#drone rental | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

leiascully · 28 days

Text

Fic: POANG (M, MSR)

4400 words; rated M for a lot of real and imaginary sex; the solve high hits Scully right in the libido and a trip to IKEA doesn't help. happy birthday, @laurencem (ao3)

There’s a novelty to working a case in a city. They’re usually in smaller towns, out on the edges of things where the fields blur into the woods and the monsters wear animal skins. Today’s monster is human, or something that resembles one. Scully doubts sometimes that it’s possible to be so brutal and retain humanity.

They’d been called in on this one on the suspicion of witchcraft. There had been a series of killings: bundles of herbs left at the scene, dead bees scattered about, cedar smoke lingering in the corners of the rooms, corpses ritually disfigured. The perpetrator turned out to be more ecofascist than druid. No caltrops for him, and no nice trip to the woods for her and Mulder. This killer has been cultivating poison plants, including the kind of mushrooms that reduced a person’s liver to a liquid. He raved as they put him in the car, something about the city being a hive and its denizens mere drones. Scully tuned it out.

Case closed by noon and they’re back at the hotel. It’s not a particularly nice one: no restaurant, no pool, no premium channels. They’re close to the airport, far from most of the amenities. The closest landmark is an IKEA looming blue and yellow by the highway. Scully regrets making them drop off the rental car early, but Skinner’s been making noises about expenses again. Frugality and a high solve rate are the better part of valor. There’s a free shuttle to the airport, but their flight isn’t until tomorrow morning.

“Where do you go to eat around here?” Mulder asks the college-age kid at the desk.

The kid shrugs. “IKEA.”

“To eat?” Mulder sounds skeptical. It’s music to Scully’s ears. She settles her hip against the wall and watches him.

“I mean it’s not where I would take a date, but they’ve got food,” the kid says, glancing between them.

Mulder turns to Scully. He lifts an eyebrow.

“IKEA it is,” she says.

It’s a short walk, at least. Scully’s used to the touristy part of DC, which this is decisively not. She’s used to walking next to Mulder in a suit and heels instead of jeans and flats. It feels different. She never feels small, walking next to Mulder. He makes space for her, even when they’re out on their own time, like this. She wonders if that makes it look like they're on a date, when they’re out of uniform.

She wonders, just a little, if they’re on a date.

The automatic door of the IKEA opens invitingly, a wide mouth to swallow them up. Mulder ushers her in, an ironic little twist to his lips that tells her he knows what she’s thinking. The maw of capitalism. An ecosystem where the consumer is the consumed. Clearcut forests shimmering with ancient insects.

Also, meatballs.

The end-of-case adrenaline is starting to hit her. All the emotion she locked down in the moment comes back, rerouted from fear to something more feral. She’s restless. She is, truth be told, a little horny. Some confluence of her cycle and the solve high has her wishing she’d stayed in the hotel room. The bathtub looked clean enough. She could have enjoyed herself. Instead she’s letting Mulder lead her through a labyrinth of simulated lives and enticingly arranged furniture. He stops to mosey into one of the staged spaces and beckons her over.

“Look at this, Scully.” He spreads his arms. He can almost touch both walls of the fake apartment. The grey t-shirt he’s wearing stretches in such an enticing way over his chest and shoulders. She gets a whiff of his deodorant and it makes her toes tingle. There’s something about the scent of artificial woods layered over just a hint of sweat that makes the feral part of her flex its claws. She’s always susceptible to the scent of Mulder, but this is something else. She could duck under his arm and sink her teeth into the bare skin of his bicep.

Some part of her is mortified to think of him in this way. Most days, that part gets the upper hand. Today, it’s been outvoted and overpowered. Want prowls back and forth in her belly. She steps closer.

“Can you imagine living here?” he asks. “Actually, you probably could. It’s about the size of a ship’s cabin.”

“Compact,” she says.

His eyes crinkle as he smiles at her. “Just like you.”

I’d compact you, she wants to say, even though it makes no sense. She wonders if her pupils are dilated as she gazes up at him. She wants to push him up against the wall, but there’s a cabinet in the way. He’d hit his head, and he’s had enough cranial trauma. She’s his doctor. She knows better.

He’s still smiling at her and for a moment, her wild desire recoils, rebuffed by doubt. How would he react if she lunged for him? Does he even think of her that way? There have been hints over the years, but Mulder’s mouth writes checks the rest of him isn’t willing to cash. In his mind, are they just on a nice little outing, two work colleagues grabbing dinner? Was he planning on going back to his hotel room to watch whatever film features a leggy brunette wearing the fewest clothes?

“Kidding,” he says, and she realizes she’s staring at him. “Scully. I’m kidding.”

“Right.” She takes a step back as he lets his arms fall to his sides.

“Are you all right?” He ducks his head. “You look a little flushed.”

“I’m fine,” she says automatically.

“I guess it’s been an exciting day.” He meanders out of the fake apartment onto the floor of the store. They seem to be in the seating section. Scully doesn’t need a sofa, and she doesn’t need to look at sofas and imagine on them herself cuddled into Mulder’s side. None of these options are as sexy as his leather couch anyway. Oh god, when did she start thinking his couch was sexy?

Mulder stops by a chair with a light wood frame. “POANG,” he reads off the tag. It’s got white cushions and a sort of modern look. “Oh hey, it’s a rocking chair.” He tips it with one finger and it obligingly rocks. “Maybe you need one of these for your living room.”

Scully is possessed by a vivid image of the chair as it might look in her living room. Mulder is sitting in it, jeans yanked open and shirt rucked up, and she’s straddling his lap and riding him until the runners squeak under them. The motion of the chair accentuates the motion of her hips and her tits swing until he captures them in his big warm hands and and and…

“Maybe,” she says. “But Mulder, we have an IKEA closer to home.”

He drops onto one of the sofas and stretches out. He’s obnoxiously long. His shirt rides up, revealing a wedge of golden skin. “You’d probably rather have something vintage anyway. You’ve got champagne tastes, Scully. You like your creature comforts.”

“Is there something wrong with that?” She crosses her arms.

“No.” His lip twitches in amusement. “Although I have to say, if I had your bed, I’d never get out of it.”

Please, she thinks, fervent as a prayer. “Is that why it took you so long to stop sleeping on the couch? Your inherent slothfulness?”

“What can I say.” He brushes his hand over his stomach, smoothing his shirt down. She bites her lip and looks away. “I’m a man of many vices.” His voice is low, almost a purr.

It’s exactly this kind of fucking behavior that feeds the poor confused wild thing inside her. Does he know that? She knows him better than anyone else in her life and she has never been able to decide if it’s real, not even the time they almost kissed. Her need for him gobbles up every scrap of plausibly deniable flirtation, simultaneously satiated and starving.

She looks away from him. The next section is more innocuous - lots of cute little baskets and boxes. “I thought you were hungry.” She can’t imagine a magazine holder stoking her libido.

“Right,” he says, rolling off the couch. “Date night.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s lunchtime.”

“Who knows how long it’ll take us to get to the restaurant?” He shades his eyes with his hand, as if he’s peering over some dim horizon. “This place is engineered for maximum distraction. Think of all the lives we could live between here and there, Scully.”

She manages to haul him through the living room storage without too many detours, although she does have a wistful moment over another one of the staged living spaces, imagining the two of them sharing an apartment. She shoves the thought away. They spend so much time together she should be sick of him. She should fantasize about freedom, or solitude, or meeting a handsome stranger in a tiki bar on a tropical beach. But even when she loathes Mulder, she longs for him. Even the way he examines a Billy bookshelf gives her a rush of fond familiarity at the way he devotes his whole attention to it.

“Should we get you a desk?” he teases as they enter the next section.

Only if you’ll fuck me on it, she doesn’t say. Instead, she rolls her eyes and marches toward the shortcut, knowing he’s drifting in her wake. They skip the kitchen section, which is good; she doesn’t have to imagine herself with her hands braced on a countertop as Mulder presses against her from behind, one hand palming her tits and three fingers of the other inside her. They proceed through dining. In her head, she’s definitely not bent over this table as he takes her from behind, or sitting on that one as he has her for dinner, his lips moving eagerly over her thighs.

There’s something wrong with her. The heat deep in her belly keeps building. It’s Mulder’s damn grace and the way he smells and the fit of his jeans and the way the t-shirt strains when his arm flexes. It’s been too goddamn long since she had sex - years, and that was the once, and years before that - and something has awoken inside her, stirred out of sleep by the moon or the tides or who knows what the fuck. She’d go out on a limb for ancient prophecy at this point. That’s how primal her desire feels. It’s wild inside her, barely contained. And it’s so fucking stupid to feel all of this in the middle of an IKEA - a sanitized, flatpack world of sexless confused caricatures and beds that look too flimsy to fuck in.

Beds. So many beds. Acres of beds. And they do look flimsy, but she imagines fucking in them anyway. That one has a slatted headboard she could attach restraints too. That one has storage drawers for her collection of sex toys and Mulder’s collection of dirty magazines. She’d fuck him in a trundle bed at this point. Hell, she’d fuck him on the floor and let security drag them out and shove them into the cop car still coupled together, because there’s no way she’d let him go.

She somehow makes it through beds.

“You must be hungry,” he says at her shoulder. “Or else you took up competitive speedwalking.”

“That continental breakfast was a long time ago,” she says without looking back. She doesn’t need to look. She can sense him: his heat, his bulk. She could reach out for him and know exactly what she’d touch. That’s the problem with her fantasies. She knows him too intimately.

The wardrobe section doesn’t trouble her much, aside from a brief vision of dragging him into a small dark space and having her way with him. She doesn’t even flinch when they get to the children’s section, or at least not outwardly. Her eyes are on the prize and for once, it’s not Mulder’s ass. It’s the IKEA bistro at long last.

