#biggest struggle right now is having the imagination to try new approaches

[blueboyluca]

I've read about half of Click to Calm by Emma Parsons and I was pleased that most of the foundations I have already taught Topaz. What still needs some strengthening (as always) is recall and what needs an overhaul is stationing and handling.

Then in the section of additional skills to teach, I will train: go touch object, get behind me, whistle recall, recall from tight leash, collar grab, chin rest and emergency relocation. I had previously started back up and "this way" already, but I need to practice more.

I have only just reached the section of the book with the core content about the click to calm method. If there's anything useful in there I'll share it.

[xoxobuckybarnes]

Stucky Fic Recs

@gabulinkasposts asked for some Stucky High School, College, and Sports recs, so here are some of my favorites:

High School AU

Lost Boys and Broken Toys (Rated: E, Words: 204K) by KK_Banyu

Summary: When 17-year-old Steve Rogers moves from Brooklyn to Manhattan with his mother, he's eager to attend his new high school and meet new friends. He looks forward to trying out for the track team and involving himself in the visual arts. Although Steve is ready to face any challenge head-on, he still finds himself haunted by an incident from his past--when his childhood best friend disappeared under mysterious circumstances. If Steve leaves Brooklyn now, will they ever have a chance at reuniting? Jamie Pierce has been a resident of Manhattan for as long as he can remember, ever since being adopted at a young age. His memories of his life before then are fuzzy at best. Now 17, he's finding more and more that his home life and relationship with his father are not typical compared to other kids and is struggling to reconcile with these differences. When Steve and Jamie cross paths at school, their spark is immediate, but somehow, both boys share the inexplicable feeling the thing between them is different--more than just a horny, teenage crush, their connection feels deeper, more like coming home. But that's impossible--they've never met before...right?

Then I'd Be Another Memory (Rated: M, Words: 190K) by Kellyscams / @thebestpersonherelovesbucky

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Bucky Barnes has it all. He’s the captain of the basketball team, has a great social life, his choice of ivy league schools, and was just announced as his class’s valedictorian. Senior year is going perfectly. Until he gets assigned to be a peer mediator to Steve Rogers – one of their class’s biggest trouble makers who doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut and goes around picking fights with everyone. The last thing Bucky needs is to get mixed up with Steve and his pretty blue eyes and soft blonde hair and heart-melting smile. Even if it turns out he’s not quite what Bucky’s thought all this time. Even if maybe someone just needs to listen to Steve’s side of the story. Even if Steve’s heart is so much bigger than Bucky could have ever imagined. Because Steve Rogers is so not worth becoming friends with. Again. Bucky learned that lesson years ago. Unfortunately, there are some things that Bucky just can’t control. Steve Rogers – and the way Bucky feels about him – is one of them.

Conundrum (Rated: M, Words: 45K) by this_wayward_life

Summary: Bucky Barnes is not popular in the slightest. He's overly sarcastic, has no interest in fashion, and everything about him screams "Do Not Approach". And Bucky is totally okay with that. It's his last year in school, anyway - and unless his entire year level turns out to be evil aliens, he doesn't care about any of them. Then Bucky meets Steve Rogers. Steve is handsome, friendly, sweet, funny and completely irrelevant to Bucky's life. Bucky is determined to ignore him, but Steve has a life of his own - and he's determined to have Bucky in it.

Tripping On Stars (Rated: M, Words: 32K) by goldheartedsky

Summary: When Bucky Barnes finds the school’s golden child, Steve Rogers, passed out and not breathing in the locker rooms from an apparent drug overdose, his world turns upside down. After performing CPR long enough for the ambulance to arrive, he struggles to understand how someone with everything going for him could throw his life away like that. Over the next few months, they grow closer and closer and Bucky starts to realize that maybe they’re both holding onto more secrets than either of them know.

Your Shadow Weighs a Ton (Rated: M, Words: 72K) by me (xoxobuckybarnes)

Summary: Steve Rogers is a little lost in the world right now. His mother is gone, he's about to be evicted, and he's just been arrested. Just when he's about to lose everything, George Barnes, his public defender, rescues him, taking him in, acting as his legal guardian. With a new temporary family, comes a new friend: George's son, Bucky. Bucky Barnes has had a bit of a rough go the past few years. But he's come out on the other side stronger than ever and ready to start his senior year of high school. Even better, he's got a new friend to battle high school with: Steve Rogers. Steve and Bucky have met each other exactly when they needed each other most. Each one is exactly the type of friend the other one needs. And perhaps, there might be something more than friendship on the horizon...

College Au

Alkynes of Trouble (Rated: E, Words: 11K) by yammz / @yammz

Summary: “Doing nothing would be helpful,” Bucky said before he could stop himself. He averted his eyes from what was sure to be another kicked puppy expression. “Look, I’m just gonna be real with you. I can’t fuck up this lab. Fury’s got open positions in his lab, and I need to look good for those, okay? This isn’t just a checked box on my requirements,” he told him honestly. “It’s nothing personal but--” “But you’re smarter,” Steve supplied, a sad smile on his lips. He ducked his head, a motion that simply would not work to make him seem small. He was way too big for that. “I get it.”

Not the Same River at my Fingertips (Rated: E, Words: 11K) by giselleslash / @gigi-gigi

Summary: Steve desperately needs a ride home for Christmas but the last person he wants to take help from is Bucky Barnes. There’s a one night stand gone badly and four years of hurt feelings and misunderstandings between them. Of course there's a road trip home that goes perfectly smoothly.

That Boy Is a Problem (Rated: E, Words: 10K) by 2bestfriends

Summary: In which a twinky little goth punk named Bucky puts a leash around Steve's dick and he's really into it. (The leash is a metaphor. For now.)

He's All That (Rated: T, Words: 88K) by crinklefries / @spacerenegades

Summary: “That one,” Tony says gleefully. “I pick him.” “Him?” Bucky hisses. “Steve Rogers?” “Bet’s a bet,” Tony says smugly. “Make Steve Rogers the class president by the end of the year.” “Motherfucker,” Bucky curses. Then he takes a fortifying breath. He can do this. He’s Bucky Son of A Senator Barnes. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up in the front just the way he knows men and women like it. “Fine,” he says. “Okay. By the end of the year. Easy.” *** When Bucky Barnes--son of a state Senator, future president of his fraternity, and co-captain of his college’s soccer team--gets unceremoniously and very publicly dumped at a party, his entire reputation hangs on by the thinnest thread. Drunk and humiliated, he does the only thing that makes sense--he makes a bet with Tony Stark. Now Bucky has the length of the school year to take Steve Rogers--small, asthmatic, environmentally-conscious art nerd, political activist, and complete social disaster--and turn him into the student body president. How many misunderstandings, shenanigans, and college tropes will abound before Bucky realizes that Steve Rogers, well, he’s all that?

Learn Me Hard Oh, Learn Me Right (Rated: E, Words: 60K) by AHM1121 / @love-ha-fge

Summary: “Have you always struggled with math, Steve?” Dr. Potts asked. The blush crept higher as the same shame that he had felt since the second grade crawled up his spine. “You’re not the only one.” She assured, handing the papers back to him. “Luckily, you can get one-on-one tutoring at the student center, your tuition covers two sessions per week.” “Thank you ma’am.” Steve accepted the paper and stood, sliding his backpack over his shoulders. Making his way out of her office he paused when she called his name. “Ma’am?” “Ask for Bucky Barnes.” Her lips turned up at the name. “He’s one of the math majors that I oversee, haven’t had a student work with him who hasn’t passed.” No pressure, Steve thought. “I’ll make sure to do that. Thank you Dr. Potts.” “Good luck Steve.” He didn’t need luck, he needed a miracle.

Home for the Summer (Rated: T, Words: 1K) by Ladyjaybird

Summary: Steve is really glad his best friend Bucky is back from college for the summer. And the little touches and sweet compliments Bucky keeps giving him aren't bad, either. But Bucky is just a naturally flirtatious guy, right? Or is something else happening here? (Spoiler: yes)

Sports AU

Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) (Rared: M, Words: 50K) by MarcellaBianca

Summary: Steve Rogers. James Barnes. One, an NHL star with dreams of finally capturing an Olympic gold medal. The other, a former World champion and Olympic silver medalist, now a current coach and choreographer for the top flight figure skaters in the Russian Federation. But before all of that.. they were Steve and Bucky. Until they weren't.

Targeting (Rated: E, Words: 140K) by queenmabscherzo / @queenmabscherzo

Summary: Steve and Bucky end up playing for rival college football teams.

Fixed Links Circumnavigate (Rated: E, Words: 30K) by paperstorm

Summary: Steve’s eyes stay glued to Bucky on the television, and he tries to be happy for him. He tries, with everything he’s got in him, not to feel like in a split second, in 10 little words – the Pittsburgh Penguins are proud to select forward James Barnes – that he just lost Bucky forever. Bucky is drafted into the NHL. Steve loves him in secret, and from a distance. An accident ends Bucky's career when it's barely started, and Steve is left to pick up the pieces.

lane lines (Rated: M, Words: 132K) by sparkagrace / @sparkagrace

Summary: Steve Rogers has spent his entire life swimming and now is poised to take the Wakanda 2024 Olympics by storm. The only thing he’s missing is a friendly rival to help get him there. Enter Bucky Barnes, who doesn’t seem to take the sport quite as seriously despite his raw and enviable talent. Steve hates him. Bucky doesn’t care. That makes Steve hate him more. - aka: the Olympics swimming AU that nobody but me asked for

Okay, so he can play... (pretty's got nothing to do with it) (Rated: E, Words: 50K) by darter_blue

Summary: This is supposed to be Steve's year. He's meant to be taking his team to finals. He's meant to get signed to his dream club. He's meant to have it all. Until in walks the new kid, with his beautiful face and his tiny shoulders and his long hair and his graceful skating. Who doesn’t look anything like a proper hockey player. Who's going to ruin everything. Bucky Barnes is about to bring Steve Roger's world crashing down. And Steve is about to realise that's a good thing. Maybe the best thing that ever happened to him.

Howitzer (Rated: E, Words: 11K) by spacebuck / @spacebuck

Summary: Bucky Barnes, figure skating champion, is forced to switch his skates for hockey ones when he leaves for college. Problem is, he's never played hockey before, and now he has to be good enough to get the scholarship he needs. Enter Steve Rogers, Carter University Men's Hockey player, who's decided that he'd do anything to get this guy on his team. Cue five am runs, overwhelming classes, new friends, plenty of snow, and a sport that's fast becoming a way of life.

Full Count (Rated: M, Words: 50K) by Ink_Dancer

Summary: Full Count: a baseball term referring to a situation during a player’s at bat where there are three balls and two strikes on him. As this is the maximum one can have without either walking (base on balls) or striking out, this is generally expected to be a very stressful situation for both the pitcher and the batter. The pitch that is then thrown on this count is expected to be the one that decides the batter’s fate, and carries with it a certain expectation of change. It’s known as the payoff pitch: it’s the payoff for a long wait. or: a stucky au that takes place in the world of Major League Baseball, in which Bucky is a catcher, Steve is a closing pitcher, and their lives are stuck in a perpetual full count—until life throws the payoff pitch and they end up on the same Dodgers team.

Going Yard (Rated: E, Words: 41K) by Brenda / @brendaonao3

Summary: Going Yard: Baseball vernacular for hitting a home run. This is the love story of shortstop Steve Rogers and pitcher Bucky Barnes, estranged childhood best friends about to be reunited on the same team. This is a love story about New York's other baseball team, the Avengers, and their quest to claim the National League East division title. This is a love story about going home and new friends and team bonding and first loves and how the people you're the closest to can also drive you the craziest. But mostly, this is a love story about baseball and the boys of summer who play it.

Armbands & Bandwidth (Rated: E, Words: 61K) by sopdetly / @poedinson

Summary: Steve Rogers, captain of the Philadelphia Forge and the US Men’s Soccer National Team, keeps his head down and leads his teams quietly but effectively. Carol Danvers, captain of the Philadelphia Marvels and the US Women’s Soccer National Team, sports a pink-streaked fauxhawk, demands equal pay, and is anything but quiet. When Carol asks Steve to start a podcast with her to promote their teams and spread their love of the game, Steve thinks it’ll be a fun experiment and his agent thinks maybe he’ll start showing some personality. What Steve doesn’t expect is to meet a devastatingly hot producer. For his biggest secret to come to the surface. For this one offer to change his entire life.

wholesale change (Rated: M, Words: 83K) by biblionerd07

Summary: Steve Rogers, captain of a losing NHL team, has taken so many bad penalties this season he's worried he's going to get set down to the minors as punishment. His agent comes up with a plan to make Steve irreplaceable to the fans--a reality dating show. Where the contestants want to date Steve.

Lessons in Falling (Rated: M, Words: 28K) by lillupon / @lillupon

Summary: Bucky is a diver stuck in a rut. His synchro partner treats him like a deadweight and his coach keeps threatening to cut him from the team. After his spectacular failure in the FINA World Diving Championships, he’s ready to take a break from the sport. And then he meets Steve, a brilliant newcomer to the competitive diving scene in search of a synchro partner.

Going for Gold (Rated: E, Words: 58K) by me (xoxobuckybarnes) & art by heckalecki / @heckalecki

Summary: A long time ago, Bucky and Steve used to be friends. From the moment they met on the youth soccer field, they were inseparable, bonding over their love for the game and planning for a future together where they both got to do what they love. But Bucky hasn't seen Steve in four years. Not since their friendship ending fight. Bucky achieved his dream, became a professional soccer player, good enough to play for the U.S. Men's National Team. When Steve Rogers shows up to write a book about the Men's journey to the Olympics, Bucky's shocked. And a little angry. Can Bucky and Steve get over their fight? Can they ever have that friendship they once had?

[antoncore]

yeah… i don’t like the heat either, ur right it’s difficult to enjoy things and i am very sensitive to temperature sometimes and have a hard time adjusting so i swear SO much and i just feel gross all the time :(

no pressure to respond with anything really, i’m just rambling but if riize were billionaires living in LA… i totally see someone like eunseok as a property developer.. or sungchan as the CEO of something or other… and i was trying to think about anton and maybe like a big time producer of some kind? like he has his own record label.. there was smth else i was thinking of too but now i’ve forgotten.

thinking of billionaire anton not being as well known for always having girls on his arm… women want him, for sure, but he’s been working on his business mainly, but the he meets you<33 idk

and on a soft note like, anton buying you expensive things, a new dress for every occasion, a new bag just because he loves you<33 taking you to all sorts of events with him because he wants everyone to see how beautiful you are and know how much he adores you<3 and maybe you’ve never really had aspirations before but he’s supportive of getting you started with whatever your heart desires to try! or, you’ve been working hard on your degree but with his support (emotionally and money ofc) you’re able to finally pursue what you’ve been wanting to do!

when he finally proposes to you he’d buy you the biggest ring🤭🤭 it’s so perfect and shiny and you’d have so many people fawning and gaggling and being so jealous of u… you’d have to stay off ur phone a bit to ignore the tabloids talking smack about u and entertaining rumours but it’s fine, you could even have a private getaway to some beach house or cottage with your fiancé in the meantime

and idk on a more nsfw note, people would always be asking (think i got this from another anon but) how you make it fit? anton is sooo big, they just couldn’t imagine😅😅🤧 anton buying you sexy lingerie outfits to wear and wait for him to get home, telling you not to be impatient and touch yourself before he gets there or he won’t be touching you at all… if you do, he makes you finish yourself off while he watches, or makes you ride his thigh and keeps his hands on the bed, just watching you struggle to pleasure yourself

he’d buy you a hi tech panty vibe to wear when you go run errands or when you go out to dinner together, enjoying the way you squirm and shift in your seat, telling you to enjoy your food, don’t be snobby… but you’re sweating and your vision is blurring because you can feel your orgasm approaching fast but it’s at that point that he shuts the toy off completely, your knees bumping against the table making all the plates jump and biting back the groan that threatens to erupt from your throat

i don’t see anton as being that mean all the time but if he knows you like it and want that sometimes, he’d be more than happy to oblige.. he just wants to give you everything you want, even if that means treating you like a filthy slut

- 🧸 anon

i see your visions with the jobs you assigned!!! i see sungchan being a ceo of some tech/healthcare company while eunseok is the city’s most famous property developer.

anton rlly would spoil you, he just wants to shout out that he loves you from the top of his lungs. he would be so supportive no matter what!!! i can envision if you wanted to start up a business (like a cute little coffee shop) he’d help you through each step like looking for the space, planning the interior design, marketing etc. and it would be so successful that you were able to open a couple more branches and he’d be so proud of you!!

and i can so see having a private getaway with after he proposed, he wanted an excuse to get away from all the people talking and he also wanted to spoil you. he’d take you to a luxury resort where you could just relax and be in each other’s presence (and fuck in the hotel room…and the pool…and the hot tub)

speaking of lingerie i rlly believe anton is a fan of white/pastel, i think i’ve discussed this a couple times on here ISNSNSB and imagine if he came home to you using the new wand he got you. he’d just make you continue as he sat on a chair, not really saying much to ensure that you were entirely responsible for your own pleasure :( when you finally decided to give up/when you came, he’d give you a kiss on the forehead and call you his good girl.

and omg he’d be so evil using the panties on you, he loved watching you squirm like a cute little slut :( you’re struggling to even eat or move around and it’s just funny for him to watch you being so pathetic for him!!!

[lollytea]

Gus: It's been a wild week. Willow and Hunter are dating now. Well, I mean, okay, they're not like dating dating but they're....they're trying to, y'know? They're making an honest attempt and I'm proud of their efforts, bless their hearts, but it's...okay here's where it gets complicated. They make me come along on all their dates. All of them. And I get it. Gus the Illusion Master is in very high demand around the Boiling Isles and nobody is crazier about me than those two and I'm just plain awesome to hang out with. But....I think there's something deeper going on here and they're not self aware enough to realize it. See, I'm a buffer. I'm their good ol' buddy Gus. I'm familiar. I'm a comfort to have around. It doesn't feel so much like a date when I'm standing right between them. Cause like, they want to date, they really do, but they're terrified of what will happen if they take that leap. And I understand. That way of thinking is normal.

First of all, you can imagine how jittery Willow must be, with her severe abandonment issues n' all. She's also got this huge imposter syndrome and worries deep down that all the people she cares about are gonna get bored of her one day.

And Hunter, man, where to begin with him? Dude's got an inferiority complex the size of the Titan's butt. What do you expect when he was raised with the ingrained belief that he's replaceable and he feels the need to break his back just to justify his existence?

Like don't get me wrong. Both of their confidence has skyrocketed. Willow’s improved a ton since she switched to the plant track and Hunter is NOT the hot mess he was when I met him. They're ready for this. I know they are. But here's the thing. Navigating your first romantic relationship can really put you in a vulnerable position, and that in turn makes your biggest insecurities flare up like a rash.

The trauma the two of them have endured is effecting the way they approach their relationship. They're so desperate to hold on to each other that their brains are playing tricks on them. They're magnifying a perceived notion that this thing between them is fragile. It's not. They should know it’s not. But being scared out of your mind can really warp the perception of logical people like Willow and Hunter.

In their eyes, it's as though even the tiniest mistake could shatter their friendship beyond repair. They're terrified of that happening. They can't fathom losing each other. They want this so bad, they really do, but they're so afraid of what could go wrong that they're still using me as a safety net. As long as I'm around, it's just like always, right? When it's the three of us, it's just a bunch a pals and they can actually perceive their bond with each other through a clear lense.

It's only when I'm out of the picture that they get their jitters and it causes them to spiral. It's a barrier. New relationships should be experimental, right? It's all about figuring our boundaries and what aspects you want to explore. But this here is preventing them from doing that. Because experimentation is risky. Titan forbid they take a risk. I can't even decide which one is more likely to make the first move.

I know, Willow's always been braver in the romantic department. But here's the thing. When she sets her mind to something, she can be really really stubborn. She's never done something like this before. Once that half-a-witch mentality of hers rears its ugly head, she's a goner. She becomes paralysed by hesitation.

And man, don't even get me started on how much Hunter is struggling with this. As I said, relationships are experimental and Hunter is a very by-the-book guy. Especially if it's a subject he doesn't know a lot about. Then he holds on to that book like a life line. There's no book out there written about how to date Willow Park. And you can tell that it's really bugging him.

So now we're here and I'm kinda stuck in the middle of it so like....what do I do? Do I sit them both down and force them to confront the psychological root of their reservations? Break the news to them that their pal Gus can't keep coming on all their dates? I know it's bound to break their hearts but TITAN I have my own life.

Buuuuut then again every time we go out they buy me candy and eyescream. I do have a good thing going here. Maybe I.....no I gotta tell them. Hmmmmm unless....you know the carnival is coming to Bonesborough next week? If they bring me with them they'll buy me a ticket, I know they would. They'll probably buy me whatever I want. Heck, Willow will probably give me a piggy back ride when my legs get tired. Man they're such good friends. So...okay okay maybe I'll hold back on their intervention until after the carnival is over. That seems reasonable, right? But...hm. is that a jerk move? Maybe that's a jerk move. I dunno, I'd have to consider it a little more. Anyway. Thoughts?

Hooty: Can we talk about my uvula warts now?

[hoodiewithhorns]

━ using your safe word scenarios ★

characters : hajime iwaizumi, tetsuro kuroo, keiji akaashi.

there will be a part 2 & 3 coming soon!

edit : p.2 is out <3

m.sterlist + requests box

▲ cw : not proof read, angst, use of safeword, “red” used as the safeword, clit spanking, mean!doms, hurt/comfort, established relationship, forced orgasm, jealousy, oral m! receiving, facefucking, foreplay f! receiving, degradation, slight punishment if you squint, aftercare/reassurance , all characters are 18+, MDNI ▼

Kuroo

- you weren’t necessarily in a good mood to be fucked roughly by him

- you just wanted some soft passionate sex with kuroo

- You assumed he’d figure out what you wanted due to him knowing you better than yourself.

- But you were wrong..very wrong.

-Not wanting to disappoint your boyfriend you played along.

- biggest mistake.

〜 ☆

you bobbed your head on his cock while he groaned at the slow pace. you were taking your time today since you weren’t in the best mood to be shoving him down your throat. you thought he take this as a sign of you wanting things slow soft and sweet, instead he took this as a sign of you being bratty, a brat who deserves punishment in his eyes.

“you little brat.” he forcefully shoved his cock down your throat. You gagged in response feeling your eyes become glossy, tears promising to spill at any given minute, looking up at him with pleading eyes hoping he’d show some form of mercy. but of course, he didn’t. tightening the grip on your hair he moved you back and forth on his cock causing you to gag and your breathing becoming heavy.

you heart ached in your chest as you tried to push him off, but to no avail. a dark chuckle leaving his throat as he watched you struggle, a sight he would commonly enjoy. “such a bad girl today huh? maybe i should go find another goodgirl. one that’ll actually listen.” you tried to shake your head as fat tears streamed down your face, the thought of him replacing you being one your biggest fears. did he mean that? just cause you weren’t in a good mood he was gonna replace you? you thought to yourself noticing the grip he had on you loosened a little. you could move away now and so you did. pulling away from his cock trying to catch your breath only causing him to get angrier. “why are you being so bad today? why cant you be a goodgirl and-“

“Red!” you choked out a sob as more tears fell from your face staining the bed sheets beneath you. sitting up, your palms resting on your thighs as you sobbed. the room went silent with the only sound present being your soft cries alongside with your occasional sniffles. confused he lifted your chin up, you pathetically looked up at him like a helpless little puppy. he finally understood what was wrong, mumbling a few curses as he got closer to you, sitting you on his lap as you cried into his chest.

“easy now baby. i’m so sorry...” he whispered thanking whatever was above that he hadn’t lost you, feeling horrible for not picking up the obvious signs you weren’t in the mood for any of this.

“d-do you really wanna l-leave me?” your voice was hoarse from one getting your throat fucked and two crying. hugging you tighter and feeling nothing but regret. each cry you let out tugged at his heartstrings. he never wanted this how could he have been so blind? you were his little baby he wanted to protect every chance he got. now you were here. sobbing into his chest all because he didn’t realize you weren’t in the right mood today. 

“never prettygirl. i’d be devastated without you in my life... I didn’t mean that I promise.” he pulled you away from his chest to face you. kissing the few tears you had left on you. even with tears pampered all over your face, to him you still managed to be pretty. even if it hurt him since he was the reason for all this, you could tell he was on the brink of tears too. he couldn’t imagine a life without you without his precious girlfriend in his life he’d be a train wreck.

