#but only once i like them as a person and even then it only hit SOMETIMES

[miedei]

heyoo🫶 idk if your spencer requests are still open but all I've been able to think about for weeks is s4ep9 spencer being the most adorable nerd when he was warning the women at the club about the serial and them being the reader's friends going back to the reader with like drinks or whatever laughing about "that nerdy loser" at which reader's practically frothing at the mouth asking them "WHERE" and then hardcore flirting with an oblivious (and/or blushing mess) spence to the team's amusement and reader just thinking "need me a pathetic loser like that" (affectionate). im not even sure this makes sense but i just go feral for nerd reid. im really looking forward to reading this and thank you in advance if you do write this🥰

REAL REAL REAL need me a pathetic loser boy

peacocking

spencer gets hit on at the club!!

wc: 1.2k

cw: none i think?? spence is cute and pathetic, r is the kind of flirty i only aspire to be

(PS: reblogs are the only way to promote fics on tumblr! please reblog if you enjoyed it :) )

mlist

The club is busy, lighting dim, the music so loud that you can feel the bass thumping in your chest. It's a stark difference from the brightly-lit bathroom you just emerged from, wearing three new products of makeup courtesy of the drunken friends you've just made.

The crowd is thick, and you can just barely spot your friends, huddled around a hard-won table. You push through people, not bothering to apologise, until you've returned to the group.

You're greeted with whoops and cheers, and a drink is pushed into your hand before you can even sit down. Alcohol-fueled shouts leave their mouths, and you get the distinct feeling that they've somehow had at least two more rounds in the time you've been gone. You can barely focus on one person's speech, the words overlapping in their excitement.

"-and he was, like, the hottest guy I've ever seen!"

"-but he wouldn't take my number because he was working, and-"

"-his friend was pretty awkward though-"

"-like a string bean! Nerdy as hell, think it was his first time in a club-"

"-was like he'd never spoken to a woman before, kept talking about the serial killer-"

You hold up a hand, a little bewildered at the bombardment of information.

"Hold on- serial killer?" One of your friends shakes her head a little, as if clearing her mind.

"Not here, at least they pretty sure. Some creep's been picking up women and killing them at clubs, so there were cops or something here giving out fliers." A flier is thrusted into your hand, a sketch of a guy looking up at you.

"And, one of the cop guys was gorgeous! Adonis, Casanova, whatever the fuck you'd call him, he was so pretty..." She sighs wistfully, pointing across the room to a gaggle of women surrounding a well-built guy holding fliers like the one in your hand.

"The other guy was a little sad, though. Real nerd type."

Another voice butts in. "Yeah! I mean, look at him, I feel a little bad for him, he's clearly striking out and he's here for his job."

The pointing finger shifts, and your attention is directed to a lanky guy standing towards the edges of the crowd, near the bar. He looks nervous, hands fiddling with the stack of fliers he's got, and he doesn't seem to be trying to approach anyone anymore.

He's clearly uncomfortable, skittish in his stance. A nerd to his core, probably never the type to be wading through a crowd like this. He looks a little pathetic.

You've got to have him.

You tell your friends as much, and are met with drunken encouragement, slaps on the back and reminders to use protection. Setting down the flyer and your drink, you steel yourself, smoothing back your hair before walking with purpose across the room.

Once you near him, you slide onto a barstool, flagging down the bartender and pretending not to notice the new love of your life. He's clearly clocked you, and seems to be trying to work up the courage to approach you. Once you've given your order, you decide to make it easier for him.

Turning on the stool, you look up at him, eyes slightly hooded.

"You not having fun? It's a club, you should probably unbutton that shirt a little." It's thrilling, the way his eyes widen and he looks around him, as if you could be speaking to anyone else right now.

"Well, I actually- I'm actually here for my work, so..." His cheeks flush, and you continue with the oblivious act.

"Work? I've got to say, you're gorgeous, but I didn't think you were the type to be hired as a waiter here." You gesture to the scantily-clad waitress that passes you. He opens and closes his mouth a couple times, before seemingly remembering something. He rifles through his leather bag, producing a wallet with ID.

"Um, no, I don't work here. I'm- I'm an FBI agent. Doctor Spencer Reid. H-hi." Cute and smart? It's a wonder you haven't slid right off your stool.

"Yeah? And what are you doing here, Doctor Reid? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate being able to ogle you, but this doesn't exactly seem like the place for the FBI to be doing their investigating." You nod your thanks at the bartender, and run your finger along the rim of your glass, eyes locked onto Spencer's.

"Oh! Yeah," He fumbles with the papers in his hand, before holding one out to you. "There's a, um, serial killer? He's in the area, and he's targeting women at clubs like these... so," You lean forward, eyes not wavering from his, relishing in the way Spencer's eyes widen at the motion.

"So?" You prompt.

"So, uh, we're handing out those sketches," His hand, trembling slightly, comes up to point at the flyer in your hand. "and warning women to be on the lookout, not go home with anyone they don't know."

Your lips pinch slightly together, exaggerating your concern. "Oh god, Doctor Reid, that's really scary. What can I do to keep safe?"

His shoulders drop from where they were tensed near his ear, seemingly in his comfort zone here.

"Well, the unsub- the suspect is seeking validation from people, he wants women to chase him. If you meet any guys who try and play hard to get, possibly dressed flaboyantly, stay away and tell the police." You tilt your head questioningly, prompting him to continue.

"He's peacocking. It's a method that some people use to draw attention away from their faces. By using some ornate and distracting piece of clothing, he's diverting attention away from his face." His hands fly around him wildly as he speaks, long fingers wriggling and punctuating his words.

"Uh huh? So this... sweater." Your hand comes up, nearly unconsiously, to fiddle with the woolen texture of the sweater he's got on over his shirt. His hands still midair.

"It's distracting me plenty. Is that peacocking? But I've gotta say, I don't think anything would draw my attention away from that face." His eyes widen further, lips quivering as if he's struggling to come up with words.

"Um, I- I don't think, this isn't- isn't peacocking. This is just... how I dress." Your smirk widens further, hand still twisted in the collar of his sweater. The other agent, the one your friends pointed out earlier, sidles up behind him, but pauses, observing your conversation without butting in. You've only got a little time left.

"Well, I guess you're just that captivating then. You got a pen?" You let go of his clothes, watching him flounder for a second before pulling a pen out of his pocket, holding it out to you wordlessly.

Taking it with a smile, you begin to scribble your number down on the corner of the flyer in your hand.

"I think I'm missing out, if you dress like this every day." You finish writing with a flourish, tearing out your number and tucking it in his pocket along with his pen.

"Call me, okay? Keep me safe from the killer." You pat his shoulder, brushing past him with a smile.

(If the music were any quieter, you would've heard Spencer being interrogated by Derek the moment you leave, and the subsequent call to the rest of the team to inform them of the news. Penelope falls off her chair in excitement.)

[m1ssed-m3ssages]

Oh my God. I love this.

Adding to this, from akechi's angle (because God knows I, an Akira fictive, do NAWT want to dive headfirst into my emotions)-

Similarly to Akira, akechi's instant reaction when hit with the fear SE is to call for joker. No, not Akira- he can feel the difference between the two, Akira was the awkward, sympathetic teenager who loved the craft of coffee and curry and pretended to miss his hometown, but joker was the suave, flirty, tactics-focused leader who put his team before anything else in the world, and knew the metaverse like the back of his hand.

He didn't place his life and safety into people's hands for fun, so Akira had really earned it. If he did just trust anyone he tolerated, he would have had a partner-in-crime by now. But he doesn't, and the only person he's ever offered to pair with and take a step back from leading was for joker. His rival.

Now, actually talking about the fear status effect- I can imagine the feelings provoked for akechi were the ones when he was a little kid, on the days he would be waiting for his mom to fetch him from the hot springs and she would be later than usual, sitting in the hot water thinking "is she on her way? Is she okay? Oh God, she's dead isn't she?".

That, or the emotions of having to acknowledge that joker surpassed his strength, duelling in the metaverse.

Or maybe when he had gone 8-1 with the phantom thieves, and couldn't hold out and defeat them, even with Loki? Or maybe it was all of that at once, not even akechi really knows.

He calls for joker because even with him being the name of akechi's existence (no, he will not acknowledge that that feeling may be jealousy) he was the one constant force that akechi could count on, despite how ironic it was to do so with someone literally called the wildcard. Leblanc feels safe, but it feels like what akechi could only imagine home had felt as a kid, under a different circumstance when Akira (not joker, joker rarely stepped foot into the cafe) was there.

Joker was someone he could count on, and the person he was outside of the phantom thieves' work- Akira- was someone he could tell things to. So, naturally, when he is hit with fear, he craves the comfort akira brings, even if he refuses to look it in its eyes.

The thieves are confused- who wouldn't be, if they didn't have the metaphorical claws joker does to slice through the meaty flesh and bone of akechi's metaphorical chest and puncture into his metaphorical heart- they thought akechi and Akira were rivals? So why do they seem to ask for (or, formerly they thought avoid out of fear) one another?

It's a little funny to imagine akechi/Akira comforting Akira/akechi while the other thieves are like "didn't akechi shoot him in the head and Akira accidentally lead him to his death??".

Sorry if this doesn't make sense, I'm a connoisseur on all things Persona-5-rambling.

Thinking (again? Has anyone done this?) of Joker saying Akechi's name during Fear status and literally everyone assumes it's because he's flashing back to the interrogation and his near death experience.

Those present try to push Akechi away from him, when the affects seem to linger, and Akechi himself at first assumes this is the case as well.

They assume that the way Joker is looking around frantically is because he's still sure Akechi is "after him."

Except when Crow loses patience and slaps him out of it with a clawed hand and everyone (aside from Sumire) expects the worst, Joker doesn't freak out and run.

No, he relaxes and instantly, sheepishly, starts to calm down.

Akechi brings it up again when he self-destructively tries to push Akira away by reminding him of it, saying "a part of you is still scared of me, don't deny it-" only for that to make Akira laugh, angry.

He isn't scared OF Akechi. He isn't saying he never had been - it was terrifying, potentially facing death while powerless. But no.

When he's hit by Fear, the worst thing it dredges up is how he felt after Futaba said she couldn't find his signal, that he'd just heard Akechi die behind a barrier he couldn't get past.

It's the worst possible thing for Akechi to hear. It scares him, that trying to push Akira away won't work, that Maruki has his life as such a high value bargaining chip in Joker's eyes and Joker doesn't even know it, and it scares him in general that someone might actually care about him so much.

It means that Akechi outright knows that on 2/2 he's forcing Akira to create another new worst memory of losing him again.

And when he wakes up alive, it adds even more pressure to the idea of letting Akira know he's fine - because if he admits it, then he has to face the ordeal of being loved so much, so powerfully.

[kaasiand]

What's up with the 3ds grudge?

Basically the 3DS tried to be too many conflicting things at once, and ended up being a bad DS as a result. It's... fine... in its own right (minus the poor audio) but a lot of what worked strongly on DS just took so much of a back seat here, in favour of Trying To Be The Handheld That Doesn't Want To Be A Handheld. If someone ever made another DS, they should iterate on the original DS, rather than continue where the 3DS left off.

Screens have different dimensions (both in the sense of resolution and in the 2D/3D sense), meaning anything cool that the DS could do by swapping the screens or making them form one long screen, was a lot more awkward to pull on 3DS. Don't even think about holding it sideways (like a book or the Mario Bros. game & watch) if you want to use the 3D feature.

On DS, games had a choice in their design (to put the gameplay on the top or bottom screen) since the screens were basically identical except for touch, but the 3DS basically pushed for everything to be on the top screen (that's the bigger screen and that's where the 3D is!). The touchscreen often felt neglected, or only there because "they had to" (= the DS had a bottom screen and this thing needed to play those games too so we keep a bottom screen here too).

It also felt like the 3DS wanted way more games that tried to be full 3D home console games except crammed onto a handheld (the switch does this better by... actually being a home console) like it didn't want to be a real handheld at all. Turning the system on and off was also slow as hell and so it takes longer to actually get to your game (same problem the wii u had).

It also moved the dpad into an awkward spot where it makes DS games feel worse to play on it, and tried to make the circle pad essentially a replacement of the dpad, when the two excel at different things and should not be treated as a direct up/downgrade of the other. Metroid: Samus Returns for example feels genuinely awful to control with the circle pad imo and while Dread made the stick movement feel a lot smoother I really don't like that the 3DS kinda killed dpad controls for 2D nintendo games. The controls are also no longer symmetrical, so anything the DS could mirror for left-handed controls would work worse on 3DS.

Also I just kinda personally prefer the more pixely and crunchier feel of DS sprites, fonts, models and compressed textures. 3DS doesn't hit the same and instead only has low quality audio that I never want to listen to and a screen that funnily enough looks more crisp when held the wrong way.

[takethelongroadhome]

the thing that (imo) no one is acknowledging about astarion is that shame is a huge part of his psyche. just as much as (arguably more than) fear--an important aspect of his fear is that he fears becoming the person he was so ashamed of again.

most of the abuse he's implied to have experienced from cazador is so extremely degrading and humiliating that it's almost unimaginable. his siblings describe him as especially likely to fawn and submit for safety. leon goes out of his way to mock him for being cazador's "favorite," whatever the hell that means.

when he meets the 7,000 spawn for the first time, he's not just willing to sacrifice them for the ritual, he wants them to die--he hates them in a very visceral, personal way. the pity and guilt he feels for them is drowned out by his contempt-- they're "pathetic, horrible." if you call him out on the fact that they clearly remind him of himself, he absolutely flips out and says he killed that version of himself. he not only is willing to trick and kill his siblings, he not only thinks they deserve that, he is surprised that you feel differently. he was one of them barely a month ago! he knows that!

shame -> contempt sublimation is very real. when you hate yourself for what was done to you, it's barely a leap to begin hating others for what is done to them (I mean, he says outright that he doesn't want to help the gnome slaves in grymforge because they're depressing). he hates the person he was forced to become under cazador--the person who simpered and played along with the man systematically torturing him for his own gratification, who had to abandon all self-respect and dignity for survival, and so he draws a sharp distinction between past-astarion and free-astarion and is obsessed with separating himself from any trace of the former. anyone who's a victim like past-astarion gets hit with the full force of his contempt and disgust. free-astarion is good and worthy because he is no longer like those pathetic victims, and is free to look down on them all from his tadpole-enabled throne!

it's to the point where he actively gets joy out of seeing victims brutalized, because he's had to adopt cazador's worldview over the 200 years he spent trying to appease his every whim. (as much as he hates cazador, he also clearly "looks up" to him--he hypes him up as a threat like he's in a powerscaling argument with you. he has to! how else would he have survived?) you are either the powerful and dignified victimizer or the pathetic victim, and for once he gets to be in cazador's position, relishing the just punishment of the weak for being weak. he has no other model for what dignity can look like beyond this victimizer/victim dichotomy. if he wants basic self-respect, he thinks he has to be like this.

this isn't a good worldview, both in the moral sense and in the qualitative sense. it's miserable. astarion will never actually be able to achieve peace or happiness like this. no amount of power will satisfy his sense of shame--it certainly didn't for cazador! what he needs is to feel real compassion for other people and for his past self--not anger, not grievance, not bitterness, but actual compassion. that's part of why you get approval for talking him out of ascending--he may truly, desperately want to ascend, because everything he believes about the world is telling him that the 7,000 spawn deserve it and it's the only way for him to become worthy and whole and dignified, but even more than that, he wants someone to convince him that he's wrong.

obviously this isn't, like, the only factor at play in his head. he contains multitudes! but I do think it's an important one

[fueioekjfisks]

Vaguely inspired by that one post where Danny gets summoned by the JL and keeps throwing his shoes and stuff at them bc HE might not be able to leave the summoning circle but his clothes sure can!