They dine. Mulder has meatballs. Scully has the salmon. The meatballs look suspiciously pale to her, but Mulder assures her they’re delicious. He holds out his fork for her, won’t take no for an answer. She relents and he feeds her a fragment of meatball dipped in the sharp sweetness of lingonberry jam. It’s better than she expected. She eats her salmon and wonders at her impulse toward the ascetic. Mulder is supposed to be the one who’s chosen a lonely, constrained life, but she’s the one denying herself mashed potatoes and a potential heaping helping of Mulder. If his flirting means anything, and that’s the if of her life at this point.

She sighs and puts her fork down on her plate. Mulder eats the last bite of her salmon, but only when it becomes clear she isn’t going to eat it. He smiles at her and her heart and her loins both throb. Fuck, she loves him so much.

They escape the IKEA without any further purchases. Fortunately, most of the rest of the store is small goods and packaged furniture, so the only thing to tempt her is the occasional surface that looks firm enough to support them both.

“Call me when you want dinner,” Mulder says when they get back to the hotel. She locks herself into her room and scans her notes on the case. She waits five minutes, fifteen, an hour. There’s no knock on her door. She starts to run a bath. Her whole body feels congested. She knows it’s not possible to die from metaphorical blue balls, unless it is and she’s about to be in the X-Files again. She wants him so much she feels like a teenager again. If they’d grown up together, he would have been her first kiss. She knows that. Four years would have made a difference until it didn’t. She would have waited for him to finally, finally see her.

She’s waiting for that now.

There’s a full length mirror near her door and she stands in front of it. There’s nothing wrong with her, surely. She’s not as buxom as some, not as curvy as others, but he’s dragged his eyes up and down her body a hundred thousand times. She’d know what that meant from anyone else. With Mulder, who knows? It could be sacred geometry. He could be comparing her to the women in the tapes he stashes under his tv. Maybe she’s just in his line of sight and he’s thinking about something else, sinusoidal curves or what inhabits the bleak depths of space, and it only looks like interest.

She squeezes her breasts, thumbs her nipples. Her own hands aren’t what she wants, but they’re familiar. She slides her palms over her body as the water thunders into the bathtub. If she closes her eyes as she tugs off her t-shirt and unbuttons her jeans, she can imagine it’s him. Fire follows her fingertips as she draws a topographical map of her body with his phantom hands. She’s down to her bra and panties when someone raps on the door.

“Just a minute,” she calls, and turns off the water. She peers through the peephole, wrapping a towel around herself. It’s Mulder. Of fucking course, it’s Mulder, interrupting her at exactly the moment she would want him to, so that he can tell her about fairy rings or the exciting properties of silicon instead of fucking her through the hotel bed.

She lets him in, rolling her eyes at herself.

“I went back to the IKEA,” he says. “In the vein of the heroes of old. I conquered the extremely domestic wilds of the main floor and I may have ordered you a POANG chair to be delivered. Also, I brought cake.” He puts two plastic boxes on her dresser. “But I didn’t know if you’d want chocolate or strawberry.”

“Why?”

“Why? We solved the case, Scully. I think a little celebration is in order. Or why the chair? I thought it would look good in your living room. I don’t have the space for one.” He looks her up and down all too briefly. What a gentleman. “Are you busy? I can come back later.”

“I’m not busy,” she says, just to see if he’ll accept it. For two people so passionately devoted to the truth, they lie to each other all the time. Maybe it’s plausible that she frequently sits around her room en déshabillé and he’s just missed it every time.

“Chocolate or strawberry?” He produces two forks. “Although I guess we can share.”

“Mulder, does it look like I want cake right now?”

He does the slow pan up and down her body this time. Heat rushes up her body, a sudden blaze that stokes the furnace in her belly to a roaring flame. She can feel the flush in her cheeks and down her chest.

“I admit, you don’t seemed dressed to dine,” he says at last.

She opens her hand, a gesture that invites him to follow his thoughts to their logical conclusion and leave.

“The cake was a ruse,” he says abruptly, ignoring her hint. “I wanted to check on you. You seemed a little off earlier.”

“Off?” She sits on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah, maybe frustrated or angry.” He drags the standard-issue chair over, sits with his knees almost brushing hers. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. It was a weird case.”

“I told you, I’m fine,�� she says.

He stares at her. There’s a long, long moment, during which she thinks about kissing him. She can’t stop looking at his mouth. As if he senses her gaze, he licks his lips. “Okay.”

“Okay what?” she asks, still half-mesmerized.

He taps her knee with one finger. “You said you were fine. Okay. I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing.” He gets up.

“What?” she says, flummoxed by his sudden pivot. “Mulder, the cake.”

“You can have it,” he says. He tosses the forks on the dresser by the cake. “Eat it in good health. I’ll be back later.”

“Where are you going?” she asks.

He paces back and forth. “I don’t know. It kind of feels like you don’t want me here.”

She opens and closes her mouth. “First of all, I’m in a state of undress.”

“I don’t care about that, Scully.”

“You don’t care?” She stands up. “What if I care?”

He makes a dismissive gesture. “I’ve seen you undressed, you’ve seen me undressed, it doesn’t have to be weird.”

“It doesn’t.” Her voice is flat with disbelief. “It doesn’t have to be weird.”

He shrugs. “Not unless you want it to be weird.”

“Fine.” She’s fed the fuck up. It’s been a long, weird, fairly excruciating day. She drops the towel.

This time Mulder really looks at her. She can feel the way his eyes drag over her skin, stopping to caress each rounded nipple, dipping toward the elastic of her panties.

“Not weird at all,” he says, but his voice is hoarse. He shifts, which makes the bulge of his erection more noticeable. Fuck it, Scully thinks. You don’t get to the moon if you never fire the rockets. She feels drunk. Mulder’s full attention has always been 100 proof.

“I wanted to fuck you in the POANG chair,” she says conversationally.

“Yeah.” He shifts again. “I wanted that too. Maybe that’s why I bought you one.”

“The way it rocks,” she says, and shivers a little, which makes him shiver too.

“I wanted to play house in those little apartments,” he tells her. “You and me, falling asleep watching tv, but in the same place for once. You and me, sharing a bed.”

“Yeah,” she says.

“Is that why you seemed mad?”

She nods. “Also I was hungry.”

“Where else did you want to fuck me?” he asks, stepping closer. His eyes have gone dark green. His pupils are wide.

“Everywhere,” she tells him.

“Wanna start with this bed and see how far we get?” His hands settle on her hips, so lightly, as if he’s afraid she’ll pull away. Instead, she drags his head down, breathes against his lips for a moment, and then kisses him.

The universe implodes. That’s what it feels like, anyway. But even if it were the end of all things, she couldn’t stop herself. He smells like pine and musk and his neck tastes like salt and she’s kissing him everywhere, everywhere. He lifts her and she wraps her legs around his waist and he has one arm around her waist and one hand under her ass and his fingers are stroking the outside of her thigh and she thinks if he’s not inside her in the next minute, she’ll just die.

He laughs and she realizes she said that out loud.

“I think so too,” he says. But he’s still dressed, he’s still wearing all his goddamn clothes, and she tugs at his shirt until he takes the hint and drags it over his head. She lets go and works on the button of his jeans. His jeans and his boxers come off together when they shove at them, and then he’s less dressed than she is. He kicks off his shoes and the tangle of denim and silk and she undoes her bra because she trusts his competence, but also she doesn’t. Need has made them so, so foolish.

“I want to,” he says, and swallows the rest of his sentence, but he hooks his thumbs into her panties and she lies back and lifts her hips. He skims the fabric down her legs. There’s hunger in his eyes. She lets him look, dropping her knees wide. He swallows hard and crawls up the bed to lie next to her.

“I wanted this to last,” he tells her.

“Me too,” she says. “I thought it would be different.” The light in his eyes dims slightly. He starts to turn his face away and she presses her palm to his cheek and turns it back. “Mulder, no. I wouldn’t change anything about this.”

“You sure?”

For answer, she kisses him, throwing her leg over his hip. Maybe it’s not what she expected. But she’s had years of self-denial, and she’s finished with that. There will be opportunities later for endless foreplay (as if every interaction since their handshake in the basement hasn’t been foreplay) and romance and slow indulgence, but she doesn’t have the patience for that. She’s already reaching for him, already wrapping her hand around his hand around his cock so they work together to guide him in. It’s such a relief that she almost cries, even though she aches as she stretches to accommodate him. And then he’s moving in her and it’s the rhythm of the universe, the pulse of existence. They’re not being safe and she doesn’t fucking care. He’s inside her, he’s touching her, he’s kissing her, and she’s wrapped around him like she can fuse their bodies together.

Every texture of him is a revelation: the hot satiny skin of his cock, the sleekness of his belly, the light fur on his chest. She knows them all and yet. And yet. It’s so different now. She feels the slickness of his lips and the rough friction of his tongue in her mouth and on her skin. It’s everything. Finally, she’s filled up, satisfied, satiated, maybe for the first time in her life. She wants more, oh God, she wants more of him. She wants to live under his ribs like that conjoined twin. She wants her bones jumbled with his. She wants him to fill her every way he can think of. She wants to buy a whole new range of sex toys and treat him just right. But for now, this is enough.

“More,” she says, and he pushes her onto her back without sliding out of her. She spreads her legs wider. He pins her, lacing his fingers into hers and stretching their arms over her head. His hips jolt as he shoves into her, harder and deeper, and she arches up to meet him. Every cell of her body feels like it’s filled with sparks of pleasure; she could map her nerves for him if she still had the power of speech. But he understands her incoherent cries. He always understands her.