“i-i...i just wanted us to go nice and gentle tonight..i didn’t have a good day today..but i didn’t want you to be mad since you like it when its rough so..”

he let out a chuckle at your last sentence causing you to look at him in confusion. “yeah being rough is nice and all but its only nice when you’re in the right mindset for it. you should’ve told me you weren’t feeling it tonight baby. If you wanna get fucked nice and gently by me you should’ve just said so my love.” he says planting a kiss on your forehead.

you smiled, reverting back to your previously cheery self making kuroo more than happy. he rested his head on top your shoulder “if you want, we can try again baby. this time i’ll give it to you nice and sweet..you’d like that wouldn’t you my pretty baby?” he whispers into your ear planting kisses down your neck as you let out a whimper feeling him smirk against your neck.

“mm-mhm please tetsu...”

he wastes no time wrapping his arms around your waist as your cunt feels him hardening again. “whatever my baby wants who am i to deny?”

akaashi

- the thought of using your safeword never occurred to you when you were with akaashi

- in fact he suggested it just in case things took a turn you didn’t like

- tonight was different though you were his innocent girlfriend who just wanted to treat him the way he treats you so lovingly

- wearing nothing but his shirt accompanied by a cute pair of panties feeling confident about your plan to please your boyfriend.

- though it doesn’t go according to plan,

you saw him sitting on the bed reading a novel still in his formal clothing. You were feeling particularly needy tonight learning a few new things you read from the internet a week ago on how to please your boyfriend sexually. you did however feel a bundle of nerves fill you up, but you just assumed it was because this was something you’ve never done before to anyone.

akaashi was not only your first, but he was your first boyfriend your first everything when it came to romance. now, putting all your insecurities aside, you were going to try out what you learned tonight on your beloved boyfriend!

 walking towards him, you crawled on top of his lap, arms wrapped around his neck to pull him in for a sweet kiss. he smirked setting his book down on the nightstand while taking his glasses off as well.

“Can I help you pretty girl?” he questioned placing his hands on your hips. “oh nothing...i just want you tonight..is that okay?” you asked, your innocent voice making akaashi smile. you were just so cute and pure in his eyes. you jump in excitement ready to initiate your plan to please your boyfriend. you started kissing him slowly yet passionately, grinding your wet cunt against his slowly hardening cock through his pants.

he opened his eyes to clearly understand what you were doing. to his shock what he assumed was correct. His innocent girlfriend who had no knowledge on how to please her boyfriend grinding up against him. maybe you were just being extra needy? he told himself. not longer after he snapped back to reality as he felt you pull away from him only to kiss down his jaw leaving a trail of soft kisses.

His cheeks becoming red as your soft lips traced down to unbutton his shirt. “so handsome..” You said kissing his chest as you went down to his abdomen. he would be lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying this, but.... Your not gonna do what he thinks you are right?? his own girlfriend who was too shy who cried at the first attempt to sucking him off?? no he must be getting ahead of himself.

looking down once more to check up on you, he finds you unbuckling his pants letting his cock spring free. his mouth agape seeing your head already lick his precum nice and clean, pumping him a few times to get all his precum out. he shudders as your wet tongue touches his cock, giving him kitten licks here and there. taking a deep breath, shoving him down your throat all in one go, a small gag escaping from you, squeezing your eyes tightly trying your best not to cry.

humming, you bobbing back and forth making him grunt at the waves of pleasure you were giving him. Still, he felt uneasy. who taught you this?? he was always the one guiding you, teaching you how to do things yet here you were sucking him down your pretty little throat. head thrown back his groans mixed with his thoughts, he kept overthinking the reasons as to how you picked up on this.

did Bokuto teach you?? you two always got along so well..sometimes leaving akaashi to third wheel, but why was he thinking about that now??

 “shit..” he grunted as he felt his high approaching. He tried to pull your head back so he wouldn’t end up cumming in your mouth, but you stayed on his cock till he came.

smiling at him, you licked your lips, swallowing his cum. leaving him surprised at everything you’ve just done. you’ve never did any of this nor tried to. It hurt the first time you tried to give him head now here you are taking him down your throat? He couldn’t believe it.

he wanted to get to the bottomed of this quickly.

“dirty girl.” he spits out flipping you to the other side of the bed, pushing your head down to the pillow putting your ass up with your cunt in full display for him. you winced at the sudden aggressive force.

“who taught you all those things you little slut?”hooking his finger onto your soaked panties to push them aside, he shoved two fingers deep inside of your dripping hole making you whimper at the painful stretch, not giving you enough time to adjust as he pumped into you.

“k-keiji w-wait!!” you whined screwing your eyes shut to fight back your tears, while he started pumping his fingers at an inhuman pace, he hovered over you, your back to his chest while his head rested on your shoulder.

“i asked you a question, so I expect an answer.” his voice was cold and stern without a sound of love or worry. the stretch of his fingers were painful especially with how he was practically scissoring you open. your eyes rolled at to the back of your head feeling your climax approaching, but it hurt so much you weren’t used to such a rough pace.

akaashi always took his time with you. Going slow and easy, praising you, calling you his angel or goodgirl for taking him in so well. but now he was none of these things.this felt like a completely different person to what you were use to.

“mm’ n-no one! keiji- p-please s-slow down it hurts!!” you sobbed only making him click his tongue at you, your heart sank feeling foggy and uneasy.“you probably like that it hurts huh? you’re dripping around my fingers you filthy slut.” he never used a tone as harsh as this before. never calling you names or degrading you in general. the pain in your chest overlapping the pleasure as more tears fall.

“n-no not a s-slut!! p-please stop! it hurts please keiji please-“ you begged feeling your stomach tighten as he kept fingering you till you screamed, squirting all over the bed sheets. “dirty slut.” He pulled out abruptly from you causing you to choke out another sob. your body trembling at this point as you pant out in desperation to form words scared of what he might do next. “N-no more please I’ll be good i p-promise just please..” you begged him once again, hoping he’d notice the pain you were in...he didn’t.

“no. sluts like you don’t get to make decisions like that.” He was about to pull your shirt off until you screamed and kicked  “red! red! r-red!!” he moved away only to watch you curl in on yourself, hugging your knees for comfort, refusing to look him in the eyes. “baby..?” he said softly trying to move you to face him to his horror you flinched shrinking in on yourself.

“keiji... why were you s-so...mean to me i only wanted to make you feel good..you always make me feel good so why did you..” immediately, he scooped you into his arms rocking you back and forth as if you were a toddler. you cuddled up against his chest as he felt your tears fall on his chest.he didn’t mind of course. “shh its okay..its okay..” the voice he commonly spoke to you coming back, soft, reassuring, just how you liked it.

“baby..im sorry i.. I didn’t mean to be so mean..i just got scared you were maybe..well someone might’ve been teaching you these things..” you froze pulling away to look at him.

“w-what? I didn’t learn that from anyone..id never let anyone teach me or touch me but you keiji! i just..read some stuff about it online...and I wanted to test it out..” you admitted through sniffles still rubbing your tears away. He sighed as he hugged you again running his fingers through your hair. 

all you wanted was to please your boyfriend from just that, his heart skipped a beat at how sweet you were being, but the feeling was overshadowed by  feeling so stupid for letting his insecurities take the best of him.

“I’m sorry baby.. I promise to never speak to you like that ever again..you’re my sweet girl and I love you so so much.. you were just trying to do something nice for me..thank you i appreciate it my love..it felt really nice you did good.” He cupped your face in his hands, peppering soft kisses around your face.

he smiled as you giggled at the ticklish feeling, sighing in relief.

“ i love you, my sweetgirl. ”

Iwaizumi

- he got home pissed off since he saw you chatting and giggling with mattsun. 

- he needed to blow off some steam

- he didn’t mean to be so mean he really didn’t

-he was usually a soft dom but today..he was everything but soft to you.

“ filthy fucking whore. what were you doing talking to mattsun huh?” his thrusts were sharp, painful, not being prepped well enough by him making the stretch of his cock burn through your gummy walls. feeling the air in your lungs start to leave you slowly as tears streamed down your face at iwaizumis cold , heartless, tone. there was not a single trace of him, not a sign of his love. you weren't trying to make him jealous, you just spend sometime to get to know mattsun just a little more since he was friends with your boyfriend never expecting him to react like this. 

snapping back to your current situation, you arched your back letting out a loud cry as he slapped your puffy clit. “didn’t i ask you a fucking question? or did your dumb slutty brain already get fucked out of you huh?” he wrapped his hands around your throat thrusting harder and deeper in you. 

his tip painfully hitting your cervix with each thrust making you cry at the pain. you tried pushing him off with the little strength you had in you, sobbing out an apology making him roll his eyes. 

“tch, what? you think a little apology is gonna change the fact you were all “buddy buddy” with mattsun? did you forget who fucking owns you little slut?” landing another harsh slap at your clit causing you cry in discomfort. everything around you made you feel light as if you were gonna pass out from the cruel words iwaizumi spoke to you. feeling helpless as there was no sign of your once loving boyfriend. 

“maybe i should’ve invited him over, let him have a turn at ruining your slutty little cunt.”

Finally, having enough you cried out “r-red..” it was soft, gentle, easily could’ve been unheard if it wasn’t for how closely iwaizumi payed attention to you. he halted his thrusts pulling out of you completely, eyes draining of all lust and jealousy converting to concern mixed with regret. he rushed to put back his boxers on, cuddling you against his chest. 

you didn’t push him away, no you could never. he was the man you loved and treasured more than anything. you were hurt obviously, but still wanted to seek his comfort.

“i-i dont like m-mattsun haji..i only like you..only you..” your voice sounding broken. he let out a deep sigh pulling you closer to kiss your head. 

“i know baby i know... i was just jealous..you get along so well with mattsun i..went too far on you..i’m sorry you didn’t deserve that baby” his voice sounding faint but full of comfort.

“i just wanted to get t-to know him...i didn’t mean to make you mad haji..”

“i know baby shhh its okay now..i’m not mad anymore.”he cooed kissing you softly. you nodded letting your last set of tears fall onto his chest. 

slowly shutting your eyes and falling asleep in the warmth of his chest.

him on the other hand was completely mortified at your sobbing accompanied with your sniffles it echoed through his ears replaying like a broken record each time the memory got to you saying your safeword. 

“r-red..”

he never thought he’d reach that point for you to have to tell him that. he let out a few tears that night hating himself for hurting you. you forgave that very second he apologized but him on the other hand? he didn't..no he couldn’t.

let’s just say, he didn't get much sleep that weekend. 

akaashis is long asf (im sorry i just love him sm) and iwaiuzmis is short but i love these boys sm.  

i still am taking requests all links are above and down here. remember to drink water. oh and heres the m.sterlist  in case you missed it <3♡

[storiesforallfandoms]

inspirational ~ corpse husband

word count: 1589

request?: yes!

“Hi! I was wondering if you could do a corpse husband imagine where the reader has a feeding tube? If you can’t that’s perfectly fine, I just haven’t been able to find one yet.”

description: in which the group plays with a popular streamer that has a feeding tube and corpse tells her how much she inspires him

pairing: corpse x female!reader

warnings: swearing, mentions of chronic pain and cancer, also i only know a little bit about feedings tubes, i tried to do research in order to make myself more familiar but if there’s a lot of inaccuracies or anything i am very sorry i’m gonna try my best

masterlist (one, two)

Corpse listened to his friends shouting at one another to accuse each other of being sus. As usual, there was no use in trying to get a word in. Corpse spoke so softly that no one would even hear him unless they wanted to hear what he was saying.

“(Y/N)!” Toast suddenly exclaimed. “You’re being very quiet right now.”

“Because my damn tube is mixed up in my headphone wires!” (Y/N) exclaimed, sounding like she was far away from her mic. The group chuckled and continued with their conversation about who they thought the imposter was.

(Y/N) was a known Twitch streamer and YouTuber that rose to popularity when she started a series on her YouTube channel to show her journey through cancer treatments. Long before his own sudden boom in popularity, Corpse had watched all of her videos and became invested in her Twitch streams as well. Being someone who also struggled with chronic illness and pain, Corpse felt a sense of hope watching (Y/N) go through her treatment and still seem to optimistic in life and so productive in her YouTube and Twitch channels.

When Toast messaged the Amigops group to ask if anyone wanted to join his Among Us lobby with (Y/N), Corpse jumped at the chance. He hadn’t had much time to speak with her alone, but he was hoping to be able to tell her how much watching her content lifted him up during his worst times.

The meeting ended with no one being voted and brought them back to the office of the Polus map. Since they were playing with proximity chat, the argument from the meeting immediately continued with Rae and Toast warning everyone to stay away from Sean, who they were susing at the second imposter after already voting out Charlie.

Corpse watched (Y/N)’s pink astronaut run out of the office, silent amongst the chaos. He waited a moment before deciding to follow her, hoping he could meet her somewhere alone so he could talk to her.

He ran into O2 and noticed a pink bean in the boiler room stood by the water wheels. He ran in and stood in the doorway a moment before speaking.

“Hello (Y/N).”

“Ah fuck!” (Y/N) exclaimed. “Corpse! Don’t scare me like that!”

Corpse chuckled. “Sorry, I’ll warn you next time.”

“Are you here to kill me?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m okay with that. I feel like being killed by Corpse Husband in Among Us is like a rite of passage at this point.”

Corpse slowly approached (Y/N) to which she quickly ran away from him to the other water wheel. He laughed again before assuring her, “I’m not an imposter, you can trust me.”

“I don’t think I can, but I will choose to trust,” she told him.

“I actually came looking for you because I wanted to talk to you.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

There were so many things running through Corpse’s mind. He just wanted to blurt out everything he had thought about (Y/N) and her story, to thank her for giving him hope, to tell her what an inspiration she was. But his words caught in his throat and he struggled to get anything out.

Finally, he said, “What’s it like trying to be a streamer with your...with the um...”

“The feeding tube?” (Y/N) finished for him. “You can say it, Corpse. It’s not exactly a secret.”

He sighed, glad that she had a joking tone about it. “Yeah, with the feeding tube.”

“It’s annoying,” (Y/N) admitted. “Like...I’m assuming you’ve seen my streams or my videos but for the sake of anyone watching your stream who hasn’t: I have a nasogastric feeding tube, or an NG-tube, which is a feeding tube that goes in through the nose. As cliché as it is, just picture Hazel Grace from the Fault in our Stars. Additional cliché, I have it because I had cancer and the treatments left me so malnourished that I need a feeding tube even after I’ve gone into remission. So, because it’s tubes that are connected in my nose, I keep getting my headphone wires tangled in my tube or, very rarely, my mic wires, and it’s fucking annoying. It hurts like a bitch when I go to stand up and I yank the wires  by accident or something.”

“Does...does anything else hurt? Because of the cancer or the treatment or anything?”

“Not as much as it used to. I went into remission like nearly a year ago, so I’m doing better. It’s a process, but it’s had an amazing outcome in the end so I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“I find you really inspirational,” Corpse finally blurted.

He felt his face heat up with slight embarrassment as (Y/N) giggled. “You do?”

“Yeah. I followed your series about your recovery and I’ve watched some of your livestreams every now and then. What always stood out to me was when you talked about the negative side effects of your treatment, and eventually having to put the feeding tube in and how you’ve found that effects you, too. Being someone with chronic illness and constant pain, I’ve also had those days where it feels like even getting out of bed is too much work and I don’t feel like I can stream or make a video, but then my anxiety tells me that everyone is going to forget about me if I don’t make some type of content, so it’s just an internal struggle when really I should be resting.”

“Being a content creator and having an illness is tough,” (Y/N) agreed. “It feels like you can’t take a day off. I sometimes regret making that series because on days that I felt absolutely awful, I didn’t want to film or edit anything, but I felt like I had to because so many people were watching. Ironically enough, that became the topic of one of those videos; I just sat in front of my camera looking the worst I think I’ve ever looked on camera and talked about how exhausted I felt just from being alive, but felt like I couldn’t rest because of my channel. That’s when I started taking longer breaks between videos and streaming. Your fans won’t leave you, not the true fans anyways. They’ll always be by your side even if you decide to disappear from the Internet forever.”

Corpse half smiled to himself. “I’ve thought about doing that sometimes.”

“It’ll be easy for you to do that where you’re faceless. No one would bother you even after you left the Internet cause they’d have no idea it was you unless you spoke.”

A brief pause in their conversation caused them to hear Sean yelling as he ran past the room. (Y/N) giggled and walked out of the room. Corpse followed, hoping to continue the conversation somewhere else.

“It means a lot to me that you think that about me, though,” (Y/N) continued as she ran into the storage room. “I find you pretty inspirational too.”

This took Corpse by surprise. He didn’t know how to respond. Sure, he heard that all the time from his fans, and it always meant the world to him to know that people found him to be an inspiration, but it felt different to hear that from someone he had looked up to for so long.

“I wish I could’ve been a faceless creator like you,” she said when Corpse didn’t respond. “One of my biggest regrets is probably showing my face online. Although, it wouldn’t make sense for me not to show my face when I’m making a series about cancer treatment, but people can be mean. Even when someone is struggling with illness or a disease, the Internet doesn’t care. Whatever makes them feel better over someone else feeling like shit.”

“I still get a lot of hateful messages even though I’m faceless, though.”

“You do, but you’re so unbothered by it. Publicly anyways. When I get messages about how sickly I look I get so overwhelmed with sadness and I just wanna delete my channel forever. I can’t even fake not caring because it really does effect me.”

“Stick with me, I’ll teach you my ways. My favorite is trolling the troll.”

(Y/N) chuckled. “I’d like that a lot.”

Corpse watched (Y/N)’s pink bean approach his black one. “I’m glad we had this chat, Corpse. It made me really happy, but now it also makes doing this a lot harder.”

Corpse gasped as a kill animation popped up on the screen and (Y/N)’s astronaut quickly disappeared into the nearby vent. He was stunned into silence for a long time, just watching his ghost floating above his dead body. To make matters worse, (Y/N) had closed the door to storage so no one would find his body unless they had to go in there.

Charlie’s ghost floated through the walls and came to float next to Corpse’s. “Figured out Jack wasn’t the other imposter, huh?”

“Yeah,” Corpse said, laughing. “She really had me fooled. Buttered me up with compliments then killed me.”

“I taught her well,” Charlie comments before floating away again.

Corpse couldn’t help but laugh about the situation. He wasn’t mad, more impressed than anything. And he was a little happy; he got to talk to someone that had always been an inspiration to him and he made a new friend.

[missallsundaes]

Sanji x Male Reader — Amateur Chef

2111 Words • CW dealing with repressed bisexuality

When Luffy heard your self proclaimed cooking skills in the town market to a friend, he immediately invited you on to the ship, even without trying your food. A bigger crew needs more cooks, was his reasoning for Sanji. Sanji wasn't exactly happy about the new addition to his kitchen, possessive about his things and how the kitchen was maintained. And he was sure that you wouldn't take the same care as he did. At least you had your own set of knives, he thought with a sigh.

The first night cooking together proved to be...a challenge. He was paying you no mind, working in his own entrees for the crew, but the haphazard slap of the kitchen knife against the chopping board, well he could only stand it for so long before his temper got the better of him.

“What the fuck are you doing over there, amateur?” He seethed, turning to face you.

You sheepishly set down your knife on the counter, stepping back to show Sanji the vegetables you were cutting. His heart skipped a beat, seeing your rough cut shapes and uneven chops.

“What are you doing to that poor food!” Worded like a question, but spat at you like an insult. He approached you cutting board, staring down at the mangled shapes of potato, carrot and celery, hand frustratingly pulling through his hair.

“Well I'm just making soup..” You started, you were a bit offended but the chef in front of you was too intimating to talk back to. You'd heard enough stories about Black Leg Sanji to know when to keep your mouth shut.

“So you decided to torture your poor ingredients?” He reached for his own knife, wiping it clean with a cloth before trying to salvage the vegetables. You watched in awe as he saved first the potatoes, then the celery. He looked at you before touching the chunks of carrot on the board.

“You taking notes, amateur?” He said. His voice was softer now though his tone was still harsh. He raised the visible eyebrow, “Come over here and learn how it's done.”

He waved you over to stand in front of him, placing his hand over yours on your knife, he guided your left hand into place, showing you the gentle fist to protect your fingers without losing grip on the vegetables. He started slow, chopping motions in cool even bursts, slicing the chunks of carrot into perfectly measured cubes. You tried to pay attention but the beating of your heart in your throat, his warm hand over yours, and his firm chest placed against your back was all that your mind could focus on.

When the carrot was taken care of he let go of your hand, leaving you feeling you were missing something. You watched him cross the kitchen again, standing again in front of his own prep, you watched him skillfully pull the bones from a huge fish in one movement, running his hand over it to make sure it was all removed, looking for even the smallest of bones.

You hadn't heard about how gentle he was. How careful in the kitchen with perfect mannerisms. He looked at you, and you realized how obviously caught up in watching him you were, jumping to peel the garlic in front of you for your soup. He laughed, turning back to his prep, beginning to make a marinade with fresh lemons and cracked pepper for the fish.

“You're not a chef are you?” He said, looking at you briefly as he squeezed the lemons of their juice.

“No not at all,” you said sheepishly, ”I know a few recipes but when a wanted pirate grabs you and tells you you're going to be a chef on his crew you listen, you know? It's not like I was in a position to refuse..”

He sighed, knowing exactly how enthusiastic Luffy could be when he set his mind on something. “Don't worry, you can be my sous chef. I'll teach you what you need to know. We'll start with more knife practice for breakfast tomorrow, I hope you're okay getting up early.”

You thought briefly of how much you were not a morning person, though this was not the time to mention that. You nodded, “Thanks for helping me. You're a kind man.”

Sanji's face flushed at the genuine compliment, turning around quickly as if there was a pressing matter in the fridge to attend to. “N-nonsense it's just the right thing to do.” He stammered, head buried in the fridge, looking desperately for an ingredient to pull out that would make sense.

///

He kicked your hammock in the men's cabin, foot still perched on your side as you swayed back and forth, trying to regain your senses, shaken from a dream about your new crewmates, the one in front of you in particular.

“I thought you could be up early,” he laughed.

The room was still full of the snoring of the other men, the only light from the lantern in Sanji’s hand, casting golden light across him. He was already dressed in his slacks and dress shirt, looking primed for the day. You were sure that you looked the absolute opposite, feeling the drool caked to your cheek and knowing your hair was probably a wreck.

“Uh, about that,” you chuckled, climbing out of the hammock and hopping to the floor of the cabin. “I may not be as much of a morning person as I said.”

“I figured as much when you didn't wake up the first few times I kicked you.” He said, “Though I bothered you enough for you to say my name in your sleep.”

You turned from him, hiding your face by searching for a clean set of clothes, forcing an awkward laugh, “Oh yeah I must have subconsciously known you were trying to wake me.”

“Well hurry up, these idiots won't be asleep forever, and you do not want to see Luffy without his breakfast.” He left the room for you to get dressed, and you trudged to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

When you met him in the kitchen, he had a multitude of fruits set up at your station. You could smell bacon in the oven already, and he was whipping a large bowl of eggs for what you could only imagine was the biggest omelette of all time.

“Took you long enough.” He said, though he had a smirk on his face, his harsh attitude from yesterday softened.

“Am I chopping these?” You said, lifting your knife to slice the strawberries laid out on the board.

“Ah ah wait. Hold on I'm almost done.” He said, setting down the bowl of whipped eggs on the counter. He approached you, watching over your shoulder. “Do you remember the lesson from yesterday?”

You nodded, ”I think so.” you put your hand in the position he showed you, holding the knife how it felt under his guiding hand, breathed in and started slicing the strawberries.

The difference in your cuts from yesterday to this morning was leagues away. He adjusted your elbow, his firm gentle touch making your heart flutter, and just the adjustment of your arm made your slices neater. “Breathe,” he said, his own breath hot in your ear and making you catch your breath instead. You struggled to retain your breathing, but your cuts were messier now. He took your hand again, your heart beating through your chest. “You're making this so much harder than it is, watch. Breath with me.”

You times your breathing to match his, his firm chest pressed into you, his hand over yours. You felt your chests rise in succession together, making you feel as one. His hand held yours in place, but you were doing the work.

“Exactly like that,” he praised, you felt like you could melt right then and there. “You're doing great.”

He let go of you, stepping back to the stove top to heat a huge skillet for his omelette. “You've got it from here I presume.” You watched him for a moment, testing the temperature of the pan before adding his eggs and watching them diligently. “Most of breakfast is ready, so just get the fruit cut and plated and then we can wake up the crew.”

You nodded, “Thanks again, Sanji.” You said, continuing to chop the fruit in front of you, plating it up on the large platter he had set out.

///

The next few weekswent the same, Sanji waking you in the morning. Him teaching you new techniques to use in the kitchen. Making three meals a day together, not including if someone wanted a snack, getting closer and closer until you couldn't bear it. Your feelings for the man were definitely growing, you had a sneaking suspicion that he had similar feelings for you, but the constant doting of the girls on the crew made you doubt yourself, fearing that he wasn't into men the way you were.

