#i love my work until i imagine someone else reading it and then it instantly becomes the Worst Thing Ever

[whumperfultime]

Hey idk what writer/artist/creative needs to hear this but: You can create the most garbage self-indulgent poorly made full-of-cliches awkward ugly piece of art on the entire planet and you're still allowed to be proud of it and share it with the world. In fact, I outright encourage you to be proud. You deserve it. I love you. Keep making things.

[sooniebby]

Don’t ask how I thought of this… it’s trans male reader, no set character—imagine whoever you want. Bottom reader. Use of pussy, and other “feminine” words. This lowkey just self indulgent, so the reader isn’t fully transitioned 🫶🏼 don’t read if you get dysphoric easily.

You knew your friend did “sex work” on the side. And the reason why it wasn’t true “sex work” was because it was just him and his girlfriend recording themselves having sex and posting it onto Twitter.

It was just a kink for them, really, he never said anything about getting paid for it. But you remember them thinking about putting a paywall to see the full videos.

More power to them, or whatever. When you became roommates with said friend, him and his girlfriend made sure to record any videos when you were gone. Which was great.

It wasn’t until the two broke up, amicably actually, she just found out she was a lesbian—you thought his Twitter porn days were over now he didn’t have a partner. Since he didn’t like doing solo content

What you didn’t think was that he’d ask you to do something with him

“It’s just until I find someone else,” he said, nonchalantly.

“But it doesn’t give you money.”

“Oh we did make money off it. Not a lot, but decent money. Julie was gonna keep doing it with me just to keep some money but now she’s making lesbian content.”

“But girls! Wasn’t it straight porn?”

He shrugged. “It’s not like I’m straight… the viewers won’t care, pussy’s pussy!” He laughed until he saw your face. “Oh well if it makes you uncomfortable you don’t gotta do it. It is a strange request.” He moved to get up until you grabbed his hand.

“How much?”

“Huh?”

“How much do you earn from the videos?”

“Depends. The viewers love oral sex and teasing videos. Those usually get over… 2k—”

“—I’m in.”

“Seriously?”

“Cash is cash. They won’t be seeing my face right?”

“No. The focus,” he kneeled down close to you, “will be on down here.” His hand trailed against your crotch. “You just gotta lay there and be pretty, baby.”

No wonder the girls who ever dated him cried when they broke up. Who would willingly leave someone with a tongue like this?

You had told him there was no way you’d allow him to call you baby girl or anything of the sort which he happily agreed.

“Don’t worry. It won’t take long.”

“Wouldn’t want it to.” You muttered, feeling a bit embarrassed to be nude from the waist down in front of your friend. He smirked slightly grabbed his phone as he aimed it to film your crotch area.

“Don’t say that—not when you’ll end up begging for more.”

You didn’t even get to retort that as you felt his finger rub against your clit. Your breathing hitched as he was slow with his touch, teasing your outer lips. Down and up, small strokes, and a light push.

You could see why these videos got viewers—it was driving you crazy each time he teased your clit before pulling away. Your hips began flinching slightly, subconsciously trying to rub your pussy against the palm of his hand.

“Did I say you could do that?”

You instantly froze, dropping your hips right back down on the bed.

“Good boy.” He whispered, making sure the phone didn’t pick it up.

What the fuck?! That… that was for you alone, right? While you were reeling at how easily he could command you, you cried out feeling two fingers shove itself inside your hole.

His fingers moved fast, spreading you open. You didn’t even realize you weren’t hiding your whimpers as you tried to calm down from the sudden pleasure. Your legs twitched and spasmed, fingers digging into the bedsheets for some sort of stability.

But then he stopped. Just as fast as he started.

He ended the video and wiped his fingers against your thigh, smirking. “Alright, last video, then that’s it. You doing alright?”

“H…huh…?” You could only sputter out, reeling in shock.

“Starting video now.”

You glanced down, watching as he pulled out his cock from his sweatpants. Oh, he was.. a bit big. His cock flopped right against your pussy, causing you to shudder in response.

It wasn’t that you were a virgin… but fuck, you were embarrassingly excited to have his cock so close, just inches away from your hole.

“Condom?” You whispered

He didn’t answer, subtly shaking his head. You watched as he started the new video and placed his cock right against your pussy. You couldn’t look away, wanting to see if you could really take in something so thick and long.

But he didn’t.. push in?

With his free hand gripped tightly on your hips, he began rubbing his cock right against your pussy. You whimpered, biting your lip to try and keep your voice down.

You tried to rub against him but he held you down easily with his hand on your hips. It surprised you that he could do that with just one hand but you weren’t complaining.

“You want it, huh? Just look at it,” he moved the phone down to get a good look at your soaked pussy. “Never seen someone this wet for me. I’m flattered, baby.”

His hand released your hips and he suddenly stopped moving. You looked over to him, wondering why in god’s name he would stop. But all you saw was a shit eating grin. He wanted you to do the rest.

Any sort of self respect you had was gone. You just wanted to cum already.

You began to move your hips, rubbing your pussy against his cock. A few times, by pure luck, his cock threatened to push inside—but each time he’d fix his cock. Why would he let you get fucked?!

No matter, you reached down to begin rubbing your clit, needing some form of stimulation when he grabbed your wrist.

“I thought you were a good boy?” He asked, a false sense of sadness in his tone. “C’mon, be good for the camera.”

Once again, he made sure only you heard that. Why’d he keep doing? To rile you up? You’re already close anyway.

But then he stopped…? Again?!

“All done. Thanks again, man.” He patted your tummy and got up, pulling his pants over his cock. You wouldn’t deny that you felt your word shatter seeing it being covered by those stupid excuse of pants.

“That’s…?”

“I’ll send you your cut by the end of the week!”

He was leaving? After all that? He was just going to leave without fucking you? You quickly sat up on the bed and grabbed his arm, stopping him from leaving. He didn’t turn over to face you, keeping his gaze on his phone.

“Wait… that’s it..? N..nothing else?” You whispered breathlessly, needing release, quickly. And you didn’t want to rely on some plastic dildo when there was a real thing just a few inches away.