She’s whimpering under him, helpless in the throes of her pleasure. The tingling starts in her extremities and washes through her, a tide rising higher and higher. She can feel his muscles tensing. His stomach is trembling. He’s holding back, wanting her to come first. One day, she thinks, she’ll indulge him, urge him to think of himself, but not tonight. She squeezes around him, taunting him. He groans and looks at her. She smirks at him and he growls in his throat. Now it’s a challenge: he has to make her come first, not just wish for it. He doesn’t let go of her, but drags their joined hands down her body. He rubs their fingers against her clit, tight circles that have her gasping. And then she’s coming, her body bucking under his, and he makes her ride it out before he’ll let go.

“Please,” she says, and he thrusts into her shivering body and she wraps her legs around him and holds him so tight as he buries his face in her shoulder and yells. He tries to roll off her right away but she won’t let go. She wants his weight, all of it, and after a moment he surrenders and lets her take it.

“We’re definitely going to fuck in that chair,” she whispers in his ear after a while.

He laughs into the curve of her neck. “We’re definitely going to fuck a lot of places.”

She kisses his ear and he turns his face so that his lips meet hers. “Making up for lost time.”

He shakes his head slowly, eyes sparkling. “We haven’t lost anything,” he says. “We’ll make our own time.”

For some reason, her eyes prickle with tears. She kisses him again, threads her hands through his hair. She believes him. Maybe they have a future full of flatpack furniture and charming antiques and lazy mornings in bed. Maybe they can celebrate all their cases like this.

“Let them eat cake,” she says, and he laughs again and holds her close.

#leiascully fic #my fic #msr fic #xfiles fic #the x-files fic

90 notes · View notes

celenawrites · 16 days

Text

inspired by this lil rambling I did a while back

The veil on your head sticks to your forehead with perspiration and your fingers ever so slightly shake with nervousness. You stand before a large wooden door, and walking inside the room seems almost impossible for you. You consider calling a raincheck, or maybe running away from this whole arrangement - but your friend pats you comfortingly on your back and you feel somewhat grounded again.

This entire fiasco is for your own benefit, and you don't have any other alternatives.

So you suck it up and push open the wooden door, taking long strides to close the distance between you and your unknown betrothed.

The church is mostly empty save for the groom and a few key witnesses, thanks to a favor the old priest owed to the task force’s captain. The door’s loud creak gives you away, and everyone is now looking at you. Captain Price, the man who orchestrated this union, stands proud and steady as he eyes you down mechanically - possibly an old habit from his time serving in the army for so many years. The old priest stands in front of the pews with bated breath, almost impatient to get this over with. There’s a middle aged woman sitting in the front and she looks at you sharply with disdain, you’d assume she’s part of your betrothed's task force, if it wasn’t for the fact you were intimated last minute that she’s his mother.

And there’s your groom - Sergeant Kyle Garrick, dressed in an all black suit as he eyes you down with what seems to be wonder in his eyes. Apart from them, there seems to be no one else present here.

Your friend adjusts your veil as she walks with you down the aisle. You’re sure that by now, her hand must be throbbing in pain from how hard you’ve gripped her. When it came to tying the knot, you hadn’t exactly envisioned this in your mind - but you try your best to play with the cards you’re dealt anyway.

You almost wish you had dressed elaborately, instead of settling for a short white dress and a rental veil that makes your nape itch - but your wedding called for urgency and you had to ditch the elaborate bridal plans if you wanted to ensure your amenities are not cut off by the end of the month.

With bated breath, you walk down the aisle as you grip onto your friend for some comfort. The walk is finished in minutes, and your friend is quick to leave you standing before your groom and the priest as they take a seat in the pews nearby. You look at Mr. Garrick, and he’s even more ethereal up close. A light scar runs across the span of his left cheek, but it only adds to his charm. His warm brown eyes twinkle like stars under the yellow fluorescent lights lighting up the room. If you had met him under any other circumstance, you’re sure you’d been smitten by now. Maybe you’d have asked him out for coffee…

Almost sensing your nerves, Kyle is quick to flash a kind smile your way and you breathe deeply as you look back at him and smile back a watery smile of your own. For his sake, you’ll suck it up and deal with it just fine - no matter what.

Snapping out of your wishful thinking, you try to concentrate on what the priest is saying, but it is so hard to pay attention to the dronings of an old man when your handsome soon-to-be-husband stands in front of you. You notice that he taps his foot thrice at an interval of eight or so minutes, maybe as a way to deal with his nerves. After all, this is not just your wedding day.

You both soon dot your I’s and cross your T’s as you both give out short, succinct vows and promise each other the promise of love and respect ‘till death do us apart’, which leaves an ashy taste in your mouth. This is not how this was supposed to be, but you both have no other choice in the matter.

The rings are brought out, and you gape at how pretty the diamond looks on the thin platinum band. You wonder how much of his paycheck Kyle had to spend in order to find something this big and beautiful, and you almost feel ashamed for the ring you bought, a simple band with small gems encrusted in it - no cheaper in this economy, but still falling short of what the Sergeant had prepared for you.

With quivering hands you slip his ring onto his finger, and he quickly returns the favor with a steady hand holding onto you, the warmth of his palm feeling awfully nice and comforting against your clammy hands. The priest finally announces, “You may now kiss the bride.”

Fearing the worst, you close your eyes shut as you’re not certain on how to approach this step. You’re no virgin, but kissing a man you barely know (and marrying said man) is something you hadn’t anticipated in your twenty-something years of your life. You feel Kyle wrap an arm around the small of your back gently as he raises the veil on your head - only to give you a chaste peck on the corner of your lips, just shy of giving you a proper kiss. Everyone present in the church let out reluctant claps, calling curtains on the show you both have put out knowing well enough that there is more to come.

Now that the union was finally complete with witnesses and your marriage certificate soon after filed and to be submitted for review, you are looking forward to crashing on a bed and sleeping the day away after gorging out on some much needed junk food. (Especially if you wish to forget how Kyle’s mother has been eyeing you down like some filthy vermin throughout this sham of a wedding, really.)

“Welcome to the married life, Mrs. Garrick”, Kyle is quick to whisper in your ear as he ushers you out of the small church, and you’re yet to decide if you like the way he refers to you as his.

“Can we get some takeout on the way home?” you ask him, and he smiles that brilliant smile your way, the one that makes you just a little weak in the knees.

“Whatever you want, wife.”

#kyle gaz garrick x you #kyle gaz garrick x reader #kyle garrick x reader #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty #cod mwf2 #cod:mw #cod x you #cod angst #cod smut #char.gaz #celena.writes

56 notes · View notes

hometoursandotherstuff · 3 months

Text

I can't believe that this 1966 property didn't sell. It's in Pismo Beach, CA and listed for $2.995M. It's a vacation spot w/RV hookups, but it doesn't have to be, it can be a residence a compound, whatever.

It has some erratic sales history. It was bought in 2003 for $995K; sold in 2005, at a loss, for $500K; in 2022, listed for a jump of a whopping $3.8M; removed from market in 2023; returned to market in 2023 reduced to $3.4; still for sale in 2024, but reduced to $2.995M.

So, the owner bought this property for $500K, and the previous owner took a loss of $495K. The current owners, after 17yrs., want to make a profit of $3.3M and is now down to $2.495M. Wow. But, it doesn't look like he's going to get it.

Anyway, this is the "tree" house, b/c it was built around a huge tree that goes right thru it, so it's actually on the ground. Here we are in the kitchen and you can already see the tree.

The kitchen is cute and has a walk-out to a deck.

You can see how large the tree is. They built a table and stairs around it.

Here, it's going thru a wall.

I don't know why they built that platform in the floor.

Here, the tree branches go up to the 2nd level and one branch exits the house thru outer walls.

The 2nd floor is cozier. It has a door to a covered terrace and it looks like they put a bench seat on one of the branches.

The terrace is lovely, isn't it?

There's a small 3pc bath up here.

Now, we go to this building, called "Good Old Days."

There's kitchen and a dining area.

Nice living room area.

The bedroom has a nice big vintage bath.

Long covered patio in the back of the house.

Next come the larger homes on the property.

It doesn't look like it's being used as a vacation short term rental. Looks like people live here, doesn't it?

Another house. Looks like everything is built around trees and rocks and stuff.

This one's nice. Beautiful stone fireplace.

These are definitely long term rentals.

There are 2 more large homes and this little guest cabin. No kitchen, that must be a pull-out couch, and there's a bathroom.

And, lastly, there's also a Flintstone's cave residence.

The drone couldn't even photograph all of the buildings, but this shot gets most of them on the 6.69 acre property. The listing says it's "Turn Key," but there are long term tenants here.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/765-Price-Canyon-Rd-Pismo-Beach-CA-93449/15391520_zpid/

#unsual properties #unique properties #unique homes #airbnb properties #houses #house tours

128 notes · View notes

bigwishes · 1 year

Note

I always see the guys with the big muscles riding motorbikes.. wish I could meet one, put his helmet on and take his place. Becoming a biker..

You were watching a guy pull into the service station in the middle of the day, not for gas though, he parked in a regular parking spot with a large bike trailer attached to the back. The guy got off and went inside the service station. You awed at the bikes and helmets on the trailer, surely, one quick look wouldn't hurt.

You climbed up on the trailed and began to run your fingers over the bikes. You threw your leg over the top and sat on it, putting your hands on the bars pretending to steer.

You quickly look around to see if the owner is coming back but can see him through the windows way at the back of the station browsing the drinks. You open the helmet trunk and pull out a sleek black helmet. Taking another quick look around you see the coast is clear and you put the helmet on smiling.

