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utahimeow · 1 year ago

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even death will not do us part — satoru gojo

summary — your wedding day with satoru gojo is not exactly conventional.

pairing — satoru gojo x f!reader

warnings — slightly suggestive beginning, pure fluff, established relationship

word count — 3.9k

author’s note — for satoru’s birthday ♡ i put my heart and soul and blood and sweat and tears into this and i hope u can tell. it may be the best writing i’ve ever done, so if u read it, thank u and i love u. also it’s like extremely sappy so pls keep that in mind lol

After a seemingly endless night, tendrils of golden sunlight come crawling through the blinds. They dance over your flesh that’s dotted with soft bites from your lover, and warm it like soft kisses until your eyes peel open.

Satoru’s already awake, ocean eyes gazing at you. A wave of memories of how he touched you so ardently the night before comes washing over you. After it, a wave of heat, his lustful poetry echoing in your mind until it pools between your thighs. Finally, the heat subsides into something warm, a gentle glow which settles within your ribs.

“Good morning,” your lover rasps, voice heavy with sleep.

You reach out to him until your hand finds his face, your fingers grazing over soft pink skin, your thumb tracing the ridge of his cheekbone. He’s slightly puffy, eyes still ever so slightly droopy, but slumber is not the only thing that simmers in them.

“Good morning,” you reply, your words hoarse yet covered in honey.

For a while, neither one of you says anything, instead basking in one another. Satoru drinks in the sight of you laying next to him, gulps and gulps and gulps it down like it’s red wine, until he’s drunk.

“Marry me,” he says. Time stops moving and your heart stops beating momentarily. Your mouth tries to move, tries to give a response, but every word you’ve ever learned suddenly abandons your memory.

He laughs, so obnoxiously beautiful, but within his eyes that carry a millennium of history there is only pure sincerity.

It shouldn’t surprise you this much—his question—not when Satoru had long since carved a space inside your heart, and you in his. You’d been together so long that sometimes you both forgot you weren’t married, and Satoru had a habit of casually stating things like “when I make you my wife”, because it was undisputed that he would marry you.

Still, somehow you didn’t see it coming, and not like this. Satoru Gojo was a man of grandeur–always dramatic, always making a scene, always showing off in some shape or form, whether it was you or his cursed technique. The last place you would expect him to propose was in bed at ten a.m. after a night where he made you see God himself. Although, the more you think about it, this is where he is home. Where he bears the deepest parts of his being to you and where he may shed the weight of a society that idolises him as a god. Where he can ask you to marry him as just Satoru.

“Don’t go shy on me,” he says, still amused by your disbelief.

“I-yes. Yes, I’ll marry you,” you say, sobbing out a laugh, launching yourself into his embrace and burying your face into his bare chest.

“What if we did it today?” he asks, his voice reverberating through you until it almost puts you back to sleep.

“Did what?” you ask.

“Got married.”

Your head shoots up, your eyes flitting rapidly over each of his nonchalant features. Once more, you don’t find a single hint that he’s kidding. “You’re insane.”

“You love me for it,” he says, his face like a mischievous cat’s. “And I can’t spend another minute without you being my wife, so please, elope with me.”

Unlike Satoru, you were never exactly one for grand gestures. He knew you never had dreams of a big fairytale wedding with hundreds of guests or a giant hall, and it’s precisely one of the reasons why he’s asking this of you.

“The higher-ups are going to be pissed,” you say, leaning in close to his face until there’s hardly a hair’s width between your noses.

“That’s the point,” he tells you. “Is that another yes, then?”

You stare into the depths of his irises, the ones that are swimming with adoration, the ones that have never changed how they stare at you, even after all these years. Not that you had any doubts before, but suddenly you’ve never wanted anything more. The feeling settles into your bloodstream, to your bones, to the very core of your being–certainty.

“Yes, Satoru, I’ll elope with you,” you say, and then your lips are on his. There’s a million words in the way he kisses you, ones that he would never be able to speak even if he tried, so he kisses you and kisses you in hopes that you’ll understand them. He kisses you like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. It is.

You part, sorrowfully, heads spinning, but then you remember you have things to do.

“I need to start getting ready,” you say, and you already know exactly what his response will be–a groan, a whine, and him begging you to stay in his arms for a little while longer.

He does just that.

“Satoruuu,” you say, mimicking the way he whines your name. “The sooner I get ready the sooner we’ll be married. Isn’t that what you want?”

He pouts for the sake of pouting, then his arms loosen around your waist and you leave him with a peck upon his lips before tossing yourself out of bed.

You spend the next hour and something at your vanity, having never imagined that your wedding day would leave you doing your own hair and makeup.

After Satoru brings you a cup of coffee and plants a chaste kiss to your temple, he heads to the bathroom to shower, leaving you to finish getting yourself ready. When he returns twenty minutes later, he finds you standing in your walk-in closet in only your bra and underwear, looking terribly focused. You don’t need to be a mind-reader to know he wants to tell you to go as you are—he refrains, however. It’s a miracle that he’s able to.

“You should wear that white dress you have. The one with the sleeves,” he suggests, flapping his arms and immediately you know which one he’s talking about. A plain white minidress with flared mesh sleeves and sweetheart neckline that you wore to a fancy dinner once. You fish it out, and Satoru approaches you as you step into it and pull it up your hips. Wordlessly, he zips the back up, holding his breath as he does.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to see me yet,” you quip, giggling when you turn to face him.

“Baby, there’s nothing conventional about how we’re getting married,” he grins, giving your ass a tap as you walk past him to pick out your jewellery.

Of course, he insists on putting your necklace on for you too, a dainty Tiffany chain with a diamond sun pendant that he gifted you for your birthday years back because he liked to call you his sun. Again, the feather-light brush of his fingers over your skin sends bolts of lightning shooting to your fingertips. It’s reminiscent of the way he made you feel a decade ago, before he had even kissed you for the first time, when his cheesy, cat-like smile would send your heart racing and heat rushing to your face. When butterflies would erupt in your belly and you felt like you were floating. For some reason you found it hard to believe that feelings like that would persist, but it is in Satoru’s blood to prove you wrong, and he did, and he does still.

You decide on a pair of glimmering white Jimmy Choo heels, but before you can even think to put them on, Satoru is on his knees, softly grasping each leg of yours so he can slip the shoes on and carefully tighten the straps one by one. It’s something that never fails to make you giddy–to make you question if you’re even worthy of this man (you know you are, after all he’d spent the last few years doing everything in his power to prove to you that he’s the lucky one between you). Still, you think it’s perfectly valid to wonder what you’ve done to deserve someone like this.

Satoru stands then, a perpetual smile upon his glossy pink lips. He’s in a pair of pressed black slacks that hug his thick, toned legs, and a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the top buttons left open (because you always tell him you like how good he looks) and nothing to cover his eyes. You’re the only person he’ll be looking at today, after all. He’d die before letting anything obscure his view of you.

He takes your hand and raises it into the air and twirls you around, his eyes drinking in every detail of you, inhaling your sweet, angelic scent, and now it’s his turn to wonder how he managed to get so lucky, as if it doesn’t occupy his mind from the very second he wakes up to the moment he falls asleep.

He’s still unlearning the idea that he’s alone because it was all that he ever knew from the day that he was born. He’s always had friends and caretakers and people who admired him and who depended on him and who worshipped him, but he was always there at the top, the closest thing to a god that a human could be—by himself. No one could possibly understand him enough to be by his side, not really. Then one day you came along and you slithered your way into the cracks and crevices of his very being and refused to budge, and you showed him that he’s not alone, that there are people who he can trust and depend on and people who he can love.

He never lets go of your hand, pulling you close to his chest and grinning down at you. His eyes gleam with a mischief that’s all too familiar, one that’s got you instantly suspicious.

“Please don’t hate me,” he says but it’s without any real concern.

You have an inkling as to what he’s planning, but you don’t even get the chance to open your mouth to question him because one moment you’re standing in the foyer of your home and the next you’re outside of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

He predicts the way you smack his chest and whine out a mildly irritated “Satoru!”–it only makes him grin harder, because he knows how much you hate when he teleports you without warning, but right now he just can’t wait another moment (and neither can you) so you don’t have it in you to be genuinely displeased.

As he makes his way to the entrance, you tug on his arm suddenly to stop him after a certain realisation hits you.

“Satoru, don’t we need a witness?” you ask.

His eyes narrow in thought and he looks around, cartoon-like, before his face fills with resolution and he’s strolling away from the building with you in tow.

“Excuse me,” he exclaims, and you follow his gaze to where an older couple are walking by, hands intertwined. They turn to him inquisitively, so he continues. “My gorgeous fiancée here and I are about to be wed. All of our friends were too busy today, so we don’t have any witnesses. Would you spare a moment of time for a young, smitten couple?”

You roll your eyes, but the grin smirk your lips betrays you. “We’re sincerely sorry for interrupting your day. What my insufferable fiancé here means to say is we would appreciate it greatly if you would be our witnesses.”

The couple take a glance at one another, silently communicating before they face you and Satoru once more, nodding their heads.

“It’s our day off, we were just going to walk around the city anyway,” the lady explains, her pale, weathered lips stretching into a gentle smile.

Thus, you waltz into the city hall altogether, and only now does it begin to settle in that you’re about to marry Satoru Gojo. The morning had gone by so quickly– you’d only been awake less than four hours, and during that time you never once stopped to let any of it sink in.

Now, it sinks in. All the way to your core, to the fibres and cells that make up your being. Inside your ribs your heart is swollen, filled to the brim with scarlet red until it overflows and paints everything around it, until every part of you, every seam that holds you together has been altered, touched by something that Satoru gifted you on the first day you met him.

Your lover seems to move in slow motion. Your breath is caught in your throat. It’s a dream, you’re sure of it. Then Satoru squeezes your hand, ever perceptive of your thoughts, and reminds you that it’s not.

After gathering a pile of documents, a man in a suit takes you to a room that’s a smaller version of a court and begins to lay out the papers, simultaneously explaining each one’s purpose and indicating what you and Satoru must fill out. You provide him with your own documents–birth certificates and proof of residence, and then the two strangers who had offered themselves to you as witnesses give their signatures.

Your officiant makes his speech in a professional language, far from the flowery words given by priests or family friends in churches or venues adorned with flowers and ribbons along every wall.

Lack of preparation means your vows are a repetition of a script written decades ago: you take Satoru to be your husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.

During Satoru’s turn, he hesitates. His eyes shine with a strange epiphany as he stares down at you.

“...From this day forward, until the end of time. Even death will not do us part.”

There are no words in any language, dead or alive, that are adequate enough to describe the elation you experience. There is no concept, idea, or theory that would truly reveal the way that you are consumed by love for him. It runs through your bloodstream, intrinsic to your very being.

The officiant announces that you and Satoru are husband and wife. Now you are one flesh and bone. He leans forward, kisses you, and it’s a promise of eternal devotion.

Outside of the city hall, where time no longer stands still but you still feel as though you are not inside of your body, your husband Satoru Gojo bows to the man and woman who made your marriage possible.

Satoru Gojo does not bow. And while it is easy to attribute it to some god complex, to the product of his upbringing, as many do, those to whom Satoru has shown his soul know that it is rebellion. It is the denial of a convention he refuses to assimilate with, one he does not believe in, one which begs children to be grateful to those who have sown them as though they had the choice to be sown.

When Satoru Gojo does bow, it is not without good reason. Most often it is only when he owes someone his life—so he bows to the two strangers, whose signatures on a piece of paper mean that he is eternally yours.

Beside him, you bow too.

“Thank you,” Satoru says, then both of you straighten up to find the couple smiling before you. There is kindness etched into every line on their face, a fondness simmering in their eyes. Their arms are linked, and all of a sudden you’re looking in a mirror.

“Congratulations on your marriage,” the woman says. “I’m certain you will flourish together.”

“You know, young people are always getting into relationships, but seeing true love like what you have with one another… It’s a rare thing nowadays. Please cherish that,” the man says.

“We’ll be forever grateful for you,” you say. “Thank you.”

The four of you part, but the couple, whose names you do not know, now lives in a part of your mind that can never be erased.

The first thing Satoru does as your husband, as you walk down the streets of Tokyo with your hands laced together, is suddenly disappear into a flower shop as you pass by it, before emerging once more and handing you a bouquet of crimson carnations and white roses with a cheshire cat smile on his face.

“Your wedding bouquet,” he says.

“Oh, Satoru, they’re beautiful,” you muse, allowing your nose to absorb their earthy scent. “Thank you.”

You tug him by the hand that’s woven with yours, pulling him down to plant a kiss upon his cheek.

The next stop is a jewellery store, and you yelp as Satoru pulls you inside with him this time.

“Pick whatever ring you like, baby,” he tells you as you stand before the glass case where thousands of crystals glimmer back at you, splayed out on a bed of white. “Just to wear until you pick your actual one.”

Blood warms your face. It’s not meant to be a brag. Even if he didn’t have generations of wealth in his bank account, he’d buy you as many rings as you wanted until you found the perfect one. For you, he would find a way.

Your eyes wander over every diamond, over gold and silver and platinum, and it’s not long at all before they all start to look the same. Not wanting to spend your entire wedding day inside a jewellery store, you land on a simple diamond-studded silver band and point it out to Satoru.

“That one?” he asks.

You nod, a satisfied smile making your lips curl.

Satoru flags down the jeweller, a thin woman with shiny skin, requesting the ring you want. She tells him each of the five diamonds weighs 0.2 carats, making the ring a total of one carat, as if it’ll make a difference to either of you. He doesn’t ask her for the price, but she tells him it’s 550,000 yen—practically theft for someone from the Gojo clan.

After picking out a matching plain silver band for himself, you and Satoru leave the store and continue strolling through the city. To everyone else, you look like no more than an enamoured couple like the millions of others in Tokyo, and while a part of Satoru feels like he wants to wander up to random strangers to brag to them that you’re his wife, another part cherishes this little secret between you two.

From the day he was born, Satoru Gojo’s wedding was to be a grand affair. Sorcerers from far and wide would gather to witness the expansion of the Gojo clan. It was to be a several day-long event, planned intricately by the higher ups without room for any say from the bride and groom. Satoru did not want that—not for himself, but especially not for you.

Now he laughs as he imagines the higher ups’ faces when they realise he has not only married but eloped behind their backs. Though he thinks he’ll keep his left hand in his pocket the next few times he pays them a visit, at least for a few weeks.

“What?” you ask. His grin spreads from his face to yours.

“Nothing. Are you hungry?”

“Ugh, yes,” you say. Suddenly your empty stomach becomes even emptier, howling agonisingly loudly.

“Sushi Go?”

“Please.”

The nearest one is ten minutes away. When you get there, you sit in a booth next to the conveyor belt, with Satoru insisting on shoving himself into the seat next to you rather than across from you. As soon as his heat radiates into you, however, you feel like melting into him.

After ordering almost the entire menu despite your scolding, Satoru finds the ring boxes and pulls them out of the ribbon-tied bag from the jeweller. He takes your left hand, gently, as though you’re made of glass, and slides the glittering ring onto your fourth finger. He brings it to his lips, then his velvety lips kiss just above where the ring rests.

“Beautiful,” he says. He’s looking at your eyes, not the ring.

You twist it around your finger, lungs empty as it catches every ray of light that comes its way and tosses it back at your eyes.

“It’s a little big, but I love it.”

“I’ll get you the perfect one, don’t worry,” he says. “To make up for no engagement ring.”

“You make me sound so materialistic,” you quip, taking his hand into yours and slipping the matching silver band onto his bony finger.

“Just spoiled,” he corrects.

You narrow your eyes at him, but it turns into hearts not a moment later. He makes it impossible.

“I love you, Satoru Gojo,” you say, holding up your hands as you lace your fingers together with his.

“I love you,” he says, and the smug, cocky front vanishes, and he bares himself, his true self, to you. “More than anything in this world. I’m gonna prove it to you every single day from now on.”

Your giggle is drenched in fondness. “You already do that.”

“Then I’ll do it even better. This is a promise of that,” he says, thumb stroking over the ring he put on your finger.

His eyes don’t hold an ounce of hesitation, of questioning, of doubt. Only truth.

Your food arrives, and you wish you could say you feel bad about how overtly gross you and Satoru are being, feeding sushi rolls to each other with twinkling eyes, but everything inside you is screaming with euphoria that you can’t bring yourself to care.

You wipe a drop of soy sauce from the corner of his lips, and he stares at you like you put the sun and the stars and the moon in the sky.

Not to your surprise, you and Satoru don’t finish all of the food he ordered. One of the waiters offers to box up the leftovers, then returns with two paper bags and hands them to your husband, whose unoccupied hand takes yours once more.

He decides he wants to take you to the park. He’s not sure why. It just feels right, and all you want is to spend time with him, so you tell him the park sounds perfect. It’s only another fifteen minute walk, anyway.

When you get there, the emerald lawns are teeming with families, couples, friends. Children run as if they can fly, dogs chase after tennis balls like it is their life mission. Satoru whisks you away from it all however, taking you into the trees.

Nestled amongst the Japanese chinquapin and zelkovas, a cherry blossom spreads its branches out like arms, its blossoms like pink fingertips that flutter as the wind swims through them. Satoru sinks into the cushion of grass at the base of the tree, leaning his broad back against the trunk. Like a cat, you find your way into his lap and rest your head upon his chest, next to his heart. The way his arms wrap around you is instinct.

Sparrows and finches flit about the branches, dancing as they move from one tree to another. Two turtle doves perch together, huddling into the other even though the air is warm.

Even if you and Satoru do not stay bound together in this life, if death takes you or him early, one thing you know for certain—you’ll find him again in another life. Right now, however, you have him in this life, and nothing else matters.

dedicated to @ushiwhacka and @tetsuskei <3 i love u both

#gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x you #gojo satoru x you #gojo fanfic #gojo imagine #gojo satoru fanfic #gojo satoru imagine #jjk x reader #jjk imagine #jjk fanfic #jjk x you #꒰ lovers. ꒱ — gojo

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sorceresssundries · 7 months ago

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Downpour

Pairing: Gale x Fem Reader

Summary: After so long trapped in the shadow-cursed lands, Tav basks in the delight of feeling the rain on her skin. One-shot.

Warnings: Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Smut.

Word Count: 3.2k

A/N: Ok, so I wanted to have a go a a romantic, Austen-esque, fluffy, soggy, sexy love-scene. I am a Pride and Prejudice girlie, and this was definitely inspired by the artwork i've seen floating around of Gale as Mr.Darcy. I STILL BLUSH WHEN I POST SMUT.

In the forest, away from camp, the rain fell heavy, warm, and welcome. After enduring the stagnant shadows of the curse for so long, Tav reveled in the sensation of the heavy droplets drenching her. She longed to feel the rain soak all the way to her bones, washing away the blood and shadow clinging to her skin. She craved cleanliness, yearning to return to the warm embrace of nature before being pulled back onto the road to Baldur’s Gate, where fresh burdens would undoubtedly litter the streets of her city.

Baldur’s Gate... The Upper City... Her home. Where her expectant fiancé no-doubt awaited her return, eager for her to forsake her studies of magic and join him as agreed in their betrothal. It was a future that demanded sacrifice—her independence, her magic, her heart—all in exchange for providing for her family. This was the destiny that loomed if they completed their quest, and time was slipping away like sand through an hourglass.

So, she lingered in the rain a while longer, relishing the freedom of being a fearless adventurer, a woman unbound, her soul still wild and untamed. She would postpone the inevitable, if only for a few rain-soaked hours.

Her thoughts drifted, as they often did, to Gale. His anger still lingered like a storm cloud after their battle against Ketheric. She had urged him to resist the call of his Goddess, to spare himself from becoming the sacrificial weapon to slay the absolute. In doing so, he had shed his mantle of martyrdom, stepping away from the edge of his perceived heroism. And in the aftermath, when the adrenaline faded and victory cries hushed, she sensed his resentment.

At the height of his struggle, she had hoped he wouldn't need convincing. She had hoped his own worth would shine brightly enough to dispel the dark intent of Mystra's decree, and that he would have enough faith in their companions, in her, to find another path. She had believed their bond ran deep enough for him to steadfastly choose to remain by her side, but she had been mistaken. He required persuasion, and it had nearly shattered her.

She understood he owed her nothing, that no formal declarations had been made. There were moments heavy with unspoken desire, where the air crackled with anticipation. She had savoured each lingering glance and flirtatious exchange. Yet now, she wondered if it had all been a fanciful illusion. How could he desire her when his heart yearned for a Goddess? When the sigil of his devotion was literally branded over his heart? She resigned herself to accepting that he would stay by her side a while longer, and would bask in his warmth for as long as she could.

“Tav!” A distant voice called through the trees, barely audible over the rain storm's fury.

