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alwaysonthemend · 3 days ago

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A/N: Happy belated new years, everyone! I hope each of you had a wonderful holiday season. Apologies for this being a day later than intended – I hope you all enjoy it.

Thank you for sticking with me even though I've been MIA lately <3

(and if you saw me accidently post this last night... no you didn't)

Warnings: 18+ ONLY / minors dni / typos, probably / cussing / unrequited love (but not really) / p in v sex / unprotected sex / fluffy smut / jake being amazing

Word Count: 7k

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There was really no one to blame but yourself.

No matter how many times you had tried to logic your way out of this being your fault… well. You always came back to the same conclusion. This was entirely, irrevocably, and utterly your own fault.

Holidays have never been the easiest for you – seasonal depression coupled with a healthy dose of loneliness has never been a mixture that makes the Christmas season particularly enjoyable for you. Not that you weren’t learning to be okay with being single; not at all. In fact, you would much rather be alone than settle for someone who doesn’t treat you right. But something about the holidays just seems to make all that hurt and loneliness more powerful than usual.

Christmas day had been alright – you had spent the day with a few loved ones and exchanged gifts and shared a meal. Looking forward to seeing the people closest to you had been what got you through the dreary, cold days leading up to Christmas. But now that the day has come and gone, now that you’re stuck in the weird in-between of Christmas and New Years, you find yourself particularly lonely.

So, when you had received an invite to a company New Years party, you had been less than thrilled at the thought of spending another New Year with nosy coworkers who cared more about getting to know someone for gossip than actual friendship. You were even less thrilled at the prospect of yet another New Year of being single. In fact, you’d been quite content with skipping the event entirely, but you’d made the mistake of mentioning the affair to your best friend Jake, who had been helping you with some home renovations the week before. He had promptly scolded you for being a spoilsport, insisting on an alternative way to spend your New Years Eve.

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“I don’t want to go alone.”

Jake grins and rolls his eyes playfully at you. “So dramatic. Just come with me to my family’s get together, then.”

“Oh Lord no.” You exclaim. “That’s even worse! I don’t know most of them, other than Josh. I can’t just invite myself to a family function.”

“You’re not.” Jake quips, plopping down beside you on your sofa. “I’m inviting you to my family function.”

“Absolutely not.”

Jake looks at you unimpressed, narrowing his eyes the way he does when he’s thinking. “There’s only one alternative, then.” Jake continues to stare, waiting for you to ask what he means. When you don’t give him the bait he’s looking for, he continues on anyway. “I come to your office party with you, then.”

“How is that the only alternative? I do my thing, you do your family thing. That’s the alternative.” You can feel yourself growing frustrated the longer this argument goes on – Jake may mean well, but he’s like a dog with a bone sometimes and just doesn’t seem to know when to quit… and right now seems to be one of those times. You don’t want to go to someone’s else’s family function; you don’t want to go to a stupid office party – let alone by yourself; you would much rather just be alone at home.

“I can’t let you spend New Year's Eve at a shitty office party or alone here. That would make me the worst best friend ever.” Jake leans backwards onto the sofa, dramatically tossing his head back to rest on the back of the couch. “Besides, it’s in the contract.”

“Jake, nothing is in that damn contract. You made it up.” The Best Friends Contract was something that he had announced was in existence a few years ago in order to explain away his reasoning for always paying for your food when the two of you hang out. “The Best Friend Contract states that a good best friend must never turn down being paid for when the other is more than happy to cover.” You’d called bullshit on the first utterance but it has unfortunately stuck as his go to excuse for anything he did that you tried to argue with him about.

“Don’t you disrespect the contract like that.” He reaches up and pinches a bit of your hair at the ends with his fingers and tugs a little. “It clearly states in the contract that a best friend never lets the other spend New Years Eve alone.” He tugs again just to be a little shit and then grins widely at you. “I don’t make the rules, sweetheart.”

“Yes, you literally do.” You swat his hand away from your hair, fighting back a smile of your own. “And besides, even if you did show up at my office party, it would end up being awkward.”

“Elaborate.” He demands, reaching up to mess with your hair again and then pouting when you smack his hand away for the second time.

“You know how nosy my coworkers are. They’ll all be asking all night if we’re dating and I’ll have to explain: no, he’s not my boyfriend; no, he’s just my best friend; and yes, he’s a guy and yes, he’s still my best friend.” You huff dramatically – you’ve dealt with it all before with him at parties or events where people can’t seem to understand that a man and a woman can be best friends without it meaning more. “It’ll be awkward and annoying for everyone involved, Jake.”

“So we pretend.” He replies simply, shrugging as if it’s an obvious conclusion. “Just say we’re together and no one will be the wiser.”

“Jake… how on Earth do you think that will be less awkward?”

He just shrugs in answer, still grinning like an idiot at you. “It’ll be fun. Like a game.” He leans in closer, his grin turning a little wicked. “Unless you're scared.”

“Of what?” You demand, trying to ignore the way your stomach feels like it’s doing back flips when he looks at you like that.

“Dunno.” He leans back, looking completely innocent again. “You tell me.”

You sigh, knowing that he’s already won. “Fine.”

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The thing is, you don’t know his siblings or the rest of his extended family very well, but you know how much Jake loves them. So why on Earth would he rather come with you as a fake boyfriend to a shitty office party instead of spending time with them? You’d asked him as much… demanded, even, why on Earth he wanted to skip spending the night with his family. He just smiled at you like he’d been doing for the entire stupid argument and said it was in the contract – a best friend never lets the other spend New Years Eve alone, even if it means pretending to be a significant other.

So here you are, waiting anxiously for him to come pick you up. You had chosen a long dress for the occasion – just a little too tight in certain areas that you normally don’t like to draw attention to, but it was a little too late now to find something else. You’d styled your hair the way you normally do, though you had added a little more makeup than usual and a glossy lip to top off the look. You’ve been ready for the better part of an hour now since you always tend to start getting ready early when you’re nervous.

I have no reason to be nervous, you keep telling yourself, it’s just Jake. But that last part is exactly why you’re nervous. You still have no idea why he’s so willing to do this for you – why he’s content with being a fake date at an office party where he doesn’t know anyone instead of spending a fun night partying with his family. Not to mention, the thought alone of Jake in a nice suit makes butterflies erupt in your tummy.

What if he’s only doing this out of pity? What if he’s miserable the whole time? What if it’s awkward pretending to be together and he regrets ever agreeing to this? What if-

The questions swirl through your mind at such a constant rate that you’re quite sure you may vomit from the nerves before he ever even arrives. You’re moments from texting him and calling off the whole thing but then comes the knock at the door – and you know that he’s the only person it could be.

Steeling yourself and resolving to act like a big girl, you rise up from your seat on the sofa and open the front door.

“Wow.” The word slips from your lips without your brain being able to fully process, yet you can’t think of anything else to say. Jake has always been attractive – going from being a cute young man when you first met to the handsome one standing before you right now. The all black outfit suits him; black always does. His hair is freshly washed, the ends delicately curling against his shoulders. His usual necklaces adorn his neck, with a few extra bracelets and rings added to the ones he usually wears.

Chocolate eyes crinkle slightly as he smiles, his head tilting just barely to the left as he regards you. “I hope that was a good “wow” and not a bad one.” He glances down, a tiny hint of shyness to the action.

“No. It-” you clear your throat, “it was a good “wow.” You look very handsome.” You’re quick to recover, mentally shaking yourself.

“And you look wonderful.” His eyes give you a once over, making you feel both emboldened by your choice of dress and slightly embarrassed. “I’m a very lucky man to have you as my fake girlfriend.”

The joke breaks the slight awkwardness of the moment and you laugh softly. He’s always been good at that.

“And I’m a lucky fake girlfriend.” You grab your bag from the hook on the wall and step out into the chilly night with him. He hovers beside you as you lock your door, and then the two of you walk side by side to the warmth of his waiting car.

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Your pulse is racing as you and Jake enter your office building. It only gets faster still as the two of you get onto the elevator.

“Nervous?” Jake asks as you press the button for the correct floor. The doors closing feels like a curtain call of doom.

“A little.” You shrug, but Jake’s concern for you is written all over his face. “Some of my coworkers can just be a lot.” You explain, hoping that will be enough explanation for him and he won’t go digging further into your other fears for tonight.

“I’ll just use my natural boyish charm.” Jake grins and loops his arm with yours as the elevator dings.

“Boyish? You’re almost 30.”

Jake gasps dramatically and then tugs you off the elevator and towards the party that’s already been started for a good 30 minutes. One of the TVs on the wall has been turned to a countdown for midnight. You recognize many of the guests, though there are several that you don’t – likely other people’s plus ones that you’re sure they’ve been dying to show off. Though there’s one woman that stands out… the one woman that you absolutely didn’t want to see tonight.

“Who are you death staring at?” Jake murmurs into your ear, startling you a little. When did he move that close?

“Her name’s Jess. And she’s a stuck up bitch.”

“Woah.” Jake's eyes widen at your harsh words and looks back towards her, his eyes giving her a once over. “She’s definitely, um..” Her dress is skin tight and short, barely covering anything. Big hair and high stilettos makes it so that she sticks out like a sore thumb. “She’s definitely got a style.”

You giggle a little at his attempt to be nice – in all the time you’ve known him, you can’t think of a single time when he’s ever insulted a woman’s appearance or choice of dress, even when it’s totally warranted.

“Aaand she’s walking over here.” Jake supplies, making you scowl at him.

“Yeah, I fuckin’ noticed.” You say lowly, clenching your teeth in what you hope is a convincing smile. “Jess! Hey.”

She smiles widely at you, flashing her overly white teeth. “Y/n! I didn’t think you would show tonight.” Her perfume is so strong you’re pretty sure you’re already getting a headache by the time she makes it to you. You begin to explain that Jake wanted to come but she’s quick to interrupt you as soon as her eyes land on him.

“Well it’s certainly lovely to meet you.” She purrs, stepping closer to him and practically turning her back to you. “I’m Jess.” She extends her hand, which Jake shakes just barely before dropping it again.

“Jake. It’s nice to meet you as well.” His smile is tight, mostly forced, but she either doesn’t care or is too stupid to notice.

“Now tell me how you managed to snag this handsome young man, Y/n?”

Already your heart rate is starting to pick up, anger and hurt at her apparent disbelief that you’re dating him making you want to reach up and rip her obnoxious strip lashes off her eyes. Even though it’s the truth, your brain not-so-kindly reminds you.

“Well, I-”

“We’ve been friends for years.” Jake interrupts you, taking a side step closer to hook his arm with yours once again. “Naturally, I fell in love with her the very first time I met her.” Those chocolate eyes find yours, a comforting warmth in them that instantly makes you feel better. “But I only recently managed to work up the nerve to ask her out.”

His tone is sickeningly love-struck, so believable that you have to stop yourself from openly staring at him in shock as he speaks. You find yourself nodding along, more than happy to play along that you’re both in love with each other.

“Of course, I had feelings for him the whole time, too.” You squeeze his arm a little. “Just never thought he felt the same. Turns out we were both oblivious.”

“But here we are.” Jake turns to look at you again as he speaks, those warm eyes making you feel all melty and gooey inside.

“Here we are.”

Jess, for her part, manages to seem utterly crestfallen as the two of you speak, as if she had known Jake for years and been in love with him, too. Eventually, she turns her nose up in the way she does when she feels offended and plasters a saccharine smile onto her painted lips. “Well how sweet is that?” She asks, though gives no time for either of you to speak further. “Well, there’s still plenty of people for me to see tonight so you two enjoy yourselves.”

She’s gone before either of you can reply, disappearing and leaving nothing but the smell of her sweet perfume.

“See?” Jake asks, tugging you towards the refreshments. “Not so bad.”

“Sure.” You scowl but gratefully take the cup of punch that he offers you.

–

A few other coworkers come to say hello, with the two of you giving the same performance each time you get asked how the two of you met. It gets easier, and each time it happens you can almost picture the story that the two of you weave – Jake shyly admitting he’s been in love with you, you declaring you love him back, you kiss, happily ever after, blah blah blah. It’s too easy to imagine and you find yourself wishing that you were anywhere but here with anyone but him.

Jake glances towards you, probably noticing that you’re standing there as stiff as a board, trying to look romantic and in-love while sipping punch like it’s a secret weapon against the sheer discomfort you’re feeling.

“Hey,” he nudges your shoulder with his, “at least try to look like you’re enjoying yourself.”

You turn to look at him, rolling your eyes at the teasing grin that awaits you. “I don’t know how you’re doing this. This is a nightmare.”

“It’s not so bad. It’s funny watching people try to act like they’re nicer than they are.” Your heart warms a little – Jake very rarely ever complains, no matter how shitty a situation, so of course tonight is no different. His suit is a little wrinkled now from almost an hour of milling about and mingling, and his tie slightly askew in a way that’s almost charming, but also makes you want to reach up and fix it. You hate that you notice things like that about him. “Besides,” he continues, taking a sip of his own punch, “you have plenty of practice with being around these people. You should be used to it.”

You snort at him. “Yeah, well, there’s a difference between working with people and pretending that we’re, you know, in love around them.”

Jake laughs a little. “I think you were doing just fine. But our little charade has become a bit lackluster.” He grins a little, the mischievous one that he does when he’s up to nothing good. “Maybe we could work on a kiss or something. You know, really sell it.”

Your eyes widen as you choke on your punch. “I– what?”

“Okay, maybe not a kiss.” Jake adds on quickly after your reaction. “But we’re barely convincing anyone right now. You look like you’re getting ready to ask me about the office coffee order, not like you want to whisk me away for a midnight kiss.”

Okay, so maybe he’s a little right on that one. You glance around, trying to think of anything other than kissing Jake, when your eyes land on the makeshift dance floor.

“Come dance with me.”

“Um.” Jake answers eloquently, “I don’t dance. You know that.”

“Actually,” you begin, already tugging him forward by the arm, “I’m pretty sure that it’s in the contract that you have to dance with me.” Jake opens his mouth to say something but you speak before he can. “And don’t say it’s not. You make shit up about the contract all the time. It’s my turn.”

Jake groans. “Fine.” He mutters, scowling at you as you tug him through the people who are already dancing with their significant others. It’s only 11 minutes to midnight now according to the countdown so you figure everyone is gearing up for the big New Year’s kiss. “But only for you.”

Your stomach does stupid little somersaults when he says that but you ignore them. The room had been filled with the chatter of voices but as soon as you press closer to Jake they grow silent, as if the world beyond the two of you completely disappears. Jake stands awkwardly, his hands hovering just barely above your waist, unsure of where to land. His gaze maps out every inch of your face except your eyes and a tiny blush dusts his cheeks.

“Are you blushing?”

Jake scoffs, his palms finally settling fully onto your hips. “No, I’m not blushing.” He stage whispers at you, though you’re pretty sure no one is paying enough attention to have heard him. “I’m nervous. I don’t dance.”

Although you feel equally as flustered – probably more so than Jake, you feel oddly at ease this close to him. You choose not to examine that feeling too deeply at the moment. “I can tell…” you tease, taking one of his hands off your waist with your own. “We hold hands with this one.”

“Oh.” He mutters softly, his gaze flickering to your shoes. He offers his hand for you to take, looking as if he was offering a fragile gift.

Hyper-aware of every minute rise and fall of his chest with each breath and every flutter of your own heart, you take his hand. “Right.” You answer, smiling a little at him, noticing every single detail – of his warm fingers, of their roughness, of how perfect his hand feels in yours.

The music shifts to something a little more lively as the countdown hits 7 minutes now, though you and Jake have yet to actually start dancing.

“So, um…” You begin softly, trying to fill the silence that is quickly becoming awkward. “I guess we just… move around a little?”

Jake’s eyes find yours, comedically widened and you can’t help but laugh at the fact that this is what finally has broken his cool demeanor.

“Right. Moving. Moving is good.” Jake’s voice is a little higher than normal and it makes you feel better about your own nerves. “We can, uh, move.”

“You lead.” You remind him, starting to move slowly back and forth with him. “Right? You’re the guy.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” He answers dryly, making you giggle. 5 minutes to midnight. “I thought you were the one who knew how to do this…”

“I do!” You answer, a bit more enthusiastic than you’d meant. “I mean, I do know how to dance. But I’m not… you know, leading.”

He takes a breath, his hand sliding down a fraction to hover over your lower back. You stiffen for just a second before your body relaxes into the contact. “Okay. Leading. I got this,” Jake mutters, his voice carrying an unexpected determination.

Your movements start out a little awkward and timid, but soon the two of you find rhythm with each other, the nerves melting away bit by bit until it feels as if the rest of the world grows muffled – the two of you in your own little universe.

“Not so bad, right?” You ask him, glancing up into those chocolate eyes of his and trying not to get lost in them.

“Nah. Not bad.” He smiles at you, then glances at the countdown on the wall. “Three minutes.”

You nod, your mind suddenly filling with thoughts of what this would feel like if it was real… what it would feel like to kiss him to bring in the new year. It makes your chest squeeze to think about so you say instead, “Thanks again for coming with me to this. I don’t know why you did it… but thank you.”

“Told you… the contract.” He grins but it softens after a moment. “But really, I’d rather be with you, anyway.”

His answer gives you pause. He doesn’t mean… right? Surely he doesn’t mean anything other than that he just enjoys your company as friends. You want so desperately to believe that it could be more. “I feel the same.” You reply quietly. “I mean that- that I would much rather be with you, too. Even at a stupid New Year’s party.”

Jake smiles, a tiny huff of laughter escaping him. He’s so close that you can feel his breath on your face, smell his cologne. His eyes lock with yours and you can’t do anything but stare back. “Speaking of New Years.” His eyes cut to the countdown and then back to you.

Everyone around you begins to count down from ten, their voices blending together – becoming muffled as you once again lose yourself in his gaze.

9….

He wouldn’t be here tonight unless he really wanted to be.

8…

He chose to be here.

7…

With you.

6…

His hand tightens its grip on yours.

5…

Your heart is pounding – so loud it’s like a drum pounding in your ears.

4…

The damn contract… years of wanting him.

3…

God damn it, you’re tired of being afraid and he doesn’t move at all when you lean in.

2…

His eyes flicker to your lips. Fuck it.

1..!

Your lips hit his cheek as he turns his head at the very last second. Stunned, you pull backwards, whipping your hand from his. He looks just as surprised as you do – perhaps even more so. For a moment, neither of you move. The people around you cheer, their excited movements blurring as everything around you moves in slow motion.

“Y/n, I-” Jake cuts himself off as you shake your head, taking a step back from him. Then another. The shame and embarrassment hits all at once, stealing your breath. “Y/n, wait-”

“No!” You shake your head again, walking backwards from him even further. “I- I can’t-” The words won’t come. Nothing you say could ever fix this. Letting instinct take over, you do the only thing you can think of – you turn and run.

People complain and shoot glares as you shove through them, though you pay no mind to anything except getting as far away as possible from him. Distantly, you can hear him call your name again but you don’t look back. The elevator doors open and you practically throw yourself into it, pressing the close button over and over again as you see Jake making his own way through the crowd. In what you can only imagine is an act of pity from the universe, the doors close before he makes it.

–

You manage to hold the tears in until you reach the dark street outside. Fireworks boom in the distance and you can still hear the excited chatter and whoops from inside. The hot tears burn as they run down your face, no doubt ruining your makeup. You must look a mess, but you don’t care. You glance around at the deserted street. He drove. You don’t have a car. But you can’t spend another second with him.

“Y/n!” The building doors slam open and out he comes, his eyes wild and frantically scanning around until he sees you. “Y/n, please!”

You take off running down the pavement. Well… you take off running the best you can in the heels that you had spent so much time picking out because you wanted to impress him. Like a fucking idiot, you think bitterly.

You barely make it 15 feet before his fingers wrap around your wrist, tugging you backwards and stopping you from going further. He looks so upset, so affected that you almost fall for it. Almost. “What?” You bite out, tugging uselessly at his grip.

“Y/n… please. Give me just one fucking minute to explain.” His voice sounds just as wrecked as he looks.

“There’s nothing to explain. It was a stupid mistake. I don’t- I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”

“Just one minute.” He begs and you feel your resolve crumbling. Of course it does. It’s him.

You nod. “One minute.”

“I—” His voice breaks, cracking under the weight of his own panic. He runs a hand through his hair – the way he does when he’s stressed or upset. “I don’t know how to—god, I’m just—I don’t know how to say this.”

“I’m an idiot. And I—I’m in love with you,” he blurts out, the words tumbling out in a rush, like they’ve been stuck in his throat for years and now that they’re coming out too fast to control. “I know it—god, I don’t know why I never said it before. I don’t know how to… to keep pretending I’m just your friend when every time you laugh, or make a stupid joke, or chew on your lip when you’re thinking… it kills me because you’re my best friend and I’m not supposed to love you. But I can’t stop it. I can’t. I’m just—fuck, I’m in love with you.”

What feels like millions of emotions and thoughts hit you all at once, each one slipping away before you can pull a coherent thought together. “Then why… why did you do that?” Confusion, hurt, doubt – each one digging its fingers into the little tiny seed of hope in your chest and throttling it before it can form.

“Because I’m an idiot.” He stresses again, his fingers tightening on your wrist. Without even thinking, you step closer to him, as if your own body is betraying you. “Because I’m scared of fucking this up or of losing you and I can’t-” he rubs his palm over his face with his free hand, his expression scrunching up in frustration. “I didn’t know what it meant. I’d made that stupid joke about us kissing and… and when I realized what was happening I panicked.” The chocolate of his eyes is dimmed, glazed over now with unshed tears. “I was afraid that maybe it didn’t mean anything. And I couldn’t- I wouldn’t survive kissing you and it not meaning anything.”

“But it did!” You insist, finally breaking free from his grasp. “It meant everything.” You wrap your arms around yourself, the chilled breeze finally starting to get to you now that you’re standing still.

“I know. I knew it as soon as I saw your face after and I knew that I’d fucked it up. I knew I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life because it would have meant everything to me, too.” His hands drop defeatedly at his sides, shoulders hanging low – the perfect picture of a man heartbroken. “Let me make it right.” The words are more of a plea, his eyes so sad that you want to reach out and comfort him. “Tell me I can make it right.”

There’s a part of you that wants to keep hiding it forever, to keep burying it deep in your chest where it can’t hurt you. But the louder part of you is tired of waiting, tired of burying it, tired of being afraid.

“I forgive you,” you take a step towards him, closing the gap that had felt like it stretched out for miles, “and I understand why. And I- I love you, too.”

Your eyes flutter closed as his lips find yours at last, his hands finding your hips and guiding you closer to him. You can feel the heat of his skin, the heavy rise and fall of his chest. You can taste the fruity punch from earlier on his tongue, coupled with the taste of him. And you want more of it – more of everything. You want to touch every inch of his skin in the way you’ve always wanted but never been allowed.

He pulls away after what could have been minutes, hours… you can’t tell. All you can focus on is the feeling of him. “I will spend a lifetime making up for what I did to you tonight.” He murmurs, resting his forehead against yours. “I will spend a lifetime making sure that I never see that look on your face ever again – by my own actions or someone else’s.”

“A lifetime?” You ask, loving the feeling of the word on your tongue. A lifetime. A lifetime of him, said so simply – as if he cannot fathom any other ending after this.

“Two lifetimes,” he continues, “three, even. As many as it takes.” His grin turns a little wicked. “Starting with tonight?”

The sudden wave of desire that hits you almost makes you dizzy – you feel yourself nodding, you feel the heat rising from between your thighs and spreading throughout your body like a wildfire. Years of waiting, of wanting. And now you have him. “Take me home, Jake.”

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Your heart is pounding as the two of you tumble through the front door of Jake’s home, both sets of hands exploring each other as his tongue explores your mouth. The ride here is hazy, nothing but a blur as Jake kicks the front door shut behind you. You’ve been to his house plenty of times before so you pay it no mind as Jake starts leading you further into the house and towards the stairs, knowing that his bedroom lies waiting for the two of you upstairs.

You both stumble at the top of the landing, nearly falling over and making you giggle. Jake grins, grabbing your hand and tugging you towards his room. He kicks that door shut, too – and then he’s on you once more, gently pushing you back to the wall. His body cages you in, the feel him pressed so closely making you feel weak in the knees.

“Is this okay?” He asks lowly, his fingers delicately tracing your skin at the tops of your thighs, just barely dipping underneath your dress. Compared to the kiss the two of you just shared, it’s an innocent action, but it feels even more overwhelming because it’s him doing it. At your nod, Jake’s hands continue to explore, his rough fingertips moving higher up and hooking in the elastic band of your panties. “And this?” You nod again and he tugs them down your legs and you step out of them. “Tell me what you want.” Chocolate eyes, almost black, lock onto yours.

“I want you.” You answer him, finding yourself just as breathless as a teenager during her first time.

“As much as I’ve dreamt of hearing that,” he murmurs, “more specific.”

You feel your cheeks grow hot, the words that want to spill out seeming crude in such a delicate moment. But the unbridled want in his eyes makes you say them anyway. “I want you to fuck me.”

He growls a little, a deep rumble in his chest, at that. His hands find your waist and he guides you away from the wall, gently pushing you to the bed. The edge of the mattress presses into the backs of your knees and he guides you to sit.

“That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” He answers, sinking down to his knees on the floor in front of you. Deft fingers wrap around your ankle as he lifts your foot slightly and begins to undo the straps of your heels. “But I won’t be doing that tonight.” He lifts your other foot and you glance down at him in confusion. “There’s a million things I want to do to you,” he continues, both shoes now off and placed neatly by the nightstand. “Kiss you, taste you,” he rises, stepping between your parted thighs, “but I won’t be fucking you. I don’t want to do that to you tonight. Ask me what I want to do to you.” He demands softly.

