#but some things are really easy to problem solve

[autisticsupervillain]

Hahaha, No. Not remotely. I'm saying they think that. Because the mere existence of people who aren't in The Group is an attack on The Group. As far as The Group is concerned, The Group is always the underdog, the righteously oppressed, etc. It's how these cults justify their own existence. They're not right, but once you're that deep into the process, you stop caring what objective reality has to say about your beliefs.

But that's a late phase of the process. The process starts with "who can we convince to join The Group?" That's what my whole point is about. Certain groups within the left movement haven't really reconsidered how they see men in their understanding of the world and that makes it easier for right wing groups to get that foot in the door. Be that in the form of TERFs saying "see, all men are disgusting evil monsters, join us to stop them" or misogynistic white supremacists groups saying "see, they think all men are monsters, join us and we'll stop them". The fact that both groups horseshoe around to just hating women isn't a coincidence. There has to be A Problem that The Group can convince you it alone can solve. Whether that problem actually exists is an optional step, as they frequently take broader systemic issues and blame them on a convenient scapegoat to spread hate. Buuuuuut, making it look like that problem exists by not actually confronting your own groups biases can make the issue worse and makes the bad guys jobs easier.

The point of both my tags and the original post is that people keep misunderstanding and misinterpreting feminism and leftism as just saying "man bad". Even some feminists and leftists themselves. You might know intellectually that that's not what the movement is, but you can still have some bias there. What the left is actually saying, and what needs to be completely internalize to make progress, is "men are systemically given power over women, are encouraged to abuse that power, and are socially and systemically punished for not doing so and we need to stop that".

There are honest to god people who say they support trans people and then say they hate men. They are people who say they love all queer people and then say they hate men. Hell, there are people in leftist spaces who straight up won't acknowledge trans peoples chosen identities, be they masc, fem, enby, or otherwise, because they "don't pass" and look too much like a man. Body hair, fatness, balding, those "immutable traits" he talks about that are gendered towards men. There is a problem with leftist people not examining their internal biases regarding men and I tell you that having experienced it myself. Hell, I'm not even a man and I've experienced it.

That's a lot of words to say one important thing. Leftism does not hate men. In any way. And any leftist that thinks it does is a TERF in the making. But, when you don't confront your own biases and give them impression that it does hate men through your actions, you make it monumentally easy for bad faith actors to paint you as "The Problem" that they alone can solve.

What we need to do going forward is confront the actual problem going forward. To make it clear that the problem is not just sexist men, but the systems in society that encourage and foster that behavior. Because once we're able to address the actual problems that torment people, TERFS and Right Wingers will run out of people to exploit and won't be able to paint themselves as the Solution to a Problem that they invented.

Will that do anything to stop the people in those groups who have just always been knowingly terrible? No. But it'll give them less power and less tools to exploit other people into their cause. Such terrible people will exist forever, plain and simple, but there's always more that can be done to improve ourselves and make the world better so that they can't build up that platform.

But, for arguments sake, lets say I'm reading this wrong. None of the problems with leftist approach to rhetoric and progress exist and leftists in no way contributed to the way Right Wing cults push their agenda. In that case...... you're making fun of a guy for not fully automatically unlearning everything he'd been lead to believe after getting his life together and trying to put Nazi ideologies behind him. Which makes you a spectacular asshole. So, whether the guy has any point to his rant is kinda pointless when your response makes you the dickhead in the argument regardless.

what is this "as someone who escaped the alt right pipeline" failpost I've seen so many people vague about

[not-poignant]

On a very rare occasion, a patron leaves Patreon because they 'thought chapters would be there earlier than they'd be released' and currently there are like... ten chapters there not currently released all under the early access tag and even if they hadn't found them by scrolling, they...could have just messaged me...and I could have linked them to every one.

Like, some things are really solvable folks! I would love to help match you up with the early access chapters for Underline the Blue, Underline the Red, Underline the Gold, and The Nascent Diplomat, (and Constellations if you happen to be in that tier too). You can DM me, you can email me, you can leave a comment, you can scroll three posts down, you can look at a Round-Up post and see all the links to the Patreon content released that month, you can scroll the tag, I try and give people like... 5+ ways to find what they need to find.

Thankfully this happens like once or twice a year at most, but I post links to the early access chapters even here, for people who can't be bothered going to Patreon and scrolling. I update those links every chapter update for a fair bit of my original writing.

It would make my day to solve problems like this if folks would just talk to me, because I love coming up with literally 8 ways of getting folks to what they need to get to, lol. So a person being like 'thought there'd be early chapters' missing the fact that there's more early chapters on Patreon right now than literally ever before, is like...

You really just can't make everyone happy, but give me a chance, because if it was just a navigation thing, I love helping people connect with the thing they want to connect to :D

[istherewifiinhell]

[Laying dead on the floor] i would say i have a task complexity impairment which is that i can do things but if you put too many steps i will just give up no matter what. But i would like to say i used. MULTIPLE problem solving skills. And talked to two whole ppl. With general inquires and sounded so so normal and natural and casual yeah okay no worries. Its just the system that has fucked me.

[ban-joey]

sending laser beams to my professor with my mind. kenneth you said midterm grades would b up by this afternoon. it is officially TONIGHT and guess what? kenneth i would love to not be clenching my teeth in my sleep tonight. kenneth i will be sending you a bill in the mail. yes i know its probably a TAs responsibility but i blame you personally. i hate school

[yohankang]

Honey, this might be very rude. But like what is your job. I want to save you from the that hell hole bro.

Please do not misunderstand nor feel pressured to answer.

I just hope it gets better.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

i'm an office manager which means that i'm responsible for all the paperwork (all invoices go through me), calls and emails. and i act like an assistant to basically everyone in our office. including shit like booking flights and hotels and taking care of everyone's cars and insurances etc. buying office supplies, taking care of how our office looks, making tea & coffee for guests, booking rooms, making sure our management signs the papers on time etc. etc. etc.

doesn't sound that bad but the 'acting like an assistant' is tricky. because i get like 20 daily requests from people to take care of something asap. like, paying a fine, calling some place to ask about something, scheduling a meeting, making changes in booking, registering a car etc.

now it's extra stressful bc i'm organizing a christmas party for 120+ people and it's not easy when you need to book hotels for 30 people, book a restaurant, decide on a menu, confirm attendance etc. and your guests are dickheads who don't care if you have to change their reservation 4 times in 3 days.

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than a full minute

Werewolves need help but everyone else trying to help them is STUPID and WRONG so I did it better. You're welcome

Also an artifact that I just had the idea for and kinda sorta supports werewolves if you squint so I gave it Innistrad flavor and threw it in the batch. So there, unique support cards that aid werewolves in their transforming endevors without defaulting to the laziest possible-

"Why not just give werewolves flash?"

FUCKING FINE

You want flash so bad you can spend 3 mana on it

[feminist-space]

Cat in the Hat:

"The German Health Minister gave an important update on the Covid situation yesterday.

I’ve written up the section of his speech from the video below for easy reading.

It’s immensely refreshing to see a government minister warning of the harms of Covid in such a transparent way."

https://x.com/_catinthehat/status/1732092683508678954

Prof. Karl Lauterbach

Health Minister, Germany

4 December 2023

"This second (long Covid) round table was very interesting, lasting three and a half hours. It serves as a unique forum for dialogue among scientists, researchers and those affected by long Covid, facilitating the exchange of ideas.

There are many new findings about long Covid. Not all of them are good news. One piece of not-so-good news concerns the fact that long Covid is actually still a problem for those who are newly infected. One estimate that has been put forward is that the risk of contracting long Covid now, even after vaccination, is around 3%. Now you may say, "that's not such a big risk" , but there are tens of thousands of people who are repeatedly affected in a short period of time. And so, the long Covid problem has not yet been solved.

We have also established that there really are many subgroups of long Covid and that we do not yet have a cure. And it was clearly pointed out that we are also dealing with problems here that will challenge society as a whole, because vascular diseases often occur after long Covid. Throughout Europe, we are currently seeing an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease in the middle-age group - from 25 to 50. This is associated with the consequences of Covid infections.

We also very often find cognitive impairment in older people. And one participant pointed out that it may well be like the Spanish flu, where 20 years after the Spanish flu there was a significant increase in Parkinson's disease and probably also dementia.

This is something we must pay attention to, as the past infection afiects how the immune system in the brain functions, as well as the brain's blood vessels, potentially increasing the long-term risk of these major neurodegenerative diseases. This is why we need to conduct very intensive research. This research has played a major role.

What is the overall assessment of the situation now?

We have to be careful. Long Covid is not curable at the moment. We also know that over 40% of those who have several manifestations of long Covid, for example, five or more, still have symptoms after 2 years, so it doesn't seem to heal spontaneously. We also know that those whose symptoms are more pronounced at the beginning are less likely to heal.

So some of what we know from the demographics of long Covid has been confirmed, and we now know more precisely which mechanisms in the brain, but also in the blood vessels and the immune system, are responsible for this. Professor Scheibenbogan will explain this briefly later.

At this point, I can only say the following - this is particularly important to me:

First of all, long Covid is a disease that stays with us and that we cannot yet cure. And we are seeing an increasing number of cases as the waves of infection continue to affect us.

Secondly, Covid is not a cold - with a cold, you don't usually see any long-term effects. You don't see any changes in the blood vessels. You don't usually see an autoimmune disease developing. You also don't usually see neurological inflammation - these are all things that we see with long Covid. Therefore, one should not assume that Covid infection is just a common cold. It can affect brain tissue and the vascular system, and we still lack an effective treatment, making these studies crucial.

Significantly, we know that the risk of long Covid decreases when you're infected but have been vaccinated. That's why it's concerning that only 3 million people have been vaccinated with the new, adapted vaccine. That is a very bad result.

Please protect yourself from severe infections.

Please protect yourself from long Covid.

Currently, the danger posed by Covid is indeed being underestimated. Nothing is worse than infecting someone at Christmas who then becomes seriously ill and may not fully recover."

Alt text is included in all images of this post.

[eelhound]

"The idea of reforming Omelas is a pleasant idea, to be sure, but it is one that Le Guin herself specifically tells us is not an option. No reform of Omelas is possible — at least, not without destroying Omelas itself:

If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms.

'Those are the terms', indeed. Le Guin’s original story is careful to cast the underlying evil of Omelas as un-addressable — not, as some have suggested, to 'cheat' or create a false dilemma, but as an intentionally insurmountable challenge to the reader. The premise of Omelas feels unfair because it is meant to be unfair. Instead of racing to find a clever solution ('Free the child! Replace it with a robot! Have everyone suffer a little bit instead of one person all at once!'), the reader is forced to consider how they might cope with moral injustice that is so foundational to their very way of life that it cannot be undone. Confronted with the choice to give up your entire way of life or allow someone else to suffer, what do you do? Do you stay and enjoy the fruits of their pain? Or do you reject this devil’s compromise at your own expense, even knowing that it may not even help? And through implication, we are then forced to consider whether we are — at this very moment! — already in exactly this situation. At what cost does our happiness come? And, even more significantly, at whose expense? And what, in fact, can be done? Can anything?

This is the essential and agonizing question that Le Guin poses, and we avoid it at our peril. It’s easy, but thoroughly besides the point, to say — as the narrator of 'The Ones Who Don’t Walk Away' does — that you would simply keep the nice things about Omelas, and work to address the bad. You might as well say that you would solve the trolley problem by putting rockets on the trolley and having it jump over the people tied to the tracks. Le Guin’s challenge is one that can only be resolved by introspection, because the challenge is one levied against the discomforting awareness of our own complicity; to 'reject the premise' is to reject this (all too real) discomfort in favor of empty wish fulfillment. A happy fairytale about the nobility of our imagined efforts against a hypothetical evil profits no one but ourselves (and I would argue that in the long run it robs us as well).

But in addition to being morally evasive, treating Omelas as a puzzle to be solved (or as a piece of straightforward didactic moralism) also flattens the depth of the original story. We are not really meant to understand Le Guin’s 'walking away' as a literal abandonment of a problem, nor as a self-satisfied 'Sounds bad, but I’m outta here', the way Vivier’s response piece or others of its ilk do; rather, it is framed as a rejection of complacency. This is why those who leave are shown not as triumphant heroes, but as harried and desperate fools; hopeless, troubled souls setting forth on a journey that may well be doomed from the start — because isn’t that the fate of most people who set out to fight the injustices they see, and that they cannot help but see once they have been made aware of it? The story is a metaphor, not a math problem, and 'walking away' might just as easily encompass any form of sincere and fully committed struggle against injustice: a lonely, often thankless journey, yet one which is no less essential for its difficulty."

- Kurt Schiller, from "Omelas, Je T'aime." Blood Knife, 8 July 2022.

[freethefable]

having a bad time :thumbsup:

[primofate]

Genshin Angst Headcanons - Why the two of you broke up

Note: Had an unexpected free day! I haven't written in a while, please excuse the mistakes, if any.

Disclaimer at the end of the post

Warning: Some are pretty predictable. Each of them have their own issues, lore wise, so some are lore heavy. You might not agree with some of them, but its how I see it, so to each their own. Let me know what you think! Some are quite angsty. Some scenes it's you breaking up with him and some are vice versa. Didn't feel like writing Razor, Venti and Xingqiu.

Characters: Aether, Albedo, Alhaitham, Ayato, Baizhu, Bennett, Chongyun, Cyno, Dainsleif, Diluc, Gorou, Heizou, Itto, Kaeya, Kaveh, Kazuha, Lyney, Neuvillette, Scaramouche, Tartaglia, Thoma, Tighnari, Xiao, Zhongli, gn!reader

Personal Favourites in this work: Lyney, Itto, Kazuha

Aether

Sister issues. Enough said.

He realized he didn't have enough time to spare romancing with someone.

Somewhere along the way he felt guilt that he was enjoying his time with you while his sister went through some sort of villain origin story that seemingly turned her bad.

Top off all the adventuring, searching, solving problems for other people that he did...Where did that leave you, exactly?

"...I'm sorry, Y/N... I just... I don't think this is the right time for me to be together with you,"

Albedo

Contrary to popular belief it wouldn't be his lack of time or extreme focus on his alchemical experiments that would break the two of you up. He knows how to manage his time.

It was the RESULTS of experiments and his research that would put him away from you.

The possibility that HE or his world, was way too dangerous for you.

How many "Albedos" did Rhinedottir really create? Was there more than three? Perhaps four, five? And what happens when you come face to face with another Albedo?

"I'm afraid...There are far too many dangers surrounding myself... There are answers that I can't find...and perhaps that's the reason why my answer is to part ways with you,"

Alhaitham

Too much of a nonchalant attitude.

He expressed some kind of interest in you...but it's like... once in a blue moon. 95% of the time you're not sure if he's really into you. It almost seems like he's more into that book he reads all the time.

Simply just not good at expressing himself. Like, at all. Hides behind a "whatever works" and "I don't care about what other people think of me" attitude, unfortunately that seems to include you.

Is so straightforward that sometimes it hurts, but he's really just telling the truth through logical analysis.

will act like the breakup didn't hurt nor affect him at all. In turn it hurts you instead.

"I see. So you've had enough of me... And you only spoke up now? Pointing it out earlier could've diverted us from this path...If that's how you feel already I suggest that we stop seeing each other,"

"That's it? You're not even going to try and work it out with me?"

"What's there to work out? You've made yourself clear. You're not satisfied with the way I treat you, and I'm afraid I'm not going to change the way I act just for your pleasure... It'd be more meaningful for you to find someone who fits your criterias,"

Ayato

entering a relationship with a noble was not as easy as one thought.

It's not just about being together forever and feeling lucky because Ayato is rich and your whole life is set, it's also the not fitting in, the etiquette, the whispers from townfolk that you were too ordinary for him, the work that you needed to do if you were to become his wife.

All that was not really a big problem for you, but Ayato seemed not to know of your struggles, he was extremely busy, and when he wasn't, he seemed to think that everything was well and fine, since you were getting all your basic needs met and even more.

"...So I'm sorry, Ayato. This is just... All too much for me. I'm sorry,"

"...I understand. Forgive me, it seems that I've overlooked a lot of things...Perhaps it is as you say, that it'd be better for us to grow apart rather than grow together,"

Baizhu

because he is a ticking time bomb, no matter which way he looked it's not going to end well for both of you.

He either dies early or lives forever. In both scenarios he anticipates that the two of you are just going to be in a world of hurt.

Besides, he didn't mean to get so attached to someone in the first place, he knew his quest for immortality was long and arduous. You didn't deserve to walk that difficult road too.

While breaking up, will conceal the fact that he's only thinking of you and will possibly hurt you in the process.

"I'm sorry, but it's for the best. I ask that you continue going forward without me, there's no space for you in my... ideal future,"

Bennett

We all know it...it's his bad luck. However, it wasn't YOU who had a problem with it, it was HIM.

You understood that his bad luck was just some extended part of him, plus it's not like it was always bad, there were a lot of good times too. Plenty!

But the guilt ate him up whenever the two of you were stuck in a seemingly impossible scenario and predicament, brought on by his luck. He just had enough of it one day.

"I...I can't keep doing this to you every day! It's not fair..."

will be on the brink of tears before he even starts.

"Maybe it's better if you find someone else to adventure with, Y/N, sorry...!"

runs away before you can even get a word in.

