#i hope you dont mind that i used your ask as the daily prompt :^)

[raccoonaday]

I wish to donate 1 🍇 to the raccoons

17: Raccoon Gets a Gift

[sllverchariot]

the rest of our lives [gale dekarios x durge!reader]

my first gale fic hehe theres not enough gale love out there so i am here to provide… if anyone has any prompts or requests pls let me know!!!

not much to say abt this other than durge is sad about being durge and gale is there to help <3

word count: 2.4k

notes: a little angsty, a little hurt/comfort, mostly soft and sweet tho. dont think i used any pronouns for reader buttt i dont remember oops

The water was still, the night was quiet, everything bathed in darkness save for the soft glow of the moon and its reflection on the waters in front of you.

You took quick, shallow breaths as you gazed over the softly rippling lake for a moment, before shutting your eyes tight. The Urge. It felt like it was devouring you. Swallowing you whole. Like you were in the middle of the sea and each time you tried to swim to shore another wave would crash and engulf you completely. It was relentless. Suffocating.

Many of your nights were spent like this. Restless dreams gave way to the even more exhausting waking hours. So many early morning hours spent with your hands balled into fists and jaw clenched while your companions slept, trying desperately to contain the bloodthirsty compulsions that wracked your body.

Everyday you fought against your Urges. Your energy was divided between the daily journey and battles, and keeping your murderous impulses at bay. It was exhausting. And even despite your resistance, every day felt like one step forward and three steps back.

The weight on your shoulders had grown even heavier lately, following an evening spent with your beloved wizard.

An intimate, romantic, yet bittersweet night spent both underneath and within the beautiful cosmic landscape he painted in the sky for you.

You and your companions had just reached Moonrise Towers, making that very first step into the place you’d fought so hard to reach. You didn’t stay long that first day, merely testing the waters and getting the lay of the land. Everyone was already so exhausted by the time you arrived, no one was quite ready to face what lay beyond. Just a quick peek inside before returning to camp, with a misguided hope that a long rest may better prepare you all for the challenges ahead.

After peeling off your armor and washing off the blood and dirt of the day, you noticed the absence of your favorite wizard, replaced instead by a glowing copy.

You approached his likeness, trying to push down the growing feeling of dread in your gut. Your mind always seemed to go to the worst place. Every terrible possibility flitted through your mind as you made your way to the projection. You were always worried about Gale. That feeling was only magnified after the bombshell Elminster dropped on Mystra’s behalf not too long ago. Mystra. Your blood boiled at the very thought of the goddess.

But that evening you weren’t worried about Mystra, not directly at least. You were only worried about Gale, and unraveling the mystery of his absence.

Why wasn’t he at camp? Where had he gone? Had he done something rash? Was he okay?

Every passing thought just served to deepen the pit in your stomach. But as you spoke with his mirror image, the wave of relief that washed over you was so powerful you feared you’d burst into tears on the spot.

You followed the wizard's copy through the woods and into a clearing, where you found the man himself. Your breath caught in your throat as you took in your surroundings. Gale, sat on a blanket beneath the most beautiful night sky you’d ever seen. Hands weaving through the air, as he quite literally hung each star in the sky for you.

That night was more than you could’ve ever dared to hope for. Something right out of a fairytale, your deepest desire that you’d never let yourself imagine becoming reality.

Your beloved Wizard of Waterdeep. Gale. You’d have plucked the sun from the sky if he’d asked you, if it meant seeing that smile that you’d grown to hold so dear.

Even after all of your terrible mistakes, he’d brought you here tonight. Still painted the most beautiful picture in the sky for you. Confessed his love to you in the most gut wrenching way, his voice laced with nerves and uncertainty, as if you wouldn’t already go to the ends of the earth for him. As if there was any universe where hearing those three little words from his lips one single time wasn’t enough to fuel you for the rest of your days.

Even after Alfira. Even after that night where you nearly killed him. Despite all of your evil, he still loved you.

But it was nights like tonight when you almost wished he didn’t. The nights when your Urges felt impossible to fight, and you feared they may truly take over again. You wanted to protect Gale, not hurt him. You wanted to hide him away from every wicked thing this world had to offer, yourself included. To save him from his goddess. To ease his pain, to heal his wounds.

You curled into a ball on the beach, nails digging into your arms, letting the pain be your anchor to reality. You tried to curl into yourself further, as if pushing yourself in would help keep you together. You lie there gasping for breath, face wet with hot tears you hadn’t even noticed were falling.

You were stronger than this. You were more than this. More than your Urges, more than your past, whatever it may be.

You repeated this mantra in your mind until the words didn’t even sound like words anymore, and your consciousness slipped away, letting you drift into yet another restless nightmare.

When you awoke the next morning, in the wee hours just as the sun began to rise, your sweating, trembling form was beneath a soft blanket, and your head atop a cushion. A far cry from the sorry state you’d fallen asleep in.

Beside you, just a few feet away, was Gale.

Sprawled out on his own bedroll, a book lay open across his chest.

You pushed yourself to sit up, letting the blanket fall to your lap as you scanned his sleeping form. The early morning sun illuminating his features in the most beautiful way. He looked so peaceful like this, a stark difference from your own torturous slumber.

Your heart ached at the sight of him. When did he come out here? Why did he stay out here?

You fought the impulse to reach out and touch him, too afraid to risk waking him. But then, as if he could hear your thoughts, his eyes fluttered open.

He blinked a few times as he woke, eyes slowly beginning to make out your form, backlit by the morning sun rising over your shoulder.

Immediately, his lips curled into a smile, gaze softening as he took you in.

Your breath caught in your throat as you met his deep brown eyes, flickering with affection.

“Good morning, my dear.” He said softly, voice still low from sleep. He pushed himself onto his elbows, the book on his chest slipping as he shifted. Your hand shot out to grab it before it hit the dirt. He chuckled quietly, sitting up fully then as you held the book out to him. “It appears I dozed off last night.” He rubbed his eyes, and took the book from you, slipping a bookmark into the pages before setting it down beside him.

“Why… are you out here?” You croaked out, mind swirling with thoughts. Maybe he was here because he was afraid. For himself, for your companions. Maybe he saw your little episode last night and feared you’d do something unpredictable again. Your stomach twisted at these thoughts. If that was the reason, it was perfectly understandable. But that didn’t make the thought hurt any less.

He reached out and took your hand within his own, his warm embrace engulfing you as he gave it a gentle squeeze. “I was worried about you. Thought I might lend you some company.”

“Worried about me? Or worried about what I might do?” The words left your lips before you had time to consider them, and you immediately regretted it. Your eyes went wide, wishing you could take them back right then. But the damage was done. A look of hurt briefly flickered across his features, before his brows furrowed.

“Can’t it be both?” He questioned, eyes full of worry and concern, and your heart twisted painfully in your chest. His other hand came up to cup yours. His warm, gentle hands cradled your cold fingers, with your threatening claws and cuticles bitten raw. “Can I not worry for you when I find you missing from camp? Can I not worry about what you may do to yourself when I can’t see you? Can I not be concerned for you when I find you curled in the fetal position alone on the beach, sweating and shaking with tear stained cheeks and claw marks on your arms?” His hands squeezed yours tighter now, looking at you with pleading eyes. If your heart hadn’t broken before, it most certainly snapped clean in half by now.

Your throat burned as tears began to well in your eyes again, every word drying up on your tongue. You took a breath, and pulled your hands from his.

Before he had time to react, you leaned forward and wrapped your arms around his neck, nearly tackling him to the ground as you buried your face into his neck.

A small grunt escaped his lips at the impact, body tensing for the briefest of moments before melting into your touch, arms circling around to clasp behind your back. You couldn’t hold back the tears now, body shaking with sobs as you clutched desperately onto the fabric of his shirt.

His hands stroked up and down your back comfortingly, his face buried in your hair as he whispered reassurances against your skin. You felt like a blubbering child, unable to hold in your emotions any longer as he held you.

The two of you stayed like that for several minutes, until your wails finally subsided enough that you could breathe again. You looked at him with glassy eyes, your face red and puffy from tears. His gentle expression never wavered, still holding that same gentleness and concern he always exuded.

“I’m sorry,” You croaked, using the heels of your hands to furiously wipe at your wet eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just so– I don’t know. I’m so worried. All the time. I fight so hard, every day. And still I fail to keep the Urges at bay. I don’t want to hurt you, Gale. I can’t. But I’m so fucking scared that I might.” Your voice cracked at the end as you tried to bite back yet another sob. “I love you gale. More than anything in the world. I just want to protect you… From all of the evil that lurks here. Protect you from me.”

His hands came up to cradle your face, forcing you to look at him as the pad of his thumb swiped away the tears gathering in your eyes.

“You needn’t protect me from anything, my love. Least of all you.” He murmured softly, thumb still gently stroking your face as he held it. “I love you more than even I can put into words, even with all the words I know. And I would love you even if you did rip out my heart, so long as you were the one to do it.” A sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaped your lips as he spoke, a smile spread across your face through the tears. “You make me feel whole again, despite everything. All those days locked away in my tower, I’d have spent a thousand more if it meant even one minute with you.”

Your heart was so full you almost felt nauseous. Gale. Your Gale. He meant everything to you. You would do any and everything it took to see him happy, keep him safe. Even if it meant a hundred years of sleepless nights alone in the cold dirt.

You reached a hand out to press against his chest, hand flat against his skin where the orb lay. You could feel the quiet hum of magic buzzing beneath the surface.

“I will fight this Urge. I will fight it to the end even if it tears me apart to try. And I will save you, Gale. I will get this thing out of your chest, I promise you.” You spoke quietly, fingers brushing against his carved skin. “So long as I draw breath, I will fight for our happily ever after.” You looked back up at him with a smile, his own expression mirroring yours, before straightening up and pulling him in for a kiss.

It was far from the first time your lips met his. Since your night in the stars, you selfishly took every opportunity that presented itself to kiss the wizard. But still, every time, your heart beat faster and your stomach fluttered, as though you were a school girl with her crush. Sparks seemed to fly every time, without fail. You had to force yourself to draw away from him, but you would’ve happily stayed like that forever if not for your lungs nagging need for air.

But eventually, you did will yourself to part from him, opting instead to cuddle up against his side as the two of you watched the sun rise the rest of the way.

“How long were you out here?” You questioned, breaking the silence as you peered up at him.

”I’m not entirely sure, actually. I flew into such a panic when I didn’t see you by the fire, that by the time I finally found you I was wide awake. So after I tucked you in and settled myself, I went and found a book to keep me occupied. You were so restless. Your body was convulsing, and your eyes darting around beneath their lids, I couldn’t dare go to sleep anyway. But you appeared to calm when I spoke, so speak I did. But then I realized it’d be awfully embarrassing for you to wake up to me composing a thousand sonnets about my love for you, so I elected to read the book aloud instead.” He patted the hardcover of the book that lay at his side with a nervous chuckle.

Your stomach flipped at his confession, and you wrapped your arms around him a little tighter, burying your face in his chest and inhaling his scent.

”Thank you,” You whispered. “I don’t know what in the Hells I did to deserve you. But I promise to spend the rest of my life showing my gratitude.”

You felt the quiet laugh that rippled through his chest, his hand coming up to stroke your hair. “Careful, I might just hold you to that.”

[hugheshugs]

cinnamon and spice | q. hughes + b. boeser

this one was a request !! i apologize that it took months to get this done but i hope u like it :))

prompts: #18 — "i don't want to break your heart." // #36 — "i'm going to puke on your jersey." // #96 — "how did you find out?" // #100 — "why didn't you tell me?"

summary: you and quinn used to hook up but he ghosts you and you find out you're pregnant. your best friend brock is there to help you until you see quinn again.

pairing: bestfriend!brock x pregnant!reader, babydaddy!quinn x pregnant!reader

word count: 5k

warnings: vomiting, pregnancy things, mentions of alcohol, anxiety.

note: idk how i feel abt this one ahh, its very different from my other fics i think. i also dont think i'll be writing another pregnancy fic bc it took me way too long to write this one !! that being said, i hope u guys enjoy this

taglist: @heatabovejakey @boeswhore @calemakarjuice @pandas-daisy @rainysuitcaseprunegiant @1-800-iluvhockey @trevvorzegras @bbrissonn @drei-mrssvechii @idfan21 @thescooby-gang @owenpowersglasses @owenpowerstapejob @this-is-ally-and-im-confused @inspiredby-ratz-blog* // join my taglist here :)

delivered.

you and quinn were never close. fuck buddies, yes, but you weren't best friends. you guys were sort of always stuck between 'we shouldn't be friends' and 'we shouldn't catch feelings.' it was weird so you both never got emotionally attached to each other.

sure you guys talked, — he texted you before he came to fuck you but that was it.

you guys only used each other for sex. it wasn't until you realized you only let yourself give in to quinn that you figured you may be catching feelings.

a month later, quinn hasn't texted you back. you spent countless days and nights wondering what went wrong, if you did something to make him leave, but you simply couldn't come up with anything. it hurt but you just think that maybe he found someone else to sleep with.

weeks pass by and you start feeling a bit worried. you missed your period and thought it might just be late but it never came. tiredness, nausea, things that were never a problem for you before have been wreaking havoc in your daily life and you're 99% sure you know why.

bundling up, you muster the strength to go out and grab a pregnancy test. you hope you don't feel nauseous on the way there because you definitely aren't going to ask anyone to get it for you.

luckily, the short journey isn't too much of a hassle and you make it there and back home safely. you were smart enough to drink a ton of water before leaving so when you get home, you don't have to wait to take the test.

you feel your heart beating in your head as you shrug your jacket off and shakily walk over to your bathroom, test in your hands. you feel like you already know what the answer is and there's only one person that could be the father. you aren't sure if you're more worried about the baby or telling quinn you're bearing his child.

positive.

your eyes widen, heart leaping in your chest as you throw the test across the room.

"what the fuck?" you ask yourself, running a hand through your hair.

quinn was always serious about protection, which is why you can't think of a single time where maybe you guys somehow just forgot. the condom must have broken or had a hole in it and he just never noticed, but what the fuck.

with a drum beating against your ribcage, you grab your purse and walk out the door with only one thing on your mind.

--

"brock!"

you run towards him, engulfing him in a massive hug the second you reach him. almost as if an emotional wave washes over you, you begin crying into his neck.

"hey, what's wrong?" brock asks in concern, eyebrows furrowing as he holds your shaking body in his arms.

he wasn't expecting to see you, and definitely not right after practice. he was on his way home just before you saw him and he's confused as hell.

you shake your head, unable to answer him at the moment. all you want right now is the support of your best friend. you don't know how you're going to handle everything by yourself and it's too much for you to take in.

"breathe for me, c'mon. take deep breaths, you gotta chill out," he tries soothing you, a hand rubbing your back comfortingly.

it helps. after a couple minutes of him reassuring you quietly in your ear, your sobs turn into sniffles and you pull away from his grasp. with a pounding head, you can't bare to look him in the eyes. what's he going to think of you? how's he going to feel about you sleeping with one of his closest friends?

"what's wrong? you can't just come to me crying and expect me to not want answers," he tells you, lifting your head up with his palms and wiping your tears.

"i—" your voice sounds scratchy and gross, making you close your eyes and take a deep breath before speaking. "can we go to your place please? i'll explain there, i promise."

brock's about to refuse, not about taking you to his place but about you telling him once you get there. he's dying to know what's got you so worked up but he sees the look on your face and sighs, unable to say no.

"alright, let's go."

"yay," you whisper, which makes him chuckle.

he rests his hand on the small of your back as he leads you to his car. looking out the doors of the arena, he sees the pouring rain and takes a double take when he looks at you again.

"how did you get here?"

"i ran."

"in the rain?" he asks in disbelief.

"no, it wasn't raining when i got here. guess i got lucky," you shrug and he rolls his eyes, stopping in his tracks to set his bag down.

he pulls out a hoodie and hands it to you. "you're not getting sick on my watch, little missy."

"can i keep it?" you ask excitedly.

brock bites the inside of his cheek when he sees the grin on your face, the redness of your eyes making it a sore sight.

"yeah, why not?"

--

you need to tell someone. it would be a bad idea not to, no? you can't keep it in for too long, especially when you know you're going to need some help. quinn can't be kept in the dark either, but the thought of telling him about your pregnancy makes bile rise to your throat immediately, so you try to push that thought away as best as you can.

taking a seat on brocks couch, the colour drains from your face when coolie comes to your side and begins sniffing your stomach. you peak over at brock to see him looking through his pantries in the kitchen so you smile and pet the dog beside you.

"i know you know," you whisper. "but you can't tell anyone, okay?"

coolie pauses his sniffing to stare at you and you simply laugh, although your stomach beings feeling even worse. guess you couldn't push away that thought for too long.

brock finally walks over with your favourite snack which only makes you want to gag. milo starts barking loudly from his seat on the ground and you clutch your ears, suddenly feeling sensitive to the sound.

"milo, stop that!"

you shouldn't be feeling as anxious as you are. it's probably bad for the baby but you can't help it. you close your eyes and try taking deep breaths but you can't, forcing you to open your eyes and look at brock.

"i'm going to puke."

his eyes widen but before he can say anything, you run past him. he follows swiftly behind you and brings a fist to his mouth in disgust when he sees you throwing up into his toilet.

he fights back his hesitations when hot tears escape your eyes and you begin coughing as saliva drips out of your mouth. bending down to take a seat, he scrunches his nose at the horrid smell but holds your hair back for you as you continue emptying your stomach.

after a couple minutes, you don't feel anything coming up and you take heavy breaths, leaning back into brock's chest. he uses his hands to brush away the stray hairs that are sticking onto your damp forehead, once again pushing away every thought of disgust that flows through his mind.

"y/n, you need to tell me what's wrong."

"i want peanut butter," you mumble. you start to feel tired, not having eaten much throughout the day and just puking it all out. you have nothing in your system. "with pickles. pickles 'n peanut butter."

brock furrows his eyebrows. "you're a fucking weirdo. c'mon, let's get you cleaned up."

he helps you stand up and thankfully you have enough energy to walk on your own and brush your teeth (using a spare toothbrush of course, not brock's). he lets you do your thing while he goes back to his kitchen to find you pickles and peanut butter.

when you walk out and meet him, you see a jar of pickles set out for you with peanut butter. you grin, taking a seat and digging in. brock stands on the other side of the island and grimaces at the sight.

"mmm, brock, this is so good! you wanna try?"

"no! no, i'm good. i'm perfectly fine standing right over here," he says quickly, watching as milo comes over to sit beside you. something feels weird to him. he senses a change in his pups, noticing that they seem a bit more.. protective of you. they had even been sitting by the bathroom while you were in there puking your guts out.

"you good? you look like you're stressed," you ask with your mouth full.

"why were you crying? you came to find me at the arena and you were crying. you said you were going to tell me what's wrong but you haven't," he gets straight to the point and your heart drops.

"uhm, well.." you swallow the food in your mouth, thinking about how to tell him. "please don't be mad."

"what's that supposed to mean?"

"i'm pregnant."

"you're what?" his eyes bulge and he dashes around the counter. "did i hear you correctly? did you just say you're pregnant?"

"yes! yes, i am but please don't be mad and please don't tell anyone, brock, please."

"i won't tell anyone, i just," he lets out a deep breath, running a hand through his hair as he sits beside you. "who's the father?"

you give him a sheepish look. "pinky promise you won't be mad?"

he rolls his eyes and gives you his pinky. you lock yours with his and look directly at him.

"quinn."

"hughes?"

"who else?"

"i'm gonna kill him."

your eyes widen as brock stands up from his seat, making you rush over to stop him. you grab his arms and hold him in place, making him glare at you expectantly.

"it wasn't his fault—"

"wasn't his fault? y/n, he's been hooking up with girls and you're over here pregnant with his kid! don't fucking defend h— wait, how the fuck did this even happen?"

"listen, i'll tell you everything but can we please sit down and talk it over. i really need your help, that's why i came to find you."

he gives you a reluctant nod and you drag him over to his couch, his eyes softening as he finds you unconsciously resting a hand on your stomach. you both sit down and you tell him everything, from the minute you and quinn decided to be fuck buddies up until now. surprisingly, you aren't in tears by the end, you're just scared and brock can see it. he's so incredibly happy for you but he knows you're young and don't know what to do, which breaks his heart.

"i'm sorry i hid everything from you and i'm sorry i came to you with all this. i just found out about this today," you tell him, gesturing to your stomach. "you were the first person i wanted to tell."

brock gives you a small smile. "i appreciate that. you have no idea how happy i am for you but it's okay to be afraid, you know? i can see that you're unsure of everything but i'm here for you, i promise."

you don't waste a moment pulling him into a hug and he rubs your back soothingly, hoping to ease your tensions.

"i want you to stay with me."

your eyebrows crease at his words and you try pulling out of his grasp but he doesn't let go.

"i need to know you and your baby are safe at all times. please, i don't want you living alone. at least until you tell him," he explains.

"i don't want to be a burden—"

"you're not, you'll never be. you need to understand that i really don't think it's a good idea for you to be pregnant and alone, all i want to do is help you. please."

you nod in the crease of his neck, pulling him closer. "okay. i'll stay."

--

you're 16 weeks pregnant now. your bump is starting to show but it's easily hidden by the endless amount of brock's clothes you've stolen. you've been staying with him like you said you would and it hasn't been the best time but he couldn't be any more understanding.

tonight, you guys are going to a small get together at bo's house. you decided you've waited way too long and you can't keep quinn in the dark anymore so you plan on telling him tonight. he deserves to be given the opportunity to support you and his child if he wants, and you won't blame him if he doesn't want to but he needs to know it's an option.

you've seen him and his girlfriend on social media and to say you're a bit intimidated would be an understatement. she's a model but she doesn't seem the nicest and things look like they're getting pretty serious between the two. at least, that's what brock's been saying, which only makes you feel worse about quinn not knowing.

you get ready and pull on a pair of sweats and one of brock's hoodies. making your way out of your temporary bedroom, brock laughs when he sees you.

"you're really gonna wear my clothes?"

"yeah, is there a problem? i can take it off if you want me to."

"no, it's not a problem. i was just thinking that people might think we're together or something."

you blink slowly in thought, realizing he's right. no one even knows you're living with him, what'll they think when you show up in his clothes?

"i'll just pretend i bought a really big hoodie. no big deal," you shrug. "i doubt they remember this is yours, right?"

"we'll have to wait and find out," he says breathily before opening the front door.

the car ride is silent, other than the soft radio hum in the background and you tapping your foot anxiously as you think about talking to quinn. you don't know how he'll react and you're scared he's going to freak out or get mad at you for some reason.

"you okay?" brock asks, sensing your distress.

"just thinking about quinn.."

"you still like him?"

"mhm," your eyes trail off as you look out the window. "but he's in this perfect relationship and here i am about to screw it up."

"don't say that. it takes two to make a damn kid, you're not screwing anything up. if anything, he screwed it up himself. and if he says or does anything to hurt you, i will personally beat his ass," brock tells you, making you smile at his overprotectiveness.

"i don't know if i want you to beat up my baby daddy," you joke.

"he'll get it if he deserves it," he says as he parks outside bo's.

he sees you eyeing the house carefully and notices your hand shaking a bit. he grabs it softly with one hand and holds your face with the other, forcing you to look at him.

"hey, everything's going to be okay. you know quinn, he's a good guy. it might be a shock to him at first but he'll get over it.. and if he doesn't, you have a whole group of guys in there who'll happily play uncle for your little one. we got your back."

he wipes a stray tear that fell from your eye, your heart melting at his words. you know he's right. no matter how this goes, you have other friends who'll support you no matter what. you nod your head and give him a small smile, he sends you a grin in return. you both make your way out of the car and walk over to the front door where holly greets you instantly.

"hi guys! long time no see, how are you?" she asks happily, pulling brock in for a hug.

"i'm great, you?" he wraps his arms around her and gives you a look, hinting at your stomach.

your eyes widen as you realize she'll feel your belly when she hugs you so when she comes over, you give her an awkward side hug instead. thankfully, she doesn't seem to notice anything and ushers you both into the house.

in the living room, you see a couple of brock's teammates (who are also your friends) and their significant others hanging out. noticing that most of them are drinking, you pray that they don't give you a drink as well, thinking about how you're going to convince them that the girl who never used to pass up a free drink doesn't drink anymore.

conor sees you and jumps up from his seat, making you grab brock's arm. you weren't planning on telling anyone other than quinn about your pregnancy but if people keep trying to hug you it's not going to stay a secret for too long.

"hey, y/n/n! how are ya?" conor asks, standing in front of you. his eyes flicker down to your hold on brock but he doesn't question it.

"i'm good, how are you?"

"i'm great. missed my friend, that's for sure."

you look at him guiltily. "sorry.. i've just been a bit busy."

"no worries. glad you're here now though. c'mon, let's get you a drink."

you hadn't realized the group had quieted down at yours and brock's arrival. each of them waited to greet you but they'd been listening on your conversation and as soon as conor mentioned the drink, it felt like a pin dropped because of the way you remain quiet.

"uhm, i can't.." you squeeze brock's hand, silently pleading for help.

"since when does y/f/n not drink? that's news to me," elias says, making brock chuckle.

"she's my designated driver for tonight. i'm tryna get drunk so she's gonna drive me home, no biggie," brock saves your ass. you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding when everyone drops the case and goes back to their conversations.

"thanks," you whisper as conor retreats.

"you're welcome. now where's quinner.." brock trails off, looking around as you both take a seat on the huge sofa.

"he's probably just not here yet—"

you stand corrected as quinn walks in the room with a girl on his arm. you feel like the whole world stopped. everything around you blurs with him as your main focus and your heart leaps when his eyes meet yours.

you swallow the growing lump in your throat and try forgetting about the feelings you have for him, his girlfriend being an indicator that whatever you once had is over. butterflies consume you, your mind almost mistaking the feeling for nausea as he and the girl take a seat beside you.

you give him a smile but your expression changes when you look down and notice he's wearing a jersey.

you furrow your eyebrows. "what are you wearing?"

"we were running late so i grabbed the first thing i saw," he chuckles, running a hand through his hair. "it's nice to see you."

it's almost pathetic how that simple sentence brings an unwelcomed warmth to your face. "it's nice to see you too. how've you been?"

"good.. great, actually. there's someone i want you to meet," he tells you, looking to his side. he taps the girl on her shoulder and she turns to look at you.

"candice, this is y/n. y/n, this is my girlfriend, candice."

"hi," you wave lightly. "nice to meet you."

she chews her gum aggressively and looks you up and down before meeting your eyes and shooting you a fake grin. "yeah. nice to meet you too."

no words are spoken between you and her after that, for she gives her attention back to holly so they can resume the conversation they were having before quinn interrupted.

"she's a gem.." you say sarcastically.

quinn chuckles. "she doesn't really like meeting new people. anyway, how are you?"

you feel a heavy weight on your shoulders, fidgeting with the hem of brock's hoodie as quinn sits tight for an answer. your throat runs dry and your mind is jumbled with too many thoughts. before you can think of the right thing to say, one stupid sentence comes out of your mouth.

"i'm going to puke on your jersey."

his eyes widen. "what? are you oka—"

he doesn't get an answer because you quickly stand up and walk away, trying your best to hold in your sickness before it spills onto the ground. you don't want to cause a scene by running so you keep a steady pace, tugging conor with you on your way to the washroom.

