#but they’re still just so uncomfortable I hate this 😭

[crybaby-bkg]

I’m having my surgery next week and I’m so frustrated bc I know I’ll be down for a few weeks but I wanna finish that choso fic, finish the book I’m reading, do my makeup, and paint stsg on a pair of jeans I just got and I feel like I don’t have enough time 😭😭😭😭 and it’s the first day of my period and I can’t use any pain meds since it’ll interfere with the anesthesia 🙃🙃

[trippinsorrows]

through your eyes + au future

a/n: well, here i am, once again, with some smut for the hoes. 😭

masterlist

words: 2.7k // warnings: roman gets jealous and reminds solana who she belongs to. smuttttt. daddy kink. roman being mean.

The car ride is absolutely silent. The only sound coming from the auditory, muffled noises of city sounds that sneak past the closed windows and serve as a light backdrop against the void of conversation.��

Solana glances over at Roman and nearly melts into the seat. His knuckles are practically white with how tight he’s gripping the steering wheel. His chiseled, bearded jaw is clenched just as tight, and the tension—and anger—is radiating off of him.

He’s livid.

“Roman, I—”

“Shut up.”

And like a child who’s just been scolded for bad behavior, Solana does just that. She knows this tone of voice. Has seen it used with others, but never on her. Not until this moment. And it sucks. 

But, it’s also….also something else.

It’s annoying.

She’s annoyed. 

Roman has more or less ignored her for almost a week, and now wants to be upset with her? She gets why, but still. Maybe if he was around and actually had time for her, she never would have ended up in this mess in the first place.

It’s immature reasoning, almost. She recognizes this. But, it’s just how she feels.

And it’s better and easier for her to feel and think about that vs just how damn good Roman looks right now, even if he is at level 10. He still looks good. Too good.

Roman remains silent for the duration of the ride as Solana focuses on the passing scenery vs the man next to her who has her thinking inappropriate thoughts given the situation they’re in.

And when they pull into the private parking garage of his penthouse, she’s barely able to unbuckle her seatbelt before Roman angrily opens his door and slams it shut with so much force that she winces. But before that can even be processed, he’s ripping her door open as well and yanking her out the car. 

His grip on her forearm is firm, borderline uncomfortable. “Roman, you’re—”

“I said shut up.”

It’s the same tone as before, but instead of feeling embarrassed like before, she only gets more annoyed as he practically drags her into his place, Solana praying she doesn’t twist her ankle having to walk so fast in her heels. 

She manages to stay quiet until they’re in the privacy of Roman’s penthouse as he once again slams the door shut with unnecessary force. 

Kicking off her heels almost immediately, she heads for his kitchen, needing a bottle of water. “You don’t have to be such a dick,” she mutters. Somewhat to herself. Somewhat to him. Solana opens the fridge and grabs a cold thing of water, barely standing back up before the door is forced shut with an intensity that makes her jump away, her ass hitting the counter and bottle tumbling into the floor. 

“What—”

“What the fuck is wrong with you!”

Roman is standing before her, eyes burning with all the anger coursing through his big body, his tone comprised of unadulterated anger, voice bouncing off the walls. 

Solana isn’t sure just how to respond. Nothing she says is going to make him feel better. It’s a lose–lose situation. “You need to calm—”

He smiles, but there’s not an ounce of humor in his expression or voice. Eyes closed, he tilts his head back, warning almost, “I swear to God, if this wasn’t you….” He trails off, and she’s not sure she wants to know the rest of the statement. “What the fuck were you thinking, Solana?”

Again, that chastised child feeling returns as she shrugs, murmuring, “it was just a party—”

Roman reaches past her and swipes his arm clean across the counter behind her, sending random shit flying to the floor. 

“It wasn’t just a fucking party!” He snaps, and she leans further back into the fridge, hating how her eyes seem to be focused not on the fact that he’s yelling at her but how good he looks despite the anger, how good he smells being this close to her. God, she missed that. Missed him. Not this, obviously. But, everything else….yeah. “You were at fucking Kingdom, Solana. You know that’s Nightmare territory!”

Solana knew that. Knew it the moment Jaida brought up the idea of attending a costume party at some club. She recognized right away from the name alone that not only was it in Nightmare territory but that it was owned by Cody Rhodes himself. None of that was or is news to her. 

And yet, she still pulled out her skimpy little costume and went outside, shaking and throwing ass on video with her cousin like she wasn’t playing with an absolute inferno.

An inferno she’s completely engulfed in right now. “I didn’t think—”

“Of course, you didn’t fucking think because if you did, you wouldn’t have been stupid enough to put yourself in that situation—”

“I made a mistake, Roman, okay?” She cuts him off, taking the opportunity to jump in given the fact that his volume has decreased ever so slightly. “I—”

“And then what the fuck is this outfit?” He motions to her costume, and Solana finds herself frowning. 

���What—what’s wrong with it?” It’s a stupid question, maybe even a form of gaslighting, because she knows exactly why he takes issue with the outfit that practically has her ass hanging out and her cleavage on full display.

To his credit, Roman maintains the lowered volume, gritting out. “It brings attention to you. To your body.” She watches the way his muscles flex as he brings his arm above her, hand planted on the refrigerator. “Why do you think Rhodes came up to you, huh? Cause he liked your fuckin’ hair?”

Solana is feeling way too bold for someone in the wrong as she rolls her eyes, looks down at her feet, toes painted white, and murmurs, “at least someone’s giving me attention.”

It’s the absolute worst thing she could have said in this moment. If this was the titanic, her freudian slip was the absolute mega fucking iceberg. She knows it the second Roman’s volume levels down to dangerously quiet with the delivery of his next question.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

Looking away, she barely has time to process the severity of her slip-up when his hand jerks her by her chin, forcing her gaze back on him. “I asked you a question.”

If there was ever a time for an apology tour, this would be it. The time to get on her hands and knees and beg for much needed forgiveness, but that’s logic, that’s reason, that’s sensical. And there’s nothing logical or sensical about the way she’s feeling right now. Roman being so close to her is no good. It’s no good for a lot of reasons, because instead of being present for this very serious conversation, she’s thinking about the last time he’s been just mere inches away from her. The last time he’s been inside of her.

Too long.

It’s why she finds herself answering straight from her Id. “I said at least he noticed me.” Solana digs that grave just a lil deeper, adding. “You’ve—you’ve been back a week and haven’t come to see me.”

Saying it aloud is the recognition and acknowledgment of the uncomfortable truth Solana now realizes is the basis behind all of this. She’s never been one to need attention from men, to feel the need to be around her significant other more often than not. 

And then entered Roman Reigns. Everything about their relationship has been so fast and new and unexpected and raw. She craves him in a way she’s never experienced with any other man.

Not even Cruz.

Because Roman has been traveling a lot the past few weeks, his latest trip to Italy to handle some Cosa Nostra matters and yet, he hasn’t carved out the time to come see her in the almost week he’s been back. Something that’s evidently been bothering her.

And that recognition clearly isn’t something that’s just now become apparent to her. 

It’s clear to Roman as well too. 

Because in a matter of seconds she goes from peering up at him with those big brown eyes of hers to being spun around and pressed into the cool stainless steel of his fridge. “What—”

“Shut up.” 

This is the third time he’s said as such to her tonight, and on this tres time, she’s had just about enough. “Stop—”

Solana is silenced and cries out when his hand comes down, hard, on her ass. 

“I said shut up,” he reiterates, adding on as he palms her cheeks. “Daddy’s talking.” That should not make her moan the way it does, especially when he moves his mouth to her ear. “How many times do I have to fucking tell you?” She gasps when he spanks her ass once again, squeezing it this time in a way that has her biting down on her bottom lip. “You belong to me. Not him. Me.”

Solana feels her anticipation—and pussy growing wetter—as Roman starts trying to yank her shorts off. “I’ll kill him. Fucking rip him apart with my bare hands.” She winces when he gets the shorts off, somehow managing to rip them clean off her body. “Start a whole war. I don’t care.” Her soaked underwear, big surprise there, is the next thing to go. Solana would give anything to see the look on Roman’s face as he brings his hand to her cunt, cupping it, feeling her drenched and dripping. “Look how wet you are from me. How I got this pussy dripping just from my voice.” Roman tugs her head back and kisses the perimeter of her face. “You think that bleached bitch could do you like I can?” The answer is already no, but it’s a hell no when she feels his erection pressed against her ass. “No. No one can fuck you like daddy can.”

He’s not lying, and Solana finds the excitement building in hearing some shuffling behind her, a belt unbuckling, clothes shifting. And she nearly comes right then and there feeling his thick dick head rub up and down her slit. 

He’s teasing her, and it’s miserable. Solana tries to scoot her ass back against him, not beyond begging, “p–please.”

Roman chuckles against her ear, hissing when he teases the tip of his dick in her tight, gushy opening. “Please what?”

He’s so cruel. So so so cruel. “P-please, daddy.”

“That’s my good girl.”

Solana shouts when he slams into her, the intensity and stretch of him having her claw the cool steel in front of her. His thrusts are hard and deep, nothing slow and gentle like she expected their first time to be after so long. Something she was hoping for given his size, but that’s not what she gets.

Not when she’s been so bad.

And truthfully….it’s not what she wants. Not now, at least. Not when he’s fucking her like this, so rough and thorough. It’s delicious.

Solana’s moans grow louder with each time he slams his hips up against her fat ass, fucking her like the little brat she’s been. 

“You like making daddy angry like this, don’t you?” Solana whimpers as the force of his thrusts continue to push the side of her face into the fridge, her makeup smudging off from the combination of the light sheen of sweat and the impact. “Like me fucking you like this, huh?”

“Y–yes, daddy.” Tears are building in her eyes when Roman somehow pulls her body against his, his thick dick never once slipping out as he switches their positions so that she’s bent over his kitchen island, face now pressed into the granite counter while he slams into her. “Roman!”

“You was missing this dick, wasn’t you?” He taunts, hand on the back of her head, holding her still as he reminds her who she belongs to. “This what you been wanting? Daddy to pound this little pussy with his big dick?”

Her palms are pushed into the stone, her mind absolutely numb and illogical as he switches his angle, somehow even deeper in her. “Oh, shit. Y–yes, baby.”

Roman leans over her, and she’s practically sobbing at this point. He’s slamming nearly repeatedly against her g-spot, driving her to the brink of sexual madness. “Been missing you too, baby.” He groans, slowing down just a bit to kiss on the side of her face. “Fuck, you don’t know how much I missed you while I was gone. Missed being inside you like this.” Roman straightens up and spreads her ass cheeks a bit, moaning at the sight of his dick sliding in and out of her wet ass pussy. Doesn’t matter how many times he stretches her out, her shit grips him the same every time. Tight and needy. “Goddamn, look how wet you are. Shit dripping on the damn floor.”

That visual shouldn’t make her cunt pulse the way it does, the two of them moaning almost in synchronization. “Daddy’s sorry for leaving you like this.”

His verbal apology is appreciated, but his dick absolutely destroying her used and abused pussy is all the contrition she needs. 

Roman grabs her by her hair once again and leans over, resuming his relentless and brutal assault against her spot, that depth and angle having her seeing stars, angels, and everything else ethereal and heavenly. “You’re mine. You understand me?” He growls, voice dark and determined. Solana both hates and loves this. Loves how he can so easily slide back and forth between being almost loving to that possessive, borderline obsessive side that she secretly gets off to. “You ain’t ever leaving me. It’s us till the end, baby.”

Truer words have never been spoken. 

As is with most sexual encounters between them, Solana’s orgasm is the first to come upon her. That wonderfully blissful, euphoric feeling that never could and will never get old. She moans against the counter, whimpering, “Roman, I’m—oh my God.” It should be a sin how good he fucks her, how good he makes her feel, sexually and in every other way. 

He’s most definitely right.

It’s them to the end.

Roman is knowing, feeling the way she’s starting to clench around him. “You gon’ let me come inside you?” He asks, already knowing the answer. The same as it always is. 

“Y–yes, daddy.” 

He slaps her ass. “Damn right.” Plunging into her at that altered pace to account for her pending climax, he reminds. “Daddy always comes inside his pussy.”

Another truth that she can’t and won’t deny. Another secret love. Kink, even. The feel of him exploding inside her, filling her to the brim with his cum. It just does something to her. Something she can’t explain.

And that’s the exact same experience she has when their orgasms arrive upon them both with merely minutes apart. She’s the first, of course, followed by Roman. His body is hovered above hers, his mouth pressing kisses against her temple as they both come down from that delicious high.

Well, he does, because Solana groans a bit when he slides out of her and picks her up bridal style, carrying her to his room. Roman carefully lays her on the bed, completely uncaring of the mess she’s made all over his dick or the fact that her entire bottom half is soaked, his cum leaking from her puffy pussy. 

He lays down next to her, pulling her close to him. 

Solana sighs, so content in this single moment. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs into his chest, finger lazily tracing some of the patterns of his tribal tattoos. 

Roman kisses her forehead. “I just need you to be more careful, alright?” She nods against him. “I can’t ever lose you, Solana…”

“I know, baby.” She kisses his shoulder. “I will.” Eyes closing, they lay in absolute silence for a good few minutes. Her eyes start to flutter shut, Solana prepared to drift off into a peaceful sleep when Roman’s deep voice cuts into the silence.

“You don’t think we done, do you?” Looking up with all the confusion, she watches as he shifts them so that she’s no longer laying on his chest but just on her side. Roman sits up against the headboard. “You wanted daddy’s attention. Well, now you got it.” Her mouth waters as he starts stroking his still semi hard dick. This man is inhuman sometimes with his stamina. “Take the rest of them clothes off, get up here, and throw that fat ass back on daddy’s dick like you was doing in them videos.”

[diorgirl444]

seven minutes of hell or dallas winston and his soc! rival are stuck playing seven minutes of heaven together

warnings: bad writing! (girlies i’ve never kissed anyone or flirted so my expression only comes from writing fanfiction so it may not be the most realistic i’m afraid), fem! reader, very self indulgent, i’m also aware that realistically socs and greasers probably wouldn’t be round the curtis brothers house together but like if you wanted realism you wouldn’t be be reading dallas winston fanfiction would you considering he’s canonically dead lol 😭, weak ending, 903 words <3

you’re going to strangle Cherry Valance after this. when she invited you and your other friends out for the evening not once did she think to mention that you were going to that side of town…

not that you have anything wrong with the Curtis brothers, they’re all lovely and very nice-looking. nor do you have a problem with any of their other friends who despite what you might think are all very sweet apart from the insufferable Dallas Winston. and you suppose it makes sense because if she had said that he was going then you would have spent another night reading shitty romance books alone in your bedroom. but still, there is no one you can’t stand more than Dallas Winston. he’s snarky and callous and violent - and beautiful.

yes, you’re not blind even you can recognize that he’s exactly your type but he pushed your buttons like nothing else with the way he patronizingly calls you “princess” and takes every opportunity to drive you absolutely up the wall. you two bicker like night and day whenever you cross paths so you honestly don’t know what Cherry was thinking. and despite that, you assumed it couldn’t get any worse. what could be worse than a party with the boy who makes you red in the face and with a desperate urge to wrap your arms around his neck and - let's not go there?

well, you were wrong anyway it can get worse and it did. because as Daryl’s taking Ponyboy to bed some wise guy (two-bit) suggests that the rest of you play seven minutes of heaven. it is quite possibly the most juvenile thing you’ve ever done and you and every intention of sitting out till surprise, surprise Dallas makes a snarky comment.

