#having a plate of corn moment with this series

[allyriadayne]

And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? Or, all the times Aegon and Aemond look at each other like there's no one else in the room 2/?

[the-hinky-panda]

Out of the Woods Series: Part I

Title: Out of the Woods Series

Pairing: Mitch Keller x OFC Reader (Sadie Maxwell)

Rating: Explicit

Summary: An old friend of Mitch's is in need of some help and Dwight seems to be the guy to do it.

Dwight has passed by Trudy’s Diner multiple times but never stopped into the place. It sits on Route 66, about ten minutes east of the Mayo hotel. It looks like a tourist trap; the stereotypical fifties diner with neon signs, red vinyl booths, and black and white tiled floor. The waitresses’ uniforms are shirtwaist dresses and colored flats, like what his mother used to wear when he was a little kid in Brooklyn. It’s loud, bustling, and old-fashioned in a shiny way. Even though the waitresses are sporting bobs and high ponytails, they’re carrying tablets in the pockets of their full skirts. 

He follows Mitch to a corner booth where he and Tyson settle into place while Mitch asks for you. The perky blonde waitress says that you’ll be right out and breakfast is on the house for everyone. Now that he’s in the actual place, he has to admit the blending of old and new is quite seamless. There’s free wifi, which Tyson is happy about and the coffee smells strong and fresh, which he is happy about. Every surface is spit polished and all the uniforms are pristine. It’s the sign of a detailed business owner. 

When you arrive at the table, he’s not surprised at how young you look, or that your outfit is also classic fifties but with high waisted pants and tucked-in blouse. You’re pretty, professional but that’s not surprising. He is surprised at how Mitch looks at you, like you’ve hung the moon and stars. Now he knows why Mitch wants his help with your situation, whatever that may be. But you return the look as well. There’s a warmth in the way you greet Mitch, lingering touches and choosing to sit next to him in the booth. Old friends, sure. 

“I really appreciate you coming to meet me, Mr. Manfredi.” 

“Dwight, please.” He shakes your hand and it’s a firm, solid grip. Another good sign. “Mitch tells me you have an issue that you need some help with.” 

You fold your hands on top of the table. “It’s a multistep solution to a large problem but I’m not exactly sure which step you would be able to help with.” 

“Well, let’s go through those steps and find out where I may be able to help.” 

Plates of food arrive before you’re able to get into the nature of the problem. Eggs, hashbrowns, sausages, bacon, and something he’s never seen before. It looks like finely ground oatmeal but there’s a large pad of butter melting into it. 

“What is that?” he asks. 

“Those are grits,” you answer. 

Tyson is shaking his head. “My mama would be so disappointed in you right now.” 

“I think we’re all a little disappointed right now,” Mitch adds. 

“Well excuse me for being out of circulation when it comes to fine dining.” 

You put a healthy spoonful of them on his plate and hand him the salt. “It’s ground up corn, so very good with salt and butter.” 

“What are you trying to do,” Mitch nudges you, “give him a heart attack?” 

“Oh what,” you counter, “like you’re running a health spa over at the Buck?” 

“You keep this up, he’s not going to help you.” Mitch gives you a crooked smile. “Your ornery is showing.” 

You give Dwight an apologetic look but he raises his hand. “I actually quite enjoy this kind of ornery. Makes me feel like I’m back home, sitting around the kitchen table with my family.” He’s quiet for a moment, remembering those times with his mother and father speaking rapid fire Italian, thinking he and his siblings couldn’t understand what was being said. His brother poking his sister under the table with a fork and Dwight doing the same thing to him but with a knife. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a good time at a dining table.” 

Your problem is precisely as you explained it: it’s large but with a multi-step process. The problem is your husband of almost ten years won’t sign the divorce papers. You’ve been living in your own one-bedroom apartment, running the diner, earning your own money. You are, for all intents and purposes, independent from him. The catch happens to be who he is, or rather who his father is. Your father-in-law is filthy rich, first in oil and then in the medical marajana business. Your husband has been put in charge of two dispensaries but because of his own drug, gambling, and frequent need for out call massages, the business isn’t doing well. Your diner, a business that doesn’t remotely interest Cal Thresher Senior or Junior, is making twice what both pot stores are making. 

Dwight leans back against the booth. “So you want a divorce from this jack-off and he’s not giving it to you because you’re worth more than him.” 

“And daddy is pulling the strings,” you add. “And by strings, I mean he has the best lawyers in the midwest working for him. So even if I do get Junior to sign the divorce settlement, I’m going to be left with nothing.” 

“Not to be unkind but it sounds like nothing would be something if it gets you out of the marriage.” 

Mitch picks up his coffee cup. “That brings us to why you’re gonna want to help her.” 

You sigh and glance around to make sure no one is listening in on the conversation. “My father has a business and he’s struggling to keep the doors open. I’ve been helping when I can but my finances get monitored too closely for me to do much. He was diagnosed with lung cancer a year ago and the medical bills are killing him just as fast as the cancer. I want the divorce, but I want to leave with enough money to save his business.” 

“And I’m supposed to care about his business, why?” Dwight asks. 

You give him a slight smile. “It’s a gun shop.” 

[mochminnie]

Lovin U Right

Based off Jungkook’s Single ‘Seven’. BTS and many more Kpop idols will appear in this series. This will have no usage of your name or (y/n). The Main Character/Reader will be Plus Sized and her name is Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’. Jungkook who is life of a party, a total himbo that tries for 7 days to show you how much he loves you. Who doesn’t just want to get in your pants, wanting more than that. Himbo clingy JK wants to be loved, who wants your attention. 

Setting: College Au

Tropes: Polar Opposites

Warning: Sexual Themes, Fat shaming, College Partying, This isn’t going to be based off of Korean College more like Americanize based through Pop Culture references, Himbo like behavior of BTS.

Check out the mood board https://www.tumblr.com/mochminnie/723830921903620096/what-if-jeon-jungkook-fall-in-love-with-a-plus?source=share&ref=mochminnie

Author’s Note: This is a fictional portrayal of Jungkook and other idols. I tend to see comments about Kai and Jennie when I wrote my Rose x reader story on wattpad. I know I am writing about celebrities and this is all honesty for fun. I will be writing about Taehyung and Jennie. This book don’t match the idol’s personality. I face claimed casted these people to create a story for fun and possibly for people to enjoy. Please check out my other JK Series ‘The Warlock and The Witch.

Playlist

'Seven' - Jungkook

‘I Got It’ - Thuy

'Supershy' - New Jeans

'Baby One More Time' - Britney Spears

'Fantasize' - Ariana Grande

'Euphoria' Jungkook

'Something New' - Zendaya and Chris Brown

'Left Right' - XG

'Wild Side' - Normani ft Cardi B

'34+35' - Ariana Grande

'Me & U' - Cassie

'Like Crazy' - Jimin

'New Dance' - XG

'Dance The Night Away' - Dua Lipa

'Cuff It Wetter remix' - Beyoncé

'No Problem' - Nayeon ft. Felix

‘Girls Like Me Don’t Cry’ - Thuy ft. Min

'Cool for the Summer' - Demi Lovato

'Something Real' - Summer Walker, Chris Brown, London On a Track

'Take You Down' - Chris Brown

'Hype boy' - New Jeans

'Wet The Bed' - Chris Brown

'Snooze' - SZA

'3D' - Jungkook ft. Jack Harlow

'Heart Attack' - Demi Lovato

'Check' - Girls Generation

'It's You' - MAX ft. Keshi

'Cherry' - Rina Sawayama

'You & I' - JRE

'If you Stay ' Joseph Vincent

'Somebody' - Kyungsoo (D.O.)

"Dear No One" - Tori Kelly

‘I Don’t Care’ - Jeremy Passion

‘Agora Hills’ - Doja Cat

‘Sweetest Pie’ - Dua Lipa

‘Kiss Me More’ - Doja Cat ft. SZA

‘I Know’ - RM & JK

‘Ditto’ - NEWJEANS

‘Partition’ - Beyoncé

‘Too Much’ - JK, the kid laroi, central fee

‘Perfect Night’ - Le Sserafim

‘Somebody’ - Jungkook

‘Yes Or No’ - Jungkook

'The Party & After Party' - The Weeknd

Chapter 1 

Maru lit up her cigarette up the balcony. The rest of the girls drinking soju and ordered take out tteokbokki, Korean hot dogs, and fried chicken, corn cheese. To celebrate, Their one year anniversary living together. Maru encourages Lizzie to go to the hottest parties and clubs in town. Not only that, their other roommates Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa, and Rose. Will try their best to get her out of the house. 

“Lizzie put down your iPad and stop reading WEBTOON.” Maru grabbed the iPad from her with one hand and the other with her cigarette smoking. 

Lizzie scoffed and yelled at Maru. “Hey, I was just starting a new story!” 

Lisa, “Maru just give her ipad back. Don’t get close to her because she has asthma.” 

Maru scoffs, “Please, It’s not like she hasn't smoked weed before.” 

Jennie, “That’s much better than cigarettes.” 

Jisoo heard the doorbell ring. “The food here!” Jisoo smiled and yelled out. Rose immediately got up with Jisoo to get the food. They prepare the food on the balcony. While the rest of the girls grabbed the plates, utensils, napkins and beverages. Maru Hiding the Ipad from Lizzie. Lizzie just gives up; she's now helping with the food. When it’s finally prepared. 

Jennie was the first to dig in. “You Know Maru can give your Ipad back if you go to the party with us.” 

Liz, “I’ll live in a moment! Maybe I’ll go. But can you give it back?” Maru gives it back then Lizzie puts it away in her room. So her and the girls play a game.  

Rosie wants to play the clueless party game then everyone else gets excited. Except Lisa doesn’t want to play. When Lisa thought that Rosie didn’t see her face scrunched up and mouthed no to the rest of the girls. “Think that I didn’t see you? I'll kill you.” Lisa got scared. Jisoo and Jennie laugh. 

Lizzie, “We will all play the clueless party game even if Lisa doesn’t want to join.” Rosie was excited again. Lisa rolls her eyes then Rosie pinches Lisa’s ears. Jennie and Jiso are trying to break them up. Lisa starts screaming. “Ow, that you bitch!” Lisa slaps Rosie. 

Rosie, “Ugh you slut!” Pushes her. 

Jennie stopped breaking the girls up and got the notification text on her phone from Taehyung. “We have all been invited to a party tonight!!! Oh would you look at that, You’re going Liz.” Jennie yelled.

Lizzie shakes her head no. “No, Just no. You girls know I don’t want to party.” All of the girls give her a look. “I mean I do party in small groups. My cousins, and family.”

Rosie, “Well this is different we’re all in our 20’s we should all go out, make out, sleep with anyone we want, we're all hot.” 

Jisoo then dances to, Girls Generation Party. “P-A-R-T-Y!!! Party time. It’s Party time!!!” 

“Come on Liz You gotta come!” Rosie

Lisa got excited. “You’re going to look hot tomorrow night! I don’t have to play the game!” Rosie glares at her. Lisa got scared a bit. 

“Let’s pick an outfit for her. She’s going to look hot hot” jisoo

Maru, blowing the cigarette in her direction.“She needs to get laid tomorrow night.” Saying calmly with a straight face.

Lizzie gives her a look. “How many gummies did you take again?” 

Maru, “2, 5. I don’t know.” Still smoking her cigarette. ‘How is this girl still going?’ Lizzie thought. After all the drinks, smoking and gummies???

“Come on Tae’s party can’t be that bad! Think about it, come on Liz. Tae is a nice guy. He’s making sure you will go.” Jennie says. 

Liz, “It’s not Tae and his friends I’m worried about.”

The girls wait for her answer. Jisoo asks, “Well? What do you say Lizzie?” But then Jisoo see the look in her eyes that somethings the matter. She didn’t ask her friend what was the matter. It seems she wasn’t too comfortable to share with the girls yet. 

Liz it’s not she’s feeling pressured. She was just worried about one of the boys that broke her heart. The worst way possible will be there… 

Cha Eun-woo.

Not only that Minnie might be there and her friends… Lizzie knows her friends will be there for her. 

Lizzie, “Okay I’ll go tonight and I have to go to this party. To face my fears. To live. You know YOLO!!!” She says the last sentence much awkwardly. 

Lisa raised her brow. “Liz Yolo?” Cringes. 

Jisoo, “YOLO!!!” She started dancing to Party again. Lizzie joins her then all of the girls join except for Maru because she was so high off of the gummies. “We can’t stop stop! It’s a party time!”  Jisoo sings. 

Rosie, “P-A-R-T-Y!!!” 

Liz, “It’s a party, We go rock rock! P-A-R-T-Y”

Jennie and Lisa joins. “Lemon soju, tequila for me, mojito for you

Let's go to Jeju, California!”

Rosie, “We got a party to head too! Come on, let's go get ready!” 

~ ~ ~

Jisoo Suggests a makeover! 

Lisa, “Lizzie already has a great sense of style and knows how to apply makeup. Don’t you think it’s problematic? She’s already gorgeous, young, and a hot mama.” 

Jennie, “It can be but it’s fun!!!” Jumping up and down and she grabs Lizzie’s to the bathroom first.

Lizzie, “Makeovers can be fun.” agreeing and smiling. 

Boy she didn’t know that the five girls are going to bathe her. Lizzie insists. “No, I got this, I can bathe myself. NO! MARU! JENNIE! LISA HELP!!!!” Calling out all of the girls names she got this. 

Lisa yelling at the girls, “SHE DOESN’T HELP WITH THE BATHING WHAT KIND OF MAKEOVER IS THIS???” She pushes the four girls away. 

 The girls make sure she gets her cooter cat, bussy clean and every nook and cranny is clean and that everything is moisturized. 

Lizzie wears contacts tonight. And prep her face before Maru works on her makeup. 

Rosie and Jennie going through her closet. Breaking down which outfit she is going to wear. 

Jisoo, “You should go for the siren seductive look!” Maru does her makeup. And Jisoo does her hair she decided to do voluminous curls. 

Lisa sprayed on some lux honey vanilla perfume. And the rest of the girls made sure one last time that everything was moisturized. 

Then Jennie presents Lizzie a black Prada bag. “Me and the girls got you a bag!” Jennie smiling showing off her gummy smile.

She puts Lizzie's phone and glasses and travel sized stuff for her contacts like case and solution and Maru puts condoms inside. Lizzie, "Jennie!" Groans, Giving her a really look. Looking at the couple of condoms that were given in her bag. "Thanks Jennie I'll be using all of these gladly." Sarcastically scoffs. “URGGGHH.” Rolling her eyes.

The final looks that Lizzie got a brown smokey eye with a cat eye liner and a burgundy lip. Her hair is down with curls. For her outfit. A black lace v neck with cutouts cami, black mini skirt with a slit, and black knee high boots. It’s not that she wasn’t comfortable wearing this, she usually wears these clothes. It’s just that she felt off if Eunwoo and Minnie and their friends saw her. Lizzie loves what the girls have done for her. Since she takes forever to get ready she takes about 2 hours and with the girls help it took about 45 mins to an hour. 

The rest of the girls also decided to wear black tonight for the party. That each of them go with their styles and personalities. The girls take selfies. 

~ ~ ~

Jungkook is getting ready with Jimin for Tae’s party. 

Jungkook sighs. Jimin asks him what’s the matter. Jungkook finishes off with his leather jacket while looking at the mirror. Wearing all black. “I’m just hoping that one girl will stay the next morning. Who just doesn’t leave me”  Then, applying some cologne. 

Jimin questions, “If she stays the next morning you’d think she’ll be the one you’re looking for.” 

Jungkook is still a little sad.  “I’m not sure, all I want is to find a girl that I can continue to date. Someone I can get to know. Who just doesn’t see me as a pretty face, more than my talents and more than a one night stand.” 

Tae then walks in the room. “Hey buddy, why so glump.” Giving Jungkook a side hug. Still being happy go lucky. 

Jimin says, “He wants to find a girl in a committed relationship.” 

Tae then messes up his hair. “You’ll find a lucky girl tonight I just know it.” Gets a notification from Jennie. 

Tae smiles from Jennie’s Text.

Me and all of the girls are going to the party tonight! Including Lizzie!

Taglist:

@mred435 @yourchubbychocogirl27

[destructionmylofe]

The TV continued droning on as you stared, mouth agape and remote just barely clinging to your fingertips, at the two figures who suddenly appeared in your living room. You had a plate of untouched nachos in your lap and you were in the process of choosing the backdrop to this magnificent feast when these two showed up unannounced and uninvited.

"Your debt is paid."

The taller of the two said only this to the other, less corporeal figure, then vanished through your front door. You wondered why it chose to leave through the door when it could've left through the walls or ceiling. How ordinary, yet extraordinary. You were now alone with the shade, who was now smirking and on the verge of breaking into a fit of giggles.

"Can I...help you?" You ask with some hesitation. You were sure you couldn't offer any assistance that this thing actually needed. With these words, the shade's composure crumbled and an eerie, raspy cackle filled the room. Your hair stands on end as you continue staring at the mirthful spectre.

After a moment, the shade's laughter fades and it wiped a nonexistent tear from what would have been its face, if it had one.

"You probably don't remember, but you once did a favor for me, and said it would only cost me my soul. The devil sure is gonna be pissed when He finds out you have His soul! Well, not His soul, but a soul that supposedly belongs to...you get the point. I think. Don't you?"

Your brow had drawn itself into a deep furrow. You had done favors for many people, and used this joke many times. You thought yourself very funny at the time. You still did, but you weren't close enough with the last person you said that to, and the disconcerted look that crossed their face had kept you from making that joke again. Not that it mattered. You mostly kept company with your television these days.

"Who are you? What did I do for you? What do I with you?"

The shade shook its head, still grinning. "It doesn't matter. I guess I'll just stay with you until you die. The Devil will get His due, but I've still got a few years out of his clutches yet." As soon as the shade finished speaking, the smell of rotten eggs filled your nose. You almost drop your plate of nachos as you retch from the hellish stench. A column of black smoke manifested in the center of the room, and your detector started blaring, as if to further announce the being's arrival.

"Speak of the Devil", He leered.

You wave the remnants of His dramatic entrance away from your face. Now your nachos were all sooty, and you were pissed.

"You got ashes all over my nachos!" The Devil frowned in bewilderment.

"You are bestowed with the honor of a visit from the Prince of Darkness Himself, and you are concerned with your silly little corn triangles? I should smite you where you sit."

"Silly little...?" Your eyes narrow. "Get out of my house." You search your corn triangles for anything salvageable, to no avail.

By now the Devil Himself is seething almost as much as you. The shade watches the two of you with unconcealed glee.

"You have something that belongs to me. And this isn't even your house, you're renting." He sneered.

"Well, I live here, so I'm calling it my house, and I want you to leave. Now. And this...person... promised their soul to me first."

The Devil curled His lips into a deeply disturbing frown. A shiver rushes down your spine. Perhaps you should not have been so quick-tempered.

"You were not serious about that exchange. There was no written contract. This soul is mine," the Devil hissed. At this, the shade attempts to clear its throat, but it comes out as a pathetic series of whistles.

"Actually, there is a written contract. I agreed to trade my soul in exchange for a week of dog-sitting..." The shade paused for dramatic effect before triumphantly declaring, "...through text!"

You rack your memory for someone you dog-sat for.

"Jeffrey?!"

"In the flesh!" The shade exclaimed, "or, ethereal vapor, rather."

"What?! But...you're dead! How'd you die? Why'd you make a deal with the Devil?"

"Oh, I was jaywalking and got hit by a truck. Technically, I'm not dead, but the machines are doing all the work. My wife'll have them pull the plug in a minute. She's in for a huge payout! That's what I made the deal for; I asked for enough money for me and my family to never need or want anything again. You know, the usual." The shade, or, Jeffrey, appeared to be staring off into the distance as he fondly recalled the events of his rather brief life. That Jeffrey had always been the sentimental type. The Devil turned to you, literally steaming with rage.

"That isn't binding! There's no signature!"

"Ah ah ah! Here, go get your phone." The shade gestures at you. You look around for your phone, but you left it in the kitchen after you made your nachos. Your now ruined nachos. You sigh heavily and head to the kitchen to get your phone and dump the ashy plate of what should have been the highlight of your day.

Luckily for Jeffrey, you never take the time to clear old text messages from your phone. It was over four years ago, but the conversation with Jeffrey was still there.

The spirit asks with a shit-eating grin, "Would you care to read...the time signature?" Jeffrey always had a flair for the dramatic. The Devil doesn't let you respond.

"That doesn't count! It's not your name!"

"That's not what the metadata says, ya old fart!" Jeffrey laughs.

At this point, the prince of darkness is steaming. You should have grabbed the fire extinguisher from the kitchen. You decide to make a second trip for it. When you return, there are now three figures in your living room. The being that brought this mess to your home has returned. It looks exhausted, despite not having flesh on its skeletal visage.

"No, by all laws of Death, this soul belongs to the mortal." The robed figure conjures into its bony fingers, or finger bones, rather, a massive tome that flips itself to a specific page. The Reaper quickly scans a page, flips the book around, and points out a paragraph to the Devil standing across from him (Her? Them? It?).

The Devil takes His time with the book, poring over every word on the page. You nervously ready the fire extinguisher. You try to see what He is reading, but the letters are unfamiliar to you. Must be some otherworldly alphabet.

The Devil turns to you, rage and flames in His eyes. For a moment, you think He really is going to smite you where you stand. But in an instant, His demeanor shifts. The fire in His eyes has died down to a cunning gleam. Now, you are truly frightened.

"Now, surely it doesn't have to be this way...perhaps we can make a deal? Your deepest desire in exchange for this one miserable, pathetic soul? It's not even your soul! You have absolutely nothing to lose. What do you say, mortal? What will it be?"

You glance at Jeffrey, who is pouting in a corner after being called miserable and pathetic. Somehow, he doesn't look the least bit concerned for the fate of his eternity. You look back at the Devil, who is rubbing His hands together with glee. He believes He is going to squirm His way out of being duped by a "miserable, pathetic soul". A brilliant idea crosses your mind, if you do say so yourself, and you do.

"Alright, it's a deal. I'll trade Jeffrey's soul." Your palms are sweaty, your arms are heavy, and your knees are weak, so you set down the fire extinguisher. Jeffrey disappears in a puff of smoke as soon as the words leave your mouth.

"Wonderful, wonderful! Now, what is it you desire? Money? Power? A sex slave? Knowledge?" The Devil is grinning broadly as he conjures a roll of parchment that somehow already has your signature, and signs it Himself with a flourish.

"It'll only cost you your souls."

“Sure, it’ll only cost you your soul” you used to jokingly say whenever you did something for free. Everyone always got a laugh out of it, and so did you! Until the first soul showed up in your living room with a very, very tired looking reaper.

[certifiedlovergirlsstuff]

Don’t Drink the Punch

pairing: Steve Harrington x Female Byers!reader

genre: follows show plot lines, but will diverge from canon

WC: 7K

warnings: cursing, alcohol, mention of weed and a quick with cigs, part of the stancy fight, mentions of throwing up. should be it.

summary: maybe next time, don’t drink punch that’s ‘pure fuel’. halloween sure was a crazy night, too bad you can’t remember much.

A/N: ALL PART UNDER THE TAG -The Byers Harrington Story-

series masterlist

we are going to ignore time when reading my stories because i also ignore it when writing! i put two and three together, but honestly ep3 (the physical ep) is barely in here, just the fight between stancy and a quick scene of joyce calling the radio shack for bob, once we leave the party that’s where ep3 begins.

thank you to @alecmores​ for proof reading!

