#i already wrote most of ch 1

[seventh-district]

several days and 15 thousand words later, i am relieved to report that the suffocating urge to Write Something has been sated and no longer has me in a chokehold

[anachronistic-falsehood]

beating back all these trigun fic ideas with a comically large stick

[svsss-fanon-exposed]

Examining SVSSS Canon: 2/∞

THE PRE-CANON TIMELINE

This post will attempt to provide an answer to several questions, including the ages of some of the current peak lords, as well as a rough timeline of events in the extras relative to the current day. A simple, bullet-point timeline will be at the end of this post, with relevant quotes and analysis above.

The timeline of SVSSS isn't particularly easy to piece together, and many fans are unsure of things such as the ages of certain characters, or how long the current generation of peak lords has been in power. As a matter of fact, it seems like even Airplane himself doesn't have a set timeline in mind for the events of PIDW pre-LBH:

“Your ages?” To tell the truth, Shen Qingqiu didn’t really know the precise age of this body. He raised his head at Shang Qinghua. “Wouldn’t you know better than I do?” Shang Qinghua twirled the brush in his hand. He’d never thought about this question either, so he figured he might as well just say whatever. Therefore he randomly wrote a number down in a couple of strokes. (7 Seas, Ch. 31)

It would be easy enough to take this quote and call the timeline a mystery-- however, there are a surprising amount of clues in the text, enough to at least put together a decent idea of when things happened and how old certain characters are, depending on which theories and interpretations one ascribes to.

There are two particular facts which are our most important hints as to the pre-LBH timeline, upon which this entire analysis hinges.

First, we have the spacing of the Immortal Alliance Conferences:

After much difficulty, Luo Binghe managed to turn seventeen, at which point he finally participated in the event the cultivation world held once every four years: the Immortal Alliance Conference. (7 Seas, Ch. 1)

And next, we have the length of time since Shen Qingqiu began to cultivate:

Before, Shen Qingqiu had thought that this body’s qualifications were already incredible, to have formed a core in only ten or so years when he’d begun cultivation so late.  (7 Seas, Ch. 19)

Notably here, what is translated as "ten or so years" is 十几年， which is more accurately "ten and a few years." This means that at the time Shen Qingqiu formed a golden core, he had been at Cang Qiong Mountain for around 10-15 years, but likely no longer or shorter than that.

This tells us quite a bit already-- because we know that Shen Qingqiu only reached core formation after becoming peak lord, as well as after Luo Binghe had already become a disciple:

Luo Binghe was using the incorrect cultivation manual that Shen Qingqiu had handed him; he should have long since died bleeding from the seven apertures, his body rupturing down to his bones, skin, meridians, tendons, and flesh... Shen Qingqiu was filled with paranoia; he forever felt like everyone was secretly talking behind his back, discussing how he’d been unable to attain Core Formation even after this long.  (7 Seas, Ch. 24)

So this tells us that it could not have been any longer than around 15 years between Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe joining Cang Qiong Mountain, and was likely at least a few years less than that because it has already been awhile since Luo Binghe was given the fake manual, which likely occured shortly after he arrived, and Shen Qingqiu reaches core formation at some point after this scene.

This means that the Qing generation's ascenscion likely occured no more than ten years after Shen Qingqiu joined the sect-- putting the ages for Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan respectively at roughly twenty-six and twenty-nine when they became peak lords.

The timeline can be clarified further and expanded, however, due to the spacing of the IAC. We know that the IAC occured when Luo Binghe was seventeen, and that it occurs every four years-- meaning that there would have been IAC taking place also when he was thirteen, nine, five, one, and three years before he was born.

However, we also know that it had not actually been fourteen years since Luo Binghe's birth at the start of SVSSS.

In the translation, Luo Binghe says the following when Shen Qingqiu asks his age:

“This disciple is fourteen,” Luo Binghe obediently replied. (7 Seas, Ch. 1)

However, the original says:

洛冰河乖巧地道：“弟子虚岁十四。”

"虚岁" here would be better translated as "nominal age." In ancient times, a child was one year old on the day of their birth, and aged up by one year with each new year-- so if a child was born the day before the new year, then at two days old he would already be counted as two years old. Sometimes, this would be counted on the spring festival new year, but other times it would be counted on the winter solstice.

As for Luo Binghe's precise chronological age, that is up for some determination. We know roughly the time of year he was born:

Immediately after birth, Luo Binghe was abandoned by his parents, swaddled in white cloth, and put in a wooden basin that was lowered into the Luo River. This occurred on the coldest days of the year... (7 Seas, Ch. 1)

The "coldest days of the year" here is 数九寒天, which refers to the nine periods of nine days each following the winter solstice. The winter solstice typically occurs on December 20-21, meaning that Luo Binghe's birth date is somewhere between December 20-March 12. If nominal age is being counted by winter solstice in this world, then that makes him chronologically thirteen at the start of SVSSS, but if it is calculated by the spring festival, then he is chronologically either twelve or thirteen at the start of SVSSS, as the Chinese new year can fall anywhere between January 21 - February 21, meaning that LBH could have been born either before or after this time.

So, let's just say that LBH's chronological age, for the purposes here, is thirteen, and then adjust our IAC timeline as follows：

There was one when he was chronologically sixteen, twelve, eight, four, the year he was born, and four years before he was born.

Now, how does this help us determine a timeline?

Well, we have the following statement:

Yue Qingyuan’s knuckles slowly brushed along Xuan Su’s hilt. “I was able to meet Senior Su Xiyan once at an Immortal Alliance Conference, many years ago." (7 Seas, Ch. 18)

Because we know that Su Xiyan died when Luo Binghe was born, we know that this meeting could not have occured at any conferences after his birth. It also would be unlikely that they met the same year Luo Binghe was born, as Su Xiyan would likely already be dead at that point if LBH was born after the new year. So, the latest that Yue Qingyuan could have met Su Xiyan would be twenty years before Luo Binghe was thrown into the Abyss.

We now combine this with the earlier discussion of the ages of Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan, and here I will note the following:

Yue Qingyuan slowly said, “At age fifteen, I entered Qiong Ding Peak." (7 Seas, Ch. 21)

This puts Yue Qingyuan roughly three years older than Shen Jiu:

“When [Shen Jiu] was twelve years old, he was but a slave my family had purchased from traveling child traffickers. " (7 Seas, Ch. 6)

Shen Jiu joined Cang Qiong Mountain at sixteen:

Liu Qingge didn’t even grace him with a sideways glance. “But certainly more success than a nobody who only began proper cultivation at age sixteen.” (7 Seas, Ch. 19)

This happened most likely directly after reuniting with Yue Qingyuan at an Immortal Alliance Conference. This puts Yue Qingyuan's age at nineteen during that conference, at which point he is head disciple, and has already gained some fame. However, this reunion has to occur before Luo Binghe's birth, Su Xiyan's death, and Tianlang-jun's defeat. This is because at this point, Yue Qingyuan has only been in Cang Qiong Mountain for four years-- thus, this particular conference is almost certainly the first one he has taken part in, and likely the first one he has attended at all, since a brand-new disciple in early stages of training most likely wouldn't have gone, therefore if Tianlang-jun had already been sealed by this point, Yue Qingyuan would not have had the chance to meet Su Xiyan.

So, the latest Shen Qingqiu could have joined Cang Qiong Mountain, at age 16, is twenty years before the Abyss, which would put him at age thirty-six at the youngest at that time.

Now, what about additional conference cycles?

It's possible that the conference in which Yue Qingyuan met Su Xiyan and/or after which Shen Qingqiu joined CQM may have been the one before this-- but that would also add four additional years to the time SQQ had been cultivating.

The earliest that Luo Binghe could have joined CQM would be when he was a little over ten years old, as that is when his mother dies:

On the bed lay a haggard old woman. With great effort, she tried to prop herself up, but from beginning to end, she was unable to do so. A small figure rushed in from outside. A tender-faced Luo Binghe, only a little over ten years old, supported the woman. Around his neck hung that jade pendant. (7 Seas, Ch. 3)

Shen Qingqiu had not reached core formation when Luo Binghe joined the sect. This means that if the IAC where SQQ joined the sect was four years before Luo Binghe's birth, then by the time Luo Binghe joins the sect it has been about fourteen to fifteen years since SQQ began cultivating.

Adding an additional four years would bump that to eighteen to nineteen years, which exceeds the "ten and some" years that SQQ took to reach core formation.

In my opinion, this also tells me that LBH joined CQM when he was absolutely no older than ten or eleven, and likely went to join immediately after his mother's death, because pushing LBH's join date later would also stretch the timeline of SQQ's cultivation. Now, this part does not specify whether the ten years old is nominal age or chronological age-- but because LBH's age of seventeen at the conference is referenced to his nominal age of fourteen, with a distance between of three years, then I am considering all age-numbers to be nominal age rather than chronological. This only really matters in regards to Luo Binghe for this analysis, though, as his birth year is the only one which has bearing on the timeline in regards to Su Xiyan's status.

With all of this information, we can determine with good confidence that the conference in which Yue Qingyuan met Su Xiyan was the same conference during which he reunited with Shen Qingqiu, which occured four years before Luo Binghe was born and twenty years before the Endless Abyss.

So because of this, we actually do have a relatively precise timeline of characters' ages, as well as events in the cultivation world.

This short timeline is also supported by the fact that Ming Fan is the most senior of Shen Qingqiu's disciples, and he is only sixteen, about 2-3 years older than Luo Binghe:

A youth around sixteen years old, tall and thin, promptly ran in through the door. “This disciple is here. What instructions does Shifu have?” (7 Seas, Ch. 1)

Had the Qing generation ascended too many years prior to Luo Binghe's joining the sect, it would be strange that the most senior disciple of Shen Qingqiu's was only sixteen, as in xianxia a disciple typically will not "graduate" at a certain age or cultivation stage, meaning that older disciples will maintain their role well into adulthood.

As for the rest of the peak lords, we have little to no information regarding the ages of Wei Qingwei, Qi Qingqi, or Mu Qingfang. However, we do know that Liu Qingge is quite young, and joined the sect both at an optimal age and a significant length of time before Shen Qingqiu:

At this point, Liu Qingge’s formal ascension to Bai Zhan Peak Lord, too, had likely only happened a couple years ago. There was a visible air of immaturity about his features, his gaze fierce and sharp, and within his every action was a young man’s spirited vigor. (7 Seas, Ch. 19)

and

Therefore, even though he’d entered the sect quite some time after Liu Qingge, because Qing Jing Peak was ranked second—only below Qiong Ding Peak—while Bai Zhan Peak was ranked seventh, Liu Qingge still had to address Shen Qingqiu as “Shixiong,” if through gritted teeth. (7 Seas, Ch. 24)

So, Liu Qingge is likely a year or two younger than Shen Qingqiu, but not by too much, since they still behave very much like contemporaries as teenagers-- let's say that Liu Qingge is likely around 14-15 when Shen Qingqiu joins the sect at age 16.

The other peak lord we know a bit about the age of is Shang Qinghua:

The older-than-average outer disciple Shang Qinghua, who currently occupied a seventeen-year-old body, looked around in all directions as he trailed behind the main team, who were unloading goods from the ship onto the docks. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

He is seventeen here, and an outer disciple of An Ding Peak. We can place this a bit more definitively on the timeline by the fact that Shen Qingqiu is already a head disciple at this point in time:

“What I don’t know is how Shen Qingqiu got chosen as head disciple after starting cultivation so late,” said another outer disciple who’d joined Cang Qiong Mountain at an older age, his expression sour. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

Unfortunately, we cannot place the exact point in time where Shen Qingqiu became head disciple-- one possibility is that it couldn't have happened until after Tianlang-jun's defeat, which occured about four years after he joined the sect, since he did not participate in the battle. But that is a weak argument, since none of the current generation besides Yue Qingyuan participated in that battle:

Of the current peak lords, only Yue Qingyuan had participated in that battle, as the head disciple of Qiong Ding Peak. (7 Seas, Ch. 17)

If using this argument, then that would mean that aside from Yue Qingyuan, none of the other peak lords had been chosen as head disciples at that time-- while that is a possibility, I think that a more feasible explanation would be that Yue Qingyuan was an exception, and participated in the battle specifically because of his wielding Xuan Su.

One thing we can extrapolate, however, is that Shang Qinghua was most likely an inner disciple for at least three years before the Qing generation's ascension. This is because of the following:

One day, Shang Qinghua’s concise Great System delivered a new command: Become the An Ding Peak head disciple within three years. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

Now, it is somewhat loose evidence, as there is nothing to say that "three years" means for certain that the ascension would occur three years from that point, but it does mean that it occured no earlier than that. By now, Shang Qinghua has already been an inner disciple for some time, long enough to have been assisted by Mobei-jun a few times and to have gone on several missions-- most likely around a few months to a year or so at minimum.

Of course, how long has passed between Shen Qingqiu joining the sect and this point? Well, since Shen Qingqiu is still described as a youth:

Shang Qinghua suddenly heard the tinkling of sword tassel pendants, and a youth wearing Qing Jing Peak’s uniform slowly approached him. (7 Seas, Ch. 26)

Because of this description, I would say that Shen Qingqiu is most likely between seventeen and his early twenties, since it isn't particularly likely that he would become head disciple in less than a year after joining the sect. Of course, within this age range, there is one important event that occurs-- the battle of Bai Lu mountain, which would have occured when Shen Qingqiu was twenty and Yue Qingyuan was twenty-three.

Now, this gets into more of a speculation than anything else-- just before this point, Mobei-jun attacked Huan Hua Palace and the An Ding Peak disciples. If the battle of Bai Lu Mountain had already occured, it would have happened no more than a few years earlier. We also know that there is a tentative truce between the demon realm and the cultivation world:

This suggestion was solid. For many years, the Human and Demon Realms had maintained an uneasy balance and had yet to drop the pretense of peace. Eliminating Sha Hualing and her mob wouldn’t be impossible, but it would likely light a fuse. The demons definitely wouldn’t let her death go unanswered, and it wouldn’t be worth it if they stirred up an even greater conflict. (7 Seas, Ch. 3)

I suspect that this pretense of peace was likely set in place after the battle of Bai Lu Mountain, when the demon realm had just lost their ruler.

Since just a short time had happened since the demons' defeat and a likely truce between the realms, I find it unlikely that Mobei-jun, a prominent member of demonic nobility, at this time would be actively antagonizing the cultivation world by attacking Huan Hua Palace and Cang Qiong Mountain. Now, of course, there is a potential alternate storyline that this is exactly what happened, and Mobei-jun went rogue as an act of lashing out, and that interpretation would be perfectly valid on its own.

Personally, though, I believe that Shang Qinghua's meeting with Mobei-jun occured before the battle of Bai Lu Mountain, while the cultivation world and demon world were in the tense state on the edge of war. This means that Shang Qinghua most likely became an inner disciple when Shen Qingqiu was around 17-19 years old.

With this information, we can determine some relative ages:

Yue Qingyuan is three years older than Shen Qingqiu, who is a little older than Liu Qingge. Because Shang Qinghua was seventeen when Shen Qingqiu was already head disciple, it is most likely that he is around Liu Qingge's age, give or take a few years, as it is not particularly likely (though potentially possible) for Shen Qingqiu to have gone from new disciple to head disciple in the space of a single year.

Aside from these four, there are no other ages that can be determined for the peak lords.

With all of this information, a fairly decent timeline can be created. Characters' ages will be listed with each notable year.

《 THE TIMELINE 》

*counted up to the start of SVSSS. If using this timeline, keep in mind that the earliest and latest notes for date ranges can overlap-- do not accidentally have a disciple join the sect before the current peak lords ascend, or have SQH become head disciple after ascension! Dates with ranges are colored green (earliest) and red (latest).

Earlier than -21 YR

LQG: <;10-11

(earliest) Liu Qingge joins Cang Qiong Mountain

-21 YR

LQG: 10-11, SQQ: 12, YQY: 15, QHT: <16, QJL: 16

Shen Jiu sold to Qiu Jianluo

Yue Qi joins Cang Qiong Mountain

--IAC--

-19 YR

LQG: 12-13, SQQ: 14, YQY: 17

(earliest*) Yue Qingyuan enters the Lingxi Caves with Xuan Su

-18 YR

LQG: 13-14, SQQ: 15, YQY: 18, QHT: <19, QJL: 19

(latest*) Yue Qingyuan enters the Lingxi Caves with Xuan Su

Shen Jiu kills Qiu Jianluo and burns down Qiu Manor

Shen Jiu becomes Wu Yanzi's disciple

(earliest*) Yue Qi leaves the Lingxi Caves

(earliest*) Yue Qi becomes head disciple

(latest) Liu Qingge joins Cang Qiong Mountain

-17 YR

LQG: 14-15, SQQ: 16, YQY: 19

(latest*) Yue Qi leaves the Lingxi Caves

(latest*) Yue Qi becomes head disciple

--IAC--

Yue Qingyuan meets Su Xiyan

Shen Jiu kills Wu Yanzi and joins Cang Qiong Mountain

-16 YR

LQG: 15-16, SQH: 15-17, SQQ: 17, YQY: 20

(earliest) Shen Qingqiu becomes Head Disciple

(earliest) Shang Qinghua meets Mobei-jun and becomes inner disciple at age 17

(earliest) Shang Qinghua receives the directive to become head disciple within three years

(earliest) Shang Qinghua becomes head disciple

-14 YR

MF: 2, LQG: 17-18, SQH: 17-19, SQQ: 19, YQY: 22

(latest) Shen Qingqiu becomes Head Disciple

(latest) Shang Qinghua meets Mobei-jun and becomes inner disciple at age 17

(earliest**) Su Xiyan imprisoned and subjected to torture in Water Prison

(earliest**) Battle of Bai Lu Mountain

(earliest**) Tianlang-jun Sealed

-13 YR

NYY: <1, LBH: 1, MF: 3, LQG: 18-19, SQH: 18-20, SQQ: 20, YQY: 23

(latest**) Su Xiyan imprisoned and subjected to torture in Water Prison

(latest**) Battle of Bai Lu Mountain

(latest**) Tianlang-jun Sealed

Luo Binghe is Born

Su Xiyan Dies

(earliest) Qing Generation ascend to become Peak Lords

--IAC--

-11 YR

NYY: 2-3, LBH: 3, MF: 5, LQG: 20-21, SQH: 20-22, SQQ: 22, YQY: 25

(earliest***) Ming Fan joins Qing Jing Peak under Shen Qingqiu

-9 YR

NYY: 4-5, LBH: 5, MF: 7, LQG: 22-23, SQH: 22-24, SQQ: 24, YQY: 27

--IAC--

-8 YR

NYY: 5-6, LBH: 6, MF: 8, LQG: 23-24, SQH: 23-25, SQQ: 25, YQY: 28

(latest) Shang Qinghua receives the directive to become head disciple within three years

(earliest***) Ning Yingying joins Qing Jing Peak under Shen Qingqiu

-5 YR

NYY: 8-9, LBH: 9, MF: 11, LQG: 27-28, SQH: 27-29, SQQ: 29, YQY: 32

--IAC--

(latest) Shang Qinghua becomes head disciple

(latest) Qing Generation ascend to become Peak Lords

(latest) Ming Fan joins Qing Jing Peak under Shen Qingqiu

-4 YR

NYY: 9-10, LBH: 10, MF: 12, LQG: 28-29, SQH: 28-30, SQQ: 30, YQY: 33

Luo Binghe's adoptive mother dies

(earliest) Luo Binghe joins Qing Jing Peak

(earliest) Shen Qingqiu reaches Core Formation

-3 YR

NYY: 10-11, LBH: 11, MF: 13, LQG: 29-30, SQH: 29-31, SQQ: 31, YQY: 34

(latest****) Ning Yingying joins Qing Jing Peak under Shen Qingqiu

(latest) Luo Binghe joins Qing Jing Peak

-2 YR

NYY: 11-12, LBH: 12, MF: 14, LQG: 30-31, SQH: 30-32, SQQ: 32, YQY: 35

(latest*****) Shen Qingqiu reaches Core Formation

-1 YR

NYY: 12-13, LBH: 13, MF: 15

--IAC--

Year 0

NYY: 13-14, LBH: 14, MF: 16

SVSSS Begins

-----

This timeline operates under the following conditions. For some of these conditions, alternatives are discussed in the post above-- if you wish to use any of the alternative calculations, then you're more than welcome to adjust the timeline as applicable for your own use!

"Years" are counted from the first day of the spring festival/Chinese new year, rather than January 1

All character ages are nominal ages, so they were born in the year they are counted as age "1"

Luo Binghe was born after the new year, and so his nominal age is only about one year higher than chronological.

Shang Qinghua met Mobei-jun before the battle of Bai Lu Mountain

The system's time limit for SQH does reference the time of the Qing generation's ascension

The Immortal Alliance Conference takes place roughly in the middle of the year. Based on the fact that it is warm enough for the disciples to dip their feet into a stream and find that pleasant, it would make sense for the IAC to occur in a warmer season (Ch. 4)

Further References and Footnotes:

*Yue Qi was in the Lingxi Caves for more than one year and Qiu Manor had already been destroyed by the time he got out (Ch. 21)

**The birth of Luo Binghe occured a few days after the battle of Bai Lu Mountain. Depending on when LBH was born, it could be at the end of year -13 or the first few days of year -12 (Ch. 21)

***We do not know the earliest a child can join Cang Qiong Mountain, even though the appropriate age for cultivation most likely cuts off somewhere around 15 (due to YQY joining at that age and no comments about him being "too old"). For the purposes of this timeline, I am setting the absolute youngest to age 5, but more realistically a disciple wouldn't join until age 8-10 at the earliest.

****It is unknown whether the only time that disciples can join Cang Qiong Mountain is during the recruitment trials. Therefore, there remains a possibility for Ning Yingying to have joined the sect in the same year as Luo Binghe, but at some point before the recruitment trials due to connections. This can potentially be supported by Shen Jiu joining after the IAC, but at the same time, it is not confirmed that SJ joined CQM immediately, or if he had to wait until the next recruitment trial, so there is no clear canon precedent-- nonetheless, it is still possible. Note that Ning Yingying can only join at this late point if Luo Binghe joins at age 11, and after her. The only hard requirement is that NYY joined at some point before LBH.

*****I have placed this as the absolute latest time SQQ could have formed a golden core because this puts him at having been cultivating for sixteen years. It is a bit of a stretch already , but I don't think that "ten and a few" years could really be any longer than this. It is also worth noting that by the time SQQ reaches core formation, every other peak lord has already done so, with Yue Qingyuan first, Liu Qingge and Qi Qingqi next, and Shang Qinghua most likely last (Ch. 24)

--

Please let me know if you notice any errors in calculation, formatting, or missing details! This was quite substantial so there's a good chance I may have missed something.

Some of the points in this analysis and timeline calculations were brainstormed with the help of @zykamiliah , @cum-villain , @furbygoblinxiv . Many thanks!

[daechwitatamic]

Vice;Grip || chapter 2 || chs

(banner by @itaeewon)

Vice;Grip (masterpost) NSFW - minors DNI Genre: angst smut fluff, fuckbuddies!au Summary: Make it not hurt, you could have asked him. Or, at least, make it hurt in a way I choose.  A/N: infinite thank you's to @sailoryooons and @eoieopda for beta-ing!! //

Warnings: Frequent depictions of depression, depressive episodes, panic attacks, and substance abuse (alcohol, weed, and pills referenced). PLEASE know that these characters’ relationships with drugs and alcohol are not healthy and should not be emulated. If these topics are triggering to you, please consider sitting this one out.

Section Specific Warnings: depiction of a depressive episode, recreational drinking and bar scenes, allusion to oral (f. receiving), kissing, rough sex/man-handling, explicit penetrative sex, dirty talk, aftercare, didn't venture fully into writing dom!vernon but i have been informed i wrote something that might be in the realm of a dom drop, language obviously, reader is called a gendered slur by a stranger, law-breaking :), actual fluff for a second, allusions to drug use, car sex

wc: 6900

Playlist: you can call me in the middle of the night / you can leave before i wake up in the morning / and it could feel so wrong / but i'll still hold on

1 yr, 5 months ago

The onset of spring brought a lack of color. Grey clouds hung full and heavy, low over the city skyline. Grey crept into the corners of your apartment, darkening rooms during daytime so that you needed to keep lamps on even in midafternoon. Grey crept over your body, into your limbs. Days stretched and nights inched; you only got out of bed because you had to feed the damn cat.

That's part of why you'd gotten the cat in the first place, after a particularly long episode a few years ago, when Chan had presented you with a list of things he thought you should do to combat the blues, as he'd put it.

He meant well. But he always came at your depression like a problem solver, like just doing the right things could make it go away.

And sure, his suggestions were things that would help - get outside, call someone, don't isolate, shower even if you aren't leaving the house, drink some damn water - they weren't a cure. They were better reminders for when you were okay - good at keeping you okay for longer stretches. But when it was already too late, when the grey came, they all sounded fucking pointless. 

Anyway. The cat had been a good idea. 

is it bad?? 

Chan did his best. He was a good best friend. He just didn't understand it.

The answer to his question, you thought, as you flipped your phone over so you wouldn't see the notification if he followed up, was yes. Yes, this time was particularly bad. But you didn't have the energy to type those three words. 

Terrible friend, your brain accused, and it was right. 

You managed to drag yourself to work, to at least show up so you could continue to pay for your apartment and your damn cat, but not much else. You existed on cans of diet coke and microwave meals. You doom-scrolled until sunrise, then slept an hour or two at most before getting dressed for work. You left texts unanswered, the mail piled up. So did the dishes. 

Chan came by, once, did your dishes for you. It made you feel worse - useless and pitiable. You'd rather he just go away, but you held it in; you knew that would only hurt his feelings.

You learned from your mistakes, one thing that could be said in your favor. 

“Have you called your doctor?” he wanted to know.

What was the point? There wasn't a stop hating your life pill. 

“What if you tried painting?” he asked.

“What if you just let me be?” you countered, finally tripping over the line from embarrassed apathy to defensiveness. 

That pout again. “It might help,” he said. “Don't most famous artists do their best shit when they're down?”

“Get out,” you deadpanned. He dropped it, knowing this was a bigger issue, a bigger argument, than this current episode, a complex situation that went beyond the boundaries of your brain chemistry.

He put the last of your now-clean plates away. “Let's go somewhere,” he suggested.

“Chan,” you groaned. “I’m tired. I can't go gallivanting -”

“You're not tired, you're depressed,” he argued. “And going outside will help you.”

“I might have to kill you,” you said seriously, and he rolled his eyes. 

In the end, he let you win. He'd been around long enough to know that eventually you'd venture outside again, hit the bars with him again, text first again, laugh at his stupid memes again. It was just a waiting game. 

Still, when he left, you sat on the edge of your couch with your chin in your hands. On the living room rug, the cat rolled and showed you its belly. 

“Not you, too,” you groused. 

The cat did a few alligator rolls and then scampered into your bedroom and under the bed, as if chased. 

You sighed. You made your way to the spare room, which had been shut - to keep the cat out. To keep your ghosts in. 

Your easel was still set up in the corner. You were kind of surprised it wasn't covered in cobwebs. You'd been sketching just on paper last time you'd worked, trying to make decisions that way so you wouldn't waste a canvas, and it still sat there. 

You inched closer, ran your hands over your brushes. Took a step back, eyed the paper and your sketches. 

It was bad. Thank god you hadn't put it to canvas. 

You pulled the paper down, crumpled it in your hands. You chased the cat out with a gentle nudge of your foot, and closed the door again, keeping both cats and ghosts on their respective sides of the door.

There was no rhyme or reason to your brain, no map or calendar to follow for the starts or stops. But eventually, the clouds broke. The grey gave way to baby buds of green, yellows pushed through soil, determined to meet the sun.

You texted Chan - drinks??

He responded - about time!!!

You texted Vernon - hello, its me

When he didn't answer, you tried again - sorry for the radio silence. 

Still nothing. 

You checked his socials, saw that he'd been doing his thing - a smattering of selfies, some group shots with the guys he played music with sometimes, a few nature shots: the moon, once, and what looked like the river at night. 

The silence stretched. You gave up, considered it over. Grieved a little, because it had been good. 

You went out on a night that teased summer even though it was months away, sank into the familiar blur of too many shots - not enough to be a problem, but maybe enough to make problems. 

Under the club's ever-moving lights, you took a selfie, your drink and cleavage both showcased in the shot. 

Send it to Vernon, the urge to make trouble suggested, and you listened without hesitation.

And - finally - an answer.

come here after?? 

You smiled a tiny, victorious smile and knocked back the rest of your drink. 

omw.

Later, he gave you a rare and devastating pout as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smoothed fingers down the still-shaking inside of your thigh.

“What'd you make me wait so long for?” he complained, those sharp eyes sparkling with mirth. When you shrugged, still a little mindless from your high, he gave the same spot on your thigh a playful slap. “Don't do it again.”

1 yr, 4 months ago

busy tonight?

not busy but.

???

not in the best mood.

bet i could fix that.

yeah. idk.

why don't you let me try? 

“What's wrong?” you cooed, teasing, when Vernon let you into the apartment. 

He didn't smile, didn't play along, and it sobered you quickly. 

“Don't want to talk about it,” he muttered, crowding into your space. “Wasn't that big of a deal anyway.”

Just want the fix you promised, he thought. 

You moaned like liquid gold when his first kiss was a bite. Encouraged, Vernon gripped you by the shoulders, pushing you back against the wall hard enough that he heard your breath escape in a single huff. He hesitated, eyes searching your face; a question.

You lifted your chin, eyes shining with something hard. When he kissed you again, you threaded your fingers through his hair and pulled, hard enough to make him hiss; an answer.

His pace was frenzied from the start, your legs around his waist and the wall holding you up. His hand curled around your throat, not squeezing, but sliding up to grip at your jaw instead, keeping you from tilting your head back, closing your eyes, losing yourself in how he felt slamming his hips flush against yours with dizzying smacks.

When you whined that you were close, he pulled you away from the wall and lowered you both to the ground, the wooden floor of his entryway cold and hard beneath your spine. It didn’t matter, didn’t do anything to stop the vortex tightening below your stomach. You slapped a hand over your face as it distorted in pleasure, Vernon kneeling between the legs you still had gripping his waist, one of his hands braced on the floor next to your head, holding his body over you.

“That’s right,” he breathed, gritted teeth flashing over you, forehead wrinkling as his own release closed in on the chase. “Just fucking take it when I fuck you into the floor.”

Then he was pulling out, breaths hissing through his teeth as he straightened up, one hand pumping himself furiously until strings of white decorated your stomach, cooling immediately in the apartment’s chilly air.

His breathing was ragged as he sagged back onto his heels, and you pushed yourself up onto your elbows, watching him warily.

Then he stood and slipped into the hallway bathroom, the light clicking on and illuminating the unlit entryway where you’d just fucked. You heard the sink run, then shut back off, and Vernon returned. He knelt gingerly - you could see his knees were red from kneeling on the wooden floor - and cleaned your stomach first, then gently between your legs.

You sat the rest of the way up then, watching him carefully as he sat back on his heels again, avoiding your gaze. Something about the moment felt like a thing alive, unfurling between you like a casablanca lily under the refracted light of the moon.

You spoke at the same time.

“Vernon?”

“You okay?”

You swallowed, rubbed absently at your elbow where you’d smacked it on the floor during the position change.

“I’m fine,” you said tentatively. “Are you?”

He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face, and then peering through his fingers at you for a second before dropping them again. “Thought I hurt you.”

You shook your head. “I’m okay. I would have said something.”

He nodded, relief starting to bring feeling back to his hands again. He stood and reached a hand down for you. When you took it, he closed his fingers around yours and pulled you to your feet.

“I know we don’t usually do this,” you said, rubbing at the parts of you that had been on the floor - the backs of your legs, your ass, “but could I take a super fast shower before I go?”

“Yeah,” he said, so quickly that the word almost trips on itself. “Of course.”

He led you into the bathroom, rummaged in the disorganized linen closet for a clean towel, pressed it into your hands.

“If you need one, too,” you said easily, as he reached around you to turn the water on so it could heat up, “I don’t mind if you join me.”

He paused. “You sure?”

You shrugged, then leaned over to put your hand under the spray, testing to see if it was still cold. “It’s your shower.”

Under the stream of warm water, you turned to face him, front to front, looking up at him with clear eyes. Something in your expression was so open, Vernon couldn’t help but feel both the desire to step into the space you seemed to be offering him as well as the desire to get far, far away from it.

He’d been so angry before you’d texted, furious enough that he’d bruised his knuckles punching the doorframe; now, as the chemicals in his body settled down, he felt those knuckles throbbing. He was disgusted that he’d lost his temper, guilty that he’d taken any of that anger out on you, who had nothing to do with it.

He was scared of the desire he felt to be closer to you, just for tonight. Scared that fucking you hadn’t been enough to soothe whatever it was that roiled inside him, like it usually was. Scared that he felt like he needed more than sex to heal this particular burn.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and part of him thought he was apologizing in advance, like he knew already he’d run scared at some point. “For being so...”

He didn’t know what word fit best. 

“I told you,” you said, pressing a little closer, “I would have said if I had a problem.”

“Okay,” he said, frowning a little. “If you’re sure.”

Then he reached over and brushed a thumb along your cheekbone, chasing away a rivulet of shower-water. You closed your eyes for a second, and he swore he could feel you lean into the touch, just slightly.

He didn’t know how to explain how he felt. Kind of like he’d done a hot-coal-walk; the exhaustion that came with an adrenaline crash, the vulnerability that came after facing down something big, that need - the burn inside him needing cool water before it could quiet down.

With the shower off, the silence in the bathroom was loud.

“Do you…” Vernon started, then stopped. His heart hammered, the adrenaline returning. He covered the moment by toweling his hair roughly and pulling his hands through the strands so they’d lay right. “Do you want to stay for a little bit? I was gonna order delivery, maybe watch something before I finish my assignment.”

He’d expected you to think about it, to turn it over in your mind the way you turn his things over in your careful hands, the way you turn him ass over head with just a smirk. Instead, you nodded right away.

“Yeah,” you said, like it was no big deal. Like you did this all the time. Maybe you did, just not with him. “I was starving, actually. I could stay for an hour or two.”

On his couch, the leftovers of the food scattered on his coffee table, you reached for his hand, ran a thumb imperceptibly along his purpled knuckles. You didn’t ask what happened, just brought them to your lips and pressed the lightest kiss before putting them down again and reaching for your noodles, as if it hadn’t happened at all.

That was when Vernon saw the potential of it, an entire picture, framed and labeled: you could hurt him so badly if he let you, if he let it get that far. For whatever it was that burned inside him, you were the cool water… but you could absolutely be gasoline, instead.

1 yr, 3 months ago

If you closed your eyes, you could pretend the light that passed over your closed lids in a repetitive pattern was the sweep of a lighthouse beam. You could pretend that the rumbling bass of the music was the roar of the ocean. You could pretend that you weren’t here, in a shitty bar, but at the seaside. You could pretend that you weren’t alone. You could pretend that you weren’t you.

You drained your drink and caught the bartender’s eye, gesturing for another, sliding the sweating glass away from you once you knew a new one was coming.

“What are you drinking?”

The voice came from your right, and you lifted tired, disinterested eyes to find the source of it.

“G and T,” you answered, because it was one fewer syllable than saying gin and tonic and maybe that one syllable would do the dirty work for you and tell this guy that you didn’t want to talk to him.

“Nice,” he said, like you’d said something interesting, and you fought the urge to roll your eyes. You didn’t return the question, just slid your phone screen on and opened your messages.

wyd

drinks at my hyungs place. wbu

damn. guess i have to settle for one of these very mid prospects at the willow

damn thats a sad story. if only you had a better option

if only my better option werent busy at his hyung’s

no one said i had to stay here. ur at the willow?

yep

The guy to your right tried again. “The DJ tonight kind of sucks, huh?”

You looked back at your phone.

don’t leave

You smiled into your drink, a thrill dancing through your bloodstream. The lights and music didn’t seem as garish as they had ten minutes ago.

“My boyfriend’s on his way to pick me up,” you said flatly to the guy who kept trying to talk to you, “so you might want to find someone else to complain about the DJ to.”

The word tasted like lemonade on your tongue - acidic and sour, sweet and refreshing, taste buds blooming and shriveling in tandem. Even the knowledge that it was a flat-out lie didn’t stop your heart from beating faster.

You expected the guy to get up and leave, maybe throw you a dirty look on his way. Instead, he seemed to call your bluff, narrowing his eyes like he was trying to read you.

“I don’t think I’d let my girlfriend go out alone looking like this,” he said evenly, and you let out a derisive laugh.

“The fact that you just said the words let my girlfriend probably has a lot to do with why you’re here alone,” you countered, a flash of victory slicing up your spine when you saw his face flush.

Before he could retort, you hopped down from your barstool, pushing your way into the crowded dance floor. You didn’t even want to dance, you just wanted to get away. If Vernon wanted to find you, he could come find you. He’d told you not to leave, he hadn’t said make it easy for me.

He found you anyway; he made it look easy. He stepped around a group of guys talking in a circle and into your space, like he was following a path, like he knew there’d be room for him.

