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batsplat · 3 months ago

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ok but what could be the motogp/casey stoner magical girl anime’s equivalent of rgu’s black rose arc……🤔

*cracks knuckles* okay admittedly I read this ask, had it jangle around in my brain for half a day and then read it back and realised I'd zeroed in on the 'casey stoner' side of the line and completely ignored the more general motogp prompt. since then I have had. some more thoughts. but they do come back to casey

so let's set out in proper scientific fashion and figure out what doing a black rose arc even MEANS. briefly summarising the arc, on the most literal level possible... it's the middle arc of the show, wherein characters proximal to the primary duellists get indoctrinated in a sham therapy session into fighting utena, a process symbolised by pinning black roses to their chests. she wins against all of them fairly comfortably in direct combat, managing to destroy the black rose and in doing so free the duellists. at the end of the arc, utena learns that the whole thing was orchestrated by mikage, a scholar frozen in time after burning down a lecture hall and killing the hundred boys within. he seeks to kill anthy, the rose bride, so that he can save his beloved mamiya by making him into the rose bride and achieving eternity. except his memories had been manipulated all along by the puppet masters of the whole show, anthy and akio, so that his memories of mamiya had been bastardised into what seems to be a version of anthy. mikage had been trapped in the school by false memories, has perhaps been dead all along, and had been used as a tool to bring utena closer to being able to achieve revolution. in the end, he too is discarded

which... okay, yeah, it's very hard to describe the show on a literal level, and I think in some ways the black rose arc is the one that's the most open to interpretation? icl it took me about three watches to really wrap my head around what on earth mikage's deal was supposed to be. which means you can also take the motogp crossover approach in several different ways... because of my own academic background, watching it the first time I kinda zeroed in on how the process by which the characters become black rose duellists is one of radicalisation/indoctrination into a cult. the process by which they are prepared to commit violence is built on humiliation, an experience where they want something and feel shame (or are made to feel shame) for wanting it. kanae is subjected to anthy's silently judgemental looks, keiko is made into a fool and an outcast by nanami, wakaba suffers a brutal rejection, and so on... it's not just that they have an enemy, somebody who treats them poorly - it's that a vulnerability is exposed that fundamentally threatens their self-esteem. it leaves them destabilised, unsure of themselves, with a fragile sense of self. when the characters go to seek guidance, they are quite literally being provided with a new sense of 'direction'. they are being guided towards finding purpose

the descending lift is a key part of the process, by forcing the characters to focus in on their negative emotions and let them consume them. the humiliation is strengthened, made more brutal - the voice instructs them to "go deeper" and bare more of their soul. they are expressing their vulnerability in front of a mirror that reflects their most twisted, painful desires back at them. subjected to the reflection of the negative emotions at the self... they are forced to make themselves weak in front of the voice, essentially debase themselves, and in doing so they strip away their own walls and barriers and mechanisms of self-defence. as the lift descends, so do they regress

the most obvious expression of this is the butterfly that becomes a cocoon (and then a leaf). utena is all about the process of becoming an adult, of achieving revolution as a metaphor for growing up, breaking the egg. but here, as an extension of anthy and akio's schemes, instead the characters are forced backwards in time. part of it is again this process of... well, ritually breaking down the characters, chipping away at their sense of self so that it can be reconstituted in a way that is useful to the order of the black rose. part of this is more generally about the show's themes of maturity and adulthood - the characters are being reduced, now governed only by their very worst impulses

it is at this lowest moment that mikage steps in to offer the characters their only solution. the only answer they have to somehow bring meaning back to their lives. all they have left to reclaim some kind of sense of self is to embrace mikage's vision of revolution. so you have a personal experience of humiliation, you have the character being guided towards a figure of authority who is supposedly able to help those in that kind of situation, you have a 'gradual' process stemming from externalised pressure to make the character focus only on their negative emotions, and eventually you have said figure of authority providing the character with the 'only' way out of the emotional turmoil and insecurity they are feeling. this route eventually leads to complete suppression of the self in the name of the cause and also... well, acts of violence. staircase model, my old friend! or if the staircase were a descending lift, I suppose

you may be wondering how I can possibly make this relevant to motogp and, well, *cracks knuckles again for good measure* let's see how this goes. I'm not going to make some big spiel about how becoming a rider (yes, even a vr46 one) is a comparable process of indoctrination or any of that. (there's some very broad comparisons, like how riders cannot choose to be assimilated into this strange and dangerous system but are instead sucked into it as children, following dreams that have been handed down to them by others... but I'm mostly gonna stay clear of that stuff.) what I'm more interested in is... hm, the emotional management aspect of sports, how delicate it is in what it requires of athletes. the eternal question of motivation, how you can bring yourself to put yourself out there and compete again and again - despite the eternal possibility of failure and, yes, humiliation. from here

'the challenge of managing vulnerability' is the key bit. on a very, very basic level, the process of growing up is about managing vulnerability, being able to manage your own emotions... there's a similarity between ohtori academy and the paddock in that they are both sheltered, closed off environments that send its young through unnatural, almost twisted approximations of growing up. their emotions are evoked by artificial scenarios, by competitions that aren't 'real' in the sense they aren't provoked by any naturally existing scarcity - but are instead elaborately designed shows designed to test its participants and, yes, reveal something of them. sports as a pure measure of human achievement is fundamentally hollow; it is only provided meaning by the ridiculously heightened emotions that are evoked by it. the characters transition into their new roles of duellists in a moment of vulnerability and it is only in this raw, unguarded state that they are able to fight

there's also another bit from a post I ended up not publishing in an exciting moment of self-awareness where I went, 'you know what, nobody cares about this', but it still exists in unedited form in my google doc. here (the post was about mozart + salieri, hence the references to music):

the idea here is basically that it's actually incredibly tricky to manage the exact right amount of self-awareness you should have as an athlete - and the emotions that come with it. you need to reveal yourself, to make yourself vulnerable, to be able to compete to your fullest extent. you need to debase yourself in front of a crowd, to accept the possibility of not just defeat but of humiliation, of the embarrassment of losing and how degrading that experience is. now, to stop yourself from actually going insane, everyone will need some kind of explanatory framework in their own head to process defeat. some of these narratives will by necessity rely on our good old friend delusion. young athletes cycle through victory upon victory and defeat upon defeat, often in ways seemingly inexplicable to themselves, which means their self confidence is fluctuating like a yo-yo on acid from generational levels of cockiness to the darkest self-loathing imaginable. some level of baseline self-belief, of thinking you will 'make it' despite all the odds being extremely not in your favour, is really kind of key to the process

the problem, of course, is that... so narrow is the emotional window that provides the ideal performance potential that it makes managing this window both crucial and horrifically difficult. maybe you can perform better when you're angry - or maybe you'll crash. or maybe you'll make a fatal error of judgement. you need hubris, but not too much. calm without passivity or complacency. joy might be the enemy of concentration. shame can motivate or it can make you retreat. your rival can spur you to action or paralyse you in your own inadequacy. and at the core, again and again, lies the concept of vulnerability. the moment you step into the arena, it is with the knowledge that it is possible for you to lose. competition is a moment of exposure, of revelation, of truth. this day may end in the gravel trap. you may humiliate yourself. you do it anyway - and to do so you need purpose, and to make sense of the defeats you need more purpose

plugging the autobiography passage again:

such a good passage, isn't it? to bring it back to the black rose arc... 'analogy' in the loosest of senses - you have moments of 'truth' in different forms. you have the truth found at the bottom of the lift, where the characters reveal their most painful insecurities - but it's fundamentally not a very balanced truth, is it, focused on the purely negative and self-loathing. they don't go out to duel in the name of passion, they are not duellists in the same way juri with her love for fencing is - which you can see from how they need to essentially steal the style of 'their' duellist to fight utena. there's no positive affect there. it's a power gained through vulnerability, yes, but one that is fundamentally self-destructive and exists in an ultimately fragile state of crisis. utena can free the duellists from their roles simply by cutting the rose; the student council members don't stop being duellists just because their roses are cut because this is something they care about for themselves. you can't be completely reliant on others to provide you with purpose in sports - some of it is going to have to come from some internal urge to compete, to win. no parental determination, desire, at times abuse can create an athlete out of nothing if their child is fundamentally unwilling (as ever, agassi's autobiography is very interesting about this). so while end of the world, in all the malevolence and abuse, may proffer a path towards meaning, towards revolution, to the student council members - it would be entirely useless if they did not still have 'hope in their hearts'. desire. the will to win. utena is able to defeat the black rose duellists with relative ease... she might not have entirely selfless motives, but her desire to protect anthy still stands up as being far more robust than a mere desire to lash out in response to humiliation. she wants to be anthy's prince, she wants to live up to this role - and in the end it means she will always be able to dig deeper than the black rose duellists

there's a few other ways we can torture this metaphor, while we're at it. "deeper, go deeper" is a phrase that to me is... very sports-coded, I talked about it in the mind games post I linked - going to the 'dark places' within yourself to win. to find release through the suffering, some form of revelation, reaching some kind of imaginary 'zone', to be able to perform at the highest level. only then can you achieve revolution... eternity, if you will. it's the performances where athletes dig the deepest that immortalise them, after all. but then, for all this talk of balance and some need for positive affect, of course there is a lot of negativity that feeds into the motivational process. the motogp twitter account posted a video today a few days ago by the time I actually post this... of our dear two time defending champion talking about how he primarily uses criticism to motivate himself

there's something ever so slightly comical about pecco talking about how, sure, he'd like to live by his 'go free' phrase and the associated ethos of just enjoying himself out there... but actually, he doesn't motivate himself through all that fun stuff at all. instead, he makes use of *checks notes*

reading something bad about himself

being told something bad about himself

making mistakes

when someone attempts to hit him in the mental side

well, that's nice! welcome back, casey stoner

am I saying pecco is going down the black rose arc lift to motivate himself? well, maybe I am. who's to say. a little bit!

you're getting yourself into the ideal performance window by basically... deliberately exposing yourself to criticisms, to degradation of the self, to the suffering of embarrassment and humiliation, dwelling on your mistakes, on those who do not believe you are adequate (or 'special', as in the black rose arc)... and, well, obviously I'm not saying the lift descent is a particularly healthy process... I'm admittedly a bit wary of the welfare implications of the sports equivalent. I actually had a long conversation last week before last about what essentially amounts to forms of digital self harm, this phenomenon of stars seeking out their 'haters', both within sports and other public fields... and, idk. there's 'being motivated by your rival being a dick about you' normal levels of spite and 'constantly subjecting yourself to what your cruellest detractors think of you' levels that seem distinctly unhealthy to me. without more context, you'd kinda hope pecco's sticking closer to the former type than the latter. casey also was a very spite-motivated athlete, perhaps somewhat in contrary to his assertion that he never got obsessed with rivals and didn't care who he beat. you see it with his whole 'ooh beating a spaniard at their home circuit' schtick, you see it with his 'yamaha rejected me so I'll show them' thing, quite frankly even his 'ah well mind games actually backfire because they motivate the other party more!!' line. he was constantly trying to prove a point to someone.... but was also extremely prone to self-criticism, to putting himself down, to being so perfectionist that it tipped over to being terrified of failing and crucifying himself for any mistakes. some of these things will have contributed to making him as good as he was - the same traits that tortured him also were what drove him to seeking perfection. sometimes, these roles of 'duellist' and 'athlete' may demand a fundamentally unhealthy emotional balance to excel at them

there's also something in how.... hm, mikage wanting to kill the rose bride so he can control eternity. the concept of 'eternity' is also big in sports, both in wanting to secure a legacy and wishing to preserve an un-preservable youth. inevitably, you will be replaced, they will move on from you, you cannot compete forever... mikage is frozen in time - and more than that, time is distorted in the ohtori academy. only a few like mikki even appear to notice it, constantly measuring it with his stopwatch as it continues to fluctuate around him. the uncertain nature of time is impossible to separate from how insular the academy is, from how it is cut off from the outside world, from how all point of reference is lost. sports does a similar thing in many ways, with the insularity heightening the stakes of this conflict, the occupants of that space living to different rhythms than the rest of the world.... the cycles of life and death, how rushed everything is, a youth that has to be captured and bottled before it slips out of your grasp, the calendar of races, of a travelling circus that touches the places it visits without belonging to it... valentino stretched out his career, even beyond a time when he was no longer competitive, due to his love for racing, his passion for it - a state of arrested youth, how he's been given the moniker of peter pan to go along with his own little band of lost boys. right at the opposite end lies casey, who achieved the truest 'revolution' early by leaving the cycle entirely, choosing to forsake this world that had constituted all that was of meaning to him - rebuking those who said he was wasting years of his prime, of the precious youth he still had one hand on, by stepping away. even though casey too had been striving for something unachievable.... the key thing about the 'revolution' is that it is something false, a mirage like the castle hanging over the arena, an ideal to be fought for without ever being attained. for casey, it was a quest for perfection that tormented him - so impossible is it for athletes to accept their own fallibility, their flaws. it can never be reached, because it is not an end point in and of itself. there is no definitive revolution that can be arrived at, no place of satisfaction, no easy way in which the power to revolutionise the world is granted to the duellists. all that remains is the process of working towards that revolution - that, in the end, is the only thing truly eternal

so, what does that process look like? you prepare yourself for the duel, you motivate yourself - either through positive or negative affect. athletes all lust after victory or fear defeat or both. utena ascends the staircase while the black rose duellists descend with the lift. for her, this also functions as a process of preparation, a repetitive yet effective way of bringing herself into the right mindset for the battle ahead and definitely not a way of saving animation costs

to me, it's key that those are stairs, and that there's a silly number of them. the black rose duellists are prepared swiftly, easily, with little effort from their part beyond the own horror of their emotions. they are not trained duellists and merely temporarily assume the mantle. utena has to work to even get to the arena - she has to put in an unreasonable amount of work, if anything. the demands to even be allowed to fight, to compete, are beyond what could be expected of anyone - and yet she willingly puts herself through it, because she wishes to fulfil an ideal she has been taught. the great athlete, the legend, the prince... it might work, she obviously does become an excellent duellist, for at least some of the time, she does manage to protect anthy.... but it's still one of the absurdities the academy is imposing on her, breaking her down as she no longer questions the surrealism of he world around her. she climbs the stairs because that is her role - and she readies herself for the battle she has been assigned

eventually, utena is allowed to both ascend and descend using a lift. now, listen, if you really want to get left field with this, you COULD say that her being allowed to ascend the lift rather than climb the stairs is... her no longer needing quite such an intricate method to emotionally prepare herself for the duel. she's integrated into the system now! she's an experienced duellist! she can get herself hyped for battle in a lift! but it's also a privilege she is being granted by the powers that be within the academy, which reserve the right to bestow meaning onto her, to single-handedly decide how worthy she is. and then, in the penultimate episode, the lift returns as akio attempts to break down utena. now utena is the subject, the patient, the one to be indoctrinated. she is invited to see herself as the princess akio wants her to be. she ends up re-embracing the ideal of prince (temporarily until anthy stabs her)... because that's what her power comes from. she'd never be able to find strength in the process of extreme self-degradation and exposing of one's own insecurities embodied by the descending lift. she needs to fight for positive reasons! some people are just like that, apparently

anyway, my pitch for how you'd black rose arc a specific period of casey's career... I reckon it's 2006, his rookie season in motogp at lcr honda. a seat that he'd had to scramble for, rejected by yamaha and not exactly high on options. he'd just finished second in 250cc to dani (if on inferior machinery) and was like.... well, he was definitely highly rated in the paddock, but perhaps didn't have the reputation of being particularly easy to work with. it's this version of casey:

as ever, casey was fast pretty much from the get-go. he had a very strong debut in jerez, exploiting a gap at the first corner after toni elias barrelled into valentino and finishing sixth. at the second race, after having been severely ill the week before, he rocked up like fifteen minutes before practise due to flight delays and ended up popping his bike on pole. that's also the race in which he had his very first battle with valentino, who came up to him to do the grabby hands thing on the cooldown lap. at the third race, casey came painfully close to winning - but scored his first podium of his premier class career

(side note, there is something amusing to how casey was yapping about valentino's disgusting yellow tainting the ducati when he's draping that australian flag of his absolutely everywhere he can, even in his rookie season. has someone maybe spent a little long away from home and feels the need to strengthen his own sense of self by plastering that thing on every available surface?)

anyhow - after that third race, casey's season went downhill. he crashed frequently enough to bag him the nickname of 'rolling stoner'

Like I had done my whole life I kept pushing and, of course, I kept crashing and I got slammed for it in the paddock and in the press, earning myself the nickname 'Rolling Stoner', which really bugged me. The pressure began to build as people questioned my talent and Ramon started to suggest that I was crashing because I wasn't physically fit enough. I knew this couldn't be the only solution, but l couldn't work out why I kept crashing. As a rookie I wasn't to know any better but people around me with experience should have helped me to understand the tyre issue. I would come in after a race saying, 'I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't make a mistake. I would know if I had.' But they would say, 'Well, you must have done because you crashed.' All the blame went to me and with everybody telling me it was my fault, I started to believe it. Ramon is a very good crew chief, extremely skilled at setting up a motorcycle, but I wish he'd listened to me a little more.

humiliation!! embarrassment!! others seeding uncertainty in him... being at the mercy of figures of authority who are giving him false guidance, but who he has to blindly follow. feeling unheard, beginning to believe what everyone says about him

he also had just a little bit of a temper back then, perhaps not completely familiar with the working process of top teams. but the crashes were not entirely his fault - they were (according to him) down to michelin seeing his potential but also exploiting his lack of status in the sport to essentially use him as a guinea pig for their new tyres. back then, this was how tyre suppliers handled things, and the whole thing was laughably uneven and unfair. whereas some riders like valentino were so successful and so influential they could generally lay claim to the best tyres (apparently with the exception of the actual title decider), others were at the mercy of the whims of michelin

Michelin had started to realise that I could do the lap times, especially on used rubber, so they started using me as a guinea pig. They would put me on a certain set of tyres for free practice and I would be happy as anything, right on the pace. Then on race day they'd say, 'You can't use that tyre.' They'd insist on us using a different tyre and then we'd find out on the grid that Dani or Nicky or somebody else was on the tyre I was planning to race on. Contractually we were obliged to use whatever tyre they decided on. [...] I kept pushing because I trusted them but there was some massive crashes which I thought were caused by the tyre combinations I was given at the last minute. [...] I started feeling like a crash test dummy and as the season progressed the situation got worse, to the point where I'd get angry and go off. I got a reputation as a spoilt brat. I am not making excuses but I was frustrated. Dad would come over to Europe to try to settle things down but the fact was I felt the tyres were causing me to crash. My confidence also took a hit and it took me back to the doubts I had in my first season of Grand Prix in 2002. I started to question myself a lot. Was it me or the bike? After a while I couldn't be sure. It was my debut season in MotoGP and I really didn't know what I was capable of. I'd proved I was competitive but the race results weren't showing what I could do. It started to mess with my head and unfortunately it seemed that my crew chief Ramon Forcada didn't have a lot of faith in what I was capable of either.

not only was this harmful for casey's reputation - it was also terrible for his confidence. as the autobiography passages describe, he wasn't getting good guidance about how to make the tyres work for him and inevitably the frequent missteps worked to erode his self-belief. after all, how could he know whether it was his fault or the fault of the bike? he told the team and the press these weren't his mistakes, but he wasn't believed... the paddock rejecting that he was to be taken seriously, enforcing a regression from the new 'adulthood' he had been granted by way of entering the premier class, but was illusory... which is where we get to the black rose element. it's repeated instances of humiliation - because there is something inherently humiliating to crashing. getting a nickname that makes it the thing people most closely associate with him. sinking into his own negative emotions, lashing out in anger at his own team, feeling the sting of embarrassment as well as frustration and self-doubt... and then, towards the end of the season, once again yamaha first seems to offer him a deal before changing its mind. another pattern he can't seem to break. casey has had plenty of self-belief in the past, not just dreaming of a title but believing he was capable of it - to the extent that he attempted to get to the premier class as quickly as possible, because he believed those were the titles that really counted. that's what he's here for... but what if it was all delusion all along, finally meeting reality?

which, yeah - it's those elements that make it very black rose-y to me. it's almost like... a touch of infantilisation, of refusing to take him at his word... he trusts these more experienced adults - in the same autobiography section, he talks about learning not to trust people just because they had a lot of experience. constantly choosing or being forced to listen to these guys who aren't giving him good advice, who don't have his best interests at heart, who don't have faith in him... and it chips away at him, it makes him angry and frustrated and will inevitably have contributed to some of the turmoil of his rookie season. he's being returned to the 2002 version of himself, a newbie in grand prix racing who didn't know what he was doing - and he doesn't know if he has a future in the sport. he wants to believe in himself, but maybe he can't. and it's just... creating this foundation of negative emotion that he would continue to use for the rest of his career to draw motivation from. the insults, the criticisms, the doubters, the haters... yamaha once again closing their doors before opening it a year later to some other young rider whose name escapes me. humiliation turned into a source of motivation. and once the process is complete, he emerges as the primary challenger of the champion (yes, yes, not literally, but vibes-wise obviously still THE big name at the time) in the following season

in the end, ducati gave him the call - he wasn't the first option, but he'd do. utena functions partly as a deconstruction of the type of story in which the ordinary wakaba would be the protagonist (ordinary girl romance protagonist surrounded by larger than life characters)... and the wakaba-centric episodes have akio posit that there are fundamentally 'special' people in the world and all those who can only hope to be special for brief, rare moments. in the meta-narrative of a show like utena, of course that is true, where some people have added significance by dint of being main characters in a story. in sports, too, there may be an unfortunate truth to it - an inevitability to the hand each athlete has been dealt. even if casey was publicly flayed and humiliated and figuratively descended the lift, like utena he was fundamentally still one of those 'special' people, whose natural talent meant none of his confidence was unearned. at ducati, he swiftly showed how he had been judged far too soon by the paddock. unlike the black rose duellists, he successfully challenges the champion. unlike the black rose duellists, he could never have been swiftly stripped of his status as duellist - even if there might be the occasional princess who attempts to trip him up and torment him. still, the bedrock of his determination in 2007, the steel that led him to a title, was ultimately established the year before. he was going to prove yamaha wrong for hanging him out to dry; he was going to prove the paddock wrong for ever doubting him. yes, the passion for winning is undeniable - but so is the spite. in seeking to achieve perfection, he found his motivation for the fight in his own way. and eventually, he would be granted the power to humiliate others... before eventually breaking free of this small world entirely

#something funny about how valentino accidentally raised a mini casey #neurotic spite-riddled wary of drama introvert..... where did it all go wrong. how did this happen #anyway don't you have to climb the stairs or descend with the lift every time you compete... does this even make sense #not to shock anyone here but I was always a descending lift kinda player. wanted spectators to be on the opponent's side. annoying child #//#brr brr #spec tag #batsplat responds #heretic tag #if a tumblr post can have a troubled publishing history this one does #i wrote it mostly on my commute but was like. super sleep deprived. so let it lie for a couple of days. scheduled it as per #and then realised?? it hadn't posted?? and it was just GONE. and like an idiot I hadn't backed it up. icl I was ready to end it #so I'd made a few bullet points from memory but was extremely not feeling it... this has happened to me before which makes it even dumber #but THEN I figured out the post still existed in the mass post editor drafts section. like a lil ghost. which?? what help is that #I tried a fix I'd read about by adding and removing tags. nothing. if you follow the link to the post obviously there's nothing there #BUT you get the number of the post. and if you combine that with the url you'd use to edit a post... presto there it was #ready to be backed up and scheduled anew. anyway if anyone has THAT particular problem. hopefully that should fix it #quite possibly the dumbest spiral I ever had over breakfast cereals #anyway i will make a tag for this family of posts at some point. i do enjoy turning them over in my head

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etheraltides · 16 days ago

Text

BITTER SWEET ᥫ᭡࿔

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x kook!thornton!Reader

Summarize: Rafe Cameron, a rising name in the business world, desperately needs a date for the wedding of the year. With a major investment deal on the line and his image at stake, he finds himself reluctantly turning to the last person he ever expected for help: Topper’s little sister, a girl he’s bickered with since he could remember.

