romance. Without fics without a shit ton of contradicting hc's and mental gymnastics Lucanis is far more into Neve than Rook for most of the game and then then definitely later when Neve and him get together.

And look this is a problem with two writers obviously not cooperating, MK getting real shit treatment at bioware (but let's not let her completely off the hook, the woman stated she hates writing romance and has received criticism before for it) ,the general unfinished nature of Lucanis' character and the fact that Neves writer definitely overdid it with the ship. Which while does give an explanation and context doesn't suddenly change the situation that it makes the player feel like ass when they find all the nevecanis info.

DATV is never beating the ''these are the writers OC's and you are here to watch them'' allegations for me.

You are allowed to feel sad and bitter about this, I still am. I feel robbed and lied to after seeing everything that Nevecanis gets that Rook doesn't. I've also seen that Neve doesn't suffer the same fate of '' i feel like she's settling'' because the game makes their relationship far more active with an amazing lock in scene and actual good reactivity.

And you can still like his in game romance for what it is I'm just saying these complaints aren't coming out of thin air, they come from the game itself showing you things that make people feel this way. After seeing the Nevecanis clips i wanted my money back. I love romance in games and here I am seeing that a side ship is meant to be more canon than my characters.

And istg if someone brings up Lucanis being demi as an excuse i will block you, demi people can be romantic (which Lucanis can be just not with Rook only in the nevecanis route ), they can flirt (which Lucanis does on the first coffee date and with Neve frequently), demi people can be very sexual (something that is alluded to with Neve banter with Taash). Stop using acephobic rhetoric to try and wash away bad, janky, unfinished writing. Demi people don't all act the same and a lot of you are projecting a stereotype on Lucanis that he isn’t (or projecting your own demi experience which he isn’t). Lucanis isn't an uwu baby who doesn't know anything about intimacy, who shies away constantly and just gets so confused and scared of flirting all the time it’s just that the writing didn’t care about Rookanis enough to show what he actually could be in a romantic relationship with Rook (see cut gondola scene and mined dialogue that went with it).

Also i couldn’t care less about what MK posts on bluesky, that isn’t in the game, it isn’t in the canon. If you want to keep to it fine but we are sticking to actual text here on my blog and this post.

EDIT (i reblogged with this but adding it to the og post too)

I just remembered this too: no matter what, even if you never go through the lock in convo for neve and lucanis to happen, lucanis still professes his feelings for her at the end game to rook saying he ''feels sorry for never telling her how he felt''.

So it really is canon that he will always like neve first and foremost.

Who in their right mind thought this would be a good experience for the player? Did absolutely no one playtest the lucanis romance and see that “hmm this feels like shit”

God this is so badly done.

[markantonys]

3x05 thoughts! (book spoilers)

i loved all the character & relationship moments in this episode! it was nice to take a breather and just spend time with the characters and get to see how much they mean to each other. wotshow continuing its trend of doing a great job balancing character work vs. action across the 8 episodes!

against all odds, randgwene clung on by a thread for yet another week lmao but the breakup is 100% coming next week, and surely it has to be just about the first thing to happen in the episode given the cliffhanger. i'm reaaaaally curious (and anxious) about how they'll frame it, because right from day 1 after the first trailer etc i said "i really hope they make it clear that randgwene's breakup is mutual because they just aren't right for each other, and don't frame it as the only reason they broke up is because rand is ~cheating~ with lanfear and egwene feels betrayed". it was my biggest point of worry with the whole rand-egwene-lanfear situation, and it seems like it might be coming true! but we haven't actually gotten to hear rand talk about the whole lanfear situation and his feelings on it, so hashing it out with egwene might give him a good opportunity to do that and maybe whatever he says will make it clear to the audience and egwene that he's been manipulated and it will help ease things a bit. i just really hope rand and egwene will be able to end everything on decent footing with each other; i know there has to be big tension between them at the end of the series, but imo that would be cheaper and more emotionally shallow if it's leftover tension from a bad breakup rather than the more platonic tension between two conflicting world leaders who used to have a close personal relationship and grew up together but now must both put their greater duties first. not to mention that we HAVE to get egwene's signoff on avirandlayne if we want the audience to accept that relationship, so she has to end the season in a decent place with rand!

as of now, we're obviously on the verge of high drama, but i have faith that maybe rand & egwene's conversation will end up going in a good direction that allows them to go "look, lanfear might be the catalyst for forcing us to talk about it, but we've both known for a long time that we just aren't right for each other and THAT is the real reason we need to end things" (plus, surely egwene will tell rand that lanfear's been behind her dream torture and rand will be horrified and take her side and turn firmly against lanfear, right? right??). it's also interesting to consider how much control rand had over his dream; in the past rand-lanfear dream convos, he's always seemed "conscious" (though asleep of course) and fully in control and aware of what he's doing, but in this sequence, egwene is entering the other friends' dreams and it's clear that it's just their subconscious minds coming up with scenarios and they aren't doing anything on purpose. is rand fully in control of himself in this dream? or is it a somewhat subconscious dream on his part with lanfear consciously influencing the direction? it IS interesting that the new location could, maybe, imply that this is rand's own natural dream, at least to start, vs. past randfear scenes that seemed like lanfear pulling rand somewhere to talk to him. but we really can't judge anything for sure until we've heard what rand has to say about it next week.

sticking to the waste plot, the avirand scene!! 10/10 no notes! rand learns about polyamory, avi tries to feel out whether wetlanders are down for it, and they bicker <3 and rand playing with the little girl, my HEART let him be a stay-at-home dad!!!!

as i suspected, rhuarc-bair-lian is yet another balanced triad where everybody is equally married to each other with no mention of any sibling-spouses. alanna-maksim-ihvon was the same, so it does really feel like they're setting up for the Main Character Polyship to be a balanced triad where everybody is equally romantically involved and there are no metamours, aka avirandlayne only and min not involved at all. further to this point, there was no particular min-elayne interaction in this episode beyond sharing a group conversation and they didn't react in a noteworthy way to each other, but i'll keep an eye on further developments there in the remaining episodes! if no focus is given to the min-elayne individual dynamic in tanchico, i'd say that's the final nail in the coffin for min being involved in the polycule because at that point they would have blown past MULTIPLE opportunities to tie her together with elayne or rand.

continuing on with polycule thoughts, i was glad to see an acknowledgment of avilayne in elayne's dream! one of my problems with the way it was done so far is that it was so extremely casual as to have no impact on either character outside of 3x01 itself, but i'd suspected that might change later in the season with some kind of Reminder That This Happened, and sure enough, we did get that here. this kind of small but notable acknowledgement is striking just the right balance for me: it's making sure to keep avilayne in the audience's thoughts and signaling to them that there's more to come here, but without emphasizing it as a monogamous romance so much that people will be blindsided or upset when rand joins in the future. we can see that elayne is still thinking about avi, but she's not pining and yearning for her every waking moment of the day (if she was doing that and then if avi started falling for rand more clearly before elayne rejoins them, the audience would feel indignant on elayne's behalf, so it's good that they're not going TOO hard on elayne's feelings for avi just yet; especially with avi's line this episode derisively saying "that's too much to ask of one person" implying that she doesn't have monogamous expectations with elayne, it's good that elayne doesn't strongly have those expectations either, so they're both more or less on the same page as of now).

my wishful thinking was that it would've been nice to have rand crop up in elayne's dream too sort of the way faile did in perrin's, nothing overtly romantic but a sign that he's lingering in her thoughts just like aviendha is. but of course, that couldn't happen in this context because egwene might feel weird or betrayed about seeing rand pop up in her BFF's dream because randgwene are still together. man, i don't want to be a hater but the extended randgwene is 100% to blame for the dynamics i DO want to see getting repeatedly punted off and put on the backburner! gawene didn't get to even meet, and the avirand stuff we've gotten has been perfect but it still kinda feels like they're being shafted in THEIR OWN ARC; this is the biggest time they spend alone together in the whole series but we can't even treat it as a notable focus of the season because we have to keep the focus on randgwene (and randfear) and don't want to risk tainting avirand with cheating implications by drawing the audience's attention to them too much before randgwene has broken up. and i don't know how likely it'll be for avirand to get a little moment during the cold rocks hold attack next week as i'd hoped they might, because the breakup has been dragged out yet another week so they'll be too busy giving the emotional focus to the randgwene fallout and it might STILL be too soon to let rand share any kind of little moment with avi (and in that BTS shot of sammael, he was alone with rand and egwene in a potential cold rocks hold-y set, so i wonder if rand will be sticking with egwene during the battle and avi will just have separate fight scenes).

but all i can do is wait and see how it goes down! it's obvious that avirandlayne IS coming, so i have to trust that rafe has a plan even if i can't quite see it yet haha my fear is that randgwene lasting so long in s3 will mean avirand & randlayne couldn't get as strong setup as they might have otherwise will mean them coming together in s4 will end up feeling rushed (and then gawene too which i've been looking forward to almost as much as avirandlayne, god knows what might even happen there since they are now so SO far past the date of their book meeting). why the show is choosing to fastburn the getting-togethers of endgame romances but slowburn the breakups of non-endgame ones is beyond me, but i will trust that rafe has a plan and that it will all make sense once i'm able to see the forest instead of just the trees!

returning to the dreams, i loved this sequence of egwene visiting her friends' dreams SO MUCH probably one of my favorites of the season so far!! she got so much joy out of seeing her friends happy 🥺🥺🥺 and it was such a beautiful way to show us a little bit of each friend's inner life; nynaeve's lost daughter is still weighing on her and she still dreams about a happy life with her, elayne takes such joy and wonder in learning new things and dreams of a carefree life following her heart outside the confines of duty, perrin's happy place is being at home with his forge and hopper (my heart!!) and he's starting to take faile into his heart too, and MAT!!!! mat's dream killed me dead!!! he has often been played for comic relief this season, so i was really thrilled to get this beautiful reminder of his layers and depth and the good, selfless heart he has underneath the bravado, and particularly glad to get this scene for donal!mat who hasn't had much chance to get the family stuff that barney!mat had so much of in s1 - it really helps keep up the consistency between the two versions and connect our present mat back to s1 mat. all he wants is to give his sisters a good life and hear his mom tell him she's proud of him!! which is such a gutpunch after her death in this episode!

can somebody PLEASE tell mat he's a good boy and they're proud of him!!! my Show!Mat Has A Praise Kink agenda grows stronger every day. man, between mat's dream and rand being so happy playing with the child, my s1 show-only observation that rand and mat would be each other's ideal partner in domestic family life remains spot-on. let them be dads!!

anyway, mat's mom! i was SO not expecting her to die, what a shock! and a good decision, it adds some stakes to the two rivers plotline and gives perrin even more of a reason to want to fight back instead of giving himself up and giving into the whitecloaks. and it seems we're getting the book arc of bode being able to channel! since the girls are twins in the show, i wonder if they can both channel or only one. and i also wonder how big or small of a plot point this might end up being; it's pretty small in the books, but the show has placed more emphasis on mat's family, so maybe they might do a little bit more with it? his sisters are still definitely tertiary characters, though, so i don't know. my biggest wish would be for a full wonderboy reunion in s4 so that perrin can tell mat about his mom and we can see mat react to her death (and i can get a cauthor hurt/comfort fic scenario out of it, priorities priorities haha), and ideally bode & eldrin traveled with perrin and mat can reunite with them at least for a moment. because we know that, if the books are followed, perrin and the cauthon girls will cross paths with rand soon after the two rivers arc (so likely s4), so if they can just get mat back in rand's plotline for s4 to do his TFOH dragon's general plotline, then we could get mat coming into contact with perrin and the girls as well. but as i've speculated before, this might depend on how many total seasons they anticipate getting and whether they have time to send mat back across the continent for a season or whether they need to jump into his west coast seanchan plotline immediately in s4.

good stuff in the two rivers plotline this episode! i loved perrin and faile's battle couple moment <3 and the perrin-dain face-to-face reunion was just as messy and delicious as i'd hoped! "i thought you were a good man" "i was, before you" okay okay

my one complaint about this plotline is, i have to embarrassedly put on my bookcloak hat, but i am really feeling the "alanna and her warders are getting too much time" complaints this season haha i didn't mind in the first 2 seasons, but now they're overstaying their welcome for me. it might not actually be true, but it feels like we've spent more time on alanna and maksim's relationship than perrin and faile's this season! however, i am almost certain that maksim will die in the two rivers battle, especially now that he and alanna had a mini arc of working out their problems and realizing that they're stronger when they stick together - surely that's GOT to mean maksim has to die in order for alanna to lose it enough that she does what she does in LOC next season. and if that happens, then i'll be fine with them getting so much time this season to build up to that death and make us understand why alanna loses it so badly. another thing where i'll have to reserve final judgment until i've seen the forest instead of only the trees!

speaking of people who may or may not be on Death Watch, moiraine and siuan! i really loved their scene together and thought it was so beautiful. as for predictions, i'm split 50/50 on whether them getting to mend fences and share a happy moment and a bittersweet goodbye means this is the final curtain call for their relationship and one or both of them will be dead-dead by the end of the season, or whether the "i'll find you in every lifetime" "and i'll wait for you every time" is foreshadowing of siuan going to find moiraine in finnworld at the end of the show. i just don't know!

i loved the lan and moiraine scene of them sharing a drink. perfect!

tower plotline: it was fine, got the job done

tanchico crew: bringing the comedy as always! i loved the opening scene with bickering matlayne and seasick nynaeve, absolutely impeccable vibes, and then min officially joins the gang (i loved the "raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by liandrin" moment between the four of them lmao). as somebody who's been starting to feel oversaturated with the mat-min dynamic, i was disappointed that he left elayne and nynaeve's scene so quickly to wind up hanging out alone with min yet again, but we did get some great stuff between the trio and the quartet nonetheless! still, at this point it's kinda feeling like mat was lifted out of the waste storyline purely to hang out with min for the second season in a row (and arguably to act as a support piece in HER storyline about learning how to find agency in her visions, more so than having his own storyline get focused on), but i'm sure in ep6 that will change and mat will get more time to shine and more chances to interact with non-min characters since tanchico is slated to be the A plot. i'm very excited to see this plotline lead an episode, it's been a long time coming!

we did finally get a reference to the s2 rand viewing and we learn that mat's takeaway is that min's viewings aren't even accurate because she said he would kill rand and he didn't. and then in the ep6 preview it showed mat trying to pump some tanchico citizens for info about the male a'dam collar, so i just might get a little cauthor crumb next week with mat being worried about rand getting collared and wanting to help protect him!

i think that's everything off the top of my head for this episode!

[winchestergirl2]

He leans over and kisses you. It’s a firm meeting of his lips to yours and achingly familiar. But ultimately, it’s chaste. He pulls away and settles back in his seat.

“I’m sorry,” he says, seeming sheepish, and guilty. “I meant to say thank you. Just didn’t know any other way to say it.”

👀👀 Oh Dean is that how you always say thank you? lol

how to spell exaggerate—and no, Joey, it’s not e-g-g-zagerate.

Is that a little Friends reference there?

He saw how her “helpful” suggestion to have a get-together at their apartment to celebrate the baby’s birth was setting you on edge.

Oh Lisa, I imagine a get together to celebrate is the last thing anyone is going to want to do right after giving birth. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt here and assume she's trying to be nice and wants to feel included.

5 YEARS??!! I just wanted to shout at them here, they've gone 5 years and still haven't worked out they should be together! I can kind of understand it though, there has been a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunication happen from the beginning with these two.

Oh, yeah, and the “you and Benny” thing? That’s been going well for two years now.

Oh she's with Benny. I can understand that he's a good guy. I have a feeling he may end up getting hurt though.

Dean nods, sipping at his water, even though he’s a bit absent in the eyes. Lisa watches him shrewdly.

“Why do you seem upset about it?” she asks. “Benny’s your friend.”

Ah Lisa has picked up on it, although I don't think Robbie's birthday party was the best time to start bringing that up.

“That I should’ve gotten for him,” he snaps. “Which, let me guess, Benny picked out. Right?”

Lisa really hit a nerve didn't she and the bike is where his frustration is really coming out.

“Well, Sam and I were listed as his emergency contacts—”

Hmm... interesting 🤔

That whole scene between Dean and Lisa after they left the restaurant was so sad. I did feel sorry for Lisa there it must be so difficult having to face up to the realisation that the person you are in a relationship with is in love with someone else.

“But you already have a family, Dean. Go fight for it.” 

The strength it must have taken to say that!

I'm so happy that Dean decided to fight for his family! I really wanted them to end up together.

Although poor Benny! I was afraid he was going to get hurt...

Even though Benny bowed out, carrying his hurt and his grief on those broad shoulders, letting you go meant letting go of a friend too. He put in his paperwork to transfer out of Firehouse 83.

My heart broke for him💔

Here in his arms, you know that this is where you were meant to end up. From now on, it’s where you’re meant to be.

Perfect ending to this lovely story. I thoroughly enjoyed this lovely 💖

IF I STAY - Part 2

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Plus-Sized!Reader

Summary: Your dream is to work with kids as an elementary school teacher. Dean is well on his way to becoming a firefighter, keeping things light and “strings unattached” as he goes. After a one-night stand you never saw coming, you and Dean are forced to deal with the consequences…and figure out if the connection between you is worth fighting for.

AN: Deep breaths Are you ready for a rollercoaster of emotions? 😘❤️

Song Inspo: “I Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “It’s Now or Never” by Elvis

Word Count: 13.1K

Tags/Warnings: Angst, pregnancy feels, hurt/comfort, fluff, time jumps and flashbacks, sexual tension, mutual pining, spice~, and an ending…

❤️‍🔥 If I Stay Masterlist

Part 2: It’s Now or Never

At the doctor’s office, Dean goes in with you for the first trimester ultrasound. There you learn that you’re going to have a boy. Tears well up in your eyes and slip down your cheeks.

Dean wears a look of amazement as he sits on the edge of your bed. He takes up your hand and squeezes gently. He tries to be a strong support, even though he also tries to hide the fear that begins to churn in his gut.

