#i know most people are sick of this argument
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I want to talk about Neil Gaiman from the perspective of a survivor of SA.
I am a trans/ gender fluid person, a survivor of R*pe, and a diehard Good Omens fan. And I have been struggling to cope with and process the horrific things that Neil Gaiman has done. I don’t get a lot of engagement from the Good Omens fandom. I’m mostly a lurker here, TikTok, Twitter, and BlueSky and AO3. But I feel like I need to say something, and Im saying it here so I can share without a character limit. And then I’m going to take a break for a while because my mental health can’t handle the chaos anymore.
I read the Vulture article and I was of course horrified and disgusted and repulsed. The things he did to those women made me absolutely sick. But I’ll tell you what, as a survivor, I have been way more triggered by the online reaction to these allegations than I ever expected to be.
I am struggling, because while I unquestioningly stand with his victims and hope they get the full weight of justice they deserve, I am grieving. I am not reacting the way I would have expected myself to react to this news, and I haven’t since July when the story first broke. I would have expected to react the same way I did when JK Rowling exposed her horrific transphobia. I took a pretty hardline stance that any engagement with Harry Potter, even through fandom and etsy purchases, kept her relevant and sent the message that you too were transphobic. As a gender queer person, I now have an extremely hard time enjoying Harry Potter anymore even thought it was overwhelmingly influential on my life. I would not have met my husband without HP!
So why don’t I feel the same way about Good Omens? I am a victim of R*pe, myself, so why haven’t these allegations made it difficult to enjoy this story? In fact, all I want to do right now is actually watch the show! Or read the book, or fanfiction, or watch my favorite fan edits. I’m actually reaching out to it more. My instinct ever since July has been to clutch the story to my chest, white knuckled, and crying to myself in the shower, “No, no, no, no. Please, please, please. Not this. Not this too. Please don’t go.”
The answer is I don’t know. I… I don’t know why I’m reacting this way. It is something I will have to work through with my therapist for sure. And I feel absolutely horrible for it. But I do know that folks on Twitter and TikTok telling me that nobody cares about my feeling and saying that nothing matters at all except his victims has been extremely triggering - more so than any discussion of his acts. And I know that I will need a long time to work through it, and that I may never get over it.
I also know that two things can be true at once. We can be supportive of his victims and understand that what Neil Gaiman’s fans are going through is ALSO a collective trauma that deserves time and space to process. Because he violated us too. He violated our trust and our perceptions of reality, and that is much more traumatic than people give it credit for. Demanding that his fans just give up the stories and communities that may have been the only thing keeping some of these people alive at one point completely cold turkey is cruel and heartless. Some people may be able to do that. They may be able to not care for a while and may even need that. People deserve time and grace to grieve and come to terms with what is going on in their own ways.
I know that some of these folks mean well, but the argument that nobody cares about fans feelings is not looking at the whole picture and feels like just a way to discredit and belittle fandoms in a new way. Because this is NOT breaking news! This story originally broke back in July, and the fandom rallied behind his victims en mass! They have recently raised thousands of dollars to donate to Take Back The Night, which is amazing! This most recent article and fandom meltdown is just rehashing everything that we said last summer. So my then questions are:
When CAN we grieve? When CAN we talk about how we are feeling? When CAN we reach out to our community and collectively heal from the trauma that we are facing as well? And not fear that some self righteous ass hole on the internet is going to bully them for not being a good enough feminist. And do NOT sit there on your performative high horse and tell us that what we are going through is not as bad as R*pe. We fucking know that. I certainly fucking know that. But it is still bad, and it does deserve recognition too. It is extremely unhealthy to pretend that this news is not also a noteworthy trauma to his fans. And gaslighting them by telling them that their heartbreak and grief is problematic is just fucking mean.
Neil’s fans deserve grace and compassion too.
EDIT: here is the link to the GoFundMe mentioned above! You can still donate!
#neil gaiman#Good Omens#the sandman#coraline#good omens fandom#neil gaiman allegations#cw: sa mention#cw: transphobia mentioned
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disclaimer: prev i am not attempting to call you out here specifically!! this isn't me trying to start discourse!!
I get the point that's being made here, but also I think that if disabled people are asking you to stop calling the one disabled character in the musical a freak (or even freaky with the special font) then just stop? it's not going to kill you to stop making one single joke about the character when there are so many other similar jokes you could make. like there's such a history of people calling disabled people freaks or freaky because of their disabilities that seeing the word in association with the disabled character obviously isn't going to be fun. even more so when he's literally being singled out as "the freak" of the group, which is basically what you've said here.
yes, all of the cast is unique and freaky in their own way, so why single out the disabled character? "constance freakwood" "mischa freakchinski" "ocean o'connell freakenburg" "ricky potts" like why not just call him "freaky potts"? why does he need to be separated from the rest of the choir and singled out? out of the entire choir, his name works best with the format!! if holding off on that joke would literally kill you then at least include him!
i know that on the surface, ricky's song is the weirdest by far. even noel's song isn't as weird as wanting to make love to anthropomorphic cats. and i'm not going to bother to delve into the actual theme and subtext of his song, because it doesn't really matter in this case.
the only point that i want to make is that it's unfair to single out the disabled character as "the freak of freaks", even as a joke, and especially when actual disabled people have asked you to stop. like did none of you listen to his backstory? he says after his song that "nobody ever listened" to him when he was alive, and you're going to do the same thing to the disabled fans of rtc?
i know that being called out isn't a fun experience. but when somebody is speaking from lived experience and asking you to stop doing something, then the best possible thing to do is to just stop. there's no point in trying to explain your thought process or defend your actions. chances are, they already understand why it happened, and it's still hurtful. be graceful, apologise (or even just stop! you don't need to make a big deal, just don't try and justify it and don't do it again!) and move on with your life.
all it takes is literally one word. and then as long as you actually take "sorry" to mean "i won't do it again" and not "oh shit i'd better get this guy off my back rq" you can go about your day, confident in the knowledge that you are a better person for it.
nobody can be perfect. nobody can predict that what they see as a light-hearted joke is going to have weight to somebody else. if your father was eaten by an octopus when you were younger and i made a joke about how much i'd like to be a man-eating octopus, it would probably upset you. i wouldn't be able to see that coming, but i would be able to control my response. this is the same concept. you might not understand why calling ricky potts a freak is funny, but it's so easy to stop once people tell you that it's hurtful! you don't need to relate in order to accommodate.
and look, if you've bothered to read through this entire thing and you disagree, feel free to let me know! i'm not going to come on here and rant on and on, and then ignore other people's points of view. so dm me or reblog, or just scroll past, i don't mind at all.
small rant about Ricky Potts from Ride the Cyclone
So yesterday, (or the day before) I saw a few posts that were like "RTC if they were ____" and it was usually "RTC if they were freaky" or "RTC if they were gay" aka changing their names like FREAKel (noel) and GAYcean (ocean)
But the thing is, they usually don't change Ricky's name, which in my opinion is pretty funny. But some people read this as making fun of his disability (since I'm pretty sure in the musical he's the only one with a physical disability and people are thinking they're calling him gay and freaky already solely because of that)
Honestly, it's really easy to see that Ricky is pretty freaky and funny character. He's unique, all of the cast is. But if you look into his personality you could tell that it's NOT about his crutches or his inability to speak (? that's what i remember it's been a while since I've watched RTC)
Like seriously, if he's singing about breeding space cats, thats kinda freaky yk.. plus even with the gay jokes, its OBVIOUSLY joking and not being homophobic or abelist at all. Hell, Noel is CAnONLY gay.
So basically in summary; It's Ricky's personality not his inabilitys that makes him a funny character, and the punchline of most jokes
Also he kinda reminds me of young sheldon in a way
#ride the cyclone#ricky rtc#ricky ride the cyclone#ricky potts#rant post#rtc#rtc musical#i know most people are sick of this argument#but really it shouldn't have been an argument in the first place#save ricky potts#stop calling ricky potts a freak
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People who say Bakugou should be punished for telling Deku to kill himself and Make fun of him need to realize he’s been dead for more than a year… that’s all.
LOL yeah like i think he's received the worst possible punishment for his actions ... which is. u know. dying
it's also so silly bc have u ever encountered a 14 year old. everyone was or will be 14 at some point. and it's common knowledge that u're absolutely ur worst self in middle school. it can literally only go up from there
not everyone has told someone else to kill themselves at 14 but i assure u everyone has done stupid shit as a 14 year old and i think most normal people would give literal children some grace regarding their bad behavior. bc most normal people would understand that ur identity and personality at 14 shouldn't be taken as a true reflection of ur character. bc u were 14. and u're irrational and u're still growing and ur brain is still developing. and more importantly, u didn't know shit. and u thought u did and that's why u were stupid and made mistakes and said dumb shit.
"but he was a bully and that's why he deserves to suffer severely and painfully for the rest of his life" these ppl are lucky bkg isn't real; if u're older than 14 and know better yet say this about a real 14 year old i think that says more about u than the kid. u will be put on a list of some kind
#sick and tired of ppl thinking bkg's 14 y/o self means literally anything anymore#like hey man. yeah. maybe in s1.#it's also telling that ppl think characters don't??? develop??? and to a more alarming extent they don't think PEOPLE develop??????#when change is very real and normal and expected thing??? literally EVERYONE changes???????#u cannot look at me dead in the eyes and tell me u are the exact same person u were at 14 bc good golly i would sure hope not!#most ppl and i mean a good majority of ppl become better as they age bc they learn things and gain perspective#and if u can understand that (this is a very easy concept to grasp) then u can understand that bkg too is capable of change#and has changed!!! a lot!!!#so yeah if someone comes at me with the 'he told deku to kill himself!!!!! he should die!!!!!!!' argument#i'm gonna automatically assume they don't know how to read and think. sorry#asks for becki#bnha manga spoilers#mha manga spoilers
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hey this goes without saying but unironically dni if you hate paani octonauts. like actually.
#i don’t usually do things like this buuuuut the way people talk about him sometimes is. weird. and i don’t like it#i’m at least happy to know that most people who dislike him keep that stuff in private circles and not tagged in public#but honestly still. at this point i’m blocking because all of you act the same#also there’s a difference between ‘he’s not my fav personally’ and ‘i want him to die he deserves it’#you just hate to see a silly monkey man living his best life!!!!!!#also the argument most times is that he’s a kwazii replacement#and yeah i mainly understood that because of the way A&B S1 was#but if you still believe that and blame it on him as a character and STILL like my kwazini art. I just don’t like you!#that’s all sorry for ranting I just can’t do this anymore#you can have your opinions but personally the paani hate gets gross and weird really fast and i’m sick of seeing it#yall don’t deserve my art of him if you simultaneously wish the worst on him
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Personally of the belief that live action fans who go onto animanga posts uninvited like 'I DESPERATELY NEED YOU TO KNOW THAT I THINK THE ART STYLE IS UGLY EVEN THO THIS OPINION IS IRRELEVANT TO THE POST' should be hit with a big rock. We already moved past this ten years ago, get with it or get lost. Swallow the hunger inside of you that demands everything be palatable to you. Maybe you could stand to be a little uncomfortable for a while
#Keep ur trashy comments to yourself#It's not even ugly! It's just not the conventional anime style so you deem it ugly. That's so fucking sad of you#You're the type of person who sees a piece of art and is like OMG WERE THEY ON DRUGS?!?!?!?!?!#Idk I think the art style is very fitting for the gigantic world Oda has built#People are allowed to be ''ugly'' because not all of us were born to be models. Shock and horror I know#(this is NOT aimed at the ppl who critque the way Oda draws women (to a degree...) bc I agree he could've done the same for women as he doe#The men by giving them way more diverse features and body shapes)#No this is aimed at the ppl who think the style as a whole is ugly and demean it bc it doesn't suit their tastes#Meanwhile their taste is the most conventional cookie cutter bland pretty boy/girl bullshit out there#(I say to a degree up there bc I think ppl go way too far with the criticisms like the one person who posted the Charlotte family identical#Sisters and went LOOK HOW SIMILAR THESE WOMEN ARE ODA SUCKS when they were MEANT to look similar)#^ yes that is an actual post I saw in like 2018 or 2019 when WCI was reaching its end in the anime and it made me die laughing#There are dozens of other examples you could've given but no. You intentionally chose the triplets (quintuplets? It's been a hot minute)#Rebecca and Nami and Vivi and Shirahoshi all having the exact same face with different hair? No I will use the identical twins as proof#What a unique way to undermine your own argument bc I was with you up until that#Anyway yeah the more I think abt the more I think the live action sucks actually for getting rid of Sanji's eyebrows bc they'd 'look bad'#Who cares? It's part of his design. You are cutting off parts of his character. Same w/ Usopp's nose.#Who fucking cares if it would have looked 'bad' or 'ugly'? Is that all you guys really care about? Keeping up appearances???#I'm so sick of the shit I like getting 'remade' to appeal to people who will never actually appreciate why stuff looks the way it does#It's so shallow I hate it#<- yes I'm still bitter about what they did to my boy WW in the three guns reboot iykyk#And Livio and Razlo for that matter. What the FUCK was that about#Idk maybe it's cuz it's something I recognized in myself and attempted to squash so it's frustrating seeing other ppl do it#And again obvs Oda isn't perfect w/ this either as he draws evil women as fat old hags and his protags as skinny and beautiful#Or how he thinks not following ur dreams will make u ugly and fat and following ur dreams will make u conventionally attractive#I get it. Storytelling method. But u can do better. Use colorschemes instead of physical attributes or something like Veneer does
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#truly tired of the way my parents arguing has evolver. congrats theres no more violence but now you constantly have arguments everywhere#about everything#because they talk like everything is a competition and its just passive aggressive comments!#truly thinking about running away and just disappearing for a while but i know that would not change a thing! bc thats how stupid they are#one day theyll be old and under my care and ill hire people to argue 24/7 on my house so that they can understand what it feels like!#its like having the most annoying song on loop ever since you were born! and it won't stop#it will only get annoying remixes#im this old and single and they don't even wonder why... bc im tired of putting up with other people. im always putting up with them!#like arguing about who is the most unhealthy and continuing to still be unhealthy... none of you is winning the argument! bc youll both end#up sick in a hospital#yet u have to hear these stupid arguments!#and about how the house is filled with clutter#if youre not going to change it. stop complaining!!!!!#youre just making it worse for others because now i have to put up with your noise and nonsese and the house is still a mess!!!!#i know sometimes im being dramatic about the whole thing but like brain totally turns into mush especially when i haven't had any food#and ive already heard 3 different passive aggressive comments and arguments#and my dad always acting like he ends up being the bad guy.... maybe if you had actually been a dad during my formative years things would#be different. its not normal for a kid to think their dad has a secret 2 family bc he spends time away just to have fun#dont complain now that i got more attached to my other parent
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#I will be honest. I am dead sick of people exaggerating facts & jumping to conclusions using incomplete info & making shit straight up#If someone or something is bad & we have the evidence to know they are bad; then stick to the actual facts!!!#You don't have to make shit up!!! You don't have to extrapolate a whole story based on a fragment of info & declare it as fact!#Someone I can't remember who called this the 'and they kill puppies too' argument;#the need to believe the bad person/thing has done the worst most needlessly evil thing possible in order to prove them undeniably bad#I feel they think if they can just PROVE this that everyone else will come to their senses & change their mind.#But it won't happen. People don't work that way.#Sometimes I even feel like ppl wish the person/thing in question did cause even more harm than they already have#They *want* more people to have been hurt so they can gleefully stew in righteous fury#sickening#draw attention to the horrible things we know have been done. stop exaggerating & fabricating. it's unnecessary & wrong
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୨୧ㅤִㅤׄ COUGH SYRUP ― GOJO SATORU.
satoru is a bit of an idiot who will do anything to get you to speak to him after an argument.