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Halloween has finally arrived in Hawkins, Indiana. House decorated in fake cobwebs, a corn maze was organized by Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, and candy was sold out in pretty much every grocery and convenience store. Pumpkin patches sadly were supposedly destroyed, so you weren’t able to pick one out to carve with Will like you usually do. But it was still going to be a great Halloween, you asked Robin over the phone yesterday if she was interested in going to Tina’s party and her response was, “do you really want to go to the party? Sure you don’t want to just come here?” “We don’t have to stay long, an hour at most, if we aren’t enjoying it after that, then we can go to your place. Deal?” “Mmm, sure. It’s a deal.”

You felt so giddy at the idea of finally going to a high school party, you tried to bring it down a notch knowing it’s not gonna be like the movies, but still, a Halloween party! You hope it was good enough to stay longer than an hour. You’re gonna let yourself be a dumb teenager tonight and get fucking drunk.

With your hair styled in tight ringlets and tied together with a blue ribbon, a light blue shadow dusted over your lids and your lips puckered pink. You smooth your hands down the fabric of the blue dress and slipped into some blue ballerina flats. You took a look into your mirror to see if you need any touch-ups or if you looked stupid, but when you looked into the mirror, you smiled. You felt quite pretty today.

Walking from your room to the kitchen you took a peek inside Will’s room, he was wearing his beige Ghostbusters jumper and Joyce was helping with the black ghost pack. You leaned against the doorway for a moment before speaking, “Nice costume.”

Will and Joyce both turned in the direction of your voice. Will had a shining smile on his face and Joyce placed her hands over her heart.

“Pretty dress,” Will noted.

“Honey, you look so beautiful!” you thought Joyce was gonna spill a few tears.

Thanking both of them, you stepped into the room and sat down on Will’s bed, holding your hands out for him to take. Your hands rest on your thighs while you just look at Will, then you move a hand to smooth his bangs and you let your eyes search him, trying to find something. With a hand on his cheek you leaned in closer to him, “are you okay?” you whispered.

He took a moment, but in the end, he just nodded a yes to your question. You didn’t want to push him, not after yesterday, but you knew he wasn’t telling the full truth. You gave a forced smile to Will, trying to show him that you were gonna try and step back just a bit.

Standing from the bed, you smoothed his hair one more time before heading to the kitchen where you could smell Jonathan making breakfast. The smell of eggs, sausage, and some toast wafted through the house, a comforting smell. With a plate already set on the table, you decided to dig in.

“You know-” you said with some eggs in your mouth, “you will make a great housewife one day.”

Jonathan scoffed at your joke, “Oh, and you’re gonna find an amazing trophy husband in the future.”

“Hell yeah. Just because I’m able to birth babies doesn’t mean I want to constantly take care of them, I’m already like a second mother to Will sometimes,” you bit into your toast.

Jonathan fully turned around now and he stopped at the sight of you all dressed up. Only on special occasions do you get fully ready, taking a while to pamper yourself pretty. He set the other two plates on the table then grabbed a tight ringlet, and pulled it down.

“Hey, I worked hard on these,” swatting his hand away.

“You know Halloween is tonight. You don’t have to be dressed up right now.”

“Okay, so Will wants to dress up for school, but I can’t. That’s misogynistic of you, Jonathan.” His mouth gaped open, “what-” You threw a hand into his chest, giggles spilling past your lips, “I’m kidding dude. I just felt like wearing it for school today, plus it’s just a dress, nothing like Will’s.”

He then backed off, knowing it’s Halloween, if you wanted to be dressed up for school you can do so for your pleasure.

Joyce and Will finally joined the both of you in the kitchen. All four of you are chatting, about school, about tonight and the rules, reminding Joyce that you’re going to Robin’s for the night. When everyone was done eating you helped Jonathan wash and dry the dishes while Will got the rest of his belongings together, the both of you were gonna take pictures before leaving.

“I was wondering if you wanted to go to Tina’s party tonight?”

Jonathan turned his head at your question, “What? Why? You decide to go?” He chuckled at the idea.

When you didn’t counter back right away he looked back at you, a small frown on his face, “(Y/n), come on. Do you really want to go to a party filled with drunk teenagers? Teenagers, who are mostly people that don’t like us?” “I know, but it would be nice to experience it just once. Plus Robin’s going with me, and we’ll only stay an hour at most. Come on, if you drive us, we can get drunk, and you can be the dd because you’re a wet blanket,” you threw a gentle elbow to his ribs.

He didn’t respond, just went back to washing the dishes and handing them to you for drying off, “At least- at least just think about it. Please?”

With a tiny turning of his head, he gave a nod.

And that was the end of the conversation.

…

“No way.”

You turned away from the inside of your locker and met the wide-eyed face of Robin. You look down at yourself then back up to her face, “what?” “Uh, two things. One, you look very pretty, and two, why are you wearing it at school?”

“My little brother wore his to school, I just felt like doing it as well. What’s wrong anyway, it's just a dress!”

“Yeah, but you’re a junior in high school, it’s a little different than a- what grade is Will in?” “Eighth grade,” “Eighth grade compared to Junior year, kinda different.”

You just rolled your eyes and closed your locker. The two of you walk down the crowded halls, elbows and warm bodies bumping into each other. Couples being gross, being way too intimate, or making out against lockers, it was eight-thirty in the morning. 

“Can’t they keep it in their pants at least till lunch, actually no, because I’ll probably throw up my food,” Robin commented.

A breathy laugh left your lips. You surveyed the halls, your eyes roaming from one person to another, the feeling of their eyes watching your passing figure kept you on alert. You knew that today you looked completely different compared to your usual school or everyday attire, but the feeling of them watching you. The eyes trailing down your figure, the giggles of girls, and murmurs. Maybe dressing up for school was a bad idea.

“Robin,” “(Y/n).” “Be honest, are people staring at me?”

Robin did a quick check around the crowded halls and took in the boys with their mouths agape, the girls chewing their gum obnoxiously, their very pointed stares on you.

“Ah, no I don’t think so.”

“Robin,”

“No yeah, people are staring at you.”

You just groaned. Now, you’re regretting this decision.

“I think it’s because these dudes are shocked they are just now seeing how beautiful you are, and the girls are jealous. Hell, I would one hundred percent ask you on a date if I didn’t already know about your little crush,” Robin tried to make you feel better.

“And I one hundred percent would date you if you asked.”

…

“Well, it looks like someone is excited for tonight.”

The abrupt male voice broke through the quiet conversation between you and Robin on the bleachers. The two of you watched as the metalhead trudged up the metal steps, the sound of his feet hitting each step reverberating in the air. In a joking manner, Eddie gave a bow, he was acting like a court jester and you were the sitting princess.

“My Lady.” “Oh, shut up,” lightly pushed his shoulder.

He sat on the bench below you and Robin, his lunchbox, which you knew was filled with weed, he placed it beside him the metal vibrating. Robin ate a sandwich and shared her chips with you as you worked through your homework. Bob let you take the day off, so now until the trick-or-treating, you are making sure your assignments are finished.

“Going to Tina’s Halloween bash?” Robin asked Eddie.

He sighed, “yes and no, it’s kinda a work event. If you look at it that way. Drunk kids, love to get high.”

“Gonna get high, Byers?”

You shot your head up from the work and flushed at the words falling from Eddie’s mouth, the playful wiggle to his brows.

“Oh, you smoke (Y/n)?” Robin turned to you.

“Ah, it was for a little- nightmares and such. Not anymore though.”

You shot Eddie with a pointed look trying to convey your thoughts, but even if he saw the glare, he chose to ignore it and met Robin with a playful smile dancing devilishly across his face.

“Oh, Byers and I would hang out in my van for hours and smoke. Really good times, and then one day, when we were both high, she ended up-”

“Hitting! I accidentally hit Eddie while high, really embarrassing thing,” you fibbed.

Robin slowed in her chewing, just watching the way you and Eddie were interacting with each other at the moment. The two of you have a staring contest, you with your bold eyes watching Eddie who looked to be holding back a laugh, he thought this whole exchange was hilarious and it was pissing you off a bit. Switching tactics of trying, and I mean trying to use intimidation, you decide to use sympathy instead. Using the puppy eyes, ones that your family says can work on anyone.

With a pout on your lips, a sight furrow of brows, and your eyes changing looks, “Yeah- yeah a good smack to my cheek. Her punches are really strong,” Eddie lied.

“Okay,” Robin said one word slowly.

“So, you're dressing up tonight, Munson?”

…

With the bell signaling the final class for the day, everyone rushed from their classes and flooded the halls. Walking beside Eddie as he walked you towards your locker, the both of you engaged in conversation, neither of you noticed the two people just three lockers away. With a bump to your hip and a gentle push to his shoulder the both of you split, Eddie giving another bow before departing through the double doors down the corridor.

“You two sure are close.” Turning to the voice, Nancy was putting things in her locker while Steve leaned against one, his arms crossed over his chest and feet crossed at the ankle. You looked from them to the doors Eddie walked through, a quick tilt of your head, “Ah, yeah. Got closer over the summer.”

You walked to your locker and threw in everything that you didn’t need for the day, stuffing your books and homework you finished into the cramped space, “You two going to Tina’s tonight?”

“Oh, yeah. Doing Risky Business. What do you think (Y/n), am I better looking than Cruise?”

Turning your attention away from your books and onto Steve, his winning smile on display just waiting for your answer to his question, ‘dangerous territory’ you thought.

“Oh, now you see, there is a pretty obvious answer to your question.”

“So you think I’m better looking?” a cocky smile.

You slammed your locker shut, a teasing smile, “oh, now, I thought you were smarter than that Steve. It’s so obviously Cruise, sorry Harrington.”

You left the two of them heading for Jonathan, “see you two at Tina’s!” you yelled just before exiting the school for the day.

…

“So you hit “T” to zoom in, and “W” zooms back out. See? Easy-peasy.”

Bob was teaching Jonathan how to work the new camcorders, Joyce wanted to have Will’s night out on tape since she wasn’t joining this year. She and Bob were staying at the house to give out candy and watch some movies, it was cute.

“Just make sure to turn off the power to save energy there. You can always ask (Y/n) for help, she knows her way around one of these, don’t ya?”

“All thanks to you, boss,” the two of you shared a smile.

Jonathan walked over to Will and Joyce, “Are you ready, bud?”

“Yeah.”

“Just try and keep an eye on him.” “We will mom, it’s gonna be fine,” you reasoned to her.

Will had a beaming smile on his face, ready to go out with his friends for the night and collect candy that will give him tummy aches for days after. Smiling at your fond memories of you and Jonathan trick-or-treating. One year when Will was still small the three of you did Scooby Doo, you as Daphne, Jonathan as Shaggy, and little Will as baby Scooby. And then one Halloween about four years ago, you tried doing a look from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, not as iconic as Audrey Hepburn, but still good.

The three of you ushered out the door and towards Jonathan’s car.

“Be safe,” Joyce yelled out.

“I hope it doesn’t suck!” Bob called out imitating Dracula, poorly you might add.

The boys giggled a bit at the joke, you flicked at both their ears for laughing at Bob.

The car was silent for a few minutes then Jonathan decided to speak up, “I just don’t get what she sees in him.”

“What?” Will asked in the passenger seat.

“Bob.”

“Hey, Bob is a great man. You just find him too dorky,” you quoted the one word.

He scoffed, “no I don’t.”

“At least he doesn’t treat me different,” Will murmured.

You and Jonathan got quiet for a moment. If you were to list the people who are very doting on Will after the Upside Down it would be Joyce, You, and Jonathan, then the party. Bob didn’t know about what happened to Will, all of you decided to not mention anything to him, also you all signed NDAs.

“I mean, I can’t even go trick-or-treating by myself. It’s lame.” “Hey, going with a group of people is always more fun than by yourself,” you threw out.

“You think I’m lame? You think (Y/n)’s lame?” “I’m not lame, just fyi.”

Will sighed, “no, but it’s not like Nancy’s coming to watch over Mike, you know?”

You chewed on your bottom lip, looking from Will who was watching the trees whiz past the speeding car, then to Jonathan’s eyes in the rearview mirror. All three of you just released quiet sighs and that was the end of the conversation for the rest of the ride to the Wheeler’s.

…

The three boys were walking up the grass lawn just as Jonathan pulled up to the curb. Jonathan honked the horn in greeting. Placing the car into park, Jonathan turned to Will as he grabbed the ghost pack getting ready to leave.

“Hey, listen,”

“Yeah?”

“If I let you go on your own, you promise to stay in the neighborhood?”

The spark was back in Will’s eyes, “Yeah! Yeah, yeah, totally.”

“And be back at Mike’s by nine,” you added from the back.

“Nine-thirty?”

You and Jonathan looked at each other for a moment, “nine,” Jonathan stated firmly.

“Yeah.” “Deal?” “Yeah, deal.”

“All right, go have fun, bud,” Jonathan added.

You grabbed the camcorder and pushed it up front, “hey, Will. Don’t let any of the idiots use this, all right? I don’t want to worry about Bob pulling it from my paycheck.”

“Okay,” he said with a chuckle.

“I hope it doesn't suck,” Jonathan imitates Bob.

You gave a swift smack to his shoulder, “What the hell?”

“Idiot,” you mumbled.

The two of you waved off Will as he rushed over to the three boys, the four of them shouting and smiling with joy. They were messing around with their pillowcases for a moment, then they headed off into the neighborhood, on a mission for some cavity-inducing candy. Weariness brewed in the pit of your stomach, worried something might happen to Will while you and Jonathan weren’t present, but you both know he needed this.

“Awesome,” Jonathan whispered while looking at his crumpled orange paper.

Smiling tugging at your face, the weariness fading to the back of your mind for the moment, “so, Tina’s?”

He turned his head at your voice, a grimace on his face, “Robin first?” “Step on it, chauffeur! We have a party to attend!”

He sighed, then put the car into gear.

…

“Wow” “I regret this” “What the hell is Bruce Stevens wearing?”

Girls On Film by Durn Durn was blasting through the many speakers at Tina’s house, it almost looked like the building was bouncing and bumping with the beat of the song. Teens dressed in different costumes ranging from a current pop culture interest to just a simple shirt with a dumb character face mask. Everyone had red solo cups in hand, some cigarettes, and a few couples making out against cars or on the lawn. There were screams and chants from the backyard, people chanting numbers then bursting into calls of someone's name. And then, finally, Bruce Stevens came rushing out the front door and threw up onto the lawn, classy.

It was a lot to take in within the first five minutes of arrival.

You and Robin linked arms, you were still dressed as Wendy, and it looked like Robin threw together a last-minute costume, “I’m one of the outsiders!” she declared. Jonathan trailed behind the both of you, he was like a weak bodyguard.

Walking through the front door, you were instantly hit with the smell of smoke and spilled beer. The air in the crowded house was warm, it was close to feeling like summer all over again just from the living room. The bass of the music makes the floor thump in time with the beat. People grinding against the other, both intentional and unintentional, everyone too drunk to care about a little personal space.

You and Robin pushed your way through the people crowding the door, Jonathan just behind you both. Looking behind to make sure Jonathan was staying close when something else caught you by surprise.

“Holy shit!” “What!” Robin screeched.

You turned her around to look at the scene before you, Jonathan was talking with a cute girl in a KISS costume. He must have said something funny ‘cause the girl was chuckling at whatever the remark was, then they both shook hands in a greeting.

Pleasantly surprised by these events, you pulled Robin with you towards the kitchen. You were in search of a hard drink to get you drunk fast. Having found your destination, you grabbed solo cups for the two of you and looked into the clear punch bowl that had a fog brewing atop the red liquid. Dipping the cups in, you passed Robin a cup and you clicked in cheers.

“What the fuck is this stuff!” you downed the liquid like water.

“This is going to be a dangerous night,” Robin commented.

You giggled at the comment and went back in for seconds, then thirds, and fourths. Whatever amount you were on, you finally went to the dance floor when a song caught your full drunken-dazed attention, “Robin!” and you pulled her behind you to the crowded floor.

Not being even an ounce sober you were just moving your body around in a way that just felt freeing and comforting, you even pulled Robin into whatever dance you were doing, your bodies intertwined.

“Byers!” a voice shouted over the noise.

You twirled your body, colliding into the hard chest of someone, their hands sitting just below where your bra band sat. You were a giggling mess, something was funny that only you saw or thought of, and your drink was long forgotten somewhere in the house, someone might have even taken it.

Your hands traveled from the stranger's chest and up to their neck then finally rested on their cheeks, you squeezed the mushy muscle. Your vision was blurring, one body could have been three bodies. You giggled again, the images were funny to your mind.

“Hey- hey handsome, or gor-gouse, whoever, wanna- wanna kiss?” your words were slurring together from the alcohol and time it settled in your body.

Leaning your face forward, waiting for lips to make contact with yours. Instead, a warm feeling heated your cheeks, your face being pushed back. Blinking your heavy lids, you were just able to make out the person before you, only because he was always in your dreams.

“St- Stevie?”

A clicking noise sounded off, “Sorry babe,” yeah, your vision was fucked.

Eddie was holding your face, “Where’s Ro- Robin?”

“She went to the bathroom, and found me before she hurried off.”

“Wh- where’s Jonathan?”

“Now that, I don’t have the answer.”

“Why don’t we get you some water, huh?” You pouted but complied when Eddie slipped a hand into yours. Pushing and stumbling through the crowd, you were allowed a moment of free space in the kitchen. You leaned a hip into the counter while Eddie grabbed a cup and filled it to the brim, “chug it, Byers,” Eddie tilted the cup to your lips. Chugging the water you felt like a starved man on an island, your hands limply grasped for the cup.

Eddie grabbed the cup back and filled it again, you wiped the droplets off your face. Just as you grabbed for the cup you heard everyone around you ‘ooooo’, you turned to look for the scene to cause such a reaction. Standing before you, actually standing in front of you, Nancy and Steve stood across from each other, and all the party-goers stood still. Nancy had a giant red stain splashed across the front of her white shirt, and Steve leaned against the counter, he ran a hand through his hair in a stressed manner.

“What the hell?” Nancy slurred.

Nancy hurried off into the crowd and Steve followed a second behind, “Nance.”

Eddie blocked your view of the party, the now refilled solo cup pushing against your lips. Grasping for the cup you chugged the water down again, almost choking on the speed you were drinking, “Jesus, you don’t have to chug it.”

“Another!” you screeched.

Eddie went to refill the cup for the third time, and Robin reappeared from nowhere, “You two see the scene between Wheeler and Harrington?”

“I think I wanna go home now, or yours Robin. I just- I think I should leave. I’m too- I’m too dru-nk,” words still slurring together.

“Okay, you can come to mine, my mom’s working a late shift. So I’ll go look for Jonathan and tell him, stay with Eddie,” and she hurried off.

Rubbing your hands over your face, you tried to will yourself sober, at least the water was helping just a bit. You were gonna have the worst hangover tomorrow morning, and god the throwing up, you regret this.

“I regret getting drunk,” you said aloud to Eddie.

Eddie chuckled and pushed the solo back into your hands, “drink, slowly.”

Just as you finished your third cup of water and handed the cup to Eddie you caught movement. Looking over at the crowd, everyone getting drunk and stoned, everyone forgetting the scene Nancy and Steve had only minutes ago. You saw Steve rushing through the crowd, you couldn’t tell from the distance between you and him, but he looked stressed and as if he wanted away from this party before he collapsed or something terrible happened in front of everyone. Your feet moved before your mind caught up to your actions and just before you reached the crowded living room, an arm gripped your bicep and pulled you back.

“You’re not disappearing on me, Byers.”

“But, Steve…” “I know babe, but you’re drunk and I don’t want Jonathan to bite my head off for losing you.” You giggled at that, forgetting what you were doing just a second ago, “Jonathan won’t hurt you, I’m the one with the brawns, remember? I smacked you!” a string of giggles followed.

Just then Robin came back, an arm went around your waist and she tugged one of your arms over her shoulder, “We’re gonna meet Jonathan at his car, and Nancy is coming as well.”

“Huh?” She just shook her head, “See you later Munson.” “Take care of our friend, Buckley, have a bucket ready!” …

The room was too bright, the air felt too thick, and the bedsheets rubbed against your skin in a way that felt like sandpaper. Everything felt wrong and too much at the moment, just even breathing felt wrong to your body. Curling up deep into yourself, just wanting to shut everything out and not exist for the moment, just a small relief of bliss from your hangover and the ache of your skull and body, but it didn’t last long. A door slammed open and then closed accompanied by a too-loud voice.

“(Y/n)! Wakey wakey!”

You just lifted a hand limply into the air trying to make a signal to Robin for her to quiet down.

“Get up! We have to get to school!” “Who’s going to school after last night?” your throat felt dry like a desert.

“Everyone, ‘cause if no one showed up it would be an early senior ditch day.”

“Ugh, I don’t even think I brought my bag with me, and I don’t have extra clothes.”

“Well first sit up and drink this water,” the thunk of the cup sitting on Robin’s nightstand rang like a gong going off in your ears.

“I already called Jonathan to make sure he grabs your bag, and I have some old clothes you could try. But first, drink this water and take some Advil, and take a quick shower to wash your makeup off. I’ll leave some clothes by the bathroom door for you,” and she left you, moving quietly you might add.

…

“I think my brain is gonna explode inside my skull any minute now.”

“So dramatic.”

You and Eddie hung out by the forest lining the school grounds, both of you choosing to ditch second period. You were seated on the bench hidden deep in the trees, the one where Eddie does all his business during school hours. He was lighting a cigarette between his lips, the smell of the tobacco made you crinkle your nose, but the urge to have a blunt hit you, “Can I have a hit?” A brow raised at your question, “That hungover?” “Oh yeah. Don’t know what the hell they put in that devil punch,” your fingers pinching for the death stick.

Your lungs when inhaling the nicotine burned, but you welcomed it with pleasure and pain. It filled you with some type of relief from your headache. Your shoulders shagged from their tense posture, you held the smoke for a few seconds then with your lips forming a perfect ‘o’ shape, smoke rings were pushed out. Taking one more hit you then passed it back to Eddie.

“So you remember anything from last night,” smoke passed from his lips.

Your eye widened, “not really, did I do something stupid?”

“You thought I was Harrington again,” he gave a breathy laugh.

“What the hell is wrong with me,” you ran your hands over your face in embarrassment.

“Your desire for Harrington must be really strong if you keep mistaking me for him, and you almost went after him when he rushed out the house. If you don’t watch yourself, you’re gonna get heartbroken like glass, the perfect hit and it crumbles.”

“Wow, so poetic of you, Shakespeare.”

Silence passed between your bodies, the rusting of fallen autumn leaves dropping from stems, the trees singing their song that you weren’t able to understand. Everything felt like a frozen moment in time, the two of you just enjoying the other’s company along with the woods shielding the world away from the two of you. Too bad it couldn’t last for longer than a moment.

“I’m just trying to look out for you, Byers. I care about you, I’ve seen you at what I assume is your lowest, the nightmares and everything. I’ve seen you slowly get better, getting a grip back on yourself. I don’t want all of that to just be thrown out the window just because of douchebag Harrington.”

“He’s not a douchebag…” Eddie threw a look your way, “...anymore. He’s growing out of that shell of himself. I swear.”

“Whatever you say, but just know, Robin and I will be here for you if you need mending done.”

The bell rang signaling the end of second period and moving into third. You gathered your belongings and headed back towards the stone building, you turned back to Eddie seeing that he didn’t join you.

“You coming?” “Nah, gonna stay out here a little longer.” “You know, if you keep skipping classes, you’re gonna be held back again!”

He just chuckled at your comment. Leaving him and the woods behind, the small moment of quiet just to walk back into the loud halls of teens you could care less about, “hey, Byers!” You turned to Eddie, “You know I’m here right? And Robin? We’re here for you if you can’t go to your family.”

