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candywife333 · 1 year ago

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Limping Seven Days a Week

A quick Drabble inspired by a very unexpected side of Jungkook.

This is part of an entire Drabble series based on his recent music release. It is rather mortifying how many fics I came up with just in relation to his new song. I had to exorcise the demons out of my head that were inspired by the explicit version. Hope you guys enjoy!

Disclaimer: As usual, everything in the fic is fictional, and the behavior displayed by the character in the fic is obviously not representative of the real Jungkook.

LINKS TO OTHER PARTS OF THE DRABBLE SERIES:

2. part 2

3. part 3

4. part 4

5. part 5

6. part 6

7. part 7

I plan to have 7 parts to the series.

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! Shit, where the fuck am I?

I couldn't recognize this room, it definitely wasn't mine. Only a sheet was on my body. I peeked down to see what was underneath the blanket, and I was met with the grim appearance of my boobs. When the hell did I strip?! In consternation, I looked to my right and saw a veiny arm that encircled my waist.

That is when all the memories slammed back into my head. That doe-eyed boy who wore glasses had asked me for help walking up to his room since he had recently sprained his ankle.

He was the same guy that stared at me 5 out of 7 days of the week that we had classes together. His name was Jungkook and we both had the same professor for Economics classes. I had never really noticed him as I myself am pretty much invisible, a true observer. Most people call me quiet, I consider myself an observer of human behavior, a true analyst on the sidelines. The regency might bestow upon me the title of Wallflower, and I would gladly accept the position.

I don’t really have a palpable presence except for when I am with extremely close friends.

With my friends all bets were off, I could be a freak. But with mostly everyone that I considered to be a stranger I don’t tend to interact. I had behaved the same way with this boy who kept staring at me with an unwavering gaze, a seemingly dreamy emotion glazing his eyes . He was cute and so I had thought on multiple occasion--- when I could feel his black eyes burning into my back-- that he could probably have any girl he wanted. The only thing stopping him were his shy mannerisms, and introverted nature. So why was he staring at me?

I’m a realistic person. I am not particularly remarkable. I could be when I put in effort, but most days I just wore black Calvin sweats that I’d snatched on a sale and a long sleeve black crop top which showed a tiny sliver of skin if any.

Not exactly a fashion icon over here if you catch my drift.

Zooming back to the present situation at hand, I saw his veiny arm making its way towards my right boob. I had noticed on prior occasions that he clearly had a fixation on them. To my utter consternation, he squeezed my breast even now. His face that had buried into the hollow between my neck and shoulder suddenly moved.

I pretended to still be asleep, this was so freaking awkward. Definitely went down as one of the most strange events that ever happened in my life. The only other incident I had to compare this to in terms of embarrassment was when I peed my pants in the seventh grade. That was a whole other trauma that I didn't want to delve into.

He sniffled into my skin and I had to stop myself from jumping as I felt a pair of plush lips wetted by saliva pressing kisses on the column of my neck. Kisses morphed into bites that for some ungodly reason managed to create a tingling feeling between my legs. His teeth caught on my flesh as he suctioned his lips against my damp skin, probably leaving hickeys that wouldn't leave me for a week.

As soon as I thought he had stopped, I felt a cold draft of air over my chest. Motherfucker had removed my freaking blanket!?! wTF? What the hell was this dude trying to do?!! I had to stop pretending sleep, otherwise this would escalate to a worse extent than just hickeys?!

My eyes opened to see his doe eyes staring at me as his pink lips closed in around my nipple, gripping it with his teeth before he sucked at it like a baby latching on for milk. I could see his eyes flash with surprise as he didn't expect me to be awake. I gathered all my courage to face this unexpected situation. “Um, excuse me dude? Could you like let go of my nipple? I am not a mother yet, and I would prefer to not practice breast feeding you. I would like to save that privilege for my children. So could you please get your goddamn lips off my tits”?

He let go of my tit as his jaw dropped down in an O. “Now, why don’t you do me the courtesy of getting your big boy self off of me also. I’m not really built to bear heavy weights, so if you could respect my personal space, that would be great”, I continued in a curt tone.

As soon as I could feel him slide off of me, I got off the bed to collect the clothes I had strewn on the ground right next to it. I usually cared that I was completely naked, baring my cellulite infested ass to the strong daylight. But today I had other priorities. I had to get the fuck out of here. Dude had taken my virginity without me even remembering how he did it.

As I bent down to pick up the clothes I had located, I could feel two warm hands gripping my ass on either side. “But do you have to go? I thought we could go for round 2 since you agreed to being my wife”, he drawled in a light airy tone, as if we were discussing the menu for lunch.

My brain was shutting down on me. I had clearly gone insane. I might be in a psychiatric ward as we speak. It was either that, or I was about the commit murder. The fuck did he mean wife?! “EXCUSE ME, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? WIFE? WI-I-IFE?! WHO FUCKING AGREED TO BE YOUR WIFE,” I screeched in an exasperated tone.

“ALSO, GET YOUR FREAKING HANDS OFF OF ME! OTHERWISE I’LL GET A RESTRAINING ORDER ON YOU!” Just as I snatched my clothes from the floor, heading towards the direction of the door, I felt two arms that seemed more like corded chains of steel snaring my plush waist in a trap.

“Babe, first sit down and we can talk about this. Maybe you have forgotten because of the drinks last night”, he whispered against my ear as his arms guided my naked form onto his lap. Dude didn't even have the decency to cover himself with a blanket before seating me on his thick thighs. I could feel his member slide against my wet slit as he started calmly explaining, “We decided last night that you are the one for me. My one and only. I would do anything for you. I told you about my problem and you agreed to help me and be my wife for life. You are the only one who makes me hard. I’ve been to so many doctors since I was a teen. No matter what they tried, they couldn't cure me of my erectile dysfunction”.

He paused as he adjusted me on his lap. I could feel a stiff rod, the length of what felt like a freaking ruler pressing into my heat. He stuttered as he continued, “Se-e, this is what you do to me. You arouse me, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. 7 days a week. Every minute, every hour, every second. Before you I could never get it up. The minute I first saw you in class, I felt so ridiculously turned on I came in my pants with barely any stimulation.”

I couldn't help moaning as his member started to swell and pierce my heat. He pushed his length into me slowly. I got startled and tried getting off his lap but he was so ridiculously strong that he had my wrists locked in front of me in his tight hold. I couldn't stop mewling as he fed his member into me as his thighs shifted and contracted to get my pelvis into the right position.He was hitting every sensitive part of my walls as he bottomed out. This man was literally hitting my cervix. I wouldn’t be able to survive this dude. I could feel it in my bones.

As soon as I bottomed down onto his length, he started rocking me up and down his length with the sheer power of his thighs. “Listen, sweetheart. You are it for me. I am addicted to you. As soon as I saw you in class I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you. I love the little laugh you make when you see the roses in the school courtyard. I love how you helped me off the floor when I tripped onto the tile on my first day here, how you patted me on my head and handed me my books. I love how you dance in the rain, how you kiss the little kitten that walks around campus looking for an owner. I love when you take a sip of coffee and moan in satisfaction. I love how your waist curves into your hips and how I can grasp this pudge right here below your belly button for support. I love how your thighs and legs grip me around my hips as I’m fucking into you, even though you are trying to leave me. I love how your tight pussy wraps around me and gives me life. You can’t leave me, because you are my life.”

Even as I objected trying to stop him, resisting his movements, he continued undulating his hips as he slid me up and down his length. My hands that were resisting fell slack as I couldn't control my moans and his big hands came to my boobs to massage them, pinching and flicking the taut tips. Before I could catch my breath, I felt warmth climbing up my core as I reached a pinnacle and my pussy convulsed around him . My vision went white as everything became blurry.

“Let my fuck you right baby. Let me be your man. Please don’t ever leave me. I wouldn’t be able to handle it”, he moaned into my ear as I could feel his length twitch and spill warmth into me. “I know both of us were drunk last night, but please give me a chance.”

I stared at him, dazed out of my mind at how I ended up with him in the first place. He had only ever been an acquaintance, and now he was professing his love? I was his life? “What do you want me to do though, marry you? Because I am the only one in the entire world who turns you on? You expect me to believe this bullshit. How the hell is that even possible?! ”, I cried out in confusion.

He grinned as his round cheeks shook with glee and his doe eyes glittered with incandescent happiness, as though he had won a million dollars cash prize, “Yes. You are the only person who I want to fuck. Ever. For the rest of my life. Please help me and be my wife. Wait just one minute.” He bent down to retrieve what looked like a little blue velvet box.

I was so exhausted. Like I had run a freaking marathon. I just wanted to run back to my room to sleep in and take a warm bath. This man took my virginity, fucked me so many times I couldn't even remember, and now wanted to continue fucking me to my early grave for the rest of my life, legally, as I was chained to him in holy fucking matrimony? hELL, TO THE FUCKING NO!

I jumped up with a sudden burst of energy, traumatized by a vision of him fucking me to death. Before he could turn around with the box, I limped out of the door uncaring of my naked state. I HAD TO GET AWAY FROM THIS PSYCHO!! THE HELL DID HE WANT WITH ME? I couldn’t handle 7 days a week, no weekends, no break, no bonuses, no holidays. My poor pussy would shrivel up and die.

It was already looking like he had disabled me. I could barely walk without wincing in pain. I threw my long shirt over my head as I scurried out of the front door looking behind my back worried that he would follow. As I hobbled out like a hag onto the sidewalk, I heard a shrill scream and what sounded like sobs as he shrieked, “PLEASE COME BACK! THE LOVE OF MY LIFE, YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME! I WILL FUCK YOU RIGHT, I WILL DO BETTER! PLEASE JUST GIVE ME A CHANCE”.

He wouldn’t fuck me again, If I could help it. I didn’t want to be a vegetable anytime soon.

#smut #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #curvy reader #fanfic #seven #JK SEVEN #BTS #plus size reader x jungkook #plus size reader x jk #bts x plus size reader #bts x curvy reader #comedy #needy jungkook

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every-sanji · 29 days ago

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I don’t have much to say other than I really love your dedication to this, you don’t miss a pixel if it even smells like sanji lmao. You haven’t stopped since I started following you, and I feel like this is an archive the people need. Oda would be proud, I think ❤️ just showing so much needed love your way, have a good day :)

wawawawa thank you!! as thanks i'm gonna give a glimpse into my journey running the blog under the read more :)

this blog has been through a lot of phases at least for me. anyone who has been around since the beginning probably remembers when i still added captions to every. single. post. that eventually evolved into my occasional tag rambles you still see today but the captions ranged from commentary to just random thoughts i was having at the time. for whatever reason i thought i had to caption every post and this lasted for a while until i realized i didnt have to do that and could just post the photo.

also when i first started the blog it was at the very very start of covid and i got very bored because all of my college classes suddenly halved their work load and i had all the time in the world to do whatever i wanted so i instantly threw like 500 posts in my queue and drafts because this was still the era when you had a maximum of 300 posts in the queue. and since you cant reverse chronological sort your drafts, every single day as posts left my queue i would go into my drafts, scroll through all 200 posts in there, and press add to queue for 5 posts to refill it to the maximum.

eventually though i went back to school and suddenly didnt have as much time as i used to so i dropped down to anywhere from 1-3 sanjis a day depending on the era. this is part of why it took so fucking long to get through water 7 and enies lobby because i was going through it 3 posts at a time. i kept the queue barely afloat with like 30 posts at most in my queue and did a chapter or two every week. this period lasted about 3 years as i finished school.

now i should mention that with everything above, i was queueing sanjis from my phone. i didn't have an automatic screenshot clipper on my college laptop so i didn't really have any other choice without going through like 5 extra steps. i went through 4 phones (my first one was a galaxy s8 that i'd had from 2018 all the way until ~2021 when it broke, followed by some notepad phone that just couldn't run games for shit so i immediately turned it back in and went back to an s8 that used to be my mom's which i had until right before i graduated college when the charging port stopped working properly and i finally upgraded to the s22 that i have now). up until about august of *last year* i was making every single post from my phone. after i moved for my summer job last summer i realized my new laptop allows me to clip my screenshots and started queuing things that way.

anyway while i was posting on my phone i did have one brief period for i think a week where my queue ran out and it was during finals for my last fall semester of college since i just had a lot happening. we had a few close calls if anyone remembers summer 2022 when i was going through some stuff irl with a death in the community but it turns out i use this blog to ground myself when i'm feeling bad sometimes lol. funny how that works

well since last summer when i realized it was easier to queue from my laptop i've been doing it like that ever since with only one exception which you might have seen my tags about lol. i had 2 weeks in august this year where i didnt have internet and my queue was running low so i bit the bullet and just added posts from my phone.

as for how i manage to find even the smallest of sanjis: i mostly just skim chapters and try to track his movements between panels. i keep an eye on who sanji is next to and what other landmarks might be there and when the panels zoom out i can normally find him if he's shown somewhere. which leads to those insanely small sanjis that are five pixels tall. it's definitely a skill you have to hone through practice and i'm sure i've missed a few sanjis even doing this but i'm definitely a lot closer to getting every single one. i do sometimes wonder if these gimmick blogs are known outside of the tumblr fandom and if word has made its way back to people involved in the series. this is mostly just a pipe dream and i know its not very realistic but a guy can dream right.

and if you've read this far, just a reminder you can make me post more sanjis a day by donating to any of the gfms in my pinned post! each donation extends the current queue by 2 weeks so you can make me really expedite the process of getting some of these sanjis out there. i'm getting close to being done with punk hazard and i'm so excited to get further

#asks #message in a bottle #anonymous #not sanji #wow this got long oops #well anyway glad you're enjoying the ride <3 #this blog has been with me for 6.5 college semesters. two seasonal jobs. and three different states #i dont plan on stopping any time soon. despite not reading op anymore im committed to the fucking bit #i love my little blog too much to let it die

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zanarkandfayth · 2 years ago

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15 Questions

I was tagged by @ivorydice, thanks!

Tagging just... whoever. I don’t feel well and I don’t wanna think lmao

1. Are you named after anyone?

Well, I took "fayth" from Final Fantasy X because I adore the fayth so much and to me it's a gender neutral name. It started out combined with zanarkandfayth as a username idek when, late 2000s, and then just gradually evolved into me calling myself fayth. My legal name, no. My first name was apparently just easy for my dad to spell and my middle name is french because my mom likes the language. I hate both names and they can fuck off lol.

2. When was the last time you cried?

Uhhh... I have a hard time crying these days even though I want to. Almost did last night because surgery recovery has been a bitch, does that count?

3. Do you have kids?

Nope. Don't want them. I'm not even capable of taking care of myself, why would I want to be responsible for another human being? And I did not win the gene lottery and the world sucks, I'm not inflicting this miserable existence on someone else.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Yes, though less than I used to because even sarcasm is effort and I'm tired.

5. What sports do you/have you played?

I liked basketball as a kid, and baseball, though I wasn't any good at either. I used to like to run. Uuuh I also did taekwondo as a kid for a couple years? idk if a martial art counts as a sport though.

6. What's the first thing you notice about other people?

Hair... idk it's usually the most noticeable thing to me. Except that guy who came through my line at DT once who was about seven feet tall, I definitely noticed his height first.

7. Eye colour?

Mine? Boring brown. Will forever hate it.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings. I used to like/not mind scary movies when I was younger, but now I need the feel good chemicals. Also I don't watch movies anymore. Legit could not name the last movie I've watched at this point.

9. Any special talents?

Making my readers cry lmao. No, idk. What's considered special? What's considered a talent? I don't want to stand out.

10. Where were you born?

Southern US, the same miserable state I exist in now, good ole Tennessee, though I'm now at the opposite end of it from where I was born/grew up. It's worse on this end for sure.

11. What are your hobbies?

Writing, video games, cooking... I'd say reading but I don't do that as much as I used to. The guilt of not having the energy to comment on fics gets to me and so I just don't read at all instead :/

12. Do you have any pets?

A shithead named Max. He's a flamepoint siamese cat that an old neighbour rescued from where he'd been abandoned on the side of the road and me and my ex ended up taking him in. My ex named him (after mad max apparently and I hate his name lol) but he attached himself to me so when I kicked the ex out a couple years later for being an abusive cheating narcissistic asshole, Max stayed with me. He turned ten this May but he still zooms around the house like a kitten. I love him but my health problems have made it increasingly hard to take care of him so he's going to be my last cat.

13. How tall are you?

5'2, forever sobbing

14. Favourite subject in school?

English was the only one I really enjoyed just because it was so easy. When I did university for the third time (the one I actually graduated from lmao), I also really liked most of my sociology classes, enough to make it a second degree, and I liked my scottish history class. If I could afford a third degree it'd probably be in history.

15. Dream job?

At this point? Nothing. Being a stay at home husband (with no kids, yes), or being an eternal university student just taking classes and getting degrees for the heck of it would be my ideal. I would also like to try my hand at making my own video game, but a) I can't art for shit, and b) chronic fatigue makes even starting on learning coding too daunting. I don't even have the energy I want for my current hobbies.

#fifteen questions #I love having an excuse to talk about myself #lmao #it was a nice distraction from how terrible I feel #turns out surgery recovery is your body finding new ways #to torment you every couple of days #real life #ignore me

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angria · 2 years ago

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So my first class last night went fairly okay? 15 students in the class, which is a good number. Except I’m really going to struggle with the online format though. As much as it is beneficial to where I am in life, I just hate Zoom so damn much. Thankfully, they require the camera to be on, but almost everyone’s face was completely emotionless. No laughing or smiling in response to the professor. Barely a head nod if she asked anything. This is what I was worried about…that it would be typical Zoom behavior. Like can you look like you want to be here???

And I’m not used to being at a university that actually gives a shit about your well-being. Maybe that’s just because this is a social work program, but it’s completely new to me. For example, during introductions, we had to give a scale of how we are doing–10 being super confident and 1 being why am I even in this program. Of course she picked me to go first. I said between 4 and 5…I’m nervous because this is a brand new field for me and unsure of the online format. Majority of people were around the same range, so that made me feel better because I was so anxious about the first day and feeling intimidated that most people already have social work experience. A lot of people are also working at the same time. I was one of the few who didn’t have kids. So I’m not as worried about balance as others are (which I know is a privilege).