*CLICK* suddenly you hear something in the helmet click and it feels like it tightened around your neck and jar. You try to pull it off but it was stuck on your head, you feel your body start to swell. You pants getting thicker in your pants, filling them out with muscle. You arms inflating tearing the sleeves to shreds, but you were too focused on trying to get the helmet off, suddenly the visor flipped down covering your eyes and your world view became dark and tinted. Green digital words flash on the inside of the visor in front of your eyes.

Host Transformation Accepted and Complete Preparing Drone Adaptation

You continued to try and use the new strength in your arms to pull the helmet off as you hear a buzzing begin to get louder and louder until finally **ZAP** you feel a powerful jolt of electricity blast into your head, your arms fell limp to your side and your slouched forward. Words appeared on the inside of the visor once again..

Host Transformation Complete Mental Deletion Complete Drone Creation Complete

You sat there almost lifeless on the bike when you heard a voice from behind you.

"well fuck me bro, here I was trying to trap some guy from grinder to put on the helmet and you just went and did it for me"

You continued to sit there, unable to move, you didn't even feel the want or need to move.

"well, guess I finally got my drone, you'll make me a tonne of money dude"

The question on how you were gonna make him money didn't cross your mind, you didn't even remember what money was.

"alright, aaaand, sold, a bloke just sent me a request, advertised and taken within minutes. You'll get your instructions drone"

Words appeared on the inside of the visor in front of your eyes

Address: ## ### ### Instructions: Weekend Rental - Obey Temporary Master Body Modification Request: Weekend Dick Shrinkage As Temporary Master's Request

You mindlessly walked the bike backwards down the trailer ramp, turned it to the street and effortlessly started the bike and rode off to the programmed location to follow out your instructions.

#male transformation #muscle #muscle transformation #male tf #gay transformation #tf story #transformation #muscle drone

303 notes · View notes

yxstxrdrxxm · 8 months

Text

SYNOPSIS: Knowing too much may become your downfall: that was the motto that Kaeya lived with until the day he dies.

TW/s: delusional thinking, yandere tendencies, unrequited love, toxic dynamic/s, implications for Diluc’s matchup + darling, conniving bastard won’t say a fucking word, master manipulator, we are going down the memory lane of “fucking people up”, nsfw tws include human trafficking, experimentation, operating on individuals and other things. Please dni if you are uncomfortable.

NOTE FROM HR: Happy Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, it seems that Kaeya has a few things he’d like to express. I do wonder what they are, considering he did seem a bit somber…

Kaeya was never expecting to be able to get ‘in’ to such a tight-knit company like this, and especially when his lineage can cause people to raise some eyebrows. After all, no one in their right mind would have the chance of employing someone and getting them on the waitlist when they value the sense of ‘authenticity’ to their rentals.

And for him, he might be right. They do value that, but now, it seems they decided to forego their morals for how pretty he looked in the standards of the human population all across the globe.

Now, Celestia Inc. isn't all that bad. It's not that glorious as people make it out to be, all due to its shady past, but it was enough that people don't bother to raid it one day in hopes of having to take it down. After all, they are everywhere online: people may mention their sudden rise in certain niches, and some even mention their still standing operations. One of them was, surprisingly enough, MixMatch.

A dating site.

Back then, it was closed for a group of people to join. A payment for being a 'rental boyfriend', with its payment costs going as high as one can dream. They pay you at least 10 million when you manage to get matched with someone, and entertain them enough that they'd be satisfied. If they aren't, you get 5 to compensate for your troubles.

To Kaeya, this doesn't seem to be a 'dream come true'. To him, he knows that this feels more like a ploy to get others to join in. It was a marketing strategy, so when people join this 'free' and 'hot on the app store' dating app and website, they'd get traction oh so quickly.

He didn't like the idea. It sickened him. But he couldn't be bothered to correct them.

When he joined, he found that it was the same as those corporations he worked at prior. As a host in the past, he managed to get himself used to the workflow and gained traction in over a month. He's heard others comment on how he seemingly captured the public's eye from how different he is, and from his reputation from other countries, they were coming in like drones.

He liked the attention he's got because of that. And yet, for him, it all felt rather empty. Like it wasn't meant to be this long-lasting, and he needed— no, he craved for more.

He was greedy. A greedy man with a hollow heart.

Each smile he sent to his clients was not a genuine smile. Each wink and 'kind' gesture was all a ruse. A stage performance. He didn't feel anything for these people, and he didn't even feel the same as they do. Each confession they have for him was always met with the hollow words of 'I do feel the same way that you do', only to see them get the safer way to go.

He's aware of the dark side of MixMatch. After all, their Boss was nothing short of a past harbinger who stepped down. No one knows his name, no one knows who they are— but their workers all fear him.

He's seen him order the cleaners to get rid of the drugged clients. He's watched them all go down in their homes, ransack and ruin the place, and return with the client gagged and in a drugged rest. He watched with emptiness as they were then operated on with shady doctors, Dottore having a hand in some of these as he used their bodies for his sick desires.

He watched them become human sacks, their bodies empty of their organs but full of salt and junk, and for Dottore to tell them to take the organs down 'below'. He watched them become tied, their jello-like body being tossed to another set where they would be disposed of.

It's a fucked up operation.

Everyone knows this when they get signed up.

And yet, because of regulations, they can never breathe a word of what goes behind the scenes. Not to their friends, families, their coworkers, therapists, no.

Not a single word can be escaped from the confines of Celestia Inc.

If you asked him how his first date went, Kaeya would answer that it went… Interesting.

Sof was definitely the type many would like, especially for a casa nova like him. She isn’t too picky with who she wants, and her affectionate behavior made it easier for the duo to banter. However, what he didn’t like was the fact she’s blind to any sign of danger.

Such is the payment of being the ideal girl many would date, he mused. But I don’t like people who can’t see what danger is, much less even enable that without thinking that they will get hurt, too.

Kaeya is picky with what he likes from someone, and it’s why he’s so high maintenance. To his credit, though, he makes it obvious in his profile. He wanted someone that would be responsible, that would be able to handle the spontaneity of their dates, and that they won’t even judge him if things were going somewhere that isn’t in their plans.

And although many did swipe right on him, he looked through their profiles before checking to see if they were worth it. The answer? None of them were.

Well, except a few, like Sof.

Which is why he’s now regretting that decision, as he realized that she’s simply not the one he preferred to stay with. She was interesting, but he disliked those who can’t even see past the warning signs that go to their face. He found it more or less… Idiotic, in his standards.

Alas, he needed to keep pretending. That’s what he’s good at, after all.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked Sof as they left the restaurant, his easy-going smile present on his face. “I have a few places we can go to next. Although, since it’s getting a bit late, we can plan on heading back home after a short shopping trip.”

“Oh! Uh… Yeah, we can go out and get some groceries. I wanted to try baking when we get home,” Sof replied, a pep in her step as they walked to where he parked his motorcycle. “Hehe, I didn’t know you were a cat person, Kaeya. Have you owned a cat before?”

“You can say that,” he answered, tossing a coin and catching it deftly with one hand—a small trick he’s used to doing when they were simply chatting. “I own a maine coon back home. My brother, Diluc, isn’t a fan of cats. Never was, anyway, since one scratched him when he was young.”

Granted, they were both young and their father warned him, but he knew they were both too mischievous to listen. It was why Diluc hated cats, even when he became a magnet to them.

“Really? Hehe, that’s funny! I remember a friend of mine who hates cats…”

Try as Kaeya might, he could only tune out what Sof was saying. There was a sense of difficulty in paying attention to someone he doesn’t really enjoy being around. He thought of the matches he swiped as those who he really wanted to be with, but meeting with Sof, he felt disappointed.

He didn’t see her as someone that fits his needs. She was just another one of the fakes he had to deal with later. Such a shame. He was starting to like her, too.

Alas, she isn’t perfect. She needs to be perfect. And he’s starting to get annoyed at the sound of her voice.

Too loud. Too piercing. Too imperfect.

No, she can never fit his standards. She never will.

“Kaeya?”

“Mm?” he hummed, seeing her grab her helmet and his hands instinctively grabbing his own. Realizing what he was doing, he laughed.

“Sorry, I just did them while I was zoning out. Hop on, Sof, we need to go to the nearest store and get those supplies.”

“Oh! Of course, hold on!”

He could feel the motorcycle move as Sof got on behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. It reminded him of those scenes in romance movies, where the girl will cling onto her potential lover as they rode off, the sun setting in the background.

He recalled seeing it and feeling that it could be him with his lover, riding off the sunset and simply enjoying the air. The golden hour setting just right, the rays hitting their complexion as he looked at them. He remembered just how lovesick he got at the idea, he craved for that same feeling when he grew older.

Such wild fantasies. He needed to work for it, but how could he, when the people he met were too imperfect?

Riding off, he could see the scene play out. However, his eyes were focused on the road, his ears straining for the beeps and sounds around them. He needed to focus on where he was going, lest he, too, will drive off somewhere else.

Despite the noise that he heard, his mind remained clear.

He knew what needed to be done.

Kaeya had so many things he's kept secret. Every client he has met, he's kept a secret that he can never tell.

Including the ones he sees ever so often.

It was a normal day when he came to the company as usual (and way before things went haywire, oddly enough), and he was assigned with yet another person to go on a date with. Although, the one he was assigned to date next had their form already in the red.

It all screamed imperfect to him. It just looked as though someone pushed her to do it all in one go, especially with the direct bias of seeing who she really likes in her profile.

It made him scowl.

How dumb were they to assign someone like that to him?

