#i know that the forehead touch was very significant and i did genuinely like it!!

[the-names-kam]

i have so much respect and sympathy for the founders of queer fandom because i swear i felt the anguish of spirk shippers of yore when jayce and viktor didn’t kiss

[nerdieforpedro]

We have two Wavelengths

Din Dajrin x plus size female reader

This blog overall is for readers 18+ MDNI

Word Count: about 2k

Summary: You and Din have grown closer since you’ve joined the Razor Crest. A trip to his coven is rather informative and inspires some new thoughts.

Warnings: Two nervous people, maybe a sort of interrogation, we're still all about the hands, actual good advice?, forehead bumps are scandalous!, so are dreams at times, Nerdie is not serious with these tags

Notes: Paz Vizla and The Armorer make an appearance! ☺️ Are they helpful? Maybe. We’ll see.

Main Masterlist/ Din Djarin Masterlist/ Our Journey Across The Star Ocean Series

He told me to call him Din six months ago. Things changed then. For one, I finally knew his name. It’s…fun to say. I’m not sure what that means, I don’t think I say in a weird way, it’s just after calling him ‘Mando’ for so long it’s so good to know his actual name. We’ve been holding hands when sitting in the cockpit together, often without his gloves on. I’m not exactly sure how important that is, but it holds some significance given he’s normally covered head to toe. Even when we make stops to refuel or for different jobs, Din normally has a hand gloved or not on me somewhere. I thought I would be a lot more nervous about the more public display, but I enjoy it. I wonder how I can show him how I feel too, wait how do I feel? 

I mean he did buy me a new work apron (I couldn’t stitch my old one back together. The different patches were coming apart.) and a sort of vest he said to wear when we’re going after bounties. He came back with it a month after we visited ‘The Armorer.’ The name sounds ominous, but she was very kind and had a booming laugh. I feel like if there was ever a time I could picture Din’s helmet turning red with embarrassment, it was when she asked him if I was his ‘riduur (wife/partner).’ That’s clearly something else important because he looked at me while answering and said, “we haven’t discussed anything about that yet. She has equal say in it.” Maybe it means like a full partner in bounty hunting endeavors or something. The way she chuckled makes me think she was teasing him a bit. I thought his body language would only be that stiff around Peli. But he eventually loosened back up in calling me over to shake hands with her. Grogu knows The Armorer well as he jumped in her arms and patted her golden helmet. She planned to take measurements of me and told Din to go check in with someone named Paz. He didn’t seem enthused about this at all but did as she asked.

“You know his true name I assume. This denotes a high level of trust in you.” Walking around me, her head tilted back and forth. “You have been traveling with him for a little under a year, yes?” I nodded to her question and held my arms out as she took a measuring tape off the wall of her forge. “You know not what is under his armor, correct?”

“He’s never removed his helmet in front of me. He would never do that.” It’s a slight sting when I say it, but it’s one of the essential tenets of his creed so even if I’d love if he did, I’d never ask him to do something like that. I feel her touch the blaster on my hip before going to scribble something down and returning to take more measurements.

“Djarin gave you this did he not? Has he given you anything else?” The Armorer sounds genuinely curious with this question. I nodded and told her about my new work apron he recently got for me and a dark green scarf to tie my hair back when I’m out and about. But Grogu normally plays with it and likes to sleep with it sometimes, so I have a yellow one he got me as well as a backup. She’s stroking the bottom of her helmet where I assume her chin might be. “I shall create something for you. You are welcome back here anytime. I will let Djarin know of this as well. Oh! Take this.” She hands me a retractable knife that looks just like Din’s armor. I know what material that is.

“Ma’am this is beskar. I’m not…I can’t take this. It’s only for Mandalorians right?” I’m starting to wonder if she’s testing me, like would you accept something you know you’re not supposed to have just because Din was cool with bringing you here? Hmm? Her laugh fills all the space in her forge, and she claps her hand on my shoulder.

“Consider it a welcome gift my dear. The fact that you’re here already means you have been accepted. Not quite the same as us given our different ways, but I can tell you mean no ill will. Most critical - you respect and care for him and his foundling deeply. If you did not, you’d have met my hammer swiftly.” I feel equal parts relieved and frightened. Din returns with a towering Mandalorian in navy blue beskar. The armor varies greatly, and I wonder if the colors are just personal preference or have other meanings. The navy-blue armor nods in my direction and leaves back down the hallway. The Armorer whispers one more thing to me before picking up Grogu who’s been playing with a dome on the ground. It could be a shield, or shoulder pad? No, the right name for it was…pauldron! “When you get back to the ship and before you rest for your next journey, tap your forehead to the top of Djarin’s helmet. You’ll be wishing him to get you all to your destination safely.” I could hear the smile as she instructed me, and she’s gone to meet Din near a wall of weapons he’s looking through. I feel like that holds significance as well, but again I don’t know what. I’m going to need to add all these to the notes I’ve been keeping about Mandalorian culture.

My vest the Armorer made me had a small gold wrench symbol over the left chest where the entirety of the armor was silver like Din’s. It’s so beautiful but heavy so I needed help putting it on and taking it off for a while until I got more used to it. Din still offered to help me put it on sometimes, so I let him, it’s also another time he doesn’t wear his gloves so I feel his hands on my shoulders and arms. 

I did as The Armorer told me that day when we got back to the ship. Grogu was in his bassinet near my cot. I told Din to get some rest himself and held his hand like I normally do before I leave. This time, I closed my eyes and leaned down to touch my forehead to his cool beskar. I lingered for a few extra seconds and didn’t realize that I had placed my other hand on his breastplate. “Good night Din. Don’t forget to rest too. You’re going to show me some of the basic controls one of these days so you can sleep too.” I bid him goodnight and went off to sleep, recalling his humming. He normally does that when he’s pleased so it was worth feeling a little silly.

Maker I think I’ve done a bit too much. Not that I didn’t want to, I actually want to do more. I’d like to give her the same type of hug Grogu does after one of his naps, snuggled up against her. But I can’t, well I could, but I might set off all the sensors in my armor if I do that. Things have been going smoothly. Her work apron had seen much better days so I got her a new one that’s much more durable and of better quality. This combined with the blaster and two scarves is quite a bit, I’ve pretty much proposed. I’m investing in her, she’s my…well partner for now. We’ve been together nearly a year, that’s enough time. I’ve seen outside of Mandalorian culture I’m supposed to get a ring for her. Figuring the size will be easy. I’ve decided to take her with me on my next delivery of beskar to the coven. 

Every other time, I hate Paz. With the burning passion of The Armorer’s forge when she melts down the beskar I bring, but on this single matter. The mir’sheb (smartass) is right. I told him how our interactions had been so far, exchanges and the like. 

“Sounds like you haven’t really told her anything and have just been giving her stuff without context dumbass. She’s not one of us, how is she supposed to know?” I hate that this nerf herder is correct. I need to have an actual conversation with her about everything. “Has she seen your face Din? You aren’t so far gone that you forgot that, did you?”

“No she has not. She respects the creed. She’s never asked me to do anything to dishonor it.” I had gone with Paz to visit some members of the coven whom I hadn’t seen for a while. We weren’t particularly close, but it’s always best to say hello at least. I’m not sure what conversation The Armorer would have wanted to have with her, but it shouldn’t be bad. I think. 

“It sounds like you’ve found someone you should keep by your side then. Just talk to the woman. If she’s stuck around you this long, it’s in your favor that she’s not going anywhere. Since you already gave her one weapon, you can give another one that suits her along with one of those rings you see those basic humans wear.” Paz snorts and Din hits him on his shoulder. “Calm down Djarin. I didn’t say she was basic. I was referring to non-Mandalorians. You’ve always been so sensitive.” Rounds around the coven went quickly and we were back in the forge where it seemed they had been discussing something important. After getting a new weapon from The Armorer and her telling me to stop back by in a month, we left. I’d already had her hand in mine on our way out. They should know here too that she’s with me. That’s what the ring would be for, wouldn’t it? We picked up some more supplies and headed for the ship. 

Grogu took some rounds of ‘hide the shiny ball’ to settle down to sleep. I was able to sit with cyar’ika (beloved) without interruption. I told her about checking in at the covent and expressed that I’d like her to walk around with me the next time we have beskar to drop off. She expressed that she would and I placed my hand on her knee. A bit forward on my part, but she placed her hand over mine and stood up. I thought she was going to tell me about what her and The Armorer discussed but she told me to get more rest. She’s normally telling me that. I’m used to functioning on less sleep, but I’ve trained myself to wake when I hear odd noises. Until I got used to Grogu’s sounds, I didn’t sleep much the first few months I had him. 

I should have pulled her close and held her. I’m not sure if she knows what the touching of foreheads really means in Mandalorian culture, but she wished me to get some sleep and said something about the controls before she left. In the minute (or maybe longer), she held her forehead to the area above my T-visor. One of her hands is in mine and the other is on my chest. This new level of closeness - I’m not going to let it go. I’m finding I'm so greedy when it comes to her, in a way that I haven’t been, even with the care I provide to my foundling Grogu. I’m humming with glee, at least I think that’s my armor. It could be me, I’ll do diagnostics later.

The dream I have later that night when I fold my arms and wrap my cape around myself to doze off. 

She’s given me another forehead bump, but I’m bold this time and put my arms around her wide hips, pulling her close to press my T-visor into her soft stomach, easing her to sit on my lap. Just having her lean against me, now her cheek pressed against the side of my helmet. I call her cyar’ika while she calls me Din. I hear her say it repeatedly, while I place my hand on her thigh, keeping her in place. 

If she does it again, I’ll definitely pull my mesh’la (beautiful) close like in my dream. We’ll figure out the communication later, I just want to dream right now.

Part Two

Part Four

Space Buddies 🚀: @maggiemayhemnj @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @missladym1981 @morallyinept @bishtrouille

@sherala007 @yorksgirl @daddy-dins-girl @604to647 @megamindsecretlair

@anoverwhelmingdin @theincredibleinkspitter @alltheglitterandtheroar @mrsmando @drawingdroid

@harriedandharassed @i-own-loki @lady-bess @pedroshotwifey @thefrogdalorian

@ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @jessthebaker @connectioneverywhere @grogusmum

[ohtobeleah]

omg can we talk about Bobby Bear for a minute bc that entire portion of the finale had me sobbing 😭

Like seeing as how Dot’s only 3 and blocks out most of the final ToE events as she gets older, I doubt that she really remembers Bob or the significance of Bobby Bear. Of course she’ll still have him as a teenager, but I’m just thinking of what it’s like after the events of “Dot visits Jaidyn in jail” where she learns that someone literally died to save her. I’m also thinking of how she might ask her parents to take her to visit Bob’s grave—his final resting place for the last decade at that point 🧸

ToE

{ Listen, I’m a firm believer in the ideology that kids see ghosts. My mum used to tell me that when I was a kid I’d sit on the pool step talking to myself for ages and one time when she was hanging out the washing she heard me talking and asked who I was talking to and I said Nana Leonie. Who’s my dads mum who died when he was 12 in a car accident. They had never told be about her because I was only like four/five at the time. }

And I think that’s what happens to little Dot. She’s sitting on her swing set just talking to herself. She’s got Bobby Bear sitting on the grass beside her. Minding her own business.

“Who you talkin to over there princess?” Bradley’s asking as he hangs out some of the washing that needed to be done in an emergency batch. Flightsuits and stuff.

“Bobby—“

“Bobby Bear got something to say does he?” And Dot has Bradley frozen in a flashback that he can’t get out of when she replies to him.

“He says mama has a baby on board.” And all Bradley can hear in his mind is Jake’s infectious laugh coming through the comms from when they all came back together for the uranium mission, where Jake had assumed Bob stood for baby on board.

“Did Bobby Bear say that?” He’s got a little layer of sweat across his forehead as he asks. There’s no way, right?

“No, Bob did.” Dots correcting her soon to be legal guardian. In a few short months that’s what Bradley would be. “He says hi Tooster.” And it’s just the most shocking moment for Rooster. Because he’s just standing there at the line hanging washing watching Dot talk to herself and is all of a sudden in the middle of an existential crisis about the possibility of ghosts being a legitimate thing.

“Hey Dotty.” Bradley knows it’s probably stupid to ask but if there was a chance, even just the slightest chance, he wanted Bob to know. “Can you tell Bob I’m sorry?” And Bradley watches as Dot converses with herself like she’s having a full on in-depth discussion with someone standing right next to her.

“He said he knows.” That’s when Bradley is scooping little miss Dot up and collecting Bobby Bear and barreling into the house. He’s looking for you in a panic. Anxiety attack approaching.

“Fe?” Bradley calls when you aren’t in the living room. Dots hanging upside down as Bradley holds her like a surfboard. She’s a giggling mess. “Honey you around?”

“What’s wrong?” You’re racing down the hall because the way Bradley sounded made you believe the house was on fire. “Roo—?” He looked pale, like he’d just seen a ghost. Or heard from one that was.

“You need to take a pregnancy test and Dot sees ghosts.”

“Did you hit your head on something?” It’s a genuine question to a very puzzling statement. “Bradley, hon, what happened why do you look ill?” It’s the palm against his forehead that calms Rooster down, your touch always brought him solace. He placed little Odette down who takes her Bobby Bear and makes her way into her room. She had better things to be doing than watching her dad have a full blown anxiety attack. “What happened?”

“Do you ever talk to her about Bob?” It’s a blunt question Bradley is sure he already knows the answer to. You don’t talk about Bob to anyone let alone Odette. But everyone had agreed to not bring Bob up around your little girl, incase it triggered an episode. She’d begun to block it out, her therapist had told you it was normal in childhood trauma. It was a coping mechanism.

“Not directly no.” You frowned curiously. “Why?”

“She said that Bob said that you have a baby on board and then I asked her to tell Bob I was sorry and she said he already knows!” Bradley knew he sounded crazy by the look on your face you gave him in reaction to his explanation. “I ain’t crazy baby don’t look at me like that.”

“Bradley, I love you—but there’s no such thing a ghosts.” You reply a little sharper than normal. Bradley knows why, the topic of Bob never left you feeling good. It was still a fresh wound. “I’ll take a pregnancy test in a few days if I’m late—“ You leave it at that. Rooster hangs around the threshold of Dots room just watching her play. He felt like he was going crazy.

But what made it even worse was when that pregnancy test came back positive.

“Holy shit you do have a baby on board—“ The whole experience kind of confirms that there’s some sort of life after death for Bradley, which gives him a lot of closer, brings him a lot of peace. You don’t buy into it. And Odette doesn’t seem to really stick with the whole kids see ghosts thing either because as she grows up, her imaginary friend Bob doesn’t seem to appear as much anymore. She just grows out of it much like you thought she would. Bobby Bear is just another one of her many toys and suddenly—she’s being told exactly what happened that night on Uncle Jakes front porch after going to see that monster she’d been calling her dad for months on end.

“Will you take me to see him?” Dot had spent the majority of the day with you in bed, talking about the things that you’d endured, talking about Bob and about how Bradley was just always there for the two of you. “Bob?” Odette had a new found appreciation for Bradley, her dad.

“Sure baby, you know—before Riley was born you kinda had Rooster in a frenzy thinking ghosts were real and that Bob wasn’t just some imaginary friend of yours.” You could remember it like it was yesterday, how pale and scared out of his fucking kind Bradley had really been that day. He was convinced Bob was about to have him staring in something right out of the conjuring.

“How?” Dots asking, she just wanted to keep the conversation going. She wanted to know everything, no detail left out or stone unturned. If she couldn’t get it from you she now knew who to go to. Uncle Jake.

“You used to say a lot of weird things, just things only Bob would know— Or you somehow knew things we’d never told you about.”

“You don’t believe in ghost mum?” You shook your head with a firm No and a tight smile.

“I don’t believe that a man who was ground in mathematics and science and probability theory would ever be a ghost, no.” You just didn’t believe it was in Bobs inherit nature.

So the next day, you and Bradley took Odette up to Bobs grave. She’d never been there before. You’d never taken her purely to keep the memories at bay for her. All you ever did say in and day out as a mother was protect your kids.

“How’s it hangin’ Floyd?” Bradley clapped as he picked up some of the dead flowers Natasha had last left. He knew it was her because there was a beer bottle sitting next to the bouquet. The beer Bob never got to give Rhett. It became a tradition every-time Rhett was in North Island, the two would go up and see Bob for a while. “Brought you a visitor man, little Dotty got big didn’t she?”

“Does he do this a lot?” Dots asking as she walks with you up to Bobs headstone. Her hand couldn’t have been tighter in yours if she wanted it to be. Bradley Bradshaw had lost a lot of good people in his life, the idea they weren’t inherently gone for good helped him process that loss.

“Yeah, you should see him at your grandparents graves—it’s heartbreaking.” It’s a little overwhelming for the teenager who was only just now learning about the events you’d kept a secret from her. The fact someone had died trying to protect you, protect her made her stomach churn.

“I feel like I’m gonna be sick.”

“That feeling never goes away.” You held your daughter close as she cried into your chest. “I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you everything sooner sweetheart.”

“Bobby Bear?” Dot sobbed as she pulled away and wiped her tears. “That was Bob wasn’t it?”

“Uncle Rhett has one too.” Bradley confirmed as if it had been a massive secret that no one ever spoke about. “He was the one who gave it to you.”

“And we all have the same pair of glasses tattooed.” You showed your daughter the faded outline of the pair of aviators you had on your finger. It really needed to be redone. “Your father has his on his wrist.” Dot already knew about the tattoos you both had, she just didn’t know the symbolism behind them.

“Jake has his on his ass—“ The three of you laugh just as the wind picks up around you, Bradley’s convinced it’s Bob laughing too. You just think it’s been windy all damn day.

It’s not till a few weeks later when Rhett’s in town for parent teacher interviews with Phoenix and the twins does he learn that Odette knows about Bob. She tells him point blank when he’s over for dinner catching up with Jake and Amilia.

“Where do you keep your bear Uncle Rhett?”

“What the hell do I keep my what now?” Rhett’s frowning curiously until Dot hands him the tattered old bear that had been threw her entire childhood. Her favourite teddy bear. Bobby Bear.

“Jake told me everything that happened—“ She didn’t have the heart to tell him why, she couldn’t tell her Uncle Rhett she went to see the man who killed his brother. “Mum told me all about him, Bob that is.” Rhett doesn’t know what to say, he knew this day would come. He just wasn’t expecting it to be today.

“C’mere kid.” Rhett’s heading back into the house, he makes his way to the spare room as Dot follows and opened his suitcase. Right at the top is the same identical bear. Just a little less beat up. “He comes everywhere with me.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

[chiffaust]

Hi for the christmas event can i request for 💖 with tsumugi please, thank you very much!

DAY 11 — CHRISTMAS PROMPT 💖 + tsumugi aoba

💖   ─  volunteer together at a local charity 

‎ (n.) – you wjoever you are who requested this bless your heart. have a good holiday. /threat /lovingly (and to you guys too ofc!! :3)

This years christmas surely is a memorable one. Not only will this the the first christmas you'd be spending with your boyfriend, but you two would also spend it by volunteering at local charities.

It was his idea, and you couldn't reject him. It was too pure hearted you would feel like a terrible person if you were to say no to that.

Alas, your days were spent together helping those in need. Sure, it wasn't much, but seeing those people's smile pure of joy after a hard day of work truly makes you feel better about it.

Today was unlike others, you both worked to help one another and the charity, from mundane tasks to another one. Perhaps it's a bit too mundane for a christmas day like these, but you didn't care. Seeing the genuine smile as he gives off stuff to those in need, and the smile of those touched by his kindness are enough to make you stop complaining.

As you continued day dreaming of him, you suddenly felt a on the hem of your shirt. Confused, you look down to see a child.

"Ah, do you need something?" You ask, kneeling down to the child's height as you smiled gently at her.

"Ard you... Aoba-san's significant other?" She asks, eyes sparkling somehow.

"Yes, and why so? Were you threatened by his big hands?" You ask, chuckling slightly at your own joke.

"His hands are kinda big. Too big, but like he's so nice!" She exclaimed, smiling widely. You only smiled back, feeling your heart at peace knowing that even children like her was touched by his kindness.

"I mean... He's kind of ugly, and sometimes... He acts pathetic, but he's like... Extremely nice!"

Ah, there it goes. The backhand compliment children gives. You could only smile as you nod in acknowledgement at her words.

"I-I wanna marry someone like him in the future! Well, maybe except more... Handsome and with smaller hands...?"

"Haha, I'm sure once the time's right, you'll meet that someone who you'd spend the rest of your life with, little miss ♪" you replied to her confession, flashing her a toothy grin as you ruffled her hair.

After you let go of her hair, she instantly held onto it, huffing her cheeks angrily at you. "Hey, Aoba-san was the one who did my hair today...!"

"Oh, really? I apologize then."

"Ah, there you are!" You soon heard a voice chiming in, and you could recognize that voice anywhere. You look at the direction the voice came from and saw Tsumugi, smiling widely while carrying an empty box.

"Oh, dear. I didn't expect to see you here too!" Tsumugi greeted you, kissing your forehead despite the box he's carrying with his both hands. You giggled like a highschool girl as the little miss faked a gag.

"You shouldn't run away like that again, you know. You got me worried sick." Tsumugi soon brings his attention back to the girl. He kneels onto his knees, placing the box onto the floor as he ruffled the girls hair.

"Hey, you were the one who did my hair today, why'd you ruin it?!" The girl huffed her cheeks once again, holding onto her hair to prevent from anyone ruffling it any further.

"Haha, sorry, sorry." Tsumugi was quick to apologize. After that, he brings his hand into the seemingly empty box and brings out a small teddy bear.

"Taadaa! This one's especially for you, little miss. Consider it as a christmas present from us in the charity ♪" he said, handing the teddy bear to the girl.

The girl's eyes sparkle in pure delight, as if she wasn't even sure if she was supposed to even hold it. "A-aoba-san! I love it so much, it's so cute, I love it, I love you!!" The girl yells out her confession of love and hugged Tsumugi.

Tsumugi only smiled, patting her back. As the girl was still hugging Tsumugi, your eyes met.

You soon kneeled down too and gave him a peck on the lips. "Then consider it as a present too, from me ♪" you winked playfully at him.

He kissed you back, chuckling lightly, looking at you with those loving eyes. "Thank you so much, dear. I really appreciate it."

"Merry christmas, darling." You replied back, and the girl faked a gag before you two could kiss again.

"Haha, sorry, little miss." Tsumugi apologized, smiling sheepishly st the girl. "Merry christmas to you too."

[toomanytookas]

“You can see it in his eyes that he wants to touch you, to hold your hand, but he doesn't.”

The way that I was just so obsessed with the moments that drew attention to their physicality with each other this chapter... I love how you incorporated both the memory of touch and its presence in their present dynamic (dude that Stay here with me. Be with me. WTF).

I think if I had to pick a singular favourite instance of touch, it is hands down that hug in the atrium on opening night.

God, Taylor, the way I FELT it deep in my soul and just cannot shake the warmth and comfort of it. It was such a tender and significant moment as an embodiment of what had been building between them... I just wanted to hang in the glowing, healing feeling that it gave my heart for forever.

I literally could have copied the entire scene and was very tempted to, but as much as I loved the way you described the mental feeling of the hug, I genuinely FELT the actual tactile details in my bones:

He presses his warm hand against your shoulder, tucking you farther and farther in, as the other hand spans across your entire back, his face burrowed in your neck. You feel him sigh, at ease, his ribs expanding into yours and you fight back the sharp swell of the sob caught in your throat. You had no idea what it meant to be held until this moment.  You don’t want to let him go. You don’t think you can. 

It was so, so damn lovely and sweet and the perfect balm for some of the sharpest ache of their navigating becoming close again.