Most of the class was just intro stuff. About the course, going over the syllabus, discussion posts, classroom expectations. Then we had to go into breakout rooms. Also nervous about that because I was anticipating a large breakout room, but she divided it up into groups of two or three people. That made it easier to talk and she gave us prompts about the readings to discuss, so it wasn’t just this open discussion without direction.

Overall, I feel a little better about it? The professor did say this will be an accelerated course (7 weeks), so it will move fast. But, both the professor and the facilitator said to let them know if anything comes up, whether work or family related, that would cause us to struggle. In the sense of wanting to support us and wanting us to succeed while also not wanting to place too much pressure to do well. Mainly just try your best and it will be a learning curve since most of us have been out of school for a good chunk of time.

I am worried about the next paper…writing about the cultural influences that shaped our identity and development. Which will be hard since I feel like I have zero identity thanks to complex trauma! Funnn 🙃 The program seems to encourage us to be vulnerable, which is also new for me. I don’t know how much is too much? I wouldn’t go into details, but I’m not sure I want to mention that I’ve been inpatient and have done partials. Except how do I explain how I know so much about DBT or trauma (ex. reading Fisher or van der Kolk), whenever that comes up?

I have a feeling this is going to be culture shock for me....new field, different type of study practices, more personal/emotional, interactive. I'm used to abstract, theological material and writing, with no concrete experiential examples or personal details at all. Ugh.

#msw #angriadm

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octokinesis · 5 months ago

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Dancing until the Way is Clear

I cannot believe it has been so many years since my last post. Looking back, however, it makes perfect sense. I was so engaged with having my art be my life while attempting to recover my spark from an impossible employment situation (that unfortunately provided hours of laughter) that I set aside few, if any hours to document what was happening. And if you know me, you know that when I’m in a perfect storm like that, I find its eye and hunker down to…study.

And I did! You might have noticed the extra sections here on the website about Somatic Activated Healing™. I received my certification in 2022 and have been in service to healing the world through dance ever sice. Don’t get me wrong. I been done been doin dat! This time I do it with a full sense that I am authorized to go forth. For many of us Gen Xers in tradional arts, we would be the erstwhile culture bearer, but our elders and/or mentors are still around living from the fruits of their labor OR, COVID took them before we felt we were fully annointed to walk through th eotherside of the gates, back into community, carrying the sacred bundle. Kinda frustrating.

Now we find ourselves looking for classes to take or a studio to use and there is no longer an acceptance that beocming better in order to great things requires repetition, humbleness, and time. People want to work less, sleep less, weigh less, pay less, save the environment while traveling more, shopping more (hiding that fact from themselves by doing it mostly online), drinking and eating more. They want to be paid a living wage but want to be waited on hand and foot at a discount. In this climate, getting people to bring their earthsuits to a dance class just for the feeling of being there can become tricky business. With this SAH Method™ certification, I can meet you in your lving room via Zoom.

The irony is that I stumbled into the Method because I was looking for a way to address the trauma in the bodies of people I wanted to interview during ART+FACT, a National Performance Network-funded project I helmed twice with my homies, The Earthseed Collective, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. It was great becoming a Southern Artist for Social Change, but it was almost impossible to get to activation phase because of the terror still alive in the memory and flesh of residents of that town. We were looking at 1973 to understand how our parents dreamed the present we were living in 2023 to then create the dreamscape necessary for 2073. Intentionality was going to be supported by deep listening, songs, drums, and dance…except people would come to watch the outdoor West African dance class from the safety of their cars.

In 1973 my little town integrated their public school system during Christmas break, sending a terse letter out to white families that the local high school had no. choice in the matter because “seperate but equal” could not be proven in the district. That Christmas, white separatists and supremacists spent the holiday erecting what became known as ‘seg academies’ all over the region. The parent meeting, rallies and fights that made that moment happen had left their mark in the collective imagination of all. Additionally, white networks of surveillance went underground, but continued to keep tabs on Black and Indigenous people. So while I COULD give an African dance class on the courtyard with live drums, I could also find doors closed in fear, interviews for the podcast cancelled, and local news outlets pretending to have not received our press releases.

We had super cool shit planned for the performance part that woud have accured after the memory and object collection phase. In fact, I just managed to get a Mississippi Art Comission grant to make the crockpot tietravel devices FINALLY. I feel odd because my collaborator had to close their business because the building was sold out from under them….that’s for another post.

So I still practice Somatic Activated Healing™. If I didn’t, I might honestly be dead or at least have had a massive heart attack by now. Getting my unexpressed emotions out, learning to stop giving meaning to every little feeling, and practicing dropping the story and staying with the feeling has radicalized me in wild, wonderful ways. Teaching it as acting technique alongside Stanislavski technique fueled me intellectually as well as psychologically. Giving a session in a corporate environment to groups who are struggling to find their way through tumultuous transformations in the way we do business has been a masterclass. Last November I spearheaded the first World SAH Day experience, showcasing 24 hrs of sessions by certified teachers around the globe via the Lyceum at Rust College. Now I’m launching a business to cultivate a sacred, sovereign space for cultivating imagination, genius, and joy; SAH Method™ is an integral part of this endeavor.

On August 8, 9, and 10 I will have a live offering each evening at Urevbu Contemporary as a soft launch to A Place for Joy LLC. It’s feeling anything but soft. While tickets are available at Eventbrite and Luma, I’m out here in these streets meeting people, introducing them to the Method and the biz, hoping to see them in person on at least one fo those nights. Yes, entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. But I have every faith that those who have been searching for the one thing that would make all the difference will arrive through the doors of this beautiful gallery and get their entire life.

Maybe you will be one of them.

#ART+FACTS #SAH Method #grants #updates

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wizkiddx · 3 years ago

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hiii!!! omg please please pleasee do a part two of 3 hearts broken cus it fucking slaps miss girl

part 2 to 3 broken hearts!!! ive been so 🥺 at all the lovely comments+interest pt 1 had so thanku all !

summary: serious serious angst again will tom somehow get it back (unlike looking cos boy is a fool)

warnings: again lots of swearing (im British sorry not sorry) / wayyyy too much tea / slating Dom abit (obvs fictional but idk if I like the guy sorry his opinions are :/) / commitment issues

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read part 1 here!!!!

That was three days ago now. Three days since you'd spoken to your boyfrien- well, Tom. It wasn't evident what the situation was.

The typical British weather brought with it the most ironic pathetic fallacy you could ever see. The clouds were dark and glooming, firing angry pellets of rain out as hard as they could. When you had pulled up on the roadside, it had just been a light drizzle but synchronised with your anxiety levels rising - so did the rain. When you finally opened up the car door, you threw your hoodie open with a sigh before running up the pathway to the front door.

It was the same burgundy red that you knew so well, but this time instead of just letting yourself in - you stood in the rain used the brass knocker thing twice. To be honest, you were hoping that no one was home - but in that house, it was pretty unlikely. After 30 seconds of getting drenched in the downpour, you were about to let yourself in with the spare key before the door swung open.

"Oh! Er Y/n?"

"Yeh um hi." You had to shout a bit over the sound of what must now be classified as a storm.

"Toms not-"

"I know. Can I come in?" As awkward and stunted as this conversation was, if you didn't get out of the rain asap you would literally end up drowned.

“Oh er yeh-yeh yeh come in.”

Harry stammered as he held the door open, gesturing for you to enter into the tiled hallway. Gratefully, you followed, throwing your sopping wet hood back down and wiping your feet on the floor.

"Sorry for just showing up, but I left some scripts here. My management are on my arse to read them and-"

"And you waited till Tom left for mum and dads?" The fluffy-haired boy has caught you red-handed; there was no defence, so you didn't even try.

Because yes, you knew on a Friday afternoon when Tom was home he would always, like clockwork, go to his parents just to kick back and watch gogglebox with both of them. It was only natural then that you chose Friday afternoon to come and pick up your stuff.

"I've been waiting in my car for half an hour till I saw him leave." Harry half laughed at that, still the two of you standing opposite each other in the hallway. "Um, do you… do you hate me Harry?"

Clearly, he hadn't quite been expecting your question going by the way his eyes almost bugged out his head.

"No, I-I, of course, I don't… look, I'm home alone so you fancy a cuppa?" Not being able to help the small chuckle, you nodded appreciatively, following Harry through the house.

"Your answer to everything is tea."

Harry had prepared the two mugs in silence as you sat at the table waiting patiently - if nervously too. You didn't miss how Harry had still used your favourite mug, having had to dig through the cupboard to find the weird square-shaped thing. Once done, he rounded the kitchen island and placed it in front of you, which you instantly cradled in two hands - for the hope of warming you up.

"You cold?" Obviously, it was pretty evident that sitting in your rain-soaked hoodie was not cosy at all. "Hang on a sec."

The boy sprung up again, returning moments later with a hoodie in hand, one he offered out to you with a little smile. The issue was that him and Tom shared clothes, so the hoodie he was kindly offering to you also had been worn by Tom before. Which made it hurt a little bit to wear. It was better than sitting soaked through though.

"How have you been then?"

"Not the best, to be honest, but uh… how about you?"

"Being with Tom while he's fighting with you? Oh, it's a barrel of laughs. You might've escaped it, but I haven't." He was trying to lighten the mood, and you appreciated it, offering him a half-smile that didn't really meet your eyes.

"Yeh sorry about that."

"Don't apologise; it doesn't sound like it's your fault Y/n."

That surprised you. Tom, especially when he was in moods like he was when you argued, wasn't one to admit when he was wrong. It was usually how the world was against him and how he was so hard done by. Accepting responsibility was something he hadn't said to you yet - but at least, small steps.

"He say that?"

"Pretty much… doesn't seem like he's angry at you, but-but he's still angry."

"At the world?" You rolled your eyes; this seemed to be the same old Tom through and through. Still immature. Still not with the right mindset.

"At himself." Harry countered, slightly entertained, when he saw the flash of surprise in your face as he sipped his drink. "And me… if I dare to so much as breathe this week."

This time you properly laughed, and Harry joined in too before the room fell back to silence - except the noise of the rain hitting the garden patio slats. You swirled the tea round in your mug, feeling the brunette's eyes on you. He'd always been your fake little brother too, since you'd met the Hollands way back 3 and a half years ago. Tom and yourself were barely adults, which meant the twins were still proper children. Harry had always been the one that understood you. Hollands, by nature, loved humans - loved to talk, to chat, to gossip. But sometimes, doing all that socialising got too much for you, as it did for Harry. He was the only one that seemed to understand social exhaustion. So when those moments had hit, you'd kept each other company in silence.

He got you, sometimes in ways your own boyfriend didn't.

"You know why he got so worked up, right?" You shook your head, looking up curiously. "Dad got under his skin on his birthday zoom thing."

Ah, now that did seem to coincide with the start of Tom's more petulant phase. To be fair, Tom had been asking to move in together for near enough a year now - but it was only in the past month it seemed to be the only thing you'd talk about and obviously only three days since the flight back. Dom's birthday barely a week ago, whilst you and Tom were both filming - except Tom had managed to get a day off where you hadn't. So you hadn't heard this conversation.

"What'd he say?"

"Was talking about how he and mum were settling down at Toms age, joked about how you rejected him, said maybe you were holding out for something better."

"Something better?" Harry sighed, leaning forward onto his elbows.

"He'd seen an article just off a trashy tabloid… it named you Hollywood's golden girl or something, said you could have the pick of any person on the planet…"

Of all the people in the world, why is Tom affected by shit journalism? He knows how much bullshit people write. He knows how it's all made up, exaggerated nonsense. And what he should know, completely and totally, is how much you love him. And if he didn't, was that your fault? Had you done something wrong, something to make him doubt you?

Harry seemed to notice the internal dialogue going on in your head, adding to the point. "It wasn't the article though, it was the fact dad said it."

Hmmm.

You and Dom got on; it wasn't like you hated the possible future father in law or whatever. Just…. you had very different outlooks. As much as Tom prided himself on how' grounded his family keeps him' -to you at least, they aren't entirely at sea level either. They'd never really had any particular struggles in life. They were the definition of middle class, and that's about it. They lived in a posh suburb of London, had all their family still around. It was the perfect family.

And whilst you were in no illusions about how privileged your life was now. It hadn't always been. You'd never had the 'nuclear' family. Instead, only your dad and a string of dodgy and fleeting stepmothers while struggling to make ends meet. So you were just always wary of Dom, of his opinions that so often his boys took for gospel. They always seemed pretty sheltered and close-minded.

And yet, Tom was a grown man.

"I get that, I just… Tom should know that we know more about our relationship than his dad. I mean,… have I done something wrong? Made him think I'm not in this for the long haul?"

"No nonono Y/n he's just… well he's an idiot, isn't he? I don't think he properly understands why you're cautious about moving and everything. He's just an idio- "

Harry was cut off for lightly insulting his brother by the sound of the front door opening, both of your heads swivelling towards the source. You then met Harry's eyes in a panic, to which he replied relatively simply.

"Just talk to each other. For my sake." You would've argued if it weren't for the fact you were so focused on Tom's shuffling around in the entrance hallway - back early from his parents.

"Baz? Where you at? I thought I saw Y/n's car and-"

"Kitchen!!!" Before Tom could say anything else, possibly landing himself in more trouble, Harry interrupted as his chair screeched while standing up. And then Tom was just there. Standing in the doorway, his arms dropping limply to his side as he noticed you. Everything about that moment seemed to freeze, when you locked eyes with him for the first time in three days. It didn't go unnoticed, the way his Adams apple bobbed, the way his eyes widen. The boy looked plain and simply terrified.

It was Harry who broke the silence, after giving you a stern look that said 'stay'. The younger Holland boy walked up to Tom and spoke.

"Try actually talking and actually listening about your problems with each other." And then he was gone, down the hallway and up the stairs.

For a few moments, Tom stayed absolutely stationary, now staring at where Harry had been when speaking to the both of you (but mainly Tom). Long enough to put your sense of unease at an all-time high, ready to make a break for it.

"If you don't want to talk, then I can leav-"

"NO!" Apparently snapping out of it, Tom exclaimed loud enough to make you flinch from your seat. "Sorry! I-I just… I wasn't expecting to… you know, to see you."

"Yeh I just uh- just came to pick up some scripts… Harry cornered me with a tea, though; otherwise, I'd be…."

"Baz thinks the whole world could be fixed with tea."

"that's what I said!" You instinctively responded, forgetting the fact you're supposed to be mad at him, and just for a second falling back into your normal flow.

Tom didn't even try to hide his grin in response, until you quickly corrected your face- then he did too. Turning around to put the kettle on for himself. Because right now, he needed to fix his whole world, and he needed all the help he could get. For a period, the only noise was the sound of the kettle boiling, then the teaspoon clinking against the mug as he stirred - until he padded over, taking the seat across from you.

"So."

"It's been a while," Tom stated the bloody obvious.

"You never called."

"Didn't think you'd want me to."

You thought that the early signs weren't all that auspicious. His ability to read a situation once again failing.

"I wanted you to say something."

"Say what?"

"What do you think Tom?" He replied to the sarcastic tone by sucking in a sharp breath, holding it for a second, before slowly exhaling. As if trying to compose himself, take time to think of a response - a mature move for him.

"Well, I think you want me to say sorry? For being so moody and not waiting for you and for upsetting those kids. And thanks too, for covering for me?"

You just hummed. Waiting for him to continue. Because yes, you did deserve all those things. But you also deserved more. An apology for, oh I don't know, saying he didn't think you loved him? It was a wait that never ended, he had nothing more to add.

"Going by your face, I take it I missed something?"

The bloody cheek of it.

"Theres nothing else? Nothing else at all? …" You gave him that chance, the opportunity but all he could respond with was a shake of his head. "You thought I was fine about you saying that I don't love you?" You hadn't intended on raising your voice, but really you hadn't realised you did till after the fact. To blinded by rage at his ignorance.

"You want to talk about this now?"

"When else Tom?" You sighed, realising he perhaps wasn't ready for this conversation. Maybe he needed more time to think things through, have sense talked into him by various wiser family members. Or maybe, he never would be. That was the worst-case scenario. But also… you're most likely prediction.

He shuffled in his seat, clearing his voice but not saying anything. Not a peep.

"I have spent three years of my life with you. I've had countless nights of too little sleep because that was the only time you could facetime. I've exposed my relationship to the world and people's opinions because you didn't want to hide. All I've done is love you. How could you even say that?" There might've been tears in your eyes, yet you were determined to keep them at bay. You needed to have this out, one way or another, to be clear and cohesive and logical. No time to cry.

"Y/n I know that, I…" He sighed, instinctively reaching for your hand, but you were quicker to pull it away. There was hurt in his eyes, but so there should be. "It just sometimes feels like that's it for you. That yeh you love me but you just want to standstill. That this is as much as it'll ever be."

Your emotions were suddenly uncontainable. Your voice croaked as you whispered, "Have I done something wrong?"

"No love, nonono if that's how you feel then that's okay. But it's something I'm not… shit this is hard." He took a pause to take a sip of his drink, your glazed eyes never leaving his. "I don't think I can stand still anymore. And yeh I was pissy and childish the other day because my dad got under my skin about the whole moving in thing… But these past few days, it just has got me thinking. Because I love you, so much."

This time when he reached out to grab your hand, you actually leaned into it yourself. Not because you were giving in, but because this hurt. This hurt so fucking much that you needed something to ground you, or else god knows. Because the way he was speaking, it sounded so finite.

"I love you too."

"I do know, which is…is why this is so hard." At the very least, Tom had conceded that.

The conversation ceased to silence yet again. The room felt so cold; even Tom/Harry's hoodie was doing nothing to keep you from the endless empty cold that seemed to be coming from within.