You were happy to see him. You were happy he came. You were happy to breathe him in, to feel the warmth of his body and smell his cologne and hear your name tumble from his mouth like a statement. You were too drunk to tuck these truths away into pockets and folds where they would be harder to find.

You stepped to him and wrapped your arms around his neck. If he was surprised, his body hid it well. His hands came to rest on your lower back, pressing you closer to him as you leaned up to find his mouth.

You kissed him slowly, at odds with the frantic bassline vibrating under your feet. You let him tip your head back, changing the angle, sweeping your mouth with his tongue until you both tasted lemonade.

“Happy to see me?” he asked, a hint of a smirk on his face, one eyebrow arched in question and one half of his mouth twitching into a smile.

You didn’t have it in you to lie, so instead you said, “Your place?”

He led you outside.

As luck would have it, the idiot from the bar stood beside the front door, a cigarette between two fingers. His expression darkened when he recognized you, then further when he saw your fingers linked with Vernon’s as you stepped into the quiet night.

“Your girlfriend’s a fucking bitch,” the guy bit out, dropping the cigarette butt and stepping on it.

Vernon’s eyebrows shot up.

Evenly, he said, “She’s not -”

She’s not my girlfriend. You felt your stomach swoop, and you felt yourself flinch.

“- a bitch. She’s just smarter than you.”

Vernon tugged on your hand, leading you across the street to his parked, waiting car.

You tried to bite back a smile, and he looked sideways at you, his own lips twitching.

“What?” he demanded.

“What?” you parroted.

He scowled at you, but his lips were just smiling. “What?” he asked again.

You laughed. “Let’s go,” you said. “The bitch wants to kiss you more.”

You expected his smile to sharpen. Instead, something in it seems to soften, changing from teasing to actual affection.

“Alright,” he said, turning to start the engine. “Can’t really say no to that, can I?”

“You could,” you mused, as he pulled away from the curb and the bar slid into nothingness behind you, “but I just don’t think you should.”

1 yr, 2 months ago

wyd

melting

srsly

no, seriously. i am laying on my living room floor like a starfish trying not to turn into liquid

come to hyungs

its too hot to move

i have an idea, come meet me at hyungs

You frowned at your phone. Of course your aircon died during the only heatwave you could remember in your entire adult life. Your whole body felt sticky; you were pretty sure you were stuck to your floor.

It was too hot to move.

what’s the idea??

you’ll see. i’ll order u a car. can you bring a couple towels?

“Vernon, no,” you laughed, your voice echoing.

He shushed you through laughter, both of you leaning on each other as you stood at the edge of the yard, the grass tickling the bottoms of your bare feet. Upstairs, at his friend’s place, you’d thrown back a few shots for courage before following Vernon out here, and you were feeling them, your head swimming like your body might soon be.

“It’s a circuit, see?” he tried to explain, pointing through the night, as if you could see through all the fences and over all the hedges. “Five yards, five pools, and then we end up right back here and we get in the car and go. Just follow me, don’t stop for anything.”

“Someone’s gonna call the cops,” you complained. “And these neighborhoods all have cameras.”

“That’s why we keep moving,” he said, his grin so excited and so un-Vernon that you almost couldn’t bear to say no to him. “No one’s gonna call the cops if we’re already gone - it’s not worth it. You ready?”

You hesitated. “You’re good to drive us out of here?” you checked.

He held up his hands as if to show innocence. “Only had a beer,” he promised. “But I’ve got something fun in the car for after, if you want.”

You felt your grin turn wolfish. “Okay. I’m right behind you.”

“Try and be quiet,” he warned, then took off running across the yard, cannonballing into the pool with a splash.

You tore off after him, leaping into the water and suppressing a shriek when the cold water hit you. You felt instantly sober, jittery with adrenaline, alive with laughter. You spluttered your way to the surface and pushed water away from your eyes, trying to find him through the shadows.

He was already climbing out the other side, water running down his back, the muscle shifting in the half-light as he hoisted himself back onto the pool’s deck. You hurried across the pool, climbing up beside him, giggling wildly.

“Shhh,” he warned, but he was giggling too as he led you carefully over the fence to the next yard.

As soon as you crept close enough to the pool to jump, a motion-activated light came on, flooding the yard white and causing you to cover your eyes.

“Quick!” Vernon told you, grabbing your arm and pulling you in with him as he jumped.

You let out a stream of bubbles and water rushed into your mouth. You felt your feet hit the bottom and you pushed off hard, surfacing quickly.

Again, you followed him across the pool, both of you laughing and whispering, “Hurry! Quick!” as you climbed out and headed around the house to the front yard.

“Okay, this is the hard part,” he told you, both of you shivering as the night air caught up to you. “We have to cross the street, hop the fence, and then the pool is around back.”

“I’m ready,” you promised, with a particularly hard shiver.

You sprinted across the street, both leaving wet footprints on the pavement. His hand felt warm in yours when he helped you over the fence, warm on your body when he held your waist as you climbed down.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” you muttered, but giggles still spilled out of you.

“More fun than melting, right?” he asked, and you thought that you’d seen him smile more tonight than in whole months of coming together at night.

You thought you might move mountains to see him smile like this again, gums showing, open and honest, happy.

Then you were underwater again, swimming hard to keep up, following Vernon through the night as he pushed his way through some hedges and held them apart for you.

You made it to the last house before someone caught you, slamming the back door open and shouting, “Hey!”

“Go, go, go!” Vernon cried, laughing with such abandon that it sounded like goose honks, pulling on your hand as you both stumbled, dripping, towards the car.

You’d set towels on the seats before starting, so you tumbled into the car and he peeled away, both of you laughing wildly as you left the neighborhood behind.

It was miles before you calmed down, gasping in breaths and trying to hold them before exploding into laughter again.

“I’d better not end up on the news,” you scolded. “I’m in my underwear.

He gave you a searing sideways look. “I noticed.”

You felt yourself warm again, despite being in soaking wet clothes.

“Where next?” you asked. “Home?”

He let out a breath that was almost a sigh. “I don’t really want to go home,” he admitted. Then, “I was having fun with you.”

You considered this. “Not to be a cliche, but… I know a place.”

The quarry was quiet, surrounded by only trees; without posted lights, everything seemed to be just varying shades of black - the black of the water just darker than the black of the stone ledges just darker than the walls of trees just darker than the sky sprinkled with stars above you.

“We have to be careful,” you warned him seriously. “If you slip and get hurt, it could be bad.”

He turned the flashlight on his phone on and set it next to the metal rungs that jutted out of the stone, a makeshift ladder for the swimmers who came here during the day, when swimming was allowed.

“It’s going to be way colder than the pools,” you added.

“You’re not selling this very well,” he pointed out.

“Don’t be a chicken,” you teased.

He eyed the water. “I’m having second thoughts.”

You nudged him in the ribs, which caused him to squirm away, hands batting at yours, a noise emitting from him that made you laugh out loud.

“Are you ticklish?” you demanded. “How did I not know?”

“Come on, are we jumping or what?” he asked, laughing, still trying to keep your sneaky hands away from his ribs.

“Yeah, that’s probably the only way to actually get in,” you admitted, still laughing a little. Your abs felt a little sore from how much you’d laughed tonight.

You stood on the edge of the stone, toes curling over the ledge, Vernon’s hand tight in yours. You stood on the edge, the ink-like water beneath you rippling slightly, marring the reflection of the constellations high above you. You stood on the edge of something, knowing full well you were afraid to swim.

He counted you down, and together, you jumped.

The water was freezing - it hurt, it stung, and you shrieked and laughed as you surfaced. A foot from you, Vernon was shouting.

“The towels!” you told him, already swimming towards the little dot of light that marked the ladder.

Shaking and shivering, you reached your towel, wrapping it around yourself. Behind you, Vernon jogged up, making noises like a disgruntled horse as he found his own towel.

“Oh my god,” he groused, grabbing for you. “I’m freezing, come here.”

He opened his arms, the towel behind him like a wingspan, and you stepped into the space, letting him wrap his arms and his towel around you. You stood shivering together, trying to let your body heat chase the cold away.

You wrapped your own arms around his middle, pressing yourself closer as your legs shook, shivers rolling up your spine in waves as your body fought the chill. 

“C’mere,” he murmured above you, holding you a little more tightly, his own teeth chattering. 

It was the first time, you realized as you turned your head to rest your cheek on his chest, that you’d held each other. It was the first time you’d been between his arms when you weren’t fucking, the first time he’d tightened his grip around you for a reason other than gratification. 

You didn’t want it - didn’t want to know that it felt nice in his embrace, didn’t want to know that it fit right and felt safe. You didn’t want to know that you liked it, didn’t want to have to fight against the humiliation of wanting more.

As soon as the full-body tremors died away in the warm, sticky night, you stepped away, eager to put distance between you again. 

Later, he looked over at you from the driver’s seat of the car, red-eyed, his smile stretching slow and thick like putty. When you straddled his lap, his hands searching out the bare skin of your back, you rocked against him and pressed open-mouthed kisses to the column of his pretty throat until you were pulling groans from him with each pass of your hips. 

Forget, you thought, as you pulled your underwear to the side for him. Forget every single thing but this.

When you slipped an arm behind his neck and pressed your foreheads together as you lifted and dropped, you weren’t sure whose memory you were hoping to erase with this most recent pleasure-chase: yours, or his.

1 yr, 1 month ago

There was no map or calendar to this thing your brain did. It was summer, the sun shone, and yet the days bled together again, sunsets swirling down the shower drain.

The last time you’d gone radio silent, the last time your world had gone grey without warning, Vernon had answered in kind. His own silence had shouted for him until you’d tempted him back.

This time, he didn’t resort to silence in retaliation to yours. Instead, he kept trying, relentless. If you’d had more presence of mind, you might have wondered why.

wyd

[ ]

yo. whats the deal

[ ]

i will have you know that this is very insulting

[ ]

don’t get mad but im coming over

“What the fuck, Vernon.”

“I said don’t get mad.”

“It doesn’t work like that. What are you doing here?”

He leveled you with a look. “You gonna let me in?”

“Literally, no.”

You hadn’t showered in days; your apartment was probably grosser than you were. The cat milled around your ankles, trying to weasel its way outside, and you hopped from foot to foot trying to nudge it back inside.

“Why not?” he asked.

You huffed, annoyed. But the annoyance was the first thing you’d felt all day, and something inside you clung to it, desperate for more of anything but the crawling nothing that’s kept you company for days.

“Because,” you grumbled. Because there’s nothing for you here. Because I have nothing I can give you. “I’m… just not in the mood.”

He stepped back from the door so you could see more of him. “I’m not asking you to be.”

“Then why are you here?” The words fell between you, heavy. If you hadn’t been so low, if you hadn’t gone all day without eating, if you hadn’t been on your thirtieth hour without sleeping, you would have known better. You would have realized that you were asking, if you aren’t here for sex, then what are you here for? 

You wouldn’t have asked a question that you didn’t want the answer to.

He met your eyes. He seemed to teeter on the edge of telling you the truth, giving you the real answer. Then, he muttered, “Got bored.”

You knew it wasn’t the whole truth, and he knew you knew it, and yet neither of you were willing to look at it directly.

“I fail to see how that’s my problem,” you mumbled, avoiding his gaze.

He watched you for what felt like a long time, face serious, eyes glittering and attentive. Then, instead of answering, he repeated, “Are you gonna let me in?”

You frowned at him, but there was a little more pout to it than anger. “I’m all gross,” you said, instead of answering.

Something in him softened - it was visible on his face, in his shoulders, like he knew this was your way of saying yes. “So let’s shower,” he suggested quietly.

You felt trepidation, like part of you expected him to stay soft, to try to take care of you. To your relief, Vernon acted like everything was normal, scrunching his face at you when the water was too cold as he stepped in, washing his own body in silence and letting you do your thing.

He didn’t try to hold you, didn’t ask you when you’d eaten last, didn’t try to talk about it - didn’t try to fix it. He was just… there, and this - along with your first shower in days - was somehow revitalizing in itself.

You pulled on clean sweats, which was better than the day-four sweats he’d found you in. “The apartment’s kind of… sorry,” you mumbled, looking around the living room, feeling a bit of that familiar shame crawl up your neck as you noticed the evidence that you hadn’t been picking up, or running a vacuum.

Vernon flopped backwards on your sofa, unphased, one arm bent behind his head. “We’ve been doing this for almost a year,” he pointed out. “I know how it usually is.”

It isn’t usually like this. And neither are you.

You wondered when it happened - your ability to finish his half-thoughts, your ability to know what he meant when he only said a fraction of it.

You stood awkwardly beside the couch where he was lounging, and he looked up at you with a tiny, amused smile.

“What do you wanna do?”

What you really wanted to do was cocoon yourself in blankets again and put on repeats of a show you’d already seen. But now you had to look functional. You might be mad at him for showing up like this, now that you thought about it.

“I dunno,” you said, which was close to the truth.

“You wanna eat?”

“Honestly?” you asked, pursing your lips a little. “No.”

“Okay,” he said easily, and it struck you again how different this was than how Chan treated you when you were low. Chan would have already had the food delivered, and would be chasing you around the table with loaded chopsticks, demanding you take a bite.

“Can we just… watch something?” you asked, unsure.

Vernon wordlessly reached for your remote and held it up to you, nonplussed.

You wondered if it was an act, how easy this was, how unbothered he was, how he seemed to just understand what wouldn’t help.

You knew it wasn’t; you’d been around long enough to know that Vernon’s demons weren’t all that different from yours.

You settled somewhere between his body and the back of the couch, one leg bent over his legs, one of your arms over his stomach and his arm curled around your shoulders.

“This is weird,” you muttered into his chest, and his laugh rumbled under you.

“Why?” he asked, his smile big, like he thought you were particularly funny. “Not used to being big spoon?”

Not used to cuddling - with you.

“Yeah,” you said, because that was easier.

On your TV, a show ran through several episodes, the changing scenes splashing you and Vernon with changing colors, casting his face blue and then white and then black and then red and then blue again. Sometimes he’d watch, sometimes he’d scroll on his phone. You mostly felt his heart beating under your hand and let your mind whir.

At some point he started mindlessly (or not mindlessly, who could know) stroking your back, gentle touches brushing up and down, slow, slow, the way he always was. At some point you shivered, goosebumps rising along your arms, and snuggled closer to him. At some point he shifted you from slightly beside him to on top of him, a second hand slipping under your loose tshirt and joining the first in tracing stripes up and down your upper back.

You shifted against him, something coming to life with a shudder like the furnace in your parent’s basement on cold autumn nights. Heat worked its way slowly from your core to your stomach, down your legs.

He kept his eyes on the tv, innocent, but you could hear his heartbeat. It couldn’t lie and pretend.

You shifted again, squirming until you’d worked his t-shirt up just enough that you could touch skin, too. You trailed your own fingers over the inch of exposed stomach you’d found, and delighted in the way you could feel him start to harden beneath you.

Then, you delighted in your delight. It was the first good thing you’d been able to feel in almost a week.

You said his name, and he finally looked down at you, eyes nearly black in the unlit room.

“What is it?” he asked, and his voice was suddenly so low it sent shivers tumbling down each vertebrae and tripping over to your limbs. “Want me to make you feel good?”

No, you wanted to say as you answered his question by pulling the hem of his t-shirt higher, encouraging him to lift up so you could pull it off. No, just want you to make me feel.

1 year ago

Everywhere Vernon looked, all he saw was circles. Circle of red in his bowl when he inhaled. Circle of condensation on the table when he lifted his beer. Circle of light reflecting from his phone case, laying in the setting sunlight, to the ceiling. Above him, the ceiling fan circled lazily, nowhere to be.

And you - you and him. That was a circle, too. A cycle, at least, which was close enough in his opinion. Text, hook up, skitter back to your respective places, wait out the next weekend. It was as rhythmic and routine as waves breaking and then getting pulled back out only to come shatter on sand again. It was out of his control, up to forces far greater than he was.

Vernon’s friends had texted to hang out and he’d declined. He told them he was seeing his parents, but really, he just wanted to be alone. He wanted to watch the ceiling fan circle, he wanted to let his brain go staticky quiet, he wanted to burrow deep into things that made him feel less.

But he still, somehow, wanted to see you. He wanted to be alone, and being with you didn’t feel like not getting that.

It was a little scary, he thought, that you were the exception. That he could be with you without feeling the uncomfortable pressure of being with others, of having to be on, of having to fake cheerfulness and keep up with chatter that only exhausted him.

Vernon wasn’t a kid. He knew what it meant.

whats up

honestly not a lot. want me to come over?

Yeah, he did. He did, even if you weren’t going to hook up. He did, even if you were just going to lay on opposite sides of the couch and scroll on your phones. He did, and he hoped he’d end up with his arms around you, and he hoped he’d make you laugh at least once, and he hoped you’d stay and just be there with him after.

When you came over, he asked you how you felt about it - about him, about you and him. He asked by laying you on your back in his bed, by brushing fingertips along your face. He asked you by sliding your leggings away gently, pressing his mouth to each inch of your inseam as it became exposed to his dimly lit room. He asked you by kissing you through the lace you wore for him, then kissing the same spot once that lace was on his floor.

He asked you when he crawled up your body until his tip teased at your entrance and you whined, shifting to try to take him. And - when he took it slow this time, teeth scraping at your neck and then tongue hurrying to soothe the sting, his arms bracketing your body like he was sheltering you from an incoming storm.

(Maybe, he considered, he was.)

(Maybe, he considered, he was worthless in the face of this storm’s wrath.)

(Maybe, he considered, he was the fucking storm in the first place.)

And you heard his question loud and clear. You pulled on your leggings as soon as you were cleaned up, popping your hood up over your head as you searched for your phone. You kept your eyes on your screen as you waited for a car to come, murmured, “Later,” on your way out the door.

Vernon’s apartment rang with quiet. He was alone, he’d gotten what he’d wanted.

He’d also, it seemed, gotten his answer.

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[deceptive-daydreams]

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Smoke Signals

Chapter Twelve - The Holiday Season Begins

W/C: 8.7K

Eddie x Fem reader - Grumpy!Bartender!Eddie x Shy!Reader

"I've got my eye on you."

Say Yes To Heaven - L.D.R

A/N: Wow I think this is the longest I've gone without posting a chapter. I really hope you guys enjoy this one. I wrote it in bits and pieces and read it over several times. I would really really really love to know what you think, this one is so special and personal to me.

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Sugary apple goo.

You think back to Thanksgiving back home, a ruckus constant in the kitchen as dinner is prepared, more than enough food to feed an entire village.  Pots and pans clank together, trays create an echo as they are not-so-carefully placed atop the counter.  Dinner rolls are burned but still enjoyed with warm cinnamon butter.  The potatoes are a touch too lumpy but still desirable with notes of rosemary and an ungodly amount of garlic.  Various smells, both sweet and savory flood the house, your poor, stressed out mother churning out dish after dish, siblings all engaged in some kind of ball game out in the street just after watching the Thanksgiving Day parade.  

You tend to the green bean casserole, an easy dish that you couldn’t screw up even with your limited attention span.  Cream of Mushroom soup from a can seemed so repulsive in itself although it brought the whole dish together.  It didn’t matter that seconds prior it slumped against the green beans still in the shape of the can, nearly gelatinous.  Once stirred in and baked with crispy onions layered over the top, it was a masterpiece.  A five star dish in your book.

It would only be a matter of time before grandma showed up with her famously delicious apple pie, the crust coated in extra amounts of grainy sugar, the dish still piping hot.  And the “sugary apple goo” as you used to call it at the age of three already had your mouth watering just thinking about it, crispy apples so fresh and topped with syrupy caramelized sauce topped off with cinnamon and nutmeg, all wrapped up in a flaky, buttery crust.  

You sigh, piling the apple mixture on top of the homemade graham cracker crust.  It wasn’t clear to you just how lonely Thanksgiving morning would be without anyone around.  Sure, you had Donnie’s to look forward to this evening but until then, you were on your own, the parade quietly playing on the TV though you hadn’t been very impressed with the floats this year.  Holiday depression was kicking in, a kind you hadn’t experienced yet.  They were usually always a happy time, family surrounding you and distracting you from the lonesome thoughts you usually had.  This year it started feeling more like a ton of bricks was sitting on your chest, no one able to aid in providing you with some kind of task such as the honor of making the green bean casserole to ease the pressure.

It wasn’t like you couldn’t just make the controversially delicious dish, you had everything stashed in the pantry.  It just didn’t feel right.  It went unnoticed by you that tears were slowly sliding down your cheeks until a fat one landed on your wrist as you finished spooning the apple filling.  

Again?

In that moment you swear you looked the most pitiful you had ever looked in your entire life, tears trailing down your face silently, all alone, homesick.  You should be in your pajamas playing some kind of a board game on the coffee table in the living room, surrounded by your siblings.  Not throwing yourself a pity party while spreading apple goo.  To top it off, your hands had gotten completely covered, the sauce making your fingers undesirably sticky.  You hadn’t quite reached the point of sobs yet though you suppose if you let the goo linger on your hands any longer you would.

Some comforting folk music your grandpa used to play religiously rang through the house though you felt no such comfort.  Not as much as you’d hoped anyway.  It brought a familiar sense of his essence to you, his passing three years ago not settling right in your heart.  It only made you more homesick.

But you weren’t going to let yourself soak in salty tears and sticky apples.  No, you washed your hands in soothing warm water, the sludge sliding right off and into the metal of the sink, eyes puffy and red but void of tears for the time being.  You’d sucked them back and changed the music to something more upbeat, some Elvis that your grandpa had also engrained deeply into your brain though you hoped the faster tempo would brighten your spirits and ignite the happy memories.

Only, it landed you on the couch in a whole new sea of sobs this time as Unchained Melody lingered in the lonely room.  There was no getting a grip on the gut-wrenching, stomach-aching isolation you were feeling, sanity was long gone.  You were supposed to be trimming the dough that was meant to create the criss cross pattern for the pie, you were supposed to be enjoying your glass of wine as you sang under your breath to familiar tunes, you were supposed to be okay.  

It was you, after all, who had made the decision to move, right?  It was you who picked up your entire life and plopped it right in the middle of some unknown mountain town in search of yourself.  You feared that you were just losing yourself instead, forgetting just after a few months what it felt like to be surrounded by loved ones, forgetting how it felt to come home to a full house after a grueling shift at the local Denny’s.  You smelled of burnt coffee and dry eggs, your hair greasier than the literal grease trap, but none of that mattered the second you stepped into the coziness of the living room, all family dysfunction left at the door.

The tears wouldn’t stop though you still managed to force yourself off of the couch, wiping snot away with the back of your hand as you stared at the messy kitchen in despair.  Everything suddenly seemed so…impossible.  How were you meant to do anything while simultaneously questioning your entire existence, your entire meaning of life?

You had been in such disarray that cleaning up as you went didn’t even seem close to an option, nearly every pot and pan either set on top of the stove or thrown in the sink, whisks and spatulas scattered among the mess, and apple skins littering the floor.  Now you were taking in the aftermath, not even having the finished product to show as an excuse for the complete disaster, even the dough still rolled out on the cutting board.  You had hours left to prepare though it felt like seconds ticking by to inevitable disappointment.  

The end of the world felt like it weighed down on your shoulders yet you did what you did best each time.  You set it aside and pressed on.  It was never simple, weak hands grasping the dull knife, slicing through the dough to create uniform strips.  Motivation was running dry, the desire to grace everyone with the most delicious apple pie they’d ever tasted was out the window, you could only do what your body allowed.

And like every other time you had to pull yourself out of the gutter.  Life began to bleed back into your eyes as your creation came back to life.  Puffiness still remained throughout your face, eyes still droopy but slowly your drive kicked back into gear.  Sniffles from previous snotty tears continued but nothing felt better than laying down the last layer of dough over the apple filling, a quest conquered.  

Finishing off your cheap red wine, you reward yourself by licking off the spoon you’d used for the filling.  The kitchen still required a good scrub down but you could live with the mess a little while longer as you indulged in the sweetness.  Something well deserved.  You didn’t even want to think about the nightmare that Christmas was about to become, decorating your tree with only the company of your dreaded thoughts.  That was a scenario you were not willing to wander into, at least not until it would actually happen.  There was no sense in making yourself live through it twice, your brain longing to torture you with irrational possibilities.

Elvis’s voice continues to carry through the living room, a second glass of wine being poured in hopes of easing your homesickness, attempting to neglect thoughts of what you would usually be doing right now.  It was barely working, only leaving you feeling slightly lazy with a good layer of sadness still looming over you like a storm cloud.  There was no extinguishing the sorrows you felt for familiarity and the comfort the holidays were supposed to bring you.

Sudden knocking sends you into a brief panic, unexpected guests were not in the cards for your lonesome morning that had only served to encourage your crybaby tendencies.  At the very least you got a pie out of it.

The knocking persists as you scramble up from your depressing divot on the couch, a certain urgency waving over you at the speed of the knocks.  They were rapid, quick pecks at the wood, a worrisome speed that usually constituted an emergency in the end.  

Why today, why now?

With a heavy sigh, you swing the door open, glass of half-finished wine in one hand while the other runs down your drained face.  You expect some kind of eviction notice; god knows why since you own the place.  Maybe the check hadn’t reached the mortgage company, maybe it had been intercepted in transit.  The last thing you expect on your doorstep is a wide-eyed Eddie cradling a large bowl in one arm.  His gray sweatpants swallow his legs and hang low on his hips, a sliver of his tummy on display in between his t-shirt and pants.

It’s conflicting.  Do you act concerned and start begging the questions:  Did something happen?  Who’s injured?  Or do you exhale in relief as a tiny smile tugs at the corners of his mouth even in his somewhat distressed state?  It can’t be that bad if he still finds it in himself to smile, right?

“I, uh, I need help.”  He says sheepishly.

Ever since the night of the hoedown, he’d been a new kind of shy with you.  You couldn’t lie and say you didn’t adore it because truth be told, big bad Eddie Munson who previously chewed you out for being so bashful was now getting a taste of his own medicine.  Except you had been much kinder than he initially was, though it was fun to tease him and force his face to turn a vibrant tomato red.  

“Help?”  You smirk, swirling your wine as if you were some kind of connoisseur.  “My, my, how the tables have turned.”

“Bambi.”  He groans, still maintaining focused eye contact with the wood planks of your porch.

“Eddie.”  

It’s said so softly, in a way that reduces him to a puddle, his knees could give out at any moment if you so much as looked at him a certain way which had been why he refused to catch your gaze.  He internally curses himself for automatically counting under his breath, unable to stop himself: one, two, three, one, two, three.

In an instant your face falls, he only ever counted when he was stressed from what you could gather.  It was a learning curve, navigating Eddie’s quirks.

“Hey.”  You soothe, gingerly grabbing his wrist with your free hand.  “Hey, what’s wrong?”  

His curls bounce with a shake of his head, his eyes fluttering shut.  The counting stops but he still comes across as fuzzy.  Disoriented.  

“Come inside.”  You whisper, gently tugging him through the door, your wine abandoned at the entry table in the process.  “It’s freezing out.”

Instinctually he hands you the bowl he’d been cradling close to his body with a wooden spoon sticking out.  Upon further inspection, a mountain of mashed potatoes-or should you say lumps of potatoes are piled up within the bowl.  The skins are still intact, way too many if he intended to make smooth and creamy potatoes.  They’d be much less than enjoyable in the state they were currently in.

“I fucked them up.”  He whispers.

The sight you’re met with is that of a small child in a grown man’s body, his large eyes pleading.  You’re forced to realize that today may very well be much worse for him than it is for you.  He’d warned you that he didn’t do holidays and here he was, a nervous wreck turning up on your doorstep in a panic with lumpy potatoes.  And suddenly you felt so selfish.

“That’s okay.”  You assure him, tracing a tender thumb over his bicep.  He looked so lost.  “Eddie, it’s okay.”  You repeat with a nod.

“I just, I was gonna buy something from the store, and then, I just thought–I dunno maybe I’d at least try.”  He tugs on his curls, a bit too harshly for your liking.  “I don’t know why I even tried.”  He sighs in defeat.

It’s enough to break your heart.

“Eddie.”  

Turmoil flashes in his eyes, stress apparent in the way his brows furrow and his frown lines grow deeper.  His lips are red, most likely bitten, and he can’t stop twisting one of his rings around his finger.  He looks to be as much of a wreck as you felt although the symptoms seem to be much more apparent in his appearance than yours.  Your slightly swollen eyes were nothing compared to his tousled curls, anxieties littered across his face and trembling hands unable to be subtly hidden without the crutch of sleeves.

“I, uh, I-I shouldn’t have bothered.”  He mutters, reaching for the door.

You intercept him, your hand wrapping around his elbow while you attempt to meet his eyes.  He freezes in his escape, your touch rendering him paralyzed, your fingers suddenly too determined in digging into the meat of his arm.  Not meanly.  Never meanly.  More concerned.  Concerned for the way he cowers away the second he’s offered any fraction of help.  Perhaps it’s hypocritical of you to regard him with such worry when you yourself present the same behaviors under the same circumstances and expect no such treatment.

Your expression offers a certain softness that he’s come across one too many times since you’d barged into his life and taken his heart hostage.  You’d never know you committed such a crime.  And he’d never outright tell you of the ache that sat deep in his chest that he had no clue how to satiate.  All he knew was that he could not jeopardize this.  If he could get through the holidays, if he could get to January and you were still around, then, and only then would he be convinced that he had finally lifted whatever fucked up, out-of-this-world curse that had haunted him all his life.

“It’s okay.”  Barely above a whisper, you assure him.

Eddie doesn’t remember making his way into your kitchen, he can’t recall your delicate hand pulling him along until you let go to discard his potato concoction onto the counter and he realizes he’s taken the warmth for granted in a haze of existential dread.  Like a lost puppy, he stares at your fingertips as they linger on the counter while you lean over to reach for an empty casserole dish.  The entirety of your kitchen cabinets had thrown up all over the counters, a reflection of the way his brain felt.  Scattered.  

“Potatoes are actually super complicated.”  

His ears perk up, unsure of how to conjure up a response.  Instead, he raises his eyebrows, fearful of how dumb he could make himself look with just a few syllables.  It wasn’t like him to care so deeply what others thought of him.

“That’s why I avoid them.  Instead–”  You turn around only to pull out a can of green beans and a can of cream of mushroom.  “-work smarter, not harder.”

Eddie knows he should be hanging onto every word you say and usually he would be, he knows.  Except he can’t help but tune into the melody of Blue Christmas that had been echoing off the kitchen walls from your record player across the room.

The damn record player.  And the records.

He didn’t realize how much the records still affected him.  He had his own collection now, sure.  But anything that resembled the essence of his Mama, lived safely and soundly on its dedicated shelf in his room, untouched.  It took him years to rebuild Mama’s collection.

“Sorry can we-”  He makes his way toward the record player, his face contorted nearly painfully before lifting the needle.  “I just-I can’t think.”

Your motions were paused, can opener halfway through the can of beans as your eyes meet him with questions splayed across your face.  You don’t ask them.  An understanding smile works its way across your lips and god, he doesn’t know why you’re so patient with him after he stepped into your house and suddenly had the uncontrollable urge to shut off your music.  As he strides back into the kitchen, a series of apologies haven't even left his mouth and yet-

“So…Green Bean Casserole.”  You state, fingers tapping against the tin of each can.  “And Sugary Apple Goo.”  A vague gesture toward the uncooked pie.  “Kind of a…weird duo.  Or it will be if I actually get it in the oven-”

“Sorry, what?”  

“Apple pie.  The apple pie.  At home we just call it sugary apple goo, don’t ask why it’s just–it’s just a thing we do.”  You clarify, shoving the dessert into the comforting warmth of the oven, shivering at the sensation as goosebumps begin to prick your skin.

“Apple goo.”  He repeats.  A raised brow disappearing beyond his messy bangs.

Eddie almost forgets the reason why he’d been in such disarray, almost forgets why he even bothered knocking on your door in the first place, only remembers the fact that he was in a panicked state.

“Yeah.”  You sigh.

You busy yourself with slopping the now drained green beans into a nearby glass bowl.  Your blotchy skin and puffy eyes catch in the stream of sunlight, the kitchen window betraying you as it showcases your true state.  Avoiding those large brown eyes is the best you can do, the theory that if you can’t see him he can’t see you dumbly being put to use no matter how aware you are that it makes no sense.  Maybe if you act “okay enough”, he’ll chalk it up to the common cold, placing the responsibility for your rudolph-like nose on the yearly infection.

What you fail to realize is that by this point, he’s become too familiar with your teary eyes and sad worry lines that only seemed prominent in your times of distress.  Times that he had regretfully been the cause of previously.  Words can’t escape his practically sewn-shut-mouth, all sounds dying long before forming on his tongue.  It’s impossible to create comfort when he himself has trouble doing so for himself.  How could he possibly offer such comfort to someone who deserved kinder words from someone of a higher regard?

“Here, dump this in and mix.”  You instruct, forcing a can of cream of mushroom and a wooden spoon in his hands, yanking him out of his mind.

There’s no room for protest, not that he even intended to.  Not when you’re standing there with the ghost of tear tracks down your cheeks.  Not when you’re this kind.  Not when you’re you.  

“Okay.”  He mutters, a disgusting sound filling his ears from the lumpy soup falling into the bowl.

“After that, pour it in here.”  You place a ceramic casserole dish to his right, the dish nearly too large to fit on the cluttered counter though you’re too occupied with tidying up other parts of the kitchen to bother.

“Got it.”

Eddie Munson absolutely hates Thanksgiving.  But he doesn’t mind it so much when you’re rustling around behind him, a silent conversation hanging in the air that neither of you are alone in your holiday sorrows, whatever they may be.

You don’t ask why he continues counting under his breath behind you or why his hands are shaking.

And he doesn’t ask why tears linger in your eyes or why you pause to regain your composure after dropping a pan a bit too loudly for your liking, your lip wobbling.

Because the collective understanding is that neither of you is okay.  And maybe that’s okay.

–

“Careful, the bottom is–”

“Shit!”

“-hot.”

A ringed hand waves around in an effort to rid it of the burning sensation caused by the bottom of the piping hot casserole dish.  Eddie releases a series of curses, the side of the dish pushed against his chest as he balances it between his body and his single arm protected by one of your generously donated dish rags.  Your wide eyes caution him in his balancing act, a perfectly crafted green bean casserole at risk due to his negligence as he had taken the liberty of knocking on the door.

“What the fuck, how can fuckin’ beans be so goddamn hot?”  Brown eyes nearly roll into the back of his head, his fingertips more than likely singed an angry red.

It’s no laughing matter, not according to the scowl that makes its way across his handsome features but you can’t stop the pull of your lips from forming a large grin, giggles caught in the back of your throat.  His irritation disappears just as quickly as it came, harsh edges blurring into softness at the sight of your puffed out cheeks, inflated due to the humor just dying to crawl out of your mouth.

“Oh, shut up.”  A nudge of his shoulder against yours has you shaking your head, laughter finally escaping your perfectly glossed lips.

He could write paragraphs about them if it didn’t seem so creepy and stalkerish.  So he allowed himself the tiniest of glances, only hoping to paint the full picture in his head ever since you’d quickly puckered your lips in front of your mirror at home to complete your finishing touches while he viewed from the porch where he waited in his black button up and nicest pair of jeans.  He’d never been so jealous over a tube of lipgloss.  In fact, he’d never in his life been jealous of a tube of lipgloss and he never felt like more of a loser than in that moment.

“I told you.”  You mutter, an endearing side eye delivered right into his line of sight.  It was something almost child-like, something innocent and not at all like what he’d ever really been on the receiving end of.  Maybe because there was a certain flirtiness you were hinting at although he was no expert and had no right to assume.

“I told you.”  He mumbles back with a higher pitch, mocking you.

You turn toward him, a comeback on the tip of your tongue when his own tongue interrupts with a taunt, peeking out between his lips swiftly, his nose scrunching up meanly before his full attention is back on the door as it creaks open.  And then, a quick wink that only you yourself were a witness to, only creating a stir in your brain as you decipher that no one else would be able to confirm the action.

“Hey!”  Donnie greets, arms flung up in excitement as she ushers you into her welcoming home, smells infiltrating your nose, sweet and savory galore.

Before either you or Eddie can even get a simple “hello” in, she’s talking your ear off, something about who all is already in the living room, how far along the turkey is, where the bathroom is, all while guiding you into the spacious dining room.  She must have set out her fine china, the gorgeous dishes set all around the table lined with champagne colored silver on the edges of the plates.  Two tables had been pushed together, creating enough space for the large number of guests expected.  In the center sat an exquisite arrangement of various orange-hued flowers and some greenery.  

The house was comforting; not too large and not too small, a two story dream that no doubt had acres of backyard.  The Christmas tree had already been set up and decorated, the branches and lights hinting at you from the other room where men roared with laughter, a football game blaring from the TV that contrasted with the familiar voice of Frank Sinatra coming from the stereo.  Combined turkey and Santa decorations adorned the interior everywhere you glanced, surfaces that would usually be empty year around were occupied with tacky little figurines that were more endearing than anything.  Plastic garland traced the rails of the stairs, littered in fake plastic cranberries, the front room being far more grand than your entire home as you inspected it through the archway of the dining room.