Chongyun

Thinks he's not good enough in every aspect. It's really, seriously not about you. He thinks he's lacking in everything. Strength, maturity, experience, confidence.

So badly wants to stay with you but feels like he's not good enough and thinks that you're better off with someone else.

"D-Don't misunderstand... It's not because I don't like you anymore... I just...Please find someone else!"

Cyno

his bad jokes and TCG addiction. just kidding, you're not that shallow.

A lot of people are intimidated by him being the General Mahamatra because he gives importance to justice. While you, who had seen a bit more of him than other people had, it seemed more of an obsession to uphold the Akademiya's law and integrity.

This was not a big problem to you, you liked how he was serious at work.

Until one day when you were accused of plagiarising one of your papers and Cyno was the one sent to give you a first offense warning. The Akademiya knew of your relationship, that's probably why they sent him, to make it harder on the two of you.

Cyno didn't listen to your explanations on how it was an honest mistake, he still gave you the warning that you "deserved"

From then on it had just been different between the two of you, so it was really a mutual breakup. Or so you thought.

"...After that, I just realized that maybe this isn't the right time for us... We're both working for the Akademiya, we both take our jobs seriously...Unfortunately that seems to just be getting in the way of us...I think it's best if we stop seeing each other,"

"...I see." he pauses for a minute, as if tossing your words in his mind. "I...agree. Parting ways would certainly make work easier for both of us...it's the professional thing to do,"

Dainsleif

Has not moved on from his past.

Sure, everyone has their own baggage to carry, their own history to live through...but Dainsleif has heavier things than that. He seemed to wake up every day thinking of Khaenri'ah and the days long past. Was it regret? Nostalgia? Loneliness? You didn't know. You just knew that he wasn't really completely THERE with you in the present. Part of him still lived in the past.

When you explained that you felt like the two of you were not moving forward together and that it seemed like he wanted to go back to the past instead, he got offended.

"...My past is something that I carry forever, you'd claimed that you understood that," he starts.

"I do! But carrying it with you and letting it drag you backwards are two different things!"

He falters for a moment, only to leave you with his last words before turning away from you forever: "You will never understand, the weight that I carry,"

Diluc

is too guarded. You'd been friends for a long, long, long, long time before he decided he could let you in enough and be more intimate with you.

Even then everything was going at a snail's pace, though you were extremely patient with him.

The biggest problem with Diluc was that the two of you would progress one day, take a step forward, and then the next day it was like the two of you took two steps back.

Example: The two of you went out for a simple stargazing excursion late one night, it was nice and he had been incredibly affectionate. The next day he had trouble even meeting your gaze, and disappeared to do his work. It was also a little awkward during dinnertime. This scenario had happened more than once.

Hint: the closer he got to you the more afraid he became, thinking that he would one day lose you too.

"I...I can't. I love you but I...I've waited far too long. I'm sorry. I'm tired of this endless chase for you!"

He couldn't even say a thing. He'd wanted to ask you to stay, to wait for him a little longer, but he already knew how incredibly selfish that would have been. Instead, he grimaced, and looked away from your gaze, trying to find something worthwhile to say. There was only silence for a few moments.

"Goodbye Diluc," that's when you turned away.

Gorou

worships Kokomi too much and your insecurities just kept circling around in your head.

You know its his job. You know he isn't like that but the problem was YOU and not him.

Simply said you let your insecurity eat up the relationship between the two of you.

You couldn't bring yourself to say that you were jealous of the way he admired Kokomi so you broke up with him with another reason in tow.

Unfortunately, you're not a very good liar face to face so you did a butthole move and actually broke up with him through a letter. You just couldn't face him and tell him why.

All you mentioned in the letter was that you needed time to think and be away from him, and told him not to worry because it was your problem, not his.

Poor Gorou reread that letter over and over, trying to understand what went wrong.

Heizou

is just a natural flirt. You're not sure if he's doing it on purpose or not and you're not sure if he's even aware he's like that.

Anyway you'd seen him getting overly friendly (just another word for flirting) with a few other people a couple of times. You didn't let it get to you the first, fourth or even eighth time but you realized that he KNOWS that you're watching him do that.

So you confront him about it, but he claims that it's just his way of gathering information from others. People like to hear good things and some people are more susceptible to flirtatious comments so he resorts to that for his investigation sometimes.

You didn't really completely buy it and even if you did, it's not like this was healthy for your relationship. You just couldn't make yourself comfortable with it.

*You just chalked it up to the two of you being incompatible.

"I'm just not comfortable with that...I don't think I have to say sorry for how I feel but...I'm sorry anyway because I know you're just doing your job... It's probably best if we part ways here..."

"Is there any way to change your mind?" he genuinely asks.

You only give a lopsided smile. "You're a detective, I think you already know the answer to that,"

Yet he didn't stop you from walking away.

Itto

Kept breaking promises because he was too airheaded or too occupied doing something "stupid" with the kids or with his gang.

Pretty soon it just felt like you were an afterthought while everyone else in his life took precedent.

Got a ramen date? Oops, sorry! Got caught up looking for a strong onikabuto in the forest!

Needed his help to move some things? Gah, he was vandalising the bulletin boards, so he's running a bit late!

What's more you didn't actually mind that carefree, airheaded side of him...but it really got to you when he couldn't even seem to make you a priority. Not once.

He only realized that when he came running, late again, and stood face to face with a crying you.

"Hey sorry Y/N, I was just--...Why are you crying?!" is completely dumbfounded and clueless, mostly because when he came late, you had always shrugged it off with a smile on your face, or so he thought. This time you had a completely different reaction.

"I hate you...*hic* I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"

Shocked beyond belief. It wasn't like you to just blow up like that, but he couldn't do anything except watch you turn and run away from him after that exclamation.

Kaeya

Sometimes you're not sure if he takes you seriously.

Recently, he's not where he says he is, you don't know why he doesn't just tell you where he is.

He said he'd be working late, but then you find out he's at Angel's Share.

He said he'll be at Angel's Share, but then you catch word from Jean that he's out on a late mission.

He said he's escorting a caravan to Mondstadt but he's actually on assignment in Liyue.

It came to the point where you altogether just stopped looking for him cause half of the time you couldn't find him. It's like he's avoiding you or something, which, actually, seems just about right since he's been so busy with "work"

It reached a breaking point when, for a week, you were unable to bring him the lunch you prepared...because he was not where he said he was going to be. It was starting to get annoying.

"I don't understand why you're lying to me! Why do you have to tell me you'll be at Angel's Share this afternoon when you're not? Do you realize you make me walk all the way there only to come all the way back with nothing achieved?"

"I'm sorry snowflake, that wasn't my intention," though he still chuckles despite knowing full well that you were about to turn away.

"You know what, let me know when you're ready to stop making jokes. Until then, don't bother contacting me,"

He just didn't expect you to actually walk away from him.

Kaveh

Entertains everyone and anyone. Naturally kind at heart, will stop for anyone in trouble...even that flirtatious man/woman who is clearly just pining for his attention.

No he doesn't quite realize this.

The same person had asked for his help at least 4 times now and all 4 times he had been happy to offer a helping hand.

The last straw was when he was invited into the stranger's house, they had apparently needed someone to help them move and re-arrange furniture and he did, working till almost dinner time.

You'd caught him right by the person's door, because Kaveh was actually honest and told you he'd be helping them today, but the person was clearly eyeing Kaveh rather flirtatiously.

"Come again next time," you heard the person say rather happily. Kaveh only replies with "If I have nothing else to do, I suppose,"

"Kaveh, they're coming onto you and you keep letting it happen!"

"I'm not certain what you're talking about...They just needed some help around their house, nothing suspicious happened at all. Even if there was, I won't let anything happen between me and a stranger!"

"Then STOP helping them!"

"There isn't anything wrong with lending a hand...It was a quick move of things, that's all,"

"How would YOU feel if I just went into someone's house and kept helping them "move" things?"

"...I would think that's nice of you,"

You actually threw your hands up. "Oh, forget it! You know what, for someone who LOVES helping others, you're not doing such a great job of helping ME," then walked away and never came back. "Good riddance,"

Kazuha

He's a wandering samurai. You knew what you were getting into but you didn't expect dating him to be so hard.

He was gone for weeks on end, and you were not getting on that boat with him. In essence the two of you were just not ready to follow each other to the end's of the Earth, and that was fair. The two of you were young.

Kazuha kind of saw it coming, whenever he visited you, you seemed less spirited and he had an inkling as to why. The time apart was just too much for you.

It was a rather clean break actually. A real mutual breakup that the two of you agreed on.

"...You could say it's just not the right time for us," you even managed to laugh under your breath and he did the same, though it was barely audible.

"...Mm. There are matters that you need to attend to here...and there are things that I need to do out there," he slowly stood up from his sitting position next to you and still gazed at you rather lovingly. "...Perhaps, in another world, you and I are bound together,"

You gazed back forlornly, "...Just not in this one, it looks like,"

Lyney

because he will always choose his siblings over you. Always.

Though that's not a bad thing because you also think that family is important...somewhere along the way you realized that family is the ONLY thing he had and saw.

Example: Lynette and you had gotten ill at the same time one winter morning. Perhaps it was the cold that was passing around Fontaine. Lyney had been so worried about Lynette, that he seemed to have forgotten about you for the next few days. In fact, Lyney didn't even realize that you caught the cold too. You had only heard from Freminet, who you happened to cross paths with, that Lynette was also ill.

You thought that incident was the end of it, but really it seemed that whenever Lyney wanted to hang out with you, Lynette had to be there too. You tried to understand...after all there's still that mystery of disappearing women in Fontaine.

The breakup was induced when Lyney completely forgot about your birthday, because Freminet's was around the same time as yours. You helped Lyney prepare everything for Freminet, and said nothing about your own.

You realized that there was nothing wrong with choosing family over everything else...but the problem here was that Lyney didn't even have space for you in the first place.

So you left without saying anything. You figured he'd get over it quick. You had even gone so far as to move away from the main city of Fontaine and out into another island, because what would you say if he found you? That you were jealous of his siblings? You weren't going to ruin a family like that and it wasn't right to make him choose...so you just left without a word.

Neuvillette

Had a whole brainrot for this man:

Part 1

Part 2

Scaramouche

surprisingly it's not his anger issues.

It's the way he wouldn't acknowledge your relationship. You wonder how you even got into one with him.

There's no public show of affection, but even behind closed doors it rarely happened.

You knew that he was going to be like that, and so you didn't mind it all that much.

It was getting a bit much though when, out in public, he would walk further in front of you and refused to walk next to you. When he pretended like he didn't even know you. When he didn't stop to help you even when another man had shown interest in you, bordering on uncomfortable.

The more time passed the more you simply felt unloved...but for some reason you still blamed yourself.

"...I...don't know. Maybe you find me undesirable, or just...unappealing. Maybe you're embarrassed of me or...or..." maybe you just didn't care in the first place, you thought to yourself.

There was a long silence. Of you turning your gaze away, of him still piercing into yours. And then...

"Tsk...don't waste my time...Leave if you want to leave, door's open,"

Tartaglia

This one is simple. It's his obsession for fighting plus his complete disregard for himself. It's a constant heart attack for you. At some point the anxiety is just too much for you to handle.

Imagine living every day just wondering if he's safe at the same time knowing that he just loves to look for trouble.

The foul legacy that you know of, he uses it with disregard as well, despite knowing that it wasn't good for him.

And there are even days where you know he was heavily wounded but didn't go to you, in an attempt to shield you from worry.

It's a constant battle trying to stay sane and unworried, until one day it all just becomes too much.

"...Nothing I say will change anything, Tartaglia. This is who you are...This is who you need to be..." you whisper while bandaging his knuckles. He lets out a short hum.

It was silent all up until you finished with his hand, you squeeze it gently. "...I love you but...I can't keep doing this to myself, I'm tired...more so than I have ever been before,"

He lets your hand slip away from his knuckles, and that was the last he saw of you.

Thoma

This one is also simple. He was always taking care of others and running errands for others that he sometimes just couldn't catch a break.

Just a classic case of not enough time for you since he had a job to do for the Kamisato Clan.

He knows it, and feels awful about it. So he's the one who makes the move.

"It hurts that I can't give you what you deserve, Y/N. This isn't it... You deserve more than this but I can't give you that and I'm sorry. Please look for the love that you deserve,"

Tighnari

Remembers everything. Can be critical of things you've done, specially if he thinks there's a better way to do it.

Simply said you just feel stupid in front of him sometimes.

He doesn't mean to, but he sometimes forgets to appreciate or give praise to the things that you do well and even if he does, it tends to be short lived compared to his constructive criticisms.

Pretty soon you felt like he only looks at the bad things you do, and never the good. Though he was really only trying to teach and guide you as an equal.

He in fact feels that you are one of the few people who can keep up educational conversations with him.

The problem is he kind of forgets that you're his lover, and that you would enjoy his praise and affection from time to time.

"Do you... Do you ever have anything nice to say other than 'good work' or 'great observation'?" the words were out of your mouth before you could hold yourself back. Sometimes it was tiring to feel like you weren't good enough.

There's a flash of surprise that crosses Tighnari's expression for a split second, before he recovers. "...Had I not been praising your work enough lately? My apologies... It has a lot of merits, I just thought that you wanted my opinion on how to make it better,"

You opened your mouth to say something, but closed it again right after to ponder on his words. Somehow even that had managed to make you feel embarrassed. It was here you knew that the problem also lied within yourself.

"...Sorry, Tighnari...I think I'll need some time alone,"

He obliges quickly and asks. "That's reasonable. When would you like me to come back?"

"...Let me rephrase that... I need some time away. From us."

Xiao

Unfortunately there's a lot of things wrong here... his lack of affection. His aloof personality. His dedication to his yaksha duties. Despite that he does actually try to be gentlemanly or respectful of you.

The worst of it is that he didn't know how to be in a relationship, in other words he just wasn't ready for one, or perhaps he would never be ready for one.

He didn't understand that humans craved companionship and sometimes touch. He didn't understand that meant having to favour you over others, sometimes even putting you first over his yaksha duties.

Worst of it all was when he shut himself off from you, sometimes for days on end, when his karmic debt was too high. He only really did it to protect you, but never realized how isolated that made you feel.

When you confronted him about it, he felt attacked. Hiding away was the only way he knew how to cope...why couldn't you understand that?

"Let me help you, Xiao,"

"I don't need your help!" his tone would make you wince and just like that he disappears into a billow of smoke.

You never returned to Wangshu Inn after that. If he couldn't let you in, there was no use trying to knock on his heart. Xiao being Xiao, never sought you ought again either.

Zhongli

He had experienced so many things and you had listened to many a tales from him.

This is what caused you to realize that you hadn't even experienced life at all, and yet here you were willing to tie yourself down to him.

It just didn't feel like it added up. Here he was with all this knowledge of the world and here you were who had never even stepped outside of Liyue. By no means were you stupid, but you felt that you could be better not only for him, but for yourself if you learned more.

There was just such a huge gap in life experiences, and though you never expected to get to his level (he was a God who had lived for a long time, you would never catch up to him) you at least wanted to see what was out there with your own eyes instead of through his stories.

He understood that wholeheartedly, and had no qualms in letting you go.

"You will always have a place with me, Y/N. No amount of lifetimes will change that,"

I’ve published The Ruthless Prince (Reader x Scaramouche) on paperback. Click here.

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Disclaimer: Relationships will always have some sort of problem along the way, maybe big, maybe small but I just want to reiterate that breaking up is not always the solution. Communicating is very important. So to those of you who like taking fanfiction too seriously, let it be known that this is just a work of fiction. I don't actually suggest breaking up with someone as soon as there is the slight indication of a problem (Just saw someone commenting on a similar themed post for Haikyuu that this wouldn't happen in the real world if both parties were mature... I mean, sure, but, idk, you must be fun in parties... it's called fiction for a reason...)

[bumblebeesfromvenus]

We fell in love in October 🍁

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Just a warning, I will be annoying all of you with Fall fics until the end of November.

The order is here -> 🎂

It's a Saturday, and you're bored out of your mind. Luckily, you have a boyfriend with a car who will take you anywhere in the world, but especially in the back of his truck.

《Content》: NSFW. Car sex, finger sucking, PiV, creampie. Don't worry, there's plenty of fluff and silliness!!

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An exasperated huff left you, your head hanging off the couch as you realized that watching the mundane program on the TV upside down did not, in fact, cure your torturing boredom.

It was one of those days; one of those days when nothing seemed interesting and no matter what you tried, you were left staring at the clock on the wall, watching as the seconds went by excruciatingly slow.

Although saying you had nothing to do wouldn't quite be the truth. There was plenty you had to do.

The laundry needed to be folded, the dishwasher unloaded and that one creaking door hinge that had been driving you crazy for who knows how long could do with a bit of oil.

You would just let all of those responsibilities be a problem for tomorrow-you.

Your neck started to ache and you became dizzy, so you decided to leave your odd position on the couch and see if you could find a craft to occup yourself with.

Pulling out the basket of supplies, you rummaged through it, pulling out unfinished projects, some abondend and others waiting to be started.

But none of them spoke to you. There really was no point in trying to force creativity or your art. It came when it pleased and it went just as quickly.

