#but none of the things i saw overlapped with any of the ones he did lol

[supercantaloupe]

yaay a guy from the focus group this summer wants to meet up at the opera next saturday and hang out afterwards

[lancermylove]

Butterfly Effect

Fandom: Obey Me

Pairing: None

Warning: None

Prompt: Barbatos sees a butterfly, and it all leads to chaos.

A/N: I got 3 hours of broken sleep last night, and this is what my mind came up with.

———————————————

Barbatos saw a beautiful butter with iridescent blue wings. Its wings resembled overlapping glass shards and shimmered like a kaleidoscope. He suddenly had the urge to go to one of his favorite gardens in the Human realm and took the day off. A rare occasion, but he wanted the day to himself for once.

Even Diavolo was shocked, but the prince agreed. What could go wrong were Diavolo's last famous words.

Without Barbatos, the breakfast was late, and Diavolo had invited the brothers over. The brothers and the prince started to get agitated. While waiting, the prince asked Lucifer to take over everyone's schedule. He was reluctant but couldn't say no.

The food finally arrived, but when they started to dig in, their faces turned pale. Who cooked the food? Was it who they thought?

Mammon quickly stood up, feeling nauseous, causing the candle stand in the center of the table to fall over. Next thing everyone knew, the dining table was on fire.

Solomon walked out of the kitchen with one more dish in hand and was speechless to see Mammon running around with the back of his jacket on fire while Satan and Beel chased him. Lucifer and Diavolo were trying to put out the fire; Belphie was slumped against a pillar, half asleep and half nauseous. Levi was blowing on the fire to put it out while Asmo was in the corner filming everything. The sorcerer sighed and used a water spell to put out the fire.

Everyone was relieved Solomon's cooking was burned to a crisp in the fire, but then they noticed the dish in his hand. Satan 'accidentally' pushed Mammon against Solomon, causing the baking tray to crash to the ground.

While they tried to figure out what to do about breakfast, the prince snuck into the kitchen to use the opportunity to cook and surprise everyone. But when he dumped random ingredients into a cooking pot and turned on the heat, the pot exploded.

Asmo ran into the kitchen and was horrified to see its state. The prince looked helpless, so the fifth brother insisted on using a cleaning spell he had learned from Solomon. However, the spell backfired, covering the castle with soap bubbles and trapping everyone inside.

Beel couldn't control his hunger and started to eat random objects. The others didn't have the energy to stop him as they tried to find a way out of the castle.

"Um...did anyone else hear that?" Belphie asked, but no one heard anything until Beel returned to the dining room.

"I...don't feel well..." he mumbled, touching his stomach.

Beel hiccuped loudly, causing sparkles to surround Solomon, turning him into a kitten.

Satan was instantly charmed by the kitten and chased it around. "Just one hug, please!"

"Wait, Beel, what did you eat?" Diavolo asked. "It...wasn't an egg that looked like chocolate...was it?"

"Yea-" Beel hiccuped again.

Second hiccup: The furniture spouted legs.

Everyone watched in curiosity, horror, or intrigue as the dining table chairs ran into walls over and over again.

Third hiccup: Thirteen, Simeon, and Raphael appeared out of thin air.

Raphael looked confused, but the Grim Reaper was all for the chaos and chasing Solomon. She knew she would never get a chance like this again to get back at Solomon while he was unable to use magic.

Fourth hiccup: Levi was teleported into a large painting.

"Get me out of here!" He shakily cried.

Simeon ran to the painting and tried to calm him down while trying to find a way to help him out.

Fifth hiccup: Asmo's hair glowed neon.

He went into full panic mode. Every time his mood changed, his hair color changed.

Asmo wanted his followers to see his changing hair, but Diavolo pleaded not to record any of this as he didn't want Barbatos to find out.

The prince had to find a way to fix everything before the butler returned. Just the thought of what he would do sent chills down Diavolo's spine.

Sixth hiccup: Mammon became invisible.

The second brother didn't realize it. He tried to make comments about things, but no one responded.

"Hello? You ain't gotta ignore me. At least look at me! Anyone?"

Mammon tried to wave his hands in front of his younger brothers, but still no reaction.

"What're all of ya ignorin' me?"

Seventh hiccup: Belphie's legs were no longer under his control.

His legs moved on his own. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he couldn't stop walking around.

He held onto objects, but his feet tirelessly continued pulling him forward, along with the objects he held onto.

Eighth hiccup: Lucifer vanished into thin air.

"Lucifer?" Diavolo called out. He didn't want to be in his situation alone, but the Avatar of Pride didn't respond. The prince couldn't sense him in the castle either.

He couldn't take it anymore. Diavolo ran into his bedroom and locked the door. Barbatos would find out, and it would be the end!

Mephistopheles stomped to the castle entrance, huffing and puffing. The prince was supposed to meet him half an hour ago, so why hadn't he shown up?

"Hm? The air...why does it smell of dish soap?" He mumbled and paused to look around but assumed someone must have washed dishes and walked past the area he was in.

Ignoring the unease in the pits of his stomach, he opened the castle door. Mephisto didn't have time to react as a tidal wave of soapy bubbles hit him and carried through the streets of Devildom.

"Enough!" Lucifer reappeared in the castle and snapped his fingers, reversing the spells and curses - the soap bubbles vanished, the furniture was static and arranged in its proper place, everyone returned to their normal state, and Beel stopped hiccuping.

Diavolo raced down the stairs and threw his arms around Lucifer, but the Avatar of Pride respectfully pulled out of the hug. The prince was no longer in trouble!

Later that day, Barbatos stood in front of the castle entrance and took a deep breath, bracing himself for chaos. But when he opened the door, the place was spotless. Nothing seemed out of place. It was normal. Too normal.

He walked to the prince's office, and to his shock, Diavolo was dutifully reading through the stacks of papers on his desk. Something was not right, but the butler found no evidence of chaos in the castle.

The following day, Barbatos saw the blue butterfly fluttering through the castle's garden and landing on the table in the seating area. The butler smiled and cautiously approached the butterfly for a better look, but it fluttered away immediately.

Right as he turned around, Barbatos froze and glanced at the newspaper on the table. "Soap Suds and Sorcery: Uncovering the Bubbles at the Royal Castle!" By Mephistopheles.

Furrowing his brows, the butler read through the article. So that was what had happened. And everyone thought they could get away with hiding the truth from Barbatos. The corners of his lips curled up into a wicked smile.

———————————————

➣ All Masterlists

➣ OM Masterlist: [Genre][By Characters]

➣ Tumblr Only ML: Obey Me

[gretavanmoon]

A Perfect Ten - Part 3

Josh x Female reader

13.5k words

+ After befriending your coworker Josh at your new workplace, the both of you realize you need each other in more ways than one. Things might get a little cloudy as an ongoing judge of actions takes place, leaving the both of you wrapped up in a back and forth neither of you saw coming

Warnings: Mention of Drinking, Cursing, Mention of Breakups and Heartbreak, Sadness, Lying, Fluff. Smut: Kissing, Touching, Dirty Talk, Praise, Flirting, Oral F!receiving, Fingering, Unprotected Penetrative Sex.

A/N: Thanks for sticking it out to the end! I appreciate everyone's interest in this, and all of your kind messages of encouragement! This was such a fun little story to explore, and I hope you love the conclusion :)

Five weeks. 

It’d been over five long, hard, confusing, delicious weeks of Josh wrapping himself up in you, and you in him, the both of you using the other for paramount physical satisfaction that wasn’t comparable to any other partner either of you had ever had. Not every night had been spent together, but more often than not, you found yourself waking up to him bringing you a mug of coffee in bed before he scurried off to the shower to get ready for the day. 

Since neither of you ever had to be at work until around 11AM, you never overstayed your welcome, making your way out of his bed and out the door before you could finish off the last few drops. You never hung around, but then again, he never asked you to. 

That promise he made you on his porch that night as his fingers were buried deep inside you was yet to be fulfilled, though… each of you switching off coming up with some excuse to not go all the way. You’d been burdened with a plethora of intertwined and overlapping thoughts, most of them so intense that you would daze out during the day, tuning out your customers’ orders as they ran them off to you. Your mind felt as if it was a mess of tangled wires, each one connected to something different or not connected to anything at all as you tried your damndest to sort through them, unwinding a few at a time only for them to tangle and jumble up again. 

You liked Josh. Actually, you really liked him. 

But though the two of you have ravished each other’s bodies in nearly every single way but the one that you yearned for most, you still can’t bring yourself to ask him why. Why he won’t show his feelings toward you in what you consider the most important way there is. 

“We’re friends, Y/N, nothing more…”

His words still rang in the back of your head, and you’d been fighting off your mental demons of pure desperation since he said them. Though, you repeat the same ones back to him all the time. It was only weeks ago that Josh told you that he was having a harder and harder time telling you no, and you wondered if you outright asked him to love you in the way that you wanted, maybe he would. 

But, you didn’t want to do anything that he didn’t want to do, and you didn’t want to give yourself to him in a way in which he wouldn’t want you. It hurt, it truly did, but you’d used the excuse of if he wanted to, he would to make yourself feel better for far too long, now. 

Honestly, you were starting to get kind of pissed. The sexual frustration had begun to weigh on your needs. Neither of you had ever really discussed being exclusive, even if it was just a friends with benefits type situation, but then again you never saw or heard any evidence of him hooking up with anyone else. So, you played the cards as they lied.  

Some nights, after one too many after-work drinks at the bar, you’d muster up the courage to ask him, but you always fell short, bargaining that any attention from him was better than none… So you’d cut your losses and let him walk you back to his place, dancing in the kitchen with one another until, inevitably, your clothes were tumbling to the floor yet again, and the escapades would ensue. 

You still craved his attention, that part of the deal never left. An overwhelming need to feed his ego, be the only one his sights were set on, at all times. It was toxic, and you knew that… Every little bit of attention he gave to someone else made your blood burn and your face redden with an envy you had yet to experience with anyone else. If you couldn’t give Josh everything that he needed, why could someone else? You knew exactly what he liked…

…Then the voices in your head would return, scolding you for acting and thinking in such a manner toward a man that claims no part of you, other than making you unravel for him night after night as your legs spread wide for his tongue to explore. 

So, you sucked it up, working your fingers to the bone every night slinging pizzas, refilling beers, and not-so-subtly flirting with Josh in the interim. No other men caught and held your attention anymore. None of any substance, at least. You wondered if the reason for that was because of the fake wall you’d built up to stop anyone else from trying to ruin your chance with Josh.  

On one particularly slow night, you and your coworker Jamie were rolling piles upon piles of silverware, doing anything you could to fill the time and keep your hands busy until the next table were to roll in. Jamie was newer and very sweet, and you noticed that she had begun to get a little more personable with you as she became comfortable in her position. 

“So, I heard that Josh turned down that assistant manager's position again, why would he do that? He would be so absolutely perfect for the job…” she pestered, curious as to why someone like him would deny himself a promotion. 

You took a breath. “I know, I agree. I tried to get him to take it but, his argument is that he’s comfortable doing what he’s doing. Making the money that he does without the extra headache and responsibility.”

She clicked her tongue. “Guess I can’t blame him. Managerial positions aren’t for everyone. Hey, maybe they’ll offer it to you!” Her perkiness and over the top energy sometimes made your teeth hurt with sweetness, but you knew she meant well… so you thought, so far. 

“Aha, no,” you laughed. “I haven’t been here long enough yet.” You stood from the barstool you were sitting on and grabbed up the basket of silverware, heading off to the kitchen to do a swap for freshly washed ones. 

“Where is he, anyway? I haven’t seen him in a couple days,” Jamie said as you popped back through the swinging doors. “Not that I noticed or anything, I know you guys hang out a lot…”

Her tone made your stomach turn over, but you tried to ignore it. “He uh, he left town for a few days, visiting some family up North while we have a slow month.” 

You lied. You lied right through your teeth. 

The smile on Jamie’s face was wide. “Oh! That’s nice. I just noticed it’s really quiet around here without him always cracking jokes and stuff, ya know? Without him picking on me and purposefully trying to teach me the wrong things all the time,” her high pitched giggles made you want to throw this stack of napkins right at her face. 

“The wrong things?” you questioned, your eyes heavy on her.  

“Yeah, last week he tried to tell me the Peppadew pizza didn’t have any peppers on it, and that caramelized onions have actual caramel on them… I know better, but it was sweet he’s trying to trip me up, ya know? Like he’s testing me. Keeping me on my toes. And then when he offered to do my side work when I had to leave early for an appointment…just a really great guy, ya know?”

You swore to god, if she said ‘ya know?’ one more fucking time…

“Yeah, he’s a really great guy…” you mumbled, roughly twisting the silvers tightly into the napkin. You felt as though there was smoke coming from your ears, and your head was about to blow at any second. Had he been flirting with her? In the exact same ways that he flirted with you when you first started?

“Oh, and…this is kind of embarrassing but…I cried last Saturday night in the walk-in after my shift. I’d had a rough night, got stiffed by a table and spilled a beer in my shoes, Heather yelled at me and I just…anyway, Josh let me cry on him in there, dried my stupid tears. Really made me feel better, ya know? Told me everyone has those nights and I was a really great server. He even invited me out to the bar after closing. He made me feel so much better about it all.”

He…fucking…what?

The one night you decided to let someone switch you shifts…

“Did you go?” you blurted out a little too quickly. 

“Oh, where, to the bar?”

“Yes Jamie, to the bar. Did you go with him?” you growled.

Her nonchalance was really making you sick. “Oh, I started to, but then I decided against it. Josh walked me to my car and I went home and had a self care night. Those really are the best, ya know?”

“He walked you to your car?” you asked, your words spewing like wildfire now as you felt your blood boiling. 

“Yeah he uh, said he wanted to make sure I was safe… Y/N, you guys aren’t like, together are you? I mean I know you guys are close friends but if you’re anything more, I can back off…”

“No,” you cut her off. “No, we’re not together.” You grit your teeth as your fingers continued to roll, your ears nearly deaf with rage. 

“Are you sure?” she meekly asked. 

“Positive!” you smiled a fake smile. “We’re…really close friends. Nothing more…” The words burned coming from your mouth, the same sentence you’d reiterated to yourself time and time again the past few weeks now being spoken into the air, and feeling more real than ever. Nothing more. Nothing ever more. 

“Oh good! So then… I guess you won’t care if I take him up on his invitation to go to the bar, if he ever asks again? He’s just so sweet and I…kind of wouldn’t mind hanging out outside of wor—“

“No Jamie, I don’t mind. Actually, I don’t mind at all. I’m sure he’d love your company at the bar. He does this with every new hire, I’m sure he’s just breaking you in.” You knew it was wrong, but you somehow couldn’t stop yourself…

“Breaking me in?” she cowered. 