Stilling for a moment, but then you nodded at him and walked back to the school. As you were taking your time walking to class, you watched the P.E. group running on the track outside and you could faintly hear the squeaking and shouting from within the gym. Just as you were about to pass the gym to enter the school, voices outside stopped you in your tracks.

“Apparently, uh… we killed Barb and I don’t care ‘cause I’m bullshit… and our whole…our whole relationship is bullshit, and… I mean, pretty much everything is just bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Oh, yeah, also, you don’t love me.”

Your eyes widened from the realization of who was talking and what the conversation was about.

Steve and Nancy were talking about whatever happened last night. You knew this was a conversation meant only for the two of them, but you were scared to take even a single step away, worried they might hear you. So you tried to stay like a statue, even holding your breath worried they might have bat hearing all of a sudden. You will yourself think of something else, zone out, anything to avoid this conversation. Watching the kids running the track wasn’t helping as you could still hear them.

“Well, then tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“You love me.” Your heart broke. The words sounded broken, sharp jagged pieces being spit from Steve’s mouth. You could tell how much Steve cared about Nancy when it was just the two of you and even more when the both of them were together, but sometimes Nancy looked like she wanted to be anywhere other than the present. Unintentionally hearing that Nancy thought their relationship was bullshit and her thinking Steve was bullshit, made a bit of anger rise within you, but this was something not meant for your personal feelings.

This was something between Nancy and Steve, something that they’ve been hiding, well, something that Nancy’s been hiding from Steve. She is hiding her true feelings about things, not happy with the way Steve’s handling situations compared to herself. Sadly that tiny bit of anger was pointed directly at Nancy and you hated yourself for it.

The abrupt noise of the gym doors banging open pulled you from your stupor. Bruce Stevens rushed out and looked down the alley at the bickering couple, “Harrington!” “Dude, we need you, man. That douchebag’s killing us. Let’s go!” “All right!” “Come on!”

And just before Bruce ran back inside he met your standing figure and flicked his head at you, “Byers! You were so hot last night!”

That was your cue to rush inside. With a quiet “thanks” to Bruce, you speed your way from the alley and into the empty halls, fourth period was long forgotten.

…

Wanting just to rush to work that day, wanting to ignore your hangover, wanting to forget the conversation between Nancy and Steve, you forgot that Jonathan said he had to leave early. So when you walked to the parking lot and didn’t see his car sitting with the engine running, your shoulders slumped and an empty exhale was released. Your bike wasn’t at school, you barely bike anywhere anymore with Joyce being worried.

You knew there was a pay phone near the front of the school, so turning back in that direction you managed to run into an oncoming body. The force in which you slammed yourself into their chest threw you off your feet and you would have landed on your ass if the person didn’t wrap their arms around your waist. Your hands reach out for their biceps to add extra support for yourself.

“In a rush, Byers?”

You thought for a moment it was Eddie, your mind still clouded with alcohol would continue to mix the two males up for some reason, but when you paid attention to the person it was him.

“Ah, sorry. I- Jonathan’s not here, so I was gonna call my mom. I don’t have a ride to work.”

His arms slipped from your waist, “I could take you if you want.”

“Oh, uh, you don’t have to. Maybe I could ask Robin or Eddie.”

“Seriously it’s no problem, Byers,” and he headed off in the direction of his BMW.

You hesitated, not sure if he was gonna bring up the conversation and your eavesdropping, but if he did you’ll just lie, just say you didn’t hear anything. Yeah, you can lie, it’s not even a bad lie, just a light fib. You didn’t even want to be involved with their relationship in any way, for normal reasons and selfish ones. So, with slow and hesitant steps, you walked to the passenger side and slid into the leather seat.

“Radio Shack, right?”

“Uh, yeah, on Main Street.”

With his answer, he started the car and headed off the school property. After just a few minutes you spoke, which might have been a bad idea, “so where’s Nancy? Don’t you usually drive her home?”

Why did your stupid mind have to bring up Nancy when you heard their conversation, but at least this could throw Steve off from thinking you did hear the dispute. You could feel the air thicken with tension from the question and the way Steve hesitated in his answer added more. His shoulders tense, the grip on the wheel tightening, and his jaw clenched.

“Uh, she- uh, she had to stay after school for a little. Told me she’ll have her mom get her.”

A lie, but you didn’t say anything about it, just nodded your head.

The suffocating silence came back. The two of you can make conversation both easily and also very difficult, today it looked to be difficult.

“So…you like working at Radio Shack?” Steve was trying to make small talk.

“Yeah. Bob’s a great boss, very kind and considerate with teaching me new things. It was a little weird at first, not used to that attitude from an older male figure. Only seen yelling and fighting, but I don’t have to stay on guard when I’m around Bob, it’s nice.”

Turning your head to Steve, you could see a tiny smile appearing, “And how do you feel about your boss dating your mom?”

A giggle slipped out, “it was a little weird at first, I admit. But after seeing how happy he made her, I got used to it quickly. Jonathan and Will, on the other hand, they’re being boys about it. Will seems more forgiving of Bob though which is great.”

“Well…I’m glad that you’re happy about this. I like seeing you happy about stuff, seeing people you care about feeling sad hurts in a way you can’t fix.”

Your breath got caught in your throat for a moment causing you to let out an abrupt cough. With your hand laying over your heart you could feel the fast thumping of your heart against your lungs. With your bottom lip pulled between your teeth, you took a quick look over at Steve.

He looked relaxed again while driving. His hands loosened on their grip and one hand rested under his jaw, the tiny smile still on his lips, his eyes holding just a bit of warmth compared to the coldness harboring just a few moments ago at the mention of Nancy. But with that warmth, you could tell that an underlying sadness rested behind his eyes, something that nested within his heart. And you wished you could fix it, just like he said earlier, it hurts seeing people you care about sad and you can’t do anything about it. But you knew that all that hurt came from Nancy and Steve's conversation earlier today, and that’s something only the two of them could work out.

“You see Bruce threw up yesterday at Tina’s? That whole party was crazy. And I regret drinking way too much of that punch.”

“Pure fuel,” Steve mumbled. “What?” you weren’t sure if you heard him correctly.

“Uh, Bruce said it was ‘pure fuel’ whatever that means.” “Basically poison.” “Yep, pretty much,” he sighed.

Just as you opened your mouth to say something the store sign came into view and Steve pulled up next to Bob’s car. Deflating into the seat, you just grabbed your belongings and moved for the door, “hey.” Stopping in your actions you turned to Steve, “if you need a ride home again, you can call me. I don’t have any plans for the night anyway.”

“If you tell me that, don’t be surprised when I’m constantly calling your house just for a ride.” He chuckled, “I’ll happily be your chauffeur if it gets me away from the quiet.”

The teasing tone in your voice dropped, “and if you ever want to hang out sometime outside of school, you know where I live and work,” the tone returned for a moment.

The two of you just stared at each other, taking in this blissful moment inside Steve’s car. The outside world was completely forgotten by you, your work was put on the back burner of your mind where you just took in Steve. Trying to memorize him at this moment, something you always do when it’s just the two of you in a small pocket of peace.

“You should,” his voice broke the quiet spell, “probably head inside. Don’t want to be late.”

With one final look at Steve, you left the car and headed into the store.

…

“So, how was the party?” “Uh, pretty great,” you lied.

You couldn’t remember much from last night, everything just blurred together making it hard to differentiate the things you did and witness there. You didn’t want to tell Bob that you got practically shit-faced, you didn’t want him to judge you and he would probably end up telling Joyce, and you can’t have that either. I mean, it seemed great.

“Any trick-or-treaters?” “Nope, a quiet night.” “Yeah, no one really goes to our house since it’s away from the neighborhoods.”

Bob was about to say something when the phone started to ring. You being behind the counter, you brought the receiver to your ear, “Radio Shack, this is (Y/n). How can I help you?” “(Y/n), honey.” “Mom? Why are you calling?”

“Uh, is Bob there?” You looked around the story. He wasn’t in the front and then you turned to look in the back and couldn’t find him, “uh, I can’t find him at the moment. Maybe I could help?”

“Okay, well um… I’m trying to watch the tape from last night on Bob’s video thingy, and the tape, it’s…it’s tiny. It’s like it’s shrunk.”

You rubbed a hand against your temple as you tried to remember what Bob taught you, “I believe it’s ‘cause they’re not the same. It’s a VHS-C, not a VHS. You gotta find the- oh what was it…you gotta find the RF-P1U with coaxial cable so you can connect the video ins and outs.”

“Honey, what does any of that mean and how do you remember all that?”

You huffed, “Uh, basically you gotta put a bunch of wires into the back of the TV, and I honestly don’t know.”

She giggled at the last part, “Okay, just give me a few minutes,” and then the line went quiet.

After about three minutes her voice returned to the phone, “Okay I hooked a punch of cords into the back.”

“You sure, are they-”

“No, yeah, I did the coaxial things in the back, so I…this one just goes into the camera itself?” “If it’s an input that fits the camera, yeah, exactly.”

“It’s blue,” “Mom, I can’t remember the cords-”

“No, the TV is blue, I think it’s working.”

“Okay, well, see-” and she hung up before you could say a proper goodbye.

You pulled the phone back for a moment, “Rude,” you stated before placing it back onto the base.

A sudden feeling came over you as if you had just been splashed by a bucket of ice-cold water.

“I've got a bad feeling,” you mumbled to yourself.

----------------------

taglist: @heartyhope / @preciousbabypeter​ / @dessmxsworld​ / @piper3113 / @animiacorn​ / @burn1ngw00d​ / @drxwstxrkxy​ / @m-rae23​ / @noisyeggsmoneystatesman​ / @yournan69​ / @thats-s0-ravenn​ / @ameliabs-world​ / @mayonesavegana​ / @gracella0709​ / @gengen64​ / @alecmores​ / @choclate32 / @stvrdustalexx​ / @redheadedfangirl​ / @agustdeeyaa​ / @yappydoo​ / @liberhoe / @hehehehannahthings / @ladybug0095 /

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[sharkbait77]

The Sun Sets With You

Chapter One: The Season Begins

Summary: A simple yet despondent farm life suddenly sparks with new hope when an unusual traveler makes your town his latest stop and brings with him intriguing and promising viewpoints and no one to share them with. Until he meets you.

Pairing: Ezra Prospect x f!Reader

Rating: M

Warnings: Despondency, depressive undertones, death of a parent, grief, unsolicited advances, age old sexism, strained parent relationship, nosy neighbors, food, lmk if I missed any pls!

W/C: 3.2k

A/N: And here we go! The first chapter! Welcome & thank you for tuning in, it means the world, truly! As I mentioned before, this story may not be the best for some, so please heed the warnings & proceed with caution. The sadness will not consistently be in each chapter, that much I promise, but we have to get through it right away so we can understand our dear Reader’s mindset as of right now. NO EZRA YET, SORRY! And like I said before, this is probably not totally historically accurate, so take everything with a grain of salt pleeease. Other than that, enjoy!

Tags: @the-ginger-hedge-witch @asta-lily @honeymandos @pascalpanic @aliwritesfic @mandocrasis @hnt-escape @winter-fox-queen @barbossa2319 @sarahjkl82-blog @day-off-inkyoto @pedrocentric @astoryisaloveaffair @ezrasbirdie @danniburgh @foli-vora @lucrezia-thoughts @djarinsbeskar @chasingdreamer @quica-quica-quica @meesterblack @amandalovess @hunterofartem1s @pedro4ever @mishasminion360

Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!

Series Masterlist || Main Masterlist

Chapter Two

~APRIL FIFTEENTH OF EIGHTEEN SIXTY-SEVEN~

Your eyes flutter open on instinct as the sun rises against the pale blue of the sky, its ochre rays peering from behind the grassy hills and across the wheat fields while waking the birds. They start their day with a song, shaking their feathers and stretching their wings as they merrily fly through the air in search of their morning meal. The hens that found solace in their coops from the stark chill of night chatter amongst themselves as they roam around their pen and the lone rooster releases its shrill call, a signal for the day to begin. Beat you again, you think.

The sun rises a little higher now, the bright of day in full effect as it fills your room with its intense luminosity. You lie in bed a moment longer, watching the dust mites float through the air and dance in front of your nose with each exhale of breath you release. Signs of life all around you, from the dew drops that formed on your window in the early morning to the muscles within your very skin twitching as you climb out of bed. Every little thing teasing and taunting you of significance, of meaning just on the horizon, yet so far out of your reach.

This is your life. Each and every morning, day, and night is as repetitive as the last. Wake up before the rooster crows and stare into the minute cracks rippling through the ceiling, envious of the pollen that manages to escape through and longing for you to shrink microscopic enough to hide away as well. Fill your basin with cold water you had gathered the night before to wash yourself quickly before your father wakes. Clothe yourself in your underdress, long sleeved, blue work dress layered on top with the sleeves rolled up, an apron cinched at your waist, and dirty and worn, black boots laced up tight enough to prevent you from minding the ache they feel as the day progresses.

You look at your reflection in the hazy mirror as you braid your hair; the drabness of the glass only accentuates exactly how you perceive yourself. The girl staring back at you was but a shell of the one you knew before. Before, when you still had ambitions that would have led you far from this town. To a place you could live anew. Now, just an empty being as one day fades into the next. Eyes that no longer gleam, hair that no longer shines, skin that no longer glows.

You had given up long ago of any hope and dream of something more, surrendering to the bleakness and repetitiveness of this life when your mother passed. A promise on her death bed to help care for your father any way he needs. And this is what he needs. You, here on the farm, helping tend to the chickens and the cows and the small shop he owned in town. The one your mother ran that was unceremoniously thrust onto your lap. The organ within your chest beats solely to pump the blood through your veins and keep you breathing, if only for the promise you made to your mother.

You fasten the gold chain around your neck, a locket with a faded photograph of your mother hidden within hanging to your breast. You tuck it into your blouse to keep her close to your heart and head down the ladder, stepping lightly as to not awaken Pa any earlier than necessary. Your Pa, an old man now with hair white as snow, only having turned the shade since Ma left.

Wrinkles crease deeper into his skin and the bags under his eyes droop slightly to his cheeks now on his once chiseled face. His strength has dwindled within the last year, and with no other siblings to share the burden of the farm, you knew you could not leave your Pa to deal with it by himself. So your own dreams and goals were swiftly thrown into the dirt to be rained on and turned to mush, impossible to be picked up again.

As you finish grounding the coffee beans and throw them into the pot of already boiling water resting on the range, Pa begins to stir and soon after wakes up, the aroma of caffeine acting as his own signal to wake. Leaving the house to give your father privacy to dress, you head to the hen coop to gather a few eggs for breakfast.

You take a deep breath of the crisp morning air, the smell of apple trees at the front of the house, then the smell of grass with fresh dew, to the smell of hay and chicken feed as you get closer to the pen they are corralled in. As you head back into the house, Pa is already seated at the small, round table with his tin of coffee.

“Good morning, Pa,” you greet softly.

“Good morning daughter. Thank you for the coffee.”

“Grace to our health, Pa,” you say, as you always do when he gives you his thanks.

Financially, you and Pa were well off enough; you still couldn’t afford luxuries like sugar, but you were able to live comfortably with only the necessities and the occasional new pair of boots. You were grateful to have the farm and the shop, both reliable sources of income for your small family, and you were blessed that Pa was still able to work the fields, but you know as time passes and his joints weaken, you would then need to take over the labor. There was truly no path for you to leave this life.

The older women around town had begun to whisper about you, not necessarily trying to keep their gossip from reaching your ears. They were just as bad as the hens that cluck around their pen all day. A never ending chatter of you being stuck in the house or the farm or the shop, working as an old maid for the rest of your life.

You’re still fairly young, just over two decades of life in you; sure, the girls you once played in the streams with as children were all married women now and on their third, fourth, fifth child, but you didn’t feel the desire to find a husband just to bend to the simple mold of life this society has cast. If you were to still have any control of your life, it would, at the least, be that.

You crack the eggs into the beaten and tired pan over the range, letting them cook to completion before removing and plating them, along with a roll of bread and the butter you had just churned the day prior. You walk over to Pa and place his portion down before working on your own. Pa sends up a quick prayer and starts to eat. His prayers turned to letters to Ma, but he never failed to speak them before every meal or before bed, sometimes even when a sudden abundance of eggs were laid or vegetables had sprouted during the night.

“The season is nigh for corn and potatoes,” Pa mumbles and you feel your heart sink to your feet.

You had forgotten about the season, when Ma and Pa would work the fields together endlessly, sweating through their work attire to be washed every evening. You still feel the creak in your elbows to this day. It is the busiest season, bringing in the most coinage for the year, but now that it was only you two, you worry about juggling between the shop and the farm.

“Pa, how will we manage?” You voice your concern. Pa takes a deep breath.

“You will hang a notice in the shop when you go today,” he says matter of factly. “Ask Mr. Williams if you are able to hang one on his window at the post as well.”

“And what shall it say?”

“‘Seasonal laborer wanted – will provide lodging with pay’.”

“Where will he stay?” You inquire.

“The barn; we will provide him blankets and he will be free to use our wash basins when needed and we will offer him meals.”

“It will be a lot of money expended, Pa; will we be all right?” You ask as you sit at the table with your plate and coffee tin.

“We will make do, daughter,” he says, the finality in his voice signaling for this conversation to cease. “We will not be able to pay handsomely or feed him much, but we require the extra hand if we are to pass the season.”

“Yes, Pa.”

You lower your head and eat your eggs in silence. You don’t pray anymore, not necessarily feeling the need since your Ma was taken, as well as your aspirations. Pa finishes his coffee, leaving the dishes in the wash basin and grabbing his hat, walking outside into the fields to begin preparations for the season. You sigh; the tears that have long hidden in your ducts refuse to spill out to bless you with relief.

The last time you properly cried was for Ma; every day you feel them there, the pressure building in the corners of your eyes, but nothing ever falls. A mind trick, you suppose, to force you to focus on the more important things. You don’t have the time to spare to release them; your mind and body are now slaves to the farm and the shop.

After your breakfast, you walk to the wash basin with your dishes, hand pumping the water from the pipe just off the side and using the homemade lye soap you learned to make from your mother. Once the dishes are washed, dried, and put away, you walk over to the black safe in the corner of the room, turning the dial to its correct numbers and pulling out the metal lockbox from the inside.

It carried within it the sales ledger for the shop and the velvet bag for the coins. Pa empties the bag every day as he looks over the ledger, placing the coins into another metal box that only he has the key to. He gives you coin anytime you ask, as long as it is needed for the shop or food for the house and, occasionally, on special days.

You pick it up and take it with you to the front door, pulling your bonnet and fabric bag from the hook they hung on. You stick the lockbox inside your bag, as well as the key assigned to it, and head outside. Pa is already far into the fields, hacking away at the dirt and smoothing it out for the new growth. You don’t bother saying goodbye; he knows where you’ll be. Where you’ll always be.

Living alone with Pa became quite challenging, you were disheartened to learn. You’ve always had a loving bond with him since you were a child; maybe he expected the same from you as he did from Ma, but he still managed to make his lessons on the farm enjoyable, doting upon you as any loving father would. Now? The anguish you both have felt since losing the feathery soft and caring love of your mother strained the relationship between you two.

What was once a thick belt of leather that connected you now pulled further and further apart until it became as frail as rubber, threatening to snap at a moment’s notice. You love your Pa; of course you do, and you know he loves you too. If only you could grieve together.

Upon entering the town, the people are going about their normal routines. The baker stacking the fresh loaves of bread in his window, the shoe shiners along the streets working tediously on men’s boots, the hens clucking – the older women gossiping away passionately about whomever they desire. As long as it isn’t you today.

You reach the shop, key in hand as you unlock the brass keyhole and turn the knob, the small bell dinging above you as you enter. You flip the sign in the window from the side that reads ‘Closed’ to the side that reads ‘Open’ and you pull back the shut curtains, allowing the light of day to flow into the small room.

Heading back to behind the counter, you remove the lockbox from your bag and set it on the shelf underneath in its usual resting place. You barely have a moment to remove your bonnet when the bell dings and you look up to greet the person who has walked in. Wonderful.

“Hello, my sweet,” the man husks and you find it difficult to choke back the bile rising in your throat.

“Hello Silas,” you say flatly. “Is there anything I can help you with today?”

“Darlin’, you know exactly how you may be of service to me.”

Silas Taylor, a boorish man of thirty-eight years, has desperately been attempting to attract your affection for the past two years. He had the decency to respect you and Pa after your mother passed, halting his advances for all of one week. Considering his age, he did not show any signs of maturing, both in his looks and his brain. One might even label him handsome, were he not such a crude and overbearing personality.

Ma and Pa had bid you to consider his proposal, but in time came to understand he was not the best man you could have as a husband. Pa despises Silas, has even told him so to his face, yet it did not cause Silas to stray from pursuing you. Disrespectful, despicable, a generally awful person, Silas is.

Why he had you locked on to his sights, you weren’t sure. You never gave him the opportunity to court; staying cordial as to not make an outright enemy of him, yes, but never once have you made it apparent you enjoyed his attention. Nevertheless, he continued.

“Silas, please. I must ask you to leave my shop if you are not interested in a purchase,” you implore, hoping he will understand your position and take his leave.

“But, little one, I am very interested in a purchase. What must I do to make you my wife?” He grins, as charming as the manure out in the fields. In a flash, your vision goes red as you replay his statement in your mind.

“I am not for sale, Silas. That is the most offensive remark you have said to me yet,” you declare harshly, the acidic bile in your stomach turning into a burning rage.

“There must be something that can be done, my sweet. You name it; the most lavish jewels and dresses your pretty, little mind can dream of,” he presses on with a smile only found on masks to scare the children with.

‘Pretty’ and ‘little’, amongst his unwelcome endearments, are the words to send your mind into a downward spiral to declarations that you’d rather not say unless you were alone, lest he take offense and decide to wreak havoc on you and Pa. You put your foot down and grab his arm roughly, pulling him with you to the front door. He only laughs at the scene unfolding, rather pleased with himself that he’s ruffled your feathers so.

“Silas, I am no longer asking. Please leave,” you say as plainly as you can, doing your best to keep the tremble of anger out of your voice.

“Fine, fine,” he chuckles satirically. “Until our next meeting, my love.”

He pulls your hand to his lips, his strength surpassing yours and his thick, wiry mustache rubs harshly against the tender skin of your hand. You furl your lip and flare your nostrils, unable to contain the look of disgust on your face as he glares at you perversely with his black eyes. You tug your hand away and the bristly hair under his villainous nose scrapes you with the motion.

You stand with your jaw clenched and hands balled up in tight fists at your sides, your fingernails digging into the skin of your palm as you watch him walk away, leaving puffs of dirt trailing behind with each cocksure step he takes. If you were to only be allowed one person to despise in your lifetime, it would be Silas Taylor.

“Dear, are you well?”

A gentle, aged voice calls out to you from behind. You whip around quickly, your skirts twirling as you face the elderly woman that has hailed you.

“Mrs. Williams,” you greet, willing your fury from the unpleasant interaction to rest for the time being.

“Was that Silas Taylor you were speaking with?” She asks.

“Yes,” you exhale. “Yes, it was.”

“He’s a quite handsome lad, dear. It is known all over town how you have bewitched him. Why do you not accept his proposal?”

Adelaide Williams; the sweetest among the hens, but still a hen nonetheless. You sigh deeply to yourself, deciding not to engage in the conversation with the one woman who treats you with any shred of respect and kindness, even if her ideals still match those with the others in town.

“Mrs. Williams, while I have you in my presence, may I ask a favor?” You appeal.

“Why, of course, my dear!” She smiles, all thoughts of your personal affairs exiting her imagination.

“Do you suppose it would be alright to leave a notice at the post office? We are asking for help on the farm for the season.”