"When I re-registered my health card last month, and I made you my emergency contact on it. I-I made you my next of kin on everything actually. I didn't think about it twice. And-and this-"You pulled your phone out of your back pocket, immediately pulling up the app onto the open page. "This is my Pinterest board for our baby's nursery theme. I know-" You paused, to quickly wipe your cheeks clear of the tear tracks that may or may not have been there. "I know it's probably a long way away, but I just love the Scandinavian theme." You laughed at yourself, suddenly embarrassed at your blabbering and quickly pulled up a different app. "And this… this was from the other week when I was helping Y/bf/n start her vows." Hands trembling as you turned the phone around for Tom to see again. "She was finding it really tricky so she said, what would you say to Tom on your wedding, so-so I made this list." You only dared to look at him when you were sure he'd be reading through that note.

It was bizarre because he looked… well, he looked happy. Here you were feeling traumatised, showing things that you'd barely even deeped how committed they were - and he was pleased? Feeling the fire burn once again inside of your chest, you quickly swiped the phone away and back into your pocket. Only then did he look up, eyes widening - presumably at quite how psychotic you looked.

"So don't you dare say that I don't want a future with you."

You said it with such force, there was a pause. Tom letting those words sink deep into his brain. The way his expression flickered minutely gave you hope. You thought he got it. You thought he really understood now.

"But why don't you want to move in then?"

There it was again. He knew why. But he didn't get it. And, probably, he never would.

You were about to crash completely. So you ran. As fast as your legs could carry you, not even aware of your chair crashing to the floor in your wake. You ran out of that house and away from him. Away from who you had thought was the love of your life.

?give tom a final chance w one last part?

feedback is always v v appreciated <3

tom taglist : @lovehollandy12 @hollandlover19 @thefernandasantana @hunnybunimdun @hallecarey1@cedricdiggorysimpp @msmimimerton @hollandfanficlove @pandaxnienke @crossyourpeter @thegirlwiththeimpala @tom-softie @sunwardsss @spiitfiiires @radcloudenthusiast @ladykxxx08

people i think might be interestd in this (sorry if not just let me know and i'll remove the tag!!!): @obiwanownsmyass @wildxwidow @parkersvogue @coffeewithoutcaffeine @tomhollandlol @thefallenbibliophilequote @clumsymandu @hiraethenthusiast @mannien @abrielleholland @evermorehabit @niallberry @greatpizzascissorstaco @runawayolives @annathesillyfriend @letsgotothemoonlight @lovelybarnes

#tom x reader #tom holland fic #tomholland #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #famous!reader #tom holland x famous!reader #tom holland x actress!reader #harry holland

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randalsgrave · 2 years ago

Text

Sweetness and Light: Part Four

Holy absolute shit you guys. I definitely didn't think this would take as long as it did, but uh... 3 months. Yikes. Anyway. I seem to be on this trend of increasing my page count with each chapter, because this one totaled out at 20 pages. I don't think I've ever written that much for one chapter of anything in my life. On the plus side, though, it's pretty much entirely Bob and Katie goodness so THAT'S a vibe👌

Week one starts off about as gracefully as you'd expect it to at TOPGUN. The week, of course, isn't without its bright spots.

BobxFemale!OC. F/C: Kacey Rohl

Word count: 7.3K

WARNINGS: colorful language; not beta-read (we die like men); minor editing

Recommended soundtrack: Turnin' On the Screw - Queens of the Stone Age

***

Week one of training begins with all the grace and elegance of a first-time pilot - that is, to say, rather abruptly and artlessly. Everhardt isn’t there to coddle them with flowery words of motivation and compliments; he’s there to train them, to turn them into the precise, dead-eye warfighters the Navy needs them to be.

Still, no one’s expecting him to throw them into the fire the way he does.

It’s simple, he says - there will be four areas of instruction, with three weeks of focus dedicated to each one. The first block will focus on air-to-surface; the second on section; the third on division; and the fourth on basic fighter maneuverability, one-on-one sorties - dogfights.

The last block is what has the class raising a collective eyebrow. Everyone’s read up on the curriculum, researched the course of TOPGUN at one point or another; BFM is the first component of the course, the first thing everyone is expected to master in their time at North Island.

Everhardt, however, doesn’t see it that way. “The likelihood of you ever winding up in dogfight situations… You probably have better odds of being struck by lightning,” he explains one morning during lecture. “BFM is the exception, the ‘in-case-of-emergency’ set of skills you are expected to have - but likely not going to use. You learn this last under my instruction because, if all else fails, you still have your skill as a pilot to fall back on. However, we’re not here for ‘if all else fails’; we’re here to learn, refine, and master, as much as it takes to perfect ourselves, so that we don’t wind up in those situations.”

And with that, Everhardt not only introduces the class to air-to-surface tactics, but he sets the pace and the tone for the next 13 weeks. We are here to learn, refine, and master.

And they do. For 12 hours a day, they split their time between class lectures, labs, and hops in their fighter jets (and even then it’s sandwiched between pre-ops and post-ops debrief), working in that endless loop of learning, refining, mastering. Sweating. Straining. Struggling. And that’s not even including PT three times a week, or any of the other trivial Navy bullshit they deal with regularly. It’s just work, on and on and on.

It’s unlike anything they've done before. Katie - and everybody else, no doubt - looks back on the hardest shit she’s been through, and it all just pales in comparison. OCS? Basic flight training? SERE? It doesn’t hold a candle to TOPGUN, to the paces Everhardt is already putting them through. Two days into the course, they’re already zooming thousands of feet above ground, “dropping bombs” and zeroing in on targets with a precision that’s expected of them in 20 years’ time, much less 20 hours.

And it’s done, over and over and over again, with this team and that team, in a seemingly-endless cycle of exhaustion and brain-ache, and goddamn, if they all aren’t frazzled by the time they’re halfway through week one. Hell, even Melendez is gassed three days in, and that’s saying something.

Still, they all know the hardest, the worst, is yet to come. They’re practically hanging on by the seat of their pants, waiting for it to hit them.

They’re here to learn, and by god, they will learn - but there’s no doubt they’ll get their asses handed to them in the process.

And every single one of them would be lying if they said that they weren’t nervous.

***

It’s Saturday, the first training-free day they have in North Island. For many, today is a day of rest and relaxation, a day of recovery after the paces Everhardt has already put them through.

For Katie, it’s the complete opposite.

While the sky normally calls to her, today, it’s the mountains that do it. She’s up and moving by 07, fresh-faced and bright-eyed for the day of adventuring before her. Coffee’s already racing through her veins like lightning, her hair is double-braided and headbanded, and her backpack is stocked with water and enough granola and trail mix to last her a full day. It might be a little overkill for someone with her level of hiking experience - but given what she’s planning on hiking, she might well need all the snacks she can get.

The only thing that’s missing now is someone to hike with.

She grabs her phone off its charger on the nightstand, fires off a blast text. It’s nothing spectacular - a quick blurb reading “Hey, it’s Sand Trap. Planning on driving out and hiking Pyles Peak soon. Anybody wanna tag along?” With how early it is and how much of a beating they took on yesterday’s hop, Katie’s not expecting much of a response, if any.

At first, she’s right. Her first reply is from Fanboy, a brief “Gonna pass, too tired. Thanx tho.” Her second reply isn’t even a reply, really - more of a notification that Halfpint’s left her on read. After that, it’s one response or the other from the few other classmates she’s gotten phone numbers from.

Fuck it. Clearly, no one else is up or interested. Looks like Katie’s on her own for this.

And then her phone dings with another reply.

It’s from Bob. “Sure,” his response reads. “I’ll need a few minutes because I just woke up, but I’ll go.”

Well, how about that. There are signs of life.

Katie smiles softly as she picks up her phone to reply. “All good,” she types. “Can meet you downstairs if you’d like.”

“Sounds good. Should I bring/pack anything?”

“Water, for sure. Snacks if you got em, but if not I have plenty of trail mix and granola.”

“Okay. Yeah, I don’t have anything so I’ll take you up on the trail mix offer.”

“No worries. I’ll see you in the lobby in 5.”

“Okay.”

And just like that, Katie has herself a hiking buddy. Even better, it’s Bob. She’s been meaning to interact more with him; he may be more on the quiet side, but he still strikes her as someone with a lot to say - and honestly, she wants to hear what it is. She’s already looking forward to this immensely.

She shoulders her backpack, grabs her keys and sunglasses, and heads for the lobby, palms drumming an absentminded rhythm on her thighs as she rides the elevator down. She wonders if Bob is as avid of a hiker as she is, wonders if he’s looking forward to this hike just as much as she is. Curious, indeed.

Downstairs, she’s the only one in the lobby who isn’t staff - but not for long. Two minutes after making herself comfortable on one of the couches near the front desk, Bob appears in her line of sight, wearing a loose gray t-shirt, gym shorts, running sneakers, and what looks like a Camelbak swollen with water, looking for all the world like he’s still trying to wake up - and good lord, if Katie doesn’t find that just the tiniest bit adorable.

“You weren’t kidding about just waking up, huh?” Katie asks with a chuckle. “You look like you’re still half-asleep.”

Bob groans, removes his glasses and swipes a hand across his eyes. “I definitely feel it,” he replies, voice deep and heavily laced with sleep. “The hike’ll help. At least, I think it will.”

“It will. You’ll probably be tired afterwards, but at least you’ll be awake during it.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Awesome.” Ignoring the semi-awkward pause in conversation, Katie lets her gaze drift towards the breakfast bar in the back corner of the lobby, curls her bottom lip thoughtfully. Food-food sounds like a good idea… “You hungry? Wanna eat before we head out?”

“I’m good. I’m rarely a breakfast person to begin with, but it’s even less so this early in the morning.”

No pre-hike omelet for her, then. Oh well.

“You ready to go then?”

“Yeah. Whenever you are.”

Katie only grins before nodding to the door and in the direction of the parking lot, a silent “shall we” that cues him to follow.

And follow, Bob does. Katie feels less like she’s walking with a friend and more like she’s leading a pet along for a lap around the neighborhood. He’s still reserved and guarded; that much is obvious.

Hopefully, this hike with her will help him break out of his shell.

She glances over as they’re walking through the parking lot to the 4Runner, takes note of the two cartoon-style lightbulbs on Bob’s t-shirt with a smirk on her face. “Nice shirt,” she comments.

Bob looks down at his shirt, almost as if he forgot what he’s wearing, then smiles. “You like Queens of the Stone Age?”

“I only know a couple of their songs, but I like the ones I’ve heard. Guessing the lightbulbs are from one of their albums?”

“Yeah, they’re from Era Vulgaris. It’s one of my favorite albums by them.” He pauses, seemingly contemplates whether or not he should say what he’s thinking. Katie has to resist reaching out, resist putting a hand on his shoulder and urging him to speak. C’mon Bob, talk to me.

Thankfully, he sucks in a breath and goes for it. “I’ve got it downloaded on my phone. We could listen to it on the way. Only if you want to though, I don’t wanna impose-”

“I’d love that. Let’s do it.”

“Oh. Um, okay then. Cool.” Bob’s looking straight ahead with his brows furrowed - and hell, Katie can hear the wheels in his brain turning, whirring. He clearly wasn’t expecting that reaction from her - and now he’s looking like he’s not sure where to go next.

There has to be a reason for that.

“You seem kinda’ surprised,” Katie observes as they climb into the car and she turns the key in the ignition.

“Hm? About what?”

“That I said yes.”

Bob blinks, purses his lips. The wheels in his head are turning again. Spinning for a reply.

“I dunno,” he finally answers with a shrug. “Usually I get laughed off or brushed off. Your reaction’s kind of a first for me.”

Well. There’s something she wasn’t expecting.

“I find that a little hard to believe.”

“You’d be surprised,” Bob replies simply.

There it is again - the gnawing in her stomach. The hurt she feels for him. It’s strange, she thinks. She’s known Bob for a grand total of a week; why she’s feeling her heart bleed for him like this is a mystery to her.

Her mouth twists and she contemplates for one, two, three seconds as she maneuvers them out of the parking lot. “Well… fuck ‘em then,” she says after a moment. “I wanna hear what you got, so…” Her lips curl upwards in an encouraging - if not slightly daring - smile. “You gonna throw that album on or what?”

Bob’s eyes immediately flash. Before she knows it, he’s got his phone hooked up to her bluetooth, and the opening notes of Turnin’ On the Screw are beating forth from her speakers, setting the tone for both the album and the half-hour drive ahead of them. It’s punchy, off-beat, and bold, definitely not the shoegaze Katie regularly listens to, but who cares? The sound of this is different and she likes it.

When she tells Bob as much, his eyes light up like a Christmas tree.

“Yeah, they’re kind of mad lads with their sound,” he explains, blue eyes practically sparkling behind his glasses. “I don’t know anybody besides Josh Homme who can make an out-of-tune guitar sound good. It’s actually pretty nuts what he’s capable of.”

And he’s like this the whole drive to the Pyles Peak trailhead. Bob is practically a subject-matter expert on this band, from the original lineup and album release order, right down to the history of each song and hell, even the meaning of all the lead singer’s tattoos. Anything and everything there is to know about this band, Bob knows it. Katie’s impressed, to say the least. She can’t ever think of a time where she was able to recall several dense bits of information in a small time frame. The fact that this guy can… Hot damn.

It’s more than that, though. Bob’s just… talking. Engaging. Suddenly he’s a far cry from the socially pained introvert she spent lunch with on Monday. He’s at ease, comfortable. Hell, he’s animated, voice louder than normal and the gestures of his hands speaking just as much as his words. No doubt the choice of music is playing a part in that, but in any case it brings a small smile to Katie’s face. She likes seeing this side of him.

They make it through the first five songs of the album before they arrive at the trailhead, the sun brightening and cresting over the mountain sightline. On one hand, Katie has half a mind to have Bob continue the album on his phone as they hike; it’s been a rollercoaster of new sounds and she’s not quite ready to get off it yet. On the other hand, though, with her life and current day-to-day goings being as noisy and busy as they are, the thought of peace, of nature-induced quiet, makes her almost breathless with anticipation.

Nah. Queens of the Stone Age can wait for a bit. Right now, she just wants her, Bob, and the sounds of the mountain trail.

Speaking of Bob… He’s out of the car, fumbling to loop his arms through the straps of his Camelbak, blue eyes following the snaking path of the trail. “So this is it… How far is it to the summit?”

“Last time I looked, I think it was a few miles one way. Once we hit the halfway point, we can stop and figure out if we wanna keep going or call it.” She readjusts the pack and straps bearing on her shoulders with a breath, then looks back at Bob. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

It’s all the go-ahead Katie needs to begin their long, slow, arduous trek up the trail and into the mountains. She steps off, steps measured and slow enough for Bob to keep up, hands on the straps of her backpack and eyes roving left, right, left, right, taking in the scenery around them. The plant life is low to the ground and scrubby, pale green and dusty brown - quite unlike the mythical forests of her home state, or the woods of the east coast.

“It’s so dry,” Katie comments to no one in particular.

Drifting close behind her, Bob chuckles. “Welcome to SoCal. The scenery here is pretty much opposite of what we all grew up with.”

“Yeah, you’re telling me… Where are you from, anyway?”

“Kind of all over the place.”

“Lemme guess - military brat?”

“Oh yeah. 12 years of moving here, there, and everywhere before dad finally retired and we settled down.”

“Nice. Where’d you guys wind up?”

There’s no missing the slight glower on Bob’s face when Katie turns to ask him. “Middle of nowhere Georgia, unfortunately.”

“Ah.” The smallest hint of a smirk tugs at Katie’s lips. “That explains the twang then.”

“Oh god, I hope there isn’t a twang. I fought picking up that accent so hard.”

Katie snickers, pinches the space between her thumb and her index finger. “There’s a tiny bit of a twang,” she grins. “Just a liiittle bit.”

Bob returns the grin - sort of. It’s heavily tinged with exasperation. “Guess I gotta work on that some more then.”

“I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a Georgia accent. I think it’s kinda’ nice, actually.”

“Well, I’m glad you do,” Bob grunts as they begin their climb up a steep incline. “I personally don’t like it. It makes me think of all the backward-ass pricks I went to school with.”

“Fair enough; don’t wanna be associated with them.”

“Yeah. Besides,” he continues, “I think of myself as being more from Washington, anyway.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. Most of my dad’s family is from the Walla Walla-Prosser area. That, and I was born at the Naval hospital in Bremerton. It’s felt more like home for me than anywhere else - which is weird because I haven’t lived there since I was a toddler, and I don’t really have memories of it, aside from, like, fuzzy images of trees and a dog and my dad in his winter blues and… I dunno… I…” Bob’s face suddenly flushes red and he just stalls, the words dying on his lips as his eyes dart down to his feet, bashful, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I get carried away sometimes, and the last thing you’d wanna hear on a hike is me babbling for no good reason.”

Make that three times this week that Bob Floyd has made Katie’s heart twinge.

Her head shakes vigorously. “No, no! Don’t be sorry! You’ve got nothing to be sorry about!” She pauses, considers her words carefully, finally settles for a soft smile that reads ‘please trust me’. “I like listening to you talk.”

Bob blinks. Really?”

“Yeah. The stuff you’re talking about is interesting. You also sound relaxed and comfortable. It’s nice.”

And god damn it, I mean it.

Another pause, right before Katie purses and quirks her lips to one side of her face. A subject change might be in order.

“You do a lot of hiking, Bob?”

There’s a momentary glimmer in his eyes, one of relief. The attention’s still on him, but it’s a little less intimidating than what it was a moment ago - and based on what his eyes did just now, this is a topic he’s much more comfortable talking about. “Uh, yeah, actually. I only really started doing it when I first got stationed at Lemoore, but I try to do it every weekend.”

“Sweet. Where do you go? Or where have you gone, I guess.”

“Well,” he starts, “I’ve already been to Yosemite and Kings Canyon, plus all the stuff close to base.” His brow furrows for a second. “Technically I’ve already been to Big Sur, but there are so many different parks and trail systems down there that I can’t really consider myself ‘done’ with it.”