I think the twist for that was that the circle doesnt effect him at all because hes a halfa and he was just goofing with the JL.

But imagine if the summoning and containment WORKED.

Like, he gets summoned and its startling, but once he realizes hes been summoned hes mostly annoyed.

Its a school night! He has work to do! Sure he wasnt DOING it, but it was still a possibility!

And hes trying to banter with the JL. Which for him just means being vaguely-obnoxious-but-somewhat-charming.

But then he tries to leave.

Maybe hes worried about his friends reaction to seeing him disappear.

Maybe the JL are saying some anti ghost/demon/whatever they think he is nonsense.

Maybe he changed his mind about doing that homework.

But either way, it doesnt work.

He drags his hand along the edge of the spell. It doesnt give, and he realizes hes not sure what this spell is supposed to do.

Its all along the floor beneth him, he cant fly through the floor.

He tries to get away from the walls and floor, worried whatever spell makes up the container can be triggered to hurt him or brainwash him or SOMETHING.

Its not his best guest, but he has never been summoned before, at least not with this type of barrier, and he doesnt know what to expect.

He barely gets a few feet off the ground when he hits the spells invisible roof.

And he is trapped.

And now this fourteen year old child is caged in a room with clearly dangerous adult strangers.

After hes been more or less kidnapped.

He’s suddenly regretting insulting them.

And its not his first time beimg kidnapped. Or his first time being in danger in general (obviously).

but its usually some ghost! Or Vlad “Loser, I hardly know her!” Masters!

Both of whom explain literally everything they plan in long ass evil monologues! It usually takes danny five minutes tops to learn their entire life story Dr Doofenshmirtz style!

He knows most of them personally! They hang out sometimes! Heck! even the local ghost hunters are either literally related to him or someone he’s dated!

He knows their powersets, their strengths, their weaknesses.

Most importantly, he knows their goals

But now hes trapped. In a room of clearly superpowerd strangers. With magical abilities strong enough to trap him for real.

And has no idea what they want

And Danny just freezes up

This could be super angsty if the JL were told that he was evil and think his panic + young features are only done to manipulate them.

You can also add angst with a language barrier/translation issue

I imagine the JL would be trying to get information about ghosts/ are trying to get someone to fight a villain they can’t defeat

Its going to scare the shit out of Danny either way- like imagine fourteen year old you gets kidnapped by strangers and they start asking you about your weaknesses or say they will only let you out if you agree to fight this monster.

And if Danny doesnt know this villain or how tf hes going to fight them he might feel like hes being sent off to get his ass kicked.

I can just imagine Danny being told he has to fight this supervillain and being like “…if i like..die…trying to fight this guy…what are you going to do with my body? Like will you send me home? Cause my family will freak if my corpse is teleported into the living room”

JL would not be happy about any of his responses.

Im begging someone to write this please have a nice day

[faerghusfucker]

hello tumblr user faerghusfucker, I love your character design takes. The detail in the Felix hair take fascinates me, because I personally know nothing about hair. Do you have any other hair-headcanons about other characters in the game?

hello tumblr user maxthewickedgoblin!!! the answer is yes i do, and i just need to preface this post by stating just how excited this ask got me. i got it in the middle of working on a pile of assignments and i decided to make answering it a reward for when i finished them all bc this is a topic im so passionate abt that even just giving myself time to THINK more abt it is like a treat.

also this is the first post im making from my computer instead of my phone lol, i anticipate itll be a long one so. it's real keyboard time. btw if yall want me to expand on any of these more you need only ask and i will yap for all eternity. i hold this information in my soul all the time i love yapping abt this shit

An Eclectic Collection of FE3H Hairstyle Headcanons

ingrid's father doesn't allow her to cut her hair. it's like unwieldy long pre-ts and it looks super split ends-y, probably to make her more "marriageable" and appealing to the noblemen that he sends her proposals from. In both houses and hopes she defies his wishes by joining the army, and i think her cutting her hair is a symbol of that defiance as well. she is COMMITTING to the knighthood thing, marriage is of no concern to her, and so she changes her appearance as a result

similar thing with mercedes!!! she has the same marriage conflict as ingrid does (it's a little different with her tho, ingrid loves her father and mercedes. well you know), and i think the hair thing caries over too. she becomes a nun post-ts in houses and cuts her hair way shorter, but there's also a noticeable lack of the fluffy, wavy texture it has pre-ts. idk if this would be a requirement for nuns in the church of seiros, but it seems that in turning herself fully over to her faith, she also reduced her focus on worldly/selfish things such as fancy products for her hair and spending hours on styling it, so maybe that's why it's so much straighter in addition to being shorter

i know i already yapped abt felix FAR too much so here's a cutesy one lol i think he lets ppl play with his hair if they want to. he lets mercedes brush it and put braids in it when she misses emille and he didnt protest too hard when annette wanted to put flowers in it for the ball (spoiler for my ball felix design). he also takes SUPER good care of it. of all the characters in the game except maybe hilda, his hair routine is the most detailed. you know he has special brushes and oils and shit, his hair is SILKYYYY

you didnt think i JUST had blue lions headcanons, did you???? SURPRISE

i think dorothea's natural hair texture is her post-timeskip houses one, and in every other design she's curled it. i mean come on, she was a diva in an opera company, of course she knows how to do her hair super nice, and she carried that skill with her to the academy to try and attract a good spouse. but as we learn more about her and she grows up a little more, she starts to drop her flirty facade and be more authentic instead, and you guessed it, wearing her natural hair more :3

linhardt is VERY picky abt his hair length. obviously hes autistic and so he probably doesnt like how it feels when the cold air hits his neck. but at the same time, when his hair gets longer than his shoulders it tangles too easily, and it's far too much work to brush all of that hair. his hair has to sit AT his shoulders (in hopes he gets too busy with the war effort to cut it and so he's in-between haircuts in that one. he hates it so much. someone give my dear son a trim)

ferdinand's hair grows CRAZY fast. did you guys see the length of it in the houses timeskip????? unreal. like linhardt he starts out very meticulous with it-- a nobleman must be well-groomed, after all-- but once the war starts and he loses his territory i think he gets a lil depressed and kind of just. doesnt do it anymore lol

this one's a little out there but i think hubert is blind in his hidden eye and thats why he puts his hair over it. hes never told anyone abt it bc it would be a major weakness in battle if someone knew he had a massive blind spot. this is part of the reason he takes so well to magic thats super big and destructive so he doesnt need to be super precise abt where he's hitting. he struggles with weapons A LOT so he makes sure hes an absolute beast in magic to make up for it

marianne never learned to do her own hair, but she learned to braid horse manes after spending so much time with them and so she just applied that knowledge to herself. after getting closer to hilda, she very nervously and quietly asked if she could show her how to make her hair look nice, and homegirl JUMPED at the opportunity (hilda had been wanting to fix her gf's hair up for so long but she was being nice abt it)

lorenz lets his father cut his hair for him. need i say more

byleth (both of them) trims their hair with a dagger, and they've gotten really good at it. mercenery work doesn't pay well enough for things like hairdressers, and they've never really given much thought to their appearance until arriving at the monastery and having everyone ogle at them all the time.

that SHOULD be everything but i'll probably think of more later. i legit thought of a few new ones as i wrote them lmao. i'm actually going to school for game design rn and specializing in concept art so this is the type of shit i think of. for my career lmao it's super fun. please spam my askbox with headcanons or questions or whatever the fuck i love to talk and i think it's bonkers other ppl like to read what i write lol. see you next time with that felix drawing :3

[tarraxahum]

This was gonna be a reply to a reply but I thought maybe I should just make my own post. Yes this is about Vi again.

It's no secret that "Vi should've fought for Zaun" and the expectation of her being Vander's prodigy and feeling like the plot dropped the ball on her in that regard and the betrayal at the fact that she's living comfortably in Piltover now are. Frequent sentiments in the fandom. Which I get, but also I feel that this line of expectations is. Diverging from who Vi actually is by the end and what she was realistically capable of.

Vi in season 2 is basically running on fumes and because she has no other options. It is a well known thing in irl activist spaces that to participate in any kind of fight for justice you need to take care of yourself, otherwise you won't have the energy to be any kind of useful to your community. Ekko also says this - "It's not enough to give people what they need to survive, you have to give them what they need to live". Vi has been surviving and not living in any shape or form for years, she's exhausted and broken in places. That's no mental state to fight for Zaun or make any kinda change. I think it's extremely realistic and human and hardly a flaw of writing or the character if by the end the only thing she was able to do was collapse into the safety and peace she was offered for the first time in forever (aka Caitlyn). It's clear that in her last scene she's still recovering mentally - Cait seems to be excited to have any sign of life (singing) from her at all, and the "Are you still in this fight?" question is very loaded. (But it's indicated that Vi is very much still in the fight, so? It's really anyone's guess what she'll do once she's healed and remembers how to live. And don't bring up LoL's Vi brutality thing, it's clear they're different characters).

I think in wanting to see Vi stand up for Zaun or be Vander's prodigy we often deny her the flaw of being a breakable human and forget just how much she's held together by duct tape. Just because she was full of this 'fuck Piltover' fire as a kid doesn't mean she is still capable of matching that energy. Sometimes after lots of trauma humans grow up into tired adults who just want to sit down and feel safe regardless of where it happens and how questionable it might look (re: living in Piltover). Not to mention, that even as a child Vi's main reason for fuming at the Topside was wanting safety for her family and herself. Well, now she's all out of family, she's estranged from the community of Zaun thanks to being in prison for 7 years and Silco changing the place so much, and the only person who's offering her safety and not more fighting (which she's exhausted and thoroughly burnt out from!) is Caitlyn, so. How is where she ended up any kind of surprising or a failure of her writing/character?

Yes, a lot of people wanted a revolutionary, no, Vi isn't one. Dare I say, never really was one. At her lowest, when she's got no one left to protect, she's not trying to fill in that void by taking on protecting Zaun and becoming a vigilante or something, no, she spirals. That is not something on her radar, that's not something she's visibly cut out to do, she cares so so much but on a smaller scale. Even the whole shimmer factory debacle was less about Zaun and more about her desire to hurt Silco personally for what he'd done to her family. If Jinx agreed to run away with her back at the tea party Vi would ditch the entirety of Zaun (potentially leaving it to Silco forever since he's still alive at that point) in a heartbeat to keep her sister and save Cait in one move. She puts on an enforcer uniform BECAUSE she cares for Jinx (through convincing herself that at the very least she should take her out of her misery herself rather than leaving it to people who don't care, yes) and Cait both.

Perhaps a hot take, but not becoming a leader despite being good at taking hits to the head and caring about people in general and being a daughter of one does not make Vi a badly written character or a bad person. It just makes her a person. And a character whose arc culminated in choosing herself. And choosing yourself sometimes means leaving the fight to others (perhaps temporarily, considering the final dialogue). And that's okay.

Arcane is tragedy about flawed people, not a feel-good story about a successful revolution and rich people paying for their crap, and it was never going to be. Ergo one of our main character isn't an upcoming hero in shining armor who was allegedly robbed of her potential. She's just a broken young woman who barely knows how to keep her own little life together and her biggest victory by the end is allowing herself to take a breath and live for once. Yes, while her home down there is still in shambles. Yes, that sounds selfish. For some people a bit of selfishness is the greatest thing they can ever learn for themselves.

[theomencometh]

Anthony's Realization

Fandom: Smosh Pairing: Ian Hecox/Anthony Padilla, Anthony Padilla & Dan Howell, implied phan Rating: T Key Tags: Feelings Realization, Getting Together, Friends to Lovers Word Count: 5,275 Read on AO3

Summary:

When Anthony’s realization finally hits him, the first thing that he does is take three slow, deep breaths. The second thing that he does is figure out when his next therapy appointment is, decide it’s too far away, and pull out his phone to text an expert.

When Anthony’s realization finally hits him, the first thing that he does is take three slow, deep breaths.  He closes his eyes, inhales, and tells himself that it isn’t a big deal.  And it truly isn’t, not really.  The thing about this realization is that it's not a surprise.  He may not have been aware enough to name what was happening, but by the time he becomes conscious of his feelings, he’s been living with them for long enough that it’s a natural part of him, nothing to be done.  He doesn’t want to fight it, it’s silly to deny it, and there are definitely worse fates in the world.  Still, it’s a huge fucking realization to have, and he takes a second to re-center himself in the middle of the office so he doesn’t do something stupid, like have a panic attack or grab Ian by the lapels of his jacket or start laughing hysterically.

The second thing that he does when he finally has his realization is figure out when his next therapy appointment is, decide it’s too far away, and pull out his phone to text an expert.

There’s no way that he can talk about this with anyone he works with.  Not only are there sometimes complicated boundaries with him being one of the owners, but if this got leaked it would spread around Smosh like wildfire, and he’s absolutely not ready for that.  In that instance, might as well stay away from everyone in the general LA area, just in case it manages to get back to anyone on staff.  Actually, there are too many people who know Smosh members in the entire country, so it’s best to discard everyone in the United States–no, everyone in all of North America entirely.

The answer is obvious.  There’s one other person who is uniquely positioned to understand what he’s going through and who would be willing to talk him through it, and that person doesn’t live in the country and talks more to him than anyone else at Smosh.

Anthony: hey, any chance you’re free to chat soon? could use your advice. nothing bad

He only has to wait a few seconds, which is impressive, because he didn’t consider calculating the time difference before he texted.

Dan Howell (youtube): oh hell

you’re not dying right

30 minutes sound good?

