#and we've been together almost as long... more than a quarter of my life!

[exeggcute]

today makes seven years since noelle and I first met :)

[fraugwinska]

Since @chefskjssart's artwork that I commissioned was such a BANGER, I felt like I needed to do something to show my gratitude. So, I messaged her and gave her free choice over a little One-Shot I'd gift her. And that's how we ended up here :D Where are my little TV Sluts at? You can thank Chef - and I hope you all have fun ;>

NSFW - Explicit Sexual Content - Minors DNI - 5.7k words

"Gotta say, Val, the revenue of your movies really skyrocketed this quarter, fuck me."

Vox flipped through the quarterly reports, eyebrows raised and a grin on his face while Valentino, very pleased with himself, lounged on the chaise next to Vox's desk, smoking.

"I told you I've made a good investment." He grinned and blew out a puff of smoke. "All the horny bitches out there are eating my movies up."

"It's more than that, you're even making headway into other rings, holy shit! We've even got a foot in the Lust Ring market, which is almost impossible with that kind of competition..."

Valentino hummed approvingly.

"And the best part: I didn't have to do much." He added and let the tip of his cigarette rest against his lips, his grin widening. "My newest author is a kinky little genius."

Vox turned his attention to the papers again, his smile slowly turning into a frown as he scanned the declining sales in Voyeurscopes.

"What are you talking about? All of your authors write pretty much the same shit, what could be so special about-"

Valentino laughed and shook his head. "That one is - believe me, carino. Poor bitch has the mind of a succubus on crack but she can't get off."

Vox looked up, an eyebrow raised in skeptic questioning.

"Can't get off?"

"Can't feel anything. Can't cum for the life of her." He replied, leaning back and spreading his arms. "Numb like a fucking dead fish."

"Or maybe she just hasn't found a good dick." Vox mumbled, returning back to the reports, skimming over the numbers.

"Mh, you be the judge amorcito. Because I tried." Valentino growled, taking a drag from his cigarette. 

Now that got Vox's full attention. The TV demon stared at his partner for a few seconds of silence, then laughed maniacally, almost falling off his chair while Val rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"Fucking weird little thing, she is. She can write the craziest shit, the hornier the better. Writes like a damn porn beast, but has no clue what good sex actually feels like."

Vox heaved, wiping his screen as if in tears.

"Ohoho, Christ on a Cracker Val, maybe you've been out of the business too long… are you maybe losing that golden touch?"

Valentino sneered. "Ay, and you think you would've been able to get that bitch to cum? Be my guest, I'll gladly watch you fail."

Vox grinned at the moth, his eyes dangerously teasing. The reports were long forgotten - this was too entertaining, and Vox loved to be challenged, because he loved the feeling of superiority he felt when he succeeded. And that feeling would be so much more satisfying when he'd beat his long time partner and porn prince of pride at his own expertise.

"Wanna up the ante? Make a little wager out of it?"

Valentino scoffed, then chuckled deviously. He took another drag from his long cigarette, his cerise teeth glistening with red saliva as he began to drool in anticipation.

"You know I like to play, Voxxy. Especially if the odds are so much in my favor."

Another script done.

Your best one yet, if anyone asked you. But you knew no one asked ever, so why bother?

You stood up from your desk in your private office - being Val's favorite pen pet had it's perks afterall.

You skipped the stage of employment where you'd be cramped in one of these horrible cubicles together with the other overworked, caffeinated and tired writers, typing another outdated secretary-fuck-fest-plot while the other employees complained about their last bad lay and the shitty pay.

At least you didn't have to deal with any of that. Your room was quiet and peaceful, the door able to be locked shut and the walls soundproof. No distractions, no chit chat, no loud coworkers or malfunctioning printer noises. Just the humming sound of your computer, and the whirring of the A/C Val had granted you - a luxury that most of your colleagues bitched about behind your back.

You stretched, your tired bones popping into place and you sighed. You were done for the day. Finally.

With the deadline looming over you, you had been a bit late with the last part, and the thought of being late with your work made you sick. But Val pressed for another banger (pun intended) like your last one, 'Dante's Infern-Hoe' and you didn't want to risk the benefits you were offered so temptingly by being sloppy.

But the script for 'The Devil wears Nada' sat now, freshly printed, next to your laptop, the file saved locally and in the cloud, with about an hour to spare still. You smiled, content and relieved. An hour of paid slacking off was nice, and you checked with a glance that the electric door still was set on LOCKED before you flopped down at the two-seater by the window, grabbing the remote from the small side table and turned on the TV.

A familiar voice spoke through the speakers, and you relaxed into the pillows with a small sigh, eyes closed.

As shitty as the program in Hell was, one thing it had going for it was Vox. That smooth, hypnotizing voice of the overlord that held pride's media empire in his claws was a delight to your ears, and even the mindless, overplayed commercial jingles were pleasant enough if he was the one narrating them.

For the millionth time, it seemed, your hand wandered under the hem of your pants, fingers rubbing lazily at your cunt, as you listened to him talk, advertising the latest angelic protection device that didn't do what he promised it to do.

It was insanity at this point, doing something over and over again expecting a different outcome. Every night your fingers were cold and wet with your slick and your clit bloody and raw while you felt nothing of even your most violent and feverish touches, trying for minutes to hours to experience a sensation you wrote daily about without the satisfaction of any remarkable buildup or release.

It was no use, you knew it was a fruitless attempt, just like all the others. The most you got out of your endless tries was a slight tingle one time where you were so desperate you fucked yourself with an electric rod on its highest setting, resulting in a power outage in your apartment and a big fat fine from your landlord a few days later.

Still, you craved it. Craved to one day feel at least something. After the disappointing One-Night-cannot-Stand-the-thought-of-it with your boss, the literal porn mogul you were ready to just give up. If the face of pride’s sexdrive couldn’t get you over the edge, was there any chance at all?

Valentino had been the last in a long line of desperate attempts, paartners ranging from incubi, paid whores, porn actors to even sexbots made by Asmodeus, costing you a pretty penny just for the hassle of trying to get through the return hotline to get your money back, explaining No, you don’t know how it was possible that the cock of the ‘Fuckboy 3.0 XXL’ broke into pieces after one time usage. 

You chuckled humorlessly at the memory - It was truly a pathetic time in your eternal existence, filled with you masturbating alone in bed like a sad porn star, yearning to experience sex like you wrote about in your scripts. Maybe this was hells way to punish you for your sins, your personal plan of torture - To never experience the very thing that possessed you on the daily.

The television droned on in the background, Vox advertising his latest technological developments; new features on your phone that you really could not care less about. Despite his unusual appearance, Vox was one of your absolute go-to Stand-in's for your plot protagonists. Charming, suave, depraved when called for and a dominating, thorough lover that took what he wanted, but with so much skill that his partner would cum threefold before he'd even begin to think about finishing. Cocky and yet sensual. Aftercare included. All the things your colleagues were too dumb to include, no wonder their scripts were a bust.

Yes, it was hell and therefore tastes were more... depraved than in the living world, but that didn't mean the populus secret wishes for some sort of common sexual decency was out the window, goddamn.

Your mind wandered away from your depressive ruminations, your hand never stopping its circular pattern around your swollen clit as your thoughts started to wander to its usual place, the only way that came close to what you longed for and what was the source for all of your best-selling porn scripts. Your boundless realm of fantasy.

'Come out, come out, wherever you are...'

Vox is standing in your doorway, his silhouette prominent against the bright white neon light coming from the corridor of the empty floor. His suit, neatly fitted to every curve of his slender body, is showing just how thin his waist really is, but that does not come even remotely close to describe his broad shoulders and firm, wide chest, contrasting it deliciously. His navy blue skin reflects the harsh lighting in the hallway, his screen sharp and clear, digital eyes never leaving you as he closes the door behind him, dipping the room you're in in darkness, the only source of light his brightly illuminated screen where his digital, mismatched eyes are solely fixated on you, hiding behind the long backrest of your couch.

'Found you, babydoll.' he says with that god forsaken sultry voice of his as he reaches for your throat, long fingers wrapping themselves around your neck as your breath hitches and he pulls you up from your crouched position, his long tongue running over your collarbones, the wet trails feeling as cold on your skin as his appendage feels hot. 'Now remember what I said? Ready or not...'

He presses you into a wall, his big, hard erection rubbing teasingly through the layers of fabric on your already wet core as you whimper with want. '... here I cum.'

You moan his name, the imagined feeling so painfully surreal, and you wished once more that your working fingers would elicit some sort of real, bodily response.

A cough makes you freeze in your movements. Your fantasy shatters like a mirror shot with a bullet and your eyes fly open, expecting to see maybe a dumb segment of a rerun of 'Vox2Nite'. Instead, you see the actual, real TV demon overlord, standing live and in color just a few strides away with an expression that was a mixture of confusion, curiosity and slight annoyance.

"I'd ask if I am interrupting, but it seems you already had me on your mind, huh, doll?"

Realizing that you weren't - in fact - hallucinating, you immediately whipped your hand out from under your panties, sitting up, flustered like a child caught with their hands in the cookie jar. How did he get in? Did you forget to lock the door? No. Did he unlock it?! You must have missed his opening and closing of the door over the voice in your fantasy. The same voice that is now echoing in reality. Oh what a shameful ending for a perfectly good fantasy orgasm.

"Um... shit, sorry, Mr. Vox, sir. I was just, you know..." you scrambled, getting nervous under the actual gaze of him as he folded his arms, waiting for you to end that sentence with a pitiful smirk. Jesus Christ, those arms are slender and muscular…

"Thinking! Just thinking, making script... scenarios..."

"Uh-Huh. And how is that coming along?" He asked, seemingly unfazed by the display before him as he took a few steps towards you.

"Oh, uh, haha, I didn't really... finish..."

He stopped directly in front of you, shutting you up with a low chuckle and his hand around your wrist, the one attached to the hand that had been in between your folds just literal seconds ago, lifting them up to look at the still shimmering wet residue on your fingers with a sneer.

"Mhm. Yeah, I've heard you have some problems with that."

Now that was embarrassing as it was alarming, and you ripped your hand out of his grip. Or better, you tried to do so anyway. It was a pointless exercise, his hand had an iron-tight grasp around your wrist as he pulled you up with one swift motion, so fast you stumbled into him, face to chest, breath caught in your throat as you were made suddenly aware how huge he really was compared to you.

"W-wow, my kinda pathetic reputation precedes me it seems. That's..." just great is what you wanted to say, but all words failed you when he lifted the hand in his grasp to his face, his thick, long tongue slithering out of his mouth just to wrap itself around your digits, lapping up the sticky residue of your arousal, watching you as your pupils widen and you squirm in his grip, mortified and turned on at the same time.

"Eh. Not as pathetic as my business partner's failure to provide something he's built his reputation on, sweetheart. Unusually smart of him to get you under contract before you shout it from the rooftops." He hummed as he tasted you, sucking in the pads of your finger hungrily and without hesitation, and all you could think of, frozen stiff like a deer in headlights, was: What the fuck is happening?

"But Val never had the kind of mindset I have... I don't do failure... or better said: I always finish what I start." His low rasp vibrated in the air around him, echoing in your head, and the heat his voice had brought to your skin left your mind racing. You asked yourself panicking if you had written too many dumb porn plots or if he was really implicating what you thought he was implicating.

"So, whaddaya say, doll..." His breath tickled your cheek as he leaned in closer, pulling you flush against him, a soft grunt of content as his hard dick pressed into your soft belly, his mouth right next to your ear, one of his hands running teasingly down your sides as he licked your ear shell. "...care to see if I can end your unlucky streak?"

'Fuck, yeah.' You thought, and almost moaned out loud as you let your head fall back to make room for his waiting mouth, when suddenly you stopped in your tracks. His hands were already groping over you greedily, squeezing your ass, your thighs, your breasts as he looked down on you, surprised to see your conflicted face.

"W...Wait. What's in it... for you?"

"Mh, you're clever. That's a new one." Vox laughed, his hand running up to the side of your face to cup your cheek, his thumb rubbing small circles on the corner of your lip. "Me and Val made a little bet, you see, and well... Let's just say: I want this to work out just as much as you do, since my success depends on yours."

"Oh.." So Val was talking about you, that bastard. He had you sign an NDA when he hired you, given that you had been unwilling to make a soul contract with him, but you guessed that that had been naively one-sided. Asshole.

Vox stroked your bottom lip, parting them before you opened them slightly on your own accord, his dark blue tongue languidly tracing the edges, waiting for your decision, coaxing you to decide in his favor. And even though you were kind of pissed at Valentino for running around telling people about your... situation - you couldn't deny it was tempting, turning fantasy into reality. And what was another overlord trying to do the impossible? Worst case - he'd try and fail, just as all the others did before, like the stupid moth pimp. At least you'd have some leverage for maybe another good deal for your silence on it. And in the highly unlikely best case…

With your decision made, you flicked your own tongue against his, humming at the unfamiliar taste and the sizzling static electricity on your tongue. Vox grinned, his sharp teeth pressing onto your lips, nipping at the sensitive flesh and growling with approval when your lips parted.

"Ohoho, baby, this is gonna be fun."

Vox ran his claws through your hair, loosening your already messy bun until your hair fell free with his playful pulls as he explored your mouth, deepening the kiss with every lick, until he could push his whole tongue into your mouth, moaning and grabbing the back of your head tightly as you let him fill you without the slightest hint of protest, fighting a desperate losing battle for air.

"Fuck, don't you need to... breathe?" you whispered after he finally pulled back, a wet trail connecting his tongue to yours, grinning down on you while your lungs burned for oxygen.

"Perks of being state of the art, sweetheart." he watched your swollen, drool covered lips - parted to catch your breath - for a few seconds longer before he inquisitively tilted his head. "Did you feel any of that?"

You contemplated lying, but figured honesty would probably be the best in this situation, shaking your head and giving him your most pitiful attempt at an apologetic smile, already bracing yourself for him to give up or get mad. "My lips tingle a little."

"Mh." He huffed as he pushed you back into the two-seater, your back hitting the cushions with a soft thump, and unceremoniously pulled on your very not-sexy-at-all sweatpants and slightly-more-sexy-but-not-quite panties until they slipped over your legs.

"How about this then?" He pressed his knee in between your legs to nudge them apart. "Can you feel any of this?" He spread your already wet slit open to run a cold claw over your hole, softly dipping first one, then two and lastly three of his fingers inside to stretch you further open and push it back in, repeating the movement slowly while keeping his eye contact trained on your face.

You hummed non-commitally, closing your eyes and pressing yourself into the cushions, trying to feel for any sensation that should come with every slow drag of his digits pumping inside of you, and not finding any of it was so fucking frustrating. You felt like you were not only disappointing yourself, but him, as stupid as that sounded. But with every added finger and still a lack of response, you saw the progression of frustrations in his face that you knew all too well - eyebrows furrowed, irritated twitches of the corners of his lips that turned into a snarl with the third added digit. You frowned, sighing and bit your lip - nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, and fucking nothing again, just another wet hole, the clenching of your walls a habit and reflex only, no pleasure whatsoever.

"It's no fucking use..." you whined, pressing your hands to your face in frustration and fear of looking back into his eyes, "I can't feel anything at a-aaAAH...!"

Your back arched at this strange jolt running down your spine, forcing you to grind down on his hand as a strong electric current buzzed from his claw tips right through your cunt, curling in your stomach in a hot wave of wanton need and knocking the wind out of you. Your eyes flew open just in time to see the flash of victorious satisfaction on his screen before his face turned fuzzy as you began to tear up.

"There's some reaction. There we go, sweetheart." He cooed and curled his fingers in that deliciously sinful way again, making your breath catch in your throat. For the first time since you can remember, you FELT. You dropped your hands from your flushed, hot face onto the plush of the couch, fingers desperately digging into the fabric, and stared at Vox with wide eyes. He winked, nudging his head to his buried fingers, and with a shattering gasp you could see neon blue bolts of electric sparks traveling down his slender arm, crackling around the soft flesh inside of your pussy that had never felt so sensitive.

"How are y-aaaa.... aaa-AAah...." he silenced any questions you might have had or possible retort with another shock wave traveling through his hand as he dragged his fingers in and out in an agonizingly slow pace, it had your ears ringing with white noise and your eyes water with unknown, strange pleasure.

You were shaking, and though it should have frightened you a lot more than it did to be electrocuted while doing something that could be considered borderline treason to Valentino (And it still had your cunt dripping on a whim), but there was nothing left for you to think of other than the sharp shocks making every nerve inside of you buzz, your thighs already trembling in anticipation of the possibility of an unknown, but oh-so-wanted climax. Yet it was somehow still out of your reach, out of your range of senses.

"I feel like we are getting closer, babydoll." The TV demon chuckled darkly, his voice over amplified, the electrical buzz reverberating loudly in the soundless room. "How 'bout we kick it up a notch, huh?"

He pulled out his fingers in a quick, cruel movement, making your pussy clench around nothing as you already mourned the feeling. Before you had the time to voice your loss however, he had your thighs already in his hands, pushing them back to almost fold you in half and spread them apart as wide as he could get them without hurting you. With a smirk he stuck out his tongue, inhumanely long, thick on its base and pointed at the end - and let his electric energy visibly spark around it. Holy Shit.

The moment his head dipped down and his appendage swiped through your puffed, red folds, you could feel your insides buzz in sync to his delighted moan. He began eating you out feverously and obscenely, not holding anything back, just like you wrote your most popular protagonists to do - NO, this was so much better than anything you've ever written or fantasized about, his tongue twisting in patterns that felt like nothing you've ever even came close to imagine before. It was like he powered your whole nervous system, overriding every strand of nerve with his own electricity, amplifying any touch, any lick and any suction that would normally not even register a thousand-fold.

"O-Oh my g... F-fffuuuuhhh-ck.. meeee..." you moaned in confusion and amazement, your legs shaking helplessly on either side of Vox's rectangle head as he fucked his tongue into you, switching between the deep, long, thorough thrusts and fast, small, teasing flicks into the wet heat of your cunt, coating his screen in a shining mix of your natural juices and his blue neon saliva. He sucked at the protruding of your swollen bundle of nerves, your sensitive clit twitching under his attention - it was maddeningly unreal. You felt like a complete, utter sham - if this was sex, you've never written it anywhere correctly.

"I'm working on that, sweetheart."

Vox smirked against your pulsing core, humming with satisfaction at your wet, gaping slit begging for him to push back in and fill you up again, making you ache for his tongue deeper and deeper, forcing every shred of sense you had to leave your mind as you bucked into his grip in desperation, chasing another intense jolt he held just out of your reach as he laughed deviously at your hungry reaction to his teasing antics.

You didn't care how pathetic you looked, how undignified or desperate you sounded. This was nothing short of fucking fantastic, this all new, unknown sensation that you deemed impossible to ever experience and an real, tangible orgasm so close you could almost grab it. You felt a violent greed, you needed more of this, more more more, you needed to cum and you knew exactly that only Vox was able to do it - but you needed him inside of you, pushing you into oversensitivity, no matter what was required to get you over the edge. Fuck all dignity, that ship had sailed the moment your back hit the couch.

You shook your head vigorously, choking down sobs of grateful pleasure that racked your body with every curl of his tongue inside of you and a guttural moan, high pitched and broken.

"P-Please... ah, Pl..please..." you panted and Vox felt for your thighs to hold you steady. His claws sank in with such force into the soft meat of your legs he drew blood. "F... Fu..Fuck me.. please." you stammered and he smirked, a look of pure joy in his digital eyes as he stared you down.

"Oh, I will, baby." He smiled against your core, curling the tip of his tongue around your clit with just the right amount of pressure that your entire vision went blank with a broken cry and the strongest wave of static he'd managed to work you up to so far. "Don't worry about that, I'm not nearly done with you."

He fucked his long, slippery tongue back into your quivering pussy, his thumb taking the place on the sensitive bundle of nerves where his pointy tip had been and you cried out again as he found that one spot you've always read (and written) about. You had questioned it's actual existence, believing it to be one of those wishful myths girls dreamt and you by proxy wrote about - Until Vox and his fucking talented mouth and miraculous tongue brushed right up against it with expert accuracy. It made your eyes roll to the back of your skull, mouth open to cry out as your back arched like a bow string.

"Yeah, there? F-Fuuuck..." The overlord growled, watching your blissful face twist with a new kind of overwhelming pleasure. "You gonna cum for me baby? Come on, let go, good girl..."

You knew the reader-pleasing phrase by heart. You used it a hundred times and fantasized about it even more - It shouldn't have that effect on you, but yet it was that comment of his, spoken in a raspy low rumble directly into your cunt that finally pushed you over the edge, leaving you panting helplessly and cumming.

Hard. Harder than you've ever dreamed about. Every nerve ending on overdrive, every hair standing on edge - it felt like getting struck by lightning, the static electricity sizzling through your blood vessels like a thunderstorm as he was still thrusting that goddamn magic tongue into your spasming hole through the clamping of your muscles, taking you through it with small, measured licks to keep you on the edge a little longer, whines and hiccups mixed with breathless laughs leaving your raw throat as you slowly returned to reality.

This was it, what you've always longed for, you realized after your vision came back to you, staring down at the smug looking TV demon who was still settled between your legs, his glowing screen painted with the remains of your climax. You managed to give him an exhausted smile, blowing a stray strand of wild hair from your face with a quick puff before dropping your head back in the pillow, absolutely spent. Vox pressed a toothy kiss on your thigh and pushed himself back to his feet.

"You've got quite the gushy orgasm, doll, damn..." he wiped a thick blotch of your arousal from the corner of his screen, the neon blue stained fingertip disappearing in his mouth as he hummed appreciatively and licked it away. Then he looked over you, slumped lazily on the sofa, your face flushed, your hair all tangled and the exposed pieces of skin covered with a shiny layer of sweat.

"Shit, sweetheart, you look goddamn good when you're all messed up like that..." He eyed you intently and leaned down, his heavy frame caging you in underneath him, one hand trailing a line from your still heaving chest, between your breasts and up to your throat.

"T-That was.. wow. Just... wow." Clearly illiterate and 50 IQ-points dumber post-orgasm, you cleared your throat, trying to compose yourself. While you were a little disappointed that you still hadn't really fucked, he did what he promised to do. Got you off - and how. You were grateful.