“Oh man, Big Sur… That whole area is on my hiking bucket list. Like, between the mountains and the redwoods and all that…”

“Yeah, it’s beautiful. Definitely one of my favorite places in California.”

“Honestly, I might see about sneaking up there one of these weekends. Bring along some camping gear, hang out in the trees…”

“Lemme know if you do,” Bob says. “I’ll probably go with you.”

Man oh man, Katie would be lying if she said that the thought of that didn’t make her heart stutter.

“I’ll, uh… I’ll keep you posted.” She coughs, pushes ahead, puts distance between the two of them so he can’t see the flush creeping across her face. Where in the hell is that coming from?

“Please do.”

“Promise I will. Now c’mon, we’ve got a mountain to climb.”

***

Three miles in, Bob and Katie are standing atop Cowles Mountain, in equal parts admiring the view sprawling below them and deciding whether or not they want to continue on. Whatever decision they make, Katie is ultimately glad she thought to bring two bottles of water; there’s been a lot of up-and-down movement on the trail, and the sun is hanging high in the sky, pounding down on the two of them. This is just a bit rougher than she thought it was going to be.

She tosses a handful of trail mix into her mouth, contemplates. “Y’know, we are standing on a mountain with a nice view. We totally could call it good right here.”

“But…”

“But… I did promise Pyles Peak, which is supposed to have an even nicer view. So” - Katie looks back over her shoulder at Bob, who’s currently wiping away the sweat on his brow with his sleeve and sipping water from his Camelbak, quirks an eyebrow at him - “whaddaya wanna do?”

He takes another long pull of water, ponders, shrugs. “Well… I’ll happily take whatever I can get, but if you wanna keep going, then I’m happy to tag along.”

Power of decision goes back to Katie. And as beat as she may be from the first half of the hike, she knows what she wants.

She smiles, reshoulders her backpack. “Let’s keep going, then.”

Bob nods wordlessly before coming up beside Katie and matching his pace to her slow, easy one. “How far is it to the actual summit now?”

“‘Bout two and a half miles,” Katie replies. “The trail has a bunch of rollers before it goes into the summit incline. It’s a little rough-going at the end, but all the reviews I’ve read about Pyles Peak say that it’s worth the rough stuff. Sounds like some of the Appalachian trails I’ve hiked, if you ask me.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. Appalachian Trail anything is brutal.”

“Yeah.”

They fall into a nice, easy silence, their focus on the ever-dipping trail and the footsteps they take. Left foot, right foot, left, right, left right left, slow and steady. At this point in the hike, it’s about all either of them can really concentrate on.

Until…

“So, uh… Why do they call you Sand Trap? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Katie’s face splits into a beam. Stupid as the story is, she loves telling it.

She clambers over a large cluster of rocks, pushes upwards and onwards with a single labored breath. “You remember Pensacola, right? How that place was a massive breeding ground for stupid antics?”

“I… guess?”

“Did you ever go to Flora-Bama? Or Seville’s?”

“Eh, not really. Wasn’t my thing.”

For a moment, it seems like that’s all Bob’s going to say - and damn if that doesn’t throw Katie off just the slightest bit. She’s never met a pilot or NFO who didn’t engage in some form of Floridian stupidity. How the hell is she supposed to explain this now?

Her silence and the stumped look on her face must do a number on Bob; suddenly he looks panicked, like he screwed up real bad, and his mouth goes off running a million miles a minute while he tries to salvage the conversation. “I knew a lot of people that went, though!” he all but blurts out. “I heard all of their stories about how crazy it was!”

“Oh… Okay then, that works.” Boy, she’s learning all kinds of things about Bob Floyd today. “Well…When I was in basic flight training, me and some friends hit up Seville’s and Flora-Bama in one go one night. Drunken fuckery happened. Like, a lot of it. So much, in fact, that I woke up hungover, in a sand trap, on a golf course the next morning. No clue how I even wound up on a golf course.”

“Oh my god, really?”

“Yeah, really. Classmates never let me live it down.”

“That is… Wow. That’s kind of awesome, actually.”

“Mine’s not even the craziest,” Katie continues with a snicker. “We had a guy in our class get stuck with ‘Lord Farquaad’ as his callsign. He, uh, had a tendency to sacrifice wingmen. Totally didn’t help that he was the shortest guy in our class, too - like, five-four short.”

Bob juts his chin out and makes a face that Katie can only describe as pompous. Oh boy, she can already tell where this is going.

“Some of you may die,” he says in a grandiose voice, “but that is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

He’s a walking music encyclopedia AND he can quote Shrek on command. Katie knew he’d be a good one to be friends with.

“All right, my turn.”

“Shoot.”

“Why is your callsign your name? Seems kinda’… uncreative.”

Bob visibly stiffens, and Katie isn’t sure if it’s because she’s caught him off-guard or because it’s a touchy subject. Both, probably. Shit, please don’t clam up on me, not now.

“…Is it okay if I ask that, or…?”

“Yeah no, it’s fine, it’s totally fine. It’s… it’s kind of a long story.”

It’s the same reaction from day one of instruction - not rude, not at all, but… closed off. Almost dismissive. This is something he’s not comfortable talking about with her, not yet. Katie can only hope that he eventually reaches that level of comfort with her, but until then…

He must sense the inner whirring of her mind, because he glances over at her with a small, tired but reassuring smile. “It’s not you, it’s just… It’s a lot.” He pauses, tilts his gaze skywards in thought. “I’m sure it’ll all come spilling out some other time.”

And that’s that; that’s all he’s going to say on it for now. Katie’s heart sinks a little bit at the realization, but she shrugs it off and presses on. Whether or not he wants to talk about it is ultimately on Bob, not her. He’ll get to it when he gets to it.

Hopefully.

“You good to step up the pace a little bit?” she asks, effectively ending the conversation before it has a chance to turn awkward.

“Uh, yeah. That’s fine.”

“I’m sorry; normally I like taking my time on hikes but it’s starting to get hot out here.”

“Hey, no complaints from me. It’s your hike; I’m just here for the ride.”

“Yeah, well, I’d still like to not bust you up in the first week.”

“You won’t. Trust me, I can handle it.”

“If you say so.” Her stride lengthens and her steps quicken, just the tiniest bit - not enough to blitz ahead of Bob, but enough to step up the pace and really get them moving. Just get to the top, that’s all she wants now.

She’s willing to bet that Bob isn’t far off from that sentiment, either.

She sucks in a long breath, forces it out with a single exhale, and pushes on.

Time to climb this rock.

***

It’s half ‘til noon when Bob and Katie finally reach the summit of Pyles Peak, out of breath, sweaty, and sufficiently red-faced. The sun is hanging directly over them now, without a cloud in sight to break up the beams beating down on them. Katie has no doubt that she’s going to come out of the hike sunburnt as shit, but right now, she couldn’t care less. They made it up the mountain.

And oh boy, is it worth the suffering.

In her 27 years on earth, Katie has seen some pretty spectacular views from high places. Virginia has offered panoramas of the Appalachians in ways she never would’ve imagined - and Oregon? Good god. Her home state has arguably the best views in America and she’s gotten to experience every single one of them in their prime. Few things - very few things - can top the vistas and sheer glory she’s witnessed.

This one, however, comes pretty close.

On top of Pyles Peak, it’s a whole other world. The entirety of San Diego is laid out before them, gently rolling suburbs and grid-like urban areas, stretching and fading into the vastness of the Pacific Ocean off in the distance. It’s tranquil, peaceful - and undeniably awe-inspiring.

“Would you look at that,” Bob murmurs, the reverence clear in his voice. “Can see the whole city from up here.”

“Beautiful, innit?”

Bob nods, then chuckles to himself. “Can almost see my house in Lemoore.”

“Har har.” With a rather unceremonious grunt, Katie all but flings herself onto one of the boulders in the middle of the outlook, legs dangling haphazardly over the front of it. “God, it feels good to sit.”

Bob doesn’t quite collapse on the boulder the way Katie did; he seats himself quite neatly beside her, arms pillared on either side of him to keep himself upright - but his back rounds, sags even. When he exhales the long breath he’s apparently been holding, it sags even more. Clearly, this hike has taken just as much out of him as it has out of Katie.

“You’re right,” he says, “that does feel good. Oh man…”

Katie snickers, digs through her backpack for her water and some granola. “Told you.”

“Wonder what the return trip’s gonna be like.”

“Eh, let’s not think about that right now, yeah? Let’s just process that we’ve climbed two mountains today.”

“Yeah, fair enough.”

The conversation soon dies away, and for a while, silence stretches between the two of them, comfortable silence, save for the sipping of water and the quiet crunching of granola. It’s silence that Katie appreciates; she now has an opportunity to put her brain in neutral, to let it wander.

It’s a rare moment, being able to just sit and ponder. With her line of work, it’s always do, do, do, always go, go, go. For as much as she loves what she does, sometimes Katie wishes that it didn’t have to be this way. Hell, it probably couldn’t be this way; she can’t think of anyone who could permanently sustain that level of constant motion.

But, if she’s not doing this for the rest of her life, then… What is there?

Maybe that’s why she asks the question that’s started floating in her head.

“You ever think about what you’d do if you weren’t in the Navy?” Katie asks, eyes on the expanse of land below them.

Bob shrugs, takes a pull of water from his Camelbak. “Sometimes. Not sure what I’d do, though. This job is all I’ve ever wanted, really.”

Katie can understand that. Life as a fighter pilot just makes sense to her; it always has. Most days, she’s like Bob and can’t really imagine doing anything else. Up here in the mountains, though? She sees another life, another free existence. Up here, even when she’s tethered to the ground, she feels like she’s flying. This is home just as much as the clouds are.

“I think I’d find a way to hike for a living, or be a park ranger or something.” Hell, anything to tie her to the land, to the trees and wilderness. Anywhere that she can’t be found easily.

Anywhere that she can’t find her easily.

“Park ranger would be cool. Where would you wanna work?”

“...Probably Mount Hood. Or Crater Lake. I mean, any one of the national parks would be amazing, but… I think I’d wanna stick to the ones from back home.” Shockingly.

“Mount Hood…” Bob’s eyebrows furrow, the name visibly tumbling, rattling around in his head as he tries to connect it to an unknown point B. “...Oregon?”

“That’s the one,” Katie smiles.

“Never woulda’ guessed you’re from Oregon.”

“Surprise. Born and raised in Portland.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah…” Clearing her throat, Katie rolls up the right sleeve of her t-shirt, revealing a small, but detailed panorama of the Mount Hood sightline tattooed along her inner bicep. “I haven’t been home in years, but home’s always with me.”

She makes it a point not to elaborate on how long ‘years’ is. The exact number is wrapped in truths and memories she can’t afford to dredge up, not now - and certainly not while she’s with someone as sweet and unassuming as Bob Floyd. Would he understand? Who knows. Katie’s not going to find out. At the end of the day, it’s all just drama, sob stories.

And that’s probably the last thing he wants. Damn certain it’s the last thing Katie wants.

No one likes a drama queen, Katherine Mae, NO ONE.

“...Sand Trap?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay?”

A furrow of her eyebrows. “Yeah, I’m fine. Is there something wrong?”

“No, just… You had this really intense look on your face all of a sudden and… I dunno, you looked like you were mad.”

Katie’s heart lurches in her ribcage. Fuck. It seems her thoughts made their way onto her face just now.

Defensive, now - “No no, not at all! I’m just…” Now her brain is turning somersaults, scrambling for a reply that’s equal parts honest and deterring. “I dunno, I’m…” Jesus Christ Garland, SPEAK - “I guess I’m just wiped from the climb up.”

There are lame excuses, and then there’s whatever the fuck Katie just came up with. There’s no way Bob’s buying it; the slightly furrowed look on his face tells her as much. Still, whether it’s because he’s too much of a gentleman to pry or because he wouldn’t know where to start or what to ask first, he doesn’t comment on it, something that Katie is deeply grateful for. She knows it’ll come up in conversation again and that there will be no avoiding it when it does - but she can at least avoid it for now.

She diverts, switches subjects. “You okay with taking a picture with me?” It’s a bit of whiplash, but as far as she’s concerned, it’s the best course of action at the moment.

If it weren’t for the fact that they’re the only two people on the summit, Katie’s certain Bob would’ve glanced around in search of someone else. He doesn’t even need to speak for her to know what’s running through his head and across his face: “Me?”

“They’re keepsakes from the places I’ve been,” she explains, right before a wry smirk makes its way across her lips. “And, y’know, proof that I’m not a loser with no friends.”

Bob opens his mouth to speak - no doubt to brush it off or to self-deprecate in some way. However, he surprises Katie when he closes it instead, and nods. “I could probably use my own proof too, honestly.”

“That’s the spirit. C’mere.”

Bob complies, hopping up on the boulder and squatting behind Katie with a closed-mouth grin on his face, while she throws up a peace sign with one hand and makes a scrunched face. One tap later, the ascent up Pyles Peak is immortalized on Katie’s phone.

“Started from the bottom, now we here,” she quips as fires the picture off in a brief text to Naomi. “Literally.”

“Aren’t those the lyrics to a song?”

Katie shrugs. “Probably.”

“Thought as much.” As Bob rises to his feet, a wince slips from his mouth. “Oh god, my legs - y’know what, I’ll definitely take you up on food now. This hike was rougher than I thought it was gonna be.”

“Thank god, I was hoping you’d say that…” Katie purses her lips together in thought, surveys the horizon from their perch atop the mountain. “You oughta know this - what’s the west-coast equivalent of Waffle House?”

“What is it with you and breakfast food?” Bob laughs.

“No, it’s not a breakfast food thing! I just… I’ve been out in Norfolk for the last three years, and there’s always been a Waffle House close to everywhere I’ve gone hiking. Kind of a ‘post-hike’ tradition, you know? Bust your ass climbing up the side of a mountain and reward yourself with a bunch of carbs at the end of it.”

“All right, you got a point there. Um… Denny’s, I guess?”

Katie makes a face. “Bugh, Denny’s?”

“Hey, it’s low-cost breakfast food, and it’s probably cooked by a guy with a cigarette in his mouth,” Bob replies with a shrug. “What more could you want?”

“You do realize that you don’t go to Denny’s; you end up at Denny’s, right?”

“People ‘wind up’” - fingers crooked in air quotes - “at Waffle House, too.” He hops down from the rock he’s been perching on, turns to Katie with a smirk on his face. “I mean, c’mon, like any of us have never wound up drunk at Waffle House at 2 AM.”

“Whatever happened to ‘drinking’s not really my thing’?”

“No, Flora-Bama and Seville’s weren’t really my thing. There’s a difference. Trust me, I did my fair share of drinking in BFT.”

“Why Lieutenant Floyd, you troublemaker!”

“Oh, I’m the troublemaker, miss ‘night of drunken stupidity’, miss ‘somehow wound up blacked out on a golf course’?”

“Damn Bob, you didn’t have to call me out like that,” Katie retorts with a laugh. “All right then, what were your chosen spots for weekend debauchery?”

“Old Hickory, mostly. Sometimes O’Riley’s. Places where I was less likely to run into a bunch of rowdy E-2s and E-3s.”

Katie grins smugly. “Or rowdy ensigns.”

“That too. God, sometimes they were worse than the enlisted guys.”

Bob slips off his glasses to wipe away the sweat and grime around his eyes. Katie can’t help but stare when he does. He’s quite handsome, Bob. Not that he wasn’t handsome to begin with, but without the glasses to break up the lines of his face… Wow. If Katie didn’t know any better, she’d say she’s been hiking with an old Hollywood star this whole time. The wavy, windswept golden-brown hair, the bright blue eyes, the strong jaw…

“You okay?”

Blink. Blink. “Huh?”

“You looked like you zoned out.”

Oh god, he’d caught her staring. Christ, it’s a good thing her face is already red from exertion; she’s pretty sure it would be turning beet-colored if it wasn’t.

“Sorry,” she mumbles sheepishly. “You kinda caught me off-guard there.”

“Oh?” He readjusts his glasses, perched once more on the bridge of his nose. “What do you mean?”

Oh my god, this isn’t happening, is it?

“I mean… You look different without your glasses, is all.”

“Well… is that a good thing?”

Oh, Bob.

She lets a small smile creep across her face. “Yeah… Yeah, it’s a good thing.”

Bob doesn’t seem to really react to the admission - not in any blatantly obvious way, anyway. Katie does, however, glimpse a slight puff of his chest out of the corner of her eye. And that? That really makes her smile.

They loop around the boulders to the mouth of the trail, looking at it with a mild sense of dread curling in their stomachs. Doing almost five and a half miles in one direction is one thing - but doing it twice? Oh man.

This is going to suck a bit.

And it does. Funnily enough, though, the return trip goes by a lot quicker than the initial climb to the top of Pyles Peak. Probably because we’re desperate to be done with it, Katie muses to herself as they make their way back to the trailhead.

Three hours and ten minutes later, they’re finally back where they started - and though they may be worse for wear and drenched in more sweat than they would’ve thought possible, there’s no stopping the grins from spreading across their faces at their accomplishment.

“So, what do we think?” Katie asks as they walk - or, rather, hobble - their way back to the 4Runner. “Pyles Peak: worth the ass-kicking or not?”

Bob wheezes out a chuckle. “Dunno. Can’t really decide if I don’t have a brain - and I’m pretty sure I left mine somewhere on the mountain…”

That merits a snicker from Katie. “Means it was a good hike, then.” She pauses to fish her key ring out of the front pocket of her backpack, unlocks the car with a click of her button fob. “Of course, if you wanna make it a great hike, then you gotta have a massive plate of food at the end,” she says as she all but flings her backpack into the back seat area.

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah. Where I’m from, it ain’t successful unless you have the food at the end.”

“Well, I’m still up for Denny’s, if you are.”

“Oh same. I know what I said earlier about Denny’s versus Waffle House, but I’m absolutely starving right now, so I’ll happily take you up on Denny’s.”