“Yeah. I just needed two videos for this month. Why?”

“I… I…”

“Begging for me?” He asked, cheekily, looking up to finally look at you. “C’mon, use your words. What do you want?”

“You know what I want.”

“Do I? Because if you don’t say it, I’ll do what I want with you.”

It didn’t take long for him to make you cum. As soon as his cock entered your pussy, you came. And then he really did what he wanted with you. You were too far gone to really think as it happened, but you were sure he took many pictures after, enjoying the sight of your cream filled pussy.

You certainly helped him again, and a few times after that…

Though… you’re starting to wonder…

You can’t find his and Julie’s twitter account…

And when you, embarrassingly, asked Julie—

She said they deleted the account when they broke up

Ooh. Spooky lol, what can I say? I love manipulative men…

Tag list: @flurrina @chill-guy-but-cooler @mello-life69 @remdayz @kiiyoooo @ofclyde @iwishtobeacrow @smellwell @tomoeroi @tehyunnie @love-kha1 @star-3214 @rhetorical-conscience

[jqyszn]

Like what you see?💤

paring: dom!bestfriend!sunghoon x sub!fem!reader

genre: smut, friends to lovers (mdni !!)

summary: in which you come home to find your best friend getting off, weird but it's natural right? not until you heard him calling out for you.

warnings: smut ofc, masturbating, unprotected sex (don’t be a prick, wrap your dick!!) , panty stealing… riding, body worship, fingering, biting, degradation, spitting, marking, squirting, profanity, dirty talk, pet names (slut, cum dump, princess), breeding kink, sunghoon is a perv,, this is honestly just pure filth too😭 (Imk if i missed anything!!)

wc: 1.5k (1,597)

a/n: this is my first fic (😭) i apologize in advance for the cringe wattpad like writing,, also english isn’t my first language so please ignore any grammar mistakes <3 i hope u guys enjoy and im so sorry for the wait like i don’t know why it took me like three weeks to make a 1.5k fic😭😭😭 i promise for my other works they will be more hastily written🩷🩷

taglist: @lelelelelelenim @iamkali @jjonghoonist @ramenoil @deobitifull @velathaheigeros @enhaz1 @thinaswreck @heeseungsslutt @cherriruto @yohanabanana @hvnyujiq @fightqueen @parkhonnie (some of the tags aren’t working so i’m so deeply sorry for everyone who asked and isn’t here </3)

“can i come over?” you read the writing on your phone as you best friend sunghoon messaged you. “yea, sure :) i’m still at work though but you have the extra key anyway.” you replied to him putting down your phone and typing away at your computer. your phone buzzes once again but desperate to rest, you ignore it and continue working.

on the other hand, sunghoon is at your door in a heartbeat. he unlocks the door with ease, walking in, the smell of you instantly hitting him. he inhaled your lingering scent as he closes his eyes imagining him nuzzling into your neck, pounding into you, taking in the smell of your natural perfume. “fuck.” sunghoon groans as his cock starts to feel heavy.

he makes his way towards your room, your scent growing more intense as he groans internally. “what are you doing to me y/n?” he thinks about his morals for a minute before diving into your laundry basket, picking up a used lace thong. he curses at himself but he doesn’t stop. instead he goes on your bed and propped himself up nice and pretty.

he holds your panty in his left hand bringing it closer to his face as he takes a fat whiff of you as he threw his head back. his other hand starts palming his refined boner as he continues sniffing at your undergarment. he pulls down his sweats down to his knees along with his boxers, freeing his hardened member. “oh god..” he grunts as he drapes your thong over his leaking, pink tip. staining it with his glossy precum.

unbeknownst to him, you’re already back home taking off you heels. “hoon?” you call out neatly tucking away your shoes as you make your way to your room. “fuck yes y/n, you’re taking my cock in so good~” did you hear that right? you stopped in your tracks thinking there must be someone else in your room. scared, you peep your head in your doorway, looking ahead into your room.

and to your surprise, it’s sunghoon. pumping his cock furiously, his eyebrows furrowed, lip bitten, hair sticking to his sweaty forehead and your thong over his length. fuck he looked so hot. you always had a thing for sunghoon but not wanting to ruin your friendship, you kept it to yourself and your trusted diary. you can’t help but clamp your legs together, almost moaning at the sight.

you decided to test your faith, so you walked over infront of your bed. “shit y/n! your pussy is so fucking tight princess!” sunghoon whimpers out, he opens his eyes only to see you. standing infront of him, arms crossed and face flushed with a crimson tone. “like what you see doll?” sunghoon smirks not showing one bit of embarrassment. instead, a sense of pride.

“i.. uhm..” you stutter shocked by the lack of embarrassment he showed on his face. “you love it huh? watching your best friend fuck himself with your skimpy thong? huh? look at you. i bet you’re all soaking wet from watching me pump my cock for you isn’t that right, slut?” he whispered, walked over to you, leaning down into your ear moaning playfully as he nibble on your earlobe.

“ahh.. hoon..” you whimper at his words, his hands trailing up and down your body stopping where you wanted him the most. “shit. no panties? do you really are just a slutty whore aren’t you? practically begging any man to cream your pussy right? you better fucking stop. because this tight, wet, creamy cunt is all mine. understood?” he degrades as he slaps your warmth, making you jerk forward as you nod your head in response.

“use your words doll. you know i hate stupid little whores.” he orders rubbing circles into your clit making you moan and clinging onto sunghoon’s broad shoulders. “you’re gonna let me breed your sopping pussy yeah? fill you up with my babies to show everyone who you belong to right?” he mutters over your neck, sucking and biting marks all over your neck. “yes hoon.. i’m all yours.” you finally managed to moan out.

“good girl.. now come here.” sunghoon ordered as he picked you up effortlessly, slamming you down on his lap earning a yelp from you. “may i?” he asks for your consent before stripping you to which you consented. “oh fuck doll, you’re gorgeous.” sunghoon admires your soft skin, rolling his fingers over your nipples licking his lips. “feels good hoon~” you whine out bucking your hips into his. “i know pretty girl..” he coos a finger teasing at your wet hole, him waiting for a reaction.