"woah, you good?" he asks as you push the door open.

you shake your head, bile pooling in your mouth as you push him in and shut the door. taking a seat in front of the toilet, it doesn't take a minute before you're spilling into the bowl. conor gags but reaches over to hold your hair.

you both stay in there for a while and quinn starts to worry. if he wants to be honest with himself, he'd admit that he only came here because he wanted to see you — but not for any reason other than that he felt bad about ghosting you.

he looks over to brock who'd moved to sit beside him. "you think she's okay?"

"huh?" brock asks confusedly.

"y/n, she wasn't feeling well. it's been a while since she left.."

"conor's with her, she'll be fine."

that doesn't help quinn one bit. he hesitates, wondering if maybe the pair are actually hooking up in the washroom, but the sick look on your face flashes in his mind and that thought disappears in an instant.

he stands up and makes his way to the washroom which luckily isn't too far. he enters the hallway and sees the door open, to his relief. taking small steps, he halts as he hears shushed voices.

"what do you mean you're pregnant?!"

"i'm fucking telling you i'm pregnant, conor! how do you think i got pregnant, do you need me to explain conception to you?"

quinn's mouth parts and he raises an eyebrow. you're pregnant? it doesn't click in his mind for even a split second that he might be the father. yeah, he remembers that you both used to hookup but he figures that you would have already told him if he was.

he hears some shuffling and bolts into the laundry room beside him, not wanting to get caught. that definitely wasn't something he was supposed to hear and he doesn't want to upset you.

"well, who's the father?"

he's able to see you and conor standing in the hallway through the crack of the open door he hides behind. he watches as you hesitate and huff in frustration.

"quinn."

"hughes?"

"no," you deadpan, waiting a moment. "yes, quinn hughes! quintin jerome hughes, what is up with men and thinking i didn't fuck quinn hughes? yes, i fucked quinn hughes and now i'm 4 months pregnant with his child, is that. what. you wanted. to hear. conor?"

quinn's face pales as he continues listening to you two bicker like children. it all goes in one ear and out the other as he tries to stomach the fact that he's going to be a father at 22 years old. and four months. you hid your pregnancy from him for four months. those are four months he could have cared for you and his child. he doesn't know how to feel. he shouldn't be mad because after all, he's the one who put you in this situation, but he had the right to know, didn't he?

you both walk away and quinn slowly exits the laundry room, tugging at his hair in frustration and confusion. he feels angry and he doesn't know what to do.

sighing, he makes his way back to the living room and watches as you stand in the kitchen with some of the girls.

it all happens in a spur of the moment.

he walks over to you as quick as he can, grabs your hand and tugs you upstairs to one of the guest rooms, locking the door behind him.

"quinn, you okay?"

"why didn't you tell me?"

his words send a shock to your gut but you think that maybe he's talking about something else. maybe he doesn't actually know and you might just out yourself by saying the wrong thing.

"what do you mean—"

"our baby, y/n. why the fuck didn't you tell me?"

you blink at him, anger raging through your veins in an instant. he sees the change on your face but it doesn't phase him one bit, seeing as he's also engraged at the moment.

"you fucking ghosted me, quinn! do you know how long i've been thinking about telling you? how guilty i've felt about not telling you? i was planning on doing it today but you found out, how the fuck did you find out?"

"well, it wasn't too hard when you were practically shouting it to the world in the hallway downstairs!"

"god, quinn don't fucking yell at me," you grit through your teeth, glaring at him. "it wasn't easy, these past four months have been hell. i dont wanna argue, can we please just talk this out?"

"i don't want to talk, y/n. you hid this from me for so fucking long and now i'm in a committed relationship with someone else! maybe i would have tried to stay with you if i'd known we were having a goddamn family together—"

"i don't want you to be with me because of a mistake—"

"our baby is not a mistake!"

"quinn! we're not even 25 yet, yes, this baby is a mistake. it's not wrong to admit that, you know? just because it's a mistake that doesn't mean i care about it any less!"

both your chests heave as you finish screaming at each other. quinn closes his eyes and tries grounding himself as you start to feel bad about screaming at him. the room quiets down and you bite your lip, heart pounding as you realize you yelled at the man you love instead of having an important conversation about everything.

"listen, i'm sorry. you're probably under a lot of stress and i shouldn't have lashed out on you," quinn apologizes.

your heart grows in size. quinn could mess up in the worst ways possible and you'd go back to him every time. "it's okay, i shouldn't have yelled either. i wanted to have a real conversation but here we are.."

there's an elephant in the room that you both know needs to be addressed but neither of you know how to bring it up. you sigh, taking a seat on the bed and looking up at him. he walks over and takes the seat in beside you as you lean your back on the bedframe.

"i should have told you—"

"no, it's not a big deal, really.. are you showing?"

you give him a small smile. "a little, yeah. the baby's the size of an avocado."

"can i.. um," he hesitates. you know exactly what he wants but you want to hear him say it.

"can i see it? the baby— or, your stomach, i mean."

nodding, you stretch your legs out in front of you and lay down a bit, lifting up brock's hoodie and your shirt to show him your bump.

it wasn't supposed to be emotional but you can't help but tear up when quinn's eyes gleam. you can see that he's overwhelmed with feelings and it makes you think back to the day you found out you were pregnant.

"i know this is a lot. you can take your time to think about it.."

he looks up at you, eyes glossy like yours. "i want to be here for you and the baby, i know that for a fact. i'm not leaving you by yourself."

"are you sure? i've been staying with brock and you might need time to process," you tell him, reassuring that it's okay if he's not ready to commit right now.

"y/n, i'm telling you. you're not going through this alone. this is our baby and i'm here for you both, that's a promise."

"thank you."

"don't thank me.. i should be thanking you. i should have been there to help."

"it's okay. brock makes a pretty good baby daddy," you laugh and quinn smiles.

you both take in each other's prescence for a moment, quinn's eyes flickering back and forth between you and your bump.

"look.. i know you like me. that's the reason why i left in the first place," he tells you. your heart drops but you shrug it off, listening to what he's saying.

"i don't want to break your heart. i want to take care of you but i still want to be with my girlfriend."

you nod, although your heart strains against your chest. "that's alright. i totally understand that, no worries."

"you sure?"

"quinn, i can't force you to like me. maybe if i'd told you about the baby earlier we could have tried something like you said, but i didn't and that's okay. i'm happy you're happy, that's all i ever want."

"thank you."

"you're welcome. but, there's also one other thing i want."

"what is it?"

"a chicken quesadilla from taco bell with extra cheese, and cinnabon delights."

"oh—"

"can you get it for me?"

"why do i need to get it for you?"

"hello, quintin! i'm pregnant with your child, did you already forget?" you ask in disbelief and his eyes widen.

"shit, sorry. that's gonna take some getting used to."

[blubxrryrose]

hi!!! i hope im doing this right haha<3

you can ignore this ofc but if you dont mind could i have a yandere drabble w your favoirte ikevamp character? sorry for the trouble n have an amazing day !!<3 i love ur writing style too hehe!!

Awe thank you so much <3 you requested close enough to my requirements so I’ll do it! ((: my favourite is definitely dazai, so since you said mine I’ll be doing him! If you want someone else then feel free to request again darling! <33

NAIVETY BREEDS MISFORTUNE.

prompts; “please, stay away from me,” + “i’m watching over you because you’re so naive.”

tw; obsessive behavior, stalking, gaslighting, unhealthy relationship dynamics.

remember, these are my interpretations of how a character such as dazai would act as a yandere, and these actions should not, should not be followed in real life or actual relationships. if you do NOT like dark content, do not interact and block my blog.

it was all a blur, after meeting a strange man in a museum you happened to visit one day you found yourself all alone and scared of the new place you now belonged to for the next whole month.

you were confused and scared, but did your very best to hold it in until you broke down, right at your very doorstep. there the man of your nightmares approached you, under the guise of a friendly figure.

every word he said made you feel better, he made you laugh, smile, and forget the worries of staying in a foreign mansion with strangers, almost all with an appetite for blood, or rather blanc and rouge, for lunch.

soon you begun to make your way through the mansion with a daily routine with ease, thanks to him always calming your worries and being there for you. being there for you whether you realised it or not.

in the mornings, afternoon, night, whenever you needed him he was there. it was nearly suspicious and when Arthur commented on it, you chose to believe your friend Dazai, who simply smiled and told you all it was a coincidence, or how he was solely trying to help toshiko.

that should of been your first red flag, or perhaps there were ones before it you’d also ignore, the way he would drag you in close and abruptly pull apart as if keeping you at an arm’s length. and maybe the second red flag was how he nearly seemed happy you were stuck in the mansion until further notice.

after months passed, you finally realised. the only one you spent time with was dazai, not even in public anymore. the only one you talked to was him. the only one you could trust was him, and only him.

you were naive, so how could he let you outside? You nearly chilled yourself to death one night and you must of been so lucky he happened to be out, not following you, and managed to give you his body heat thanks to his good nature!

you trusted too easily, if someone asked you to do something you’d probably do it in a heartbeat, he was helping you he told you. someone could easily take advantage of you and use you, but don’t worry, he would never do that!

the way he smiled soon made your stomach churn as you realised the man you trusted most was likely the biggest monster amongst these vampires. the way he controlled and manipulated with ease, a smile on his face which was once soothing now scared you, causing you to doubt every word he would say.

you’d call for help if you could, but at this point you didn’t know how to leave. you willingly entered his room, but do you just run for it or is there a different way, you wondered. unfortunately for you, you were simply too naive to keep a poker face as realisation sunk in. How misfortunate for you, as your stalker soaked in every feature of your face as always, able to tell everything which ran through your mind with absolute ease, after watching you both from afar and near over the time span of the past few months.

you felt him inching closer as you tried to back away towards the door, a chance that one of those eleven men would be nearby higher than at least zero. “Please, stay away from me.” you tried to shout nearly at the door. however it was to no avail you felt your mouth covered as his long sleeve draped over your mouth, your body was his thrown roughly and body weight tying you to his futon, as he sat atop of you. monstrous strength you could not fight off, and it was so instantaneous. really, you just couldn’t shut your mouth and stay naive when he wanted it?

he sighed as his loose bangs tickled your face, lowering himself down to stare at you, his face nearly inches from your’s. his smile gone, and only a cold, nearly lifeless look in his eyes. although his expression said one thing, the gentle way he caressed your face and said, “do you think I’m doing this because I want too?”, made you nearly want to respond to him with something positive.

however, you knew better, or so you thought as he gently ran his fingers through your hair, his smile returning. “I’m watching over you because you’re so naive,” he continued rambling. was it delusion? did he convince himself this was the truth? or did he know what he was doing was wrong but continued to manipulate you regardless? “This isn’t Japan, this isn’t your time, the people here are dangerous and could easily take advantage of you, (Y/N).”

your name. how long had it been since he used it? it was sort of endearing you thought, you convinced yourself, of course this was your fault. how could you blame someone who was only looking out for you? you were just overthinking it all, and before you even realised it you were already mumbling out a “sorry”, as his smile darkened, fangs ready to enter into your soft flesh any second.

i think yan!dazai would likely be a stalker, with great gaslighting or manipulating skills. he’s obsessive, but keeps things hidden with his smile he has perfected over the years, people easily brush him off as someone having a few whims and doing whatever. he doesn’t get physical, he doesn’t get loud, but the way he manipulates you into apologising to him for his horrible behavior is nearly torture. you’ll always believe he was right at the end of the day, and he will believe he is merely helping you.

you’re naive. you merely need a helping hand he tells himself, a helping hand to navigate the outside world, the mansion, and soon enough just helping you through everything even if you don’t ask because he just knows you need his help!

©blubxrryrose on tumblr. do not repost, only reblog. wanna request? read my nav.

[kookingtae]

falling into you (pt. 8) PREVIEW

pt 1 | pt 2 | pt 3 | pt 4 | pt 5 | pt 6 | pt 7

→scenario: Jungkook’s innocence is like a breath of fresh air in your wild life, and though you know you’re toxic for him, you just can’t seem to stay away.

→genre: college au, slow burn, mutual pining, shy/nerd jk + bad girl oc (mature themes)

→a/n: so i’m not finished with pt 8 yet, since it’s such a climactic chapter it’s taking a bit longer than i anticipated unfortunately BUT i dont want u guys to think ive forgotten about it!!! i know u all are waiting so patiently, and i cannot thank you enough from the bottom of my heart <3 i hope this preview keeps you excited for what’s to come!

Jungkook could never face Y/N again.

God, how could he, knowing that he’d not only finished in five minutes like a pubescent teenager, but also in his pants while she was on top of him?

Embarrassment didn’t even begin to describe the mortification he felt. He’d never wanted the earth to swallow him whole as much as he did in that moment. Sure, he was aware of his slight social anxiety, the way he was constantly looking to bolt from uncomfortable situations—but this was different entirely. This was new territory for him; he’d never done anything remotely sexual with someone else, period, much less with the girl who hung the stars, moon, and sun in his eyes. What was he supposed to do? There was nowhere to escape to in his own bedroom, no running away from his problems that made him uncomfortable. No, he had to stand there with his head down and his crotch dripping wet while he practically begged her to leave. He had never been so ashamed of himself. He had never felt so pathetic.

But then Y/N surprised him like she never failed to do: she’d given him reassurance, another kiss even, while telling him that she actually enjoyed the experience—went so far as to say it was the best in her life. Now he knew she was lying to spare his feelings. Of all the men Y/N had been with, there was no way a virgin cumming untouched in his pants was the best of them. She was cruel to make him believe otherwise, to give him false hope.

He wouldn’t allow himself to think any differently. He couldn’t allow himself to get hurt.

Which was why he made it his mission to avoid her at all costs—something he’d gotten very good at over the past few months, and the past few weeks, specifically.

But in the same way he’d learned from the patterns of her daily routine and used them as a means to remain hidden, she’d also learned his and utilized them to her advantage as well. It was the only explanation as to how he was turning a corner inside the art building (about to take the rear exit, since she usually waited for him out front) and suddenly she was standing right in front of him.

He instantly skidded to a halt, heart rate shooting to astronomical levels and eyes widening on their own accord. “Y-Y/N,” he stuttered out involuntarily, the sight of her causing every single detail of their time spent together to come rushing back to him like a tidal wave ready to wipe him out.

As if he needed another excuse to think about the moment they shared that had changed him forever, about the way her moans sounded in his ear and her body felt on his lap and the way she touched his cheek, his neck, the way her lips felt on his skin, god help him—

Already he could feel the beginnings of a blush start to rise to his suddenly hot cheeks, and he cleared his throat and shifted his weight from one foot to the other to keep from springing yet another boner in front of her.

He slid his books in front of his waist, just in case.

While she usually approached him with the natural ease of self-confidence and charm, today she seemed worried, unsure. She chewed at her lower lip—something he didn’t think she really ever did, as he would certainly remember the way it stirred within him—and looked up at him beneath delicate lashes that framed her eyes.

He didn’t have it in him to keep from outright staring at her beauty.

“I… I missed you,” she finally murmured, and he felt the breath physically whoosh from his lungs to join his butterfly-filled stomach all the way at the floor.

It had been a few days since he’d last seen her, since she’d been in his room that night where they opened up about their past and confessed how they truly felt about one another and shared the most life-altering moment he’d ever experienced. He missed her too, god he missed her. He missed everything about her the moment she left his side—would picture her face in his mind as soon as she left his field of vision. But for some reason unknown to him, she was too kind to him, spared his feelings despite knowing what little experience he had. There was no way he’d be able to satisfy a girl—mentally, physically, emotionally—who could have anyone she wanted. Perhaps she pitied him. Either way, if she wouldn’t put a stop to it, then he would.

Or so he’d try, but alas, nothing ever went according to his plans where Y/N was concerned. And here she was, three simple words mumbled into existence and he couldn’t even remember his own name, much less why he’d been trying to fight this.

She seemed to expect he would say nothing—either that or she’d grown used to his silence—because before he had enough sense in him to even think about responding, she was speaking again. “How have you been?”

The question was asked with deliberate, genuine curiosity and concern; she really wanted to know if he was okay, how he was handling things after what had transpired between them. And no matter how hard Jungkook tried to fight this, fight her, fight himself, he was only human.

And so he stopped fighting.

“I– I missed you too,” he breathed out, and it was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders and relocated to his gut. He tensed at his confession, mentally berated himself for his words even though she’d been the one to say them first. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, what with the way his throat locked up.

Though the second he witnessed the smile that sprang to her tantalizing lips, he felt as light as a feather floating in the breeze.

“You did?” Her eyes lit up, sparkled under the fluorescent hallway lights that still managed to capture all of her beauty despite the unflattering lighting. He didn’t think it was possible for any scenery, not even that of a dull and stuffy university building, to make her appear any less breathtaking than she always was.

“I was so worried after I left last week,” she continued without prompt. The mention of his premature finish had him stiffening in dread, though she didn’t let enough silence fester between her words for the anxiety to claw its way up his throat. “I didn’t want you to beat yourself up. I’ve noticed you tend to be too hard on yourself sometimes.” She glanced up at him with the hint of a sheepish grin dancing on her lips.

Her expression said it all: that’s an understatement.

And this shocked him to his core, because she was absolutely right.

Just how well had she gotten to know him in their time spent together over the last few months? And how? And why?

The last question would always boggle him until the end of time; he would never understand why she was interested in him. Why was he the one she had feelings for, when she claimed she never had feelings for anybody? Though he supposed he could ask himself the same thing: why did he feel things for Y/N that he had never felt for anyone else in his life? And the answer was quite simple, really: because it was her.

He didn’t know what about himself was so special to make him stand out in her mind, and as a result he still couldn’t help but be skeptical, even after her confession. But it wasn’t like he had any choice in the matter on what to do with that skepticism—not when his heart kept leading him back to her.

At some point after her accurate description of the inner turmoil that’s been plaguing his mind, his mouth had fallen open slightly. He couldn’t hide the surprise from his face even if he tried; he was speechless.

Y/N gazed up at him, not seeming in any hurry to rush the conversation along, and for that he was grateful. He’d never met somebody so patient and understanding before—just another reason to make Jungkook’s heart flutter with endearment. And it was no secret to himself anymore that he yearned to be in Y/N’s presence for as long as possible whether he was aware of it or not.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed, you know,” she continued as if she could read his mind, and that was when he realized the way his eyes avoided hers and the fact that his skin was the color of tomatoes must’ve been dead giveaways. “I meant it when I said that was the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.”

Jungkook balked, practically choking on his spit at her forward, shameless words. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to the way she spoke her mind so openly without any fear holding her back. She’d gone through so much in her childhood, in her life—Jungkook not even knowing the half of it, he’s sure—and yet she was still so strong and brave and everything he wasn’t. He couldn’t help but admire the person she was today, despite all the prejudice and judgment he’d held for her when they first met.

He realized now that he was too quick to judge her, to write her off based on rumors and first impressions. He realized now that he was too quick to do that to a lot of people. Just how long had he closed himself off from others based on his skewed, morally righteous perspective? His whole life, if he had to say.

The epiphany that she was physically prying open his third eye with a crowbar, that he was now self aware and changing for the better for her—for himself—hit him all at once.

It was the most frightening sensation of his life, the introvert in him wanting to crawl back into his shell where it was safe and comfortable and dull. But deep down he knew it was also for the best.

“W-why?” He heard himself asking before he knew what he was doing. “Why do you keep saying that?”

He had to know why she insisted on standing by her statement that his mishap was not only hot, but the hottest ever. Why did she insist on lying to him, on giving him false hope? She spoke her mind in every other situation, or at least that’s what he assumed; why did she insist on sparing his feelings in this incident? Was he really that pathetic? Did she pity him that much?

She simply blinked at him once, twice, before: “Because I really like you, Jungkook.”

As if in slow motion, you could visibly see his eyes expand to the size of saucers at your words.

You would’ve found the sight comical had the situation been any different. But the way he continued to disbelieve that you could have feelings for him, that you could be attracted to everything about him despite who he was, despite his inexperience—it made your heart break in your chest. You now knew from where this inferiority complex stemmed—he’d told you himself about his family situation—and if anything, it made you want to rebuild his confidence that much more. He needed to see himself the way you saw him.

But you also didn’t want to overwhelm him, either. And you were more than willing to walk that fine line with Jungkook no matter how long it took.

“So are we on for a study sesh tonight?” You continued nonchalantly, wanting to return things to normalcy for him as much as possible before he ran away mid-conversation as he’d done so many times before. You wanted to ease his self-doubt so he’d stop avoiding you—like he’d been doing the past few days—as much as possible.

Jungkook blinked as if trying to adjust from the whiplash of your subject-change. “U–uh… if you want?”

“Of course I want to,” you replied without missing a beat, not caring how desperate you seemed so long as he didn’t question where you stood. You took a step forward, unable to help the intangible, magnetic draw you felt to him as you gazed up at him beneath your lashes. “That is… if you want to.”

You watched in agony as a gulp slowly raked its way down his throat.

“I–” his voice was hoarse before he cleared his throat. “I uh, can’t tonight. I have to study for math.”

You weren’t even sure how one studied for math, but you weren’t about to question the expert. “That’s fine! We could… do it tomorrow?”

Jungkook chewed at his bottom lip, an action he always did when he was internally struggling with something before he finally nodded his head yes in a slow, hesitant manner. “N–not in my room though,” he added as an afterthought, and when your gaze snapped to his he had a pleading expression in his eyes.

A mix of emotions rolled through you. On one hand, you were horrified at the possibility that he thought the only reason you wanted to study again was so that you could get in his pants. Which—okay, you’re not going to lie, you would love to have a repeat of last week—but that definitely wasn’t why you wanted to see him. He meant more to you than just a means to get off, which was what you’d thought of flings in the past. You didn’t want him to be just a fling, though.

You didn’t want to think of the meaning behind that fact right now, either.

But on another hand, you understood where Jungkook was coming from. Maybe it was because you’d studied him enough over the past few months to learn some of his behavior (for once you finally saw the appeal of studying), so you knew that level of intimacy was probably extremely overwhelming for Jungkook and he needed a moment to step back. Hell, it was even overwhelming for you, and that was saying something. Never had your senses, your heart, your body, your soul been attacked like that with such an abundance of emotional pleasure, and you hoped with all your might that Jungkook was feeling the same—that that was the reason he needed a breather from being alone with you, and not the fact that he just didn’t want to be intimate with you.

Unless…

Oh god, had you misread the situation entirely? Had Jungkook hated everything about that night?

Suddenly you were feeling sick to your stomach. The thought of you misunderstanding his confession—or worse, him changing his mind completely—made you want to escape to a dark and desolate stairwell and cry in the hidden nooks of the windowsill again; the irony that not only would you be pulling a Jungkook by escaping mid-conversation, but that the stairwell was also the place the two of you had your first real conversation, wasn’t lost on you.

“M–my roommate is staying in, studying for finals.” The sound of Jungkook’s voice was like a breath of fresh air whooshing into your lungs after almost drowning underwater. You blinked out of your inner turmoil, focusing on him. “So he’ll be there, i–in my room, this whole week.”

And suddenly your heart was warming with relief, hope, appreciation, like flowers blooming in the spring after a torrential downpour. Just when you thought you had him figured out, this enigma of a boy continued to surprise you. It was usually easy for you to hide your emotions—you’d been doing so for years, always wore a mask around others so that they couldn’t see the real you—and yet somehow, Jungkook must’ve sensed them anyway. He sensed the doubt, the pain, the fear that you vowed never to cage you crawling up your throat and threatening to consume you whole, and he eased it. He didn’t want you to misunderstand him. He wanted to reassure you.

If anything, that was just a testament to how Jungkook had broken down your walls—how much you had let him in, how well he was able to read the emotions you wanted to keep hidden. Your mask had begun to break, the real you showing through the cracks, and Jungkook was still standing here. He hadn’t run away.

You fought the urge to grab him and slam your lips onto his.

“Not in your room, then,” is all you managed to breathe out beneath a fluttering smile.

[7wanderingpaws]

let's have some gentle fun - m

Dedicated to anyone who is left thirsty after Drown; there is a sprinkle of Disappear as well, so beware.

This is written especially for @to-all-the-stories-i-love​ thank you so much for your support and I really hope you will like this oneshot! I apologize for the wait dear ❤

Word count: 7K

 🛑 This one shot contains explicit mature content and alcohol consumption. Please do not read if you are uncomfortable with the themes or under 18 (also dont listen to Drown then). Thank you!

You had seen them a couple of times in the club. Their swaying bodies, his wandering hands and her obnoxious roll of hips couldn’t go unnoticed by anyone. Well, anyone who didn’t look particularly close (unlike you had been doing for the past hour). 

Despite the loudness of the music, you always thought you could hear people’s conversations in the dark room full of dancing bodies. It was most probably a defect caused by your occupation but you never minded - the frustration of customers when you couldn’t hear their orders over the deafening house music was something you wanted to avoid at all costs and you did. You were thankful until now. Hearing their (imaginary) conversation did you little to no good.

Before you could purse your lips in distaste, someone elbowed you, effectively gaining your attention. “Huh? What?”

Your co-worker and the owner of the club, Jiyong, smirked, shaking his head. The tattoos littering his skin were shining brighter tonight. “Troubles in love land?”

You scrunched up your nose, pretending to be oblivious. Pretending. It was second nature almost. “Dunno what you’re talking about, dragon,” you replied quietly but loudly enough for him to hear you. He was mixing drinks, preparing them on the tray that you were supposed to bring to that cursed table with half of your “friends”. What were friends anyway?

“You need to resolve this unknown issue then,” advised Jiyong, grabbing a whisky. When you noticed where he was pouring it, you gasped, reaching out to hold his arm. He shot you a questioning look. “Huh? What is it?”

“Why are you pouring it into the coffee? Who the hell ordered coffee?” It was a freaking night club.

Jiyong only chuckled and winked your way before proceeding to pour the whiskey into the small cup of espresso. “I’m pretty sure it’s your table.”

Oh.

Looking behind your shoulder, you noticed some of your friends laughing at the VIP section. They didn’t know you arrived at your shift and took over their orders. But now, you were getting a hunch about who ordered the weird combo.

“Here,” Jiyong brought you back to planet Earth. “You need to do something with that stare of yours, really,” he commented before moving on to the next orders. “I’d piss my pants were I to be on the receiving end of it. You’re scowling.”

You gasped and snatched the tray skillfully, throwing him an offended frown which only prompted him to chuckle. You were marching towards the table of your friends.

They all welcomed you with cheering but you knew better than that. It was just a clout; some way to make you feel like you were cool and important before they would quickly forget about your existence. You made sure to ask out loud (while smiling) who wanted which drink until only coffee was left and you had to face the inevitable.

She was sitting on his lap from sideways, which you thanked all the club gods for, because nobody wanted to see her straddling him. Well, you didn’t for sure.

Baekhyun smiled at you kindly, his eyes following your movements the entire time despite having a beautiful chick sitting on his thighs. Gulp. Those thighs.

“Thank you,” he made sure to say, when you stood up to your full length. Shooting him a very pressed, almost painful smile, you nodded once, accidentally meeting his gaze that you thought was not on you any longer.

You were wrong. But were you wrong as well when you always felt electricity curse down your veins whenever you would look at each other? Was the attraction just from your side? Why was he so hard to approach yet so easy to talk to once you actually managed to spike up a conversation?

Right. Your friends always snatched him away. While he was the center of the circle, you were the edge; the misunderstood one yet always invited. Doing chatty-chats with the famous ones in the circle of your friends seemed to be hard because if they didn’t really vibe with you, they’d made sure you could feel it. Baekhyun not once did, yet his apologetic smiles whenever someone wanted to talk to him when he was about to start a conversation with you, hurt more than any of your other friends’ attitude.