Warning(s): cursing, Rafe being Rafe.

A/N: English isn’t my first language and I did my best to edit it all - so if something escaped me, please, let me know. Feedback is more than welcome .ᐟ

˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊ Chapter two: shopping for disaster ˖ ᡣ𐭩 ⊹ ࣪ ౨ৎ˚₊

Rafe Cameron sat in his car outside Topper's house, the black SUV gleaming under the midday sun. He glanced at his watch for the third time in less than ten minutes, annoyance bubbling beneath the surface. Rafe had dismissed all his meetings in the afternoon and a few in the morning to make sure he'd be there in time so she wouldn't have an excuse to back away from it. He hadn't expected her to take her sweet time, but he should have known better.

Rafe should've known you weren't be civil even if you accepted it. Which, to be honest, still surprised him. He was ready to have the door slammed on his face but it seems not even you could say no to some easy money.

His phone buzzed with a text and for a moment, he thought it was saying you'd be down in five, but it was just Topper reminding him about their gym session tomorrow morning, having no idea what his best friend and sister were plotting behind his back. He sighed, shifting in his seat, the leather creaking under his movements in a way that had his annoyance growing. Why was it taking so long for you to get ready? You weren’t going for some fashion show, just to buy stuff downtown.

"Fucking bitch" Rafe muttered under his breath, hitting the horn a couple of times. He was already regretting all of this. The longer he sat there, the more the idea of bringing you as his fake girlfriend felt like a terrible decision. You'd probably jump at every chance to mess with him like you were doing now.

Just as he was about to give up and head home to, hopefully, contact a few clients, he spotted a car pulling up. He hadn't seen this one around before and by the low price, it surely wasn't your family’s. From the rearview mirror, he saw the loser push his aviators up, leaning in to kiss the girl. Rafe's stomach twisted as Topper's sister slid out, your hair tousled and a satisfied smile playing on your lips. Gross.

The sight of her closing the passenger door sent a jolt of irritation through him, mixed with something he couldn't quite identify. You looked carefree, laughing at something the guy said, and for a moment, Rafe felt like an intruder on a private scene he had no right to witness.

"Seriously?" he muttered under his breath, slamming closed the door of his truck. Were you hooking up while he was waiting in the sun?

You turned around towards the voice, your smile fading when you caught sight of him. His jaw clenched and his gaze sharp.

"Rafe?" you asked, surprise etching your features as you adjusted the strap of your bag, the casual air of confidence slipping slightly. You hadn't noticed his car when the touron parked. "You're early."

If Topper heard about this, you'd be dammed. You had told him you'd be sleeping over a friend.

"Or you're late.” he replied, crossing his arms, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. "What was that all about?"

Your brows furrowed, the glint in your eyes replaced by defensiveness. "I had... plans. Not that it's any of your business."

"Plans? Is that what you call it?" Rafe shot back, frustration bubbling to the surface as he ran a hand through his buzzcut. "You said we'd leave at noon. Did you really think it was okay to keep me waiting while you were off with some random douchebag? I fucking canceled my meetings to be here on time because you wanted to go shopping for shit!''

"As if you care, idiot." you snapped, the challenge in your voice clear. "I'm doing you a favor, remember? You have no right to question me about my plans and he wasn't a douchebag."

"Because I thought you'd have some decency!" he countered, irritation lacing his tone as he struggled to keep his voice down, walking closer to you. He points towards the car was minutes ago. "That asshole didn't even open the door for you when he dropped you off."

"Well, it was better than sit around and wait for you!" you shot back, an eyebrow raised defiantly as you wrapped your hair in a messy bun, feeling too hot from all this arguing in the sun. "It's not like you're the perfect image of being on time."

He shook his head, trying to tamp down the rising anger and something deeper that he always refused to acknowledge. "Let's just go, alright?" he muttered, opening the passenger door for you with an exaggerated sight.

You arched a brow, starring at him while he stood there with the door held open, for you. Whatever. You shook your head, clenching your jaw as you moved to the passenger seat, only to realize a second too late that you needed to change into something… well, better. The door was already slammed closed and Rafe was already on his seat.

Rafe started the engine and pulled out of the driveway. The radio was off and you had your arms crossed over your chest, looking to the window with an almost unnotiaciable pount on your lips. He didn't even give you time to shower and change. How could you go shopping in a t-shirt and jean shorts? Rude. Brute.

"Do you even have a plan for this?" you asked after a few minutes in silence, watching the front of the boutiques.

"Yeah, I figured we'd just wing it" he replied, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. Did Topper know you were hanging around with broken tourons now? If not, he'd make sure to tell him later.

"Wing it? You're kidding, right?" you laughed, but the sound had a sharp edge. A superiority that crawled under his skin. "People love to gossip at these events. If we just act like we're a couple, someone will definitely ask questions."

"Fine." he snapped, annoyance dripping in his voice as he parked the car in front of one of the many expensive stores of the island. "What do you suggest then, Mrs. Director of Fake Dates."

He hopped off the car and you rolled your eyes, grabbing your bag. You muttered a thank you as he opened the door for you, stopping in the sidewalk.

"Where did you say the wedding was again?" you furrowed your brows, not really remembering this piece of information. "Well, anyway. We need a backstory. Something believable. How about we say we've known each other since we were kids? You're my brother best friend. We had a falling out last summer and decided to give it another shot. Cliché. People eat that shit."

"Italy" He shrugged, following you as you decided which store would be first. You stopped in your tracks, looking at him with arched brows.

"Did you just say Italy as if in Europe?" you blinked, taking a deep breath as you nodded at yourself.

“How many fucking Italies do you know?” He snorted as his head turned to look at you, dumbfounded. You forced a smile, showing him the middle finger.

"Don't worry. It's just for one weekend, I told you." He held open the door of the boutique you stopped in front of, pushing you inside by the shoulder. "Let's keep the details of the story short, alright? The less people know, the better.”

“All right, Mr. Boring. Time to find me a dress that won’t embarrass you.”

Rafe followed you inside, mentally preparing himself for the impending chaos. The store was bright and stylish, filled with an array of dresses and heels. You immediately dove into the racks, pulling out pieces in vibrant colors and flowing fabrics, not sparring him a second glance.

Fuck, he could already feel his pockets hurting.

“Help me out here,” you called over your shoulder, an armful of dresses piled high. “You’ve got baby arms but let’s see if they can handle this.”

He scoffed, rolling his eyes as he picked up a few dresses. “I don’t have baby arms,” he retorted, but the smirk on his face betrayed his amusement. Baby arms, really?

“Are you serious right now?” you teased, glancing back at him with a playful challenge in your eyes. “Maybe I should get you my workout plan instead of a dress.”

He shot you a glare, but the corner of his mouth twitched in a reluctant smile before he caught himself. “Just get what you need, and I’ll carry it, but don’t expect me to play your little games.”

You grinned, the mischievous light in your eyes making his heart race. Because you were infuriating. “Oh, but you’re going to play. It’s part of the deal.”

You’d already been through several rounds of dresses - each one met with a casual nod or a half-hearted comment from Rafe as he scrolled on his phone. A sleek black gown had caught his eye for a moment, and the deep red one had nearly made him lose his cool, but he managed to keep his reactions under control. He wasn’t about to give you the satisfaction of knowing just how much he was affected. You already were infuriating enough without him feeding your ego.

But then you stepped out in a blue dress. It wasn’t just any blue dress—it clung to you figure like it was made for you, the fabric flowing and shimmering as you walked. It hugged your figure perfectly, accentuating you curves in a way that made his breath hitch. The neckline dipped just enough to draw the eye, and the slit running from the edge of the dress to the top of you thigh was nothing short of provocative. Rafe felt his heart race, an unfamiliar heat burning in his veins.

He caught himself staring, quickly snapping his gaze back up to your face. Get it together, Cameron. She was annoying, infuriating, and the last person he should be looking at like that. Yet here he was, shifting in his seat, a strange heat building in his chest as you spun around and gave him a look that practically dared him to say something.

“What do you think?” you asked, your voice teasing but soft, as if you already knew the effect the dress was having on him.

He cleared his throat, trying desperately to summon one of his usual sarcastic remarks. “It’s… fine,” he managed, though his voice didn’t carry its usual edge.

You tilted your head, eyes gleaming with amusement as you starred at him through the mirror. “Fine? Just fine?” You pouted and turned around. You stepped closer, and he could feel the air between you grow thicker. “You’re not even looking.”

“I’m looking,” he muttered, his eyes betraying him again by glancing down at your legs before he moved it to his phone. He hated how easy it was for you to get under his skin. Every part of him was screaming to look away, to say something snarky and put you in her place, but for once, he couldn’t find the words. You looked too good. He hated it.

“No witty comeback? Wow, I’m impressed,” you teased, taking another step forward, the fabric of the dress shifting with your movement in a way that only drew his attention more.

He swallowed hard, doing his best to remember why you annoyed him so much. You’re frustrating. You’re a pain. He forced himself to think of every little thing you’d ever done to irritate him, but the sight of you in that dress made it nearly impossible.

“At least you’re as hot as you are annoying,” he finally muttered under his breath, shaking his head in a vain attempt to hide the fact that his pulse was racing.

You raised an eyebrow, clearly delighted with his response. A surprise chuckle escaped your lips. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Rafe huffed, trying to regain some composure. “Don’t get used to it,” he said, though the slight crack in his voice betrayed him.

“Too much for your business crowd?” you asked, spinning around in front of the mirror, your tone laced with amusement.

“Nah, you’ll fit right in,” he said, though his mind was screaming the opposite. Too much. Way too much. Too much for his own sake.

As you turned back to the mirror, adjusting the slit in the dress, Rafe allowed himself one more glance, feeling a mix of frustration and something else bubble up inside him. He preferred you when you were just annoying.

“I’m not carrying you out when those heels become too much,” he tossed out, trying to steer the conversation back into a safer territory.

You laughed, not missing a beat. “Don’t worry, I can handle myself. But it’s nice to know you’re concerned.”

“Concerned?” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “More like I just don’t want you slowing me down.”

But as you disappeared back into the fitting room, he leaned against the wall, running a hand through his hair in frustration. You were supposed to be his best friend’s little infuriating sister helping him with this. Yet with every passing second, it felt like you were becoming something else entirely. He couldn’t shake the way his gaze lingered on you, how he was beginning to dread the moment you’d step out of his line of sight. When did you turn human and stopped being a complete bitch?

Maybe it’s just been too long since Rafe got laid. Yeah, that was right. Between throwing his dad’s ashes and building a name for himself in the business world, Rafe barely had time to find some release. He’d fix it tonight.

Rafe was already at the counter, signing off on the receipt for all the dresses you’d tried on and decided that would be used in the weekend. His jaw clenched as he tried to ignore the numbers.

“Well, that was fun,” you quipped, an exaggerated smile as you leaned next to him, telling the lady that he’d be carrying all the bags.

Rafe shot you a look, muttering, “Fun? For you, maybe.”

“Come on, Rafe,” you teased, “one of the conditions for me agreeing to this whole thing was that you pay for everything.”

He scoffed, sliding his black card back into his wallet. “Yeah, trust me, I’m well aware. Still doesn’t make it any less painful.”

“Don’t be such a baby. We’re practically made of money,” you said, glancing at the bags filled with dresses for the wedding weekend. “Besides, you should be thanking me. You’re the one getting something out of this.”

“Yeah, I’m getting a headache.”

You rolled her eyes, nudging him playfully - a bit too hard. “You’re so dramatic.”

He offered you the fakest smile you’ve ever seen before shoving half of the bags to you.

As you stepped out into the street, Rafe hesitated. Against his better judgment, he found himself saying, “You hungry?”

You blinked, clearly surprised. “Why, Rafe Cameron, are you actually offering to buy me food after spending all that cash on dresses?”

“Don’t push it,” he grumbled, starting to walk toward a small café nearby. “But since we’re supposed to be convincing everyone at this wedding, we might as well figure out the rules over lunch.”

You followed, a surprised smirk playing on your lips. “Rules? You mean besides the one where you’re my personal ATM for the weekend?”

“Yeah, that one too,” he said dryly as they found a table outside the café, placing the bags down not so gently.

You sat down, menus in hand, and for a brief moment, they both seemed content to sit in silence. Until you broke it.

“Okay, so first rule,” you glanced up from the menu. “No kissing.”

Rafe raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his chair. “Why would think I’d kiss you? I’m not desperate”

“We can hold hands, lean in, whatever. But no actual kissing,” you insisted, tone firm. “This is strictly business.”

“We can hold hands, lean in, whatever. But no actual kissing,” she insisted, her tone firm. “This is strictly business.”

“Strictly business, huh?” He smirked, shaking his head. “You say that, but you’ll be the one swooning if we get too close.”

You let out a laugh, clearly unimpressed. “Please, Cameron, if you were half as charming as you think you are, you wouldn’t need a fake girlfriend in the first place.”

“Oh, I’m charming enough. You’re just stubborn and blind.” He leaned in a little, lowering his voice. “Admit it - you’re at least a little curious what it’d be like.”

Your smile faltered just for a second before it was replaced with a disgusted face, “Curious? About you? Only to see how much more annoying you can get.”

Rafe’s gaze flickered down to your legs as you shifted in the seat, his jaw tightening as he caught himself. Annoying. Infuriating. But damn if you’re not hot, he thought, biting back a comment. His expression hardened, trying to snap himself out of it. He really needed to get laid, quickly.

You crossed your arms, leaning forward a little. “Second rule: no jealous boyfriend act. I don’t need you scaring off guys at the wedding.”

Rafe rolled his eyes. “Why would I be jealous? Get over yourself.”

“Yeah, okay,” you leaned back in your chair. “Just remember, this isn’t real. No need for the possessive act.”

“I got it. Fake dating. No jealousy,” he repeated, the sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“And no trying to use this as an excuse to annoy me,” you added with a pointed look. “Topper won’t be knowing about this. Ever.”

Rafe barked out a laugh. “Annoy you? That’s practically the only fun part of this arrangement.”

“Right, because you’re soooo fun to be around,” you shot back, rolling your eyes dramatically.

“Look, just follow my lead, alright? I’ll make sure we don’t look like complete idiots in front of my business associates,” he said, picking up his menu.

“I’m not the one who looks like an idiot,” you muttered under your breath, pretending to read the menu.

He snorted, clearly hearing you, but chose not to respond. The air was filled with silence again as they waited for the waiter.

Finally, you set your menu down and locked eyes with him. “Okay, but one more thing.”

“What now?” he asked, exasperated.

“No flirting with other girls while we’re there. I’m not covering for you if you get caught in some hotel scandal.”

Rafe raised an eyebrow, half amused and half annoyed. “Please. I should’ve known you were the jealous type.”

“Oh, sure,” your voice dripping with sarcasm. “Just stick to the plan, Rafe. We get in, play our parts, and get out without embarrassing ourselves. You can handle that, right?”

Rafe leaned in slightly, his smirk still in place. “I don’t know, princess. You seem pretty good at embarrassing yourself. Might be contagious.”

You glared at him but couldn’t hold back a small smile. “You’re insufferable.”

“And you’re still here, so what does that say about you?”

You opened you mouth to respond, ready say that it made you the kindest person in the world, but the waiter returned just in time to take your orders. As you waited for the waitress to come back with your order, you pulled your phone to scroll, had seen enough of Rafe’s face for the afternoon.

You tried to think of the best way to survive this fake dating arrangement with as little emotional damage as possible for one weekend. Maybe you’d end up killing each other first.

“Can you…” you took a deep breath, nibbling on your bottom lip while you looked around before meeting his gaze. “Not tell Topper about what you’ve seen earlier?”

“The douchebag?” Rafe arched a brow, his jaw tensing as he remembered the encounter, your hair tousled.

“He isn’t a douchebag but yeah, that.” you let out a long sigh, sipping on your juice.

“I’ll think about it. Let’s see how you will do during the wedding, huh.” He offered you one of these smug smirks that made you want to punch his face. Of course he wouldn’t make things easy for you.

⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆ TAGLIST: @megiiite @melsunshine @maybankslover @wearemadeofstardust0 @lilithblackkk

#rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron oneshot #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron one shot #rafe cameron #rafe cameron series #rafe cameron fanfic #rafe cameron fanfiction #rafe cameron outer banks

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hauntedrain · 9 months ago

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For Years! | Max Verstappen x Reader |

Social media AU Summary: Max and reader get criticism over the status of their relationship.

✮▹ A/N: So sorry for not posting for so long. Life has been BUSY. but hopefully i can post more and write more! Love you guys <3

✰▹Warnings/Notices: Not edited. nothing really. reader mentioned to write music

Liked by Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, & 3,345,678 others

@Y/N: Lovely time lately.

view all 19,234 comments

user1: LMFAO MAX.

user2: Y/N you'll always been iconic

user3: sometimes I forget Max Verstappen is dating THE Y/N L/N.

↪ user4: SO TRUE. It completely passes my mind that they've been together before he even got to F1.

↪ user5: THEY'VE BEEN TOGETHER FOR 9 YEARS?

↪ user6: YEA ITS WILD.

↪ user7: wait but they haven't gotten married or anything?

↪ user8: Yea no. They also avoid the questions around it. Kind of weird to me.

↪ user9: But hasn't Y/N written songs about marriage and getting married? Why haven't they?

↪ user10: Maybe they just don't want to. Or max doesn't.

MaxVerstappen: Why did you choose that photo of me.

↪ Y/N: You want me to post the photo from yesterday?

↪ MaxVerstappen: NO.

↪ user11: LMFAO. PARENTS.

Liked by Y/N, Redbull, & 2,345,567 others

@MaxVerstappen: Great race and great win! Getting ready for next week. And thank you to @Y/N for making me but those glasses, best purchase.

View all 14,567 comments

Y/N: I told you they were a good investment

↪ MaxVerstappen: I don't know if you would call it an investment.

↪ Y/N: I'll post that picture.

↪MaxVerstappen: It was a great investment! better than a house!

↪ user12: better than a ring?

↪ user13: STOP. but no fr, wheres the ring Max?

user14: Okay nice win but when yall getting married?

user15: everyone needs to mind their business, maybe they're just not ready to get married and that okay.