There's something about the language that you used to describe how perfectly they fit together that is just so wonderful and visceral. There was such a great build up from that initial holding back, which that made the first intertwining of their fingers all the sweeter and it felt like it just cascaded so wonderfully (in a gentle and controlled way) from there.

This in particular was so, so beautiful (as always, obsessed with how sex scenes are a vehicle for so much emotional exploration in your work):

He fits, so well, like no one else ever has. Bones touch bones, his space is filled by your joints, his blood warms where you are cold. Disjointed and broken, you slot together in holes made by the other.

And then in the epilogue, it was so delightful to see how free they could be with their touch, how open with their kisses and caresses in a way that echoes but is far better than anything that they were able to share in iterations of their relationship in other cities and other times.

I also loved seeing how both of them were so gently touchy with Marie (lol I guess she's getting her own little feature at the end of both of my comments for this chapter— she deserves better from me, honestly)? The forehead kisses, the way Dieter scoops her up so gently... It's such a wonderful and gentle energy that feels so wholesome and like it's the result of so much healing and the building (back) of trust.

Ok, Taylor, I gotta stop chatting your ear off sometime, so it might as well be here. I don't know how I thought I was going to read the entirety of this story on my plane ride, but it's been so lovely to draw out the experience over this week instead. I'm so excited to go back to the doc now that I've finished and get lost in some of the nitty gritty!

I can't possibly fully imagine what a labour of love developing and writing and publishing this must have been for you, but I am so grateful that you did it so that folks like me could have the opportunity to read Dieter and Natalie's story and get torn apart and put back together by it. 💕

Part Two + Epilogue

A/N: this is an approximation of what I envisioned reader wearing the night of the premiere. the monologues come from the works of elena jacobs and lemony snicket.

▲ Series Masterlist | Previous | Part 1 | that's all folks!

▲ AO3 Link

▲ Taglist Form

NOVEMBER 

Snow had come hesitantly to the city. Sprinkling down and melting against the black tar like salt in soup, the weather seemed unable to make up its mind. That nasty wind would flush down narrow alleyways, snagging up unsuspecting hats and everything not firmly held down, bringing with it that biting cold. This late in the season, the gorgeous bloom of golds and reds fluttering in trees was gone, torn down by that spiteful wind. The gnarled, brown bodies of leaves littered the streets, drain pipes swallowing them down when that first drift of snow melted into gray water. New York was fighting an oncoming winter, sinking its heels in and rejecting the inevitable. Everyone else just wished it would pick a side.

You know you’re not, not really, but sometimes you feel it: old. At thirty-two, things tend to crack a little louder than they used to. Hangovers lasted two days, not two hours, and how you used to live your life with only hours of sleep for weeks at a time completely baffles you. Sure, it was probably a lot of coke, but god, these hours are going to kill you. 

Production for Andrew’s play is in full swing. Some days you never leave the back side of the curtain, too entrenched in building, then painting the forty-two foot moveable walls. Between you and the rest of the tech crew, you had managed to solve the weight problem: because of its light-weight nature, the walls had a tendency to fall forward or back, basically the opposite direction of where they were pushed. But late last Thursday, with a few bolts from a nail gun, a couple of thick screws, and several PVC pipes, the walls stabilized. A collective, exhausted cheer went up, some moved to tears after hours of frustration. After that the crew went home . . . and you went to open the gallery. 

Marie helps as much as she can. Opening early when you can’t and closing late when you have passed out in your office chair. But as financial manager and co-owner, she has her own responsibilities. Hands to shake and meetings with potential buyers and artists. She’s taken over much of the front-facing work associated with running a gallery, as you had both agreed when you agreed you’d handle Andrew’s project, but there’s still so much to do. Opening night looms large in your mind and you are simultaneously excited and horrified. Once it's over, you plan on sleeping for two weeks straight. 

There are some bright spots, though. Your crew is a bunch of college kids from NYU interning, but they teach you about the world of TikTok outside of being the marketing arm for the gallery and whatever the fuck flossing is. You overheard one of them call Dieter, “girl dinner” and you absolutely knew better than to ask what that meant. They’re funny and curious and love to learn. Gives you hope for this goddamn world.

And then, there’s the opportunities you get to see bits of the show before anyone else. When rehearsals are on, the building stops, quiets for a few minutes. Like ants, the stagehands scurry out into the seats, relieved to have nothing to do for a bit, and eager to see where all their hard work is going. 

You find your place at the far back of the house, out of the lights of the stage, and you watch him. And he’s good. He’s so fucking good it makes your heart twist in your chest. The rest of the cast is great in their own right, but your eyes remain glued to him and him alone. His performance is magnetic. You feel it in your bones. You could watch him on a stage for the rest of your life. You don’t miss acting, but you do miss having him as a scene partner. 

For what it’s worth, he never looks at Emily longer than he has to.

You twist your wrist, growling at the pain, the muscle in your forearm cramping like it always did when you overworked yourself painting. With the walls built, that left only the actual artwork to be done and if your team were master carpenters, master artists they were not. You set them to work painting the base layer, but it was on you to bring those designs Andrew approved to life. 

You are sweaty, hungry, and every time you move, something else hurts. By your watch, it’s close to seven and Andrew usually lets the cast go home around seven thirty. You’re a more benevolent overlord; you let your team go around seven fifteen. 

But at seven on the dot, the black curtain moves back and several members of the cast head towards the back door, animatedly chatting amongst themselves. Like wildfire, some gossip spreads from the cast to the crew, eyes lighting up and suddenly reinvigorated. 

“What are they talking about?” You ask Liam, one of the stagehands, who shrugs.

“No idea, but –,”

“Andrew is giving us the weekend off!” Sarah in her too big overalls comes bounding over, practically vibrating. “He’s hosting a party at Shandy’s.”

Shandy’s is actually three different venues built into one like legos. In the center was an open air stage. If live music wasn’t playing, then the latest sports game played on the high definition screen. On the right was a bar, aptly in the style of an old tiki lounge. And on the left, was a low-maintenance seafood bar and grill: fish and chips, fried oysters, and hush puppies. It sounded fun but you never much had the inclination to go sniffing your nose around temptation. 

“You’re coming, right, Natalie?” Sarah asks excitedly. But the idea that you have a second of free time to yourself, much less to spend it with drunk people, is laughable.

“Oh, I don’t think so, Sarah. There’s gallery stuff – Marie hasn’t had a break in weeks and –,”

“You hear the good news?” Dieter’s delighted tone splits apart your little trio and he comes loping over with a grin on his face. “We’ve got the weekend off.”

“Hell yeah!” Liam pumps his fist. “But Natalie here doesn’t wanna come to the party at Shandy’s.”

Dieter’s face falls. “Why not?”

You frown, not feeling like you need to explain yourself to a bunch of college students, or Dieter himself for that matter. You stand up, mindful of the tension in your lower back, and wipe the paint on your hands on your overalls. After working with you for several weeks, Sarah’s bright enough to pick up on your irritation simmering low. 

She eyes him as she steps forward. “We’re gonna head out for the night, if that’s okay?”

You nod at the both of them, your mouth still twisted into a frown. 

“I have a job outside of this,” you huff at Dieter, as the kids scurry away. “A busy full time job and I just can’t –,”

“What if I pick you up?” Dieter asks. How, after all these years, could he still make you feel like you are the only person in the room? “Andrew’s also doing a bunch of events for the out-of-towners, and the last stop before dinner is a bar. Which I’d like to avoid for obvious reasons. So lemme meet you at the gallery and take you to the dinner.” He smiles relaxed. 

“I just don’t know, Dieter.”

“Bring Marie,” he says simply. “You both have earned a night off. I’ll pick you both up and take you back after dinner. I’ll help you mail invoices, if you’d like.”

Knowing exactly what his ADHD does to his brain with numbers, you shake your head, giving up the ghost and grinning. “That’s really not necessary, but, um, I’ll think about it. Lemme talk to Marie and see what she thinks.”

He nods, watching as the backstage empties out. Less people, less noise. Dieter’s mouth twitches.

“I can help you with painting too. You and I both know I’ve got a shit head for numbers, but this, I think I can do. With a little direction.”

He flashes you a smile and you inject your thumbnail into your closest finger. 

“Um, maybe? I’m exhausted right now and probably shouldn’t be making any executive decisions.”

“You want me to walk you home?”

Your chest swells at his sincerity. “Just to the subway stop if you don’t mind.”

To your enormous (disparagingly, staggeringly large) surprise, Marie actually agrees.

“I’ve been staring at excel spreadsheets so long I think I’m going cross-eyed,” she says from behind the office desk you share that next morning. She massages her eyeballs with the heel of her palm. “We’re in a good place with the fundraiser announcements for the holidays and there aren’t any upcoming tours we have to schedule.”

You know this, but you let her talk through it outloud, hoping she’ll stumble across something that’ll make her change her mind. But she doesn’t.

She shrugs. “Tell him I’ll buy him dessert if he gets a car with heated seats.” 

After your initial confrontation at your brownstone, Marie had seemingly changed her stance on having Dieter around. While she wasn’t about to offer to him to stop by, she most likely wasn’t still considering murdering him in his sleep. You wonder if it had anything to do with his consistent concern about your wellbeing – making sure you ate breakfast at those six AM calltimes and walking you home at night in the freezing cold, despite your protests. He even made the very risky joke that Daddy’s visitation hours were over and it was time to return you to Mommy . . . in front of Marie. And again to your enormous surprise, she laughed. 

It was progress. Progress towards what, you weren’t entirely sure.

You smile at your friend, gray eye bags and all. Maybe this is the universe’s way of sending its approval; yes, this is okay to want.

“I’ll call him later today.”

It’s the last tour on a Friday before a long weekend. Meaning, none of the students are paying attention and a few appear asleep on their feet. You go on with your explanation of brushwork, of pattern recognition, that artists' use of color is almost as distinctive as their signature. You sound boring even to yourself, your quips falling flat and references feeling awkwardly outdated. Nothing could rouse these zombies and their glassy-eyed stares. The herd shuffles along as you take them to the charcoal exhibit. 

This actually has you excited, charged even. You talk about the care that using this particular medium requires, that there are so rarely do-overs and mistakes are costly. The artist must be precise with their vision, focused, and above all else, determined. 

Your impassioned speech for the arts wakes up no one and you fight back a frown.

Jesus Christ, gimme something to work with. 

As you try and remember the next part of your tour, something beyond the crowd of students moves. You’re halfway through describing past and present famous artists who worked with charcoal, when you catch his eyes.

Dieter leans up against one of the white walls, a real one, not a hanging salon wall, his arms crossed and his converse notched against his ankle. You expect a smirk, a tease, so this is what you get up to when I’m not around, but whatever is on his face its not that. 

It’s . . .

He’s smiling. 

Like he’s proud of you. 

You attempt to stifle the blush erupting up your face as you turn back to the artwork. If the students can catch the tremble in your voice, they don’t say anything. 

Through the glass window, you see their bus pull up and stop by the curb, a beautiful glowing miracle.

“And that’s the end of our tour,” you say quickly. “Thank you for coming on this tour. Feel free to browse the gift shop, but you are free to go. ”

You don’t physically shoo them out the door, but your fingers clench just the same. 

“You’re good.” Logically, you know you didn’t hear him coming, didn’t smell his cologne. But you sense him all the same. You don’t jump at his voice suddenly at your shoulder. You turn and smile back at him, throwing your hip out dramatically.

“Had some practice acting in front of crowds before. Maybe you’ve seen my work?”

He shrugs, swinging his hands into that tan coat – which he wouldn’t let you pay to get drycleaned – as he looks around the gallery.

“Maybe, I have,” he sniffs, “don’t get a big head about it.”

You laugh as he wanders back as though drawn to the art. Out of the corner of your eye, you spot your contribution and curse yourself for not tearing it down when you had the chance. 

You sidle up next to him, hoping that if he got that far, you could deter his attention elsewhere. But he doesn’t notice your anxiety, your worrying ball of fear. Instead, he’s quiet, mouth soft, eyes slow to move across the exhibits.

“You know, you always were braver than me.” Your heart catapults into your throat, gaze wrenching away from your dark secret to him, to his face, to search desperately for a hint of a lie. 

“W-what do you mean?”

“This, all of this,” he swings his hand out either to indicate the rest of the artwork or the building itself, “it’s so fucking incredible, Natalie. I let you see one painting of mine and I wanted to die from embarrassment. But this . . . you . . .” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t do this.” 

“Do you still paint?” 

There are flashes in your memory, more feelings than anything else, of that time in New Orleans. You’ve told your therapists as much as you can remember about it, about the drugs you took with him, how quickly it spiraled out of control. And then comes the most painful thing to admit: it was the first and only time in your life you felt truly happy. Having Dieter all to yourself was a bright spot that nothing, not even time, or anger, or heartbreak could ever extinguish.

And in those flashes of memory, you remember waking up and watching him paint gorgeous things on those green walls. Watching him paint on you. 

Your heart aches, throbbing for just a minute. He’s been back in your life for months now, and you’re still convinced he’ll vanish the second you’re not looking.

Dieter nods, thoughtful. “Yeah, sometimes. It’s more of a stress reliever than anything else.” 

“I get that. I tried out ceramic work before I found out I’m complete shit at it. But it felt good to punch something gooey.”

He grins. “Oh, yeah?”

You nod, adding, “moved on to painting giant murals after that. Pollock would have been proud.”

He follows you as you lead him back, into the long and winding guts of the gallery. 

“I tried a lot of things after . . . after rehab. Not a lot stuck, but at least I wasn’t choking on my own feelings anymore.”

Your unconscious feet have brought you to the red painting your other tour group pointed out. It’s big, pulsating red, black specks invading the scarlet colors like an infection. 

“Lots of love and nowhere to put it,” he murmurs to the painting. 

His curls are just as lush, just as beautiful as they are on your charcoal sketch. As they are in your memories. God, his neck, his fucking neck –  

He catches you staring and grins bashfully. “Sorry, what you said reminded me of that scene in Fleabag. When she confesses to the tax guy.”

You swallow around the knot in your throat, nodding your only possible action. And then he turns and you feel your knees buckle. 

“Did you paint because of me?” The brown in his eyes is soft, overwhelming. Seizes you and nails you to the floor. The noise that would leave your mouth if you open it would come directly from your heart.

The gallery is quiet, empty. Silent as a church. 

But then he steps back, resetting the distance between you. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m crossing a line here and –,”

“Yes.” It’s gentle, quiet, your admission. Your confession. “Yes. You said you picked it up in rehab and I . . . I don’t know. I guess I wanted to see if it helped me too.”

He worries his lip, his hands fidgeting in his pocket. “And did it help? Painting?”

You huff and cross your arms as you stare up at the art you made with so much unhinged rage and painful love pouring out of you. You had been sure your tears were going to ruin the paint. 

“Yeah. It did. Unfortunately, your fucked up matched my fucked up in absolutely every way possible.” His nose flares as he stares at the ground. It hurts him still, after all these years. You inhale, the smell of the space calming your nerves, Dieter’s cologne a heady undertone. Trembling barely visible, you reach forward and take his hand. It’s warm and heavy and you try to find a memory where it was gentle against your face, but it doesn’t come. Your brain longs for new memories of him, hungry, desperate after surviving on scraps. He stops breathing regularly as you intertwine your fingers.  “For what it’s worth, Dieter . . . it was nice not to feel so alone.”

The noise he makes is quiet, almost imperceptible. Could have been a deep breath, a groan, a sigh. But it is something much more vulnerable, much more punctured than that. 

You hold him a bit longer before letting him go. 

“I don’t get it,” he mutters quietly, staring at your wrist. “I don’t get why you aren’t fucking furious with me.”

“I was,” you confirm. “For a long time, I was. I hated you, Dieter. But I can’t be mad at you without being mad at myself and I’ve learned to forgive both.” 

He closes his eyes briefly, lashes thick as they obscure that beautiful brown. “I could have said no. I could have – stopped it, before it became anything.”

“You and I both know that’s not true.” 

It's careless, throwing around suggestions about fate and destiny and the thing that binds all living things. Your gaze lifts from his lips to his forehead when he looks back at you. 

“You’re right,” he hums. “You were, we were . . . it was an addiction I wasn’t prepared to deal with at the time.” 

“Did it get better? Dealing with your . . . addiction.” 

You want to think he’s looking at your lips as you face the painting again.  

“Nope,” he says, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Had to quit cold turkey. But this one, uh, this one doesn’t come with any nicotine patches.” 

You wrinkle your nose. “Those things smell disgusting.” 

Something buckles as it crosses his face. He sticks his hands into his pockets again. “Yeah. But I would have preferred it to the alternative.”

New York had made a decision by the time Marie locks up the gallery behind her. The sky is a throbbing purple and thick snowflakes flutter against your eyelashes. The sharp wind had surrendered, winter making its final claim over the city, and it started snowing with confidence, with surety. 

White flecks cling to your scarf as ahead of you, Dieter opens the car door for Marie. Desperate to get out of the cold, she practically launches herself across the leather seats, her little body always cold as it is. 

“Did you seriously get a driver with this car?” You shake your head at him as you follow Marie. He smirks as he climbs in after you.

“I’m only partially responsible with a credit card now. Besides, New York drivers are so mean and my fragile heart can’t take it.” 

It was a simple town car, but with the seats facing inward like a limo. Marie sits with her hands over the air vent in the floor with obvious relief on her face. She cracks an eye open to Dieter as he shuts the door and the car lurches into traffic.

“What do you want?” She scowls begrudgingly.

“What do you mean?”

“You went above and beyond the request for seat warmers. I owe you dessert. What do you want?”

Dieter chuckles, glancing at you as Marie all but curls up against the vent. 

“Rain check?” 

She hums and closes her eyes, her head lolling against the window. Dieter sits across from you, his feet tucked in between yours, a content smile on his face. 

“Thank you,” you murmur quietly. The cold has left a pink blush across his cheeks and it looks wonderful on him. His hands flex by his sides.

“Least I could do.” 

The only sound for a while is the rush of air coming out of the vent, the faint honk of a car in the distance. Over Dieter’s shoulder, you watch the slow trickle of snow turn more consistent, flakes turning to chunks. It looks deathly cold out there.

You meet Dieter’s gaze – only because he had been watching you first. 

“Do you ever miss warm and sunny California?” you tease quietly, mindful of Marie. 

“Sure.” Dieter shrugs and folds up his long leg over his knee. “But I don’t think California misses me.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” You cock your head to the side, watching the snowfall again. “California has a lot of good memories with you.” 

“Well, if California ever wants me back, she’ll have to give me a call.” 

You laugh. “She’s far too mysterious for that.” 

“I’d like to think I know what a lady wants.” His voice is low, rumbling, like the heated vents. You glance at him but he’s already staring out the window.

You unbutton your coat and sit in silence for the rest of the ride. 

Shandy’s is, presumably, packed. Hot bodies desperate to get out of the cold stand shoulder to shoulder in the pretend-crab shack. The irony of a beachfront-themed restaurant while outside a blizzard is brewing, is not exactly on anyone’s mind as they cram further in, away from the windows and drafts. The smell of fried fish makes your mouth water and these are the times you miss having an ice-cold glass of beer. With your arm wrapped around a sleepy Marie, Dieter stands on his toes to try and find Andrew and the other cast and crew who showed up. He drops back down, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, saying something to you, but it’s loss in the buzz of the crowd.

“What?” You yell across three feet. He shakes his head and, without warning, takes your hand, diving into the crowd. You have only a second to revel in the warmth of his palm before you have to take an active stance to avoid being elbowed or stepped on. Marie latches on to your arm tighter, one good jostle away from being lost in the sea of people. Dieter ducks and weaves with shocking precision, his wide chest cutting a path for you and Marie behind him. Someone steps back and you stumble into his shoulder. 

He glances down at your intertwined hands, as if to make sure you are still there. You can’t quite read what’s in his eyes. 

“Nearly there,” he murmurs before diving back into the crowd. Like the parting of the red sea, Dieter manages to pull the three of you through the knot of people and over to where a section of tables and booths had been roped off. Andrew leaps to his feet, his face red and eyes blurry, the instant he sees you. 

“You made it! I thought we lost Dieter a while ago!” He embraces each of you, ending with Marie who glares up at him.

“I’m hungry.” A sleepy Marie was one thing. A hangry Marie was a whole other beast entirely. 

Andrew chuckles and slings an arm over her shoulder. “I’m pretty sure we ordered everything on the menu twice, so dig in. All goes on the company card.” Marie’s eyes the size of silver dollars as she stumbles towards the feast, Andrew turns back to you. “What about you? Hungry?”

There’s something warm in your palm and it takes you a minute to realize it’s Dieter’s hand. You’re still holding hands – and smooth as ever, Dieter casually lets go as one of the cast members comes to give him a hug. 

“You’re good, right?” He says to you, as they break apart. “You can come sit with us if you want.”

By some miracle, you spot someone who looks like Sarah from the back so you shake your head.

“Nah. I think I see my people over there.” And then you do something incredibly stupid: you clap Dieter on the shoulder, like an uncle would pat his neurotic nephew. “If Marie comes looking for me, tell her I’m in the back.” 

He glances at your hand on his shoulder and then nods. “Sure. Uh, have fun?”

You are sweating beneath your woolen coat from the body heat of a hundred drunk idiots and now you can actually feel it on your hairline.

“Yeah. You too.” 

You spin on your heel in the direction of your salvation, internally cringing at your own stupidity. If this girl isn’t Sarah, I am so totally and completely fucked. 

The girl was, in fact, Sarah. Liam’s there too and a few of the other NYU interns. The art director sits in a booth nearby, talking to a couple of the students, so you don’t entirely feel like a lecherous weirdo hanging out with a bunch of nineteen year olds. 

Many of them come up to you, offering to buy you a drink as a premature celebration for opening night, which is only just a week away. But you merely ask for water, or a coke. They obliged, curious, but respectful, staying for a while to chat until the ice in their glasses melts and they’re off for a refill. 

In the early days of your partnership with her, Carla told you that addictions are formed out of habits: you turn to drugs or alcohol every time because you have no other tools with which to self-regulate. That you quite literally fill the silences by drinking because the alternative is unbearable. 

So, you count it as a small personal, private win that you can lean against a railing, quiet, and watch the crowds of people without ever feeling like you need a drop to top it off.

But . . . there is a want. A missing of something no longer there. You toss back the ice to crack it between your molars before it melts. 

“Hey there, stranger!” Dieter bounces up the few steps to the small alcove you’ve propped yourself up in. His cheeks are flush and his hairline is wet. That gorgeous jacket is nowhere to be seen. He shoulders up next to you and you are consumed with his radiating body heat.

A delighted scream goes up from the crowd as the opening chords of Sweet Caroline begin and the walls vibrate with a triumphant “bum bum bum.” 

“Someone’s having a good time,” you practically shout over the bad and off-key singing, eying him up and he chuckles, swirling around the brown, bubbly liquid in his cup. 

“Some of the kids wanted to go dancing,” he yells back, “and bet I couldn’t floss or whatever, so sue me if I’m a little sweaty.” 

He drops his head and rubs his sweaty forehead against your shoulder. 

“Ew! Dieter – get off!” You giggle and shove him away from you. Hekers as he stumbles against the railing. He sniffs his shirt.

“Blegh – I think I can already smell myself.”

Sobering, you watch him as he presses the cool cup against his forehead. He catches you watching.

“What?” He asks and pushes the sweaty ends of his hair out of his face. 

You turn your head to his ear so you don’t have to screech over Neil Diamond’s most famous song for white people. “You look . . .” You can’t really find the right words now, opting for staring at a freckle on his neck until they come to you. “You look happy, I guess.” 

The rapturous smile curled around his lips fades, his eyes caught on the melting ice in his cup. This close, your shoulders touch and he curls around you, like he’s got a secret. You’ve learned a thing or two from your therapist so you wait until he’s ready.