You had already made fresh baked bread together that morning, as you watched his hands knead the dough tauntingly slow, his strong hands rolling it out and beating it down, his sleeves rolled up you could see the flexing of every muscle in his forearms.

You were cracking about two dozen eggs into a large skillet to fry, trying not to think about how close he was to you, chopping chives to put on top of your fried eggs.

“Sanji,” you said, rinsing your hands of the raw eggs in the sink.

He didn't look up from his work, now slicing pieces of smoked salmon, “Eh?” He said.

“I think I might have a problem,” you said, trying desperately not to look at the blond sharing the kitchen with you. He set down his knife, immediately checking your eggs over, the stove temperature, any kitchen error he could think of before looking you incredulously in the face. “It's not my food.” He looked more relieved than you expected and you laughed.

“What is it then?” He said, curly brow peaked with curiosity.

“I think I fell for one of my crewmates since I've been on the ship.” You flipped your eggs carefully, trying not to break your yolks.

“Oh? Nami? Robin?” He said, going back to work at his salmon. He wasn't jealous, per say, it's not like he really expect to feel this way about you. Plus the girls were gorgeous in every way, how could a red blooded man not fall for them. He still didn't know how to accept his feelings for you, forcing down any hint of bisexuality that he ever felt, blocking out those feelings, usually with anger.

“Uh no,” you said, turning off the heat on the stove and letting the residual heat finish your eggs as you seasoned them with salt and pepper. Beginning to set up the crews plates with thick slices of your fresh bread, two eggs each (four for Luffy and Zoro), sprinkling the chives on top, and passing the plates to Sanji to top with smoked salmon and hollandaise sauce.

After a moment of silence so thick you could slice it with the kitchen knife next to you, you continued, “Sanji, it's you.”

He almost dropped the plate he was holding, and you both moved quickly in reaction, hands one on top of the other under the plate. “What,” he said, worded like a question but tone flat in disbelief.

“Just, spending all this time with you has meant so much to me,” you withdrew your hand, looking away from him to hide the tinge of crimson on your cheeks. “Having you close to me, your guiding hands. Your strength. I can't help it.” He was still frozen in place, thoughts racing. “Just don't worry. Never mind, forget I said anything!” You said, plating the last of your half of the plates.

“Wait,” he said, as you were leaving the galley to wake the crew, “I think I fell for you too.” You stopped in the doorway, turning back to face him, but his back was to you. “I grew up not allowed to be who I wanted and even though I can now it's still hard to accept who I am. But I want to learn and be better. I want to be with you.”

“Do you mean that?” You said, letting the door swing back closed.

“Yeah,” he laughed, he turned to you smiling with tears in the corners of his eye. “Yeah I definitely mean it.” He wiped his eye, “Come on then, let's go wake up the ravenous beasts.”

[blockgamepirate]

Technoblade’s purpose in the political narrative of the Dream SMP

I can’t sleep so I decided to finally write the post I’ve been struggling with for literal months, except way more casual because I can’t be bothered anymore and also I’m sleep deprived.

So the thing is: to me the DSMP storyline has always been primarily political, probably because I was introduced to it through Wilbur who was definitely going for political, and also because I’m just generally interested in political narratives right now. Obviously I appreciate the character work and the personal relationship stuff, that’s what makes it more interesting than just dry allegory, but when it comes down to it, this story is about politics to me. So that’s the angle I’m going to approach it from.

Also not to spoil the conclusions here, but I’m an anarchist, that’s my lens.

(Obviously all of this is about rp from here on out unless otherwise specified)

Basically the situation as Techno joins the server is this: L'Manburg exists as an autonomous nation and is de facto independent although not officially recognised by the Dream SMP. The self-appointed president Wilbur Soot decides to hold an election and rig it in order to consolidate his power over the nation he founded and he gets his VP Tommyinnit to join in on the plan. Their scheme fails and they end up voted out instead. The new president, Schlatt, immediately establishes himself as an authoritarian figure and exiles Wilbur and Tommy.

A couple of points on what the election arc demonstrates:

1: the appearance of democracy can be used for distinctly undemocratic purposes.

2: even if the elections aren’t rigged, the electoral system could be massively flawed and end up favouring a party that in fact didn’t have the popular vote

3: even if the winning government (the coalition in this case) has the majority vote, that doesn’t guarantee that they’ll actually act according to the popular will.

4: the supporters of the losing parties basically just have to let the majority overrule their wishes, espcially since apparently L’Manburg doesn’t have an established role for an opposition, yikes. That’s actually a MAJOR oversight in the system but I’m not gonna go into that too much.

5: frankly as an anarchist I am just deeply cynical towards representative democracy, and just because you have a token appearance of choice and consent doesn’t mean that it isn’t a hierarchical and authoritarian system. And to be fair, from my point of view this applies even to so-called liberal democracies and progressive parties. Full disclosure: even if L'Manburg was the ideal example of a representative democracy (which it very much isn’t) I would still be opposed to it because I fundamentally do not believe in top down systems, even electoral ones.

6: despite all these flaws, all the characters seem to implicitly accept the electoral system as legitimate. There’s criticism against the actions of individual characters acting within the system, such as Quackity calling out Wilbur for trying to rig the election, but nobody is questioning the system itself.

So at this point I’m sitting there, watching all this go down, and thinking “man, this would be so much more bearable if there was an anarchist point of view being represented in the story.”

And hey, look who IMMEDIATELY SHOWS UP.

Okay, I’m not gonna lie, early installation Technoblade is not the best representation of anarchism. I was mostly rooting for him out of sheer contrarianism initially. I didn’t really even care if it would be another Killmonger/Magneto/Zaheer situation because I’m used to reading against the authorial intent when it comes to these things. Sometimes any representation is better than no representation, even with political ideologies. That’s not to say that him just straight up spouting this hobbesian notion of a “dog-eat-dog world” didn’t grate on me, obviously it did.

That kind of worldview of humanity needing authority in order to prevent chaos and conflict is literally antithetical to anarchism and is the favourite talking point of authoritarians, the least anarchist people there are. It’s literally what people use to argue AGAINST anarchism. I think it’s mostly because cc!Techno obviously wasn’t particularly educated on anarchist thought and was just basically having fun roleplaying with his friends at this point. Which is frustrating but fair enough I guess.

Cynical ideas about human nature are pretty deeply rooted in the mainstream, unfortunately, most people just consider it common sense. And like I said, it’s a huge talking point in the propaganda against anarchism.

(… even though in fact these arguments were originally used against proponents of representative democracy. Hobbes himself was very much a monarchist, the idea of letting normal people vote for their representatives would have been terrifying to him. Like surely the world would descent into a free-for-all war, all against all. Imagine letting commoners have OPINIONS, the horror.)

So yeah, that stuff was pretty ehhhhh. It was basically what I’d expected though: cc!Techno isn’t an anarchist and we just don’t get accurate representation from non-anarchists, ever. What I dared to hope was that Techno’s character would at least stay consistent about his opposition to ALL governments. I was pretty sure that he would, even though it seemed like the majority of the fandom at the time was convinced that he would switch over to Schlatt’s side or something. It would have been a really shitty twist, I would have ragequit immediately. I mean what would have been the entire point of his character then? He might as well have been a random mercenary. Why even have his character be an anarchist if you were just going to make him work for a government?

(ftr this is kinda my biggest problem with the Hypixel Skyblock revolution event lol, honestly I think that was a worse depiction of anarchism than early DSMP Technoblade. I mean the speech was good, but… still became a government official, tho. booooooooo, cringe)

And yes, I was rooting against L'Manburg, obviously, and I would have even if it had meant having to deal with another badly written anarchist villain character. I never understood why people saw L'Manburg as the good guys, they were nationalist and exclusionary and their whole existence was based on trying to scam people for money.

I mean they were definitely funny, they were great entertainers. I have no problems with people rooting for them because they’re fun to watch; I did that for a bit too. But people were starting to get really into the story and talk about Wilbur and Tommy, the corrupt politicians, and the country that literally excluded people based on nationality as the heroes, unironically, which was wild to me. And when Wilbur started his “villain arc” well: people called it a villain arc, as if he hadn’t been pretty much a bad guy from the beginning, constantly just out for money and power and taking advantage of the people around him and then pretending to be the victim when challenged. I mean yes he got worse, but I wouldn’t call it a villain arc, more like just a mental breakdown arc.

More importantly, to me L'Manburg represented so many things I hate about the status quo in real life, and seeing the fandom mostly unquestioningly accept it as good just pissed me off. Still pisses me off tbh. I mean, to be diplomatic I could say that I understand the emotional attachment and the way L'Manburg was built up mirrors a lot of how real nations are built and how they create a sense of patriotism out of symbols and a sense of honour and loyalty, and it’s actually really fascinating how it even works in a Minecraft roleplay. Says something about the human mind I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.

Anyway, I just wanted to see literally any kind of opposition to power, even if it had to come from a character that was unquestionably a villain, which I fully assumed Techno would be. Because political narratives so often just leave us out, or at best barely mention us. And even from a narrative point of view, adding an anarchist perspective to a political story just objectively broadens its scope and actually challenges people who are used to only arguing along the lines of conservative or liberal, welfare state or privatization, nationalism or multiculturalism, etc. Even if the original work dealt with it poorly, at least it would give me the excuse to rant about it on Tumblr, which is kinda why I revived my old Minecraft sideblog for this. (That and pig!Techno fanart.)

Also how can you have a story so fundamentally about power without its counterpoint: the rejection of power?

(Yes, Dream SMP as a whole is definitely a narrative about power, it’s a huge theme for Wilbur, Quackity, Dream, Eret and the Badlanders at least, as well as obviously the anarchist characters from the opposite direction.)

So yeah, the build up to November 16th for me was mainly about the anticipation for what Techno would do, how would Techno’s character respond to the seemingly inevitable formation of a new government. THAT was the point of interest for me, that was what I was the most invested in. Would we get an actual anarchist opposition as a new side to the conflict or would they just awkwardly drop that whole angle? Or even have him team up with Schlatt like a complete sellout? There was so much potential but I worried they might just waste it.

And I was right to worry since apparently in the original script Techno wasn’t supposed to do anything, he was just there to help fight Schlatt and witness the explosion along with everyone else.

And WOW that would have been so incredibly boring

Not even just from the political perspective, just talking about the narrative in general terms here: imagine November 16th without Techno’s plot points. Not only would it have been boring for Techno’s character but it would have been equally boring for basically everybody but Wilbur and Philza. An anticlimactic fight followed by a big explosion that pretty much everybody had seen coming already. Yes, the button room scene is dramatic and heartbreaking… for Wilbur and Phil. But nobody else was there to see it. For everybody else, it was just a big explosion. It would have been such a huge disservice to anyone watching the other POVs.

Techno’s intervention gave everyone an ACTUAL climactic fight, it allowed characters other than Wil and Phil to witness some actual drama happening and to participate in it, rather than just waiting around for the explosion, while also foreshadowing the explosion. Even better, it provoked SO MUCH discussion in the fandom AND gave a perfect hook for future conflicts to arise. Wilbur’s end was tragic but it was, at the time, final. L'Manburg would have still suffered a catastrophe but it would have been left with just the same exact antagonist as before: Dream.

And at this point Dream’s core goals had barely changed, just his approach was now different. Yes, that makes a difference for the plot, but it doesn’t really change much in terms of ideological conflict. Especially since there really isn’t that big of an ideological difference between Dream and Tommy, because arguably neither of them are particularly big on ideology in the first place, they just have conflicting goals and use different tactics to achieve those goals (well, the tactics aren’t always even that different *cough Spirit cough*).

Techno’s conflict with Tubbo and especially Quackity (and honestly most of the other characters in general) brings in so much more depth to the story, just by introducing another angle, not to even mention how much it brings to focus questions about power and violence. These are themes that exist in other characters’s storylines too but nowhere in the same way or as central as with Techno.

I’m getting kind of ahead of myself here, though.

The real twist of November 16th was the fact that Techno WASN’T a straight up villain, actually. It was a twist to me anyway, because with all my cynicism I just didn’t see it coming, I didn’t expect him to actually start making reasonable criticisms. I didn’t expect him to drop the hobbesian arguments entirely and start making points that actually sounded like anarchism.

I have to assume that cc!Techno must have seen some of the criticisms of his character and been inspired to adjust because the difference is pretty notable.

(Sidenote: I’m just forever kinda sad that Techno’s “I may seem like the villain here” monologue was cut from the video and most people never heard it.)

And I felt SO validated by the way, because it works so well in the story! Everyone is mostly content with the restoration of a status quo of some sort, Schlatt is gone, this is supposed to be the good ending, and then Techno calls them all out and turns the narrative around completely: This was just a coup d'état. This was just the previous political leadership retaking power by force. Why is everyone celebrating the same exact system that lead to Schlatt’s authoritarian rule in the first place?

What he does there is force the audience to question the narrative they’ve been presented so far, that they’ve accepted without a thought. It might not convince them, but they can’t just ignore it either.

Whatever you wanna say about the discourse around Techno on that day, in the ideological narrative THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART. Not who betrayed who or when is political violence justified, that’s about personal relationships and morality and it’s mostly all more relevant to the aftermath than the event itself. In my opinion, the REAL point in the moment is that the characters and the audience were comfortable with the ending only to be presented with a completely new perspective on the events.

It also recontextualises the finale, including Wilbur’s actions! It’s a much more ambiguous end to the Pogtopia vs Manburg arc and to Wilbur’s original run as the head writer. Wilbur’s “even with Tubbo in charge I don’t think [that ‘special place’] can exist again” is vague enough to be dismissed as just part of his paranoia and internal conflict, but with Techno, there’s a concrete question: what if Tubbo, given the same powers as Schlatt, will turn out to be just a new Schlatt? And suddenly you have to wonder what Wilbur meant by his words too. And was all this foreshadowing something about L’Manburg’s future?

Okay I’ve only made it to November 16th and there’s so much more DSMP to talk about but the post is getting too long and I’m starting to lose my energy. Will I ever make a part two? No idea. But I’ll try.

Standard disclaimer: I’m not the spokesperson of anarchism, other anarchists might disagree with my reading

[mrs-march-ahs]

How the Evans Cheer You Up

Headcannons and a short imagine for how the boys would cheer you up

I know this idea has been to done to death but I really wanted to have my own go at it. I sincerely hope you like it. I’m still unsure with this one. I tried to make up different reasons for the reader to be upset, I hope they all sound like reasonable reasons to cry. :)

Tate

-Notices you’re upset, so he comes and approaches you slowly

-Understands if you don’t want to talk about it

-Subtly checks your wrists to make sure you haven’t cut yourself

-Comes and rubs your back

-Tries to make some light jokes to see how they land

-If he’s in a particularly goofy mood, he’d come and tickle you to cheer you up

----

Tate’s heart races as he runs up the stairs and stands in front of the door to your bedroom. With you still alive, occasionally school days and family trips set you two apart for longer periods of times. After not seeing you for a long weekend, he opens the door to your room, and looks at you laid on the bed, facing the window. He quietly walks in and shuts the door behind him, before creeping you behind you. Then, suddenly, he jumps up on the bed and puts his hands on your tummy, tickling away. You look up at him angrily and push him off you, making him open his mouth in shock.

“Heyyy, I’m sorry, I’m just messing about… just happy to finally see you”, he says happily and leans in for a kiss, but you lean back and look at him. He sits down, genuinely hurt at your reluctance.

“Should I… leave?”, he says quietly, like he’s afraid of the answer. But instead of giving him one, you explain your worries.

“Tate… we got turbulence… really really bad”. He softly takes your hands and kisses your knuckles, slightly calmed down by the fact you’re not mad at him.

“I know it’s scary, but it happens, baby”

“No…no… I thought I might die”, you pull your hands away from him. “Tate, what if I died? Away from the house?”. Your voice gets louder and shakier, and tears fill your eyes. Tate quickly swoops you onto his lap and wraps his hands tightly around you.

“What… is our future? We can’t move out together… we-…”, you are interrupted by Tate shushing you, and holding your face so you look at him.

“Stop worrying so much about the future, I just want to be with you now”, Tate says. Every word that comes out of his mouth drips with sadness and worry, but his eyes look hopeful and… in love.

Kit

-Comes up behind you and softly talks to you, to not scare you

-Stands behind you and wraps his arms around you

-Kisses your cheek or your shoulder

-Wipes or kisses your tears away

-Suggests doing something together like watching a film

-Cuddles you throughout and makes sure you’re watching and not distracted

-Insists you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to

-A few days after you being upset, he would subtly try to talk to you about what you were upset about

-Always up for ways to be a better husband and ways to improve the relationship

---- Taking a step towards the fridge, you slip slightly on the butter you dropped earlier. You manage to hold onto the counter and not fall completely, but groan loudly in annoyance. Today wasn’t your day. You wipe the floor clean and get eggs out of the fridge, and as you take one out of the carton, you are greeted with the sound of the front door opening, and your husband entering. You turn around and he gives you a big warm smile. You manage to return the smile, and you focus on cracking the egg on the edge of the bowl. “Whatchu makin’, Miss Walka?”, he questions.

“Cupcakes, red velvet, your favourite”, you say with a monotone voice. You crack the egg into the bowl and sigh loudly when a part of the shell falls in. Kit walks over to you and wraps his arms around your waist, and you fish the shell out of the bowl. He kisses your shoulder lovingly, watching you stir the bowl, and lets out a breathy laugh when some of the flour spills out and falls on the floor.

“Lemme get that, clutz”, Kit laughs, and bends down to wipe the floor with a towel. But once he stands back up and goes to kiss your cheek, he notices the tears in your eyes and immediately squeezes you into a tight hug.

“Hey, hey”, he warmly coos, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t know it’d upset you”. Guilt fills your heart when you hear Kit blaming himself.

“It’s not that”, you sniffle into his chest, “I can’t seem to get anything right today”. You look up at the ceiling, refusing to cry over spilled flour. Kit looks down at you with a worried expression and cups your cheek. He kisses your nose and rubs your back, and all the subtle, sweet and loving gestures together make you cry. You quickly push your face against his chest and breathe in his scent, hoping to calm down. Kit doesn’t judge you, instead rests his head against yours and continues to rub your back. You take a deep breath of Kit’s aroma and can’t help but feel safer and protected. A combination of his muscly arms wrapped around you and his manly smell feels like home.

 Kyle

-At first, he’d solely try to cheer you up and hope it’s nothing major

-"Heyyyy, what’s with the tears, hm?”

- Rub your back and ask what’s wrong

-Wouldn’t take “fine”, or “it’s nothing” for an answer

-He’d squat down next to your bed and look at you as you told him

-He’d listen carefully and keep strong eye contact as you told him, to show he’s listening

-Would stroke your cheek as you told him and wipe any tears away

-Would suggest going to a party or going out bowling or doing something fun

- “I don’t want you in your bed rotting away in sadness, let’s go ice-skating”

-But if you wanted to, he would definitely have a movie night

- “Hey since we’re going to watch a whole loada movies anyway, how about Star Wars?... Hey hey no don’t cry”

Franken Kyle

-Would come and sit with you

-Touch your tears and then look at his finger

-He wouldn’t know what’s happening but he’d know it’s bad

-He’s point at your watery eye

-Look at you concerned

----

You sob quietly into your pillow and take deep breathes, trying to calm yourself down. It was the afternoon, and you knew it was soon time to make some dinner for Kyle, and make sure he eats it. You loved him with every inch of your soul, and you didn’t mind taking care of him, but sometimes it felt you were raising him. The pressure of shaping him to be a member of society sometimes got to you too much, but always let it slide. After so long of it rotting inside you, the built-up pressure and guilt overflowed and you couldn’t help but spend a minute crying. You sniffle quietly and soon see the door very slowly open, and Kyle’s blank expression peeking out. You smile at him and quickly sit up, and as he closes the door and walks towards you, you try to wipe all of your tears to not concern him. He looks at your face closely with furrowed and intrigued eyebrows and points at your tear-filled eye. You sniffle and put your hand on his shoulder.

“These are called ‘tears’, Ky”, you gently explain to him. He knew a few words, and though communication wasn’t the biggest issue, it took him a while to get comfortable using new words, and he got frustrated very easily when he got things wrong. Looking at him open his mouth and his dry lips tremble, your heart shattered, knowing that he has so much to say but struggles to express himself. A tear escapes your eye and rolls down your cheek, and you sigh softly. Kyle cups your cheek with his warm hand and looks at you.

“T-Tears…mm…bad”, he grunts, “No…tears”. He wipes your tear with his thumb and puts his arm around you. You melt against his soft skin and can’t help but smile, reassured that you’re doing your job right.

 Jimmy

-He’d focus on cheering you up rather than listening

-He’d keep making jokes to lighten the mood

-He’d just want to see you smile rather than fix the problem

-He would cuddle you though

-And he’d stroke your hair and back

-Might tell you about his day to distract you, or tell you a story

-Subtle compliments

-“You’re too pretty to be upset”

- “What does my princess have to be sad about?”

- “Who upset my little girl? Does somebody need a Jimmy Darling ass-kicking?”

----

The warmth of Jimmy’s hands rubbing your back comforts you, as you push your face against his chest and sniffle into it softly. He pulls the blanket from the end of the bed over both of you and puts his head on top of yours. He gently shushes against your head and you breathe deeply, trying to calm yourself.

“Hey, look at me doll”, he says softly, and looks down at you. You wipe your face against his shirt and look up at him, making him grimace and laugh.

“I know this shirt is white, but I think you’re confusing it with a tissue”.

You can’t help but laugh, looking at the massive wet stain on Jimmy’s chest. Jimmy smiles down at you, finally seeing your beautiful smile, and pulls you back into his chest. He places a tender kiss on the top of your head, knowing that this too, will pass.  

 James

- “Darling, has something upset you?”

-Would not take no for an answer, even if you really didn’t want to talk about it

- “Who’s responsible for your tears? I demand an answer…the person to upset my Queen must pay”

-If you weren’t upset at somebody and just had a bad day, he’d ask to cuddle

- “Physical contact always comforts you; shall we engage in affection?”

-He’d hesitantly stroke your hair as you cried into his chest

-If you explained why you were upset, he would have an intense conversation with you about it

-If you were insecure for example, he would sit you up and look into your eyes and tell you how incredible you are

-Not softly, though

----

James’ eyes wander around the room, desperately searching for the right things to say to try and comfort you, as you gently sniffled against his chest. He holds his hands on your lower back while you straddle him, and he occasionally slides his finger across your cheek and wipes your tears against the bed. The silence of your sadness kills James, and he speaks up.

“I simply do not understand how you could look in the mirror, wearing that dress, and not fall in love”

You sigh softly and close your eyes, knowing you already explained it to him when he walked in on you trying it on, upset in the mirror at how you filled the dress.

“I look terrible, it’s such an important night, such a gorgeous dress, and I’m ruining everything”, you whimper. “I might as well not go at all… just go to Devil’s night tomorrow by yourself. I don’t want to ruin your birthday by you having to show up with me”.

The self-depreciating words about your appearance make James gasp and push you back to face him. He cups your face with both hands and looks you deep in your emerald/ ocean colored/ chocolate/ grey /hazelnut eyes.

“Nonsense darling!”, he says, looking at you with puppy eyes and pleading eyebrows. “I simply must be accompanied to Devil’s night by my beautiful bride”. You exhale softly and look at him, knowing how much this means to James.

“When I first laid my eyes on you, I felt immediate infatuation”, he says softly, hoping to make you melt. “If you had told me that the gorgeous woman blessing my hotel with her presence will one day become Mrs. March, I wouldn’t have believed you, and I would have sent Iris to buy a lottery ticket”.

Although the sweet words made you smile, you found it hard to believe that you landed such an incredible man, and that he was that in love with you.

“Thank you, Jimmy”, you reply, hoping to see James smile. But he doesn’t.

Instead, he frowns. “It breaks my heart to know that you don’t believe me”.

You lean into his hand and close your eyes for a second.

“I’m sorry, my self-esteem is all over the place. I have better and worse days”.

“As we all, darling. But somebody like you shouldn’t question their worth, even on the worst of days”. James places a passionate kiss on your trembling lips, and pulls you into his chest.