“Good.” Bob pulls his phone out of his pocket, searches for restaurants in the nearby area. “There’s one 20 minutes out. It puts us a little further from base, but-”

“That’s fine with me; let’s do it.” She hops in the driver’s seat and starts the car up, slumping in the driver’s seat with a blissful sigh as cold air whirls through the car. She’s only like this for a moment, though, before she’s sitting back up, and maneuvering them out of the parking lot towards their designated food spot. It’s been a long day, and she’s gone long enough without much to eat.

She turns to Bob, smirk on her face as they hit the main roads. Time to pick up where they left off earlier.

“Now then, where were we with that Queens of the Stone Age album?”

***

It’s closing in on 1600 when Bob and Katie make it back to the Navy Lodge, bodies and minds sated with carb-laden breakfast plates and good conversation. While the rest of the lodge patrons are getting ready for or are on their way to an evening of excitement and socializing, the two of them are ready to call it quits. Pyles Peak was a lot longer and more intense than either of them realized; even with the large post-hike meal, their bodies are exhausted beyond repair. Long rest is an immediate necessity.

When Katie says as much during their slow - very slow - amble to the elevators, Bob nods wearily in agreement.

“Gotta say,” he chuckles as they step inside one of the cars, “I’ve done some intense hikes before, but you? You’re hardcore. That was the longest hike I’ve ever gone on.”

Katie knows Bob’s being good-natured about it, but she’s unable to stop her face from contorting into a wince. “I promise I wasn’t trying to break you - or me, for that matter.” If the dull aching in her legs is any indication, she came damn close to it. She severely underestimated that hike.

“No harm done. I’m just not gonna have a good time at PT on Monday.”

“Make that two of us,” Katie chuckles weakly.

It’s a short ride up in the elevator. Within seconds of stepping on, it dings and jolts to a stop at the third floor. The two shuffle off, make their way down the corridor to Katie’s room, swaying, drifting close to each other. The distance is a lot smaller than the arm’s length they started the day with, Katie notes absentmindedly.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Bob says during the slow walk. “Pretty sure I would’ve spent all day holed up in my room if you hadn’t said something.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” Katie replies, lips curled in a gentle smile. “I had a great time with you. You’re a good hiking buddy.”

“I try to be. Honestly, I should do it more often.”

The words hang in the air, open, inviting, tempting. It’s a golden opportunity for someone to jump on them and make a move of some sort. That’s not the surprising part.

What’s surprising is how fast Katie seems to jump on it.

“Well, I’m always up for it, so… anytime you wanna go, lemme know. I’m happy to take you with me.”

The corners of Bob’s eyes crinkle as a smile spreads across his lips. “I’d like that.”

They’ve long since arrived outside of Katie’s room, and now stand opposite each other before the white-paneled wood door, looking, staring - and god, if it isn’t the strangest, but most intriguing thing. Today’s hike was only the second time they’ve spent time together, and yet, it felt like they’d been hanging out for years with how easy, how relaxed their interactions were. It felt… nice. If this is what it felt like after a week of acquaintance and two social interactions with him, Katie’s eager to know what the feeling’s like after another week or two, maybe three.

She’s gonna need to hang out with him more.

And one look at the blue eyes behind the wire-frame glasses tells her that he’s thinking the exact same thing.

“I’ll, uh… I’ll see you later then.”

Yeah, you will.

“See you later, Bob.”

“See you.”

Then, Bob turns, walks off down the hall, and disappears around a corner.

And Katie? Katie shuts the door with a quiet click, and leans back against it, a tired, blissed out grin blooming on her face.

It’s a grin that sticks with her for the rest of the weekend.

@thestagsheadsblog @everything-i-love-in-life @luckyladycreator2 @docdetective

#top gun maverick #robert bob floyd #bob floyd #bob top gun #robert bob floyd x female oc #female oc #lewis pullman #bob my beloved #movies #film #fanfiction #top gun #top gun: maverick #top gun 2

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johnemulaney · 3 years ago

Text

John Mulaney: From Scratch in Las Vegas, September 4

Once again, spoilers for the show and what will presumably be in the special. This is about his relapse so tread with caution is that will be an issue for you. However, the tone of his struggle is the same one he used in his past specials so if you didn’t have any issues then, I think you’d be ok with this. Of course, use your own best judgement, friends.

The opener was Seaton Smith.

He opened with trying to find the rich people in the crowd but acknowledged that they’d go mwrmwmwrw money isn’t everything so then he started talking about golf and went aha I got ya’ll.

There was a joke about weed being the only Christian drug

He had a bit about when white people are nice, be nervous

He had a bit about there being a black man on the Bachelor and was like America (ABC and Disney+) were not ready for a black man to be fucking a house full of 50 white women. That shit premiered on Tuesday and the Capitol burned on Wednesday.

He also did some crowd work and roasted a couple in the front row for having different answers about kids and she was like I didn’t hear the question and was roasted about how not hearing questions you don’t want to answer is certainly a tactic, often used by drug dealers

He also had a bit about how different child rearing is in Texas versus New York and about how hitting your kids is treated differently, like his dad would have just threatened it whimsically.

Now on to the Main Event!

The first thing he said was “hiiiiiiiiii” exactly in the tone you think he said it in. he followed that up with a little shrug looking adorable and a little bashful

“It’s him! Mr. Problems. Oh Las Vegas, Oh my god” he then talks about how Vegas is a land of vice and a Choice for him to preform in as a recovering addict. He had a sober buddy and 3 bodyguards with him at all times.

“And here’s what happened” December 18, 2020, he gets invited to a friends apartment for dinner AND HE’S TWO HOURS LATE because he stopped, coked out of his mind, at SNL for a haircut because he still had his building access badge and he went to the hair department and they were like, he’ll leave faster if we just do this, and then he stopped at his drug dealers.

He called venmo and cashapp, apps for drug deals and was like what do normal people even use them for. He maxed both out paying for drugs.

He was the best looking person at his intervention. “Coke skinny, new cut” and the 12 people intervening looked like shit. He looked “tears for fears while they all looked jerry garcia” (I hope you know who those musicians are besties).

He immediately yelled “Can I go to the bathroom” to you know, dump his drugs because when you walk into that, you know what it is.

He was not allowed to go (he would be asked if he still needed to pee later and would say “what?”

There were 6 people in NYC and 6 people over zoom in LA because he guesses 6 people couldn’t be bothered to fly in for HIS INTERVENTION

Interventions can go two ways, it can be kind of accusatory and this is how you let us all down, or it can be supportive. Everyone but Nick Kroll got the memo to be supportive.

Nick Kroll went first.

Nick Kroll listed all the ways John was a bad best friend and brother over zoom and John was getting texts during the intervention saying Nick wasn’t supposed to do that and they were all sorry.

Bill Hader went next. he originally wasn’t going to be able to make it so he had recorded a thing but since he was there, he did it live. (He would eventually send the video to John in rehab, which is not what you want on the way to rehab “awesome, more intervention”)

He tried to derail the intervention, “there’s not enough latinx representation” he said he’d go to any rehab except the one they had picked out for him. This was a star-studded affair and he was mad no one was being funny.

Natasha Lyons went next, telling him his life and career is in shambles

So he gets carted off to rehab after this intervention. Don’t let 12 comedians pack your bags for 2 months at rehab. it was bombas socks and iphone chargers.

A little secret about rehab, you’re not allowed to bring drugs in. You remember how he was late? In his pocket on the way to rehab included: a huge amount of pills, 3g of coke (which was 2g by the time he got there, courtesy of a koala station in a gas station bathroom), and $2000 in cash. He had other plans for the weekend. He was admitted for xanax, coke, perocet, and adderall addiction. Say what you will, but he does not do anything half way.

It’s 4am when he’s sent to detox, he’s been awake for 3 days.

He also gives a small lesson on how to get drugs. Find the lowest rated doctors on yelp and webmd reviews and go ask for them, they need all the business they can get. You become like Captain Phillips, I am the doctor now.

Dr. Michael was his shady doctor. He was a first avenue apartment where he would write prescriptions from his kitchenette where his girl Minerva was always asleep. “I didn’t kill my wife Minerva.” But John would ask for his drugs, Dr. Michael would write the script and then ask what he needed it for. Dr. Michael would also make John take his shirt off, always offering a flu shot and going no, shirt all the way off (in case you were wondering how bad this addiction actually was)

The first moral is now you know. The second moral is get vaccinated.

He’s sent to the regular ward the next afternoon and they finally get him to sleep.

He’s sketched out that doctors have last names at this establishment

He asks for drugs such as klonopin and is taken aback a bit when he doesn’t get them. The doctor is like PA state law says no, and so John suggests they go to a CVS in Jersey to get some.

His bestie Pete Davidson starts calling that night. Except Pete changes his number every month and a half so John has him send a selfie and saves the new number under some other random name, at this point in time, Pete is saved as Al Pacino. (We get an Al Pacino impression) John is asleep and his nurse sees Al Pacino trying to call him 5 times and so she wakes him up.

Pete Davidson and John Mulaney did not do drugs together. (The author is lowkey surprised and sad about that, like if Pete was my bestie, we’d make so many poor choices) But Pete was always very supportive of his sobriety.

John needs recognition so badly, in group when they introduced themselves he said “I’m John M.” and no one cared. So he left a tabloid out with the news of his admittance and his face on it in the rec room on the table. The not being someone was “driving him bananas.” When they talked about what they do for a living and he said I’m a a stand up comedian, someone asked if he made a living that way. He said “yeah ask your daughter” (or your son)

One of the things you do at rehab is break up with your drug dealer.

One of his drug dealers only bought drugs to keep John from buying worse off the streets and only got into the game because John kept asking him for drugs and was his only buyer. That guy was originally a painter and John has no idea how they met. John is the only person to turn an innocent man into a drug dealer.

Here he did the Baby J is back baby joke. the Park Theater is one of the biggest stages in the world so he did that joke in one pace across the stage and said the stage is that joke long.

“I am no longer on drugs. It’s very good but also ah---” He’s in a 12 step anonymous group.

“I need attention, clearly.” After a show you think he would be sated, but no.

He wants that attention that the kid who’s grandparent died and showed up to school dressed for the funeral and got to sit in the beanbag chair for reading despite it not being his turn, gets. He went on about being willing to let one of the lesser important grandparents die so he could get attention, for quite a while.

He feels left behind in science, like his C’s and D’s in those classes. All those classes were was putting things on a windowsill for the janitor to throw away. He had a bit about how the fuck people put dinosaurs back together, it’s like getting wayfair furniture without the instructions.

He also things the moon belongs to America. Like we got there first and when other countries say stuff about the moon he’s like mmmmmmm.

He also had a joke about paying to get into college and like, for white people that’s always how it’s been.

The show ended with him going over the highlights of that GQ interview that he was so coked out for that he forgot he did it entirely. He has no memory of it at all. He was just called up that day and asked for an interview and you know how coke is the best drug to receive attention on? He just did whatever he wanted with that attention.

And that was the show.

#John Mulaney #john mulaney: from scratch #spoilers #kid gorgeous #The Comeback Kid #The Top Part #New In Town #show write up

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crescentsteel · 4 years ago

Text

Burns

pairing: Suna x f!reader genre: fluff with slight angst (childhood friends to lovers) wc: 3.8k summary: you planned to confess to Suna on Valentines day. Unfortunately for you, he finds the holiday stupid.

[a/n]

Did this in one sitting, brain went zoom zoom

Not really comfortable writing for Inarizaki for some reason. Suna and Miya twins stans, don’t come for me.

Thank you @tokyosdawn, @luvnami, @fayeiparis (my ride or die ily) for the betaread.

ngl. I almost wrote smut after the fluff

Happy Valentines Day! 🖤

This is it. This is the day.

You’re finally going to confess to Suna.

You have been close friends for so long, and for the whole duration of it, you have tried your utter best to feel only as such.

You became friends with the rest of the Inarikazi team because you were always present in every game, with you being the loudest person to cheer for Suna leading everyone to pester him until he introduced you to them. Knowing Suna, he wasn’t fazed by his team’s persistent request and never mentioned to you that the team wanted to meet you.

It had been Atsumu that day who approached you during lunch break saying that Suna asked him to ask you to attend their practice after class.

You’ve been asking him non-stop if he can come watch them practice but he strictly prohibited you from going to the gym at all, so you were thrilled that he finally let you watch.. only to find him unpleasantly surprised that you were there.

Apparently, the whole team thought you were dating. As much as you wish you were, you could only agree with Suna when he said you were just a long-time friend.

But that changes today. Hopefully.

You already know what confessing to him means, and you’re not ready to lose Suna as a friend in case this doesn’t work out. However, with the both of you being third years already, it was now or never. You keep asking him what his plans after graduation are and he’s infuriatingly very consistent with his answer - a shrug and an apathetic ‘dunno.’

While you’re not ready to lose your friendship, you’re probably going to after high school — which is why you spent almost all of your allowance to buy ingredients to make homemade chocolate. It’s not actually that it’s expensive — you wasted so much ingredients making them that you ended up having enough for only three pieces.

But you’re satisfied because they were of three different designs. Three cute fox-shaped chocolates of different colors. They weren’t perfect but you tailored them according to Suna’s taste - just mildly sweet so he can actually enjoy it.

You smile into the February air.

You really aren’t sure about his feelings for you, but you know that you’re special to him.

You’re his only female friend and despite his aloofness, he actually spends time with you outside of school. It was you who he spent New Year’s with. He celebrates your birthday even if you know he’s not really into that kind of stuff. He walks you home when you stay late from club activities.

Being his friend since elementary school, you know he’s not the kind of guy to be nice to someone just for the sake of being nice.

So instead of dreading for your confession, you’re actually excited.

On your way to your first class, the chaotic twins block your path with a mischievous grin from both of them, except Atsumu’s way too obvious and upfront about it.

“So, y/n. Anything for me?” Atsumu asks as he cocks an eyebrow at you.

“Why would she give you any, idiot?” Osamu glares at Atsumu before turning to you with a smirk that makes you wary for some reason. “When she’s obviously giving them to Suna,” he adds.

You try to not look affected at his spot-on statement, but shit, you can already feel your heartbeat just a bit faster. Are you that obvious?

“Don’t you have hoards of shit from other girls? Why the hell are you ganging up on me?” you ask instead of answering Osamu’s speculation.

“I want to show them to Suna during practice. His pretty little childhood friend givin’ me homemade chocolates,” Atsumu teases animatedly.

Your eyes widen from what he said. “Wait, how did you know they were homemade?”

The two give each other meaningful looks before Osamu leans down a bit on you. “So there really are chocolates, huh?”

You go rigid when you realize you’ve exposed yourself to these two. Shit, they’re going to tease you non-stop about this. Worse, they might tell Suna before you even get the chance to do it yourself.

“Those are some burns on your hands, y/n. Have you treated those properly?” Atsumu eyes your hand that accidentally touched the hot pan yesterday. You tug the sleeves of your uniform lower to cover the purple-pinkish marks.

“I’m going to be late for class, bye,” you abruptly bid goodbye and hurriedly escape from the two. God knows what else they’ll get from you if you stay longer.

You erase your encounter with the twins from this morning. You can’t buckle down now. You worked hard for this day, both in body and in spirit. You’ve already had more than a fair share of doubts and second thoughts up until last night when you successfully pushed any cynicism away.

You won’t back down, especially when Suna is just a seat away from you now.

“Got any chocolates yet?” You prod at the topic as you put away your used cutleries.

“Yea,” he answers lazily. “It’s so dumb.”

“What is?” you ask with a frown.

“Valentines,” he deadpans. “Atsumu’s gonna get a fucking diabetes from the amount of chocolates he took from me because I was about to throw them away.”

You try to not let it get to you and breathe steadily to strengthen your resolve. You’re special to Suna. Surely, he won’t treat yours like that.

“What’s more idiotic is confessing this day,” he rambles on. “If a person really likes someone, why wait for Valentines to say it?” He asks rhetorically while putting away his own finished lunch.

You feel your stomach lurch, like riding down a rollercoaster at full speed unexpectedly. You try your best to mold your face into an impassive expression to not give anything away.

On the inside though, you’re a mess. Your head feels too loud and the air feels too heavy. You want to close your eyes and disappear.

Then he looks at you. “What about you? Did you give chocolates to anyone?”

You vaguely hear his question. You feel like you’re in a bubble and every sound is muffled -- your classmates chattering, the chairs scraping against the floor, the laughter all around you feels distant.

You planned to give him the chocolates you worked so hard on, but definitely not anymore. He hit two things right (Or wrong? Who knows anymore.) on the marks and right now, you do feel idiotic for trying so hard.

You should’ve known better. Of course, he’d find it stupid! He’s never the person to be all excited with events like this. What were you even thinking, spending all that money and effort when he obviously thinks the whole thing is a farce?

Did you really think this was going to go well? That he’d accept your chocolates and everything would be fine and you would go on as friends? In hindsight, there is never going to be a way out of this where you win. It is a stupid idea, and you’re stupid for even thinking about it.

‘Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb,’ you chant in your head.

“Y/n?”

You flinch and find him staring at you, waiting for your answer. His golden eyes are studying your face carefully. You think you see a little bit of concern there but you brush it off.

“Oh no,” you laugh hesitantly. “No way I’d waste my time on some boy on the very rare chance that he actually likes me back, pfft.” Your laugh turns ironic and bitter. “Like you said, it’s just a dumb holiday,” you respond with a forced smile.

“Anyways, I have to go back now. Later, Rin.” You quickly stand up and head to a comfort room because you feel like shit and you need to cry it out before your classes start again, else you’d be tearing up during lecture.

“Wait.” He grips your hand firmly, adding salt to the injury as you wince when he presses the burn you got from yesterday.

“Ow!”

He’s startled by your sudden reaction, but doesn’t say anything.

He loosens his hold and moves his grip to your wrist as he pushes up the sleeve of your uniform, revealing the burn on your hand along with small others on your arm.

“What happened to you?” he asks with muted concern while his eyes are trained on your arm, fingers gently skimming over the burns.

You aggressively retrieve your arm and pull your sleeve back down while you come up with a lie, “Oka-san needed help in the kitchen yesterday.”