Sad that it was over, maybe even sadder that the chances of a repetition were likely zero - Vox was a goddamn overlord, and who were you other than a nobody with a hard-to-please cunt?- but grateful nonetheless. And you felt the need to let him know that.

"I don't know how to than... w-what are you doing?"

You sat yourself up on the elbows with a dumbfounded expression as Vox began to undress himself, his jacket, bow tie and undershirt discarded within seconds onto the ground and he practically pounced you as he began to undo the belt of his slacks, trapping you in between his legs and under the very prominent hard-on he sported.

"What, you really thought that was it? Make you cum once, win my bet and ding-dong-ditch like a fucking amateur?" Vox laughed as he pulled his massive length out of his pants - Words were your bread and butter but they would ever fail you to describe the gloriousness that was his cock.

Almost as thick as your underarm, smooth and almost shiny, glowing with built-in LED lights along the underside of his shaft and practically weeping with precum. He knelt down on the sofa, taking your hand to run it over its full length, smearing the sticky residue along your fingers, his almost bioluminescent cum dripping thick and slowly from the angry swollen tip. "Fuck no, sweetheart. In case you forgot, let me remind you..."

He leaned down to your ear, a violent electric bold jolting from his cock through your hand right into your overwhelmed, disbelieving brain as he guided you to line him up with your still throbbing entrance.

"I always finish what I start."

Vox had never been in a better mood.

His phone - finally surviving for more than just a few days, since his win against Valentino prevented the moth pimp from smashing it, even in one of his many temper tantrums - buzzed again. A notification of another upload into the cloud. He smirked when he saw the name of the user.

The whole conversation after he fucked Val's writing savant into Limbo and back had been a fucking blast for Vox - he reveled in the morbid joy of cashing in his stake while teasing Val that he'd have to wait another eternity for the chance to make Vox star in a double length porn with him - a fantasy of the moth Vox has been always against. Not to mention that Vox had accomplished what Valentino with all his 'mighty dicks and porn mastery'-aura couldn't. Which (rightfully) sent him into his biggest hissy fit yet, so enraged that, in lieu of Vox's phone to throw against the wall, he threw his newest Robo-Assistant Kitty out the window.

Although Vox had been certain he wouldn't lose the little bet against his partner, he still felt a little relief that his ass wasn't on the next new load of crappy porn DVDs. Granted, that would've surely caused sales to skyrocket - but with his revived and improved little star author that was more than just unnecessary.

Val's fears that a good dicking with a Happy End would sort of break the little writers 'Sex-Spell' and her scripts turn into shite like the rest of Val's useless crew produced proved to be the exact opposite. Ever since Vox made her cum - on his fingers, mouth and cock for multiple times that fateful night - her scripts improved even more, resulting in stellar sales reports, a major spike in cashflow and a personal inquiry letter for a meeting from Asmodeus himself (which Vox contemplated to frame and hang over his fucking bed like a medal of honor).

And since Valentino, in his hurt pride and childish, stubborn pettiness refused to speak or fuck with him, Vox had no qualms of paying his little writer a few more visits. Every time he found impish joy in finding new ways to make her cum, and after one shag-date where he actually stayed long enough for an after-sex-cigarette and some smalltalk, he discovered that she wasn't just a kinky, but also an interesting bitch with great taste in whiskey and a crude sense of humor that was just up his alley.

"I'm curious doll." Vox said as he took another drag from the cigarette before he handed her the bud, throwing his arm around her shoulders and pulling her onto his bare chest as he lounged on the new, bigger sofa he got for her office (more space and much more versatility) "What the fuck did you do to end up in hell? You don't seem like the ax-murder type."

She chuckled mischievously. "I was a pretty popular crime author back upstairs. I hit a pretty bad writer's block, and decided to get in some field work to inspire me for more creative ways of murder. No axes, but I did have a fable for knives." She grinned, inhaling the thick smoke as he laughed and the way her tits pressed into his skin had him almost hard again. "You know what's the most ironic part?" She asked, putting the bud out in the ashtray on her side table and glanced back over her naked shoulder to him, a devious glint in her eyes. "I got the electric chair for that." That woke his cock fully up again, and he couldn't help but take her for another round.

His assistant babbled something about his schedule, but Vox didn't listen. Instead, he planned on visiting her office again, maybe he'd even stay after and order sushi for two, who knew? The media Overlord smiled smugly as he opened the database and looked over the newest script you had uploaded to the cloud. It was when he read the title that he burst into ringing laughter.

'Electrocutie - One Big Cock Shock'

[arpov-blog-blog]

Look Beyond Polling - When folks who work in politics and elections assess the health of a candidate or party committee we look at much more than polling, including money raised, electoral track record, candidate charisma/performance, the competence of the campaign team, endorsements/local support, strength of arguments, life story and potential negatives/baggage. A central reason why I am much more optimistic than most right now is I am looking at a much broader set of inputs than polling, as Tom Bonier and I did in 2022. And what all of this tells me, drawing on my more than 30 years in the game, is that I would much rather be us than them.

The Polling We Have Is Not All Pointing In The Same Direction/Trump Does Not Lead - The central mistake made by many in 2022 is that they focused on the polling showing a red wave and dismissed polling which showed a close, competitive election. Remarkably, this is happening again this cycle, as yes there is polling showing Trump ahead right now, but there is also polling showing Biden leading and a close, competitive election. Almost all the polls taken in the last two weeks has the race within margin of error, meaning it’s close. Of those six polls find Biden leading. The Economist’s polling aggregator now has Biden ahead:

Senate polling is encouraging, and Dems now lead in 538’s Congressional Generic tracker - All of our Senate incumbents are holding. Gallego has had encouraging polling in recent weeks, as had Colin Allred. There is no bad polling for us right now in the Senate, and this week Dems jumped ahead in 538’s Congressional Generic tracker.

The way I am describing the race right now is like a basketball game where the score is tied after the first quarter. We have most of the game ahead of us, and a lot can and will happen. What is likely to happen is that the Biden campaign’s messages move voters, our coalition comes together, the rancid Trumpian shitshow continues to embarrass and struggle, we go to work and and turn a close race into a strong Democratic win. That’s what’s been happening all across the country, in election and election, since Dobbs. And that is what is likely to happen in November too.

But the key here, job #1, is for all of us to sign up for the Biden campaign by making a small donation today, and begin the process of planning what you are going to do to help him win. If we made 2 million phone calls into NY-3 in 5 weeks, imagine what we can do in the 7 battlegrounds over the next 8 months….

Together we’ve built the most powerful political machine our party has ever had, and it’s time now to put it to work to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, keep the Senate and flip the House. Here’s the Washington Post:

Democrats also enjoy a still vibrant network of grass-roots groups around the country, which have remained engaged since 2018 and are largely able to coordinate with the Biden campaign. Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, spoke last week to Swing Left, a network of volunteers. She invited people to join the campaign’s “I’m On Board” organizing effort. “As we jump into March, as we come out of Super Tuesday and the president’s State of the Union in the next couple of weeks, it will be a real opportunity to just remind voters of just what that choice, how important and how critical this election is, and really what everyone can do to get on board,” Rodriguez told the group on Feb. 29. While Biden has lacked the movement-like charisma of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, Democrats continue to enjoy significant state and local organizing muscle, largely through loose national networks of local progressive groups. The campaign of Rep. Tom Suozzi, who recently outperformed polling by about eight points in a special election on New York’s Long Island, credits these groups with giving him a huge advantage, as have other campaigns in special elections in recent years. Suozzi’s campaign team said about a third of the door-knocking, letter-writing and phone-calling that took place in that race came from groups outside the district, such as the Massachusetts-based Swing Blue Alliance. Democrats widely believe that the opposition to Trump will solidify, powering volunteer efforts despite the misgivings about Biden’s candidacy. “In the past few years, fear of MAGA has helped fuel the building of the most powerful grassroots machine the Democratic Party has ever had,” Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist who now works with local activist groups, said in a statement. “Their money and hard work will ensure the Biden campaign is the biggest and strongest Presidential campaign Democrats have ever run.”

[sugarlucille]

🎥   ℒost ℛeels

                                                                                                                          06.01.17 

It's officially my wedding day: take two.

Months of work all set to culminate in a single grand performance; one take that will serve as the crown jewel in a beautiful, yet incomplete setting of moments highlighting a relationship that is far from its end.

I think about the other jewels in my life with Jesse as I tip around the home that isn't my own, grateful for his mother's hospitality but unable to sleep hours before the day that will be almost completely mine. I don't see other frames like the one we're hours from capturing. Unlike the single moment our wedding will be, the other jewels are montages, glinting through my mind in flickering shimmers...

The way that my hand has been finding his and his finding mine for the last ten years, twining our fingers on walks or drives, in crowds, at dinners, events, and banquets, while we're thoughtfully tangled on the couch or recklessly tangled in bed...

The way that we swim deeply in the pools of each other's talents and traits, appreciating efforts on stage and screen--behind and in front of the camera, reveling greedily in sleepy lullabies and soft affirmations, delivering unending praise to egos that can't grow any larger...

The way that we've pried one another apart and wedged into the gaps we created, accepting that he would became the one who feeds me on those days where I still don't think about food and I would became the one who never lets him construct walls around the things he's feeling...

Ten years feels like a lifetime for two people who seemed to have settled on one another long ago. We could have married right after high school, at some point in college, prior to moving in together, before having a child, or at any point throughout the years when our bond showed no signs of breaking. We'd already imagined a lifetime together--not in those exact terms the whole time, but we couldn't see an end in sight. We promised not to give one another up at 17 and 18 and embraced being selfish with each other even back then. To me, a wedding has been little more than a giant party with both of our families to confirm what we already knew.

I walk past windows overlooking a city that doesn't hold still. I've brought as much of Los Angeles here that I could. I've sprinkled LA around our home in Tribeca in the form of warm colors, seashells, sunlight, and California poppies, all of which have worked their way into the details of our ceremony. I've also invited as much of my family as I could to witness my nuptials, a wave from the west that has comfortably blanketed the days and evenings leading up to today.

Aunts and uncles and cousins abound; the Mottas are here in full force, descending on the city many of them view as the cold, cluttered, constricting opposite of the stretching valleys and depths of land along the California coast they're used to. I felt the same way about New York once upon time. I saw it as this lingering creature, one that I knew would always call to Jesse in one way or another and force me to make peace with the locale. Now we've come to an agreement, New York City and I. We don't see eye to eye about the underground deathtrap, the street meat, the snow-covered winters, the constant noise, the almost mythical beaches, yards, and outdoor pools, the suffocatingly close living quarters, or the stunning lack of visible stars at night... However, there's more here to love than there is to hate and the things I love here are things I refuse to live without.

I only argued a bit when everyone insisted I sleep alone so that I could rest, but I still seek out my daughter and find her blissfully asleep and cuddled against her aunt.

Although I prefer Vivi to sleep on her own so that Jess and I don't lose our bed, I don't even think to pry her from Pepper's arms and I hope that their connection soothes that part of my big sister that wrinkles when she talks about her attempts to have a child of her own. Madeline has been...surprising in those conversations that lob between my still feeling my way around as a mother and Pepper's unyielding desire to become one as the three of us string together a system of support knotted tighter by our shared love of each other and the little girl who has found a way to change all of our lives without trying at all.

In a few hours, I know Vivi will run to my mother when she arrives to get ready for the day, having chosen to stay in her hotel suite to ensure that my father wouldn't spend the entire night working, and I will see that softness I never recognized in Madeline until Vivi existed. I promised my mother that she could help get Vivi ready and I am glad to not worry about the task of chasing around my very curious and very mobile almost sixteen-month-old to get her into the "ball of fluff" dress my younger brother so lovingly dubbed her outfit for the big day. ...Basil's snark is another thing I am glad to be momentarily rid of as he has promised me a full 24 hours where he won't push any of the well-worn buttons he's created over the years.

Back in my temporary bedroom, I eye the garment bag protecting the most perfect thing I have ever designed and will ever wear. I don't need to part the zipper to know what's housed inside. The handmade dress isn't white. Not quite. Audrey and I spent hours on the color, choosing an exact shade that would suit my skintone, complement my eyes, and pair well with--while simultaneously standing out against--a million little details I've spent far more hours pouring over. Both Audrey and I have always understood the importance of little things, registered that something being understated wasn't the same as it being nonexistent. Her eye for detail has always been admirable and it was easily the first thing I noticed about my other half's mother upon meeting her many years ago.

We both notice the way her son will always attempt to mask his sentimentality, though we're both well aware of its existence. I know it will be on full display during our celebration, communicated loudly through shared vows and toasts, quietly through whispered exchanges in any semi-private moment we can grasp, and silently through each gaze and touch I'll share with him throughout the day.

I find my way back to bed and I am fully settled with the fact that I no longer enjoy sleeping alone. I accept that I am spoiled beyond belief by someone who has already vowed to spend the rest of his life keeping me that way. And as my fingers ghost the empty half of the mattress I lie atop, I smile knowing without a doubt that my current state is one that I'll rarely experience ever again.

[margarethelstone-2]

if I loved you less (i might talk about it more)

requested by one and only @nerdypanda3126. thanks so much!

Read on AO3!

"Taichi... You still like me, don't you?"

The young man in question raised his eyes from the book he'd been trying to read for the past quarter, and fixed them on Chihaya, confused. It wasn't just the question that surprised him, even though its content sure would have been enough to puzzle a better prepared soul.

The fact that Chihaya had barely spoken at all for most of their time together today was the main reason why he felt startled by her words now.

She really had been quiet for most of the day, even though they were spending it at his place, determined, as she herself had claimed, not to get in the way of his studies. Taichi had tried to make her realise that it wasn't what he wanted at all, that the very reason he'd invited her over was to get a break from all the reading and just relax a little. He'd explained over and over again that he needed her to be a distraction; tried – unsuccessfully – to get it into her head that she was actually doing him a favour. He knew how much of a workaholic he could be and so he specifically planned the visit as a means to enforce the necessary break he might not have taken otherwise.

He had told her all of that. And yet, she'd remained quiet.

All the way until now, that is.

And just what on earth was she going on about?

"What's with that question? You know the answer to that," he replied casually, almost dismissively, before going back to the textbook in his hand. He really had no idea what had gotten into her all of the sudden, but then again, he didn't care to delve on the subject. He knew she'd tell him anyway.

"I was just wondering," she answered, a trace of hurt ringing in her voice; Taichi needed to hold back the smile that sprang on his lips at the sight of her pout. "Is it so bad if I do?"

Taichi hummed in thought.

"Is that why you've been so quiet all day?" he asked right after. "You've been just busy considering my possible affection for you?"

"Stop with the mockery. I'm thinking of it seriously."

"Oh? And what conclusions did you come to?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I'd come to any."

He had no choice but to close the book and put it away after a statement he'd just heard. Not that he minded. Throwing it on the floor rather carelessly, he sat up straight in his corner of the couch and, resting his chin on his palm, he fixed his gaze on the girl seated by his desk on the other side of the room.

She really was being impossible today.

Well, he supposed that wasn't anything new. He'd known Chihaya long and well enough to not be fazed by the swings in her mood or the inane schemes she so often came up with. He had learnt to expect the unexpected, every day, every hour of his otherwise boring life, because that was obviously the only way to keep up with her. The one thing he had to keep doing if he still wanted to be a part of her life.

Because that was how Ayase Chihaya was.

Chihaya. His best friend. His fiercest karuta rival. The girl he'd been in love with since fourth grade of primary school and the girl who'd rejected him straightforwardly at the very beginning of their third year in Mizusawa High. The girl whom he'd thought he could never win over, on whom he'd given up again and again, fooling himself he could move on and blight the love he'd had for her since he'd been a ten year old squirt.

He sighed and shook his head, remembering her question from a moment before.

She knew damn well he was still head over heels for her.

She was his girlfriend, for sanity's sake.

"I can't believe you actually have asked, you know," he picked up with the same fake weariness he'd shown before, if only to cover his growing amusement. Seeing her very real anxiety made him assume a more solemn expression, as he asked, "Seriously, what brought this on? Are you mad about something?"

"I'm not mad," she disagreed instantly, and with good emphasis.

"Are you unhappy then? Did I do something to make you feel like that?"

Again, she denied. Now she just looked sad. "That's not it."

Wrong. She was flustered.

"Then what is it?" Taichi asked, as gently and warmly as he could. Not for the first time, he felt grateful for all the hard training his patience had received. It was obvious that Chihaya needed that from him now. "It's not like I could get over you like this, you of all people should be aware of that. You're the most important person in my life. The best companion I could think of. You know I get lonely and grumpy when I can't see you, and you know I still get absurdly jealous, even though I hate being so. And so I can't help but think there's something else I'm not doing right."

Taichi stopped there, waiting for her to, if not answer his question, then to contradict him in one way or another, at least. After all, he really was at a loss.

He thought he'd been doing a fairly good job as a boyfriend, when all was said and done. He'd already shared Chihaya's most important interest and it wasn't difficult to at least understand the new ones she'd found. He made sure to be there for her when she needed him, and tried his best to give her space when she needed that more. True, he'd had some trouble coming for help on his part, but even that was a thing of a past rather than present – certainly not something that could shock Chihaya into thinking like this.

He would think that the all-day-long date he'd come up with and seen through in celebration of their first anniversary as a couple last week was a good show of how much he still cared.

He wasn't perfect. Neither was she. But never in his life would he have thought that he'd failed to get his feelings across.

"Chihaya," he prompted once more, his voice audibly quieter. "Please tell me what it is. I can't fix it if I don't know what's broken."

She looked up from the floor she'd been glaring at for a while and met his gaze, a shadow of unease still clouding her big brown eyes. She opened her mouth to answer; she closed it instantly and looked away again, abashed. There was a hint of pink on her cheeks, and it only grew darker as the time passed, though whether it was because of embarrassment or something more alarming, Taichi couldn't tell yet.

"Chihaya–"

"It's because you never say it."

He supposed his eyes opened wider than ever, what's with the utter astonishment he felt growing inside him immediately. For a few moments, he could do nothing but stare, the craziness of the situation overwhelming enough to successfully prevent him from forming a sensible thought, and much less coming up with any kind of solution. One look at Chihaya was enough to sober him up, however.

She was distressed. She was insecure.

No matter how stupid he thought the reason to be, he could hardly allow the situation to last.

With a groan that was bound to startle her, he bent over and buried his face in his hands.

Only one thing he could do now.

"Come here," he said, his face still hidden behind one hand as he tore the other one away and beckoned her towards him. "No excuses. You'll talk later. Now just come here, please."

She did, albeit tentatively, as if afraid of the reaction he might show her. With his patience starting to run thin at last, Taichi didn't wait for her to cover the whole distance, instead reaching out and grabbing her by the wrist, only to pull her down on the couch right next to him.

And then he pulled her even closer, locking her in a bone-crushing hug.

"I'm gonna do something to you," he mumbled into her hair, his voice a mixture of laughter and complaint. "You cruel, cruel, woman. Have you no heart? Here I am, mind reeling as I try to figure out what the hell I did wrong again and you say it's because I don't say I like you enough. As if you didn't already know you've got a firmer hold of my heart than I ever did. Tell me, am I really this bad at showing you that I care that you doubt it?"

It was Chihaya's turn to growl at him, though it surely – and fortunately – didn't stop her from burying her face even deeper into his chest and digging her fingers into the shirt on his back. Again, Taichi laughed at the display, but didn't loosen his grip one bit.

That silly, unbelievable, most beloved girl.

"This and that are different things," she muttered finally in response against his buttons, her stubborn indignation probably being the only reason why he could discern the words at all. "There are different kinds of love languages. We even talked about it, you know."

"Yes. And as far as I remember, we've already established that neither of us cared for this one. So your argument doesn't work."

Well, this was a lie, or at least, it wasn’t fully true. After all, he could never get tired of hearing her say those words, to him and him only. But he didn't need it that much, not when he already knew of so many other ways in which Chihaya expressed her love towards him. He'd always assumed it was the same for her, too.

Funnily enough, he still didn't think he was mistaken.

"I've had feelings for you for the past fourteen years, you dummy, I wouldn't change my mind just because you decided to return them," he threw in only half-jokingly, as if to make sure he got his point across before moving onto the next part. "So? Care to tell me what's the source of it all?"

He felt her tense against him for a split second, only to relax in the next moment with a long, weary sigh. He waited for her to make herself comfortable in his arms, shifting ever so slightly to make it easier for them both. And then he heard her speak.

"I met up with Kana-chan the other day," she admitted weakly. "Her and Desktomu. And I guess... They're always so sweet with one another, now more than ever. I suppose... It made me feel a little jealous. But most of all, it just made me think."

"And you decided that I'd fallen out of love with you, because I don't talk like Komano does?"

"I didn't decide anything, I told you already. I just wondered if maybe I was doing something wrong to deserve that treatment. Sorry for being so terribly scared of losing you again because of my own foolishness."

Words caught in his throat as Taichi tried to protest against this new development. That last addition Chihaya had made – and more importantly, the wounded, truly uncertain voice with which she'd spoken – would have been enough to melt his heart even if he had actually been angry with her. Right now, he had to hold back from grabbing her by the chin and kissing her senseless until all the idiotic ideas evaporated from her overworked mind.

The things she did to him without as much as trying.

You evil little imp.

"They're newly-weds. You can't use them for reference," he managed to stutter out at least, conveniently ignoring the hoarseness of his own voice and the emotion that hovered behind it. "Not to mention, those two are the opposite of us when it comes to talking about feelings openly. There's a reason they got together six years before we did. Just because something works for them doesn't mean it's the best course for us to take as well."

He smiled again and planted a kiss at the top of her hair, before adding, "I still can't believe you really doubted me, though."

She huffed and pulled away, although she still didn't move from her place on the couch. They were still close; close enough for Taichi to see the light reflecting in her eyes and the blush that hadn't left her cheeks, and to reach out and comb her tangled hair with his fingers. Another gesture so full of love, even though it was but a fraction of all that she made him feel.