"█d████, are you sure you'll be assigning me with her?" Kaeya asked the matchmaker, watching them sigh as they gave him a look. "You know my tastes and all, but their form is rushed. I'm surprised that you haven't bothered trying to get them with someone else."

"Look, Kae, I tried. I tried, okay? But the others that fit them are taken by their previous matches. There is no way that they would simply accept getting switched like that," they explained, trying to assign his match. "Besides, we're running out of time. We need to get it sorted before the Boss gets mad!"

Kaeya scoffs. Seriously? They're always so concerned about someone else, it's ridiculous... And laughable, to boot.

"What will the boss do, hm? Would he come down and interfere?" he taunted them, scowling. "You and I know that he doesn't bother to try. All he does is simply hide himself in there because he's become too paranoid to even care."

"Paranoid? Paranoid? Please, Kaeya, do you honestly think he'd be too paranoid when he's raised a hand against me and the others?"

Kaeya's eyes narrowed. It was true that he raised a hand against them, but that simply proved his point. He didn't exactly understand why they would be so scared of a middle aged man that may drop dead over what happened weeks ago.

"Oh, that's right. You guys are paid enough to not care, don't you?" they taunted, laughing at his face. It sounded so... Forced. Mocking, even. It sounded like they were at their wits end with him, like the stress from the job got to their head.

"Yeah. Yeah, that seems to be it. You all have no remorse after being serial murderers, huh? And for what, your clients?"

"I'd stop talking if I were you, █████e," he warned, but they laughed at his face once more.

"Me? Stop? Never! You guys are all such a pain, I'm tired of playing nice!"

Even if Kaeya wanted to, he had to hold his tongue. Watching their face contort to mania, he was reminded of why the job was so twisted to the point of being inhumane.

It drives their workers into madness.

Watching Cupid lose it, he stepped back, mumbling an apology as he turned to leave. Even when he closed the door, he could still hear the echoes of their laughter, soon followed with sobbing. He knew that they were at their limit, but still...

...

He watched Eros come by, giving him a knowing look.

"Did you push them over the edge?" Eros asked, scowling. "They're going to leave the company after this week. Don't make this harder than it has to be, Alberich."

"I didn't expect them to break this much and you know it, Eros," he reasoned, but they only shook their head and walked off towards their office.

"That doesn't mean that you and everyone else weren't at fault."

Watching Eros enter their office, he could only sigh. Perhaps he's in a bit of denial, but he didn't think that she, of all people in the industry, would ever say that.

It truly goes to show where his dedication and loyalty lies.

If there was one thing he was right on, it would be his second date.

Unlike Sof, his date with Eli did not go as well as he had feasibly hoped for. Maybe he had his doubts set too high, because he was convinced that she simply wasn’t fit for the app as a whole. To him, he had thought that she would ever learn from her mistakes, but the way she acted like she was the one being inconvenienced irked him.

He hated that she’s too avoidant. He hated those types of people.

To him, he never understood why you’d go on the app to find love. Will you ever treat those you dislike the same way? Act like you were the one being inconvenienced, and not the one that has to deal with your childish acts?

Kaeya can be mischievous in his own way, yes, but even he has decorum. And frankly, he despised those who think they can act so two-faced with him. He isn’t a fool.

While his date was busy acting like they were in a good relationship (and not one where she wanted to ditch him in the middle of the day), he took the chance to check on his phone. Already, he could see notifications from TeyvaTweets, rambling about how her recent date is not the one for her.

[ I wanted Alhaitham or Wriothesley, but this guy swiped right instead. ]

[ He’s pretty, but I don’t really like him all that much lol. ]

[ Oh god im gonna get back on my date, going to lyk if it goes horribly. ]

He turned the phone off and frowned. He didn’t want to show it, but he does sometimes wonder if her being nice was simply just a ploy to keep him entertained. After all, she has expressed (on her private account, that is) that she’d drop Kaeya to “go after that hottie”, whilst attaching the photo of the boss of MixMatch.

What a joke.

They all know that the Boss would simply use her and leave her to rot. No one would look at him, go through his background, and tweet at how they can still try to get to him. ‘To get to know him better’, as one would say.

“Hey, uh, I gotta go. I have to go to the hospital to check on them.”

Lies. He knew she didn't. Besides, she couldn’t be bothered to look him straight in the eye as she told him. What is he, an idiot?

Still, he was glad it was over. Putting on a face of mock concern, his brows furrowed and he spoke.

“Oh? I see… Do you need me to drive you there?”

“No need! I can handle it,” Eli answered, packing up her things as they left the cafe awkwardly. “I’m so sorry if we have to cut it short. You must have so many plans for our date today, especially when things are getting hectic in the agency.”

Kaeya laughed, but not out of amusement. It was simply out of… politeness, in a way. Sure, he had work to do with the agency, but what they’re doing is far more different. And for him, he could hardly care if he had lost that job because he decided to slack off.

After all, he knew his date didn’t bother to give him the respect he deserved. So why should he do that in return? He’s bound to see her tweet again about this ‘awful experience’ or something.

“It's alright, I was thinking it’d come to this. I’ll catch you later then.”

Waving at Eli, he watched as she did the same and left, though the sight of her walking so stiffly as if she was scared of him brought him a bit of amusement in return. When he was sure she was gone, he lowered it with a sigh.

Another failed date, and this one was the worst he’s gotten. Unlike Sof, he didn’t feel all too bad about Eli—after all, both of them never liked each other, so why should he?

Pulling up his phone, he began to dial someone’s number. He, truthfully, never thought of needing help from the likes of him, but he had to call it when the truth was staring at him in the face.

That he and a few others needed their services to deal with a few too many bad matches, and especially ones that want to get near to those that will never look twice. Especially those who thought of him as a good guy for his actions.

Then, he clicks the call button. And it starts to ring.

He could vaguely feel it vibrate as he waited for someone to answer. The caller ID was someone that he knew too well, and especially with how their relationship is like after everything that has happened.

Each time he didn’t feel them pick up, he could only sigh and head to his ride. He knew they were avoiding it, but he wasn’t going to let up until he’s sure they’d take the call.

…

And when he felt his hopes dwindle, he felt the vibration of his phone stop, alongside a gruff and annoyed voice.

“Kaeya. I thought you and I agreed not to call each other when we’re both busy in work hours.”

“Hmm, we have, but I just needed to ask you a bit of favor, mr. Diluc,” he replied, humming in amusement. “Are you still looking for people that can help you with the wine tasting? Especially that new brew you made?”

He could hear Diluc take a deep breath, and the sigh that followed made him smile a tad wider. Even when they were all twisted in their way, he knew that Diluc remained the same way that Kaeya always knew him to be.

It’s a shame, though. They aren’t as close as he remembered, especially after what happened years ago.

“... Yes, I am. I found some that are willing, but they haven’t come back to inform me when they’ll be available.”

“I see… Well, I have someone I would love for you to meet. I’m sure you’ll like her—she fits you just right.”

No man could say a single soul what Kaeya is capable of.

Some rumored that he was a demented man, masquerading as but as a young police officer who’s mischievous and doesn’t enjoy spending long hours in his work. Others, though, say that he may be one of those people who are involved in the mess that was the Ghost Killings, at how his smile and demeanor can be so… off-putting.

As for his beloved, the one he deemed to be perfect, well… It would be neither. Kaeya was Kaeya, after all. Even if he were to be sick in the head, there was no way in Hell would anyone be able to get a single word from him.

Descending downstairs, Kaeya looked over at the room he’s decorated all for his beloved. The one he was truly, truly meant to be was all kept safely in there, double locked for his safety, and so that no one may find them. Grabbing the keys, he began to insert them in the padlocks and turn them, pushing the door open when he was done getting through the restraints.

Laid before him was his own personal darling, all laid so pretty and docile on the bed he set for him. Sure, he couldn’t speak, for his mouth had been gagged, but those dull eyes spoke more than Kaeya’s one eye could ever hope for.

“I’m home, darling,” he called out, the lovesick man stumbling to the rather complacent lover he had in his house. “Oh, I do hope I haven’t left you rotting here for so long, my dearest. Work has been exhausting for me to deal with.”

They hadn’t said a word to him, but he didn’t care. It was almost like he heard them whisper something to him, making him laugh like he was demented.

“You’re jealous? Over what, pray tell?”

Silence. Then another beat of laughter, this time more unhinged and loose than the first.

“Over them? Darling, you wound me! They’re far, far too imperfect. I have simply made sure that the ones I got were to be taken care of. You always said you wanted to have their eyes.”

Oh, he’s aware of what happened to Ba. Ba had an accident years, years ago. Their relationship had been rocky, sure, but that accident had led Kaeya to go through grief. It was almost ironic, for he experienced the first of it by his adoptive father dying.

He was unable to do anything for his adopted father. Diluc resented him for his inaction, thus, their separation. And with poor Ba… He resents the world for taking him away.

The first time he’s felt love was during college with Ba, but it was the first toxic one he had. He hadn’t been the best man for his first love, and it led to them having arguments and extreme disagreements. It wasn’t always like this, but it hurts Kaeya when they fight.

It hurts to see the person he adored too much to hate him. Spew his name out like it’s a sin.

So when Ba died during the height of their biggest fight, Kaeya was going through it again. However, he had the means to… Assist Ba in his partings.

All it truly took was the cost of his heart and his eyes to get back what’s his.

Tracing over the open chest, he grabbed the bloodied, unbeating heart that he got from Eli’s corpse. Ah, it was too imperfect, but slotting it inside Ba’s felt like it was meant to be. Those eyes he took from another girl had been replaced, slotting in the ones from Sol.

He always resented those that couldn’t see, nor those who couldn’t feel.