Reciprocating his stare a little longer, you finally turned, thinking he would be paying attention to the pretty lady on his lap. Yet again, you were wrong. He was looking even when you were far gone and back to the bar to continue your shift.

-

He was your neighbor, too. How damn lucky. Living on the same floor should have been a blessing; the best news for someone with a crush as crazy as yours, but it was anything but. 

Hearing him bring his girlfriend home, hearing them do stuff made you sick in your stomach but you never said a word. If anything, you were glad at least he could have a certain someone with whom he could spend the intimate times with.

You, on the other hand, weren’t so open. Despite working in a club, you rarely ever let another man touch you or agree to their invitations; you did receive many of them on a daily basis but club was a workplace for you and certainly not your kind of fun. Of course, pretty much every one of your friends had the misconception that you were wild and had banged half of the town given your curves, the way you dressed those curves and sending convincing, confident smiles. You were pretty sure Baekhyun believed in them, too, and it made you sad for some reason. If there was one person you didn’t want to think you were promiscuous or too open-minded, it was him.

Currently, it was eight in the morning when you were just typing in the code to your apartment. A small headache and swollen ankles made you want to pass out on bed, too tired after work. Just when you were about to close the door behind you, someone called out your name before you heard rushed steps.

Quickly opening the door and recognizing the voice, you felt your heart skip a beat when you noticed Baekhyun on your doorstep.

“Hey,” he smiled, somewhat sheepishly. He was in his work attire - very, very handsome suit. He wasn’t wearing a jacket over the dress shirt which made you momentarily distracted when you stared at the way the textile stretched over the broadness of his shoulders. The necktie seemed so thin compared to the vastness of his shoulders.

Bringing your eyes back to meet his, you caught a smirk and you quickly cleared your throat. “Hey. What’s up? You’re up early.” Oh god, you knew he was heading to the company, why would you say such nonsense?

He let out a breathy laugh. “Yeah, just in time to catch you,” he winked and your heartbeat became erratic. “Could you please lend me baking soda?” Your eyes widened in surprise and he added: “I mean- if you have. I forgot that I don’t have one but I already started on the cake.”

It took you exactly three seconds to overcome your surprise and nodded hastily, opening the door wider for him to come in. “Sure, sure. Don’t stand outside, what will people think, huh,” you added sarcastically which earned you a snort in return. You took off your trainers and rushed to the kitchen, meanwhile thinking where the hell you had baking soda. It’d been a while you used your kitchen for its actual purpose.

“Nice flat,” Baekhyun commented, looking around with curiosity.

You smiled to yourself while you opened a cabinet. He was living in the middle unit of the corridor and those were the priciest of apartments in the building. The side ones were for poorer people, like you. The fact that he still had the need to compliment your small but cozy apartment made you feel warm.

“I like how you wisely use up the space,” he continued, eyeing the small, dark green couch that had a cream-colored carpet in front of it. You liked to bury your feet into the fur while watching tv. “You have an eye for design.” He stood now next to you and it made you momentarily freeze.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, not looking his way. “I prefer to think twice about what I’m spending my money on.”

Baekhyun smiled, endearment visible but not to you. When it came to him, you didn’t want to admit to anything you saw, for it could be just a product of your desires.

“I like that,” he said in a lower tone and this time you made sure to keep searching despite electric shocks spiking through your heart. “There is so much more to you than it meets the eye.” He looked around your kitchen, pushing his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “I feel like you’re so much more interesting than you ever let on.”

Baking soda. Finally. Grabbing the package you handed it to him with a triumph. “You could hardly know when you’re so busy with your own, uh, stuff.” When Baekhyun didn’t accept the package, you pushed it into his chest. “Not like half of you all care, anyway.”

Baekhyun messily grabbed the package, almost dropping it as he tried to save the situation. “No, that isn’t the truth. Of course we care-“

You giggled. “You’re so cute. Of course I don’t mean it!” you exclaimed, faking a genuine smile. “I have a man hiding in the closet so...“ you said, wanting him to be out of your apartment already. Bad decision.

“You have a what?” he frowned, confused.

Licking your lips, you raised an eyebrow. “You heard me. Go before your precious lady needs to wait for you any longer. Not that I’m throwing you out of the house-“

“You have a man here?”

Both of you were quiet now. He was staring into your eyes, something so hard for you to decipher flashing in those deep orbs. His eyes seemed almost black, swallowing up every light that dared to enter including you.

“It’s what you all think about me, isn’t it?” you mumbled quietly. “That I bring men home, that I’m the quiet before the storm. I know that’s what you all say behind my back. I’m just living up to your knowledge.”

Baekhyun’s face became unreadable. His features evened out. “Way to ruin the mood.”

You laughed. “Whatever mood you’re talking about-“

He stepped closer, silencing you right away. “I know people are judgemental fucks but I would have always said otherwise about you.”

“Meaning?”

He gave you a lopsided smirk, not reaching his eyes. “I can hardly judge you when I know so little about you. I never believe those rumors and you shouldn’t give a damn either. If anything, you’re the most intriguing among our friends.”

He couldn’t tell, but breath hitched in your throat from the way his eyes were drinking you up, their intensity burning every sane thought you could produce. “Then why do you always yield to those friends? We had many chances to talk. But it wasn’t me who always turned around at the last moment.”

The tension was almost palpable when you were looking up at him.

He didn’t reply and you realized the headache you were gifted with today. Sighing tiredly, you smiled up. “Whatever. Don’t answer that. Go. I bet your girlfriend is waiting.” When he didn’t move, you snorted a laugh. “Why are you even baking at this hour? You’ll be late to work.”

Only after that he let out a sigh and made a few steps backwards, watching you. “My girlfriend is my secretary. Thought I’d surprise her with a cake.”

And the mood was dampened yet again. Pressing your lips together, you nodded, crinkling up your eyes to show him you were smiling instead of dying. “What a wonderful employer you are. Bet she’ll be loving it.”

“What’s your favorite cake?” he asked curiously as he backed all the way to the door where he stopped, making you groan inwardly again. He pursed his lips, staring you down and causing goosebumps on the back of your spine. “I’d say you're a raspberry cake person.”

“Raspberry?” you scoffed but laughed nonetheless

He hummed, his eyes becoming droopy as he observed you without a word.

Swallowing, you breathed. “Care to explain yourself?”

Slowly, the side of his lip stretched up in the most flirty way you’ve ever seen on him and you swore you felt something move inside you. “Maybe one day.”

He turned around and raised his hand with the baking soda packaging, shaking it. “Thanks for this!”

You watched him enter his unit but not before he looked back at you. Waving one last time, he disappeared inside, leaving you with a wildly beating heart and a very bothered mind.

-

He broke up with her. You knew for a while when there was barely any movement in his apartment (not that you eavesdropped!) and then the small gossips began in your friends’ circle.

This was just another gathering, another evening full of fake smiles and small talks because you couldn’t win yourself more than that; an actual deep conversation. Baekhyun was absent but someone said he was on his way which, to your dismay, made your heart beat wildly in your chest. Quickly gulping down the whiskey, you made a face but didn’t follow it up with a soft drink.

“It was a bad break up,” you heard from the girls chatting nearby. “But it was him who let her go. She cheated on him with the CFO.”

Your heart involuntarily dropped at the information. Who, in their right mind, cheated on such a gorgeous man like Byun Baekhyun?

“She wanted him back but Baek was adamant. I guess he is truly a man of his words. I wonder who will be the lucky one next? Just imagine fucking hi-“

Thankfully your phone vibrated just in time. Quickly fishing out your phone, you saw a couple of text messages from Jiyong.

sorry to bother you sweets i’m short on staff tonight pls save me by coming in? u won’t have to work during holidays promise

Weirdly enough, you couldn’t have been more happy to get out of the suffocating atmosphere. At least you had the needed push of whiskey and with a fairly good mood could stand up and bid farewell to everyone, though they didn't care much.

Just as you were about to leave the restaurant, Baekhyun entered. With a single glance, he pinned you to your place because as the wind blew from the outside and his coat fluttered around, while his hair was messily falling into his dark orbs, you forgot how to breathe.

“Yo, Baekhyun’s here! Finally, man!”

The shouts were coming from your table while none of them even bothered to call out to you.

Smiling softly, you mumbled a hi before reaching for the door he was still holding open before you felt his arm grab yours swiftly, turning you to look at him. He seemed out of breath.

“Where are you going? I just arrived.”

“I’ve got a last minute plan. They need me at the club tonight,” you replied, pressing another smile while trying hard to control your frantic heart. You became all too aware of his touch on your arm but he wasn’t about to let go for whatever reason. “They’re waiting for you, Baek,” you added quietly when the shoutings weren’t subsiding.

Baekhyun didn’t spare a single glance at his friends when he took your hand and led you out of the restaurant. “Let me drive you. It’s already late.”

“No, it’s fine, really-“

“I insist,” he chuckled, swiftly pushing aside your protests. “It wouldn’t have been fun without you there anyway.”

You wanted to stop and stare at him but you decided against it. He was affecting you too much and you could already feel your trembly hands because he was still holding you.

“They just talked shit behind my back, didn’t they,” he asked, sounding more like a statement, and with one last squeeze let your hand go. He pushed his hand into the pocket of his coat and you couldn’t help but swoon at how handsome he was despite being after a break up and a possible heart ache.

You decided to keep quiet in means to communicate the answer. Baekhyun was smart so when he snickered, you knew he got the message.

His black Audi was parked just by the curb, looking like the horse of the dark knight, easily becoming one with the night. Baekhyun opened the passenger’s door for you, but you almost instantly froze when he stood a tad too close to your body, your face right next to his neck as he covered your entire being with his. He gave a pointed look to your short skirt and you understood, while growing a little warm at his thoughtfulness.

Those couple of seconds while he rushed around the car to sit next to you were a little delirious. The way your hand was still burning up from his touch, feeling like you’d been caressed by love itself. The quietness of his expensive car, the smell of the leather mixed with a small hint of forest, the way it felt so comfortable to sit in it with the seat set low and making your legs so high. The way all the sounds were blocked out and nobody could see inside given the tinted windows. All your senses were high on alert and when you heard the opening of his door and him swiftly sitting down and adjusting himself behind the wheel, you felt your throat go dry just a little bit.

You didn’t realize your mouth was slightly open, lips gently parted before the man himself turned to you with a cheeky smile.

To save yourself you quickly blurted: “What a lovely car you have here, Baekhyun!”

Baekhyun let out an amused laugh as he buckled himself with one hand, while his other one fumbled with the radio. He shot you a look. “Thanks. I’m quite proud to have it, not gonna lie.

“It suits you,” you added, and let out a little oh when he pressed the button and the car came to life. “I always thought you’d be a black car kinda guy.”

He shot you a curious look before looking back at the traffic as he tried to make a turn to the main road. “What does that mean, missy?”

You giggled at the nickname and you heard him heave out a low chuckle too. “Just a thought. Nothing much.”

He hummed, entertained, when a comfortable silence enveloped the inside of the car. “I will take that as a compliment.”

“Yeah,” you breathed, trying to focus very hard on the world outside instead of his leisure stance on the driver's seat; left hand preoccupied by the wheel while the other casually rested between the two of you. “You should.”

You said it so quietly you genuinely didn’t think he would hear it. Leaving you in the utter obliviousness, Baekhyun heard your voice loud and clear but didn’t acknowledge it. To the ever-so soft spoken you, he always was ready to listen, ready to get to know you. Just like you had trouble keeping your stares to yourself, he wasn’t anything different; that darned short skirt hiking a tad too high on your thighs for him to keep his cool. Your legs seemed endless in the passenger seat of his car and he never wanted to pull over this much in his life.

Heaving out a sigh, he said: “Mind if I join for a bit? I think I need a drink,” he told you once he stopped at the curb, the streets yet to be filled up with party people.

Shooting him a look while you unbuckled your seatbelt, you nodded: “Sure. Will that be okay, though?” You nudged your chin towards him. “You’re driving.”

Baekhyun smiled and automatically reached out, tapping your knee gently. “Don’t worry, I have my ways.”

You sprung out of the car, breathing heavily because god damn, did he just touch you? You. Wanted. More.

It didn’t take you long to prepare for the shift, Jiyong basically squeezing the life out of you for saving him at the last minute. “But shit, who is that dude with you?” he asked quietly in awe when you were standing at the other side of the bar, sneakily watching Baekhyun sip his drink. He was standing out, still being in his work attire - a gorgeous striped suit, with his long Burberry coat and almost white hair lusciously licked back, having only a few strands obscure his handsome forehead. He didn’t look like he came clubbing for sure. But he certainly looked like a good time after clubbing.

You tried to keep your saliva back. “He is just a friend.” You cringed at the sentence. “He broke up with his girlfriend recently, so he might get shitfaced soon.”

That was what you genuinely believed in. Why else would he come with you if not to drink away his hurt emotions?

Jiyong threw you a quizzical look. “You know, you can be super oblivious sometimes.”

“What are you talking about?”

He smirked. “That man kept eyeing you up and down ever since you entered my club. I was worried he’d start drooling all over the floor.”

You rolled your eyes. “As I said,” you pressed skeptically, “he broke up with his hot assistant. There is no way someone like him would want someone like me.“

Jiyong nudged you, not giving two damns about your worries. “Make him forget her then.”

“What?”

“C’mon, sweets,” purred Jiyong confidently, always the one up for a game, “ease up a bit, have a glass or two and make him forget. He definitely wants to forget.”

You stared at him, wondering, imagining and then ending up finding the idea ridiculous. Baekhyun would never give in to your advances even though they would be completely honest, be it intoxicated or not. The idea of kissing him sent shocks down your body.

“Whatever. Let’s see what the night brings,” you murmured when you accidentally caught Baekhyun’s eye. The warm, wide smile he gave you in that instant could heal all the illnesses. Could you cure him, though?

-

“Baek, just head home,” you told him two hours later. He was patiently waiting for something that you didn’t know about, his drink long forgotten. He wasn’t even tipsy when he looked at you with wide, bright eyes.

“I’ll wait for you,” he told you gently.

You looked confused. “Listen, there is no need. I still have work to do and-“

He ran his hand over your forearm, bringing goosebump up. “I really don’t mind though. I want to take you home.”

The way he was looking at you… it was all so surprising and telling a story by itself. He bit his lip when you didn’t reply and you still refused to believe that spark of want in his eyes. “Hm? Unless I’m bothering you, in that case…” he retreated his hand quickly and you were fast to shake your head and grab it back. You rested your hands on his thigh, wanting to irk him. Baekhyun instantly smiled. “I take it I’m not bothering you?” he teased.

You sighed. “If this is because of your ex…” you trailed off and at the mention of his secretary, Baekhyun puckered his lips in distaste.

“It isn’t about her. The spark was gone a long time ago.” He observed you and seemed like he wanted to add more but he decided against it.

You nodded and squeezed his soft hand. 

“Okay,” you mouthed and turned to the bar while sliding your hand off his thigh, catching Jiyong smiling down at the cocktails he was mixing up.

Out of nowhere, you felt a hot breath on the shell of your ear with a hand on your waist, momentarily shocking you. “This isn’t a joke but you look fucking hot while working, you know.” Baekhyun’s soft lips tickled you and you wanted to shake off the feather-like feeling. 

You turned your head and saw his expectant eyes, a small smirk stretching his lips that he just sexily licked.

Did. He. Just. Say. That.

“I mean it,” he said louder over the music. He made a point when his eyes travelled lower, the way your shirt hugged your chest and then you skirt doing little to no job of hiding your beautiful curves that Baekhyun seemed to feast his eyes on. He didn't like that you had to dress like this for work, but right now he was confident he was allowed to stare.

You grew hot within a second. Hot and very, very bothered. You leaned in to him and his attention was back to your face. “Baekhyun,” you murmured, “if you were words on the page, you’d be a fine print.”

Within one second, Baekhyun was laughing loudly, quickly covering his mouth when he couldn’t contain his giggles. You leaned back when you heard the tray with the cocktails being put on the bar, ready to be served. “I mean it,” you winked and turned away, taking the tray and going back to work, feeling his eyes following your every move. You noticed the way the tray was shaking because- did you just use a silly pick-up like with him? Either way, you felt incredibly proud for making him laugh like that. As if the sun suddenly made its appearance in the underground club.

The remaining time you spent incredibly conscious of Baekhyun’s following gaze. You caught him chatting a lot with Jiyong which kind of made you happy because Jiyong, despite looking the opposite of Baekhyun, was one of your good friends that never left you hanging.

Soon, you went over to the side of the bar and Jiyong pushed a shot of vodka into your hand. “Go home early. Don’t let him wait any longer,” he told you, and watched you gulp down the burning liquid. “Both of you are making the pressure go up in my club and I don’t want any explosions here. He is basically eye-fucking you.””

You frowned in amusement and handed him back the empty glass, electric waves cursing down to your core at his last sentence. The liquid support was very much needed because Baekhyun was screaming sex even when he looked like the most polished gentleman in the house.

“Baek,” you walked quickly over to him when you changed back to your previous outfit. He turned on his seat, facing you with full interest. “Take me home then.”

The way you said the words; he got the secondary meaning. He licked his lips, looking for a moment at your own pair before taking your hand in his and bidding a quick farewell to the smirking Jiyong.

You were out within a minute. It was only past 2am but you never felt this free and ready to call it a night with him by your side. You expected a heavy make-out session right outside in the fresh air. But when he simply walked the both of you to the car and opened the door for you, you felt a tinge of disappointment.

It was during the quiet, tense car ride that you realized you must have read too much into the situation. God, you so badly wanted to take up on Jiyong’s idea; make Baekhyun completely forget he ever was with that secretary of his, but would he want to? 

“Thanks a lot for the ride,” you murmured when you arrived at your floor. He would go to his own apartment and you’d go to yours. Easy. Painless. Maybe once you’d close the doors, you’d feel like complete shit, but you still kept your kind stance up.

Baekhyun ran a hand through his hair. “Gladly,” he breathed when the both of you stopped walking from the elevator.

You looked up and noticed his droopy gaze on you. “Thank you for waiting for me,” you added to lengthen the time you had with him.

He shook his head, staring at you. “Don’t mention it,” he murmured, somehow distracted.

In that moment, you braced yourself. Now, or never. One last try. 

Stepping closer to him, you murmured. “I can make you forget about everything, you know.” You took his hand, playing with his long fingers. They would surely make you feel good.

“If I let you,” he said without hesitation, “I can’t guarantee I will behave,” he growled your name and you might have grown wet.

“You want to bet who will be naughtier?” you quirked an eyebrow in a challenge.

“Fuck,” Baekhyun let out and he grabbed your face, slamming his lips onto yours. You were taken aback for a mere moment before taking his face in your hands, feeling how smooth his skin on his cheeks was. Baekhyun was anything but soft though. He was biting and cheeky and daring when he forced his tongue into your mouth, making you moan. He made out with you dirtily in the corridor until he pressed you against the wall next to the door to your apartment, his knee pressing up your womanhood while he sucked on your neck as you melted in his embrace.

It took almost five minutes until you were finally inside the apartment.

It was another couple of minutes until he fell on the top of your bed with a huff, his eyes wide when you started to take off your clothes slowly. Your erratic heartbeat was making you giddy, or maybe it was the excitement from having his usually soft, kind eyes, now wildly set on your curves that he seemed to like so much.

“Now, baby boy,” you purred, stepping closer when you were just in your underwear. He followed your every move, and almost flinched when you touched his cheek. “If you dare to moan, you ain’t getting any tonight. How’s that?” you asked him, trying to grasp on every sober emotion that was still left in you, but it was difficult. You were so intoxicated by his still too-well put together look. You wanted to devour him.

Baekhyun slowly raised an eyebrow and it made you feel things. He hummed, observing you for a moment before wordlessly reaching for your hip, his hand landing exactly on the panty line. “As long as I get to touch.”

“You won’t get to do that either, if you as much as squeak. Do you hear me, Mr Byun?”

“Jesus- fuck, that’s to hot,” he groaned. “Let me add a little more fun to your game. If you moan,” he licked his lips and made a point to look at your chest, ”I will destroy you.”

Not realizing how harshly you were breathing by then, you nodded, the urge to get rid of your soaked panties big as you went to straddle him. Just as you were about to move though, you stopped. “Strip for me, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun looked surprised for a moment before smirking. “You sure, pretty?”

“Solid.”

Baekhyun took an eternity and you knew he was playing with you, teasing you. With every button he undid and with it showed more skin, you grew relentless. He stood close to you and when he was reaching the last button, he leaned in to you, kissing your neck sweetly, almost like a secret promise, that was followed with a sensual lick. You quickly grabbed the shirt and slid it off his wide shoulders. “Now the jeans. And the underwear has to go, too,” you said resolutely and he laughed gently.

“You are like a tigress. Don’t get surprised if I stand tall and proud for you, baby,” he winked at you and you wondered just for a moment about what he meant when he did just what you asked, his member springing free and looking very excited.

Daring to take a step back, you looked and swallowed. You made sure to let him know that you looked. His body was sculpted, wide chest and shoulders, prominent pectorals with even more prominent serratus muscles that made his chest even wider and very much ripped. His lean waist and stomach with fading six pack made you salivate until you took in his member. You sucked your lips in and pushed Baekhyun back on the bed, his smirk growing in anticipation.

“Won’t you undress for me?”

“You don’t deserve it just yet,” you replied absentmindedly and when he rested his back against the headboard, you dived. Without any warning, you grabbed the meaty thighs and lowered your head, tasting him. Baekhyun flinched and he let out a grunt as his hips almost automatically bucked up.

As you licked your way up to the tip, you muttered: “Don’t you dare moan. And keep these naughty hips in check for me.”

Excitement was cursing through your veins and you prayed your shakiness wouldn’t show too much. You licked up and down a few times before taking the tip in your mouth and slowly bobbed your head, feeling how he was now fully erected. Making sure you were letting out appreciative hums, you looked up and Baekhyun was gnawing on his bottom lip, his hand inching closer to your hair. “C’mon, grab me. I like it rough,” you told him and he didn’t waste a second with grabbing your hair and pulling on it. You hissed and dived deeper, feeling the prominent vein on the flat of your tongue, his tip gently scratching the back of your throat. It didn’t do you no harm though, and with every movement of your head, you went lower and lower until your eyes were teary. Coming back up, you swirled your tongue around the tip while your hand pumped him sensually, making sure he would be at the end of his wits.

Baekhyun was grunting but he didn’t dare to make more of an explicit sound, given his other hand was clasped over his mouth, his eyes now closed in pleasure. He looked divine and way too comfortable.

Deciding to make it a little harder for him, you grabbed his balls and massaged them gently, knowing it was the ultimate way to make him lose. But you were surprised when Baekhyun pushed you away out of nowhere, and he was now on top of you, his face flushed red, and his eyes so wild and dark he could eat you up. 

“How can this game be fair if I don’t get to play my part?” he muttered in a deep, throaty tone which made your womanhood twitch.

“Wha-“

You gasped when you felt his fingers at your lower lips as he quickly pushed the crotch of your panties aside, the index and fourth finger spreading them apart and letting the dominant middle finger press on the sensitive bud, your mouth opening in a silent moan. Baekhyun was looking carefully, your every move, your every breath detected by his attentive eyes and ears.

“Let’s see how long you’ll last, baby,” he murmured and his hands slid up your thigh, massaging them, the one that fingered you spreading your wetness over your skin. With every touch of his, he raised goosebumps and you found yourself on your elbows. He smirked at you and slowly spread your legs wider before he winked and leaned in. He kissed you on your lower lips, your head instantly falling backwards, and he sucked gently, making out with your womanhood.

You sighed louder and he quickly looked up, letting you know he heard you well. You giggled and pressed your lips together to prevent any unwanted sound leaving your mouth.

“Keep these wide open for me, alright?” He purred, using the voice you used with him before, and then his tongue came into the game; you just knew you would lose. You weren’t bad at giving blow-jobs (or so you thought) but Byun Baekhyun was eating you out like a madman. His tongue licked you up and down before he teased your entrance with it, collecting all your wetness. He hummed and groaned while his nose was pushed in the pubic bone as his tongue swirled and aroused you even more, licking every corner he could reach.

Your elbows became weak and you fell on your back, one of your hands grabbing the bed sheets in a strong grip while the other went to the back of Baekhyun’s perfectly brushed hair. He moaned again when he felt you pull on it, and you found yourself pushing his face more into you. His tongue complied and dove into your hole, poking inside as he lapped up all the juices around.

An earth shattering, deep moan left your throat, your weak mind forgetting about any silly game you came up with in order to make him focus just on you. Maybe you secretly wanted it to happen because you were dying to know how it felt like to let him have his way with you.

“That’s right, moan for me sweetheart,” came in his thundering, low growl and your airy moans filled the room. Your hips buckled up but he was fast to press them back into the mattress, tongue still relentless.

“I’m so close, don’t stop,” you panted with your eyes scrunched close, eager to get the release.

Baekhyun stopped. Pushing himself away, he looked at you in triumph while you snapped your eyes open, whining: “What are you doing?”

“Look who is an eager little tiger,” he teased, climbing over you. “As if I would let you come after teasing me like that before,” he murmured when his face was just in front of yours, his breath fanning yours lips. “I want to feel you.” He paused and leaned in, gently nipping at yours lips, the slightest taste of your own essence present on his mouth. “Let me feel you, baby girl.”

You were shocked at his sudden change from rough eating-out to a gentle kiss on your lips. You felt him poking you at your entrance and you found your hands wandering over his shoulders, feeling up those muscles, enjoying the way he was so wide and covering your entire body under him, making you feel safe. You slid them over his back and you had to spread your legs wider and shimmy under him, reaching his cute butt and squeezing, causing Baekhyun to groan gently against you. It sent another electric wave through your core and you just needed him to be in you.

“Undress me,” you mumbled, still fondling with his backside. You met Baekhyun’s eyes and he expressionlessly leaned back, letting his hips glide against your own while his hand looked for the bra clasp on your back.

You started to giggle and he stopped. “You can undo it right here,” you told him softly, your eyes looking between your breasts where the actual clasp was.

Baekhyun gave you a shy laugh, his cheeks gorgeously puffing up as his hands brushed against your breasts before unclasping the bra and pushing it to the side to reveal your mounds. He observed for a moment and then started trailing kisses around them, biting gently on the tender skin and effectively bringing out a hiss from you.

His free hand reached for your panties and you pushed your hips up to help him slide them off. You watched the underwear fly across the room and you laughed, sighing in content when he circled his tongue around your nipple.

Moving under him, you pressed yourself against his erect member, goosebumps raising on your skin at the feel of him. He wasn’t huge; he seemed the perfect size that would promise you something unforgettable.

“So, so fucking eager, you little devil,” he murmured against your breast but he gave himself away when he also pushed against you, his tip teasing you now at your center. He groaned gently and brought his face back to yours.

You closed your eyes in the meantime. Even the slightest movement from him was giving you a high.

“Look at me. Are you ready?” his voice was so low and raspy you shuddered.

You opened your eyes and you saw sex screaming all over him. “I’m so ready.”

He smirked and mouthed at your neck. “Let me ride you, then,” he muttered and pushed in.

Both of you moaned in unison. Since he stretched you before and denied you an orgasm, you were dripping and sensitive for him, giving him easy access to you.

“You feel like paradise,” you breathed an airy moan.