“Oh yeah,” you emphasized your words, making them sound as petty and condescending as possible. “Hot new chick comes to work here, he catches them up in a hot and heavy situationship, leads them along until he gets what he wants, then he disappears from their lives, dropping them like little stray kittens when new fresh meat comes along. Dick move, really. Happens all the time, he’s known for it. Didn’t…didn’t anyone tell you that?” you ask. Fuck, this was so wrong. You’ve lied to her twice now. 

“Oh, shit, no…no one has said anything about that. Does…does he really do that with every new person that comes along?”

“Yep! I’ve seen it a few times myself. He’ll break your heart faster than you can learn the secret menu, babe. Sorry to burst your bubble.” Her face fell as she blushed, definitely surprised at your fake story and taking it all for truth. “But I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing, then by all means…go to the bar with him.”

You could tell that Jamie wasn’t the type to be out looking for a hookup. She was the long term relationship type, you could tell that much just from her demeanor and a quick scroll of her instagram feed. You knew this fabricated story would turn her completely away from Josh, or at least, this new light you’d painted him in. 

You watched as she slipped her hair behind her ear, trying to swallow back the news you’d just bombed her with. “Ah, I’ll see. Maybe sometime I will,” she smiled, quickly turning her charm back on as you both heard the ding of the front door opening, signaling new customers. “My turn!” Her smile was as fake as the story you’d just made up, but you thought it was more out of necessity than kindness. And you suddenly felt fucking awful. 

Every single thing she’d just told you Josh did for her, was something that any gentleman would do, any nice person would do to make a new hire feel at home and welcomed. Of course he flirted with her, he’s a natural-born. Of course he walked her to her car late at night, and of course he invited her out to the bar so she wouldn’t feel left out when the group left together. And you just painted him in a light so horrible that even you wouldn’t want to hang out with him. 

Not to mention the lie you told before this one, that he was up North visiting family for the next few days. Truth be told, Josh called you one morning you were both off work and told you he would be back in a few days, that he had something he needed to take care of and he wouldn’t have cell service. He didn’t give any details, but you didn’t feel it was your place to really ask any, either. 

You’d made sure everything was alright, and asked if he needed you for anything while he was gone, but when he assured you everything was okay and hung up the phone more quickly than you could even give him a proper goodbye, you knew something was up. But what it was, you were completely unsure of. 

Of course you and Josh weren’t the type to text all day, day in and day out…you each gave each other space to live your own lives and do what the other pleased as far as daily activities, but you were confident in the fact that you knew where he was at any given time of day, and he you. It wasn’t ever expected, it’s just how it always was. Especially since you both worked nearly the same schedule. 

But something about that phone call felt wrong. It felt like he was withholding something, cutting your sentences off and not giving you much of anything, at all. Your senses told you that something was most definitely up. 

An intense retrospective dissociation that night after your conversation with Jamie had you replaying the few days leading up to Josh leaving town, thinking back on every little detail and wondering if you had overstepped your agreement with Josh. Made him feel uncomfortable or upset for any reason, but you really couldn’t think of a thing. You knew your thoughts about your relationship felt toxic in your mind, but that’s where they stayed, locked away tight. You never really voiced your concerns with him, trying to keep things as light as possible while you all but suffered internally. 

You fell asleep that night cold and alone, hugging a pillow between your arms while you wished it was Josh hugging you back. 

•••

Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, the rainstorm that had begun falling on you a few days ago had now turned into a full on downpour. 

You’d come into your shift that Friday morning, finding Josh had made it in well before you even parked your car. It was strange of him, as he always clocked in at the exact turn of the hour, no matter what. You tried to keep positive as you made the trek inside, thinking that maybe he’d gotten busy with unpacking when he’d arrived back home and forgot to call you, or maybe he’d re-thought his decision on the assistant manager position and had come to talk to Heather about it. Either way, you were excited to see his face again. 

“Morning, sunshine!” you sang into his ear when you found him on the patio, filling up the Parmesan cheese shakers. “You’re here awfully early, you go off and have a meeting with a life coach, or something?” Maybe playful teasing will break through the ice he had in his voice on that dreadful phone call the other day. 

“Morning,” he said, his voice fallen and a bit defeated. You paused, waiting for him to add some snide remark in his defense to make you laugh, but he didn’t. He just continued on with his task. 

You walked up beside him, grabbing a few stray menus from the cabinet and straightening them up. “You uh, have a good trip?”

“Yeah, was fine,” he replied, his voice chipper, but his eyes still looking at anything but you. Completely out of character. 

You leaned down on your elbows to look up at him from below, hoping that you’d catch his eyes. “Missed you, wasn’t the same without you here…” you cooed, earning nothing more than a tight-lipped grin from him as he tightened the lid on the last shaker. 

“Yeah, ditto,” he said, grabbing the tray of shakers up and backing his way back into the restaurant. 

What the fuck? Shit, had Jamie gotten to him and told him what you’d said? That had to be it, there was no other explanation for his odd behavior. How the fuck were you going to fix this?

You held back from him for the rest of the shift, giving him a little room and meeting the same energy he’d been giving you all day. You tried talking to him a handful of times, with each encounter feeling more and more forced than the last. You’d speak, and he’d respond, but his attitude toward you was nothing like the real him, and more than anything, it began to worry you that something else was up, and your gut wasn’t lying to you at all. 

The shift came and went in a flurry, time passing by in the blink of an eye before shift change hit you in the face. Jamie was replacing you in your section, and you hated to leave it full and not collect your tips, but you really felt as though you needed to get out of this place as soon as possible, and a little good karma wouldn’t be a bad thing to strive for, right now. 

So you transferred every single table to her, much to her overjoyed surprise, and you got to work counting your checks and tips before you could clock out and have an evening free to get away from the awkwardness that had become Angelo’s Pizza. 

You could hardly even face Josh by the end of the day, things felt so tense that you could cut the air with a knife, and you didn’t like it one fucking bit. 

“I’m going to the bar tonight, with Josh and everyone,” Jamie whispered in your ear as she came up behind you as you finished your sidework.. 

“Oh, you are?” you asked, surprised that Josh hadn’t asked you to go, and that he was going at all, given he worked a lunch shift. 

“Mhm, I asked if he was going out tonight, and he said he’d see me there. I just wanted to say thanks, for the warning about him, but I think I’m gonna give it a go, see what happens,” she said, excitement filling her voice as she bit into a staff pizza slice. 

“Ah well, good luck to you, I hope it works in your favor, babe.” You throw on a genuine smile, wanting more to shove her into the dish pit than encourage her any further. 

Much to your surprise, you met Josh inadvertently at the lockers as you were leaving, taking his order pad and pens out of his apron before dispensing it in the dirty hamper to be washed. You cleared your throat as you put your combination into your lock, accepting the fact that he just…didn’t want to talk to you. 

It was silent for a few seconds as the two of you did your own things before you slammed your door shut, making him startle where he stood. 

“Can I uh, walk you to your car, Y/N?” he asked quietly, his gaze still trying its best to avoid you without being rude. 

“It’s 4:30 in the afternoon, Josh. It’s not even dark yet,” you replied, regretting your tone as soon as the words left you. You watched his face fall even more. “I—sure, yes. I’m sorry, I’d love for you to walk me,” you agreed, feeling anxious and uneasy already. Things felt so out of place. 

The two of you waltzed out the back door and into the light of the evening, walking fairly quickly to your car parked on the side lot. “Things busy while I was gone?” he broke through the silence. 

“No,” you breathed, pulling your keys from your purse. “Really slow, actually. Made maybe $275 the whole time you were gone.”

“Yikes, picked a good time to leave, then,” he joked, pulling his arm behind his head. The two of you stood in silence again, what normally would be flirtatious hugs and teasing kisses had been replaced by uneasy stares and forced small talk, and you felt as though you could crumble at the loss of the feeling of him. His once warm and inviting persona has suddenly been replaced with an ice cold stare and a stoic stance.

“Are you sure everything is okay, Josh?” you pressed again, scared stiff to hear his reply as he couldn’t walk away from you, now. 

His honey brown eyes glistened in the sunlight as you watched him bite his lips in, pondering on his words before he said them. “Yeah, everything’s fine, Y/N. Swear.”

“You promise?” you asked as you poked his shoulder, hoping teasing him a little would jog the awkwardness away. 

“Promise.”

“Okay…then, you wanna come over this evening? Have a beer? I have a frozen calzone I'm gonna throw in the oven…” you tried again. 

His eyes darted sideways as he bit his lip in again, his hand uncomfortable as it rubbed the back of his neck. “I um, think I’m gonna stay in tonight, pretty tired from driving. Gonna catch up on some z’s,” he said, his tone completely unconvincing. What the hell…he just lied to you. He’s going to the bar…

You try your best to cover up your surely shocked expression. “Sure yeah, I should uh, probably do that too…” you said as you began backing away from him, aggravated tears threatening your eyes. “I’ll see you later, thanks for walking me.” 

You unlocked your car and hopped into the driver’s seat, quickly finding the ignition as you held your breath and stopped every single emotion from making its way to your face. He couldn’t see you cry… 

You didn’t even bother looking back at him as you pulled out of your spot, knowing that a simple glance at him would have you losing it right there in the parking lot. You could feel his eyes on you, though, watching as you threw it in drive and made your exit quick. 

The road home from Angelo’s was packed with traffic, cars filling nearly every street spot as families and locals alike started to fill the town for the weekend. Your hands gripped hard at the top of the steering wheel as you were carefully watching for pedestrians, the same burning tears fighting their way through the closer to home you became. Your chest was tight and your palms were sweaty, what in the world is happening? Where has your sweet Josh gone?

Maybe the false story you’d made up and told Jamie was actually closer to the truth than you realized, maybe you were just another pawn in Josh’s game until someone new came along. Maybe he really does do this to everyone, and you just hadn’t had anyone to warn you..

You couldn’t hold the tears back any longer, letting them finally fall freely as you neared your driveway. You choked out powerful sobs, your eyes throbbing and your throat tight as you let yourself mourn what felt to be the loss of not only an amazing lover, but one of your very best friends. You whipped your car into the parking spot and shut it off, giving yourself a second to wipe your tears before one of your neighbors caught you in this fucking fit of tears and sobs. 

You felt idiotic, thrashing yourself down into your bed after kicking your shoes off to fall to the floor, letting yourself be overcome with sorrow. And more so, a lingering guilt that you’d done something so wrong that he went from being the one you spoke to the most in this world, to turning you away completely. It was so sudden that you felt like you had whiplash. 

After an hour long cry, you dragged yourself up out of your bed and to the bathroom, stripping away the clothes that held pizza dust and beer to hop into the shower. Hot showers always bring about wisdom, so you made sure to turn the knob to nearly scalding. 

As you let the water flow over your hair and onto your face, the picture on the backs of your eyelids was nothing but Josh… His curls, his chocolate eyes, his perfect smile and the way it gave you butterflies… You aren’t incorrect in confidently saying that your crush on him is more than just that, that your feelings have developed into something a bit more serious. More than what you would call just friends. 

Maybe you should just call him. Force it out of him… Maybe you should show up to the bar tonight, and act like nothing in the world is wrong. Or maybe you should just get back under the covers and have that whole calzone to yourself. All the options sound feasible, but then your mind suggests that you turn the tables. What would Josh do if the roles were reversed?

He’d probably call you up, and when you didn’t answer the first time, he’d call again, letting the tone ring until you either sent him to voicemail or picked up. Then he’d tell you he was bringing snacks and wine over, and you were going to sit with him and explain what’s going on, just like any good friend would do. No questions asked. Josh was a private man, but that still didn’t stop him from loving those who surrounded him unconditionally. And, as far as you were concerned, you were one of those people. And you deserved to know what the hell is going on with him, especially if you had any intention of helping him fix it. 

So, as you stepped out of the shower and wrapped yourself in your towels, you decided on doing just that. You grabbed up your phone and opened your text thread with Josh, seeing that the multiple memes and funny videos you’d sent him over the last few days had gone unreplied to, sitting there on read in your texts as if he hadn’t even seen them at all. You ignore it, instead typing up a rather happy message that laid a few things out, seeing if it will bait him to finally respond. 

You: Starting Friends over from season 1, going to see if I’m still Team Joey after this go around. This calzone and wine won’t taste the same without you, but I hope you’re catching up on that sleep you missed out on. Would love to hear about your trip, if you want. The invitation to join me still stands💘

You watched as the message turned to delivered, and you tossed the phone back onto the counter as you awaited hearing the buzz of a reply. You got dressed and dried your hair, realizing that the bar simply wasn’t in the cards tonight, there was no way you’d get the swelling to go down around your eyes from all the crying, anyway. 

If there was anything you’d learned in the past few days, was that your feelings for Josh weren’t unwarranted, and they most definitely were real. Fuck, you cried over the guy. You haven’t cried over someone in years, let alone let yourself mope just because he wasn’t giving you the attention they normally did. It felt childish, and it felt a little silly, but the overflow of emotions set in stone that you really did care for him.

But now, a couple of hours after the text sent through and your calzone sat half-eaten on the stove, you realize that maybe he isn’t going to take you up on the offer to talk, and you’re going to have to finish your bottle of wine by yourself. 

•••

You woke up the next morning on the couch, tangled in a blanket with Friends still playing on your TV. You glance at the time seeing it is only 9:00, and you have all day to hang around before your shift at 4. Your notifications were plentiful, so you wiped the sleep from your eyes and let them adjust to the bright screen. 

A few emails and Facebook nonsense, but there at the bottom is a text from Jamie, and a notification from Josh. 

Jamie: Hey girl, things are going great at the bar, just wanted to say thanks for being real with me. 💋 I’ll let you know how the night ends…

All Josh had done was reacted to your text with a heart. Of course. 

Ya know what…

You shot up off the couch, dizzy from getting up too fast, but more than anything, rightly pissed the hell off. You were over it, over trying, over trying to be gentle with approaching the situation in a way that you thought might push Josh away even more. Fuck it, he didn’t want to talk to you, you didn’t want to talk to him. He wanted to lie to you and go to the bar with someone else, fine. All you ever wanted was his time and attention, and apparently all he ever wanted from you was a piece of ass. And hell, he never even got that. 

Whatever. You’re over it. You’re going to get a coffee, throw on the perfume that Josh used to love, and walk into your shift with him with a newfound charisma. You didn’t need this shit. All it was doing was giving you wrinkles and a reason to drink. 