𓈒 ݁ ₊ content ノ fem reader, clingy satoru, established relationship, mild argument, fluff, not proofread, randomly started missing my boy :( <3
satoru can’t function when you’re upset with him.
he knows he should be an adult about it — he is an adult, after all. he should give you space, let you simmer down. most people do not do things such as send one hundred and fifty text messages (he counted each of ‘em; you left him on read one hundred and fifty two times. who does that?) to your phone while you’re in the middle of grocery shopping and they most definitely do not take a sick day because their significant other is mad at them.
but then again, satoru isn’t like most people.
which is why he’s currently sprawled out on the sofa in the middle of the day, wrapped in your favorite throw blanket — one that still smells faintly of your perfume. tissues litter the coffee table and floor around him, an unconvincing movie set of misery. call him manipulative, but it’s the only thing he’s got left in the tank since, for the last seventy-two hours, you haven’t spoken more than five words in a sentence to him.
you’re his main source of enrichment, his brain stimulated by your sweet kisses and good loving so when you take that away, you’re stripping away his heart and soul. he’s got nothing left. he might as well die.
in satoru’s brain, he figures that surely, if he’s coughing up a lung, you’ll feel bad for him and start talking to him again. in sickness and in health, right?
by the time you walk through the front door after making a quick run to the supermarket for groceries, he’s in full performance mode, clutching his stomach with a groan.
the sound is so realistic that you feel a sudden stab of worry, wondering if he’s injured. rushing into the living room, you find all six foot three of your boyfriend balled up on the sofa, looking like walking death.
or trying to, anyway.
“satoru?” you ask, eyebrows arching as you set your grocery bags down on the floor, taking out your phone and glancing at the time on the lockscreen. “why are you home? it’s eleven am.”
“baby,” he groans pitfully, looking up at you. his glacier blue eyes are red rimmed and shimmering suspiciously — like he squeezed them shut repeatedly until he got the desired effect. satoru sniffles for good measure, huddling into the blanket. “i’m sick,” he announces, his lower lip wobbling, dragging out the last syllable like it physically hurts him to say it.
“sick? you seemed fine when i left this morning,” you say, taking a step forward. you reach out a hand, pushing back his wintery locks to check for a fever. his skin feels normal, cool to touch even. your eyes narrow. you’re dubious — satoru never gets sick, yet it is his favorite act whenever he’s in the doghouse and wants attention. that, and he’s a terrible actor. you purse your lips, irritated. this is what he does instead of just apologizing?
“i wasn’t fine emotionally,” satoru whines back. “i’m heartbroken here. it’s debilitating my health rapidly.”
your expression doesn’t budge and satoru’s pout deepens when he realizes you’re not buying it. he clutches the blanket tighter around his big body, exaggerating a shiver for good measure. “you’re my life force, angel. my happiness. my —”
“stop it,” you interrupt and hold up a hand, fighting the smile tugging at your lips. you’re mad at him — you are. “but let me get this straight. you called out of work because i wasn’t talking to you?”
“it was a medical emergency. do you have any idea what it’s like to go hours without hearing you voice?! without seeing you smile at me? you wouldn’t even let me use your body wash last night so we could share the same scent. i barely survived the night. any longer and i’d be a goner,” he sighs dramatically, then remembers he’s supposed to be on his last leg and hacks, phlegm rattling in his throat.
“you’re obsessed,” you pinch the bridge of your nose, trying to hold firm. but your damned heart has selective memory and it is making an appearance again, rapidly forgetting why you’re still mad at him. oh, you had a right to be upset over what he did, but it seems insignificant now when he’s in front of you, groveling like a servant at a throne.
“angel, come on,” he presses, sitting up on the sofa and reaching for your hand, hurt flashing bright across his eyes when you step out of range. if you let him pull you down on that sofa with him, he’ll sweet talk his way into you forgiving him without consequences. he’ll do that anyway, but you won’t make it easy for him. “i’ll do anything to make it right.”
“don’t angel me. you can’t just manipulate me into forgiving you with your big pretty eyes,” you wag your finger at him. “i bet you don’t even know what you did.”
“i know, but it’s working, ain’t it?” he grins, shamelessly dropping the congested tone in his voice. “and i know what i did,” he scoffs. “you’re mad at me about that thing.”
yes, that thing.
two nights ago, your body pillow — your very expensive, weighted body pillow which happened to have a giant render of your boyfriend on it, went missing. you’d commissioned it to have something to cuddle with on those nights when satoru is away on business and you miss him in your shared bed an unhealthy amount. you’d become a little too attached to it, though, while satoru wanted nothing more than to burn it.
“he has a name,” you hiss, swatting satoru’s knee as you struggle not to laugh. “don’t call mr. comf-toru-ble a thing! he’s sensitive.”
“see?” satoru says, scrubbing a hand over his handsome face before gesturing around wildly. “you even named it.”
you give him a sharp look. “he cost me an entire paycheck— an entire paycheck that three days ago, you gave to the garbage collectors because i was cuddling him instead of you!”
“i was feeling neglected!” he defends, voice pitching higher in his affront, placing a hand on his chest. “you spent the whole night with it. meanwhile, i— your husband— was right there, cold and alone. i can’t let me steal my wife.”
“we’re not married, satoru,” you remind him, then pout. “unlike my husband, the pillow doesn’t hog the covers, snore, or throw out things that i really like.”
“it’s not hogging the covers, it’s redistribution of them for my comfort,” he grins playfully, but upon seeing your serious expression, he concedes, sobering up. in truth, he knows he messed up and went too far. it was childish to throw out something that you bought because of his frequent bouts of absence. maybe if he was around more, you wouldn’t need to cuddle with body pillows that look like him. “look, baby. i’m sorry. it was a moment of weakness. it’s not everyday i gotta be in competition with myself, but i’ll make it up to you! i even ordered you another one.”
“a moment of jealousy, you mean,” you counter, but there’s no real bite behind your tone now.
“hey, you gotta see it from my perspective though. it’s kind of crazy seeing you cuddle with a pillow that looks like me when the real thing is right here,” satoru gestures down the long line of his body, though it looks more comical than inviting when he’s wrapped like a overstuffed burrito in your throw blanket.
“mm,” you nod, “well, maybe if the ‘real thing’ is a good boy, i’ll cuddle him more often.”
“deal,” he answers immediately and when his muscular arms shoot out from behind the blanket and reach for you this time, you let him. his arms circle around your waist, pulling you into his lap. it was just a few days of silent treatment, but satoru wastes no time tucking his face against the dip of your neck, breathing in your sweet scent like you’re something precious and rare he lost ages ago and is just discovering again after eons.
he’s squishing you, he knows it, but god he hates it when you’re mad at him — and you, in return, hate being at odds with him too. you both make too much sense to each other to be apart, and there’s upset in the balance of the world when the two of you are in an argument.
“worst seventy-two hours of my life,” satoru blows out a breath of relief, the air tickling the hair at the nape of your neck, drawing a shiver down your spine. “never do that to me again, angel. you hear?”
“don’t throw out my customized satoru merch again and i won’t, baby,” you coo, smiling.
“you’ll still choose me over the other guy though, right?”
“we’ll see, ‘toru, we’ll see,” you answer playfully, yelping when he darts in to nip at your ear in retaliation.
getting comfortable in satoru’s lap, you lean in to put the both of you out of your miseries and forgive him with a kiss when you get a whiff of menthol and childhood memories wafting from his chest.
“are you wearing vaporub?”
#gojo x reader#gojo fluff#gojo satoru x reader#gojo x you#gojo satoru x you#jjk fluff#jjk x you#jjk x reader
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i know that as a trans guy, there is no way for me to take “all men are bad” and hear that in a trans-positive light
On one hand, I am met with people saying that all men are bad and then following it up with “but not trans men 🥰” which not only is that infantilizing, but that says to me that you don’t truly see me as a man
On the other hand, I am met with people saying that all men are bad and then concluding that with “including trans men,” which does nothing but further alienate trans people. Yes, trans men are men. But yes, we are still oppressed on the basis of our gender and need solidarity and support in order to combat that. Not only have a great many of us spent a significant portion of our lives living and being perceived as women, but us being men does not negate any level of oppression that we face for being trans. To wave off trans men as “just another man /neg” is to actively ignore the lived misogyny and transphobia that we face as trans men
Furthermore, “all men are bad” is TERF talking point, and it’s somewhat shocking how many people are forgetting that. TERFs use the exact same “all men are bad” rhetoric to demonize trans women and to infantilize trans men. There are ways for us to acknowledge misogyny and disgusting patterns of behavior that are consistent with men without alienating the trans community
My frustration with the “all men suck” rhetoric has nothing to do with whether or not all men actually suck — “not all men” is an incredibly distasteful and dismissive argument — it has everything to do with the transphobia and misogyny that gender essentialism perpetuates
not sure quite how to fully articulate this in a way that is sensitive and does not at all downplay the very valid pain that this is coming from, but the rapid increase in gender essentialist talking points is not going to save anyone
#(i know that gender essentialism is not only harmful to trans people#but im talking specifically from that perspective because i am trans so its something i can personally speak to)#My thoughts on this are not fully set in stone and this is more of a word vomit than anything#but idk i’m just kinda sick of hearing radfem talking points being used by otherwise trans-inclusive people yk#especially with election we know that there is going to be a great uptick in transphobia and we need to be more wary of that#like i am losing my mind#hearing people unironically talk to ME a trans MAN about how they hate men and could never be friends with one#it is the most frustrating thing#but at the same time i refuse to use the bullshit “not all men” argument because that’s incredibly insensitive and distasteful#half of this post was supposed to be in the tags#this post was originally supposed to be three sentences long#but i just kept going “oh and also-” 😭#but yeah#mxpotatoposts#transgender#trans#transandrophobia#trans rights are human rights
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it must be a sign | oscar piastri social media au
pairing: oscar piastri x fem deaf! red bull engineer!reader
when the two most unbothered people in the paddock combine their joint powers to be the it couple
request sent by the lovely @bibissparkles xx
author's note: heyyy so many of you won't know but i am actually deaf - i am 50% deaf in both ears and wear hearing aids so i love requests like this! (all i do most of this stuff as a deaf person, turning off your hearing aids >)
MASTERLIST | TIP JAR
yourusername
liked by maxverstappen1, oscarpiastri and 302,446 others
yourusername: you can't complain about the dutch national anthem when you can just turn your hearing aids off
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user1: the way max's engineer is as sick of that damn song as us
user2: turning off her hearing aids makes how bored she looks during podiums make sense
yourusername: it was a banger during the mercedes dominance but would it kill someone to play the australian anthem
danielricciardo: i knew you missed me
yourusername: sure, jan.
user3: her and max signing slay to each other will always be so personal to me
maxverstappen1: gonna pretend you didn't just say that
yourusername: boo hoo babe, you gotta lose something sometimes
user4: babe? are the flowers from max?
maxverstappen1: would rather choke on my own spit and fall into a pit of snakes, hope this helps ❤️
yourusername: rude! i wouldn't want flowers from you either :(
user5: i swear we get into this argument every weekend, i think people will still assume they're together until their married to other people
liamlawson30: stop using me as a messenger pigeon please and thank you
yourusername: but i thought red bull gave you wings?
liamlawson30: do not use a pr answer against me 🤨
yourusername: no comment
liamlawson30: choke.
yourusername: idk what's going on in the red bull junior academy but spit in helmut's coffee not mine
user6: y/n consistently giving all the red bull guys shit is my favourite thing ever
user7: the amount of times the sky broadcast has caught her waving them off or taking her hearing aids out lol
oscarpiastri
liked by yourusername, landonorris and 782,309 others
oscarpiastri: switched four tyres for two this weekend
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user11: you can't distract us with your slutty bike pics WHO THE FUCK IS THAT
landonorris: A WOMAN? A WOMAN? IS THAT A WOMAN OSCAR JACK PIASTRI?
oscarpiastri: yeah i'm pretty sure
landonorris: don't play smart with me buster - why was i not informed?
oscarpiastri: i don't ask to be informed of every time you get rejected in the instagram dms
landonorris: FAKE NEWS
oscarpiastri: okay buddy
user12: i be seeing the sign language book, oscar you are so real for that
user13: that's my king, i need a oscar and y/n link up in the paddock - my unbothered queens
user14: she's in the likes !!!!!!
logansargent: oh we've entered the soft launch phase i see
oscarpiastri: and what?
logansargent: someone is feeling defensive this morning, dude i won't tell i've already kept it a secret for so long
landonorris: HE KNOWS? DOES BEING YOUR TEAMMATE MEAN NOTHING?
oscarpiastri: he's my childhood best friend?
logansargent: there's levels to this game norris
landonorris: @oscarpiastri consider yourself UNDER SURVEILLANCE
oscarpiastri: okay girly
user15: oscar has the patience of a saint, the mystery gal may want to rethink it before having to deal with them all
yourusername
liked by maxverstappen1, danielricciardo and 381,044 others
yourusername: unrelaxed, unbothered, moisturised ✨
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user18: queen SHIT THAT AIN'T SHIT
user19: but this mystery man IS
maxverstappen1: yeah sorry about that... but at least boyfy has made his instagram debut?
yourusername: about time, he's too sexy to gatekeep
maxverstappen1: well i'm not going to agree out of respect for you
yourusername: so you don't think he's sexy? i might not be able to hear but HE CAN MAX BE NICE
maxverstappen1: first of all it's a text, second of all i've been way too nice to him
yourusername: he beat you in padel fair and square you're just SHIT AT IT ❤️
maxverstappen1: you know that's a sore subject WHY WOULD YOU BRING IT UP
user20: my queen was really like you wanna tell me to fuck off? oh here's my sexy boyfriend
user21: jos verstappen really didn't know who he was tangling with that gal may be chill but she doesn't take shit
user22: she's like a female version of oscar lol
user23: i knew there was a reason i liked her
this comment was liked by yourusername
danielricciardo: why am i left out of everything these days?