"Well, since I never understood what had made you fall in love with me in the first place, it's only natural that I'd have this kind of doubts."

He chuckled and she smiled on her part, her obstinacy giving it to the desire to just be with him. It was another thing Taichi was able to read in her eyes – and, knowing the feeling well enough from his own experience, he had no trouble deciphering it.

Delayed, the first part of her sentence entered his brain.

What made me fall for you, I wonder?

He didn't know. It had been so long since he’d realised his feelings after all, and longer still since those feelings had been born. Even all those years earlier, he probably wouldn’t have been able to point out the reasons clearly, never mind finding the one spark that had started it – trying to do so now seemed downright impossible.

There were so many reasons, after all.

Maybe it was because she had never considered herself a possible love interest for anyone, first when she was too engrossed in karuta and later, when she thought she didn't deserve to be one. Maybe it was her hot-headedness and her drive, and how different she'd always been from him, and yet never failed to tell him how much she'd admired and envied those qualities of his that she lacked.

Maybe it was the fact that she'd always been with him, so close and so dear and yet so impossible to grasp.

Maybe it was because she'd loved him long before either of them dared believe that was the case.

Maybe...

"Maybe," he said out loud, though in fact not loud at all, his lips moving against her forehead as he leaned in to put a kiss there, too. "Maybe, if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."

Edging away, Taichi saw tears gathering in her eyes. He wiped them away with his thumb, his hand cupping the side of her jaw fittingly.

And then he kissed her properly.

Just like he had wanted to ever since he'd first seen her that day.

[yzkhr]

A Christmas oneshot featuring Shinichi and Sonoko with a little bit of Shinran as well

May everyone enjoy the rest of the year and Happy Holidays!

-

"So," the twenty two year-old Suzuki Sonoko asked for the nth time as she peeks out of the dressing room, yawning as she languidly modeled a pink ribboned dress, "remind me again why I'm here at the mall shopping for fancy outfits instead of sleeping in my day off? And with you of all people."

The man in question, former highschool detective now a respected police officer Kudo Shinichi, shooked his head and looked at the dress with dissaprovement before answering.

"Because, it's almost Christmas and I need to give Ran something." he then picked out another pink dress from the rack, this time it's off shoulder and too lacy for Sonokos' taste. "How about this one?"

"Why do I need to be here then? It's not like I know Ran more than you do. You guys literally moved in together as soon as you turned eighteen." It was now her turn to disagree as she glared rather offensively at the outfit. Shinichi being the receiver of such look all throughout his life, got the message and brings it back to where it was five seconds ago.

"I've been giving Ran all the stuff she wanted since we were little kids. I'm running out of ideas you know." he admitted with his face slightly flushed at the mention of their immediate live in, as if remembering everyones' knowing looks back when they first announced it.

She grinned, catching on to what the detective is trying to get to (Or at least what she interprets he's trying to get through) "So, what you're saying is, that you need my amazing skills and judgement as someone who not only has the best fashion sense in Beika but also as Rans' one and only bestfriend?"

The woman compliments herself and walked across to choose from two blouses on the nearest shelf that caught her eyes as she acts unbothered while Shinichis' face turned sour.

"I knew I should've just called Haibara for help." he mumbled under his breath, eyebrows twitching at sight of his overconfident childhood friend. His complaint didn't go unheard however, as the Suzuki Heiress' head turned at the sound, eyes sharp and accusing.

"What did you say?" voice low and threatening, she asked. Shinichi could have answered honestly and annoy her enough for her to leave right then and there but he remembered, that if Sonoko were to leave through the shops' doors, so would his chances of suprising and making Ran happy with his present.

So, with the thought of satisfying his girl, he gulped down both his saliva and repressed pride as he puts on a facsimile of a smile.

"I said, 'yes, you're absolutely right Suzuki-san.'" Sonoko seemed to buy his false agreement as her face broke into a smile of triumph, treading through one of the clothing racks while laughing as if she won the loterry.

Shinichi on the other hand reaches out to his phone, contemplating whether he should just call Haibara over. But then he decided against it, coming to the conclusion that he rather handle a proud woman he had known all his life, than another proud woman who he had only been aware of for about a quarter of it.

Wary and defeated, he sighed as he followed. "Let's just get this over with."

-

After debating and choosing among hundreds of clothes and outfits for literal hours, it's hard for Sonoko to pretend and act oblivious when all the eyes and peeking they keep receiving from different women started becoming full on stares. What's even more uncomfortable would be the fact that she's not even supposed to be the one bothered but the man beside her!

Well, she can't blame them. It is rare for a man to be in store specifically made for women. She remembered how she once brought Makoto in a boutique and all she got were cute skirts and an embarrassed karate boyfriend on the way home.

The ladies were too expressive however, that even she can't help but feel restless. Most girls gaze at the detective with eyes clearly full of admiration, some with an uneasy amount of lust Sonoko just had to look away from, others even fuss and giggle around in groups, their topic so painfully obvious with the way they steal glances every now and then.

It makes her want to raise an eyebrow all day long, wondering what these females and specially her bestfriend saw in this man that she just couldn't figure out. To Suzuki Sonoko, Kudo Shinichi was, is, and always will be a mystery nerd with—she'll have to admit— good looks, intelligent mind, high morale, but unfortunately, possesses an insensitive and sarcastic personality she can't take ( even though ironically, his personality is too similar to her own).

But, then again, as she watches him put intense effort into judging and observing every attire in his view with undivided attention as if uncovering a crime scene when in fact, it's only about finding a Christmas gift all the while remaining innocent from the various gaping all around him, Sonoko almost thought Ran is also lucky to have him as a boyfriend.

Almost.

Wanting to distract herself, she attempts to converse. " What are you trying to find exactly? We've been here for hours and we still can't find something good enough for your taste."

He flinched, startled at the sudden voice. Once recovered, puts his hand on his jaw and looks up to the ceiling, similar to when he tries to piece together objects and clues that doesn't have any connections at the surface.

"Hmm, I want a present that, you know, when she opens it, she'll be really impressed. But I also want it simple since Ran's not a fan of grand plannings. She's always so extra and thoughtful when it comes to giving but hates receiving anything like them. So, I want a gift she'll absolutely love but won't complain about how expensive or time consuming it is."

The way a certain detective says his words while wearing an expression Sonoko only ever had the chance of seeing when their childhood friend is involved makes her want to tease but she keeps quiet instead, letting him keep his pride.

The brown haired woman laughed and silently agreed at his sentiment. Ran had always been so creative when it comes to preparing other peoples' present but feels guilty when they do the same. It was honestly endearing.

"Then, why a dress? Why not a book? Ran loves books, doesn't she?" she wondered. Shinichi shooks his head at the suggestion. "She's been too busy lately. I'm pretty sure she won't even have a chance of opening it."

"Then plan her a vacation!" he deadpanned and reminded her. "She doesn't like grand thing, remember?"

"A romantic date?"

"Did that on our first year together."

"Watch a movie?"

"Too simple."

" Expensive dinner?"

"Done with that on our third year."

"Aaah!" Sonoko whined in frustration. "I don't know, kiss or make out with her on Christmas or something!" she finally blurted out, having no ideas left whatsoever.

A few seconds of silence between the two passed and realization kicks in. Worried at how suddenly unresponsive Shinichi is, Sonoko glances to apologize if she angered him at her careless outburst.

"I'm sorry! It was a joke--Shinichi-kun?" her words died out, distress turning into confusion. Rather than a glare or an indifferent countenance, she was met by a very flustered Shinichi, with all the blood in his body seemingly gathering at his face while his eyes looks at anywhere but hers. With that, Sonoko slowly made a deduction.

"Y-you already did it?" ever so quietly she asks in disbelief. When his face got even redder than before, she got her unspoken confirmation.

With that, Sonoko laughed.

Her uncontrollable cackling attracted everyone's attention, including the dazed detective who stood up almost instantaneously, aware of his unconscious slip-up.

"B-Barou! W-We never did such a thing! Your sudden vulgarity just surprised me!" his cover ups were left unheard, as the Suzuki's Heiress guffaws were too loud.

Suddenly, Sonoko got an idea.

She stopped laughing, but the smile on her face foreshadowed a terrible feeling to Shinichi, who wanted nothing more but to go home, away from embarrassment. She runs off before he can even stop her from further humiliation she'll surely cause.

He inhaled and exhaled, trying to calm himself down and lose the apparent redness of his visage. His little breathing exercise proved to be useless however, with Sonoko coming back holding something that made his face as reddest it had ever been, even comparable to the blood he sees on the crime scenes.

On Sonokos' hands lay the thinnest piece of clothing he had ever seen, with it's laces and uncomfortably soft looking silk barely even covering anything but the important parts. It didn't help how seductive the color was, crimson, just like his face right now as he stared at it. Out of all the things the woman could have brought him, it had to be this. It just had to be a fucking lingerie.

"Wha--" he started but was cut off with her mouth that Shinichi begged she should've just shut.

"I found the perfect gift! And it's even red!" she held it up even more, showing a clearer picture that Shinichi didn't know if he regrets seeing.

"You--"

"It's simple but I assure you that Ran would love it!"

"So--"

"What's even better, is that not only will she love it, you'll love it too--"

He thankfully, thankfully, cuts her off, not only being heard by the everyone in the store, but probably the entire shopping mall of Beika.

"SONOKO!"

He really should've just called Haibara. Or better yet, cooked a fancy dinner for Ran as a Christmas gift instead.

[katnissmellarkkk]

Gravity

Hi! Okay, so here’s chapter two of my growing back together story, inspired by the prompt “I won’t hurt you” @rosegardeninwinter sent me. I also posted this fic on AO3 under the title Gravity (like the Sara Bareilles song), if that’s where you prefer to read. And here’s a link to chapter one of this fic if you wanna read and haven’t yet.

Also I know I said in my first author’s note that there will be three chapters, but there might be a bit more.... we love an over-writer, right? 🤷🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

I don’t know if you’re “supposed” to post every part of a multi chapter fic on here? Or just post the link to it on AO3? But for now I posted it in its entirety on here 😊.

Anyways, hope you like it! And thanks to anyone who reads! 💖💖💖

/

A couple months later.

We slide back after that. I don't know if that night-the night he had a nightmare that I died and we slept locked in each other's embrace-moved too quickly for Peeta or if he thought he was protecting me from him, but when morning light came, he was gone from the bed.

I didn't see him again until the following evening, helping Haymitch feed his rambunctious geese in the yard. He didn't speak to me for four more days after that, and when he did, it was to ask what kind of bread I wanted him to bring for lunch the next day.

I pretended to his face that it didn't hurt. That waking up in a cold, empty bed, in a house he all but abandoned until I had evacuated, that sleeping in his arms and awaking so abruptly alone, didn't hurt. I did what I had taught myself to do as a child and I turned my features into an indifferent mask, shutting off all access to my emotions. Destroying any possibility of anyone witnessing my vulnerabilities.

But I knew deep down, it did hurt. It hurt badly.

I didn't speak to him directly the first week he showed up for lunch and to work on the memory book again. I got by fine without addressing him directly, as Haymitch somehow sensed the bubbling tension between us and stayed sober just enough to remain alert for all our shared meals. He helped with the memory book, helped by adding in a snarky comment here or there to reel our focuses onto him instead of each other.

I wanted to say thank you but I never knew how. I doubt Haymitch needs me to verbalize it anyway. One night, as he follows behind Peeta to leave, his hand grazes my shoulder and gives it a squeeze and I know he's much more aware of the dynamic between his old tributes than he leads on.

But weeks after the night in question, the night that set Peeta and my friendship back months, we receive a telegraph from Effie. A telegraph that shakes the small amount of stability we've managed to build in the time since the war.

Apparently President Paylor has decided to move forward with arena destruction, an idea mentioned a few times by Plutarch on Caesar's talk show. An idea I didn't take seriously until now.

Paylor has decided to build a memorial for each of the arenas, for each year the games ever took place, to immortalize our history, so Panem can never forget how cruel and inhumane things once were. But first, she wants to eliminate the actual Hunger Games arenas, once and for all, before putting the memorials in their place.

My initial thought, months ago when Delly showed me Plutarch and Caesar discussing the idea, was that this would takes years to happen.

I was, once again, so clearly wrong. The plans have been expedited and the order in which each arena will be decimated has been swiftly decided.

All that alone doesn't sound terrible. I'd like to see those death pits crushed, burned, torn down, eradicated, or all of the above, by any means necessary. Only downside, initially, is that this will extend me—and Peeta and potentially all the other victors—remaining in the forefront of the public's mind.

Since the war, all I've ever wanted was for everyone in the country to forget who I am. I don't want to be known anymore. I just want to be left alone, to a quiet and peaceful and relatively simple life, without anyone ever recognizing me again. Without anyone thinking of me as the girl on fire, as the Mockingjay, as the sixteen-year-old who volunteered for a sister who was doomed to death anyway.

But, of course, there's a catch. There's always a catch.

Plutarch thinks it would be great to have the living victors be there—televised—in the Capitol and see the arenas before they're bulldozed.

Even with this dreadful proposition, I thought I had time to think of a way out of it. When Effie first sent the telegraph, I thought that I would have years before having to worry about going back to the places where my nightmares started.

Well, some of my nightmares, that is.

After all, it takes time to destroy something as large and as vast as an arena-excluding the way I destroyed the one in the Quell, that is. I figured-I rationalized, really-that by the time they got to number Seventy-Four, I would have a solid excuse to get out of attending.

I guess though they wished to start with the big years and the first decade of the Hunger Games wasn't very eventful, apparently—lucky them—so the first arena they wish to bid farewell to is the one from the second Quarter Quell. The Fiftieth Hunger Games. The one that was so strikingly beautiful and almost entirely poisonous.

The year Haymitch Abernathy, from the lowly District Twelve, won.

And being also from Twelve, my presence, along with Peeta's, suddenly became of the utmost importance as well.

At first, I still try to opt out of the event. Even after Effie chastises me over the phone, like not a day has passed since she was my escort, and even after my mother claims in her letter that it could be cathartic for me, I do not relent.

Delly and Thom and a few of the others in the community, like Kanon who runs the candy shop two stores away from the bakery, and Greta, who helps with the dusting and mopping all over town, try to say that it could be good for me. Greasy Sae claims it can't be worse than actually living through the games, and I silently appreciate her much more blatant statement than the comforting platitudes others try to provide me.

But it all falls on deaf ears in the end.

Because the only person I truly listen to is Peeta. Even bitter and wounded, the only person I really hear is him.

Unfortunately, as irritating as it is sometimes, his voice will always reach me when others can't.

But we don't ever have an actual conversation about it. Five days after Effie calls to announce the news, to tell me unequivocally that my presence is requested, Peeta sways me to go with just a look.

He comes over later than usual and brings extra bread and pastries to go with the deer meat I hunted. We feast silently, the air between us still incredibly awkward, when, without warning, our old mentor comes crashing through the door unceremoniously.

I don't know how much alcohol he consumed, but it's enough to knock even someone with Haymitch's tolerance off his feet.

By the end of the hour, the older man is practically beating his head into the wall of my dining room, screaming the names of dead children and about force fields and axes. And from across the kitchen table, Peeta touches my arm—the first time he's voluntarily touched me in weeks—and my eyes meet his, blue pouring into gray, and silently he begs me to go for the goodbye ceremony to Haymitch's arena.

And I give in. Not just for him. But also, in large part, to repay the caustic, miserable drunk that kept us alive. To support the unpredictable, temperamental man that I do consider my family somehow.

The ceremony is set to take place weeks later and the time does little to alleviate my anxiety. Peeta and me still don't speak much, but come time for lunch or dinner, there he is, in my house like clockwork.

When I point out, a few days before we're due at the train station, that there's a very realistic possibility that the Capitol won't let me go to the ceremony, Peeta casually says, "I already cleared that with Effie and Plutarch."

I shoot him a look of surprise. "You did?"

Shrugging nonchalantly before turning back to the rabbit on his plate, he murmurs quietly, "Thought it'd give you one less thing to worry about."

The ceremony is nothing like I expect. Somehow I figured there would be an obnoxiously large television crew, loud speakers, prepared speeches on written cards, awkward directions and crowds upon crowds of people surrounding us, asking pointed questions, shooting invasive stares and pressing for reactions to their nosy accusations. I expected those accusations to be directed at me and Peeta especially.

Instead, there's none of those things. There's no crowd at all, it's just us victors. Just Enobaria, Johanna, Annie, the three of us from Twelve and Beetee—who I still can't make myself so much as look at, reminded of my sister's absence and his role in it every time we so much as stand in five feet vicinity of each other.

The camera crew consists of Mitchell, Pollux and Cressida, along with two unfamiliar, but seemingly non-threatening faces. There's no directions, no prompting, not close ups or reshoots.

All that happens is Paylor makes a statement that the crew films, stating that the arenas will be destroyed one by one, and in the place of each there will be an individual memorial made, as we victors stand in an unorganized, crooked line that will surely make Effie cringe when she sees the footage on television later.

It's almost peaceful, I think to myself in surprise, as I look around at the location. The sky is a stunning cobalt, even more brilliant in person than in the video Peeta and I watched on the train so long ago. The meadow looks like the grass is fresh, like it was just watered yesterday. The mountain is so breathtaking I have to physically tear my eyes away from it and even the woods look rather cozy. Or maybe that part is just me.

There's also arraignments of flowers, just like in the footage we watched, that spill every which way, filling our noses with soothing, floral scents. It feels unnatural to say about a place set up for murder, but with the deadly poisons lurking at every turn eviscerated, I almost can find this arena truly beautiful.

Of course though, it's not my arena.

It's Haymitch's and he looks like he's about to be sick. He's white-knuckled it for a few days without any sort of drink—to my, Peeta's and, even Effie's, visible shock—and I can see plainly now that he's absolutely regretting it. His eyes are hallow and wild at the same time and I can see his shaking palms beneath the sleeves of his jacket as he stares out at the source of his every nightmare for the last quarter century.

It shocks me that he didn't find a way out of this. Actually, it shocks me still that these ceremonies are even possible.

I never knew they kept arenas after the games were over each year. I never realized they kept all seventy-four death pits, haunted by child sacrifice, the way you keep old vases on a shelf.

At this point though, it's just another thing to add onto the growing list of horrific and unthinkable issues that the Capitol doesn't even grasp. Keeping the haunted graveyards of children as souvenirs shouldn't sit right with anyone, I don't care how you're raised.

I tell myself to not be so quick to judge, as I can't know who I'd be if I had been born in the Capitol instead of the districts. Still, the idea of condoning the things they have without remorse or shame seems unthinkable.

I'm torn out of my thoughts when Cressida speaks. "Is there anything you'd like to say, Haymitch, before we finish filming?"

Once again, catching me off-guard entirely—he's full of all sorts of surprises evidently—Haymitch clears his throat and looks down at his leather boots before speaking. "Ardor. Garnett. Dolan. Silver. Ryker. Artemis. Slayte. Pistol. Lex. Mac. Lumen. Gig. Brook. Aqua. Mary. Ripley. Lyme. Watt. Rocky. Gio. Belle. Raven. Kia. Mecko. Barker. Jack. Holly. Briar. Essie. Stitch. Coco. Paul. Mira. Miller. Coop. Harvey. Butch. Cutter. Bea. Skinna. Basil. Sunny. Rip. Spring. Oaker. Terra. Maysilee." He lists off the names in a way that is so matter-of-fact that it would almost be robotic if it weren't for the hoarseness in his tone that grows stronger with every name he utters. He hesitates for only a moment before adding, "Corentine. Alannah. Alastar."

There's a long stretch of silence, where no one speaks, no one blinks, no one even breathes. We all know instinctively who these people are—I know solely from Maysilee Donner's name being called—but we still wait until Haymitch speaks again, to confirm our assumption.

"Those are the names of all the people this arena killed." His eyes grow glassy and his brow furrows in anger as he fights desperately to repress his emotions, and suddenly I have the strangest urge to hug my mentor, to make him feel better like he tried to do for me once when Peeta was stuck in the Capitol and I was distraught. But I know it wouldn't be appreciated or wanted, and quite honestly I'm glad for that, because I don't even know what to say.

The last three names Haymitch said stick in my head for some reason I can't explain other than an odd gut feeling. But then he speaks again, an in a voice growing gruffer by the second, he says right into the camera, "that's every single person who was killed because of the second Quarter Quell."

And, like I should have known all along, it hits me the last three names are the names of his family who were murdered to punish him for the stunt with the forcefield.

The last three names are the murders of the last people he loved. Until me and Peeta came along.

As if his thoughts matched mine, Haymitch suddenly shakes his head and his eyes widen again as he stares past all the rest of us, as he continues to take in the exact place in which life as he knew it, twenty-six years ago, was altered forever.

His reaction is more understandable and genuine than I imagined he would ever allow it to be, especially on camera, and I want to say something but me and him both aren't good at saying anything, and I find myself looking to Peeta, hoping he'd know what to do.

Peeta doesn't meet my gaze though. He's solely focused on our mentor and just when he opens his mouth to speak, the older man to suddenly shake his head in our general direction and clears his throat.

"I'm done. Tell Plutarch I'm done with this crap. Just hurry up and bulldoze this place so I can go back to Twelve," is all he says to Cressida as he storms off, but his voice is rough and caustic once again, and I can only hope he recovers from this event soon enough.

Somehow, witnessing Haymitch relive his games, even through the shield he so obviously puts up to the outside world, triggers me though. For some reason, I feel my eyes begin to water as I look around at the meadow, at the mountain, at the golden cornucopia, and wonder how anyone could build a place where kids would eventually go to die? How could anyone have ever been so inhumane? How could a country just accept it? How did we live for so long with the Hunger Games overtaking our lives and still remained complicit? I don't understand. The more time passes, the more days I'm separated from the war and from the old world and the old way of life, I just can't comprehend anymore how we ever lived in a place so horrific.

I feel my eyes spill over and I'm grateful that Cressida has stopped filming already, because if Plutarch saw any tears on film, he would make certain it ended up on television.

I wipe my tears with the heel of my hand, trying to go about it as subtly as I can, hoping no one else notices. For the most part, I'm golden. Enobaria is already exiting, with Beetee following not far behind. Jo's back is to me while she speaks to Annie, though as per usual, she seems to be irritated.