“hoon please.. i want you.” you whimper grinding on his fingers as he smiles in satisfaction. “beg for it then. tell me how much you want me to fuck you dumb.” he grins looking down at you and watching your face contort from the feeling of his long and slender fingers sliding into your core. “i want you to fuck me until i can’t walk anymore.. i need your cum in me hoon. i need it so so bad!” you squeal at the sensation of his fingers going in and out of my sopping cunt. wet, gushing sounds reverberating around the room. “good girl..” he grunts, speeding up his pace.

you feel a familiar knot in your abdomen, panting uncontrollably as you arch your back, “fuck hoon i’m close..!” you whimper, him smirking back at your call as he continues to finger you in the ‘come here’ motion. “cum for me then slut.” he commands as you release on his fingers. the sight was so dirty, your squirt soaking his fingers and your sheets, his mouth sucking your juices off you and you arching your back, your mouth forming an ‘o’ shape.

“fuck,, you’re such a slut huh?” he teases, pulling his digits out of you and shoves them in your mouth. “now suck.” he commands, to which you obey. swirling your tongue around his fingers coating them in your saliva. his cock twitches at the sight, sunghoon wanted to absolute ruin you.

sunghoon sat comfortably on the bed patting his bare thighs, “come here.” he commanded, smirking at you. “what are you waiting for? is it because i’m not heeseung?” he gritted his teeth, the flashback of you giving heeseung a lap dance engraved in his mind wishing it was him you were grinding all up on. “no.. it’s not that” you mutter out quietly, crawling to sunghoon straddling him.

“what is it then? hm?” he caressed your thighs softly, looking at you expectantly. “it’s just.. i’ve been waiting for this since we became friends hoon..” you ground your hips down on his throbbing length, smiling at him softly. His eyes darkened at your words as he tightened his grip on your hips, pushing you down onto his lap roughly, feeling your wet pussy sliding along his engorged cock. "oh is that so? enjoying yourself aren’t you?" he smirked at you once again.

He grabs you by the hair and pulls your face close to his, thrusting his tongue into your mouth, kissing you with a deep passion as his cock twitches against your slick hot cunt. you kiss him back passionately moaning into the kiss. “trust me doll, you’re gonna forget who heeseung even is after i fuck you dumb.” he growls as he grabbed onto your hips pulling you towards himself forcefully slamming his cock deep inside your tiny hole stretching it wide "fuck... yes.... fuck..!" he grunts.

“you’re so fucking big hoon~!” you whine out watching him slowly thrust in and out of you. “i know doll, i know.” he replies cockily while grunts he slams himself against you harder, grabbing your breasts roughly and squeezing them, feeling your nipples get rock hard under his fingers as he continued to slam into you, using you like a toy as he pounded you relentlessly. you moan his name like a mantra, completely fucked out.

“yeah that’s it. moan my name like a whore. you’re all mine understand?” he glared at you waiting for your answer. “yes hoon! i’m all yours!” you pant out, bouncing up and down on his girthy cock, your cunt convulsing around his length. he smirked proudly, thrusting himself deeper inside you until he was buried completely within you. "that's right, doll. cum all over my fucking dick." He whispered huskily, grabbing onto your hips tightly as he began pounding away at you mercilessly, driving you crazy with desire.

“shit hoon i’m cumming!” you scream, feeling yourself come undone. a thick, creamy gloss ring coats the base of his dick, dripping down onto his thighs. “can i cum in you doll?” he asks for permission as you nod your head, “yes yes yes! cum in me sunghoon! i want your load in me so bad!” you beg, your body shaking from the stimulation your yet receiving.

“so fucking good, all wet and creamy all just for me.” he grunts as he finally shoots his milky, thick load inside of you. guiding your hips as he rides out his high. he pulls out of you, you whining at the emptiness. “look. watch my seed drip out of you.” he orders as you watch his gooey cum trickle from your well fucked hole down onto the sheets.

“are you gonna give me aftercare or are you gonna be a dickhead?” you cocked an eyebrow

“only if you be mine forever.” he smirked jokingly, getting towels to clean you off.

“i’ve always been yours.”

[goodlucktai]

now the darkness comes alive

rise of the tmnt movie canon divergence word count: 10k characters: raph & leo

welcome to a very self-indulgent roleswap au that i started dreaming up in my friend’s turtle discord. big thank you to rem for the song rec that gave me the insp to finish (and name!) the fic, and also to lake, sara and meeks for enabling my insane behavior <3

oh, now the darkness comes alive it comes for me and i come for you

—brother, the rural alberta advantage

read on ao3

x

The Krang’s spike pierces through plastron and flesh with a sickening crunch and Leo makes an awful punched-out sound. Raph is seconds too slow, and seconds is all it takes for his entire world to end. 

For the past two years, they’ve been at constant odds, Leo going out of his way to undermine and annoy him. Every interaction was laced with frustration, hurt, worry, confusion. Why are you being like this? Raph wanted to ask, wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake until an answer came out. What did I do to you?

It was a miserable way to live. Being angry at someone you love more than anything, having nowhere to put it down, forced to hold onto it and hold onto it and hold onto it. Every day another argument, every night laying awake and hoping that tomorrow would be different. 

He missed Leo. He missed how they used to be. He didn’t know why Pops’ announcement had turned them against each other. He hadn’t thought anything would be able to do that. 

Once or twice Raph had a moment of weakness and imagined what it would be like if he just quit. If he went to Splinter and told him he was done. Let someone else be the oldest, the biggest, the one who carried everyone else. But that thought was always followed instantly by another, louder one—how small would he feel if he didn’t have little turtles climbing on his back and sitting on his shoulders? How empty would his arms be if he didn’t have anyone to carry in them? 

That’s the whole point. That’s why he’s so afraid. That’s why being left alone drives him straight past anxious and into a blackout. He can’t lose them. He can’t lose them. He can’t lose them. 

And now he’s living his worst nightmare. He’s living outside his own body, watching from somewhere else. It doesn’t feel real. 