He was fast to look at you, the tip of his nose brushing up against yours as he gave you time to adjust to him. “Tell me what you like, sweetheart.”

“I like you,” you blurted under the spell of an intense ecstasy your body was going through. You froze right as you said it, scolding yourself for thinking the moment, but Baekhyun leaned in with an acknowledging hum and let his lips hover over yours as he started to rocked you gently, in and out, going up and down above you.

“I like you, too,” he admitted, the regular harsh puffs of his breath hitting your hungry lips. “You’re literally the sexiest woman I have ever laid eyes on.”

You were shocked and flying on cloud nine. His thrusts were making you feel like a goddess, the way he was looking at you made you feel loved. You chased his lips, kissing him sweetly while he fumbled with your hand and intertwined his hands with yours which made your tummy flutter with excitement. In and out was he rocking, your walls hugging him so well you felt like the missing puzzle piece to him.

You separated quickly for the lack of air and the pressure building up in your lower abdomen made you ever so breathless and moany. It was almost embarrassing how you weren’t about to last any longer; he was so intoxicating you felt like you would be recovering from the orgasm for a while.

“Are you close?” he asked as he gave you a sharper thrust, causing you to scream. He watched with eager eyes. “Oh, that’s right. Scream louder than that, baby girl. You can do better than that for me, hmm?” he gritted his teeth and thrusted into you again, your bed creaking in despair just like you were.

“Baekhyun!!” you met his hips half-way, the both of you rolling in perfect unison like the tumbling waves kissing the shore. Up and down, in and out he went. Just when you thought you couldn’t hold it in any longer, he pinched your clit with his other hand, harshly massaging you between your lips. “C’mon, don’t hold back.”

“Come with me,” you pleaded, trying to hold it in. You moaned, arching your back so that your breasts were pressed up against his chest and he groaned at the feel of your convulsing walls. He fastened the pace, wildly slamming into you now, not caring about the gentle sex he had in mind from the start.

“Let go,” he ordered sternly, and rid you further up the wrinkled bed sheets. “Hold on to me and let go,” he whispered into your open mouth, short on breath.

You did. Your high-pitch scream pierced through the sex-filled room, blocking all the inappropriate rufflings and moans out. You hugged him to you, shaking as you kept sighing.

Baekhyun let out a throaty grunt and you felt him twitch in you. He was fast to pull out, quickly helping himself out before releasing his seed all over your glowing skin. He breathed loudly, watching as his release hit your chest and stomach, looking absolutely stunning on you.

The way your chest was heaving up and down while feeling him dripping down made you feel ecstatic. Baekhyun met your eyes and gave you a tired smile before he fell on the bed next to you.

Both of you were panting loudly, glistening with sweat. You swore your legs were used up, unable to provide you service for a while. Baekhyun took your hand again and rolled on his side, resting himself on his elbow. You looked at him and took notice of the gentleness of his orbs, the way he looked so fucking hot but not a sprinkle of lust was in his eyes anymore; affection more like it.

Without a word, he leaned in and pecked your softly on your lips. “Let me clean you up,” he murmured and didn’t wait for your reply when he left your room.

You knew he would find your bathroom and soon enough he was back with a warm, wet towel. He cleaned you up with utmost gentleness; your breasts, your stomach and your womanhood, neither of it in a sexual way. Then he threw the towel on the floor and joined you in the bed.

“You didn’t have to,” you murmured sheepishly when you saw him making himself comfortable.

He smiled. “But I wanted to.” He covered your bodies in your comforter and you were fast to turn and bring yourself to him, eager to know how it felt like to rest your head on his chest.

He took you in with a small kiss on your temple and his arm rested on your hip. “Thank you. That was amazing.”

You sighed. “Did you mean it though?” you dared to ask, knowing full well you might end up ruining the moment. Baekhyun was a man of his words, and you never saw him as a type to back off when he already uttered something. But you saw how he was unsure the whole car ride back to your apartment.

“I did,” he sighed. “I really do like you, you know.”

“But how… so suddenly?” you asked, your hand drawing spirals on his pectoral. It was so firm.

He squeezed your hip. “I’ve liked you for a long time actually. You are literally the hottest girl in our group of friends and the fact that you’re so oblivious is just mind-blowing.”

Shocked, you pushed yourself up to look at him while his hand slid over your backside. You shivered when the comforter lifted, exposing your chest straight in front of his eyes, yet he didn’t look. “What? But - how? I just… you were with her and then…”

“I told you,” he said quietly as he caressed your butt cheek. “The spark was long gone. I just always tried to do my duties as a boyfriend until I was fully convinced she was fucking another one.”

You opened your mouth to respond but he beat you to it, amusement glistening in his eyes. “You are incredibly attractive and I might sound like a total creep but shit, your body is an eye magnet. I couldn’t stop thinking about touching you and feeling you.”

“Baekhyun,” you sighed, already affected by his words.

He hummed and his eyes dropped on your lips. “Just kiss me and let’s talk in the morning, hm?” he suggested as his eyes traveled to your mounds. “I feel like drowning in you until morning, pretty.”

And you were aroused right away. You leaned in, already hungry while you straddled him under the comforter. “Just so you know,” you whispered, closing your eyes when you felt his member at your heat. “She lost herself a gem.”

Baekhyun’s lips slowly stretched into a gracious smile while his hands navigated your hips above him, ready to let you ride him. “I guess we have to lose something in order to gain something much better in life.”

You smiled as well and kissed him.

-

You woke up sore. It was still a little early and Baekhyun was asleep next to you, his gentle snores making you laugh into your palm quietly. After five minutes of closely inspecting his face and realizing he had a whole constellation of moles, you decided to quickly jump in the shower so you could be fresh for him once he woke up.

You took his white shirt and slid into it, feeling tiny in the huge size that easily came to the middle of your thighs. It made you feel incredibly sexy.

As you tiptoed to the bathroom, you heard loud noises and shouts coming from the corridor outside your flat. You shuffled over, checking the ruckus through the small hole on your door. A little taken aback, you saw a beautiful, tall woman slamming her fist on Baekhyun's door. Her hair was in a perfect bun, not a hair sticking out.

“Baekhyun! Open up, I know you're home! Please, let's talk!”

You really didn't want to -- but you smiled in triumph. Oh darling, your ex is in my bed, sleeping tight after a mind-blowing night full of sex. Snickering to yourself, you quickly went to the bathroom.

Coming out after fifteen minutes, you roamed in the kitchen for a bit, preparing the water for the morning coffee you very much needed. While it was warming up, you went to check your bedroom to see if Baekhyun was anywhere near to getting out of the bed.

Stopping in the doorway, you saw an empty bed. Sheets messy, your underwear still on the floor, nothing seemed out of the place. Only his clothes were gone besides the white shirt that you obviously still had. Despite searching your small apartment, he wasn't anywhere. He wouldn't explain to you what that raspberry cake meant. He wouldn't explain to you what he promised last night - the way he grew to like you.

Baekhyun was gone.

He disappeared.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

A/N: lets thank our kind anon for wanting to mix Drown and Disappear to have it angsty! here you go, angst and never knowing what will happen 😜😆❤❤ Thank you so much for reading! I hope it was okay -_- 

[fabricated-misslieness]

Can you write a scenario for reaper, soldier 76, baptiste,mccree and genji with a s/o who is being sad because reader think that they dont love they anymore but it turns out that they just have too much work or thinks to do? (ik that you dont like angst much me too but can you do some angst at the beginning and it gonna turn into fluff?)

Overwatch Males x gender neutral reader

Features: Baptiste, Genji, McCree, Reaper, and Soldier: 76.

It’s the same scenario for 5 different people so it’s sorta boring. Anyway, I know I don’t do angst but it’s.. really nice to write… but not the same thing... 5 times... in a row.

Sorry this took so long

Requested: Yes

Warning: Angst

Jean-Baptiste Augustin

Lately, you had been feeling lonely. Baptiste wasn’t home often, or at least as much as before. It felt like he was prioritizing his work over you, which was reasonable since he was a medic, but it’s as if he didn’t even care about you anymore.

When he came home, if he even did, he would come late. He wouldn’t leave a note, wouldn’t even kiss you as he lay down beside you.

In the mornings, he wouldn’t leave a trace behind. The only proof of him being there was the faint warmth on his side of the bed, you wouldn’t even feel the warmth yourself.

It’s as if he was gone from your life.

One day, you were fed up. What’s the point of a relationship if you never see each other?

Your plan was to confront him, stay up late until he came home. Then again there were some days where he wouldn’t even come... back.

Back to you…

No, you can’t have sympathy. He’s the one ignoring you.

When he came in, finding you awake on the couch, he was worried immediately. Why had you stayed awake? You need rest. Granted, so did he, but his work needed him more.

“Something wrong, dear?” His face showed worry, though you mistook it for nervousness, for fear.

“You don’t love me anymore.” Straight to the point, you planned. There was no sugar coating it.

“I--” Jean wasn’t expecting this, he was speechless. He had so many things to say but he didn’t know which words to choose. You took his loss for words as him trying to find an excuse.

Your frown was evident. You hoped that he would’ve objected, but he didn’t. “N-Nothing to say?” He could hear the heartbreak in your voice, you could feel the heartbreak in your chest.

“Baptiste, at least say something.”

You weren’t even using his first name. Your eyes told him everything, you were begging for something, anything! Even goodbye..

“I…” He took a deep breath, he still didn’t know what to say. But if he didn’t say anything, you’d just be gone. “I love you.”

Tears pricked both of your eyes. “You don’t.”

“I do! I do, I promise.” He stepped forward, you scooted back on the couch. “I’ve been caught up with work, I swear.”

You laughed in disbelief, thinking about it. Medics were usually overworked, that’s for sure.. He seemed genuine. He couldn’t have been acting, he’s a terrible actor, for one.

You’re so silly. Just because he’s gone, he doesn’t love you.

You laughed pitifully at yourself. The tears streamed freely now, they were tears of embarrassment. “I’m sorry.” You gasp out.

“No, I’m sorry.” Baptiste pulled you into his arms.

“I’m so silly.” He wipes the tears from your cheeks, prompting you to do the same to him.

“You’re not.” He replies with a smile, just the sight of him alone makes you smile along. “You’re everything but that, you’re my love. You’re my everything.”

 

Genji Shimada

Lately your lovely green cyborg ninja dude had been… distant. That was understatement, you hadn’t even seen him in the past month.

Sure, he didn’t live with you. He was a busy mercenary..or an adventurer..?

He hid a lot of things from you, yet he claimed to love you. Lately, you couldn’t even see it in his eyes. Then again, at least he shows you his unmasked face.

What the hell had he been doing though? He wouldn’t have left you alone without a reason.

He’s spent months away from you without seeing you before, but he’d sent letters, somehow. It’d been a month and a half you had received no letters.

You shouldn’t worry this much, maybe where he is he has no access to.. messengers.

But then, a letter came. The writing was chicken scratch, unlike his usual messy yet uniform writing. It said that he would be coming to you today, or well, whatever today was in the time zone he was at. The thing you noticed, however, was that it had no “I love you”, “I miss you”, “I’m excited to see you again”, just a plain, “I’m coming today - Genji”

Maybe he was in a rush, as an explanation of the chicken scratch.

But it felt odd, it felt off... 

Like the sappy cyborg he was, he’d usually add some poem that he was forced to learn as a child. This time, he had nothing. Even if he was in a rush, as you read one time when he began being chased by wolves mid-writing, he’d find the time to write ‘I love you.’

The whole day you’d spent waiting for his arrival, thinking about his letter and how much it seemed like he didn’t love you anymore.

Sometime after your lunch, he barged into your house.

He immediately took his mask off and ran toward you, encasing you in a hug and smothering your face with kisses.

You tried to see if it was genuine, sincere.

He noticed your frown. His eyebrows furrowed and his smile turned into a frown. “Are you okay, buttercup?” He always used that nickname to cheer you up as he wasn’t to use pet names often.

You could see the love in his eyes clearly.

You sighed bashfully, of course he still loved you. You were overthinking. “Yes, I’m fine.”

Genji brought his lips to yours, smiling into the kiss. He finally got to see you again, after all this time.

“I missed you.”

     

Jesse McCree

Jesse had been distant lately, despite living around on your old farm with you. He spent most of his time these days away from you, doing farm work. Even when all his daily work was done, he’d be outside.

He’d have a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other as he left, but if you tried to find him, you wouldn’t be able to. You had no clue where he was and any place you thought of was empty.

When you did see him, he didn’t look happy at all.

It’s as if emotions drained out of him. That alone would bring you to worry, but he wouldn’t kiss you goodnight, he wouldn’t lay next to you in bed.

He said he needed to do something, but what would he be doing at 9 pm?

What the hell could he be doing?

The town was too far from the farm for him to leave without taking the truck, unless he decided to walk like an idiot.

Maybe he just wanted some space.

Was he not liking farm life? He’d been a bounty hunter and vigilante before he settled down with you, though he continued his former ‘hobbies’ every once in a while. Was he not happy with you?

One night, you wanted to know. You wanted answers.

Right after dinner, he moved to leave, but you stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He looked nervous, as if he were hiding something.

You led him to sit with you on the couch. “Jesse, are you happy?”

Jesse mustered a small smile, “Of course I am, darling.” It didn’t seem convincing enough.

“Where’ve you been?”

“Is this because I haven’t been kissing you goodnight?” Jesse laughed, but it sounded quite forced. “I swear, I will tonight.”

You frowned, furrowing your eyebrows. Jesse could tell you were getting suspicious of him, but he really didn’t want to say what he’d been doing.

“It’s not about that, Jesse.” You sighed. “You don’t seem happy, you don’t seem to want to be around me. Jesse, if something’s wrong with… with us, just tell me.”

“No, no, nothing’s wrong with us.” Jesse struggled to think of what to say, only saying what had just come to his mind.

“Then tell me why you’re distant.” Your voice was raising. 

He didn’t want you to be angry, he really wanted to clear this up but the surprise he had for you… it was worth exposing, he didn’t want you to think he didn’t love you or that he wanted something else.

“Darling,” He took your hands in his to reassure you. “I’ve been working on a surprise, ‘been fixing up the old tractor.”

You laughed in disbelief, you were so stupid but so was he.

“I swear, I’m almost done. You’re only going to have to suffer through this for another couple o’ days.”

You laughed whole-heartedly this time. Your laugh was contagious for the dear cowboy, causing him to join with you.

“You’ve been fixing up a tractor for a month now?” You said when you caught your breath.

Jesse feigned offense, putting a hand on his chest. “I am no technician. Besides, a tractor getting run over by a truck? That’s a hard fix.”

   

Gabriel Reyes

Gabriel didn’t live with you, something you quite understood. He’d told you most of his secrets, which is surprising because of how fucked up they are, but that showed he trusted you.

Though sometimes you hoped he would live with you.

You knew the dangers very well, he made sure to guarantee you understood and knew them. But all the time you spent away from him, you couldn’t help but ask yourself how he was going. Not emotionally, though you were bound to worry about that sometime, but rather physically.

His job was literally murder people, so ‘self-defense’ was imminent.

Usually that’d be what you worried about, but this time, it was more so about your relationship, your love.

The only times you’d seen him the past month or so was him coming for you to patch him up and immediately leaving, and… well, that was it. It’d just happened a few times.

Though when he did come, he wouldn’t bother taking off his mask. He could’ve been in a rush but to be in a rush three times?

Besides, before that he would visit you 3-4 times a month, minimum. He hadn’t come to visit you, not counting the medical help. You wouldn’t consider those ‘visits’ since he wouldn’t stay for long and said barely a word.

No “goodbye”, no “I love you”, no “I’ll be back soon”, no “don’t worry about me.” Just a gruff, straightforward, “Help patch me up.”. Not even a “please”.

It all made you exasperated, thinking and thinking and worrying.

You were exhausted, you wanted an explanation, but most importantly; you wanted to see him, the real him.

You didn’t want this ghost, this cloaked, masked Reaper; you wanted Gabriel Reyes.

Yet he seemed to not want you.

The realisation of the possibility of him falling out of it, out of your love.. it struck you hard; Sent you into a sharp breath, dragging a sob out of your throat and tears from your eyes.

You despised crying, the way it made you vulnerable, the way it made you look hopeless.

That’s how he found you.

In the rush to get to you, he forgot to take off his mask.

The sight was scary, the well-known murderer and Talon council member rushing over to you while you’re at your weakest. He could finish you off that easily.

You were scared for only a second, remembering that this wasn’t just the Reaper, this was Gabriel Reyes, but just barely.

He reached forward to hug you, but you backed off.

It made him confused, why were you trying to get away from him? Then he noticed what he was wearing. He cursed and apologized, quickly taking off what he could.

“What’s wrong, dear?” He only called you pet names seriously when he found it necessary, whatever case it would be necessary was always a mystery to you, until today. When he did use a pet name, it would usually be followed by a chuckle or a grimace.

“Gabriel,” You stopped with a sob. You hated this. You hated the pity in his eyes. You hated how pathetic your voice sounded. “do you love me?”

“Yes, yes, of course I do.” Gabriel replied as fast as he could, he wanted to reassure you. He didn’t want you to think he was finding excuses or lies while he thought about words to say.

“Do you really?” You didn’t let him answer, despite the hiccups and sobs breaking through your words. “Where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been working.” He pulls you into his arms and wipes the tears from your eyes. As much as you wanted to get answers first, you couldn’t resist him.

“Talon’s rivals have forming alliances to throw us off. I swear, we’ll stifle this just as quickly as it started. But in the meantime, I can’t see you as much. I should’ve told you earlier.” He cursed at himself under his breath. He’s been so caught up that he forgot to tell you.

“I’m sorry.” You wipe the tears from your eyes.

“No, no, it’s okay. You have all the reason to react this way.” He smiled at you, rubbing circles on your back to calm you down. “Do you want water?”

“Yeah.”

   

Jack Morrison

It was silly of you to think a masked vigilante would fall in love with you. As far as you knew, you both liked each other and started dating. That was the extent of your relationship, you didn’t know if you loved each other just yet.

You should’ve paid attention to all the movies.

Everytime the protagonist was a vigilante and they had an s/o, they would end up leaving them behind because ‘it wasn’t safe for them’ or the protagonist ends up dying, rarely.

You didn’t want either of those situations to happen, especially the former. You rather he be alive over.. the opposite of that.

Besides, it wouldn’t exactly hurt that much if he left you. As mentioned before, you just like each other, not.. loved… 

You were lying to yourself.

You did love each other, it would hurt a lot if he left you.

All of this just because he wasn’t showing you his maskless face. You were curious as to how he looked like, sure, but you didn’t want to pressure him into showing you.

You just felt that if he loved you and if he trusted you, he’d show you.

You hadn’t even seen him in months either. There was a possibility he’d already left you, without even leaving a note.

But Jack wasn’t this way, he isn’t the type of person who would just up and leave.

Then again, you couldn’t know that for certain. He held a lot of secrets from you. So many that you wouldn’t know if he was putting up an act around you.

You respected his secrets but you wanted to know the real him.

At the start, you thought he liked you. It didn’t seem like that these days. If he truly loved you, he would give you his secrets.

That’s… something very rude and wrong, but you didn't feel like he was trustworthy anymore with all the secrets you knew he was keeping from you.

The days blurred by without him, you don’t remember when was the last time you saw him.

He came to you one evening, injured and asking for your help.

Of course, you gave it to him, though you guessed you looked bitter by the fact that Jack was worried about you.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Your reply was harsher than you meant it to be.

Jack doubted your answer. “Are you sure?”

You sighed, accidentally wrapping one of his bandages too tight from frustration, making him wince. “Sorry, it’s just. I know we haven’t exchanged these.. words, but…” You were planning on saying those ‘magical words’ but you didn’t want to until you made sure it was mutual. “Jack, it seems like you’re falling out.. feelings.”

“What? No, I still like-- I love you.” The words surprised you, but how could you know he truly meant them when he couldn’t even look you in the eyes as he said that?

“If you did, you would tell me your secrets. You would show me your…” The determination in your words faltered as Jack slipped the visor off his face. “..face.”

He was… beautiful.

“I love you.” Jack repeated. He blushed under your attentive gaze, making his face all the more handsome.

“I love you too.” You were stunned, he was stunning.

Jack chuckled, pulling you out of your trance. He raised an eyebrow at you, showing off that he knew full well what he was doing to you.

“S-Sorry.” You looked back down at his bandage. You didn’t even know what you were apologizing for, was it the doubts or the tight bandage?

“It’s okay.” Once the bandage was done, you locked eyes in a comfortable silence. Before you knew it, your lips were locked together in your first kiss. 

His lips were rough, but they felt perfect against yours.

[taketheringtolohac]

hello this is very silly but. I am a certified blaseball baby (s19) and sometimes I feel like I missed out on the "golden" era of blaseball where so many inside jokes and wonderful things were made. do you have any advice on how to get over this lol and how to engage in the community in a meaningful way? thanks <3

This has been sitting in my ask box for a while now but i think i've finally collected my thoughts on it! Thank you for the ask, it isn’t silly at ALL, i think about this question a lot as someone who got into blaseball in season 2 and has kept up rigorously since, and i have been trying to find an adequate way to answer this- so here we go!

I think the first thing to really say is that a lot of feeling excluded from things... isn't your fault. Blaseball requires a lot of in knowledge! and when you're getting into it it really just seems like EVERYONE is in the know and somehow you are the only person who isnt, and thats because of the MASSIVE learning curve that blaseball has because of all the sun rules and new mechanics and the era of expansion being DESIGNED to overwhelm you. And people tend to forget that once they're In the Know, and a lot of people (myself included) really get caught up in remembering these AWESOME moments that happened in the early game, but the thing is it's not YOUR responsibility to make YOURSELF feel included in the community- that's people who already know what the hell is going on's job!

But the thing is, new in jokes are being made LITERALLY daily. The mints just made ANOTHER one today- these things happen all the time and you never know which ones will be super important in the future! Like gurgies, while out of fashion and common use now, was originally just a stupid mints way of saying blooddrain gurgled but we freaking said it so much and said it EVERYWHERE and people REMEMBERED it for being cursed and now thats something people say across the league. Here's the thing, it may sound really unhelpful but also- so what? Why does it MATTER that you weren't here when "wimdy" was coined? You're here now! You are witnessing blaseball happening and blaseball history being made by the second! I know just telling people dont get caught up in what you missed is really hard and doesn't really work, but i think trying to embrace that mindset will do wonders for you not just in trying to "get over" (which i dont really like as an expression here, i dont think this is something you really just get over you kind of have to keep confronting it! i do it too! a lot!) but also just for interacting with blaseball as a whole.

There is SO much that happens in blaseball and you will NEVER be able to catch all of it- thats part of the beauty and horror of it- but really learning to accept that you WON'T be able to catch all of it is part of a healthy relationship with blaseball! You don't know everything that's happening with every team at every moment- and then something will totally blindside you when something WILD happens to them and god. To me that is part of what blaseball is about. I've been here for 22 seasons and I STILL don't know anything about some of the original 20 teams. And that's ok! New things are always happening! Players are always dying! Players are always getting shadowed! They're feedbacking, reverbing, eating peanuts, getting shelled- they're part of blaseball of course things are happening and really trying to embrace that chaos will take you a long way.

Another thing to keep reminding yourself other than that things are literally always being made is that you yes YOU have an impact on the league. Whether it's just voting or betting (do people still bet? surely some do) or idol switching or even just watching the game, YOU are making some kind of impact. That's part of the narrative design of blaseball, it's quite literally designed so that fans can be directly involved in the splort. Even if you didn't MAKE the lore for a character, you can still talk about them! Participate in conversations and make jokes and memes about them! What you VOTE for matters, and you don't have to make the most money (lord knows i gave up on that seasons ago I'm just trying to make a decent amount now) but all it takes is a single ticket to get that blessing or that will your team (or just you lmao) wants. You can unredact things in the library! You can give peanuts to dead players you like! And you also can just MAKE shit up all the time. Whatever you say about anyone can be true to you. I know I'm not the only person who has wildly different hcs for players on teams that aren't even my own, let alone the ways that my hcs differ from the common interpretation of my own team's players. Or even the ways that my hcs DO converge or even just build off team ones, or are directly adjacent to them it's all equally valid! Today I said "Leo Baron wears heart shaped sunglasses" and people went wild over it and started just talking about it. You have that power with everything in blaseball! You control the buttons you press, and you impact the league! And you impact other people on your team!

The last thing that I really do recommend doing is just... hanging out with your team on discord, if that's your jam. You don't have to talk much! For what it's worth though, I think all teams are really receptive to new players and captains/representatives are there to try and make you feel welcome, as far as i know. Even if you're not a "new" player anymore you're still newer, and that still counts! If you're having trouble finding a way to start participating in conversations, I recommend just watching a game with your team. It's REALLY easy to talk about something when you're all seeing the same thing, and a lot of the things you say are pretty much prompted by the game as well! You know, like "come on Twooney hit a double" or "Marco please steal its the bottom of the 9th and we want to win-" but then in watching matches you also get to learn chants and see how people interact with each other. This is how I integrated myself into mints culture and became comfortable talking in chat which I know isn't for everyone but hey! It's what I got! But when you hang out with your team and get to know people you start to actually feel like part of a community, and when you feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself it eases the burden of feeling like you missed something because you're living in the moment! EVERY game has the potential to be EARTH SHATTERING for a team in blaseball, ANY game can be the next "most iconic" game for your team. Beating yourself up over not getting into the game earlier isn't gonna help, and cool shit is happening daily! That's what's so fucking cool about it!

I really hope this helps you, anon, and anyone else feeling this way. blaseball is for everyone! It sucks that people aren't being more mindful of what they say and how they interact with newer fans! In all honesty, I don't really even know how to answer this because it's such a complicated question- but the thing is all the older fans should be thinking about this question because they are part of a community composed of many people joining at different times with different levels of knowledge about the game itself, baseball, communities and really everything. Just remember that YOU are in charge of your own blaseball experience and things are ALWAYS being created! Maybe even YOU could create the next big blaseball thing- after all, almost everything in blaseball was created by an ordinary fan who was just saying something that came to mind.

[lungsareforlove]

HI I LOVE YOU EVEN IF YOU DONT LOVE YOU RIGHT NOW

anyways that’s probably not helpful in distracting you. So:

1. What is the best thing you’ve read so far today?

2. If you are a hero going on a quest, what would the quest be, where would it take you in the world (or fantasy world), who would be your companions, and how would you get there?

3. Do you ever journal- does it work for you? What do you write if you journal? Do you have the same prompts, or do you sit down and just write whatever’s on your mind? I’m not great at journaling, and I think I want to be better at it.

hello 🥺😭 mx I don't even know your name but I absolutely love and adore you 😞 I miss you so much but if you're not in this hellsite that means things are better for you irl and that makes me happy 💟 warning this is reaaaallly long. maybe the onceler ass edit long

1. What is the best thing you’ve read so far today?

I was searching through my gallery for something to cheer me up, and I saw this pic from The Time Traveller's Wife:

I didn't read much today :(( costs too much energy. I have like, 4 books and 10 pdfs that I haven't read. and I want to, but I can't :((

2. If you are a hero going on a quest, what would the quest be, where would it take you in the world (or fantasy world), who would be your companions, and how would you get there?

THIS IS SUCH A FUN ASK!?!