But now, looking at his lover who owned those faults, he couldn’t help but laugh and love them all the same.

Ba is now complete. Kaeya knows that.

And yet those tears still fell as the beat of his heart was the only one left in the world.

The world that took Ba away, and his humanity along with it.

@.throw-letter-away | do not republish or repost my works anywhere | 2024

54 notes · View notes

writingcold · 23 days

Text

Chapter Six - Revelations happening… well. Maybe a few.

Content Warnings: I need to put this here - this is a work of fiction. There will be imagery of violence, character deaths, inequities, poverty, heavy angst, and adult sexual situations throughout the story. Please read at your own discretion. All characters are fictional, though some of the big events that are shown are historical, but may not be historically accurate.

Thank you to @edgingthedarkness for all of her help as my all mighty beta for this fiction. She listened to me drone on and on about it for months on end. She really took a bullet for this one! She created the banner for this story as well! Also thank you to @katuschka for her amazing skills in bringing our hero Jakub to life. Divider art by @ firefly-graphics.

Also, I need to add this for this chapter, we have a poem addition. You can find the full poem “The Good-Morrow” by John Donne here at the Poetry Foundation.

The Dead

Jake X Fem!Reader

Chapter Six word count: approximately 4800 words

Warnings in this part: None. A bit of falling in love, perhaps a remembered kiss, but no warnings. It’s all from her POV, no ghosty this week.

Chapter 6: Gobsmacked in the Graveyard

“I need a few more weeks here,” I said, pouring hot water into my waiting cup.

“Y/n, I’ve been going over the stuff you sent,” Vin replied, the sound of papers rustling across their voice. “It’s good. It’s damn good. I’m not going to fight you on that, but wouldn’t you be more comfortable in something other than that hotel room? I can find a rental.”

“I’m good here,” I said. “And I don’t have to clean.”

It had been a few days since my meeting with Uther Mason. He sent me a few drabbles of information but the path of Jake Thomas was finished. The notion still stung, but on the flip side, I was fleshing out actual story matter - structure, frame, parts, components. The publisher was happy of course - I was creating. It was not the content that resided with my brain, however. I longed to figure out this puzzle of Yakov in the cemetery. What was the connection that he could become Jake? Had they been one in the same?

My story was revolving around a ghost - one trapped in a graveyard for centuries. Sound familiar? It was fine as far as story arcs can go. Vinny was ever the cheerleader, so I allowed my brain to feed off of their supportive feedback. But really, I wanted to only write what was in front of me - the entity in this tiny cemetery that seemed to be locked in time. I wondered if they had only lived two lifetimes. I wondered about the stories it could tell.

I wanted to run another test. If the ghost could hear his music and transform into the guitar player, I wondered what he would do if he could ‘see’ his artwork. Perhaps I could bait him into ‘seeing’ one of the landscapes on the phone if he were drawn in by his music. The idea struck as I was wrapping up with my dear editor with a promise to check in with them in a few days. I wondered if he would shift to look more like the sketch in the tourist center display. Having studied the picture, there were differences between the sketch and the ghost. The man in the sketch was thinner like Guitar Jake, but his face was not as sharp as the musician. The sketch held the subtle cleft in the chin, the soft, full mouth, but his hands were more graceful, his body strong, but not like that of the entity. The stray thought that perhaps it was not Yakov that was haunting the cemetery had come in the middle of the night as I retched into the toilet as a consequence of not listening to when I needed my meds.

Due to rain, any trip to the cemetery was on hold. Instead, I returned to the library, trying to find anything on Yakov Petrov, but he was just as much a ghost as the thing out in the cemetery. I had pulled every art book, every founding of the county tome that the library had and I just could not find even a scrap. My brain must’ve been sending up flares as I glared at the mess before me. Becca appeared out of the corner of my eye, looking across the scattered books and notebooks. It must’ve looked like I was turning into that crazed guy with the ‘murder’ board. I just didn’t have the cigarette to wave around to punctuate my frustration.

“All okay back here?” she asked calmly, as if I was projecting little black rain clouds around her library.

“Sorry - was my mood casting a dark shadow?” I quipped.

“Not at all,” she insisted. “Well. Not true. I may have heard growling, howling and the gnashing of teeth, but nothing that would otherwise disrupt anyone in here.”

I laughed. I laughed probably a bit too much, but it felt good. Her cheeks and eyes warmed at the sound.

“I can’t seem to find this man - anywhere,” I said, pulling the landscape art book towards me, my fingers pointing at the picture of Yakov Petrov. “He was an artist that was here to do the early surveys of the state and county. But I’ll be damned if I can find a scrap of information.”

Her head was tilted as she looked across the few pages that held his work. “Oh, these were a few that I helped to pick out for the center down the street.”

“That’s where I first saw them, yes. I found this one in particular-”

“You know who you should talk to…” She waved her hand and ducked back to the desk before returning with her cell phone. “Steven Andresen. He’s our county clerk. His family goes way, way back. He really knows his history and has those records at the government building in really good shape. I’m sure he could find something on your artist.”

“I can-”

She was texting at a fever pitch and a glint in her eye. Her phone was pinging loudly and I was looking around to see if anyone was bothered by the noise. Her smile was dazzling as she read her message and started to text once more.

“Are you doing anything this afternoon?” she asked with a grin. When I shook my head, she nodded. “Perfect. He has his afternoon free today.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, secretly happy for the help.

“Ah, you know how these small towns work,” she said, tucking her phone into her skirt pocket. “Besides, he’s my brother-in-law. He’ll be ready for you at about 2:30. It also means a trip over to Saginaw. You can get over there, right?”

I nodded as I started shoving things into my backpack. She winked at me as I thanked her. Looking at my phone for the time, I knew I should get things straight before I left. She had retreated and was helping a family navigate the children’s section as I waved at her. I would have just enough time to get some lunch and check in with Gran. I called her while I sat in the diner, a steaming cup of coffee between my shivering hands. I would have to invest in an actual coat as the temps were starting to dip below what my heavy sweater was meant for, or perhaps I should just make the point of going home to get more stuff. The hour and a half drive wouldn’t be awful. Perhaps surprise Gran with lunch. There was an idea to simmer for a day or two.

The county government building in Saginaw was a big square with large trees that lined it on three sides. It had lots of brick and lots of windows. I made my way inside and up the stairs to the second level. Tucked in the north corner was the County Records Clerk’s office. I was greeted by a man who probably held the nickname of stretch for too many years. He stood with a smile and an outstretched hand.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Andresen,” I said, finding my hand ridiculously small in his palm.

“Oh, please, call me Steve,” he said with a smile. “I understand from Becca that you are researching for publication purposes?.”

“Sort of. I’m trying to develop a story and its characters. Becca’s something else - amazing, always,” I remarked with a soft laugh.

“Yeah, she is a lot. But she’s ours. She told me you are looking for the initial surveys of the county?” he asked, turning to reach behind him. “Namely the artists.”

“Yes. One in particular,” I started, explaining that I was interested in Yakov Petrov, citing the unfinished piece in the tourist center, but also the other artists that were in the Saginaw County survey in particular.

He was nodding, his fingers drifting across a set of tomes that looked odd together. One was a large ledger while the other was an inky black, leather bound affair. He shifted as I could not make it not obvious that I was staring at the pair of books.

“I was able to pull these two to get you started,” he replied, pointing to a small study table for me to retreat to. “I have more. It’s not often that these materials are requested for use. Why don’t you start with these and I’ll see what else I can find.”

My fingers itched as I realized he had set down before me an original expedition sketchbook that had been rebound sometime in the 1920s, and a landowners ledger for the very young county dating from the 1850s forward. He handed me a set of cotton gloves before disappearing behind his desk and into another area of his office. Digging out my laptop and opening up the notes and pictures that I had taken at the survey exhibit at the visitor’s center, I knew that this sketchbook was by Christian Hertel, the artist who was the exhibition leader that took the commission to survey the stretch that would become Saginaw County. I felt my skin quivering as I opened the tight cover, cradling the precious pages as they crinkled and popped as I dared to delve into the aged information.

Each drawing was a look into the savage and wonder of land. I started to recognize pieces of the completed works, my heart fluttering knowing that if it had working sketches for the overall pieces, then perhaps… Slow the fuck down, I was scolding myself every time I felt my brain racing forward in search of him. I focused on tiny sketches of wildflowers and blades of grass that were native to the ground. The way Hertel recorded how the bark of a white pine crackled and formed a pattern, or the sedimentary lines of a deep cut creek was mesmerizing. He was a very organized, skilled mind in how he approached structure and labeling each picture to paint at a later date. Ten pages from the back there were the first strokes of what was a man in silhouette. These were private. The thought hit me as I followed the line of a jaw to the curve of an ear. I swallowed as I tried to remain objective, but it was hard when a set of eyes, dark and full of mischief peered from the page from across nearly a hundred years to strike me.

It was Yakov. It was how Hertel saw Yakov. A blush crossed my cheek as another featured the artist looking over his shoulder, much like what was posed in the visitor’s center, but this one, the shoulder was bare. I inhaled slowly as the swiped lines of his hair that curled and lapped at his ears, and the thick, heavily pressed line of the detail on the shoulder made it look meaty; it was luscious to look at this random thought of a man from so long ago.

I snapped a few pictures of these sketches, as well as the cover and opening pages of the sketchbook for information keeping. The ledger was a record of early landowners and I could match up the sketches in Hertel’s book to plots that were villages that would eventually become towns and cities. My eyes fell on swirled lettering that I could not wrap my brain around for a few beats. I traced it with a cotton clothed finger, feeling the sink of the hand that made it.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, realizing that it was the signature of Yakov Petrov.