With an annoyed whine, you haphazardly stuffed all the yarn and felt and paper back into the basket, shoving it back in its place beneath the coffee table.

You had run out of ideas at this point. It was 9 pm on a Saturday, the air crisp and dark in the depths of fall. No cozy seasonal movies piqued your interest, despite the lovely decoration you had put out with so much care.

You sat on the floor of your living room with a pout, your back pressed against the couch as you stewed in your boredom.

You'd wilt and wither away soon, you could feel it. The monotone ticking of the clock was starting to make your blood boil. The sound felt like nails on a chalkboard, unpleasantly scratching at your brain.

If you didn't find something to do soon, you'd chuck your cinnamon scented candle at the damn thing.

But then, just a moment later, with the creak of wooden floorboards in the next room over, all your problems were solved.

You remembered your boyfriend that had been locked away in his office for hours now, drowning in paperwork.

You shuffled over to where his workspace was, gently rasping your knuckles against the door before peaking your head in.

Leon was hunched over his desk, a lamp illuminated the room and the sounds of a pen on paper could be heard.

You almost scoffed at the sight of his work glasses folded onto the table.

You have scolded him many times for not wearing them; it wasn't like he needed glasses to see, quite the opposite actually, his sight and aim were impeccable.

But they served to take the strain off his eyes when he was working at this hour with such a horrendously bright light.

You decided against arguing this time, although it wasn't an easy decision.

"Leon?" You asked softly, quietly closing the door behind you.

He swiftly held up a finger to you with furrowed brows.

"Just... give me second to finish this sentence..." he mumbled, and you waited silently.

There was little more infuriating than being in the middle of writing a phrase and being interrupted.

Your gaze shifted around the room, taking in the simplicity of it all.

There was no color at all, really, and no decor. Not a picture or a silly paperweight.

It served it's purpose, you supposed; Leon was very adamant about keeping work and home separate. Though, it wasn't always like that. Before you started dating him, the line between his work as an agent and his home life was almost invisible, practically nonexistent.

Oftentimes, his work was his home.

The familiarity of being out in the field gave him a sense of morbid comfort. But since you came into his life, it changed. You wanted him to have peace and quiet and safety that didn't come in the form of a rotten shack in the middle of nowhere.

It wasn't easy to get him away from all that he knew, but you couldn't be more proud of him for giving himself boundaries.

The dropping of a pen on the wooden desk brought you out of your thoughts and your gaze to Leon.

"Now," he sighed, turning to face you in his chair, "what can I do for you, my sweet angel?"

His voice was soft with just a tint of a mischievous smirk ringing through his words.

You rolled your eyes at his ridiculous display of affection, but the smile on your cheeks betrayed you.

"I'm bored." You stated blandly, your arms hanging by your sides.

"Bored?" He raised a brow at you.

"What about all those crafts you wanted to finish?"

"No.. not feeling it." you sighed.

Leon thought for a moment, his lips pressed into a thin line.

"Okay, well, you've been wanting to watch-"

"No..."

"You really did want to try out that-"

"No...."

He hummed in thought before opening his mouth to speak again.

"We have to get that laundry folded, we could-"

"No!" You cried out dramatically, sinking to the floor and splaying out on the small carpet.

"I will bore to death. I will rot and decay into a pile of dust from the lack of activity- My brain will shrivel up is what's gonna happen, actually."

Your complains were muffled as your cheek was pressed against the rough texture of the rug.

Leon stretched and sighed.

"You're not exactly making it easy, babe." He chuckled dryly, watching as you grumbled something into the carpet.

You sighed loudly and Leon pinched the bridge of his nose at your dramatics, but couldn't hold back his smile at just how fucking adorable you were.

He pushed himself out of his chair and laid down beside you on his back, hands folded over his stomach.

"We don't need to stay inside, you know. We can go anywhere we want. Just say the word, sweetheart." He said softly, glancing at you.

You pulled your face away from the floor and looked at him, your cheek squished up against the rug.

His expression softened at the subtle shimmer in your eyes.

"I guess you're right... but where would we even go?" You replied. Leon turned on his side, his head rested in his hand, supported by a propped up elbow.

"I'll take you wherever you want to go, angel. Lucky for you, you have a boyfriend with a polished truck and a shiny new license. Not to mention how incredibly handsome he is-"

You slapped his arm and giggled, a grin spreading on his face at your reaction.

"He's indeed quite handsome. Don't tell him but I'm only with him for his car." You leaned in to whisper the secret in his direction.

You couldn't help but laugh when you saw his face.

"I'm kidding, babe." You chuckled, scooching closer and pressing a peck to the tip of his nose, watching in delight as his face scrunched up.

"You better be." He grumbled, pulling you into his chest.

You gazed up at him with bright eyes and everything in him melted.

"Of course." There was a beat before you spoke again.

"It is a nice car, though-" you said with a grin.

Leon scoffed and shoved his hands under your shirt, tickling your bare sides.

"You're a little brat, you know that?" He smirked. You writhed under his hands, laughing and wheezing, trying to get away from him.

"S-Stop- you love me!" You heaved between laughs.

"That I do." He chuckled, stoping the ticklish torture and pulling you back against him with your back pressed to his chest.

"You've got me wrapped around your finger, pretty girl." He sighed into the crook of your neck, nuzzling his nose into your hair.

You were panting still, leaning back against him as you caught your breath.

"Can we go for a drive?" You asked quietly, stroking his knuckles while his arms were wrapped around your middle.

"Sure. Where do you wanna go?" He breathed, reveling in the comfort of having you in his embrace.

"I don't know, just... wherever you are." You said softly, one of those beautiful and gentle smiles on your face. His lip twitched upwards, and his cheeks became hot. You still had the ability to fluster him like on the first day.

"Okay.." he replied, swallowing down the butterflies that feared to rise up his throat from his stomach.

"Okay." You sighed, snuggling back into the warmth of his body.

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

With several cozy blankets in tow, you made your way out of your warm and homely apartment to Leon's truck.

The dark paint shimmered slightly in the cool rays of moonlight. He opened the door for you with a gentle smile, and when he went to close it you pulled him in by the front of his sweater to press a sweet kiss to his lips as a thank you.

Leon hummed in delight, closing the door before getting into the driver's seat.

"You ready?" He asked, glancing over at you only to laugh when he saw you wrapped in a soft blanket, only your face peaking out.

"As I'll ever be." You replied enthusiastically, your cheeks rounding from your wide smile.

Leon chuckled and shook his head, kicking the car into gear and pulling onto the street.

The quiet rumble of the tires on the street filled the silence between both of you.

There didn't need to be much talking, the two of you content in the safe and warm atmosphere of the truck.

You put on some cozy fall tunes and sunk back into your seat, admiring Leon's profile.

He was as handsome as ever; those blond locks, the beautiful bump on his nose, the curve of his lips and his strong chin that flowed nicely into his soft jawline. The light of the passing street lamps illuminated his features perfectly.

"So," He broke the silence, "how are you getting along with those costume ideas?"

"I've got a few." You hummed, cupping his hand, the one situated on the gear stick.

"Alright, what have you got?" He asked, a hand lazily grasping the steering wheel.

"My first idea was Morticia and Gomez. A classic, in my opinion. And they have a surprisingly healthy relationship."

Leon smirked.

"That's basically an excuse for me to touch you all night. Worship you, even. Not a bad suggestion, Cara mia." He purred, emphasizing the nickname. You laughed and gently shoved his arm.

"At least we know you'd be an excellent Gomez." You snorted, rolling your eyes playfully when he wiggled his brows at you.

"Next I thought we could be the Maitlands from Beetlejuice. They're not the most recognizable but I think they fit us pretty well." You smiled.

"Besides, I'd kill to see you in a flannel and some glasses." You grinned, watching as Leon huffed and slightly turned his head to hide his reddening cheeks.

"Oh, shut up." He grumbled.

"What? You'd be perfect for a dorky model builder who loves his wife!" You argued.

He perked up, a quirk of interest in his brow.

"So you're saying I get to be pretend to be married to you for a night? Sign me up."

He smirked and you chuckled.

"You could be married to me for real, you know. It's in your hands, I'm just saying." You shrugged, slightly showing off your bare ringfinger.

"Don't you worry, sweetheart. You'll get that ring sooner than you think." Leon hummed, taking your hand and pressing a soft kiss to your knuckles.

The statement caught you off guard and your face suddenly felt hot and your ribcage too small for your pounding heart.

You cleared your throat and kept your head low, trying to hide your flustered face.

"Moving on; the last one I have is Ghostface and a helpless victim. Those Scream parodies are gold." You laughed.

Leon winced at the suggestion and you tilted your head.

"Not your favorite idea?"

"Let's keep that one in the bedroom, yeah?" He winked at you with a devilish smirk, cackling when you smacked his arm and began scolding him.

"What's your favorite scary movie?" Leon whispered with a sultry tone, laughing when you squawked at him.

"Shut up!"

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

At this point, you had pulled over at the side of the road, the stars an image to magnificent to pass up.

You and Leon were huddled together on the hood of his truck, wrapped in blankets as you gazed at the sparkling specks of gold on the deep indigo tent that was the clear night sky.

"Aren't they pretty?" You whispered, your head resting on his shoulder, trying to make out the constellations.

"Yeah... but they don't hold a candle to you." Leon replied quietly, a soft smile on his face.

"Charmer." You chuckled.

"Maybe, but you're the prettiest and brightest star in my sky."

You sighed with a smile, a constant in your life since Leon became a part of it.

"Leon Kennedy, do you have any idea how badly I want to kiss you right now?"

He chuckled.

"What's stopping you, huh? I'm all yours, baby."

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

That's how you ended up with him on top of you in the back of his car, his tongue teasing your mouth while his hand was on its steady way into your pants.

Your arms were wrapped around his neck, your fingers tangled in his hair while he forced your legs open with the width of him.

His other hand was gently cradling your face, stroking your cheekbone with a softness that made you melt. It was a mess of spit and a clashing of teeth, with occasional moans and sighs.

He swallowed up every pretty sound you made, vowing to keep them in the deepest parts of his heart that were reserved for you, and you only.

His fingers graced the waistline of your panties, only for them to trail further down, over your mound until he was caressing your clothed folds with firm strokes.

Your mouth fell open and your eyes rolled into the back of your head at the delicious sensation.

"Oh, fuck..." you breathed, a whimper escaping your throat when the rumble of Leon's chuckle vibrated against the skin of your neck.

"Does that feel good, baby?" He heaved with a smirk, groaning when you nodded eagerly.

"Such a pretty angel..." he whispered, going back to devouring your mouth while he stroked along the wet spot that had formed on your underwear.

Your pants were shimmied down all the way to your ankles, along with your panties.

"Open up for me." He purred, pressing two of his fingers down on your tongue, watching as you took them deep in your mouth and began suckling on them.

You moaned around his digits, feeling his callouses and the contours of them against the roof of your mouth.

"That's a good girl..." he praised, rivulets of drool running from the corners of your lips.

He pulled them free, earning a displeased whine from you before gently rubbing at your slit. You jolted at the euphoric feeling and were reduced to a blabbering mess.

"Oh, please, please, please, please..." You babbled, hooking your legs around his hips to pull him closer.

Leon chuckled breathlessly and fished his throbbing cock out of his boxers and sweatpants, sliding his tip through your folds.

The head of his dick caught on your clit in a way that made you cry out in bliss, a sound that was enough for him to cease his teasing.

"I'll give you what you want, sweetheart." He grunted, pushing his whole length inside of you. He moaned at the snug fit of your velveteen walls around him, burying his head in the crook of your neck.

When he bottomed out, you let out a shuddered groan at the feeling of being so full of him.

"Shit... you feel so good..." Leon breathed, beginning to rut his hips against yours the best of his ability in the small space of the backseat.

It didn't take long before he was thrusting into you at a considerable pace, his thumb circling your clit while you moaned and writhed beneath him.

The heavy weight of him was comforting as it pressed down on you. It was nearly impossible to catch your breath with him kissing you so feverishly.

The pleasure was overwhelming, making your head spin as you were consumed by the ecstasy that seeped deep into your bones.

At a particularly hard thrust you clenched around him and cried out, making a strained groan rip from his throat.

"Oh, God... please, I'm so close..." You whimpered, tightly holding onto his shoulders to ground yourself as best as you could.

Leon was panting, keeping his thrusts and the pressure on your clit steady.

"You look so good all fucked out." He moaned, watching your glazed eyes and scrunched brows.

You mewled when the coil in your stomach started to tighten, a slow and strong build up.

Like a crack of thunder, that coil snapped and your orgasm washed over you, making you shudder from pleasure.

A jumbled mess of moans left your mouth as the bliss flooded your veins and you clamped down on his cock.

Leon was close behind, grunts and groans signaling his climax as he cupped your chin and pulled you into a kiss.

He spilled inside of you, filling you up with a pleasantly warm feeling. You tried to catch your breath, Leon panting above you.

"Y-You know how you said I'm the prettiest and brightest star in your sky?" You heaved, riding out the aftershock of your release.

"Yeah. What about it?" Leon tilted his head, breathing heavily.

"Stars can only be seen when it's dark. So, will you be my night so I can continue to shine?"

He huffed softly, a sound of fondness before gently cupping your face.

"I'll be whatever you need me to be."

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What would your couples costume with Leon be???

More Leon and others -> 💫

《Leon tgalist》: @vampkennedy @dmitriene @k-fallingstar @entr4p3 @allysunny @withonly-sweetheart @leonslittlekennedy

Lmk if you want to be added to my taglist 🩷

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[hellenhighwater]

Hellen, how do you know how to do so many things? I know how to do a few things but I look at your stuff and every time I'm like "damn. I wish I could do that"

oh, I just do them.

It's after 1:30 am, so you get the existential answer. The fun thing about personhood is you get to just be whatever. You can't necessarily do whatever--money and laws are things, unfortunately, and you only get so much control over the opportunities available to you. But you can sort of just throw yourself down on the anvil of life and hammer yourself into whatever shape you want. Ideally the process of it drives out some flaws as you go, but sometimes also you take an impurity and make yourself stronger with it.

I am, still, a person who is terrified of failure; of incorrectness; of being wrong. And there is nothing to do with fear except shatter it with blunt force, and so I line myself up against failure again and again and again. I will try. I must; or the fear of failure wins, and I must keep trying after I fail or I have failed utterly. I fear failure, and therefore I take it as a challenge. I must do what I think I cannot. And you know what? More often than not, I can.

I have a weird and wandering skillset because I make myself try things, knowing full well that I will remember for decades every time someone saw me be less than instantly successful, because the only way I know to get better is to batter down the dross of my own fear. That's the deal. I'm not doing anything that nobody has done before. I know it's all possible. I just have to be the sort of person that does it. And it gets easier every time. If the question is can it be done and the answer is yes, then the next question is can I be the one to do it, and the answer is I want to be.

Every time I fail my way over and over to eventual success, trying again the next time is less scary; every time I have a broader base of skills to carry to the next challenge. I'm not unusually talented, just stubborn as hell, and I've lived long enough on I have to do what scares me that honestly, not that much scares me anymore.

If you keep failing long enough, it turns out that you just get really good at problem solving, and figuring out unconventional ways to reach your goals. It's not about a special secret concoction of skills, it's about persistence, and hammering away until you've taken a mess and made it into something you think is worth keeping. It's not easy, but it is simple.

Also I have incredibly strong unmedicated ADHD. But I sort of assume that's glaringly obvious.

[sturnsreckless]

𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐊𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒,, m. sturniolo

summary: matt feels like you aren’t considering his feelings and not putting as much effort into your relationship as he is, so he brings it up to you which results in conflict but was quick to be resolved

cw: angst. crying, resolved angst, arguing

a/n: this is really long so for my angst lovers, enjoy

you and matt had never had an argument as big as this. yous had had small disagreements and quarrels, which were solved in minutes. never huge fights. never the way it is going on right now.

you both had been trying to juggle your lives also while trying to maintain a happy, healthy relationship. which isn’t easy. with that, you were both on the brink of breaking down any moment now. but instead of that, your emotions turned into a big fight. not a good one.

today, you weren’t working in the office and matt wasnt out filming with his brothers. he wasn’t in the best of moods right now, you were too in your head. the perfect cause of a disaster. throughout the whole day, small things kept on building and building until everything went down hill after dinner.

you had been washing you and matt’s dishes, he cleaning up all the other little things. when he had made a snarky comment about how good of a sight it was seeing you finally cleaning up, had made you snap.

you had been moaning about it for a good hour, screaming at one another in the kitchen attempting to get your feelings out some sort of way.

“i just don’t fucking get it sometimes,” matt spat at you, “it’s like all you care and think about is yourself.”

“what?! what the fuck are you even saying?!” you yelled, the anger that had slightly died down was rising straight back up.

“you are the most narcissistic, self-centred, most selfish person i have ever met,” matt said through gritted teeth, “you never think about me. you don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

he took a step closer to you as you slammed the dish you were cleaning down, “you’re the one that’s inconsiderate, not me” he says.

“are you fucking kidding me? don’t talk to me like that ever again, asshole!” you said squinting your eyes at him.

a bitter laugh left matt’s lips, walking right up to you and looking down at you, “i’ll say whatever i want, sweetheart. because for once i’ve reached a fucking breaking point.”

