#i have a whole folder of him from this interview
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it takes two.
spencer deals with a lot on the field, but nothing can prepare him for when heâs stuck inside a locker with you.
pairing :: spencer x fem bau!reader
warnings :: 18+ due to sexual themes but no smut, slight claustrophobia triggers
word count :: 2.2k
authorâs note :: inspired by a scene from s9e23, i'm imagining spencer in a fitted collared shirt and tie, reader wears a skirt
accompanying song :: stuck between by dutch criminal record
ânothingâs showing up on vicap. iâve cross-checked records against everything youâve mentioned, sir, but thereâs literally nothing. zilch,â you hear garcia let out an exasperated groan as she ferociously taps at her keyboard.Â
you watch as hotch kneads the skin between his brows with growing impatience while morgan starts to pace around the room. youâre not doing any better yourself, your stressed-out fingers threatening to tug at the strands of hair neatly holding your ponytail together.Â
itâs too frustrating. the leads are clearly there, but your team is lacking the final puzzle piece to complete the profile, to confirm that itâs someone in the department thatâs deliberately injecting themselves into the investigation.
âyour answer is probably written down on paper. ugh, i hate when bad guys try to act all smart,â garcia fumes, and sulks as she gives an apologetic wave from her side of the screen. hotch nods, relays a thank you, and cuts the call before rounding the whole team together.
âthink about it, those two are the perfect scapegoats. all of these agents have everything to lose, so why not just blame them? theyâve been in and out of cells already, and it makes perfect sense to craft a narrative thatâll point fingers at them,â morgan starts, making small gestures as he speaks with his signature cadence, topped with a honeyed rasp.
âand theyâve got all the authority to influence the publicâs opinion,â jj nods in agreement.
âwe need to try to get those two to talk again, but we also have to take extra precautions. jj and prentiss, go interview them one more time to see if theyâll spill any names. morgan, i need you to work with garcia to look for other possible leads. reid and l/n, go to the records room to review the files of the agents working with us. dave and i will try to hold down the fort,â hotch instructs, nodding at each of you as he rolls out the orders.Â
âand try not to draw suspicion. if all else fails, say that you need to run to the bathroom,â rossi adds with a wink. it always amazes you how calm the italian agent is during such high-pressure situations, a trait youâve grown to immensely appreciate.
âshall we?â you say as you nudge spencer, and he hums back in response. you bid a wish of good luck to emily and jj and traverse the hallway to the records room with the doctor, your heels clacking beside the cushioned steps of his slightly worn converses.Â
after looking left and right to make sure no oneâs around, spencer opens the door. you silence the sounds of your heels as you follow inside, and let the bolt of the lock plunge into the frame by slowly closing the door.Â
âalright, you take the left, iâll take the right,â you whisper, and spencer gives you a thumbs up.Â
the two of you work silently and as fast as possible, sifting through the piles of records that lie on the tables and beside the cabinets. you feel your heart jump into a cartwheel every time a sheet of paper slips out of the manila folders, the sounds of rustling and creasing setting you on edge.Â
âi found mcgregor and drew, but i donât think itâs either of them,â spencer declares with a voice that isnât supposed to sound loud at all, but it feels hundreds of decibels higher than the bare whisper you spoke with earlier.Â
âokay, i found weaver and lee, but they donât fit the profile either. letâs continue looking for the other two,â you call back.Â
spencer walks over to you and kneels beside your left to help you with your search. once you spread the folders on the floor, you spot one of the two remaining files, and spencer soon finds the other. youâre about to turn through the sheets in the folder when the doorknob starts to shake, startling the both of you.
âshit. spence,â you blurt as spencer takes his file in one hand and grabs yours with the other, and shoves them into an open drawer. after he slides the compartment back with his careful and nimble fingers, you grab his arm and squeeze into a spare locker. you barely manage to seal the opening shut in time.
you could say that it was quick thinking that saved your and spencerâs cover, since the door jiggles and thrusts open a mere second later.
you never wouldâve imagined that the day would come when you would draw air directly from spencerâs breaths, let alone enclose yourself in the same room as him.Â
and yet here you are, perched on top of spencerâs knee, the scratchy fabric of his trousers resting under the hollow space of your pencil skirt and between your legs. his other leg presses against your side of the wall with an uncomfortable bend, while his chin sits an atomâs width from your forehead.
itâs a nonnegotiable consequence that comes with his tall figure, the way his clothed knee has to rub against your inner thighs under the draped fabric.
one of your hands lies awkwardly on his chest while the other is on his thigh, right above the knee thatâs using you for leverage. your attention immediately shifts to your left when you see the rays of the intruderâs flashlight scope through the room.Â
you stop mid-exhale when the light pours through the gaps of the locker, casting shadows on spencerâs face and your body. he looks stressed, anxiously wetting his lips with closed eyes, face turned away from you.
and he looks overwhelmed. rapid bursts of inhales and exhales fire from his body, likely due to the collar of his shirt being bound tightly around his neck with the tie. with shaking fingers, you slowly reach for his tie, waiting for approval to loosen it.Â
you feel his forehead bury into the cave of your shoulder, and he whispers his desperate ask into your ear: âplease.â
despite the lack of light around you, youâre able to locate the small end of his satin tie, and you tug lightly. the knot unfurls as you pull, and spencer lets out a small sigh of relief before breathing a low thank you in your ear.
as this happens, you hear the intruder surf through the piles of papers, unlocking drawers and lifting boxes left and right. hurry, hurry, hurry, you pray desperately in your head. beads of sweat start to form at your temple and threaten to fall down to your exposed neck, which happens to be situated directly in spencerâs line of sight.
âcome on,â you hear the guest in the room complain, angrily flipping through papers and slamming the cabinets. you think itâs finally time for him to leave when you hear the high-pitched ring of his phone.Â
but your eyes widen when instead of heading to the door, he makes strides towards the locker right across from yours, and leans his back against it before holding the phone up to his ear. holy shit.
âjensen speaking,â he says with a gruff voice, and plays with the button of his flashlight so it turns on and off spontaneously. as the light flickers, it dimly shines the space inside your locker.Â
spencer turns his head to meet your eyes, a panicked expression covering his face. youâre about to mouth a small sorry for the helpless situation youâve dragged him into, but just as youâre about to do so, spencerâs trousers slide against your legs, creating friction so unbearable that you let out a squeak.Â
you freeze, looking up to see spencerâs eyes flash warningly. he instantly clasps your mouth with his hands to cover any further sound from escaping your lips, but with no form of support to maintain his position, he starts to slip, and his shirt lightly skids against the lockerâs slippery walls. this is somehow even worse for you, because spencerâs knee starts to dig further up your legs and into your cotton underwear, forcing you to squeeze your eyes shut.
luckily for the both of you, jensen seems to be distracted by whatever words are being spewed from the other end of his phone call to pay any mind to your suppressed yelps.Â
âi think their agents might be on to us,â he scowls, and you watch from the corner of your eye as he tosses the last of his files into a box and opens the adjacent locker to ram it inside. Â
âyeah, iâll try to stall them for as long as i can. they donât know what theyâre getting themselves into.âÂ
jensen curses and promptly ends the call, returning his phone into the pocket of his shirt. he finally walks to the door, sighing as he twists the knob and steps out. the two of you lie in wait for an additional three minutes before trying anything.Â
âi think weâre good,â spencer huffs, finally opening the locker door with a thud as the sounds of steel clashing against steel echo throughout the air.Â
âyeah,â you nod, taking a breath to collect yourself as you step out. you watch as spencer runs a hand through his hair and moves his fingers down to adjust his tie.Â
he returns the stare, his adamâs apple bobbing when he eyes your wrinkled shirt and scrunched up pencil skirt â which looks more like a mini-skirt with how it sits right below your hips.
âi um, i need some air. how about you?â spencer asks at last, clearing his throat. you bite your lip when he starts to brush the dust off his thighs and knees, the moments of earlier flooding into the back of your mind like the warmth pooling between your thighs.
âyeah, i could use some fresh air too,â you respond breathily, averting your eyes and focusing instead on smoothing out your shirt and retying your loosened ponytail. when youâre done, you turn around and stagger to the door, not looking twice to see if spencerâs following you. an intense flush spreads across your cheeks, and your only viable path of escape is to the bathroom.
âyou, um, missed a spot,â you hear from behind, and you follow spencerâs gaze to see that heâs referring to the back of your skirt.
âoh,â you say as embarrassment swamps you, and you hurriedly pat at the fabric. âdoes that look better?â
âitâs still folded there. if you want, i can- may i?âÂ
the question tumbles from his pretty lips and messes with your head. his hand hovers right around your waist, the same way yours lingered on his tie as you waited for his consent. and his softening eyes. his slightly smoldering gaze looks so innocent and alluring at the same time, your heart starts to feel heavy with the weight of desire.Â
note to self: never wear a pencil skirt again.
âplease,â you utter like a silent prayer, and mentally prepare yourself to endure the test of his fingers against your skin.
as soon as he receives your word, his hand lightly brushes against your thigh and trails down your skin. he takes the hem of your skirt and pulls down, giving several tugs before releasing the stretched garment.Â
he clears his throat when you donât move even after heâs retracted his hand.
âall good now.âÂ
spencerâs words drown out your thoughts and snap you back to reality. heâs already standing by the door, holding it open for you with a patient smile.
âthanks,â you say as you walk out and rub your hands together, nervous for what youâre about to say next. âspencer, um, iâm so sorry about that whole ordeal, it was really unprofessional of me to drag you in there, i wasnât thinking when i-â
âyou did the right thing,â spencer interrupts your ramble with the shake of his head, and his flawless smile pulls at your heartstrings.
âi wouldâve pushed you in there if you hadn't. that doorâs the only way in and out if you donât count the windows,â he continues, slipping his hands into his pockets as he walks you to the elevator.
âoh,â you shyly murmur back, your cheeks flushing with a shade of bright pink as his words pour over you like warm water. he wouldâve pushed you in there if you hadnât?
âyeah, but how about we try a bigger locker next time?â spencer almost reads your mind as he half-mindedly jokes, causing you to drop your jaw in shock. he doesnât acknowledge your reaction, however, because he starts to dial rossiâs number on his cell.
âby the way, the uh, new look suits you. the grey skirt and all,â spencer says with a lopsided smile before he raises a hand to excuse himself and call rossi. youâre saved the embarrassment of responding when rossi accepts the call, but your palms are already profusely sweating at his compliment.
note to self: maybe wear the pencil skirt again.
#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid#criminal minds#spencer reid fanfic#dr spencer reid#spencer reid imagine#criminal minds fanfic#spencer reid x you
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OT13 Reaction -- to you having a fan account
SCOUPS:
he finds it so incredibly adorable that you have a fan acc dedicated to them. he follows it from his burner acc asap, adding it to his list of accs he checks daily. is so surprised when he finds out that he's actually been following the account already, having been using it for updates on seventeen. amazed to know you're the one behind @ svtfanclub.
JEONGHAN:
teases you about it every chance he gets. he insists you're sooo obsessed with him and everything he does. you have to start second thinking everything you post about him, knowing even the smallest thing might set off a firework of omg you're sooo in love, at least hide it better. ik, ik, you can't help it. i'm irresistible. smirks when he sees you typing on your phone, fingers already itching to save the post before you've even posted it.
JOSHUA:
has a dedicated saved folder just for your posts. saves every single one to look back on later. brings them up in daily conversation randomly - you guys could be talking about what to have for dinner and he'd throw in a soooo i saw your latest post, the one with my photoshoot pictures~ turns red whenever he sees you thirsting for him online.
JUN:
singlehandedly turns your svt updates fan acc into a svt meme acc. he sends you exclusive photos of the members whenever he can, urging you to turn them into memes and to post them. cackles reading all the comments and only ever sends you good pics of himself. he refuses to be caught lacking.
HOSHI:
remember when hoshi spammed weverse with horanghae? he will 100% steal your phone and do that on your fan acc. accidentally stirs up speculation about whether or not you know hoshi or if you're trolling your followers. insists you post one photo of him a day, resulting in the acc being more of a hoshi shrine than a svt fanpage (oops.)
WONWOO:
lowkey impressed how routinely your updates are despite your busy life. he's a little embarrassed by some of your more....enthusiastic posts, but he appreciates the amount of love. ends up adding the acc to his phone so ya'll can run it together. he handles all the nomination updates and real other stuff - allowing you to spend your time posting more fun content about the members.
WOOZI:
doesn't really get the point of it. he does his best to understand the hows and whys of running a fan acc, ending up just telling you how much it means to him that you're supporting his work. gives you exclusive mini interviews about his creative process and songwriting, leaving your followers wondering where on earth you're getting these insider info.
MINGHAO:
touched when he notices you have dedicated posts to him and his art projects. scolds you whenever he sees you interacting with haters, reminding you that as much as he appreciates you defending them, violence is not the answer! he's always there to remind you whenever he feels like you need a break for social media, turning off your phone for you and proposing a day out.
DK:
cries as he scrolls through your posts, not being able to take how thoughtful and supportive you are. clings onto you the whole day after he finds out, whispering how much he loves you and how much it means to him. turns on notifications for your posts and smiles whenever he sees them.
MINGYU:
accidentally likes one of your posts thirsting over him with his main acc. panics and deletes it but it's too late - the ever-watching carats have spotted him. sends millions of followers swarming to your acc and he can only shrug when you confront him about it. claims its for media and promotion purposes. sends you exclusive gym pics and thirst traps for you to post - although some of them are too spicy so you keep them to yourself.
SEUNGKWAN:
has that iconic shocked expression when you tell him before taking out his own phone and showing you that surprise! he has one too. the two of you now sometimes coordinate your posting times and interact with each other in the comments. he will tsk with disappointment if a post doesn't met his standards. competitive ass turns it into a competition.
VERNON:
he's not surprised. you seem to know like everything about seventeen already, so it's only natural you help inform other carats! he'll send you trends he thinks you should incorporate into your acc and provides you with behind-the-scenes pics. gets you vip access to any event so you can grab those up close shoots of him and his members - nepo baby(?) at its finest.
DINO:
his ego is boosted to the max when he finds out. loves that you found a way to love him loudly despite your relationship being private. giggles to himself (although he'll never admit it) whenever you post about him and sends your posts into the svt gc for his hyungs to see.
#seventeen ot13#seventeen x reader#svt x reader#seventeen imagines#svt#svt imagines#svt fluff#seventeen#seventeen blurbs#scoups x reader#jeonghan x reader#joshua x reader#jun x reader#hoshi x reader#wonwoo x reader#woozi x reader#the8 x reader#dk x reader#mingyu x reader#seungkwan x reader#vernon x reader#dino x reader
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How about jealous Ginny for a prompt? I mean there are plenty of jealous Harry stories but for once I want to need to see a jealous Ginny! Loved the overprotective Harry btwâ€ïžđ©·
They - quite literally - run into her at the Leaky Cauldron.Â
Ginny was walking backward, grinning wickedly at Harry as she tried to surmise just how many photographers would swarm Diagon Alley once word had spread that he was there, while Harry continued to argue he should at least be allowed to don the Invisibility Cloak.Â
âNo, no, Iâll look insane talking to myself all day. Youâve got to face society, sometime, Potter,â Ginny was saying. âSome would say itâs your responsibility, no your duty toââ
â--my duty?â
â--to spend the day dodging photographers for your girlfriend. Isnât that your whole deal? Self-sacrificing, heroââ
âRita Skeeter is worse than Voldemort.â
It was precisely the moment when Ginny let out a loud, unattractive Ha! that her back came into contact with a person turning away from the bar. Itâs all a bit of a flurry for a few moments - a folder of papers flutters to the floor, Ginny stumbles and corrects herself with an âOh Merlin Iâm so sorry,â Harry jolts forward helplessly as though to catch⊠something.Â
Ginny turns to apologize more earnestly, when she realizes that she knows the person sheâs just crashed into.Â
â--Iâm such an idiot, are youâ Oh! Cho!â
âEr, hi,â Cho Chang says, a bit ruefully. âItâs good to â oh, no, donât worry, I canââ
Cho flaps her hands uselessly, for Harry has bent over to pick up the papers Ginny had knocked to the floor.Â
âHere,â Harry says, stuffing the papers haphazardly back into the folder and thrusting it out toward Cho.Â
âThanks,â Cho says, and then a horribly awkward silence swallows them all.Â
Ginny struggles for anything to say. The only idiotic thing she can think to say is - You look pretty - because Cho does. Her silky black hair is swept up into some elegant looking chignon, and itâs clear sheâs done up her makeup a bit more than usual. Sheâs wearing smart robes that are fitted elegantly, and her soft-pink nails are perfectly shaped.Â
âAre you two off to Diagon Alley?â Cho says, with an air of desperation to fill the silence.Â
âYes,â Ginny says, latching on to the subject like a life raft.Â
âYeah,â Harry agrees. âPicking up school things for Ginny.â
âOh!â Cho says, turning to Ginny in surprise. âDo you have another year of school left, then?â
The question, in conjunction with Choâs very grown-up elegance, leaves Ginny feeling particularly infantile and irritable; their two-year age-gap seems suddenly to span decades. âYep,â Ginny says, a note of petulance creeping into her tone. âFinishing up my NEWTs.â
âGood for you!â Cho says, in a way that manages not to sound patronizing, even though Ginny's certain it is. âI donât know if I could go back to school, after everyââ
Harry, shooting an alarmed glance at Ginnyâs expression, interjects. âDid you do some shopping today, as well?â
âOh! Er, no. No I⊠I just finished up a job interview, actually, in one of the back rooms here.â
âDid you?â Harry says, raising his eyebrows. âNice. Hope it went well.â
âMe too,â Cho says, looking at Harry a bit shyly, now. Ginny narrows her eyes. âActually, Iâm glad I ran into you. The job - itâs in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.â
âReally?â Harry says, and he sounds genuinely interested now. âWhat role?â
âOh, something administrative. Iâm not very interested in field work, Iâd much rather be working on the policy side of things, but â well, Iâd actually wanted to thank you. Everything was so in flux afterâwell, in May, and I never got a chance toââ
âThank me?â Harry says, sounding baffled. âYou donâtââ
âI do,â Cho insists prettily, wringing her hands prettily, sounding pretty. âYou were so brave, what you did. Facing him. I donât know what wouldâve happened if youâ And honestly, I wouldnât even have had a chance at this job if it werenât for the DA. I think they only interviewed me because I mentioned Iâd been a part of itââ
âReally,â Harry says awkwardly, âitâs nothing, you donât need toââ
âItâs isnât nothing, at all!â Cho says emphatically, tucking a silky strand of her hair behind her ear. âYouâve made such a difference for everyone and Iâve been wanting to tell you but Iââ
âDonât be modest, Harry,â Ginny interjects hotly. Choâs gushing so much they all might drown in it. In fact, Ginny wouldnât mind all that much if Cho did.Â
Harry shoots her a wary look, and then turns back to Cho. âThatâs, er, really nice of you to say.â
âI mean it,â Cho says. âI heard youâve joined the Aurors, is that true?â
âEr, yeahââ Harry says, ruffling his hair anxiously. It strikes Ginny then, as it so often does, that Harry is quite good-looking, now. Not that he hadnât been, before, but months of regular eating and living out from under the thumb of the threat of constant death has been good to him - go figure. Heâs filled out and bought clothes that fit and Ginnyâs very much enjoyed it all until this moment, when it strikes her that he could stand to be a bit less handsome, all piercing eyes and messy hair and wry smirks directed at Cho bloody Chang. âI have.â
âI knew you would,â Cho says, like sheâs some insider expert on Harryâs tendencies. âWeâll be in the same office, then, if I get this job!â
âOh!â Harry says, coming up short. âThatâsââ he shoots a glance at Ginny. âThatâs great.â
âThatâs wonderful,â Ginny says in a passable impression of earnestness that sheâs positive does not fool Harry. âReally, really, wonderful.â
Cho looks at Ginny as though sheâs only just remembered that sheâs there. âYes, well. Are you still interested in doing the Quidditch thing, Ginny?â Cho asks.Â
âOh, who knows?â Ginny says brightly. âMaybe Iâll do the Quidditch thing, or maybe Iâll go be an Auror too. Itâll be a regular party, the three of us.â
Choâs smile falters a bit. âYes, that would be lovely.â
âLovely,â Ginny agrees. âJust lovely.â
Harry coughs, and then theyâre plunged into a miserable silence once more.Â
âWell,â Ginny says heartily. âWeâve got to get a move on. Those photographers wonât dodge themselves, you know.â
âOh, of course,â Cho says. âWell, it was lovely to see you both.â
âLovely,â Ginny agrees.Â
âYeah,â Harry says.Â
âBest of luck at school, Ginny,â Cho says, and Ginny hates that she sounds like she means it. âAnd maybe Iâll be seeing you in the office, Harry.â
âOh, yeah,â Harry chuckles, âMaybe! Good luck.â
âThanks,â Cho says, and then she gives them an awkward wave and departs.Â
Once the door has closed with a jingle of the bell above it, Ginny turns to Harry, her eyebrows raised.