“Yes, dear, it’s quite alright,” she smiles, her wrinkly skin creasing along her cheeks and eyes.

“Thank you; will you wait a moment while I draft it?”

She nods and follows you inside the shop, slow in her old age. You quickly grab a sheet of paper and a fountain pen, inscribing the words your Pa informed you to write in large enough letters.

“I imagine this season will be most difficult without your mother. I am so very sorry, dear,” Mrs. Williams says as you write and your hand quakes slightly at her comment. “How have you and your father been managing?” Cluck, cluck, cluck.

“Not without difficulty, Mrs. Williams, but we manage nonetheless,” you say courteously, not wanting to relay any information that could be the next piece of news to travel through the grapevine. You finish the notice and hand it to her.

“Shall I direct him here or to the farm?” She inquires as she reads the note, perhaps looking for anything contradicting what you already stated would be written.

“The farm, more suitably, so he can speak directly to my father,” you reply. “Many thanks to you and Mr. Williams,” you end with a sweet smile.

“No thanks are required, my dear. Anything to help you and your father. Your mother was a wonderful being. I was proud to have known her.”

Another quake. You nod politely, letting her hold your forearm as you walk to the front door. The bell dings as it opens and you watch her while she walks down the wooden pathway to the post office. Once you’re sure she’s well on her way, you turn back inside and draft another notice for the shop window before you begin arranging the merchandise for the day, taking inventory of goods that are depleting, and checking order forms belonging to families around town for produce off your farm.

A most provincial and forlorn life, indeed, that you will have to bear until the end of your time here on Earth.

Series Masterlist || Main Masterlist

Chapter Two

[ohheyitsokay]

steal

part 7 of the ‘hey batter batter’ series

pairing: Francisco Morales (Frankie, Catfish) x reader

wordcount: 2.5k

warnings: strong language, mentions of previous substance abuse and mediocre family relationships, a happy, happy ending

summary: it’s a Triple Frontier Baseball AU! Trust me, you don’t need to know anything about baseball.

in baseball, to ‘steal’ is for someone already on base to to the next base when the ball is live, but before his time. 

In this chapter, Frankie takes you out to dinner, and in telling you about himself, accidently goes way too hard, way too fast. 

>>

Frankie called and asked you to an early dinner.

Early, so the restaurant wouldn’t be crowded. Early, so he wouldn’t have the chance to overthink. Early, so the boys wouldn’t catch word and cause chaos.

Early, so he’d have all the time in the world with you, if you wanted.

When he picked you up, neither of you had the time to worry about your clothes or hair or fuss with it, and it was a relief. Someday, you hoped to get the chance to dress up for each other, but for now, casual seemed most fitting. He opened the door of his truck for you, holding your hand as you stepped into it. It wasn’t that you needed the extra help, he just seemed like he wanted to. 

You didn’t see, but his hand flexed, tingling as he walked around to climb in the driver’s side.

The talk came easy - Francisco forwent superfluous pleasantries and when he asked you questions there was no doubt in your mind that he actually wanted to hear your answers. You found yourself spilling about your job, flushing when you caught him watching you talk closer than the road, something soft in his eyes.

It was a stereotype, that a baseball player would like diner food, and you were pleasantly surprised when his truck slid into the tiny parking lot of a mom ‘n pop Hispanic restaurant. It was cute, watching him run around to open your door again, and he asked “Is this okay?” as he helped you down.

In response, you shifted your hand in his until his large fingers were laced with yours, and said yes, of course a little breathlessly. There was a lovely lady both serving and hosting who acted like she knew Francisco, giving him a broad wink and rapid fire teasing in what you could only assume was Spanish. In truth, you were too distracted by the way his thumb was running over the back of your hand, and the smells of corn and peppers and homemade tortillas.

Seated, she asked if you would be alright with anything, and your date looked eager and hopeful, so you would be a monster not to agree.

“So you come here often,” you said when she left. Not a direct question, although you were sure you wanted to hear the story. Francisco grinned.

“Are you flirting with me?” His eyebrows dipped in the middles, betraying a little more hope than he intended.

“Yes?” It was easier to tease as the waitress put plate after steaming plate between you, and a container full of warm tortillas. You spread your napkin over your lap as you thanked her, ignoring the growl in your stomach. As much as you liked that he let you talk, you wanted to know more about him, wanted to give him the chance to say whatever he left out the other night. There was certainly more to the solid catcher than met the eye, learning him felt as natural as your hunger.

“I’m serious though, what should I try first?” You pointed at various things with your fork, and Francisco almost wiggled he looked so happy. It was a dream, having you tucked into the little booth across from him, trust in your eyes.

“The green chili, Anita makes it from scratch regularly and it’s fantastic,” he pointed, eyes watching with joy as you dug into the smothered burrito. Your moan shot through him, warming his whole body more than the food he swallowed in a hurry. “Good, yeah?”

“Amazing,” you didn’t ask again, how he knew, just began filling your stomach. He told you about various dishes, sharing them with you like it was the most natural thing in the world. Eventually, the story came out naturally.

“I used to come here a lot when I first moved to town,” he shrugged. “It’s halfway between the stadium and where my family is right now.”

It was easy to meet his eyes and you didn’t pry. Twirling a long string of molten cheese on his fork, it poured out of him, telling more than you felt like you deserved to know and watching you carefully.

He started at the beginning, how it felt like home, this little restaurant, but safer. His mother and sister lived in a small town nearby. It was messy, his youth, full of shit a kid shouldn’t have to deal with. Baseball had been his way out, his chance at a life he couldn’t have. To be good at something, to have a team to belong to. Clean uniforms and clean money, from prizes, that put meat on his bones and filled out his sister’s cheeks.

He became Frankie, pouring his heart into it until he excelled, working like he needed it to survive.

When the scholarships rolled in, he picked the one farthest away, sending checks from his nightshift part-time home more often than he called. He thought his life was good, that running away was working. Being drafted was a dream come true – and a nightmare. It came with and confirmed nasty truths, about the industry and people who wanted his success for all the wrong reasons. Those first few years were full of parties and bad decisions, chasing highs and losing track of himself in the thick of it all. One night, Santi dragged him back, reminded him why he did all of it, reminded him who they had dreamed of being. Showed him they could still be those people.

“I didn’t really know him then, we played on different teams. But we hit rock bottom around the same time and ended up leaving early from the same party.” Frankie pushed the final few grains of rice around his plate, and you wondered if that was the party Tom had gotten busted at. If they really had rescued each other, more than they realized.

God or fate gave him a second chance, and they got traded to the same team the next season, close to his home. He started visiting, supplying himself instead of just money, still playing the game - but allowing himself to enjoy it, be a human.

A tray of sopapillas came as he was telling you animatedly how bad his mother was at gardening, and how silly he felt trying to help her. It made him glow, his pride at how far he had come and you wanted to hug him. Frankie stared at the soft, puffed pastry, as if realizing for the first time he had no idea how long he’d been talking. Then he pushed his card into Anita's hand and shot you a nervous look. You shrugged, but it wasn’t about the payment, at least not entirely.

“Would you want to take these to go?”

“Go where?”

“I was thinking maybe… to meet them?” There was a silent beat, as your hands almost dropped the plates you’d been stacking.

“Wait, shit, sorry I just –” Frankie had never felt so stupid in his life. He blew it, he definitely fucked this up. He had just told you his entire life story and decided now, your very first date? Yeah, that would be a good time for you to meet his family. Thus far you’d listened and reacted like a dream, as kind and considerate as you’d ever been, but this was too much. 

Your laugh cut off his spiral.

“Okay,”

“What?”

“Okay, let’s do it.” You were shaking your head in disbelief, but god was your smile beautiful. Bright and genuine, it made him wonder again if you felt like he did. Like this wasn’t really your first date.

Like you were as deep as he was, already.

-

On the drive he told you the rest of it. His sister was running from herself like he had, except in sucky, deadbeat men. About how when they had conversation that carried them in circles and he wanted to lock her up and force her into therapy, or when the world of baseball became too much, how he went to that restaurant. How he would eat home cooking all on his own, and breathe until he found the right words for himself or for her.

When you offered him your hand, over the middle console, he took it without hesitation. It was soft and fit into his like it was meant to be, and he was reminded again how in awe he was of you. This was by no means what you had agreed to, not normal under any circumstances, but you were trusting him, rolling with it like he was worth it. 

He wanted to be, wanted all of this so bad he could hardly breathe. 

The rest of his story left almost no time for him to prep you, but when the door to the little mobile home opened, his mama greeted you like she knew you were coming.

You were lovely stepping into his truck with your hand in his, and you were lovely across from him with green chili sliding down your chin as you flushed, but this... was something else. It hit him full force, that you had listened and learned and stayed. With Tom hitting on you, with the mess at the party they shouldn’t have been at, with all of the shit in their pasts, and even this. You were really here, at his mother’s home, kissing her cheek and letting her call you his novia and accepting all of his life, all of him. 

His madre only hugged him after you, and her beam brightened as she watched you follow him, in slipping off your shoes. Every time he saw her, he thought she looked a little smaller - you’re just growing, mi frijol -  but she looked small next to you, too. Her voice was extra high as she cooed, ushering you into the cluttered mobile home, and he could help but smile as he followed, too in love with the moment to be embarrassed of her questions. 

You had listened closely, sympathetic but surprisingly determined not to be pushed away. This felt like simply an extension of that awkward and beautiful dinner, the way his mother welcomed you with open arms and rapid fire questions about yourself. She mercifully left out pushy questions about your relationship as you settled into the paisley couch, and Frankie was as warm and solid against your side as he had ever been.

There were little wrinkles around his eyes as he watched you and her, and as you began asking her questions about herself, he was more sure about you than he had ever been. It wasn’t gone completely, the feeling that this was ridiculous and he’d ruined whatever you had by going unreasonably fast with you, but he did his best to ignore it. Instead he focused on you, something he was learning was good luck.

His heart ached when you fit into his side, practically in his lap as you used him to ground yourself. It felt natural, in an intoxicating way, and he wanted you. Just like this.

When his madre thought she heard a knock and went to check, he found himself rubbing the top of your head with his jaw, his cheek, his nose. The whole night felt like it wasn’t real.

“Thank you for rolling with this,” he whispered into your hair. Your shoulder moved up and down again on his chest – a shrug.

“You’ve already met James, it’s almost the same,” you shifted to smile at him, nad he shook his head before noticing your eyes flit behind him.

At the door was a woman, dark stains under her eyes, belly stretching out the thin fabric of her shirt, and eyebrows drawn together.

His sister.

Then his mother came in pushing glasses of tea into your hands, almost as cool as the introduction, and you settled back against Frankie. Your life had become so strange these past few weeks, but you had known for what felt like a long time now. Together, it would be okay.

-

The drive home was dark, and silent for a long moment as you collected yourself, and Frankie was glad the evening started early.

“So this was a long date,” Frankie said, a question and an apology. You huffed in laughter and he offered his hand to you, saying your name with adoration, imploring you to talk to him.

“It was a lot,” you said, honestly, but you took his hand, thankful for the openness.

“Yeah,” his voice cracked, and you could see him struggling not to watch you anxiously. “I didn't plan on taking you home and all that happening, plus my mom calling you my- ”

“I know, Francisco,”

“Fuck. Do you… do you have any questions? Or…” he was beginning to panic, the undercurrent of anxiety finally uncontrollable.

His sister had been short with you, as much as she’d been with him these past few months. It was a lot, so much more than you deserved.

“Do you regret it?” It was an honest question.

Frankie’s mouth opened a little bit, his eyes suddenly steady on the road, really thinking. Then he shook his head, and a knot you didn’t know you had undid itself in your chest. He used his hand to draw yours to his mouth, ghost kisses over your knuckles, mustache only tickling a little bit. “I want you to be a part of my life, querida.” 

The truck hit a bump, and you felt pressure, and then like you were floating. You nodded, trying to find the words to tell him you wanted that, too. 

Finally, you said, “Thank you for letting me,” and he laughed. It was rich and deep and full of relief, almost giddy as it broke the tension, and you laughed too. He let your hands drop back between you, but didn’t let go, squeezing gently.

 The words unsaid didn’t really seem to matter, as he cruised five under the speed limit towards your home. 

 When you asked, “Why do you still go to those parties?” it was the last thing he has been expecting. The rush of wind by the widows felt loud as he thought.

“I guess… sometimes it feels like I’ve got nothing better to do.” It sounded lame, even to him. That wasn’t all of it, it was more complicated than that, but you understood. After this whole time, you’d stuck around, of course you did.

“What about next time, instead…” The stars were twinkling, winking at you, “You go on another date with me?”

“You still want to?” Frankie had hoped, really hoped, but hearing you offer was something different. Fire in his chest, hot and bright and powerful. When he looked over, you were nodding, smiling at him with a certainty on your face that matched his own. 

“There’s a game tomorrow,” he was half joking.

You laughed. 

“Okay.”

He pulled over under a streetlight to kiss you. 

<<

translations:

madre - mother

novia - girlfriend 

mi frijol - my bean

taglist:

@fangirl-316 @scribbledghost @writeforfandoms @beautyagegoodnesssize @princess76179 @mrsbentallmadge

hey batter batter taglist:

@icanbeyourjedi @studyofawearymind @hnt-escape @athalien @the-witty-pen-name @daffodin @sarahjkl82-blog @pintsizemama @anaaaispunk @pjkimrn @dobbyjen

[onthesandsofdreams]

The Rebel & The Captain [13/?]

Pairing: Cassian x Jyn Rating: G Summary: Jyn wakes up slowly. She inhales deeply and exhales slowly, it’s Sunday and she and Cassian have no plans for the day beyond a quiet day in. Words: 485 Notes: A series of shorts fics about them, all sorts of verses.

Read @ AO3

Jyn wakes up slowly.

She inhales deeply and exhales slowly, it’s Sunday and she and Cassian have no plans for the day beyond a quiet day in.

Turning as slow as she can in order to avoid waking Cassian, she simply takes a moment to appreciate him. They left a small opening in the curtains last night, and now, the sunlight coming in is bathing Cassian in a way that is making his skin glow golden. 

He looks so peaceful sleeping.

She smiles and simply stares at her husband. Cassian is the handsomest man she’s ever seen. Made all the more beautiful for his heart, mind and soul. She loves him deeply, in such a way that when the relationship was starting, it scared her. But now? Now she knows without a doubt that if they were to part, it would wreck her. No other person has ever complimented her in the way he does.

Cassian is a peaceful sleeper, unlike her, who tosses and turns in her sleep, yet somehow, they have managed to survive sharing a bed. And in these rare moments when she wakes earlier than him, she likes to have the time to simply admire him.

It is with regret that she once more turns to put her feet in her slippers. She might as well make breakfast, now that she’s up. And she does have an interesting recipe for corn and bacon pancakes. Cassian might like it, he’s always been an adventurous eater, that’s one of the things that brought them together. So, she goes to the bathroom, relieves herself and brushes her teeth. Her hair is still mostly in the braid she made last night.

She makes her way to their kitchen humming quietly. She gathers the ingredients – and is once more thankful that Cassian always insists on having a well stocked pantry – and gets to work. As the bacon fries, she puts the coffee machine and selects Cassian’s chosen coffee, this time it is a Oaxacan blend that makes the apartment smell delicious.

Once the bacon is ready, she makes the pancakes and makes two stacks, one for her and another for Cassian, she takes a tray and loads it with the plates, two cups of coffee, heavy cream for Cassian’s coffee, butter and syrup for the pancakes. It’s an eating-in-bed kind of day.

When she walks into their bedroom, Cassian is still sound asleep. She smiles again, places the tray on their bedside table, and perches on her side, “Cass, my darling?”

Cassian groans, breathes deeply and, “Jyn?” His voice is heavy with sleep. “Smells nice.”

“I made breakfast,” She says softly.

“Excellent,” Cassian says, stretches and sits. “Smells delicious.”

“Bacon, corn and scallion pancakes, butter and syrup and your choice of coffee and a jug of cream for yours.”

Cassian beams at her, “You’re amazing, Jyn. Thank you.”

She smiles back at Cassian, “You’re welcome, love.”

[echo-hiraeth]

Chapter 12: The Daughter

Part of the “Ilicit Limerence” series

Pairing: Javier Peña x F!Reader

Summary: Having met Lorraine, the reader is quite startled, will the Texas retreat turn out disastrous?

Warnings: swearing, angst, vomiting, pregnancy symptoms

Masterlist

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Javier cringed a bit noticing the shock in your eyes, one that you managed to play-off very gracefully. “Oh we-we’re not married”, you chuckled, shaking the husband’s hand next.

“Gotcha, alright. Well, let me go put the dessert in the freezer and we can catch up”, she chirped, carrying her freezer bag into the garage.

Chucho picked up on the change of atmosphere and ushered his son-in-law into the living room, giving the two of you some much-needed space. Javier took a deep breath.

“Did you know they were coming?”, you asked quietly, setting a timer for the oven.

He closed the kitchen door, turning around to face you. “Yes, but I didn’t want to stress you out.”

“Javi, you promised me no more surprises”, you chided, covering your face with your hands. “You need to tell me these kind of things! We just talked about this!”

“Querida, please. I wasn’t even sure if she’d still show and I didn’t want to cause you any unnecessary stress”, he reasoned.

“I’m aware, but even then, these are things you just tell me! I don’t care if she’s here or not, but I would’ve liked to know beforehand! It’s kind of awkward having to just suddenly stand in front of your ex-fiancée”, you explained, washing and drying your hands.

“I wanted to tell you but – but I just couldn’t figure out how, or when, it just never seemed like the right time.”

You took some steps towards him, threading your fingers with his. “I’m happy to know you tried, but next time, try to bring it up okay. I-I didn’t mean to go off as much as I did I’m just so fucking stressed.”

“But why, pop adores you! The hardest part is over with”, he tried to soothe you, squeezing your hand in his.

You scoffed a bit, shaking your head. “She’s so beautiful Javier, I can’t believe I’m saying this but I guess I’m jealous.”

He threw you a confused glance, stuttering a bit as he tried to fathom what you had just said. “You’re joking? Corazón, Lorraine and I are ancient history, there’s nothing there. I’m here with you, because I want you to meet my father. Lorraine’s just a family friend, nothing more, I promise you.”

“Shit Javi, sorry I-I didn’t mean to-“

“Hey, it’s okay, I understand”, he comforted you, wrapping his arms around you. “Take a deep breath okay, I love you.”

You grabbed a fistful of his shirt, hugging him a bit tighter. “I love you too, Javi. Thank you for bringing me here.”

He leaned into your touch, tilting your chin up to kiss you. It was a moment for him to convey just how much he adored you and just how sorry he was, lips moving against yours in an easy, soft rhythm. You pulled away with a muted sigh, looking into his eyes as you stepped back.

“You should check up on your dad, I’ll finish up in here”, you suggested, turning your attention back to the side dishes. “We can talk about it later.”

He gave a nod, more a formality than anything else and disappeared behind the wooden door. You drew in a deep breath, bracing yourself on the counter as you tried to comprehend everything that happened within that ten minute window.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on y’all, but I didn’t want to barge in mid conversation”, her voice sounded from behind you.

You jumped a bit, not exactly expecting for your boyfriend’s ex to sneak up on you like that. “I-it’s okay really”, you reassured her, covering the corn in tin foil.

“I can tell he hasn’t changed much”, she started, “He never was much of a talker.”

“He talks to me, it’s just not always as easy for him as it is for us”, you retorted, packing the other bowls in the fridge. “It’s a matter of mutual respect and understanding.”

She rested her hip against the counter, crossing her arms in front of her. “Well, respect is earned.”

You mentally knocked yourself on the head, not wanting to deal with this or spend a whole weekend biting back catty and snarky replies. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean for that to-“

“How far along are you?”, she interrupted, nodding towards your stomach.

You reflexive hand on your bump, feeling a bit uneasy. “Excuse me, w-what?”

“Oh come on, you’re not fooling anyone with the oversized shirt, I have two sisters with kids”, she explained, coming closer.

“W-we really-“, you started once again.

“Oh was it unexpected?”, she questioned, making somewhat of a face.

You set the last dishes in the sink, intent on getting out of this conversation. “Javier asked me to help in there, so, I’ll see you at the table.”

It was a poor excuse, but one that worked nonetheless. You hurried your way out of there, re-joining the three men in the living room, taking a seat on the couch next to Javier. He rested his arm on the cushion behind you, encouraging you to sit closer. He noticed you’d gone somewhat pale but didn’t decide to pursue his train of thought, instead listening to the other two go on about some truck repairs.

Lorraine joined a few minutes later, smiling at the two of you before sitting down next to her husband. “So, how’s Columbia been?”, she asked, not specifically looking at either of you.

“Closing in on Escobar and the cartel, but the situation is stable as of right now. Had some close calls but we mostly manage to come out on top”, Javier answered, looking at you during the second part.

The three of them looked at you now, and you answered the question before any of them could ask it. “I work at the embassy as well, DEA, same division and office.”

“But you’re quitting, right?”, Lorraine pressed, pouring herself a glass of whiskey.

“Depends, but for now I have no intention of resigning.”

That seemed to set the husband off a bit, who leaned forward more, actively engaging in the ongoing conversation. “That’s kind of irresponsible, don’t you think? Exposing yourself and your child to all that corruption, drug use and violence.”

You noticed the way Javier’s jaw tightened, his fingers balled up into a fist. “We’re not just throwing her out there. There’s barely any field work to do now and she’s not putting herself at risk.”

You laid a hand on his thigh, hoping to calm him even just the tiniest bit. “I stick to mainly office jobs now, but if I do go out I have Javier and my other partner right alongside me.”

Chucho shot you a wink, assuring you that you were doing great. “She can handle herself just fine out there, pregnant or not. One of the best damn agents we have out there”, Javier continued, now wrapping his arm around your shoulder.

“Does the embassy know about you two then?” You both nodded. “Sounds like one heck of a complicated mess to me”, Lorraine chuckled.

“If anything, I think she’s keeping him sane down there”, Chucho intervened. “They can’t have much of an objection to that, she’s saving them heaps of therapy bills.”

You and Javier both softly laughed at that, lacing your fingers with one another. “It’s nice to have someone down there. If I didn’t have him to come home to every night I wouldn’t know how I’d survive down there”, you confessed.

The hearts in his eyes were nearly visible as he just plainly admired you. He drank in your praising words as he tried his best not to show just how flustered he was. Chucho knew his son better than that, grinning at the two of you as he raised his glass. “Bueno, bienvenida a la familia, mi hija.” (Well, welcome to the family my girl/daughter.)

You blushed a bit at Chucho’s words, staring down at your lap as you tried to keep yourself from grinning like an idiot. Javier pecked your cheek, muttering something about appetizers. You sat next to him at the table as well, right in front of Lorraine as Chucho seated himself at the head of the table. The atmosphere seemed to have finally turned around and there was some light-hearted conversation going on, with an occasional burst of laughter.

The rest of the evening went by just as smoothly, the only hiccup when you and Lorraine were alone in the kitchen, plating the turkey and getting the heated dishes out of the oven or off the stove.

“I’m sorry for being nasty earlier tonight, I just want the best for Javier”, she explained, shrugging off her oven mittens. “He’s a very complicated man, but it seems like you’ve got him figured out.”

“Thank you for apologizing, I’d hate for us to not get along”, you smiled, grabbing a hold of a kitchen towel. “And I’m sorry Javi was such a prick to you back in the day.”

She chuckled. “It’s all good, I’m very happy with my husband, we just haven’t been blessed with kids yet.”

“Well, when you least expect it, it might just happen”, you joked, softly stroking your own bump.

“I can tell he really cares about you, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous.”