“leave then. fucking leave then, if this is such a problem!” you yell in his face.

you were telling him to leave but this was his house that he shared with his two brothers. nick and chris.

“this is my fucking house. but i will leave!” matt yelled back, “maybe i will just leave and you can spend the rest of your life being the most inconsiderate, selfish jackass on the planet! maybe ill just go find someone who actually values me!”

“are you kidding me right now? are you implying that you’ve been fucking cheating on me?!” you raise your voice in disbelief.

matt hadn’t cheated on you. you just took his words the wrong way.

“no! it was hypothetical! if you’d let me finish, you’d know that!” matt snapped back, “i wouldn’t cheat on you, i love you!”

you were taken aback by his statement, “well, the things you’re fucking saying to me right now don’t scream ‘i love you’ very much!”

“i do love you!” matt snapped, “but god! why are you so selfish, so egotistical, and so inconsiderate! how many times do i have to say it for it to go through your thick, stubborn skull?!”

you scoff, “i’m egotistical? you’re the one that thinks you’re better than everyone else because you make a bag off making shit youtube videos! you constantly think you’re one better than everyone else, matt!”

“i don’t think im better than everyone else! im proud of my work, what the fuck is wrong with that?! i’m proud that i was able to take my passion and make myself a career out of it! i get to play my favourite games and do what i love for a living and have it supported me all while i provide for you too? how is many of that wrong?!”

you furrow your brows at the last part of his sentence, “you provide for me? i’ve got my own job, that i got by myself! i don’t need your fucking money.”

“you live in my house! i pay the bills. you can’t even provide for yourself when you make chump change in a month!” matt was absolutely fuming at this point, taking another step towards you.

you felt hurt at what he said, but you didn’t let it affect the way you presented yourself, “what?! are you fucking kidding me right now? you’re the biggest shit talker and dick head i’ve ever met!”

“no, the biggest dick head you’ve ever met is you! you, with you’re self-righteous ego and narcissistic thought process! i’ve met so many assholes in my life, but no one has even come close to how much of a jerk you are!” matt spat, “i’ve put so many hours into this relationship. i’ve given you everything just for you to come back and act like i don’t care about you, and call me the dickhead?”

you sigh as you think about how much stuff you have to have done by tomorrow, “matt, i don’t have time for this right now!”

“oh, no! i think we have plenty of time for this!” matt said as he slammed his palms on the counter, “we aren’t leaving this kitchen until you can look at me and tell me you truly love me, and that you’re sorry for all the bullshit you’ve been saying!”

you stared in disbelief at what was coming out of his mouth right now, “bullshit i’ve been saying?! you’ve said so much worse than i have, so if it’s anyone that needs an apology it’s me! but i’m not fucking pathetic enough to beg someone for some half-assed apology!”

“bullshit? i’ve been telling the truth this whole entire time!” matt said, you are selfish, you are inconsiderate, you are narcissistic. everything i’ve said is true! and don’t worry, sweetheart. you wouldn’t have to beg me for an apology from me, i’d refuse to give you one, just as you’ve been doing to me this entire time!”

you felt sick to your stomach from what matt was letting fall off his tongue like venom, “why are you with me then?! and done even say ‘it’s because i love you’ because that’s bullshit, because you don’t. if you did you wouldn’t say this whether it’s true or not!”

“i do love you! i love you so fucking much, you don’t even know!” the anger on matt’s face soon gave way to sadness, “i’m just sick of your disregarding my feelings. i’m sick of you being so careless about how i feel or what i want. i’m sick of feeling like the only one that’s pouring my all into this relationship. i’m just tired… it hurts… it hurts me that you never even give me a second thought, even though i have you on my mind at all times.”

“that’s not true at all matt! i do put my all into this relationship and i will give it my last no matter what. i love you more than i can even describe so don’t even fucking doubt that! and give me two times i disregarded your feelings, because i dont!”

“every time i ask you to make dinner so i can do some planning when i come home from filming, you don’t do it! you just brush me off and say you’re too busy or tired! or what about the times i have to beg you to give me some time alone, that i haven’t gotten any privacy in forever. yet you still barge right in when i shut the door and you just start yapping to me!”

“matt you’re not the only one with problems, you know! and i do make us dinner and when i do barge in there’s always a good reason, so don’t even start that!” you spit.

“yes i know that! and i try to help you with your problems when you talk to me about them! but when i come to you with how i feel, you just say you’re too busy to listen to me and that we’ll talk later. but we never do!” matt speaks.

“because when later comes, i always find out that you’re at parties posting up with a bunch of girls. or you’re sitting in a car with nick and chris!” you let roll off your tongue.

“i’d have time for you if you weren’t such a cold, detached person!” matt fires back, “and i’m not ‘sitting in a car’ with nick and chris! we’re working!”

“don’t you ever just think, oh i’m actually in a really good work position compared to other people. because i don’t know if you’ve realised but you don’t need to deal with people constantly blaming you for everything in work because you’re the youngest and easiest to blame and degrade! that is why im always so busy and tired, im constantly cleaning up the shit that you leaving lying about while also juggling my paperwork that i have to do at home!”

“yeah, well you have no idea what it’s like to be a full-time youtuber!” matt said, “i have to keep my fans happy, make videos, do collabs with other creators, all while having my own life! and whenever i come home after being out all day, what do i come home to every time? you sitting on the sofa, on your phone, and not even thinking about what i might want or need after i’ve been busting my ass all day!”

your jaw drops slightly with a puzzled expression on your face, “are you fucking with me? you’re not a child matt, you can do things on your own. just because i’m home before you sometimes does not mean i will be your slave! and if you do, fucking think again!”

“i don’t want a slave! i want my girlfriend! i want someone who cares about me! i want the one i love to put me before anything else!” matt was getting agitated, his eyes starting to water.

“i do matt! i do put you before everything, i try my hardest! i ruin my own mental health for you!” you say with tears running down your face.

“it doesn’t feel like you do!” matt said, “you’re always so distant! you’re always so cold and you never show me any affection! and i’m not asking for much! a kiss every now and again would be nice! you don’t even say you love me unless i say to first!”

you let out a sad sigh, “what do you mean? i kiss you every day! i say i love you all the fucking time!”

“you never do it first though! i’m the only one that ever initiates anything! im the one that is always showing affection! the other day i just wanted a hug after filming and you gave me a one-armed side-hug!”

you rub your eyes out of exhaustion, “matt, i’m tired!”

“i’m tired too!” matt snapped, his voice getting louder now, “im exhausted! im working my ass off to make us money and to make you happy and i get nothing but complaints and coldness in return!”

you whined before huffing out words, “i’m not complaining, you’re the only one complaining right now!”

“yes because you never listen to me!” matt nearly yelled, “im trying to tell you how i actually feel! im opening up and being completely vulnerable with you, you just shoot down every single thing i say! all i want is for you to care!”

“matt i do! i care so fucking much it hurts. i love you more than anything! i left my life in florida to come and stay with you full-time because i knew you didn’t want a long-distance relationship. so if that’s not me considering your feelings then i don’t know what is!”

“i never asked you to move here.” matt said through clenched teeth, “yes, i asked you to move in for the summer, and i get you had a shitty family, but you never had to transfer your job and move your entire life here! you never had to put yourself in a stressful and expressive situation, you did that yourself!”

“no i didn’t! don’t get me wrong i love being here with you, nick and chris. i fucking love it! but it’s really hard sometimes! and i get you’re going through hard times too with your family being in boston but you have open arms everywhere around LA, i don’t, that’s the difference! that is why im so cold and defensive sometimes! im scared to trust!”

“why can’t you trust me?!” matt yelled, “you’ve lived here for a year now! i’ve given you everything just for you to say that you don’t trust me! after all i’ve done for you, after all i’ve given up to make you happy, i still get this kind of bullshit from you!”

you panicked since matt had took what you said the wrong way, “i didn’t say that, baby! i said it’s hard for me to trust anyone other than you!”

“so what does that mean?” matt asked, “i don’t deserve your trust? you don’t trust me when i tell you i love you?”

“it means that i’m bottling everything up inside of me because i don’t trust anyone else other than you because i don’t want to put the stress onto you! i feel like you don’t understand what im going through, which is totally fine, but you don’t ever keep that in mind! yes, you’re going through a hard time too but i am too and you need to think about that when you say things to me. you’re not the only person fucking struggling!”

“no, i get that!” matt argued back, “we’re both going through stuff, but the difference is i make time for you! i make sure that your needs are still met when i have time! you on the other hand disregard my feelings and my wants! you never even try to understand my side, while im constantly trying to get you to understand! and now that i’ve finally gotten you to listen, you’re still saying im wrong!”

“i’m sorry matt! i don’t know what else you want from me, im falling apart over here!”

“i want you! i just want you to love me the way you say you do!” matt said, “i want you to show me, physically, that you care about me! i want you to show me that im a priority in your life, just like you’re a priority in mine!”

“i do care about you! i just go through rough patches where i don’t realise that im not showing you how much i care and love you!”

“why not tell me when you’re going through rough patches? if you’re struggling, then why don’t you tell me so i can be there for you! i’d never think of you any differently, i’d never think to call you selfish or inconsiderate! all you have to do is let me in!” matt exclaims with frustration.

“and that’s one of the hardest things for me to do! it takes time to let people in when you grow up the way i did, when you were constantly told your feelings didn’t matter and if you told people that you were struggling they would think differently of you! and i’m not saying all this for you to feel sorry for me, i’m saying this so you can try and understand it from my perspective.” you explain with tears rolling down your cheeks.

“i do understand! i do understand that you’ve had a hard life and it’s hard to trust and open up, but im not asking you to tell me every single thing that’s ever happened to you and that you’ve ever felt! im asking you to just tell me you miss me, or that you’re upset, or that you’re feeling angry or sad or frustrated! i’m asking you to open up just a little bit so i can do my best and try to show you that i love you!”

you tilt your head back and place your hands over your face before whimpering and tilting your head forward again, “and i’m trying matt!”

“i know you are!” matt said, his voice losing the edge as he looked at your tear stained face with empathy. he took a step closer to you and laid his hands gingerly on your shoulders, “i know you’re trying, i do, and it’s not fair for me to expect you to just completely open up overnight, but you’re tearing me apart too! i’m so worn out and tired from trying to get you to show me that my feelings matter to you!”

you hiccup just before you begin to talk, “i’m really trying to be better matt, i am! and i know what you want from me but it takes time. a lot of time. so please, just give me time and and you’ll get what you want in this relationship. and i’ll give you it whether it wipes me out or not!”

“how much time do i have to give you?” matt sighed, “i’ve given you nearly a year of time. i’ve been trying so hard this entire time to break through whatever wall you have up, and after a year you’re still telling me to wait? i can’t keep waiting forever!”

“i know and it’s not fair on you but it also isn’t fair on me to give you something im not ready for!” you whimper before sighing sadly.

“then what am i supposed to do?” matt exclaimed, stepping backwards and running his fingers through his hair, “if you’re not at a place that you can give me what i need in a relationship, when do you foresee yourself being there? another year? two? never?!”

“i don’t know! that is what i need to figure out and you to trust me on, but it’s hard!” you cry out.

“i’m doing my best to make this easy, but you still keep pushing back when i try to get anything out of you!” matt was frowning frustrated again, taking his hands to his face and massaging his eyes, “im just so tired of trying! i’m at my wits end!”

“matt, im sorry!”

“sorry isn’t good enough anymore!” matt almost shouted, “i don’t want another half-assed apology! that’s all you’ve given me our entire relationship, and it isn’t good enough!”

you internally groan, “matt, it’s not half-assed! i’m being considerate.”

“considerate of who? me? yourself?” matt spat, the anger in his voice returning, “because it seems like you’re trying to avoid having to do any work in our relationship and just want me to accept that you’re not ready!”

“well i don’t know what else you want me to do! because im seriously trying but you’re not giving me the time i need and that just takes us back to square one, baby!” you whine, wiping the tears that is running down your chin.

“but you’re not giving me anything to go off of!” matt’s voice was reaching high octive, the anger and exhaustion on his face evident, “i’ve been trying this entire time and every single time i tell you how i’m feeling you push my away. you ask me to give you time, and what exactly am i supposed to do while i wait other than be miserable?!”

your heart drops, “matt, baby… please. don’t give up on me.” you say your voice and heart breaking all at once.

“i don’t want to give up on you… i don’t!” matt said, the anger leaving his body as he watched your own sadness. he took a step towards you before suddenly wrapping his arms tight around you and pulling you into his chest, “i’m just so tired…” he whispered into your hair.

you sniffle before replying, “me too…”

matt didn’t say anything else, he just held onto you tight and buried his face in your hair. he squeezed you as tight as he closed his eyes and tried to get himself back under control.

there was a long heavy moment of silence that fell over the kitchen before matt finally spoke again, voice low.

“i’m sorry. im sorry im putting so much pressure on you, and you’re not ready. im sorry im losing my patience. i love you so much, but i just want to feel loved too… i want to hear you say it…”

“i love you, so fucking much.” whisper into his chest as you close your eyes, tears spilling out.

matt squeezed you tighter at your words, one of his hands reaching around to touch the back of your head in a protective hold. he rested his chin on top of your head, burying his face in the top of it as he closed his eyes again and inhaled the familiar scent of your shampoo. you could feel his body relax as you spoke, the tension leaving his tired and wear muscles.

“i love you too… i love you so much, even when you drive me crazy…”

“i’m really sorry for making you feel like this… i don’t mean it. i swear. it’s just… i just fuck up everything i do.”

“shhh…” matt hushed you, his hand massaging the back of your head in a soothing manner, “you don’t have to apologise for how you feel. i’m sorry for getting angry at you, i just want you to love me the same way i love you and i got frustrated and impatient.”

“but i fucked up our relationship…” you insecurely whispered into his chest.

“you may have said or done things that weren’t the best, but you haven’t completely ruined this relationship, sweetheart.” matt said quietly, pulling back now so he can look down at your tear stained face.

one of his hands came up to your cheek, his thumb gently swiping away one of the droplets.

“but i have or else we wouldn’t be having this argument…” you whispered.

“arguments are apart of every relationship, baby. this is natural, especially for us.” matt said, his tone gentle as he spoke, “this doesn’t mean you’ve completely ruined us. i still love you, and im sure you still love me.”

“of course i do, and don’t ever doubt it” you say shaking your head and looking down to the ground in embarrassment and shame that you caused this huge argument.

“hey,” matt spoke quietly as he took one of his fingers and placed it under your chin so he could lift it up, forcing you to look at him, “look at me baby,”

“hm?” you hum as you look up at him with a saddened look on your face.

his expression was so much softer than before, the exhaustion and the anger now replaced with love and concern. matt’s eyes searched your face as he kept his hand under you chin to hold you head up.

“i want you to listen to me and really hear me, okay?” he said in a soft and calm voice.

“okay” you whisper groggily due to the waterworks from before, and licking your dry lips.

“i love you. no matter how many times i get angry, or frustrated, or exhausted, i love you more than you will ever truly know. you haven’t ruined this. i haven’t lost my love or trust for you.” matt began to say, keeping his eyes fixed on yours, “i don’t ever want you to think that i don’t love you because i do. all i want is for you to try and meet me where i am, okay?”

“i love you. and im sorry for not doing what you expected from me. thank you for giving me a second chance, i don’t deserve you.” you say as another few tears spill out of your eyes.

“i don’t expect you to be perfect, sweetheart. i know you’ve gone through things and that’s what makes you human, but i know you still love me.” he whispered calmly.

matt dropped his hand from your chin to wrap around your waist again, and he gently pulled you forward to press you against his chest once more, his chin resting on top of your head and his arms wrapped around you in a firm hold.

“i love you” you whisper into his chest for the tenth time today, before leaning up and pressing a kiss to his lips, matt returned the kiss with gentle fervour, before burying his head in the crook of your neck and shoulder.

he held you tight, his body relaxing and conforming to your form as he held you close to him, enjoying the feeling of your body against his.

@sturnsreckless

[appocalipse]

MAKE IT EASY (part 2) : ̗̀➛ STEVE HARRINGTON

・❥・part 1・part 2・❥・3k words

Summary: steve asks you to pretend to be his girlfriend for a family dinner. the problem is: after all is said and done, he gives you the cold shoulder. have you done something wrong?

Steve has a problem.

No, scratch that. He created a problem for himself, actually, about a week ago. A big, confusing problem that he now has no idea how to solve, so naturally what he's doing is plan B, which is the next best thing: avoiding the problem until it somehow resolves itself.

You are Steve Harrington's problem.

You, with your disarming smile, your gratuitous kindness and your impossible-to-forget laugh. You had made his parents like you, for God's sake. If that's not proof enough that you have some kind of magic working behind your smile, Steve doesn't know what is.

Oh! And of course, there is that damn dress.

Steve lowers his head until his forehead rests on the counter and sighs. Ah, that dress. Steve probably shouldn't think about it, let alone what was beneath it, the warm skin he touched for just a few seconds…no. He shouldn't think about it if he wanted to keep his sanity intact. But apparently, he likes to torture himself.

Steve stays in this awkward position for all of five dramatic seconds until his spine hurts. He straightens up again, with another sigh.

"You should talk to her."

It's Robin (of course) giving her opinion (that no one asked, Steve thinks bitterly) as she walks past him with a stack of tapes in her hands.