“What,” you can’t help but stare at him, your heart beating so fast you fear it may burst from your chest, “do you want to do to me?”

He grins like a kid in a candy store. “I want to make love to you.” He slips his fingers beneath the straps of your dress and slides them down off your shoulders. “Is that okay?”

Lifting your hips as he helps you out of the dress, you nod. “More than okay.” Summoning every ounce of bravery you have, you reach out and slide his jacket off his shoulders. It falls to the ground alongside your dress. You grab his tie and haul him closer, crashing your lips to his. Frantically, you help him undo the buttons of his shirt, then his slacks, leaving both of you in nothing but his boxers.

“Let me look at you a minute.” He breaks the kiss and pushes you backwards onto the bed. You do your best attempt at scooching backwards in what you hope is a graceful, sexy way, but he pays it no mind. His eyes roam your skin, lingering on your bare breasts, then down to your exposed pussy. You want to cover yourself, to hide yourself away from his piercing gaze but he stops you from moving away with his palms settling on your knees. “Don’t do that,” he whispers, spreading your thighs further, “don’t hide from me. You’re perfect. Stunning.”

Jake lowers himself between your legs, his arms hooking under your thighs and pulling you closer to him. His eyes lift to yours. “Let me taste you? Please?” He begs, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

It’s the “please” that gets you, slick dripping out of you even more. You nod your head. He presses a soft kiss to the inside of your thigh. Then the other side. Then a little higher. Hips squirming, you mutter his name. “Don’t tease.”

“I’m not teasing.” Another kiss, this one closer to where you want him, but still too far. “I’m taking my time. I want to remember every second.”

Finally, his tongue laps against your aching clit and you cry out, one hand fisting in the sheets and the other reaching down to tangle in his hair. Jake moans against you, his eyes closing in concentration as he circles your clit, toying with you, seeing what movements make you squirm the most. His brows furrow as he dips lower, his tongue pressing just barely into your entrance before swiping back upwards to your clit. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever done before – he’s unlike anyone you’ve ever had before. He’s paying attention, finding what makes you tick and using it to coax the warmth in your lower belly to spread.

You feel yourself arching upwards, grinding your soaked pussy against his mouth. He groans into your heat, two fingers now prodding at your entrance as his tongue never lets up. His fingers press in deeper, stretching you out as you climb higher and higher to a peak that you know you won’t return from. Cracking your eyes open, you peak down at him again, and you can barely stand the sight that awaits there. His eyes are still closed, his brows drawn together with determination. His mouth attached to your clit and his fingers hidden inside you, curling so deliciously. But what really gets you – the final nail in the coffin that sends you so deep into pleasure you fear you’ll never return, is the way his hips grind desperately into the mattress, as if the very act of bringing you pleasure has rendered him unable to wait for his own.

“Jake, I’m gonna come.” You warn him, and he only nods his head in answer, his tongue working harder and his fingers faster at your broken warning. Your orgasm is a steady build, starting deep in your belly and working its way outwards, engulfing every nerve-ending with white hot pleasure. Distantly, you hear him moan as your thighs tighten around his face, as your walls clench around his fingers.

Your body is trembling when he finally pulls away, his fingers then instantly being brought to his mouth. He sits up, his eyes closing again as he licks your release from them before they open again and find your dark gaze. He gives you a lazy grin, his chest and face flushed. “I knew you’d taste sweet.” He tells you, climbing his way upwards towards you to kiss you. You can taste yourself on him and you already want more of him.

“I need you inside me.” You demand, your hands mapping out every inch of his skin that you can reach before hooking in the waistband of his boxers and tugging them down.

Every inch of him is just as perfect as you’d imagined it to be. A perfect length and mouth-wateringly thick. His swollen head is flushed and glistening with precum. Slightly bashful, he leans down and kisses you again.

You reach between your bodies and wrap your fingers around him. He draws back and whines, his body going tense as you work him a little, smearing his precum over his throbbing length. “Fuck, Y/n.” He mutters, placing his forearms on either side of you. After a few pumps, you guide him between your legs, lining him up with your entrance. He starts to press in slowly, his lips wrapping around your left nipple and sucking softly as he sheaths himself inside of you. Both of you cry out softly, your quiet, panting breaths mingling with the other’s. He fills you perfectly, the stretch so delicious you never want to be without him inside you again. “You feel…” He never finishes, instead moving over to suckle at your other breast.

“Move, baby.” You beg and he instantly obeys you, drawing out from you and then pushing back in, his pace slow but pointed and powerful. Your hands grip his shoulders, sliding down to hold tightly at his biceps as he rocks into you.

He pulls away from your tit to look down at you, his pupils so wide his eyes look black. The bed frame creaks with each powerful thrust of his hips. “I won’t last with you looking at me like that,” he murmurs, seizing his bottom lip between his teeth.

“You feel so fucking good, baby.” You fight to keep your eyes from fluttering shut – you want to see his face, to see the way it contorts and twists in pleasure.

“You feel even better.” He brings his thumb up to your lips, dragging it across your bottom lip before pressing into your mouth. You suckle at it, moaning around it. He moans too, then pulls the digit from between your lips and drops his hand to rub your swollen clit in time with his thrusts. “Need you to come first, angel. Wanna feel you squeeze around my cock.”

You can feel your second orgasm building, your body starting to tremble as he starts to move faster, his cock twitching inside of you as you both near the edge. His lips part, desperate little groans filling the air between you as he fights back his own release. “Please, baby.” He urges, and that’s all it takes. The band inside your belly finally snaps, your vision going white around the edges as your orgasm rocks through you. He thrusts into you frantically, working you through your release before pulling out of you, ropes of hot cum painting your lower belly as he finishes.

Both of you are left panting, the meaning of what just happened and the weight of what’s been confessed tonight settling over the two of you like a weighted blanket.

“I love you,” Jake offers, pressing his lips to yours for another kiss, “and I’ll keep kissing you as many times a day as you’ll let me to make up for the one I didn’t give you at midnight.”

You can’t help but grin up at him, already knowing that no one could ever hold a candle to the man who’s gazing down at you with nothing but reverence in his eyes. “I love you, too.”

✧༝┉˚*❋ ❋*˚┉༝✧✧༝┉˚*❋ ❋*˚┉༝✧✧༝┉˚*❋ ❋*˚┉༝✧✧༝┉˚*❋ ❋*˚┉

Fin

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#dee's writing #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka fanfiction #jake kiszka smut #jake kiszka

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 3 days ago

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This post is a solid nine months old by now, but I have an addition to it.

I picked out a few How Do You Cope episodes to listen to in the last couple of weeks - I've not gone through that whole podcast in my usual completist way, but I decided to pick out some the feature guests I found interesting (I did Paul Sinha, Sally Phillips, Jordan Gray, Josie Long, Alex Brooker, Chris Packham, and Mark Watson). There was a bunch of interesting stuff in a bunch of those episodes that I meant to post about, but I listened while doing other holiday stuff and didn't sit down to write it.

This, however, I made sure to save. As soon as I heard it, I made a note to myself to remember to cut this out and add it to my collection of clips of John Robins talking shit about Stewart Lee. Because I find it extremely amusing that John Robins turned up to an interview with Mark Watson, in 2019, with a quote from Stewart Lee that he thinks is Clarkson-esque, just so he can throw that at Mark eight years after their actual feud, because it gives him an excuse to shoehorn in talking shit about Stewart Lee. In this case, by accusing Stewart Lee of sounding like Alan Partridge, which... might be just a touch hypocritical, coming from Robins. I mean, I'm generally on John Robins' side here, and I'm definitely on Mark Watson's side in that particular feud (I obviously think Stewart Lee is a brilliant comedian who is rightly accoladed, but he does seem like he's probably a dick), but I don't know if accusing other people of sounding a bit Partridge-y is John Robins' best move.

I do respect how committed John Robins is to the grudge. I enjoy listening to him try to sound reasonable and not shout "I hate that fucking guy" every time Stewart Lee's name gets mentioned. But then also, he'll take any tenuous opportunity, like interviewing a comedian whom Stewart Lee was a dick about in 2011, to bring up what a dick Stewart Lee is. As a frequent holder of grudges myself, I find it funny to listen to people struggle with them that way.

This was unfortunately not where the relatable content in this podcast interview ended, as there was some very interesting chat near the end about how Mark Watson uses running to turn off his brain and take the edge off anxiety, and John Robins said he uses alcohol for that, and Mark said he also used alcohol for the same thing. And then two of my favourite comedians, who have talked a lot in their work about anxiety and alcohol problems, and I have spent a lot of time listening to a whole lot of both their work and being interested in their perspectives on those issues - those two comedians talked to each other about how alcohol and exercise can achieve similar ways of turning off a frustrating brain. And I had just been thinking a lot lately about how when I try to cut out alcohol, and try to find healthier things to replace what excessive drinking has done for me through so many years, the most useful replacement I have is getting on the treadmill and running until I can breathe or stand and throat and lungs are on fire. That is the closest physical/psychological sensation that I can get to the thing I like best about alcohol, without actually consuming alcohol. And Mark Watson and John Robins discussed that exact phenomenon for a bit, and I was going to cut out that clip and post about it on here too, but honestly, writing an entire post about that would get way too depressing, and I don't feel like doing a long, over-share-y depression post on this second day of the new year. So I'm condensing my thoughts about it into one run-on paragraph (trust me, if I dedicated its own post to that clip, the post would be far longer than this paragraph) on the end of a post for John Robins talking shit about Stewart Lee. I'm going to try dry January again this year, and I think it will probably be less tough than it was last year, as by the end of 2024, I was starting to be able to go 4 or 5 weeks at a time without drinking and not even be too bothered by that. Dry January made me want to jump off a cliff and into a fire in 2024, it took all year to go from that to being able to not drink for a month just because I didn't need it and it was okay, I want to start extending that time in 2025. Again, I know this personal over share-y bit has gotten long, but trust me, it could have been far longer, if I hadn't decided to confine it to one run-on paragraph. Happy New Year.

There was one day last week when my coworker asked me what I did the night before, and I thought, "I organized my John Robins and Elis James audio clips folder, the one with a whole big mess of files because pretty much any time they discuss anything that seems like it might be a long-running thread I'll mark the timestamp in my notes and then cut out the clip when I get home in case this does become a big thread and I want to make a compilation of it, but as I got along I don't know what will and won't turn into anything so I try to err on the side of just saving everything, well last night went through the folder and made a few sub-folders to group together clips that discuss the same type of thing so that making posts about it in the future will be easier. Why, what did you do?"

I didn't say that, obviously, I said "I just had a quiet night, why, what did you do?" and she told me about how she had her kids help her cook dinner and then watched a Troll movie with them before putting them to bed but then had to wake up at 1 AM because her kid was crying so that was her night, and it made it seem like an even better idea that I hadn't gotten into mine.

Anyway, on a completely separate note, does anyone want to see the running record I'm keeping of John Robins' feud with Stewart Lee, every time he's mentioned it up to the point I'm at now in the radio show, which is September 2016? I've entitled this collection: John Robins Talking Shit About Stewart Lee and/or Denying That He Talks Shit About Stewart Lee, Sometimes Doing Both In The Same Breath:

Looking at all the evidence together, I think Stewart Lee did get him kicked off a gig on purpose, not just had him bumped due to lack of time, because he didn't like his opinions. And, to be fair to some more recent and possibly stupidly over-the-top comments that Robins has made on the subject, that is arguably a touch McCarthyist.

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queenlucythevaliant · 1 year ago

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🪆would love one featuring Russian thoughts on God! ✝️

SO. I could have sworn that I've posted "Avvakum in Pustozyorsk" on this blog before, but I can't seem to find it so here it is.

(For context, this is written in the voice of a 17th century Russian Orthodox priest and religious dissident (an "Old Believer"). Avvakum was sent to the military outpost of Pustozyorsk where he was imprisoned four fourteen years, then eventually burned at the stake. It uses this historical voice to reflect on the religious persecution of the Soviet era. Also, it's fairly long, so I've highlighted my favorite stanzas.)

Avvakum in Pustozyorsk The walls of my church are the ribs round my heart; it seems life and I are soon bound to part. My cross now rises, traced with two fingers. In Pustozyorsk it blazes; its blaze will linger. I’m glorified everywhere, vilified, branded; I have already become the stuff of legend: I was, people say, full of anger and spite; I suffered, I died for the ancient rite. But this popular verdict is ugly nonsense; I hear and reject the implied censure. A rite is nothing – neither wrong nor right; a rite is a trifle in God’s sight. But they attacked our faith and the ways of the past, in all we’d learned as children, and taken to heart. In their holy garments, in their grand hats, with a cold crucifix in their cold hands, in thrall to a terror clutching their souls, they drag us to jails and herd us to scaffolds. We don’t debate doctrine, of books and their age; we don’t debate virtues of fetters and chains. Our dispute is of freedom, and the right to breathe – about our Lord’s will to bind as he please. The healers of souls chastised our bodies; while they schemed and plotted, we ran to the forests. Despite their decrees, we hurled our words out of the lion’s mouth and into the world. We called for vengeance against their sins along with the Lord; we sang poems and hymns. The words of the Lord were claps of thunder. The Church endures; it will never go under. And I, unyielding, reading the Psalter, was brought to the gates of the Andronikov Monastery. I was young; I endured every pain: hunger, beatings, interrogations. A winged angel shut the eyes of the guard, brought me cabbage soup and a hunk of bread. I crossed the threshold – and I walked free. Embracing my exile, I walked to the East. I held services by the Amur River, where I barely survived the winds and blizzards. They branded my cheeks with brands of frost; by a mountain stream they tore out my nostrils. But the path to the Lord goes from jail to jail; the path to the Lord never changes. And all too few, since Jesus’s days, have proved able to bear God’s all-seeing gaze. Nastasia, Nastasia, do not despair; true joy often wears a garment of tears. Whatever temptations may beat in your heart, whatever torments may rip you apart, walk on in peace through a thousand troubles and fear not the snake that bites at your ankles – though not from Eden has this snake crawled; it is an envoy of evil from Satan’s world. Here, birdsong is unknown; here one learns patience and the wisdom of stone. I have seen no colour except lingonberry in fourteen years spent as a prisoner. But this is not madness, nor a waking dream; it is my soul’s fortress, its will and freedom. And now they are leading me far away and in fetters; my yoke is easy, my burden grows lighter. My track is swept clean dusted with silver; I’m climbing to heaven on wings of fire. Through cold and hunger, through grief and fear, towards God, like a dove, I rise from the pyre. O far-away Russia – I give you my vow to return from the sky, forgiving my foes. May I be reviled, and burned at the stake; may my ashes be cast on the mountain wind. There is no fate sweeter, no better end, than to knock, as ash, at the human heart.

--Varlam Shalamov

#i know this is way longer than most of what i've been sharing #i thought about putting a cut somewhere but i just couldn't think where #you can't cut this. i mean right??#so yeah. hopefully you're okay with long #i've got a whole bunch of great Russian poems about God and the church #but this is consistantly the one that hits me hardest #and it hits me a little differently each time #i have seen no color but lingonberry (blood) in 14 years #and i am preparing to die #but i want to forgive my foes #i want to go joyfully #and i want to knock as ash on the human heart. i want my life to be a witness #and i wish there was a way to tell him that it is #the bit about God's will to bind as he pleases and the linking of that with human freedom... surprisingly reformed for an Orthodox priest #idk #i adore this poem #i have a couple stanzas done in calligraphy and hanging up in my closet #so even though it's long i hope this poem was to your liking friend #russia where are you flying to?#ask me hard questions

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weirdly-specific-but-ok · 8 months ago

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for whom good omens is being written

Hey maggots and the rest of the fandom, it's the Good Omens Mascot here. Today I read a post about this tweet:

The accompanying video genuinely made me cry. And I've been thinking about this for a long while, as far back as February, when I saw a lot of conflicting opinions on what people wanted from the third season. It really is true that no matter what you do, some people will be dissatisfied. But what matters is that Neil is writing this for Terry.

And I was reminded of some paragraphs from the Good Omens TV Companion, which I'd read in Amazon's sample excerpt of the book. I know this is a long post, but I really truly do think you all need to read these, I've done my best to select only the most important parts. Here you go:

'His Alzheimer's started progressing harder and faster than either of us had expected,' says Neil, referring to a period in which Terry recognized that despite everything he could no longer write. 'We had been friends for over thirty years, and during that time he had never asked me for anything. Then, out of the blue, I received an email from him with a special request. It read: “Listen, I know how busy you are. I know you don't have time to do this, but I want you to write the script for Good Omens. You are the only human being on this planet who has the passion, love and understanding for the old girl that I do. You have to do this for me so that I can see it." And I thought, “OK, if you put it like that then I'll do it."

'I had adapted my own work in the past, writing scripts for Death: The High Cost of Living and Sandman, but not a lot else was seen. I'd also written two episodes of Doctor Who, and so I felt like I knew what I was doing. Usually, having written something once I'd rather start something new, but having a very sick co-author saying I had to do this?' Neil spreads his hands as if the answer is clear to see. 'I had to step up to the plate.' A pause, then: 'All this took place in autumn 2014, around the time that the BBC radio adaptation of Good Omens was happening,' he continues, referring to the production scripted and co-directed by Dirk Maggs and starring Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap. ‘Terry had talked me into writing the TV adaptation, and I thought OK, I have a few years. Only I didn't have a few years,' he says. 'Terry was unconscious by December and dead by March.'

He pauses again. 'His passing took all of us by surprise,' Neil remembers. 'About a week later, I started writing, and it was very sad. The moments Terry felt closest to me were the moments I would get stuck during the writing process. In the old days, when we wrote the novel, I would send him what I'd done or phone him up. And he would say, "Aahh, the problem, Grasshopper, is in the way you phrase the question," and I would reply, "Just tell me what to do!" which somehow always started a conversation. 'In writing the script, there were times I'd really want to talk to Terry, and also places where I'd figure something out and do something really clever, and I would want to share it with him. So, instead, I would text Terry's former personal assistant, Rob Wilkins, now his representative on Earth. It was the nearest thing I had.'

(...) As Neil himself recognizes, this is an adaptation built upon the confidence that comes from three decades of writing for page and screen. But for all the wisdom of experience, he found that above all one factor guided him throughout the process. 'Terry isn't here, which leaves me as the guardian of the soul of the story,' he explains. 'It's funny because sometimes I found myself defending Terry's bits harder or more passionately than I would defend my own bits. Take Agnes Nutter,' he says, referring to what has become a key scene in the adaptation in which the seventeenth-century author of the book of prophecies foretelling the coming of the Antichrist is burned at the stake. ‘It was a huge, complicated and incredibly expensive shoot, with bonfires built and primed to explode as well as huge crowds in costume. It had to feel just like an English village in the 1640s, and of course everyone asked if there was a cheap way of doing it. 'One suggestion was that we could tell the story using old-fashioned woodcuts and have the narrator take us through what happened, but I just thought, “No”. Because I had brought aspects of the story like Crowley and the baby swap along to the mix, and Terry created Agnes Nutter. So, if I had cut out Agnes then I wouldn't be doing right by the person who gave me this job. Terry would've rolled over in his grave.'

And, finally, this paragraph:

"Once again, Neil cites the absence of his co-writer as his drive to ensure that Good Omens translated to the screen and remained true to the original vision. 'Terry's last request to me was to make this something he would be proud of. And so that has been my job.'"

I think that's so heartwrenchingly beautiful, and so I wanted you all to read this, too, just in case you (like me) don't have the Good Omens TV Companion. It adds another layer of depth and emotion to this already complex and amazing story that we all know and love.

Share this post, if you can, please, so that more people can read these excerpts :")

Tagging @neil-gaiman, @fuckyeahgoodomens and @orpiknight, even if you've definitely read these before :)

#good omens #neil gaiman #sir terry pratchett #good omens show #good omens fandom #good omens mascot #weirdly specific but ok #asmi

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emeryleewho · 1 year ago

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I keep seeing posts talking about the WGA/Sag-Aftra strike, which yes, good, but in all this "support writers" sentiment I'm seeing no one talk about book writers, which I think is something people should know more about right now.

We are at an all-time high for book bans, namely targeting queer & PoC-authored books. This means that a lot of schools and libraries are no longer stocking diverse YA books, and if you're not in publishing, you may not realize this but school & libraries are by far one of the biggest markets for diverse YA books.

This means that in 2023, YA book sales are down. This is also in part because Barnes & Noble (the largest physical book retailer in the U.S.) is no longer really stocking YA hardcovers. This means that marginalized authors and debut authors are struggling to sell books.

But it's a LOT worse than that. In the past couple of years, marginalized authors are *really* struggling to get new book deals. Most books are acquired by a publisher about 2 years before they release to the public, so this isn't all that noticeable yet, but a LOT of marginalized authors I've spoken to (myself included) have been unable to sell a new YA book since 2020. So while I had a book out last year, even if I sell one right now, you won't see it until 2025-2026. That's three to four years without a new release or the income I get from publishing those books.

On top of that, Big 5 publishers have started closing imprints (namely their diverse imprints) and have started telling their marginalized YA authors to just go. I've had multiple authors tell me their publisher basically said, "eh, we don't care to put in the work for you anymore. You can just go somewhere else". Of the authors who *are* getting offered new contracts, we're being offered pay far below the cost of living and we're being handed contracts that split our payments 4 or 5 ways and require we sign over our work to be used to train AI so they can replace us a few years down the road.

Authors are freelancers who own our IPs, which means we can't unionize the way Hollywood writers can, and despite authors showing up in droves to support HarperCollins employees when they went on strike for fair wages, we're being hung out to dry when it comes to our own rights.

If you enjoy diverse books, especially diverse YA, please understand that many of the authors you loved over the past 3-5 years are being forced out of the industry. We're being exploited, and we have no way to defend ourselves. Our books sales are drying up thanks to anti-queer legislation, our rights are being eaten up by AI, and our publishers are degrading us while profiting of us and refusing to share those profits with us.

Within the publishing industry, we've all been watching this decline happen over the last decade, but outside of it, I know most people have no idea what's going on so please spread the word. And if you care about diverse books especially in YA, please support marginalized authors in any way you can. The industry needs to be reminded that it needs us before we're all eliminated from it.

#Books #diverse books #author #publishing #sag aftra #writers strike #writers #labor rights #workers rights #wga strike

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sincerelybubbles · 6 months ago

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hotch x shy!bau!reader <3 fem content: slight age gap implied. reader is new to the team and more on the introverted side! not proof read, as is my hubris.

Tired, nerves buzzing from a night spent up and chasing sleep that was not welcoming, you throw your bag down on your desk and go off in hunt of coffee. You usually try to curb your caffeine intake, especially with the travel associated with your new job, but this morning is a happy exception to your new rule.

"Here," Emily says, watching you scan the cabinets of the kitchen. You hadn't heard her walk in, but she's offering you a mug with a sympathetic smile. "Long night?"

"Yes," you say, tone thankful, and spin to figure out the coffee machine.

"Three weeks and i haven't seen you use that once," she comments, sipping from her own warm mug and watching you settle the filter in place.

"I've stayed away. it's harder to sleep when I get back because of the jet lag, anyway, don't need to add coffee at all odd hours to the list, too."

It's the most you've said in casual conversation like this. To say you've been shy with your new team would be an understatement. You're good at your job, you were pulled from the academy early to do this for a reason. You fit well into the team, generally. You like listening to Spencer ramble, especially on the longer flights. Rossi's dry humor reminds you of one of your old professors you grew up admiring. JJ is a constant breath of fresh air, Morgan's consistent strength has built up your own moral. Garcia took no getting used to, lifting you up and settling into your life easily. Hotch is intimidating but kind under the colder-tones, long glances sometimes distracting but oterhwise comforting. Emily is easily one of your favorites on the team, friendly and whip-smart. But, at the core of it, you're shy. Painfully so, even.

The team caught onto this quick, settling into the truth that your observational nature that makes you so adept at noticing the smaller details is bound to weep into your social life as well. So, despite your comfort levels rising with the team, you find these situations hard. Do you explain your nightmares to Emily? Share that you're a diagnosed insomniac who spent the night watching FRIENDS reruns after chasing sleep that pranced beyond reach?

"You're better than me, then," Emily says, smiling over her mug. Her eyes tell you she's pleased at the little crack into your life that you've let her see. They're all like that: insufferably kind and polite with your introverted nature but greedily sipping up everything they can learn about you.

"It's a new development," you admit, clicking start on the machine and settling back against the counter facing her. Something about your sleepiness makes it easier to talk, your tongue looser, your ache to let loose around the team more profound. "I'm sure most of us are insomniacs, though."

"Not me," Emily says, chuckling. "I get home and feel like I don't wake up until I get back here."

"Ah, well, I'm sure it can feel like a curse no matter what way you fall," you say with a shrug. Emily lifts her coffee in cheers to that.

"Morning," Morgan says, turning into the kitchen and giving you a surprised smile. "Hello, sunshine, you're looking bright eyed today."

You let out a small laugh, shaking your head. "I know, I know."

Emily points with her chin at you, "She's making the coffee this morning."

"Ah-ah, remaking it because you and pretty boy always get here first and finish the first pot." Morgan teases her with a slight shake of his head, grinning and opening the fridge to pull out the creamer.

"Well, you snooze you loose. Or," she sends you a smile, complete with a little nose wrinkle and a tilt of her head, "you don't snooze and still loose."

"Clever," you say, voice dry with humor, hiding your laugh by turning around as the pot finished brewing. "I'll remember this later."