↪ user16: But its been 9 YEARS. NINE YEARS. Its a red flag.

liked by 18,234 others

@F1GOSSIP: Max Verstappen and Y/N L/N have been criticized over the status of their relationship. The couple has been together for over 9 years however many fans have realized that there's been no movement in the relationship, family and marriage vise. Thought?

view all 5,567 comments

user17: I mean its their life but 9 years?

user18: Idk guys don't hate me but sometimes max doesn't seem interested in Y/N. Like all of the Monaco GP? seem happy around her.

↪ user19: Bro look at the pictures in the post. Does he seem unhappy in them? No he seems very happy.

↪ user20: Okay but lets be honest. Both only seem that happy in front of a camera.

User21: I mean for some of their relationship they were fairly young. Maybe they just wanna enjoy it little by little.

↪ user22: I think in 9 years you can enjoy a lot.

user23: I wouldn't marry her either. Max knows what's best which is why he hasn't done it.

Y/N has posted to their story!

liked by 6,678,567 others

@MaxVerstappen: happy 3 year anniversary @Y/N. love you much and cant wait for years to come. Also, people said I hated her? How could I?

view all 35,567,878 comments

Y/N: Guys my husband is kinda cool.

↪ MaxVerstappen: Kinda?

↪ Y/N: yea cuz im cooler than you.

↪ MaxVerstappen: Okay love.

user24: WTF 3 YEARS?

user25: max said hold my 3x WDC titles while I make everyone shut up about my relationship.

↪ Y/N: He just wins everything doesn't he?

↪ CharlesLeclerc: Yea its kinda annoying. you should distract him Y/N

↪ MaxVerstappen: Dont tell my wife to distract me, I'll lose.

↪ CharlesLeclerc: thats the point.

↪ LandoNorris: I just wanna win.

↪ user26: LMFAO WHAT IS HAPPENING

↪ Y/N: Im collecting them all

User27: And people said max didnt wanna marry her.

user28: Bro just keeps winning doesnt he. Y/N GIVE ME A CHANCE.

user29: if you look closely you can see me getting run over by an F1 car.

⭒❃.✮:▹A/N: I hope you guys like it! I need to post more but ive gotten so busy and haven't had the time. But I'll try to post more often. Love you guys! hope you enjoyed.

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quadrantadvisor · 2 months ago

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DPxDC Danny/Jason Soulmates AU WIP

Jason's timer read 044389:21:08, when the display suddenly went dark. 44,389 hours. Five years, 24 days, 13 hours, 21 minutes, and 8 seconds until he was fated to meet his soulmate.

Or not. Because the time stopped.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. He did his research, and with the resources at his disposal (namely, a batcomputer,) he knew for a fact that there should be no way to defy the fate of a timer. People had tried. Avoidance, isolation, putting a hit out on your own suspected soulmate. Nothing worked. Trying to delay the inevitable put you on the path to meet it. Sure, there were people who lamented the unfairness of their own situation, who were devastated they never got time with their soulmate, famous deaths on opposite sides of a battle, etc. But soulmates always, always met eachother, face to face.

Not him, though. His soulmate was dead. Five years early.

Bruce didn’t get it. Dick wouldn’t talk about it. Alfred only looked at him with pity in his eyes.

Jason wasn’t sad that he was the only person on the planet who’d never meet his soulmate. He was fucking angry, because it wasn’t fucking fair. It was another person in his life who was supposed to care about him that he’d never get to have.

So when he found out he had a mom, somewhere out there, who he’d never had the chance to meet… he had to go. How could he not?

It was Sam who noticed, when it happened. Danny had just finished a stupid fight with Boxy, and he, Sam, and Tucker were finally ready to call it a night. Danny de-transformed and grinned, shaking the thermos proudly. “Gonna get these guys back into the Ghost Zone,” he said, when suddenly-

“Danny!” Sam yelped, and snatched at his arm.

Danny stumbled, nearly dropping his precious cargo. “Whoa, Sam, what-?’ he stopped, looking as she turned over his arm, baring his wrist.

His timer was dark, like people who’s soulmates were dead. The numbers still showed, faintly, but they were stationary. The countdown had stopped.

Ice spread through Danny’s veins, like the cold that rushed through him when he went ghost, but worse, so much worse.

Danny’s ghost form didn’t have a timer, which honestly freaked him out, but as a human it had always behaved completely normally. When he turned back, it would be there, the time having elapsed just the way it was supposed to. It had been so reassuring. He was alive. He’d make it at least five more years, and be able to meet his soulmate, who would hopefully be able to accept him the way he was. He wanted that so badly. He wanted someone beyond his friends to talk to, to know him as a person and a ghost. He wanted to not be afraid anymore.

He’d just passed the five year mark, not that long ago. He’d been so excited to be that much closer to someone so important.

And now something was horribly wrong.

“Dude, that’s jacked up,” Tucker said, noticing the problem with wide eyes.

“Did anything happen today?” Sam asked, her expression hardened with determination. “Did you notice anything weird while you were transformed?”

Danny shook his head. “No, no it- it was running while we were at school, and we’ve been fighting ghosts since then. I don’t know when it would’ve…” Danny could barely make himself speak. “Is it my fault?” he said, almost to himself. “Did I spend too much time as a ghost and it just-”

Sam gripped at his hand. “No, Danny, it isn’t your fault. Whatever the problem is, we’re going to figure it out, okay?”

“Yeah man,” Tucker added, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, maybe your parents can actually help this time? Weird magic science is kinda their thing, right?”

Sam looked less sure, but nodded all the same. “You’re going to meet your soulmate. Okay?”

“Okay,” Danny said, quiet, looking down at the stopped numbers on his wrist.

Edit: Added a readmore

#calling this a wip because it's obviously just set up but i haven't worked on this since i wrote it #i actually wrote it because of a prompt on a dead on main event week but never posted anything then #so i may as well now #timer soulmate angst! my favorite #danny phantom #dc #batfam #dpxdc #dp x dc #dead on main #long post #not quite long enough for a readmore i dont think but if anybody complains I'll add one #my rambles #my writing #fanfic #soulmate au #soulmate timers #edit: what was I thinking of course it needs a readmore #this is why we don't post at 1 am folks

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whisperofwonder · 3 days ago

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Domesticity (Evening Edition)

―Just some small, random evening moments.

Featuring: Bokuto Koutarou, Sakusa Kiyoomi, Akaashi Keiji x reader

Note: you have a daughter in Sakusa's

BOKUTO KOUTAROU

You skim the shelf for a few moments, then reach for a familiar looking package. It seems like every time you shop, there are more new varieties. It makes it difficult to keep track. "These are the ones you liked, right?" You ask, giving the box of protein bars a slight shake. There's no answer.

"Kou?" You look around, but your boyfriend is nowhere in sight. You bite back a sigh and toss the box in the cart anyway. If he can't stick around long enough to choose, he'll get what he gets. Pushing the cart along, you glance down the next few aisles. There's still no sign of him. Where would he have even wandered off to?

Just as you reach for your phone to send him a text, you feel a hand come to rest on the small of your back, and Koutarou is leaning around you to deposit something in the cart.

"Where did you go?" You ask with a frown as he sneaks his arms around you, slipping his hands into the front pocket of your oversized Jackals hoodie. "Koutarou," You add sternly as you can feel the warm press of his hands through the soft material. "We're in public."

Despite your warning, he doesn't make any move to pull away. "Just went to grab some apples," He says, hanging his chin over your shoulder. "You said this morning that we needed more, and I realized we were already past the produce, so I went back to get some."

You should really stand your ground and pull away, but you can't help it. There's no one around you to see the sudden closeness, and he was right about the apples. The warm press of his chest against your back is familiar and reassuring.

"Thanks for remembering," You say softly instead, reaching up to rest your hand on his cheek for a few moments.

"'Course," He nuzzles his other cheek against yours.

"Alright," You finally say, stepping away after savoring the moment for just a little while longer. You can hear the sound of another shopper's cart turning the corner. "Let's finish up so we can get home."

"And cuddle before bed?" He asks hopefully.

You can't help but smile. "I don't see why not."

SAKUSA KIYOOMI

You've just pulled out a onesie and are reaching for a clean diaper when you hear Kiyoomi enter the room behind you. You'd spent the last 15 minutes tidying up your daughter's room while he gave her a bath.

You turn with a smile to greet them, and a snort of laughter sneaks out before you can stop it. Your husband's t-shirt is soaked from the chest up, and there are water droplets slipping from his curls. Your daughter is babbling happily from beneath the hood of her ducky towel, oblivious to the less-than-pleased expression on her father's face.

"Oh, wow. Miyu one, Daddy zero, huh?" You ask, successfully holding back any further laughter.

"I don't think you can win bath time." He hands her over to you and mops a few drops of water from his cheek with the towel he'd slung around his neck. You lay her down and start putting on her diaper.

"Maybe not," You agree with a twitch of your lips, "But from the looks of it, you can certainly lose." He opens his mouth, then closes it with a shake of his head.

"Well, she had fun, anyway." He finally says, the slightest hint of a smile playing on his lips. "Right?" He asks, expression softening as he leans over to give her pudgy cheek a gentle pinch. She grins up at him, showing off her two and a half teeth, and he rests his hand on the top of her still-damp, downy curls.

"You're such a little stinker," He adds in the softest tone, never mind your heart that already feels fit to burst. You snap the last button on the onesie, picking her up and pressing a kiss to her irresistibly soft, freshly-washed cheek. Between the warm bath and the evident fun she'd had playing in it, she's already half asleep.

"Someone's ready for bed," You croon, then turn to him. "Go ahead and get changed. I'll put her down and be right out."

"Okay," He hums, leaning in and pressing a kiss to her forehead, "Goodnight, sweetheart," He murmurs, "I love you so much." He turns his head just enough to give you a tender kiss before he pulls away. "I love you," He adds.

"I love you too," You say softly, taking just a moment to run a hand affectionately through his damp hair before turning to put your daughter to bed.

AKAASHI KEIJI

"My love," you're woken by a soft whisper and the gentle squeeze of a hand on your thigh. "We're home."

Blearily, you turn to see Keiji in the driver's seat, and realize the car is parked in the driveway. That's funny - the last thing you knew, you were just pulling onto the highway. He's looking at you so intently that you almost feel the need to duck your head.

"Sorry, didn't mean to fall asleep," You eke out, rubbing your eyes in an effort to wake yourself up.

"It was a long day," He hums, the hand still resting on your thigh giving it another gentle squeeze. "So let's get inside and get to bed." It doesn't take much more prompting for you to follow him into the house.

You fight the warm sleepiness pulling at you long enough to change into your pajamas and brush your teeth, finally reaching for the covers when Keiji stops you. "Did you wash your face?" He asks, and you groan.

"I'll do it in the morning," You promise, turning down the covers.

"Come on," He says, reaching for your hand and gently guiding you back into the bathroom. "You'll feel better if you do it now. Here," He pats the closed toilet lid, and you obediently sink down onto it as he puts some of your cleanser on a cotton pad. His fingertips tilt your chin upwards, and you let your eyes slide closed as he begins swiping the soft pad across your face.

"Don't fall asleep," You hear him prompt as he works. You manage a hum to assure him that you won't, as relaxing as this is. Finally, you feel the press of lips on your forehead.

"All done," He says, and you open your eyes. The look on his face is so warm and gentle that something bubbles up in your chest.

"Thanks, Keiji," You say, tugging on his t-shirt until his lips meet yours. "Love you," You add against his lips.

"I love you too," He cups your cheek briefly with a soft smile. "Now, weren't you the one who was so eager to get to bed?"

You haven't forgotten. In mere moments, you're snuggled up against his chest under the covers. There's no place else you'd rather be.

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu fluff #bokuto koutarou #bokuto x reader #bokuto koutarou x reader #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #sakusa x reader #akaashi keiji #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi x reader #moon writes

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peppermintquartz · 4 months ago

Text

Chimney is striding towards a tall, dark-haired man who is currently checking the cockpit of a helicopter. Time is of the essence, but they will still need to wait for Hen.

Tall guy has a nice ass, Buck thinks vaguely, a little distracted by all the activity that's going on around them. He wonders if the choppers get to go out every day. He would, if he were a pilot.

When the guy turns around, it is to reveal a handsome face: chiseled jaw, aristocratic nose, straightforward gaze, generous lips and - oh - a cleft chin. That face breaks into a broad smile, the lines crinkling at the eyes and around the mouth adding to the overall attractiveness of the features.

"Howie, hey!" Tall Handsome Guy hugs Chimney tightly, enveloping the shorter man in a sincere embrace. "Long time."

Wow. Buck blinks at the show of affection. When he gets closer, he sees that Tall Handsome Guy is actually about the same height as he is, but with a more angular face - that jawline is to die for - and he is broader in the shoulders. Even more handsome up close, too, which is totally unfair.

"This is Tommy, Tommy Kinard. He used to be at the 118," Chimney introduces. "Used to have a fat head, but he grew out of that."

"Thanks to you," says Tommy. He holds out a hand to Eddie and Buck.

Eddie shakes Tommy's hand first. "Eddie Diaz."

"Pleasure. And you are...?" Tommy turns to Buck.

Buck takes the proffered hand. Good God his hand is so big and strong. "Uh, Evan. E-Evan Buckley, hi."

"Hi Evan," says Tommy, smiling at Buck, the smile as warm as his hand. The name Evan sounds cozy and welcoming coming from Tommy, and for a second when Buck meets Tommy's eyes, he almost forgets to breathe. No man should be this good-looking, Buck thinks. Tommy clears his throat and his smile turns a little cheeky. "I'm gonna need that hand to fly the chopper, kid."

"Oh! Oh, right, sorry. I was just, um, thinking. About Cap and Thena."

"Yeah, we're gonna need Hen to show soon with some coordinates," Chimney says, looking antsy. "Can't go flying all over the Gulf of Mexico."

Tommy shrugs. "We'll do what we can. Wait, I see a car pulling in. Might be her. Get in the backseat, strap yourselves in. Once I get Hen clear of Melton, we'll dash. Hopefully she has a good cover story..." His cheeks puff out and he lets out an exaggerated exhale. Then he grins at the three. "If we're all arrested, can I blame it on you, Howie?"

"Yeah I really twisted your arm with the 'Please help us save Cap and Athena'." Chimney climbs in after Eddie.

"You know it's because of your irresistibly pretty face," says Tommy dryly, helping Buck get in, a hand on his elbow. "Alright, put those helmets on. Careful, Evan."

Buck manages to catch Tommy's faint frown just before the pilot takes his seat and starts up the engine, go over his checks or whatever pilots do. Tommy's concerned, which isn't a surprise. They're asking a huge favor.

But it's so cool that he is throwing in his lot with them, just like that. Buck doesn't think there are many people who would do this. Tommy Kinard really is pretty cool.

"Alright. She's ready to go when we are," says Tommy. He opens his door and slides out. To the trio, he says, "Don't touch anything. I'm gonna hang out near Melton and run intercept."

"We'll behave," Eddie says, holding up his hand like a Scout.

Tommy only rolls his eyes and chuckles before jogging away to the main hangar. Buck can't help noticing how the flight suit pulls over the man's shoulders and ass as he moves.

Wonder what his workouts are like, Buck muses. Maybe more squats and lifts.

Now, all they have to do is wait for Hen to show.

edited on AO3

Tommy's POV

#evan buckley #tommy kinard #chimney han #eddie diaz #first meeting #bucktommy #tevan #kinley

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yourejinx · 6 months ago

Text

Wasted Times

CASSIAN X F.READER

Warnings: SMUT, little plot. A bit of angst. Minors do not interact.

A/N: a little something, not proof read. I'll be editing tomorrow. Comments are welcomed 👏🏻

You used to think he found you pretty, always sticking next to you or seeking your company, you're fairly sure he even flirted with you sometimes. In his own not-ever-gonna-out- right-tell-you-what-I- mean–way, but you could tell there was something there. That's until the middle Archeron sister came into picture, with her beautiful doe brown eyes and soft silky-looking skin, her pink lips and long curls. Elain was a vision. Azriel was completely mesmerized with her, and it stung like hell to sit and watch as he leaned into her ear to whisper the mother knows what, his fingers delicatedly brushing her bare shoulder.

You sighed and drowned the dark liquor of your glass in one gulp. You were so tired of this shit, wouldn't have made it through half the dinner without Mor and Cass there.

"Everything alright sweetheart?" Cass asked loud enough just for you to hear.

"Yeah, I'm just bored." You smiled dismissively, hopefully convincing enough to ease the worried look he was giving you.

"We should go to Rita's" Mor chipped in, just in time to save you from interrogation.

"Yes! The three of us hadn't been out alone in ages." You agreed quickly, really needing any excuse to get the fuck out of the house.

Cass chuckled. "Yeah, last time I don't really remember how we ended up at Helion's door. Rhys had to go get us."

You laughed, a real sound this time and Cassian's eyes sparkled in amusement. He was always there for you, through thick and thin, ever since you met him. It was instant, the connection between the two of you, he knew you better than you knew yourself. Your best friend, your personal ray of sunshine. You had a feeling he suspected of your...affections towards his brother but you always managed to play it out small, just a friendly teasing. He wasn't a fool though, but kept quiet about it.

"What do you say Cass, are you up to some fun?" You asked, a smirk tugging at your lips.

"I'm always ready for a night with you sweetheart." He winked and leaned back in his chair.

You weren't entirely sure if it was the wine you had been indulging in all night, or the fact that it's been a while since someone flirted with you but your cheeks turned a light dusty pink at his words. Body feeling a little tingly. It wasn't uncommon for Cassian to flirt with you, he was built like that. He pretty much flirted with everyone. But something felt different tonight, maybe the fact that you were feeling a little unsure about yourself as of late, given that a certain shadowsinger had started to pay attention to more... beautiful, delicate things. So you didn't question how the General's words had affected you. You let yourself enjoy it, make you feel good. Cassian always made you feel good.

You rolled your eyes at him and gave him a playful smile, taking a sip of your glass.

Mor almost squealed in excitement. With Rhys and Feyre navigating their new parenthood, Amren and Varian barely leaving her apartment, and Azriel annoyingly pinning after Elain, there wasn't really much fun going on for your blonde friend. You had been over working a lot to be honest, anything to keep away from the house and the irritation that came lately when crossing paths with the shadowsinger, but you were tired and you missed your friends. So you finally decided to come home and a night out with your two best friends sounded esplendid.

"Alright then, let's go" you stood up, pulling Cassian with you, Mor on your heels. You waved your friends goodnight from over your shoulder. Not lingering to see hazel eyes trailing after you.

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

"Is it me or is tonight more packed than usual?" You shouted over to Mor, making your way through the crowd of sweating bodies to the bar across from the dance floor.

Mor chuckled, pulling out a seat for you and signaling for the barman to come over. "It's Friday, of course it’s packed. How long is it since you last went out?"

"Two months, I guess? Since I took the job on the border" you shrugged.

"So, almost three months," Cassian added. Mor sent him a smirk.

"But who's counting, right?" She joked, Cass just rolled his eyes at her and ordered our drinks.

"Aww, did you miss me Cassie?" You prodded playfully at his shoulder. A smirk stretching across your red tinted lips.

"Of course I did, smartass, I didn't know the House could be so silent without your incessant morning rants!" He smiled. You smacked him in the arm. "Ouch! That hurt"

"I didn't even hit you that hard, you're just being a big Illyrian baby." You rolled your eyes, taking a sip ro your drink.

"You love me anyways," he threw an arm around your shoulder. "but for real sweetheart, don't take any more long ass missions for a while."

A warm, real smile made its way to your lips. "Don't worry Cass, I don't intend to."

"Good. Cause Azriel's been a real pain in the ass, I can't stand him anymore on my own." He chuckled.

Your smile weavered a little at the mention of the shadowsinger. "Ugh, don't even start. But let's not talk about him, yeah? I wanna dance."

Cassian opened his mouth but before he could answer, you were already tugging Mor towards the dance floor.

The night passed by between drinks and laughter and dancing, you were currently sandwiched between Mor and Cassian, swaying your hips to the dark tune of the rhythm, arms thrown around the shoulders of your blonde friend, back pressed against Cassian’s hard chest. It was hot and fun and you’ve never felt so free and careless, maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe the heat of the hands resting heavily on your hips was starting to mess up with your head. Either way, you felt bold and beautiful, a taunting smirk adorning your lips as you caught the eye of some male across the room. He gave you and Mor a run over, biting his lip as he made his way towards you. He was handsome, not quite as breathtaking as the males in your family, but he had some pretty attractive features. Sharp jaw and glinting dark eyes, and he looked confident enough that he had found his entertainment for the evening. You smiled playfully at Mor, angling your head to the male as if not to be so obvious, she looked over her shoulder, blonde curls like melted honey dripping over her back and flashed him a devilish smile. That’s when you knew you were out of the game. Mor was beautiful, ethereal. There was no comparing your darkness to her striking beauty, even the shadowsinger had favored her over you, some time ago.

Why had your thoughts taken such a pitiful turn? You were having a good time right? you wouldn’t let your insecurities take root in your head once more, you were here to avoid them after all. Still, you faltered in your steps as the male gently tapped Mor’s bare shoulder. You couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, unconsciously leaning in on Cassian. Mor, completely oblivious to the downturn in your mood, gave you a playful wink and headed off with the male.

“Nevermind him,” rang Cassian’s deep voice in your ear, “he doesn’t know what he’s missing.” He gave a little squeeze to your hip, breath fanning over your neck and causing goosebumps to erupt in your skin.