yourusername: snooze you lose
danielricciardo: I AM AWAKE REPLY TO MY TEXTS
danielricciardo: I JUST SAW YOU PUT YOUR PHONE ON DO NOT DISTURB
yourusername: protecting my peace
danielricciardo: i'm on to you buster
oscarpiastri
liked by maxverstappen1, yourusername and 1,209,455 others
tagged: yourusername
oscarpiastri: overjoyed to get my first (proper) win in formula one and even more overjoyed to have my amazing girlfriend (and even better engineer) up on the podium with me
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user27: so this was the special occasion?
user28: so this is why she said she wanted the australian national anthem over the dutch one?
user29: this is now my roman empire
yourusername: babe is so fucking good and i'm so fucking proud
oscarpiastri: i'm so glad to have been able to share this moment with you
yourusername: you deserve this and more, i love you
oscarpiastri: i love you too xx
user30: wait so oscar knows so much more sign language than i thought
user31: he looked so excited and even mark knows some
logansargent: he forced (we were happy to do so) me, mark and his family to learn as soon as he secured the date lol
oscarpiastri: and now we're all so cool because of it
logansargent: cool and able to chat shit without people knowing what we're saying
yourusername: best bit about it tbf (everyone please learn, it's a beautiful language)
landonorris: I KNEW IT
oscarpiastri: no you didn't
landonorris: no i didn't :( i'm hurt
oscarpiastri: if it's any consolation, we didn't tell many people, max and logan are exceptions
landonorris: WHY WAS I NOT AN EXCEPTION???
yourusername: boo hoo
landonorris: i'm not gonna say anything back to that you kinda scare me
yourusername: good ❤️
yourusername
liked by fernandoalo_oficial, oscarpiastri and 529,778 others
tagged: maxverstappen1 & oscarpiastri
yourusername: me and a racewinner (and our world champion third wheel)
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user32: fave trio in the paddock no competition
logansargent: logan erasure
yourusername: we love you logan, sunday roast at mine this weekend ❤️
logansargent: SCORE
user33: every time you post there's a new plushie
yourusername: we usually get one to commemorate a big weekend and we both got one for osc's first win
user34: that's so FUCKING CUTE
oscarpiastri: it's all fun and games until you don't fit in the bed because y/n feels too bad to put any of them on the floor
yourusername: they have FEELINGS OSCAR
oscarpiastri: she cried one time when max set off the smoke alarm cooking breakfast and the bed alarm shook so bad that all of them were thrown to the floor
yourusername: it was HARROWING but it also did wake me up so at least we know it works
maxverstappen1: actually my favourite couple to third wheel, but enjoy it while it's here osc, i won't lose again
yourusername: yeah sorry osc it's actually my job to help max win so you're gonna have to wait for him to retire if i have anything to do with it
oscarpiastri: not even for me :(
yourusername: sorry not sorry (i'm really sorry, i love you so much)
oscarpiastri: i love you too even if you won't sabotage max for my race :(
maxverstappen1: okay i know i said you guys are cute but that's enough for today
yourusername: we ARE cute thank you
oscarpiastri: the CUTEST
fin.
note: heheheheh i hope you enjoyed this, i love requests like this xx also on the comment about the bed alarm i had one in uni halls and when the alarm went off that baby SHOOK it was kinda scary
#f1 imagine#f1 x reader#f1 instagram au#f1 x you#f1#f1 social media au#oscar piastri instagram au#oscar piastri fanfic#oscar piastri x you#oscar piastri imagine#oscar piastri#oscar piastri x reader
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Quickly analyzing a one-off line from The Optiratch Argument™ because I'm bored
We all know that The Argument™ was mainly about Ratchet's frustrations with Optimus' "cowardice" (BIG quotation marks) but one of Ratchet's lines really stuck with me:
"Oh- and let me guess, I'm just the medic." (TFP S1E22)
Typically when people are angry, they don't vent about just one thing. Though he was talking back to what Optimus said about the Vehicon being a miner and not a warrior, that comment seemed completely irrelevant to the argument's main topic (at least in my point of view)
One big (yet hidden) flaw in Ratchet is his lack of self confidence. His job is to cure the sick and injured, yet he never really seems to realize the value he has on his team. He truly is great at what he does - and he goes above and beyond to be of service (medic, scientist, sort of engineer... that's impressive!) Despite all this, the fact that he is the only non-fighter really seems to eat at him. His main whereabouts most of the time being in the base makes it worse paired with the fact that he seems to be the most eager to jump and "get things done." Their numbers are already small, so he feels that anything he could do isn't enough to overthrow an entire military.
By saying "Just the medic," it implies that he determines his self worth by his rank. In his eyes, he is "just" the medic. Not a great warrior that overpowers the enemy and saves his comrades, but a doctor forced to sit by and wait for his teammates to return with fresh new injuries, dead or alive.
"-Help us, we know. But you nearly caused the loss of something.. Irreplaceable. Our medic, and our most trusted friend." (TFP S1E22)
Now Optimus, on the other hand, does acknowledge what Ratchet has to give to the team, most importantly Ratchet's worth as an individual. He knows what lengths Ratchet goes to save his comrades (and, most of the time, himself) from the brink of death, he knows what a genius his old friend is for being able to conduct such intricate research with limited supplies - Hell, he knows that Ratchet built some of those supplies himself.
Learning about how Ratchet thinks so lowly of himself must've been shocking, to witness the one closest to you feel the need to experiment on himself with untested material in the hopes of being "useful" ... I think it broke Optimus' heart a little, not to mention how he was already hurt by Ratchet's rant.
Though the episode ended with things working out in the end, I really like the idea of The Argument™ making a huge mess out of both of them. At that moment they were fine and made up, but what they said/learned about each other that day will never quite leave them.
#i wish they argued more tbh#but it would make me sad#i love them so much my eebies#SUFFER. NOW. *aggressively shakes them back and forth*#optiratch#ratchop#optimus prime x ratchet#tfp optimus prime#tfp ratchet#tfp#transformers prime#transformers#maccadam#maccadams
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here’s some non-angsty Ra’s and Talia headcanons
- Ra’s knows a million and one ways to tie hair up, quick styles to keep it out of the way for combat, and elegant styles for formality. Talia always goes to him when she wants her hair to look extra pretty because she doesn’t trust anyone else to do it and not fuck it up.
- Talia never grew out of wanting her dad when she’s sick. At age 5 and age 50, she has stood in Ra’s’ doorway in the middle of the night to tell him “Baba I threw up.”
- (She also does this when Damian is sick btw. In his doorway holding on to 3 year old Damian’s hand, “Baba….Damian threw up.”)
-Talia is one of the few people Ra’s actually enjoys sparring with. She’s competitive and sometimes downright mean. He’s well aware that she is probably fueled by spite and arguments they had 20 years ago and also every time he’s ever annoyed her or pissed her off, but she makes sparing fun. He also loves recognizing the things he’s taught her, and observing her own techniques she’s developed on her own.
-He may be one of the most powerful men in the world but he still does the MOST annoying dad things, like randomly coming in to her room to just look out the window or stand on the balcony with hands behind his back.
-As a kid she played dress-up in his clothes, and as an adult she occasionally will use his big elaborate capes as blankets when she wants to be cozy
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stubborn
r has a hidden relationship with one of the team physios, but texts from an unknown number reveal she's being used and alexia isn't happy about it.
warnings - 18+ MDNI suggestive smut themes, stalker texts, angst
words - 2996
part 2
my phone pinged.
unknown number : she’s taking advantage of you, she’s done this with other people and she knows you’ll say good things about her to other staff so she’ll keep her job
i furrowed my eyebrows, surely this wasn’t a text for me? the number wasn’t saved in my phone and i had no texts from them before.
me : i think you may have the wrong number
i shut my phone off without thinking about it much after that, i knew it wasn’t for me but i very much felt sorry for the person it was intended for.
i pushed myself up off the sofa to get myself ready for the evening training session, as nice as it was to train when it wasn’t as scorching hot, though i still preferred morning sessions. i stepped into my bathroom, standing in front of the mirror to slick my hair back into a ponytail, doing the same hairstyle i did most days. all of a sudden a pair of arms wrapped around my waist as i began brushing my hair, causing me to smile at the contact.
“we could do this every morning” she whispered before placing a peck on my neck, instantly having a calming effect on me, though it didn’t last long, “if you changed clubs”.
my face dropped and my body tensed up, she knew how much i hated this conversation and yet she never saw how ridiculous it was to ask me to leave a club like barcelona just for a casual fling to become something more.
“mhm” i couldn’t say anything more, no matter how many times i tried, she would never actually listen to the words that were leaving my mouth. i was constantly fighting a losing battle.
“don’t be like that” she said, dropping her arms from me and stepping back. “this is my job just as much as it is yours, why should i risk my career so you can play football for another year at the ‘best club in the world’ before you go back to a half decent club”, her argument was stupid, but the audacity to use air quotes when referring to barcelona as the best club in the world stung. since we met i would always talk about how playing for barca was my dream, and how excited i was to be living that everyday, she knew exactly what this club meant to me.
she leant against the bathroom door, staring me down, waiting for me to fight back and challenge the hurtful words she spewed at me, but she made it clear that she didn’t respect me and i was getting tired trying to gain a half-arsed apology from a person like her.
“ana” i took a deep breath “if that’s how you feel then that’s okay, but i won’t be looking for a transfer just to please you” i sighed, continuing to put my hair back, “you know what this means to me”.
she rolled her eyes, “im not doing this, it’s always about what it means to YOU and never to us” she dramatically flung her arms in the air but i knew to stay quiet to avoid the same fight repeating itself. “you’re going to put me in a bad mood for work again, and don’t you dare think about going to isabel for a massage during recovery” with that she picked up her bag and left for work.
peace and quiet, finally.
i finished getting ready before grabbing my bag and heading down to my car, normally i’d go to training with keira, but she’d been out all morning so i assumed i’d be meeting her there. as i sat in my car i checked my phone, assuming it would just be a couple of texts i wouldn’t need to pay any mind to.
unknown number : this is y/n, isn’t it?
me : yes? why?
unknown number : i know you’re with ana, she’s taking advantage of you. you aren’t the only person she’s with and she’s done this with multiple girls before you
my eyes widened.
me : who is this? how do you know this?
unknown number : i’ve been watching you, ive seen you leaving training together. i hate the way she looks at you and the way she touches you during recovery, it makes me sick.
i know she doesn’t give you what you deserve. i wouldn’t keep you hidden like this.
i could give you so much more, i’d never hurt your pretty heart like this.
i sat in my car, not wanting to move, i couldn’t care less about it being Ana or that i was receiving slightly stalker-like but somewhat hot texts from a random person, but i did care that i’d been used for someone else’s advantage. i knew i couldn’t let it go on any longer, not just so it would benefit her career and ruin mine. i swiped onto ana and i’s messages.
me : i’ll talk to you after work but we aren’t doing this anymore
ana : don’t be like that, it was just a silly argument this morning, i’ll talk to you at work
me : can you read? i said after work. we aren’t doing this anymore, find someone else.
i closed my phone and blasted music as i drove, assuming it would help re-centre my focus before i got to training, i couldn’t have something like this affect my performance. as i pulled into the car park i took a minute to collect my thoughts, somehow i had to remain professional but how could i when all that was swirling around my mind was finding out i was being fucked over and stalked in the same day.
i finally got out of my car, grabbing my stuff as i headed towards the door.
“alanna! stop ignoring my texts” i heard a small shout from behind me, i knew it was ana but i wasn’t about to give her the time of day.
“what’s that about?” cata asked, standing at the door, clearly waiting for me to catch up to her.
“we were sleeping together, not anymore though” i said blatantly, i had mentioned i was seeing someone but i never gave any more details than that, the only person who knew the true picture was keira but that was only because we lived together.
“woah, i didn’t expect that” cata said, standing still for a moment, assumingly trying to process the information, as i continued to walk to the locker rooms. she quickly caught up to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder, “im here if you want to talk about it, but not if you wanna test out your advanced spanish, thats way too painful” she added, with a small laugh, causing me to laugh too.
we walked into the changing room, which was already filled with our fellow teammates, i quickly greeted them before heading to my cubby to put my stuff down, giving myself a minute to sit down and check my phone.
unknown number : you look so good today. dios mios the things i’d do to you…
i quickly looked around the room to see if anyone was on their phone, no one was, all the girls were engaged in conversations with each other or had already left to go to the training pitch. i put my head in my hands for a minute, my attempts to refocus had failed. i wanted to wait until i was the last one in there, either so i could scream or cry, with no one else around.
“habla con ella ale, tu eres la capitana” cata mumbled, trying to be quiet enough that i wouldn’t hear, but she was never very good at being quiet.
“no quiero hacerla sentir peor” alexia mumbled back “nosotras no estamos tan cerca después del incidente” she added.
the ‘incident’ was a very drunk champions league after party, which ended with alexia and i finding our way to the club bathroom to make out. we somehow made it back to her flat together, and whilst we didn’t sleep together, we certainly got close to, so close that we woke up naked. i didn’t regret anything about that night, not the drunken flirting, the incredibly close dancing or the bathroom make out session, i didn’t even regret making it back to her flat and taking off each other's clothes before we passed out. i regretted how i dealt with the situation, but i knew alexia held that same guilt too.
they continued mumbling between themselves as i reached for my phone to text this unknown person.
me : can you send me some kind of proof? for some reason i believe you, i just want to see it with my own eyes
moments after i hit sent, a phone within the locker room pinged. alexia’s phone. i didn’t think anything of it, she was one of the biggest names in women’s football, her phone was constantly going off.
as i put my phone back into my bag i noticed cata had left, leaving just me and alexia alone in the locker room. she was stood in front of me, maybe 6 feet away, one hand rubbing the back of her neck as her eyes darted about the room, making me realise just how awkward the situation was. then the realisation hit, this was the first time we had been alone in a room together since the incident, at least we were fully clothed.
“ale, you don’t have to do this” i said, standing up so there wouldn’t be the awkward tension that happens when someone is looking down on you.
“i’m your captain, i should be here for you if you need someone to talk to” alexia said, meeting my eyes.
whilst things had been awkward between us for the last couple of months, we actually hadn’t seen each other much, i was back home, playing a couple of games for england but ale was representing spain in the olympics, so we never really got the chance to talk about things.
“it’s just something personal, honestly it means nothing, you don’t have to worry about me capi, i’ll be focused” i awkwardly shuffled the bracelet around my wrist and forced a smile.