For one of the first times in his life since Sam was born, he feels the weight of responsibility pressing down on him. In a good way. In a fucking scary way.

He looks at you and sees the wonder written across your face while you watch the tiny shape of your baby on the screen. His heartbeat thwaps fast and loud in the speakers.

Dean realizes something else then; the decision you're making is changing the course of your whole damn life…and it’s his fault.

With his weekly hookup rate, in the very back shelves of his mind he knew something like this could happen, even though he thought he'd been careful. (Apparently, condoms are fragile little shits.) But here, in this white wall-to-wall room that smells like hospital antiseptic, that thwap thwap thwap of a heartbeat reverberating in his ears, the reality of this is crashing hard on his shoulders and rattling down to the base of his spine.

Despite his earlier happiness, those thoughts stay with him when you two eventually get back into his car. You have the pictures of the sonogram in your hands. You smile down at them before you put them back in your purse for safekeeping.

However, you notice Dean’s sudden melancholy as he stares out at the road. He’s started the car, but he hasn’t moved to pull out of the parking lot yet.

“Hey, you okay?” you say, resting a gentle hand on his arm.

Dean shakes his head. “Look…I’m sorry for tossing a giant friggin’ monkey wrench into your life. I know this hasn’t been easy for you.”

If possible, your heart softens even more. You slide your hand down to grasp his.

“Dean, this baby wasn’t planned, but he’s not a mistake,” you say. “I don’t regret anything.”

Dean stares back at you, incredulously. He can’t believe you could really say that to him. He doesn’t know what to say. He only knows what’s in his mind, and what he feels compelled to do in that moment.

He leans over and kisses you. It’s a firm meeting of his lips to yours and achingly familiar. But ultimately, it’s chaste. He pulls away and settles back in his seat.

When you blink your eyes back open, your expression is slack in shock.

“I’m sorry,” he says, seeming sheepish, and guilty. “I meant to say thank you. Just didn’t know any other way to say it.”

After a moment, you smile at him. It’s warm and almost shy.

Dean clears his throat, trying to ignore the way his face is heating up. He doesn’t say anything more. He just takes the wheel and shifts gears, pulling the car out of the parking lot. 

You don’t know what possesses you to bake cookies. Dozens and dozens of them, all the chocolate chip cookie recipes you can find. You’re in search of the perfect one. This will be the recipe your son will grow up on, and every time he eats them, he’ll remember how much you loved him.

And then, he’ll be ruined for any other chocolate chip cookies that try to grab his taste buds. He’ll say, Blech. Chips Ahoy? These aren’t as good as Mom makes!

…Or something like that.

Yes, these cookies have to be perfect. You’ll even write the ingredients down on a notecard and hide it away, and it’ll become your family secret recipe.

Once you feel like your cookie game is strong enough, you decide to test these babies out. You bring two dozen painstakingly baked confections to Firehouse 83, where Dean works. The man is a bottomless pit, to be sure, but you also want other people’s unbiased opinions. For science.

You park your car on the side of the road, making sure you’re not blocking the driveway where two huge fire trucks are parked. You head inside the firehouse with your big container under your arm and your purse on the other. Now at seven months into your pregnancy, you’ve gotten to the embarrassing “waddle” stage.

You’re still determined to be active though! You plan to keep working until you have the baby. Your parents live a few hours away, but you’re grateful that they want to help out as much as possible.

Even though they weren’t happy to hear about how you got pregnant, by now they've met Dean and begrudgingly admitted to liking him. He's really stepped up to the responsibility of a future father, insisting on baby-proofing your apartment, helping you shop for the essentials, and going with you to as many doctor’s appointments as he can. He’s even agreed to giving you child support payments, even though you hadn’t wanted to ask for it.

You look for him now as you enter the firehouse, trying to push the heavy glass door open with one hand.

“Here, I got you,” says a familiar baritone voice.

You’re pleasantly surprised at the man who helps you inside.

“Benny! It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, been…a while,” he chuckles, glancing down at the swell of your belly, but he squeezes your shoulder and leans in to hug you gently.

“Dean filled you in?” you ask. You hope so. Having to explain the story to one of his own friends would be embarrassing, especially since this is the man you walked in Sam’s wedding with. It reminds you of that day, and the way you told Dean that news in a glorified closet, with shaking hands and the wrong kind of butterflies.

Thankfully, Benny nods. “That he did…but come on, I’ll show you around. And I see you’ve brought somethin’ special for us?”

He gestures at the container you're holding and offers to take it off your hands. You give it to him, grateful for the help.

“Yeah, and I want you guys to give me your honest opinion.”

Benny tosses you a wink and a smile. “That I can do.”

Your cheeks begin to warm in a blush, but the way he helps you to a comfy couch in the common room earns your smile. There are still good men left in this world, and you’re glad to know that Dean works so well with one.

“You want some coffee, or water? Think we might have some lemonade,” Benny says.

“Water would be great, thank you,” you reply, as you rub your belly. The little man has decided to kick at your liver today. “I stopped drinking coffee for the baby. ”

It's your biggest challenge, to be honest. Try wrangling a group of fifteen to twenty six-year-olds while running on green tea, the fumes of sleep deprivation, reduced bladder control, and as much vim as you can muster.

“Ah, right,” Benny nods. “My sister has two kids. She cut out coffee, pain meds, some dairy stuff. But she claimed cheesecake was all right, ‘cause it’s got cake in the name.”

You giggle. “I see no flaw in her logic.”

Down the hall of the firehouse, Dean is just coming back in from going through a set of drills. He’s still the Candidate—the freshest blood in the house—so they’ve been putting him through his paces for the past several months. He’s eager to learn and to prove himself.

His ears perk up in confusion though. Did he just hear your voice?

Why does it smell like a bakery in here?

When he rounds the corner, he sees you in the common room, smiling and giggling like a teenager at something Benny said to you while he eats a soft baked cookie right out of a Tupperware container. You must’ve brought it for the firehouse.

This cozy little scene kind of annoys Dean somehow, though he doesn’t know why. He does know that it shouldn’t.

“Hey, look who’s here,” Dean says, forcing himself to smile. It becomes easier when you look his way, your eyes brightening at his arrival.

“There you are! Come ‘ere and try these,” you say, pointing at the box Benny holds. “Tell me if our son’s going to have the best PTA mom ever.”

Dean can’t help but grin after trying a big bite of one of your cookies.

“Oh, mah Gah,” he says, holding a hand under his mouth so nothing comes crumbling out.

“Good?” you ask.

“Good friggin’ cookie,” he confirms, after he swallows. “You’re gonna have the other parents frothing at the mouth. Who’s gonna be able to compete with this?”

Benny nods in agreement. When Dean squeezes your shoulder, your sweet, happy smile makes him smile too.

She’s going to be a good mom, he thinks. He can only hope against hope that he can be the man his son needs.

Two months later, the time has finally come. Your water breaks when you’re in the middle of teaching your second graders how to spell exaggerate—and no, Joey, it’s not e-g-g-zagerate.

However, the embarrassment of him pointing out the fluid beginning to stain your slacks is swiftly cut off by your shock. Your first call is to the principal, to have her send someone to cover your class. Your next call is to Dean, telling him to meet you at the hospital.

“Why the hell did he have to bring her,” you mutter to yourself, wiping sweat from your brow. Here you are, gritting your teeth through contraction after contraction in this damn hospital bed, and Dean is outside the room talking to Lisa.

You know you have no real reason to be upset. She’s been trying her best to be your friend in recent months. Hell, she helped Eileen and your mom plan your baby shower. She even brought you flowers when she got to the hospital, but you notice how less than five minutes after she got here, she and Dean became embroiled in yet another argument. It seems to you that all they do is argue, break up for a week or two, and then get back together again.

The sex must be explosive, like the fireworks at goddamn Disney World.

But Dean eventually does come back into the room alone. His support grounds you over the next few hours. He lets you basically break his hand, all while he gives you encouragement (and stands by your shoulder, so he doesn’t see anything you’d rather him not see).

And then, your son is born. Every muscle, every cell in your body is exhausted, but the pain meds have kicked in, and you’re in that blissed out state between abject reality and being entirely entranced by the bundle in your arms. His perfect face is just there, sleeping for the moment after the nurses taught you how to breastfeed.

Dean returns to sit in the chair beside you. He gives you some water and a piece of a protein bar. You’re not that hungry, but he pointed out that you haven’t eaten since before your water broke.

“Sam and Eileen are on their way up,” he says.

You nod in reply. You’re too into your son right now to think of anything else.

Dean shakes his head in wonder as he reaches out with a tentative hand, brushing his fingers over the baby’s downy head. He was born with a little tuft of brown hair.

“Okay, down to business,” Dean says, shooting you a playful look. “I vote for Zeppelin.”

You groan. “Dean, no. Veto. I’m not naming my son after a rock band.”

“Aw, come on. It’s a badass name!”

“What about Aiden?” you suggest.

“Veto,” he snorts. You two agreed to getting five “vetos” each, but this discussion has been more like a battle of wills over the last several months.

“Okay, what about Daniel? That’s strong, classic,” you pose.

Dean considers it with a tilt of his head. “All right, that one’s a maybe.”

Again, he strokes the baby’s soft cheek. You look over at Dean with a small smile.

“You’re going to be a good dad, you know,” you tell him. It earns his gaze. Although he’s trying to stay strong, you read the hidden insecurity there, the worry and fear. You rest a hand on his arm. “You are, Dean. You’re a good man, and you’ve really stepped up these past few months. This obviously isn’t how either of us thought our lives would go, but if this had to happen with someone, I’m glad it’s you.”

Dean’s expression softens. He hesitates, but he lays a hand over yours and squeezes gently.

“Thanks,” he says.

Your eyes meet, and it’s a moment charged with something you can’t even name. It’s not the first time you’ve felt this feeling with him. It both fills your heart with warmth, and makes you ache.

Then the door opens. It’s Lisa, Sam, and Eileen. Dean’s hand slips away from yours as they all pour in to congratulate you and Dean, and of course, meet the baby. There’s a lot of soft cooing and playful shushing.

In that small chaos, your parents call to tell you that they’re finally almost here. It really sucked not having your mom with you, but your parents live far enough away that they were going to take a train and stay with you for at least a week. Their train unfortunately got delayed due to mechanical failure.

It's okay though. Getting through the past several hours has made you realize that you’re stronger and more capable than you think, and even though part of you is still scared to death, you don’t need a husband to be a good mom. You’re going to give this your all, no matter who’s beside you…

And that's no more apparent than when Dean soon has to step out again, leading Lisa out of the room. He saw how her “helpful” suggestion to have a get-together at their apartment to celebrate the baby’s birth was setting you on edge. Really, you just want to sleep for the next 24-hours and not have any more pictures of you taken.

It gets loud enough outside your hospital room that Sam and Eileen feel they have to intervene. Lisa is Eileen’s best friend, and she’s the best equipped to try and deescalate the argument from that end, while Sam deals with Dean. It’s messy, it’s irritating, and it means that even today, you can’t just have a little bit of peace.

You sigh and cradle your still nameless baby close to your chest. He’s all that matters. Already, your heart is so damn full just taking him in.

“What’s your name, my little love?” you whisper. “What am I going to write on your certificate, besides Winchester?”

“How about Benjamin,” comes a Louisiana drawl.

You perk up and smile in surprise. “Benny, hey.”

He greets you with a slightly hesitant kiss on the cheek. He’s brought the baby an adorable teddy bear, and you a beautiful bouquet of white and blue roses, along with a box of chocolates.

“It’s the assorted kind, but they’ve got plenty of the caramel ones you like,” he says, then gazes down at the baby. “Aw, he’s a little charmer. Already got more of you than Dean, that’s for sure.”

You laugh lightly at his teasing. “I don’t know about that.” You hope your son inherits Dean’s strong jaw, and his green eyes.

Benny scratches the back of his head. “Also…sorry if I’m crossing some kind of boundary here. Looks like it’s a bit of a circus outside.”

You shake your head and smile through burgeoning tears. You set the chocolates on the end table where he’s placed the flowers and the teddy bear.

“No, it’s very sweet. Thank you,” you say. You glance out the window of your room to the hallway, where the arguing between Dean, Lisa, Sam, and Eileen seems to finally be calming down. You’re so damn tired, you don’t give a crap about whatever they’re hashing out now.

You look down at your son, and despite your strong thoughts earlier, insecurity begins to creep back into your mind like inky claws.  

“How are you holding up?” Benny asks. His face is kind and concerned when he notes the change in you.

You meet him with a wobbly smile. “Honestly? I’m afraid. I know I have a lot of people who want to support me, and I’m grateful, but…I just have this terrible feeling that we’re going to end up alone, him and me.”

You look down at your son, and you have to wipe away a tear from your eye before it falls on his face.

A large, warm hand rests over yours. Your gaze raises slowly, and Benny smiles at you. He’s serious though.

“Don’t you worry about that,” he says. “You’re not gonna be alone.”

FIVE YEARS LATER... 

For all that changes, there are some things that stay the same.

Dean and Lisa are still the world’s most “off again, on again” couple you’ve ever met. Sam and Eileen are still going strong as the hardworking, driven career couple. Your son is growing more and more every day and just started kindergarten this year.

(You ultimately caved on Dean’s idea to name him Robert, as in Robert Plant, lead singer of Led Zeppelin.)

Oh, yeah, and the “you and Benny” thing? That’s been going well for two years now.

What can you say? The man is persistent, but respectfully so. He’s considerate, reliable, and always calls you when work at the firehouse has him running late.

You haven’t yet invited him to move in with you. That part you’re still hesitant on, mostly because of your son, but Benny helps you drop off Robbie at school and makes breakfast for you all whenever he stays over your apartment. Benny takes an interest in your son’s life and keeps up with all his energy, taking him to the park to run himself ragged before dinner, and helping you tuck him in at night.

Benny is a bit closed off though, the strong stoic type. He’s hard for you to get a read on, and sometimes you wonder if he’s just indulging you when you ramble on about your day or make silly jokes. Even now, sometimes you withhold the first thought that comes to your mind, hoping he doesn’t think you immature or…too much.

But Benny shows his caring in all those little things he does for you. They add up into the big things, and he makes you feel supported. He makes you feel safe.

He even helps you plan your son’s fifth birthday. Robbie wanted to go all out on a dinosaur theme; he’s been hooked on Jurassic Park ever since Benny “accidentally” let him watch it with him on one of your rare nights out with your friends.

So you set up a little party at the park by your apartment. You managed to reserve the biggest gazebo, where there are three picnic tables covered with dinosaur plates, and tablecloths, streamers in different shades of green. You even bought a big dinosaur cake—also in a radioactive green color that you hadn’t been sure about, but your son talked you into. Robbie thinks it’s awesome.

He’s running around on the playground with a few of his friends from school. Their parents (along with Sam, Eileen, and Lisa) are talking amongst themselves at one of the picnic tables while you try to figure out how to get the Bluetooth speaker to connect with your phone.

“Haha! Got it. If you're so smart, Alexa, why don't you connect on the first try?” You fist-pump the air triumphantly, just as Benny comes to your side. He wraps an arm around your waist and kisses your cheek, making you smile.

“How’s it going out there?” you ask, nodding at the kids. Plus Dean, who’s gamely been the one to keep them entertained with different games. Right now, it’s a thrilling game of Cowboys and Outlaws, where Robbie and his friends are the cowboys, and Dean is the outlaw. He’s been hiding under the slide, behind trees and other playground fixtures, while the kids have little squirt guns to pelt him with water every time they find him.

It's pretty damn cute, and you’ve been taking pictures. You smile at the sight of Dean leaping out at Robbie and the kids, catching them off guard.

“You’ll never take me alive, Sheriff!” Dean declares.

“Oh, it’s goin’,” Benny remarks with an amused shake of his head. “Still hard to believe that guy’s about to make it to Lieutenant.”

“Hahaaa, gotcha!!” Dean cackles. He’s grabbed up Robbie and yanked him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Robbie screeches with laughter while his dad runs around the playground, being chased by a bunch of five-year-olds with squirt guns.

Your smile threatens to make your cheeks hurt. You know your life is…unconventional, to say the least, but Dean is a good father to your son. He’s also been working hard at his job. He just took the Lieutenant’s test, and even though Benny already occupies that position at Firehouse 83, a spot at another firehouse might open up for Dean to transfer.

“Part of me doesn’t want to,” Dean admitted to you last week, while he was working on fixing your stubborn, leaky sink. “All the guys there, they’re like family, you know?” “I understand,” you nodded. “You have to do what feels best for you, whether that’s staying where you feel comfortable, or moving up in your career somewhere else. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.” He took in your advice with a slow nod. “Yeah, thanks. Guess I have to time to think about it. Lisa had other ideas.” “Of course,” you said with a smile, but it soon dropped. “Why, what did she say?” “Do what I can to move up,” he sighed. “She’s got a point. That title comes with a pay bump, one I could really use right now.” “I get that. Totally valid,” you said. “But I just think it’s important for you to be happy with it too. Especially with what you do, helping people, saving people…I’d imagine being in the right mindset for all that is important, right? Who you work with can be just as important as the money stuff.” Dean considered you with a smile. “Yeah, exactly.”

As you think about it now, you have to admit that he’s grown up a lot.

Dean has to lean against a tree to catch his breath. Am I already getting too old for this crap?

Feels kind of young to have a stitch in his side after a few rounds with these kids, but even he has his limits. Lisa comes to bring him a bottle of ice-cold water, which he appreciates. He’s tempted to dump it over his head like he does after successfully neutralizing a fire. It gets literally hot as hell under that helmet and mask and all his gear underneath.

“Need an iron lung?” Lisa teases.

“Toss in a new pair of knees, thanks,” he wheezes. He downs half the water bottle in one go, but he smiles at seeing his son keep running around with his friends. He’s just got that manic kid energy that goes on for days. But Robbie’s also smart; like Dean, he likes taking things apart and putting them back together in new and ingenious ways.