•••

A week passed, the shifts with Jamie and Josh being anything but friendly since you had decided that there was nothing there with him anymore, nothing that should hold your interest enough to put you through that much emotional turmoil day in and day out. So you found other things and other people to occupy your time at work, making closer friends with the kitchen staff and a few of the other servers and hanging out with them on your nightly trips to the bar. 

It still hurt, and you knew that fake wall you had built was still entirely intact, a protective barrier to save yourself from impending heartbreak even worse than you’d already had because of Josh. But you knew you’d built it out of sticks and mud instead of brick, and you were worried that it would come tumbling down at the first instance of Josh showing you any interest again. He had become addictive like that, but you were strong, realizing your self-worth after you’d given yourself a few days to marinate in your sadness.

Josh’s cold shoulder stayed cold for the first few days after your epiphany, but eased up just a little the day that he asked you if you were going to the bar after a really busy night shift. 

“Probably. Why?” you responded coldly. 

He shrugged as the two of you stood at the expo window. “Just wondering. You don’t really ever fill the barstool beside me anymore.” 

You shot your head sideways to look at him head on, eyebrows cocked with a completely flabbergasted expression. 

“You’re joking, right?” you exclaimed as two pepperonis were set in the window. “That’s because you have Little Miss taking her spot in it most nights now, Josh. Don’t put that weird blame shit on me.” 

“Blame shit? You have just as much right to sit there as she does,” he replied, throwing you for a loop again. He hadn’t spoken to you this much in what felt like weeks. 

You turned to him fully, coming into his space as you realized you were not backing down. “You haven’t spoken to me in days, Josh. Literally ignored me at every turn, ignored my texts and my invitations to talk, you give me the cold shoulder every day…and I still have no fucking clue as to why. I thought our friendship meant more to you than that. So no, I don’t have a right to that barstool anymore, for all I know as soon as I sat down you’d get up and leave, anyway.” You gripped both the hot pizzas in your hands after stabbing the check, racing off as you left him in the dust.

Fuck that. He wants to talk now? After all this time? No. And not like this. 

If he wanted to talk, he could come to you when you both were off the clock. Lord knows you were ready to hear his side of things. 

•••

You didn’t go to the bar that night. In fact, you went straight home, contemplating taking up TJ’s offer to go out for a drive and smoke. TJ was cool, and really good company, even being the professional stoner that he was. He never made you feel like he wanted anything more than just to cruise around and listen to music, always tossing you a few prerolleds before he dropped you back off at your place.

But just as you were about to respond to his text with an “OK, be ready in ten”, you heard a car pull up in your driveway. “Damnit TJ, I’m not nearly ready to leave, yet,” you whispered to yourself as you peeked through your living room curtain. You were still in nothing but your sports bra and panties.

But it wasn’t TJ. It was Josh. 

And his car door was slamming, and he was barrelling toward your front door. What the fuck?

Within seconds, he was banging a fist on the door, yelling your name as if his life depended on it. “Y/N! Hey, answer the door!”

You thought that something may be wrong, so you quickly wrapped your robe around you and darted for the door, unlocking the deadbolt quickly as you began to panic. You thrust the door open quickly, revealing a very pissed off Josh. 

“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” you asked as he pushed past you and into the room. 

He was pacing around, his hands unknowing of where to land as they ran through his hair, and sat on his hips before rising again to run over his face. “No, I’m not really okay, Y/N… Do you wanna tell me what you’ve been telling people at work about me? Hm? The absolute fucking lies you’re spreading?”

Fuck. You swallowed hard, walking closer to him as you placed your hands gently on his arm. 

“Josh, sit down, I think we can talk abo–”

“No, I don’t want to sit down, Y/N! Why are you making things up about me? Telling people I’m a serial douchebag? That I go after every new hire and dangle them around until someone new comes along? I’m not–I don’t do that, Y/N! That’s not me at all!” he yells, and you know that you’d fucked up. You could feel the rage that you had begun to suppress rising back up in your chest now that he had brought everything to the surface again. 

You stepped back, crossing your arms defensively across your chest. You decided to speak slowly and calmly, hoping that it would bring him down a few notches so that you really could talk civilly. 

“Josh, honey, I know that I may have said some bad things, some untrue things. And I shouldn’t have done that, I shouldn’t have made up those lies, and I especially shouldn’t have told them to someone as impressionable as Jamie. And I’m so, so sorry about that. But… honestly Josh, I think I might be starting to believe my own lie, it feels more and more like reality as the days go on… don’t you think?”

He shook his head side to side, his cheeks red. “No, what do you even mean? Reality?”

“Josh, you can’t tell me you’re oblivious to what happened to us, come on now. We went from spending nearly every free second together, becoming involved in each other’s lives, and then you go on some mystery trip and come back a whole different person. You ignore me, ice me out, you don’t reply to me anymore or even treat me the same way when you do talk, so yeah, maybe I was just one of those new hires that you dangled along until something shinier and new came along! I’m not stupid, Josh, I’ve begged you to talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. But you never did, I guess I didn’t mean as much to you as you meant to me. And honestly, it’s fucked up. I deserve better than that.” Your words were spewing, but you meant each and every last one. You got your point across, and said everything you wanted to say. Now the ball was in his court. 

Josh stayed silent as you watched his jaw tighten over and over again, the redness in his cheeks paling to a soft pink as he eventually sat down, laying his head in his hands with defeat. 

“You’ve got it all wrong, Y/N,” you could barely hear him through his ragged breathing. “All wrong.”

You rushed over to sit beside him on the couch, still feeling that same draw to him no matter how upset and angry you really were. “I’m wrong? Then tell me what the truth is, Josh. I’m right here, I’ve always been ready to listen…”

He paused for a few more seconds before finally sitting up, his eyes watery and puffed as he took a deep breath through his mouth. “I went… I went back home. To my hometown. On my trip, that’s where I was…” he trailed off, pursing his lips. “My ex, he uhm. He’d gotten ahold of me, told me he regretted everything that had happened with us, wanted to meet up and talk it out, see if there was any part of our relationship that could be mended.” He swallowed hard, you knew this was probably hard for him to say out loud. So you placed a comforting hand on his arm again, patting it a few times to let him know you were still listening. 

“So we did, we went back home and started where we had left off, talking things out and hearing each other’s side of things for the first time since he left. We were long distance, remember? So things weren’t easy even then, when I thought we were happy. We spent a few days together, very cordially. I spent the nights at my parents’, so he and I usually met for breakfast and then spent the day hiking or… whatever. Giving ourselves ample time to converse. And we did. Uh, we worked through a lot of issues that the both of us had, hang-ups that the other didn’t even know existed at the time.” 

Josh turned to finally make eye contact with you, choking back a few stray tears. “And it was good, I thought we got to a really good place. But. The time came for us to have to leave, and… it uh. Really didn’t go as planned, our goodbye. It felt like a real, actual goodbye. Like we’d spent the time together to air our grievances, but all it did was solidify our decision to keep things the way they had ended up. Completely separated.”

Ah. Well, fuck. 

“Josh honey, I’m so sorry… that must have been really hard,” you say, feeling so sorrowful for him. 

“It wasn’t fun, but I also didn’t go there thinking that one little trip would magically make things good again. I didn’t even really want them to be good again, I just hated leaving things the way we had, hanging by a thread and unsealed like that. Didn’t feel healthy,” he admitted. “I still had things to say.”

He bit his lips in again. “But I realized something the minute I disconnected from him, Y/N…I realized that I’d left you in the exact same predicament that he had left me in. Here, alone, with no explanation of where I had gone. And that hurt me more than anything.” You were surprised, extremely blindsided by this…what? He felt bad for leaving you?

“Josh, I’m confused though, you’ve been back home for days, why have you been icing me out if you felt bad for leaving me like that?” you asked. 

“Because, Y/N,” he stood up, “I’ve never had anyone throw me into a mix so horrifyingly perfect as the one you throw me into every single day. Never.”

You placed your hands on the couch beside you. “What? What do you—“

“You scare the ever loving hell out of me, Y/N. You’re—you’re fucking perfect, in every single sense of the word. You’re beautiful, caring, hilarious… You make me feel more seen than any other human I’ve ever met,” he said, standing before you, now. “I’m terrified of you, Y/N.”

Your chest suddenly felt hollow, and your limbs felt heavier than weights. Nothing was making sense…nothing was adding up. 

“Then why haven’t you talked to me, Josh? Until right now? If I’m all those things for you, why didn’t you know that you could come to me and explain instead of making me feel so stupid the past few weeks?” you defend yourself. “I missed you, I told you that.”

“Because, Y/N, because… I’m a dumb fucking guy, I guess. I thought if I ignored you, maybe things would go away. Maybe I could lie to myself and say that I was making it all up in my head. I wasn’t ready to move on, Y/N. I wasn’t ready to dive back in again and settle down. You know I hate fucking change. I thought that meeting up with him would distract me from you, I guess. Give me something else to focus on. But it didn’t. It didn’t work at all. It only made me realize how much better you are than he ever was to me. So I needed to push you away, see if I could escape from your fucking chokehold on me instead of just letting myself swim into it. But, I swear to god, these last few days I realized my stupid plan wasn’t working. And I can’t get you out of my head. No matter how hard I fucking try.”

Another bombshell. They just kept fucking falling. 

“So then, at the bar tonight, I was trying one last ditch attempt at it. Seeing if I could go one whole night without typing up a reply to you, only to catch myself and erase it again. I needed to see if I could do it. But then, Jamie got too drunk and told me what you said about me, how I tried to swoop in on new hires and take them home, then do nothing but break their hearts. She told me you said I was a real dick, Y/N. Told the rest of the guys about it, too. Had them all starting to believe it. So it pissed me off. I told them that wasn’t true, I’d never treat anyone that way. Told them they could believe what they wanted, but my intentions and my character would never reflect that. Then I left, and here I am. Realizing that I had done that exact thing to you, Y/N. Only with a lot more twists and turns than they were aware of.”

“Josh, I never meant for that rumor to take hold, or spread…I—I was so upset, so jealous that she was going after you, and you were giving her the attention. I was stupid, and I regret it. I promise tomorrow I will make it all right. I’ll tell everyone I made it up,” you tell him, your words holding truth. You did feel shitty about it. 

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Josh finally muttered after a few seconds of silence. “I have no excuses as to why I treated you that way, other than saying that I made a really dumb decision. You deserved better than that, but I also deserve to not have lies made up about me and my integrity.”

You nodded, tears starting to fall from your eyes, too. “I know, Josh. I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it.”

You feel his hand come up to catch the tear before it falls, the gentle contact feeling like a hundred lives of love. “I’ll fix it too, Y/N. I promise, I will. I missed you, I missed you so bad,” he said, finally wrapping his arms all the way around your neck, pulling you into him in the warmest embrace you’d felt in ages, finally breaking through the ice and back into his swirling mix of happy and sweet. 

“I missed you too, Josh. Please believe me…I hated this separation from you, it didn’t feel right.”

“I know, it didn’t feel right to me either. Do you know how hard it was to stay away from you like that?” he said, his voice choking into your shoulder as you held each other. 

“No one forced you to do that, Josh,” you said, pulling away to look at him. “You’re right, you made a dumb fucking guy decision, you know that you could have talked to me about it, you know that if you wanted our relationship to move into something else, I would have been ready to do so however you wanted. I never would have guilted you or pulled you into something that we both didn’t think was right.”

“I know. I know I know. I can see that, now. Now that you held a mirror up in front of my face,” he laughed a little.

A silence fell between the two of you as you both sat in your guilt, realizing your faults on all ends of the spectrum. Neither of you had made good, conscious decisions, but at least neither of you were too proud to admit to it and finally take the responsibility. 

Finally, you gathered the courage to ask… the real root of what could have been giving you a hint to this all along. 

“Is that why you won’t sleep with me?” you asked, your voice small and quiet.

The emotion that came over his features nearly broke you in two, his eyes falling and his mouth puckering up into the most pitiful pout. He took a quick breath, and your hands in his, his shoulders slumping forward as he gathered his own courage to answer. 

“I think so…” He trailed off, his expression suddenly looking like his mind was racing with recognition of his innermost thoughts. “I actually… Probably so. I don’t think I have ever consciously decided that…” his eyes were scanning and darting around as if his mouth couldn’t keep up with his mind. “I want you, Y/N, I hope to god that you know that. I have wanted that with you for a long, long time. That shared experience. I guess I… had some type of wall built up, some kind of false narrative in my head that once we crossed that threshold, there wouldn’t be any looking back. Our fate would be sealed.”

You grinned, “Josh, baby, that’s ridiculous.”

“Ugh, I know,” he huffed. “But is it really, though? Sex can be just as mental for men as it is for women, trust me,” he explained.

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” you nodded. 

“I guess I thought that if… If I had you like that, then my feelings would somehow be locked in, and I just…”

“You weren’t ready for that,” you replied. 

He shook his head slowly, side to side as he eyed you again with pity. “Guess I really wasn’t. But, spending that time back home with him felt so… I dunno, bleak? Like we were both faking it to appease the other. I don’t hate him, and I think that’s mutual…we just needed to realize that maybe we aren’t what each other needed anymore so that we could both move forward in our lives. On to better things.”

“That makes sense,” you nodded in return. “I totally get that.”

Another silence fell on the both of you as you relaxed back onto your couch, re-covering yourself with the robe you’d thrown on. Josh mimicked your action, the back of his neck hitting the plush cushions of your couch as he fell back with a huff. “So, what now?”

You shrugged, not having much of a clue seeing as how the two of you hadn’t spoken this much in weeks. Your heart was still torn to shreds, feeling beaten down and kicked around after enduring so much time of tension. But for Josh, you knew you would find the patience somewhere. You just hoped he would do the same for you.

“Can we just sit?” he asked, leaning down to untie his shoelaces. 

“You’re not gonna go back to the bar?” you asked, thrown off yet again. Even after the conversation, it still felt like he was distant. 

He scrunched up his face in distaste as he tossed his shoes into the corner, pulling the blanket down off the back of your couch. “No, was kinda lame there tonight. Plus I really like Jamie, but if she said the phrase ‘ya know’ to me one more time…”

You grunted a laugh, knowing exactly what he was talking about. “Ah come on Josh, she’s sweet,” you said cheekily as he pulled the blanket over to cover your legs.

“Never said she wasn’t sweet. She just… thinks our work friendship is going to turn into something else, and it’s just not. I was just trying to be the nice guy, ya know?”

You playfully slapped him across the arm as the two of you leaned back into the cushions, fully facing one another now as you scooted yourself closer to him. His warmth. His hand habitually gripping both of your bent knees onto his lap. 