 Kai

-He would enjoy seeing you upset, mainly because every weakness is an opportunity for growth

-But also it’d turn him on

-He wouldn’t be soft on you, put his arm around you, or even squat next to you

-He’s sit by you and make you talk yourself out of being upset

-If you learned into to hug him, he’d refuse

-He’d insist that you can resolve this yourself

-He’d tell you that he’s proud of you once you did overcome it

-If you solved the problem or talked yourself out of it, but were still gloomy for the day, then he might be a little softer

-Not physically but he’d give you a few compliments to cheer you up

- “I knew you’d be able to solve this yourself”

----

You sit on the sofa with your head in your hands, looking at the ground. Tears fill your eyes, and your heart feels like it’s shrinking. You blink hard and watch the tears fall to the ground, and sink into the carpet, leaving tiny wet patches. In the silent basement, with your tears splashing and quiet weeps being the only sound, you heard immediately as Kai walked down the stairs, but you didn’t dare to look up at him, knowing that he would never console you. Although you knew Kai very well, and knew that he didn’t really have a soft side, you couldn’t help but feel comforted by his presence, and when he sits down next to you on the couch, you look up at him and put your arms around him. But as usual, he leans away from the hug and holds your wrists. He lays them gently on your lap and looks at you, with slight concern in his eyes.

“What’s the matter?”, he whispers to you.

“I’m worried that you’ll leave me…for somebody better”, you reply, trying to keep your cries at bay, knowing Kai can’t stand sniffling and sobbing.

“Somebody better”, he echoed.

“Somebody w-with views like yours… somebody you could talk to better than you can with me”

“You’re scared I’ll leave you for somebody with views like mine”

“I mean… I know you’re not dating me for my views and they’re n-not that important but…maybe”, you explain yourself. Though Kai wasn’t saying anything new, repeating your sad words to you made you realize how they sounded.

“I know it’s unreasonable”, you continue, “But I’m insecure”. He hums listening to you and shakes his head slowly, watching you wipe your tears. Ever since dating Kai, you always felt like you needed validation from him for everything. Even the way you felt. So, despite him not asking, you go on mumbling about your insecurities.

“I know y-you love me but- ”, you hesitate. You look up at him with your sad pleasing eyes and he gives you a loving and reassuring smile. You look into his eyes and whisper, “no buts”. He smiles wider at you and puts his arm around you.

“I knew there was no reason for me to intervene”, he says softly and cups your cheek. “You talked yourself out of it, all by yourself”. He rubs your tears with his thumb and places a gentle kiss on your forehead. Perhaps Divine Ruler did have a soft side after all.

[boldlyvoid]

Amoreena | Chapter Six

Chapter Six

main summary: Heaven is a real place and it's located exactly 14.6 miles away from the FBI, Quantico Headquarters. Off behind a small park, under a fantastical willow tree surrounded by wildflowers, in every colour young minds can imagine.

Don't forget, heaven also comes with angels.

Chapter Warnings: slight smut** angst, spencer's overthinking and anxiety, passing out, plot twist, very understanding reader, happy ending, smut implied but not graphic

word count: 6.2K

from the beginning <3

Derek and Savannah planned to come over on Sunday morning to introduce Hank and Amoreena, his namesake and his honorary daughter meeting felt very important to him.

Y/N and he spent the morning cleaning up the house, making sure all the books were away and the coffee was on so when they pulled in at 11 for brunch they’d be ready.

Amoreena was beyond excited at the idea of a 16th cousin, not knowing about Henry or Michael yet either, bringing her total to 18 cousins.

Spencer learned something new about them and the farm every single day he was there. Which he expected, it had been 8 days and he was all but moved in. They joked just that morning about them moving too fast, shrugging it off and living their lives anyway.

Derek and Savannah were one of the sweetest couples Spencer knew. They had a love he admired, it also blossomed fast and stayed strong through everything Derek went through.

Derek was always going to be his rock, someone he loved deeply and cherished more than he could ever explain to anyone. More than a brother, a long-lost lover, a confidant, his best friend in the whole world. If he could live through everything he’s been through and still be happy, so could Spencer.

Amoreena is out the door and meeting them before Y/N and Spencer are even aware they pulled in. “Hey little lady, I’m your uncle Derek,” he can hear Derek’s sweet voice that he only uses with kids.

They walked out onto the porch to see Amoreena shaking both their hands before asking if Savannah needed help carrying her purse. Ever the little helper, she intended on making the best introduction to her new family members.

“Spence, this place is amazing!” Savannah gushed as she pulled him into a hug, and then Y/N, “It’s lovely to meet you.”

“You too! You’re all so pretty, holy cow,” she swoons, “what does the FBI put in the water over there?”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s running off over here too,” Spencer compliments Y/N right back.

Derek gives Y/N the biggest hug he’s ever seen, “you are my new bestie, anyone who loves Reid as much as me is a keeper.”

“I like this one, Savannah you have good taste,” Y/N teases, holding Derek in her embrace.

“We got the best guys the bureau had to offer and stole them away,” she laughed, wrapping an arm around Spencer as they turned to see Hank.

“Well, someone had to put them to good use,” Y/N had an arm wrapped around Derek too, slipping into Spencer’s life effortlessly.

Hank was almost 5, it blew Spencer’s mind to think that Derek had been a father for 5 years now. He was the sweetest little guy, holding Amoreena’s hand as the two of them walked up the stairs.

They had sandwiches and muffins in the garden, everything was homemade and grown on the farm. It was a life Spencer was excited to get used to, they even made their own cheese and wine in the summer for the farmers market.

Every time he learned a new detail about this place it got more perfect.

Hank loved the goats, he crawled right in with Amoreena and sat down in the mud. Petting the babies and letting all the mamma goats nibble at his hat as they got close. He giggled and screamed, petting all of them nicely as Amoreena told him all their names.

Derek was very quick to pick out a cowboy hat and pretend he was southern, trying out his fake accent and making Savannah laugh as they explored the farm, skipping through the fields and kissing in the grass. They were just as in love as Spencer and Y/N, they all got along like couples who have been friends since college.

Like this had been their life all along, nothing about it felt new. It just felt right.

Everything about her fit into his life like she was handcrafted for it, picked and polished before set in a box and hidden away from the world. She was a collector's item and he was a collector, keeping her close and never letting her go. He knew her worth, but the feeling she produced in his heart was better than anything in the world.

Before they know it, it’s almost 3 and Hank is about to fall asleep in the grass as Amoreena reads him a story. Derek and Savanah are laying back on a blanket half-listening as they watch the clouds. Spencer and Y/N doing the same.

It’s wonderful, he makes eye contact with Derek while running his fingers through Y/N’s hair. He just smiles at Spencer, prouder he can even express.

“I think it’s about time we head out,” Derek cuts into the peacefulness of their day.

“We’ll be back, and often,” Savannah laughs, “I’m going to hide here from the hospital, you don’t have service right?”

“Not if you turn it off and leave it in the car,” Y/N laughed too, pulling Savannah into a hug and walking with her towards the house. Best friends in the making, it was going to be trouble for him and Derek, exciting, but frightful at the same time.

Savannah excuses herself to the bathroom before they leave, Spencer offers to help Derek carry his tired little toddler to the car so they can talk. He was excited to hear Derek's thoughts about the day, proud of the life he could introduce them to.

“Can I ask you a serious question?” Derek finally cut into their quiet walk to the car with a very serious tone.

“Sure,” Spencer nodded vigorously, a little nervous.

“Do you remember when we lost that bet in 2008?” Derek started, “JJ and Emily were saying it wasn’t fair, that we were hogging all the sexiness and smarts and we should just donate sperm to help the population?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you actually do it?” Derek watches Spencer’s mind wandering as he recalls everything.

He has donated sperm twice in his life, keeping it between him and Derek the first time, telling no one about it the second time. The first was when JJ got pregnant with Henry, teasing him that he should make more geniuses in the world. Emily was even considering having a baby on her own back then before everything with Doyle went down.

The second time was after Maeve died in 2013 when he realized that he might not ever get to actually be a dad.

Donating again purely in the hopes that in 18 years someone would find him in search of a connection with their birth father. It seemed like the only way he’d be able to be a father one day, and that was right around the time Amoreena would have been conceived if she’s 7 now.

Spencer looks at him with wide eyes, “you think she’s mine?”

“Without a doubt,” he whispers, stopping to put Hank in his car seat and give Spencer some time to panic.

“She’s not mine,” Spencer keeps shaking his head, so hard that Derek is worried it might fall off as he panics, “she can’t be, that would be insane. No way, no I’m not even going to pretend she is. Nope.”

Derek places his hand on Spencer’s shoulder to calm him, “do you know who her father is?”

“No,” he whispers as he closes his eyes, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “She tells people that Amoreena is her fiancé Stephens, no one really questions that she had her 2 years after he died, but Y/N doesn’t even know who her father is.”

“That’s a serious conversation you need to have with her, regardless, she deserves to know you’ve possibly got other geniuses walking around out there.”

Spencer felt his anxiety dump adrenaline into his blood, making him sweat and panic as he turned around in circles a few times. He looked physically drained, not know what the fuck to do moving forward.

“I can’t go talk to her right now while Amoreena is there,” Spencer panicked as Derek finally closed the door, Hank was all situated and ready to go.

“I can bring you home?” Derek offered, “go get your things and tell her that you have to go.”

“Okay,” he whispered, trying to calm down enough to face her.

Walking back up to her house felt like it took forever, even passing savannah as he all but ran, stepping inside the house to see Amoreena reading on the couch while Y/N was in the kitchen, whistling happily, waiting for him to come back.

Amoreena looked up at him with a smile, “are you okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” he lied with a fake smile. “I actually have to go, Derek needs help with something at his place and I’ll be back later for dinner, okay?”

“Awe,” Y/N’s voice travelled from the kitchen to where he was, she walked into the room with an apron on and a towel in her hands. “I was hoping you’d help me make a pie.”

“I’m sorry, hun, I’ll be back soon,” he assured her, “I love you guys.”

“Love you, Dad,” Amoreena smiled, before returning to her book.

Every time she called him dad it made his heart stop, but that one made his breathing stop too, he struggled to swallow as he turned his attention to Y/N approaching him.

Y/N gave him a big hug and then he was gone, running down the driveway and hopping in Derek's car as fast as he could. Still overthinking everything, his mind memorizing every look on Amoreena’s face and trying to see if there was any proof in her being his.

There was a lot. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, he didn’t want to think about that at all. She was his regardless, no DNA test would change how he loved her. He was more afraid of Y/N’s reaction to finding out.

Savannah didn’t ask what was going on, leaving him and Derek to be as weird and cryptic as they always were together. Looking out the window quietly as Spencer had a panic attack in the back seat.

He convinced Derek to drop him off at the clinic where he donated the sperm both times. Still absolutely pissed off with himself that one of the biggest decisions of his life was the one he forgot about, wanting to know if he could find out anything about his potential offspring.

“Sir, I’m so sorry,” the nice receptionist tried her best to stay calm as Spencer rushed through his dilemma.

“Only a child can learn who their father was when they turn 18, if they choose to contact you it’s up to them. You agreed to that when you donated.”

“You can’t even tell me how many kids I have out there?” He tried to reason with her, “I’m in the FBI surely you can make an exception for me it’s not like I'm going to stalk the kids, I just want to know if one’s going to contact me one day,” he tried everything to get her to open up.

“What’s your name?”

“Spencer Reid.”

She stood and walked into the back, opening a cabinet full of records and pulling one out. She opened it, running a finger along with the document as she read it over.

“You have four offspring so far, none of the other samples used have produced a child, the women were all IVF as well so it wasn’t your swimmer's fault; if you wanted to donate again,” she read him all the facts and somehow it just made him panic more.

Y/N’s voice echoing in his mind, “after I did IVF.” She said those words. He heard them. She didn’t know the father. His name wasn't on the sample. It was anonymous. Everything caught up to him at that moment.

“Thank you,” he whispered, white as a ghost as he tried to turn away, dropping to the floor and passing out instead.

When he woke up, he was somehow back in Derek’s car on the way back to his apartment. Hank and Savannah nowhere to be seen, the radio on low as Derek paid attention to the road. It was quiet, he didn’t even know Spencer was awake again until he sighed.

He didn’t say anything to Derek, instead, taking out his phone and texting Y/N.

Spencer: Hey, something serious came up. I won't be able to come back till after bedtime and then I need to tell you something important that might make you very mad at me.

Y/N: you’re going to make me go grey being this ominous

Spencer: I’m sorry, but it’s going to be a lot to explain.

Y/N: should I get wine or something harder ready to listen?

Spencer: Honestly, I’m not even sure yet.

Y/N: cant wait… love you?

Spencer: I love you too, don’t forget that!

Y/N: as long as you don’t either ♥︎

—

He pulled up to Y/N’s house at 9:30, knowing that Amoreena would be well asleep by then. Unbothered by any crying or yelling that could arise from the news he had to share with her mother.

He was terrified to tell her but he needed to. Relationships only work with communication and he knew that, respecting her and loving her enough to do anything in his power to keep her in his life.

He walked inside to see the lights all off, heading around the back of the house to see her in the garden with a drink, surrounded by little lights twinkling as she listened to her favourite Taylor Swift album, he wasn’t shocked in the slightest to find her like that.

“Hey,” he announced himself to her so she wouldn’t be startled.

Her smile warms his heart and clears the butterflies from his stomach for a quick moment, “hey cutie, did you want me to warm up some dinner for you?”

“No thank you,” he shook his head softly, standing by the gate and not wanting to get too close. “I need to tell you something and you might get really mad at me.”

“Alright,” she sat up straighter, hands on her knees as she played with the material of her jeans.

“I donated sperm as a joke in 2008, but then again in January of 2013 when my girlfriend died because I thought it would be the only way to maybe have a kid find me one day when they turned 18. I never thought I’d get to have a family after Maeve died,” the words fell out of his mouth and onto the patio.

“Oh my god,” was all she said, eyes wide and mouth open, she was completely still.

“I went to the clinic and they won't tell me who my kids are, apparently there are four of them so I have no idea if it’s Amoreena or not and I’m just so sorry for not telling you. I honestly forgot, and I don’t normally forget. After everything that’s happened to me, I just forgot, I’m sure it looks like I found you on purpose or something but I assure you that I didn’t,” he wasn’t sure why he was just dumping all these thoughts on her when he hadn’t even thought them through, but they wouldn’t stop.

“There’s only one way to find out,” she shrugged then, smiling at his confused face. “We have more and see if they look like her.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No,” she shook her head, “I’d never joke about making another Amoreena, that would be amazing.”

“You’re not mad?” He blinked at her a few times, wondering if he heard her wrong, twice.

“Why would I be mad at the fact that you might be her real father and the reason she’s the smartest person on earth? She’s literal walking sunshine, am I supposed to be mad you could give her fully biological siblings? I wanted your babies even if she wasn’t yours,” Y/N paused, eyebrows raised as she made her point.

“If I’m supposed to be mad about you completing our family then I’m furious,” she laughed as she stood up, walking over to wrap her arms around him.

“Even if you’re not her father, you’re always going to be her dad,” she whispered as she reached him.

He looked down into her eyes, the most beautiful and caring woman in the world, cuddled into his chest in the middle of paradise. He couldn’t help but laugh, it was insane how easy it was to love her.

“I love you,” he reminded her.

She pulled him down into a kiss, holding her hand on his cheek lightly as he pressed his lips to hers. She rested her forehead on his as they parted, “I love you more.”

“Doubt it,” he teased her with a smile, pulling her in closer and lifting her up into his arms.

“Where are we going?” She giggled.

“Where would you like to go, Princess? This is your kingdom after all.”

The biggest, most suspicious grin appeared on her face then, “put me down,” she instructed and he followed. Setting her down and feeling her grab his hand instead.

She led him inside the house and up the stairs, placing her finger over her lip to let him know to be quiet. She pulled him inside her bedroom for the first time and he was absolutely mesmerized.

It was like a jungle of books in there, pictures of her and Amoreena all over the walls and the cutest mushroom bedsheets in the world. It was like he walked into her mind, it was calming and beautiful and just what he imagined.

Peaceful.

“We’re not staying in here,” she whispered towards him, pulling him into the closet.

She pulls out 2 black garment bags and places them on the bed before looking through her jewellery box. She brings back a small velvet box and places it in his hands.

“Would you want to do something insane with me?”

“Always,” he can’t help but smile.

“My grandma always wanted Stephen to propose to me with that ring, but he used his own mothers instead,” she whispered. “I don’t want to have an official thing, I already planned one wedding and never got to have it.”

“Okay?” He tried his best to follow along, analyzing her facial expressions to see just how nervous she was, as well as the underlying sadness of time missed. Just like she had mentioned that first night he stayed here.

“I had my grandma’s dress tailored to wear at my wedding, I’ve never put the final version on,” she unzips the one bag, revealing a silk white dress with an incredibly long train.

“My grandpa's suit is in the other one, I think you will fit into it,” she reaches out a hand to pull him closer to the bed and look at it with her. “I just want to put them on and tell you I love you in the field and just call you my husband. I don’t give a single shit that it’s been a week, why should I wait a year to call you that when I can start now?”

He doesn’t know what to say, he’s speechless for too long and he knows that it’s making her anxious but he can’t speak. His eyes turn glossy and his hands shake as he holds the small box in his hands, opening it to find a beautiful ruby on a gold band, surrounded by small diamonds, alongside her grandfather's gold band.

He gets down on one knee then and she pulls him right back up to his feet, shaking her head. “It can’t be like last time, I don’t want to repeat a single part of it. I can’t lose you too.”

“You never will,” he’s finally able to speak. “I’m not going anywhere, believe me, you are the most important person in my life. I would drop everything and hide here forever to keep safe, if you wanted me to, I’m too in love with you to go anywhere.”

She smiles at him with wide eyes and the glimmer of hope returning. She picks up her dress and heads to the bathroom door, “put the suit on and meet me downstairs?”

“Yes Ma’am,” he winks at her before taking the suit down the hall to his room.

He notices the wedding photo on the night table again, taking the suit out of the bag to see nothing really changed since the last time it was worn. Her grandfather was tall and skinny like him when they got married, so he fits into the 1950’s suit almost perfectly.

He straightened everything out in the mirror, making sure he tucked the ring box back into his pocket before quietly tiptoeing back down the creaky wooden steps.

Y/N wasn’t done yet, he could hear her walking around in her room softly as she paced from her dresser to the bathroom over and over, most likely trying to find something in her jewellery box and looking in the mirror more than once. She didn’t sound nervous, her feet weren’t hesitant, she sounded like a woman on a mission, that was a good thing.

He was the nervous one, scared out of his mind with the fear he wouldn’t do this right. That she had dreams, plans and expectations he needed to live up to and what if he couldn’t? He put his face in his hands and tried his best to push all the fears away but they kept swirling. Making his brain hurt, he didn’t want to fuck anything up with her. She was already so understanding and wonderful, she’d given so much to him already he can’t fuck this up—

And then she’s walking down the stairs. Like sunshine; parting the grey skies as the thunder clouds dissipate and the rain washes down the streets, he’s fine again.

“You look beautiful,” he whispers.

Her smile was priceless, “thanks, cutie, I’m so glad it fits you!”

He followed her towards the kitchen where she picked up the phone, dialled a number and waited, “hey mom.”

“Spencer and I are going on a late-night walk, outback, yeah, Amoreena is asleep, can you just keep an eye on the house? I’m going to let Rufus in to keep guard anyway,” Y/N explained over the phone, agreeing and humming to whatever her mother said in response. “love you too, thanks."

She let the dog in like she said she would, handing the overly friendly golden retriever a treat before finally pulling Spencer outside and towards the barn.

They were both in running shoes, it was incredibly adorable for the occasion and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Her hand was so soft as she tugged him along behind her, her dress and hair blowing in the wind as they walked.

She grabbed an old kerosene lantern from the barn, lighting it quickly and holding it by the handle, “you ready?”

“I am,” he smiled softly, still anxious in his core, more so now because he was overly excited to be spending the rest of his life with her.

They continued to walk down past the barn, through the cow pasture and finally entering a clearing. It was full of lilacs and ragweed, yellows and purples blowing ever so gently back and forth under the moonlight.

“This is where my grandparents would read to me, and where they renewed their vows when I was 14, and this is where I got the call that I was pregnant with Amoreena. It’s a very special place to me,” her voice was barely a whisper.

Spencer took the lantern from her and placed it in the grass, it illuminated the both of them just enough that they could see each other's faces and know exactly how much they loved each other without even having to say any words.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Spencer’s words were careful, he didn’t want her to think he didn’t either.

She nodded softly, “I loved Stephen very much, I don’t think I’ll ever stop, but I loved him enough to know he’d want me to be happy, he’d really like you and don’t tell him this but I think I love you more than I ever loved him,” she made light of a very heavy subject.

Smiling at him like he was the world, he fully believed her. “I thought Maeve as it for me too before she died, I was so, so wrong. Every day I discover a new level of love for you I didn’t think possible the day before, I never want to stop searching for how deep my love for you goes.”

“To new adventures,” she whispered.

“And happy endings,” he replied, remembering the conversation they had about the Disney characters they loved the most just yesterday morning.

He removed the box from his pocket, opening it and taking her ring out of the fabric. The tiny diamonds around the ruby sparked in the light, shining little rainbows over their faces as they smiled at each other once again, cheeks aching from all the happiness.

“What finger do you want to wear it on? Seeing as we’re doing this our way,” he compromised for her very easily.

“The middle one on my left hand, you?” She asked as she took his ring out as well.

“The ring finger,” he whispered. “I want you to be close to my heart forever.”

“Okay,” she whispered back, pushing the ring onto his finger first before placing her hand in his, waiting for his hands to stop shaking so he could put it on her.

He pushed it right back towards the knuckle, holding her hand in his after and just staring at the ring. He just married the woman of his dreams.

“Holy shit,” he whispered to himself, making her laugh.

“What?”

A tear trickled down his cheek as he tried to smile at her, his jaw wobbling as he tried to stay calm but he couldn’t, he let himself cry softly as she cupped his face with her free hand.

“I love you too, Spencer,” is all she said, pressing her lips to his, finally.

He held her there in his embrace, lips touching as they breathed each other in. The smell of the field and the flowers that were once so strong in his nose, now he only smells her perfume, he almost forgets where he is as they kiss. The world could have stopped and he wouldn’t have ever known, too caught up on loving her.

He doesn’t pull away when the kiss breaks, instead, resting their foreheads together as they breathed.

“I’m going to love you until the day I die.”

She brushes their noses together softly as if to agree, “give me at least 40 years with you, and then I’ll meet you in heaven?”

“We’re already here,” he whispers, “you and Amoreena are my angels.”

They kissed again, just as soft and perfect as before. She smiled at the end, pulling back and taking her cellphone out of the dress pocket that he didn’t even know was there.

She set it on the fence post that separated the cows from the field, making sure it was steady and setting a timer. She rushed to Spencer and pulled him back into the same kiss, letting the phone take a burst of photos for them to remember later on.

“Pick a song,” he whispered into the moment, seeing her face scrunch as she became confused. “We need a first dance, I know your grandparents had to have danced out here at least once if she loved music as much as you say she did.”

“I love you,” is all she can say as she beams a smile at him. Skipping over to her phone and doing just as he asked.

“I need a piece of Amoreena in this moment,” she explained her song choice, making him think it would be the Elton John song, but it wasn’t.

A beautiful piano balled played before he heard the all too familiar voice of Taylor Swift, the girl's favourite. “Seven, because that’s how many years it took for us to find you.”

He takes her hand again, twirling her around before pulling her body into his. The both of them holding on tight as they swayed to the song, it fit every single aspect of his love for her to a T. Like it was Taylor made for them.

“Sweet tea in the summer Cross your heart, won't tell no other And though I can't recall your face I still got love for you Your braids make a pattern Love you to the Moon and to Saturn Passed down like folk songs The love lasts so long,”

It was so unbelievable. She had mentioned the love she felt for Stephen, he mentioned his love for Maeve, both of their faces hard to bring to memory as they fell in love with each other. A new feeling, a happier love, a long-lasting one that wasn’t nearly as flimsy. Powerful and strong like the earth's gravitational pull, he was never leaving her.

She’s singing the words ever so softly beside his ear, her voice is softer than Taylor’s and his favourite thing he’s heard all night, but he’d never tell her that.

They kiss randomly throughout their dance, listening to more songs as they swayed in the evening breeze. The cows coming to the fence to see what was happening, they twirled and dipped and jumped with each other, it was perfect.

She pulls him in for another kiss and she is all giggles, high from the dopamine and serotonin rush they were both on. Like someone injected sugar right into his veins, he was unbelievably sweet on her.

“We’re you serious?” Spencer whispered against her lips before she can pull back any further and disrupt the courage he felt.

“About what? I’ve said a lot tonight,” she teased him gently.

“About having more kids?” His voice is low and his eyes can’t meet hers as he prays she was being honest.

She nods softly, “never been more certain, actually, I would have 10 more of your kids if they’re all as perfect as our Amoreena.”

Our.

He tilts his head to the side and presses his lips together in a tight smile, he lost all control of his tears a while back, feeling them slip down his cheeks as he took everything in. She had given him everything and then some.