“Doesn’t he now? He’s got his hands on the big prize tonight” you murmured.

Cassian’s grip on your hip tightened, pulling you even closer to him, right hand splayed dangerously low on your abdomen. “He’s so beneath you, sweetheart.”

You let out a sigh, finding comfort in the heat radiating off of his body. Cassian’s strong arms enveloping you almost possessively, hiding you away. “Cass,” you called him softly, half turning to face him, “dance with me?”

He flashed you one of his signature smiles and leaned down to press a kiss to your shoulder, “For as long as you want.”

You didn’t really want to think about why you felt so compelled to believe Cassian’s words, it was like everytime he reassured you, you got this warm feeling in your chest that spread throughout your body, all the way to the tip of your toes. You felt lighter, confident, pretty…even, in his presence. There was this sense of sincerity about him, and Cassian –your Cassian– would never lie to you. So you relaxed in his embrace and allowed yourself to get lost in the rhythm again, enjoying the way he seemed to understand your body better than anyone, smoothly following your movements.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was around the sixth glass of fairy wine when Cassian decided that maybe you had had enough to drink, and maybe it was time to get some fresh air. He wasn’t entirely sure the suffocating heat was due to the way-too-packed dance floor or because you had been grinding down on him all night. If he had to be honest with himself, it was probably the latter. He couldn’t understand how did you dare think so low about yourself, in his eyes you were the most stunning female he had ever met, but tonight with that unfairly short, tight dress that hugged all the right places? You were absolutely ravishing. Full plump red lips so close to him, he had to refrain from kissing you until they were bruised and swollen.

“You know what I really want?” you asked suddenly, pulling him out of the trance he had been for the last ten minutes. Your head was resting on his shoulder, eyes glazed and heavy looking up at him. He swallowed, you were definitely tipsy. You’d never look at him like that otherwise.

“What do you really want?” He asked, shamelessly tracing the shape of your mouth.

“A piece of chocolate cake,” you pouted. That pulled a laugh out of him, he wasn’t expecting it.

“You’ve got chocolate cake at home,” he answered, still smiling at your frowning face. “I bought you some this morning, when I heard you were coming back.”

You beamed at him, and Cassian’s heart made a flip in his chest. It was as if he had told you the secret of the universe itself.

“Really?” you asked, smiling widely. He chuckled. “Can we go home now?”

“Yeah, let's get you that chocolate cake sweetheart.”

With one arm securely wrapped around your waist and the other hooked under your legs, Cassian lifted you up easily, as if you weighed the same as a feather to him. A small gasp escaped your mouth once he took to the skies, it never failed to amaze you how truly powerful he was. How disciplined and graceful, even. There was nothing brute about Cassian, despite some awful claimings from equally awful people. This sight of him, the wind in his hair, strong wings on full display, was nothing short of a masterpiece.

As if sensing your ogling, Cassian looked down to meet your stare with a bashful smirk. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You know Cass, you're my favorite person in the entire world.” you whispered, smiling up at him.

His smirk widened. “Oh, you're so drunk.”

You frowned, a little pout forming on your lips. “I'm not drunk. Just tipsy with no filter.”

He chuckled. “I thought Az was your favorite.”

Your frown deepened and Cassian swore your body had stiffened a little. “Why? We barely talk anymore.” You scoffed.

Cassian gave you a sympathetic smile. “He's just been busy,”

“Yeah, whatever.”

And just like that your mood had gone back to the beginning of the night. Sour insecurities resurfacing in your head. It wasn't Cass’ fault though, he's been perfectly charming the entire night. It didn't sit right with you, this awkwardness surrounding you. “He didn't get me chocolate cake though, so you're still my fav.” You tried lifting the mood with a tentative playful smile. He mirrored it, but still he caught your change in demeanor, having fallen silent the rest of the ride home.

Even once inside the House of Wind, comfortably sitting on the counter top in the kitchen, eating a slice of cake, shoes discarded on the floor. You hadn't uttered another word, too lost in your thoughts.

Cassian observed you intently, eyes downcast, hair a little windswept, full lips engulfing the last bit of cake. He swallowed. He didn't understand his brother, how could he resist when you so openly flirted with him? Had it been him on the receiving end of those heated stares shared during training, he would already have you pressed against the nearest wall, devouring your mouth until you couldn't breathe. There was no denying the beauty of the middle Archeron sister, but you? No one could compare to you. Long dark lashes, beautiful plump lips, the subtle sun-kissed glow of your skin… and those thighs. Those godsdamned thighs, you could choke him to death with them and he would die a happy male.

Yet, you didn't seem aware of the effect you had on males —and females as well— whenever you’d walk into the room.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked, low enough not to startle you.

“Am I not pretty enough?” You blurted out suddenly, as if you couldn't contain the thoughts inside your head anymore. Feeling embarrassed about how that came out, you averted your gaze away from him.

“Why would you think that?” Cassian asked softly, a small frown taking form in his face. When you didn't answer he moved to stand directly in front of you. “Sweetheart look at me, please,” his hand came to cup your chin, forcing your head up and causing your eyes to meet.

“It's just..” you huffed, mouth forming a small pout. “I'm not exactly soft and delicate, my body is too strong and maybe I laugh too loud,” You bit your lip trying to stop the spiraling of your thoughts. “I’ve never been…courted, I've had sexual partners, sure, but none of them had wanted to stay. No one has approached me for a while and tonight I thought– but of course not, Mor was there and she's stunning like the sun! I don't know, maybe I'm not feminine enough, that's all I'm saying.” You shrugged, trying to downplay it.

“That couldn't be farther from the truth. You truly have no idea what you do to every male in Prythian that sets their eyes on you.” He declared, looking so intensely at you that you couldn’t look away. The hand that was cupping your chin had moved down to rest on your waist and you sucked in a breath at the sudden rush of heat that act alone had caused to spread all over your skin. “You have no idea what you do to me.” Cassian’s voice had dropped to a low deep purr that had you feeling dizzy. “Breathtaking is not a strong enough word to describe your beauty. You don't think you're soft and feminine?” His free hand dared to trace a path from your hips up to your ribs, stopping just below your breasts. “I can point out a few soft and feminine spots if you wish.”

His eyes had taken a darker tone and you swallowed dry, feeling all tingly where his hands were currently resting on your body. Cassian was beautiful, perfect. You had always known that, but you would have never thought this male to have an attraction towards you. It was simply impossible, you've been best friends for as long as you remember, he had seen the ugly in you, the dark, awful sides of you. And in contrast, you've seen him take gorgeous lovers along the years. So you never gave it much thought, contempt to have him as your partner in crime, your own personal sun. But there was no denying the way he was watching you now, such hunger in his darkened gaze; there was no denying the way your mind and body were reacting to him either.

You didn't know when you had leaned in closer, or had that been him? Your hands were resting on his chest in a poor attempt to keep some composure but you knew he could smell the sweet vague scent of arousal coming off of you. Your face heated up, a faint blush all the way to the point of your ears.

When you didn’t say anything he added: “D’you wanna know why no one dares to approach you?” His breath fanned over your face. “That’s on me, sweetheart. I can’t help it, whenever I’m around you and some poor excuse of a male even thinks he might be worthy to touch you, my blood boils in my veins and I become violence incarnate. I know that. No one would be stupid enough to defy me.”

“But– but why?” you choked out. Too stunned to act cool.

He chuckled, a dark, dangerous sound. “Why? Because I want you. Because I dream about you. Because I need you.”

You tilted your head slightly upwards to stare at him, mouths mere inches away. There was such raw devotion in his eyes, it unleashed something primal from within you. It burned and ached more and more by the second, desperately wanting to be free. Oh, you wanted him. All of him.

“Then have me. Show me all the soft spots you like,” you whispered.

Cassian growled low, “I'm gonna show you just how beautiful you are.” And then he crashed your lips together in a hungry kiss. He kissed you deep and rough, hands tightly holding your hips and bringing you closer to the edge of the countertop.

Your own hands came to rest at the nape of his neck, fingers twisting and tugging at the strands there. You bit down on his lower lip, immediately dragging your tongue over it; groaning softly, he grabbed handfuls of your ass, kneading the flesh there. Arousal shot through your body, all the way to your core, thighs clenching together. You were almost certain your panties were drenched.

“This I like,” he managed between kisses, landing a spank to your left cheek. You gasped and he took the opportunity to explore more of your skin, kissing and nibbling that sensitive spot on your neck. He went lower, licking at your collarbones and you arched your back to give him more access.

Rough, calloused hands slid the thin straps of your dress down your shoulders, exposing your breasts to him. Cassian wasted no time attaching his mouth to your right breast, swirling his tongue and biting softly at the perked nub. Expert fingers twisting at the other before switching between them. You moaned loudly for him, hips jerking, searching for friction.

“These I like,” he said, releasing your niple with a sinful ‘pop’. Then his eyes darted down to your legs, forcing them open with his hips. Your dress had ridden up your hips, lace panties on full display for him. The fabric was soaked and Cassian growled at the sight. All for him. He fell to his knees before you, teeth grazing the sensitive flesh of your inner thighs “but these,” he murmured in between love bites. “I love these,” The General moaned before ripping your panties off and letting his tongue drag a long strip up your folds.

“Oh Gods” you couldn't help but moan out loud, fingers finding their way into Cassian's hair and pushing his head further in between your legs. Hips desperately chasing after that sinful, skilled mouth of his.

He chuckled darkly and the reverberations caused pleasure to shoot up your spine, eyes fluttering shut. You were almost sure you could touch the sky with your hands when he sucked harshly at your clit, and all thoughts emptied from your mind. It was just you, and Cassian, and the mindnumbing pleasure coursing through your veins as he fucked you with his tongue. It was all too much, too hot, too messy. His mouth felt so warm on you, fuck, drinking up your juices like he might die of thirst. You couldn't get enough of him, how did you get so long without succumbing to his charms?

Cassian groaned as yet another wave of arousal came gushing out of you, licking it all up, not a single drop to waste. Your taste was divine, he thought he may be high on it, head empty except for the carnal need to make you come undone on his mouth, and then fuck you into oblivion. He was so painfully hard, he could’ve just cum right there at the sight of you above him, looking all fucked up and he had yet to take off his pants. He could feel how close you were as your whimpering grew louder, head threw back in pleasure, too lost to notice the lone shadow that had made its way towards you. Cassian growled in warning, wings flaring proud in a display of dominance as he heard the light footsteps approaching. “Mine.” He seemed to growl on your skin, and you felt yourself tripping over the edge when you locked eyes with the intruder. A plea of The General’s name on your lips.

“Cass please, I'm gonna–” your release barreled through you with blinding force. Cassian rode you through your high, never faltering until you came down.

When you opened your eyes the intruder was gone. It was only you and Cassian in the room, he was smiling brightly at you, your heart gave a flip at the sight. He was still on his knees, lips shiny with the remnants of your orgsm, eyes still full of lust. He was so beautiful. You couldn't resist but to urge him up and kiss him breathless.

“I take it, you liked it” He murmured amusedly, hands still roaming over your body.

“Very much so, yes.” You smiled, leaning in for another kiss. He pressed himself against you, hard and ready, making you moan again.

A sudden new wave of lust (and a tinge of longing) invaded your senses, followed by a tentative tug. You gasped into his mouth, breaking the kiss to look up at him.

“You're…” you mused in awe, not able to form a coherent thought. His smile only grew wider and he dragged his mouth leisurely down your neck, biting softly.

“I'm not half done with you yet, love.”

#acotar #acotar fanfiction #acotar fandom #acotar series #acomaf #acowar #cassian acotar #cassian x you #cassian #cassian x reader #azriel x reader

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cherryredstars · 1 year ago

Text

Pairing: Sub!Miguel X gn!reader

Warnings: 18+, Smut with Little Plot, Blowjobs, Praise, Bondage, Petnames, Edging, Cum Eating, Overstimulation, Inexperienced!Miguel

Summary: No easier way to blow off steam than by blowing off your boyfriend :)

A/N: So much subby Miggy guys. I swear the next one will (hopefully) be different! Also happiest of birthdays to @artisticspivers!

Word Count: 3.9k (Edited)

So, maybe you were a little mad.

But who wouldn’t be? All you wanted to do was spend a nice day out with your boyfriend after not seeing each other for almost a week. But, all you got was a hunkering man trailing behind you as he busied himself on his phone. He had barely spoken a word to you besides a ‘hey, missed you’ and a 'don't you already have something like that?’ when you walked out of the dressing room. He had instantly felt bad when you had decided you had enough and pursed your lips with a quiet, ‘I’m tired. I want to go home.’

He wasn’t trying to do it on purpose, you knew that. Miguel was a busy man and he had a lot on his shoulders. But that didn’t stop you from throwing a pity party for yourself in the passenger seat that quickly turned into silent anger. He was your boyfriend damnit and he should know something like this would upset you! It took everything in you to not whisper something nasty under your breath as every little thing he did wrong today ticked in your head.

When you had arrived home, you had quickly slammed the car door and made your way up to your shared apartment. Meanwhile, Miguel carried a regretful frown as he followed silently behind you. That upsetting pit in his stomach grew stronger when you didn’t even glance his way as he opened the door for you. You had just walked straight in and dumped whatever you were carrying on the counter and started taking off your shoes and coat.

“Mi vida, I-” Miguel started with a sigh before you walked around the counter and slammed your hands on it, causing him to jump slightly.

“Let’s play a game.” You cut in with a voice dripping with mock excitement along with a too wide smile.

Miguel’s brow furrowed in confusion at the quick switch in your mood. He quickly shook his head and tried again, “I think we should really ta-”

“Choose a number between 1 and 5.” You had interrupted again, fingers tapping an intimidating rhythm on the countertop. Miguel’s gaze fell to your fingers, more confusion filling his features, “Five?”

“Okay, now-” You said quickly and Miguel snapped his gaze up to your face. “Wait, no, that isn’t my number. I was ju-”

“Now.” You emphasized, clenching your jaw. So now he wanted to be chatty. Go figure. “Pick a new number: 1 to 5.”

Miguel tried to dampen down his own anger. He balled his fists and flexed his hands before letting out a deep breath. He understands why you’re acting like this, so now he needs to be the patient one. “I pick two.”

He flinched again when you clapped your hands loudly. A more genuine smile formed on your face and the tension in Miguel’s body started to disperse. Okay, Miguel can work with this. You’re already feeling better, so maybe he just needed to play this little… game with you for a little bit. Just until you feel ready to talk and Miguel can find a way to make it up to you. Maybe he can plan a more private date. Maybe bring you to your favorite spot and wine and di-

“Sit on the couch.”

Miguel pulled himself from his thoughts and looked up to find that you moved from the counter to stand next to the couch. Miguel tried to ease the furrow between his brows and walked over to you. He took it as a small victory when you didn’t react as he grazed his hand against yours in passing. He took it as an even greater victory when the second he sat down, you were jumping into his lap and connecting your mouth to his.

Miguel groans as he reciprocates the kiss. His hands instantly start grabbing at your body, squeezing the skin of your thighs and massaging his hands into your ass. In response, your hands reach down to the ends of his shirt and pull it up and over his head. When your lips reconnect, he tries to tease his tongue into your mouth. A soft whine of displeasure is pressed against your lips when you deny him entry. You pull away with a bite and drag of his bottom lip and he looks up at you with hazy eyes. A pleased sigh hums from his throat as you give him one last peck, his lips trying to follow yours when you get up.

Miguel’s legs are already spread slightly, but you push them further out to make room for your body. Miguel’s half-lidded eyes follow you and his brows knit in confusion as you start unbuckling his belt. He watches silently as you work on unlooping the leather and pulling down his zipper. He can already feel his cock pushing against his briefs, and he shifts away slightly every time your hands get too close to it. Your face already being too close to his too aware cock makes him twitch. He’s sure that if you exhale a little too hard in the right direction, he’ll explode in his pants.

His hands reach down to grab on your wrists gently, stopping you from pulling down his remaining clothes. Your eyes trail up his body, going from his bulge, to his naked stomach, over his chest, and finally to his own red irises. Miguel gulps nervously at the almost threatening look you have on your face and he has to hold onto you a little tighter to resist the urge to let you go like you’ve burned him. “What…what are you doing?”

The question makes you roll your eyes. Can a man practically built with sex appeal in mind be so naive, even with his inexperience? You make a mental note to go through his search history because there is no way he has never seen someone about to get a blowjob. For now, you resist the urge to reply with ‘the laundry’, and instead shake off his hands. “I told you. We’re playing a game.”

Miguel opens his mouth to question you again, but instead closes it when he can’t think of anything to say. Instead, he lifts his hips slightly off the couch when you tap his hip so you can remove his clothes. They fall to the floor and Miguel squirms as his cock springs up to rest against his stomach. His aching tip has the smallest bead of precum forming over his slit and his face turns a bright red as you watch it build up.

You creep your hand forward, brushing over his balls and Miguel throws the back of his hand over his mouth to suppress a whimper as his cock jumps in response. His brows are furrowed and his breaths heave against his chest as he watches you wrap your hand around his base. Your hand travels up his length until your thumb presses into his tip. Another whine is suppressed as you bring the thumb to your mouth and suck off his precum.

You look back up to Miguel’s face, making a show of twirling your tongue over the pad of your finger and humming. Miguel’s eyes take in the sight, loving the way your lashes flutter up at him. God, why did you have to be so goddamn erotic. His free hand quickly reaches down and wraps around his cock in an attempt to keep it from twitching again. He squeezes his hand so hard that it’s almost painful, but he knows if he doesn’t, he’ll end up cumming. God you barely even touched him and he’s already about to explode.

As if you read his mind, you began giggling. You pop your thumb out of your mouth and remove Miguel’s hand to replace it with yours. It causes a whispered curse to leave Miguel’s mouth as you mutter, “I barely even touched you and you already look ready to fall apart.”

He’s about to disagree, but he cuts himself off with an ‘oh fuck!’ when your tongue kitten licks his tip. He instantly throws his head back over the couch, his hand turning over to completely cover his mouth. A ragged breath escapes into his palm as he tries to calm himself down. He tries to think of anything that can push down the tightening in his stomach, but his brain is short circuiting from the way your warm tongue is licking his head and length.

“Shit.” Miguel breathes out when his head falls forward to see you. Your hand still holds onto his thick base and your eyes stare up at him as you swirl your tongue over his tip to collect his precum. He lets out a moan that turns into a choked gasp as your licks escalate to gently sucking his swollen head into your mouth. It’s so warm and wet and it's like nothing he’s ever experienced before. His hand leaves his mouth, revealing that it’s dropped open to let out soft pants. His now free hand reaches out and holds onto the back of your neck in a half-hearted attempt to get you off him. “Fuck, I’m so close.”

His whispered confession causes a small moan to vibrate around his tip and he lets out his own as he reaches his peak. He’s gasping out a combination of ‘please, please’ and ‘I’m coming’ repeatedly as he tilts his head back up towards the ceiling. His salty liquid fills your mouth in thick squirts, and you close your eyes as you savor its flavor with each swallow. Once he rides out the last of his release, you pull your mouth off of him. Your lips brush against his semi-hard cock as you smile up at him and say: “One.”

Even if he wasn’t in his post-orgasm daze, he still would have no clue what you mean. His brows furrowed as he brought his eyes back down to your smiling face. His eyes scan you, trying to find a single hint about what ‘one’ means. When he can’t find it, he lets out a breathless, “What?”

“One, Miguel. That was one. You need four more.” Your explanation is still lost on him. You can still see the clear confusion on his face and you can’t help the chuckle you let out. “The game, Miguel? You chose the number five, remember?”

The realization quickly hits him and his eyes widen. Choose a number between 1 and 5. An almost scared look crossed his face. Five? How the hell was he supposed to survive four more rounds of this if he came from you practically breathing on him? Pick a new number: 1 to 5. If his first number signified the amount of rounds or how many times he had to cum, then what does the second number mean? Miguel gulped before asking, “And two? What does the second number mean?”

You simply smiled and shook your head, “You’ll have to find out next time we play.”

Your answer was less than comforting, but Miguel has little time to question you as you suck him back into your mouth. A sharp hiss leaves Miguel’s mouth and his hold on the back of your neck grows tight. His mouth parts in a silent moan as his hand pushes you further down his cock, letting more of him experience the heaven your mouth causes. Your mouth bobs up and down as you suck him in, your tongue playing with his tip before you go back down. Each lick and suck causes Miguel to blink rapidly, mouth still parted with harsh breaths.

“Fucking hell, cariño, so fucking good. Mouth feels so fucking good.” Miguel whimpers out as his hips thrust up slightly.

Sweat breaks on his hairline as he tries to keep his movements shallow to not hurt you. He mumbles small sorrys into the air every time his hips jut forward, and you hum your enjoyment around him as a sign that it’s okay. You force yourself to take more of him in, relaxing your throat and hollowing your mouth. It allows Miguel to hit the back of your throat and he lets out a choked gasp. He stutters out another apology as his hips thrust up again and you gag.

You shake your head slightly, holding him to the back of your throat. The action has Miguel creeping his hand up and into your hair, his other hand running down his face until it stops over his mouth. His apologies turn into hissed curses as he continues thrusting his hips. His head rolls to the side as his eyes glide down to stare at you. You let out a weak moan as he tightens his hold on your head to keep it in place as he fucks your face.