Anthony: no death, 30 min is good. Ttyl

Anthony grabs his jacket and heads out the door, calling a very general goodbye to the office at large so no one thinks he has just been burdened with self-knowledge that he will be obsessing over for the foreseeable future.

Anthony makes it home with no memory of the drive.  He barely has time to kick off his shoes and settle on the couch before Dan’s call comes through.  It’s a video call, but Anthony is still met by a dark screen, only half of Dan’s face illuminated with white light.  He’s probably in his room in the dark even though he’s wide awake, which feels so quintessentially Dan that it eases Anthony a little.

“Hey, thanks for calling,” Anthony says.  Dan squints at him suspiciously from the tiny phone screen.

“Of course,” he replies.  “Not every day I get to talk to my good friend Anthony Padilla.”

Anthony rolls his eyes, because Dan has been busier than him lately and they do send each other memes and funny messages sometimes.  It’s not like they’ve had no contact in the past few months.

“What’s up?” Dan asks, steamrolling past any reply Anthony might come up with.  Anthony likes that about him.  It may be hard to lock Dan into a genuine conversation when he doesn’t want one, but once he’s there he has single-minded focus and doesn’t let Anthony beat around the bush or procrastinate.  Anthony would be almost offended that it seems like Dan wants to get it over with if it wasn’t for the fact that small talk right now would be excruciating.

“I’ve, uh, had a bit of a realization recently, and I don’t really want to talk to anyone in the office about it.”

Dan levels him with a flat look.

“Are you fucking in love with Ian?”

Anthony groans, leaning back against his couch and giving himself a moment to cover his face.

He didn’t expect Dan to clock him so easily.  Can everyone tell?  Was Anthony himself the last person to know?  Does he have a flashing neon sign saying IN LOVE WITH IAN HECOX hanging above his head?

“How the fuck did you know?” he asks incredulously.  Dan laughs at him, loud and bright.

“Because if it wasn’t about Ian, you’d be talking through whatever it is with him as part of your “healthy communication” pact, and my largest skill set is navigating how to be a gay youtuber in love with your best friend and business partner. Also, I’m probably the closest gay person you know who isn’t associated with your company.”

Anthony laughs.

“Is it really that obvious?” he asks.  Dan shrugs.

“I know what I’m about,” he replies.  “Now, is it the gayness that’s a crisis or the Ian-ness that’s a crisis?”

“Ian-ness,” he responds immediately.  “Wait, actually…”

Dan waits while Anthony takes a moment, because that’s not right, not really.

He isn’t worried about his sexuality.  He came to the conclusion a few years ago that he would keep himself open to other possibilities, and he’s always been able to appreciate other guys.  The fact that Ian has a dick isn’t a problem.  Sure, he hasn’t felt particularly motivated to give someone a blowjob before, but he’s not bothered by the idea at all.  He’d like to have the chance, frankly, even if he’s bad at it and needs to practice a bit, especially if Ian is the one he’s practicing with.  But the Ian of it all isn’t a crisis, either.

“It’s not–” he starts, then stops.  Dan hums encouragingly.  “It’s not a crisis, really?  It’s Ian, you know?  This is probably the best case scenario for my first time falling in love with a man.”

“Fair,” Dan says.  “So what do you need me for, then?”

Anthony snorts.

“If I didn’t talk this through with someone, I’d probably end up blurting it out in a meeting tomorrow in front of everyone.”

Dan hums.

“Yeah, wouldn’t be the most professional moment, even for you,” he says.  “I take it this means you’re down bad.”

“Oh yeah,” Anthony confirms.  “Hit me like a truck.  Nothing even prompted it!  I was wrapping up for the day and wondering if I should ask Ian to grab dinner like usual and the idea made me so happy I thought something was wrong.”

“That’s fucking gay, Anthony,” Dan says.

“I know!” he groans.  “That was the problem, because that’s how I feel about him all the time.  This is how I’ve felt for months, and I’m just now realizing.  What the fuck?  How does that happen?”

“You were too caught up in the euphoria of being around him again to tell it was a proper crush.  Like a frog in boiling water,” Dan says, nodding sagely.  Anthony mirrors him, grateful that he doesn’t need to elaborate further.  Reuniting with Ian felt like finding a part of himself that had been missing since before he left Smosh.  He had no way of knowing that the rush he felt every time they hung out or the elation when he managed to say something that made Ian laugh was a symptom of something bigger.  It felt like it used to, except better because they’d both grown as people and weren’t emotionally stunted children anymore.  He didn’t realize that love had anything to do with it, at least not romantic love.  Then, once they’d stabilized properly, they bought Smosh and he had more things to distract himself with.  He loved being around Ian, he loved being at Smosh, he loved the fact that he could have both when he had missed them for years.  He didn’t feel the need to examine things closer than that.

“What am I supposed to do?” Anthony asks.  Dan snorts.

“Don’t do what I did, which was stalk the other person to the point where we were friends and then make him do all the romantic heavy lifting,” he says.  “The way I see it, you can either repress it so hard it disappears and you’re miserable, or you tell him in a private moment that you both can escape if it goes badly.”

Anthony frowns.

“Will it go badly?”

Dan shrugs.

“You know Ian better than I do.  What do you think?”

Anthony makes himself stop and genuinely consider the question, rather than respond with knee-jerk fears or defensiveness.  There’s decades of history including their friendship completely unraveling to consider, and Anthony doesn’t think he’ll survive losing Ian a second time.  But Ian has never run away because Anthony wanted too much from him.  He might not respond the way that Anthony wants, and he might not give Anthony the same openness and vulnerability that Anthony would be giving him during a confession, but he can’t see this being the thing that pushes Ian away for good.  It might be awkward for a bit, but they’re both adults.  Anthony can figure out how to manage his feelings, and Ian historically has been great at ignoring elephants in rooms and pretending like things are fine.

“I think it’ll be okay,” he says slowly.  “If he doesn’t feel the same or is weirded out, I think we’ll be able to move past it.  He’ll probably make some bad jokes to deflect, but I don’t think he’ll hate me, or ask me to leave the company or anything.”

“You think he doesn’t feel the same?” Dan asks.  Anthony shrugs.

“Who knows, with Ian.  I know he loves me, but that’s different than being in love with me, and he was repressing the shit out of his emotions for a while there.  I don’t know.  It’s been–things have been really good with us, recently.  And I think he’s in the same place as me, with the sexuality thing.  But that doesn’t mean that he’s in the same place as me with his feelings, too.”

Dan hums.

Anthony tries to imagine Ian smiling at him in that new, soft way he sometimes does, saying something like “don’t be stupid, Anthony, of course I love you, too”.  His heart speeds up at just the thought, feeling like it’s about to skip out of his chest, and he slams that door shut immediately.  No use in getting his hopes up or catastrophizing, not before he knows the actual outcome.  Better not borrow the joy or anxiety of the future, right?

“When are you going to tell him?” Dan asks.

“What happened to maybe repressing it and being miserable?”  Anthony replies.

Even though he can barely see anything from Dan’s side of the screen, he can see the look that Dan gives him.  At least it makes him snort.

“As your friend, I can’t in good conscience actually recommend that route to you,” Dan says.  “Especially because you’d be shit at it and would tell him anyway, but it’d probably be at the worst possible moment.”

Anthony can’t argue with that.  He’s not great at keeping things inside.  If he tries to repress this, it’ll bubble up before exploding, like a soda that’s been shaken then cracked open, spilling his feelings all over the place.

“I should probably tell him soon, then,” Anthony says.  Dan nods.

“Better to get it over with.  Rip off the bandaid.”

“Opposite of what you did.”

“Fuck off,” Dan says, voice high with indignation.  “I’ve been in a happy relationship for over a decade.  You asked me for help.”

“I did,” Anthony concedes.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Dan says, smarmy and pompous in a way that makes Anthony laugh.

He directs the conversation away from his realization and toward normal topics, taking his time to catch up with Dan properly.  It’s good to talk to him, just like it always is.  As allergic as they are to phone calls, it’s nice to be able to chat in real time, rather than allowing text messages to get lost in a flurry of notifications.  More time has passed than Anthony realized when another notification pops up at the top of his screen.  He trails off mid-sentence when he sees who it’s from.

Ian: you ok? you left the office pret…

While he’s reading, another banner appears.

Ian: dinner?

“What’s up, what just happened?  Why are you ignoring me?” Dan asks.

“Sorry,” Anthony says, shaking his head to bring himself back to the moment.  “Ian just texted.  He wants to have dinner.”

“The thing that started it all,” Dan says ominously.  “Sounds like the perfect opportunity.”

Anthony feels a dash of panic surge through him before it fades, leaving the hint of a bitter aftertaste.

“Already?” he winces.

“Why, do you need to let things settle?” Dan asks.  “You seemed pretty secure with everything earlier.  Do you think your feelings are going to change?”

Anthony shakes his head immediately.

“I have never been more sure of my feelings,” he affirms.  “I’m in this for the long haul.”

Dan holds his hand up in a there you go gesture.

“Right,” Anthony says.  “Pulling off a bandaid.”

“Guess I’ll let you go get your man,” Dan sighs dramatically.  “Text me what happens.  Whether it’s a celebration or you want someone to listen to emo music and cry with you.”

“Thank you,” Anthony says earnestly.  Dan rolls his eyes.

“Whatever.  Welcome to the gay disaster club.  Have fun.”

“Thanks for having me,” Anthony laughs.  “Talk to you later.”

Dan says a quick goodbye and signs off with a wave, and Anthony navigates over to Ian’s messages before he can second-guess himself.

Ian Hecox: you ok? you left the office pretty quick today

dinner?

Anthony’s thumbs hover over the buttons, not wanting to lie to Ian, but also not wanting to confess his feelings over text.  If he says he wants to talk to Ian about something, Ian might think it’s worse than it is, and Anthony doesn’t want to turn this into a big deal for him if it doesn’t have to be, but if he ignores Ian’s initial question and just asks him to come over with takeout, he’ll still think something is wrong, and he’ll think that Anthony doesn’t want to talk about it with him and therefore it’s something terrible.

His phone buzzes with another notification.

Dan Howell (youtube): you better be replying to him and not PROCRASTINATING like a LOSER

Anthony sends him the middle finger emoji, but it’s the encouragement that he needs.

Anthony: had something on my mind i wanted to think through, nothing bad

wanna come over? bring thai pls

Ian’s reply comes in immediately.

Ian: be there in 20

Anthony locks his phone and sets it down, letting out a long breath.  He scrubs his hands over his face, then through his hair, blinking at the blank tv across from him while he tries to organize his thoughts.

He can’t sit here for 20 minutes spiraling until Ian gets here.  He wants to smoke to offset the nerves thrumming through him, but he doesn’t want to overdo it and lose his sense of urgency, then decide to put the confession off because of it.  He needs to tell Ian tonight.

“Like ripping off a bandaid,” he says aloud, slapping his thighs and standing.  He spots a candle and lights that, at least, then busies himself tidying up.  His home isn’t messy by any means, but rearranging things and breaking out the duster to run along his bookshelves gives him something to keep his hands busy while he repeats a mantra of affirmations in his mind, not allowing any room for the negative and anxious thoughts to permeate.

A sharp knock on his door breaks him out of his thoughts while he’s unloading the dishwasher, immediately followed by his door opening and Ian’s voice calling “Honey, I’m home!”

Anthony’s heart flutters.  If this continues, he’s going to need to see a cardiologist.

“In the kitchen!” he calls back.  “Want a drink?”

“Water for now,” Ian calls back, no doubt setting their take-out up on the coffee table in the living room.  “We’ll see about later.”

Anthony grabs two glasses for them and fills them from the filter in the fridge, adding ice for himself but none for Ian because he says it gets too cold for his teeth these days.  They’re getting older.  Anthony is grateful that he’s present to see it.

“I got you your usual,” Ian says, gesturing to the container while Anthony carefully sets the glass in front of him.  He changed since the office, dressing down in sweatpants and an older Smosh hoodie that they discontinued before Anthony left.  He looks tired and comfortable, like he belongs on Anthony’s couch shoveling rice into his mouth, and Anthony swallows around the lump in his throat.

Yeah, he needs to tell Ian tonight.  He can’t keep living like this.  Self-awareness is a gift, because you can’t change things if you don’t know there’s a problem, but Anthony wishes the problem wasn’t being in love with his best friend in a way that’s overwhelmingly impossible to ignore.

They don’t talk about anything important while they eat, just chatting casually about whatever crosses their minds, from a weird squirrel that Ian saw yesterday to an artist that Anthony found on Instagram and really likes.  It’s easy and comfortable, and Anthony finds himself relaxing with every little joke Ian says that makes him laugh.  Ian doesn’t try to be funny outside of work, but he naturally has Anthony in stitches more than anyone else he’s ever met.  Anthony has laughed more in the two years they’ve been reunited than he did in the entire six years they were apart.

Eventually, the laughter fades away, Ian setting his plastic fork down and leaning back against the cushions, wiggling a bit to get in the most comfortable position possible with a content sigh.  He’s such an old man that way, but Anthony is right there with him, knees cracking when he stretches out.

“So,” Ian says, lolling his head to the side so he can see Anthony fully. “What were you thinking so hard about earlier?”

Anthony sighs.  He crosses his arms, but he doesn’t like how that makes him feel like a kid waiting outside the principal’s office, so he rubs his hands against his jeans instead.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Ian offers.  “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Anthony says before Ian can get the wrong idea.  “It’s not–I wanted to tell you, anyway.”

“Okay,” Ian says slowly.  Anthony takes a deep breath, then another one.

“I’m bi,” he blurts.

Not quite what he wanted to say, but baby steps.

“Officially,” he adds.  “I know we’ve kind of talked about it before, but I wasn’t really sure, and now I am.  I’m bisexual.  I like dudes, too.”

“Nice,” Ian says with a grin, leaning forward to give him a high five.  Anthony obediently slaps their palms together, and Ian’s fingers curl around Anthony’s hand, shaking him.  “Let’s go!  Solidarity!”

Anthony laughs, letting Ian break the tension like he usually does.  Their hands fall back against the couch, still clasped together, and part of the laughter dies in Anthony’s throat.

“Thanks for telling me, dude,” Ian says.  “I am, too, since we’re sharing sexualities.”

Ian’s thumb swipes over the back of Anthony’s hand and goosebumps erupt across his arms, thankfully hidden by his sweater.

“Cool,” he manages to say.  Ian smiles at him, open and joyful, and Anthony doesn’t know what emotion is playing across his face, but it makes Ian soften.

“Are you going to get emo on me?” he asks, light and teasing.  Anthony chuckles, but it comes out a little wet.