Of course, it's too much to ask for everyone to remain oblivious to my waterworks. Even as I rid myself of them before they become widely noticeable, I feel Peeta's eyes train on me and know, despite the distance between us for the last few weeks, he isn't going to ignore my upset.

To my surprise though, he doesn't speak. He doesn't utter a single syllable.

Instead, I feel his large, warm palm slip into mine and squeeze tightly, lacing our fingers together, in a way we have done thousands of times before. Like two puzzle pieces coming together to complete a picture, like two indivisible teammates that will fight against anything that is thrown their way, like two halves of a whole finally finding each other, his hand grasps mine with a vengeance and I know I won't be the one who let's go.

He's still holding my hand when we board the train, hours later.

//

A couple weeks later.

"Yes, Mrs. Greenstead, I will get the chocolate nut loaf and a platter of the cranberry cookies wrapped up for you... Yes, it will be ready by the time you arrive... No, I promise they won't be cold," Peeta assures through the bakery telephone—a new addition that Thom and his wife thought was necessary to run a proper bakery. So necessary they bought it for Peeta as an opening gift.

It's not that the gesture wasn't nice or that Peeta didn't deeply appreciate it. I personally saw that he did, wholeheartedly.

But seeing it on the wall every day was just another reminder to me of my own personal vendetta against the integration between the Capitol's way of life and the districts'.

The only place telephones used to exist, outside of the Capitol limits, was the houses in Victor's Villiage, and if I'm being honest, I wish it would have stayed that way.

Maybe I'm being selfish, as I happen to still reside inside a house that once belonged to the said village, therefore I already had experienced this luxury prior to the new world. But I just can't make myself break the association between the items that had recently become readily available for all and the horror that was the Capitol.

Still though, the change was inescapable Telephones, cameras, heating pads, curling irons, quick bake ovens, cars and so many other items, were all growing in popularly across each district. Not that I was able to see a lot of these changes personally. But letters from Annie and my mom, and the occasional—unprompted and yet still begrudged—call from Jo, all kept me informed. Sometimes more informed than I wished to be.

Maybe I would feel entirely different if these inventions were brand new to me. But they aren't. I'd seen and used every one of them before. Their novelty had always been lost on me, perhaps because my only experience them was while inside the Capitol, surrounded by tacky colors and strong rose scents and itchy materials, headed for a death match, my life and the lives of those I cared always at great risk.

Of course, the new item in the bakery did make some things easier. Days like today are a perfect example.

Harvest Day is only one day away and everyone is coming in for their breads and their desserts. Peeta says it was always one of the most popular days, for as long as he can remember. Only difference is, before the war only Peacekeepers and town folks could afford to purchase anything. And generally, most citizens who even did come in, could only purchase a limited amount of items.

Not now. I don't know where everyone in Twelve was coming up with the money or if Peeta's prices are just a drastic drop from that of his mother's, but today, I swear I've seen every citizen in town inside the bakery.

Makes me glad that the portrait of me is hanging in the back, where no one else can see it. As pretty as it may be, as talented as Peeta is, I don't want a giant version of me displayed for all to see.

"Here you are," I politely say, handing two loaves of warm bread to a man who must be new to Twelve, as I've never seen him before. I'm debating on asking if he moved here recently when he passes a bill to me over the top of the pastry display.

"Thank you, hon." He smiles at me, looking at me a little too closely for my liking, as he swiftly walks out the door. His exit is met with the arrival of Val, a boy Peeta and I went to school with, who definitely was more Peeta's crowd than mine.

Val is a regular customer at the bakery, having always genuinely liked the Mellark family. His parents owned a small carpentry shop four spaces down from the bakery, and even with both them dead, he and his two sisters rebuilt the store, taking over their parents' legacy.

Peeta though is more focused on me now than Val's order. "Give me a second," he calls to his old friend, a little less polite than he had been all morning. "Katniss, what's wrong?" He asks urgently, seeing the look in my eyes.

I shake my head and push away the anxiety threatening to close in on me. "Nothing, just..." I hesitate, not even wanting to say it. Peeta's gaze refuses to lessen though and I sigh before finally mumbling, "That guy. He creeped me out. The way he was looking at me so closely..."

Peeta's hand touches my arm for a brief moment before pulling it away, making it obvious that he regrets the small act of even so much as touching me. But his words are still calming and they relax me a little. "He's gone now, Katniss. And if he scares you, I won't let him come back, okay? There's nothing anyone can do to you or me anymore. We're safe."

I nod, knowing the words like the back of my hand at this point, as it's the same mantra we always repeat to each other, every time one of us begins to panic or flail. But still, I open my mouth to refuse his offer. I don't want Peeta to turn away any sort of business. Not with the unpredictability and uncertainty this new world still rests on. We never know if the bakery will sell anything tomorrow or if all sort of income will soon dry up.

And we're the lucky ones, financially speaking, who were rich before the war and allowed—in a generous declaration by President Paylor—to keep the entirety of our money after. I don't have to imagine the anxiety others in the country must be in, knowing the curse of poverty all too well. I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone.

"I don't want you to turn away people," I say quietly. "Not on my account. You need business to keep this place afloat."

"I have plenty of money, Katniss," he reminds me, a little darker than I expect. "And I'd rather you feel safe than own a popular shop."

His words unexpectedly touch me, unexpectedly cut right down to the depth of my bones, exposing my soft underbelly. I'm about to do something stupid, like touch his hand, when Val makes his presence known again. "Your shop is already the most popular in the district," he points out, not even a little ashamed for having listened to our conversation. "And besides, why don't you just look at the guy's name? Maybe you can look him up, see if he's alright or not."

Peeta gets a glint in his eye. "That's a good idea, Val, thank you." As he moves towards the register to, I can only suppose, look for the man's receipt with his name and signature, he gestures to his school friend. "Katniss can get your order."

I shoot him a glare, only half kidding. I did come to help out, here and there, today but I did not intend to be an actual expected employee. For free, no less.

Instead of saying anything though, I just grab Val his three cinnamon rolls, his two snack cakes, four bagels, white chocolate donut and a loaf with raisins and cranberries.

Val, like Delly Cartwright, was always one of the few people in Twelve who had a few pounds to spare.

Peeta has a type of friend.

"Found it," Peeta now calls, bringing over a slip of paper to where I'm handing Val his three bags of treats. "His name was Rod Catamaran."

Me and Val, for the first time perhaps, exchange a look between us. "That's an odd name for Twelve."

"I've never even heard that name before."

"He may not even be from Twelve, guys," Peeta says.

I roll my eyes. "Because a bombed out district is really a tourist attraction."

"Hey, none of that," Thom calls as he walks through the front door of the bakery, with Kanon Bagley on his heels. "We've rebuilt this place beautifully and negativity is not appreciated here."

"Yeah, Katniss," Peeta chimes in, teasing me. I'm about to kick him in his only real leg, as we're the only two behind the counter and no one else will see, when Kanon speaks up.

"Can I buy a couple of pastries?"

"Of course," Peeta says kindly, walking around me to personally grab the two items Kanon requests.

Kanon is new to Twelve. One of the few new additions this place gained after all that went down. He's a large man in his early twenties, with dark skin and dark hair and eyes to match. But the only times I've ever interacted with him, he's quiet as a mouse, his eyes a little forlorn at all times and he offers more discounts then he should at the candy shop he recently opened next to the bakery.

He's from District Eleven originally and it takes no real critical thinking to realize he had a hard life, even before the war.

I'm far too familiar with the look of scars etched across the eyes. So is Peeta.

That's why, when Kanon looks down at the money in his hand and realizes he doesn't have enough to afford both pastries, Peeta immediately brushes it off. "That's okay, they're on the house," he instantly promises, handing the small bag over to Kanon with a gentle smile.

"No, I don't want to take it without-"

"I made way too much," Peeta insists, lying outright to make it appear Kanon would be doing him a favor. I know he didn't make too much, because we've been flying through everything today and keeping the ovens hot in case more is needed.

Still though, I back up the fib. "He did. We've been wondering all day how we were gonna sell enough stuff so we don't have to feed the leftovers to Haymitch's geese."

Kanon glances between us shyly, before taking the bag from Peeta's hand and slipping the few dollars he does have into his pocket again. "Thank you," he says softly and turns to leave.

Thom pats Kanon on the back as he passes him, before turning to follow. When the other man isn't looking, he turns back to us subtly and mouths, "thank you."

I wanted to tell him not to thank me. I only watched Peeta make this food, I didn't assist by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't own the bakery or do anything with the money or finances. It was not my choice to give things away for free.

But I'm far too focused on the boy in front of me to say any of that. The boy with the bread, the boy who isn't really a boy anymore. The boy who just gave away food for no reward at all, even on the most demanding and strenuous day all year for his business. The boy who just showed Kanon Bagley the same kindness I begged someone-anyone-to show me at eleven-years-old and not one single person did.

Except for him. He did for me all those years ago what he did for Kanon just now, and I suddenly have the most inexplicable, irrepressible urge to kiss Peeta right then and there, in the middle of the bakery.

I don't, however, and it's for once not because I lost my courage. It's because the door swings open again, just as Val exits right behind Kanon and Thom.

It's the same man from earlier. "Hi," Peeta greets, this time not at all sweet. Clearly recognizing the man as the one who made me nervous before. "Can I help you?"

"Yes," the man affirms, his tone brighter than you'd expect given our chilly reception. And our blatant wariness for anyone new. "I forgot to get a pecan butter cake before?"

There is a beat where me and Peeta exchange a look, before I awkwardly move towards the display case and begin to pack up his item. Peeta waits for me to decide to help the man before starting to ring him up.

"That was a nice thing you both just did," the man says as he patiently watches me fold the white waxy paper over his pastry. "For that guy."

"You were watching?" Is the only thing that comes out of my mouth.

"Only for a moment," he explains, his tone still friendly. Either he doesn't know how to read people at all or he's the most even keeled person in Panem.

Because I know I'm being rude, to a man who maybe doesn't even deserve it, I force myself to say one thing conversational. "This is my mom's favorite dessert," I offer, gesturing to his cake.

The man raises his eyebrows in an act that looks almost feigned. "Really?"

I instantly regret trying to be even slightly pleasant. Even his mannerisms seem fake. I'm contemplating if I should say anything else or go hide in the back room with the warm ovens and my portrait, when Peeta presses a button and the register dings.

He's about to say the total when the strange man shakes his head and hands to me directly an unfamiliar bill over the display case. "Have a nice day, you two," he calls, grabbing his cake and swiftly walking out.

It's not until he's gone, not until I have a moment to process the second weird encounter with the odd person, that I even glance down at the crisp bill he handed me.

It's a bill with a larger number on the back than I've ever personally seen before. I knew these kinds of dollars existed—I'm sure I could have gotten plenty after my first games—but I'd never seen one in the flesh.

Peeta sees my reaction. "What is it?" His voice sounds alarmed and he's stepping closer to me, but all I can do is gasp out his name.

"Peeta, look." I hold up the bill and point to the number on the back.

His eyes widen too, taking in the amount with a dizzy smile. Of both relief that nothing's wrong and excitement at the digit.

"Do you think it was a mistake?" I ask suddenly, looking over my shoulder towards the window, wondering if we should track the man down and give him his money back, before he evaporates into thin air.

"No?" Peeta shakes his head, the wheels in his mind turning quicker than mine. His face turns to that of elation, as the large bill takes some pressure off the bakery's sales. "No, he said he saw us give Kanon a break. He was giving us something in return."

I'm about to say something else, I don't even know what, but it all flies out of my head when Peeta suddenly wraps his arms around my waist and swiftly pulls me into his embrace.

My entire body goes into lockdown and hypervigilance at the same time. I can't move an inch but it feels like every nerve in my body is abruptly tingling and on fire.

My sweater lifts up slightly and his bare arms graze my lower back, eliciting a shiver to run involuntarily down my spine as his face buries into my hair.

I wrap my arms around his neck after a beat when I can make myself move again, and I feel him smile against my skin. I'm so glad at that moment he's holding me up, because if he wasn't supporting my weight I'd probably crash to the floor, unable to even feel my legs beneath me.

And, as a rush of heat shoots out from the place where Peeta's lips brush my collarbone, I suddenly feel only gratitude, not irritation, at the strange Rod Catamaran.

//

Four days later.

The world surrounding me is green. Green and brown and fire-bitten and scorched. Every which way I spin, there's embers soaring from that direction too, waiting to lick me with their burning flames, ready to decimate me once and for all.

But through the smoke and haze, I still can see between the trees two blonde braids. I still can see a small figure standing on the other side of the fire. I still can see her shirt that's come untucked in the back, creating a duck tail that I desperately want to fix.

Just as I notice her, she whirls around to face me, her blue eyes big and bright and terrified. "Katniss!" She screams, the same way she did the last day she was alive. "Katniss, help! They're coming!"

I don't know who's coming or what's happening or where we even are, but all I feel is relief somehow. Relief that she's here, that I'm in her presence again, that she's almost within my reach. Instinctively I call out, "Prim!" Just so I can finally get a response to the name I've been shouting into oblivion for almost a year now.

"Katniss, help me!" She cries again and then looks over her shoulder. She's not talking about the fire between us, as it doesn't seem too intent on heading towards her.

I don't know what's coming or who she's afraid of, but my instincts now go into overdrive. My body suddenly snaps into alert and I whip my head around, to see if I can find an opening in the fire closing in on me, if I can find a way to get to the sister I lost what feels like only yesterday, if I can find a way to save her this time.

There's no gap in the fire though. It's crowded around me, front, back and side to side. The more seconds that pass by, the closer the fire folds into my proximity, and I have to brace myself before making a split-second decision.

But it's not really a decision at all. Prim needs me and I cannot fail her. I have to save her this time.

I take a bold step directly into the fire, with every intention of running through it somehow. Of running past the wild embers, scorching myself no doubt, but still making it over to my distressed, frightened little sister. But it doesn't work like I expect.

But really, does anything?

These flames are nothing like the fires I've encountered before. And I've been around more fire in my life than anyone ever should.

No, these flames don't burn me. They don't hurt me or put me through agony or singe me to pieces. They don't melt off my makeshift coat of skin and they don't further decimate it either.

Instead the fire feels like almost nothing. Like something almost itchy, something almost irritating, something almost painful. Something that make me want to squirm and scream and escape all at the same time.

Which is real ironic considering what else it seems these flames do.

They seem to hold me into place. The second I'm in their hold, instead of the horrific pain I thought I'd be in, I'm trapped in a series of almost nothing.

I'm not in excruciating pain physically, but seeing my sister standing ten feet from me, and not being able to move any closer, not being able to protect her from whatever she's terrified of, is worse than any amount of injury this fire could have inflicted.

"Katniss!" Prim screams now, her voice only growing in its frantic nature. "Help! Why won't you come help me?"

I try to scream, try to tell her I want to but I can't move. But it turns out that these flames also paralyze vocal muscles.

"Peeta's dying!" Prim yelps out, looking behind her again, her hands beginning to shake in a way she almost never let them in life. She always tried to keep it together, to remain calm and rational in a crisis.

Her words elicit something entirely new inside of me though. "Peeta?" I yell in confusion, my voice suddenly no longer paralyzed.

"They're killing him! Katniss, please, why won't you come here? We need you!" Prim is close to hysterical now and frankly, so am I.

"I'm trying! I just," I move my hands down my body, trying to push the flames away as they rises up to my chest, trying to just break free from these fiery chains once and for all. "The fire, Prim! I can't get out of the fire."

Prim's voice drops then, loses all source of fear, every ounce of panic. Loses any semblance of emotion. "Katniss, there is no fire," she states blankly, her eyes looking directly at the embers covering my stomach and legs. "There's nothing there."

I just look at her for a moment, completely speechless. Her words are inconceivable, her eyes are haunted now, her facial expression is unrecognizable. Even her voice doesn't sound like hers anymore.

Before I can comprehend what's happening, in the distance a gunshot goes off.

Prim delicately glances over her shoulder now, her blue eyes cold as ice. "He's dead," she informs clinically, before sighing deeply, her tone almost disappointed. "And so am I."

I don't know what happens next or how it occurs, but I fly upwards in my bed with such a start, I give myself whiplash.

I hear a loud screeching noise hanging in the air, a hoarse trepidation that almost makes me feel better. I don't know why but someone else screaming in the middle of the night gives me hope, as sick as that may be.

Only it's not someone else, I realize, as my throat burns raw. I realize with startling clarity that I'm the only making all the noise. I'm the one shaking so tremendously. I'm the one who is sobbing.

"Shhh," a voice whispers against the darkness, and I flail involuntarily at the shock. "Sorry, sorry," Peeta instantly apologizes, his hands gripping my arms with a little too much intensity, trying to still my shaking. "It's okay, Katniss, you were just having a nightmare."

His words do precious little to calm me down though. "She was there," I cry, the image, the feeling, of Prim standing only ten feet from me and not being able to reach her too painful for me to unsee.

"Who was there?" He asks tenderly, his hand coming up to cup my cheek. "Katniss, breathe."

I don't even bother listening to his advise. I haven't exhaled since I was eleven. "Prim was there. She was begging me to save her and then I couldn't, I was trapped but-but," I cut myself off, unable to form coherent words and thoughts any longer.

Peeta gets the gist though. "Come here," he whispers and pulls me into his arms, like he used to on the train, when my nightmares woke us both three times a night. "I'm so sorry, Katniss," he says softly now, and rubs my back in a way that elicits goosebumps. His way of trying to soothe my shaking. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"You died too," I blurt out then. I don't even know why I feel inclined to tell him.

"What?"

"I was stuck and I couldn't speak and then Prim said you were going to die and I got scared enough that I could talk again and I thought-I thought," I stumble breathlessly, my tears pouring out against his shoulder now.

I feel his lips touch my cheek and I'm too upset to revel in the feeling of blood rushing there. "It was just a nightmare," he promises.

But my sentiment is unfinished. "I thought I could break free, that I could-"

"Katniss," he halts, still holding me in his embrace, rocking me slightly. "It wasn't real. I promise you, it wasn't real."

Those words, the words so often said to him by me, ring a bell that I didn't want to ring. It snaps me back into reality abruptly and without warning, I feel like my chest is going to collapse.

Because this means Prim wasn't really there, that she still is as dead as she was yesterday, that I still watched her explode into pieces all over the bombsite in the Capitol.

I still failed to protect her.

Peeta pulls back slightly then and rests his forehead against mine. "It's okay, Katniss," he says again, trying to calm my trembles by rubbing my arms up and down.

"How are you in my house?" I realize, with an intense sudden clarity. "How are you here? Are you real or am I still-"

He quickly puts me out of my misery. "You gave me a key, remember? A long time ago? We gave each other keys to our houses."

Oh. Right. I forgot all about that when he had his nightmare, didn't I?

Good thing he's an idiot who keeps his door unlocked at night.

He's explaining further before I can think to ask. "I heard you having a nightmare from my house. That's why I rushed over here."

I'm caught between embarrassment and gratitude. "Sorry, I really don't know what brought it on."

"Hey," he quietly reprimands, lifting my chin now to meet eye contact. "Don't apologize. No one understands nightmares like me."

I nod, accepting his words, though still a little uncomfortable with screaming for all the district to hear at two in the morning.

Then again, our entire neighborhood is Haymitch and the two of us, and our mentor was drinking like a fish last night so really, the only person who could have heard me is already sitting directly in my eye line.

To punctuate his words, when I don't respond verbally, he lifts my hand up and brings it to his lips tenderly.

And I don't know what comes over me or why. I don't know if it's because we've been growing closer again lately or if I just haven't felt his arms around me since days ago in the bakery and I miss the feel of it desperately, but I find myself abruptly throwing my body around his before I can talk myself out of it.

He catches me easily, like he anticipated my reaction and sways me for a long moment, until my breathing begins to even itself out.

"Will you stay?" I rasp into his neck, as I feel his hand tangles in my matted locks.

"Always."

[smegdwarf]

But Who Could Love Me? (Rimmer x Reader) - Chapter 9

A/N: 3 chapters in 3 days holy crapoly!

Warnings: This chapter does get a little tense (Rimmer has a breakdown) and I guess some implied smut 😏

Summary: Basically giving Rimmer the love he deserves :p

"What do you want me to do?" Rimmer shouted after you as he chased you down the corridor.

"Well for a start you need to tell Lister what you've done with Kochanski's disc?" You stood with your arms crossed.

"I can't tell him, he'll flush me out of an airlock" Rimmer  was full of panic about possibly losing you "What about you?"

"Don't worry about me, I understand why you did it but you need to tell him!" You spoke sternly as you walked off, turning back after a few steps "and until you do ...I'm off limits"

Despite telling him not to worry about you he quite clearly was, it also wasn't long before the others picked up on the tension between you two,  hoping that distancing yourself from him would make him act quicker.

"Morning!" You smiled as you walked into Starbug's cockpit, standing next to Rimmer's chair as he looked at you a little upset that you weren't being your usual self, leaning against his chair.

"Krytes found a derelict on the scanner, thought we'd check it out before we head home" Lister smiled, clearly Rimmer hadn't told him yet.

"Sleep well?" Rimmer tried to spark conversation.

"Yeah fine thanks" You didn't even look at him as you sat down in Cat's seat, the feline must've already been on his second nap of the day, after all he has prepare for his main snooze.

"Is everyting ok ma'am?" Kryten asked as you turned to smile at him.

"Ooh trouble in paradise?" Lister smirked as Rimmer squirmed in his seat.

"No we're fine aren't we Arnie?" You smiled at Rimmer who was completely confused by your behaviour.

"Sure" He gave you a half hearted smile.

"Right bring her in Listy, I'll go wake up Cat" You patted Lister on the shoulder.

"Good luck!" Lister laughed.

"I don't need luck Listy!" You smirked as you left.

Before long you were all on the derelict, creeping quietly through the ship as the scanner in your hands lit up.

"Hmm theres life signs" You grumbled, Kryten peering over your shoulder to look at the scanner.