His thrusts quickly become sloppy and he comes undone when your throat tightens with a gag. He lets out small whimpers and lazily fucks his release down your throat. You blink with tears gathering at the corner of your eyes as you let him, trying to swallow it all without choking. When he pulls out, his hand slides back down to the back of your neck to massage it. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t too rough, was I?”

The question is quiet and paired with a soft, concerned look in his eyes. You quickly shake your head no as you lean forward to kiss him. A soft moan escapes him as his taste clings onto your lips. A satisfied breath leaves his nose as you pull away again. That starstruck look is back in his eyes and he can’t help but whisper out, “You’re amazing, you know that?”

His admiration makes you giggle and your hand comes up to caress the side of his jaw. “You might have to take that back after we’re done. You still have three more to go.”

Your words cause a stressed groan to leave Miguel’s mouth. He quickly starts kissing you again, trying to buy himself extra time. It doesn’t last long though as you quickly pull away and reach for his discarded shirt. Miguel raises a brow as you take his hands and hold them in front of you. Miguel quickly pulls them back, but your hand is quick to grab them again.

“What are you doing?” Miguel hisses in a whisper as if he’s sharing a secret. You don’t respond, instead trying to tie his hands together as he squirms.

When you finally get them tied, Miguel tries to undo the knot by moving his wrists. But it does nothing but cause a slight burning sensation and he stops. His eyes leave his binds and go down to your face. You give him a sultry smile before you lower your mouth to his tip and your hand comes back to his base. You stick your tongue out, slapping his tip against it.

He tries once again to undo the tie, an almost predatory look in his eyes as his brows furrow. He’s about to open his mouth and tell you to untie him, that it’s unnecessary, but you blink innocently up at him and you sink your mouth further onto his dick with a hum. Instead of a protest, a sharp whimper leaves his mouth. His claws dig into the flesh of his hand as he watches you pull off of him, spitting a thick glob of saliva onto his tip and massaging it into his skin with your hand. You make a show of quickly bobbing around him for a few seconds before pulling off again to jerk him off.

He’s acutely aware of his sensitivity, hips ever so slightly fucking into your hand as he lets out moans and grunts. Every now and then he tries to undo his bondage, only to be stopped with the slight scraping of your teeth or by your hands coming up to hold his hands still. His breathing becomes more desperate and he tries to press his hips further into the couch to give himself a small break. Your mouth instantly follows, staying attached to his dick as you suck him.

“Fuck, give me a break. Please.” Miguel grits out as he feels his cock throb as you jerk him off again.

You glare up at him with a shake of your head, solidifying your answer as you vigorously move your head up and down him. Miguel lets out loud groans, blood beading around his nails from how deep they sink into his skin. His hips buck again and his body shakes violently. He lifts his hips as he explodes with a shout. He squirts hard as he whines. The thick ropes come too quick for you to swallow all of it, a trail running down the side of your mouth.

Miguel desperately starts pleading as you don’t get off him like the other two times before. After you swallow, you quickly go back to bobbing your head again. You hum out, ‘two’ faintly around his cock and he sobs from the stimulation on his sensitive cock. He bites his lip and he presses his back hard against the couch as he closes his eyes tightly. He mutters something under his breath, almost like a prayer, voice beginning to hiccup as tears build up behind his closed lids. As you continue, his words get louder as his voice rises.

“Fuck! Please! Oh god, please! Stop! Stop, stop, stop. I can’t take it!” He sobs out as he throws his arms into the air and over his head to grip the back of the couch for stability.

His muscles are tense as they shake and his back arches off the couch as he cries. Loud, watery breaths part from his mouth and he starts babbling nonsense in an effort for you to take mercy on him. It has no effect on you, just making you roll your eyes and give his overused tip hard sucks. Miguel comes quick, everything is too much to him and he lets out loud sobs as tears stain his cheeks.

When he comes, you finally give him the mercy he was looking for. You pop him out of your mouth, some of his cum getting caught on your chin and lips while the rest streams down his length before pooling at his abdomen. As he releases, your hands untie his shirt and his hands instantly fly to cover his face once they're free. He cries into his hands as his body jolts and spasms.

“Please, no more. No more, no more, no more. I-i can’t take it, please.” He gasps into his hands, his wrists slightly reddish from being tied up.

Miguel flinches slightly when you reach up and gently take his hands away from his face. His eyes are glossy from tears and his lips tremble in their pouting form. You coo gently at him, peppering soft kisses to his forehead to calm him down. His hiccups die down to soft whimpers as he closes his eyes and breathes in your scent. Your hands come up to gently cradle his jaw.

“Shh, it’s okay, puppy. You’re okay. Only one more. You can do that right? Can you do that for me, Miggy? Can you give me one more?” You whisper to him, your other hand brushing away tears from his eyes.

His eyes instantly start tearing up again and his head instantly shakes no, “I-i can’t.”

You shush him again as you press a hard kiss to his forehead. Your hand pushes his sweaty hair out his face and you take his wrists into your hands to massage away any soreness. “Of course, you can. You’ve been doing such a good job so far.”

He tries to process your words, taking a few deep breaths. You both sit in silence for a moment until Miguel’s breath resumes to a normal pace and his body has stopped its hard spasms. When he swallows and whispers a weak ‘okay’, you smile encouragingly at him and get back on your knees.

You keep your touch light as you grab onto his dick, but Miguel still lets out a soft whine. You gently stroke him to get him hard again, pressing soft kisses to his tip. When he gets to an inbetween state, you gently suck him into your mouth again. A watery moan vibrates from his throat as he begins to harden fully in your mouth. Even with his sensitivity, you can’t help but want to drag this out. You softly release him, holding his cock still as you blow warm air onto his tip. A pained hiss leaves his mouth, face looking hopelessly to the ceiling.

You continue the action, sucking him off and stopping to blow air onto him every time he comes close to finishing. It causes soft sobs to rebuild in his chest as his tip swells angrily for his final release. He lets out a whine each time, hands clawing into the couch cushions or into his hair as his eyes dart around the room as if looking for something to help him escape your edging. He reaches the point again where he’s overly sensitive and begging for you to give him his release.

“Please, please let me finish. I can’t. Please.” His voice is scratchy from all his loud moans and whimpers. His eyes are desperate and seem to look past you in a lust-filled daze.

Your hands come to massage his thighs and you nod, “I need you to do something for me first.”

“Anything. I’ll do anything.” he replies quickly, nodding his head in agreement with himself.

You hum and kiss his tip again, causing his cock to twitch. “I need you to say sorry. Say you’re sorry for how you were behaving before.”

After finishing your sentence you begin sucking him again. Miguel cries out, yelling out sorry over and over again as his palms come to press into his eyes. When he twitches in your mouth again, you don’t tease him and let him finish. He shouts out and his legs push his body off the couch.

You take your mouth off of him and lean back to give him room. His body convulses in its suspended position and his cock still twitches and jumps even after he stops spurting out cum. His legs seem to give out as he falls to the couch and sinks into the cushion. He sits there shivering, his chest heaving with heavy sobs as he repeats ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

Once he finally calms down, he pulls his hands away from his face. His lashes are wet with tears, and he blinks at you sluggishly. He looks so pretty with his dazed eyes and sweaty skin. You walk over and gently wipe his face and neck with his shirt, slightly cleaning him up. When your eyes meet his, he whispers out like a timid child, “Did I do good?”

His question instantly melts your heart and you have to resist the urge to pout at his cuteness. You smile brightly at him and kiss the tip of his nose. “Of course. Did so good for me, baby.”

Miguel seems to relax with your reassurance and he rests his head over the back of the couch as he lets his body rest. He closes his eyes as the soreness starts to creep in. His eyes only open when you press a cold glass of water to his overheated skin. He graciously drinks some of the water through the metal straw you placed in the glass to make it easier for him.

You brush your hand through his sweaty locks to push them away from his face as you whisper, "Go take a nap, Miggy. We’ll talk about what happened later.”

Your words are all he needs before he lets out an affirmative hum and lets his body succumb to exhaustion.

Might be the last subby Miguel post for a while. School is starting up again and I have to finish some WIPs and pre-write some quick stuff in case I get busy!

#miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel ohara fanfiction #across the spiderverse #miguel ohara x you #miguel o’hara x reader #spiderman 2099 x reader #spiderman 2099 x you #across the spiderverse smut #atsv miguel #miguel ohara x reader #miguel o'hara smut #spiderman 2099 #atsv smut #spiderman 2099 smut #sub!miguel o’hara

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smoshyourheadin · 5 months ago

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idea!!!

the cast/crew meeting spencer’s partner for the first time everyone thinks she isn’t real and all that

Disbeleif

pairing: spencer agnew x f!reader

a/n: anon i love this concept SO MUCH!!! also i tried a 3rd person instead of 2nd person perspective for this fic so there is a bunch of use of y/n,,lmk what u think!! also sorry for the slow posting recently i’m almost done w my exams so hopefully more content otw!! thank you all so much for ur support, it means the world 🫶🫶

requests are open <33

spencer had been working at smosh for a few years now, and he had always been the quiet one in the corner, headphones on, immersed in an edit or a video game. everyone knew he was brilliant, but they never saw much of him outside of work. that changed the day he mentioned his girlfriend, y/n.

“wait, spencer, you have a girlfriend?” shayne, his closest colleague, said with a mix of surprise and skepticism.

“don’t sound so surprised! but yeah, she’s amazing,” he replied, a shy smile on his face. “she’s actually cooking dinner tonight. you guys should come over!”

the disbelief was palpable. everyone in the office exchanged glances, clearly doubting spencer’s story. but out of curiosity and the lure of a home-cooked meal, they accepted the invitation.

that evening, spencer’s apartment was a flurry of activity. y/n, a stunning woman with bright eyes and a warm smile, was bustling around the kitchen. she wore a casual dress and an plaid apron, her hair tied back in a high ponytail.

as the doorbell rang, spencer went to answer it, his nerves fluttering. He opened the door to shayne, courtney, amanda, and a couple of others from work.

“welcome welcome, come in!” he said, stepping aside. his friends walked in, their eyes widening at the sight of y/n.

“hi there! I’m y/n. dinner will be ready soon,” she greeted them, her voice cheerful and inviting. her smile was genuine, putting everyone at ease immediately.

“OH MY GOD,” angela shouted “spencer can bring her home she’s so pretty!”

amanda smacked her shoulder as they walked in, giving y/n an apologetic look. all she could do was smile in flattery.

as they settled into the living room, everyone couldn’t help but admire the cozy space filled with gaming consoles, posters of classic video games, and shelves lined with sci-fi novels and collectibles, which trevor and alex were studying in great detail whilst they were waiting for their food.

“wow, he really does have a girlfriend,” courtney whispered to shayne, who nodded, equally astonished.

when dinner was finally served, y/n’s culinary skills shone. the table was laden with a variety of dishes, each one smelling more delicious than the last. they all sat down, and as they started eating, the conversation flowed easily.

“so, spencer tells me you’re all big fans of gaming,” y/n said, looking around the table with a twinkle in her eye. “what’s everyone’s favorite game?”

and just like that, the ice was broken. they spent the evening discussing their favorite games, from childhood ones to the latest releases. to everyone’s surprise, y/n not only kept up, but shared detailed insights and strategies, revealing her deep knowledge and passion for gaming.

“you’re really into this stuff too?” ian asked, clearly impressed.

y/n laughed. “oh, absolutely. spence and i met at a gaming convention. he saw me playing qbert and he came up to me, and we bonded over our love for retro games.”

as the night went on, it became clear that y/n wasn’t just beautiful and kind, but also just as nerdy and passionate about gaming as spencer. she fit perfectly into his world, and he into hers.

by the end of the evening, any doubts about spencer’s relationship were completely dispelled. as his coworkers left, each one thanked y/n for the amazing dinner and the great company.

“thanks for having us, spencer. and y/n, you’re an angel! we should do this again,” anthony said, clapping spencer on the back.

spencer smiled, his shyness melting away. “yeah, we should. thanks for coming, guys.”

as the door closed behind them, spencer turned to y/n, who was busy cleaning up.

“thank you for tonight,” he said softly. “you were amazing.”

y/n smiled, reaching up to kiss his cheek. “anytime, lovebug. i love surprising people.”

and surprise them, she had. everyone at smosh wouldn’t stop talking about her. the slack messages were filled with praise for her cooking, and they realized that their shy, nerdy pal had found someone truly special.

#smoshyourheadin #shayne topp #spencer agnew #amanda lehan canto #angela giarratana #courtney miller #smosh #spencer agnew x reader #anthony padilla #ian hecox #trevor evarts #alex tran

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h0neysp1ce · 3 months ago

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Hii

Sorry if this is weird but please can I request some headcanons with Kaveh, Alhaitham and Diluc (Also if you don't write Diluc, Tighnari is good instead) where the Reader has extremely painful period cramps, like to the point where they need to vomit and can't move 🙏

Not at all! here you go 💚🫶

˚୨୧⋆｡˚ Summary: ↑ How does he take care of his s/o when they have very bad cramps?

Characters: Kaveh, Alhaitham, Diluc, Tighnari Tags: Established Relationship (all Separate) Fluff?? Constellation: Head canons Warning(s): Mentions of Period symptoms, nothing graphic reader can be read as gender neutral or Female (Had no clue which one to put so I put both) ˚୨୧⋆｡˚

A/N: I tried my best, apologies if Diluc's and Tighnari's Parts are shorter, and hopefully I went into enough detail as you asked , also I hope I titled it in the most un akward way possible, This was my first time writing something like this so I hope its not to bad ^^"

sorta Proof read (will edit later)

Word Count: 1243

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა

Kαʋҽԋ 🎨

This man is worried about you the moment you start not feeling great.

There's no need to feel embarrassed or ashamed; he understands that this is something you go through.

It’s nothing new, really. You've been open with him about your cramps being bad, and he understands that.

The first time this happened, it freaked him out because he thought something was wrong with you until you told him what it was, and he calmed down.

Kaveh: "Alright, I'm back with the heating pad and snacks."

You: "Kaveh, aren’t you supposed to be out working with a client today?"

Kaveh: "Oh no, I canceled all my work for today. I’m not leaving you alone and unattended."

You: "KAVEH!!? No, don’t worry about me. You should worry about your work. I know it's stressful and—"

Kaveh: "No, you're more important right now. Please, let me take care of you."

If you end up getting sick, like feeling like you’re about to vomit at any moment, he’ll be there with you, holding your hair back if you're actively getting sick, rubbing circles into your back, and staying with you in the bathroom until you feel better and can get back to bed.

Knowing that you can’t move much in this state, he'll take it upon himself to get you things. Want food? He’ll make you some. Want cuddles? He’ll gladly cuddle you.

He’ll have medicine ready for you along with a glass of water and a heating pad.

This man pampers you 100%.

It pains him to see you hurting and not feeling your best. You won’t see it, but he tends to have a frown on his face when you're hurting. He’s doing everything he can, but he can’t take your pain away completely, and it makes him sad.

He’d take away the pain and discomfort from you if he could.

Most of the time is spent cuddling. It doesn’t matter to him; whatever makes you most comfortable and relieves at least some of your pain is what matters to him.

He’ll kiss your face all over, along with some hand kisses, giving positive affirmations that you’re going to get through it, that it’s going to be okay, that you’re very strong, and that it’s only temporary.

His voice goes soft when talking to you, running a hand gently through your hair. He’ll be looking at you often, always asking if you're alright or if you need anything.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა

Aʅԋαιƚԋαɱ 📚

He’s read plenty of books to know what you’re going through and the best treatments for it.

He knows what it is without even having to ask you, as you’re wrapped around the toilet suffering.

He’ll sit with you and wait until you feel slightly well enough to get back to resting.

He will be honest with you and say that he doesn’t mind or care; there’s no shame or embarrassment. It’s a normal thing you go through.

If you let him, he’ll use his hands to place them on your abdomen. He has warm hands, and he’ll keep them there if it helps relieve the pain and discomfort, even just a little bit.

He’ll pull off his cape and put it on you if that helps comfort you in some way.

If you’re lying down, he’ll make sure to pull you closer. Usually, he doesn’t like being so close, but he’s doing this for you because he cares.

You: "Alhaitham, am I burdening you?"

Alhaitham: "I've told you multiple times already that you’re not a burden. You just need help and assistance right now, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Now go back to sleep." (says this while reading a book)

He’ll carry you or pick you up and take you places since moving by yourself is a no-go.

He’ll be reading a book while you lay with him. In reality, he’s keeping an eye on you, not reading a page of that book, just pretending.

This man would take the pain away from you in a heartbeat if he could.

He’ll be with you the entire time through this tough period.

He’ll make sure you take your medicine every few hours as directed.

In a modern AU, he’d likely turn on a movie or something for you, and you two would stay in bed mostly. He’ll also get you anything you need, don’t worry.

He’s still able to do his job remotely from home as the Akademiya's Grand Scribe. What, did you think this man was going to work while you weren’t feeling your best? Nope! He’s going to take care of you because that’s what partners do.

Even if he shows little affection normally, he’ll make sure to give you some during this time.

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა

Dιʅυƈ 🍷

He’s more than aware when he wakes up and finds you not up, as you’re usually up before him.

He’ll ask you, and when you confirm his suspicions, he’ll grab some things (food, whatever you want if you just ask him).

He’ll also make a quick trip to the Tavern and have someone take over for him for a couple of days since he’s going to focus on you right now.

If you allow him, he’ll heat up his hands with his Pryo Vision and place them on your abdomen to ease your cramps slightly. If you’re feeling sick at any point, just tap on him or signal him, and he’ll make sure you get to the bathroom.

He’ll always take one of your hands, pepper kisses all over, and look at you while the two of you are in bed as you relax.

This man is a gentleman (all the men are gentlemen).

Your well-being is a main priority for him.

He’ll shower you with affection and pamper you lots.

He’ll always talk with you and explain that if you need anything at all, just tell him. It’s no bother nor burden. He’ll always assure you that you’re his partner and that he cares about you, giving plenty of reassurance if you need it.

All his duties will be resumed once you’re feeling better completely, so don’t worry about him being behind or anything. He still manages things remotely from Dawn Winery.

Diluc: "Please do tell me if you need anything, anything at all."

You: "Of course I will, Diluc. I love you."

Diluc: "Love you too."

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა

Tιɠԋɳαɾι 🌻

He’ll brew up some tea or have you drink a glass of water first when you confirm with him that it’s that time.

He has plenty of medicine and herbs on hand to ease your cramps and maybe the nausea caused by them.

He’ll let you have snacks but will also make sure you have balanced meals, going for the healthy approach.

Don’t be afraid of your mood changes or swings; he understands. He’s not going to be mad if you end up snapping at him.

He’ll try to limit his job as a Forest Ranger so he can keep an eye on you and take care of you.

The first time it happened, he thought you’d come down with some sort of sickness until you told him what was happening. He understood and went out of his way to help you (though he did end up going on a ten-minute ramble about what you already knew and didn’t need to hear).

If you have back pain, he’ll rub your back for you. If you’re feeling any other discomfort, he’ll do whatever he can to help.

He also tends to give you face kisses and affection. He’s a cuddle person and doesn’t mind you being clingy (none of the men mind you being clingy).

Tighnari: "Now remember what I told you, [Name]?"

You: "Tighnari, we’ve been over this five times already." sigh

Tighnari: "I just need to make sure you’re retaining the information."

You: "This is going to take a while."

｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱┈• ﾟ｡ﾟ•┈｡ﾟ•┈꒰ა

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin impact x you #fluff #alhaitham #kaveh x reader #tighnari x y/n #tighnari x reader #genshin kaveh #kaveh x y/n #kaveh x you #alhaitham x y/n #alhaitham x you #alhaitham x reader #h0neysp1ce #gender neutral reader #female reader

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1-800-ur-cyber-slxtt · 3 months ago

Text

𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐊；𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐋𝐄𝐖𝐈𝐒

summary: a sidemen hide and seek video! reader and boyfriend harry hide together and one things leads to another... oh and don't forget the unexpecting witnesses.

word count: 1.1k

warnings: smut, not very explicit, caught/walked in on, filmed, forced proximity, pre established relationship. ???

notes: forgot I had this in my drafts from when I was making a sidemen smut and imagines book on wattpad (not posted). I edited it, practically rewrote it since I have major writers block and no motivation to commit to any ideas I have or start writing. anyways enjoy!! <3

divider credit: @pommecita

My back was pressed flush against Harry's chest, not an inch separating us. Even the tiniest of movements wouldn't go unnoticed by the other. I could practically feel his chest rising and falling with every breath he took. When my boyfriend had suggested that we should hide together I had a more spacious spot in mind.

Harry had had the marvellous idea of hiding in a small wardrobe, a miracle that we could both stand up. It was dark, almost pitch black. The camera's lit up the small space a little but not a great deal.

Goosebumps prickled along the skin of my neck, a trail of them running down my spine as his hot breath fans over my neck. The small space felt warmer and charged up, a growing tension that wasn't unwelcomed.

I raise the camera up so my face filled the dark screen, "I don't know why Harry thought this was a good idea.", I whisper yell into the small screen. My legs were regretting the choice of following Harry in as they ache and grow restless.