You both laughed at that. “How do you think I felt when I saw you walk in? Such a gorgeous Texan woman, tough competition.”

“Now, now, don’t be silly. You’re much more his type! Adventurous, sexy, witty, tough, independent.. you could teach me a lesson or two”, she replied, handing you a pair of mittens yourself.

“Whatever the case, I need some dinner first – I’m starving.”

The table was covered in little plates and bowls, the smell of turkey and gravy lingering in the dining room as you joined the others there. You sat down once again, practically drooling as you looked over the absolute feast in front of you. Chucho started off with a little speech, expressing how grateful he was to have you all there and how happy he was to have a new addition to the family. There wasn’t much talk during dinner, all of you eager to just dig in and have at it. Javier had an amused look on his face as he watched you go for a third serving of that creamy mash, giving you an extra big scoop as you pouted at him. By the end of your main course, your bump had nearly doubled in size, your oversized shirt more regular sized that intended. Javier was right there with you, leant back in his chair with his belt unbuckled.

Lorraine’s husband, David, was already up and carrying dishes into the kitchen and when you go up to do the same, you felt a gentle hand on your arm. Chucho was sweetly smiling at you. “Why don’t you sit down for a bit, you’ve been on your feet for way too long.”

Javier went to stand as well, grabbing a hold of both your plates until his father cleared his throat once more. “Go join your girl, we’ll take care of it.”

You really tried, but protests didn’t get you very far in this house. So you eventually ended up on the couch, curled up in Javier’s side, a soft quilt covering your legs. He slowly but surely started laying down more flat, subtly taking you with him, until eventually you both fell asleep on the couch. He had his arms wrapped around your back, his cheek resting against your head as your nose was nuzzled into the collar of his shirt.

Lorraine and David were headed out for a walk, leaving only Chucho. Upon finding the two of you, he grabbed a second quilt, snatching the camera off the dresser to snap a picture of the both of you. It all felt very surreal to him, his son coming back from Columbia a better version of himself, but as he saw the two of you laid there, a pure depiction of intimacy and care, he sure as hell believed it. His boy was in love and worse than he probably realised himself.

You woke up to the screen door falling shut, successfully jolting you awake. This sudden motion in turn caused Javier to wake up as well, immediately putting his hands on you. You quickly reassured him, giggling a little as he fixed your dishevelled hair. The sun was setting by now, an orange hue filtering in through the drawn curtains.

Dessert was filled with more small-talk, Javier eventually zoning out, not being the overly social type. You put a hand on his thigh under the table, sending an encouraging smile his way, reminding him that it was almost over. But when David suggested some more drinks on the couch, you could tell your boyfriend was getting annoyed. Deciding to be a good girlfriend, you stepped in.

As you went to stand you let out a purposely loud wince and hissed a breath. All eyes were on you, entirely according to plan. Even Javier thought you were serious, immediately holding out a hand to steady you.

“Querida?”, he asked.

“I’m okay Javi – just my back”, you lied, placing a hand there yourself.

Chucho put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Hijo, debes cuidar a tu esposa.” (Son, you should go take care of your wife.)

“Oh no – I don’t want to cut things short”, you continued, bracing your other hand on the table.

Lorraine moved to stand on your other side, grabbing a hold of your arm. “Nonsense, let’s get you to bed. Javier can help you up and I’ll get you a heating pad”, she tutted, guiding you into his arms.

You apologized another couple of times before Chucho ushered you upstairs as well, insisting you needed some rest. Halfway up the stairs, hidden from view, Javier let go of you letting you walk the rest of the way by yourself. Once inside the room, with the door shut, he pulled you flush against him, capturing your lips with yours for a saccharine kiss.

“Thank you”, he muttered, stepping away from you as he heard some steps down the hall.

Lorraine knocked before entering, handing Javier the heating pad. “We’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”

As the door shut again, he threw it right at you, sighing as he rested his head against the door. “I made the right decision at that altar. She doesn’t shut up, does she?”

You threw the pad right back, shaking your head as he caught it. “Manners, Peña.”

 The next morning you were hit with karma, hard karma. You were just in time, registering the familiar nausea and biting acidic feeling in the back of your throat and flailing the covers off of your body, rushing into the bathroom. You fell to your knees, so hard they’d be bruised, bracing yourself on the porcelain as you emptied out your guts. Your morning sickness was still around, but it wasn’t a daily reoccurrence anymore. But this very morning, it hit your hard, your back arching with the intensity of it all, legs shaking.

With the door wide open, Javier woke as well, hearing you wretch and hurl in the other room. He decided to give you some space, knowing you didn’t enjoy him seeing you like that. But when after ten minutes, it still wasn’t over and you were still heaving every thirty seconds, he decided the head downstairs.

He was greeted by his father, who sat at the kitchen table in a flannel, reading a newspaper. “Hoy te has levantado pronto. Something wrong?” (Well, you’re up early.)

“You have any mint tea or something?”, he asked, frantically flipping through the cabinets, “Usually helps her out.”

“Throwing up?”, Chucho questioned, folding his paper in half. “Go take care of her, I’ll bring something up.”

Javier just nodded, quickly grabbing a glass from the cupboard before sprinting up the steps again. He found you completely out of breath, head leaned on your forearms as your chest heaved up and down. He knelt down beside you, gently helping you into his arms, letting you lean back against him.

“Take a deep breath, I’m right here, corazón”, he shushed, wiping your forehead and mouth with the little hand towel.

You pushed his arms aside, sitting back up as you felt another wave of nausea hit you. He closed his eyes, annoyed there wasn’t more for him to do or help you. He fished a hair tie out of your make-up bag, tying your hair back before stroking up and down your back. It hadn’t been this bad since that day of the raid and he bit his lip as he tried to keep his worries to a minimum.

There was a knock at the door and Javier left your side only to see his father standing there, with a tray of stuff. “Have her drink those and eat that, she should be okay then.”

Without any more words he handed the tray over to his son, patting his shoulder before taking his leave again. Once back in the bathroom he noticed you were sat back against the wall, wiping your mouth down with the towel once again. He handed you one of the glasses and you tipped it back, scrunching up your nose at the sour taste. Javier encouraged you to keep going, handing you to second glass before also handing you the stack of saltines.

Once you managed to get all of that down, you took a deep breath, resting your cheek against the cold tiles on the wall. “This baby better be the cutest one ever.”

“How’re you feeling?”, he asked, kneeling down in front of you.

“I don’t know what was in those horrendous drinks, but it sure did something”, you chuckled, letting him pull you to your feet. Once up you reached for your toothbrush, eager to get the weird mixture of flavours out of your mouth.

He wrapped his arms around you again, sighing into your hair. “You’re shaking, querida. Get back in bed.”

“I’m fine Javi, just let me put on some clothes and we can get some breakfast”, you explained, turning around to face him.

He carefully knocked his forehead against yours. “Okay.. but if you so much as feel dizzy you’re laying the fuck down.”

There was something sweet about how protective Javier got at that times. It had started even before the two of you got in a bed together, within the first weeks of you working with the two of them. Whether it was giving you the newest and best vest or going into raids in front of you, he always made sure he had you covered. It didn’t stop there, that side of Javier started to come up more and more, whether it was defending you from patronizing glances and comments at the office or sex-crazed sicarios at the bar, he was always there. And now, as you were walking down the staircase of his childhood home, nearly three months pregnant, he was there as well. His broad palm engulfed yours as he guided you down the steps, telling you to watch out for the carpet on the last four of them.

Chucho was stood in the kitchen, bent over the stove stirring in a pan. He gave you a smile and a wink as you took a seat at the kitchen table, Javier disappearing into the garage.

“Feeling better?”, he asked with an amused tone.

You crossed your legs, skimming over the headlines on the front page of the newspaper. “Loads. How’d you know what to do?”

He set a plate of breakfast down in front of you and himself, sitting next to you. “My wife.. she had really bad morning sickness when she was pregnant with Javier. Doctor gave us a whole list of home remedies to try. It’s the sour foods you need.”

You listened intently, surprised by his knowledge and experience with pregnancy as a whole. “It worked like a charm, tasted putrid but did the job.”

“Remind me to write it down for you, got something to counter the swelling as well”, he told you, swinging his fork as he spoke.

Before you could thank him Javier walked back in with a bottle of milk. Filling a plate for himself before taking a seat across from you, next to his father. “Fence looks pretty banged up, had a storm recently?”, he asked, shoving a forkful of bacon and eggs in his mouth.

“Earlier this week, meant to fix it before you came but didn’t have time.”

“Oh”, you chimed in, “we could give you a hand, I mean we’re here anyways, might as well help out.”

Chucho put a hand over yours. “Hija, you helped enough with dinner yesterday, take the day off.”

Javier cut you off before you could even so much as begin to protest, talking to his dad himself. “She’s right pop, we’ve fixed it before, no reason we can’t do it again. Weather’s nice enough today.”

 It was uncharacteristically warm today, the beaming sun making it feel like a nice late summer day. You were sat up against a tree, comfortably watching from a distance as the two men worked on some replacements for the fence. Being the stubborn woman that you are, you’d insisted that you could at least do something, so Chucho shut you up by giving you some of his work shirts. They all needed some repairs, just simple patchwork and some sewing, nothing you couldn’t handle.

They worked on the fence all day, so you offered to make some dinner, using some of the Thanksgiving leftovers. By the time you were done cooking and heating everything up it was about six and the two men still weren’t back. So you went out again, making your way over to the edge of the fence, by the water. You were greeted by your boyfriend, aviators perched on his nose. His shirt had some sweat stains by now, strands of his dark hair plastered against his glimmering forehead.

“Dinner’s ready, you two can finish up tomorrow”, you suggested, leaning up against the good part of the fence. “I set the outside table, so the floors won’t get too dirty.”

To say Chucho was happy to have you here would’ve been an understatement. It hadn’t even been forty-eight hours, but the man was no fool. It was almost magical, the way you could just conjure up a day filled with smiles and joyful banter, it had been too long since that was the case. He’d been somewhat anxious to hear his son had put himself out there again, fearing another Lorraine might be the case, but seeing the way you took care of one another, the old man recognized a fairy-tale when he saw one.

The next day you managed to sleep in, being woken up by the dipping of the mattress. When you opened your eyes you were met with a sweaty Javier and a tray of food. He muttered something about eating lunch in bed before heading for the shower. You just laid back, slowly waking up more as he rinsed the sweat and dirt off of his golden skin, remerging in a flannel and some boxers.

“Why didn’t you wake me up”, you asked, sitting up against the headboard before glancing over the tray.

He sat down next to you, moving the tray as he did. “You needed the rest and we needed to finish the work on the fence. Didn’t think you’d sleep in past lunch though.”

“Javier Peña are you insinuating that I’m lazy?”, you giggled, grabbing the sandwich off the plate.

“I’m insinuating that you’re working too much”, he started, pushing you back into the pillows, “and that you need to take it easy.”

He grabbed a sandwich himself, laying back next to you, wrapping one of his arms around you. “How’s your dad?”

“Pop’s fine, out for the rest of the day”, he sighed, “Which means that I have all day to spend with you. Wherever and however we want.”

You playfully rolled your eyes, nudging his leg with your foot. “We have time for that tomorrow, when we’re home. Let’s soak up some more of the town before we leave instead.”

The two finished lunch together, got dressed and headed out. It was another warm afternoon, a pleasant breeze hitting the apples of your cheeks as the two of you strolled along the local shops. You looked so much like a couple in that instant, his arm slung across your shoulders, fingers fumbling with the strap of your purse. The two of you were talking and laughing about something work-related, his adorable dimple on full display as he smiled at you. He noticed you squinting, eyes struggling to stay open against the sun, so he grabbed the aviators out of his breast-pocket, gently placing them on the bridge of your nose, along with a kiss.

You were blushing like a teenager. Cheeks rosy with adoration and giddiness as you enjoyed the quality time with your boyfriend. The two of you would spend Christmas down in Bogotá, so you figured some early Christmas shopping was in order. Connie and you had a tradition of giving each other the essentials, good wine, some nice candles and soap and something blingy. Hence why you were stood in front of a jeweller, gazing in the window. Javier stood behind you, looking over your left shoulder with both hands resting on your hips.

“See something you like?”, he asked, lips ghosting over your ear.

You bit your lip, looking over the shiny bracelets and necklaces. “Do you think she’d like one of those engraved name bracelets for Liv?”

“What? I thought you were picking something out for yourself”, he chuckled in confusion.

You spun around, bracing your hands on his chest. “And what exactly would I need?”

“A ring maybe? I-I don’t really know what your taste in jewellery is”, he stuttered, scratching the back of his head.

“Why would I want a ring, I barely wear any – oh OH”, you replied, suddenly realizing what he was getting at. “I – what?”

He immediately started shifting, his confidence seemingly leaving his body. “You know, if we’re gonna raise a kid together and be together, might as well tie the knot. It’ll save us a lot of questions and weird looks.”

Your mouth hung open, eyes staring straight at him through the tinted glasses. “That is just the worst way of doing this. But I really like the gemstone rings”, the last part was more of a whisper, your hand on the doorhandle as you walked into the shop.

He smirked to himself, shaking his head as he followed you. “So not big on diamonds, huh?”

“Putting down thousands of dollars for some broken glass? Now, I thought you knew me better than that, Peña”, you teased, peering over at the displays.

Some sales assistant soon greeted the two of you, flashing you a bright, teeth-baring grin. “Good afternoon, can I help you?”

“Hi, yes”, you replied, smiling as well, “I’m looking for a bracelet to engrave, something cute and simple, adjustable as well.”

And with that the two of you were off, leaving Javier to look at all the shiny displays and windows surrounding him. You never ceased to amaze him, mocking him for his impromptu “proposal”. He chuckled into his hand as he looked over the rings. The two of you would get your little moment, he was sure of it, but some grand, big gesture wasn’t exactly in the cards, though he supposed a nice ring would mean a lot on its own. He spotted a thing band with three stones, a bigger one surrounded by two smaller ones. The middle stone had somewhat of a darker, deep purple/pink to it, a colour he found himself deeply attracted to. It had character yet subtlety, refinement yet something robust. It stood out but not because of the size or design, it stood out because it embodied you.

A second sales assistant was helping him now and he discreetly pointed over at you, asking the employee if they could estimate your ring size from here. There was a bit of laughter, but ultimately Javier walked out with a tiny box, lucky enough to have a suitable size in stock. You’d slipped the employee your actual size while Javi thought he was being slick.

The rest of the afternoon you were on the lookout for something for Steve and Javi. But soon you decided to stop at a little café, needing to be of your aching feet for a while. You sat in a booth alongside Javier, thigh to thigh with his arms around your waist. You shared a slice of cake with him, talking about a shop you’d seen in passing. A few shopping bags sat among you, mainly presents and necessities, seeing how the market for maternity clothing and necessities wasn’t as varied as the one here in Laredo.

By the time the two of you got back to the ranch it was already dark. You walked in through the backdoor, Javier’s jacket wrapped around you as it cooled off a lot more outside. Chucho was sat at the kitchen table, oiling up some of his tools.

“Have a nice day?”, he asked with a half-sided smile.

You plopped down in the seat across from him, letting out a deep breath. “I never knew Laredo was so fun.”

“Well, feel free to visit more often, especially if you need help with that little one”, the old man pointed out, gesturing to your bump.

“Trust me, I’ll drag Javi here myself if need be”, you whispered, raising your eyebrows in the direction of your boyfriend. “Let me write down the address for you as well, just in case.”

 Later that night, when Javier was already fast asleep you snuck back downstairs. You were still hungry, the whole “eating for two” thing clearly no understatement. When you were in the living room you noticed the light in the kitchen was still on. You carefully approached the door, relaxing when you saw it was just Javier’s father.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt”, you softly spoke, bracing your hands on the doorframe.

He shut the tiny television off, beckoning for you to have a seat. “You’re not, hija. Why are you still up?”

You swiped a strand of hair behind your ear, stopping a yawn from slipping out. “Was feeling hungry, baby is like a bottomless pit.”

The two of you quietly laughed at that, Chucho gesturing towards the fridge. “By all means.. Unless you want me to make you something?”

“Oh no, no, you’ve done so much already, Sir, some bread will do”, you assured him, grabbing the bread from the cupboard.

“Call me Pop, sweetheart, we’re a family now”, he reminded you, getting up to get you some cheese and ham. “You need the fats, they’ll keep the cravings away for a while.”

You gratefully took his advice, shoving a first bite into your mouth. “I’m sorry Javier’s been so distant, he gets caught up in his own head down there.”

“I’m glad he came, it’s been years”, he put a hand on your cheek, making you look right at him. “Thank you for giving me back my boy.”

Whatever you expected it wasn’t that. You put the sandwich on the counter, wrapping your arms around the man, trying to keep yourself from crying. “Thank you for giving me a family.”

 Leaving that Sunday morning was harder than you’d expected. Chucho couldn’t resist as he stocked your bag up with some home goodies, stressing once again that you should call more often. There were no tears, only genuine smiles and warm hugs as he dropped you off at the airport. The flight back was easy and nice, giving the two of you the opportunity to rest some more. Your drive back to the apartment was prolonged by the afternoon traffic, successfully annoying your partner.

“Do you want to come tomorrow night?”, you asked, trying to distract him from the person cutting him off.

“What’s tomorrow?”, the hand on your thigh moved to the stick, putting it in neutral as the car stopped yet again.

“I have my twelve week check-up, for the baby”, you clarified, sprawling a hand over your lower gut.

He grabbed a hold of your hand, gently pressing his lips to your knuckles. “Of course, querida, I’d love to go.”

You’d noticed his eagerness as soon as you set foot off that airplane, his hands seemingly both everywhere and nowhere at once. Sure the two of you weren’t teenagers anymore, but four days without any actions was even starting to get to you. His hand on your knee was enough to send that familiar electricity coursing through your veins. He was right there with you, the shirt you were wearing oversized to a point where the neckline slid down just enough to show off the top of your breasts. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried back in Texas, it was that you’d slapped his wrist away as soon as he did so.

He cursed the Columbian traffic, fingers tapping on the steering wheel as he tried to control the aching need to lose himself within you. Even just the sight of you, comfortably resting your head against the window was enticing. Once of the main road, it went a bit faster, his foot pressing down on the pedal a bit harder on the last street. He parked the car in one motion, not bothering to check if he was in between the lines. You got out of the passenger side, walking back to the trunk to get your bags, but Javier grabbed your hand before you could. The look in his eyes told you everything you needed to know: get to the apartment now.

The door closed as he pushed you up against it, pressing needy open-mouthed kisses to the crook of your neck while his hands worked on the buttons of his shirt. You briefly pushed him off, ripping your own shirt off before unclasping your bra behind your back. He let out a low groan at the sight of it, letting his own shirt drop to the floor as he surged forwards, capturing your lips in a heated kiss. His hands found themselves on your breasts, squeezing the tender flesh as he pressed his groin into your hip.

“I fucking need you, baby”, he growled, literally sweeping you off your feet.

You let out a squeal, immediately wrapping your arms around his neck. “You seriously need to stop doing that! There’s a reason your back always hurts!”

“And I’m sure you’ll take care of it later”, he chuckled, setting you down in front of the bed.

He pushed you onto the mattress, immediately following suit, kissing up every inch of your body, paying special attention to your bump. “Oh don’t tease now”, you whined, sitting up to drag his face over to yours. “Fuck me, Javi.”

“Don’t you blow your back out now.”

Taglist: @pedritomando @peterhollandkait @radiowallet @ophelia-ingenue @phoenixhalliwell @diogodxlot @rosiefridayrogersunday @a-court-of-feysand-and-elorcan @asta-lily @the-bottom-of-the-abyss @missstef23 @jasmincita @dobbyjen @kesskirata​ 

[squishybellies]

A little overindulgence

((I wrote a S//al/ad Fin//g/ers stuffing + wg fic because I've been hyperfixating on the series a lot. This was a little hard to write since (except for episode 5 and 11) he's really the only character that talks, but I did my best and I do like how it came out. Enjoy! Or don't, I'm not your mom.

Content warnings: object vore, implied starvation, implied familial abuse.)) Salad Fingers slumped in his chair sadly. It had been quite a while since he had eaten something proper, and he found that marbles he had been eating the past few days hadn’t done much besides disturb his stomach further. His eyes lidded as he began to feel quite lightheaded, but before he passed out he could faintly hear a tapping in the distance. Before he got the chance to address it, however, he found himself falling into unconsciousness.

As he groggily woke up, a strange scent filled his nostrils. “What’s this?” He pondered, yet no other sounds in his house indicated to anything being amiss. He curiously followed the scent trail to his kitchen, where he was greeted by a menagerie of different foods, none of which he had seen before, most were a lot less viscous than the gooey muck he was used to shoving down his esophagus. He once again called out to see if anyone was there, although there was still no response.

“I suppose this is for me, then…?” He looked around nervously, not wanting to disturb if there was a guest in his home. The food looked good though, and after a while of waiting he certainly couldn’t stand to not give into his desires any longer. “W-well, this is awfully kind. T-They ought to come back eventually, I suppose I’ll thank them when they return…” Mr. Fingers took a seat at the table and marvelled at the selection, it really was an awful lot of food, definitely more than the average bloke would eat. Surely he couldn’t finish it all, but then again he wasn’t sure when he would have another proper meal, ever since he purged his mother from his life he had an awful time cooking by himself. Then again, his mother was gone, and she had also always told him not to be greedy, but now that she wasn’t around, he supposed a little self indulgence never hurt anyone.

The first food item he picked up was a corn dog, and upon taking the first bite he felt a strange mixture of regret and happiness. His body definitely wasn’t used to such nutritious food and flavour, but he found himself craving more the second he finished it, swallowing the stick as well. He tapped his fingers together gently, “well that wasn’t so bad… I definitely think I wouldn’t mind more of these delectable treats…” he looked around again, before gently placing one hand on his abdomen. It felt odd, he definitely wasn’t full by any means but this was still more food then he usually ate, his stomach wasn't pushed in at the moment, which was also new to him.

“A l-little more wouldn’t hurt surely-” He reassured himself, using one hand to grab a basket of popcorn, and using one finger on the other to very delicately rub his tummy, which was feeling quite sensitive at the moment. He shuddered at his own touch as he began to shove popcorn into his mouth. “M-mph, g-gaining a few p-pounds wouldn't be that bad anyways I’m sure… at least I w-won’t be as cold during the winter…” he continued to rationalize what he was doing in his head.

Soon he finished the popcorn as well, and he was still feeling hungry. He grabbed a plate of burgers, three to be exact, they were plain, with nothing on them, but they were awfully greasy. He slowly ate each of the burgers, sliding each one into his mouth, once he finished the last one he let out a small belch. “Urmph… pardon me….” At this point he felt pretty satisfied, although a small part of him wanted to keep going.

And so, he did. He was feeling rather thirsty at this point so he grabbed the gallon of milk he had in his fridge, briefly pondering to himself if his stomach could even keep it down. Before he had time to chicken out though, he pressed the lid of the jug against his lips, feeling the cold milk trickle down his throat and into his stomach. His belly was starting to jut out more, curving into a more rounded shape as it strained against his shirt, a small sliver of skin peeking out from the bottom.

Mr. Fingers laid back in his chair, drifting a hand over the swell. He ended up finishing off the entire gallon of milk, but he still didn’t quite feel like stopping. Steadying himself, he scooted his chair closer to the table and reached over, grabbing five large soft pretzels. He spent quite some time chipping away at the salty delights, and when he wasn’t gnawing on them, his hands were caressing his bulging belly.