Dean hopes his son likes the new model car set that’s waiting for him on the picnic table full of presents. In fact, he’s still surprised that you didn’t go with the race car theme he suggested for the party, but apparently, Robbie’s more into dinosaurs now. Dean wishes he knew that before he bought the model car set.

He looks over and catches sight of you and Benny wrapped up in each other. He has his arm around your waist while you fiddle with something, but the way you lean over and whisper near his ear elicits a smile on Benny’s face.

Dean’s good mood diminishes.

“Well, don’t they seem cozy,” he mutters.

Lisa arches a manicured brow. “Yeah, pretty sure he’s getting ready to propose.”

That earns Dean’s attention, his head swiveling back to her in surprise.

“Really?” he asks. “Who told you that?”

“His sister,” she replies. “Meg’s in my intermediate class, remember?”

Dean nods, sipping at his water, even though he’s a bit absent in the eyes. Lisa watches him shrewdly.

“Why do you seem upset about it?” she asks. “Benny’s your friend.”

“I know,” Dean says. He doesn’t need that reminder, or the guilty twinge. It’s not like he’s done anything wrong.

“And she seems happy,” Lisa points out. “Don’t you want the mother of your kid to be with a good man who treats her right?”

He nods, trying to hide his growing annoyance. “‘Course I do. I just…I don’t know. I still don’t see them together, I guess.”

“Well, they’ve been together for like, two years.”

Again, Dean nods his acknowledgement. It’s hard for him to believe that so much time has passed already. He honestly didn’t think you and Benny would be together this long. He’d always felt a little uncomfortable with one of his best friends dating you, but you’d seemed happy about it, so he didn’t discourage it. But he’d never been very supportive, either. At least, not about your relationship.

Lisa sighs and grabs his arm, pulling him aside before he can rejoin the party.

“Listen, we need to talk about something,” she says.

Dean restrains a tired groan. “Can this wait ‘til later?”

“I think we should do this now,” she says. A hallmark Lisa-ism. She’s opinionated and strong-willed, something Dean’s always respected about her. Sometimes though, the timing is damn irritating. He doesn’t want to get into another argument with his girlfriend in public, especially not at his son’s birthday party.

“Speaking of commitment,” she says with a sigh. “I think it’s fair to say that we’ve been on a five-year rollercoaster, you and I. You know why that is?”

“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me,” Dean says, crossing his arms.

“It’s because you’re spread too thin,” she says. “Between the firehouse, construction jobs on the side…not to mention other things.”

“What? What’re you talking about?”

Lisa’s lips purse, before she pointedly gestures over at you with her eyes. “Well, for example. You’re still going to her place after your next shift to fix her fridge, right?”

“Yeah, I mean, should be pretty simple. I’ve just gotta swing by the hardware store and grab this specialty tool I ordered—”

“Dean,” Lisa deadpans. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

She heaves a deep breath, running her fingers through her long brown hair.

“I get that navigating this situation hasn’t been easy for you,” she says. “It hasn’t exactly been easy for me either, but look.”

Lisa takes his hands in hers, uncrossing his arms. “I want to get married someday. I want kids too. And I want that kind of life with you…I’m just not sure you want it with me.”

Dean expels a heavy sigh. “Lis—”

“Don’t answer me right now,” she says, but she levels him with a serious look. “You need to decide though, Dean. Five years is long enough. You should know by now if you want to be with me.”

After letting go of his hands, she softens the edges of her words with a gentle kiss on his cheek. Then she turns to join the group now gathered around the picnic table where the food is, all the kids cheering for pizza and cake.

After the party, Sam, Eileen, Lisa, and Benny pack up their cars and yours with the leftover food, party supplies, and presents. Dean helps you clean up the trash, all while keeping an eye on Robbie getting out the last of his sugar-high on the playground swing.

You shake your head tiredly, if with a fond smile. “That kid’s gonna be up all night hype on that radioactive cake.”

Dean chuckles. “You want me to take him tonight?”

“It’s okay. I think he’s going to want to play with his toys,” you reply.

“Well, he could just as easily do that at my place,” he reasons.

You consider it, but you shake your head. “Yeah, but we got him the bike. He’s probably gonna want to try it out for a few minutes before we get him cleaned up.”

“By ‘we,’ you mean you and Benny,” Dean says, his tone becoming surly. “And about that. Don’t you think a bike is something you should run by me? That’s typically a ‘dad’ kind of gift.”

You pause what you’re doing at the sound of his tone. Your brows knit together.

“Sorry, but I feel like a bike isn’t exclusively a dad thing,” you say.

“My dad got me my first bike,” Dean replies. “Spent a whole three days teaching me how to ride.”

You take a minute to think about it. You understand where Dean’s coming from, so you nod.

“Okay, I get it. You want to be there to help teach Robbie? I’m sure he’d love that.” 

Dean tosses a wadded-up ball of frosting-covered napkins and stops, letting his hands fall to his sides in frustration. He draws closer and helps you untie the balloons from the picnic table.

“Yeah, I do, but that’s not the point,” he says. “Why can’t I take him home tonight?”

You blink up at him in confusion. “Well, like I said. The bike—”

“That I should’ve gotten for him,” he snaps. “Which, let me guess, Benny picked out. Right?”

You frown at him in earnest now. “Dean, why are you getting so upset about it? It’s just a bike.”

“Well you know what, it’s not! And it’s not just the damn bike either.” He swipes a hand over his face in annoyance, a telltale sign you’ve come to read well on the man. “Look, I’m missing too much shit, all right? Like, like the dinosaur thing! And the fact that I only get him on the weekends.”

You turn toward him, trying to put a cap on your own annoyance. This isn’t the first time you two have had a conversation like this. 

“We’ve gone over this before, Dean. Your schedule at the firehouse is just too unpredictable,” you say. “Robbie needs as much stability as possible between us. But…okay, if you want to take him tonight, that’s fine. We can bring the bike over to your place and show it to him there.”

You’re trying to be as reasonable as possible, and Dean knows that. Still, anger prickles just under his skin, and he can’t help but push his luck.

“You still should’ve asked be before you got the bike in the first place,” he argues.

Your brows raise high. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Look, it’s not like we bought him a Honda Civic. Honestly, Dean, why are you picking a fight with me right now?” you ask. “Did you and Lisa get into it again or something?”

Dean looks away and crosses his arms, giving you all the confirmation you need.

“Yeah, that’s right,” you nod. “I saw you two over there on the playground, looked pretty heated. But do me a favor. Don’t come at me with that energy, because I’m too damn tired of it!”

When you walk away from him, Dean can’t help but stare after you. He knows he fucked that up, just as he knows that you don’t deserve him snapping at you. He’s just too irritated to admit it.

For the entire week that follows, Dean finds himself distracted. He sticks to his word and helps Benny teach his son how to ride a bike in between their shifts at the firehouse, but Dean comes home each night feeling even more frustrated and drained than before. It’s too much, knowing Benny’s slowly but surely carving out a father-figure role in Robbie’s life.

These thoughts follow Dean to work, even while he climbs up the firetruck ladder in the rain. It’s parallel to a busted utility pole that still sparks with electricity, even in this torrential downpour. His task is to get up to the top and grab a large branch that’s tangled in the lines.

Rung after rung, he climbs. His safety mask protects his eyes from the rain, but he wishes they had some mini windshield wipers to keep his vision clear of the droplets pelting him in the face.

He also can’t help thinking of you. If Lisa’s right, then Benny’s about to become a more permanent fixture in Robbie’s life, and yours. 

Okay fine. It’s not like Dean expected you to be single forever, but did you really have to get with one of his best friends? Does it really have to be Benny, who seems so natural with Robbie, and more patient than Dean, and more of a support to you and Robbie than Dean can ever be?

And then there’s Lisa’s little ultimatum. He understands why she’s frustrated with him. Honestly, he’s surprised she’s stuck around this long. He knows she’s not going to wait too much longer for him to get his act together. For him to decide, as she put it.

It’s not that he’s not sure about her, it’s just that…

Just that what? he wonders.

He manages to grab the wily tree branch and maneuver it out of the power lines. 

He just doesn’t realize that his glove doesn’t have quite enough friction on the metal side panel of the ladder. Not only does his hand slip, but he’s forced to let go of the branch while he loses his balance. The branch falls to the sidewalk, far, far down below.

“Dean!” Benny shouts in alarm.

Luckily, the truck itself breaks Dean's fall.

Holding Robbie’s hand tightly in yours is the only thing keeping you steady as you lead him through the hospital. After the receptionist had checked you both in and gave you the room number, you hastened down the hall and up to the right floor. 2005.

Robbie breaks into tears when he finally gets to see his dad, laid up though he is in his hospital bed. Your throat tightens at the sight of Dean hooked up to all those monitors. He has his arm wrapped up and fitted into a sling. He has a thick piece of gauze taped to the side of his face, covering a wide, angry abrasion, but he seems to be resting easy on his back. The bed is at an incline, with most of the overhead lights turned off.

Robbie rushes to the bed before you can stop him. He hesitantly touches Dean’s non-injured right hand. “Daddy?”

“Robbie, wait,” you say, keeping your voice quiet. You quickly go over to the bedside and grab ahold of Robbie’s shoulders, but Dean takes a deep breath. His eyelids crack open.

“Hey, buddy,” he says, attempting a smile. His voice is rough and weak, but at least he’s awake.

Robbie’s lower lip wobbles as tears fill his eyes again.

“Come ‘ere,” Dean says, a little stronger. When he reaches out to his son, the kid hops up onto the bed and buries his face into his father’s chest. Dean holds him as securely as he can, soothing his hand over the boy’s hair and pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

“It’s okay, little man. ‘M okay,” he promises. Robbie nods, but he still continues to cry.

You can’t help but do the same. Tears slip down your cheeks without your consent. Dean beckons you over too, gesturing with his chin and a slight smile. You’re more tentative in the way you sit down at the edge of his bed. You run your fingers through Robbie’s light brown hair to help reassure him. Then, you meet Dean’s gaze and lay a hand on his good shoulder. You don’t know whether you’re steadying him, or yourself.

“How do you feel?” you ask. “The hospital called me. Benny told me what happened.”

The thought reminds you to text your boyfriend. You hadn’t had a chance to tell him you made it here yet. He must be downstairs grabbing a bite to eat, because he’s the one who rode with Dean in the ambulance and has been with him for a while.

“The hospital called you?” Dean notes in slight confusion.

“Eileen told me that Sam is in court right now, so I must’ve been next on the list,” you say. He also must have taken Lisa off his emergency list the last time they broke up for almost a month. He probably forgot to update it again.

You reach out a hand to almost touch the bandage by his temple. Instead, you hesitantly hold the side of his face to see the area better. Dean closes his eyes for a moment. You can see he’s in pain. Your hand lingers on his cheek, but you know, deep down, that it shouldn’t.

Dean doesn’t stop you though. He lets out a deep breath, savoring how nice the gentle touch feels when the rest of his body feels battered to hell.

“Fell off the ladder. Was a stupid rookie move,” he explains, but when he sees that look on your face, he tries to inject a little more joking into a smile. “S’ not so bad.”

“You could’ve broken your head as well as your arm,” you say, more sharply than you mean to.

Robbie whimpers and clings tighter to Dean. You cover your mouth, as if you can trap the words back inside. You don’t want to upset your son more than he already is, so you fall silent. Another tear works its way down your cheek, but you brush it away. Dean shakes his head.

“Hey, I’m okay,” he reassures you too. He manages to smile as he pats Robbie’s back. “Right, buddy?”

The boy’s head perks up. His eyes are still shiny, but he smiles too. He’s not one to speak when he’s upset though, so he just curls up against Dean’s chest and hangs onto him. Dean rests his good arm snugly around him.

You smile and stroke Robbie’s back. Though your hand lowers, resting on Dean’s hand. You take in a deep breath to calm yourself down. Dean’s fingers curl around yours, prompting you to glance up into his eyes. The way he’s watching you is soft, grateful.

Until the door creaks open. Benny steps in with a subtle clearing of his throat. You jolt internally, and you slip your hand away from Dean’s. You offer your boyfriend a wan smile.

“Hey,” you say.

“Hey, baby.” He comes over and greets you with a kiss to the side of your head. He smiles at your son gently. “The gang’s all here.”

“Oh! Let me call Sam, and Lisa too. They still don’t know what’s going on,” you say. You get up from the bed to grab your phone out of your purse. Dean nods in agreement and thanks you, while Robbie plays with his dad's long fingers.

“How you holdin’ up, brother?” Benny asks, after you step out of the room. He settles into the chair near the foot of the bed.

“Ah, you know me. I’m like a cat. Always stick the landing,” Dean says, smiling lazily. The morphine is starting to kick in again.

Benny smirks. “Maybe you do got nine lives, the amount of close calls you like gettin’ yourself into.”

Dean’s good humor fades. He considers his son in his arms, and he shakes his head.

“Yeah, well, no more,” he says. He got a taste of what it would be like to leave his boy behind, and he’s not fucking doing it. He’s not leaving you to raise Robbie by yourself. The mere idea tears a new hole in his heart.

His eyes sting just enough that he has to blink a bit harder, swallowing past a thick well of emotion in his throat. He presses another kiss to the top of Robbie’s head. Then, Dean meets Benny’s gaze.

“Thank you,” he says, and he means it.

Benny nods.

“You got it, brother.”

When Lisa steps off the hospital elevator on the second floor, you happen to be coming out of the bathroom to fix your racoon eyes. You’ve been crying way too much. You attempt to greet Lisa with something reassuring, but she cuts you off. 

“What happened, and why didn’t the hospital call me directly?” she asks.

Her tone is cutting, and it takes you aback.

“Well, Sam and I were listed as his emergency contacts—”

“Why?” she snaps. “You’re not his wife or his girlfriend. I should’ve been listed.”

Jesus Christ. At this point, you can’t help it. You’re too tired and emotionally drained to lasso in your temper with this woman.

“Maybe if you and Dean stayed together longer than five minutes at a time, he’d put you back on the short list,” you sling back. “But the truth is, you’ve never just…been there for Dean. Not without demanding something from him.”

Lisa scoffs incredulously. “Oh, that’s fucking rich coming from you. You’re the reason he can’t commit to anything. You think your little world is the only one that matters, and you call Dean for any little thing! What, don’t you have a boyfriend to help fix your goddamn sink?” 

You open your mouth to retort, but you pause as her words seep into your mind. She might actually have a small point about that one. You realize then just how often you’ve been asking Dean for his help, not just with your apartment, but with your car, and other logistical things that usually have to with Robbie. Dean’s just such a good handyman, and you thought he genuinely liked being able to help…even though Benny did mention once or twice that he’d be just as happy to help you.

“Lisa, this is a lot more than a leaky sink. I just wanted to get here with Robbie and make sure Dean was okay,” you try to explain.

“Good. I’m glad his son was the first person Dean got to see when he woke up,” Lisa says. “But I should’ve been the second.”

She brushes past you before you can even think of what to say. You’re in a state of shock, feeling guilty, incensed, and on the verge of tears all at once.

A familiar voice calls your name, and you turn to Benny just as those tears begin to fall. He gathers you up into his arms and holds you there in the middle of the hallway.

“She shouldn’t talk to you like that, no matter how high tensions are today. I’ll talk to Dean,” Benny says. You shake your head and bury your face in his chest, clenching your fingers in his red flannel shirt. 

“No, it’s okay,” you reply, despite the sob that shudders through you. You’ve lost the will to fight.

Benny shakes his head and presses a kiss to your forehead. “It ain’t okay, baby.”

“Please, don’t bother Dean with this. Especially not right now,” you say. You take a moment to wipe your eyes and get ahold of yourself. “I’m gonna go get Robbie so Dean can rest.”

You can’t shake the feeling that Lisa is right. You do rely on Dean too much. You just don’t want to think about why that is.

Dean makes a full recovery after a few months. He never does hear about what happened in that hallway, but he knows that things need to change. 

He decides to dig out his mom’s engagement ring from a locked box of his parents’ keepsakes, though he’s still waiting on the right time for it. He and Lisa start looking at houses though, for real this time. She hires a realtor and everything. 

He’s making a firm decision, and he thinks it’s the right one. He wants to be there for his son, but he doesn’t want to keep “spreading himself too thin.” He has to figure out how to set some roots, and some boundaries with you while he’s at it. He’ll just have to come to terms with the idea that he won’t get to be there for everything. 

He has to be okay with the fact that you’ll probably marry Benny. You’ll keep making him cookies and cakes, giving him your smile and your time and your body. And Robbie will probably think of Benny as more of a father than his own Weekend Dad. 

Meanwhile, you’ve spent the past few months keeping yourself in check as well. You’ve stopped calling Dean for help whenever something breaks down in your old-ass apartment. You try to keep your conversations less about life and troubles and whatever funny thing your students did that day in class, and more focused on Robbie–strictly about his schedule and his needs.

It’s kind of painful, if you’re honest with yourself. Sam will always be one of your closest friends from college, but in the past five years, Dean has truly become your best friend. Because you’ve told him things. The things that come from sharing a child with someone, like Sunday dinners with your parents, flipping through old yearbooks and childhood pictures—and the details of day-to-day schedules and little stupid things that happen in moments between moments.

Dean also knows the deep cuts. Like being pregnant and scared and breaking down crying on the side of the road. Like sharing the deepest well of your insecurities with someone who knows your body intimately, even if just for one amazing night...a night you’ve never quite been able to put out of your mind.

However, you know that things can’t stay the same. From now on, he just needs to be your son’s father. Nothing more, nothing less. 

So today, on a crisp April 24th, you’re getting ready for a highly anticipated evening with your boyfriend. Robbie is sleeping over your parents’ house, and Benny has been planning something special for your third-year anniversary. 

You slip into your new dress, a deep emerald green, with a pair of black heels you’ve rarely worn since before you got pregnant. Come to think of it, you were wearing these the night of Sam and Eileen’s bachelor-bachelorette party. The night you…well, the night Robbie was conceived. 