She turned to see him striding purposefully towards her, embers of anger flickering in his deep eyes. Both of them were drenched, the rain pouring down so relentlessly that it only took moments to become completely soaked. His white camp shirt clung to his chest and abdomen, accentuating the contours of his muscles. The emblem of the orb was unmistakable through the fabric, as was the dark hair which spattered his chest, trailing down into the snug, rain-soaked leather trousers tucked into his boots. Heavy droplets cascaded down his nose and fell from his long lashes like tears, and he had pushed his hair back away from his face, so now only a couple of tendrils stuck to his forehead and his cheek. The shimmer of the water cast him in ethereal beauty, and his silver earring gleamed like a lone star in the night sky. He might as well have been naked, and Tav felt a rush of heat at the sight of him. He was divine, and he was furious.

“What are you doing?” His voice was coloured with fresh anger. “You will catch your death!”

“Death has tried to catch me once today, wizard,” she said in defiance, turning her face upwards to the burst sky and running her hands through her hair. “I would like to see him try again.”

“You are stubborn and infuriating to your core! You would not allow me to sacrifice myself, and yet here you stand in the middle of a storm, taunting death as though he is a pawn in your game of heroics.”

She had never seen him this inflamed; the cool bindings of his tightly-wrapped feelings had come loose to reveal a man smouldering with desperate intent. The fact he still saw himself as a sacrifice shot fury through Tav’s veins equal to that of the Wizard before her.

“Do not blame me for what happened today! Your derision is wasted on me. I regret nothing. You were not weak; you were courageous. Vilify me if you will; resent me and cast me aside. It is a price I will pay to know your light still shines in the world. But I take no credit for your act of bravery. That was all you.”

She felt tears spill their way out of her eyes, and she belligerently let them fall alongside the welcome rain, now angry that she was letting herself fall apart in front of him. She could see him subside; he had calmed from raging ocean to a still pond. He said nothing, just waited.

“Baldur’s Gate lies ahead, and so does the end of our journey. Soon I will be home. I will marry a man I do not love, to support a family who does not care for my happiness, and I will take my courage from you, from what you did today. Please grant me the blessing of knowing it was because you wanted to stay here, with me. Just let me have that, even for a moment, even if it isn't real.”

He stepped towards her, and she stepped back, as though it was the first move in a practiced dance. She knew he meant to comfort her; she was unsure how, but it did not matter. She could not bear it.

“No, please,” she pleaded, needing to be alone. Completely soaked by the rain, despite the warmth in the air, her skin was speckled with gooseflesh, her clothing clinging to her in soaked desperation. She felt ashamed and exposed in front of him. He was everything she wanted but could never have. Jealousy, anger, and longing burned within her. If he touched her, she feared she would flame to ash in his arms. “Please, leave.”

He gazed at her face, her damp skin flushed, her dark eyes deeper than he had ever seen them, the usual mischievous sparkle replaced with swirling fear and helplessness. He longed to comfort her, to hold her.

“You should not marry him,” he said, his voice nearly drowned out by the rain. The silence that followed was heavy with tension. She held his gaze, her tears halting along with her breath.

“I am acutely aware of the shackles that will bind you upon your return. The thought of it has seared my soul. I have seen people marry for all the wrong reasons—wealth, security, anything but love. Some found it suited them, others were torn apart. That fate is for the faint-hearted, and you are not one of them.”

This time when he stepped forward, she did not move.

“They are early spring, and you are blazing summer. They are dappled moonlight, and you are blinding sun. They are house cats and cart horses, and you are a wild thing. You should not marry him,” he continued, his sadness palpable in his eyes and voice. “You will wither.” The space between them felt heavy and charged, the air warm and heady in the humid rain shower. “You talked me down from my precipice; let me help you down from yours.”

She could bear it no longer. Meeting his eyes, she began to move with purpose. That was all he needed. Rushing forward, he pushed her back against the nearest tree. She mewled in surprise before his lips captured hers, soft yet determined.

“Gale..” His name fell like dropped silk from her parted lips. As soon as he heard it exhaled in breathlessness, all soft intent was washed away with the rain. His hands were everywhere, grasping at her soaked clothing, tangling themselves in her dripping hair, pulling her hips against him. The kiss was wet - rain heavy and so so desperate. His tongue danced with hers, in ways he had fantasised about alone in his tent. He had brought himself to ecstasy thinking about the touch of her tongue against his, about all the lust induced pleasure she could summon with it. He was desperately hard, unashamedly and wantonly pressed against her. He wanted her to feel the effect she had on him, how much he desired her in all her vexing, complicated, exquisite glory.

He had been angry, yes. He had been ashamed and guilt-ridden - but for reasons he did not expect. He did not feel as though he had let down Mystra, but that he had let down Tav. He had the opportunity to rid her of her burden, to strike down the threat which loomed over her head. She would be safe from the absolute, he could have given that to her, and she had talked him out of it. He felt like a coward, a meek ember undeserving of the vivid bonfire of a woman who had blazed her way into his heart.

He realised now, entangled with her in the wild rain, that he loved her. The simplicity of it was overwhelming. She was exceptional, and he loved her.

She had thought his feelings for her were wistful imaginings, but the truth was - he burned for her, he always had. Over the course of their journey, he had caught each glance with gentle hope and clutched them to him in times of darkness. He had saved every kind word and pressed them together into the pages of a book, to be taken out and skimmed through when he needed comfort. Her name was carved into his heart, and each beat belonged to her.

They broke apart, both panting and breathless from the force of their embrace and she laughed. The most beautiful, clear chime of a laugh which stirred his blood and flooded his veins with joy. He smiled at the sight of her, and with a wave of his hand created an invisible shelter above them to shield them from the rain.

“You couldn’t have done that before?” her pupils were so lust-blown the rich brown of her eyes were thin bands around black pools of desire, and her voice sparkled and danced through him.

He peppered light kisses along her jaw and down her neck, “And spoil your fun? I wouldn’t dare.” Her hands tangled in his hair in response, and she moaned as he licked away the rainwater which had gathered in the hollow of her throat.

“Lay down for me.” The grass beneath them was dry from his magic, and a soft purple blanket had been conjured out of nowhere.

She did as he was told, and the ease of her submission did something to him. She was wild, unpredictable and stubborn, and the way in which she melted and bowed at his touch, at his command, stirred him in a way he had not felt before. He was a man undone.

He spent time slowly undressing her, lifting the hem of her soaking wet shirt and kissing the plane of her stomach, working his mouth along the sensitive ridges of her ribcage, pushing her arms upwards so he could pull the sopping wet clothing over her head. As he lifted her arms he licked the curve of her breast, her collarbone, even her armpit. He wanted all of her, and she arched her back so beautifully under his touch that he could not bear to remove his mouth for even an instant.

“Gale, please.” He had never heard her voice so low before, so wanton and dripping with unfiltered lust.

“It is unlike you to be so well-mannered.” He teased between tonguing her damp skin “Where is the wild creature who has enraptured me so?”

Her response came in a moan so primal it could have been mistaken for a growl. She was an altar he couldn’t decide whether to worship at, or desecrate. He decided there would be time for both.

He peeled the rest of her clothes from her like the rind from a sweet fruit. Putting his mouth to every inch of flesh he uncovered. The rain mixed with the salt-sweet taste of her skin was fresh and heady, and he thought that no ambrosia could taste sweeter.

He proved himself wrong when he eventually pressed his tongue where she wanted it most, where her desire gathered like a fresh-filled rockpool. She was heavenly. Every moan he pulled from her was a claimed bounty, a treasure he would hoard till the end of his days. He dipped his tongue inside her, savouring her, coating his tongue with her and then swiping upwards to run over the small bundle of nerves which could undo her completely. Her hips bucked in response.

“Exquisite.” He said in between heated kisses.

“I want all of you inside me, please.” Her cry was more breath than words. Her fingers raked through his hair and the shocks of her touch ran all the way down his spine. “You shall have me, my love. Body and soul, heart and mind. All of me, eternally.”

“Enough poetry.” She whined “Gale..”

“I want you to come against my tongue first, sweet girl. I want to taste your undoing.” He re-focused his attention back between her legs, completely devoted in his worship, intent on receiving the holy blessing of her exalted cries as she lost herself beneath him. It did not take long. His tongue was firm, his dexterous fingers stroked into her and curled to find the hidden place of her rapture. His face was lust-soaked, head spun with desire, he was drunk on her pleasure and he ground himself into the earth beneath him as she unravelled with a reckless cry. He did not stop, he coaxed her through it, tongue softening and fingers slowing their pace as her wave broke and the relentless tide retreated. Even when she was spent, he continued to kiss her intimately, revelling in the soft pulse of her muscles.

She drew him close, kissing him slowly and wantonly, savouring the taste of her own salt on his tongue. Pulling back, she gazed into his eyes, tracing the rough shadow of his beard with the pads of her fingers, fulfilling every longing touch she had yearned for. Returning the favour, she undressed him, their laughter mingling as they wrestled with his soaked leather trousers, finally leaving him as bare as she. With him above her, their bodies pressed together, anticipation sweetening the air between them.

“You are a marvel.” She whispered, tracing the vein-like mark that swirled under his eye, “I will spend each second proving to you that you made the right choice today. That the world is a brighter place for having you in it.”

“I am completely in love with you.” was his simple response, and the smile it earned him rivalled the night sky with its radiance.

“The feeling is entirely mutual.” was her teasing reply. He offered her a single soft, chaste kiss, before running his hands once again up her arms. This time to pin her hands above her head. She gasped at the sudden change in pace, and his eyes gleamed wickedly. He kept her small hands grasped in one of his, and slowly stroked the other down her body. Tracing a path to where she was still wet from desire and the focus of his tongue. Her eyelashes fluttered beautifully as his finger lightly brushed over her, and her sharp intake of breath told him she was still desperately needy. “I’m going to need to hear you say it properly, Tav.” Briefly, his strokes became firmer, purposeful, stacking a pleasurable build back from the ruins of her last orgasm. And then, he withdrew his touch from her completely, leaving her bucking and helpless.

He kissed her throat and moaned against her skin, as he shifted his position to meet her heat. The tip of him pressed against her, and he had to dredge up every drop of restraint to stop himself pushing into her in one, hard stroke.

“Be a good girl, and say it.” Between the two of them, it was unclear who was more desperate, who was winning their little game. It didn’t matter in the end, the result was always going to be the same.

“I love you.” She met his eyes and poured every ounce of love-drenched sincerity she could into her words. She meant it. She would always mean it. And with her confession, Gale finally pushed himself into her, not breaking contact with the sparkle of her eyes as he moved himself inside her.

"Let me touch you, let me show you, please," she begged, her voice aching with desire. At her plea, he released her hands, and immediately her fingers roamed his body. Her pleasure soared as she finally explored him in ways she had only dreamed of, tracing faded scars and kissing each sun-browned freckle.

His pace remained deliberate, slow at first, savouring every moment as he pulled almost completely out of her before burying himself deep inside, revelling in her tight warmth. The pouring rain and distant rumble of thunder drowned out most of their passion's noise, but Tav seemed to take it as a challenge.

She matched his intensity, moving with abandon, grinding her hips against each dedicated thrust, enticing him to unravel, daring him to let go. And he did. His kisses turned into soft bites, caresses into bruising grips on her waist, her hips, the soft flesh of her backside.

Lovemaking turned to fucking, to pure desperation and relief. He rutted into her, primal and hot - the ability to speak a distant memory as all he could do was moan into her mouth as he approached his crescendo. He flipped her over, and placed one of his arms under her leg to move it upwards, and he fucked her into the ground. They were still soaked, and they didn’t know if it was from the rain, their sweat or their pleasure, neither of them cared.

He had angled her hips so he could move more deeply into her, and still wrap his arm around her to stroke her where she needed. It was exquisite. It did not last long. Tav threw her head back against his shoulder, and gasped out a choked cry as she clenched around him - wild and lost. The sensation of her was too perfect, and Gale followed her breathlessly and completely. All rhythm lost in the chaos of her unravelling orgasm.

As they descended from their high together, he gently turned her to face him, and kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose, the pads of each fingertip.

“I love you” her voice was soft hope, he gaze a bright future. They would keep each other safe, and face each challenge with hearts and hands entwined.

“The feeling is entirely mutual.” He replied breathlessly, and her laugh mingled with the sound of rain and thunder to create the most beautiful music he had ever heard.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 smut #gale x tav #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #gale smut

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saetoru · 2 years ago

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tee tee tee i wanna share rich boy gojo thoughts that have been on my mind. imagine him pouting in the corner as you gossip and laugh with his mom in the living room while she shows you his baby pictures!!! i feel like he would be the cutest (and more embarrassing) child ever lollll it would be a good opportunity to tease him a bit

[ BABY ] GOJO SATORU.

satoru is pouting—which, truthfully, you don’t think there are all that many moments where he’s not pouting—but he seems to be pouting a little extra right now. maybe you should feel bad, and maybe you should feel a little guilty that he’s sulking because of you…but then his mother flips the page of the baby album in her hands, and you suddenly don’t care as much about your petulant boyfriend anymore.

“this is satoru after he scraped his knee for the first time,” she giggles, pointing to tiny, red and teary-faced satoru staring up at the camera, making you snort as you lean closer for a better look.

“he looks ridiculous,” you laugh, and distantly, you can hear satoru gasp at the comment, crossing his arms and sending you a glare from across the living room.

“i was in pain,” he huffs, “extremely excruciating pain! and my mother stopped to photograph my misfortune. who does that?”

to his dismay, you don’t even spare him a glance, pointing to the next picture of the album and giggling away with his mother, whispering what he’s sure is yet another mean and rude comment making fun of him. what kid doesn’t fall and scrape their knee? and what kid doesn’t cry when they fall and scrape their knee? normal children shed tears in the face of extreme pain, and gojo satoru is not an exception to this fact—in fact, he likes to think he was one of the braver children.

“satoru, you were such a crybaby growing up,” his mother shakes her head, amusement lacing her tone as you chuckle and shoot him a sly grin.

“so nothing’s changed,” you hum, “he’s still a crybaby now too.”

“am not!” he gasps, “take that back, you liar—”

“—and this is satoru on his first day of school,” his mother hums, cutting him off and pointing to a picture of a young satoru waving at the camera, missing what you’re sure is his entire front row of teeth. you grin, letting out a small chuckle as your eyes soften at the image.

usually, gojo satoru is a handful. he’s loud and annoying and he talks far too much for his own good. he makes your life increasingly difficult with the stubbornness he wears like a second skin, and he makes you want to crawl into a hole half the time you’re in public for all the scenes he seems to always cause. but sometimes…sometimes gojo satoru is also very cute—like in this photo for example, with chubby cheeks and a bright grin on his face as he stands in his school uniform.

“aw,” you coo, making him perk up a little at the sound, “how cute.”

“i was a cute kid, wasn’t i?” he grins, and almost as though he was never pouting in the first place, his mood switches at the slightest bit of praise. you roll your eyes, giving him a flat look as you eye him while he walks over to you, flopping onto the space beside you and looking voer your shoulder.

“you were,” you nod, making a point to eye him up and down and raise a brow, “i wonder what happened.”

he gasps, and the pout from earlier returns once more—and you can’t say you’re surprised. “rude! i’m still super cute,” he grumbles, and because he’s gojo satoru, the most annoying man you’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering on the face of the planet, he pokes your shoulder repeatedly. “admit it, you find me cute,” he whines, “you literally called me cute this morning.”

“that’s cause you were sleeping,” you shrug, “you’re really cute when you shut up.”

“yes, my favorite satoru was always a napping satoru growing up,” his mother adds from the side.

“wha—mom!” he protests, watching as you and his mother snicker together. satoru wonders how the both of you can claim to love him when you treat him like this—wounding his pride with every insult thrown his way. he crosses his arms, angling his body away from you as you giggle and wrap yourself around him.

“we’re just kidding, toru,” you grin, reaching to pinch his cheek, chuckling when he swats your hand away with a grunt, “you’re really the cutest. promise!”

“you’re a liar,” he mumbles, shooting you a glare as you fight back an amused smile, “you said you loved me, but clearly you lied to me.”

“i do love you,” you insist, “and i love your baby pictures too.”

usually, satoru feels his heart soften when he watches you and his mother get along—he thinks he falls in love with you just a little harder every time he watches your eyes light up when you see the women who raised him. but sometimes (like right now), he wishes he never introduced you to his mother—he’s not so sure he’s your favorite gojo anymore, and the idea wounds his pride more than a little. he’s also almost certain you prefer spending time with his mother over him, and he’s even more certain his mother wishes you were the one she raised instead. he almost feels like the third wheel half the time he brings you over and his mother’s home—and he can’t help but wonder…who do you even love more, him or his mother?

he thinks he has his answer though when you lean in and press a gentle kiss to his jaw. no matter how often you two giggle at his expense, you do not kiss his mother on the jaw, and satoru can’t help but shoot a smirk her way as she rolls her eyes and stands.

“there are more i have to dig up sometime,” mrs. gojo hums, making satoru groan as you nod eagerly, “i’ll leave you two alone for a while.”

“i’m starting to think you come over for my mom instead of me,” satoru huffs as his mother leaves the room, making you roll your eyes as you lean into his side. he wraps an arm around you, pulling you flush against his body, relaxing as your hand finds his chest and rubs slow circles.

“only you would be jealous of your own mother,” you snort.

“i’m not jealous,” he protests, “i’m simply concerned that you ignore your boyfriend for hours to make fun of him with his mother.”

if there’s one thing you’ve learned after flipping through page after page of crying baby pictures, it’s that gojo satoru has been dramatic since the day he was born—this fact doesn’t change even in his adult years. but if there’s one other thing you’ve learned—it’s that he’s endearing, just a little too cute for his own good, just a little too dangerously charming whether it’s the camera he’s pouting at or you. you can’t help but shuffle closer, hugging him tightly as you smile softly into his shirt.

“c’mon,” you hum, pressing a kiss to his chest, “you know you’re my favorite. i do wish i had a baby satoru to cuddle, though.”

“you have me,” he glares, “i’m satoru and i’m your baby and you can cuddle me.”

“it’s not the same,” you tease, “you talk too much.”

“i’ll have you know i got in trouble quite a lot as a child for talking too much. adult satoru is a lot better.” somehow, you’re not surprised—and a small part of you is almost grateful you didn’t know satoru in his young, obnoxious days as a child. an even bigger part of you feels bad for his mother and the strength she must’ve needed to raise the handful of a boyfriend in your arms. “and besides,” he smirks, leaning down to pull you into a brief kiss, “if you want a baby gojo, i can easily give you one—”

“satoru,” you hiss, swatting his shoulder and making him pout as he rubs over the spot you’ve hit, “one of you is more than enough. we don’t need another.”

#teepods.writings #drabbles.#rich boy! au #gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojo fluff #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk fluff #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru fluff

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kittyball23 · 1 year ago

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Hi kittyball, did you read the trolls band together junior novelization? Does it include deleted scenes from the movie? I heard there was a scene cut with velvet and veneer buying yachts 😆 and another scene with velvet spraying veneer with troll without warning him.

Hi, I sure did! I do remember that there were scenes and/or little details that differentiated from what was seen in the actual movie, and I’d be happy to share them:

John Dory in the beginning was being a little more critical of Clay’s dance moves

“C’mon, Clay,” John Dory said. “They’re Funderdrawers! Underwear, but seventy-six percent more fun! Now let’s see those dance moves!”

“Fine,” Clay said with a sigh. He did a quick series of dance steps, naming them while executing them perfectly. “Rusty robot into a wiggle worm, and end on caliente puppet.”

“Not bad,” John Dory said, stroking his chin. “But your robot could be rustier. And your worm wigglier.”

Clay looked annoyed. “Don’t you want my puppet caliente-er?”

“I wasn’t going to say it,” John Dory said, “but yeah. Definitely.”

‘Bro-Time’ happened in both the beginning and the end, each brother doing a hands-in-the-middle thing

Beginning:

“If we can’t hit the Perfect Family Harmony, we aren’t perfect,” John Dory insisted. “And if we aren’t perfect, we’re NOTHING! Being nothing is definitely not an option. So just follow my lead.” He stuck his hand out, palm down. “Let’s do this!”

Each of his brothers piled their hands on top of his. Together, John Dory, Spruce, Clay, Floyd, and Baby Branch shouted, “IT’S BRO TIME!”

End:

Smiling wistfully, Floyd said, “I can’t believe we almost missed out on all this.” It had been a long time.

“We shouldn’t have let our differences break up our family,” Clay put in, joining them.

John Dory walked up. “That’s right. Because we don’t have to be perfect to be in harmony. We just have to be together.”