“You are the nice guy, Josh. That’s what I love about you. You made me feel comfortable there before anyone else did. And you were just doing the same for Jamie,” you explained, all the while knowing that from the outside looking in, it truly really might’ve looked like Josh was a serial douche bag. “I’m just glad you really aren’t what I made you out to be.”

“No, m’not,” he breathed, looking across the room blindly. “I swear, I never expected to fall for you so hard, Y/N. I really missed our times, I’m sorry I wasn’t here to keep them going. Keep you happy.”

You let your hand fall to the crown of his head, ringing his curls around your fingers mindlessly as your mind rushed with how you normally used to spend these nights, wrapped up in each other so explicitly that you sometimes wondered if you’d ever tire of one another. Now you know that you wouldn’t have. Your pull to him was powerful and so intense that when the cable was cut you were positive you’d gone blind, wandering around without your muse to keep your mind at ease. His hand was drifting up and down your barren leg, now, sending a shiver through you that you hoped he didn’t catch on to.

“S’okay, Josh. I’m sorry, too. It’s been lonely without you.” You leaned your forehead down toward him, finally breathing him in again for the first time in so long. His scent felt like home.

He exhaled, relaxing his own forehead against yours as his hands hugged you in a little tighter. Just being near him again had you completely forgetting about all the bad things, all the ill feelings that have plagued you these past couple of weeks. Your body was already reacting to his touch, the magnetism toward him gaining strength with each passing second. 

“Will you let me come home, Y/N?”

Your heart fell off it’s high horse, tumbling down into the pit of your stomach as you replayed his words in your mind, letting them soak in like peeks of sunshine through the trees. He thought of you as home, too. 

“Yeah baby, you can come home,” you breathed, the elation filling you so fully that you couldn’t stop your lips from crashing onto his, your hand curling in his hair and pulling him in close. His deep inhale at the surprise of your actions let you know that he had been wanting this maybe even more than you had, his hand moving from your knees to harshly trailing up your thigh. You pulled away after the quick connection, wanting nothing more than to see the expression on his face after you had made the surprise move.

He grit his teeth as you realized his eyes had gone dark, his lips wet and puffed just from the short, forceful kiss. “Thank god,” he breathed with a rattle, reaching both his hands down to your waist to pick you up with ease, bringing you to straddle your knees across his lap. 

“Jo–” you could barely get his name out before he was crashing onto you again, his hands already squeezing tightly at your thighs as you rested your hands on his shoulders. He craned forward, bringing the kiss into something more serious as his tongue began dancing with yours, still burning and sweet with whatever drink he had chosen at the bar before Jamie’s barstool confessional sent him raging mad toward your house.

God, you had fucking missed him so badly. More than you had even noticed, you guessed, as you finally felt the familiar burning touch of his fingertips working their way up your legs to your hips and around to your back as you allowed your robe to fall open. Everything finally felt right again. 

Breaking away from his kiss seemed like a sin so wretched that you didn’t dare commit it as the honeyed taste of him ravished your body for the first time in so long. The scene quickly became much more wanting than it was just seconds ago, a mess of flailing hands and arms reaching and grabbing and making up for lost time. 

You felt your lungs begin to want to gasp for air, and just as you couldn’t take the lack of oxygen any longer, Josh broke away, his mouth immediately reconnecting to your throat. Your head tilted back on its own as the wetness of his mouth peppered kisses down the length of it, finally landing between your breasts. His hooded eyes peered at you through his thick lashes, the smirk on his face asking you permission to go a little further, so of course you nodded. Is hands gripped the cups of your sports bra, freeing your tits of their confines as he pressed his face lovingly between them, his tongue drifting across one and to the other as he lightly teased your nipples. 

You giggled at the touch, feeling giddy and tickled as he switched between light nips and harsh kisses, praising one of his favorite parts of your body that he had so missed. His hands didn’t forget their places on your hips, jerking you forward to press against him as you straddled. Your legs spread a bit wider as pleasure began overtaking your mindset instead of it reeling itself to death. Excitement was soon overtaken by something much more sinister. You could feel him hard beneath you, as you so often did, and you wondered if things were leading toward something else tonight. 

You wouldn’t hold it against him if not, knowing that things are still touchy and probably a bit filtered for him. And for you. But also, if you started to see things going in that direction, you most definitely wouldn’t say no. 

Your body rolled into him, instantly pushing your core down onto him in search of furthering it’s own pleasure. He moaned at the feeling, jerking his hips up as you began to grind a little. You wouldn’t know that he was falling in love with not only the visual of you on top of him…with only the barrier of his jeans and your underwear making the disconnect that he had so desperately wanted to fulfill, but he was also falling in love with the feeling of the essence of you. Your absence from one another had forced him into a rut he didn’t even know he was in, looking for distractions and diversions to take his mind elsewhere… anything to get the vision of your face from his mind while he figured himself out. 

But at least he made the admission. It had lifted a weight off of him that he hadn’t realized was forcing him down into the ground like heavy gravity, the guilt of leaving you in the dust because of his own disposition making him feel like shit. So he decided to seize it, not letting one more second pass that didn’t include you, his one and only stimulation in life. In only the span of a couple of weeks, he’d learned what life felt like without you in it, and he’d be damned if he went any further without living each and every second enraptured in your goodness. 

“Fuck, I missed you…” Josh mumbled as he pulled you to him, whispering in your ear as he trailed kisses down the column of your neck. “I’m so sorry baby, this is where I belong, I swear to god it is…”

With his words, you grinded down harder onto him, your hands tangled in his hair and massaging on his shoulders as you pressed yourself harder. “Mmm,” you agreed, the tiniest whimper falling from your lips as he bit down a little on your right nipple. “I missed you more… Missed this the most…” you admitted through already clouded visions of what was to come next. 

Within seconds Josh was pulling the shoulders of your robe down, watching as the front tie finally loosened and the fabric pooled around your waist. Josh hissed a harsh growl through his teeth as he pulled back, meeting your eyes with a devilish glare. His jaw tightened hard as his the fingertips of his right hand trailed down your chest and stomach, a barely-there touch that had your body shuddering. Then his fingers landed right on your heat, his middle finger pressing against your clit and making tiny circles over your underwear. You let out a quiet shriek at his touch, laughing through a breath as he ripped your panties to the side, hooking them in his grasp while his thumb finally made contact in the exact place you wanted him. 

Your voice was shrill as the pad of his thumb went to work, the pressure and the movement so perfect it was like you hadn’t spent any time apart, at all. Your wrist lazily rested on his shoulder as you closed your eyes, leaning back to give him better access. You felt your neck roll a little as your hips began to swirl on his hand, your wetness already pooling and falling into your panties. “Fuck, Josh…” you moaned, slightly embarrassed by hearing yourself fall apart already. 

“Mmmhm… fuck, you don’t know how good it sounds to hear my name like that…” he said, jutting his hips up onto you. He pulled your panties even tighter, letting his middle finger play at your entrance while the rushing of his thumb never stopped. “God you’re already there for me, aren’t you baby? You look so good right here…”

Your sounds quickly turn into desperation as his middle finger presses further inside, the slight stretch making your hand grip onto his shoulder while the other one rests on his knee behind you for stability. Luckily, with the lack of actual sex with Josh, the two of you had become extremely well-versed in the other forms of the act, becoming professionals with pleasing the other in all ways but one. His finger began to pump slowly, working itself inside you as he hooked it and perfectly brushed the most sensitive spot deep inside you. Your mind fuzzed with static as you realized you were near the peak already; how quickly he knew exactly how to get you there. 

You wanted more, you wanted all of him, you always had. But you knew better now that to push the issue like you used to. If it was going to happen, it was going to be his decision. You’d bargain that he knew exactly where you stood on the matter. 

You felt your teeth digging into your bottom lip as your hips swirled, the pleasure already blinding as you’d gone so long without the touch of his hands. His free hand was still gripping your waist and guiding your movements, pulling you even more harshly against his still-clothed length. 

Like he had read your mind, he suddenly stopped, gently pulling himself from you and pushing you backward a little to stand up. The loss of his touch made you want to scream as the delicious buildup was beginning to be too much, anyway. So you stood, willing to go along with whatever it was he wanted, tonight. He stood up as well and undid his belt, letting his pants fall from his waist and onto the floor.

You helped him by jerking at the bottom hem of his shirt, ripping it up over his head and dispensing it on the floor. You’d forgotten just how beautiful he was underneath his clothes, his torso chiseled and arms strong and inviting. His chest was heaving at the sight of you and the mess of the situation, and if you didn’t know any better you’d think that he was unaware the night would end up here, just the same as you were. 

Just from the light in his eyes though, you could tell that he didn’t have any regrets. You made the move to push him back down onto the couch, wasting no time in placing your open palm against his length while connecting your mouth with his again. It was like his sweetness had a new air of addiction to it, now that all of your feelings for one another had begun to come uncovered. You hadn’t brushed by the fact that he had admitted his feelings for you were stronger than he’d even noticed, and you were yet to tell him that you had felt the same, all this time. 

As he fell back into his seat, letting you take charge this time, you snaked your legs across him again and landed on your knees, craning high above him as your hand never left his length. You kneaded and squeezed, feeling him grow harder and harder as you pleased him, kissing him hard again. He whimpered quietly into your mouth and it nearly sent you back into that same frame of mind again, but you wanted to stay clear-headed. 

“You drive me fuckin’ crazy, Josh. You know that?” you smiled onto him, making his eyelashes flutter as he suckled at your bottom lip. “Everything about you.”

“Is that a good thing? Or,” he grinned, his hands finding their place on your hips again.

“It is now,” you crooned. “I was crazy mad before… Crazy sad that you’d iced me out… But before all that I was just crazy into you. Wanted you around all the time, wanted your full attention, wanted you to be able to call me yours and no one else’s.” You weren’t sure where you were going with the admission, but you had to meet him on his level after he’d bared a bit of his soul to you. You leaned down to avoid his eyes just in case he was nervous, and you began lightly digging your teeth into his shoulder as you continued sneaking your hand into his boxer briefs.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he shuddered at your touch, his body crunching in on itself from the contact. “Yes…”

Your hand gripped his shaft and worked its way up his length, and you found that your hand had missed the feeling of him, too. You lightly massaged his tip, making his whole body rush and writhe beneath you. “Feel good, baby? Always wanna make you feel good, missed hearing your sounds…” you said, taking back a little bit of that control to urge him on. 

You stayed this way for another minute or so, working him up just as he had done for you. He was already impossibly hard in your hand, and you could tell he was nearing that point, his teeth biting into your shoulder and his hand pulling you down to brush against him at every pause in your movement. The both of you had reached points of ferality, your hunger for each other coming back full force. 

His hand reached behind you and gripped your ass hard, pulling at the muscle with such tension it almost hurt. But that’s how you knew that he was having a hard time keeping it together. Your heart raced in your chest as you felt his breathing stagger, the closeness and intimacy both teetering on the edge of becoming something more than either of you had bargained for tonight. 

“Let’s go… into your bedroom. Let’s go,” he demanded, making moves to lift you from your straddle. 

He stood tall with you in his arms, your legs wrapped tightly around him so you didn’t fall. 

“Are–Are you sure, Josh?” you asked, halfway knowing that this might be the moment you’ve been waiting for, but also one hundred percent ready to keep taking things slow, no matter how bad your body craved him. 

“Positive. I’m tired of this… I want… No, I need you, Y/N,” he explained, making his way toward your bedroom door. 

He kicked it closed behind him before dispersing you on the mattress, bouncing a few times as he flicked the light off to darken the room almost completely. All you could see was his perfect silhouette from the ambient light from the window, kicking his boxers all the way off before shifting them to the side. You removed your own bra and tossed it aside as you felt the familiar feeling of him reaching under you to pull you back to the edge of your bed. He ripped your panties off and tossed them away, too, before rubbing his hands along the insides of your thighs, making them fall apart. 

“One more taste of you, though,” he growled before connecting his tongue to your soaked core. 

“Oh my god, Josh… fuck…” you cried rather loudly as your hands found his locks. You pulled at them without a lick of shyness, wanting him buried between your legs like you had imagined for nights on end during the time spent without him. His tongue jumped into action as he licked up all your wetness, sending himself deeper and deeper inside you, his actions pointed and messy all at the same time. 

“Mmm,” he crowed, and you knew then that he truly did miss this just as much as you did. There was nothing like it. Nothing like him. No one had ever given you the same amount of pleasure and adoration as he had. And you hoped to god that he was here to stay, this time. 

Your lower belly began tightening with waves of pleasure, but you suspected that it was more due to the excitement that you were finally going to experience him for all that he was, as raw and delicious and perfect as you had always imagined. You fought back the euphoria that he was already quickly getting you to, knowing that you wanted to savor this feeling for all that it was worth. 

He could tell you were close as you began actively trying to calm your breathing, stifling away any impending concentration on trying not to orgasm. 

He took that as his cue to push you further back on the bed, crawling his way up your body as the two of you finally met, completely unclothed and baring your souls to one another. Finally. 

“Josh, please don’t feel like you have to do this, I completely understand,” you reasoned as he guided his tip up through your soaked folds. Just that sensation alone had your eyes rolling back in your head. God that was so fucking… 

“I want to, god damnit, I need you,” he said, his voice chopped with desire. “Been waiting too long for this, for you…”

Your legs spread wider for him as he teased you, collecting up your wetness and savoring the feeling of the two of you finally connecting. Your body was burning with want, and you were terrified that you would be close to the edge again as soon as he entered you, but you held out hope. 

“I’m fucking over the just friends shit, Y/N. I’m done with it. I can’t keep lying to you, lying to myself…” he raised up on his elbow to get a better look at your face as he pulled a few stray hairs clear. “Tell me you feel the same…”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Josh? I’ve wanted you since the second I met you, since the day you talked me off the edge in the walk-in…” you hummed. “Something different about you, and I knew it. Been craving you ever since…”

“Craving me, huh?” he huffed with a heavy air of confidence. “Awfully powerful emotion.”

You pursed your lips as you shook your head, your hips rutting into his touch. “More than a craving. You make me think about shit, make me want a future. No one else has ever understood me like you do, baby. And we’ve got so much more to learn about each other…”

He knew you were right. Things had been this good for a while now, and if it weren’t for this latest hiccup, the two of you would have been on the road to oblivion together, sharing more than just work secrets and pleasure-filled evenings after too many drinks at the bar. 

“I’m serious, Y/N. I wanna be more with you,” he admitted with a harsh swallow. He pressed himself inside you just a little, giving you a sliver of a taste of what else he had to offer. 

“Then let’s do it, let’s be more,” you agreed, positive of the fact that you could see right through your current lust for him and into what you believe will be a healthy, steady relationship. 