“How are you this perfect? It’s been 8 days since I laid eyes on you and you’ve managed to make every single dream come true, while simultaneously creating new dreams I never imagined I’d be allowed to have. You’re the best thing that has ever happened in the world Y/N, I’m so incredibly in love with you I could scream right now,” he is more passionate than he plans to be, she stares at him with more lust than happiness this time.

“Prove it and make love to me, you said you’d rather fuck me at home. Well,” she kept teasing him opening her arms and twirling around as she showed off the farm. “This is your home now, husband.”

“Where should we go?” He felt adventurous, willing to take her against the fence if the cows wouldn’t eat her hair, the thought alone making him giggle to himself.

“What?” She can't help but giggle right back.

“I thought about fucking you against the fence for a hot second and then the intrusive thoughts kicked in and I thought about the cows eating your hair,” he admitted with a fierce laugh.

“I love you so much,” she shook her head and sighed, the same way she did at the museum when Amoreena made her laugh.

That was all the proof he needed. Never would he question how she felt, if she loved him half as much as she loved Amoreena then he was blessed by far. This was over the top.

He picked up the lantern then, handing it to her as well as her phone before picking her up bridal style and attempting to carry her back to the house. He made it to the barn before she begged him to put her down, wanting to skip the rest of the way with him.

Giddy as all hell, the two of them snuck back into her house. Rufus, the best guard dog in the world, was passed out on the couch and didn’t even move as they walked in. Locking the doors and windows for the night before tiptoeing up the stairs again.

Luckily, Amoreena’s room was on the opposite side of the house from Spencers. Y/N pulled him down the hall and inside the room, lightly closing the door before leaning back against it and sighing.

“Are you sure? I never asked you what you wanted,” Y/N whispered.

Spencer just shook his head and slipped out of his suit jacket. “All I want is to have a big happy family with you, where ever that takes us, I’m up for the adventure.”

Y/N was the one who teared up this time, looking away from Spencer and at her grandparent's wedding photo on the side table. She walked past Spencer, brushing her hand against his arm as she did so, picking up the photo and kissing it softly.

She turned it face down and turned back to Spencer, “help me with the zipper?”

He nodded, silently stepping forward and brushing her hair off her back, freeing her from the dress. He pressed his lips gently to her sun-kissed shoulders, surprised by the array of freckles, kissing the pattern they made on her skin as she let the dress slip to the floor.

He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her from behind as he continued to kiss her neck and shoulder. She hummed into the feeling, tilting her head to the side so he had more room to explore, her hands cover Spencers as she felt up his arms, still in his embrace.

She had the softest skin on earth, he could spend the next 14 hours kissing every square inch of her. It was all perfect and he wanted her to know it, “get on the bed,” he whispered in her ear as he pulled away.

He picked her dress up off the floor and put it on a hanger from the shirt he had on. She watched with soft eyes as he hung it on the back of the bathroom door, keeping it safe and taken care of while they became a married couple.

He slipped out of the tie and started unbuttoning his shirt, she laid back against the covers, pulling her grandma's quilt off and folding it at the end of the bed. She laid back and waited as he slipped his pants to the ground and finally joined her once again.

She met him halfway for a kiss, holding his face as he knelt between her spread legs, she leaned back and took him with her. He hovered then, barely touching her as she leaned forward to keep kissing him, eventually wrapping her arms around his back and pulling him down.

Skin to skin for the first time ever.

It’s slow and explorative, they take their time as they enjoy every single inch of each other's bodies. She’s soft and perfect, she fits in the palm of his hand like he’s always been holding her. Moulded for her and her alone.

He’s never made love before. Sure, he’s had sex but never in his life has it felt like this… no, this was perfect. It was everything he’s ever dreamed of and then some. Her kisses felt like dreams coming true, her touch so light it was like sunshine on a hot day, just dancing over him.

It was perfect.

He brushed her hair behind her ear, still inside her, as he took a moment to just look at her. Her eyes were hypnotic, he was so dawn into her it was like she controlled him. He kissed her gently on the forehead, “I love you,” he reminded her, for the millionth time that hour.

She pulled him in closer, breathing against his neck gently as they continued. Her nails on his back were amazing, he felt the sharp pain of her grip which only excited him more, fastening his pace, both his hips and where his thumb was pleasuring her between their bodies.

She looked like she was floating, relaxed as she laid against the sheets, blissed-out while she took it all in, panting airy nonsense as she got closer and closer.

She was quiet, they both were. It was silent as possible while they made love for the first time ever. She was everything in the world to him and then some, he couldn’t believe she was real as they both finished and managed to somehow get closer to each other.

Another level of love was just unlocked in his heart, he was never going to stop loving her. That would be the only impossible known to man.

tag list: @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria @spookyspence @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187

[kimnjss]

looks different | myg

⤑ series: be my baby

⤑ pairing: rapper!yoongi x mom!reader

⤑ genre: angst, not even kidding...

⤑ rating: PG13.

⤑ word count: 4.2K

⤑ warnings: there aren’t any. except a very sad min yoongi :( yeah, if you got tissues - bring ‘em. 

⤑ A/N: okay so first of all?? guys!! thank you sooo much, for the quick support i’ve been getting for this fic! i mean we’re only five chapters in nd ., ugh!! just thank you sooo much i love you guyss!! also~ don’t get mad at yoongi, he’s just out here trying his best :(

APRIL 13TH, 2020 | 15:31

It's automatic the way his heart stutters at the sight of you walking through the glass doors of the studio lobby. Every last moment he's rushed down to this very lobby to wait for you, the biggest of smiles taking over his features when you'd finally arrive. More often than not with something healthy for him to eat, paired with the nagging of how he should stop ordering out even if he was working late.

His heart would stutter than too.

Different this time, though. Feeling more relieved than anything. There's no telling the dark places his mind has gone in the years that you've been gone – wondering what could've happened to you. And now you're here – safe. Yoongi loved you, of course, he'd feel relieved knowing that you were fine.

Fine, but different. He can't help but notice all the things about you that just... looks different. Your hair, the long dark waves that he loved to bury his hands in now cut short falling just below your chin. Made you look much older than your new twenty-four. Birthday had just passed, he remembered.

Your hips much, much wider. He can't help but pick up on that huge detail as they sway with each step you take closer to him. Very slow steps, for the record. Nervous steps. The same way you'd approach him if you were wielding bad news. That didn't change. Neither did the tentative way you nibbled at your lower lip, fingers pushing your hair behind your ear as you locked eyes with him.

The nerve to smile. Actually push the corners of your lips up and smile at him, but he's reacting the way he always has. Mouth dropping in slight awe because you were so pretty when you smiled. Even if it was riddled with anxiety.

Yoongi stands just as you're stopping in front of him, eyes traveling over his frame in wonder. He had changed in the past three years too. The hair that he kept bleached now it's natural dark color, his once lanky skinny frame holding more muscle. He's been eating well lately and you can tell in the fullness of his face.

Never the type of guy to wear his wealth, but you can't help but notice the diamond-studded single chain that hangs from his neck. A dazzling 'A' pendant hanging from it. Just a plain black tee and sweats, probably spent the day mixing and didn't bother to change from his night clothes.

That was so like him. And you had no idea how much you missed him until now. Seeing him, so close that you could reach out and touch him. But you don't, given the circumstance. No matter how much you want to – it'd be inappropriate. Could basically feel how angry he was, keeping your distance was best.

Realizing, the two of you had been standing there for quite some time – speaking no words, you decide to be the one to break the ice. It was your fault you were even in this situation, to begin with, right?

“Yoongi-,” You start, ready to explain yourself. Right then and there, lay it out flat for him. Everything. Why you left. The baby. What has happened in the past three years. But you're not given the chance.

His dark eyes widen at the sound of your voice as if he hadn't expected to actually hear you speak, as if you weren't real. And he's reacting all at once, arms reaching out to circle around your waist and pulling you into his chest. The force of his pull surprises you, but not enough to keep you from closing him in.

He smells the same. Has definitely swapped his cologne in the time passed, but that doesn't change a thing. He still smells like him. And you missed him. The sob that breaks through his chest, vibrates your body. With his face nuzzled in the crook of your neck, arms clutching you close to his chest – he cries.

Not able to properly handle the emotions overwhelming his body, so he can't do anything but cry. Happy tears that you're safe, that none of the terrible things he thought had happened. Sad tears that you felt the need to leave him without a trace, leaving him to wonder what he could've done to make you feel so alone. Angry tears for all the shit you put him through by leaving, because he hadn't done anything wrong – it took him a while to realize that one.

All of those tears soaked the collar of your shirt, shaking his back. Fists clenching the fabric of his shirt, you forced yourself to keep your composure. To not break down the way you wanted because right now he needed you to be strong for him. You had no right to cry when this was your fault.

“I'm so sorry,” The words come out hushed at first before you're repeating louder. And then again. Until they're falling from your lips over and over again, you're worried they might lose their meaning. 

But you don't stop, because ever since you made the decision to leave him – apologizing was the only thing you wanted to do. Woke up every morning with a new way to tell him, to express to him, how sorry you were. How shitty you felt by doing this to him. And now that you had the chance, all your practice speeches were gone out the window.

All you could muster was a simple 'I'm sorry' and hope that it held as much weight as it did in your heart.

The two of you stay standing there for moments to pass, your hand soothingly rubbing his back as he let out the frustrations he had been feeling for the past years onto your shoulder.

He's pulling back only after he's calmed down, eyes glossed and cheeks flushed as he searches your features. A soft, cool hand finding the side of your face, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone. “Are you sure you're okay?” The slight crack in his voice from his crying nearly shatters your heart.

“I'm okay. I'm so sorry, Yoongi...” Again, you try to find the words, but you're at a loss. Don't know what to say, no matter how many times you’ve imagined this exact moment. Where do you start? How do you get him to see that this, him like this, was not what you wanted when you left?

“I can't believe it's really you.” Both hands sliding down the sides of your arms until he's able to reach for your hands, loosely holding them in his as he has done a thousand times before. “We have a son?”

The words that leave his lips are hushed as if he's afraid to say them out loud. Afraid to let you hear him. But you do. Loud and clear. And your eyes are widening at his words. He knew? How could he...

“Your Instagram. The pictures, that little boy. He's my son?” His ability to read your mind hasn't faltered. You can see the sadness in his eyes, clearly. And you know exactly why it's there and it's your fault. All because you were too much of a coward.

The weight starts in your chest, quickly rushing up your throat until a sob is breaking through. Eyes watering as fresh tears slide down your cheeks. “I'm so sorry, Yoongi. I-I should've... I didn't think-” You try to speak through your cries, but he stops your struggle; reaching to pull you into his chest again.

Gentle fingers stroke the back of your head, twisting in your short strands of hair. “Shh, it's okay. Relax, it's alright.” Except it wasn't. He knew that and you did too. Because of your stupidity, he lost the first three years of his son's life, time that he would never get back and it was all your fault.

He should be angry at you. Screaming at you. Cursing you ten times over. Not holding you and stroking your hair and telling you that it'll be okay. This was wrong. You didn't deserve his kindness, you didn't deserve him.

Lifting your hands to find his chest, you're gently pushing yourself back to create some distance between the two of you. “I'm sorry, Yoongi. I should've trusted you.” No idea that your trust in him and wavered, but Yoongi doesn't dwell on the small detail. He had a son now. He was a father. There were bigger things to focus on.

“Hey, listen. Whatever happened, happened. We can't change it, alright? Why don't we go somewhere? Get something to eat so we can talk properly?” You're nodding at the request despite the fact that you're not all that hungry. Can't eat with the guilt filling your stomach.

Yet, the last thing you want to do is stay in this studio. Haunted by the memories that the two of you made in this very lobby, every square inch of this place was covered with the two of you – and you ruined that.

Never realized how shitty being back here would make you feel and now you needed to get out.

An easy smile is spreading across his face at your agreement, a gentle hand rubbing at your shoulder. “Why don't you go wait outside? I'll call my driver.” You don't even bother to mull over the fact that he has his own driver now. One of the perks that came with his new lifestyle, you assume.

With another small nod, you're turning to exit the building to wait for him. Mind racing with how you'd be able to tell him about this without ruining everything he has now. He's accomplished so much and here you come ready to ruin everything. 

Again.

Two large men lead you into a restaurant a bit too fancy for a late lunch that neither of you is in the mood for. Ushering you to a table hidden in the back corner before stealing seats a few feet away. Yoongi orders food for the both of you when the waitress is coming with waters. 

“Water? Think we might need something a little stronger for the conversation we're about to have.” Trying to lighten the mood, but the stone-cold expression on his face as the nervous laugh dying on your lips.

Lips pulled into a tight line, you watch as he reaches for the wrapped straw at the side of the table. He takes his time with peeling the paper from it before crumpling it between his fingers, dipping the straw into the iced drink with the other hand.

“I don't drink anymore.”

Eyebrows shooting up in surprise at his quiet admission. You had always known Yoongi to be a man that valued a good glass of whiskey. Liked to have a few sips while he worked, always brought his own bottle to parties claiming 'you young-ins don't know how to drink'.

He always knew his limit, a couple of glasses here and there but he'd never push it where it became an awful habit. Made sure of it. But the sound of his voice when telling you he quit? Told you that he might've slipped in that department. And you can't help but wonder if that was your fault too.

“Tell me about my kid. What's he like?” Clearing his throat, his back straightens slightly – in an attempt to change the subject. Put a halt to all the questions he knows are bouncing around in that head of yours.

And you know him well enough to know when he doesn't want to be pushed. So you allow the shift, unwrapping your straw and dropping it into the glass.

“He's like most three-year-olds, you know? I named him Hyunki.” Another thing that you had wanted to tell him since you left. 

It had only been a few months into your relationship when Yoongi told you. The largest of smiles on his face as he went through the list he kept locked away in his head, gauging your expressions as he listed each off. As if he was checking to see if you liked any of them.

SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2015 | 21:42

“You're telling me you've never given it any thought?” The surprise is clear in your boyfriend's voice as he cranes his neck to get a better look at you. Arms wrapped securely around your waist, holding you to his chest.

The movie that he had picked out has faded to background noise since he started this random conversation. If you had been paying attention to the screen rather than noting every cute thing he did, you'd know that his words weren’t as random as you thought. That they were related to the passing scene.

It was so hard to concentrate around him, you were discovering. Could never focus too long on the things that didn't involve him when he was near you. Always found yourself lost in those pretty dark eyes or mesmerized by that gummy smile of his. 

How were you supposed to focus on the plot of a movie when the world's most attractive man was behind you? Holding you to him and chuckling so close to your ear it was like surround sound made just for you. You didn't even remember the name of the damn film.

“I can honestly say I don't have the identity of my future children chosen.” You speak through a laugh as he’s rolling his eyes, hands falling low on your waist until he's able to grasp your hips.

Easily, he's lifting your body from between his legs, turning you to straddle his lap. The movie has been forgotten in his mind too. Your hands find the sides of his neck, tips of your fingers tickling his blond hair. “That's not what I mean, you can't pick who your kids are gonna be.” He speaks in a matter-of-fact tone that has a smile tugging on your lips.

Soft hands find the backs of your thighs, holding your body to his. Yoongi tilts his head back just slightly so he can get a better view of your face. Searching your features carefully before he says what he's thinking.

Can basically see the wheels turning in his head as his nibbles on his lower lip, deep in thought while he watching you. And you watch him right back, lips pursed in an attempt to mask the smile threatening to take over your features. You had always loved the way he looked at you.

“What do you think of Hyunki, then?” Different from all the outrageous names he had listed before. Hyunki. You could definitely see yourself raising a little boy with his face and that name. But it's too early to say it, relationship still too new no matter how you felt. You didn't want to scare him away.

“Hyunki's nice.”

One of the hands he had rested on your back of your leg is shifting, moving forward so he can reach your stomach. Through the fabric of your t-shirt, he traces random patterns – eyes focused on the movement of his fingers.

“My first son. I want to call him Hyunki.” Eyes slowly traveling up the length of your body until he's pinning you with such an intense stare it has a gasp falling from your lips. A smile tugs at the corner of his lips, hopeful.

“Okay. I like Hyunki.” Yoongi's smile grows on his face, head tilting up to capture your lips with his. His grip tightening around your thigh to pull your body further onto his. Large hand flattening on the small of your back, guiding you until you were lying underneath him.

That was the first night you slept together.

APRIL 13TH, 2020 | 15:58

Warmth spread through his limbs with the knowledge that you had remembered your conversation all those years ago. Not only remembered it but honored him by using the name he had wanted. Just knowing that was enough to take a bit of the sting of leaving him away. Just a bit.

“So? What does he do? What does he like?” Had expected him to have more questions about you leaving, but it seemed his interest was elsewhere. And the least you could do was tell him whatever he wanted to know.

He was in charge here.

“He doesn't do much, you know?” A soft laugh falls from your lips, hand reaching up to push the hair from your face. “He's been really interested in sports lately. Plays soft basketball with Taehyung sometimes and-”

“Taehyung?” Yoongi's brow lifts at the mention of the unfamiliar name. Head tilting to the side slightly. “Who's Taehyung? One of his friends?”

“Kookie's boyfriend. He hasn't started preschool yet, so he doesn't really have any friends.” The waitress is heading toward the table, food in hand as two other women follow her.

Yoongi considers your words as the food is set down in front of you. Willing himself to keep calm as he takes in all the information that you're giving him. All of the things he missed. The fact that he has to ask questions about his own son, things that he should already know.

But he doesn't go off the way that he wants to, doesn't chastise you and place the blame exactly where it belongs. Instead, he's blowing a thick breath through his lips – leaning back against the cushion chairs.

“You moved to Busan, then?” From your countless stories about your best friend from Busan, he remembered enough to know that the 'Kookie' you were talking about was that same friend. So, the nod of your head is expected.

You watch as he blinks slowly, hand reaching for the clean utensils on the table. He clears his throat slightly, head tilting to the side in the way it does when he's thinking things over. Distracting himself by filling his personal plate with the various foods spread out in front of you two.

Silently, he gestures for you to eat and despite your hesitance, you move to fill your plate as well. Nervous. Pondering on whether or not you should just blurt it out. Ignore how he obviously doesn't want to know the ins and outs of your disappearance, if he did then he would be hitting you with questions, right?

Wished you were able to read him. Know what he was thinking right now. It had been something that you could do easily, simple gestures and facial expressions giving way to exactly what was going on in the head of his. However, it seemed that through time you've lost that ability.

“If he's three... shouldn't he be in preschool by now?” Yoongi's asking casually, shoveling a spoonful of food into his mouth as he watches you. How could he eat? Why wasn't he yelling at you? Pissed out of his mind. He's being so cool and it was throwing you.

You begin to eat after the expectant stare he gives you. Taking small bites, sitting on pins and needles in front of him. “Tae stays at home with him, but we were planning to enroll him once he's settled here a bit.”

There it was again, that 'we'. The 'we' that didn't include him in decisions that he should very well be included in. Only in this case, you weren't referring to the 'we' who decided on your disappearance, just the 'we' that have been helping you raise the son he had no idea about.

Yoongi can't help but feel bitter at the small fact. But he wills himself to bury it. Can't argue with you. Not when there's now so much at stake. When you have a kid that he doesn't even know, a kid that he wants to know. Needs to.

You held all the cards and without the knowledge of why you left in the first place, he had no idea what might set you off to where you were packing up and leaving again. That was the last thing he wanted, then and now.

He had to play his cards right.

Casual conversation remains steady between the two of you as you're finishing your meal. Filling Yoongi in on all the things he's missed in the past three years has your heart growing heavy. He's missed so much and it was because of you. Because you couldn't stand your ground and be with him.

He'd only ask you for one thing. Expected just one thing from you. And you couldn't even handle that.

“Does he know about me?” The words are coming out hushed after a stretch of silence. You had just finished sharing with Yoongi the slight obsession Hyunki has with Lego sets. How he could spend hours at his play table, building. He smiled real big at that, but from the slow way it vanished you could tell something was weighing on his mind. And this was it.

It pains you to shake your head. Hurts even worse when you see the sadness that flashes through his eyes. “Why not?” He's almost afraid of the answer, but can't keep himself from asking. 

“It's always been us, you know. Me, him, Tae and Kookie. And he likes having them around. I didn't want him to feel like he was missing out on something.” So young that he hadn't started asking questions yet. Wondering why kids around him had two parents instead of one plus two respective uncles.

You thought you had been making the right decision, but as this week was set out to prove – you had no idea what the right decision was. And judging from the look on Yoongi's face, you were more than positive that you had made the wrong decision by keeping the fact that Hyunki had a father secret.

“So who does he think is his dad?” He's doing the thing where he's trying to keep himself from losing it. That hasn't changed.

The slight twitch of his brow, the flare of his nostrils as he took deep calming breaths. Desperately trying to keep his composure and not freak out on you the way he wanted to, you wished he just let go and give you what you knew you deserved.

“No one,” You're rushing out, hoping it could do something to relax him. “I don't even think he knows what that means.” Flinching at your own words, you force a breath from your lips. You try to change course. “I honestly thought it would be better for him this way.”

Hesitantly, you reach for his hand that had balled into a fist on the table. Soothing fingers running over his knuckles. “You can tell him if you want. Do you want to meet him?”

“Obviously, I'd like to meet my son. He's my son.” There's harshness in his tone that he doesn't bother to mask. That you don't miss as he's pulling his hand from your grasp, going back to the meal in front of him.

Lunch ends in silence. Yoongi quietly pays the bill, mumbles a goodbye to you as he puts you in a cab. Doesn't even bother to look back as he turns with his bodyguards to walk toward the car that had brought you here.

Yoongi is slouching in the back seat of his car, arms crossed over his knees and face pressed against his sleeve. Of all the scenarios he's imagined with seeing you again, he never thought it'd be like this. Had been so sure it would be clear where he'd stand with you if you were to ever appear in his life again.

But, it wasn't that simple. Because nothing in his life was ever that simple. Of course, he still loved you – an annoying fact that was hard to ignore. Yet, he'd be able to do it, would be able to move on despite his heart being filled with you, if it wasn't for the fact that you had a kid together now.

A human binding the two of you, of which he hadn't even met. And he wanted to. Wanted nothing more than to be apart of that kid's life, but that meant being apart of your life too. He had been too afraid to get the answer's from you today, not wanting his deepest worry to become true within your words.

Not knowing was better than knowing in his mind. Whatever it was, why you left him – took your unborn child and bolted, he didn't want to know. Afraid that it would be something so horrible that it'd crumble his already cracked heart.

“Everything alright back there, Mister Agust?” His driver speaks noticing the shake of Yoongi's back that accompanies the fresh tears that roll down his cheeks. Face hidden, he takes a moment to compose himself before lifting his head.

The back of his hand wiping at his damp eyes before he's pushing his hair back on his forehead. Eyes shifting to look out the window as he nods his head. A heavy sigh falls from his lips, dark sunglasses perched on the tip of his nose to cover his reddening eyes.

Tires skid to a complete stop in front of the building and Yoongi is stepping out of the car, hands shoved in his pockets as he takes slow steps to the front doors of the studio.

Words leave his lips as a hushed plea, a delayed answer to the question he had been asked in the car. What he had been thinking since he first scrolled through your pictures, seeing the life you had created without him.

“I just want to see my kid.”