The crowd is insatiable, screaming and howling as the final chords play, and another plucky song starts up. 

“Once upon a time, these kinda things were a struggle for me.” He nods to the crowd, the bar, the alcohol. “Either I’d get black out drunk and wake up next to my PA or a stripper named Candy. And then, when you met me, I was straddling sobriety and my failing marriage.” Another party, a hotel, a blue sparkling pool. Wanting nothing more to push him back into his room and unbuckle his pants on top of his linen bedsheets. Dieter drops his head away, his forearm tense against yours. He thumbs the edge of his cup, preparing it for his admission. “And then . . . I was going out of my mind trying not to think about you.”

You can’t admonish him. You already know this, how you had been the image in his mind he pictured when he fucked his fist, long before viewing party at the director’s house. But it feels new, fresh, like he’s confessing all over again. Like the feeling persists. 

“Dieter, I . . .” 

His mouth is soft, beard wet, neck sticky with sweat, but his eyes burn you. Threaten to singe the skin from your bones.

“Old habits die hard, I think.”

His thumb presses against your wrist, his big hand covering yours against the wooden bar, pinning you – you can’t move forward or pull away. The heat of his chest throbs against your stuttering ribcage, the fingertips of his other hand twitching against yours at your side, seeking out your knuckles and then jerking away. His inhale draws your chin up to his, you’re so close you can see every memory etched in the lines around his eyes, his pulsating skin above the vein in his neck – the way his lips part when you meet his gaze. He murmurs your name and the ghost of his kiss swoops down your spine, choking your lungs, robbing you of air. Heavy lashes soft against his cheeks, he breathes, gives you whatever is left inside of him and you swallow it down, inches from his mouth. 

Here you come again

Just when I'm about to make it work without you

You look into my eyes and light those dreamy eyes

And pretty soon I'm wondering how I came to doubt you

In the lofty silence between you, the Dolly Parton lyrics are audible, the crowd decidedly less familiar with the words. The bubble of sound surrounding you, enclosing you and him, breaks, the casual hum of a bar returning, and the outside world suddenly exists again.  

He blinks at you as neither of you can ignore the song any more. 

Here you come again

Looking better than a body has a right to

And shaking me up so, that all I really know

Is here you come again, and here I go

“Smoke?” You squeak.

He nods quickly, pushing you gently on your low back. “We gotta get the fuck outta here before they play Jolene.”

It’s nearing 1AM when Marie finally stumbles out of Shandy’s, drunk and warm and full of french fries. 

“‘Hn don’ even ca-are I’m over thirty n’ drunk as hell.” She mutters into your shoulder. Heavy virgin snow sits heavy on the ground, only a few imprints of shoes left behind. You hold her close, worried about her stumbling and yanking you both to the ground. Dieter has gone ahead to flag the car down. 

“You say that now but wait until the hangover, sweetie,” you laugh and she squeezes you. 

“Hmm, you’re maybe right.”

Bold headlights flash on the street ahead as the town car pulls up against the curb. Dieter jogs up, leaving the car door open behind him. 

“Gimme Drunky Pants.” You help him hold Marie up right before he bends, scooping her up by her knees and cradling her to his chest.

“Dieter, be careful,” you frown. “It’s fresh snow. You could slip.” 

Marie lifts her head, her arms looped around his neck, squinting. “Am I Drunky Pants?”

“Yeah, Drunky Pants,” Dieter chuckles as he leads you to the car. “It’s a good thing you weigh about a buck fifty soaking wet.” 

“Hey, pal, ‘m at least two dollars.” She holds up three fingers. She tries to find you over his shoulder. “Natalie, call my lawy’r, they’re takin’ me to jail.”

You brush her wet hair out off her forehead just outside the door. “I’ve got bail money, don’t worry about it.”

Dieter snorts and climbs to the car, minding Marie’s head as it goes limp on her neck. He eases her onto one of the seats as her eyes flutter open and shut.

“ ‘re such a good friend, Nat-il-ee. I h’ve bail money for you too.” 

You shut the door after them and Dieter raps the glass, indicating to the driver to go on. He sits back down as Marie’s hand touches his knee.

“ ‘r we friends, Die’er? We’re frien’s right?” 

You bite your lip, trying to keep from ruining what could be a very sweet moment, as Dieter pats her hand. 

“Yeah, Drunky, we’re friends.”

“I’m not Drunky, you’re Drunky . . . wait, no, guess y’re not.” With a sigh, Marie rolls over and faces the plush seat. “Good night.” 

Dieter meets your eyes across the car, your teeth tight against your lips, and he shakes his head, grinning like a mad man. Don’t ruin it for her. 

You nod, snorting down a giggle. You take out your phone and snap one picture. Just for memorabilia.  

DECEMBER 

The morning of Opening Night

The concrete floor is cold even through your thick socks and hard-bottom slippers. The low window is shut and has been locked for weeks now, but the icy air managed to sneak in anyway. A woolen shawl around your shivering shoulders, you shuffle towards the stack of shelves at the back corner of your basement. Your pottery wheel sits clean and unused, the prospect of either hauling it up to the kitchen or freezing your ass off down here equally unappealing. 

You store things down here that are either seasonal, like decorations and bug spray, or things that are too big to fit somewhere upstairs. Or, in the case of what you’re looking for, things that weigh too much. 

It’s on the bottom shelf in the back, like it always is. You realize now that you’ve unintentionally stored it in a place of shame or embarrassment, a dirty secret you can only look at when it’s cold and all the lights are off. But that’s not how you feel about it. You slide it off its shelf, the only thing here that isn’t covered in a layer of grime that accumulates over items in basements. The buckles are cold under your hands and you feel like you should apologize. So you do. Silently, you make a promise that it’ll no longer live in the basement, that under the bed, easier to reach, might be a better home for it. 

After all, you think, after tonight, you might want to show it to him. 

Breathing out puffs of white air, you tighten your shawl over your shoulders and make the slow climb back up to the warmth.

Opening Night - Premiere of Homeward with You directed by Andrew Young

You puff out your cheeks, air rushing out between your lips painted the color of pomegranate, deflating entirely, as you swish the emerald green folds of your dress back and forth in the mirror. At the store, you loved it immediately and Marie audibly squealed, repeating that on the point of death, you had to promise to buy this dress for the premiere. 

Now, you think it fits awkwardly, the waist too tight and the loose shoulders unable to settle right. The high collar around your neck threatened to choke you out, your overheated skin uncomfortably itchy beneath the wool. 

This is stupid. I look ridiculous. I’m changing immediately –

“If you try to take that off, I’m tackling you to the ground.” 

Marie shakes her head as she slips silver studs into her ear, her own black dress stunningly elegant yet remarkably simple. Her short hair is coiffed, tucking around her ear in a way that would make any flapper girl sick with envy. 

“But it doesn’t look right,” you whine. “I look like an asparagus!” 

She rolls her eyes and picks your earrings up from your vanity, your gold necklace looped between her fingers. Her smooth brow is furrowed as she gently slips your earrings on, softly plugging the backs. She is quiet, contemplative. 

“Did I ever tell you I wanted to be you when I grew up?” She asks quietly. 

You frown at her in the mirror as she goes to put on the other earring. “That’s ridiculous. You of all people know what a complete nightmare my life has been.”

“Yeah, but you’re still here, aren’t you?” She unhooks the chain of your necklace. “You are without a doubt the most tenacious person I’ve ever met. You’re brave and funny and smart. Everything I ever wanted in a big sister.” 

The sharp flush of tears in your eyes threatens to smear your mascara and you catch her arm as it rests against your shoulder to clasp your necklace together. She stills and you look her in the eye. 

“You’re my best friend, you know that?” You ask her, your voice tight. 

She puts her arms around you, her head on your shoulder, her heels adding that extra height, and you watch each other in the mirror. 

“Of course, I know that. I just want you to be happy.” Her tone changes and you can’t find her meaning in her eyes.

“I am happy,” you say, firmly. “I’m happy with this life we built.” 

She kisses your temple. “No, you’re not. But you could be.”

The falling snow flickers and sparkles in the bright lights of the theater, the sidewalks clear for now. As the car approaches, through the window you read the name of the production up on the marquee in giant bold letters, his name just below it. Your stomach tightens.

The tires squeak and you climb out of the cab, Marie just behind you. No one greets you and there are no flashing camera lights. There are a few journalists, trade reporters, critics but they stand around, relaxed, smoking or talking amongst themselves. It’s a relatively quiet affair, not uncommon for productions of this size. You feel the brief press of disappointment before boxing it away. 

The lobby is warm, with bordeaux floors and wooden paneled walls. An ancient staircase spills out to greet its guests, rich, shining banisters peering down from the second floor. A smiling suit-and-bowtie bartender waits by the coat check-in desk, converted from the old ticket sales corner used during the theater’s glory days. Marie offers to take your coat as your phone starts to ring. 

Fighting between your coat and getting your phone, you answer it without checking the caller.

“Hello?”

“Hey there.” Dieter.

Your mouth dries and you glance at Marie chatting with the coat check-in girl. Quietly, you make your way over behind the grand staircase, a little out of sight.

“Dieter, shouldn’t you be getting ready?” 

“I can do both. Talk to you and put on this eyeliner that makes me cry.” You fight a smile, your hand holding your elbow, shoulders hunching towards the sound of his voice. “It’s okay, you can laugh. It was funny. I’m funny.” 

“Dieter, did you call for a reason?” You know he can’t physically see you roll your eyes, but he’s deserving of it anyway. 

“Yeah. Um, well, actually I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”

“Of course. What do you need?” 

“If you’re in the lobby, can you look over by the old phone booths?” Annoyingly vague occasionally, but cryptic, Dieter is not. You peer around the wall, your gaze running across the lobby. Sure enough, by one of the other theater entrances sits five old wooden phone booths. Only a few still hold the rotary boxes, but in one on the end sits a small woman with white hair. “Do you see a lady there in a silver dress in one of them?”

“Yeah, I do. Who is she, Dieter?” 

With an exasperated chuckle, he says, “okay, this you can’t laugh at. She’s my therapist.”

“What?”

“Okay, ex-therapist. I met her in rehab and I stuck with her after I got out. But then about five years ago she retired and she referred me to someone else. We kept in touch and became really good friends. I flew her out here to see my play and I was wondering . . . if you could keep her company.” 

Your mouth dropped further and further open. “Dieter, I . . . I don’t know . . .”

“She doesn’t bite,” he laughs. “And don’t worry, she only knows only most of the details of our sex life.”

“DIETER!”

“I’m kidding – I’m kidding!” You can picture him hunched over on the chair in the dressing room, laughing himself silly. He sighs, giggles subsiding. “Okay, look, she knows you who are, but I don’t talk about that stuff with her anymore.” His voice drops, quiet and boyish. “Besides, she’s kind of the closest thing I have to family and I don’t trust anyone else with her but you.” 

You can almost feel his breath across your jaw, his hushed reverence.

“You still there?”

“Yeah, Dee, I’m still here.” You scratch your eyebrow with your nail. “Of course, I’ll keep an eye on her. What’s her name?” 

“Beatrice, but I just call her Bea.” 

You arch an eyebrow. “Bea and Dee?”

“I’m just cute like that.” You laugh with him this time. There’s a part of you that wishes you could have seen him before the premiere, given him what you want, but you worry it might have messed with his head. “Thank you. It means a lot to me.” He sounds so sincere. “I’ve gotta go, but –,”

“Dieter, wait.” Phone clutched tight to your ear, you go deeper into the bowels of the theater, by the door that leads to the cabaret stage. “I, um, I have something to show you later. Nothing serious – and it doesn’t even have to be tonight but I’d like to steal you away for just a bit.” You smirk, trying to get some even footing underneath you, but his silence dries your mouth out. “I-i-if that’s alr–,”

“Say when and where and I’m there.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

“A-alright. Then, uh, break a leg.”

He chuckles, right down your neck. “Thanks, Nat. Oh and if I don’t see you until afterwards, you look really nice.”

You swallow around a dry knot of wool in the back of your throat. “Is this where I’m supposed to say, ‘you can’t see me’ and you say, ‘I just know’?” 

“You’ve got me all figured out. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Bye, Dieter.”

You close your eyes, thumb shaking as you tap the red button on your phone. Every breath catches on the knots of your spine, of the curve of your ribs, as it goes down, hollow, sucked down, only to emerge shredded and weak. 

The memory of what had nearly happened the night of the party at Shandy’s, it’s sunk into the crevices of your brain, under the skin behind your forehead, weighing your brow down day by day. It’s there, but you don’t see it. You don’t look. Like a beast in the jungle, you don’t make eye contact, hoping it will pass you by. 

Hearing his voice over the phone, teasing you, you swear you hear it growl. 

Look up, look up, look up

Look at me

Slipping your phone back in your purse, you straighten your shoulders and march for the old phone booth. 

Bea is probably about sixty years old, maybe closer to seventy. Silver hair tucked back in a low bun that makes her dress shine, short unpainted nails press a ratty paperback book into her lap. She adjusts a navel blue sheer shawl around her mache-thin skin when you gently tap the window, smiling. She blinks up at you with the biggest blue eyes you’ve ever seen on a living human being. 

What it says about you and Dieter that your therapists could not be more different, is a question you’ll bring up to Carla later on.

You gently push back the accordion door and wave.

“Hi. I’m –,”

“Oh, I know exactly who you are,” she says softly, her smile coy. She bookmarks her page and closes the book – The Jungle by Upton Sinclair – before standing up. Not wanting to offend her, you don’t reach for her unless she seems unsteady, but her walk is confident, if not slow as she exits the phonebooth. “Dieter said a friend of his would come get me.”

Yes, but do you know which friend? Those thin lips swirl up to the corner of her mouth, her eyes playful. “You really are as pretty as he said you were.” Quickly, she adjusts her shawl and offers out her small hand. “Lovely to meet you, dear.”

Mischievous. Like those little elves or sprites. Instantly, you see what Dieter likes about her. You offer her your arm. 

“Lovely to meet you too, but I get the feeling you know much more about me than I know about you.”

She pats your arm, that dizzy (fake) bleary old lady glaze going over her eyes. “I don’t know what gave you that impression.”

Above you, the lights flicker and a thrilled anticipation hums from the lobby, those still left eagerly moving to take their seats

“Oh, I’m so excited,” Bea squeals against you.

“You’ve never been to Dieter’s plays before?” You wait until the flow of people lessens, not risking an elbow or an errant shoe. 

“He doesn’t let me!” She grouches. “Only recently has he let me see some of his movies. But he picks them out and we have to watch them together. Honestly, that man is such a goof!” 

Her blue eyes watching people go by, she doesn’t see you chew your tongue. The man he lets Bea see is so wildly different from the one you knew, or the one you’ve gotten to know the past few months. The idea of just sitting down on the couch with Dieter to watch a movie was once, well, impossible. Now it didn’t seem . . . right. You try to picture this Dieter, this long-haired, relaxed, sober Dieter in a dark room, feet under your covers, laughing – laughter comes so easily to him now – and you couldn’t. Your brain shut the doors and turned off the light. No, no one’s home. 

No one’s there.

“He’s a doctor in this one,” you say by way of filling the silence. “Did he tell you that?”

Bea peers up at you, her silver eyebrows arching. “No. He said he wanted it to be a surprise.”

“He’s a small town doctor, in a town on the verge of collapse in the thirties. He’s caught between being responsible for his brother’s kid, who has been drafted just before he’s set to get married, and getting out of the town himself.” 

“Ooh, his dramatic roles are so good!” Bea squeals again, squeezing your arm excitedly. You wonder if this is what she does to Dieter’s arm when they watch his movies. The crowd thins, so you lead her down the steps, to the front row that Andrew roped off for special guests. The theater is small, intimate, not space for more than fifty people, but the red velvet seats have been kept in immaculate condition, the Roman-inspired paintings on the ceiling and golden-dusted ceilings kept fresh in gloss and shine. It’s, for lack of a better word, cozy.

Marie is already there with a playbill and her smile fades when she sees you with an old woman on your arm. You shake your head, I’ll tell you later, and help her sit before taking your seat next to Marie. 

“Do you miss it?” Bea asks quietly, her eyes on the stage, as the room fades to black. 

“Miss what?” 

“Acting.” If you were dancing, you would have just tripped. “With him?” And now you’re on your ass, wondering what the hell just happened.

You swallow, those blue eyes so bright and earnest. “Um. Sometimes.”

Bea sighs, rolls her eyes, and pats your hand. “He misses it. Even if he’ll never say anything.” 

You don’t ask her to elaborate, because you don’t want to know.

He’s good. They all are. 

There is a natural chemistry reflected between the cast that is often so hard to find. The subject matter, the sets, the expertly designed costumes – there is a sense of grounded realism. As Andrew hoped, the audience peers into the lives of a people strapped on a path of destruction. They fall apart as their town does around them. They get in their own way. They sabotage their own happiness again and again out of fear or frustration. Every character is fully realized to the point of anguish, of emotional damage because how could they not see it? How could they possibly continue to live their lives like this? How long do they believe they should suffer?

And beyond this swirling chaos of painfully human failure are the mobile walls you designed. They evolve, transform under expertly placed light, shadows increasing or decreasing depending on a blue or red light. The old Greek plays had The Chorus, omniscient watchers that took pity on the tragedy but were unable to stop it. Andrew’s play had your designs; silent, overbearing smears of sadness or grief or joy just out of reach. In such a grounded play, the walls added a sense of vivid delusion, waking madness, providing a razor’s edge of tension to every scene. 

Dieter’s character is morally flawed. Tired and run down by this world that’s given him nothing, no hope; stealing from his patients when he conducts housecalls to pay for this “escape” that never comes. At first he has no interest in saving the skin of his nephew, not willing to risk imprisonment over a fake diagnosis, but he, like the audience, is forced to bear silent witness to the genuine, deep, honest love between his brother’s son and his sweetheart, played by Emily. 

They sit at a kitchen table, the set painted a light green, the wood chipped and window glass cracked above the grimy sink. The night before he is meant to be drafted, Dieter’s doctor in the corner trying desperately to appear unaffected as his nephew goes through his will to his sweetheart and his uncle, so that in case of the inevitable, they know what his final wishes are. 

The boy is choked up, nervous, reading through every word with an agonized sob. His hands that hold Emily’s are shaking, as silent tears stream down her face. 

And then in a truly beautiful stroke of theater production, the boy pauses, and a recorded voiceover of him continues to read the will. But he stands, Emily and Dieter frozen in time behind him, and gently kisses Emily on the forehead, his eyes shut and face wet. He lets go, and turns to the audience. 

The voice over fades to a low hum as he stands at the center of the stage. The boy is mere feet from you. He watches Emily over his shoulder. 

“There are things I want to say to you, but I can’t. I think you already know them, but saying it out loud would only make things worse, not better. I would be saying them to be selfish, to unburden my own soul, by weighing down yours. But you know, right? You touch me and suddenly I feel a little less war torn. I'm not sure what peace is supposed to feel like but I think it may feel a lot like you.” He goes to her, still frozen, still curled up on the table, her eyes seeing nothing. He strokes her cheek, getting on his knees to look into her visionless eyes. “I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you everyday. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close. I will love you until your face is fogged by distant memory. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else and I will love you if you never marry at all, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all. That is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.” 

He drops his head onto her hands. The reading of the will ends and the lights hold, just a bit longer on the doomed couple. 

“Are you okay?” Bea whispers, touching your arm and dropping back into your own body, you stare forcefully at your lap, begging the tears to stay back.

A cold sweat breaks out across your forehead, down the skin on your back, sucking your dress’s zipper to your spine. The blood in your ears roars, thunderous and loud, and you know you’re breathing unevenly, but you can’t help it.

You nod, wishing she would look away.

You feel green, feel pale, like something is molding inside of you, sickly blue sprouting around your spine and into your stomach. A sickness, an illness, lying dormant for years. 

It’s still there, you understand that now. 

The beast in the jungle, you meet it straight on, knowing the truth of it from the very beginning. But to what end – where would the self-inflicted circle of missed opportunities and failure finally end?

To unburden my soul, by weighing down yours. 

The lobby is loud, dozens of voices overlapping each other in an excited chatter, the crowd . You bring Bea to one of the long, low benches near the twin sets of double doors at the entrance, careful to take her out of the rush of the crowd. 

She groans as she sits down and eases her feet out of her silver flats.

“I do not miss the days of heels,” she says with a sigh, rolling her ankles around. “But is it too much to ask that they make nice shoes that don’t chew up your feet?”

“My mother used to say that was the price you pay for being a woman.” You sit down next to her, watching Marie chat with the art director across the room. “It’s not supposed to feel good, she said.”

Bea shrugs. “I suppose that’s true, but seems like a terrible way to look at life. A cycle of reward and punishment.”

You grin wryly at her. “My mother was a pessimist.” 

“And you?” She leans back, her thin hands on her lap. “Are you a pessimist or an optimist?”

“I’m trying to break the cycle of reward and punishment.” Your eyes unconsciously fall to the door to the theater. “But old habits die hard, I guess.” 

An excited roar sparks from across the room, the crowd surging towards the double doors. You see Emily’s shining blonde hair between shoulders, her bright smile. You can’t see him, but he’s there, you know it. So you sit back with Bea, matching her easy position.

“I know my old bones couldn’t fight off that crowd,” she nudges you with her elbow. “But you should go.” 

A flash of the curve of his chin, the sharp angle of his nose, the endless brown of his eyes. 

One way or another, it will be over soon. There is a sense of peace with that, whatever the outcome. 

You shrug. “I’m just fine right here.”

So you sit, with your ex’s former therapist and closest thing he has to family because his are all gone, or they hate him. You ask her about Upton Sinclair, and she asks you about what you do, and you tell her about the gallery. The two of you could have been sitting on a bench in Central Park, for all the hurry you take, exchanging questions and answers. 

Reporters ask for his picture, vloggers using their livestream to ask him about the role. You and Bea watch him, never talking about him, but never looking away either.

He’s handsome. He always is. Hair slicked back, eyes still ringing with black. He smiles and performs and you wonder if he’s a good enough actor to pretend to want to almost kiss you. His suit jacket is a deep red, almost purple, a perfect color for a December premiere. He turns, leaning into a photo with a few of his castmates and you see it – a flicker of dark green on his lapel. A glass leaf, the same color as your dress.

You fight to hide your blush, your assumptions really and truly getting out of hand, and you ask Bea about where she’s from. Eventually, Marie comes and joins you two, and her eyebrows jump only slightly when you tell her Bea’s connection to Dieter. 

The congregated crowd of media and fans alike eventually subsides, leaving just friends and family. Andrew finally comes out and an applause goes up. He’s pink and his eyes are a little bleary and you think he might have started celebrating a bit early. Toby holds his hand and he leans into it, smiling like a fool.

You hear a buzz about an afterparty through excited grins and one-armed hugs, the news met with nods or groans. The last stragglers linger, wandering out into the cold or into waiting cars. The lobby is flushed with cold air every time the double doors swing open. Marie has gone to pick up your coats, including Bea’s, her wrap doing nothing for warmth, and you lean your head back against the wall. 

You’ve been rehearsing something in your head since this morning, a final script, the end to the scene. Nothing fits quite right and you wish you’d written it down, but that risked someone finding your batherings. Maybe you’ll journal later, to get down everything in your head, everything you can’t say or don’t know how. 

The crowd thins, and a few more flashes go off, and then he’s coming towards you, arms outstretched. 

“Bea!” 

The old woman wrestles to her feet with a speed you hadn’t witnessed all night and Dieter envelopes her in his arms. Without context, the image is sweet, domestic: a boy and his mother. 

Then she steps back and messes up his perfectly combed hair. “There – that’s the Dieter I know.”

You swear he blushes. 