“Yeah?” he asked, and you could tell he was smiling. “You sure?”

“Never been more positive,” you relayed as he pressed a little further, making your skin crawl with the delicious satisfaction of getting exactly what you wanted, after all this time. 

Josh sweetly pressed his lips to yours, and pressed himself inside you, inch by delicious inch until he was fully seated. 

Finally, finally.

There wasn’t any way to describe how it felt, only whispers of sounds and attempted strings of letters meant to be words falling from both of your lips as you let yourselves relish in the thrill. Cloud nine didn’t even begin to explain it, and euphoria was way behind in the string of feelings that your mind, body, and soul were experiencing. 

It was as if he completed you in ways that you didn’t know needed completing, filling in all your empty spaces and wholly baring his entirety to you in a way that only he could.  

“Fuckkkkkk…” was all you could mutter, and a sharp inhale was all he could breathe, his jaw hanging agape as he took you in. 

He began moving inside you, pulling out ever so slowly and then pushing back in again with light force. Electric shocks filled your system and deep rolls of pleasure threatened your psyche, making you positively dizzy with overwhelming satisfaction. Your hand jolted up to your own hair, pulling it back from your face as you fought with desperation. There was no way he felt this good…

“Good baby?” he asked quietly in your ear, beginning to pick up a little bit of a pace. 

“Fucking…unreal, Josh,” you mumbled, having trouble formulating anything coherent. 

“You’re fucking perfect Y/N, I swear to god…” he breathed as he raised up on both hands, steadying himself above you as he twisted his hips to a new angle. He propped up on his knee as he began rolling his hips, each thrust bottoming out and hitting you impossibly deeper each time. He reached behind him and pulled your leg up to rest around his waist, the new angle making you cry out in a sweet pain for just a second until he worked you through it. 

The sounds bouncing off the walls were borderline embarrassing, but neither of you cared. You were locked in, completely out of control and in it at the same time as your bodies ravished one another beyond any point of authority. It was intense, and it was uncontrolled, but damn if it wasn’t beyond every single thing you had ever imagined. He leaned down on his elbows to put his face close to yours, bringing you into a deep and sweet kiss. Nothing could have prepared you for this. You always knew you had chemistry, but this…

He picked up speed for a minute or so as you cried out, his own sounds beginning to creep through his chest and into the hot air of the room. Half of you wanted to push him to his back and let you take over, but you’d wager that he wanted this. Wanted to continue to prove to himself that this was the right decision, tonight. And hopefully, for a long time to come. 

He suddenly slowed, just as you felt the knot in your stomach tightening to a point of no return, and began to slowly and steadily pump in and out of you. The crude sounds suddenly ceased, and you were left with him swaying his hips in a motion not unlike the waves crashing onto the sand, lazy and slow and with tempo. 

“Josh, I feel…” you couldn’t even get the words out as your throat had gone dry, aching itself as you gasped for air. You shook the thought and met his eyes, full of so much adoration you felt like you could cry. 

“Me too, baby, me too…” he agreed as he continued on with gently and deeply kissing you, letting his tongue keep in rhythm with his hips. There was nothing you could think of that could top this feeling, except the notion that maybe you could do this again and again and again, letting your love for Josh grow like a watered seed in early spring. There was nothing you wanted more than to watch him grow into your counterpart, and you a person he could positively call his. “Just let me know what you want, it’s yours…”

“Just want you, just want this…all the time…” you begged, feeling your insides begin to twist. He nodded hard, agreeing with you as he let out a sweet ‘mhmm’.

“You feel so good baby, so perfect…” he sang after a few seconds, his voice hanging on for dear life as he sat back on his heels, giving him a full view of you. His hand drifted down to your core again, tracing harsh circles over your clit as he continued his thrusts. The added stimulation made your head want to explode. He pulled your ankles up to rest on his shoulders, leaning in to you and allowing for a much deeper, much more challenging position. “So fuckin’ tight,” he grit, his teeth grinding against one another as he began to lose the composure of his patterned thrusts. 

“Josh, fuck…” you cried pitifully, your hands digging hard into the muscles of his shoulders. “Keep going keep going…”

“It’s yours, baby, let me have it…” he commanded, and you knew right then you’d give him anything he’d ever ask for. His eyes were sparkling and dark in the dim light of the room, and the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead made you dizzy with a new attraction to him. He’d never know how beautiful he really is. 

You felt your abdomen tighten again as you fluttered around him, letting him know that you were close. He began picking up speed again as his hips pounded into the backs of your legs, and you could feel him twitching deep inside you. You began humming through the impending pleasure, your nails digging hard into his back as you let the buildup overtake you. 

His chest grunted in pleasure as you both raced for the finish line, knowing that the other was right there alongside. It overtook you in more ways than one, your body tightening in on his as you let yourself feel it wrapping around your bones, around your entire being. He felt better than anything you could have ever imagined. Anything anyone else could have ever promised. You paid close attention to how his body reacted to his own release, shaking and crying out in the most beautiful song you’d ever heard. 

And it was all because of you. 

When all was said and done and the both of you returned to a place of coherency, you could do nothing but smile ear to ear as his glazed-over eyes took you in, placing tiny sweet kisses all over your face as he stayed buried inside you, not wanting to part. 

You both lazed for what felt like an hour, nestling in under the covers after a quick cleanup in the bathroom. Josh’s voice never raised above a whisper for the rest of the night, his sweet nothings making your heart swell with gratitude for him. Finally, the one thing you’d been wanting all along, and what Josh had unknowingly been too afraid to to jump to, finally happening in such a beautiful way the both of you had no idea why you waited so long.

“Hope I made your decision worthwhile,” you bit, a bit shy to be laying the situation back out on the table. 

“Psssh… you surpassed any caution that I might have held, babe. Perfect…in every way.” His hand laid across your cheek as his thumb brushed across the soft skin, basking in the afterglow that he now wished he would have never held back on. “M’sorry we didn’t do that sooner, I guess… I guess you were right. I was too scared of my own shadow. Should have been showing you how I felt all along.”

“You were worth every single second of the wait, Josh. Maybe it wasn’t meant to happen til now,” you suggested, realizing that maybe the both of you needed that bit of separation to let yourselves feel that the lack of closeness wasn’t rational, at all. 

He took you up in his arms, pulling you in close to his chest. You breathed him in, letting yourself relax into his scent and his comfort. “You gonna let me call you mine, now?” he asked, his voice so quiet you barely heard him. 

But his words made your chest blossom with admiration. The one thing that’s made the most sense in your new life, finally coming to fruition. 

“I’ve always been yours, Josh. Since my first day at Angelo’s,” you giggled across the pillow as you lifted your leg to lazily drop over his hip. 

He laughed out loud, rolling to his back a little as his hand lovingly fell to caress your thigh. His elbow fell across his face as he yawned, the effects of the night finally taking hold over him. 

“Ten,” he said matter of factly. 

“What?” you asked through your own yawn. 

“I give you a ten. Nothing more, nothing less,” he uncovered his eyes and rolled to kiss your forehead, and then your nose, and then your lips. Everything about the gesture made you warm with love for him, grateful for the man that finally let himself feel. 

“My girl, the perfect ten.”

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[sunnicee]

════════════════════ ⋆★⋆ ════════════════════ bills parents were blue and red. but... bill is yellow. blue and red don't make that color! it makes purple. yellow is the parallel of purple. which directly translates to bill being doomed from the beginning. there is no reality that turned out to be fortunate enough for him. in every timeline, his story is the same... but the outcomes were different. when you go to the theater to watch a movie in 3D, they give you glasses. the lenses of those glasses just so happen to be blue and red. [ a/n: if we were to put on the cinematic 3D glasses… would bill still only have one eye? I feel like this would give us the opportunity to finally see the alleged eye behind his eye! ] which means, in the birth of Bill.. the parents' eyes somehow malfunctioned and overlapped. that's why bill was always looking ahead in the cosmos. to his parents, they cannot see three dimensional objects. they probably thought their son was mute and blind until he became reactive and responsive to the world around him. he was always looking out, but they couldn't see what lie beyond flatland. ultimately that was what sealed the deal for him and his parents. they were cursed from the jump.

in flatland, it's pretty self-explanatory. you're flat, and all of your attributes are all seen at once. eyes are on one side of the face, and you aren't as dynamic. you're flat. that's all you know. bill, even with his mutated coloring, was never considered normal. his eye wasn't to the side, no, it was straight. looking up, always. looking forward. despite his oddities, his parents continued to love him dearly; flaws and all. in the actual thisnotawebsitedotcom.com, baby bill screams for his mother. after all, he was just a baby when he was treated like a superior interdimensional being. to experience that sheer amount of loss is devastating. sure, you might've felt like an outcast from the jump, but that was home. you were never terribly picked on, and you had unconditionally loving parents. none of this was ever meant to happen. why was he born this way? why did he, out of all people have to carry such an impacting mutation? he was the *only* one who experienced this. why did something he didn't even ask for cost him everything? it was never his fault; he couldn't control that he was born that way. but then, it was when that grief manifested into something else. he was from an entirely different plane of existence, and the world was at his fingertips. he had already lost everything valuable to him, so what did it matter? was it really wrong for him to harness his power? I mean, they were given to him! he was just making do w/ what he had. he had power. he was robbed because of it. so.. he took advantage of it as a twisted revenge.. i guess.

he just liked looking above. out of everything he observed in the forever changing sky, the little dipper and the shooting stars were his favorite things to stargaze at. being born was the start of this. looking was the start of this. he was the start of this. now, this might be a stretch.. but let's refer to the pines:

now imagine.. before you lost everything, you saw two things. wouldn't you associate those things with negative feelings? I would. ex. if I was in a car crash with a red car, I would be weary and incredibly anxious when driving past them. if before the car crash there were two yellow trucks on either side of the red car preaccident, I will automatically assume off that this identifies if there will be a crash. obviously, this won't be the case again, but that trauma stays. it affects your perception and rationality. so imagine him when he stumbled upon two individuals whom directly symbolize what he had before he lost it all. even though Bill can look up/stargaze at any point in time, he doesn't because it's associated with trauma. or perhaps a better word for it would be a trigger. that's not the reason he wants total control though, not because they triggered him. it's because they meddled in matters that didn't need to be bothered and inserted themselves into a situation long coming. he reacted, is all. he found an opening, and decided to take it.

timelines. in every episode that aired under GRAVITY FALLS, we are in the timeline that gives the best outcome, so we're not shown that. however, one way or another, one of the twins (or both) die. that's why in the book of bill.. it shows us an entire assortment of alternative universes when escape wasn't applicable. when they couldn't change their fate. when something just wasn't quite right. every detail matters, even to the socks that they put on. anything can change the outcome of that episode.

it's just so crazy to think about, because that also applies to reality. as in, our real life. whatever we do, will reflect and change our future. I've experienced that phenomenon before. HYPERVIGILANCE: occurs when you become uncomfortably aware of your own existence. the harsher side of sonder, I suppose. ex. deciding to wear your helmet when riding your bike, and you just so happen to collide with the front part of a van that sends you flying. it's startling and it unsettles you greatly to know that your brains would be seeping into the concrete if not for your helmet. ☄. *. ⋆ gravity falls is so cool. definitely going to rewatch the series (again) and poke/prod around on the website to see if I can find any useful information to gather lore and connect the loose pieces of the puzzle that are lazily floating about in the crevices of my noggin! ════════════════════ ⋆★⋆ ════════════════════

[msicamouse]

long post that is meant to make you like francesca even more

guys, i'm all for revisiting classics and reinterpreting them in a way one feels meaningful for their context, but it is much more fun if you know what you're building on.

so.

storytime (with some really brutal simplifications): early xiv century, dante lives and writes his works. a few years later (but there's some overlap) petrarch writes a collection which is quite the opposite of what dante had done: a really really limited number of ideas, topoi, even vocabulary recombined in all possible ways and brought to a stylistic perfection that dante had not completely acquired - which is normal when you're writing a 100k poem in which you're using all possible language and imagery, from the highest to the filthiest.

for around 4 centuries, almost everyone forgets about dante (and writes clones of petrarch's works - "copying" was not considered bad at the time, quite the opposite). then romanticism comes and people decide writing about farting demons (i'm not making this up) is actually cool and imagination >>> perfect technique.

i'd say that, in this respect, two centuries have gone by but that's still where we're at.

but both us and romantics don't think of life, values, religion the way a man of the middle age used to. so, we're all really hyped about not just farting demons, but also non-farting demons, proud men of state who still care more about the ideas they had in life than the hell they're in, tragedies, hatreds, and, yes, lovers brought to hell by their love. (did i mention we all like hell best? that definitely wasn't the author's intent. but well he's dead).

we can't say if dante himself saw some beauty in all of this, but it is sure that his moral judgement was firm against it. not in a cool priest-from-fleabag way. in a serious way. (a really important thing about studying the past is that you have to understand that in some ways people have stayed the same, and in others they have changed a lot).

he was sincerely against the sin francesca committed cheating on her husband (with her brother-in-law!) and francesca was sincerely regretting it. that's something that would be inconceivable to any modern writer. in dante's hell there are some sinners who don't regret their sins, but they're usually the worst of the worst.

also: before writing the divine comedy, dante wrote a lot of love poems. he and his friends were starting off with some tropes which mostly came from provence, in france. poems from provence usually stated that love had to be adulterous, or it wasn't real (which made sense in a moment in which marriages in upper classes were mostly arranged, if not forced), and it was conceived as complete devotion of the man towards the woman. what you can see reading dante's works in order is that he started off with those tropes, but then found them incompatible with cristianity, and shifted towards a form of completely spiritual, selfless love. the figurative devotion became quite literal; calling the loved one "an angel" was not exactly a metaphor anymore, etc.

he distanced himself completely to all of french love poetry. what was the utmost example of that? the most famous adulterous couple of the time? the otp? yeah, sir lancelot and guinevere.

and what couple were paolo and francesca reading about when they gave up and had their first kiss? exactly.

so, what dante is saying with the episode of paolo and francesca, is something along: you have no idea how close i came to ending up like the two of them. i'm so glad i found the right way in time, and at the same time i completely understand what they've been through. i'm glad that it wasn't me, i despise what they did, but i empathize with it.

so. about hozier.

one of the most amazing things for me about the song francesca is that it's (consciously?) none of that. bc all of that is extremely fascinating (at least to me) but it would be inconceivable today. who would really despise a woman who was forced to marry someone she didn't now just bc she cheated on him, and to despise her to the point of seriously thinking she really deserves to be tortured forever.

the point of hozier's song is the opposite: i'm not regretting any of this. (if we're imagining his hell to be metaphoric, i'd say it's the guilt, the mess made maybe). i would take no chance on salvation, and would do that again.

and isn't that the most romantic (as in "well-suited in the current of xix century romanticism") thing you can summon?