His little brother, his little Leo, crumpled beneath him, blood staining bright blue an ugly rust color. His chest is heaving as if each breath hurts and his eyes are wide and wet. He’s gazing up at Raph like they’re children again. It’s the way he looked when he was afraid of a thunderstorm or he was about to get in trouble and he needed Raph to make it better. He always looked at Raph first. 

The monsters behind them are laughing. One of them starts talking, the sound coming closer at a leisurely pace. They aren’t safe. Leo is bleeding. Raph is afraid to touch him, shaking hands hovering over his cracked plastron. He doesn’t know what to do. His mind is white with panic. 

He has the escape pod in his hand, not yet activated. He doesn’t know if it’s safe to use it. Leo is skewered to the ground, pinned like a butterfly to corkboard. Donnie’s tech is highly intuitive, all of it programmed into S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.’s AI infrastructure, and maybe the pod would know to account for the particulars of the situation, but there almost definitely isn’t a way to remove Leo safely in the seconds they don’t really have to work with. 

Leo blinks, and the wetness in his eyes spills out, and Raph just wants to pick him up. Carry him somewhere safe. Leo has always been larger than life, but right now he looks impossibly small. 

“Hey, hey,” Raphael soothes, the same way he has a thousand times before, after bad dreams and skinned knees, “you’re okay. Raph’s here, you’re okay.”

Those gold eyes slide to the side, looking at a point behind Raph. Leo’s arm moves, and something cold and solid presses against Raph’s chest. It’s the key, and Leo’s hand is trembling so hard that Raph’s closes around it instinctively, taking the weight of it from him. 

Because he’s Leo, the corners of his mouth quirk into a smile. 

“I told you,” he says hoarsely. It somehow manages to sound wry, like they’re in on a joke together. “I got it.”

Then he uses the hand that Raph isn’t holding to activate the escape pod lingering between them and pushes it those scant few fatal inches forward. Raph doesn’t realize what the beep means until the pod unfolds in front of him and yanks him unceremoniously away from his brother.

“No,” Raph says, light-headed with fear, “no!” 

But a machine couldn’t possibly understand the wrong it was doing. What it was leaving behind. Raph pummels the inside of the pod hysterically but without his ninpo he can’t do enough to damage something Donnie built specifically to safeguard their family. It lifts him up and away and Leo’s crooked little smile gets smaller and smaller until it’s gone.  

——

When the pod touches down in the lair and releases him, the world around Raph is strangely muffled. There’s a ringing in his ears. He thinks he can hear voices but it’s all just noise. Nothing fully clears the chaos in his own head. 

Donatello is directly in front of him, and his hands are white-knuckled on the side of an empty blue pod. He looks like he already knows something went very wrong. His eyes are bright gold, a mirror of his twin’s, and the quiet fear in them places Raph directly back inside the warehouse, surrounded by monsters, too late to protect anyone, Leo’s blood on his hands, Leo looking up at him— 

Raph’s stomach lurches and he turns sharply away. His gaze lands on Casey Jones instead, who appraises him warily in turn, slim shoulders going stiff beneath the battered Genius Built armor. 

“Leo went back for the key,” Raph says, his voice a deep growling thing that cuts through the noise and brings down a curtain of stillness. He holds the stupid thing out, and if it were made of anything less than strange alien stone, his grip would have crushed it into pieces. Casey’s eyes drop to it and brighten, like it’s a good thing that it’s here even though Leo’s not. Relief floods every inch of his face until he looks even younger than he did already. 

“He got it,” the boy says reverently, taking it in both hands. “I knew he would.”

Raphael wants to scream. He wants to step back and let some other version of himself take the reins while he finds a hole to cry in. He doesn’t want to turn at his father’s firm call of his name or force himself to lift his chin until Splinter can meet his eyes and find all the miserable failure festering inside him, but he does. 

April is looking around and behind Raph, her eyes jumping to the red pod still standing open and then back again, as if finally noticing that Leo wasn’t tucked in there, too. As if it is only just occurring to her that there is a universe that exists where Raphael leaves Leonardo behind, and it’s this one, and it’s horrible. 

Donnie might as well be carved from stone, but Mikey is starting to get worked up, looking between everyone else with huge red eyes, trying to hear the thing they’re all not saying.

“He went back for the key,” Raphael says again, choking the words out. “I couldn’t—I wasn’t fast enough to—”

He clenches his fists and it drags his siblings’ attention to the blood on them. April covers her mouth and Mikey takes in a breath so sharp it must cut and Donnie starts to flap his hands. Splinter closes his eyes, looking as though he’s aged about a hundred years in the last few minutes. 

“What? That’s not possible,” Casey interjects as if he can’t help it. The young soldier glances around the room, like Leo is going to pop up from behind the turnstiles and rib them all for being so gullible. “Master Leonardo is the greatest ninja the world has ever seen, he wouldn’t just—”

“He’s not master anything!” Raph only barely manages not to roar. “He’s a sixteen-year-old kid!”

Casey flinches away from his anger and Raphael brutally wrestles it into submission. It’s not doing any good here. Casey is a kid, too. 

“Raph,” Mikey blurts, too loud and too fast, “is Leo dead?”

The word sucks the air out of the room and Donnie makes a noise like he’s been kicked in the stomach and Raph says, “No. No, Angie, he’s alive.” 

Even though their ninpo is locked away, and with it that subconscious knowledge of each other always lingering comfortably in the back of their minds like a warm afterthought, Raph knows they would know if Leo was gone. They would be able to tell. The world would be fundamentally changed, nothing would ever be the same again. 

He puts his hands on Mikey’s shoulders and adds, “We’re gonna bring him home.” 

The plan isn’t much of one, but their resident schemer is very much not present, and no one questions Raph when he lays it out. Donnie robotically admits that he has the means to track Leo, so the turtles and Future Boy are going to head that way and retrieve him, while Splinter and April babysit the key. 

“Use the shell hogs and just keep moving for now,” Raph says. “They have something we want, we have something they want.”