“I have had a lovely evening with your friends!” Bea says, holding his hand and giving you and Marie warm smiles. 

Marie out of the blue rushes forward and nearly tackles him to the ground. “You were so good, Dieter!” 

His eyes widen before his arms come around her waist, squeezing her so tight he lifts her off the ground. 

“Mhmm! Thank you! Thank you for coming. And now I promise to return your business partner to you. No more painting backdrops until midnight.” 

She slips off him, as his eyes drop to you, the warmth there softer than the velvet chairs. He reaches for you and all of existence narrows to his palm. You take it and he pulls you into his chest. 

He smells like your old Dieter. That layered musk of charcoal and vanilla, of sweet tobacco and sweat. Of course, he wears cologne, expensive and rich, but you turn your nose to his neck and inhale – it’s still there. Somewhere. His hands fall to your hips, your low back, then they’re sliding up your dress, cupping your ribcage against his. You pull him tighter to you, the scruff of his beard rough against your cheek as you breathe each other in. It happened accidentally, but this is the hug you should have given him all those months ago – one that allows for joy, for remembrance, for an ease that only comes after two people have learned the other intimately, where so much of one exists within the other, their own hearts cannot decide where one ends and the other begins. 

He presses his warm hand against your shoulder, tucking you farther and farther in, as the other hand spans across your entire back, his face burrowed in your neck. You feel him sigh, at ease, his ribs expanding into yours and you fight back the sharp swell of the sob caught in your throat. You had no idea what it meant to be held until this moment. 

You don’t want to let him go. You don’t think you can. 

But the double doors sweep open, drafting in the cool air and stronger, prevailing thoughts. Your chin trembles at the strength it takes to keep from pressing your lips against his cheek as you set your weight back on your heels, his hands resisting your release until the very last moment. He doesn’t let you fall or drop you; he eases you back down, away. But his hands are shaking and he steadies them around your elbows and you take his because you think your knees will buckle if you don’t keep touching him. His mouth makes a wet noise, his eyes on the ground, feet shuffling back. He holds you as though the room is spinning. 

“Um, Dieter,” Marie’s voice comes in from far away as you fight the urge to bury your body up under his chest, to lift him up with every ounce of strength you possess. “There’s an afterparty . . .”

“But I’d rather like to go home first, darling. If that’s alright,” Bea says. “Dieter?”

You watch his throat convulse and he stands up right. He lets go of you entirely. 

“Sorry,” he swallows, resolutely not looking at you, “just got a little lightheaded. Haven’t eaten much today. Bea, can I call you a cab?” 

“Do you want to go to the party?” Marie asks you as Dieter guides Bea over to the front desk. “Andrew’s invited us.” 

You shake your head, watching them go. It has to end tonight. It has to. 

“I . . . can’t. There’s something I need to talk to Dieter about.” You tear your eyes away to her concerned face. “Shouldn’t be long, but after that I’m gonna go to bed. I’m exhausted after four months of this.” 

She nods like she knows it's been much longer than that. She hugs you, pulls you in tight, her mouth tucked in by your ear and says, “don’t take this the wrong way, love, but you were never going to be just friends.” 

You don’t make eye contact with her when she pulls away.

Ten minutes later, Bea and Marie have decided to share a cab, Bea’s hotel on the way to Marie’s apartment. You and Dieter stand on the curb, waving to them as they go. The snow is coming on thick now. A few catch on his lashes as he turns to look at you.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the party?” You ask.

He shakes his head. “There’ll be others. What did you want to show me?”

Age has done nothing to rob him of his beauty. You think you hope it hasn’t robbed him of anything else.

The creaky door of your brownstone greets you as you lead him inside, cheeks blushed pink from the cold, fingertips slightly numb, the metal keys in your hand bitterly chilled. You fumble for a few lights, cursing yourself that you left your home in total darkness hours earlier. The warm overhead lights awaken your living room, then the dining room across the hall. You’re grumbling to yourself and completely oblivious to Dieter’s open-mouthed stare. You’re leaning against the wall, fighting with your heel as he walks into your aubergine-colored living room with the plush gray couches and wall-to-wall bookshelves. 

“I want to look at every single one of these,” he says softly, fingers curled around your chenille throw blanket on the back of the sofa. “Have I read any of them?”

“If your reading tastes are anything like Bea’s, then probably,” you grin at him as you finally slip out of your heels. You fight the urge to groan, your feet flat against the hardwood, sensation finally returning to your toes, but you do sigh. The noise brings his attention to you and he smiles. 

“You do look beautiful.” 

Your toes visibly curl and you feel the smile slide off your face. You nod over your shoulder.

“C’mon. It’s in here.” 

He follows you through the other open-archway rooms to the kitchen, where the box from your basement sits on the counter. It’s gray, unassuming, with little buckles as adornments on the corners. Something about it feels weathered, hard won, as if it had been shipped across the ancient sea by long-dead ancestors. 

The lights are low here, hovering low on the dimmer switch. You always thought kitchens should be relaxing, comforting, so you rarely brighten the room unless you have to. Behind you, Dieter unbuttons his jacket as you grip the lid. 

“Now, you can’t laugh,” you say, a playful curl to your lips. He mimes an ‘x’ over his heart.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

“I’ve had these for a while, collecting them as I came across them. At first, it seemed almost morbid, but – I don’t know – I took comfort in them. As time went on, it helped me remember that everything that happened back then, actually happened and wasn’t just some insane LSD trip.” You thumb a corner. “At least it wasn’t for me.”

His brow deepens as you take off the lid.

He blinks a few times, trying to understand what he’s looking at. You wait, sit down on a black stool, watching.

Newspaper clippings. Magazine articles. Online articles printed and cut out. 

He takes a few out, his fingers running over the corners where yours have gone a dozen times. 

“Are these . . .”

“They’re all about Recovery Road. Speculation pieces on why it should win an Oscar, or several, even before it premiered. First reviews and public, consumer reviews. Trades on Heidi’s directing career, the cinematographers, the music for the film.” Your bare toes could brush his shoes if you swung your leg forward just an inch. “Opinion pieces on my career . . . and yours.” The knot in his throat moves as he flips through, going back ten years to the first articles. You watch his masculine hand, thick veins and weighty palm. “I know we didn’t make Oscar night, Dieter, and I don’t know if you ever stopped to celebrate. I know I didn’t, even years later. So this became my little celebration and in light of your success tonight, I thought you might like to celebrate with me.” 

He spreads a few out on the counter, the strange shapes of cut-out articles like lost puzzle pieces. His mouth is a straight line, those thick eyebrows drawn down, jaw set tight. 

“That night was the worst night of my life, Natalie. I don’t know why you want to remember it.” 

His voice is rough, cutting, comes from a place at the back of his chest. Your heart sinks. 

You’ve gotten it all wrong. 

“Oh. Oh, I . . . I’m sorry. I thought . . . well, actually I don’t know what I thought. I’m sorry.” You shake your head, dispelling any lingering illusions you may have, and brush together the articles he laid out, jumping to your feet. “This was a stupid idea. I can’t believe I thought this would be fun. I took you away from your afterparty to show you this ridiculous –,”

His big hand loops around your wrist and you freeze, the warmth of his palm exploding up your arm and into your cheeks. Dieter looks at you with a weight so profound you feel as though you could plunge through the floorboards.

“I lied to you.” He says gruffly. “Ten fucking minutes into seeing you again and I lied.” He works his jaw as his hand slides up to your forearm, then your elbow where it notches over the bend in your arm. “I know I said I thought we’d be better off if we never saw each other again, but that’s not true. Every day until you were released from that hospital, I begged Heidi for any news. On your health. On your withdrawals. On if you got out of the fucking bed that day. And then after you got out and into rehab, I asked Heidi to check in on you. But I knew it had to fucking stop. I had to fucking stop wanting things to be different because I didn’t think they could be. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Your bottom lip trembles. “And now? Now, do you think things could be different?”

The lines around his eyes tighten as he straightens up. But he still holds your arm like it's the last life raft in a cold black ocean. He turns his head, an imperceptible tilt.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. Do you want it to be?”

“Dieter,” you cry out, out of breath before you open your mouth, air held captive in your chest. You’re crying and you don’t mean to be. You sway as you violently shake your head and he grabs your other elbow. You reach forward and steady yourself with both hands on his biceps. There’s no way you can say this with your eyes open. “Dieter . . . for months now, everyone’s been asking me if I need space from you, or if it’s alright with me to be alone with you. If everything is still too painful to be around you, like I need protecting from you or something. But I – I don’t know how to tell them . . . that’s all I want. I want you. Even after everything, after how fucked up it was, how fucked up we both were, I can’t stop thinking about you.” 

It comes out in a rush, words and tears tumbling out of your mouth. You open your wet eyes to his lips parted in surprise, his face soft beneath the weight of your revelation. You inhale, more tears and more courage to say the things you’ve always wanted to say. No paper, no pen, no going back. 

“Dieter, I think about that house in Albuquerque all the time. I wake up and I think I can smell you in the kitchen. Or you’ll be out on the patio, painting. I know you and I went our separate ways – and I think that’s what was best for us then – but God, you never went away. You never, ever left.”

You tighten your grip, nails digging into his lovely jacket. Staring at his throat, locked in by memories, you want to drag him to the floor and cry in his arms, the way you should have on that hospital bed. 

In the silence, your gaze drifts, down his chest and over to his lapel. 

That green leaf pendant. The color of your dress. You thumb it and it’s warm, like his heart sits just behind it. 

Unexpectedly, his wide palm rests against your jaw, tilting your head up. Eyes warm and dark like the dying coal in a wood-stove, he brushes your cheek with his thumb. You don’t realize how cold you are until your face is held in his hand. 

“I’m gonna fuck it up if I say anything,” he says quietly, to you and you alone, “so I’m just going to do this.” 

In an instant, years and years and years of buried fear come screaming into your chest. That single most profound worry you carried with you since he first kissed you the night of the rainstorm –  dug it deep, covered with ignorance and a blind eye – it emerges like a seed sprouting into the light when his lips touch yours. 

You fold up into him, this fear, this concern pulling you up as he does. 

You feared, in all this time and all these years, that the great love of your life, the end-all-be all to romance and adoration, had been nothing more than a misguided, lonely girl giving away parts of her to unworthy holders – drugs, alcohol, addiction, and Dieter fucking Bravo, the first man who taught her there was something special about sex and feelings and not being alone in the darkness. 

You break apart from him, trembling in his arms. You’re crying again and you think he might be too, but it’s too blurry and it’s too much. 

“Dieter, w-wait–,” you grip his lapels, unwilling to separate his chest from yours, the press of his hips against yours. “W-what if we are wrong? What if I was wrong – what I felt for you, what I feel for you, everything we had – it’s just – a-a mistake. What if what you feel for me, is just more psychosis, more pills we have to swallow to fix it, fix us? F-f-fix me? What if you never really loved me?”

With a groan, he presses an open-mouth kiss to your cheek, the ghost of teeth against the fine hairs on your skin. 

“If what I feel for you isn’t love, then I don’t know what it is.” His arms sink across your low back, as if pulling you in as tight as he could make you understand with touch alone, send you his thoughts unfiltered and honest. He kisses the corner of your mouth, wet and frantic, and then your cheek and then again on your mouth. It’s wet and messy and he pulls away, just inches, to say: “I’ve loved you every day of the past ten years. I never stopped loving you. You were the only thing I ever got right.”

A soft cry escapes your mouth, hand on his cheek, as you tug him back into your mouth. Your lips barely part at the touch of his teeth, before he slips into your mouth, tongue massaging yours.Your nails scrape the back of his neck, the curve of his skull, fingers delightedly yanking on his longer, wilder hair. Everywhere he touches you, it’s insistent, determined to make you feel his love. He breathes harshly out of his nose when he palms your ass in his wide hands and you allow yourself to rub up against him, as if you didn’t own every inch of him already. 

Even through your dress and his slacks, the heat of your cunt up against his half-hard length is enough to have you both gasping for air. Breathing doesn’t really work right, lungs stuttering, half-aborted gasps through hiccups. 

His hand curls around your jaw and he kisses you again. You no longer need to breathe air that hasn’t been recycled by him first. 

“I’m so fucking scared,” he murmurs against your lips, half-open eyes searching for hesitation, for rejection.

“Me too.” 

You claw at him, and still sucking on your mouth, he rolls your dress up over your knees, up to your hips. His hands on your bare skin for the first time in a decade, he cups the back of your knees, tugging you up onto his chest.

“Where?” He mutters. 

“Upstairs. Second door on your right.” 

You spend the time it takes to get there familiarizing yourself with every curve of his mouth, the softness on the inside of his cheeks, where along his neck elicits the deepest groan when you use your teeth. 

Memories whisper like ghosts – he likes it there, lick here and listen to him, bite, yes, bite – you slip his earlobe between your teeth, nipping just north of gently, and he falters.

“You got this?” You tease, nosing under his jaw, as he makes the landing. 

“If this place was blown to bits,” he grumbles as he knees open your bedroom door, “I’d still find a way to fuck you on this mattress.” 

Kneeling one leg at a time, he unfolds you on the covers, hands free to roam against your hips, your ass, the backs of your thighs. Your nails scratch through his hair one last time before he sits up. 

Your bedroom is dark, blue in the winter, and the only light to see him by comes from down the hallway and over the banister. In the half-light, Dieter glows, a faint bright edge to his hair, his right arm as he slips it out of his jacket, tossing it to the floor. It lands somewhere and you don’t hear it, don’t look, instead watch his fingers unbutton his collar, tugging the starched shirt out of his pants. 

Mesmerized, you want to tell him to stop, that you want to do it, but you can’t. You have and always be spell-bound by Dieter Bravo. He gets off his outer shirt and that’s when you realize how hard he’s breathing, the shadows blurring the pink tinge on his skin. 

“Dieter, baby,” you worry, reaching for him and he comes, collapsing on his trembling elbows. He kisses you with a wet mouth.

“I can’t believe you’re letting me do this. You’re so fucking beautiful. You look like a fucking angel, on this bed, in this dress and I never thought I’d ever be here with you again.” His chest shakes and you pull him between your legs, arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders, hand cupping the back of his head. He buries his head in the curve of your neck, grasping at your back with his arms. 

You together lie there for a minute, in the silence and comfort that is afforded those nestled in intimacy. He fits, so well, like no one else ever has. Bones touch bones, his space is filled by your joints, his blood warms where you are cold. Disjointed and broken, you slot together in holes made by the other. You stroke his hair and he pulls back. The grin that grows across his face causes tears to spill down the apples of his cheeks. 

“You’re a fucking hurricane, baby, and I love you.” He holds your cheek in his palm, softly pressing a kiss to your lips. “Can I take off your tights?” 

You nod, swallowing thickly, the anticipation of having his hands on your skin making you twitch. 

He kneels away from you and one hand slides up the material of your dress while the other reverently plucks at the tight waistband of your nylons. He tugs gently, then using both hands, knuckles scraping your hips, your thighs. He touches the back of your knee and that fear resurfaces just for a moment. 

“Be careful, Dieter,” you gasp. He slows, catching your eyes. “P-please be careful.” 

The rest of your nylons come off easily while he nods, his thumbs briefly rubbing the material before they’re tossed to the ground. The night air is suddenly cold, colder than it had been seconds ago and you shiver, your dress around your hips and your cunt nearly exposed. 

Dieter crawls forward, settling around between your knees. It’s like he can smell how wet you are. His big palm cups your inner thigh, thumb directing his attention.

“Do you still like to be licked here?”

You nod fervently, almost bashful. 

“Has anyone eaten you out in a while?”

Again, your head jerks back and forth in the opposite direction, your hand clutching his knee and the other fisting the sheets. 

“Can I?” His stare flickers from your barely visible pussy up to your eyes. He’s all but begging you.

His gaze reawakes your voice. “Yes, Dieter, please – p-please, I need it.” 

His tongue wets his lips, eyes half-open, focused, as he pushes your dress up the rest of the way. You part your legs for him and he groans with appreciation.

“Jesus Christ, baby.” He shuffles back, easing onto his knees on the floor, big palms around the hinge of your legs. He tugs you as he goes, until your hips have settled on the edge of the mattress. 

His mouth drops open at the shine on your inner thighs and as though too overwhelmed to go straight for the center, he licks as close to your cunt as he can, eager for your taste. His hands on your hips tighten as he groans, inhaling deeply.

“I’m gonna make you feel so fucking good.”

You have half a second to breathe yourself before he licks, flat-tongued, up your cunt and the edges of your vision grow dark. 

He picks you apart, slowly, methodically, explorative. He licks like he’s trying to get an ice cream cone to come all over his face. 

Dieter tongues one lip, then the other and he has your hips shaking. He digs in, suctioning his mouth to your cunt, and flicks his tongue as far as he can and you twitch. He slurps in spit and slick between his teeth before presenting it back to you on the head of his tongue. 

“Oh, fucking god, Dieter –,” you press the heels of your palms into your eyes. “I can’t believe how good –,”

He licks as deep as he can, all the way up, air muffled by your folds, and flat-tongues your clit. Your vision whites out and you scream. But you didn’t come. That wasn’t you coming. Your legs are trembling and Dieter presses his forearm against your lower tummy, eyes scorching and scolding. Stop moving and let me work. 

As you relearn him, he rediscovers you. He knows there’s a spot, just around your clit that when sucked, it makes you arch off the bed, but he searches in no hurry, divining every inch of you again. He gets close and you tremble, so he pushes your knee back, opening you up further to slide in two fingers. So much more than anything you could put inside yourself, you roll your hips as much as you can, chasing that touch as his tongue sweeps over you again and again. He taps up against your pelvic bone through your pussy and you moan, loudly, pleasure soaking his fingers, then his palm. His dark eyes watch you from where his mouth works to suck ten years of missed orgasms right out of you. 

You want him to fuck you faster, to get you there in a way only he can, brushing places only he can find, only he dares reach. He licks you faster and faster, fingers plunging deeper and twisting, spreading you apart – he adds a third just before entering you again and again and again and then he finds it – that spot on your clit that breaks you apart, that warm gooey center exploding across his tongue. 

You come in silence, sparks flickering at the edge of your vision, mouth open, pussy clenching down on him, and only when you feel the vibrations of his moan between your legs, do you remember to breathe, gasping sharply to the high-pitched edge of a whine. 

“Dieter,” you pant, voice strained, knees weak as you push against his shoulders. Your clit stings a bit from overstimulation and he relents. He wipes his mouth on your inner thigh, inching up the bed, with your knee over his shoulder, still three fingers deep in you.

“C’mon, honey, you can give me one more like this. I know you can.” 

You whimper, never having a single orgasm like that in the last ten years, let alone two. “I don’t – I don’t think I can –,”

“Of course you can.” The wet squelch of his fingers scissoring inside of you proves him right. “I’ve got you, darling, I’ve got you and I’m never letting you fucking go again.”

He licks under your knee, beard still damp with your release, and Dieter does what he does best: he talks.

He promises you filthy, beautiful things. 

I wanna be soaked in you. I want you to come so hard, it drips down my arm, wets my chest. 

I wanna put my tongue on every inch of your sweat-drenched skin. I wanna taste you. All of you. In you. I wanna make you so full, that when I fuck you, I taste myself. 

I want . . . I want . . . I want . . .

“Oh, shit,” he murmurs, your cunt squeezing his fingers so hard they can’t move, and you gush, all the way to his elbow. 

You can’t see for a second, the sound of your pounding heart in your ears the only proof you’re still alive. It’s like your body has been storing it all for him, never doing this for anyone else, so you keep coming and coming. Dieter groans, drops his head, and licks up as much as he can, but you feel your own slick slip down your ass and stain your dress. You whine as he slips his fingers out of you.

“Ohmy– oh – oh – oh fuck, Dieter,” you garble. Your entire lower half is numb. You don’t realize you’re shaking until he’s stretched out both of your legs, hand gently massaging your thighs. He licks his palm, his forearm, trying to clean himself up, but never once taking his eyes off you. 

“Good, baby?” 

You nod, blinking back the sparks of light whirling across your vision. “So good. So, so good.” 

“I have a lot to make up for. Where’s the clasp to your dress?”

“In – In the back,” you swallow, hand flopping around to indicate some direction. 

“I’m going to turn you around, okay, baby?”

He takes you by the hip, the shoulder, and curls you onto your side. His thumb pressed up against the cup of your skull, warm and grounding, he unzips your dress, the sound loud in the silence. Easing you as he goes, he rolls you until you’re face down on the mattress and he can peel the dress off your shoulders. Somewhere behind you, he makes a noise at the sight of your bare back. 

“You’re so fucking gorgeous.” Heat drapes across your back as he leans down and kisses from the back of your neck, down your spine and lingers at the place just above the curve of your ass. He harshly palms your thighs, the meat of your butt, groaning, promising and marking places for his teeth. Your breathing hitches as you slide your dress off your arms. He meets your hands and helps you pull it down the rest of the way, over your knees and off the bed. 

You should be cold, shivering, but you aren’t. Not when his hands start over your calves, gripping them soft enough that he can move unhindered, but tight enough it's almost a massage. He goes up the backs of your knees, curves around your thighs, fingers dip into the bones of your hip. The mattress dips as he lays out behind you, over you, fingers tugging you back until there’s enough space for him to slip his hand between you and the mattress, his knee prying your legs apart. He cups you, biting the curve of your ear, and you gasp for him. He plugs you up with two fingers, still so wet he meets no resistance and he growls in your neck.

“There’s this image of you that I swear to god is painted on the backs of my eyelids,” he murmurs, fucking you lazily with his fingers. You fist the sheets, arm shaking to keep yourself tilted enough to give him room. You can feel his hot, thick, solid cock against the back of your thigh, his own body heat enough to make you sweat. He touches a place that makes you gasp and his hips twitch forward. You want more, more heat, more of him, his white undershirt sticking to your back. You want to feel him. You push your hips back and he groans, dropping his head onto your shoulder. “I see it when I wake up and when I go to sleep at night and it used to fucking kill me because that was all I had left of you.” He speeds up, his wrist snapping against your pelvis. “But then – then, it – it gave me comfort, because I got to see you all the time. It wasn’t real and it wasn’t enough but god, it got me through the worst of it.” 

You can feel your core tighten, pleasure spiral down and in on itself, a single spark away from exploding, as he goes faster and faster.

“I fucking need you–,” he whines in your ear, chest smothering your back, knuckle rubbing up against your clit. 

“Dieter, take off your fucking shirt –,”

You lunge forward, out of his grasp, his fingers dragging wet slick over your hip as you roll away from him. His hands frantically yank his shirt up and over his head as you work the button on his pants, unzipping him in a rush. You’ve barely gotten his pants down over his knees when he grabs you by the elbow, yanking you into his mouth, his lap. Your shared moans coat the inside of your mouths, lips pressed swollen and hot, teeth nipping and pulling. Separating only to breathe, he hauls your knee over his hip, pulling you as close as he can, his cock red and leaking into your stomach. 

You roll your hips forward, your soaked cunt clutching around his cock and he sways, breaking apart, to open mouth-groan. 

“C-condom?”

“Don’t want one. There hasn’t been anyone but you.”

“Me neither.”

You snake a hand between your heated bodies and pump him once. Again and he whines. A third time and you push him back, flat against the mattress, his body thumping into the pillows. His thumbs press into the curve of your hips, up your waist, fingers slotting between your ribs. 

But his eyes are latched onto your nipples.

“And these tits, baby,” he cups the weight of one while thumbing across the raised nipple of the other. You arch your spine, letting him do whatever he wants, while you pump him slowly, and swirl your clit with your other fingers. “Been obsessed with them. Fucking dream about them. Wanna spend a whole day with my mouth on them.”

“Well, I wanna spend a whole day on this cock. Dieter, fuck, your cock is fantastic.” It’s thick and long and you lick a mix of precum and spit into your hand to coat all of him. 