He huffed heavily as he finished the last pretzel, his full tummy feeling tight to the touch, round and poking out of his shirt proudly, the weight of everything he had eaten pinning him where he sat. For a while he sat there, feeling both regretful and extremely satisfied. He could practically feel his gut weighing against his lungs, and the only things he managed to verbalise were the occasional grunt or moan. Eventually he managed to fall asleep where he sat, feeling full and warm inside.

When he woke up, he still felt a bit groggy, placing a hand to his head, he mumbled as he got up. Something felt off though, and as he came to he quickly remembered what had occurred the other night. His hands brushed against his sides, feeling the new pudge that had been added to his body. He was thankful that it wasn’t too much, although he was still certainly softer then he was the other day. His now decently chubby belly strained slightly against his clothes, although thankfully those still fit.

He blushed slightly, embarrassed by his gluttony. He gave his tummy a gentle pat and promised himself he wouldn’t indulge like that again for a while. That was, until he looked over at the table. To his surprise, someone or something had restocked and cleaned the plates they had set out, and filled them with more delicious delicacies. From just a brief glance he could see chicken wings, snow cones, cake pops, and more!

At first, he thought about ignoring it and going along with his day, but after grabbing one doughnut on the table for breakfast, and being just as delighted by the flavour as the food in his last feast, he somehow convinced himself to eat more.

As he gently licked one of the many snow cones set before him, he promised himself he wouldn’t overdo it like last time.

[kamilah-the-bloodqueen]

Partners (Blaine x MC)

Notes: It’s been a while since I’ve actively written anything besides my three series, so I wrote this to A. Reintroduce writing into my life and find my style again and to B. Write something new, fresh and engaging so I don’t get bored and suffer from writing burnout. I know people have been patiently waiting for my series, and I do promise I am working on them but the burnout from last semester, along with a few other things have left me in one of the worst writing blocks ever and with little to no motivation to do anything. (Please gently bully me into writing them - it helps me motivate myself) Anyways, I hope you enjoy this quick little drabble - I loved the dynamic between Blaine and MC but I felt PB really squandered it with FA so I want to eventually compensate for the entire series. I might write a part two or I might just leave it as a cute open-ended one shot. 

Pairing: Blaine x F!MC (Kennedy) (Gender Neutral Blaine)

Words: 1552 words

Kennedy strolled into the lecture hall with Dionne, the chattering of students and occasional shushing of Professor Masako filling the lecture hall. Kennedy and Dionne took their seats in the back left side of the hall, in perfect sight with the board as the rest of the class found their seats, Professor Masako clearing his throat and beginning to lecture as the back door opened. Blaine sneakily slid into the back left of the room, taking a back seat and sitting on their phone as Professor Masako and Ayna explained the first class project - a mock union with students representing their own countries but modified with different laws, ethics, and adapted cultures. Ayna began listing off partners for the assignment, Dionne and Peter, Alexei and Evelyn, Henri and Zaira...

“And that leaves….Kennedy Monroe and Blaine Hayes. You two will be partners for the mock union”

Ayna’s voice faded into the background as Kennedy met eyes with Blaine, their eyes locking in a heated gaze as Dionne tilted her head in worry. 

“Maybe you can ask Ayna to switch your partner…” Dionne cut in, trying to ease the newfound tension that filled the lecture hall as eyes flooded to Kennedy and Blaine. 

“There will be no switching partners, no exceptions.” 

“Oh. Well...Blaine’s not that bad...it’s just your countries that are fighting…” Dionne toned her voice back to a faint whisper as Kennedy huffed in frustration, angrily packing her bag and striding out of the lecture hall, barely giving Dionne time to follow. 

“Come on Kennedy, it’s politics...you’re not your country…” Dionne’s heels clicked as she raced to catch up with Kennedy, who was making a beeline for the library. 

“Dionne, I know you’re just trying to help, but I’m so frustrated right now I just need to be left alone. I’m sorry.” Kennedy sighed and placed a hand on Dionne’s shoulder, glancing behind her head to make sure Murphy wasn’t planning her murder for it. 

“No, I understand and I appreciate your communicative skills. I’ll see you at home. Don’t be late - I’m making brownies.” Dionne smiled softly, her usual princess smile that would cause anyone to smile back. 

Kennedy walked to the back corner of the library, seating herself in the comfortable leather chair and pulling out her laptop with the intent on starting and finishing the entire presentation before Blaine got involved. She hastily typed away, eventually leaving to order a coffee at the built in starbucks at the center, only to return to her spot ten minutes later - with Blaine seated in her chair. 

“What are you doing here? Go away.” Kennedy growled as her grip on her coffee tightened ever so slightly. 

“Whoa, what’s with the hostility Rutherland? I’m here because we’re partners...partners work together.” The twinkle in Blaine’s eyes gave Kennedy butterflies, but she’d never admit that, at least not to Blaine - ever. 

“Well then you can do the last 15 slides, deal? I want to minimize our time together.” Kennedy clenched her jaw as Blaine scanned over her laptop, being bold enough as to view her progress so far and critiquing it. 

“Well, this isn’t wrong but your wording is a bit choppy, and the visuals aren’t very captivating. Maybe adding some animation or statistics may increase our probability of-”

“Wow...so you can be productive and get down to business.” Kennedy smiled at Blaine, before sipping her coffee to cover it so Blaine couldn’t make any snide remarks. 

“To defeat the huns.” Blaine smirked as Kennedy rolled her eyes.

“You mean to defeat the Ardonians?” Kennedy commented back with a sly smirk as Blaine raised their brows, amused by Kennedy’s banter. 

“An hour of horny sex followed by some rooftop stargazing would end all conflicts between our countries.” Blaine spoke with a straight face as Kennedy nearly spit her coffee out. 

“I’m sorry what?”

“Nothing, you have no interest in resolving the conflict between our countries...oh...it’s okay…” Blaine whined and slouched in the chair dramatically as Kennedy forced a disgusted reaction, disregarding the butterflies in her stomach and the fact that her palms were growing sweaty. 

“That’s...we would never!” It came out more desperate than Kennedy had expected, Blaine’s lips curling into a sinister smile as Kennedy felt her cheeks turn red.

“Never what? Have hot, heavy and horny sex on the library roof?” Blaine stared right at Kennedy, their eyes locking in a heated exchange as Blaine eventually stood and moved closer to Kennedy. 

“No! I mean yes! Can we just finish the project?” Kennedy stuttered as Blaine leaned over her, their charming smile and perfect hair throwing all work based thoughts out of Kennedy’s head. For a moment Kennedy thought they were going to kiss, but Blaine took a step back and fell into the other leather chair as Kennedy relaxed. 

“I’m just messing with you Rutherland, we should finish the project. I know you don’t want to work with me.” Blaine sighed and pulled out their laptop as their eyes scanned the screen and their fingers typed away. 

“Yeah...okay…” Kennedy finally sat back into her chair, which was thrown off by Blaine’s weight from when they were sitting in it. 

Hours passed, the night came and the light from the windows eventually became dim moonlight, and the light stemmed from the mildly lit chandeliers that hung from the library's ceiling. Kennedy’s stomach began to rumble which caught Blaine’s attention. 

“Are you hungry Rutherland?” 

“Nah, I can eat when we finish this.”

“Your body needs food, I can hear your stomach from here.”

“Okay well I didn’t bring food with me and I’d rather finish the project.”

“You’ll be more focused and diligent with a full stomach, come on let’s go get food and then we can finish this project.” 

“No, we can finish it now, plus you don’t care about me Blaine.”

“I never said that, don’t put words in my mouth Rutherland, but please let me put some food in your mouth.”

“You’re one stubborn headass aren’t you?”

“The best.”

“Fine, food and then we finish this project.”

“Finally, come on.” Blaine hurried to pack and leave, Kennedy cautiously following behind as their bodyguards trailed behind at a 10 foot distance. 

“Where are we going for food, isn’t everything closed at this hour?”

“My apartment.”

“No.”

“Come on, you said you’d get food. Plus if we want to finish this tonight we have to stick together.”

“Fine. But nobody finds out.”

“That embarrassed to be seen with me?”

“No it’s-”

“Politics. I know, come on then. Let’s go before anyone sees us.”

Blaine opened the door as Kennedy and Tatum stepped inside. The apartment was simple yet elegant, but the decor made both Tatum and Kennedy shift - Ardonian patterns were subtly tied into most of the designs, with a large Ardonian flag hanging above the archway that led to Blaine’s bedroom.

“This is a nice apartment, aside from the choice of decor I would say I like the design.”

“Thanks, make yourself comfortable.” Blaine tossed their backpack onto the couch and strided to the kitchen as Kennedy plopped onto the couch, the rustling of pots and pans following shortly after. 

Kennedy pulled out her phone, texting Dionne that she wasn’t going to be back until the morning, to which Dionne teased her before saying goodnight. 

“Order up.” Blaine offered Kennedy a plate with steak tips, mixed greens and corn - a Rutherland trademark.

“Blaine you made...Rutherland’s most well known dish?” Kennedy’s heart skipped a beat, did Blaine make her her own country's food out of courtesy?

“Well...you said you’d eat and...I think I already pushed it enough with the whole stubborn act...I’ll get you to try Arodnian food some other time...right now I’d rather deal with a happy Kennedy.”

“Blaine...that...that’s really sweet. Thank you.” Kennedy took the plate and dug in, Blaine watched her carefully for a moment before turning back and getting a plate for themselves, eventually sitting next to Kennedy on the couch.

“It’s not bad for an Arodnian.” Kennedy jested as she nudged Blaine in the side, both of them chuckling softly.

“Thanks, but next time it’s Ardonian food.” Blaine smiled and bit into a steak tip as Kennedy spoke softly.

“Next time?”

“Well yeah...we have to finish the project right?”

“Blaine once this project is over we...probably shouldn’t hang out around each other…” Kennedy whispered as Blaine sat their plate down on the coffee table.

“Yeah you’re probably right but...maybe I wanted to harass you again…”

“Oh? Did the ever so stubborn and mildly annoying Blaine want to hang out with Rutherland’s first daughter a bit more? It’s already pretty scandalous that I’m at your apartment on a Friday night at 11 pm.” 

“I could think of more scandalous things we could be doing, but I suppose working on a class project will have to suffice.”

 Kennedy felt it again, the butterflies in her stomach, the tingle between her legs and the pounding of her heart beneath all her clothes. 

“Anyways...we should finish the-” Kennedy stifled a yawn as Blaine sat up from the couch, wrapping her in a blanket and turning out the lights. 

“Night Kennedy.” Blaine sighed and retreated into their room as Kennedy’s exhaustion overtook her.

[seacottons]

Rewind.

▷ pairing : yunho x reader

▷ genre : fluff

▷ wc : 1.4k

summary : a compilation of yunho’s favorite moments captured on film.

APR. 16 2018 08:32 P.M

Despite the first video being merely a few seconds long, it was enough to capture the chaos that ensued in your apartment at the sight of a large flying beetle. The camerawork is shaky and extremely unstable in Yunho’s hand, his other within frame and grasping a neon yellow fly swatter. Your blurred, panic stricken face was captured for a brief second, along with the sounds of a shrieking Jongho and San, who dramatically threw off their headphones and gaming consoles to the floor in search for safety behind you. Yunho’s laugh rung out along with the deafening sound of rustling clothes and heavy footsteps.

-

MAY. 19 2018 07:06 P.M

Long fingers worked on adjusting the lens of a camera, and the blurred image of colorful bokeh dots focused to reveal your form in between the many booths of an amusement park, arms struggling to carry the human sized carrot plushie Yunho won for you. As you waddled after your tall boyfriend, your goofy grin flashed with every bob of the carrot’s leaves, eyes sparkling underneath the various flashing lights, “You’re the best boyfriend in the entire world.”

“Why? Because I won you a carrot?”

“Yes.”

-

JUN. 03 2018 04:47 P.M

“I think I did something wrong, Yunnie,” you grimaced as you eyed his slicked back hair. Your gloved fingers hesitantly rubbed a patch of his hair, the pink and orange product in his locks staining your gloves easily, “I think we should wash it off and start again.”

He hummed and rested the camera onto the bathroom sink to go wash off the dye. You handed him a towel to rub the excess water out of his colorful locks, and you gasped audibly as soon as he revealed his damp hair, “Oh my gosh.. it’s bad. I didn’t think it was that bad- I told you to not trust me with your hair-”

“I love it!” he cut you off with a laugh, hands working on filming a 360° of his pink and yellow tresses, “I look like ice cream!”

-

JUN. 27 2018 02:03 P.M

Yunho’s wheeze was the only thing you were able to detect in the next video. The black screen then flashed white, before the lens adjusted to the brightness to reveal your scurrying form and frightened face, hands clutching at a bag of corn kernels and a small flock of geese angrily chasing after you, their loud honks and your whimpers joining in with Yunho’s laughter, “I don’t know what’s wrong with them! I think they preferred the rice we bought them last time!”

“Poor baby,” Yunho snickered as a goose hissed and attempted to bite the hem of your coat.

“Yunho! Stop laughing and scare them away!”

-

JUL. 01 2018 09:00 P.M

Yunho blinked down at the camera, brows rolling into a subtle wave, before he turned the device to pan the room filled with commotion and bickering as the rest of his friends joined together in one of their apartments for a game of mafia. The camera zoomed in on your disgruntled expression as Seonghwa and Wooyoung bickered back and forth on either side of you, before panning to San who repeatedly slammed his hands onto the coffee table in protest, and finally resting on Yeosang’s calm form as he dipped his hand in Hongjoong’s bag of chips.

“So you’re saying you think I’m the mafia because of clothes I’m wearing!?”

You eyed the camera and then up at Yunho’s face, pleading for him to butt in.

“That makes absolutely no sense—”

Wooyoung practically leaned over onto your lap as he squawked incredulously, accusing finger pointed at Seonghwa’s face.

“Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying, but you’re all a bunch of cowards who are— ”

“Please, let’s play another game?”

-

JUL. 07 2018 07:05 A.M

A gentle finger poked your cheek. Rays of morning sunlight peeked through the gaps of the blinds, and Yunho’s finger continued to poke and draw circles onto your sleeping face, “Baby, wake up.”

Another poke.

“Baby.”

The camera leaned in towards your cheeks as Yunho made smooching noises from up above your sleeping form.

“Did you have to to party that hard last night, love?”

He zoomed in on your nose as he prodded it upwards to reveal your nostrils, “Little piggy, wake up.”

You snuggled closer to the carrot plushie in your arms, eyelids fluttering open to send a mocking glare in his general direction, “Little piggy?”

“Be flattered. I love having bacon for breakfast.”

The camera zoomed in uncomfortably close at your flustered and flabbergasted expression, “Jeong Yunho!”

-

JUL. 09 2018 05:45 P.M

Yunho’s fingers wriggled into frame as he made peace signs around your figure. The video displayed your concentrated expression as you carefully dotted black icing along the edge of the sugar cookie. The shiba inu cookie was soon starting to look well put together.

“Let me see, baby,” Yunho chimed in. You shook your head, mumbling something about it not being ready.

He grumbled and walked over to where Yeosang and Mingi had their respective plates and bags of different colored icing, “Make sure these are perfect for San’s party. I have more ready made eyes incase you need mor—”

The video blurred as Yunho‘a grip accidentally slipped around the camera. The device smacked onto Yeosang’s nearly perfect cookie, his startled hands accidentally squeezing around a piping bag, orange icing spurting onto his arms and clothes, “Yunho!”

Frosting smeared onto the lens of the camera, and Yunho worked in circular motions of wipe the surface clean, his distorted and blurry face flashing clearer with every few wipes, “Sorry, sorry!”

You and Mingi cackled in the background, and Yeosang had a difficult time deciding who to attack first.

-

JUL. 10 2018 06:09 P.M

“Happy birthday, dearest Sannie,” eight voices sang in a dimly lit room. You, along with Wooyoung, scooped frosting onto your fingers and smeared it on San’s visage, earning you a soft yelp of protest in return.

The camera zoomed in on the birthday boy’s grimace as he sent the device a look of disbelief, “I even get bullied on my birthday, can you believe it?”

“Make a wish, you bum,” Hongjoong smacked the other’s behind encouragingly.

San tipped his head, cheeks puffing over-exaggeratedly as he took aim. The fire from the candle ever so slightly licked the streamer strands on the tip of his party hat, and a series of gasps from the others startled the boy upright. The tip of his hat burned and if Yunho hadn’t captured the moment, you would’ve forgotten it just from how fast the events played out in front of you. Wooyoung’s shrieks and Seonghwa’s panic stricken expression were the only things your mind registered before Jongho determinedly and impetuously splashed the large bowl of cider onto San’s head, the soda distinguishing the flame and also soaking your frame.

“Did you wish for us to die!?”

-

SEP. 06 2018 01:36 A.M

The city lights were a blurry mess in the video as Yunho’s ran with audible footsteps and boisterous laughter, “Baby, why so slow?”

Albeit the shakiness, you were seen scrambling to catch up after him, the plastic bag filled with snacks and strawberry flavored milk swinging rapidly in the air, “Why are you too fast!?” you wheezed, gripping onto your cap with your other hand, the cold night wind leaving a subtle flush onto your cheeks, “We weren’t all born with skyscraper legs!”

He suddenly paused and turned to face you just in time for you to collide with his chest. You nearly smacked into the rolling camera if it wasn’t for his quick instincts, “Want a piggyback ride, piggy?”

-

OCT. 24 2018 08:00 P.M

“Jeong Yunho! Jeong Yunho! Jeong Yunho!”

“(Y/n), your cheering is distracting me from winning!” Wooyoung cried as he attempted to steal the basketball from Jongho, “Cheer for me instead!”

You held onto the camera and zoomed in much too close to capture the determined expressions and grimaces of the eight boys as they passed the ball from one to the other. Their sweat slicked skin glistened underneath the fluorescent street lamps.

“Jeong Yunho!” with every cheer of his name, you quickly zoomed in and out on his grinning face. He sent a hasty wink in your general direction before jumping up to pass the ball towards Mingi.

“Who the hell put all towers in one team!?” San cried as nearly toppled over from Hongjoong’s foot.

“Hongjoong! He needed to prove height isn’t a factor in sports!”

“Yes, it damn is!”

You cackled and zoomed out to pan around the surroundings for a brief moment, before returning back to the battleground. Your grin faltered as your eyes trained on the screen to watch the basketball rapidly flying in your direction.

“(Y/n), move!”

[isitgintimeyet]

Just a Friend

Sorry you’ve had to wait a few more days. i had a much needed few days holiday in Devon. And I realised it was the first time since February that I’d travelled more than 20 miles from home!

Anyway, we’re on to chapter 7. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy

Thanks to @wickedgoodbooks for the beta.

Previous

AO3

Chapter 7: From Feedback to The Force

I can see it clearly in my mind’s eye. A converted barn, situated at the end of a leafy country lane, surrounded by fields full of cows and maybe a horse or two. Jamie’s office will be at one end— all exposed beams with classic mahogany and leather furniture. Perhaps chickens will be roaming around outside as tractors pull up to deliver vegetables straight from the neighbouring fields.

This image begins to fade as I follow my Sat nav instructions and take the next junction off the motorway. Country lanes look to be few and far between in this urban sprawl. Signposts along the tarmacked road point to a series of industrial estates. At the fourth such sign, I’m instructed to turn left and in three hundred yards will have reached my destination.

Having parked up, I make my way towards the large, uninspiring building which resembles some sort of aircraft hangar. Its grey concrete and corrugated iron walls match the overcast sky and the roughly surfaced car park. The only colour in this landscape is provided by the bright orange FraserFood logo emblazoned above the loading bays.

There’s a single door to the right with an intercom. I press it and wait a few seconds.

“Hello, there.” A cheery voice greets me. “Can I help ye?”

“Yes. Hello, I’ve an appointment with Ja— Mr. Fraser, Jamie. It’s Claire Beauchamp.”

“Aye, come on through. Jamie is expecting ye. Down the passage and third door on the left.”

I step into a long corridor, painted an unoriginal white. Fluorescent strip lights hanging from the ceiling cast a harsh brightness. The floor is covered with grey carpet tiles.—the same as in thousands of other working offices across the country.

What sets it apart and brings character to the otherwise anonymous environment is the artwork. Colourful photographs line the walls — a bowl of strawberries, their red glossiness accentuated by the white porcelain; a perfect corn on the cob, rivulets of melted butter flowing around the kernels; a plate of steaming tagliatelle, the parmesan shavings falling gently onto the pasta. Then, as I move further towards the office, the photographs change to a series of images that I instantly recognise, La Boqueria, one of the food markets in Barcelona.

I pause for a moment in front of a picture of one of the stalls selling spices. Strings of different chillies cascade down from the metal frame of the stall. The vibrancy of that market was intoxicating, the noise, the colours, the aromas. I remember wandering from stall to stall snacking on fat, juicy olives, slices of spiced ham and wedges of refreshing melon, just soaking up that atmosphere.

My stomach automatically rumbles at the memory just as Jamie steps into the corridor.

He laughs at this unconventional greeting. “And good day tae ye too. Ye found us alright then?”

“No problem. Sat nav brought me straight here. It’s—“ I stop myself before I say any more, but, as usual, my glass face gives me away.

“C’mon. What is it? It’s no’ what ye were expecting, is it?”

“No— yes—no. It’s fine. It’s just, well, I was expecting something more, er, rural… rustic, you know.”

He sighs, but I can tell that he’s not offended. “What, ye mean like on a farm? Wi’ chickens running around? And tractors bringing the vegetables straight from the fields?”

I nod, feeling not a little bit foolish.

“And down a wee winding country lane, that yer lumbering great vans and lorries have tae drive along? Wi’ no easy transport links fer all the deliveries? And having tae deal wi’ all the food hygiene standards in some great old barn?” He laughs. “Trust me, it may no’ be photogenic but it’s the best place fer the business.”

He takes my arm. “Let’s go intae ma office and I’ll make ye a cup of coffee.”

My stomach rumbles once more. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any of those lovely Spanish biscuits too, have you?”

*********

The display of colourful photographs continues in Jamie’s office. I don’t recognise the scenes, but, I’m guessing these are more local— fields of corn bordered by old drystone walls, hedgerows bursting with dark jewel-like brambles. I pause at a picture of an ancient stone mill, the calm water of the mill pond reflecting the rundown building perfectly.

“That’s a bonny picture, is it no’?” Jamie’s voice is low in my ear.

I turn around. He is standing behind me, gazing intently at the picture.

“It is. Where is it? I’m guessing it’s somewhere here in Scotland.”

“Aye, it’s the old mill at Lallybroch.”

“Where you grew up?”

He nods. “Generations of ma family used that mill tae grind flour fer them and their tenants. It’s empty inside now. The wheel has long since rotted away. Jenny and I would escape there whenever chores were tae be done. She took the photo, weel, most of the photos here actually.”

I study the photograph more closely. “She’s very talented as a photographer. Is that her job?”

“She’d love tae have done that, but once she married Ian and the bairns started appearing, she hasna got the time. Mebbe one day.”

He moves past me towards his desk and I catch a hint of his musky cologne. I find myself comparing it to the slightly synthetic cologne that Frank always favoured. I decide that Jamie’s is preferable. It’s more real, somehow, earthy and, well, more masculine.

“... does that sound ok?”  

I realise that whilst I was considering male scents, Jamie had been asking me a question. “Er, sorry, I was miles away. What did you say?”

“Am I really that boring tae ye?” He laughs. “I said I would make ye a coffee and invite Rupert tae come in and join us. He’s our Head of Product Development. Will ye no’ take a seat?”

I sit down on one of the chairs arranged around a circular meeting table and take a good look at the office while Jamie makes a phone call. The walls and ceiling are the same uninspiring white, livened up by all the photographs. There’s a couple of framed photographs near Jamie’s chair that seem to be more personal. I’m too far away to be able to see clearly, but they look like children... his nephew and niece perhaps?