Branch started to point out that he had told them exactly that, but he changed his mind. “You’re right,” he said. “Good point, bro.”

Standing in a circle, the brothers each put a hand in. “On three,” Branch said. “One… two… three!”

“IT’S BRO TIME!” they all said in unison, lifting their hands.

Baby Branch was supposed to make his entrance suspended on a wire

“And making his first live appearance, the Baby!” Glitter burst over the stage, revealing Branch suspended on a wire.

“Awwww!” the whole audience said, charmed by the adorable sight.

BroZone rolled right into their first song. Cool, calm, and collected, John Dory danced up a storm. Spruce blew another kiss, and the fans went wild. Clay added a little goofy touches to the dance steps, getting lots of laughs. Floyd shed a single tear as he sang. And Branch flipped down off his wire, sticking the landing perfectly, nailing every move and every note as the five brothers came together.

As the Family Harmony started to happen, glass broke and a lightbulb shattered

The five brothers hit a chord and held it. Offstage, a water glass broke. KSHHH! Overhead, a light bulb shattered. SHHINK! The brothers looked at each other. It was happening! They were achieving the PERFECT FAMILY HARMONY!

Smead, Gristle’s Aunt, was supposed to be the officiate instead of Miss Maxine for Bridget and Gristle’s wedding

Gristle’s Aunt Smead, a tall Bergen with goggles and hair that stood straight up, was in charge of leading the happy couple through their wedding vows. She leaned over and joked, “Hey, Bridget, you still have time to run for it!”

Poppy and JD went through with the whole hug, fist-bump, and wave thing she suggested when meeting him

Poppy rushed over and introduced herself to John Dory. “Oh my gosh, I was being so rude! I’ve never met anyone from Branch’s family before. I’m Poppy. Branch’s girlfriend. Should we hug? Fist-bump? Smile and wave for now and see where the night takes us?”

“All of the above!” John Dory said, hugging her, bumping her fist with his and waving and smiling.

Crimp was supposed to be shown cleaning up the chair before Velvet and Veneer made their entrance on the Mount Rageous show ‘The Bop on Top’

In a TV studio, the pop duo’s put-upon assistant Crimp swept off a chair, making sure it was immaculate before one of her bosses sat on it. Crimp resembled the head of a straw broom, with green eyes, white glasses, and a purple hair bow scrunching a bun of papery hair on top of her head. She was much shorter than Velvet and Veneer, but was still at least three times the size of the average Troll.

Ignoring their assistant, Velvet launched herself onto the chair, squashing Crimp. FWUNK! “So,” Velvet said to Kid Ritz, “what do you wanna know? I’m an open book.”

You are correct, Velvet did spray Floyd’s essence at Veneer without him expecting it lol

Grabbing the perfume bottle, she squeezed the bulb, giving herself a big spray of Troll talent. SHHFFT! Floyd groaned as the energy was sucked out of him. Velvet tested the results, opening her mouth to sing. She let loose an impressive cascade of notes. Satisfied, she smiled and aimed the bottle’s nozzle at her brother’s mouth. SSSHHFFT! “Your turn, Veneer.”

Veneer coughed. “Ack! You’re supposed to say it before you spray it, remember?”

There’s a quick moment where Floyd sympathizes with Crimp

Rolling her eyes, Velvet said, “Ugh. I’m exhausted by this drama. Do you wanna go buy a yacht?”

“Oh, good idea!” Veneer said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s buy matching yachts!” They left the dressing room without another word.

"Can I come out of the corner yet?” Crimp asked.

Floyd looked at her with pity in his big violet eyes. “Girl, you need a new job. I should be the saddest one in this room.”

A small moment where Bruce and JD hug

Seeing an opportunity, Poppy decided to give Bruce a little encouragement. “Prove it. Prove it,” she started chanting. Bruce’s kids all joined in, balling their fists and pumping their arms in time with the chant. “PROVE IT! PROVE IT!”

Bruce took up the challenge. “Oh, I’ll prove it,” he said confidently. “I’ll prove it right now.” He took a deep breath and let it out. Then he hopped up onto the stage and stood next to John Dory.

“Yes!” John Dory cheered. “Bring it in, brother!” They hugged.

More of Velvet being a jerk

A stage manager popped her head through the dressing room door. “Knock, knock, knock – it’s ‘we’re ready for you’ o’clock!”

Velvet faked a super-sweet manner. “Look at you, making your job fun. Good for you! Just give us five minutes. We’re still working on our routine. Okay, doll?” She closed the door and muttered, “Loser.” Then she picked up Floyd’s bottle, planning to take in another spray of his Troll talent before the day’s singing began.

Veneer making a reference to a meme

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Floyd cried, holding his hands up against the inside of the diamond bottle. “Come on, it’s just dress rehearsal. You don’t need me for a dress rehearsal!”

Ignoring his protests, Velvet grabbed the golden spray bulb between her fingers and pointed the nozzle at her mouth, ready to spritz her vocal cords. Her brother spoke up. “Wait. Maybe he’s got a point. Do we even need a dress rehearsal?”

“Obviously,” Velvet said, making a face. “That’s why we’re getting dressed.”

“I’m just saying he doesn’t look so great,” Veneer pointed out. “He has, like, sad Troll face.”

Velvet shrugged it off. “He’s fine.”

Velvet’s suggestions for how to make Floyd better

But Velvet wasn’t overly concerned about Floyd’s see-through hand and overall paleness. “Oh, he just needs some blush,” she suggested. “Or is there a mini tanning bed we can jam into the bottle with him?”

More back and forth with Velvet and Veneer

Veneer paced the dressing room floor, clutching his head. “What are we going to do? We obviously can’t even rely on the Troll to get us through this dress rehearsal, let alone the Rage Dome show!”

Looking annoyed, Velvet said, “How come I always have to come up with something?”

“Because you’re the mean one!” Veneer told her.

“I’m not mean – I’m ambitious!”

Floyd having been conscious while Velvet was shaking the bottle

Picking up Floyd’s diamond prison, she said, “Maybe we should just try shaking the bottle.” She shook it. Floyd ricocheted around inside, banging against the hard surface.

“Ow! Ouch! Ooh, my knee! My other knee!” he cried.

Lonely People having been sung later on in the movie, after Floyd makes a ‘philosophical’ statement

Floyd looked at his body, becoming more see-through by the minute. “Well,” he said philosophically. “I lived, I loved, I lost.”

To the accompaniment of gentle ukulele music, he sang quietly to himself. He looked and saw that it was Crimp who was playing the ukulele.

Bruce’s response to learning about Velvet and Veneer’s song

On an empty road that night, Bruce steered Rhonda, listening to Velvet and Veneer sing one of their pop hits on the radio. “My kids love these guys!” he said. “We’re a total Veneer household.”

“They’re the ones who are holding Floyd prisoner,” John Dory called from the back of the van.

Bruce looked shocked. “Wow, everyone’s getting canceled these days.”

A little more Clay and Viva friendship displayed

Viva put an arm around Clay’s shoulder. “Yeah, I’m the face of the operation, and Mr. Clay takes care of the boring stuff!”

“Guilty!” Clay admitted. He and Viva tapped elbows and laughed.

Branch and Poppy having a short exchange after leaving Putt Putt Village

Heartbroken, Poppy watched as the gate closed. She leaned her scrapbook against it for Viva. Branch ran up behind her. “You were right, Branch,” Poppy said. “Family is… complicated.”

Velvet and Veneer having labeled bottles for the rest of the brothers

In Velvet and Veneer’s Rage Dome dressing room, Floyd’s diamond bottle sat on a shelf next to four empty bottles labeled Heartthrob, Fun Boy, Old One, and Baby. Floyd’s bottle was now labeled Almost Dead One.

Branch’s line about the diaper slightly differing

They tried singing one of their old songs, but John Dory soon cut them off. “Stop! Stop! Time-out. Let’s take it from the top. Spruce, I want some smolder in those eyes. Clay, you’re being too stiff. We need some sillier robot moves. Branch, maybe a smaller diaper.”

“Or some clothes not from the toddler section,” Branch grumbled.

Clay’s line about his CPA position replaced with this:

Bruce got right in his brother’s face. “This isn’t going to work if you keep being the same old John Dory.”

“Yeah,” Clay agreed. “We’ve all changed. Bruce settled down. Branch is slightly taller with zero glasses. And I’m not the guy who shoots milk out his nose and smiles through the burn!”

“Yup,” Poppy said to herself, remembering past milk blasts through her nose. “Been there.”

Crimp also confronting Velvet and Veneer when Poppy and Branch do on the red carpet

“You’re stealing BroZone’s talent because you have none of your own, you big PHONIES!” Poppy said, pointing her own accusing finger at them.

Crimp popped up out of the van. “They’re MEAN!” she shouted. “And I was their assistant, so I KNOW!”

The fans, listening to this exchange, started whispering to each other. Could what the little Trolls and the papery mop with glasses were saying possibly be true?

An extra line JD said when the talent was being sucked out of the four brothers

Velvet lowered herself back down through the sunroof and punched a button on the car’s dashboard. The roof folded back, clearing the way for a metal arm to rise out of the car, holding an entire round stage. Velvet and Veneer both hit the buttons on their shoulder pads and inhaled big whiffs of Troll talent. The four brothers winced in pain.

“Floyd, why didn’t you warn us about how uncomfortable that is?” John Dory asked.

Slightly different lines when Poppy, Branch, and Viva arrived at the yacht

When she saw Branch, Poppy, and Viva on the deck of the boat, Velvet wasn’t dismayed. On the contrary, she was delighted! “More Trolls!” she exclaimed happily. “This will last us a lifetime!”

Velvet trying to sing after she and Veneer came out of the river that they had fallen into, and Crimp calling the two out again

The yacht came to a stop, wedged diagonally across a narrow passage in the river. Velvet climbed out of the water, turned the camera on herself, and tried to sing.

She sounded awful.

The crowd gasped. “Hey, what happened to your voice?” a fan shouted.

Veneer decided it was time to come clean. “Okay, fine,” he said. “Listen up, Mount Rageous. We are FRAUDS! And we’ve been literally torturing little Trolls!”

The fans were horrified. One yelled, “My illusion of celebrity has been shattered!”

Crimp stepped in front of the pop duo. “It’s true,” she confirmed. And they’re mean. Not ambitious, but just plain MEAN!”

Veneer having put the handcuffs on Velvet instead of Crimp

“Oh, give it up, sis,” Veneer told her. He faced the cameras. “We just wanted to be famous. Honestly, my sister wanted to be famous, and truly, I was too afraid to stand up to her.”

Disgusted by her brother’s admission, Velvet said, “It’s like I don’t even know who you are.”

“Yeah, you do,” Veneer said firmly. “And you asked me to change anyway. Which isn’t okay, family or not.” He snapped a pair of handcuffs onto her slender wrists. She held them up, asking, “Veneer, what have you done?” Then she admired the shiny cuffs, saying, “Oooh, are these real silver?”

And the ending scene, in which Kismet is not mentioned, and Branch and Poppy have one last exchange

Over the loudspeaker, Crimp announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, you know ‘em, you love ‘em – give it up for the Trolls Kingdom’s very own… BROZONE!” She opened the curtains revealing the five brothers in sparkling new costumes. The crowd went wild!

In the front row, Poppy cheered along with them. Branch offered her his hand. “Poppy,” he said. “I have a small proposal. Will you – “

“Join the band?” she interrupted, bursting with excitement. “Of COURSE, I will! I thought you’d never ask!”

“You know me too well,” Branch said, grinning. “Now get up here and sing with us!”

“AAAAHH!” she squealed, leaping onto the stage. She extended a hand to her sister in the front row. “Viva! Viva, get up here! We’re in the band!”

“This is my dream life!” Viva cried, joining her and whipping out a pair of castanets.

The seven Trolls joyfully sang and danced together, and the audience absolutely loved it. The concert turned into an epic dance party. Fireworks exploded, lighting up the night sky.

Poppy turned to Branch. “I love you, Branch!”

“And I love you, Poppy!” Branch told her.

“Would it be weird if I fainted?” Poppy said. “Oh, I’m gonna faint right now.”

And she did. But Branch caught her. He would always be there to catch her when she fell, and she would do the same for him, no matter what.

Those were a majority of the main differences I could find in the junior novel. I think most of it stayed true to the movie, but some little details I would’ve liked to have made the final cut (the Cliva friendship stuff, the extra Broppy exchange and, while I understand the purpose of NSYNC’s cameo, I think the movie would’ve worked just fine without it)

#trolls #trolls 3 #trolls band together #branch trolls #poppy trolls #velvet and veneer #velvet trolls #veneer trolls #floyd trolls #crimp trolls #john dory #spruce trolls #clay trolls #dreamworks #thanks for the ask!#kittyball answers #100+

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formyloveoflove · 5 months ago

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The Bear S3 and the Choices We Make

Ok. After a second watch of S3, I'm feeling a little bit more optimistic about the future. Trust - it's a sad ending. It's my worst nightmare for Sydney. But there's still hope, and that all lies in what Carmen and Syd decide to do next. Season 3 Spoilers - read at your own risk :)

In S3 E10 Forever, we see our two mains go through a breakthrough. Starting with Carmen, he finally confronts his former boss (who has a name, i think, but fuck him, I ain't using it). It's the first (and only time) that we see Carmen proactively voice his resentment. He avoids his mom (rightfully so imo). He never got the chance with Mikey. But he approaches him, expects the man to have repent (maybe), or at the very least, have a little remorse.

He doesn't. He regrets nothing. In fact, he takes credit for Carmen's success: his hard work, his skills, and his talent. He tells Carmen that he should be thanking him, and that's not even the worst of it. No, for me, it is when he says

Carmen: My life stopped. Chef: That's the point, right? [...] You wanted to be great. You wanted to be excellent. So you got rid of all the bullshit, and you concentrated, and you got focused, and you got great. You got excellent. It worked. You're here. Look at all this

Sound familiar? It should. It's the same sentiment that Carmen said in the Season 2 finale. Remember, he said,

I wasn't here. Right? What the fuck was I thinking? Like I was going to be in a relationship? I'm a fuckin' pyscho. That's why I'm good at what I do. That's how I operate. I am the best because I didn't have any of this fuckin' bullshit, right? I could focus, and I could concentrate.

Carmen's thoughts about himself aren't even his own. They were drilled into him by a man who wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire. He was emulating the abusive behaviors and patterns that crushed him, that gave him "uclers, panic attacks, and nightmares" on the people that he cares about. On his sister, on Richie, on Tina and Marcus. and especially on Sydney, who is the only one who knows exactly how bad it can get. He's hurt those closest to him. He hurts them daily. And for what? And for why? For his own ego.

And this realization leads us to Carmen's first cry.

For three whole seasons, we see this man lose his idolized brother to suicide, witness his alcoholic mother physically, emotionally, and mentally abuse him, and experience mental degradation to the point where it affects his physical health. Not once did he shed a tear. This is the first time Carmen Berzatto lets himself cry. And I think this is the best thing for him. If he chooses to acknowledge the err of his ways, turn back course, and begin again, I think The Bear could be what he wanted it to be. He needs to decide to stop running, stop fighting himself and everybody around him. He needs to let go. Let it rip, right?

However, if this is what he decides to do, the cards ultimately fall into Sydney's hands.

If anybody's been through hell and back, it's Ms. Sydney Adamu. All season she's been forced to work in a volatile environment, putting herself between Carmen and whoever's the victim of his anger. She has her ideas shut down, her skills demeaned, and her credit is outright non-existent. Staff keeps quitting; they're not making any money; and Cicero and Co. is doing some shady background shit.

She's trapped, but not really. Not until she signs that Partnership Agreement. But like she told her dad in S2 E9 Omelette, she doesn't think she has another one in her. She can't have The Bear fail like Sheridan Road. She doesn't want to make the same mistakes she did last time. She wants to grow and learn and make her mark on the industry - prove she's not a failure.

She's waiting for Carmen to make good on his promises from The Table Scene, but he's not.

"You deserve my full focus." But his focus is not on her. Remember the Carmen that noticed when something was off with her? Remember the "say more?" or the "what's up with you?" Remember when they worked together, when the menu was truly theirs? Where was Sydney's "margin" moment? What did Carmen do this scene that signaled to Sydney that he was there and present.

"I couldn't do this without you." He does everything without her. Don't even get me started. From the menu to the list of nonnegotiables. Syd gets to make no decisions after being forced to make ALL the decisions. What is she there for? To be Carm's wrangler, his doormat? What has he does to convince her that she is invaluable?

He's egotistical. He's verbally abusive. He's the exact person that she warned him not to be. That he assured her that he wouldn't be in S1 E3 Brigade. She said,

You know I think this place could be so different from all the other places we've been at. But, in order for that to be true, we need to run things different. [...] But you just didn't really listen, and if this is going to work the way I think we both want it to work, I think we should probably try to listen to each other. The reason why I'm here, and not somewhere else or for someone else, is because I think I can stand out here. I can make a difference here. We could share ideas. I could implement things that make this place better. And I don’t wanna be wasting my time, working on another line or tweezing herbs on a dish that I don’t care about.

He didn't follow through the first time, so she left. But now, it's different. She's put her blood, sweat, and tears into this place. She's made a place (a home even) at The Bear. Leaving is not as simple anymore.

S1 Syd would've taken that CDC offer in a heartbeat. But building something and it failing (like The Bear. like Sheridan Road.) is terrifying. Slowly but surely, Carmen has been chipping away at her confidence and her fire. So much so that good things, like The Offer or the review of her risotto from The Beef, don't feel like good things.

Sydney's Panic Attack is HUGE for her character. We see Sydney at her lowest: her most frightening and vulnerable. She's uncertain. She's in a constant state of panic. And the person that she trusted with her fears and insecurities facilitated this, drove her to this point. It's heartbreaking. I cried when I saw it. No one would blame her for jumping ship. At this point, I encourage it (but she has to talk about it, acknowledge it. no running).

Now, if Carmen decides to change his ways, he'd have apologized to Sydney twice without changed actions. She'd have to believe him after many, many broken promises. At this time, she doesn't trust him, can't rely on him. But when having to decide between staying or going, will she try to trust him again?

Will she? Should she?

That's where I'm at so far. I have more thoughts, but I'll write those out when I get back from my weekend trip.

#the bear #the bear fx #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #the bear season 3 #the bear gifs #the bear spoilers #the bear meta #sydcarmy

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deathbyathousandspiders · 4 months ago

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IN WHICH stark!reader witnesses her father’s final breath after he saves the world.

writing this specifically for @inkedeye2345 because tbh it takes a comment to realize people actually want to see second parts to the posts i make :,)

i forget that people actually enjoy my writing and i’m not making it up—

read part one here if you want!

disclaimer: heavy angst, this is the saddest thing i have written to date.

you cannot charge me for your therapy bills.

i love yall 3000 🫶🫶

thank you for supporting me :,)

✨masterlist✨.

1.1k.

The battlefield was soaked with soot and blood, overlapping and mixing with each other. Mixing between your foes and your teammates. It was an overwhelming sight to see, an overwhelming scene to be a part of. Nothing you ever anticipated witnessing, and nothing you ever wanted to witness again.

Rages and cries and striking weaponry sang symphonies as they clashed with one another. Blistered feet and Chuck Taylor’s carried you across the rubble of the compound as fast as they could, your hammering heart drowning out the sound of the war around you as you ran for your life. Ran towards your father.

From where you were, even as the distance shortened, it was hard to tell what was happening. Six different colors shimmered their way up Tony’s right arm, resting on each knuckle with a shine that stars themselves envied. You shielded yourself from the blinding light, only for a second. That second was long enough to know that whatever your dad was doing, it weakened him. You wanted to stop it.

You needed to stop it.

Perhaps forty or so feet remained between you and your dad before he snapped his fingers, and you froze. Against your will, you froze. Deep down, in the stillness of the air, in the bright light emitting from his right hand of color, you knew what was happening. You knew what he was doing.

“Dad..” It slipped from your lips before you could stop it, before the tears could sting your eyes. You stepped, paced, walked, jogged– ran. Your feet could not carry you quick enough, far enough, soon enough. Heart plummeting, breath shallowing, you didn’t pay enough attention to hear the dying war cries, the dying battle. Your eyes remained on your father.

He slumped where he was, half of his body, his face, turning to something resembling the soot beneath you. And still, pushing past the pain of sacrifice, the pain of the losses he didn’t have the time to count, he met your eyes. Some pained, relieved, fatherly smile spread across his face. You both shed tears at the notion.

You both knew it would be the last grin he had in him.

You fell to your knees to meet him, tripping on a rock and still catching your tumble with grace. Sliding straight for him, all you could manage was to outstretch your arms and wrap them around him. A sob crawled out from you, at the fact that this would be your last hug or the fact that Tony did not even have the strength to return it, you couldn’t tell.