You shake your head to rid yourself of those thoughts. You even consider changing. 

You’re being silly, you shake your head. They’re just shoes. 

And yet. Thinking of that time so long ago, it reminds you of a recent Sunday dinner at your parents’ house.

Two Months Ago...

Your parents live modestly, but comfortably in rural Kansas. Their ranch-style home boasts a creek in the backyard, where your dad is teaching your son how to catch minnows. Your mom is inside working on an apple pie, knowing it’s both Dean’s and Robbie’s favorite.

You and Dean have kept close to the house under the shade, sitting on a bench made more comfortable by a pair of old polyester cushions with red, faded flowers.

“How much longer do you have to wear that?” you ask Dean. He glances down at his cast-covered left arm.

“Doc says it’s about ready to come off,” he says.

You nod, allowing yourself a certain smile. “How bad are you itching to grab my mom’s garden shears and cut it off right here?”

“Woman, don’t tempt me,” he says, his lips twitching at a grin. “I’ve been eying those overgrown scissors for the past half hour.”

You laugh and take another sip of your glass. Yours holds sweet tea, while Dean’s has some of your dad’s favorite whiskey. You both raise your heads when Robbie yells across the backyard.

“I caught a minnow!”

“Good job, buddy,” Dean grins. “See if you can catch a marlin!”

“A marlin?” Robbie questions.

“Yeah, like that orange guy in Finding Nemo,” Dean calls back.

Your dad gives Dean the same wry look you do, though yours is tinged with more amusement.

“Dean, that’s a clown fish,” you say. “He’s not gonna find that in the creek.”

“Aw, shit,” he tries to quiet his laugh. “Ah well, should keep him occupied for another twenty minutes.”

You bite your lip to stifle your laughter as well. Though something else occurs to you the longer you watch your son play and explore in the creek. Your dad has the patience of a saint as he puts yet another bait worm on the hook for the kid.

“He’s starting to ask questions, you know,” you tell Dean, in a quieter voice. “‘Why aren’t you and Daddy married? Why can’t we all live together?’”

Dean's brows raise. His good humor dims when he looks over at you.

“What do you tell him?” he asks.

You take in a deep breath, considering your words now as carefully as you did with your son.

“That we care about each other a lot, as friends,” you say, meeting Dean’s eyes. “And we love Robbie very much. Nothing’s going to change that, even if you and I aren’t together like a normal mom and dad.”

Saying it like that makes your heart twinge, for more than one reason. The way Dean’s mouth twitches into a rueful smile just makes it worse, but you try your best to ignore it.

“I never thought about having to explain it to him,” he says, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

It’s that anxious tell of his again. You notice every time he does it.

“I have,” you admit. “I just didn’t know for sure what I was going to say until it was coming out of my mouth.”

Dean smirks a little. “Yeah, that sounds like you.”

You roll your eyes and sip your drink, crossing your arms as well. Dean considers you then, looking at you in a way that makes you raise a brow in question.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing, it’s just…” He sits back against the bench and rubs his hands down his jean-clad thighs. “For the record, I did try to ask you out once.”

“What?” you scoff incredulously. “No, you’ve been with Lisa since the beginning.”

“Before Lisa,” Dean says.

He isn’t joking. He isn’t teasing. He’s serious as he stares back at you with those green eyes of his. Your brows furrow as you wrack your brain. Did he drunkenly leave you a voicemail on one of those “off again” episodes between him and Lisa? No. You know you’d remember something like that.

“It was a few weeks after the bachelor party,” Dean says. “I called you up, remember?”

Your eyes widen. Finally, that jogs your memory.

“So I just thought maybe you and I could do something again. Maybe you wanna come over my place this time.” And there it is. You deflate at his words, shoulders sagging. The "convenient booty call" proposition.

You have to laugh, shaking your head in disbelief.

“Dean, you did not ask me out,” you say. “You wanted to hook up. There’s a distinct difference.”

Dean frowns at you. “No, I was. I invited you over—”

“For essentially some Netflix and chill,” you retort.

“Hey, I offered to make you dinner,” he argues. “I didn’t say anything about hooking up.”

You pause at that. His earnest denial makes you actually think back to what you remember about that conversation on the phone.

“So I just thought maybe you and I could do something again. Maybe you wanna come over my place this time.” And there it is. You deflate at his words, shoulders sagging. The "convenient booty call" proposition. “I could make us some burgers, toss in a couple of beers and a movie night,” he adds.

You cover your lips with your fingers as you begin to realize…

“That was you asking me out?” you ask incredulously.

Dean’s brows furrow and he throws his hands up. “What? Who doesn’t like a little movie night?”

“Dean,” you huff another laugh. “You could’ve made it sound more like a date.”

“Well, ‘scuse me. Sorry I couldn’t afford the Ritz at the time,” he grumbles.

You sigh. “That’s not what I meant.”

The more you think about it, the more you just shake your head at yourself. Why did you have to overthink it, like you do everything?

“Wow,” you say, softer and more contrite. “I honestly never thought…”

“Yeah,” he says. He shifts his gaze out ahead.

You glance over at him, now more unsure of yourself. He wouldn’t have any regrets, you think. He has Lisa. As much as they go at it, they always inevitably get back together. And now you know they hired a realtor. They’re about to start making solid steps forward.

But Dean surprises you with another question.

“Do you think if…”

He doesn’t finish it, but you think you know what he’s asking. You hesitate, your fingers flexing around your glass that beads with condensation. You set the glass down beside you. 

Just as you open your mouth to reply—

“All right, pie is cooling and dinner is served!” your mom calls out. Her head pokes out of the sliding glass door to the backyard. You offer a smile, trying to hide how you jolted in your seat.

“Okay, thanks, Mom,” you nod.

You turn back to Dean, who also hesitates. His eyes meet yours, but all too soon, he locks the moment away.

Bracing his hands on his knees, he rocks to his feet and goes out to get Robbie and help your dad bring in the fishing gear.

You grab Dean’s whiskey along with your tea on your way back inside the house. You consider the amber liquid disturbed in his glass, and you down the rest yourself. The burn down your throat is a good distraction. If he asks about it, you’ll say you got the glasses confused.

You know you’ll have to leave that conversation unfinished at the foot of the bench.

Now...

Benny comes by your apartment and helps you into the passenger side of his pickup truck, like the gentleman he is. He takes you to a nice restaurant in downtown, much nicer than the usual sports bar or kid-friendly restaurant. You're very much looking forward to eating at a restaurant that doesn't feature chicken fingers or "kiddie" corn dogs.

“This is gonna be really expensive,” you whisper to him, after he hands his keys over to the valet. 

Benny squeezes your hand in his, leaning over to kiss your temple. 

“Don’t you worry about that. We both deserve a night out.” His blue eyes gleam with amusement. However, his gaze gentles, becoming more sincere. “You work hard, carin’ for everybody around you. How about you let me take care of you for once.”

Your eyes begin to water, your throat constricting with emotion. You rub his arm gratefully.

“Thank you,” you say. “You don’t know how much I appreciate that.” 

It’s always easy with Benny. Nice and simple and easy. Nice, supportive, and considerate.

Nice and safe.

That thought follows you while you and Benny walk into to the restaurant. He’s reserved great seats in the back corner, overlooking a beautiful courtyard. It’s decorated with hydrangeas and light wood dining tables, all framed with a rod iron archway as the sun begins to set just so. After holding your chair out for you before he sits himself, Benny orders a bottle of champagne to kick things off.

He turns to you with a somewhat nervous look in his eyes, like he's steeling himself. It’s uncharacteristic of Benny, who’s always so calm and charming and sure of himself. It makes a zing of anticipation run down your spine, and…a dash of fear. You don’t know why, and you don’t know how to beat the feeling down as you fidget in your seat.

He subtly clears his throat, then takes your hand. “Sweetheart, I know I’m not all that good at the words you’re supposed to say. But I can say that the past three years with you and Robbie, it’s come to mean the world to me.”

Your smile softens. He brushes his thumb over the back of your hand, encouraged by your reaction.

“So I think it’s time I made it clear where I stand, and how much I want to be the man in your life,” he says.

Your eyes begin to widen in shock, but not for the reason he thinks.

“Dean,” you gasp.

Benny’s expression slackens. “What?”

You point over his shoulder, and Benny turns to follow your line of vision. Dean and Lisa have just walked into the restaurant. They notice you pointing their way, and they both pause in surprise as well. Lisa is beautiful as usual in a slinky black dress, completely backless (something you feel you could never pull off, unless you had an invisible bra to keep the girls perked up).

Dean is…well, you’ve very rarely seen him in a suit, but charcoal gray works for him. The open collar and white buttoned-down works for him, as do the three top buttons he’s left undone, showing a tantalizing strip of tanned skin. He stares back at you like he forgot you live in the same time zone, let alone the same zip code.

“Uh, hey!” he casts out an awkward wave, before he makes his way over to you and Benny. Lisa is less than enthused.

“We shouldn’t interrupt their night,” you catch her whisper to him, but Dean doesn’t seem to hear her.

“What’s up, party people! Of all the gin joints in all the world, huh?” Dean says, a little too loudly when he thumps Benny on the back. Benny grunts, giving a bit of a forced chuckle.

“Dean,” he greets. “I think I told you about this particular gin joint. Good to see you can actually clean up once in a while.”

“Ah, you know what, this monkey suit ain’t too bad,” Dean says, pulling at his collar.

You smirk in amusement. “Yeah, I remember how much you complained about wearing a simple tie for Robbie’s Christmas pageant.”

He smirks down at you. “Hey, ties still might not be my thing, but nothing wrong with a sharp collar.”

He pops his for emphasis. You don’t know why it makes you laugh, but it does. Maybe it’s just his face and the silly, endearing expression he makes when he pouts his lips in a “blue steel.”

“So, is this just a night out, or you guys celebrating something special?” Dean asks, gesturing at the champagne bottle and your full glasses of bubbly.

Benny gives his friend a certain look. “Yeah, as a matter of fact. Today’s three years.”

He takes your hand and kisses your knuckles. You smile back at him, though you’re a bit self-conscious at the way both he and Dean, and even Lisa have their attention on you.

“We should let you guys get back to it then,” Lisa says.

Honestly, it’s a relief. You and Benny nod, wishing them a goodnight.

For some reason, you notice how Dean’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. But he goes with Lisa, laying a hand on the small of her back. You force yourself to tear your eyes away from them and refocus on Benny. You take up your champagne glass and raise it in offering.

“All right, where were we?” you ask, if with a nervous trill in your belly.

Benny smiles. He takes up his glass and clinks it with yours.

Lisa nearly sighs. She and Dean are back in line at the front of the restaurant, waiting to be seated. The second time she catches Dean glancing over at the table where you and Benny sit, she shakes her head and digs into her purse for the valet card. She’s done with this.

“I think maybe we should go to a different restaurant,” she says.

That finally earns Dean’s attention, mostly confused. “What, why?”

She just gives him a long look.

He realizes that whatever her reasons are, it’s easier to just give in than to fight her on it. He’s learning when to pick his battles. Or is he just giving up?

Also, if tonight’s “the night” he thinks it is for you and Benny, maybe he doesn’t want to stick around after all. Three years, huh?

“All right, fine. Let’s go,” he agrees.

Dean and Lisa wait for the valet to bring the Impala around. The minute he gets behind the wheel and turns the key into the ignition, she changes her mind.

“Look, let’s just go home,” she says. “I don’t really feel like eating out anymore.”

Dean’s brows raise. “What? Aw, come on. We’re already dressed and everything. You look great, Lis. Just tell me where you wanna eat.”

Lisa remains firm, with a small shake of her head. “Please, Dean, just take me home.”

After a moment of indecision, Dean sighs. He revs the ignition and does as she says.

It’s only a fifteen-minute drive back to their apartment, but in that stifling silence, it seems to drag on for a small eternity. He glances at her a couple of times. Lisa has her arms crossed as she stares out the window, watching the other restaurants and mom-and-pops shops and forest trees and old houses of Lebanon, Kansas go by.

Dean counts it a blessing when they’re finally home. He walks up the few short steps up to their ground-floor apartment and unlocks the door. He flicks on the lights inside, and she breezes past him to toss her purse onto the couch.

Dean takes off his blazer and begins to undo the buttons on his cuffs. He watches her all the while, knowing that a storm is brewing. She shucks off her heels and slowly paces the living room on bare feet, like her whirling thoughts are fueling every step.

“All right, I give. What’s going on?” Dean asks. “What’d I do this time?”

She pauses, with her back turned to him.

Shit, he thinks. He shouldn’t have said it like that.

He prepares for the inevitable blow up, but it never comes. Lisa just heaves a sigh. Slowly she turns, and Dean’s shocked and dismayed to see the tears welling up in her deep brown eyes. He makes quick strides toward her, but she raises a hand to keep him at bay.

“Dean, when you picture yourself happy, truly happy,” she says. “Is it with me? Can you imagine yourself marrying me? Buying the house, having kids, growing old together?”

If Dean was thrown for a loop before, he’s even more stunned by her question. “Lis…”

“Just be honest, for once,” she pleads. Her tears begin to brim over, but she blinks, somehow keeping them at bay.

It’s a bit too long before Dean realizes that he can’t give her an answer. At least, not the one he knows she wants to hear.

When he thinks of that picture in his mind, of course he sees his son. But the only other person Dean can imagine there beside him is…

“I…” He wills his mouth to work, but nothing else comes out.

The only face he can conjure is yours. Your eyes are warm and welcoming, your smile as bright and contagious as your laugh.

The only voice he can hear is yours, gentle and strong at the same time.

The only one he can see is you.

He knows the shampoo you use and the perfume you like to wear, how the sweet and floral scents mix together and linger in your hair and on your skin.

Even now he remembers the contours of your body, and how it could fit so well against his. He knows that you used to try and hide your shape under loose, baggy shirts and cargo pants that did nothing for you. He knows how much courage it took you to wear that red dress to his brother’s party, because you told him once, at one of those Sunday dinners at your parents’ house.

Come to think of it, there’s not a whole lot that Dean doesn’t know about you, except maybe what you see when you look at him.

“You love her,” Lisa finishes for him. “I think you always have.”

Dean’s throat tightens. Somehow he swallows anyway, and he shakes his head. 

“Lisa, I loved you.”

“Maybe you did, in your own way,” she says, laughing a little through her tears as she wipes them away. “But you already have a family, Dean. Go fight for it.” 

Dean doesn’t know what to say, but he knows what he can do.

He goes to her and kisses her cheek. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says. 

Lisa merely nods, wiping her face dry. She watches Dean Winchester walk out of her apartment, and out of her life for good this time. 

Dean calls your cell, but it goes to voicemail. He drives all the way back to the restaurant and doesn’t find you or Benny there. 

Dean realizes that what he’s doing, what he plans to do, is not fucking cool. He wouldn’t blame you or even Benny for being severely pissed when Dean shows up. He also knows that he can’t let another day pass where he keeps lying to you, and himself. 

He eventually finds you at home. What’s weird is that Benny’s truck isn’t in the driveway—just your car. He knocks on your door, and he waits.

He unconsciously holds his breath while he waits in that terrible existence of limbo. However, his heart thrums back to life when he hears your footsteps drawing closer to the door. Anticipation, excitement, dread, it all roils together inside him like a bad cocktail as the door swings open.

And he’s once again rendered a bit breathless at the sight of you in that dress. The color alone appeals to him, let alone the way it accentuates your every curve, from full breasts to the swell of your hips, the softer slope of your thighs, and bare toes painted. You’re fucking delectable, every curve, and a temptation without you even meaning to be. 

You’re just…you’re still so goddamn beautiful, like the night he first saw you. Even now, he can almost feel the give of your thighs under his hands, his fingers pressed to supple flesh. 

But then he’s drawn to your face, and your wide eyes full of surprise. Your mascara is a bit smudged though. Your eyes are red too, like you’ve been crying. His brows furrow in concern.

“Dean, what’re you doing here?” you ask.

“I need to talk to you, but uh…did something happen?” he asks. “You okay?”

You’re reluctant to tell him. Did Benny say something to upset you? Or was it something he did?

“Yeah, I’m okay,” you say.

Instinctively, Dean knows it’s a lie.

“This isn’t a good time though,” you say, after clearing your throat. “Can we do this tomorrow, maybe?”

Dean leans a hand on the doorframe.

“Please, it’s important,” he says. His eyes implore you harder than his words. Please.

That does it. A sigh passes through your lips, but you let him in. He knows Robbie is with your parents for the night, which actually makes this easier.

Once he steps inside the apartment, Dean does notice that your bedroom door is open. Half the drawers to your dresser are open too, and empty. Certain frames that used to be on your coffee table are no longer there, like the one of you, Benny, and Robbie on a camping trip. 

“You want some coffee, or soda?” you ask. 

Dean declines and grasps your arm before you can busy yourself into “hostess” mode. He leads you to the couch, where you both sit down together.

“What happened tonight?” he asks. “Where’s Benny?”

Your lower lip wobbles, the beginning of your telltale cry face. Dean knows his son gets it from you, and it always breaks his heart. He squeezes your arm gently, trying to ground you.

“Benny proposed to me tonight,” you confess, taking in a sharp breath. “He proposed, and I couldn’t give him an answer.” 

You shake your head as the tears sting hot in your eyes. 

“He got so upset, he just—he left!” You throw your hands up. “But honestly, I don’t blame him.”

Dean tries to comfort you as you try and fail to wipe at your face. He wraps an arm around your shoulders, cupping your cheek to brush the tears away himself. 

“Why couldn’t you answer him?” he asks. 

You look up at Dean, and you finally notice the shine of hope in his eyes. Dean touches your cheek more tenderly. 

“Does it mean I have a chance here?” he asks.

Despite what your eyes tell you, you still gape at him in shock. “What? But…what about Lisa?”