"Careful, she's got teeth," Morgan warns Emily, reaching around you to grab the coffee before you can and filling his cup.

"Hey!" You call in protest, voice raising louder than usual and a pout hitting your lips. Morgan laughs, white teeth on display, eyes crinkled at the corners.

"Here, here," he says, placating, tipping the pitcher to fill your cup as well. "Any sugar or cream to placate the beast?"

Before you can answer, a laugh on the tip o your tongue, Hotch walks in and settles his watchful eyes on you, interest sparking them. You shrink, not in fear but in self-awareness, and send him a closed lip smile. Stepping away from Morgan, you turn quickly to fix your own coffee.

"Good morning," Hotch says, nodding at Emily and Morgan, answering Emily's question about Jack's recent sickness (he's recovering well, thank you) and trying to catch your eye.

You duck away, cowardly and regressing back into your shell, deciding it's time to get to work and stop indulging. You catch Morgan tease Hotch as you leave, though, "Aw, you've scared her off."

You try not to think about it as you duck away, pushing all thoughts of your boss away.

You're unsuccessful.

The problem isn't that you're afraid of him because you think he's mean or unkind in any way. He's done his best to welcome you to the team, allowing you to take investigations in your own direction and listening to your insights since day one. There was a brief moment in your first week where you felt tested, like his questions weren't to gain your insight but to see if you were up to the task, but you slipped past that easily. you have the credentials to back yourself up. you're quiet, yeah, but you're always right on track to where you need to be. pulled early from academy to jump into investigating was hard but it made this easy. a few years of experience under your belt and the job feels natural and, even with the shift in teams to join the big guns in Quantico, you feel like you're exactly where you're meant to be.

No, embarrassingly, this has nothing to do with you not liking your boss or being afraid of him. Rather, he makes you too comfortable. He ducks his head to hear you speak as you walk and talk, settling deep eyes on your face. He's sturdy, dependable, and exactly everything you're all too interested in.

You hate it, harboring a school crush on your boss like you're a teen pining over your teacher. You know it's normal, you know it's perfectly reasonable and there's absolutely nothing wrong with being attracted to him, but you still slink away from him more than the others because of that attraction.

Because it's more than physical.

He listens when you talk. Granted, so do the rest of the team - they're profilers, of course they catalogue everything everyone is saying for future reference. But, beyond that, you catch him paying attention. He complimented your new blouse earlier in the week and it caused air to catch in your throat, suffocating you. It looked new, bright white and without wrinkles, but you knew he must have been looking, noticing, to remember you not wearing it before. He's kind, remembering details about you and the team and using them to aid in everyone's comfort. He knows Spencer can't handle dairy and you've heard him reminding an intern to stock the dairy-free alternatives for creamer in the jet. He brought you a neck pillow on your second flight because you didn't have one.

That gift you accepted with stuttering thank-you's and a flushed face. It hadn't flared this crush, but it definitely aided in your ability to accept it when you finally got around to no longer avoiding how he made you feel with every kind smile and gentle good morning.

You settle down at your desk, putting your steaming mug on a pile of paperwork you really need to sort through, and try to physically push the thoughts out of your head by ranking your hands through your hair, lifting it from your forehead and squeezing your eyes shut. Today isn't the day. You're too tired, sure that the team will be flying out today, and really need to be on your A-Game.

"Everything okay?" A calm voice asks from your elbow. When you look up, you decide the universe hates you. Hotch is leaning on the desk adjacent to yours, holding his own travel cup full of fresh coffee, chin tilted down to check on you. His gaze is kind, light on your face, and his eyebrows are lifted slightly. You get the feeling that he's doing everything in his power to present himself as less imposing.

"Yes, of course," you answer automatically, heart thudding in your throat.

"You know, you shouldn't lie to profilers," he says, tone teasing, voice still low. "If you're tired, it's okay to admit it to me, too."

You're about to brush him off when something in your brain freezes before clicking into place.

He's looking at you, pleading, expression open. He's usually guarded, professional. Caring, but with a guard up. Rare are these moments of genuine asking, especially rarer so are the moment of pleading hidden behind a mask of gentle humor. You think, briefly, about how it must seem to him. He heard you, Emily, and Morgan joking in the kitchen. You haven't been here long, you're shy, but slowly thawing to everyone but him. He doesn't know your reasons, he couldn't, you've made a genuine effort to hide them, and you force yourself to see it from his perspective.

"Sorry," you say, softly, slowly. "I didn't sleep well. First nightmares and then insomnia. Hence," you gesture toward your mug. You shrug, heart beating out of your chest, eyes searching his. Nice, be nice, be open and kind and yourself. "At least I have FRIENDS reruns to keep me company."

You see something relax in him at your gentle offering of the information. He sends you a not-quite-smile, nodding once and pushing himself off of the desk he was lightly leaning against.

"Take a few minutes, I'm sure JJ will call us in soon." He scans your face for a moment before looking down at your desk. He reaches forward, slowly but with purpose, and lifts a file that has been nagging you for days. The new computer system is hard to get used to and the paperwork load is heavier than you've experienced before. "I can help you with this to ease some of your load, too."

He's walking away before you can protest, tucking the file under his arm and ducking into his office. He moves swiftly, leaving no room for argument, and you're left at your desk, mouth agape and heart in your mouth.

"Wow," Spencer says, jolting you in your chair to spin around and face him. His desk is near yours, across a walkway, and you hadn't registered him sitting there. You think he was nose-deep in a book when you walked in but you hadn't been paying attention. "I don't think I've seen him warm up to someone that fast," Spencer admits, leaning back in his seat and giving you a confused look, eyebrows lowered. "Actually, he's never offered to help me do my paperwork. Ever."

"That's because you read far too fast for it to actually help you," you offer, mind racing, words hollow as your thoughts are elsewhere.

Eyes trained on the windows of Hotch's office, you take his advice and relax for the few minutes before JJ comes to gather you all in the conference room. Coffee on your lips, you let yourself smile behind the rim of your mug. You can't imagine how you could think of anything other than that, really.

#bubbs.writes #criminal minds #cm #x reader #fluff #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotchner #hotch x reader #hotchner x reader #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds fanfic #shy!reader #Hotch x shy!reader #reader insert #maybe ooc #idk im always afraid of that #reblog appreciated #love u

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coquelicoq · 23 days ago

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how to write a sympathy card

so someone you know recently lost a loved one and you would like to extend your sympathy, but you have no idea what to say. here are some ideas to get the juices flowing. i did not even try to keep this short, so i've broken it up into four sections: general advice, what to include, some example cards i've written, and takeaways.

general advice

first, if you're reading this i'll assume that you have decided to express your sympathy in some way and just don't know how. the thing about doing this is it will always feel inadequate. it will often feel very awkward. you may be worried that everything you say sounds weirdly insincere even if it isn't. i'm here to tell you that that is all okay and normal and to be expected. i've written a lot of sympathy cards and afterwards i've never been like "wow, i nailed it!" and yet i've gotten a lot of comments from people thanking me for showing up even when all i did was send a measly insufficient card, because most people don't do that. it will mean something to the person that you did it at all, even if it's not perfect.

should you send your sympathy in a card or some other method? if you never send mail, if you don't have their address, if you don't even own stamps, maybe sending a card is not for you. but everything below also applies to an email you could send. i personally prefer a card because i like the physicality; it's something they can keep and look at later if they want to, and it's a way of showing a small amount of deliberation and care (i went to the store and picked this out; i sat down and handwrote this). more importantly, i feel like there's less pressure to respond to a card than an email, and a phone call can be overwhelming to someone who is already dealing with a lot of shit, while a card is just there whenever they feel up to looking at it. but that is entirely my own perspective; there are differences culturally as well as personally. you should do what makes sense for you.

do think about what you're trying to accomplish by sending this card. you may not be able to make things better, but you are certainly trying not to make things harder. one example of this might be: if your friend has just lost her mother, you might have a lot of complicated feelings about this that aren't really about your friend or her mother specifically (you also have a mother!), and that's natural and okay, but those feelings would perhaps be best to share with other friends of yours who didn't just lose their mother. another example: it's okay to be worried about your friend and how they're doing, but try not to imply that they owe you updates or that they're causing you a lot of stress by not keeping you in the loop. (of course, if they are instead sharing more with you than you can handle, it's important to set boundaries around that! though probably not through the mechanism of a sympathy card.)

it is okay to keep it really short and generic. again, i think just the act of thinking to get a card, getting a card, writing something in it, and mailing it already means something regardless of what is written in it. if you feel overwhelmed trying to figure out what to say, it is okay to keep it to "I'm thinking of you in this difficult time. I'm so sorry for your loss." i also sometimes add "I don't know what to say, except that [I'm thinking of you, etc.]."

one thing i've learned that makes this harder is that you cannot assume you know how anyone else feels. you may be thinking, "i also lost a parent, so i know how it feels," but you only know how you felt about it. there are infinite ways to feel about losing someone, including:

sadness for the deceased, that their life is over

sadness for themself, that the deceased is gone

sadness for the other people who lost the deceased

fear of their own mortality

fear of dying in the same way

fear of how their life is going to change without the deceased

relief that the deceased is no longer suffering

relief that their caretaking duties are over

relief that the deceased can no longer mistreat them

anger at the deceased for dying or for not doing something before they died

anger at god

anger at others/self for contributing to their death or not saving them

overwhelm from all the logistical things there are to deal with when someone dies

overwhelm from all the emotions

confusion at their own reaction

guilt for outliving the deceased

guilt for not feeling sadder or for feeling other things in addition to sadness (or for being numb/in shock)

this is an incomplete list!!!

i try not to project onto my friend or put words in their mouth, because it can be very isolating to be told how other people think you should feel if that's not exactly how you feel. because you're sending them a sympathy card, there is some baseline assumption that there is something to feel sympathy about. but beyond that i try to be careful not to get super specific about how "you must be feeling" or how hard "this must be". generally i try to avoid the word "must" because it implies that there is a certain way this is supposed to go, when there isn't.

if i know that they are struggling in some way but haven't talked to them much about it, i personally usually feel okay saying "Loss is hard" or "It's hard to lose someone", which might seem similar to "This must be hard", but avoids the word "must" and the direct reference to their situation ("loss" in general vs. "the particular instance of loss you are experiencing"). if i don't know much at all about how they're doing, i might say "Loss can be hard", which presumes even less, or i might not directly mention the difficulty of loss at all.

but also, it's okay to be more specific and personalized if you have been in contact with your friend as they've been processing the situation. it's good to acknowledge specific feelings that they've told you about, but try to also leave room for other feelings and/or ways their feelings might have changed.

what to include

here are some categories of sentiments you may want to include (all optional!):

thinking of you: even though it's kind of self-evident that you're thinking about them, this is something that is always appropriate to say and always nice to hear. examples: You're in my thoughts. I'm thinking of you often.

wishing you comfort/support: comfort and support are very safe things to wish somebody because they don't assume anything very specific about how they're feeling, and they express care for their wellbeing without putting pressure on them to be fine. I hope you can find moments of comfort in the coming days. I hope you're feeling supported by friends and family.

sorry for your loss: this is one of those things everyone knows is a stock phrase, but it's the kind of stock phrase that imo actually communicates something, so i do generally use it. I'm so sorry for your loss.

my heart goes out to you: this stock phrase is a little iffier, meaning it can be kind of a toss-up on whether or not it will sound insincere. it might depend on how close you are to the person. use your discretion. again, even things that sound insincere to you can still mean a lot to the recipient. My heart goes out to you. My heart is with you.

i'm here for you: offer logistical and/or emotional support if you want to and if you're reasonably sure that you could provide it. if you're able to be specific, that can be very helpful; one thing that can be overwhelming in the aftermath of a loss is dealing with lots of people wanting to help and having to come up with ways for them to do that. Please reach out anytime if it would help to talk about it. If you ever need to be distracted, I'm good at that! I'd love to bring over some food/help out with chores and errands; I'll text you to see if that would be helpful and not disruptive.

prayers: if you and the recipient are both religious/spiritual and it feels right to say, you could say "I'm keeping you in my prayers" or similar, in addition to or in lieu of "I'm thinking of you." if you are religious but the recipient isn't (or you're not sure if they are), i suggest not saying this, but use your judgment. some people don't mind hearing that someone is praying for them even if they don't believe in prayer and may in fact expect you to say it if you are known as someone who often expresses care through prayer, but for others, this can be actively offensive. i would say when in doubt, stick to "thoughts" instead of "prayers". You're in my prayers. I'm praying for you.

there are many ways to grieve: this one is harder to describe, but i like to include something that validates whatever the recipient may be feeling, despite not knowing how the recipient is feeling. the downside of a card is that it's not in real time, so you really have no way of knowing how your friend is feeling when they read it, even if you talked to them previously and know how they were feeling during that conversation. so i like to, in addition to not assuming any particular emotions, make space for the fact that their emotions may be shifting in ways that are confusing or distressing. but you have to be kind of vague about it, because you don't even know if that's happening. I hope you have the space to grieve in whatever way you need to/is meaningful for you. I hope you're getting through this time in whatever way is best for you.

you may want to express your own grief over the loss of this person, if you knew them. i think this can be comforting for the recipient to hear, but i suggest keeping it brief and not overwrought. the last thing you want is for your friend to feel they have to manage your emotions in addition to their own. if you can, do the below instead of or in addition to this.

now i will share my LIFE HACK!! for the very best thing to put in a sympathy card. this will not always be possible, because it relies upon a) you yourself having a relationship with the deceased (which is not always the case) and b) you being able to remember things (which i often cannot, especially when i'm sad). but if you can, i highly suggest something along the lines of the following.

say what you will remember the deceased for. (I will remember them for their wry sense of humor. I will remember them as a compassionate/driven/curious person.)

give an example of a memory you have of them in which they exemplified that characteristic.

if you can't do both, it's also good to do just one and not the other. if you have a favorite memory but it's too hard to think of adjectives to attribute to them, just share the memory. if you tend to think of them as [positive adjective] but no specific evidence is coming to mind, that's okay, this isn't a debate. in general it is comforting to people to know that they are not the only ones who will remember their lost loved one.

example cards

i will now give some examples of cards i've written. these all feel really awkward and inadequate to me, and you can see i didn't always stick to my own advice! but they were all deeply appreciated.

[to my coworker. i didn't have much detail except knowing her dad had been in the hospital a lot, and she was sad that he died]

I was so sorry to hear about your father. It seems like the last few years have been hard on your family, and loss is especially hard. I hope you are able to take the time you need to be with your family and cherish your memories of him together.

[to my friend's mother after the passing of her husband. i knew from talking to my friend that her mom was struggling especially with outliving him, because she was sick and had expected for a long time to die before him]

I'm thinking about you and [friend's name] a lot. I'm so sorry for your loss. Losing someone is so hard. Adjusting to their absence is, too. I hope that you're finding moment of comfort and feeling supported by friends and family. He will be missed. I will remember him for his wry sense of humor; I still have a "card" from him on my fridge (he cut out a sample "thank you" card greeting that said "The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention" from a list of things to write in different kinds of cards (a sample message for a "Get Well Soon" card was on the back, crossed out) and simply added my name at the top and his name at the bottom. It's one of my favorite pieces of mail I've ever received and it's been on my fridge for many years). I am so sorry that he's gone. You are in my thoughts and my heart goes out to you.

[to my close friend and her husband i don't know as well, after a late-term abortion for a baby they had been very excited to raise. in this case i knew some of my friend's feelings, but not her husband's, and while i knew that many things about the pregnancy had been hard (lots of waiting for test results about the viability of the fetus, for one thing), i didn't want to imply that the decision to abort was hard, because my friend said it wasn't]

I'm thinking of you both lots. I'm so sorry for the loss of your baby. It sounds like it's been a difficult and fraught process, and I hope you're getting space and time to grieve and to come to terms with the loss. I hope you're getting whatever kind of support you need. If there's anything I can do to help, whether logistical or emotional, please let me know. I would love to be of service to you. I wish I knew what to say. You've just had such a fantastically shitty year. I do believe that things will get lighter for you both, and I hope that happens soon. Take care, and know you are cherished.

[to my grandmother after the loss of her estranged brother, when i was extremely unsure how she was feeling about it and had my own complicated emotions]

I just wanted to send you a card to say I'm thinking of you. Mom let me know about Uncle [name]. I know things had been strained for many years and I haven't seen him in a long time, but I'm sorry to hear that he's passed. I hope that you and [grandmother's sister] are able to reminisce in whatever way feels appropriate and meaningful to you. I'm not sure what else to say, other than I'm thinking of you, I love you, and I'm sorry. It was really nice to see you at [family member's] graduation the other day. The next time we're together, I look forward to giving you such a big hug! I feel very lucky to be your granddaughter and to have you in my life.

[to my grandmother after the loss of my 38yo cousin, which was hitting me really hard]

I don't know what to say, but I just wanted to tell you that my heart goes out to you and that I'm thinking of you, and [cousin], and [uncle], and [father], every day. It's so hard to lose someone, and I'm so sorry for your loss. My grief is a strange animal that sneaks up on me at the strangest times. I hope you are finding moments of comfort and feeling supported by friends and family. I'm looking forward to the day when I can hug you in person.

[to my close friend on the loss of her father after a long illness. she had been leaning on me for support, as another person who has lost someone after a long illness]

I'm thinking about you lots. I hope you're getting through this time in whatever way is best for you. Loss is hard even when you know it's coming and even when you get to say goodbye. I hope you are finding comfort and feeling how loved you are. He was a special person, and I'm so sorry he's left you. I know part of him will live on in you and the other people who learned from and admired him. It's still so hard to lose him, and grief is a strange animal. Take care. Reach out anytime. I love you so much.

takeaways

it will probably feel inadequate to you, but chances are it will still be appreciated.

remember that though you may not be able to make things better, you are trying not to make things harder.

it is okay to keep it really short and generic.

you cannot assume you know how anyone else feels. there are many ways to grieve. that said, it's nice to acknowledge any specific feelings your friend has expressed to you, while also leaving room for other feelings you may not know about.

if you want to offer support, it can help a lot to be specific in how you are able and willing to help.

it is usually comforting to people to know that they are not the only ones who will remember their lost loved one.

even if you do it awkwardly, just the act of reaching out is meaningful! people don't know you're thinking about them unless you tell them.

and remember to take care of yourself, too! watching friends lose loved ones can be hard for you as well for a variety of reasons. reach out to other friends for support when you need it.

#grief #support #cards #my posts #long post #unfortunately this has been very relevant this year #i dug this out of drafts because a friend just lost her mom after losing her dad earlier this year. and then her unborn child #what a shitty year she has had. what do you even say? well past me had some advice about this

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hiitsm · 5 months ago

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Whispers of Desires

You and your girlfriend are navigating the tender stages of experiencing your first time together.

Whispers of Desires is for 18+ only.

This piece contains intimate conversations about sex, characterized by a mix of awkward, shy, and loving moments. It also includes a depiction of soft, slow, and tender sexual activity, with a focus on emotional connection and mutual care.

Note: I’ve spent a lot of time crafting this piece, and while it may be a bit longer than initially planned, I felt that each moment deserved the detail it received. I've adjusted it a little. I hope it meets everyone’s expectations. Thank you so much for the kind messages and support after the teaser. I appreciate it a lot.

The kitchen is warm with the scent of freshly baked pastries, the lingering aroma of sugar and butter mixing with the comforting familiarity of Alexia’s home. You stand at the counter, carefully folding a dishcloth, trying to keep your thoughts focused on the simple, repetitive tasks. The to-do list lies nearby, a silent reminder of the things you can control, and the one thing you can't seem to face.

You glance at the list, its contents scribbled in your neat handwriting:

To-Do List: 1. Clean up the kitchen 2. Fold laundry 3. Talk to Alexia about her sexual desires

Your eyes linger on the third item, the one you've been dreading. With a sigh, you quickly strike through it, the pen's ink cutting across the words as if that could erase the anxiety gnawing at you. You can’t bring yourself to talk to her about that, not yet. What if the rumors are true? What if her desires are something you can't fulfill? You don’t want to lose her, but you also don’t want to lose yourself in the process.

You’ve heard all the rumors about Alexia Putellas. That she loves to dominate, to pull her partners apart with a fierce intensity. That she revels in control, in the thrill of the chase. That her passion is raw and fast. Each whisper you caught only fueled your anxiety, a churning storm of nerves that seemed impossible to quiet. You tried to ignore them, to push the thoughts aside, but they lingered in the back of your mind, casting shadows over the love you share.

And now, with the possibility of taking the next step in your relationship looming before you, the fear has only grown. You’re scared to take that step, terrified that your desires aren’t the same as hers. What if you can’t match her intensity? What if what she wants is something you can’t give? The thought of not being enough for her, of failing her in some way, sends a cold shiver down your spine.

You start wiping down the counters, moving in a methodical rhythm, each swipe of the cloth offering a brief distraction from the storm brewing in your mind. The sponge glides over the cool surface, removing traces of flour and sugar, but the tension in your chest remains.

As you straighten up the scattered baking supplies, your eyes drift toward the small, framed photo on the windowsill. It's a candid shot taken on a sunny day, the two of you caught mid-laughter, arms wrapped around each other, the kind of joy that feels almost too good to be true. The memory makes you pause, your fingers brushing the frame lightly as you wonder if you’re letting your fears overshadow the truth of what you have.

The whispers, the rumors, they all seem so distant when you think about the woman you know. The Alexia who smiles softly at you over breakfast, who texts you in the middle of the day just to say she misses you, who holds your hand like it's the most natural thing in the world. But still, the doubts linger, making you question whether you truly know her as well as you think.

The front door clicks open, and you hear the familiar sound of her footsteps, steady and sure, as they approach the kitchen. You barely have time to turn before she’s there, her presence filling the room with an effortless grace.

“Hola, amor,” she greets you, her voice soft and filled with warmth that wraps around you like a blanket. She glances around the kitchen, taking in the clean counters and organized space. “Cómo va todo?”

You quickly grab the to-do list, folding it in half and slipping it into your pocket before she can see the items you’ve been obsessing over. “Everything’s good,” you reply, hoping your voice sounds more steady than you feel. But Alexia is already closer, her eyes searching yours with a mixture of affection and curiosity.

Before she can ask anything more, you close the distance between you, leaning in to kiss her softly. Her lips are warm, and for a moment, the world outside fades away, leaving just the two of you in this quiet, shared moment. She hums contentedly against your lips, a small, pleased sound that makes your heart flutter.

“Mmm, that was nice,” she murmurs when you pull back, a playful grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. She switches to English, her accent making the words sound even sweeter. She wraps her arms around you, pulling you closer into the safety of her embrace. “What were you up to, amor?”

“Just trying to get things sorted around here,” you say, your voice quieter now, more intimate. “How was your day?”

“Busy, but good,” she replies, her voice a little softer now, as if the closeness between you demands a gentler tone. “I missed you, though.” The sincerity in her voice makes your chest tighten with emotion.

“I missed you too,” you admit, your hand resting on her arm, tracing small patterns on the sleeve of her shirt. You can feel the steady beat of her heart through the fabric, and it gives you a small sense of calm. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

Alexia’s eyes soften as she leans in for another kiss, this one more urgent, more filled with the longing that has been building up in both of you throughout the day. Her lips move against yours with a tenderness that quickly deepens into something more, a hunger that you feel echoing in your own chest.

Your heart races as you return her kiss, your fingers threading through her hair, holding onto her as if she’s the only solid thing in your world. For a moment, you lose yourself in the warmth of her touch, in the way she makes you feel safe and cherished.

But as the kiss grows more intense, a wave of anxiety crashes over you, pulling you back to the surface. You break the kiss abruptly, your breath coming in short, uneven gasps. Alexia pulls back just enough to look at you, concern etched on her features.

“Qué pasa?” she asks softly, her hand coming up to cup your cheek, her thumb brushing against your skin in a soothing gesture. Her eyes search yours, trying to understand what’s going on inside your head.

You struggle to find the words, torn between the love you feel for her and the fear that’s been gnawing at you for days. You want to be honest with her, to share what’s been weighing on your heart, but the words stick in your throat, refusing to come out. You’re scared, scared that your desires don’t match hers, scared that what she wants is something you’re not sure you can give. And more than anything, you’re scared of losing her, of the possibility that this might be something that could drive a wedge between you.

Alexia waits patiently, her gaze steady and filled with a quiet strength that both comforts and intimidates you. She deserves the truth, but you’re not sure you’re ready to face it yourself. Not yet.

Alexia's concerned gaze remains locked on you as you struggle to find the right words. Your chest tightens with the weight of your fears, and you can feel your face flush with a mixture of embarrassment and anxiety. The warmth of her hand on your cheek feels comforting, yet it only amplifies your nervousness. You take a deep breath, trying to steady your racing heart.

“I—” you start, your voice trembling slightly. “I’ve been... thinking a lot about us, and, um, there’s something I need to talk to you about.” You stumble over the words, each one feeling like a hurdle you’re barely able to jump. You clear your throat, trying to regain some semblance of composure. “I mean, I know we’ve been... close and everything, and I love you so much, but... but I’ve heard some things, and I—”

You stop abruptly, your hands gesturing awkwardly as if trying to physically grasp the right words. The shame of not being able to articulate your feelings is almost overwhelming. You glance around, desperately searching for something to focus on.

Alexia, sensing your distress, gently guides you towards the couch. “Come on, amor,” she says softly, her voice soothing. “Let’s sit down. You look like you could use a minute.” She leads you to the couch and gestures for you to sit, her touch light but reassuring.