Hero: I resonate so much with paladins. I'm more of a fighter type that uses some magic but doesn't wholly rely on it. I'll be the short but explosive trope. (also. righteous anger. FUCKK)

Quest: Preventing the barriers that blocks the Otherworld (working on the name) from this reality. It needs to be resealed every ten years or so from both sides at the same time. The time for resealing will become apparent bc humans would pop up in random places (they were driving/cycling/walking then got lost. too many wrong turns and they ended up in there). And in turn, flora, fauna, and other sentient creatures end up here. These humans, when found, would be manhandled to the city and forced to go to this quest. Also these humans are like. running away from their lives and have a sense of adventure. It's different this time, though. The barriers tear with time naturally, but now there seems to be someone or something destroying them on purpose.

Where It Takes Us: travelling a LOT. I would want to see everything, exposed to their cultures and such! (plus the Tears are also the way back home) Including but not limited to: wading through a beautiful swamp and meeting swamp creatures, sailing a fucking ETHEREAL ocean and swimming down an underwater cave, trekking a mountain range to kill a dragon but end up befriending her and her kids, climbing a huge tree to save a little kid that's stuck on the top, hunting creatures that blend into the shadows, etc.

Companions: with the narrative, I honestly won't have a choice. I could say that elias, paul, justin, and I were walking somewhere together and got lost. coincidentally (wink) you, ren, and kat are there too 😌💟 and other random people. I also would love a murder of crows as animal companions 🥺 and also we would have people from that world travelling along with us, to help with the seals and as guides.

How would we get there: like I said, we have to get lost first, then found, then get back home through the tear. that's the only time we'll ever be there though, since it doesn't call the same humans twice.

I came up with this on the spot don't judge me for how childish it sounds 😞🙏🏽 fun ask tho 💟💟

3. Do you ever journal- does it work for you? What do you write if you journal? Do you have the same prompts, or do you sit down and just write whatever’s on your mind? I’m not great at journaling, and I think I want to be better at it.

i've tried in the past. nope it hasn't worked for me but i'm stubborn. i'll keep trying. if you're talking about a daily journal. I have a "bad times" journal for when I'm overflowing with negative emotions again (like earlier)

here's some photos of my failed attempts:

on the left is what was supposed to be a fun kind of journal, then things stopped being fun in my life. on the right is a journal mom gave to me in 2020. it's the best paper. I was so excited about This Savage Song 😌💟 it's very dear to me. no I don't look at it objectively I allow myself to have happy things.

but! your ask reminded me that I do have an ongoing project of sorts!

I take quotes that I like from books and paste them together. they may or may not form a narrative. this was before I knew what web weaving was.

a problem that I had before is comparing what I did to others. theirs were pretty and aesthetic and organized. I had a talk with myself and said, "the reason why we can't make a proper journal is that we try so hard to be pretty and perfect. we rip out pages when we spell something wrong or colored past the lines. we're not them. we're not pretty. or perfect. or aesthetic. we're messy. we make mistakes. stop trying to be pretty and just be yourself."

so yeah I love that weird little notebook. I also rip out weird drawings I do when I feel horrible and stick them:

and I also put words that I think are pretty and spill my problems out! I'd give a pic but I think I hit the picture limit. oh wait I didn't. here:

oh I did. sad. i'll give the words one instead of the sad one.

thank you for this ask! it helped me a lot more than you might think! I hope you're doing well in your side of the world. stay safe!

[stronghours]

CUSTOMER SERVICE

E T S Y

Darling Fallon    Sep 3, 2013

Sensational (sin-sational!). i write on behalf of myself (S) and my lover (m). we have been ripped off by bulk-produced molded hoods before and i can only say HAND CUT LATEX ONLY never look back!! worth the money and will eventually pay for itself. neck fit like loving glove and adds dynamic intensifier to breathplay. Lovely proprietor replied prompt when “m” had questions re: breathability (she added extra breathing hole at no extra cost). class acts all around (and not just in our dungeon!) will return for more but “m” needs a break first if u get the drift lol1!! thanks to lady j!

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Latex Chrysalis Hood (translucent…

3 Helpful

  myMister   Aug 24, 2013

this one writes on behalf and with permission of MISTER. this one quaked with bliss when package arrived. truly awful to behold in the wise hands of MISTER. this one’s neck is small and delicate For His Pleasure and all item adjustments were made to order and did not affect shipping time. if this one could be so efficient For His Pleasure this one would be in heaven on earth. instead, this one is less than a hole. item truly enhanced <O sensation. without a doubt will be used over and over in this household for due punishments of this very worthless one. discrete pgk’ing. thanks to designer J for deepening this one’s service to MISTER.

(NOTE FROM MISTER – WILL PROPRIETER PLEASE PRIVATELY EMAIL TO DISCLOSE IF YOU ARE MALE/FEMALE/OTHER SO “myMister” (this one) WILL BE ABLE TO PROPERLY ADDRESS YOU IN ACCORDANCE WITH ITS FORMAL ROLE)

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Throttle Collar w/ attached Gas…

1 Helpful

  JulieJuice   August 3, 2013

LOL rip-off!!! cant believe all u ppl sucking this guys dick. says everywhere in product descript. (and you guys reviews!!) that custom sizing is no additl. cost but mine cost more!! only small alteration to titty holes cause of my cleave situation. bullshit. not buying from him again.

Response from J

Hi again Julie. If you check our many enlightening inbox conversations from 7/5-7/16 you will be reminded the additional cost was due to your request of more ring hinge insertions as the standard amount in pattern block “was not bling enough”. Cleavage was irrelevant. Sizing related alterations are always no added cost. Custom alterations requiring additional materials/effort and adjusted pricing will always be discussed and approved on client end before any exchange of payment.

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Hexagon Restrictor Harness…

HELPFUL?

  HannahCakes!    Jun 1, 2013

Hey Whats Up I’m Caleb (obviously don’t have an etsy) and using my lady’s account. She got the catsuit for my birthday and she looked so sexy like J-Lo or someone. Didn’t want her doin the latex stuff because I thought shed have to shave off all her pubes and personally i like that kind of thing a lot but no harm done. Anyway she was super sexy and the suit thing looked good and stayed together even when we started rockin. To other full bush guys out there if youre girl wants to wear the latex stuff SHE CAN KEEP HER BUSH she just has to use lube to oil up the bush that she has.

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Domina Catsuit w/ Pussycat Zipper (red…

7 Helpful

  HannahCakes!   3 months ago   Friend   Ignore

Caleb Review

Hi J,

Saw my boyfriend’s 6/1 review and I was like uh ohhh. I asked him to leave one because he went gaga over the catsuit, but I wasn’t expecting all the bush stuff. If you don’t want to be associated with that and want to delete, that’s ok on my end. A little embarrassing! – Hannah!

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

Hi Hannah. Please don’t worry about it, any positive review is welcome. His feedback has apparently hit a chord with some specific hesitations and concerns buyers have been experiencing but not confiding with me, so I plan on keeping it up for the time being. Enjoy your garment.

  JoeyoftheHerd    3 months ago   Friend   Ignore

Moo-cow snout muzzle thing – (idea i had)

Hi. Is this idea good

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    3 months ago    Friend   Ignore

Hi Joey. Are you interested in a custom cow muzzle/mask, like the pup play masks on my page or are you just brainstorming for personal reasons?

Reply from JoeyoftheHerd    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

idk it’s just an idea i had

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

It’s a cool idea

Reply from JoeyoftheHerd    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

Thanks man i thought so 2

1234Brett10093456    3 months ago   Friend   Ignore

I REMEMBER YOU FROM RAWHIDE

JULES yes I know who you are and I know your name are you scared yet?? I remember when you used to hang with Roscoe out at Rawhide because Roscoe pretended to hire you because he secretly wanted to fuck and suck you till you cried and I saw all that. I have brown flippy hair, blue eyes and am tall/cut versatile but lean TOP. I know you faked being gay. You heard of bi-now-gay-later but have you heard of gay-then-straight-betrayer (you)? That is fucked up that you still sell stuff but pretend to be a gay guy because that makes your stuff sell better because the gay guys want to fuck you. I know you are faking because my muscle bud Tomas (latino) saw you making out with a ginger chick at the wet bar in Entrance last week. He said it was probably a joke but I know it wasn’t because he said he saw tongue. I wont let you be a breeder without a fight. I am willing to tell EVERYBODY YOURE SECRET. But I wont if you prove to me YOU CAN STILL BE GAY. Im attaching a pic of my cock so you know im not lying and can follow through. I will only believe YOU ARE GAY if we can see each other face/face (i can host only on fri- I have two roommates) and our cocks have to touch and you have to stay hard for at least five minutes while I suck and jack your cock and tongue your balls (shave or dont i will leave that up to you). condoms ok but if you want to be a breeder so bad maybe I will just breed your ass but if youre actually a gay guy you’ll like it and cum thick ropes as I fuck your dirty little slut hole and youll tell me youre a hole while I fuck it with the shiny precum head of my cut fucking cock (7inches erect). you will smell my hole and BECOME GAY again IT WILL HAPPEN  - Brett Costino

  TheSteelyDanMan   2 months ago   Friend   Ignore

Latex & Breastfeeding Concerns

Good morning, J I hope you are well. Returning customer, here. My kajira/wife and I are splinter Gor lifestylers (NOT KAOTIANS) [link] but are currently isolated due to our deviation from standard kajira beautification ideals and the arrival of our first child (girl - Gemma) two months ago. My wife’s submission has usually been expressed fashion-wise in various strict latex outfits, a few of which you have kindly provided us over the past couple of years. Naturally, the arrival of a mini-me results in some changes! My wife, insecure after birth, wants to return to strict full-coverage latex, but this desire is at odds with her physical situation of actively nursing Gemma and we both have worries. Does the constriction of latex effect or otherwise harm milk production, or could secondhand latex exposure harm our baby? I imagine you have catered to many lifestyle situations where this might be relevant so I thought I would ask. Thanks very much. LEO

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    2 months ago    Friend    Ignore

Hi Leo. While I have catered to many lifestyles, I’m afraid I must exercise discretion in this situation, as it would be on par with giving medical advice. I will say any allergy is a possibility and one should exercise undue care with a very young infant, not just in matters of latex. I highly encourage you and your wife to discuss this with her doctor as frankly as possible. In the long run it might be worth reevaluating aspects of your wife’s submission and temporarily making do with latex pieces that do not restrict the breasts, while nursing is a part of her daily reality (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you examples are available on my page). Best of luck and congratulations on the new addition to your family.

  NoraBarnacle    2 months ago   Friend   Ignore

A sincere offer…

Several months ago, I bought a pair of latex gauntlet gloves from your shop. Since then, astonishing changes have come over me. I used to be high-powered, highly controlled, a formidable woman (natural ash blond, green eyes, 45”-40”-44”) I was determined to keep these feelings to myself, but I can no longer resist, as I wholeheartedly believe your Dominating spirit, imbued in the gauntlets, is leading me forcefully but masterfully into your care. If it pleases you, know I have not touched my aching slit for one month total as I am uncertain whether you desire me to feel pleasure that is not approved by you. There are no images of you on your site, but I have drawn an accurate picture of you in my mind and I know you are the Man that I never knew I was waiting for, the Man who will lead me, the Man who will hold my neck and strike my forehead to his knee in his insistence that I allow myself to be led. When I wear the gauntlets, they are your own gallant hands restricting my weak bones. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I do not desire to resist. Please message back so I can properly present my acquiescence, body and soul, unto you. I squat disgracefully on my plump thighs, full of whorish tremor that makes me unworthy, but still I desire. I will service your home with my ardent hands and service your thick and striving cock with my wet tongue. Respond to this small soul. I submit to your gallant wisdom – A Secret Admirer

  RicoMetals   1 month ago   Friend   Ignore

Redhead Modle in Pic for Serve Her Serrated Corselette

Hey man-to-man who is she. I love redheads. Does she modle for other people/would she modle for my pieces? there’s no head in the pick – what’s her nose situation? we could all do collab and I think it would be hot. Let me kno - RICO

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    1 month ago    Friend    Ignore

Hi Rico. I have not blocked you (yet) because said model wanted me to reply to you first and inform you, she’s already an established performer in her own right and does not want to model for a guy who “thinks I need some sissy seamstress to pimp me out to shitty welders online”. As I only have basic welding experience, I can offer no further comment or defense on your behalf.

  DerryBerry454   1 month ago   Friend   Ignore

Inquiry re: standard leather sleep-sack dimensions

Hello Miss J, quick question:

I will buy this item no hesitation no delay if you tell me right now about your vagina. Questions I prioritize:

1.     Color labia (outer)

2.     Color labia (inner – aroused)

3.     Clit length in centimeters or whatever measurement is most flattering to you

4.     Range of clit engorgement

5.     Depth of vaginal canal (I will allow ballpark figure as I know not everyone has graded speculums lying around)

6.     Percentage of clit orgasms v. vaginal orgasms – bonus points if you describe uterine orgasm, if that is your experience (no pressure to answer last part, as I understand it is not necessarily vagina-adjacent)

7.     Are you hairy? What color?

8.     When you wash your vagina do you douche or do you use fingers to rub through labia folds and that is it?

9.     Color of menstrual blood

10.  If you wear panties, do you find the crotch of your panties degrades due to PH of your vaginal discharge? (give me the qualities and I will calculate this for you)

While a picture of your vagina is welcome (and will only be for my private use) I really do like gathering these stats (I’m kind of a nerd) and would appreciate as much openness on your behalf as possible and you will benefit too because I’ll give you money for your lovely product. Talk to you soon! 😊

  B O A R D

[RUBBERVALLEY FIENDS THREAD 3/3 2006-PRESENT] TOPICS: 850 POSTS: 10,356

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): Hey people, we’ve reached the end of the summer and you know what that means – Ivan himself of the halls of Rubber Valley presents inaugural post of their annual sweeps week filming extravaganza – first photoset already up and we’ve got the goddamn brilliant LYDIA SUCKS sons! The greatest bitch on the face of the planet almost psyched us out but she’s here she’s low and she’s ready to blow. Vid upload will probably take till tomorrow to render but we’ve got some great pic galleries already. Ivan really spoiling us pigs lmfao. Seeing lots of setup and dress-up and behind scenes stuff for yall candid pervs. We’ve got full body latex and face coverage hoods and I see a breathing tube and the barn inversion setup. Possible inverted ceiling fuck? The boys can dream. Links to download pics results in PERMABAN – only official links to Rubber Valley site allowed, don’t know how often I have to say it. You want to pass ripped screenshots you do that through email *casts pearls before swine*

GOBgobGOB: no pic of lyds upside down yet ☹

LordJim: Not interested until I see Ivan haul out the FuckRacers from two years ago – wonder why he doesn’t bring those around more often? Great view stats on current vids and who doesn’t like a fat ass getting auto-fucked while she steers the go-cart supine?

SUCKPUNTER: lmfao all views are you bro

GOBgobGOB: D I R E C T H I T

SUCKPUNTER: hey lordjim where’d you learn the word supine

LordJim: Yeah “laugh out loud” very funny guys.

SUCKPUNTER: did you learn it at college

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): Lydia looks gr8 folks. Queen pristine and ready to cream. SUCKPUNTER – chill out because I’ve got my eye on you. Don’t take the bait Jim. You’re like thirty.

SUCKPUNTER: at least I don’t get off on bitches doing the pinewood derby

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: LYDIA!

GOBgobGOB: LYDIA!!!

McLovin: LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA

TheWorldofMartinAmis: Goddess. Wish she’d get her boobs done though.

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: same! I’ve been waiting for years for her to get into xtreme body mod. Right up her alley. If she’s at EXXXOTICA EXPO next year I’m going to try to get her meet and greet and ask. I know tattoo guys who’d pay HER to give her first tat.

McLovin: Lydia wouldn’t go. She’s like indie transgressive.

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): nice to see you again lockSTOCK. I see your POV but Lydia has several interviews where she says most of her viewers see her bod as a clean palate in the art of pain – as in, wounds have to go away in order for us to appreciate a fresh ruining ; ) tats and huge implants are a little tougher to work around. Anyway in my mind you can fix bad tits but you can’t fix bad attitude

ThatOneFootGuy: id suck her feet

McLovin: woah fuck 4th latex pic in dressing series with her mouth open and her eyes shut – who the lube guy with his arm right down her front?

SUCKPUNTER: lol hand clear to her pussy and hes not even hard faggot

McLovin: scope the ginger amazon in the background with camera – new girl? Don’t recognize. Didn’t know Ivan was bringing new people around this year’s sweeps.

LordJim: I wondered too when I saw. I’m sure DungeonMaster mod understands if I copy/paste following from Ivan (no pics, text w/actress info):

Newcomers are always welcome in RUBBER VALLEY (especially if they’re lovely, and especially if they’re ladies!) and this old goat is pleased to welcome DOMME LUX, our friendly neighbor down south in that little town called Chicago. Mysterious as she is alluring, you’ll see her shining light sampling tidbits of delight off our Valley Girls throughout the uploads this month (or even taking a crack at a couple!) We’re just getting to know her, but I have a feeling she’s a generous gal at heart as she kindly offered us the services of her Personal Valet, Jules DeMarco, who himself spoiled us all year with devious latex devices for our steadfast daring dollies after the unfortunate 2012 passing of our beloved torture designer Merrick Marvel (memoriam post 03/04/2012). Check out Jules’s Half-Bag Breast Mummifier in scheduled post 7/22 (Heather Bunny in the inverted Wench Wrench) the diabolical Arachnae-Hood (Lacey Jane, spinning in our trusty Landscape(her) Rolling Pin 7/16) and the Double-Fuck Full Body Boa Binder with eerie inflatable bubble hood (Lydia Sucks, finale post 7/31, don’t miss it, SUBSCRIBE). I must confess, we took advantage - the poor fella ran himself ragged helping us with film prep all week. So as an apology we let him get up close and personal with Rubber Valley’s reigning heroine LYDIA SUCKS fitting her in a custom four-limb black latex catsuit with half-face hood, made especially for her brave beautiful bod. He takes a good long time greasing her up before Ivan and Barry get her hoisted and joisted and in her best bitch-bat position among the rafters of the exalted Rubber Valley barn, where we leave her to squirm in terror! (but let’s get real – what scares Lydia? We’re wracking our brains!) Uh-oh, is Domme Lux looking jealous in the background? Is she plotting a little comeuppance for our Lovely Lady Lydia? Only one way to find out – SUBSCRIBE!

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): Np lordjim, if you hadn’t posted I was going to. Looks like we’ve got fresh meat in the valley.

TheWorldofMartinAmis: very pretty girl, but always bummed when a new one turns out to be top. Call me old fashioned, I come to the Valley for slaves.

SUCKPUNTER: firecrotch

GOBgobGOB: brb too busy crankin it. milky gingerbread titties come to daddy

McLovin: @TheWorldofMartinAmis, Ivan always has at least one femdom around. Room for everybody in the valley

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: holy shit I know that guy.

SUCKPUNTER: lmfao faggots know faggots

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: no for real. His real name is Jules Marinelli. I worked with him one summer lifeguarding beaches for the park’s district. Our boss found his website where he sells his sex stuff, and it was this whole big thing. Found the kink club Entrance through that (check it out if you’re in my hood ever – huge, clean, not too much gay shit, great ladies of all stripes hanging around, but limits on drinking if you’re trying to access certain levels). He’s bi. He’s either secretly Domme Lux’s slave or Domme Lux is his slave and it’s mega on the DL because it’d hurt her career if it got out she could ‘verse. There’s all this gossip.

SUCKPUNTER: bi guys r fags

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): SUCKPUNTER – that’s strike one. lockstock – not deleting your post because from what I can see JDM doesn’t/isn’t acting in explicit scenes, but let’s cool it with doxxing info. Looks like he’s had an experience with that before, and as a small business owner myself, I know how it can suck. We aren’t gossiping high school girls. Settle back and enjoy what Ivan gives us.

GOBgobGOB: *sees dudes in the chat and stops jacking off*

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: NP mod, feel free to delete it later before it causes problems.

TheWorldofMartinAmis: going back to previous discussion – don’t think a breast job automatically constitutes body modification

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): think about it martinamis, it’s a slippery slope – you want to see some swollen battered fish get destroyed, or a fresh natural girl get destroyed?

SUCKPUNTER: i am not a faggot and a whore’s a whore and im here to see whores fucking destroyed

GOBgobGOB: *tony soprano voice* she was a HOOOOER

SUCKPUNTER: fag or cunt all whores get fucked

LordJim: Mod, step up. This isn’t going to get better. With all due respect

SUCKPUNTER: fag or cunt ALL WHORES GET FUCKED

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): yeah, already done. That should be the last of him. Don’t know why I expected that situation to turn out differently.

  FROM: lydias-verified@terrorproductions.com

TO: JulesDM86@gmail.com

Subject: Debrief – valley week

Jules,

As discussed, attached is current info for my old webmaster service from when I had to run my own fansite. Decent price and decent vendor system. Can only be an improvement on what you have now. That is not an insult, but I know it sounds like one. Stay with me.

[link] [link] [link]

And above, the top three most trafficked boards I’ve found following my own career and the rubber valley gang. We’ve caused quite a stir already and its only July 15th. I wouldn’t count on this causing an uptick in your business, but I think you know that. The standard gentleman at home spending twenty bucks a month for guaranteed links to a woman being fucked inside out while wearing a sensory deprivation hood simply doesn’t translate him to spending 100-200 dollars, contacting a seller, taking measurements, and going through the effort to order he and his special girly the hood itself. But I know you believe you’ve chosen your life the same way I believe I’ve chosen my life and won’t whine. I will say, if your ego is bruised, that your clothes are wonderful. They feel maybe half like death. I’ll wear them again and again.

On a funnier note: I have accounts myself on all the above message boards and post semi-regularly. It might amuse you to do the same thing, but you need to be careful regarding your identity. Feedback from viewers is never relevant, but it needs to be pure (don’t ask me why – my brains are fucked out). I won’t tell you who I am, and you won’t tell me who you are. Maybe we’ll find each other.

I wouldn’t tell your Cathy, since some sensitive (if inaccurate) information is flying around. Your instinct towards privacy, while cute and old fashioned, is an apt instinct. Looks like the good people of Chicago can’t keep their fucking mouths shut. Will you be able to find a straight job if your work now goes up like a dead dog’s gut? Don’t despair. Your nice long cock dropped so well down my throat while your Cathy beat my clit with the edge of your belt (nice touch – whose idea was that?) so while you might not get another chance to perch in a lifeguard’s throne, you might very well have a future in film. You’re vigorous, discrete, disciplined, clean, and a cutie-pie. Have your Cathy make some films of you alone or you two together. It’ll excite her, so you have no choice but to be excited yourself. You’re excited reading this. You believe you chose this.

Anyway – Cathy! Don’t be insulted on her behalf. I loved playing with you both. She’s kind and a lot of fun, which are virtues I still let myself appreciate in others. Let her know I appreciate how she let me use you. She’s a good girl and has a good future in store, especially with her personal valet running her life. Pick her outfits, pick her makeup, pick her clients, pick her laundry soap – is it already like that? I want to be buried alive, but you want to be buried in chores. Please dream big, Jules.

Rubber valley is where I have the most fun out of all the shoots I have in a year, but I really was lucky that you two showed up. Poor old Merrick Marvel (not even that old – colon cancer). But out with him and in with you. I enjoyed our river talk and I felt very safe in the car with you at the wheel, though I know I tormented you a little (but I’m pretty sure Cathy helped you out later with that – will you write back to me what she did to you, and if she let you come?) At one point you were with Ivan in the garage, and I tried to have a little talk with her about oblivion, but she either understood my point and got scared, or simply didn’t understand. It’s unfortunate, kind of soul-sucking, how our dominant “loved ones” transform into necessary evils. Adjust the tube. Grasp the handle. Move the thigh. Use the vocal cord to form the order. But what do they know? I never knew how to explain.

I’ve attached some personal pictures of me. I like knowing that you have them. I won’t contact you again except under strict business purposes, so let me sum up. Serve Cathy well. Don’t let her get bullied. Flourish creatively. Keep that belt. Fuck as often as your body commands you to fuck (if I suspect that sometimes your body is Cathy’s body by proxy, then this number will double, perhaps triple, but the choice is out of your hands because she owns your cock). You have a lot of growing up to do. Don’t despair. More to come.

We won’t see each other soon, but we’ll see each other again. Ciao! 

I expect improvements.

XOXOXOXOXOXOX

Lydia S

[moonlightjeno]

so like when youre free maybe you could do roommates!au + enemies to lovers + “you have the emotional capacity of a brick.” from the prompt list with im-not-even-gonna-say-his-name-because-you-know-it? hopefully with a happy ending idk maybe theyve both been burying their feelings for some time? dont push yourself and you dont have to do it if you dont want to 🥰 ly so much bubs ❤❤

asdfghj im so so so sorry this took me ages to actually write !! i do hope you like it’s seriously like just pure fluff and some small tiny angst but basically I want a jeno after this and you know why. 

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬: [roomate!au] +  [enemies to lovers] + [“you have the emotional capacity of a brikc”]

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: f l u f f and full on crackheads. this is a mess

creds to @mozartwasajungkookstan ,, ty for the help on how to start this!

Having a roommate or really lack thereof was nothing like the movies, especially when lee jeno was involved. It’s not like you saw him often, he seemed to spend most of his time either in his room the only sound coming either grunts or the click click of the video game controller that he seemed to be attached to dearly. You were almost sure he talked more to the tv screen in his room and his phone was six other voices would at times come through, seeping through the door. 

When your old roommate had suggested you move in with jeno, you had initially agreed. From what you’d heard from her he wouldn’t get much in your way, loved animals so wouldn’t mind you bringing your cat and he was cute. Jeno was the epitome of a perfect roommate according to the paper in front of you and Jaemin who’d had to leave you and therefore make you move because of a modeling gig he’d been presented halfway across the world. The boy at least had shown you pictures of the boy who you’d be spending the rest of the year with and when you’d first seen them you couldn’t deny that he was easy on the eye. The pictures that jaemin had shown you had done him no justice, had been your first thought when you’d the boy who’s black hair had been pushed back, clothes clinging to his body from sweat, a result of what you had later learned was from a late dance practice you had been stunned. The initial stun of his beauty quickly faded the moment he opened his mouth only to close it back up again, and turn around leaving you in the entrance hall. 

The relationship between the two of you didn’t grow much from the initial encounter. It seemed that jeno would either spend too much time outside and come back to your apartment marks left along his neck where he would maybe wave a hi to you, and if it was a good day wouldn’t complain about you taking up most of the space in the living room. On your defense, he never used it either way. At least that’s what you thought, it had never occurred to you that the boy was to shy to disturb you, or that anytime he would come in the living room only to find you concentrated, most of the time scribbling over papers across the desk that he didn’t want to bother you. Especially when you looked kinda cute, all concentrated on whatever it is you were working on, he never asked never dared to. 

Three months into the rooming and it seemed that you had traded the boy you loved and had grown to be one of your closest friends for a stone-cold dark-haired boy. Jaemin was a foil to jeno in every way possible that the english dictionary could come up with. Where jaemin would greet you by the door almost every day, and was ready to give you a hug and talk about your day to no end jeno wouldn’t. The most jeno would do was tell you what the weather was outside on the occasion you went out to get the groceries, but in the times of a global pandemic, those were few. No relationship seemed to blossom, not that either of you put much effort into making any sort of conversation, the most you would get out of jeno were vague nods or “mmhhhmmm” that always had you questioning if he was agreeing or disagreeing with you. It had seemed to become a sort of talent to be able to distinguish between the different noises that jeno would make, most of them when you were involved in the speech were negative. That is what one would gather from the low tone that would come from grunts, half of the time it was jeno not every really knowing what to say on the subject of the human body and it’s many muscles, he was a dance major he didn’t know. 