“I didn’t think I would,” he says honestly, blinking up at the ceiling and letting out a shaky breath.  Ian squeezes his hand, just a quick pressure and release, and Anthony returns it.  When he’s centered himself enough to look back at Ian, his best friend is still smiling at him.  It’s a smile that has no pretenses or expectations, just gentle acceptance.  He’s so much more open than Anthony ever expected him to be, even since they reconciled.  They both had to relearn how to read each other in these heavy moments, and Anthony now knows when Ian puts his walls up and why, and when he can give Anthony more of the vulnerability that he always craves.  Now, though, he doesn’t feel like Ian is hiding, despite the jokes and teasing.  He’s just here with Anthony, ready to take whatever confession he gives.

“That’s not all of it,” Anthony says.  Ian shifts, tucking a foot under him so he can face Anthony fully.  He still hasn’t let go of his hand, but Anthony doesn’t want to watch him do so later, so he does it himself, twisting one of his rings around to distract his hands from the sudden emptiness.

“I, uh,” he starts.  Ian’s steady focus on him is distracting, and it’s making his throat close up again.  He clears it, an incongruous sound in the otherwise quiet space.

“I realized I have feelings for someone,” he finally brings himself to say. Ian’s expression doesn’t change, maintaining a careful neutrality that Anthony is all too familiar with.

“Is that a bad thing?” he asks eventually, when too much time has passed for Anthony to fill in the blanks.

“No,” Anthony says quickly.  “No, it’s not– I’m not upset about it.  It’s just… scary.  But I can handle it.”

Ian’s eyebrows twitch with an aborted frown.

Damn, he’s botching this.

“It’s– if I had to fall in love with anyone, it’s best that it’s him,” he tries to explain.  “He’s– this is the best case scenario.”

Ian does frown this time.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re gonna let me down easy.”

Ian stares at him.  Anthony replays those words in his head and heat floods his face, everything burning.  He blinks a few times, but time doesn’t rewind and let him take those words back to tell Ian in a better way.  He’s always been shit at improv; he should’ve scripted this in those 20 minutes while Ian was grabbing them dinner and instead he’s making a mess of things.

“What,” Ian asks, no inflection.  Anthony opens his mouth, can’t get any actual words out, and closes it again.

“Deep breath, Anthony,” Ian commands.  Even though the inflection is still strangely empty, Anthony forces in a breath, then another one.

“Sorry,” he says.  Ian shakes his head.

“It’s fine.  But you need to use words, because I don’t know what the fuck is happening right now.”

Anthony gestures helplessly.

“I love you?” he says.  “In a gay way?”

Ian nods slowly.  Anthony wants the ground to open up and swallow him.  Maybe he can go stay with Dan and Phil for a few weeks or forever, since Dan’s advice got him in this situation in the first place, except he knows that he’s being irrational and everything should be fine once it stops sucking so bad.

He should’ve done this at Ian’s house so he could run away, rather than having Ian come to him and having to kick him out.

“You think I’m going to let you down easy?” Ian asks.  Anthony laughs, a high pitched, hysteric noise that he immediately hates and never wants to make again.

“Are you really going to be mean to me about it?” he asks.  His pulse is racing.  He’s going to die.  He’s actually going to die from confessing his gay love for his best friend.  This is pathetic.  This is terrible.  He’s almost 40 years old and it feels like he’s 15 and getting rejected for the first time, except worse.  Dan owes him so many drinks.

“Anthony,” Ian says, reaching towards him.  Anthony isn’t fast enough to lean away, and Ian’s hands cup his jaw, curling around his neck and threading through his hair to keep him in place.

“Stop freaking out,” he says, thumb swiping across Anthony’s jaw.  “Don’t be stupid.”

Anthony can’t even begin to formulate a response, because Ian leans forward and kisses him.  His brain completely short circuits at the gentle contact, even though it only lasts for a second before Ian is leaning back, carefully eyeing him.

“Huh?” he says.  Ian cracks a smile.

“I love you, too, you idiot.”

All of the tension leaves Anthony in a rush that makes him dizzy.  It’s a good thing that Ian is still holding him, hands anchoring him in the present while Ian gives him that new smile, the one that makes Anthony feel like Ian doesn’t want to be anywhere else if Anthony isn’t with him.

“Huh?” he asks again.  Ian chuckles, but it isn’t malicious, and Anthony smiles with him.

“Dude, did you really not know?” Ian asks.  “Courtney staged an intervention for me weeks ago.  Apparently she and Shayne have been making little bets since you came back.”

“Since I came back?” Anthony asks.  “No way.”

“They were delusional,” Ian agrees.  “I was not in touch with my feelings enough at that point.  I was just happy to have my best friend back.”

“And now?” Anthony asks.  Ian grins.

“I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.  What happened to you being in tune with your mind and spirit, bro?  Why’d it take you so long to get here?”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Anthony laughs, hands coming up to circle Ian’s wrists.  “I’ve never fallen in love with my best friend before.  I thought it was just you.”

Ian snorts, ducking his head and finally letting his hands fall from Anthony’s face, tangling their fingers together instead.

“That’s so fucking cheesy,” he says, but he sounds pleased.  Anthony flushes.

“We’re basically a friends to lovers fanfiction, Ian.  This was always going to be cheesy.”

Ian rolls his eyes.  When he looks at Anthony again, it’s through his lashes with a fond smile, like he’s taking pages out of Seduction 101.  Anthony is actually embarrassed at how well it works on him, face heating and breath catching.  His eyes wander down to Ian’s lips, and he forces them back to his eyes in a panic before he remembers that he’s allowed to do that.  Ian made that clear.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.  “I wasn’t ready when you did it.”

“I don’t know, can you?” Ian replies automatically, then grimaces.  Anthony gives him a look, even if Ian’s immediate regret is clear.  At least they’re on the same page there.

“Yes,” Ian corrects.  “Actually, if you don’t I’m going to be upset.”

That’s all the encouragement that Anthony needs to lean in.  He takes his time, letting their noses brush and settling his hands on Ian’s waist before Ian gets impatient and closes the gap.  It feels entirely different than their first kiss.  Anthony goes into it with intention, pressing as close as he can without Ian's glasses getting in the way, and Ian responds in kind, hands snaking over Anthony's shoulders.  The scratch of Ian's stubble against his mouth sends shivers down his spine, much more addictive than Anthony would've guessed, and he fists Ian's hoodie tighter in response, shifting to try to get even closer.  Ian breaks the kiss before Anthony is ready, but all he does is take off his glasses and dive right back in, matching Anthony step for step.

Being this close is causing Anthony's head to spin, each change in angle and point of contact simultaneously making every nerve in him stand at attention and glaze over.  He can smell Ian's aftershave under the leftover Thai food and burned down remnants of the candle permeating through the living room, and Ian's hands feel incredibly warm through his sweater, even more so when one of them slides up his neck to dig into his hair.  The gentle scratch of nails against his scalp pulls the start of a whine out of his throat unbidden, and Ian immediately deepens the kiss, coaxing Anthony to open his mouth with a brush of his tongue.

Anthony wants to keep kissing him all night.  He could stay kissing him for the rest of his life and be perfectly happy, whether he keels over in a few minutes or a few decades.  This is their first time kissing with intent, the first time where it actually means something, but there's something so familiar about it anyway, the easy way that they move together and around each other, the compatible pressure and comfortable motions.  He pulls at Ian again, wanting to get even closer, and Ian shifts without breaking contact, pushing Anthony back against the arm of the couch and following him down.  It puts their bodies flush together, and Anthony wraps his arms around Ian's back, pinning him there, a warm line along his front.

A vibration in his pocket startles him enough that he breaks the kiss, blinking up at Ian in surprise.  He's haloed by the overhead light, mouth red and cheeks flushed, and he has never looked more beautiful.

"What's wrong?" he asks.  Anthony blinks at him, processing.

The phone in his back pocket vibrates again, loud enough that Anthony can hear it now that he's not distracted.  He forces one of his hands to release Ian's sweatshirt, lifting his hips to access the pocket and inhaling sharply when the motion makes him brush against Ian.

"Anthony..." Ian says, voice thick.  Anthony's phone vibrates again in his hand, drawing Ian's attention to it.  He sits back on his heels, finally giving Anthony room to catch a full breath.

Dan Howell (youtube): how are things?  have you told him yet?

celebration or crying

maybe silence is a good sign??

“Who is it?” Ian asks, tugging on the bottom of his hoodie.

“Dan,” Anthony says.  Then, for clarification, “Howell.  I called him earlier.  He wants to know how the love confession went.”

Ian plucks the phone from his hand in the middle of typing his reply.

“Hey,” Anthony protests halfheartedly while Ian swipes to the camera app.  Any additional bitching dies in his throat when Ian presses his lips to the corner of Anthony’s mouth, taking a selfie at the exact moment.

It isn’t the best picture.  They’re off-center and Anthony’s face equal parts enamored and very clearly caught off-guard, but Anthony doesn’t protest while Ian attaches the picture to Anthony’s message thread with Dan and sends it.  He locks the phone and discards it off to the side, something that Anthony is very okay with once Ian turns his full attention back to him.

“I know we need to talk about this soon, but I kinda want to save that conversation for later tonight and go back to making out right now,” Ian states.

“I’m fine with that,” Anthony says, already reaching for him.  He kisses Ian’s grin off his face.

Somewhere on Anthony’s coffee table, nestled among empty takeout containers and a stack of napkins, Anthony’s phone buzzes again.  Neither of them hear it.  When Anthony finally checks his phone the next morning, he’ll have a litany of text messages, equal parts sincerely happy and playfully disgusted.  For now, he’s more than satisfied to kiss Ian silly, everything else fading away until the world consists of just the two of them.

[earlgrey-and-lavender]

I adore the socmed aus so much so here are my headcanons for them in general:

-Neil lurks for the most part but runs his mouth on Twitter dot com about exy games ESPECIALLY Jean and Kevin’s when they go pro. The cats are his banner photo.

-Andrew has an account. It exists. He never posts. He barely uses the app except to like his families posts and the occasional random tweet and exy fans run wild about it. Once he responded to a Neil and Kevin spat online to ask Neil to grab something from the store. He doesn’t go online much bc it’s bad for his mental health and he doesn’t care what random people have to say.

-Jeremy is very active on socials and has a large following outside of the exy community. He posts silly stuff about his friends and found family. His family is very strict about what he can/cannot post online so most of the posts are very formal and PR trained.

-Kevin is an exy only account. He doesn’t talk about anything other than exy except for one or two posts about his family but he keeps a lot of his life private from his fans so even those posts are mostly vague.

-Nicky is very open online and shares a lot about his life. His account is where 70% of the twinyard content hits the internet. Shit posts. Memes. Mundane life updates. The most normal person social out of the bunch.

-Allison has a brand focused social presence. All business. Her stories feature more of her personality posts

[orions-choker]

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Serial Killers, Murder, Obsessions, Yandere tendencies, Gore, more to be added.

Chapter Ten

A/N: Hi Wanted to give a warning for this chapter! This entire chapter is sex, not only that I rewrote it like three times for some graphic descriptions of gore. However those parts have not been removed, just slightly toned down as that is just my intended nature with this story. I'm sorry if that makes anyone uncomfortable <3 Otherwise please enjoy.

Having a label on whatever this was between them didn’t bring her any source of joy or excitement. She almost wanted to hit herself, she had been yearning for him to stop tip-toeing around their relationship for weeks and now she dreaded it. “Boyfriend,” She rolled the word around her tongue like a heavy bitter candy, a cough drop found at the bottom of your grandmother's purse. It made her gag.

She was analyzing herself in the mirror, stark naked and exposed. Pulling back on her skin she examined each mark left on her skin. Kirk was… bitey. She wouldn’t mind it under any other circumstance. If he was just normal. Instead it seemed like a testament to the fact that maybe he wanted to hurt her for real, each bruise painted into her skin was deep and purple and ached. He wanted to consume her, eat her. Maybe it was literal? She didn’t really know. “Boyfriend,” She spat the word out this time like she could hurl it far enough away that it no longer branded her. Her fingers prodding at the bite mark around her nipple, down to the matching one on her inner thigh. He had been kind enough to ask, she believed that if she said no he would have respected that. It still didn’t make him a good person.

The murders had come to a halt a while ago, the timeline tracked from the moment she had agreed to devote her time to him under the guise of safety. The phone calls and horrific news articles suddenly felt like a long distant memory. The police were no closer to catching the perp and there was no relief that settled over the town even though it had been weeks since another body was found. A monster still lived among them, and had taken the lives of innocent people, daughters. Girls like her.

She was doing a disservice to the lives of the girls lost by sleeping with that very monster. By holding him at night like he had done no wrong, writhing underneath him in pleasure rather than agonizing pain, by loving him. She turned away from the mirror quickly, the very sight of herself made her stomach churn. Quickly she climbed into her shower, letting the cold water pelt against her skin as punishment for everything she felt. She told herself it was better this way than avoiding him. Sure she was spitting on the memories of the victims, but she was saving the lives of any other potentials…right?

The cold water did nothing to relieve her of her sins. When she stepped back into her room the feeling of being watched settled over her again, but she knew the source now. She realised now where it had been coming from all along. Kirk didn’t hide it anymore, he wanted her to know now. She turned to her open window, peering into Kirk’s room only to find him staring back at her with a lazy grin. She wished she could say she forced the smile onto her face, but it came too easily, too gently. Shaking her head she wagged her finger at him playfully before pulling the curtains closed to get dressed.

She took a moment to herself before she prepared herself to walk into the lion's den. For once her room felt safe, closed off, when this was a sanctuary she thrived in before everything went wrong. She heard the thwacking of her dog's tail against the bed and smiled. She wasn't supposed to let her up but she had always been soft. “Hey Mavey Baby.” She murmured as she ran her hands through the thick golden fur of the animal, soothing herself. “If I ever don’t come home one day you can take my bed.” She smiled softly and kissed the top of the dog's head, earning a cute confused head tilt, floppy ears bouncing.

Getting dressed happened slowly, prolonging each moment she had in the safety of her own home, with her parents downstairs who would do anything to protect her from danger. If only they knew how willingly she was throwing herself into the jaws of death every single day. Her mom hadn’t been pleased to say the least when she told her she was dating Kirk and for once her fears were founded, even if she didn’t know. Her dad was…indifferent. Both of them inevitably warmed up to him, if there was one thing about him it was that he was incredibly charming.

She dipped her head around the corner of the kitchen after she had crawled down the stairs. She smiled at her parents. “Hey, I’m heading out now.” She told them softly. “See you guys on Sunday, yeah?” Everytime she told them that she could only hope she kept that promise. It's not like Kirk had made any effort to show her he wanted her dead, but why else had he done what he had done? It felt like a ticking time bomb.