Suddenly your nerves were simmering down, a familiar feeling nestling into the bottom of your chest as your shoulders fell from their tensed position, your fingers letting up on their grip on the pie tin you clutched so desperately.  Women squealed from the kitchen, a series of “oh my god”s erupting into the rest of the house, some kind of juicy gossip initiating several gasps as well as some laughter.  Your homesickness began to lie dormant, warmth overtaking you as Donnie went on and on about her family members, which ones to avoid sitting next to at all costs and warning you of the aunties that would corner you and beg for details on your love life.

“Just pretend I’m calling you and run as fast as you can in the other direction.”  She advises.  “And if that doesn’t work, tell ‘em you had too much wine and that it’s making a reappearance.  They’ll scatter like flies.”

You laugh along, taking mental notes as she grabs the pie from you, complimenting the smell as she sets it among several other desserts, a whole table dedicated only to sweets.  When she goes to grab the green bean casserole from Eddie, you can’t help but pause and watch as his doe eyes trace his surroundings, a clearly unfamiliar environment to him.  There’s uncertainty dripping from his demeanor, his single finger tapping against the dish:  One, two, three.  One, two, three.  One, two, three.

“Green bean casserole-Eddie, do you know how many green bean casserole we’ve got?  Like you all read each other’s mind, I swear.”  Donnie jokes.

“It’s-um, it’s hot.”  He cautions her.

Sauntering toward the main table, Donnie proudly sets it on top of a place mat to protect the wood from the heat.  Eddie doesn’t budge, seemingly glued to the carpet, his hands still lingering in the air like he had still been holding the dish.

“You okay?”  You mouth to him, looking up into his worried eyes, only hoping to soothe the crease in between his eyebrows.

He nods though you suspect he’s being a bit dishonest.  

“Oh, c’mon Eddie!  You know I’m just pullin’ your leg.”  Donnie reassures, a heavy hand falling against his shoulder.  “Shoot, I have to go check on the oven.  Yell for me if you need anything, both of you, okay?”  

“Sure.”  You mumble.  “Thank you.”

“There’s a fully stocked bar right over there, help yourselves.”  She calls as she backs herself up toward the kitchen.  “But don’t go too crazy.”  She sends a knowing glance, recalling both of your tendencies to take on more than you can handle.

“Why don’t we get some air?”  You suggest, unable to comprehend exactly just what was happening in Eddie��s mind although you knew enough to understand that he was miles outside of his comfort zone.

“No, no.  I’m good.”  A cleared throat doesn’t reassure you enough but you let it go for the time being.  Prying wasn’t going to help.  “”M gonna get a beer.”  He murmurs, chain jingling from his belt as he makes his way toward what you can only assume is the kitchen where Donnie had just disappeared to.

As pathetic as it seemed, you weren’t going to allow yourself to wander around alone, vulnerable to various conversations trapping you in small talk with strangers: an absolute nightmare.  Timidly, you follow behind Eddie at a safe distance, holding your breath as you take in the new room full of busy women and many glasses of wine.  The smell of gravy heavily lingers, a tinge of the sourly sweet alcohol peeking through as you release your breath and inhale finally.  

And then-they were all over him.  Sweet older women, ranging from around fifty plus years, all doting on him, cooing at him while complimenting how tall he is and his handsome features.  It only forces you to lean your hip against the counter and take in the most captivating scene you’d ever witnessed.  His cheeks redden, his entire face matching shortly after as he nods in response, small “thank you”s sneaking past his lips with a sheepish grin threatening to spread across his face, dimples prominent.  It’s clear he doesn’t know what to do with the attention, has no recognition of the power he currently holds.

“Is this one yours?!”  One woman shrieks, taking your hands in her bony ones.

“Oh-”

“You’re so lucky, he’s such a looker!”  Another chimes in.

“We’re not-”

“You better hope he holds onto all that hair throughout the years.”  A third nods.

Eddie’s face has never been redder, crimson painting his usually pale skin, a beer pinched in between his fingers as he avoids every single eye in the room.  You can only imagine the look on your own face, maybe slightly mortified with a hint of pink pulling at your cheeks due to the unnecessary attention.

“Alright, alright.”  Donnie interjects.  “Enough, you’re gonna scare ‘em away before they’ve even had a bite to eat!”  She waves her hands around, dramatics on full display as she shoos them away like pigeons.

“Thank you.”  You whisper, eyes large and surprised.

“Run, run.”  Donnie displays wide eyes, gently shoving you both out of the kitchen.

–

Throughout the evening, you kept Eddie in your peripheral.  Sure, he was grown and fully capable of taking care of himself but it didn’t worry you any less when holidays weren’t necessarily his favorite thing.  Anxieties lurked in the back of your mind the second he started counting earlier, never once fading away no matter how hard you tried to convince yourself that he was fine, now bantering back and forth with Sam.

“That Steve kid really can’t dance.”  Nathan laughs, pulling you back into the initial conversation you were having, perched on the couch with a glass of wine set in front of you on the coffee table courtesy of Donnie’s excellent hosting skills.

“Well that’s why he excused himself off the dancefloor.”  You softly smile, earning another hearty laugh from the man.

“Hey, but Eddie’s no better.”  He jokes, taking a swig of his beer.  “Looked like a damn giraffe stumbling over his own legs.”

“I wasn’t very coordinated either!”  You defend.  “We were a hot mess.”  You bury your face in your hands.

“Yeah, I bet Eddie thought you were hot.”

The recliner adjacent to you creaks beneath Jett as he makes himself comfortable, slouching with a beer in his hand.

“Whoa.”  Nathan leans forward, ready to reprimand him.  “What-”

“That’s okay.”  You speak softly, your hand covering the older man’s as an act of keeping the peace, something you did best.  Several seconds of contemplation and a glance across the room toward Eddie change your mind.  

“Actually-it’s not.”  You turn your body toward Jett, a man–child before your eyes that refused to even look at you after his comment.  Your hands shake and your cheeks heat with embarrassment, chalking your sudden confidence up to the glass and a half of wine you indulged in.  

“What?”  Jett furrows his brows, examining his beer far too aggressively as a means to avoid you.

“It’s not okay.”  You whisper, a wimpy excuse of a defense.

“What’s gotten into you, boy?”  Nathan scolds through gritted teeth.

Jett’s nearly-black eyes resemble something opposite in comparison to the warmth in those across the room currently harboring a twinkle in an engaged conversation.  The boy is unable to get a word in as you quietly begin to address him.

“Look, I’m sorry if I did something wrong.”  You regret the tremble in your tone, confrontation was well out of your comfort zone, especially with someone who had been so hostile for no reason.  It wasn’t in your DNA to be the “bad guy” even when it would benefit your wellbeing.

Something in your words softens Jett’s eyes, pulls a piece of him back into reality.  You weren’t terrorizing him and he couldn’t seem to grasp that ever since that night you had argued with Eddie behind the bar.  And you hadn’t spoken a word out of line but you weren’t clueless.  Clearly he had an agenda against you and Eddie, it never left your mind since Eddie mentioned that Jett got all over-protective suddenly that night and took it out on him.  But what could you do when all he did was puff out his chest rather than have a decent conversation?  His frayed emotions were not your responsibility, you owed him nothing if he was going to insist on acting like a toddler in adult situations.  You suppose some of it could be due to his lack of years behind yourself and Eddie, Jett still a teenager, almost twenty whereas you had been in your twenties for a few years now.  It wasn’t an excuse, just your brain attempting to work out his logic.

“You didn’t–you didn’t do anything wrong.”  He sighs, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

You don’t offer any words.  Only an expectant look.  Expecting of some kind of explanation as to why he’d been acting so cruel.  And as if the universe decided you didn’t live in enough anguish with your homesickness that morning paired with the current unwanted confrontation, Eddie’s eyes met yours for a brief moment before darting away, a deep sigh and suddenly slouching shoulders clearly indicating some kind of defeat before he quietly stepped out of the room.

“Can we get into this another time?”

You don’t wait for a response, excusing yourself to slip out of the room and follow the trail of cold out the front door, the chill seeping into your bones as your cradle your arms close to yourself.  The porch is spacious, something you hadn’t taken notice of earlier when arriving.  To your left, Eddie sits on a wooden bench with the family name “Scott” carved into it.  A cigarette takes its place between his fingers, his lighter flickering while he lets out a frustrated groan.  He places the stick between his lips and cups the flame to hide it from the wind, finally succeeding in lighting it, puffs of smoke escaping through the corners of his mouth.

“I’m not fragile, Bambi.  Stop following me around.”  He mutters, pulling the cigarette from his lips.  There’s no malice detected in his words, just something lacking hope as he stares straight ahead.

Carefully, you sit at the very edge of the bench, your skirt a tad too short to allow you to fully sit back due to the cold surface.  You catch a wave of his warmth as he rests his arm on his thigh.  It hurts, how far away he feels even being inches from you; his mind might as well be on Jupiter.  A momentary glance over at you causes him to sigh deeply, his head dipping down while he shakes it in disappointment.

“And dammit!”  Eddie snaps, face twitching in aggravation.  “I don’t have a jacket for you this time.  Learn how to dress for the cold.”  He gestures to your posture, your arms wrapped around your middle in an attempt to savor any warmth, and your jaw clenched shut as a means to keep your teeth from chattering though you can’t seem to contain the shivers nearly rattling your bones.

“I don’t need one.”

He scoffs, disbelief evident in his movements, a fidgeting hand reaching up to scratch the barely-there stubble at his jaw.  

“I don’t!”  You lie.

You were never one to willingly be dishonest but a little white lie in this case didn’t seem like the end of the world.  Not when Eddie’s fragile state of mind seemed to gnaw away at him.  You wouldn’t leave him out for the wolves to feed on him; wolves being his never ending thoughts that always without fail, won him over and forced him to crawl back into his comfort zone of isolation.  You suppose you weren’t so innocent either, always succumbing to the very same habits.

“Go back inside.”  A flick of his cigarette ash towards the ground ignites in the thin layer of snow barely coating the porch before extinguishing.

You can’t help the furrow in your brows, staring at him as if to figure him out, attempting to glance into his large coffee colored irises, to no avail.  His shiny eyes dodge your attempts, the windows of his soul closed off, even from you.  Not that you were immediately entitled, though you figure with each trauma he had shared with you, he’d at least be able to look you in the eye.

“Come with me.”  You chirp.  “We’ll taste all the wines.  C’mon, and then we’ll be nice and hungry.  Drunk eating is the best.”  You extend a hand out toward him, your freshly painted nails perfectly imperfect in his peripheral.

“I’m not in the mood, Bambi.”

His gravelly voice has a certain effect on you, one you find not appropriate to dissect right now.  He lifts the cigarette back up to his lips, the chance to take one more drag stolen from him as you pluck it from his fingers, tossing it into the snow without regret, stomping your foot on it for good measure.

“Well, get in the mood.  Let’s go.”  

Boldly, you tug at his arm, unable to move him by yourself, you know.  But he willingly melts into your touch, allowing you to pull him up despite his protesting frown.  Though he follows you to stand, he doesn’t budge much further than that as you try to drag him back into the cozy warmth of the house.  The rounded tip of his nose glows red, the threat of a cold only pushing you to tug on his sleeve with no success in ushering him inside.

“I think ‘m just gonna head home.  You think someone else could give you a ride back?”  The question is hesitant, no longer wanting to participate in the festivities but still concerned for your well-being, especially if you were going to continue to drink.  

Your track record with alcohol wasn’t exactly great and he’d never forgive himself if something happened and he wasn’t there just because the sight of you talking to Jett had left a bad taste in his mouth.  But he couldn’t stand it any longer, watching you act so graceful all the time, especially to someone you didn’t particularly like, and then having to pretend that a simple kiss on the cheek didn’t absolutely wreck him.  A kiss that you hadn’t since mentioned, and he wasn’t going to humiliate himself by insinuating that you wanted him in that way.  No one wanted him in that way.

“What?”  You breathe, face shifting into a sadness Eddie wanted to kick himself for.  “No, you can’t go–”

“I’m sure Jett is ready and willing to entertain you.”

Low blow.  He could always count on himself to deliver a low blow at the worst of times.

Eddie knew now that you had a distaste for Jett, he knew that.  And yet he was stupid enough to continue using Jett as ammo against you for no reason other than his own insecurity.  If he continued to push you away then it wouldn’t hurt so bad when you realized he was scum of the earth.  Trailer trash.  A nobody.  That’s what he kept telling himself.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  You fume, crossing your arms.

“I don’t know, Bambi.  You tell me cause I can’t figure you out.”

The use of his nickname for you stitched together with words of anguish only further confused you.  You couldn’t seem to win.

“Can’t–can’t figure me out?!”  You widen your eyes at him, only hoping to convey how ridiculous of a statement it is.  “Can’t figure me out.  What about you?!  You’re the one no one can figure out!”  

You’re on the verge of whining, begging in a sense.  Pleading with the most stubborn man in the world and god only knows what you’ll do if he doesn’t stand down.

“Maybe there’s a reason for that.”  He states simply, monotone.  It makes you want to yank your hair out by the roots and offer it to him, asking him if it’s enough.  If it’s enough to shut up the voices in his head.

“Yeah?  Because you don’t wanna let people in?!”  Uncharacteristically, you jab a finger into his chest, frustration making itself known across your face and you only know because his eyes ever so slightly soften.  “Eddie, all you do is give me mixed signals!  How many times do I have to tell you I want nothing to do with Jett?!  What do I have to do to get that through your thick fucking head?!”  He tries to get a word in but you don’t give him an opportunity.  “No, seriously!  I need an instruction manual or something because I’m trying!  I have been trying-”

“-I didn’t ask you to!”  He finally interrupts, sorrow filling his eyes.

With a deep breath, you calm your heaving chest.  It’s apparent you’re no longer cold, your skin hot from working yourself up.  Steam may as well be coming from your ears though it wasn’t your intention to get so irritated with him.  

“I wanted to.  I want to.”  Your voice comes out softer, a gentler approach to his sudden internal conflict.

“No.”

Turning away, he doesn’t quite move to leave but there’s no mistaking the fact that he’s trying to shut you out.  He’s trying to escape like some kind of feral animal but you refuse to give in.  You refuse to let him.  

“Yes.  Eddie–look at me!”  You demand with a small pull of his arm.

“No.”

He goes to turn his body even further away from you but the firm hold you have on his bicep stops him.  He keeps his gaze on the floorboards below, his nose twitching and eyes burning with the threat of tears.  You only know because you’re all too familiar with the mandatory frown that comes with holding them back.

“Stop doing that.  Please.”  You beg.

“I can’t be here right now–”

“What makes you think I can?”

He’s silent.  The world instantly feels so quiet, tiny snow flurries fluttering around you, making you feel as if you’re the only two people on Earth.  Echoes of the celebrating and hollering inside are faint although they don’t do much to pop the bubble you find yourselves in.  Then he breaks the silence, daring to plead with you this time.

“Bambi, please.”  He croaks.

Your initial thought is, please what?  You’d been pleading with him back and forth for god knows how many minutes straight and here he was doing it right back to you.  And for what?  It wasn’t a good enough plea, not for you.  You weren’t ready to let it go, if you even knew what “it” was.

“No, you’re coming inside and you don’t have to associate with me if you don’t want to but you’re coming inside.”

Your demand only seems to irritate him, his brows knitting together while he pinches the bridge of his nose in between his fingers.  If he was agitated then you were about to become enraged.  And that is not something you wanted.  You never wanted to display that kind of emotion toward him but he was practically pulling it out of you and you had to fight against it.  No one had ever been able to pull such a reaction out of you, not ever.  Even if you had gotten pretty close, you swallowed it down and hid it.

“Why?!”  Eddie seethes.

His outburst takes you back, though with the aggravation boiling within you, you were able to contain any reaction he was seeking, if any.  That wasn’t the case for long though as you then launch yourself into another tantrum after staring for a second too long at his snarled lip.

“Because believe it or not, I care, Eddie!”  You practically wail, your voice becoming hoarse.  “If you leave I’m coming with you because I’m not leaving you alone.  Not on Thanksgiving.”  Your head shakes in denial.

Against your own will, a single tear trails down your cheek and the moment you feel it, you’re rapidly wiping it away, hoping he never even saw it when you knew damn well his umber eyes followed it all the way down your face.  He only pulls his gaze away.

“I’m leaving.  You’re staying here.”  He decides, regret etched into his features.

In a final attempt to escape your grasp, he succeeds, feeling your fingertips linger for one last second before drifting away as he turns and makes his way down the porch steps, wood protesting beneath him.  The noise is the only proof you have that he’s actually leaving, that he actually feels he’s not worthy enough to stay.  

You refuse to give up so easily.

Your feet are already on a mission, nearly sprinting down the stairs even with the threat of slipping on the minimal amount of ice beginning to freeze over.  Eddie pays no mind to the fast paced footsteps crunching against the gravel behind him, making his way over to Sugar with his head hung low.  Your heart is racing, not just because you suddenly decided to sprint a few yards but because a healthy dose of dopamine has started coursing throughout your body, a good amount of anxiety accompanying it but not deferring you any longer.

Eddie makes it to Sugar, his hand reaching for the door only for it to be forced shut with a self-manicured hand.  If he didn’t know who the hand belonged to he’d be chewing the owner out for daring to touch his beloved truck.  Instead he rolls his eyes and turns as he prepares to reprimand you in a much more gentle manner than he would anyone else.

Except he doesn’t even have the chance when your lips are suddenly pressed to the corner of his mouth, your body pushing him against Sugar.  His hands freeze mid air, his eyes wide open.  Your hands are resting on his chest and–he can’t breathe.  You pull away, inches from him and he can’t breathe, he can’t speak, he can’t move.  As far as he’s concerned he isn’t even human anymore.  

“Stay.”  You whisper, your breath fanning over slightly chapped lips.

His lips won’t stop tingling, he can’t grasp the concept of what just occurred.  He refuses to even touch you for fear that you might disappear right before him.  Hell, he’s not even sure he’s allowed to.

It’s difficult to gauge his reaction, his heavy breath lingering with the smell of his cigarette that would probably gross you out had it been anyone else but for some reason, because it’s him, you don’t mind very much.  You must smell strongly of wine which isn’t always pleasant so you figure you’re even.

“Please stay.”   You repeat, nudging your nose into his.

It’s like he’s in a trance, his eyelids becoming lazy and his body relaxing when you reach up to trace your thumb ever so slightly over his jaw.  His forehead rests against yours, his eyes squeezing shut, and you can hear a gulp in his throat.  With his eyes still shut, he nods and before you can process it, he launches himself into your arms in a tight embrace, wrapping himself around you, his face buried in your neck.  A wetness catches against your skin catches your attention, Eddie’s body heaving slightly and you just know.

You know that the tear stains on your skin mean more to him than you could ever imagine.

Slowly, your fingers tangle in his hair, threading into the curls at the nape of his neck to lightly scratch his scalp soothingly.  The way he grips onto you tighter, his body shaking, only confirms that physical touch and affection was not a luxury he was allowed in his lifetime.  If he let you, you’d spend thousands of hours holding him, even in the cold.  Whatever he needed.

But the snow flurries began to grow larger and the wind started to pick up.  And you’d be damned if you allowed yourself and Eddie to catch a nasty cold when you could be doing the same thing inside next to the fire.  Though, as you thought about it, Eddie would probably shy away from your touch in front of everyone.  And that didn’t anger you in the way it normally would.  Because you couldn’t blame him, someone so touch starved that he began to sob the second he was willingly kissed and told he was wanted, for shying away from showers of physical affection in front of peers that only know him to be big, bad, Eddie Munson.  It would be too much of a change and you weren’t willing to force that upon him.

So as the cold grew more unforgiving, you continued to hold him.  He would be the one to decide when he felt he wanted to part from you.  And if you both got sick, so be it.  A stupid cold would be worth the price if you were able to provide him the touch he went so long without and so badly craved, even if he didn’t quite know it at first.

Eddie parted from you far sooner than anticipated.  His cheeks were rosy, his rounded nose matching, endearingly so.  His eyelashes were dotted with a few lingering tears, his eyes rimmed with red but sadness was absent from his features.  Instead there was a fondness dripping from his expression and though he parted from the embrace to gaze down at you, he still clung to you like his life depended on it. 

“Can I–can I kiss you?”  He whispers shakily.

You want to laugh, only because he’s acting as if you didn’t kiss him in the first place.  But you bury it deep down and only let a smile blossom.  

“Please.”  You whisper back.

This time, you’re more than happy to beg.  

Hesitantly, his shaky hand cups your jaw, the warmth from his skin more than welcome as he gently slots his lips against yours.  He’s slow with it, taking his time.  As you move in rhythm with him, you encourage him, moving his arms to circle your waist, pressing yourself closer and letting your hands travel up his chest to lock behind his neck.  

“I can’t stop.”  He laughs quietly, continuously pecking your lips like he can’t get enough.

“Don’t.”  You giggle into his mouth.

Teeth clash against teeth and though he hasn’t quite graduated to using tongue yet, you have the urge to introduce him.  Before you can pass your tongue along his plump bottom lip, he curses under his breath as he pulls away, only causing worry to spread across your face.

“You’re freezing.”  His hands rub up and down your arms to somewhat heat you up and only then do you realize your face feels completely numb.

“No, I’m fine.”  You protest against your better judgment.  It wasn’t exactly fitting to be in tights while one of the first snow falls of the year ensued.

“You’ll be a popsicle in like three seconds.”

Eddie softly smiles, reaching for your hand and tugging you with him toward the house.  A whine escapes you, a pathetic whimper but you manage to shuffle yourself along with him.  Before entering the realm of reality beyond the front door, Eddie turns to you, stars in his eyes, something glimmering.

“How’s my nose?  Snotty?”  He grins, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

~end~

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tags - @gravedigginbbydoll @ohauggieo @spicysix @lunatictardis @ali-r3n @batkin028 @mrsjellymunson @witchwolflea @emma77645 @emxxblog @eddiesxangel @angietherose @lottie-90 @sheneedsrocknroll92 @pullingattheroots @avalon-wolf @vintagehellfire @cryingglightningg @foreveranexpatsposts @winchester-angel @mmunson86 @witchwolflea @kurdtbean @micheledawn1975 @tlclick73 @erinekc @hazydespair @whenshelanded @corrodedcoffincumslut @ms1oftheboys @lma1986 @uglypastels @aysheashea @dashingdeb16

[kel-lance]

TAAOTJJK FIC MASTERLIST

Most are nsfw so in general NO MINORS but I’ve got a lot planned out and seemed I work best when ovulating 😭 so updates may be hectic but I would encourage donations as I got fired for protesting and boycotting bc my job was invisibly helping 🇮🇱 so I’m glad I’m out of there but finding a job where I’m at is hella hard. I’m just tryna keep my 4 cats comfy. Anything helps thank you for reading!

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Written and Posted:

Mafia AU (up to 19 ch planned out) TW: Dead dove dont read (DDDR) Minors do not interact (MDNI): SA, Physical Assault, DubCon, NonCon, Mindbreak, Public Humiliation, Breeding, Ownership, Gaslighting, Multiple manipulation, RWORD, PTSD, a lot more toxic sh.

Premise: You’re a floater, just loving life as free as you want, until you decided to rob the wrong person. Now there’s confusion after Sukuna takes u back to his place after taking u in that alleyway. After that you just start moving through the gangs due to internal disputes. Shit just gets wild. (Almost everyone has a turn)

Ch1

Ch2

Ch3 (NEW)

Ch4 (NEW)

Ch5 (NEWEST)

Team bonding (up to 5 ch planned out) - TW: Dead dove dont read (DDDR) Minors do not interact (MDNI): SA, Physical Assault, DubCon, NonCon, Mindbreak, Public Humiliation, Multiple manipulation, RWORD, PTSD, a lot more———-

Premise: Sukuna takes over Yuuji’s body, takes u in front of everyone, and threatens them that if they don’t do their homework with you, he’s gonna show u how he wants it. (He instructs everyone to play w u and keep it away from yuuji as his little game.)

Ch 1

Ch2

Ch3

Movie night (up to 9 ch planned out) Warnings: MDNI, Group sex, camera use, teasing, humiliation, mmfmm, everyone’s bi/pan, overstimulation, worship,

Premise: u host a movie night with Megumi Toge Yuuji and yuta. You’ve already been seeing them all but never had them altogether like this before. No one’s gonna be watching the movie.

Ch 1

Ch 2

Yandere Gojo (3/3 parts) TW ——-MDNI—-DDDR——- kidnapping, dc/nc, abuse, cream pie, ownership, etc. ————

Premise: I forgot but he’s mean

Ch 1

Ch 2

Ch 3

Eyeless Gojo: TW ———Warnings: mention of death, blood, killing, morally grey, slight mind control, Gojo just reacting to his cptsd in this universe, slight grooming (adults ideals on Gojo and their children), mindbreak, yandere(?)———————-

Premise: Going back to the start of their first year, meeting, processing, feeling, learning, loving, it’s all new and too much for Gojo. He’s more pathetic and lost and needs Geto, and Geto is even more frayed from the ideals surrounding his best friend. Geto gets into gojos head, so he takes out what people think make him Gojo and not himself.

Prequel:

Part 1

One shots: (TW)

Stepdad Nanami: ——MDNI——GROOMING, not really incest, Age gap, manipulation, broken home, slut shaming (at ur mom lol), drug mention

Premise: Your mom starts dating this guy and he’s nicer than anyone she’s ever kept around, really nice. The best even, sucks how they’re getting married. (Until they split for part 2.)

Divorce Lawyer Hiromi: Warnings: MDNI, Age Gap, StepDad mention, Public, exhibitionism, idk have fun. (Pt 2^^)

Premise: Your stepdads too busy for u but he brought his lawyer home. For work right? Or for you?

Quickie w Yuta: -- Warnings: MDNI!! DC/NC, exhibitionism, cream pie, humiliation, manipulation, ownership, etc...

Premise: Yuta’s some boyfriend.

Tutor Gojo: ——MDNI——WARNINGS: DUBCON/NONCON, implied prof/student relationship, bullying, degradation, blackmail, a few more ——MDNI——

Premise: Gojo overhears that you need a tutor

Sub!Choso: MDNI——collars leashes whip’s edging stomping humiliation blindfolds restraints gags overstimulation pegging taunting slapping blood play period sex {all mentioned}

Premise: He walks in on your date (sub!Nanami) and begs for his own collar.

Yandere?!Yuta: Wrote this months ago and don’t want to reread or fix it up but I feel there should be some warnings though I wouldn’t really know what they’d be other than lying? (NEW)

You decide: (finished)

Poll 1

Poll 2

Poll 3

Poll 4

Writing currently:

- Toge x reader: Toxic!Dom!Toge bein a classic ♏️

- How the JJK Men React to you Waking Up From a REALLY BAD injury

- 1 request

Requests are: OPEN. Updated 06.11.24

[friedbaekhyunandeggso]

found you - ch. 5 (part III)

pairing: gojo satoru x female oc (ara natsuna)

tropes: psycho! rival! athlete! yandere! gojo x introvert! booksmart! sheltered! rbf! oc

warnings: 18+ only babes, stalking/possessive themes, profanity, coercion, pet names (kitten), gaslighting, manipulation, underage drinking, praising, unprotected & protected sex, rough sex, mentions of suicide & depression, toxic jealousy, begging, chokehold, fingering, squirting, oral (f receiving), overstimulation, w33d, mentions of hard drugs (ecstasy, cocaine)

word count/plot: [15.5k!] ara catches gojo's attention when news breaks that she is the top academically ranked student in their grade. he is ranked second. he tries to befriend her but she ignores him. despite her obvious disinterest, his obsession begins...

a/n: ok this part took me forever to write bc i lowkey suck ass at writing backstories. hopefully ya'll r able to understand what i wrote for that part (you'll see what i mean once u read it). also i skim editted this chapter so if some of it is in lowercase, don't blame me. i actually prefer to type in lowercase but since i started writing this fic with correct capitalization i wanted to be consistent w that. anyway, have fun reading. i'm so excited to read ur guy's comments hehe

ch. 1 , ch. 2 [ part 1 | part 2 ] , ch. 3 , ch. 4 , chapter 5 [ part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 ]

Ara pulled the blanket up to Millie’s shoulders. She was passed out, like most of her classmates once they brought the party inside the penthouse suite of the hotel. It was nearly 5 am so she couldn’t blame them.

“Psst.”

Ara glanced over to see Gojo walking her way, a drink in hand. She knew he didn’t drink so..

“If that drink is for me then you can put it away.”

He grinned, “Nah it’s water.”

“Oh,” she took it from him and then took a sip, only to spit it out, “That’s vodka!”

“Eheheh,” She shoved him as he sat down on the couch beside her. He motioned towards Millie, “She’s out?”

Ara nodded, “She drank enough for everyone combined.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

Ara squinted, “You don’t even drink.”

“Shhh,” he slipped his hand into hers, “Can I steal you now?”

“For what?”

“I have to show you something.”

She was silent for a moment, “It’s too early for a prank.”

He grinned brightly, “It’s not a prank. I promise.”

She let him take her by the hand and lead the way. As they walked through, she spotted Choso laying down passed out a bean bag and Geto asleep on the couch across from him, his leg hanging off the edge.

Gojo led her to one of the rooms, opening the door a bit carefully to peek inside and make sure it was the right one before pushing the door wide open for her. He motioned with his chin for her to go in, a little smirk on his face.

She entered to see balloons covering nearly every square inch of the floor, making the bed almost look like an island. The lit candles made the vast, modern room smell of comforting vanilla, maybe a hint of strawberry as well. The glass windows were wide open, revealing a sickening view of their beautiful city.

She was astonished, “Gojo..” she was about to turn around to face him but suddenly a hand rested on back, urging her forward.

“Keep going.”

She complied with his gentle pushes towards the bed, pushing aside balloons as they went. That was when she spotted the rather big box on the flower petal covered bed. The box was perfectly wrapped in glossy white wrapping paper with a pastel purple bow at the center.

She sat down on the bed, her eyes widening as she took in the box’s size.

He spoke quietly, “Open it.”

She glanced up at him, “Toru, what did you do..”

 “Just open it, open it.” he urged.

She noticed his barely contained excitement and shook her head subtly. He’d already given her so much, much more than she could ever ask for and yet here he was. Giving her a gift, as if he didn’t give her several on the daily.

He plopped down on the bed across from her, resting his head on his arm as he eagerly watched her pick up the box.

She ripped open the neat wrapping only to gape when she saw the orange box underneath. Thin black ribbon was tied around the box as well, but she’d be a fool to miss the ‘Hermes’ logo printed at the center.

“Gojo, what—“ she sputtered, at a loss for words, “You.. oh my god.”

His barely contained smirk broke out into a full grin. He continued to urge her, “Keep opening it.” He was almost tempted to open it for her at the pace she was going.

Once she got the wrapper fully off, he easily pulled the ribbon loose for her. Watching with a smile as she opened the box. 

Inside was her very first Birkin. It was mainly off-white, with an ombré effect of light brown at its edges. The crocodile pattern was unmistakable. The shiny, white-gold diamond latch glittered iridescently under the dim light. (a/n: if anyone is curious abt the bag https://madisonavenuecouture.com/products/hermes-birkin-25-himalaya-niloticus-crocodile-diamond-encrusted-hardware)

She was in awe.

He cupped her elbow, thumb gliding over her forearm gently, “Happy birthday, kitten.”

She set the box down, too shocked to even touch the bag itself. This was unlike any of the Birkin’s she’d ever seen—even though she’d only seen them in videos and in Shoko’s mother’s closet but still. Its grandeur was obvious and the diamonds-real diamonds on a bag? she couldn’t even comprehend it.

“Satoru… how? Why?” It seemed english wasn’t coming to her very easily, “How much was this?”

His hand slid up her elbow to her nape. He sat up to kiss her neck. His lips on her throat made her heartbeat scatter.

“Nothing compared to you.”

“Toru,” she backed away slightly, “This isn't smart. I don’t even wear bags that much-“

“Now you will.”

She met his gaze, only for her pounding heartbeat to quicken. He was looking at her with so much adoration, maybe a hint of lust but most of all, his gaze was filled with..

She glanced away, murmuring, “This is too much.”

He always did this. Gifting her the most expensive things so easily. It never failed to make her uncomfortable at first, making her feel like he was trying to compensate her for her affection only until she realized he truly liked it—giving her things. His love language was gifts.

His fingers caressed her hair for a moment before he let go of her nape.

“Open the purse.”

Her eyes widened, “What?” 

He didn’t respond, merely pushing the box towards her.

When she didn’t move he took her hand and placed it over the Birkin’s diamond latch, expectantly waiting for her to open it.

She opened the latch hesitantly, her fingertips gliding over the bag's rigid yet wearable material before slipping her hand within. She immediately felt something.

She withdrew her hand to see a small velvet box in her palm. She opened the box to reveal a beautiful petite white-gold diamond ring. It had a twisted over pattern, with diamonds embedded in each twist. She nearly gasped.

He suddenly reached within the collar of his shirt and shuffled out a thin silver chain around his neck. At the end of the chain was a ring made of the same material as hers, shaped more like a band.

His face was flushed.

“This ring is my promise to you.” His bright blue eyes met hers and he looked serious-for once.

She noticed his adam’s apple bob in his neck.

“I promise to keep you the happiest girl in the world. I promise to give you every piece of me and more,” The corner of his lip lifted subtly, “I promise to burn down the world for you, if that’s what you want-“

She chuckled airily, shaking her head.

He took her hand, “Listen to me, I know I haven’t always been the best man but I can’t live without you, you hear? I can’t live without you.”

His eyes dropped to her hand in his, his brows furrowing,  “When you broke up with me I hated it. I hated being away from you..” 

“I never stopped thinking about you, you know,” he scanned her face, “You're right in front me and I still can’t.”

She couldn’t hold his gaze.

“I love you, Ara.” he said softly.

His thumb ran over her ring finger, “You’re getting a promise ring now but there’s gonna be an engagement ring here one day. You’re gonna be my wife.” he spoke so definitively, as if it were already fated.

She let out a small, awkward laugh, “Your seriously talking about marria-”

“I am serious.”

“You sure?” her voice was low, tantalizing, “Shoko told me you don’t believe in monogamy.”

He chuckled, “I do now.”

“Why?”

“I found you.”

She stared at him as he slid the ring onto her finger, his hand lingering over hers before he returned her stare.

The next thing he knew she was crawling into his lap, drawing him a hug so tight her narrow arms shook from the strength she was exerting. He smiled. He wound his arms around her just as tight while peppering her temple with kisses. His hand tangled itself in her hair before tugging her head back.

He leaned towards her but she pressed a hand to his chest, stopping him before their lips met.

“You can’t take that back y’know.”

“What?”

Her hands tightened around his collar, completely losing her train of thought when she felt his hard-on brush her ass. 

Her cheeks grew warm, “e-everything you just said.”

“Never.” he panted, suddenly digging his fingers into her ass before flipping her over onto the bed—him atop her. “Never, never, never.”

Her eyes widened when she saw the mirror on the ceiling. She could see everything.. her reflection.. his face in her neck, eagerly leaving love bites.. his muscular shoulders rippling under his shirt as he reached between her legs, spreading them. His fingertips grazed her pussy lips before curling around her thong. He yanked it off.

She jolted, a loud gasp leaving her lips.

His face came before her, the ring on his thin chain dangling between them, “You’re mine Ara, forever.”

She threw her head back, her head resting on his shoulder while his face dug into the crook of her nape, his lips territorially marking her neck.

His cock pistoned in and out underneath her, his hips smacking into her ass as she sat completely naked over his lap. She was making the most obscene noises, she couldn’t help it. The hand of his that wasn’t gripping her hip was right above her cunt, his fingers working her clit.

“fuckk—toru! toru!!hnnn~” her body arched.

His fingers dug into her hip, his cock slamming into her harder. His finger playing with her clit at a dizzying pressure.

“you feelso fucking good, birthday girl.” he rasped out.

She whined.

He watched her writhe atop of him, her head bouncing on his shoulder with each forceful fuck. Her hair jumped with each thrust of his hips, the dark strands splayed out over his chest, shoulder and neck. Her mouth was wide open. Her tits swinging up and down hypnotically.

The tear stained black mascara trailing down her cheeks made his cock jerk with more stamina. He bit her narrow shoulder.

She yanked at his fluffy white hair, “TORU!!”

“cum ara, cum right fucking now.”

She shook her head wildly. “satoru..please, i can’t-f-fuck.”

His cock hammered into her, she could barely breathe. everything hurt. she swore she could feel his cock head swell within her. his cock was so hard.

She gasped out between fucks, “hnn—can’t, toru. can’t. so big. too big.”

“i know i’m big baby. but your cunny can take it, i know she can.”

She tried to push away his hand at her clit, “i can’t,” she cried, “t’much—“

His hand remained fixed over her navel, instead his fingers picked up the pace. his cock grinding into her cervix, making her cunt let out the most embarrassingly wet sounds she’d ever heard.

Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, “ohhhhhnnnnm~”

Her body burned with pleasure. his cock felt obscenely hot inside her as she felt herself twitch around him. His cock made her feel so deeply full, she wondered if her cunt had finally been stretched to the limit–if he’d finally broken her.

“Ohmygod-my god-nghhh!”

Her body jerked atop him, wave after wave of pleasure coursing through her. Feeling like this shouldn’t be real–all of this-him-couldn’t be real.  she couldn’t take it.

She moaned weakly. her cunt spraying liquids despite him still being inside her—deliriously grinding his cock deeper into her. His cockhead touching her deepest parts.

“Araaaaa~” he sighed brokenly into her ear. She felt like heaven.

Her eyes flitted open as her jerking subsided. She caught sight of herself in the mirror above and froze. The sight caused a cold jolt up her spine.

She looked... slutted out. her eyeshadow, mascara and liner had all blurred together into a seamless smoky eye, minus for the trails of supposedly waterproof mascara running down the corners of her eyes. her lipstick was smudged. her skin was covered in hickeys, including one on her chin. several on her cleavage and tits. Her nipples were surrounded by teeth marks.

His white hair tickled her cheek as he shifted slightly, his cock still inside her. His hot breath traveled down her neck, making her skin tingle. she couldn’t help but notice how large his muscular thighs looked underneath her smooth ones.

Her body jerked once more, an aftermath of her high.

“Good girl.” he praised, giving her clit a small squeeze–making her entire body twitch. She whined as he laughed, his fingers continuing to explore her. He touched the wetness along her pussy lips.

She heard his breath hitch beside her ear, “This pussy is gonna be the death of me.”

Her cunt constricted around his cock and he growled. his fingers suddenly digging deep into her hips, making her yelp.

She tried to grab his wrists and pry his hands off but it was too late.

His cock plunged into her ruthlessly.

She felt his hot, white cum spill into her. spurting along her cramped walls. she felt it travel and dribble out of her cunt, spilling down her inner thighs.

his cum was so warm.

She squeezed her thighs together, which only drew out more cum from his cockhead. she shivered, a low whine leaving her.

“Happy birthday.” he whispered above her.

Her eyes flashed opened only to close a millisecond after when his hips bucked into her again, slowly and deep. fucking his seed back into her.

He hummed as she mewled meekly underneath him. his shoulders flexed.

“You're not even someone i should go to for this.”

“What—why?”

“Cuz you drive hella fast.”

He snapped her seat belt in place for her, “Listen, I’m still a good teacher.”

“Are you?”

“I am.”

“How?”

“I just am.”

She narrowed her eyes, “Love the confidence but seriously, why can’t you just let me have a driving instructor?”

“Cuz i want to teach you, kitten. Isn’t it gonna be so cute when you tell our kids one day-“ he mockingly began to use a kid voice, “ ‘mommy how did you learn how to drive? ‘your daddy taught me—“

She punched him in the shoulder, making him yelp. He immediately cradled his arm, groaning as if she’d brutalized him.

“Can you stop being a dumbass?” she gripped the steering wheel, “Tell me what to do.”

“Get in the back seat.”

Her glare was fierce as he quickly amended, “Okay, okay, pull out this parking spot.”

“Okay.” she pressed the gas pedal only for the car to make a loud ‘vroooom’ sound but not move.

“It’s not moving.” she stated.

He was laughing, “Because you didn’t change the gear.”

“You didn’t tell me that!”

The maid opened the door for them and they walked through. Gojo’s laughter filling the lobby.

He shook his arm around Geto’s shoulders, “Suguruuu, don’t be jealous.”

Geto shouldered him off, “I’m not jealous.”

Ara walked in after them, eyes glued to her phone.

The maid faced them, “Gojo sir, I must inform you your Dad is here. He’s currently in the gardens.”

Gojo’s grin immediately faltered, “He is?”

The maid nodded.

His voice deadpanned, “When did he come?”

“Less than an hour ago, sir.”

“Hmm,” he nodded subtly, “Thanks Macy.”

Macy merely nodded before excusing herself. Ara caught Geto’s tense expression.

Gojo spoke first, “You guys can chill in my room. I won’t be long.”

She stepped up to Gojo, “What’s wrong?”

A small smile found its way to the corner of his lip, “Nothings wrong,” his hand slipped up the side of her face, “Just wasn’t expecting him that’s all.”

She searched his face, “Are you gonna be alright?”

His smile widened, “I’ll be perfect, baby.”

She stared out the window of Gojo’s study. Her hand tightening around the circular windowsill as her eyes raked the expanse of the well kept greenery before deciding it was useless. Wherever they were they wasn’t visible from her vantage point.

She was drawn from thoughts when a loud ‘thunk’ resounded from somewhere behind her.

She turned to see Geto with a book at his feet. He bent over to retrieve it, “Oops.”

She waited a brief moment, watching as he dusted off the cover before flipping it open-skimming the pages.

“Geto.”

He immediately glanced up, his eyes a silent ‘yes?’

“Is his Dad bad?”

He glanced sideways for a moment before asking, “Satoru hasn’t mentioned him?” The question wasn’t mocking, merely inquiring with a calmness that felt almost reassuring.

There was a beat of silence, “No.”

He shut the book in his hand, a light sigh escaping him, “I don’t like him, if that’s what you wanna know. You should let Satoru tell you the whole story though.”

“There’s a story?”

He smiled slightly, “Isn’t there always?”

The bedroom doors swung open, immediately making Ara’s head snap up from the book in her lap. She sat up on the bed just as Gojo entered. If he’d been stressed it was hard to tell because the second his eyes landed on her a wide grin swept across his lips.

He crawled onto the bed, easily crowding her space to kiss her neck before laying his head on her lap.

“Satoru.” She rested her hand on forehead, pushing his hair back, “How was it?”

He sighed, eyes flitting closed, “It was fine. He left—thank god.”

“You don’t like him?”

His eyes fluttered open, examining her. He rarely talked about his family and she wasn’t slow enough to believe that was just a coincidence.

He shook his head. His index finger twirling around a strand of her hair, “He wanted to see you.”

“He knows about me?” she asked, shocked.

His hand went still within her hair, “Everyone knows about you.”

She held his gaze for a moment, “So why didn’t you let him see me?”

She saw the corner of his mouth twitch, “Cuz you don’t like meeting new people.”

“..and?”

“Cuz he doesn’t deserve to yet.” His voice held more of an edge than she expected.

And that look in his eye…she hadn’t seen that on him in a while. It reminded her of when she’d struck him, the first night he had his way with her.

He took her hand from his forehead and slid it down to his cheek, lightly kissing her wrist as he did so.

“Let me explain,” he paused, as if gathering his thoughts–until his brows furrowed and he realized he wasn’t sure where to begin.

He played with her fingers as he spoke, “My Dad has a twin. Identical. But they couldn’t be more different–honestly.” he chuckled quietly.

“How?”

 “I guess my Dad’s more likable–had this quality about him that made people want to listen. While my Uncle.. well, let's say he’s persuasive in his own way.”

He continued, “The point is. They competed with each other a lot-over everything and anything. My Dad thought of their competition as harmless fun but my Unc-not so much. He’ll never admit it though, if you ask him, but everyone knows.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone in my family,” he clarified, before smirking up at her, “It’s gonna be your family too y’know so pay attention.”

She rolled her eyes, “What do you think I’m doing.”

He smiled slightly, “Anywho, Unc should’ve felt like he won this little competition since he was given full reins of the family business but I guess he still held a grudge. Dunno if it’s cuz Dad’s political success or Dad bein’ Gramps favorite–or Mom but-”

He cut himself off, “Right, so my Mom was actually a bet between Dad and Unc. She was Unc’s college crush and for fun they decided to see who could get with her. Dad won her over and they ended up falling in love. They got married but.. my Mom never got used to it-the politician life.”

He went on, “Dad’s career as the Director of National Intelligence was actually very strategic. It was something my Gramps wanted to get his eyes in on cuz oil refinery is more political than you might think, like they're some countries we weren't permitted to source from due to a bad political climate–even though our company is private. It was something Gramps wanted to work around and possibly manipulate—”

Ara blinked, “Wouldn’t that be illegal?”

“Just a little,” he smirked, “It wasn’t just that though, you’d have to ask Gramps the details–except he’s dead, but anyway~”

Ara’s eyes widened as he nonchalantly went on, “The beef between Dad and Unc really hit the fan a few months after Gramps died–which isn’t surprising cuz Gramps was sorta the mediator but.. I guess, it was inevitable.”

Despite his nonchalance she could tell his next words were harder for him to say, “So basically Unc had a business deal going with Israel, worth about $2 billion but since-everything going on politically, socially, you name it-Dad did not want to get involved, especially monetarily. But Unc didn’t agree, he wanted to juice as much money as he could since the US was sending Israel money anyway and he wanted a piece.”

He continued, “Dad knew he would try to see the deal through with or without his call so he started involving himself in the family business to supervise Unc which he was not happy about, so you can imagine they argued–a lot. At the office, at the house, everywhere. Dad ended up kicking Unc outta the house and threatened to hurt him if he came back.”

He sighed, “I didn’t know Dad kicked him out, I wasn’t there for that argument. Instead I was sad that Unc wasn’t coming around anymore cuz we usually hung out a lot. We hung out more than Dad and I did anyway.”

He shook his head, “I didn’t suspect anything when Unc called me to let him in so I did. We talked for a bit, caught up, he gave me a bottle of alcohol to give my Mom. I told him to give it to her himself but he said he wanted it to be a surprise for her and asked me to keep it a secret that he came by.”

She saw something flicker in his expression as he went on, he stopped playing with her fingers.

“Mom wasn’t in a great mental state–she never was, to be honest, not after marrying Dad. She hated the fame, paparazzi, everything that came with it but she tolerated it because she loved Dad. I-” Gojo never stuttered, “I didn’t know that she was an alcoholic because she hid it from me so well. She always acted happy when she was with me. She never wanted me to see her.. down. I didn’t know Unc and Dad helped her through the alcoholism and depression cuz I didn’t even know it was an issue.”

His voice was tight but he quickly recovered, “So I left the bottle on her vanity, just like he asked and she drank it all, breaking her sobriety of six months. Dad found her drunk and they started fighting–I didn’t realize they were arguing about her sobriety, I just thought he was mad she drank in general so I tried to intervene but Mom left the room once I got there. Dad and I ended up arguing but nothin' came of it cuz he basically told me to shut the fuck up and get out of his face.”

His bright blue eyes were somewhat dull as he glanced up at her, “I should tell you my Dad isn’t usually an asshole but when he’s mad he’s a different person. Everything ticks him off. He was.. in this mood for a while and Mom breaking her sobriety didn’t help. She started drinking a lot again and they were just yelling all the time. No one would tell me what was going on, Mom was pushing me away and I blamed Dad for it. It felt like he was mad at everyone for no reason and I wanted him to stop.”

He exhaled, “Unc came by again and I told him everything-about Mom and Dad fighting.. how it was.. getting to me. Unc asked me why they were fighting and I told him I didn’t know. Unc then asked me if Dad was hitting Mom and I realized I wasn’t sure. But the theory made sense because why else would Mom avoid me? She probably didn’t want me to see her bruises or marks and explain that Dad did them.”

“Obviously this theory made 10 year old me extremely upset so Unc’s solution was to give me his gun. He told me the next time I overheard Mom and Dad fighting to wave it around to scare Dad off-”

Ara’s eyes widened, “What–he gave a gun to a kid? What type of solution is that?”

A low, dry laugh left him, “At the time it made sense to me cuz Unc and I used to go hunting together and all that but he also told me Dad kicked him out the estate so I kinda did want to scare him some way cuz he really felt like public enemy 1. It felt like he was tearing the family apart.”

He ran a hand through his hair, “That night…when I was in bed I heard Mom scream–and a shit ton of thrashing. I didn’t think, I grabbed the gun and ran. I saw Dad on top of somebody, throwing punches and I-I didn’t–” he spoke through gritted teeth before exhaling, “I didn’t mean to hit him.”

Her eyebrows skyrocketed, “You shot your Dad?”

“I did. Straight through the head.”

Ara’s jaw dropped, “But wait-but your Dad.. he’s still ali-”

He squeezed her hand, “Listen, listen. I thought he was on top of Mom, beating her but it turns out he was on top of my Uncle. Mom was just in the room, yelling at him to stop because I guess my Uncle just showed up uninvited.”

He stared at her, fingers tightening around hers, “My Dad died that night. I didn’t know what the hell to do. I was freaking out but Unc came up with a plan.”

He closed his eyes, “Unc said he would take the blame. He told us to tell the cops that he snuck into the estate-which he did-and that he tried to hurt Dad but then Dad shot him. Except he would pretend that he was Dad. And that the man who died was Unc.”

She was astounded, “So… your Uncle pretended to be your Dad?”

He nodded, “Yes, and he still is. The world currently thinks my Dad is alive.”

Ara was speechless as he continued, “No one else knows because Unc and Dad are identical twins. Same blood type and-miraculously-same fingerprints, etc.”

She blinked as he sat up beside her, not letting go of her hand.

He looked at her expression with a small knowing smile, “I know you have questions.”

She glanced over at him, “Why did he do that? Did he not want you to face any repercussions?”

He nodded, “I thought he was protecting me but now I know he schemed it all. He manipulated me.”

Ara’s eyes widened, “How do you know?”

“He knew about my mom’s alcoholism and told me to give her a bottle. He sneaks into the estate and causes drama the same night he gives me a gun? A gun with the safety off?” He shakes his head, “It's not a coincidence at all.”

“If he wanted to kill your Dad, why couldn’t he just kill him himself?”

“That would’ve got him nowhere but jail. But making me do it gives him all the leverage. Pretending to be Dad to protect me gives him everything he wants. My mom, Dad’s position-his connections, the family business—all in his lap.”

He laughed dryly to himself, “Well the only thing he didn’t get for long was Mom. She killed herself.”

“What?!” she exclaimed in shock.

“It was two weeks after Dad died. Found her body in the pond by the gardens. She overdosed on prozac.”

“Prozac?” Ara gasped, “the antidepressant?”

He nodded, a small sad smile spreading across his lips, “Ironic isn’t it.”

She was silent for the longest moment, processing it all. She almost couldn’t believe it was real. It felt like the plot of some really dark CEO drama but this was reality. His reality—his life. He’d only been 10 years old. A ten year old murderer.

“I wanted to believe Unc had something to do with her death.. but I know he would never hurt her. He loved her.. She left me on her own.”

Her eyes widened. This was the saddest she’d ever seen him. His eyes glossier than normal, his jaw clenched tight and yet his lips were twisted in a bitter smile.

“I would’ve done anything she asked. We could’ve taken Unc down together but she left me.”

She squeezed his hand, “Toru-“ she murmured.

“Isn’t it funny? I feel like I found out more about her after she died. All her thoughts were in her diary, everything. If she’d just told me when she was alive-I could’ve—“ he shook his head, a shiny tear slipped down his cheek, “I don’t kn-I-“

“Stop.” she pulled him into her chest, “Stop.”

He sagged into her smaller frame, clutching her waist so tight she nearly lost her breath. For the first time in her life, she felt him trembling.

Her small fingers raked through his hair, “You were just a kid. How were you supposed to know everything she was going through? She probably didn’t tell you because she wanted to protect you.”

His arms wrapped around her tighter, “She could’ve protected me by staying alive.”

Her hand went still in his hair, “Don’t you know already, adults are selfish.”

She then realized that maybe that wasn’t the most constructive thing to say.

“I’m sorry, I meant-“

“No, you're right.” his voice was muffled in her sweater, “They are selfish. Everyone is. You have to be in this world.”

He laughed softly to himself, “Eat or be eaten.”

She shook her head, clutching his chin to make him look up, “I don’t know about all that but you have to know that her.. doing that isn’t your fault-“

“Doing what? Killing herself?”

Ara’s mouth opened partially before closing. Then opening again, “Yes.”

He smiled faintly, “You can say it y’know. She killed he-“

She flinched-snapping, “Stop, it’s not a joke.” her hands tightened around his face, “what i-i’m saying is that it’s not your fault. It was her choice. She knew the consequences. You don’t have to agree with her but you have to respect it.”

She cupped his face more gently, “It doesn’t make you any less of a person, it’s what you do now that counts. She’s still watching over you.”

His gaze seemed distant, “She’ll get her justice.”

Ara blinked, “Justice?”

His eyes suddenly sharpened, “My uncle. I still need him. I don’t know how to run the business myself yet.”

Her eyes widened, “What—y-you don’t mean kill him, right?”

Suddenly a wicked grin appeared upon his lips. He leaned close, his lips brushing over hers, “Some things are worse than death, kitten.”

She gently rubbed the face mask across her cheeks. It was a yummy baby pink color and smelled rather delicious. strawberry poundcake. it already made her skin feel cool with one application.

She used the little tool it came with to scoop more product and apply it to her forehead only to flinch when she saw Gojo in the bathroom. he stood with his back to the door, arms crossed. a crooked smile on his lips.

“Hey kitten~”

She shook her head, “I hate you.”

He grinned, making his way towards her, “You love mee.”

He stood behind her, his hands interlaced behind himself. He bent down to kiss her on the head but she moved out of his way.

“Why do you like scaring me?” she grumbled, rubbing in her face mask with a bit more ferocity.

“heh. it’s not my fault you're as unaware as a baby chick.” He held her shoulders and kissed her temple-where her face mask hadn’t been applied yet.

She shoved him off, “toru! my face mask.”

It seemed a bit of the mask had landed on the tip of his nose. he wiped it away with his thumb, looking at it curiously, “mmm, smells yummy.”

She raised a brow as he continued to stare at the blob on his finger and gripped his wrist the second he brought his finger towards his lips.

“Are you stupid? it’s not edible.”

She grabbed a nearby hand towel and hastily wiped it off his finger before tossing the towel somewhere on the counter.

He watched silently as she continued applying the face mask on her face. His eyes glowing with curiosity.

“What’s it supposed to do?”

“Make you poreless.”

He picked up the face mask jar to read the description just as she’d been reaching for some more. She sucked her teeth impatiently.

He slid the jar back to her. He blinked innocently, “Can I use some?”

“No.”

“Whyyyy~”

“Cuz you're already poreless.”

That made him grin. He touched the sides of his face as he leaned towards the mirror, “Am i?”

She rolled her eyes. It was too early for his buffoonery. This was supposed to be self-care sunday. emphasis on self. And she’d told him that, yet here he was.

He leaned against the bathroom counter, facing her with a mischievous glint in his eyes, “If you wanted a face mask you could’ve jus asked me.”

Her brows furrowed-confused-only to freeze when she realized. She grimaced, “Your nasty as hell.”

“Oh come on~”

She shoved him as he neared her, “Stop. You're actually annoying me.”

“Araaaa~”

“Stop.”

“Okay, okay fine. I’ll stop. I promise.”

“Promise what.”

“Not to annoy you.”

“Then why are you coming closer to me?”

He tugged her close, resting his chin atop her head. Her small frame easily fitting into his chest.

“Because i wanna be near you ‘kay?”

He kissed the corner of her neck, his hands gently squeezing her shoulders. She sighed.

He stared at her in the mirror as she continued to finish up the last of the face mask. His hands running up and down her arms repeatedly. the action oddly reassuring.

He kissed the top of her head, “Last night was fun right?” he muttered into her hair.

She blushed at the memory, “y-yeah.”

There were two things she found out last night. 1, Haibara knew how to throw a party. 2, never play hide and seek with Gojo. He’d pick the best hiding spot and no one would find you both, leaving you open to your demise at his hands.

Ara couldn’t walk after.

He smirked slightly, “What was your favorite part?”

She thought it over, “hmm probably when Geto shot all those bottles in a row. I didn’t think his aim was that good. oh! and that drink Shoko made, um, what’s it called-“

“Espresso martini.”

“Yes! That was soo good.”

his smirk widened as he nuzzled her head, “You drank a lot of green tea shots too.”

She nodded.

He kissed the crown of her head, “You look so good knocking shots back.”

She reddened, mumbling, “Shut up.”

He squeezed her shoulders once more, “Aren’t you gonna ask me my favorite part?”

She reddened more, “No.”

His arms slipped around her shoulders, squeezing her into him, “Pleaseeee~~~”

“Ah! toru! let go-“

He hugged her tighter.

“aHh! i can’t breathe. fine, fine!”

“Yayyy.” he loosened his hold on her and she smacked his arm.

“You promised not to annoy me.”

“Oopsies,” he grinned while staring at her ass as she bent down to pick up her fallen hair brush.

When she stood up, he placed his hands on her hips. pressing his groin right against her ass. She gasped, freezing the second she felt his erection.

He nipped at her ear, “My favorite part was holding your hips, just like this,” his fingers squeezed her hips, “and watching your ass bounce on my cock in that tiny little closet. Hearing your cute lil whimpers cuz you wanna keep quiet so bad. always so scared of getting caught-“

She faltered forward, her hands flat against the bathroom counter as he began to thrust his hard-on into her. as if his jeans and her towel weren’t in the way.

He nipped at her nape, leaving love bites along her soft skin. as if it wasn’t decorated enough.

“Your pussy gets wet so fast, kitten. everytime i fuck you your pussy makes such slutty sounds. mm-“

She gasped when the tip of his clothed cock rubbed against her bare pussy. It seemed he discovered that she wasn’t wearing anything under her towel. She saw his bright blue eyes go wide in the mirror's reflection before a devious smirk spread across his lips.

Just as she felt his hands tighten over her towel-a millisecond from ripping it off. She shoved him back.

“No!” she held her towel tightly to her chest, “Toru, please. we barely slept all night. I can’t—i can’t go another round.” she begged desperately.

“Aww~” he whined, before slipping his arms around her. Her hands on his chest weakly pushing him back. “Come on.”

“I’m gonna pass out.”

“You won’t.”

“Toru, seriously.” she looked up at him, “How can you even want to get freaky when i have this on my face.”

“You think a little face mask could stop my dick from getting hard?”

His eyes dropped to her lips, “If anything it jus makes me harder.”

Her eyes narrowed.

He pouted, “Next time you want a face mask just ask me ‘kay?”

She shoved him-successfully getting out of his hold this time, “Not happening.”

She began to clear up the bathroom counter, putting her skincare where it belonged. She glanced at him in the mirror’s reflection. she watched him tug at the belt of his pants, adjusting himself.

“C’monnn, mine probably has more natural benefits anyway.”

She looked at him incredulously, “Oh yeah? And what natural benefits would there be?”

He grinned, “my face mask is edible.”

She rolled her eyes, continuing to put stuff away, “Stop talking.”

He leant behind her, speaking in her ear, “Don’t act like you don’t like the taste. You always lick it up like your hungry-“

“Only because you feed it to me.” she spat.

She met his gaze in the reflection. fear immediately blooming in her gut the second she saw the fire in his eyes. 

Before he could move she darted around him, running straight out the bathroom. The second he moved to chase her, the bathroom door slammed shut in his face. He heard it lock from the outside.

“Ara!!” he whined, pushing at the door, “Ara!!”

“Ara.”

“Hm.” she barely looked up from her laptop. She was surprisingly focused for being outdoors. She wasn’t usually the type to study that well outside but something about the calm, breezy air of the estate’s gardens seemed to offer her enough solace to study.

He’d also been studying too but-of course-he finished whatever he had to do before her.

“Why’d you get a new phone?”

She froze, finally glancing up from her macbook to look at him. He was sitting on the fountain’s edge, with a loose black long sleeve and matching pants on.

He took off his sunglasses, letting the sunlight hit his eyes in a way that truly made them seem crystalline. He appeared apathetic but she knew he wouldn’t have asked if he wasn’t curious. She was just surprised he’d noticed that out of all of her purchases. She hadn’t even shown him the new phone yet. but of course, she wasn't naive enough to believe any of her purchases were unsupervised. whether he was there or not.

He raised a brow at her silence.

“Oh-um-well. I wanted to give it to my dad.”

“Oh!” he then paused before tilting his head, “And how do you plan on giving it to him?”

“I… i haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

She’d just made the purchase yesterday.

“I can have Ijichi drop it off to his mailb-“

“No, no. It’s okay. I want to give it to him when I’m ready. or I’ll just keep it as a business phone.”

He grinned before singing, “i got two phones one for the plug and one for the load, i got two phones one for the bit—“ (a/n: he's singing 2 phones by kevin gates)

She shook her head, face-palming herself, “Please shut up.”

He threw his arms around her, squeezing her oh so tight before dropping his bags and hoisting her legs around his waist. He supported her with one arm around her ass before beaming up at her.

“We won the game! We won—“

She cupped his face, pressing a short kiss to his lips, “I’m proud of you baby.”

She saw a light flush crawl across his cheeks. His brilliant eyes searching her face, “Yeah?”

She felt his arm tighten around her bum. “Should we celebrate?” he asked, “Let’s travel somewhere, out of the countr-“

“No.”

“-try. Any country. You haven’t been out of America yet right? Let’s-“

“No, Toru, stop.”

He pouted, “C’monn. Don’t be lame. You don’t wanna travel with me?”

“I never said that.”

“Then why?”

“You want to celebrate your high school basketball game win by going out of the country?” she smacked his forehead with her palm, “We have school tomorrow idiot.”

“So? We’ll tell em it was an educational leave.”

“Educational leave?”

“Yeah..” his eyes dropped to her shapely tits in her school uniform, “for anatomy or something.”

She shoved his shoulder, “Yeah, I never want to travel with you.”

“What?!”

“Put me down.”

As she twisted in his hold, her tits inadvertently got in his face and he immediately opened his mouth to playfully bite one of them. She shoved his face back.

“Put me down!”

Geto sighed, shaking his head from behind them, “I hate third wheeling.”

Ara twisted in the sheets. Her eyelids squinting together as she tried to sleep but sleep wasn’t coming to her. It just wasn’t.

She threw the blanket off frustratedly. She adjusted her pillow before lying back against the headboard, half-sitting. She reached out to grab her phone from the nightstand only to frown when she realized the time.

1:07 am

She glanced at the empty spot in bed beside her. She was silent for a long moment before glancing back at her phone to see that she didn’t have any new text messages.

He should’ve been back by now.

She opened youtube on her phone. trying to distract herself.

1:43 am

She opened netflix on her phone. an episode of gossip girl might be fun.

2:35 am

She closed out of netflix, unable to ignore her frustration. She opened her phone app. Her thumb hovering over his contact name.

Suddenly the bedroom door opened, making her jolt.

Gojo entered the barely lit room, immediately shuffling out of his jacket and tossing it onto the couch before making his way towards the bed. She watched him shake his head, droplets of water spraying here and there as if he’d just showered.

He silently removed his phone and wallet from his pocket, quietly setting it down on the nightstand before his striking eyes met hers. His face brightened.

“Oh you're up?”

“Where were you.”

He blinked at the seriousness of her tone.

“Where were you?”

A slow grin spread across his lips, “You worried about me?”

She sat up, “I said, where were you?”

“I was at Geto’s, kitten. I told you I’d be there.”

“Why are you wet?”

He sat down on the bed, “I was in his pool for a bit.” 

He crawled towards her, she leaned back into the headboard.

“Then why do you smell like soap?”

“I showered after. I hate smelling like pool water.”

He leaned over to kiss her on the neck but she stopped him by pressing a hand to his shoulder.

She glared, “You smell like perfume.”

He blinked, “What?”

Her glare intensified, shoving him back.

“Wait-kitten,” he let out a small chuckle, “I don’t smell like perfume.”

“Don’t gaslight me.” she snapped.

His eyes widened at her tone but there was mischief in his gaze, “I’m not.”

“Smell your fucking shirt.”

He held up a corner of his shirt and smelt it. A smile broke out across his face, “Its Shoko’s. She hugged me before I left.”

Just as an insult nearly left her lips, she paused. He was right. She recognized that perfume–it was Shoko’s signature scent.

Her face reddened, “So you can hug girls but I can’t hug guys?”

A sly smirk lit his lips before he crawled on the bed towards her. He grabbed her leg, dragging her underneath him.

“Jealously looks so fucking sexy on you,” his eyes raked her up and down, making her feel devoured simply by that action. he pulled at the thin strap of her nightgown, “especially in this—“

She slapped his hand away, “don’t touch me.”

His hand slipped around her throat, “You think i fucked another girl, hm? Think I fucked her nice and hard and showered at her place?”

She felt her heartbeat fasten, her pulse throbbing in his firm grip. He bent lower above her. The tips of his damp hair scraping her forehead.

“You think another girl can take me like you do? Think another girl’s pussy can wrap around me so tight that I think my dick’s gonna get stuck inside? Think another pussy could squirt back to back like it’s begging to be creamed?”

She turned away, but his hand on her throat tightened. His thumb and index finger rested on her jaw and forced her to look up at him.

“No, Ara. No is the answer.”

He released her neck, sliding his hand down the front of her body. When she writhed, his other hand gripped the hair at the crown of her head in a fist. She gasped.

He cupped her pussy through the thin nightgown. She cried out. He gripped her cunt so tight, she didn’t understand how the entirety of his hand managed to cup it all.

“This is the only pussy i want.”

He yanked her nightgown up to her hips, easily slipping his hand into her underwear. His thumb found her clit and she jerked.

“Toru-!” she mewled.

He began to rub her clit in vigorous circles, “This is the only pussy that drives me insane. Only cunt i wanna ram into again n again, I can nut in you every single second of my life and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

She let out a strangled moan, her back arching as his pace slowed around her clit. He gently pressed the hard nub at a painstakingly slow pace, sending electric currents through her body.

She gasped with each press.

“Look at you, Ara, look at you.” his long white eyelashes fluttered as he looked down at her, a light pink flush across his cheeks.

Her eyes were squinted shut. a yummy pinkish red color on her cheeks. her nightgown was practically see through. She must’ve known because she wore a cloth bra-that barely contained her tits-underneath and matching underwear. He remembered picking that nightgown.

She looked so fucking delicious.

“You don’t even know how sweet your pussy tastes. It can make a sane man mad. It made me mad.”

His fingers gradually picked up the pace over her clit—knowing her weakness. knowing her pleasure.

Her legs trembled. She gripped his shoulders, back arching but he gripped her hair to keep her on the bed.

“torutorutoruTORUUUUUU!!!”

She squirt all over him, her juices flying into the air. wetting his shirt, his jeans, the sheets, everything.

Her body trembled, convulsing as she felt her inner thighs get sticky from her mess. Her pussy throbbing from her release. He always knew how to make her feel so fucking good.

Her eyes fluttered open, breathless, as she looked up at him. He wasn’t smiling but the gleam in his eyes was enough. It was enough to make her feel like nothing but a doll just made for him.

She jerked when she felt his fingers slide into her pussy, feeling up her gummy insides. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, she was already so sensitive.

"Toru..” she gasped out.

He took his fingers out, watching her juice separate on his fingers as he spread them. He seemed lost, as if entranced.

“This… this makes me insane.”

He stuck both fingers in his mouth, cleanly licking her juices off them in one go before lowering himself to her pussy.

She tried to close her legs, “toru—wait!”

He buried his face between her legs, sucking her clit with the entirety of mouth—suctioning her clit perfectly with his tongue. sucking the resistance right outta her.

Her back arched against the bed as she cried out.

“nghhh!! toru-huuu-nghh” she was already so sensitive down there, god please, what is he doing?

He flicked at her clit with his tongue a few times before doing what he ultimately wanted. he lowered his face, burying his tongue into her wet cunt. She was a sopping wet mess down there. one that he couldn’t wait to fuck the sense into.

His tongue slid in and out of her, making her body jerk and tremble with her moans. She grabbed his hair, she couldn’t take it. something about his tongue always felt so fucking different—so fucking good.

She was throwing her head side to side, “toru! toru!! please, please!! enough!!”

He was licking her pussy like a madman. drinking her fucking juice straight from her cunt like he’d been thirsting for it all his life. She couldn’t deal with this. it was too much. 

Her legs shook as his tongue fucked into her, as if trying to taste all of her, all the way to inside of her soul.

She glanced down between her legs. at her hand in his soft white hair, at his eyes—glued to her pussy as if lost in a trance until suddenly, his eyes flickered upto her.

He lightly bit her clit.

She erupted. Her head flung back and her hands gripped his hair so tightly, refusing to let him go anywhere else. pleasure burst through her like a bomb had been ripped inside her body. she couldn’t breathe.

It didn’t help that he was licking up everything that poured out of her at lightspeed. as if he couldn’t let a drop go to waste. as if he had to drink it all to survive. she was already so sensitive now, this was too much—

she gathered as much strength as she could-despite feeling so weak-and managed to push his head back.

“stop, toru. stop.” she spoke in between gasps. she was dizzy from pleasure.

he finally sat up, in between her legs. the lower half of his face wet from her juices. he licked his lips before letting his tongue sweep around his mouth. he then wiped the lower half of his face with his hand, gathering her remaining wetness with it before licking it off his palm.

He didn’t break eye contact with her once. She shivered.

He grabbed the hem of his shirt, easily tossing it off before spreading her legs. She shivered once more, her legs looked so small compared to his large hands on her thighs. compared to his broad shoulders that he was lifting her legs on top of.

His hair was a mess from her fingers and that look in his eyes was anything but innocent. it was depraved.

“You still think i wanna cheat on you?” he asked, his voice cold.

She flinched when she felt his cock head touch her pussy lips.

“C-condom, toru,” she rasped out, her voice barely audible, “Condom.”

He hissed, as if annoyed that she remembered. or maybe at the fact that she was sane enough to.

He reached towards the nightstand, hastily grabbing a condom and tearing it open. He didn’t waste any time putting it on before spreading her legs once again.

He placed his cock atop her navel, looking in satisfaction as the tip of his cock went an inch past her belly button. He felt her shiver sensitively.

He glanced down at her flushed face, her trembling lips and that look in her eyes. that fear mixed with want. He knew she wanted it, no matter how much she denied it. She had to have. That face is begging for it.

He could feel her juices on his balls when he rested his cock on top of her like this. He couldn’t wait to see his cockhead bulge inside her tummy either.

He grabbed her throat, before slamming his cock into her in one brutal thrust. The weak sound that left her made his cock throb with the need to cum. Her eyes rolled into her head and he was grinning like a lunatic before losing all focus when her pussy squeezed the life out of him.

He glanced down at the little bulge in her tummy. groaning as he felt her delicious tiny walls restricting his cockhead. her walls curling around him as if it could suppress him from moving.

He touched the bulge at her tummy, he groaned as he felt his cock twitch. She suddenly grabbed his hand, “Toru, please—please-don’t be rough.”

He grabbed her wrist and pinned it to bed, fucking into her as mercilessly as he wanted. Fuck, her pussy felt so good. so hot. so fucking wet.

She screamed as he spoke into her cheek, “You wouldn’t even know if i fucked another girl would you? You don’t even have my location on, you never asked.”

“nghhh—ngh-ngh!! toru!”

His thrusts were hard, fast and deep.

“You don’t even check my phone as much as I check yours. You barely question me.”

His pace picked up. She screamed. She was going to break.

Her nails dug into his arm, “stop! stop! it hurts—you're gonna break me.”

He gritted his teeth, delivering another round of ruthless thrusts before finally slowing down. Her pulse fluttered rapidly in her throat. she could barely think.

“Maybe I should break you.” he whispered against her lips, he thrusted into her once. letting his cock hit her womb. She cried out.

“Maybe that’ll make you care about me.”

He ground the tip of his cock into her, making her wince.

Her neck arched in his hold, “toru…”

“ah,” his cock twitched as he stared down at her, “You sound so sweet.”

His hand tightened around her throat as he fucked another powerful thrust into her. She yelled, tears streaming down her cheeks. She could feel his cock throbbing inside her.

“Maybe I stayed out later on purpose..”

He pulled out slightly, “Maybe I showered so you could get the wrong idea..”

He pulled out a little more,  “Maybe I sprayed Shoko’s perfume to see if you even noticed.”

He slammed back into her, making her moan. She scratched at his arm while her other hand struggled against his grip on her wrist.

She shook her head back and forth as he began to deliver short fucks with most of his cock inside her. She felt his tip hit her deepest part inside, making her whimper and shake all over.

Her eyes fluttered opened, staring up at his focused expression, “Toru, please, please-“ her voice broke. she felt so full.

“Please what.” he snapped, his pace picking up, “You never get jealous, Ara, ever. Do you know how insane that makes me?”

His hips smacked into her with each thrust, “I get jealous when you talk to another man—when you stand near another man. Even when you look at another man—haah, I must be crazy.”

He was fucking into her ferociously now. Her body shaking from the pressure of his fucks, her body getting buried deeper and deeper into the bed.

She writhed under him, her free hand pulling at his hair, “Toru—please! slow-slow down—nghhhh!”

He let go of her throat to grab her tits. squeezing it hard in his one hand. letting his fingers sink into the entirety of her perky yet soft breast.

He nipped at her throat, “Maybe you know I won’t cheat cuz of how obsessed I am.”

He suddenly squeezed her tit hard making her wince and look down at him. His blue eyes were hazy with lust.

“But i can’t be the only one obsessed.”

She screamed as he fucked her-impossibly-harder. her insides sqlueching with her juices as her cunt tried to keep up with him but in the end she gave out. the last thing she felt was his warm cum spurt inside of her. loads and loads of it, as his cock twitched within her depths.