“i’m not worried about you being focused nena, y/n im worried about you being okay”
my name rolled off her tongue like it was made for her to say, so perfect and effortless as if english wasn’t her second language yet it was like hearing an angel. she never really knew the soft spot i had for her. before that night, we were close, of course people thought we were together and some of the girls would joke about it, but in reality we just enjoyed each other’s companies. she made me a better person and i challenged her in every aspect, especially when it came to who could cook a better paella. it was always her, but i enjoyed teasing her about it.
“someone i trusted was using me, that’s all, it was nothing serious but it just hurt so i’m in a bit of a shit mood, so if you’ll excuse me i’m going to train” i said, adjusting my socks as i headed towards the door.
but all it took was one very quick, and smooth, movement from alexia for her to be standing in front of the door.
“who” she asked so simply yet her eyes had shifted, they seemed darker, the eye contact she held was so intense yet i couldn’t escape it.
“you wouldn’t know them” i said, my breath hitched slightly, realising how close we were stood to each other, yet i don’t think she realised.
“ahora no es el momento de ser terco” she responded, huffing at me slightly “give me a name”.
“i’m the stubborn one?” i questioned, my eyebrows raising as i got irritated “you wouldn’t know stubborn if it hit you in the face. you’re so much more stubborn than me, everything happened and every time i tried to make things right you ignored my calls and my texts, i had to show up to your door just to be told you wanted space. i flew to france to watch you play and all the other girls came over but you, that hurt ale because the only person i really wanted to come over was you” tears threatening to spill from my eyes as i spoke “you are so stubborn alexia putellas, i tried to fix this but you were the one stopping that, so don’t act like you want to protect me all of a sudden” i added, tears now rolling down my face.
alexia took a step back and took a minute before attempting to speak, but i quickly cut her off.
“please, just go out to training, i’ll be there soon, i just need a minute” i said, with that she walked out the door leaving me in the locker room alone.
i took the time to compose myself before heading out to train, putting on a very fake but very convincing smile. at this point i needed the distraction and being on the pitch would offer me a retreat. i quickly apologised to pere blaming my lateness on a personal emergency before joining my group for training.
and to my joy, the distraction did work. by the end of training i was genuinely smiling and laughing as if nothing had happened at all. we all headed inside to recovery where i promptly made my way over to isabel, another team physio, knowing exactly how it would make ana feel. surprisingly, i was feeling extra flirty today, even if it was superficial..
“how can i help y/n?” she asked, as i perched myself on the edge of the table.
“my thighs please, they’re feeling quite tense after training, so i definitely need your magic hands to do some work” i said with a small smirk, laying down on the bed. i glanced over at ana who was working on cata on the table next to me, her face already showing the effect i was having.
“i can definitely put my magic hands to work” isabel said with a wink, before getting to work on my legs.
throughout the massage i showered her with flirty compliments, telling her good my legs felt after she worked on them and how she was the best with her hands. she knew i was doing it to rile up ana, yet it didn’t stop her in returning the flirty comments back to me.
“jesus ana, that hurts” i heard cata remark, turning my head to see a red mark on her leg where ana had gripped it too hard.
recovery was quickly over and surprisingly i felt a whole lot better. something about purposely making the person that used you intentionally angry felt like a release.i packed my things up and changed back into my normal clothes before heading out to my car, i hadn’t even made it half way across the parking lot before i heard my name being called.
“don’t walk away from me when i’m talking to you” ana called out, causing me to pause where i was standing and turn around.
“ana, i’m not doing this in public” i said, i wanted this to be over and i definitely didn’t want it to happen in front of my teammates.
“i told you i wouldn’t be impressed if you went to someone else in recovery, and i specifically said not isabel, so why are you acting like a whore now?” she questioned, raising her voice so anyone close by could hear.
“a whore?” i questioned, before shaking my head to refocus on the actual situation “i’m not doing this here, you can call me when you’ve calmed down” i added, turning around to walk away.
all of a sudden i felt a hand grip my arm and pull me back, making me lose my balance slightly, ana had gripped my arm so tight that her nails were beginning to grip into my arm.
“let go of me ana, you’re making a scene” i said, my chest getting heavy as i became aware of the amount of people who were around us, tears instantly started to form in my eyes as my anxiety increased.
“i’m not letting you leave until we talk about this” she said, refusing to let go of my arm.
“get off of her” mapi said, quickly dropping her bag and running over to us. the other girls, who were leaving training at the same time, weren’t far behind her as they all instantly diverted their attention to the situation.
ana was quick to drop my arm when she saw the attention she had gathered.
“this isn’t what it looks like, we were just having a conversation” ana said, trying her best to defend her actions.
“i think it’s best if you leave” cata said, before taking me by the shoulder and walking me towards my car.
whilst there was some distance between us, i could still hear a few of the girls interrogating ana, and she wasn’t doing a good job at defending herself.
“hey it’s okay, why don’t i come round for a bit and we can just sit and chill for a bit” cata said, giving me a reassuring smile, causing me to nod in response.
before getting in my car i looked back at ana to see a very heated conversation between her and alexia.
“you’ve taken advantage of her for too long now, go and pack your stuff, you won’t have a job to come back to” alexia said, her voice as clear as anything.
her words repeated in my head, i could’ve sworn i heard those words recently to describe this whole situation. the messages from that unknown person said i was being taken advantage of, the exact thing alexia said.
any spelling/grammar mistakes, please let me know x
#woso#woso community#woso x reader#woso imagine#woso oneshot#barcelona femeni#barcelona femeni x reader#barca femeni#fcb femení#alexia putellas x reader#alexia putellas fic#alexia putellas#alexia x reader
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i know who you are | 5. the dinner
Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader
Chapter Summary: Everything seems perfect until it all unravels. Emotions come to a head and the big lie is revealed.
Chapter Warnings: language, angst, pining, alcohol use, eating, flirting, sad!Joel, amnesia, slow burn, minor infidelity, one use of 'daddy', big ol' emotional argument (lots of mean and hurtful things get said)
WC: 9.5K
Series Masterlist
By some miracle, you didn't end up getting sick, although it took most people in town a full week to recover from the flu. The infirmary was packed every day and Nick regularly expressed his endless gratitude that you chose to work for him. Maria and Tommy isolated as best they could in their home out of fear their daughter would get sick. When the townspeople slowly began to recover, they were itching to do something, so they decided to host a dinner.
One thing you hadn't done in ages was bake. You used to do it often, something you found rather soothing and rewarding long before the world went to shit, so you decided to make something to bring to dinner. After exploring your pantry, you discovered you had the right ingredients to make a simple pie crust, so you got to work mixing and rolling out the dough, getting so lost in your thoughts that you didn't even hear Joel walk through the front door.
When he heard you working away in the kitchen, he walked softly towards the entryway and leaned against the frame to admire you. He crossed his arms and smiled to himself when he saw the bits of flour smeared across your cheeks and your hair a little disheveled, your appearance not a concern to you as you worked.
It was the sweetest thing he had seen in a long time. He almost felt bad when you suddenly sensed his presence and looked up, disrupting your flow.
"Don't mind me," he said with a smirk before strolling over to the table to sit. "Whatcha up to?"
"Making a pie," you told him as you pinched some flour between your fingers and scattered it over the counter. You picked up the sticky ball of dough and sprinkled that with a bit of flour, as well, before grabbing the rolling pin. "Thought it would be nice to bring something with us tonight."
Joel nodded and picked up an apple from the bowl on the table. "That's nice of you," he said before taking a bite, "I'm sure they don't expect us to bring anythin'. They're just bored outta their minds and lookin' for someone to play with their kid for a while."
"Hey! I need those!" you scolded when you heard the crunch. He paused his chewing and looked down at the apple in his hand before stretching his arm out to you with a grin.
"Here you go," he said, mouth full. You laughed and shook your head before focusing on the dough once again.
"Keep it," you said, "I'll still have enough."
He leaned back in his chair and watched you diligently roll the dough out until you achieved the level of thickness you desired and then laid it gently in a buttered pie pan.
"Can you help me peel?" you asked when you came over to grab the bowl from the table, and he couldn't resist reaching out to dust away the flour from your cheek. You looked at him in surprise and he gave you a small smile.
"'Course I'll help," he said, standing up to grab two knives from the drawer. After giving yourself a moment to recover from his unexpected touch, you joined him at the counter, placing the bowl between you both as you began to peel in a comfortable silence. It had been almost two weeks since you saw Ben outside the tailor, and although you always looked for him whenever you walked to and from work, you never crossed paths with him again. You had been hoping to corner him to try to get more information before confronting Joel, but you had no such luck. So, with a deep breath, you cleared your throat and focused on your apple before speaking.
"Joel?"
"Hm?" he replied, his brows pinching together as he carefully worked his knife around the apple in the palm of his hand.
"Can I ask you a question?" you asked as your pulse began to thrum faster in your throat.
"Sure," he said, still laser focused on his task.
"Who are the Fireflies?"
His hand slipped and he dropped the apple and knife, pulling the pad of his thumb into his mouth with a hiss. You gasped when you saw a few drops of dark red blood on the cutting board and put your knife down before grabbing a somewhat clean towel and handing it to him.
"Is it bad?" you asked, taking a step forward to try and see his injury before he wrapped it in the towel. He shook his head.
"Nah, I'll live," he said, studying the cut for a second before applying pressure again.
Still, you rushed to the linen closet to grab the first aid kit and brought it downstairs. "Rinse it under the water," you instructed him before opening the bag and rifling around. He did as he was told and watched you pluck out a bandage and a small bottle of antiseptic. "Show me," you said, and he held his hand out to you so you could examine the cut. He studied you up close while your attention was focused on his thumb, taking in every feature on your perfect face and inhaling your familiar, comforting scent while you bandaged him up. If this was what it took to get you close to him, then he was ready to injure himself every damn day.
"You're good at that," he murmured, flexing his thumb when you were all done. "Learnin' a lot from Nick?"
You packed up the first aid kit, avoiding his heated gaze. "Yeah, I guess so," you said, turning back to your apples. Ever since Joel caught the flu and you helped nurse him back to health, it felt like there was a shift in the air between you. He was more brazen with his touch, like when he wiped the flour from your cheek, and while you never asked him not to touch you, your feelings for him were complicated. Until you could figure it out, you had been trying your best to not allow yourself to get caught in his orbit.
It was proving to be more difficult than you expected.
"Why don't you go sit down, I can finish these up," you said, your eyes cast down on the apples. You felt him regard you silently for a moment before he pushed off the counter and went back to his spot at the kitchen table. It was obvious what he was doing. It was the exact opposite of what you were doing. He was trying to create a charged moment, and you were trying to avoid them.
"You didn't answer my question," you said, and his energy immediately shifted.
"Where'd you hear 'bout the Fireflies? From Ellie?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. You looked up at him, confused.
"Ellie? No," you replied, shaking your head. "I ran into Ben a few days after our visit. He thought you had already told me about them and seemed a little skittish when I didn't know who they were."
You watched him closely, refusing to look away as he tried to mask his anger, but you could still see it. His jaw tensed and his uninjured hand clenched into a fist in his lap while you waited for an answer.
"So?" you prodded, cocking your head to the side. His nostrils flared for a second before he took a deep breath and turned his head away.
"The Fireflies were the group the three of you had joined before comin' to Jackson," he began. You tried to focus on peeling your apples but you were working incredibly slow, not wanting to miss a single word. "You were with 'em for a couple years. They had a decent setup, kept you all safe. Better than the QZ."
"Okay," you said slowly, picking up another apple. "So it was a community like this one?"
He huffed and shook his head, "Not exactly. More like an army. They're a revolutionary group. They rose up against the military and took over QZs with the promise of givin' control back to the people, but..." he trailed off and scratched his beard. "Wasn't all that simple. They killed alotta people in the process, and in the end, civilians still suffered. Didn't end up matterin' who was in control when both sides were just as violent."
"Oh," you said softly, setting your knife down, "so I joined because of what happened to my family? Because the military killed them? And then I ended up killing innocent people, anyway?"
Joel shrugged and stood up. "Like I said, we all made decisions the best we could with what we knew at the time. You didn't know any better. Nobody did."
"Did you join them, too?" you asked.
"No," he said, pressing both palms flat against the counter as he looked at you.
"So why did Ben seem to think telling me about the Fireflies would cause a problem with us?"
His mouth pressed into a thin line and you saw the suppressed rage flicker across his eyes again. "Fireflies ain't exactly well received by most people," he said, "lotta people here had family that was hurt or killed. Innocent bystanders caught in the middle of a war they didn't start."
You swallowed nervously, apples long forgotten as you braced yourself for your next question. "Did the Fireflies hurt someone you loved?"
Joel's gaze dropped to his hands and he clenched his jaw. He wanted to tell you. He should have just fucking spit it out and told you everything, but at the last second, he chickened out.
"No."
And you may not have known him as well as you did before the accident, but you knew him well enough now to be able to tell when he was lying. You tried to hide your disappointment by picking your knife back up and getting to work.
"Are there others?" you asked him, and he lifted his head up, "other former Fireflies who live here?"
"Aside from you three? Just Tommy."
Your jaw dropped in surprise and your eyes snapped up to him once again. "Tommy?"
"Mhmm, just for a little while. You didn't know each other before Jackson," he said, anticipating your next question. "Fireflies are a big group. Spread out all over the country."
"Oh," you said softly, looking back down at your half peeled apples which were slowly becoming brown on the edges. You began peeling again, faster now, as you thought about everything he just said while he watched you carefully from the other side of the counter. You weren't sure what else to say. It felt like he was telling you the truth, but you still had a hunch he was leaving something out.
"Y'know, it's a miracle I didn't eat half that damn pie before we got here," Joel said teasingly as you walked up the porch steps to Tommy and Maria's house. "Whole house smells like Christmas now. Drove me crazy all afternoon."
You smiled and smoothed down the blue blouse you found tucked away in your closet. It wasn't a top you could envision yourself working in, it looked a bit too nice for that, so you thought dinner would be a perfect time to wear it, combined with a dark pair of jeans that were relatively clean and only slightly frayed on the bottom. At the time, you thought it was cute when Joel came downstairs with his hair slicked back and his flannel tucked into his jeans for once, but when you walked into Tommy and Maria's and found the house to be filled with four married couples from around town, you suddenly felt uncomfortable.
"I didn't realize anyone else would be here," you murmured quietly next to Joel as you slid off your coats.
"He mentioned they may invite a few others but I didn't think this many," he told you, taking your coat and hanging it up before looking around. They had two tables covered in linen pushed together in their dining room which was alight with candles and sprigs of pine and holly spread around the middle, giving the room with a warm and romantic atmosphere. You swallowed nervously and all of the sudden, the evening felt too much like a date.
"Hey, you two!" Tommy's voice rang out from the kitchen, startling you out of your reverie. "Glad you could make it," he said, tugging Joel into a hug before giving you a chaste peck on the cheek.
"Um, here," you said, holding out the pie, "didn't want to come empty handed," you explained with a little smile. Tommy's eyes lit up when he took the pan from you and gave the pie a quick sniff.