“Yeah, be safe sweetie, we're next door if you need anything.” Her mom hummed without looking up from her book, some god awful erotica posing as a low brow romance novel. The wet sound of her licking her thumb before turning the page sent a shiver up Y/N’s spine. Her dad nodded silently. Slowly Y/N pulled herself away from the kitchen, slipping into her shoes and out the front door. She let herself into Kirk's house in a ritual that had become normal. Greeting his mom kindly before taking the stairs up to his room two at a time. His mom was too sweet, she wondered how it would break her to know what her son did.

Of course Kirk had heard her steps coming up the stairs and was opening his door before she even had her hand on the doorknob. His fingers encircled her wrist and tugged her forward against his chest. She hated the way his warmth still made her shiver. How perfectly her body slotted in against his. “Hey, took you long enough.” He mumbled into the top of her hair. “Thought you were deciding to dip out on me,”

Y/N curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, twisting the material tight. “Sorry I was a bit shaken up, I had some pervert watching me get changed through my window.” She bit at him playfully as she tilted her head up to look at him. Her tone was joking but she wasn’t wrong. As she watched his grin crack over his face she wondered if he had any inkling that she knew about him. His laugh surrounded her, sweet and soft. In this moment he looked so innocent like he had never done anything wrong in his life. That hurt. She wondered if in a different universe things were fine, and she could love Kirk without guilt.

“Sorry,” He mumbled sweetly, one of his hands coming to cup her cheek, his long fingers gently calloused against her skin. “You’re just so beautiful and it's such a good view from my window. Can you blame me?” He hummed and leaned down to press their lips together. Soft and plush against her own and she melted against him instinctually. “I have the prettiest girlfriend in the world.” He breathed against her as he pulled back.

He would be such a good boyfriend. It almost made her want to scream, shake him senseless and berate him for ruining it all, running any chance they had to be normal, ruining himself. She never let herself get too lost wrapped up in him, reminding herself she was doing this out of necessity not want. But that wasn't true at all was it. She was an awful rotten person, decaying from the inside out because instead of going to the police she was sleeping with him. Letting bloodied hands caress her, cradle her, because she was selfish and had never felt so loved. Never felt so scared.

“You’re obligated to say that.” She rolled her eyes and pried herself from his arms to throw herself down at his desk chair, the wheels rolling back slightly. “It would be messed up if you said another girl was prettier than me.” She smiled at him as she drew her legs up to her chest and spun herself around in the chair. Slowly coming to a halt facing him once more.

An amused smile played on his lips as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I'm not,” He laughed. “I could be a total dick and tell you some other girl was hotter.” He shrugged as he loomed over. His shadow blocked all light from view, leaving only him. Only ever him. “But I really believe that you’re the prettiest woman to have ever walked this earth.” Dark soft eyes flicked across her with an unmistakable hunger. “Do you need me to show you that?”

No, no, don’t touch me, don't make me complicit in your sin. “Yes,” She breathed out as she stood up, wrapping her arms around his neck and pushing him back until he was falling against the bed with a soft breath. A chuckle leaving him at her eagerness. Gentle hands rested on her hips as she crawled on top of him. Too gentle, a tenderness that would be forgotten the moment her clothes were off. There was a desperate filth that coated her skin because despite it all she wanted this.

The pads of his fingers dug into her flesh as he slid his hands beneath her shirt, pushing it up over her body. She lifted her arms complicity as he removed the fabric from her. “I love you, y’know.” He sighed appreciatively, and for a moment she thought maybe she saw guilt in his eyes. She believed him, he loved her in some twisted fucked up way. His thumb traced over some of the marks he had left on her, some would scar, that was intended by him. She would always be reminded she was permanently marked by him.

“I love you too.” She mumbled as her fingers dropped to the button of his jeans, working it open with too much eagerness for a girl lying to herself that she was with him to survive. He tapped her hip to get her to flip over. She did so complicitly, the soft fabric of his sheets hitting her skin as he stood up beside his bed, shucking his jeans off unceremoniously before he was tugging off her shorts. His knee knocked her legs apart further as he crawled over her on the bed, caging her in. He could do it now, when she was laid bare at her most vulnerable, slip the cold metal into her skin and cut through her like warm butter.

Would he gut her sloppily like he did the others, or would he afford her something more beautiful? Keeping the knife steady as it peeled back the skin and fat from her navel up to her sternum. Pin it back like a specimen for dissection. Would he crack open her ribs, or would he work his hand beneath the bone delicately to wrap his fingers around her still beating heart and tug it free. “You’re so wet.” He mumbled against her neck, briefly breaking her from her stupor. She hadn’t even registered his fingers pressing against her through the thin cotton of her panties. God she was fucked up, she was getting off on this.

She lifted her hips up so he could pull the offending fabric down her thighs. The cool air in his room eased the heat between her legs ever so slightly. Did he fuck those girls too? Lure them in to make them feel safe and warm, give them one last moment of pleasure before he watched the life leave their eyes? She hoped not. She was different, she was special. He wouldn’t make love to them like he did her. She let out a shaky gasp as his fingers pressed deep inside her, rubbing along her walls until he pushed against the spot that had her arching her back, fingers curling tightly against his sheets. “Oh g-god, right there.” She whined. There was no god here, why did she call for him?

It was hard and fast, he fucked his fingers into her like he did his cock. It didn’t hurt as he curled them, his free hand coming to press down just below her navel. The added pressure had her eyes glazing over. Her mouth parted in a string of hot breathy moans as she watched him. The way his tongue darted out across his lips like he was looking at a meal to eat. “Yeah, right there?” He breathed out. Kirk rested his head on her propped up knee as he worked her over, his gaze affectionate, a smile playing on his lips like he wasn't knuckles deep within her. “C’mon I can feel how close you are,” He hummed. “Come just once on my fingers, then I’ll give you what you want.” He cooed at her, his voice so soft and sweet.

Y/N didn’t trust her voice, not with the way he punched shaky desperate moans from her lips with each thrust. She nodded dumbly as she clenched down around him. Her knuckles went white with the tight grip she had on the sheets. “Oh fuck, fuck” She gasped as she felt the tight white hot coiling in her stomach. It was too much and not enough all the same. She tossed her head back like a woman possessed as she cried out his name desperately, thighs trembling and snapping shut around his hand as she came around his fingers. Her body went limp against the mattress and she twitched slightly with the aftershock.

“Good girl, fuck you’re so good for me.” Kirk hummed the praise as he pressed his warm lips to her sweat soaked skin. His fingers pulled from her hole with a wet squelch that left her recoiling at the sound. He seemed indifferent to just how gross it was. “Look at me,” He asked gently. Her heavy eyes landed on him just in time to watch him push his fingers between his lips. The sight knocked the breath from her lungs as his tongue lapped at the slick coating his hand, his eyes closing as he moaned in delight. When he was seemingly satisfied with her taste and the cleanliness of his fingers he swiped his spit across her stomach. She shivered as the air cooled it instantly against her skin.

The bed creaked slightly as he shifted his weight, pressing one hand above her head on the bed to hold himself steady as he reached into his underwear. He fished his dick out, gripping it tight between his lean pretty fingers. The tip was swollen and already leaking. He guided himself, rubbing against her clit and letting out a soft moan. Kirk was so loud and sensitive, it was unfortunately cute, she loved how vocal he was. Y/N wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him in closer as he rocked between her folds, mixing their fluids together and making a mess between her thighs. “A-ah fuck, I could come just like this.” He whined into the crook of her neck as his cock repeatedly bumping against her clit.

She was inclined to agree. It felt good, the pressure just enough to encourage that building feeling in her stomach again. As much as she would enjoy that, the sick part of her wanted him to be inside her already. With a small shake of her head she tilted her hips up slightly, catching the head against her entrance with the needy rocking motions he was making. “N-no, wanna be filled.” Y/N spoke desperately. She was absolutely basking in the soft persistent noises he was making in her ear.

Kirk nodded. “God, you’re so good to me,” He praised her, kissing along her skin, lapping his tongue against where her neck and jaw met. He could feel her pulse beneath the flesh and he moaned again. Slowly he pushed up against her, sinking inside the tight wet heat until his balls were tucked snugly against her ass. Her legs trembled where they locked around his hips, keeping him flush with her body. “Baby,” He whined, broken and desperate. “I love you, fuck I love you.” He chanted hot against her skin.

When he was inside her was when she felt most conflicted. Their bodies interlocked perfectly together. The stretch of his girth had her feeling pleasantly full and when he pulled his hips back and pressed forward again he dragged along her walls in a way that had her breathless and wanting. Yet she knew she could never un-fuck him, she would always be tainted. She will always remember that he had been inside her. When the police eventually caught him she would live with the constant reminder she had willingly let him fill her. Would she be dead by then so she didn’t have to live with the guilt. Would the police ever even know it was him.

Snapped from her stupor once more she let out a high pitched cry, her heels digging into his back as he set a slow but hard pace. His lips against her collarbone as he whimpered words of admiration and praise. “Kirk, s’good, so good.” She moaned. Her nails dug into the smooth skin of his back as he pushed her deeper into the bed. It creaked and shifted with every move and she had half a mind to be embarrassed about how loud they were when his mom was still in the house. “Harder,” She pleaded in contradiction to her worries.

He obeyed eagerly. The jut of his hip bones was harsh against the soft flesh of her ass as he gripped her thigh in one hand, pressing her leg up towards her chest and pressing his cock into her deeper, harder and faster. “So fucking desperate.” He groaned, tilting his head to nip at her calf where he slung her leg over his shoulder. The sound of skin against skin filled the room, he was relentless in his movements, punching the breath from her lungs with each sharp thrust. “Fuck, Y/N, I’m gonna come, you’re gonna take it all right? My pretty girl.” He gasped out.

Y/N preened at his words, the affection dripping from his voice made her forget everything just for a moment. “Mhm,” She mewled. Her hands scrambled to grasp at his face, relishing in the soft skin beneath her hands. He looked innocent and beautiful at that moment. Angelic with his big round dark eyes, his perfect lips parted as he moaned. For a brief second this was pure. Her thumb swiped across the dark mole that kissed his cheek. “I want it all, give it to me.” She nodded softly as she forced eye contact between them.

It was too much, too intense. Kirk's eyes widened and his mouth opened further with a strangled noise. His hips stuttering before stilling completely buried inside her. She could feel each pulse as he finished inside her. Warmth spilled around his cock still plugging her, leaking from her messy hole and down her ass onto the sheets. His expression was soft and filled with awe as he stared down at her, his release washing over him in waves. His arms shook as he held himself over her body. Finally he let his weight press her into the bed. Resting his body against her as his chest heaved with each shallow shaky breath. “Oh my god,” He mumbled into her neck.

She wanted to coo at him. He was always reduced to such a soft whiny mess. Her hands rubbed along his back as he kissed her neck softly. “I love you,” She whispered and she believed herself, she hated that. She was terrified of him even in this moment as she held him close, held close the very thing that would be her undoing. Yet she pulled him closer. Whined as his cock softened and slipped from her, following another sticky wave of his cum spreading between her thighs. She entangled their legs tighter.

“I love you too,” Kirk hummed against the underside of her jaw before shifting his body up the bed, his lean arms wrapping around her and tugging her against his chest. His fingers carding through her hair and gently untangling it as he went. “Please never leave me,” He whispered in a desperate plea. It surprised her and made her want to laugh all the same. Never leave him? Was that even an option on the table, she knew what would happen if she tried. She wouldn’t leave him.

She didn’t have a choice

[citrusbarking]

THE FULL STORY IN ONE PART VERSON :3

Country son who was basically raised by his farmer dad alone, his ma died during labour so he has always been his dad’s special lil bud, never more then fatherly tho. But cause of this be raised his kid to be underlyingly emotionally spoiled by his dad and unable to share him, so when his dad hired a young handsome farmhand and was all close with him. It.made.him.sick.

it was only made worse by the fact the farm hand was obviously sweet on his pops…giving him those eyes, always following him around like a pup, drinking out of the same flask as him and savouring the taste….it was driving him mad, especially when he saw the way his old man seemed to notice and not call him out.

One day the boys tolerance hit the fan after finding his dad and the farmhand wearing his fathers prized Stetson hat…getting cozy in the barn, his dad watching him bent over the tractors engine, standing right behind him while whispering in his ear and pointing to parts…the son could tell that the farm boy wasn’t fixing shit. So….he “accidentally” put something in the lemonade he made them, only in the farmhands ofc, he could never disrespect his pa like that <3

So when the farmhand eventually collapsed the Dad assumes the poor kid just got heatstroke and drove him home. So once he arrives back at this farm already feeling upset and not in the mood for bullshit he notices his son…the boy in the his Dads prized Stetson hat looking cold and upset he sighed.

“aight boy, you know damn well you ain’t supposed to be wearin that. What’s gotten into yer? Yer inside for heavens sake. Have some respect-“ he began lecture, the man’s bushy brows furrowed only to be cut off by his sons whine.

“why don’t you ever treat me like that huh? All sweet and lovin…” he began, taking the hat off and holding it close “im your son..not him…stop lovin on him like that! You don’t need his help you got me old man!” He began to ramble, glaring and hugging the hat but his Father grunted and cut him off.

“boy..listen that’s a different kind of lovin….its been so long since your ma passed and well…the farmhands sweet on me kid…he is givin me a kinda loving I ain’t have since your ma passed…im lovin on him like a lover.”he softly said getting on his level on the couch….

“And why can’t you give that lovin to me?!” The son snapped, his voice almost pleading now. “Why is it only meant for your lover?! I-I could do better than him!! Plus-plus I’m more like ma then he is!” He was cut off-

”boy. No.” His father demanded, once again getting cut off, the tension rising

The almost growl in his pops voice made the son flinch , but he continued to hold his stance. “Why not? Why is the only person who’s allowed to get that type of affection from you your lover? What’s so wrong with me getting that too?”

and like that…the fathers patience just…snapped

“Yea? Yea you want me to give you a lovers affection?” The older, bigger man near growled….yanking the hat from his son’s hands and shoving it onto his head….

“you asked for this.”

His father doesn’t say a word to the boy as he suddenly yanks the the sons legs up and throws him over his shoulder, not even giving him the privilege of at least walking in instead of being carried. He didn’t know what the hell had gotten into the damned kid but he was set on scaring the boy into line.

“You want me to love on ya kid? Your so fuckin instant on your fathers lovin touch eh?” The father growled, his thick arm, strong with years of working and breaking in much bigger things than his son, easily holding the boys legs in place.