âGinnyâŠâ Harry says with trepidation.Â
âLooks like youâve got a new office best mate!â Ginny says with supreme sarcasm. âIâll tell Ron heâs been usurped, heâll cry for a bit but Iâm sure heâll manageââ
âShe might not even get the jobââ
âOh, no. She will. I mean, she name-dropped you and the DA, thatâs sure to give her a leg up, never mind that she wasnât even at school last year with the worst of it, never mind the whole thing disbanded because of her stupid friendââ
âI donât think thatâs what sheââ
âIâm just so glad that while I go months without seeing you, youâll get to pal around with Cho Chang, I was so worried that youâd get lonely without me, but nowââ
âGinny,â Harry says with an awkward laugh. âCome on, you know thatâs not how it is.â
âShe can go on thanking you for what a bloody hero you are,â Ginny continues. âI donât think anyoneâs told you that in about five minutes, so itâll be good to get a nice top up from her when youâre feeling down.â
âWell, sure,â Harry joins in. âYou know I canât go more than six without being reminded.â
Ginny pats his chest. âSo brave. There. Do you think thatâll last you until we get to the book shop?â
âI might need a quick round of applause in the apothecary.â
Ginny snorts. âOh, come on, then,â Ginny says. âMaybe weâll run into Fleurâs little sister, too, if weâre really lucky.â
They make their way through the brick entrance to Diagon Alley - a far cry from the days of the war, the street is bustling and busy once more. They take a circuitous route to Flourish and Blotts, taking care to walk quickly so that not too many people take notice that Harry Potter is in their midst, and because Ginny cannot bear the sight of her brothersâ joke shop, once alive and bustling and colorful and loud, boarded up and quiet. Itâs a bit too on the nose.Â
They make it nearly to the front door of the book shop before Ginny canât take it anymore. âDid you hear the way she asked if I was doing âthe Quidditch thingâ?â she snarls, halting them just outside the door. âLike it was some cute little hobby, never mind that she was a Seeker too. Not a very good one, mind, but still!â
Harry has the gall to look faintly amused as he pulls her off to the small alleyway next to the shop. âIâm sure thatâs not what she meant. Professional Quidditch is really difficult, she knowsââ
âOh youâre sure, are you?â Ginny spits, rolling her eyes. âJust like she just knew youâd become an Auror? Someone alert Professor Trelawney, weâve got another Seer on our hands. No one without a powerful Inner Eye couldâve possibly predicted thatââ
Harry grins and shakes his head. âYou do know Iâm not thrilled about this either, donât you?â
âI canât imagine why,â Ginny rants. âItâs perfect, your girlfriend will pop off to Scotland and you can hang round with your ex instead!â
âMy ex?â Harry says, an eyebrow raised. âWe went on one date when I was fifteen and it was terrible.â
âOh thatâs only because you were both traumatized,â Ginny says airily. âIâm sure sheâll be thrilled at the chance to reconnect now that youâre both olderââ
âGinny,â Harry says, the amusement replaced with something firm. âYouâre not really worried about this, are you?â
Ginny canât look him in the eye. Sheâs so irritated, so bothered, that it takes her a moment - she wants to say yes of course Iâm worried, did you see how annoyingly pretty she was and the way she looked at you - but she doesnât. Because itâs not true, not really. As sheâs tried to rebuild in the rubble after the war, Harryâs been the one thing sheâs sure of through all of it, and she reckons he feels the same. No, she knows he does. She knows heâs not interested in doing anything with Cho Chang.
Ginny takes a deep, calming breath, and meets his eyes. âI just really fucking hate that she might get to see you every day and Iââ her voice catches.Â
Harry pulls her in and gives her one of those hugs that seems to calm every cell in her body, like he might be able to shield her from everything bad in the world. She canât believe that in two weeks, this is a comfort she wonât have, anymore, reduced instead to stolen moments at Hogsmeade weekends and words scribbled in letters.
âI really fucking hate it, too.â
Ginny burrows her head deeper into his chest, and breathes in the woody smell of him. Finally, she says. âYou were right, you know. I can admit it.â
âWhat?â
She pulls back and looks at him. âI really shouldâve let you wear that damn Invisibility Cloak.â
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Big Autism Post
(I'm not calling him autistic. These are just some autistic traits that I've noticed that he has that neurotypicals can also have)
This is a list of ND traits, each with a few examples of instances or whatever:
Like to lead conversations and provide extensive information on the specific topics you are interested in.
Find it easier to talk âatâ people, rather than engaging in a two-way conversation.
âOh⊠I forgot to bring my cheat sheet. Iâve got a folder with notes, which I planned on bringing with me. But it also feels a little know-it-all and self-conscious to start giving a lecture from my own notes here. My best line⊠I wouldnât know! I simply donât know all the lyrics by heart yet. [long pause] I think âBig Ideasâ as a whole is a very accomplished song.â [X]
Have your own unique phrases and descriptive words.
âA bone-coloured gentlemanâ - him describing a spider [X] [+post I made a while back about him and words]
Find building and maintaining close friendships and relationships difficult in a range of environments.
hmm đ€š
May use facial expressions and make gestures when speaking with people that others find unusual.
This whole interview is just him stimming but specifically watch 1:46 in the video when jamie mentions it
The Zane Lowe The Car Interview where heâs doing the same hand stim over and over again
He makes a pained expression sometimes when heâs just talking about normal things but thereâs too many examples to get
Autistic individuals are often perceived as controlling. + Have a strong desire to set and follow rules, whether in the classroom, work or social situations.
ââŠbut I'm quite a control freak." He grins. "There's a bit of that." [X]
Would you describe yourself as a control freak in the studio? âYeah, probably⊠(Laughs) well, definitely. I think somebody needs to take the reins and Iâm happy to do that. Iâm sure itâs quite annoying for other people at times, but I think theyâre glad that someone is⊠not exactly in charge but has a vision.â [X]
Alex Turner is not satisfied with the light of the room chosen to serve as the basis for our interview. It is a small and cozy hipster hotel in the neighborhood of Los Feliz, in Los Angeles, of those who are above a cafe with tables occupied by young people on the computer and without queues at the cash registers that do not accept cash payment. The leader of Arctic Monkeys, the largest rock band to leave the United Kingdom in the last 20 years, moves the switches until he finds the perfect balance of luminosity. "Is that okay with you?" he asks, but doesn't seem to care much about the answer. Turner likes to have full control over his environment. "Where do you want to sit? Here will be the best place, right?" he asks, with coffee in his hand, already standing in front of a small beige table below the lamp that insisted on not releasing the proper light. Shy to the point of never completing an entire sentence, as if the mouth did not accompany his fast brain, Turner is fully aware of his obsession with control and attention to detail, something that has become greater in recent years ahead of the band. [X]
Have intense conversational focus on subjects that interest you, combined with a minimal interest to engage in conversation on other topics.
This interview (2:08 - end) where he kept talking about wrestling (+finger flicking) while the interviewer kept trying to steer the conversation back to the question.
This TBHC moment where he got excited about something Zane said.
May speak in a monotone, with an accent, in a very proper and formal way or not at all.
Iâm very excited. I want to just⊠yâknow, jump up and down on the bed :|
Zane Lowe bullying his ânice oneâ
Making repetitive body movements, such as hand clapping, hand flapping or rocking, making noises, or frequently clearing the throat, also known as stimming.
Hair + Head/Neck hold
Rocking
His shoulder tappy thing + the shoulder hug thing he does when heâs nervous like when he met Julian Casablancas
Eyes
Jaw
Fingers + finger biting + finger biting (gay)
Arm rub
Legs
The CarÂ

Prefer hanging around on your own, rather than joining in with others.
âI like to feel foreign, alone. That said, I probably live far too much inside my head, it would be good for me to have more relationships with real people.â [X]
There are fan stories about them seeing him eating alone at like 2am or something but those donât count everyone does that
Anxiety in social settings
â[very long pause] I just donât wanna get it wrong in front of everybodyâ (when asked about his favourite dessert)
Him apologising for calling Batmanâs butler Albert instead of Alfred (I lost it ): ) (update: [X] thanks slippy)
His ipod suddenly playing T-Rex
âItâs gonna be alrightâŠâ
âŠThe next day, Turner sends me an apologetic email. âI sat myself too far away from my internal cue cards and few sentences made it to the finish line,â he admits. [X]
I would fire a question at them and Miles would respond at length while Alex would emit, perhaps, a tiny smile and draw back a little further in his chair. If you address a question directly to Alex he clams up. If you ignore him then, bit by bit, he comes back because Alex clearly thinks Miles is amazing. [X]
"I was racking me brain for this," he admits in his undimmed Northern accent, holding up a little piece of paper covered in hand-scratched recollections. (Mistaking the hotel lunch menu for his notes at one point, he even cracks a self-deprecating joke; Tuscan kale, he knows, is not the answer we came for.) [X]
Ability to âhyper-focusâ on work or a specific interest
âIâd just gotten obsessed with cardboard.â (not a great example but itâs funny)
Experiencing emotions more intensely than others
- âHe just feels a bitâŠ. I donât know⊠Fragileâ
Often accused of being rude or blunt.
no need for exampleÂ
May have perfectionism in certain areas.
Find that others donât understand how you are feeling and say that âit is hard to know what you are thinkingâ.
I canât find a good example for these two, but itâs been mentioned before.
Masking, where specific behaviours are consciously or unconsciously concealed to fit into social norms or to avoid negative responses from others.
"You know how Shakira's hips don't lie? Well mine are incredibly good liars. A mask if you like." (I looked everywhere for the video I had it saved a few years ago but I canât find it)
Echolalia and vocal stims
âStupid slow dirty PCâ & âThe year is 1965â [X]
âIpswichâ
âIn the big roomâ
âSpectrum section spectrumâ (was not a stutter, he just liked those words together)[X]
Stealing peoples accents and mannerisms
Andy: ââŠhe soaks accents up a lot, âcause when he started hanging around with Miles quite a lot, he started to get a bit of a Scouse twinge to his accent.â [X]
His Americanish accent in that SIAS interview (I canât find it, but he says the word âprettyâ in an American accent)
Dino hands: This unique posture, colloquially known as "autistic T-Rex arms," is commonly observed among autistic individuals.
Dino hand compilation
While not every neurodivergent person reports high justice sensitivity, and many people with high justice sensitivity are not autistic or ADHD, this can be an autistic or ADHD trait.
The Green Book: Everyday Guide to Saving The Planet [you can also spot âThe Abortionâ and âNatural cures and gentle medicinesâ]
Recycling (4:00)
Telling the interviewer that itâs wrong to say âThe Gaysâ [X] (5:06)
âI once stole a âDip Dapâ. I walked out of the shop immersed in thought and when I came to the next crossing, while I was enjoying my lolly, I suddenly realised that I hadnât paid for it. So I walked back to the shop and kindly paid for it.â [X]
May struggle with eye-contact (either too little or too much)
âAlex Turner on the other hand is an inveterate fiddler with keys or phone while he talks. Otherwise he has the slightly unnverving habit of staring at you unblinkingly with his dark brown eyes, like a curious young horse.â [X]
Some autistic individuals struggle with being on time
âMatt: He's always late. He's like clockwork in his lateness. Yesterday in Southhampton, the bus was picking us up at half 12 at the hotel to go to the venue, and [tour manager] Timm phoned him, goes, 'Al, where are you? The bus is here.' Everybody knew what time they had to be down there. He said, 'I'm watching Danger Mouse'. He was still in bed.â [X]
Obsessive interests
Whatever show he's currently watching (The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, True Detective etcâŠ): â[Staring] Sorry, Iâm just thinking about True Detectiveâ [X] (17:53)
Space
Films (maybe this interview the most) + this clip âMan, Alex was really into this whole sci-fi thing, ManâŠâ [X]
etcâŠ
Zoning out/taking a long time to think
âWell, everything has changed. [2 minutes of silence while you can almost hear a movie playing in his head] âŠâ [X]
Cluedo Enthusiast interview!
Distracted Compilation
Zoning out compilation
People describing him:
âWith Alex, I knew this was someone unconventional, a little bit different, with a brightness and a cleverness that would serve him well. He had a very original sense of humour, as you'd expect, but he was always quite reserved. I remember giving a class a bollocking once, and he was sitting there like Gromit from Wallace and Gromit â mute, but with these incredibly expressive raised eyebrows, as if he was saying sarcastically: "Ooooh â we've really cocked it up now."â
Alex was never particularly vocal, but you could sense when some pieces of poetry moved him. [X]
I think one of the Gallaghers called him a weird guy but he likes him or smt it was a tweet (update: âStrange little chap but I like himâ [X])
ââŠIn fact I began to think that Alex (Turner) might be in touch with them (aliens) in some way, the way he works on his lyrics. If there was a line to hone or edit heâd step outside without paper or a pen, stare at the horizon for a few seconds, then walk right back in and deliver some majestic new couplet. Seeing him conjure these lines from nothing I wonder if heâs not at least part extraterrestrial himself.â - Josh HommeÂ
Other:
Doesnât like hearing himself
âAnd yet, in person, Turner, a man acclaimed as the voice of his generation, is surprisingly tongue-tied. âWhere am I going with this? Uh⊠I⊠Yeah⊠No⊠Iâm sorry, Iâve completely lost it,â he says at one point. âI just hear myself talking sometimes and Iâm like bleurgh!â [X]
Taking off Headphones Compilation
Characters/embodiment autism
How he changes looks, haircuts, voices, accents etc depending on where he is in his life at a specific moment.Â
This Compilation
Twitchy Compilation + him twitching when his phone rings here
Taratata
how hes weird in fan photos idk (not that heâs always weird but yknow)
The one instagram post where the fan asked him to smile and said it didnât work out (I canât find it they were skiing and she was a waitress) all i have is this:


I think in the last gif they said he was shy (and smelled like cigarettes)
well heâs terrible at faking a smile in general:
stupid smile compilation
Something about change? Heâs been wearing the same clothes until theyâre worn out and he always uses that brown bag. I dunno he seems like he loves change but I donât know him and itâs none of my business (Iâm aware of how ironic it is that Iâm saying this at the end of this post)
For more stuff on this topic just visit my featured tag thingy.
This post is sponsored by this ask
#i wanted to add alexa calling him neat and also the one where shes like hed rather stay home and read the dictionary but those feel#too stereotypical#this is just for fun donât take it too seriously i guess#charlies autism collections#autism#alex turner#arctic monkeys#tlsp#the last shadow puppets#big autism post
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đČđšđźđ«đŹ đđšđ«đđŻđđ« đąđ§ đđđ 34. in too deep
WHEN YOON JEONGHAN TAPPED JAY'S SHOULDER, HIS BRAIN WAS TOO MUDDLED TO EVEN THINK PROPERLY.
He underestimated how casual the gesture of tapping someone to get their attention was, and it was evident when he was looking back at Jeonghan with a confused gaze. Jay had spent the entire day freaking out over whether he was going to get a seat in the Order, and now that he was face-to-face with one of their members, he couldn't even grasp that he was being offered a spot.
Jay was in the middle of reading your frantic texts about getting a seat from Sungjin, sitting at an empty booth in the library so that he could charge his laptop. The very thought of Sunghoon being left behind had him so baffled that he could only gawk at Jeonghan for a few seconds. The senior only seemed amused, hardly even realizing that Jay had far more weighing on his mind than being tapped.
"Congratulations, Jay," Jeonghan said with a broad grin stretching across his face, "welcome to the Order."
Every word he could have used to finish his sentence died on Jay's tongue, and instead he croaked out, "Iâhuh?"
"Yeah, I'm not sure how else to dumb it down for you."
He wasn't sure what snapped him back into realityâmaybe it was the whistle of the wind in his ear, or perhaps it was the fear that Jeonghan must have thought he was a crazy personâbut Jay immediately straightened up and let out a forced cough.
"Sorry," he got out immediately. "Thanks. I just thoughtâ"
"That you wouldn't get in?" Jeonghan finished for him. "Yeah, I thought so, too. We were debating between you and Kazuha for nearly an hour. It took a lot of manipulation to convince them that Kazuha wasn't the right choice."
The corner of Jay's mouth picked up in a grin. "Manipulation?"
"Let's just keep that between us." Jeonghan gave him a wry smile and handed over a thin, black folder with a few sheets of papers tucked neatly inside. "You can open that later. It's just a welcome letter and a notice about sending us details so we can coordinate your initiation night."
"Huh..." Jay trailed off; his mind was still stuck on his bid rather than the folder in his hands. "I didn't think I'd get in after that interview."
"Are you kidding? They loved your answers, especially when you said you'd punch Sunghoon."
"ButâI didn't even know the answer to whatever seven-eight-six meant, though."
"That's the whole point," Jeonghan said. "You're not supposed to know everything! What we believe is that it's valuable to admit that there are answers you haven't found yet, but you also did your best to draw a conclusion with the little information you had."
"So... what does it mean?"
"We don't know."
"What?"
"We don't know," he echoed with a shrug. "We think the founder chose it to represent us because he claimed to have decided eighteen of the characters on the Kryptos sculpture himselfâon top of the ones that're already deciphered."
"Interesting," Jay replied with an inquisitive hum. He then gave Jeonghan a strange look. "Are you supposed to be telling me this, by the way?"
"Sungjin didn't want us talking with you guys too much, actually. We're supposed to just tap you on the shoulder, hand you the file, and leave." He scratched the back of his neck aimlessly. "I have to stay on campus until my next class, though, so I don't really have anywhere else to go."
"If they ask, I'll let them know that you were very, very mysterious."
"See? I told them that was what the Order needed: loyalty."
Jay felt his stomach twist. He was probably the worst example of that, but seeing that Jeonghan held him in such high regard, he couldn't bring himself to object. Instead, he brushed off the senior's words with a shy grin.
Jeonghan continued, "I swear, they were deliberating for so long that Iâ"
"Jeonghanâwait, Jay?"
To Jay's relief, you walked up behind his table, looking between the two men several times before you seemed to piece together what was going on. The determination that had darkened your eyes seconds prior started to melt away.
"You got a seat?" you breathed out, and before Jay could nod, you were shooing him further down the cushioned bench so that you could sit next to him. Your gaze immediately landed on the black folder in Jay's hands. "Oh!"
There was an awkward pause. You looked up at him for a brief moment, and it looked like you had a lot more to say instead of opening and closing your mouth over and over again. Jay's throat felt tight. Your sideways look at Jeonghan made Jay wonder what your true reaction would've been if you two were alone.
Since you clearly hadn't anchored yourself back into reality, Jay slapped his folder onto the table to take Jeonghan's attention away from how distracted you had gotten.
"What? You didn't think I'd make it in or something?" he teased you, although he was quite aware that that wasn't your intention.
"No," you insisted with a scoff, kicking Jay's shin under the table.
Jay hissed through his teeth, nudging your leg back with his shoe. Unbeknownst to Jeonghan, you two were in an intense battle of trying to kick the other; your attempts were always stronger than his.
"Oh, that's fucked up," Jeonghan joined in, leaning forward onto his elbows. "Were you hoping someone else would get in over Jay?"
He rolled his eyes, realizing that Jeonghan was just hungry for a morsel of gossip. However, anticipation was swirling in Jay's chest as he prepared himself for whatever your answer would be. After your text about Sunghoon's situation, he wouldn't have been surprised if you were more concerned about your ex-boyfriend.
You huffed. "No, I think Jay deserves it out of anyone who interviewed."
His heartbeat was somehow quicker. More intense. Jay couldn't understand why your words left little electric currents running under his skin, but he was just grateful that you couldn't see how much of a mess his head was.
"But what the hell, Jeonghan?" you continued, sharper. "Why did Sungjin give me his seat?"
Jeonghan let out a dry laugh before shaking his head. "Can't give you our reasonings."
"Weren't you just talking about mine?" Jay cut in since he was equally curious about where Sunghoon's predicament was going.
"Well, that'sâ" The senior cut himself off and screwed up his eyes as he processed his next words. "Okay, you're technically right, but I gave you my seat, Jay. I didn't give Y/N my seat, so I can't tell her why she was chosen by Sungjin."
You and Jay stared blankly at Jeonghan for a moment, who was slowly losing his resolve to keep quiet.
"Okay, fine." Jeonghan sighed heavily. "Tell anyone about this, though, and you two won't be having a fun initiation process." As Jay swallowed thickly at the thought of being hazed, Jeonghan leaned over the table and lowered his voice to say, "I don't know much because we don't really question Number One, but he just said that he didn't want to extend his seat to his brother anymore. Something about wanting Sunghoon to make it on his own."
Jay frowned. "Number One?"
"That's what we call our president," he replied. "Only the members of the Order know about Number One's identity for the duration of their office."
"You're really a loudmouth, Jeonghan," you sneered.
Jeonghan held up his hands in mock surrender.
"Then did Sunghoon get a seat or not?" Jay asked. "He had to have gotten a tap, right? It'd be ridiculous if he didn't."
Jeonghan only shrugged in response. "The finalized list of our new members will be emailed out tonight. You'll find out then."
You and Jay exchanged uneasy looks. Waiting to hear back from Sunghoon appeared to be their only option, and it only made Jay feel more at war with his head and heart.
For one, Sunghoon was a crucial part of the mission. Something happening to him would definitely affect you, and although that made Jay feel a twinge of bitterness, he recognized that you two had a previous connection that he couldn't get between.
On the other hand, he felt that he was in too deepâso deep that he wasn't sure how he would pull himself out when this was all over. Jay remembered it every time he turned white-knuckled when he would text his client; every time he laughed around Heeseung; every time he had to take a few seconds for his rage to simmer around Sunghoon; and every time he looked into your eyes and felt some semblance of peace.
And it made him feel terrified.











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SUMMARY âž private investigator jay park just wants to complete his mission quietly and move on with his life. you, his new assignment who keeps consuming his thoughts, don't make that very easy for him.