April nods, grimly understanding. If the only Hail Mary shot they have of getting their brother back is handing over the key and finding an opening to steal it back later, that’s just what they’ll have to do. 

Pops abandoned the Hamato Clan’s teachings in the first place because he didn’t agree with their preachings of self-sacrifice and martyrdom. He handed over the final piece of the dark armor without flinching when his sons’ lives hung in the balance. Even if the rest of their ancestors wouldn’t understand, Raphael does. 

He remembers the jar of oozesquitos he held onto once, trying—and failing—to call Draxum’s bluff. He may be a slow learner, but he only needs to be taught the lesson once. 

Leo risked his life to return this key to his family, so Raph is going to fight for it like an insane person for as long as it makes sense to. But if it comes down to abandoning one to save the other…

He’s his father’s son. He knows which choice he’ll make. 

——

In the Turtle Tank, Mikey and Donnie distract themselves on the trip to Metro Tower station by peppering Casey with questions about the future. The human answers readily, describing Master Donatello’s technological genius—holding out his arms so the entirety of his battered, cyberpunk-style kit is on display—and going on at length about Master Michelangelo’s mystic prowess. 

“I could fly?” Mikey squeaks, drumming his hands on the dash rapidly. “Was it cool?” 

“The coolest,” Casey is quick to agree. “And you opened a portal that sent me through time.”

But the warmth in Casey’s eyes doesn’t last very long, fading into something that looks uncomfortably like grief instead. He tends to look at all of them like that, like he’s in a room full of ghosts. 

He darts a sidelong glance in Raph’s direction and quickly faces forward again, staring out the windshield from Leo’s seat. He’s avoided speaking to him as much as possible, and Raphael can, unfortunately, put two and two together. 

Casey is familiar with everyone else—even April and Splinter—but he dances around Raph as if he’s a stranger. He didn’t know Raph in the future, he knew of him—someone to be respectful of and fall in line for, but certainly not one of the uncles he could brag about to their younger selves. 

When the Tank has gone as far through the tunnels as possible, drawn to a stop at a massive tangle of alien vines, they get out and continue on foot. Raph can feel his little brothers walking as close to him as they can without outright admitting that they’re unnerved, all of their guards completely up, senses dialed to eleven. 

The underground is home to them, always has been, and generally speaking if you’ve seen one subway tunnel you’ve seen them all. But the floodlights from Donnie’s battleshell illuminate a scene that looks like it belongs on another planet. Impossible masses of pink-purple mess dangle everywhere like Halloween store decorations, and the subway cars have been upended off the rails and twisted out of shape. 

Casey’s mask is down, the lenses glowing green as he prowls forward without missing a beat. If he came here from a future where the Krang won, Raph can only imagine what the New York City he grew up in looked like. 

“I hate to be painfully obvious, but since my other half isn’t present, I suppose it falls on my shoulders,” Donatello says after a moment, the sardonic tone of voice at odds with his very low register. “Something feels off.” 

He’s barely got the words out when hundreds of little lights blink at them from the jungle of purple vines—not lights, glowing eyes. The silent tunnel explodes into chaos a second later as they’re ambushed by parasite-controlled people and creatures and even objects. 

Raph and Casey are neatly separated from Donnie and Mikey within a manner of minutes. Raph’s heart is in his throat as he pummels through wave after wave of the infected, and it doesn’t settle until he hears on the comms that his little brothers have taken shelter in the Tank. 

He and Casey are pushed farther and farther away, chased down one of the tunnels by an animated subway car on what looks like spidery crab legs, towards a dead end. When Raphael feels the ground start to give beneath them, he acts on seventeen years of big brother instinct and very little else, seizing Casey around the middle and curling around him completely as they fall. 

It’s a dizzying, topsy-turvy couple of minutes, falling from the subway tracks into a maintenance tunnel underneath, and it takes awhile for his ears to stop ringing. He glances down at the human in his arms and notes with relief that Casey seems to be okay–tucked up small and compact against Raph’s plastron, all limbs accounted for, in such a practiced way that Raph thinks he’s been protected in exactly this manner more than once before. 

Neither of them speak right away, coming down from the rush of adrenaline and waiting for the shifting of crumbled concrete to stop and the dust to clear. Raph’s shell was made of sturdy stuff even before he became a chaotic alchemists’s bioengineering experiment, so when he’s certain they’re relatively safe, he pushes off the ground with his hands and lets the debris roll harmlessly off his back and shoulders. 

“Are you hurt?” Raph asks, sitting back to give Casey room to collect himself. 

“Um, no,” Casey says, tugging his cape down from where it had caught around one of his pauldrons. He doesn’t look uncomfortable, but more like he doesn’t really know what to do with himself now that it’s just the two of them, looking up at Raph and then away again. 

Raph can’t help it. He says, “I died, didn’t I? In the future.”

Casey jerks, as if he was surprised to be asked so plainly. Then his shoulders hunch, and he nods. 

“You all did,” he says haltingly. “Uncle Tello when I was thirteen, and sensei and Uncle Angie just… just before I got sent back.” 

Cold dread slams into Raph’s stomach. He doesn’t want to believe he and his siblings could ever truly be divided, but the proof is sitting in front of him. It’s hard to hear that the end of the world managed to take Raph from his little siblings. Donnie from his twin. That Leo and Mikey were left all alone, with a kid to take care of, and a losing war to fight. 

Casey swallows hard, and curls his hands into fists, visibly forcing himself past the loss that probably sits in his stomach and throat like barbed wire. 

“But you—it happened when I was little. I wasn’t really old enough to remember you.” Each word mincing and careful, he goes on, “Growing up, sensei talked about you all the time. He used to say you were the best—best brother, best leader. And he was so afraid when Master Splinter put him in charge, because he had no idea how to be as good as you. He didn’t want things to change, he was happy being your right-hand man. Sensei made it sound like he was really childish about the whole thing. He said he must have been a real disappointment.”

Raphael absorbs the words like a blow. 

Leo, his little brother, his little star, outshining everyone and pulling the world into his orbit, earnestly giving them the light and warmth they needed to live and grow and flourish, a disappointment?