"Suggest we split into two groups" Kryten suggested "We're more of a target together"

"Kryten lets go!" Rimmer turned to leave as you shot your arm out in front of him.

"Krytes take Cat and Lister ...goalpost head is with me" You replied straight faced as the others walked off.

"I don't think the name calling was necessary?" Rimmer grumbled as you walked on.

It didn't take long for Rimmer to get frustrated with the silent treatment as you continued to walk round quietly, consistently monitoring the scanner in your hand.

"I know you're angry that I lied about Kochanski's disc and that you're off limits but you could at least talk to me" Rimmer finally broke the tension.

"You still haven't told him have you?" You asked not taking your eyes away from the scanner.

"I will tell him, but I want you to stop ignoring me" Rimmer replied as you stopped him at the end of the corridor buzzed.

"Can we talk about this later?" You whispered.

"Why can't we talk about it now?" He asked.

"Shh" You shushed him as you brought your finger to your lips.

"Y/N?" With a swift swing of your arm your hand was plastered over Rimmer's mouth.

"Take this and keep that" You whispered as pointed to his mouth and handed him the scanner "quiet!"

Your hand over his mouth was the only touch he had received from you since he confessed about the holo disc and while it wasn't exactly what he wanted ...it was still something and if it weren't for you holding a loaded bazookoid he would've had you against the wall with his lips firmly against yours. Those thoughts were knocked straight out of his mind by the sound of you firing the bazookoid although he was shocked to see the life form you had been tracking frozen in its tracks instead dead in a heap on the floor.

"How did you...? The bazookoids can't..." Rimmer couldn't quite finish a full sentence.

"I'm an engineer and we're 3 million years into deep space ...I get bored alright" You grumbled as you went over to the frozen creature "Niiice"

"I only asked" Rimmer muttered  "What is it?"

"Some sort of transforming mutant" You pondered over it, resisting the urge to poke and prod it. For all you knew it could be poisonous or toxic.

"Polymorph?" Rimmer asked.

"A polymorph transforms into to different objects to blend with its surroundings" You looked at the mutant curiously "This simply turns itself invisible"

"Well what does it do?" Rimmer was growing impatient.

"I think I know" You smiled "But I'll need to Kryten to confirm"

"Meanwhile we're going to stay here with this thing ...how long will it stay frozen for?" Rimmer was starting to panic at the thought of hanging around an unknown mutant.

"Hey Krytes we've found the life form, we're at the end of B deck" You spoke into your watch.

"On our way ma'am" Kryten's voice replied through the watch.

With the derelict not even being a quarter of the size of the dwarf it didn't take long for the other 3 to find you. Rimmer was sat on the floor, leaning against a wall with his legs stretched out sulking while you were completely fascinated by the creature you had frozen.

"Is that it?" Lister asked as he spotted that it was frozen "Have you been modifying things again?"

"So what if i have? shoot me" You smiled as Lister chuckled "What do you think Kryten?

Before Kryten could answer the frozen mutant broke free, transforming into a huge green skinny monster, spitting as it hissed at you all.

"It's a psy-mutant" Kryten could just about be heard over the screeching.

"What the hell is a psy-mutant?"  Lister shouted.

"Much like a psy-moon, a psy-mutant feeds of a persons pysche and transforms into their strongest negative emotion" Kryten explained.

"So who's it feeding of?" Rimmer asked as everyone locked and loaded their bazookoids.

"You  sir!" Kryten answered as everyone sighed and rolled their eyes ...of course it was.

"Arnie ...thats your jealousy!" You looked at Rimmer and you could've sworn that had he been alive and had a heart you would've seen it drop to the floor, he never meant for this, he knew his jealousy was a problem but he never meant for it to become everyone else's problem.

"What have you got to be jealous about?" Lister growled as Rimmer became paralysed by the fear and guilt of being confronted by his jealousy.

"Should we shoot?" Cat asked.

"The bazookoids won't touch it" You sighed "The only way to defeat this thing is if you let it out"

"Let it out?" Rimmer looked at you a little confused but mostly terrified.

"If you keep this all bottled up, that thing will keep munching on it and we wont stand a chance but if you just say whats on your mind, let everything out thats causing your jealousy it wont have anything to feed on and we can kill it" You explained "I know its difficult Arnie but its the only way"

"I c..can't" Rimmer stuttered, the both of you knew it wasn't just his jealousy it was feeding on, it was slurping up his guilt too.

"Rimmer you need to tell him now" You looked at him, your eyes glistening over as you knew that what was about to happen was going to torture him "You'll feel so much better Arnie I promise"

"I'm so sorry" Rimmer looked at you with so much guilt and sorrow in his eyes as tears fell down his cheek.

"Don't worry about me, its Lister you need to talk to" You had almost forgot about the others watching you "Tell him Arnie"

"Tell me what?" Lister grew concerned.

"I..I ...I flushed Kochanski's disc out of an airlock" Rimmer stuttered as he tried to swallow the lump in his throat, the jealousy monster letting out a loud screech as it took a hit.

"Ah ...this is awkward" Lister looked at the floor.

"What do you mean?" You asked as you anticipated his answer, he already knew and had already plotted his revenge unbeknown to anyone else.

"I already knew about that ...and in retaliation  ...I might have flushed your revision time tables" Lister replied as a small smile formed on Rimmer's face.

"I suppose thats fair" Rimmer sighed.

"Ok I'm glad thats all sorted but that green gooey thing is still here" Cat reminded them.

"I said everything why is it still here?" Rimmer asked.

"Because thats not everything is it Arnie?" You spoke softly "Maybe it would be easier if you three gave us a moment"

"Are you sure?" Lister asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't worry I'll kick its arse if I need too" You smiled as he nodded and lead the others away "Arnie you can do this"

"I don't want to think about it" Rimmer scrunched his eyes closed.

"Arnie you can do this" You spoke softly and calmly.

"No I can't" He shook his head as he fought back the tears.

"Yes you can" You smiled as you turned him away from the creature,  cupping his face in your hands "I know you can"

"Why are you with me?" Rimmer started to break down.

"Because I love you" You could feel the tears fighting to escape your own eyes.

"I'm out of my mind, I'm a jealous good for nothing waste of space" Rimmer sniffed as you let his forehead rest against yours "If I didn't have such a problem with getting the breaks, if I didn't get jealous every time someone else was happy, if I just shut myself away from the world maybe this wouldn't have happened, I'm not supposed to be happy, things aren't meant to go my way. I don't deserve anything"

"You know thats not true" You sobbed as you heart ached listening to Rimmer completely breakdown.

"Even my own parents didn't like me or my brothers" Rimmer kept his eyes shut tight.

"None of the way you're feeling right now is your fault Arnie" You kept your voice quiet so only he could hear you "It's not your fault you were treated so poorly, you do deserve to be happy ...more than anyone"

"Then why does everyone treat me so badly?" Rimmer sobbed, it felt strangely relieving for him to be so open and vulnerable and not be shot down further, his legs began to give way underneath him as he fell to the floor. Dropping down beside him and wrapping him up in your arms, gently rocking him back and forth as he cried. He hadn't even noticed the mutant had gone.

"Unfortunately some people are just awful" You spoke softly in his ear before placing a much awaited kiss next to the 'h' on his forehead "and those people don't deserve you in their lives"

"Please never leave me" Rimmer looked up at you, his eyes glossy and his cheeks puffy and red.

"That never even crossed my mind Arnie" You smiled as Rimmer's lips started to curl.

"I love you" Rimmer sniffed as his hand found its way to your cheek.

"I love you too Arnie" You smiled as you helped him up off the floor "Lets get you back to Starbug"

"The mutant's gone?" It was only now that Rimmer remembered why they were there.

"You defeated it!" You grinned as he chuckled "Come on lets get out of here"

Once back on Starbug with the others Rimmer opted to go to bed, he was exhausted physically and mentally.

"I'll wake you up when we're back on the dwarf alright" You smiled sweetly as you leant down to kiss him on the cheek before turning off the lights and going back to the rest of crew. 

Thankfully you weren't that far away so it wasn't long before you were back home. You assumed Rimmer had gone to his bunk to go back to sleep as you curled up in yours to read, so when he suddenly appeared in your door way at 3am you were a little surprised.

"I thought you were sleeping" You smiled as he stood in the doorway  with his hands behind his back.

"I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep" Rimmer spoke quietly.

"Lister not up? It's not his bedtime yet?" You asked "Are you coming in?"

"He's happily munching on a curry I brought up for him" Rimmer looked down at the floor "And I didn't want to over step boundaries"

"Are you ok?" You looked at him a little concerned " Come in I won't bite ...not this time"

"Its nothing, just feeling a little bad about what happened and I know he flushed my timetables but I wanted to do something to say sorry" Rimmer blushed as he walked into your quarters "I mean he is my friend after all"

"Are you sure you're ok?" You laughed as Rimmer chuckled "Don't worry I won't tell him you called him your friend"

"Thanks" Rimmer smiled, revealing the beautiful bouquet of flowers he was hiding behind his back "These are for you"

"Where on io did you get these from?" You grinned as he handed them to you "They're gorgeous!"

"Kryten has been working in the botanical gardens, he let me take some flowers to make you a bouquet ...I should show you some time you'll love it" Rimmer was babbling, pleased to see you smiling.

"Thank you Arnie!" You smiled at him as you filled an empty red plastic cup with water to put the flowers in.

"Thank you for putting up with me" Rimmer mumbled.

"What are you muttering about?" You laughed a little as you raised your eyebrow at him.

"After what I put you through over the last couple of weeks, you're still here" Rimmer had gone back to the nervous, innocent person when you first started dating.

"You don't give up on someone you love" You gently took his hand in yours.

"Even if they're as messed up as me?" Rimmer's eyes finally met yours.

"I love you no matter what, you know that" You smiled as you stared into the chocolate brown eyes staring back at you.

"I really don't deserve you" Rimmer eyes lit up as he smiled.

"Hey no more putting yourself down ok?" You gently squeezed his hand "Promise?"

"Promise!" Rimmer chuckled.

"Now are you going to kiss me or not?" You smirked as Rimmer took off his jacket and threw it to the side of the room, after a little over two weeks of not being able to touch, hold or kiss you he was definitely a little touch starved.

"I thought you'd never ask" Rimmer grinned as he held your face in his hands, feeling his body press against yours as he brought you into the most passionate kiss he had ever given you or anyone for that matter, his arms dropping to your waist, sitting perfectly at the bottom of your back as you let your hands rest on his chest, feeling each other smile between kisses "Can I stay with you tonight?"

"I already assumed you would" You laughed as you brought him into another kiss.

"I love you" Rimmer replied softly as he took your hand in his and walked you over to the bed as you both sat down.

"I love you too Arnold Judas Rimmer" You smiled sweetly, his face lighting up like a child on christmas as you said the words. Delicately tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear with his fingertips he leant in to kiss you again, his arm around your waist as you both slowly fell down onto your bunk.

[bakutae]

meeting the prince

- a royalty au for the @bnhabookclub event

pairing: prince! shouto todoroki x maid! reader

context: where a lowly maid cross paths with a prince unintentionally

author's note(if any): oh my gosh fey @k-atsukidayo thank you so much for beta reading this fic and editing it as well! i really appreciate it

"Remember to keep your heads low while attending to the guests at Prince Shouto’s birthday party today. Do not communicate with each other while you’re working or you will be sent to the queen, as usual."

A low buzz reverberates around the room as the maids begin to whisper amongst each other, drowning out the silence that was present just moments ago.

You glance at the girl next to you, who is kneeling on the bumpy floor, just like you. You don’t know who she is, what her name even is, since maids are not supposed to communicate on the job and are expected to just work and attend to the needs of the royal family.

There was a time a young lady had been too talkative during the queen's celebratory banquet. An electrifying wave runs through your spine as you recall how she had been exiled to another kingdom. Your eyes close for a second, remembering how the poor girl's parents were begging the queen to spare her, since she was, after all, still young and had so much life to explore and learn.

However, the queen had refused immediately. After that, the parents of the girl went missing. There were many rumours as to what had happened to her parents. But the queen had sent soldiers patrolling the village and whoever who spoke about the girl or their parents were, once again, banished to another kingdom.

Your eyes flutter open and you clench your fists, and you can't help but feel that justice was not carried out promptly for her. But your thoughts are soon gone, since now you have to listen to the lecture that the head maid, Reina, has to present or it’s off to the queen you go.

The talk has lasted for so long that your knees are starting to ache, the rough floor scratching your knees from the friction. The color of your skin becoming flushed, the pressure of gravity on your body and the density of the floor being too much as you bite your lip, an attempt to lessen the growing pain.

You then try to move, hoping that it will bring you some form of relief. You wince. It is clearly a bad idea and you glance at your delicate knees, promptly deciding to ignore what else Reina has to say.

The warm sunlight shines in from the tiny square hole at the corner of the room, flickering deliriously right onto you. You squint, the bright beam beam of light beginning to hurt your eyes and you brush a calloused thumb over your knee.

Though your thumb is already quite rough, your knees are worse. The scabs from the previous time you had from a previous meeting, that also lasted for too long, had peeled off a little too early, and red flesh stares right back at you. You then try to tug your skirt down further, hoping that it will give your knee at least a little bit of protection, ignoring the intolerable feeling of exposed flesh the more you tug at it.

You could always just change your skirt, though, you simply don’t want to. Your eyes dart from maid to maid, and you notice that all their skirts cover their knees well. It's just you, the black sheep amongst the others.

You don’t want to bow every time you see someone important; you just don’t understand the concept behind it. Sincerity always seems to ooze out of the others when they bow a perfect ninety degrees, and it disgusts you.

You don’t like how the guests at the parties look down at you, knowing their place and asserting their dominance through eye contact. Especially when some of them would purposefully spill a cup of tea on the floor, and you would have to clean it up, though you don't usually attend to them.

But, unfortunately, you have to simply bite your tongue and hold back. For without the title as a maid, you would be known as nothing but a lowly peasant. You'd rather settle for a maid than being nothing but a peasant.

Your hands slowly move from your skirt to your pocket, gripping the lock of hair that your mother had briefly given to you before passing away because of an incurable illness. Your fingertips caress the smooth chunk, treating it with utmost care, careful to let it not tangle up.

The skirt belongs to your mother, from when she was a just maid, like you, until she met your father, a humble cobbler, and decided to resign from her job and had you.

Your heart aches at the thought of your deceased mother and tears soon threaten to spill from the corners of your eyes. Bile rises to your throat, causing you to splutter and choke.

Silence.

You realise that all of the maids, including Reina, are staring at you incredulously. Some shake their heads and click their tongues at you. Irritation begins to replace what once was sorrow, and you are about to give them a piece of your mind when-

"Y/n, we've talked about your attitude multiple times. Anymore of these nonsense coming from your mouth and I will definitely send you to the queen and you will be dealt with. Understand?"

Your large eyes meet Reina’s beady ones, which have a dangerous undertone to them. And, you break off the eye contact immediately, biting your lips instead. You know better than to say anything rebellious now, and you subtly nod. It seems to satisfy the head maid, and she promptly dismisses the group.

Soon, one by one, the maids begin to return to their housing quarters to change into a new set of clothes, nothing too fancy, just plain, brown, cotton covering their thin bodies and they begin to part ways.

You are assigned to the ballroom, as usual, where you have to attend to all the guest's needs at all times and give out the champagne to newly arrived ones, while maintaining eye contact with the ground, to exude ‘submission’, or so you’ve been told.

Before you could even take any steps further, a sharp voice calls out to you.

“Y/n, where do you think you’re going? I have told you just now haven’t I? You will be training our new addition. Guide her, ensure that she will not cause trouble for the royal family.”

Your eyebrows raise inwardly. As you turn your head around ever so slightly, you catch sight of a girl hiding behind the head maid.

She watches you with uncertainty in her eyes. She can’t be much older than eighteen. You look at her suspiciously. What is a young girl like her doing here? Her gaze wavers and she looks down, taking a handful of her skirt in her hands.

You force a warm smile and step towards her, while asking her to follow you. She scurries over to you, glancing over her shoulder in the process, as if to look at the head maid for assurance. The head maid nods and leaves.

You bring her to your room, a small place, your haven, you call it. The familiar, musty smell fills your nose and you take a deep breath and sigh. It does sound gross, but you had been living in this room for a few years now, and have gotten used to the scent. You’ve come to like it.

The brick walls are crumbling off, covering the floor with a thin layer of dirt. You observe the girl for her reaction. She scrunches her nose in disdain and fans her nose, perhaps hoping that the smell will go away.

The room has a sleeping bag and a tiny wooden closet. It is livable in there, though, quite limited to necessities. You crack open your closet door, getting a fresh change of clothes for you and the girl.

“So, uh, why’re you here?”

You ask, hoping to get some knowledge about her, to know what to expect while training her. However, she keeps quiet, hands clasped together and placed delicately in front of her hips and head looking downward.

Waiting a few seconds, you and her soon fall into an uncomfortable silence. You briefly close your eyes and look up, irritated at her. This was why you hate to train anyone here.

She takes a step forward, which catches you off guard, and you take a step back. Unsure of what else to do, you look at her, taking in her facial features.

Her golden brown hair is messily tied up in a loose bun, and her eyes. Her eyes are a rare shade of grey, seeming so much like marble under the moonlight, drawing attention to you. They seem to glow under the moonlight, her orbs are wobbling with emotions with emotion and you feel the need to envelop her in a hug. You don’t know why, you just feel the need to. You control yourself, shaking your head slightly, an attempt to control yourself.

She has a birthmark surrounding her lips, another interesting feature that you caught on now and didn't when you first met her.

Before you can admire her face any further, the bells at the castle ring. You freeze instantly. The bells signify that the guests from other kingdoms are arriving, which means that the maids should be at their positions at this moment.

You curse under your breath and toss her the dress, telling her to wear it. You, too, unbutton the fabric of your clothes and change quickly, enjoying the new soft fabric touching your skin. Then, you carefully grab the lock of hair and transfer it into your pocket.

You proceed to turn around, hoping to at least give her some basic respect and privacy. Staring out of the stained glass from your room, you watch as ships begin to paint the once calm ocean with dots of color.

A small smile creeps onto your face. How would it be like to be on one of those ships? you wonder, a faraway look in your eyes, the girl in your room long forgotten. You itch to gently caress the fabric with your rough hands, feeling the soft delicate fabric on your skin. You feel like a completely different person. It’s almost as if you have a new persona. Your eyes slowly take in the sight, enjoying this new outfit. Then, you turn to look at yourself in your small mirror next to the window, wanting to see how it appears on your body.

You have a plain brown attire, far different compared to the guests’ lavish colored ones. Your fingers find refuge in your pocket as you let out a self-deprecating laugh and frantically shake your head. This is your kismet, how could you stand a chance against it? You chide yourself internally. But, then, you jolt, suddenly remembering the ringing bells.

Glancing behind you, you are reminded of the apprenticeship of the girl, the dreaded task. Holding her dirty clothes in hand, she’s just standing beside you in silence, as if she doesn’t want to interrupt your thoughts. You silently take a mental note of that. She, unexpectedly, is rather considerate.

You then reach out a hand to her, and she takes it. Confused, you stare at her. You mean to take her dirty clothes, not her hand. You look at her, then at the clothes. Finally understanding, she slowly removes her hand from yours, her cheeks gradually glowing a shade of pink as she passes you her dress.

Pretending to disregard the previous ordeal, you throw the dirty clothing in the clothes basket and step out of your room, taking big steps at a time. You have completely lost track of time. This is the first time you’re late, and you have no idea what to expect upon arriving at the ballroom.

Quietly slipping into the ballroom, it seems that everyone is too preoccupied in their fun to notice you and the other girl arrive. Scurrying over to the bartender, you hand her a tray of champagne, and motion for her to give it out to guests. She gracefully nods, and moves into the crowd not long after.

Finally alone, you take a good look at your surroundings. The band is playing up an instrumental piece, reflecting off the four walls and ringing throughout the room. A chandelier hung proudly in the centre, radiating such warmth and joy to the atmosphere.

Your eyes trace over the walls, a glittering silver, so bright and shiny you feel the need to shield yourself from their glare. A group of women walk past you, with flowing, intricate designs on their gowns, beautiful shades of pastel. The faint scent of roses fill your senses and it brings you serenity.

Hearing their low chatter and occasional laughter, you felt incredibly out of place. Right, you never had a place here to begin with. The ambience around you makes you feel a little bit better. But you still couldn’t help but sigh.

Trying to get those negative thoughts out of your head, your hands reach out to a tray as well. As you ready yourself for the task, a cold hand touches your shoulder.

“Why are you late?”

You jump in shock, newfound adrenaline suddenly coursing through you as you gulp slowly and turn around. That high-pitched, piercing voice could only belong to one person: Reina. As you expected, it is her. Panicking internally, you tell her the first thing that comes to mind: your trainee had constipation and you had to wait for her.

Reina’s eyebrows rise in suspicion, and you pray that she wouldn’t see the small bead of cold sweat roll down your forehead.

Not telling you anything else, Reina walks away. Perhaps that is a good sign, since she didn’t rebuke you. Your chest heaves, a small sigh of relief leaving your lips. You heartbeat slowly returns to normal, that is, until you catch the sight of Reina speaking to the queen. Suddenly anxious, you worry about what Reina had told the queen. You hope it’s not your lack of punctuality.

You don’t know why. But at this pivotal moment, it did not matter. But you hurry toward the door of the ballroom impulsively, and instantly regret it. Small feet thumping the ground with a quick tempo, you contemplate to look behind you. And, after much thought, you do.. You watch in horror, as the queen’s gaze is seemingly fixed on you. You can feel her anger.

You know you should have said something when Reina instructed you to mentor the girl. Peeking at the scabs on your knees, you cringe as the pain soon begins to take over your body and lessens your speed. Muttering profanities under your breath, you still push on. From the corner of your eyes, you can see royal guards coming after you.

You know that if they caught you, your punishment wouldn't be just banishing to another kingdom. Shivering as you think of all sorts of gore, you see the door opening inch by inch. You tug at the door as it opened with a creak. Before closing it, you hear the queen scream in pure rage.