TAG LIST âž @zdgx1 @smouches @heesdazed @teawithbucky @leep0ems @peachpie4you @niniissus @kgneptun @jaeyunluvr @zerasari @sophiko22 @iselltulips @hoondiors @baekhyunstruly @jays-property @woninluv @heerinnie @fakeuwus @yizhoutv @theothernads @y4wnjunz @dammit-jjk @en-happiness @mari-oclock @soonyoungblr @jakeslvt @taetaenic @jebetwo @fairysungx @hsgwrld @shmooooo @ineedsomezzz @mrowwww @enha-stars @seongclb @lockburn-castle @alyssajavenss @enczen @calumsfringe @w3bqrl @luvyev @uhsakusa @luvnicho @wildflowermooon @navsnct @hooniesuniverse @enhalov @enhypens-baby @isawritesss
#enhypen#enhypen smut#enhypen imagines#enhypen smau#jay smut#jay smau#jay imagines#jay x reader#enhypen social media au#enhypen x reader#enhypen scenarios#jay scenarios#jongseong smut#jay park#enhypen fanfic#jay fanfic#enhypen hard hours#jay hard hours#enhypen drabbles#jay drabbles#enhypen reactions#jay reactions
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I don't think you'll ever have to find out (Carlos Sainz)
The lack of contract for next season has been pushing Carlos to extremes and friends and family have noticed it
Note: english is not my first language. First Carlos big piece 𫶠I hope you enjoy reading it đ
Thank you so much to everyone who likes and reblogs, your feedback is appreciated đ€ and I'm taking requests so if you have any ideas or concepts you want to share, feel free to do so as I'll try to get to them the best I can!
my masterlist
Tw: mentions some anxiety and burnout symptoms
Tag list: @myloverjk-blog @hiireadstuff @c-losur3
"Hmmmm", you hummed as you felt the mattress move a little before the warm sheets approached your body instead of the warm body that laid under them before.
"Shh, it's just me, cariño", Carlos lulled you, "go back to sleep, it's still early", he kissed your forehead softly as the tucked you in properly.
"Where are you going since it's still early then?", you wondered groggily, "I'm going for a run, I'll be back to have breakfast with you, okay? I love you", he kissed your forehead again before he grabbed his workout clothes and stepped into the ensuite.
When you woke up a few hours later, you could hear water running from the shower, assuming Carlos had got back from his run.
Opening the windows and pulling the sheets to the end of the bed so the whole room could air out, you put on your slippers and one of your boyfriend's hoodies, heading downstairs to start on breakfast. After a quick look at the meal plan left by his trainer, you retrieved the ingredients from the pantry and fridge, toasting, whisking and flipping what you needed to when you heard footsteps joining you on the kitchen.
"Good morning, beautiful", Carlos said as he hugged you from your back, his lips kissing under your ear softly before he looked at what you were making, "smells nice", he murmured before you turned your head slightly so you could kiss his cheek.
"Here you go", you smiled as you handed Carlos the plates to carry to the table while you carried your drinks.
"Gracias, my love", he smiled back as he sat down, taking a sip from his mug and starting light conversation between you two.
"I need to go to the school to get some forms from the secretariat service and some of the kids' tests I forgot to bring home", you began telling him your plans for the day, "I'll mark them when I get home, but we might have some time to spend together in the afternoon".
"I have a meeting with my engineers to analyse data and then I have a sponsor event as well, I have to go there, give an interview and hang around for a bit - I think I'm going to be home for dinner though", he explained his schedule, "but you can use the office, don't worry", he smiled, kissing the top of your head once he finished eating, taking both plates with him back to the kitchen.
"I love you, handsome, have a good day!", you said, kissing his lips once you left the house, knowing he wasn't going to be there when you arrived back from school.
The secretariat services were quicker than usual in getting you the paperwork you needed so you were able to go to your classroom next. As you were making sure everything was in place and none of the kids had left anything out during the holidays, you looked for the tests.
"Hi, Y/N! What are you doing here?", your colleague from the classroom next to yours wondered after she announced her presence with a light knock on your door.
"Hello! I could ask you the same thing, hm?", you chuckled, "I left the tests here and they're not going to mark themselves", you waved the folder in your hand.
"Carlos isn't racing this week?", she asked. You had been classroom buddies for over five years so you had gotten to know eachother pretty well and felt comfortable enough around eachother to ask such questions.
"No, he's racing next weekend though, I'm flying out to see him and then flying back in a hurry so I can teach without taking many days off", you offered.
"Sounds good then! Good luck with all of those, my little ones had some trouble with these last tests, I must say", she added.
"I haven't even looked at them properly to be honest, but I'm sure they did their best", you recalled, waving at her as she said goodbye before putting everything you needed in your bag and leaving as well.
When you arrived back home, you walked straight to the office, arranging your desk in a way that your organisation system worked: to be marked, marked, and the double checked tests, along with space for you laptop so you could insert the data straight on the platform.
The pause you had for lunch was spent on the balcony, soaking up the sun rays while you ate and allowed your mind to escape the math problems and the water cycle drawings your little ones made.
It started when you were a teenager and wanted to earn a little extra money, wanting to buy things yourself and the small independence that came with it, so you started offering help to your neighbours' kids with their homework in exchange of a small amount of money. Over the years, it got a little more serious and grew outside of your neighbourhood because you enjoyed it so much and the kids and their parents loved the work you did, and when it to came to choosing a career you'd see yourself working in happily, teaching little ones sounded perfect. Years later, it still brought a smile to your face every single day.
You were measuring the rice quantity for you and Carlos when he arrived, "cariño, are you in the kitchen?", you heard him ask once he shut the door.
"Yes, my love, just getting dinner ready", you called back, washing your hands once you were done while he stepped closer to you. Drying your hands on a kitchen towell, you left it on the counter once your boyfriend joined you in the room, "did you have a good day?", you mumbled against his lips before stealing a big kiss from him.
"It was good, did what needed to be done, and you? Are your little geniuses getting good grades this term?", he smiled, lacing his arms around your waist and pulling you closer to him.
"They did so well! I'm so proud of them, they barely had any spelling mistakes and they drew these pretty drawings on the side - I have to show you, come look!", you pulled his hand to follow you to the office, feeling his tiredness in his movements and stalling, "I can show you later - how about a cuddle in the sofa while dinner cooks?", you suggested as you noticed him nod, "sounds nice", he kissed your hand as you pulled him to the living room, letting you rest your body against his for a little bit as he told you a little more about his day.
"Sounds tiring", you mumbled, tracing random shapes on his clothed chest, "it's fine, part of the job", he shrugged as he looked at his watch, "dinner should be ready soon, no? I'll help you with the table", he kissed your forehead before you got up and sorted the meal for the two of you.
By the time you were done, cleaning up was easy and quick. Carlos suggested you retired to the bedroom early, doing your night-time routines before cuddling on the bed.
"How about a movie?", you suggested, flickering the streaming platforms to find something to watch.
"I might fall asleep in the middle of it, you won't get too mad if I do?", he smiled, kissing your cheek multiple times.
"Of course I won't be mad, love! I'd never be mad for that", you cooed, looking up at his eyes as he tried his hardest to blink the sleep away, "I'll keep the volume down and the brightness low, you sleep all you want, okay?", you checked with him, sealing your request with a kiss on his lips, "sleep well, my love".
Carlos pulled you closer to him, your scent and steady heartbeat lulling him to sleep quickly, leaving you to smile at his peaceful features when you glanced away from the screen every now and again.
.
"You look so gorgeous! My teacher was never this stylish!", Blanca said as she greeted you once you stepped inside her car, setting your bag on the seat next to yours and squeezing her shoulder as well as her mother's, "hello hello! Thank you for inviting me, I've been needing a wardrobe change now that the temperatures are warmer", you smiled as they squeezed your hand back before you put your seatbelt on.
"It's been a while since I've seen you, dear, how have you been?", Reyes asked you while her daughter drove off to the spot where they wanted to spend the afternoon shopping.
"The little ones have been keeping me busy, now that they're on school break, it's a little bit calmer", you replied.
"That's nice, you shouldn't run yourself to the point of exhaustion - no matter how much you love it, you should also take care of yourself! You and Carlos are very much alike on that - your work ethic is excellence", she winked through the rear view mirror.
You agreed with your boyfriend's mother. Both you and Carlos worked extremely hard to get to the point you were in now and sometimes you needed someone - often eachother - to pull you out of a overworking spiral.
When Blanca was trying on a dress, you and Reyes sat on the small sofa while you waited for her and conversation flowed easily like usual, "how has Carlos been? It's been a while since I've seen him too", she wondered.
"He's been working a lot - being without a contact prospect for next year has obviously had a big impact on him", you began, "to be completely honest, I worry he is overdoing it. It's meeting after meeting, then all the workouts he goes on - I'm happy he's healthy for it, but too much of something is never good, right?", you shared.
"I've noticed it, too - I wasn't just asking", she smirked softly, "but I wanted to confirm it with you, a mother's instinct is always worried for her children and maybe part of me was hoping I was just exaggerating".
"I've tried to make sure he feels all the support he has and just be there for him, but I think it's all him, pushing to be better and better", you expressed your worries.
"What do you think about us having dinner at your place? Not to invite myself - even though that's what it is-, but maybe he would feel better and more inclined for a yes? Last times I invited you two for dinner with us he said he had things planned and the plans fell through", she said.
"Sounds nice, don't worry about inviting yourselves in", you chuckled as she gently squeezed your shoulder, "I'm going to suggest it to him, thank you", you squeezed her hand.
"We should be the ones thanking you", Blanca said as she stepped out, leaving you to assume she heard some of the conversation, "you've been his safe place for so long and continue to do so no matter the conditions", she smiled, "you're making sure my very hard headed brother is looking after himself and being looked after - the love you have for eachother is all we could've wanted for Carlitos", she hugged you, "now do we think this looks nice as it is or is it borderline making me look like a cloud?", she looked at the piece of clothing on her body.
You were pulled out of sleep when you heard Carlos mumbled something incoherent, and turning to face him, the sweat on his forehead evidencing that he was probably having a nightmare.
"Amor, hey - wake up, amor, wake up", you shook him awake, "it's just a nightmare, you're okay, you're okay", you coaxed him as he opened his eyes, turning on his bedside lamp while you held onto his hand.
"I woke you up? I'm sorry", he apoligised, voice groggy as he tried to catch his breath and bring his heart rate back to normal.
"It's okay, amor", you smiled, kissing his cheek and brushing the hairs away that were stuck to his forehead, "do you want to talk about it?".
Did he want to talk about it? The nightmares that kept occurring and keeping him up, only until now they had only woken him up? They had been happening for about a month now. He would wake up all sweaty and his breathing erratic, and more often than not, he wouldn't be able to fall asleep again, so he stayed awake thinking about all the possibilities of how his employment situation would be for next year and all of the ways he could improve his performance.
"It's fine", he gulped, "let's go back to sleep, okay?", he encouraged.
You knew better than to push him at that moment, so you cuddled up to him, holding him too as you kissed his chest, "I'm right here, nothing bad is going to happen to you, I'll make sure of it", you whispered before he turned the light off, wanting to believe you so badly and to sleep without his mind running a million miles an hour.
.
It really was taking up a lot of his mind - as well as your and his family's worries - and how it was soon going to be too much if he didn't manage everything well, and after his mother's conversation with you, you knew you needed to do something.
"My love, can I talk to you for a second?", you asked as you walked inside the office, seeing his sat in the long sofa instead of at the desk, "sure, come here, cariño", he urged, tidying some of the papers and notebooks so you could sit.
"I'm not going to bat around the bush, this is going to be straight off the bat - me and your family are concerned you're running yourself harder than you should, and if you keep going at this rate, you're going to burnout soon", you tried, rubbing his thigh softly and encouraging him to really think about it.
He pondered his words for a bit, "I have to do all I'm doing, Y/N, if I stop, I'll fall behind - it's bad enough as it is", he argued.
"But it's not doing you any good, handsome, you're more tired, you barely spend time with your family, with me even", you argued back. You didn't want to play that card or make him feel like he was failing you, that wasn't the point, "you're not doing the things that bring you joy outside of your work, and it shows", you attempted again.
"I have to keep working, I can try and make more time for them, but I can't miss my workouts and these data analysis sessions", he reasoned, "there's so much at stake here and I can't miss any of it because I'm unprepared or unfit".
"Handsome, I never wanted you to stop all of a sudden - and I knew you wouldn't anyway, I know who I'm dating, believe it or not", you smiled, "all I'm saying is you need to protect yourself too, have a place to just be yourself and let loose for a bit", you grabbed his hand and brought it to your mouth, kissing his knuckles.
"I will try my best", Carlos stated, "I'm sorry if I've been neglecting you", he said and you shook your head.
"No worries, now come and help me because your parents are coming over for dinner!", you have him a cheeky smile, pulling him to the kitchen and away from work for the rest of the day.
"This had my mother's hand on it, didn't it?", he wondered.
"She told me she was worried, and I agreed - so I took matters into my own hands because we knew you wouldn't let your mother tell you half of what I told you", you pulled him to you, hugging him tight, "we love you so much, I love you so much - and things are going to work out for you, I know they will", you kissed his clothed chest before looking up at him, "we all want you to be happy at what you do and you're doing the best you can - the universe will do the rest, amor".
"What would I do without you?", Carlos asked, kissing your lips passionately.
"Lucky for you, I don't think you'll ever have to find out", you smiled.
#carlos sainz imagine#carlos sainz fluff#carlos sainz x reader#carlos sainz fanfic#carlos sainz fic#f1 imagine#f1 fluff#f1 fanfic#f1 fic#f1 x reader
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Pls I need more of yandere Izuku!!! I BEG OF YOU!!!! I 100% believe he is stalker material and would have that wall of pictures of you.
yandere prohero izuku breaking into your home (+more Stalking details)
your relationship seemed normal to you, he's your childhood best friend. after graduating UA and quickly rising to the top. you never escaped his mind. he misses you SO MUCH!
i mean you two have spent practically your whole lives together, and now what? nothing? he's so busy now, beating villains bloody, attending national TV interviews. if it's not the work then it's the media not giving him space to breathe. and you barely have time with all the pile of work your professors give you.
he would try his best to maintain contact with you. but everytime the messages would be hours apart. he felt you fading away and it upset him. he hasn't seen you in so long.
so he decides to visit you. issue is during his visit ...
he knows it's late at night. but something caught his eye. around the small space between the curtains and he saw YOU!
"gosh you're so cute," he thinks with heart eyes.
deciding to let himself in.
"best friends let themselves into eachother's houses, right?"
"i just want to turn off the TV, i'm doing her a favor."
taking advantage of the fact it's 3AM. passing through the white picket fence. in your backyard he opened the back door you forget to lock. Japan is one of the safest countries in the world. why lock it?
because of him. you'll learn soon.
exploring your house first, particularly your bedroom. rationalizing it by saying, "their birthday is coming up. maybe i'll find out what she likes."
of course he rationalizes every odd thing he does.
sniffing the pillows, a soft smile, whispering to himself, "mm strawberry shampoo" total lovesick idiot.
by the time, he finished learning things about you, he got to the living room. The TV radiating light on your face, everything else dark.
today was his first picture, his heart beating rapidly as he took it. gosh, how much he wanted to kiss you, hold you. you always lingered on his mind and he hates himself. hates himself for not confessing his love to you back in UA.
you could have been his. his honey, his lover. someone to dote on, someone to love, he hated how he wasn't able to caress your cheek.
but for now he had to return back home.
creating fake social media accounts. thank goodness you didn't have a private account. saving all your pictures, visiting your page whenever he could.
screenshotting pictures, making deep dives on the surroundings. who's that? he's searching up everything about the people around you in those pictures.
but he wouldn't talk to you, no. he needs to make sure he has all his facts straight about you. needs to make your reunion perfect.
instead he took pictures, videos. his phone had a whole folder dedicated to them. it was private, labeled as 'documents'. even bought a usb to upload it to his personal laptop.
pictures of you out on a walk, at a club, at home. he would dedicate his time simply staring, excusing it as "she's changed so much, i need to learn more about her".
it turned into something he couldn't help. secretly following her because 'a quirkless person must be protected. nothing will happen to them on my watch.'
familiarizing himself with you again as he opens one of his drawers. notebooks upon notebooks, all about you, from elementary to his UA years. reading through them either to give himself a good laugh or reminisce the past.
opening up a new notebook for a new era. once the pen hits the paper, he writes quickly, whispering gibberish at a rapid pace only he could understand.
(thx 4 the ask, I've literally never had one befoređ)
#yandere izuku midoriya#yandere deku#yandere male#male yandere#yandere x reader#yandere x you#gender neutral darling#yandere mha#yandere#yandere rambles#yandere rant#dark romance#dark fantasy#stalking fantasy#stalker yandere
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@ahubofreadersandmagicians:
Why would Daniel hate Marius? Heâs already read the âforced prostitutionâ and âMarius de Romanusâ folders from the Talamascaâs Armand file, weâve seen them. His only response was to shame Armand for talking abt the Arun/Amadeo days and imply he was lying. Even knowing Armand was telling the truth. Danielâs bad w/abuse victims generally and hates Armand. Sadly, I think heâll be ok with Marius.
This got stupid long and also needs to broken into parts to try to minimize how all over the place I am so let's gooo. Friendly disclaimer that this is my opinion but I am literally trained in media analysis like this so I promise I am coming from a place of knowledge. I'm gonna start with my interpretation of Daniel's character and go from there.
RE; Daniel is bad with abuse victims
I'm assuming you are saying this because of how Daniel talks to Luis about his abuse. The way Daniel approaches this topic is, frankly, awful. Daniel is not good at it. However, he is not supportive of it. He calls Lestat out on how badly he was treating Luis, the racial dynamic (again, said in a really bad way but later we do see Lestat minimizing Luis's feelings about how he is treated as a black man so he wasn't wrong). I also think about the rent boy line, which to me was more directed as a snide remark at Luis and his assumption of what their relationship is. Not saying it wasn't also supposed to be a jab at Fake Rashid (by this point he is suspicious and annoyed and staring all the time and in general does not know what to make of him, which Daniel doesn't like), but Daniel was in active conversation with Luis and not Fake Rashid. Daniel is mean, this is not in contention. He is not a good person. But he does not ignore or get down with abuse and instead calls it out into the room, both explicitly and implied.
RE; Daniel's Past & Hating Armand
Now, what informs the fact that Daniel is such a bitch, especially when he is chasing the high of bringing out the truth? Working under the assumption of my previous post, Devil's Minion has happened. The evidence of such is, in my opinion, scattered throughout both seasons and would be a whole other post to detail. This, in my opinion, is supported by comments made by the actors and show runners that imply they have purposefully planted seeds. All I have to work with in terms of analysis right now is the book and these seeds and my last post stated that we are treating the Devil's Minion chapter as canon up until Daniel's turning, at which point Armand would have erased his memories. This implies that from 1973 until 1985, the ages of 20 and 35, Daniel's memories are incomplete. Imagine your most developmental years as an adult are now so full of holes that you wrote a memoir about how inconsistent your memory is. Your first love, your first heartbreak, the first time you debased yourself for someone's love, the first time you really fucked up with someone, countless mistakes now altered. Any self-actualization that would have made Daniel a better person is now incomplete. This includes the memory of Daniel fucking a girl with a bag on her head. It is a shameful memory, that's why Armand brings it out, but as a twenty year-old shitty kid from Modesto, Daniel might not have fully conceptualized how ashamed he is of it until it is used as weapon against him. Assuming the memories begin to return next season, either in partial or in full, this would mean that Daniel would suddenly have a much fuller context of his trauma and why he does what he does. Eric Bogosian mentioned in an interview that both he and Daniel have forgotten trauma and I do not believe San Francisco is the end of that trauma. A relationship as volatile as Armand and Daniel's, influenced by drugs and blood and danger, would hold just as much trauma if not more than the six days spent in that apartment. Bogosian went on to say that those traumas influence how someone acts and interacts without even being aware of it. I believe a lot of the development we're gonna see in Daniel is him reconciling the mean, tear-it-all-down journalist with the man he was at the height of his affair with Armand. We've already seen heightened emotion from his Paris memory (another tangent but I do not believe Alice is Armand but rather that this specific memory was altered. Daniel cares a lot less about the memory of Alice telling him she's pregnant so the inconsistency is odd). Daniel is going to need character development moving forward. Does this mean he's going to stop being an asshole? No. He's still an asshole. I just think he'll be a different kind of asshole.
RE; Daniel Shaming Armand
I don't interpret that Arun/Amadeo line as shaming him, exactly. Asking where the lies start, implying the Arun dynamic was something of a sham (master when it's hot and convenient, etc), yeah. He's in the throes of bringing down the castle of lies, he's gotten his hit, he's basically high on exposing the truth. To me, especially given how he looks at Armand while he's on the floor, I don't think Daniel hates Armand. In book canon, it's said that he could only feel ravening desire and it is my opinion that that remains true. Daniel was gloating until the high wore off and then he was at the very least incredibly shook and definitely not making a move to rub it in Armand's face that he won.
RE; Daniel hating Marius
The show has set Marius up to be a pedophilic groomer. I don't even know if grooming was a widely-used term in the seventies but they dropped it in there and modern sensibilities make that very purposeful writing. Daniel, as stated before, does call out abusive behavior. Is he doing it in a way that reduces harm? Fuck no. Is he hurting everyone in the way he does it? Absolutely. But he has shown no evidence of being supportive of abusers and Marius has been set up explicitly as an abuser.
RE; Conclusion
Daniel Molloy is not a good person but he is not an abuser and there is no evidence that suggests he would love Marius or be in any way supportive of his actions. This is true in particular with Armand, since it is now well-established that they will have a romantic relationship in the future.