"Damn, smells good, Sugar," he told you, his cheeks already rosy from the liquor he had been working on before you arrived. He shot Joel a playful look as he headed into the kitchen, handing Maria the dessert. "Your girl can bake, Joel. Lucky man."
The tips of your ears went hot and you looked away uncomfortably before Joel could catch your eye.
"I'll get us a couple drinks," Joel said, ignoring Tommy's comment, much to your relief. "What'dya want?"
You glanced around the room and what the other women were drinking before shrugging and suggesting wine. He followed Tommy over to the living room where they kept their liquor locked up and away from their toddler, who was gleefully playing with another woman you didn't recognize. Popping your head into the kitchen, you spotted Maria all by herself working on dinner.
"Maria," you said with a smile, and she turned around with a sigh of relief.
"Hey, I'm dying here, can you help me?"
"Of course," you said, rolling up your sleeves. "What do you need?"
She put you to work right away, chopping up vegetables and dumping them into boiling water before helping her thicken a sauce she was making for some pasta. You were just about to taste test the product when Joel and Tommy joined you in the kitchen with the drink that he promised.
"Smells so fuckin' good in here," Tommy said loudly before taking a generous sip of whiskey and giving Maria a quick peck on the lips. Joel put your wine glass near you on the counter and you shot him a thankful smile before bringing a spoon up to your lips to taste the sauce. You winced and scrunched up your nose and Joel chuckled.
"It's missing something," you explained, putting the spoon back down as you examined the spices available to you while Maria was instructing Tommy on doling out the appetizers.
"Lemme try," he said, rounding the corner to stand next to you. You handed him the spoon and he held up his whiskey. "Hands are full," he told you teasingly, and you rolled your eyes with a grin before dipping the spoon back into the sauce and lifting it to his mouth. He leaned in and wrapped his lips around the spoon, closing his eyes and making a soft noise at the taste. Your knees suddenly felt weak and your face felt hot as you struggled to compose yourself before he caught you.
He opened his eyes slowly and ran his tongue over his upper lip to capture the remnants of the sauce and you had to resist the urge to swipe your thumb over his mustache to gather the rest. It made your breath hitch in your throat and you forced yourself to look away, mentally cursing your body's reaction to him.
"Lemon," he said huskily, then took a sip from his glass while still staring down at you. Your eyes drifted up to his and you saw that look again. The one that made you feel too many things at once: nervousness, excitement, pressure, confusion. So you took a deep breath and squeezed past him, having no choice but to brush up against his chest.
"You're right. It needs lemon," you said, finding one in the mess on Maria's counter and slicing it in half before squeezing it generously over the sauce. Joel leaned against the counter, one arm caging you in from behind as you worked. You tried to ignore how close he was but you could feel his breath on your skin and it was causing your pulse to race. Fortunately, Maria came to your rescue.
"How's it going?" she asked, and Joel pushed off the counter, stepping back to give you both some room.
"Good, I think the sauce is done," you told her, and after she gave it a little taste, her eyes lit up.
"So good!" she said, clearly pleased. You felt your cheeks heat up before gesturing towards Joel.
"Thank Joel. He thought of the lemon."
Maria shot Joel a smile and thanked him as he tipped his glass in her direction before taking another sip. "Happy to help, ladies," he said.
"Go enjoy the party, I got it from here," Maria told you, shooing you away.
"Are you sure? I really don't mind-"
"Yes, I'm sure! I'm just going to plate everything and we're good to go. Help yourself to some appetizers before they're all gone," she said, turning her back on you as she started pulling down serving platters.
You picked up your wine and took a sip, hoping to quell some of your nerves as you let Joel lead you into the living room where the party was in full swing. Tommy had his daughter balancing on his shoulders as he talked to a couple men, their wives at the other end of the room in the middle of a lively conversation. You chewed your lip, glancing back and forth before you took another sip and looked up at Joel.
"Guess I'll go see what's got them all worked up," you told him, nodding your head in the direction of the other women.
"You sure?" he asked with a frown. "Don't want you feelin' uncomfortable. We can stick together if y'want."
You shook your head and stepped away. "I'm fine," you told him before forcing yourself to join the other women. As you approached, you gave the women a friendly wave to catch their attention and they beckoned you towards them with open arms. They all seemed to be around your age range, give or take, and very friendly as they took the time to re-introduce themselves to you. You politely listened to them talk about their kids or jobs while you sipped your wine and nodded along. When three of the women became engrossed in a story about their children and school, you felt yourself begin to zone out. The girl standing next to you, Hannah, caught your eye and smiled.
"Do you have any kids?" you asked her, and she shook her head.
"Not yet. I don't think we're ready, you know?" she said, glancing over your shoulder at her husband. "But one day I think we will. How about you and Joel? What are your plans?" she asked, then her eyes went wide with embarrassment. "I'm so sorry. That was a dumb question, you probably don't... ah, I'm such an idiot," she said, and you laughed.
"No, you're not, it's fine," you assured her as her cheeks began to flush.
"I guess I just keep forgetting about your accident. That was so rude of me," she said, "I see you guys together all the time and it seems so normal."
You glanced over your shoulder at Joel, watching for a moment as he laughed heartily at something one of the other men said. "Yeah," you told her, turning back around, "I can see why you'd think that."
Her gaze drifted between you and Joel for a moment before she lowered her voice and took a step further away from the other women. "So you still don't remember anything, huh?"
You shook your head sadly. "Nothing. At this point, I'm not expecting anything to come back. I'm just trying to start over."
She nodded solemnly and took a sip from her wine. "How's it going with you two?" she asked, tilting her chin in Joel's direction. You sighed and rubbed your eyes. Same old questions, different person.
"Okay, I guess. He's been incredibly patient," you said, "but I think he is still holding out hope that my memory might come back and we'll just pick up right where we left off."
Hannah gave you a sympathetic look right as Maria approached with a big smile stretched across her face. "Dinner is served!" she announced to the room before bending down and stretching her arms out for her daughter.
Everyone began to scatter as couples rejoined and headed towards the dimly lit dining room. Joel appeared by your side, his hand hovering over your lower back as you waited for the other couples to take their seats.
"Havin' a good time?" he murmured, and you gave him a tight smile before nodding. Joel pulled out one of the two remaining chairs for you and you whispered your thanks when you sat down, then he pushed it back in before taking his own seat. He relaxed and stretched his arm across the back of your chair while he listened with amusement to Tommy drunkenly telling a story that had carried over from the living room.
"The table is beautiful, Maria," you told her, leaning away from Joel a bit. "It's so cozy and warm, you really outdid yourself."
She smiled as she bounced her little girl on her knee. "Thanks. We were just itching to do something, you know? We got a little cabin fever, I think."
You felt Joel's thumb brush lightly against your spine, making you shiver. But when you glanced over at him, he was still caught up in listening to Tommy and you wondered if those little gestures were intentional or if it was muscle memory.
Once everyone began to eat, Joel dropped his arm from your chair and you found yourself missing the warmth that radiated from him, confusing yourself even more. Sometimes you just wanted to hit your head against the wall and rattle your memories loose so you could stop feeling so conflicted. If you were this confused, you couldn't imagine what Joel was feeling. Although, at that moment, he seemed to be perfectly content as he stood up with Tommy to get another drink.
"Y'want any more?" Joel asked, nodding to your glass but you shook your head.
"Maybe later," you said, and when he caught your eye he gave you a quick wink before following Tommy back into the living room.
"So, how's it going at the infirmary? Still like it?" Maria asked, drawing your attention back to her.
"Yeah, I do, actually. That was a good idea, I've been meaning to thank you," you said, wiping the corners of your mouth with a napkin. "It feels good to stay busy and I'm learning a lot."
"Well, Nick always speaks so highly of you. Especially after that nasty flu worked its way through town. He said you were a godsend," Maria told you while simultaneously handing her daughter a steamed carrot.
"She was. Worked her tail off all week then had to deal with me when she got home," Joel said as he sat back down with a soft grunt. You smiled at him, grateful for the compliment.
"If he's anything like his brother when he's sick then I'm sure you've earned sainthood status," Maria said to you, making everyone laugh.
"Hey, what're you sayin' 'bout me down there?" Tommy slurred with a grin from the other end of the table. You were fairly certain Maria answered him with some sharp remark which made the table laugh again, but you couldn't exactly remember because Joel dropped his hand to rest on your knee and you suddenly couldn't think straight. Your skin felt hot under his touch, even through your jeans, and you could have sworn the whole room could hear how loudly your heart was pounding in your chest, so you anxiously grabbed your wine glass and finished the rest in one gulp, hoping it would steady your nerves.
You could have asked him to move his hand. You could have made an excuse, gotten up and used the bathroom, but you didn't. You remained perfectly still, allowing his hand to rest on your leg as you tried to focus on the conversation at the table. Because although your mind was saying one thing, your body was always reacting differently.
If you had known what would have ended up happening that night, you would have done something in that moment. Maybe if you had, it would have changed everything.
Instead, you sat there and didn't say a word. You just politely listened to everyone talk with Joel's hand still on your leg while your body and mind waged a war nobody could see.
When Maria stood to hand off her daughter to Tommy and clear the table, you joined her, finally ending Joel's grip on you. The other women stood while the men attempted to help but got shooed into the living room. When all the ladies were alone in the kitchen, Maria pulled out a jar of apple flavored moonshine that she told you all quietly she was hiding from Tommy because it was her favorite before passing it around for everyone to have a taste.
It was strong. Each of you had to stifle your coughs into your hands, which erupted into giggles and eventually caught the attention of the men, so you all did your best to distract them after they curiously poked their heads into the kitchen so Maria could hide the jar once again.
In retrospect, the alcohol didn't do you any favors. Your head was swimming a little by the time dessert was served and you found yourself inadvertently leaning into Joel's shoulder as everyone complimented your pie and he watched you adoringly while you waved off the praise.
The food was amazing, but combined with the drinks, you found your eyelids growing heavy as the party moved back into the living room and Maria took her daughter to bed.
"I think I'm going to get some air," you told Joel while everyone else got comfortable.
"You alright?" he asked, examining your face closely. You nodded.
"Just getting tired," you explained as you took a step towards the door, but he immediately put his glass down.
"Why didn't you say so? We can go home."
"No, it's okay-"
"You've been workin' so hard lately. You need your rest. Go get your things and I'll tell Tommy we're headin' out," he said, refusing to hear another word. And as much as you didn't want to tear him away from the party, you had to agree with him. The past couple weeks were physically draining and it definitely seemed like the exhaustion was catching up with you.
Once Joel announced your departure and everybody bid you good night, you each grabbed your coats and slid on your boots before heading outside. The brisk night air was a shock to the system and it helped wake you up a bit on the walk home. Joel wrapped his arm around your waist as you walked, holding you close to him, enveloping you with his warmth and when you inevitably reflected on that night, you would remember that moment as one on a long list of ways you were sending him mixed signals because you didn't pull away. Because as confused as you were about your feelings for him, you couldn't deny the attraction you harbored. And maybe it was partially your fault for not being stronger because you knew, you fucking knew Joel's feelings for you were far deeper than yours that night, and yet you still didn't step away.
When you arrived home and Joel fumbled clumsily with the door, you giggled, making him grin and his eyes light up at the sound before finally shoving the door open and flicking on a light. You shrugged off your coat and kicked off your boots with a sigh, the faint smell of apple pie still lingering in the air. You were happy to be in the comfort of your own home and eager to throw on your pajamas, but Joel led you into the kitchen first and poured you some water. You couldn't help but smile at how reminiscent it was from when he was sick and you did the same thing for him, so you took it and made sure to drink the whole thing while he watched with a pleased expression on his face.
"Did I tell you how beautiful you looked tonight?"
The glass was still pressed against your mouth, the last drops of water just swallowed, and you froze. Slowly, you lowered the glass to the counter and shook your head, unable to look away from his heated stare.
"Well, you did. Lit up the whole place. Prettier than all the other women," he said, fighting to remain still and not pull you into his arms. But he was losing that battle.
"Thank you," you said softly, forcing yourself to look away. It didn't deter him.
"I mean it. Couldn't stop thinkin' 'bout you. Talkin' 'bout you," he said, watching your face heat up as he blinked slowly. "Lookin' at you," he added after a quiet moment, and you laughed softly while you crossed your arms protectively over your chest.
"Joel..." you began, not even sure what you planned to say so you opted for staring blankly out the window just so you wouldn't have to look him in the eye.
"What, baby?" he murmured, taking a bold step forward and pinching your chin with his fingers. You dragged your gaze back up to him just to find his dark brown eyes all wide and filled with hope and tenderness as he stared down at you, his gaze flicking from your eyes to your lips, clearly displaying his intention but you still didn't step away. Your body wouldn't let you move.
"We're both drunk," you told him, trying to remain rational. Trying to stay clear-headed.
"Not that drunk," he quickly countered, his eyes still roaming your face, his fingers still pressing into your chin and you could feel your heart flutter wildly. Why on earth couldn't your mind catch up with your body?
You sighed, partially from the exhaustion, partially from the inability to properly express yourself but he took it to mean something else. He heard your sigh and thought you were finally giving in. That you were finally going to let him kiss you. Because why else wouldn't you have pulled away?
He leaned forward, his eyes slid shut, and although you should have known it was coming, it still surprised you. Your eyes stayed open wide as he inched towards you and finally at the very last second, you tilted your face to the side, causing him to press his lips against your cheek instead.
You felt his reaction before you could see it. His lips immediately tensed against your skin and his breathing stalled. Then his hand dropped from your chin and he leaned back, eyes no longer warm and inviting.
You tightly pressed your lips together in shame. "Joel, I'm sorry-"
"Don't be," he said quickly, cutting you off and backing away.
The hurt was evident across his face, although he tried to hide it by averting his gaze.
"I just don't think I'm there yet," you said after a long, tense moment. "I'm trying-"
"Yeah, I know," he replied harshly, turning on his heel and marching out of the kitchen. "I know you're tryin' to force yourself to love me. It's gotta be real hard, I get it," he spat, his voice so cold it made you shudder as he shoved his boots back on.
You choked back a sob as you watched him grab his coat.
"Where are you going?"
"Don't know," was all he said before flinging the door open and storming out, leaving you all alone in the entryway with tears slowly streaking down your cheeks.
What an absolute fucking idiot he was.
What was he thinking? That you would magically find him attractive again? Love him again? That he was worthy of your time and care and attention? After everything he did?
You didn't know, of course, but what else could it be, other than fate? Or karma? Or whatever it was, coming back and erasing all your memories of him to set things right? Because did he ever really deserve you in the first place?
No, definitely not. Not after everything he did.
His legs carried him blindly to the Tipsy Bison. It was a quiet night, and maybe had he been in the right frame of mind, he would have been surprised. Most of the town was cooped up the past couple weeks, under normal circumstances he would have thought it would be busier, but at that moment in time, he didn't care. He only cared about one thing: he needed to forget.