Five months and quarantine hits your city. It’s during moments in quarantine that you are grateful for it and the organized chaos it brings with it in the apartment. Well peace is you considered music blasting through the household as jeno practiced his dance and choreographed new routines while zooming with his even louder group of friends. The pumping music though made up because when you would see jeno a smile or the ghost of one would grace his features, and you two would at times, very small times would make conversation about the weather. Talking about the weather had truly just become a joke, as neither you or jeno could actually leave the apartment. Nevertheless, jeno never failed to remind you when it was going to rain, it was both sweet and slightly annoying you couldn’t quite decide. It was on rare days, when you would get back from a daily grocery shop run you would find dinner prepared. Too much of your surprise it had been edible the last two times he has cooked, and though not much conversation flowed between the two of you it seemed this hate to hate relationship had become a more of acquaintances to acquaintances. It was progress, and you couldn’t help but smile at it.   

There were times when you looked at him, times when you two though wouldn’t talk to each other but would decide that on that night you would maybe attempt to get along better. These scenarios tended to end up happening from the constant nagging that jaemin put you both through, a constant “just talk” and “i swear they aren’t as bad as you think” and you couldn’t forget his most recent one that drove you nuts to no end “are you sure you don’t just you know like him?”. The phone conversation tended to end with a beep the second those words left his mouth, only for jaemin to text you about it continually. You were happy when that jaemin lived so far away in those moments if not you were sure he would have died either from you or jeno. It was one of the rare things you two agreed on. 

“So… what movie do you wanna watch?” you posed the question, not expecting much of an answer apart from maybe a shrug or a complaint on why were the two of you doing this again. 

 “Ummm, are you good with avatar? I haven’t watched it in a while and the sequel is supposed to come out” the suggestion left you gaping at him, eyes wide at the fact he had directed more than five words to you.

“Hold up” the awe in your voice was very much present which caused jeno to turn around and look at you, “did you just actually give me a sentence?” you couldn’t help the smile that blossomed on your lips and it only grows when you see jeno, biting his lip a small attempt to stop his smile from showing. 

“And…” you move closer to him, sitting in front of him one hand pointing slightly at his lips, “are you smiling?” you can’t help the laughter that leaves your lips, and soon jeno has joined you. Though he stops quickly the moment you see him looking at you, a genuine smile on his face. 

“Whatever. Just play the movie” he grunts, shifting his boy to face the tv and hugging your cat next to him. If it weren’t for the fact that you were almost sure you’re cat loved jeno more than he loved you, even if jeno was allergic to them you would have tried to rob him back. But this was the most you’d gotten out of jeno and you sure as hell wasn’t about to ruin it.  

“I’m on it, i’m on it” you mumble, as you search through your disney+ account expecting to find the last few shows and movies you’d been binge-watching cars a childhood favorite of yours right at the top and avatar which at this point you almost thought you watched religiously right next to it. The moment the screen showed Cars, you heard a cough from beside you. Your glare on jeno made him look at you slightly eyes narrowing before he chuckled, rolling his eyes. 

“Why is Cars on here?” the question seemed to mock you and you only smiled. 

“Nostalgia. Why?” the movie brought up the fun and happy memories from when you were younger, you had watched it so many times the dvd had broken. 

“So it’s not because it’s just a bad movie and you wanted to make fun of it?” and just like that, you’re ready to fight jeno, even if the way his hair fell slightly across his eyes from not being cut in months, and the way is he moved just slightly you could see the muscles shift from beneath his white shirt. 

“Are you mocking Cars?” 

“Maybe. It has no emotional value” is his response, followed by a shrug as he turns again to face the tv eyes darting from the tv to you from his side-eye. Oh that’s it. You think bitterly before grabbing the pillow behind you and hitting jeno full face, your power yell leaving your lips. The thud the pillow makes as it collides with jeno’s face and the yelp that leaves his lips and you smile. 

“The fuck was that for?” he’s looking at you again, arms crossed against his chest, your cat no longer in sight.

“Because you” the emphasis on the word is caused by another hit in the shoulder, “have the emotional capacity of a brick.” jeno’s face is the only answer you need before you settle back into the couch, a proud grin adorning your face, until you are pulled by the waist a shriek leaving your lips. In some way you can’t fully understand you are now sitting on jeno’s lap, his face only centimeters from yours, and you can see the light specks of gold that swirl in his dark eyes. 

“No” the word is a whisper, and he moves closer to you, “i” you can feel his hands on your waist holding you in place “don’t” the movement is too fast for you too process but one moment your breaths are mixing and a noise you can’t place is in the background, and the next he’s kissing you. 

kissing jeno like everything related to jeno is nothing like you expected but everything you wanted. It’s slow and warm, and your hands come up behind his neck playing with the loose strands of hair. Kissing jeno is a new feeling, a way of conveying emotions when words between you two have always failed, and maybe just maybe it’s a confession because when you pull apart foreheads touching each other love-struck smiles on both of your faces you realize jeno isn’t that bad. 

“See?” a small peck to the lips, “my emotional capacity is beyond your reach” a grin replaces the small smile, “and i like you” another kiss, this time to the corner of your mouth and you thank the dark lights in the room from hiding the warmth from your cheeks. A small hmmm leaves your lips in response before you kiss him again, “i guess i like you too”

[nikkoliferous]

He doesn’t bother explaining why he’s here.

This is early on, late May, a few months into the race, but he is already of the belief that he is doing something extraordinary with his presidential campaign — something that’s never been done before. The trouble is describing it. There’s no word for this in modern politics. It is, he believes, “a new way to communicate with the American people” — though he won’t say this until later, and only when asked. Even now, long after he’s put this work at the center of his campaign — at his events, in ads, on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube — he won’t talk about it much. He isn’t sure it’ll work, or if people are “picking up on what we’re trying to do here.” The media, he believes, has always believed, can’t fathom what’s at the heart of this.

So when he arrives at the house, a small mobile home 40 miles outside Montgomery, Alabama, over the Lowndes County line, in one of the poorest places in the country, with five reporters and his own camera crew, he steps through the front door, greets his host, and begins with no clear mention of what he hopes to accomplish here or how it will help him become president.

Pamela Rush, a 49-year-old mother of two, is showing him the problems with her home: the floor tilting visibly to one side, the sheets of plaster peeling off the wall, the broken pipes, the broken cabinetry. He stops in the room where her daughter sleeps. “Do you guys wanna…?” He motions for everyone to come closer. His videographer shuffles forward. On the bedside table, there’s a ventilation machine, the kind used for sleep apnea. A tube of ribbed plastic connects the device to a mask resting on the bedspread, which is patterned cheerily with tiny elephants. Because of mold in the house, Pamela’s daughter needs the device to breathe in her sleep. “How old is she?” the candidate asks. She’s 10. Pamela holds up the mask so he can see up close.

“Show them, not me,” he says, gesturing toward the camera.

She shows the camera the mask.

The visit continues like this. “Show them,” he keeps saying. “Show them.” He speaks only to ask questions, prompting Pamela to “explain” this or that, pointing her to an unseen audience on the other end of his camera lens. It’s like he’s directing his own video — except the video isn’t about him or his campaign or his policy agenda. He is, it seems, somewhere offscreen, an omniscient narrator, felt maybe, but not seen or heard. This is not a public event. There is no crowd. There is no podium, no speech. Mostly, there is silence. The leader of the political revolution — a man who has spent 50 years of his life trying to talk about his ideas — is not saying much at all.

In his first campaign, a third-party bid for US Senate in 1972, he lugged around a 2,000-page, two-volume study by the House Banking and Currency Committee, liberally quoting its findings to the people of Vermont. He spent that year telling anyone who would listen about the fact that a mere 49 banks were trustees of $135 billion and held 768 “interlocking directorships” with 286 of the country’s largest 500 industrial corporations. To him, the phenomenon of interlocking directorships was not arcane or irrelevant to daily life in Vermont. It was an urgent outrage.

In Congress, he developed “the oligarchy speech,” a bleak overview of income inequality in America. The speech became the basis of his public events, his lengthy posts on Facebook, of an entire book — title: The Speech — consisting solely of the transcript of an eight-hour speech he delivered on the floor of the Senate.

And in 2016 — the rallies? The arenas? He had 2,600 in Iowa’s hulking Mid-America Center — largest crowd of the caucus season. He hit every city he could: 5,000 people in Houston, 8,000 in Dallas, 10,000 in Madison, 11,000 in Phoenix, 15,000 in Seattle, 27,500 in Los Angeles, 28,000 in Portland — plus overflow! All those people showing up to hear an hourlong speech they already knew by heart: wages down, median income stalled, one family with more wealth than the bottom 130 million… As he spoke, they’d mouth along to their favorite lines: “Congress does not regulate Wall Street—” “WALL STREET REGULATES CONGRESS,” the crowd would shout back. “Enough is—” “ENOUGH!” they roared. The succession of grim facts — “but let me tell you what is even worse!” he’d say — became a ritual. When a small bird, later identified as a common house finch, once landed on his lectern, an entire stadium full of people cheered wildly, mouths open, their arms raised to the sky, eyes turned upward — not to God, but to the image of the bird and their candidate on the Jumbotron. There was power in the speech. He believed, aides have said, that he was literally changing a generation, person by person, line by line, with every rally.

That was the whole thing — Bernie Sanders, talking.

This is something different.

“Pamela,” he says gently, “why don’t you explain it.”

“And be loud so everyone can hear you…”

Bernie Sanders is sorry for your troubles, but that’s not the reason he’s asking you to talk about them — which he is, everywhere he goes. He wants you to talk about your medical bill — the one you can’t pay. He wants you to talk about losing your house because you got sick. He wants you to talk about the payday loans you took out to keep your kid in school. About the six-figure student debt that’s always on your mind. About living off credit cards, or losing your pension, or working multiple jobs for wages that won’t be enough to support your family.

He would like you to talk about this publicly, in detail, and on camera. He will ask you to do this in front of reporters, or in a room full of strangers at one of his town halls. Of course, the Bernie Digital Team will be there — they are always there — taping your story on camera, or streaming it in real-time to his own mass broadcast system on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. On any given day, he is capable of reaching millions of people.

“Who wants to share their story?” he’ll say. “Don’t be embarrassed. Millions of people are in your boat.”

He has, it turns out, built an entire presidential campaign around an open invitation to speak — to talk plainly about the “reality of life” in this country — to be “loud so everyone can hear.”

His suggestion, by asking you to speak up about your private anxieties, many of them financial, is that you and the millions of people in the proverbial audience will begin to see your struggles not as personal failings, but systemic ones. He is less interested in explicitly presenting solutions than naming the problem — that “we have millions of people in the richest country in the history of the world who are struggling every single day,” which is a phrase he repeats daily, almost like an exhortation, as if to grab the American working class by its shoulders. He doesn’t deal in pity or reassurance. Yes, he’ll give hugs — one arm, from the side, other hand still clutching the mic. But mostly he’ll just listen and nod, gaze lowered. Or he’ll shake his head at the crowd, like can you believe this? And then, from the gut, a clipped scoff, like of course you can believe it. That’s the point. He has heard your story before, because it’s all part of the same story: a broken system, driven by profit and greed, built to reinforce the notion that if you’re bright enough, if you work hard enough, then you can travel the path to the middle class. And if you don’t make it there…well, maybe you’re the problem. And who wants to talk about that?

He believes his presidential campaign can, he says, help people “feel less alone.”

He is trying to change the way people interact with private hardship in this country, which is to say, silently and with self-loathing. He is trying, in as literal a sense as you could imagine, to excise “shame” and “guilt” from the American people. These are not words you hear often in politics, but in interviews this year with the candidate, his wife, and his top advisers, they are central to his strategy to win. He is imagining a presidential campaign that brings people out of alienation and into the political process simply by presenting stories where you might recognize some of your own struggles. He is imagining a voter, he says, who thinks, “I thought it was just me who was struggling to put food on the table. I thought I was the only person. I thought it was all my fault. You mean to say there are millions of people?”

He still has his rallies, but “it’s a different campaign, and we do things differently,” he says. “I can give the greatest speech in the history of the world, but it will not have the significance and the impact that the real-life experience of ordinary Americans will have.” At many of his events, the antiseptic macro focus of the “oligarchy speech” — the anonymous actors on Wall Street, the greed of the American corporation, the rigged system — has been replaced by the most intimate details of someone’s life. The outrage in his voice, a booming rasp amplified across three tiers of an NBA-size venue, is softer now. The arena itself has morphed into a digital platform for one voter’s story.

Show them, he says. Show them, not me.

We understand presidential campaigns, in their most basic form, as a conversation between a candidate and the American people. The conversation is happening all the time, in person and online, directly, indirectly, at every possible scale: It’s a handshake, a speech, a television ad, a sponsored post on Facebook. It’s a policy rollout. It’s the signage at a rally, the way an American flag is steamed and hung just so on a stage. Every dollar of every campaign is spent on shaping or beautifying or amplifying some message from the candidate. Bernie’s first presidential bid, in a sense, was the unprocessed, stripped-down version of that conversation: It was the speech. In terms of the mechanics of the thing, as he put it in late 2016, he wasn’t “reinventing the wheel.”

Four years later, he is attempting to run a presidential campaign that facilitates an entirely different conversation — one between people like Pamela and the American people. The stories he collects and broadcasts across the internet aren’t just voter testimonials produced to validate the campaign or its policies — they’re aimed, in Bernie’s mind, at people validating one another.

After 50 years, this is an unlikely place for the political revolution to land. It’s more human. More empathetic. More personal than what you’d expect from a man who’s willingly played along with his persona as a perma-“outsider” and, as he put it in 2015, “grumpy old guy.”

There’s this idea that Bernie Sanders is “a man of the people who doesn’t like people” — just issues. That’s not exactly right, though the precise balance between the two can be difficult to pin down. “Policy, policy, policy,” says his wife, Jane, who is a strategic partner on her husband’s campaign. “Fight, fight, fight — which is true, but he’s also about people.”

He arrived in Vermont in 1968, full of ideas about movement politics, and began his career by raising his hand at a local third-party meeting. He settled in Stannard, a remote town with no paved roads, populated by fewer than 2o0 people, where he learned to live in isolation. But in politics, he also discovered that he liked talking to strangers about the issues of the day. In the ’80s, he hosted his own public broadcast show as mayor of Burlington. In the footage, unearthed by Politico earlier this year, he can be warm and dryly funny. On the campaign trail in Vermont, he liked to take impromptu walks and kept a pair of trunks in the car in case he passed a swimming hole. In Washington, he kept more to himself. Interviewed in 1991, fellow members of Congress described him as a “homeless waif” with a “holier-than-thou” attitude who “alienates” his potential allies, who “screams and hollers,” one said, “but he is all alone.”

Part of the problem, of course, is that Bernie Sanders is not an open book. He will snap at reporters when they ask him to talk about himself or, god forbid, how he’s changed as a person, because what does that have to do with Medicare for All? “You’re asking about me, and I’M not important,” he once said in an interview. “What’s important are the kinds of policies we need to transform this country. OK?” The conversation was over after six minutes. His interior life, to the extent that it is acknowledged among his campaign staff, is a subject only a few people can address with any authority. A simple question on the subject — have you ever seen him cry? — recently reduced senior aides to various forms of lawyer-speak. “I’ve seen him emotionally affected,” one said after a long pause. Another, as if the question had been unclear and possibly even sinister, said only: “What do you mean?” With Jane, he’ll call from the road to talk about his day, but questions like “How did that make you feel?” are not a part of the discussion. “Oooh, no,” she laughs at the suggestion. “Oh no, no. Yeah, no. He doesn’t do that. No. No. Neeevver.”

He can be harsh with staff — short-tempered and demanding and sometimes rude. “Some people say I am very hard to work with. They say I can be a real son of a bitch. They say I can be nasty, I don't know how to get along with people,” Bernie told his press secretary in 1990, according to a memoir by the former staffer. “Well, maybe there's some truth to it.”

His mood is under careful observation. Aides are always noting things like “He’s in a good mood today.” When he is happy, everyone is happy. When he’s not, everyone is quiet, especially in the SUV, where he will ride shotgun with his iPad, a red Vitaminwater at his side, scrolling through tweets from @BernieSanders, maybe only speaking up to dispassionately observe that people must really care about education in this country because a tweet about education is getting a lot of engagement today. Everyone knows which staffers make him feel most at ease — a special currency on the campaign. Small signs of interpersonal comfort — watching an aide make him laugh, watching another gently brush dandruff from his navy blue blazer — can feel like extraordinary acts of intimacy. In 2016, when discussing the campaign at a bar, some staffers got in the habit of referring to him as “Earl” or “the old man,” because at the end of the day, he is 78 years old. And who would have expected this — the most emotionally driven, intimate, borderline touchy-feely campaign of the 2020 election — from “a real son of a bitch”?

Correction.

“I don’t like the word ‘touchy-feely,’” Bernie Sanders says curtly.

Everyone is sensitive about how to describe this. There’s been a lot of “experimentation” with this, one of his advisers will start to explain — before doubling back to say that, actually, “I think ‘experimentation’ is the wrong word.” There’s no precedent for it. Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren often invite you to consider your story through the lens of their own. Bill Clinton said “I feel your pain,” but he never asked people to reorient the way they feel about their own pain.

Bernie says he is trying to “redefine our value system.” Jane talks about breaking down decades of societal muscle memory: “It seems to be the American way,” she says. “That we all think it’s our fault — instead of recognizing there is a system that is making it unfair for them.” They are, as they see it, trying to dismantle the ideal of “rugged individualism,” an entire era of political thought. Ari Rabin-Havt, a top adviser who travels with the candidate every day, puts it more tangibly: The campaign is a “megaphone” for working people, he says. Briahna Joy Gray, his national press secretary, has likened the effect to “catharsis” from nationwide “gaslighting.” On the podcast she hosts for the campaign, she compares her boss to Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting: the therapist who tells Matt Damon, a young man who was abused by his foster parent, “It’s not your fault. Look at me, son. It’s not your fault… no, no, no, it’s not your fault.”

It really started late this spring, around the time he went to Alabama. The campaign YouTube page started pushing out stories like Pamela’s: a family living without clean drinking water in South Carolina; a family with inadequate low-income housing in San Francisco; workers at Walmart. On Twitter, he asked people to reply with stories of “their most absurd” medical bill. He got 50,000 responses in a week. By the fall, he was holding more town halls than rallies. In rooms from Iowa to Nevada, one person would raise their hand to speak, then another, and another, and another. “Don’t be nervous,” he’d tell the crowd. “You really are among friends.” Not every event has been as affecting as the next. On one trip, he visited a woman’s home in Des Moines to document her problems with contaminated well water. His host happened to be a fan and prepared two trays of homemade brownies for the occasion. Bernie, already late for his next event, declined to eat a brownie and left after 15 minutes. But more often than not, he is an attentive and genuine listener. At one event last month, a woman stood to say that people are “embarrassed if they don’t think they make enough money.” Bernie told her this had been “instilled” by “the system.” The campaign posted footage of the exchange on Instagram. As you watch the video, bold capital lettering runs across the top and bottom of the screen like an emergency weather alert: “THE SYSTEM WANTS YOU TO BE ASHAMED.”

“What we are doing,” he says, “is really speaking to the working class of this country in a way I’m not quite sure any candidate has ever done before.”

Eventually, when asked, he comes to describe this as core to his strategy to win.

“Here’s the gamble,” Bernie says. The gamble is there are millions of working people who don’t vote or consider politics to be relevant to their lives. “And it is a gamble to see whether we can bring those people into the political process,” he says. “One way you do it is to say, ‘You see that guy? He’s YOU. You’re workin’ for $12 an hour, you can’t afford health insurance — so is he. Listen to what he has to say. It’s not Bernie Sanders talking, you know? It’s that guy. Join us.”

And yet, on a Tuesday night, in one moment, the full force of the political revolution, all 50 years of it, came grinding so unquestioningly to a halt by one blocked artery. He will spend two and a half days in the hospital — and he will lie there hooked up to their beeping machines, and he will yell at the doctors when they try to ask him stupid questions, and he will quiz them about health care policy and obsess over what all this would cost without insurance — and there will be a crisis over what to say in the press release and when to say it and if it can wait until Jane is able to deliver the news in person to the seven grandkids before they see it on CNN, and there will be reporters stalking him outside the building, and all sorts of people will want to visit — and for days, he will say over and over again, “I can’t believe I had a heart attack… I can’t imagine how I had a heart attack… I can’t imagine…” like this is a fact he simply cannot accept, because he feels fine as soon as they finish the procedure and because he’s always had terrific “endurance”... Never thought it’d be his heart to cause him problems… Ran a 4:37 mile in high school...!

But not once, in all that chaos and frustration, will he consider dropping out.

ii.

Here is what Pamela explains to Bernie Sanders: that her family bought this mobile home in the ’90s for a trumped-up price of $114,000; that she lives on $1,000 a month; that she still owes $15,000 on the house; the house she fears will harm her daughter’s health; the house where her mother caught pneumonia and died; the house where, “when a storm comes,” she says, “we have to stay in the mobile home and just pray.” He learns that Pamela’s sister was arrested because she couldn’t afford to pay for the county garbage service. Another sister was arrested because she couldn’t afford to buy into the sanitation system. He turns to a reporter in the Alabama heat. “Really something, isn’t it?” he says. He is frowning, jowls gathered slightly at the neck, but there is no shock or judgment in his face. It will become a familiar expression over the summer and fall. He is not always an obviously comforting presence, but there is never judgment.

“So this is where the waste goes?”

Everyone is outside now, around back. Sanders wants to see where the waste goes.

He learns that Pamela, like many residents in Lowndes County, is also “straight-piping” her untreated sewage from the bathroom to her yard. She is here with Catherine Flowers, an activist who has worked with Congress on the pernicious tangle of issues facing Lowndes County: criminalized poverty, environmental degradation, inadequate infrastructure.

He peers down at a line of dark, matted grass where, a few paces from his feet, inches from the base of the trailer, sewage flows via exposed PVC pipes into a shallow open-air trench. “Is this uncommon in this part of the world?” he asks, steering the conversation for his unseen audience, and the cameras swing back to Pamela and Catherine.

The sun is beating down. Bernie rolls up his sleeves and starts talking gravely about how this is the richest country in the history of the world... “Today we’re in Lowndes County, Alabama, in an African-American community,” he is saying. “Tomorrow we’ll be in California in a Latino community, or in West Virginia in a white community, and the stories will be the same.” You can see his bald head turning shades of pink and red. Everyone is sweating. Pamela is talking about her mother’s death. It is not an easy conversation. “This is America,” he is saying.

Back in his Washington headquarters, the digital team is waiting for the footage.

In the supercharged world Bernie inhabits, the decision to stay in the race was considered not only reasonable, but obvious. Here, there is no confusion about “what we’re trying to do here.” The candidate moves amid a swirl of people you would classify uncynically as “true believers.” It’s a lot of passion in one place. The stakes always feel high. But the hard and fast question of whether they can win the nomination is, to a certain extent, supplanted by the general sense that the movement is a just and right cause and, therefore, in the end, the cause will prevail, likely in a shocking fashion when no one anticipates it or believes it can be done, à la Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And so they are always on guard against outside forces — people who will doubt them, or underestimate them, or try to actively destroy them.

This is how things go in “a politics of struggle.”

In “a politics of struggle,” as Sanders explains it in a 2015 foreword to his first memoir, setbacks are expected. There will be defeats before there can be the “breakthroughs” few people imagine possible. In a politics of struggle, the goals are “transforming a city, a state, a nation, and maybe the world.” It is already understood that this is “about more than winning an election.”

It’s in this environment that the advent of the heart attack became another motivational “setback.” Ocasio-Cortez decided to endorse. Supporters only hung on tighter. Campaign staffers spoke in grave tones about the “sheer terror” of a world without Bernie. “What is happening right now,” Briahna Joy Gray told her subscribers on the campaign podcast, “is that an old man is carrying the most colossal imaginable weight on his shoulders.” By the time he is back on the trail, the mission of the campaign takes on newly urgent, almost philosophical importance.

He’s in Iowa — a town called Toledo, Tama County, population 2,341 — coaxing people to talk to him about how they feel. “What about health care?” he says at a local civic center, roaming out from behind the podium. “Don’t tell me what I wanna hear! — I want YOU to think about it. Should health care be a human right?” The crowd, not quite warmed up yet, signals a yes. “WHY?” he replies, voice booming. “Who wants to tell me why? Don’t be shy…”

This is his first campaign swing since the heart attack. Five events in 24 hours.

He has to address the age question, of course, so he does. “I've been criticized for being old. I plead guilty. I am old!” he says at his first stop of the trip. Reporters ask him about it. Pundits analyze why it matters. Dr. Oz, the heart surgeon and television host, provides his unsolicited opinion that Bernie’s “protoplasm is strong,” a you-know-it-when-you-see-it term in the medical community for physiological sturdiness. Voters also weigh in, as if to offer reassurance. “Seniors rock!” a woman says at a town hall in Marshalltown, Iowa. Moments later, a middle-aged man raises his hand to tell the candidate that, by age 39, he’d had three heart attacks, a stroke, and a triple-bypass surgery — “and it doesn’t have to get in the way of living, all right?” Bernie takes these remarks in stride, smiling back gamely. He is in a good mood. Though you get the distinct impression that he would rather not be discussing the state of his protoplasm, or himself, at all.

During the town hall in Toledo, Jane and a few staffers can hear Bernie speaking through the walls of an adjacent hold room. She and Ari Rabin-Havt, the deputy who was with Bernie in the hospital through the whole ordeal, are sitting at a small table talking about the heart attack like family members who, maybe years later, are finally able to look back at the whole thing and laugh. Except here, it’s been days, not years. Jane is going into her own Bernie impression: “He’s like, ‘I feel fine. I don’t understand… You’ah tellin’ me I had a heart attack?? I don’t — I, I don’t understand.’”

The thing that bothered him so much about it was the relative smallness of it — like this was needlessly, stupidly about him, “and I’M not important,” remember? What did his aging body, in his mind a vessel of little consequence, have anything to do with the reality that “millions of people in the richest country in the history of the world are struggling every single day”? The answer, of course, is everything: This, like any endeavor in electoral politics, hinges on the will and presence and personality of its leader. The political revolution is no less human or fallible.

And there he was, having to ask for a chair during an event in Las Vegas — he rarely sits on stage — because of chest pains. “Ari, can you do me a favor?” he looked around the room for Rabin-Havt. “Where’s Ari? Get me a chair up here for a moment. I’m going to sit down here.” Staffers found their jobs suddenly transformed. They were dealing with the questions of a health crisis: Should they take him to the hospital? And which hospital? The closer one, or the one with the better cardiology center? But this was Bernie. Everyone knows Bernie. There would be a scene. People would ask for selfies in the waiting room. Reporters would hear about it. They did not want that. It was Rabin-Havt, in the end, who approached the front desk at the urgent care center behind the MGM Grand and discretely flashed his boss’s driver’s license — 09/08/1941, SANDERS, BERNARD — so the nurses would usher him into the back quietly and without delay.