Jamie’s ‘L’ shaped desk is made of grey wood, as is a tall bookcase and this meeting table. Simple, but clearly a considered purchase, no haphazard grouping of random furniture. The desk itself is remarkably free from clutter— just a laptop with two huge screens and a black leather document wallet. The contrast to the clutter on the desks in my office and home couldn’t be greater. Not that my clutter isn’t important to me—a collection of pots and dishes from my uncle’s archaeological digs plus a paperweight and letter opener that I remember, as a young child, at my parents’ house. Then I realise, looking at the family portraits surrounding Jamie’s desk, that he doesn’t need to gather mementoes from the past. He has a living, breathing close knit family creating memories all the time.

I’m well aware that most of my friends have more of a family than I have, or have ever had, and generally I’m fine with that. But every now and again it hits me right in the gut—this pang of...not loneliness, but more of being disconnected, rootless.

Before I can dwell on this,  there’s a faint tap at the door. It opens immediately and a woman stands in the doorway.  She’s easily past retirement age, quite short and… is sturdy a polite descriptor? Well, short and ‘motherly’ in appearance.

She’s very smiley too. Her eyes crinkle as she grins broadly before speaking. “Jamie, lad. I’ve come tae see if ye both want a coffee. I dinna mind making it. And mebbe a few biscuits?”

Jamie steps away from his desk. “Ah, Mrs. Fitz, how d’ye always ken what I want? Coffee would be grand. And fer ye Claire?”

“Coffee, please. Lovely. White, no sugar. Thanks.”

She looks at me for a moment before Jamie makes the introduction. “ Claire, this is Mrs Fitz. She’s worked wi’ me since I started and I dinna ken what I’d do wi’out her.”

He reaches across and pats her arm gently.

“Mrs. Fitz, this is Claire, a friend of mine. She’s been trying out our Spanish dinner party menu and has come tae meet wi’ Rupert tae give him her opinions.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Fitz.” I hold out my hand.

She takes it in both of hers. “And it’s lovely tae meet ye too, Claire.”

She turns away and heads out the door.

“Right-oh. Two coffees it is then,” she says clearly, then carries on muttering under her breath as she leaves. “Friends, is it, then? A bonny lass, sure enough…”

Jamie smiles apologetically. “Mrs. Fitz can be a bit, weel...she’s been working with me a long time. She’s like a second mother tae me…”

He leaves the sentence unfinished, but I know what he’s thinking. Why can’t people understand that we’re friends, that’s all?

*******

Rupert is a complete delight, but somehow not what I was expecting. He rushes into the office just as Jamie and I are drinking our coffees. Nearly as tall as Jamie but quite a bit broader with a large beard, like an overgrown teddy bear, and clad in a sweatshirt and baggy ill-fitting jeans, he looks as if he would be more at home on a rugby pitch rather than in a development kitchen. With Jamie now standing next to him, the office suddenly feels rather small.

Jamie makes the introductions and we settle once more around the table. Rupert places his notebook and pen on the table.

“Ye dinna mind if I take a biscuit or two, do ye?” He asks, with a smile. He knows how tasty they are.

Jamie and I shake our heads and Rupert reaches out and takes two in his large, fleshy hand. He starts to eat, sprinkling crumbs all over his notebook.

“Ye canna take me anywhere,” he says as he tries to sweep the crumbs into his hand.

Jamie laughs and playfully punches Rupert’s shoulder. “Weel, ye can… but only the once, mind.”

There’s an easy camaraderie between the two of them. I’m guessing that Jamie has worked with the same people for quite a while. It’s good to see.

Rupert swallows, picks up a tissue and wipes the stray crumbs from his beard.  “Right-oh. So, Claire, thanks fer doing this—“

“No, I should be thanking you. It was a great meal.”

“Weel, glad tae hear that, but I would appreciate any improvements we could make. Is there anything we need tae change?”

I’ve been racking my brains all the way here, trying to think of something constructive to say rather than just reeling off a list of compliments, nice as that would be for Rupert and Jamie. And, honestly, I don’t know what more I can add. The food was excellent, the wine matched perfectly and the olives were a thoughtful addition.

I tell them all this and Rupert solemnly notes it all down. Sitting there, side by side, elbows almost touching, they look for all the world like two proud parents being complimented on their child’s talents. But they have every right to be proud.

“And nothing else?” Rupert persists. “Nothing we could do better?”

“Well, a couple of tiny suggestions. Maybe a few more pictures with the recipes would help. I’m not the most gifted cook.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Jamie trying to suppress a smile. He’s never seen me in the kitchen, maybe he’s imagining me as some sort of culinary disaster area. I vow to prove him wrong at some point.

“And,” I continue as Rupert scribbles in his notebook. “Perhaps add a couple of suggestions to complete the Spanish night. I made sangria to start the evening. Could you add a recipe for that?”

Rupert closes his notebook with a flourish. “Right then. Thank ye sae much fer that. Glad yer friends all enjoyed the food.”

He stands up, shifting the table as he does so.

“Weel, bye then, Claire. Lovely tae meet ye. Hope tae see ye again.” He shoots a quick look across at Jamie before leaving.

“Rupert’s a lovely guy,” I comment as the door shuts behind him.

“Aye, he is that,” Jamie shifts in his seat. “Listen, I need tae ask ye a favour.”

“Another one,” I joke. “Wasn’t the dinner party enough?”

I add a sigh, purely for dramatic effect.

“Ye can say no if ye want tae,” he continues. “But I was wondering… weel... Ian, that’s Jenny’s husband, his rugby club is having a charity dinner dance a week on Saturday. Jenny’s bought two tickets fer me and a plus one. D’ye fancy it? It would help me out of a wee bit of bother with ma sister.”

Now I’m intrigued about his “wee bit of bother” with Jenny. I don’t want to end up in the middle of some sibling squabble.

“How so?” I’m not giving an answer straight away. At least not until I know what the bother is.

“Jenny bought the two tickets fer me a couple of months ago. I think she was assuming I would bring Laoghaire. But ye ken what happened there. Anyways, she asked me yesterday about it, and ever so casually suggested I might bring Kelly— that was ma date the other night.”

The pattern of Rupert’s crumbs on the table appears to suddenly be of great interest to him. He studies them intently as he talks, his ears turning slightly pink as he does so.

“And?” I prompt him.

“And, I told Jenny that after Laoghaire and I broke up, I didna want tae disappoint her about the dinner and so I’d already asked ye tae come along. As a friend,” he hastily adds the last part.

So, what do I decide? I do love the opportunity to have a bit of a dance and rugby club dos are usually a bit of a laugh, in my experience. And of course, I know Jamie is offering as a friend, so I’m not worried about that.

“Why don’t you want to ask Kelly then?” I want the full story before I give him my answer.

“She’s a nice enough lass but I didna think we had any spark. Plus she was trying too hard. Fer example she asked me what films I liked, then when I told her, she was all ‘no way, they’re ma favourites too’.”

He adds gestures at this point, to demonstrate Kelly’s actions, one hand flapping excitedly, the other resting on my sleeve, lightly stroking through the fabric of my shirt. It feels—

“Apparently we have exactly the same taste in films, music, food, drinks, television and holidays,” he continues as he sits back and folds his arms.

“Sounds like a match made in heaven to me.” I joke. I can still feel the sensation of his hand on my arm.

He looks up at me and frowns. “I’m no’ joking. Ye would be helping me if ye came as ma plus one.”

“Ok then. I do know that I’m not on call. I can come and be your wingman, if you like. Just one question. What are your favourite films?”

“Star Wars.”

This wasn’t the answer I was expecting. He doesn’t seem like a typical fan. Maybe he has a dark side that I haven’t yet seen, with a secret stash of Star Wars figures and multiple light sabres.

“I’ve never watched any of them.” It’s true. I seem to be in the minority but I just don’t get the appeal.

“And I can tell from yer face exactly what ye think of them. But they’re classics, weel most of them, anyway,” he starts to enthuse.

I shake my head. I can’t see that he will ever convince me.

“Well, Sassenach, have I got a treat in store for you!”

And, worryingly, it seems that he’s up for the challenge.

[wyofabdoms]

Ten Days - Day Nine

Characters: Javier Peña x female reader

Summary: Javier is shot and refuses to take his antibiotic while recuperating. You get creative and make him a deal that ensures he will take his medicine everyday: one kiss for one pill. It's gonna be a long 10 days.

Rating: Smut!

Warnings: Major character injury, slow burn, mutually unrequited, angst, swearing, domestic Javi, fingering, washing dishes gets a little out of hand

Word Count: 3105

Note: While you nurse a hangover, Javi tries his hand at being domestic.

Read the full series on Ao3

Javi knocks on your door late afternoon the next day.  You’ve been nursing your hangover headache most of the morning, lounging on the couch, reading your book and switching back between the news and some cheesy action movie.  Around 5 you hear the thumping against your door and groan when you stand and stagger to answer.  He stands slouching against your door jamb, a grocery bag in one arm.  

“Hey,” he says by way of greeting and doesn’t wait for you to invite him in before brushing past you into your kitchen.  

“Hey, Peña, come on in…” you mumble, closing the door.  You follow him into your kitchen and flop down in a chair, watching him pull items from the bag.  “You know you’re not supposed to be going anywhere, Peña.  I coulda gone and gotten whatever you needed.”  You see his taut shoulders lift in a shrug.

“I’m going crazy cooped up over there.  Needed to get out and get some air.  Figured you might need something if you kept at that whiskey bottle after you left last night...” His gaze flicks over to yours for an instant, then settles on the three empty wine bottles lined up neatly next to each other on the counter.  He smirks and moves to open a cupboard, rummaging around for cooking utensils.  “Looks like I wasn’t too far off.”  He chuckles under his breath as he dumps oil into a frying pan and lights your stove.  You appreciate the fact that he was thinking of you, but for a moment you’re a tad affronted by the way he’s waltzed in and made himself at home in your kitchen.

“You couldn’t have messed up your own kitchen and just called me to come over and eat?” You grumble as you stand and get yourself a glass of water.  You hear him laugh quietly.

“No frying pan.”  He says simply by way of explanation.  You turn away from the sink at the same moment that as he absentmindedly pivots to grab something, putting both of you awkwardly close to one another, well within the other’s personal space.  You feel your face flush and you quickly side step away from the counter, hiding your flush behind your glass as you gulp your water.  

“Well,” you say, trying to act normal.  “If you’re making dinner, I’m gonna take a shower.”  

You practically flee your own kitchen.

***

Within the hour you’re lured back into joining your partner again by the delicious smell permeating your apartment.  Pulling your wet hair up off of your neck, you don sweatpants and another old t-shirt (bra included this time!)  

“Are you making arepas?!”  You call out incredulously as you approach the kitchen, hearing the popping of oil and recognizing the familiar scent of warm cornmeal and fried pork.  Your mouth had started watering as soon as you had stepped out of the shower.

“Sorta…” He grunts back. “Didn’t make the dough from scratch but I think it’ll do the trick.”  Your excitement at Javi’s choice for dinner is suddenly dashed as you take in the state of your kitchen; your countertop is a small battlefield of ingredients and kitchenware.  It appears as though he’s used every single utensil and bowl you own.  You shake your head, but appreciate his gesture nonetheless.  Flopping back down into the same chair, you take a moment to revel in the feeling of domesticity: you in your favorite comfy clothes, your handsome partner cooking up your favorite snack, existing together in comfortable silence while he works on the food and as you studying the way his back muscles flex beneath his shirt…

You shake those thoughts away as he brings a plate piled with a stack of stuffed, corn flour pockets.  You're delighted to see he’s altered the traditional Columbian snack and made it more appropriate for your hangover, filling the creation with scrambled eggs, cheese and beef along with the chicharrón you had smelled earlier.  He’s included chopped avocado and tomato on the side to add if desired and you’re impressed by the well rounded meal your notoriously take-out eating, chain-smoking-for-every-meal partner has pulled together.

You tell him as much as he joins you at the table and he shrugs, snorting in self-derision, ducking his head as he digs in, shoveling food into his mouth rather than having to address your compliment.  You follow suit and the two of you enjoy your meal over general commentary about the food, idle chit-chat, and cursory work talk.  After making a substantial dent in the pile of arepas, you lean back in your chair and yawn, satiated and you rub the small bump in your belly that can only be described as a food baby.  Rubbing your stomach reminds you of something.

“Hey! How’re your stitches doing?  Is it healing up ok?”  You haven't seen his injury since that night on his bathroom floor, but you haven’t noticed him struggling to move or showing any indication of being in pain, so you’d almost forgotten the fact that he had been shot just over a week ago.  

Your thoughts stray to that day, remembering the sick bile that had risen in your throat when you had seen your partner flung off his feet by the force of the bullet hitting him, smacking into the ground; the panic that had bubbled in your stomach when you’d dropped to your knees next to him and seen the blood coming from him.  Your brain had quickly determined that the bullet had gone straight through the meaty area of his side and had most likely missed any of the vital organs there, but you’d still clamped your hands down on the wound as though willing your hands to keep the blood inside his body.  He had writhed and hollered at you to get off of him, but you had refused, screaming at a police officer to call an ambulance.  Your panic had not subsided until several hours later when the doctor had told you he was in no danger and would make a quick and complete recovery.

Lost in the frightening memory of that day, you stare blankly at the surface of the table, paying no attention to the way Javi’s eyes flicker as he remembers something, too.  You’re distantly aware of his hand reaching into his shirt pocket and retrieving something, but it isn’t until you catch sight of him sharply tossing his head back and gulping a large swallow of water that you realize he’d been moving.  He doesn’t look at you as he recaps the pill bottle and slips it back in his pocket.  Instead, he grabs both of your plates, taking them to the sink and filling the basin with warm, soapy water.

“You don’t need to do that, Peña, you take care of the counters, I’ll do the dishes,” you protest, dragging yourself to your feet and moving next to him at the sink.

“It’s no big deal.”  His voice is low and sounds sleepy.  You poke him in the (uninjured) side with your elbow and push him away from the sink with a gentle bump on the side of his leg with your hip.

“That’s not how it works around here, Agent Peña.”  You begin soaking dishes in the sudsy water, hyper aware that he hasn’t moved away from you, his leg still brushing yours.  He turns so he’s facing you and leans his hip into the counter, studying your profile.  You suddenly feel the need to be very focused on the sink so as not to drop a plate.

“Oh yeah?”  His voice is even lower now, which seems impossible, and it stirs that thing inside of you that you’ve been desperately trying to control for the last nine days...no...much longer than that.  “How exactly does it work around here?”  He asks teasingly.  You smirk, roll your eyes to distract yourself from the flush you feel throughout your body and jerk your head towards the mess he’d made while cooking.  

“The person who cooks never does the dishes.  Just clean up your mess over there and bring me those dishes and we’ll call it good.”  You feel equal pangs of relief and agony as he moves away from you but you concentrate on washing the dishes.  You both make quick work of your respective tasks.  As you set to work on the last pan he brings you, he finishes drying the plates with a towel and you’re once again struck by the comfortable feeling of domestic life you feel, standing in your kitchen side by side with him.  

Your mind wanders again: when you’re finished, the two of you would retire to the couch and you’d snuggle up into his chest as you watched a movie, his feet propped up on your coffee table and his arm around and you would both sink into sleep.  Not long after he would wake you by peppering kisses along the crown of your head, your forehead, your closed eyes and he would whisper sweet nothings to you in Spanish as he picked you and carried you to your bedroom…

A loud plopping clatter sounds and a splash of soapy water spouts out of the washbasin as the pan you’re scrubbing slips from your grasp.  You hear Javi chuckle softly next to you and he reaches over and swipes away soap suds that landed on the tip of your nose and directly below your eye.  You shiver at his touch and he notices; he pauses midway through pulling his hand back, leaving it hovering for a moment in the space between the two of you.  Hesitantly he reaches down and takes your soapy hand in his, lacing his fingers between yours and bringing them both to rest on the edge of the sink.

The feel of his strong hand over yours sends another shiver through you and you can’t look at him, instead keeping your face focused on the soapy water.  But you don’t pull away.  His hand connected with yours on the counter keeps you in place.  You feel your insides start to flutter and burn.

You’re dimly aware of him leaning towards you.  You feel his warm breath on your outstretched neck a half second before he places an open mouthed kiss there, on the spot below your ear, where your pulse suddenly thrums a thousand times faster than it had been.  You can’t stop yourself from gasping as you involuntarily clench your thighs together against the jolt of pleasure that zaps there, sent directly from the spot where his mouth touches you.

It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before.  Of course you’ve had other men kiss you on the neck but this...this is HIM.  It’s him: with his stupid mustache that tickles along the sensitive skin and the tip of his tongue that swirls and traces the pounding pulse.  It’s him: the ambivalent Agent Javier Peña who never seems to care about anyone, but who you know possesses a well of emotion just below the carefully guarded surface of his persona.  Him: the sexy playboy whose  prowess in the bedroom is the stuff of legends among men and women alike at work...and in the brothels across Bogota.  Him: that you have refused to give in to for almost two years of your life, even as you’ve both grown weary and broken and sought comfort from all the wrong places.  These last eight days have been merely puffs of air into a balloon, filling it, expanding it...and now this feels like the final push of air that might make it pop...

...You let it pop.

You drop your head back against his shoulder and release a breathy sigh that rises from the very depths of your repressed desire for him, letting your whole body sag back into him.  Without taking his lips from your neck, he shifts himself so that he more solidly stands behind you.  Your other hand takes on a mind of its own and lifts to stroke the back of his neck, scratching your fingernails softly through the hair at the nape of neck, causing him to emit a sound from someplace deep within him, pressing the noise into the sensitive skin of your neck.  He still hasn’t removed his lips from your skin, afraid to break the connection and snapping you both out of this moment that you’ve been crashing towards for a long time.

You exist this way for several seconds, minutes, hours...you’re not sure.  You aren’t even conscious of the fact that you’re grinding your ass back into him until he suddenly rips his mouth from your neck and latches his teeth onto your earlobe.  A feral growl bursts from his throat as he grabs your hand from the back of his neck and smacks it down beneath his on the counter top as well, caging you between his arms and thrusting his pelvis into your backside, shoving both of your hips forward into the kitchen counter.  The feel of him suddenly so roughly pressed against you sends your breath rushing from your chest in a sharp and lusty moan and you freeze for a moment, neither of you moving, save for the soft twitching you can feel along the front of his pants.  

Your mouth hangs open and you gasp for a few short breaths.  Then you focus on the hand beneath his and move to thread your fingers through his to match your other hands.  Gripping him tightly for leverage, you forcefully push your ass back against him: grinding up and down, left and right, forward and backward against the steel outline of his erection.  He lets out a strangled cry, rocking his hips along with yours, occasionally snapping his hips forwards to create different friction.

You’re on fire everywhere.  Your brain is screaming at you to stop while you still can, but you’ve had enough of that.  As you both continue to gasp and push and rub and thrust against one another, the throbbing between your legs becomes too much.  Before you can think about it too much, you take his hand and draw it between your legs, pressing his palm against you, moving your hand over his, wordlessly begging him to rub you where you so desperately need.  He releases another strangled noise, this one higher and more desperate, then he rests his forehead against the back of your neck.

“F-fu-fuck!”  he bites out against your skin.  You’ve never heard him struggle with a curse, or any word, so much.  You let out a breathy moan in response, moving your hand away as he takes over rubbing you, relocating your hand to where it was previously, carding your fingers through his hair. He trails his mouth to your other ear, taking the lobe gently between his teeth as he did with the other.  You whimper when his warm palm leaves the space between your legs.  His fingers trail up your abdomen and trace along the elastic of your sweatpants...and stop, there hovering along the hem as his body stills, his mouth pulling away from you slightly, looking at you carefully.  You’re both panting frantically and he whispers into your ear: “Can I?”

It takes you a moment to realize what he means, but when you do, you turn your head towards him and nod, leaning back into his body again, your hips squirming in anticipation.

“Say it.” He growls into your ear.  You gulp, close your eyes and whisper:

“Touch me.”

His hand is immediately under the elastic, his finger buried inside your wetness, immediately finding that spot inside of you that makes you cry out and thrust your hips forward, seeking more.  

He gives it to you.

His thumb brushes over your clit, eliciting more cries and gasps.  Soon he adds a second finger into your folds and between the two broad digits and his expert touch with his thumb, you feel yourself quickly rising towards your release, your cries becoming louder, more desperate, babbling nonsense as he brings you closer to the edge. He snaps his own hips forward against your ass in rhythm with his fingers as he pumps them in and out of you, adding quiet hisses of affirmation against your neck, your ears, into your hair.  He growls your name as he asks you to cum for him and that’s enough to make you explode, feeling your walls contract around his fingers, your juices surging out of you and covering his hand. In the next instant you feel his thrusts against your backside become shallow and his moans turn into a series of staccato mewls and he presses himself against you and into the countertop, gasping into your hair.

He continues to stroke you with several more long strokes of his fingers as you both come down, the realization of what’s just happened settling over you both.  He slips his hand from beneath our sweatpants and rests it gently on your hip, squeezing your other hand gently; your hand had remained threaded with his the entire time, grounding you both together.  You can only stare at your clasped hands, feeling your face flush from the reality of what’s just occurred.  He moves to press a kiss against your neck again, the same act that had kicked all of this off to begin with and you shy away from him, lifting your shoulder to block his face, pulling away from him and unwedging yourself from between him and the counter.  You hear him quietly say your name and he tries to hang on to your hand, tries to pull you gently back towards him, but you snatch your hand away, crossing your arms across your chest and shaking your head, refusing to turn around and look at him.

“I think you should go.”  You say quietly after a few moments of silence.  You hear him take in a sharp breath, can feel him starting to say something.  

But he doesn’t say anything.

You move when he does, keeping the same equal distance between the two of you, heading towards your bedroom on the off chance that he might try to step closer and touch you on his way past you as he leaves.  You know if he touches you again you won’t be able to resist him...not now that you know what his touch feels like.  You hear him grab his jacket off the back of his chair as you move down your hallway and you lean against your bedroom door, listening for the sound of your front door closing.   

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Day Eight

Day Ten

[avengerscompound]

The Tower: Family - 6

The Tower: Family An Avengers Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Pairing:  Avengers x OFC, Bruce Banner x Bucky Barnes x Clint Barton x Wanda Maximoff x Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff x Tony Stark x Thor x Sam Wilson x OFC (Elly Cooper)

Word Count: 4012

Warnings:  Pregnancy, smut (bisexual orgy, baby making, edging, over-stimulation, oral sex, anal sex, rough sex, throat fucking, face sitting, vibrators, cock-rings, electrostimulation, multiple orgasms).

Synopsis: With new powers, Thor now living on Earth full time, a wedding to plan, and Natasha and Wanda expecting, a lot is changing for Elly and her large and rather unconventional family.  When Elise’s parents try to reestablish connections, Elly questions what being a family actually means.

Chapter 6: Making a Baby

Immediately after the ceremony, we had to sign all the legal paperwork and we had some photos taken.  The bots Tony had made when we were in Asgard had taken some photos at the bonding but as that had been interrupted by a large battle, there were none posed of us together as a family.  It was definitely nice we got to have this moment recorded when the bigger one hadn’t been.

The sun was setting by the time we walked over to the area on the beach set up with tables and hanging lanterns that would host our reception.  There were two large round tables, one for us and one for the guests, and next to the long tables where the buffet would be set up, there was a small round table with a large cake shaped like the Avengers Tower.

Waiters had been walking around handing out tropical-themed canapés that included coconut shrimp, chicken skewers with pineapple and mango, and mini black bean and corn empanadas, while the band played soft rock songs by Tony’s favorite bands.

When we arrived, the band stopped playing and Rhodey went up to the podium.