She sighed at the feeling of her hair being stroked before her eyes opened in a panic.

She was met with Satoru’s big ocean blue eyes staring back at her. He was lying right beside her, facing her while she lay chest-down on the bed.

“How do you feel?”

She moved to shift her legs but winced.

“Achey.”

He smiled slightly, repeating her words, “Achey?”

She nodded.

“You want water?”

She nodded.

He sat up easily, reaching over to grab the glass from the nightstand and offering it to her.

She tried to sit up, only to immediately crumple back at the action. Her face pinched up in pain.

His eyes widened before setting the glass down, “S’okay baby, I got you.”

He propped his pillow up on the headboard and slowly pulled her up against him so that they were half sitting, half lying down.

He then handed her the glass. He watched her attempt to hold it but her hands shook—shook so badly she could barely hold the glass.

He slipped the glass out of her fingers. She sighed weakly, leaning into his shoulder.

“I’m-i’m thirsty.” she whispered.

“I know kitten.” he replied gently before taking a rather large sip of water himself.

He then held her chin and brought her lips to him and let her drink. She drank from him. It was absurd but his hand on her chin made her less shaky. Their lips on each others made her more stable.

He gave her a peck when she finished.

“More?” he asked.

She nodded.

They did it once more, his mouth holding the water for her to drink. Maybe she was in too much of a daze from their sex to even question it but god, water never tasted better.

But it didn’t end there.

Once the water was gone from his mouth it should’ve ended there but he couldn’t seem to let go of her lips. and neither could she. his hand on her chin keeping her lips to his as his tongue sweeped her mouth. a low groan leaving him.

She broke the kiss, breathless. Her hand coming to rest on his chest as she pushed him away slightly.

“Toru.”

His arm slipped around her back, squeezing her hip as if to keep her close. He kissed her along her jaw.

“Just to keep the record straight, I didn’t stay out late on purpose.” he kissed her shoulder, “I did swim and shower and hug Shoko goodbye. I shoulda texted that I was gonna be out later but I didn't expect to, honest.”

She shifted beside him, silently letting him kiss her until he grabbed her chin and made her face him.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” she sighed.

He scanned her before smiling faintly, “I love seeing you worry about me though.”

He reached over to squeeze one of her tits, making her shiver, “It makes me so hard.”

When she felt her nipple harden under his palm she glanced down at herself. Only to freeze when she saw she was naked under the sheets.

She looked over at him in a panic, “Why am I naked?”

He spoke from the crook of her neck, his hand still fondling her tit, “cuz we’re not done yet.”

He began to nip at her neck, she knew they’d be marks but that was the least of her worries. Her gaze dropped down to the tent in the blanket, right where his groin would be.

He suddenly pinched her nipple, making a low weak moan leave her lips.

Ara wandered into one of the living rooms. This one had the best lighting in her opinion, perfect for reading. just as she walked towards the couch she froze.

“Oh!” it was maid Marin, standing on the other side of the room with a vacuum beside her.

“I’m sorry to startle you, Miss.” Marin bowed her head slightly.

Ara waved her hand, “Oh no, you're good!”

“I’ll head on to another room-“

“No please, don’t worry about it.” Just as she turned around to bolt somewhere else, Marin quickly spoke.

“Please, miss, continue as you were. I just finished.”

Ara slowly turned around, belatedly noticing that the floor looked spotless. she’d thought marin was just about to get started.

“oh, um, thank you.”

Ara walked towards the couch, hesitantly getting comfortable on it before flipping through her book trying to find where she’d left off. She’d lost her bookmark for it.

Surprisingly a light laugh left marin, “You don’t have to try make my life easier you know, that’s my job.”

Ara immediately glanced up, confused.

Marin was looking at her rather fondly, “You leave your room the cleanest I’ve ever seen it. Do you put away his clothes as well?”

Ara blinked, belatedly realizing that… she did. but it wasn’t on purpose. It was because Gojo was an actual mess. He was terribly comfortable with tossing his clothes anywhere and misplacing random things after using it—which was the worst because she liked to keep things in a rather meticulous order at times. things had to be in a certain place.

Which was why his hastily tossed aside clothes in random corners of the room would not do. neither would his half-open drawers. or misplaced colognes or-god, i could really go on.

But she supposed the main reason for her minute attention to the room was because it felt ungrateful-it felt ungrateful to leave such a lavish space messy.

“Miss Natsuna?”

She snapped out of her thoughts, “Yes-um-please call me Ara.”

The maid shook her head gently, “That won’t do.”

Ara eyed her as unobtrusively as she could. This was nicest she’d ever seen Marin act with her. The older woman was usually reserved. She usually saw her in passing, as she did with the other maids or workers of the estate. But Marin was the one she interacted with the most and even that was seldom.

“I’d like you to know that I’m grateful. I’m grateful that you're here.”

Ara’s eyes widened.

“Sir gojo was barely home before you moved here but now he is here all the time. He seems so much brighter as well, more lively. He was always energetic since he was a boy but this is different. He’s so happy with you.”

She could tell the woman meant her words. Whether it be because of the care in her voice or the genuineness of her words-all she knew was that this maid really did care about Gojo.

“It’s all his Mother ever wanted for him, for him to be happy.”

Marin offered her a small smile-the first Ara had ever seen.

“I’m happy he met you.” she paused, “Please take good care of him.”

Ara stabbed her sausage with a fork.

“So… Gojo’s birthday is coming up.”

Ara’s eyes flickered upto Millie across from her. “Is it?”

“Yeah!” Millie responded indignantly, “You didn’t know?”

“Of course I know.” she responded, annoyance clear in her tone.

Idiot Haibara wouldn’t shut up about it. He was unnecessarily hype that it would be her first time attending Gojo’s bday bash. Apparently something ‘wild’ happens every year. When she asked him to give an example, she was told to ‘wait and see’ with the most goofiest smile on his face.

As if she couldn’t just ask Gojo herself.

Unfortunately she knew Haibara was right. In the previous years she remembered her fellow peers raving about his birthday parties in the following school days. Whether it be live singer or a yacht party, his bday party was the social event for these airheads.

She supposed she was one of the airheads now herself, since she was dating the biggest one.

“Well what are you gonna give him for his birthday?”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know. What do you get someone who has everything?” Ara took a frustrated bite out of her sausage.

Millie placed her chin on her hand, “Hmm that’s true.” she squinted as if mulling over a few things but then dismissing them, “Damn, he really does have everything.”

“Thanks for the help.” Ara responded sarcastically before taking another bite from her sausage.

Millie eyed the sausage jealously. She’d devoured hers in two seconds. She loved how the school chef made them—suddenly her eyes widened.

“Wait.”

“What?” Ara asked.

Millie smirked, her eyes glinting with excitement, “He technically doesn’t have everything..”

Ara stepped out of the car feeling like a doll. Even though it was Gojo’s big day he’d rented out an entire spa and massage sesh for her and Millie cuz he could tell she was getting anxious.

Maybe because everyone was hyping Gojo’s birthday party up or maybe because it was the fact so many people were going to be there, her introvert self couldn't take it.

but after everything. hair. nails. makeup. outfit. all put together—& maybe some hits from Millie’s j. She felt more calm-ish.

It was saturday, the night of Gojo’s party even though his actual birthday was tomorrow. It was taking place at the estate. He’d considered throwing it at one of his family’s beach houses but Shoko declined the idea due to the fact that Geto apparently did that last year so they had to keep it different.

Apparently Gojo didn’t host events often at the estate-mainly for security/privacy reasons. His uncle also hated it but-according to him-his Uncle's opinion didn’t really matter.

The last time he’d thrown a birthday bash here was freshman year so he counted it as a full circle moment since they were seniors now. so they had to go all out.

Ijichi closed the car door behind her and handed her her mini bag. “Mis-“ he quickly shook his head, “Ara.”

She raised a brow, “Yes?”

“Y-you look beautiful.”

She smiled shyly, “Thank you, Ijichi.”

Suddenly Millie tapped her shoulder, “C’mon c’mon lets go.”

Music could already be heard from the estate even though it was rather early. She supposed it was never too early to start. The sun was bound to set soon.

Ara glanced back at Millie, who was smiling wide as she took in the view of the estate. The place that had homed Ara for the past few months.

“The fact that you live here… insane.”

Ara shook her head, “I’m nervous.”

Millie rubbed her back, “Don’t worry. don’t worry. No one’s here yet. We have time to chill. besides you know how to party so don’t be a party pooper now.” she teased.

Ara rolled her eyes, “Thanks.”

His friends were in the living room—chilling and smoking. It seemed everyone had gotten the memo to dress nice aka hot.

Shoko passed her cigarette to Toji the second she saw Ara. She ran upto her.

“Hey hey!”

Ara hugged her back.

“When did you get here?” Millie asked.

“Oh, we got here like twenty minutes ago. Where were you guys?”

“Still getting ready.” Ara answered.

“Well, it was worth it because ya’ll look-“ she bit her lower lip, making the dumbest face she’d ever seen.

Millie laughed while Ara shook her head, “Please stop.”

Shoko grinned, “Did you guys have anything to drink yet?”

Millie snapped her fingers, “Nope. Imma need that.”

Shoko gestured towards the table in the center of the living room, “Knock yourself out.”

Millie zipped straight where she pointed. Shoko then turned to her, “What about you?”

Ara was silent for a moment, examining the room. Toji sat on the couch, his feet crossed over another and propped on the coffee table before him. Haibara was on his right, blabbing about something passionately that Toji clearly could give two shits about.

Then there was Nanami sitting on the sofa across from them. He’d gotten a hair cut and-if Ara’s vision wasn’t impaired-he seemed to have filled out a bit. It suited him.

 “Where’s Gojo?”

“Oh him and Geto are upstairs, doing god knows what.” Shoko shook her head.

“Do you know how many people are coming?” she asked.

Shoko blinked, “Um.. no. Let’s just say this entire place is gonna be packed though.” she examined Ara with a raised brow, “What’s with you?”

“Nothing nothing. I’m just.. nervous.”

“What?! Why?”

Ara ran a hand though her perfectly done mermaid waves, “I don’t know.” she sighed.

“There’s got to be something.”

Ara straightened her posture, “I don’t know why.. I just feel this pressure in my-“ she gestured towards her stomach, “I can’t explain it.”

“Your anxious?”

“Yeah.” she sighed.

“You know, I think I know a cure.”

“Let me guess, a drink?”

“Damn,” Shoko grinned, “I'm predictable as hell aren’t I.”

Ara chuckled.

“Okay but listen, this drink is actually called ‘the cure’ and I invented it. All the girls love it, it’s fruity and yummy and it’ll prolly calm your nerves. Let me make it for you.”

“Don’t make it too strong please.”

“Of course, I got you.”

“Uno!” Ara spoke a millisecond earlier than Toji.

His sexy green eyes narrowed but she didn’t miss the subtle curl of humor on his lips, “Ah-fuck you.”

He drew four cards from the pile.

She felt a slight nudge to her left and glanced down to see Nanami outstretching his fist towards her in silent commemoration. She smiled, fist bumping him back.

Nanami had already won the round so now her and Toji were fighting for 2nd place.

“Alright, your turn.” Toji grumbled.

She glanced down at the yellow card with the number 9 at the top of the pile. She bit her cheek to hide her smile before kissing her card and setting it down atop the pile.

A green nine was her last card.

Toji sucked his teeth before tossing his pile of cards on the table.

“This a damn scam.”

“You owe her 10k.” Nanami added monotonously.

He leaned forward in his seat adamantly, “The hell’s she gonna do with 10k? Gojo literally gets her Birkins every other week.”

“Are you jealous of her gifts?” Nanami retorted, “Should she ask Gojo to get you one next?”

“eh?” Toji’s ears turned red, “Hell no.”

Ara held back her laugh while arranging the cards on the table in a neat pile, “A deals a deal-“

Suddenly a hand clasped her shoulder and she looked up to see Millie with a bright smile on her face. She handed her a glass.

Ara hesitantly took it, looking at the pinky orange liquid within it, “What’s this?”

Millie patted her shoulder, “A gift from Dr. Shoko aka the cure.”

oh right. She’d forgotten about that.

Millie glanced over at Nanami, “By the way, she’s looking for you.”

“Where is she?” he asked.

“In the kitchen.”

“Which one?”

Millie’s eyes nearly popped out of her body, “There’s multiple?”

“Yes.” Ara, Nanami and Toji all replied at the same time.

Millie sucked her teeth, “Jesus. Well, it’s the one with the blue marble countertops.”

“East wing.” Nanami muttered under his breath before getting up and leaving.

Millie quickly took his seat and held out her glass of the same drink.

“Cheers?” she asked Ara.

Ara could already tell by the glassy look in Millie’s eyes that the girl had clearly got a head start with the drinks.

Ara sucked in deep breath, “We don’t need a chaser?”

Toji snorted, “For Shoko’s cure? Hell no. Shits sweet as hell.”

Millie rolled her eyes, “We get it, tough guy.”

He grinned at her.

Millie ignored him, facing Ara, “Nope you barely taste the alc in this, for real.” she held her glass up, “C’mon, c’mon.”

Ara held out her glass, a satisfying ‘clink!’ resounding from their glasses once they touched. They then linked arms and tilted their heads back, downing the drink in one go.

They set the glasses down in a fit of giggles.

Ara lightly dabbed at the corner of her lip with her fingertips, making sure none of it spilled or messed up her lipstick.

“That just tastes like juice.” Ara noted.

“Told ya.” Toji replied.

If Ara had been nervous before, she barely remembered what that felt like now. What had she even been worried about? people? ha. She barely noticed when the house began to gradually fill up.

The music was all she could focus on. It felt like it was connected to her veins. pumping through her body with each soundwave that blasted from the speakers.

She was dancing, moving her hips in ways she didn’t even know was possible. Millie wouldn’t stop laughing and it seems her laugh was too contagious cuz Ara couldn’t stop laughing either.

But suddenly, the song changed and she saw Millie’s face turn serious. She grabbed Ara’s hand, leading her somewhere.

Millie climbed atop the pool table and pulled her up. She started yelling the lyrics, Ara handed her a pool stick as if it was a mic.

The surrounding people turned around, staring up at them and the next thing she knew people started to sing along, some people even started jumping. A few girls climbed on top of the pool table to join them as well.

Millie tossed the pool stick somewhere and started to dance with her. Ara only knew the chorus of the song so the second it started to play they both started pointing at each other and singing. (a/n: song is okay - by JT)

“I’m pretty than a motherfucker, hoes be lookin’ okay.”

“She think that she fuckin’ with me, is this bitch okay?”

“He said he ain’t fuckin’ round, i look at him like, okay?”

“I used to be down bad but now a bitch okay.”

Millie nearly tripped and Ara grabbed her shoulders, catching her just in time. They both gasped, staring at each other with wide eyes.

They both burst out laughing. In the midst of their laughter, they didn’t notice people cheering and making way for a certain individual.

No one other than the birthday boy himself, Gojo.

He stood a little distance away from the pool table, dapping a few people up as he passed before crossing his arms when he spotted her. A wide grin on his lips.

His vibrant eyes looked her up and down, before chewing at his lower lip and sighing.

She was wearing his favorite color on her. red—blood red. It looked so fucking good. Her dress hugged her waist so tight, those thin straps were barely holding in her yummy tits. He swore her skin glittered under the lights-and her hair, it looked so silky and wavy, swaying with each roll of her hips. She had to be a siren.

The thought of running his hands through those locks and wrapping it around his fist before spreading her glowy little legs. He wondered if her back was just as sparkly—haah. I need to calm down.

To say he was pent up wouldn’t cover it. He’d felt so utterly betrayed when she suggested that they hold off on sex before his birthday, just so he could cherish it more.

She’d suggested that he hold off for a week. Impossible. They broke that a day in. She should know he always cherished whenever they fucked. He never ran out of stamina with her and she knew it. He felt like this break was more for her than anything.

In the end he ended up only managing to hold out for two days, today being day two. He didn’t like it—not having her. Discipline wasn’t in his nature when it came to her. but-god-with the way she looked right now… mmm she better not expect to sleep tonight.

He felt an elbow jab his ribs and remembered himself. He glanced over at Geto.

“Get your shit together.”

Gojo grinned, uncrossing his arms to run a hand over his mouth, “I’m trying.”

Geto tilted his head, “Are you?”

“Gimme a sec.”

He deftly made his way towards her, standing in front of the pool table, right where she was. How distracted are you kitten? She barely looked away from Millie as they danced, enjoying the song to its fullest.

She looked so good, singing the words-word for word-fuck he was too impatient to wait. He wanted her eyes on him. She hadn’t even greeted him when she came back to the estate after getting dolled up all day.

His hand slid up her calf, immediately drawing her attention. She glanced down, her eyes instantly brightening.

The spark that ran up his spine was incomparable.

He stared up at her with a boyish grin, his hand sliding up along the back of her thigh and she leaned into him, placing her hand on his shoulder. He easily held her waist and placed her down in front of him.

He hummed, pressing her body to his by sliding his hands down her waist to her ass, squeezing her cheeks hard.

A small, sexy little yelp left her lips and he exhaled silently. She stared up at him, her hands on his chest, “Toru..” he heard the reproach in her tone until her gaze dropped to his lips.

She shook her head but he quickly cupped one side of her face. “Your lipstick..”

She smiled softly. Right. She’d gotten mad at him about that before. She tilted her head up, fully pressing her chest against his, “It’s waterproof.”

His lips crashed to hers, nearly swallowing her lips whole. The music silencing their sloppy, desperate sounds. Her hands grasped at his forearms and his hands squeezed her pretty waist. He could taste the alc on her tongue, it tasted fruity, sweet—

Her nails dug into his skin, pushing herself back.

“Toru..” she whined, resting her head on his chest.

He ran a hand down her hair before pressing his lips to the crown of her head. God, she’s so damn cute.

“Everytime I look at you I feel so lucky.” he muttered into her hair.

His hands found her hips, squeezing lightly as he looked down at her, “Do you know how good you look right now?”

She looked up at him, “I do.” she pressed her stomach to his groin to prove her point. His eyes widened. The action made his cock throb—painfully so. He’d been hard as a rock the second his eyes landed on her.

He grinned, “You wanna do something about it?”

She tilted her head, giving him a look.

“Fine, fine~” he pressed his forehead to hers, running a hand down her hair only to grasp her nape to drag her close. His lips at her ear, “You can’t drink too much.”

He felt her hands on his chest waver, “I won’t.”

“You promise?”

She slipped her hands around his neck, pulling back to nudge her nose against his, “I promise.”

He introduced her to a ton of people. She couldn’t possibly remember them all-but to her shock, Gojo was friends with so many nepobabies, celebrities and LA influencers, it was incredulous. She couldn’t believe they’ve never talked about it before.

She never thought in her life she would ever meet these people. and the fact that some of their classmates were talking to these celebrities as if they were friends… as if they’ve met them before. She couldn’t believe it.

Like genuinely in what world did Gojo know David Beckham’s son, Romeo? or Monica Bellucci’s daughter?

She’d done her best to remain as calm as possible whenever Gojo introduced her to these people. He loved saying it—“this my girlfriend, Ara.”

She was almost sick of hearing it so many times but she knew he ate it up. The little smile he gave her whenever he said it, he loved claiming her like this.

His arm was on her back, his hand resting low on her hip as he spoke to an actual prince-Prince Nikolai of Denmark to be exact. Then randomly, Vinnie Hacker joined their conversation. She felt like she was watching the mogging olympics. She couldn’t even focus on the conversation, merely laying her head on Gojo as she stared up at them talking.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her arm, prying her away from Gojo. She glanced over to see Shoko, “Come here.”

Gojo’s hand loosened on her hip, letting Shoko take her as he continued to converse. Ara slipped away, letting Shoko lead her to the corner of the room.

“How are you feeling?”

Ara slow blinked, “Um… I feel good.” The realization made a small smile spread across her lips.

“Really?” Shoko inquired, before running a hand through her hair, “Thank god.”

She tilted her head, “Why?”

“Because Millie came up to me and I don’t know if she was joking or not but she said she put ecstasy in your drink.”

Ara froze.

Shoko went on, “She said she only put a little-to ease your nerves or something but, still. I was hoping you knew… did she tell you?”

Ara answered with a simple, “Nope.”

“Oh god. Are you sure you're okay?”

She gave her a thumbs up.

Shoko raked a hand through her short hair again, “Are you sure?”

She grabbed Shoko’s arms, “I promise i’m okay, stop worryingg.”

Shoko stared at her smile for a second before nodding, “Alright, alright.”

Shoko reached out to fix one of Ara’s necklaces, “Isn’t your friend.. a little sus? Why would she not tell you that.”

Ara shrugged, high out of her mind, “Dunno, maybe she told me and I forgot.”

That was a lie. Ara would remember something like that.

Shoko shook her head, smiling slightly, “You’re a mess.”

Suddenly Mina showed up in all her blonde haired glory. Ara swore those big loose waves belonged in a Victoria Secret show. Mina grabbed ahold of both of their wrists.

She wriggled her brows, “Lets dance.”

Ara was on the rooftop, dancing with girls she didn’t even know. Shoko knew them though.

It threw her off when some of the girls recognized her as Gojo’s girlfriend. She wondered if it had to do with Gojo’s socials. She didn’t really use social media much herself but she’d advised him against posting her too much. She wondered if he’d listened.

The breeze on the rooftop was perfect along with the sunset. The multicolored sky looked like something straight out of a landscape painting.

She walked away from the dancing girls, telling them she was going to get a drink but in reality she needed a break. She wandered to the farthest lounging chair and laid down.

She lay on her side, one leg over the other as she stared at the sky, letting the music and breeze waft over her.

She felt surreal. She didn’t want to ever stop feeling like this.

Suddenly she heard a familiar voice nearby, “Ara?”

She glanced over to see Geto hovering nearby. He bent down slightly, “Are you okay?”

She smiled a bit, “I’m great.”

“Yeah?” he sat on the seat beside her, sighing.

“Mhm, what about you?”

He scratched his brow with his thumb, “Fine, a bit… tired. Maybe I’m not drunk enough.”

She laughed lightly, “Maybe.”

“You drink enough?”

She nodded.

He set his drink down to light a cigarette. He offered her one but she shook her head. She watched him take a puff. The smokey air billowing upwards was the most interesting thing to watch.

She laid down more comfortably, adjusting her arm underneath her head. She stared at him. His black hair looked nice down. It ended a little past his shoulders. She was so used to seeing it up in a man bun that she didn’t realize how long his hair actually was.

She followed his gaze. He was looking at a girl, near their age. She swore she might’ve seen that girl on pinterest or something. Regardless, the girl was gorgeous.

“You should talk to her.” Ara suggested lightly.

His eyebrows raised slightly, “Oh no-no, she’s my friend. I’ve known her since i was little.”

She watched him lean back in his seat, raising his glass to his lips to take a sip. He gazed over the crowd uninterestedly.

“Why don’t you talk to any girls?”

He nearly spit his drink, “What?”

“I just..” her brows furrowed slightly, “I just realized I’ve never seen you talk to a girl at a party. like talk talk.”

He held her gaze for a moment, expression shocked before he hunched over in his seat, looking away.

“I’m not really good at talking to girls.”

She could see the tips of his ears reddening as he admitted this.

“No way.” she gasped out.

His eyes immediately flickered to her, “What?”

“So Gojo wasn’t lying? You’re a virgin?”

She watched color swiftly bloom along his cheeks, “He told you that?”

"I honestly don’t think that’s bad. I don’t see the big deal about losing your v card by a certain age or whatever. It’s just unnecessary pressure. I was a virgin-“ she cut herself off, suddenly thinking over her words.

“Um-“ she felt her face go warm, “-until-uh-“

He couldn’t seem to make eye contact, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

She sat up, crossing one leg over the other. She adjusted the end of her mini dress.

“Anyway,” she muttered, “I don’t see the big deal. I just hope you lose it with someone you love.”

Her eyes widened as she processed her words. She felt Geto’s eyes boring into her.

“So you love him?”

She glanced over at him, unable to read his blank expression.

He offered her a small smile, “He’s been waiting to hear you say it, y’know.”

“He hasn’t said it.”

"He said he did.”

She blinked, belatedly remembering that he has. In fact, he’s said it multiple times-but he never pressured her to say it back.

Faint confusion etched her features, “He wants to hear me say it?”

“Who wouldn’t.”

Fireworks sparked across the sky. the air was foggy with smoke. the scent of alcohol, sweat and expensive colognes and perfumes everywhere.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOJO SATORU!!!!” Haibara yelled atop his lungs into the mic after his spiel-that she could barely concentrate on-and countdown.

Gojo was laughing beside her, she playfully shoved him away. He shot her the handsomest smile as he stumbled backwards. He then faced the balcony, sharing his smile to the people below.

He easily climbed atop the balcony railing, standing on the ledge with just his two feet.

She felt like she was watching him in slow motion when he slipped off his shirt. His built upper body visible to everyone. His protruding biceps, compact abs. The pool water somehow reflecting across his body, creating lines of light blue waves along his skin.

He shook his head, moving his floppy white hair out of his eyes before he blew a kiss to his fans by the pool below. He tugged at the belt of his jeans, grinning down as the party goers hooted and hollered. chanting his name.

She stared at him, looking at the shit eating grin on his face. She hated how attractive the expression was.

He tossed his Jean Paul Gaultier sunglasses off before jumping off the railing.

She watched in astonishment as he managed to curl into a ball and roll in the air a couple times before landing smack center in the pool. She swore she felt water droplets from where she stood on the rooftop.

She was gaping until his head emerged from the pool. He shook his hair out like a dog, laughing in his boisterous airy way. Several people jumped into the pool, his friends swarmed him.

She shook her head, glancing away when she felt something poke her arm. it was Arden, one of Shoko’s friends. When Ara glanced down she realized what had been poking her was the straw of a multi-colored fruity looking drink.

“It’s yours.” Arden offered.

“I think I’m good—“

“Drink.”

Ara snatched it out of her hand and chugged it down.

She laughed, shoving Millie back, “What the hell is with you?!”

Millie countered, “You feel better though, don’t you? don’t you?”

She paused before answering, “.. I do.”

They both made eye contact before breaking down in a fit of giggles.

She burst into one of the guest rooms to find a group of boys and girls hovered over in a loose circle. Her gaze then dropped to the tray between them and the lines of white powder on it.

“Ooops, my bad.”

She quickly slammed the door shut. Her hand still on the handle as she kept her back to the door, standing in complete shock.

“What is it?”

Toji stood in front of her.

He gestured with a tilt of his chin towards the door behind her, “What’s in there?”

“You like coke?”

“Maybe.”

She let go of the door handle, “It’s all yours.”

Just as she walked around him, he grasped her wrist.

She raised a brow as she looked up at him.

“You took a line?” an undercurrent of shock and curiosity in his voice.

“Pft no.”

His eyes narrowed, a subtle grin on his lips, “Liar.”

She tried to tug her wrist away, “I didn’t.”

He let her wrist go, “You definitely took somethin’ ” he leaned in, “Your pupils are big.”

She touched her cheek, “They are?” she tried to recall reading about physical symptoms for MDMA use but couldn’t remember anything.

“Mhm.” he leaned back, “What’d you take?”

“Ecstasy… Millie said she crushed up a bit and put it in my drink. She said it would help me relax and it did.. but..”

“But?”

She met his gaze, “She told me she only put a little.”

The corner of his lip curled ever so slightly, “I hope she did, for your sake.”

“Am I going to black out?”

He looked her up and down, “You don’t look like it. How do you feel?”

“I feel fine.. I feel like everything feels better.”

He smirked, “I bet.”

“Do you think i’m gonna be able to stay up all night?”

Confusion flickered across his features, “Why…” a millisecond later realization made his thin brows instantly shoot up, a sly grin on his lips.

“Never mind.” she quickly spat out.

“You’re a good girlfriend.”

“Shut up.”

Ara stood in the kitchen, scarfing down a slice of cake. It was delicious. The frosting was the best texture on the entire planet. holy grail.

The cake was a cute faded pastel blue color, the inside was made of three layers-moist chocolate cake, fluffy chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache. She wasn’t even that much of chocolate person but this tasted heavenly.

“dish is amazhing.” Some girl beside her spoke through her chewing. Ara had never met this girl before.

“It- yes.” she agreed.

The floor pulsed with the bass of each word, each beat drop. Her heart pulsed along with it.

She was jumping so much her legs were sore. She danced with her hands on Millie’s shoulders. Millie? yes, Millie.

Millie was dancing too. Her curls had loosened and appeared more mermaid-like than tightly curled. She looked like a doll.

Millie grabbed her hands and spun around with her. There were so many cheers, so many voices. Everyone was so loud.

People danced in front of them, behind them. They somehow got tugged into a circle, hooting and hollering as girls and boys alike took the center space to dance. Some people were recording. Ara swore she’d seen some of the faces around her on tik tok or youtube.

Ara’s mouth dropped open when she watched a few girls slide into the center of the circle, showing off their moves in their skimpy outfits. Goddamn, they know how to dance.

She’d never seen so many people having so much fun at once. It almost felt like one of those antidepressant ads in real life–except it was real life.

Millie touched her cheek, “dance! dance! dance!” her voice echoed in her ears.

Was music always this beautiful?

She felt hands on her waist and opened her eyes. It was dark, the sporadic neon flashes the only source of light but she could recognize the man in front of her anywhere.

His skin was poreless, smooth. Her hands touched his familiar abs.

His hand was in her hair, his other hand on her ass—keeping her groin against his. He was hard.

The neon lights flashed over his eyes and she swore they glittered—brighter than uncut diamonds.

His lips were on her neck, his lips were on her lips. his hand tugged her nape closer. His cock throbbed through his jeans, against the thin material of her dress.

She couldn’t stop his lips from moving over her own. She felt like she was gonna disappear in him and-oh she wanted to. yes she wanted to.

Her body needed something and he knew exactly what. She felt it in his hold, in the pressure of his lips against hers. She couldn’t think.

He pulled her legs up around his waist and she knew the party was behind them.

a/n: fic continued in chapter 5 [ part 4 ] !!!!!

[spoiled-fawn]

Lust by Nature {Part 3}

Masterlist, Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

Read on ao3

Pairing: Captain John Price x fem!Reader

MDNI: 18+!

Warnings for this chapter: sex dream that verges somno, blood and injury

Word Count: ~7k

Summary: His lap is your favorite spot in the world, a sneaky little energy grab while dream-walking, and oh no! some blood :(

A/N: Chapter 3! I had so much planned for this, then wrote more and more so the original ch. 3 is now into two parts, meaning another chapter gets added to this. I hope ye enjoy

Price wasn’t caring for you. That much was certain.

Correction: Price wasn’t caring for your needs.

Three months.

Three months and still no sex. You expect he’s doing his best to fill his thick head with pure thought to ward off any boners.

He allowed small touches for technical purposes which gave a small boost of energy to you, but only barely. The previous feast on a mission in a drug ring fed you well enough, having been left with bodies barely alive before giving them the sickly sweet send-off to death while letting them taste the carnal sin you could procure.

John’s belief held you as being able to feed from the other men who desired you. Everywhere you went you could make a man or woman (a rare few on base at this time) hard and wet with desire. You trained with other soldiers, killed on missions, and while it helped and kept your energy up, it wasn’t enough. Sure, you took plenty enough of lives when the boys had so graciously left a straggler or two for you as they bled out, but the whittled-away energy of a man with bullets in him made the meal a bit dull. 

Sometimes the question of Price being an angel himself would weigh in your mind, the hallucination of a golden halo crowning him in the darkness behind your eyelids as you watched him speak or bark orders while standing in the sunlight.

You remember that he certainly can’t be. He kills and kills again, the wolf himself still has a handler no matter how much he barks- never biting until directed. For the most part.

Price is cruel with the allotted sweetness he supplied. It's been driving you up a wall, a reluctantly familiar itch crawling in your chest. He’d pet your hair when deeming a job well done, sometimes even wrangling you by the horns when needing to re-direct your attention. Softer moments started to build up the more you learned and were able to help him complete his tasks, being sure to reserve time for only you and him during the day.

Yet he still wouldn’t fuck you. He wouldn’t use you, not even letting it get to that point.

And truthfully, it doesn’t matter. You could enchant anyone you wanted into getting your way, but already feeling and smelling the arousal these bone-dry soldiers felt for you. But you couldn’t do it.

Something inside your heart, filled with magic and sin, kept your sights on Price only. Long days had you passing by recruits with such ease of temptation just to take them into the locker room and let them relieve stress. Yet the moment you saw Price, you could feel your pupils turning into hearts. Theoretically.

Your military contract asserted your role into the new CO’s life, expecting easy sex and some sort of flippant attitude that would be a double positive. Meeting the man who does more than just take his commands to regurgitate them out onto his subordinates, Price showed resilience, respect, and a leading figure of someone who lived beyond each sacrifice he gave.

Sue you for having issues relating to the figures high in power and holding authority over you, but the stability he had to offer was the pillar the team used day in and day out. In terms of being the newest addition in an environment that offered more humanity than your past facility, your claws clung to him on the chance that he’d be attentive with guidance and any reprimands that are followed with assured praise.

It only made you burn for him.

The feeling of his gloved hands tight on your sides while practicing stealth drills, as if glued to your back to teach you his gait. Hearing his voice first thing in the morning before he’s spoken, his croaks send a shiver down your legs. When you waited in the locker room on purpose just to catch sight of his pink skin that highlighted the various sized and placed scars over his body. The smell of his cologne when he brought you to the bar with the boys after a job well done.

That first taste you had of him, that silly child's play of a kiss during the mission. Like a spiced honey, you wanted to drip all over your body and let it soak its way inside of you.

This man makes your demon quiver like she’s a holy saint sinning for the first time.

The days filled with paperwork, and not your Captain, made everything blur together enough to make your eyes tired, you’d whine over it being a task you never had to do before. It was frustrating for you and the team, making them feel like they were preschool teachers. 

On the rare occasions that training would end early, Price would utilize this to spend time in the dimmed yellow light of his office as you sit next to him. 

Papers strewn over your small work area while he kept his in neat piles. The sound of your keyboards clacking fills the silence before the shuffling of papers interrupts, small hums from either of you when checking details and recording operations management.

The room fills with a lingering haze as his cigar burns slowly, settled in the ashtray while typing, and back to his lips when reading over his work. Finishing a large chunk of interpreting and typing the reconnaissance intel, you lean back to watch as the cherry lights up when he inhales. His eyes are somewhat blurred by the glasses he wears, reflecting the screen while his body bathes in the warm light. 

“You need sumthin’?” He grumbles from around the cigar, looking at you once he pops it out of his mouth.

“Why do you smoke cigars instead of cigarettes sometimes?” There’s no stutter in your question as he calls you out.

“Makes me feel like ‘m not in a rush. No need to worry of the end when there's plenty to it.” He brings it back up, taking a drag while watching you watch him. After a moment, he sits up and leans towards your place; Adjacent to him on the end of his desk while he sits on your right in his office chair.

“You ever try one?” 

The bridge of your nose crinkles, a faint memory playing behind your eyes. “No. General would always be smoking one when I was brought in, didn’t like the smell.”

Price’s eyes widen for a second, quickly moving the cigar away and clearing his throat. “You could’ve said something, wouldn’t been smoking in ‘ere if I knew tha'.” He gently snubs the cherry but the grasp of your hand on his wrist halts him.

“It’s fine. It's different. I like this one.” You wave him off with no fuss.

His hand pauses, holding it still as his eyebrow quirks. “Whats it smell like?”

It takes a second to think over. He usually tends to stick to something earthy in flavoring, having only changed up the scent on special occasions. You can remember the first one being sweet when you came to this base, and on his hard days were ones that reeked of wood tones.

“Like you.” A shrug accompanies your answer, looking up to meet his gaze that now stills while his breath fans over your hand that keeps on his wrist. The sound of your voice is warmer than the buzz the first hit gives him after a long day, and you both can tell that his body likes it when you speak like that. Reserved for him.

“Would you want to try it?” He offers the half-smoked cigar to you, gently balancing it between his fingers.

Sliding your hand up his wrist to take the cigar between your fingers only to watch him as it meets your lips. The feeling is heavy and a bit confusing.

Sucking in, you quickly choke. Shaking your head as you hand the damn trap back to him, his light chuckle sounds out. “You’re not s’possed to swallow it, sweetheart.” His eyes take in steady heed of infatuation at your failed attempt, and the curl of his lips show a genuine smile.

“But I always swallow, Sir.”

You can never keep your mouth shut, can you? He pauses, mouth parting before clicking shut and narrowing his eyes. He looks away as the muscles of his mouth flex.

Trying not to laugh.

“I wonder if it's the lads getting to you, or just how you are.” Finally, he gives his attention back to you for a moment, watching as you clean up your work area. It's your turn to feel his stare at you. The sweeping of attention your body can feel prickling and preening at, loving his focus as it sweeps across your form. “And stop calling me Sir.”

“I see it as a form of respect, Captain.” You tidy your piles of paper, shifting back to your laptop and readjusting your seat. There's a slight flash of something just beneath the waistband of your fatigues.