#devil's minion#devils minion#daniel molloy#interview with the vampire#meta#this is an insane post i am so sorry#ahubofreadersandmagicians
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some good friend - pt. 1
ao3 â main masterlist â series masterlist part 1 â part 2 â part 3
pairing: Tim Rockford x Soft Dom!Sex Worker!f!reader rating: Explicit (18+ only!) warnings: pegging, anal fingering, praise kink, mild glove kink, very mild feminization, masturbation, Tim has body image issues and a bit of an identity crisis, kind of coming untouched, sex work, comfort word count: 7k summary: Nerves were coiling in his belly in a way they typically only did at the end of a big case. There was no judge or jury here, no sentence, no surprise acquittal. There was just your door, and the promise of everything that lay beyond it. And it made him nervous.
A/N: finally, my boy Tim sees the light of day. I've been working on this for a while, and it's been nice to try something a little different. I hope you like it (and someone, anyone, please, stop me from making this a 3 part series too late, it's going to be a series)
divider by @saradika-graphics follow @covetedfics and turn notifications on for updates on future fics
Everything burns. His lungs, his legs, his goddamned feet.
He wasn't made for this. Not any more. His fucking shoes definitely weren't made for this - a fact made more and more obvious with every harsh, sharp, slap of his soles against the ground. Gone were the days of intense foot chases. They'd long since been replaced with hours spent at his desk, in interview rooms, searching the stacks in the archive room. The only saving grace was at the very least he was accustomed to low light - the dimly lit rooms he frequented coming in handy now as he thuds along in the semi-darkness, chasing after someone who is more shadow than man.
The drizzle of a cold October day certainly isn't helping either. He's coated in a fine mist of rain and soaked through to the marrow. His shoes - these fucking shoes - skid on the wet road, threatening injury with each turn of a corner. Every intake of breath blooms pain in his chest, each gasp seeming to draw in more water than air. That is, of course, if the biting chill of the wind doesn't swipe it all out of his mouth first.
He's drowning. Drowning and suffocating and burning all in one, but he can't stop. He can't will his legs to stop, even through the burn. Stopping means he loses, and he cannot lose. Not again. Not with this case.
But then, he turns a corner and the shadow is gone, faded into the darkness of an unlit alley, and out of his grasp once again.
Shit.
The ache is settled well into his bones by the time he gets home in the early hours of the morning. His tie sits damp in his jacket pocket - discarded at the roadside in a fit of rage and stomped into the wet ground, only to be picked up and pocketed a moment later. He liked that tie. His holsters tug uncomfortably at his shoulders, the twist of his body as he was running having shifted them to where they now pinch uncomfortably at his underarms. He can't wait to discard it all, to take off the whole damn lot - and these fucking shoes - and pretend for just one moment that he's not who he is.
So, he begins to shed the skin of Detective Tim Rockford.
The shoes go first. The jacket second. And then he removes his gun, stashing it in its case where it belongs and throwing his holster at his closet, where he'll no doubt struggle to find it again tomorrow. The burning sear of a shower is the last thing left to rid himself of the title that hangs over him, but instead he walks to his office. He needs to be Detective for just a moment longer.
It's tidier and more comfortable in here than it has any right to be. Dark wood, soft leather, neat folders, and blank papers. Of course, it's neat because he's rarely here to use it, preferring to use the space given to him downtown where a plaque sits on his desk telling all and sundry that Detective Tim Rockford works here. Here, in this room, he can be a little less Detective and a little more him.
He flops heavily into his chair, a move he immediately regrets when he feels the relief of taking the weight off his feet. How he'll ever get up from here, he doesn't know. Maybe he'll sleep here. Halfway between Detective and himself, stuck in some weird limbo where he is both and neither all at once. That'll lead to some good dreams.
Tim thinks of you. This was the place for that kind of thing, after all. This office where he is himself and someone else, the perfect parts of a person to be liaising with someone like you. Because that's what it was with you, a liaison. Nothing more, nothing less. And you, everything that you were, were his last chance for some good news before he peeled back the rest of the Detective and became himself for a few blissful hours.
Pulling a card from a drawer, he flips it in his fingers once, then twice before tapping it on his desk. You'd given it to him on his last visit - your address and number emblazoned on the front, both things he no longer needed to see to know, and a small list of services on the other side. Services that he ignored when you'd first pointed them out to him with a wink, but that he'd since spent a long time mulling over and, on occasion, searching in an incognito window of his browser.
With a heavy sigh, he picks up the phone, dialing your number from memory, and waits for you to pick up. Anyone else would be furious with a 4am phonecall, but not you. For a while he thought it was what suited your work best - common sense, and his years on the job, had taught him that illicit activities so often were better suited to darkness than daylight. But he'd seen clients leave your studio in the middle of the day on more than one occasion. No, by this point he simply suspected you didn't sleep at all.
A click of the call connecting, a soft breath down through the line, and there you are, the lilt of your voice ringing through his ear like music.
"Detective Rockford, how nice of you to call. What can I interest you in this fine morning?"
He pinches his nose, card still gripped tightly between his middle fingers. You did this every time, no matter the time of day or night. You were always on, always ready to try to rile him and get into his bloodstream. He'd admonished you once, told you he was only trying to do his job and he expected you to do the same. When you told him you were doing your job, Tim had to admit you got him there. You were both professionals, just in very, very different ways. From then on, he'd learned to appreciate it. Even if it did make him ache sometimes in ways he thought best to ignore.
"You got any news for me?"
You scoff down the phone. A light sound, but he can picture you rolling your eyes with it anyway. "Always so charming, Detective. Diving straight in without any foreplay at all. You can do better than that. Sweeten me up a little before you -"
"Please."
He sounds desperate in a way you haven't heard before. A year into your arrangement and he'd never sounded so bone tired and stressed out. You can even hear the pinch in his brow over the phone, the wrinkles there getting deeper and deeper the longer you knew him.
"It's been quiet, Detective. I doubt I have the names you're after, but a few whispers have been floating around. The case with the cat still causing you problems?"
From the heavy sigh he gives you can tell it's not what he was after, but that it is, indeed, still causing him problems.
"Well, I heard that..."
And so, you divulge your secrets, secrets that aren't really yours to have or to give, but you give them anyway. Whispers and names softly delivered down the phone line where he scribbles them down on a blank sheet of paper, careful not to indent the pages below it.
The pen clatters to the desk when you finish. You both know you haven't given him what he needs, but if Tim's honest with himself he isn't always sure what he needs from you any more. Though, he knows what he wants. Yes, he's frequently made painfully aware of what he wants.
"Anything you need?" he asks, his voice sounding tight with frustration. You can't blame him any more than you can hold back the laugh that trickles from your lips.
"Nothing right now. Here I was thinking that was my line anyway, Detective. The things I could do for you, if you'd let me."
Tim's eyes are drawn to the card again, now face up on the desk beside the scrawl of information you'd just given him. Truth be told, your services are as emblazoned in his mind as the details on the front of the card. Sometimes, like right now, he could barely get that list out of his mind long enough to think straight.
That's the moment when, after a long day at the end of an even longer week, part Detective but part just him, he gives in to what he's been fighting himself for for almost a year, and clears his throat.
"Like what? What... what exactly could you do for me?"
You're caught between surprise and glee, briefly straightening where you lounge in your chair. Softening back into the plush fabric, you dance a finger across your lower lip, wry smile tugging at your mouth as you think of the very many things you could do for him.
"Oh, Detective Rockford. I thought you'd never ask."
Nerves were coiling in his belly in a way they typically only did at the end of a big case. There was no judge or jury here, no sentence, no surprise acquittal. There was just your door, and the promise of everything that lay beyond it.
And it made him nervous.
He was in half a mind to walk away, but it was too late. His knuckles had already rapped against the wood, and you were already flicking the latch on the other side, readying to let him in.
When you do he's stunned, just like he always is when he sees you. This time you're half naked, a thin robe draped over your shoulders and left untied at the front. Beneath it you're wrapped in soft mesh lingerie, your nipples visible through the fabric as you beckon him inside.
The space - your studio - was a simple office unit in an undesirable part of town, but you made it work. As funny as it felt to admit, it was familiar to him now, and there was a comfort in that that was already easing the swell of nerves in his body. It wasn't always this way, of course, that first visit being eye opening both figuratively and literally. Furniture and furnishings that were odd were now somewhat normal, and the soft, rich, scent that permeated the room was one that he now associated only with you and this place you existed within. It was a smell too, he notices, that is so much stronger today than it has ever been on any of his previous visits, and he breathes in deeply, both to savor it and to calm the last of the nerves vibrating in his core.
When you shut the door, closing off the world outside, you stand before him again, looking a picture of sultry confidence as you size him up. This wasn't something that was new. You often stood there, letting your gaze wander up and down his body, lingering in places that made him flush red as you taunted him with flirty quips he'd ignore. This time is no different, and he finds himself mesmerized by the way you toy with the ties on your robe as you eye him, fingers gliding up and down the fabric.
"Are you here on your business, or mine, Detective?" you say with a smile, drawing his gaze from your fingers to your face. It was a long running joke, something you said each and every time he visited you here, despite the answer always being the same. But today, finally, it would be different.
Tim rolls his eyes, just as he always does, but instead of replying with a curt mine, he lets a smile pull at his lips instead. "Yours."
"Music to my ears. And you still want to do this? You're ready?"
You both knew that had a double meaning. In the literal physical sense, he knows he's as ready as he could possibly be. But he still takes a moment to check in with himself, to see if going through with all of it is something that he still wants. If those whispers down the phone, whispers that had quickly turned from flirty promises to guidance, to gasps, to relief, were what he still wanted. Would it be worth it, or was it a momentary blip of weakness and want? But then he remembers that relief once again, the soothing of that ache like sitting down off of pained feet, and can only imagine how much better that will feel here, with you, in this room. He's ready.
Tim nods, prompting you to take another step forward. The smell isn't the room at all, he notices. It's you. The fragrance clinging to your hair or your skin, he's not sure, but so much stronger each time you move.
"Good," you say on your slow approach. Barely a step from him you reach out, tugging on his jacket and straightening his tie before letting your palm rest on his chest. The soft stroke of your fingers does nothing to soothe the rapid hammering of the muscle pumping in his chest cavity, but you suppose it wasn't meant to. You wanted him excited and desperate for it. He'd already shown you how beautiful he could be for you over the phone - all whines and whimpers and yes ma'am's. Now you wanted the real thing.
"Why don't you get all of this off for me."
Before now, Tim had wondered how you started these things - how you went from 0 to seemingly 100 with clients to get them in through the door and out in the allotted time frame. He hadn't expected it to be so quick, or so easy. Maybe he just hadn't expected himself to be so quick, or so easy, but he's tugging at his tie before you even move away to settle against your desk with your ankles crossed.
"That's it, Detective," you prompt, letting your robe slip from your shoulders and pool at your elbows as he stuffs the tie into his pocket. "I want to see all of you."
And he wants you to see all of him. He wants to take off everything that makes him Detective Tim Rockford right in front of you, and have you take control, tell him what to do, make his mind blissfully empty. So, first he kicks off his shoes, then he takes off his jacket. Slowly, his shirt is peeled from his body, the nerves racketing up again with each button. He doesn't look how he did 10 years ago, he was less lean and more soft than he had ever been, the middle aged spread proving to be a fact of life he couldn't escape.
You know what he's thinking as his fingers stall on the last few buttons of his shirt. You'd dealt with these insecurities before, in countless other clients. You weren't immune to similar thoughts either. But, he'd told you he wanted to let go, to give up control with you, so you nod to the remainder of his clothes and prompt again.
"Come now. Let me see."
Tim's fingers work quickly over the last buttons and pull the shirt from his broad frame just as quickly, giving no time for the nerves to take root. You voice the sound of your smile the moment his shirt is discarded and he looks up to see your appraisal. Each button had drawn your eyes down his chest, to the soft swell of his belly, and further still to the growing bulge in the front of his pants. Tall and broad and beautiful, the mass of man in front of you had the power to catch your eye even fully clothed, but now, shirtless with the promise of more on the horizon, you couldn't ignore the thrill at seeing so much of his tanned skin, littered with freckles and a soft smattering of hair.
His belt is unbuckled and off, and his fingers are pulling open the button of his pants and his fly. He doesn't look at you again. He can't right now - if he does he'll choke up and stop himself, feeling entirely inadequate offering this body of his to you. Pushing down his pants, down past soft thighs and strong calves, he steps out of them, taking his socks with them with each step, before nervously scratching at his belly.
Only then, does he look back up at you. You're enraptured, and have already pushed back off your desk, circling him to look at every inch of his body. You'd dimmed the lights slightly, as you always did for client sessions, but even in the soft lamplight he looked stunning. Your fingers trace the swell of his bicep, across his shoulder and the jut of his shoulder blade. A shudder runs down his spine as your fingers dance across it, down to the dimples at his back and over his hip before you round him again where your fingertips rest on his soft belly and the trail of hair there.
"You've been hiding all of this from me for how long, Detective?" you whisper, letting your fingers glide down further and further with each word. "It makes me wonder what else you're hiding."
Tim's cock twitches in his boxers, the thin fabric straining more and more with each passing moment under your gaze. He'd never felt so seen, so appraised, before. The way you looked at him was so easy, the shine in your eye so bright as he peeled back each layer.
"You still want this?"
It's what he said he'd wanted. Days ago now, but he'd said he wanted it and he did. He does. He swallows thickly, desperate to get moisture back into his mouth, nodding a croak of a yes.
At that, you slide the tip of your finger into the waistband of his boxers and pull, stretching the elastic a fraction before releasing, pinging it sharply against his skin.
"Then get these off too, Detective."
His boxers are on the floor a second later, his cock springing free semi-hard between his legs. Raising your hands to your face, you gasp in faux shock, hiding your very real delight behind your hands as you take in his entire naked form.
"Oh, Detective Rockford. I'm disappointed. After all this time you've been hiding that from me?" you gasp, and while Tim can't help but roll his eyes, his cock betrays him and stiffens even more at your words. You'd been through it all with him. Your services, yes, but also specifically what he wanted from you, some of which you'd discovered together on the phone that morning. This was one of those things - a thing you'd discovered on a whim, but something you both knew he would like before the words left your lips. There was a reason he was asking you for this and nobody else - Tim knew the specific brand of sordid you dealt in and, more than anything, he trusted you. Unfortunately for him, you planned on keeping exactly to your word from that call and, guiding your fingers down his bare chest, you tease closer and closer to his length.
"Tsk. Such a shame I won't be playing with it today."
Tim groans, a gasp of a thing he cuts short with a pinch of his lips. He's frowning again too, but nods, knowing that what he came here for wasn't that, but also very aware of the weight of the words you used. Not today, but not never.
Then, your robe is off and you're guiding him to the bed, where he lowers himself and leans back, watching your form as it retreats into the other room. He looks down, down at the body you'd just spent minutes looking at and enjoying, and wonders what you see that he doesn't. All he knows is he's trusted your word for as long as he's known you, and it's no different now. Whatever you see in him, you at least believe it to be true, and that alone makes it easier for him to believe himself. Before he can figure much or anything else out, you're sauntering back into the room.
In your hands you hold a few things. None of them should be surprising to him, but he still sucks in a sharp breath when he sees it - the strap you'd picked out just for him. You'd told him about it over the phone, said that you had the perfect one for him, that you could picture him beneath you taking it, moaning and shaking as you fucked him, and now there it was, exactly as you described. This was never something he felt able to ask for with anyone else, his ex-wife especially. It's true he was always married more to his job than to her, but even in the privacy of their own bedroom he had secrets and wants he could never share with her - she made that much clear early on. With you, he didn't even need to mention it first for you to suggest it to him, didn't even need to feel the heat of shame in his cheeks as he struggled to find the words for what he wanted, because there you were already with all the answers.
You settle everything beside him, letting him see the soft, slender, curve of the dildo up close for the first time, and pass him a bottle of water. Tim takes it, grateful that once again that it was another thing he didn't have to ask for, and cracks open the lid, taking a deep gulp of the cold liquid before setting it out of the way. Another day he'd wonder how it got to this - how on earth Tim Rockford got so used to suffering in silence that even thirst wasn't something he'd remedy until he was desperate. But, right now all he knows is the heat of your body and the smell of your skin as you kneel next to him on the bed, looking down at him with a smirk on your lips.
"Usually I ask people how they'd like it," you whisper, stroking gently down his neck, "but I think we both know you'd like it on your knees, Detective." You twirl your finger in the air, signalling for him to move, and like the good little thing he is, he shifts onto his hands before crawling forward slightly to perch on all fours on the bed.
You think he looks glorious; he feels so exposed - entirely naked for you while you're draped in that thin mesh he can see right through. He doesn't want to think about how he looks like this, on his knees with his ass on total display, his cock hanging low and, already, starting to leak precum.
Blunt nails drag down his back, softly scraping down his ass cheeks and the backs of his thighs. He shudders. You can see his cock where it bobs between his legs, and his balls where they hang softly just beneath the cleft of his cheeks. If he were a different client, maybe you'd give in and drag your nails across the soft flesh of them too, cup them in your palm and give them a firm squeeze, but you resist. Whatever this is doing to you, you'll deal with later. For now, this is for him and that desperate man, the Detective, who had all but begged you for information down the phone.
Grabbing at the small selection of things you'd dumped next to him, you get ready. Tim watches, eager eyes looking as you pull a black nitrile glove down your hand and snap it around you wrist, wiggling your fingers at him when you spot his gaze.
"I can tell you're excited," you say with a look down to his ass where his cock bounces hard against his belly with a tense of his muscles. "You're so ready for this too, aren't you? You've been waiting so long..."
Guiding your ungloved hand down his ass, you squeeze, gripping the flesh and pulling him apart, exposing him to your gaze. "Very pretty."
Tim huffs a laugh, not believing for a second that he is pretty at all, let alone like this, or there.
"What? You don't think you're pretty, all bent over and exposed for me, Detective? I'd argue you've never looked better."
"Right. Is this how you get all your information? Your clients must tell you all sorta things, huh? Vulnerable like this."
A swift, sharp slap is delivered to his right ass cheek, making him gasp as you tut and soothe the sting with your palm. "Ah-ah, Detective, you're off the clock. No work talk. We're here on my business now, not yours."
"Fu- Never off the clock, not in my line of work."
"And that's exactly why you're here, sweetie."
"...Yes ma'am."
There's a small delighted giggle that you just can't hold back, a sound that makes him flush, before you speak again. "Polite and pretty. Are you ready for me, Detective?"
It's then he realizes that your hand hasn't stopped its slow, steady caress of his ass cheeks, pushing and pulling him apart as you watch the tension leave his shoulders. He nods, trying not to brace himself for whatever is coming first, not hearing the click of a lube bottle through the blood rushing in his ears, but definitely feeling the cool trickle of it when it drips onto his asshole.
"That's it," you say, soothing with your ungloved hand, as your gloved one comes down to stroke the pucker of his ring. "We both know you're familiar with this feeling, Detective. Are you going to let me in here?"
The wet swipe of your finger between his cheeks almost feels like it could be cool, cold tongue with how you swirl it around and around his asshole. He tries not to curl his toes, and manages not to until he can't help but beg, a small please falling softly from his plush lips, and you immediately push, sinking the tip of your finger into his ass.
Tim groans, gripping the sheets in an effort not to surge forward and away from the gentle probe of your finger.
"Make all the noise you need to, Detective."
"Fuck."
Your finger steadily sinks into him, drawing out and in to collect more lube as you drizzle it onto his hole.
"Remember how this feels?"
He remembers. Remembers the crackle of your voice over the phone line as you told him to finger his ass. How his hands had scrambled to turn on speakerphone, the other still wrapped around his cock, jerking weakly as you whispered filthy encouragement down the line. Before even that, he remembers the nights spent in his own bed, concocting his own fantasies while he fucked his fist and fingers in tandem.
Except, your fingers feel so much different from his own, can reach places his cannot, and he's groaning with his head hung low between his shoulders before you're even knuckle deep.
Curling this way and that, you feel him from the inside out. Soothing him with a hand on his back, you can feel the deep breath he takes just as the tip of your finger collides with a spot inside him he was all too familiar with, massaging back and forth until he's a groaning mess.
"Oh, well that's a pretty sound, Detective. It sounds to me like you want another."
If he closes his eyes, he can see it, see the black of your gloved hand curled into a fist as your index finger stretches his hole. He can see already as you pull out a little, unfurl another finger, and slide it next to the first, ready to push into him again.
And he takes it, letting out a shuddering gasp, as your fingers fuck into his ass once again, scissoring in him before pushing down and beginning a slow curl against that spot again.
"There. That was easy. I think someone is enjoying this quite a bit, aren't you, Detective?"
There's no denying it, he is. The feel of your hand making him want to buckle into a heap on the bed already and you'd barely even started.
"Yeah. It's - ah fuck - it's good. That's - uh - not fair."
You'd been curling and prodding against his prostate as he tried to talk, making him garble words at you as you watch his cock get more and more engorged between his thighs. "What's not fair?" you ask, with a firmer press down into the spot, and you relish in the deep gravelly moan that grumbles from his chest, forcing his elbows to drop down onto the mattress.
When his hips buck forward, you place a steadying hand on his back, stroking soothing circles with your bare fingers over the dimples in his skin whilst your gloved ones curl into the spot again and again. Part of him is longing to reach down and grab his cock, to jerk it and come all over his fist with your fingers buried in his ass, but that's not what he's here for. Each time he opens his eyes he's made aware of what he's here for by the strap that still lays next to him. If he comes too soon, he's scared that'll be it over, the relief he was really seeking from you still totally out of reach by his own failure. He couldn't, wouldn't, fail at this too.