“Yeah, you missed my big cock?” Hips bucking inches off the mattress, his eyes fall half-shut, almost black with hunger. “Show me, baby, show me how much you missed me. Fuck yourself on my cock.” 

Despite his filthy mouth, his breathing hitches when you go onto your knees, hand holding him beneath you as you adjust to find your entrance. He breaths so sharply, you glance at him, the head of his cock just inches from your cunt. His chest is flushed and sweaty. The roundness of his stomach trembles, the hair there pressed flat and wet. The hair at his temples and across his hairline is damp,  beautiful curls tossed back from his face. Eyes warm, his lips are wet with anticipation. 

“I missed you, Nat,” he says quietly, suddenly. His fingers squeeze your thighs and his words catch as you notch just the head inside you, the fat head splitting you apart. “I m-m-missed you so-oh much.” 

Wanting nothing but to feel every inch, you take your hand away and find his forearm to steady yourself. The deeper you take him, the higher your whine goes. 

“Fuck, Natalie, fuck –,” his eyes are squeezed shut, jaw tight, as you gasp towards the ceiling, eyes rolling back in your head. “Fuck, you feel – you are –,” 

“Dieter –,”

Your hips drop, his twitching below you, and you take in every ridge, every throbbing vein. You don’t mean to tease, but he’s so big and it’s been so long since you’d taken him, you have to sink as slow as possible. His grip almost bruising, he wants nothing more than to yank you down on his cock, but he holds, waits, lets you adjust, even though his chest is red and he hasn’t taken a full breath in a minute. 

You inhale as you finally take all of him inside you, flush to his hips, his lap already wet, that low simmering heat swirling out from every place his cock rubs up inside of you. 

“Natalie–,” he chokes.

It’s been too long. 

You thrust forward, riding him hard and setting a pace that startles even you. A loud groan roars through him and his hands around your hips yank you back and forth with just as much force, as much want. Arousal climbs higher and higher, your shared pants and moans a catalyst for fire.

“Natalie,” he tries and you open your eyes. His face is flushed now too, eyes wet. “Natalie, I can’t stop thinking – the last time we were like this – I did – I said –,”

He whimpers as you slow and lean over him. You cup his cheeks with both hands, thumb tugging down his bottom lip. You kiss him, mouth slotting over his. “Don’t think about that, baby. Stay here with me. Be with me.” 

He nods frantically, gasping as you jerk your hips just right, and you nuzzle his nose before building back your speed, that heart-stopping pace. He intertwines his fingers with yours, offering himself to hold onto as you both race towards release, his hips rhythmically bouncing against yours. 

But you can’t help it either. Flashing across your memory like fireworks, you’re overwhelmed with images of you and him either in this exact position or a dozen others. On top of a desk, in a car, against a wall, behind, under, in front – every way he would make you take him again and again. You dip forward, just a bit, remembering that angle that made his knees quake – and apparently still does. 

“Oh, fuck, baby –,”

Bits and pieces of old fantasies slide in between the gaps in your memory – the time you tried to picture his face when you sat on your new vibrator you gifted yourself on your twenty-sixth birthday – the time you finger-fucked yourself in the bathtub, hopelessly trying to find that spongy spot he used to stroke – it was not agonizingly enough.

It was nothing like him begging you to never, ever leave. You ride him hard and fast because tomorrow isn’t promised and it might never come. 

His thumb on your bottom lip and his voice pry your eyes open. Your thighs quake from the strain, ratcheting that thunderous pleasure up every knot of your spine. You’re sweating so much you think you might melt off his cock. 

The bed squeaks, as you grind yourself against him, his hand still on your face. 

“I fucking love you.” He breathes through, open-mouthed, a spike of pleasure, his hair plastered against his forehead. You think you might come from the look of pure adoration in his eyes alone, but you white-knuckle your approaching orgasm, just as you know he is. “You’re made for me. This cunt is made for me.”

Every inch of you is fire hot. You gaze down at him and take your thumb between your teeth, nipping gently, your hands balanced against his stomach. 

“I am yours, Dieter. I’ve never wanted anything else. Never.” 

He swallows, eyes impossibly dark and deep, staring up at you like you hang the moon and stars, like you are solely responsible for the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins.

Dieter jerks up to kiss you, his hand cupping the back of your head, nails lightly scratching into your hair. The force of him stills your hips and you kiss him back, arms around his neck, but does nothing to quench that roaring blaze in your cunt. 

His arm drops from your head, goes around your back, the other catching your hips against his and he flips you both, nestling you against the covers. He pins your arms above your head and thrusts into you, setting a pace that has your eyes rolling back your head. You whimper. 

“You are the only thing I’ve ever loved,” he grunts into your neck, his voice low as it kisses your skin. His pace is punishing, chasing whatever haunted him at night those years he was apart from you. You pin your knees to his ribs, welcoming him deeper and deeper. “I want to be yours. I want to be yours until the day I fucking die.” 

“You are, Dieter, you are.” 

The sound that comes from his chest, echoing in your ear, and seeps into your bones finally pushes you over the edge. White-hot lightning strikes you between your legs, a warm, milky wave rocking you flat on your back as your cunt clenches down on him. He shouts, loudly, his back tense as he spills inside of you a second later. You can feel him soak the inside of you, his cock twitching under the pressure of your still-tight cunt. 

His hips pump once, twice more, his body eager to empty him out entirely, and then he stills. 

The sound of your shared heavy breathing, between the sweaty, throbbing mass of your bodies, is the only sound in the bedroom, stretching on for minutes at a time. 

You have never felt so close to a person as you do right now. You can feel his heart pounding against his chest as it sits above yours. Your skin, damp with sweat, clings to his. This is where you want to be, for the rest of your life. 

Slowly, as fast as his shaking arms will allow, Dieter lifts up to look you in the eyes, breath still heavy in his lungs. He’s red, pushed to the limit of exertion and then beyond that. His hair is a damp mess and his skin is so warm it almost burns.

But he’s smiling. 

As your breathing returns to normal, even if it might take hours to wash yourselves clean, he smiles at you and you smile back because all it took was time.

Time, some therapy, and some space apart to find out what truly matters. What only matters. If nothing we do matters, this is the only thing that does. 

You don’t have to speak because he knows what you’re thinking. Grinning through a half-chuckle, he kisses your forehead, your nose, and your lips. With a sigh, you wrap your arms around him as he gingerly tucks his head under your chin, and rests his cheek against your chest. You play with his hair. 

The night stretches on, the snow falls harder outside. Eventually, you end up under the covers,  Dieter Bravo is in love with you and you love him back. 

He taps his fingers against your hip, absent-mindedly, to a beat you don’t recognize. And then his chest vibrates over yours, the sound sinking into yours, as he hums the chorus to Here You Come Again.

When you wake up, hours later, sleep overtaking you at some point during the night, you open your eyes to gold sunlight streaming in through the curtains and his back to you. His arm tucked under his head, curls askew on the pillow, and you feel him breath against the mattress. 

Hesitantly, slowly, you reach forward, hand trembling, across the small space between your bodies –

And you touch his shoulder. He’s solid. He’s real. He’s here.

He shudders awake, groaning sleepily, as he turns over, his brown eyes greeting yours with all the joy of the sun. 

He touches your cheek and you smile. 

Epilogue

The wooden tracks of the rollercoaster vibrate violently as the cars lurch over the railings and down the slope. Screams of delight are lost beneath the gentle melody of the merry-go-round, its lights bright against the late evening sky. People wander between the tents and the booths, stopping to play a round of hunt-the-duck or to throw a ball at empty milk bottles. The smell of popcorn and candy hangs thick in the warm summer air. 

Dieter adjusts the giant stuffed bear on his back, eyes surveying their next target on the Coney Island pier. 

“Ice cream me, babe.” 

Your arm juts out and smears vanilla-chocolate swirl across his mouth and he sputters.

Your eyes jump up from your phone, embarrassed to have been so distracted, and you immediately go to wipe his lips, his own hands busy keeping the bear up right. 

“Sorry, sorry!” 

He grins as you blot his mouth and chin. His tongue swipes out and licks your palm.

“It’s okay, only if you use your mouth next time.” 

You roll your eyes as you toss away the used napkins. This time you hold the cone properly so he can lick his fill.

“What’s so important on your phone that you nearly drown me in ice cream?”

A summer breeze, hot off the waves of the ocean, strokes your hair, tugging it over your eyes. You push it back, frowning.

“Netflix emailed us, wanting to know if we wanted to be a part of the documentary about the making of Recovery Road.” 

“And you think that’s a bad idea?” He asks, catching an errant dribble before it smears across your fingers. 

“I don’t know. It just feels like dredging up things that are better left in the past.” 

“Netflix’s specialty.” 

You frown at him and he grins. “No one’s ever officially gone on record about what happened and now maybe we should. Set the record straight.”

“I don’t think we’ll come out of it looking very good,” you worry your lip. “Besides, if we’re being interviewed, shouldn’t Chloe get a chance to tell her side too?”

Dieter shrugs. “She can if she wants. But the story is ultimately about you and me. Besides, they just want the juicy gossip about all of our wild and crazy infidelity sex.”

“Dieter!”

With a chuckle, he drops the bear between the two of you, so he can look you properly in the eyes without a paw over his face.

“Baby, I’ll do whatever you want to do. If you want to do it, great. If not, fuck ‘em. I don’t care how it makes us seem, because no matter what, they’ll never know the true story.” He takes your hand that is not holding an ice cream cone, sticky fingers and all, and kisses your knuckles. “You and I are so beyond Netflix documentaries, or tell-all exposés – or whatever constitutes a love story in Hollywood. What I feel for you, no one could ever do it justice.” 

He sees your chest stutter for breath, your eyes soft as he kisses your palm. 

“They’d never understand the man you’ve become,” you say quietly. “What it took to get here.”

He nods, hand sliding to your cheek, your neck, and pulls you in. “This is it for me.”

“Me too.” 

The jingle of the carnival around you, the roar of the rollercoaster in the distance, fills the silence as your lips move against his, hand curled up against his collar.

“Okay, new question,” he breaks apart before he loses all of his senses and pulls you into a bathroom stall.

You chuckle against his lips. “Yeah?”

“What would you think about getting a dog?”

“A dog?” You blink up at him.

“Yeah. Doesn’t have to be very big – there’s no room in our brownstone for the three of us anyway.”

You frown playfully, contemplative, as you loop your arm through his, the bear stretched across both your backs, as you instinctively wander towards the water.

“I’ve always liked pitbulls. Found them to be really misunderstood.” 

He nods. “I like that. Kind of flies in the face of the ‘small dog’ idea but I like it.” 

“When have we ever not bucked tradition?” 

“You’re exactly right, my beautiful girl.” He kisses your cheek as you list off other potential breeds.

Honestly, he doesn’t care. Whatever dog breed you want is fine with him.

As long as it has a collar and a name tag, somewhere he can hang a ring. 

T H E  E N D

[sueske]

Hi Sueske! I'm sorry but this is just a frustrated rant. Feel free to kick me through the screen.

I wonder how can anyone ever look at Naruto and Sasuke and think they were as straight as an arrow? Naruto has to be prompted to notice girls because his head is too full with Sasuke-related thoughts and Sasuke never ever indicates he has a genuine intrigue nor interest in girls (and boys, really, that isn't Naruto). Naruto and Sasuke have a mutual interest in each other that goes beyond simple friendship and even if it's platonic (somehow people often sees platonic relationships as less than romantic ones) their bond is way, waaaaayyy deeper than the Mariana Trench that cherry girl and the white eyed 'princess' have a minus hundred chance of ever getting in with either of the two. There's just no space left.

It's just how they are and Kishimoto are consistent with his portrayal of them. Yes, even in chap 699 and 700 because while Sakura did get that Forehead Poke™, I see it as Sasuke seeing his younger self wanting to be close to Itachi and so he responded to her 'yet another romantic advances' with the poke, like... implying that Sasuke sees her as childish. It's... does anyone truly want their significant other to see them as childish? The same level of childishness as your own eleven-year-old daughter who you named 'salad' (who did get a hug and a poke because she was making a face and Sasuke wasn't cold hearted to ignore what was in front of him)?

Chapter 699 ended with both Naruto and Sasuke in the panel while chapter 700? Brazenly never showed NH and SS together, not even a single panel. Hehe bravo Kishimoto.

Gaiden portrays NH as existing with one kid (the white eyed princess' daughter didn't show up so she could just be a chap 700's white eyed princess' hallucination) and no panel with them together and SS was massively doubted to even exist and panels with them existing together can be counted with two hands and still will feel like what they have is just a very basic level of relationship between comrades (that don't necessarily like each other), showcasing Kishimoto's whole new level of cunning and pettiness.

While Boruto the movie... I have no words (and my memory of that movie only consists of Naruto and Sasuke moments). Maybe a few NH interactions that, yet again, had no intrigue nor depth and SS... I don't want to go there because there is nothing to go to.

Honestly anyone who watched Boruto the movie and still raved about their 'canon ships' (read: NH and SS) is scraping off their nails againt a brick of wall. It's painful to watch.

If they want a Male Friendship they can have Chouji and Shikamaru. Gai and Kakashi too.

helloooo

Homophobia… ignorance… stupidity… choose ur fighter. There’s no way u can objectively look at the story and think ss and nh are good relationships, even reciprocated relationships, when Naruto (the story) might as well have been called Naruto and Sasuke.

I agree that strong platonic relationships do exist. But Kishimoto portrayed sns’ relationship with tension, romantic tropes, desperation, devotion – that’s how he wanted it to be shown. Generally speaking (cuz I know not everyone does this obviously) but some ppl just acknowledge that ss and nh are crap but simultaneously don’t want to admit sns are gay… so they just say sns are platonic.

I always saw the forehead poke as a jibe from Kishimoto, like ‘hey u wanna have ss be endgame then I’ll make Sasuke do the BROTHERLY forehead poke, one that was used by Sasuke’s brother to keep him at a distance.’ Pink girl doesn’t know what it means and what it stands for, I’m sure she was just happy Sasuke talked to her and touched her.

I can’t even be bothered with Hinata… is she going to keep knitting forever 

[mystical-lemonade]

Loved what you did with this, i was wondering if you could write the same concept but with the vice dorm leaders since they need love too! :)

Warnings: N/A

Wordcount: 815

Pairings: Trey Clover x gn!reader, Ruggie Bucchi x gn!reader, Jade Leech x gn!reader, Jamil Viper x gn!reader, Rook Hunt x gn!reader, Lilia warcrimes Vanrouge x gn!reader, Vice Dorm Leaders x gn!reader

Normally Trey finds himself as the one who makes other people bentos

Afterall he does have multiple younger siblings he helps take care of

So when he got a bento box as a surprise gift from his significant other? Well Trey was delighted

The letter was by far his favourite part though.

It made him feel all warm and fuzzy. And proud, so very proud to be dating someone as lovely as you.

This pride also makes him quite happily show off the letter to his friends. Especially Riddle and Cater.

Be prepared to be teased. By Cater, by Lilia, and especially by Trey. 

He would 110% ask if you were trying to prove that you'd be a good spouse through your cooking skills

Is the most delighted out of all the boys

Ruggie absolutely loves getting free food, and knowing that someone (other than his grandma) loves him so much that they were willing to spend a lot of time on making him lunch,

From scratch no less!

Well it just about sends Ruggie over the moon in glee.

He would ask if you were willing to do such a thing more often for him, after all he is a very busy Hyena

He would definitely keep the letter somewhere safe so that he could look at it whenever he wanted.

Ruggie also plans to surprise attack you with a giant hug the day he gets the bento box.

Afterall you gave him a pleasant surprise, whats wrong with him doing the same to you!

Jade is pleasantly surprised by receiving homemade octopus carpaccio.

He might even make a soft pleased trill that definitely isn't a sound that a human can make.

Jokes that this bento box is the reason he hasn't seen Azul in a while

Definitely would tease you about the sappy letter professing your love for him.

He would in fact attempt to embarrass you further by asking if he was the only one who got such a personalised letter.

Perhaps he would even go so far as to pretend as though he intends to compare his letter to the ones you gave to your guys's boyfriends

Would surprise you with a bento box in return sometime later

This eel has to show his appreciation somehow, so he might as well do it through your stomach.

Genuinely very shocked that you made him his favourite curry.

Jamil is not used to people going out of their way to do nice things for him.

But he could get used to this

A delicious home cooked meal? A letter expressing how much you love and care about him?

His ego is just about through the roof, because in his mind this letter and lunch, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is finally being acknowledged

Not to mention its just a generally sweet gesture to do for a loved one.

Jamil would absolutely do the same for you after this.

It's not too much more effort than what he already does, and it'll make you happy so he's glad to do it.

Rook is positively d e l i g h t e d

All he wants to do is scream from the rooftops about how lucky he is to have such an incredible lover

Would shower you face in kisses and definitely spins you around in a hug

Compliments your skill and dedication to love, and how deeply touched he is to receive such a wonderful gift and heartfelt letter

Rook would send you multiple love letters of his own back to you in response

Keeps the original letter you sent hidden away in a keepsake box so it never gets ruined.

Definitely makes you and your shared boyfriend bento boxes as well.

You gave him such a delightful idea that he simply can't not do something like that for the other people he loves.

Lilia would immediately cup your face and place a gentle, appreciative kiss on your forehead.

He's so happy that you made him lunch and gave him a delicious carton of tomato juice to drink with it.

How kind of you to show him such care and consideration by making him such a lovely gift

Lilia would happily share some of the food in the box with you, as a treat, you deserve it.

He loves the note too, he even magically preserves it so that even 100 years down the line it will look like it was written that day.

Would write you a letter back to you in response, declaring his unyielding affections towards you, and his hopes for a long happy relationship with you.

Unfortunately.... Lilia would attempt to repay you with a bento box of his own.... that he made....from scratch....with his own hands

Please tell him you'd prefer something else as "repayment" maybe suggest a date? Cuddles? Literally anything but food.

Thank you for your request Dear, I appologize for how long it took for me to get this written. I will do my best to not take months to write a single request.

If you liked this post and want to see more from me feel free to send in a request or take a look at the previous wishes. See you soon~

Sincerely, Jupiter

[sekceesimps]

The Adeptus’s Temptation (Xiao x reader oneshot)

summary: Xiao watches and reacts to his darling being flirted with by a certain Geo Archon.  angst (kinda) but ends with fluff.  

a/n Hey anon, I loved your requests so I decided to do both of them… hope you enjoy it! Thanks for the love and feel free to leave another request (that goes for all of you!) 

This is sort of a more in depth version of the Xiao part in the Genshin Jealousy HCs

Also sorry for the delays between publishing, Tea and I have been busy with our personal lives, but we’re trying to write more! 

Keep liking and following us, it genuinely motivates me to write. 

 Sincerely Coffee  

Who would have ever thought that the Conqueror of Demons, the Vigilant Yaksha, the great adeptus Xiao would ever have a significant other that was human. Certainly not you and definitely not him. 

Xiao is not someone who is easy to open up and be kind, but you managed to break through his cold and harsh demeanor. A surprise to the adeptus who had resigned himself to living his life alone and far from others. You are someone special to him in a world filled with incompetent and useless humans. 

It took some time for him to allow you to spend more days with him and even allow you to initiate physical affection. At first, it came as a relief when you were out doing commissions or just going out to work, he needed his space after all. He was worried about how fast he was falling for you and clung onto the hope that the space he left would allow him to protect himself. 

As your warmth and presence grew on him more, a part of him yearned to be at your side and let you closer to his heart. He had put up his icy walls to combat the heartbreak that comes after losing friend after friend, he was distraught with how quickly you broke through to him. He grumbled at your hand holding, but leaning into your touch nonetheless. 

Your dangerous commissions started to lessen as he refused to let you take on the most harmful of enemies without him. After all, he had no idea what he would do if he lost you. 

Xiao’s favorite thing to do with you is sit at the top of Wangshu Inn or even just the cliff sides of Liyue and bask in your attention and presence. He practically glowed under your loving gaze and from the light brushes of your hand against his. He had known the land for thousands of years and he had seen the most beautiful of landscapes in his time guarding it. He thought that he had seen every stunning thing in this world, that was at least until he met you. 

Your bravery, resilience, and overwhelming beauty had completely captured him, and as time went on he fell further and further for you. The life he envisioned the two of you to live together was a calm and peaceful one. He knew it probably wouldn’t be possible with the nature of both of your responsibilities and his own life span, but an adeptus could still dream.  

Now as much as Xiao wants to protect you, he can’t really leave Liyue. He’s able to help you when you’re here with him, but he’s essentially powerless when you go to Mondstadt. Of course, he’s entertained the thought of just leaving for a bit and staying by your side to protect you. In the end, he always lets you leave for work with a light kiss to your forehead and a heavy feeling in his heart. 

You had accustomed him to your soft affections and gentle mannerisms. He was always reluctant in letting you leave, but he trusted your abilities and simply had to stew in his reluctance when you were gone. He often told you to simply call out his name if you were in trouble and he’d be there in a moment. To this you would simply smile and reassure him with soft kisses to the top of his head. It was a miracle when he had managed to convince you to take on more commissions and bounties in the Liyue area. It made it easier for him to come to your side for aid and also to watch over you. It also allowed for more frequent dates, which made both of you incredibly happy. 

You always had the most interesting stories from your time adventuring. When you two were relaxing on loving moonlight nights, he looked forward to the smile on your face when you spoke in detail about your commissions. He was silent and let you speak, paying full attention to you. Xiao loved the silence and peace. He hated when humans would talk for hours on end, it was unnecessary and wasted his time. However, this sentiment didn’t carry on with you. 

He often urged you to talk about your day and the people you met. Xiao does everything he can to coax more of your sweet voice out. Your voice had always been like music to his ears. For you, he could bear not being alone. For you, he was carving out hours of his day to cuddle and listen to you speak. 

That was until everything changed with your adventuring routes. Previously, right after you switched from Mondstadt routes, the Guild had kept you near the Wangshu Inn and around the Qingce Village area. However, due to increased demand for your services, you had been moved South towards Liyue Harbor. The adventures you went on now were much simpler, but much more boring. You’d complain to your boyfriend about how you had to talk to too many people and how exhausting it was for you. Xiao would listen intently and offer a comforting embrace, silently happy that at least you weren’t out risking your life every day.  

His concern began when you moved on from random requests and commissions with different people to a more stable and consistent job. You had accepted a job from the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor as a one time thing, but your skill and agreeability had earned you a more permanent position there. 

Your day to day job was to just assist and protect different members with finding and restoring relics across Liyue. However, it allowed you to move around more and actually engage in combat, a welcome change from before. You had helped the director herself, but your favourite employee to work with was Mr. Zhongli.  He was a tall and serious man, but he was powerful and amusing to talk to. 

The first adventure you had gone on with him, you couldn’t stop talking about it with Xiao when you came home that night. One adventure turned into ten quite quickly as the two of you made a habit of engaging in all your commissions with the parlor together. Zhongli as your companion in travel gave you a sense of stability and a feeling of safety when you were out in dangerous situations again. 

Every night you came back, you told Xiao about the mysterious and strong man’s aid to you. The passion you spoke of his power and of his intelligence in the culture of Liyue surprised him at first. As you kept talking about Zhongli, Xiao started to feel different. He was no longer eager to hear of your adventures because he felt something very strange now. 

Xiao has never felt afraid. At least, not truly. He is not afraid of death as he had accepted it long ago. Yet now you had given him something to live for and losing you would leave him back into a pit of despair, suffering, longing, and emptiness. Seeing you gush over the assistant to the funeral director filled him with a new unpleasant feeling. Heart numbing fear. 