A chuckle leaves Harrys mouth at my words. He places his hands firmly on my hips and comes to rest his head on my shoulder, coming into frame, "This is the winning spot, I'll tell you that right now." I was glad he seemed sure of himself because I was lacking the same faith, almost ready to give myself up or find a new hiding spot.

"Mhm, sure.", I mumble bored out of my mind and sick of standing. I bounce on the heels of my feet, unintentionally thanks to the forced close proximity my body rubbing against his. The action lulls a shaky breath from his lips.

His grip on the stick of his camera tightens, knuckles turning white (though that goes unnoticed due to the darkness). As my body brushes against his I can feel the bulge starting to form through the constraints of his shorts and boxers beneath.

If we were going to be stuck in here until Vik manages to find us then we might as well have some fun. Even if it meant there wasn't much footage for the video, but really who wants to watch two people stuck in a closet anyway.

My backside grinds against him, one of his hands on my hip strengthens it's grip. Harry's breath grazes over my ear, "What are you doing, Y/n?" His voice is uneven and husky.

"Don't tell me this isn't what you wanted to happen when you picked this spot.", I mutter, a smirk tugging at my lips.

Harry drops his camera and picks me up, his hands slotting under my thighs. His body trapping mine against the closet wall. The sudden movement creates a thud that hopefully went unnoticed.

Our lips connect in a quick, heated movement, pushing against one another until he pulls away and moves down my neck. My head tilts upwards leaning on the wooden panel, small whimpers drawing from my throat.

His bulge presses between my clothed thighs, a friction that has my mind dizzy and waiting for more. My hands rake through his short hair, pulling at it just how he likes.

Still holding my camera in one hand, Harry takes it and tosses it to the floor where his own is. I grimace slightly at the noise it makes when it hits the floor of the closet, if I wasn't so caught in the moment I would have scolded Harry for his carelessness.

Joining the pile on the floor is both our shirts, leaving our bare chests pressed together. Harry kisses down my chest to my breasts, his hands reaching behind me to unclasp my bra. His movements are desperate and feverish, driven by need.

My shorts soon follow, the piles of clothes and cameras at our feet only making the already cramped space seem even tighter. Harry pushes down his own shorts, letting them pool at his ankles.

My hands stay firmly planted on shoulder and neck to hold myself up, one of his hands stays put on my hip while the other hooks into my underwear and pulls it to the side.

I struggle to hold back a gasp as he slides into me. My nails dig into his shoulder, leaving crescent red marks in their wake.

His head burrows into the crook of my neck, his soft groans muffled by my skin as he leaves sloppy kisses. His hips push back and forth, my body repeatedly hitting the wooden panelling of the closet wall.

His name tumbles from my mouth over and over in quiet moans and whimpers at his ear, the noises sucking out his own grunts and groans.

My ears perk up at the sound of footsteps and voices outside. The noises get closer till they're right outside the wardrobe door. Harry's pace only quickens, his thrusts unrelenting and hard. I bite back a moan as hard as I can, my teeth digging into my bottom lip.

The door is soon pulled open with a creak revealing an unexpecting Vik, Josh and Simon, along with some of the camera crew. A shocked yet amused expression falls over their faces, a stunned silences hanging in the air.

Harry and I freeze, staring back at them. My legs are still wrapped around Harry's hips, his hands holding my thighs. Vik lets out something of a incredulous chuckle before closing the door again.

Harry's head drops onto my shoulder, embarrassed laughter coming from the both of us. There is no doubt in my mind that jokes will be being made in reference to this for at least as long as the near future. The group was definitely on their way to find the other hiders and promptly fill them in on what they had just witnessed.

"We're never going to live that down.", I sigh as our laughter dies down. Harry agrees with a nod, a grin stuck on his face. I expect him to lower me back down but his hips start moving again, one hand still on my doughy thigh and the other above my head flat against the wood.

My sentence barely comes out audible through my ragged breath, "You're just going to keep going after that?"

He grunts, voice gruff with lust, "May as well finish what we started." With that his lips attach back onto my neck and collar bone.

As pleasure continues to wash over my body with each thrust, I look down, my eyes catching on the two discarded cameras. A flush of panic washing over me.

"Harry baby, please tell me that you turned the camera's off."

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humansbgone · 30 days ago

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At long last, the final mantis model is DONE! That makes all three! This guy also required a special eye rig, but luckily that turned out to be much simpler than Bicoris's. Unfortunately, he also required a lot of bespoke modeling edits on top of that, especially on his head. It was a pain to get his color scheme right, too! Not to mention all the work on his antennae.

This is Empusa, a conehead mantis (species Empusa pennata)! Finally, we see a male mantis. He takes on a lot of jobs in Mantis Swarm, with "beleaguered schoolteacher" among them. If he doesn't, who will? Mother Sophodra has enough on her plate, that's for sure.

Now that Empusa's done, I've been taking a bit of a break from modeling to get some other things done, both HBG and otherwise. For instance, I've done my most thorough outline of future episodes yet! At this rate, finishing the series will only take me...twelve more years. Hoo boy.

You might have also seen that I put out a second episode compilation last Saturday! First compilation I left out Gregorsa's Notes because I thought it would be too big a chunk of notes at once, and I figured people would go and check out notes in the individual episodes if Gregorsa gave them a nudge. Now, I know better.

Only a little modeling remains for now, on a minor character model and on a minor background asset. I might try to finish those over the weekend. Otherwise, I might just take a break from modeling for now and finish them when the staging calls for it.

Because yes, next week we finally begin on STAGING! Hopefully I can get this done in two weeks. After that, I'll take a week and aim to get what backgrounds done that Claire and I can manage. Then, all of November will be devoted to animation! A week or two of December to finish up the rest, and then it should be ready for a release that month. Festive! Until next time!

#bugblr #mantis #bug #insect #empusa #update

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flamingpudding · 1 year ago

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Fictober23 Prompt: 25 - "Do I look like I knew that?"

Fandom: DPxDC

Rating: T

Warnings: -

A/N: Edit - adjusted the last bit a little after rereading this during my break, so that it makes grammatically more sense...

There was no warning. The moment the Waynes had stepped into the main hall of this Gala they had not been prepared for what had been about to happen. The only sign they had gotten was Damian tensing for a split second before the youngest of them booked it across the hall.

Tim and Bruce instantly attempted damage control, distracting all the high society people that had noticed it, while Dick and Jason followed their youngest. Cass had already escaped the gala to the roof before they had set their first foot into the main hall.

But again, nothing could have prepared them for what was happening.

Damian not only had seen something that caused him to sprint across the room no, their Demon Brat had gone a step further and just tackled the kid of someone else over and was now wrestling with the other boy! Holding one of the daggers they must have missed to the other boy's neck.

Surprisingly, the other kid held himself pretty well against Damian. Jason and Dick spent a good five minutes just staring when they had found their youngest, only starting to move again when Vlad Master demanded answers from his child. The apparent guardian of the kid that was currently attempting to get a choke hold on Damian before getting flipped over the shoulder, the boy flipped mid air, landing on his feet.

Before Damian could lung at the other boy again Dick grabbed him, his arm wounding around Damians chest as he held onto his youngest brother that sent quite an impressive death glare towards the other kid that just returned the glare, not with the same intensity but clearly peeved had having gotten attacked out of nowhere.

"Daniel! Explain this instant! You promised me, one gala without a ruckus!" Master was clearly not amused, hopefully Bruce had some sort of peace offering ready. Not that the man needed it, Dick thought, remembering some of the reports he had seen the man on.

The boy, Daniel, turned his glare towards his guardian. "It's not my fault this time! HE attacked me first!" Jason snorted, clearly having heard out of that statement alone that Masters apparently also had a feral kid that attacked someone at a gala before.

"This is no excuse. I know you are still grieving but you can not attack my business partner's children. Wasn't it enough that you broke Andrews Mayors nose last week?"

"He deserved it, he hit a girl in a perverted way."

"Justin Gracer?"

"Made fun of my late parents' profession."

"Daniel."

"Fruitloop."

Dick watched how Masters pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly not happy with his charge. By now Damian seemed to have calmed down too from whatever idea he had gotten into his head. He was still glaring at the other kid but at least it appeared he wasn't going to attack anymore when he hissed at Dick to let go of him. He still kept a hand on his shoulder just in case.

"I am so sorry Mr. Master. It wasn't Daniel that started it. Damian, come on apologies." Dick cut in, causing the other two to pay attention and fully face them. That's when he noticed it. Daniel looked a whole lot like Damian. The older siblings shared a glance before Jason left to get the others, Tim and Bruce were still stuck doing damage control but it should only be a matter of time. What was the best way to bring it up to ask subtitle questions without appearing suspicious?

Dick was just about a question before Daniel apparently beat him to it. "Fruitloop, you did not attempt to clone me did you?"

"Little Badger, why would I do that? I already have guardianship over you."

Dick felt like he was missing something here but he also felt Daniam's shoulder tense below his hand. So that was why he had attacked. Damian thought another clone appeared. He really hoped what Masters and his Charge seid were just some ill timed joke. Otherwise the implications would be very worrisome.

"Mom and Dad didn't keep some other family relations secret did they?" Daniel then asked and Masters looked at them contemplatively. "Well Jack was estranged from the rest of his family while Maddie only had her sister Alicia and as far as I am aware you and Jasmine were their only children."

"Mr. Masters if you don't mind, would it be alright to do a DNA testing? You said Daniel's father was estranged from his family? It would be good to find out now if there is a relation." Dick ignored the glare Damian was sending him now, but this was his best excuse to get the others DNA to test if the other boy was really a clone or not. If he was then the League of Assassins must have done some serious brainwashing, and memory manipulation. This would also be the first clone of Damian that actually had a consciousness of his own.

"Doesn't explain why he attacked me…" he heard the other boy mutter as Master stared at them with narrowed eyes for a while before giving the boy by his side a contemplating look.

"Daniel has lost his family and friends in an incident recently. It would be good if we found any family he could connect with or help with his grief." The man then finally said after a moment before handing Dick a business card with a number to connect them before leading his boy away, leaving the gala for all they knew.

A week later and after a lot of discussion in their Family. The Waynes and Masters meet for the DNA testing. Though the moment Masters and his charge met Bruce both froze, Bruce in his Brucie act blinked innocently at them and asked if anything was wrong.

"Fruitloop…"

"Don't be ridiculous Daniel. I never would have attempted what you appear to be implying."

The boy pointed in at Bruce as he faced his guardian. "Look at him and tell me they don't look alike! He is like a more fit version of Dad! Like he hadn't eaten a single one of mom fudges in years! You have to have an explanation for that!"

"And how would I do that?"

"I don't know! You're the fruitloop one that had cloning equipment in the basement! Who did you buy it from? Some old fruitloop? The one you bought it from, did they try to - i don't know - clone a celebrity for themselves! The papers you had with it clearly stated that it had been used successfully once. It was a second hand bought with super old technology when I demanded you destroy the stuff!"

"Daniel, do I look like I knew that? I never looked in these papers you speak of! I just bought it as a backup plan, that I never needed a little badger! Besides the only one I would have ever attempted to clone with that time frame would have been your mother! I didn't even know your father before college! "

"Why would you buy something without looking into the papers and instruction manuals you get with it?!"

"There was no need for! Why did you even look into that when you had me destroy it anyway?!"

The Waynes looked back and forth between Masters and his charge. The more these two continued to argue the more a sinking feeling started to form in everyone present. It was Tim though that voiced everyone's thoughts as he leaned over to Bruce whispering only one question. "Are we sure there never has been an attempt of someone trying to clone you? It sounds like there had been one, years ago…"

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pastafossa · 6 months ago

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Haunted (Matt Murdock x TRT!Reader, Fic, SFW)🌧️

Right, so close to 3 years ago, I had an ask in my box: 'what would happen if TRT!Reader/Jane Hind lost her memory just before returning to Matt after her three months away', aka: just before point where they both confessed their love and got together in mainline TRT. So I wrote up a fairly angsty, no happy ending sort of fic about it, which you can find here. But there just felt like there was more to the story, and the idea of a sequel wouldn't leave me alone, so I've worked on it in little bits and pieces over the past few years and I'm finally ready to unleash that into the world now that it's been edited to my satisfaction.

This will have a happy ending and hurt/comfort, once we swim through a lot of Matt Suffering. <3 Ship: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Chapter Summary:

Leaving him like that shouldn’t have bothered you as much as it did. You didn’t know him. This man should have been nothing more than a stranger on the street, one you wouldn’t glance twice at, much less feel some ridiculous sense of attachment or obligation to. Yet the memory of walking out of his apartment still left you shaken whenever you allowed yourself to think too long on it. He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow. There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting. Matt was alone. You’d left him alone. It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back. So… why did you feel so very sick?

Wordcount: 11, 805 words so, hilariously, about 3 times the length of Part 1

Warnings for this chapter: angst, alcohol, matt spiraling fairly badly, he throws some things, LOTS of TRT references and spoilers so I wouldn't do this one unless you've finished the Miami arc in TRT.

Sad Matt gif as a reminder that the angst is pretty heavy here because I'm really going to emotionally beat on this poor man for a bit.

At Ciro’s insistence, you gave yourself one month in Hell’s Kitchen.

A month wasn’t much time, granted, but it would hopefully be enough to see if there was a chance of bringing back the memories you’d lost: memories of friends, of your life here, and of… of whatever it was that you’d had with Matt Murdock. Based on his grief over the loss of Jane Hind—not you, but her surely, the role, the mask you’d worn while here—his attachment to her had been deep and fervent, and those feelings appeared to have been at least partly reciprocated. The dangerously intimate photo you’d found in your memory box was all the proof you needed of that.

Your past self had already been accustomed to his touch when the photo was taken, based on the way she’d allowed him to press his head tenderly to her temple, his dark eyes warm and fond as he'd smiled in her direction even if he couldn't see her, his arm draped over her shoulders. She should have been put off by the proximity, by such a blatant show of physical intimacy, but instead of looking distressed, she’d been relaxed and comfortable where she’d confidently tucked herself up against his side. Try as you might, you hadn’t been able to find any hint of discomfort, any clue that signaled the obvious affection she’d felt was an act, her shoulder angled in a way that made you think she’d wrapped her arm comfortably around his waist, her grin bright and so very real.

This couldn’t be you.

When was the last time you'd looked that happy?

When was the last time you’d let someone hold you close?

And when was the last time someone had looked at you like… like they might…

“Did I… love him, Ciro?”

“I believe that… you might have, yes. Him, and this city. That is why I encourage you to stay, for a time at least. See if the memories return to you. Even should you leave, it would be wise to know of the life you led here.”

Ciro had sent a check to your office, booking you for the month and clearing your schedule. Just like that, you were free to focus on looking for something that might trigger the return of your memories. Though what that something might be, you weren’t really sure. A more thorough examination of the apartment had been your first step. Unfortunately, there’d been nothing there that seemed familiar beyond the same cheap decor and calculated set pieces you’d always used. You’d quickly ruled those out. They were meaningless distractions meant to reinforce the lie of whatever pre-planned identity you’d taken on. In this case, that identity was Jane Hind—practical, professional, detached, likes sailboat paintings and the color grey. Based on the fine layer of dust you'd found coating everything but the kitchen counter and a neat stack of mail, no one else had spent much time here during your months away. That, at least, fit your pattern. You weren’t in the habit of making friends or putting down roots. There was no point in doing so when you’d just wind up cutting them loose and running again.

What had unsettled you far more were the hints of connection you’d found quietly tucked away:

A fleecy stuffed bear holding a plush crystal ball, the threads connecting the two uneven as if hand-stitched. That kind of time and effort wouldn’t have been spent on anyone but a friend, and the bear’s prominent position on the counter lent it far more importance than any of the other decorations.

A tacky ‘Handsome Devil’ coffee mug, the curling red script and clichéd devil horns design bizarrely out of place amongst the rest of the plain white mugs in the cupboard. An identity like Jane Hind wouldn’t have been caught dead drinking from it, which meant someone else was here with enough regularity to have a mug of their own. Further digging revealed a second decorated mug, this one adorned with the name of the law firm co-run by Matt. You could have written off one mug, but two? Two was a pattern.

An entire drawer in the dresser devoted solely to a pile of dangerously soft shirts that clearly didn’t belong to Jane Hind, the fabric threadbare and worn. They looked about the right size to be Matt’s, though, the faint traces of scent a match for him. The fact that they took up an entire drawer indicated he’d visited often enough to need a space for his clothes.

You’d… made space for him in your false life. That wasn’t something you did.

Or had you been the one wearing them?

Maybe…?

You’d spent a long moment holding one of the shirts in your hand, rubbing at the fabric in hopes of stirring something. When that hadn’t worked, you’d even brought it up to your nose to inhale slowly, just in case the traces of scent brought some memory back.

Clean soap. Salt. Copper. Faint cinnamon.

All it had done was remind you of holding a grieving Matt in his kitchen after he’d realized your memories weren’t coming back. It was a gloomy enough memory, but ultimately unhelpful.

You'd tossed the old shirt on top of the dresser and moved on.

While you didn’t know who exactly you’d been here in New York, the longer you searched, the more it became clear what had happened. You’d started to slip, your years of isolation forming a crack in your layers of armor. That fracture had allowed an attachment to form, an insidious connection worming its way in through the open gap like poisonous roots through crumbling pavement. You’d grown weak, and careless. There was no other explanation for why you’d broken so many of your rules, dominoes tipping one by one until it cascaded into a waterfall of mistakes. You’d slipped before, of course—loneliness was natural and expected, which was why you had so many contingencies—but you’d never let yourself get in this deep. Not until now.

What you didn’t know was…

Why?

Why here?

Why these people?

And why the fuck hadn’t you followed your rules and run?

If there was an answer to be found in Jane Hind’s apartment, you couldn’t seem to find it, no matter how hard you look, no matter how many of her belongings you dug through. Even your memory box had failed you, the photo of you and Matt at the back of your stack of pictures an outlier you couldn’t explain, this fruit of an as-yet unidentified poisonous tree. You had no real leads, no faint ringing of memory to guide you beyond a vague sense that, somehow, this started with Matt. You didn’t even know where to begin.

At least, not until some shaggy-haired guy named Foggy—what the fuck kind of nickname was that?—showed up entirely and rudely unannounced at your front door, dressed in a cheap suit and wearing a bizarrely determined look. Despite your doubts, you reluctantly allowed him in. He made it pretty clear he knew you, and if you were lucky he could tell you more about your life here.

“So I know you usually skedaddle when things get uncomfortable, which I imagine they are at the moment. How long are you trying to stay?”

“One month.” You shrugged casually, a cover for just how warily you were watching him as he paced in your—in Jane Hind’s living area. He knew far more about you than you knew about him, a reversal you were uncomfortably aware of. That vulnerability was almost enough to trigger a retreat beneath that cold, brittle shell you’d used long ago, though you quickly caught hold of that instinct and buried it back down deep where it belonged. Still, you couldn’t quite hide the cool clip to your voice, your walls firmly in place. “Leaving after that. Don’t see the point in staying if the memories are gone. Truthfully I’m not sure why I stayed in the first place, especially once it was clear I was getting attached. No offense.”

“None taken, my hopefully-still-friend-when-your-memories-come-back.” He abruptly swiveled on his feet to face you, squinting at you thoughtfully. “How badly do you want your memories back?”

You thought of out-of-place mugs and hand-stitched psychic teddy bears; of faint cinnamon and a worn photo frame; of the way you’d held a broken Matt in his kitchen until he’d carefully pushed you away and asked you to leave, his face closed off and distant despite the tears on his cheeks and yours.

You’d… been someone here. Someone cared for. Someone whose loss was mourned.

Even if you left, you needed to know just who that someone had been, if only so you could make sure this never happened again. Not until you reached your island in the sun.

“Badly enough to stay for the month,” you said quietly.

“Then put some shoes on. We’re going on a memory hunt.”

Over the next few weeks, Foggy took you all over Hell’s Kitchen.

You visited Jane Hind’s office, abandoned warehouses, and empty rooftops covered in thick blankets of snow. He reintroduced you to Karen, to your upstairs neighbors, and to a bartender who didn’t seem all that inclined to be introduced to anyone. You drank crappy beer and slightly less crappy vodka, played pool, and went to the zoo to stare for far too long at penguins, which Foggy refused to explain no matter how much you pressed. He had you focus on sights, on smells, on sounds that might trigger a memory. He joked with you in between, and he was just funny enough, friendly and clever enough, that for the first week or so, you were consistently cracking a smile. Hell, you even laughed now and then, much to your surprise. He really did know you, enough so that you gradually began to relax around him, just a little. He was likely hoping the addition of a friend’s voice would bring back what you’d lost, especially when paired with all the other sensations.��

But no matter how much you both tried, your memories remained lost.

God, you hadn’t thought this would… would hurt as much as it did. Yet with every day that you failed to find your way back to who you’d been, the more that fierce ache, that old longing inside you grew. Your smiles became brittle, your laughter fading, until both finally dried up like withered, crumbling leaves beneath a bitter frost. You couldn't help pulling away really, not when your soul curling up in the dark might protect you from the agony of knowing that maybe, just maybe, you’d finally found what you'd always wanted. How fitting that it had been ripped away from your bloodied, desperate hands like so many times before, one more square for the filthy patchwork quilt of shredded lives and possibilities you’d been forced to leave behind. What was worse: even your memories of that seeming joy had been stolen, too, leaving you with nothing left to carry but the tattered scraps of a ghost and the photograph of a stranger wearing your skin.