“what too good to kiss a greaser is that it princess?”

you flush angrily clearly the fact that you’re at this stupid get-together should prove that you don’t harbour any of that foolish class nonsense. you roll your eyes as you take a seat. fine, you’ll play one stupid round of this silly game you think as you spin the bottle hoping to get it over and done with. with any luck, you’ll get Johnny or something who won’t want to do anything but talk.

but no that would just be so easy so instead the Coca-Cola bottle reaches its final spot right in front of the worst person it could ever be. even he has the decency to look embarrassed with the tips of his ears tinging themselves red and taking a long swig of his beer.

“I can spin again” you shrug awkwardly not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

“you can’t cheat the bottle girly” he tells you as he sets his drink down and stands up expecting you to follow after him. you can feel everyone’s gaze on your neck as you silently walk into the small cupboard with him. you hear the click of the lock and you're plunged into total darkness. your back presses up against the wall and his tall frame awkwardly clashes against yours. you can hear him muttering various expletives under his breath. god, you’re not that bad surely. the silence is loud and awkward. you swallow heavily before speaking.

“Why do you hate me?” you ask softly before you think it through. cheeks flushing so you’re grateful for the dark.

he scoffs “You think I hate you…” he says it as if it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.

you feel insecure as you speak again, voice small and weak as you try to explain why. “well like you call me stupid things and you make fun of me and-“

he interrupts you before you continue “I call you princess 'cause you remind me of one. I wind you up because it means you look at me and you get this cute little flush on your cheeks. I don’t hate you and man I hate all that sappy stuff but I do seriously like you doll”

“wow” is all you can manage, taking in what he’s saying.

”you know this is the point where you say that you like me too sweetheart” he teases you but you’re sure theres a small twinge of insecurity in his voice and you haven’t heard a more wonderful thing in your life. he likes you.

you kiss him of course. you pull him down by the collar of his leather jacket and press your lips against his and it’s perfect. his hands wrap around your waist and he tastes like the beer and it’s perfect. you want to stay like that forever. you can hear the beach boys playing on the record play in the other room and idly you wonder why it sounds like it’s getting louder and why the room seems to have gotten brighter.

”seven minutes is up lovebirds” you hear Soda’s teasing voice ring out.

immediately you jump out of Dallas's grip like you’ve been burnt.

all your friends are gathered by the doors and are watching as Two-bit hands a dollar over to Cherry who is saying “told you they wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off each other”

before you can say anything else Dallas snaps at them that the games are over and he shuts the door plunging you into two obscurity again as he pulls you in.

“eager are we?” you say laughing against his lips.

“very” he says faux seriously before kissing you again.

you decide that you’re eager too.

hope you like it! xoxo, flo <3

[kavehater]

You know the reason why this feels like such an annoying thing to me is because I’m sooo the opposite of family oriented it’s crazy LOL

I’ll never understand younger siblings whining about their older siblings moving away like I bet yall were nasty and annoying too like wow all those years and you claim to adore the older sibling and post oh woe is me the older sibling abandoned me … girl … the older sibling didn’t have a parental certificate or anything.

[slutt4ellie]

Summer Blossoms

PT2 - Wilted Covers

masterslist

PART 1 //

Falling in love is hard. Worse when you know it can’t happen.

Summery - Yours and Ellie’s big fight has you both racking over what happened that night, and as of now you’re both falling apart, you feel as trying to fix it may be out of the picture..

Warnings -> Homophobia / Starts off in Ellie’s POV / Angst / Mean!Ellie 😬 / Implied Jealous!Ellie / Reader flirts with a guy but it’s short / Reader is convinced she’s straight 😭 / Guy flirts with reader / People are so mean to Ellie / Panic attack ☹️ / Angst / They’re both semi convinced it’s all platonic idk. / Denying of feelings / Internalized homophobia / Eventual smut / (Lmk if I missed anything else!!)

WC: 8k

(Not proofread!)

Ellie was lost at what exactly happened that morning..that night?...

She was laying on her bed looking up at her ceiling, the distance sound of her record player in the back making some ambience so it’s not just her thoughts.

The silence would have killed her and the music seemed like a solid distraction.

Perfect in between..

The thing Ellie was racking over was that she didn’t understand how you guys could go from literal cuddling, your lips on her skin, to you yelling at her to get out?...

She was trying to understand if maybe she possibly read too far into that night, like if she crossed the line, and maybe interrupted something wrong, she just didn’t get it. How the short nod of your head meant nothing. Of course being in response of Ellie’s words which were “You okay.”

She was trying to really lay it out, picture it, trying to fully fucking understand if she did something wrong. If she pushed you too far or even made you uncomfortable? She thought of it all. You just seemed so normal, then it all came crashing down

She hated the look she saw in your eyes, it reminded her of Emma, when she only had the face of disgust. She wanted to believe that since she saw that look once it wouldn’t hurt as much, but that was quickly proven wrong.

The way you looked at her made her feel sick, like she was some sort of monster. And the more she’s told it, the more people tell her those exact words, it’s starting to feel that way.

But then again, to be fair yours was a little different. It had the outside layers of disgust, but when looking further into it, Ellie felt like maybe you had some hidden emotions. Ones she couldn’t even read.

And unsurprisingly she was dwelling on it, it’s all she could think about. And she hated herself for it. Because why did she care what you thought when you could barely look at her.

Hardly acknowledged the fact that she too, had feelings?

“Kiddo!” Joel’s voice echoed from downstairs, having Ellie thoughts finally stop once she heard another voice pop out. “Come out of your room!” He says once again, his voice was a bit stern like there was not a lot of room for discussion.

Ellie was the first person Joel told, mainly because he was pushing after he woke up alone in your father’s house and saw the bruised up state Ellie was in..

Her appearance being left at the hands of Jack.

Ellie really didn’t wanna tell him, she felt she was now to grown to fall victim and tell Joel what happened. But that went out the window immediately once he asked if something had happened between you two, Ellie instantly felt an uncomfortable lump in her throat, pushing her to talk about it. Talk about what happened. Even though she really didn’t want to.

It was like word vomit, and once she started she couldn’t stop.

So Joel was very aware of why Ellie was turning quite frankly nocturnal, and he was truly trying his best to push her outside. Even to bring her down to your house, thinking that talking things out would help.

Which Ellie could only let out a bitter laugh, because he didn’t see your face.

“I don’t feel good” Ellie groans pushing further back on her bed using the palms of her hands. Weary of the fact Joel will probably enter her bedroom soon enough. “My nose still hurts” She sighs, and really that part wasn’t a lie, they got her nose checked out the day after she left your house, and it was indeed broken.

That part was barely a shock. Her nose was swollen and an idiot could figure out with a simple glance it was definitely broken.

And Ellie being weary of the fact he’ll probably open her door was being right cautious because that he does, the door opens not too long after she finished her sentence. The old man entering her bedroom with boots that hit each wood slab making creeks all over the floor. “Come on kid.” He says before stopping the record player and opening up the blinds. Letting the sun shine into her bedroom.

Ellie finally sits up and shaking her head “No. I’m not in the mood today.” She says harshly looking at Joel, his eyebrows furrow.

He’s prepared to tell Ellie off, tell her how it’s not fair to get mad at him, being prissy or whatever. But then again Joel knows it’s now the second time a friend has freaked out on her, yet this one she does like, and has developed actually romantic feelings.

“Listen kiddo..” He takes a pause, to sigh of course, trying to think about what to say to his daughter. He knows Ellie’s not all great with the feeling thing. And in all fairness, neither is he? Seems like that passed onto her. “I get you like her-“

Ellie was extremely quick to cut him off, deny any feelings she may have for you, reason being because it sounded to fucking real. Admitting it out loud, saying that she felt something when you rested your head on her, lips touching her skin. She wasn’t ready for that. So she shakes her head fast. “I don’t like her-“ Ellie says quickly, worrying that if she says those words slowly then he’ll be able to realize she’s lacking truth and confidence aspect.

Joel sighs. “Why are you sulking then?” He questions looking her up and down. And it’s true, she hasn’t left her room since the matter happened, skipping on meals. It’s not like usual Ellie. Not to mention she was crying while explaining what happened. Hiccuping over every other word, the sight was rough to say the least.

“Because I don’t fucking feel good!” She groans defensively. Her voice is venomous, trying to cover up that she was indeed hurting.

He sighs and sits on her bed. Joel knows Ellie, and knows that he doesn’t want her to fall down the same whole Emma left her in, she was rough after that, and it was clear you hurt his daughter. But Joel’s also been on this planet long enough to know most drunk words, or even mistakes, can in fact be sober thoughts.

And he’s seen the way you’ve looked at each other, it didn’t just seem “friendly”..

“Why don’t we invite them to the lake house, at least for the first day?” He suggest. Maybe going over the cracked concrete which was formed can be fixed with some layers. And if you guys talk it out, that’s one layer right there.

“No?” Ellie laughs and stands up, prepared to literally leave her own room just to escape this situation. She doesn’t want to talk about it, much less with Joel.

He shrugs and sighs. “Shame” He pauses and clears his throat, Ellie’s just looking at him with confusion, unsure of what his next words will be. “Because the night you left I already mentioned it to her father. So?”

Ellie freezes and looks at him, she not sure what to do, the easiest thing would be to not go, but the lake house is one of the biggest breaks during her whole fucking summer. It’s filled with no responsibility or work and it gives her much needed time to relax.

But if you’re there, what is she gonna do. She’s not in favour of seeing you again, and in all honestly she wanted to take the route of just ignoring you for the rest of summer, wait out the last month till you’re gone again.

But at the lake house, that’ll be impossible. It’s small enough with her and Joel, she can’t just avoid you?

“What the fuck? Why!” Ellie yells right at him. Regretting her word choice once she sees Joel frown, he seems genuinely hurt at her words. Clearly not taking it as a stupid outburst.

“Come or don’t Ellie. I’m not sittin’ here and havin’ you be mean..just tryna help you kid..” Joel says before standing up and leaving her bedroom. before Ellie could say anything. Which ends up leaving Ellie with more guilt.

She’s again left with her thoughts, the distance remedy of her record player now gone making it so, so, quiet.

She honestly didn’t know what to do. Ellie didn’t want to see you, she felt extremely embarrassed of how things played out that morning. Especially since she barely said anything back, other than a few sentences that she later cringed at.

Besides the point she practically just took it, the yelling, you diminishing all her self proclaimed stealth esteem. Again, she was embarrassed.

Ellie runs her hand through her hair sighing deeply. She doesn’t want to go, she knows how you feel about her now, and it’s clear that you have no actual feelings for her, yet then again Ellie’s still trying to convince herself it doesn’t matter. You two are friends. Possibly? She hardly even knows if that’s still a possibility.

What’s convenient for you is that Ellie’s also extremely unaware of how that whole incident in your house is taking a bit fucking tool on you.

After Ellie left that morning you didn’t know what to do, you were so..harsh? And you didn’t even know why.

You’ve never been a stereotypical mean person, sure you’ve had your moments with friends back home, but they were never serious, not serious enough to the point where you wouldn’t talk to them for a long period of time. Yet with Ellie it was so unwarranted, like you didn’t want her to see you behind any layers. Despite laying your head on her, whispering to her that you were indeed okay with what was playing out.

You knew you weren’t like that…you didn’t- you don’t feel things for girls.

But you came so hostile the next morning with Ellie, defensive even.

Once Ellie left you felt confided into your bedroom, you didn’t really have anyone else to talk to other than her.

You were offered the news that Joel invited you and your father down to a lake house for a few days, and your father was very quick to mention the fact you didn’t exactly have a choice for if you were coming or not.

Your father was worried that you might bring boys or something over, throw parties. The normal stuff parents worry about.

But truthfully all you could think about was Ellie..not having anyone or anything else prioritizing your mind.

He’s picked up fast that Ellie and you haven’t been enjoying your regular hang outs, late night drives in her truck, sleepovers in your bedroom, you going to Joel’s, that was all fading. Your dad even took record that when Joel would stop by she wouldn’t be with him. He was watching as all of those things that seemed so regular were slowly becoming absent.

It was like Ellie was not even in the picture, but being your father, and not being great with feelings he didn’t want to question it. He knew girls have their little feelings, and fights, he really just didn’t want to interfere with whatever was playing out. So he left it.

And once you had full knowledge you didn’t have a choice, and you 100% had to go to the lake house you were so fucking nervous. Nervous about seeing Ellie again, talking to her, everything.

You didn’t want to see Ellie and have it be weird, but you knew it would be. Especially after you exploded at her, the look on her face was something you probably weren’t going to forget. It was filled with hurt, confusion. And even want.

It looked like she wanted to be wanted by you.

But you didn’t provide that, you couldn’t provide that? You just yelled at her to leave your house after she took a right hook to the face, which wouldn’t happen if you weren’t in the picture.

All you knew for sure is that you fucked up.

The worst part is, you weren’t even sure if you could fix it. You’ve signal handily dug a knife into Ellie’s chest!

“Ellie grab the last bag kid!” Joel yells from inside the tiny home. Ellie just mumbles something too incoherent for him to understand. She didn’t fully understand why she did come, it felt subconscious in a way. Like missing out on something because of you just meant you won. Especially after what you put her through, she didn’t want that message to be relayed to you.

“When are they comin’?” Ellie says with a loud exasperated sigh, far too dramatic for her question.

“Are you gonna pout the whole trip” Joel says sighing dramatically, almost to mock her. “Shut up!” Ellie sorta chuckles and hits his shoulder lightly. A mini “Fuck off” in her mind.

She knew she was being a tiny bit dramatic, but it was justifiable after what you did?

Ellie’s arms grab onto the last bag before lunging the bag into the main room. Quickly sitting down on the couch, shoes kicking up on the stone coffee table. Her eyes watch intently as Joel lightly taps his foot against the wood, clearly thinking about something.

“Sleeping arrangements?” He questions before looking at Ellie, continuing his sentence. “We got three bedrooms- one for me, her father, and you know-“ He pauses momentarily, trying to think of the right words before turning his attention to look back at Ellie. “All i’m saying is that…i’m guessing your not to fond of sharin’ a bed? Seeing as what happened last time.” Joel hums out the last part, he wasn’t doing it to be malicious, when he said it, it was a genuine regard.

But then again he’s definitely trying to act like those words weren’t a big deal. They still had Ellie’s cheeks take on a pink tint.

She not stupid and gets what he meant when he referred to “last time” she lied in bed with you, sleepily rubbing her thumb against your exposed hip wasn’t something she wanted to repeat. The embarrassment was the worst part of it.

“What- no, I’ll just take the couch.” Ellie says before all her attention is turned to the door, the creek of it opening slowly drawing her attention, eyes glued to watch the two figures that step inside the doorway.

As soon as you make it inside the house your eyes are right on the green ones. Ellie’s eyes straight back on you, scared to look away.

But she does, because they’re quickly peeled from you first, embarrassed that you weren’t in the door for more than 10 seconds before she was looking. Ellie was trying not to stare at you, especially when she doesn’t even know if you two are considered friends anymore.

The shitty part for her is that she wanted to look at you, because like always, you’re always the one that draws her eyes. Attention unable to focus on anything else, she hated that. And she wanted to somehow convince herself you don’t even matter anymore..because it seemed like she didn’t matter to you? So why would she give you attention you didn’t deserve.