“They're like, ‘Look, we're gonna have to put him in the cath lab,’” Rabin-Havt says. Jane, seated to his right, hasn’t even heard this part of the story yet. So they got him in the cath lab. The doctor asked, how much pain are you in on a scale of 1 to 10, which Bernie rebuffed as a useless question. Then they asked him to please remove his wedding ring. “Really?” he growled, removing the ring. Then they asked for his glasses. And that’s where he drew the line. “JESUS CHRIST! I'm not gonna do that,” he said. That night, Rabin-Havt and another staffer took turns wearing the wedding ring so they wouldn’t lose it. “Oh my god,” Rabin-Havt says. “It was the scariest part.”

The next morning, when Jane arrived from Vermont, she found her husband unchanged. He was talking about how someone without insurance maybe wouldn’t have gone to urgent care at all because of how much it would cost. “That’s his brain,” Jane says. She turns to Rabin-Havt. “Did he say anything to you?” “Not during,” Rabin-Havt says. “The next day when he woke up, he was like, ‘What do you think this is going to cost?’”

His room became the center of activity in the hospital. He held policy discussions with the nurses. He asked the doctors about the hospital's finances. That was a relief, Jane says — to see “the same old Bernie.” Back in Washington, the press team kept obsessive watch over the news coverage, demanding corrections from reporters who described the stent procedure as a “surgery.” There was no surgery, they said breathlessly. It was a procedure! “I’m talking to the doctors,” Jane recalls, “and they’re saying ‘procedure,’ not surgery. It was not a surgery.” Rabin-Havt nods: Not a surgery. Once they finally got the diagnosis — “heart attack” — they needed a statement. So they hunkered down in a hospital break room. The doctors (multiple) started dictating to Rabin-Havt, who tapped out notes on his iPhone. Their first draft was a bit medical — too much jargon. One of the physicians, an English major in college, cut in: “No, no, no — we can do this so the press understands.” So then that doctor tinkered. Once they had their finished product, Rabin-Havt emailed it to the doctors and asked for a formal reply affirming the statement as their own. Proof in writing, presumably, in case of conspiracy theories.

“Yeah, it was fun,” Jane says, laughing. “Well, it was — it was not fun.”

You might wonder, reasonably so, why a 78-year-old man would rather be here, back in Iowa, still doing this, likely at some risk to his health, when he could also just drop out, endorse Elizabeth Warren, and spend his days at the family home on Lake Champlain. Maybe this is especially true if you also believe that Bernie Sanders stands no real shot at winning the Democratic nomination and probably knows it — but will take his diehard supporters, his loyal 15%, a big enough chunk to influence the debate and stay relevant, as far as they can carry him. But then, of course, you would be ruining his good mood and missing the point entirely.

“Honestly,” his wife says, seated at the small table, “I think things are getting worse. Things are getting worse.” By which she means wages, costs, bills, just not knowing if you can keep a roof over your head. “And this is an opportunity. I don't know that the opportunity was there in 2016, where it was so widespread in the same way, the feeling among people of, ‘Wait a minute. We deserve better. This is not OK. The system is completely broken.’ There were some people who saw it in 2016, but it has gotten so much worse over the last two or three years.”

“We’re losing ground as a people. And that angers him,” she laughs dryly, and from the other room, you can hear that he does sound angry — angry about how people go bankrupt for getting “CANC-AH,” angry about our crumbling “IN-FER-STRUCHRR,” angry about his colleagues in Congress who say everyone “LOOOOVES” their private health insurance. “THAT TRUE?”

He is yelling, yes, but Bernie Sanders is “happiest and most comfortable in rooms like this,” Rabin-Havt says, gesturing to the event across the hall. “When you put him in a room full of political hacks — like, phonies — that’s not his room. He’s not going to like it.”

Jane nods. “And he’s going to be gruff.”

“He’s going to be gruff,” Rabin-Havt says, “and he’s not going to know how to deal with it. You put him in a room with real people telling their real stories and—”

“And he’s a different person,” Jane says. “If you have politicians and, uh, media personalities just trying to play gotcha politics or talk about the polls or other candidates — and never asking the real questions about what's affecting the people, he has no time. He has no time.”

Jane, like most everyone around her husband, is a true believer. The two grew up in the same area of Brooklyn — 10 blocks apart, where her father worked as a taxi driver — but they wouldn’t meet until 1980 in Burlington. She was a community organizer. He was running for mayor. She had never heard the name “Bernie Sanders” when she helped organize a debate for the candidates at a Unitarian church in town. “Nobody liked the incumbent mayor in the community groups. Being a good Catholic girl, I greeted him and made sure he was all set up. I didn't even talk to Bernie! But everybody was interested in Bernie. And then I sat in the second row, and I listened to him, and so did the entire Unitarian Church,” she pauses, then continues slowly, “and I felt that he embodied everything I believed in. The first time I heard him speak. And I knew I would be working with him from that moment on.”

There is a stunning intensity in the belief — one made very real by the heart attack, one held firmly by his staff, his wife, by the candidate himself — that if Bernie Sanders isn’t going to be telling the American people these stories, then no other candidate will.

“It was a gut check for a lot of people,” Jane says. “Everybody was thinking cerebrally, ‘well, you know, we'll see how it plays out. The polls don’t seem to be doing that well right now. Who knows whether it's gonna be Biden or Elizabeth or Bernie…’” She waves her hand in the air.

“And then when people — I mean, I felt it very strongly from so many people — when people heard that he had a heart attack, it was like, ‘Oh my god.’ And envisioning, OK, without Bernie's voice, oh my god, this would be a totally different race. It would be a totally…” her voice trails off. “People understand that he's the one that can affect real change…”

“This is not a, uh, an intellectual discussion.”

At some point, the sound of Bernie’s voice from the other room drops out.

Jane goes silent. The staffers go silent.

Everything is abruptly quiet, and there is an instant, a half of a split second, when the mind imagines that maybe something’s happened — and then there’s the sound of Bernie Sanders speaking again.

“Somebody was just asking a question,” Jane explains.

“Oh, OK,” Rabin-Havt says.

“OK.”

iii.

The video team is still rolling outside Pamela’s house.

After about 25 minutes, the visit is over. They are all standing in the front yard — Bernie, Pamela, and Catherine. Two campaign vans are idling silently in the driveway. Both women have dealt with politicians before: Catherine has worked on legislation with US senators, including another presidential candidate, Cory Booker, to address rural wastewater problems. Pamela has testified before a congressional forum on poverty convened by Elizabeth Warren.

“Thank you,” Pamela tells her guest.

“I want to thank YOU,” he replies. And suddenly, there are tears. Catherine is hugging him, and then Pamela is hugging him too and crying into his blue button-down shirt — and then they are all hugging together. “We won’t forget you,” he says. “This is just the beginning.”

After they leave the house, he turns to one of the political reporters with him. “Learning something?” he asks.

The visit is still heavy on his mind. There is some light conversation about the trip — and then you see his face turn to a grimace. The reporter asks about Joe Biden. At this particular juncture in the horserace, there is a thirst for conflict between the two candidates.

“One day at a time…” he responds.

The reporter tries again: “Do you think Biden’s message is resonating in the South?”

“We’ll take it one day at a time, I have no idea. Nor does anyone else.”

He is, of course, annoyed. “You have all heard me rant and rave,” he starts telling the group. “I don’t think that the media is the enemy of the people, that it’s fake news. God knows I don’t think that.”

“But I do think we have to do a better job in looking at issues that impact ordinary people.”

“There are millions of people in this country…”

Later in the day, he relays Pamela’s story to the crowd at his town hall. The following month, his campaign releases a two-and-a-half-minute video about the trip, titled “Trapped.” Eventually, it hits 750,000 views.

In the middle of an interview, he bats back a question to ask one of his own.

“Do you know what it’s like to live —”

He is about to say “paycheck to paycheck,” but he stops himself. As he sees it, the media doesn’t know anything about that. Reporters, even the well-meaning ones, he thinks, don’t have a clue. “I mean, I do,” he says. “I grew up in that family.” His father, a paint salesman, worked hard but never made much money. The family lived in a three-and-a-half-room, rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn. Both parents died young. As a young politician in Vermont, Sanders had to borrow gas money to campaign. The windshield wipers on his Volkswagen bug didn’t work. He struggled to pay bills. After his swearing-in as mayor of Burlington, he bought his first suit at age 40. He was, in those days, the same voter he’s trying to reach now. His old notebooks, legal pads fished from the archives by a Mother Jones reporter earlier this year, include rambling notes on his inability to do better for himself and his young son. The internal commentary is scathing and unkind. “Not only do I not pay bills every month — ‘What, every month?’ — I am better now than I used to be,” he wrote, “but pretty poor…”

The secret, it turns out, is that in addition to taking this work very seriously, Bernie Sanders also takes it very personally. The secret is that a mostly solitary man — a man who has spent most of his political career on the outskirts, who’s never really fit into someone’s idea of a politician, who’s “cast some lonely votes, fought some lonely fights, mounted some lonely campaigns” — is now trying to win a presidential campaign, maybe his last, by making people feel less alone.

This is his campaign, his theory of change, though he’s done very little to explain it to a wider audience. “I care less about the coverage, in one sense,” he says. “What I care about is that someone turns on the TV, and there’s someone who works at Walmart, or someone from Disney, or McDonald's. And they say, you know, ‘that’s me.’” He wants those people to do the talking: the people who worry about their electric bill. The people who wonder if they can afford to have another kid. People for whom “the idea of taking vacation” — he scoffs as he says the word — “is not even in their imagination even though they work all the time.” In his mind, he was those people.

He is not among the politicians “whose mommies and daddies told them at the country club that they were born to be president,” as he put it last year. He suspects his parents were Democrats, but he isn’t sure — it’s not something they discussed. So he is not drawn to Washington in the usual ways. Which is not to say that he doesn’t have ego. In 2016, staffers watched him adjust with unexpected ease to his new power and popularity: The guy in the middle seat, coach class, was suddenly flying private and showing up to watch the Golden State Warriors play the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7. But he does not have what one former president called “that wretched mania, an itching for the White House.” He is driven by a different compulsion.

You get the sense, without exaggeration, that he will keep doing this for the rest of his life. That he would die before he stops. There are some signs, after the heart attack, that this is playing on his mind. “At the end of the day,” he told his supporters in a seven-minute video he recorded after his release from the hospital, “if you’re gonna look at yourself in the mirror, you’re gonna say, ‘Look, I go around once, I have one life to live. What role do I wanna play?’”

But for the most part, his mood is notably light. His return to the campaign trail, ever since the heart attack, aka “heart incident,” as senior aides refer to it in the press, has been a happy, bordering-on-joyous affair. He starts cracking jokes during his speech. He plays basketball. He hosts his staff at his house in Burlington, demonstrating the best way to build a fire in a tiny stove. He announces plans for his own New Year’s Eve party in Iowa with food, drinks, and live music: “Bernie’s Big New Year’s Bash.” Inexplicably, he ends up dancing at a labor solidarity dinner in New Hampshire. “Our revolution includes dancing!” he declares. And then, to the sound of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and The Temptations’ “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” he sways his hips from side to side, grinning, and twirls woman after woman across the banquet hall.

The major papers describe this period as a “renaissance” and “resurgence.” In polls conducted since the heart attack, he has either maintained his position or become even more competitive. He has a shot at Iowa. He looks good in Nevada and California. He remains the only candidate with more donations than Donald Trump. And he has some $1.67 million coming in each month from people who have signed up for automatic recurring donations.

On one afternoon in late October, he travels to Brooklyn to do a few interviews.

The plan is to walk up Henry Street to the Brooklyn Promenade, a pedestrian area overlooking the East River and downtown Manhattan, but he makes a turn onto Kane Street instead — spontaneous! — another indication of his good mood, which an aide quickly notes aloud.

He walks a few blocks, greeting passersby, before ducking into Francesco's Pizzeria & Trattoria, where he orders a slice of pepperoni. His staffers also order pepperoni. “See!” Bernie says. “Can’t think for themselves!” Jane shrugs. “Well, I got cheese,” she says.

The guys behind the counter open the oven and pull out a slice of pepperoni, wet and shimmering in its own hot oil. No one is concerned, apparently, about whether pizza is a wise choice three weeks after a stent procedure. Jane doesn’t blink. His staff doesn’t blink. No one blinks. Bernie takes his plate to a corner table, where he sits for a brief interview, giving polite but clipped answers about his decision to stay in the presidential race after the incident.

In one swift hand motion, as if to dispense with this line of inquiry entirely, he lifts the slice from its white paper plate, folds the crust lengthwise, takes a large bite, and swallows.

“This is my life,” he says.

The statement is, for Bernie, as straightforward and uncomplicated as it sounds. Everyone seems to understand this. Of course he should eat pizza. Of course he is still running for president.

“Well,” Jane says a few days later, “I mean, it would be kind of ridiculous if it didn't affect him in some way.”

“I think the way it affected him was, ‘OK, this… This is my mission in life. This is my purpose. I'm here for a reason.’”

On that long flight from Vermont to Las Vegas, she thought about what she should do when she saw him in the hospital. “If he wasn’t doing well,” she thought, she would put her foot down. She would tell him no. “If he was in danger, I would absolutely say, ‘I’m sorry. You can’t.’”

Jane pauses. “But honestly, I don’t know that he would have listened to me.”

[wnq-psychology]

How To Build Your Self Esteem

step away from the affirmations

“To be healthy, functioning individuals, we need to feel good about ourselves. To feel good about ourselves, we need to feel that our time and energy is spent meaningfully. Meaning is the fuel of our minds. When you run out of it, everything else stops working.”

Most of us struggle with self esteem. Many of us are fortunate enough to realize this, and some of us care enough to try to fix it.

The problem, however, is with the majority of the resources available to us — especially online. I am pretty sure these articles are 100% written by people who have serious self esteem issues, regurgitated from everyone else who has self esteem issues, on down the cycle to readers with self esteem issues, who think it’s just their fault for not being able to apply them and successfully boost their self esteem.

But of course not. Because none of this is how self esteem works.

First, let’s talk about what self esteem ISN’T:

Self esteem is not selfishness or narcissism

Having to say this makes me impatient, because if people don’t innately “get it,” they fight it blindly, emotionally, tooth and nail. And I understand, because there are a lot of emotions on the line here (see: entire post) so I’m just going to tread lightly and quickly when I say:

Self love and self esteem are not selfishness.

On the contrary, selfish people have desperately low self esteem and self love, which is why they overcompensate, demand, and have nothing left to give others.

Self esteem is not a series of “dont’s”

Most self esteem articles cheerily suggest things like, “Don’t have the negative self talk. Don’t compare yourself to others. Don’t put yourself down. Don’t doubt yourself,” like “just don’t have low self-esteem!”

These aren’t solutions.

The brain struggles with the word “don’t,” and when you focus on the negative, you’re still focusing on the thing. The brain interprets the sentence as an imperative, like: “ah, okay, negative self talk. Got it!” The brain is baby Groot.

The way we talk to ourself is a reflection of self esteem, not the root. It’s effect, not cause. It helps, of course, but it’s not the core. And fixing the core will fix the way we think and talk about ourselves.

Nature abhors a vacuum. If you don’t have something positive at the ready, the old stuff will just rush back in.

Self esteem does not come from others

It’s not anyone’s job to make you feel good about yourself. It can only come from you.

Some articles suggest that readers should “learn to accept compliments” — several even went so far as to suggest that you approach others and “ask them what they like about you.”

Trying to build self esteem through “others’ compliments” is like trying to learn how to walk by being carried.

Only you control of your self-acceptance and self-love.

Self esteem is not in “self help”

This is just an extension of the above.

Self help reinforces perceptions of inferiority and shame. It plays on insecurities and fabricates solutions that don’t serve real needs. It encourages avoidance.

It’s like how MayoClinic convinces us we’re dying more than it actually, directly remedies health problems. Engaging will eventually make us absorb all these negatives. We are not more powerful than what we give attention.

Self help just replaces one external influence for another. We’re still grasping for some authority figure, some omnipotent voice, to tell us what to do.

This of course includes this very post. Which is ironic, but at least honest and warm-hearted, because I wrote this only after doing tons of similar reading myself, and I write hoping we all resolve this.

Self help will never help

When I was getting my business off the ground, in the 3 dark months of “white noise” after quitting my job but before getting my first customer, isolated and running mostly on “faith” alone, someone asked me, “what kind of music do you listen to during the day?” I told them, “on good days, upbeat music. On bad days, chill music. And I know it’s an ugly day when I resort to motivational videos on YouTube.”

Those videos got me nowhere — except maybe through the day.

You want to know what finally kicked my self esteem back into gear? When I started making sales. Once that happened, I never watched another motivational, “self-help” video.

Self esteem is not about “pampering”

My god, if we could all stop with the “indulgences” and “little day to day pleasures;” if only we could stop thinking “self love” is about “treating ourselves,” or “scheduling time every day for fun and relaxation.”

Heidi Priebe said it best,

“Real self-love isn’t about ‘treating yourself’… because real self-love is less about babying yourself and more about parenting yourself.”

Good parents don’t indulge children with candy each time they cry. Good parents support, teach coping mechanisms, and gently encourage growth.

This is what loving ourselves means as well. It’s not about daily indulgences. It’s identifying and pursuing our longterm values.

Self esteem is not about affirmations

Fuck writing down all your best qualities.

I don’t know who came up with this terrible advice, but it’s pretty much useless. Consider, for a moment, the most genuinely confident person you know — do they sit down every day and write down their best qualities? Maybe they do, but I doubt it.

Confident people don’t do this. And people don’t magically become confident doing it. Only self-doubting people get stuck in this compulsive loop.

Self love is not about affirmations.

As Heidi Priebe wrote,

“Claiming to love yourself and actually doing the hard work of loving yourself are not the same thing… You can repeat a thousand affirmations an hour, write a limitless number of blog posts about how you’re worthy of love and stick millions of post-it notes reminding yourself how awesome you are on every mirror in your house, but that only gets you 10% of the way to self-love.”

Except it’s more like 0%.

The real solution is: agency, awareness, authenticity, and action.

What self esteem IS:

Step 1.) Self esteem is agency

Self love is taking responsibility.

So many terrible articles encourage readers to keep self esteem at the mercy of external forces, prompting them to “think about what is affecting your self-esteem,” and suggesting “your confidence may have been lowered after a difficult experience or series of negative life event, such as: being bullied or abused, losing your job or difficulty finding employment, ongoing stress physical illness, mental health problems, a difficult relationship, separation or divorce.”

No. To this entire list: no.

I’m not saying that bad shit didn’t happen to you — it probably did. Because bad things happens to everyone. But life isn’t about playing the victim, or comparing notes on who suffered most. Life has negatives in the cards for everyone — even the most confident people you know — and the only difference between those with self esteem and those without it is that the first group chose to take responsibility for their lives, their responses, and their actions.

So when it comes to thinking about “what is affecting your self-esteem,” the answer is always “you.”

You are in control of your self esteem. That’s the entire list, beginning to end.

you are in charge. you are in charge. you. are. in. charge.

Step 2.) Self esteem is awareness

This is super important, and we don’t talk about it enough.

Get out of your damn head. Be present.

Stop slipping away. Stop shutting down. Stop freezing and falling silent any time you’re uncomfortable, or unsure, or anxious. Stop reminiscing on the past, or thinking about the future, or wandering around, mentally, anywhere that you actually aren’t.

I wrote pretty openly about struggling with this myself, and the fact that I’m currently working on it, so I speak from a place of empathy and love.

We do this is because we’ve learned that “shutting down” offers security — it’s “easier” if we don’t engage; we think there’s less risk.

But what we give up in exchange every time we do this is moments of our own lives. Which is why, in those brief moments we pull our head out of the sand, we’re filled with panic to realize we don’t like what we’re living. But then most of us respond by seeking reassurance (see “self help,” above — “you can do it!”) or solutions we don’t take, and ultimately shut it back down.

The first step? Awareness of your breathing. Second, awareness of your body in space; what you’re physically feeling. From there, you’ll become more aware of what you’re emotionally feeling as well. Accept these emotions as they come to you.

Wake up. Be aware of what you’re doing and where you are all the time. And most importantly: be aware of what you feel and think about it…

Step 3.) Self esteem is authenticity

It’s knowing what we actually want.

This is probably the hardest part. It’s also really important.

Because “nature abhors a vacuum,” if self esteem isn’t coming from external sources, but us instead, then we have to do the work of identifying what wewant and need — in that vacuum, without regard to others. (Note: just like the “selfish” section, that is not meant to read as “without regard for others.” We should still be considerate. But able to say what we want (or think or feel or need) without having to first ask, “well but what do others want?”)

Self esteem is answering “what do I think?” without first asking “what do others think?” This is harder than people realize, especially because it’s so ingrained.

I was recently thinking about what I wanted to do for Valentine’s Day, and initially could not answer this question— did I really want to go to dinner, or did I just like the way that sounded? Did I really want flowers, or did I just hope they’d serve as some security; some certainty that this was special? Did I really even want to do anything? Sometimes we do things we don’t evenreally want, but doing what “sounds good” saves us the risk of regretting having not done something come the morning of the 15th.

(In the end, what I wanted was a cookie from our favorite local bakery. We go together all the time and they put out these seasonal designs that are so adorable I could die. And then, like a good partner, I said in clear words that that’s what I wanted.)

We do this with everything. We pick where to travel, what to buy, and where to eat based on other people — our order at restaurants is influenced by others’, and we eat more in the presence of people we’re trying to impress. We often choose clothing, cars, houses, and hobbies couched in “what others think.” And sadly, we often even choose jobs and partners this way.

Sometimes we’re asked: “What would you do if you could not fail?”

And that’s great, but an equally great question is: “What would you do if you could not tell or be told by anyone?”

Would you get married if you had to go on telling people you weren’t? Would you drive the same car if nobody saw? Would you do the same thing on your weekends if you couldn’t frame it up as “how it retells on Monday morning?” Would you vacation in the same places if nobody knew?

Would you still be doing the same job and have the same partner if you had to tell people you had a totally different job and partner, both of which they deemed “unimpressive?”

What do you want? Not just in the moment, but in the long-run. What areyour values? What is your version of long-term happiness?

If that’s too hard or scary to speculate: start with a chunk of lifestyle now. Not your leisure time, but your actual life. When, for example, are you happiest at work? If your answer has anything to do with others (i.e., “when I get recognition,” “when I get a raise,” “when I win a deal,” or “when I help others,” you need to look again, for answers that serve you.) Maybe you don’t even like your work. That’s for you to explore.

If you’re struggling here and you just want more “help” on “how to do it:” you are missing the point entirely (and probably also missing the alarm bell that should be going off in your head.) This work fundamentally cannot be done by anyone else. This work is you. Do the work.

If you are so far gone that you still feel lost knowing what you want onany level: you skipped self awareness. You’re not paying attention. See “step 2” for further instruction.

Skipping this step is why “just do it!” doesn’t help

Our struggle (and reluctance) to find answers is why “advice” like “just do it!” or “just try things and see what you like” is met with apprehension at best, and disaster at worst. (If you aren’t in touch with what you actually want, and what your happiness feels like, there’s no way of even knowing if you like what you’re trying, and without this skill set, you’ll just keep falling back on “but it sounds cool” or “it’s what people do.”)

You can’t know what you love if you don’t know what love feels like, and you’re so out of touch with your own feelings you don’t know what it is.

We have to actually know who the hell we are, and what we want. Experimenting and taking action is second-grade reading level and we’re still learning letters over here.

Step 4.) Self esteem is action

Only once you understand what you want — what really makes you happy — in the long run.

Action is about making decisions. It’s about committing. It’s about choice and assertiveness and asking for the things we want and need. It’s about taking steps, and thinking, and coming to our conclusions — and then verbalizing them.

It’s also about being aware. It’s about being alert and awake and active in our own lives — not passive, compliant, or submissive.

As Nathaniel Branden wrote in “How to Raise Your Self Esteem,”

“Living consciously means taking responsibility for the awareness appropriate to the action in which we are engaged. This, above all, is the foundation of self confidence and self-respect.”

Or, to be slightly more clear,

“The difference between low self-esteem and high self-esteem is the difference between passivity and action.”

But knowing what action to take requires knowing what we want, outside of what others want — i.e., authenticity — which requires that we take full responsibility for our lives. Which requires that we dump all of the bad assumptions and models around self love, take agency in-house, and start to build self-fueling fire of our own desire.

About The Author:

Kris Gage

Motorcyclist, Software Manager, Drink-Slinger of the South 🍻 

Reach out: http://bit.ly/2CXgcv5

[darkgreiga]

Wishes, Dreams, and Memories Chapter 31

Fandom: Rune Factory 4 Rating: T (to be safe) Genre(s): Adventure, Hurt/Comfort Characters: Lest, Dolce, Pico, Amber, Dylas, Leon, Frey, Arthur, Margaret, Forte Summary:  She had a wish to see him again. He had a dream of her last moments. They had their memories of having only each other. The amnesiac Earthmate never knew that by bringing his best friend back wouldn’t make his daily life go back to normal. Nor did he know she was the key to his and his ancestors’ past. Chapters: list Navigation: <<prev   |   next>> Author’s notes: The first chapter of the last arc is here!

Chapter 31 – Calm after the Storm

-Lest’s POV-

After the battle, Kane managed to find us in the castle after he had gone to the cave to escort the Guardians out safely. Frey explained everything to us, about how the Guardian’s corruption could affect even Venti, and we also told everyone about our relation to Ethelberd and Halwell. The news was a surprise to them as much as it was a surprise to me. After all, we don’t even look like the Sechs emperors by the outside and inside.

Two weeks have passed since that day. I can’t tell whether the corruption is completely gone or not, but all I can tell is that Venti is doing a lot better than when the corruption was still at large. Frey isn’t staying in the castle with us anymore, but she still visits us at least once every two days. She still has duties to attend back in the capital, so she can’t stay longer than a few hours.

I’m starting to feel that she is a close sister to me, but on the other side I can still tell that she’s not telling us everything. None of the Guardians or Kane actually paid attention to Frey’s wound back then, expect for Dolly and Pico. She looked like she was aware of something about Frey, but for some reason, she’s keeping it from me. I can’t actually force her to talk about it, but the fact that she’s hiding something from me is bothering me somehow. Why can’t you just talk to me about it if it’s actually bothering you?

-Third Person POV-

“Sweetie, will you stop staring at me?” the sound of his wife snapped Lest out of his trains of thought, realizing that Dolce was standing in front of him.

“Oh, sorry,” Lest shook his head to make sure that he was completely awake before putting his hoe over his shoulder, “Well, I’ll be working in the fields for the time being so let Frey know when she drops by to visit.”

“I will,” Dolce nodded before giving him a peck on the cheek, “Work hard, okay?”

Dolce watched as Lest left for the fields before Pico popped in front of her, “Are you sure about this, Dolly? Shouldn’t you say something about it to him?”

“No,” Pico followed Dolce closely as the two of them headed for the kitchen, “I need to be certain about the facts first. What we’re thinking now is just the conclusion we come into after we looked at her wound.”

“You’re scared, aren’t you milady?” Pico’s words made the Guardian stop her activity, “You know how it feels to lose a family… well, both of us do.”

Dolce let out a sigh as she turned to Pico with a frown, “He’ll know the truth sooner or later. I don’t want him to think that I’m hiding everything from him.”

Pico let out a sigh and smiled, “I think you’re worrying too much, Dolly. A bit more than usual, I guess,” Pico watched her friend working in the kitchen, “I guess I can see how much your love for Lest had changed my Dolly!”