[wordy-little-witch]

The Ghost!Roger AU is honestly the best thing I ever read on this site ! It's absolutely perfect 😭

Give me more if it pleeeeease 🥺

I'm really glad people enjoy it!!!!!

I already have a HELLA fixation on the paranormal, and so when I can apply it self indulgently to OTHER fixations, I Am Thriving.

Truly this is my magnus opus.

On that note however, I'm gonna drop some Lore Ideas.

I've said before that Buggy's already aware that Roger is still hanging around. He's not there 24/7, but he does hang out pretty often. Ghosts are Drawn to the things they left Unfinished in this aspect, either by choice or necessity - they hang around on this plane instead of crossing over. Roger made his choices and hated it. He chose the lesser evil, in his mind, because NONE of the options were good.

Then, on that scaffold, about to die, he feels and sees his oldest kids and is frankly more than a little livid.

For one, they're unaccompanied. This is an execution, Loguetown is crawling with Marines - high ranking ones at that - and here stand two barely-teens.

Speaking of them, though, the second thing is how his boys' energies and haki feel. Now Roger has been in a cell for a hot minute - not horribly long, and it's been two agonizing years since he saw his boys, but he knows damn well one should not feel like a ship splintering against the waves while the other has the same warning flags as a landmine in some underbrush. It could be stress, and Roger hates himself for knowing he is a primary contributor to a situation which makes his kids hurt, but there's more to it.

Especially given lucky number three - they're thin. Like. Painfully thin. Buggy had always been rather scrawny, and Shanks had only just begun filling out before Roger disbanded the crew. Right now, his boys looked partially starved, and he was almost certain that if he could get to them, he'd be able to close his fingers around their wrists or ankles with far too much overlap.

Where the fuck was his crew and why the fuck were his sons alone???

The stage was set, though, and he had his role to play. So he just winds his haki tighter, presses as much love-care-guiot-pride-love-love-love into his energy as he can before wrapping it around his kids as subtly as he can.

Then he's spoken, there's cheering, there's movement and pain and-

Nothing.

Roger comes to a few months later.

It takes time to collect himself and his pieces enough to be aware.

Step one - find his kids!!

Shanks and Buggy are not little twin-flame-beacons - Roger assumes they must be back with the crew. He'll have words for them later. For now, Rouge should be due any day! Off to her he goes~

And to carnage he arrives.

It's all he can do to help cause a ruckus where he can when prying eyes get so close to his wife. She is pushing hard with her Haki and he's raging and crying and grieving all at once. Every day that the crusade continues is the day he hopes Garp arrives, that he does something, that he can do anything, that he won't lose her.

He stays longer than expected. A year and a half, and Baterilla is a ghost town. Rouge is barely alive, but their child's energy is bright and bold and u apologetic. Some nights, while she sleeps, he lays his head against her tummy and whispers to Ace or Anne about the world - about the good things, because those are the things the baby should know, those are the things this baby deserves.

Ace is born just as Garp arrives. Rouge dies and Roger grieves.

She comes back far quicker than he did and proceeds to smack him with her shoe, curse him up one side and down another, then wrap him into her arms and cry.

They follow Garp, follow Ace, and they watch over their baby. Dadan is not one who they would choose as a foster mother at a glance, but they warm up to get quickly. Rouge spends her time with Roger watching over their baby boy before she shoos her husband off to check on their other kids. She's never had the chance to meet her stepsons but she loves them all the same.

It takes him longer than expected to find them.

For one, they separated - and how in all the Seas did that happen- and for another, they're making crews. Mostly. Shanks has a crew budding, and Buggy now has a new look in his eyes and a fixation on wearing gloves, but whatever.

So he just. Bounces between the three, occasionally hunting down former crew members to make his displeasure Very Clear.

Only Buggy has ever seen him.

Sometimes Shanks will respond, will seem to Feel something off, but Buggy has always been the one to see the things nobody else could.

So Roger pokes at his littlest apprentice as much as he feasibly can.

It's only by pure happenstance that his kid grows up - and puts on weight, Roger and Rouge both are so proud - and manages to bag a goth Real Housewife Of The Grandline Drama Addict who accidentally-on-purpose adopted a girl with a penchant for divination and spirit boards.

Buggy isn't in the habit of mentioning the things all around people after the first few times landed with broken bones and bogo free trauma.

Now that Roger has ATTENTION however, and a way of talking to more people, AND a chance to gush about his kids to a listening party, well-

He is thriving. Rouge is giggling at him. Buggy is trying desperately to ignore his dead dad and equally dead step mother debating which embarrassing story to tell Pero-chan next.

He's just hoping and praying that they don't tell her about the Secret Spy Incident. He's not sure his blood pressure could take it.

[redlimvs]

ive been feeling more down lately and i havent been writing as much but I still wanted to share some bits (summaries) of some things i have...

//

1. He laughed even as they were kissing, he threw his head back every few minutes they talked and touched. Calvin hadn’t noticed the little things Andre had done until he looked closer, until he really got to know the boy behind the entire facade of a troublemaker. The imagination of the boy being absolutely perfect was farther from the truth. Calvin saw nothing wrong with this fact, rather, he was far more attracted to learn the little imperfections Andre seemed to be hiding from anybody else. The way his top teeth overlapped his bottom ones, causing his upper lip to be more out, the way comes out completely burdened with acne and spots all around his face, to Calvin, it simply made Andre look more beautiful. Nothing about who Andre was or how he looked could ever change the ever growing thoughts and emotions Calvin felt towards him, it simply felt like, to him, Andre being imperfect was in fact the most perfect thing about him

2. Taking care of a single person, to them, it’s rotten work, it’s pointless, it has no effect on them if somebody decides to leave them. For them, every single person that came into their life would quickly become a stranger, whether it was their doing or the other person’s faults. He saw how they waited for someone to take them home, not the home they lived in, but the permanent home of the other person’s heart. To say his best friend was homesick was an understatement, no, he was dying to feel the beauty of one’s presence, to have someone never leave his side, no matter how hard things got sometimes. There, he stood in front of his best friend, noticing the little crystals that were his tears, and he too, shed a few as they watched each other intensely. With the few very words he could muster up, he grabbed the blonde’s hands, feeling the softness and the gentleness they truly held. He took a final breath, turning to face the opposite direction before turning back to his friend.

“...I do.”

3. “Why didn’t you do it...?”

After months of planning, after countless times of talking about this exact moment, Andre was too pussy to actually go through with it. How could it, after hearing the idea first come out of Calvin’s mouth about killing themselves when it’s all over after shooting what appeared to be dozens of students, how could he actually agree to it? He blames no one except himself, Andre could have done something, he could have said anything in that moment or any other moment they shared with each other and he could have told Calvin that the idea wasn’t so good.

“You...promised...”

And he did, Andre promised to his best friend that they were going to go through with their plan, together. He never intended to back down but with everything happening so suddenly he couldn’t but get cold feet at the thought of a bullet going through his head. He didn’t mean for any of this to happen, maybe he should have taken better care of the situation and realize the signs Calvin was throwing at him, none of this was supposed to go too far and instead was supposed to just be a way to release all of the anger he had built up, he never meant to shoot anyone, he never meant for Calvin to die like this.

4. What can be sad can also be known as true, something you can’t find in real life will always crawl back into your mind when you dream. Waking up only makes one realize that nothing was ever real, that broken and depressive thoughts that clash in your brain to remind you that there is no hope, there is so saving those who cannot be saved and to those who don’t want to be saved. It’s sad, it’s heartbreaking to come to a consensus that those who suffer may never return back into the arms of those who warm their hearts and their souls. Praying to god no longer does anything, getting down to your knees and begging for redemption only lets them know just how weak you are. Andre hates to go back to that one moment, that moment in the past that makes him rethink the choices he had before, that one moment in his life that made him remember that he too can be weak. The conversation with his dad, the car ride with him, during that time, he couldn’t help but allow his eyes to gaze at his father for a second before facing towards the road again. He had told him how he wasn’t planning on going to prom and instead stayed back to help around, after his shift was over, he couldn’t help this bittersweet feeling in his mind. Did he know? Did his father know something that Andre hadn’t told him, did he feel something suddenly wrong in his son’s presence where he felt he needed to tell him how proud he was of him? That moment had felt like something he’d never expect, it had been one of those moments he felt that something could have been different in his life, maybe something could have happened that would change him for the better. His father was proud of him, but he didn’t feel proud of himself

5. Such a lowly and putrid prince, those who shunned him from the world were correct in the fact that nobody would ever find him as a ruby gem, nobody would dare give him the final dance he needed as a farewell, nobody would give him the satisfaction of cherishing his last moments. Whatever flows in the river of regret and punishment will forever crash and destroy whatever he made up to try and convince himself that there was more to his life than simply rotting forever in his mind. Monarch’s were practically unable to view their own beauty and see how raw and beautiful their wings were, they would never get a chance to see who they were even in their dying breaths. Everybody else was able to see just how perfect they were, but they wouldn’t say anything, they wouldn’t dare speak a word on who they were and simply wait until the last few moments to remind them,

“My, such a beautiful life being put to waste.”

God would never forgive him, he didn’t want him to forgive and he didn’t want to believe everything his parents say about God being real, for if he was real then why give him the life he did not need, why give him the misfortune of seeing his past mistakes simply by looking at his wrists? Bring him terror, bring him fear, bring him everything he always had and take it to his grave, nobody would ever visit him anyways.

[insomnicbypasser]

Hiiiii speaking my thoughts on a certain thing about the newest limbus event make sure to avoid incase of spoilers! I am offically yapping about rodion in this one also so be warned.

You know im constantly thinking about rodion and how she just, doesnt have a yurodivy identity. Its always been a thought in my head how every identity that we get in the game is a possiblility a sinner could have gone down, not just an overlap with exsisting characters. They are afterall from mirror worlds.

Theres n corp sinclair, who gave into his inital disgust of prosthetics and went fully into that realm of dark. The pequod captain ishmael who found herself an almost exact mirror of ahab, fully taken by the madness to hunt what she deemed to be the root of all evil that we saw and the later portion of her canto. Literally most of dons identities share a similar theme of her going into an organization and having her beliefs tested as shown in her n corp, w corp, and her shi association ids.

So why didnt rodion get a yurodivy id instead of her t corp id? The opportunity was right there for the taking, however there was somethings stopping her from getting it. There was the fact that she felt like she did anything to help in actually catching the time ripper, so she didnt get a district 20 yurodivy id bescause hong lu and ryoshu were ACTUALLY like them with their detective work, however i dont think its like that as seen above several sinners have gotten ids that directly go against their current arcs ie: captain ishmael and n corp sinclair. I also think this is the same reason she got a TAX COLLECTOR id of all things, finding herself not only stagnating but also becoming the type of person she would havr MURDERD in cold blood previously.

To me there are two reasons project moon is holding back on a yurodivy id for rodion. Either A: theyre saving it for a theoretical redo of rpdions canto, this time where she actually stands her ground to fully face sonya and give him her true awnser on where she stands, most likely telling him she'll be following the path that dante is leading her down towards instead of the path sonya had laid out for her with the yurodivy. With this she could potentially get either a id where she instead had taken sonya up on his offer, or the most interesting option where rodion had taken up the role of saint for the yurodivy instead of sonya in a sort of captain ishmael or spicebrush yi sang type of id.

And then theres option B: where rodion has yet to get a yurodivy id because there arent any plans to give her a yurodivy id because in EVERY mirror world rodion is always destined to give up her life with the yurodivy. Maybe there will always be a reason for her to leave, a flaw she can never let slide, maybe even a feeling she wont ever address that she wasnt and wont ever be for the yurodivy because they were never ment to be, either they were never doing enough or she could never be enough.

I havent read the book rodion is from, i dont know the first thing about rodions journey through it. All i know is that rodion is a gambling addict, he kills someone, and that sonya helps(?) him get past his vices and sins and even then none of that might not be true i have no idea. What i do know is that in limbus company, rodion has had the constant need to be something. She tried to lead a life in the yurodivy to feel as though she was doing something larger then herself, and when she felt as though they didnt meet her expectations she decided to take things into her own hands and when she looked back on her decisions, she couldnt even tell who she had done them for or whether she was only acting apon her base selfish desires. Then she joined limbus company bus, supposedly to maybe have a wish granted, but also because maybe in this group of losers and vagabonds, she could finally take a large role then what she felt she had when she was in the yurodivy, maybe she could finally make use of her time instead of this rotting stagnation she had been suffering from since she left the yurodivy. But then they fail in their first two missions, she sees sonya for the first time in a while as she plays her first major role in a mission and he is the cause for her failure, even extending an olive branch to her and a place back inside the group she had so quickly left behind when things didnt go so well for her. Then they finally start seeing successes but they come at great losses, being forced to face your traumas, to kill your previous loved ones, to give up your entire motivations for the sake of moving forward and finding your place in the world.

And then we come to t corp itself, rodion finds herself being hand picked for a mission that surely other sinners are more capable of completing. Rodion has lost some of her previous confidence in her place in the bus. She didnt face her trauma like sinclair did, she didnt fight against sonya with all her might like yi sang had, she didnt push through her flaws and learn from her behavior like idhmael and heathcliff had done. Rodion ran, and she hadnt even gained anything from it.

As the event went on, we saw slowly as rodions compossure dropped, especially when the yurodivy got involved. We got to see rodion start to look back on her decision to leave the yurodivy when she interacts with them in district 20. She questions herself as soon as she sees that they actually managed to make something of themselves, that if she had actually been patient they would have been able to give her the kind of change that she had wanted in her life.

Her struggle to define what she wants and how she wants to get it is so interesting, it seems to me like rodion is constantly setting bars too high, either for others or herself, never wanting to settle her bet always wanting to push just a bit further and always crashing hard when she looses it all. The case of time killing time is showing the cracks in her resolve, and i think that eventually itll all come to a boiling point where shell get a rerun of her canto.

Anyways thanks for coming to my tedtalk every single one of the sinners make me mentally ill in ways i will never recover from, not just rodion. Trust me i WILL be making a 20 page essay on don once her canto is fully out i will NOT be normal about her. Sorry if i got a bit off track btw this was absolutely a full character study mostly on rodion rather then being me talking about the new event like i said and had quite a bit about me talking about how i think ids work inuniverse beside being things dante can use on sinners for combat. ALSO! If anyone can tell me how rodion and sonya are in the book it would be cery appreciated! Knowing about how moby dick, wuthering heights, and the metamorphsis play out really shaped my experiences of their cantos and id like to see how its themes played into canto 2.