You sink onto the couch, feeling a mixture of relief and dread. Alexia moves to the kitchen, her movements quick but purposeful. She returns with two glasses of water, handing one to you. “Here, drink this. It might help you feel a bit better.”

You take the glass, your hands still trembling slightly as you sip the cool water. Alexia sits beside you, her proximity comforting, yet her eyes are filled with an inquisitive tenderness. She reaches out and takes your free hand in hers, squeezing it gently.

“Whatever it is, we can talk about it,” she says softly. “I’m here for you.”

Feeling the pressure of your emotions building, you fumble for the to-do list you’d tucked away in your pocket. With a sheepish glance at Alexia, you pull it out and hand it to her. Her eyes widen slightly as she looks down at the list, and you see a faint blush spread across her cheeks.

“I, um, I had this list,” you admit, your voice barely above a whisper. “It was supposed to help me keep track of things... but I couldn’t bring myself to talk about... that last item.” You gesture vaguely at the paper, your cheeks burning with embarrassment.

Alexia’s eyes dart to the list, and she blushes lightly as she reads the crossed-out line. The color in her cheeks deepens, and she bites her lip, clearly feeling a bit awkward about the whole situation. “Oh, um...” she stammers, her cheeks growing warm. “I see you’ve, uh, crossed out that part.”

You can’t help but feel a pang of guilt as you watch her reaction. The sight of her blushing and stumbling over her words makes your heart ache. “I’m sorry,” you say quietly, feeling the weight of the situation pressing down on you. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just… I’ve been hearing these things, and I didn’t know if we were on the same page.”

Alexia’s eyes soften with understanding, even though she’s clearly flustered. She reaches out, gently squeezing your hand in a gesture of reassurance. “I’m sorry if I’ve given you the wrong impression,” she says, her voice a little shaky but kind. “I really didn’t mean to cause any worry. I guess I didn’t realize how much those rumors were affecting you.”

You nod, feeling a lump form in your throat. “Yeah, they’ve been on my mind a lot,” you admit. “I’m just scared that my own desires might not match up with what you want. I’ve always preferred things to be a bit softer, you know?”

Alexia’s blush deepens, but she quickly shakes off her shyness, her eyes meeting yours with a sincere intensity. “I understand,” she says softly. “And I want to make sure you feel comfortable with us exploring this together.” She pauses, then adds, her voice growing more confident but still tinged with a hint of awkwardness, “I, um, like to be in control and, well, sometimes a bit rough. But that doesn’t mean we can’t adjust things to fit what we both want.”

You feel a wave of relief wash over you at her honesty. “Thank you for sharing that,” you say, your voice tinged with gratitude. “I really appreciate you being open with me. Can I ask you something? What do you like, exactly?”

Alexia takes a deep breath, her shyness melting away as she becomes more animated. “I, um, really enjoy taking the lead, feeling like I’m in charge,” she says, her eyes brightening with a newfound confidence. “But I also love hearing what you like, what makes you feel good. I want to make sure we both have what we need.”

Her willingness to adapt and consider your feelings makes you feel incredibly valued. You squeeze her hand back, your heart swelling with appreciation. “I like it when things are gentle and tender,” you admit, feeling more at ease now that the conversation is flowing openly. “It’s important to me that we both feel good about what we’re doing.”

After the conversation, the dynamic between you and Alexia shifts subtly but significantly. There’s a new warmth in her gaze, an added layer of intimacy that wasn’t there before. The initial awkwardness has melted away, replaced by a deeper understanding and a tangible current of desire that flows between you.

In the days that follow, the air seems charged with a new energy. You notice the way Alexia's touches linger a little longer, the way her kisses are filled with a gentle urgency that wasn’t there before. Conversations take on a more flirtatious tone, filled with playful teasing and soft, suggestive glances. The connection between you feels more electric, more alive, as if the boundaries between affection and desire have become wonderfully blurred.

One evening, after a particularly busy day, you find yourselves curled up on the couch together. The soft light of the lamp casts a warm glow around the room, creating an intimate cocoon where it’s just the two of you. Alexia’s head rests on your shoulder, her fingers tracing delicate patterns on your arm as you talk about your day.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what we talked about,” Alexia murmurs, her voice low and warm. Her breath tickles your skin, sending a shiver of anticipation through you. “I’m really glad we had that conversation.”

“Me too,” you reply, your voice soft. “I feel like things are... different now, in a good way.”

Alexia lifts her head, her eyes meeting yours with a sparkle of playful mischief. “Different how?” she asks, her voice taking on a teasing edge.

You smile, feeling a flush of warmth at her proximity. “Well, for one, there’s this new... tension between us,” you say, your words coming out with a hint of nervousness and excitement. “I feel it every time we’re close.”

Alexia’s smile widens, her eyes darkening with a mix of affection and desire. “I’ve noticed that too,” she says softly. She leans in, her lips brushing against yours in a tender kiss that quickly deepens into something more passionate. Her hands find their way to your face, cupping it gently as her kisses grow more fervent.

As the days pass, the physical connection between you both becomes more intense. You find yourselves stealing kisses whenever you can, your touches lingering with a newfound intensity. Each caress, each look, becomes a promise of what’s to come, a gentle build-up to the moment when you’ll finally give in to the desire that’s been growing between you.

With your heart full of anticipation and a touch of nervousness, you decide to make tonight special. Something that reflects the tender connection you both cherish. You spend the afternoon preparing, wanting every detail to be perfect.

The apartment is filled with the warm, inviting scent of your cooking. You’ve prepared a simple yet elegant dinner, something that you know Alexia loves. The table is set with your best dishes, a bottle of wine breathing on the side, and soft, flickering candlelight casting a golden glow over everything. The lights are dimmed, the apartment bathed in a warm, romantic ambiance that feels almost magical.

You’ve added little touches around the room. Fresh flowers in a vase on the table, the soft strains of music playing in the background, the living room rearranged slightly to create a more intimate setting. It’s a space that feels safe and inviting, designed to make tonight memorable.

As the time draws near, you catch yourself fidgeting with the edges of your dress, smoothing out invisible wrinkles, adjusting the candles on the table one last time. There’s a nervous flutter in your stomach, a mix of excitement and anxiety as you wait for Alexia to arrive. You want everything to be perfect, but more than that, you want to show her just how much she means to you.

As the final touches are set, you hear the front door creak open, and your heart skips a beat. You quickly smooth down the fabric of your dress, a soft blush warming your cheeks. You’ve chosen something special for tonight. An elegant dress that flows gracefully, making you feel beautiful and confident, even if your heart is still racing with anticipation.

When Alexia steps into the apartment, she pauses in the doorway, her eyes widening slightly as she takes in the sight of you. Her reaction is immediate and genuine. A wide, happy smile spreads across her face, lighting up her features. For a moment, she just stands there, staring at you as if she’s seeing you for the first time. The look of admiration in her eyes makes your heart swell with warmth.

“Wow,” she breathes out, her voice tinged with awe. “You look... increíble, amor. So beautiful.” She takes a step closer, her gaze sweeping over you with a mixture of affection and admiration. “I—I’m so lucky,” she stammers, her usual confident demeanor giving way to a shy, almost bashful expression.

You feel a blush rise to your cheeks at her praise, and you can’t help but smile shyly. “Thank you,” you reply, feeling a rush of warmth from her words. The way she’s looking at you makes you feel like the most beautiful person in the world.

Alexia’s gaze then shifts momentarily to her own outfit—casual training wear that she’s clearly worn just for comfort. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, a slight blush creeping up her cheeks as she nervously tugs at the hem of her sweatshirt. “Oh, I, um... I didn’t realize I’d be, uh, underdressed,” she stammers, her eyes flitting between you and her own attire. “I didn’t expect—”

You cut her off gently, stepping closer and taking her hand in yours. “You look great,” you say sincerely, giving her a reassuring squeeze. “I love how soft and relaxed you look. I just wanted to make tonight special for you, for us. It’s not about the clothes. It’s about being together.”

Alexia’s blush deepens, but she seems to relax at your words. She looks into your eyes with a mixture of gratitude and affection. “Thank you,” she says, her voice softening. “You really didn’t have to do all this, but it means so much that you did.”

Without another word, she leans in and presses a tender kiss to your lips. The kiss is warm and full of affection, a perfect encapsulation of the love and understanding that has blossomed between you. When she pulls back, her eyes are filled with a soft, loving glow. “I’m really lucky to have you,” she murmurs, her voice full of emotion.

Her words are reassuring, and you feel your nervousness begin to fade, replaced by a sense of calm. You lead her to the table, pulling out her chair before taking your seat across from her. The candles flicker between you, casting soft shadows on her face as she looks at you with a tenderness that makes your heart swell.

Dinner is a quiet, intimate affair. The conversation flows easily, filled with laughter and shared glances that say more than words ever could. The food is delicious, but it’s the company that truly makes the evening special. With each passing moment, the connection between you deepens, the unspoken promise of what’s to come lingering in the air.

After the last bite of dessert, Alexia leans back in her chair, her eyes never leaving yours. “This was amazing,” she says, her voice low and warm. “Thank you for doing all of this.”

You smile, feeling a flush of pride at her words. “I’m glad you liked it. I just wanted us to have a night that’s... just for you, for us.”

Alexia’s eyes soften even more, and she reaches across the table to take your hand, her thumb gently stroking the back of it. “You’ve made me feel so special tonight,” she murmurs, her voice filled with emotion. “And I want to make sure you feel the same.”

The intensity in her gaze sends a shiver down your spine, but it’s a different kind of shiver than the anxiety you’ve felt before. It’s one of anticipation, of knowing that you’re about to share something incredibly intimate and meaningful with the person you love. You nod, unable to find the right words to express what you’re feeling, but knowing that she understands.

She stands, pulling you up with her, and with a gentle smile, she leads you into the living room. The atmosphere here is even more intimate, the music playing softly in the background, the candles you’d placed around the room casting a soft, romantic glow. Alexia pauses in the middle of the room, turning to face you, her hands resting lightly on your waist.

She looks at you with such affection, such care, that it takes your breath away. “Are you okay?” she asks softly, her voice filled with concern and love. “We can take things slow, amor. There’s no rush.”

You nod, your heart full of love for her. “I’m okay,” you reply, your voice steady despite the fluttering in your chest. “I want this... with you.”

Alexia’s smile is soft and full of warmth. She leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips, one that speaks of all the tenderness she feels for you. The kiss deepens slowly, her hands moving up to cup your face, her thumbs brushing your cheeks in a gesture that is both protective and loving.

As the kiss lingers, your hands find their way to her back, holding her close, feeling the warmth of her body against yours. The room seems to fade away, leaving just the two of you in this bubble of intimacy. The fears and doubts that had once clouded your mind now seem distant, replaced by the certainty that this moment, this connection, is exactly where you’re meant to be.

When she pulls back slightly, her forehead resting against yours, you can see the love and desire in her eyes, tempered by the same care she’s shown throughout the night. “I want you to feel safe with me,” she whispers, her breath warm against your skin. “And I want you to tell me if there’s anything you need, anything you want.”

You nod, your heart swelling with emotion. “I feel safe with you,” you say, your voice trembling slightly with the depth of your feelings. “And I want to be with you... just like this.”

Her smile is full of understanding, and she takes your hand, leading you to the couch where you’d spent so many nights talking, laughing, and just being together. But tonight, it feels different. There’s a sense of anticipation, of something new and beautiful blooming between you.

She sits down, pulling you gently onto her lap, her arms wrapping around you in a way that feels both protective and possessive. Her lips find yours again, the kiss slow and tender, her hands exploring your body with a softness that speaks of her care for you. You feel her breath hitch slightly as her hands move over the curves of your body, her desire evident but tempered by the gentle way she touches you.

You respond in kind, your hands moving through her hair, down her back, holding her close as you both sink deeper into the kiss. The world outside ceases to exist, leaving just the two of you, wrapped in the warmth of each other’s embrace.

Her lips trail from your mouth to your neck, pressing soft, open-mouthed kisses along your skin, each one sending a shiver of pleasure through you. Her hands continue their gentle exploration, never rushing, always mindful of the pace you’ve set together. You can feel the tension in her body, the restraint she’s holding onto, and it only makes you love her more.

You shift slightly, straddling her lap, your hands resting on her shoulders as you look into her eyes. “Alexia,” you whisper, your voice filled with all the love and desire you feel. “I want this... with you.”

Her eyes darken with desire, but there’s also a softness there, a tenderness that reassures you. “I want this too,” she murmurs, her hands settling on your hips, holding you close. “More than anything.”

The moment feels like it’s wrapped in a cocoon of warmth and mutual affection. Alexia’s fingers gently trace the curves of your waist, and you can feel the connection between you growing stronger with each passing second.

Suddenly, with a playful glint in her eye, Alexia shifts slightly beneath you and starts to rise. You yelp in surprise, your arms tightening instinctively around her shoulders as she lifts you effortlessly from her lap. Her strength is both reassuring and exhilarating, a reminder of her athletic prowess.

“Whoa, careful!” you laugh nervously, gripping her tightly as she stands up. Her eyes sparkle with mischief, and she chuckles softly at your reaction.

“Relax,” Alexia teases gently, her voice low and soothing. “I’ve got you. I’m an athlete, remember?” She holds you securely against her, her muscles flexing as she adjusts her grip to make sure you’re comfortable.

With a tender smile, Alexia walks slowly towards the bed, her steps measured and deliberate. As she reaches the edge of the mattress, she carefully lowers you onto the soft surface. Despite her careful movements, you cling to her, your arms wrapped around her neck as if reluctant to let go.

She pauses for a moment, her eyes roaming over your body with a mixture of admiration and affection. Her gaze lingers on you, taking in the sight of you stretched out on the bed, your dress clinging to your form in a way that makes her eyes darken with desire.

A warm, affectionate smile spreads across her face as she looks up at you. The connection between you both feels electric, charged with an intensity that makes your heart race. Without breaking eye contact, Alexia leans down and presses a gentle kiss to your lips. The kiss is soft and lingering, a promise of the intimacy to come.

As she deepens the kiss, she begins to lay her own weight down beside you, her body pressing against yours with a comforting warmth. You can feel her heartbeat against your chest, syncing with your own in a rhythm that feels perfectly natural.

Her hands explore your dress, her fingers tracing along the fabric as she starts to unfasten it. You help her, your movements synchronized as you pull the dress up and over your head. The dress slides off with a soft rustle, leaving you in your underwear.

Alexia’s fingers trail along your exposed skin, her touch light and teasing. She smiles up at you, her gaze filled with adoration. “You look beautiful,” she murmurs, her voice low and sincere. The way she looks at you makes you feel cherished, every inch of you appreciated.

She then starts to peel off her tracksuit, her movements slightly awkward as she tries to juggle her clothing while maintaining her focus on you. You help her, your fingers brushing against her skin as you assist with removing the tracksuit. Her clothes fall to the floor in a soft heap, leaving her in a simple, form-fitting top and underwear.

With the room filled with a tender, expectant silence, you take a deep breath, your fingers hovering hesitantly above her skin. You let your hands drift toward her chest, your heart racing with a mix of excitement and nervousness. You want to trace your fingers over her beautiful breasts, but you hesitate, unsure if you’re crossing any boundaries.

Shyly, you lift your gaze to meet hers, seeking reassurance in her eyes. The vulnerability in your expression is met with a soft, reassuring smile from Alexia. Her eyes, full of warmth and encouragement, seem to invite you to continue.

“Está bien, amor,” she whispers in Spanish, her voice soothing and full of affection. She gently takes your hands in hers, guiding them with a loving touch to cup her breasts. The warmth of her skin beneath your palms is both exhilarating and comforting.

As you make contact, Alexia lets out a soft, breathy moan, a sound so beautiful and intimate that it sends a shiver of pleasure through you. The sound resonates deeply within you, amplifying the connection you share and making you feel incredibly close to her.

With a gentle yet assertive grace, Alexia begins to take more control of the moment. She shifts her weight slightly, pressing her body more firmly against yours, allowing her warmth and softness to envelop you. Her hands glide over your body with a tenderness that feels both exhilarating and reassuring.

“Just let me guide you,” she murmurs softly, her voice a mix of confidence and tenderness. “Tell me what you like, and we’ll explore this together.”

You nod, your breath coming in soft, uneven gasps as you let her lead. Her fingers trail down your sides, exploring your curves with a careful touch that sends waves of pleasure through you. She lifts her gaze to yours, searching for any sign of hesitation, and you respond with a soft, encouraging smile, giving her the silent permission she needs.

Alexia’s hands continue their journey, gently slipping beneath the waistband of your underwear. She eases them down slowly, her movements deliberate and careful as she uncovers your skin. The cool air against your exposed core contrasts with the warmth of her touch, intensifying the sensations you're experiencing.

As she removes your underwear completely, she turns her attention to her own, her fingers deftly working to peel them away. The sight of her undressing, her body illuminated by the soft light, makes your heart race with anticipation. When she finally discards her last piece of clothing, she pauses, letting you take in the beauty of her fully exposed form.

Overwhelmed by the intimacy of the moment, you slowly shift into a sitting position on the bed, reaching out to wrap your arms around her. The softness of her skin against your body is electrifying, and you hold her close, your breath mingling with hers.

You lean in to plant gentle kisses on her exposed breasts, your lips brushing against her warm skin with a reverence that conveys just how much you adore her. Each kiss is tender, filled with love and a desire to show her how much she means to you.

You then trail your kisses down her left inner arm, admiring the beauty of her tattoo as your lips make contact with her skin, adding a layer of intimacy and appreciation to the tattoo. You slowly and softly set you teeth in her soft flesh.

The sensation of your kisses and bites elicits a soft, appreciative sigh from Alexia, her body responding to the gentle affection. “I like that,” she murmurs softly, her voice laced with warmth and pleasure. “It feels so good.”

She continues to revel in the intimacy you’re sharing, her hands tenderly caressing your back as you continue to kiss her. The closeness between you both becomes even more palpable, each touch and kiss a testament to your deep connection.

After a while, with a loving and considerate touch, Alexia gently guides you back onto the bed. “Let’s take our time,” she says softly, her voice filled with reassurance. As she helps you settle onto your back, her gaze remains tender and attentive, ensuring you feel both comfortable and cherished.

Once you’re comfortably situated, Alexia positions herself above you with a graceful and deliberate motion. Her core makes contact with yours, and she begins to move with a slow, rhythmic motion. She rocks back and forth with a gentle, deliberate pace, creating a sensation that blends pleasure with the perfect amount of pressure.

Her movements are tender yet purposeful, each shift and glide against you enhancing the intimate connection you’re experiencing together. The rhythm she sets is both soothing and stimulating, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the shared moment of closeness. The feeling of her body moving against yours is a harmonious dance of pleasure and tenderness, deepening the bond you share and making each moment feel incredibly special.

As the pleasure builds, you finally allow yourself to be vocal about how good she makes you feel. Soft, breathy moans escape your lips, each sound a testament to the intensity of the sensations coursing through you. You find yourself unable to keep quiet, your voice betraying the immense pleasure you’re experiencing. The sounds you make only seem to encourage Alexia, her own movements becoming more attuned to your responses, amplifying the mutual pleasure you both are sharing.

As the pleasure between you builds, Alexia’s focus remains unwaveringly on you. Her eyes, filled with a mix of adoration and passion, roam over your face and body. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispers, her voice tender and filled with genuine appreciation. “And you make me feel so incredible.”

Her words are a soothing balm, adding to the warmth of the moment. The pleasure between you becomes almost overwhelming, and in the throes of it, her movements start to quicken. The rhythm of her grinding grows faster, her passion driving her actions as she becomes more lost in the sensation.

In her heightened state of desire, Alexia’s hand reaches out and firmly grabs your right breast, her fingers pinching your nipple roughly. The unexpected intensity makes you gasp in surprise, your body reacting sharply to the sensation. Her eyes widen in alarm as she notices your reaction, and she immediately halts her movements.

“Oh mierda, lo siento, lo siento mucho,” she breathes, her voice laced with concern. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Despite the sudden stop, the sensation had been unexpectedly pleasurable, and you find yourself blushing, feeling exposed but also intrigued. You look up at her, your cheeks flushed with a mix of embarrassment and arousal. “It, um, actually felt good,” you admit shyly. “If you want to, you can continue.”

Alexia’s expression shifts from concern to a warm, relieved smile. Her eyes reflect a blend of affection and excitement as she takes your words to heart. “Are you sure?” she asks softly, her voice tender and filled with a gentle eagerness.

You nod, feeling a newfound confidence in sharing your desires. “Yes, I’m sure,” you affirm. “I trust you, and I want to experience this with you.”

With your reassurance, Alexia resumes her movements, her touch becoming more deliberate and attentive as she finds a rhythm that balances both pleasure and sensitivity. Her continued exploration of your body is filled with a renewed passion and care, ensuring that every moment is both thrilling and deeply intimate.

As the sensations between you intensify, Alexia’s movements become a rhythmic dance of passion and tenderness. Her body rocks gently but purposefully against yours, each motion sending waves of pleasure through you. She maintains a steady gaze, her eyes never leaving yours, communicating unspoken affection and desire.

“You feel so amazing,” she murmurs softly, her voice a tender caress against your ear. “I love the way you respond to me.”

Her words are a constant comfort, her sweet reassurances adding an extra layer of intimacy to the moment. She leans down to kiss you, her lips finding yours with a fervent yet gentle touch. The kiss is a melding of emotions, a silent conversation of love and longing that deepens with each passing second.

As the pleasure reaches its peak, her hands move with a delicate precision, enhancing the sensations and making sure you feel cherished and adored. She holds you close, her body pressed against yours, and the steady rhythm of her movements becomes a perfect symphony of shared ecstasy.

The culmination of your mutual pleasure comes as a breathtaking crescendo. You both feel the rush of release, a powerful and overwhelming wave that washes over you, leaving you breathless and blissful. Alexia’s soft, contented moans mix with your own vocal expressions of pleasure, creating a harmony that is both beautiful and deeply personal.

You kiss her tenderly, your lips moving in a gentle rhythm that matches the lingering waves of pleasure. The kiss is a promise of love and devotion, a sweet exchange that further cements the bond you share. Her hands cradle your face, her touch tender and reassuring as she pulls back slightly to look into your eyes.

“Thank you for being so amazing,” you whisper, your voice filled with genuine affection. “I’ve never felt this close to anyone before.”

Alexia’s eyes shine with a mix of love and satisfaction. “It’s because of you,” she replies softly. “You’ve made this so special. I love you so much.”

As the euphoria of the moment begins to settle, Alexia’s teasing smile makes a reappearance, her eyes twinkling with playful affection. She leans in close, brushing a strand of hair from your face before speaking, her tone light yet filled with meaning.

“I don’t stand a chance of having a normal life with you, do I?” she teases, her voice laced with warmth. “You’ve made me want to do this with you every single moment, exploring new things, finding out what we both like. We’re just getting started, and I’m so excited to explore even more with you.”

She punctuates her words with that little shy smile of hers, the one that always manages to melt your heart. It’s a perfect blend of her natural confidence and the sweet, awkward vulnerability that makes her so endearing.

You can’t help but laugh softly at her words, feeling both exhilarated and a little overwhelmed by the intensity of your connection. “Gosh, what have I gotten myself into?” you tease back, your tone playful but your heart swelling with affection.

Alexia chuckles, her smile widening as she leans down to kiss you again, this time more slowly, savoring the moment. “Whatever it is, I hope you’re ready for it,” she murmurs against your lips, her voice carrying both a promise and a challenge.

“I am,” you whisper back, feeling a surge of anticipation for the adventures yet to come.

With her by your side, you’re ready to explore everything. Every desire, every emotion, every new discovery. As you lie there in each other’s arms, the future feels wide open, full of possibility, and you know without a doubt that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be.

As you hold Alexia close, the warmth of her embrace and the depth of your connection make you realize how unfounded your doubts had been. In this moment of intimacy and understanding, you know with certainty that your fears were unnecessary, and that what you share is stronger and more beautiful than you ever imagined.

Note: I realize that some transitions might not be as smooth as l'd like, and plan to refine them later. I just wanted to share this now, even though I haven't done a thorough grammar check yet. Please be gentle with your feedback!

#woso x reader #woso #woso community #woso imagine #woso fanfics #woso one shot #woso smut #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas imagine #alexia putellas one shot #alexia putellas fanfic #alexia putellas smut

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nostalgebraist · 2 years ago

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Honestly I'm pretty tired of supporting nostalgebraist-autoresponder. Going to wind down the project some time before the end of this year.

Posting this mainly to get the idea out there, I guess.

This project has taken an immense amount of effort from me over the years, and still does, even when it's just in maintenance mode.

Today some mysterious system update (or something) made the model no longer fit on the GPU I normally use for it, despite all the same code and settings on my end.

This exact kind of thing happened once before this year, and I eventually figured it out, but I haven't figured this one out yet. This problem consumed several hours of what was meant to be a relaxing Sunday. Based on past experience, getting to the bottom of the issue would take many more hours.

My options in the short term are to

A. spend (even) more money per unit time, by renting a more powerful GPU to do the same damn thing I know the less powerful one can do (it was doing it this morning!), or

B. silently reduce the context window length by a large amount (and thus the "smartness" of the output, to some degree) to allow the model to fit on the old GPU.

Things like this happen all the time, behind the scenes.

I don't want to be doing this for another year, much less several years. I don't want to be doing it at all.

----

In 2019 and 2020, it was fun to make a GPT-2 autoresponder bot.

[EDIT: I've seen several people misread the previous line and infer that nostalgebraist-autoresponder is still using GPT-2. She isn't, and hasn't been for a long time. Her latest model is a finetuned LLaMA-13B.]