A blush appeared on the Guardian’s face as she continued cooking, “S-Shut up!”

Lest let out a tired sigh before he admired his handiwork on the field, which was completely clean of garbage from the storm two weeks earlier. Crop seeds were planted on the tilled field and they had already been watered. His job on the field was finished and it was time for him to do his work in town.

Just as Lest was putting down his tools at the edge of the field, a scroll fell out from his pocket. He picked up the fallen scroll and the emblem of the Sechs Empire was visible on the scroll’s paper. A frown came to his face as he remembered the scroll’s contents when it was first given to him.

-Flashback-

“So…” Lest spoke up to Arthur and Kane as the three of them were in Arthur’s office, “The empire is requesting me to be the acting emperor?”

“Yes,” Kane nodded as he rolled the scroll he was holding and handed it over to Lest, “Lord Halwell still hasn’t awakened after a week of recovery even after getting help from the best doctors.”

Arthur turned to Lest, “It would be sad to see you go, but I will not force you to go if you wish to stay.”

Lest turned back to Kane, but stared at him for a moment before speaking up, “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“No, I understand,” Kane responded with a smile, “The higher ups only requested for you because of your relation to Lord Ethelberd, but they never forced me to take you back.”

“Speaking of which,” Arthur interrupted, getting Kane’s attention, “How is the empire doing currently?”

“Much better than when everyone was corrupted, that’s for sure,” Kane replied with a shrug, “Everyone remembers what happened, but they don’t really know why it happened. Other than that, the corruption in the empire seems to have disappeared without a trace.”

“I see,” Arthur nodded in understanding, “If there is anything else we can do to help, please let us know.”

“Of course,” Kane nodded, “My main purpose for coming here is to deliver the scroll, but I’ll tell the higher ups that you can’t take Lord Halwell’s place.”

“Okay, I’ll see you later,” Lest waved the soldier goodbye as he left the office.

-End of Flashback-

“The acting emperor?” Ventuswill asked as Lest showed her the scroll in the dragon room, “Hey, I guess I’m right about you being royalty after all!”

Lest let out a laugh, “Don’t be too proud on it, Venti. You need to remember who my father was.”

“I know,” Ventuswill paused for a moment as she stared at the wall, “Speaking of Ethelberd, I think I recall hearing something when I was still in the forest. I know that I recognize that voice, now I remember that it was him.”

“Wait,” Lest looked at the dragon god in surprise, “You met him in the Forest of Beginnings?”

“Not exactly meeting in person, though,” Ventuswill put her claw under her jaw as she tried recalling the encounter, “I can only hear his voice saying that he won’t surrender until all Earthmates perish.”

“Can he still be alive in there? And corrupting people into doing things they shouldn’t do?” Lest asked.

“No,  that won’t be possible,” Ventuswill shook her head, “Humans can’t stay and live in there for a long period of time. If a person stays there for longer than they should have, their body will soon break into runes. Even so, the soul would still remain in there forever unless there’s a special case that they’re resurrected.”

“Just like what happened to you,” Lest added, “But if his soul is still there, can he do any harm to the world?”

“Hm…” Ventuswill went back to her thoughts, but nothing came into her mind, “I’m not sure, but I think it’s very unlikely.”

“I hope so…” Lest let out a sigh, “This corruption thing just happens to come and go without a reason and a trace. I just wish that there’s a clue somewhere so that we can prevent it in the future…”

“And then, he ran around the house in panic while yelling that there was a deadly scorpion in the house!” Frey and Pico broke out into laughter while Dolce simply chuckled as she sipped on her tea.

The three girls were hanging around at the castle’s balcony with Frey telling stories about the siblings’ daily lives in the past. Two plates of flan were sitting on the table untouched as the three were busy talking. Pico was completely taken into the conversation, but Dolce had noticed that her guest hadn’t touched either her tea or her flan.

There was a single question she had been meaning to ask Frey and her observation prompted her to pop the question right away, “Before we hear more of those stories, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“Sure, we can talk while you have your flan,” Frey responded as she simply looked at her share of flan.

“Okay,” Dolce took her share of flan, but the scent of her favorite meal suddenly made her feel weird in the stomach, “Ugh…”

“Are you okay Dolly?” Pico saw as Dolce put a hand on her mouth before shaking her head.

“I’m fine…” Dolce uncovered her mouth before taking a spoonful of flan, only have the weird feeling on her stomach come back, “Not again…”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Frey asked worriedly as she took the flan from Dolce’s hands, “You look kind of pale.”

“I’m… okay… ugh…” Dolce quickly rose from her seat and ran inside, heading straight towards the bathroom.

“Is she sick or something?” Frey turned to Pico.

“That would be my best guess…” Pico turned to the barely touched desserts, “Dolly really loves sweets like flan and cakes, but she’s been avoiding them for the past week for some reason.”

“Hm…” Frey tapped her chin as she was thinking, “I don’t think she’s suddenly become bored of eating her favorite dishes…”

“That’s impossible. There’s no way she’s going to give up on her all-you-can-eat cake routine every-” Pico was silenced with a single talisman landing over her mouth.

“You’re saying too much,” Dolce had just returned from the bathroom, but her face told the other two that she wasn’t feeling that much different than before, “Sorry for that interruption.”

“I don’t mind, but I don’t think you look well at all,” Frey replied worriedly, “I’ll tell Lest about your condition when I see him, so why don’t you two just stay home until he gets back?”

Dolce let out a defeated sigh, “That… might be the best…”

Lest let out a tired sigh as he pushed the castle door open while carrying an extra paper bag with him. With Dolce taking her temporary leave from her evening shift, he decided that it might be best for them to eat dinner at home to let her rest at home. With the ingredients in the paper bag put in the kitchen, Lest left for his room to check on Dolce.

Lest had expected the female Guardian to be asleep with Pico watching over her, the scene he saw was Dolce knitting on the bed with a terrified Pico at the edge of the bed, “I’m… home…?”

“Oh, welcome back Sweetie,” Dolce put her knitting aside and greeted Lest with a smile as she approached her, “How was work today?”

“More or less the usual, I guess…” Lest’s attention was focused on Pico as he let Dolce took his backpack off him, “More importantly, what happened to Pico?”

“Just a simple argument between us,” Dolce replied, completely ignoring the fact that Pico was still in the room, “Are you going to prepare dinner tonight?”

“Yeah,” Lest nodded, “I was planning to make your favorite cake today, so-”

“I want… something else, if that’s okay…” the attention of the other two in the room shifted to her, “I want… some fried veggies…”

The room became completely silent with Pico hovering in front of her with the look of disbelief, “Did I hear that right? Dolly, you never liked eating any kind of vegetables!”

“I’m kind of surprised too,” Lest added, “But if that’s what you want, I guess I need to head out to buy the missing ingredients…”

“Alright,” Dolce nodded, “Sorry for the trouble.”

The two watched as Lest left before Pico turned back to Dolce, “Are you sure you’re fine milady? Do you need Jones to check your condition?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Dolce let out a sigh before she went back to her knitting, “You’re being a lot more stubborn today. Do you want to be wrapped in talismans again?”

“N-No, please don’t do that again to me!”

[perrentes-ptv]

Prompt: do you think you can do a dandy one based off the song "we dont talk anymore"? (not very emo lmao i know) where they break up and months later one of them is in a new relationship but theyre both not happy about it and they get back in touch and eventually get back together? sorry if this was confusing but thank you (: xx

Title: The apple of my eye also the worm inside 

Pairing: Dandy (David Escamilla/Andy Leo)

Song: Lover Letter - Mark Johns

ADDED: (hi i missed ya) and quick plot idea (is how you say it) can you do a dandy one where they get into a fight and david goes all crazy after and comes back to andy but when andy almost leaves he shows him how much he loves him and stuff (i thought of this while listening to no more bad days by this wild life)

ADDED: HEY!! can you do a dandy fluff where andy gets really depressed and he thinks dave dislikes him, and dave shows him he loves him and stuff?

ADDED: can you please please please write a smut between two of the guys from CTE it can be whoever you choose but please

WARNING CONTAINS: M/M, brake-up, Make-up, talk about therapy, light smut, If you do not like this prompt or pairing, do not read it! It’s not hard

A/N: almost 3K; love this ship so damn much and I miss David he’s not gone i just miss him in CTE and i put one of my other fav band here. 

"I'm not fucking cheating on you, stop asking!"

"Then way are you so damn defensive?"

"I don't know Andy, maybe the fact that your always accusing me of shit I haven't done how fo you think that makes me feel, on a daily bases?"

"I don't-"

"Like honestly Andy, do you trust me at all?"

"Yes but-"

"There shouldn't be a 'but and' if you actually trusted me. You make me feel like shit."

Andy and David stared at each other not saying a word for a moment.

Andy, broke the silence, "You make me feel like a fucking jackass most of the time, you're right maybe I don't trust you anymore since, Allison."

"Then I can't fucking be with you then, i'm so sick and tired of you throwing that in my face for everything."

"Then fucking go."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

The door slammed as David walked out of their apartment.

*One month later*

"Man, the sleep person and couch potato got nothing on you, Andy, can I call the Guinness world record about you?"

"Sure."

"You wanna get food with me this time?

"No." Andy said.

Brandon sighed and laid back down on Andy's bed. It's been a couple days since he was here and although it doesn't look like Andy moved he does have different clothes on so he is happy that his friend at least change maybe even showered.

Brandon Didn't exactly like the situation his best friend just broke up with boyfriend who is also his friends. Brandon honestly felt Andy deserves time considering they've been together for four years except that mishap two years ago but even then they didn't break up just split for like a week and then got back together.

Andy barely left their apartment. He ordered food, pet Rose their adopted gray pitbull, and listen to music.

David was crashing on Tree's place for about two weeks then he moved to Paul's couch for another two weeks but then he came back to Hayden yesterday. From what Hayden told Brandon he did shit still going to jam, eating talking with people, but definitely angry and sad profusely and smoke a lot.

Hayden, Brandon, and Brent, Definitely want that worried, for starters David still has the majority of the stuff in their apartment. Andy is not exactly making a fuss to get rid of it he felt that if he did it would be honestly over.

"Andy?"

"Yea?"

"I think you should go on a date with this guy I wanna set with you." Brandon said not daring to look from his phone as he felt Andy move on the bed so he could look at his so-called best friend at the moment.

"What?"

"Not like romance or some shit, this dude, got dumped too but I know you- have you ever heard of a sadoff?" Brandon asked.

and he shook his head no, "basically sad people get together and they talk about how sad they are and some feel better, not 100% but like lighter like 'I know that shit happened to everybody but it's nice talking about it with somebody else that it is happening to at this exact moment with me' and if feels different because it's somebody else it's not family or friends. It's like you're sharing with someone in the group therapy or those anonymous meeting you just feel okay to share and it's happening to them at the moment, so it's not past experiences." Brandon explained, He had heard about this from somebody else he never experienced it but it does sound like something he would actually want to try for himself so he wanted to tell Andy.

Andy thought about it for moment, when he was younger yeah did it go therapy and it made him feel better but since then he hasn't gone. He know his families and friends were worried since he was actually doing anything just being sad. Even David's parents called him saying she still loved him and was worried about him, "Yea I wanna try that, and soon before I change my mind."

"okay man, I got you." Brandon smiled and hugged Andy, Andy hugged him back.

After two days since their conversation Andy was going out to a Mexican restaurant called Teotihuacan, Brandon said he was meeting someone called Victor. Andy got out of his car, walked over to the restaurant. He saw someone in a hoodie siting one the bench for looking at him.

"Victor?"

"Yea, Andy?" Victor stood up, And he could tell that the stewards definitely taller than him and possibly Brandon.

"Yea, hi." Andy said extending his right hand to shake Victor's hand. The whole thing was pretty awkward but once they were inside, they order their food, and waited at a table for the waitress to bring it to them.

"You ever done this before?"

"No, but seemed nice."

"Yea same here."

Neither men wanted to start but it had to be done so Victor talked first, "One of us has to talk first."

"Shoot yea so how long you and....." Andy waited for Victor to fill in the blank.

"Jeremy well Juno, we've been dating for like two years, been separated for like two weeks, not talking. You?"

"David, Dating for four, broke up about a month ago, not talking too."

"We're fighting about telling people, not really fans more of family there anything, honestly I thought in the beginning it was the whole interracial thing, but he said he doesn't care while we were yelling at other at the time."

"What do you do?" Andy said taking an interest in Victor's occupation hearing that he has fans too.

"Band, with some friends he is the clean singer, I'm the drummer."

"Nice I'm in a band too, and clean singer as well, Dave is our screamer. We're fighting about trust, basically me not trusting him." Andy shared happily, it made him feel better that he can relate to Victor more.

"Shit why?" Victor asked. They stop talking for a moment when the waitress brought their food they said thank you and continue talking.

"it's just always in the back of my mind, that he'll find somebody else; he can be with somebody else; he will be with somebody else. And it doesn't help that I was right once when he was with some girl, didn't do anything they were just kissing and naked but still."

"You forgave him?"

"Yea, but probably not since he told me while we were breaking up that I basically throw in his face all the time."

"so you didn't forgive him."

"I guess not."

"because if you honestly for gave him, you wouldn't care you wouldn't think about it, so it still hurts, have you guys really talked about it?

"Not really."

"Scared to brake up?"

Andy laughed at that, "It's ironic now." Andy really thought about it for moment he messed up. No wonder Dave broke up with him how you could be with like that, holding a grudge for two years and throwing it in your face. Andy would break up with himself if he could.

" so you're not down would be a secret?"

"No, man feels bad like i'm the fucking problem. Or a fucking disease, I wanna be with someone who doesn't make me feel like that but I love him. I was cool think it was the fans but since we got some popularity and both of our albums so far did well and the third one is still in the works. So I was thinking that maybe it's time but he said no. That's when I started to feel disgusting and started talking to him about and saying why 'why?' 'not?' 'the hell is your problem?' Then he finally tells me it's his family, that's when I got heartbroken I told my family already, I told them last year and I thought he did too because we talked about it and I found out he lied to my face about it and-." Victor stopped talking and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands.

"Your fantasy is shattered." Andy imported.

"Fucking destroyed more like, but I still want to be with him. But I can't make him tell his family I can't tell his family if he doesn't want to. So it's over, but I'm still keeping my stuff at his place, i'm hoping one of my friends could get it." Victor shared.

"He'll tell them." Andy said to reassure Victor.

"what makes you say that?"

"David kept his shit at our apartment and I haven't said anything since I don't want it to be over, I'm hoping he comes one day and we talk, but I'm also scared if we talk because then what happens if he finds out he likes being without me. Juno may tell them, he's scared as shit I bet and doesn't want to but if he didn't end things with you he is looking at the opinion to tell them."

"I think your right, I have to talk to him again and really talk not tell. David, will come back too, Andy. I think you have to talk about what happen even if it's been years."

"Yea I think so too and maybe therapy, I think I need to go back for myself."

"Shot man, congrats on wanting to go."

"Thanks and thanks for meeting for me it didn't suck."

"Yeah it didn't. Thanks for meeting me man, is it cool if I get your number I kinda wanna tell you the aftermath."

"Hell yea man, I wanna see how this story ends." The two men laughed as they finish their meal they continue talking about their music for a little bit but then decided that they needed to go home to think about their next move, they exchange numbers and say goodbye.

Once Andy got home he took care Rose, and started writing about what he wanted to say to David. What he hated about what happened, what if he fears, and what he wants to do from that point. It took him three days but he finally texted David.

To Dave: rose and I miss you. From Dave: I miss rose and you To Dave: come over? From Dave: today? To Dave: whenever you want to From Dave: I wanna come now To Dave: I'm here waitin From Dave: see you soon

Hayden didn't live far from their apartment but it's a surprise how fast David came over.

"Hey." David said once Andy open the door, once he saw David through the peephole.

"Hi, welcome to your own place." Andy said trying to Lighten the air around them letting Dave in.

David hugged Andy as soon as he was inside, Andy hugged back.

"Sorry missed you."

"It's okay I missed you too. Don't kiss me yet." Andy whispered. The couple lack of each other David went to go see Rose on the sofa.

Andy came over to him and set next Dave on the sofa as he was petting Rose, "Dave, I'm sorry for Power been treating you the past two years. And for always throwing in your face, for always accusing you of stuff you haven't done. I'm not over what happened with Allison, we never talked about it and I want to, I really want you to tell me why? Why did you do it?"

"I've been sitting on this for two years, and honestly I don't have a good reason still. I think I made it happen, because i've always dated girls and then I was dating you and I love you, but I think I made myself be with her to see if I would ever go back and it's stupid I know. I don't even know why I did it. I regret it so much that's why I told you what happened, but once you said we could forget about it I wanted to, I was so happy to forget something it. But then you brought it up but you said you didn't wanna talk about it still, but I still feel like shit every time and then two years of feeling like shit. And then you not trusting me is like me being with someone who stabs me." Andy grabed David's other hand, and intertwined their fingers together.

"I'm sorry, I made you feel that way I had no idea. I was selfish about it, taking out my insecurities on you too, and beating you with something that I lied to you and said that I got over when I didn't. I should've talk to you about it so wouldn't escalate into this. You know I have issues with myself and I guess I couldn't handle you loving me either. What regardless of that I shouldn't have attacked you with my issues, I am sorry David, I'm so sorry for making you feel this way, I never want to give you my problems." Andy said, David tired so his body was facing Andy on the sofa, their knees touching in such closeness.

"I'm sorry too, for cheating, and don't be sorry I told you I would be there for you, just like you say you were there for me but, we have to communicate better because honestly I don't want to take breaks from us I love us, I love you." At this point Andy and David were shedding some tears on how emotional this conversation was.

"I don't think I can, honestly it's not because I don't trust you because the fact of the matter is the fact that still want to be with you. If I didn't trust you I would be gone, honestly. I do trust you with me I just don't trust myself to know that you are good, that I picked someone good. I'm thinking of going back to therapy, for myself. I know I need you but you can't just be it. You shouldn't be the only one either." David brought Andy into a hug once again Andy resting his head on David's shoulder

"That's okay Andy, do what you need to I'll support you every step. I'm here I don't want to go any where, if it's not with you."

Andy laughed, "corny."

"You love it, you know you do."

"I love you."

"I love you, too. You can kiss me now." David, didn't had to be told twice to kiss the man he loves.

"Back together?"Andy asked once he pulled back from the kiss.

"Someone has to take you to therapy." Andy smiled that David's response.

The two of them spent the rest of the night in bed, cuddling. Just hold each other for the sake of holding each other.

*two weeks later~sexy time~*

David was back at his apartment with his boyfriend Andy, they thanked Brandon, Brent and Hayden for dealing with them. They bought their friends gifts and went over to their families to reassure them they were good now.

Victor and Juno worked things out. Juno did in fact told his family, and invited them to dinner at his and Victor's place. The older couple even went on a double date, with Andy and David. They had a amazing time together.

Andy has already gone to a session with his therapist. David helped him look for a good one for him. Andy plans and payed to meet with his therapist once a week for six months. Andy was concerned about when he goes back on tour this year, but his therapist reassured him by informing him that he could do online therapy as well with him, when he was on tour.

Andy and David hasn't had sex since they broke up, for the past two weeks they've been very cuddly but haven't gone farther then dry humping. At this point they were both ready to get back on that bed, so they did.

David took Andy's face in his hands and put it to his face and kissed him hard.

"Missed this miss you" Andy said.

David grabbed Andy harder and closer. Desperate and needy. Kissing him deeper. He pushed the Andy down on the bed onto his back. He was grabbing Andy nearly too tight almost as if Andy would disappear if he didn't held on tight. David's body pressed down on Andy's and David moaned in to his mouth as they kissed.

Andy knew David needed him and he needed him too. He missed David's hands running all over his body. Up under his shirt and down his thighs, over the bulge in his pants. David started unbuttoning their jeans and pulling them off and in return the younger man helped David unbuckle his belt and shirts. They were both laying in bed completely exposed to each other feeling secure in their own little world. David went down Andy's body pressing kisses along the way until he was at his legs and pushed in to him slowly while propping himself up with one arm to the bed.

Andy whimpered. "David.. Oh.."

Andy started moving his hips with David.

"Fuck.. Andy. Ahhh..."

David started moving quicker and he was close, "I'm sorry, baby,not lasting long her for you today." breathed out in-between thrusts. Andy grabbed on to David around his neck. Andy's breaths were short and quick and his eyes mostly shut tight but sometimes he looked at his lover.

Their breathing grew quicker and quicker and David's body vibrated with the deep moans. He pushed himself as far as he could in to Andy and moaned his name one last time before they both came at the same time. David got tissue from the side of the bed and clean them both up before laying down next to his boyfriend.

When they had both calmed down and their heartbeats slowed, Andy grabbed on to David tightly. I love you so much, Dave." he said and nestled in to the side of his lover's face. David held on to Andy and whispered sweet things to his boyfriend as they both fell asleep.

The Break up/make up End

Feel free to send me any request of any ship or pairing you want

[revwinchester]

Centerfold - Part 4

Summary:  Dean stumbles across an interview and photoshoot starring his high school crush (and younger brother’s friend) Castiel.  He decides he’s going to stop at nothing to get back in touch with the boy with the blue eyes who used to sit in front of him in homeroom.

Genre: Mostly fluff with a touch of angst

Pairing: Destiel

Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel

Word Count: 1218

Series Warnings: AU - No Supernatural, Porn Star Cas, Mentions of Sex (but no depictions), Bastardization of SPN Lines, Scenes, and Episode Titles

A/N: This whole series came out of a prompt for @thinkwritexpress-official‘s Back To School Challenge!  The fic is based on the J Gelis Band song “Centerfold” in which a man finds his high school crush on the pages of his favorite porn magazine.

Find it on AO3

Centerfold Masterlist

Centerfold - Part 4 - 

Over the next few weeks, it seemed to Sam that Dean was back to himself and his regular schedule, all thoughts of Cas pushed from his mind.

So, when Cas texted the younger Winchester one Friday to tell him he’d be in town, he didn’t think much of it.  The pair set up a dinner and, just to be on the safe side, Sam didn’t tell his brother.  He often stayed at the office late, working on some case or another, so he knew Dean wouldn’t think twice about his absence.  

As Sam and Cas caught up over an appetizer, Sam contemplated telling the man that he knew what kind of modeling he had been doing.  The right moment never seemed to present itself, though, and ‘Hey, Cas, how’s the porn industry been treating you?’ felt way too abrupt.

Their meals arrived and Castiel’s entire demeanor shifted as he cut into his steak.  “I hope you don’t mind, but I have an ulterior motive for this dinner,” Cas confessed.  “I am in need of some legal advice.”

Sam leaned forward, going into “lawyer mode” as Dean liked to call it.  “Sure Cas, what’s up?”

Cas took a deep breath and confided, “I think I have a stalker; it’s part of why I came back here this time.  I’ve been getting weird phone calls for the last month.  It’s always the same number at about the same time each day and there’s always a person on the other end but they never talk, not really anyway.”  The words were pouring out of Castiel’s mouth and he couldn’t have stopped now if he had wanted to.  “I’ve been zealous in keeping my professional life and my private life separate but all of the calls are coming from Kansas to my work phone.  There have always been some weird fans of my work but nothing that raised any red flags before.  

“Only one of my brothers knows that number and he swears that it’s not him and he hasn’t given it to anyone or talked about the, uh, finer points of my career with anyone.”  Cas paused and took a deep breath, looking his friend in the eye, “Sam, I work in the porn industry.  On camera.  I’ve made a name for myself on screen.  It’s not something that I’m ashamed about but I know that the majority of my family would not be able to handle that knowledge so you and my brother Gabriel are the only ones from my Kansas life that know this.”

Sam let Cas get everything out with what he hoped was a supportive look on his face.  When his friend finally stopped talking, Sam held his gaze.  “I already know, Cas,” Sam admitted, “and I think I have an idea about who your stalker is.”

Castiel’s eyes went wide with surprise but Sam didn’t find any embarrassment in them or in his voice when he spoke.

“How?”

Sam wasn’t sure if Cas was asking how Sam knew about his career or how he already might know who his stalker was but the answer was essentially the same.  “Dean, my brother, he came across your spread in, uh, Hot Rod Hotties and he recognized you from high school.”  Sam noticed a small smile on his friend’s face at the mention of his brother.  Deciding to use this to his advantage and hoping to get Dean out of some of the trouble he could - deservedly - end up in, he leaned in conspiratorially, knowing his brother would kill him for what he was about to share.  “He was really excited to come across the interview, Cas.  I’m pretty sure he had a crush on you in high school and seeing you in one of his magazines rekindled some of that.”

Sam braced himself before he told Cas the rest of the story.  How Dean had pestered Sam for his number for a few weeks before trying something more drastic and how he had followed his brother into the city and listened in while Dean had managed to sweet talk his way into getting Castiel’s phone number from the magazine.  Sam was glad when Cas laughed at the part where the receptionist had mistaken him for a model but he steeled himself for the end of the tale.  Sam confessed that he had overheard Dean’s first call to Cas.

“I should have told you right then, Cas, but he floundered so much and then never brought it up again so I assumed it was over.”  Sam looked down at the table, staring at his meal.  “I’m sorry.”  Sam fidgeted for a moment, feeling uncomfortable with the silence that lingered between him and his friend.  When his eyes returned to Castiel’s, though, Sam found that the man had an incredulous look on his face.

“Dean had a crush on me in high school?” Cas asked, his voice full of awe and disbelief.

If that was where Cas was going to focus his attention, instead of on Dean’s creepy behavior, Sam wasn’t going to stop him.  “Yeah,” Sam confirmed.  “I mean, he wasn’t out yet and he never really talked to his kid brother about it but he’s always been awkward with the guys he’s liked.  With the girls, he can be super cool and smooth but the guys get him flustered.  I remember the stories you used to tell me about how he’d act towards you and they fit his M.O., I just didn’t realize it as a kid.”

Cas sighed.  “I was practically in love with your brother,” he shared.  “My first film… The script was great, or as great as it gets in porn, but one of the reasons I signed on to Lazarus Rising was because the lead reminded me of Dean.”  Cas was blushing and, if he was being honest, Sam was too, but for a completely different reason.  

The conversation had not gone where Sam had been expecting and, while Sam had no issues with knowing his friend was working in porn, he didn’t care to imagine Dean - or someone who looked like Dean - having sex.  Sam turned the conversation back to a topic that was both safer and more volatile all at once.  “Cas, let me see the call log on your phone?  I want to make sure that it was Dean who was calling you.”

Cas fished his phone from his pocket and held it up so that the facial recognition software would unlock it.  He tapped the screen a few times and then passed the device across to Sam.  

Sam scrolled through Castiel’s incoming calls.  Every day right around 5:15 there was a call from a number that was nearly as familiar as Sam’s own.  It was Dean, alright, and he seemed to be calling Cas while he was on his way home from the garage.  As he looked at his brother’s number repeated daily in Castiel’s call log, Sam began to form a plan.

“Do you want to get back in touch with Dean?” Sam asked.  He knew the answer already but needed to hear Cas say it.  His friend agreed readily and Sam continued, “I think you need to mess with him a little first, to get him back for freaking you out with all of his calls.”

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Centerfold Tags: @shutupiminlooove

ALL THE TAGS! (forevers): @deathtonormalcy56 @supernaturalyobsessed @roxy-davenport @sumara62 @ginamsmith @gallifreyansass @samwinjarpad @hexparker @thinkwritexpress-official @atc74

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