Out of nowhere, he tosses a pen to the other side of the desk on your left.

“You mind picking that up for me, doll?” If he’d thrown a rabid dog and asked in that voice, you’d surely say yes.

The questioning glare he receives doesn’t escape him, but you comply nonetheless. Now bent over, the hem of your shirt rides up to reveal the flesh of your side. A tattoo reveals itself.

As soon as your hands grasp the pen from the floor, you startle at the touch of his hand on your stomach. “What-”

“This a tattoo?” His fingertips trace over the slightly exposed skin, taking a dive in and commanding the shirt to move from his touch as he brings his fingers under it. 

Still slightly caught off guard, yet the touch is so gratifying that you almost purr in response. “‘S a succubus sigil. Mine specifically.” Leaning back and drawing your shirt up like a puppy asking for belly rubs, showing the expanse of it as it reaches from hip to hip. The design is tribal to your being; a heart that seemingly has wings of sharp lines that curve on the bottom of your stomach- Your womb.

“Did this come with your... form?” He asks after meeting your gaze, still not moving his hand away but tracing it with firm pressure as if to see it peel off or be raised.

“Mmm.” You nod, trying to contain the moan behind a tight-lipped hum. “Would come up on my mate too.” 

The movement on your stomach stops just as you are a second away from moving your hips closer to plead for more. “Mate?” He stills, hand stopping and regrettably pulling back as he sits to look at you. “Whadya’ mean mate?”

Oh, that's right. You never told him. But there was a section in the contract! Your subconscious screams at you, and now irked at the daft man for not reading through a man-made document that was formative on a demon.

He stifles a cough when he looks back to you; The shirt still being raised to expose the soft and delicate-looking skin of your stomach meets him, legs spread, and head tilted down with a glare through your lashes. You’re pouting.

“Price…” You start, voice low with a bass in it while still having feminine notes. It sounds like the call of the wind when he’s posted in the mountains for a stakeout and brings a shiver to the inside of his ears.

“Why’re you looking at me like that.” His face is seemingly neutral, but his eyes twitch a fraction wider at your stare.

“You didn’t read my contract.” The ethereal-sounding voice teases his ears again. He’s ashamed that he can feel his dick twitch in interest at this sudden flip of your attitude, now having to resist the urge to cross his legs to hide the blood filling it. You drop your shirt down, and a coy smile floats up to your lips. “Did you, sir?” 

“I still have a few pages left.” He chuffs while looking away to distract himself and his mouth with the cigar. “You gonna explain?” He tries to shift the power of this conversation back to him as he asks in nonchalance, spreading his legs to seem comfortable.

“Being a succubi’s mate brings something shallow but deeper than what normal humans could give. Our mate is a safe heaven; Someone who loves us for what we do. For understanding, we’re more than what we’re created to be.” Like a tether, you shift forward to step between the desk and himself. “Our mate understands that we have needs that have to be satiated, while we understand that humans rely on a relationship beyond physical cravings.”

Seating yourself on the edge of his desk, standing between his legs, the blue of his eyes sharply contrasts your red ones. “We sacrifice our innate, greedy, sinning hunger to fall in love.”

The pregnant pause is enough to let the moment sink into the walls of his office, his inner monologue going off the rails right now.

Tension sits in his eyebrow line, jaw, and in the air between you. “That so?”

“Very, much so.” Cheekily smiling back at him as you’ve firmly planted the idea in his head, the hem of your shirt rises to let the tattoo peek back out.

“Now, can we get back to you petting me?”

“Petting?” He chortles as if to ease whatever tense emotion settled over his mind, a kind that had alarm bells ringing in his head. “You’re not a dog. I was jus’ looking at your mark.” He breaks eye contact to look at his monitors, waking them up with a wave of the mouse. “You’re more like a cat, anyways.” He adds with a mumble.

“Oh, I’ve got a pretty kitty for you to pet.” The giggle that leaves your lips brings a sweet ringing in his ear. His dick twitches again, and this time with more blood flowing down at the image of your whats between your legs.

His hand comes up to take his glasses off as he discards the cigar in the ashtray, and then a stifled groan leaves his lips. “Cut the shit, Saint.” His elbows placed on the table make his back arch, and you can see his muscles traverse in waves over his shoulder blades. “You need to finish your report.”

“Just for a little bit?” While he’s distracted, you move closer to stand between his legs while trailing fingers over the sigil. “I’ll scratch your back.”

Price’s head lolls to the side, finding you much closer than expected. The motion of your tail swaying playfully behind you gains an advantage; You’re playful in all of this, all the while a beautiful woman creature that has a face worthy of melting hearts and a body that could melt dicks and cunts alike, there is a sort of black cat-like quality to you. Hunting for prey either in the shadows or wanting to toy with it.

An even steeper spike of arousal catches your nose, wanting nothing more for him to be as easy as Soap is on a bad day. You’ve never taken up the opportunity, but you still think about it.

Pursing his lips, a sigh escapes him while rubbing his hands over his face. “If this gets you to shut up and finish your work, fine.” He leans back in his chair, re-situating himself before you move to straddle his lap. “Only for a little bit.”

To your surprise, a sound of content leaves him as you settle, and feel his large arms come to wrap around your waist. “You’re a furnace- are you sick?” The inside of his wrist comes up to check your forehead for a fever, finding it warm.

“I just run that way. Something with my magic.” Humming, and nuzzling into his neck, the huff of you breathing him in makes his skin prickle. His hand returns to your waist.

A moment of silence passes, breathing with each other with only the steady hum of his computer filtering into the background noise. “You gonna scratch my back or not, sweetheart?” You can feel the rumble of his words end with a chuckle against your chest and in the muscles of your throat.

At the queue, your hands slide down beneath his shirt to start sliding the tips of your nails across his skin. A small sound of surprise leaves him as you pull up his shirt but quickly cuts off by a groan as he slumps against you.

“Fuck- Haven’t felt that in a long time.” The pull of a smile on his lips against your neck as he leans into the crook of it. His body shakes in a full tremor and his hands squeeze tighter; A hiss is pulled out of him as you reach the top of his shoulders and bring your nails down in long, cruelly slow, strokes. “Feels so wonderful, angel.”

While the petname is ironic, it still means you're getting to him. Being so close to him, the smell of his steadying arousal almost gets you high. Repeating the motion, you relaxed a bit more onto his lap to settle your weight to settle yourself over his hardening cock.

“Glad you like it.”

Leading him into your warm embrace, the chills shivering up his spine misplace his senses as your added weight and plush ass on his lap doesn’t register until the first slow roll manifests a throaty growl from him.

One hand holds you still with an unrelenting squeeze of your hip as the other shoots up to grab at your tail. A sharp gasp sounds before your back arches, nails digging into his back while you can’t help but look to the ceiling with bowed eyes.

“Behave, Saint.” He husks from above you, the height difference still even allowing him to see your face as you sit in his lap. “I’m gonna kick you out of this damn office if you’re going to act like this.”

“Please, Price.” The tips of your fangs drop a bit lower at the ache to kiss him and drag them along his skin, your pussy already beginning to soak your underwear.  

While you’d normally be in control of the entire situation when having sex, Price was different. When a succubus was able to crave someone and hold a significant want and lust, they became the pleasure sought after. You craved Price like no other because there was no other. You behaved just enough to know that if he didn’t actively want it, you’d be broken. Body, mind, and soul.

A click of your teeth has him watching as you attempt to bite at his face before fighting against his hold to grind down again. He pulls your tail tighter. 

“I’m hungry.” A smile taints your lips this time, unable to hide the humor in how hard he fights against giving in while his dick is now rock-hard underneath you. “We both know how much you’d enjoy it.”

His eyes narrow, jaw clenched in anger, at himself or you- probably both. Grinning like the devil you are, you take his lapse in concentration to bounce softly on his lap. 

“Fuckin’ hell.” He groans, and you whimper. Just dry humping and imagining him pumping inside of you, the pull of the seam against your clit, both make your folds plump with sensitivity. 

Another bounce, ending with a roll that strokes his cock.

“It’s my lap or nothing. I’m not helping you get off.” His resolve cracks, releasing your tail down to knead your ass, fingertips digging in harshly.

Needing no further instruction, you set the pace in slow rolls that drag across his lap. Bringing out soft grunts, it revels inside of you as your walls flutter around emptiness.

When the grinding isn't enough, you settle for bouncing again; Relying on the rough material of your pants to pull at your panties and clit. His eyes dart up from your hips, caught watching how erotic you move, yet he’s not afraid to smirk as you cup his jaw, bringing his lips close.

“Kiss me.” 

“No.” 

Groaning from the denial, you keep moving. There’s still a chance for you to win him over, how trained can a man be when he’s got a beautiful creature spurring him on?

“It’s not like we haven’t kissed before.”

“I already said no. You ain’t gonna shake me.”

Your lips draw up in a sneer at being told no. That's not supposed to happen.

“Did you not get what you wanted, sweet girl?” His hand moves from your neck to stroke hair away from your face, but still leaves the other on your ass.

“You’re a prick” 

The growl that leaves you is quiet. It would startle any human, but Price knows you. He only hums in response, moving to grab the cigar before inhaling and leaning back into the chair.

What a cocky bastard.

“Don’t be a brat. You knew I let you sit here not for that reason.” The hand on your ass leaves a sharp sting once it spanks you, the sound echoing in the quiet room. It sends a shiver to your wet cunt, feeling a mini-tremor in it. 

“This is my favorite spot, don’t you know?” 

“Spots’ not on tha map, Saint.”

When you left his office, you at least felt good about the wet spot on his lap.

~~~

On nights before a mission, you’d consider slithering your consciousness to Price, debating on dream walking to bring him dreams filled with you, filled of him. The promiscuity of diving into his dreams and allowing him to ruin you in a haze cradled your consciousness in a steady fire.

Tomorrow, you’ll be out for a long excursion with the team in the woodlands of Australia. You’ve been there before, remembering being fresh into your transformation and visiting a plethora of military bases. At the time, you were being shown off at Pine Gap like a traveling circus, bored from the land being too obnoxious for any fun- because of course, you had tried to fight a kangaroo when your handlers weren’t looking. 

Dreamwalking was something you’d engaged with rarely, as the humans in the compound didn’t sleep there. You’d practice putting them in a trance and had gained enough experience in succeeding when they left your cell block rotation as a heavy flush coated their face.

Price was designated to keep you in the barracks room by his, at the end of the hallway where his only neighboring room was yours. The team that created a military position for a succubus knew what needed to happen, and they were not afraid to set parameters and expectations that Price had to follow before your arrival. 

Tonight, as your body finds its tether to his mind, you're ready to cloud and confuse his logic with pleasure. A cloudy and warm rush to his senses makes Price’s body stir when the sudden feeling of you lying atop him settles on his muscles and mind. With a slow grinding roll of your hips, your fangs sneak out just a bit more to leave a light mark under his jaw as your hands knead at his firm chest. He can see you, feel you naked with him under the covers of his bed. Your soft but firm legs straddle his waist as a hand rakes through his hair to give a tug causing a soft hiss to leave him. 

“How th’ fuck you get in ‘ere, love?” He manages to push out past his lips in a soft grumble, the rough calluses of his hands skimming down to the curve of your hips before squeezing the flesh of your ass.

And fuck, when the pet name slips out no doubt due to his drowsiness, it makes you clench on nothing while being in your own room a few yards away from his. 

“You let me in, sir.” The answer comes back to him in a matched tone, working to slide your wetness over his growing arousal. “Hope that’s alright with you.”

Feeling the tip of him push against your clit and noting he’s already hard, your hand trails behind you to line him up with your fluttering hole. The grip on your ass tightens, his blunt fingernails dig in as he bucks in hazy anticipation. It's enough to catch the rim of your hole but slipping in the wrong direction.

Price, far too gone as your sense of lust clouds his mind, pushes your ear against his lips as he takes himself in hand and lines up with your entrance again. “Impatient thing, aren’t you?”

Not giving you enough time to answer, he pushes the tip in letting it settle before grabbing your hip while the other hand pulls your hair in a tight fist. “I’ll let you bloody ‘ave it.” He groans in your ear. You leave yourself amazed at how real it feels, seemingly forgotten of the unused power at the ready for your next meal.

A small hiccup leaves your lips as he slides in; Not too long but his girth made up for everything. It’s been so long, your inner demon laughing at you as if you were a virgin again but crying out in time with your pulses as you feel fed for the first time in months.

“Gods, so fucking hot-” Price drones on, sounding half asleep and drunk on lust by the way his speech slurs in soft whispers. “Hottest pussy I’ve ever had.” If you were in his bed you’d truly laugh at him speaking on your internal temperature. 

“You’ve never had anything like me.” Moving to help the tired man, your hips go down to meet his ever-languid thrust up. His hand on your ass holds your lower back as his knees pick up once planting his ankles on the mattress. 

“Ain't that right.” He retorts, a light scoff coming from him as he buries his head to find your neck to leave long, sloppy kisses against the soft skin. “Use my cock, baby, know you’ve been wantin’ it. Be a good girl an’ use it.” 

With his permission and the subtle need to show him what he’s been missing out on, you take the lead. Planting your hands on his chest and sitting up, you bounce on his cock with steady vigor. Each clap of your skin hitting his sounds real. Enough to be more than just a dream. His grunts, shaky curses, and heavy breaths ring out in the space of his mind as he drives up to meet your soaked walls. 

“Jus’ like tha- gonna make me come already. God, I’m gonna-” Snake down to lay your chest against his, bouncing your hips in quick movements. 

“Inside. Keep it in.” His mind still fails to register that protection was nowhere near a consideration as his body runs hot. His hands grab control to pump himself up into you in rough and steady slams of one, two, three, before stilling and twitching inside of you.

The shiver that coils your spine in a curve is erotic; The way your mouth parts in a beautiful ‘o’ shape, tits pushed out for him to take in his mouth while your body shakes from the orgasm of being fed his spend. His breath pants over your pert nipples, biting them gently with a low groan before settling you over him. You wish you could stay more to hear his pillow talk but the more talking to happen and keep yourself there is a waste of time and energy.

“Goodnight, Price.” 

~~~

Sunlight greeted Price when he awoke to his blaring alarm, grumbling while shooting a hand out to silence the forsaken thing. Usually an early riser and far too used to the normalcy of the early mornings, he felt like a cinderblock sinking to the bottom of the Boston River. 

A right fucking tea party in his pants, that's for sure.

With every second his eyes are closed, he can feel the phantom movement of your hips on his which has him already twitching his morning wood at the memory. Price has had wet dreams before, plenty of times while a teenager or when he had a girl back home while serving as a Lieutenant. None of them had felt like this- like he was on a drug trip and feeling absolutely every movement and sense you rode out of him.

Letting a groan akin to a bear's roar echo in his room, his eyelids keep blinking to make the bleariness leave to welcome the light of day into his mind. And Price just… sits there for a moment. 

Yes, he was asleep and didn’t have the control he would much rather prefer over you being in his bed, but by Satan himself that was just the last thing he needed.

There wasn’t much time for him to seek out physical attention or affection from others, constantly married to his job and watching his back for those looking at him. There had been a handful of women who were graced with hot nights, but he’d always be gone by the time they’d woken up. These women stemmed from the pubs far off town and closer to his home. Even a young recruit on a different unit had tried her luck but was instantly shot down without a thought to him. 

He has a name and team to uphold, he wouldn’t earn himself a court martial just for an easy piece of ass. But now presented with your beautiful self while officials are giving him the green light, he has no idea what to do. You’re growing close to him already, something he tried to resist with all the boys on the team until they had bludgeoned their way to his heart by force. 

He couldn’t let you do that.

To be used, having someone two steps ahead of him through reading his feelings and laying them out on a silver platter. It would be devastating to the way he functions, the way he holds himself, and how he carries out his mission. Manipulation is his greatest peeve. Protecting his heart is his greatest operation.

Price doesn’t see you until later; Making sure supplies and operations were starting smoothly, his mind was in a flurry of motions he subconsciously grew used to over the years. He knows what boxes need to be checked, being sure to be prepared for everything. He wasn’t prepared to find you in the briefing room before anyone else, looking right as rain and ready to go.

You’re a wicked piece of work, being able to act as if nothing was askew. Totally innocent. You could feel his glare before even looking at the man, and gods above so below, he was pissed off. Horny, and pissed off.

“Good morning, Captain.” The sound of his footsteps halting leaves the room quiet, making you look up to him. “Everything alright? Seems like you’ve seen the devil himself.” 

Even with knowing this team for a short time, they could be impressed by how well you could read their emotions. Even Ghost, with just a look of his eyes and gauging what lays under his mask. Right now was not one of these moments.

Approaching slowly, eyes watching where he steps, the indent of his cheek shows where he bites at it. “Tell me, sweetheart. How’d you sleep last night?” 

Once reaching where you sit, he leans on the table with a heavy hand as the other holds the back of your chair. “Because you seem mighty chipper this morning, eh?”

A wave of vexation washes over you from his tone and gaze alone. You’re beyond thankful you’ve taken a moment to not show your tail today or else it would have frozen in place.

“I slept fine, ready for the day.” Reverting to innocence was starting to piss Price off. 

“Right, right.” Grunting in response, he moves in closer to your face. “Because I woke up tired, cum in my pants, and quite the feeling of a very warm weight over me. Would you happen to know anything about that, little devil?”

“Would there be an issue if I did? That's quite the allegation, Price.”

The wood underneath his hand squeaks with the strain his fingers pull at it.

“If you ever do that again, I will be contacting your owners and having your ass back on a plane faster than you can go to sleep.”

With the Captain’s anger solely focused on you, resentment stemming all from a dream and granting him pleasure, something inside of you breaks off into cooling embers. A cold shiver washes down your back. The mention of going back to your previous commanders makes your stomach roll with pinpricks at the mere thought of what they would do to you.

“Do. You. Understand. Saint?” He whispers once his lips press against your ear, and the bastard can see the fear running through you when your red eyes look past him at the wall.

“Yes, Captain.” It waivers on your tongue, thinking you’d have enough strength by the tightness in your throat yet it fails you.

[steamberrystudio]

26/08/2024 Devlog

Hallo everyone!  Tumblr devlog time. Sorry I missed the last one. Sometimes I just miss the notification when it pops up. Sometimes I remember on the off week but don't want to throw off the schedule and end up just waiting for the next one to roll around.

Summary:

Finished Yren's Play test

Finished Raif's Play test

Finished Noel's Play test

Started Kav's Play test

Finally got the colour slider in the game with help from Windchimes

New music room (slightly redesigned)

New gallery screen

Bonus scene page

Wrote the rest of the ch1 bonus scenes

Got the affinity indicators coded

Multiple new BGs

Finished Yren's Ch 2 CG

Started Noel's Ch 2 CG

Worked on coding sprite expressions

Set affinity scoring up through Ch 5

Worked on the premium and public game guides

Writing/Playtesting:

I have been working on my own play test of the game which is essentially another round of reading and editing. Last time I said the script was 616,000 words. Well it's now 621,000 words. 

I'm not just cramming in filler. A lot of that is additional choice options. Sometimes I would find places where you went a really long time without choices. Others I would encounter a choice menu that had 3 options when it needed 5 or 6 options (one for each LI).

Adding menus and choice options can increase your word count pretty rapidly so that is where most of the increase has happened.

I'm also fixing a lot of small continuity issues. This usually results in a small variation or callback being added into the script for clarity or to correct a seeming contradiction. For instance, at one point I realised that I  needed an additional variation in Ch 5 to account for a game state that wasn't accounted for in the existing options. And I had to do it for all 6 LIs. Which meant that a 200 word variation became a 1200 word addition to the word count.

So yeah, those things add up fast when you have 6 LIs.

I am continuing to work on this. And I will do one full play test of everyone's "best" ending before beta testers touch it.

I also have decided to add in "bonus scenes" these will basically unlock at the end of some chapters. Some of these will be POV scenes and some will be other scenes and content told from the MC's point of view. These are just extra scenes that I think help flesh out the characters and relationships but really didn't fit into the main story because you just...can't fit everything in the main story. I will be writing any bonus content as I work on the episodes and as I get ideas for them.

I don't have any specific rules I'm going to hold myself to for bonus content. They're just fun extras. They may be quite short in some cases. The ones for Chapter 1 are 1400 or so words.

Art:

Art wise, I've received new BGs - they're about 90% done at this point.

I also completed Yren's CG and started on Noel's. Raif's is already done, Kav doesn't get one for Ch 2.

So yeah. Getting those completed bit by bit.

Other Stuff:

Lots of other stuff. 

We managed to get the colour slider set up for Wil's sprite (we being me and my friend from Windchimes games). This required re-colouring the original sprite and original CG for Wil in greyscale and then coding in everything necessary to have Wil colourised by Ren'py rather than by  me.

As you can see from this Wil's hair and eyes are not colourised. Wil's eyes being silver/grey are just kind of a plot element and is related to their species. And while I contemplated having Wil's hair be on a slider too the reality is that the hair styles were not designed to be colourised in this way and some of them don't look as good. Particularly the curly hair which doesn't have strong outlines or, really the same type of shading to give it depth. Some colours looked quite good on it and others looked quite bad.

I tried redrawing that hair half a dozen times to see if I could make it look better while retaining the same overall look and feel and it just was not possible. I could have redone the hair but frankly. I didn't want to. And some of the other styles didn't look *amazing* recoloured. They were just okay.

I think if I want to revisit the slider in the future then I just need to approach the art with that in mind versus trying to add it to art not designed for it.

But in any case, Wil having only black/silver options was also originally with intent so I don't mind keeping with that set up.

In terms of other features that are finally in game we have affinity indicators, a newly designed music room, the bonus scene page, the gallery screen and things like that.

I did the affinity scoring up through Chapter 5 which is when the route gets locked in. That was primarily so I could test that section properly. But yeah. That's done.

And I've been working on coding sprite expressions. If you have been following me for a while you know that sprite expressions are an *ordeal* for me.

I have a lot of expressions coded in which means I tend to change the expression every 1-4 lines - especially for the main character. Gilded Shadows had about 6500 expression changes per route. Including the common route, that's about 60,000 expression changes coded manually. Which is a lot.

About half of those probably...were Morgan. She is on screen more than anyone else, of course. All the narration is her internal dialogue. She is on screen for it and her expressions are changing based on what she's thinking.

WSC is very much the same.

So the expressions are a lot.

I got Wil's expressions completed through Chapter 2. This chapter is about 50,000 words and of course I've been working on a ton of other things so I've only dedicated an hour or two a day to work on expressions. It's very tedious. It's also impossible to not edit as you go because you have to read the script line by line to decide what expressions people are using. Inevitably you see typos and stuff that you fix as you do expressions.

So it's just kind of a time sink that isn't *difficult* but does tend to take some time.

Upcoming Weeks:

My huge checklist has become smaller and smaller over the last few weeks.

The main things now are...CG creation, flowchart set up, coding expressions and getting my play test done. 

Those are kind of the things that have to get done before Episode 1 can go to beta testers on Patreon.

There are always features and elements I consider big milestones when they get ticked off the main list. The colourised sprite was one of the remaining "big ones" - the flowcharts are another.

Anyway, that is all for this update. I will hopefully see you all again in *two weeks* this time.

(I swear I need a less easy-to-miss reminder). LoL

[unluckycryptid]

So two new updates regarding the Rise of Red!Miraculous Ladybug AU fic

-

If you haven't seen it yet, I posted Ch 5 of The Wonderous Adventures of Ladybug and Chat Noire! Check it out below.

Summary:

“My Lady… please,” Chat Noire begged. The heroine in front of her stopped walking but stayed facing forward, her face obscured from Chat Noire’s line of sight. But from where she stood, she could see as Ladybug shook her head, her partner’s hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. “Chat Noire, I- I can’t,” said Ladybug, her voice cracking ever so slightly that Chat Noire would have missed it if it weren’t for her hearing. Before Chat Noire could push any further, Ladybug grabbed her yoyo and swung off, her message clear: don’t follow me.

I also wrote a companion piece to the chapter and posted it separately as a two-shot! Check it:

Summary:

Companion piece to Ch 5 of The Miraculous Adventures of Ladybug and Chat Noire explaining what happened to Red in her encounter with Chat Blanc, and how it all came to be. Ch 1 - The Encounter (Version 2.0) Ch 2 - The Incident

~

Check out my Chapter Notes for all three chapters below!

Warning: Spoilers

Author's Note Before I put up the Deleted Scenes:

So, I originally posted everything on pretty late on Oct 31st in order to get it all in for Whumptober. I woke up the next morning and read it before I went to work and then decided that I hated it in a way that the original ending was cornering me and would have had me deviate from my overall plan for the main story. I decided, alright, I'm just going to delete the whole two-shot and spend some time fixing it to better align with to the main story's future and motivations.

For those of you wondering, what could I possibly have written to cause me to delete the first version? -> I had Red kill off Chat Blanc of the alternate timeline.

It was great for Whumptober, but would require dozen more chapters of main timeline!Red overcoming that trauma which... I only have 12-13 chapters planned for this story and we're already on Ch 5. Plus, I wanna do a reveal and post-reveal stuff within those 12-13 chapters so... yeah I'm already running out of time with that.

But overall, the whole writing process was pretty rough, ngl. In context, I wrote three chapters in the time it would take me to write one chapter, and each of the three chapters were fairly lengthy for me. And I had to make sure all 3 chapters had to intertwine together.

I always knew I was going to have the Aftermath chapter in the main story. As for the Encounter and Incident chapters, it was originally going to be all one chapter, but it got wayyyy too long for my taste so I ended up splitting it into two separate chapters and then posting it as a two-shot.

I also had to make sure that each of the chapters' motivations flowed into each other. It was kind of difficult since I wrote Aftermath first, so I had to backtrack and figure out what scenario would those memories come into play during the Encounter chapter. Incident also had a bunch of problems considering how the first draft of it that I wrote, while good, didn't follow the motivation for either Aftermath or Encounter, so I had to keep rewriting it until it all worked.

And like I said, I wrote the last scenes of Encounter the day I posted it and then I posted it... bruh never doing that again. I definitely should have sat on it a little longer but rewriting it with a bit more time makes me more confident in it as a chapter now.

I'll post the deleted scenes across the three chapters below. Most of them are going to come from The Chat Blanc Incident. I'll post the Version 1.0 on a separate post since this will get too long.

Read The Encounter Version 1.0 Here

-

Deleted Scene 1 - The Encounter - First Meeting

“Chat Noire, what happened here? What happened to you?” Red asked. 

The girl in white ignored her question in favor of stepping into Red’s personal space, intrigue in her gaze. Before Red could step back and ask about the sudden proximity, the other girl reached out and cupped a hand around Red’s cheek. Red watched as the white clawed hand softly grazed her cheek, the other girl pulling her hand back as soon as it made contact, a look of wonder and disbelief dawning on the girl’s face. 

“So you’re not just one of my ghosts haunting me,” the girl in white chuckled in what sounded like relief. 

Red only looked at her behavior in bewilderment before the girl stopped and switched her tone to an interrogatory one, “You’re not supposed to be here. How are you here?”

Red hesitated. Despite the fact that her partner was someone she would trust with her life, just one look in the other girl’s eyes told Red that she shouldn’t say anything about Bunnyx and his portals in time. 

“It doesn’t matter how I’m here. I just need to know what happened, Chat Noire, both to you and to Auradon,” said Red, “I want to help.”

The girl narrowed her eyes at the red and black superhero. “You’re not My Lady, are you,” she stated, “Or else you would remember what happened.” The bitterness in the girl’s tone sent chills down Red’s spine. 

“Chat Noire…”

“Please, it’s Chat Blanc now,” the girl in white—Chat Blanc—corrected.

-

Deleted Scene 2 - The Incident - First Betrayal

“Red, how could you?” the heartbroken voice of Chloe asked, tears streaming down her cheeks as a pair of Card soldiers held her down on her knees. 

“No, Chloe don’t listen to her. Please believe me, I didn’t know anything,” Red begged, dropping down to her own knees in front of the blue haired princess. She reached out to cradle her girlfriend’s face, but the girl flinched as far away as she could given her restrictions from Red’s touch.

“Oh, come now, daughter, you needn’t keep acting. Your plan worked as you said it would. Though it was a bit convoluted if you asked me,” said Queen Reina Hearts of Wonderland as she inspected her nails with disinterest from her throne on the stage. 

All around them, the aftermath of chaos remained. Family Day had come around and Red’s mom had made an unexpected appearance. Although Red had been taken aback by her mother’s unannounced presence, she was even less prepared for the moment her mother had interrupted the Principal’s Family Day Speech by tossing a deck of magical cards in their air, infecting the unfortunate few that were touched by them, some being the Card soldiers they had previously faced, thus revealing her identity as the Card Queen. 

Before Red or Chloe could even think about transforming into their alter egos, the Card soldiers had grabbed Chloe’s mother and held her hostage, forcing the two heroes to surrender. Once it was clear that neither Red nor Chloe would fight back, the Card soldiers surrounded the blue haired princess along with the rest of the civilians not infected by the cards of the Card Queen. However, they left Red un-surrounded as the Queen of Wonderland marched up to the stage, declaring loudly at how proud she was of her daughter. 

“What plan?” Chloe demanded in a low growl, betrayal laced her in gaze. 

Before Red could answer, Reina spoke for her, “The one to acquire your miraculous, of course.” She said as if it were an obvious fact. 

“No! Chloe-”

“And imagine to my surprise when she suggested that we could also get vengeance on dear Cindy over here at the same time,” continued the Queen of Wonderland as though Red had never spoken. 

“Reina, you let my daughter go right now. Your quarrel is with me,” Chloe’s mom—Queen Cindy—urged from her spot, also in the same position as Chloe though she had been taken off to the side of the stage. 

Reina glared in her direction and waved a hand. At the motion, the General Jack of Diamonds, who had been holding Cindy down, struck her in the face. In response, Chloe screamed and thrashed uselessly under the grip of the Card soldiers holding her down. Red attempted to run to Chloe’s mom’s aid, but was stopped by the Jabberwocky landing in front of her.

The Queen of Wonderland rolled her eyes and continued addressing Chloe, “She revealed her identity to me as soon as she got her miraculous, telling me that she had a plan to make me proud. A plan that would allow Wonderland to take control over all of Auradon.”

“That’s not true!” Red yelled desperately. She was abruptly cut off by the feeling of something covering her mouth and pinning her arms down to her sides, but when she attempted to turn to see her assailant, her eyes met empty air. Nonetheless, the force persisted and she could feel breathing behind her. Red’s eyes widened. It was the Cheshire Cat. She realized in horror that to everyone else, it looked like she was just idly standing by, watching the whole thing.

“I will admit, it took me by surprise that she was admitting to being the pesky, newly debuted ladybug hero that had foiled my plan as the Card Queen, but after I revealed such the fact, she asked me to keep playing the role for her plan to work,” the Queen of Hearts gloated falsely, “I agreed, of course. I trust my daughter completely. She had finally told me it was time to make our move once she revealed that she finally had your complete trust, going as far as to pursuing a relationship with you to do so.”

Red tried her best to fight the grip of the Cheshire Cat on her but it was no use. Her mother decided at that moment to descend from the stage and stand directly in front of a helpless Chloe who had no other choice but to look at her.

The Queen sneered as she crouched in front of the blue haired princess, “Did you really believe that my daughter could ever love someone like you? The daughter of the commoner queen? The spare heir? The mere sidekick of your little duo?” 

The Queen reached out and grabbed Chloe’s chin, satisfied at the tears streaming down the girl’s cheek. 

“You and your filthy mother will get what you deserve, thinking you had a chance to stand with the rest of us,” she sneered before her expression changed to a one of consideration, “Though perhaps not all is lost with you. Perhaps you can be deserving of my daughter’s love after all.”

“What do you want from me?” Chloe spat. 

Reina grinned wickedly, “Call upon your transformation and let me make you one of my Card soldiers,” before Chloe could voice a rejection, the Queen turned her head towards the direction of her mom’s captivity, “or else.”

She released her hold on Chloe’s face and stepped back, waiting for the girl’s next move. Naturally, Chloe’s eyes wandered to Red’s looking for any sort of guidance. Red tried her best to shake her head no but the Cheshire Cat puppeted her head to make it look like she nodded in approval instead.

Without any more options, Chloe gave in.

“Plagg, transform me.”

The transformation washed over the blue haired girl in front of the whole school to see. Chat Noire soon found that the hold of the Card soldiers had been released and that she was free to stand up. She did so slowly, keeping her gaze fixed on the Queen of Wonderland who only smirked as she took out a card from her deck.

Red could only watch in horror as her mother approached her girlfriend and placed the magical card on the silver bell that hung around the girl’s neck. The bell blackened and the black cat heroine was swallowed up by the card’s magic. A second later, the magic dissipated and Red’s stomach dropped.

Kneeling on the ground to her mother was her girlfriend dressed in all white.

“Rise, Chat Blanc,” her mother commanded and the girl stood up immediately. Red’s blood ran cold. There was no trace of her partner—her girlfriend—in there. Her mother continued, “I have given you the power of infinite destruction, and with it you will lay waste to this despicable world… starting with her.”

Reina pointed a finger in the direction of Chloe’s mom. 

No. She couldn’t let her do this. She couldn’t let Chloe kill her own mom. Red struggled against the Cheshire Card Card with all she had, managing to free the hand covering her mouth, but that was enough.

“Tikki! Transform me.”

As soon as she felt the transformation wash over her, she used her superstrength to break free from the Card’s clutches and fight her way over to Chloe’s mom. She dodged, weaved, and kicked the Cards holding down Chloe’s mom to her best ability, but even with her super abilities, she was quickly overwhelmed by the number of Card soldiers her own mother had on hand. 

Slowly, Chat Blanc made her way in front of her mother, regarding the woman as though she were a mere speck of dust. Chat Blanc raised her hand and wordlessly called upon a cataclysm, the power manifesting in a white color just like its holder.

“Please, Chloe don’t do this!” Red cried out from under the dozens of Card soldiers holding her down, “Please, you can fight this!”

“Hush now, daughter, she can’t fight this.”

-

Deleted Scene 3 - The Incident - Chat Blanc's fury

The girl’s cold gaze turned on her now, “You know, Red. You were right. My death would be worthless. But everyone else’s…”

“Don’t do this, Chloe,” Red begged as she started backing away in fear, “I-I’ll stop you.”

Chat Blanc walked toward her with her hand raised above her head. She summoned another cataclysm and to Red’s horror, it kept growing and growing. ‘Infinite destruction’, her mother had said. There was no fighting this, even as Ladybug. 

Chat Blanc seemed to know this, too. 

“I’d like to see you try, Princess.” 

And then the world went white.

[anki-of-beleriand]

Bad Liar ch. 2

Summary: Life is about lessons, and Wanda has been learning some harsh facts that had define her life and taken her to a place in which she was given a second chance. Then, all of a sudden, she meets you, and she realizes why it's easier to lie to yourself than to accpet what's right in front of her.

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff/ Female!reader - America/Kate - Mentions of past Vision/Wanda - past Natasha/Reader - Some Female!Reader/Carol Danvers - Past Shuri/Female!Reader

Warnings: Slow burn - Enemies to friends to lovers - Mentions of abusive relationships - Toxic relationships - angst - drama - mentions of abuse - more tags as the story progress.

Author's note: This chapter was a little hard to write because I want to do an introduction to the situation each one of them is living. But I hope you guys like it, right now Wanda is going through a very difficult time, and Reader is as well though her best defense is to be a little bitchy to hot strangers because it is a nice protective mechanism. It seems everytime Reader meets with Wanda she can't be nice but...well, we will see.

Remember that English is not my mother tongue, so I apologise for any grammar, spelling or funny mistake. I hope you guys enjoy this!

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17 - Chapter 18

Chapter 2 - New lives

Your eyes were still closed.

You could hear the muffled sound of music coming from the first floor, and the sound of America doing a mess on the kitchen. The light from the sun sneaking inside your room through the blinds until the soft hues of yellow light touched your face. Mornings had become harder ever since you lost your parents, the weight of responsibility settled right in as soon as you regained consciousness and your life choices started dancing right in front of you until you decided to stand up.

A heavy sigh left your lips, the mobile resting on your table was flashing with the couple of messages you were receiving already.

“Fuck.” The curse left your lips with a rusty tone, your hand grabbing the phone to see who wrote to you during the night and most of the morning.

After seeing at least four of them, you knew it would be one of those days.

With another sigh, you sat up ready to start the day.

“Fuck all of this.” You mumbled again before turning around and going to the bathroom.

*****

The taste of coffee on your lips was everything you needed to improve your morning.

That, and watching America danced around the kitchen while sorting the breakfast and her lunch for that school day. The both of you were completely different, yet you two were just the same; you father had married a young woman he met just after your mother died in a car accident. At first you were not so sure with the relationship, you were still a child and your mom was just gone and this woman was nothing like her.

Then, America was born, and you forgot everything about her not being your mom.

If America was your little Sister, then Elena could be her mother.

“So, I see that Carol texted you,” America started in a teasing tone, her eyes taking a good glance at you before going back to the pan on the counter, “are you two going out again?”

“You read the message Carol sent, you mean.” You replied rolling your eyes, America shrugged not really caring about the semantics in the conversation.