He furrows his eyebrows with suspicion. “Why? Everyone knows you’re useless in the kitchen.”

Yeah, but you wanted to do something for him, and the burns would have been worth it if he at least accepted the chocolates you worked so hard on.

“Honestly, I don’t even know.” You try to laugh it off, but you’re losing it already, so you just give him a quick wave with whatever smile you can muster and saunter away from him.

After a pathetic sobbing session in one of the cubicles, you make your way back to your classroom looking as normal as you possibly can.

Thank goodness it’s Valentines. You’re not the only girl with eyes puffy from rejection.

“Hey.” You feel a hand on your shoulder and solely from his voice, you can tell it’s Osamu. “You okay?”

Maybe it would’ve been better if you had fallen for Osamu instead. Despite being always teased by him and Atsumu, he’s actually a nice likeable guy. Unlike Suna.

God, why did it have to be Suna Rintarou?

“Come with me,” you say without looking at Osamu and drag him with you back to your classroom.

“Uhh, okay.” He sounds unsure but he goes with you anyway.

You ask him to wait for you just by the doorway of your classroom and grab the stupid box of chocolates you made from your bag.

You practically shove it to him when you get back to where he is. “Happy Valentines, ‘Samu,” you greet with a dead expression.

Osamu gapes at you then at the box in hand, an expression of disbelief spreading across his face.

“Weren’t you asking for chocolates this morning?”

“That was ‘Tsumu. Also,” he looks closely at the box. “It says ‘Rin.’

You immediately rip out the wrapper where you wrote Suna’s nickname and tuck the crumpled paper in your pocket.

“There. It doesn’t anymore,” you announce passively.

Osamu scratches his head with discomfort. “I can’t accept this, y/n. I can give it to Suna if you want,” he offers kindly.

“Miya Osamu. Either you accept it or I’m throwing it away right now.” Your voice is dead serious and so are you. If Osamu won’t accept it, it’s going to the trash where Suna would’ve tossed it in as well.

“Okay, okay!” He surrenders with panic and opens the box slowly.

“Holy sh-,” he clears his throat. “I mean, wow. These are so cute, the cutest I’ve received today,” he comments appreciatively before returning his gaze at you. “You sure about this, y/n?”

You nod, more convinced now that you saw his reactions towards it. “Yeah. I figured I’d want to give them to someone who’s going to actually like them.”

The soft ring of the bell alerts you that your next class is about to start.

“Thanks Osamu,” you utter with a grateful smile before sauntering back to your classroom.

“Oy ‘Samu, why are these chocolates so cute? How the hell can I eat these?” Tsumu whines.

“You shithead, those are mine!” Osamu rushes to where his twin and grabs the box protectively.

Suna just watches the two and silently waits for another fight to erupt.

“You’d just taste them and give them to me anyways. What’s the deal?” Atsumu asks with a frown.

“If you must know, ‘Tsumu. Y/n gave this to me,” Osamu announces with a condescending grin as Astumu gawks at him in disbelief. “No fucking way, you stinking liar,” Atsumu retorts.

Suna looks at the tiny box Osamu is holding and agrees with Atsumu. There is no way you’d give those to Osamu. You said so yourself this morning.

‘No way I’d waste my time on some boy on the very rare chance that he actually likes me back.’

Did you lie to him and made some for Osamu? Do you like Osamu?

Suna’s mind wanders back to the burns on your hand and arms and how your mom ‘supposedly’ asked you to help out in the kitchen. He knows something is off. You’re never asked to help out with anything that involves cooking, so why did you lie about it?

So what is going on? There’s just no way in hell you like Osamu. Not once have you mentioned liking his teammate enough for you to venture into the ‘horrors of the kitchen’ (as you put it). And more importantly, why Osamu?

It is true that Suna doesn’t give a shit whether or not he gets a mountain load of chocolates on this superficial holiday. He’s not eating them.

However, he’d make an exception only if they come from you. He wouldn’t mind if they’re just store-bought ones as long as they’re from you.

So why the fuck would you go to the troubles of making them for Osamu and not him? You can’t possibly like Osamu. He won’t allow it.

He marches to where the twins are and turns to Osamu. “Did y/n really give you that?”

Both the twins face him and while Osamu looks pensive, Atsumu wears a shit-eating grin. “Aww, Suna. Are you jealous that your beloved y/n gave us chocolates?”

“‘Tsumu, shut up for the love of God. And she didn’t give it to us. She gave it to me.” Osamu pulls the box closer to him possessively which ticks Suna off even more.

“Did she say why?” Suna tries to sound calm despite the stupid jealousy bubbling up the pit of his stomach.

“Obviously because-” Atsumu starts, but Osamu grabs his twin’s face with one hand to halt his babbling as he sighs to face Suna.

“Actually, the box had your name in it,” Osamu admits. “She just ripped it out and said she’d rather give it to someone who’ll appreciate it.”

“-mmmmff Samu!” Atsumu successfully removes Osamu’s hand. “You shouldn’t have told him that! Do you realize that y/n didn’t want him to know?”

“Duh! Of course, I know. But I really can’t accept chocolates that’re supposed to be for another guy,” Osamu sighs before handing Suna the box.

He opens it and sees the fuss Tsumu was making about it. They really are cute and are obviously made with care and precision. If someone else had told him that you made these, he wouldn’t have believed them.

But there’s something about the chocolates that he can’t ignore.

“Why are there bites on the two pieces?” He asks as he lifts his gaze up from the chocolates.

Atsumu puts his hands behind his head and starts whistling as he avoids Suna’s gaze while Osamu smiles apologetically.

“Sorry, I wanted to see if they taste as good as they look,” Osamu confesses. As for Atsumu, Suna can already tell that the piss-haired setter just couldn’t help himself despite receiving so many already.

“They’re a bit bland, Suna. Tell y/n she needs to improve her baking skills,” Atsumu comments shamelessly which makes Suna scowl at Atsumu’s ungrateful ass. The fact that you made something look edible is already something commendable.

“They’re okay. Just needs a bit more sweetness,” Osamu backs his twin up.

He brings the remaining chocolate that’s still untouched to his mouth.

“What are you two talking about? It tastes perfectly fine,” he states truthfully. It’s just the right amount of sweetness that he’s able to finish it despite not really being a fan of chocolates.

Osamu laughs softly before speaking. “She really did make them for you, Suna.”

That night, you toss and turn in your bed while trying to keep your focus on the movie you played. As entertaining as it is, you can’t fully enjoy it with constantly wanting to smash your head against the wall of your room.

For a good while, you really thought everything would go smoothly and that by the end of today, you and Suna would be more than just friends.

Maybe today is a sign that you shouldn’t push it anymore. Suna said so himself: if someone likes a person, they don’t need the holiday to confess.

So why hasn’t he?

The answer is clear as day and you wish you were blind to see it, but you aren’t.

There had been too many chances for you two to move your relationship forward, but not once had he shown a sign that he wanted to.

He doesn’t like you like that. It’s just you and your delusional head. He doesn’t love you the way you love him. Even with the cute, romantic scene playing before you, you start tearing up.

You grab one of your pillows and bury your face in it, effectively silencing the sob and stopping the tears that are coming as you remember your folly attempt to confess today.

You should’ve been satisfied with the comfort of your friendship. If you hadn’t been so greedy, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt like this.

You hear a text alert from your phone. You open it and see a text from the source of your misery.

‘Come out’

You don’t want to. Tomorrow you can be back to normal around him, but not tonight.

You hurriedly respond with a lie.

‘Went out zzz’

You throw your phone somewhere on your bed and lie down with your pillow still squeezed between your arms while you space out at nothing.

Your thirst brings you back to your senses so you stand up and get to the kitchen. When you come back to your room, you almost scream when you see Suna sitting slouching on your bed.

“What the heck, Rin?! How did you get here?”

“Your mother let me in. Why are you even asking obvious questions?”

You massage your temples as you plan to tell your mom later not to just let anyone in your room even though it’s someone she knows. You might be childhood friends but you’re no longer kids. He can’t just pop in and out of your room anymore like he used to.

“Why are you even here? I said I was out.”

“Your lights are open, dumbass,” he answers, to which you respond with a sigh.

“Didn’t it occur to you that I don’t want to see you?”

He stands up from your bed and although his expression doesn’t change, you feel alarmed from how he’s towering over you without saying anything.

“W-what?” Your stutter betrays your attempt to sound fine.

“Why the fuck would you give Osamu chocolates that are supposed to be mine?”

You gawk at him. He isn’t supposed to know that. That bastard, Osamu! You don’t have a prepared excuse for this kind of confrontation.

“What’s it to you even? You would’ve thrown them away anyways,” you snap back with an accusatory tone.

“Not if they’re from you,” he discloses as his usually austere eyes soften up, holding your gaze. You feel like you’re about to melt.

You feel your heart beat wildly against your chest. Not long ago you had said that you didn’t want to see him, but now that he’s here, you don’t feel like moving. You don’t feel like going anywhere. Everything could be on fire around you but you’d still stay by his side.

But… this is not right. Did you already know? He doesn’t love you back.

You try to turn away to hide the gnawing pain in your chest, but he’s faster. He grabs your arm to pull you closer. When he dips down to claim your lips while his arms snake around your waist, you melt within his hold.

His lips are so warm and uncharacteristically tender as he moves them intricately against yours, causing you to place both hands against his chest to feel him even more, to feel that he is real and not just a dream induced by how badly you yearn for him.

He pulls away a bit and finds a bewildered look on your face that just makes you look adorable. There had been many times when he thought about doing this, especially whenever you’re staring into nothingness with parted lips as if coaxing him to fuck everything else and just cross the boundary of your platonic relationship.

But to be honest, he didn’t like the complications of being in a romantic relationship with you when you already have this comfortable friendship. At the end of the day, he knows you have him and he has you.

Yet, he absolutely despises the idea that you might have liked someone else. He’s never felt any resentment towards his teammates, not even to Astsumu who’s a fucking handful most of the time.

Only today.

Only when he saw that box of chocolates in Osamu’s hands that he realized that he didn’t want to share you with anyone.

It was selfish of him, wanting to keep you to himself but not really doing anything to actually make it happen.

That changes tonight.

He removes one hand from your waist to hold your hand that’s resting on his chest.

“I love you, y/n.”

You blink twice at him, evidently surprised with his confession, but immediately recover when you look down and giggle softly.

When you look back at him again, your eyes are a mixture of content and mirth. “I thought you said it’s idiotic to confess on Valentines Day,” you remind him with a wide smile.

His loving stare becomes a cold glare when you point out what he had said this morning. He didn’t plan to do it today. He just couldn’t wait until tomorrow, thereby forgetting that he had actually told you that. Although, he still believes people shouldn’t wait for the holiday to confess, it just so happened that today is when he decided to do it.

“Fine. I take it back,” he says out of petty spite.

“I’m kidding!” you respond defensively before intertwining his fingers with yours. “Actually, I was about to confess earlier, but you said the stuff about Valentines being dumb.”

“It still is,” he says, undeterred. In his defense, he really hadn’t been expecting you would.

“Right. Yet, here we are,” you state as a matter of fact as you grip his hand tighter.

“Can you answer the damn confession already?” he asks exasperatedly which makes you laugh out loud.

You settle down with an affectionate smile. “Yes, Rin. I love you too.”

He loses his stern expression as he takes your hand to his mouth and kisses it, rubbing the minor burn with his thumb, a reminder that he does appreciate what you did for him.

“Happy Valentines, I guess,” he says before he goes for your lips again.

mlist of other stuff I wrote

taglist (those crossed out can’t be tagged)

@ameliaxo @suikrem @akaashisslave @tsumurai @babythotshq @loving-unicorns106 @flairlust @geektastic84 @anaiss97 @hqbeesun @megatron-1199 @lovershaikyuu

#suna fluff #suna x reader #suna angst #suna rintarou #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu angst

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littorella · 3 years ago

Text

So you want to start figure skating

You've seen the tiktoks, now you want to be in one. It's getting cold in northern hemisphere and that means it's time for you to get into skating. WINK

If you want to start, it's important to make careful decisions and to know what you're getting into. Skating is honestly a kind of meh community—people (actual skaters, not the fandom) mean well but they’re snobs.

I feel like I got super questionable advice when I started. Most of it straight up were LIES. I am a pleb, a low ambition skater. I find most of the experiences and advice originates from the context of elite-competitive skating. And it's mostly from parents of skating children. I don't know about you, but I am not a preteen trying to get to the olympics by age 18.

TLDR;

Just do whatever the fuck you want.

Age

No, you’re not too old to skate. If anyone said that, they're a lying sack of shit.

I once joked with a girl who was jumping doubles that if I lived at the rink all day maybe I’ll do that too. Her teenage eyes looked at my old ass self, and said “I don’t think so. You kind of have to start little”. Yeah ok bitch, you'll never learn anything new in life with that attitude.

Confidence

So yeah, um, not gonna lie. You will feel pretty awful about yourself. There will be an 8-year old who zooms by you and dominates and your inner shame will explode. But you get over it. Don't feel bad about feeling bad. It's natural and it will go away. I have written a lot about this before.

Money

Figure is expensive AF. just a true fact.

Ice time is 5-25 USD per hr, and you pay that EVERY time. You can choose wheels to cut cost, but nice skates are $400-1k no matter what discipline you pick. And as a grown ass person that weighs a reasonable amount, you need nice skates if you want to feel secure and not like you might break an ankle. Group classes run 10-25/lesson usually. Private coaching is more like 75-100/hr yikes.

You can try to cut costs by buying second hand, start on cheap skates, or use tiktok and instagram tutorials instead of a coach. That can only go so far; it will limit your level. If that's ok, cool, but know it's not realistic to learn to jump an axel on your own with a pair of $30 pond skates. If you get serious, it's pricey no matter what.

This is why skating is snobby. It's full of privileged rich bitches.

Injury

You will fall. Often. Don't be scared. In the beginning if you aren't falling, you aren't taking enough risk to learn. As you progress, it will stop. It hurts to fall, but it’s rare to seriously hurt yourself. Get some padding (crash pants for butt, knee pads, elbow pads, etc). Ice, you tend to slide so falls aren't bad. Ground, you get road rash so gear is way more important. Volley ball pads are great because they still allow you to move. You won't look cool, that's fine.

Expectations

Be realistic. If you want to be an elite skater like Nathan Chen, it ain’t happening. The fact you're reading this means you're not a toddler. There are rare exceptions (start ~12), but mostly, you just don't have enough time to learn the moves you need to be competitive before you acquire shitty incurable body, aka aging.

With that said, you can still accomplish amazing things. I find the tripleJumpOrBust! mentality damaging to the sport. It's as inaccessible and unpopular as it is because we can't just be cool with amateur skills. Nobody starts learning guitar expecting to be a chart topping musician--we're satisfied if we can play a song. So why not that with skating...

You don't even need to be able to do extremely difficult elements to be a professional (shows, teaching, etc). You decide what feels fulfilling for you. All you can really do is to master the next skill as it comes.

Inline vs. Quad Roller vs. Ice

These feel different, but you can accomplish almost all the same moves. Inline/ice are transferable skills. Quad roller doesn't really transfer to either. Be strategic and consider your access when you pick.

Ice is expensive and not always available, that's the only downer for me. I tend to prefer the glide feeling of it and the more forgiving falls. It is also the most "established" so there are more resources and coaches available, etc.

Wheels...people will try to convince you that you can roll anywhere. That's like a total fucking lie. These are not designed for textured surfaces like streets. You vibrate with chatter from bumpiness, and if you hit a crack, you're going down. To practice figure moves, you will need a large flat surface: parking, plazas, roller rinks, etc. And access is surprisingly hard--do you know where you will skate? I have lost count the number of times security guards have asked me to leave. Idle abandoned pavilion? I’ll take it.

Boots

Chatter everywhere on boots. Grand debate about quality, angles, ankles, whatever. If you're just starting, none of that matters. You aren't skilled enough to appreciate the diff. However, do not buy those shitty skates on Amazon. You will sprain your ankles. Try to buy your first pair in person so you know it will fit. Beginner skates like Jackson Softskates are around 60USD and a great way to try before committing more money. Impalas are pretty reasonable for roller.

If you have the dough to buy nicer ones (you're all in!) or are upgrading, ignore the pearl clutching about overbooting. This advice originates from fitting tiny children. You obviously don't invest in boots above a kid's level because their feet grow faster than their skill. Lucky for me, my feet don't grow! I most certainly invest in boots that last longer.

You don't need to jump doubles to wear a boot for doubles. There are some top level boots that might be uncomfortable, but again, you'll know if you try it on. I get told I am overboot in Edea Ice Fly all the time. Like, wtf dude, can you not keep that unsolicited opinion to yourself?

Look at these beauties, so drip.

Blades / Wheel frame

Same old story as boots. If you're starting out, whatever blade/frame comes with the boot is fine. As with boots, until you are advanced, the nuance is lost on you. You won't appreciate rocker differences unless you are doing like...camel spin. I have tried different blades, some fancy, some not. Honestly all freestyle blades feel similar.

The best blade is the one you skate on regularly and learn how to work with. Don't blame the equipment for your own lack of practice. There's lore and fuss about how magical John Wilson blades are. They're nice, a flex, that's all. If you suck, JW ain't going to make you not suck. (RIP me, I have JW CoroAce)

Same story with wheel frames. (I'm on Goldenhorse avant)

Coaching

Everyone insists you absolutely need a coach or you will learn things wrong, develop bad habits. Myth, bullshit, awful elitist lies. You can absolutely teach yourself the basics with resources on IG/YT (Adam Jukes for inline, Coach Julia, Michelle Hong, etc for ice are all amazing).

I have met so many skaters with coaches that have terrible form and habits. I have also met incredible self taught skaters. Bad habits and form is from your own lack of discipline and effort.

What you need is not coaching, it is feedback. And feedback you can get from fellow skaters, from filming yourself. Film and compare yourself in slo mo to other skaters and then see what you need to adjust. It's painful, but works. Most other skaters are also happy to help you with tips or a quick demo.