Raph has been angry with him more times than he can count. Hurt by him, even, because that’s what people tend to do when they don’t understand each other. Frustrated and antagonized and fed-up, sure. But disappointed?

He has a shining, crystalized memory of being a child, no more than eight years old, crying over a picture book because the monster in the book looked like him. It was big and hulking, with dangerous-looking spikes and an alligator tail. Raph hadn’t realized Leo had found him until tiny hands took the book away and a serious little face, not yet grown into its stripes, assessed the situation. 

Even back then, Leo was too clever for his own good. He tossed the book on the floor and said, “They got it wrong. That author must not have ever seen any real monsters if they can mess up that bad. Who let them write a book?”

Raph was hardly able to see through his tears, making a distressed rumble in his chest, but his arms opened automatically. Mikey was in a phase where he had decided he was too big to be carried and Donnie had a hot-and-cold relationship with touch that his siblings all knew to maneuver carefully, but Leo absorbed any and all affection like a hungry little plant soaking up sunlight. He climbed right into Raph’s hug and his arms looped around Raph’s neck and hung on fiercely. 

“My Raphie is a better hero than all those knights and princes and wizards anyway,” Leo had said with conviction so huge it was better suited to someone five times his size. “I have the real deal. I should be the one writing books!”

From then on, Leo vetted any and all shared reading material that made it down to the lair before allowing it to be distributed with a very grown-up gravitas. Some things went straight to Donnie or Mikey’s rooms, or back into the garbage if Leo was feeling vicious about it that day, and no one ever said a word about it. 

About three months ago, April had brought them a bundle of the subscriptions they got mailed to her apartment, and Leo picked up a comic that came for Raph and started to flip through it like they were seven and eight years old again. He caught himself too late and looked embarrassed, sliding it across the counter and quickly making his escape, but Raph felt warm all the way down to his bones. That was proof his Leo was still in there, that he still cared, despite doing his best, for some reason, to convince everyone he didn’t. 

His Leo, who always cared. Who cared too much. 

Casey gives Raph another one of those searching, sideways glances, there and gone again. 

“Sensei said he let you down once and he never wanted to do that again. He said he would live the rest of his life making up for it, making you proud. Is—is this what he was talking about?”

Raph looks at the boy in front of him, Leo’s kid from a future that doesn’t exist yet, wearing tech his Uncle Tello must have meticulously built to outlast everything else, Uncle Angie’s smiley faces etched into the knee guards in a pop of silliness that somehow still existed in the apocalypse, his sensei’s red stripes painted proudly front and center on his mask. He carries his family with him with every step he takes.

It’s no wonder Casey is so cagey around him. If he was raised even in part by Leo, then he was probably raised on stories of Raph that only painted the good and the funny parts of the bad, because that’s how Leo loves. And it left Casey to reconcile how everyone’s hero Raphael could have ever thought poorly of Casey’s hero Leonardo. 

“Sounds like that sensei of yours had no clue what he was talking about half the time,” Raph say gruffly. “Raph may wanna pick up him and rattle him like a snowglobe about a hundred times a day but that’s just the Leo Effect. Ask anybody.” 

Casey blinks up at him, one corner of his mouth giving into a reluctant smile. “Commander O’Neil said that before,” he admits. 

“Now her you can listen to any time of day or night, because she’s never wrong,” Raph says, pushing himself upright and offering Casey a hand up, too. “Leo could never do anything to make me love him less. It kind of seems impossible after a lifetime together, but I actually only keep finding reasons to love him more.”

Sliding his much smaller hand into Raph’s huge one, Casey lets himself be tugged to his feet. He’s gazing up at Raph with wide eyes, tugging on the wrist of one glove absently. 

“Leo is as silly as they come,” Raph says. “He needs practical people like you and me in his life to set him straight.”

All at once, Casey’s face brightens, glowing from the inside out. His spine straightens, shoulders going back. It’s every inch Leo’s expression when he receives honest praise from his family in any direction. And Raph realizes abruptly that at least part of the reason Casey has been so nervous around him is because he doesn’t want to disappoint his father’s hero, either. 

——

They find a maintenance shaft and climb the rest of the way out of the tunnels, regrouping with the whole clan in the Metro Tower station. Donnie brings Leo’s location up on a screen and they all huddle around him—falling silent after a moment as they take in what the tracker is telling them. 

“He’s right—right on top of us,” Donnie says haltingly. “He should be—”

April seizes his arm and he cuts himself off mid-word. With a sense of dread, Raph follows her wide eyes across the room. 

Leo is standing there, watching them. He’s been standing there the whole time. Unmoving, completely silent, and covered in the same squishy, fleshy pink parasitic slime that every other infected they’ve encountered up until now has been manipulated by. There’s a mass of it concealing the lower half of his face like one of the respirators Mikey wears for his spray paint projects, baring dozens of large serrated teeth in a sneer. 

Leo’s eyes are pink, the pupils slitted. If Raph couldn’t see him breathing, he wouldn’t know for sure if he was even alive. 

“Leo?” Mikey calls out in a warbling voice, hands trembling. “Can you hear us?” 

It doesn’t get a reaction. 

Raph takes one slow, careful step towards him.

That gets a reaction. 

Leo explodes into motion so quickly it doesn’t make sense, going from zero to a hundred in seconds. He slams into Raphael with the force of a freight train, sparks flying from where his blades meet the sai Raph only barely manages to throw up in time. 

Their siblings scatter, Donnie yanking Mikey firmly behind him, April putting out an arm to keep Casey back, too. Splinter dives in to help his oldest son, the two of them fighting to subdue but not to injure, hyper-aware of the cracks in Leo’s plastron and the matching wound on his shoulder. The last thing Leo’s father and big brother want to do is hurt him any more. 

Leo doesn’t give them an inch of the same consideration, as cold and methodical as a knife. His swords are fully in action, a very present danger to the rest of them, singing and sweeping with fatal precision. 

They’re only fighting for minutes, even though it feels like hours, when Raphael feels it. An insistent tugging on the front of his mind. He and Leo are locked together, swords caught for a moment in the guards of Raph’s sai, and Raph spares a daring second to look into his possessed brother’s pink eyes. 