"Just look at you, Detective. You're getting so wet already." He is. He can feel it. His cock is dripping, beads of precum collecting on his tip and threatening to make a mess of the sheets below. Nodding and groaning and squeezing his eyes shut seem to be all he can do already, feeling like a total mess of a man with your voice like honey trickling into his ear. "So good. I think you can take one more finger. That's it, just one more. Good. Good boy."
He preens, back arching with the praise, cock definitely dripping onto the sheets now, three of your fingers curling and thrusting into his ass. He throbs, the ache of arousal thrumming through him with no relief, just building and building and building with nowhere to go, because you don't let it. You control it, each press of your fingers still so achingly slow that it can make him drip and ache but never explode.
A thin sheen of sweat is coating his body, his legs shaking, forehead pressed into the cool sheets, groans falling wantonly from his mouth, by the time you gingerly pull your fingers from him. That in itself feels like a relief, he thinks. Even though he's still painfully hard at least, for one moment, he's not being worked up and up to an edge you won't quite let him over just yet.
But the strap beside him is gone when he looks up, pushing up on shaky hands to look around for you again. Now, it sits on your hips, straps pulled taught over the mesh of your lingerie. You're pulling a condom over the length of dildo, rolling it down to the base, your glove discarded somewhere he can't see. His mouth is dry again, so he reaches for the water, swallowing deeply, wiping away an errant drop from the scruff of his beard.
He can't stop looking. Between your face, your beautiful face, your scantily clad body, your hands and those fingers that had just been inside him, the cock between your legs. He's entranced. It takes a gentle hand on his shoulder for him to notice you're talking to him.
"Look at you, Detective," you hum down to him, and all he can think is Yes. Look at me. Please. Here he was, stripped bare as a man could be, seen by you in ways he'd never been seen. And that name - a taunt coming from you that he longed for rather than loathed. Each tease of Detective a reminder that with you he could be both and neither all at once, just as he always was.
He reaches for you then. Slowly. Delicately. Fingers bridging the gap between you. Usually you'd step back, move away from grasping hands when permission wasn't granted. But, you let him touch, his fingers resting on your mesh covered hip and stroking you. It's the first time he's ever touched you, and it's so soft. You're so soft.
"You're ready for it, aren't you?" you ask, your eyes lazily dragging down to the strap between your legs where his follow.
Without word, and avoiding the mess already splattered on the sheet, he moves back to all fours, his hand leaving you cold. Slicking more lube across the strap, you kneel behind him, palming his ass with both hands, rubbing soft circles down his thighs as you gently rut against the crevasse of his ass.
"Do you trust me, Detective?"
It's a stupid question - stupid because you already know the answer, and so does he.
"You're kidding, right?" he says in disbelief, looking around to see the coy smile on your face.
"Humor me."
"Of course I do."
With his eyes still on you, you press forward, hand steadying the dildo to slip the tip into his slick asshole.
"Oh. That's it. Look at me when I fuck your ass. That feels so good doesn't it?"
Tim pants, nodding as you bear forward. The strap is barely thicker than your three fingers, but his rim still stretches and pulls as you breach him, slowly, steadily, until the entire length is buried in his ass.
"There we go. That's it. I'm all the way in. You take an ass fucking so well, Detective. Are you sure you haven't done this before?" With another roll of your hips he's gasping again, dropping his face to the sheet. The heat of his thighs are against yours and you know, you just know, that his cock is straining, his balls begging to empty already.
"There we are. That's it. You can take it. Oh, good boy. You like that don't you. You like being a good boy."
With his cheek is pressed to the mattress, you can see nothing but the pinched look of ecstasy on his face. It's boiling in his veins too, the heat spreading up his back and burning his cheeks. If he opens his eyes he'll see you, looking down with intent at his ass as you slowly roll your hips into him, and the thought alone makes him groan, brings him so close to coming that he's scrambling for purchase on the bed again, desperate gasps rattling out of him. The cloying scent of you is all over him - stuck in his lungs like molasses, each deep breath in of you coinciding with each slap of your hips against his ass until desperation turns to pleading.
"Please. P-please. Fuck. Please."
"Please what?" you say, looking around at him. And that's when you see his cock, angry and weeping, splattering cum all over your sheets. You hadn't felt him come yet, there'd been no tensing of his muscles or twitching of his cock, just a steady stream of precum dripping from him like a leaky faucet. "Oh, look at that. You're making quite the mess, aren't you, sweetie? Are you going to clean that up? Hm? Or will I have to bill the city for my laundry?"
"Oh, fu-," he pants, and you feel a shiver trickle down his back at the empty threat, his palms pressing harder into the mattress beneath him as his shoulders draw back. He's going to come. You don't even need to move, you could just talk to him in that voice of yours, call him a good boy and tell him how dirty he is and he'd be gone, skyrocketing to a place he'd never been and making a glorious mess of everything.
"What was that?" You slow down the roll of your hips, drawing him back from that edge you'd been dangling him so deliciously over.
"No. No. Don't - Fuck."
"Then you'll have to clean up your mess."
You swipe your finger through the cum that has steadily dripped from his cock and onto the sheet below, and lean forward to bring it to his lips, pressing your hips further and further into his ass. There's a sticky sheen of sweat on his back that slicks you together, and you can't resist. You kiss him. Soft lips pressing into the muscle of his shoulder, waiting for that moment he parts his lips in a voiceless moan to slip your finger inside. His tongue laves around your digit, tasting himself on the salt of your skin and he groans, vibrating desperate sounds from his chest to yours as you fuck so deep he's seeing stars.
"That's it, that's a good boy," you coo, dragging your finger from his mouth, leaving a trail of saliva across the scruff of his cheek.
"It's such a shame I have no use for your cock when it looks so pretty, Detective," You say, lifting your leg to fuck more deeply into him. "Look at it, all drippy and useless. You're going to come, aren't you? Even without touching your cock, you're going to come and make even more of a mess."
"Yes. Fuck, yes. Don't stop."
The steady slap of your hips picks up, and you're panting with exertion now too. You could've had him coming in five minutes, but that was no fun for you. You'd waited too long for this not to drag it out, not to see how long he could hold off for you, how much of a desperate mess he could be before he was begging for release. This was it. His limit. You'd found it, and his groans were suddenly impossible to ignore, shooting white hot heat into your own core, making you feel slick with want as you fucked him. You need him to come, before your need for more friction clouds your brain and you need to slip your hand between your own legs before he even leaves.
"Such a pretty ass to ruin. Come for me, Detective. Oh, fuck. Come for me."
He stops breathing. He thinks he's died. He has to have. You think you've killed him. But then his whole body tenses and he groans out a sob, biting sheets and spitting them out over and over as he comes, and comes, and comes. You don't stop, each shuddering sob of a gasp spurring you on until he's milked dry and almost prone on the mattress.
"That's it. That's it. You did it. Good boy. Well done, Detective. Well done."
He feels so soft. His bones must have turned to dust and spurted out of his cock with that final thrust of the strap in his ass. He's never been this weightless, never been this carefree. There's not an ache in him, just pure bliss, and he's so relieved he could cry.
And you're there. Pulling out of him slowly, wiping down his back, his thighs, with a damp towel, cooling him before you dry him with another, bringing water to his lips for him to drink. Pushing his hair back from his forehead, you guide him onto his back, letting him lie down and take a moments rest you know the man wouldn't take any other time. You're fairly certain he doesn't sleep. Detective Rockford works too hard because he cares too much, you know that. And you also know he doesn't care for himself. That is why he's here, even if he'd never say so himself.
"Up you get, sweetie. It's cold. Let's get something on you," you're whispering to him all too soon. Tim's lost, the concept of time gone from his body entirely, but he supposes it has been too long, his time is up. He only paid for an hour of your time, and even that seemed much more valuable than the price you'd put on it. He should go.
When he sits up he's lethargic, reaching for his clothes as he shuffles to the end of the bed. He doesn't know you're holding a robe out for him, strap discarded. He doesn't see the concern in your eyes because he suddenly can't meet them. "Should get going, I guess."
"No. You shouldn't. Stay."
Tim looks up to you then, seeing you wrapped and fully covered for the first time in the year he's known you. You're no more on the job right now than he is, he realizes, blinking in confusion at the robe you toss next to him.
"Look, I've taken up enough of your time, I don't want to overstep -"
"I'm not asking you to stay as a client, Detective. I'm asking you to stay as a friend. Stay. Talk to me." And you say it because god knows you mean it. You want him to stay and you want him to talk as much as you know he needs it, that gap he'd bridged with his hand now being bridged by you, and your simple request that he stay.
"Some friend to have."
"A good friend to have, Tim.â
â- I didn't mean - I meant me, I -â
âThe point still stands either way," you say. And you mean that too. "Stay."
And that's it. There he is. Stripped back, just like he wanted. No more Detective. Just Tim. And there you are. Sitting on the blanket draped sofa, looking him straight in the eye. You don't need to look down to see him, and he doesn't need to look up to see you.
Grabbing the robe, Tim drapes it around himself, walking on unsteady feet toward you, the mess of the sheets and his life forgotten for one more second.
"Decaf? Might not have all the answers. But I do have coffee. And that's a start."
"Yeah," he says as he sits beside you. "Yeah, that's a start."
taglist: @jupiter-soups @wannab-urs @bean-is-reading @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @youandmeand5bucks-blog @bbyanarchist @vickywallace @kamcrazy123 @valkyreally @ashhlsstuff @a-literal-goblin @ariundercovers @iluvurfather @stevie75 @toxicanonymity @thesevi0lentdelights @sp00kymulderr @corazondebeskar-reads
also a little sneaky tag if you showed interest in my snippet the other day đ @heareball @nerdieforpedro @missredherring @survivingandenduring
#tim rockford x reader#tim rockford x f!reader#tim rockford x you#merge mansion#merge mansion fanfiction#tim rockford fanfiction#tim rockford#detective tim rockford#coveted fics
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Part 1: Velaris
Co-Written with @mariaofdoranelle
Of Hearts and Heists Masterlist
Read on AO3
Word count: 5.8k
Warnings: swearing, grumpy Rowan, icky paparazzi, blink and you miss it angsty hints oops
A/N: @mariaofdoranelle and i are so excited about this story!!! we're also kind of busy lol so this might be very randomly updated, but we're still so excited to share it with you!!
Enjoy!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Four Months Earlier
Aelin blinked awake at the soft tap on her shoulder, brushing the bleariness from her eyes. She touched a button on the side of her headphones, turning off the noise-canceling feature, and moved one of the cups off of her ear, looking inquisitively up at the uniformed flight attendant standing politely beside her reclined seat.Â
âWe are preparing for descent, Ms. Galathynius,â the lady said softly. âIâll need to bring your seat upright. Would you like to stay here or move into another part of the cabin?âÂ
âI can move, thank you.â Swinging her sleepy legs over the side of the makeshift bed, she got up, picked up her small bag and the media report her publicist left while Aelin was asleep, then moved to the other half of the private planeâs cabin. Comfortable beige leather chairs sat in clusters of four around a few tables, and she crossed over to the one where a dark-haired man around her own age was sprawled in one of the chairs, snoring softly.Â
He didnât budge when she sat down opposite him, propped her chin on her hands, and stared directly into his closed eyes. Time to work, then.
She flipped open the folder that held Elideâs report. On the first page, sheâd left a Post-it note with the reminder that Aelin would meet her new bodyguard. She didnât know anything about him, except he was highly recommended and flew from Wendlyn to temporarily replace Chaol while he was on paternity leave.
Post-it aside, Aelin knew what was inside Elideâs media report even before she opened it: a reminder of the next season of her show among a whole bunch of speculation about her love life. She wasnât masochistic enough to Google herself and see what was being said about her, hence why her publicist always curated a sum up of what was currently being said about her, with a few headlines and hit tweets so she could have an idea of potential subjects for the next round of interviews.Â
And this weekâs media report? Just a big are-they-or-arenât-they.
Because if producers invite Aelin and Dorian to co-star together, itâs obviously because theyâre in a romantic relationship, it wouldnât have to do with both of them being hard-working stars who have chemistry on screen, get along with each other and the rest of the crew off-screen, and also happen to not arrive late or throw tantrums on set.
It was another several minutes before he stirred, and Aelin prepared for it, putting her work off to stare at him with crazy eyes as he pushed the silk sleep mask off of his eyesâto her delight, he gave a little shriek.Â
âHoly shit, Aelin!âÂ
She snickered. âMorning, princess. Have a good beauty sleep?âÂ
Dorian Havilliard pushed his hair away from his face with a sniff. âSince youâre clearly so invested in my well-being, yes. I did.âÂ
âAww, Dor, you know how easy it is to scare you.â She caught the pencil he threw at her head. âYou would have been scared when you woke up anyway, since weâll be halfway around the world.âÂ
âThat doesnât scare me.â He settled his headphones around his neck. âWeâve both been in this game too long to be freaked out by a little time change, right?âÂ
âRight.â Aelin turned her attention to the notes on her phone. âAre we ready for tonight?â Her publicist had left her a lengthy list of instructions for that nightâs launch of the teaser trailer for the new season of âQueen of Glass,â the hit Netflix series that Aelin and Dorian starred in.Â
Dorian grumbled under his breath. âI guess. Wish we didnât have to jump straight into press, but thatâs just how it worked out this time.â Normally, when going to an event for their current project, they would arrive at their first stop and have a day or two to settle in, adjust to the time change, and prepare for the upcoming interviews, but their last few weeks of filming had gone later than expected, and they hadnât been able to leave until the day before the trailer launch.Â
âI know, you wanted to be able to see the sightsâthe landmarks, the river, the art, the men.â Aelin laughed at the guilty flush that crept up Dorianâs face. âItâs okay, you knowâI have a thing for Velarian men too, Iâd never judge you for it.âÂ
He smirked. âWe can leave that to dear old Dad.âÂ
She barked out a sharp laugh. âItâs too bad he wonât be at this event, because you could give him all the heart attacks.âÂ
âAbout thatâŠâÂ
Aelin arched one eyebrow. âWhy do I sense that youâre about to ask me for one of your big favors again, Dor?âÂ
âI have a big favor to ask,â Dorian crooned, right on cue, snickering.Â
She sighed in pretend reluctance. âWhat is it?âÂ
âWeshouldpretendtobedating.â The words spilled out of him in a single, breathless rush. He took a big gulp of breath and tried again, his fingers tapping erratically on the top of the table. âWe should pretend to be dating when we give interviews.âÂ
âDor, sweetheartâŠâ Her confusion grew. âWhy the hell are you saying that?âÂ
âI have a whole entire explanation that I shouldâve given first, but of fuckinâ course I had to go and spill the conclusion.â He took a long drink from his water bottle. âYou know how much of an asshole my dad gets when heâs stressed out during campaigns.âÂ
Aelin nodded. âOh, Iâm very aware of Asshat-in-Chief Havilliard.âÂ
Actually, his dad was an asshole every day of every year and managed to get worse around the elections, but Dorian was so used to the toxicity and verbal abuse that he saw it as ânormalâ.
Dorian snickered. âWell, before we left on this trip, he decided to grant me the immense favor of a two-minute phone call, and he told me quite bluntly that if I âdo anything to screw over his campaign,â heâd go the extra mile to âunscrew itââthat was a direct quote, by the way, and you knowâŠâÂ
âI do,â Aelin said, softening now. Havilliard Sr. was the perfect example of how dangerous it could be to hand that much power in the hands of a jackass like him. The possibilities of what he could do to his son were endlessâpublicly cut him off, forbid him from seeing his mother and little brother, even sink his career with a few phone calls to high-profile executives from his golf clubâand the worst thing, he had no qualms about dangling this over his own sonâs head when convenient. âSounds just like the kind of shit he would say,â Aelin agreed. âWhat do you need?âÂ
âThe next thing he told meâas if it wasnât already clearâwas that if Iâm too indiscreet, heâll consider that me screwing over his campaign. So, I just need to keep him off my ass, get one hell of a solid alibi, you know? And I didnât have any good ideas until I told Lys about Dadâs phone call.â He took another deep breath. âIâm not trying to shift the blame hereââÂ
âYou definitely are, but Iâll ignore it,â Aelin teased. âGo on.âÂ
âLys suggested that we pretend to be dating for this press tour, potentially starting as early as this event. If weâre seen in a ârelationship,â then all the paparazzi and tabloids will assume that weâve been hiding it for a while, and theyâll go fucking insane trying to dig up all the little hints. Theyâll get so consumed with our fake love story that they wonât pay any attention to the stuff we donât want them to see. Plus, it will get even more engagement for the season premiere.âÂ
âDonât I know that,â Aelin muttered. She tapped her nails thoughtfully on the edge of the table, thinking over Dorianâs proposal. âI want to ask for time to think about it, butâŠLys is right. Damn, itâs like she knows things about this.âÂ
Dorian chuckled. âAlmost like itâs her job, right?âÂ
âWho wouldâve guessed?â Aelin laughed. âItâs a hell of an idea, Dor. Do you think we can actually pull it off?âÂ
âMy beloved Elentiya,â Dorian intoned, quoting his lines from the season they had just finished filming. âMy heart and soul are yours.âÂ
âYouâre such a drama queen,â she teased. âOkay. We just have a lot to plan and discuss, but⊠Iâll do it.â
While she hated to indirectly support Dorianâs dad, sheâd do just about anything to protect her friend.
âThank you,â he said with a soft, grateful lookâcompletely serious for onceâand reached over to squeeze her hands.
The plane touched down as they spoke, the slight jolt of the landing causing the luggage in the overhead compartments to rattle softly. The pilotâs voice crackled to life over the speaker a moment later. âWelcome to Velaris! The local time is 14:25. We will likely be taxiing for ten to fifteen minutes, so please sit comfortably until weâve reached our gate at the private flight terminal.âÂ
âLooks like weâll have a few hours before the trailer launch,â Aelin remarked, glancing at her smart watch.Â
âAt least enough time to prepare while we sit in hair and makeup,â Dorian said, somewhat cynically.Â
She wiggled her brows at him. âWe both know your favorite part of being a famous film star is getting your hair done every day, you little diva.âÂ
âGuilty as charged.â He combed his fingers through his dark waves.Â
The plane finally pulled into a gate and stopped, its engines rumbling down to silence as the jet bridge connected to the planeâs doors. Aelin stood up, stretching her arms above her head and wincing a little at the stiffness in her hips from eleven hours on a plane. Even the comfort of the private jet didnât relieve the physical strain of such long travel days.Â
She fished out her pair of sunglasses from her purse, but before she could descend the jetâs stairs, her assistant Manon was already talking to a man on the floor.
A man? Aelin wasnât sure. He was the size of a French-door refrigerator, and he was probably strong enough to lift one, too. Pale blond hair, sunglasses, black ink peeking out his collar and sleeves contrasting with that Wendlyn tan.
âDarling, is our relationship open?â Dorian slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to get a better look.Â
âWhy?â she said in a teasing tone. âLast one to ride the bodyguard is a rotten egg?â
Manon, who was standing on the jet bridge, had her back to them, but she turned to give them one of her scary glares. Dorian immediately straightened, and it was only then that Aelin realized that they were both blocking the airplane door to gawk at the bodyguard.
Both hurried to descend the stairs, but Aelin went directly to her assistantâand new bodyguardâwhile Dorian went to Lys, probably to tell his publicist about their conversation.
The bodyguard took off his sunglasses, exposing a set of pine-green eyes. Gods, he just kept getting more attractive.Â
She was in such deep shit.
âAelin,â Manon said crisply when she was within reach. âI want you to meet the personal security officer thatâll work with us while Chaolâs out.â
He gave nothing but a curt nod, his face a blank mask. Â
âIâm Aelin,â she offered.
âNice to meet you, Miss Galathynius.â
âDo you have a name, or should I just snap my fingers at you?â She couldnât resist a teasing grin, or the analytical up-and-down stare, watching as his jaw clenched.Â
âWhitethorn. Rowan Whitethorn.âÂ
Rowan Whitethornâstern, blazing green eyes, muscles for days, and tattoos that made her wonder how far they went. They curled down to the fingertips of his right hand and up part of his neck, only highlighting hisâŠgod, he was hot. An annoyed scowl crossed his stupidly handsome face. So far, his personality was the only unattractive thing about him, and his grumpy ass would stick out like a sore thumb among her teamâs friendly environment.
âWe treat each other on a first-name basis on my team, are you okay with this?â
He nodded. âOf course, maâam.â
His automatic, almost robotic reply brought a slow smirk to her lips. âLetâs practice, then. Call me Aelin.â
He narrowed his eyes at her, barely concealing his irritation, and kept strong eye contact as he said, âVery well, Aelin.â
âAnd Iâm Dorian,â the annoying pain in her ass she called a best friend and co-star cut in.