“It’s over. For good this time,” Dean shakes his head. “I realized what I wanted for my life, and where my heart is…”

And he chuckles weakly. “Truth is, you’ve had it the whole time, sweetheart.”

You begin to crumble all over again. You pull away from him and his touch, because you can’t believe it. You cover your face with your hands, sniffling as you try to make sense of his words, his touch, and the warm flutter threatening to brim happiness in your heart.

“God, Dean. You can't just..."

"I mean it," he insists.

You're still reluctant to take him seriously...no matter how much you want to. It's a conflicting realization that hurts, and makes you feel stupid for taking so long to figure it out, and makes you hate yourself for hoping his words are true.

"Come the morning, you’re going to change your mind,” you reason, without looking at him. “Like you’ve done with Lisa a thousand times.”

“No,” Dean says firmly. He shifts closer and prompts you to look at him, really look at him.

“Not about this, and you know it,” he says, catching and holding your gaze. “That’s why you couldn’t say yes to Benny. Because you know what we’ve got. It’s the real deal.”

You still look uncertain, even though you can’t bring yourself to pull away this time. Dean has always had this way of looking into the very depths of you, like he can actually see every thought as it passes through your mind.  

“I should’ve said yes,” you say. “I can rely on Benny. I know he would stay by my side, and…and I know he won’t hurt me.”

Not like I’ve just hurt him, you think. Guilt still pricks at your heart. The last thing you ever wanted to do was lead him on, and yet, that’s what you’d done, wasn’t it? You thought you had loved him. You’re sure that you did, but maybe it just wasn’t the kind of love that could reach down deep and grab you, set your blood on fire, and make you ache when the burn was gone.

That spark licks across your skin when Dean takes your hands.  

“What if I want to be that guy for you,” he says.

You allow yourself to look at him. Really look at him.

You know Dean. When he gets an idea in his head, it inhabits every bone and shred of muscle in his body. There’s no mistaking his resolve, or the steady grip of his hands over yours.

“If you let me, I’ll stay. I won’t leave you,” he says. In his eyes, there’s a firm promise. “I can be the guy you rely on. The man you can trust. The man who’s gonna love you, come whatever. Because now I know what it means. I know how it feels.”

You bite your lower lip against the smile that wants to surface.

“Are you sure?” you ask.

Dean smiles for you. “If you wanna know the truth, I’m pretty sure I’ve been loving you since the day I heard Robbie’s heartbeat for the first time.” 

Your tears flow harder at that. A shaky breath escapes you, though it does nothing to steady you. Dean strokes your cheek gently with his thumb. 

“Please, just give me this one chance,” he asks. Begs, really. 

He doesn’t have to though. You nod, just a little. 

“Okay,” you agree. “Let’s try.”

Dean's smile spreads slow, but warm across his face. It’s your favorite kind, the kind that crinkles his eyes. 

He leans in and claims your lips with his own. The passion of it is familiar, but you don't think it’s the same as five years ago. Now, there’s an underlying note of tenderness in his touch and each new way he tastes you deeper. He holds nothing back this time, and neither do you. 

Your fingers tangle in his shirt, and then in his hair as you moan into his mouth. “Dean.”

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he answers against your lips, though he doesn’t give you much room to keep talking.

You haven’t heard him call you sweetheart in a long time. You feel your heart knitting back together, stitch by stitch. Tears sting in your eyes anew, but you squeeze your eyes shut against them.

“I…”

You can’t even continue the breathless thought. You hold his face desperately between your hands, pressing your forehead to his for a moment as you both catch your breath. But this man is like the sweetest, most seductive vice. Now that you’ve gotten another hit, you can’t resist. You no longer want to.

His arms wrap around you more securely, and he leans in to lure you back into his kiss. His tongue breaches past your lips to curl along yours with tantalizing strokes. His hands slowly move down your back and along your waist.

“Mmm, missed the hell outta this,” he groans into your mouth. Your heart flutters again at the way he holds you, the way his big hands squeeze you and feel you.

You let him guide you down onto the sofa cushions. He slots himself between your bare thighs and runs his hand up familiar smooth skin, bunching the skirt of your dress higher as he goes. He aims to get himself reacquainted with every soft part of you that welcomes him back.

For once, the gates around your hearts swing free. 

Dean never imagined that his own son would hand him the ring he gives to his wife, but today, it just feels like symmetry. He grins and winks at Robbie.

“Thanks, buddy,” Dean says.

His son’s beaming grin is wide and toothy, but the boy takes his job very seriously and delivers the other ring to you. You smile brightly and caress his cheek after you take the shining, white gold band from him. It matches the thinner band that Dean has for you; it'll soon join the engagement ring that once belonged to his mother.

Robbie had liked Benny a lot, but he loves his dad. He’s probably the happiest person in the room to see his parents take each other’s hands in front of the minister. 

Benny is understandably absent in the chapel today. You had met with him after that night of your botched anniversary to apologize to him, and so had Dean. Benny understood. He’d admitted that in the back of his mind, he feared this might happen.

“I wouldn’t blame you for being angry with me,” you said to him. “You can even hate me if you want.” Benny gave you a wry, melancholy sort of smile. “Part of me’s still mad at you, I won’t lie…but there’s no use in it. Not even hating you.”

Even though Benny bowed out, carrying his hurt and his grief on those broad shoulders, letting you go meant letting go of a friend too. He put in his paperwork to transfer out of Firehouse 83.

As he’d told Dean himself that day, and in fact, the last words Benny said to him…

“There you go, Lieutenant. A spot’s just opened up.”

Dean didn’t want to get promoted this way. He felt guilty enough as it was, and not just for Benny leaving the firehouse. Benny recommended Dean to the Chief himself though, saying that if they were going to give someone a Lieutenant’s badge, it may as well be the guy who got a perfect score on his test, and had the natural leadership skills to boot.

To the end, Benny was a gentleman.

Now, Sam beckons his nephew over. Robbie quickly goes to his uncle’s side and puffs his little chest out as he stands proud behind his dad. 

Dean is able to take you in, your beautiful white dress, and everything about you that makes him smile…including the way you smile back at him.

Man and wife is all he hears. It’s all he needs to hear, before he’s pulling you closer by your newly anointed hand. He dips you for a thorough kiss in front of all your family and friends. 

You squeal in surprise, making Dean smile hard enough for his cheeks to hurt. Giggling hard enough to make you tremble, you raise a hand to caress his cheek. But you give him another real kiss after he guides you back up to your feet.

“I love you,” you whisper against his lips. The words are just for him to hear. Dean pulls back enough to see the truth shining in your eyes. Beautiful.

“Can’t help it, right?” he teases. 

You smile in amusement, but you grab his chin and shake it. 

“You got me,” you reply. “I really, really can’t.”

Your beaming smile softens. Even though the entire room is clapping and hooting and hollering in celebration, in that moment, all you really see is Dean. 

Here in his arms, you know that this is where you were meant to end up. From now on, it’s where you’re meant to be.

AN: From Lisa and Benny to Robbie and everything in between. Dean and the reader certainly aren't perfect in this, but what do you think about how their story unfolded? I truly hope you guys enjoy this one, because I've had so much fun with it. 🥰❤️❤️‍🔥

**As a reminder, One More Day (Dean x Latina Plus-Sized!Reader) comes out on 4/04 - the day after my birthday!~

Until then, please let me know what you thought of If I Stay! 😘 I might write more for these two in the future...

"Shall I stay? Would it be a sin, if I can't help falling in love with you?"

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Dean Winchester Tag List (Part 1):

@luci-in-trenchcoats @lamentationsofalonelypotato @winchestergirl2 @deans-spinster-witch @roseblue373

@hobby27 @kazsrm67 @foxyjwls007 @mostlymarvelgirl @kaleldobrev

@globetrotter28 @midnightmadwoman @chevroletdeanwrites @lyarr24 @ladysparkles78

@waywardxwords @waynes-multiverse @twinkleinadiamondsky @my-stories-vault @0ccvltism

@rizlowwritessortof @k-slla @jackles010378 @alwaystiredandconfused @nancymcl

@this-is-me19 @spnwoman @illicithallways @pieandmonsters @deansbbyx

@mimaria420 @stoneyggirl2 @fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like @cheynovak @jollyhunter

@deanwinchestersgirl87 @rachiem4-blog @leigh70 @aylacavebear @jessjad

@kmc1989 @siampie @rubyvhs @masked-lost-girl @spnbabe67

@deanbrainrotwritings @alwaystiredandconfused @supernotnatural2005 @redhoodieone

[melanchoire]

bartender(is that how you call it??) sub!hanni x soft dom! ceo gp reader🥺👉🏻👈🏻 it's been in my head for too long and i can't think of a plot 😔 i hope you do it tho

-📽

i had an idea in mind but it ended up being something else... i changed the dynamics a bit 💔

cw: riding.

going to a bar to drown your sorrows because being a CEO was a tough job and work had been shitty lately; conferences with other companies and CEOs that only gave you headaches because they were simple and empty proposals led by arrogant bosses who felt they were the center of the world, having to be patient and fake a smile with a secretary who seemed to have laziness as the predominant emotion in her body because she always did her work with little enthusiasm and somewhat incompletely, and dealing with employees who increasingly failed to meet the job requirements

like any other day where you feel this way you would do the usual thing of just going home after a long day of work and drinking on your couch means that your mind is so clouded that you don't understand a single word that the people on television are saying, buuut you needed a change of routine so much that you didn’tmind going to a local bar in the city center

bad luck for you that it just happens to be a friday night, meaning teenagers or young adults going out to parties or something simpler like hanging out with their friends, whatever the option, the place was plagued by young people who were too loud and were gradually irritating you

until a voice pulls you out of your thoughts! a pretty young girl with hair tied in a messy bun and thin-framed glasses resting on her nose. she just smiled at you and tilted her head, wiping a damp cloth over the bar and cleaning the remains of drops of alcohol that fell when preparing the previous drinks

“rough night i guess?” oh yeah! you can’t tell if she is making fun of you given the small smile tugging at her lips, but your tone was being quite honest, so you just had to cross your fingers

“you can say it…” and your usual serious and strict CEO demeanor had completely vanished, being replaced by… vulnerability? honestly, you didn’t know what caused your change of attitude. maybe it was because being able to vent to someone was something you'd been looking for for months, but you never succeeded because your family always reminded you that you were an adult and that you shouldn’t act like a baby with “basic” work-related problems, or something like your friends always minimizing your problems and making jokes about how the “rich girl” expected mommy and daddy to solve everything for her…

you end up venting to hanni?? you don’t know if she is really interested in listening to you or if she simply doesn’thave other clients to serve because her other coworkers are taking care of it while she deals with your drunk ass… whatever the option, you’re thankful that she is a good listener! she was even being a good advisor, not understanding much about the scope of working in an office and having a position as high as that of a CEO, but anyway, she was there for you

until there comes a point where your system clearly can’t tolerate any more alcohol and you’re practically lying in the chair, looking so messed up that at any moment your body will fall off the chair straight to the floor 😭 hanni helps you go to your car and get in; partly because she is a little embarrassed by your messy state and how you even struggled to tell her which of all the cars in the parking lot was yours, and also because her coworker minji told her to take care of your drunk ass before she kicks you out of the place herself because she didn’t want you to throw up in the bathroom right after she cleaned all the stalls!

…would you believe me if i told you that you don’t remember exactly how you went from hanni helping you out of the bar to her riding your cock in the backseat of your car? i mean–! it’s not your fault that alcohol impairs your memory because it’s a central nervous system depressant that slows down brain activity! giving you blackouts, which are gaps in your memory of events that occurred while you were intoxicated, and boy were you drunk! aol you remembered at this point was leaving work, blinking, and suddenly getting so drunk and BOOM a cute girl was riding you…

awww and your head is spinning so much that you can barely lay your head against the headrest of the seat and keep it there without feeling like it’s weighing you down 😭 luckily hanni notices this and comes to the rescue! bringing her hands to your head, holding your face between her palms and running a hand through your hair to brush the loose strands away from your face 🥺 you were looking at her from below with eyes squinted from tiredness and clouded by alcohol, giving hanni a needy look as she rode you in a way that took you out of your boss bitch role and made you whimper for her

you barely mustering up enough strength to try and make a move, pushing yourself off your seat and leaning forward a little to try and kiss her, only for her to place one of her hands over your mouth and push you back against the seats again, saying “owww nooo you have alcohol on your breath.” 💔 but when she sees that you want to complain about her words, she silences you by giving you a sweet kiss on the cheek, adding "fifteen more minutes and my shift will be over. then you will take me home with you, right?” and never before have you nodded with that enthusiasm!

[cynicalpurple]

Love at First Sight | Choi Seung Cheol

Pairing: Seungcheol x fem!Reader (reader is a pediatric doctor)

Genre: a little angst

Warning: hospital environment and a very small mention of alcohol, maybe? (let me know if there's anything else)

This took me longer than expected because this past few days have been a roller coaster. But! The third part is finally done (read part 1 and part 2 before reading this to enjoy it better)

Seungcheol had to act. He couldn’t just walk away and never see her again—no, that wasn’t an option. He wanted her in his life. But what if she rejected him? Has she ever even shown interest in him? Y/N’s smile was always gentle and she directed that smile toward him a couple of times. She also remembered the things he talked about. But that didn’t mean anything, right? It’s just the way her personality is—always kind and sweet to everyone. That was what he liked about her. Yes, he had decided. He was going to ask her on a date.

“Your knee is healing properly. The wheelchair is no longer needed, but don’t put too much strain on your left leg, alright? Come back in a month for a check-up. That’s all, you can go” Seungcheol nodded and thanked the doctor. He stood in the hallway with his manager by his side. “Well, you heard him. Let’s go” the manager said while grabbing Seungcheol’s bag, but he didn’t move “Can we wait for a bit? There’s someone I want to see…”. The manager wasn’t convinced, but he indulged him and they both took a seat in the hallway. An hour passed, but Y/N was nowhere to be seen. That was unusual. Seungcheol knew, after observing her routine for over a month, that she was constantly walking around the hallways…where was she? The manager was getting anxious, he was told to drive Seungcheol to his apartment to rest. “I think we should get going” but Seungcheol insisted on waiting just a little longer. Half an hour crawled by, and unease settled in his chest. What if something had happened to her? Not being able to stay still any longer, he stood up and walked toward the desk of the pediatrics wing. “Excuse me, I’m looking for doctor Y/N…is she here?” The nurse behind the desk told him that she was attending a surgery that got complicated and that she was not going to be available for hours. Seungcheol nodded in thanks before turning to his manager, who was waiting patiently. Without another word, they left the hospital.

Each day felt colder without her. Seungcheol missed her—yearning for her warmth. He dreamed of waking up by her side but he was only waking up to an empty side of the bed. How was it possible to miss something that never happened? With each passing day without seeing her, his resolve began to crumble. He was scared—what if she just rejected him? He wasn’t sure if he could deal with that…wouldn’t it be easier to live with the what if? That way, it wouldn’t hurt as much…right? “Since when are you such a coward?” Woozi’s voice cut through the spiral of thoughts that were forming in Seungcheol’s head “Just go and ask her for a date. If she rejects you then…well, at least you know you tried and we can all go out to drink something”. Just go and ask her…could he do that? Woozi is right though—he is no coward. He always fought for what he considered right, for his dream and for what he wanted…then why is he behaving like this now? Does it scare him so much to be rejected by her? It does. But if he doesn’t ask her—he will regret it later. Right. He had to try. Seungcheol stood up from the couch and while leaving Woozi’s studio said “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll call you later for that drink” the only answer he received was a low “good luck” that was drowned by the sound of the newest song Woozi was working on.

With his mind settled into asking her on a date, Seungcheol drove through the streets of Seoul toward the hospital. Where he expected to find—his love at first sight.

Don't kill me for ending it here!!! I promise to post the next part tomorrow. The thing is that I was anxious to post something so I decided to post this part that was already (in my opinion) ready to be posted today and to post the rest (that still needs a little bit of work) tomorrow~💜

[shehungers]

OOOOOOH, YUI!!! this is my first review of any of your work and I know that we briefly discussed it before, but I knew when I took a peek that night that I was going to adore your writing style and I do!! this story was such a fun introduction to your writing and I'm glad this was what I went with first!

this will have little to no organization, so I apologize in advance for that.

the first thing I'll talk about is how you incorporated the fairytale au aspect of things. I know of zoro and one piece, but not enough to have an opinion on zoro's characterization in this vs canon material and so on, but the impression I received from this piece is that he's dutiful, righteous, and loyal. he may not always go about things in the right way but he has a strong conscience, tries to do the right thing, and is a good man at heart.

even tho zoro is a hunter, he fits the idea of a knight very well and I'm glad that you wrote him in as you did!! I love that he has this sort of, hm, obliviousness to the world and many things, as hinted at by him being embarrassed by mc's mischievousness in the beginning, once believing that the queen was what would be considered the epitome of beauty, and at the very end where you described him as "a boy born with a sword in his hand".

he's only ever known duty, to serve faithfully. so, throughout the story, when he's faced with mc who is set apart from past targets, that identity starts to unravel for him.

I really like mc as a character in this as well. from the beginning, there is a bit of an edge to her and a bit of inauthenticity that you make the reader aware of, but she comes across as charming and interesting to Zoro. I think the description that you gave about mc being all poisoned apples set off my "AHAAAAA" radar. she's also written as a bit mischievous, with an unusual sort of openness to her (e.g. the dancing and such) w/o really knowing zoro much at all beforehand.

the reveal at the end of her being the old witch's granddaughter, her being a witch herself, and the backstory is betrayal was done so well, so evocatively that I was thoroughly delighted by it. I'm so glad that you took that sort of route, and it really helps contextually with the rest of the story and the personality you'd built in the beginning!!!

a couple of my favorite details in this story were:

1) the mirror, mirror scene where it's mentioned that magic lies. that it will often conform to show what the user wants to see, as opposed to what it really is. that plays in very nicely at the end, again, where Zoro is like what about the heart? and mc's just like, old broad probably won't know the fuckin difference lmao.