“Hey!” Joel smiles grabbing your father by the shoulder, other arm hitting his back. It unfortunately left more time to dawn on the fact you and Ellie haven’t talked since you walked through that door. “Drive down here alright?” Joel questions.

“Oh yeah?” Your dad smiles pulling back and dropping the both your bags around the front door. “How have you been hiding this from be Miller?” Your dad chuckles and walks forward getting a better view of the place.

Your eyes are STICKING to the ground, physically unable to peel them away. You didn’t want to look up and see Ellie looking at you. Or see she isn’t even paying any attention towards you, which in some weird way would be worse?

“Hiding, that’s crazy talk!” Joel laughs pulling your dad into the kitchen. “Come let me show you the kitchen.” Joel’s little laugh disappearing into the kitchen.

Your immediate guess is that they’re both getting a drink, nice way to start off the day. And you can’t help but wish you could be in there always taking a shot.

But no, because unfortunately for you it creates a shitty situation that left you and Ellie alone in the living room, the sound of both your dads talking in the separate room making some background noise.

You’re not sure if you should talk, or let the silence just sit. But your voice just pushed out, making it feel like you had almost no control. “Hey..” You sigh looking up at her eyes, which are still resting on your face. “How’s your nose?” You ask genuinely, quickly taking notice in the bandages that rest on it.

Ellie’s eyes flash with something you can’t exactly recognize, reason being because it changes in the matter of a few seconds, now representing anger. “Don’t fucking say ‘Hey’ to me man” Ellie scoffs and stands up. It was harsh, and it sure as hell came out as that. “Just fuck off.” Ellie says.

It was clear then, things 100% were not going back to how they were before, Ellie seems so angry at you, and you know it’s your fault..but unsurprisingly you don’t know how to fix it..

Ellie stands up trailing right into the kitchen, she cringed at her own fucking words, she’s never that mean. But they slipped out, fully accidental. Maybe it would give you the sign that she didn’t feel like talking. That’s what she’s convincing herself at least.

Because Ellie’s a fond believer that not talking about it will somehow resolve what’s going on with you two, she just doesn’t want to have a weird heart to heart conversation, she herself isn’t ready for.

Ellie hears the last bit of Joel’s sentence once she enters the kitchen. “Oh yeah, Ellie can take her down to it-“ Joel stops once he’s met with the face of his daughter. A frown portraying her lips as she hears her name.

Joel wasn’t trying to play cupid. He just knows that his daughter has lacked friends for way too long, and he knows high school was insanely rough for her. Ellie’s only 19 and she’s gone through the loss of so many friends, he was so happy to see that she was bonding with you. Seeing his daughters bright smile, that actually seemed real was a feeling he didn’t want to pass up.

And plus, Ellie has a habit of not seeing things through, when it gets too much she pulls back. So when your father talked people going down to the lake and having a bonfire, Joel confirmed and offered Ellie to take you.

Ellie just wasn’t aware about all that…yet!

You don’t walk in to long after her, once Ellie left you in a silent room you quickly got uncomfortable standing in a place which wasn’t even yours? So you trailed right after her figure, following so now everyone’s in the kitchen.

“Huh?” You ask also hearing the ‘Ellie can take her’ causing more anxiety.

“Joel was just tellin’ me that some folks go down by the lake for a bonfire” He smiles looking at you. Your dad sees as no smile, or even happy emotions appear so he adds on a little “People your age!” He smiles and looks at both you and Ellie. His little add on did nothing, because he watched how neither one of your faces contorted into something that seemed joyful.

“What the fuck?” Ellie says a bit too loud, Everyone’s attention being turned to face her. Regardless of those words being directed at Joel.

Ellie was mad because Joel knew what the fuck happened, she thought it was clear that she was done with you. And vice versa. Yet he’s here saying that it’ll be a “fun” idea for the both you to go down to the lake.

“Ellie watch your languag-“ Joel starts before you voice shines through. “No seriously it’s okay- we don’t gotta go..” You say looking at the auburn hair girl.

Ellie’s eyes are steered far away from yours, not wanting to see you talk to her. Knowing that she’ll probably fold eventually.

Joel shakes his head as soon as you say those words. “No-no, trust me, this kid will stay in all night. Plus you don’t want to be around two drunk old men?” He chuckles looking at the two of you. “Do ya?” He continues, smiling. Joel’s hand on your dad’s shoulder as they down drinks.

He was right, you didn’t want to be around two drunk middle aged men, but you didn’t want to be stuck with Ellie, not after everything that happened, she obviously fucking hates you now? You’ve dug this hole far too deep.

But you knew Joel, nor your dad would stop the pushing.

And if you did stay you’d have to deal with their annoying behaviour.

So you just look down and nod, turning your gaze to see Ellie, she looks just as defeated as you.

So soon enough there’s a sigh falling from both your lips.

You didn’t really have a choice..

You and Ellie headed out as soon as the sun was down, and since it was still summer it did take a bit.

So now it was late at night, and the sounds distant sound of birds chirping and crickets ringing made just a bit of noise for the silence to be to obvious.

On the bright side walk was short. You and Ellie walked beside each other but it was odd. Because she didn’t talk and neither did you, both unsure at how you’ll continue after this point. And to be completely honest, you’re not really looking for Ellie to swear at you once again. It was starting to get old real quick.

It felt so weird hearing her be cold towards you. Considering the only Ellie you knew was the sweet one. The one who opened your door for you, laid on your bedroom floor watching on your shoulder as you read. That Ellie. And even though you had no say, and it was honestly selfish after what you did, you did miss that version of her.

It just felt like a whole personally swap.

This Ellie is so distance, and now that you’re both forced in a close proximity it honestly doesn’t make it better. So you just decided to force words out of your throat.

“You mad at me?” You question turning to look at her, her hands are stuffed in her jean pockets, eyes glued to the rocky ground as her legs drag, a causing the rocks to be kicked forward, you can’t even read Ellie’s features because she has a baseball cap covering them.

All Ellie does is hum out a “No.” Trying to avoid more conflict. She didn’t even enjoy being a dick to you, she just assumed you’d stop pushing by now, she even thought being this mean might feel good? To get out some pent up resentment she’s built up since that morning.

“Okay…” You look down following her trail. Trying to find your voice once again. “Ellie I wasn’t trying to lead you on..?” You spit out.

You didn’t actually know if Ellie was like that..you never had confirmation. It’s just that night so much shit went down, the insults from Jack, and the other people that attended the party. There was an undoubtable pattern, and that’s not even mentioning the morning after.

You literally agreeing with Jacks words, earning the reaction it got from Ellie. It seemed almost clear that all the stuff you heard was probably true. But you didn’t want to find out if she was like that, that would change so much? Too much.

So you saying you weren’t trying to lead her on feels like a cover. A partial apology for cuddling with her all night and giving signs that you guys weren’t just platonic friends. Like you had some weird crush on her, it just made everything so messy.

Your words only gets Ellie to chuckle. “You think so highly of yourself- it’s fucking exhausting” Ellie scoffs out before walking down finally reaching the starting bonfire. The crowds of people growing. Either way you’re still right beside her, searching for her eyes that refuse to meet yours.

Mainly because what she said next, she knew that if you saw her eyes you’d see through it.

“I didn’t- I don’t fucking like you. I haven’t fucking liked you” Ellie spits out looking straight at you. Her words always choosing to fail her.

Her words leave you shocked. Pink growing on your cheeks, embarrassed, maybe even ashamed. You just felt fucking stupid.

Even though you couldn’t see Ellie’s eyes straight on you noticed a burn in despite them portraying a forest green, there was burning the more she thought about you, thought about what happened, it made her mad.

But in Ellie’s mind it was a constant back in forth of how stupid she must have been, to think that maybe you felt something. It’s not like she was mad at you.

She was mad at herself for believing that maybe you did feel something. Something for her.

Once you’ve made actually made it down the mini hill entirely you’re met with a bunch of people, they seemed around your age, just like your dad mentioned. They already seemed to have heavy amounts of liquor in their system.

Ellie seemed to discard away from you as soon as you both made it down the hill. So you’re alone, with a shit tom of people you don’t even know?

You didn’t have a plan to drink tonight, you honestly didn’t know what to do, Ellie seems to hate you. You don’t particularly have anyone else, and theres a looming coldness is travelling through your body. You just didn’t know what the fuck do anymore.

“Hey there!” A guy yells from the bonfire, his figure now moving closer towards you.

He brings his finger up to point at you, his brown eyes studying your features “You know what? I haven’t seen you at a bonfire before? You new?” He questions looking you up in down, fully taking in your appearance.

You are nodding your head like an idiot, cheeks turning a light pink out of embarrassment. “Uh..yeah!” You pause for a few seconds getting a good look around before you spot Ellie, she’s sitting a couple feet away from the bonfire, just watching the fire rather than paying attention to the drunk teens and early 20 year olds that surround the place. “I’m with her-“ You say moving your hand to point towards Ellie’s figure.

He nods slowly, looking at Ellie then back at you. “Shit Williams?” He sorta chuckles, his tone implying that he knew something, you just weren’t sure what. “She’s a bit strange, no?” He questions tilting his head, brown eyes meeting yours.

But before you could even answer he talks once more, finally confirming what you only knew as a speculation. “Everyone knows she’s like some lesbo? I mean it’s truly no secret. She waltz around dressed like a fucking man?” He laughs softly excepting a laugh from you to arise, but when it doesn’t he then looks at you, a slight tint of nervousness. “You two aren’t dating right?” He takes a cautious step back from you.

You felt yourself tense up at the guys words, because hearing it first hand, having someone purposefully tell you, almost warn you? It felt weird. You weren’t even sure what to reply with. Then remembering you blanked on the question at hand. Were you and Ellie a fucking thing?

“No!” You spit out, it sounded so defensive, like you would hate for someone to even question that. To loop you and Ellie together, picturing you as some sort of couple.

“No..gross” You say tilting your gaze down, embarrassed at how you could say that, especially to the girl you’ve just spent the whole first half of summer with. The girl who you still much rather be around as of now.

A smile appears on his face, taking the confirmation that you and Ellie were nothing that fell along the lines of a couple. He quickly extends his hand towards you. “I’m Liam” He smiles looking at you waiting for your hand to reach his, ready to hear your name in return.

And that’s what you did, you told Liam your name shaking his hand lightly. His gaze didn’t leave yours once. He was a little taller than you, he had blonde hair and brown eyes.

“Wanna get a drink?” He ask moving his body closer towards you. Hand snaking to your shoulder.

You nod, words unable to leave your mouth. You honestly don’t even know what’s wrong with you, you don’t want to be with Liam right now, but it’s not like you can just leave..

You don’t even know what you’re doing, you want to be with Ellie, but you don’t want to be perceived as her girlfriend or something.

You didn’t understand what to do.

————

You drank, and drank, and drank. Drowning whatever feelings you were having with the burn of alcohol dripping down your throat. It was shot after shot, and drink after drink.

You didn’t even know where Ellie was anymore.

All you had next to your side was Liam, his uncomfortable grip on your waist making sure neither of you can get away from each other.

His brown eyes never peeling from yours as he talked about his boring interest, you’d swear if he wasn’t so focused on himself he would noticed the fact you stopped caring a long time ago.

The worst part about it is that Liam was clearly flirting with you the whole night, and unfortunately so were you.

Despite not wanting to.

You played into his game, distracting yourself from the girl you’re undoubtedly missing right now. And the fact it got easier the more you drank made this whole situation a bit more risky. Because if drinking is the only way to get your mind off Ellie, you didn’t know what to do.

Your whole life felt like it was switching, turning over and you had no control? You didn’t even know if you liked girls..liked Ellie? It made no sense.

You were never the boy crazy type while compared to your friends back home, but you were never “girl crazy”. And truthfully besides Ellie you couldn’t recall a time where a friendship seemed like it was leaning into more. It made this whole process that much worse.

You didn’t want to like Ellie, you didn’t even think you liked Ellie! All you knew was that you would rather be with her, have her talk to you, hear her voice.

Just- shit that friends would do. Thats all you wanted to be with her.

Friends!

The more Liam leaned into you, the more he flirted and you flirted back you couldn’t take it. It felt like walls were closing in on you and you had zero control over them.

Liam’s hand reaches that little sliver between your shorts and t shirt, touching the exposed skin. “My cabins like a two minute walk. You wanna go.” He ask pulling back to look at you.

Finally you catch sights of eyes on you, green ones.

Her gaze is focused on Liam’s hand, not realizing your watching yet, you noticed how Ellie’s teeth is tugged in her bottom lip. Watching this weird moment with Liam as it plays out.

Even though you didn’t really notice it Ellie was paying attention to you almost the whole night.

Ellie tried to convince herself this whole thing with you would blow over. Like she’d be able to forget about you so fucking easily, but she was so quickly proven wrong. Because it never took long for her thoughts to dawn on the night in your bedroom.

Or the way you held her face with care when her nose was bleeding..she felt like she couldn’t forget about that. And she hated herself for that reason.

She watched Liam approach you early into that night, Ellie knew that Liam is one of Jacks close friends so she obviously wasn’t too fond of him. She saw the way he wrapped his arms around you, and the way you complied, the way he would lean into you the more drunk the both of you got, how you would laugh at something he said.

It made it worse that Ellie knew one thousand percent it was probably something stupid, but guys like Liam and Jack have some charm on girls she can’t seem to understand.

she hated it. Hated how Liam was gaining your attention, taking up every single minute your down by the bonfire. It’s selfish because Ellie knows, say she had the chance to talk to you tonight she’d most likely avoid it. And not to mention Ellie’s convinced you hate her.

And for that reason she felt like she didn’t exactly have a say.

All she knew is that you were extremely drunk, it was late and you guys definitely had to be home soon enough.

At least that was her excuse for what she was about to do.

Because in no time Ellie’s sticking her drink somewhere in the sand so it stands up, her feet are dragging themselves and she’s travelling right over to you and Liam.

You saw Ellie walking over and her eyes didn’t leave Liam’s face. Not even once. You prayers were answered, someone was interrupting, even if that person was Ellie so be it.

She was so focused on the brown eyed guy that had his arm looped right around you the whole night, pulling you closer and closer into him. Ellie just now she feels like whatever she’s doing is justified to get Liam away from you.

“We gotta leave.” Ellie faces you. Hoping that you’ll just follow along, try to ignore the fact she was being such a fucking dick to you the whole night.

Liam leans into you a bit, his grip on your waist tightening a little, he tilts his head and looks at Ellie, observing her appearance from the shoes all the way to her head. He just lets out a dry chuckle. There was nothing funny, he was just being a dick.

“How’s the nose Ellie?” Liam questions with a smug smirk, Liam was just like Jack, one of the popular boys who peaked in high school. And even though that’s the case, they still torment Ellie like they did in high school. Laughing at her like she’s some circus freak.

He then looks at you and smiles. “She’s such a fucking loser.” He says with no hesitation, the way it slipped off his tongue with ease made it so fucking clear this isn’t the first time he’s said these things to her, it made you feel sick.

You don’t react to what Liam said, you just look at over towards Ellie, you see as her eyes shift back and forth from you and Liam then down to the ground. A genuine frown appears on her lips.

You wanted to understand how you could go from spending every moment of summer together to whatever the fuck this was. Watching someone belittle her with ease as you sit on the sidelines.