It shouldn’t have been possible to miss what you couldn’t remember. Yet here you were missing it all the same.

It didn’t help that Matt was avoiding you in every way that mattered. You’d thought about calling him if only to ask him questions about your life here, but you could never quite work up the courage to do it. He must have felt the same since he hadn’t reached out to you, either. And why would he? He knew as well as you did that your memories likely weren’t coming back. It made sense to cut that connection, tear it away like a weed before the roots could do more damage—something you should have done sooner, for both your sakes. What you hadn’t expected was just how good he was at dodging you, somehow absent no matter how many places Foggy took you to, places he swore Matt frequented with you when you’d lived here, as if Matt’s mere presence might be enough to trigger some memory in you. Had he been that important? Either way, it didn’t matter. You hadn’t seen Matt once since you’d walked out, doing your best to ignore his hitched breath as you’d opened the door. You’d forced yourself to ignore, too, the broken, agonized sound of grief that he’d let out as you quietly shut the door behind you, leaving him alone.

He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow.

There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting.

Matt was alone.

You’d left him alone.

It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back.

So… why did you feel so very sick?

Sympathy.

That was all you were feeling. Matt was grieving a woman he’d cared about, one who’d died and left a cold stranger in her place. It was normal to feel for someone in that much pain, and no one should be alone while grieving. Maybe this was for the best. The sooner you were fully out of his life, the sooner all his friends and family could step in, and the sooner he could move on. He wouldn’t be alone, then. And even if he was, his loneliness wasn’t your goddamn problem. You had more than enough troubles of your own.

Protect yourself.

Protect what you might one day have.

All else was irrelevant.

You just… hoped he was doing alright.

He did his best to avoid you, but that only grew more difficult once your ghost began to haunt his every step.

Even Josie’s quickly became off-limits—something he discovered one night when he stepped through the front door where he was promptly met with the familiar, comforting scent of you floating like a haze beneath the smell of cheap beer and sour sweat. His body went rigid the moment he recognized it, your presence across the room a sharpened knife that only widened the wound carved into him by your death. And if the scent of you was a knife, then your bark of laughter was a cruel twist of the blade, one that left him gutted and shaking there in the doorway. He drank in his apartment after that, waiting for that blessed moment when he would feel nothing, waiting for the very second the glorious shroud of night fell. Only then could he finally escape to the streets and drown himself in a far better kind of pain, taking his rage and his grief out on whatever piece of shit had the misfortune of falling into the Devil’s path.

But Foggy seemed determined to shove the specter of you directly into his face.

“You need to talk to her!” Foggy snapped, his voice only just shy of a shout. Matt ignored him as he headed for his office, desperate to retreat from your scent lingering on Foggy’s clothes. Foggy had taken you to a coffee shop that morning, one you’d frequented when you’d lived here, and now each inhalation was a vicious torment. It felt like breathing in shards of glass, the sharp pain of it throbbing with every stuttered, choked breath he drew in. If Foggy noticed, he didn’t seem to care. “Christ, Matt! You love her and we both know it. If you talk to her, it might trigger something—”

“Stop,” Matt grit out, reaching up to scrub his hand angrily over his face. He stalked his way over to his desk, still desperate to escape somehow, even if it was into his work. “Just stop, Foggy. I did talk to her, and you know what happened? Nothing. She didn’t remember anything at all. She’s gone, and you dragging this out is just making everything worse for all of us.”

“So what, you’re just gonna roll over?” Foggy scoffed, crossing his arms as he planted his feet in Matt’s doorway. “Are you sure you actually loved her? Because I’m pretty sure she loved y—”

Matt slammed his fist down on his desk, the furious crack of it echoing through the office like a gunshot as he shouted, “Don’t you fucking dare!”

Tension hung thick in the air as Matt’s chest heaved, his teeth bared, blood and adrenaline running hot in his veins as if Foggy were some sort of-of threat. Everything in him shook with rage, or maybe unshed grief, the burden of them both impossibly twisted and tangled beneath the sea of his guilt and his self-loathing until he couldn’t tell which was which. He just couldn’t—how was he supposed to force it all down when Foggy had just come so close, so dangerously close to shattering what few pieces remained of Matt’s crumbling armor?

It was bad enough loving you the way he did only for you to slip through his bloodied, desperate grasp like whispering grains of sand. What was worse, this entire disaster was one of his own making, a series of mistakes whose snarled, winding paths led inevitably back to him just like they had so many times before in his life. This loss of someone who’d truly understood him, accepted him, cared for him had already broken something inside him he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to repair. But that fracturing inside him would surely rise up to consume him if Foggy were right, if you’d truly cared for him that deeply before your memories were taken, so deeply that you might even have…

I miss you, sweetheart.

…loved him the way he loved you.

Abruptly Matt’s surge of rage drained away and his head fell, leaving him feeling all the more empty and broken. He braced his arms weakly against his desk, drawing in a shaky breath as he forced himself to confess, his voice gone hoarse and ragged with grief. “I loved her, Foggy.” He lifted one shaking hand to his face. “God, I loved her so, so much. I can’t… I don’t know what to do without her now that she’s gone.” “I know, Matt,” Foggy said gently. “I know.” “I loved how she always smelled a little like coffee, and the way she always managed to wind up climbing into the oddest places for a case. She had one of the foulest mouths I’ve ever heard, but I swear she could use it to talk her way out of almost anything or to bring someone up out of whatever dark hole they were trapped in. She was… far kinder than she’d ever admit.” His lips quirked, but there was no humor in it, the expression miserable and gutted. You’d have likely argued with him about how kind you were if you’d been here. But there was no chance of that now, no matter how much the scent of you on the air told him otherwise. “Some days it felt like she was the only thing holding me together, like the only time I could breathe was when she held me in her arms. She was always there when I fell apart, or when it all… when it all started to hurt too much. And I tried to give her whatever pieces of me the Kitchen hadn’t already taken, to be there for her like she was for me, to keep her safe. We were finally going to make our relationship official when she came back, her and me, even if there’d… already been something there for a while now if I’m honest.”

And it had, it had been there, this soft, tender thing that had developed slowly but surely between the two of you, a tangling that came by degrees rather than all at once. It had sprouted, grown, and blossomed so gradually that even now he struggled to point to any one moment where it had truly begun—the night he found you in the warehouse, maybe, or that first game of Devil Hunt, or when you’d both almost taken the leap before he’d realized you were drunk. But the question of where it began didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it was there, something nameless yet still so good and warm and perfect, a connection nurtured in the low light and the blood-soaked soil of the Kitchen. You’d felt it just like he had, and you’d been willing to take that chance with him despite the baggage he carried behind him like an anchor destined to drag him down. You never would have agreed to kiss him when you came back otherwise. Now that chance was gone.

“How much did she know before she left?” Foggy asked quietly, leaning against the doorframe.

”She knew that I-that I wanted to be with her, but I never told her that I loved her.” Matt blew out a slow, heavy breath. “I was too scared of chasing her away, I guess. I thought maybe when she came back, if she still wanted me, I would… I decided that I would tell her. But I waited too long. Now she’s gone and I’ll never be able to tell her. All because of me.”

He finally lifted his head, tipping it at Foggy. Neither of them dared mention the wetness on Matt’s cheeks. Even speaking about this—about how much he’d loved you only for him to ruin it—was almost more than he could bear, the edges of the wound still fresh and raw. Then again, maybe he deserved that pain after how miserably he’d failed you, just like everyone else in his life. “I miss her. And what’s worse is even when she’s right there in front of me, she’s not. She’s not, Foggy. Because I-I fucked up. I’m the reason the woman I knew, the woman I loved, died. I’m the reason she’ll never remember what we had, why I’ll never hold her again, and why she’ll leave New York at the end of the month like she does whenever she’s afraid of forming a connection.” He let out a bitter laugh, waving towards the windows, towards the place you’d once held dear. “I couldn’t even keep her here before. She almost ran last summer and the only thing that stopped her was being kidnapped. That was what slowed her down long enough for our thread to turn red, not me. She won’t let that happen a second time, not now that she’s seen what happens to people I care about. Do you understand?”

The door to Nelson and Murdock creaked open, Karen’s voice making its way in first. Her voice was followed only a moment later by another’s, one still so familiar.

“—I mean, winding up in a pool while chasing a kid sounds about right for me, so even if I don’t remember, I won’t argue—”

“I had to keep you here somehow.” Foggy’s voice remained quiet, but there was no disguising the ferocity in it now, the fervent belief. “Get out of your own head and talk to her, Matt. Fight for her. She would want you to.”

No.

No, no, no.

Your body may have been here, whole and real, but the woman who’d known him wasn’t. The song of your voice, your sweet scent, the flames of heat and stirred air currents around you flaring into a familiar shape: all of it was nothing but a lie, a snare for his senses, a ghost of his own making, and he wasn’t about to be caught by it again.

He darted back around his desk, shoving his way past Foggy on the way toward the front door, his heart racing. If he was quick, if he just put up enough of a front, he could get out before they trapped you here with him like they’d planned. He wouldn’t relive this grief again, he couldn’t, not without falling apart. The moment he’d had with you in his apartment had been enough agony for one lifetime.

“Hey, Matt.” You cleared your throat, shifting awkwardly on your feet where you’d stopped by the front door. Your stance was cautious and guarded, almost wary of him. It was just one more reminder of how uncomfortable he made you now. “Are you—”

“Heading out,” he said stiffly, only belatedly remembering to trace one hand along the wall as if his heightened senses hadn’t given him a clear map of the room the moment his adrenaline spiked. That spike was a curse all its own. It made the scent of you so much stronger, the lie of it fresh and present as it twined around him. His chest hitched just once before he forced himself to breathe his mouth. But that route of escape had been cut off, too. All it did was shift his focus to the taste of you on the air, and the taste of familiar fabric once so tenderly given.

You were wearing one of his shirts.

He fumbled for his cane, his hands starting to shake before he finally found it where he’d left it against the wall. He couldn’t let you see him like this. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t remember him, nor was it your fault that he’d lost you. He’d done enough damage without adding a layer of guilt to what you were dealing with, too. But despite his attempts to hide what he was feeling, his face a hard mask, your fingers still brushed gently against his arm a moment later. It was an offer of help, or maybe an attempt to reach out, to slow him down, to connect. It was a kindness, a sympathy he didn’t deserve. Even now, you read him far too well, this touch the same as it had been that first night he’d met you when you’d gently brushed your hand against his arm. “Hey, do you need… I could walk you home.”

He shied away from your touch, finally managing to roughly unsnap his cane before going for the door. “I’m fine. I just—I have things to take care of. Excuse me.”

He went straight home and showered, but no matter how many times he scrubbed, he couldn’t seem to wash the ghost of your scent away.

You slowly wandered around Matt’s office, taking it in. This was another place you’d supposedly frequented, a place that should have been familiar, and one you'd avoided until now.

Even though Foggy had assured you it was alright, it felt… almost wrong to explore a stranger’s space like this without them present. But you couldn’t help but brush your fingers across the battered desk and the small labels in braille you couldn’t read, run your hands along the chair for clients that you might have sat in once, and trace curiously the small seashell next to Matt’s laptop. The base scents of Matt were stronger here where he spent so much time, only partly erased by the smell of coffee and paper. The room was clean, cared for, and well-organized despite how rundown the office was. Important to him. You could tell that much, even if the scents and sights had failed to spark any memories.

Maybe… knowing his space wasn’t enough.

This was about more than just figuring out who you were, now. For some reason, you needed to know who Matt was, too: this man Jane Hind had cared so much about and who’d cared so much about her. You told yourself it was practical. Matt was your best bet when it came to remembering who you’d been. But some part of you deep down recognized the lie. No, there was something in you inescapably drawn to him, a pull you couldn’t quite explain. Maybe that strange, unnatural gravity was what had started this whole mess in the first place. What was it about him that was so different, that had driven you to break every last rule you’d lived your life by for over a decade?

And why… did you spend so long wondering if he’d ever climbed out his office window?

It had been twenty-nine days, and not a single memory had returned.

Oh, there were beats now and then when you thought that maybe, just maybe something was coming back, but those moments were painfully few and far between. Even in those moments, you couldn’t say remembered anything, exactly. It was more a frustrating sense of deja vu, a fleeting little itch at the back of your mind like you’d forgotten something important, flashing road markers to warn you of the dark, empty gaps in your memory. That sense was probably driven at least in part by Foggy’s growing desperation as he frantically hunted for something that might trigger a return of your memories.

But the rest of that feeling… the rest was all you.

There was no denying a traitorous part of you wanted to remember no matter how ill-advised it might be. You wanted to remember this bizarre little family you’d stumbled into and then lost, just like in Los Angeles. You wanted to remember the love you’d had for this place, this city, this taste of mutual affection that had grown up around you after going so long without. After endless ages and ages of drought, of starvation, you hungered for even these bare crumbs of connection, something to tide you over until you found safe haven on the distant horizon. What a tempting thought it was to slither back into the life of this woman who’d been so cruelly murdered and replaced by a stranger wearing her skin.

Was this what a demon felt like when it took over a body? To walk around with someone else’s face, to speak with the unnatural voice of the dead, tormenting the loved ones that remained?

That, ultimately, was why it didn’t matter what you wanted. Your presence in this city only spread rot and suffering. It would be better for everyone involved if you left like you should have long before now. Then they could all grieve without you tainting the very soil around them.

Especially Matt.

You’d seen him once or twice in passing as your time in New York wound down. Even at a distance, you’d marked the growing circles under his eyes, dark enough to be visible despite the glasses he always wore. The rest of him wasn’t doing much better. It seemed like every time he crossed your path, there was another bruise, another cut across his face or knuckles, a shifting canvas of pain painted across skin grown pale and drawn. He didn’t just look tired—that wasn’t what this was. This was something far worse, a haggard exhaustion, a weariness that couldn’t be solved with sleep, if he slept at all. This was someone being haunted.

Probably because the ghost of Jane Hind kept crossing his path. But that would be solved soon enough.

You’d already packed up your things, not that you had much to take. Just your bag and your memory box. You’d be leaving the next day. Foggy was still convinced he had a few more days, but you had other plans. You couldn’t give Matt back the woman he’d lost, nor could you give him a body to bury, a grave to lay flowers across, but you could give him what Jane Hind had carried with her until her dying breath.

“I thought you might… want these before I left tomorrow,” you said quietly. “I… sorry, it’s… it’s a bag with my—with her things.”

Matt took it carefully from you, the motion mechanical and stiff. He hadn’t really invited you the rest of the way into his apartment, the two of you now stalled out in the hallway just beyond the closed front door. He hadn’t taken his glasses off, either. It made it harder to read him, his face closed off and impassive, a wall of red glass placed firmly between you. Come to think of it, you hadn’t seen his eyes even once since that day you’d first come back, and you didn’t blame him. You didn’t like feeling vulnerable, either, though that was just a guess when it came to what he might be feeling.

“It’s the shirts from her apartment, which I think are yours. And the stuffed bear.” You bit your lip and released it slowly, shifting uncomfortably on your feet. “And the… the mug, which Nelson said was yours, too. The one you used at her place. I also put the hoodie in there, the one she had with her while she was traveling. And…” You reached into your pocket, fumbling for a moment. God, you were bad at this, unsure of just how to do this without hurting him any more than was absolutely necessary. It wasn’t a concern you usually dealt with since your goal was almost always the exact opposite, a precaution meant to destroy any threads of connection they held with you. Unfortunately, he wasn’t giving you much to work with, though you didn’t miss his subtle flinch when you drew the key from your pocket. “I thought you might want this, too.”

You cautiously edged forward, daring to breach the ring of radiant heat that surrounded him, the closest you’d come to him in almost a month. He went stiff as you approached, his jaw growing tight as the gap between you both closed. Another step, and his head cocked as if he were listening to your footsteps, or maybe… maybe he was just waiting to find out what you had to give him. But he wasn’t telling you to fuck off or just set your gift aside, which was a good sign. So you hesitantly reached out and brushed your fingers lightly against his bicep, a signal so he knew you were about to pass him something.

A breath.

He remained absolutely still amidst the sudden, crackling tension in the air as your fingertips skated gently down and around his forearm, stirring all the little hairs, his skin shockingly warm. All you’d intended to do to take his arm and guide it up so you could place the key in his hand, but you quickly found yourself distracted by a ragged scar along the back of his forearm, one your fingers seemingly made their way to on instinct. It was a deep scar, the original cut likely made by some sort of blade, the edges of it rough and uneven from messy stitching. Your curiosity got the better of you, so much so that you missed the way Matt had begun to hold his breath.

“Who fucked up the sutures on that?” You furrowed your brow, your thumb smoothly marking out the jagged line of it. “They did a terrible job. No offense.”

Matt’s face fell and you only realized too late just who it was that must have patched him up.

Before you could blink, he’d yanked his arm out of your grip as if your touch had burned him. “Don’t,” he grit out, his chest heaving as he put a few steps distance between you both. “You can—just put your key on the bench.”

“How did you know—” “Because there’s only one thing left it could be.”

You nodded weakly, taking a few steps back towards the little bench beside the door. That unfamiliar ache, that sense of wrongness was back, the weight of it settling uneasily in your chest like a stone until you almost wanted to retch. It didn’t help that Matt was just barely holding himself together while you were here.

Best to say what you’d come to say and leave him be.

You gently set the key down, and the quiet click of the brass against the wood seemed to echo in the hallway, a graveyard bell tolling with a looming sense of finality. What you were about to tell him would hurt, you knew it would, but maybe one day he’d find comfort in it. This—a sign of what she’d felt—was the real gift you’d truly come to give, the only true token of her you could offer. Your words, when you spoke, were almost as hoarse as his. “I thought you should know I… she wore it. The key. I asked them. She wore your key and she never took it off. Not once. Whatever you both had, she treasured it, and all she wanted was to get back to you. She didn’t leave you by choice, Matt. I hope that… that helps.”

Of all the things you’d said and done, it was this that finally seemed to break him. His face twisted in a sudden wave of grief, and regret hit you all at once. You quickly took a step towards him, one hand out, though you weren’t sure what you’d do if he reached back—it wasn’t like you knew how to comfort him, and you sure as hell didn’t know if he’d tolerate you holding him again, nor whether he was someone that needed some sort of touch when he was hurting. But before you could take another step he’d flinched away from you, retreating quickly back into the darkness of his apartment, his voice ragged. “Just go. Get out.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, backing away towards the door. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

It shouldn’t have hurt as you closed that door one last time. But you cried all the same.

Somewhere within the apartment came the sound of splintering furniture and a hoarse scream wracked with grief.

“Look, Nelson.” You tiredly adjusted the strap of your duffle bag over your shoulder, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of your nose as if it would stem your growing headache. “I know it’s a day early. But another twenty-four hours isn’t going to make a fucking difference.”

“I don’t need another day!” he pleaded, his arms spread wide where he’d blocked your front door, ensuring you couldn’t leave your apartment until you’d heard him out. You’d had no idea he even had a key until today and, not for the first time, you cursed Jane Hind’s apparent lack of common sense. You did not give out keys, or at least, you hadn’t before coming here to this ridiculous fucking city. “Just five minutes. That’s all. I’ve got one last thing to try.”

“Maybe I don’t want to try one more thing!” you snapped bitterly, dropping your hand. That anger was a good cover for the way something sharp and prickly had begun to catch in your throat, the incident with Matt still fresh in your mind. “I’ve tried for a month, and it’s gotten me nothing. Fucking-fucking bars and random rooftops and a shitty little duck, goddamn penguins and keys, and none of it did shit! Jane’s gone, ok? She’s dead. And I’m sorry, I know you all cared about her, but I’m done—”

“Have you climbed inside a thread?”

“...What?” you asked in sudden bewilderment, your rage abruptly faltering in the face of pure confusion. “What the fuck does that even me—”

He let out a whoop, practically dancing on his feet. “Yes! I knew it! I can’t believe no one told you!”

“Told me what?!” You chucked your bag back onto your couch in sudden exasperation. If this was thread-related, at the very least you could stay long enough to listen. “There’s nothing to climb!”

“Ok, so stick with me.” He rubbed his palms together eagerly, a bright light in his eyes. “Because I’m about to get really metaphysical.”

It took you what felt like hours to climb inside the shimmering honey-colored thread that lay between you and Matt—a thread that sang with his sorrow and your reluctant sympathy.

It wasn’t right having your soul constricted like this, all of who you were narrowing down into something so small as you squirmed through a barrier that tasted and felt like dirt and earth, chasing after the sound of trickling water. There wasn’t supposed to be anything on the other side. It was an emotional connection, nothing more.

And yet here you were, standing in a place that had no reason to exist.

“Holy shit,” you whispered in amazement, spinning on your heels to examine your surroundings. “Holy shit, he was right.”

Despite the late hour, the air was full of a muted light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, tinting the world a hazy, eerie green. High up above you roiled thick, sullen black storm clouds, silent flashes of red lightning carving their way between swirls of charred smoke. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough to see by.

And what you saw was heartbreaking.