He was careful to not let you know how he felt. He was nervous that you would view him as pitiful for what he truly felt in his heart. Bile would fill up in his throat when you talked about that man as he held your full attention. In response, Xiao would start to capture your mouth with a kiss if he sensed that you’d talk about Zhongli on your dates. It got you to shut up and restored his happiness for a moment. 

He felt guilty for interrupting you of course. Yet, he couldn’t muster up the courage to confront his own feelings of insecurity. The best he could do was try to prove to you how much he could offer. As his kisses began to get more heated, he found it fit to use his strength to carry you back to your shared bedroom. 

Out of curiosity, Xiao decided to actually look at this Mr. Zhongli one day. If he was feeling insecure before, oh man, any self confidence he had was now wrecked. The man was absolutely perfect with you. 

You were smiling and walking through the harbor-city side by side with the sharply dressed golden eyed man. The walk that the two of you had was powerful. The men and women of Liyue whispered behind you two about how cute the both of you were. Xiao silently watched as you two sat at the tea house and drank tea in silence. Zhongli had never taken his loving and intent gaze off of you. The Yaksha took in more of the man’s appearance. He was much taller than Xiao was and carried himself with a royal sort of dignity. As the two of you finished your tea, the man made a move to pay for your tea by charging it to the funeral parlor. He’s rich too, Xiao thinks sourly. What doesn’t he have? He has enough when Zhongli’s resoundingly deep voice tells you how well you fought today. If Xiao sounded like that he would never want to shut up.  

He goes back into his bad habits of distancing himself and retreating back into his own silence. His awful self loathing that you worked hard to remove has manifested itself again and begun lashing out on you. Brushing you off, short snappy responses, and hardly responding to anything. This results in you thinking you did something wrong. 

Oh how the adeptus breaks when he sees you try to make him Almond Tofu and various other small gifts to please him. He knows you didn’t do anything, but all he wants is you to free yourself from him and spend your life with someone who could provide so much more than he could. 

In your shared bedroom, he would be physically present, but he was silent and hardly even looked at you. He could hear your muffled tears at night when you thought he was asleep. It took everything within him to not turn to you and let you lay your head in his chest and leave kisses across your face after he dried away your tears. It hurt him again when he heard you asking Verr Goldet if she could help you plan a nice surprise for him. As he stayed to listen, he had to listen to the innkeeper give you kind words as you broke down explaining what it was for.

All your advances towards his forgiveness and love go rejected. He decides that it would be better for you in the long run if it was like this. He stays cold, at least until he sees something that pushes him back to your side. 

His pity party and moping is interrupted by the strangest feeling in his heart. Something painful crackles and burns inside of him. He’s not sure how he knows, but he feels that something is very wrong with you. 

Xiao was not called the adeptus of speed for no reason. The speed in which he reached you was one he had not used for hundreds of years. 

You weren’t in any life threatening danger, but the bond that you two shared was. He could see Zhongli gently move a strand of your hair behind your ear. You had a more nervous smile on your face. 

“How fascinating, Y/N” his voice breaks the silence, “Your abilities seem to get stronger every day,” he continues praising you.

Your face flushes a light pink and you look down, breaking the gaze between you two. “You’re too kind, Mr. Zhongli, but I wouldn’t have been able to grow so much without your guidance,”

The golden eyed man smiles at this as he leans in slightly closer to you, “In that case, would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” 

Xiao clears his throat as he steps out from the bushes and stalks towards you with a glower on his face. You look at your lover in surprise, not seeing or hearing his voice in quite some time. 

“Actually, she’s already taken so you can take your leave now,” his words filled with venom. He doesn’t even try to be subtle as he holds his emerald spear by his side in warning to the man who tried to make a move on you. 

Zhongli nods, “I understand, sorry for intruding,” as he leaves. Xiao’s watchful gaze not leaving him until he’s far out of sight. Your adeptus moves to your side and engulfs you in a warm hug that he wishes to convey all of his feelings of love into. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have treated you like that, it was unnecessary and you didn’t even do anything wrong. Give me a chance,” he seldom begs, “please,” he adds. His golden eyes piercing into your soul and displaying such regret. 

You don’t respond, but you lean closer to him and press your lips softly against his. He forgot how much he missed this. 

Oh how stupid he was for not letting you know how much he adored you known more. Well, now he had the time to make it up to you. He brings you towards the cliffside and the two of you sit down together once more, the bond shared between you too also renewed. 

As you look at him, he lets you lean on his shoulder and look at the sun’s light beginning to wane as the sky was touched with beautiful pastel pinks and purples. 

“I love you, Y/N” he whispers softly as he nuzzles his face into your H/C hair. 

“Hmm, I love you too, Xiao,” you respond sweetly and relax under his presence.

The brown haired Archon chuckled lightly as he watched his Adeptus gently place his arm around your waist. He was happy that the cold guardian had finally found someone to love and someone to take care of him in return. When the time was necessary, Morax was ready to bring a contract to let the two of you spend the rest of eternity together, as two soulmates should. 

a/n Hope you enjoyed it! Leave a like and some feedback, please.

[prettykaeya]

could we get some Ranpo x GN s/o who loves to bake?

wow i had so much fun writing these !! i really adore ranpo as a character , he's vv fascinating ! and i want to write him more

♡ Oh so desires to test out their ability as soon as they have the free time too — it means he gets some free snacks and they are able to do what they love! It’s simple, logical thinking, and everyone wins at the end! Of course he will not pressure them into preparing something for him, he wants them to do it of their own will and freely (though his pleading expression is rather effective even with his eyes closed). And he is all too happy to try what they bake for him because he must know that they are supremely talented at backing (a genius if you will) and he genuinely enjoys seeing the smile that crosses their lips when they bake.

♡ Immediately delighted by their baking and is quick to request seconds from them (he knows he can get a little greedy when it comes to their treats but he always asks before he takes). Oftentimes their treats will earn themselves a little hug and a kiss atop of their forehead — they may think it as just a small errand but truly does Ranpo appreciate what they do for him. And he is always there to remind them that it’s alright if they don’t feel like baking certain days — because he certainly understands the want to not do anything or lack the will to perform if a task is not challenging enough.

♡ He’s always giving them new recipes to try and suggestions so that they may be properly challenged with their skill and entertained (and it just really pleases him to see them enjoy doing such a task). At times he will teasingly give them a recipe that is impossibly difficult and tease them about it but he truly does not mean to challenge them — although at times he does accidentally take his teasing a step too far and they end up baking the recipe anyways and “proving him wrong.” (He genuinely believed they could perform well with the recipe but he enjoys teasing and he always ends up eating his own words at the end, especially if they don’t let him have a bite because of all of his teasing).

♡ Just as he is unafraid to show off his own abilities and intelligence to the world, he just adores showing his partner and his skills off. Most certainly do they deserve to be proud of the baked goods they prepare and people deserve to know who the greatest baker is in the world. (Logically Ranpo knows he could be a touch biased, although he long claims that his deduction skills has led him to determining that they are the greatest baker with the greatest baking skills). He’s always teasing his coworkers at work about having the best baker as a significant other and oftens likes to tease them by dangling baked goods in front of them from his partner (although he’s quite protective of what they give to him and so it is very much a rarity that they are able to try something of theirs).

♡ As punishment for all of their partner’s teasing of his poor coworkers, they would decide to bake something for all of them so that they would not miss out. Ranpo would initially insist that they did not have to go out of their way and that it’s purely his fault, but they are determined to bake their way nevertheless. They make sure to tell him that if he does not allow them to bake something for each and every member of the Agency that they would make him apologize for his teasing (although Ranpo would recognize if he would need to apologize, but he also recognizes that they genuinely want to do this out of the good of their heart). He also comes to realize that this is another chance to showcase how amazing his partner is and how they are truly the best around, so he is completely on board and encouraging by the end.

♡ He would just stand there in the Agency, a proud smirk on his lips and arms folded over his chest as his coworkers get a true taste of what his partner is capable of. He’ll most definitely enjoy watching the surprised and delightful expressions on each and everyone’s features once they taste his partner’s baking (And everyone’s tastes are accounted for, whether sweet or savory). But he’s also keenly aware of even the slightest negative word about their food and protective of his partner’s feelings (he knows they want the truth, pure and simple, but he can’t help but want only positivity for them). He would wear a ‘Ha! Told you so!’ expressions on his face when everyone exclaims how good their baking is and just so happy that his partner is recognized for their skill. Although he would be most happiest seeing how happy they are because everyone genuinely enjoys their baking.

♡ He is always there to support their endeavors in baking, no matter how big those endeavors may be or how small, just so long as they are happy. He is only happy to be there to support them and to serve as their official ‘taste tester’ and seeing all the new things they are able to try out and practice (he really does enjoy the perk of new snacks to try and have with him and he is always careful to hide them away from the clutches and wants of others). Although he is very teasing, Ranpo is genuine in his support of his partner and their passion for baking and would do anything to continue helping them out and helping their love for baking flourish. Although when they suggest that he may learn to bake himself, he is a touch more reluctant as he fears that anything he would touch or bake would be set on fire and that he prefers to rely on his partner’s own skills (though he is always willing to lend a helping hand).

[uwuwriting]

Affectionate moments with the Todorokis

Request: Can I get some Todoroki fluff and when I say todoroki I mean all of the todoroki children thank you very much- anonymous

Okay now we can proudly call Dabi a Todoroki. The waiting is over, we’ve won this war ladies and gentlemen. I need some soft Dabi right now so I’m happy to oblige. Love ya. 💖💖💖

masterlist

rules

warnings: fluff, maybe some angst if you squint

Dabi/ Touya Todoroki 

-He isn’t the most affectionate person both in private and out in public. 

-The maximum effort he will put while out in public might be just a hand on your lower back to ground you when things are kinda spiraling out of control. 

-But apart from that nothing. 

-Now when you were just fuck buddies he couldn’t care less about affection.

-He was just here to have some fun and then he was out the door. 

-But when things change drastically between the two of you and he realizes that he really can’t stand the idea of losing you, his demeanor changed. 

-He had come to see how important you were and how dependent he had become of your presence. 

-Boy really couldn’t function without you around. 

-So he changed his antics around you. 

-He no longer left after your shared nights and he would even go as far as to hold you or help you clean up. 

-You thought that that was the most you were going to get from him, that he had nothing else to give apart from those moments of affection. 

-You were wrong though. 

-After a rather hard mission he would come and cuddle you  out of nowhere. 

-He would bury his face in your neck as his torso lay between your legs while you gently stroked his hair. 

-It would help him fall asleep most of the time but on the rare occasion he could manage to stay awake he would talk to you. 

-Those conversations weren’t of any value; it was dumb stuff that came to mind and he just felt like sharing. 

-Then after one too many close calls he would begin to tell you your importance. 

-After witnessing you almost getting killed time and time again, making his heart almost come out of his mouth every time you nearly dodged an attack he couldn’t hold back. 

-He would pepper you with kisses as he would flip you over so you were on top of him, your head tucked into his neck while his rough cheeks would rub on your plush ones. 

-It always hit him hard when he couldn’t protect you. 

-He wasn’t *that* stupid, he knew his job wasn’t to protect you and that you could handle yourself better than anyone in that dumpster fire of a league but he couldn’t stop himself from worrying. 

-Those shared moments of pure domesticity and normality between the both of you made it hard for him to deny that he was indeed falling in love. 

-And he hated it because he knew that at some point, when push comes to shove, he would have to choose between you and his goal. 

-And he wasn’t so sure what he would decide to follow. 

-When you broke the news to him that you were expecting, around the time Shiggy was putting his grand plan into action, he knew what he would choose in an instant. 

-But you wouldn’t budge; you knew what his dreams meant to him and you wouldn’t let him throw it all away for you. 

-He could have this new life after the battle, after the dust had settled and all had been revealed. 

-So, with a camera in hand, you helped him make the masterpiece that would show the world who Endeavor really was. 

-And you couldn’t be prouder of your lover. 

Fuyumi Todoroki

-Ahhh soft girl hours. 

-Okay now Fuyumi is the type of person to go all out for their significant other. 

-So PDA is on the table even if it makes her a little uncomfortable at times. 

-She’s kind of a people pleaser so as long as you are happy she is happy no matter how uncomfortable she might feel at the moment. 

-But like the great girlfriend that you are, and because you would kill for her, you push her to tell you what she really thinks about certain situations.

-And the moment she tells you that PDA is kinda meh, you yeet yourself away from her. 

-Holding hands wherever you are is a must, a request or rather a demand made from the queen herself. 

-She just likes feeling you next to her and what better way than holding your hand? 

-Apart from that demand of hers she never ever asks for anything else in that department. 

-Like girly believes that you have to earn your love and others won’t just give it to you. 

-That you need to prove yourself as useful so you can get affection. 

-An effort-reward dynamic. 

-And you can safely assume that we can’t have that here. 

-THIS IS A LOVE INFESTED HOUSEHOLD GET YOUR ASS HERE AND TAKE SOME OF MY LOVE.

-When you ask her to move in with you, she sees that as her opportunity to shine, to show you that ‘oh I’m not useless’. 

-Baby will try doing all the house work and such. 

-You legit have to call her to cuddle. 

-You’ll be working on your laptop, sprawled on the couch when you see your girlfriend just mopping. 

- “Fuyu come here.” 

- “But I still have to-” 

- “Forget about that, you’ve done enough I just want to hold you.” 

-She just flushes bright red before putting the mop away and moving to settle in your lap.

 -Her head is on your shoulder while she plays softly with your hair, her legs stretching across the coach as you continue to type mindlessly on your computer. 

-You give her the occasional forehead kisses while she nuzzles your cheek. 

-Last we have chaotic girlfriend hours when she’ll straight up straddle you and start doing your makeup. 

-You both burst out laughing every five minutes because you get overwhelmed due to the fact that she’s a) straddling you and b) she’s too close to your face and you can’t help but want to kiss her. 

-I want a girlfriend…..

Natsuo Todoroki 

-College boyyyyy.

-He is in general a neutral person. 

-I mean he will give you a kiss on the cheek while he is leaving for his class but he won’t full out make out with you in front of others. 

-So things are pretty chill between you two. 

-He has almost the same mindset as Fuyumi so at first he would try to prove himself to you so he would be worth your love but once you caught on you smothered him. 

-Now baby loves his kisses. 

-He needs them to function okay?

-Every morning he will wake up and if you have slept over he will wake you up with nuzzling his nose in your neck and softly tracing shapes on your stomach.

-Then after his kiss good morning and his first I love you of the day he is ready to go. 

-If however you are in your dorm/apartment, he will sulk until he sees you. 

-He has that puppy love. 

-Natsuo suffers from trauma from his family. 

-It’s common knowledge. 

-He hates looking weak, especially in front of you, so whenever he has a fight with his father or Touyas’ anniversary rolls around he tends to become distant.

-Try as you might, you can never truly get him to speak to you about those issues and let you help you. 

-You weren’t part of his childhood, you don’t know what it was like but you can try to make him feel better. 

-In reality you were ready to devote your every waking minute to him if he let you. 

-But that Todoroki pride gets in the way and he doesn’t let you see him like that.

-Until the villain attack when his father saved him. 

-Endeavor looked so genuine when he talked to him and all he did was scream at him. 

-Was he too cruel? 

-So he made his way to your apartment and without missing a beat he attached himself to you and finally, finally, letting himself be vulnerable. 

-After his break down you started to rock back and forth before turning on your stereo and putting on a slow song. 

-Taking his hand you started dancing in the middle of your living room, Natsuos’ arm wrapped around your waist bringing you flush to his chest as his head stayed buried in your hair. 

-You would hum the tune as you moved around. 

-This became somewhat of a ritual whenever things got bad inside his head. 

-You would just put on that song and calm him down. 

-And that was the best thing someone has ever done for him. 

Shouto Todoroki 

-Ah poor baby.

-He is touch starved like very touch starved. 

-My mans is out there longing for someone to tell him it's okay since the age of five. 

-Anyways. 

-He really doesn’t know how to communicate his needs though so you’ll have to figure out on your own what he wants. 

-He might recoil at first but don’t be disheartened. 

-Baby has been abused ever since he was born so of course he will be reluctant to let anyone touch him. 

-Subtle things are the go to at first. 

-Linking your pinkies under the table or maybe sitting closer to  each other.

-Kisses are rare and far apart but they exist. 

-Now things change after some time. 

-Depending on his relationship with his parents that is. 

-When his dad starts to try and redeem himself and he wants to be an active part of his sons’ life *GET THE FUCK AWAY BITCH*, Shouto is really conflicted. 

-Especially when he doesn’t get his hero license on the first try. 

-So that’s when his touch starved side comes into the light. 

-He’s stressed out of his mind and he needs comfort but of course he doesn’t know how to convey that to others. 

-You pick up on it and start giving subtle reassuring touches. 

-Squeezing his hand when you notice him spacing out. 

-Giving him a quick hug before he enters class in the mornings. 

-And as time goes by you peck him on the cheek before he leaves. 

-He becomes addicted and soon enough he’s initiating things on his own, giving YOU kisses each morning and coming to your dorm for “study” dates turned to cuddle sessions. 

-You guys have a ritual for whenever things get extremely bad; when he can’t seem to stop flinching away from sudden movement, when he can’t recall anything about his older brother or when Endeavor says something again about his friends/you. 

-He will come to your room with a pillow and some snacks if he remembers them. 

-You’ll put on a movie and he’ll just sit in between your legs, his head tucked under your chin as you run your fingers through the soft strands. 

-He might break down, he might not, it depends each time. 

-But he knows that this time he doesn’t have to face anything alone, that he is loved and cherished and that you’ll be there to pick him up when everything seems meaningless. 

TAG TEAM AY:

 @the-arcana-fan-fic @angelwritings @axerrri @reinyrei @dnarez @bemorefiction​

[skiitter]

A prompt, my dear. Hermione and Draco + “who hurt you?”

Draco Malfoy was a lot of things, the majority of which were less than desirable to any sensible person, but one thing he was not was late. His punctuality was a point of pride, in a sea of arrogance no doubt, but Hermione had come to appreciate it over the course of their working relationship. It was something she could rely on, something immovable in an otherwise dangerously murky situation. He may needle her ceaselessly and leave her to do the lions share of the paperwork, but he was always there when he was expected, an effortless air of smugness clinging to him like bad cologne.

This Sunday, however; this unremarkable, overcast Sunday in late September he was late. It was the day after her 24th birthday as well as their final meeting. The report had been ostensibly completed, the field work essentially finished, and the conclusion inevitably drawn. After the better part of a year dedicating 1/3rd of every weekend to spending most of the day with Malfoy, Hermione's Sundays were about to become her own once more; a prospect she was not all that excited about.

Everytime the chirp of the bell above the door announced a new arrival, she would glance over, expecting to see a shock of platinum hair above a signature sneer and everytime, she was disappointed.

"Another tea, miss?" The waitress asked, her expression a perfect blend of professionalism and pity.

"No, no thank you." Hermione spared another look out the window, searching for him among the crowd. "Actually, I think I'm done here. Could I get the check?"

Bundled up against the autumn chill, Hermione paid and left the Cafe' and it's memories behind. It wasn't quite noon yet, and the streets were slowly filling with the townspeople emerging to go about their days. She smiled at a few passersby but was otherwise lost in her own thoughts as she made her way to the Apparition point.

Maybe Malfoy had just decided their final meeting wasn't all that important. To be fair it was more of a formality than anything else. His decision to not show would have no negative consequence on anything other than her feelings. Feelings, of course, that she was deliberately not thinking about.

As she rounded the corner, absorbed in her denial, she didn't see him until it was too late. With an audible "oof" she ran straight into Malfoy, colliding chest to chest. She immediately bounced off but he caught her arm before she could hit the sidewalk.

"What--Malfoy?"

"Graceful as always, Granger." He let her go and she stared, wide eyed and confused, at the state of his face.

"Merlin! Your face it's--"

"Your manners leave so very much to be desired." He looked cross but it was hard to tell beneath the bruising. An ugly, mottled patch of purple marred the left side of his face, stark and violent against his pale skin. It was fresh, the edges red with the recent impact, and it appeared to have just narrowly missed his eye.

"Malfoy," she reached her hand out, ghosting her fingertips over the bruise. "What happened?"

He sneered at her and jerked away. "Keep your obligatory Gryffindor concern to yourself, Granger."

"It's not an obligation!"

"Says the war hero."

"Will you--ugh!" She huffed and dragged him back around the corner, off of the sidewalk and into an alley. "What happened?" She repeated.

"Nothing."

"Malfoy."

He looked around, deliberately avoiding making eye contact with her. "I made a wrong turn at Diagon Alley, is all."

"A wrong turn?" The incredulity in her voice was palpable. "To where? A boxing ring?"

"Just drop it, Granger."

"I will not just drop it. Look--look at your face!" She closed the space between them. "Malfoy, please. What happened?"

He sighed and the rigidity of his shoulders softened. "I forgot, okay? I went to Flourish and Blotts to get you your bloody birthday gift and when I left, I ran into some adoring fans."

"What--"

"Our former school chums don't take kindly to my presence in Diagon Alley and, after our last little spat, I'd forgotten the warning they'd left me with." Malfoy's jaw tensed and he squinted up into the clouded sunlight. "They took it upon themselves to remind me."

Hermione balled her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. "Who?"

"It doesn't matter, Granger."

"Who?" She took a steadying breath. "Who hurt you?"

"I don't know. I vaguely recognized them from Hogwarts. It's fine."

It wasn't fine. It was categorically not fine. Malfoy was hardly the first of their class that had been on the wrong side of the war to be attacked. Harry had spent a significant amount of time trying to dispel such violent grudges and, to the best of her knowledge, it had been handled. Clearly, she was mistaken.

"We need to report this to the Ministry. Harry needs--"

"Absolutely fucking not." Malfoy gave her an indignant look. "The last person that needs to hear about this is Saint Potter."

"Malfoy, Harry's job is dealing with--"

"No, Granger. I said no."

"So what? Those nasty little insects just get to get away with it? No. I refuse. We didn't go to bloody war--"

"I was on the wrong side of that war, remember? So, yeah, we did go to war for this exact scenario to exist." He could see the lack of effect his words were having written across her face. "Granger. Please. I don't want this to become another of your crusades."

She reeled as if she'd been slapped. "Crusades?! Malfoy, it's about the injustice of it! You don't deserve to be attacked in the streets for something you did nearly ten years ago!"

"The court of public opinion begs to differ."

"Oh they'll beg alright," she snapped. At her genuine anger, his features softened and Malfoy gave her an unreadable look before looking away.

"You're such a fucking Gryffindor." He said it with an air of affection, though, and it helped to ground her back in the now.

"Thank you." Once more she placed her hand upon his bruised cheek and, to her surprise, he leaned into the touch. Her breathe caught in her lungs and she swallowed. "We--we should take care of that."

"It's just a simple spell. I'll handle it."

"No," she insisted and stepped away from him. "I will. It's the least I can do."

"This is hardly your fault."

"You went to Diagon Alley for me, remember?" She looked him up and down. "Speaking of..."

"I've been attacked and you're worrying over your stupid gift?" His tone was lighter than it had been since she'd ran into him.

"Of course I am. It's not everyday the evil Draco Malfoy buys you a gift." Hermione nodded to the Apparition point behind them. "Let's go."

"What about the Cafe? You can't honestly expect me to deny our Waitress her weekly opportunity to oogle at me." He gestured to his outfit: an expensive and perfectly tailored muggle suit that Hermione had forced him to buy after he showed up to their first meeting in robes.

"I've already been. It'd been weird to go back now. Besides, I think the bruise will overshadow your fancy slacks."

"Women like a man with scars."

She snorted. "It's hardly a battle scar, you git." when he gave her a pleading look, she rolled her eyes and looked around, to make sure they were alone. Satisfied with the lack of muggles, Hermione drew her wand and tapped it gently to his cheek. The static heat of magic bloomed between them and the ugly purple faded away, leaving his pale cheek unblemished once more. "There."