Violent cries shook your entire body as you held him, but you needed to force yourself out of the anguished state. Tony saved the world from sorrow bigger than your comprehension, and you couldn’t let his last few moments be filled with sadness. You couldn’t let his dying breath be used to comfort your grief.

One deep breath was all you needed to compose yourself. You swallowed the sobs as they came up, pulling back from the hug and leaning your dad back on a rock. You felt the eyes of each of your teammates slowly find some way to the two of you, but you knew that making eye contact with any of them would break your composure.

You needed to be strong right now.

A sniffle, and you forced a grin to mirror his, tears slipping through the seems of the dam you failed to build. “You did it, Dad.” Another sniffle, a squeeze of his shoulder, a solid hold on his hand. His hand that was too weak to tremble, a hand that felt cold as ice in your grasp. You mustered a breath, playing off a sob like a choke of air. A cough, perhaps. “I’m so proud of you.” The words left your lips with a tremor, a break in the cracks. You weren’t going to last. And neither would he.

Your father taught you well to hide your vulnerability, to mask your struggle. “Though I wish you’d let me beat you to it.” Something sad of a laugh broke through, tripping on the hollowing coating your mouth and the lump forming in your throat. That weakened squeeze within your fingers told you that Tony was glad he had beaten you to it, beaten you to the one thing he did not want you to do.

As much as you, too, did not want to do this, be the one to sacrifice, you would have done anything to keep him there. To keep your father alive, to keep your best friend living. Yet, you failed to do so.

Peter’s presence beside you felt like a beacon of solitude. The last space of comfort you had left. Your right temple met his left shoulder, though you did not dare tear your watering eyes from Tony’s. His slow blinks and wheezing breaths would not last more than a moment longer, and you tried to memorize the feeling of his warmth while you could. The warmth of your father.

He grabbed Tony’s left hand, his right hand grabbing yours as tight as he could. “We won, Mister Stark.” The shaken voice Peter spoke in told you he was breaking just as much as you were at the sight of Tony so tattered. It both broke you and brought you reassurance.

“I’ll take care of her, Tony..” Peter’s whispered words shattered every guard you bore to keep yourself composed. It tore you to pieces, and how could it not? How fucked up did you have to be to try and push away the pain of losing your father? Your shoulders shook at the weight of the despair, the unbelievable pain that could not be bandaged. “It’s okay.” You could not tell whether Peter lulled the words to you or your father, but the two words were all Tony needed to hear before he, too, tore down his guards.

The light fled his eyes the same moment the arc reactor shut off. The moment he died.

A gasp joined the mixture of your shallow breathing, your shaken sobbing, at the weight of Tony’s hand going limp in yours. He was lifeless, dead. Gone. Your father was gone.

You pressed a tearful kiss to his fingers one last time before laying the hand at his side, leaning forward to shut Tony’s eyes to sleep forever. The second you leaned back, Peter wrapped you in his arms, allowing you to release the feeling and trauma of enduring the scene you knew would haunt you forever.

The cost of his life for yours was a debt you would never be able to repay. A life–for–a–life kind of payback you knew you’d always fall short of. You just hoped he was right to keep you from making the sacrifice he was destined for.

You just hoped you would be worth it.

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akirathedramaqueen · 4 months ago

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Only one person has the power to make Stolas cry

And I'll keep the intrigue just a little bit longer so you can try to guess for yourself and experience the kind of satisfaction I had once I pieced it all together. And, oh boy, did it click!

Okay, so today, after a rather passionate conversation with @tealvenetianmask about how fandom seems to perceive Stolas as overly emotional and soft demon, we started rummaging through all the scenes where Stolas actually cried. We were blown off by some revelations.

First note: it's actually not much. Our owl appears to be very sturdy and often bites back when attacked, rather than shutting down as one might expect.

Second note... Better let me show you. Let's walk through all the 'Stolas cries' scenes and see what is happening there, and answer the question, "What, or rather who, sets him off the rails?"

This is your last chance to place your bets and educated guesses. Because below are big clues, and, eventually, answer.

Circus

We follow up on Stolas shortly after the disastrous date at Ozzie's - arguably, a couple of hours later. He looks absolutely miserable. He has boozed himself to unconsciousness. His eyeliner is ruined from earlier tears. He groans, either from headache or emotional turmoil, grabs three Happy pills, and shoves them down his throat.

Whatever happened at this club ruined our bird, to the point he's looking for anything to avoid being alone with his thoughts.

Western Energy

One shed tear. That's all Stolas allows himself. That's what I am talking about when I claim he is actually very tough. He is being tortured, mutilated, and by this point, he has a pretty good understanding that his demise is likely inevitable.

And you know what he does in response? He talks back. He cuts through Striker's bullshit about royals taking everything from him and points out that his killer took a contract from a royal. He literally humiliates Striker with sex jokes and mocks his oversized dick on the statue ego. Figuratively, he spits death in its face.

The Full Moon

Stolas is destroyed.

This meeting was nerve-wracking even before it happened - all the preparation, insecurities, misunderstandings of the past, and lingering, terrifying questions (He loves me? He loves me not?).

It takes weeks to set everything in motion. He planned it meticulously. He scripted every word, every movement of his body, every subtle tone in his voice.

But he forgot that there was another party in this play. The party who was not given the script and is burdened with his own trauma. One shitty assumption, one poorly-thought-out action, and here it is - mockery, avoidance, a fight... and tears. His first meltdown he wasn't able to conceal.

His worst nighmares came true, or so he convinced himself. He loves me not.

Apology Tour

Our last stop on our 'we-love-being-tortured-by-crying-Stolas' tour is here.

The wound is still fresh, bleeding even, and here he comes, rubbing salt into it. Someone Stolas still desperately wants. Someone who was infinitely brash, rude, and aggressive just this morning. Someone who doubled down on statements that made Stolas believe this particular someone hates him.

That someone tries to talk. To explain. To apologize. Wonders how Stolas could actually care about him. Says the prince is better off without him.

Fuck... The prince came here to forget, to wipe that someone (okay, it's getting increasingly hard to pretend it's not obvious yet) from his memory, at least for the night, and he still won't let Stolas go.

He breaks into tears, crushed, reassured he can't have anyone who would hold him, who would say he is the only one, but recuperates shortly after - he was taught better than this.

Okay, are we ready for the shocker of the year?

It's Blitzø.

It was his date with Blitzø at Ozzie's, where he was ignored, humiliated, and was told that their relatioship was only about sex, and that he was the one who made it clear.

It was Blitzø turning down (or so he thought) his distress call, leading him to believe he was left alone to die.

It was Blitzø mocking his confession and assuming it was just a fucking roleplay.

Finally, it was Blitzø haunting him since that very morning and, albeit with better intentions, still hurting him beyond his abilities to recover.

The only person who tore his soul apart enough to break his inpenetrable mask - built up by decades of gritted teeth, restraint, and bravery - was the one he probably cares about the most.

It was not Octavia, whom he holds close to his heart but couldn’t allow to see him depressed. He had to be strong for her; he needed to raise and support her.

It was not Stella, whom he endured for years, yet did not satisfy her wish to see him whimper. He talked back, argued, ignored, and seethed. But he never gave in.

It was him. An imp who stole his grimoire and gave him the best time of his life, however sad that may sound.

Now, thanks for joining this drama in four acts. You may pull out your handkerchiefs and ugly cry right here, in your places. Don't hold it in.

Because I don't.

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pparacxosm · 25 days ago

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something borrowed

(dearly beloved part 2: electric boogaloo ! ; tashi duncan x fem!childhood best friend!reader x patrick zweig ((x art donaldson?? a little?)); nonlinear narrative; playing fast and loose with tenses; where do i start; patrick and reader are their own trigger warning; tw pregnancy and childbirth; major major tw for talk of abortion; tw depression and antidepressant talk; cw breeding kink centric smut; more artashi wedding scenes; baby lily !! ; art donaldson #dadding out; grammy donaldson mentioned ! ; tw vomit again i’m so sorry lol; cw more menstrual talk; tw adultery but i mean come on; baby names; lasagna; we all have annie’s reblog to thank ((blame)) for this)

‘ JESUS: Judas—

JUDAS: You forgave Peter and bullshit Thomas—you knocked Paul of Tarsus off a horse—you raised Lazarus from the fuckin’ dead—but me? Me? Your “heart”? . . . What about me??!! What about me, Jesus?! Huh?! You just, you just—I made a mistake! And if that was wrong, then you should have told me! And if a broken heart wasn't sufficient reason to hang, THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT, TOO!

JESUS: Don't you think . . . that if I knew that it would have changed your mind . . . that I would have?

Pause. ’

Stephen Adly Guirgis, ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot’

“Is it one of those ugly ones?”

You’re not special; you, too, hate hospitals. Not the least because your parents ralphed up all that cash for med school and you tanked like a castiron anchor. But there’s so much else to feel guilty for. You feel guilty for being alive while people are dying. You feel guilty for wanting to die while people are being born. You feel guilty, and nauseated, by this sickly visceral fume of birth and babyflesh, and the fact that you’re so upset.

You’d marked it on your calendar, is the thing.

March seventh, Doomsday, the purge, the end times.

Tashi Duncan’s Caesarean section.

Timely and clinical, fittingly so. You’d bought a little beanie for the occasion. The beanie is soft and grey and pink. It has a cartoon flower embroidered on the side of it.

But then this is the spawn of Art and Tashi Donaldson. The baby is inherently desperate, and eager, in that order.

It’s February twentyeighth.

It’s probably for the best, you think, while you and Art are on either side of the hospital bed, and he’s grasping Tashi’s hand more tightly than she is holding his, even though she is the one whose innards are being shat out. You don’t believe she could take another scar.

You grimace as she crowns. Art is sobbing and sniffing. He looks at Tashi like he’s getting to watch God populate the world with greenery. It makes your mouth tug sharply to one side, and you close your eyes, briefly, escaping the bright white light.

You watch the papery sheets go redder and redder with every gush from the cavity of her torso.

The baby is not rosy pink so much as she is carmine. Before this, as an idea, she’s existed mostly in black and white. Aminocentesis results on a MacBook screen. The sonogram on their coffee table. The concrete wall of your abject jealousy. The living colour of her, it shocks you more than her glass-shattering screech.

Art holds the baby first, of course, since Tashi is somewhat incapacitated. You soothingly caress her damp hairline.

“What was that like?” you whisper, wincing down at her.

Tashi sheds a few tears and manages a smile that’s part relief and all agony. “Remember…” she croaks, “Remember when Tre fuckin’… like, roundhouse kicked you up the crotch?”

You blink, quirking your brows. Then you snort in surprise, grinning. “Oh my God, yeah,” you giggle. “When Yas and Matteo got that trampoline.”

Tashi nods weakly, her desiccated mouth twitching at the memory, her eyes shivering gently closed.

The baby is tiny against Art’s body, cradled so carefully in his arms. He’s counting all her toes and fingers.

“Hey there,” he murmurs to her, like they’re the only two people on this earth Tashi made. Then he sinks down onto the stool by Tashi’s head, and holds this tiny, beautiful thing out toward her. “Say hi to momma,” he says, his voice soft as gauze.

Tashi reaches out. Her hands are trembling but all of her is trembling; both you and Art tried to get her on the epidural, but fuck if she’s not stubborn. She crooks the tip of her index finger into the fleecy receiving blanket, pulling it down just a little so she can see the baby’s entire pink face.

The baby opens just one bleary eye, only halfway, but it’s enough for her to see you, for you to feel yourself being seen.

Tashi sobs and Art sobs and you wonder, momentarily, if her obstetrician can reach up the cavity of your body, too, and tug out your heart.

So, of course you hate hospitals, and of course you feel guilty. For many reasons. Chief among them being how, the very moment your dear, gutted friend conks out, you’ve stolen to the hall to ring her ex. And he’s asking you, hopeful, if her fucking newborn is one of those ugly ones.

You sigh into the receiver, shaking your head all solemn. You’re sure any passersby think you’re delivering horrific news. “She’s beautiful,” you confess sadly.

“Fuck!” Patrick says forcefully, like he’s just stubbed his toe.

You can hear the hum of the highway on his end of the line, and he’s definitely a bad enough driver that he shouldn’t be calling you right now, because you don’t want to be back here at his bedside when he’s in a fullbody cast after a nearfatal accident—and you would come to visit, actually, if he were in the hospital; maybe that’d just be the guilt again—but this is pretty urgent.

You frown, tucking your hand under your armpit and managing a smile at a passing couple cautiously rolling their precious trolley to the NICU. “They named her Lily.”

Patrick scoffs. “Those fucking assholes.”

“Right?”

You appreciate his company in your deplorable sorrow. There’s a special corner in the firescape for the two of you, but at least it’ll be the two of you.

“That’s a beautiful name for a baby girl,” he says, practically insulted.

You sigh again. “I know,” you pout.

They’d planned the wedding, as they did all other things, a bona fide team. A well oiled unit. Art and Tashi. A&T. Handing off tasks with practiced efficiency, like another one of her hyperintensive drills, wherein he would sooner keel over heaving than drop the ball. The wedding planner was effectively ornamental once they really got into it.

And they really got into it.

Tashi was one of those little girls who stuffed a stream of toilet paper in her ponytail and pictured the vinyl flooring of her home’s warmly lit passage as a ceremonial aisle on the Amalfi Coast at sunset. Here comes the bride, aluminium foil wedding band, ramshackle wildflower bouquet picked from the backyard, et cetera.

Most times, she’d have you play groom.

But you don’t internalise that too much. Because she had you play a lot of things. And sometimes she’d have their senile Mastiff Mutt, Franklin, play groom, too. Really, the most important part was her having you at all.

And, apparently, as a little boy, Art used to page obsessively back and forth through the decrepit scrapbook of his grandparents’ Peoria union, the pictures frayed and hued dandelion. So it’s great that they found each other, and so many dreams were coming true, and everything was fine. Everything was better.

You’d been happy she was happy, really, you had. You hate big endeavours in your name. If she’d married you, you’d have made her elope to Puerto Rico.

And now she was all sprawled three-ring binders, pen behind each ear, Game Face On. And Art was there, talking place settings in full sincerity, so yeah. It’s fine. Better, even.

She let him intercalate all the mawkish, ubercorny bullshit—the Fleetwood Mac, the garter toss, the pictures of his grandmother at the centrepiece of every table. Because they were a team and it was his wedding as much as hers. And you’d told her, too. You’d told her that she’s going to have a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit wedding to a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit guy. But she’d waved you off with a dismissively sentimental smile. I just want to marry him, she’d told you, which had felt like a million and one serrated spurns all over.

A getaway car, really? you’d deadpanned. Then, leaning closer to her phonescreen, eyes narrowing at their shared twodozenpage Pinterest board, incredulous and disgusted, Are the cans really necessary?

Apparently so.

You were standing at the foreshore, toes all grainy, shoes in hand, pistachiorose and Patrick Zweig on your tongue, your ass still seadamp. Art and Tashi pulled up in front of you, cans rattling, like a justmarried Lyft order.

When you climbed into the backseat, they were in the middle of sharing in dulcet laughter over something or the other. Something that did not concern you. Which was fine, and better, and the flower arrangements were spectacular. And, anyway, you’re busy trying not to get sand on this vintage carpet.

“Shouldn’t you two be honeymooning?”

Art looked back at you, his arm outstretched, wrist resting on the bend of the wheel. He gave you this smile you couldn’t discern, which most of his smiles were, and are. He blew a raspberry from his rubicund mouth and tsked.

“What, without you?” he scoffed, wry but playful, and you realised that, though he teased, and wanted you to know as much, his goodnature was sincere.

And your fingers twitched to wrap his seatbelt—because he was wearing the seatbelt—around his rosy throat five or six or seven times and tug hard.

Tashi threw her head back and laughed into the humidity of the night, of their wedding night.

Tashi squirmed in the leather passengerseat of the ivorycoloured 1960 Ford Thunderbird convertible.

You were leaning over in between them from the back, straddling the armrest. And she watched Art turn his head and kiss you. His hand looked huge on the messy, delicate bone of your jaw. It felt cool and clammy, you remember. Tashi sucked in a breath. You two broke apart after a moment, laughing, your palm coming down on his forearm like he’d just made a joke.

“That,” you said, making a puerile face as he absently brushed a thumb over your cheek, “Was too far.”

Your eyes were still shining with tears.

Art nodded, grinning, slipping his hand from your face and running it through his sweaty shoresand hair. “Anything for you, baby, but maybe not that.”

Tashi was flushed and florid and tamping her thighs tighter together and she wanted you both to put your hands on her.

Her arm slunk across the centre console to press her palm into his chest. And she ran her nails along the tender skin of your inner arm. And Art looked back at you like he was asking for permission, which was the first time in a long time he’d done that. And probably the last time since. And you don’t know why you nodded, but you did.

He gave you another strange, cursory kiss on the corner of your mouth, then leaned across the centre console and nipped at Tashi’s earlobe. The whetted burst of pain sent a visible shiver through her bones. She bit her lip and sighed.

“Mrs Donaldson,” he’d murmured, all husky and low. His white buttonup was all sweatrumpled and unfurled. He looked handsome and disheveled like a fallen angel or those illustrations on the covers of erotic paperbacks.

You swallowed, overwhelmed by it all.

You pressed the seam of your lips to the skin where her neck met her shoulder and her lithe fingers encircled your wrist and guided it between her legs.

You and Art are friends—good friends, by now—but sometimes you feel more like business partners. Cofounders of Keeping Tashi Duncan Happy and Okay Inc.

So, when he cannot stomach all the vomit—so, so much fucking vomit—for all his earnest, anguished, tearful trying, he calls you. Because he and his hairtrigger loins can’t help her right now.

And you don’t tease, or berate, or say it should’ve been you.

And he doesn’t protest, or control freak, or remind you it wasn’t you, it was him.

He dips out to stock up on crackers and barley sugar sweets, and you stay with Tashi and stand sentry on emesis duty.

You hadn’t known that any one thing was capable of maiming her this way. Tashi Duncan, your impenetrable infanta. Fast to get up, faster, still, to dry her tears. But this baby is wringing her bone dry. She’s feeble, swollen, and practically debilitated.

You feel her spine shift as she shakes and heaves into the toilet. You hate her like this. At mercy to her bones.

You can’t help the archaic scorn. None of this, none of any of it, would’ve happened, had it been you. But it wasn’t.

You cradle Tashi’s feverish head in the bend of your knee. You thread your knuckles through her sweaty curls. You rub your fingers into her collar, tracing her bones where they have been swallowed by her plummy sallow skin. In college, you used to give each other lymphatic drainage massages.

You’re on Virginia Key Beach with T and her brothers, at the edge of the ocean. You’re, like, fourteen. Tevin’s mouth is a comically fluorescent shade of blue as he topes down a Slurpee. Tre hops over waves. Tre keeps saying the sharks will get you, they’ll smell it, blood in the water, blood in the water and Tevin keeps holding the Slurpee so high that the ultramarine of it obstructs the sun. And Tashi is yelling I’m not even on my fucking period! even though she is red and wet between her thighs, and give it to me, Tev, it’s mine, you took mine! as she reaches and reaches and reaches, unable to grasp what she wants.

There are some women unmoved by such trivialities as their own blood. Eightinch stilettos, eight months in. People will assume Tashi Duncan, pulchritude and powerhouse, to be one of these women.

But you’ll know better.

She’s so good at the tennis, ultimately, because she listens to her blood. She lets it move her. Lets it give her power. She is a mesmerising glass carafe of red.

But when it spills, it pours. When she breaks, she shatters.

Art Donaldson’s child writhes inside her, swills her blood. And you watch.

Patrick takes you home from the hospital. You were planning on sinking into the void of your couch while forking miserably into a whole tray of lasagna by yourself, but you feel bad. You feel guilty and lonely. So you invite him in.

You thunk your stoneware roaster on the granite of your peninsular countertop. He’s sat on a barstool and you’re standing across from him, and he wastes no time tucking in. You nudge at the broiled cheese with your fork.

You’re crying, which he doesn’t mind, but it’s a little distracting while he’s trying to eat, is all. He peers up at you, circumspect, as he chews.

You roll your eyes at him. “Please don’t make me cry alone,” you tell him.

He chews, swallows, licks some pasta from his gums. He rests the fork against the edge of the tray and dusts his hands off.

“I don’t cry,” he says, shrugging like it’s out of his hands. The corner of his mouth quirks up as you fix him with a sullen glare.

“I’ve seen you cry,” you say pointedly, dropping your own silverware.

He shrugs again. “Yeah,” he says, “One time. That was the only time I’ve ever cried. Ever.”