HOWEVER, I will say some advanced elements are going to be really hard on your own. Toe loop is one of these. You inevitably teach yourself a toe waltz and can see it but don't know how to fix it. Coach 1 told me to curtsy, fucking useless. Coach 2 told me to kick a soccer ball sideways and that worked. You have no idea what that means, but see, even coaching is a crap shoot sometimes.

If you can afford a coach or lessons, go for it. If you can't, you can still be ok. I have a coach for the tough stuff but I teach myself most things first so I can optimize the coaching time. Taught myself this bad ass move.

Testing / competitions

This is mostly for ice. I haven't seen too much organized roller / inline events. I personally find most events to be kinda scams. You don't need to do them to be a "real" skater. Tests and competitions are for you to participate in the community if you want. They're great ways for you to show off your skills if you want to be a performer, but they're not gates.

Test guidelines (just google them) are a great curriculum because they are organized in terms of difficulty. Some people find it useful to have a goal post motivator like a test event, that’s valid.

What's awful is that some people are super snooty about test levels. There was a rink director who refused to let me book freestyle ice time because I never tested FS to prove my level. Thank you for making your rink welcome and inclusive, Karen.

DIY Upkeep

I love the skate shop, but it's far away. I don't have the luxury of being able to drive 2hrs to go every time something bothers me. Every post online insists you cannot DIY without ruining your skates. Big fucking privileged lie.

You can and should DIY if you are comfortable. If your boots feel tight, use a shoe stretcher. If it feels too big and you can't exchange it, stuff some cotton/wool into the loose places. If your blade/frame feels off, get your screwdriver and move it around. I have done all of these things successfully. There are video and blogs for just about all issues.

#figure skating #advice #start skating #dispelling bullshit

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jayz4dayz · 4 years ago

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Kakegurui character headcanons that are canon in my eyes (Part 3)

Midari:

You already know this bitch has done hard drugs. She’s probably a dealer at Hyakkaou too ngl

Actually very intelligent and could get all A’s if she cared enough to

Canonly lesbian

She/they vibes

Hardcore energy drink consumer. Monster and Redbull cans are all over the floor of her dorm room

If you simp for her… ya got mommy and daddy issues, luv-

Is physically touchy toward everyone, but lowkey recoils when someone she doesn’t know or trust touches her

Actively tries to annoy the shit out of both Sayaka and Yuriko as her way of showing her affection

Night person

I can see her actively practicing witchcraft

Favorite holiday is Halloween

Probably has a glass eye somewhere but doesn’t bother putting it in because the eyepatch is a ✨look✨

Was the kid in school who ate glue or play dough

Is best friends with Sayaka. Do not fight me on this

Needs to go to therapy. Honestly, who doesn’t in that school

Weapon of choice is her revolver, of course <3

Will often lay in Yuriko’s lap because Yuriko actually lets her. It’s one of her favorite things to do when she needs to unwind

Slytherin. 100% a Slytherin.

Has at least one tattoo somewhere and nipple piercings too if we’re being honest

Can’t stand hot weather and prefers the cold

Avid fan and listener of the band Mother Mother

Canonly almost shot a person on accident or on purpose with her revolver

Will flirt with Kirari just to piss off Sayaka

Will flirt with Yuriko just to see her get flustered

(Y’all can come after me all you want for this one) Has a crush on Yuriko

ESTP-A personality type

Has a pet tarantula

Most likely had a pen explode in her mouth while she was chewing on it in class at some point

Everyone asks “where is Midari?” but no one asks “how is Midari?”

Favorite color is black or purple

For SURE owns at least one choker

Yuriko:

Refuses to take hard drugs but has accidentally gotten high off her ass from an edible. Midari’s edible, mind you

Is the mom friend of the group

Owns a minivan and drives Midari and Runa places

Has a dent on the side of the same minivan because Midari hit the side of it with a shopping cart that Runa was in

Nurse vibes tbh

Keeps her eyes closed because she’s lowkey blind and can’t see much anyway

Ravenclaw all the way

Was a horse girl in elementary school

Has either really beautiful emerald green eyes or average Hudson-river colored brown eyes. Will we ever know?

Is secretly a cat girl. Why else do you think I used that image in particular for her

Easily flustered

Has a crush on Midari but is still confused about her sexuality

She sure as hell ain’t straight tho. Not in that school...

An only child

Is struggling, but wears a smile regardless

Stepped on a butterfly once and sobbed

Ya know... say what you want, but I get vegetarian/vegan vibes from her

Avid hot tea drinker

Has pollen allergies

Morning person

Prefers warmer weather and hates the rain

Has spa days with Yumemi once and a while

Can’t lift anything heavier than twenty pounds probably

Would be on the Volley ball team if she wasn’t head of the Culture Club

Several girls in her club have a huge crush on her and compete against Midari to gain her affection and attention

Has straight A’s

Idk why, but I can’t see her knowing how to swim

Gets cold easily

Wears kimonos even when she’s at home

Enjoys reading classical literature

Also enjoys listening to classical music

Would never admit this, but she listens to K-pop

Has a hidden talent for drawing

ISFJ-T personality type

Weapon of choice is a bo-staff (which is really just a broom stick) or Midari

Can speak Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin

Runa:

Has absolutely done crack and likely a handful of other drugs

Has a sugar addiction, but we already knew that one

G R E M L I N E N E R G Y

Most likely has ADHD or ADD or both even

I saw somewhere that said she’s 18?? Like, what?? She looks like she’s 12 tf...

Asexual/Aromatic icon

Hufflepuff vibes, but I can also kinda see her as a Slytherin

Jokingly homophobic towards Kirasaya and Yuridari

Will drink nothing aside from soda or energy drinks

Not a furry, contrary to popular belief. Just enjoys her onesies. Let her live her life jeez

Canonly a baddie

Short, but will not hesitate in destroying your kneecaps

Actually really close to the Momobami and Ikishima family

Plays video games with Midari almost every day after school since Aoi left

Ironically uses “UwU” and “Ara, ara” but does not ironically call people a simp. Can you blame her? She’s surrounded by wlw

Will beat you in Mario Cart. Yes she will. I don’t care how good you think you are

Has managed to not break a single bone in her body despite her size

Is good at every subject except for geography

Can’t drive, but owns a scooter which she’ll use to get to school if Yuriko is unable to drive her

Owns a pair of Heely’s with wheels

Unironically wears socks with sandals

Also wears crocs

Listens to rap

Is fast af. “Zoom, zoom, bitches!”

Secretly a badass gambler

Gets approximately 2-5 hours of sleep each night because she stays up playing video games

Naps during her classes

Listens and ignores whenever Kirari is pining over Sayaka and talking to her about it

ENFP-A personality type

I can see her owning a hedgehog for some reason, but also a rabbit

Would probably get away with murder if we’re being honest

Is not a natural blonde

Two faced. Like seriously, don’t get on this bitch’s bad side. She’ll destroy you

#kakegurui #kakegurui headcanons #midari ikishima #Yuriko Nishinotouin #runa yomozuki #midari x yuriko #yuridari #kirasaya #These headcanons are becoming more and more crackish #I rly wanna make one more of these

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self-loathing-angel-of-thursday2 · 2 years ago

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Beautiful Spouse’s Rewatch Thoughts SPN 03x02

The Kids Are Alright

“Are we going to find out what kind of blade can kill a demon? I can’t remember her name.” “Just average middle-class American house. Because everyone has a porch and pillars and shit” “That looks like a dull-ass blade. You wouldn’t want to use that on real wood” “That translate file was supposed to be impressive. Translation software sucked ass back then.” Spouse doesn’t know what Gumby is

I think it’s super gross that Dean is going to drop by after 8 years for a sex weekend

“Is she married now or something?” “Do we ever find out if Ben is actually Dean’s or not?” “They zoomed in on his ass”

“Thirsty girls huh?” “Yup. I know they planned the scene but yeah” “There’s something wrong with her” then laughed

“Ruby, right?” “Deep fried crack? Really?” “The ink isn’t sticking very well” “they still left the ladder up” “You’re just going to just leave the ladder there with all the kids around? It even has the little tips” “oh shit” “she’s grabbing her neck too. Wtf” “is this how parents have a mental fkn breakdown? Kids are knocking on the bathroom door but in their mind, this is what’s happening?” “I don’t understand - is the demon kid hungry or something?” “Dean looked around making sure he’s not going to get in trouble for laughing” “I mean Dean is being creepy. She’s not wrong.” “Oh she’s just going to kill the kid. I see how it is” “don’t need the car. Don’t need the kid. Don’t need anything in the car” “is the kid just going to show up right behind her?” “Wow. That was really easy for her.” “So her husband just died and she just killed her kid” “creepy shit” “Sam’s shirt is the worst. At least his hair is shorter except for the center part. Fucking nerd” “Just the way they phrase shit dude” “What a creepy ass motherfucker. Dean is not being cool. He met her 8 years ago, creeped on her kid’s party, and is now asking her to leave her house? This is the fastest way to get shot” “Oh man. I thought we were off to a good start. Dean has ripped jeans ago” “That pile of dirt is for sale. And it has a half-finished house on a Hollywood set” “Wouldn’t you holler for Sam first?” “What do they do with the kids?” “Nobody can hear what’s happening upstairs?” “Why not use your own fkn coat Dean?” “murder his ass” “never mind” “not very speedy with the zippo” laughed at the kids disappearing

“Not going to question why he’s with Dean and this stranger?” “probably wouldn’t be so weird the first time through but god damn” “what a weird scene” “what the fuck is sam doing? Checking about mom’s friends?” “when is she going to do the eye flip?”

#beautifulspouserewatchesspn #supernatural s3 #supernatural #supernatural rewatch

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avintagekiss24 · 4 years ago

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APPEARANCES || FRANK ADLER

pairing: Frank Adler x black!reader || word count: 5,898 || warnings: smut, sex, slight ass play, a little bit of dirty talk, swearing || request: your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere during a downpour and Frank comes to you rescue

authors note: fic number #2 for the 4k celebration! this was requested by @stargazingfangirl18! hope you like, babe! line divider by @firefly-graphics!

“Uncle Frank, where are you?”

You smile gently as Mary’s words hit your ears. You send your eyes towards her as she talks on your phone, pacing slowly, her little fingers playing with the hem of her Girls Scout vest. You hear a deep, muffled voice on the other end and turn your eyes back to the laptop in your lap, continuing to tap away at the keys.

“Okay, okay… yes… no… okay… I will… okay, bye.” She plops down next to you, holding out her hand containing your phone, “He’s on his way. He said thanks for sitting with me.”

You wave her off, winking, “I owe you for all the help you’ve given me this semester.”

The young blonde leans over, placing her hands on your lap as she starts to read the dissertation you’re working on. She pushes some of her blonde hair out of her face as she mumbles, “This is good, except you forgot the negative here… and you need to carry the two here.” She says, pointing to the screen.

You tilt your head and squint your eyes, rereading your work quickly before you shake your head as a slow smile creeps on your face, “Shit.”

Mary looks back at you and smiles widely before leaning back over in her spot, “Can I play Angry Birds on your phone?”

“Well, I owe you again for telling me to carry this two, so yes,” you laugh as you delete the last two lines of your work to start treworking the problem, correctly this time, but you can’t get your fingers to move. You glance down the hallway as students in the small college building move about and spot the vending machine - your stomach rumbling as if on queue, “You want some chips or something, Mary?” you ask, grabbing your purse.

“Doritos please,” She answers, not looking up from your phone, “And a coke.”

You laugh a little as you stand, “Your Uncle is gonna kill me.”

“No he won’t, that’s what he had for breakfast this morning.”

“Wow,” You laugh, shaking your head as you start for the machine, “Don’t move, please.”

You move to the vending machine, pulling out your debit card and swiping it before tapping on the Doritos for Mary and the Cheetos for yourself. You pay for two cokes, (you’ve already ruined your diet with the Cheetos, might as well go all out) and turn on your heel to head back to your seat by the front doors. Just as you're handing the snacks to Mary, the doors open, a cool gust of wind washing over the two of you.

“Finally,” Mary says, rolling her eyes as she stands, “You’re late Uncle Frank.”

“I know it, I know.” He starts, running his hands through his damp hair, “You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Mary asks, scrunching her face at him before she turns her attention back to you, “Thank you for the chips and the coke.”

“You’re very welcome. I’ll see you Monday, study buddy?” You ask, raising your hand for a high five.

The little monster slaps your hand with hers, her toothy grin stretching across her face, “You got it.”

“Thank you for sitting with her,” Frank says, glancing up at you as he helps her with her backpack, “And for feeding her.”

You wave him off as you pack up your own bag, “It’s no problem. She’s literally the only reason I’m passing this class, so I can certainly sit with her for fifteen or twenty minutes here and there.”

He smiles at you and you smile back at him, diverting your eyes after a few seconds. You don’t have time for hot uncles. Especially hot, tan uncles who work on boat engines for a living that wear loose Hawaiian button downs and old, dirty jeans. You certainly don’t have time in your life for hot uncles whose bicep muscles flex softly as he puts his nieces backpack on her shoulders. Nope, you definitely don’t have time for hot, slightly grumpy uncles.

“You be careful out there, the rain is supposed to get worse for the rest of the night.”

“Thanks,” you say, unable to wipe the stupid smile off your face as Frank and Mary move towards the front door, “You too.”

He smiles again as he pushes open the door for the little human, “See you Monday.”

You lift your hand, wiggling your fingers a little as they push out into the wind and the rain. You watch as they run towards his old truck, Frank throwing open the passenger door for her before he slams it shut once she’s in. He jogs around the front of the trunk and then peels out of the parking lot, leaving you standing there, staring out of the glass doors like an idiot. You sigh - you really wish you had time for hot ass uncles.

You throw your messenger bag over your shoulder and grab your math book, holding it over your head as you push through the threshold of the doors out into the rain. You jog towards your old - and when you say old, you mean old. Your baby has two hundred thousand miles on her, a wonky tail light that sometimes comes on and sometimes doesn’t, and a passenger side window that doesn’t roll down all the way, but she’s always done right by you; until recently. You just need her to hold on for a few more weeks - until your dad comes down to visit his favorite girl and shell out a downpayment for a new car.

You toss the heavy math book into the passenger seat and dumb your bag onto the floor board before you put the key in the ignition and turn. It takes a minute, but the engine finally turns over and you pull out of the parking lot to head home - but you should stop by the store because you know you’re not going to want to do it later.

You groan as you slow to a stop at the intersection, cutting your eyes towards the Whole Foods to your left, and then the Taco Bell that sits on the corner to the right. God, a Mexican pizza sounds good… a Mexican pizza, Warrior Nun, and your couch sounds even better. A car honks behind you, startling you out of your daze, and you quickly take a left, heading towards the Whole Foods. Your scale will thank you later.

----

You waste longer than you intend in the Whole Foods and by the time you’re finished, it's pouring outside. Being the responsible adult that you are, you of course left your umbrella at home. So, of course, you and your groceries are soaked by the time you get them into the backseat and you get yourself back behind the wheel. You huff, pushing your wet, soon to be frizzy hair out of your face before slamming your key back into the ignition.

“Come on baby,” you whisper, “Come on, come on.”

After a few more prayers, it turns over, the heat (which is about the only thing that works the way it should) blasting over your chilled body. You rub your hands together quickly, eyeing the Taco Bell as Linkin Park blasts through the speakers. You’re soaked, starving, and no thanks to the thoughts of hot ass uncles and their stupid Hawaiian shirts, suddenly super horny - you deserve a Mexican pizza… and a chalupa… and some nacho fries… and a Baja Blast.

----

Your mood has improved greatly as the smell of tacos fill your nostrils. You tap along to the loud metal music blasting from the speakers as rain pelts down on your car. Ten more minutes and you’ll be home, in your pajamas, stuffing your face - this day can finally end.

Your car jerks suddenly, violently. Lights start flashing on the dash, the gauges pushing into the red as the car starts to die.

“Fuck!” You shout as you grip the wheel tightly, your eyes going wide, your heart starting to pound as you steer the car into the grass.

It rolls for a while before it finally comes to a stop. You turn the key, and hear nothing but clicks, “Shit,” you mumble, turning the key again and pumping the gas pedal, praying that it’ll start up, “Please, please, please.”

Click, click, click.

“Don’t do this to me!” You whine, turning the key again.

Click, click, click.

The lights on the dash flash again, the radio starts, the heat starts to blast, “Yes!” You squeal, bouncing in your seat.

It dies again.

You celebrated too soon.

“Fuck!”

You turn the key again.

No clicks.

No nothing.

You slam your head back into the seat and let your arms fall to your sides. Fuck. You sigh heavily and reach into the backseat, fumbling around until you feel your purse and pull it into your lap. You pull out your phone and tap the screen, but it stays black. You tap again, and then again, but nothing happens. You push the side button and groan when the red battery flashes across the screen. Of course. Of fucking course.

You throw the dead phone into the passenger seat and open your door, running around to the front of the car. You pop the hood, grunting and cursing as the heavy, hard rain drops down on you. Once the hood is up, you just stare at the engine. You don’t even know what you’re looking at, let alone what you should be looking for.

You tug on a few wires, push on the battery, you know, to make sure it’s in its place or whatever, wipe away old, wet leaves - but you’re completely lost, out of ideas and out of your element… in the middle of a downpour, with a dead phone. Just your luck.

A car drives by, splashing the puddled rainwater up onto you as you stand huddled under the hood. You slam your eyes closed, sucking your teeth before you count to ten, trying not to shout obscenities. You hear another car coming and naturally shift over a few feet to avoid being splashed again. A truck zooms past, but you hear it slow down within seconds. You peek over the hood as the truck comes to a complete stop and then is put in reverse. You’re half grateful but also half afraid - it is Florida.

“I thought that was you,” You hear a familiar voice call to you before a door opens and slams shut, “What happened?”

Relief floods over you as none other than Frank Adler, hottie McUncle pants, jogs towards you and joins your side, “God, I don’t know!” you whine, “I was driving home and it just stopped.”