He motioned for Seth and he nodded in acknowledgment before pouring him his usual whiskey and setting it down. Joel snatched it up and immediately downed it with a wince before pushing the empty glass towards Seth.
"Another, please," he muttered before burying his face in his hands with a groan. Seth eyed him suspiciously before pouring his second drink and setting it back down on the bar.
Joel let the glass sit there a few minutes while he stewed in his anger. He wanted to blame you, but he couldn't. Not really. He knew it wasn't your fault but, fuck, he just wanted you back. He was so goddamn lonely that it made his chest hurt. He rubbed it absentmindedly before picking up his glass and forcing himself to take a slow sip. He had already drank too much at Tommy's and if he didn't want to wake up with a massive hangover, he had to slow down.
"Hey, cowboy," a familiar, flirty voice suddenly said from beside him. He tilted his head to the side and had to fight the urge to roll his eyes.
"Angie."
She smirked and pulled up a tall barstool, scooting her way up with a little grunt that made his stomach clench as he watched her maneuver in her tight jeans.
"What's got you so blue?" she purred as she took a sip from her drink and crossed her legs, her foot coming dangerously close to touching his calf.
"Who said I was blue?" he asked gruffly before taking another swig of whiskey.
She laughed softly and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Kind of hard to miss," she said, resting her chin in her palm as she looked at him expectantly.
His eyebrows furrowed at her but she noticed the way the corner of his mouth twitched and she bit her lip playfully.
"C'mon, what's the matter? You can tell me, baby," she cooed, and he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
"Don't call me that."
Angie pouted and leaned closer, her breath tickling his ear when she whispered, "Oh, that's right. How could I forget? You prefer daddy."
"Knock it off," he growled, turning away from her and ignoring the stirring below his waist, but it wouldn't be that easy. It never was.
She rested her delicate hand on his forearm and his muscles twitched, but he didn't move. As much as he hated to admit it, he missed being touched. And in that moment, any touch would do. She smiled and slid her hand up his arm slowly, and he let her, his eyes fixed somewhere in the opposite direction as he tried with all his might to ignore it, to fight it, to stand up and fucking leave, but he couldn't do it.
"So tense," she murmured in his ear, and his eyes fluttered shut. "I can help with that, y'know." Her hand dropped from his shoulder to his lap and had Joel's eyes been open, he would have seen Seth's eyes widen in surprise before looking away. "We're real good at it, remember?" she continued, her fingers inching towards the seam of his jeans. But before she could reach between his legs, his hand grabbed her wrist.
"Stop it," he said weakly, forcing his eyes open to glare at her, but she just smiled sweetly at him and pulled her hand back.
"I need to use the restroom," she said, her voice sultry. "You remember where the ladies' room is, right?" she asked with a wink before sliding off the stool and swinging her hips as she strolled down the hall towards the bathroom. He groaned and rubbed his face roughly.
He wasn't sure how it happened. He wanted to blame the whiskey, he wanted to blame you, but at the end of the day it was all on him when he found himself shoving open the door to the women's room and crowding Angie against the sink, his mouth crashing down on hers hungrily.
It was only one tiny minute of weakness. When he realized his mistake, when he remembered her lips weren't anything compared to yours, when her noises were not the noises he wanted to hear, her touch not the touch he craved, he immediately stopped kissing her, pulling back and cursing under his breath.
Angie looked at him, her eyes dark and her cheeks flushed, then took a step forward but he held up his hand.
"No," he said a bit too loudly, the whiskey making his head swim as he stumbled backwards towards the door. She rolled her eyes and grinned.
"C'mon, Joel. When are you going to realize she's not coming back? You need to move on," Angie said sweetly. Too sweetly. "You deserve to be happy," she added, and he frowned when the enormity of what he had done dawned on him through his drunken haze.
"Stay away from me," he warned her, reaching for the door and yanking it open.
"Fine. But just remember: you followed me in here!" she shouted after him as he disappeared down the hall. He snatched his coat from his barstool and jogged towards the exit.
He had to get home.
The carpet should have been worn to the floorboards by the time Joel finally came back. You had been pacing around the living room, chewing on your fingernails nervously as you replayed the entire evening in your head. The guilt was fucking suffocating you. You couldn't help but feel like you were partially to blame, but you would have broken his heart if you let him kiss you without fully understanding how you felt first, and he didn't deserve that. Maybe once he cooled down, he would understand.
When you heard his slow, heavy footsteps walking up the porch stairs, your heart leapt into your throat. The door creaked open slowly, as if he expected you to be asleep and he was trying to be quiet, but when he closed the door and saw you standing in the middle of the living room, your arms wrapped around yourself, his face contorted into a grimace.
"You're still up," he said, voice a little raspy as he hung up his coat.
"Joel, I'm so sorry," you began, "I'm just so confused. I'm still trying to work out my feelings but I don't want to rush into something and risk hurting you."
He swallowed and hung his head in shame, unable to look at you.
"Please don't apologize," he whispered, but you kept going.
"Of course I'm going to apologize. I sent you mixed signals and I ended up hurting you anyway."
"I did somethin'," he blurted out, and you froze mid-sentence, waiting for him to elaborate. Silence filled the room, your eyes drifted around aimlessly before you sunk down onto the edge of the couch and tucked your hands under your thighs.
"What did you do?" you asked, your voice wavering when you realized he still hadn't looked you in the eye.
He took a steadying breath and propped his hands on his hips, his face still angled shamefully towards the floor. "I kissed someone else."
His words hung heavy in the air, your deep, ragged breaths the only sound filling the room as your tired mind tried to make sense of what he just said.
"What?" you finally asked, voice deathly quiet. He forced himself to look at you now, his dark eyes brimming with tears.
"It was a mistake-" he began, voice thick with emotion, tongue heavy and clumsy between his teeth, but you stopped him.
"Just now?" you asked incredulously, your stomach turning sour. Fighting the nausea back down with a harsh swallow, you spoke again. "You tried to kiss me, I shot you down and you just... went out and found someone else?"
"That's not what I left to do, it just happened-"
"Who?" you asked, your gaze stony as you continued to stare at him, anguish and regret flickering across his face.
"Does it matter?" he tried weakly, softly, but it just pissed you off even more.
"Yes," you hissed, slowly standing back up on now shaky legs. "Who, Joel?"
His throat bobbed and he shifted his weight and when he mumbled Angie's name, you saw red.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" you whispered, quickly closing the gap between you and shoving him hard against the chest, causing him to stumble back in shock. When he looked you in the eyes, all glassy and cold and distraught, his blood felt like ice in his veins.
He was losing you.
"Please, lemme just explain-"
"What could you possibly have to say?!" you exclaimed, your body growing hot with rage. Hands shaking so badly you had to cross your arms to hide the tremor. "I was taking too long to fuck you so you went out and found a sure thing?"
"I didn't fuck her, but I could've!" he yelled back, an angry vein popping out of his neck at his sudden outburst. Your eyes went wide and you took a step back in surprise. He didn't know why he was yelling. He knew it wouldn't help, but he just snapped. "I never once pressured you to sleep with me! I gave you your space an-and respected your boundaries," he was flailing now, his thoughts scattered as he desperately tried to make sense. "But I'm a human fuckin' being and I got drunk and I was lonely and I made a fuckin' mistake! And I'm sorry, alright?!"
You scoffed and rolled your eyes. "You're lonely," you repeated, the words like poison on your tongue, and he frowned. "What about me? I'm lonely, too! You know what the first question is out of everyone's mouth ever since my accident?" you asked, glaring up at him, anger rolling off both your bodies. "They ask me how you're doing. You! Like this was some tragedy that only happened to you! But I lost fucking everything in the blink of an eye!" Tears began to burn the backs of your eyes now but you pushed on. "My world literally turned upside down in an instant and everyone just kept waiting for me to get with the program, including you!"
"That's not true," he said, shaking his head angrily, "I never pressured you to do anythin'!"
"It's the way you look at me!" you cried, wiping the tears from your cheeks. "You don't even realize you're doing it but you keep looking at me, expecting to find the woman you fell in love with but she's gone, Joel!"
You both fell silent, staring at one another, shoulders heaving as you each sat with the weight of your words.
"I don't care," he finally said, lowering his voice. "I still love you. I told you that first day. What we got is rare and special and I'm not givin' up on us."
"Then how could you go kiss someone else the first time there's a bump in the road?" you asked, tone hurt and dejected, then you turned and headed up the stairs.
"I told you, it was a mistake," he pleaded, following you. "I'm so sorry... wait, what're you doin'?" he asked when he realized he had followed you into your room. You were snatching clothes from the drawers and tossing them onto your bed, and that's when he really began to panic.
"I can't stay here," you said, disappearing into the bathroom. His vision narrowed and his legs became weak as fear flooded his veins.
"No," he whispered, but you didn't hear him. You were busy gathering a few toiletries from the bathroom and tossing them on the bed along with your clothes, but when you walked past him to get a bag, he grabbed your arm.
"Don't do this," he begged. You yanked your arm out of his grip and stepped back, glaring at him and he realized in that moment he would rather have you there screaming at him for the rest of the night than not have you there at all, so he kept talking. He kept pushing.
"Y'know, for someone who says she doesn't have feelin's for me, you sure seem to be pretty pissed off," he glowered, and your eyes widened. That's it, he thought, let me have it. "If you don't want me, if you don't give a shit 'bout me, then what the hell does it matter if someone else does?"
You gasped, his words like a punch to the gut. Like a blade to your heart. Without thinking, your arm swung back and your palm cracked loudly against his cheek, stunning you both into silence.
He wanted to rub the spot, to help soothe the pain with the tips of his fingers, but he resisted. Instead, he let his cheek redden so you were forced to see what you did.
"You think I don't give a shit about you?" you seethed once you found your voice, palm stinging at your side, eyes flickering between his eyes and his cheek.
"Sure seems that way," he countered, and your jaw clenched angrily as the next round of tears began to well up.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" you yelled, your hands balling into fists at your sides. "How dare you. You made me give a shit about you, you asshole!"
You shoved past him and headed down the hall to the spare room in search of a duffel bag, but Joel was hot on your trail. If he let you leave, he would never get you back.
"The hell does that even mean?"
You whipped around, making him stumble backwards, your eyes wild and bloodshot. "You told me you would make me fall in love with you again! This whole time we've been getting to know each other, building up our relationship and you think after all that, after everything we've shared, that I don't give a shit about you?"
"Well-" he began, but you cut him off.
"I took care of you when you were sick. I sat next to your bed for a full week, waiting for you to fall asleep, making sure you had everything you needed," you said, your voice growing quiet as hot tears spilled down your cheeks. "You told me about your daughter. I told you about my brother," you whimpered, your voice cracking on the last word. Joel's face fell when he finally realized how broken you were, the full weight of his actions realized. "How could you say that to me?" you sobbed, burying your face in your hands, your cheeks hot and wet in your palms. Your head ached. Your heart ached. You needed this to end.
"Oh, god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it," he told you, stepping forward and pulling you into his arms. You only let yourself melt against his broad chest for a moment before you sniffled and pushed him away. Turning around, you snatched the bag from the ground and stormed past him.
"Tell me how to fix it," he pleaded as he followed you back into your room.
"You can't."
His head was pounding, throat scratchy and dry as he watched you pack from the doorway, his chest tightening with each article of clothing that passed through your hands.
"Please. Stay. I-I-I won't even talk to you if that's what you want, just please stay."
You paused, your eyes squeezing shut as you silently cried over your bag. "You want me to stay, Joel?" you asked, voice trembling, and even though weren't looking, he nodded.
"I'll do anythin'," he said earnestly, and you opened your eyes. Reaching for your journal, you flipped it open to a well worn page and tossed it on the bed. He frowned at it, confused, but stepped forward and picked it up.
"Then tell me what you lied about."
His eyes scanned the page, reading the four words over and over. Joel lied to me. No context, but he didn't need any. He knew.
You could see the conflict in his face as he tried to figure out a way around it.
"The truth. Or I'm gone," you said firmly, and when his eyes flicked up to yours, you saw fear.
He slowly turned around, the journal held delicately in his massive hands, as he sat down onto the edge of your mattress.
"Okay."
The shock made your tears slow to a stop.
"Okay?"
"Yeah, okay," he repeated, his tone somber as he stared down at your journal in his lap. "What's the difference now, anyway? You already hate me."
I don't hate you, you thought, but you remained silent.
"If I tell you, you promise not to leave?" he clarified, and you thought about it for a moment. What if it was something really bad? But you knew you wouldn't get the truth out of him any other way, so you nodded. You figured if you still left and ended up becoming a liar, then at least you would be even.
"I told you 'bout the Fireflies," he began, and you got the feeling the story was going to be long so you sat down on the bed.
"Yes."
"You, Ben 'n Lisa were all part of a group out in Salt Lake City," he said, his gaze pinned on the journal. "In a hospital. Doin' research."
"Research? I don't know anything about-"
"You weren't doin' the research. The three of you were just guards. Patrolmen. There were doctors there, and they were lookin' for a cure," he continued, then took a deep breath before lifting his chin and staring at a fixed point on your wall.
"Did they find one?" you asked, remembering that first day when Joel told you about the outbreak. You had asked him at the time if there was cure and he said no. That couldn't be the lie, could it?
"Well, they were close," he said, his brow pinching together. "This next part is somethin' that's gotta stay in this house, y'hear me?" he asked, finally turning to look at you. "Y'gotta promise me that no matter what you end up thinkin' of me, you can't tell anyone 'bout this part."
You didn't want to make that promise. Why would you, after everything he had put you through? But, still, you found yourself nodding slowly, then his next sentence knocked all the air from your lungs.
"Ellie's immune."
Your lips slowly parted as the shock coursed through you, your eyes slowly drifting down to the comforter. Your mind was blank except for Ellie's immune, Ellie's immune playing on a constant loop.
"It's why you didn't write anythin' else, I reckon," he explained, holding up your journal. "Didn't want anyone to find it."
You slowly began to put the pieces together. A research hospital. Ellie's immunity. They were close to a cure.
"The Fireflies thought they could use Ellie to create a vaccine," he said after a long pause. "And I took her to 'em. Took her right into the lion's den," he said with a dry chuckle. "Didn't realize til after they took her that they would've had to... kill her to get what they needed."
Your eyes darted up to meet his again as you listened, entranced.
"Nobody knows, okay?" he said, his voice wavering a bit. "Only Tommy. No one else can know. Her life depends on it, d'you understand?"
You nodded, still unable to find your voice, so he continued.
"When I realized what they were doin', that they would have to kill her, I just..." he trailed off and scratched his chin, looking away, eyes distant. "I lost it. It's the only way to describe it."