[thelikesoffinn]

Hi you ! I saw your did posts and I'm really confused about one thing you mentioned: Why would Astarion having DID be so bad for the DID community? I am not trying to be mean or anything I just really don't understand what the problem would be. You said something similar in one of your other metas but with astarion being ace and I think I didn't understand that either.

Hello babes!

The thing that is bad for the DID community is not "Astarion having DID" it's the fact that he very obviously doesn't and people are claiming he does.

Many people take things at face value these days, especially over on tiktok, without putting the proper research or critical thought into what they just learned, which in this specific case could potentially project a wrong image of what DID is and how it works.

All things considered, Astarion might be doing little harm to the community as a whole because this example is simply just wrong. But there's other examples - I'm looking at you, "SPLIT" and "Identity" - that depict people with DID as highly unstable, dangerous and homicidal individuals which is not only untrue but extremely harmful to their image.

That goes for many other disorders as well - almost all of them have some issues with stigmatisation, but not all of them are as severe - and it is a really difficult thing to deal with for everyone involved.

It's a bit like this: Imagine someone is going around, claiming all Red haired women are witches because their hair is proof that they have bathed in the firey pits of hell.

The rational mind will now tell you that this is absolute humbug. But that is because you have enough facts that disarm that completely idiotic statement.

Imagine if you didn't have those. Imagine if you were born into a world where the only examples of Red haired women you see are in films and games and, in each and every one of them, they are evil, cackling witches. You don't hit up google, you take it at face value because hey that's what every body is saying so it's gotta be true, and boom - the life of millions of red heads have immediately been made worse because people believe some unfounded shit that mainstream media pushed onto this society.

Of course, that is an extreme oversimplification but I think it gets the point across!

In the end, would Astarion be a horrible influence on the DID community? No, all things considered he's the wrong guy but he wouldn't be their worst representative. But he for sure wouldn't make things any easier either.

It's a similar yet different issue with the Ace community, by the way! Because in this case, Astarion actually IS a horrible example that drags down how people see people who identify as ace.

Sex, sexual desires and sexuality in general are instinctual for most people. It's not something they can control or influence - it just happens based on varying factors that are both internal and external. And that's not only the case in mankind - animals are rather similar in that regard, with some differences.

Thanks to that, many ace people are constantly questioned on their sexuality.

People don't understand how someone can not have any interest in sex or maybe even any desires to begin with. This leads to people believing that it is a phase caused by something - trauma, religion, celibacy, fear of Intimacy, age...you name it. - and that it is something that needs to be fixed so that it can pass.

I think we can all agree that asexuality is none of that.

But attaching characters like Astarion, who are hesitant or averse where sex and Intimacy are concerned because they have been abused and carry the scars of that abuse with them, just perpetuates the stereotype that, inadvertently, asexuality has to be caused by something - preferably trauma - and that it isn't something that can simply. just. be.

And I don't mean to say that there can't be overlap - of course, some ace people have trauma, and some of them will actually have sexual trauma, but they aren't ace because of that. Those two things exist on two separate levels.

To paint the picture: This has the same effect as solely attaching men that have been beaten by their fathers to homosexuality. There is well and truly no connection between those two things, but if the majority of Representative characters are men of that kind, people will naturally take that image to heart and may start to unrightfully connect male homosexuality and physical abuse by fathers because that is what society and media suggest.

So, in the end, my being vigilant and vocal whenever I spot misrepresentation is really only to do my part to stop more stigmatisation from happening.

No community - no matter if it's based on sexuality, mental health, or even just subculture - benefits from stigmatisation. Not a single one. Stigmata are always a bad thing that need to be avoided at all costs so that people can peacefully live their lives without fear of being shunned on account of idiotic half truths and oversensationalised misconceptions.

[eyfey]

got inspired after reading creepypasta's on Halloween's Eve, so I wrote my own:

-x-x- Read at ur own Risk -x-x-

Once upon a time (it was 1994) (it was REALLY HAPPENED) it was dark because it was night time and i was named Jonathan Bonathan because i just moved to this new town. The neighbors were all nice.

Anyway it was dark out but i thought i saw something moving in the shadows all scary like but then i laughed to my self. "Haha. Everyone knows things can't move at night," i thought to my self. So i ignored it and I went to bed.

The next morning i didn't feel so good. It was like something bad had happened to my body evil scary. There were marks like stripes on my arm, but a dark purple like a bruised. That was when i realized that there were five of them... just like 5 fingers.... It was like a hand has grabbed me very hard but the hand was WAY too big.

I went to the doctor and asked" hey doc what do you make of this??" And he said "sorry this is I've never seen anything like it. We're gonna have to run some tests". So they had me stay over night at the hospital.

Later it was dark because the sun went down, but i was at the hospital this time and not my house. I called my wife and kids earlier and told them

"babies i love you but i have to stay at the hospital tonight. It'll be okay the doctor just wants to run some tests. Eat the leftover spaghetti okay?" And they said "Jonathan dad we love u stay safe and don't get grabbed real hard okay?"

And i laughed. What a funny thing to say. I didn't think about it too hard.... But that was my mistake that i made....

Any way back at the dark hospital (night time) i was asleep but then i woke up for some reason. It was strange to be ata hospital at night because usually I'm at my house at night.

This hospital night was even stranger because i thought i heard something..... Moving.......

I don't remember what happened next. All i remember is what happened next is i woke up and the doctor and nurses were there and they all looked worried-style at me.

"Mistr Bonathan did u anything happen last night?" They asked. "How are you feeling?"

Well i was feeling alright so i said "i feel alright i think I'm probably okay to go home now" and the doctor wrote something on his clipboard and the light from the hospital lights glinted across his glasses so that i couldn't see his eyes.

" Mr Bonathan we are going to need you to stay one more night. For the tests."

So i replied a little worried but not too worried "well okay doctor, your the expert" so i stayed once more night at the hospital and my family probably ate all the spaghetti, but this time.

This is where things really started to get weird.

That night at the hospital it was dark again. I woke up from my sleep and All of the lights were darkened. There wasn't a sound or a sight or even a smell even.

It was like the hole world had vanished except for me, and the hospital bed i was sleeping in, and the very large scaryman standing next to me.

I was so afraid i almost screamed. I opened my mouth and screamed, but no sound came out. The figure was looming over my bed. I tried not to look at it but i had to look at it. It was like a human man, but larger. And something about it wasn't quite right.

Too many teeth (lots). Too many arms (four). Not enough eyes (none). Everything was long. Blood was there too and it was SCARY. I screamed so loud it didn't make a sound.

Then the... THING. grisped my arm. It's fingers perfectly overlapping the purple stripe bruises from earlier in the story. Then it squeezed. I screamed.

Why wasn't the doctor coming to help? There was a strange arm man monster in my room and he was hurting me and i was screaming. Where were the police???

Then the lights flickered on and i wished they didn't. The whole room was filled with spiders and blood and the arm man kept getting larger and gripping tighter and i knew that he was taking all of my blood and that if i lost all my blood i would die. Which is bad.

So i fought back with all i had. I kicked and punched and screamed and scratched and punched.

That was when I got an idea. This thing may have a lot of teeth, but i had teeth of my own! So i bit it. That seemed to do the trick: the creature let out a bloodcurdling scream that curdled all the blood and spiders in the room.

Then it did this really cool effect where it kind of blackhole imploded in upon itself. After that i sleep.

In the morning, the doctor came to check up on me. "Well mr Bonathan the tests came back negative. It's probably just an allergic reaction and will clear up in a couple of days. You can go home now bye."

Normally the hospital bill would also be a scary part of the story but i have good insurance from my job so it was okay.

When i went home my wife and kids were worried about me but happy to see me. I tucked them in to bed and tucked myself into bed, but shivered thinking about the whole experience.

That 'thing' may have imploded once, but it could still be out there. No one knows where it came from or why it was grabbing my arm and taking my blood. Or maybe what if there are more of them also. Much too Scary to think about...

[youboredright]

Fate Cannot Be Changed

What happens if the strongest mafia known to be the coldest man alive gets arranged married with a sweet hearted woman? Can the innocent Yn change Gojo Satoru, biggest mafia in Yakuta? Maybe or maybe not..-

Mafia Gojo Saturo x Yn

(Part - 3)

Yn's POV

I did not realise when I feel asleep, but waking up I met a quiet house. Gojo left. Grabbing my phone the first thing I realised was that I got the first ever message from Gojo.

Gojo : get ready by 7 we will go to my parents house.

My head was filled with who the people was and who was Nora. My head was filled with thousands of thoughts so the day passed away quickly. I could just do the house chores and nothing else. Soon as I sat to have my evening tea the clock caught my attention. It was 6:30. Shit. I have 30 minutes to bath and get ready. By the time I was done with bathing and touching up my makeup, I was left with 5 minutes. I hastily wore the first dress that was in my closet. It was from my mother. It was a long black silk dress. It had a lot of memories. Before I could get all nostalgic I heard the a knock on my bedroom door. When did Gojo come. Opening it I saw Gojo, in his tuxedo. He looks extra tall. Oh gosh his legs and his biceps. Snap out if it Yn. I reminded myself that I am just a tool for Gojo. I simply nodded and approached him. "Let's go". The drive was mostly silent. And it was me who always spoke. "We are staying there tonight" Gojo announced. Shit. I wore this dress which is.. well nice but for sleeping I don't think is the best.

It was deadly quite, so as a good wife I tried to break. "You look nice" I said looking at him for a clue that he liked my compliment. He did look nice but specifically hot. Those veins popping out while one of his hand resting on the steering wheel . God I am falling it has not been even a month of our marriage. But Gojo did not say anything or even look at me. Did I make it more awkward ? " Sorry I didn't mean to make yo-" "We are not going to a party why did you wear a dress like that." Our voices overlapped. "I didn't know that." Oh that hurts. This black dress was nice. I got a lot of compliments. Was it that hard for him to just say I looked nice? "You are wearing a tuxedo?" And he ignored me. "Um Gojo? About last night. Were they your friends?" I said. "Look Yn I told you it's none of your business. Why can't you get a simple shit in your mind, huh?" He almost yelled. I hate loud sound. He knew a lot about my life. But is it wrong for me to be curious about his? About my life long partner. I just deeply sighed . "Yn" he said in a firm voice. It was the first time in the car he spoke. I flinched as I quickly looked at him. "Y-Yes?" I stuttered. " I wanted to talk about our-" he was interrupted by my phone ringtone. I quickly tired to silent it but Jake called me. I got the same chills running through my body. I started getting flashbacks of my old days. It has been almost 2 months now. I should feel happy he called but no. I felt sad and also a bit angry. I wanted to hear what Gojo was saying. But I just answered the call anyway. Throughout my call I felt Gojo's dark auroma filling the car. Reaching home, Gojo slammed his hand on the steering wheel even without looking at me and got out. As I rushed to him, I saw him standing outside. Oh was he waiting for me? He grasped my wrist tightly and leaned forward. "Yn don't dare to make my parents suspicious or worried."

Gojo's POV

Last night I was sober enough to remember what happened. Even after treating her the worst treatments, she still cares. I told her about Nora. Did I hurt her? She looks so fragile as if I might break her any moment. In my life I only cared about Nora, my mom, Geto and probably Shoko. But there's is something about Yn I feel I need to protect her. A feeling I never got before. Yesterday I stumbled myself and told her about Nora. I do still love her. And yesterday and also today when Yn asked about Geto and Shoko I was, well very tired to answer. Last night I saw Yn's eyes filled with concern and care, like actual feeling. Nora was the last person I saw the concern and care in her eyes. It makes me want to melt. Her touch is so warm, makes me crave her touch more. But I will not fall in love with someone I am forced married with. I had and have to remind myself not to fall for her. Because if my plan works then this marriage will end within the next 4 months.

...

I can feel her soft breathing. Her warmth is radiating and I could feel that as she looked outside filled with thoughts. She looked so good in her silk black dress. Her breasts were pumped and I could see them. I wish I was the only one who could look at those. She had the perfect body. Big but not huge breasts and ass. And my favourite thick thighs. She is so pretty and innocent. It almost makes me want to ruin her. Make her dirty and show her what is my kind of love. This woman, only if she knew what she did to me within a few days of our marriage. But I will not fall for her. I learnt a very good lesson from my past. And I will make sure I divorce her as soon as possible, when I will be done with her parents. "Yn" I said in a firm voice. She flinched as she quickly looked at me. "Y-Yes?" She stuttered. Am I that scary? " I wanted to talk about our-" I was interrupted by Yn's phone. I nodded as she answers. "Jake? Hey? How have you been?" Yn spoke in a soft yet confused voice. I don't normally eavesdrop but who the fuck was Jake? I felt weird and agitated. Why would MY wife, who wore MY ring, lived in MY house talk to someone specifically a boy? But then again I had no right to be. What was worst is Yn let out a soft chuckle hearing something 'Jake' said. It felt worst. I looked at her as I realised that I got a sudden urge to stop the car roughly pull her by the neck and kiss her. And then make a lot of dark hickeys and show the fucker the hickeys specifically the ones on her boobs and nec-. What the hell did I just imagine, making out with my arranged wife? The one I hated the most? Shit, what was happening to me. But I got a feeling that I had to remove Jake from my wife. Probably murder him. He got some nerve to talk to wife and make her chuckle. As I stopped the car in front of my parents house I slammed my hand on the steering wheel out of frustration, causing Yn to flinch. Great. Why am I getting annoyed just by remembering 'Jake' ? Why do I even care? I couldn't answer as I got out of my car.

><><><><><><><><><><><

To be continued

[fortythealien]

Son and Father

He was in the dust of a corpse-king’s court. He was before a resplendent Emperor for all the ages.

‘Father,’ he said, and when he had said that word, it was the last time he had meant it. ‘Father, I have returned.’ Guilliman forced himself to look up into the pillar of light, the screaming of souls, the empty-eyed skull, the impassive god, the old man, yesterday’s saviour. ‘What must I do? Help me, father. Help me save them.’ 

In the present, in the past, he felt Mortarion’s wordless presence at his side, and felt his fallen brother’s horror. 

He looked at the Emperor of Mankind, and could not see. Too much, too bright, too powerful. The unreality of the being before him stunned him to the core. A hundred different impressions, all false, all true, raced through his mind. 

He could not remember what his father had looked like before, and Roboute Guilliman forgot nothing. 

And then, that thing, that terrible, awful thing upon the Throne, saw him. 

‘My son,’ it said. 