You stood in a dry, stony riverbed. The ground beneath you was cracked and brittle where the water had receded, leaving behind nothing but dust and broken branches. The river itself remained though just barely, the thin trickle of flowing water down the center of the riverbed a far cry from whatever immense force had carved its way through the landscape until the banks were a good ten paces from one side to the other. The terrain beyond the river didn’t look much better, wilted, drooping cattails dotted up the bank before giving way to endless forest that stretched farther than your eye could see. Like the cattails and scrub, the pine and fir trees stood withered and brown, casting their empty branches up toward the sky.

If it had been beautiful here once, whatever had happened to you had destroyed that beauty.

“Jesus,” you whispered.

“Can you hear me?” Foggy’s voice sounded distant and far away, tinny like he was talking through a long tunnel.

“Yeah. Can you hear me?”

“...Ok, if you’re trying to respond, I can’t hear you. But according to Matt, whenever you were here, it felt like memories. So poke around, see what you can find.”

You sighed and started down the riverbed. “Not super helpful, but ok. Let’s give it a shot.”

The water was the most obvious place to start, and you made your way over to the thin stream that ran raggedly across the parched soil. Much to your fascination, you quickly discovered that what you’d thought was one current was actually two, one layered over the top of the other, each flowing in the opposite direction. The first of those currents hiding on the bottom was fairly calm, steady if a little restless, swirls of pale color that almost felt like curiosity, though how you understood that translation was a mystery. The second current seemed far rougher where it roiled atop the first, its section of the stream cloudy and thick with swirls of black and the red of an open wound. You hovered over the second current for a long moment, working up your courage, before you finally knelt and hesitantly brushed against it with one finger. It was just water. How bad could it be?

The moment your skin made contact, your chest seized on a sudden swell of agony. Your mouth filled with the taste of grief, with the sound of an empty home, the lack of some familiar scent that meant affection and warmth and softness and safety, the ache of an old wound reopened just when it had started to heal. Alone, always alone, I deserve it, so many gone, he was right, when will I learn? There was no hope for comfort from that pain, no escape from the darkness into tender arms that could hold you just right when it all hurt. All you had to look forward to was more—

You threw yourself backward, scrambling away from that terrible current as if what you’d felt might rise up and chase after you, snapping its teeth the whole way. You didn’t stop retreating until your back slammed against the dry soil of the riverbank. Only then did you stop, panting, your eyes wide in shock as you cradled your hand against your heaving chest.

Emotion. It’s emotion.

That was what the water was. Matt’s emotion. Which meant the other current—one now shifting back to yellow despite a momentary surge of twisting, roiling black—was… yours.

Right. So you could rule the water out. But if that was emotion, where was memory?

Examining the rest of the river was the most obvious next step now that you’d ruled out the water. Based on what you could see, the original riverbed had been a mix of silt and stones of varying sizes, a firm foundation beneath a once-powerful river. Now, though, the grey, dried-out silt was covered in a strange sea of divots and dips, as if something—a lot of somethings—had been plucked up and removed. You traced one of the indents in the soil curiously, lifting your hand back up to consider the grit as you rubbed it between your fingers. Another glance around revealed the answer.

The stones.

There were still plenty of stones remaining in the riverbed, but the divots in the dry silt told you there’d once been far more. If that was what you’d lost, then maybe…

You rocked up eagerly to your feet, pacing around breathlessly as you searched for a promising stone to start with. Eventually you made your pick, plucking up a stone just small enough to fit in your palm, flat and smooth save for a little groove in it as if someone had run their fingers over it endlessly. Strangely, it smelled like honey and herbs, the surface oddly warm against your hand like the brush of a thumb against your mouth. You waited for a long, impatient moment, and when nothing else happened, you tapped it a few times.

Still nothing.

And something inside you… cracked.

“Fuck!” you screamed, hurling the stone back down the river in a sudden rage. The pain and the loneliness you’d been suppressing for the last month, the last year, the horrible, endless eternity since leaving your family in Los Angeles began to claw its way up your throat, the clouds churning wildly above you in response. A wild rain came next, each droplet sharp and cold and edged like the blade of a knife, bitter and biting as it beat against your skin. You grabbed another stone, one that tasted like shitty beer—Josie’s beer. You threw that rock, too, then another and another, throwing stones that smelled and tasted and felt like your shriek of laughter as he grinned and caught you against his chest, like torn flesh and a needle held by tender hands, like your face nuzzling fearlessly against Matt’s throat as he whispered comfort into your hair and held you close, like synced breathing and hearts and dances between binary stars as you both fell into sleep, fell into safety, fell into one another, phantom sensations that only made the fierce ache in you grow stronger because with every stone you snatched up it became clear that…

You’d been loved.

Not your identity.

Not the image you showed to the world.

Not the walls you’d put up in front of him before he’d found some way past them.

You.

And he’d loved you with every part of him.

You weren’t sure when you started crying, a violent, vicious stream of tears that was just as much a product of rage as grief. Here was someone who’d loved you fully, loved you despite every asterisk and bit of baggage and sharpened edge that came with being a broken hound, with being a former experiment still on the run. But you barely noticed your tears, spitting up at the unforgiving clouds and the howling wind, because you could howl, too, just as violent, just as much a threat as any storm in this place. “I want my fucking life back! I want him back!”

You hadn’t wanted it before, or maybe you had and you’d just been too afraid to ask for it. But now? Oh, oh, now you were furious, furious and hurting and screaming, because you’d denied yourself connection all these years only to find it in the last place you’d expected. That was what this had been—home, family, love. That had to be why you’d stayed in New York, why you’d risked everything for these people, for Matt. You weren’t an idiot. You’d have run the numbers and the math, made your calculations.

You couldn’t bear to lose this. Not… not again.

You threw stone after stone, hunting frantically as your fingers bled dry, desperate fury into the air, reddened drops disappearing before they ever hit the ground. The trickle of water in the center of the riverbed had churned itself into a frenzy, but you ignored it. There had to be something here that would trigger a memory, something that would let you remember being loved again, something big enough, important enough, so you grabbed and you grabbed and grabbed and grabbed and grabbed until at last, you found a stone the size of your fist. You snatched it up with a ragged sob, cradling it greedily against your chest as if doing so might let you carry it out of here, because you wanted it, you wanted him, wanted to remember more than anything in the world.

“Let me have it!” you snarled, snapping your teeth at the howling winds of the storm as if you might catch this place between your jaws and tear it open until you at last found what belonged to you. “Give it back!”

And with a blink—

He tore one of his bloodied gloves off, his hand shaking as he reached out to you.

You stilled the moment his fingertips brushed tenderly against your cheek, so very gentle, affection layered over blood and earth and hurt. And god, your skin was so terribly dry and cold, the beat of your heart uneven as it struggled to pump blood through your body, but he could feel you react to him, the barest parting of your lips as you dragged in a startled breath. He didn’t want to startle you further or risk you fighting him, so he let his voice drop into a whisper, soft as the brush of a feather.

“It’s me. I’m here.”

‘I heard you,’ he tried to say. ‘I heard you. I’m here.’

And your weakened heart… skipped.

He wasn’t sure if he reached for you or if you reached for him. All he knew was it was the sign he’d been looking for. In a heartbeat, he scooped you up off the floor, stealing you back from that dry, filthy cement and crusted blood that had tried to take you from him. He cradled your cold body against his chest, then, held you there where it was warm and where you were safe. You made the softest little noise, the sound choked and dry, but there was no disguising the heartbreaking relief in it. He pulled you in further, pulled you up until you were curled up in his lap, not an ounce of air left between your bodies, your head laying against his shoulder.

He would never let you touch the floor of this place again.

“D…” you mumbled, not one hint of fear in you despite what he’d just done, the blood on his hands and the burning heat of violence that still lingered in his bones. You wearily slid your head over, inch by inch, until you’d buried your face against the sweat-slick line of his throat, nuzzling in against him with a hoarse sigh that only made him hold you tighter. You inhaled slowly then, heedless of the blood and dirt and sweat that coated his skin, your fingers coming up to hook weakly in the collar of his shirt. “You came.”

And you… smiled.

He buried his face against your hair and let out a shaky breath. As he did, he dug down past blood and dust and dirt, dug and dug until he found the sweet, familiar scent of you, a scent he never wanted to leave him again.

The stone fell from your limp hands, a ringing in your ears you could barely hear beneath the sound of the water nearby, frothing and wild.

The increased sensory feedback had been bizarre, and there was… there was no reason he should have been covered in so much blood, his body burning as if he’d been fighting before coming to you. But…

“Hey, you in there?” Foggy called.

“D.” The letter felt strange, and yet… natural, as you cradled it on your tongue. “D?”

And you knew what came after that letter, shaping the word again in your mind.

You knew.

You… remembered.

“Always,” he’d said.

“Always,” you whispered, casting your eyes up the riverbed towards another large stone. “Always, D.”

He didn’t know what you were doing or why you’d climbed inside the thread.

“Always, D.”

All he knew was that it hurt.

“You’re stuck with me, unfortunately for you.”

He’d thought catching your scent, hearing your laugh, being forced to take back the key he’d given to you had been the worst of it. But no. It was far, far worse having to relive these memories of your time with him over and over and over without pause, his senses filled with you: with your touch, with your scent, with the taste of you on the air. He heard you whisper, laugh, and sigh; felt the brush of your fingers in his hair and your body shaking with laughter when he snatched you up during a game of Devil Hunt and the safety of you as you’d held him so tenderly after his fight with Foggy. All of it was a reminder of what he’d lost, what he’d never get back.

“Don’t you give up on me, Matt. Ok?”

He was in agony. There was no blocking you out like this, no escaping your memory no matter how much he tried to push back or retreat, until he wound up trapped and spiraling in his kitchen.

“Kiss me when you come back.”

On and on it went, memories snapping at his heels until all he had left to hide behind was rage. He swept his arm across the counter, glass shattering as he screamed himself hoarse. Eventually he found himself backed up against the wall, sinking down as he hitched out something like an agonized groan, his hands over his ears, his eyes shut tight. “Don’t do this to me, sweetheart, please—”

“Adoringly yours, because I do adore you, you ridiculous man...”

“Leave me alone,” he whispered. “Just leave me alone.”

“...Remember that. if nothing else.”

In hindsight, it was a really bad idea to give back your key.

“Matt!” you shouted, pounding frantically on his front door. “Matt, let me in! It’s me, I swear, I can-I can—”

Silence.

And you weren’t willing to wait any longer. This wasn’t something you could explain through the door, out here in the hall where the neighbors could hear. You needed to get inside. You knew he was in there somewhere.

Red threads never lied.

You wiped the blood away from your nose and took off for the stairs. It was only one flight up to the roof, and sometimes he left the rooftop door unlocked. Even if it wasn’t unlocked, you’d use the key under the mat. You didn’t remember everything. But you remembered that. And if the key wasn’t there? You’d break that fucking door down.

He sat unmoving in his meditation pose on the floor, the sound of your attempts to get into the apartment distant and far away. Meditation had been the only thing left he could think of that would allow him to escape the pain and the memories of you that had flooded his thoughts. Like this, with his mind and his focus withdrawn until it lay deep within himself, he’d hoped he’d be far enough away from the world that the ghost of you couldn’t reach.

Yet even deep in meditation, his instincts were set off by the crack! of his rooftop door slamming open.

He was on his feet in a heartbeat, his heart racing as he bared his teeth, his body prepared to face whatever threat had just broken in. The sensations of you, at the very least, had quieted during his meditation, which should have left him enough space for some small margin of peace as he threw himself into a fight. But that peace was nowhere to be found, because you were here again.

He recoiled from that thought the second it crossed his mind. This wasn’t you, that much had become painfully clear. You’d passed away somewhere far beyond his reach, away from the home, the life you’d lived here. The woman that stood on his landing now was nothing but a ghost, a fading memory and a terrible reminder of what he’d had and lost, what he’d earned by daring to reach for something good. There was no undoing it, no washing away the blood on his hands. If anything, how he felt for you had doomed any hopes of you staying long enough for him to reform that connection with you. He knew how you operated—hell, you’d tried to run on that hot summer night so many months ago after seeing just how much he’d cared, even if you’d ultimately changed your mind. At the time, he’d thought it was Destiny, the hand of God ensuring you remained in the Kitchen where Matt could keep you safe from the Man in the White Coat, here in this place where you both might… might shape something good out of all the broken pieces you’d both been left with. He knew better, now. Even the hand of God couldn’t break the curse Matt placed on those he loved. You would leave, leave like all the others, and he deserved it.

The only question that remained was why you seemed so, so fucking determined to make him suffer.

“Matt.” Your voice cracked as you stumbled down the stairs. “Matt, I—”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone, sweetheart?” he grit out, reaching up to fist his hands tightly in his hair. He’d never known you to be unnecessarily cruel, but there was no other explanation. “God, I-I can’t—you can’t keep doing this to me.”

“Matt, just let me—”

“Do you even care how much you’re hurting me?” He hitched out a broken laugh, something bitter and tormented, the sound absent all humor as you made it down the stairs. “All those months, all I wanted was for you to come back. I begged. I prayed to God, over and over again, that he would bring you back to me. And now that you’re gone, you just won’t leave. I can’t get away from you no matter what I do. Do you know what that’s like? To lose someone you love only for their ghost to haunt you every time you turn around?”

A soft intake of breath.

There it was. Now that he’d said it, you’d leave. There would be nothing more frightening to the You he’d first known than a word like love.

“I just…” His breath hitched again, something thick building in his throat. It was just another sign of his weakness, the same weakness that had gotten you killed.

‘I warned you, kid,’ came Stick’s voice, so smug that Matt bared his teeth. ‘I fuckin’ warned you the night I opened up her eye. But you didn’t listen.’

He started to pace wildly, ignoring your voice as he hunted for some opening through which he could escape, flee from Stick’s voice hiding in the corners of his thoughts, from your ghost. With every step his movements grew more frantic, more furious as his rage built like a rising wave: rage at himself, at God, at the monster who’d taken your memories and the possibility of a life for you here with Matt, and at you, too, because you just didn’t get it. “I just want to grieve, and God can’t even give me that much, can he? Is that what this is? Punishment? Revenge? Congratulations. Job well done. You can go.”

You tilted your head as you watched him pace, the same cock of your head you got when considering your potential routes forward. As far as he was concerned, the only route he’d give was a route out the door.

“I don’t know why you came back, and at this point, I don’t fucking care,” he told you hotly, nothing but burning smoke and thick venom in each word. “We don’t have a red thread anymore. There’s nothing to keep you here. Leave. Now. I’m not asking.”

Your soft response was a single letter, one that struck directly at the open wound inside his chest.

“...D.”

He snatched up an empty beer bottle from the kitchen counter in a sudden rage, turned, and hurled it past you.

You didn’t so much as flinch as the bottle came within inches of your head. Nor did you react to the distant shattering of glass, the sound of it barely audible over his anguished roar.

“Leave me alone!”

And then he froze in sudden horror at what he’d done, his heartbeat almost drowning out the soft sound of your steps. All he’d wanted to do was scare you away, frighten you away so he could break where you couldn’t see, because it had hurt, it had hurt to hear you call him—

Wait.

You’d… you’d called him…

“My Devil Man, my Saint Matthew,” you whispered, the touch of your hands cool and endlessly gentle as you cupped his face. His skin was wet, damp beneath your thumbs as you swiped them across his cheeks, when had he started crying? You brought his head down until you could lay your forehead against his, the taste of salt hanging in the air. Your voice grew achingly tender, so longed for that he swayed helplessly on his feet, wanting nothing more than to be held like you’d held him so often before when he was hurting. “I’m so sorry, D. I’m so sorry I left you alone, sweetheart.”

He closed his eyes tight, his breath growing shaky. You couldn’t know that he was two steps away from crumbling in your arms, fractures widening with every breath. He had no energy left to fight your touch, your misplaced mercy, but giving into the lie was another thing entirely. He couldn’t bear to hope again, not when it would crush him if he were wrong. “Foggy told you to… he told you to call me that, didn’t he? To see if you’d remember. But I can’t—you’re going to leave me, you’ll—” “Do you remember what I said before I left? Because I do.” You swiped your thumb gently against his cheek, your uneven breathing skipping and falling into rhythm with his as his hands shakily rose. They hovered hesitantly a few inches away from your face, terrified that you might vanish beneath his hands like a ghost. “I don’t leave my box behind, and I won’t leave you behind, either. I told you that you were stuck with me after Nobu. I meant it. It’s really me. I know you’re tired and hurting, sweetheart, but listen to my heart. What does it say? Truth or lie?”

…Steady.

Truth.

Could it really be you?

He held his breath as he dared at last to touch your cheek, stirring the fine hairs as he stroked his way along the familiar shape of your face, one he’d traced so often in his dreams. Your skin was damp with tears just like his, another sliding down to bump against his thumb as your lips quirked up into a brilliant smile. And the moment his trembling fingers passed your lips, you kissed the tip of each with a warm fondness, a mirror of that night you’d held his broken, torn body and he’d kissed your fingers and palm.

“How much do you… do you remember?” There was a ringing in his ears as the world beneath him seemed to roll beneath him. “Everything?” “Not everything. Some pieces are still missing, with Foggy and Karen and my job, but I-I remember enough. I remember you, and what I had with you.” Your voice grew fierce and fervent then as you drew in a sharp breath, preparing yourself. “I remember you, D. And I remember that I love you. I love you, Matt Murdock, all of you, so, so much. And I will never leave you alone again.” You loved him.

You loved him.

The weight of it—being forced to let you leave the city, the ensuing months alone, the agony of the past few weeks thinking he’d lost you entirely, and now this, this, knowing you loved him like he loved you—hit him all at once, and with a sudden groan he started to drop. You caught him in your arms, the two of you sinking to your knees as you held him tight and he wound desperately around you in return. Only then did he start to fall apart in your arms, shaking in your hold, his grief, his hurt, his relief spilling out in choked gasps where you’d tucked his head down against your neck. He fisted his hands in your shirt as you both rocked, and a ragged moan tore free from him, spilling against your skin when you lifted your hands to trail your fingers lovingly through his hair. You knew, you remembered just how to hold him when he was hurting, a balm across every last wound. His shivering, touch-starved body remembered your touch, too, drowning beneath the sudden surge of good, warm, safe, soft after months of nothing but pain, so much so he couldn’t help but gasp out your name.

“I’ve got you now, D,” you whispered, burying your face against his shoulder until he could feel the heat of your tears against his shirt, too. “I’m here, now. You’re not alone. I’ve got you, Matt.”

“I thought you were gone.” There was no way for him to truly sync his breathing with yours, not with the way you were both crying, but still his body tried on instinct, tried and failed over and over again. He closed his eyes tighter, burying his face deeper against your throat as he pulled you in even closer, until there wasn’t an inch of space between your body and his, where he could feel every beat of your heart against his skin, as if to make up for the way he’d almost… almost chased you away. “I thought you’d left me and I was alone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder, and that I didn’t-I didn’t go with you, but I couldn’t—I’m so, so—”

“Hey, hey, it’s ok.” You kissed shakily at his hair, his shoulder, and whatever other parts of him you could reach, your breath, your tears, your absolution washing over him like rain. “It’s not your fault, D. It’s not your fault sweetheart. None of this was your fault.”

“But—” “Hey. Listen to me, before you get any further down in that hole.” You lifted his head from your shoulder, cupping his tear-stained face in your hands again. For a moment you both simply breathed with one another, your forehead to his, soaking in the contact, the affection that you’d both dearly missed and needed. “What happened to me outside New York, my memory loss… all of that is not your fault. It never was, D. There are-there are a lot of things we’ll have to deal with in the future, things I need to tell you. Consequences of what we’ve done, and—but this isn’t one of them. Never this. You’re what helped bring me back.” “How? I didn’t…” He let out a breathless, watery little laugh. “I didn’t do anything but try to chase you away.” “Some part of me couldn’t help but be drawn to you. I remembered, deep down, I think.” You gave an amused little huff. “And once Foggy showed me how to get into our thread, all your memories are what brought me back, helped me remember, because I could feel it, how you loved me. That was the key. Speaking of which…” You leaned in to nuzzle up against his cheek, your voice lowering to a whisper. “I think I made you a promise, you ridiculous man. And it’s one I intend to keep.”

And with one small tip of your head, and a single slow breath…

“Kiss me when you come back.”

…your lips brushed against his for the very first time, tender and achingly soft, and so full of love that it would have stolen his breath away if he’d had any left at all.

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d envisioned months ago just before you left, something triumphant and wild. Nor was it anything like the first kisses he’d imagined before that, the first kiss he’d thought this journey with you might lead to. And God only knew he’d considered kissing you for the first time more than was healthy.

Your first kiss with him was, instead, shaky and gentle, tasting of salt and tears and the fading shades of grief retreating like streamers of night before a welcome sunrise. Slowly, and then more surely, his lips began to move against yours, finally allowing himself to truly taste you for the first time, his eyes slowly falling closed as your fingers ran fondly through his hair, you, it was really you, you remembered. With a quiet moan, he breathed you in deep, calling your grace, your love deep into him until it settled there against his heart, knowing that, no matter what else might come, he would never lose it again, one of his hands rising to tenderly wind around your throat, his other hand finding yours so he could lace his battered fingers tightly with yours.

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d expected, but it felt perfect all the same.

Because all that was left was him…

And you.

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