He has this way of saying things like he absolutely means them. This hamfisted sincerity, serrated deadpan. And, when you’re emotional like this, all husked and raw, it’s unfortunately an extremely effective way to make you laugh. His eyes gleam with victory as you duck your head and giggle wetly.

“You feel special?” he smirks.

You roll your eyes again, tears still trickling pools into the tender shadowed skin beneath your eyes. “I feel especially depressed,” you reply thickly.

He flits his eyes back and forth between the both of yours a few times. You’re reminded of the abject tedious torture of sitting through one of Art’s tennis games. “Are you really? Or are you just moping?” he asks you.

You reach into your pocket and pull out your little Effexor prescription vial, rattling it twice, and tossing it his way. It’s a sloppy underhand, but he catches it easily.

“Huh,” he muses, turning it between his fingertips. “That’s why you look so different? I thought you were just putting on sympathy weight.”

Your lips wobble, and your eyes burn and blur again, your throat swelling shut like fucking anaphylactic excoriation, and you catch your face with your hands and cry.

“Don’t be mean right now,” you blubber.

Patrick blinks, sobering with a smart, the humour seeping off his face and replacing itself with an almost comically disturbed frown.

“Okay, okay,” he says, his voice light with a culpable urgency reserved for a triggered, irate straitjacket patient. He reaches over the lasagna, the savoury brume warming his forearms, and he takes your wrists and peels your fingers from your eyes. “Hey, I’m sorry.”

You hiccup breathlessly. Your tears slithering down your cheeks in rills.

“I’m sorry,” says Patrick. He presses his thumbs into your pulsepoints, like he can quash your distress through your radial arteries. “You look hot, okay? Really, you do.”

For his part, he seems genuinely contrite, and utterly concerned, and he probably means it. He is rarely insincere, even when his tongue is in his cheek. But your sulky inner voice says he’s bargaining. How about I quit being an ass and you stop with the ugly crying and I can finish this pasta and hotfoot it out of here? But this is your house. And your pasta. And you think you should get to mourn his exgirlfriend’s womb, if you so choose.

You sob harder, shoulders quavering. His brows raise in quiet alarm when you wrest your arms from his fingers.

You snuffle and swallow. “Please stop,” you moan sadly.

Somewhere between the cake cutting—which walked that revolting, quintessentially Art and Tashi line between sweet and sexy; she daubed some frosting on his nose, he licked it off her finger—and your purloining of a slice or two for your and Patrick’s beachside bitchsesh, the speakers are thumping with ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’.

Everyone is wasted.

You don’t even mean to, but one of Art’s cousins, who is clearly eking out his fraternity days that have long since started mouldering, keeps ordering you shots from the open bar. And you keep downing them, one after the other. He’s wearing a practically lurid red polo that really errs on the ‘optional’ side of Black Tie Optional, but he has a really charming smile, the light glistering off the white of his teeth as you dance.

And—fuck it—he’s hot. And he’s looking at you like he wants to kiss you in the middle of this dance floor, grinding against you like you’re teenagers at a CYO dance.

The lights are scintillating technicolour and the music is so loud you can feel it in your rib cage and it doesn’t take long for the room to start spinning like the world’s trippiest ferris wheel.

Cody—or Connor, maybe—goes to the bathroom to piss, and you track down the newlyweds on the other side of the room. Tashi’s beautiful eyes, already aglow, light up even more when she sees you.

“Hi, baby!” She kind of has to yell over the music. God, it’s been a while since you’ve seen her let loose like this. Either of them, really. They’re having a great fucking time. The Happy Couple. It makes you feel sick. “You good?”

“I’m fucked up,” you smile blearily, because all of a sudden the room’s spinning has increased in velocity.

You fight the urge to grab for her hand for some fleeting sense of stability. Because, if you do, you’ll tackle her to the ground and kiss her until someone hauls you off.

And her husband’s right there.

“Me too,” says said husband. He is flushed in the face, grinning elatedly, his eyes drunkenly disfocused, Tashi’s glossy, nudepink lip-print on his cheek.

Tashi, as ever, seems appreciably more put-together than Art looks and you feel. All silken and nitid. Art’s holding her with the desperate adoration of someone who knows, in the far far end of his bevvied mind, what you’re thinking right now. You narrow your eyes at him. Then,

“Do you wanna dance?” you ask on a whim.

“Sure,” Art shrugs, a sloppy smile curving on his lips. And by now Tashi’s turned to exchange polite smalltalk with some or other extended family member, so he impishly adds, “Let me ask the missus.”

He and Tashi have a short conversation that you can’t quite hear, and then she’s pulling you in by the wrist to whisper in your ear,

“Don’t let him drink anymore, okay?”

She pecks a kiss onto your cheek before you have time to question this rule, but you know her well enough to know she’s also surreptitiously telling you to slow down. You spitefully nab another shot on your and Art’s way to the dance floor.

Art’s a good dancer. You would certainly not have pegged him as one, if asked. But when he’s twisting and moving his feet and putting his hands on your waist in a halfway facetious impression of a slow dance, you realise it’s true.

“Congratulations, by the way,” you shout when you get close enough to his ear. “Happy for you.”

He winces at your volume, raising his fingers to his ear and laughing and looking at you and shaking his head. “No you’re not.”

Patrick watches you sob for a few more moments before smacking his hand against the counter.

“Let’s make one,” he says, declaratively.

You snivel and sweep some tears away, looking up at him. “What?”

“Let’s make one,” he repeats, more urgently now, “If we make one right now, it’ll show up before the end of the year, and we can still weaponise it. Come on.”

He’s sliding off the stool and reaching across the counter to grab your hand and tow you out of the kitchen.

“Patrick,” you whine in demurral, stumbling after him.

But he pulls you along even harder, making a decisive path toward the hallway. “Come on!” he insists, “I’m serious.”

“You’re broke.”

Which is true. He’s been snipped off from the trust fund, which you’d thought was purely the stuff of Murdochian nightmares. But he whipped out his Chase Mobile app and showed you the negative balance to prove it. He’d rather bum it out than suit up and schmooze. So he’s not spoiled for funds right now, nor is he spoiled for wins, and you aren’t equipped with great confidence in a potential future as his baby mama.

“They’re pissed, they’re not cruel,” he tells you, effectively shoving you into your room and kicking off his shoes. “I’ll be back on the payroll with a kid on the docket, I promise. My mom would love it, actually. My sister just had a hysterectomy, this’ll be like a family miracle. You’ll have the child support of a Kardashian.”

He grabs your head and kisses you sloppily—he tastes like tomatoes—clumsily walking you back into the bed.

You think he’s too old to be fingering you the way he is. Rubbing your clit all clumsy, like a faulty button on an old remote. You’re a little sticky, but not enough for what he plans to do here. He sighs and leans back.

“This isn’t working,” he says, all pensive, sitting back on his heels. It’s a little difficult, though, to take him seriously, when his cock is on the front end of halfmast and still rising.

When Tashi first started seeing him, you remember her barrelling into your room all stiff and saucereyed and clamorous. As though a particularly warhankering pigeon had just been elected president, or an alien society had been discovered in the thick of the Amazon. But no. She held your shoulders and shook them wildly and yelled, I’m telling you, it’s fucking huge!

She made a point to you that she’d never be caught dead gushing about his dick to his face. She said it was important to humble him.

So you want to maintain that tradition.

And, anyway, it’s a big dick, not the cure to cancer. You don’t even know what he needs it all for. It’s probably all he has left. You can’t imagine it even gets him very far.

People have frontiers. Parameters. Limits. To their patience, to their bodies. Patrick used to kill the sprinting drills, back in school. He likes going end to end, reaching those limits. But once you start pissing someone off and/or ramming into their cervix, everything else is probably a nonstarter.

You sit up, drawing your knees to your chest. “Uh, yeah. It isn’t.”

“Well, is there something I can do? Should I act like her? Will that get you going?” He asks, but he doesn’t wait for your answer. He huffs and crosses his arms and imitates Tashi’s angry moue.

And his dick is still hard, harder now, so you splutter into laughter. You laugh really, really hard. Then he guides your legs back open and swipes his fingers between them again.

And he grins and says, “Bingo.”

You got really into Pilates for about a month or two mid last year. You’re starting to think you should have kept at it. Your knees are hooked over his shoulders, the undersides of your thighs pressed to his chest. Your hips ache, but it feels, regrettably, really fucking great otherwise.

It’s eminently uncomfortable, sure. For your part, it hasn’t really occurred to you to let a man fuck you raw. Your lingering childishness still recoils a bit at the very idea. And it feels strange, that gauche drag of skin on skin. You’d need to be really wet for this to be working, and that hilarious necessity makes you wetter in response, and then he’s slipping in and out and fucking you raw and he doesn’t even seem to be trying too hard.

He’s a little relieved. You’re letting this happen and taking it like a champ and your pussy’s deep enough to give him room to work.

So he does. Because he knows how. He knows how to work things from here.

He’s had more sex than you’ve attended pilates classes.

The thought of you, splayed and tensile across a reformer, gets him pretty hot. Very hot, actually, and he can tell because the surface of his skin is bloomed pink, and your fingers blench away from his shoulders like he’s caught aflame.

He knows by now how tremendously warm he runs in these moments. He usually asks about a girl’s AC before things get going.

Should he say that aloud, or will it piss you off?

You probably see your appending to the convoluted list of unfortunate holes to sheathe the great penis of Patrick Zweig as a little beneath you.

This is his chance to remind you that Tashi Duncan doesn’t go back on her word for just any heavy pair of balls.

He angles your hips to get deeper, experimenting with ways to evoke a reaction. He’s working you like you’re paying him.

You’re trying really hard not to say anything too nice about his dick. But he’s plunging hard and fast into you, rolling his hips with all the dexterity of fucking Magic Mike, and—well—you wouldn’t be able to, even if you wanted.

The words you’re saying are not in the dictionary. You’re sweating, panting, tugging a little mercilessly at his hair. Patrick bends your legs and hoists your pelvis. He can’t keep a trainer right now, but some adrenalinefueled strength is allowing him to support your body like it’s nothing. He wasn’t bluffing about you looking hot. He’s groping you all over with the ferocious depravity of a necrophile.

There’s some real blasphemous perversion slipping off his tongue. Ersatz porno shit that should be giving you early onset morning sickness, but he’s going all Daniel Day Lewis with it, and you’re kind of buying it.

Fucking come-slut… fuckin’— fuck… gonna breed you… gonna put a baby in you.

You’re audibly wet. The air around you grows practically mephitic. You’re losing your fucking mind. If this shit falls flat, and he can’t get you pregnant tonight, and you dump and block him and never want to speak to him again, he at least hopes you remember this for a long time.

And—you know what—fuck it if that wasn’t memorable enough, he thinks, feeling his cock twitch as he slooshes molten litres into you. Because he’s pulling out, flipping you over, and hiking up your hips. Maybe this’ll be.

He fucks you, he comes in you. A lot. He needs a second to replenish.

You steal to the kitchen. Your inner thighs are chafed and viscid. You cover the lasagna dish and cache it away, and take a second to scoff at some vapidly controversial Twitter thread. You yelp when you feel his arms around you again, lifting you off the tile and carrying you back to the bedroom.

Patrick’s never really thought too hard about his come. It’s an ancillary deluge. A mess to clean most often. Maybe he’s considered meliorating his diet when someone’s gleaned a taste and gagged.

But right now it’s serving a purpose. And he is, among other things, relieved for that, too. He’s not gonna sit around and mourn this while it happens and ask you if you’d really have his child. He’d rather look you in your beautiful, milky pussy than a gift horse in the mouth.

He refuses to waste a drop of himself. He makes sure to coat your insides with it.

He lies sheathed inside you for many minutes after he comes, gripping your hips harshly to him, groaning like this were the real orgasm.

Afterwards, he holds your knees to his chest and lifts your ass and presses his palm to your cunt as if sealing an entrance, making sure nothing escapes. He’s trying to give his guys a fighting chance.

You were, at first—as in, after two or three rounds—a little amused by this stupid, elaborate routine. Something out of an old maid’s pastel mommy blog. You were amused, and frankly weirded out, by what seemed like a laughable lack of dignity on his part.

Now—now you’re feeling aroused by it. Because being aroused disrupts the dumb ritual and kind of annoys him.

When he is holding your knees up and your cunt twitches, he rolls his eyes.

“You already got off,” he chuckles, shaking his head. He sounds a bit spent, too. He’s usually flaked out by now, in his actual customary postcome routine. “Just stay still for a second.”

The fact that he doesn’t want you to come makes you almost desperately want to. He holds his palm over your cunt but he offers no friction.

The simple touch is enough, though. You can find your own internal rhythm.

Your head falls back against the pillow.

“Oh fuck.”

And maybe you’re being particularly loud and lewd in this moment, while he’s trying to be serious, and get something done. Because you’re still doing this longcon in calling his bluff. You don’t think he knows what he wants.

You don’t want to believe that you two are really so bitter as to start a life out of spleen.

You still don’t know if he knows whether or not he actually likes you.

“What the fuck?” he laughs, “I said don’t.” He squeezes your cunt like he wants to tear flesh from bone, trying to render you still again.

But it only makes you moan louder.

“Oh, fuck, that’s so good,” you mewl indecently, smirking a bit, because you’re joking, but you also sort of mean it, “It feels so good having your come inside me, I can already feel your little fuckass kid crawling around in there. He’ll grow up loving bagels, I just know it.”

These taunts are supposed to disgust him or hurt his feelings or simply turn him off, and Patrick does sort of look like wants to throttle you. Because he’s tired and a little grumpy and he knows you’re not letting him stay the night. But a part of him has always found you funny. So he just ends up getting hard again. Your crude, glib moaning brings him to such a pitch of want that he yanks you into his lap and fucks you roughly, gripping your jaw.

And you grin as he brings your head close. You feel it’s some kind of victory.

Even though you’re just prolonging this dumb, bitter, unfulfilling farce. Making sure there’s more of him inside you.

You two should not be parents.

By the eighth or ninth round, he starts getting conversational.

“I was one of those babies that never shut up,” he tells you, fucking up into you in cowgirl. He grunts and makes a thoughtful face. “Colic? Is that what it’s called? Yeah, I think I was a colicky baby.”

You make a face down at him. “I thought you said you’ve never cried,” you pant, rocking your hips back and forth.

He rolls his eyes again.

“Yeah, obviously I was lying. I cry all the fucking time.”

You consider this, your hips stilling, your palms resting against his hairy hotplate chest.

“Over what?” you ask, “Tashi?”

He blinks, scowling a bit, like he thinks you’re making fun. Then his grips your hips and starts to move you on his dick again. He doesn’t answer. Your pussy feels warm and raw.

Geez, how long have you two been at this?

He asks, absently, about baby names.

“I thought every girl had, like, a whole fucking list of them,” he says, pushing his semen back into your used cunt with his long fingers.

You don’t entertain that presumptuous conversation, but you don’t underestimate his commitment, either.

He’s back the next day, and the next, like clocking into a shift. He brings supplies. Sliced pineapple, fresh honey, ground cinnamon, cough syrup, two boxes of ClearBlue.

“I read acupuncture helps too,” he says.

“Absolutely not,” you say, but you let him feed you baby aspirin while you ride him in reverse on your couch watching Selling Sunset.

He feigns disinterest, but keeps tilting to look past your shoulder whenever the arguments start riling up.

“Ugh, Nicole’s a bitch,” he mutters.

Then he grunts and comes inside you, grasping your hips to sink you down and hold you still.

Her name, for the better or worse part of the first and second trimesters, was actually Stella.

Art’s grandma used to love that Philip Sidney poem, and Pam’s favourite film is Streetcar. It’s just that Tashi got sick of the name, and all other things, at a stage. So it didn’t stick.

They were oscillating between Lily and Rooney towards the end, and only made the final call when they saw her.

But, for a while there, she was Stella.

Stella’s craving peanuts, Stella’s the size of a rutabaga, Stella’s a kicker. And, boy, was she.

She’d ram her foetal feet into Tashi’s ribs over and over like she was on a treadmill. Which Tashi was starting to think of as karmic consequence for all the times she’d have Art doing cardio until he fainted.

You crouch down between her knees, resting your head against the amorphous motion of her distended stomach.

“Hey hey, Stella girl,” you whisper, “You wanna stop giving your mom a hard time?”

Tashi chokes out a wounded laugh from above you.

“That’s how Art talks to her.”

“Ugh, don’t ruin it,” you frown, moving to stand up.

But she sticks her leg out to halt you, grabbing your hand and tugging you back down, shifting her hips and spreading her thighs further apart.

You never could resist her sweet face when it was all crumpled up in asking. Because she got all soft and wet, like a flower caught in a gale.

She looks even softer now, over the horizon of her bloated body.

You gently tug her cotton shorts down and put your mouth on her and Stella stills.

“One more,” you say anxiously, eyebrows knitted in concern as Patrick sighs and unboxes a another pregnancy test—the fifth one—and you quaff down another glass of water to get your bladder teeming, because no way.

No way, right?

You’ve been taking him raw at all angles, and swigging shots of cough syrup, and weaning off the antidepressants, but no way.

“I don’t know what you thought was gonna happen,” he calls from beyond the bathroom door as you’re pissing on stick number six.

It’s just that you don’t feel anything.

You think you should be feeling more.

You think of Tashi, writhing and groaning like a bullet victim, miserably clutching her turgid body. You think of newborn Lily, her cottonsoft, tiny eye peeling open and seeing you. Deep steeped coffee, gleaming in the sterile light. Tashi’s eye. Tashi’s hair. Tashi’s baby. That tender absorption, that vivid creation.

If this kid is taking nothing from you, it’s gonna come out all Patrick. And—just—you don’t have the bandwidth to contend with such a prospect right now.

He drives you to the clinic every time. Every single time. One night, you rouse sharply from a morbid dream punctuated by the squall of wailing children. You call him. It’s 2 AM. He answers, and comes over, and drives you to the clinic, and tries not to nod off as you’re filling out the medical paperwork for the dozenth time. He also tries not to express any overt reaction to you changing your mind again.

Is it a kindness, to tease a man with the brutal decimation of his unborn progeny? No, of course not. His mum’s already preemptively enrolled the thing into a fancy German daycare.

But you hate that he’s given you an ultimatum and put it inside you. That’s the worst place, in relation to you, for an ultimatum to be.

If you tell Tashi, either he’s in, or you’re out. And those aren’t really odds you’re keen on rolling.

There are all sorts of ways to be a shitty friend. You opt for evasive gambits via claims of hectic work schedules and immovable errands. Any retching you do is that of guilt. You’re loathe to lie to her, to house this wretched zygote, to stay away. But she used to be able to tell when you’d changed your shampoo. She’d sniff him on you, in you, in a second. She’d just know. And she shouldn’t. She can’t. And if you could just unearth this presentient betrayal and toss it in a petri dish, she doesn’t have to.

You don’t know what matters more.

He drives you to the clinic. Teary teenaged girls, redcapped pickets out front. The receptionist knows you two by name by now.

Patrick slumps beside you. He’s still slogging through the first chapter of Last Child in the Woods. He’s pretty sure he’s never sat and read an actual, physical book to completion before in his life. But he’s too easily abstracted for Audible. So he’s working on it.

You’re groaning frustratedly and thunking the clipboard repeatedly against your skull. He absently slips a hand over your forehead, shielding the next few collisions before you huff and drop the board and turn to face him. He looks at you askance.

“You can change your mind,” he shrugs. Again, he generously omits.

You scoff at him, incredulous and a little irked. “I’m not gonna change my mind,” you grumble.

He shrugs again. “Okay.”

He knows what it’s like to have a mother in sackcloth and ashes. To be less of a son than a sentient thing of regret with little arms and legs. To not know what to do with that, or yourself. He wouldn’t do that to a kid.

You watch him thumb through Richard Louv for a few more moments.

Then, “You’re probably sick of me, aren’t you?”

He smiles a bit before schooling it stoic, slowly lowering the book and fixing you with this wry but incongruously tender look. “Of course I am,” he tells you.

“Get mad at me, then.”

He smiles again.

He knows what that’s like, too. Dad mad at mom. Stilted five course dinner. Dad telling him and Saskia what a goddamn headache mom is on the drive to school. Of course he’s sick of you, he’s always sick of you. But he likes you. And his head feels fine.

He turns back to the book, shrugging.

“Can’t,” he says simply.

You feel for baby Lily. She’ll never be able to get away with anything.

It’s Art who sniffs it on you, in you.

Tashi’s asleep upstairs when, after a fortnight and a bit, you rally up the guts to come over. Art opens the door and looks surprised for mere moments, and there is perhaps a flicker of concern, but then he smiles. And there’s only very mild ire there. The rest is fatigue and goodnature.