Aelin sighed. âHeâsââ
âThe boyfriend,â he interrupted again, this time sliding his hands around her waist. âA very possessive one, too.âÂ
âDorian,â Aelin sighed. âWe agreed not to tell people yet!âÂ
The incorrigible man shrugged. âI think itâs best that our security team knows, right?â She rolled her eyes. He continued, âThough I do think itâs a big insult that you donât think I can protect you myselfâI was killing zombies at 16, for Malaâs sake.â
âYou and I both know the zombies were CGI-ed, Dori.âÂ
Rowan huffed under his breath. âIf the two of you are done, we have a schedule to keep. We need to get to the car.âÂ
 The private terminal was mostly quiet, but years of being in the spotlight made her extra attuned to the amount of possible eyes that could be watching. Dorian fell into step beside her as they walked through the terminal, exiting into bright summer sunlight. A black SUV with tinted windows waited beside the curb, and as they came out of the terminal, a man in dark gray pants and a long-sleeved gray shirt, dark shades covering his eyes and a clear coil of wire trailing from the earpiece in his left ear, stepped out of the car and opened the side door. Like most of the security personnel Aelin had met in her years of having a security detail, he was fairly nondescriptâaveragely tall and physically fit with closely cropped brown hair and a bland, forgettable face.Â
She left her suitcase for the guard to put into the back of the car and climbed in with Dorian, exhaling deeply at the comfort of the plush seats. âDamn, I could fall asleep so fast.âÂ
âDonât even think about it.â Seated in one of the seats opposite Aelin and Dorianâs row, Elide handed Aelin a steaming paper cup. âWe have shit to talk about, Ae.â The petite woman had been Aelinâs publicist for five years and her close friend since childhood, and she was fearsome in front of the press.Â
âYou are the best,â Aelin breathed, taking a sip of the double espresso in the cup.Â
Elideâs lips twitched into a little smile. âWeâll see how you feel about that when Iâm done telling you about tonightâs event.â She glanced down at her tablet. âDorian texted me earlier that heâd talked to you about the strategy?âÂ
âYou mean Lysâs brilliant, crackpot scheme to break the internet?âÂ
Next to Elide, Lysandra raised one perfectly threaded eyebrow. âLady, I know you didnât just insult my brilliance.âÂ
âI would never,â Aelin crooned innocently.Â
Dorian snorted. âYou would.âÂ
âTraitor.â She poked him in the ribs.Â
Lys clapped her hands. âClass is now in session. Pay attention, you two.â She and Elide shared a look. âSo, Dorian told both of us that he talked to you, Aelin. Have you made up your mind about the dating plan?âÂ
âYes.â Aelin sipped her espresso. âIâm in.â
 âGood.â Lysandra tapped something on her tablet. âWe donât think you should jump straight into it tonight, mostly because the timing isnât great and we donât expect you to be able to pull off a fake hard launch after traveling for most of the day. So hereâs what we were thinking: when you make your red carpet appearance, just act normal. Be the two best friends that everyone knows you are.âÂ
âBut if you want to stay a little closer together, maybe stay side by side for all the photos and have multiple hugs, that wouldnât be a bad idea,â Elide added. âThe idea is that you give the press a subtle hint of whatâs going to happen. Make them start to wonder if thereâs anything more than friendship between the leading actors. That way, when you do launch your fake relationship, theyâll sprint back to the photos from tonight and put them up everywhere as proof that everyone missed.âÂ
Dorian nodded slowly. âI know I say this about once a day, but you are truly a genius, Lysandra.âÂ
âI know.â The publicist smirked. âAny questions?âÂ
âWhen do you want us to do the big reveal?â Aelin asked.Â
Elide shrugged. âWe can talk about it after the event tonight. You have a couple of free days after the trailer launch, so I was thinking that when you two go out exploring the city, you could make a point of holding hands or whatever so that people can catch those moments and start freaking out over your relationship.âÂ
âThat sounds like youâre going to stage some photos,â Aelin commented.Â
âMaybe I am.â Elide winked. âYou should be expecting it by now, Ae.âÂ
âI really should,â Aelin chuckled.Â
Dorian tilted his head to the side. âHypothetically, what if we dropped a big hint during the screening of the trailer?âÂ
Lys narrowed her eyes. âWhat do you mean by âbig hint,â Dor?âÂ
He shrugged. âI dunno, like a kiss?âÂ
âWhat part of not today did you not understand?â Lysandra sighed, but she noticed that Dorian was holding back laughter. âAre youâŠdid you do that just to play me?âÂ
âMaybe.â He snickered.Â
âYouâre a little shit,â she laughed. âI swear, one of these days Iâm going to drop you, and youâll be running around in circles trying to figure things out.âÂ
He shot her an angelic smile. âLys darling, youâre the best publicist in the world.âÂ
âI know.âÂ
The car slowed to a stop at the back entrance of a five-story sandstone building, its walls broken with elegant arches of sparkling glass and columned balconies that were often the site of romantic photoshoots. The River Mansion, a two-century-old hotel that had been remodeled to modernize its facilities while preserving its historic architecture, was possibly one of the most beautiful buildings in Velaris. Aelin had stayed there twice before, and each time, she had loved it.Â
Their gray-clad security guard opened the door, and the four of them climbed out of the car, Aelin falling into step next to Dorian with the two publicists and Manon in front of them as they walked in the back entrance of the hotel. Rowan was a couple of steps ahead, and he held the door open for them like a gentleman, even though he was a grump. Inside, her feet practically sank into the plush blue carpet, but she barely had time to admire the tasteful art adorning the walls as Lys and Elide led them up to their rooms.Â
In Aelinâs room, a small army of stylists had already set up shop, and she barely had time to have a proper bath before being whisked into a chair. Elide ran through her whole list of instructions for what to expect at the event as Aelinâs makeup artist and hair stylist worked their magic, transforming her from travel-tired to glowing. The puffiness under her eyes vanished beneath a layer of expertly applied concealer, and a sharp wing of black eyeliner flicked out from the corner of each eye.Â
âYouâre a wonder, Rin.â Aelin checked her reflection in the mirror. âIâll never know how you do this kind of magic.âÂ
âItâs called makeup,â Asterin Blackbeak laughed. Sheâd been Aelinâs makeup artist for just over a year, and she was magical with an eyeshadow palette.Â
âRuin my fun, why donât you?â Aelin winked at Asterin. She got up from the chair and went over to get dressed, returning once her form-fitting red silk gown was laced up her back, the slit up one leg allowing her freedom to move in the fitted skirts. Her stylist took the wide rollers out of her hair, letting it tumble down her back in a spill of glamorous waves.Â
âYou guys are the best,â she gushed to her team, blowing them air kisses so Asterin didnât scream at her for messing up her makeup.Â
Elide tapped one stiletto heel on the floor. âWeâve got to go, Ae.âÂ
With a final wave to her team, Aelin followed Elide out the door and down the hallway to the elevator. They rode down to the lobby, and the steel doors smoothly opened to reveal the usual handful of paparazzi that followed anywhere the Queen of Action Movies went. Aelin smothered a grimace and ducked her lead like sheâd been trained to do, dodging as many camera flashes as possible as Elide led her towards the private side door. She caught a relieved breath as they exited.Â
âYouâre late,â Rowan muttered as she climbed into the car, its windows darkly tinted for privacy. âAccording to the schedule, we should have left ten minutes ago.âÂ
She shot him a glare. âOne of the things you need to understand about providing security for a film actress, Rowan, is that we rarely keep to a predetermined schedule.âÂ
âToo busy taking fucking pictures,â he grumbled.Â
âToo busy avoiding cameras, not that you would know.â She yanked the door shut, silently fuming at the audacity of that man. It was hard to tell if he didnât have previous experience with celebrities, or if he was just an ass.
It was too bad his ridiculous attractiveness didnât match his behavior, because if it did, Mala knows the things sheâd do to him.
The screening of the trailer and the endless stream of red carpet photos went by in a blur of camera flashes and a pasted-on smile, and by the time she had a minute to breathe, Aelin was walking into Ritaâs, a club that she and many of her actor peers liked, arm in arm with Dorian. They entered through a side door, a private entrance that led directly into the lounge space, allowing them to avoid most of the greedy paparazzi.Â
Inside, the floor was already full of people in their best âQueen of Glassâ-inspired costumes, with the only exception the black-clad security personnel who stood at intervals around the perimeter of the lounge. Aelin herself wore a dress inspired by one of her costumes from the first season of the showâa form-fitting black minidress with a dragon embroidered in gold thread climbing up the back, its jaw opened wide and its tail curling around one hip. She wore gold jewelry to complement the dress, and her lipstick was flame red and smudge-proof.Â
âLooking stunning as always,â Dorian said, appearing out of nowhere with a drink in each hand. He wore a white shirt with cobalt-blue embroidery and black leather pants, the shirt open to reveal half his chest, and a fake knife was tucked into his belt.Â
She grinned at him. âThanks, Dor.â Accepting one of the drinks, she took a sip. âShit, thatâs delicious!âÂ
âFenrys is bartending.âÂ
âMakes sense.â She winked at him. âSo youâll be spending as much time as possible at the bar, right?âÂ
âShut up.â His face flushed pink, and he elbowed her in the side.Â
She laughed, poking him affectionately in the ribs. âYou know I wonât tell a soul about your little crush on the bartender.âÂ
âTwo hours.â Rowanâs curt voice cut through Aelinâs good mood.Â
She scoffed. âLighten up, Whitethorn. Ritaâs is secure, as you can tell from the guards everywhere, and Iâm not some teenager who snuck out of Mommy and Daddyâs house. Iâll let you know when I want to leave.âÂ
He scowled, and she silently cursed her panties for dampening at the sight. âYou canât be hungover at tomorrowâs events, Aelin.â He glanced at Dorian, who had a drink in each hand. âNeither of you can.âÂ
âGood thing I donât plan on drinking more than this, then.â She tugged Dorian into the crowd, leaving Rowan behind.Â
That tight-strung asshole was going to ruin her fucking life.Â
Sensing her grouchiness, Dorian tugged her towards the side of the room. âWant to go do the photo booth?â He gave her his best big puppy eyes. âLys and Elide said we should, but also, it would be fun.âÂ
âWhy are you right?â she sighed, shaking the tension from her limbs. âIâm sorry, Dor, talking to that asshat is taking all of my patience.âÂ
âToo bad heâs so damn hot,â Dorian added, wiggling his eyebrows.Â
She rolled her eyes. âI wouldâve climbed him like a tree until he opened that stupid mouth of his and started poking his nose in my schedule.âÂ
Heâs been part of the team for less than a day. What did he know about Aelinâs drinking and partying habits? Or Dorianâs, for that matter.Â
âFair.â He led her through the crowd, stopping every other minute to talk to some of the guests, that brilliant smile of his flashing as he posed for casual photos. She grinned right along with him, throwing herself into the joy that meeting her fans always brought her, and they eventually joined the line for the photo booth.Â
Rowan cleared his throat beside them, and there went Aelinâs blood pressure again. He folded his arms across his chest, glaring at her and Dorian. âYou two decided itâs a good idea to go inside an unrestricted booth where I canât see you?â
âItâs only closed off by a curtain, and itâs inside a secure location. Plus, your guard dogs probably sniffed it down already.â She glared back at him.Â
He refused to move. âItâs not approved, princess.âÂ
âOh, for the godsâ sake.â Dorian brushed past Rowan, tugging Aelin with him into the photo booth. âItâll take a minute, and you can stand outside with your stopwatch if it makes you less angsty.â He winked at the stoic, brooding man and pulled the curtain shut.Â
Aelin huffed as she sat down on the small plastic bench. âThanks. I donât know why heâs being so ridiculous; Iâve only known him for eight hours.â She watched as Dorian tapped on the screen opposite them, picking a random handful of poses, and laughed when he flopped down next to her and threw his arm around her shoulders. âWhat happened to platonic co-stars?âÂ
He snickered, grinning big at the camera as it flashed. âHey, weâve got to make it look good for all the big bad cameras, right?âÂ
âDamn right!â She jumped into his lap, giggling, as the camera flashed a second time, and they scrambled into two more poses, a tangle of hilarity, until the camera counted down for the last time and he took her face in his hands and plopped a dramatic kiss on her lips as the bright flash exploded in the small booth.Â
Dorian positioned his hands just the way she liked it, without covering her face for the camera. Knowing how messy things could get off-set, it relieved her that he was thinking about how the kissing picture would look rather than the picture itself. Aelin would be lying if she said every stage kiss with Dorian had been this mechanic, but the short-lived crush she had on him at the initial stages of their first movie together quickly faded away when she realized she was into the character, not the actor.
And this? Right now, kissing Dorian was work, one piece of the narrative that belongs to Aelinâs favorite and longest-lasting characterâher public persona.
Of course, Rowan chose that moment to shove his head through the curtain.Â
âTimeâsâah, fuck.â He jerked backwards as suddenly as heâd broken into the booth and awkwardly cleared his throat. âUh, timeïżœïżœïżœs up.âÂ
âI think thatâs the most un-grumpy Iâve seen him so far,â Dorian whispered into Aelinâs ear, making her snort a laugh and smack him in the shoulder as she collected the two printed photo strips.Â
âYouâre a little shit,â she chuckled. She pushed aside the curtain and stepped out of the booth, immediately sidling up to Rowanâs side with a wide, innocent smile on her face. âSorry to scandalize you, big guy.âÂ
He mumbled something inaudible under his breath. âIâve seen worse, princess.âÂ
Aelin turned to leave, but she didnât sense him following her, so something critical mustâve happened. She half-turned, raising an eyebrow at his parted lips and a look so intense it inflamed her skin with his poorly-concealed irritation. âSomething the matter?âÂ
âWhat are you wearing?â For the first time that night, he got a proper look at her dress in all its glory, and of course it wasnât of his liking.
Aelin spinned like an overly excited girl about her dress just to annoy him. âOne of my favorite designers made itâdo you know the label Maison Sellene? Sheâs incredible, and she got the dragon design from one of the set designersâ sketches.âÂ
Rowanâs eyes burned like dragonfire. âIt suits you, princess.âÂ
Her nose wrinkled. âStop calling me that. I told you, my team is on a first-name basis with each other.â
âFine, Aelin.â Oh gods, his pronunciation of her name made her shiver. Dorian came back with drinks, and of course he glared at the one she took. âI thought you werenât drinking?âÂ
Locking her eyes on his, she took a long sip of it. âItâs nonalcoholic.â He looked skeptical, so she pushed the glass to his lips. âIf you donât believe me, Rowan, try it for yourself.âÂ
He accepted the drink as if she had poisoned it before handing it to him, sniffed it and squinted his eyes at her, trying to decide if the juice and soda water smell was real or just a deceit for his nose. âFine,â Rowan said as he handed it back to her, the short word sounding awfully close to a grunt.Â
She huffed an impatient sigh and once again turned to leave, heading towards the cluster of women gesturing wildly for her to come dance with them. But sheâd barely gone more than a few steps when Dorian hooked his arm through hers and pulled her to the dance floor with him, and she laughed as she looped her arms around his neck. âAre you trying to give Lys high blood pressure?âÂ
âI would never,â he snickered, winking widely. âJust thought this would be fun.âÂ
âWeâll see how you feel about that when someone posts a photo of us dancing this close on their Instagram story and the whole internet goes insane.âÂ
âMy kind of fun.â He dipped her backwards, and when he pulled her up, both of them giggling, he swept her into his and planted a stage kiss on her lips.Â
Just in time for multiple phone cameras to click.Â
She chuckled and pushed him away playfully. âIâm gonna go to the bathroom, ok? Itâll only take me a few minutes.â She wove her way across the room, only stopping a few times to chat with people, and she sighed with relief when she noticed that there wasnât a line outside the ladiesâ bathroom.
Once again, an arm banded around her waist.Â
This time, though, that arm hauled her to the side, and the door of the janitorâs closet slammed shut behind Aelin as the man all but yanked her into the small, empty, slightly dusty space.Â
She was firing Rowan so hard today.
Aelin slapped his hand out of her mouth and spun around before he could react, quickly hitting his groin with her knee. The man groaned, and she used the little time she had to grab a spray bottleâfor temporary blindness if necessaryâand turn on the feeble light to see who her assaulter was.Â
Imagine Aelinâs surprise when she found out that her attacker was Mr. Safety himself.
Still bent due to the damage to his crotch, Rowan wheezed. âWhere did you learn these moves, princess?â
Arms folded across her chest, she shot him a glare. âWhat the hell, Whitethorn? You almost gave me a heart attack! Whatâre you doing?!â
Rowanâs hand curled loosely in front of his groin, as if anticipating another blow. âI got an alert that thereâs an unauthorized person in the room, and my first priority is keeping you safe from potential threats.âÂ
âWhat about Dorian?â She snapped. âIs he in less danger than me because heâs a man or something?âÂ
Her bodyguard opened his mouth to retort, then closed it. âHeâŠhas his own security teamâŠâÂ
Aelin raised a brow. âAnd youâre in contact with his team? Keeping track of him? Because thereâs a potential threat, or so you say.â Every single word was deeply sarcastic.Â
âOf course.â Rowan pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed her the screen. Several notifications were stacked up on the screen, notifications of a potential unauthorized guest in the room and brief updates about Aelinâs and Dorianâs safety.Â
Some of her irritation faded away. âFine. You might have given me at least a tiny bit of warning before you grabbed me, though.âÂ
His jaw clenched. âThereâs not always going to be time for me to warn you, princess. The least you could do is understand that.âÂ
The maleness of that statement, the entitlement of his tone brought her irritation right back. âRemind me again who is employing whom? Your responsibility is my safety, as youâve said a thousand times. Well, that includes you giving me notice so I donât think Iâm being fucking kidnapped!â Her voice cracked on the final word.Â
And damn him, he noticed the crack in her demeanor.Â
His stance relaxed, and concern crossed his face. âDid that happen before, Aelin?âÂ
Aelinâs throat felt too tight as she swallowed scattered flashbacks from a lifetime ago. As always, she forced them all back into their locked box.Â
âDidnât you read my file, Whitethorn?â Aelin knew she was being harsh, but it was a necessary measure. âYou should know the answer already.â
Both of them knew that file back to back, and she knew his question went beyond that. Rowan gave her a wary look, reading her deflection far too well, but the last thing she needed was his overprotective ass deciding she was fragile.
His phone pinged, saving her from any response he might have made. He glanced at the screen and sighed softly. âThere wasnât a threat, just someone who forgot their invitation. You can go back out.âÂ
âAbout time,â she mumbled. Before he could say anything, do anything else, she pushed open the door and went back to the party, her heels snapping angrily on the floor. He stayed a good distance behind her, trailing her back to the party, and faded into the edge of the crowd, but she felt his eyes on her.Â
She shook off the weight of his gaze, plastering a gleaming smile back onto her face. She was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the Queen of Action Movies.Â
She wouldnât let her bodyguard distract her.
~~~
TAGS: lmk if you want to be added or removed! maria and i are combining taglists for this fic so you can let her know too :)
@live-the-fangirl-life
@superspiritfestival
@thegreyj
@wordsafterhours
@elentiyawhitethorn
@mariaofdoranelle
@rowanaelinn
@house-of-galathynius
@tomtenadia
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#my writing#leia and maria write stories#of hearts and heists#aelin galathynius#rowan whitethorn#dorian havilliard#manon blackbeak#elide lochan#lysandra ennar#rowaelin#eventually rowaelin eheheh#throne of glass#throne of glass fanfic#throne of glass au#rowaelin fanfic#rowaelin au
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3.14 It Boy
Johnny walked over to the Production Coordinatorâs office. She was sitting at her desk, her blonde hair looped into a messy ponytail. Her desk was covered in an assortment of papers and folders that she was rummaging through.
âWhere did I put that? I swear it was here a minute ago," she muttered to herself.
Johnny cleared his throat. âExcuse me, are you Lucy Steel?â
She looked up. âOh, hi! Yes, Iâm Lucy, itâs nice to meet you! Johnny, right?â She gestured to one of the empty chairs sat in front of her desk.
Johnny nodded as he sat down. âItâs nice to meet you, too.â
âSorry I couldnât meet with you earlier, but you know how it is. I can show you around, unless youâve already seen everything.â
âNo, I havenât made it away from my desk. I got bombarded by Hurricane Lilly.â
Lucy laughed. âSheâs a character! Well, we can start in the studio.â
They walked down the corridor and stopped in front of a security door. Lucy swiped her badge. âIâll give you one of these,â she said. âYou can enter the studio at any time as long as the red light isnât on.â She gestured to the light fixture on top of the door. âDonât let the talent or directors tell you otherwise.â
They stepped into the studio. Johnny was surprised at how spacious it was. âWow, it seems so much smaller onscreen.â
âYeah, we need a lot of space for the equipment.â
They walked past some technical equipment with lots of buttons and lights and stopped at one of the sets. Johnny recognized the blue couch from some of the channelâs videos. The wall behind it was decorated with memorabilia from popular video games. âThis is where we film most of our gaming videos.â
She turned to the right and walked towards another set, this one featuring a long table with an tabletop RPG set up. âAnd thatâs our Lairs and Llamas set. Weâll add more sets as we continue to expand the channel, but weâll need to hire more people first.â
Johnny was taking everything in. It was surreal being somewhere heâd seen on SimTube so many times.
They exited the studio and Lucy showed him a couple of other areasâthe editorâs work stations, the production design studio, and the break area. Everywhere they went was bustling with people, most of them happy and engaged in activity.
They made their way back to Lucyâs office. Everything seemed great so far, but Johnny still felt a bit unprepared. âCan I ask a silly question?â
âAsk away.â
âWhat is it that Iâm going to be doing exactly?â
Lucy began to laugh but caught herself. âIâm sorry, go ahead,â she told him.
âAll of this is just really new to me,â Johnny explained sheepishly. âI donât even really understand what you do. Like what is a Production Coordinator?â
âOh, I wasnât laughing at you!" Lucy explained apologetically. "Itâs just that I asked that same question when I interviewed here a couple of years ago. It reminds me of how lost I was back then.â
"Oh, okay." Johnny let out a small breath of relief.
âSo basically," Lucy continued. "I run interference between the Producer and the other departments to make sure everyone has the information and materials they need and everything is on schedule. Iâm involved throughout the whole process, from researching ideas for new content to providing feedback on videos in post-production.â
âWow, that sounds like a lot.â
âIt can be. But having you here will be a big help. Your main duties will be delivering messages, keeping inventory of materials, helping with set up, and resolving minor issues during filming. Thatâll cut down a lot of the running around Iâm doing.â
âSo I'll be the go-between for the go-between," Johnny quipped. I guess thatâs pretty much what I expected.â He recalled what Lilly told him earlier.