“Well, well, well,” he said.  “Looks like our little group of deviates has finally arrived, all official and everything.  Can we all stand and welcome them, complete and whole, and two of them legally married.”

Everyone stood and clapped as we moved up to the dance floor.  Tony and I moved to the center while the other’s circled the edge.  The band began to play ‘Nothing Else Matters’ by Metallica.  Tony spun me into his arms and we began to slow dance to it, turning slowly around the dance floor.  Steve and Bruce stepped out onto the dance floor and Tony spun me into Steve’s arms before turning and pulling Bruce against him.  We danced in pairs for a few bars and Natasha, Wanda, Bucky, and Thor moved in.  Wanda began to dance with me and I kept my cheek pressed against hers as we moved around the floor.  Finally, Sam and Clint moved in and we all switched again.  We spent the rest of the song slow dancing around each other and switching from partner to partner until we had each danced with everyone.

The song ended and we took our seats and Rhodey got back up to the podium.

“Now, we all came here from pretty far away… not like when they dragged our asses to Asgard, but still, it was a trip.  But we all know why we’re here,” Rhodey said as the staff began to set up the buffet with the starters.  “These guys are our family.  So thank you all for coming to celebrate with them.  It looks like they’re bringing out the food.  I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.  Let’s go eat.”

Our table went first.  The buffet was set up in sections.  One had a selection of cold seafood, like shrimp, oysters, and smoked salmon, one had things like crab cakes, different kinds of skewers with things from fish to tofu, stuffed mushrooms, tacos, and warm tartlets with tomato and bocconcini.  There was a salad station, and one with soups, as well as a table full of tropical fruit.  There was also a bar that was specializing in brightly colored tropical cocktails.

“Thank god,” Tony said as he began loading up his plate with crab legs.  “I’m starving.  I’ve been fasting so I’d look good in a suit.”

“Are you kidding?”  Natasha asked.  “You’re basically a coat hanger.  Everything looks good on you.”

Tony chuckled.  “Thanks, Red,” he said.  “But I didn’t want to be all bloated.”

“Well, eat up, you dope,” I teased.  “Gonna need your energy.”

“Already calling me a dope?”  Tony asked.

“You are a dope,” I teased.  “And don’t drink too much either.”

“Wow, Elise,” Tony deadpanned.  “We’re married two minutes and you’re already trying to change me.”

“I need you at your peak performance tonight,” I whispered and headed back to the table with my plate piled high with different things.

“Pfft,” Tony scoffed as he followed along after me.  “That’s what Thor is for.”

“I can only ensure that you are fertile.  I can’t ensure you’ll be able to perform,” Thor said playfully.

“But if you’d like one of us to get Elise pregnant,” Steve added.

“Woah now,” Tony said, putting his hands up.  “Let’s not be hasty here.”

We ate our starters and drank and talked and as the plates were cleared away Rhodey got up to the podium again with a glass of champagne.  Waiters started filling everyone’s glasses.  There was a hibiscus flower in syrup sitting in the bottom of each glass and when the champagne was added to it, the flower appeared to bloom in the glass.

“Now, platypus,” Tony said.  “No bad mouthing me.  You promised.”

“I feel like this speech should have been done in Asgard.  But then there was some battle with angels and it became a little like work.  So we’ll do it here,” Rhodey said.  “I met Tony way back at MIT.  He was just an annoying kid who liked to show up all the students who were at least three years his senior.  But he has a way of growing on you.  I don’t know what I expected him to do with his life.  He was smart and funny and partying hard and that never ended for a long, long time.  For a while, I was worried he was going to burn out hot and leave a pretty corpse.  But it turns out, he’ll most likely outlive us all.  Back then I didn’t really see him as the marrying type.  Yet here we are. At his wedding.  The official Earth one after he just committed himself for 5000 years to 9 other people.  If you’d asked me back then if I thought he’d do that I’d have thought you were as drunk as Tony probably was.”

Rhodey looked over at Tony affectionately and Tony winked at him.  “I’m so happy for him.  He deserves a happy ending and he’s found it.  I know he loves them all.  And he loves being a dad.  He’s finally seemed to find that exact thing he needed.  A loving family.  I know it’s unconventional.  It took me a long time to understand it.  But Tony isn’t conventional.  Conventional was never going to work.  And while he went in reluctantly at first because a woman he got a crush on was gently leading him in, it’s been exactly what he needed,” Rhodey said and raised his glass.  “So I’d like you all to raise your glasses to finding your people and unconventional love.”

Everyone toasted to unconventional love and clinked their glasses together before taking a drink.  Rhodey returned to his chair, ruffling Tony’s hair as he passed him.

Steve stood and approached the podium.  “That’s quite the speech to be following,” Steve said.  “But I’d like to follow with the same theme about not believing what the future would bring.  I was born in 1918.  Over one hundred years ago.  I had a list of ailments that was taller than I was.  I was told I wouldn’t make it to adulthood.  Despite being told all the things I couldn’t do, I was determined to do them.  I made it to adulthood.  I started dating the boy I had a crush on for so long.  I even managed to ride the Cyclone at Coney Island.  But if you had told me back then, I would not only be marrying that boy but also eight other people, one of them an actual god, on a completely different planet, well, I probably would have had an asthma attack.”

There was laughter from everyone and Steve looked over at us all.  “Here we are though.  I didn’t expect it, let me tell you.  Someone once told me that if it wasn’t for war I was nothing.  It took nine people to make me realize otherwise.  And I love them all.  They each touch a part in me that’s unique and I’m so happy that… well, we all fell into this little arrangement.”  He took a breath and looked over at us.  “It hasn’t been without its obstacles.  But you can’t say you have a strong bond until you’ve overcome some obstacles together.  And we made it.  We’re getting our happily ever after.  So let’s toast to that.  Happily ever after.”

He raised his glass and everyone repeated ‘happily ever after’ while raising theirs.  Steve came back and took his seat and I went up next.

“We like to joke about being in the bad dad’s club,” I said as I stood in front of everyone.  “Most of us have our own stories of parental neglect.  I was raised being told I needed to marry rich, lock him in with some kids, and not care who he was sleeping with.  It made me reject all of that I barely dated.  I expected to just die alone.  And then one day I knocked a certain red-head over when I was running late for work and it changed my life forever.

“I have had my two kids.  And I did marry rich.  I also don’t care who my husband sleeps with. But I don’t think my parents had this in mind.  They’d hate this.  I don’t care.  I am happy.  I love these people.  I love the thing we’ve built together.  I’m excited about our future and what that means.  I’m excited to see how our family grows and what that means for us.  I love them all so much.  I never thought I’d ever want anything like this, but love is like a drug and I’m addicted.  Now I have it, I can’t imagine it being any other way.” I lifted my glass.  “So I ask you to raise your glass to finding your family.”

I took a drink while everyone repeated me and then returned to my seat.  Natasha grabbed my hand as I passed and pulled me down into a kiss.  Tony got up and spanked my ass as he passed me and I made a choked giggle into Natasha’s lips.

“So,” Tony said as he waggled his glass and a waiter came back over to refill it.   “We've all heard I was a bit of a mess. All I ever knew was abuse, manipulation, and neglect. So it took me a while to even think about trying to attempt monogamy. And well, we're here today, so obviously, that didn't work out for me either.”  There was laughter from everyone and Tony paused until it died down.  “These guys started up their little den of iniquity under my nose.  Oh, they invited me to join.  In fact, they told everyone else I was part of it, completely ignoring how closed off and angry I was.  They really didn’t want to take no for an answer, but I guess, I am me, so who can blame them?”  There was more laughter and he looked over at me.  “Then one day, I found this stray roaming around my tower.  I tried to resist her.  I even tried to get FRIDAY to kick her out of the building.  But she managed to crawl right in under my skin and take up residence there.  It hasn’t been smooth sailing. Like Spangles said, there have been some rough and downright scary times.  I kept locking them out, scared I was going to get hurt or end up hurting them.  It took a long, long time for them to teach me they were here for me and I was worth it.  Slowly, I realized I was healing.  That I was in love with all these people.  So I guess that is proof we all have hearts.  So I ask you to raise your glasses to love.  Whatever form it finds you in.”

I got up and kissed him deeply as everyone toasted and he pulled me close.  “I love you so much,” I whispered.

“Alright,” Sam said standing.  “Enough talking. Looks like the second course is here, let’s eat.”

The reception turned a little more party after that.  We ate, danced.  Cut the cake.  Bucky shoved his slice right into Steve’s face much to Tony’s amusement.  The cake was 10 different flavors and I was pretty determined to try them all.  The kids were taken to bed by their aunt and uncle just after the cake and by the time we left I was a tipsy, exhausted, and yet completely hyped up.

“Alright,” Tony said, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind and kissing my neck.  “Let’s make a baby.”

“Not so fast, Tony,” Steve scolded.  “We all want to be part of this.  We are a family after all.”

“Besides,” Thor said.  “I thought you wanted my assistance.”

“Oh, yes,” I said as Sam approached me.  He ran his hands up under my skirt, pushing it up at the sides as he moved his hands to my ass.

“I don’t like the tone,” Tony said, suspiciously.  “What exactly are you people planning?”

“You people?”  Steve teased, pulling Tony back against him and palming his cock through Tony’s pants.  Sam brought his lips to mine and began to kiss me deeply and lovingly.  “Come on now, Tony.  We’re family.”

Tony made a choked groan and leaned his head back on Steve’s shoulder as Thor approached Tony.  He leaned in and kissed Tony hungrily and slipped one large hand into Tony’s pants and began to massage Tony’s balls.  There was a spark and a ripple through the air and Tony groaned loudly into Thor’s lips.

“All the other babies were conceived in an orgy by accident.  The only reason we know paternity is because Thor just knows that kind of thing,” Natasha said running her fingers down my neck.  “This is the first time we’re planning to get pregnant and we all want to be part of that even if we are planning paternity too.  So, little Elise here is going to be overstimulated.  We’re each going to make her come over and over and over until she can’t take it anymore.” 

Thor released Tony and moved over to me, pressing himself behind me and kissing my neck.  Sam pulled back and Thor tilted my head back and kissed me deeply.  He pressed his palm low on my stomach, just above my pubic mound.  There was that same spark and ripple as with Tony, and a dull ache ran through my core.

“You on the other hand,” Natasha said, grabbing Tony by the lapels and pulling him toward the bed.  “Will be edged until you're begging us to let you come.”

Thor pulled my dress off over my head and everyone else began to undress, either themselves or each other.  Clint picked me up and carried me to the bed tossing me on it.  Tony was on the far side of the bed.  He was naked and Natasha was sitting on his thighs and putting a cock ring on him.

Clint crawled between my legs and pushed them apart kneeling down and nosing at my cunt.  He pulled off my panties and licked a stripe up my folds, making my skin buzz.  Wanda climbed up on the bed beside me and straddled my face.  I hummed and lapped over her cunt, swirling it over her folds and dipping it inside her.  Clint began to flick his tongue over my clit and sucking on my pussy.

My hips jerked under him as Wanda’s rolled on my face and her fluids dripped down into my mouth.  I was vaguely aware that the others were kissing and grinding on each other near me and right on the other side of the bed Thor was sucking Tony’s cock while Natasha rode his face.

Clint thrust a finger inside me and began to suck on my clit.  He hit my g-spot immediately like his fingers had a magnetic attraction to that sweet spot inside me.  He sucked on my clit, flicking his tongue back and forth over it. I moaned loudly into Wanda’s cunt, trying to focus my tongue on her clit, moaning louder each time she shuddered over me.  Clint’s fingers pushed harder and harder on my g-spot sending a jolt up my spine each time he did it.  My legs began to shake as my orgasm approached being fed by the feelings the others had and intensified.  I focussed on Wanda, sucking hard on her clit and pushing my tongue inside her.  I knew she was close too, I could feel it through her thread.  She always sat close to the edge once the rest of us began to enjoy ourselves.  I nipped at her clit and she moaned, coming on my face.  I let myself relax and as soon as I did, Clint pushed hard on my g-spot with two fingers and twisted his wrist.  I screamed out and came hard, bucking my hips against his face.

Clint got up and crawled over to where Tony was and Wanda climbed off me.  Natasha, Steve, and Bucky approached me.   Natasha guided me so I was straddling her face and Bucky pushed me forward so my face was at Natasha’s cunt.  Sam had pulled Wanda into his lap and they were kissing hungrily, while Thor was fucking Tony, and Tony sucked Bruce’s cock.

Bucky poured lube onto my ass and pushed a finger inside, fucking it slowly.  I moaned loudly and nuzzled at Natasha’s cunt as Natasha lapped over mine.  Steve slapped the head of his cock on Natasha's clit and teased it over my lips.  I sucked on the head and he thrust shallowly in and out of my mouth.

More lube was added to my ass along with a second finger.  I mewled and tried my best to relax as Bucky worked to loosen me up.  Steve pulled his cock from my mouth and sunk into Natasha.  I licked over his base and flicked my tongue over Natasha’s clit as Steve began to fuck her.  Bucky pulled his fingers out and added more lube.  I felt the head of his cock press against my ass and he began to ease into my ass.

“Fuck!”  I gasped.  The sound muffled by Natasha’s cunt.

Natasha gave my ass a spank and I clenched hard around Bucky’s cock, making him groan loudly.

Steve was fucking Natasha at a steady pace and I lapped over her cunt and the base of his cock, drinking up her arousal as it ran down his shaft.  Bucky fucked me slowly as Natasha sucked on my clit.  My muscles spasmed and clenched and I struggled to keep myself up.  The way I clenched and moaned seemed to spur Bucky on.  He picked up his pace, adding to the burn through me.  I started panting against Natasha’s cunt and she moaned and bucked under me.  I sucked her clit into my mouth and pressed my lips against it and flicked my tongue back and forth quickly.  Natasha mirrored my action and we both came moaning into each other.  Bucky and Steve fucked us through it before slipping out.  I rolled off the top of Natasha and lay panting as people moved around me.  Thor, Sam, and Bruce approached and I looked up at them and swallowed hard.  “How many times have you climaxed, my queen?”  Thor asked as he lifted me and moved me so my head was hanging over the end of the bed.

“Two,” I answered as I let my head drop over the edge of the bed.  I could see what the others were doing to Tony now, but I knew he was struggling to hold it together.

Sam tutted.  “That doesn’t sound like nearly enough.  I think we might need the vibrator boys.”

He went to the drawers and pulled out a small bullet vibrator.  Bruce and Thor both lubed up their cocks and Bruce put pillows under my hips and eased his cock into my ass.  Thor straddled my chest, pinning me to the mattress and pushed my tits around his thick shaft and slowly began to roll his hips.  Sam gave Bruce the vibrator and he turned it on and pressed it onto my clit.  The setting was low but it still made me buck up and moan loudly.

“Open up, princess,” Sam said.

I opened my mouth and he pushed his cock into my mouth.

Thus began one of the most intense sexual experiences I’ve ever had.

It started slow, Thor massaging my tits as he fucked them slowly, Bruce matched his pace as he fucked my ass and held the vibrator against my clit, and I sucked Sam’s cock.  It very quickly escalated.  Each man seemed to be spurred on by the others.  Bruce started fingering me as he fucked me and Sam started fucking my throat.

The first orgasm hit quickly and Bruce upped the setting of the vibrator.  I cried out and bucked under them and Thor sent a jolt through me making me come again.  Each time I came they went harder and upped the buzz on the vibe.  By the third my vision was going fuzzy thanks to the brutal pace they were setting.  Bruce groaned and jerked hard into my ass coming inside me.  He slipped out and Thor moved down and took his place.  He was large and his cock stretched me painfully, but I was light-headed and fuzzy and I welcomed the pain.  He upped the buzz on the vibrator and I came immediately.

Thor made an almost graphic squelching sound each time he thrust into me as Bruce’s come acted as a lubricant for his cock.  Sam groaned and pulled back slightly as he came into my mouth, coating my tongue with thick, salty ropes of semen.

I moaned and swallowed it but Thor didn’t even seem close.  Bruce and Sam stayed close to me as Thor kept fucking my ass.  Sam massaged my breasts and pinched my nipples and Bruce took over with the vibrator leaving Thor free to just hold my hips and fuck my ass hard.  One orgasm just blended into the next and I couldn’t focus on anything else.  I screamed out and everything went black.  When I came to Thor had moved me a little and was no longer inside me.  “Oh good,” he said smiling.  “Did we push you too far?”

I shook my head slowly.

“Good, because Tony is ready for you,” Thor said, gently and kissed me softly.

He moved away and I opened my arms.  Tony crawled up between my legs.  “I’m not gonna last long,” he said, apologetically as he eased inside of me.

I moaned.  “Good.”

He chuckled and slowly rolled his hips as his body stayed pressed close to me.  Everything ached but my cunt welcomed him.  I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight and we began to kiss.  Everyone else was just sitting around us watching.  Tony was right though, he was sitting right on the edge and it was only a minute before he groaned and was releasing inside me.  I didn’t care that I didn’t come again.  I had done more than enough of that.  I hummed happily as he filled me and collapsed down on top of him.

“Was that it?  Is she pregnant now?”  Clint asked.

There was laughter in the group.  “Takes a week or so, Clint,” Bruce said, with no patronization in the tone, just kindly educating his husband.

“It will, though, right?”  Clint asked.

“They are both at peak fertility,” Thor said.  “It still may not happen and I would recommend that Elise and Tony try again tomorrow.  But it should work.”

I hummed and kissed Tony’s neck. “You hear that?”

He hummed in return.  “Yeah.  More sex or us.”

I giggled and nudged his cheek with my nose.  “Not that part.”

He laughed and kissed me just under my ear.  “Yeah.  We’re gonna have another baby on the way.”

// NEXT

[96thdayofrage]

THE DARK UNDERSIDE OF REPRESENTATIONS OF SLAVERY

Will the Black body ever have the opportunity to rest in peace?

The photographs are about the size of a small hand. They’re wrapped in a leatherette case and framed in gold. From the background of one, the image of a Black woman’s body emerges. Her hair is plaited close to her head, and she is naked from the waist up. Her stare seems to penetrate the glass of the frame, peering into the eyes of the viewer. The paper label that accompanies her likeness reads: delia, country born of african parents, daughter of renty, congo. In another frame, her father stands before the camera, his collarbone prominent, and his temples peppered with gray and white hair. The label on his photo says: renty, congo, on plantation of b.f. taylor, columbia, s.c.

In 1850, when these images were captured, the subjects in the daguerreotypes were considered property. The bodies in the photographs had been shaped by hard labor on the grub plantation, where they’d spent their lives stooped over sandy soil, working approximately 1,200 acres of cotton and 200 of corn. Brought from the fields to a photography studio in Columbia, South Carolina, each person was photographed from different angles, in the hopes of finding photographic evidence of physical differences between the Black enslaved and the white masters who owned them. A daguerreotype took somewhere between three and 15 minutes of exposure time, and the end result was a detailed image imprinted on a small copper-plated sheet, covered with a thin coat of silver.

Louis Agassiz, a professor at Harvard, commissioned the portraits of Delia and Renty, along with those of other enslaved people, from the photographer Joseph T. Zealy. The daguerreotypes remained, all but forgotten, in the school’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology attic until an archivist found them in a storage drawer in 1976. Since then, these photos of Renty and his daughter Delia have been featured on conference programs, in presentations, and reproduced in books.

As photography has moved from the scientific novelty of Agassiz’s time to ubiquitous contemporary entertainment over the years, the art form has reflected society’s inequity. The rediscovery of the daguerreotypes and their use in revenue-generating materials in the present day have helped surface an ethical issue that has long accompanied images of Black people’s bodies: Their presentation and exploitation still, in many cases, outweigh individual ownership and autonomy.

While the provenance of the photos traces a line from a drawer at Harvard to a photographer in South Carolina, their story today also has roots in Norwich, Connecticut, home to Tamara Lanier, who claims to be the great-great-great-granddaughter of Renty. As a girl, Lanier’s mother told her about an ancestor named “Papa Renty.” She learned that he was a master of the Bible and that, as an act of defiance, he taught other enslaved people to read. According to the history passed down through her family, Renty got his hands on Noah Webster’s The Original Blue Back Speller, and after tending to crops in the fields, he would study the book at night.

Gillian B. White: Introducing the third chapter of “Inheritance”

Lanier would not start searching for the truth behind those stories until 2010, the year her mother died. She began a genealogical search for her ancestors. She also told an acquaintance, Richard Morrison, of her mother’s death and her own attempt at tracing her bloodline. Morrison, an amateur genealogist, took what Lanier told him and did some digging. He came up with a name: Renty Taylor. Morrison’s Ancestry.com search pulled up a photograph of Renty from 1850—one of Agassiz’s daguerreotypes. Further searches provided Lanier with information about Agassiz and Zealy and mentioned where she could find the original pictures: Harvard University. When she traveled to the school and viewed the images, Lanier was disappointed by their size, which resembled a deck of cards. There he was, the man who seemed larger than life in many of her mother’s stories, looking small and sad.

Seeing her ancestors in the archives at the university, Lanier felt the portraits were out of place. She believed that the images of Renty and Delia belonged to her. So on March 20, 2019, she filed a lawsuit against Harvard. In her lawsuit she alleges that the images of Renty and Delia are still working for the university, based on the licensing fees their images command. (In 2019, Harvard acknowledged that the images are not protected by copyright and that it charges only a $15 fee for a high-resolution scan.) Lanier requested that the university grant ownership of the daguerreotypes to her, pay her punitive damages, and turn over any profits associated with the portraits. “From slavery to where we are today, Black people’s property has been taken from them,” Lanier told me. “We are a disinherited people.”

Earlier this year, a court dismissed Lanier’s lawsuit, saying that “the law … does not confer a property interest to the subject of a photograph,” no matter the circumstances of its composition. Neither Harvard nor the judge presiding over the case disputed Lanier’s evidence that she was a direct descendant of Renty. Still, the court declared that Havard had the right to keep ownership of the photographs. Lanier has appealed the decision, and now the Massachusetts Supreme Court will weigh in. Oral arguments are scheduled for November 1.

Lanier’s case is about more than her personal interest in the photographs; rather, it has greater implications in a long-running reckoning. Agassiz used these photos of enslaved Africans, along with measurements of their cranium, as evidence of a theory known as polygenism, which was used by American proponents to justify slavery. He and other scientists believed Black people were created separately from white people, and their pseudoscientific inquiry was embedded into racist stereotypes in the bedrock of this country. To some historians, in keeping and curating images like these, Harvard is still celebrating the work of these practitioners and their discredited racial theories. (Harvard did not respond to requests for comment. In a previous statement, the university claimed the daguerreotypes were “powerful visual indictments of the horrific institution of slavery” and hoped the court ruling would make them “more accessible to a broader segment of the public.”)

The outcome of Lanier’s court case against Harvard will be legal commentary on whether the Black body ever has the opportunity to rest in peace, or whether present-day academic and entertainment priorities outweigh the rights of the Black deceased.

Whether she gets there or not depends on her long shot of an appeal. But her fight is an important front in a war over the ownership of images of Black bodies, one that is being waged on TikTok as well as in dusty archival drawers.

This technology spawns a series of questions: At a time when Black bodies are treated as teaching moments for the larger culture, are those whose bodies were broken—by the whip of an overseer or the bullet of a police officer—ever afforded the opportunity to rest in peace? This inquiry is the latest curious development in the ethically fraught conversation about Black bodies, ancestry, and ownership. There is a direct line between historical exploitation and the ongoing commercialization of and profiting from images of dead Black people, over which their descendants often have little control, few claims, and few rights.

America is still grappling with the limitations of freedom, and whether Renty and Delia will be released from the grips of the archives remains to be seen.