Ellie’s always tried to trick herself into believing the stuff people said really didn’t bother her, trying to laugh it off, or try not to take it serious since they were just stupid comments from people who clearly weren’t mature, but there was something about having multiple people degrading you constantly for the simple fact of being yourself.

That constant feeling of rejection starts to build up over time, and even though she didn’t show it, it did hurt…A lot.

Ellie starts to realize maybe there’s no point, she’s over this whole situation, the conversation, the fact that you didn’t even think to defend her. You just watched, so Ellie steps back. She’s gotta go home. With or without you..

Your eyes are peeling towards Ellie and the fact she’s now backing away, you look at Liam then back at her. Liam still has some triumph smile on his face, expressing that he “won” or something.

“I’m gonna go..” You sigh out and tilt your head and give Liam a polite smile. “Thank you for tonight.” You add on, trying to be nice, regardless of the way he talked about Ellie, and the way he talked to her. Telling her awful shit even to her face?

You then look at Ellie, her eyebrows are still furrowed and she’s not even looking at you, it seems like she didn’t even pick up what you said because there was no distinct reaction. She’s just looking down lost in thought.

You tap her shoulder trying to snap her out of this weird state she’s in, it works, Ellies eyes turn to yours, they’re glazed over and her eyebrows are still furrowed. “Let’s go..?” You question looking at Ellie.

She doesn’t respond, Ellie just starts to walk up the tiny hill leading away from the bonfire and the people. Ellie’s not talking, not looking at you, she seems so out of it, like nothing that’s happening right now is even processing to her. She even started walking without waiting for you. This seems so much more than the usual spite she seemed to have for you. Because you can tell that’s she’s just expressing hurt. Not even anger.

“Ellie just wait up..!” You say trying to catch up to her, her legs still moving fast enough to the point where she’s speed walking. “I’m sorry about Liam- he’s such a- a prick.” You sigh out looking at her. It seems like the first actual full sentence you’ve got out without her coming back quickly with swear words. But she doesn’t say anything, she just keeps walking.

Ellie didn’t understand why someone like you would give attention to someone like Liam, but he’s also the one who had his arm around you the whole night, Ellie wonders if she’d would be able to grab your attention if she was a guy..

Is really that feeling, the one that is starting to feel so fucking overwhelming.

“Ellie wait up!” You grab her shoulder forcefully, excepting her turn around, or for her to even acknowledge your presence. “Can we just talk?” You sigh out, tired of whatever is happening between you two. “Please?” You add on.

Ellie just shakes her head silently not turning around to face you, leaving you faced with her back.

You move your legs to finally get a good view of her, each step is heavier then the last one, the moons dim light making this even more dramatic in your opinion.

Even though it was dark it was no secret Ellie’s eyes were rimmed red and her chest is pounding up and down.

You see how her eyes are doing everything in their power to avoid yours. Her teeth are tugged in her bottom lip and you look down noticing how her hands are shaking. You didn’t understand what was happening, you’ve never seen someone look like they’re portraying a full factory reset in person. So now you’re scared? You don’t even know if she’s okay.

“Hey- are you okay” You say in a scared-ish tone, still looking at Ellie. She doesn’t respond just shakes her head no fast, you could run back down to the bonfire and grab someone for help but Ellie takes notice you seemed to be panicked and quickly managed to spit out “I just need- need to calm down” She says looking at you.

You could probably calm her down, seeing as that’s all she’s needs to happen. You nod slowly and step forward, arms thinking before your brain could process and ending up around Ellie.

Ellie’s arms hesitate to wrap around your body, being nervous considering this is the first time you’ve both even touched each other after the whole “incident” happened.

She still leaned into the hug, her breath starting to calm down and heart starting to pace itself. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, she was just glad that since you were hugging her you couldn’t see the embarrassing state she was in.

“Breath..” You sigh holding onto Ellie, your grip entails that you might have needed this hug just as much as her.

Ellie nods slowly and keeps her head on your shoulder. To be fair not sure what pushed her to say her next sentence, because all it did was embarrass her further. “Are we even still friends?..” Ellie says her grip loosing around your body.

You’ve known Ellie for a month. And as ridiculous as it sounded, right now she seems like the most priceless thing that you refuse to lose out of pure stupidity?

“Of course..” You tighten your arms around her, making up for the looseness she caused.

“Are you mad at me?” Ellie ask, head still laying on your shoulder.

It was a crazy difference from that morning and now. Because as much as you both seemed okay with loosing each other neither of you are willing to let go now.

“No.” You say, confidence radiating from your tone and look. Because you meant it, you weren’t mad at Ellie for anything that went down that night. You were drunk, all the both of you did was cuddle, and it could’ve meant nothing. You were still convinced it meant nothing, because you weren’t ready to accept that it meant more. Even though deep down those feelings were starting to bubble.

“You mad at me.?” You question arms still around her.

“No.” Ellie sighs out, she wasn’t mad at you. But she’s always starting to realize you’re definitely not good for her, she’s never consistently cried over the same person. Let alone ever let feelings ever get this intense for one person.

And unfortunately she’s having a hard time separating the fact you’re one of her best friends, and the same girl she’s starting to fall for. She’s not even sure when those became the same thing. All she knows that if she can’t separate those things then this friendship won’t work.

But she also doesn’t know how to pull back from you.

“Okay..” You nod slowly.

“I don’t know why I freaked out..” You add.

The worse part is, you definitely did know why you freaked.

You just weren’t ready to admit that reason, you weren’t ready to admit that you let your insecurities outweigh you and target Ellie, that being in yelling form of course.

Not ready to admit that you might just have feelings for a girl.

It was making you nauseous.

“I shouldn’t have” You pause then talk. “Freaked out.” You clarify, you and Ellie still hugging. Which is becoming excessive because Ellie’s breathing is normal and tears are no longer flowing. “I just thought maybe you thought I-“ You start.

Ellie was quick to cut your words off, not wanting to hear you say “maybe you thought I liked you”. She knows that’ll hurt a lot more then the situation itself.

“I don’t.” Ellie sighs, and pulls back from the hug, realizing that she’s starting to take it as not a friendly thing, like her mind was tricking her that you liked her or something? Everything was turning so confusing. “And plus I was a dick too.” Ellie says, each word felt so fucking heavy. Like her chest was weighing down on her.

“Can we please just- forget about it..” You sigh looking at her, realizing that could have two meanings. “The fight” You clarify, you don’t even want to admit to Ellie you remember that night in your bedroom. Embarrassed even thinking back to in. Unsure of why you did the things you did.

“Yeah.” Ellie nods far too quickly, willing to drop everything just to feel like she has you back, but she knows it’ll probably be different.

“I don’t want us to not talk because of the fight.” You both knew that if you two were to stop talking it wouldn’t be because of a fight. It would probably be another “friendly” mistake that would give you the same outcome as this, just way worse.

“You’re like my best friend” You say looking at her, you said it with the intent of emphasizing on the friend part, hoping it will convince the both of you that’s all you are..

All you wanted to be with Ellie was just friends.

“You’re mine too.” Ellie says looking you up and down.

It’s clear now.

You’re just friends.

A/N -> THEE END!

Jk, I honestly planned for two parts on this fic (originally) but now it mayyy become a slow burn 🌚

idek yet because when I tell you i’m so busy this summer it’s actually kinda concerning, like Istg I have one free week and i’m still on vacation as I’m writing this.

IM SO SORRY it took so long btw, i feel like i need to be be cancelled after telling everyone it’s gonna take 2 weeks 😭 (it came out after a month, what the actualll hell)

but the next part i promise i’ll try my best to get it out really fast! Like two weeks will be the goal, I hope you liked this part because I tried to make it a bit longer as a little apology. tyty for reading and I hope you enjoyed.

(Like and reblogs are alwaysss appreciated 😘😘)

taglist : @diddiqueen @bready101 @mcqueeferson (couldn’t tag a few people 🫤)

[lotus-pear]

Heyy! It's ur akutagawa anon :P

Do you have a Bungou Stray Dogs Hot take/Unpopular opinion?

unpopular opinion but i don’t see kousano’s appeal bc they’ve never interacted😭 like it rly feels like the fandom just throwing two independent strong women together just to have lesbian rep (NO PROBLEM WITH THIS BTW IM A RAREPAIR SHIPPER TOO but i just don’t see their appeal i hope they get interactions later)

oh also ppl who hate the straight bsd ships need to actually go eat cement /srs 😐 i’m being so serious rn if you hate atsulucy or tachigin bc they get in the way of ur mlm ship then i have no respect for you

last but not least not a hot take just a personal opinion but i get HELLA uncomfortable when ppl call pm chuuya and/or dazai hot or sexualize them bc they’re literally minors 😭😭😭 bitch idc if it’s like when they’re seventeen they’re still children

[myokk]

The Babbit siblings, Leonard & Eloise 🫶

Info about their dynamics/more about Leo:

This is also super dramatic😆 idk what sort of mood I was in when I made all of this up🙏

He’s one year older than Eloise. Ever since she was born, he’s been fiercely protective of her and loves her so much. His first year at Hogwarts, he kept sending her long letters about how amazing it was and how he was excited to show her everything the following year (even though it was all but assumed she was a squib, he still believed she would show magic & be admitted). Leonard was going to be such a proud big brother😭😭 not embarrassed about her at all but showing her off etc😭😭😭😭 The summer after his first year was the worst of his life. It was the summer Eloise was exiled from their family….he witnessed the whole thing…their mom completely lost it (á la Bellatrix) and would have killed Eloise if their father hadn’t intervened on time (but their father had watched and let it get to that point😔). Leo was left alone with a dying little sister and he didn’t know how to help her….he’d only JUST finished his first year of Hogwarts…and then she was taken away and their parents pretended like she had never existed. He had to as well…what else could a 12-year-old who’d been taught by birth to obey his parents do??

(it was IMPOSSIBLE to forget her…and yet he had to try bc the parents are really manipulative and emotionally abusive…and he was always raised to be the perfect son) And then when he returned to Hogwarts…he saw two twins who were also quiet and reminded him a lot of his sister. Their parents had just died and he kind of put his energy that he had been going to use to show Eloise everything etc into them and he became really close with them & Ominis. He and Ominis were also close because they have some experiences in common & honestly at the end of the day there isn’t that much difference in their ages) But then…after Anne was cursed Leo was DEVASTATED. He was going to lose another girl who was like a sister to him….bc of his parents he had never told them about Eloise (nobody except their family knew about her existence) and so he and Sebastian got into a HUGE fight. Because Sebastian had never heard of Eloise, when he saw that Leo was just as devastated as HE was… there was just no way that Leo could understand what he was going through, and Leo had no right to be affected as much as HE WAS😤

Like the dumb teenage boys they are, they couldn’t deal with their big emotions (Leo is also a lot like Eloise in that aspect probably bc of their parents…pushing away any uncomfortable emotions instead of dealing with them, until it builds and builds and he just explodes when they’re too much) and he and Sebastian took it out on each other and instead of talking they had a duel that almost killed each other😤😭😤😭 ever since then they’ve hated each other with a passion.

Pffffffff Eloise had no idea….she was really getting along with Sebastian but also wasn’t saying her last name at all and so the two of them had already started to kind of be friends before Sebastian found out that she was LEO’S SISTER😫😤😤 then he hated her too!! Bc he thought that she was in with her brother and they had worked together to TRICK HIM like a little evil inside joke…playing with Sebastian and his emotions like the previous yesr😔😔😔 (Obviously wasn’t the case, Sebastian just jumps to conclusions without thinking which is ALSO what happened when he and Leo had their huge fight😤)

But yeah now that Eloise is back Leo doesn’t know what to do….he recognized her immediately when she walked in the Great Hall to be sorted…🤯🤯 but he isn’t good with feeling emotions and neither is she and neither of them know how to recreate the close relationship they had as children😫😫

Leo is serious, quiet, bad with emotions, but when he lets someone in they are a part of his life forever (yes even Sebastian the dumbass)

Some excerpts from my fic that involve Leo 💓 it’s Eloise/Sebastian alternating POV, so this is all Eloise’s perspective:

“Leo had changed since Eloise last saw him. Of course he had, she thought to herself. It had been five years, after all. The same unruly black curls, same eyes. And yet…he almost seemed a stranger to her. He was taller, face more angular and defined than it had been at thirteen. Voice deeper. But, the expression of vulnerability and guilt written all over his face was something she recognized well. It was the same expression that he had the last time he saw her, the face she sometimes saw before falling asleep. Just as quickly as it flashed across his face however, it was gone, hidden behind a stony exterior. His expression hardened and he sat down just as quickly as he had stood up, averting his eyes. The students sitting around him were looking between the two of them curiously but before Eloise could begin to process this new situation, she felt a gentle push on her shoulder.”

“Her relationship with her brother had always had an undercurrent of fear running through it. No matter how hard she tried as a child, there was always something she had done wrong, and Leo was always there to protect her. Or try to, anyway. The two of them had always lived under the shadow of their parents’ abuse and didn’t know any other way of relating to each other.

But here, with Anne, Leo was murmuring apologies into her hair as she cried, reassuring and comforting her in a way he had never been able to with his own sister.

Eloise felt sick. Sick at seeing them, sick at her own jealousy. Had Leo replaced her with Anne - that year when Eloise was supposed to join Hogwarts - to try and cover the bitter disappointment of not being able to proudly show off his younger sister? They had spent so many nights that summer before her Hogwarts letter never came, sneaking out to the garden late at night, Leo reassuring her that she would be fine and telling her about all of the magic and wonder at Hogwarts that was waiting for her. He promised her that she could sit with him on the train, that he wouldn’t be embarrassed by her.

And then…

Turning away from the two of them, Eloise headed towards the apples. She hated the emotions roiling around inside of her. She should be happy. She had saved Anne, and now things were going to go back to normal, how they were before she arrived. Eloise trailed her hand on the back of the couch, trying to focus on the feeling of soft velvet, calm her racing emotions.”

If you read all of this….You’re amazing & I love you🥹💓🥹💓 tbh I have MORE about the two of them & their family, but this was already getting so long😵‍💫

[kennysboxergf]

Hey girl! I love your writing. Could you do a Niko smut of them all going out to dinner and Niko and the girl are enemies but they’re both attracted to each other and they both end up bumping into each other coming out of the bathroom and they have hate sex 😜😜😜😜

With Him ~ Niko Omilana

GOD I FUCKING HATE MYSELF I READ THIS WRONG AND THEYRE EXES NOW OMG 😭😭

hopefully it’s still alright, they’re isn’t much smut but I set it up so if anyone wants I will write the continuation with more hate smut 🤭🤭

—

God, you hated how much you loved your friends. They invited you out really sweetly to a dinner at some restaurant or the other. It was already suspicious how long you had gone without Darkest violating you in some way or another but you agreed to come nonetheless. 

You were even more put off when FIlly extended a pinky in your direction and asked you to promise him you were coming. You agreed to that too. 

Stupid. Stupid!

Now here you were at this lovely dinner with your ex staring into your soul from where he was sitting, right in front of you. As soon as you had walked in and seen him sitting at the table you wanted to turn around and sprint your way down the street. It’s not the fact that you guys ended things badly. Well it was that fact. Last time you had seen his face you were yelling at it, there was still some sort of tension between the two of you. 

Then there was that dickhead Sharky who waved at you and yelled out your name so everyone’s attention was on you. You couldn’t even run away now. Great.