I had to look away and return my gaze to fully realize what I was looking at. This was the artist’s own handwriting. His signature. My heart hurt looking at it. The ‘C’ of the Jacob stone… It was Yakov’s hand. A quavering sound passed my lips as the fact slapped me hard. It was his hand that was the ‘C’...

“I found these that you might be interested in,” Steve’s voice broke my train of thought. He stopped to look at me, a few more books in his arms. “You alright?”

I could only guess what I looked like. I felt like a whimpering mass of goo as I tried to collect my professional self and shove her to the fore to hide this idiot who couldn’t keep it together. I nodded and swiped a hand across my hair nervously.

His eyes trained down to the ledger that I had opened and the sketchbook that was still open to the final picture of Yakov that had him draped in a bearskin coat. His hair was below his shoulders in that one, his eyes were shaded a little more with age and experience.

“Oh, you made it to the end of that one.” Steve readjusted his books to pull out a matching black leather bound book to hand out to me. “I forgot we had this one as well.”

He probably thought I was the strangest person to set foot in the archives. If he only knew. I turned towards him to accept the second leather bound book. I flipped the cover and stopped. Once more, I was welcomed in with Yakov’s commanding penmanship. A little sticker on the inside cover labeled it as Petrov’s personal log, with dates, date of submission to Saginaw County, and how the book was rebound in 1964. I felt a wave crash over me as I traced a finger across the man’s writing.

“You’re shitting me,” I whispered in reverence.

He laughed as I took in the fact that this was Yakov Petrov’s personal journal. Dated 1860, my brow pinched as I whispered that fact out loud. “That’s odd. The commission, according to Hertel’s book, started in 1855, but this journal is dated 1860?”

I set the book in my lap as I reached for Hertel’s book, opening it to the first entries with the correct dates. I glanced up at Steve as he leaned over my shoulder, eyes trained on both books.

“It’s been a few years since I have looked at these, but yes,” he said with a nod. “I think that Petrov was either copying his original journals, or he was writing from memory - but the pictures are very similar to Hertel’s to not be drawn in the same areas at the same time.” He set down another, much larger sketch book with Hertel’s name on a label on the spine. “Hertel and Petrov were credited for cataloging more of Saginaw County than any other group.”

He nodded before quietly retreating back to his desk, leaving me alone to discover what I had come to find. The light smell of vanilla wafted into my nose as I turned the first page to reveal the working sketch of his Sault Ste. Marie painting. But this was wrong. The vantage was skewed. The port was still there, but a manor house was tucked into the edge. It seemed to be the focus of the sketch, rather than the harbor below. A field of tall grasses seemed to sway on soft lake breezes as the house stood in… ruin. Frowning, I reached for my backpack and dug around until I found Grandpa’s magnifying glass. Indeed, the walls were battered and broken. The glass that remained in the windows appeared to be less than intact. One of three balconies was tattered and hanging precariously at an angle. The other two balconies were ragged affairs, but still attached to the body of the house. Beneath the smallest of these terraces, tucked amongst the swirls and jagged broken bricks were letters.

“Belong here,” I read aloud.

My breath caught. I forced my quivering fingers to turn the page to find he had started to record plants and trees, rocks and how the forest followed the water, or maybe it was how the water carved through the trees. His words were sparse, allowing for the drawings to guide the eye through the wonder that he was recording. Where Hertel was precise and exact, Yakov was delicate, picking up the finest of details to draw the heart into discovery.

I took notes as I progressed, recording items within pictures here and there when his text ambled forward to encompass their location and weather conditions. How he must’ve seen this land to record it. My heart was sloshing around with each new reveal. There was not much text to start, save for the little label of what this tree or what that flower was, perhaps the name of a river or lake. But then his words began to flow. The man’s mind was very clear cut and forthwith. As personal entries began to be mixed in with the sketches of land and trees, his life was not so hard to see. In the middle, I was stunned to see a face staring out at me. Wolfishly handsome, this man had a sharp, heavy brow line and narrow chin, and was young, with a hunger in his crisp, intelligent eyes that was alluring despite the way they seemed to be harshly calculating. The hair was caressing his cheeks and his thin mouth was… Playful. The word struck me, causing me to blush. I turned back and it was very clear that this face was that of Christian Hertel. Interesting.

I dug into the journal with the intent of discovering more about Yakov, and he was there, but his words were always bending towards Hertel. I wondered if they were lovers, such were the phrasing and clear adoration that Yakov held for the man. I asked if I could photograph certain pages and sketches of the journal, as well as the ledger. Steve did not much mind, admitting it was nice to have someone taking interest.

“I have more information about Hertel than I do on Petrov, honestly. This journal is all we really have other than his mention on the expedition notes and of course, the finished paintings and drawings that were submitted.”

“Wait,” I stammered as the realization hit me. “This was a land owner's record…”

I turned my attention back to the ledger and Yakov’s signature was squarely settled into a property as an ‘owner’ in 1861 and turned over at the time of death in 1873 to the county, and then the state.

“What does this mean?” I asked, pointing at the entry.

Steve bent his lanky frame over the table to look closer. He was nodding. “Ah, yeah. It looks like Petrov owned the parcel at those coordinates. It makes me wonder if the county didn’t sell the land –”

He went to his computer with a muffled explanation that it looked like the parcel was west of the area of Frankenmuth. He was typing rapidly with brief pauses. He was shaking his head as he looked over at me.

“Unfortunately, his parcel of land is now part of the golf course,” he said, with the curl of his lip.

My shoulders slumped. That little piece of hope that there might be something that still was of this man slipped away faster than I could have imagined. I spent a little more time in the archives, mostly studying the various pictures from both journals. The intimate pictures of how they saw each other was haunting.

Two more days of rain held me at bay. I drove home to Ypsilanti and allowed Vin to invest in a rental for another two weeks. It was nice being in the same space as Gran and having a Sunday supper with her and Owen joined us albeit residing on a screen, but it was good. I tried to explain to Gran what I was focusing on, but I was so all over the place, that I finally gave up and said ‘ghost in the graveyard’ kind of thing. Of course, my usual response from her was ‘you’ll figure it all out, love’.

The new digs were set on the fringe of town, but that was all right. I got myself resituated - my story boards, character paths, etc. had more room to breathe. There was a perfect window that nearly spanned the entire dining room wall that allowed me to stare out in dense woods while checking myself into my new little universe.

Finally, the rain stopped and it was time to try out my next little test at The Redeemer. I collected my resolve as I set up my phone. I had the audio file on loop and the photo of the Christian sketch ready to be set on the bench. The reaction was not immediate. In fact, the entity was nowhere in sight. I stepped away, retreating to the other side of the path. I may have whispered a few ‘please, please, please’ with fingers crossed as I waited. At the twenty minute mark, I was ready to give up. I was hungry and bored. A bad combination. But then to add frustration was just fuel for the fire.

Movement behind the Jacob stone caught my eye. He was so faint. Only his hand appeared at first, followed by his shoulder and finally his torso. The soft looking white linen shirt was replaced with a gray, no frills t-shirt with short sleeves. He appeared to be wearing black jeans, but his form was shimmering between nothing and a faded picture of a reflection. It was like his energy was sporadic. The hair spilled down his back, whispering beyond the midline of taut muscles. His face was sharp as his eyes narrowed to near slits on his approach.

“Jake,” I whispered, more for myself than anything else.

The ghost was slow to move, and seemed to flicker forward instead of the graceful sweeping movements that I had seen of him. He stopped, chin tipped downward as if he were looking at the source of his sound once more. I wondered what he saw there. I found myself distracted in a line of thoughts of how strange it must be to see such a device. So sidetracked in my own brain, I lost my footing as I rocked back, my foot came down on a stick that snapped loudly. Jake’s eyes rolled up in my direction. But it was not Jake that was looking towards me. The eyes were harder. The body was lean, but not nearly as razor sharp as the guitarist. However, it was also not as well muscled as Yakov…

Wait.

The notion couldn’t be correct.

Could it?

The being before me with his short hair that curled over his ears and tickled his collar was Yakov. It was Yakov with a soft cream colored linen shirt that was encased in a five button vest that cut across his waist and crossed under his breastbone. Over the vest was a dark blue frock coat that had broad buttons that would have been high fashion of the mid-1800’s. A glimmer of his tall, well fit boots wrapping around his calves caught my eye and it made sense - this was a man from the 1850’s, he would be dressed as such - an adventurer.

Wait.

My brain burned.

The figure moved away, his sullen face heart breaking with emotions.

This was Yakov.

But that left me to wonder…

Just who in the hell was it in the cemetery?

The form retreated into the shadows. I couldn’t move, so rooted I was to the ground. If Yakov… Oh shit. My eyes moved to the headstone and I needed to move. I needed to touch it. I grabbed my phone, closing out of the picture and the audio file. I opened the folder that would get me to the pictures I had taken of the Yakov Journal. I was before the Jacob stone, fingers tracing over the ‘C’ and sure as shit there it was - the same swirls, the same flair.

“Oh my fuck,” I whispered.

I was beyond spooked. Whatever it was that I had been seeing was older than the 1850’s man that I had just witnessed. My thoughts were spiraling. The being had experienced lifetimes. Whatever afterlife there was had been withheld from him. Why? Why would such a fate befall him?

Overwhelmed and exhausted, I fell back to the car. I barely registered the drive back to town, nearly returning to the hotel rather than the rental place. After making the correction, I pushed my way into the softly decorated space, letting my things fall wherever they wanted as I stepped towards the dining room table - the sight of all my research laid out for my eyes to feast over. And most of it was simply wrong. It left me wondering what kind of fucked up rabbit hole I had fallen into.