The fear completely paralyzes you, and the more you think about running away, or simply moving a bit, the more you feel discouraged and utterly terrified. You hear the queen yell “SHOUTOOOOOO,” and the ballroom becomes dead quiet. You don’t know whether to feel relieved or not since she isn’t calling for you. You think, maybe, something more important has her attention. It is the least of your worries for now, though.

Running along the dimly lit corridors, you find the need to squint, everything in front of you a complete blur. You have no idea where to go, or what you are supposed to do. You surprisingly feel...free.

With no one to control you at this moment, you could roam around the castle to your heart's desire, but you decide against it. You fumble around, placing a hand on the wall to guide you along the way. You then try to find ways to be able to see better. By rapidly blinking, you realize that doing so makes out the outline of your surroundings.

You then see light coming from a corner. You halt, peeking over the wall to see someone coming up with a flashlight. Palms clamming up, you lean against the wall, as if that would do anything. But anything to calm your pounding heart, right?

As you pray that it isn’t any royal guards, you wish fervently that you’d suddenly disappear or turn invisible. Streaks of red and white fill your vision and you frown, confused. Isn’t that…

“P-prince Shouto?” You whisper, almost hoping that he would not hear you.

His heterochromatic orbs widen as if he hadn’t been expecting anyone in these dark hallways. He shines the torchlight toward your face, and you squint from the exposure.

“I’m not going back.”

Tilting your head to the side, you raise an eyebrow. Your eyes flicker over his face, and you accidentally make eye contact with him. Averting your eyes away, it then hit you. You are of close proximity with the prince. Instinctively, you bow. Your hair falls over your head, coming undone. You are still in disbelief that you are face-to-face, less than five feet apart from the prince and-

“Stop with the act. I know Mother sent you after me.” Voice ice cold, he glares at you, with some degree of hatred in his eyes.

Eyes widening, you open your mouth, then quickly close it, not knowing what to say. Frantically neatening up your hair that had been messed from bowing, you whisper. You hope that it will convey your vulnerability.

“I really don't know what’s going on. I’m just a lowly maid who was late for my ballroom duty and the queen looked like she was about to kill me so I just left the ballroom fearing for my life and I’m still fearing for my life. Please don’t-”

Your hands fly to cover your mouth as you fearfully look at Shouto. Then, you mentally reprimand yourself for saying too much and wasting the prince’s time. Deciding that you should probably be on your way, you quickly bow and turn around, taking a step forward.

“Are you trying to run away?”

Shouto’s voice calls out to you a few seconds later. You freeze, not knowing how to answer his question. If you say yes, would he bring you to the queen? If you say no, would he tell the queen about you?

It then hits you. Perhaps… the prince was trying to run away too? Since you did hear the queen yell Shouto’s name. Slowly turning around with a panicked, crooked smile, you reply.

“Yes.”

With your job considered gone and reputation tainted, there is clearly no place for you here anymore.

“Well, great. Me too. Let’s run away together.”

“W-what? What would your mother think? Shouto, think-”

When you stopped yourself, Shouto raises an eyebrow, urging you to continue. 

“I’m sorry for speaking to you informally, Prince Shouto.”

Bracing yourself for any scolding, you force your eyes shut. Nothing comes after that. You try to open your left eye, and Shouto is looking at you, rather amused.

“You have no idea how funny you look right now. Also, honestly speaking, I don't care much for the respect aspect. We’re about the same age, right? What’s there to respect?”

Opening your mouth to protest, you place a finger in the air.

“But I’m just a lowly maid and you’re a prince and I shouldn't be talking to you in this way because I’m kind of like a peasant and you’re like, so amazing and royal and high class and all that and-”

“Gosh, do you ever shut up?”

His ice cold expression is gone and is replaced by a warm smile. You never thought you would see him smile. Since, after all, whenever you had attended to him on any occasion, his eyes would be devoid of any emotion, lips awfully straight with a constant uninterested vibe.

“I guess not,” you respond playfully.

“Besides, this is fate isn’t it? Who would have thought that we’d meet each other here? Look at it as a fortunate stroke of serendipity, you can’t control your destiny you know?”

You are in a daze, still in shock, as Shouto half-drags you along with him, trying to find his way out of the castle with the torchlight lighting the way. No idea where he is going, you decide to trust Shouto wholeheartedly. It then hits you.

This isn’t right.

Both he and you know that you, a lowly maid, and him, a royal prince, together would be a force to be reckoned with. It may even cause all hell to break loose. But realistically speaking, what can you do in this situation?

It may be a mistake; but it’s going to be a beautiful one. You are going to make sure it is a beautiful one. Besides, Shouto is right.

What chance do you stand against kismet, really?

taglist: @bnha-homeroom

[chlodani]

This is my new smau. It's a Sokka x F!Reader pairing smau. Title: More Than A Roommate

Trigger warning: Mature! Slight swear warning! If your sensitive to mature language and swearing, I've warned you ahead of time. Mentions of sex!

Y/n's new roommate seems intensely interested in her life and wants to know everything about her. She's flattered and a little freaked out, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Though she thinks it's a problem that he's so handsome and their living together. But what will he do when he finds out Y/n's a Firebender? Will he accept her for who she is or will he shut her out because of his bad past with the Fire Nation?

Special Edition Part 19 Continued. . .

Y/n's P.O.V.

I quickly gathered what I needed. It wasn't much, but I did grab my sword. I never know when I'll need that. Even though I'm a Firebender that can bend red flame and red lightning, I'm still badass with a sword. Though I can't take all the credit, Sokka helped me with part of that. He's helped me to practice and he's taught me what he knows. A tear slipped from my eye as I stood in Sokka's room for a moment, staring at his boomerang on the wall. As I turned my head, I looked at the picture he had of us on his nightstand. I picked it up, looking at it, as a couple more tears fell. I cleared my throat, closing my eyes forcing the rest of my tears away. Wiping away the tears that remained, I opened my eyes setting the picture down. I looked directly at Sokka in the picture.

"Dont worry Sokka, I'm coming for you,"

With that said, I walked out of the room, heading out of the apartment.

. . .

Adelina's P.O.V.

I paced back and forth in my sister's apartment waiting for my friends to arrive. They were taking forever. I just wanted to leave on my own and go find my sister. She could be in serious danger right now. As Toph said I can believe that she went off alone, but I'm just so angry with her. If something happens to her, I would never forgive myself. She's my everything. She's my Boo. I need her. And whether she admits it or not she needs me to. And this is one of the times she needs me. Ughhh! I wanna kick her ass so bad. Though I guess I cant blame her. I am as much in love with Zuko as she is with Sokka. If Azula was doing this to Zuko, I'd wanna do more than just kick her ass. I jumped as the door opened. Pretty much all my friends walked in at the same time. And Iroh was behind Zuko. I face palmed myself. I looked directly as Zuko.

"Zuko, what is Iroh doing here?" I asked him trying not to show him how angry I was for my missing sister and future brother-in-law.

"We're not the only ones who are Y/n's family Adelina. Iroh is to. Uncle's known you guys since you were kids, he wants to help. He cares for her too," Zuko explained to me.

"And you forget Lina, that my nickname used to be, Dragon of the West - I am still a Firebender and I want to make sure nothing happens to the people I love," Iroh explained to me calmly.

I sighed as I looked at him. I didn't have time to debate.

"Fine, - But we have to go, - Right now - We're already running out of time," I told them in a hurried panic as I headed to the door.

Nothing will stop me from protecting Y/n and Sokka.

. . .

Y/n's P.O.V.

I headed to the Earth King's old quarters. I figured if Azula is going to be hiding out anywhere in Ba Sing Se, with that sicko of a dick waffle Jet and the Dia Lee agents, its gonna be there. And I wasn't playing around. As soon as I got to the door, I blasted two of the Dia Lee out of the way. I want my Sokka back and nothing will keep me from him. I walked throughout the halls and the main throne room but I didn't see Azula. I knew they both were hiding here somewhere. As I walked throughout the throne room, I felt a familiar presence. I stood firm not wanting to turn around. He quickly grabbed my wrists as he stood behind me, standing as close to me as he could. He made me drop my sword. I closed my eyes as the sound of the sword hitting the floor hit my ears. Jet held my wrists tightly, as he pressed himself against me.

"Its nice to see you again Y/n, -"

I could feel shivers running through my entire body. And they weren't the good kind.

"Jet? -"

"We haven't seen each other in awhile Y/n. I've tried texting you but you didnt answer -"

He was getting closer to my neck. I had my eyes closed, because I didnt want to admit this was happening.

"When texting didnt work I tried calling but you still didnt answer -"

Jet moved his lips along my neck so softly, it drove me insane. My breath hitched as he pressed himself against me.

"Though, I can look past you ignoring me for weeks, if you - give me the chance I deserve, -"

"You know you don't deserve it," I told him.

"Really? -"

Jet quickly turned me around, pressing me to the wall behind us, pushing himself against me. He had my wrists held down, so I couldn't fight back. He still moved his lips along my neck. He knew just how to do it, in ways that would drive me crazy. I tried to move, but Jet had me held down.

"You lied to me Jet," I said to him.

I tried to show him I was angry, but he was hitting the sweetest spot on my neck. The spot he knew was my favorite before when we were together years ago. I honestly hate him right now.

"I lied to you only because I love you - I needed you back. I cant live without you. - "

He gently pressed his lips harder. I wanted to cry, but I forced myself not to. I still forced my eyes to stay closed.

"I need you in my life - I dont want to be forced to live without you - "

"Then you shouldn't have lied to me and joined Azula,"

He moved his lips down farther.

"You don't understand - I needed you - I still need -"

He brought his knee up between my legs, creating friction. A slight whine left me.

"Where's Sokka?"

I tried to speak sternly, but with what he was doing, it was really difficult to keep my composure.

"Look Y/n, I know you still love me, - You cant deny it,"

"Yes, I can - You're nothing that Sokka is - You never have been and you never will be,

! - He's better than you in every way!"

Jet said nothing for a moment as he looked at me.

"How can I prove to you that I still love you?"

I stared directly into his eyes, with the straightest face I could possibly have.

"You can't,"

I could see the anger hidden behind his eyes. In an instant he pressed his lips onto mine with force. He pressed himself against me as hard as he could. I honestly didnt know what to do. A part of me still did love him. Those feelings dont just go away. Jet still had me held down, but he kissed me like he used to when we were together before. Before I even know what I was doing I kissed him back only slightly. I honestly wish he'd never come back. I wouldn't have to deal with any of this. Just as I felt him moving his hands down to my thighs, he was ripped off of me and thrown to the ground. I looked over to see Mai.

"Thank you Mai," I said to her in a soft tone.

"Damn Y/n, if you were over Sokka that quickly, you could've just dumped him," Mai said to me.

I shook my head.

"No, I'm not -"

I was just staring at Jet. Mai had her foot on him, holding him down.

"What happened with me and Jet is a long story, but the only person I care about right now is Sokka. I need to find him. As far as Jet is concerned, he can go to hell," I told Mai.

She knew I was upset with Jet by the tone of my voice.

"Well, I may need your Firebending as an assistant while I tie him to this post," Mai said to me forcing Jet to his feet.

I stared directly into Jet's eyes as Mai held him. Jet knew I was angry.

"I'd be my pleasure," I spoke in a calm voice.

"Y/n, don't do this! - You know that we're meant to be together," Jet protested as Mai dragged him over to the post.

"We were once - But life goes on Jet - Not everything has to stay the same. I moved on from you. You should do the same -"

"I can't," Jet spoke as Mai finished off the knot.

I squatted down in front of him.

"You can,"

Jet almost had tears in his eyes as he looked at me.

"I love you,"

"Then let me go, - There is someone out there for you Jet, but it's not me. - Maybe it was once, but we've grown apart. And deep down you know that. - When you kiss me you try to hard to make the feelings real, when you know they're not -"

"I love you Y/n, I always will,"

I gently took hold of Jet's hand.

"Of course you will, - You'll always love me - I was your first love, and you were mine we will always love each other, but that doesn't mean we should get back together just because we feel our old feelings and we think they're the feelings of now. - I fell in love with Sokka - Deeper than I ever did with you - And that's okay, because that means I can move on, and you need to move on too, -"

"I dont think I could ever let another girl kiss me,"

I exchanged glances with Mai. She gave me a knowing smile. She knelt down beside me, quickly grabbing his face, attaching their lips, kissing him with a passion. I could tell he was surprised, by the look on his face. He didnt even know what to do. Mai and I both stood up at the same time.

"Where's Sokka?" I asked her.

"He's just down that hall, in the third room on your right, - I'll stay here with Jet so he doesnt try anything too crazy. Just be careful of Azula, she could be lurking," Mai warned me.

I nodded to her. Without another word I left them alone, to find Sokka. Azula is going to pay, for even thinking about hurting my man. I headed down the hall, to the room Mai told me of. Sure enough when I entered, there was Sokka sitting against a bed on the floor, tied to the frame. He had his head down looking at the floor. I cautiously entered the room.

"Sokka, -"

He perked his head up, when he heard my voice.

"Y/n! Oh thank God you're here!" Sokka exclaimed as I rushed over to him.

I smiled as I looked into his face. I couldn't stop myself as I touched his face softly.

"Yeah, - I had to come," I told him softly.

I started to untie him.

"I knew you would, love - Jet and Azula are insane. Once I get outta here I'm gonna give them both a piece of my mind,"

"Don't worry baby, Mai is taking care of Jet and I'd suggest leaving Azula to me,"

I helped Sokka stand to his feet.

"What you think I cant handle it?"

I put my hand on his arm.

"No, sweetie that's not it. It's just I dont want you to be in the crossfire of one of Azula's lightning blasts,"

"Fair enough,"

I gave him my sword as a defense mechanism. Just as we started to walk out of the room, I heard footsteps down the hall coming this way. I put my hand on Sokka's chest, stopping him. I waited and listened. Just as they were right outside the door, I blasted them with fire, knocking them back a few feet. Sokka and I rushed out the door. It wasn't Azula like I had thought. It was one of the Dia Lee. I took Sokka's hand and we rushed off together to find her. Once we were outside in the courtyard, we stood there and waited. I could feel the presence of someone around. I listened and waited and made sure of my surroundings carefully. Just as I felt her a few feet behind us, and I knew she was going after Sokka, I stepped in front of him, putting a huge firewall in front of us, to protect him.

"So, I see you've defeated my Dia Lee and my secret weapon," Azula said to me in a challenging tone.

"It wasn't much of a secret weapon, - I mean come on using my ex-boyfriend, you really think I couldn't defeat him?"

"I just thought he was more angry than he actually was - Pathetic really, -"

"Well, now you have no beef with us, so you can let us go willingly," Sokka said to her.

"That's where you're wrong, - You see Jet mentioned something to me about helping me get revenge on Zuko and his friends for betraying me and lucky for me Y/n happens to be one of his best friends since we were kids. Today is just my day," Azula explained to Sokka.

A challenging look crossed my eye.

"Bring it on," I challeneged.

A devious smile passed her as she just stared at me. Just as she shot a huge flame of blue at me, I fired back at the same time with a huge flame of red. Our flames collided making an even larger flame of red and blue in the middle. I wont let Azula win. I'm stronger than she is. And she knows it. That's why she's trying so hard. Azula was trying to fire back stronger, but I was better. I went even larger with my flame, causing hers to dissipate, knocking her to the ground. Anger crossed her face as she looked at me. I stood before her with a determined look to my face.

"You've always been jealous of me Azula. - I can fight better than you - I never focused on my anger as a fuel for my fire. Your Uncle didnt just teach Zuko, he taught me and my sister too. We followed by everything he taught us. And we've stuck to it everyday of our lives since, -"

In her anger Azula got herself up and shot a fire kick at me. I quickly blocked it.

"You should've listened to your Uncle," I told her intimidatingly.

"Oh, I've learned a few things from my Uncle," Azula said to me through her anger.

I watched as Azula got into her familiar stance. I knew exactly what she was doing. I readied myself. Iroh told me I might need to use this to defend myself someday. Azula shot a bolt of lightning my way. It pushed me back as I caught it. I almost couldn't breathe or hold onto it. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the terrified look in Sokka's face. I let that fuel me. In just a few seconds I was the one controlling the lightning. I felt the energy and it was exhilarating, but it was also terrifying. Just as Zuko had stated once before. I redirected the lightning to shoot just past her head, singeing her hair. She was beyond angry as she looked at me.

"I've learned a few things from your Uncle too," I told her now even more intimated.

Sokka stood by me proud as he put his arm around me. I looked over just as our group of friends came running in. And Iroh was there to. Adelina ran over to me trapping me in her arms tightly. Zuko had hold of Azula.

"I am so glad you're safe," Adelina said to me in a slight panic.

"Yes, Lina, I'm fine," I told her.

She leaned away from me.

"It was so awesome! Azula shot lightning at her and she just stood there in firm ground and redirected the lightning at her! She was so cool!" Sokka exclaimed.

I chuckled at Sokka's reaction. I love him so much. It's hard for me not to love him.

If you dont want to be a part of the taglist let me know and I will remove you. I will not unless you ask me to.

Taglist:

@cece-lives-here

@saur20

@la-lay

@cuddlykoala101

@mochminnie

@theblueslytherin

@coldlilheart

@coconutsaiyan

@rosestyles69

@juniperwoodwell

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@fanficflaneuse

@dailytrashypanda

@feelingsarefxtxl

@my-friends-text-posts

@cosmicqueenieb

If you want to be apart of the taglist message me or reply. I'd be happy to add you

[frankiefellinlove]

These were the times...

On April 10 2014 the legendary E Street Band

Was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame.

Bruce Springsteen made the Induction Speech.

In the beginning, there was Mad Dog Vincent Lopez, standing in front of me, fresh out of jail, his head shaved, in the Mermaid Room of the Upstage Club in Asbury Park. He told me that he had a money-making outfit called Speed Limit 25, they were looking for a guitarist, and was I interested? I was broke, so I was. So the genesis point of the E Street Band was actually a group that Vini Lopez asked me to join to make a few extra dollars on the weekend.

Shortly thereafter, I met Dan Federici. He was draped in a three quarter-length leather, had his red hair slicked back. His wife Flo, she was decked out in a blonde bouffant wig, and they were straight out of Flemington, New Jersey. [Cheers] Whoa! Flemington!

Vini, Danny, myself, along with bass player Vinnie Roslin, were shortly woodshedding out of a cottage on the main street of a lobster-fishing town, Highlands, New Jersey. I first saw Garry Tallent along with Southside Johnny when they dragged two chairs onto an empty dance floor as I plugged my guitar into the Upstage wall of sound. I was the new kid in a new town, and these were the guys who owned the place, and they sat back and looked at me like, "Come on, come on, punk, bring it — let's see what you got." And I reached back, and I burnt their house down.

But predating all of this was Steve Van Zandt. Singer! Frontman! Frontman! He was the frontman — I walked into the Middletown Hullabaloo Club, he was the frontman for a band called The Shadows. He had on a tie that went from here down to his feet. All I remember is that he was singing The Turtles' "Happy Together." During a break — at the Hullabaloo Club in New Jersey, you played 55 minutes on and five minutes off, and if there was a fight, you had to rush back onstage and start playing again. So I met Stevie there, and he soon became my great... bass player first, then great guitarist. My consigliere, he's my dependable devil’s advocate whenever I need one. He is the invaluable ears for everything that I create — I always get a hold of him — and fan number one. He's my comic foil onstage, my fellow producer/arranger, and my blood, blood, blood, blood, blood brother, for so long. So, Stevie, let’s keep rolling for as many lives as they’ll give us, alright?

Years and bands went by: Child, Steel Mill, the Bruce Springsteen Band... they were all some combo of the above-mentioned gang. Then I scored a solo recording contract with Columbia Records, and I argued to get to choose my recording "sidemen" — which was a misnomer, in this case, if there ever was one. So, I chose my band, and my great friends, and we finally landed on E Street. A rare, rock 'n' roll hybrid of solo artistry and a true rock 'n' roll band.

But one big thing was missing.

So! It was a dark and stormy night! [Laughs] As a Nor’easter rattled the street lamps of Kingsley Blvd! And in walked Clarence Clemons. I'd been enthralled by the sax sounds of King Curtis and Junior Walker and had searched for years for a great rock 'n' roll saxophonist, and that night Clarence walked in, walked towards the stage, and he rose, towering to my right on the Prince's tiny stage, about the size of this podium, and then he unleashed the force of nature that was the sound and the soul of the Big Man. In that moment, I knew that my life had changed. Miss you, love you, Big Man — we wish you were here with us tonight. This would mean a great, great deal to Clarence.

An honorable mention and shout-out to Ernie "Boom" Carter, the drummer who played on one song only: "Born to Run." He picked a good one, he picked a good one. So here's to you, Ernie. Thank you, thank you.

And thank you of course to Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan, who answered an ad in the Village Voice, and they beat out 60 other drummers and keyboardists for the job. It was the indefatigable, almost dangerously dedicated Mighty Max Weinberg and the fabulous flying fingers of Professor Roy Bittan. They refined and they defined the sound of the E Street Band that remains our calling card around the world to this day. Thank you, Roy. Thank you, Max. They are my professional hitmen! Love you both.

Then, ten years later, Nils Lofgren and Patti Scialfa joined just in time to assist us in the rebirth of Born in the U.S.A. Nils, one of the world's great, great rock guitarists with the choir boy’s voice, has given me everything he’s had for the past 30 years. Thank you, Nils. So much love.

And Patti Scialfa, a Jersey Girl, came down one weekend from New York City and sat in with a local band, Cats on a Smooth Surface and Bobby Bandiera at the Stone Pony, and she sang a killer version of The Exciters' "Tell Him." She had a voice that was filled with a little Ronnie Spector, a little Dusty Springfield, and a lot of something that was her very, very own. After she was done, I walked up, I introduced myself to her at the back bar. We grabbed a couple of stools and we sat there for the next hour — or 30 years or so [laughs]. Talked about music and everything else. So we added my lovely red-headed woman, and she broke the boys club!