The man continued down the hall to his modest bedroom and threw the now flustered and nerves racked boy down on the bed. “Y-yea! Yea damn right I do! Don’t you want your son to be happ—“ the sons usual manipulative spiral was cut off by his fathers tough hand over his mouth.

“shuttup. Your getten what you fucken begged for boy. You wanna be my lover so damned bad so getting treated like it. And I don’t take back chat from my own damned heifers” his father growled while his hand tightened, his southern accent thickening with a cocktail deep rage something else. The boys eyes where wide and taken aback, his father was a firm but big oaf with him normally, gentle while spoiling him with so much attention…it was complete whiplash but he wasn’t one to back down.

his father could easily recognise it in the boys hardheaded determination in the boys eyes. “Stubborn, just like your old man. Heh” he sighed with a slightly exasperated chuckled, he leaned closer and growled into the boys ear “so damned set in getting what you want eh boy? Dont you get what’s gonna happen to your boy..” he grunted, easily lifting and twisting the boy around on the bed so he is laying on his tummy..

“I’m gonna breed ya in the damned bed you were made in kiddo…if your so determined that you’d be a good lover cause your more like your ma” he pushed his head into the pillows, a panicked little noise coming from the younger boy “then maybe I should fuck you the same way I did the night I knocked her up yea? on the same damned mattress. In the same position… breed you with the same seed your made out of…” his voice reverberated in the boys ear, his final statement punctuated with the sound of his belt unbuckling…

In one swift movement he yanked the boy to the edge of the bed, a deep fearful whirlwind starting in boys gut made him second guess himself about this, he just wanted to alll his dads love and attention like he always had but..this..this felt to far…His heart was racing, knowing that this was crossing a line he should never have approached but before he could calmly tap out he felt his pants and briefs hit the floor.

“wait-wait dad-I’m sorry- never mind I’m sorry!-“ he began to beg and kick a little only to be cut off by his face being pushed into the pillows from behind. The soild feeling of the front of his fathers thighs pressed against the back of his was gut churning, he hit the mattress and tried to get free but he was completely trapped as his father thick arm wrapped around his torso and raised his legs as his back was in a perfect little arch. The father whistled “jeez boy….maybe I should be thanken ya kiddo…been a long time since iv seen a sight like this…lets see just how much you’ve taken after your ma.” He muttered, freeing his arm to thumb open the shamefully wet slit between his sons shaking thighs, his kids muffled protests and panicked tap outs got more frantic..with a harsh open palmed slap to the boys soft butt he reminded him “oi. Remember….you asked for this.” He gruffed in his fatherly tone, sliding two thick fingers inside his little boy.

He slowly started pumping them, the plush gummy walls of his own kid clenching and begging for more as the boy cried for less…. “Atta boy! See? Look at ya….fuck…breakin in just as easy as your ma did…” he praised and let go of the boys hair..

Pleasure started to slowly build in his stomach. It felt so good, but the knowledge of what he was doing to his own father was making him feel guilty, which only made the pleasure burn even more.

“Is this..is this how you acted with m-mama?” The boy whimpered through blubbering lips…his tummy twisting the fingers where suddenly removed, a void he wanted stuffed. “D-dad?” He whimpered before, in one sudden harsh stroke his dad buried himself balls deep into his little boy, the stretch made him cry out in pained surprise.

his pace was harsh and rymathic “I don’t want you whining about me loving on the farm boy again after this or next time you’re on your knees in front HIM. Got it?” he growled through moan strained pants, sliding nearly the full way out then plunging all the way back, his head kiss his own sons cervix at a unforgiving pace. Hitting all the right spots in the slick tight walls. Soon he became undone was deep moans and gunts.

all the ruined kid could manage was a string of “ah-ah-ah” and singing the word dad over and over between sobs, his thighs shaking and clenching, he could feel where his dads cock hit every time. The boys noises started to run together as the pleasure started to burn hotter and hotter in his stomach. He gripped onto the sheets and anything else he could grab tighter, his breathing getting quicker and louder as suddenly he spasmed around his dads thick cock. Screaming his dad’s name through it, sobbing. The sudden tightness and sight of his own boys cummies just….completely blanked his mind as he made a final swift plunge into the boys cervix, his seed filling him…it had been years since he came…it over flowed the boys beaten womb…..

after a couple seconds of hazy glory the older man sighed slowly pulled out of his shaken and broken in boy “shh..shhh easy now..atta boy…” he whispered gently turning him onto his back “deep breaths….g-god dammit..” he groaned seeing the pleasure drunk look on his boys face “Your not..meant to want this..this was meant to be a reality check bud…not..feed into your perversion” he whispered almost shamefully, it was no use though…his dad came inside……now he wound have his dad all to himself..forever <3

[ttheggrimrreaper]

Haii I love your writing and I was wondering if you could do a NSFW with gagamaru needing you so bad he sneaks into your window in the middle of the night (he's all out of breath and sweating lol) and fem!reader is really sweet about it please and thank you!!

Thank you so much!!!! Sure I can!

Masterlist

Needy

Gagamaru x Fem!reader

MDNI

NSFW under the cut

Think of it like this: In a Au where instead of Blue lock happening while our characters are minors, they are aged up and adults. But the same things happen, just with them as adults. You can assume this is the case with all NSFW works I make.

Gagamaru wasn't a needy person. He didn't stress about his partner talking to other men, most of the time. But after spending so long at Blue lock.. with nothing but his fist and other sweaty men. Gagamaru didn't waste a second before breaking in and getting what he waited so long for.

Warnings: Missionary, Breaking and entering (not so much breaking), no protection, P in V, mentions of fingering.

You yawned as re watched the game, well more so a reel someone put together of Gagamaru being goalie. Not a lot, only 10 minutes worth of footage that was eye catching enough, but it was enough to please you. You were so proud of him, sure it wasn't exactly what he wanted to be, but he looked happy to be in a game, to be in the starting line up.

Turning off the TV, wrapping yourself in your blanket as you passed by a taxidermy fowl. A gift Gagamaru had given to your guardian.. and when you suggested getting rid of it because it was creepy and Gagamaru had given them yet another one. They promptly yelled at you, it was the first gift Gagamaru gave to them and they were never gonna just give it away! Your lovely guardian now rested in the other half of the house... too old to be able to take care of themselves. You chuckled as you patted the birds head, going to your room to get a good night's rest, maybe, If you're lucky, Blue lock will let your mountain boy have his phone.

Gagamaru had waited long enough, stuck fucking his fist in the shower and little chance he can get. Searching for some kind of satisfaction. But once his release came, it did little to please his urges. He wanted you, needed you. He couldn't even call you for the entirety of being away at blue lock. He couldn't even see you in the crowd, however he did get to see your face when they watched the replay and the camera man panned to your cheering face as you clung onto your guardian, hand thrown up in the air waving and screaming his name. Unfortunately however, the domestic moment that should have brought blood to his cheeks, went down to his pants.

You were dreaming, your mouth parted as your face was plush against the pillow. The soft flowers that your hands trailed over... White and black with bold yellow middles.

"y/n...." Your name called in the winds, followed by a huff, and a crash which dragged you out of your dream. "Y/n" the voice said again, you sat up... Looked around at the very end of your bed two eyes seemingly glowing.

"OH MY G-"you screamed, launching your pillow at your intruder. He leaped forward and a hand crashed over your mouth. You closed your eyes and squirmed, kicking and hitting his chest as hard as you could.

"hey, don't scream come on-" he huffed out, you paused recognizing the voice, slowly cracking an eye open to meet with Gagamaru, his face red and usually wide eyes full of.. usually nothing was currently hazed over with lust. No doubt your struggling and squirming again his lower half didn't help him in the slightest.

"Maru??.. Gagamaru!!" You leaped on him, the fear from before forgotten as you pressed kisses all over his face. He panted slightly, his arms wrapping around you.

"hey pretty girl" he hummed, catching your lips in a kiss. It was hungry, chasing after you and trying to hold himself back from overpowering you with what little restraint he had left. Pulling away and digging his face into the crook of your neck, his breath hot against it. "Need you" his voice was muffled, occupied with pressing kisses along your neck and collar bone.

As much as you would have liked a domestic greeting.... You had to admit you missed him just as much. His touch, his tongue, the way he would perfectly roll into you. after experiencing his fingers curling and touching all the right places, your smaller ones did little to please you. So many nights spent with your hand between your legs, playing with your pussy only to find that it did nothing to what you craved.

"need you too." You mumbled against his hair. That was all the confirmation he needed, pushing himself up as you straddled his lap, lips clashing together as your hands gently twisted his hair, his grip on your hips bruising. Slowly, his hands etched your shirt off, only parting for a quick minute to pull the fabric over your head. You leaned back, pulling his down with you, his hands carefully gliding over your nipples, teasing them with the pads of his thumbs.

You whimpered under his touch, tugging his hair softly as you had to pull your head back, panting. Gagamaru found a new home for his lips, back on your neck as he left little love bites and kisses. His hands slide down to your hips, fumbling to untie the draw string that kept them on. Pulling them down along with your panties before one hand returning to cup your cheek as the other rubbed soft and slow circles on your clit. Pawing at his shirt collar, he obliged and pulled it off himself, your hands still in his hair as he pulled away. The cold air reaches your core as you shiver, hearing the familiar sound of his belt hitting the floor.

"I love you so much" He rasped out, hands returning to your hips as he lined up.

"Maru no no 'ts to b-!" He caught your scream of pain that slowly plead into pleasure with his lips, swallowing it up as he bottomed out. He was just too damned big and after so long without him, it felt like the first time all over again. Experimentally, he rolled his hips forward, cock dragging perfectly against your walls. You whimpered lifting your hips up as you whined for more. Nails digging into your shoulders.

He started off slowly, gently as he would pull his hips back ever so slightly, and then push himself back on. The lewd sounds filling your ears along with his groans. But with each thrust, and each beg for more you let out, he sped up. Hips slamming against you, he pulled away as he sat up, tucking his arms under your waist as he lifted your hips ever so slightly, but even the slightest difference in elevation allowed him to sink into you deeper.

You moaned his name countless times, begging for more as your hands clawed at the bed sheets. He was too big, in both length and size, on any part of his body. You couldn't reach his shoulders or hair so you had to settle with the sheets. His eyes were shut, face contorted in pleasure. Usually, for Gagamaru to truly feel satisfied, to truly be able to orgasm, he required some crazy position. Full nelson, waterfall, sometimes you would be hung up in the air. But as of right now, he had no attempt to no move you into that. All he simply wanted, was one. One simple, one long awaited, one well deserved, orgasm.

Your heels dug into the small of his back, pulling him impossibly closer. The room full of your moans and the lewd sounds coming from where you two would meet. However, one specific drag in particular had you screaming. The head of his cock harshly dragged against your G-spot causing you to squirm and move your hips around, leading you to further more reach your high.

Your squirming, had ended up working wonders for Gagamaru, a loud groan coming from him as he came, and with one final thrust he bottomed out and allowed himself to bend back down to kiss you, with no intention of pulling out. You whined, shifting around slightly but his hands came to catch your hips and hold you still. "No no don't move.. don't move" he mumbled, the exhaustion from the game, and this long awaited reunion finally catching up to him.

"w-welcome back Maru" you hummed, pressing a kiss to his hair as you panted. Gagamaru nodded softly, head nuzzled in the crook of your neck once more. He finally, was Abel to return home, To you, which to Gagamaru... Wherever you were was home.

[artstennisracket]

since artrick rekindles a few months before the pandemic, do you have any quarantined art/patrick ideas?

maybe the got stuck in a hotel away from tashi and lily and had to spend it just the two of them! bc they haven’t lived together for more than a decade, they noticed new/different things about the other!

this was such smart thinking cuz I registered that new rochelle was 2019 but it didn’t really hit me that it was like right before covid. I hope you enjoy!!!!

cw: just yapping fr, a little fluffy i suppose

They had just finished up training that day on their home court. Well, Patrick was training. Art was more supervising since Tashi was preoccupied at fashion week in Paris. She went with Lily and her mom to make her work trip into more of a girls trip. Now that Art was retired, he filled in on coaching Patrick whenever Tashi had other commitments.

The day before Tashi, Lily, and her mom were scheduled to come back home to LA from Paris but their flight was delayed until it was eventually canceled. Art and Patrick were chilling in their bedroom when they got a text to their group chat, not coming home tonight flights canceled because of covid? extending our hotel stay.

The boys didn’t think much of it, at most they assumed the girls would be back within the week. They were so wrong.

They absentmindedly had the news on the TV in the background, until Patrick turned the volume up. Global pandemic? Quarantine? It’s like-

“-the whole world is shutting down? i didn’t realize this was that serious.” Patrick says

Art looks up from his phone, tuning in “oh wow, they’re also stopping all air travel so that means the girls will be in Paris for a while.”

“wait that’s insane.” Patrick says, eyes glued to the TV.

“ya I think we’re gonna have to hold off on your training schedule for a few days” Art says looking back at his phone as he starts texting.

Fast forward two weeks, Patrick did eventually start training again but with Art as his fill in coach. The girls were still stuck in Paris and the boys were left all alone in the house.

It’s been a very long time since Art and Patrick lived together, let alone living together just the two of them. It had only been a short amount of time that had passed since the New Rochelle challenger so they were still just adjusting to their new arrangement.

They were also learning themselves all over again. Patrick prides himself in being the one person in planet earth who knew Art inside and out. But he wasn’t sure if that was true anymore. Art is different now, he’s older, he’s not 18 anymore.

Even if it was only small changes, they were still big to Patrick. Like for example, in the morning Art used to make his bed before he showered, but lately Patrick’s noticed that Art will make the bed afterwards. But maybe that’s just because Patrick is usually still in bed when Art’s showering.

Another change Patrick noticed was that Art only really eats in the kitchen. When they were younger, Art would eat in their bed all the time. Especially when they got high and got the munchies. But now as an adult, he never eats on the bed, or on the couch. He says that “crumbs just get everywhere.” Pft. Patrick still eats wherever he wants.

Art is still very disciplined like he was back in school but once Patrick moved in he noticed Art is almost like a machine. He follows his food schedule (6 meals a day, two being protein shakes), his hydration schedule (never just water, always some electrolyte mix), workout schedule (training 6 days a week, gym 6 days a week) and his physio schedule (stretching and pt also 6 days a week).

His only rest day was Sunday and even that was an active rest day, making sure he kept his body moving even if it was just walking around their neighborhood. Honestly it was kind of hot.

But then Art retired after the US Open. He was still disciplined but he had a little more wiggle room. Less intensive meal plan (he could eat burgers and ice cream again), less training (now he’s just Patrick’s hitting partner), and he made his own gym routine that he follows just to stay healthy. He definitely put on a little weight but he was still very hot to Patrick.