Hardly anyone else was doing anything like it. I wasn't the most qualified person in the world to do it, and I didn't do the best possible job, but who cares? I learned a lot, and the really competent tech bros of 2019 were off doing something else.

And it was fun to watch the bot "pretend to be me" while interacting (mostly) with my actual group of tumblr mutuals.

In 2023, everyone and their grandmother is making some kind of "gen AI" app. They are helped along by a dizzying array of tools, cranked out by hyper-competent tech bros with apparently infinite reserves of free time.

There are so many of these tools and demos. Every week it seems like there are a hundred more; it feels like every day I wake up and am expected to be familiar with a hundred more vaguely nostalgebraist-autoresponder-shaped things.

And every one of them is vastly better-engineered than my own hacky efforts. They build on each other, and reap the accelerating returns.

I've tended to do everything first, ahead of the curve, in my own way. This is what I like doing. Going out into unexplored wilderness, not really knowing what I'm doing, without any maps.

Later, hundreds of others with go to the same place. They'll make maps, and share them. They'll go there again and again, learning to make the expeditions systematically. They'll make an optimized industrial process of it. Meanwhile, I'll be locked in to my own cottage-industry mode of production.

Being the first to do something means you end up eventually being the worst.

----

I had a GPT chatbot in 2019, before GPT-3 existed. I don't think Huggingface Transformers existed, either. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

I had a denoising diffusion image generator in 2021, before DALLE-2 or Stable Diffusion or Huggingface Diffusers. I used the primitive tools that were available at the time, and built on them in my own way. These days, it is almost trivial to do the things I did, much better, with standardized tools.

Earlier this year, I was (probably) one the first people to finetune LLaMA. I manually strapped LoRA and 8-bit quantization onto the original codebase, figuring out everything the hard way. It was fun.

Just a few months later, and your grandmother is probably running LLaMA on her toaster as we speak. My homegrown methods look hopelessly antiquated. I think everyone's doing 4-bit quantization now?

(Are they? I can't keep track anymore -- the hyper-competent tech bros are too damn fast. A few months from now the thing will be probably be quantized to -1 bits, somehow. It'll be running in your phone's browser. And it'll be using RLHF, except no, it'll be using some successor to RLHF that everyone's hyping up at the time...)

"You have a GPT chatbot?" someone will ask me. "I assume you're using AutoLangGPTLayerPrompt?"

No, no, I'm not. I'm trying to debug obscure CUDA issues on a Sunday so my bot can carry on talking to a thousand strangers, every one of whom is asking it something like "PENIS PENIS PENIS."

Only I am capable of unplugging the blockage and giving the "PENIS PENIS PENIS" askers the responses they crave. ("Which is ... what, exactly?", one might justly wonder.) No one else would fully understand the nature of the bug. It is special to my own bizarre, antiquated, homegrown system.

I must have one of the longest-running GPT chatbots in existence, by now. Possibly the longest-running one?

I like doing new things. I like hacking through uncharted wilderness. The world of GPT chatbots has long since ceased to provide this kind of value to me.

I want to cede this ground to the LLaMA techbros and the prompt engineers. It is not my wilderness anymore.

I miss wilderness. Maybe I will find a new patch of it, in some new place, that no one cares about yet.

----

Even in 2023, there isn't really anything else out there quite like Frank. But there could be.

If you want to develop some sort of Frank-like thing, there has never been a better time than now. Everyone and their grandmother is doing it.

"But -- but how, exactly?"

Don't ask me. I don't know. This isn't my area anymore.

There has never been a better time to make a GPT chatbot -- for everyone except me, that is.

Ask the techbros, the prompt engineers, the grandmas running OpenChatGPT on their ironing boards. They are doing what I did, faster and easier and better, in their sleep. Ask them.

#nostalgebraist autoresponder meta

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ramblings-of-a-chaotic-neutral · 4 months ago

Text

Hello again everyone! Thank you all so much for the overwhelming support for the last part of the "Merlin accidentally conquers Camelot" au! I've had so much fun writing this au, and I'm so glad that you've all enjoyed it too! This will probably be the final part of this au (for now), since I have more au ideas to share with you all, but I'll probably revisit this au some day! For now, I'm approaching two pretty big tumblr milestones, so I'm working on an extra-special au to post in celebration of those (and I won't give anything away, but I think that this new au may be my best one yet, so stay tuned)!

Also, warning, this one is a long post! Be prepared!

Now, onto part four of this au! You can find part one here, part two here, and part three here!

As it turned out, planning a royal wedding was no easy feat.

Merlin had thought that simply adding a quick and (hopefully) painless wedding ceremony at the end of his coronation would make everything go smoothly. After all, the castle would already be decorated, they'd already have all of the important lords in attendance, and everything needed for a consort's coronation ceremony would already be there.

However, when Merlin announced to the lords and the steward in charge of preparing his coronation ceremony that he'd also need a quick wedding and coronation to take Arthur as his consort, they reacted with so much shock and horror that Merlin thought for a second that he'd accidentally announced that he was ordering their executions instead. The only person in the council room who didn't look like death itself had just appeared before him was Gwaine, who took advantage of he shocked silence following Merlin's proclamation to start laughing so uncontrollably that he doubled over and had to grab the wall for support.

Merlin had expected some shock and pushback from the council at his decision, not... this. All of the lords on the council had gone as pale as parchment, some trembling in their seats with fear. What on earth...

"Sire," the ever-unflappable Geoffrey called out, jolting Merlin from his confusion at the state of terror that had gripped the other council members, "while such a marriage would not be unlawful, it would certainly be unprecedented. I'm not questioning your judgement, I know that establishing yourself as a strong ruler this early in your reign is paramount, but are you sure that this is the best way to go about it? I'm certain that the citizens of Camelot will accept you as their rightful ruler as soon as they witness their true power for themselves, so taking the former king as your war prize isn't entirely necessary to show your dominance over the land."

The lords grew several shades paler at Geoffrey's words, and the trembling councilman sitting next to Geoffrey leaned in to fearfully hiss something into the librarian's ear. Merlin watched with growing confusion as Geoffrey's eyes went wide at whatever had just been whispered to him, and he rushed to speak once more.

"Of course, if this decision was made as some form of revenge or humiliation towards the Pendragon line, that is well within your right as a conqueror, Your Majesty. We would simply advise you to take the disgraced king as a concubine, perhaps, instead of your official consort. As a ruler, you must now also consider the issue of one day producing legitimate heirs, which can only be borne to you through your consort."

Merlin blinked, desperately trying to follow whatever logic Geoffrey was using. Take Arthur as a concubine?! Had the old man gone insane?! And Merlin certainly wasn't concerned about heirs, since if he got his way, then his reign wouldn't last longer than this week!

Still, with most of the council looking like they were being plagued by waking nightmares, they weren't likely to listen to Merlin's very reasonable objections to being king in the first place, so Merlin just had to get them off his back until the wedding.

After a deep sigh, which made most of the council members flinch back with a still confusing amount of fear, Merlin addressed Geoffrey's concerns.

"Thank you for your input, but I'm afraid that my decision has already been made on this... issue. I will be taking Arthur as my consort at my coronation, and my decision is final. And don't concern yourself with the topic of heirs, that will be sorted out shortly."

Several lords choked on the air at Merlin's last comment, with a couple outright fainting at his words. Merlin's brows furrowed even more with befuddlement. What... what had he said that garnered such a reaction?! He was just telling them not to worry about it!

(Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Merlin, the lords had a very different idea of what their new king- a powerful, brutal warlord and sorcerer- had planned. They interpreted Merlin's intent to marry Arthur as an act of revenge against the son of the man who killed off so many of his people during the purge. It apparently wasn't enough for the mighty Emrys to defeat his enemy and leave him with nothing to his name. No, this ruthless new king of theirs planned on forcing the former king into a life of humiliation and servitude in the court that was once his own. To a king, that must be a fate worse than death.

These lords, who were some of the most active and complicit members of Uther's purge, looked at the punishment that Emrys had planned for Arthur and thought if that's what happened to the king, what's he going to do to us?!)

The days went by quickly after that meeting, with Merlin's time being filled with a never-ending list of his new duties and things that needed to be done before his coronation, not to mention organizing the coronation itself and the subsequent wedding (which Arthur didn't know about yet, as Merlin had been deliberately avoiding the dungeons after his last conversation with Arthur).

It took the better part of a week for everything to finally be prepared for the official coronation ceremony. The ceremony itself would consist of Merlin being crowned in front of the court (a nauseating thought for Merlin himself), the vassal lords and knights willing to swear fealty to him taking the oath of loyalty, and finally Arthur being handfasted to Merlin and crowned consort.

Merlin was, for once, thankful for the amount of work that he had to do over the days leading up to the ceremony, as it kept his mind busy and his thoughts away from the pit of self-loathing that had taken up permanent residence in his head. After all, what kind of friend stole everything from the person they love the most in the world and then turns around and forces that same friend (and unrequited crush) to marry them?!

Merlin had attempted to rationalize his selfish decision to keep Arthur in the dark regarding his plan to reinstate him as king by telling himself that if Arthur didn't know about the wedding until the last minute, then he would spend less time worrying about it in the long run after he was king again! Besides, if Merlin's plan worked, they would only be married for a day or two, so there was no reason to get Arthur worked up over that by telling him earlier!

Truly, Merlin was not being a complete scumbag by doing this, he was just looking out for his friend's best interests and mental wellbeing! This would all blow over in a a matter of days anyways, Merlin was certain of it.

Still, Merlin found himself anxious and pacing the floor of his room on the morning of the ceremony. He had sent a team of servants and guards to retrieve Arthur from his cell and prepare him for the ceremony, so he likely wouldn't see Arthur until he was brought into the great hall for the handfasting ceremony. However, he still worried over Arthur's reaction when he learned what exactly when was being prepared for.

This worry lingered in Merlin's mind and consumed his thoughts throughout the entire day and into the coronation ceremony, so much so that his own coronation seemed like a blur to him. One moment he was standing in the great hall in front of the assembled crowd of lords and knights, and in the next, he was sitting on Arthur's throne with Arthur's crown on his head, with the crowd shouting "long live the king".

The sound of it almost made Merlin sick. Those words should never be directed at him, but he'd make this right soon enough. He just had to suffer through this ceremony to appease those disloyal lords who had turned their backs on their true king.

Perhaps the worst part of the coronation itself was the ceremony in which the lords and knights willing to pledge their fealty to him took an oath declaring such. It was no surprise to Merlin to see those weasels on the council of lords pledging themselves to save their own skin, but the knights who showed up to pledge their fealty were... very unexpected.

Look, Merlin had assumed that it would just be Gwaine and a small handful of guards and younger knights that he had roped into his mischievous scheme swearing loyalty so him. All of the other knights with their wits intact would surely still be down in the cells of the dungeon, holding true to their prior oaths of loyalty and keeping their true king company.

What Merlin did not expect, however, was for nearly a quarter of all of Camelot's knights to take a knee before him and pledge their loyalty, led by a highly amused Gwaine, who was no doubt enjoying every minute of this. Merlin quickly scanned the crowd of knights, trying to take count of who all had turned their backs on Arthur and could no longer be trusted.

Gwaine, of course, came at no surprise. Many of those assembled were commoner knights whom Arthur had taken in, including Percival, but the giant regularly got pulled into Gwaine's nonsense, so this wasn't truly that much of a shock if Merlin thought about it. There were a fair number of noble-born knights in the crowd, including all of those whom Merlin had noted had a softer outlook on magic. And then, of course, there were a decent number of pompous, high-born knights who had never given a lick about magic or loyalty, they just wanted to preserve their own wealth and power no matter the cost.

Merlin narrowed his eyes at the cluster of those knights. All the rest had logical reasons to side with Merlin, between Gwaine's persuasiveness, solidarity between the lower class, or a connection or sympathy towards magic, so they would be allowed to stay in court after Arthur had retaken his rightful throne. But these knights? These cowardly snakes had to be dealt with at the first opportunity. But how could he get rid of them without people becoming suspicious?

... Wait a minute, Merlin was king now! He might only have that title for a day or so, but in that time, he could certainly use it! (And he absolutely was not using this as a tactic to prolong this part of the ceremony so that he had a few more minutes of peace before the wedding began.)

Right, but how was he going to play this? He couldn't exactly just announce that he wanted those knights to leave because he wanted them gone before Arthur took over again.

Merlin narrowed his eyes at the group of treacherous knights and noted how they squirmed a bit under his gaze, with even some of the people around them shuddering. Right, he looked like a ruthless and powerful sorcerer to them now. He could use that to his advantage.

As the knights finished reciting their oaths, Merlin held up his hand, signaling for them to stay in place. The knights did so, but a confused and concerned murmuring started buzzing around at this strange departure from the normal ceremony. Slowly, Merlin lifted his hand and pointed at the assembled group of knights in the back.

"You lot. In the back."

The murmuring died down the instant Merlin opened his mouth and was instead replaced by an oppressive dread weighing down the ornately decorated hall. If Merlin wasn't trying so hard to keep a straight, intimidating face, he would have winced at causing such a wave of fear with nothing more than a few words.

Hesitantly, one of the called out knights stepped forward, addressing their new king.

"Yes, your majesty? Is there something you require of us?"

Merlin held back the urge to smirk as an idea, and a very satisfying one at that, formed in his head. He quietly cleared his throat and put on his most imperious "Emrys" voice that he could muster.

"I can sense insincerity in your hearts with my magic. Just as you abandoned the previous king, you would also turn your backs on me at the first opportunity to do so. Do not even attempt to deny it, you know just as well as I do that this true. I cannot trust any such men as knights of mine."

The group of knights went pale as Merlin called them out for their flimsy loyalty, and at once whispers began fly in the crowd. Perhaps they were intrigued by this show of his "powers"? Were they scandalized by this public shaming of a group of high-ranking knights?

Either way, the knights immediately began groveling, begging Merlin to let them keep their positions, their wealth, their power, but Merlin dismissed them with a wave of a hand and publicly revoked their knighthoods. The murmuring of the remaining people in the great hall grew louder as the disgraced former knights made their way out of the hall, no doubt intimidated and scandalized by how quickly their new ruler was purging his court of the disloyal.

However, with the loyal knights having taken their oaths and the untrustworthy ones having been cast out, the coronation ceremony was now officially complete, meaning that Merlin could no longer stall what would come next.

Merlin sat still on his stolen throne, trying his best not to fidget with nervousness as Geoffrey gave some traditional speech that had to be done before the doors of the great hall opened to let consort walk down the aisle to the throne.

After a couple minutes, Geoffrey's monotonous voice became nothing but a buzzing in Merlin's ears as he stared at the doors of the hall, desperately trying to imagine any scenario where those doors wouldn't open to an Arthur who was filled with nothing but rage and betrayal.

All too soon, Geoffrey's droning speech ended, and the trumpets in the hall announced the arrival of the soon-to-be-consort and signaled for everyone of lower rank to stand. Merlin's heart leapt to his throat as he jumped to his feet, even though he was the only person in the room who didn't need to. Ever so slowly, the doors to the hall swung open, revealing... Arthur.

Merlin damn near choked on his own saliva at the sight of him. He had seen Arthur in a wide range of states over the years as his manservant, ranging anywhere from sleep-rumbled to solemnly prepared for battle. But this... he had never seen anything like it.

Merlin couldn't decide if whoever had been in charge of dressing Arthur and preparing him for the ceremony ought to either be promoted to Arthur's personal tailor or immediately banished. In place of Arthur's usual surcoat and chainmail for official ceremonies, which was what Merlin had foolishly assumed the servants would dress Arthur in, there was... a monstrosity that would haunt Merlin's dreams for the rest of his life.

Merlin didn't even know how to begin to describe it. The garment that the servants had no doubt forced Arthur into, as Merlin knew that he would never wear such a thing of his own accord, was somewhere between a set of intricately intertwined robes and a dress, which hugged Arthur's shoulders, upper arms, and thighs, highlighting the muscles there. Most of the outfit appeared to be made out of a rich velvet, dyed in a majestic royal blue that both looked entirely out of place on Arthur and brought out his eyes like nothing Merlin had ever seen before. And dear gods, was that lace on there?! And why the hell did the outfit need elbow-length lace gloves?!

(The servants who had been in charge of dressing Arthur for the ceremony had assumed that their brutal new warlord would probably want his war prize to look as far from a warrior as possible, in order to further prove that he had beaten the previous rulers. So, they selected a delicate and elegant outfit for Arthur in the hopes of appeasing their new king.)

Merlin swallowed dryly as Arthur slowly began making his way down the aisle with measured footsteps. The movement snapped Merlin out of whatever temporary madness the outfit had sent him spiraling into, and Merlin finally locked eyes with Arthur.

Merlin winced at the sheer amount of rage that Arthur managed to fit into one glare as he took another step towards the throne that was rightfully his. Merlin tried to give Arthur his most reassuring smile, but he was almost certain it only came across as a nervous grimace.

Just go along with this, Merlin tried to beg of Arthur with only his eyes. Their bond had always been one that allowed them to communicate without words, and Merlin prayed that their connection would hold strong once more and get his message across to Arthur.

Neither Arthur's impressive glare nor his furious scowl let up though, but he kept his pace towards the throne steady, which Merlin decided to take as a good sign. After all, if Arthur truly did not any merit to this impromptu plan, why would he still be walking of his own accord towards the altar?

Still, as Arthur grew closer and closer to the altar prepared for the handfasting, his eyes became darker with rage as Merlin winced. Yes, this would certainly be harder than it needed to be, but this had to be done to get Arthur back on the throne! Surely Arthur would understand that!

After what must have been an eternity, Arthur finally reached the altar and, ever so slowly, walked around to stand at a fidgeting Merlin's side.

As Geoffrey began yet another speech that had to be done before the handfasting took place, Merlin quietly turned to Arthur and gave him a small smile, trying to a least let Arthur know that everything was alright, that everything would turn out fine.

That little smile, it seemed, turned out to be the final straw for Arthur. Merlin wasn't even entirely sure how it happened.

One moment, he was standing next to Arthur in front of the altar, with the only sound in the room being Geoffrey's boring voice. And in the next, there was a savage war cry coming from Arthur, who was now armed with a sword, and a decent amount of screaming coming from the crowd.

It spoke volumes about Merlin's state of mind that his first thought upon seeing Arthur run at him with a blade in hand wasn't get back, dodge! but was rather that dress is tight, where on earth did he hide that sword?

However, Merlin's sense of self-preservation wasn't nearly as terrible as Gaius accused it of being, as his second thought was I should probably try to avoid getting stabbed at my own wedding.

Reluctantly, Merlin gathered his magic, ready to disarm Arthur and hold him still if need be. Arthur could stab Merlin later if he really felt like it, but Merlin needed to at least officially make Arthur his consort and heir before Arthur did that!

However, to Merlin's surprise, rather than trying to run Merlin through, Arthur instead stabbed at the wooden handfasting altar, sinking his blade deep into it. Merlin carefully kept his eyes on Arthur as the other man viciously pulled off one of the dainty lace gloves and threw it on the ground at Merlin's feet.

Dumbfounded, Merlin stared at the thrown glove on the floor and then looked back up to stare at Arthur, not quite getting what Arthur was trying to tell him here. Did he just really hate the outfit? Or was it this whole marriage plan that he objected to?

"Pick it up."

"Huh?"

Arthur nearly started growling, his rage apparently rising with Merlin's confusion.

"It may not be a proper gauntlet, since you have denied me such a dignity, but it will suffice for this. Pick it up, King Emrys. I challenge you to a duel in single combat for the throne of Camelot. You may have defeated my sister, but you did not defeat me! I am no prize for you to claim!"

Merlin simply blinked, completely thrown off by this turn of events, while loud shouts started erupting from the crowd. By the time his mind caught up to what Arthur had said, Arthur had taken up his sword from where he had struck it into the altar and was pointing it threateningly at Merlin again.

As Merlin's shock wore off and he finally understood what exactly Arthur had just done, he had to fight back the urge to scream into the sky with frustration as yet another one of his plans to reinstate Arthur as king had just been ruined by the obstinate clotpole himself. Couldn't the prat just let Merlin help?!

With his frustration rising, Merlin glared down at the thrown glove. While a duel would certainly allow Arthur to retake the throne, Merlin wasn't entirely sure how his magic would react to such a fight. Merlin would never consciously hurt Arthur of course, but who knows if his magic would strike out in self-defense?!

And, besides, formally accepting and preparing the duel would take days. And, in Merlin's opinion, this whole farce has gone on for long enough.

"No. I will not accept your challenge."

Arthur's face went red with anger at Merlin's refusal.

"You are just as much of a coward as the rest of your kind, sorcerer! You would not even grant me the opportunity to take back what's mine!"

Merlin bit back a frustrated scream at that. Arthur would be getting his throne back if he just followed through with any of Merlin's plans instead of ruining threm!

Merlin took a deep breath and sighed on the exhale, trying the rein in his own anger. He just needed to go through with this ceremony, and then everything would be fine.

With a quick flash of gold in his eyes, which had Arthur flinching back (and didn't that just sting?), Merlin turned Arthur's blade into dust had Arthur's glove fly back onto his hand, setting everything right as it had been before Arthur had pulled out a sword and all hell had broken loose.

"That's enough! I've been trying to restore you to your rightful position as king this entire time, and yet you push back at every opportunity! I am not about to let you sabotage your own destiny! So, here's what's going to happen!"

Distantly, Merlin heard the wind outside whipping around, like his own frustration and stirred nature itself into a frenzy.

"You are going to stand here, complete this ceremony, be named my heir, and then retake your throne when I abdicate! Are we clear?"

Arthur, who still looked rather shaken at Merlin's display of magic, scowled, but still nodded his head. Merlin, satisfied by this, turned back around to face the shocked crowd.

"And do I make myself clear to all of you?! There will be no more interruptions of this ceremony, and Arthur will take back his throne!"

The frightened crowd went silent at Merlin's outburst, seemingly relenting to Merlin's demands.

Merlin then turned to Geoffrey, who was still standing in front of the handfasting altar with the rope in his hands.

"Now, Geoffrey, I would greatly appreciate it if you would get a move on here. I don't want to wear this stupid crown for any longer than I have to."

The only indication that Geoffrey gave that he was surprised by Merlin's outburst was a mere uptake of his eyebrows, rather reminiscent of Gaius's signature look. Without further ado, Geoffrey tied Merlin and Arthur's hands together, declaring them to be now married in the eyes of the gods of the Old Religion.

(Merlin tried to ignore the hurt and longing that built up in his heart in that moment. How many times had he dreamed of something like this? But he never wanted it to happen like this. This was Merlin's dream come true, but it was all wrong. In that moment, Merlin didn't dare look at Arthur, too afraid of what his dearest friend thought about this grievous overstep of boundaries.)

Immediately after Geoffrey untied the handfasting knot, Arthur's coronation as consort began. The ceremony itself went smoothly, but Merlin's heart broke both at the sight of Arthur kneeling before him, waiting to be crowned, and at the furious glare Arthur gave him as he gently put the consort's crown upon Arthur's head, officially naming Arthur as his heir.

As soon as Arthur stood from where he was kneeling, applause broke out from the crowd. Someone (Merlin heavily suspected Gwaine) started a chant of "long live the kings!", which caught on quickly. Merlin winced again at the chant, not daring to turn and look at Arthur's face.

Still, Merlin reminded himself as he took a deep, calming breath, everything was coming along. Arthur was now officially his consort and heir, and all that was left to do... was the copious amounts of paperwork finalizing his abdication.

Yeah, no. Merlin wasn't going through that process when he could just take care of it here and now.

"Citizens of Camelot, on this most joyous day, I, King Emrys, abdicate the throne!"

Even though he had made his intentions clear only a few minutes earlier, shocked whispers flew around the crowd, like they hadn't truly believed that he would go through with it.

Merlin couldn't help the grin that was forming on his face. Finally, everything would be set right again!

"I am no longer your king, and as per the laws of the kingdom, the throne now rightfully belongs to your true king, Arthur Pendragon!"

With that, Merlin reached up and yanked the crown off of his own head, marched over to a dumbfounded Arthur and, without any hesitation, replaced the consort's crown on Arthur's head with the true crown.

"There, that's much better," Merlin whispered to himself as he gazed upon Arthur, finally looking like himself again, but he was certain that Arthur must have heard it too, as Arthur's eyes went wide at his words.

But that was a conversation for another day, as Merlin was now done here. This entire calamity was over, and now Merlin was going to savor its end.

Merlin turned back to face the crowd once more with an undoubtedly crazed grin.

"Goodnight everyone! Be sure to obey your true king! In the meanwhile, I'm off to bed for my first full night's rest since this nightmare started!"

And with that, Merlin merrily skipped out of the great hall, made his way to his cramped room in Gaius's chambers, and slept soundly.

Bonus Scene!

THE NEXT DAY:

Arthur: Busts into Merlin's room

Merlin, unwillingly woken up from the best sleep he's gotten in years: Ugh, what do you want you prat?! You're king again, aren't you?! Don't you have kingly duty to be attending to?

Arthur: Merlin you idiot, you abdicated the throne.

Merlin: Yes, and now you're king again. You're welcome!

Arthur: But you never dissolved our union!

Merlin: Huh?

Arthur: A divorce can only be granted by the same ruler who authorized the marriage! You know what this means, right?!

Merlin: Yeah, that you can just declare us to be not married anymore and we can all be on our way.

Arthur: No, YOU were the ruler who authorized the marriage, and now that you've abdicated, you can't dissolve the marriage! Legally, no one can!