"I should never talk to her again. In fact," he argues, speaking a little louder so Robin can hear him from the back of the store, "if you're really my friend, you should make sure that I don't talk to her for the rest of my life."

"Coward."

"Maybe I am."

Even from this distance, Steve is under the impression that he hears Robin sighing.

She walks so fast that he doesn't even register the sound of her footsteps until Robin is in front of him, on the other side of Family Video's front counter, looking at him the way a mother would look at a child throwing a tantrum.

"You are going to talk to her," says Robin, with the certainty of someone who says the sky is blue.

"No."

She smiles. Steve is certain he recognizes that smile. It's the one that scares him, the same that precedes the moment when Dustin or one of the other kids says something like "just trust me, I have an idea", and the idea usually involves a robbery, a murder or interdimensional travel. Sometimes, all three of them.

"Robin-"

She has her backpack on her back.

"End of my shift," Robin hums, suspiciously happy. She takes a step back which, Steve thinks, is quite prudent considering what she says next, "…which means, my dear Steve, that you are obligated to serve our customers. Any customer. Even if you don't want to speak to this specific customer, you'll have to-"

Steve leans over the counter — to do what exactly, he's not sure; strangle her, perhaps — but Robin, as always, is faster. She laughs, and before he can do anything other than practically beg her to stay, Robin is out the front door yelling I'm sorry! over her shoulder, even though Steve knows she's not sorry at all.

Less than ten minutes later, the bell above the door rings again, and Steve wouldn't even have to look to know it's you.

You enter the store and your steps are quick, hurried, a clear goal in your mind.

You stop in front of Steve, almost exactly where Robin had stood a few minutes ago, but the look in your eyes is completely different for more reasons than one.

Steve swallows hard. You had been here two other times this week, and both times Steve managed to somehow force Robin to distract you, acting as if he was too busy to see you. You had clearly decided to talk to her behind his back, because all this had definitely been an elaborate plan between the two of you so that Steve couldn't get away.

You get to the point, crossing your arms. "You are avoiding me."

You're not asking; you're telling him. You know. You noticed.

Well, of course you did. You're smart. Smarter than him for sure.

Steve can only hope you haven't found out about the reason why he's avoiding you these past few days. That would be hard to explain.

He clears his throat. It's like he's trying to breathe with a couple of birds inside his ribcage.

"I'm not avoiding you," he says, but he looks away so quickly he doubts you believe him. "I've just got a lot going on lately…" he trails off, racking his brain for an excuse that would make sense without revealing too much.

It isn't fair — you're the last person he wants to hurt, and yet it took some elaborate plan between you and Robin to get him to stand in front of you again.

Pathetic.

You don't seem impressed. In fact, you laugh before he's even finished speaking, but it's not your usual light, happy laugh; It's a low, wry chuckle that makes Steve feel instantly irritated, even though he knows he probably doesn't even have that right after everything.

He knows he hurt you. He knows. He never wanted that. But you…you have no idea how torturous that night, that dinner had been for him. So yes; he does get a little angry.

"You've got nothing new going on lately!" you retort, growing angry yourself. "You just- I don't know. Have I…done something wrong? Did I make your parents mad that night or something? Because all of a sudden-"

"No!" he snaps, the word coming out harsher than he intended, and definitely louder. His cheeks flush with anger, and then embarrassment, and suddenly Steve desperately wants to crawl into a hole somewhere.

He clears his throat.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong," he repeats, softer this time. "It's just…it's complicated."

"It's complicated?" you ask, and now you're all but yelling too. Great. "That's your excuse for flat out ignoring me for the past week?"

"I'm not ignoring you!" he protests, his voice a bit higher than usual.

The truth is: he has been avoiding you. Every time he sees you, he feels this strange pull towards you - a mix of attraction and annoyance that he can't quite figure out. And every time he talks to you, he worries that maybe he'll say too much, or worse yet, say nothing at all and you, with your annoyingly sharp mind, will read him like a book.

As if that wasn't enough, Steve thinks, tormented, you decide to walk around the counter to literally stand in front of him, nothing else between the two of you besides a couple of steps.

This proximity feels like a trap. Steve takes another step back and his hipbone hits the counter. Dear God.

"Yes, you are!" you argue, crossing your arms and taking a step forward almost without realizing it. "You asked me to pretend to be your girlfriend for one night so that your parents would leave you alone, and I did. I thought it was okay. But then you pretty much ran out of my house afterwards and refused all my attempts to talk to you ever since."

You sigh. You lift your chin and look up at him, and, alarmed, Steve notices that your eyes are a little red, as if you're holding yourself back from crying.

He's making you cry?

Shit. The last thing he wants in the world is to make you cry.

"Tell me what I did wrong," you say, and the sudden softness of your voice catches Steve off-guard. "You owe me at least that, don't you? If seeing me is such a problem for you, just..tell me what I did wrong and I'll leave you alone. I'll go…clearly that's what you want."

"No, that's not what I want," he says quickly, stepping closer to you before his mind can catch up on his intentions. "Look, I'm sorry. I just…I don't know how to handle this."

He runs a hand through his tousled hair, and you probably notice the desperation in his tone, because you just stand there, looking at him. Waiting, he realizes. You don't move.

Then you ask, sounding so innocently confused that Steve almost feels like screaming:

"How to handle…what?"

It's not possible, he thinks. There's no way you didn't notice. You would have to be blind, deaf and…well, maybe not even then. Steve had thought things had gotten pretty clear the week before, at your place, when you had asked him to unzip your damn dress and he had gotten so carried away he almost kissed you and…

Well.

"You," he answers immediately, looking you square in the eye with all the genuine honesty he still has the capacity for. "I don't know how to handle the fact that I…" Steve swallows.

"That you..?" you encourage, taking a tentative step closer.

"Do you really want to know?" he asks, not moving an inch.

"Yes."

Steve's heart skips a beat, a beat that could very well be his last. "Look-"

"Tell me."

"I think you already know."

"I don't."

"Oh, come on," Steve says, his voice cracking as he lets out a humourless chuckle. "You can't tell me you didn't notice the way I looked at you last week. I mean, Jesus, I asked you to pretend to be my girlfriend for dinner with my parents, and then I almost…"

He trails off.

And there it is; that funny feeling inside your chest, that warmth you can't even begin to explain.

"You almost what?"

He chuckles again. "Why do you think I left like that?"

"I honestly have no fucking idea, Steve."

"You asked me to unzip your dress."

"And?"

Steve looks at you like you'd just grown an extra limb.

"You can't be serious."

"Okay, fine, I'm sorry I asked you to do that, but I didn't mean to make you, uh…uncomfortable. You could have said no if-"

"That's not it." Steve cuts you off, frustrated because God help him, you don't get it. You still, somehow, don't get it. He doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

So what he does instead is turn around, placing his hands on the counter, his back turned to you so that he can think clearly for a moment without being distracted by the way you're looking at him.

But you…oh, you never let things go, do you?

"What is it then, Steve, huh?" you ask, shortening the distance between the two of you by half. You know the answer, or at least a part of you does. But the other part, the part that's stubborn and insecure and tired…wants to hear him say it. Needs to hear him say it. "What is it? Because it feels like you just want to hurt me. You asked me to pretend to be your girlfriend for one night, but it didn't feel like we were…"

Pretending. Is that what you were going to say?

You stop speaking abruptly, eyes wide as if the words had come out of your mouth on their own. Judging by how angry you sounded, Steve thinks that's exactly what happened.

"Then you just…decided to ignore me."

For one moment, the only thing between you two is the silence.

"I didn't do that to hurt you," his voice is a whisper.

"Then what the fuck were you trying to do, Steve?"

"Get over you!"

"I...what?"

It feels like you're taunting him at this point.

"What, not what you expected?" He says, voice tight as he turns around to face you again, a bitter laugh trapped inside his throat. "C'mon, are you that oblivious?" 

He's getting closer to you as he speaks now, voice growing more intense, more desperate; but you don't back away, he notices. You don't move, don't push him away. All you do is look up at him with those pretty eyes of yours, waiting, searching for something in his expression. 

"I-I fucked up, okay? I told you it was just play pretend but the truth is…I didn't have to pretend one bit," he confesses, eyes finding yours, and immediately that anger — or whatever it was — dissipates, his tone softening as a small smile tugs at the corners of his lips. "I should have known that having you for one night, even if it was just pretend, would just make it that much worse. That's why I tried to avoid you. To get over you…and clearly that didn't work."

There's so much you want to say that you feel like you're choking on your own words. "I don't- you, I mean-"

"No, it's alright, just…" He looks down at the ground, then steps back again with a small, empty chuckle. "Go ahead and reject me. Make it easy for me."

"I-what? Reject you?" If a demogorgon suddenly showed up and swallowed your left leg whole, you're pretty sure you would have been less taken aback.

"I know it's not what you want to hear. It's not how I wanted things to go either. But I'm trying to be honest here," he says, taking another step back, feeling more and more exposed with every stupid word that comes out of his mouth. "I care about you. And I know that if I don't get over this, it's going to ruin everything. So, please, just-"

"Oh my God, you are so stupid!"

Your tone of voice changed completely. Steve lifts his head to look at you, and to his complete and utter confusion, you're laughing.

Laughing.

For a terrible moment, the thought that you're laughing at him crosses his mind, but then…

You hug him. You hug him so tightly, in fact, that Steve is pushed back a step or two, and suddenly he's pressed up against the counter once again.

“You didn’t kiss me,” you murmur, your arms wrapped tightly around his waist, your cheek pressed against his chest. 

He takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of your hair and feeling the soft cotton of your shirt under his fingers. He can feel the warmth of your body against his. It's almost painful, how good it feels to be this close to you. 

He wonders if he heard it wrong.

No — he certainly heard it wrong. He's hallucinating. Must be.

"Wait, I…what?"

You don't move an inch, but Steve feels as you take a deep breath against his shirt. He wishes he could see your face. 

"That night," you explain, finally looking up at him. You look more flustered than he's ever seen you. Closing one of your hands into a fist, you hit Steve's chest without any real force. "I thought you were going to kiss me, but then you just ran off without saying anything. How was I supposed to guess that you actually liked me, Steve Harrington?"

He almost chuckles. Steve feels like his heart is in his throat, he can't believe what he's hearing. You like him? You, the girl he's been crushing on for what feels like forever, actually like him? 

It's too much to process. He tries to form a response, but all that comes out is a strangled sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

So instead of trying to use any stupid words, he reaches out and cups your face in his hands, feeling the warmth of your skin against his. He leans down slowly, his heart pounding in his chest, and finally, finally, when you don't move away…he brushes his lips against yours. 

It's just a soft, tentative touch, but it's enough to make him forget about everything else. 

Steve pulls back then, waiting for you to pull away, to tell him no…but you don't. You close your eyes and lean into him, opening your mouth a little more against his, inviting him in. He takes the invitation, pressing his lips against yours again, more firmly this time, feeling your soft, warm tongue slide against his. He presses harder, deepening the kiss, feeling your hands curl into his shirt as he pulls you even closer.

You feel dizzy, light-headed, and utterly, perfectly lost in this moment. 

Your hands cling to his shoulders, fingers digging into the muscles there as you, too, attempt to pull him closer, as close as possible…and then, the bell above the front door rings, announcing that someone just entered the store.

Fuck. 

Steve groans as you pull back immediately.

It's just a customer, an older man with a newspaper under his arm, looking around curiously. Steve knows it's not his fault, but he doesn't think he's ever hated anyone quite so strongly.

He looks down at you and it's a mistake; you look so beautiful with your cheeks flushed, lips swollen from the kiss, a soft, embarrassed smile on your mouth. Steve doesn't know what to say, he's not even sure he knows how to find his voice right now, so one of his hands finds its way up to cup your cheek again, fingers curling gently while the man walks around the store looking for God knows what.

Steve feels like he's on cloud nine. He wants nothing more than to lose himself in you again, and to hell with Family Video's customers. But you, on the other hand…

You grin. "You should probably-"

"Don't go anywhere," Steve tells you with a grin of his own. "I'll be right back."

Apparently, he wasn't aware that he wouldn't be able to get rid of you if he tried.

tags (i hope i haven't forgotten anyone, sorry!): @siriuslysmoking @sebastiansstanswhore @sorchateas @boomitsallie1 @vivzzi @mel119g @skrzydlak

my masterlist | buy me a coffee

[f1goat]

more than friends ; lando norris + part seven

In which your best friend is going to help you to gain more sexual experience and say goodbye to your insecurities, but he's quick to discover that he never wants to share you and your new experiences with others - the only problem being, him having to confess his feelings.

masterlist - playlist

fem!y/n x lando norris

warnings: smut with a plot. minors dni! probably grammar or spelling errors due to english not being my first language.

requested: yes, based on this request: something with a driver sister that’s still a virgin & lando (her bestfriend) suggests to teach her things

part one / part two / part three / part four / part five / part six

Lando almost spits out the sip of his drink he just took. Did he hear that correct? It can’t be, right? His face fall flat when Pierre looks al him while waiting for his answer. Does he really need to answer this? Pierre just asked him if you’re - or in Pierre’s words: his friend, still single. Oscar is also looking at Lando, waiting for the boy to react. The boys are having dinner with each other to end this race weekend and chat. You’re still at the hotel, not wanting to interrupt Lando his boys night. He did however try to get you along with him. He should have stayed with you.

“Lando?” Pierre asks.

“Uh, which friend do you mean?” Lando reacts. He knows for sure it’s about you, but he hopes it’s not. He can’t even imagine who else Pierre could mean. There aren’t more female friends of his who are joining him to the races often. It’s always you. Fucking Pierre.

“The one who is with you almost every race,” Pierre says, “What’s her name again?” 

Great Pierre wants to know if you’re single, but he doesn’t even know your name. It annoys Lando already. Before he can answer his question, Daniel is already speaking. 

“You mean Y/N,” Daniel interrupts. Pierre starts nodding right away, “Yes! Is she still single?”

Oscar stares at Lando. He wonders how Lando is going to react to this. Whatever will happen next can’t be good. It doesn’t surprise him when Lando takes a big gulp of the strong drink in front of him before looking at Pierre again. Oscar lets out a small sigh, this can’t be going well. 

“Yeah, she is,” Lando eventually answers. It pains him to have to say those words. Why are you still single? Why isn’t he making sure that you’re his? Then all this problems would have been solved. He only has to confess that he has been in love with you since he was ten or something, totally easy to do. Fuck.

“Great,” Pierre replies happily, “I’m thinking about asking her on a date soon.”

“You want to date Y/N?” Max asks confused, “Do you even know her?” 

Lando is glad about Max his reaction. He wonders the exact same thing. Oscar is also happy about Max asking questions instead of Lando. Since his teammate is sending angry glares towards the Alpine driver, he almost looks like he wants to kill him. Oscar wonders what’s going on in Lando his head right now, but he’s pretty sure that it’s the same thing as when he told him about Logan wanting to date Y/N. He doesn’t understand why Lando isn’t already dating you.

“Don’t know her yet,” Pierre says with a small smirk.

“I don’t think you’ll match with her,” Lando states. Before Pierre or anyone else can question his statement, Lando already continues to talk. “You’re not her type and I don’t even know if she’s yours when I look at your exes. Y/N doesn’t like to go out all the time, she wants someone to settle with her instead of some meaningless relation which will last a couple months.” Oscar can’t withhold a small laugh, his friend really is the worst.

“I’m changing,” Pierre states, “I want to settle as well and with her.”

“Why her?” Max butts in.

“She’s really good looking,” Pierre answers without even thinking about a better answer. It causes Lando to let out another sigh. Does Pierre only want you for your looks? Doesn’t he even realize what you have to offer beside them? Lando thinks about all you actually have to offer beside being beautiful. He loves how smart you are, but how you can also match his dumb questions sometimes. You can read multiple books on a day, but have trouble with pronouncing the most simple words. Or the way you -

“So do you have her number for me?” Pierre interrupts his thoughts.

“My phone is empty,” Lando quickly replies.

Oscar notices the next big gulp Lando takes from his drink. He also notices the sad, annoyed look on his friends face. Maybe Lando thinks nobody is paying attention to him when he whispers again, but Oscar hears it perfectly. “Fuck,” Lando grunts annoyed, “”Why does everyone want her.”

The night doesn’t continue smoothly like before. Pierre makes multiple remarks about you, which causes Lando to get even more annoyed and to drink even more. The people who are a bit closer with Lando and know him pretty well - like Oscar, Max and Daniel, are quick to notice to jealousy which doesn’t leave Lando his mind anymore. He can only think about Pierre who wants to date you. When Daniel starts to order multiple shots in order to help Lando ‘forget’, Oscar is already afraid for the outcome. Lando is getting more drunk with the second. This can’t go well. 

When almost everyone has left, Oscar is the one who still pays attention to Lando. He doesn’t dare to leave his friend alone like this. He wonders how Lando will ever get back to the hotel without any help. Eventually he takes Lando outside with him, walking towards a taxi with him. He sighs when he thinks about the other drivers who already left without even thinking about their drunk friend. 

The taxi driver is glad to bring them back to the hotel, the only problem seems to be Lando. He doesn’t want to get in the cab. Oscar realizes that Lando is even more drunk then he already thought. He curses Pierre for his god awful remarks about you but also curses Daniel for all the shots. He’s all alone with Lando, who doesn’t want to get in any cab right now. 