I am unsure how long I had stood there before my hands went to work. I pushed my stuff on Jake far to the right - that was information I knew I could count on. In the center, I made a sign that held Yakov Petrov’s name and life dates. Then I had all the printed off pictures of the journal and his work. That too, was information I could count on. All the way to the left, was a sign that simply said - what the fucker with a printed picture of the blurred ghost.

My realization that my initial thought about the Jacob stone being different eras had returned to me when I touched the ‘C’. I could still feel the sharp but shallow strikes of the chisel of creation on my fingertips. What a ridiculous notion. Could the entity have lived five lifetimes - a lifetime for each letter of Jacob? I needed to shut down my tired brain. I needed to bind it up and lock it away for a while…

⭒☾ “And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.”

The words of the poem continued in my voice but I could not feel my mouth moving. The sound of the waves on the shore and the sea birds call told me I was with him - Jakub. My heart felt heavy as I slowly read the words. He had given me this book he had dared to purchase and hide away from the metropolitan city of New York. The cover was tattered and there were missing pages, but I loved it. It was perfect. I wondered if he tried to read and understand what the words were conveying. I struggled across them now, breathing them into life without putting my own feeling into them as a way to convey these feelings that were choking my every breath.

“He loves her,” he whispered, dragging the back of his fingers across the back of my hand.

All I could do was nod as Donne’s words plodded on in their absolute joy of confusion and wonder what life prior to finding their love had been. Knots strangled my breath as the final words fought their way out and he moved closer to me, his fingers touching the little curls that had brushed against my shoulder. He dared to trace the line of my jaw and the shell of my ear. My breathing was growing fast as I tried to look into his blurred features. This sensation of desire and love and pureness threaded through me. Jakub was haunting all of my thoughts, all of my waking and slumbering moments that were beyond embarrassing to admit. And yet, he sat there, his featherlight touches filled with emotions that seemed to mirror my own.

Those fingers traced my bottom lip at a snail’s crawl.

“Rose petals,” he whispered so close to my skin that I felt the heat of his breath. “What would it be to taste of them?”

I jittered as he leaned even closer. I longed for a touch that I had only seen glimpses of in the grand balls of stolen kisses of those who were married or soon to be. He turned my face fully towards his and my eyes drifted closed just as I had seen the ladies do before their love pressed their mouths together. I whispered a please onto the air and felt the most nerve racking, most exhilarating, most heart filling sensation across my entire body as he kissed me. And it was love. Just as in the poem. I would submit to this man and he would submit to me and we were for each other in every way. It thundered through my veins as he hummed my name before pressing his mouth to mine once more. And we laughed. We laughed as we kissed with the gifted book of poetry falling to my side. It was a more natural state than I had ever felt before. ⭒☾

Well? Thoughts? I just love first kisses. I’ll see you next Thursday! 💚

Tags are in the comments as it seems to work best that way! If you want to be added, let me know.

@edgingthedarkness @its-interesting-van-kleep @lvnterninthenight @katuschka @thewritingbeforesunrise @ignite-my-fire @takenbythemadness @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @fleet-of-fiction @demonrat444 @klarxtr @peaceloveunitygvf @hollyco @lipstickitty @joshym @itsafullmoon @josh-iamyour-mama @jake-whatthefisgoingon-kiszka @way-to-go-lad @jjwasneverhere @gretavangroupie @emojakekiszka @wetkleenex-gvf @vanfleeter @losfacedevil @myownparadise96 @lizzys-sunflower @literal-dead-leaf @musicislove3389 @raceb14

#jake gvf #jake kiszka #jake kiszka fan fiction #jake kiszka fanfic #greta van fleet #gvf #greta van fic #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet fan fic au #jake kiszka fan fic au #jake kiszka fan fiction au #the dead

23 notes · View notes

butmakeitgayblog · 3 months

Note

Isn’t Alycia’s latest post a perfect picture of the #MBFW Cabo trip? Could we have a peek at whatever you are working on for #MBFW? 🙏

Tiny sneak peek if ch3

///////////////////

Lexa never really saw herself as much of a ‘chiffon and ruffles' kind of girl.

Apparently she had slept-walked through the phase of daydreaming adolescence that seemed to have infected the greater population of her peers whenever homecoming and prom had rolled around over a decade earlier. Her general disposition and distinct lack of enthusiasm meant she had remained mercifully unscathed through most banquets and dinner parties, even managing to slip through the cracks of a few ill-conceived appearances at more distant friends' nuptials-to-be.

She'd thought she'd flown under the radar of pomp, frills, and satin for the entirety of her life. Safe in her cotton blends of sundresses, dress slacks, and half-undone button downs.

And yet there she stood, surrounded by shocks of bunting, bows, and lace.

It honestly made her feel a bit queasy.

Yet, the bridal shop had felt like a welcome reprieve from the chaos of the brunch turned midmorning affair. Eggs Benedict and half eaten sausage laid in discarded puddles of ketchup and syrup as everyone had moved from the sanctuary of their assigned tables to use the rest of the allotted time to catch up with old faces. But with a time crunch at hand and a very ‘Not Here To Mess Around’ Abby taking the reins, Lexa had found herself ushered out of the banquet hall and into Clarke's death trap of a convertible, right along with the bride-to-be and (soon-to-be ex) groom yet again.

A lead footed trip across town had them screeching up in front of a small boutique that would've vaguely resembled any other dress storefront, if it were not for the general appearance that someone had thrown up pepto bismol coated taffeta all over anything that would sit still.

They'd been met inside by the shop owner herself, Abby having apparently taken an immediate liking to the stout dictator of a woman whose vaguely threatening aura was only enhanced by a thick European-esque accent that Lexa couldn't quite pin down. But between fluttering lashes and clasping hands and smiles that betrayed nothing short of gratitude and a willingness to do whatever the woman decreed, Lexa had been able to tell from the second they'd walked in that Abby was positively smitten.

She'd ushered the group in pairs, waving the bridal party toward her right in a bored jab of one calloused finger, while waving the other hand toward the tuxedo rental outlet that connected next door with a droll, “Anybody who wants a suit, you go there. Unless boys, you want dress as well. I can do that. Otherwise, you go. Go.”

Which was how Lexa had found herself standing awkwardly off to the side in a sea of her family, mixed in among people she'd only met about an hour before as each getting prodded, poked, and pinched by tiny but mighty hands in the name of getting their measurements.

"I have been on dates that haven't felt this intimate," Raven grunted from her place on the pedestal before being unceremoniously spun around, just to have her arms yanked out to the sides the second she found her footing. "Ow, shit, lady."

"No curse in my shop. Only smiles. It's happy day," the owner droned out in hollow, monotone clips, before planting a hand on Raven's back and all but shoving her off to the side. “You're beautiful, yes, perfect. Okay, go.”

Raven stumbled out of the line with a backward scowl, making her way over to where the bride and maid of honor waited for the rest of the bridal party to finish their turn. "Who fuckin' let her outta the gulag early?"

Clarke barely paused in her casual perusal of the closest rack lined with dress options. "Hey, uh-uh. She's the only one who could promise to have all four bridesmaids dresses done in three days and do alterations for everyone else. Her work is supposedly immaculate—"

"And that's great, I'm in awe of her tiny bridal kingdom, but she doesn't have to give me a pap smear and a smack on the ass to get that done."

"At least she didn't actually feel you up," Lexa offered with a shiver at the memory of her turn in line. She double-checked that no one was paying attention to their little huddle before lowering her voice and bringing her hands up to roughly cup her own breasts. "Oh no. You have metal on your bosoms," she imitated the shopkeeper in an accented, disappointed whisper, "This will be no good. You take those out day of, okay?"

"Lexa—"

"They're nice, though, yeah," she continued over Clarke's chiding in the same mysterious accent, giving an added flick to one piercing studded nipple in question. "Not cross-eyed. Very nice. But no good for big day."

The trio worked to smother their giggles as Clarke reached out and dragged Lexa's hands away from her own chest. "Seriously, stop," Clarke whispered through her own fit of laughter. "If you offend her, mom is going to go ballistic."

"Tell me about it. Jake needs to get here pronto ‘cause I give it like another half hour tops before Abby’s ready to open the marriage."

"Besides," Clarke stressed, ignoring Raven entirely. "Don't listen to her. You know I don't care if your piercings show through your dress."

"She's telling you she wants you to put the girls on display,” Raven added with a sultry shimmy of her chest.

"Dude. My mother is fifteen feet away."

“Well you're the one telling her you want her highbeams on full blast.”

Clarke's face heated into a deep shade of pink as she leveled Raven with a glare and snatched another hangered dress off the rack. “That is not what I said. What I said was that it's not an issue. Lexa's nipples won't be an issue.”

“I've been your friend for a long time, Clarke. When has Lexa's nipples ever not been an issue?”

Lexa weakly interjected, “Maybe we could all stop talking about Lexa's nipples now. Maybe that's the real issue.”

“You brought ‘em up, cutie,” Raven husked with a smooch of her lips and a lecherous sweep of her tongue over her teeth.

Lexa merely rolled her eyes, while Clarke piped up, “Stop flirting with my maid of honor, Raven.”

Raven snorted a laugh. “You first.”

Clarke made a garbled sound of dissent and whirled around, walking over to the connecting wall covered in mirrors without bothering to dignify that with an answer.

Seemingly pleased with her effect, Raven slung an arm over Lexa's shoulder and met her look of disapproval with an evil smirk.

“You guys really make it way too easy.”

#anon #MBFW #it IS very Cabo trip 👀#*vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass* I really need to just get through these bullshit parts of the story #so I can get to the damn good stuff

27 notes · View notes