They glow white instantly, a successful connection. Leo’s mind pours into Raph’s like a flood. 

Take them take them TAKE THEM TAKE THEM TAKE THEM 

As if moving on autopilot, Raph’s hands fly to Leo’s wrists and wrench—not hard enough to sprain, but hard enough that the slider’s grip flies open and the katana clatter to the ground. Leo rips himself free and darts back to give himself room for the next attack. He makes no move to recover the swords and Raph scoops them up a second later, heart pounding. 

It was so quick, so clean, that no one watching from the outside would be able to guess what had just happened. Leo surrendered his weapons to his family in the only way he possibly could, begging with his whole body to be disarmed before he hurt anyone, so desperate for Raph to hear him that he triggered a mind meld for the first time in two years.  

The room comes alive, infected creatures spilling inside and surrounding them all, punching up through the floor from the tunnels they had just escaped from. A subway car covered in pink slime rears back and roars like a beast. Leo moves through the crowd of Hamato like water. The only one he touches is April, a brush of their shoulders together.

She makes a distressed noise in the back of her throat, hand flying to her bag where the key is. Where it was.  

Leo has it in his hand, facing them with unseeing eyes. The grotesque, fleshy mask covering his mouth twists into a stranger’s ugly smile. 

Raph thinks, No wait. It’s not supposed to happen like this. 

They’re not supposed to lose. 

April uses her bat to knock the rest of the deforestation chemicals toward the Krang, causing an explosion that stalls the hoard of infected just long enough to create an escape route. Donnie scoops Mikey’s shell into his arms and Splinter has to tuck a hand around both Casey and Raphael’s elbows and yank to get them moving. Casey doesn’t make it easy.

He must know a losing fight when he sees one. He must be familiar with this scene from the world he came here from. But he struggles anyway, eyes locked without blinking on the shape of a Leo they’re leaving behind. 

Raph wants to struggle, too. He wants to stay behind and fight until he can’t lift his arms or stay on his feet. He wants his lost little brother to know someone’s fighting for him, that someone will keep fighting for him for as long as it takes. 

But responsibility perches heavy on his shoulders. More than one person is depending on him. It’s the hardest thing he’s ever done to let himself be pulled one step away, then another. It hurts more than every single other thing he’s survived. 

“Raph’s coming back for you,” he calls out, voice thick, swords weighing a hundred pounds each in his hands. “Hear me, Leo? Raph’s coming back.”

Leo doesn’t give any impression that he heard. He turns at some silent command and walks away, taking the key with him. The Krang got what they came for. 

——

Kneeling on a rooftop, watching the Technodrome come through a hole in the sky and rain destruction down on their city, Raph finds himself thinking I wish Leo was here. 

It’s a stupid thought to have, because Leo being there would solve a very large part of the whole problem. But specifically, Raph finds himself wishing he had his clever, charming brother at his side, who always knew what to say. Who always had an idea. Who understood exactly how to reach out to people and lift their spirits, rekindle their hope. Leo isn’t the strongest of his brothers, or the fastest without his ninpo, or the smartest next to Donatello, but that doesn’t mean he can’t outshine the rest of them in his own way. 

He’s always been the one they followed, really. It just so happened he was always going the same way Raph was. 

“He was happy being your right-hand man,” Casey said. 

How could Raph have misunderstood him so completely? How could he have just left him behind, twice now? What if it becomes a pattern? What if Leo thinks this is all he can expect from them? 

Raph’s family is arguing behind him, unwilling to accept their failure but unable to see any path ahead to victory. It certainly looks hopeless. New York City is burning, people are screaming, parasites and infected are filling the streets by the dozens. 

A familiar hand lands on his arm. Raph feels like he’s wading chest-deep through mud, but he manages to turn his head and look down into Mikey’s big red eyes. 

“What did Leo say earlier?” Mikey asks in a small voice. “I sort of felt it when you connected but I couldn’t hear either of you.”

“It was like being aware of people talking in another room,” Donnie adds, leaning into Raph from the opposite side. “You can just make out the cadence of their conversation but no words come through clearly.”

Raph looks down at his hands, the katana he’s still holding. He rubs his thumb over the guard on one, remembering Leo’s glowing pride the first time he manifested them. He felt so buoyed by Leo’s smile in that moment that he could have fought the Shredder a hundred times over and won. 

I miss you, he thinks. I miss having you on my team. 

“He wanted me to take these,” Raph says. “He was really scared of what he might do with them.”

Donnie’s golden eyes are very sharp, staring without blinking at the only proof of his twin with them here on the outskirts of the apocalypse. Behind the turtles, Splinter and April are still going back and forth with each other, but Casey’s voice has tapered into silence. 

“What else did he tell you?” Donnie asks abruptly. 

“Nothing,” Raph replies, numb.

“C’mon, Raphie,” Mikey says, mustering a sweet smile for him, even though smiling is probably the last thing in the world he feels like doing. “Our Leo? Keeping it brief? I’ll bet he had a hundred things he was trying to say.”

“Let us in,” Donnie says, pressing his head a little harder into Raph’s arm. Dogged and determined, fully ready to dig in with his teeth and not let up until he gets his way. “Let us see.”

Raphael is exhausted, and hurting, and missing the absent piece of their whole so keenly that he could lay down right here and cry for days. But the one thing he’s never been able to do is deny his little brothers anything they care enough about to ask for this earnestly. 

“Okay,” he says and sets Leo’s swords in front of him carefully. With his hands open, Donnie and Mikey each seize one in both of their own, and Raph tries to center himself. 

The first time Raph and Leo did this, it was well before they had fully realized their ninpo. He doesn’t need the mystic powers they’ve come to rely so much on to recognize the brilliant purple lightning and laughing orange bonfire on the fringes of his mind and let them both in. 

The lightning and the bonfire both skirt familiarly over the steadfast red mountain that makes up their eldest brother, at home together. They all feel the painful absence of a mischievous blue wind so strongly that it takes their collective breath away. 