In the process of her healing, Malfoy had stepped completely into her personal space and the look he was giving her was heavy, deliberate.

"This isn't over, Malfoy. I'll find out who did this, with or without your help. They don't get to just attack you and get away with it."

"I'm hardly a weakling, Granger. I fought back."

"Good. It'll make them easier to identify."

"You're not going to let this go." It was not a question.

"No. I'm not."

"Why?"

"Because." She gave him a defiant look and he tipped her chin up with his hand. "You're my--"

"What? I'm your what?"

"Friend?"

"Is that all?" He was dangerous, but in a completely different way to the bully he'd been in their youth.

"That depends."

"On?"

"On what you got me for my birthday." She grinned and he laughed, pressing his forehead to hers a moment before pulling away and offering her his arm. She looped hers around it and let him steer them back in the direction of the Cafe.

After a lunch of finger sandwiches and tea, Malfoy finally handed her a perfectly wrapped gift that she immediately tore into. It was the latest book in a series on beasts that Rolf Scamander had been releasing, and it wasn't supposed to be out for another week.

"How did you get this?"

Malfoy shrugged, as if it was the least important thing in the world. "Money is an exceptionally good incentive."

"I love it. Thank you." She beamed at him and he cleared his throat as if it would distract her from the flush creeping up his neck.

"It's no big deal, Granger."

"To you maybe. It is to me. You know how I feel about birthday gifts." They both thought back to the spectacle she'd made of his back in June.

"I did fight for my life while I was out getting it." He grinned but the smile faded at the sharp look she gave him. "I'm joking, of course. Just a little fisticuffs, nothing serious."

"I'm sorry, Malfoy. I really am. You didn't have to go all the way to Diagon Alley for this."

"Sure I did."

"Just submitting your half of the report would be gift enough."

"Lucky for you I've done both. Besides, I'm sick of using that bloody report as an excuse to be around you." Hermione blinked, unable to process the weight of what he'd said. At the shock on her face, he shrugged again. "Come on, Granger. You can't possibly think I care about work this much."

"I--you--what?"

He leaned forward and captured her chin in his hand. "My fierce, naive little lion. You're horribly dense." Malfoy gave her a soft kiss on the forehead and pulled away. "Let's go before the Waitress gets jealous."

"But. What."

"I've rendered the great Hermione Granger speechless. I am truly magnificent." His laugh brought her to her senses and she launched herself across the table to kiss him.

"Sod the waitress."

She did, in the end, figure out who hurt him and in true Hermione Granger fashion, made them rue the day they laid hands upon someone she loves.

[bittersweetmorality]

— chuuya boyfriend headcannons (sfw & nsfw)+ drabble

☾ genre: SFW and NSFW Headcannons (NSFW section is marked-- 18+)

☾ pairing: Nakahara Chuuya x GN!reader (reader is given the name ‘mommy’ in the drabble)

☾ warnings: none for the SFW– general smut for the NSFW ??

☾ w/c: 1,978 words

☾ a/n: hey lol :D as a certified chuuya fucker, i just had to.  i literally have like three other chuuya drafts that i’m currently working on.  hopefully they turn out like i want and i can post them bc :| the chuuya tag is starving.  anyway i hope i can populate it just a tad.  thanks for reading bugs !

— SFW 

lemme start off by saying that he will treat yo ass RIGHT.  ON MY MOMMA.

not to bring his trauma into this already but :| my man has major abandonment issues.  he will not do anything to jeopardize your relationship, and he honestly just values your happiness above anything else

you just know how much he cares about the fellow members of the mafia– even though they don’t requite the same amount of love that he gives them, he still loves them wholeheartedly

even dazai

little shit

his love language is definitely touch and gift-giving.  no i don’t accept criticism because i’m right

you’re telling me he wouldn’t absolutely spoil you with expensive gifts ?? mans is a mafia executive– he’s making hella bank, and he is spending it all on you

he’s also definitely a pretty clingy significant other, but good luck trying to get him to admit that :|

his life is… well… yaknow

there’s always a lot going on there..... he’s stresst

he wants nothing more than to just hold you in his arms after a long day-- especially if he just came back from a hard day at work

times like this are when he’s most clingy-- he feels like he almost lost you, and now he never wants to let you go

many, many times he’s fallen asleep like this; you’re basically suffocating in his grip as his eyelids flutter closed, either on the couch or your bed

but of course you’re not going to complain

and he’s so glad you don’t

he’s also the type to almost never explicitly say that he loves you at first, it’s simply not something that comes naturally to him

instead he indulges in his love languages profusely, and he just hopes you get the message

he’s also afraid that you’ll leave him if he says something like that, so for a long time he doesn’t :(

so when you come home to a bottle of expensive wine wrapped in an exquisite red ribbon, you know he just wants to tell you how much he loves you

eventually, of course he’s comfortable with you enough to say it, and it comes completely natural

and since he’s such a romantic, he says it every morning when you wake up, and before you go to bed without fail

he’s definitely the type to show you off too

like, as he’s having a conversation with someone, he’ll suddenly get really loud when talking about you so everyone within a three-mile radius can hear

“well, you see i would go out drinking with you tonight, but i actually have a date.  with my partner.  you know them, right?  here’s a picture i took of them a few days ago, just look a-”

also: biggest hype man

you could open a jar of jam and he’d be like “holy shit, you go babe”

nakahara chuuya kiss me rn challenge

anyway, basically he’ll love and support you no matter what

like truly you’re like a walking ray of sunshine to him

anyway !!!! DATES !!!!!!!

dates with chuuya are planned.  always.

like i SAID he’s a hopeless ROMANTIC MY GOD

he absolutely loves picking you up at your doorstep and taking you for a ride around town on his motorcycle

speaking of which, your arms wrapping around his middle and squeezing him tight as he drives the bike is literally his favorite thing in the world.  oh my god you’re going to make him melt

and i know for a fact your first kiss with him was after he dropped you off at your door when your first date was at its end

it was almost completely perfect honestly, except when your faces were just mere inches from one another, his hat bumped into your forehead and fell to the ground

baby was so embarrassed-- he went bright red and picked up his hat, basically shielding his face

he just wanted the date to be completely perfect– and it was!! until that happened

but obviously you just let out a light giggle and pulled him against you, and he quickly closed the gap between your lips

also, chuuya sleeps in

he sleeps a lot <33

that being said he loves lazy mornings

it’s well past 11, but you’re still laying in his arms– who is he to get up?? and disturb the peace??????

he will not.

also!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i can’t even emphasize this enough, but please comb your fingers through his hair

there’s a chance he might melt into a puddle on the spot and never recover but still

on the rare occasion where he’s the little spoon--

(which, speaking of which, @dazai-centric​ has a headcannon that chuuya always insists on being the big spoon no matter what, but on rare occasions he lets himself be wrapped up in your arms and THEY’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.)

anyway, so on this rare occasion

where his head is basically buried in the junction between your shoulder and your neck, and you just rake your fingers through his hair softly

he dead.  dead as hell.

and ERRRRM.  kisses with him are just……… wow…………

naturally, he always wants to be the best at everything-- it’s just his personality

and kisses are no exception

he has to be the BEST

and he is

so, kisses are always so passionate and rough

okay hold on maybe this should go under the NSFW category 😐

ANYWAY!!!! 19472946/10 boyfriend

— NSFW

so rough sex is very common for y’all 😁

he likes to take his frustrations out from the day like this, and honestly you don’t complain

he definitely has a high sex drive so 😁

obviously you have an established safe-word and talk about everything before anything transpires because the LAST thing he wants is to hurt you in any way

but if you ask him to spank you he is definitely not gunna say no <3 chuuya said spanking kink

speaking of kinks

bondage xoxo

this goes both ways— he likes to tie your wrists to the headboard with rope and tie your legs down if you’re okay with it

for him, he likes his wrists cuffed to the bed

but he definitely doesn’t like all of his power stripped away by having him completely tied up

also he loves eye contact

that’s why missionary and mating press are his favorite positions <3

he likes to grab you by the jaw and make you look at him when he’s fucking you

“hey, hey, princess what did we say? if you want to cum, look me in the eyes when i fuck you, yeah?”

he loves praise and degradation equally

but if you’re degrading him don’t go too far :((

degrade slightly him while he’s on the bottom and he’s putty in your hands

now, if you praise him while he’s on top, get ready to not be able to walk for the next 3-5 business days because that’ll feed his ego a LOOOT

and he’ll just get lost in the moment because he loves you....... so much

he degrades you slightly, but only during foreplay

he calls you his little slut, or his whore

“aw, so wet for me and we’re barely getting started, doll.  such a little whore, aren’t you?”

when you actually get into it, it’s all praise from him

he wants you to know how important you are to him, how good you feel and just everything on his mind

he loses his filter in the moment awn god

“so fucking perfect, i only want you.  you’re mine.  god, you feel so fucking good.”

he loves to hear you too-- it really feeds his ego

but sometimes if he’s really had a rough day, he’ll make you gag on his finger or wrap his hand around your neck

he doesn’t squeeze too hard nor genuinely make you gag, he just likes the way your eyes are barely able to meet his because he’s making you feel so good

but ANYWAY pet names are a MUST with him

he calls you doll, sweetheart, princess, baby, dove, doll

basically every sweet name under the sun during sex

he likes you to call him sir 😁

this man has no shame when it comes to noise

like absolutely none

since he’s possessive, he wants people to know he’s fucking you, and how good he feels because of you

no one else can make him feel that way and he wants everyone to know

so he’s LOOOUUUDD,,,, especially in your ear

he likes leaning down and moaning in your ear, just to get a reaction out of you

he makes fun of you for it later on, and you have his full permission to smack that smug little smirk off his face

but the amount of times you had to stop mid-way because y’all got knocks on your door from your neighbours 😐 they’re so sick of y’all

on average, you have sex at least 4 times a week

that’s not including quickies tho

did i mention that chuuya loves quickies <3

especially when it’s in his office and he fucks you on his desk

and because he doesn’t care who hears him-- you bet your ass the entire Port Mafia has heard you

he likes to go down on you for quickies more than actual sex, and he will respectfully never decline a blowjob

because he’s a gentleman

anyway

sorry to any of y’all who have a breeding kink,,, but chuuya definitely does not

he’s so afraid of having kids

moving on

onto sub!chuuya

did somebody say SWITCH 🤨☝️

chuuya did <3

now for a long time he doesn’t really let his submissive side out because,,, it’s a really vulnerable part of him yaknow?

but after a while, and after he’s completely trusted you to take care of him like that

oh boy

bottom bitch <3

still loud as HELL

except it’s less of moaning and more of whining

he’s such a whiner

and a brat

mommy kink mommy kink mommy kink mommy kink mo

also i don’t really know how else to describe it but-- if you force him to look you in the eyes and use a stern tone

..........dead.  dead as hell.

now take this drabble as a tribute to sub!chuuya

“and why should i listen to you?  what are you gunna do?” chuuya furrowed his brows at you, as if he was challenging you.

“aw, baby,” you leaned down from your position of straddling him, caging his head between your arms.  “you still have so much to say even though your hands are handcuffed to the bed.  so bold, aren’t you?” you stroked his lower lip gently, and he whimpered lowly in response.

suddenly, you sat up, getting into a position to prepare to get up off of him completely, “but, you’re right.  what am i going to do?  i guess i’ll just leave you here for the rest of the night.  go-”

“WAIT!! NO- I-” he bit his lip to stop any more words from escaping him.

“’wait’?  is there something you wanna say, baby?” your legs trapped his once again.

“... please.”

he averted your gaze, and you reached down to grip his jaw sternly, moving his head to face you completely.

“please what?”

no answer.

“you know i can’t read your mind, baby.  you’re going to have to use your w-”

“please fuck me.” the words tumbled out of his mouth, almost too quickly to even be audible, still, your lips shifted into a gentle smile.

but you weren’t completely content with him yet.

“and what’s my name?”

“...mommy.”

“and you want mommy to fuck you, is that right?”

“...yes.  please...”

you planted a passionate kiss onto his lips, and upon breaking it, you shifted closer to his ear.

“well, i can’t say no since you asked so nicely, now can i?”

masterlist

[the-widow-sisters]

Tracing My Love

Summary: When Yelena is bored one day, Natasha asks Yelena to lay her head on Natasha's lap. Yelena is confused until her sister introduces her to a gentle activity that fully satiates the touch-starved beast within Yelena. Just innocent sister fluff.

Word Count: 2093

  “I’m bored,” Yelena whined, drawing the last word out in a much too dramatic fashion. She could feel Natasha’s gaze upon her as she looked up from the book that she had stuffed her nose into.

  “Go for a run,” Natasha suggested, and Yelena shook her head from her position on the other side of the couch, just groaning loudly.

  “It’s too hot and miserable for that,” Yelena informed her, looking at her older sister and taking in the unhidden grin spreading across the redhead’s face.

  “You could get one of those nasty slushie things you like,” Natasha spoke, and Yelena scoffed immediately in reply.

  “The store is not open on Sundays. Besides, the slushies are a delicacy. Second only to vodka,” Yelena informed her, and Natasha just grinned a bit wider, a laugh rising in her throat, and Yelena felt quite satisfied with herself for bringing such emotion to the redhead.

  “So that must be why you like them,” Natasha suddenly piped up in response. Yelena shifted her gaze to her in slight confusion.

  “What?” Yelena asked, suspicion in her voice as she noted how smug and pleased that Natasha sounded with herself. She had to admit that it was quite nice to have the privilege of hearing Natasha’s voice in such a pleasing, happy tone.

  “You must be mixing vodka in so you can’t taste the actual slushie,” Natasha told her, keeping her voice perfectly level, and Yelena narrowed her eyes a little in a playful glare. Natasha’s light greens were sparkling with mirth as she glanced up from the book.

  “Ha,” Yelena just faked a short bark of laughter.

  “There’s food in the kitchen,” Natasha suggested, and Yelena just pouted a little in response to the statement.

  “There is no sour cream and onion chips,” Yelena shot down her sister’s proposal,

  “I bought some for you yesterday.”

  “Yeah, about that… I finished the bag yesterday,” Yelena admitted with a slight grin, completely unashamed of her feat, and Natasha’s eyes widened a little

  “Seriously?!” Natasha questioned, some surprise in her voice as she looked up from her novel once again to gaze at Yelena.

  “What?! I’m a growing girl, you know!” Yelena defensively declared, and Natasha just shook her head with mock disappointment.

  “If you keep downing a whole bag of potato chips all at one time, you’re going to grow. Not sure if you’re going to like how you do, though,” Natasha commented, raising her eyebrows.

  Yelena brought her foot up, gently kicking Natasha’s arm that was holding up the book. However, she overdramatically did it, so it looked like she was putting more effort into it than she actually was. Natasha skillfully kept her hold on the book, just trading hands as she kept reading.

  Yelena groaned before scooting over closer to Natasha, her eyes locked onto the side of Natasha’s face. She eased ever nearer to the redhead, and she finally was close enough to rest her chin on Natasha’s shoulder as she lazily raked her gaze over the words inside the book, not truly reading any of it. Natasha raised an eyebrow, craning her neck slightly and looking down at the blonde.

  Yelena just shifted her honey-green eyes upward to meet Natasha’s.

  “What are you reading?” Yelena questioned curiously, and Natasha huffed a little. She delivered a swift, soft kiss to the center of Yelena’s forehead before looking back down at the book.

  “Probably nothing you’re going to find interesting.”

  “Try me,” Yelena challenged, and Natasha simply looked down at the younger girl with blatant skepticism evident in her stare.

  “I will have you know that I am very educated in the world of literary… ness,” Yelena proclaimed, her voice a little uncertain despite the bravado she forced into it. Natasha just chuckled fondly, shaking her head a little.

  “It’s Gone with the Wind,” Natasha told her, and Yelena wrinkled her nose with disgust. She tilted her head, trying to get a better look at the cover. She scoffed as she spotted a man and a woman on the front in a loving embrace.

  “Are you sure this is appropriate reading material?” Yelena asked, trying and failing to hold back the laugh in her voice. Natasha raised an eyebrow with slight confusion, not exactly understanding Yelena’s mirth.

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “It looks like it has some… adult themes,” Yelena suggestively spoke, waggling her eyebrows ridiculously, and Natasha finally flipped the book to actually take the time to look at the cover. She quickly caught on, just laughing at the younger girl. Yelena chuckled but awaited an answer.

  “No, no, none of that. Just pure romance. Not anything too out there.”

  “Ick. Sounds sappy,” Yelena blew her off, her chin still resting on Natasha’s shoulder heavily, and she noticed out of her peripheral vision that Natasha was rolling her eyes in reply to her.

  “Natashka, I’m bored,” Yelena drew the words out tiredly, unable to think of anything she wanted to do and hoping that her awesome big sister would think of something. Natasha finally put down the book on the table nearby, pursing her lips ever so slightly as she grew lost in thought.

  After a painstakingly long moment of this, Natasha seemed almost as if she had settled upon something or came to some conclusion or another. She looked at Yelena and shifted slightly so that Yelena would raise her head from its place on her shoulder. Yelena felt the need to complain about the loss of her comfy place, but she held her tongue, curious as to what Natasha was coming up with.

  Natasha looked at her for a long moment before finally speaking.

  “Lay down,” Natasha patted her lap, and Yelena started to do it without question, eager to take advantage of her sister’s offered affections. However, she quickly paused in the middle of her movements, looking at Natasha skeptically.

  “Wait… Why?” Yelena asked, and Natasha rolled her eyes fondly, nothing but warmth in her eyes.

  “Just do it,” Natasha told her, and Yelena hesitantly complied, not sure what to expect but trusting Natasha nevertheless. She was not sure if she was being lured into a tickle trap so she carefully kept her arms clamped to her sides once her head was in Natasha’s lap.

  “Relax. No tickle fights,” Natasha assured her, and Yelena loosened, hearing the genuineness in the redhead’s voice. She hesitantly slid her arms up so that they were resting on either side of her head and across Natasha’s lap.

  To her surprise, Natasha rolled up the back of her shirt, and Yelena stiffened just barely. She quickly loosened up, though, trusting Natasha wholeheartedly. Before she could ask what the older woman was doing, she suddenly felt feather-light touches raking across her back gently.

  She almost shivered from the feeling, and her eyes were open wide as Natasha’s digits tickled barely along her back, tender across her skin.

  “I’m going to trace a word on your back, and you’ve got to tell me what it is,” Natasha explained, her voice soft and quiet, and Yelena just nodded barely, worried that if she even breathed wrong that the attentions would stop. The ministrations were unlike anything she had ever felt, and it made her mind completely overload with the sensations of the most trusted person in her life touching her so lovingly and so gently.

  Y-E-L-E-N-A.

  Natasha stopped once she had spelled it out, and it took Yelena a painfully long moment to respond to the redhead as she tried to get her thoughts back in order from the overwhelmingly kind touches.

  “Yelena,” Yelena answered softly, finding herself eager for the next word that would be traced if only to feel Natasha’s gentle fingers running across her back.

  “Good job,” Natasha softly praised, and Yelena felt her chest constricting with something that was so purely the love of an adoring little sister that thought her older sister’s praise was as valuable as the air she breathed. Of course, she would never admit this to herself, but it nevertheless was an emotion that was coursing through every fiber of her being.

  “Two words this time,” Natasha explained quietly, and Yelena almost impatiently awaited her sister’s tender touches.

  S-W-E-E-T.

  G-I-R-L.

  “Sweet girl?” Yelena asked, almost embarrassed as she uttered one of Natasha’s special nicknames for her.

  “That’s it,” Natasha quietly agreed, and Yelena felt herself melting even further with the love in her voice.

  It was all that Yelena had ever wanted in her life. She had just wanted her sister’s affection, approval, and love. While she felt ridiculous on one hand for finding such satisfaction and pure happiness from a silly game like this, on the other hand it was something she craved deeply.

  Natasha soon started writing again.

  L-A-P-O-C-H-K-A.

  “Lapochka,” Yelena affirmed, feeling a slight smile coming to her face, and Natasha chuckled warmly.

  “Thought I’d switch languages and make it a little more complicated,” Natasha told her, and her voice was filled with nothing but affection. Yelena felt herself inflating a little with the loving, proud tone in Natasha’s voice. She knew she had really accomplished nothing significant, but it was still a huge deal to her that Natasha approved even of something as dumb as guessing a word right.

  Natasha traced another word on her back, and Yelena concentrated on it carefully.

  “Rooskaya,” Yelena acknowledged, and Natasha swept a hand across her back as if she were erasing the word. Yelena closed her eyes, enjoying the contact from someone that she trusted so deeply.

  “I,” Yelena read once Natasha wrote and paused for a while. It was confusing to her, and she did not know what exactly Natasha meant by just one letter.

  Natasha swept a hand across her and started again. Yelena furrowed her brow as she felt the letters across her back.

  “Love,” Yelena spoke, and Natasha started writing again, her finger moving carefully along Yelena’s skin.

  “You,” Yelena finished, and she quickly realized that Natasha had written her a message. Goosebumps covered Yelena’s back, and Yelena moved her head so that her chin was on top of Natasha’s leg. She looked up at the redhead, feeling her heart overflowing with pure adoration. Natasha was looking down at her softly, her eyes warm with care.

  Yelena felt her lips tugging down at the corners just a little, and she valiantly fought the tears of love, happiness, and awe that were threatening to come over her. She moved a bit closer to Natasha, burying her face into the redhead’s stomach and wrapping her arms around Natasha’s waist slowly and tightly.

  She ordinarily would not have cried at her sister telling her that she loved her, but somehow, this time felt so much more meaningful. It was through that physical contact and affection that Yelena so craved and needed, and the fact that Natasha had somehow combined verbal and physical methods to tell her how she felt was almost more than Yelena could take.

  “Ya tebya lyublyu, Natashka,” Yelena spoke against Natasha, and Natasha ran her fingers through Yelena’s hair before gently pulling Yelena’s shirt back down over her back.

  “Ya tozhe tebya lyublyu, milaya devushka,” Natasha reciprocated, and Yelena just pressed herself against Natasha harder, feeling her body as it moved with her breaths.

  After a long moment of this and when Yelena was sure she could trust her voice again, she pulled away from Natasha and rolled over so that she was laying on her back with her head in Natasha’s lap.

  “Wait… Isn’t it your turn?” Yelena questioned softly with a slight quirk of her eyebrow, trying to convey more chill about this whole thing than she was really feeling. Natasha chuckled a little, reciprocating the eyebrow raise.

  “Sure,” Natasha replied easily, and Yelena sat up from her place in Natasha’s lap and straightening her legs on the couch so that Natasha could lay across her. Yelena just watched her expectantly, and Natasha smiled softly before laying her head down in Yelena’s lap carefully, her arms brought up so that her hands could gently hold onto Yelena’s leg.

  Yelena softly pulled back Natasha’s shirt and looked down at the slightly scarred canvas before her. She quietly thought for a moment before a wicked smirk came onto her face. She began to trace the word.

  Natasha was quiet for a moment, and Yelena finally reached the last letter, waiting eagerly for Natasha’s response. Sure enough, Natasha quickly caught on, and she spun on her side, looking up at Yelena with mock offense.

  “Poser?!”

  Yelena just cackled.