“I’m your little sister, and you’re not very good with passwords, I can do what I want.”

“You sounded like Loki.” You replied grimacing a little, America turned around arching a single eyebrow at you.

“You’re so not going to go out of this conversation.” America crossed her arms waiting, for a moment you played with the idea of just not saying anything at all, but America would not drop it and she would find out eventually.

“I am seeing her tonight.” You gave in, shrugging. “She has this thing back at the base and wants me there with her.”

“So, you two guys…” America made a gesture with her hands, you snorted shrugging again.

“No idea.” You played with the fruit on your plate furrowing your brows. “I’m not sure if I want to, you know?”

America softened at your confession, your last serious relationship had been Shuri and that didn't end well. Then you found yourself in several affairs that only bring distractions to your life but not real satisfaction, America glanced at the house that used to be the Romanoff household then she turned her attention back at you.

The last year and a half had not been easy, but whereas America had distracted herself with school and friends you had to take the mantle of big sister and heir to the small fortune left by your parents. She knew you had been under a lot of pressure and, any day now, you would explode under it.

Perhaps, going out with Carol Danvers was what you needed it, even though America herself was not so sure about the blond-haired woman.

"I think you deserve to have some fun, and go out for the time being before you decide to settle for something serious." America leaned against the counter offering you a rare smile, you smiled back at her shrugging again.

“We will see, little sister, we will see."

America winced throwing a towel at you, “don’t call me that. Aren’t you late for work?”

“Aren’t you late for school?” You replied back turning your wrist to see the hour.

“Nah, it’s still earlier, and I’m waiting for Kate.”

You nodded standing up and drinking the last of your coffee, the atmosphere change for a moment and you had to wonder if perhaps you were missing something. There was dust of pink on America’s checks, but otherwise nothing seemed amiss.

“Today I have a meeting about dad’s will, and the succession process.” You said softly, this was something you already discussed with America but the subject was still sore for the both of you. “I think we will need to talk about everything, but how about we do it during lunch tomorrow?”

America swallowed her questions; she nodded offering you a weak smile.

“So, you gonna be late today?” She asked and this time around you caught the tone she used.

“No parties, and certainly no sex in the house, is that understood?”

America almost fell down, her face this time around was completely red with her mouth hanging open. You couldn’t help the laugh leaving your lips at her expression, she was looking flustered and indignant.

“I’m not going to have sex!” America almost yelled, and soon she covered her mouth while glaring at you. “What’s wrong with you?”

“With me? What’s wrong with you? You’re going to have the house for yourself and you’re not going to bring Kate…”

“She is a friend!!”

The way America turned red, and how was tapping on the table told you otherwise. You arched your brow, though decided against any further comment seeing as whatever was happening between Kate and America had not been consolidate. Yet.

“Of course, your friend.” You pressed your lips together holding back your laughter, America pressed a hand on her face trying to hide away her embarrassment.

The vibration from your phone broke the moment, you made a face glancing at the name gleaming through the screen. America leaned in, her brows coming together in a familiar gesture that reminded you of Elena. Your face softened grabbing the phone and putting it away, your arms wrapping around the teen before placing a soft kiss on her head.

“Don’t worry about it, Tony is just…being Tony, and I bet this was actually Pepper messaging me from his phone since I didn’t answer her message of this morning.” You stepped aside grabbing your car keys. “Please, be careful and write me if you need anything, okay?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll be good, I won’t make any parties and…I won’t do anything you wouldn’t do.”

You chuckled shaking your head, if America did half the things you did at her age you would be in great trouble.

The morning was cold, but the sun was just sneaking around the heavy clouds gliding right above the suburbs. The music started inside your car, your mind already on the million things you would need to face once you get to the Stark Tower; a lot of things had to be sorted out and you knew the conversation you had pending with America needed to happen on that very weekend.

If you had been paying attention to your surroundings, you would have noticed the garage door of the house next door opening, and the red car coming out of the garage with a ruckus happening right in the back seat. But as fate might had wanted it, you were just as distracted as the other woman and, by the time you both realized was happening it was late.

The sound of metal hitting metal was quite evident, your eyes opened wide and you stopped just on time before the hit could be worse than it already was.

“Fuck, what the hell?”

The sound had been an exageration of what actually happened. The woman in the red car had hit the metal bin right sepparating your driveway to the one from your neighbour. In all reality, the hit had been worse for her that had a scratch on the back of her car whereas you almost ran the metal bin with yours.

Still, this only meant another delay and the fact that now you had an idiot for a neighbour. You made a face rolling your eyes when you caught the sound of a door closing and footsteps apporaching.

Nothing could have prepared you for the sight in front of you.

Last night, the woman had been a vision, and an afterthought. You never dreamt of meeting her again, and after being an asshole with her and what she needed it you wished you would never see her again.

Yet, her she was.

This time around she looked different.

Her suit was professional looking, and the light makeup with her hairstyle made her look beautiful. There was still a trace of something in her eyes, a lack of light and heavy bags under her eyes but otherwise she was looking so much different to the mess of a woman you had seen the night before.

The worry in her features soon changed to one of annoyance, and this time around her green eyes gleamed with animosity when they too recognized you.

“You!” She spat with old anger she held from your last encounter, you raised an eyebrow and the annoyance you felt at the moment rose inside your chest making you draw a smile that Wanda found equally annoying to the one you wore the night before.

“Damn, you decided to take revenge for the yogurt yesterday?” You let out a half smile, your phone at the ready taking the pictures. “Do you know this is my part of the street, so in theory is your fault?”

“Excuse me?” Wanda couldn’t believe what she was hearing, she stood there for a moment trying to gather her courage after the impact. "What the hell is your malfunction?"

She was still trembling, the cries from the twins resounding in her head and the bad night sleep taking its toll on her. You opened your mouth to speak when your phone started ringing, this time around Pepper was the one calling.

“Look, as interesting as this could turn out to be, I have cameras and everything to proof you fucked up.” You said walking backwards to your car. “Let’s not make a big deal of this, afterall I did not suffer any damage...but I can always point you over to a good driving instructor so this won't happen again? I would hate for next time you hitting my car in the safety of our driveways."

You glanced at your phone, then at your watch and without looking back to a dumbstruck Wanda you waved good-bye.

"Have a good day, Lady!"

Wanda was still trembling when you drove down the street, your mouth opening and closing while discussing with someone over the phone. Wanda clenched her eyes shut, her trembling hand resting on the side of the car while she repeated the same mantra inside her head over and over again.

It wasn’t him; it wasn’t him…it wasn’t him. He doesn’t know you’re here.

The muffled sound of crying made her stirred into action, opening the door she accommodated herself to calm down Billy while Tommy grabbed his favorite blanket closer to his chest. The tears were rolling down her face, she whispered sweet things to Billy while offering a shaky smile until the boy sniffed grabbing Wanda’s hand in his.

Wanda knew she would be late that day, her morning had not been better than her night but at least this time around there was no one around to scream at her, to drag her back into the house for her stupidity and her distracted nature. The car could survive, and she would certainly send the other woman to hell for being a complete asshole but for now the important thing was that she and the kids were safe.

What were the odds that the same stupid woman from the day before was the same one living next door?

Wanda shook her head making sure Billy and Tommy were fine, before going to the front and making her way to the school. That day, her new life would start and she wouldn’t let anyone, specially someone as incredible stupid as the woman next door to mess with her humour, or the new life she was trying to build.

*****

The nursery was filled with children form the faculty, as well as some of the younger siblings of the students going to the Elementary and the High School right next door. The institution was actually one of the few prestigious schools in the country, it had been built for the students with great minds but probably without the resources to afford the best education the country could offer. It had been stablished in the early 50´s and the school board was led by one of the most important women in the educational system in the country.

Natasha Romanoff wrapped her arms tightly around Wanda, the young woman dropped her shoulders and allowed the comfort this gesture brough to her soul. They had met almost a year ago, the last time Wanda had been at the hospital with a broken arm and a knife wound; that day Natasha had offered a way out and Wanda had taken it without any hesitation.

“How are you doing? How was the trip? The house, was of your liking?”

Natasha was beautiful, with a light makeup and red lips matching her hair many confused her beauty for stupidity or even for her being an easy piece of ass. On the contrary, Natasha was a shark amongst a world govern by men, her inner circle was made of great men and women that had been trying to build a better society in the midst of politics and difficulties. She was smart, and assertive with great ideas as how the things at school should be done and her side job had been of great help to women and men around the country that suffered the horrors of violence in their households.

Wanda offered a shaky smile, her eyes dancing around the small room before they settled on the twins.

“It has been…hard.” She replied in a soft voice, “last night I couldn’t help but look at the clock on the wall and…”

Natasha softened nodding; her hand placed on the woman’s arm before she too went to look at the twins that were playing together in a corner.

“It takes time, Wanda, don’t rush yourself.” Natasha then nodded at the twins. “They will get there, and you too.”

“Thank you for everything, the house was…it was amazing.” She then made a face, she wasn’t sure if she should mention the fact her neighbour was a bitch, Natasha noticed her expression and squeezed her arm softly.

“What is it?”

“Oh, nothing just…I have an encounter with this woman, she was a total bitch and…I think that’s the only bad thing that happen to me since getting here, you know?”

Natasha chuckled shaking her head, “well, I’m glad that’s the only bad thing so far, bitchy people are all around the world you just have to ignore them.”

Wanda shrugged nodding, she hesitated for a moment before following Natasha out of the nursery and down a long hall connecting to the main building.

“You will be with the seniors class, they are…special.” Natasha hesitated for a moment before laughing at Wanda’s expression. “Special as in they are in advanced levels but on different fields, not as in troublemakers.”

Wanda made a face shaking her head apologetically, “I didn’t mean…I mean, all children deserve a fair treatment, and being difficult is just part of their grow process or…”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand me, every single student in this place is a troublemaker.” Natasha commented, her lips never loosen up the smile adorning her features. “I think that’s the best part of this job.”

Natasha made a brief description of the building and the students, Wanda was listening attentively admiring everything around her. The students would come in greeting Natasha and herself before running down the halls or screaming or laughing, Wanda couldn’t help the smile adorning her features at the familiarity of it all. She remembered still the day she graduated from University and went right ahead to look for a job, weeks after having married Vis; her life had been amazing up until Vis stated he didn’t like her going out so much and always being late or working at home and much less being around so many kids and their parents.

Wanda’s dream of being a teacher soon came crashing down after a school meeting, it had been innocent enough but that day Wanda learned the true nature of her husband and weeks later she quit.

“This is amazing.” Wanda finally commented with a smile, Natasha nodded signalling the black door down the hall. “This will be your classroom, I know your specialty was English and Spanish, but I also know you have some knowledge of Cultural Studies and literature, that’s what I want you to do with them.”

Wanda nodded enthusiastically, she had received the lesson plan for the semester and the study plan for the whole year. These kids were really high advanced in everything they did and her classes would be a way to help them develop critical thinking and argumentation skills during debates; at least that was what Wanda would like to teach them.

“No one knows about your past, Wanda.” Natasha finally said opening the door and handing the key to Wanda, she walked towards the desk were she had organized the files the young woman would need. “You are here with your maiden name, and with a nice backstory, remember that.”

“I will, Natasha. I don’t know…I really don’t know how to thank you for everything you have done for me.” Wanda finally stated turning to the woman, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “I will do my best, I…thank you.”

“Don’t need to thank me, Wanda.” Natasha offered another hug to the woman. “That’s what we’re here for, remember that part of the process is talking about it and you have a meeting with Hope tomorrow.”

“I know, I will be there.” Wanda then leaned back chewing on her lip with uncertainty, Natasha furrowed her brow tilting her head.

“What is it?”

“The twins, I mean…I can’t take them with me but…”

Natasha nodded understanding what Wanda meant, she pointed with her head to the classroom chuckling.

“You have at least twenty teens in this place, you can ask one of them to babysit for you.” Natasha shook her head before Wanda could reply. “You will need a babysitter either way, you can ask around and if you’re still unsure, come over later on and I will help you with that.”

Once Natasha left, Wanda was left alone in the classroom.

This place was like nothing she had seen before, the desks and the walls, the windows and the general decoration was relaxing and actually quite homey. Wanda sat on her desk, the laptop resting there had her name already and the password ended up being her employee ID. She started looking around the different files, the names of her students and what each one of them had been doing up until that point. Natasha was not kidding when she said all of them were gifted in some way.

It wasn’t only about Academy, most of them were either good at sports or arts, some of them were pretty good at politics and science. The good and the bad was included in the files, and Wanda realized that even if everything was looking pretty and organise there were internal problems that sometimes affected the overall performance.

Wanda learned that one of her students was a loner, not a single friend and with absent parents. Another one lost her parents in a car accident and her big sister ended up taken care of her. One of the kids was living with his uncles, and another one found recently he was adopted with a real father that almost killed him when he went to confront him.

Wanda jumped on her chair when the door of the classroom open and a group of girls came right in, all of them talking loudly until they realized the room was not empty.

“Oh, sorry I…we didn’t know there was someone in here already…” America hesitated for a moment, her eyes wide open observing the woman sitting at the professor’s desk.

“Oh, please!” Wanda stood up smiling tentatively at the group. “Come on in, we’re about to start.”

“What’s the delay, Chavez? Move it!” Yelena went right in pushing through the group until she stopped dead on her tracks, scowling openly at the woman standing in the room. “Who the hell are you?”

“Yelena!” Kate and America exclaimed at the same time, Wanda opened her eyes surprised, she took a breath trying to calm down her beating heart.

“I’m Wanda Maximoff, the new teacher.”

______________________________________________________________

Rain had started falling again.

This time around, it was a mild drizzle with low temperatures and strong winds. Wanda sighed looking at the time on her watch walking down the halls leading to the nursery. Even with the bad weather, and with the tiredness of the day, Wanda couldn’t wipe the smile from her face. She was back in the classroom, and she had enjoyed the class itself too much. Her students were smart, they would participate in every activity she proposed and in general the different classes she had given that day had been a success.

It was as if she was recovering a small part of her life she lost all those years ago.

With her body almost giving up, she turned around the corner noticing at that moment the loud conversation at the other end of the hall.

Loki crossed his arms glaring at the five year old boy that was glaring at him equally annoyed, America and Kate both hid their smiles behind their hands while Yelena and Kamala were just waiting exasperated.

“Now!” Loki barked to which the boy shook his head stomping his feet on the ground.

“No!”

Inside the room, Billy and Tommy were watching wide eye the scene, their eyes lit up as soon as they saw the familiar form of their mother coming to the room.

“MOM!” The group jumped at the exclamation; Wanda softened slightly kneeling down to receive the hugs from the twins.

“Professor Maximoff.” America turned slightly, softening under the scene. “Oh, we didn’t know you have children. Hey there, guys.”

America knelt down offering a half smile to the twins, the two boys glanced at her then back at Wanda that was smiling tiredly at everyone.

“Yes, they are Billy.” She said pointing to the boy wearing the green shirt. “And Tommy. Children, these are my students, America, Kate, Yelena, Kamala and Loki.”

Yelena crossed her arms, though she was impressed by the memory of the new teacher. Kate and Kamala did the same as America kneeling down to greet at the twins while Loki and the blond-haired kid were still in a glaring contest.

“Hi.” Tommy mumbled snuggling closer to Wanda, the young woman glanced at Loki then at the kid.

“Are you guys okay? You need any help?” She asked tentatively, America chuckled standing up while shaking her head.

“Nah, this is…like their bonding time, happens every time.”

“Balder refuses to use his jacket, Loki refuses to get him out of here without the jacket.” Continued Kate shrugging.

“And then, Loki would blackmail the kid, and everyone is happy.” Finished Yelena eyeing the woman in front of her.

Wanda lifted her eyebrows half amused and half confused by this, she glanced at Tommy and Billy both of them looking in disapproval.

“I see, guys go for your jackets, we’re leaving.” Wanda watched as Tommy grabbed Billy’s hand dragging him back inside the room.

“They’re so cute, Professor.” Kate offered shyly.

“Thank you, they can be a handful, though.” Wanda replied softening slightly. “Double the trouble, but quite worth it.”

America was about to speak when  Loki huffed lifting his arms in defeat.

“Fine! One ice cream and one chocolate bar, nothing else.”

Balder smirked nodding stretching his little hand to him, before running back to the nursery. Loki shook his eyes glaring at everyone lifting a single finger.

“Not a word.” Loki straightened up directing his usual charming smile to the older woman. “Professor Maximoff, glad to see you around, I hope you have a wonderful day?”

Wanda opened her eyes slightly, her lips curling slightly at the over politeness from Loki.

“I did, thank you, Loki.”

America rolled her eyes, and Wanda realized this was really something that happened on a daily basis. She watched as her children came back in, for a brief moment she hesitated with her eyes dancing around the room then back to the twins.

“Mom, we’re ready!”

“I’m hungry.”

Wanda leaned in putting some strands of hair out of Billy’s face, “I know baby, we’re going home and making your favourite today.”

Billy’s eyes lit up nodding enthusiastically, Wanda straightened up ready to say good-bye when something else pushed inside her mind.

“Well, I think this is it for today,” she smiled at the teens grabbing the twins on each hand, she hesitated for a moment before speaking again, “I hope you kids have a great rest of the afternoon and a nice weekend.”

“Thank you, ma’am, I wish the same for you.” Loki replied bowing his head, Kamala hit him on his arm shaking her head exasperate.

“Stop the theatrics.” Kamala turned to the older woman waving slightly. “Bye, Professor, happy weekend.”

“I didn’t know she had children.” Yelena finally said once she was sure Wanda was out of earshot. “Actually, we don’t know much about her, don’t you think?”

Kamala shrugged writing over her phone, “so what? She deserves her privacy, and I think her class was pretty cool.”

“I’m not talking about that, I know it was cool.” Yelena scoffed crossing her arms. “I just…Natasha has been quite mysterious about this new teacher, and now that we met her well…she didn’t say much about herself when she introduced to us.”

“Don’t tell me you’re suspecting her of something, Yelena.” Kate shook her head bumping into the other woman. “I thought she was nice, and quite smart.”

“And beautiful.” Loki chimed in, his eyes glassing over dreamily. “Did you see her eyes? Her hair? Her face?”

America nodded standing beside Loki, Kate shot her a quick glance rolling her eyes.

“I have to agree with Loki, Professor Maximoff is quite beautiful”

“She is hot, I agree.” Yelena made a face when Kamala and Kate glanced at her. “I’m Ace not an idiot, I can say she is hot without wanting to jump her bones…I’m not like these two.”

America and Loki made a face quite offended.

“I don’t want to jump her bones!” America defended herself. “I just think she is hot!”

“I wouldn’t say know, she doesn’t look that old, but she has children, ergo she is married.” Loki replied shrugging.

“That and Sylvie probably kills him if she finds out.” Kamala mumbled chuckling, Loki flushed ready to reply until Balder grabbed his hand putting on him.

“Are we ready, Loki?”

“Let us not discuss this anymore.” Loki glared at Kamala who was about to reply with a teasing smile on her lips. “I don’t have more money to blackmail the brat over here.”

“I’m not a braaat!”

The discussion went on between Loki and Balder, America stood right beside Kate making sure Yelena dragged Kamala down the hall with the arguing from the brothers filling up the emptiness in the building. Kate turned to America, her smile growing big when she noticed the other woman looking at her with some nervousness noticeable in her posture.

“What is it?”

“Oh, no, I just…” America hesitated for a moment, she had the whole speech prepare until her eyes fell on a small lump on the ground. “What’s that?”

Kate sighed rolling her eyes, she turned to see America standing up with what look like a blue blanket with cars and football balls on it.

“I think that’s a blanket,” Kate said chuckling while looking around the place then back at America. “Do you think this belongs to one of the kids from Professor Maximoff?”

America shrugged turning around before grabbing Kate’s hand, “come, let’s see if she is still in the parking lot.”

Kate flushed nodding, her hand closing tightly around America’s one.

Wanda massaged the bridge of her nose, Tommy was complaining and she just noticed his favourite blanket was not with them. She was trying to think of a solution, she couldn’t go back to the building without putting the children out of the baby seats the rain was starting to fall harder and faster, and she was already soaking wet from the effort of putting them protectively in the car.

Thunder broke into the sky, Billy opened his eyes with tears forming in his eyes. Wanda was about to say something when her name being called made her look back. She could see America and Kate coming over, one of them holding a familiar sight.

“Oh, God, you found it!” The relief was quite evident in her face, America stood there breathing hard passing over the blanket with a smile.

“I think this is yours.”

“You don’t know how much I love you right now.” Wanda exclaimed going back in to hand the item over to Tommy.

America blushed lightly smiling sheepishly at her new teacher, Wanda was a mess at the moment but she smiled tiredly at both teens.

“Thank you, really, Tommy…he can’t sleep without that.” Wanda then opened her eyes wide looking around then pointing at her car. “Do you guys need a ride? You can’t go around with this weather…”

“Oh, no, no, don’t worry, Professor, we just thought we bring you this and then…we…go back…”

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t mind, and it’s the least I can do…” Wanda started but Kate shook her head smiling politely at her.

“Don’t worry, Professor, really, my car is down the other parking lot.”

America furrowed her brows, then she too nodded at Wanda who smile at them.

“Okay, then, go. This rain could be bad for you guys.”

Before Kate and America could walk away, Wanda straightened up loosing her nervousness and her inadequacy with the situation itself.

“Kate! America!” the teens stopped turning around with questioning glances on their faces. “By any chance, do you know anyone interested in a babysitter job?”

America blinked a couple of times at the question, she could see the question in Wanda’s eyes as well as the small hint of desperation in her green eyes. Without thinking too much, America nodded with her lips curled into a smile.

“I am.”

Kate opened her eyes for a moment before frowning slightly, Wanda’s expression lit up and relief was quite evident in her eyes.

“You do, really?”

“Yeah, sure, when do you need me to help?” America said letting go of Kate’s hand for a moment before putting her phone out.

“Oh, well, if it is not too short notice, tomorrow at around 2pm?”

Kate crossed her arms looking everywhere but at America or their new teacher, she tried to scare her thoughts away. She tried to convince herself this was America being America and always ready to help everyone; but she couldn’t help but remember the conversation they held in the nursery.

She is hot.

So what? Professor Maximoff was off limits, right? First, she was a teacher, and second you was an adult, probably the same age as America’s sister so…Anyway, why did it bother Kate so much? It wasn’t as if America and her…as if anything was happening…

“Hey, Kate, you okay?” Kate jumped shocked, America was standing in front of her with a creased of her brows.

“yeah, you…” Kate shook her head noticing they were alone in the parking lot, under the rain of mid-afternoon. “You ready?”

“Yeah, Professor Maximoff said she will text me later for the details.” America said smiling. “You know? I just thought, she needed help and…”

“Right, and America Chavez jumped right into the rescue. As always.” Kate huffed stepping back and giving her back to the young woman. “Never mind the woman is hot as hell, right?”

“What? What are you talking about?” America was confused, Kate shot her a glare before shaking her head.

“Never mind, come Loki and the others must be waiting for us.”

Kate walked away without looking back at America, and America felt something was amiss with the sudden change of attitude from Kate but, for her life, that she couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

On her car, driving down the streets through the rain and the babbling from the twins Wanda smiled in relief. She had solved the problem for the babysitter, and her appointment with Hope Pym could take place without any issue.

Finally, it seemed as if the world was smiling at her, and her life was going back to what it should have been.

The incident of that morning completely forgotten.

______________________________________________________________

[ros3ybabe]

Daily Check in - October 18th, 2023 🎀

Hello my lovelies <3

Here's a little update for today!! It feels nice to be posting again!

🩷 What I Ate Today -

Breakfast - southern style hashbrowns with ketchup, a cup of coffee

Pre Workout snack - one medium banana and a 3/4oz single serve cup of jiffy peanut butter, 1/4 scoop of preworkout (in water ofc)

Lunch - 1 large bowl of protein pasta w 2 slices of buttered bread, a coffee

Dinner - 1 bowl of spicy ramen with a small handful on shredded cheese

Snack - 1 bowl of mint chip ice cream

Extra - 3 cups of coffee TOTAL

Feels like a lot and I did go over my eating goal for the day but it is what it is, I had an emotionally rough day filled with a lot of crying, a therapy appointment, and a lot of calming down from my boyfriend over video call. Rough days happen, and I tend to let myself just feel the emotions in order to sleep easy and have a better next day!

🩷 Personal Accomplishments -

Made it to the gym, attempted a glute workout (left early due to frustration, lack of proerpr form, and to minimize risk of injury)

Wrote down everything I ate and my workouts in my new fitness and health journal

Showered

Did both morning and night skincare routines

journaled a little bit

brushed teeth

did a large load of laundry and put away all clean clothes

washed dishes

had a therapy appointment

cleaned up parts of room, put away new stuff

There were no academic accomplishments bit I am going to complete a good amount of homework before my cooking shift (for my cooking class) tomorrow. I've been trying to take it easy in a way that doesn't set me behind in my academics.

I broke down crying today with my boyfriend. I realized I've been feeling like such an imposter lately. Like I don't deserve all the good and all the accomplishments I've achieved. Like this life I'm living isn't real or this is the calm before some storm. I just feel so undeserving of everything. I feel inadequate, like I'm not good enough for a lot of thing. I feel like I'm perceived as this good daughter, good friend, good girlfriend, good employee, good student, good person but that it's not actually true? Though my boyfriend and my father have both reassured me that it is true and I am doing good. They've reminded me that I just need patience, discipline, and consistency in my habits and that everything is going to be and already is okay. I'm lucky to have such a loving boyfriend and such an awesome dad, too. The men in my life are the people I look up to most <3

🩷 Personal ToDos, Oct 19th -

morning + night skincare

morning cardio workout at the gym

read a chapter or two of a self help book

shower + brush teeth AM/PM

wash comforter + air dry

morning and night guided journal

morning stretching

Daily journal prompt

zoom call with boyfriend

sleep 6 to 8 hours

track all food and fitness in journal

complete 1 duolingo lesson

complete 1 busuu leson

complete 1 kanji review lesson

🩷 Academic ToDos, Oct 19th -

pre lab 8 quiz anatomy lab

lab 7 lab report anatomy lab

component 2 psyc class

nutrition chart: toddler nutrition class

quiz 10 psyc class

culinary nutrition ch 10 quiz

chapter 12 and 13 quiz nutrition class

My goal is to complete all of that between the time I wake up at 5am and 2pm with my morning routine, workout, meals, and getting ready for my cooking thing all in between. But I can do it, I'm not worried. I'll have the time to do it all! I just need to manage my time and not be on my phone as much.

I'm trying to get back into listening to podcasts and watching more producitve and healthy vlogs from youtubers I enjoy! I'm currently watching vlogs and content from Rebecca Jay, Michaela Bento, The Bliss Bean, LenaLifts, truly.jia, Study to Success, Lindie Botes (her earlier language videos), and Mikalya Mags. My favorite podcast is The 5AM Miracle: Healthy Productivity for High Acheivers by Jeff Sanders.

If you have any health, lifestyle, fitness, or productivity youtubers or podcast recommendations please comment them or inbox me so I can check them out!! I am always looking for new content to enjoy!!!

til next time lovelies 🩷

[dipplinduo]

Have you ever scrapped ideas for Sweet & Sour?

Yep!

My process has luckily been more of "transform an idea that doesn't fit" situation for most things, but I'm happy to talk about some of the things that didn't make the cut. Whipping out the notes page...

Lacey was actually meant to be the spotlighted E4 member that gets close to Juliana, not Drayton (hence the focus on her in Chapter 1 & 2). She was actually my favorite at first, and I envisioned her as being a positive, grounding guide for Juliana, and also somewhat of a middle ground influence for Kieran. But then I wrote my spin on the cafeteria scene, and I was like "oh my god wait, Drayton's character is so enticing and flexible, and he's especially fun to insert as an influence in the Kieran/Juliana dynamic". SOOOOOO I quickly decided to pivot and make him the spotlighted one, and have him do more of this brotherly figurer role who was very cunning and comedic. Before I even realized I got overtaken by the iconicism, and now he's just part of my brand in general. Whoops. The "Drayton Being Iconic" tag existed on this blog before this happened so I honestly should've seen it coming LMAO. I do have very important plans for the rest of the E4 and what role they're playing, though :

Don't laugh at this one - it was also early development LOL. I was going to have a party scene where Drayton convinces Juliana to pretend she got drunk (I know) as part of a roundabout and wild way to find evidence that Kieran had a soft spot for her (I KNOW). Kieran was essentially gonna waltz in (to a social event he otherwise never would make an appearance in) and he'd get all flustered as Juliana latches onto him. He would've decided to sweep her away from the party and take him back to his dorm. I ended up scrapping this entirely because while teens do party and all that...yeah, and also we pretty much got the dynamic moments I wanted to portray much better through the chapters where Juliana got sick.

Kieran/Juliana dynamic was also gonna have a moment where Kieran gets it in his head to start flirting with Juliana because he thinks that she’s flirting to get him to put his guard down. And that's where they both kinda were gonna secretly realize their feelings LOL. In hindsight lowkey fire still, but yeah, kinda just didn't have the space for it. We do have flirty Kieran era though, and that's still based.

This one is kinda known already, but originally the Applins were the only stars of the show (hence the name of the fic). I added Ribombee in early on after enough people wanted it and gave it lore/a connection to Kieran and his mother. Before Ribombee was conceptualized, I had different plans for what happened to Kieran's parents (he would still be an orphan regardless).

Briar was originally going to make a "deal" with Clavell regarding getting Juliana to come to Blueberry early, although it wouldn't be revealed until Juliana discovers this later. I scrapped this in favor of something much better because I didn't like the implications it had on Clavell's character, and honestly, only Blueberry is supposed to have the sketchy admin/systematic stuff going on anyways lol.

Kieran was meant to show more obvious signs of sleep deprivation (e.g. falling suspect to illness more frequently, slowed reactions). This idea is still good and realistic, but yeah, ended up leaning more into other symptomology that went well with the toxic chain curse (e.g. irritability, obsessive fixations, self-criticism, overworking himself, fatigue, etc.)

Ribombee was going to sleep powder both Kieran & Juliana in the cave scene of Ch 5. I decided to make it a bit more organic by having Kieran up and reflecting on everything + having Ribombee appearance in a more mystical way. Plus, I thought it would mean more if Kieran & Juliana opted to cuddle up themselves rather than being knocked out. There was a part of me that was worried the dynamic was progressing too fast this way with this change, but it seemed to have landed well! :)

This doesn't really count as a scrapped idea, but related: I 1000% retconned something with the Drayton POV chapters (if ykyk, LOL). But YEP. It's CANON. And frankly it's a decision I personally love that has implications, but also won't screw up the storytelling for where we're at now, either.

There's actually a lot more, too, but like I said: most of my ideas tend to upgrade. And lolololol OMG this is especially true for some major lore stuff. I just don't want to reveal it because I don't want to give y'all hints on where we're going!! LOL.

And also...there are cuter moments I haven't used in S&S and probably won't be able to because I account for what makes sense with the given dynamic. BUT what I do end up doing is taking those unused ideas and putting them into What-Ifs or other stories. There's one I'm particularly thinking of that I was dying to put in S&S D, but I don't think it would trip up the current Kieran as much as it would've in earlier chapters, lol. SO. It's going in The Dichotomy in Our Hearts instead! xD

This was super fun to write, hope it was enough substance for the question! <3

[nextinline-if]

June 25th, 2023 - Chapter 2 Progress DevBlog

I'm pretty disappointed with my progress this week but I had to work late a lot. I started working at a start-up a couple months ago and I really like it but it's been crazy busy. Anyway...

Progress with writing was pretty slow last week. Because the game was beta tested this past week (thank you to those who assisted!), I spent most of my time fixing a bunch of coding errors since I suck. lol. Here's what I did coding-wise (you'll see these changes when chapter 2 comes out):

fixed a bunch of conditional errors and a couple javascript ones where I accidentally added a period (RIP);

re-did some of the color schemes...again. It should be easier to read and I feel like I got the light/dark themes to a better place;

you can now change the font size and you can now choose OpenDyslexic as a font type.

okay, that doesn't sound like a lot. See screenshots at the end for a glimpse!

I wrote 3,293 words... I'm planning to write every day for at least 2-3 hours this week to catch up. Ideally, I would write 2K words a day.

I think there are about 20,000 more words to finish chapter 2? Just my estimate though.

Here is where things stand for Chapter 2...

Word Count (includes some code):

Current demo word count: 59,479

Current word count for just ch 2: 82,920

Total game word count (including ch2): 142,399 and counting...

Next, here's the scene order and what's written/coded/in progress:

Scene 1 - completely written and coded

Scene 2 - completely written and coded

Scene 3 - completely written and coded

Scene 4 - completely written and coded

Scene 5 - completely written and coded

Scene 6 - completely written and coded

Scene 7 - completely written and coded

Scene 8 - completely written and coded

Scene 9 - completely written and coded

Scene 10 - partially written and partially coded (sorry no percentage, I hate math)

Scene 11 - in progress (4 main branches)

Scene 12 - completely written and coded

Scene 13 - completely written and coded

Additionally, because I was so busy, I forgot to log in to Patreon and pause it. I've had it paused for a couple of months because I don't have time to do extra content and I don't want anyone to pay for no reason! However, I slipped up, so I went ahead and left it open right now and uploaded the current build with the incomplete chapter 2. I don't recommend anyone subscribe just to play it since it's not done but it's there in case someone wants to or is already subscribed. I anticipate adding a couple more scene variations next week.

Below are a few screenshots of what the game looks like. There's even a snippet of a scene from Ch2. It's not super different! But I think it looks better?

Oh, if you want to read a couple beta tester thoughts, keep looking, otherwise, thanks for taking the time to read!

Thank you and I hope you all have a great week <3

[deceptive-daydreams]

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7 | Ch. 8 | Ch. 9 | Ch. 10 | Ch. 11 | Ch. 12 | Ch. 13 | Ch. 14 |

Smoke Signals

Chapter Fourteen - A Merry Little Christmas

W/C: 7.5K

Eddie x Fem reader - Grumpy!Bartender!Eddie x Shy!Reader

Have yourself a merry little Christmas…

(Cover) Phoebe Bridgers

Warnings: mentions of bad childhood, mentions of parent’s death, issues with mental health, allusion to a suicide attempt, self harm but not, just appears to be, blood, let me know if I missed anything. In all fairness this is a heavy chapter in the beginning. Oh and also, smut 👀

A/N: this took literally forever to write…only because I couldn’t write for like months lmao. But I spent all day basically fleshing most of this all out and there’s a lot of emotion put into it and not too much editing cause I already overthought everything I wrote as I wrote it, dare I say I put my whole fuckin pussy into this chapter. Next chapter will be the final one in the series 😭

Masterlist

Prev |

Christmas Eve was supposed to be different this year.  

A senseless daydream.  

It was dad’s last kick to his gut, he knows it.  Eddie finally had a good thing going for him but alas the Munson’s were cursed and he could never escape.  This was some kind of final revenge for not hanging around like a lost puppy though it wasn’t even his choice to leave Hawkins in the first place.  It didn’t matter, life never spared Eddie a precious moment.  

So he sat there, salty tears still somehow leaking out of him despite how tired he was, despite how wrong it felt.  Last week his dad was the most hated man in his life.  And last week he was suddenly dead.  It didn’t make sense, the devastation that consumed Eddie.  All he knew was that sunlight began leaking through the blinds and dotting the floor.  Birds were chirping annoyingly outside and his skin started to feel like cold cuts and despite how uncomfortable it made him, he couldn’t find it in himself to get off his ass and at least put a sweatshirt on.  

He had promised you breakfast, down the road at that little diner called Reggie’s.  Promised to get you the biggest stack of pancakes covered in whipped cream and all kinds of sprinkles along with the best, artery clogging bacon you would ever taste.  Maybe some scrambled eggs and hashbrowns.  

Whatever you wanted. 

He hadn’t seen you in days, not since the recent news broke.  His excuse of harboring the flu was not how he wanted to start daily phone calls with you.  He knew you would then mistake the stuffiness in his voice for phlegm and not his inner sorrows burrowing their way out of him.  He refused your offer to bring him homemade soup and hot tea, rejected the kindness he hadn’t deserved in the first place.  Told you that he just wanted to get healthy quickly and it wouldn’t do either of you any good to both be sick.  He left you in charge of the bar, much to Jett’s disdain, Eddie didn’t need you to confirm that for him he just knew.

Now just standing up seemed impossible.  Shifting his position on the couch to at least relieve the pressure against his tail bone wasn’t plausible.  And for what?  For a man that never gave an inch when Eddie gave him miles upon miles, practically handed over his life on several occasions.  Pathetic, he knew.  But the pain didn’t cease and he couldn’t even find it in himself to turn his head to check the time.

This was it.  

This was how you were going to come face to face with the fact that Eddie was no man.  Not a real one anyway, a facade if anything.  He could just picture it: you would await his knock at the door and it wouldn't come.  A giddy smile would spread across your face as you thought about your plans of going sledding together–he sees it so vividly in his mind.  And then you would be massively disappointed when he couldn’t deliver.  The creases at your eyes when you got overly excited would cease to exist at the mere idea of him.  He had it coming, he just didn’t think it would be so soon.