— when the love of his life suddenly vanishes, he drives himself mad looking for her. seemingly erased from the world, he’s forced to pick up the pieces of his life and move on… fast forward three years and someone who looks a lot like the woman he lost is being spotted, holding a kid with an oddly familiar gummy smile…

⟲ masterlist ⟳

⇝ taglist: @randomkoalablog @smoljams @dee-ehn @jaiuneamesolitaiire @hehehehahahohohuhu @sw33tnight @butterflylion @withlovestudyblr @soulstaes @bangtansonyeondayyyum @samros95 @korkanswers @houseofarmanto @marifujioka @tae165 @uxwi @jinhitwhore @preciouschimine @yeontanie21 @aa-ronpa @taefect94 @lee-karliah @codeinebelle @mochibabycakes @diminieshoe @fuddyize  @soloikeadates @0xmysticx0 @bbyjoonies @amoreguk @tricethecharm @diminieshoe @jayyayyy17 @softlyjins @bangtan-noona @fan-atic-blog @fuck-expectations-people @paradisetaemin @nyamjinnie @lilacdreams-00 @vsugakookie0104 @koostime @la-evforia @betysotelo18 @chocobetterknot @simplysanha @delicategukkie @kookieswithtaeq @jeon-ggukkie @angjeon​

⇝ taglist: @bangtansbun @flamboyant-louie @elliemeetsevil @angiexyoung @stonyiscanon @strawberryforever25 @mipetronella @rageyoudamnednerd @hellotherehoneybee @joonies-babyy @mypurplelamp @jikooksgirl19 @sushi-date-ghost @bigimpression @kookiesjoonies @amour-quinn @diamonddia-mond @alterlovess @gemad08 @daydreambrliever @acc3ssdenied @silentlyimpractical @bella-victoria002 @ashleyjoyx @yoooonie @btsbed @sungieshines @thia-aep @taeshuworld @hopiebabie @trynavibewhileicry @illwritetomorrow @kookoo-kachoo @prettxyliies @triviasjms @ratking101 @elephantdoors @feel-like-gold @kelitt @itsponybeaches @alpaca1612 @jeonkookiebangtan @rather-not-sayy @kimsouthjoon @seokjiniebabie @wisenerdcreator @cosmicflwr @kookie-monsteur @donghae-bae @sugalarity93 @eugeneliem @morgstreet  @niieceyy @thefouranemoi @ayasanuwu @itsrapmonstanotdancemonsta @izzyexe @justzeera @xjoonchildx @pjmcth @fizziefizzco @monetsberet @killaqueeeennnn @mayumioutloud @mygsbae @fakeluvrm @lovingele @tetekiim @masterpiecejoonie @tiddieshakeshownu @kuppyjiminie @xlovelyyoongix  @beeeb05 @comically-sleep-deprived @spillthetaesissy @kerikaaria @ephyra1230 @hajiraa06 @bburninggoldd @luvsoobin @agustneeds @fromthedt @hecticwonderer @cuteipat @hispoutylips @moonlitmyg @fanfics-for-fun @ruinsofangels @untainted-memories @ughtear @hopetookmysoul @unicornnomore @jungkookspromise @namjoonbaby @vantaexx @apurpledheart @rjsmochii @ladyartemesia @bangpink123 @jrobmorebangtan @baabelleer @midkpjm @kthvhs @trinityxsope @thecityrain @princecalpal @honeyspillings @kim-ji-hyeons-world @hyungaway @agustdakasuga @namjoonsleftankle @notasunshine @iamzion-therealhabesha @taegix94 @alison-renee @somewhereinthestarss @salty-for-suga @simplymemyself @hear-me-growl @ggukkieland @hisunshiine @ephyra16 @yoong-i @diorhobii @lexy9716​ @psiphidragon​ @ireneterea​ @crazyboutjooni​ 

A/N: timestamps make sense throughout the fic. to be added to the taglist, send me an ask !! feedback is highly !! appreciated, it’s the motivation i need to keep the fic going nd fun for you guys!!<33

[2-cute-4-school]

NCT Dream reaction to you getting your wisdom teeth removed

Mark

babysitting the dreamies is part of his daily job so he thinks ‘how hard can it be to take care of you for a few hours pffft’

he’s never regretted underestimating you so bad in his entire life ◑.◑

you’re not just a nightmare

you’re THE ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE

he was so embarrassed when he had to gently drag you out of the dentist’s office while you were crying cuz

“mY TOOTH!! mark, i lost my tooth, what am i gonna do?!?! i should have put a leash on it, i knew it!!!! now it’s gone and it’s all my fault!!!!” (˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )

*ugly sobbing* *mark awkwardly patting your back while pulling you away from the scrutinizing glares of a few karens in the waiting room*

“mark. i didn’t even get to name it!!!”

poor bby cheetah mark is SO lost

“baby, hey, don’t cry! we’ll uh…. i’ll get you a new one!” ヾ(ﾟДﾟ;ヾ)

you look up with your glassy eyes and your right cheek chubbier than your left from the cotton lodged where your tooth used to be, your bottom lip trembling oh so cutely 

and mark just…stops functioning for a moment because

‘HOW CAN ANYONE BE SO CUTE BUT SUCH A PAIN IN THE ASS AT THE SAME TIME IT’S NOT FAIR !!??!?!?’

“ rweally? would you really do that for me, markie?” (◞‸◟；)

“ASFKSFRDACGCS YES LOML ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING JUST SAY THE WORD AND I’LL BRING THE MOON TO YOUR FEET YOU PRECIOUS LIL BABY” ⊂（♡⌂♡）⊃

 and he still insists he’s not 120% whipped for you can you believe it

he ends up piggybacking you all the way back home because your giggles were just too cute for him to resist so he can’t even get tired with how happy he is to witness you so carefree and joyful

and his heart just melts when you leave a huuuge kith with the loudest *MWAH* ever on his cheek and you nuzzle your nose in the crook of his neck that’s like the fatal combination of cute acts ʚ♡⃛ɞ(ू•ᴗ•ू❁)

in conclusion : this man just adores you with every bit of his heart :((((

Renjun

probably asked kun to pick you both up from the dentist 

you’re just too much for him smh

you’re cute and all but renjun is a tired uncle

so you’re both in the backseat with kun as your driver and it’s silent

renjun just knows something is wrong there’s no way you’re so calm 

but you’re just staring at him like ◎_◎

“uh..babe, you alright?”

silence and then *GASP*

renjun just knows he’s about to facepalm himself into another dimension when you grip his cheeks in both hands

“you’re a fAIRY!!!!!!!” (*ﾟﾛﾟ)

*sigh* *muffled words* “y/n let’s calm down and just-”

he doesn’t get another word out before you shove his face in your lap and literally raise his shirt up to the nape of his neck

damn beach you know what you want huh go off

“where are they???!!?!?! where are you hiding them you impostor??!!!?”

and then you start slapping his back

“ow ow OW, Y/N WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? STOP !!”

“YOUR WINGS!!! WHERE ARE YOUR FRICKIN’ WINGS ?!?!?” (╬ Ò ‸ Ó)

renjun is this 👌 close to knocking you out for good with a karate chop

so he just pushes you off and straps you to your seat with a second safety belt as he huffs under his breath

“i can’t guarantee you’ll live to see next week” (⊙_◎)

kun watching in the rear mirror like （͡°͜ʖ͡°）

“you know what? i’d really eat some chicken wings right now!! jun, let’s go get chicken wings!!!” ⊂((・▽・))⊃

he’s surprised you even remember his name

but you eventually exhaust yourself and pass out in the backseat of the car so renjun and kun drag you to bed 

and renjun just tucks you in like the soft loving boyfriend that he is

and he just stares at you fondly and smooches you all over your face cuz

“how tf can you be so cute, you lil overexcited evil? you’re like the cutest thing in the world and it just!!!not!!!fair!!!!!” (♡ ‸ ♡ )

so even though he complains about you a lot, he’d sell his kidney just to see his lil cute bub happy i’m so soft :((((

Lee Jeno

“let’s go to the playground!!”

“y/n, no, let’s go home and put some ice on that cheek”

“but baaaabe i wanna go one the swing” ( ´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥` )

“then we’ll have to ice both cheeks”

“what did ya say???!!?!”

so jeno’s headache only worsened once you both arrived home with no prior stop to the playground

and as much as he loves you he also wants to bang his head against a wall and end his suffering yay o((*^▽^*))o

“just stay still for a second please, i’m really trying to tie this thing properly around your head”

you’re just so restless and jeno is just so done

“does it hurt?”

“ywes, my heart hurts because my own boyfriend doesn’t love me!!!”

“y/n, we already had this conversation, now just-”

“i just wanted a swing!!!” *bursts into tears* *jeno sighs half of his soul out* ଽ (৺ੋ ௦ ৺ੋ )৴

so jeno sits down beside you and pulls you into his lap gently, rocking you back and forth in an attempt to soothe your sobs jeno best boyfriend no cap

“there there, baby, we can’t go out-” *sobs intensify* “BUT i promise i’ll get you a swing right here if you let me take care of you first”

you leech yourself onto jeno’s sleeve and wipe your tears on his shirt but he doesn’t seem to mind the wet patch left on the material as he watches you with that soft look of his (´-ω-`)

so you let him patch you up after his reassurance and after he just pats your head affectionately and motions for you to stand up

and this man just flexes his arms and nudges you to latch on

that’s how jeno ends up with a squealing you as you swing back and forth with your fingers gripping his arm ╰(✧∇✧╰)

Lee Haechan

you want to pretty him up

because “since my left cheek looks like it’s stuffed with a tennis ball, i can’t carry the visuals in this relationship for a while, so i need to hand the responsibility over to you”

“who even said you’re the one carrying the visuals” ℃ↂ_ↂ

“oh honey you’re only now realizing?”

(╬☉д⊙)⊰⊹ฺ

he blames the anesthesia for your severe accusations

but the only way to shut you up is give in to your wishes

so that’s how he found himself seated down on the carpet of your home with your legs draped over his and your totally professional make up applied over his face

“i look like a clown”

“not even make up can cover your true identity, hyuck”

deep breaths, donghyuck, in and out, take it easy (◎ω◎*)

“any preferences for the nail polish color?”

“to match my soul”

“so hot pink” o(≧∇≦o)

*poker face* “you know i could obliviate you if i wanted to clown you”

*pout that hurts hyuck’s lil heart* “but you wouldn’t do that to your hurting baby, would you” *blinks rapidly with puppy eyes*

“you bet i would” (no he wouldn’t you’re just too cute and he loves you too much) *totally not whipped (♥ω♥*)*

painting his nails is the hugest struggle in your entire life

“WHY TF ARE THEY SO SHORT, ARE THEY TAKING AFTER YOU”

on second thought, mercy is no longer available for you

“hyuck, you should tape your fingers so you won’t bite your nails like a preschooler anymore”

“i’ll tape your mouth shut, that’s what i’ll tape” *_*

“hUH???!?!!?”  (*ﾟﾛﾟ)

Na Jaemin

“okay jisung is an easy task compared to you right now”

even though this man is used to being the mom of the group

he’s still most likely in disbelief watching his otherwise angel flap around like a headless chicken 

but you’re even cutter with your swollen cheek so he forgives you (︶▽︶)

“hey, jaem, did you know i’m closely related to snails??”

“entertain me” (∩_∩)

“they can sleep for years at once. that’s like my main talent.”

“it would be great for me if you’d put this talent of yours to work now”

jaemin ends up sprawled over the couch and watching dramas like a tired mom of 3 hyperactive children with you curled up at his side playing games on his phone

*hiccup*

jaemin’s brain before he even registered the sound : something’s wrong

“y/n baby?” (｡•́︿•̀｡)

*hiccup* *sniffle* *hiccup* 

jaemin’s overprotective instincts kicked in ಠ╭╮ಠ

he knocks the phone out of the way and swings your legs over his lap to cradle you against his chest and hush you with the gentlest coos while rubbing your back up and down softly

“what happened, my love? does it hurt? tell nana what’s wrong and he’ll get rid in a second of what dared hurt his precious baby” just imagine this man this would be like the peak of my life  🥺

so in between your boyfriend’s comforting whispers and your harsh breaths of air you managed to let out a few words

“e-elephants, nana”

he already knows the biggest facepalm is coming his way -_-

“tHEy CAn’T jUmP, tHE poOR ELephANTs”

(ノ-_-)ノ~┻━┻

he just sighs and continues rocking you in his arms until you doze off, slumped on his chest, your head cushioned by his shoulder

he softly shakes his head at you and lays a butterfly kiss on your forehead

“i would make elephants jump just for you, my cute big baby” ♡♡(￫ε￩*)

Zhong Chenle

he halfway panics at the way you act

you’re usually the one who takes care of him so your childish act that surfaced because of the anesthesia took him by surprise

“dude they brainwashed y/n” (ﾉ｀□´)ﾉ

once you start babbling to him about the end of the rainbow and the elf that awaits there with a pot full of golden coins he knew you lost it

calls renjun

“hyung i’m sorry for saying you’re batshit crazy with your conspiracies, but aliens kidnapped y/n”

*muffled voices on the other side*

“NO, I’M NOT DRUNK!! they brainwashed y/n or even worse… returned a cheap copy of them”

renjun probably just tells him to put you to sleep and advises chenle to do the same with himself -_-

so chenle just approaches you very carefully, his voice barely above a whisper

“hey, babe, aren’t you tired?”

“actually no, how about a walk in the park???”

“idk y/n, it doesn’t seem like the best idea”

“PLEASE”  🥺

“THIS IS THE BEST IDEA OF THE YEAR BABY!!!11!!”

this man is royally whipped for you so he takes you to the nearest park and keeps a careful watch on you as you bend down to pet every dog that passes by ⊂((・▽・))⊃

while he would do anything for you, he’s very panicky about your safety so he has to hold your hand the entire time and you’re not allowed to leave his side for even a second overprotective boyfriend check

mid walk you take a break on a bench and you lean your head on cheble’s shoulder before muttering sleepily

“lele, i’m tired, imma take a nap”

“are you serious rn” (ಠ_ಠ)

but you’re already a goner and chenle is left fuming by himself

despite his annoyance he still adjusts you so he can piggyback you home and hums songs softly every time you stir (灬♥ω♥灬)

you’ll have to baby him an entire week to pay him back

Park Jisung

this boy is actually quite pleased

because for once he can take care of you and not the other way around without any complaints coming from you

so you both end up curled into each other under a blanket while watching the Frozen movies :((((((((

and for once he ends up watching you more than he watches the movie because you’re so cute reciting all of Olaf’s lines ꒰˘̩̩̩⌣˘̩̩̩๑꒱

but the fun can only last for so long

and when your mouth starts feeling ‘funny’ jisung’s mind goes haywire

“sung, i’m gonna die”

panic panic PANIC (ｼ;ﾟДﾟ)ｼ

“they poisoned you didn’t they??? i knew it!! i knew dentists are evil, how am i gonna explain i let crazy doctors perform dark magic on you???!!?!?” no offense to dentists y’all are life savers

so you have at least 2 ice packs and a bag of frozen peas clutched against your cheek and you swear you’re about to die from frostbite rather than the weird feeling coming from your teeth 

and then jisung wraps you in a mountain of blankets cuz ‘we can’t have you catching a cold now too’ as if sweating your ass off is gonna fight off the numbing cold on your face  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

but babie is confused a tad lot bit scared for both his and your life

and you’re kinda very dazed so comforting him isn’t really in your agenda

he probably worries within an inch of his life ヾ( ๑´д`๑)ﾂ

too afraid to let you fall asleep just in case

so every time you doz off sweet cutie jisung just kithes you (๑°꒵°๑)･*♡

and you wake up just to kiss back your cute boyfriend

and he just chuckles and blows raspberries on your neck man jisung would be such a cute whipped boyfriend

but he ends up asleep next to you with his face buried in your hair and arms tightly wrapped around you cocooning you close to himself ah i’m getting soft again ♡(㋭ ਊ ㋲)♡

[nalu4emily]

Time To Heal

Summary:  'It was a marathon, not a sprint and with each day he spent with her, pretending to act like his normal self, the more he hoped she'd begin to loosen—only time would tell.' What can Natsu do to heal her aching heart? Especially when she's reluctant to tell him what happened. 

NALU friendship/ hurt/ comfort. 

Please be aware of the trigger warning. Do not read unless 18+. Contains sensitive content.

She was crying again; that much was certain. The sound of sniffles and wet droplets cascading down her cheeks, splattering across the desk she so often sat at, echoed deep into his ears. Her whimpers pulled at him the most. She tried so hard to keep them locked away, to defy her true feelings, but they managed to seep through every time.

It hurt him, to know that she was suffering so painfully, so inconsolably, and there was simply nothing he could do to stop it. He'd waited for her; to speak; to tell him what'd really happened that night, and relieve herself of the burden that weighed so heavily on her shoulders.

It haunted her every waking moment; he knew that. Even at night, she'd rouse so suddenly, coated in sweat, shivering, and desperate for his warm touch. It seemed to be the only thing that could soothe her frantic heart, especially when the tears started. Her behaviour wasn't all that different during the day either and Natsu had nearly given up hope that she'd ever tell him, making the guilt he felt for not being there all the more consuming.

The state he'd found her in the next morning, bloodied, clothes torn and completely broken, tormented his thoughts daily, and the way he'd reacted to it, even more so. Through the despair and anger at finding her so badly hurt, he'd raged through the streets of Magnolia, hunting down the bastard he could smell all over her apartment.

It wasn't hard to dissect what'd happened to her, the slayer just wasn't sure how far it'd gone. He'd learnt quickly not to ask questions though or risk losing her trust entirely. It was a marathon, not a sprint and with each day he spent with her, pretending to act like his normal self, the more he hoped she'd begin to loosen—only time would tell.

Having procrastinated long enough, the young mage jumped up to her window, and let himself in like always. Plastering the biggest smile he could muster onto his face, he greeted the girl hunched over her desk, right where he knew she'd be and tried to remain positive in such a ghastly situation.

"O-Oh, uh… Hi, Natsu! I didn't see you there." Her eyes locked onto his for barely a moment before turning away, wiping her cheeks to rid them of their wetness with her used, snot-laden tissue. She turned around to face him, her gaze never quite meeting his as a small, weak smile graced her lips, "Where's Happy?"

"Probably eating a fish somewhere… Or at the guild giving it to Carla, you know what he's like." He shrugged, his expression remained light and cheery, while his narrowed pupils latched onto her every movement, much like a predator stalking its prey, "I thought I'd come over and see if ya felt up to going on a mission soon. I snagged some pretty good ones for you to take a look at, if you're interested?"

"Sure… that sounds like fun. W-Why don't I make us some lunch? Then we can pick out a good one together." Lucy hopped up from her chair all too eagerly, desperate to remove herself from his watchful gaze.

She was avoiding him; but that was hardly new. He knew the reason why—the unshed tears in her eyes evidence of that, not that he cared what she looked like. She did it for a matter of pride, wanting him to see only the Lucy he knew so well, and not the damaged one she’d become. He, as much as anyone, wanted to see that smile light up her face once more, the brilliant one that shined as bright as the stars she wielded; what he wouldn’t give to see that again…

Gathering the request papers in his hand, he followed her into the kitchen and leaned himself up against the doorway, smiling as he watched her get to work, “Hey Luce, this one looks kinda good. I think we should definitely consider it.” But she didn’t answer, nor even look at him. If it weren’t for their close proximity, he would have assumed she hadn’t heard him. “Lucy, did you hear me?”

She remained silent, instead her body began to tremble, her face wet with tears once again and her hands drawn to cover them on instinct.

“Luce, I didn’t hear you.” He cautiously walked over to her shaking form, carefully reaching out to place his hand on her shoulder, while the other drew her body in and held her tight, “Lucy...”

"I...I-I can't do this any more…" The blonde spoke quietly, removing her hands from her face and placing them onto his chest.

"What do you mean?" He asked, his voice gentle as if speaking to a spooked animal.

"This." She gestured to the two of them, "Pretend, Natsu. I-I'm tired of pretending like everything's fine, when it's so obviously not." She felt his hand clasp at her cheek, wiping the tear droplets away with his thumb. His familiar warmth soothed her aching heart as she leaned into it, finding comfort there that only he could provide. "I-I'm sorry. You must be so sick of seeing me cry all the time!"

The tears flowed freely now, pulling at his heart strings as well as his own unshed tears, but he would never so selfishly let them show. He cradled her closely, wanting nothing more than for her to feel safe in that moment, like he would protect her from everything, should she so wish. It was the first time Lucy had addressed the very unfortunate situation they found themselves in, and he wasn’t about to ruin it all now by letting his own emotions take over.

She tucked herself into the crook of his neck and breathed in his familiar scent, calming her nerves as she relaxed into him. This is the way they'd always worked, one picking the other up in their time of need and carrying both of their weights should they need to, and Natsu was approaching this no differently.

Once she'd calmed down enough, he picked her up and carried her to her bed, perching them both down on it so that they could get comfortable. She was ready to finally tell him, he could see it in her eyes, and as apprehensive as he was about hearing it, all he needed to do was listen.

"I think you need to tell someone, Lucy. Whether that's me, or someone else, it's not good to keep it all bottled up." He explained, as she pulled away slightly, but not enough to fully let go of him.

"I-I know… It's just hard to relive something you spend every waking moment trying to forget." She sniffled once more, wiping her nose this time on her sleeve. "Can we at least lay back first?" Her voice was so timid and insecure, nothing like the Lucy he knew.

"Sure thing!" He laid himself back against the pillows, kicking his sandals off and placed one arm behind his head while the other was outstretched for her to lean upon. "Come lay here, Luce."

Doing what he said, she cuddled up to his side, laying her hand and cheek against his shoulder and felt his arm encircle her waist, "I… don't really know where to begin… It all seems such a blur, yet I remember every single bit of it."

He kept quiet, caressing his thumb against her hip as a way of encouraging her instead.

She began slowly, starting from where she'd left the guild hall that night, "It was kinda strange I guess… not having you there to walk me home like normal, it never feels right without you around…" She chuckled half-heartedly, before clearing her throat. "I remember walking along the canal when this bad feeling came over me… But, I just put it down to being alone in the dark and kept going.”

She shifted closer to him, subtly indicating that what she was about to say, made her uncomfortable at the very least.

"When I reached the apartment building, I noticed the window was slightly open, even though I knew I’d shut it. I must’ve just thought that you’d come home early from your mission, or something." She fidgeted again, this time her legs began to tangle with his, giving away her anxiety and fear. “It was only once I walked into the room, did my blood run cold. It was dark and empty, and you were no where to be seen. It felt… wrong.”

"You mean they were already in the house?" Natsu asked, feeling himself tense as he looked across the small room, imagining her words play out before him.

"Mm, and by the time I'd reached for my keys, it was too late." She shivered once again, the memories making it hard to concentrate. "H-He came out from behind, shoving me against the wall and pinning my arms above my head." A fresh set of tears began to cascade down her delicate cheeks, her breathing heavier than before and her fingers gripping at his jacket tightly. "I…I remember struggling a lot, trying to kick him away, but it was no use, he was just too strong. I felt so overpowered and small and weak, and all he did was laugh."

Natsu clenched his jaw, realising now that this was about to get a whole lot darker and he could barely keep himself from raging all over again, but he kept himself controlled this time, for Lucy's sake—that was the last thing she needed.

"That's when it started…" She gulped down a large breath, steadying herself as she divulged further, "His hands; his mouth; his… teeth. I-I can still feel them… on me, crawling across my skin."

Natsu's eyes widened, turning to the blonde who refused to look him, and gasped, "He touched you!? Where?" He asked, a little too forcefully in his own shock.

Unable to say with words, she nodded and used her finger to point at the areas on Natsu's body, starting from the top, "Here," she pointed to his mouth and chin. "Then here," she then grazed over his ear and jaw line, and the next one his neck. Her finger ventured down to Natsu's chest and stomach, where she pointed once more, "And then… there," she managed to wrangle out, pointing down towards his upper thigh.

"You mean… that bastard touched you down-"

"He didn't quite get that far. When I stopped struggling, I think he must've lost concentration, because I managed to pull one of my hands free and grab at his crotch."

She felt Natsu tense at that, having anyone grab hold and squeeze them tight was not a pleasant thought, "I hope you squeezed until your hand hurt, Lucy."

"Well, that was the plan… but he slapped me across the face before I could get any real grip and I landed face down on the floor." Jolting upwards, she ran a shaky hand through her hair, removing the blonde tresses away from her clammy forehead. "Sor- Sorry Natsu, the next bit, is where he… It's the bit, I-I struggle with most…"

Feeling alarmed by her reaction, he sat up too. Fearing the worst, he could only hope she wasn't about to tell him what he'd suspected all along, "It's alright, take your time." He reached his hand out to her, thankful she'd taken it and not pushed him away, "What did he do, Lucy?"

Trying to calm the overwhelming anxiety building within her, she swallowed down the longest breath of air, filling her lungs with much needed oxygen, "I remember smacking my head on the floor… A-And then, I felt his weight on top of me…"

Natsu's breath caught in his throat, snapping his head to the part on the floor Lucy had pointed to and could only imagine how frightened she must have been, "Then what, Luce?" He noticed her hesitancy, wishing he didn't have to ask.

"I-I remember his hand on the back of my head, holding me down, while his other hand lifted up my skirt. He was laughing at me, even as he slid down my underwear." She huddled herself back into a ball by the window, wiping continuously at her red and irritated eyes, "It was then that I realised that my struggle was in vain, that no matter what I did, he was going to… then he…" The tears turned to wails as she tried to continue, "And I've… I've never felt more disgusted! I felt helpless and so pathetic, so desperate for someone to come and save me that I stupidly called out your name, even though I knew you wouldn't hear me… That hope was still there."

Natsu had barely moved, so ashamed of himself for not being there in her time of need that he didn't know what to do with this new information. He felt angry beyond words that some bastard out there was walking free after doing such a horrific thing to his Lucy. But among the anger, there were other feelings; guilt; sadness; frustration; regret; all of them fighting for dominance in his tumultuous mind.

"Lucy…" Was all he could manage, unable to find the right words to tell her how truly sorry he was for not coming to her aid, sickened by the fact that while he wasn’t there, she’d suffered so greatly.