You forced a smile and went to the table. And of course. The only empty seat was right across from Niko. Wonderful. Truly delightful. You knew Filly and Darkest knew what they were doing when they tricked you into this dinner. You glanced at them to see them laughing and smiling at you. Traitors. 

You turn your attention back from the back stabbers to him. You notice him already looking at you but he looks away as soon as you turn to him. Weird. 

Most of the dinner isn’t as bad as you thought it would be. You two just avoided each other. You saw a few more weird looks from the direction of your ex-boyfriend but brushed it off as unresolved beef. It got a little weirder when he started really loudly talking about a new girl he smashed. Really loudly, like practically screaming through the restaurant about it. Even the guys were getting a little weirded out with this behaviour. You were getting really uncomfortable the more he announced it.

You knew he was doing all this just to fuck with you. And you weren’t going to have a single second of it. You quickly excused yourself to the bathroom. You had to scuttle past Kenny to get out of the sofa seat and even his thick skull could tell you weren’t ok. You heard a whisper ‘you good?’ as you passed him and nodded in response before rushing as calmly as you could to the privacy of the cubicle. 

You raised your hand to your chest to feel your heart pounding in anger. The heat of the feeling spreads through your veins. Of fucking course, Niko got a new girl. Why wouldn’t he? The two of you were over. But it had never really felt like it, it always felt unfinished.

None of that mattered now because there he was, probably still talking about his new lay at the dinner table. You took a deep breath, which seemed to only anger you more, due to some repressed memory of someone (cough, Sharky, cough) telling you to calm down after you broke up with Niko initially. All your thoughts had been invaded with memories of him, good and bad.

It made you wanna smack the shit out of him but also hold his cheek gently in the palm of your hand and kiss him. Then fuck him out.

You left the cubicle to look at your face in the mirror, your mascara had smudged ever so slightly so you quickly fixed it with your fingers and some water before heading out the bathroom. 

You were still thinking about Niko and other things, but mainly Niko. So it came as a shock when you bumped into a giant wall of flesh that just happened to be him. 

He pushed you away from where you crashed against his body. With barely a glance in your direction he said, “watch where you’re going” 

You furrow your eyebrows in confusion and irritation, and reply back with, “You’re like 6 heads over everyone else in this room you should have seen me coming” 

His face distorted into one of mock pity, “I’m sorry, are you too small and petite to see properly?” 

You matched his fake face, “I’m sorry, were you too busy thinking about your new girl to think straight? Are you too horny?”

“Sounds like someone’s jealous~” he sings as he steps closer to you. 

“Sounds like someone’s hiding bad sex skills by bragging about them~” you shoot back.

“Sounds like someone is targeting my sex skills cus they miss them” he takes a step closer, there is a sort of mischievous look in his eyes as he does.

“Are you making things up about me wanting you because, in secret, you still want me? Haven’t gotten over when I left you all alone in the living room of your house?” That was a little harsh, you winced internally at yourself. You put your hands on your hips as you talk. You’re at a disadvantage as your back is close to the wall and he’s only coming closer and closer still.

His eyes darken at your comments, “you wish I wanted you” he says simply. Another step closer, the two of you are barely a foot apart now.

“Sure keep lying to yourself” you say, an amused smile playing on your lips.

“This isn’t a joke, y/n” he says harshly. Your eyes widen at how serious he is. 

He steps closer, you two are touching feet.

“You left me there, all by myself, I don’t think I’ve ever felt that low before.” He says his hands gesturing as he tries to emphasise how he felt.

You open to speak and his finger goes up to close your lips gently.

“and now you come here, and I thought we could be friends, or at least we could be civil but here we are fighting in the hallway” he claimed, his voice rising.

“We were civil. We are friends.” You stated, speaking slowly and loud to make him hear. You smacked his finger off your lips. “Until you started talking about your new girlfriend so loud that the whole restaurant had turned their heads to listen”

“So you ARE jealous?” He says, completely fucking ignoring anything you’ve just said. 

You try to push him off you but he comes back as quick as you can extend your arms. He places a hand on the wall behind you. The force of his body coming forwards slams yours into the wall. You look up at him and see his eyes looking at you with a fire behind them. You felt the same fire flare in your chest.

“I’m not jealous you fucking weirdo, im trying to tell you that you started this but you don’t listen. You never did.” You stick a finger in his chest as if that would get him to open his ears.

He twisted his face into one of anger, and started to spew more insults mixed with arguments for himself. This isn't something you were going to listen to, you didn’t have the patience to let him waffle about why he was right anymore. You had to shut him up somehow. And there was only one way you know how.

You went up on your tiptoes to kiss him. His chatter stopped. Your eyes were squeezed shut, scared of his response. His eyes were blown wide. You felt his lips kiss you back. You leaned into the familiarity, his hot lips against yours.

You pulled away first. His eyes were more open now, still angry but also confused now.

He took your arm and pulled the two of you into the bathrooms. You led the way to a cubicle once your back had been pushed through the door. It was all very fast and frantic, your heart was beating very quickly in your chest. You locked the door to the cubicle and turned around to Niko immediately putting his lips back on yours.

Neither of you said anything as you kissed, it could start another argument neither of you wanted. You tried to gain an upper hand, putting your hand under his shirt and pulling it up. His hands went around your waist and pulled you in closer.

You pushed him down onto the toilet seat, thankfully the seat was closed but at this point it would be very funny to see Niko fall into the toilet. He landed with a grunt, you sat yourself on his lap, your legs on either side of the seat. This was so unsanitary but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care.

Niko’s hands trailed their way up your thighs, going under the dress you had on. You could feel his boner under the light fabric of your underwear.

That’s when you heard the door open. The two of you stopped your actions. You sat as still as you could on top of him and his hands gripped at your thighs. The stranger couldn’t see you through where you had locked yourself in the cubicle but your heart had jumped to your throat.

As you heard them enter a cubicle a few stalls away from yours your heart calmed down. That’s when an evil idea floated through your mind. You grind up and down on Niko’s lap, he looked at you with the confusion painted on his face. You continued your actions, he would have loved to reciprocate but he was too busy slamming a hand over his mouth to stay quiet. You increased your movements. He gasped under his hand and his eyes squeezed shut.

Just when you thought he was going to moan out loud you stopped. You got off of him as quickly and quietly and you could and leaned over his shoulder to press the flush. He couldn’t process the actions and you took the opportunity to quickly open the door of the cubicle and go out. 

He opened his mouth to say something before closing it, reminded of the situation. You wink and wave, a gleeful smile on your face before closing the door on his aghast face. You made your way to the sink and washed your hands before heading out into the hall.

You passed another woman on her way to the bathroom and your smile grew bigger. You let out a small giggle once you were out of ear shot. You would love to continue the ‘conversation’ later but, come on! How could you pass up an opportunity like that?

You rejoined your friends at the table. You pretended to be interested in the conversation but you kept checking your phone for the time, getting a bit more excited as the minutes passed.

Finally, after around 10 minutes Niko emerged from the bathrooms. You looked up at him to see him scowling at you, his hands were at his pants, adjusting them slightly.

Chunkz looked up at him then down at his watch, “took you long enough, were you having a wank in there?” 

The table burst into laughter, and yours was clearly the loudest. His eyes never left yours and he muttered a sarcastic “ha ha” and took his spot on the table.

Some time in the midst of the conversation, when everyone was too focused on one thing or the other to see you, he leaned over the table and gestured for you to do the same. You lean in with confusion but a smile is still evident on your face.

“Meet me after this dinner” he says, small and sharp.

Your stomach flutters.

“Ok, professor” you whisper back.

You sit back down, ok maybe, you were still into him. You couldn’t wait for this night to end as he shot daggers into you from his seat and you shot back smug smiles and winks. You hoped nobody had noticed that the tension between you two had changed. But maybe they did because they all left very quickly, leaving you alone. With him.

—

as always requests are open and please come by and say hi <3

[marbled-magician]

‼️ //🥀OOC🥀// ‼️

Hey guys, I hope all is well!..

Recently, I’ve been talking to some admins, and they expressed an oddly similar discomforting/uncomfy feeling about @//an-honest-endeavor’s posts that many others have been experiencing as well, including me.

Please, please, don’t go after the endeavor blog, or any blog that associates with him. This is just a simple explanation on why me and many other MHA rp accounts will not be communicating with him any longer. This is not a call-out post, and no one will be discriminated against if they’re close with the endeavor blog.

—————

1. Sudden flirty/ooc comments that is confirmed to me that the admins felt a little uncomfortable, but kept in character anyway to not upset the Endeavor blog

The anonymous admins for the Chrono and Overhaul blogs explained to me how they felt pressured into answering Endeavor’s reblogs. I understand where they’re coming from- especially the SS’s on Overhaul’s end where Endeavor gets agitated in the first 2 images- and immediately switch up in the 3rd SS where Endeavor tags Overhaul in a separate post. On Chrono’s end, the admin also felt stuck when responding. Yes, they could have completely ignored him- but there are people pleasers that have a hard time saying ‘no’ to others (*cough* I’m one of those people *cough*)

2. Denying endeavor’s actions that caused trauma to Dabi/Touya

We all are aware of Endeavor trying to atone his abusive ways towards his family from his past in the anime/manga, but the damage has been done and obviously it isn’t forgivable. The admin behind the Yumiko (OC) blog pointed these comments out from endeavor and it got me- very puzzled. The whole reason behind Touya being Dabi is mainly because of Endeavor’s abusiveness and parental neglect. The Yumiko admin expressed to me how stressed out they became when the admin behind endeavor went defensive, which I’m still very puzzled about because Yumiko wasn’t wrong about how parents could give their children psychological issues/trauma that weighs on their shoulders throughout growing up? Look at Natsuo, he wants nothing to do with Endeavor and refuses to forgive him despite him changing. If I was in the Todoroki’s shoes, I wouldn’t have forgave him either- honestly I’m with Natsuo on this one 😭

What baffled me the most is that the endeavor admin assumed yumiko’s admin was saying that all people with mental illnesses become serial killers..??? That isn’t what they were trying to say at all?? When I looked at the post myself, that just drew the line for me.

HONORABLE MENTION: #stopharassingdabi

My bestie that runs one of the Dabi blogs just showed me this SS of one of endeavor’s questions he sent to their inbox a while ago- They have more but they only wanted me to show this one.. This is not a good apology to your son, endeavor 😔

—————

I am not hating on Endeavor enjoyers, that’s absolutely not the case here. This person has made a good number of us rp-blog enjoyers very uncomfortable, so we decided to close contact with the account.

I’m not quite sure on how to end this off— All I’ll say is that if something or someone makes you uncomfortable, put your foot down and speak up. No one deserves to be put in a distressing situation. Thank you. ❤️

[infiniteetcetera]

RAPID FIRE ACOTAR CHARACTER HOT TAKES

. [Mostly focused on side characters but thoughts about our mains too BC why not]

🔥Emerie is one of THE most underrated characters and deserved a bigger storyline in ACOSF (obviously it’s Nestas book but other side characters like Gwyn, Feysand, etc got more time that could have been hers)

🔥I don’t know why people really like Helion or want him with LOA😭 mans has let her be in an abusive relationship for DECADES & I feel like if he really loved/deserved her he would have blood dueled by now. he might make a fine father for Lucien but I don’t want to read a love story that involves a few centuries of abandonment

🔥I like genuinely wonder often if the rest of Lucien’s brothers are evil evil. Like if Eris is playing along to their abusive dad’s whims, how do we know the rest of them aren’t? They likely don’t know Eris is different so why would he know that about them? Lucien didn’t? IDK i’m just curious about more Vanserras

🔥Jurian is genuinely one of the funniest characters👀 his revival may be a little pointless but his vibes are immaculate and he’s underrated

🔥You don’t have to hate Mor for leading Azriel on (there are others reasons to not like her) but she definitely did💀aside from the fact every character including her says it we get literal scenes of it too. like she FR tells Feyre he has a huge dick and just says so many other sexual/romantic things about him that are NOT platonic, it makes sense he’s been confused AF😭

🔥Kallias and Viviane have one of the sweetest love stories in the series and I wish we saw more of them. they also just have such good vibes & if they’re gonna keep popping up for little cameos I want more deets

🔥TW SA: I won’t even argue about Tamlins wrongs against Feyre bc i’ve done so before & it isn’t worth the breath BUT it bewilders me that so many people ignore/excuse what he did to Lucien😭 aside from just the generally abusive vibes he not only ignored what Ianthe was doing to Lucien (when equally if not more depressed people like Feyre/Rhys noticed) but also made him have sex with that creepy ass predator😩 Lucien’s struggle with that is so overlooked in general but still bothers me people ignore Tamlins fault in it and that Lucien is now groveling for his friendship

🔥 While on the topic of SA, i’ve seen a lot of people in the fandom have such a gross attitude about what happened to Rhys recently. like man has plenty of flaws and has done a lot of wrong things but that’s not an excuse to make jokes about him being SA’d for DECADES especially when male SA representation is so rare and it’s dumbass jokes like the kind fans are now making that makes guys feel uncomfortable about speaking up

🔥One more on this topic, the SA Nesta experienced is also SO overlooked, even by the narrative itself. The general fact she was using sex as a form of self harm/punishment is also weirdly addressed a few times but then excused if it’s with Cassian in a way that’s so gross

🔥Feyre and Rhys having Nyx so soon was a bad decision. No matter how many people bring up the “oh they were so close to dying” “oh they don’t want to waste time” blah blah blah doesn’t change the fact that’s a TERRIBLE reason to have kids😭 like does the fact they made that decision kind of make sense given what they experienced? sure! was it at all smart or level headed or much more than a trauma response? literally no

🔥I feel like Rhys’ mom…kind of sucks? She’s spoken about more highly than any of the other ACOTAR parents but she literally forced her son to go to a child soldier camp she knew was full of misogyny, poverty, and a bunch of other barbaric practices, did nothing to help any of the other kids unless she was forced to (Rhys brought cassian home, and Az’s mom begged her to take him, she then let Rhys & Cas beat on this poor traumatized boy) and overall Rhys turned out far from perfect but actually could have been SO much worse when you think about it

🔥On the topic of bad parents KIER BEING ALIVE STILL IS SO STUPID AND MAKES NO SENSE.

[tariah23]

im so sorry you got nasty asks ppl can be so vile. i love seeing you on my dash and you always have the best posts and put great stuff on my dash. ive never watched naruto but i dont mind seeing that either <3 ily i hope youre doing ok outside of ppl being terrible

They had me like this, anon...