Eddie told you he was feeling better.  It was a lie.  He never had the flu.  He didn’t feel better.  He wanted to die.  And the man responsible for it wouldn’t even give a shit had he still been alive.  Now he was dead and Eddie was the one suffering.

And so his neglected stomach grumbled, his incoming stubble itched though he couldn’t find a fuck to give even in his discomfort, and the whiskey bottle ran dry far too soon.  His brain had been clogged with wishes and what he could’ve done, then declarations of it never being enough, a constant tug-of-war that migraines were made of.

He never stood a chance, his DNA had always been coded like a mutant, at least that’s how it felt deep in his bones.  There was always something off, he never resonated with life in general how everyone else did.  A flaw in the system.  And he built his entire being off of it, afterall he never had any control over the way he was perceived so what option did he have?  

Several.

He thought to himself.  

You could have gone to school, shown up.  

Could have stayed out of detention.

Gotten arrested less.

Not get arrested at all.

Could have said no.  So.  Many.  Times.

In all honesty he wanted to blame his old man but he couldn’t stop taking the hits for him even in death.  He couldn’t stop making excuses.  Any normal person would feel relief but he felt nothing but remorse.  For what, he couldn’t exactly piece it together.  Maybe it was a hidden desire to fix him, a glimmer of hope that he could make him turn his life around like Eddie had.  It would never happen, he was well aware, but a certain childish hope clung onto him, tugging on his sleeve, begging himself for reasons.

Until familiar curls similar to his own and an aura of the gentlest kind clouded his vision.  He could nearly hear her voice, smooth as butter and warm as the summer sun when he was a freckled kid.  Rosy cheeks and beautiful chocolatey brown button eyes to match his.

What’s the matter darlin’?

And he just sobbed.  And remembered.

Morning pancakes and the blues.  Muddy clothes and bubble baths laced with melodies.  Kitchen table haircuts, the softest voice humming in his ears, half inch curls littering the linoleum.  Dancing in the living room.  Refusing to eat his broccoli until she told him they were tiny trees.  Walking hand in hand to the corner store for milk and eggs, the promise of a sucker waiting for him at the cash register widening his innocent grin.  Late night cereal bowls when sleep wasn’t an option and nothing did the trick except some off brand Lucky Charms and tales of dragons and fantasy lands he wished they could run away to.

Then he remembered.

Him.

Stumbling into the kitchen on those nights more often than not, spewing nonsense.  Breaking the refrigerator door as he tripped while seeking another beer.  That door forever being duct taped and never properly fixed as promised.  Mama coaxing dad to bed before she slipped into Eddie’s tiny twin bed for the night, most nights.  Dad waking up just to shut the music off in the morning so he could sleep in.  Disappearing for days.

Mama unexpectedly passing and Eddie being so devastated that he didn’t eat for days and willingly waited at the door every day for pops to get home.  Only he rarely did.  Wayne checking in each and every day only to be on the receiving end of a temper tantrum each time.  Years and years of push back.  A clueless kid defending Indiana’s worst dad in the name of seeking some kind of normalcy.  

“My dad has a ton of jobs.”  He would beam, bright eyes and missing teeth.  

The kids would snicker.  Their mocking smiles would be mistaken for a token of friendliness.  And Eddie would once again be disappointed come the end of the day.  Because he’d realized it wasn’t normal to crawl under fences where dad couldn’t fit, to steal expensive things from “higher class pricks” as dad deemed them.  Take your kid to work day had a very different definition in his book.

So Eddie steered away from telling everyone about his dad’s work antics, opted to tell them about how he got to go to the bar with his old man every Wednesday, thinking he’d surely get praise for being considered so mature.  At least that’s how dad described it.  It wasn’t any better and the reactions were only worse.  They called his dad a drunk.  They weren’t wrong but that didn’t make him feel any less enraged.  “Spawn of Satan”, they called Eddie.  Because in truth that’s what his dad was, he just couldn’t comprehend it at the time.  Then came the christening of his formal title, a word so small but so…derogatory with the way it was spat at him.

Freak.

Spawn of Satan sounded so much worse on paper but Freak made his insides hurt.  And as he recounts the events of his life up until now, he tallies everything up.  Closure in some kind of fucked up way.  Childish thoughts of “he was still my dad” try to take over but are quickly replaced by images of their burning house, the records going up and flames and ash coating everything he had left, everything she had left.

Suddenly there’s broken glass scattered across the floor and warm blood trickling down his arm, not by any fault of his own, just pure rage and unknown strength annihilating the poor glass he attempted to drink water with.  Heartbeat in his ear, he swallows thickly and resumes his position against the kitchen cabinet–they’re going to send me back to the asylum.

All over again, even in the afterlife, dad plays his sick jokes.  Gets Eddie into trouble he never sought out–he was just getting water, it was just water and now he looks like the picture perfect case for mental instability.  No one’s seen him for days and–there’s knocking at the door.  He swears it’s not like last time- it can’t be like last time, he didn’t mean it.  This isn’t like back in Hawkins, when he was healing and the courts were making their decisions.  He thought he was a goner, decided to pull the plug to save everyone the trouble, Wayne was at work, Steve was getting him groceries, everyone else was dealing with the end of the world.  They shouldn’t have to worry about me.  With a bottle of prescribed pills in hand.

The knocking turning urgent, conclusions are drawn up in a scattered, tormented mind–surely they’d rip up his contract, the agreement in which he had been assured a promising life anywhere but Indiana.  A life he’d always longed for anyway.  

Be careful what you wish for.  

That goddamn voice taunts him.

The door shakes, manhandled from the other side and he’s forced to confront the final moments before he’s permanently put away.  “One slip up…”  They had said.  It didn’t matter if he told them it was an accident, nothing mattered if it was anyone else’s word against him.  Literally anyone.  As long as it appeared that he was a danger to himself, he was a danger to society. They were probably waiting for this moment: lock up the problem child and throw away the key.  

Cause he was nothing if not a problem.  First and foremost.

Heart beating out of his chest, breath caught in his throat, he could practically hear the sirens whether they be from an ambulance or police car or both, they were coming–

“Eddie?”

It all stopped.  

“Eddie?!”  

There was no accurate way to describe the sob that clawed its way out of his throat, a tortured cry.  The scene before you had been pulled straight out of a horror movie: your beloved Eddie covered in blood, palms pressed into his eyes, stuttered breathing in between sobs.

Upon approaching him he attempted to scoot himself away, glass shards sinking into his hands, a gasp filling the room and you were certain you needed to find someone else to–

“Please don’t make me go back!”

You couldn’t form words.

“I-it was an accident, I-I promise.”  His eyes brimmed with a fear you never could have imagined coming close to witnessing in this lifetime.  “Just–I just got some water-I didn’t mean to break it, I s-swear.  Please d-don’t let them take me.”

Glass crunched under your boots, a slow approach as you crouch in front of the shattered man with the saddest eyes you’d ever seen.  With a shaky breath and careful movements, a silent request to assess his arm and hands is made.  You’re sure your wide eyes can’t be comforting in the slightest though the shock still pulses through you.  

“I’m sorry.” 

“Shh.”  You soothe. 

Forehead pressed to his in a moment of solace, you offer a nudge, nose to nose.  A wordless commitment.  Softness he didn’t know he needed, tender touches of your fingertips to his wet cheek as if to promise a remedy for his aching heart, that you weren’t planning on going anywhere.  You weren’t leaving him like he convinced himself you would or god forbid turn him over to the authorities like he feared.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

–

Glass has been carefully swept three times over, though you were considering a fourth for good measure.  Shards had been plucked from Eddie’s poor hands, your tweezers doing the job just fine after being doused in some cheap vodka he had.  Gauze from a first aid kit you thankfully had in the car had been wrapped around the largest gash in his forearm, not large enough for stitches but large enough to wince at.  He sat there the whole time, staring at the ceiling, the floor, anywhere but your face.  

The silence was heavy, a dense fog that hung low throughout his house.  Someone had to break it but both parties were finding difficulties in voicing the reality of what just occurred.  If either spoke it would make it real.  Right now it was hazy, a question of “are we dreaming or did I just walk in on a suicide attempt?” hung in the air.

He said it was an accident, and you believed him.  There was just so much unanswered and it’s the only thing that came to mind.  Anxious fingers tapped against his own thigh, occasionally twisting his rings round and round while gnawing on his lower lip.  It then dawned on you that he was the most human out of anyone you’d ever met.  

He felt on a deeper level than most.

At the touch of your gentle hand against his, his surprised eyes, parted lips, and hesitance to reciprocate hint that he hadn’t anticipated you sticking around this long after you’d found him.  In the standard of fight or flight, he froze.  Realistically he may have been sitting on his tattered couch while you tended to his wounds, both physical and emotional whether he cares to admit or not, but mentally he checked out the second he found himself surrounded by glass and tears.

“Bambi–”

“You don’t need to say anything.”

You were trying to keep it together.  His croaking voice made that hard.  But in all seriousness it wasn’t fair to throw yourself a pity party in light of Eddie’s current stability.  And you’d reject the idea of throwing him a pity party, wouldn’t even touch the idea, but you would offer him all the empathy your soul had collected in a lifetime.  Even not knowing the culprit of his now dried up tears and stinging hands, you’d go to war for him.  Maybe that was dare you even think it, love.  But that’s a crisis for another time.

“Dad died.”

Somehow the silence became even greater, a gigantic void of confusing thoughts and complicated quick conclusions.  Conclusions you backtracked on immediately.  It wasn’t your decision to declare how he should feel about a man who in your eyes and through his words put him through hell no matter how strong your sense of justice grew.      

“Oh, Eddie, I’m so–”  A soft beginning to a sympathetic apology short lived.

“It’s fucked.”  His voice cracked, stoic face crumbling no matter how hard he tried to rebuild the tough exterior.  “I shouldn’t–”  There’s a pause, an intake of shaky breath.  “I shouldn’t feel bad.”

“You’re allowed to.”

“No, no he ruined fucking–everything.”

“And you’re still allowed to mourn.  Even for as shitty of a person as he was, you were still his son and that meant something to you.”

You wished you could erase the flash of pain that glazed over his eyes; something that tells you he knew every word you spoke to be true but couldn’t quite bring himself to be at peace with it yet.  Dust collected on the coffee table in his eternity of reflection, a melancholy aura blanketing the dark cabin as wind whistled through the chimney like spirits demanding attention.  

“How’d you know?”  He finally asked, timid.

“Hm?”

“I left everyone hanging, they all think I’m out with the flu, how did you pick the exact moment I…”

“Needed someone?”

Eddie nodded, hesitantly, like those weren’t the exact words he would pick himself but they seemed to convey what was necessary.  

“Wayne called me.”  You sigh.  “Said he got my number from Steve.  Everyone wanted to jump on the first plane over y’know?”  At this a trace of a fraction of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth but he did his best to contain it.  “But it’s Christmas, flights are booked, and even then there’s a storm coming in.  Wayne said he couldn’t get a hold of you.”

“So you knew?”

“No.”  You assure, taking care to relax your features.  “Just sounded really worried, didn’t want to air everything out.  He wanted me to check in.  I guess he has some kind of godly intuition.”  You chuckle.

Eddie retracts his hand, and you know you’ve lost him to his inner battle again.  You can only imagine the bloodshed happening within, after all, you were no stranger to deconstructing your own self worth brick by brick.  The traumas he had been faced with were not anything therapy could simply remove like a tumor.  There were no treatments afterward to ensure everything would get better.  You knew this first hand, that you could try and try to get to the root but there was never any way to truly remove it to keep it from ever festering again.  It would appear, it would be when you least expected, at your worst, and it would look you in the eye and test you.

“I’ll be fine.”

Famous last words.  When the host convinces themselves but could never actually believe it to be true in their lifetime.

“But right now you’re not.”

Sabotage.  In his eyes.

“But I will be.  Don’t let me ruin your holiday just because–”

Excuses.  Deterring from the targeted enemy: grief, in the name of saving others the trouble.  A tactic you’d perfected in your years of people pleasing and feeding your tendencies to deflect your sorrows with the intent to appear invisible and self destruct.

“Stop it.”  You demand.

“No, Bambi.  Go to Donnie’s, I’m sure they’ll understand you coming early–”

“Stop.”

Rational thoughts were shoved into a neat little box somewhere else in his mind and you only hoped you could aid in retrieving it before he threw away the key.  Before he decided not even he was worthy of hearing them from himself.  And as he crossed his arms, a stubborn gesture, you braced for impact against his defenses.  His cruel inner monologue and haunted house of a brain.

Big eyes adorned with every brown hue under the sun dissipated into pure darkness.  Cold and black, lacking any of the warmth you’d previously basked in.  He was lost in an underworld he’d been promised to since birth.

“Would you listen to me?!”  Eddie’s jaw clenched in utter frustration and you swear a bead of sweat trickles into his eyebrow.  “I’m not–I don’t wanna be the guy to drag you down.  I’m not gonna be that guy, I won’t do it.  My shit is my shit.”

You weren’t going to become complicit in the reality he’d settled for, the reality in which he felt he deserved scraps and just enough attention to deter himself from going insane.

“And I’m not gonna be the one to leave you while you’re hurting.”  Finally catching his avoidant eye contact, you offer his forearm a squeeze.  A plea.  “Throw me out in the snow, I don’t care but I’m still gonna sit on your porch until you let me in.  I don’t care what holiday it is.”

“Go.”

You try not to take it personal.  It’s not personal.

“Fine.”

The last thing he hears is a slam of the door, refusing to even glance at where you previously sat adjacent to him.  The room turned colder, more vacant.  Even your energy had left with you, none spared for him of course, because why would he be spared anything from your healthy heart?  His was black and blue, barely pumping, and he’d be damned if he was going to let you perform CPR on what he considered an already lost cause.

Do not resuscitate.

As quickly as he’d accepted the death of a budding relationship, the door swung open with aggression to interrupt his mourning, smacking the wall and no doubt breaking through some drywall.  The least of his problems as he watched your determination in setting some stacked boxes on his kitchen counter before exiting again, this time leaving the door wide open.  

It was eerie, the way your second exit was so open ended.  Snow flurries entered and gusts of wind toyed with his curls, his cheeks already hurting a tad with the coldness.  Eddie wasn’t sure what to make of it, you’d dropped off a box of what appeared to be Christmas decorations and what?  Stormed off?  Somehow that hurt even more than the first time, though he’d anticipated the day you would figure out how fucked up he was and retreat.  He could prepare all he wanted but nothing stung more than the actual—

In you came, a box of ornaments under one arm and a small Christmas tree under the other.  And you got to work, setting up the three foot tree right on his coffee table, plugging it in to the nearest outlet and initiating a soft glow of white lights, instantly engulfing the room in a newfound safeness.  The tree needed fluffed and appeared to have bed head, though it still served its cheerful purpose regardless.

Eddie sat with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, on the edge of the couch, eyes shut.  An uphill battle.

“Bambi, what did I tell you–”

“You told me to go.”  You nod confidently, a frown betraying you, pulling at the corners of your mouth.   “And I did.  You didn’t say how long or—or where to go.  But I gave you time to cool off and now you’re gonna either sit and pretend Christmas isn’t a thing or you’re gonna watch the stupid little clay people on TV while I cook dinner and bake.  Either one is good with me but I’m gonna be here whether you like it or not and—“

Before you can look up amidst your rambling, a ringed finger hooks itself in one of your belt loops, tugging you into a warm chest.  

There he is.

Warmth restored in his irises and a semblance of a smirk threatened his lips.  Pale skin rosy in all the right places and endearing eyelashes framing his shy gaze down at you.  Your boy.  

Lips grazed lips, noses nudged into each other, and it all just…made sense.  Bambi and Eddie.  There is not one without the other, not anymore.  Not since you sauntered into his life, demanded a job, puked on him, made him go absolutely insane—

“I love you.”  

It just fell from his tongue.  A promise.

“I-are—are you s—“

“Am I serious?  Is that what you’re gonna ask?”  He nearly mocks your mouthful of syllables.

You nod, gulping.  Not because you’re afraid, no, never.  You’d just never seen such assurance in a single man.

“Bambi…” He tuts.  “You don’t see how bad I’ve got it for you?”

All you can manage is to dumbly bat your eyelashes up at him, mouth hung open like a fish and fists clutching the front of his shirt unknowingly, though he doesn’t mind in the slightest if you stretch out his collar.  

“Bad.”  He reiterates.  “So bad, that even if you don’t feel the same, even if you only like me out of pity—“

“I don’t—“

“I’m not finished.”  Your attempted interruption has him thumbing at your bottom lip.  “Even if you only like me out of pity, I’ll take it.  And I’ll run with it.  Far.  Because I’m pathetic—“

“You are not.” 

“I’m a pathetic man.  Who is deeply in love with you, Bambi.”  

“Stop saying you’re pathetic.”  You challenge quietly, a delicate hand tracing the stubble of his jaw.

“Oh, but I am.”  He breathes, leaving no room for argument when he presses his lips against yours as if it were his last chance.  

Did he believe it was his last chance?

And without thinking, tongues collided, teeth clashed, he had backed you into the wall and there was no telling how you found yourself palming him over rough denim, a whine escaping his throat before you’d barely touched him.

A pathetic whine dare you say.

“Sorry, sorry.”  You gasp, string of saliva connecting you like the invisible string you believed tied you to him all along.

“Don’t—ow!  Jesus fuck.”  Eddie winced, shaking his hand in the air after attempting to cup your blushing cheek.  “Forgot I had fucking…glass in my hand earlier.”

You giggle, a saccharine sound, a melody in his ears that he yearned to make more of.  Embarrassment traces your features, brows pulled into a worrisome look while you hold your hands close against your chest, afraid of further touch much to his dismay.  

“Can you…can you do that again?”  He whispers.  Terrified of the consequences but brave enough to face the rejection.

Nodding, your slow hand reaches for his cheek, thumb grazing over it before trailing down his neck.  His breath hitches, your hand traveling lower and lower, over his chest and down his stomach, exploring all that you’ve so desired only in your wildest  wet dreams.  

Lifting the hem of his shirt ever so slightly, just enough to let your fingers graze his soft skin, your main goal is to tug at that delicious happy trail.  And when you do, he can’t admit to you that he nearly cums in his jeans but you’re certain you’re on the same page when you see his eyes roll back into his skull.

 He can’t control himself when he ruts into you the second your palm meets him once again, beautiful, breathy sighs escaping his pouty, plump lips.  

“Like that, baby?”  You ask, trailing hot kisses down his throat.

“Please.”  A whisper that tells you everything.  “I-I never—no one’s ever—“  He tries to warn you.

“What?”  You encourage, tongue tracing his earlobe.  “No one’s ever taken care of you, huh?”  

“Just my hand.”  Eddie jokes, voice strained.

Guiding him to sit back on the couch, it protests beneath the weight of you both as you crawl into his lap.  Careful fingers toy with the curls at the nape of his neck, patient lips hovering over his.  Doe eyes look up at you, half in admiration, half in hesitation.  

“We can stop.”  You assure him, sweet kisses pressed to each corner of his lips.

“No, no.”  His voice shakes, chest heaving.  “I just—I don’t know exactly…what I’m doing.”  

There’s an undertone of humiliation, the opposite effect you wanted to have on him.  But you were confident that you could make him feel comfortable.  Feel sexy and wanted.

“Let me do the work.”  You whisper against his lips, slowly rolling your hips into him.  “Let me take care of you.”  

He nods, frantically moving to undo his zipper, only to be met with your delicate hands wrapping around his knuckles.  You’re so patient with him, so gentle, so unlike what he’s ever been faced with.

“I said, let me take care of you.”

Feather light kisses pressed to his knuckles, you continue rotating your hips against his, feeling his bulge in between your legs, the friction tightening the knot within you.  His eyebrows knit together, head falling back against the couch’s when you graze your fingertips just below his shirt again.  

Nails gently drag down his torso, eliciting the loudest moan you’ve pulled from him so far.  His injured hands only allow him to take their place in your belt loops again, assisting in setting the pace as you grind against him.

“Eddie.”  You whimper.

“M’ gonna cum.”  He halts your movements, only letting you hover above what was about to be sweet euphoria.  “Wanna be inside of you.”

You can only gaze at him with the utmost love, entranced by his flushed appearance and his damp curls framing his face.  

“Please, baby.  Please, I’ve got condoms—“

You have to stop his babbling by shoving your tongue in his mouth, nodding against him with a grin.  

“You bought condoms?  Boy, are you prepared—“

A playful pillow is tossed into your face, a deep groan coming from your boy.  

“Yes, I’m cautious, baby, please if you don’t sit on my dick right now, if I have to go one more minute not knowing what it’s like…”

“Shhh, okay, okay!!”  You squeal when he attempts to get up only to fail with you pushing back.  You knew damn well he was strong enough to fling you off of his lap should he choose, which only made your underwear more of a mess.

“You wanna go to the bedroom?”  You tease, nuzzling into his cheek.  

Without a second of hesitation, he launches you both off of the couch, palms against your ass only making you wonder how much his hands must hurt and how much adrenaline he must have not to care.  Playfully, Eddie tosses you onto his bed, a pile of unkempt sheets that only seemed that much more comfortable than your own bed.  You could die happily in the smell that engulfed you.  Purely Eddie.  Woodsy and minty.  A tad smoky.  And some hints of apple.

Just when you think he’s about to jump your bones, in every literal sense, you open your eyes to find him carefully adjusting the needle of his record player in the corner of the room.  And then it plays.  A rendition of Can’t Help Falling in Love.  A folkier version, a woman singing with a twang to her voice.  

“Well alright, cowboy.”  You joke, an over seductive brow raising at him.  

“Shut up.”  He grins, crossing his arms to take his shirt off and toss it behind him.  

“C’mere.”  You reach over, tugging at his belt until he hovers over you.  “Wanna see you.” 

“You are seeing me, been here the whole time.”

Quickly, he gathers what you mean as you reverse positions, pushing him back on the bed to trail your lips along his stomach.  Perfectly pretty lips follow along the scars he’d been left with years ago.  The rough texture doesn’t deter you, doesn’t scare you off like he imagined.  While your lips explore his scarred side, your hand delicately traces the dragon tattooed along his ribs on the opposite side.  Inked skin that arose with goosebumps after each touch.

As if he hadn’t already died and gone to heaven, you stop your torment on his body to discard your own shirt, leaving you in only your bra before him.  Careful to grab his hand, you drag his fingers down your chest, in between the valley of your breasts, down, down, down until you let him dip into your pants.  Beneath your damp panties, collecting slick before he catches on your clit, a moan falling so desperately from your lips.  

“F-feel what you do to me?”

It aches.

His finger sits pressed against your throbbing clit, teasing in a way he has no idea about yet.  But he will and you’re not quite ready to relinquish that power to him…yet.  

You can’t handle the confines of clothing any longer, releasing your breasts as you unhook your bra and toss it to the side.  His eyes grow, lips parted in awe.  And when you go to shimmy your jeans off, the friction against his hand pulls a mewl from you, something so pretty and real.  

You’re completely bare, prey for him to claim although he doesn’t, he lets you have control.  And then you remove his hand, only to drag yourself over his denim covered thigh, slick coating the material without much effort.  

Catching his eyes, you watch as he brings his finger up to his lips, tongue wrapping around the digit with a moan of approval.  That’s when you decided you couldn’t drag it on any longer.

His belt buckle clinked against itself as you worked to yank his jeans down, practically drooling for his cock, drunk on the mere idea of even seeing it.  Plaid boxers ignored, you pay attention to the way it slaps against his stomach, already leaking and red.  Painfully aroused.

He barely survives when you decide to lower yourself and lick a long stripe up the underside, twitching against your tongue.

“B-baby, please.”  While grinding into nothing, poor boy.  “Wanna cum, wanna cum so bad.”

He’s been taunted enough, breaking a sweat as he lays there, fisting the sheets in his hands.  You’ve nearly brought him to tears and you’ve barely touched him.

Leaving open mouthed kisses along his reddening chest, you finally offer some relief, ripping open a condom he’d somehow grasped in his hand the entire time, rolling it onto him, and sinking down, swallowing him into your warmth.  Eddie makes the prettiest sounds, small almost hiccups and gasps.  Slowly, you work your hips against him, clit rolling just right against his pubic hair. 

He’s big, stretches you out and hits just the right spot.  Hips stuttering, he places his hands on your waist, cut hands be damned.  Eddie’s close, has been this entire time, but he can’t contain himself the second you lick up a bead of sweat from his chest to his collarbone.  The site is simply too pornoraphic for his inexperienced dick, hot cum filling the condom.  The moan he lets out as he finishes only encourages you, gets you going faster in the limited time you now have before he softens.  

Automatically you reach down to play with your clit, knowing it’ll push you over the edge though he realizes and beats you to it, a rough finger circling you in a pleasant rhythm.  Overstimulated whines fall from him but he doesn’t quit giving you what you need, what you so desperately desire.  

Then all at once, pleasure crashes down around you, pulsing around him, leaving you twitching and panting.  The record stopped playing however long ago, the silence pulling you back into the realm of Eddie’s bedroom.

 Nothing needs to be said, words aren’t on your minds.  Excuses for what just occurred are nonexistent because if you’re being honest, it was sewn into the timeline no matter what.  Forever embedded into the universe in every lifetime.  Heavy breaths carried a symphony during the cool down, sweaty chests pressed together, sticky and salty.

Absentmindedly your foot grazed against his hairy shin, fingers dancing along his chest and arm.  His bicep was toned, something you were never able to appreciate up close before but would now take all the time you wanted.  You wanted to memorize every detail of his body, every freckle, hair, and birthmark.  All of him.

His lazy hand let his fingers trail up and down your spine, writing letters unknown to you but etched into his brain for as long as he knew you.  He held a new appreciation for intimacy, something he sourly wrote off early on but now would cherish deeply.  

Girls never liked him but if he could go back in time and show younger Eddie the one girl who would ever matter to him, well he imagines younger Eddie would still be a naive dipshit about it but he could try nonetheless.  Supposes he would hit him with a “it gets better, kid” and all that sappy shit.  Something like “you’re gonna marry this girl”.  That would be okay to jump the gun on, right?

–

Cinnamon and chocolatey aromas couldn’t completely wash away the somber haze although it was fairly close.  Post sex air somewhat helped as well, though you weren’t banking on it, it wasn’t a solution, more like a deterrent that hadn’t been planned on either part.  

The little plastic tree on the coffee table decorated with years old ornaments wasn’t going to heal the bruising on an ever healing heart.  Christmas classics played on the TV but you knew Rudolph wasn’t going to erase a lifetime's worth of childhood trauma.  

It could help though.  And that’s all that mattered.  If watching Christmas classics only aided in healing a millionth of the wounds, then it was worth doing.  If decorating his once dark and depressing house with twinkling lights and garland only brought out a smidge of the inner child that needed help healing, then it was worth it.  

While Eddie slept in, you played Santa even if just with one gift, leaving it next to the coffee table, too large to fit under the small tree.  Though it didn’t start out perfect, Christmas was starting to look very familiar.  Baked goods sat out on top of the stove, cinnamon rolls, croissants, the works.  Eddie’s shitty little kitchen radio played Christmas tunes which you found yourself humming along to.  

You’d thrown together some maple bacon, drizzling actual maple syrup on the strips in hopes that they’d candy in the oven, which they did.  Hash browns sat in the skillet, slightly burned but at least there was ketchup in the fridge to cover up the burnt taste.  Snow blanketed the streets outside, snowing you in although you didn’t mind one bit.  

You’d called Donnie, heard the commotion over the line at her house, family members causing a ruckus in the background as she made pancakes.  While you were supposed to be with everyone this morning, she assured you all was well and you could hear the smirk in her voice.

Emerging from his room, Eddie’s bed head is the first thing you greet.  Curls sticking out every which way, bangs defying gravity.  Lines ran down his face, imprints from the sheets and his boxers hung low on his hips.  A dream.

“Merry Christmas to you too.”  You giggle at the way he squints in the early morning sunlight peeking through the window.  

Stretching his arms over his head, you’re forced to witness the way every muscle flexes, drool nearly falling from the corner of your mouth.  It doesn’t go unnoticed but he decides it can be addressed later.  

“Merry Christmas, did you get me some fucking curtains so I can actually see?”  He laughs, voice husky with sleep.  

“No but I can do you one better—“

“I was joking Bambi, I wasn’t actually expecting any—“

“Next to the table.”  

Your grin makes him want to run directly to you and spin you around, kiss you a few dozen times, and never leave this bubble you two have created.  Instead he hesitantly steps toward the previously mentioned gift, a large gift at that, wrapped thoughtfully in reindeer paper and complete with a large red bow.  He felt like an asshole.

“I—no I can’t—“

“Open it.”  

Eddie just stared. 

“Eddie, it’s Christmas, first thing you do is open gifts!”  You smile, approaching behind him.

Then he disappeared back into his room, the sound of him rummaging the only thing letting you know he hasn’t retreated just to hide from you.  When he walks back out, he’s hiding something behind his back, a nervous smile tugging at his face.  

“I swear—I was going to wrap it, I just—I don’t have an excuse.  I just didn’t.  I’m sorry.”  His large brown eyes plead with you, begging for forgiveness that he didn’t need to beg for in the first place.

As if defeated, he hands you a stack of records, several that probably cost a good paycheck.  And you can tell he feels it’s not even enough with the way he avoids your gaze.

“Um, it’s probably stupid, it’s just, they’re records that made me think of you.  I dunno, it’s dumb, music is just—“

“I love you.”  You interrupt.

Without another word you grab the records from him to momentarily set them on the table.  Before he knows it you're smashing your lips against his, passion being poured into every breath he takes against you.  Your hands cup his cheeks, still slightly stubbly but cute.  He wraps his large hands around your wrists, hissing at the slight sting but continuing. 

“You’re not just saying that—“

“I.  Love.  You.”  You enunciate each word with a peck.  “Point blank.  No exceptions.  You’re stuck with me old man.”

“Old man?  We’re like the same age—“

You’ll never forget the amusement on his face but what attracts your attention next are the records.  A huge stack of them.  All genres.  Some Elvis, ones that hadn’t made it in your collection yet, a few that seemed more his taste, metal.  It was a universal language and it was his preferred way of feeling.  That much you could gather.

“Um, yeah, if you don’t like them I can just…”

“Don’t like them?”  You scoff.  “I love them.”

You hold them close to your chest, as if they were books and you were in high school.  You suppose you could be what with the way butterflies erupted in your stomach.  He made you feel like you were in high school, gave you a sense of youth that had been skipped over previously.  

And he was blushing. 

“Well, uh, I just thought you know…music does a lot for me.  I picked some out that I knew you’d like.  Also put some that I like in there, I dunno why, you don’t have to listen to them.”

“Oh, we are listening to them.  Right after you open your gift.”

More blushing.

Eddie takes a few glances at the gift, as if it were there to test him.  Like Pandora’s box or something.  Then he crouches down beside it, hesitantly reaching out to peel back the paper.  A giddy grin rests on your face, records still clutched in your hold.  His face says it all once he’s torn through enough paper.  It’s a guitar case, that much he can tell, eyes nearly popping out of his head.  Then he opens the case, revealing a cherry red electric something that you couldn’t memorize the name of but all you knew was that he had his eyes on it for months before you even entered the picture.  At least that’s what the guy at the thrift shop said. 

“No fucking way.”  He smiles, half laughs.  Then repeats himself.  Over and over.

“Do you like it?”

Instead of receiving verbal confirmation, you’re nearly tackled, strong arms wrapping around you and swinging you around.  Laughter erupts from deep within you, Eddie setting you down just to kiss you deeply and with so much care you figure you’ll faint.  

“I love it, I love you.”

Later that morning, frosting coats his lips then transfers to yours in a quick kiss across his tiny dining table.  The bacon is devoured, mostly on his account, and those claymation Christmas classics elicit laughter like no other.  Deep belly laughs from the man whose legs you sit in between.  His shirt rests comfortably on your torso.

He calls Wayne, puts it on speaker, and effortless banter occurs between you three.  Wayne tells his boy to behave, wishes him a Merry Christmas, apologizes that times have been so shitty and that his flight had been canceled.  Thanks you for being there to ground his boy, tells you how much Eddie’s friends have gone on and on about you two, that he can’t wait to meet you.

Then you call up your family back home, more than likely all crammed in the same house, doing puzzles, arguing over stupid things, throwing wrapping paper everywhere.  You miss it.  But you wouldn’t trade your place right now for anything.  Eddie timidly and adorably chimes in, says hi.  Makes small talk with mom and grandma.  Grandma begs him to take a look at her station wagon when he makes his way over with you for a visit some day.  No question about it, he’s going and that’s final, according to her.  He doesn’t seem to mind though, a shy smile pulling at his lips.

Lastly you call up the gang.  Nancy answers, says everyone’s at their house as usual.  Shouting between Dustin, Steve, and Mike is heard in the background.  Something about a broken sled.  Robin takes the call hostage, telling you both about the juicy gossip amongst the group.

“And then Max—you haven’t met Max yet, Bambi, but Max left Lucas a—shit you haven’t met Lucas yet either.  This would all make so much more sense then.”

There’s talk of a summer trip, something fun everyone can join in on.  Kind of like summer camp except Nancy would of course be the ring leader by default.  She would more than likely assign the adults as camp counselors unofficially.  Eddie’s face lights up, tells her about the perfect campsite not far from his house.  Beautiful in the summertime.  Then looks at you, shares a dimpled grin and runs his thumb over your knee.

Loved ones called and bellies full, Eddie plays around with his new guitar, and softly in the background, Muddy Waters plays.  One of the records he’d gifted you.

~end~

Masterlist

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tags - @gravedigginbbydoll @ohauggieo @spicysix @lunatictardis @ali-r3n @batkin028 @mrsjellymunson @witchwolflea @emma77645 @emxxblog @eddiesxangel @angietherose @lottie-90 @sheneedsrocknroll92 @pullingattheroots @avalon-wolf @vintagehellfire @cryingglightningg @foreveranexpatsposts @winchester-angel @mmunson86 @witchwolflea @kurdtbean @micheledawn1975 @tlclick73 @erinekc @hazydespair @whenshelanded @corrodedcoffincumslut @ms1oftheboys @lma1986 @uglypastels @aysheashea @dashingdeb16

[saynomorefic]

Simon Month 2024 Masterlist - Saynomore

I'm so happy we all got to celebrate Simon's month together, and I truly can't BELIEVE it's already over. The amount of love that went into each fic, gifset, text post, fan art, and all other mediums is so astounding to me. The amount of talent and love you guys all possess is so unreal. Also, so much gratitude to the audience / readers for keeping this little community thriving the way it is <3

Simon's character is so dear to my heart, so it's meant a lot to me we all got to show this character so much love and attention. I've participated in a few fan events and ficathons, but this has far and away been the most amazing one I've been a part of. Thank you to everyone who has left comments or reblogged my fics, you guys make me smile in disbelief each time. And of course, thank you so much @youngroyals-events for organizing and hosting 💜💜

I've seen others do it, so I'll compile a little masterlist of the ten fics I wrote for Simon's Month 2024. You can find the series here, and each work is listed below.

Day One: Not just pencils // Pencil Case

Simon starts finding mysterious objects in his pencil case. He has his suspicions as to who is responsible. Post Season 1.

Day Seven: Purple like the colors of the moon // Purple

Simon thinks about dyeing his hair. (Other people have feelings about it.)

Day Eight: Gross negligence // Identity & Discrimination

Simon (finally) gets interviewed about his experience with discrimination and harassment at Hillerska.

Day Ten / Day Seventeen: Chasing waterfalls (1/2) // Travel, Venezuela

Ch 1: Simon and Wille hike Salto Ángel (Angel Falls) in Venezuela.

Ch 2: Rosh receives a suspiciously royal letter.

Day Seventeen: A fresh start // Friendship (bonus: Secrets)

Simon and Felice finally have *that* conversation.

Day Nineteen: As Wilhelm awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed into a fish // Fish

Basically Kafka's The Metamorphosis, except Wille freaky fridays into one of Simon's fish after Erik's death.

Day Twenty-Two: Labor of love // Labor Day

Sara goes into labor, naturally, on Labor Day. Simon is about to be an uncle, and Wilhelm is Sara's distracting pediatric nurse.

Day Twenty-Seven: When I'm in your arms // Physical Touch

It was that promise that he held onto in their weaker moments. That Wille’s words and actions were unreliable narrators when they always ended up in each other's arms despite not trying to, despite trying not to. Simon reflects on physical touch throughout his relationship.

Day Twenty-Nine: He sees stars and rocketships // Stars

Simon (accidentally) eats a weed brownie, Wilhelm is worried until he isn't, and somehow stars are involved.

Day Thirty-One: Photo flash focus record // Photos

When Wille started his photography class all those years ago, Simon had been more than wary. Wille began with nature photography, but he needed someone to practice on for the portraits unit. Being the good boyfriend that he was, Simon had swallowed his feelings and volunteered. That's how it started, anyway.

Thank you so much for reading <3 Don't be a stranger and come say hi!