"I was so scared, Natsu!" She started, turning to look at his own sombre expression, "But I knew that if anyone were to come, it'd be you." Lucy's lips lifted in the corners, her smile full of sadness and sorrow, "When he finished, I couldn’t move, and all I remember feeling was coldness of the hard floor, wishing you'd come through that window and warm me up again���"

But that's not what happened, and he felt like the worst best friend in the world because of it. She'd needed a loving hand to lead her away from the pain, to comfort her and protect her from the monster that lurked in the dark, but he’d arrived too late.

He felt his heart sink and his stomach drop, his guilt and regret taking precedence, "I… I, I'm so sorry, Lucy… I never meant to… I didn't think-"

"Like I said, I don't blame you for not being there… It wouldn’t be fair of me to do that. How were you to know?” As much as it hurt her, she knew that had he been there, it would’ve been a totally different story, “I just… I need…”

She couldn’t say it with words, but he knew exactly what she was trying to tell him. She needed him, and that’s exactly what he was going to give her. Without saying a word, he reached forward and pulled the desperate girl back into his chest, enveloping her in that warmth she yearned for more than anything else, and held her as if his life depended on it. He wasn't letting go, not ever, and with every minute that passed with her in his arms, was another second towards healing her shattered heart.

“I’m always gonna be here, Lucy. I promise you.” He whispered into her hair, kissing the top of her head as if she was the most precious thing in the world. “You mean too much to me.”

She snuggled closer, wanting to be as near to him as she could and tightened her grip, “Thank you, Natsu.” With his warmth seeping deep into her cold body, warming her very soul, she relaxed against him, and felt her eyes slowly close, “Thank you...”

I know this was a sad one for nalu day, but I wanted to convey more the bond between them rather than the actual incident. I hope you liked it anyway! :) 

[writemekpop]

New Rules | Lay Zhang

Pairing: Lay Zhang x Reader

Summary: Vicious, strict and sexy... your dance instructor Lay is hiding a secret.

Genre: Suggestive, Enemies to Lovers 

Word Count: 1.4k

Gif: @yixing-zhang​​

“Again! And for god’s sake, try and look like you mean it!” 

Your dance instructor Lay’s voice rings through the sweaty studio. Everyone else in the academy went home hours back. Your class struggles on into the night. 

Sweat drips down the flexed muscles of Lay’s neck, disappearing into his coal black tracksuit. His ochre eyes, rough and silky all at once, hide under a low bucket hat. 

You know his full, forbidden lips better than your own name. 

“Hey, Y/n! Stop slacking. You’re still lagging on the turns.”

Your heart races, but not from the exercise. 

Your muscles are crying out for respite, but you turn again and again. It’s useless. The harder you try, the weaker you seem to get. After fifteen minutes, you’re the only one in the class who can’t do it. 

“Y/n, get up. Stop that.” Lay’s voice is like thunder. You hate how delicious your name sounds in his mouth. 

You stop spinning, and stagger to the wall. 

“I know you think you’re working hard, but you’re not. You are the worst in the class, and unless you get your act together very soon, you won’t be in it much longer.”

You don’t dare to look up. A lump stretches your throat, and you beg for the tears to hold.

“Are you serious about being a dancer?” 

“Y-yes,” you whisper. 

“Well, at this rate, you won’t make it. You hear me? You’ll walk, head hanging, out of these doors, scrape a place in a second-rate college, and spend the rest of your life watching your classmates on Inkigayo.”

His words are shards of glass, slicing you into ribbons. You know Lay’s watching you, scanning for any signs of weakness. His eyes send heat waves rippling off your skin. 

“That’s all. Class dismissed.” Lay turns away, and everyone files silently out. 

You choke down a sob. 

----

That night, you return to the studio. Lay’s words throb in your ears, egging you on. 

As you spin around and around, your turns get sloppier and wilder. Your eyes prickle, but you keep pushing yourself, keep forcing your limbs to move. 

Suddenly, your ankle collapses under you. A red spike shoots up your leg, and you land hard on the floorboards. 

You silence your cry. 

Tears streak down your face, and you swipe them away with a sleeve. You try to pull yourself to the wall, but it’s so painful that your vision sparks white.  

As you wrap your arms around your body, you let a sole whimper escape your lips. 

That was your biggest mistake. 

Because all of a sudden, you hear footsteps approaching the door. Cursing, you pull yourself up to standing on a ballet barre, trying not to yelp from the pain. 

It’s Lay. For the first time ever, his raven-black dance uniform is gone, replaced with an open white shirt and jeans. His carved cream chest is so distracting, you almost forget that he hates you. 

“What are you still doing here, Y/n? Class ended three hours ago. Get to bed!” Your lips start to quiver. The pain is bad enough. You don’t need his contempt to make it worse. 

“Yes sir, I’m just packing up.” You try to step towards your bag, but fire rips up your leg. A squeak escapes your lips. 

“Wait, are you hurt?” 

All of a sudden, the distance between you vanishes. Strong arms are lifting you into a chair before you have the chance to protest, heat rolling off Lay’s skin and onto yours. 

Your cheek is pressed against smooth muscle. The nakedness of it sends shivers through you. “You’ve sprained your ankle! Sit right there.”

Once you’re seated, Lay fetches a roll of white gauze and kneels in front of you. The thumping of your heart turns silence into cacophony. Free from its hat, you notice Lay’s hair for the first time, dishevelled curls of ebony. 

You realise what’s changed. He looks… human.  

“Why are you helping me? Y-you hate me.” The question leaps from your lips, uncalled for. 

“I don’t hate you,” Lay murmurs, hands gently wrapping your ankle with gauze. His tenderness leaves you breathless. “I’m just harsh on you because…” 

Lay’s hands drop to the ground, and he leans on them like he might collapse. You might collapse.

“Can I be honest with you?” Oaky eyes flick up to meet yours. You just nod, afraid to speak in case he changes his mind. 

“I haven’t been… teaching long, and-“ He sighs. “I’m worried that if I’m not… strict, no one will take me seriously.” He looks up, and for the first time ever, he’s wearing away at his lip. 

“I’m not funny, or charming… or someone you can like. I’m just someone you can fear. So that’s why I’m mean to you.” 

“There.” Lay looks to the side, flashing you a wry smile. “It’s out. God, I feel like a child to say this, but- could you keep this to yourself?” 

Shivers ripple down your body. You swear to keep his secret. 

Lay grins, and deep dimples spring up in his smooth cheeks. You can’t believe you didn’t know they were there. “I can’t believe you thought I hated you, Y/n! It’s the opposite…you’ve got what it takes. And don’t let an idiot like me tell you don’t.”

Flutters burst in your stomach. Lay kneeling, you sitting, you sink into a breathless silence. You cling to his serious gaze, trying to peer into the man beneath the thick chocolate lashes. 

Then, he lifts his hand to wipe away a dry tear, and you narrowly avoid the urge to kiss his hand. Your body throbs with your pulse. 

“You were crying.” Your conversation has broken down into fragments, swirling in the silent sea of the unsaid. 

You don’t answer him, eyes glued to Lay’s slightly parted lips. 

You lean in closer, and he doesn’t move away. This is the moment you’ve been dreaming of. Your honey-gaze slips to his mouth. Then, you press your lips against his, and they’re warm and oh-so-soft and- 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lay springs back, clamping his hand to his mouth as if it isn’t his.  

“I-I- uh..” The back of your neck burns, and your heart pounds faster than ever. “I thought you…uh-“ Your stomach twists into a tight ball, sinking like a weight inside you. 

Lay’s blank expression is like a punch to the throat. You squint at him through screwed eyes, praying for a quick exit. 

Then, a frown breaks through the fog on Lay’s face. He cocks his head to the side, sizing you up. “What were you thinking?”

Your shoulders drop; you can’t be bothered to make up a lie. Taking a deep breath, you decide to go for the truth. 

“I know you see me as yourself as my instructor, and me as your student. But I-I see you as a man… and me as a woman. Is that so wrong?”

There’s a silence so sharp it could break glass. 

The shadow of a smile lifts Lay’s lip as he speaks. “That’s not wrong.”

And then, he leans forward once more, and you feel like you’re in a slow-motion movie. You watch Lay’s tongue flick over his lips, leaving them plump and glistening. 

This time, he’s the one whose midnight eyes trail down to your mouth, but slowly, as if he’s tasting your skin with his eyes. When his firm hand grasps your thigh, you feel him shaking. 

That gives you the confidence to close the gap between you. You pull Lay’s head towards you, and kiss him on the mouth. It’s a searching kiss. A kiss that needs to be returned. 

He kisses you back. Softly. Safely. Then impatiently. 

His fingers trail up the fabric of your T-shirt. The cold mirror pushes up against your back. You gasp at his taste. You can hear him gasping too. 

You imagine how you feel to him, tear-salted. Your wayward hand feels cream muscle you’d only dreamt of feeling. 

The fumble, the awkwardness of learning something unknown… that only makes it sweeter.

When you pull back, you realise you now know Lay intimately, but at the same time, you barely know him at all. 

Lay makes as if to speak, but you stop him with a finger. 

Sometimes, the best things can’t be expressed in words.  

[nestasgalpal]

The ball is in his court

Fixing ACOSF Part 8

Masterlist | AO3

Summary:  Cassian knows Nesta is supposed to dance with Eris and lure him into a stronger alliance with the Night Court. He knows he's been forbidden from getting close to her during the whole event. He knows she loves to dance. He knows he wants to be the one swinging with her.

A/N: angst because Cassian got very little character development in the book for someone who had that much family drama to deal with. It's not that big of a change as other chapters, but I thought it made sense to add this here with how these three acted in the ball.

Tagging: @gwynriel @zoyaslai @clolikescloquetas @amelievrstr  @t8astr8ng @wanderlustlastsforever @saltydreamcollector @lordlorcan @esrahiba @queenestarcheron  @jemstan300 @nessiantrashh @azrielsgirl @poisonus-bloom  @loveadora @frosted-crackers  @mireillemystique @pataytayo @968sunflower968 @caram267 @jainadurron @darkshadowqueensrule @amphiptree @finae-bookshelf @niytavia @brainlessfruit @dontgetsalmonella @messyhairday-me @sunsummoner  @chosenfamily-valkyriequeens @wannawriteyouabook @psychoticminx @misswonderflower @drielecarla @silvernesta @k0ombayamylord @nina-zcnik​ @arinbelle​

Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list in the upcoming chapters!! 

Cassian stood firmly on his feet as he made Mor spin once again. The House was playing music for them, and in some strange way, he felt it getting annoyed at how many times he had demanded to go- "Again". The waltz had just finished, and he was already positioning himself to start all over.

"Cass, you already know the moves, you've been dancing these for centuries" she laughed it off "I honestly don't think you need any more practice for tomorrow."

"Again" he insisted.

With a sigh, his friend went back to first position, seven feet away from him. The sound the House played for them was more like a trumpet with a shoe stuck in it than the beautiful harmonies they had been practicing with.

"Please, I want to make sure I get it right before we leave for the ball" Cassian gave her his best pout face, which made Mor roll her eyes.

"You are not going to dance with her, Cass. You got clear instructions from Rhys about that. I don't even know why I'm helping you with this, we both heard you are not allowed near her." The House probably felt like Mor was doing a good enough job at remprimanding him for his stubbornnes, because the melody of the waltz started playing again, and they moved to the sound of it. "Gods, you two are already making this way harder than it needs to be with your non-stop fucking" Cassian laughed, but Mor was not in the mood for joking, "This is serious. I heard Rhys complain about how long it took to hide your scent on her." With their palms in the air almost touching, they turned and gave two steps back "Behave." she reminded him of what his role was tomorrow night, and how important it was that he didn't ruin Nesta's mission by approaching her at all.

Cassian smiled again. "I'll try my best".

"Cassian" her tone made clear that she was not amused by the idea of what he may do with with all this dance practice.

"I know, I know. I'll be a good General Commander and stand by my High Lord's side the entire night, while she dances with Eris Vanserra" the lightness with which he spoke did very little to hide the feelings behind it. The jealousy.

Mor let him guide the dance, shadows in her eyes. Their imminent visit to Hewn City must be disturbing her, specially knowing both his father and Eris would be there. The stress of the negotiations with Vallahan was wearing her down as well.

"Why do you insist on going after her?" The sudden dryness she spoke with took him by surprise, and so did the question itself. Nesta and whatever the nature of his relationship with her was, wasn't a topic they ever talked about. For the last couple of years, they avoided the subject, pretending it didn't exist. That's why it felt so odd how mad she seemed to be now without any previous warning that the matter was present in her thoughts at all. That it could disturb her so much, was the most unexpected part of it.

It rubbed him the wrong way, but Cassian kept on moving, the smile in his eyes not fading one bit as he looked into hers to answer.

"Jealous that I'm spending my time with her and not you lately?"

The blonde's gaze pierced through him with a cold disdain he hadn't prepared himself for either. "Not at all. Unlike you, I understand what an order is." Ouch. "I don't blame you for following Rhys' command and babysitting her when he asked you to. She's your job, I guess."

"She is not a job"

"Cassian" His friend hardly ever called his full name. This was now the second time in a matter of minutes.

The conversation was taking a turn he didn't like as a sense of danger that made him on guard sat between them. But it was his best friend talking, his sister, so he ignored his instincts and kept moving to the rhythm. He tried to be graceful and move with precision, imagining it was Nesta's pale hand in his.

"I'm serious. You really need to come back from this recess sooner or later. Better if you choose the former, considering you have a job to do, a role to play as the rest of us do. Her included." The dance required him to spin her twice, an artificial pause in her speech as she twirled on his arms "I'm sure it was fun, but Feyre already revoked the order, so it's time you move on and take things seriously again. You have no idea how bad the treaty with Vallahan is going. We must prepare for the worse, have the armies ready".

"You think being here with her is some kind of vacation?"

The flow of her practiced movements didn't disappear for a second as she dissed Nesta, which was unsettling. Apparently, it came natural to her and putting these thoughts into words required no effort. For how long had Mor been thinking this way about his stay in the House of Wind?

"You sure smell like you are having a good time". Mor gave a step forward to the beat of the orchestra. Cassian didn't follow her movement, their bodies colliding.

It was now making him truly angry. Not just her usual dismiss of Nesta, which he had grown accustomed to, but the little care she was showing for him. He hadn't been working less on Illyria for the past months, his duty with Nesta being piled up on top of his previous responsibilities, and in addition to his new assignments as courtier to cover up her absence. He was working his ass off.

Countless, sleepless nights trying to come up with new ideas to help Nesta weren't something he had told her about, but she certainly knew about the exhaustion they put him through. The fighting, the struggle. Having to finally face how lost she was and stop pretending he had nothing to do with it had been a wake up call. Trying to put the pieces together, a painfully slow process they were still working on. They were achieving it bit by bit... and together, he wanted to think. It had been anything but a vacation.

His biggest regret, however, was printed all over her words, truth slipping through the cracks in the lie he had crafted for himself so long ago. That's why Mor's words hit him like a punch in the guts, because he had actually treated Nesta as a job in the beginning, and Nesta probably had thought the same thing -if she didn't still feel about it like that. A job. Cassian flinched. An order given to him to follow, and not his own decision to sought her and be there for her after the war.

"This is not time off for me, and, again, she is not a job."

Mor wasn't listening, "You need to be honest with yourself, Cass. You need to come to terms with whatever it is your cock feels for that female, and move on."

"You did not just say that" Cassian was speechless.

Knowing what she knows.

Cassian put distance between them and scanned the room looking for a chair, needing to sit down. There was one left alone by the wall where they had pushed it to have more space for their dancing. He sat before he felt his blood drop to his feet, his head uncomfortably light as his sight became dizzy.

Mor hadn't just said that. She would never cross him like that. Denial took over, his trustful self convincing him he just needed a moment to focus. Once he felt better, he would realize her words were only a friend worrying, not an attack on him. She was helping. Mor was always there for him when he needed a friend. She was only trying to give him some advice.

Then why did it hurt so much to hear those twisted truths from her mouth?

"Oh, come on!" she was saying behind him. Mor's words were distant and distorted, as if he were underwater. It took him a moment to understand and process them. "You saw what she became after the war just as clearly as I did. You did nothing about it, just like I did. And we were okay with that, we have our own life, Cass, and she doesn't fit in it. There is another war waiting for us in the corner that threatens to break this moment of happness we've built. For our future, you need to come back to be who you are, the Cassian I know. I miss him."

Once again, the plain truth. He had drifted away like everyone else. They had all decided that space was what she needed, and when that didn't work, it was once again them deciding what to do with the pieces that were left. He had agreed to every plan, convincing himself they knew what they were doing and they knew her better than she did. That they had any right to pick a path for her, the biggest lie of them all.

And now Mor's words were shattering the wall of self-inflicted fabrications he had slowly built while Nesta faded away from his reach. He took in his friend's words, their meaning. What she thought, and some of his friends -family- shared.

It made his heart skip a bit to realize that Nesta probably saw it like that too to this day. He had already accepted his mistakes to himself, he knew before the blonde said it what he had done wrong. Yet Cassian hadn't thought about how his actions were read from the outside. Nobody had called him out on his bullshit. Nobody had interfered -wasn't that what friends were supposed to do? So there it was, the reason why none of them had ever tried to help him smooth things between them: they didn't want him to. Stupidly and blindly trusting his friends would have the respect for him he had proven to have for them, he assumed they were just as blind as he was. Apparently, they weren't, and they had purposefully left her to rot.

Up until now, Cassian hadn't entertained the thought that she most likely didn't let him in because she also considered his presence there a task for him to handle, even if they had grown to be... friends.

That was it -a dead end for them.

No matter how hard he insisted on being there for Nesta now, he had already failed her too many times, and she simply wouldn't allow him to get closer a second time. Not the way he wanted to, at least.

His pulse was in his ears. Or maybe he was hearing again the dreadful noises the house played for them before.

Oh, Nesta.

Had she agreed to the plan because she didn't really care for him watching? Did Nesta not care because she simply didn't want to be anything else than friends in the end? Did she even trust him enough to call what they had a friendship?

A glass of red wine appeared on the table next to him and was it was in his hand a second later. Cassian swallowed its content in one sip. It was refilled instantly. Realization hit him right then and there, that he might be in time to save her, yet too late for what he wanted from her. And his ass would be the only one to blame for that. His cowardice. And how could he hope for a second chance from someone who didn't grant one to herself?

A movement in his field of vision took him out of his trance. Mor, who was carefully approaching him, gave a jump back when he got up from his chair, letting it fall back. The loud noise scared her too.

Those damned reports. He should have never agreed to that stupid idea. Nor to the plan they had for tomorrow night. Yes, she had agreed to it, but maybe if he had asked her not to... No, she would have still done it, convinced it was the only way she would not be seen as a coward.

Who gives a fuck about how anyone sees her. She certainly didn't use to. And he used to love that about her.

But now she clearly did, and was ready to do anything to change how he and his friends saw her. Even seducing Eris Vanserra right in front of him.

"Why can't you just leave her alone?" he asked, defeated at the thought that Nesta was indeed going to allow him to be by her side, but probably where he was right now was the closer he would ever get to tearing down her walls.

Mor looked back at him, marking the way his arms hung by his sides, the picture of a defeated male. She showed no compassion.

"Because I can't forget what she did to Feyre. I still remember the night she told us her story, what she went through. I see her grow every day and I'm reminded of who broke her in the first place. I can't let that slide like nothing." Cassian opened his mouth to say something, not knowing what exactly. He closed it again as Mor lifted a finger to stop whatever words he would have come up with from escaping his mouth. She was angry, "She let her 14 year old sister go wonder the woods next to the Wall all alone. Feyre was a child, Cassian. A kid who had to risk her life on a daily basis because your lover didn't want splinters in her fingernails."

Cassian sighed, tired of a conversation that kept circling back to the same point over and over again. He knew what Nesta's choices had meant to Feyre, but he had seen her regret as well, and what those same choices had done to her. Cassian had seen and heard the forgiveness coming from Feyre herself, her actions a window to what his High Lady needed: to move on. They had talked about it, his friend had opened up to him and she was obviously determined to have her sister back at any cost. And so was him. He was determined to help his friend and at the same time assist Nesta with whatever it was she needed... once she came to terms with what it was.

He had taken her to the old cabin they used to live in and had stand by her side as she scanned the place, finding only bad memories of the person she used to be. She wanted to move on as well. So if the two people involved wanted the same thing, why did their friends keep getting in the way using a wound that was already healing as an excuse.

"But you can forgive Elain?"

"Elain has at least tried to be one of us, Nesta has done nothing since she arrived but be against us."

Cassian laughed at that, a bitter, joyless laugh. "Elain is trying to be our friend, while Nesta doesn't like us. Is that it?" He chuckled again. "Are you telling me that the only reason you pick on her is that she doesn't want to be your friend and you can't just accept that? I thought it was her actions to Feyre in the past, but yes, this makes way more sense now." This time it was him stopping her from talking back, "I can see a pattern there. Isn't that the same reason you don't trust Lucien no matter how hard he works to help us? That he has his own life beyond us?" The volume of his voice went in crescendo as his anger rose to meet hers, "You can't be seriously expecting me to leave her because of a petty fight that only exists in your head."

"It's not just me, Cass. It's all of us. No one likes her, no one wants her around, and we are not having our days ruined every time she shows up so you can fuck her. You are not like this, you are not selfish like that." The indignation simmering in her brown eyes didn't make her an inch scarier to him, the childish reasons for it almost making him consider the argument over, hadn't him been so heated himself. "I want my friend back. And so does Rhys, who can't look at her -or Lucien, for that matter, without being reminded of what his mate went through before he found her."

Cassian snapped.

His siphons glowed scarlet red, goosebumps in his arms from the contained adrenaline rushing through his veins. He screamed at her in anger for the first time in... for the first time in as long as he could remember.

"Don't you dare try to make me feel like I'm a bad friend to Feyre to justify your bigotry. Don't you dare try to convince me that I'm the one hurting others, so I stay in my place while you do whatever the fuck you want and then blame the problems that surface on me. Don't you fucking dare play the victim of this when it's none of your business."

There had been genuine happiness in Feyre's eyes the night Nesta and her decided to give themselves one last chance.

Now Mor was reducing Feyre to nothing but an excuse for her own grudges. She was trying to yield her past suffering as a weapon against her sister, which would make Feyre just as furious as he was. She would never use the damage she experienced to hurt someone she loved, and that was the kind of friend he wanted in his life giving him advice. That was the kind of friend Cassian needed.

He had taken Nesta to the mountains and listened to her cry. He had heard from her mouth how she felt.

Worthless.

She had felt like she didn't deserve to be alive.

And apparently, Mor agreed.

It couldn't be wrong to have sympathy for her. It couldn't be wrong to want her. And he did want her. Cassian wanted everything with her. Was he a bad friend to Feyre for that? How, when his friend wanted the same thing?

"She saved my life twice. She was ready to die with me instead of running away. Does that mean nothing to you?" Above all, what broke Cassian's trust in her wasn't simply her disapproval of Nesta. Rather than that, what Cassian wasn't sure he could forgive was how little care she showed for him. "If you don't like her, that's fine. I don't care, and I can promise you she doesn't either. But don't you dare use Feyre or me as an excuse for it."

"I won't apologize for caring. I won't apologize for protecting my High Lady and my best friend, and the life you really want and deserve".

"At what point exactly did you decide Feyre's happiness was above Nesta's life? Was it after you met her, or had you already ranked your priorities the night Feyre told us about her sisters? Oh, sorry, our priorities, since apparently you know what I want better than I do." Cassian wasn't sure if he would have stopped his ranting right there if he had seen any regret coming from Mor, and he never got to find out. His friend's face was a mask of faked boredom as he spoke. "From all people, I would expect you guys to know what it's like to be perceived by outsiders in a way that's different from who you are as a measure of protection. You simply fail to understand that, for her, we've been the bad guys she has to be wary of since day one. And the reason is precisely that we made our minds clear about her in that fucking dinner party and refused to change it independently of what she did to be better".

He would know about it.

A blank expression was painted on her face. "You need to chill."

"Leave." he ordered. It was no up for discussion. Cassian couldn't even look at her right now. He was fuming and didn't want to say things he would later regret. As he opened the glass doors for Mor, he knew he would, unless one of them left.

"Are you seriously going to let a stupid fight about her get between us?"

It was the way she said her. Like she had said it a hundred times before, like others had pronounced as well, including him not so long ago.

Cassian turned to face the blonde, a special kind of anger glimmering in his eyes.

"Me?!" he screamed. Mor gave instinctively a step back, "Am I going to let it get between us!? You are the one who brought her up, Mor. You are the one who has a problem, and I'm the one pretending you don't trash her at every chance you get, so we can still be friends. I'm not the one letting an argument get between us, for the only thing I've been doing over five hundred years is make everything easier for you. And now, I'm done." Her eyes went wide.