2) the magic wine. how, for someone with no ill-intent, it will always simply be wine. but it obviously becomes malicious shapeshifting spell otherwise. that entire scene unraveled beautifully. the reactions and brief distrust were exquisite and appropriate. but, I think what I liked most about it was how he came around to his senses slowly by the eating the apple pie before launching into a panic.

the way he shuffled towards the door and used his foot to keep it open was a nice touch that stood out to me as well lmao.

admittedly, the pigsty segment was a fav as well because I love shitty men facing the consequences for shitty actions. and it's highly appropriate to turn shitty men into the pigs that they are, y'know? the realization falling on Zoro like a gradual downpour is amazing.

yet another detail I particularly enjoyed was how focused he was on mc's hands and the calluses on them. and then the smooth handles on the wooden bucket. him wondering about it, implying the countless days with it, and the many times of luring men into the woods to test them. Little things like that stand out!!!

I think you did spectacularly with the fairytale aspect of this story. you opened up the story in a remarkably potent way, like the pages of a storybook fluttering open with an omnipotent voice speaking to us before launching us into the stories within. wise words. warnings. truths.

from there on out, you certainly retained that dreamlike quality that often accomplices fairytales. it had its moments of whimsy, that saturated watercolor feel, the absurdity of the mirror and the gingerbread house and the pigsty with the berries (which is a very strong image in my head). you captured it in Zoro's attitude, his unwillingness to carry out the task for his queen and his gilded armor.

LIKE CHEFS KISSSSS

the writing itself was wondrous, elevated without being pretentious, your prose was gorgeous:

"sunshine of your smile", "midnight dark of your eyes"???? are you fucking KIDDING ME????? absolutely gorgeous. strong wordage, powerful delivery. you are not unnecessary with your descriptions. they hit just where they needed to and really lended well to this fairytale narrative

this was my other favorite:

"reverent palms", "exhaltant fingers", "wild birdwing beat of your heart..." GIIIIIRRLLLLL INSANE

your pacing and flow were excellent. I always say that if I can continuously scroll and move with my eyes as I read, and not hit a "snag" that's always a good sign that the see structure of your sentences is clean, or clear enough that I don't need to double back and reread them. I ran into absolutely zero issues.

THIS WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL, FUN READ, YUI!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING ME TO READ THIS BC K HAD SO MUCH FUNNNN

Zoro and the hunter's heart (as, you know, he's a former pirate hunter... nudge nudge)

send me one + a character and i'll write u a drabble

a hunter's heart

opla!zoro; 6,553 words; fairytale retelling!au, fem!reader, no "y/n", hunter!zoro, fluff and angst (only a bit), hurt/comfort (kinda), mentions of witches and magic and curses

summary: there are some stories that the world can't stop telling

a/n: i should know better by now than to think an opla zoro fic could be anything but too involved... ╮(￣▽￣"")╭ tagging @dira333 bc its ur request and @bby-deerling bc u were kind enough to ask <3

It is a sordid tale, to hear the villager’s old witch tell it — one near and dear as the rise of the sun in the east, the set of the moon in the west, old as time itself. Because you see, there are some stories so ancient and so integral to the world that it bears, nay demands, retelling, reliving. Stories so stanch and certain that they wear groves into the truth of the world by the tracks they trail, over and over and over again. Stories that the world can never stop telling, no matter how hard it might want to or try.

This is one such tale.

“Take her into the forest — and bring me back her heart,” commanded the Queen.

The hunter had knelt before his queen and bowed his head, his swords heavy at his side. Inside his chest, his own heart was thundering, thundering. A storm brewing within the depths of his soul. But he’d schooled his expression straight and taken his orders.

You were nothing more than a kitchen maid, but you had the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard. All morning, he could hear it echoing through the cool stone halls as you went about your baking of the day’s fresh bread, your churning of the week’s soft butter. He’d lean against the wall just outside the kitchens to listen, to let the music of your voice wash over the ragged edges of his soul, to soothe his frayed ends, to mend what parts might have been broken.

Sometimes, he’d find himself wandering toward the gardens in the back of the castle grounds just to catch an echo of your voice near the wells, where he knows you’ll be in the early afternoons, collecting water for the day’s dinner service. Sometimes, he thinks he can hear it over the clink and clash of swords as he spars with his fellow knights and hunters, and he’d catch himself slowing, almost stilling, and those are the only times anyone’s ever managed to get the upper hand on him.

“C’mon doll, give us another tune.”

“Yeah, sweetheart, sing us a sea shanty! Or another one of your show tunes!”

Zoro frowns as he rounds the corner one day to find a few young knights leaning against the castle wall, towering over where you’re standing, a half-filled bucket of water clutched in your hands. He’s about to intervene when he hears the sound of splashing water, and a second later, the young knights are stumbling back, squawking with indignation as you huff, wiping your hands daintily on your apron.

“So sorry, seems like my hand’s slipped —” you drop into a rather sardonic curtsy before marching passed the stunned young men, leaving them blinking and drenched in your wake. Zoro chuckles, the sound making both of them whirl around, color rising ruddy into their cheeks. They sober immediately as they meet Zoro’s eyes.

He cocks an eyebrow, looking them over.

“S-sorry sir… we just — we were uh —”

“Just leaving,” the second knight supplies as he grabs the first by the arm and tugs him back out into the courtyard.

Zoro watches them go with a muted amusement twisting his lips before turning back to find you peering up at him with a bright, steely light in your eyes. Your shoulder is pressed to the edge of the wall, your body half-hidden behind it as if you’re uncertain of what he might do. As if you’re uncertain of him.

“Sorry about them…” Zoro dips his head, suddenly very aware of how he must seem to you — just another one of the Queen’s toy soldiers, gilded in gold, touched by the sly silver of her cool, slithering magic. Would you think he’d be like them — like those bumbling idiots who couldn’t tell a board sword from a longsword? Who thought braveness and bravado one and the same? And suddenly, the thought that you might sickens him, and he swallows hard, hurrying to explain.

“Not all of us are…” Zoro’s voice trails off as he casts about for the right word — idiots? “Like them”? Neither seems to do it all justice.

He watches as you take half a step out from behind the stone wall’s cover and drop into a slight curtsey.

“I know.” And there’s a bright sheen to the soft whisper of your voice, a certainty that Zoro can’t quite place. And he knew then as he knows now that you — you are just a bit different. Just a bit more than he’d ever given you thought or credit for. Perhaps that was his mistake — he makes a mental note not to make it again.

“I know you’re not…” you wave a light hand towards where the other two knights had stumbled away, and the pinkness in your cheeks makes Zoro’s stomach do a few choice flips he’d never remembered his own stomach capable of till now.

There’s a moment’s pause, and then — you both break into laughter at the same time — him, a tad self-conscious, you, unbidden and bright as birdsong.

“You have a beautiful voice.”

“Your sparring form is really nice.”

You both speak at the same time, and in the startled quiet that stretches right after, Zoro finds himself held still by the weight of your eyes, the heaviness of your gaze as it rests on him, wide and startled and… almost pleased. He clears his throat and tries again —

“I hear you all the time —”

“I see you sometimes —”

It happens again, and when you both pause this time, he can see the burgeoning smile threatening to spill over your petal-pink lips; he can feel his own smile breaking like ice in spring’s first thaw.

“I don’t know much about music but —”

“It looks like you’re dancing —”

By the third time, Zoro’s starting to wonder if you’re doing this on purpose, or perhaps he is — because what wouldn’t he do to keep on basking in the sunshine of your laughter, to soak in the brilliance of your smile? What stars and moons and planets wouldn’t conspire to align just for another chance to glance into the midnight dark of your eyes, as depthless as any sea, as wide as any self-respecting night?

“Well —” Zoro clears his throat; you purse your lips and wait for him to finish, “I’ve never danced…”

Mischief hinges on the edge of your smile as you peer up at him through your lashes, “You should try it sometime. I hear it’s quite the workout.”

And there’s something singing beneath the sweetness of your voice that hints at a darker, more intimate meaning to the word dance, but Zoro stops himself before his mind can unspool entirely. He sucks in a breath and chews over the words now sitting solid and unwieldy on his tongue —

“I’ve always thought dancing… required music and —” he swallows and forces his sentence onward like shepherding a stubborn and reluctant bull, “a partner.”

You let your held lilt sideways, watching him like a bird on a branch might consider a squirrel on the ground.

“It’s just… I’ve never quite had either before,” he hurries to explain, feeling heat creeping into his cheeks and finally, he forces his eyes away from you, glancing up towards the piercingly blue sky, completely devoid of clouds. He curses inwardly, his eyes wandering for something — anything — to latch onto that’s not you and your mesmerizing eyes, with the universe caught behind them, or your lips, shaped so much like the answer to a question he hadn’t realized he’d been asking for his whole, entire life.

He watches as you square your shoulders and take a half-step into his personal space, just the tips of your toes grazing into the proximity of too close and at the same time not nearly close enough — then, you dip into a curtsey, lowering your eyes so he has nothing to ground himself on except for the brief breath of your skin, the waft of your hair sweeping down over your shoulders, smelling so much like cotton and milk, salt and honey.

“But now, from where I’m standing…” you look up, and your smile is so much poisoned apples and cyanide, “you’ve got both, don’t you?”

Zoro sucks in a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his head spinning for a second too long and he almost stumbles. Almost. But he catches himself, and when he does, his body moves as a marionette on a string — as if his arms and legs already knew what his mind had for so long kept from him —

He dips into a bow, sweeping one arm over his stomach, the other out to the side. And there’s no dull, discordant clank of armor because hunters and soldiers are made different. Fighters, both, but hunters require a different kind of bloodlust, are a different strain of heartless.

You let out a soft laugh and Zoro wonders if there’s any better music in the world as he offers you his hand. You take it, and he draws your body near with reverent palms, exhaltant fingers — he can almost feel the wild birdwing beat of your heart fluttering in your chest, supplemented by the thundering of his own much more well-trained heartbeat, but even so, the dull pulse of it makes him feel heady with excitement — thump, thump, thump.

And slowly, ever so slowly, the pair of you begin to dance. At first, just to the soft inhale and exhale of your breaths and his. And then, you smile up at him, a startling, chest-piercing, swan-song thing — as you begin to sing.

His first step is hesitant, and the second less so. By the third, Zoro feels his shoulders flattening out and his chest rising as he clasps your palms against his and takes the lead. You let him, with a tinkling laugh, your smile light and bright as daybreak. Your feet skip like pebbles across a mirror lake, and by the time he lets you go, the midday sun is beating down over the castle grounds and the lunch bell is ringing off in the distance. You skip out of his reach and drop into another curtsey —

“Seems like it’s past time for me to go.”

“But —” Zoro bites back the urge to chase after you, his body surging forward to try and stay within the warmth of your orbit.

“Tomorrow,” you breathe, your cheeks a bit too pink, grinning up at him with mischief in your eyes, “after the morning meal… I think I might have some more water to collect.”

You shoot him a meaningful wink as you sweep by him, humming beneath your breath as you go. You brush by him with a sweep of skirt-tails, and it’s a full minute before Zoro can form a coherent thought, whipping around to see the shadow of you disappearing around the corner of the long corridor that leads down to the kitchens.

Up above, neither of you sees the Queen with her blood-red nails clicking against the wide windowsill, her eyes trailing the shape of Zoro as he sucks in a long breath, and shakes himself, before heading back to the training grounds, his earrings catching the afternoon light in a series of gold-gilded sparks.

The next day, Zoro finds you dancing to a two-step by yourself, a bucket of water propped on your hip, the late morning sun caressing your skin like a lover’s fingers. And he finds himself held still by the sight of you, your eyes closed, your body swaying to the rhythm and breath of the earth, the sound of your voice filling the air as water might an already-full glass — spilling over and over till it soaks the earth between you both.

He clears his throat, and you open your eyes. You smile.

Almost sheepishly, he offers you a hand. You take it, and the half-filled bucket is left to teeter precariously on the well’s stone-worn edge as you laugh, letting Zoro pull you in, his palm pressing to the bend of your waist, fingers skimming the small of your back.

Three days, you dance. Three days of blissful mornings and sun-soaked afternoons. Three nights of moonlit walks and roses dipped in starlight.

Because the best things in the world always come in threes — but it just so happens that so do the worst.

Zoro feels his skin crawling when he receives the summons from the Queen. There is only one reason the Queen would summon a hunter like him — she’s found something (or someone) worthy of being hunted. He prays it will not take him away for long.

“Zoro…” the Queen purrs, barely turning to look at him as he bows his head, holding the pose for three beats before straightening. She reaches up to grace her fingers over the edges of an ornate mirror hanging on her wall — a mirror she covets. Zoro has seen its magic, the dull, rough-edged ache thrumming through the earth and the air like poison. He schools his expression into one of flat disinterest as he squares his shoulders.

“Your Highness.”

“I trust you’re familiar with my mirror?”

Zoro makes a soft noise of consent, cold slipping down his spine like cool fingers.

“Then… I trust you know what it does?” the Queen asks, peering at him through it’s dark, onyx reflection.

Zoro glances down, “I can’t say I do, Your Highness.”

“Well then, I’d say you’re in for a treat today —” she chuckles, the sound soft and slithering, her painted lips twisting up in a cruel smirk, “this is a magic mirror, you see… and it’s magic… tells the truth —”

Zoro remains quiet, waiting, waiting.

“Mirror, mirror…”

Zoro feels the air around him condensing, the temperature dropping as the heat siphons from the room into the mirror. The darkened surface swirls with a sickly, purple light before a pallid face appears, empty eye sockets and a hollow mouth. The skeletal reflection peers imperiously back up at the image of the Queen standing before it.

“… tell me, who is the fairest in all the land?”

The Queen preens in front of the mirror, and Zoro feels his stomach filling with lead weight at her question.

Once upon a time, he’d met a kindly old witch in the woods. Her hut had been made of something that looked curiously like gingerbread, and the flowers that decorated her windowsill had glimmered with the shine of tempered sugar. He had offered to help her carry a basket of waxy red apples from the market to her hut and in return, she’d offered him the answer to one question.

“What… exactly is magic?” he’d asked, young and uncertain.

She’d laughed a laugh that might’ve once been high and imperious but then had only sounded like an amused old woman faced with a question she hadn’t quite expected.

“Magic… well — I’ll tell you this — magic is always more than meets the eye, and never what it promises.”

Zoro had blinked, frowning as she’d peered up at him with a pair of mismatched eyes — one milky and filmed over, the other dark as crow’s feathers.

“What does… that mean?”

“It means… that sometimes, magic lies. Sometimes… magic only tells you what you want to hear. Sometimes, magic is more about what you think is true because in the end… that’s the only truth that matters.”

The magic mirror contemplates the Queen’s question as Zoro stands behind her, holding his breath.

“There is but one fairer than Your Highness —”

Zoro’s vision tunnels, the voice of the mirror thickening around him as if his head were suddenly submerged in water. Heat creeps up the back of his neck like spider’s legs, quick and skittering, and he knows the answer before the mirror says your name.

“I see…” the Queen muses, though Zoro can hear the hard edge in her voice, the light catching on it like a twisting blade as she turns back around to face him. And she is beautiful, there’s no denying — the Queen’s face was, up until very recently, what Zoro had thought true beauty must be like.

He’d understood it only in the most abstract, academic sense — beauty — had only ever nodded when the other knights and hunters had wolf-whistled at the rosy-cheeked maids that dotted the castle, scattered along the halls like handfuls of sugar.

The first time he saw the Queen, he’d wondered at the perfect proportions of her eyes and nose, the dark, certain arch of her brows, the cruel tug at the ends of her painted lips and he’d thought — ah, is this what all the fuss is about?

But then he’d seen you, hadn’t he? And your face — he knows it is not perfect, he’s leaned in close enough to see the texture that mars your cheeks, the way one side of your mouth always lilts up first in a smile, the flecks that adorn your eyes like lost shards of sunlight caught beneath your lashes —

Beautiful, he’d thought.

Later, he wonders if that moment might’ve been your doom.

“Take her into the forest,” the Queen says, smiling her cruel, cruel smile as she watches Zoro lower his head, “and bring me back her heart.”

Zoro swallows hard as he bows.

You are waiting for him the next morning, just after breakfast, your hands laced behind your back, an empty bucket resting precariously along the edge of the well.

“No dancing today,” Zoro says, his voice clipped and low, his gaze darting away toward the darkness of the forest behind you. You blink up at him before following his gaze.

“Then… will you accompany me on a walk?”

Zoro frowns, nearly wincing away from you as you lean in, grinning your sly fox’s grin.

“But…”

“Oh, don’t tell me a hunter like you’s scared of the forest.” You dance away from him before he can protest, reaching for the bucket and propping it on your right hip, “C’mon, I promised the head cook I’d pick some berries for the feast tonight. Didn’t you hear? The Queen’s finally found a spell for eternal youth and beauty.”

Zoro stares after you as you pick your way across the garden, making for the wrought-iron gates that separate the castle grounds from the wilderness beyond.

“A spell for…” Zoro’s frown deepens as you glance at him over your shoulder with a sad little smile.

“They say the Queen was cursed by a powerful witch to always search for that which she can never have.”

Zoro keeps behind you as you meander into the shadow of the trees, seemingly following a trail only you can see, occasionally stopping to bend over a burst of bright red berries, picking a few and tossing them into your bucket before pressing one to your lips. He watches as berry juice dark as blood tints your lips and trickles down the edge of your mouth.

“Did you know… that there are only three ways to break a witch’s curse? One is for the witch herself to lift the curse.”

Here in the darkness of the forest, your eyes shine like twin stars.

“Another is to kill the witch and all those who cared for her.”

Here in the darkness of the forest, the lopsided lilt of your smile flashes white, and sharp, dripping dark red —

Zoro’s sword is in his hand before he realizes, and suddenly, every twig-snap and leaf-rustle sets his bones on edge. The wind tastes sweet on his tongue, swirls thick with magic as he whirls around, searching for the silhouette of you and finding nothing but endless, pressing dark.