“Let me take a look,” he mumbles more to himself than to you as he starts tugging and pushing on random wires, “Does it click or no, when you try and start it.”

“It was clicking, but now it’s not.”

He grunts a little, “Sounds like it’s probably the battery and the starter. When’s the last time you got an oil change?” You glance towards the sky, scrunching your face as you try and remember, “That’s too long to go without an oil change.” he chuckles, “I can get you fixed up, but not in all of this rain. Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

“No, I can’t - I can’t ask you to do that, I’ve taken enough of your time already and now you’re all soaked and,”

“I’m not gonna leave you in the rain,” he smirks, “Come on.”

“No, no, really! I can call somebody.” You lie, knowing good and damn well your phone is beyond dead. He scoffs, grabbing your hand, “I mean it, I have a backseat full of groceries!”

He pulls you into the street, opening the passenger side door to his truck and helps you in before he jogs back to your car. You watch as he grabs all of your groceries, all of them, in one hand at that, before he jogs back to his truck, opening the door again and depositing them at your feet. He runs back to your car, grabbing your backpack, purse, and your Taco Bell, before he jogs back to the truck, this time climbing into the drivers side.

“Frank,” you start, laughing nervously, “You really don’t have to do this. Really.”

“Don’t worry about it. I owe you anyway, for watching Mary whenever I’m running late.”

You roll your eyes playfully, “Not really, but okay. I live off of Ventura.”

“Ventura?” He says as he pulls off, flipping a u-turn, “That’s like fifteen minutes from here. You can chill at my place, get cleaned up, eat your food, then hopefully the rain will have let up and I can come back and change out the battery.”

His place? You swallow hard. This is not how you’ve elaborately daydreamed about finally being alone with Frank Adler, “You don’t have to do that, I’m sure you and Mary have plans.”

“Nah,” he says absentmindedly as he drives, “She stays with Roberta on Friday nights. It’ll just be you and me.”

Great. Now you don’t even have a buffer. You tap your fingers nervously against your knees as you stare out the windshield, your mind - and heart - suddenly racing. You clear your throat and glance over at him, which is a bad idea. His skin is damp, his loose dark gray t-shirt - now soaked - sticking to his chest and stomach. You push your eyes to his outstretched forearm and have to take a breath. How is it possible to be attracted to a forearm? Has it honestly been that long for you? You flick your eyes back towards the windshield - you’re not even going to chance looking at his face.

He pulls you into a small trailer park, parking his truck in front of a turquoise house. The two of you grab your belongings, him again grabbing all of your groceries in one hand - another thing that turns you on that shouldn’t - and run towards his front door, Frank pushing his weight against it to pop it open.

He lets you push in first before he closes the door and sets your groceries on the counter. You glance around, finding an orange, one eye cat meowing at you from its place on the small table pushed against the wall.

“Fred,” he says, pushing the cat softly, “Off the table, come on man.”

Little remnants of Mary are scattered around, her small sneakers tucked underneath the chair, her Spongebob DVDs piled on top of the table, with advanced math books and an apple laptop. Frank is also scattered around the small, but strangely cozy place. A motor - or what you think is a motor - sits on the coffee table in the living room, tools strewn around it, and an open but turned over philosophy book lays on the couch.

“Do you wanna shower? I have some clothes you can change into if you want.”

You snap your head towards him, blinking rapidly as your brain tries to keep up with his words, “Oh, um, yeah. Okay, yeah.”

You follow him nervously to the bathroom, where he points out that you how to jiggle the knob a little to get hot water before he disappears into his room, only to return with a pair of sweatpants, an old t-shirt, a large pullover hoodie, and some socks. Just as he leaves the bathroom, there’s a hint of a smile, more like a smirk, on his face before he dips his head and shuts the door behind him.

The butterflies that fill your stomach.

You turn towards the shower, catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. You slam your eyes closed. This is definitely not how you’ve envisioned this moment.

----

You step out of the bathroom twenty some odd minutes later, drowning in his sweats and hoodie, but warm and definitely feeling a lot better. Rain still beats down on the small house, seemingly harder than before. The TV is on, either wrestling or MMA or whatever playing, the sound low. Frank is in the kitchen, changed into a slightly dirty white t-shirt, complete with a little pocket, and baggy jeans, his feet bare - something else that turns you on that shouldn’t.

He hasn’t noticed you yet and you’re unsure if you want him too. You run your hand over your hair, towel dried as best as you could and pulled into a tight bun to try and keep it from curling and frizzing, with a scrunchie that you hope is Mary’s. You shove your hands into the front pocket of the hoodie and take a few steps, clearing your throat as a small, nervous smile plays on your lips.

Frank glances over at you as the microwave beeps, “Feel better?”

You nod slowly, “Much. Thank you again.”

“Not a problem, although, I’ll need you to keep this to yourself. I have appearances to keep up.” He says with a straight face.

“Oh yeah?” You chuckle.

He nods and points at a house across a small patch of grass, “My neighbor, Roberta, thinks I’m a nice guy,” he shrugs and you laugh again, “So, I constantly have to remind her that I am not.”

Your smile grows as you see your phone plugged into the charger, knowing that you weren’t the one to do so, “Of course. I will be more than happy to let people know that you sped right past me in my desperate time of need.”

“Thanks,” he chuckles, holding out a plate to you, “You know they’re getting rid of the Mexican pizza, right?”

Your eyes widen as you take your heated up tacos from him, “No way!”

He throws up his hands as he pulls his microwavable burrito out of the wrapper and throws it on his plate, “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

You follow him into the living room and plop down on the opposite side of the couch, as far as you can get away from him, and tuck your feet underneath your butt, “The Mexican pizza is the staple of their menu, how could they do this?”

Frank shrugs again, “Trying to class the place up a bit I guess.”

You snort as you take a bite, “You can’t class up the drunk capital of the world, baby.”

The two of you fall into an easy silence as you eat, the rain still falling hard as you watch whatever it is you’re watching. You grimace as one man punches the other in the jaw before tackling him to the mat as they start to wrestle. You close your eyes and turn your head away, groaning as the same man starts rapidly punching the other in the face, “What um, what is this called?”

He chuckles, grabbing the remote, “Sorry, I’ll change it. Mary and I usually watch MMA together.”

“You let Mary watch this?” You ask shockingly, laughing a little.

He scrunches up his nose as he hisses, nodding his head slowly, “I probably shouldn’t, right? Too violent?”

“I mean,” you start, “Just a tad. I can see why she hit that kid in the face now.”

“Ah fuck, she told you about that?” He laughs, falling back into the couch.

“Oh yeah, she did.” You laugh harder.

He covers his face with his hands, “Not our most shining moment.”

You push your elbow into the back of the couch and prop your head up with your fist as you smile back at him. Hot uncle is really… hot in his element, and when he’s talking about the small, blonde human. It makes your ovaries quake.

“She’s a great kid, you know.” You say, “You’re doing great with her.”

He rolls his head towards you, a smirk tugging at his lips, “You think?”

His question catches you off guard a little - the earnesty of it. Like he really wants you to say yes. Like, he doesn’t believe that he’s doing a great job.

“Yeah. You are.”

He blinks at you - once, and then twice before he looks back at the tv, touching his knees together before he pushes them back out again. Mark down a third thing that turns you on - the manspread.

“She talks about you a lot,” he says after a few moments, “Not just to me, but Roberta too. She really likes you.”

You smile softly, “Yeah?”

He looks back over at you, nodding slowly, “Yeah. That’s half the reason Roberta comes to get her, you know, so she can have some girl time - talk about girl stuff. She needs that,” he nods again, clearing his throat, “And you, you know, you kinda help out with that in an unconscious way, so,” he clears his throat again, “It means a lot, it really does.”

You drop your head as a large smile spreads on your face, “Well,” you start, “Somebody has to offset your asshole-ness, so Roberta and I are doing our best.”

The two of you laugh again, him dropping his head, you glancing back at the tv as the air around you starts to suddenly shift. He takes a swig of his beer before he places it between his legs, holding the neck with both of his hands. He taps his thick fingers against the green bottle a few times before he turns his heads towards you, blinking as he chews on his bottom lip. Your lips part as your breath gets shallow, your eyes bouncing around his face.

Within a second, his lips are on yours, taking you by complete surprise. You’re frozen for a few seconds, your eyes still open, your breath hitching in your throat - but then… oh, but then. Your eyes flutter shut as you lean into his kiss slowly, placing your hands on his shoulders and gripping ever so tightly. He releases your lips quickly before he delves back in, this time harder, his tongue pushing into your mouth for the very first time.

You can taste the faint alcohol on his lips and you moan - slipping your hand around his neck to push your fingers into his surprisingly soft hair. He fumbles with his beer, stretching out his arm trying to find the table. The bottle clangs against the edge and then the top before he just lets it go, letting it fall to the floor with a soft thud as the rest of the golden liquid pours out onto the carpet.

He crawls towards you, his knees sinking into the couch as he loops his arm around your waist, pulling you into his lap and further down onto your back. You slip your hands up into his shirt, sliding them along his sides and up his sinewy back. You push yours hips into his as you feel his muscles flex underneath your fingers. The tips of his fingers are still cool from the beer bottle as they skirt across your stomach. You break the kiss to laugh at yourself when you jump at his touch, Frank’s low chuckle harmonizing with yours.

“You okay?” he whispers, a smile still on his face, his lips brushing against yours.

You nod, still giggling like an idiot, “Yeah, sorry,” you whisper, leaning up a little to kiss him again.

His hand continues to travel the length of you, reaching your bare breasts, where he cups gently. You gasp lightly as the pads of his fingers graze over your nipples, exciting them further as they tighten and protrude. He pushes his hips down into yours and rocks forward - so you can feel him. You dig your fingers into his sides, matching the slow pace of his hips with yours.

His lips push down to your jaw and neck, where he nips and sucks, his arm looping around your waist again. He pulls you into his lap as he sits back into the couch, his hands dragging up your back. You lean back and bite your bottom lip in uncertainty as your eyes search his. His lips are red and swollen, his eyes wide and sparkly as they drop to your lips before linking with yours again. He drops his hands to your waist, holding you firmly as he pushes his hips into yours.

You bunch the baggy hoodie and t-shirt that cover your chest and pull, bringing them both up over your head in one fell swoop and drop them to the floor. Frank takes a breath - deep and slow - as his eyes drop to your exposed flesh. He sends his eyes back up to yours seconds later and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth as his hand slips up your back. He wraps his long fingers around the back of your neck and pulls you down, crashing your lips to his.

You reach for the bottom of his shirt, tugging it up, helping him shrug it off quickly before you fumble with the button on his jeans. He digs his fingers underneath the band of your sweatpants, lifting you up to yank them down your legs and throw them to the floor. You pop the button of his jeans and pull down his zipper before you reach for him, palming his warmth. He hisses, and pulls your body into his, tightening his grip on you as you stroke him.

He releases you just long enough to pull his jeans down his legs. He then grabs two handfuls of your ass, spreading your skin as the tip of his cock pushes against your slit. You grip his shoulders as you sink down on him - throwing your head back as he penetrates you. You feel his eyes on you as you gobble him up, wiggling your hips slowly as you adjust to his girth. He sinks back into the couch, resting his head on the back of it as his eyelids droop over his blues, his hands still gripping your ass.

You start to move. Pulling up on him before you sink back down, hissing as a fire starts to rage through you. You dig your nails into his shoulders before dragging them down his biceps as you let your head roll back on your neck, your mouth falling open as your eyes close.

Frank leans up to peer around the curve of your body to watch the primal connection between the two of you. He palms your ass hard, squeezing your flesh in his hands as he spreads it apart again as you bounce and rock into him. He slips a large hand up your back and spreads his fingers to push your naked chest into his. The hardness of his body against the softness of yours - your supple, full breasts pushing against his wide, hairy chest is… wildly erotic. The sturdiness of him, the tightness in which his hands hold you.

He starts to fuck up into you, bucking his hips to meet you on your way down - all the while keeping his hands full of your ass, kneading and groping - feeling you. You wrap your arms around his neck and lean back, pulling him with you. He peppers hot, wet, furied kisses over and between your breasts and along your clavicles as his hips dig into yours.

It feels good - he feels good. He leans away from you, pulling you up with him as he stands, He wraps his hands around your thighs and kisses you hard as he starts to pull you through the living room and the kitchen, back into his bedroom. He closes the door with his foot and lays you down gently, climbing over top you, his knees pressing into the mattress. He drags his dick through your folds before he centers at your slit, pushing gently - slowly - like he’s savoring the feeling.

He grabs your leg and hooks it over his waist as he starts to move again. He runs his hand the length of your calf, over your knee, down your thigh as he fucks you - harder than before, on the couch. You sweep your hands up his sides and along the small of his back, feeling his muscles as they flex while he fucks you good; deep. His name falls off your lips as more heat blooms across your skin, and he likes it - growls at it - the sound of his name rolling off of your tongue.

He grunts, squeezing your thigh in his hand as he pumps into you, “You feel so good, baby,” he slurs, “As good as I thought you’d feel.”

As good as I thought you’d feel. You slam your eyes closed as you groan at his admission. He pulls out of you suddenly and pushes his hands underneath your body, flipping you right over onto your stomach. He grabs your sides, his rough hands pulling you up onto your knees. He slips his hand between your folds and massages your clit with the pads of his fingers as he pushes into you again.

His free hand slips up your back, grabbing your shoulder and squeezing as he starts to fuck into you again. You grip the sheets in your hands as you lunge forward with each of his thrusts, your breasts bouncing, the sound of his skin slapping against yours filling the room. He releases your shoulder and flattens his hand between your shoulder blades, pushing hard to get you to rest your head and shoulders against the mattress. He grabs your hands and crosses them at the wrists over the small of your back as he holds them in just one of his large hands.

“God, Frank,” you groan, “Fuck.”

His thrusts are long and hard; pushing deep into your sex, stroking you in places that haven’t been touched in ages. Your wet muscles start to squeak with each push of his hips, a soft squish sound filling your ears. He grabs your ass again, squeezing hard, spreading you open so he can see all of you. You feel his fingers drift through your cheeks, circling your tight hole before his thumb starts to press gently.

You grit your teeth and push back into him as hard as you can, meeting his hips halfway. Your head swims as sweat and goosebumps pop up along your skin, your heart slamming against your chest. Electricity flashes through your body, making your toes curl as your ungodly howls float through the trailer. Hot uncle is a hot fuck - that’s for sure.

Frank slips out of you again but stays close - the tip of his cock still pressing against your slit. You open your eyes and glance back at him, your lips parted and breath heavy. He stares down at your cunt and ass, stroking himself from his base to his tip slowly, his free hand pulling softly on his balls. You pull your hand around to your sex and push your fingers along your clit, arching your back as you hiss loudly. You lick your lips as you keep your eyes on him - his hard, wide chest and thick biceps flexing as he pumps himself.

“This is a pretty pussy, baby girl,” he praises, releasing a deep breath, “So pretty.”

You whine at the words, your fingers picking up their pace as his praise falls over you. Your cunt is hot and swollen - so wet that your fingers glide with ease through your folds, your slick starting to slide down the inside of your thigh. You push your fingers into your opening and pump them quickly for him, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip as he growls at the sight.

You pull your fingers out and start rubbing your clit again, pulsing your hips slightly as you watch Frank stroke himself. His tip glistens as precum spurts from his slit, dripping off of him and splashing on the sheets. He grabs your ass, jiggling your flesh playfully before he slides his cock through your folds. He positions himself right at your opening, but doesn’t push - he just waits.

You wiggle your hips, giggling a little before you push back onto him, a smile curling onto your lips as your muscles spread for him. You push until you’ve swallowed him whole, until your ass is flush against his hips, and you feel him deep. You pull forward and then push back, over and over until you’re thrashing against him; you’re eyes slammed closed, your sounds loud and high pitched.

He pulls you up onto your knees and flattens your back to his chest. He nips at your neck with his teeth as he glues his hands to your bouncing tits, tweaking your nipples between his thumb and index fingers. He pants in your ear, mumbling not so sweet nothings, his hot breath washing over the side of your face. He snakes his hand down your stomach - right down to your sex - and touches you ever so lightly.

That’s all it takes. Just the gentle tap of his rough fingers against your sensitive, sore, clit; and you’re gone. Your body tenses and then shudders as your orgasm spreads through you like lightening. Heat blooms across your skin as your pussy convulses - your clit jumping with each contraction, your muscles tightening around him.

He gets louder, his voice deeper and gruffer as each stroke gets harder and faster. Within minutes of your undoing, he’s spurting into you, coating your insides with his milky warmth. You fall forward onto your chest, Frank onto his back next to you as your chests heave. You stare at the opposite wall, blinking slowly as the world starts to center again - the sound of the television comes back to you - the sound of the rain.

You roll your head towards him and he does the same, the two of you just blinking at one another until a fit of giggles erupt from you. You don’t even know why. You laugh so hard that you have to cover your face with your hands. This definitely isn’t the way you’ve imagined this going when you’ve had your hand down your pants at night in your apartment. He rolls over onto his side and props his head up with his palm, smiling at you as you laugh.

“Sorry,” you mumble, “I don’t know why I’m laughing.”

“It’s okay,” he shrugs, “You have a nice laugh.”

“That’s not very asshole-y of you, Frank.”

He chuckles, nodding slowly, “That’s right, okay, yeah. You have an awful laugh.”

You point at him, “Appearances, right?”

----

You wake with a slight start. You sit up quickly, your eyes squinted as the sun breaks in through the crack in the shade over the window. A sleeping Frank lays beside you. He’s on his stomach, his hands shoved underneath the pillows that hold his head, facing away from you. The tv still plays in the living room. Your discarded clothes still in a heap on the floor, the beer bottle still tipped over.

You glance back at the window and lift the shade slowly, a smile spreading on your face as you spot your old Jetta parked next to his old truck. You lay back down and pull the covers up over your head just as he shifts beside you, stretching out his long arm until it finds your hip.

You close your eyes.

You can’t wait to tell everybody how big of an asshole Frank Adler is.

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