“You don’t understand, I want Y/N to come pick me up,” Lando states drunkly when Oscar asks him about his reasons to not want to take the taxi. 

“If you’re getting in the cab you’ll be with her sooner,” Oscar states.

“I want her to pick me up,” Lando slurs.

“I can’t call her awake for this,” Oscar argues.

“Yes you can,” Lando argues back, “She’ll come.”

The taxi driver is already focusing on other people, who are actually getting into the car instead of arguing next to it. Eventually the taxi drives away. Oscar curses Pierre again, this is all his fault. Okay and maybe partly Lando his fault. Why isn’t he just honest about his feelings for you? The two of you should be dating already. How hard can it be.

“Are you going to call her?” Lando asks. It causes Oscar to snap back into reality. He looks at the hopeful eyes of his drunk friend. Eventually he shows him a small nod. Maybe when Lando realizes that you don’t want to pick them up, he’ll get him in a cab. He searches for your contact in his phone and presses the call button. When he hears the phone goes over, he thinks that it might have been smarter to call you with Lando his phone. Before he can change anything, you already pick up the phone. 

“Hi Oscar, what’s up?” You ask him with a surprised tone in your voice.

“Hey, sorry for calling you this late. I hope I didn’t awake you?” Oscar says with a guilty feeling.

“Oh no,” you’re quick to reassure him, “I was still up, I’m waiting for Lando to get back. I can’t sleep peacefully when he’s still out.”

Oscar really wants to slap the both of you until you’re dating each other. Why aren’t you dating yet? He’s getting more tired about the obliviousness between you two with the day. 

“Uh, okay,” he reacts, “Listen, Lando is really drunk and I can’t get him in a cab. He wants you to pick us up. Sorry. I already tried to get him into multiple cabs but with no succes.”

He doesn’t get a quick response this time. Oscar does however hear some vague sounds on your side of the call. Are you actually getting ready to pick them up? Oscar doesn’t believe it. It would be more logical for you to ask to speak to Lando and tell him he needs to get into the cab. He waits for you to say something. 

“Can you text me the location?” You ask Oscar eventually, “I’m already walking towards the car.” 

Oscar doesn’t know how to react at first. He feels extremely confused. Are you really this quick to drop everything so you can come pick up Lando? He now knows for sure that Lando needs to question himself. Lando should ask you to date directly. The two of you should be dating already. This is just plain stupid.

“Yes, yes!” He says to you, “Thank you so much.” Even with all his confused feelings right now, he’s still glad that you’re already getting into the car. You’re making his night a lot easier. 

“Okay, I’ll see you in a bit,” you tell Oscar before ending the call. Oscar is quick to send you his location and sits down next to Lando on the pavement. Lando sends him a hopeful look. 

“She’s insane,” Oscar tells his friend, he’s still confused by your simple reaction. “You really need to ask her on a date soon mate, because why on earth is she coming to pick us up at this time if she isn’t feeling anything for you?”

“That’s our friendship,” Lando answers, “don’t look into this too much.”

“You’re stupid,” Oscar sighs annoyed.

“But she’s coming?” Lando asks. His drunk mind isn’t active enough to realize that this means that you’re coming to pick them up. “Yes,” Oscar replies.

It doesn’t take you longer then ten minutes to arrive at Lando and Oscars location. When you park Lando his rental car on the sideway next to them, they’re quick to step in. Or better said, Oscar is quick to help Lando up and to get into the passenger seat next to you. After that he takes place on the backseat. In the mean time Oscar thanks you multiple times for picking them up this quick.

“Oh it’s nothing,” you shrug it off, “but why is Lando this drunk?” You could have asked the question to Lando himself, but he hasn’t said anything since he’s seated next to you. He is however quite touchy. His hand has found it’s way to your thigh. 

Oscar doubts about his answer, he can’t really tell you about Pierre his statements right? Eventually he just tells you that Lando took to many shots. He doesn’t say anything about the earlier conversations with Pierre in which Lando drank away multiple strong drinks. You chuckle after hearing Oscar his explanation. 

“He really can’t handle his shots,” you joke.

“I noticed,” Oscar sighs, “He kept asking for you though, is that normal when he’s drunk?” Oscar hopes you understand the hint. Since Lando isn’t doing anything about his crush, Oscar decides to help his teammate a bit by dropping some hints. 

“Oh I normally pick him up after he drinks, so I guess it’s out of habit,” you tell Oscar without even thinking about it. Oscar realizes that you don’t get it as well. You’re just as clueless as Lando himself. “But I don’t get why he is this silent,” you continue, “normally Lando is rather talkative when he’s drunk.”

Oscar doesn’t think about his next words. “I think he’s a bit busy with staring at you,” he states. You let out a soft laugh and let go of the steer with one hand, softly giving Lando a small squeeze in his hand before returning to the steering wheel. Lando shows you a small grin. You realize that Oscar is right, Lando has been staring at you since he is in the car. That’s not his normal drunk behavior. You wonder where this is coming from. 

When you’re back at the hotel, you start to realize how drunk Lando is. He’s barely getting out of the car by himself and he can’t walk without almost falling over every time. Oscar and you are both supporting Lando by a side while walking towards the elevator. Lando leans a bit onto you, causing you to almost fall over as well. 

“Do you want to bring him back to his room together?” Oscar asks you. 

“Oh it’ll be fine, we’re sharing a room,” you quickly answer, “You already did enough.”

Oscar shows you a confused look. He didn’t realize that Lando and you shared a room. Is this something that you do every time Lando takes you with him to a race weekend? Is this normal for the two of you? Everything about it screams ‘dating’ but Oscar doubts that either of you knows about that. 

“You’re sure that you two aren’t dating each other?” Oscar asks even confused.

“Can I be honest?” You ask. Oscar is quick to say yes. “Sometimes I think we’re dating as well,” you tell Oscar honestly, “but to answer your question, we’re not dating.” 

Oscar decides to push his luck with his next question. He needs to know it for sure. “Do you want to date him?” He asks you. You look at Lando before answering Oscar his question. It seems like Lando is in his own world right now. He isn’t paying attention to your soft conversation with Oscar. Something that causes you to have to opportunity to be honest with Oscar right now.

“Yes,” you confess, “Why would I otherwise drop everything to come with him to every race he wants me to? And why would I drive late at night in an unknown city to pick him up while he could easily take a cab?”

“Maybe you should tell him that,” Oscar says softly, “because I’m pretty sure that Lando feels the same about you. Don’t you think?” 

The elevator makes a loud sound to tell you that you’re on the right floor. “Oh I need to get out here,” you tell Oscar, “See you later!” 

Oscar sighs. “Yeah,” he says, “Thanks for picking us up again.”

When you finally reached Lando and yours hotel room, it’s another job to get Lando into the bed. You’re glad that you have seen him naked before, because this would have been the first time other wise. Lando is undressing himself, but almost falling over a couple times while doing so. You decide to undress yourself as well, it doesn’t take long before you’re only wearing Lando his shirt and a string. 

Lando is quick to grab you and drag you into the bed with him. He pushes his body against yours, causing you to feel his member against your ass. Lando plays with your hair in the mean time. You notice the smell of alcohol every time Lando breathes. You stay silent about it. 

“Babygirl,” Lando eventually says with a soft voice. It’s the first thing he has said since you have picked him up. He doesn’t continue with his question. You move yourself around, causing you to face Lando. “Yeah?” You ask him. 

“Would you date Pierre?” Lando asks you without giving it a second thought. He’s annoyed about his own bluntness right now. You on the other hand wonder about his question, where did this come from? 

“No,” you answer Lando without really thinking about it, “Pierre seems a fuckboy. He isn’t my type.”

“Thank god,” Lando whispers relieved. 

Before you can say anything else, Lando continues to ask questions. 

“What about Logan, would you date him?” Lando continues. 

“No,” you answer rather quickly. “I don’t think that I’m made to be an American,” you joke. 

Lando asks you another question. You can barely hear him. To be honest, you wonder if you did hear him correctly. Is he really asking you this? 

“Would you date me?” Lando asks you as soft as he can manage. This time he really curses himself. Why did he just ask that? He doesn’t even want to hear your answer. You’re going to say no - just like you don’t want to date Pierre or Logan, you also don’t want to date him. “Just joking,” Lando says quickly, “I’m going to sleep. Goodnight baby.” 

You’re confused by Lando his question, but even more confused by him stating that it was a joke. Nonetheless you wish Lando goodnight as well. You even press a soft kiss against his cheek. It doesn’t take Lando long before he’s deep asleep. Just to be sure, you listen to him snore a couple times. While laying with your head on Lando his chest and listening to his restful heartbeat and deep breaths, you answer his earlier question. 

“I’d love to date you Lando,” you softly whisper, “You only have to ask.”

+++

The following morning Lando awakes with a massive headache. Memories of last night are quick to return to him. It doesn’t take long before he starts to feel ashamed. Why didn’t he just take the taxi? He is ashamed for his own actions, the whining until you picked them up but also the questions he asked you in bed later. The only feeling he can’t shake off is that he feels loved by you. He feels loved when he thinks about you actually picking him up that late in an unknown city. However when he realizes that you hate driving in unknown cities, he’s quick to replace the loved feeling for more shame. Why did he ask that from you?

He also feels ashamed for the questions he asked you before falling asleep. The shame is getting to him. But on the other hand, his questions did cause him to know for sure that you wouldn’t date Pierre or Logan. But still. There are many other boys with interest in you. 

Lando moves a bit away from you to grab his phone. He notices that it’s on the charger, he probably didn’t do that himself. He grabs his phone and reads the texts he got. The first one causes him to already feel bad once again.

Pierre Gasly: Send me y/n her number?

Lando doesn’t even react to the text. Of course he’s not going to send Pierre your number. He’s not an idiot. He ignores the message and continues to read the texts Oscar has send him.

Oscar: you better remember what y/n did for you last night

Oscar: and you better think about a way to thank her for it

Lando is quick to reply to the texts from his teammate. 

Lando: ofc I remember

Lando: how can I thank her? 

Oscar: idk, thats up to you mate

When Lando feels you moving next to him, he realizes that you’re getting awake as well. He looks at you when you slowly open your eyes and adjust them to the bright morning light in the hotel room. You let out a small yawn. The tiredness hasn’t left your body after sleeping, maybe it’s caused by the lack of sleep from last night. 

“Hey Lan,” you softly greet him, “How are you feeling?”

“Terrible,” Lando confesses, “Sorry for last night princess.” 

“It’s okay,” you quickly tell Lando, “you always pick me up as well when I’m drunk, so I could finally do something back for you.” 

“But I could have gotten into the cab,” Lando sighs while feeling annoyed with himself once again, “I know you hate driving in unknown cities and certainly in the night.”  

“Lan,” you softly say while grabbing his hand and drawing small circles on it, “It’s fine, really. I don’t mind it.” 

Lando shows you a boyish grin. You wonder what his next actions are. What is he going to say? His following movements cause that you can already guess it. Lando slowly drapes himself on top of you. He presses soft kisses on your face before lowering his face to other body parts of you. He toys with the waistband the waistband of your string. Happy that you’re not wearing anything else then that string and his shirt. Eventually Lando pulls away your string and throws it onto the ground. 

“Maybe I can thank you like this?” Lando mutters. After saying those words, he’s already pressing kisses against your more private parts. When he presses a soft kiss against your clit and he hears a moan coming from your lips, he feels his own boxers tighten as well. He slides his finger through your slit. It doesn’t take him long to notice that you’re already getting wet. He makes sure to ignore your clit for now, just licking around it slowly. He know he’s a terrible tease, but he can’t help himself. He loves hearing you whine and beg for him. 

“Lan,” you softly whine when he lets his finger enter you, but still uses a slow pace. It’s making you feel all kind of things, but not enough. Lando shows you another boyish grin. “Teasing me isn’t thanking me,” you tell him when his pace keeps unchanged. 

“Patience babygirl,” Lando tells you. You let out a moan when he finally presses his lips onto your clit and softly sucks it inside his mouth. He adds another finger inside your pussy, causing you to let out hard moan. “Fuck,” you mutter. Lando increases his pace with his fingers. You can properly say that he’s finger fucking you right now. He is more aggressive then normal, but in a strange way you like this only more. 

“Fuck Lan,” you let out when he adds another finger. 

“Who’s making you feel this good babygirl?” Lando asks you. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from, but he feels the need to hear you say it’s him. Now that he thinks about it, he knows pretty well that this is happening because of (mainly) Pierre. And all the other boys that have showed their interest in you. 

You show Lando a small smirk, “Hm, I don’t know,” you joke. 

“You don’t know?” Lando asks you with a raised eyebrow. He didn’t expect this answer from you. Since when can you act bratty like this? He shows you a stern look, but increases his pace in the mean time. He’ll show you who makes you feel like this. Lando feels you clenching around his fingers. He sucks harshly onto your clit before releasing it to look at you. 

You haven’t said anything again, the only sound leaving your tongue are moans. While looking stares at you and thinks about his next action, you feel your orgasm reaching. This time Lando decreases his pace. He removes two of his fingers and is barely doing anything that the finger that stays inside of you. 

“Fuck Lan,” you whine, “Why did you stop?”

“That’s what you deserve for that answer,” Lando simply states. He knows that he should be a bit more patient and calm with you, not showing you all of his dominant side - but right now, he can’t really help himself. You show Lando a desperate look, “It was just a joke,” you tell him. 

Lando removes his last finger as well. You can’t even help yourself and try to move yourself closer to him. Fuck, you want him to continue. 

“Funny,” Lando remarks sarcastically. 

“Sorry Lan,” you whine, “Please continue?”

“No,” he states sternly, “You can work for it yourself now.”

Lando pulls you onto his thigh. Making sure that your pussy is right on top of it. He feels your wetness on his thigh on only seconds. “Want to orgasm?” He asks you. You can only nod. “Then help yourself on my thigh.”

“How?” You ask helplessly, you have no idea what Lando means. 

“Grind on it,” Lando explains with a softer voice then before, “move your body and you’ll notice what feels right for you.” 

You try to act out Lando his instructions. It takes you a couple movements before getting what he meant. Now that you know how to do this right, it’s making you feel good. Really good. But not good enough for your orgasm to get closer then before. Lando continues to tease you into the mean time. His hands wander over your body while you keep riding his thigh. He finds your tits and starts to knead them. Suddenly he pinches your nipples, both of them at the same time. You let out a surprised squeak. You feel them burn a bit because of the pinch, but in a strange way it makes you feel even more horny. You try to ride his thigh faster then before. Lando watches your reactions closely, when he pinches your nipples again he can safely say that you like the feeling. He knows for sure when he does it a third time and it causes you to let out a hard moan. 

“Feels good, doesn’t it princess?” Lando asks you. 

“Yeah,” you tell him.

Lando knows you want to say more, he knows this isn’t the same as what he was doing to you before. And maybe, really maybe, that was exactly his plan. “But?” He asks you.

“It’s not enough,” you confess with red cheeks. 

Lando lets out a deep chuckle. “That’s what you get after your bratty joke,” he tells you sternly. You show him the most pleading eyes you can manage, but Lando shakes his head at you. “Why do you deserve my help?” He asks you. 

“Please Lan,” you whine, “I can’t do this myself.”

“Do what?” Lando knows perfectly well that you’re talking about reaching your orgasm, but he wants you to say it for yourself. 

“Orgasm,” you whisper ashamed. 

“What do you want me to do?” He asks, “And make sure that I understand how much you need me.”

You ride his thigh even faster then earlier, but it’s still not enough. “Help me Lan,” you softly beg him, “Please?” Lando doesn’t reply. You continue your pleas. “I need you,” you whimper, “can’t come without you.” Even when those aren’t causing him to help you, you keep continuing. “No one can make me feel like you can,” you tell Lando without giving it a second thought. “Need you to make me feel good.”

That causes Lando to finally land his hands on your body. His ego is almost getting to big for himself right now after hearing all your pleas. He grabs your hips and helps you with your movements. For a moment he wonders if you can come undone just like this, but he decides he doesn’t want to find it. At least, not today. You deserve his help. Lando feels the wetness from your cunt dripping onto him. His thigh is unbelievably wet right now. 

He removes one of his hands from your waist. You directly look at him, wondering if he’s going to stop again. But Lando lets his hand wander to your clit. He starts to stimulate your clitoris, pulling out multiple moans of you. He notices that you’re coming really close right now. His thigh is even getting more wet because of you. Before you cum, he takes a moment to take it in. You look so beautiful riding on his thigh like this, making it wet without feeling ashamed about it just for your own pleasure. His boner is almost bursting. He should picture you like this and show it to every other boy - that way they would know that you’re his. Not that you are. Maybe if everyone smelled his thigh right now they would already get it, since he doesn’t want anyone else to see you like this. 

Fuck, he needs to make you his. Why aren’t you his already? 

When you let out a loud moan, Lando realizes that you are getting awfully close to your orgasm right now. “Ask me,” Lando instructs you. He doesn’t even need to specify himself, you’re already asking him exactly what he wants.

“Can I come?” You ask him, “Please Lan?” 

“Yes babygirl,” Lando answers, “You deserve it.”

That’s all it takes for you to come undone. Your orgasm is crashing over you. Lando pulls you into his arms and lets you fall down over his body. 