“Hello, stranger,” he smirks, turning to filch a set of keys from the marble catchall in the foyer. He is wheeling Lily out in the thirteenhundred dollar stroller he had lost six nights of sleep picking out. “You coming?”

So now you’re on a walk.

Lily lays on her soft belly in the stroller. The walls around her are a breathable mesh, and she fights to hoist her head and gawp at passing trees. This is, apparently, the only way she’ll do tummy time.

“And the only time she gets any sleep,” Art adds, jutting a finger over his shoulder in the general direction of their home down the street.

Lily’s wearing a ruffly lavender romper. Her skin is a healthy shade of linen and her hair is dark. Her fists have tiny moony fingernails that—when you comment how, Her nails are long. Like, sharp—Art explains how he keeps trying to cut them with a pair of tiny silver scissors. But they make Tashi nervous, their sharpness and its proximity to Lily’s fleshy hands.

“She said she wants her to get a grip on the world,” Art chuckles.

You snort, and you have to skip a bit to keep up with his brisk strides. “Oh, that’s definitely what she said,” you confirm.

Lily tosses and turns a bit in the strollerbed. She gurgles an impressive spit bubble, by Art’s standards. Most things she does are probably impressive to him, quite frankly. He tells you how, the other morning, she had thrown up breakfast onto his shoulder with such verve and accuracy that they’re already talking tennis lessons.

“Oh God,” you grimace. Not at the story, but at the memory of his nauseous pallor in the throes of Tashi’s own gravid sickness. “How’s that been for you?”

Art flashes a selfdeprecating simper. “I’m managing.”

When she casts her little coral taglet security blanket curbside, Lily scrunches up her face, grasping, gearing up for the Big Scream. Art sighs and says, “No, please?” as he stops to pick it up and give it back to her, and his arm, when he sticks it in, blooms with little ruddy strings as she claws at him.

He looks more than a little surprised she isn’t crying.

Apparently, in that meantime, you had jutted your fingers into the cot and offered her a pinky as a peace offering. Versailles-style, like you’ll be punished later.

But he seems content with how she’s chewing you and figures you guys can stop here, for a bit, beneath these treemottled springtime sunbeams. In the garden of the home in front of which you’re standing, huge orange bougainvillea loll their petaltongues in the breeze.

“I just…” Art flounders for his words, then scoffs a not unkind, but vaguely embittered, sort of laugh, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why him?”

You groan. “Don’t ask.”

“How is he?”

“He’s—” you waver, then shake your head, before finishing, “Ugh.”

“Patrick’s ‘ugh’? Patrick? Wow. Should we call all the outlets? I mean, that’s never happened before. Patrick. Ugh. You’re blowing my mind.”

You snort, and Lily laughs, and Art informs you that that is a very hard reaction to glean. And he rubs his temples, because all the wails sort of tremor at that same migrainous pitch. No matter if they’re amused or rabidly apoplectic. But you can enjoy it, the laughter.

“Can you just tell her for me?” you frown helplessly up at him.

That flicker in his tired eyes that wants to agree is purely paternal, but he sighs and shakes his head. “You know I can’t.”

He’s genuinely sympathetic.

“She’ll forgive you,” he tells you. You roll your eyes and hang your head, kicking piteously at the wheel of the stroller. He intercepts your foot with his, lightly shoving it away before bending to search for your gaze. “Hey,” he says, “She really will.”

You huff. “She’s never had to.”

You instinctively press your fingers into your womb, through your shirt. You feel the strange sensation of something starting to swell beneath the flesh.

“You’ll be a good mom,” says Art.

It’s a small relief, for you, to feel your face screw into its shut-the-fuck-up-Art expression. It’s something you know how to feel, a well trodden path. Maybe, once they drop you like a bad habit, he’ll still send you those furtive pictures he likes to take of Tashi sleeping. And you and Patrick can dualmasturbate to them, pretending your swollen belly isn’t in the way.

What you like about them, all three of them, is that they have all always loved you so simply. Tashi is severe, and Patrick is flippant, and Art is occasionally insincere. But they each care about you, to varying degrees, in their own ways. And they do so without reservation, even when you’ve been an ass.

You think that’s how you’re supposed to love your child.

You should probably figure out how he does it in the next five to ten seconds.

You ask, “What makes you say that?”

And his eyes flick down to where Lily is still gumming your knuckle like a dog with a bone, then back up to you, and he gives you one of those smiles. Your face screws. Shut the fuck up Art. Then, he tells you, “You love harder than you give yourself credit for.”

Lily gags around your pinky.

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clementinegreye · 4 months ago

Text

the end of love.

pairing: aemond targaryen x wife!reader

words: 1.1k

content warns/summary: infidelity, heartbreak, angst etc. aemond cheating on his wife is not cool - but it can be poetic when he’s filled with regret.

a/n: i actually never actually use any character names so this can be read with anyone in mind, i was just thinking of aemond - as i often do. (if you go on this journey with me and consider that contextually this perhaps could follow a certain scene in season two, ahem) also this is not proof-read and written really quickly but ahh enjoy!

Every tedious beat in her chest shimmered with the glittering shards of heartbreak. It was invisible to the naked eye - but so glaringly obvious that its fragments littered the atmosphere around them.

He stood before her, breaking beneath the weight of her unwavering clemency. The injury of being so entangled with another so closely bonded that the pain he had caused her ended up maiming him too. Bruises blooming across the expanse of his affection.

There was no explaining, excusing or understanding what led him to unfurl the only threads of value in his life. Silver strands stuck in the crevices of his skin where he’d tangled his grip in another.

In pooling sapphire before him she was uncovered, glinting in the vulnerability with her ribs cracked open so he may see the damage he'd done. Every incarnadine bone was soaked with the agony born from the duplicity of his transgression as it leaked from each torn ventricle.

Forgiveness spent on the wind that whistled through the room and flickered the dance between the candles. There was none left to be offered to him, and he had no coin to acquire any having spent it all on fornication. The rain trickled down in secret patterns hinting at the undoubted end of all that was - his own personal doomsday.

Her eyes glistened with the threat of tears, not yet shed but on a dangerous precipice of slipping. That would be unfair - it would be a display of truth and openness that he did not merit. For allowing him to know how he had wounded her would be an outward acceptance that he had ever owned any form of her and that she had offered any attachment to him with open trust.

There was a certain flash of betrayal alight in the air, something archaic and distinguishable - known by women for centuries before her and would be known centuries after.

The way she burnt under his touch sent an ache through her very soul. Someone who had known her so openly and who had fed her poison from his gentle palm that was pressed so delicately to her cheek. The action itself screamed words that would never pass his lips - the violence in being vulnerable something he would never subject her to, no matter how much she craved the punch.

She could stand at the door of his heart and knock with all her might, scrape the wood with her fingertips and embed her DNA into the carvings but it would make no difference, he was bolted and locked with the silver key firmly out of her grasp.

He tasted like metal, leather and smoke. Harsh, abrasive and intoxicating. She couldn't give in, knowing that someone else had tasted what should have been hers and hers alone - in oath and vow.

Clad in black leather as smooth as the surface of the sky, protective and impenetrable it was a perfect representation of him. The moon shone above them, lighting the illicit emotion that curved in the hips he had moved his hands to. It was begging, desperate and false.

There was nothing that could be the unbinding to them.

Except his own actions.

Could there have been a time when she knew the depths of his soul, or was there always the abyss of betrayal waiting to devour her whole? Waiting to sink its darkness around her light and draw her into an inescapable absence. She had been lost in a labyrinth of him, yet he had been lurking in the shadows the entire time waiting to contain her.

Fear was such a powerful sensation - she stood in front of him tracing the edges of his silhouette with tainted eyes - fearing that everything she had given had been for a fabrication.

Sabotaged in the single breath of midnight that passed the moon's lips. There was enough love there for both of them, unevenly split and so easily covered by the presence of another outwith them.

What had possessed him to fall so ungraciously into the embrace of someone else? Did the devil in spirit convince him to ruin and vandalise the pure form of tenderness that flowed from her veins and through her?

His head fell low, burning with the molten heat of regret and the knowing that he was his own undoing. That the blush of her body would now never belong to him, that he had discoloured with disdain any flush of crimson that may have once been mistaken for devotion.

Spring would fall into summer who would dance with autumn who would be killed by winter and everything would still be the same. Change of seasons could not change the knowing that there was nothing monumental enough, not even love that could have saved him from his own demise.

He had seen to that.

Ensuring there could be no weakness from intimacy that was handed to him in front of god herself. He had to destroy the holy and pure form of adoration with a disposition so closely linked to desolation.

One moment in time was all it took.

In the cold hands of another, he had tasted the bitterness of depravity that flavoured adultery. Eschewing the comfort and honeyed sweetness that lay in the milky sheets of his own home. Where sleep could evade him and he could dream of her so safely next to him for something numbing and dark in their caress.

He had held her in the half-light of dawn when the shadows danced on her body. It had looked as menacing as he felt his soul to be and he knew the sweetness of the innocence of her admiration would decay in his macabre hands.

He slipped out beneath the moonlight, the call of motion into the sea of darkness as he pursued his weapon of destruction against the one he called his own.

The ghost of his beloved’s lips haunted his as they flushed with infidelity. The memory of her touch cascading over him in shivers while the harsh hands of that which he sought out bruised the path which they touched. He could savour the taste of her name on his tongue and know he had no right to speak it, not after the sin he had committed.

Had he little thought for consequence? Or was it exactly the outcome he had endeavoured?

That answer lay within the tainted heart of his lover, who stood before him as she uncovered the layers of his deceit and let the waves wash over them - drowning the memory of love from where it had once taken life and started to breathe.

Little disclaimer: I do not own any of the House of The Dragon/Fire & Blood characters. I do not claim to own any of the House of The Dragon/Fire & Blood characters.

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #house of the dragon #hotd #prince aemond targaryen #hotd aemond #aemond x reader

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blackgirlsrxck · 2 years ago

Text

Y/n Makes a JPG account

Summary: Where Y/n creates a .jpg account

y/n.jpg: Me taking a picture of Daniel taking a picture of Lando whose taking a picture of Daniel taking a picture of me

tagged: lando.jpg, daniel3.jpg

liked by: danielriccardo, landonorris, y/nswife, f1, and 540,683 others

view all 53,987 comments

f1fan99: Da fuc did I just read? 😭

landosfuturewife: @f1fan99: I had the exact respond lol 😂

formulariccardo: I just love how chaotic this trio is 🥰

drivetosurvive.net: The queen had made a JPG account 🧎🏾‍♀️ 🥵

Y/n.jpg: @Drivetosurvive.net You already know I had to jump on the band wagon 😏

danielriccardo: even from the back im good looking 😍

y/n.jpg: @danielriccardo did anyone else vomit in their mouth? 🤢

y/n.jpg: Hey Siri, play Smooth Operator by Sade

tagged: carlossainz55

liked by: carlossainz55, charles_leclerc, lewishamilton and 390,747 others

view all 29,210 comments

carlossainz55: I will never get away from this song 😞

y/n.jpg: @carlossainz55: never *evil laugh*

smoothoperatxr55: I'm living for these behind the scenes post 😫

f1bydayeditorbynight: Mother has blessed us with another post ❤️

lewishamilton: okay y/n I see you getting better at photography 👏🏾

y/n.jpg: @lewishamilton: why thank you sir hamilton 🙇🏾‍♀️

leclercland22: omg my bf looks so good!!!

y/n.jpg: that one time I got drunk after placing p2 in Monaco 😝

tagged: pierregasly

liked by: lewishamilton, danielriccardo, pierregasly and 1,457,901 others

view all 156,893 comments

@lewishamilton: I shed a tear that day 🥲

y/n.jpg: @lewishamilton: you'll be shedding many more once I beat you 😁

@ouiouibaguette: what was Pierre doing on the bed? 👀

@pierregasly: a night i'll never forget 😌

y/n.jpg: @pierregasly: funny cause I did 🤷🏾‍♀️

@y/nismylife: is she cheating on me with the frenchmen????

f14life: @y/nismylife: Like you ever had a chance 😂

theonionlord: I love how y/n straight up friend zoned Pierre 😭

1K notes · View notes

604to647 · 4 months ago

Text

Safest with You (Ch. 20 - The Way to Get Over Someone, Part 1)

8.6K / Modern AU Retired Mob Enforcer!Din Djarin x fem!reader

Summary: Five months pass as you and Din try to forget one another.

Warnings: 18+ Content to be safe (MDNI please). Angst! (like a lot) Yearning, pining, mourning. People are hard on themselves in this one, folks. Nicknames (Din still thinks of you as Pretty Bird even though you're no longer his Pretty Bird; you're still Lil' Lady to Paz). And there is mild violence (of the Rory variety).

A/N: Thank you to everyone for being so patient with me! It's been a month since Ch. 19 and I guess this word count reflects that 😅😂 It could have been a little shorter but this ask convinced me to include the final scene instead of leaving it for the next chapter 🫣🤷🏻‍♀️ For that final scene, please imagine the suit/look from the Variety Hollywood issue shoot. The vibes of this and the next chapter is this scene in Twilight New Moon (cue 🎶it's a possibilityyyyyy🎶):

Dividers by @saradika-graphics / Series Masterlist

The week following that night at Din’s, you’re a shell of a person. You cry for entire days but not much else - going on auto pilot taking care of Al but not yourself. You don’t go to brunch that weekend, saying you feel disgusting, which honestly isn’t too far from the truth. You’ve never been cheated on so you hardly know what it is you feel, only that an unyielding and tempestuous monsoon of emotions swirls inside you at all hours of the day. You oscillate wildly between barely restrained hysteria, self-effacing shame, and sadness in an endless cycle.

To only your dog, you sometimes burst out half crying, half laughing at the absurdity of what you stumbled upon at Din’s apartment – how was it even possible? Din, who you had loved with your whole heart, had pledged himself to you as you had him. He had been your match in every way, and it was a tenant of his devotion that he only ever wanted to take care of you, make your life better. How could the same man, without any warning, betray you in such an unfeeling and vulgar manner? It simply could not be possible - it had to have been some type of cruel joke, you sob to Al.

Then in an instant, you’ll turn your ire unto yourself: How could you have allowed this to happen? Because it certainly did. You stupidly let yourself be so blinded by love and desire that you didn’t see Din for what he was. He wasn’t some honourable and noble protector; he was just some asshole who did and said what he needed to get his dick wet – and like an idiot you had fallen for it. You were supposed to smarter than that, but it turns out you were just susceptible to a handsome face and a fat cock as anyone else. The Din you had fallen for had been a total fabrication, and the dumbest part is that you had let him lie to you: you had blindly accepted that there were things in his life that he could never be fully honest with you about - that there were things that he just had to keep secret from you for your “own protection.” You had accepted dishonesty as part of your so-called relationship right off the bat, it was no wonder that none of it had been real. Stupid, stupid.

Though you know now that it had all been lie, you still have moments, usually in the dead of night when sleepiness strips you of your ability to reason and overthink, where you simply just mourn. Mourn the loss of what you had thought, no - felt in the very depth of your heart was a true, deep love. It didn’t matter that it had all been an invention of your mind – the love you felt had been genuine for you, and you had cherished and held it dear. The tears you shed during these periods of grieving are for the loss of your own false happiness and for the man that you had believed it. It didn’t matter that they were never real to begin with, you had lost them all the same.

Your fog extends into the work week and you do something you haven’t done in ages: you take it off citing illness – you sleep, cry and try not to think of the crushing backlog you’ll face when you eventually return to work. Near the end of the week, you make a phone call that you’ve been dreading but know is necessary. Lala comes over the same day on her lunch hour – she thought you were just sick, having taken your excuse for missing the last brunch at face value, but when you burst into tears upon seeing her, she immediately knows that something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Taking you straight to her clinic, she slots you in with a fellow nurse right away so you can get what you’ve been dreading over with. During the self-blame episodes of your emotion spiral, the weight of Din’s cheating and its possible consequences aside from the shattering of your heart have started to press down on you. You definitely don’t need one more anxiety to occupy your thoughts, and this particular problem you could do something about. You need to do something and accordingly you find yourself sitting in the clean but impersonal examination room answering the very kind nurse’s survey questions to determine what tests you need.

“Is there any particular reason you need a screening or is this routine?”

“My boyfriend cheated on me,” you say this flat, factually.

“Oh. I’m sorry. How long was your relationship?” her response is similarly dispassionate.

“Nearly a year.”

“During that time, how many sexual partners did you have?”

“Just the one.”

“Had you been tested prior to engaging in sexual activities with your partner?”

“Yes, all clean.”

“Was you partner tested?”

“He said he was clean.” You can only answer what Din told you, with no confidence in whether or not it was the truth.

“Do you know how many other partners your partner had while you were together?”

“… no.” Tears start to line your lower lash line.

“How long was he engaging in sexual activities with other partners?”

“… I really don’t know.” Oh no, oh no, you’re going to cry. Because you really don’t know any of it. It's awful enough imaging that Din had been messing around with Vanessa the whole time that you and him had been together – if he was capable of that, who’s to say there weren’t others?

“Ok. To identify the tests you need, I just need to ask about your sexual activities with your partner over the last year. Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kiss on the mouth?”

“Yes.”

“Did you engage in vaginal fingering?”

“Yes.”

“Anal fingering? Receiving, giving?”

“Yes. No.”

“Did you engage in oral sex? Receiving, giving?”

“Yes and yes.”

“Did you engage in penetrative vaginal sex?”

“Yes.”

“With protection? Or without?”

“Without.” This is the only question you answer with shame. Yes, everything had been consensual, but this – the decision to not use condoms was one made based on a mutual trust; a trust you gave openly and willingly to someone who hadn’t deserved it. You had been careless in this respect – caught up in your feelings and your mistaken instinct that had told you Din was worth trusting.

“Did you engage in penetrative anal se-“

And so on, and so forth. To the best of your ability, you answer clinically and without feeling, trying not to let the white hot flames of shame and anger simmering in your stomach boil up and over. You had trusted Din, with your heart yes, but also your body. One of the things you had loved about Din was how he always seemed to prioritized both your emotional and physical comfort and safety during your sexual activities, but for possibly the entirety of your relationship, he had actually been putting you in danger – taking a risk for you that you hadn’t consent to. You don’t know how many other partners he was with when he was with you or if he had been safe with them – his cavalier approach to your health makes you sick.

This feels good. It feels good to be angry instead of sad.

You wait patiently for the nurse to return with the swabs and containers and other equipment you need to self administer the tests. Silently and alone, you follow the instructions while hot tears cascade over your cheeks. It had felt good to be angry at Din for a moment, but it took more energy than you had to sustain it; the anger burned out quickly, leaving behind only sadness and embarrassment for having allowed yourself to be put in this position at all.

After leaving the samples where directed, you redress and meet Lala back in the waiting room and she takes you home. You tell her that it’s okay if she tells the rest of the girls what happened, but you don’t know if you can deal with talking about it just yet and she nods understandingly. You know your friends will be supportive (and possibly violent), but the strength required to feel your feelings and simultaneously express and explain them out loud doesn’t sound like something you have right now. Not for the first time, you’re grateful that your friends are unflinchingly kind and understanding of you.

By the time the next Sunday brunch rolls around, your internal reservoir levels for self pity and destructive thoughts have lowered considerably. You’re mainly just sad for what you thought was and what will never be, wallowing in the loss of what you had imagined would be a happy future with Din.

The girls are not quite that far along in their emotional journeys, but you’re better equipped now to answer their questions and receive their outbursts and reactions. They all have choice words for Din ranging from lying cheating bastard to dickless waste of DNA. Threats of violence to his personal (and commercial) property, as well as his physical being are put forth, predictably by Rory and less predictably from Katie. Bea and Jen focus on drilling into you that you’re in no way at fault and that you hadn’t been wrong or stupid to trust and love Din the way you did. Lala, being the only one to have seen you when you were in your darkest place, just holds your hand firmly, giving it a reassuring squeeze every so often. You cry into your eggs and your friends shower you with comfort and support until you feel a little more like a human who is loved again.

One month ATN (After That Night)

Oof - you’re hungry. It’s been a long morning of straight through meetings with no breaks until only now. Well past lunch, it’s later than you would usually come, but you hope that your favourite sandwich shop still has some good options left – you’re starving.

Walking in, the shop isn’t busy (which honestly makes sense as it’s nearing 2:00 pm) and the take away fridge is fairly bare, but with some satisfaction, you see your favourite sandwich sitting all by its lonesome on the top shelf. Hand already out as you approach the refrigerated display, you reach up on your toes, just to have a big hand dart in ahead of your smaller one and snatch the sandwich out of your reach.