As though she could read his mind, Lucy added, âIt wonât be just running errands, though. Iâll need your help with researching ideas and bringing them to life on set. Thatâs one of the reasons we hired you. Damien called you âan innovative thinker.ââ
Johnny was flattered. âHe said that?â
âHe did. Thatâs quite a big compliment coming from him. If you prove him right, you wonât be stuck as a PA for long.â
Johnny tried to quiet the voice inside his head, the one that was telling him this was all too good to be true. How could a successful CEO see potential in him? Could he really go from doing lines in a dingy bar only a few weeks ago to making a name for himself in the world of digital media production?
If Damien and Lucy could believe in him, maybe he could get there too.
Previous | Beginning of story | Beginning of chapter | Next
#lucy it's so good to see you đ#I'm so glad that everything is coming together!#sims 4#the sims 4#ts4#ts4 story#simblr#sims story#simlit#the sims community#stksafeharbor#safeharborstory#sh:johnny#oc: lucy dimarco#sh:lucy#sh:chapter3
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Em, I came into the whole 'Benz-Garfield are desperate to get paired and/or make KimKenta happen' thing halfway through and I feel like I'm still desperately playing catch-up. Congratulations to them on making Part A happen and good luck with Part B, though! But in the interests of me continuing to play catch-up on this whole fascinating process, do you know if there's a timeline of events or a tiktok folder or *something* out there to help me piece together when all of this properly took off and when Benz in particular decided to go full unhinged with it?
Thanks for your help!
Anon if you weren't watching Pit Babe as it aired, I hope you are prepared for the emotional roller coaster that happens when you are waiting every week to see if Kim and Kenta even get screentime together. I felt like I was watching the last several episodes of Pit Babe on a fever high.
I am actually working on a timeline, but itâs not fully cohesive nor complete yet, since thereâs simply so much to sift through on multiple social media platforms, and no platform has a perfect search function. It also doesnât yet include social media posts where they were simply just⊠flirting with each other, but all the social media posts on the blog should at least be dated.
If you want to go through things more quickly, the archive page has a tag filter (one of my favorite tumblr features), and you can swap in any tag you like in the url, since the dropdown only lists featured tags.
Itâs also hard to pinpoint a single moment when Benz decided to go unhinged with it, since heâs been pushing it from pretty early on. There also arenât any dedicated translators in BenzGarfield fandom who are fluent in both Thai and English, so we either get machine translations or translations that are few and far between. There's also a lot of old posts that have been deleted, or accounts that have gone private, so even just the act of gathering everything is an effort, let alone organizing it into a big picture.
Here's what I can give as a highlight timeline though.
They met in late 2022 (Love Fest Thailand in November or December I think, I couldn't find pics, but I did just watch an old interview last night where they talk more in depth on their first impressions, which I plan on recording and uploading, but Garfield said something that can be paraphrased to the extent of "Do people this friendly and charming exist in real life?")
Benz was mingling with Change2561 actors, but they officially became coworkers in Feb 2023 when they were both cast in Pit Babe
Boys Journey started filming very shortly afterâI donât have a sharp timeline but the range is sometime from Feb to May. Benz was already going at it in Boys Journey (âBenzGarfield foreverâ - ep 10), when they ostensibly didnât know their roles or if theyâd be put in an actual ship (they were somewhat rotated around with ppl until later in Boys Journey, when I imagine the staff had chemistry based partnerships in mind)
In March, Garfield said he would choose Benz to flirt with out of all the cast.
By August, Benz was asking Garfield to take his last name đ€·ââïž (but Garfield keeps trying to take Benz's first name instead)
There was a lot going on while Pit Babe was filming (Sept-Nov). They were excited about filming the two whole scenes they had together, they tweeted about it the night before, they were improvising what communication between Kenta and Kim might be like, Benz was visiting set even when he didn't have any scenes (albeit likely for the free food, but keeping Garfield company while Charlie fakes his death is a nice bonus)
I havenât been able to find it again (yet)(thank you YTâs horrible search function) but there was a livestream last year where Benz talked about Kenta calling Kim and inviting him to Thailand, which⊠never happened, so I can only assume they were at the point of making things up (which actors sometimes do when they need a better grip on a character), and probably explains the really loaded look they gave each other in the elevator, bc to them there had been more interactions between their characters.
The first event they did together (outside of full-cast stuff) was the RealMe sponsorship in September 2023, but it was presented as Garfield & Benz (didnât stop Benz from once again asking Garfield to take his name). The first time (that Iâm aware of) that they had an event with their ship name was the GarfieldBenz x Central Rayong event in December 2023. Filming was completed in November, so they obviously had known for a while that KimKenta werenât a couple, but that wasnât going to stop them from bickering over which of their characters would like the other first
In February, they were posting really shippy stuff right before the Pit Babe finale, which felt like queerbaiting at the time, but we didnât know that Long Beans was being planned (they would begin the physio workshop a month later), so I think this was either a âweâre excited we get to play a ship but canât say anything yetâ or a âstaff hasnât made up their minds on casting us so letâs just show some potential.â
Also at the finale in February, Garfield said he wanted to be Kim's faen.
By the time Long Beans was announced in March and they were officially announced as BenzGarfield, there was no holding back, especially on the KimKenta front. Benz made a fuss during Long Beans presscon about them not getting any screentime together, and during the Changing event in April they talked about going to the writers and begging for KimKenta/KentaKim.
Anytime they're asked about S2, they're vague about it, and I imagine they will be until we see something onscreen (they have to keep me desperate and foaming at the mouth), but they have expressed that they want to continue working as screen partners for a long time. If KimKenta happens I don't think anyone will be happier than those two.
I hope this helps, anon! Trying to capture and organize all of their moments is a daily task, and it sometimes feels like I am Sisyphus.
#benzgarfield#benz atthanin#garfield pantach#pit babe#pit babe the series#kimkenta#kentakim#asks#em post#in answering this ask i realized how many moments are still missing from the blog GOD the work will never end...
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what think/hope/pray will happen after ep 5 -
first off im running on the assumption that devils minion romantic/long form relationship has already happened in the past. my evidence (not really) for this is that i donât believe their dynamic works properly with old man daniel because he doesnât want to be turned anymore, so i canât see that side of their combative push and pull working. you can argue that the only flashbacks daniel has are of the night in san francisco and nothing else, however he also seems to exclusively have flashbacks of only armand and not louis, which implies to me there is more to him and armand (ignore the fact we still have no idea if the flashbacks are organic or if armand is sending them to him purposely, or that we donât know if armand knows heâs having them ok thanks). also obviously the whole alice/armand from ep 2. whether youâre a truther or not, you canât argue that the show wasnât purposefully setting up armand as a comparison to alice in that scene and others since sheâs been brought up a lot this and last season.
anyway, i think the flashback section of ep 5 will end with armand either locking him in the basement or setting off their chase. if non of these, i think itâll end with framing armand and daniels past relationship as something purely horrifying to current daniel. in the ep preview, heâs only sitting and talking with louis about it without armand present, which iâm assuming is purposeful on daniels part. then i think daniel is gonna step out of the dubai apartment probably from a negative reaction and run into raglan james/whoever the fuck talamasca man claims he is, which is where that whole trailer scene âyou fear armand, you should fear the other oneâ comes from. we kinda have no other scenes from dubai that we can piece together from trailers after that, other than we know daniel goes back to the interview, and we get the scenes like louis throwing shit, books falling on daniel, walls cracking etc.
the final thing i hope and pray happens is in either ep 7 or 8 that no one has seen yet, we get some sort of in your face no context no build up confirmation that armand and daniels relationship was romantic at one point. like iâm thinking either some sort of out of left field flashback, daniel finding his photo in the threesome partner pile or more information on the âparamoursâ folder on the laptop. like i donât put it past them at all to leave it on a cliffhanger for next season (pray) where bang we get some sort of explicit confirmation and thatâs all we get, and weâre left with daniel being like âwhat the actual fuckâ. the vibe i gather from interviews with cast and crew, i donât think theyâve adapted a ton of devils minion yet, but they have added something after ep 5 and do plan to carry it on.
obviously this could all be bullshit because the context of why is daniel remembering, is it because of armand, is it natural, was it even armand who whipped his memories, did devils minion even happen properly?? like we still know nothing. so hope ep 5 answers some of those things for us. thank you for entertaining my brain rot because anticipating this ep has consumed my entire week.
preparing to beg for a link on socials again tomorrow like a common whore x
#interview with the vampire#daniel molloy#armand#iwtv s2#amc iwtv#louis de pointe du lac#devils minion#devil's minion#armandaniel
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Chapter 4 . Set Me Free, I Think Iâm Giving Up.
Pairing . Noah Sebastian x Eden Blackwood Word Count . 2,522 Summary . Eden learns that Noah called, but not intentionally, stirring a storm of emotions that drives her to confront him in person. Meanwhile, Noah, unable to face an interview with her, requests a different interviewer, unknowingly setting off consequences beyond his control. Their conversation is heavy with unspoken regrets, both blaming the other for leaving yet knowing neither of them truly fought to stay. As tensions rise, old wounds resurface, forcing them to finally acknowledge the weight of their past. Warnings/Themes: Unresolved tension, emotional conflict, guilt, miscommunication, past relationship angst, self-sabotage, yearning, manipulation (by a third party), featuring strong language, mild sexual content, and hints of past trauma. My inability to be happy with my writing. taglist . @fadingangelwisp . @chey-h . @flowery-mess You can read the first three chapters here . chapter 1 . chapter 2 . chapter 3 .
Lover boy called, and I mightâve accidentally hung up on him.
The words took a second to land. They floated around her mind, circling like smoke before finally sinking in. Eden stood frozen, towel clutched tight in her fingers, damp hair sticking to her shoulders. Liaâs expression made her stomach dropâlike something was wrong. Really wrong.
âWhy was he calling?â âIâaccidentally called him anââ
âWhy would you do that?â Edenâs voice cut sharp, her feet already moving. She grabbed the phone before Lia could stop her.
Lia flinched as Eden snatched the phone, hurt flashing across her face. And Eden felt badâshe really didâbut it was all too much. This whole thing with Noah, seeing him again, the mess he always dragged back into her life.
Every time she thought she was getting over him, he was right there.
The idea of what they could have been clung to her like a phantom limbâsomething that should have been gone, but still ached like it was real.
âYou cannot fix this, Lia.â The words flew from Edenâs mouth before she could stop them. âNo matter how much you think you knowâjust because youâre screwing their drummer doesnât mean you can fix this.â She saw the way Lia flinched. How each word sliced her open, deeper and deeper.
âHe keeps leaving me, Lia. He is the one who keeps walking away from me. So why does it feel like you keep putting me in a position to be hurt by him?â
She doesnât wait for Lia to answer. Just turns on her heel and walks away. Anything to keep from crying in front of her. Anything to stop herself from breaking down and admitting the truthâ she was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of seeing his face everywhere.
Tired of wondering why she was never good enough.
The door clicked shut behind her, and Eden pressed her back against it, forcing air into her lungs. The room was too quiet, too still. She focused on anything to keep herself groundedâthe low hum of her LED lights, the scratchy fabric of the towel still clutched in her fingers. Anything to stop the panic from creeping in.
He keeps leaving me, Lia. Heâs the one who keeps walking away.
The words echoed through her mind, the reality of the situation was standing there right in front of her. She could keep blaming Noah, keep hating him for always walking awayâbut wasnât that the easy way out? She never told him to stay. Never gave him a reason to. She let him leave, over and over, because saying âstayâ would have meant giving him the power to hurt her.
She crossed her room, pulling the towel from her frame and quickly drying her hair before dressing in a pair of shorts and one of his old hoodies, one of the original merch ideas for the band before they had made it big.Â
Eden stared at her phone on the bed, wondering if it would tell on her if she had picked it up and scrolled through the old photos of them that she had saved in a private folder on her phone. Wondering if it would tell the world that even though she had done everything in her power to avoid him, she wished that he would fight for her as well.
Picking it up and unlocking it, she was met with the contact photo of the two of them together, his name in bold letters, and all she could hear was Lisa's words in her head, how he had called and she wants to call him, wants to know what he had said and â maybe she just wanted to hear his voice.
Her thumb hovered over the call button. Just one press, and sheâd hear his voice. Maybe sheâd finally get the answers she pretended not to need. Or maybe it would be worseâmaybe it would pull her right back into the spiral she was barely holding together.Â
She could delete his number. Erase him from her phone. Pretend he was gone for good.Â
But his number was etched into her memory, an imprint she could never scrub away. He was her person. Her everything.
Was.
It was a split second decision to get dressed, shoving her phone into her pocket as she exited her room, seeing her best friend in the kitchen, tears streaking her cheeks. The sight broke her heart, and she knew that she had fucked up, knew that she had hurt one of the people who loved her the most, so it didnât even warrant a moment of hesitation before she had hugged her tightly.Â
She whispered apologies into Lia's hair, feeling her best friend trembling as she held onto her, Eden promising that she wasnât going to hurt her again. That she was sorry and would do better. After what felt like a lifetime, she pulled away from her, thumb brushing a tear from her cheek.
âIâll be back.â âWhere are you going?â âIâm going to talk to him, in person.â
Lia looked like a wave had crashed over her, like sheâd been hit with whiplash. But she didnât argue. âDid you talk to him?â
Eden shook her head no, lips pressed tightly together as she tried to compose herself with a deep breath. âI think I should talk to him in person. I think we both deserve that much.â
âDo you need me to come with you?â âNo, why donât you go hang out with Folio?âÂ
One eyebrow raised slightly, sadness still tainted her features, but she couldnât help a playful smirk. âI did ruin your night with him.â
With a quick goodbye, Eden slipped into the night. Each step felt heavier, her heart hammering, her mind screaming at her to turn back. This was a bad idea. She should just go home, crawl into bed, and forget about him. Or pretend to forget about him.
A cruel echo of her own choices played on a loop in her head, one lyric that tormented her.
But itâs too late to turn back now.
And maybe it had been too late for a long time.
Noah's POV.
âHey Ava, itâs Noah.â
Noah spent the last hour staring at his phone, cycling through every possible scenario. No matter how he spun it, the answer was always the same. He couldnât do that interview, he couldnât sit there with Eden and talk to her about his music, about the things that inspired the lyrics and what his future looked like.
He couldnât sit across from the woman he once thought heâd spend forever with and talk about the futureânot when every version of it still had her in it.
âSorry for calling so lateââ
âNo, donât apologize. Is everything okay?â Ava interrupts, sighing loudly, as if he was inconveniencing her.
âI had a request for the interview.â âAre you cancelling?â âNoââ â âthen whatâs the issue?â
Noah couldnât believe the rudeness of this lady, how she had spoken to him as if he wasnât doing her production studio a favor by going on one of her shows. But he swallowed back the comments, not wanting this to become about him and his possibly hurt ego, but about doing what he thought was right.
âI want to see if I can do the interview with someone else.â
There was silence on the other end of the phone, so much so that he worried that she mightâve hung up, but before he could question he heard an annoyed,âOf course she messed this upâ, and then she replied.
âWe can set that up, what caused this change? Did Eden do something?â âNo, I just think itâs better this way.â âWas she inappropriate with you? You know, I canât allow that in my company.â âNo, Ava. No. Itâs a conflict of interest on my part, she did nothing wrong.â
Ava let out a dry laugh, a click of her tongue as he heard what seemed to be a clacking of a keyboard from her end.
âFine, Iâll make the change. But you know this doesnât look good, right? Youâre the biggest name on our schedule, andââ
âIâm not cancelling,â Noah cut in, jaw tight. âAnd donât put this on her. This is my decision.â
âOf course,â Ava said smoothly. A little too smoothly. âI understand.â
Noah knew that he should feel a sense of ease, that he had done what he thought was right, but there was something that nagged at him. Something that ate at his resolve and he wasnât sure if it was the anxiety of the interview, Eden finding out, or if there was something more manipulative at work here.
âSee you tomorrow, Noah.â
And with that, she hung up the phone, not allowing him a chance to respond.Â
Eden felt like she had been cast as the villain in a horror movie, standing outside of her victims house, waiting for the right time to strike. But instead of going in and causing bloodshed and destruction, she would be going in and facing her fears and everything that she had avoided for years.
Somehow that seemed so much worse.
Approaching the front door, she once again hesitated, finger hovering over the button of the ring doorbell, swallowing hard and reassuring herself that she could do this, she pressed it. The doorbellâs chime echoed through the night like a death march. No turning back. No stopping this.
The door opened after what felt like an eternity, wondering if he had seen her and had planned to ignore her, but his damp hair and the way his shirt clung to his body was a clear indication that he had practically jumped out of the shower and ran to the front door.
âWhat are you doing here?â âI can leave if yoââ âNo!â He yelled, clearing his throat, stepping back and letting her in. âNo, please come in. Sorry.â
Eden was holding her breath, waiting for him to change his mind, but when he didnât she had allowed herself to take that step forward and crossed the threshold of his place. She had never been there, never been inside, and it had looked exactly what she expected it to look like. Of course she did see his streams, so there was some familiarity because of those, but nothing was like looking at it in person.
âYou called me.â âI meant to text.â âBut I didnât get a text.â âIâm a coward.â
The conversation felt like deja vu for Noah, but this time instead of making excuses, he admitted what he knew was true.
âI didnât call you back.â âNo, instead you showed up here.â
There was something awkward there, the air between them thick with tension, uncertainty of what they would talk about. Noah could see the way that she was looking around, rubbing her arm and shifting on her feet.
âI asked to be interviewed by someone else.â Noah blurted out, breaking the silence, and Eden practically shot daggers at him, jaw dropping in utter disbelief. She went to yell, to tell him that he had no right, but he cut her off before she could.
âIâm a coward, Eden.â She couldnât help but take in the way he said her name, the way that it felt like a prayer, like it was the most delicious thing to touch his lips. But she wasnât going to allow herself to fall into him that easily, not when he ruined her interview.
âYou are the most important person on the schedule, that interview is important.â
She made sure to emphasize that point, made sure that she was to tell him that he had no right to do that and he shouldâve talked to her first. This is the issue, this was their problem. There was never any communication about major things.
âAnd thatâs why I asked.â He hesitates, tongue darting over his lower lip, fingers brushing through slightly damp locks and he sighs. âItâs important for the band, itâs important for the production company. I canât do it, Eden. I canât sit across from you and pretend you arenât still the answer to every question about my future.â
The answer takes a moment to sink in, hitting her like a freight train and sheâs speechless, eyelashes fluttering as she tries to find the words to say. She knew that this was going to be difficult for the both of them, but she wasnât aware that it would be this difficult for him.
âYou left.â âYou stayed behind.â âYou didnât fight.â âNeither did you.â
They could go back and forth on the blame, but they knew that it wasnât just one or the other who was at fault. But Eden didnât want to admit that, she didnât want to admit that she had a part to play in their downfall. That all of this pain couldâve been avoided. Because who is to say that it was.
âI should go.â Eden turns to head towards the front door but stops herself, head tilted down as her fingers twitch, flexing slightly before she turns around to look at him again.
âEden.â He steps forward, hand reaching out to grab hers, for the first time he was not going to let her go. At least, that is what he hoped for. It wasnât up to him.
âAsk me to stay.â the words fell from her lips, a plea for him to fight for her even though she wasnât sure if this was a good idea. Wasnât sure if staying there with him was something that would do either of them any good. They didnât talk about the past, they didnât talk about all the different ways that they were different, how they had changed.
They never talked about how broken they were and how they might not even be good for each other anymore. They were not those 18 year olds who finally admitted they loved each other, they werenât those kids who planned forever only for it to be ripped away from them.
It was heavy, suffocatingâthe weight of every unsaid word, every unresolved moment. The air between them screamed for something, anything to break. Anything to break the barrier that they had built between the two of them.
But Eden didnât know who moved first, if it was her who closed the distance, or if he hadâ but she was standing in front of him, his tall frame towering over her. One hand was pressed to the side of her face, thumb brushing over her lower lip and she felt vulnerable with him. She felt every nerve in her body thrum to life, and how his touch had ignited something below the skin.
She felt alive. But at what cost?
âKiss me, Noah. And if you canât, I need you to let me go.â
With that, his lips pressed against hers, the world shifting below them as their resolve crumbled around them. Knowing that everything had changed, and that whatever happened next would either bring them closer, or destroy them.
#fic . the fear of feeling#noah sebastian fanfic#omen writes#phew phewwwwwww#okay this was not easy to write but HERE WE ARE#bad omens fanfic#noah sebastian smut#noah sebastian fic
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im the "show/books make sense together" person. i want to keep doing it too. and i do love the rolin twist, thats why i said the head tilts werent negative. till now i was fine actually. but you know what got me worried? sam in that autumn interview where he warns "this lestat is not anne's lestat", this is not an adaptation anymore, its "just different". poor guy he wants to stay loyal to her work, but i guess there will be BIG changes. we just create a rolin's folder in our heads? đ€Ł
((And the irony of it having "Anne Rice's..." over the title^^))
No, but ... essentially? Yes.
Because Hanna Moscovitch not getting it or not (and she really didn't get it, at least not then, like that take is really...) does not change this very simple fact:
THIS IS IT.
THIS is what we'll get. For a very long time.
AMC owns the rights... in perpetuity. They paid big cash for it. And they will milk this content for what it's worth.
It does not make any sense for them to sell it. And it does not make any sense for them to not create from and for it.