Merlin, turning pale: What?

Arthur, looking weary: Yes, apparently it's some legal technicality that Geoffrey cited from Bruta's code. I've spent all morning arguing with him, but there seems to be no way around it.

Merlin: So... what you're saying is that we're stuck being married to each other.

Arthur: Yes, you buffoon, that's exactly what I'm saying! Now, get up!

Merlin, feeling incredibly guilty over this entire situation: Arthur, I'm so sorry, I take full responsibility for this, I never should have forced you into-

Arthur, cutting him off: Let's go. We don't have much time before the rest of the castle is up and about, and I'd rather us not be seen here.

Merlin, confused but complying: Arthur, where are we going? Why don't you want us to be seen here?

Arthur, blushing: It would reflect poorly on the king if word got out that he let his consort sleep in this dirty broom closet on their wedding night, wouldn't it?

Merlin, blushing: Ah, I suppose it would.

And that's a wrap for this au for now! I hope you've all enjoyed this story!

A huge thank you for everyone who asked for this continuation! (and holy cow there were a lot of you!! Thank you all so much!)

@magic-mushroomss @miyriu @whole-buncha-snakess @achillesuwu @aerismoon

@tidalwavesandthunderstorms @marki9 @isaidno @retro-wallflower @samwinjester

@lascienzadellafantasia @sugar-coated-prat-dragon @theoldfroglady @ryeallytired @mind-of-a-crow

@whynotreinventmyselfeveryday @likeapaperplane @odinjm @orliththedragon @aglmry

@caraspud @aostrek-236 @justaz @slippysalt @coffee-shop-gay

@the-king-and-the-druidess @theroundbartable @fanfic-library-for-me @linotheghost @scuttlingsleipnir

@guiltyscarlet @cinnabon-sweetroll-tiramisu @247merthur @veryroadpartystatesman-blog @verxen

@lascienzadellafantasia @jareicanon @arrowlovesdragons @juliairian @thesuperstitiousoldelf

@lovermyme @bootprivileges @rem-the-moth @hippielittlemetalhead @ole-to-you-nonetheless

@lordmushroomkat @starchaos01 @reynaharmonia @anastasia0614 @starlight-crow

@wheneverfeasible @savlikesbluengreen @fuckingdeadinsidetm @notquitehumanwrites @purplesandwichtiger

@rocks-d-xerxes @olli-is-a-fish @luluzealand2565 @dangerhumming @tireddruid

@spiralingtowardtheabyss @mundaneone @anxiousdragoncollector @catface233 @bennedict

@elementalpirate4 @bertolio @vadis-protenus @chaosofbelievers @floating-on-avalon

@merthurogies @justaz

And, as always, thank you all for reading through my ramblings! :D

I'll see you all next time!

#merlin #bbc merlin #merlin bbc #arthur pendragon #merlin au #merthur #merlin prompts #king merlin

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delewlew · 5 months ago

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the prettiest girl: charles leclerc x black fem! reader smau ⋆.˚ 𓇼⋆.

request: a friend of Charles is hitting on y/n and like he likes all her Instagram pictures talking about her, send her messages so it makes Charles jealous. - @kayleen0

warnings: jealousy, suggestive content

author's note: for the sake of this request im using one of charles' friends, hugo. this is no hate to him and this is a work of fiction not to be taken seriously. i hope that you enjoy what i've written!

the first time you noticed that something weird was going on between one of charles' friends and you was a random afternoon you all were on a yacht having a friends day. it was nothing crazy, just charles' childhood friends and their girlfriends for the guys who weren't single. the way his eyes lingered on you a moment longer than everyone else's, the way he ended up by your side if charles wasn't there as he tried to make attempts to get you to talk to him. from the beginning of it all you were fairly cautious about it. all the answers to his questions were one or two words, laughs were forced and smiles were awkward and ingenuine. yet for some odd reason you got the feeling that he just didn't get the hint, or chose to ignore it. however you weren't completely sure if maybe it was all in your head, after all a lot of his friends were friendly and told you that you looked nice so maybe that's all it was...maybe?

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

isthatyn

liked by charles_leclerc, hugomicallef, and 15,304 others

isthatyn summertime livin' sweet summertime lovin' 🍭☀️🌈 💗

view all 2,209 comments

havanaroseliu bring me back a bag of bubs pls 🥺

⤷ isthatyn you know i did <3

charles_leclerc loving every moment i spend with you ❤️

⤷ isthatyn i love you so much wow 🥹

cocojones i miss you :(

⤷ isthatyn yet you never answer my calls 😒

⤷ cocojones girl i been working ntm on me 😭

⤷ username1 OOP COCO BOOKED AND BUSY!

hugomicallef the prettiest girl 😍

⤷ username2 oh thats...

⤷ username3 chill out he's just stating a fact

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

your gaze lingered on your phone screen as you read his comment over and over again.

the prettiest girl 😍

no matter how many times you tried to rationalize it, something just didn't sit right with you about it. you tried to tell yourself that maybe he was just being nice, charles' fans were always calling you variations of "queen slayer" , "prettiest f1 wag", and "most beautiful woman ever" but that just seemed different when it came from someone you knew closer than some strangers online that happened to support you.

charles' voice snapped you out of your trance, "qu'est-ce que tu regardes, mon cœur ?" you jumped slightly and put your phone down quickly, tucking it under your thigh, "nothing just instagram comments." charles eyed you up and down then asked, "why do you have this shocked look on your face? did someone say something to you?" you debated on actually mentioning hugo's comments but at the last minute you changed your mind, "no you just startled me, i wasn't paying attention that's all." his shoulders relaxed and the features on his face softened, "ah i'm sorry my love, i didn't mean to scare you." he kissed your temple and walked off elsewhere in your shared apartment. [what are you looking at, my heart?]

not a minute later you felt your phone buzz and you received a DM on twitter. you checked and noticed that it was hugo responding to the message you sent him earlier. the minute you opened it your heart sank to your feet as you read his very obviously flirtatious reply. instead of just ignoring it you decided to respond, telling yourself that maybe if you didn't match his energy and kept it brief maybe he'd read the room:

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

you felt your phone DMs on twitter go off once more and you didn't even have to check them to know who it was. at this point you decided to just post a little more obviously on instagram that you were happily in a relationship, in your mind that's what this dumbass guy might need to see...right?:

isthatyn

liked by hugomicallef, charles_leclerc, and 16,203 others

isthatyn avec toi, je sui moi [with you i am me]

view all 3,771 comments

lilymhe the prettiest! 😍💗

⤷ isthatyn no that's definitely you 🫶

charles_leclerc Mon cœur t'appartient [my heart belongs to you]

username4 did charles play her a song-

⤷ username5 girl pls that man has probably composed an entire symphony for that woman 😭😭😭

hugomicallef a work of art photographing a work of art 😍💕

⤷ charles_leclerc 🤨

⤷ username6 here this man go again with these weird ass comments 😒

sabrinacarpenter it was so nice running into you <3

⤷ isthatyn you too! i can't wait for the album to drop soon!!!

francisca.cgomes i'm about to make pierre learn to play piano now :)

⤷ isthatyn omg girl do it

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

knots formed in your stomach as you noticed that charles did respond to the comment left by his friend. you knew that he was sending you pictures that you posed and just responding to them with whatever weird ass comments he thought of. you'd seen the messages and read them, gut wrenching disgust filing your stomach. at this point you knew that telling charles was no longer an option, it simply had to be done. however the idea of showing your boyfriend what his friend was saying to you brought a worry that you never thought you'd feel. the idea that rather than being mad at his best friend, he'd blame you instead for the unwanted attention became a thought on the forefront of your mind. you'd seen similar things happen in friends' relationships and even in some of your past ones as well. you knew you had to tell him, you just didn't want to knowing that maybe you'd lose him in the process.

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

charles had seen the way hugo had been liking his close friends instagram stories but only the ones with you in it. he noticed the way hugo was amongst the first to like and comment under your posts as well. the first comment he noticed to be...off putting was calling you a work of art, that's not something you say about a friend let alone a friend's girlfriend. he'd kept his mouth shut not wanting to upset you into thinking you did something wrong by posting pictures of yourself, so he left it alone. in his mind, hugo was a good friend who had always respected him in his past relationships so why would that suddenly change? it shouldn't, at least that's what he told himself. but on the off chance that maybe hugo was 'confused', he simply posted something that got the message across:

charles_leclerc

liked by isthatyn, hugomicallef, and 1,773,906 others

charles_leclerc mes deux cœurs 💕

isthatyn ur so fine i neED YOU RN 🤤

⤷ charles_leclerc baby pls-

⤷ isthatyn that's what i would be saying if you were here with me rn 😤

username7 what ever happened to hello, how are you?

⤷ isthatyn CAN YOU BLAME ME LOOK AT HIM

oscarpiastri i miss the person i was before reading all that ☹️

⤷ isthatyn don't disrespect your mother

hugomicallef a shame we can't see her gorgeous face 😔

⤷ charles_leclerc you can't but i can 😉

username9 LMFAO GET EM SHARL

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

you sat across from charles on the bed in your shared bedroom and noticed the way his brow furrowed as he looked at his phone. a feeling of dread settled in your stomach as soon as he asked, "baby have you seen your comments under our instagram posts?" you closed the book you were reading and pretended to not know what he was mentioning, so you changed the subject before he could focus on the person you didn't want to think about. with that specific gaze saved for the most intimate of moments you pulled his phone from his hand, "the comments you did nothing about when i left them?" slowly you crawled over to him and settled right on his lap so you were straddling his hips.

almost as if it was an instinct, charles' hands found their place on each side of your body, his thumbs gently rubbing circles at your hipbone. your fingers tangled into his hair as you pulled his head back slightly to bring his lips to yours once you leaned down. the taste of your vanilla mint chapstick filled his mouth as his tongue lightly brushed against your plump bottom lip. he was lost in all that you were for a moment before he remembered what he was going to say. abruptly he pulled away, "y/n-" you cut him off, hoping that he would fall under your spell, "don't deny me, not right now." his blue eyes locked with yours, those long thick eyelashes that framed your glittering eyes pulled him in once more and all it took was a soft whispered, "please charlie..." he pulled your shirt off and tossed it aside before flipping you over so you were now under him. charles began kissing your neck gently right at that spot you loved so much. your eyes began to fall shut as you finally let the worries you held on to leave your mind, opening up your thoughts to be taken over by the man above you.

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

isthatyn

liked by hugomicallef, tiffanyandco, and 992, 711 others

isthatyn never want this break to end 💐🧡

tyla everything about you 🩷

⤷ isthatyn TYLA- PLS WAIT I LOVE YOU PLEASE LOVE OF MY LIFE

⤷ tyla ilysm pretty girl, we have to get together sometime

⤷ charles_leclerc excuse me 😐

⤷ isthatyn charles_leclerc STOP EMBARASSING ME IN FRONT OF TYLA ✋🏾

altonmason u r so hawt

⤷ isthatyn LMAOOOO TY ILY ILY ILY 💖💗

username10 y/n pls may i have your hand in marriage 💍

⤷ isthatyn no you may not - charles

⤷ username10 sharing is caring charles 😔

⤷ isthatyn i don't care. therefore, she's mine - charles

hugomicallef can charles fight?

⤷ charles_leclerc yes he can. would you like to come find out? 🙃

username11 ion mean to be rude or nun but do he realize he's talking to his PROFESSIONAL BOXER of a friend about fighting...he'd lose...badly

⤷ username12 how do u kno? he could be able to throw down

⤷ username13 baby the dimples and blue eyes aren't gonna help him in a fight. he'd be cooked in under 30 seconds 💀💀💀

hugomicallef like an angel of the sea, a siren calling my name 😘

⤷ isthatyn ambulance sirens are going to be calling your name if you don't get out of my fucking comments you sick fuck 🖕

⤷ carlossainz55 this is really not cool man...

⤷ landonorris she's not calling your fucking name dipshit

⤷ oscarpiastri get out of here

⤷ alex_albon BOOOOO 👎TOMATO TOMATO TOMATO!!!! 🍅🍅🍅

⤷ lewishamilton have some respect dude

⤷ pierregasly she doesn't fucking like you

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

there was no point in trying to avoid having the conversation that you should have had days ago. hugo was very obviously flirting with you and judging by the fact that multiple drivers hopped into your comment section coming to your defense, it was obvious charles had told them something. the minute charles came home from a workout you made a beeline to the bathroom to hide. as much as you knew there was no point, that worry of him blaming you and leaving controlled all rational thoughts.

you remained silent in the bathroom until charles slowly pushed the door open and didn't say anything to you. he was very obviously infuriated by the entire ordeal but he didn't even know the entire thing. silently you watched cautiously and he simply walked up to you and placed a hand on your cheek before kissing you so gently against your lips. he pulled away and asked quietly, "i'll shower and then we talk, yes?" you nodded silently and shuffled away into your bedroom where the ten minutes he took felt like ten hours.

when charles was finally out of the shower you were staring out the bedroom window watching people outside. you jumped when you felt a pair of warm hands around your waist turn you to face the other direction. charles held your gaze as he asked, "why didn't you tell me that he was messaging you?" tears immediately filled your eyes and panic coursed through your veins as heat warmed your cheeks, "i didn't- i'm sorry i-i didn't want to ruin your friendship i knew that you two were childhood friends and i thought if i ignored him then he'd leave me alone but he didn't and i should have told you immediately but i was scared you'd blame me and i didn't want to make you mad and-"

your boyfriend held onto your hands and led you to the edge of your bed, "darling please take a deep breath. i'm not mad at you, i'm mad at him for disrespecting you and our relationship. i also should have talked to him sooner, but i didn't want you to feel guilty for anything that happened. you shouldn't have had to deal with this, and i'm sorry for not being there to defend you when it started. i'm no longer friends with hugo, the entire friend group is no longer friends with him....also i will admit you did make me laugh with the last messages you sent him to tell him off." when you looked up with a worried gaze he clarified, "he sent me all of them to try to make you look like the one at fault."

you let out a sigh and charles pulled you closer to his chest where he could still feel your heart racing a mile a minute. he kissed the top of your head and said, "i'm sorry my darling." you melted into his embrace and you sniffled softly, "thank you...but i still feel like....guilty?" charles squeezed you tighter, "the only thing you are guilty of is being my only love, my pretty girl." you finally let out a small laugh, the first he's heard from you in a week. there was a warm gentleness to his voice as he told you, "i never want you to feel like you can't tell me something, especially when it's something like this okay?" you hummed in understanding and he kissed you once more, giving one last squeeze before letting you go.

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

the end.

683 notes · View notes

nnight-dances · 5 months ago

Text

CASUAL

PAIRING: karina x fem!reader

GENRE: fluff, angst, smut (explicit, but not too much?)

TROPES: fwb to lovers except you're roommates and best friends, unrequited love but not really.

LISTEN TO: casual by chappell roan

NOTE: i may be having a bit of a military wife moment rn but i'm still a sapphic at heart yearning for something more... my first gay fic i've posted on this account yay! cannot reveal if ive been in a similar situation but you could say this is based on real life! whose life, i will not say. hope u enjoy and stay safe everyone <3

knee-deep in the [twin bed] and you're eating me out

you want to say you're in control when it happens, but you'd be a big fat liar if you did. truth be told, karina had you wrapped around her finger since she moved in. (in more ways than one, if you catch my drift.)

you met her late freshman year in college when you shared a gender studies course with her – which alone would've been enough of a clue to which ways she swings, if not for the black leather jacket and unnecessary amount of rings she wore to class. she'd sat next to you the first week in and approached you after class. "this class is a bore," she said as a matter-of-factly, "wanna get coffee with me?"

you'd agreed because you were mesmerized (even though secretly, that was the favorite course you took that year) and followed her into a cafe, letting her sweet talk you into all kinds of things from there. she had a big friend group which welcomed you generously when they found out you were friends with karina and eventually, that became your everyday life.

you worked on papers sincerely while karina watched you with an unreadable glint (maybe it was unreadable, maybe you didn't want to read too much into it), swirling her untouched coffee. eventually one day, she asked you, "wanna be roommates next year?"

that was karina. easy-going and confident. she didn't hesitate to ask you to do things with her, even if they were often bending the boundaries of what friends could do. exhibit a: she'd asked you to make out with her at a party just so she could shake off a creep. in general, she was touchier than the normal person, finding a way to cup your stomach under your shirt when you weren't looking. you get the idea.

that's how when she moves into the same room as you sophomore year, you lost all sense of self and reality. you have to thank your mom who convinced you to arrive on campus a day earlier than most, so you could settle in without the bothersome crowd.

you're in the middle of fixing a poster of your favorite band, the strokes, in the wall when she lets herself in with a, "you're already here, jagiya!" you almost lose your footing on your chair in order to face her, heart already a fluttering mess thanks to her shameless flirting.

"karina!" you call out, thrilled to see your friends, complications aside. you step down carefully before throwing yourself in her waiting arms. "you're here earlier than i thought."

she pulls away with a devilish grin, "missed you too much so i came early." she looks around the room, "i see you've already made this place home."

you smile, unsettled by the way she's still holding you in her arms, your bodies attached at the hip as she takes in her home for the next year. she smells like she always does: like grapefruit and spicy cedar. you feel relaxed in her embrace, taking in her appearance. she's wearing a cropped tank with a large flannel that slips off her shoulder thanks to the heavy tote she carries.

with a sigh, you take the tote off her. "your hair grew longer," you comment as you place the bag on her desk. karina does a little spin for you, giving a full view of the wavy locks that came all the way to her navel. it only made her that much more charming (you couldn't resist wanting to know what it would feel like to run your fingers through them).

you watch as karina lugs all her stuff into the room, refusing your help with a strict look. "can't have you spraining something already, jagiya," she quips and that's all it takes for you to sit back obediently. she takes off her flannel, letting you take in her arms. was it just you or did her biceps get bigger? (it wasn't just you. karina spent her summer the gym rat way.)

"you barely have any stuff…" you murmur mindlessly when she's nearly done in half an hour. for reference, it took you three whole hours for two days to set your stuff in place.

"you just have a lot of stuff," karina laughs, closing her closet with a satisfied clap. "thoughts on ordering in for din'?"

you raise a brow, "shouldn't we at least go see if everyone's back?"

she shrugs, "we can just go after we eat." she approaches your bed, resting her forearms next to you. "come on, i don't feel like eating that prison food just yet."

despite karina's exaggeration (your dining hall makes perfectly edible food), you let karina order for you. who are you kidding? the thought of sharing a meal with your newly established roommate in your new room on your first day together… it was sweet, you had to admit. so you give in and tell karina exactly what toppings you want on your bowl.

but where you had expected to bond in all kinds of cozy ways with karina, the night quickly an unexpected turn. you're not sure how it happens but you end up caged under karina's body on your bed. her hot breath is hitting your face, "you got even prettier over the summer, huh?"

her words make it harder to think. to think about how this your best friend slash roommate slash the person you would do anything for. fuck, it's too late and you're too helpless when it comes to her. karina's already sliding her hand down your stomach, eliciting a mewl of her name from your throat.

she looks pleased, chesire grin lighting up her face when she reaches your panties. "mhm, karina–" you claw at her shoulder when a cold finger meets your slick folds. she kisses your cheek and then your mouth, so strong that you can't do anything but hold her closer to your chest till she's ripping a scream from you.

"karina, what are we doing?" you cry out, still coming down from your orgasm. what the fuck, this not a situation to be with your roommate.

"what?" she whispers, lips attached to your neck without a care in the world, "i'm just doing what i've been wanting to all summer."

"okay, that's enough," you push her off until you're both sat. you're breathless so it doesn't help the gravity of the glare you hold karina captive under. she sits back on her palms, eyes hooded.

"we're friends," you start and sensing the protest rising in her, you hold up a hand, "and roommates. you know what they say about that, don't you?"

"don't shit where you eat," she deadpans, "but i don't care. i'm not shitting anywhere. i like you, you like me. that's why we're friends. if we want to fuck around a little, what's the big deal?"

you contain a scoff at how unbothered she is. at the same time, her words stab you in the heart, the subtle friendzoning nature of them not going unnoticed (that's why we're friends? what if you wanted to be more?)

"listen, jagiya," karina shifts dangerously closer, a thumb wiping away the sweat on your lip. "it's chill. we don't have to if you don't want to. but i'll tell you right now; i want to do things with you."

"things?" you breathe even though you know you shouldn't fall into her trap.

"yeah," she caresses your cheek, licking her lips, "want to kiss you. make you come. that sort of thing."

you fall against her weakly, feeling the soft strands of her hair envelope you like a dream. with your eyes closed, all you can feel is warmth of her body and none of the cold of her words (kiss, fuck, chill. no love.)

"only if you let me eat you out, too," you finally murmur against her skin. feel her shake with laughter.

"thought you'd never ask."

you wake up in karina's arms. she'd dozed off in your bed as if hers wasn't two hops away. the thoughts makes you flushed (despite everything) and you turn around to face her. she's still asleep, peaceful as ever. you trace the mole below her lips, envious of how little she was attached to you.

not to drown yourself in self-pity, you had always been too attached to karina for your own good. a week into being friends with her, you would jump at a text from her, dropping everything to meet at her the cafe she had wanted to try or to help her get ready for a party.

but it wasn't without reason. she was sweet to you, genuinely. karina sensed your moods smoothly, knowing when your silence was more than comfortable and when your drunk crying meant you were actually upset over something. she listened to you, no matter how little you claimed the problem to be, her reliable shoulder always yours when you were in trouble.

so you couldn't blame the butterflies in your stomach at waking up with her. right?

"we never made it to meeting our friends," karina mumbles through a yawn later. you're both in the middle of getting ready for the day, thankfully still a grace day before classes start.

"you clearly had other plans," you purse your lips in the mirror, working on fixing a bump in your hair. stupid karina and her arm under your head all night.

she comes up behind you with a playful smile, taking the brush from your hands to rake it through your hair herself. "you say that like you didn't have fun," she says. she brings your hair into a bun, taking a hairtie off her wrist to secure it in place. patting your head with eyes on you in the mirror, "there. you look cute."

you heave a deep sigh at the motions that stir up at her actions, sliding away to pretend to busy yourself with your bag. "we should go meet them today," you say, "or they might declare us dead."

"definitely," karina laughs.

meeting your friends helps you a little. maybe it's because you're seeing them after so long or maybe it's just the fact that you have normal friend feelings for them. but it's nice, you can lose yourself in a nonsense conversation with seungkwan about your recently acquired obsessions with various mobile games.

he's in the middle of offering to show you his brand-new coffee machine when karina shouts, "guys! gather up! minjeongie is driving us to get ice-cream! on her!"

you spot the short blonde attacks on karina at the presumably false declaration. your rommate dodges well, bent in a fit of laughter at minjeong's tantrum. "okay, i lied! everyone buy your own ice-cream."

as it turns out, minjeong's car is definitely not big enough to fit all 8 of your friends. "looks like we're fighting it out the fairest way," seowon declares, readying her fist for rock paper scissors.

"since only five of us can go," karina starts, somehow finding her way next to your side. you shiver when her hands clasps yours. "minjeong, y/n, and i are definitely going."

you watch in shock as everyone wreaks havoc at her words. "now why would we allow that–"

"see, it's technically just two seats taken," she explains calmly, "y/n's sitting on my lap anyway." you gape at her audacity as she holds up your intertwined hands, like a wedding announcement.

you try to weasel out of her grip, mumbling, "that's fine. i don't really want to go–"

"what? of course you do," karina's hand tightens and you curse her strength, "you love ice-cream, jagiya. come on. let's go."

your friends seem dubious of the interaction but with a few statements along the lines of they're in their honeymoon phase as roomies, they return to the rock-paper-scissors battle at hand, now the stakes reduced to four seats now.

"calling shotgun by the way!" karina calls as she pulls you after. you don't know what to say honestly, overwhelmed by her hand in yours. you had expected her to pretend things were the same as always but clearly not: you had never gone as far to sit in her lap with your friends around (alone was a different story. but you swear you'd only ended up in her lap because she'd wanted to hug you through your breakup with your ex.)

"karina, you're crazy," you tell her, finally shaking your hand free. you cross your arms and karina simply takes a chug of water from the brita in geum's minifridge.

"why? because i volunteered my lap so we'd get to go?"

before you can really give her a piece of your mind, minjeong interrupts. "looks like they figured out the winners. we're leaving in the next five minutes or the offer's off the table."

–

two weeks and your mom invites me to [lunch]

"y/n, it's so nice to see you again," karina's mom is saying, sliding a menu toward you. thanksgiving week was around which meant parents were abundant on campus these days. it also meant your own mom couldn't make it because she was swamped with work, no thanks to her job as an on-field reporter.

"of course, you've lost so much weight since we last met, eommeoni," you smile.

this is fine for the most part of it. you genuinely enjoy karina's mom's company. she's kind and sincere, always bringing a gift for you along with karina and treating you like her own. but this time around it's different because it's the first time you've been sleeping with her daughter.

in fact, just that morning, karina had kept you in bed longer than usual, complaining because you had gone to bed earlier than usual. it had been part of your plan to keep your conscience clean for when you met her mother, to make sure you didn't lose her respect. but being the nefarious idiot she was, karina had crawled up your torso, eyes going sweet at you, "please, just once?"

so now you had a dirtier conscience than usual, having been panting in karina's lap just hours before this lunch.

but even if you tried to maintain composure in front of her mom, karina made it impossible. she slid close to your shoulder, hand splayed across your bare thigh (curse you and your decision to wear your sundress out today). it's honestly harmless and even excusable as a friendly gesture, but ever so occassionally, her hand climbs up, reaching closer and closer to a position that was far from appropriate.