“Zoro?” your voice nearly makes him stumble as he twists around, eyes wide, chest heaving, only to find the tip of his sword resting against the delicate hyphen of your clavicle. Your breath hitches, soft as he’d always remembered it, but you don’t pull away; you don’t even flinch as you stare up at him, as if waiting for him to do something.

“Are you going to kill me?” your voice is low and smooth, without a single flicker of fear.

Zoro’s grip loosens as he forces himself to pull back. He hisses out a breath and shakes loose his shoulders.

“No,” he says, his own voice coarse, clipped, “I’m not. But —”

“Oh good — that would’ve made things rather awkward for our date.”

Zoro gapes as you laugh, twirling around to continue on your way through the forest. He hastens after you a few seconds later, brushing aside low-hanging branches and shouldering passed thicker bits of underbrush.

“D-date?”

“Mhm,” you hum, sounding very pleased as you lead him on, and on, and on, “you wouldn’t want to miss it — grandma’s baking pie.”

“What… ” but his words trail off once more as you turn and make towards a clearing that he’s certain wasn’t there a moment ago — a clearing with a tiny hut that looks as if it’s made of gingerbread. The flowers on the windowsill glitter jewel-bright and candy-hard.

“My grandma’s house,” you say, smiling as you push through the door with your bucket of blood-red berries still perched on your hip.

Zoro’s frown carves ever harder into his brows as he follows after you on hesitant feet, though he can’t help the way his muscles loosen the second he steps over the small hut’s threshold and catches a whiff of something wonderful in the air — cinnamon and sugar and apples.

“Ah, you’ve made it just in time!” the old witch looks up from where she’s tending a vast fire that casts the entire hut in a warm, ethereal glow. Zoro glances back at the open patch of cloudless blue sky somehow visible in a small gap between the trees before stepping in.

“Apple pie again, grandma?”

“Your favorite,” the old witch replies with a grin as you set the bucket on the small wooden table, “And I see you’ve brought a guest, though…” the old witch’s single black eye catches the firelight as she peers are Zoro, still standing just inside the doorway.

“It’s nice to see you again, young man.”

Zoro bows, rather awkwardly, and though it’s been many years since he’d helped the old woman with her apples, she looks exactly the same. He can’t say quite the same for himself.

“Come, sit! Have some berry wine,” you say, ushering Zoro towards the table, where you’ve somehow replaced the bucket with two jars of red liquid that glimmers like garnets in the flickering firelight. You pour a glass and nudge it towards Zoro, who simply stares, trying very hard to wrap his head around what must be happening.

A dull, thrumming ache is gathering at the base of his skull, but the pie smells so sweet and the wine looks ever so tantalizing.

He reaches out and takes a sip, letting the cool liquid slip down his throat. He feels it slither through him, sending tiny pin-pricks of heat trailing along his limbs as he swallows.

“Ah… so he’s not like the rest of them.”

He blinks down at the wine in his cup for a second more before you reach out and tug it from his hand. A soft palm cups his cheek and forces his face up. He meets your eyes and finds them searching.

“You weren’t lying… you really hadn’t planned on killing me.”

You sound almost surprised as your grandma chuckles behind you, the noise like the clack of old stones against one another.

“I told you he was different,” the old witch says, slowly slicing a bit of pie and putting it on a plate.

“All men think they’re different,” you say, your voice resigned as you take the slice of pie and set it in front of Zoro, “Right, now eat — it’ll make you feel better. I’m sorry about that… just… you can never be sure.”

The old witch tuts, shaking her head, “A broken heart is it’s own kind of curse, you know.”

Zoro blearily takes a bite of cake and feels his senses returning to him one by one; he takes stock of them as if he’d forgotten entirely that he’d lost them in the first place. As he chews and swallows once, twice — by the third time he can feel the tightness in his muscles returning as panic and confusion flood his system.

He jerks up from the table and reaches for his sword.

“Please, there’s no need for that,” you say, though you sound hesitant as you hold up a hand, your expression earnest as you take half a step back.

“What the hell did you do to me?” he seethes, looking between you and the old witch, uncertain of who to aim his anger at.

“I had to be sure,” you say again, your voice imploring as you inch forward, “Please, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Yeah well —” Zoro gulps past the dryness in his mouth as he narrows his eyes, “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

You wince ever so slightly, looking away, “No, you’re right but… please,” you say again, and the word works like magic as it settles over Zoro’s shoulders. He wonders if it’s actual magic, but no — there’s no strange sweetness in the air, no thick fog threatening to cloud over his judgment.

“It might be quicker to show him,” the old witch suggests, still watching the pair of you with her one oil-black eye, sounding pleasant and entirely unfazed.

“Right… yes —” you sigh, motioning for the door, “The sty is just out behind the hut — you can go out first if you’d like,” you offer.

Zoro looks between you and the door before inching back and edging open the door with his foot, keeping his eyes fixed on you as you follow him with light, muted movements.

The air outside is crisp and cool and Zoro can’t help sucking in a breath as he steps out from the halo of the firelit hut. Grass crunches beneath his feet, birds sing overhead. There’s the lingering heat of magic still crackling in the air, but when his gaze falls back onto you, he finds you no less lovely than he’d done the first time.

“This way,” you say, rounding the edge of the hut and leading him towards a sizeable pigsty that he’d completely failed to notice the first time he’d been here as a young boy.

A looming sense of dread calcifies in the base of his stomach as he approaches the pigsty on heavy feet. The pigs all jostle against one another, snorting and snuffling with their noses pressed into the long feeding pen. From the pockets of your skirt, you produce a handful of bright red berries and toss it into the pen. Zoro watches with mixed fascination and mounting horror as the pigs tumble over each other to forage for the fruit in the dried hay and mud.

“Have you ever heard the saying that… there are some stories the world never stops telling?” your voice is quiet and sad as you reach over to skim your knuckles along the pale pink snout of a snorting pig.

And suddenly, Zoro understands — he doesn’t know if it was a trick of the light or perhaps the magic still working its way through his system but the understanding comes like a rainstorm, a few tiny droplets before the downpour. And were he a weaker man, he might’ve back and tried to make a run for it. But instead, he stands and stares with a strange pity welling up inside him at the lolling tongues and flopping ears.

“These were all men — hunters,” he says, his words slow at first, but picking up speed as he continues to speak, “Who tried to lure you into the wood to —”

“To kill me, yes, so that they could give the Queen my heart. Because you see, the heart of a witch would give her what she so desperately desires —”

“Eternal youth,” Zoro breathes.

“And the first time, I was heartbroken,” you turn away from him, pressing a hand to your heart, “But I managed to get away. And instead of going back empty-handed to face the Queen’s wrath, the hunter caught a wild boar in the forest and cut out its heart instead. Only — an old she-wolf had been hunting the boar for days, and was robbed of a meal. She and I… we came across each other and I was so — so hurt that I offered her my heart in return for putting me out of my misery.”

Zoro presses his lips as your words rush from you in a great wave, pieces of truths crystalizing before him even as they continue to shatter the world he thought he’d known.

“She told me then that… no man is worth dying for, especially not one who would lie to you just to steal your heart. And she offered to teach me —” you wave a hand at the pigsty, “And the rest…”

The soft silence that stretches between you is thin and pained. You cradle your hands to your chest as if trying to stem the hurt of some unspeakable heartbreak.

“And… the wine?” he asks.

Your face lifts and a strike of that familiar, mischievous light returns to your eyes as you grin.

“That was something I brewed up on my own — if the drinker bears me any ill intentions, then it’ll turn them into something a bit more… fitting of their true hearts. But if not then…” you grace him with a soft smile, “Then it’ll only ever just be wine, though a bit on the stronger side.”

“Yeah, a bit.”

A brief silence falls between the pair of you as the sky above begins to shift from blue to a soft lavender.

“You said… the first time,” Zoro says, curiosity now burgeoning from beneath the receding shock of the day, “Do you make a habit of luring men into the woods, then?”

You scoff, “Luring? Hardly. Magic can only do so much, and though the odd enchanted trinket will sell well at the monthly market, people still tend to be wary around witches.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Zoro says dryly, his eyes flickering toward the sty where the pigs, finally satisfied that there are no more berries to be found, have settled into the thick stacks of hay, grumbling and snorting.

You allow him a derisive smile, “Yes well — a girl and her grandmother still have to eat and bathe, and you can only stand so much apple pie before it starts to get a little old. So… I keep a job at the castle. Believe it or not, serving a self-obsessed Queen pays well. And all those… men —” you force out the word like spitting out poison, “Had seemed… good. At least at first.”

Zoro remains quiet as you pause, looking down at your own hands. It’s the first time he notices the light calluses that mar your palms, not so different from his own. He wonders at the smoothness of the handles on the wooden bucket you’d carried so easily through the woods, at how long it must’ve taken for a pair of hands like yours to wear them down so. The old witch’s words echo in his mind — a broken heart is it’s own kind of curse.

“Is that how you got so good at dancing?” he asks.

You grin, giving him a sidelong glance, “Perhaps.”

Zoro sighs, tilting his head back to look at the small patch of visible sky, now a deep, bruising purple.

“So. Now what?”

You echo his sigh, looking up as well, “You can go back, if you’d like.”

“And what? Tell the Queen that you got away?”

Your smile hardens ever so slightly, “Or, you could kill something else in the forest and offer her it’s heart instead.”

“But wouldn’t she know? After she ate it and doesn’t gain eternal youth?”

You shrug, looking away, “You’d be surprised what a person can trick themselves into believing, if they just try hard enough.”

Zoro nods, letting his eyes fall back down to his hand, resting idle against the hilt of his sword.

“Or, I could stay.”

He doesn’t know what makes him say it — and perhaps it was the darkness of the forest, the close, flustered whisper of the leaves, or perhaps it was the lingering sweetness of your home-brewed wine and the tantalizing smell of magic and cinnamon still in the air. But he says it, and he finds that even the strange, still shocked moment after, he doesn’t regret it.

“You… you want to stay?”

He doesn’t think he’s ever heard you sound so uncertain before.

“Why not? I can’t go back and…” he motions at the hut and the soft ring of warm firelight seeping out from the tiny windows, “The wine’s not bad.”

And perhaps for the first time, Zoro thinks, he sees you smile — a smile that isn’t sharp and full of hidden teeth. A smile that’s helpless and hopeful and just a little bit pained. He smiles back and hopes —

“C’mon then… you can help with the fire. And carry the water.”

“Hn. But you seemed so good at it.”

You shoot him a slight pout as the pair of you duck back into the hut to the smell of roasting vegetables.

There are some stories the world can never stop telling, stories so old that the sing harmony to the very tuning of the universe.

Once upon a time, there was a wolf, a grandmother, and a girl in the woods. Once upon a time, an old witch built a house of gingerbread to lure in the lives of unheedful children. Once upon a time, there was a Queen with a magic mirror. Once upon a time, a witch lived alone in a secluded hut and lured men to her table only to turn them into the pigs they’d always been inside.

Once upon a time, a boy asked a girl to dance.

Once, a boy told the truth and the girl didn’t believe him, because all the boys who’d broken her heart before had given her no reason not to. And a heart can only be broken so many times before it, too, gets tired.

Once, she thought that broken hearts could never be mended.

But she should’ve known that stories, like the magic they hold, very rarely tell the truth. Or perhaps, they too only tell the truths that the listener wants to hear, or is ready to hear. Never more, never less.

So, here is another story — one that’s not so frequently told, but is just as true as the others —

Once, there was a boy who was born with a sword in his hand, who had never know that his body could hold so much music or laughter. Then, he met a girl with the most beautiful voice in all the land, and he, like so many before him, fell in love. Only, the girl had been hurt by all those before him, and no longer trusted the words of boys with sword-hilt smiles and rough, callused fingers. But when he asked her to dance, she agreed anyway, and when she introduced him to her grandmother and offered him wine, he did not hesitate. Instead, he asked if he could stay the night.

That was a long, long time ago.

There will always be another girl with a pretty voice and a viper’s smile at the castle beyond the woods, and always another young knight too eager to please his Queen. There will always be apples at the morning market and magic in the air. But perhaps the pieces don’t fall right where they ought to; perhaps they never did. Perhaps the stories we tell are only ever stories.

“You told me once that there were three ways to lift a curse,” Zoro asks one day, a wooden bucket in one hand, three swords strapped to his opposite hip.

“Mhm,” you hum, not looking up from the large pot of soup bubbling over the fire, a song threading beneath your breath as you sway back and forth.

Zoro grunts as he puts the bucket on the worn wooden table, walking over to slip an around your middle and hook his chin over your shoulder. You laugh as you let yourself be pulled back into his embrace.

“You only ever told me two.”

“Ah… right —” you smile, a smile that is no longer jagged but worn soft around the edges, as if all the sharpness has been smoothed over by years and years of tenderness, years and years of trust, of love.

“So?”

“So…” you place down the wooden spoon and turn to face him, placing your hands on his shoulders as his large, callused palms settle around your waist. The pair of you sway to a song that only the two of you can hear, a song that sings harmony to the very tuning of the universe.

“The third way to break a curse is the easiest… but also the hardest way, depending on who you are,” you say, smiling and swaying in Zoro’s arms. Like this, you can see the late afternoon light as it pours through the small window and catches on the dull gold of his triplet earrings.

“It’s a simple thing, really,” you say, as Zoro leans down to press his forehead to yours, your breaths dancing in the negative space between your bodies. Outside, an old witch sits on a rocking chair and admires the sunset. Occasionally, she reaches into her skirt pockets for a handful of berries to toss into the pigsty to her right.

“Oh yeah? How simple?” Zoro asks.

“Why…” you lean up on your tiptoes, your nose brushing his, your lips mere inches apart. Behind you, bottles and bottles of home-brewed wine sit along the mantle of the great stone fireplace, the color bright and true and freshly spilled blood.

“It’s as simple as a kiss from your one true love, of course.”

[gonzo-rella]

Breaking Point (sequel to 'Them') | Art Donaldson

MASTERLIST | AO3 | KO-FI

Sequel to this drabble.

Relationship(s): Art Donaldson x gn!reader (romantic), Art Donaldson x Tashi Duncan x Patrick Zweig (romantic)

Summary: You'll, still, never be them.

Warnings: Angst, unhappy relationship between reader and Art, references to physical pain, references to vomiting and nausea, possibly OOC Art Donaldson because I haven't seen this movie since it came out but maybe I'm just being overly insecure about my writing. (Let me know if I need to add any)

Word count: 0.9k

(A/N: Two fics in one day after over half a year of not writing any fanfiction? How do I do it? Anyway, maybe it's because I'm a child of divorce but relationship angst like this is my bread and butter. Not to mention, the Challengers fandom is one of those fandoms that is 99% fem!reader stuff. So, I felt compelled to offer something that allows men and enbies to pretend they're in this mess of a polycule, too. Maybe, one day, I'll write something actually nice and fluffy for these characters. Anyways, if you want a sequel to this sequel, give me some suggestions for where you want it to go. Maybe this could be a choose your own adventure kind of deal where there's multiple endings. We'll see.)

“Are you okay?”

Art looked at you from across the couch, his outstretched arm resting on the back cushion, almost as though he was reaching towards you. You glanced over at him, then returned your attention to your phone. At least, you pretended to be interested in whatever was displayed on the screen.

“Yeah,” you replied, tone colder than intended. “Why do you ask?”

“You slept on the couch last night.”

You shrugged dismissively.

“I couldn’t sleep. I figured I’d watch some TV.”

He didn’t say anything, but just by looking at him, you could tell that he wasn’t convinced. All he did was watch you, and that was almost enough to make your heart melt. But, it didn’t change anything.

“I’m fine, Art.”

It sounded almost like a warning, and he either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it. 

He sighed.

“Why couldn’t you sleep?”

His voice was so delicate and it tore through your stomach. The sensation that surged through your body was agonising yet you couldn’t help but relish it.

You didn’t respond at first, a small part of you hoping that he’d take the hint and drop it. Once this started, there was no going back. You didn’t know if he knew that. Your gaze flickered over to him, and he was still watching you intently. He showed no sign of relenting, despite the fatigue etched into his face. That was just how he looked these days. With a huff, you closed your eyes and rolled your head back. You pressed the power button on your phone and placed it on the arm of the couch.

“The same reason you can’t sleep.”

You refused to meet his gaze yet.

He hesitated before speaking.

“What are you talking about?”

“Art.”

This time, you looked him dead in the eye. You couldn't help it. After all the time you’d spent tormenting yourself about this, silent amidst your despair, you needed to see what he would do or say. If there was anything he could do or say to make this okay- any miraculous thing. You studied him closely, closer than he had been studying you.

He didn’t answer- not verbally. You weren’t sure that he could. It was a confirmation in the absence of denial. He bit his bottom lip as recognition flooded his eyes. If he couldn’t find the words, or if he didn’t dare speak them, you would. They’d spent enough time stewing in your muddled head.

“Every night, all I can think about is them.”

The tears that you’d been holding back for months on end were finally threatening to spill. Looking at him would push you over the edge, so you quickly averted your gaze to salvage whatever dignity you had left.

”I don’t know how much you love me, or if you even love me at all. All I know is that… it’s nothing compared to what you feel for… them.”

Saying either of their names would have made you gag, or burst into tears, or both. Art noticed the nauseated look on your face, so he leaned closer to you and rested his hand on your shoulder, his thumb moving back and forth. You didn’t have the heart nor strength to shrug him off. Besides, it was nice. It meant nothing. It changed nothing. But, it was nice.

“Hey, I love you.”

He still spoke softly, but you could only read it as feeble this time.

“It’s not the same, Art.”

Your voice matched Art’s.

“I want to be loved like how you love them,” you continued. “And, you don’t love me like that, it’s destroying me but that’s fine. You don’t have to. I don’t want you to. But, I can’t keep doing this just because that’s how I love you. And, I’m not saying this to be an asshole or to make you feel like an asshole. I just… yeah. I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t. It feels like I’ll die if I do.”