[thephantomessoftheopera]

Notes on Gaston Leroux‘s „The Phantom of the Opera“ - Chapter 27: „End of the Ghost‘s Love Story“

Artwork by @flaviamarquesart

<< Previous chapter

“End of the Ghost’s Love Story” is the most powerful chapter in the novel, because it reveals the full extent of Erik’s love for Christine. It is also the one that makes the story truly extraordinary, because it redeems his character and lifts him above the level of a gothic villain, who is usually defeated and punished in the end. This is why he is generally considered a “Byronic Hero” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byronic_hero). The Byronic hero is a complex, often tragic form of romantic anti-hero who is generally more villain than traditional hero, but who has at least one redeeming quality (usually connected to love) which makes him a sympathetic figure despite his flaws and/or crimes. The character type was created by the English poet Lord Byron in his works such as “The Corsair” and “Don Juan”, and became extremely popular in the 19th century. Except for his looks, Erik fits that classic character type in almost all other aspects (highly intelligent, tortured, violent, ruthless, manipulative and driven by an all-consuming passion).

The chapter’s title also makes it clear that the whole thing is a love story at its core - everything in the novel happened because Erik fell in love with Christine. It is, and has always been, the story of Erik’s love - he is the one character we follow up until the end.

The final chapter is narrated by Leroux again, but it draws on what the Persian supposedly told him when he went to visit him in his flat in the rue de Rivoli. When the Persian wakes up after losing consciousness in the water, he and Raoul are resting in the Louis-Philippe room, and Erik and Christine are taking care of them. Raoul has already woken up before the Persian, and is now asleep again.

The room itself astounds the Persian in how ordinary and old-fashioned it looks, and how much it contrasts with Erik’s general appearance (remember that the Persian had never been in Erik’s house before). Erik explains to him that the furniture once belonged to his mother, which explains why the style is so different from his bedroom, which is decidedly more „Erik“. The Persian also wonders why Christine, who is moving silently through the room and then sitting down beside the fireplace, ignores both Raoul and himself when tries to call her. The Persian believes that Christine is reading “The Imitation of Christ”, which is significant and which I will come back to a little later. The “opposites” theme is also present in this scene again, describing Erik’s figure as black and a demon, and Christine’s as white and an angel. The Persian finally falls asleep again.

When he wakes for the second time, Erik has already delivered him back to his flat according to the promise he made to “his wife”. The Persian immediately sends to find out what happened to Raoul, and learns that Raoul has disappeared and that Philippe’s body has been found on the shore of the lake under the opera house. The Persian has no doubt that Philippe was drowned by Erik (or “the siren”), and decides to denounce him to the police. However, his testimony is ridiculed, and he - like Raoul - is taken for a lunatic. The Persian then decides to write everything down and later hands his manuscript to Leroux (which is what we’ve been reading in these last chapters).

When he has finished writing his account down, Erik comes to visit him. He is clearly unwell and described as weak, leaning against the wall and “pale as a sheet”. The Persian accuses him of murdering Philippe and wants to know what happened to Raoul and Christine, whether they are dead or alive. Erik denies murdering Philippe, but the Persian doesn’t believe him. We don’t really know the truth though, so the “murder mystery” has no definite resolution and turns into more of a side note.

Erik tells the Persian that he is about to “die of love” for Christine. As I’ve mentioned before, I believe that the most likely physical cause of his death would really be the gunshot that Raoul fired at him, and a possible infection following that injury which would lead to his precarious state of health as seen in this chapter. This could metaphorically also be described as “dying of love” (because he wouldn’t have caught that bullet if he hadn’t been in love).

After turning the scorpion, Christine begged him to save Raoul, and she had already offered before to accept his proposal if he gave her the key to the torture chamber, but Erik did not care then, because he did not believe her. But when she swears to him that she will become his “living wife”, it‘s different as he finally sees in her eyes what he has been hoping to see - Christine’s genuine commitment. She means to go through with her promise and is accepting him as her husband at that moment - and this is why her commitment is powerful enough to break through to him.

According to their agreement, Erik takes the Persian aboveground, but since Raoul probably wouldn’t agree to leave, Erik drugs him and locks him up in the dungeon beneath the fifth cellar. Then he returns to Christine, who stands calmly waiting for him. Erik suddenly feels “shyer than a little child” as he approaches Christine, but she does not back away from him. He tenderly kisses her forehead and is overwhelmed with how good it feels to kiss her, as no woman has ever allowed him to, not even his mother. Christine even leans into his touch a little, and remains close to him after the kiss, „as if it were perfectly natural“.

Fear and disgust are very powerful, primal emotions, but Christine‘s feelings for Erik are strong enough to overcome both. Considering that no one, not even the Persian, was able to even look at Erik’s face without horror, I feel that Christine must have cared very deeply for him, as she allows his kiss without fear and without recoiling from him at all, even after everything he has put her through.

He falls at her feet and starts crying of happiness, and seeing his tears, Christine starts to cry as well. Erik tears off his mask so that he won’t lose any of her tears on his skin, and still Christine shows no sign of horror or disgust. And she doesn’t only allow him to touch her, but she also touches him of her own free will and takes his hand, saying “poor, unhappy Erik”. I feel that this is the moment when the full expanse of his life’s tragedy truly hits her. She is not only the first woman, but the first person in his entire life to treat him with tenderness and acceptance.

Gratitude and love for her overwhelm him and make him realize that he has forced her choice. He puts the gold wedding ring into her hand, setting her free and telling her that he knows she loves Raoul and that she is free to go and marry him whenever she pleases. He „calmly cuts his heart to pieces“ and puts her happiness before his own in this final expression of true love and sacrifice. For as damaged as he was, the ending proves that Erik truly loved Christine because his love is ultimately selfless. There is also no bitterness in his feelings towards Christine after she leaves - he has always loved her, and still continues to love her. He still feels protective of her: “I’d better not hear that anyone has touched a single hair on her head!” Christine gave him “all the happiness in the world”, and he is grateful to her for this gift. His love for her redeems him as a character and proves to be his moral compass - before, he considered himself “outside the human race” and therefore not bound by common moral values.

In the previous chapter, Christine is shown reading what the Persian believes to be “The Imitation of Christ”. I don’t think that is a coincidence, and I also believe that the name “Christine” was perhaps even chosen for her on purpose (she was originally named Pauline, according to Leroux’s manuscript). Christine becomes a “Christ figure” here in two ways: through her sacrifice, she saves the lives of Raoul, the Persian and everyone in the Opera. But she also offers acceptance and love to a sinner, an outcast who has been shunned by society - and this is an extremely powerful gesture. She possessed the strength necessary to see Erik as a human being, and that is what sets her apart from everyone else. Her love here transcends the realm of romantic love and becomes almost divine - all-encompassing, forgiving, healing.

Christine may superficially fit the traditional image of a “damsel in distress”, but the would-be hero who was coming to rescue her didn’t get very far, nor could he do anything to save her. The only hero who saved Christine was Christine herself - and she also saved everyone else: Raoul, the Persian, everyone in the Opera, and Erik. Both Christine and Erik show incredible bravery in this chapter: Christine‘s bravery shows in her truly accepting Erik as a man and in saving Raoul, and Erik‘s bravery consists in letting her go, relinquishing his one chance in his life of having everything he has ever dreamed of.

Erik then goes to free Raoul and brings him to Christine, where Raoul and Christine kiss. Christine swears to Erik that she will come back to bury him with the ring, and then she finally kisses him before they leave.

Seeing Erik weeping and overcome with emotion, the Persian no longer doubts him. Erik tells the Persian that when he feels he is close to dying, he will send the letters that Christine had left with him and a few of her personal objects to him, and that this would be the cue for the Persian to put an obituary notice in the newspaper so that Christine and Raoul would know. Interestingly, that entire arrangement hinged on Erik himself announcing his death without anyone confirming it, because he could only mail things to the Persian if he was still alive. This leaves a lot of blank space for the reader’s imagination, because who knows if he really died…? The Persian, at least, never saw him again, but announced three weeks later that “Erik is dead”.

Next chapter >>

[depressing-debbie]

Hi I love your blog! Can you do the fluff alphabet for Mikasa?? 🏳‍🌈

YES I love Mikasa <3

Sorry these take forever because they are a COMMITMENT to sit down and write, but they’re also so fun!!

Fluff Alphabet: Mikasa

A ctivities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

She honestly just wants to be with them, but on special date nights, she would love to go to the park for a walk or maybe an art gallery. Probably her favorite activity with her SO is stargazing, just the two of them curled up on a blanket admiring the sky, it’s so intimate.

B eauty - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

She is absolutely enchanted by her SO. She loves the way they blush just slightly when they smile, the way they dance to their music when they think nobody’s watching. She memorized all of their tiny unique mannerisms because they’re just so charming. Everything about them is so stunning.

C omfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

She’s not great with her words, but she has such a determination to comfort them. If they were having a panic attack, she’d make sure to get them somewhere quiet and calm. She’d offer to just wrap them up in her arms, or to sit quietly with them. If they were just having a bad day or feeling down, she would clear her schedule so she didn’t have to leave their side all day. She’d lay their head in her lap, running her hands through their hair, and either letting them vent, or talking to distract them. She hates seeing them upset, and her protective instincts kick in instantly.

D reams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

She doesn’t think about the future. Since she was little, she’s had to live in the moment and think on her feet, so she never really lets herself start to make plans. But, once she started getting serious with her SO, she probably let herself have just a little bit of faith in the future. I don’t think she fantasizes about the typical domestic life, but she does love the idea of stability. In general, she just wants more time with her SO.

E qual - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

Equal, leaning towards Mikasa being a bit more dominant. She tends to fall into the role of protector for her SO, literal or figurative, but there’s obviously nothing definite. She needs to be protected sometimes, too.

F ight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

She doesn’t fight over petty things and serious fights don’t happen often, but when they do, it can be pretty rough. She doesn’t yell or anything, in fact, she gets very quiet, and it’s obvious that her feelings are hurt whenever they fight. She’s good at finding compromises, though, because she really hates fighting. Her goal is never to hurt her SO back, even if they said something that accidentally hurt her, because she hates making them upset.

G ratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

This baby is sooo grateful! She’s so used to being the one supporting other people, so each time her SO goes out of their way to show their affection or do something for her, she is so ridiculously honored and touched. She considers herself so lucky to have them in her life, and even though it’s awkward, she voices it as much as she can.

H onesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

She would never hide anything from her SO that involves them or could hurt them. For the most part, she’s an open book. But there’s obviously a lot in her life that she would have reason to suppress and not talk about, in addition to the fact that she has trouble voicing her feelings. Even still, I think she would make an effort to talk about her past in the name of total transparency in the relationship.

I nspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

I think they inspire each other. She’s such a calming presence, so I think her SO, especially if they’re a pretty anxious person, might become a bit more relaxed around her. On the other hand, Mikasa is absolutely inspired by them every day. She allows herself to depend on them and open up to them, even having some hope for the future. I know it sounds cheesy, but they genuinely remind her that there is so much happiness in the world.

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

For the most part, she’s not a jealous person. But, she’s human, so of course she gets jealous once in a while. She trusts her SO without a doubt, but it makes her uncomfortable when she can tell someone is flirting with them. If it makes them uncomfortable as well, she’s scaring that person off instantly. When she does get jealous, she probably just goes to her SO for a hug and a quick reminder that she’s more than enough for them. It’s never caused a fight or anything.

K iss - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?

Their first was just a small, soft little kiss early in the morning, and I think they probably kept that tradition of tiny kisses. Mikasa isn’t an overly affectionate person, but she expresses a lot with just a little kiss, maybe even on their forehead. It may not be what people would consider “passionate” but there’s still so much behind it.

L ove Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

She probably thought about it for a bit, but she had no idea she was going to confess when she did. They were absolutely stargazing in the park, and she looked over and thought about just how amazing her SO is, so it just came out. She wasn’t even really embarrassed afterwards; if anything, she was overwhelmed by how easily she had said it. And it’s not something that she throws around all the time after that, especially because she has trouble with vulnerability. Every time she says she loves them, she means it.

M arriage - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?

She doesn’t really fantasize about getting married like some people do, but it’s not something she would be opposed to. Personally, she feels secure in her relationship no matter what, and she doesn’t need a document to tell her that she’s in love. But if it would hold meaning to her SO, she’s all over it. She would plan a quietly romantic proposal in private, probably somewhere significant to their relationship. Their wedding would be pretty small, just between themselves and close friends and family, celebrating their love. It would be beautifully planned, too.

N icknames - What do they call their s/o?

She probably uses “love” sometimes, but for the most part, she uses their name. It just sounds so nice, and it’s a little added connection between the two of them.

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

She’s not obvious at all when she’s in love, except to her SO. Anybody else she interacts with, even the closest family and friends, wouldn’t notice a thing. But her SO can absolutely see the way she stares at them with a quiet smile, thinking they don’t see it. And they notice the way she always needs some form of contact with them, whether it’s holding their hand or pressing next to them while sitting together. She does make an effort to express her feelings as much as she can, even if she has trouble being vulnerable.

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

She’s very private with her relationship. The most PDA anyone will see is her holding their hand underneath the table, or slowly sliding closer to them until their knees are pressed together. She also doesn’t really talk about it much. The people close to her absolutely know about the relationship, but she’s not one to brag; she just wants to keep the best parts of their relationship between the two of them.

Q uirk - Some random ability they have that's beneficial in a relationship.

She’s incredibly motivated. Sounds like it would be overwhelming for her SO, right?? Wrong. She channels that motivation into helping them, especially if they struggle with mental health and are somewhat unmotivated because of it. She’s that one person who volunteers to help clean someone’s depression room, and she’s her SO’s best support when they need to get something done. She loves being able to lift just a little bit of their stress by lending a hand.

R omance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?

She’s incredibly romantic! She loves finding little ways to make her SO smile and express how much she cares about them, so she’s definitely more creative. But, she also probably allows herself to indulge in some cliches once in a while because it’s something she never foresaw herself getting to do.

S upport - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

She’s their biggest cheerleader! She absolutely believes in her SO to no end, and she’d do whatever she can to help them reach their goals. She’s honestly inspired by their determination, and she knows that they have the ability to do anything they put their mind to.

T hrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

Probably a mix of both. She loves getting to experience new things with her SO, especially if it’s something they’re interested in. But for the most part, she feels so comfortable and safe in a routine, and she loves having something she can depend on to be the same. Besides, their routines are likely much more intimate than any new activity, and she adores getting to spend time with them like that.

U nderstanding - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

She’s practically a mind reader. It’s really just because she observed her SO at the start of their relationship, their mannerisms and reactions and opinions, and she took note of them all. Now, she can tell instantly what is going through their mind or how they are feeling, and she empathizes strongly, even if it’s not something she’s experienced.

V alue - How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?

Their relationship is so important to her. Since they became serious, she’s slowly allowed herself to open up and rely on them, trusting that they will be there for her, so I think it would be hard for her to lose that. But more than anything, she just wants them to be happy, whatever that means.

W ild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon

She tried to learn to cook for her SO as a surprise for their birthday. So she printed out recipes and bought the ingredients for their favorite foods, and before they were even awake, she started cooking. It didn’t turn out great, but they could tell she was so proud, and it was adorable. She probably had to try not to gag after the first bite, so if her SO ate any of it, she would be absolutely touched.

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

She’s not honestly an overly affectionate person, partially because she has trouble letting herself be vulnerable. She just expresses her love in different ways. But, especially if one of them had a bad day or if she’s tired, she will be very affectionate. She absolutely loves when her SO runs a hand through her hair as they lay together, and she feels so safe with her head in their lap as they trace little circles over her cheek. She also loves getting to wrap them up in her arms, their head pressed into her chest as if she can physically channel her emotions and love to them.

Y earning - How will they cope when they're missing their partner?

She’s definitely not a yearning type. She misses them, absolutely, but she also loves how independent and bold they are, and it makes her happy to see them out chasing life experiences they’re passionate about. She would probably check in on them each day they are gone, though, just to make sure they’re alright and to hear their voice. Otherwise, she just continues to go about her routine, and logs anything funny into her memory to share when they return.

Z eal - Are they willing to go to great lenghts for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

Absolutely. She’s invested in the relationship, especially because she’s not someone to take relationships lightly. If there is anything she can do to make their connection stronger and healthier, or to make her SO happier, she would do it!

[chrstbll]

miracles and lucky days| ben hargreeves

(gif not mine) 

+tags: @lalisbitch @spaceclone-mom , @meowmeowrex23 @strangeyouthcrusade

plot: after coming back from the 60’s, instead of finding the sparrow academy, the group come face to face with a much more positive outcome of their actions.

                                                           -

The words of Klaus were diluted, inaudible and ringing loudly in your head. Your limbs could barely hold the weight of your body, and the nausea from jumping between timelines hitting your stomach didn’t quite put you at ease. All was blurry at first, not hearing nor seeing properly caused you to feel light-headed as well, but before your legs or your mind gave in, somebody strong arms held you up protectively.

- Are you good? – Diego’s gentle call for you brought you back to reality. He was always a little bit concerned about you. He didn’t show it in great actions, it was in the seemingly unimportant things he did for you. There wasn’t anything romantic involved between you two, instead of that it was a deep understanding of each another that made you appreciate the other significantly. You nodded to confirm that you were in fact all right, shrugging it off with a smile.

Klaus was right. After you successfully registered what he was saying, a wave of relief washed over your heart, mind, and soul. Your whole being. For once, all seven of you managed to successfully jump back to 2019 without any harm or mistake being done. It was quite unbelievable. A dreamlike scenario which proved itself to be nearly impossible to believe. Looking around the hall, everything seemed to be all right. It felt okay. The aura was intimately comforting, yet something was amiss. Different. Changed. It certainly was not a malicious ambiance that you discovered, but one new, something yet unexperienced thing. The others noticed it too, as all six of them were looking around suspiciously. Memories, feelings, and people rapidly invaded your mind, those you haven’t thought about a lot. Pogo? Grace? Are they okay now?

Luther suggested to enter the living room ahead of you, so that’s what you all mutually agreed to. Five was the one who went further on before you heroically and begged all of you to proceed with caution, because we don’t know what’s waiting for us there. The walk from the hall to the living room happened painfully slowly given that the feeling of uncertainty was sitting in one and all’s eyes and was at fault for your lack of speed. Upon realizing the academy was unnervingly noiseless, the anxiety birthed a huge lump in your throat, which you couldn’t swallow. Your heart was terrified from the possible negative outcome of this time jump. What if that moment of clarity and amenity was only a façade and was only felt because none of you faced reality in the short but drunk moment of arrival? Sometimes you thought about how nice it would be to just live without worry. To live in pure bliss, without a care in the world. Without a problem in the universe to solve. How astonishing it would be not to recall what loss, trauma, or sadness feels like. But then again, we would live in ignorance that way.

Turning towards the divans and sculptures in the living room, your attention automatically focused on the small moving figure, who was absentmindedly cleaning the shelves with dusting feathers. Recognition hit you like a truck, as the character of an ape appeared before you. Your breath hitched in your throat. Mercifully, it was a positive reaction, a sentiment you haven’t undergone in a long time.

- Pogo?! – Allison was the first one to call out their siblings’ friends’ name. Barely letting his name roll from her tongue, the sea of emotions instantly overthrew her, and tears stormed down her face. Their beloved guardian turned around in shock, he looked so puzzled, it was as he didn’t recognize the people in front of him. You feared that was the case. What if we screwed it up even more?

- Oh, children. I was waiting for you all to return – he’s spoken politely and gifted us with a kind smile, just like he always did. You almost forgot what a courteous and caring figure Pogo was. His scarce although deep voice reminded you of simpler times. A type of nostalgia which you subconsciously yearned for god knows how long. Everyone gathered around him in a matter of seconds, engulfing him in a suffocating hug. Pogo was still bewildered from the sudden act of affection, as you all were from seeing him alive and breathing, but in this instant of happiness, the questions why and how didn’t matter. What mattered was the present minute, what you currently knew as is.

And next, a voice broke the silence.

Who would dare to turn around first? Who wanted to confirm that the voice that was just heard from behind them, came from a legit source? On a serious note, was it even real? Your minds are only playing tricks on you. You were ecstatic for having Pogo back, but it would be too good to be true to turn around and see the possessor of the voice. We can’t have all the wonderful things. It never went that well for you. Your bodies turned stiff, and your feet were frozen on spot. But what made you fear to turn around? The horror of hearing something that’s not truly there or facing it bravely. Something…someone you haven’t faced in roughly two decades.

- What the hell took you guys so long? – the annoyance sounded so raw, hence genuine. You could hear and understand the words crystal clear; then why didn’t you believe your ears?

The group hug disassembled at a snail's pace and turned to face what they never expected to see ever again in their lifetime. You, on the other hand, had secretly wished for a moment like this. Your heart was aching for the chance, not caring about being rational nor delusional. It kept the faith in your soul steady.

- Please, tell me I’m not the only one who can see him – Klaus muttered.

- Ben – Diego confirmed in a hushed tone without letting out any more words as he didn’t need to. He was the bravest out of all of you to speak up.

So, there he stood in his monochrome outfit, with his black leather jacket hugging his form and a coy smile painted all over his face. The faint rosy cheeks, lively eyes and vivid emotions displayed told you everything. The Ben standing in front of you was very much real, and more importantly, alive, and well.

- All of you look like you’ve seen a ghost – he grinned from ear to ear, and his light-hearted joke legitimately freed your body from the tension which held you in your place so aggressively. Number Four didn’t hesitate one second longer, and slammed himself against his brother, who sweetly returned the embrace. Registering it, savouring it, then finally loving the physical contact, Klaus broke up in a hysterical laughter. The group succeeded to pull the strings in a way his death was luckily prevented. How the hell did we manage this? But he didn’t care. All that mattered was the present minute, what he currently knew as is.

- You’re telling me, man – his laugh slowly started to die down, but his joy only rose. Of course, a group hug was crucially needed and initiated effective immediately. Everyone surrounded him, and you held onto each other tightly, so he never slips away from your grasp again. You admitted it to yourself, that it felt heavenly, but more precisely, it felt so damn terrific. The others eventually backed away, but you stayed right in front of him.

- Hey, you – were all he needed to say for you to go flying into his arms – Where have you been? I missed you – his confession was a simple, warm, and loving anecdote, and it broke your heart in the best way possible.

You missed me?

Your loud sobbing, and ocean of tears was baffling and a mystery to him, and he looked at the others with a perplexed expression. They asked him to just let you be because they understood everything perfectly. Each tear was valid and every one of them had a reason. His arms were wrapped around your body, as he was shielding you from all the cruelty in this world. His embrace wasn’t tight, but fond and sensitive enough. You weren’t greedy at all; it was just all too marvellous. Hearing his stable beating heart as he held you close to his chest completely fulfilled you. A featherlight kiss was tenderly placed on your forehead by him, in an attempt to calm you down. It failed, as more droplets of salty water coated your apple-like cheeks. Even so, the kiss was given so compassionately, it must have come from heaven itself.

Maybe you were in Heaven. Maybe your life ended when you arrived in the hall. This isn’t real and I’m probably dead in Diego’s arms by now. But what if you accepted it as your reality now? You couldn’t believe it, even after feeling his touch and his kiss on your body. It might be because you thought you didn’t think your wish to see the person closest to your heart again would ever come true. After the horrific months you went through, it was certainly an impossibility to be gifted with something this enormous, significant, and joyous.

Maybe miracles and lucky days exist. Maybe they existed both on the same day in favour of you. I’ll accept this, I deserve this. You absolutely deserve to be happy and to drop the burden that’s been weighing on your soul for years. Nobody deserves to live their lives in inescapable guilt and grief. Having Ben back in all your lives meant the world to you. You were thinking about how you might have to fill him in on the details of the previous events, but that was a case for a later part of the day. For now, it was nice to bask in his love and warmth. You’ll care about every other issue later. This was the only feeling that mattered in that moment. Peace finally taking its rightful place back in your heart, which has been waiting for it for a long time now. He radiated pureness, an energy which was incomparable to anything else. Clutching his jacket was your anxiety making sure he doesn’t leave again. Maybe he was reading your thoughts, but at the same time he was realizing he’d never leave you even if it meant his life.

- I missed you too.