Falling back on the flats of your feat, you’re comically upset – this sandwich was your reward for your overly hectic morning and your disappointment is being further fueled by rising levels of hangry. Maybe this nice man will offer you back the sandwich if you ask kindly; ready to give this sandwich stealer the sweetest most saccharine smile you can muster, you turn to face him and…

“Paz?”

“Lil’ Lady?”

This could be awkward. You had loved Paz too. Part of the great sense of loss you felt when you and Din broke up was from also suddenly losing the friendships you had made through him. The Mandos, Poe and Lisa, Cass and even Boba had made up what had become a little family to you; the sense of belonging and love you had felt when they welcomed you into their fold and treated you as one of their own was one that you had treasured – their trust in you was not something you took lightly and you had kept their secrets with pride. You had loved them all as well.

Of course, like a knife to the heart, you’ve since come to the hurtful realization that those friendships were not as true or deep as you had thought either. In all likelihood, Din’s friends were probably well aware of his cheating, or at the very least that his feelings for you didn’t run as deep as yours did him. Though it saddened you, you couldn’t exactly be mad – their loyalty was to Din, not you. At one time you may have felt some bitterness at this, but right now, seeing Paz for the first time after so long… you feel only happiness at seeing an old friend.

There’s a beat of silence and then it seems you both reach for a hug - it’s quick but warm.

“How have you been?” you ask, simultaneously; chuckling with you, Paz gestures for you to go first.

“Oh,” you don’t really know how to answer; Paz will surely know what transpired between you and Din. Devastated? Crushed? Facing a crisis of self-confidence? You opt for a watered-down version of the truth, “I’m as good as expected. Busy at work.”

“Same. With work, that is,” Paz smiles warmly at you; he’s missed you too.

“You down here for work today?” Suddenly recalling that Din had been downtown for Mando work the first time you met, you try not to let the pain of the memory show on your face.

“Yup. Work.” Paz won’t tell you that he’s on a security detail, even though its not yours (you're under the careful watch of Koska and Iggy today).

You’re not going to ask about Din. You’re not going to ask about Din, “How is… everyone?”

Paz assumes you must mean Din but he doesn’t know how to answer your question. A shell of a man? A man possessed when it came to the investigation into the threat made against you? Depressed as all hell? Paz can only parrot back your earlier response, “Uh, as well as can be expected. Things have been tense, there’s a lot of stuff going on.”

You obviously don’t ask for details – it’s not your place anymore, and in truth, you feel like it never really was but you try to smile anyways, “Well, you can have the sandwich then.”

Paz looks down at the sandwich he’s still holding in his hand and laughs, “Are you sure?”

Nodding happily, it feels good to joke around with Paz again, “Definitely. I’m here everyday. I can have it anytime.”

“Ok, only if you let me buy you your sandwich, Lil' Lady.”

Beaming, you acquiesce, “Deal.”

Grabbing another sandwich from the fridge, you join Paz in line; the two of you standing together in comfortable silence. You don’t know how it happens but a question that’s been silently buzzing in your mind slips out without permission, “Paz – can I ask you? Are Din and Vanessa still together?”

You regret it the second the words leave your mouth, tears springing to your eyes. Looking up at Paz, wide-eyed and embarrassed, you cover your mouth with your hands as if trying to magically stuff the words back in, “Omigod!! Paz! I’m sorry! That was... oh gosh... just really, really inappropriate of me. Please don’t answer. I never should have asked that. Seriously. Don’t answer please. Besides, I don’t think either answer would make me very happy.”

Paz gives you a warm side hug and a sad look before he says reassuringly, “It’s okay, Lil’ Lady. Don’t worry about it.” He insists on buying you a cookie when you get up to the counter and you accept gratefully – you need all the comfort you can get right now.

The two of you say your quiet, but friendly goodbyes on the sidewalk outside of the sandwich shop; each genuinely hoping you’ll see the other again, but knowing that you likely won’t.

---

Paz is hovering. Din can feel it, but he doesn’t look up from his seat on the ringside bench where he’s checking through an equipment list on his clipboard.

Paz continues to shuffle around until Din sighs and gives in to what his friend so obviously wants; looking up and tilting his head as his way of saying 'What?'

“Saw the Lil' Lady today.”

Immediately, Din’s heart leaps into his throat and his now empty chest constricts painfully; forcing himself to look back down at his paperwork, Din only grunts to acknowledge that he heard Paz. Clearly Paz has something to say and in all the time they’ve been friends, Din has never been able to get Paz to keep his thoughts to himself, so he just waits.

“Ran into her at a sandwich shop near her office. She looks good.”

Silence.

“She gave me her sandwich.”

Din closes his eyes, “Was it the egg salad?”

“Yeah. How did you know?” Paz can’t hide the surprise in his voice.

“It’s her favourite,” Din says simply.

For some reason, this takes all of the wind out of Paz’s sails and he lays a gentle hand on his friend’s shoulder. “She asked how everyone was, but it’s clear she was thinking of you. Why don’t you call her, brother?”

Even if the whole point of what he had done to you wasn’t so you would stay as far away from him as possible, Din can’t imagine a world where you would want to talk to him, “She hates me. I fucked up, and I hurt her. She doesn’t think about me.”

Paz doesn’t want to bring up your question about Vanessa, but he can’t help but think it must mean something that you asked at all, “Maybe she’ll forgive you.”

Din is done with this conversation; he gets up and starts to head towards his office, “I don’t deserve her forgiveness. I don’t deserve her.”

Two Months ATN

Din never allows himself to see you. You’re a creature of habit and for the most part, your life after him has reverted to normal; it would be so easy for him to catch a glimpse of you whenever he needed to see for himself that you’re alright. If he was lucky, he might even catch one of your many soft and sweet expressions that he misses so much and be able to pretend for a moment that it was for him.

But he doesn’t allow it. Part of it is a means of self punishment – Din chastises himself endlessly for hurting you; he doesn’t deserve to look upon your face, he doesn’t deserve any comfort. But ultimately, it really comes down to his own lack of self control.

Din makes the mistake of checking in with your daytime security detail in person only once, a couple of weeks after your breakup. Din is chatting with Mayfeld through the latter’s rolled down car window, when, as if he senses your very presence, he looks up to see you exiting your office building looking positively elated at being able to leave work at a decent hour (for you) – your quick and graceful steps towards the subway easily hold Din’s gaze through no effort of your own and his body starts to move towards you of his own accord. He may have very well walked right into oncoming traffic trying to get to you if Miggs didn’t have a firm grip on the back of his shirt.

No, he has absolutely no self control when it came to you. Every part of Din yearns for every part of you. Your smile, your laugh, the sweetness of your very being and the steadfast comfort of your company. He wishes for nothing more than to make you happy again, to be there for you to lighten your load, to make you laugh so hard you snort, the way he used to pride himself on being able to do; what he wouldn’t give to hear you coo sweetly to Al, to swim in the melodic lilt of your voice when you recall a funny story from work or your friends, or to drink in your heady moans and cries while he gave you every pleasure you deserved.

Din knows that if he allowed himself to be in your presence for even a moment, he would throw himself at your feet and beg for forgiveness. Plead and grovel until you took him back and then everything, the very reason for all this misery, would be for naught. He would do anything to see you, hear you, have you again, except risk your safety. So, he leaves the protocol for your security to others, and he never lets himself go where he knows you might be – he exercises what control he has, so that he never loses control where it counts the most.

But his dreams he cannot control. And Din dreams of you constantly.

He comes to both look forward to and dread these dreams. In his dreams you don’t hate him, and they almost always start off with you looking at him like you used to, with love and admiration. Sometimes the two of you are in a memory, maybe a special date or occasion, or even better, doing something beautifully mundane like walking Al – something the two of you did a million times without thought, just a routine part of the life you had started to build together. But more often than not, the two of you are in bed. Sometimes his, sometimes yours, but always just looking, talking, touching. Din could live in these quiet moments of devotion forever.

But the dreams never end well. He discovered that once you left the bed in the dream, you would disappear. Getting up to find you, Din would find the apartment empty and quiet and no matter where he goes in the dream afterwards, you would be nowhere to be found. After this happened a few times, he would try to keep you in bed or at the very least, not let you out of Dream Din’s sight, but it never works. No matter what he does, by the end of the dream you’re not his anymore.

A horrifying recurrence as of late is that he follows Dream You into your kitchen to find Vanessa sitting at the island while you, crying, start to cook breakfast at the stove for him and her. He recognizes the look you give him whenever he reaches this part of the dream, it’s the same one you gave him on that last night on his apartment landing – the look of devastation, betrayal, shock. Your unspoken How could you? You were supposed to love me above all else, haunts him even after he wakes with a start. Every time Din has this dream, he relives what he did to you and he feels sick.

Even when it’s not this particular iteration, Din wakes from every nightmare of losing you again sweating and regretting everything. In these moments, alone in a bed that’s remained cold and uninviting since you last graced it with your soft body, Din tears into himself. What the fuck was his problem anyways? He had made his proverbial bed and now he has to lie in it. What would have been the fucking point of putting you through all this if he was just going to be a weak ass piece of shit and run back to you because it killed him to be apart from you? Put you through hell and then put you in danger? No, he can't run from it anymore: this is the price he has to pay for being who he is, for having done the things he had – he doesn't deserve good things. He doesn't deserve you.

What he does deserve is this cruelest of ironies: that the only way he's still allowed to love you is to take care of you by keeping you as far away from him as possible.

Four Months ATN

Oy! Din Djarin!!

Startled by the loud and sharp toned voice that carries over the noise of traffic, Din stops in his tracks; turning towards the sound of the bark, he recognizes your friend Rory barreling towards him. For a moment, he’s terrified that she might get hit by a car crossing the street to get at him, but the cars somehow seem to understand the determination of her gait and the ferocity in her facial expression and all roll to a stop at her outstretched hand. You always said that Rory was a force.

Din waits dumbly in the middle of the sidewalk, ready to take the inevitably beating, verbal or otherwise – certain he could not escape her wrath even if he wanted to. Perhaps he would be tempted to try if he didn’t wholeheartedly believe that he deserves whatever is about to come his way.

As soon as Rory steps up onto the curb, two balled up fists of rage ram right into Din’s chest, the force of which, if he had not been braced for it, might have sent this former boxing champ flying backwards.

You!!!

An accusatory finger is now poking him incessantly, over and over, pushing right into his sternum.

Din holds his two hands up, as if to surrender, but doesn’t do anything to stop her oncoming assault. It’s starting to hurt a little, but he knows he deserves it and more.

Liar!

Cheater!

Pathetic!

Asshole.

Garbage human.

Piece of shit.

How you could do that to her?!

She did nothing but love you.

She’s the sweetest, kindest, most loving person you will ever fucking be with, and this is how you treat her?

You ungrateful worm.

You’ll never find anyone better than her.

You never fucking deserved her, you twat.

Din takes every angry word spat at him with a resigned expression and downcast eyes. Every word is true and he knows it. He welcomes this even. No one has been angry with him, except save himself. Not Paz, or any of the Mandos, not even Boba. No one has yelled at him or hurled insults at him, or called him out for the despicable person he is to have hurt you the way he did. His sweet, pretty bird. No, not his anymore. He swallows every single one of Rory’s admonishments willingly and his head might even slightly nod in agreement.

Don’t you have anything to say for yourself, you fucking coward?

Arms dropping to his side in defeat, Din hangs his head and asks the only thing he wants to know, even though he's sure he isn’t allowed, “How is she?”

How is she?! What the fuck do you mean ‘how is she’? How the fuck do you think she is??

“What I mean is… I’m not still hurting her, am I?”

Silence.

“She’s okay now, right? She hates me, but I don’t matter anymore? She doesn’t think of me enough to still hurt her?”

Rory stops and evaluates the man standing in front of her. He looks… broken. She’s been throwing all her weight into every push, poke, smack she’s laid on Din and he’s taken it all. Absorbed it along with every harsh word out of her mouth; he hasn’t fought back or even flinched - almost as if he wants her to hit him. To scream at him. And now, with the only words he’s spoken, he’s asking to confirm, with what almost sounds like hope, that you’ve forgotten him. Din’s choice of words strike Rory as odd. He wants to make sure he’s not “still hurting” you??

Suddenly, her mouth drops open as she retracts her hands, “… you didn’t do it.”

Din looks shocked and almost terrified. He opens and closes his mouth several times but nothing comes out. No denial or refute of what Rory now realizes has been completely obvious.

“You didn’t cheat on her. You never cheated on her,” Rory’s tone is softer now, but determined and confident. She’s leaving no room for argument, not letting Din worm his way out of the truth.

With a sigh, Din has no choice but to confess, “How could I? Why would I ever want anyone but her? The most perfect creature to ever exist.” If he had seemed defeated before, Din is now positively deflating right before Rory’s eyes.

“You love her.” Again, not a question.

“Always. Forever.”

“Why w-”

“Rory, please. You must never tell her. She has to go on hating me and wanting nothing to do with me,” fear is catching up with Din now. If Rory tells you the truth, this plan to keep you safe will unravel.

Rory’s eyes widen in disbelief, “You have to be joking. Do you know what you put her through? And it’s not even true??”

Quietly, Din asks, “How much has she told you and your friends about what I do?”

“That you own a gym?” Rory crosses her arms and gives Din an incredulous look.

“What else I do. What my old job was. Who I worked for. Who I’m connected with,” he has to be able to make her understand.

Rory lets these words hang in the air for a moment. No – you were always pretty tight lipped about what Din might be involved in outside of athletics. It did seem that in the months leading up to your breakup, you would often stress over Din’s work and wellbeing, and though your friends never asked you to expand on it, it wouldn’t make sense for the responsibilities a gym owner to give you that kind of anxiety.

“You got a knife wound once. Lala told us,” Rory recalls.

Din nods, “And that was nothing. That’s the least of what the people who might come after me would be capable of. She’s in danger just by being with me.”

“You wouldn’t protect her?”

“Of course, I would. With my life. But why should she be in danger at all? She didn’t choose this life.”

“She chose you.”

“She shouldn’t have.”

“You don’t get to decide that for her?!!”

Din knows that. He shouldn’t have chosen for you. But he made the decision that he thought would keep you safe and now you both have to live with his mistake, “I know, Rory… I know, but it’s done now.”

“Undo it, asshole.”

Like he hasn’t thought about it a million times. Like he doesn’t wake up and his first thought when he opens his eyes in the morning isn’t to find you and crawl on his hands and knees and admit that he had fucked up in how he handled everything and beg your forgiveness. Sometimes Din’s halfway out the door before one of two things stop him. The first is the very real possibility that you would tell him to go to hell – you had loved him better than anyone ever had, better than he deserved, and he had callously thrown away the greatest gift ever bestowed upon him. The second, is the very real fear from the threat made against you; Din hasn’t eliminated it and what if, just what if, what he’s doing is actually working and removing you as a worthy target? Yes, he shouldn’t have gone about things this way, but… what if it was keeping you safe for now?

“Someone threatened her, Rory.”

This stops Rory as she’s about to open her mouth to say something else. Closing her mouth, she studies Din and her shoulders drop, “Who?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to find out who’s behind it but I will. Until then, I have to try and make her less of a target. Please. Rory. Please. Make sure she stays away from me. You can’t tell her any of this.”

“But… she doesn’t know?”

“No. I don’t want her to be scared. And she is being protected - all the time, I promise. But the safest thing for her is to stay the hell away from me. If whoever wants to hurt me doesn’t think they can do it through her, then she’ll be safe. Please, Rory.”

Din is begging her now. His eyes imploring Rory to understand and decide as he once did, that your well being has to come above all, including loyalty and love. He sees it in her eyes as she relents, much the same way his must have once upon a time, and she nods, “Okay. I won’t tell her. And you promise she’s safe right now?”

“I promise. I… wouldn’t be able to live like this if I couldn’t at least do that for her.” Is it worth it? Yes, your life, your safety is worth anything and everything to him.

“You think you can get them? The people behind the threat?”

Din nods, “I’m sure of it. I’ll make sure of it. I’ll take care of it. That’s a promise I won’t break.”

“Okay. You should tell her afterwards though.”

“Maybe.”

“She deserves the truth, Din,” Rory gives him one last exasperated look.

“She deserves the world, Rory.”

The two of them give one another a silent nod of mutual understanding before parting ways. They might not see eye to eye on everything, but Din trusts that your friend will put your wellbeing and safety first; she loves you just as much as he does. Rory leaves Din behind feeling conflicted in a way she hadn’t thought possible when she confronted him earlier – the last thing she expected was to sympathize with him, but it’s become clear to her: the only person who’s been hurting more from your breakup than you, is Din.

Five Months ATN

“I want to go out with Mark.”

Four heads look up from their brunch with lighting speed to stare at you, shocked by your sudden announcement.

Feeling a bit awkward at this reception, you go on, “… I mean if he’s even still available. And if he’s not, is there someone else at your firm that might be, Jen?”

Jen looks at you curious and hesitantly excited, “I can check, but I don’t think he’s in a relationship? He broke up with someone a couple of months ago. You really want me to set you up?”

You don’t catch the looks that Rory and Lala exchange before Rory cautiously asks, “Do you even like Mark?”

“Hey!” Jen looks scandalized.

You’re slightly bewildered watching your two friends seemingly stare daggers at each other, “I don’t even know Mark? I just…”

You sigh.

“… I just have to do something. Try something new. Babes, it’s been months and… I’m still not over him.” Your friends know that the “him” in question is not Mark.

It’s been five months and you’re still in a state of melancholy and heartbreak that you can’t quite articulate. The days where you’d cycle through extreme emotion, be it intense sadness, justifiable anger, or self-pitying shame, have long since passed. You burned those emotional candles to their proverbial wicks and for the time that they were lit within you, they served their purpose. You’ve processed those emotions and laid them to rest.

What remains is a type of grief, a longing from your soul that you struggle to contain on a day-to-day basis.

The best way you can think of describing it is Hiraeth – the Welsh word that conveys the feeling of “a longing for a time, place, or person that feels like home but may no longer exist or that never existed at all”; when you miss Din, it feels like a type of homesickness. And though far from being lonely in your life, your heart nevertheless maintains an empty chamber that you are dearly afraid may be forever reserved for Din. Your Din. The one you had loved and thought loved you.

You miss it all - everything that had never been real: the closeness, the intimacy, the safety of Din’s embrace. You miss the way he looked at you and made you feel like the only person in the world who mattered; you missed his adoring touch and the way that he would be soft and gentle with you when you knew he harnessed such strength and power within those same hands. He had made you feel cherished and special, appreciated and exalted. Yes, it had all been a lie, but you heart had believed in it and the memory of what you’ve irretrievably lost haunts you every day still.

You’ve never been one to believe the adage that to get over someone, you had to get “under” someone else and you’re certainly not looking to replace what you thought you had or even date for the sake of dating. You’re just simply out of ideas. You need… a distraction. A real-life person to think about, instead of one that only ever existed in your head.

“Don’t push yourself if you’re not ready, babe,” Lala says, gently.

“I don’t want to ‘get back out there.’ I just need…”

“A rebound?” Rory’s assessment is unfortunately, spot on.

You look sheepish, “That sounds terrible. But something like a distraction.”

Jen is hardly bothered, “It’s okay. I won’t tell Mark but I don’t think he would mind even if he knew. Men are weird as hell.”

Everyone laughs and you go back to your breakfast, half listening as Jen chirps some of Mark’s merits and tells you that she’s going to try and set something up for the upcoming Friday. You don’t notice the worried and pinched looks that Lala and Rory continue to give one another for the remainder of brunch.

It’s absolutely pouring today. The phrase ‘raining cats and dogs’ must have been inspired by a similar rainfall, you’re sure. You hold your umbrella as close to your head as you can while deftly trying to keep your shoes dry by doing little and big hops to avoid puddles. It’s a relief when you finally make it to the overhang in front of your office building and can shake out your umbrella before stepping inside. Wiping your feet on the already soaked through mats that building maintenance has put down, you wonder if the weather will clear up before your date with Mark tomorrow.

You’re slipping your still dripping wet umbrella into a plastic sleeve when you hear a commotion by the security check desk. Gabriel, the head of security is arguing with someone who by the looks of it is soaking wet and trying to get through the security turnstiles. As you approach with your own access card already in hand, the voices get louder:

“Dude. Come ON!”

“Miss, like I said, you have to have security access in order to move past this point.”

“I’m not going to go anywhere in the building, I promise! I just need to get to the subway.”

“I heard you already, miss. You’ll have to use one of the other two subway entrances. This one is for people who have access to this building only.”

“It’s pouring!! Can’t you see? The other two entrances are both over a block away and I’m already soaked! I just want to get home!”

“I won’t ask again, miss. Please leave. There are people who need to get through.”