I wanted our band to mirror our audience, and by 1984, that meant grown men and grown women. But, her entrance freaked us out so much that the opening night of the Born in the U.S.A. tour, I asked her to come in to my dressing room and see what she was gonna wear. And she had on kind of a slightly feminine T-shirt, and I stood there, kind of sweating. At my feet, I had a little Samsonite luggage bag that I carried with me, and I kicked it open, and it was full of all my smelly, sweaty T-shirts. And I said, "Just pick one of these [laughs]. It'll be fine!" She's not wearing one tonight. But Patti, I love you, thank you for your beautiful voice, you changed my band and my life. Thank you, honey. Thank you for our beautiful children.

Real bands: real bands are made primarily from the neighborhood. From a real time and a real place that exists for a little while, then changes, and is gone forever. They're made from the same circumstances, the same needs, the same hungers, culture, from the same need for a love to cover over hurt. They're forged in the search of something more promising then what you were born into. These are the elements, the tools, and these are the people who built a place called E Street.

Now, E Street was a dance, was an idea, was a wish, was a refuge, was a home, was a destination, was a gutter dream, and finally, it was a band. We struggled together, and sometimes we struggled with one another. We bathed in the glory and often the heartbreaking confusion of our rewards together. We’ve enjoyed health, and we've suffered illness and aging and death together. We took care of one another when trouble knocked, and we hurt one another in big and small ways.

But in the end, we kept faith with each other. And one thing is for certain: as I've said before in reference to Clarence Clemons, I told a story with the E Street Band that was and is bigger than I ever could have told on my own. And I believe that that settles that question. For that is the hallmark of a rock 'n' roll band: the narrative you tell together is bigger than any one of you could have told on your own. That’s the Rolling Stones. That's the Sex Pistols. That's Bob Marley... and the Wailers. That's James Brown... and his Famous Flames. That's Neil Young and Crazy Horse. So, I thank you, my beautiful men and women of E Street. You made me dream and love bigger than I ever could have without you.

And tonight I stand here with just one regret. That's that Danny and Clarence can't be with us tonight. Sixteen years ago, a few evenings before my own induction, I stood in my own darkened kitchen along with Steve Van Zandt. Steve was just returning to the band, after a 15-year hiatus, and he was petitioning me to push the Hall of Fame to induct all of us together. And I listened, and the Hall of Fame had its rule, and I was proud of my independence. We hadn't played together in ten years, we were somewhat estranged. We were just taking the first small steps of reforming, and we didn't know what the future would bring. And perhaps a shadow of the some of the old grudges still held some sway. It was a conundrum, because we'd never been quite fish nor fowl. And Steve was quiet, but persistent, and at the end of our conversation he just said, "Yeah, yeah, I understand... but Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band — that's the legend."

So I’m proud to induct, into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, love-making, earth-quaking, Viagra-taking, testifying, death-defying, legendary E Street Band!

[nylaaaaa]

Little Secret

Chapter 1. Your Secret Is Safe With Me

Name and Surname: Natalie Fleur Estelle

Sex: Female

Date of Birth: 19th August 1692

Place ( Registration 

of      < District                     Cynthell

Birth  ( Sub-District

_________________________________________

"Here's the birth certificate. It has nothing about her parents on it as you suggested." I gave the man standing beside me, who had grown to be a brother to me, a quick, but satisfied, grunt of approval. 

"Thank you. Keep this between us and I'll keep up my end of the deal." Quintin gave me a questioning side glance. I knew he didn't appreciate me bringing up the past but I needed him to keep this between us.

"I don't see why you won't be honest to her. For all we know she might be like you..." I knew what he was suggesting, but I refused to listen. She won't be like me. She can't be like me. I waved him away, annoyance clear as day across my face. He will be annoyed too. We both have secrets. I just don't know whose is worth more.

_________________________________________

Today....

Today is possibly the worst day I'll have in my life. I'm honestly not sure. 

Today I officially turn 18 which, unluckily for me, means I have to add another thing to my job description.

Isaieth adopted me when I was born because my father died and it caused my mum to become a drunk. I don't exactly blame her for leaving and forgetting her troubles with a drink. But I also can't say I'm fond of it. I love Isaieth with all my heart, he feels like an actual father to me. But I sometimes wish I had an actual mother to help me grow as well.

When I was born my father died. No one told me how, I just know it was traumatic enough to make my mother a drunk. Isaieth adopted me when I was 2 after he had an accident that caused him to be deaf and partially blind. He wasn't fit for work anymore so the second I turned an age where I can go to the toilet by myself he taught me how to tend his farm. He makes a business by selling wheat that he grows and whatever we can get from the few animals we own. When I was 16 I found an abandoned lamb who we later discovered was a merino sheep. Merino sheep are, in my opinion, the best sheep you can get. Their carcasses are smaller than the average sheep so they aren't used for meat but rather for the wool that they grow. The average amount of wool the sheep grows is 11kg which is enough for about 11 sweaters. Aswell as the sheep we have 2 chickens, both of which are female. They were actually, in some ways, a gift from the king. The king and Isaieth are best friends almost from birth. They both grew up in royalty but only the king kept it that way. Isaieth was the son of a knight, and so in turn, Isaieth was also a knight. The king was born a prince and then was assigned a knight who happened to be Isaieth. One of the times when Isaieth was protecting the king he ended up getting seriously injured and the king fired him for his own safety. The king doesn't exactly care for the knight's wellbeing but because they were friends he decided a knight was too dangerous for Isaieth. After the event the king offered him a plot of land on the outskirts of the city that was run down and abandoned but had potential for a farm. Isaieth's dream as a boy was to grow old and have his own farm, so like any friend the king got him his own farm. Because of the friendship and countless times Isaieth saved his life our rent was greatly reduced and we were offered a permanent job to make sure we always had the money to pay rent. The job included selling off our produce from the animals. The eggs given to Isaieth was originally just starter food but Isaieth decided to keep them and let them hatch instead. When they grew to be quite old he kept a few of the last eggs they would hatch and did the same thing. The hens we have now are 1 years old, or will be in a few days. We don't get much from our farm but because of the discount on rent sometimes we have enough money to spare to get nice things. The average price of rent can go up to 100 gold.

(100 gold is like 1k, the money in this story is, bronze= pence or cents or whatever is the lowest in your country, silver= pounds or dollars etc and gold= the hundreds +. In simpler terms, but in GBP ((Great British Pounds)) terms, 1 bronze= 1 pence, 1 silver= 1 pound and 1 gold= 100 pound.)

Ours however got put down to 45 gold. It's still a lot that we just about make each month but we're still thankful that he even gave us this place to begin with. He didn't actually have to.

It's also lucky that our farm works well with rent times. Each month you have to go to the castle and pay your rent. If you dont have enough or you skip it they go to your house and either take a child, that becomes their servent who has to work for the money you didn't pay, or they take some belongings that you don't get back unless you pay extra. Luckily we've never seen it first hand but one of my childhood friends ended up becoming a servent from it. I haven't seen her since. Our wheat takes a month to grow so we've always got that to keep our money up. Unfortunately wheat sells cheap, one wheat grain sells for 30 bronze. Every month we grow, on average, 700 wheat grains but have to keep back 350 to replant so we can get 350 the next month too. So on average every month with wheat alone we make 10 gold and 5 silver. Which by itself is almost a quarter of our rent. Replanting and harvesting wheat is one of the most tedious jobs of farming, but maintaining is by far the easiest. You only have to water the plant at most once in summer but otherwise never. All you really have to do is make sure the plant isn't dying and be on your way. The worst job I have is turning the sheeps pelt into wool. She doesn't like to be milked so doing that is an annoyance but I dread making wool the most out of all the farm jobs I have. Next to maintaining the crop the hens are the easiest too. They lay at least one egg everyday, the only thing I have to do is collect the eggs without breaking them and make sure the hens are well fed and have fresh air. With making wool you have to flatten the pelt completely and then tie the strands together to make a really long piece of wool that I have to cut and ball up. It's the worst job on the entire farm but I can't say I hate doing it. My favourite thing is balling it all up after dying it. I'm just thankful all these things take a month to do or we'd be screwed on rent every month.

(Realistically these don't actually take a month, I researched so much to make the story as legit as possible but for story sake I tweaked the timing. Hens do lay one egg a day at least, if properly cared for and also depending on breed. But wheat takes a LOT longer to grow and you can only shave a sheep once a year. I changed the timing of it all tho or I'd have to be even more creative with money and stuff and tbh I'd rather not. Coming up with these ideas for the farm was hard enough.)

On average you get 2 balls of yarn out of 1kg of wool. Luckily for us our merino sheep produces 11kg of wool giving us 22 balls of yarn. 1 ball of yarn sells for 1 gold, so for 22 balls of yarn we make 22 gold. Personally I think it's extremely expensive but it does make sense considering there aren't many sheep around, which also means clothes, blankets and shoes are harder to get. On average with the hens we get 2 eggs a day. 1 egg sells for 25 silver, meaning the 2 we make in a day gives us 50 silver. There's 28 days in a month meaning with eggs alone we make 14 gold. Altogether in one month we usually make roughly 46 gold. As good of an amount as that is, 45 of it has to go to the king, leaving us with roughly 1 gold left. Because we're human and need to eat, bathe and clothe ourselves just like everyone else, whatever's left gets spent on stuff like that. On average every month we spend about 50 silver on food. I have my own plant pots in my room that we use for our own food. There's only 2 of them but in one plant pot I grow strawberries and in the other I grow raspberries. Truth be told if I sold the strawberries and raspberries we'd probably be richer but honestly, we're both kinda used to this life and although we don't have everything we want, we have everything we need. Besides the fruits take 2 months to grow and because of my reputation people would refuse to buy them for their actual price. They just about accept the other things, if fruits were in the mix I'd probably get death glares and 1 bronze for a batch. It doesn't bother me too much though because with whatever odd bit of wheat we had spare from the 700 odd we plant and sell we use that to make bread or pastry, so every 2 months we make the fruits into a jam or crush them and make a pie. My all time favourite activity is making them into pies or bread and jam with Isaieth. It's the only thing we can properly do together. He helps me replant and harvest the wheat sometimes because there's so much of it but usually he just watches from afar. His eye sight is getting worse the older he gets so he helps less and less. It saddens me because I know he doesn't want to go fully blind, we wouldn't be able to communicate at all and what kind of life are you living if you can't see or hear anything. You might as well be dead at that point or you'd be so throughly confused. 

Getting back on track. Today is a bad day because it's the first day where I have to pay for the rent. I've been a few times with Isaieth as a child but I've never gone alone. It's an adults job and should only be done by an adult. But today, aswell as being my birthday, it's also rent day. Isaieth didn't actually want me to do it but I insisted knowing that he would have severe trouble doing it himself. And what's more is that I have to go alone to sell our produce now aswell. I don't put any blame on him and I especially will never complain. But in my head I can feel bitter about the situation. 

I look forward to the day.....

...

No I don't. 

[trynnabemultifandom]

Happy Birthday| Chris Evans x Reader

~~This is just a lil something because it's Chris' big day today. some of these ideas came from my ordeal of planning a party a few weeks ago~~

it was the day before Chris' birthday and I was stressing out. I was planning a surprise party for him for his birthday. it's not like I had to do this but I'm making up for not being there with him last year. I had found a catering company, a dj, and I had also called Chris's family and friends to tell them about the party. Just when I thought I had everything finished, I remembered I had left out the one most important thing out, alcohol. There was only one person to call. I picked up the phone and called Scarlett. if I'm being honest, I was nervous when it took her a while to pick up "Hey Scar, I need you to do me a huge favour" "what d'ya need (Y/N)?" "I need you to go to the store and pick up some vodka, wine and beer for tonight. of course I'll pay you when you drop them down" "yeah sure that's no bother. I'll also help you out with decorating when I get to your house" "thanks Scar"

Time skip to when Scar is at your house

I was in the middle of organising how I was going to decorate the house, there was a knock on the door "Scar is that you?" can never be too careful "yeah it's me" I ran to the door to answer it "you're a life saver" I sighed "anything for my friend. so how's the planning going?" "yeah it's going good. please stop me from color coordinating everything" Scar laughed "you take a break. go have some food, I'll finish this" "thank you. you want some food?" she thought for a moment "no thanks, I'm good. have you got a plan for getting Chris to the house tomorrow?" I nodded "yeah I do with the help of Lisa. No doubt he'll want to go straight to Lisa's when he arrives, but she rang to tell him to come here because she had to go somewhere" she smirks "you thought of everything didn't you?"

I chuckle "couldn't of done it without the help of my friends. plus I'm making up for not being here last year" her smirk grew bigger and I knew what she was going to say next "I'm sure you'll make up for it all right" she winked. I rolled my eyes "Scar we're just friends" truth is, I liked Chris but knew he saw me as a friend so I kept how I felt to myself, not wanting to ruin our Friendship "(Y/N), I see the way you looked at him on set when he was filming his scenes" I just rolled my eyes again "not my fault he's good at what he does and I want to take pointers" she nodded and left it at that

Next Day

I woke up early in order to get my house ready for the party later. I was so excited to see Chris again, I haven't see him since the premiere of Infinity War which was almost a year ago. I was pulled from my thoughts by a knock on the door. I opened the door to see the excited face of Lisa "come on in Lisa" she carried in tryas of food "I ran into the caterers and took these off them" "thank you so much Lisa" she putthe trays down and hugged me "I should be thanking you. Chris is very lucky to have you as a friend and for you to go all out and plan this for him" I hugged her back "I wanted to do something special for him not only because he's my friend but because I wasn't here last year for him" she giggles and I pull away giving her a confused look "he was devistated when you weren't here last year. if I'm being honest, I think he has feelings for you (Y/N)"

I hope that's true "no I doubt it. we're just friends and we've been like since we were 6. he probably sees me as a sister or something" I brushed off what Lisa said and went back to getting stuff set up "hey Lisa, would you mind giving me a hand setting the food out?" "no not at all (Y/N). Scarlett's coming today isn't she?" I nod "yeah they're all coming over in about 20 minutes actually" while Lisa was sorting out the food and hanging the last of the decorations and banners up, I went to get into my dress

I wanted something nice but I didn't want it too dressy or to make it look like I was trying too hard either, my hair was curled at the ends and I had a little bit of makeup on. when I came down the stairs, everybody was here, well except for Chris because he wasn't meant to get here until 6 and it was quarter to at the moment. as soon as I walked into the kitchen, I was bombarded with hugs from them all and tons of compliments. Scarlett and Lisa came over to me and both said how gorgeous I looked. "you look so gorgeous (Y/N)" I smiled "thanks Lisa" I was going to leave to get a drink when I was stopped by Scarlett who whispered "I'm sure Chris would like it too" I rolled my eyes "I'm going to get a drink"

just as I was going to leave, somebody grabbed my arm. I was going to scream in protest but when I turned around, I was relieved to see that it was only Elizabeth Olsen "Elizabeth, ohmygod I was about to scream at you" she hugged me "you look gorgeous (Y/N) and no drinking until the birthday boy gets here" she winked and I laughed "I need something if Scarlett keeps making them comments" Elizabeth rolled her eyes "what has she been saying to you know?" "you know, the usual about Chris, and also that I wore this dress to impress him" "I see where she's coming from but I'll try get her to stop, especially for today" I smiled and hugged her "Thank you Elizabeth" she hugged back "no problem"

"(Y/N), he's coming" shouted Sebastian who was looking out the window "places everyone" I yell. taking a deep breath as I hear a knock on the door, I walk over and open in to see a happy looking Chris "hi Chris" I say as I hug him "hey (Y/N), it's so good to see you" Chris says and returns the hug "so what's the plan today?" he says pulling away from the hug and looked at my dress. I couldn't stop the hint of a blush forming on my cheeks "I'm glad you asked because," I turned to where everyone hid

"SURPRISE" they all jumped out and yelled. I quickly turned to see Chris' reaction, it was honestly the most cutest thing I have ever seen "Happy Birthday Chris" he turned to me and engulfed me in a hug "did you do all this?" he asked. I nod "yes but I couldn't have done it without the help of everybody here" I pulled away and kissed his cheek "thank you so much (Y/N)" I smiled "this is to make up for not being here last year with you" our conversation got interrupted by Lisa "sorry to break up what looks like a good conversation, but I just wanna talk to my boy on his birthday" I nod to say it's ok and go over to the bar where Sebastian is

"(Y/N), hey" Seb gets up with a wide smile and hugs me "enjoying the party?" I hug him back. he pulls away "yeah it's amazing. free food, free booze" I laugh and lightly hit his arm "and seeing your friend on his birthday, don't forget that" he chuckled "yeah that too" we shared more laughs and had more drinks together. during our time together, I could feel eyes on me. I look around the room to see none other than Chris glaring at Sebastian. I smirked and pretended not to notice him, wait why is he glaring at Seb for? does he like me? nah probably not

Sebastian leaned into me "I really like your dress by the way" I blush "thank you. just something I threw on" he wrapped his arm around me "well either way, it looks gorgeous on you" I giggle and hold onto his arm. I think that was the breaking point for Chris because he came marching over to the two of us "hi Seb, I gotta borrow (Y/N) for a chat" Sebastian smirked "yeah no bother" and with that, Chris had grabbed my arm and dragged me to the closest empty room

"what was that about?" I ask him and he scoffs "don't act so innocent doll" I blush at the pet name "I don't know what you mean" "should I talk about how you flirted with Sebastian and didn't try to hide it?" I bit my lip and let a little 'oh' escape "yeah oh. you don't get to flirt with other guys and not get away with it" I gave him a confused look "but we're not even toget-" before I could finish my sentence I was cut off by Chris' lips on mine. i gasp a little in surprise but didn't pull away, instead I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck to pull him in more

when he pulled away, I could feel myself start to blush "how about we change the face the we aren't together?" my eyes widen "Y-you mean-" he nodded "yes I do. (Y/N), do you want to be my girlfriend?" I nod and hug him "yes I do. I never though you would ask. I liked you for so long and your mom and even Scar said I should ask you out but I never though you liked me in that way i always tjought-" again, he cut me off with a kiss. when I pulled away, we both chuckled "shall we go back out to your party Mr. Evans?" he smirked and nodded "we shall Ms. (L/N)" I honestly couldn't have asked for a better night than this. spending it with all my friends and my now boyfriend. that was by far one of the best days ever

[hermankopusortizorsumshite]

You knew Arthur was different. You knew he was smart. You knew more about him than even he knew. Vulko had sent his own daughter to befriend Arthur when he turned 16. As you and Arthur grew up together you began to sound more time being out doing something physical. Whether working out or swimming oceans you and Arthur were always together. As the two of you grew older he became bigger, stronger, his hair grew longer and hung over his shoulders now. His boyish roundness had dissolved to reveal the chiseled features that now stood before you. You weren't particularly sure when his boyish round face had disappeared, but now it was strong and held a nice soft beard. His soft skin now was covered in ink to show his roots, his arms once blank canvases now covered in artwork. His teeth shirts became a leather vest from your father and a tee shirt with the sleeves cut off.

You were both turning 26 years young today, and Arthur had taken you to the bar to drink to it. You two were best friends, after almost ten years you two were as close as you could get. He was there for you and you for him. He was strong and chiseled, you were strong but held a petite cuteness about you.

"I got a question Hun." He whispers, sliding his beer away from him and grabbing your hands. "We've been best friends and almost the same abilities, I don't know what I'd do without you. I know you get scared, but honey, I wanna be more than that. Closer than that. I want you to marry me."

"Arthur Curry! It took you long enough! But Art, we've never dated." You inquire.

"We've been dating longer than we knew. That's why we live together. That's why we've built this life together. We've been dating since we were young. Now I just get to kiss you. When you're awake." He mutters the last part and catches your attention.

"ARTHUR CURRY!" You shriek, busting into laughter and hugging his neck.

"It was a joke my dear. Now answer my question." He rumbles softly in your ear.

"Yes! Arthur I love you. You're my very own anti-hero! Arthur Curry, I love you so much. You are my king both on Earth and in the sea." You whisper, hugging him tighter. He hands you box with a tiny little starfish puffy sticker on top.

When you pop open the box, there's a little wave and quarter sized oval shaped aquamarine gem in the middle, held in by a couple waves. And on the top of the box where the little light it was an angler fish. You laugh hysterically at the fish before Arthur pulls the ring from it's safe harbor and slides it onto your finger, kissing your knuckles.

"Wait til Vulko hears about this." He chuckles, pressing a hard kiss to your forehead.

[jokerownsmysoul]

Omg girl, I've been completely and utterly in love with this chapter and in general the country bar/dance scene since the very first moment you told me about this idea long ago, when you posted it being finally able to read this made me love it even more, and since then I've been looking forward to review this chapter very much! 🥺💙 My late review doesn't match at all to how much I love it 😭💙

At this point is a daily occurrence to say in my reviews: THAT PIC!!!! 😭😭😭😭 Why do you always chose the best pics 😭💙 I haven't started the chapter yet and I was already a bubble of yearning looking at it. I love so much this pic. He radiates a kind of romantic and old fashioned beauty that makes it impossible to resist him. 💙 Lucky us we don't have to 😌😩

As you know I was so in love with this chapter even before I read it because of the country stuff 😂 I simply adore when dancing is involved. This is what Arthur does to me 😭 but when I finally read it, there were so many other things to be in love with this chapter as well 💙 I really love the way the angsty atmosphere we've been getting in these last few chapters is slowly unfold into something lighter for all of them. There are still doubts and insecurities and regrets, but I can sense the heaviness in their hearts slowly begging to wane a bit 🥺💙 but will talk about it more in the depth below the read more 💃🕺

Threw on the cardigan Arthur had worn to bed. Smoky pine paused her, the scent hidden in the hollows of his neck, the creases above his underarms, evoking the stairway and his almost unbearable tenderness. Plucking at the imitation horn buttons, she opened the door. - girl you've no idea how many times I read this paragraph, and each one of them made me yearn as hell. Good lord. 😩😩😩 I love that so many of us headcanon that Arthur's scent tends to these woody kind of fragrances and smoke. We write about different scents, but at the base of them all there's this woody fragrance that link them together and I love it. 😩😩😩 Istg you've no idea how much I yearned over this 😭

He pivoted a quarter turn in Y/N's direction, then stopped in his tracks, a light smile at the corner of his mouth. "Oh, hey." - I could hear him so clearly 🥺

Though she believed - no, knew - that spilling her deepest secrets was the right call, it didn't make her wrongs any easier to live with. At least she could quit failing to pretend. Keep letting him in. - this part was so nice. I loved that talking to Arthur didn’t fix everything all of a sudden, but if anything helped them to feel closer again and made this journey easier 🥺

Mabel flipped through the contents of her closet like she was on a mission from God. - 😂😂😂 LMAO, you always know how to describe these vibes or intentions in the best way!