Of course there were a lot of things that were still the same. Like how they argue over dumb shit. Last week it was because Patrick didn’t put the toilet seat down (typical). This week was no different.

“patrick can you please stop leaving empty containers in the fridge?” Art asks picking up the empty milk container in the fridge. He was going to make a smoothie but then realized the milk was empty…

“teah, yeah I will.” Patrick replies nonchalantly, he was very invested in the video game he was playing.

Art rolls his eyes, he knows Patrick isn’t listening “did you even hear what I said?”

Patrick responds with his eyes still glued to the TV screen, very focused on this game, “yes babe, your ass has always looked that good.”

Art scoffs, picking up the TV remote to turns it off, “patrick seriously, it’s annoying stop leaving empty containers in the fridge.”

Patrick sighs, sad his game had been turned off, “how did you even know it was me? could’ve been someone else.”

Art crosses his arms in front of his chest making a “really?” face, “it’s just us here. who else could it be? A ghost?”

Patrick nods, “you never know, those celestial beings may be the culprit.”

A few months later, it started to set in that this pandemic would be longer than anticipated. They couldn’t believe the girls were still stuck in Paris. Both Art and Patrick were starting to really miss Lily and Tashi but they would facetime.

Art was starting to go a little insane. He couldn’t go to the store, go to movies, travel, he couldn’t do anything and his main interactions were only with Patrick. Which he didn’t mind, but it gets to a point.

Patrick was starting to realize that Art was spiraling. Art wasn’t following his routine as strictly anymore and he couldn’t really make himself comfortable anywhere in the house. It was like he couldn’t sit still. So Patrick figured he could use a distraction.

Patrick goes to find Art. He’s in the living room reading a book. “hey can you come with me for a second?”

Art nods. “what’s up?”

“ikay close your eyes and i’m going to guide you.” Patrick says.

Art stands up closing his eyes, “are you going to kidnap me and kill me in my home?”

“dammit, how’d you know?” Patrick chuckles, leading Art by his wrist outside.

He walks to an open area on the lawn in their backyard, “okay you can open your eyes now.”

Art opens his eyes to see two mini easels and canvases set up with a set of acrylic paint. A blanket is laid down on the grass along with takeout from Art’s favorite thai place.

Art gasps, “h-how did- when did you do all this?”

Patrick shrugs, “i ordered some stuff from amazon and the thai place recently opened back up for takeout only so i had that delivered too.”

Art turns to engulf Patrick in a big hug. He buries his face in Patrick’s shoulder and mumbles, “thank you, i- i don’t know what to say.”

“anything for you babe, and it’s okay all you have to say is ‘thank you patrick you are the love of my life and my one and only soulmate, your big dick is the only thing I need in this life’ and that will do it.” Patrick smiles, ruffling his hand through Art’s hair.

Art scoffs pulling out of the hug. He goes to sit down in front of one of the easels, “okay zweig, in your dreams.”

Patrick smirks going to sit down next to him, “that’s not what you said last night.”

[whosscruffylooking]

ᖭི༏ᖫྀ The Beginning of Us- Chapter 6 ᖭི༏ᖫྀ

Joel Miller x Fem! Reader warnings: mentions of death word count: 3.6k Series Masterlist

The journey to Bill and Frank’s is lengthy, the hush between the three of you weightier than the packs on your shoulders. Before setting off, Joel laid down the rules: no mention of Tess, Ellie was to follow instructions without question, and no digging into each other’s pasts. His tone left no room for negotiation.

You’d stopped briefly at an old convenience store Joel and Tess used to use for supplies, then passed a decrepit airplane that left Ellie wide-eyed with curiosity. But the awe was short-lived; the journey soon took you to an old dumping ground where infected and healthy alike were discarded in a futile government attempt to contain the outbreak. The sight left you all quieter than before.

Now, as you near Bill and Frank’s isolated town, the road stretches ahead, the silence only broken by the crunch of boots on gravel. You peek at Joel and decide to break the silence.

“You know,” you begin tentatively, “I worked with Bill and Frank.”

Joel doesn’t look at you but responds after a moment, his voice flat. “I know.”

That catches you off guard. “You knew?”

He nods, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “That’s how I always knew you were still around.”

You stop walking for a moment, the significance of his words sinking in. “Really?”

Joel slows but doesn’t turn to face you. “I told Frank about you once,” he admits quietly, almost like the confession pains him. “He made Bill confirm that you were one of their contacts.” He pauses, his voice dropping even lower. “They wouldn’t tell me much. Just whether you were safe.”

The way he says it—like he’s ashamed to admit he cared enough to ask—hits you harder than it should. For years, you’d convinced yourself he never looked back, that whatever connection you once had was lost to time and tragedy. And yet here he is, admitting he’d kept track of you in his own subdued, stubborn way.

“I didn’t know,” you say faintly, unsure what else to offer.

Joel shrugs, his shoulders stiff. “Didn’t need to.”

The silence returns, but now it feels different, less smothering. For the first time in a long while, you see a hint of the man you used to know beneath the layers of resentment and misery. It’s fleeting, but it’s there. 

As you approach the gate, apprehension settles over you. The calmness isn’t comforting—it’s overpowering, almost unnatural. Joel seems to sense it too, he tilts his head as his eyes scan the surroundings.

You punch in the code for the gate, and Joel lets out a scoff behind you.

“What?” you ask, your eyes darting back at him.

“Frank told me Bill only trusted one other person with his codes,” Joel comments, the faintest trace of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But he never said who it was. Of course, it’s you.”

A blush spreads across your cheeks as Joel’s words settle in, heat rushing to your face. Even after all these years, threads of connection between you and Joel have stayed, fragile but unchanged.

As you near the house, the uneasiness grows stronger. The plants near the porch are wilted, and untended. The stillness feels too stale, too grave. Joel steps ahead of you and tests the front door. It swings open effortlessly.

The two of you exchange a glance. Bill would never leave the front door unlocked—not here, not even in his town.

Stepping cautiously inside, the smell of stale air and melted wax hits you immediately. Candles, long burned out, sit on a chest in the hallway. The atmosphere is eerie, suffused with a hushed foreboding.

“Bill? Frank?” Joel’s voice echoes through the house. No response.

Joel gestures toward the dining room, and you follow. The table is still set from their last meal, the remnants of food and wine scattered across it. Your eyes drift to the wine glasses—something about them feels off. The realization scratches at the edge of your mind, but you can’t quite grasp it.

“Stay here,” Joel murmurs, his voice reserved.

Ellie, oblivious to the strain, drifts into the living room and starts tinkering lightly with the piano. You hesitate for a moment before making your way down the hallway to a small room at the end. The door is shut.

You knock lightly. No answer.

With a deep breath, you test the handle. It doesn’t budge at first, but a slight push causes a small draft to slip through the crack. From behind you, the front door slams shut, the sound reverberating through the house. For several moments you stand there, the color quickly draining from your face.

Joel steps up beside you, his gaze instantly narrowing as he takes in the flush on your face, his expression a mix of concern and yet confirmation.

You whisper, your voice quivering, “Bill would’ve left something.”

Without waiting for Joel to respond, you push past him, your heart pounding as you scan the house for any kind of clue. You rush back into the dining room, your movements frantic, and that’s when you see Ellie.

She’s holding a piece of paper in her hands, her eyes wide and uncharacteristically solemn.

“It's from Bill,” she says, her voice barely audible.

Your stomach drops, but you’re eager to hear the letter’s contents, bracing yourself for whatever truths it holds.

Ellie glances between you and Joel, the letter trembling slightly in her hands. “It says, ‘To whomever… but probably Joel.’ I figured I fell under ‘whomever,’” she shrugs. Then, she pushes a truck key across the table toward you and Joel.

Joel sighs heavily, slipping his backpack off before reaching for the key. “So, they’re dead?”

Ellie nods, humming an affirmative, her usual bravado noticeably absent.

Joel’s shoulders sag, and he looks back at you. For a moment, he seems older—worn down by the weight of yet another loss.

“Do you… do you wanna?” Ellie offers the letter to him, her voice hesitant.

Joel shakes his head, his tone dull and void of emotion. “Go ahead. You do it.”

Ellie glances at you as if asking for permission. You nod, urging her to continue.

She clears her throat and begins to read.

“August 29, 2003: If you find this… please do not come into the bedroom. We left a window open so the house wouldn’t smell, but it will probably be a sight. I’m guessing you found this, Joel, because anyone else would’ve been electrocuted or blown up by one of my traps. Hehehehehehehehe. Take anything you need. The bunker code is the same as the gate code but in reverse. Anyway… I never liked you, but still, it’s like we’re friends…almost. And I respect you. So, I’m gonna tell you something because you’re probably the only person who will understand.

I used to hate the world, and I was happy when everyone died. But I was wrong because there was one person worth saving. That’s what I did. I saved him. Then I protected him.”

Joel’s eyes drift to yours without thinking, his gaze easing with an ache that’s impossible to ignore. The words are hitting him in ways he won’t admit. They’re a reminder of everything he’s lost—Sarah, Tess, you. Bill and Frank had managed to build a life, to hold onto love, while Joel had let bitterness harden him into someone else entirely.

Ellie continues reading, her voice collected but weighty with the importance of Bill’s words.

“That’s why men like you and me are here. We have a job to do. And God help anyone who stands in our way. I leave you all of my weapons and equipment. Use them to keep…”

Ellie falters, her voice fading.

Joel steps forward and takes the letter from her hands, his movements abrupt. He scans the page, his emotionless persona crumbles when he reaches the final words: “…to keep Tess safe.”

Joel’s breath hitches. His grip on the paper tightens as his thoughts spiral. He failed. He failed to keep Tess safe. He failed to keep Sarah safe. He failed you. Every effort he’s made to protect someone has ended in loss.

“Stay here,” he says abruptly to Ellie, his voice hoarse. Before anyone can stop him, he storms out the door, leaving you and Ellie behind.

The fresh air does little to calm the storm inside him. Joel stumbles into the yard, his chest heaving, the world spinning around him. The letter is crumpled in his hands, but something catches his eye. In the sunlight, he notices faint writing on the back of the page.

He flips it over, his hands trembling, and finds more of Bill’s words.

“42.369042, -71.039714. These are Y/N’s last known coordinates. She’s near Boston. Go find her. If you’re even half as lucky as me to find someone who makes life worth living, don’t screw it up this time. You already lost her once—why do it again? I wish you could see her now. You’d probably want to kill each other at first, and honestly, I’d pay to watch that. But it’s just because you’re both too damn stubborn. Once you get over yourselves and face the truth, maybe you won’t have to grow old and bitter alone. Take it from me—being an asshole is bad enough. Being an asshole alone? Worse. Way worse.”

Joel stares at the letter, the weight of Bill’s words settling in. His hold on the paper tightens, his knuckles whitening as he lets out a unstable breath. He looks over his shoulder toward the house, where he knows you’re standing just inside. The irony isn’t lost on him—Bill wrote this thinking you were still out there, and yet, here you are, closer than he ever could’ve imagined. Bill’s stubborn faith in Joel feels like both a gift and a curse.

Looking back down at the letter, a faint, almost resentful chuckle escapes under his breath. “You’d get a kick outta this, Bill,” he mutters, his voice low. “She’s here. She’s standing right there. And I��m the idiot standing out here reading your damn letter like a fool.”

Joel’s jaw tightens as he feels a lump form in his throat. He folds the letter carefully, almost reverently, and tucks it into his jacket. His chest feels heavy, but it’s not just grief—it’s something more complex. Regret. Guilt. Fear. And maybe, just maybe, hope.

He turns his gaze back toward the house, squinting slightly as if he might catch a glimpse of you through the window. The thought of Bill watching this unfold makes his stomach churn. “You always did like to twist the knife,” Joel murmurs.

Taking a deep breath, he forces his feet to move, his boots crunching against the dirt as he heads toward the front door. He’s not sure what he’s going to say to you when he walks back in. He’s not even sure he can say anything at all. But one thing’s certain: Bill was right—Joel couldn’t afford to lose you again

Joel steps back into the house, his boots heavy against the wooden floor. Ellie is sprawled out in the living room, fiddling with a small trinket she’s found. She barely looks up as he enters.

“Where’s Y/N?” he asks, his voice gruff but low.

“She went to take a shower,” Ellie replies without missing a beat, twirling the object in her hands. Then, almost offhandedly, she adds, “She really cares about you.”

Joel freezes mid-step, his brow furrowing. “What?”

Ellie glances up at him, unfazed. “I mean, it’s obvious. She was watching you out there. I could tell she was hurting for you.”

Joel shifts uncomfortably, glancing toward the stairs where the faint sound of running water filters down. His jaw tightens, and he looks away, his throat working around words he can’t seem to say.

Ellie watches him with an amused tilt to her head. “You should go up there,” she says, nodding toward the stairs.

Joel shoots her a look—half disbelief, half warning. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

Ellie just shrugs, standing and stretching. “I’m just saying, it’s not like she hates you or anything. She’s up there, you’re down here. Seems kinda dumb to just… stay here.” She smirks. “But what do I know, right?”

Joel glares at her, though there’s no real heat in it. Ellie grins wider.

“Point taken,” she says, backing off with a mock salute, leaving him standing there, staring at the stairs like they’re a cliff he’s got to climb.

»»————————-««

You wring out your damp hair with the towel, rummaging through the bathroom drawers in search of a brush. The gentle knock at the bedroom door startles you, and you quickly cross the room to answer it. Standing there is Joel. His eyes flick over you briefly—taking in the too-tight tank top you’d scrounged up from the closet and the jeans clinging to you like a second skin. He clears his throat, abruptly looking away.

“We, uh—we gathered supplies. Guns, ammo. I’m charging the car battery now,” he says, his voice gruff and a little rushed.

“Perfect,” you reply, offering him a small smile.

There’s a pause—a hushed moment that lasts far too long. Neither of you moves.

“Do you mind if I, uh—if I…” Joel trails off, bumbling over his words as he nods toward the bathroom.

“Oh! Of course,” you feel embarrassed, but you step aside. “Come in.”

He wavers for a beat, then walks past you into the bathroom. The door shuts behind him, leaving you alone in the room.

You exhale slowly, and your pulse drums in your ears, obstructing all other sounds. But it’s not fear. It’s something else entirely. Anticipation, maybe. Or guilt. And beneath it all, the ache of memory—the way it felt to be close to him once, without walls between you, without reluctance or barriers. Back when it was easy to ask for what you needed: his steady arms, his warmth, the safety only he could offer.

But those days feel like a luxury you can no longer afford.