[quillkiller]

Jen i would absolutely love for you to go on a rant, short or long whatever, about why people seem to hate tall lily so much? Or even lesbian lily? I feel like a lot of people act as though you HAVE to headcanon her as short but if you bring up canon they’re like “nobody gaf about canon anymore” 😭

hello babes i would LOVE to rant about tall lily, feminism & lesbianism.. 🤍

ive said this before, but people hate ugly women!! and an ugly woman is measured by how desired she is through patriarchal standards/a heteronormative lense. and especially, girls are terrified of being ugly. which is honestly really sad:((( i am too !!! still !! as ive also said before, i haven’t shaved my legs (or anything on my body) since i was 20 and i often wear shorts during the summer. it doesn’t make me uncomfortable anymore but i would be lying if i said i didnt notice how certain people (mainly men) treat me differently !! and like. a patriarchal society loves a petite submissive breedable woman and a lot of women have a hard time breaking free from the patriarchal choke hold/are scared of toeing the line outside of male validation. and i get it ! i still fill in my eyebrows and eyelashes because i cant get it out of my head that im ugly or look tired without it. its hard !!!!! people just hate tall lily because people hate ugly women and ugly women are measured by patriarchal standards

people hate lesbian lily because people hate lesbians. as soon as people realise that lesbians genuinely have no interest in men they freak the Fuck Out. and people become hostile. like what do gay men, bi men, bi women & straight women all have in common…… being attracted to men. they all have a common ground, a middle where they can meet. and lesbians dont go there ! lesbians aren’t relatable. lesbians aren’t easy to understand because being a lesbian means being on the outside of absolutely everything. and people like genuinely can’t (and wont) comprehend that. like people honestly dont comprehend that lesbians have no desire to form relationships with men romantically and oftentime even platonically!! like people CANT wrap their heads around that. lesbianism can be very lonely and very isolating because it’s the one and only sexuality about dedicating your life to women only ! it’s the only sexuality that excludes men. and people hate women ! and cant comprehend not prioritizing men or male validation ! so people hate lesbian lily because people just either hate lesbians or simply don’t care for lesbians because they can’t (if they’re not lesbians themselves) make it about themselves lmao and why would they ?? women are the secondary sex (already less interesting) so why would it interest anyone to talk about lesbian lily if she’s a lesbian (exclusively attracted to the secondary sex). thats no fun unfortunately

[trippinsorrows]

with me + part seven

authors note: i take some creative liberties with medical (mostly hipaa) stuff in this one, so please disregard. also, thank you everyone for (still!!!) being so interested in this story. you guys are making me wanna flesh it out even more like seriously 😭 i wanted to not make it past 10 (3 to 4 initially) parts but the support has been so humbling, and ya'll seem to like/want more sooooo 😭

song inspo: with me by destiny's child

status: in progress // masterlist

warnings: angst, language, suggestive themes

words: 7k

taglist: @pixiedust4000 @southerngirl41 @yolobloggers @msbigredmachine @wanderingreigns

Absolutely every rule of the road is broken in getting Callie to the hospital.

You couldn’t give two shits. 

You just continue to try to reassure your crying child that she's going to be okay while fighting your own pending panic attack.

Speeding through the lanes, uncaring if the light is yellow and you should slow down, you’ll take whatever ticket. The only rule you abide by is not going through a red light, understanding how stupid and dangerous that is. However, while the hospital is about a 15 to 20 minute drive from you, you make it there in a solid eight minutes.

And even that is too much.

The emergency room is, expectedly, pretty empty save a couple of people. Emergencies are rare and infrequent in your town. It’s truly a stroke of bad, cruel luck that your sweet little girl is victim to one of the few. 

Rushing to the front desk, Callie cradled against you, you blurt to the receptionist, “something’s wrong with her stomach.”

The woman appears uninterested until her eyes land on Calista who’s still crying into your chest, hand on her stomach. She calls out to the back, and you see the double doors open. A few minutes later, if that, a set of doctor and nurses emerge. 

“What happened?” The doctor immediately asks, starting to assess Callie, first checking for a fever and then shining a light in both her eyes. 

Speaking is suddenly difficult, but you manage, “I–I don’t know. She said her stomach was hurting right before she went to bed, so I gave her some Children’s Tylenol, then she woke up in the middle of the night screaming in pain, and I–I rushed her over here.”

He nods, gently going to press on her stomach as she shouts in pain again. Your own stomach clenches, hating to see her hurt like this. 

Something appears to flash in his vision, but whatever it is, he keeps it to himself. “We need to admit her.” He reaches for Callie who suddenly clings tighter to you.

“No!” There’s pure fear and panic in her voice, as she starts to cry harder. “I wanna stay with my mommy!” 

Her words kill you, because you also don’t want to let her go, but you know it’s what needs to happen. “Baby, it’s okay, they’re gonna help you, and I’m right here, alright?” You try to reassure her, gently stroking her hair. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

She’s clearly still uncomfortable but allows the doctor to carry her, as he instructs one of the nurses, “page peds.” Her eyes never leave you as he moves quickly to carry her into one of the rooms, carefully placing her down on the bed. You’re immediately by her side, needing her to know you’re right here with her and not going anywhere. 

While the doctor gives a variety of commands to some of the nurses, you somehow have the wherewithal to catch the attention of one of the nurses, informing, “her dad is on his way. Can you make sure they let him back? His name is Joe.”

She nods. “Of course.” 

“And—” this is both relevant and irrelevant, but as it’s at the forefront of your mind, so you tell her, “I also need a release form. For him. He’s….he’s not on the birth certificate.”

If she’s judging you for this piece of information, you’ll never know because her expression remains unchanged. “I’ll have one brought to you.”

“Thank you.” It hasn’t really crossed your mind until this terrifying moment that Joe has no legal right or say into any medical or legal situations regarding Calista. This scares you in a different way, her own father having no say in decisions that could be life or death. It’s shoved into the back of your mind, but when this is all said and done, you know this it’s something you need to discuss with him. 

You need to look into whatever the state requires to have a father’s name added to a birth certificate. But, of course, all of this is secondary to what’s happening before you, your focus returning to Callie who’s still holding onto your arm. 

“Alright, what do we have here?” 

A new voice enters the room, and you look up, momentarily surprised to see another doctor, but it’s not the fact that it’s a doctor that surprises you. It’s who the doctor is. 

You give him a double take, almost not trusting your judgment in this moment. But when he approaches Callie’s side and offers a gentle smile, you see it, the cleft in his chin. 

“Kai?” 

He lifts his eyes to you, offering a small nod, returning his focus to assessing Callie. And then he looks up again. Like he gave you the standard acknowledgement only to also realize who you are.

“Y/N?”

Yup. Hearing his voice again, you’re certain this is most definitely Kai Sawyer. 

Kai Sawyer, former classmate, once friend, brief lover when you were in high school. He was always sweet, almost too sweet for the toxic teenager you were who was too stuck on Amir to realize Kai was a much better option. 

Granted, it was never serious. You never had any sort of feelings for him that left you stumped.

Nothing like with Joe. 

“It’s good to see you.” He seems just as surprised to see you as you are to see him. The last you heard was that he left for school, pursuing a medical career and planned to move out of state. Kai motions to Callie. “This is your daughter?” Nodding with a small, forced smile, you watch him carefully lean down to be closer to Callie’s eye level. “Hi there, sweetie. I’m Dr. Sawyer. Can you tell me your name?”

She sniffles, seemingly holding you tighter. “Callie.”

“Callie,” he says, precisely, pronouncing each syllable. “What a very pretty name. Well, Callie, is it okay if I feel your belly so we can see what’s going on and help you feel better?”

She doesn’t look at you for approval, instead nodding as Kai starts to evaluate her. Once again, she cries out in pain as he feels the same area you’d unintentionally put too much pressure on. 

“It hurts,” she whimpers, and you kiss her forehead. Seeing her in pain is a form of torture you absolutely cannot tolerate. 

“I’m sorry, honey,” he apologies, standing upright again. “We’re gonna make you all better though, okay?” 

She says nothing, instead tugging you closer to her as she lays her head against your shoulder.

Kai speaks to the nurses in a low voice, where you can only make out intermittent parts. Something about an IV drip and pain meds. Once he’s done, he looks over at you and continues with that low voice, “can I talk to you outside?”

His question doesn’t help with the anxiety you’re already having an extremely difficult time controlling, but Callie’s heightened cries and tightened grasp on you captures your attention the most.

“No, mommy, don’t leave me!" 

It’s an impossible decision, even if logically, you know what you have to do. Whatever Kai wants to discuss with you clearly doesn’t need to be in front of Callie, but you also know she’s hurting and just wants her mom. 

“You said your name is Callie? That’s such a cute name.” One of the nurses comes over and offers a warm smile. “I have a little girl who’s just about your age too. She likes barbies and playing dress up. What do you like?”

Sniffling, still holding onto you, Callie meets the nurse’s eye contact and answers after a second. “Disney.”

The nurse gasps, “so does my little girl.” She sits on the side of the bed as the other nurse finishes inserting Callie’s IV. “Is it okay if I sit with you and we talk about Disney while mama talks to Dr. Sawyer?”

You’re so thankful for this act of kindness and assure Callie, “I’ll be right back. I’m just outside the door, okay?”

She’s still unsure and highly uncomfortable, but a small nod precedes her releasing her grip on you. You start to climb out of the hospital bed when she grabs you again. 

You expect another form of protest, of unease about you leaving her. Instead, in a small, innocent voice, she states, “I want Joe.”

The ball in the back of your throat grows exponentially. You’re already emotional, for obvious reasons, but there’s something about her request, so simple yet so powerfully telling, that brings a new set of tears to your eyes. 

“He’s on his way, baby, okay?” As the hospital is in the same direction as his hotel, you expect his arrival in a matter of minutes, hopefully. 

She seems comforted by this piece of information, and you’re able to break away to follow Kai outside the room. Once out of a proximity where she could overhear, you ask, urgently, “what’s wrong with her?”

Kai sighs, crossing his arms over his body with a sympathetic expression. “Well, I—”

The sound of heavy, urgent footsteps capture your attention, and you look to your side to see a nurse escorting Joe. His eyes land on you with a curious expression before he asks, “where is she?”

His voice is calm, but you know him well. Too well. Enough to know that he’s worried out of his mind, too. 

You gesture to the door a few inches away from you. “With the nurse.” Gesturing to Kai, you inform, “this is the doctor.”

There’s something about Joe’s presence that instantly calms you, allows your emotions to regulate just a little better. 

“Holy shit,” Kai breathes, and you look over to see he’s staring at Joe with bewilderment. “You’re–uh—is this her dad?” The question is posed to you, and you run your hand over your face, nodding. Kai clearly recognizes Joe, err, Roman, and is in a brief state of celebrity panic. Any other time, you’d understand it, but right now, you’re on the doorsteps of a nervous breakdown, and the medical professional in charge of Callie’s care being starstruck isn’t the least bit helpful.

“Yes,” Joe answers, his voice not unkind but not friendly either. “What’s wrong with my daughter?”

Kai clears his throat, snapping back into his professional shoes. “It seems like early stages of appendicitis. We call it acute appendicitis, meaning her appendix hasn’t ruptured yet, which is good.” He gazes at you, grateful. “You got her here just in time.”

His words do little to comfort you, because you’re still stuck on the first part. 

“Appendicitis?” You repeat, confused . “But–but she’s only four. How—”

“It’s not as uncommon in children as people think. Did you by any chance have one when you were younger?”

You have to think for a second, recognition then dawning. You’d completely forgotten about that borderline traumatic experience that was eerily similar to this. Waking your mom up because you were in a tremendous amount of pain and her calling 911 to rush you to the hospital. God, how could you not remember that until now? “Yes, yes, but I was—I was like 10.”

“So still a kid,” he confirms. Kai turns to Joe. “What about dad?”

“Yeah, I was twelve.” 

“Wait a minute.” You don’t know about Joe, but you certainly remember the outcome of your experience. “You—you don’t have to operate on her, right?” Scoffing, your words become difficult to express. “Kai, she’s—she’s too little for that. There’s—there’s another way, right?”

“Surgery is the best treatment—”

“No!” You cut him off, not wanting to hear this shit. “You’re not cutting her open, Kai. I–I won’t—-I won’t allow it.”

Joe finally addresses you, hand on the small of your back as he tries to get you to look at him. “Y/N….”

You jerk away, “I said no!” Turning back to Kai, you plead, eyes starting to burn again, “isn’t there—isn’t there something else you can do? Like medicine or—”

“Her appendix needs to be removed, Y/N. There’s no way around that.” Kai’s tone is full-on professional, borderline pleading, needing you to actually heed to his medical opinion. “The procedure is standard, should take about an hour, and it presents minimal risk. It’s really the best and safest option. If we don’t operate, inflammation could increase and eventually cause her appendix to rupture. Once that happens, because of her age, she becomes at an increasingly high risk for infection. And that could become fatal.” 

The word fatal sounds out everything else as you fall back against the wall, covering your mouth, unable to hold back the tears. “Oh my god.”

Joe looks at Kai, directring firmly. “Do it. Do it now.”

“I’ll book an OR.” Kai nods and you hear him say something else, but it’s all so distant and blurry. Fatal and Callie should never be in the same sentence, but right now it’s a reality that you can’t fathom. Your chest hurts, your stomach hollow, and head all over the place.

“I—it’s my fault,” you murmur to yourself or maybe Joe. You’re not entirely sure. “She—she told me her stomach was upset, but I—I didn’t listen. I just—I just gave her medicine and made her go to sleep.” You inhale sharply, eyes burning with salty tears. “She was in pain, and I didn’t listen to her. I didn’t—”

“Baby, look at me.” Before you realize it, Joe is in front of you, cupping your face and forcing your blurry gaze on him. “You did nothing wrong. There was no way for you to know what was happening.”

“I’m her mother, Joe—" you protest, sniffling, hands on his chest. “I’m supposed to know when something’s wrong. I’m–I’m supposed to protect her.”

“And you did,” he assures, pushing back some of your hair. “You heard the doctor. You got her here just in time. It could have been a lot worse.” He wipes away your tears, hating to see you so upset, so hard on yourself over a situation outside of your control. “You’re an amazing mother. Do you know why she’s such a great and happy kid? Because of you. Because you take such good care of her. You’ve raised her on your own, and look at how amazing she is. That’s all you. Why else do you think she’s so attached to you? Because you’re just as much her world as she is yours.” He pulls you into his chest, continuing to gently comfort you, “she’s gonna be fine, okay?” 

Being held in that moment, being held by Joe is exactly what you need. It centers you as much as one can be centered in this kind of situation. You find yourself holding onto him, embracing the comfort and support. 

Eyes shut, you murmur into his chest, “thank you for being here.”

You feel his hand move gently down your back, his mouth pressed to the top of your head. “Always.”

After a few minutes, maybe more, maybe less, you separate and wipe at your eyes. “Okay.” It’s trying to gather yourself before going back in the room, not wanting to scare her or make anything worse for her than it already is. “We–we need to tell her.”

“You want me to tell her?” He offers, and you’re thankful. He clearly sees how upsetting all of this is and is eager to support you anyway he can.  

“No,” you finally answer. “We’ll do it together.” 

Joe takes your hand and rubs his thumb across your knuckles, a kind, comforting gesture. Appreciated. You appreciate him so fucking much in this moment that it’s almost impossible to explain. Your calm in this storm, a voice of sound reason. Much needed advocate for your daughter as you fall victim to your emotions. 

He looks at you once more, assessing your readiness. A simple nod gives him the answer he needs, as he heads for the door, holding it open so you can enter first. 

The same nurse who so kindly recognized a need lifts her head with that same warm smile. Your eyes immediately land on Calista, who looks less pale than she was when you brought her in. She’s also no longer crying. That relieves you the most. A mother seeing her child cry is a kind of pain no one should ever have to experience. 

The pain meds must be kicking in. You’re immensely grateful.

But as quick as her eyes were on you, they bounce almost instantly to Joe, a larger smile growing. 

“Joe!” Even her voice is stronger, not as weak or weighed down with pain. 

“There’s my girl,” Joe greets, instantly at her side, kissing the top of her head. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

“A little better, but my tummy still hurts.”