"W-what do you mean?" you asked, your voice barely a whisper.
"I killed alotta people," he said, voice cold and detatched, "alotta fuckin' people. Whoever got in my way, I just... didn't think twice. 'Til you."
You inhaled sharply, almost forgetting you were somewhere in that hospital.
"Me?" you squeaked.
"You didn't see my face," he said, his voice beginning to shake. "None of you did. The three of you were together. You surrendered. Had you face down on the ground with your hands behind your head. Told me you were plannin' on ditchin' the Fireflies anyway. That you wouldn't come after me." His hand trembled in his lap and he made a fist.
"You weren't the first ones to say that to me, but you were the first ones I let live."
You pressed your palms into your face, trying to quell the ache behind your eyes as you rocked gently back and forth on the bed, heart thundering in your chest, blooding pumping too fast. The exhaustion was too much. You could hardly make sense of what he was saying.
"You almost killed me," you said, more of a statement than a question, your voice muffled through your hands.
"Yeah." He watched you carefully, trying to read you, desperately searching for some small glimmer of hope underneath all your rage and confusion.
"Then what?" you forced yourself to ask, pinching the bridge of your nose.
He ticked his jaw to the side and looked away.
"Then... Ellie 'n me came here. Started over. Tried to forget," he sniffed, pulling at a loose string on his shirt. "Then the three of you showed up couple months later. Scared the fuckin' shit outta me, but none of you seemed to recognize me."
"Because we never saw you," you said, and he nodded.
"I didn't speak to you for over a month. I was so scared you'd recognize my voice or somethin', but I just couldn't stay away from you," he said, his eyes softening now. "Then that night at the bar happened. When you came up to me and-"
"Yeah, I remember what you told me," you replied, not eager to relive that story at the moment.
"Then the rest is history. We started messin' around. You didn't know who I was for a few months, then I finally told you."
"After you were already fucking me," you said coldly, and he winced.
"After I fell in love with you."
You sat back and rubbed your eyes. You had so many questions. What was your reaction when you first learned who he was? If you stuck around, you must have seen something in Joel that made you feel safe. Why did he spare you? Was it only because you couldn't identify him? And how much did Ellie know?
"Please say somethin'," he begged after a few tense, quiet minutes.
"What do you want me to say?" you asked him, your shoulders sagging forward, limbs too heavy. "You want me to forgive you? You want me to say I understand?" He shook his head but you kept talking.
"You spared my life just to break my heart."
He turned away from you as his face crumpled. "I'm gonna fix it," he said, his throat tight and voice thick as he fought off the tears that were threatening to spill down his face. "I'm gonna make it right, if you just-"
"Can you go, please?" you asked quietly, "I have nothing else to say and I'm fucking tired."
He looked over at you but you refused to look up, your puffy eyes fixed blankly on the floor. His gaze drifted to the bag and clothes littering your bed and he asked, "Are you stayin'?"
You didn't answer. You just slowly stood up and flung your comforter back, some of your clothes falling into a heap on the floor but you didn't care as you crawled into bed and turned your back to him.
Begrudgingly, he stood. His eyes flicked around your room nervously, his fingers fidgeting at his sides while he chewed on the inside of his cheek, struggling to come up with the right words to say.
"Go!" you sobbed from underneath your blankets, hiding from him the tears that were soaking your sheets.
So, he left. Not because he wanted to, but because he caused you enough agony for one night, and as much as he wanted to stay and beg on his knees for forgiveness, it would be the selfish thing to do. Instead, he went to his bed and stared at the ceiling, barely sleeping the entire night because his body jerked awake at every little creak the old house made, wondering when he woke up, if you would be gone for good.
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A/N: Yes, there will be a happy ending 😘
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Star-Crossed Lovers
Rindou Haitani x Reader
Warnings: 18+ content (Allusions to sex, drinking), references to underage drinking (I do not condone or promote these behaviours), angst to fluff
Description: Everyone knows that when Rindou and the reader break up, they always end up back together, but this time something feels off.
You and Rindou broke up every other week.
When people asked how long you’d been together, you’d argue for hours on end about which break-ups counted and which didn’t. You liked to say you’d been together five years — ignoring the break-ups that occurred in the middle. Rindou, on the other hand, was adamant that every little break-up counted.
Yes, that included the time you broke up with him because he wouldn’t let you buy two of the same dress just in case something happened to the first one. It included the time he broke up with you because you absolutely demolished him in Monopoly. It included the time you broke up with him because he didn’t come home for five days straight. It included the time he broke up with you because he didn’t want to see you get deep enough into his gang business that you couldn’t get out.
So, after five years of dating — or three weeks, by Rindou’s standards — it became relatively obvious to everyone including yourselves that no little issue could actually spell the end of your relationship. The two of you were invariably intertwined. Star-crossed. At any given point in time, the most important person to you was him, and to him was you. There was nothing, truly nothing, that you couldn’t overcome together.
Except this break-up was different.
You could taste it in the air. Bitter. Empty. Soulless. There was hatred there, between you and Rindou, and it seemed that star-crossed lovers were truly just a thing of fiction.
It started out as just a petty argument. You had pointed out an engagement ring at the local jewellery store that you thought was just the most gorgeous thing in the world. It was vintage, from the mid-nineteen-twenties, and it was perfectly your size. You suggested, only half-jokingly, that he buy it and keep it in his pocket for the right time. Afterall, you were twenty and neither of you were getting any younger. But for some reason, some stupid, stupid reason, he completely freaked out.
“I’m not ready for that, Y/n!” Rindou’s head whipped around so his cold, violet gaze bore holes right through you. “How am I even supposed to know you’re the right person for me?”
The very same eyes that had just sent a chill through your entire body then betrayed his composure. Like a mirror struck by bad luck, they shattered, softened, and tried to reason with you wordlessly.
“We’ve been together five years and you don’t know if you want to marry me one day?” You asked him, both furious and heart-broken.
“Three weeks,” he said. Muscle memory. That was always his response to the whole ‘five years’ accusation, it was supposed to be funny, but in the moment it reeked of this sense that he was sick of you — ashamed of you, even.
Rightfully, you stormed out of the store, but he was hot on your heel, pleading with you to just stop and listen to him. By the time you had your keys in the lock of the driver’s door to your car, he was practically on his knees. It was a mistake, he didn’t mean anything by it, you had to understand that he was just so caught off-guard!
“Caught off-guard?” You scoffed, “How could you be caught off-guard when we’ve been together this long?”
“We break up so often, Y/n, I just didn’t think…” He didn’t know what to say, or how to justify his reaction. Rindou knew that at some point in your lives the two of you would probably be married, but he hadn’t really thought too seriously about it.
You rolled your eyes, “Take your brother, and get out of my house.”
For the next month, Rindou and his brother, Ran, crashed at Madarame’s. Ran had been whining the entire time about how much of a downgrade their living situation was since Madarame’s apartment stunk of his horrible cologne, and none of them were as good at cooking as you. You’d received about a dozen phone calls a week from him, each one begging you to either forgive Rindou, or at the very least, drop a meal off for them.
“We aren’t friends anymore, Ran, Rindou has ruined everything. Don’t call me again,” you told him eventually.
Everyone was feeling the effects of the break-up. Gang violence in Roppongi was at an all-time-high because Rindou was beating so many people up just to expel as much of the anger as he could. In meetings with the rest of Rokuhara Tandai, he was hardly focused, and would walk out having no idea what had just been discussed.
Rindou’s friends had tried in vain to convince him that this break-up was just the same as all the others — that the two of you would be back together in no time — but even they weren’t sure it was true. The days were getting longer, they were being drawn out into an agonising picture of the proverbial end, four horsemen and all, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that you weren’t interested in getting back together with him. It had just been so long.
It was unsettling to Rindou when he saw you for the first time since the day he moved out of your house. You didn’t notice him as he took in the dark semicircles under your tired eyes, and the slight limp you were carrying yourself with, and he was glad you didn’t. He could tell you hated him — he could feel the hatred oozing out of your pores and spreading all across the grocery store you were shopping in. There was no chance of you ever getting back together. He had just fucked up way too badly.
The past five weeks had been hell for you.
You had sprained your ankle really badly when you kicked your couch violently only moments after throwing all Rindou and Ran’s things at them from your front porch. Daily living had become far too difficult to handle on your own. The shelves in your kitchen were always too high to reach, so Rindou would grab things from them for you, but with him gone you had to maneuver yourself onto the counter with your one good leg and pray to God that you wouldn’t fall. The doctor had told you not to drive for as long as it took to get full rotation back in your ankle, so you were having to walk everywhere. You’d been late to work almost every day.
Despite everything, it would’ve been at least helpful to have Rindou around. Whenever something like this would happen to you, he was always there. Once, when you broke up after he got put in juvie, and you were having a rough time adjusting, he sent some of his friends (goons) to help you cook, and clean, and stay on top of your homework. You sighed at how nice it would’ve been to have that kind of support.
Between the constant calls from Ran, you’d also spoken to Madarame and Kakucho on the matter. Madarame had called before he realised the severity of the break-up to ask when you’d be “having your boys home” because he was sick of not being able to bring girls back to his house. Kakucho, on the other hand, had shown up at your door in his Rokuhara Tandai uniform, disrespecting a rule you had put in place that they weren’t to bring their gang affiliations anywhere near your house.
“Walk with me,” he ordered, and ignored you as you started to preach about how he had no right to speak to you that way. Together, you walked silently through the city, your eyes stuck to the concrete rivers you navigated through.
“Where are we going?” You asked him eventually, bored of the awkwardness and of being told off by some kid.
“Whatever’s happened, you need to forgive him,” Kakucho said, “You know you’re going to anyway, so I really don’t understand what all this mess is about.”
You scoffed, “He hasn’t apologised.” He frowned, so you continued, “Kakucho, he hasn’t so much as called me! I’m terrified that I overreacted, or that I didn’t try hard enough to resolve it… I - I really don’t know what to do. I think he hates me.”
When Kakucho didn’t say anything in return, you left him in the middle of Roppongi by himself, and went home to drown your sorrows in the beers still left in the fridge.
The alcohol relieved some of the pressure of the tense break-up, and that was more than a good enough reason for you to decide to get drunk every night for the next three days. Some of your friends from high school invited you out clubbing that Thursday, and you hadn’t the mind to refuse them. So, you got dressed up in your shortest black dress, and your best pair of heels (you had to redo your makeup after remembering they were a birthday gift from Rindou), and you skipped the line at a club owned by an acquaintance of Mocchi’s.
Inside, you were passed shots by every guy who managed to get within a one-metre radius of you. Nothing like that had happened to you in so long since it was just common knowledge through Roppongi that you more or less belonged to Rindou. You supposed that everyone knew that you were completely, definitely single for the first time in five years, and were taking the opportunity presented to them.
As you threw back another shot of fireball, cringing at the taste, your arm was grabbed by an all-too-familiar hand. Violet eyes made contact with yours, and a spark of electric panic — or perhaps it was passion — jolted through you until you took in the rest of the person’s appearance and realised it was not, in fact, Rindou, but Ran.
“Y/n!” He shouted over the ear-destroying-ly loud music, but you couldn’t tell whether you were actually hearing him or just reading his lips. He was grinning with delight. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you here to see Rindou?”
You bit your lip and frowned as you stretched your neck to search behind Ran, “Is he here?” You asked.
“Yeah, duh, we always come here. I’m starting to worry that you won’t get back together at all, the rate this is going!” Ran chuckled, but you just stared at him, mortified, and stole the wallet from his pocket. “Wait — Hey!”
Turning back to the bar, you ordered another three shots with Ran’s card, and downed them all as fast as possible. By the time you were done, your eyes were beginning to water, and you could feel the last three, or four, or maybe it was eight shots starting to settle in.
“Oh… Princess… Come, let’s sit down somewhere,” he cooed and you tried to scrunch your nose at the nickname, but you were falling way too far and way too fast into the alcohol spiral to have full control of your facial muscles.
Ran carried your stumbling form to a circular booth on the side of the dance floor, and slid you through to the back, resting your head on someone’s shoulder to your right. He rubbed circles on your arm as a couple tears escaped the pool at the bottom of your eyes. Above you, you could vaguely hear the owner of the shoulder trying to quietly yell at Ran, so you pulled your head off of him to give him some space. As you did just that, you caught a glimpse of the shoulder-owner in question.
“Rindou?” You gasped, your voice so loud it was clear over the music.
A glance back at Ran who was sitting there with a shit-eating grin, then you were right back to looking at Rindou. His pupils were just as large as yours, and his eyes open so wide that his irises were just spots of violet in an ocean of white. His blue and blond hair was so gracefully framing his cheeks, neck, and collarbone that you thought you might faint just at the sight, and he was wearing an old Adidas tee that sat perfectly on his body.
“Y/n,” Rindou breathed. He reached a hand out towards you, and you let him stroke your cheek with his thumb.
“You didn’t call,” you pouted, and your tears started to pour down over his fingers.
Rindou signalled that it was time for the other people in the booth to leave, and they did so with an ounce of hesitance. Boys were always more nosy than they were given credit for, especially the ones Rindou was friends with.
“I thought you hated me,” said Rindou in a sombre tone.
The only thing keeping your head from rolling backwards was his hand holding you up, and you were glad for it, as it gave you the visibility to squint at him. After the many, many, many times you had taken him back, how could he possibly think that one fight about a possible marriage would make you hate him? You were angry, sure, but only for a couple days. It had softened to sadness so quickly that you’d given yourself whiplash.
You reminded him of a half-dozen of the past break-ups. The time he threw you into a puddle of mud right before a school assembly, the time he joked about sleeping with one of your closest friends, the time he forgot to get you a birthday present, and all the others. He was prone to mistakes, but he always learnt from them. He was always trying so hard to do right by you. And you always took him back.
“I could never hate you, you’re the most important person in my life, Rindou.” His face lit up. “When you didn’t call me immediately, I thought I’d completely overreacted and pushed you away! I thought you hated me.”
For every break-up caused by Rindou, another had been caused by you, you were a dysfunctional couple like that, and both of you always resorted to the extremities rather than just sitting down and talking about your emotions. When you were twelve, you misplaced the study notes for the maths test he had the next week; when you were fifteen, you would flirt with adults outside of liquor stores to get them to buy you drinks; when you were seventeen, you stood him up on your anniversary. He broke up with you each time, and each time you always ended up back together.
“I shouldn’t have said what I said. I do want to marry you one day,” Rindou explained.
You slipped your hand under his, and shooed him away from your face, “You had a point, though.” He tilted his head in confusion. “We break up all the time. We’re not exactly stable enough to be thinking of marriage… In truth, I think we’re a bad couple. Toxic, even.”
“Don’t say that. We’ve been together five years!” He said with a mix of anger and light humour.
“We’re not even together right now, Rin,” you told him matter-of-factly, though your words had slurred together a little, taking much of the authority out of them.