Y/N shoved the booklet in her bra, winced when the corner stabbed her left nipple. - omgg poor Sarah, my boob hurt reading this and I'm not even kidding 😂

Mabel reappeared, determination dazzling her stare. "We'll be better than mortal man deserves." - HELL YEAH 😌

I love this sistery scene so much! 🥺 You know I love the scenes between them and this one was so lovely. 💙💙💙 Especially after the past scenes and how we left them it was so nice to see them back into a more carefree and lighthearted scenario 🥺

The biggest difference between 1968's Rusty Spur and 1984's was the folding sign at the entrance: "Singles only mingle! $5.00 Koul-Brau pitchers, $2.00 margaritas." Specials that would no doubt lead to bad conversation and worse sex. - one of the many reasons why I love so much your writing is that for each new ambience, set up or anything, you always leave for the reader a little background stories or descriptions, through which we get in touch with the new set up pretty quickly. I really loved to get to know about this place and what Sarah's life was like when she was younger. All these anecdotes and new characters are lovely! 💙 It's beautiful when a writer makes you feel closer and get in touch with new places 🥺

The letters had been traced and retraced into a bold affirmation: "Y/N Itsflecknow." Snorting, she peeled away the label sheet and pressed the sticker to her left breast. - I loved this 😂 it's just too cute! 💙 this little inside joke of Itsflecknow is simply absolutely adorable and makes me giggle every time, I hope to see it again in the future because it's the cutest thing 😭💙 and of course Arthur wrote it 😂

"Arthur was in your way in the grocery store. And instead of asking him to move, you decided to ask him out." - LOL. I love Mabel 😂 you worked this pun so well. It made me giggle but at the same time I got so melancholic thinking about this chapter. If there's one thing I'm sure about is that I'm going to read WWH in a flash when this story will be done. I just have to, for each chapter I get a little more nostalgic. 😭😭😭 It's going to be also a nice way to elaborate and mourn the ending of this wonderful story 😂😭 I'll miss it! 💙

"[...] He left me no choice after our first date, helping me into my coat and bragging about dancing." - I really can't blame her. How could you ever possibly resist him? 💙💙💙

"Something light and easy for girls who had their monthly, which I had every other week to get out of gym class." - This made me crack up omfg 😂😂 same Mabel, same. 💀

"Look at you, marrying a square like Y/N." / "I'm more of a cube, thank you," Y/N said. - JFMHDMHDMGDGNDMHDKHD I was laughing so hard at this! 😂😂 I swear, that I could read about Mabel and Sarah's teasing back and fort all day!! ❣️🤗 Something I love about them is the fact that although they're two sisters with different life goals, wishes and mannerisms, there are so many things that they have in common. And I love that one of them is definitely their humor. 💙 They may be different for some things but the way they tease each other is the same and I love it 😂🤗❣️

A sharp laugh escaped Arthur, a tad exaggerated. - I can hear it crystal clear ❣️❣️

"It's too bad you didn't marry Arthur the first time. We could have made a real country boy out of him." / "Well, I would've liked knowing you. Maybe I could have helped. With what you told me earlier. / That he would suggest adopting that role earlier was a reminder that responsibility had been thrust on him at way too young an age. And an echo of his innate goodness. - ahhh my heart 😭 this part was so heartfelt to read, I hadn't seen it coming at all and got my little heart v hard 🥺 having Arthur say something like this because he's gotten the role of the man of the house in such a young age is very insightful. I love this paragraph 🥺 you have this talent that I really admire of getting into his life and explain why he behaves the way he does so easily, and to narrate them through the most nuanced and different scenes and habits 🥺

There it was again: her pattern of narrating action. [...] A way to sidestep when matters of the heart were too heavy to bear. - 💙💙💙💙 this paragraph made me so soft. I loved getting to know this little habit of Mabel, I don't know how to explain it but it made her very human and three-dimensional. 🥺 The fact that she got it from their mother pulled at my heartstrings 💙

Y/N sipped at her margarita. For all the love, admiration, adoration she had for her parents, it struck her that their family hadn't ever really acknowledged the hard times. [...] It was the story of their generation, who'd missed out on feminism and popular psychology. Who'd lived and lost through a world war. - loved this paragraph 💙💙💙 I really appreciate the many things historical period-related that you've been mentioning in the last few chapters. Tells a lot of the kind of v talented writer you are! 🥺💙

"Please. If I want to sleep tonight, I need to say this." She put both palms flat on the table. "Letting you down, leaving you to do it all was stupid. I was wrong. If visiting is too much, too hard, I'll understand if you can't again."// "I forgave you for all that a long time ago." /////////// "You always were the wiser one. Any tips on forgiving myself?" / "That'll come," Y/N whispered, a wish upon the neon star above the bar.

- 💙💙💙💙💙 I was so happy and relieved to read this! 🥺💙 After all they went through its nice that they finally were able to express their regrets and feelings like this. Even if from the other's part there was no reason it was clearly something they needed to do if anything for themselves, which doesn't make it less important or necessary. Now I hope they both will be able to forgive and be kinder to themselves too 🥺💙

"Wow, look at him go." - 💙💙💙💙 my heart smiled reading this. I did look at him go in my mind. 🥺 I could see him so clearly dancing his heart away in the crowd, doing what he loves with the graceful and carefree attitude of his that pops up every time he dances. What a beautiful image 💙

Movements a mix of grace and erraticism - ahhh I loved this! It's such a great way to describe the way he dances, how he can both be graceful and chaotic. I love this about him so much and the words you picked to describe it are perfect! 💙

It was as though music resided in him, possessed his body, fought his insecurities to burst forth. With the gladness animating his joints, he stood out from the jostling crowd like a robin against a dreary winter sky. - I could read about Arthur dancing forever, I loved this paragraph so much. 🥺💙🥺💙🥺💙 I love that when he dances his insecurities make a step backwards. I love that he can find all of this through dancing. 💙

A robin that was all hers. - ❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️

Ahh finally here it comes the scene I was waiting for 😭😭😭😭 again, when I read the chapter I fell in love with every single thing but you know I couldn't wait to read this specific moment at the country bar while they're hanging out 😭‼️

Two women at the bar gestured at him, giggling and gossiping, Who is this Guy grins on their faces. - 🤭🤭🤭🤭 relatable. I love this 👉🏻👈🏻 I would've loved to know about his reaction 😂

A fantasy he'd disclosed over late-night chamomile dawn on Y/N, a flight of fancy that'd made him flush like a schoolboy in health class. - I can't even explain how BRILLIANT is this move girl. ‼️‼️‼️‼️Bringing his fantasy to life was already the most beautiful thing ever, but having Sarah work his fantasy out in this kind of dynamic, with the night for singles and the whole set was just pure genius. I love this 🤩🤩🤩💙💙💙 that's so fucking brilliant girl. 😭‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️What he fucking deserves ‼️‼️‼️

This was singles night, right? They were supposed to be strangers. She'd gone undercover before. This was a role she could play. - FUCKING BRILLIANT I TELL YOU ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️also made me think of that chapter of WWH about the Wayne case and it was so lovely to remember that 😭

She cupped her palm to the side of her mouth to compete with the beat. "Hey, what's your name?" / Surprise made him momentarily motionless, but then he flashed a playful smile. "Arthur." / "Hi, Arthur. You're a wonderful dancer." / "I know." - 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠 girl help THIS IS TOO MUCH

Arthur drew closer and offered Y/N his arm. "You are pretty good at line dancing. How are you always stepping on my toes at home?" - that was adorable 💙💙

Laughter wrinkled the bridge of his nose. Splaying his fingers on the small of her back, he guided her a gentle sway. "I like this better." - I loved this 😭😭😭 of course he loves it more. 😭😩 WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME YEARN LIKE THIS ‼️ hell, I would like this better too if I got to be in his arms the way she is 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

A woman's voice enveloped them, pining for her sweet Funny Face. Lyrics of apology flamed Y/N's cheeks. [...] "I'm sorry." / "Just dance with me." His fingertips whispered along the strap of her camisole. - the way you worded this moment was so beautiful, I got such a wonderful image in my mind. 🥺💙🥺💙 It was wonderful to read this scene while listening to the song you linked. Ahhh I could read it a thousands of times and it's not so different from what I did actually 😭‼️ the way they apologize, with this kind of song while dancing and after all they went through was something I'm sure we readers needed as much as they did. 🥺💙 There's something extremely tender and somehow comforting about make peace and amends after an argument, especially the kind they had, which I think was one of the biggest ones they went through you've written so far. 🥺 I've missed this kind of energy between them 💙 the dancing only made it more precious 😭

"Y/N..." He cupped her face, held her like a bauble of blown glass, thumbs skimming a line to the apples of her cheeks. Her pulse quivered in her neck, raced until she could have sworn it had stopped. A curl brushed her forehead, gentle breath caressed her face. Though sweat flattened his hair, and the polyester of his shirt served as memory foam for stale body odor, he'd never been so beautiful. Clear green irises locked upon hers. "I wouldn't love you more if you were perfect." Then he caught her in a supple kiss. - 🥺💙🥺💙🥺💙🥺💙 this got my silly little weak heart, girl. 😭😭😭 This is one of the most beautiful lines I've read 💙💙💙💙 and the way this paragraph is worded... Just wow 🥺💙 God, every single girl on this planet deserves an Arthur Fleck. 😂🤦🏻‍♀️💆🏻‍♀️ The way he touches her and takes care of her just ‼️‼️‼️‼️ damn you Mr. Fleck 😩

His lips parted in a way that made her want to drink from them forever. When his tongue swept the corner of her mouth, she stood on her toes and pressed into his body, a column of inviting comfort. Now that he'd seen her, all of her, it felt like they were meeting for the first time. And with hiding no longer possible, perhaps the seed of grace he'd planted would one day blossom, allow her to heal. Heart in her throat, her grip went to his forearms, begged him to never let her go. To brighten blue rainbows and push her up hills. To find her again and again and again. - seriously these two paragraphs made me lose my mind, they're so wonderful and beautifully described. 🥺💙 I can't even articulate how amazing they're. I could quote every single word out of them and in fact I'm doing it. 😭 I said it before but after this journey and what they went through their bond will be only stronger, and this little moment shows it. 💙 You have no idea how many times I've read these paragraphs 😭

He looked slightly puzzled, as if he'd simply done what a husband was supposed to do and therefore didn't need it. Before he could ask her to elaborate, she bent to him and stole another smooch. - 💙💙💙💙💙 I loved this 🥺 i want a little artie too 🙇🏻‍♀️

She clipped her coin purse shut. "I couldn't stand it anymore," she said, holding up four fingers to their waitress. The waitress nodded and headed to the bar. "I called Ed. He's gonna order a pizza and give Jason twenty bucks to watch the kids. It's our turn to make you two jealous." - this made me crack upppppp I love Mabel so much 😂😂😂 I'm going to miss her and reading about hernv much! 💙

Ahhh I wish I could say more about these lasts few paragraphs and the ending, but seriously it's so beautiful. The way they interact with each other and kiss and love and just everything they do is simply perfect. I've missed all of this and I wish I could articulate more how much I adored all of this and how good this part is crafted. 😭 I just yearn terribly.

What a wonderful chapter. The ending of WBH is getting closer and I'm not prepared 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Way Back Home - Chapter 11

Chapter links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Summary: Arthur married Y/N a year and a half ago. Now it’s time to meet her family in Missouri. Believing that building a life in Gotham had excised the pain of the past, Y/N accepts Mabel’s invitation to visit, unaware her little sister has hurdles of her own. What starts as a wish to connect becomes an exercise in old wounds. Y/N must choose to face them with Arthur - or alone.

Chapter warning: Swearing

Words: 3,421

A/N: Lots of hugs and gratitude to @jokerownsmysoul and @iartsometimes​ for beta reading! 🤗 And a shoutout to @sweet-nothings04 for the brainstorming session that helped crack the structure of this chapter! 💜

One item was on Y/N’s agenda this morning: aspirin.

Sprawled on her stomach, a flapjack of fatigue, she reached out from under the covers to feel around the nightstand. Fingertips met the familiar curve of a lamp, but the usual glass of water was missing. She hooked her pointer through the drawer pull, tugged once, twice, only to be denied. A grunt rumbled through her chest, reverberated through her throbbing skull. She flung the blanket to her waist, snailed across Arthur’s side of the bed, and blinked at the clock.

2:17 PM

Oh, fuck.

Continua a leggere

[firekracker77]

A Match Made In Heaven

Hi guys! This is my first fanfic I have done so I decided on doing a Perfect Match fanfic since PM is one of my favorite stories.

In this fanfic, we pick up on what happens after Hayden's housewarming party. I felt like a 3rd book would have tied up any loose ends but my imagination will work I suppose lol

I love the blonde haired blue eyed male Hayden and he's the only one I play as on the game. He's too cute!

Disclaimer: All Perfect Match characters belong to Pixelberry as well as some dialog.

Rating: I'm setting it as 18+ due to some smut and swearing. It wouldn't be Perfect Match without sex now would it? 😉

Trigger Warning: Anger towards the idea of Adoption (remember it's how HAYDEN feels, not me.)

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CHAPTER 1

As I watched all of mine and Hayden's friends leave his housewarming party at 5 am in high spirits and a bit too buzzed from drinks, Hayden sat down on his couch looking absolutely exhausted.

"Riley, I could sleep for just about forever", he groaned.

"You can start on that after I leave", I teased.

I turn to leave when I feel arms wrapping around my waist. Hayden smooshes his face into my stomach then says, "Wait..before you go, this is important..I love you."

"I love you too Sleepyhead", I reply, kissing his forehead.

"Hayden..." I hesitate but with a deep breath I continue, "Can I come by around noon? I have something on my mind that I'd like to discuss with you."

Hayden sits up straight, looking alarmed. "Are you okay Riley?"

I stare into his beautiful blue eyes and almost lose myself in them. He is so gorgeous, I think to myself.

"Yeah I'm more than okay", I say with a smile. It's nothing bad, just something I wanna talk over with you."

He breathes a sigh of relief. I didn't realize until now how stressed Hayden must be after everything we'd just been through. He endured it so well I thought, but maybe he just suppressed his fear and anxiety on my behalf. If anyone deserved a massage, it was him. How I wish he would have taught me his amazing massage skills!

"Sounds good! I'll make us some lunch while you're here", he beamed.

"Good night baby," I whispered, kissing him softly.

"You mean Good Morning!" Hayden smiled.

I woke up at 11 am, after 5 hours of tossing and turning off most of the time I was in bed. After a quick shower and blow drying my hair, I brushed my hair up into a ponytail then grabbed a cup of coffee in hopes the caffeine would perk me up.

I spray on some of the perfume that Hayden bought me for my birthday last month. I breathe in the scent in deep and think of him.

I quickly put on the new outfit I bought 2 days ago. Hayden hasn't seen this one so I hope he likes it. The crop top is a beautiful baby blue, like Hayden's eyes and has a delicate flower print. The denim shorts I paired with it are..well, form-fitting and are short like booty shorts. I slip on my sneakers and head out the door.

It's quarter to 12 noon when I leave. I arrive at his apartment door right on time and I knock on his door.

"Riley!" Hayden grabs me in a crushing bear hug. "I'm so happy you're here. I missed you." His eyes scan my body from head to toe. "Wow..you look so sexy", he blushes.

"Hayden, watch the super strength babe", I choke out gasping.

"Sorry!" He sheepishly grins. "Come on in!"

He invites me over to the couch and sits beside me. "Oh would you like anything to drink? I have iced tea, milk, water, and...booze", he giggles.

"No thanks, I just wanna talk", I replied.

Hayden's face takes on a serious look. "You upset?" he asks worriedly.

"No, nothing's wrong. Hayden, I..." His eyes are fixed intently on mine, locked in.

"Yes?"

"Hayden, I have been thinking about where you and I go from here. We've been through so much together. Damien gave me a key to his apartment but..." My words trailed off.

"But?.." Hayden prods.

"But I only want to be with you and you alone." I pause then continue. I had asked you at Nadia and Steve's housewarming party out on the fire escape if you thought you and I could have that someday and you seemed open to the idea."

"I was, yes." He replies.

"Well, do you still feel that way now?" I shyly asked.

Hayden looks at me wide-eyed, as if the idea just dawned on him.

"Of course I do! I know everything's been crazy and a whirlwind but the truth is, I was gonna ask you the same thing", he admitted.

"Hayden, I'm so in love with you it's unreal. You're the first person I think of every single day. You're constantly on my mind. I miss you so much when we aren't together..." My words trail off as tears form in my eyes, everything going blurry.

Hayden wraps his strong arms around me gently, stroking my back then kisses the top of my head. "Same here. I'm honestly miserable when you're not here Riley." he admits.

My tears fall and Hayden gently wipes them away. "Riley, I would love nothing more than to have you here with me all the time. I love you so much it scares me but..." he trails off.

Oh God he's gonna say something like things aren't working out...I panic inside.

Hayden looks at me then says, "Stay here for a sec. I'll be right back."

He goes into his bedroom and after a few minutes, he stands in front of me. I can tell he's nervous about something and that's making ME nervous.

"Riley, close your eyes please."

I do what he asks but can hear his feet shuffling. "Okay open your eyes," I hear him say.

I open my eyes and gasp. Hayden is kneeled down on one knee with a velvet ring box open in one hand. Hayden takes a deep breath and then says..

"I've told you that I loved you many times. I told you at the Gala that I had fallen in love with you during combat practice in Indonesia but I think I actually fell for you after our first date. I may be a Match who was programmed to think and behave according to the personality traits you found desirable but THIS is something I've thought about many times on my own."

Hayden takes my left hand in his free hand and continues.

"Riley, love of my life and keeper of my heart, will you marry me?"

I sit there stunned as if the wind had been knocked out of me. My heart starts racing and my tears fall once again. "Oh God Hayden...YES, a thousand times YES!" I cry, kissing his soft lips.

When we part, Hayden's face is literally shining with happiness. A smile so big it goes ear to ear, his eyes glittering with tears. He stares at me then embraces me again.

He lets go then gently takes the ring out of the box. "Look at what's inscribed on the inside of the band." I look closely and see the words- Riley + Hayden = Forever.

He takes the ring and slides it on my left ring finger. The half carat diamond solitaire sparkles brilliantly. "It's beautiful but it doesn't hold a candle to you," he gushes.

"I have to call Nadia and let her know about our engagement!" I excitedly proclaim. "She's gonna want to see the ring too."

"She already has, hon." Hayden smiles. "She..uh, bought it. But I told her I'd be paying her back once I start my career and make some money." He continues, " But she didn't know when I would propose."

"You two are something else!" I playfully poke his ribs.

Hayden laughs and stands up. "I'm going to go make us some lunch now. What sounds good- sloppy joes or chicken alfredo?"

"Either one sounds good to me babe," I reply.

_________________________________________

Chapter 2

We talk and laugh into the late evening then I ask Hayden when he would like for me to move in.

"Tomorrow. I don't wanna wait any longer. Tonight though, you're mine. Please stay the night with me Riley," he implored.

I reply, "You don't have to ask me twice."

I grab Hayden's hand and lead him to the bedroom. I embrace him tightly, devouring his mouth with fervent kisses. Hayden groans and shoves his tongue in, kissing me as hard and as deep as he can. I rake my nails down his back and he comes up for air, gasping and says, "Clothes off NOW". He tries to help me but his hands are shaking with desire and his movements are uncoordinated. I quickly strip him down and take a look at his naked body.

"You have such a sexy body, you know that?", I say.

Hayden replies, "EROS was evil as hell but they knew how to build a decent body."

"Hayden, take me now please..I can't wait any longer.."

His blue eyes flash ravenously. "Then get on your knees on the bed," he growls.

"I do as he asks and he positions himself behind me, his hard shaft begging for entry. Grabbing onto my hips, Hayden slides his entire length deep inside then shudders.

"Oh God Riley!" he gasps.

With every thrust forward he makes, I slam back, taking him as deep as I can. Hayden is huge so he stretches me with every thrust.

Before long all we hear is skin slapping skin, moans and groans begging each other to go faster and rougher. As I get to the edge, I tell Hayden to stop so I can flip over onto my back.

He wraps one arm around me and flips me over like a pro. I throw my legs over his shoulders, which changed the angle and allowed him to go even deeper. We hang onto each other tight, my nails raking red lines down his back. Hayden sucks on my breasts, panting hard. Both of us are so sweaty, it runs down our faces and bodies.

I beg him for more but he's giving me every inch. Finally I feel the familiar warm tingling. "Hayden..I'm gonna come!" I shout.

He pounds harder and says, "I got you baby, give it to me." My warm juices flood over his dick, pouring down his thighs. "Oh damn! Riley..yes.."

I feel the hard throbbing as he gives a final loud moan which gives way to shaking and finally he rolls over beside me breathing hard.

"Baby...you are incredible," Hayden sighs.

We lay in comfortable silence. Hayden slowly stroking my back, smiling.

"Hayden?"

"Hmmm?"

"Will you want kids someday?"

Hayden stops stroking my back and is quiet, deep in thought but frowning. Finally with a sigh, he replies.

"I would love that but I can't..."

I reply, "What about adoption?"

"Riley, if you want me to be honest, that'd be my last resort. I want a biological child."

"I know Hayden and so would I but that's not possible for us."

Hayden sits up, an angry frown on his face.

"Why didn't you make Damien your one and only then? At least he could probably give you a baby. I'll never be able to!"

With that, Hayden jumps up and quickly gets dressed.

"Hayden?!" I didn't mean..."

"Don't worry about it. The engagement is off." He storms out the door slamming it hard behind him.