You stole another glance at Art. His expression was a mixture of guilt, pity and sadness. It was enough to make the tears spill.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could offer you. It was sincere and quiet.

The way he was caressing your shoulder started to ache, as though his thumb was tracing a gaping wound. You stood up and moved away from him so that you were out of reach. You grabbed your phone and wasted no time in loading up the Uber app.

“I can’t be here right now. I can’t deal with you looking at me like that.”

You typed clumsily with one hand, using the back of the other to wipe at your cheeks and your nose.

He watched you from the couch, seemingly frozen in place.

“I can leave.”

You shook your head at his offer. He swallowed.

“Where are you going to go?”

You didn’t answer him. If he didn’t know where you were going, it would hurt less when he didn’t follow you.

“Well, can you at least call me or text me when you get there?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you.”

You could feel his eyes trained on you as you made your way upstairs to pack some things to get you through the night. And, by the time you returned, he was at the bottom of the stairs, staring at you with that familiar, helpless look. You stared right back. It hurt so badly that you could have screamed. 

Neither of you knew what to say, so it was all you could do. You both understood it as a goodbye. It was too early to tell what kind of a goodbye it was.

You brushed past him and went straight out the door.

[heretical-cogitations]

Magnus the red x gn!reader headcanons

word count ~950

Very unorganised but this has been rattling around in my head getting longer and longer.

Also, hey to the anon that the magnus sent that ask a lil while ago hope you like this and thanks for the brain worms…

first time writing a primarch so might be ooc :/

Warnings 18+ MDNI penetrative sex, magnus is a switch, cockwarming, warp fuckery, praise kink?

Please let me know if I missed anything!!

Taglist: @synfiction, @wormiusdebilius, @legionsofthehungry, @contemporaryslug, @beckyninja, @hatsubara-8chan

Please let me know if you want to be added or only tagged in specific things :^)

He gets turned on anytime you talk excitedly about something you like, he feels so guilty for it but listening to you and seeing you express so much joy and interest in a subject has him thinking less than pg things.

I feel like he could tease by sending you mental images of the things he wants to do to you – basically mental image nudes.

Happens every time he jerks off, he thinks about you and mentally butt dials you, so whatever you are doing at the time is violently interrupted with him being very needy for you. This might be how you found out he wanted you but at the time you just thought you had a very weird dream / day dream. Once you are established though he uses this as a way to tease you and communicate with you when he can’t be nearby.

I can see him being very experimental from the beginning, He already trusts you enough and knows you well enough to be intimate with you so he feels he can be vulnerable and open.

Loves using the warp (shocking I know).

I have a very vivid mental image of him conjuring hands to hold you down and play with you whilst he watches or, if you are being too needy, whilst he works.  

He is a tease and will use the hands to bring you to the edge over and over, not letting you cum once. The hands will also pull and push you into whatever position he deems fit and keep you there for as long as he wants.

You end up wound so tight that even the slightest bit of any attention from him would have you on the edge. This and the sound of your beautiful begging and pleading, strokes his ego big time.

Because of how experimental he is - he is a true switch, is just as ready to get fucked beyond comprehension as he is to fuck you beyond comprehension.

Is you are sat near him when he is working, he absent mindedly fondles and gropes you. Mix this with how competitive magnus can be and this leads to cockwarming him whilst he reads, which eventually becomes you fucking yourself on him whilst he reads trying to get his attention – he sees it as a challenge, can you break his concentration? Yeah, you can.

Keep bouncing on him, making his tip jam over and over against the spots in you that have you clinging on to him, keep bucking your hips into his and rake your nails down his chest. Most importantly keep whining and moaning for him.

IF you do that, the book gets thrown to the side, and he is on you like some feral beast, hands firm on your hips as he ruts into you.

Deep voice moaning out your name as he scolds you for making him lose his page, might give you a swift spank if you were extra slutty about getting his attention.

Ends up keeping you on his cock all night, but don’t worry after all is done, you get a lovely massage and a medicated bath that makes you feel like you’re floating and boneless. (aftercare king).

When he bottoms, he taunts you, challenging you to see if you can ruin him the way he ruins you.

Magnus eats those words quick.

Ends up biting the pillow to try and stifle the whorish screams he lets out, he is loud and sensitive.

His cock leaking and jumping with each thrust, speech slurring, as he mindlessly babbles disjointed sentences about cumming and how good of a job you are doing.

Congrats you’ve fuck magnus the red stupid. He didn’t think it was possible, definitely looks at you differently now, like you are transcendent.

Magnus changes size mid sex just to hear you squeal and watch you scramble.

Loves watching you shake as you come undone for the nth time that session.

He is all about mutual pleasure, also a fan of marathon sex, feel like he has a thing for how progressively more fucked out you both get as the night goes on.

He keeps notes of what you have done together.

Wants you to read to him when he goes down on you. this goes the other way too.

Magnus will dress up for you, loves the way you look at him, pupils blown wide with need. Magnus feels like he is on fire, he would do anything to see that look so he really goes hard to impress you.

PRAISE HIM PRAISE HIM PLEASE PRAISE HIM.

Want to break him? Complement him – not his intelligence or his looks, just him, magnus. He will be a heap on the floor in seconds.

Its jarring to him the first couple times you praise him for just being him. He is used to his intellect or stature being the centre of focus but praising something like his laugh or the way he phrases things, he is in tears, and painfully hard.

One night you realise you haven’t just slept with him, without some warpery being involved so you stop him when he tries to use it telling him you just want him and only him. You’ve never seen him go through so many emotions so quickly.

When this happens, he is so vulnerable and needs to be taken care of, even if he is on top, place your hand on his cheek and sweep his tears away as he rests his forehead against yours.

It’s so intense for both of you that when he cums he tells you he loves you.

Last thing I’m just going to sneak this in here - fem magnus…oughhhh….

[nthspecialll]

Could you talk a bit about the wapiti tribe? I am not there yet and I doubt I will since every time I boot the game a wave of sadness hits me as my Arthur cough reminding me of his unchangeable fate and my aim is worst that a blind drunk out of his mind but I come to really like Eagle Flies and would love to know more about him

(Sorry for bothering, I should just play the game instead of bothering you with ask. Feel free to ignore)

Oh yeah of course, I will give a general idea without too much spoilers and then some more heavy spoilers underneath the cut.

Since you are mentioning Arthur's coughing I am guessing you are in chapter 6 or at least past chapter four where you help Eagle Flies steal information from Cornwall Tar and Oil company.

The general plot with the tribe is one that has been seen many times in real life, the army wanting to move Native Americans from their land and onto a reservation (or a rez, which I have seen some Native American now a days call them on tikok, idk how I ended up on Native tiktok but I get to see some beautiful powwows and regalias). The problem with the tribe is that they have moved onto a reservation but they are now told to move again because they have been told there is oil in the area.

The army isn't allowed to just move the tribe but need proper reason and what Colonel Favours has resorted to is framing the Natives as mean or foul. He makes a bunch of contracts and deals, then says the Natives doesn't keep and thus he can hold back medicine, food and vacines. But the truth is, they do hold up their end of the deals, it is the army who doesn't, but who would believe them.

Rains Fall, the chief, tries over and over to take political and lawful action, peaceful action together with Captian Monroe, a part of the army who was sent to make a report on the situation but is in truth helping the tribe the best he can. Meanwhile Eagle Flies gets more and more angry because he can see the army doesn't have any interest in holding their end of the deals, so he acts out.

Dutch is also introduced to Eagle Flies and pushes him to do more and more, to attack and fight. He tells Eagle Flies to humiliate the army, Eagle Flies ends up captured and tortured, meanwhile Dutch draws attention away from the gang and "people will blame everyone on the Indian situation" (his words), aka he pushes his crimes on the natives.

HEAVY SPOILERS UNDERNEATH

Not to mention the mission where Eagle Flies dies, when they attacked the Oil Company, that was Dutch's idea, he encouraged it! And what did the Natives gain? Nothing, meanwhile the gang gained a shit ton of money.

Rains Fall says to Arthur in A Fine Art Of Conversation, which is after their sacred spot was burned down by drunk army men: "when we find out medicine and surplies are being deliberately withheld, how can we not see it as something personal? When they destory our sacred sites? How can I convince Eagle Flies and the others not to fight back?" to which Charles replies "Maybe that is part of why they destory these things, they want you to fight back." Which is pretty much what the army wants.

After Eagle Flies and a big part of the tribe is killed, Rains Fall gives up and moves to Canada with the help of Charles, though even more of them are murdered in Wvyoming by the army. They will make it to Canada but as nothing but "Just a few families", Rains Fall will come back in the epilouge where you can meet him after he visited his son's grave.

And sadly all of it was for little, the reservation did not hold oil.

[artisiumstudios]

Holy shit this is so beautifully written

LIKE-

YES?!

Holy-

It’s like you read my mind.

Stanley calling ford dad definitely throws him for a loop because this is his BABY TWIN BROTHER calling him DAD. It’s such a big realization for ford to think how much the dynamic between Stan and ford is going to change. Now instead of Stan acting as ford’s protector, companion, best friend, and brother it’s ford who has to be the protector; the caregiver and the responsible adult in Stan’s life. He to raise his brother and hope he does a good job because he can’t imagine putting this Stan throw filbricks teachings. Not again.

Not after he already lost his brother once because of where those teachings lead them.

And to be honest, he actually enjoys taking care of Stanley. He enjoys seeing his baby (because sure Stan is still his brother but that’s also his baby now, that’s his son) growing up and discovering his interests, his personality, and just the world around him.

It makes Ford reflect back to his childhood and seeing how even in a different environment with a different upbringing Stan still seems to love the sea, still loves marine life, and still dreams of sailing one day. Except the difference is that unlike before it isn’t to escape a home or society, it’s to explore with his dad. (And if that doesn’t bring ford to tears I don’t know what does). Not to mention it makes Ford come to the understanding that while maybe their father had (semi) good intentions, the way he acted as a father was abusive. It makes him basically have to sneak into the library (he’s banned) just to read through every parenting book possible, it makes him suck up his misogyny (you can’t tell me he wasn’t even a little bit) and join their parenting group filled with women just to be the best father figure for Stan.

And yes he planned on telling Stan his origins, his purpose, how do you tell your son that? How do you tell him that the only reason he’s even here is because this universe’s version of him is dead because their father kicked him out and he ended up suffocating in the trunk of a car? How do you tell him that you lead your brother on because you were scared of his reaction about not wanting to sail the world with him? How do you tell him that the reason he was kicked out was because he broke your science project? How do you tell him that not once after being kicked out did you try to reach out, because you were angry and because you were scared?

How do you tell him that he’s meant to save the world and that you fear that you’re going to lose him again?

Ford can’t. He can’t do it no matter how many times his mind supplies that it’s the right thing to do and that Stanley deserves to know.

All he can do is be the parent his brother deserved to have. One that doesn’t link love with monetary value. One that isn’t afraid of affection and can hug, kiss, and be gentle with their child. One who can discipline without raising a hand, and one who listens and tries to be better everyday for their son.

And it works out, because now Stanley has a diagnosis (I love audhd Stan) and ford can adequately handle Stan’s behavior and learning process without their fathers ideals (Stanley was never stupid or a knucklehead, he was just wired differently). He knows how to help Stan with homework and he can speak with his teachers to get him the best education possible. He never once belittles Stan’s interests, but rather lets him indulge and even makes sure that Stan has everything he could possibly want (another flaw in his parenting style) but he can’t help it. Not when he sees Stan’s face light up every time they head to the beach for summer vacation, not when he pays to have a swim session with the sharks that costs a pretty penny (something else Filbrick would never do, especially if they hadn’t earned that penny), not when Stan filled sketchbooks upon sketchbooks of anomalies because he wants to mimic his dad.

Not when he knows their time is limited.

But that mixed with his overprotectiveness definitely causes a bit of conflict with Stan’s want for adventure and independence. (And if he sneaks out every once in a while, we’ll thank the gods Ford is a deep sleeper)

Stanley has an important role in the grand scheme of things, specifically saving the universe. His role is so crucial that if anything were to happen to him it could lead to not only the destruction of his universe, but also lead the destruction of others. So what would happen if Ford had lost Stanley somewhere during the ten years they spent apart, only for Ford to be met face to face with the time police and what appears to be 2 years old Stanley.

His ears feel muffled as he’s handed the toddler.

Death by asphyxiation

Trunk of the car

Far too late

Paradox

The child’s timeline was already gone

The fate of the universe

His hands

The baby coos in his arms babbling as he grabs Ford’s pinky.

[edenspoem]

i’ve mentioned it before but your vocabulary is insanely diverse. you are so well articulated and i’ve been wanting to work on my own vocabulary skills, i find myself having to try to find better words to describe things when i write so i was wondering how you expanded your vocabulary if you don’t mind!! unless you just came out of the womb writing like a renaissance poet then you can disregard this<3

first of all, thank you. my passion for writing does come from something rooted and old in me, but it was only recently that i begun to flesh it out and bleed the possibilities.. but the biggest bit of advice i can ever give to self-taught or writers on their own is; complication and comparison kill. when you let the overthinking run you around, you end up with processed and less honest writing. not honest in the sense of lies, but honest in the sense of "who do i want to portray? what do i want to portray?" and like i've said don't write with the brain write with the heart. (although, the mind pre-analyzing can come up with amazing things. literally when it springs to mind) your brain will want to trim and trim and cut all the shrubbery but i think it's what makes writing interesting. nobody wants to read something logical. they want to read something they have never felt before. never touched before. never desired before. it should be beautiful and gruesome and true. so, if you're thinking of expanding your vocabulary, do use it sparingly. i like to read classics or period pieces (like outlander) because even now i'm finding words i never knew of (like segued; i was like wtf is segued?? but it's interesting. it means to shift from one thing to another) but also if you don't like reading, watching period-piece shows is another good option. anne with an e is where i started when i found out i loved words and writing. i always say to look into period pieces but there's something so evocative about these preceding renditions because a.i is fucking the world of art up (and our environment. literally) and most don't care for poetry these days.. grab a book or a google doc and literally write your heart out whenever something you think of makes it beat a little bit faster..

edit: your ability to be simple and still make an impact with your words is your greatest weapon. know your words like a second language.

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

can we please talk about tim mcgraw x cowboy like me

we can!

Looks like we're back to Singapore again!

First of all: hearing her sing Tim McGraw with her adult voice is sooooooooooo touching. I've said this before, but for instance, Fifteen being sung by a 30 year old hits SO MUCH HARDER than it does by an 18 year old, and completely changes the perspective on it; it's so much more poignant to consider it being told by someone with that much more life experience and that much further removed from their youth.

Similarly, growing up has the same effect on Tim McGraw to me. No longer is it a teenager singing about her boyfriend who moved away; it's a woman reflecting on the naivety of youth and how much simpler love seemed back then than it does now two decades on. It's one of those songs that truly does stand the test of time, because it takes on different meanings throughout the decades. (It's like the yeehaw version of Midnight Rain in some ways.) And I think singing it in a mashup like this only heightens that, because it juxtaposes the youthful innocence with the grown-up love in Cowboy Like Me.

Second of all: I knew she loved Cowboy Like Me but I don't think I realized just how many times she played it until I started getting these asks 😂

The theme of the mashup is: Cowboys listen to Tim McGraw too!

(I'm kidding... only not really lol.)

In all seriousness, I think the "hook" to me is the dance of the story:

But when you think Tim McGraw, I hope you think my favorite song / The one we danced to all night long, the moon like a spotlight on the lake... And you asked me to dance, but I said, "Dancing is a dangerous game" / Oh, I thought, this is gonna be one of those things / Now I know I'm never gonna love again

Because there are a few ways I could take it! One, it's a grown-up woman retelling the big love from her youth. Or another is that she's comparing love as an adult to the love from her youth. That first tender dance turns into a more nuanced, more loaded dance as an adult as life adds baggage to it.

I think it's a beautiful juxtaposition of how one's view of love might change over the decades, but not one's pursuit of it.

Also: You're a bandit like me, eyes full of stars / Hustling for the good life, never thought I'd meet you here -> He said the way my blue eyes shined put those Georgia stars to shame that night / I said, "That's a lie" is 🤌

I think I must be too tired to do this one because on the one hand, I feel like I have SO MUCH I want to say that I can't verbalize, but on the other, I feel like I have nothing to say because it's just a really beautiful medley.

I think it's interesting how Tim McGraw is a song that's told in hindsight; the relationship is already long over, and it's her hoping she'll be remembered and still be loved long after they've gone their separate ways and moved on. And then Cowboy Like Me is two people coming together despite all odds and vowing to stay together. So if I had to see it as one story, I'd say the girl who stays behind in Tim McGraw grows up and finally finds that love again that makes her feel the way she did as a kid.

I think my favourite bit is:

You're a bandit like me Eyes full of stars Hustling for the good life Never thought I'd meet you here It could be love We could be the way forward And I know I'll pay for it ... And I'm back for the first time since then I'm standing on your street And there's a letter left on your doorstep And the first thing that you'll read Is when you think Tim McGraw I hope you think my favorite song Someday you'll turn your radio on I hope it takes you back to that place

A) it sounds beautiful and B) it plays right into those themes of remembrance and memory and longing for youth and possibly even reclaiming youth.

And I also love the ending:

When you think Tim McGraw I hope you think of me ... You're a cowboy like me He said the way my blue eyes shined Put those Georgia stars to shame that night I said, "That's a lie"

So, is she remembering the cowboy long after it's over? Or did she find herself a new cowboy long after that first love? It can be taken either way IMO, and either way, it's an interesting story!

And that does it for mashup madness for tonight! Thank you for flying wavesoutbeingtossed airlines, please ensure you've collected all your belongings before exiting the aircraft ❤️ (also my inbox is still full so we have to hit a pause on the game until I catch up 😂)