“Take me back, then,” he suggested, but you shook your head and then gagged at the motion.
Rindou helped you up and out of the club, and the two of you sat on the side of the building, feeling the vibrations of the music beating through your bodies. The streets were busy with people, but it was so quiet in comparison to what the last few hours had been for you that you revelled in it like silence. While you vomited a couple times (you got a bit of it on one of your heels which prompted you to vomit once more), Rindou held your hair back.
Once you were finished, you leaned against him, and his hand wrapped around your waist to hold on to you so securely that you could tell he was scared it would be the last time he ever got the chance to do so. You looked up at the sky, but the lights of the city were so bright that there were no stars up there to guide you.
“Do you think we’re meant to be together?” You asked Rindou, “Like, do you think that, in another universe or timeline or whatever, we’d be together as well?”
He took a deep breath in, “All I know is that if I got the chance to live my life all over again, I would choose to do it all the same.”
“You love your life that much?” You smiled softly.
“I love you that much.”
In a predictable turn of events, you would find yourself waking up in your bed the next morning, Rindou by your side. Your house would be full of his and his brother’s things by day’s end, with a letter of gratitude placed in your mailbox by Madarame, and the very ring that had caused the whole mess sitting on your breakfast bar. You would ask your boyfriend to explain himself, and he’d shrug and reply that it was just a promise. He was going to put it somewhere safe, and one day, when the two of you had been break-up-free for a sufficient amount of time, you’d get the chance to wear it.
But in that moment outside the club, you didn’t much care to think how your morning would be. The breeze was cold, but you could taste the air, and it tasted like bliss.
#rindou x reader#rindou haitani x reader#tenjiku x reader#tokyo revengers x reader#rindo x reader#rindo haitani x reader#rindou haitani#rindo haitani#haitani rindou x reader#haitani rindo x reader#tokrev x reader#rindou haitani x you#tokyo revengers#haitani brothers#haitani brothers x reader#tokyo revengers headcanons#tokrev headcanons#rindou haitani fluff#rindou fluff#rindou haitani x yn#tenjiku#bonten x reader#bonten#tokyo manji x reader
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But daddy I love him (Ryan, Yellowstone)
“Come on, it’ll only be for a few hours. I can get you back before you dad even knows that you left,” his lips peppering her neck, making her head roll back and moan. “Please baby, I just want a few hours with you,” she scrunches her face up and she sighs at his pleas.
“I wish I could, you know I do. But you know what he is like.” Adeline Dutton loved her father, she really did; but if he were to find out that she was dating one of the ranch hands, he would lose his shit. Being the youngest had its perk, she always got what she wanted, always had her dad full attention, which was more than what she could say for her 4 other siblings. But as she got older, she wanted to do what every other teenager and young adult was doing, partying, drinking, sleeping around, dating; the attention she once ate up as a child was now a pain in her ass.
“Would it be the worst thing in the world if he found out,” his eyes now met her and her heart broke a little bit. Growing up, Adeline only really had one rule, do not ever be anything more than professional with the ranch hands or anyone who works with the Yellowstone. It had been easy enough for a long time, most of the ranch hands were old timers, like Lloyd or young assholes who knew nothing about how to be a cowboy. But let’s just say when Ryan showed up on the ranch just over a year ago, she said fuck you to that rule. For months they would look at each other from afar, never daring to do anything. It became a boring dance very quickly, so Adeline took the bull by the horns and took what she wanted, which was him. Ryan didn’t put up much of an argument, sick of the same old song and dance, so being the new guy on the ranch he took the late shift, putting tack away in the stables, which Adeline helped with so that they could spend more time together, stealing moments when they could. It was enough at the start, sleeping together in the small room in the stables, but as the months went by and their relationship progressed and intensified, they were now wanting more, especially Ryan who now wanted to show off his woman.
“Ryan, you know that he would kick you off of the ranch and then what,” he leans back on he knees giving her room to sit up and lean back on her elbows. Ryan shrugs, his gaze looking at his hands which were rubbing her legs.
“You could come with me,” his gaze meets hers and god those eyes did things to her. She hated this.
“Ryan,” she sat up fully, coming to her knees and taking his head in her hands, rubbing her petite fingers over his stubbled cheeks. “I love you, and you know what I would go anywhere with you, but what about my dad, he doesn’t have anyone, not really. Lee’s gone, his relationship with Kayce is still rocky, Beth is away doing whatever the fuck she does and let’s be honest Jamie is a massive pain in the ass. Without me he doesn’t really have anyone, and god I can’t stand the thought of him having this entire place and all these people but still being truly alone. It scares the shit out of me, Ryan. Really scares the shit out of me,” her voice breaks and Ryan shakes his head whiping the tears coming down her face.
“Hey baby, shh. It’s okay. I get it, it’s fine. I have you and as long as you love me, you have me, and I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” he lifts her head so he can look into her eyes. “You have me baby, in so many ways,” Adeline nods, wiping a tear away.
“God I feel like you are giving everything and I’m giving nothing in this relationship,” Ryan shakes his head, a smile painting his face.
“Trust me you give me enough, just in a different way,” Adeline gasps and shoves her hands into his chest pushing him back as he laughs.
“You are such a pig,” a smirk now playing on her lips as she looks at him. Grabbing her hand, she laughs as Ryan pulls her to him, her knees bending on either side of his thighs, sitting in his lap. She leans forwards, their noses meeting each other, her arms wrapping around his neck.
“I love you,” Ryan smiles.
“I love you too,” Adeline smirks at this, her hands running down his body finding the buckle on his trousers. She leans down to whisper in his ear.
“Let me show you how much I love you,” Ryan groans as she pushes him on his back and pulls her top over her head.
“ADELINE!,” her eyes shoot open, her mind groggy from a lack of sleep. Ryan moans next to her, a hand running over his eyes.
“ADELINE, ARE YOU IN HERE?” her eyes widen as realises the voice, her dad and Rip.
“Shit,” she shoot’s up grabbing some clothes.
“She’s not in here sir,” she hears Rip tell her dad.
“Well where else could she be,” her dad stresses, her heartbreaks a little. Ryan stumbles as he puts on his pants causing a noise. Adeline and Ryan look at each other, fear in both of their eyes.
“What was that?” A voice asks, Lloyd.
“Addie,” her dad voice is closer this time, footsteps coming closer to them. The door flies open revealing the two of them, thank god both of them had some clothing on, Ryan in his boxers, jeans on but not closed and she had Ryan’s shirt on and her panties.
Her dad face goes from shock to anger real quick.
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING WITH MY DAUGHTER!,” her dad grabs Ryan and shoves him into the wall.
“DAD!”
“JOHN!”
“SIR,” Rip and Lloyd move into the small room pulling at the older man away.
“DAD!” this time Adeline moves and pushes at her dad.
“John calm down,” Lloyd tells her father. Her hands move and takes Ryan’s face in her hands, looking him over.
“Are you okay,” she asks him, assessing him with her eyes.
“I’m fine baby,” he assures her, her relief is short lived when she hears Lloyd and Rip struggling to pull her dad back.
“YOU KEEP AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER, YOU HEAR. YOU ARE DONE, YOU HEAR, DONE.”
“Dad no.”
“Sir why don’t we all calm down,” Rip reasons.
“CALM DOWN, CALM DOWN. HOW AM I MEANT TO CALM DOWN WHEN MY DAUGHTER IS SLEEPING WITH ONE OF MY WORKERS,” Adeline shakes her head, stepping forward.
“Dad listen to me. I know you have always told me to keep it professional, to never do anything with the ranch hands but,” she looks over at Ryan who is looking at her with intrigue.
“This is more than just sleeping together and having some fun… I love him,” she looks at Ryan and smiles, he walks towards her and takes her hand.
“And I love her, Mr Dutton,” Rip and Lloyd drop their holds on him and watch the man carefully, not knowing what he was going to do next. John looks at the pair and sighs running his hand over his face.
“How much do you love her,” his gaze lands on Ryan, looking for an answer.
“More than anything.”
“And this is serious, you’re not doing this so you can say you have been with the bosses daughter,” Ryan shakes his head.
“No… I love her, I’ll love her till the day that I die,” Adeline looks at him with tears in her eyes, Ryan rubs his finger over her hand, smiling at her.
“And I promise that I will spend the rest of my life proving that I am good enough for her,” Adeline shakes her head and moves towards him taking his face in her hands.
“You are good enough for me,” she whispers before resting her head in the crook of his neck, causing Ryan to kiss her forehead.
John stares at the pair all not knowing what to say. Lloyd stand behind him a small smile on his lips as he looks at them, young love. Rip just looks at John not being able to anticipate what he was going to do next. Shaking his head John lets out a sigh.
“Well alright then,” before walking out the door. Adeline and Ryan look at Rip and Lloyd who were both shocked.
Untangling herself from Ryan she runs after her dad.
“Dad,” she comes to stand behind him just outside of the stable doors. Her dad stops, his back still to her.
“What does this mean?” John turns to her and looks at his baby, god when had she become so grown up.
“He’s a good man,” Adeline scoffs.
“Really, he’s a good man. 5 minutes ago you had him pinned up against a wall,” John nods, his head turned downwards.
“Yeah not my proudest moment, I will admit honey,” Adeline’s heart melts as the nickname, regret fills her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him. But I knew how you were going to react and I just… really wanted you to like him,” John nods.
“I do like him honey. He’s good for you,” John stands closer to her and puts his hands on her arms. “It’s just hard for me sometimes, to admit that you are grown up. But, he loves you, I can see that now and I just want you to be happy,” Adeline smiles at her dad.
“He makes me very happy,” John smiles at that.
“Then that’s all I could ask for,” Adeline pulls her dad into a hug, resting her head in his chest. John smiles, resting his cheek on the top of her head, just like he did when she was a little girl.
“Thank you dad,” pulling back John looks at her and nods.
Walking around the corner Colby and Jimmy stop as they take in the sight, the bosses daughter standing in nothing but panties and a shirt.
“Oh shit,” jimmy exclaims, causing colby to hit him in the arm. Adeline tenses realising what she was wearing. John shakes his head taking off him coat and wrapping it around his daughter.
“Go and put some clothes on, alright,” Adeline nods running back into the barn. Colby and Jimmy look at John, both shitting themselves.
“Morning, Mr Dutton,” Colby says awkwardly, his gaze on the floor as he lifts his hand towards his boss.
“You saw nothing, ya hear,” Colby and Jimmy nod.
“Saw absolutely nothing sir,” Jimmy tells him, his gaze off towards the mountains. John simply nods at the pair before walking off causing the men to let out a sigh of relief.
“What the hell was that?” Jimmy looks towards Colby who just raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.
“Absolutely, no idea.”
Jogging back into the stables, Adeline pulls her dad’s coat tighter, she was really starting to feel the cold. Lloyd, Rip and Ryan gaze turns to her as she walks towards them, Ryan immediately moving towards her, grabbing her and pulling her towards him. Adeline sighs, wrapping her arms around his neck and cozying her face into the crook.
“Are you okay?” He mutters into the side of her head as he pulls back to look at her. Adeline’s lips lift up as she nods.
“Yeah, I’m fine. A little cold though,” ryan chuckles taking in her attire.
“Well besides the coat, I think your outfit is perfect,” Adeline’s head falls back as she laughs.
“Well of course you would,” Ryan smirks pulling her closer again.
“Would someone please tell me, what the fuck is going on?” Rip explains from behind them causing the couple to turn and look at the two men. Lloyd smirks putting his hand of the younger man’s shoulder and looks towards Ryan and Adeline.
“Well you see Rip, it appears that these two love birds have been keeping their relationship a secret,” Rip shakes his head.
“I got that much Lloyd but I mean how long has this been going on for?” Adeline shrugs.
“A couple of months give or take, probably would have been longer if someone would have just made a move,” Ryan scoffs.
“I was trying to figure out how you felt, and hey I have no complaints about you pouncing on me,” Adeline raises her eyebrows.
“I did not pounce of you,” Ryan laughs.
“I vividly remember that it was you who pushed me against the wall,” Lloyd burst out laughing walking towards Adeline giving her a pat on the shoulder.
“Good woman, showing these boys up,” Adeline giggles putting her head on Ryan’s shoulder who is just shaking his head. The couples gaze falls to rip who is just staring at them. Adeline sighs.
“Rip, are you going to say anything?” A few moments pass before Rip simply walks fowards.
“Ryan I want you ready for work in 5 minutes, you’re already late. Adeline, please put some clothes on I don’t want any of them ranch hands looking at you, your father might actually murder someone today,” Adeline just shakes her head, silently laughing at Rip just being Rip.
“And Ryan,” the couple turn and look at him.
“Don’t break her heart, because it won’t be only her dad that would kill you,” and then he is gone. Ryan groans and his head falls back.
“I second that,” Adeline smiles at the older man who puts his hands on her shoulders and kiss her cheek.
“You really know how to bring some entertainment to this place, darling,” Adeline giggles, a smile on her face. Lloyd puts his hand on Ryan’s shoulder and just smirks.
“Good luck,” before walking out.
Letting out a massive sigh, Ryan yanks Adeline to himself, wrapping his arms around her, placing his head into her shoulder. Giggling, Adeline places her hand on his head and kisses it.
“You were shitting it, weren’t you,” Ryan groans.
“You have no idea, I actually thought your dad was going to kill me. My life flashed before my eyes,” Adeline cackles, kissing his shoulder.
“Well I think that you are off of my dad’s radar. I’m pretty sure you have won him over as well,” Ryan removes his head off of her shoulder and looks her in the eyes.
“Really?” She laughs at him, nodding and taking his face in her hands.
“He sees how much you love me, and how happy you make me. And that… that is all that he has ever wanted for me,” Ryan nods, leaning his forehead against hers.
“I promise Addie, that I am going to love you till the day that I die,” she smirks.
“That sound like something you would have in your vows,” Ryan laughs.
“Well someday I am going to make you my wife, but doesn’t mean that I can’t start making those promises now,” Adeline feels tears burning her eyes, one falling down her cheek. Ryan wipes the tears off of her cheeks and smiles at her.
“I love you,” smirking, ryan leans forward and gives her a peck on the lips .
“I love you too,” the two wrap their arms around each other and their lips meet. Ryan’s rough hands move down her body, running over her ass and to her thighs, hoisting her up into his arms, her legs wrapping around his waist as he pushed them again the wall causing them to both moan. Adeline wraps her fingers into his hair, giving them a slight tug causing him to groan, his head falling back.
“What the hell,” Adeline’s head snaps towards the doors of the stables seeing Colby and Jimmy now standing there.
“Oh for god sakes,” let’s just say, that this was just the start.
#ryan yellowstone#ian bohen#yellowstone fanfic#yellowstone#yellowstone ryan#yellowstone x reader#john dutton
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