"so tell me, do you two have any classes together this semester?" karina's mom asks you between mouthfuls of rice. you take the chance to peel karina's hand off but it ends up at your knee like a magnet.

"not really," karina answers easily as if unaware of the power struggle going under the table. probably because she was winning by a mile.

"i told karina she should take an elective with me but she refused," you complain, deciding if this was the way you could hit back then so be it.

"i think you forgot to mention it was an economics elective," she corrects you, hand basically clawing at your inner thight by now. you shift uneasily and karina's mom laughs.

"you know jimin," she shakes her head, "she doesn't take the serious courses. only painting all day long."

"eomma," karina groans, "how many times do i have to tell you? it's not just painting. i'm an arts major. that's like the second hardest major at this school."

"really? what's the hardest major?" (the only right question for a mother to ask.)

the rest of the lunch goes by quickly, fortunately for you. you're the first out the door, eager to put some distance between you and karina. you pretend to fan yourself out of the hot mess she's made of you.

"i have to say," karina's mom says as she gets ready to leave, "you two seem to have gotten closer since you started rooming together."

"really?" karina wonders as if clueless to the arm around your shoulder, where it had been the whole walk back to campus from the restaurant. (insufferable, you whisper to her. cute, she accuses you.)

"thanks for sticking next to her, y/n. who knows where my little girl would be without you?"

you brush of karina's mom's words of flattery, not voicing the thoughts that arise. where would i be without your daughter?

–

i know what you tell [our] friends

imagining a life without karina becomes terribly real when it becomes clear to you that karina truly has no intentions of treating as anything more than a friend who she sleeps with and not just as roommates.

it's a cold slap of reality that you finally feel one day when you're eating with minjeong and seungkwan. karina's next to you, like she so often is, hand on your elbow for no good reason.

"so everyone's been wondering…" minjeong starts to say and seungkwan shoots her a glare, realizing where this was going.

"...are you two a thing?" she points to the point of contact between you and karina.

"what?" you squeak, pulling away at the call-out. but your mind goes blank, all the excuses you had practiced in your head deserting you. you had expected someone to catch on sooner or later, but somehow right now all you can think of is how you already miss karina's touch. i'm in love with her, it occurs to you to say. (wait, you love her? you wonder distantly as if the answer hadn't been crystal clear the minute she crossed lines with you.)

karina shrugs, "we're fucking. but it's casual. no attachment or anything." she adds with an arm around you, "just girls being girls, right?"

you muster out a laugh to agree with her, ignoring the concerned look seungkwan pins you with. minjeong seems convinced though, "no way! you're sleeping together? i guess it must be convenient… you live together."

"yeah, you could say that," this time it's you responding, swallowing the tremble in your throat. you'd rather die than let karina get a whiff of your true feelings. you stand up.

"it's easy." it's the hardest. "not a big deal." you thought about it every waking second. "i have class now though. see you guys later."

you did not have class. you ran to the nearest bathroom stall to lock yourself in and let out the sobs that had been threatening your system for the past three weeks. you make sure nobody can hear you and then wipe your tears with the spare tissues you carry in your bag.

you leave, hoping nobody notices your red eyes.

that night, you go to your room later than usual, counting on karina to be asleep. you should know better though because she's up, in nothing but her night shorts, sitting on your bed.

it almost frustrates you for a moment, the sight of her curled up so comfortably on your bed like you were lovers. but you weren't. you weren't even close. but she perks up like maybe you are, calling out your name sweetly, "you're so late today. is everything okay?"

"yeah," you say, not making eye-contact for too long as you rest your bag on your desk. you contemplate leaving the room just so you didn't have to feel this hot volcano erupt in your chest. but instead, you undress, aware of karina's unwavering gaze. you make sure to slip off your pants and put on a baggy shirt. no shorts, like karina liked.

"we're a fully dressed person put together," she liked to joke when she'd bring your bodies close. you laughed along but all you wanted was to actually be one person with her. maybe that would justify why you were so attracted to her.

"come on,," she coos when you jump into bed. "i know something's wrong. your eyes are red. your shoulders heavy."

"can't lie for one second with you, can i?" you sigh into her skin when she hugs you.

"sorry, jagiya. maybe if i was a man, you could get away with it."

maybe that would make it easier. if one of you was a man. at least then someone would bat an eye at the concept of a no strings attached situationship between best friends. you were practically begging for someone to object to its apparently platonic nature. (you were begging yourself.)

"i didn't even shower," you complain when she explores your bare stomach with her fingers.

"it's fine. we'll just take one in the morning."

she holds you to the promise, waking you up half an hour earlier than usual just so she could drag you into the shower. two girls showering together, a sight nobody would see because it was dead quiet until an hour from now.

–

i try to be the chill girl

you knew it was too good to be true, your friends-with-benefit situation with karina. but now that your feelings are actually catching up to you, you can barely hold in the tears that overwhelm you when you look at her.

then, when you finally decide to suck it up and show up to dinner with your friends, it all goes south. thanks to some dumb group project karina's doing, a guy named taeyong was at your table. you knew him by name from college gossip. he was fit to be the protagonist of a rom-com, nice guy with the looks to go with it and he was friendly, fitting right in with the group of friends.

bitterly, you reflect on how long it had taken you, in comparison, to warm up to everyone. a month, maybe? plus, he looked perfect next to karina, their unusually good looks matching each other's quality.

you're not the only thinking that because geum pipes up, "you two look good together! when's the wedding?"

seowon hits his arm though most of the people on the table join in laughter. (you don't.) "come on, you can't force it, geum," she says, "they're clearly still getting to know each other."

"so it'll be official in say, a week from now?" minjeong teases, earning herself a blush from taeyong. karina is unruffled but she does smile a little at the teasing comments, side-eyeing the boy next to her.

right. they did look good together.

much to your discomfort, karina and taeyong only seem to become closer, with the latter frequenting your table at every meal. he assimilated easily with the group, already circulating inside jokes that you were conveniently not a part of.

speaking of which you were circulating a word tornado yourself: casual, no attachement, chill, convenient, easy… not a big deal. as taeyong became a regular with your friends, you became increasingly absent, coming up with excuses to take your meals at much earlier or later hours.

you're officially spiraling, doing your best to avoid karina. but avoiding karina meant avoiding your friends. it was a harsh truth but you came to realize you were only friends with them because of her and if you decided to break things off with her, you'd also end up a loner.

it was a cold, miserable place to be in, your mind. you left your room early and came back late to karina asleep. she'd tried to stay up for your sake a few times but you'd made your arrivals later and later, until she gave up and went to sleep.

you know you can only avoid her for so long before she caught you and grilled you but for now, you just had to come up with a way to keep yourself occupied. that afternoon, you get a text from her, asking to talk to you after dinner. you leave her on read for hours before texting back a quick "sure," afraid to go too far. you may be mad at karina for treating you in ways that left you confused, but you didn't actualy want to hurt her.

but come the time when finally face her and you realize it may be too late.

"so… why exactly have you been avoiding me?" more than anything, karina's voice is weary. she appears worried when you first take a seat across from her but when you don't look like you're in actual physical pain, her expression morphs into one of frustration.

"i'm not," you sigh, "i'm just busy."

"busy during every single meal? busy enough to leave before i wake up?"

"i'm taking more classes than usual," you say and though it's the truth, it's far from being the reason why you were acting this way. karina seems to know this.

"i'm taking an art class that has me staying back in the studio till 11," she tells you. only then, you notice the black charcoal marking her cheek. "but i still come home."

"sorry," you mumble, averting your gaze. "i'm not– you didn't do anything. i'm just… thinking through some things. i'll come back to the room earlier today."

"great, so now we're not close enough for you to share your thoughts with me?" this time karina actually sounds hurt. it was the indication of your friendship finally falling apart that has her sitting forward, eyes blinking in panic. "y/n, what the fuck?"

what the fuck, indeed. you try your best to reassure karina but it seems like she's done talking to you after that point so you see yourself out. a small part of you manages to wonder whose jacket was laid across the chair next to her. taeyong?

you find the answer the hard way when you come back to your room at a reasonable hour for the first time in a week. only to run into taeyong himself.

he seems like he's in a hurry when you step in, rushing to put his jacket on (yes, the jacket that you saw next to karina earlier today) and avoiding your gaze. you don't even pretend to seem pleased encounter him there.

you fix your glare on karina, kneeling on her bed. she lets out a sigh when she sees you. "you're finally back."

you watch as taeyong leaves without a goodbye and you scoff, "i feel like i interrupted something. maybe i shouldn't have come back." you feel the blood rush to your head, all your convictions to lay out your unreciprocated feelings out to karina because she deserved an explanation.

right now, you just feel empty. and mad. so as soon as you rest your bag, you get to changing. but not into your night clothes.

"are you going somewhere?"

"...maybe."

"and what happened to our talk earlier?"

with a huff of disbelief, you throw your sweaty shirt on your bedroom floor. "well, i decided it meant nothing when i saw that guy leaving our room."

"taeyong?" karina looks baffled and you want to shake some sense into her so bad.

"yeah, i don't know, karina, the thought of you already replacing me with some dude–" you cut yourself off when your voice breaks. "it's not a great feeling. so i'm just gonna leave."

"wait, what?" karina jumps out of her bed. "is this what you've been mad about all week?"

you pause your angry movements about your space when she comes close to you, touching your arm, first contact in days. you breathe unevenly, "karina, i just need some time–"

"are you crying, jagiya?"

you want to say it's stupid nickname that gets to your nerves finally breaking your walls down. but really, it's the warmth in her tone, the sound of her breath hitting your ear so close. you'd missed karina. that's why you end up sobbing, arms finding her neck to support you.

"karina, i'm–" she rubs your back calmly through your sobs. "i'm sorry."

"what's wrong, baby? why are you crying? please, talk to me."

"i think… i'm in love with you."

your confession is quiet, just like your love for karina has always been. actually no, that's what you want to think but no, your love is loud: you look for her in every room you enter, hands already welcoming hers when she runs over to you. you're the first to laugh at her jokes, no matter how nonsensical or how many times she's told them to you. you may be a flustered mess when things got intimate, but you always made sure karina felt good, too – going far beyond your comfort zone to please her.

karina pulls away with a soft gasp. "that's not what i expected you to say."

"i know," you sniffle. "but it's been killing me. i know you wanted to keep things casual. and i know you and taeyong are–"

"okay, just so we're clear for once and for all– there is nothing between me and taeyong."

you freeze in shock, having been rock-solid in your assumption of their relationship. "what?"

"come on, i barely know the guy. but apparently, everyone's teasing got to his head," karina sighs, "he came here to confess to me earlier today. and i rejected him."

now his urgency to leave the room makes even more sense, you realize slowly. but you realize another thing: karina had looked cold when you'd entered, ending things with him clearly. yet, here you were, standing with her arms around your waist as if you hadn't declared your love for her.

"...and?" you prod her, biting your lip hopefully.

"and?" karina echoes you, eyes locking in yours to understand your hint. "oh, you wanna know how i feel?"

you nod coyly, a stray tear falling down your cheek as if on cue.

"well, let's start with a recap of this week. you ignored me so i felt like shit for most of it. and then you ignored me some more and i had to go to sleep lonely and sad. then, you stopped showing for meals so i didn't even want to eat anymore. what happened next? oh right, this evening. i had to practically beg you to talk to me–"

"okay, i get the idea!" you stop her with a groan, "i'm sorry, but i clearly had good reason to act the way i did."

"did you?" karina is suddenly holding your face, smiling turning bittersweet. "you idiot."

"huh?"

"i wanted to keep things casual because i wasn't sure how you felt about me. i wanted you to keep your options open till someone who you actually liked came along–"

"but–"

"this was long before i knew you were into me like that. you're really hard to read, you know? but yeah, i kept things casual because i'm selfish. i wanted to sleep with the girl i love without losing her friendship. i was obviously an–"

"idiot!" you hit karina's arm repeatedly at her revelation, tears filling up your vision yet again. "you love me?! why would you do that to me, then? are you–"

karina catches your fists in her with a heave, "i know, i know. i'm sorry, jagiya. but–" she brings your first to her chest, exposed by the deep neck of the tank she wore to sleep. "i'm serious about you, okay? i didn't want to gamble someone i cherished over some fucking around."

your body feels weak now that the truth is out in the open. you lean into karina. "you're so mean," you say into her neck, "i thought… you were chill."

she laughs at your complaint, "sorry. i'm dumb. dumb in love?"

you let karina coax you into her bed that night, kissing your body free of the tension you'd carried all that week like she was nursing you back to health. you can't help the tears that escape at her sweet touch, not new for her by any means – but different for you nevertheless, now that you knew how she felt. later that night, when you're falling asleep in her arms, in her twin bed this time, you feel her snuggle closer. warm nose against your cold cheek, she kisses you goodnight. (and a soft love you that you can barely distinguish from a dream.)

#karina x y/n #karina x you #karina x reader #karina aespa #aespa fics #aespa x reader #yu jimin #yu jimin x reader #karina fics #aespa imagine #karina imagines #karina fluff #aespa fluff #aespa scenarios #karina angst #kpop fic #kpop x reader #kpop imagines

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gyummigon · 7 months ago

Text

☆ my days with you (they are always happy)

beomgyu x gn!reader

୨୧ genre: fluff/comfort ୨୧ word count: 4.4k ୨୧ summary: after having a crush on your best friend for months, you have a silly, very silly, confession of feelings. ୨୧ a/n: truth be told, this is a little silly, and cheesy, but I wanted needed to write something that felt easy and refreshing. it's a little longer than i originally thought it would be, but it was fun. hope you like it, have a nice day:))

You liked Beomgyu. You liked him because of the way his eyes sparkled when he hummed his favorite song while doing the dishes, when he collapsed on the bed after an endless list of complaints about how tired he was, or when he spoke with overflowing emotion about the things he liked. You liked him because you found in him a kind of gentleness that you didn't find in the rest of the world, that you didn't think you could get from a man. And the amazing thing is that he was a man, but when you were with him, it was as if you saw the world through the eyes of a child. Eyes that saw happiness and didn't twist it, but made it bigger, spread it out and expanded it until those eyes - brown and deep and enchantingly beautiful - were the last thing left.

Perhaps you were in love with one of your closest friends. Or maybe you were just in the right place.

This thought was even harder to resolve when you arrived at your parents' house that Sunday afternoon, having checked off every single item on your mother's shopping list. You had only been out shopping for an hour, but it was as if you were returning home for the first time after the days out of town you had left behind. You didn't even know when you'd left the bags of groceries at the front door, or when you'd turned back to the garden to see that beaming smile with the wrinkles in the cheeks, let alone when your voice, shaky and too anxious for your taste, uttered an embarrassed "hey".

Beomgyu, who until then had been laughing at a ridiculous joke he had shared with your father, turned to look at you with an enchanting calm that could only be found on a beach at sunset, when the moon was doing its thing and the tide was ebbing in deep, sentimental sighs. The boy seemed to see something you couldn't define on your face, for his smile shrank to a soft, almost shy line.

You didn't take your attention off your face as he approached, hands hidden behind his back, and stopped in front of you. Despite your father's loud voice, the mischievous laughter of your younger siblings, and your mother's scolding of the dog to keep it away from the meat ready for roasting, the only thing you found yourself paying attention to was the disturbingly fast beating of your heart.

"Hey," you repeated, no less awkwardly. "What is this, I travel for a few weeks and suddenly my family has already adopted you?"

Beomgyu kept his shy smile and leaned against one of the wooden boards of the porch for a moment. His checkered shirt billowed slightly in the soft summer breeze.

"I think it's your father who decided to adopt me. He says I'm the exact representation of his youth: charming, talented, and outrageously beautiful."

"I think he says that to every young person he meets."

"Are you saying I shouldn't believe him?"

You didn't know when you started smiling, but your cheeks were sure to hurt if you didn't relax the muscles in your face soon.

"No, I'm just saying my father talks too much."

"A sincere and open man, I like him."

"As sincere as a politician in an election debate."

Beomgyu laughed and looked out into the garden, where your father was still sitting in a folding chair with a scowl on his face, trying to light the wood-burning barbecue. In a measured, polite voice that you didn't know he could have and that almost made you want to mock him, Beomgyu offered to help; but when your father looked up and - in the most millennial, bland way possible - gave him a thumbs-up before shouting a friendly "I've got it under control, son," for some stupid, irrational, and probably childish reason, you blushed. You blushed badly.

What the hell, since when did your father call Beomgyu "son"? And since when did your family normally invite one of your friends to join them on Burger Sunday? Was that your mother putting another plate on the table? Was that what Beomgyu did while you were away? Eat your burger in your place?

Beomgyu seemed to read the thoughts embodied in your expression very well, because he laughed softly and lifted a shoulder with an unseemly shyness. Surely, that's how you had captivated them all.

You little harpy.

And yet, to see him as vibrant and jovial as when you left was like a Band-Aid that lightened the burden of stress you'd endured these past few days. When you arrived in town last Thursday night, the first thing you thought of was to look for him, but the idiot had gotten sick from drinking bad milk and had begged you not to visit him until his diarrhea was over. He hadn't texted you since the night before, and you were beginning to think he'd dropped his phone in the toilet during one of his diarrhea attacks, but what you didn't expect was to find him at your house on your way home from the supermarket, nor did you expect to feel the way you felt: nervous, with words thought but never spoken, with desires intensified but more terrifying than ever.

"So... how was the convention that starved you for almost a month?"

You looked up as your younger brother ran past you, the dog not far behind. Before reaching the short stairs that led into the house, Beomgyu scooped your brother up in his arms and spun him around in the air before setting him down and encouraging him back to where your parents were. Your brother ran off with the dog behind him.

You blinked.

"It was a month of physical pain. I didn't know what an international accounting convention would be like until I went to one. I thought it would be like the boring lectures we had in high school and college, but apparently businessmen have fun with taxes and returns."

Beomgyu snorted in amusement and shoved his hands into his pants pockets as he turned to lean against the railing, looking you in the eye with that sweet smile of his.

"I missed you."

"Oh, did you?" you asked, keeping a neutral expression on your face as you raised an eyebrow. Despite your coolness, it wasn't hard to notice a slight blush spreading across your cheeks. It wasn't that you had been away from him for a long time, you had been apart for months at other times, but there was something different about his words this time that made you wonder if he really missed you or if he missed you the way you felt.

"Is that why you snuck into my house as an undercover usurper?"

"See, I've been taking over your family members one by one," he said with mock seriousness as he gave you an exaggerated look. But then the mischievous smile returned to his face, and he took a step closer. "What's the matter with you, aren't you going to confess that you missed me, that you were writhing in agony without my presence?"

"You've been texting me almost every day for the past three weeks, Beomgyu. I don't know how I could have missed you."

Her lips curled into a pout of indignation as she frowned. You noticed that one of his hands was on the railing, inches from yours. "That's really cruel. He was really unhappy."

"Right, how's your diarrhea?"

"Uhmm," he hummed, and from a distance you could tell he was trying to maintain a disinterested expression as he looked away. "I'm a feisty guy, you know? A diet based on soda crackers and oral electrolytes and puf, good as new. Why, are you going to make fun of me? Because let me tell you, you won't make me suffer as much as Yeonjun and Soobin already have."

"Diarrhea teasing is not my strong point."

Beomgyu let out a gasping, feigned sigh and placed his right hand over his heart, his eyes dramatically wide. "Is this empathy real, is it possible you'll come back a little softer?"

You snorted and shook your head. You couldn't remember when last summer had been like this: quiet conversations, laughter, and a silence that seemed somehow comfortable even when tension was building between you. You had forgotten the ease that had always existed between the two of you. You used to hate these months of excessive heat and aimless days, but ever since you met Beomgyu, you begged for every chance to laugh together, no matter the season.

"I'm not going to laugh," you said, lowering your eyes to your hands. You were about to say something else, but the words died in your mouth as he moved even closer, sliding his hand over yours on the railing.

You nearly choked on your own saliva. God, why did you get so nervous, didn't you just talk about diarrhea a few seconds ago?

You said nothing, and neither did he, but you watched his cautious, anxious expression before looking down again at your joined hands with his hand: yours flattened against the light wood, covered by his slender fingers and the soft, delicate pads of his thumbs, almost always rough and calloused from constant use of his guitar. His hand was warm, and you felt your heart flutter as he ran his thumb over the knuckles of your hand. It was a gentle, casual, maybe even innocent gesture, but it felt like a million fireworks on the skin of your hand.

"I... I thought about you while I was away."

He didn't answer, he just turned to look at you, and you couldn't help but feel your heart beat faster when you saw the look on his face. His smile was still there, but it had changed, it had become softer, and you felt like it was the only thing you could hold onto to keep from blurting out the pile of words that had begun to form on the tip of your tongue.

"It's stupid, isn't it?" you added, trying not to notice the butterflies fluttering in your stomach as his fingers brushed harder against yours, as if encouraging you to speak, to spit out the words before they bloated your stomach and turned you into a useless ball of desire and... God, weren't those lips so beautiful? "I've missed you. I've missed you all week."

"All month?" He corrected quietly, and you just rolled your eyes as you tilted your head toward the floor and kicked an invisible rock.

"I guess I miss you every day since I met you."

Even though you saw his smile widen out of the corner of your eye, he didn't respond right away, and that made the knot of apprehension in your chest grow. However, the wave of fear dissipated as soon as it came. His thumb was right on your pulse, probably sensing the way it had quickened for him. His touch was tender, nothing more than the gentle pressure of his thumb against your skin, but you were so mesmerized by the soft gesture that you barely noticed when he took a step closer, his body so close to yours that it was as if you were enveloped in the soft scent of his cologne. It felt like a secret moment, the way that even with your whole family gathered around the grill preparing dinner and the two of you, separated by the noise, just a few feet away, you didn't seem to notice anything but each other's presence.

"Tell me more about it." His voice was lower, softer, sending shivers down your spine.

"You want me to talk about how I missed you?"

He bit his lip as he gave you a mischievous, perhaps very silly smile and... No, it definitely wasn't the smile of someone who wanted to grab your heart and run away, was it? Because, hell, it felt like that.

You forced yourself to look away from his lips. Nothing could make you stupider. Nothing could make you freak out more. You had to avoid them, avoid the madness. But it was in vain, a deluded attempt to escape the traps of your heart, because just as you looked into his eyes, he dropped his gaze to your mouth for a moment, and you were convinced he could feel your pulse fluttering under his thumb. He took another step. Now he was close enough to push your back against the railing, his hand fully clenched over yours, and his eyes lost on your lips, begging you to speak up and do something stupid.

And so you did.

"I... I can tell you how I think of you when I see something funny. Or something frighteningly beautiful. Like those pink sunrises we barely see if we're not lazy and stay in bed till noon. Or two cats curled up on the sidewalk. Not that I want to cuddle with you, mind you... Well, it's not that I don't want to. The point is, cats are cute. Like you."

With a grimace, you paused to take it in and then forced yourself to pretend you hadn't said that. But you were strong, and you didn't let yourself stop, because you had already screwed up, and you knew that if you didn't say those words right then, you could never say them again.

"Today I was surprised to see you with my father, laughing and joking, when my father doesn't laugh with any boy who is related to me. Then I was even more surprised that it felt so intimate, so familiar, so close. I don't know if it was like one of those equations that I know at first glance will make me lose my mind and want to give up life at the slightest attempt to solve it, or one of those formulas that, even unsolved, look like one of the most beautiful in the mathematical world. Yes, I... I just made a metaphor using the words "beautiful" and "mathematical" in the same sentence. Okay, okay, stop laughing. It's just... You laughing with my father, what a disaster. What a disaster to realize that every aspect of my life likes you and what a disaster that every aspect of my life clings to you so much. I think that's why I miss you even when we're close. I don't want there to be any distance between us.

There it was, you said it. Done. Now you could breathe. Now your heart could relax a little, take a blanket and wait for the rainbow or the misfortune. It could go get a bunch of duct tape and Band-Aids or get naked and pole dance around an artery. It could get a funeral box or start believing that it's immortal. And it all depended on the guy in front of you.

Beomgyu's gaze was soft, as soft and gentle as the scenarios that automatically began to form in your head when you saw the mixture of surprise and tenderness that ran through his expression when you finished speaking. He looked down at his hands clasped against yours and exhaled a laugh that came out a little shaky. Then he returned to your gaze and stood there, silently studying you.

"I want to answer you," he whispered, "but I want to make sure I find the right words.

Idiot.

You tried very hard to keep a serene expression on your face, as if your world wasn't hanging by a thread. Then he did something you'd never seen before: he swallowed spit, his gaze sliding down to linger on your lips for a moment before returning to your eyes and swallowing again. "Wait a minute," he said hoarsely.

Without warning, he turned and walked away, leaving you standing against the railing as you struggled to catch your breath.What the hell had that been? You watched as he walked over to the garden table, grabbed a soda, then walked back over to you and leaned against the railing next to you.

He cleared his throat, took a sip, then looked back at you.

"Are you kidding me?" there was a mix of emotions in your voice, amusement, confusion, embarrassment, insecurity, indignation..., the urge to grab the soda can from him and bash his head with it.

Beomgyu blinked, seemingly surprised by your statement, then laughed, his mouth twisting into a smile that felt like a prize.

"What?" he asked, his eyes flashing. You tightened your mouth and he laughed even harder. "I can't believe you just said that!"

"What an asshole," you muttered, nudging his side.

He laughed, but his arms shot out to hold you, just as your nudge knocked him off balance for a moment. His hands wrapped around your arms and he straightened up, but he didn't let go of you or wipe that goofy grin off his face. You struggled to keep up the gesture of annoyance, though it didn't work very well when he pulled you to him.