I have waited 30 fucking years for another shot at this. This is it. I will enjoy it.
No, I won't like everything. No, I won't support everything of the writer's choices. But in the whole of things? This is brilliant.
And I think Sam has come to the same conclusion, because this is a big, BIG part for him. Like, Lestat is... *gesticulates* ... we haven't even really started with Lestat.
This is it for him, too. He will (in all likelihood) never get the chance to play a character like this again. Not dissing his career here, btw, I hope he goes stellar, with lots of interesting parts, but Lestat? Someone like Lestat? No. Same for Jacob or Assad, or Eric, because these characters are just so multi-faceted and interesting. The same goes for Rolin. He also knows that he will never have this kind of chance again. Has said so on video.
So. Yes. Rolin-subfolder^^. Just like there is an Akasha (and not much else) subfolder of the movie.
Whatever it will be - it will (in all likelihood) be beautiful, and layered, and nuanced, color-conscious and brilliant.
I mean - as long as these stay????... what else can we honestly wish for??
#Anonymous#ask nalyra#amc iwtv#iwtv#amc interview with the vampire#interview with the vampire#amc immortal universe#amc
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Diamondback | [1]



a/n: i love this series and i havenât even finished out the ending yet
warnings: Mentions of cheating, mentions of pregnancy (not reader), mentions of alcohol
summary: Pine, Arizona. Youâve touched down in Phoenix and driven up to a relatively normal sized city, more than ready to see your best friend and grossly underprepared for an interview you got twelve hours ago. Itâs hard to tell if youâre ready, but now you have to be. Itâs time to chase the light.
You werenât surprised that the Hotshot Fire Station wasnât located in town, but on a backroad that was in a patch of sand, surrounded by high mountains. Sand has already contaminated your boots and hair by the time you had exited the airport in Phoenix in the early morning. A manila folder sat in between your hands as you looked at the silver building, nerves dancing up and down your spine. The sun was bearing down on you, something that used to really be your friend.Â
Change is good. Change is supposed to be good, right? So why am I nervous? Donât be nervous. People can see when youâre nervous. Quit it. Quit it!
Swallowing a bit of your nervousness, you moved out of the sun and into the building. You opened the door and walked into what appeared like the front room - it was painted a soft beige, floor made of sealed concrete and decorated with mismatched couches and seats - you could hear the clink of workout equipment down the hall, the smell of air freshener was dull.Â
This was so much different than your Firewatch tower in Yellowstone National Park; it was a two day hike to it, there was a babbling brook 50 yards away with a small campsite nearby as well. All you had was your radio, books, and binoculars to keep you company for two to four months out of the year, as well as an old laptop that was connected to very shitty ethernet. You had many years of firewatching under your belt, you had taken classes for fire science and wildfire safety, as well as EMT training just in case one of your fellow fire watchers had a medical emergency. You were well prepared for this job, to be a 141 Hotshot.
The 141 Hotshots were the second municipal hotshot crew to ever be formed and based in Arizona, holding up legacy of the Sandstone Mountain Hotshots, who had perished in a wildfire less than a decade prior - it was said that the Superintendent of the 141 had trained under the Superintendent of the Sandstone Hotshots only a few years before the tragedy, a man who you had read about before even thinking about becoming a Hotshot seven years ago, especially before your fiance forced you into fire watch. Wildfire firefighting work was grueling, you were very fit because of your work as a fire watcher, but this takes it to a whole new level.
âY/N!â
You had stopped in the middle of the front room, eyes now focused on the sweaty and dirt stained face of your childhood best friend - Alex Keller. The man had been kind enough to lend you a room in his apartment and put in a good word to the well-respected Superintendent he had worked for for almost seven years. It had been a few years since you had seen him; you had only a backpack waiting in your rental car. You instantly opened your arms and let Alex hug you, not bothered by the sweat or dirt on him.Â
He patted your back before releasing you, a smile on his mustached face. âI hope that dickhead didnât cause you any trouble.âÂ
The dickhead he was talking about was your ex-fiancĂ©, the man you definitely did not want to talk or think about. You rolled your eyes. âAlex, Iâm fine.â
He gave a small huff before continuing, âWell? Did you decide?â
You held up your folder, to which the man smiled wider.Â
âGood! I know Price is gonna like you.â He patted your shoulder before he nodded back towards the hallway he had come from. âCâmon, Iâll give you a tour.âÂ
âI donât need a tour, I need to get to my interview-â You blubbered before he grabbed your arm, pulling you towards him. âAlex!â
âIâm takinâ you to the interview, dingaling.â He chuckled, your apprehension slipped away and you then began to walk beside him. âSo stubborn for no reason.â
âI like to think my stubbornness is a good quality.â
Alex gave you a look, you laughed at him. âSure.â You opened your mouth to retaliate but he kept talking. âAnyway, Iâm goinâ to Farahâs after my shift, youâll have to fend for yourself. You know where I live, and the code to get in.â
You sighed. âIâll be fine.â
He patted your back, smile still big. âYou always are.â He then looked towards the large equipment you two were walking towards, seeing his fellow Hotshots working out or fixing their gear before he took your arm, stopping you from continuing. You looked to your friend as he spoke, âAre you sure you want to do this? Itâs a lot different than just sitting in a tower and just watching a fire.â
âI was a Hotshot for a year, Alex.â
âYeah, six years ago.â
You were about to retaliate to his argument when you heard your last name be called. You looked around Alex to see a genuinely handsome blond man, standing tall with his hands behind his back. Alex turned to look at the man, a hand then clapped your back. âY/N, this is Assistant Superintendent Riley.â
Riley had a bored look in his eye, it made your skin bristle a little. He glanced to Alex before going, âSupeâs waitinâ on you, L/N.â
British? You glanced at Alex before he pushed you forwards, you immediately kept walking towards the door Riley was holding open. You nodded to him before walking into the office, watching as the man you were hopefully interviewing with stood.
Damn, what is with having pretty superiors?
âL/N, Iâm Superintendent John Price of the 141 Hotshots, and youâve just met my Assistant, Simon Riley.âÂ
âBritish?â You blurted out as you held out your hand.
John chuckled a little before he took your hand with a firm handshake. âYes, Liverpool. Simonâs from Manchester.â He gestured to the seat across from him as you let go and you instantly sat down, then handed him your manila folder. He took it, settling down in his chair as you heard the office door click. Footsteps behind you instantly told you that Simon intended to stay for the interview, noticing in the corner of your eye that Simon now leaned against the wall, watching you. âSo, I heard you were fire watch?âÂ
Your full attention was on John now, he had settled onto his arms on his desk. You nodded in response. âSix years.â
âLonely up there.â Simon commented, John gave him a sharp look before gazing back at you.
âKeller said you were a Hotshot before. Whyâd you quit?â You stared at John, noticing he hadnât even opened your folder of qualifying classes and certificates.Â
âFiancĂ©-â You cut yourself off before continuing. âEx-fiancĂ© convinced me to do fire watch instead. Said it was less dangerous, which it is.â
There was a twitch in Johnâs eye. âThen why are you here?â
âFor a job-â
âDonât run around the question. Why would you leave a cushy job that Iâm sure pays well in one of the most beautiful National Parks in the world?â
âTo be clear, sir,â Your eyes narrowed. âMy personal business as to why I decided to change my career so quickly is none of your concern. I can promise it wonât be a problem, I didnât leave because I was forced or fired.â You glanced to Riley. âAnd I may have not been on a team for the past few years, but that doesnât mean Iâm not a team player.â
The Superintendent in front of you chuckled, your facial expression didnât change but your chest tightened.
Iâve done it again. There goes my new job. Rest in peace my independence - Iâm gonna have to move in with Mom.Â
âYou have all of your qualifications?â
A moment of shock stopped you from speaking, but you pushed through it, confusion flooding through your chest. âUh, yeah. In the folder, fire science, EMT, fire safety training-â
âWhere were you a Hotshot?â Simonâs voice made you look over to him, your answer instant, âDiamond Mountain.â
Simon whistled. âUp near Reno?â
You nodded as you looked back to John. âWas tough. No one liked me on the team except the Supe. Said I had potential.â
He had finally opened your file folder, flipping through the papers with almost blatant disregard for any of the information on the printed pages. He closed the folder after only looking through it for fifteen seconds, tossing the file back onto the desk. He settled on his elbows as he leaned forwards. âThat Supe gave you flying colors when I called him.â Oh thank you, Breaker, thank you. Best Supe ever. âSaid he was disappointed to see you go to fire watch so quickly.â You kept stoic, watching as John stared back. âYouâre not gonna quit on me, are you?â
âNo sir.â
âNot gonna run off when shit hits the fan? Or use this as a step to get to structure?â
âNo sir.â
With one nod, John sat back in his chair.
âThe crewâs going on a hike.â He nudged his chin towards the door. âGot running shoes, Firewatch?â
With a smile on your face, you nodded.Â
Summers in your fire watch tower were hot and dry - you used to sit at the worn desk, a book youâve read thousands of times under your fingertips, as you watched over the large fields of brush and the faraway whispers of dense forests in the heart of Yellowstone. The four fans about the small one room cabin were on high, trying to move air around and keep you from overheating. It was nice, calm - even when you were watching a wildfire one year with high distance binoculars. Something about relaxing in the cabin and being over ten thousand feet in the air - it gave you a sense of calm. After years of having to fight to prove yourself, somewhere you can just be yourself was dropped into your lap.
Your heart was in your throat, you supposed sand had lodged into your esophagus by the time the 141 Hotshots had hit the second mile of the âhikeâ. Alex was kind enough to stay behind with you, not saying a word as the jog up a steep terrain was about to throw you into the hands of God. Both Price and Riley were at the head of the single file line, it slithered through the well defined trail like a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake - poised and ready to strike. There was a soft jingle that came from Alex, the sound of his two necklaces, and there was only the chchchchch of shoes against loose gravel and sand.Â
You were supposed to be up in that stupid one room cabin in Yellowstone by now, but here you were. Pushing yourself well beyond your now adjusted limits, you didnât feel the need to entertain Price's statement in your head - you didnât leave your âcushyâ job in Yellowstone for fun; you didnât even want to go, but there was no way you were staying anywhere near Justin and that oddly sweet southern girl he got pregnant. You quite literally packed up three outfits, a couple pairs of underwear, and only took two pairs of socks and shoes. You had nothing else with you, anger pumped through your veins so intensely, that you wouldnât dare go get the rest of your belongings without someone to keep you in check.Â
âDonât beat yourself up.âÂ
You looked to your right, seeing that Alex had slowed to your pace to talk to you. You then gazed back in front of you, seeing the person in front of Alex had a shirt tagged âSoapâ. What the Hell kind of name is Soap? âIâm not.â
Alex chuckled. âSure.â His elbow hit your arm, your head whipped to look at him. âItâs okay to be upset.â
You glared at him, eyebrows furrowed as you kept pace. âI donât want to talk about it.â You pushed yourself further, closing the distance with the Soap Guy by a couple of feet. Alex was instantly at your side again. If you werenât trying to be on your best behavior, youâd throw a punch directly in his smug face. He was right when he said Justin was bad news, and you were dreading the âI told you soâ. âCan we do this later?â
Without even looking, you knew Alex gave you the look that he always gave you - youâre lying and I know you are, so Iâm gonna wait until youâre not being stupid to talk about it. âI got you a key for my apartment, itâs coming in tomorrow. I didnât really have time to clear my spare room, though.â
The sun was burning you, you regretted not thinking about sunscreen in that Phoenix airport store, you regretted not having better jogging gear, and you definitely regretted not packing your suitcase. You would have all of your hiking gear, but this job was quite literally a last minute decision you made in an airport bar. But did you regret this?
Your head looked out to the right, watching the scenery slowly change as you jogged behind the line of well-trained or in-training Hotshots. Golden colored brush, tall trees that you observed were pines, and an occasional cactus. You then looked back to Alex, his head faced ahead. He had truly grown into a handsome man, much more confident than that young adult you left in New Orleans six years ago. Sun-kissed skin and obviously gelled hair, a smile that seemed permanent; your best friend had done well for himself, you thought you had done the same. But your life had exploded into a million pieces, cutting into your not so delicate skin. You had to prove yourself, you had to do this to gain control again or everything might fall apart again.
You werenât quite sure that you would actually regret this change, but anything was better than that one bedroom apartment in the Irish Channel in New Orleans, and with the witch of a woman who called herself your mother.
You turned your head forwards. âIâll try to get out of your hair as quick as I can.â
âDonât rush it.â
âAlex-â You turned to look at him, but realized the group had slowed, you stopped on a dime.Â
The blond looked at you, giving you another look but it was one you couldnât read. His hand settled on your back, pushing you to stand in between him and the stopped Soap Guy. âWeâll chat later.â
The booming voice of John Price made you snap to attention, âThis is what we have been assigned to preserve. Take a breath.â You took a breath through your nose, the air tasted nothing like Yellowstone - the air in the valley you stood above was bitter and gritty, but it felt clean. âThen look out onto these thousands of acres of forest, admire it.â Your eyes fluttered as you gazed upon thousands of acres of dense pine trees, fields of brush and grass, and mountains that danced through the landscape. A twinge of guilt trembled through your stomach, guilt that you had left your entire life for an incredibly dangerous job that can get you killed at almost any turn. Your eyes moved from the horizon to the bearded man, watching as he fixed the band on his watch without even a glance to it, his eyes on all of the crew you only had a moment to glance over earlier. You watched his eyes scan every single personâs face before his eyes landed on you, maybe just for a moment too long before he looked to Alex.Â
âBreathe it in, because this will be one of the last times that you can look upon this sight without any negativity.â
It was truly a sight that stood before you. Breathing in air youâve never had the chance to before, seeing the wonders of nature in a different place of America was incredible. Your lungs burned, you hadnât had a fast-paced and tough hike since you were a Diamond Mountain Hotshot. It was good, you knew it was good for you - your eyes wandered back to Price.
âBecause once Iâm done with you,â His blue eyes landed upon you again, his voice sharp like a dagger as it sliced the sentiment into your brain. âall youâll see is fuel.â
Okay, get yourself out of the gutter. Heâs your boss, not a fucking treat to dangle in front of yourself! You literally just broke up with Justin, you cannot get the hots for your hot boss! KEEP IT TOGETHER!
He gave you a smirk before he started to jog towards you - then past you, then Riley behind him, and the crew followed. You waited for the Soap Guy to go for you to turn and go, but you noticed in the crew that you werenât the only female - you didnât catch that earlier when you went out to get your running shoes from your rental car. The only one who even looked at you gave you a smirk, she had almost black hair cut right at her shoulders, covered in tattoos. She was four people ahead of you, so it shouldnât be hard to find her and hopefully make a friend out of Tattoo Girl. Your eyes then moved to the bold letters on the shoulders of the Soap Guy. You then saw him look over his shoulder at you.
What the fuck is with all of these guys being pretty?
âSay ye'r th' fresh meat. Alex said a lot o' guid things.â He had a wild mohawk and a charming smile, his fingers pinched the front of his shirt so he could somewhat fan himself.
âScottish.â You remarked as Soap chuckled, following the person in front of you - you followed too, but he had moved to jog beside you like Alex. âWhy do they call you Soap?â
The man looked over onto his back, tsking before giving someone ahead in line an invisible dagger through their chest. âDamn bastard wasn't suppose tae put that on mah shirt.â
Alex elbowed you again, you kept your eyes forwards now. The trail was becoming steep again, but it was easier to descend than to climb earlier. Your lungs were burning, but you were somehow pushing through. Adjusting and all that jazz. This shit is gonna suck with all the weight I have to carry during drills. Hopefully I get used to the heat quickly or else this might actually break me.
The Soap Guy cleared his throat, nudging you with a knuckle, you didnât spare a moment to look at him. âTop secret!â
âHe put Dawn dish soap in the dishwasher one night, and we came back to the station to a floor of bubbles. So his name is Soap.â Alex snickered, a smile grew on your face as Soap audibly deflated.
âSo why arenât you named Bubbles?â You kept your arms close to your chest as the route kept winding around, both men allowing you the worn gravel path as they opted for the sand and patches of grass.
Soap scoffed, âWhat, so I can be thâ âprettiest girl at thâ partyâ?â
A cackle of laughter came from the man you were following, another man with a nickname written on the back of his shirt - but he was conscious about the sun by wearing what looked like a well loved baseball cap. In big black letters in between his shoulder blades was âGAZâ, and Gaz kept cackling like a hyena. Soap took a couple fast strides forwards, immediately tugging Gaz into his sweaty armpit. The man screeched, Soap yelling some Scottish obscenities that you wouldnât have been able to decipher if you tried. All Alex did was laugh, you watched as Soap now jogged next to Gaz, who was trying to get out of his hold.Â
âThatâs the Team Leaders for you.â
You spared a look to Alex. âTeam Leaders? Them?â
Your friend shrugged. âFor as stupid as they act now, theyâre amazing in the field.â
âGood to know.â Your legs burned, chest roared in pain. You gazed out onto the landscape, now noticing that the silver dot in the distance was turning into the Fire Station. âI could use a drink.â
âI also feel that you need a drink.â
You reached out and smacked Alexâs arm, snapping at him, âThatâs not funny.â
He glanced to you, grabbing your hand and squeezing it. âThereâs a quiet bar in town, Iâll send you the address.â
By the time you had gotten into your rental car after being dismissed with the rest of the Hotshots, you were exhausted. Lungs hummed with a slight burn, your back splattered with aches. It wasnât hard to know you needed a stiff drink, especially after changing career paths drastically and uprooting your entire life.Â
You ditched going to Alexâs apartment as soon as you realized you really only had three outfits and barely any necessities to last you four days. Instead of going out to the nearest Walmart to get some new underwear and some shampoo that wasnât Alexâs, you found yourself at the polished dark oak stool of a warmly lit quiet bar. There were barely a handful of souls in the small and cozy bar, it was well decorated and taken care of - yet you havenât seen a bartender for twenty minutes. At least you were tired enough not to care, just glad you remembered deodorant when you had gotten back to your car. The bar had good air conditioning, softly blowing cool air around the black and gold themed bar.Â
Your phone had been off all day, but now it sat in your hands, on and with non-stop notifications. You had instantly put on Do Not Disturb, upset about it. Hundreds of calls from your ex-fiancĂ©, almost a thousand texts, begging for forgiveness, then blaming it on you, then apologizing. Next was the calls from his mother, his three sisters, his brother - all people you had considered family. All were either asking where you were or asking to talk, to have Justin explain. You wouldnât dare listen to them, wouldnât dare listen to their defense for a slimy cheater. You wished you could just shove one sentiment down their throats:
Heâs a liar, pathetic, mean, and heâs gonna get whatâs coming to him. I donât fucking cater to him anymore. Heâs gonna have to learn how to suck the energy out of someone else.
The only message you wanted to read was from Justinâs father, a man you respected deeply and one you knew despised cheating. In your bones, you knew that man would take your side, even if the rest of his family took your ex-fiancĂ©âs. The only reason why you didnât tap on the message was because a voice had broken you from your focus.
âThought I told you to go home and rest?â
You looked up in surprise, seeing the familiar face of Simon⊠behind the bar. Your eyebrows furrowed, âI thought you were a Hotshot?âÂ
The blond shrugged in his white button up and black vest, resting his tattooed hands on his side of the bar. âGotta have a year round job, had to pick up a shift for Lucy.â
You didnât look away from Simon when you turned off your phone. â141 Hotshots arenât year round?â
âGod no.â He shook his head, pulling out a clean glass and a napkin, letting it settle on the bar in front of your folded arms before setting the cold glass in front of you. âWeâre only mandatory for 90 consecutive days a year - I still need this cash for gas.â
A nod, you settled your phone in your lap. âLong Island, please.â
His hand was reaching for water, but it had stopped. He gave you a sharp look, a warning. âYou almost passed out coming down the trail. My statement still stands,â He took the glass back, pouring water into it from the pitcher he retrieved only a minute ago. âGo home.â
Your phone buzzed in your lap. The pit of despair in your stomach got deeper. âOne drink.â
He placed the glass of water in front of you. âDrink it, then go home.â
A straw was set in front of you, but you didnât move your stare from the blondâs face. âI just moved across the country with the clothes on my back and barely enough money to rent a car.â You moved the glass off of the napkin, setting it a few inches away as you continued, âIâm moving into my best friendâs apartment because my eight year relationship ended âcause my fiance had to get his dick wet with another girl for an entire year.â
The stare of your Assistant Superintendent wouldâve made you laugh if you werenât waist deep in misery; his eyebrows furrowed just a little, his lips pressed into a thin line. His hand raised from the bar, grabbing another glass.Â
âNot to mention his mistress is pregnant.â
He let out a grunt, moving away from you to grab the liquor. âOne drink.â
The buzzing phone on your lap did nothing to deter your small smile. âThanks, Assistant Supe.â
He turned around, a small chuckle escaped him as he said, âYou can just call me Captain like everyone else.â
âCaptain Riley,â You smiled, he gave you a glare over his shoulder. âThank you.â
He turned back around, grabbing his bottle of liquor before returning to his spot from before. He began to make your Long Island Iced Tea, eyes kept on his work as he spoke, âRemember to be at the firehouse at 6am. This is your only drink tonight.â Ice cubes clinked the glass as they were dropped in. âYou got a ride home?â
You shrugged. âIâll be fine.â
Simon looked up from his work, meeting your eyes with a sharp gaze. âIâll take you home.â
A flush ran through your chest, eyebrows raising as you blubbered, âNo, Iâll be fine, I promise-â
His hand waved a little. âJust wait for me.â
You smiled at him. âThanks, Cap.â
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