‘Thirteen,’ it said. 

‘Lord of Ultramar.’ 

‘Saviour.’ 

‘Hope.’ 

‘Failure.’

‘Disappointment.’ 

‘Liar.’ 

‘Thief.’ 

‘Betrayer.’ 

‘Guilliman.’ 

He heard all these at once. He did not hear them at all. The Emperor spoke and did not speak. The very idea of words seemed ridiculous, the concept of them a grievous harm against the equilibrium of time and being. 

‘Roboute Guilliman.’ The raging tempest spoke his name, and it was as the violence a dying sun rains upon its worlds. ‘Guilliman. Guilliman. Guilliman.’ 

The name echoed down the wind of eternity, never ceasing, never reaching its intended point. The sensation of many minds reached out to Guilliman, violating his senses as they tried to commune, but then one mind seemed to come from the many, a raw, unbounded power, and gave wordless commands to go out and save what they built together. To destroy what they made. To save his brothers, to kill them. Contradictory impulses, all impossible to disobey, all the same, all different. 

Futures many and terrible raced through his mind, the results of all these things, should he do any, all or none of them. 

‘Father!’ he cried. Thoughts battered him. 

‘A son.’ 

‘Not a son.’ 

‘A thing.’ 

‘A name.’ 

‘Not a name.’ 

‘A number. A tool. A product.’ 

A grand plan in ruins. An ambition unrealized. Information, too much information, coursed through Guilliman: stars and galaxies, entire universes, races older than time, things too terrifying to be real, eroding his being like a storm in full spate carves knife-edged gullies into badlands. 

‘Please, father!’ he begged.

 ‘Father, not a father. Thing, thing, thing,’ the minds said. 

‘Apotheosis.’ 

‘Victory.’ 

‘Defeat.’ 

‘Choose,’ it said. 

‘Fate.’ 

‘Future.’ 

‘Past.’ 

‘Renewal. Despair. Decay.’ 

And then, there seemed to be focusing, as if a great will exerting itself, not for the final time, but nearly for the final time. A sense of strength failing. A sense of ending. Far away, he heard arcane machines whine and screech, close to collapse, and the clamour of screams of dying psykers that underpinned everything in that horrific room rising higher in pitch and intensity. ‘Guilliman.’ The voices overlaid, overlapped, became almost one, and Guilliman had a fleeting memory of a sad face that had seen too much, and a burden it could barely countenance. ‘Guilliman, hear me. 

‘My last loyal son, my pride, my greatest triumph.’

How those words burned him, worse than the poisons of Mortarion, worse than the sting of failure. They were not a lie, not entirely. It was worse than that. 

They were conditional. 

‘My last tool. My last hope.’ 

A final drawing in of power, a thought expelled like a dying breath. 

‘Guilliman…’

[sunshinechay]

The way my mind connects the dots with 0 hesitation is hilarious. I could be seeing something like "Omg Michael is SO hot, looks so good with his hair like that, my little meow meow!" and Im like "ya Michael-

Seater?

Cera??

Myers!

from the group chat??!!!???

Really be like that (I barely care about any of those people, my brain will just pick at random), wild to see this post in the wild tho, its been years since I saw fans of (pick your fighter).

Only to find out OP is talking about a totally unrelated Michael from something I've never heard of, but its too late, ive already connected the dots in such a hilarious way, I gotta reblog now. But im collecting the new Michael for another similar situation if this ever comes up again.

I remember in high school we had this classmate named John Oliver and for the life of me, I couldn't understand that my friends were talking about John Oliver the tv host. They'd sit there saying the wildest shit like "Did you hear what insane shit John Oliver did last week?" and for a whole 5 seconds I'd be SO concerned about our mutual classmate only to be told this is about some random dude I don't know or watch (back then) and suddenly the world made a LOT more sense. But for those 5 seconds my mind created real terror and I just had to know what kind of sitcom life my classmate was living every fucking week.

So anyways, if you're always wondering why i keep re-blogging posts about your favs with the dumbest tags, its because I keep re-living Last Week with John Oliver time loop with you😭.

I don't even read your url, im just scrolling fast and every time im like "wait Effy slow down, this made no sense, dont just accept that" I look at the url and you're talking about some whole other guy.

Like I really saw your post and went "ah the creepy pasta girlies from 2012 breached containment and hit my dash again...ya...i'll reblog" and it was literally NOT about that Jeff at all.

I need an option to highlight your username in big and bold so my brain understands that your favs and my brain has 0 overlap and idk any of those people. This keeps happening with just you on my dash and no one else. I remembering struggling with my life, during your vegas era (of vegaspete of kinnporshe). Like this is NOT about Las Vegas at all, but if you asked me what my brain ran off with in those 5 seconds, if left unchecked, you'd understand why I love having you in my dash so much. Scrolling super fast on tumblr with you on my dash is just briefly time traveling to another universe istg.

Plus sometimes I do end up watching what you watch like kinnporshe so thats just a bonus.

Glad I could help! Haha

And don’t worry, my brain frequently does this kind of thing as well. Our brains recognize patterns and make connection only it seems our make connections where there are none, but that’s half the fun. Sometimes I laugh at where my own brain takes me.

I saw your tags on the Jeff posts and laughed because omg can you imagine Jeff the Killer reading his own fanfiction 😂😂😂

However, it’s Jeff Satur we’re talking about and honestly the fact he has read fanfiction about himself is both funny and horrifying like “I’m so sorry you had to witness this Jeff…would like some recs for other fics about you?” 😂😂😂

I’m glad that you have liked the BLs you’ve watched. They’re really just something else, in both good ways and bad and I love them so much. So I’m happy I can spread the joy :)

[gayjesus2023]

the maze runner p.1

masterlist

~p.2

(Disclaimer: if I mess up some things about the female body I am very sorry!!!(fw: none (that I know of), potentially a little course language))

wc: 0.5k (beginner story)

back story: when the only girl in the pit died when she tried escaping the maze. The people of the laboratory freaked and had to get a girl back into the maze . Until one of the scientist had a plan…

“Where the fuck am i. It’s like a cage, why am I in a cage” you thought to yourself. You screamed for help but all it did was echo through the channel that brought you up. Until the box came to a stop, the doors opened and it took a moment for the light to make friends with your eyes. You could see people, multiple people all of them had big shoulders. So you knew they where all men you were carried out by two of them and hauled into a hut. Some of the boys waited around you then ,one boy told you “It’s ok darling” then you saw darkness.

You woke up after what felt like 3 minutes but when you woke up and saw the same person who said “it’s alright darling” to you. He was blond and you thought that he was a little British. as soon as you saw him, he ran out of the room and got 2 other guys both of them where American but they all stared at you. You focused on your surroundings the blonde one was the British one and the two Americans looked really sporty. Like Runners.

When you fully woke up. No one was around. when you stood up It felt weird, but all you could focus on was your skin. So you walked into the woods behind the little Hut and soon found a little waterway running through the woods, you stripped down and it felt like you just bathed in holy water. Fuck it felt good. It felt like you haven’t eaten in days. you got out and dried your clean body. “ I knew you would be here somewhere” you look over and it’s one of the American boys. he was leaning on a tree. cutting his nails with his teeth “I’m Thomas, call me Tom.” he was handsome with brown hair and a dirty black shirt with beige short cargo pants.

“actually I was just about to come and have a bath, but I guess not” he says coming closer the the water. You and him were on opposite sides of the river. “just wait there” a few minutes past and he brings back a dirty white shirt and some long gray jeans. “look away” you say “Oh! She talks now” you laugh. It was silent for a moment “uhm T-Tom.. do you have any pads or maybe tampons” you hear Tomas breathe for a second. Do you want to overlap your underwear?”

after you finish getting changed you walk out and Thomas is leaning on a tree looking into the thick mist that covers the trees in the distance. As soon as he sees you he looks at you, his eyes move up and down your body. “Hey… I’m sorry I forgot to mention my name… it’s Y/N baby the way” he smiles “hey Y/N … I’m sorry that we don’t have those lady… stuff. But I’m sure we can make something..” before he finishes his scentence there’s a boy running towards Tom. “who’s that…” Tom turns around. “Oh that’s Minho… right you don’t know anyone here”

Minho stops and talks to Tom. “he wants to see her. All the guys think it’s him who deserve.. well except for me chuck and newt and a few others.” he looks at you and smiles. “Your going to want to meet someone” he says smiling greedily.

-book note: eeeek first post. I’ve been looking forward to posting this but if you want me to continue just tell me and I might continue this… (next part at 150 likes)

[babyangelsky]

Now that Anti Reset and Perfect Propose have soothed my salty little soul and I've had some time to sit with the finale I just wanted to get some thoughts out.

I'm...unsatisfied, to say the very least. I know we got that "to be continued" which hopefully means we get another season or a special or a movie or something to tie up all these loose ends because I need them tied. Cliffhangers by nature are meant to leave at least a couple of loose ends untied but Den. Bro.

Even if what we saw was a season finale and not a series finale, that doesn't really help because even season finales give a little bit of closure. Here there was no closure. None. Anywhere. That finale didn't leave me with the anticipatory kind of frustration that season finales have been leaving me with my whole life, where I'm excited to see what happens next. It left me with the frustration of needing answers but not knowing whether I'm actually going to get them.

One, because there's no guarantee we'll actually get a continuation. How many series have we seen announced that just never get made? (Wish Me Luck and Love Puzzle, I'm still waiting for you) And two, because Den has lost my trust as a writer.

I've been writing for eleven years. Not in any sort of professional capacity, just as a hobby, but even so I feel qualified to say that we tell on ourselves a little bit through our writing. Through any creative medium really. Part of the artist always goes into their art, they're reflected in their art.

I remember @heretherebedork saying in a post that Den's hangups about kink, virginity, and sex within and without the context of a committed relationship were coming through in his writing choices, and they did. Especially when you compare Playboyy to Only Friends which you can't help but do because there's so much overlap. Echoes of Only Friends were always present from the very beginning.

Den said himself that what he didn't get to say in Only Friends he said in Playboyy, and to an extent I do think that's true. I do think he touched on a lot of things he wanted to touch on, but that's just it. He merely touched on them. Commentary about sex and sex work was there in Playboyy and when it was done well, it was done really well.

When it wasn't, it stayed very surface level at best and at worst, it hindered not only the development of the characters and their relationships but also the plot.

I enjoyed Playboyy. All I ask of the media I consume is that it entertain me and I try not to look at it through the lens of a writer. If a piece of media I consume entertains me, it has done its job. Playboyy did its job but I am so dissatisfied with that finale and that dissatisfaction is deeply rooted in my lens as a writer.

I can't just see it as a piece of queer media about sex. I can't help but see all the things I would've changed or done differently or excluded all together. Stories about sex have the right to exist. Stories that talk about and include sex have the right to exist.

But if you set out to write a holistic story about sex that runs the gamut of experiences on both an individual and societal level, which is what Den intended, how then can you demonize the aspects of sex that don't conform to your worldview while idealizing the ones that do?

That I think is my biggest beef with Playboyy and with Den's writing. If I can't trust you to do what you said you were going to, how can I trust you to tie up the entire tassel of loose ends you left in your plot?

Who knows if that all made sense but I just needed to get it out of my system so I can rest. I hope we get some sort of continuation for this story because I have so many goddamn questions but I'm honestly wary of hoping for it.

[septembersghost]

This is something I wondered for awhile. Do you think taylor would have taken harry back pre-joe if he fought hard enough? In all of 1989 he is the one who makes the move but she takes him back almost immediately no matter how many times she says no. This is present in HYGTG("I dont want you to go) and IWYW(that entire song). She also implies he knows how to get under her skin("you always knew how to push my buttons") and it is later proved in style when she chooses him over her rational self(" I should just tell you to leave cuz I know exactly where it leads but I watch us go round and round each time"). In question Taylor asks whether he wishes he put up more of a fight(a similar sentiment "if you wanted me you really should have showed" is in 'the 1' but that still feels like a speculation). In HS1 he explicitly says he wants her to apologise and therefore he wasn't making any moves this time( I also saw someone saying him constantly apologising probably made him powerless). I know he wrote songs but that isn't as same as fighting for them. We also know she was putting up with CH and really wanted to leave him. Plus considering how he was still threatened by H I think even some part of him probably suspected it. So do you think they had any shot pre joe if h fought?

this is really impossible to gauge without feeling like projection because we don't know what taylor's life would've looked like had joe not been there, and personally i think he really was meant to be there for her at that precise moment in time, when everything was falling apart, when she was in a such a fragile and dark place. some people don't like to hear this, but she clearly believes he saved her life. she's expressed that in lyrics repeatedly at this point - it doesn't diminish her strength or what she did for herself to recover and forge a path ahead, but the fact that she didn't have to do that alone, or bear everything alone, is monumental, and her life has completely changed, shifted, and blossomed around that. none of that would've been possible with harry, and it has nothing to do with who harry is as a person, and everything to do with both of their careers and their high pressure positions. he couldn't have grounded her and given her the sense of stability and normalcy that joe did. it puts us into a bit of an AU what-if, because there was overlap with ch, and because we'd have to presume things like snakegate didn't happen (which! i wish it hadn't for every possible reason). if he'd been willing to fight at a time when she was desperately trying to find her way OUT from how bad things got with ch, she might've been tempted to grab hold of him as a lifeline (which would've been understandable), but i worry it still would've been a getaway car situation where they both got extremely hurt because she was not in a good place, and harry at that point wouldn't have been equipped to give her the support she needed. and you're right that writing songs isn't the same as fighting for someone or reaching out, it's an artistic catharsis, but not a direct one - which is why he called it unspoken dialogue, because it was expressed, but not between them, rather through their music. i'm not sure i'd necessarily call the songs or the apologies powerless, but there is a causal distance. i do think they had a real connection and love for one another, and some unique understandings of each other because of their fame at young ages, their fast rises, and their connection to their music/songwriting too, there's a certain symmetry between them. actually this makes me think of something that was in daisy jones: "it's easy to confuse a soulmate with a mirror." they shared such potent mirrors with one another. in a different world, maybe that could've become a twin flame, but that's not how it was supposed to play out for them. i truly don't know if there was a chance for them in there at any point, if anything in their lives could've been less hectic. if they had reunited, the crash down might've been worse the next time - and having already experienced the paradise, the colors, and the pain of the burning flames, it probably would've made them cautious to reignite it, so they healed and moved forward. the one thing i do hope is that they have some measure of a friendship (and from their very warm interactions, i don't think it's far-fetched to believe they do), and i'd rather them find their way to that than have been caught in an acrimonious split. taylor found the person whose hand she was meant to hold (and i hope someday harry does too!).