Allowing them their moment, you turn to the nurse who’s subtly backed away, also recognizing this is a moment that shouldn’t be intruded upon. She also subtly reaches you the clipboard with the ROI that you quickly fill out and hand back to her. “Thank you,” you whisper, hoping your eyes reveal just how much you appreciate her thoughtfulness.

“Of course,” she replies, giving a final look to Callie. “I’ll leave you all alone.” 

Once the door is shut and it’s just the three of you, you move to the other side of the hospital bed, seeing there’s a possible space to jump in and gently break the news to her. A shared glance with Joe followed by a nod is the answer you need as you take a deep breath.

“Calista….” As soon as she gazes at you, you recognize she knows something is up. You hardly ever use her full first name. “Baby, Joe and I talked to the doctor about what he needs to do to make you all better, and—and he said you’ve gotta have surgery to take the bad stuff out your stomach.”

Her brows cave together, confused. “What’s surgery?”

Joe jumps in, recognizing your initial difficulty with how to explain such a concept to a young child. “It’s when doctors give you medicine to make you go to sleep while they take the bad stuff out of you.”

She looks at him, a little more understanding, still obviously and understandably unsure. “Does it hurt?”

You answer, trying your best to keep your tone as calm as possible. “When you wake up, it may hurt a little but that’s cause it’s gotta heal.” 

Joe shares, and you’re so grateful for his partnership at this moment. For his ability to assist and tag team. “You wanna know something? Your mom and I had the same surgery when we were kids.”

She seems intrigued by this. “Really?” Nodding, you study her facial expressions, knowing her well enough to know that she’s struggling with her emotions. She’s not alone. 

Finally, after a minute of contemplation, she whispers, “I’m scared.” 

“It’s okay to be scared, Callie,” Joe assures. He's so damn good with her, gentle and patient. “Everyone gets scared.”

She looks over at him, asking innocently, “even you?”

“Of course,” he answers, vulnerably sharing, “I was scared when your mom called me and said she was taking you to the hospital.” The both of you were. That’s no call any parent wants to ever receive. 

She looks between the two of you. “Can you guys come with me?”

“We can’t go back with you, but we’ll be waiting right here for you as soon as you wake up.” Joe answers for you, thumb brushing over her forehead.

“You promise?”

 Lips pressed against her forehead, you vow, “we promise.”

—-------

As soon as Callie is taken back to the OR and the two of you are left alone in the waiting area, Joe begins to lift his hoodie over his head, suddenly reaching it to you. “Put this on.” 

You look at him, confused. “What?”

His eyes briefly trail your body, head to toe. “Do you realize what you're wearing?”

Brows furrowed, you look down and gasp. In the midst of adrenaline and flight or flight, your appearance never dawned on you. Your pajama set is short, skimpy, and shows off a slice of your stomach, not that you care too much about that. It’s more the fact that you’re not wearing a bra, and this waiting room is cold as fuck. 

You also realize your bonnet is still on your head. 

In short, you look a hot ass mess, more like someone waiting for admission to the psych ward instead of an anxious parent awaiting her daughter to get out of surgery. 

“Fuck.” The first thing you do is rip your bonnet off, deciding to keep your pineapple. Next is accepting Joe’s hoodie, sliding it over your frame. It’s understandably baggy, grazing just above your knees. “Thank you.” 

The two of you move over to the seating area as you sigh loudly, suddenly asking. “What time is it?”

He checks the watch on his wrist. “3:15.” 

You scoff, rubbing your eyes but not saying anything, leaning back into the seat, trying to not get too much into your head. It’s a difficult feat when your four-year-old child is under the knife for emergency surgery.

“The doctor…..” Joe starts, and you turn to look at him. “You called him by his first name.”

He doesn’t need to elaborate for you to understand his question. “We went to high school together.” If your intention was to keep your answer as casual and general as possible, you fail miserably because Joe 100% picks up on the unspoken words. 

“And?”

Shrugging, you explain, “we didn’t date per se, but we hooked up.” Looking back, you recognize how Kai was absolutely a rebound in between Amir and all his bullshit. And you do regret that, because Kai was always a genuinely nice guy. He didn't deserve to be caught up in your Joker-Harley Quinn ‘love’ story. 

“Fucking hell.” Joe looks away, genuinely annoyed, and for some reason, it makes you smile. The first of the night, err, morning. And you’re weirdly thankful for this conversation, for this distraction you wonder if he's intentionally providing you. “Do all your ex’s still live here? Why does nobody ever leave this town?”

You laugh, actually laugh, and it feels nice. A contrast from all of the heaviness you’ve experienced over the past few hours. 

Sucking your teeth, you respond, sassily. “I’m tired of you roasting my tiny little no name town.”

He eyes you curiously, clearly surprised by your reference. “You watch?”

“Occasionally,” you answer with a shrug. You don’t want to tell him you’ve found yourself increasingly watching Bloodline clips during the kids' lunchtime at school. Or at night when you don’t know what else to watch. Not when before his return, it was rare and in between you’d find yourself consuming anything WWE related, let alone with Roman Reigns. “Not a lot. Just enough to see how you’re doing exactly what I always knew you could do.” 

Joe stares, appreciatively, gently adding, “you always believed in me.” 

“Of course, I did.” It’s always been so visible and obvious. From the very beginning, you recognized his potential and knew he would excel once they finally released him from his shackles. You find yourself leaning against his body and grab onto his arm. “I could never have a bum for a baby daddy.”

You don’t have to be looking at him to know he’s rolling his eyes, that expression of his that’s a mixture of a scowl and smile. 

He doesn’t say anything after that, not immediately, and that’s okay, because just sitting here, with him, not alone and in your head is a great comfort.

“She has my last name.”

You look up at him, surprised and confused as to why he’s saying this like he didn’t already know it. But it’s in that looking at him, you see it’s because he clearly didn’t already know this.

He was unaware. 

Sitting up, you ask, “you didn't know?”

He shakes his head, explaining, “when I got here, I said I was here for Calista, and she said Calista Anoa’i.” That’s it. How he found out. How his daughter, who he hadn’t even known about up until not even two months ago, shared the same last name as him. All of these major life reveals being dropped on him like it’s nothing.

You feel terrible again, just for different reasons. 

“I never wanted to erase you from her life. I just—” It’s hard to explain something you’re starting to not even fully understand. In such a short timespan, Joe has done a tremendous job stepping into the role of dad. So much so that it has you deeply regretting depriving him of the almost first five years of her life.

Depriving yourself of having a partner to raise Callie with.

“I just went about it all wrong,” is the best you can land on to describe what you’re thinking and feeling. “And I'm sorry you found out like this. I guess, I just thought it would have come up by now.”

“It’s fine.” It’s not. He’s just trying to be mindful of where you are emotionally right now. Always considerate, despite his own feelings. 

Grabbing a hold of his arm, you lean into him again, eventually murmuring, “no, it’s not.” You’re starting to feel more and more like there was never a good enough reason to rob him of this, to have a child walking around this earth with his last name, his blood, and him be in the dark. Him being married was a factor, but it wasn’t a firm reason. “I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t ha—”

“Yes, I do,” you interrupt him, already knowing he’s going to try to pacify you, to try to convince you that it wasn’t that bad. Bullshit. “You missed out on so much, because of me, and I’m truly sorry, Joe. My own shit got i—”

“Excuse me?”

You sit upright, attention automatically redirected to the Caucasian woman in front of you with a bad bleach job, crows feet that probably contrast her actual age, and a clipboard. It’s the damn clipboard that kills your thought that maybe Callie is out her surgery and you guys can see her. 

Wishful thinking.

“Bill it,” is your short, curt reply as you lay back down against Joe’s arm. His eyes are on you, curious. 

The woman gives a small, fake laugh. “Excuse me?”

“You’re here to discuss insurance shit, right?” Her silence is the answer you need. “Well, I’m telling you to bill my insurance and then send me a bill.” 

She extends a more authentic smile to Joe, and you almost could swear you see the faintest hint of blush on her pale face. “Well, aren’t you three steps ahead?” When you don’t say anything, she awkwardly clears her throat and continues. “I actually wanted to know if you’d like to take advantage of this really great option we have where we give you an estimated cost and accept payment now so that—”

“Lady, my daughter is in surgery right now. I don’t give a scathing fuck about your great option. Bill it, and get the hell away from us.” Your words are blunt, coarse, and very much to the point. You couldn’t give two shits about anything she has to say if it’s not regarding Callie being out, up, and all better.

Joe chuckles above you, still saying nothing, just watching her walk away with her tail between her legs. “You had some restraint. I’m proud of you.”

“Shut up,” you mutter, eyes closing as you try to allow yourself to bask in the comfort he provides. It’s such a different experience. The last time you had to rush Callie to the ER, she was two, your mom was out of town on a women’s retreat, and Mariah was off on her honeymoon. It was just you, by yourself, waiting to find out what the hell was wrong with your toddler. 

Having someone with you in this moment, having him with you, means more to you than he could ever imagine.

“How’d you come up with her name?” He asks after a few moments of silence.

This brings a smile to your face, a genuine one that you actually feel in your body. “A book.” 

“Like a baby name book?” You should have known better. Joe is many things, a man of specificity being pretty high up there. 

You hesitate to respond. “Not exactly.”

He glances down, assessing your expression before tilting his head back. “You didn’t.”

“Hear me out.” 

“Did you seriously name our daughter after some character from one of your freaky ass sex books?” You’re grateful for the little laughter this conversation provides you, and it makes you realize how much this man must have missed you to remember that. To remember your guilty pleasure for smutty kindle books. Not so much as you’ve gotten older and just genuinely don’t have the time to read them.

Resting your chin against his massive arm, you defend, “first of all, rude. Secondly, it wasn’t even that freaky. Unfortunately.” He rolls his eyes and you continue, “the character was actually really interesting and not awful. And I’d never heard the name Calista before, so when I looked it up and saw it meant most beautiful….it just fit.” Toward the end of your pregnancy was when you fully allowed yourself to embrace being a mother, regardless of the circumstances. It was a blessing and beautiful experience, and you found yourself counting down the days until your due date. “Her middle name is Manaia.” 

He chuckles, softly. “That’s Samoan.”

Chewing on your bottom lip, you rest your cheek against him again. “I know…I told you, she’s just as much you as she is me.” 

—-------

Joe approaches the front desk, seeing a brunette woman scrolling on her phone with a bored expression. Understandable, given the room is empty sans a janitor making the rounds. It’s probably the first and last empty emergency room he’ll ever come across.

“Excuse me.”

She looks up, and her mouth parts, an instant smile growing. One he’s used to but wholeheartedly couldn’t care less about. 

“Hi.” Her tone is much more breathy than what’s necessary, some attempt at coming off flirtatious would be his guess. Zero shits are still given.

Joe doesn’t waste any time, already wanting to get back to you, even if he knows you went to go call your mom and let her know what happened. Still, he needs to, at the very least, get back before he has to feed you some bullshit excuse about where he was. “I need to add a new card on file for Calista Anoa’i.”

She leans forward, chin in her hand, uneven, needle thin eyebrows wiggling. “Are you dad?”

Obviously. “Yes.”

“Lucky kid.” He’d take a good guess that she doesn’t recognize him, which for that, he’s grateful. She just finds him attractive, which is still irritating and unprofessional as hell. Have an attraction, but don’t be so vocal and desperate. “Mom too.”

Ignoring her comment, he grabs his wallet, pulling out his card and sliding it over.

“Do—”

“Change it to the default payment,” he instructs, not in the mood for whatever else she wants to try. It’s all in vain. He has eyes for one woman only, and it certainly isn’t her. “Is there any way you can set it up for autopay?”

She gives Joe a strange expression, like she questions his ability to consent. Because no one in their right mind would authorize a hospital to have such power with their money. “Umm, we can, but it’s really not recommended because you can never guarantee just how much insurance will and won’t cover. So, if they deny the claim in its entirety, then they’ll charge the entire balance—”

“That’s fine,” he cuts her off. “Just do it, and make sure any future charges go to that card only.” He thinks about it, asking, “matter of fact, can you take mom’s card off file altogether?” Joe knows you’re gonna bite his head off for this, and he doesn’t care. He knows medical bills can get costly, and you’re not making bank on a teacher’s salary. The least he can do is take care of his daughter’s medical costs.

“Uhh, sure, as long as you understand—”

“Money isn’t an issue. At all. Do it.”

She shakes her head but types away eventually reaching Joe his card. “All done. You can call and change it at any—”

“I won’t.” And that’s a fact. “Thank you.” 

Joe doesn’t give her a chance to respond or try anything else, turning to head back to the waiting area and is relieved when you return only minutes after he’s sat down. 

“Well, as expected, she’s upset I didn’t call her but calmed down a little bit when I told her you’ve been here with me,” you catch him up, sitting down next to him again. “And she’s on her way. She wants us to go back to my place to get some sleep.” 

Immediately, he protests. “We can’t leave Callie.”

You open your mouth to mostly agree with him when you hear footsteps and feel your stomach flutter seeing Kai heading in your direction.

He gets straight to the point. “Surgery was successful. She’s gonna be fine.” There are no words to properly describe your relief. The past hour felt like the longest period of your life and to know that it wasn’t in vain is so utterly comforting. 

“Thank God,” you breathe, also standing up with Joe. “Thank you, Kai.” You briefly close your eyes, shaking your head and correcting yourself. “I’m sorry, uhh. Dr. Sawyer.” 

“Come on, Y/N. I’ll always just be Kai to you.” It’s said so innocently, and it’s also then you notice the wedding band on his left hand. But, Joe must be giving him a look, because he’s suddenly awkwardly clearing his throat. “Because she’s so young, I'd like to keep her a couple more days to monitor her.”

“Of course,” you agree. There’s no protest at your daughter having medical personnel surrounding her at all times following a surgical procedure. 

He nods and starts to walk away when you remember something, catching him and moving away from Joe to speak privately. 

“Ummm…..” you haven't a clue how to approach nor explain this but try your best. “Joe…..he’s just now in her life. She—she doesn’t even know he’s her dad. It’s….a long, complicated story, but we’re trying to keep everything private—”

He says your name, interrupting you, “ever heard of HIPAA? None of what happened tonight leaves this emergency room.” You nod, slightly assured. “And if it makes you feel any better, I’ll remind the nurses of that too.’

That gives you all of the relief. The last thing you want or need is this becoming fodder for the media. One of the many reasons you love your town is how off the grid it is with a lot of things. Most of them probably wouldn’t even recognize Joe, and the few who do would never dare speak of it outside of this same town, respecting that he’s still a human being. 

“Thank you, Kai. Seriously.” 

He offers you such a genuine smile and adds, “I’m glad I got to see you, Y/N. The circumstances weren’t the best, but I’m pleased to see you ended up happy.” He starts to walk backwards, adding with a slight smirk. “About time you moved on from the likes of Amir and Mariah.”

That throws you for a loop. You understand the part about Amir, but Mariah?

What did he mean by that?

You don’t really have time to think about it, because Joe is at your side, holding your hand and reminding you that you two need to get back in the room for Callie. That’s enough to put the confusion about what just occurred to the back burner. 

Thankfully, when they roll Callie back into her room, she’s still slightly out of it from the anesthesia. But when she comes to, she’s thrilled to see the both of you and announces in a small, proud voice, “I did it.”

It gives you another genuine laugh, and the two of you enjoy her, your brave, sweet little girl. 