But Cassian was now beyond turning. He had tried to leave and make her go to avoid exactly what was about to happen, "Are you seriously going to let a stupid sister fight only you care about at this point get between me and my happiness? You really despise her so much you would take the chance of being happy with Nesta away from me only to make her miserable?" he spat.

Cassian took a step forward and Mor gave another one back at the same time, recoiling. There was fear in her face as he made his way to her, a kind of fear he had never seen on her features whilst looking at him. "Just look at me in the eye and answer this question, Mor, and I promise there won't be more fights between us for better or worse: Would you rather have me unsatisfied for the rest of my days than have me happy, if that requires her being blissful as well? "

Her silence was too long. It was too damn long.

Cassian spread his wings, the glimmer of his siphons mirroring his anger, and went for the glass doors.

"I only want to protect you." Mor cried behind him. Cassian walked fast, but she was at his heels when he reached the banister, begging him to stop and listen.

One single tear run down her beautiful face. If any other person had made her shed a tear, he would be the first one going after them to make them suffer unimaginable pain. Mor was his best friend, had always been. Cassian thought there was nobody in the world he wouldn't at least beat up for making her sad the way she looked now. But he heard her whimper, saw the hurt, and realized it was too little compared to what she had inflicted on him. On Nesta.

She had gone too far. And at the same time, she was giving him too little.

He turned to face her, needing to make sure he wasn't making a mistake. A part of him refused to believe this was actually happening, wanted to trust in that, once he met her eyes again, he would see regret in her pupils. The hope he had learned from her ages ago making him give her one last look before he aimed for the sky.

Of course, Mor was too stubborn to show any kind of surrender. Too proud to be regretful.

"I am a 500 year old warrior. She is a 25 year old female whose family she can't talk to without pushing them away. And you think I'm the one who needs protection because she is mean to those she doesn't like."

It was not a question. Cassian wanted Mor to hear what her case sound like to him. Before he left, Cassian wanted her to know this was not going to be a short argument and they wouldn't be having lunch together next week. It was a breaking point in their friendship, and he was going to stand on this hill as long as it took, unmoving no matter how many jibes she trowed at him or how many tears wetted her face.

Mor cried in silence, and only because the winter breeze was cooling him down, he didn't get angrier at her for that, at himself, and at the world. Why did they always find a way to make things harder than they should be?

"Wait, please, don't go." The sound of his wings spreading again almost prevented him from hearing her whimper as she said, "I can still teach you one last dance," she murmured. Cassian listened carefully, she didn't dare moving, monitoring his position as if he were a wild animal and she was a rabbit trying to be discrete to not become his prey "There is one gavotte they are likely to play. She is so good at it, you would think she's known the moves for decades and not days."

A temtative hand reached for his arm and stayed there. He had never seen Mor stutter, especially when it came to him. Cassian had always been her best friend, the one who never got mad at her and she could count on. Now she was unsure if he was leaving for the day, or if he was flying away from her for Cauldron knows how long. She didn't tighten her grip on him when he didn't push her away, it remained light and unsure. "I think you already know it, but we can practice that one a couple of times. Just in case you get a chance to dance with her. You'll look great by her side... like it's meant to be".

Cassian noticed his cheeks were wet as well. His gaze burned so fiercely Mor couldn't hold his stare. With anger still painted all over his features, Cassian nodded and followed her inside again.

Mor didn't say a bad word about her for the rest of the evening, and even if he couldn't know where she went afterwards to rant about it, he appreciated her silence.

---

A couple of minutes after her orgasm, Nesta's legs were still shaking. Cassian drove his hand up and down her thighs, feeling her soft skin with the excuse of a massage to help her muscles relax.

He needed to calm down as well -it had been a particularly long day. Nesta had been happy to follow him into his room after dinner, feeling something was off. He had to restrain himself from telling her when she asked about it. First, because he didn't want her to know he was taking dance lessons with Mor. She would know the reason behind it in a second, and he didn't feel like exposing himself like that for a second time that day.

He also couldn't tell her about the argument that hours later still kept his head bussy. He didn't want her to know how frivolously she had been discussed, what both Mor and him had said about her in the same living room where their kisses after dinner had started.

Nesta's breathing was steady, tranquil. His cock was still inside her. He needed to feel her touch. She wasn't in conditions to leave his room even if he came out of her, but Cassian didn't want to give her a chance to get rid of him just yet. He needed her presence there a little longer.

Nesta's fingers tangled themselves in his hair, pressing his head to the crook of her neck. He kissed the soft skin and felt her pulse beat fast against his lips. The path of wet kisses he planted all the way up to the spot behind her ear made her moan.

Cassian felt his blood rushing back to his cock.

With his hands, he cupped her breasts. A sigh escaped her swollen lips, his own closing around a hard nipple. Cassian marked with kisses and playful bites his way down her abdomen to the apex of her thighs. Nesta's let a loud moan escape when his tongue hit with precision her bundle of nerves, drawing circles around it. Teasing her. Making her wetter if that was even possible.

Unaffected by Nesta's pleas, he enjoyed playing with her, his mouth exploring her folds as if wanting to drink her in. Cassian couldn't hear anything, the sinful sounds she let out a song his blood echoed, roaring in his ears. Her hand found his head, her hips clashing against him as she tried to ride his face. Oh, he loved it when she did that, so desperate to have him closer, for his touch to never leave her.

It was his lust what determined every movement his body made, convincing Casian he could reach heaven just by climbing up her hips. Cassian didn't stop until he felt her thighs clench the sides of his head. The hand that held him fixed between her legs became a fist in his hair, encouraging him to keep going, keep licking and keep playing with her most sensitive spot until his tongue took her over the edge one more time.

Yet he hadn't had enough of her. He needed more and more, and after each time they slept together, the urge to have her again grew stronger, as Cassian became more impatient for the next time. Nesta felt the same way, by how her hands found his wings by reaching behind his shoulders and aroused him again. A grin spread through her face when he let his lover play with him in whatever way she pleased. Whatever she wanted from him, Cassian would give.

He climaxed one more time all over her breasts, before he finally renounced to her body. He was content resting by her side, their legs tangled under the sheets.

It was now a matter of time before Nesta left his room.

Cassian's legs tangled with hers. Nesta moved idly against him, making herself comfortable. Their bodies fitted together like pieces from a jigsaw puzzle, their breaths the only sound in the room. He could tell she was cold as he once again found himself caressing her arms, pale like porcelain under the moonlight that came through the window. Cassian pulled the sheets to cover them and planted a kiss on her forehead.

Nesta had her walls down. She looked so peaceful curled up against him.

"You don't like us, do you?" even if he whispered the words, they were loud in the silence of the room.

Nesta was fighting to focus her sight, just as tired as he was. "What do you mean?" Oh Cauldron. That raspy voice of hers after sex. Too much moaning for her own good. And he hadn't even enjoyed her throat that night. He had to picture terrible things in his head so his cock would behave and not react to her "that was really great sex" voice.

"My friends and I. The Inner Circle as a whole, you could say." His hand rested in the small of Nesta's back, drawing lazy circles.

She maneuvered to get rid of his touch, sitting up on the bed. The absence of her body against him was painfully obvious. Cassian laid on his back, fighting the impulse to sit up as well. He moved his hands to his nape with faked laziness, as if the question was simple small talk. Yeah... the small talk they never had after sex. Not weird or suspicious at all.

Good job, you idiot. She's not coming to your room in weeks. He cursed himself.

He couldn't withdraw now, it was too late. Nesta's gaze was feline. On guard.

"I don't think I dislike any of you more than you dislike me."

"Hey, I don't dislike you!" he ignored the cautiosness on her tone. He would pretend everything was okay and pray Nesta somehow went with it, "I would say, in fact, that I am very fond of you. And so is Az, for what's worth."

She smiled, a cold grin that didn't seem to fit with the rest of her face, still flushed, eyes glassy and tired. "Then you don't have to worry about it." He said nothing, only kept looking at her. He had learned that, if he waited long enough, she would go on. It could be only to insult him and then leave... but she would go on.

---

Nesta sighed. Where was he going with this? What was she even supposed to respond? No, she didn't like half of them... that if she counted the ones she barely tolerated. But she could sit in the same table as them and be civil. She was even working for them, so why he would bring that up two minutes after he came all over her, was beyond Nesta.

"I thought you didn't care what your friends thought of this" she pointed between the two of them, her gesture just as calculatedly casual as his had been.

A wet washcloth appeared on his nightstand. Nesta mentally thanked the house for her timing. If she was forced to have this conversation, she would rather be clean for it. Nesta rubbed it on her chest, Cassian's gaze following and fixing on her breasts. She cleared her throat, urging him to answer.

"And I don't. I was just curious if you did."

Nesta sigh.

"You've snapped at me before for calling one of you an asshole, Cassian. Do you really expect me to go on a detailed answer on how much I value them and their opinions?" Cassian tightened his jaw, but didn't answer. He waited for her to go on, knowing his silence was pressure enough for her to give in and talk.

If she said she didn't mind what they thought of her, she would be lying. But if she told him she did care, she would be lying as well. It wasn't that simple, a "yes" or a "no".

Nesta cared and worried about their opinions, not because she valued their judgement, but because she was still afraid she didn't have enough power in that Court to face their truth with hers. She had her own thoughts about them, but they didn't have the weight on Cassian one word from any of his friends had.

Nobody ever asked her what she thought of them, because it didn't really matter. Yet everyone expected Nesta to take into consideration what they wanted -who they expected her to be. They had crossed the line in the most disgusting ways to make sure she did the right changes to fit into the mold they had created for her. And Cassian had been a part of it.

Now, from all people, Cassian was asking.

"Don't mention them when we are in bed if you want to see me here again." that was the little bargain power she was sure she had over him. The territory she could claim for herself.

Once again, it took Cassian some time to come up with his own words. Nesta's brain was going a thousand thoughts per minute, reading his face, his body, trying to anticipate where he was going to strike next. He had chosen to bring this up right after sex, when she was slower with her wit. Prick.

When Nesta thought he simply wouldn't answer, Cassian finally sat on the mattress, shoulders down, his body apparently relaxed, his muscles tense and wings tucked in "I know this is just sex, and that's enough for me. I'll take it." As he mouthed the words, Nesta came out of the mist that clouded her thoughts, ready to cover up any crack on her armor. "I just want to know if my friends have anything to do with you not wanting... more."

For that, the answer was yes. She did worry what they thought of Cassian and her being... close, only because she wasn't sure what Cassian would do if they didn't approve of them together.

Nesta didn't care, but she worried what it would mean for her if they asked him to leave. Nesta was sure she meant enough to Cassian for him to put on some resistance. But when push came to shove, if they ever asked him to choose, she doubted Cassian would put her before them.

And she wasn't ready to be broken like that.

There was one thing about Cassian she admired above anything else he had and was, and that was his loyalty. Absolutely unmoving. She saw first-hand how this male loved, so ardently, so unwavering. If Cassian was asked to choose and chose his friends, she wouldn't blame him, she would understand. She had seen him put his life on the line for them without thinking, the act natural to him.

It was knowing that Cassian wasn't the obedient dog others had claimed him to be what would be devastating for her. To be so sure that he didn't feel the need to follow his High Lord to the end of the world.

If he chose them, duty wouldn't be the reason. Cassian would do it because he literally loved them more.

It was precisely that what made her so afraid to let him in. To not know if whatever he wanted from her would ever mean to him as much as the bonds he already had. If there was a chance for him to value it even above those. Because she wouldn't take less.

Nesta couldn't tell him she didn't care what they thought, for it would be a lie. And she couldn't tell him about her reasons either without bearing her heart more than she was ready for. And every time she reminded him -or herself- that it was just sex, she remembered why she refused to give him anything else.

So yes, Nesta cared about what they thought only because she feared them in a way Cassian wouldn't understand. He had defended them against her in the past like he didn't know that side of them existed at all.

Unable to answer, Nesta nodded.

Cassian took in her gesture. At his silence, Nesta practically launched herself out of Cassian's bed, aiming for the door and grabbing her nightgown on her way.

He was there before she could grip the knob. His hand slammed the door to make sure she couldn't open it. Nesta turned on her heels to face him, angry at how aggressive his gesture was. At the audacity to behave like this after she gave him the answer he had asked for, only because he hadn't liked it.

She was trapped between his body and the wooden door, her face an inch apart from his naked chest. Because they were still naked. He banged his head against the door and closed his eyes.

"You know I would give my life for you. In a heartbeat. Without hesitation." Nesta could feel her mouth dry. She couldn't believe he was making a scene about this, considering what her mission the next day. What had happened that afternoon before she came back from the Library to shake him like this? "You know that, right?" Cassian insisted.

She nodded one more time, her forehead brushing his shoulder.

"I know you have good reasons to want them far away from you, Nes, but they are part of my life. My family. When I ask myself what I want in my future, I know I want them in it. We've been through so much together that I really can't picture my life without them at this point. To be honest, I don't want to picture it either."

Nesta's throat burned and so did her eyes, lined with tears. She wasn't ready to listen to this coming from his lips.

"But I want you too, and I don't even know if you think that's possible or if I'm making a fool of myself by trying to go after you."

She was glad Cassian had his eyes closed so he wouldn't see the mess she became as his words hit her. Nesta closed them as well, so the tears didn't come out. "We have a mission tomorrow, Cassian. I need to get some sleep and be well rested."

He didn't move.

"Let's not jeopardy the mission for a question you already know the answer for".

In a matter of hours she was going to be dancing with Eris in Hewn City trying to lure him into an alliance with his beloved friends because they had asked that from her. And she had agreed because the future of the frail political situation they were in depended on it. She needed to focus her mind back on that. She told herself that by doing so, she would forget about his confrontation, and by some miracle he wouldn't bring it up again after that.

"Why did you even accept to help with that plan, Nesta?" Cassian asked again, an angry whisper in her ear.

Because it's worse to stay in my room while you are there with them and wonder if you would vanish away once again if I don't follow all of you wherever you go.

The low light of the lamp threw shadows on Cassian's hazel eyes when he opened them to look straight into hers. They were so beautiful. He stretched his arm to cup her hand, but Nesta hid it in her lap before he could.

His arm hung there for a moment, as if not knowing what to do with it.

Don't worry, Cassian, I'm choosing this for myself. I'll do it. I want to do it.

And in return, she only asked him to keep things casual.

Nesta knew it was unfair to him. She was giving him no choice. It was selfish. But no one expected anything better from her anyway. She was self-absorbed, everyone knew that. It seemed to be her defining characteristic in their eyes from the beginning. No need to change that now. The only thing Nesta was willing to replace was her relationship with herself, with who she was. The only goal in her mind was to be as ready to fight for her life as she was to give it for others. Only then, she would be able to share her heart the way she wanted to. And if he was still around when that happened, she would gladly give him a piece. Just not yet.

It would take time, but he had promised to stay no matter how long it took. He had sworn.

Her voice was too close to cracking. "You should go get some rest as well. Don't think too much about this, Cassian. It's just sex, remember?"

"Just sex" he agreed.

Nesta moved her hands up and carefully placed them on his chest to push him away. He obediently gave a step back, freeing her. She went straight for the door knob and opened it. Nesta exited as fast as she could to turn her back on him before he saw the effect his damned questions had had on her.

"And I have no intention of changing that for my own reasons. Your friends have nothing to do with it."

It's you, she thought.

"So many things are happening to me at the same time," she said instead, "that...I don't even know how to deal with them and not have a breakdown every five minutes. I need you to be the one thing in my life that is easy. Please." there was no point in hiding her weeping anymore. "And I don't need anyone to die for me. I would hate that, actually. I want someone who is going to stay alive and by my side all the way. And that's why you need to let go." Nesta wasn't sure whose heartbeat she was hearing, but it was thundering at an alarming pace.

"I understand" he said. His voice was not her lover's caring tone, nor her friend's easy-going voice. He was putting distance between them, making it impersonal. She didn't blame him, as she did the same thing and closed the door behind her.

She went straight to her room and asked the House to warm up the cold space.

There were no dreams for her that night.

---

On the same room one floor above, Cassian stared at the ceiling for hours, unable to find sleep.

The sun came up before he got to close his eyes, still thinking about what Nesta had asked from him. What his High Lord had asked from him aligning with her request as well. What Mor thought of it all. The ball and Eris being the one to spend the entire night with Nesta Archeron.

He had a job to do, a character to play he knew too well to mess it up even if he had gotten no rest, so that part didn't worry him one bit.

Only when he finally got up with the first rays of sunshine, Cassian came to terms with what he would do that night and how far was he willing to go. If what he wanted for himself was worth risking all the good things he already had, both with his friends and with her.

Maybe it was time to stop being a coward who adapted to the group's needs. Maybe it was time he gave the first step. Or perhaps he would do better waiting, not rushing things and allowing people to come to him whenever they were ready. No. The person he had in mind the entire night and kept him from resting would never go to him, pride and uncertainty preventing her from taking risks with him. Yet one step too far could mean three steps back, and then none of it would be worth it.

Mor was right, he was not being his old self as he took a cold shower, put on his leathers, and flew to the River House to put Rhys' plan for tonight into motion. Cassian was not being the illyrian Commander they had always known when he stepped into Hewn City armed to his teeth and ready to improvise and do absolutely everything his heart asked him to do.

[uncloseted]

What are some effective waya to become more productive?

what are some effective ways 2 be productive?

First things first, figure out what the problem actually is. Why are you struggling to be productive? Is it because you're a perfectionist and the idea of not doing the task perfectly stresses you out? Is it because you're lacking the motivation to do anything? Is it because you're struggling to concentrate, or because you're overwhelmed by the task, or because you don't know where to begin? There are tons of reasons why you might be struggling with productivity, and figuring out what the roadblocks you're encountering are can help you to find ways around them. Since I can't read your mind, I'm going to try and give advice that will work for most of the roadblocks you might encounter.

When it comes to big things, I recommend using the SMARTER & WOOP methods. SMARTER and WOOP are two tools that are really useful for behavior modification and other long-term goals you might have.

SMART(ER) is a tool to help you set the right goals for you.  Too often, we set goals like “I’m going to start exercising” or “I’m going to quit going on my phone”.  Those are great in theory, but without an action plan, it’s easy to not follow through.

SMARTER goals are ones that are:

Specific (simple, sensible, significant).

If your goal isn’t specific, you won’t be able to focus your efforts or feel motivated to achieve it.

Try to answer: what do I want to accomplish? Why is this goal important? Who is involved? Where is it located? Which resources or limits are involved?

Measurable (meaningful, motivating).

Having measurable goals is important because it allows you to track your progress and stay motivated by seeing how far you’ve come.

A measurable goal should be one that answers “how much”, “how many” and “how will I know when it’s accomplished”?

Achievable (agreed, attainable).

Your goal needs to be realistic in order for you to stay motivated and be successful.  If you’re aiming too high, you’ll become demotivated quickly because it doesn’t feel like you’re making progress.

An achievable goal requires you to ask “how can I accomplish this goal” and “how realistic is this goal based on other constraints?”

Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).

Relevant goals are ones that matter to you.  Make sure that these goals are ones that are important to you, not ones that you think you should be pursuing.

A relevant goal is one that can answer “yes” to the following questions: “does this seem worthwhile?”, “is this the right time?”, “does this match my other efforts/needs?”, “is it applicable in my current socio-economic environment?”

Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).

Every goal needs a target date so that you have a deadline you can focus on and work toward.

A time sensitive goal is one that answers “when?”, “what can I do six months from now?”, “what can I do six weeks from now?”, and “what can I do today?”

Evaluate

Every day, evaluate how you’re doing on your goals.  Long term goals can be easily ignored if they’re not evaluated every day, and if you don’t evaluate how you’re doing on your goals regularly, you might miss the things that are preventing you from achieving them.

Readjust

If you find that your approach isn’t working, you may need to readjust your goals.  That doesn’t mean that you’re failing at your goals or that you should quit; it just means you have to rethink the approach you’re taking.  Maybe the goal isn’t as relevant to you as you thought it would be, or it’s not as realistic as you expected, or your timeline is too short.  Identify which part of your SMARTER goal is tripping you up and readjust it.

The best goals are ones that include trying new things instead of quitting old ones.  Quitting things is hard; learning something new is easier and more exciting.  If you’re looking to quit something, replace it by establishing a new habit that takes its place.  For example, “I’m going to stop going on my phone,” is hard, but “when I feel like going on my phone, I’ll read a book for ten minutes instead” might be easier to maintain.

After you’ve figured out your SMARTER goal, it’s time to WOOP.  WOOP is something like the scientifically proven cousin of “manifesting”.  Just visualizing our goals or positive thinking on its own can be counterproductive, because it fools our lizard brains into believing that we’ve already achieved the goal.  By using the WOOP method, you can prevent that from happening and actually achieve what you want to achieve.

WOOP stands for:

Wish: Identify a wish that is challenging, yet attainable.  This should be your SMARTER goal.

Outcome: Imagine the best outcome as a result of your wish (as vividly as possible).  Really daydream about what your life would be like if you achieved your goal.

Ask yourself, what is the biggest benefit you could receive from achieving this goal?

Obstacle: Identify and imagine what obstacles will get in the way of your wish.

What might get in the way?  Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, old behavior patterns, bad habits, social pressure… identify as many as you can, then prioritize their likely they are to happen and how significant they would be if they did happen.

Plan: Create an if-then plan to overcome the obstacles you identified- “if [obstacle occurs] then I will [plan A].”  Do your best to pick the most effective path you can for each obstacle, and identify a few different plans in case your first plan doesn’t work.

For example, if you wanted to start exercising, your WOOP might look like this:

Wish: Go on a run 3x/week after school/work for a month.

Outcome: Better energy, confidence, and health.

Obstacle: Feeling tired and hungry at the end of the day…Not wanting to go.

Plan: Pack a snack for the end of the day, and put on gym clothes right when you get home.

Or if you wanted to stop watching TV and read more:

Wish: Watch only 5 episodes of TV per week, and read when I feel the urge to watch TV for a month.

Outcome: Learn a lot. Get smarter. Feel better. Enjoy the great ideas. Feel like I’m spending my time wisely.

Obstacle: Not feeling like it. Preferring to watch TV.

P: If I catch myself watching TV, then I turn it off and start reading a book instead.

The last thing you can do to increase the chances that you’ll achieve your goal is to get someone else involved.  Either find a friend who’s setting the same goal that you are, or tell someone about your goal and ask them to help you achieve it by checking up on you.  It can also be helpful to put money on the line- give money to a friend with the understanding that you’ll get it back on a set date if you’ve achieved your goal.  If you really want to ensure that you reach your goal, tell your friend that if you fail, they should donate the money to a group or cause that you really hate.

For smaller, more day to day tasks:

Make a list of everything you need to do. Sort them into four categories- tasks that are Urgent & Important, tasks that are Not Urgent & Important tasks that are Not Important but Urgent, and tasks that are neither Urgent nor Important. Focus first on the tasks that are Urgent & Important. This can help you prioritize which things to work on first.

From there, take a look at each individual task and break it down into very small steps that you can't fuck up. These can be as small as "open laptop", "open Google Docs", "write name at top of the page", etc. If it helps, you can assign each one of these steps a point count, and then give yourself a treat once you collect enough points (10 points, 20 points, 50 points, and so on).

Once you have your list and have identified all of the steps, just do the first step. It can be daunting to start a big project or task; it's way easier to just do one thing. And once you do one thing, it feels easier to do just one more thing, and just one more thing, and so on until the task is complete.

Once you build up some momentum, I would recommend using the Pomodoro technique. Work for 20-25 minutes (or as long as you can really focus) and then take a 5-10 minute break. Stand up, get a drink, get a snack, watch a short TV episode or a YouTube video, look up that thing that was on your mind, whatever will give your brain a break. Then, set another 20-25 minute timer and get back to work. After three or four cycles of working and taking a short break, take a longer break.

A few other things that I think it's important to remember when it comes to productivity.

Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. You don't need to finish things, and you don't need to do them perfectly. If it's a choice between doing something badly or not doing it at all, it's always better to do it badly.

You don't need to do things the way other people would do them- do it how it works for you. Sometimes that won't make sense to other people, but that's all right. The only person it has to work for is you. If bouncing back and forth between different tasks works better for you than focusing on one task until it's done, then bounce back and forth between tasks. That's okay.

It's okay to ask for help. If you have trouble doing things, that's okay- find someone who can assist you. Maybe you're bad at projects that don't have someone to be accountable to. Find a friend who will hold you accountable. Maybe you're bad at projects without deadlines. Set deadlines for yourself and get someone to make sure you meet them. Sometimes you don't need to work through your shortcomings- you just need to find a way around them.