“Fucking hell,” you mutter after a bit, “it’s actually insane how you can make me feel.”

“It wasn’t too much?” Lando asks you. Looking back at it, he did go further then he wanted. He stresses that he was a bit too dominant for you. 

“No,” you reply without even thinking about it, “I don’t think it was even close to ‘too much’,” you add honestly. 

“I can push more?” He asks you surprised. 

“Yes,” you state, “I think I’d like that.”

Lando lets out a soft chuckle and shakes his head. He really can’t believe it. You’re actually perfect. He really needs to tell you about his feelings. Maybe now is a good timing? In the mean time you grab your phone and look at it. Lando notices your surprised face.

“Any idea why Pierre Gasly is texting me?” You ask Lando confused.

Fucking hell. Lando lets out an annoyed sigh. Fuck. He shakes his head to answer you. You open the message and start to read it aloud to Lando.

“Hey,” you start reading, “Got your number from Daniel. You’re really hot. Let’s get to know each other on a date?”

Hot? Lando cringes by the words of Pierre. He doesn’t even know how hot you can be. In the mean time Lando also curses his former teammate, why did Daniel send him your number? 

“What are you going to answer?” Lando asks you quickly. He can’t even help himself and starts to talk badly about Pierre. “You know Pierre is a terrible player right?” He realizes that his jealousy is showing, but he can’t help it. He needs to know that you’re not going to date Pierre. 

“I told you yesterday that I wouldn’t date Pierre,” you tell Lando, “so that’s still the answer.”

Lando doesn’t react verbally. He pulls you back on top of him and presses kisses against your every inch of your face. Lastly putting his lips on your mouth. Thank god. He realizes that the universe is sending him all the hints he can get about needing to ask you to be his girlfriend instead of friend. He really needs to tell you about his feelings. But how? And when? 

part eight

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[netherfeildren]

Pink : Part I : Humanist Seeking Person in Love

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: Humanism: an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.

The story of a son who won’t love you, and his father, who will.

-OR-

the father-in-law AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No outbreak AU; Fix-it-fic but the thing that needs fixing is a person; Daddy issues; Daddy kink; Divorce; Welcome to the father-in-law suck and fuck extravaganza; Possessive behavior; Jealousy; Slow burn but like not really; DD/lg dynamics; Older man/Younger woman; Self esteem issues; Discussions of emotional and mental abuse; Unhealthy coping mechanisms

A/N: Check the tags on the masterlist, as well!

Word Count: 7.4K

Read on AO3

Ko-fi

1. Humanist Seeking Person in Love

The video you’d watched had said that the differences between a jamb nut and a coupling nut should have been obvious. A jamb nut, which was what you were currently looking for, was typically half as tall as a standard nut, or a coupling nut, and would be of a small, stouter shape compared to the other options. As you stare at the wall of overwhelming stock, the incomprehensible mess of steel, PVC, aluminum and plastic hardware you feel, a little bit, like you’d like to start screaming as loud as you possibly can, for as long as you possibly can. Just a rip roaring and rageful, top of your lungs, screech. Maybe it’d scare the leering men around you. Maybe they’d desist from the ogling of your ass in the tight confines of your ratty leggings, or the mildly pitying glances as your frustration and confusion becomes more and more obvious.

You try and take a deep breath, glancing down at your phone again and the screenshots you’d taken of the parts you need to fix your leaky kitchen sink. Zooming in, you hold the picture up next to the pipeware currently gripped in your sweaty hand and wonder again if what you’ve chosen is the right piece. You don’t understand why the hardware store, a local business, isn’t as neatly and efficiently organized as the larger chains, and why they make it so damn hard for someone without experience to come in and shop. You don’t want to buy the wrong thing and waste the money you already don’t have, you don’t want to have to make the trek back to this God awful fucking place. You hate the hardware store, you hate the way it smells, dusty and wooden, the cavernous hollow echo of it, the leering gazes of the men shopping, looking at you as if you’re some helpless child, something soft and easy to snap up and eat. You hate the memory of following your father around on many a Sunday morning after he’d forced you to come with him in some false attempt at bonding, at spending time together when really all it was, was another instance of you cowering behind him, trying to make yourself as silent and small as possible so as to avoid his anger and irritation. 

You look back down at the piece of PVC in your clutch, at the picture of what you’re supposed to be buying again, back at the other option, a copper bolt you think might look right but can’t really tell the difference, and you feel the backs of your eyes pinch and go hot and achy. A sharp, throbbing pain starting up behind your left eye and spiraling out like a stain to cover your forehead. You want to go home. You want your kitchen sink to stop leaking. You want the past year to never have happened. For your marriage to not have so irrevocably unraveled that the husband you’d so desperately fought to keep had left you out in the cold, divorced, very nearly penniless in a new apartment that you couldn’t make feel like home no matter how many fall scented candles and throw pillows you stuffed into every nook and cranny. You want to not have to make decisions like these and take care of things like this. You want very, very badly for someone else to come and take care of you, help you, make the choices that seem very hard in the moment but that, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t really so difficult, but that still sometimes call for a second opinion, wiser, more experienced hands. 

And in that next blink, in a soft, deep voice that should not be as easily recognizable in your mind as it is given the handful of times you’ve actually heard it, your name, being murmured from behind you. The lilt of a question, the gruff of shock coating the syllables as it pushes against your bare nape. Soft as a sledgehammer, like ice water down your naked back, your shoulders hitch up to your ears, going tense and frightened, a hot flush of shame spilling through you, the keenest desire to run away from that soft voice as fast as your stupidly October flip flopped feet’ll take you. You hiccup the half sound of his name, not turning around, lashes fluttering quickly to prevent the dry heat of your eyes from spilling over, nerveless fingers going listless around the plastic nut. You don’t want to turn around. This is a cursed place, this hardware store, and you should never have come, and you really do hate it here. Deep breath, deep breath. Be polite, be succinct. You don’t need to talk to him. You don’t need to think about the past. Fuck the sink, fuck the pipes. You’ll just move apartments. You let a long stream of air out of your mouth, and then turn on the ball of your foot to face him. 

“Mr. Miller,” you breathe with a limp smile you know isn’t going to fool anyone. 

He frowns, the line of his mouth wavering as he tries to contain his displeasure. “We really back to that?” You shake your head, looking away from him as the last shopper in the aisle you’re inhabiting walks away, leaving the two of you alone. The store suddenly seems to exist in a vacuum echo, all other patrons seeming to disappear, all sound going out. You even feel the imitation of a hollow pop in your ear drums. When you look back at him, he’s really scowling now. His strong brow pulled down over those too pretty, thickly lashed hazel eyes that you know so well on another man, a younger version of him. 

It was the first thing you’d noticed about him, the first time Sam had introduced you to his father, they have the same eyes. The same but different. There was a coldness to Sam’s gaze that you hadn’t recognized until it was too late for you, but you recognized it now, with a painful sort of awareness, recognized the lack thereof in his father’s eyes, how different they were even in their similarity. 

He raises his brows at you, a pressing gesture, “Joel.” His name feels like salt on an open sore in your mouth. “What are you doing here?” And he looks at you, just a little bit, like you’re an idiot, or maybe that’s only you, for his voice is gentle when he says, “Pickin’ up supplies with some of the boys on my crew. What’re you doin’ here, sweetheart? Sam with you?” Your heart beats like that of a small and hunted creature, pounding painfully against the confines of your ribs while a hot, humiliated flush washes through your entire body, heat suffusing your face so intensely there’s probably steam rising off the surface of your skin. You shake your head quickly, a barely there jerk. You’re suddenly trembling so hard your throat aches as if it’s been pierced by a lancet straight through. Another sharp jerk, and he steps forward a concerned look marring his face. 

“You haven’t spoken to him.” It isn’t a question. 

“He’s been feildin’ my calls for months. Assumed I’d done something– something else, last time to piss him off again. What’s wrong? Everything okay?” He pauses, head tilting, and you can’t look him in the face as you say it, gaze falling to your fingers twisted around the nut. 

“We’re not together anymore. He– he left me. We got divorced six months ago.”

Shocked into silence he takes another step towards you, the toe of his heavy boot coming into your eye line. The ends are thick and rounded, and you wonder if there’s a casing of steel within, how much a kick in the ribs would hurt delivered by a boot like that, and the violent thought startles you, your eyes going wide, shooting up to his face as if worried he could read your thoughts. Ashamed that something like that in reference to him would even cross your mind, for looking at him, the gentleness in his gaze, the utter concern, a man like this would never hurt a creature softer than him, you know that. 

It’s funny, or strange, or a phenomena not easily understandable or explainable unless you’d had a certain type of experience with a certain type of man, but there was a sort of sixth sense instilled in a person who’d dealt with cruel men that made it easy to recognize when one had the capacity to hurt you and when he didn’t. There were, of course, those who were good at masking it, but there was always something, a way they held themselves or moved around others, the cadence of their voices, clues that spoke of the sort of man he was. And from the first moment you’d met him, you’d thought Joel had something that spoke only of gentleness. Despite his size and seemingly rough aspect, there was something about his voice, and the way he carried himself, the way he moved around those who were smaller or weaker or less, less alive, less potent than him, that was always careful and always aware. 

“What?” He moves as if he’s going to reach for you, and you flinch back, the curve of your spine bumping into the framing of the shelves behind you, face turning away quickly. He goes tense, forcing himself into stillness, the white of his teeth flashing in a grimace, but he puts his palms up in a staying gesture, it’s alright, easy, he murmurs, I won’t touch you, hands lowering to fist in the pockets of his jeans into tight balls of false restraint. As if he’s afraid of what they might do of their own volition otherwise. “What do you mean he left you? What happened? He–”

“I don’t want to discuss this with you. Call him again or– or I don’t know. It’s not my business anymore. He was never happy with me,” you stupidly add, finally braving a look back at his eyes again, a bitter laugh scratching up your throat, “You know this. Call your son, Joel.”

You move to leave, to get away from him, but he shifts, blocking your escape, sending your heart up into your throat. “Honey, wait–” but you’re spinning on your heel the other way, stumbling in your flip flops, and you think he says something about the wrong way, but you’re rushing, blindly trying to get away from him down the aisle as fast as you can. You’re going to cry, you can feel it, any second now. You weren’t expecting to see him, the reminder of everything that had happened, your marriage and its failure and the part Joel had played in it. A painful and jarring shock to your nervous system that you’d not been prepared to receive. You blindly scramble through the aisles of the hardware store, losing yourself to the gloom of the dimly lit back rows where plywood and carpeting are stocked, that detested dusty hollow smell intensifying. You take another blind turn, another, until the sounds of the store have gone faint and then a frightening pressurized silence. Bracing your palms against one of the eye level shelves you let your head fall between your shoulders, your bag sliding down your arm to hang and sway at the bend of your elbow. You watch the slow back and forth pendulous movement, eyes wide and blurred. If you don’t blink, you won’t cry, and you’re so fucking tired of crying over this. 

“If you were tryn’a get away from me, exit was in the opposite direction,” comes his voice again. Your eyes flutter shut, a single tear drips from the line of your lashes onto the dusty concrete floor. 

“Please, go away,” you croak.

“Tell me what happened.”

“What do you think happened? Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“He– he’s a fuckin’ idiot, sweetheart–”

Your stomach lurches, “Don’t call me that.”

But he doesn’t listen, continues on unheeded. “There’s gotta be something we can do. I’ll– I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him see that–” You let your head fall back the opposite way now, looking up at the high, cavernous ceiling of the store, another bitter laugh. It’s the only kind left to you now. 

“I don’t want him back, Joel. Be serious.”

“He needs you–” And oh, that makes you angry. 

“Fuck you.” You spin around to spit the words at him, rushing forward to shove at his rock solid chest. He doesn’t budge even half an inch. You shove again, again, a humiliating sob making its way up your chest. You blink then, you can’t help it, the tears fall unrestrained. It’s a specific type of humiliating, facing the estranged father of the man who you’d been married to, who’d been unable to love you, who’d abandoned you. 

Sam and Joel had been unaware of each other’s existence for almost twenty eight years, but two years ago, Sam’s mother had finally told him about his father, his name, where he lived, how they’d gotten together when they were too young, and how she’d split, scared and vulnerable, without telling him a thing. The two of you’d gone looking for the man, and you’d both been varying degrees of shocked at what you’d found. Sam, faced with a man so unlike himself he’d immediately resented him more than he already had for the fact of his absence his entire life. You, as well, faced with a man so unlike your husband that it had made you resent your marriage even more. Immediately welcoming, loving, patient, gracious and generous and forgiving of the fact that a son had been kept from him for almost three decades. Despite the severity of his character, his serious reservedness, he’d done everything in his power to open himself to this long lost son. Not once had the news been met with cruel anger or outrage. Joel had accepted his son immediately and without question, listening to his mother’s reasoning, accepting the fact that a mistake had been made, forgiving, willing to move on and embrace Sam in all the ways he’d been denied for so long. Sam hadn’t been able to fathom it. He’d been mistrustful, hostile, angry, all the things he always was but compounded and heightened to a terrible degree he eventually started taking out on you. 

And it was funny because the fraught, or lack thereof, relationships with your fathers had been the thing that had initially bonded the two of you. Too young and alone and without direction, you’d met him in your last year of college. The relationship had immediately developed without boundaries or reason, you’d been obsessed, a little desperate, unquestioning, and then married a few short months later. Two too young, too lost people, burdened with daddy issues. A terribly sad cliche. You’d never had a chance. You never should have been. And there’s a part of you now, looking up at this man, your ex-husband’s father, that wants to feel angry at him, that wants to spit in his face and say this is all your fault, everything that happened to me, everything that was done to me was in your name, and I blame you for all of it, but you know it’s without reason or countenance. And worst of all, anger, blame, resentment, it’s not anything near to the things you feel when you look at him. The memory of a small, dark restroom flashes in your mind’s eye, his eyes gleaming above your face, the thick slope of his shoulder, the patterned wallpaper behind him, sickening comfort. 

You go still and frozen, fingers twisting in the front of his shirt, jerking with a painful shiver from the top of your head, down the length of your vertebrae, to the tips of your toes that cramp and spasm. Looking up at his face, you can feel a pulse throbbing in the muscle beneath your right eye, and the way he looks down at you, as if he’s never felt as sorry for any other creature in his entire life as he does for you in this moment, so embarrassing. You let your head fall forward again, landing with a soft thump against his chest, an uncontrollable tremble moving like fire through your frame. “Fuck you,” you say again, whispered, soft and weak and without any sort of force behind it. “How dare you say that to me,” another tear. “He’s always needed you. It was never me he wanted, never me he needed. It was always you.” You watch as one hand withdraws from its pocket cage, lifting to push a soft tendril of hair back behind your ear. And there’s fire left in the wake of the brush of his skin at the hollow there. Another shiver of a worse kind, one of desire, one of lust, moves through you. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it – I’m sorry, honey.” Stupid southern charm and their stupid pet names. You clutch at his shirtfront more tightly, press your forehead harder into his sternum, and he brings his hand to your shoulder, tucking you into himself more securely. He’s huge and warm and smells faintly of salt and sweat and laundry detergent. Something clean and fresh and masculine. He smells alive. His other hand comes up to the back of your head, moving through your hair. Fucking, Sam, he murmurs above you, and you’re sure he’s shaking his head in that disappointed fatherly way. “Tell me what you were looking for. What had you lookin’ so confused and irritated in the plumbing aisle?” You’d laugh if you could, a non bitter sort, but you don’t have the ability anymore, and that makes you so angry. Angry and irrational.

“My sink’s leaking, and I can’t afford a plumber because your son divorced me and left me with no money and no house and nothing for myself, and I hate this stupid place. I hate the way it smells, and I hate that nothing’s labeled clearly, and I hate the way you men,” you shove at his chest a little bit again, “look at me like I’m some dumb little girl who doesn’t know left from right.” Even if that’s what you kind of feel like, a dumb little girl who doesn’t know left from right anymore. Slightly out of breath, you go limp and exhausted against him. His palm flattens at the center of your spine, supporting you, and it’s so fucking inappropriate. You should move away. You don’t know him well enough for this, he’s your ex-father-in-law, you shouldn't let him touch you, but should and should not and right and wrong and inappropriate or not has never really mattered to you where Joel Miller is concerned. “This is the worst place in the whole world,” you mumble, voice muffled from where your face is squished against the annoyingly hard and delicious muscles of his chest. You feel, keenly, like you’re being a little bit ridiculous, a little bit embarrassing, but his big hand is slowly moving up and down the length of your spine, soothing and comforting, and you can’t bring yourself to care. He’d been kind from the first second you’d met him, and then, at the worst moment, he’d been understanding, and you’d never really stood a chance against him either. 

You’d never had a chance with the son, you’d never stood a chance against the father, there had never really been much choice or possibility for you as a whole where either of them were concerned.

I was such a little person. Tiny in my insignificance, naivety, hope. Desperate to be as good as I could be, and pathetic in my failure to make myself into what I thought the world wanted of me. 

“You can’t afford–” He breathes out roughly through his nose, stopping himself from continuing. “Do y’know what it is you’re looking for? What part?” And you nod your head, still buried against him, unable or unwilling to pull away. “Let me help you,” and he says it so, so gently that it makes you want to stomp your foot and cry and throw a fit at the unfairness of it all. 