As you expected, your mom enters the room, immediately going and comforting Callie. She gives you a little slap on your arm for not calling her, still upset about that. 

That’s also expected.

What isn’t entirely expected is your mom talking to Callie about why you and Joe need to go home for a little bit to rest because you’re tired too. She’s not entirely wrong, Now that you’re out of the flight of it all, you’re crashing and crashing hard. Even Joe looks tired. 

Surprisingly, your mom is able to get Callie to agree with this. It takes more convincing for Joe, but he also eventually relents. And instead of driving all the way to your place, you suggest you two just go to his hotel room which is closer to the hospital.

That’s an easy sell for him. 

Reaching the hotel, you convince Joe to shower first, as you have something you need to take care of. It takes some convincing, but he eventually agrees. Once you hear the shower running, you pull out your phone, surprised to see it hasn’t died and has enough, hopefully, for you to shoot out one more message. 

One you’ve been putting off, but desperately need, especially as of the last 24 to 48 hours. 

Alexis,

Hi. I know it’s been a couple of weeks since my last email, and I’m sorry. I would text you, but I have no idea where in the world you are right now or if you have reception. So, email it is. A lot….a lot has happened. Joe is back in the picture, and he knows about Callie. But, interestingly enough, that’s not an issue at all. He’s so good with her, and she already clearly loves him so much. We haven’t told her he’s her dad, but he plans to do it for Christmas. Callie also had to have emergency surgery last night. Her appendix. That was….a lot. She’s good now, made it out of surgery fine. Thank God. Also, Joe’s divorced. And he more or less told me he wants us to be together, and I don’t know how to feel about that. Sorry, this is all over the place. Joe and I have been up all night with Callie at the hospital, so my brain isn’t working. I just needed to send this now, because I keep forgetting, and I miss you and could really use some advice right now. I need my long distance best friend. 

Love,

Your favorite college roomie

You should probably reread your email before sending it, but that requires energy, and you’re literally operating on fumes. When Joe steps out of the bathroom, shirtless, you don’t even bat an eye, which is unlike you. You’ve always been insanely attracted to him, for obvious reasons. 

You just accept the shirt he offers, close the bathroom door, strip naked and step into the shower. So exhausted, you don’t even realize until halfway through you forgot to use the shower cap but thankfully only a little bit of your hair gets wet.

Not that it matters. Even washing yourself is such a task. 

You’re out of the shower as soon as you feel adequately clean, rid of hospital germs. You don’t even care that the shirt is the only thing covering your otherwise nude body, breast stretching against the cotton. 

It is what it is. 

Stepping out of the bathroom with your clothes tucked under your side, you settle on placing them on a nearby chair. Or maybe it’s a table. You’re not too sure nor do you care all that much. You just need to sleep. 

But, it’s also when you see he’s moving toward the sofa, you know you need something else. 

Someone.

“Joe.”

He turns around, and you move over to him, reaching for his hand. The tug is slight but enough to have him follow your guidance toward the bed where you switch positions so he falls on his back. Moving to the side of the mattress, you climb into the bed and turn on your side, back toward him. You don’t need to ask, because his strong arm is suddenly around you, pulling you into his hard chest.

Sighing in content, you allow his mouth to graze your temple as he pulls the blankets over the both of you.

Hand on his thick forearm that’s keeping you close against him, you murmur, “Callie comes first. We get her straight, make sure she’s okay.” You roll on your back, meeting his telling gaze. “Then we figure out us.”

Joe is staring down at you with an affection you hadn’t realized you missed so deeply until this moment. He doesn’t say anything, just nods in acknowledgment and caresses your cheek. Grateful and tired of so much thinking, you push your body against his, shifting with him as moves onto his back and keeps you close against him.

He doesn’t say anything, and neither do you, because none of that matters in that moment. You don’t need to think about anything, don’t want to think about anything, just want to be close to him, just be with the man you’re almost certain now that you never stopped loving. 

And also now wonder if he once felt the same, still feels the same. 

If he’s always felt the same way. 

[phoenixinthefiles]

Times like these I really wish this app had a text to speech function:

I’ve been thinking about citzenzhip a lot when it comes to the Batfamily, HEAR ME OUT.

Disclaimer: I am not part of an immigrant family so if anything I say is offensive please let me know

So Dick, Damian, and Cass, were obviously born outside the U.S, WHERE’S THE CHARACTER EXPLORATION FOR THAT?

Like Damian and Dick knew English before coming here but there are still other experiences they definitely would’ve gone through.

Damian probably hated/hates the U.S. He was raised on “you do things perfectly-good-you slip up-punishment” (that’s obviously horrible) but the U.S. and all its systems are oftentimes OVERLY complicated. Can you imagine how hard it would be to go from an abusive, perfectly, structured environment, to one that’s constantly divided over the simplest things?

Not to mention that if we’re going with the backstory of him having lived in the desert for the majority of his childhood, there’d be a massive climate change. Like he’d probably have allergies, and maybe eczema.

Can you imagine finally getting to meet your father and you breakout and nearly asphyxiate because of the air pollution. (Slight hyperbole)

Ra’s Al Ghul is a horrible, abusive man but he’s relatively environmentally conscious (still horrible and abusive)

And with Dick?

If we go off Haly’s Circus being an European traveling circus, and his mother possibly being a French-speaking Roma, we can understand why it’d be difficult for him to adapt to life at Wayne Manor.

You travel 3 hours from London and you end up in Paris. A kid who’s used to that type of learning environment would HATE the American school system. He’s sitting in an uncomfortable desk chair listening to a teacher drone on about something he will never use in his life. When he used to be taught physics, while doing a handstand on the railing of the freaking Ponte de Rialto.

Regardless of potentially having ADHD or not, he’s still fidgeting in his seat—yearning for recess. But because this is America (and likely around the early 2000’s or so) his teacher rudely points out his fidgeting and the rest of the class see the boy that looks different from them, acting differently from them as well. And Children can be cruel.

I can’t imagine the experience of being an extroverted child who is used to forming connections with children, who look different from him, BECAUSE of his talents and uniqueness, being thrust into an environment that discourages that,WHILE HE’S GRIEVING HIS PARENTS.

Also Damian and Dick are both tan/brown skinned, and they’re likely going to a rich private school without a lot of people that look like them. (Gotham Academy did not start gaining a more diverse population until Jason came around and that was the reason he wanted to go to public school[I stand by this headcanon…bcus fiction imitates life])

Not to mention the unreasonable amount of prejudice towards Arabs in this country and others. That’s a rough time for a 8-11 year old who JUST moved here and already has a disconnect with his peers due to his abuse and forced maturity.

SO, SO much I’ve said and so, so much I still haven’t. I haven’t even BEGUN to talk about Cass and how difficult it had to be to come to THIS country not being able to understand spoken language at all? She was a teenager when she met Bruce but that just makes different, not better.

Once again I am Black, so while I have experience as a minority in this country, I have no experience with being an immigrant so if I have said something offensive do NOT hesitate to let me know.

Also does this count as me writing something? Probably not huh?

@vhscity idk if you want to read my rant with horrible grammar mistakes.😭😭

[musicalmoritz]

Why do fandoms hate non-monogamy?

I find it so confusing that the only hate comments I’ve ever received on ao3 have been about non-monogamy of all things. I don’t consider my writing to be massively shocking or controversial but I do occasionally write about some darker subjects (cannibalism, legal age gaps, couples carving their names into each other’s backs, lesbian serial killers), and these are the fics I typically brace myself for pushback on. Again, even the darker stuff doesn’t get too dark, I tend to fluff things up a bit. But these fics end up receiving overwhelming support, which I’m very grateful for

Still though, when I write stuff like that, you can imagine my confusion when people instead choose to hate on my open relationship fics. At least if it were something pertaining to violence I could be like “okay I get it, this subject makes some people uncomfortable.” When it’s simply stretching the bounds of heteronormativity or interpreting the characters differently, the comments end up feeling particularly aggressive. I’m talking a kind of hate I’ve only experienced within Southern Baptist churches

You literally cannot look me in the eyes and tell me that Hisoka and Illumi would have a monogamous relationship. That is so completely different from their canon dynamic, where they’re already implied to have something going on but Hisoka is seen thirsting over other characters frequently. The first hate comment was about them and I was a little petty about it, I called the commenter out in the description of the fic. I have since then deleted the callout but I kinda wish I hadn’t. Though I’ve heard there’s a hatebot on HisoIllu ao3 so that might have been the problem

The other ship was Cherik, which comes down more to interpretation. Although they are one of my favorite ships ever, I do multiship with them and I feel as though their relationships with women are very valuable to both of them. I know because of the ending to Dark Phoenix, a lot of people like to give them a stereotypical Hallmark happily ever after but I just can’t completely see them like that. At least not during the bulk of the franchise, which is where my fic took place. I think they are soulmates but they have other shit going on, and other people in their lives they wouldn’t want to give up (I’m very attached to Erik’s relationship with Magda from the comics so shhhh). Writing them as an old married couple before they’ve worked everything out just isn’t realistic to me

And Soukoku, omg Soukoku. This one wasn’t a hate comment but someone decided to mention in a bookmark they made for one of my fics that they didn’t like how Dazai and Chuuya weren’t fully together and still saw other people. I don’t write for Soukoku anymore as I really only “ship” them in the manga, their dynamic is perfect as it is and I don’t need to see anything added to that. But that’s simply a matter of preference, there are plenty of fans who do want to see them run off and get married and you know what? If I ended up reading a fic like that, I wouldn’t bookmark it just to complain that I’d prefer if they weren’t married. Soukoku is like the least heteronormative ship ever, c’mon guys. Their dynamic is so unique and complex and you want to see them settle down with 5 kids?? To each their own ig but don’t tell me how you want to see them fanonized😭

Those aren’t the only ships I’ve written open relationships with, at least I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure some of my Fyozai and Nikozai fics have been like that as well. Which makes me even more annoyed because I know it’s just because HisoIllu, Cherik, and Soukoku are massively popular ships within their respective fandoms and people want to see them characterized the exact same way every time. When there’s such an overload of content for all three of them, you’d think people would be less picky. If you don’t like how I write them that’s completely fine, just go read a different fic. I promise you there’s no shortage, Soukoku is one of the top ships on ao3. I don’t really like the way Soukoku and Cherik are characterized by their fandoms so when I write them, I try to provide something different. It’s good to have variety in the type of content that exists for ships, I’ve had a lot of Soukoku fans thank me for highlighting Chuuya’s flaws rather than making Dazai the only villain in their relationship. It may not be for you, but there are some people who will enjoy it. If you don’t like it just move on and read something else

Overall I think the issue here is heteronormativity (take a shot every time I write that word). It’s perfectly fine if you want your ships to have a storybook romance where they get married and have babies at the end, I’m like that with most of my ships. But keep in mind that there are different types of relationships, and not everyone wants to read the same thing. That’s my favorite part of multishipping, some ships don’t exist as full relationships to me and that’s great. It gives me the opportunity to explore different dynamics- friends with benefits, one-sided pining, besties who flirt, emotionally married but never confessed. People really only seem okay with this variety of the ship isn’t popular, or if it’s not the main pairing for a character. Nobody bats an eye when I write Fyozai as non-monogamous because at the end of the day, most of those readers want to see Dazai end up with Chuuya. Popular ships deserve variety too though, a lot of readers are secretly missing that. We’ve seen Soukoku written the same way a million times, so why not mix it up?? One fic of them being non-monogamous won’t hurt anybody. You can still interpret them however you want to, but don’t send hate to fans who don’t share the same opinion

Not everyone has the same relationship experience, and fiction should reflect that. There’s a common complaint that love stories are repetitive, so writers should be encouraged to take a different approach to romance. Those relationships aren’t any less valuable than “traditional” ones, they can be just as meaningful and life-changing. I’ll even bring TBHK into this; while I prefer to imagine Teru and Akane having some fairytale ending together, it’s so refreshing to see most fans giving them an angsty slowburn well into their 30s. It’s something you don’t see with every ship, and it fits them well. That’s the beauty of fan fiction, everyone interprets the characters slightly differently so we get to explore different concepts with them. In that sense, even the overused tropes feel unique every time. So don’t shame someone for stepping further outside popular fan interpretation, they’re just proving some variety that many readers may enjoy

[goldenlol]

also this is sword anon again and honestly your cookie run art is partially why i wanna get back into it after a long time but i remember some drama circulating around that darkmilk has a significant age gap n stuff and in extension so does yammilk (ik your pinned post doesnt include them I just added that since that was part of the discussion) so whats your take on their age thing cuz idk what type of shipper you are lol

HII AGAIN LFMAOO BUT OKFG RLLYYY?? YAYYY

I don’t talk about milkyam cause I just don’t like the ship, or most of its shippers. I don’t like a lot of choco ships tbh..but all I will say, is milk would protect choco from yam BUT THATS IT. THATS ALL.

for me, I hc young prince as 15 and milk around the same age, idk maybe 13? I cant see how people think young prince choco was an adult...?? Yes she went out to find a sword by herself but I think she was only allowed that because she is a good fighter and can survive on her own, it’s obvious cacao had trust that choco will return safely.

She just looks tall or mature for her age ig?? I think it’s because how she was raised, never allowed to be a child and trained to be better but yea no, I fr can’t see her as an adult here

edit: I forgot to add but she still kind of had that “oblivious” mindset I guess? Believing she can save her kingdom and could change her fathers mind even tho he’s so stubborn and that mentality of being “a hero just like his father”, I’m sure thats associated w younger people because “ur just a child you don’t know any better”

after she comes back she sees what her father rlly is and basically calls him a coward. It’s fr someone maturing and seeing someone for what they rlly are, not blinded by the child mentality anymore and only seeing someone as perfect when they’re not at all (not saying cacao is a coward mb minty, but bro wasn’t the best father 🙏😔 I love cacao) but also choco is manipulated easily because of her weak mentality.. my girl.

I know a lot of people are iffy or just hate chocomilk and that’s alr ig but god pls enough w tagging the ship and making threads telling people to hate it.

I know someone whose too afraid to draw it because of what people say and I’m like !! I got you bro I’ll draw it for us!!

Also I don’t think devsis would even allow such a ship to exist if it was wrong?? (it’s funny cause they make art of it n even make captions like that one where choco and lico go to an amusement park together, w “don’t tell milk” )

also I just hate how mischaracterized milk is w choco... my god y’all are weird as fuck w him. Milk wouldn’t harass choco or stalk him pls stop that, it’s uncomfortable..

he respects his space and choco’s life. When he met choco in that cutscene, people took choco being “uncomfortable” around milk, he wasn’t? He was just shocked or just “?? Rlly??” Kind of reaction because this man hasn’t been told anything nice after he became “bad” or whatever, so having someone tell him that he was the reason they became stronger and “want to be just like him” is obviously shocking to her, she wouldn’t believe that she made someone life better because she thought she only hurt people and deserved to be hated and treated in any way.

Anyway yea, they def both met as teens, didn’t see eachother til adults and it’s obvious milk is in love w choco idc (me too bro)

this is long as fuck sorry but GOD I NEEDED TO SAY SHIT!!

Take the cute art tho I love them sm (I think choco just has the mentality that no one could love him after what he’s done so he doesn’t understand why milk faints all flustered n shit but the idea of her being oblivious is cute too 😭 fuck it shes both!!)

also what type of shipper I am?? Wym