You’re shocked. You’ve never heard Gabriel get frustrated or raise his voice before. But that’s not why you’re shocked. It’s the girl’s voice. You know it.

It’s Vanessa.

In some other universe you might hail this as karma, but in truth, you only have sympathy for the girl you see before you. It really is miserable out and you’re sure that Vanessa isn’t some corporate espionage spy – she really is just asking for a little help to get out of the rain and home before she gets sick. Without overthinking it, you come up behind her and give Gabriel a reassuring smile, “It’s okay, Gabriel, I can take her to the subway.”

Vanessa turns and looks at you with a wide-eyed, almost scared expression on her face. You can’t help but feel bad for her. Obviously because she’s soaking wet and shivering, but you think she must not have been met with much kindness in her young life.

“Ma’am, that’s not really protocol…”

Your reassuring smile is now extended to Vanessa as well. You want her to know you’re here to help her, truly, “Gabriel, it’s fine. I know her. And, even if I didn’t, I could never let you send a woman out into that downpour when we could so easily help her get to where she needs to go, okay?”

Gabriel nods as you swipe your access card against the reader and you gesture for Vanessa to go through before you follow.

The two of you walk silently towards the subway for a few moments.

“You don’t have to…”

You wave off Vanessa’s concern, “I think Gabriel’s watching, so I’ll just walk you all the way to the subway entrance so he doesn’t give you anymore trouble, okay?”

She nods and the two of you continue on.

“You don’t have to be so nice to me.”

Your answer is genuine, “I really don’t know any other way to be towards you.” It’s true. Yes, Din had cheated on you with her, but you hadn’t been dating Vanessa, you had been dating Din. He had wronged you, not her (even if she had probably been a bit smug about it).

Vanessa nods again, the expression on her face seems to relax into some kind of revelation that you don’t quite understand. When you get to the subway entrance, the two of you pause awkwardly before she finally speaks, “Thank you.”

Again, you try to smile as kindly as you can, “It’s okay. I meant what I said to Gabriel – I didn’t like that he was trying to send you back out in the rain. Here.” You hold out your umbrella, still in its plastic sleeve.

Vanessa doesn’t take it, even as you continue to extend it in her direction, “I don’t know how far you have to go once you reach your stop – the rain may not have let up by then. Really, take it. It’s my firm’s – I have a bunch more upstairs.”

This time she does open her hands and when she grasps the umbrella’s handle to take it from you, she blurts out, “I never slept with him!”

Silence hangs between the two of you at her statement. You don’t know what she means at all, so you just say, “I’m sorry?”

Vanessa is looking down at the umbrella in her hands, words just spilling out, “That night. The night you ‘caught’ me and Din – you didn’t walk in on anything. I don’t know how, but he said he knew you were coming over and he asked me if I could make it look like he and I had been sleeping together when you showed up. We didn’t do anything. I played on my phone on the couch until we heard you knock. I- don’t know why I did it… actually… no, that’s a lie. I do.” She finally looks up at you.

“Din was so in love with you. Like seriously, so stupid in love with you. He hadn’t been with anyone for a while before he met you, and those of us who… had gone out with him once or twice just got used to it, I guess. Like we wanted him but he didn’t want anyone and that was fine. Then he met you and all of a sudden, he was the doting boyfriend, head over heals in love, showing you off to all his friends, taking you to meet Boba. And then it was so clear: it wasn’t that he wasn’t the boyfriend type, it was you. He only wanted you. I guess… I was jealous.” Vanessa shrugs, ashamed, “So when the chance came up to hurt you... I jumped at it. I’m sorry.”

To say you’re shocked would be an understatement. There is so much to process. You’re not sure what Vanessa is asking from you, but you do appreciate her honesty, “I mean, I guess I get why you did it. But why did Din?”

Vanessa shrugs again, “I really don’t know, I didn’t ask. It didn’t matter to me, I guess. I’m sorry. But after you left, I… propositioned him? Thought I would shoot my shot since we were both basically half undressed. He turned me down and practically kicked me out. All he cared about was making sure you got home safe. You’re all he cared about. Always. It was only ever you.”

“I- ” you’re speechless. Actually speechless, “Thank you for telling me, Vanessa. I- still don’t understand any of it, but I always appreciate honesty. Truly.”

And with that, Vanessa gives you a little wave of the umbrella you gave her as a final thanks before she disappears down the stairs into the subway station, leaving you dumbfounded and shellshocked.

It had been a lie.

Din hadn’t cheated on you. Not with Vanessa. Not that night, or according to her, any other night. You had been his one and only. The way you had always thought. The way he had always made you feel.

Every spiraling assumption and devastating conclusion you’ve drawn about your relationship over the past five months is now being called into question: that he never loved you, that he wasn’t the man you believed him to be, that the devotion in your relationship had been one sided. Had it all been real? Was your Din real?

But he had lied.

He had made up an elaborate lie to get away from you. To hurt you. This revelation gives rise to feelings that you thought you had long worked through and put to bed: betrayal, hurt, disbelief, anger. On top of this fast rising tide of emotions that you’re afraid might drown you rides a question you've never felt like you wanted the answer to when it was simply that Din was a cheater: Why?

The date is going okay, you think. Actually, it’s going exactly how you knew it would – you’re not into it. Mark is honestly nice enough, funny enough, charming enough – you can see why Jen was always trying to get you to go out with him. But he’s not Din.

You haven’t told anyone about your run in with Vanessa because you still don’t know what to make of it all; you have pieces of a puzzle that you didn’t even know existed, new questions, even fewer answers, and a whole new host of confused feelings. Unsure of your own heart, you hadn’t known what to say to Jen to cancel this date that she lovingly setup for you at your request, so here you are.

Even if your overthinking brain wasn’t in overdrive analyzing and reanalyzing everything you learned yesterday, your heart, which is still working out your feelings towards Din, has unequivocally softened. The Din of your memories, the one for whom your heart still beats deep down had been real, and he had never betrayed you in the manner you believed for the past few months. The love you had felt with him had been true and the affection and devotion that had been cornerstones of your relationship have started making their way back into your chest.

You feel sort of bad about Mark. Yes, you had been very clear with Jen and yourself that this date didn’t mark any great interest of yours to start dating again, but you know you could be putting in more of an effort on this date. You try. You really do.

After the pre-dinner drinks are finished and the waiter’s taken your dinner order, you excuse yourself to use the restroom, hoping for a few minutes alone to gather your thoughts. Heading towards the bathrooms, you walk down a hall that opens to the restaurant’s private party rooms on one side. All the doors are opened and you peek in to see that most of the rooms are empty, one of them being cleared from a large party that must have just left; when you get to the last doorway, you’re stopped dead in your tracks when you see who's inside.

It's Din.

He’s leaning back in a chair that’s been placed further back and away from the dining table that must centre the room; part of the meeting but not an active participant – a perimeter guard. His handsome profile is as striking as you remember; his strong aquiline nose and cut jawline that’s currently flexing as he swallows hold your attention by their very existence - how is he here just when all your thoughts happen to be of him? Din’s chocolate brown eyes are fixed on someone or something in the room, but he must feel your gaze because he turns and sees you – keeping his expression neutral, as if he doesn’t want anyone else in the room to notice you, you still see his eyes soften as they lock with yours and your heartbeat picks up a little.

Hi, you mouth shyly.

Hi, Din's lips curve up slightly at your sweet expression as he mouths back, you look nice.

You do too, because he does. He’s in a black suit with a crisp white shirt and jet-black tie; the monochromatic look works for him. Din’s slicked back hair is different – you’re so much more used to seeing his curls loose and tousled, but the change isn’t unwelcomed. He looks professional. Devastating.

Work? Your head tilts a little so you can see a little further in the room and Din knows you see Paz sitting in front of him wearing a nearly identical outfit. He nods, You?

Date.

Din nods slightly, eyes unreadable, Be safe.

I will. Not sure how much more you can communicate this way or even what you want to say, you give Din a little wave before continuing down the hall to the restroom.

---

Din cannot sit still.

Date? You were on a date?

But that’s not even the most jarring thing about seeing you unexpectedly tonight at the same restaurant where Boba’s holding a family meeting. What’s really turning Din’s world upside down is that you didn’t look upset to see him. Your expression was soft, kind and inviting. As if you didn’t hate him.

You’re over him. That has to be it. You were over him, wholly and completely; much too sweet to hold onto any malice towards him, you had treated him politely, like an old acquaintance. He wants to be glad – happy that you’re no longer hurting and that his transgressions against you didn’t leave a permanent mark on your beautiful soul. But his heart feels like it’s made of lead; dropping from his chest into his stomach when he thinks of you being on a date. Din gets up and takes a walk towards the main dining room of the restaurant, looking to satisfy his morbid curiosity.

He sees you right away. Your back is to him, but he knows its you. You sit across from a perfectly respectable looking man dressed in a sharp suit – the both of you clearly having come straight from work. The man probably has some smart corporate job like you, like a lawyer or someone who underwrites space rockets or something cool. The man is making you laugh; Din can tell by the way your shoulders shake. He imagines your smile and the way that your eyes crinkle when you think something is super funny but you don’t want to let loose one of those melodic laughs of yours where you throw back your head and the resulting song carries over the crowd. Din watches as you swirl your wine glass the way he always thought was super adorable, with two of your fingers pressed against the base of the glass stem, before you lift those same fingers to make a gesture with your hand that indicates you’re adding to your date’s story with some witty comment of your own. Your date’s face lights up and his look of admiration and joy from the pleasure of your company is one that Din knows well.

He decides can’t watch anymore and slinks back down the hallway; heart ripped to pieces, leaving you to your pleasant evening.

Thanks so much for being patient with me - these chapters are emotionally hard to write and even harder to edit 😅 Since I'm once again yeeting this into universe on a random day instead of my usual posting date, adding a few tags for those who have expressed an interest in the story (omigod if you don't want to be tagged, please tell me!):

@tuquoquebrute @furiousmushroom @cheekychaos28 @72scsuze @nerdieforpedro

@toobsessedsstuff @whirlwindrider29 @inept-the-magnificent @mellymbee @that1nerd-20

@hipabbster23 @bitccchmood @bigbutchenergee @rainbowcat164 @the-strawberrythief

@johnssherlock221 @misstokyo7love @vivian-pascal @florxdexcerezo @fanficlover1414

@rarachelchel @heartbrokenlilbitch-nef @jeewrites @sunnytuliptime @kulekehe

@bebsjo

#din djarin #modern!din djarin #din djarin fic #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin x reader #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin x you #pedro pascal characters fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #modern au #no y/n

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wutheringskies · 1 year ago

Text

Wei Wuxian: The Untamed Hero

Wei Wuxian had to be killed even if:

1. He carried his sword

2. He didn't use gui dao

3. He didn't create Yin HuFu

4. The Wen remnants were not in the plot

Then, why? The reason is here, voiced by Jin Zixun of all people:

Wei WuXian, you are too bold! Did the LanlingJin Sect invite you today? And you dare run wild here. Do you really think that you’re invincible, that nobody has the courage to confront you? Do you want to overturn the Heavens?”

Wei WuXian smiled, “You’re comparing yourself to the Heavens? Excuse my language, but your face is a little too thick, isn’t it?”

So, you see, this untamed heart can only meet with tragedy as the world is unrighteous, as those who are in power think their actions cannot be contested (and they often aren't!), and that their words are like the law. How many times have we seen, a convicted powerful person escape the justice system? Far too many. And how many times innocents or victims were framed for crimes? Also too many. People like Wei Wuxian aren't condemned by fate, but rather, being born into a world where the "heavens" are those who are powerful and corrupted, he very well might be destined to live tragically, along with others of his type.

Returning to the matter of this particular scene: on one hand, the Jins throw private banquets, gilded with gold. The major scandals are: Jin Zixun is forcing the Lans to drink alcohol! You see, Lan Xichen can't outrightly refuse, so he is trying to be polite about his rejection. Jin Guangyao is trying to reason and excuse, and distract. The crowd spurs Jin Zixun on, wanting to see the Lans drink for once and fall to their level.

Everyone is in their own fine little world, doing their niceities in their golden halls drinking expensive wine, admiring pretty women, gasping at scandalous behavior, asking for favour, gossiping etc.

And then Wei Wuxian walks in. Uninvited. He simply drinks the wine himself, before demanding these people to spare him their time for real wordly issues, such as deaths, debts, cruelty, the parts that society wishes to hide. A few scenes later, we are shown with much description, just how terrible Qiongqi Path is. That's the Jin's backyard. You see their achievements that are drawn on those big walls? We see the reality of the people making them.

Now, let us come to another incident. Think of the soup incident. I fully expect before Wei Wuxian came into the scene, people were simply gossiping, uninterested in finding out what was going on, why Lady Jiang is crying. Then, Wei Wuxian comes and realizes Jiang Yanli who never really cries... was crying, and firstly decides to beat the shit out of Jin Zixuan. Secondly, he understands the whole truth, beats Jin Zixuan up for humiliating his Shijie, and also makes the other girl face responsibility.

Although his shijie had an easy temper, except for how they cuddled and cried together the day the three of them reunited after Lotus Pier was destroyed, she hadn’t really shed many tears in front of others, much less cry so loudly, so pitifully in front of so many people. Wei WuXian was filled with panic. As he tried to ask her, Jiang YanLi was crying so badly that she couldn’t even speak properly. Then, when he saw Jin ZiXuan standing on the side, astonished, he fumed with anger, wondering to himself why it was the dog of a person again. With a kick, he pounced on Jin ZiXuan. The fight between the two would have alerted the Heavens. All of the cultivators around the base came to break up their fight. Amid the ruckus, he finally understood what was the cause of all this, and became even more angered. He spread his tough talk, saying that one day he’d definitely make Jin ZiXuan die in his hands, he told people to drag out the cultivator woman.

A round of questions later, the truth emerged, and Jin ZiXuan’s entire body was frozen. No matter how much Wei WuXian continued to curse at him, he returned neither words nor fists, his face dark. If not that Jiang YanLi held up her hand a while later, while Jiang Cheng and Jin GuangShan came to pull Wei WuXian away, it was likely that even now Jin ZiXuan wouldn’t be able to attend the hunt of Phoenix Mountain.

See.

The point is, perhaps, people feel Wei Wuxian's actions are unnecessary. But imagine if he wasn't there! The consequences as I predict them will have been:

1. Jiang Cheng who doesn't want to upset a prominent clan would've grumbled and cursed underneath his breath, but eventually just moved away from the ruckus and taken his sister away.

2. Perhaps the truth would never have been found out, unless Jin Zixuan later searched by himself.

3. Thus, Jiang Yanli's reputation would be stained for the years to come.

It's because Wei Wuxian dared that the truth was revealed. I took this small incidents simply to highlight this, without the addition of more factors. In the book, often, it might seem like people are trying to stop him from creating trouble. You might often wish, ugh, this is going to be so bad... The point is Wei Wuxian knows! He's not stupid, he knows of the consequences of his actions.

But he isn't the one creating trouble. It was already created by the likes of those very people who try to stop him from investigating deeper. The trouble in question is that immoral and unrighteous words and actions and decisions have already been made. Society tries to hide them. If you can't see it, it's not there. Yet, even if it is not visible, a crime has its traces and it will bleed into their world sooner or later.

Wei Wuxian forces people to snap out of their comfort zones. He doesn't care for the barriers they set around themselves. Here are some examples to explain what I mean by these barriers:

Who dares hit Jin Zixuan, who's the only heir of LanlingJin, even when he deserves it? Protected by his status, his birth, his clan who dares? Wei Wuxian does.

Who dares to annoy Lan Wangji, the second jade of Lan, who from birth is considered otherwordly, strict, immovable, rigid, untouchable and protected by his extreme cold aura? Wei Wuxian dares.

Who dares to enter cultivation society without even wielding sword, without even cultivating a core? Wei Wuxian!

Since time unknown, treasures have belonged to the powerful sects: The Lan Clan and their library, their many secret techniques. The Jin clan and their treasures, their gold. The Nie Sabres. The Zidian. Yet, a son of a servant somehow ends up possessing the most powerful treasure all by his own! Everyone goes to this popular refinery, some famed blacksmith, or that popular sect to get specially created spiritual weapons, yet Chenqing, one of the most powerful weapons, was forged alone by Wei Wuxian during his 3 months in the Burial Mound!

Since years, the cultivation world has taken to heart rules of Lans, words of the powerful sects, and their leaders! Then, once again, this orphan child comes and bends the world and changes the cultivation society forever! Yiling Laozu said that... Yiling Laozu created... Yiling Laozu's manuscripts...

His words literally become the law.

Think of how 13 years after Wei Wuxian's death when "all was peaceful" despite us knowing very well, just how much shit happened after his death - slaughter of minor clans, deaths of two prominent sect leaders, xue yang etc (because, you know, most of it was purely accidental, kept hush-hush, or the victims were people who weren't important), he comes back to life and in a matter of a couple of months, upends the cultivation society again.

The "problem" is that this guy simply doesn't conform. The problem is that he is better. The problem is that he is not unnecessarily humble about it, despite his origins. He doesn't seem to treat himself as an outlier, but an equal. (That's why I hate insecure Wei Wuxian, like this guy is righteous enough he won't even treat himself badly.) The problem is that all those barriers - social classes, power, the locked doors - they won't keep him away.

Even if he was only the Jiang Da-shixiong with a bright golden core, he will still not be a conformist. To those who aren't used to having their decisions questioned, he is their worst enemy. To whose who are used to talking in circles, spreading rumors, he is asking them. What source do you have? What is the factual evidence behind what you are saying? Why are you saying this now?

Think of how he cross questioned a petty seller selling Yiling Laozu portraits in Qinghe, and how he questioned the gathered cultivation sects in Lotus Pier during Sisi and Bicao's intervention with the same sort of attitude. Surely, there was a major class difference, power difference between the two. Yet, they don't matter to him. What matters is the truth.

So, no matter what, when the people who are in power, start having too much dirty laundry and corpses in their backyards, he will definitely know. For this guy, knowing isn't enough - he will get to the crux of the issue. The problem is, he even has the skill for it. He has the ability. One also can't distract him with offers, promises, gifts, riches, status, women. He doesn't care for any of that. He perhaps might even hate one's victims. Yet he will stand up for them.

Of course, those who are in power, all smile at each other. They understand things sometimes have to be done. People sometimes have to be silenced. "We know better."

Then, Wei Wuxian comes in and says, actually you don't. He comes in with factual accounts, evidences, forces you to face your misdeeds. Says you're all a bunch of hypocritical people. No, perhaps what is worse is that he will make you realize that's what you are! Because he's got to be good at talking, too! He's not going to act on anger or be stunned in fear.

So, now you have someone who's not only digging into your evil deeds, someone who's capable, who's not easy to persuade, but also someone with high emotional intelligence who can play the same role as you do, of being a noble, accepted gentlemen with immaculate manners, of very high literacy and outdo you. Because this guy knows very well how society works, he can comprehend social cues perhaps better than you can. He can use your own polite words and nature against you.

It's precisely because of this he must be killed. Perhaps, in every world, Wei Wuxian will end up being the victim. It's only that in MDZS, these were the particular circumstances, and those were the particular excuses.

My personal take is: sometimes it is good to be a centrist, and hold everyone's better intentions in mind. most of the times it might not be, as there are many conflicting systems in place that allow for true victims who are stuck. most often, the victims are always the ones who DON'T have a voice, who are brushed over as numbers of corpses, rather than people with stories. most often, kindness is shown in little action that are trampled upon by those who hold true power. most often the people who are good, who are heroes die young, or are hated and ridiculed, for speaking up for the victims. it's not right, and never will be.

if someone like wei wuxian or his presence in the book makes you uncomfortable it might be because you hold the "niceities" and the pleasantries to be of more importance than the issues at hand. just because something is too troublesome doesn't mean it is wrong. if everytime he enters the scene you're scared of what he's going to do next, you should know it's not him who is the problem but the prople who aren't doing anything who are. don't be scared of "trouble-makers." he's not erratic or spontaneous. he has considered society's standards and deemed it useless. why is that that the koi tower scene, where he is in his "yiling laozu, loss of control, threatening" moment is followed immediately by him being extremely kind to Wen qing ? it's not that he's losing control. it's that Jin Zixun wouldn't have acted and told him where the people were without him using intimidation tactics. Wei Wuxian is the one forced into bad corners by the powerful people, where he has to show his edges. Don't end up twisted the narratives. if you bite someone for a while, expect to be hit.

#wei wuxian #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #wangxian #my meta #my thoughts #cultivation world bullshit #my essays #When i first watched the untamed Wei Wuxian made me uncomfortable and scared at times #I felt uncomfortable reading the bits of his YLLZ era #and koi tower scene #ive done some introspection and grown

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