You hear Joel turn the water on for the shower, and the sound feels oddly intimate, tugging at a place in your chest you’ve tried to ignore. You fall onto the bed, covering your face with a pillow as you fight the surge of emotions building inside. You know there’s something you should do—something you’ve carried with you for years—but you’re unsure if now is the right time.

After a moment, you sit up and draw in a steadying breath. The quiet house feels more solemn than it should. Grabbing your backpack, you pull it into your lap, but before you can open it, you hear Ellie’s voice faintly from downstairs. You stand and step into the hall, peeking over the banister.

“Ellie?” you call out, leaning over the railing.

“Yeah?” Her voice drifts back up, distracted, likely focused on whatever she’s fiddling with now.

“You doing okay down there?” you ask, more for the sake of grounding yourself than anything else.

“Peachy,” she reacts, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “But if you’re asking so I don’t burn the place down, we’re good. For now.”

A soothing chuckle escapes your lips despite yourself. “Just don’t touch anything sharp,” you say, earning a distant, “No promises.”

Shaking your head, you step back into the bedroom, closing the door behind you. You lean against it for a moment, letting out a sluggish exhale. The sound of the water running in the bathroom hums in the background, and you can’t help but feel how surreal it is, sharing space with Joel again after all these years.

Finally, you pull yourself together and return to the bed, digging into your backpack. You rifle through its contents, searching for the item that has weighed heavy in your possession for so long. Your fingers brush against it, and you pull it out, your head pounds with anticipation at the sight of it. It’s aged and weathered, a relic of a time you’ve spent the last two decades trying to outrun.

The water stops. Your head snaps up, panic rising as you realize Joel will be out any second. You quickly set the item on your lap, your heart hammering in expectation. The door to the bathroom creaks open, and Joel steps out, his hair damp and his shirt clinging slightly to his still-wet skin. He pauses when he sees you sitting there, his brow furrowing at the look on your face.

“Joel,” you murmur, your voice thin and unsure.

He glances at you, then down at the item in your lap. His eyes dilate, burdened with confusion and despair.

“Can you come here for a second?” you request softly, barely managing to find your voice.

Joel pauses, standing in place as though considering the decision. After a long moment, he walks to the bed, lowering himself to sit beside you. The mattress dips under his weight, and the proximity of him—the heat of his body, the faint scent of soap clinging to his skin—only makes your chest feel tighter.

You squeeze the item in your hands, your fingers quivering. The words you’ve practiced over and over again for 20 years suddenly seem out of reach. Tears prick your eyes, the weight of everything you’ve carried threatening to spill over. Now that the moment is here, you feel completely unprepared.

“That day,” you start, your voice shaking, “when everything quieted down, I was wandering around looking for help. I knew I needed to get out of the town, so I found this field…” Your words catch in your throat, a lump forming that makes it almost impossible to continue.

Joel shifts beside you, his body tense. He knows what’s coming, and that knowledge feels like a blade twisting deeper into him.

“That’s when I found—” You choke on the words, gasping for air as the tears you’ve been holding back spill over. You can’t bring yourself to look at him, not when you’re this raw, this exposed.

“I know we said we wouldn’t talk about our past,” you say through the sobs threatening to drown you. “And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but I’ve waited 20 years to do this. And if this is the last moment of peace we get—if this is the only time we’re not running from those things—then I’ll be damned if I don’t say this now.”

Joel’s jaw tenses, his eyes glistening, like polished amber, as he struggles to keep himself composed. He nods, urging you silently to go on, his own pain mirrored in yours.

“I found her, Joel.” The words shatter the air between you. “I could barely walk, but I—I don’t even know how I managed it. I got to her as fast as I could. And I just held her. I held her so tight, like I thought maybe, just maybe, if I held on hard enough, she’d come back to me.”

You break, your body shuddering as you lean forward, clutching at the memory like it’s something physical tearing through you. Joel muffles a sob, his hand rising just barely as though he wants to comfort you but is too afraid to touch you, too consumed by his own grief.

“I don’t know how long I stayed there with her,” you continue, your voice barely above a whisper. “I just… I couldn’t leave her, Joel. I couldn’t. The sun started coming up, and that’s when I saw it—something reflecting the light in the grass. It was your watch.”

Joel’s breath hitches audibly, his head dropping as his hand instinctively moves to his wrist where the broken watch should have been.

“I took it with me,” you admit, your voice cracking. “Joel, there hasn’t been a single day—not one day—that I haven’t looked at it. It’s been my reminder of everything we lost. Of her. Of you. Of the life we’ll never get back.”

Your words trail off as the room falls silent, the essence of the memory crashing down on both of you like an unbearable current. For a moment, the two of you are simply there—two broken souls mourning the same loss, bound by a pain neither of you can escape.

Joel stares at you, his breath coming in uneven bursts. He doesn’t speak at first, just wipes at his face with the back of his hand, his fingers leaving streaks where the tears have begun to fall. The ache in his eyes is so raw, it’s almost suffocating.

You shakily offer him the watch, your hand trembling as it extends toward him. His hand meets yours, reluctant at first, staying for a moment as if he’s afraid to take it. The brief contact sends a jolt through you, something you’ve only dreamed about for years, a feeling you thought was long buried deep within.

Bill’s words echo in Joel’s mind, a harsh reminder that the bitterness isn’t worth holding onto, not anymore.

After a long delay, he speaks, his voice raw, fragile. “I’m just… I’m grateful you got to hold her.” His words break the silence, cutting through the heaviness in the room. Tears fall from his eyes, unbidden and silent, as though he can’t stop them now.

Without thinking, your hand reaches up to wipe them away. It’s a small gesture, but it feels monumental as if you’re touching something that’s been locked away for far too long.

Joel looks at you, his expression a mix of surprise and something deeper—vulnerable, tender. He leans into your touch without realizing it, his body finally letting go of years of unspoken pain.

Neither of you says anything more. The weight of what’s been shared, of what’s been held back, is more than enough. In that moment, the silence between you is not just a void, but a fragile bond, something neither of you ever expected to find again.

»»————————-««

Taglist: @si1versamurai @eaterof-concrete @mysteriouslyperfecttiger

[thekeithmeister]

Hopeless In Georgia

I'm a trans man in Georgia and it feels completely hopeless. I've fought my whole life to defend who I am, my love for my wife, our marriage, our existence. The first time around with Trump was hard enough. But this 2nd time is proving impossible. The entire United States government and the President of the United States have made it very clear that they hate and want to eradicate trans people. How am I supposed to fight against the authority figures of the most powerful country in the world? I was ready to fight once again. Fight to defend my wife and our marriage. Fight to defend our home and our friends, regardless of how impossible it seemed. But I recently found out my father-in-law, not only voted for Trump but is completely unconcerned about this most recent anti-trans executive order that was just passed. The one saying that all federal documentation will have your birth sex on it. The one saying trans people cannot use federal facilities aligned with their gender. That there IS no more gender. Only two sexes: male and female. When my wife text'd my father-in-law telling him how scared we were, his response was to say that the "extreme left is fear-mongering" and blowing things completely out of proportion and that although he knows we'll have "hardships" it's not going to be nearly as bad as we're saying. What the ever loving fuck? The President of the United States, the United States government just said I am not a man and must identify as a woman and use women's facilities and that I, as a human being, am illegal. But we're "extreme left?" We have a document in black and white but this is "fear-mongering?" I can only come to the conclusion that my father-in-law never saw me as a man and never saw me as his equal. After having transitioned over 7 years ago and completely passing, it doesn't matter. To even a person who knows me and I THOUGHT cared about me, I am still less than. I am still not fully a human being. He sees no problem with me being arrested if I use a men's room, or if my documents that I worked YEARS to change and spent THOUSANDS of dollars on, might now be reversed and have a big fat F on them. It was one thing to gear up for a fight against a faceless enemy, no matter how gigantic or powerful, like the United States government, but it is something else entirely to have your own family tell you that you are less than human. Not worthy of respect or the same rights as everyone else. The blow has hit me so hard. And I can't stop thinking that if people who KNOW me can't love and support me, how the hell am I ever to expect strangers to think of me as a person who deserves the same treatment as everyone else? How am I EVER supposed to be accepted in society? This is only day 3 of the Trump regime. I can't even fathom how on earth I'm going to survive 4 years of this. Especially knowing there is far worse to come. I don't know what to do. I can't fight the United States government. I can't fight against more than half of the American population who seem to think I'm not a human being. I can't do this. I don't want to suffer for the next 4 years. I don't want to even think about losing my house, my home, my friends, my family, and a job I love to up and move to a new state or even a new country. I don't want to do that! What would my wife and I do? Start over in a homeless shelter? We don't have the money to do something so crazy! To move to a place where we don't know anybody! Everything I love is here in Georgia! I can't do it! I can't just sacrifice everything and move away from everything I care about! I don't know what to do. All I know is I don't want to endure it. And every time I think "I can't do this," scary thoughts about an easy way out start to crop up. And I could NEVER do that to my wife and my friends. So all that is left... is to just sit here and suffer for years to come.

[someone-will-remember-us]

It would have been easier for Caroline Darian if her father, Dominique Pelicot, were an unremitting bastard: an absent or distant dad, a man who battered her mother, took no interest in his kids or just soured every family occasion. Then the daughter of France’s most notorious mass rapist could consign him to Hell without a backward glance.

But for both Darian and — it would seem from this account — her mother, Gisèle, it is the ambiguities that magnify their pain. This slim book comprises the diary that Darian, now 45, kept in the weeks after the police revealed that Pelicot had been drugging Gisèle and pimping her out to strangers for ten years. Yet amid her revulsion at his limitless depravity are sweet reveries. There is her father taking her to dance classes; urging her to the summit as they cycle mountain roads in Provence; putting Barry White on the car stereo as she and her brothers cram on the back seat for family holidays; singing beautifully at her wedding and making the perfect speech at Gisèle’s 50th birthday, calling her “my one, my all”.

After their father’s crimes were revealed, Darian and her brothers, David and Florian, packed up the rented house in Mazan, where their parents retired and the rapists came, in just two days. Everything was jettisoned: furniture, photographs and her father’s paintings, including a female nude entitled Under My Thumb, which Darian personally destroyed. Gisèle left for a new life with just two suitcases and her dog.

Harder to discard are the idyllic summers, Pelicot teaching his grandson to swim, and drinks and board games on the terrace. When you discover your father drugged and photographed you naked and may have raped you too (which he has always denied), where do you file the innocent memories?

This quandary divides Caroline and her mother. Darian describes Gisèle as a “medieval queen” whose “innate elegance extends even to refusing to say a bad word about our father”. Gisèle, who lost her own mother aged nine, maintains an outer serenity. Darian, who is more visceral and volatile, collapsed after the news and was admitted briefly to a mental ward. She was aghast when her mother fretted that her father would be cold in prison, and took him a bag of warm clothes, or when she declared: “I want to remember the good times.” Gisèle was trying to reconcile two warring thoughts: that her husband is a monster and that she once loved him deeply. Otherwise, one supposes, she would have to junk her entire life.

Pelicot’s crimes hit his family like a cluster bomb, a central explosion containing a multitude of smaller blasts. How can Darian tell her young son that the grandfather he texted before every football match is dead to him now? How will she forgive her mother for refusing to countenance — because the thought might have tipped Gisèle into insanity — that Pelicot raped her too?

All families are strange, but quirks read as normal when you’re a child. Now with open eyes Darian sees that her comfortable middle-class upbringing was a façade, that it was only her mother’s middle management job, which came with a five-bedroom company house near Paris, that kept them afloat. Her father, an electrician who dabbled in property, set up companies that always failed.

Papers her brothers discovered reveal that Pelicot defaulted on huge loans that he took out mainly in his wife’s name. Gisèle let him handle all admin, never wondering why he always rushed to gather up the post. Besides being raped 200 times by at least 73 men and left with four STDs, she faced bankruptcy too.

Darian sees what she missed as a girl: that this wasn’t a close marriage, but a coercive one, and her father manipulated Gisèle under the guise of loving protector. They all believed him during those ten years when her mother suffered blackouts and memory loss — a side-effect of the pills he fed her — that it was her grandchildren who had tired her out.

Now moments that seemed inconsequential loom large. Darian recalls her father angrily hauling her mother off her feet by her blouse, coming home from school aged 14 to find bailiffs had taken all their furniture including beloved heirlooms, and her father helping himself to cash she had made from summer jobs, saying it was his right.

Pelicot starts to come into focus: a grifter, an amoral chancer, someone who always had secrets. The most powerful memory Darian dredges up is of her mother’s old friend Pascale coming to the house to say that Pelicot had propositioned her. “Your husband isn’t the man you’ve always taken him to be,” she warned. Pelicot threatened to beat up Pascale, and Gisèle never spoke to her again.

Finally we learn the probable source of Pelicot’s character. His own father was a terrible man: a caretaker at a rehabilitation centre, he was a big, leather-jacketed bully, a lazy tyrant who took Dominique out of school at 13 to bring in a wage. Within weeks of his wife dying he made their foster daughter, who was 30 years his junior and had severe learning difficulties, his new spouse. Darian notes that this poor girl ripped out her own hair and needed permission to change the TV channel. There is a whiff of Fred West here, yet Darian’s parents sent her to stay with them every summer holiday until she was old enough to complain.

Darian has written this book to launch her campaign against “chemical submission”, the use of drugs within controlling relationships, which is seldom picked up by police. This account does not include the four-month trial that ended with 51 men including Pelicot convicted of rape. Nor does it mention Pelicot’s earlier crimes: an attempted rape in Paris in the 1990s that Pelicot has admitted to and a rape-murder he has denied, for which he will soon stand trial. “I’m convinced we still have more to discover about my father,” Darian says darkly, and the French police, who are checking his DNA against decades of cold cases, would agree.

But this book, although fragmentary and brief, is the story of how families can absorb horrible deeds and not merely function, but seem outwardly happy. Pelicot’s sons put up with him, although he was always cadging money after another failed scheme. His youngest child, Florian, still came to family parties after his girlfriend walked in on Pelicot in the daytime, his office door wide open, masturbating at his laptop. The last text Darian’s husband sent to Pelicot was a jolly message about the Tour de France. For the sake of family harmony, or for their mother, or because he could turn on the charm, they seem to have tolerated him as a bit of a rogue.

Yet all the while Pelicot was defiling everyone — his wife, his daughter, his sons’ wives (whom he filmed naked with spy cameras) — and violating everywhere they felt safe, raping Gisèle in her marital bed, at Darian’s home and at her beloved holiday cottage on the Île de Ré. And still three years ahead of them loomed the public ordeal of the trial, which Darian will cover in a future book. But what we have here is a primal scream of shock and disbelief. She may never call Dominique Pelicot “Dad” again, but the horror is that is who he remains.

(archive)