“Don’t want your help,” you can’t help the muffled whine it comes out as. All you want is for someone to help you. 

“Of course you don’t, sweetheart,” he soothes. “But let me anyway. S’the least I can do for talkin’ out of my ass.” You finally pull back, looking up at him, and he brings his thumb up to catch the wetness at the fine skin beneath your eye. “Please, don’t cry,” he whispers like it hurts him. 

And even though he’s currently catching the salt of your eyes with his fingers, you lie obstinately, “I’m not,” whispered back just as quiet. 

After he helps you find the correct piece for your sink, finally, which ends up being neither of the options you’d been previously weighing, a fact that almost sends you over the deep end again, and paying for it at his aggravating and overbearing insistence, he walks you to your car. 

“Is he still in Austin?” He asks as he holds your door open for you, your shopping bag still clutched in his hand. One of the guys on his crew had come to find him while you were checking out, but he’d sent him away with a shake of his head, said he had something to take care of. 

“I don’t know, but he sold our house.”

“Fuck– Where’re you living?” The sound of his spit curse has a wet flutter moving through you, shame following bitterly in its wake. 

“I got an apartment in the East Side.”

“And he just left you to fend for yourself? Took your fucking house?” He’s getting angry, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him get angry. Something foreign like excitement jumps within you. 

“Well, that’s the point of divorce, Joel. You separate and are left to your own devices.” You reach for the little plastic bag, but he jerks it out of your reach. 

“He has a responsibility to you. He–”

“Again… the point of divorce.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, that boy,” he mutters, shaking his head. And that’s the thing of it, you think, that’s always been the crux of the issue. Sam was always a boy, has always been just a boy… there had never been any chance. “Let me come help you with the sink. Let me fix it for you.” Something to take care of, that’s what he’d said, that’s what he’d called you, what he sees you as. 

You’re shaking your head before he can even finish getting the words out, full of regret, and a wish that it could have all been different from the very start. “You know that isn’t a good idea,” and he goes silent because he does, he does know, he’d known since the first time probably. It had been obvious in the way that a secret thing can only be between the two people involved in the unsaid. “I can do it myself. Don’t worry. I’ll find a way.”

“You still got the same number?” He asks.

“Please, don’t call me. Call Sam. He’s the one that needs you. He’s the one that–”

“And who’s taking care of you? Who’s gonna take care of you, sweetheart? You need someone too, we all do.”

A flash of that earlier anger again, and you reach forward to rip the bag out of his clutch now, angry because he’s right. Because he’d always seemed to have a grossly misplaced ability to read you exactly as you are. He’d read you for what you were from the first second he’d laid eyes on you, naive and hopeful and falsely in love with a son who’d never loved either of you in return. “Maybe,” you tell him, “But that can’t be you.” He looks away from you, gruff sound of irritation passing through his clenched teeth, and he drags a heavy palm down his bearded mouth. Fuck, again that provoking spit curse. The wallpaper in that dark restroom had been covered in little blue motifs, butter yellow details sparsed throughout. It had surprised you, the pretty and delicate design in the home of a, for all intents and purposes, bachelor. It spoke of intention and attention to detail, to his space, to care of his home. That dim moment was, strangely, sickly, the brightest memory of the entire two years of your marriage. 

“You still got my number?” He presses anyways. Unheeded or uncaring of you trying to push him away, and there’s something about that, that’s pleasurable, his inability to let a thing go where you’re concerned, his unwillingness to allow you to hold him at arms length. Like he doesnt care to be kept away from you, and so he won’t. You nod your head once, face burning, molars grinding to keep yourself still and in place. You’d felt, for two years, trapped, running in place, and now left limp and exhausted and colorless, and you hope that he can’t read that exhaustion in you. For some reason, that would be more embarrassing than everything else, for him to see just how defeated you’d been left. He gives you one of those looks, those direct, piercing, aggravating looks that you’ve seen from him before, aggravating in a way that is inciting, like a relentless tongue against a slick swollen cunt, God. Your hands are shaking, and he bends his head down to your level to look at your directly, “You promise me that if you need anything, anything at all, doesn’t matter what it is – that you’ll call me. No matter the hour, no matter what it is. Promise me.” Another sharp jerk of your chin, if you talk you’ll scream or make a sound not wholly belonging to the body of a girl, woman, whatever you are. Another nod, the mute shape of an okay passing through your lips. And his face is so concerned, his hand almost lifted in the imitation of what you have to tell yourself, as a form of self preservation, is an ill intentioned caress or hug, but that you know he’d mean as nothing more than genuine comfort. You deflate in relief when he doesn’t touch you, right here, out in the open for the whole world to bear witness to. Things like that, after all, are only meant for dark, wallpapered bathrooms. He’d already taught you this. 

-

The relationship had not been what either of them had expected, Sam and Joel, from the get go. There was a smallness to his son, a pettiness and a cruelty and a spoiled rotten vein through the core of him that was incongruous with who Joel was as a man, something that was glaringly obvious to all involved. And try as he might, in those early days, they could not overcome the disparity in their personalities. The attempts from Joel at closeness had been fraught with tension and unsaid resentments, and eventually Sam had given up, stopped answering his father’s calls, evading his attempts to connect. Your marriage had spiraled into dissolution shortly after that. As if the failure to find whatever it was he’d for so long hoped for in a relationship with his father had highlighted all of the things you yourself lacked, all the ways in which you were so specifically dissatisfying to him and always would be. 

The marriage had not ended up being what either of you had hoped for, the honeymoon phase quashed and dead early on, no brightly lit halcyon. Reality had set in quickly when confronted with the disjointedness of your pairing, a bone out of place, your specific inability to please him in the ways he’d thought you would when he’d first met you. There was something about you that had always been a little bit lacking, something ascetic and cold natured about your personality at times. Since you were a child, trying to appease an unappeasable father, to emulate a singular mother. Always impossible, always falling just short of utter failure. Not so terrible that you were outwardly obvious in your mediocrity, but never everything you could be. Painfully, succinctly average. Sam had come to realize this quickly. Perhaps, unaware prior to tying himself to you because the only thing you’d ever been not average at, was being a little bit of a liar, of being placatingly complacent when the moment necessitated, manipulative in a way that you found protecting. But you see, that’s what happened when you had a cruel father who always needed appeasing, something Sam, in his abject fatherlessness, couldn't understand. Funny, you’d said that to him once, near the end, called him abjectly fatherless, his weakness a consequence of his lack of a paternal role model, and oh, how he’d hated that. Endings could bring out such cruelty in people, you’d found. 

But the manipulation of a moment had become, in some ways, your only talent. The art of superficial gratification at a moment's notice as a way to keep the people around you falsely happy and calm. Like all small and frightened creatures, you’d learned your strengths well, but as all truths do, yours had eventually surfaced. The fact that you weren’t really so appeasing in the ways he desired, not so nice, not so perfect, not so subservient. That the persona was all just a way to keep him happy as a means of getting someone to love you, to stay because you didn’t know how else to be. 

Your mother always said you could’ve been nicer to him. She was a kind, soft, patient thing. Quiet and easy and always, always, above everything else, understanding. It was the worst thing about her. A detriment, a weakness, and she resented you for your resentment, for seeing her as such, but you could never help it. Always asking you why you couldn’t just be a nice girl, a good girl. 

You didn’t think you had not been nice, not been good. You had only been yourself.

Your father had always hated that about you, you being yourself. The man you’d chosen to marry didn’t seem to like it very much either. And she’d tried to instill her better qualities in you, your mother, so you weren’t all bad all the time. There could be a brightness and a lightness and a sweetness to you sometimes, it’s true. You weren’t always all bad. But there was – is still – also a bitterness and a resentment and an anger, a screaming that you could not quell no matter how hard you tried. And so you’d attepted to give him everything you could, your husband, everything you had at your disposal in all ways, to do and be all he could have ever asked of you during those two small years of marriage. Because truly, they had felt so very small, made you even smaller. 

Everything except for sex. You’d never been able to give him that the way he’d wanted. 

At first, it had been normal, sweet, soft missionary in the darkness, tepid insinuations of orgasms, always hushed, always exactly how he wanted it. But eventually, when the other parts of you began to fail, he got mean and callous and casually cruel. And as you pulled away physically, he called you frigid, a prude, boring, cold, bad in bed, didn't know how to make a man hard. And it had made you so agonizingly insecure, already a sensitive and anxious thing when it came to your physical form, he’d beaten you down, embarrassed you, belittled you.

With time, you’d realized the truth of it which had been nothing more than that you’d never really wanted him. He had never made you desperate, he had never made you wet. It was his character, his attitude, yes, but it was also him. He just wasn’t it for you, and it wasnt that you were a prude or frigid at all, only that you needed patience and understanding and care, gentleness. Things he possessed none of. 

You just needed a little time to warm up and someone who wanted to give you that time. 

The reality that your life had not been full of varied and foolish adventures, and that time had seemed to simply slip away like an echo in the brain from one moment to the next was duly painful. A handful of months of wan and false lust, two years of cold, bitter marriage, and now, six months of barren aloneness. Too many mistakes had been made, too many regrets, three big ones that could be held like stones scorched to burn by the sun in the palm of your hand so that even if you let them go eventually, their imprint would still be scarred into your flesh afterwards forever.

So, perhaps the divorce had been painful in the moment. Or not perhaps, there was nothing uncertain about it, you’d fought tooth and nail to make it work, to keep him with you. Prostrated and humiliated and debased yourself. But with time, it became obvious that it was a fantasy you decided you should finally cast aside, as all children do childish things at a certain age. And then, it had been the easiest thing in the world. After all, and let’s be honest now for a moment, the reckoning had come in the shape of his father. That is, at the end of it, the reason you’re really here. 

Sat now, before the open cabinet below your kitchen sink, leaky pipe drip, drip, dripping monotonously in front of your glazed over eyes, you think of him. He’s a large man, intimidating and dark and stoic. Taller and broader than his son. Lush, mahogany curls streaked with silver that speak of age and experience like the smile lines around his eyes. Deeply grooved when he laughs that beautiful laugh of his. He looks exactly like the opposite of whatever his son is, like he’d have the ability to make the opposite of you, to pull out of you whatever the antithesis is of what his son was able to. It had been immediate, the nature of your thoughts towards him. The desire, the desire, the desire, you had wanted like you’d never wanted before — like an illness, like dying. 

Your marriage had been circling the drain, and then you’d met him, and it should have been innocuous. He’d been kind and polite and welcoming, but also, aloof. Holding himself at a distance, something afraid that he carried within himself, like he didn't want to hope, like he was just a little bit scared of what it meant now to have a son, something to lose. You knew a little bit about that, the worst part of it all is never the cruelty, it’s the hopelessness. Everything had become so much worse after meeting him. An unbearable sort of awareness of something that your listless, frigid self recognized as man, man, man, something like hunger. Something slanted about the desire, wrong, sure, for he was your husband's father, and yet, you wanted him. You wanted to know what he smelled and tasted like, and what the weight of his cock on your tongue would feel like. If it was bigger than his sons, you were almost positive of that, if it would stretch the corners of your mouth to near splitting, the hinges of your jaw to aching. 

You’d met your husband's father, and had realized, painfully, with uncompromising clarity, all that your husband could be, all that he was not, all that he would never be. There was no comparison between the boy and the man, and it made you hurt. 

Your eyes flit back to the screen of your open laptop and the instructional video there, popping another fuzzy peach gummy onto the flat of your tongue, mouth full of sucking sugar. You’re going to fix this sink if it’s the last thing you do, and you’re not going to think about him again. But tomorrow, you’ll start not thinking about him tomorrow. The talent of a liar never really wanes.

The apartment is quiet, nothing but the cheerful crackling of your sweet pumpkin candle and the mocking splish splash of the drain pipe. You had, in recent weeks, come to think of your abandonment as something of an accomplishment. Perhaps, your loneliness is a good thing, you’ll tell yourself as a comfort, a sort of friend; you can’t be used against yourself again in this solitude, and oh, how you’d been used. That anemia in your character, the ascetic thread of your personality had been weaponized and wielded against you until you couldn’t tell up from down and left from right. You were certain there’d been cheating, even if you’d never had any proof to confirm it, merely grateful you’d never gotten sick as way of evidence. But you knew. And it could've been so much worse for you, of course, of course it could have. But he’d left your mind so off kilter, broken and confused and not yourself. Utterly damaged in a way that was humiliating and devastating when you thought of the way you’d been, such a little person. So often, not a woman, just a little girl. 

And then his father. Joel. Seeing him today – you had never felt the way you should have felt towards him. Like your eyes were open, awake for the first time in your entire life. A man like that – he was changing. And you wanted, needed very much to be changed. Seeing him today, being presented with that reminder of what he was, how he made you feel, how he’d always made you feel. There’s something ghoulish about you concerning him – about this desire. That ascetic or anemic or under-grown, illformed thing about you, exterminated in the thrum of how alive he is. How unlike his son. You’d never known what it specifically was, never been able to categorize it, and then there had been that moment, brought so low, six feet beneath the ground sort of debased, and he’d been there and you had been – unburdened from the weight of his own son, by him, and you’re not even sure he knew the extent of it. The power he’d wielded over you in that moment in the dark. And you can’t say it out loud, what it is you’d want from him, you can’t even say out loud what it is about him that changes you as it does – not a woman, just a little girl – but you think that if you could just see him, then you’d know, or maybe you could be brave. You don’t know what it is, but you’d know it then, with him in front of you, you’d have the answer to this question that’s plagued you for so long – how to be yourself in a way that is good.

You’re pushing yourself to your feet, fueled by the thought, fingers gripped over the ledge of the counter to pull yourself up, sink forgotten, stumbling to your front door, shoving your feet into your shoes and fumbling for your keys. How to be yourself in a way that is good. 

When you were seventeen, your father had been at his angriest. Angry in that way that all angry father’s are. Loud and brutish – an anger that is cowing, a sign of true weakness. Brute force in the shape of the man who gave you life. When you think of it now, even as a grown woman, you still feel that phantom limb of fear, and you know that it isn’t normal for a grown woman to be afraid of her father, and yet you are. And then to think that you’d gone from your parents home directly to the bed of the same sort of man, one even crueler, if possible. You’re forced to laugh your singular terrible, self deprecating laugh at the irony of it – even worse, if possible. For what’s worse than a person who constantly needs to be soothed into kindness and patience and calm? 

Once, in that terrible seventeenth year, funny and strange and unknowingly perfect, you’d been gifted the Farmer’s Almanac by your elderly neighbor. She’d said that she’d read it since she was a girl, liked the peace in knowing that the year had been predicted by experts and put down on paper. It made life seem more secure, more in control in a small way. You’d needed that during that turbulent time, locked in your teenage bedroom, lulled to sleep by the sound of your father’s anger and the year’s long-range weather predictions before your blurry eyes. It was so comforting to be able to read the future in text, catastrophe or sunshine, at least it was there. You still read it to this day. And there’s no congruity to the thought now, as you crawl into your car, a ghoul in the night, banging your knee on the hastily opened car door, sprouting gooseflesh in the cold; this desire, desire, desire that is the worst thing you’ve ever felt in your whole life, and yet, you can’t bring yourself to stop because there is something about control in this moment also. Control like knowing what the future will be like on paper, control like a man who is entirely grown into himself, who knows who he is and who he is not and is not uncertain, who will not yell, who will not hurt you. He has this – your husband’s father – you know he does. There is something about control, there is something about knowing how a thing will be, there is something about being yourself in a way that is good. 

-

You’d picked up the wrong wine on your way here. Rushing, trying to fix your makeup in the car, you’d gotten confused, chosen the one he didn’t want instead of the one he did. And it was nothing, or an accident, surely nothing to incite his ire, but he’s so fucking angry hovering in front of you. He looks at you, now sometimes, like he hates you, like you’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. He said you’d humiliated him in front of his father. That he was going to think he didn’t have good taste, couldn’t afford a decent bottle of wine. And you don’t know Joel very well, but he doesn’t seem like the type of man to care about such things. Calling you an idiot in that poisoned shrill tone he takes on when he’s delivering a set down, and you’re trying to tell him to please, please keep your voice down, Sam, your father is going to hear you. You’d heard someone say once that a truly powerful man never feels the need to raise his voice, it simply isn’t necessary for him, and you’re reminded, terribly, of your father, with the sight of your shrill and seething husband in front of you.  And then a low toned that’s enough, son from the mouth of the kitchen, and it’s so much worse, entirely catastrophic in a way, and you’re rushing away so humiliated, face on fire, tear caught over the trough of your lower lid, trying the doors in the hallway for the nearest restroom. You hear the murmur of voices, one struggling to maintain composure, the other, cool and steady, then the slam of the front door, and finally, the silent din of his house settling around the two of you as you find a restroom to hide in. Your heart beats so fast it makes you nauseous, knees strangely aching, listening to the heavy steps of Joel’s boots, as if he’s trying to warn you with those measured, weighted thuds that he’s coming, coming, coming for you. Turning to face the far corner of the restroom, you press your palm over your mouth, face slippery and burning and so stupid, the soft swoosh of the opening door, a paused breath as he takes in your form huddled into the wallpaper, and then the muted snick of the door closing behind him, shutting the two of you away together.

Part II

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