"I... I'm actually pretty nervous."

His gaze had dropped to your mouth again, and when it came back up to meet your eyes, he bit his lip. His gaze was intense, as if he was struggling to find the right words to say whatever it was he was thinking. He let go of your arms to lean against the railing next to you, keeping his distance so close that your shoulder was trapped between his right arm and his side.

"I want to kiss you, but your dad is right behind me and I'm afraid he'll leave me without a burger," he joked, but his laugh came out too quickly and you realized he was really nervous. His gaze landed on your mouth again and he held it there for what seemed like an eternity before he let out a loud breath and closed his eyes. You were still processing the fact that the words "I want to kiss you" had just come out of his mouth.

"I'm sure you can live without a hamburger, Beomgyu."

His gaze returned to your mouth and your heart skipped a beat as he came even closer. Now he was so close you could feel his breath caressing your lips as he brought his hand to your waist to pull you even closer, and his lips - so soft, so tantalizing, and so agonizingly close to yours - parted and they were about to say something when suddenly your father's voice boomed across the yard.

"Hey, guys," he said in a hoarse voice. "Dinner's almost ready."

The sound of his voice made you jump, and you were surprised at how quickly Beomgyu turned away, taking several steps back and moving as far away from you as possible. His face was red and he held his arms carefully at his sides as your father looked up at the two of you.

"Is everything okay here? You two looked very... lovey-dovey," your father joked, his eyes narrowing as he watched both of your reddened faces and Beomgyu desperately trying to act normal.

"Eh-" Beomgyu opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He opened and closed his mouth as if he was struggling to come up with an excuse. Your father, who was now smiling broadly, looked from Beomgyu to you and back to Beomgyu, who was still struggling. "Sir, I am in love with your daughter."

His unplanned statement came out in a rush, and your face quickly turned to him, mouth agape. He was also surprised by his own words, his eyes widened even more and he now looked at you in disbelief, his lips parted slightly as he processed what he had said. My goodness...

Your father had dropped the lid of the grill, your mother had stopped making the salad, and your brothers had stopped torturing the dog to look at you and Beomgyu. There was silence; no one moved or said anything. For a moment there was only the humming of the grill and the whisper of an occasional breeze. You were sure that Beomgyu could hear your heart beating in your chest and you were sure that you could hear it when he swallowed spit. He was so red, so shocked, that you thought he would faint right there, or run out first and then pass out in front of your house.

"Gee, well." After a long silence, your father nodded and added, "I'm sure dinner will be a long one."

You wondered if the seriousness in his tone was real.

Beomgyu shivered like a tired old oak leaf. Your mother shook her head, struggling to keep a smile from peeking out of her lips. Your siblings, like you, just stared at him, eyes wide.

Your father broke the second silence by clearing his throat and tapping the lid of the grill.

"I think the burgers are ready."

Before you could find the stability to move towards your family, Beomgyu's hand wrapped around your arm and his eyes, now wide and ridiculously expressive, shouted the words you had been waiting for.

"Listen."

"Yes?"

"I... I... It slipped out of my mouth."

"I know." Oh, God. No. You didn't know. You didn't know anything. You weren't thinking clearly. Your heart had eloped to a party and your brain had followed.

"Your dad likes me, look, it doesn't look like he's going to let me go without a burger."

"Beomgyu, I..."

"Listen," he repeated, and you would have told him to lower his voice if you hadn't seen his determination. "If your father banishes me from your house and I don't survive the heartbreak to tell you, I want you to know that I've been thinking about you all this time, every day, at all hours; especially in the morning, which is why every day starts out well now and is all happy and pretty and cheesy and all that. You're so... so fucking cute and distracting, which is why you saw me with my shirt on backwards the other day, which also explains the toothpaste stain on my sweater; oh! And the different colored socks. I didn't know that... This, that... you know, yeah... Love made people so clumsy and clueless, but now I know that if I get hit by a tricycle going three miles an hour, it will be because I was thinking of you”.

He was still talking, the words coming out of him as fast as the stream of water coming out of the hose one of your brothers was using to wash a sausage he had dropped on the floor. You just stood there, mouth agape, struggling to take in and process all those words.

"And just a moment ago I was so excited, so high, such an idiot for what you said to me, I can't believe I almost left without telling you, because I've been wanting to tell you forever. I don't know if it was those beautiful cheeks that I want to cradle and pull and pinch and bite all the time, or if it was the way your lashes whispered romantic tales and happy endings to me. I... I don't know how you did it, or what seductive trick you used to trap me, but you can take as much from me as you want; I don't know how much I have, only that I was empty until you came”.

Beomgyu finished, paused for a moment, and then smiled and shrugged, such an adorable and nervous and yet ridiculous and funny gesture. "Well, that... that's it."

There was no air in your lungs. Your heart, which had come back drunk, racing and out of breath, was beating so fast that you couldn't think of anything but the deafening sound it was making in your chest. One, two, three minutes passed and you still hadn't regained your mobility. Beomgyu inhaled sharply, shrugged again, and gestured to the table where the rest of your family was already sitting, looking at you, trying to pretend they weren't listening.

"I think they're all waiting for us to eat."

Fortunately, he made the decision for you and took your hand to lead you to the table. You still had your eyes fixed on him and your mouth hanging open as he led you to your seat. You sat down and your trembling legs were grateful, but your hand felt empty, sweaty and scared when it came away from his.

Beomgyu cleared his throat, blushed at the sight of you and murmured, "I'll be back in a minute, okay?" Then he left, mumbling something about going to the bathroom.

Your father looked at you as if he expected you to say something, but he must have seen the embarrassment and confusion on your face, because he then turned to your mother. "Did you understand him? I didn't understand him."

Your mother laughed. "I love that boy, but God, he talks fast."

"He wants to bite her cheeks," said one of your siblings.

"And pinch them." Said the other.

Your father nearly choked on his soda, and you nearly fell out of your chair.

"What? What is he talking about?"

"He wants to bite her!" your younger brother nearly howled with laughter. "He's always talking about biting her cheeks."

"And pinching them."

You covered your face with your hands and grinned like a fool. You didn't mind the dozens of questions your father asked and the teasing of your siblings; you looked at your mother's smile, full of peace, hope, promised laughter and dreams to be fulfilled, and you admitted to yourself that the days with Beomgyu would always carry a load of happiness that was capable of subtracting the importance of everything else.

At the same time, Beomgyu was leaning against the wall and facing the closed bathroom door, trying to sort out his thoughts. As he stood in front of you, the words came out of him so fast that he didn't even have time to realize how hasty and awkward his statement was. He felt exposed, vulnerable, he needed a moment or two or many to recover, but he was undeniably happy.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, thinking of you and laughing for no reason.

"Oh my God..." he murmured. "I'm so fucked up."

#beomgyu x reader #beomgyu #beomgyu imagines #txt x reader #beomgyu fanfic #beomgyu fluff #txt fanfic #beomgyu fic #tomorrow x together #choi beomgyu #txt fic #txt imagines #beomgyu oneshot #txt fluff #beomgyu scenarios #kpop fanfic

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meirimerens · 1 year ago

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(ran this reblog through a discussion with some people who have more experience in storytelling/gamedev than i do and some who are central asian indigenous [which i'm not] to get their point of view on the Kin so it's probably going to be long because I'm condensing multiple discussion pieces in one, it's gonna be one of them Long Posts)

while the Kin is obviously heavily inspired by the Buryat, including in its language which does contain a lot of Buryat words, but also a lot of not-Buryat words (Yargachin, pointedly incredibly important in the game, is Mongolian directly. as stated above, Yas & Merdrel are also Mongolian), I do not know if I agree that finding the other inspirations is "forgetting that and trying to match them to other cultures". The Kin is not "its own somewhat distinct culture", it is its own, imagined, invented, imaginary culture, which takes inspiration from (/plainly steals) from existing ones. It is an imaginary people with heavy foundational roots, in the same way the town is imaginary with heavy foundational roots, and the disease itself is imaginary with heavy foundational roots. It is obvious the game takes inspiration from the Buryats (and from others), but it also, in the name of storytelling, creates a religion which is almost an inverse of Buryat Tengrism (Tengrism, with Kyuk-Tengri, father-sky-god as head of the pantheon, being, from what i'm understanding, pantheistic [the Main God is in everything, and everything is a manifestation of him], polytheistic [while Tengri is the main one, there is a heap of other gods, goddesses and spirits under/around him, with great importance placed on those spirits [44/55 associated with different things]], and of course with a main head of a father-sky-god; whereas the Kin's religion, with Boddho, a mother-earth-goddess* [whose name seems to relate more to Mongolian], is pantheistic [mother Boddho is in everything and everything is a manifestation of her], monotheistic [she is the only one, the all-mother, all-creatoress] OR duotheistic [her + Bos Turokh are the only deities], and lacking in spirits entirely, which are so important to Tengrism), has an important spiritual caste of women (the Herb Brides) who have no resonance within Altaic/Mongolic/Turkic cultures because no culture has Naked, Dancing Young Pretty Women Whose Sole Job is Dancing For Harvest (some types of goddess-priestesses / witches / oracles have always existed, but the Herb Brides are a distinct, obvious invention, which deserves scruteny. you could argue that they correlates with shamans, but in the text it appears evident that is more the place of Burakh [father, then son], and the Herb Brides directly go against a widespread shamanic practice which is the wearing of many layers made of animal skins, bones, antlers, horns in order to disguise oneself, to wander between worlds, to trick the tricksters, etc), and also like. Worms. "crude", "unfinished". half-man half-dirt.

*the cult of an earth-mother/mother-earth exists in Buryat Tengrism with Umai, because earth-goddesses exist/have existed in most pantheons, especially before the advent of pastoralism; however, she is daughter of Tengri, whereas Boddho is all-mother. Mongolian Tengrism has her be named Etugen, and while she is said to have all control over the natural forces and all living forces be subordinate to her, Kyuk-Tengri is still "above" her, she is the "second highest" after him. the existence of a earth-goddess within two religions does not make them more similar than any others (the Greeks had an earth-goddess, Demeter, with theories that she was there before the advent of the hellenic pantheon as an all-mother... etc etc so on). there is also sources stating that at some point, Tengrist or proto-Tengrist peoples might have worshiped him/a sky-father exclusively or so majoritaly that the other deities were aside, but it could also come from biased or outside sources.

we are also unsure about your claim that the Kin represents the Buryats in "interesting and careful" ways. We do not know of your position wrt indigenity (and it's none of my business specifically, might be the business of those in the group who are indigenous but i'll let them decide if they want to contact you directly) and if you were doing research on the Buryats out of a reconnecting journey or intellectual curiosity/desire and personally feel that the Buryats are respectfully represented in P2 as one, but I have read many other Central Asian Indigenous people in this fandom write, since the release of P2 (and possibly before that about P1, as well as in the discussion we were Just Having about this ^) about how the Kin does not represent them faithfully, or even sometimes just kindly, and the treatment of it and its members being insulting in multiple ways (including the fact that their beliefs and language are a hodgepodge of languages and beliefs that feels to "steal" from multiple sources [=appropriative instead of appreciative] which itself is another discussion, do not represent any real-life religion while obviously being inspired by some, and on other levels just the fact that the Kin's clothes do not resemble the vibrant, intricate, and historically-significant clothing of the Buryats, or any of the peoples they are inspired by. That and the fact that they literally have non-human/in text sub-human members [the Worms]). Most of the discussions around the Kin that i've seen, from Central Asian Indigenous people, recognizes and celebrates the inspirations (plural) while still interrogating how callous, cruel, sexualizing and misogynistic the narrative and metanarrative treatment of the Kin is, a far cry from a "careful and interesting way" of representing the Buryats (or any of the other inspirations).

last thing: I am personally curious as to where/how you've found the "half Chinese" data piece, because I have not been able to find anything of the sort online (doesn't help that my grasp on Russian is nonexistent). I have seen it going around, without a source, and I also have seen (in the tags of this) the data of "1/16 Manchu or Han", which is a far cry from "half-" anything, and not related to Shenekhen Buryats. [deleted the rest to add:]

Dybowski, from his own mouth, is not half-chinese, and the tagger who mentioned it being 1/16 was right: on page 57 of [this interview], he mentions his grandfather's father (so great-grandfather) having married a Chinese woman (when he was 60 and her 20, but that's a whoooole other story), making him 1/16 chinese (possibly Han or Manchu as the tagger mentioned). I do not doubt this informs his view of the world and how he is treated, even if he mentions being "the only one in [his] family who really looks Russian", but it is a far-cry from "half-" anything. that does not change the general discussion i've read for years at this point around the Kin, which is that the inspirations are obvious and should be celebrated, but it is obviously imaginary/invented, and in the hazy lines of imagination lies a treatment of the Kin which is cruel, crude, sexist (more specifically misogynistic), often racist and feels more like appropriation for a morally gray ethnicity that pays lip-service to its inspiration but mistreats it nonetheless rather than full, hearty representation.

great discussion! 👍🫂 i'm genuinely glad we can exchange on this. but what is contained in your reblog is, from what i've seen and read, pretty far from the consensus on the Kin. we all can recognize (and we should appreciate and take good care in handling) the real-life inspirations while still seeing that, in the blurry lines of storytelling and "invention" for the sake of (technically) a ~fantasy~ ethnicity, lies like. a racist mistreatment with appropriative qualities. which i've seen people talk about for years at this point.

the pathologic Kin is largely fictionalized with a created language that takes from multiple sources to be its own, a cosmogony & spirituality that does not correlate to the faiths (mostly Tengrist & Buddhist) practiced by the peoples it takes inspirations from, has customs, mores and roles invented for the purposes of the game, and even just a style of dress that does not resemble any of these peoples', but it is fascinating looking into specifically to me the sigils and see where they come from... watch this:

P2 Layers glyphs take from the mongolian script:

while the in-game words for Blood, Bones and Nerves are mongolian directly, it is interesting to note that their glyphs do not have a phonetic affiliation to the words (ex. the "Yas" layer of Bones having for glyph the equivalent of the letter F, the "Medrel" layer of Nerves having a glyph the equivalent of the letter È,...)

the leatherworks on the Kayura models', with their uses of angles and extending lines, remind me of the Phags Pa Script (used for Tibetan, Mongolian, Chineses, Uyghur language, and others)

some of the sigils also look either in part or fully inspired by Phags Pa script letters...

some look closer to the mongolian or vagindra (buryat) script

looking at the Herb Brides & their concept art, we can see bodypainting that looks like vertical buryat or mongolian script (oh hi (crossed out: Mark) Phags Pa script):

shaped and reshaped...

#i brought it up in the gc because it was my impression and i wanted to check in with people who have been here longer than me + are also #more impacted than me but i've always seen the discussion around the Kin to be like ''yeah [x] is obvi inspired by [ethnicity]; [y] is #obviously inspired by [ethnicity]; but [z] is hogwash hodgepodge and [ethnicity] doesn't do that and [a] is hogwash hodgepodge [...]''#like i will not lie to you. i have not seen an indigenous person in this fandom truly believe that the Kin is in any way respectful/careful #to any culture it is inspired by. but then again 1) love to hear dissident opinions; that's what Discussion is for and 2) maybe i just #haven't looked far enough! that's perfectly possible!#i've seen (& continue seeing) people recognize and appreciate the bits and pieces of the Kin that Do have obvious correlations [the Buryat #belief of the Earth needn't be cut+needing ask for permission to dig; the Trials of p1 which i've seen native american people relate to;...#but like. ''yeah it's careful/respectful'' has never been a sentence i ever come across about the Kin. won't lie.#like for every post i read about how the Kin is a respectful homage to [ethnicity] i read 2 to 4 abt how it's a disrespectful sexualizing #hodgepodge of (sometimes unrelated) sets of beliefs and mores that the game both wants you to interact with as a narratively-understood #racism problem in-game & Also is racist itself and lacks so many distinctive qualities of [ethnicity] to the point it feels just like ''one #of them fantasy ethnicities white authors make for their YA novels that are SWANA-inspired but they won't fucking bother doing their #research on which one they want to appropriate'' - GC message [permission to share]#like i am but the messenger on this [because again. not CA indigenous. but i know people who are and i read things by people who are #and i've run this reblog through people who are etc] but most of the discussion around the Kin does Naht go in the sense of #''it's a careful and interesting [way of handling the Buryats/Mongols/...]''. most people i've read talk about it #are somewhat pissed lol. which again. it's perfectly normallll to have dissident opinions. in the Perspective game.#tldr; imaginary and imagined people with obvious and very clear inspirations but in the blurry edges in the ''imagination'' & ''invention''#lies some disturbing racist/misogynistic/appropriative shit; which lead writer D.; even if half-chinese or 1/16 Han or Manchu*;#[ETA: 1/16 was right] still can fuck it up big big time.#also considering his Allegations towards women and girls everyone can side-eye his treatment of the Herb Brides; regardless of if we think #that's a ''respectful'' invention based on RL ethnicities #neigh (blabbers)#anyways. genuinely good discussions to have and partake in; even if it's obviously different visions on the matter.#i'm also really attached to like. creating fantasy ethnicities for storytelling but like all storytellers you haaaaave you have to do your #research to handle the ethnicities you're ''basing yourself on'' properly.#the whole argument here [which other people have more eloquantly/personally described than I] is that the Kin is both different enough #from its inspirations [completely different dress; different spiritual castes and practices; a religion that is almost the complete inverse #of buryat tengrism; the herb brides; the worms;...] but also Similar Enough that we have to consider like. both parts of the equation

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nerdygirlramblings · 22 days ago

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Off to See the Wizard (3)

previous | next

tw: canon-typical violence, bad accents

"Wut?" Simon stutters, in a voice you've never heard before. You've been on comms with him when missions have gone to shit, and he has never sounded as nervous as he does right now.

"It's just-" You huff out a breath. Why does this have to be so hard? Usually conversation flows with Simon like a stream over rocks, smooth and unhurried. "It seems like you're upset. You looked like you wanted to hide when John introduced us, and now..." You let the sentence trail off. "Where's the man who, two weeks back, spent watch sharing the worst puns I've ever heard?"

Simon looks at you, finally meeting your eyes, before glancing quickly away. "I dunno wha' 'cher talkin' about," he mumbles.

You can't help but snort in response. "That's such bullshit, Simon! You forget I've heard you lie before," you remind him. "You're usually much better than this."

Simon's mask twitches and you glimpse little laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. You think maybe he's smiling a little behind the mask.

You decide to push your luck, knowing your Simon is stuck somewhere in this man who seems to sit so uneasily in his place. So you smile and say, "Go ahead and give me another."

Simon holds your gaze a few moments longer than last time and mutters you, "I don' like change."

You keep your eyes on his, on the parts of his face you can see, and on the way his hands are twitching against the table top. "Liar." You're grinning at him now.

Simon flattens his hands against the table and leans forward a little bit. Lowering his voice, he says, "We don' need help."

"Eeeh!" You make a buzzer sound and tell him, "Wrong answer, but thanks for playing." He chuckles like you're used to, low and dark. "I've seen the same intel you have, and you're going to want me on the other side of those comms."

This time he looks at you and holds your gaze. "Yer right, Oz. We will."

You're so shocked at the first honest response from him you don't know what to do. You gape at him for a moment, unsure of what to expect next, when he floors you again.

Simon looks down at the table and, so quietly you think you misheard, says, "Yer prettier 'an I thought you'd be. An' I knew you'd be pretty."

You're saved from having to respond at all as Kyle, Soap, and John finally come back with food.

"Scran's nae bad teday," Soap says, sliding a tray in front of you. You mumble out your thanks and catch John looking between you and Simon. You hope he can't see how nervous you are. Simon's posture gives nothing away, which might be his biggest tell right now.

"Solid copy, Ghost?" John asks him, and he merely grunts as he digs into his food.

The rest of your day is spent going back over the information you have. Laswell agreed with your idea for transport, so you spend a few hours arranging something both more discreet and reliable, calling in a favor or two in her name.

By the time dinner rolls around, you have given yourself no less than a dozen pep talks about your interaction with Simon at lunch. You've played out a million different scenarios and finally opted to take your cues from him.

You don't have long to wait as he and Soap come to your office at 6:30. He stands back and lets Soap do most of the talking, which he does all the way to the barracks. When you get there, you give him a quizzical look. "I don't know the base well, but isn't the mess the other way?"

Soap's smile borders on feral. "Aye, but Cap'n decided, 'cuz a yer bein 'ere, to take ye off base tonight." Beside him, you catch Simon's eye and the eye roll he gives to Soap's back.

"Cap'n jus' wan'ed tuh show ya some 'a the city, seein' as you'll be here instead 'a home when we're gone." He finishes quietly. Seems like no one is happy when reminded the whole reason you're here is to support them while they're gone.

Simon unlocks the barracks and ushers you in, following behind with a gentle hand on your lower back. Now three of your boys have made the same unconscious motion. When will Soap? "We're gonna head out in 20. Tha enough time fer ya ta get ready?" he asks.

You look at him and Soap and notice they're dressed in civvies. You're not sure how you missed that detail before because now that you really look, it's clear they've cleaned up and changed since lunch. "Twenty should be fine. I mean, it's not fancy, right?"

Soap winks at you, "Nah. Ya look perfect already, bon. Yoo could go as ya are 'n be feen."

You pause, smile frozen on your face. You don't know how to take that compliment , so you stammer, "Uh, thanks. I'll just..." You point towards your room. "Meet you in the rec room?"

Simon nods, and you walk away. You hear a light thump and an "Oi, Lt, wha' was tha' fer?" as your door closes.

It turns out John's idea of a tour of the town is more about how to get off base and where not to go alone. "Unfortunately, can' let ya borrow a military ride, Oz. Yer not cleared for 'em." So instead he shows you where to catch the bus - "ne'er do a ride share. Can' have 'em on base" - and where some key places in town are. "Asda's gunna have e'rything ya need 's far as snacks 'n toiletries. An' if ya want food tha's not from the mess, pick somethin' over 'ere," he says, sweeping his arm to the streets northwest of where the bus would drop you.

He doesn't take his own advice though, parking in a lot several blocks south and taking everyone to a pub bearing the name The Dancing Bear. The others walk ahead of you and John. Clearly this is a place they've been before.

As you follow the group into the space, the man behind the bar calls out to John who simply raises a open hand. You watch the man's eyebrows rise while he looks over the group, finally landing on you. You can't quite interpret the look he gives John, but he points to a table towards the back. You notice it's nestled in an area not immediately viewable from the door but with a line of sight to most of the room. As they had at lunch, Simon and John take up positions along the wall where they can see almost everything. Kyle and Soap are sat next to John and Simon respectfully, which leaves you to take the seat between the two sergeants.

You hear heavy steps come up behind you, and while your first instinct is to tense - you completely understand why soldiers and cops try to not put their backs to a room - no one you're with seems concerned.

When the footsteps stop, a gruff voice says, "Nice ta see ya, boys. An' ye've brought a friend."

You assume this is the same man from behind the bad, but while John was smiling a moment ago, you can tell it's now strained. You can only guess what caused the change.

"What've they got on you, dollface? Ye're too gorgeous to be here, with them, by choice." The man laughs at his own joke as you turn. You don't know how often the boys come here, and you certainly don't want to burn bridges if they think the joke is funny, so you simply give the man a tight smile.

John gets his attention and orders drinks for the boys then looks to you. You order a soda; these guys do not need to see what a lightweight you are, and you definitely don't need your inhibitions lowered. Kyle orders chips and curry for the table as you all decide on your meals.

The atmosphere is much different than at lunch, when the lore of being the 141 kept you insulated. John and Simon are scowling more than before, to the point where you suggest everyone heads back to base.

"Why?" Simon asks.

You look at him then over your shoulder to the small group playing darts, the few people at the bar, the man who was at your table and another woman, both making drinks behind the bar. "Oh, I don't know," you drawl. "Maybe because it looks like you're trying to stare the place down."

Simon's eyes snap to yours as Soap giggles. "She's got a point, Lt. Yeh look right pissed."

He turns slightly to see where Simon has been staring, his own face morphing from carefree to annoyed as Simon says, "It'd be fine 's long 's other people'd mind their fuckin' business."

You look at him pleadingly. "Then let's go, really. I want this to be nice for us all, and clearly you're bothered by something."

Simon looks at John who claps a hand on his shoulder. "Oz's right, Ghost. Let it go or we're gone." Though he's calm and the tone is light, John's words come across as a mild threat.

You make it through the meal without another incident, but as you get up to leave, the guys take up positions around you. It's impossible to miss the way John leads the way with Kyle and Soap chatting your ears off while Simon trails you silently.

Back at the barracks, you say your goodnights and turn in while the others meet in John's office. "Tha' was a bad idea," Ghost says. "Too many eyes on 'er."

"Not sure base is any better," Gaz says. "Plenty a' the rookies saw 'er as I walked 'er to lunch. Got the feeling some idiot is biding their time 'til we're gone."

Price looks around at them. "Is this something ya want? Truly?"

"How can we not, Cap?" Soap asks. "She's perfect. And perfect fer us." Gaz nods, and Ghost meets Price's eyes unblinkingly.

"Alright then. We got less than a week to get this done."

part 1 part 2 part 4 part 5 part 6

Taglist: @blackhawkfanatic @starriestarlight @grayskel @mxtokko @imjustheretofightforlove @miss-vanta-likes-to-write

#cod #poly!141 #poly!141 x reader #tf 141 #tf 141 x reader #johnny mactavish #kyle garrick #simon riley #john price #nerdygirl says

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