The mountain guides them to the things the wind had given him. Above everything else, fear—of what’s happened and what hasn’t happened yet, fear of the parasite wriggling inside him, fear of his own two hands, fear of failing his family even more than he already has—

Stop, the bonfire says, burning warm and bright. Focus. 

The lightning strikes forward, knowing the wind better than the rest of them from a lifetime of sharing the same sky. It follows the wind’s twists and turns unerringly, illuminating the way in thunderclaps until it’s possible to break past the dark storm of fear entirely.

Behind it there are a hundred other things. Stubbornness and bitterness, a familiar grit that comes from being on the losing side and refusing to give up anyway. Anxiety that his efforts won’t be enough. Love, as deep and rich and unknowable as an ocean. Regret. Loneliness. Hope. 

Take them, the wind had said in the fleeting seconds it had to say anything at all, shoving as many secrets forward as it could. Take this and this and this and this. 

Leon, you devious little creature, the lightning says, with scorching pride and mean-spirited glee. 

It goes both ways, the bonfire cackles. The Krang can see into Lee’s head, but Lee can see into the Krang’s head, too!

This is it, the mountain realizes. This is how we win.  

——

Galvanized, the Hamatos split up one more time. Casey, April and Splinter to get the key back and keep the Krang occupied, and Raph, Mikey and Donnie to save Leo. 

Once Raph and his brothers are inside the Technodrome, they all understand exactly where to go. Everything the Krang knows about how to operate his ship, Leo knows, through that unwanted window between their minds. And everything Leo knows, he shunted as hard and fast as he could into Raph’s brain, hidden in a tangle of emotion so thick that it went entirely undetected by the parasite riding along. And since Raph shared the knowledge with the other two, Donatello could probably pilot this weird spacecraft blindfolded with one hand tied behind his back.   

Mikey is swinging one of his ‘chucks restlessly, ready for whatever fight comes his way first. He’s already a force to be reckoned with on a good day. He’s a walking natural disaster on a bad one, up there with hurricanes and tornadoes. 

And this is definitely a bad one. It’s the worst day they’ve ever had. 

“Dee’s got the ship and I’ve got Dee,” Mikey says firmly, sounding much older than he did this time yesterday. “You get Leo.”

Raphael moves with ninja stealth and speed, picking his way through the halls. It smells awful, like raw meat left out in the sun, and in the gloom it almost seems as though the walls and floors are squirming. 

From what Leo gave him, Raph knows better than to hope he and his siblings can go undetected for very long. The ship is almost a living organism itself, and can probably feel each step of progress Raph is making toward the bridge. 

It doesn’t slow him down. Every second Leo spends here is a second too long already. 

The maze-like halls open up into a cavernous dome, where a catwalk stretches toward a huge bulbous window. Outside, Raph can see a panoramic view of Manhattan engulfed in fire. It looks like a warzone. The air leaves his lungs in a rush. 

It’s Raph’s city, the place that raised him, and for the first time in his life it’s hard to look at. 

His hindbrain pings to awareness a split-second before he hears the movement of metal against metal, and Raph spins around to look up at General Krang. 

He’s seated in a throne on a dias, a smug, toothy smile on his face. Leo is standing like a statue at his feet, this tiny slip of green and pink and muddied blue. His discolored eyes gaze listlessly forward into nothing. 

Little Leo, who always wanted to be carried. Little Leo, who hunted down each and every opportunity to make his brothers laugh. Little Leo, who wanted so badly to be even just half as important to them as they were to him. Little Leo, who Raph wouldn’t know how to begin to live without. 

“You again,” the Krang says. “Nothing smart to say? This one wouldn’t shut up until I improved him. And here I thought it was just an unfortunate hallmark of your species.”

Raphael sees red at the way the wicked metallic fingertips of the Krang’s armor cage Leo’s head and jostle it carelessly, like he’s nothing but a cheap toy. Raph bares his teeth, a furious rumble in his chest, but doesn’t dare to say a single hateful word while Leo’s life is literally held in the Krang’s hand. 

“You probably would have made a much more impressive puppet, with all that brute strength,” the Krang goes on. “Oh well. All in due time.”

The alien must give a nonverbal order, because he retracts his hand and Leo springs forward. 

He doesn’t have his swords anymore, since they’re strapped to Raph’s shell for the time being, but the pink slime has trailed down his arms and tapered into two sharp points that he wields like knives instead. 

They meet in a ringing clash, Raph catching the pink knives with his sai. 

“I know you’re in there,” Raph says. “I know you don’t want to hurt me. It’s okay, Leo. I’m gonna make it okay.” 

The way Leo fights is vicious. He’s fast and he knows where to hit. There’s no joy in his body, no cocky gleam in his eye. Raph can’t help bu remember the way his mind felt when they connected so briefly earlier—the surround-sound of wailing panic and self-hatred, confined behind a stranger’s cold expression. 

Bearing down on his little brother, forcing him to his knees, Raph chokes out, “I’m not leavin’ you behind this time. I’m not goin’ anywhere without you ever again.”

“Empty promises seem to run in your family,” the Krang sneers. 

“He doesn’t know what he’s talkin’ about,” Raph says through gritted teeth. “Don’t listen to him. Just listen to me.”

“Don’t I? Let’s ask the others, shall we?”

Black vines shoot up from the organic mass that makes up the floor of the bridge. Donnie and Mikey are suspended inside them, fighting like animals—Mikey in particular is using language that there is no way Splinter knows he knows. 

“You thought I wouldn’t notice vermin slinking around in my ship?” the General asks. “Is this really the best the three of you can do?”

Leo is scratching and clawing at Raph’s hands, trying to break free of him at any cost. Raph is much bigger and much stronger than he is, and it hurts to hold him down like this, but he knows it would be so much worse to let him go. 

“This whole time, we just weren’t listening to each other,” Raph says, lowering his voice. Everyone else can probably still hear, but he wants Leo to know Raph is talking to him. “Somehow, I convinced myself you didn’t care, when I know better. You care so much it makes the inside of your head a nightmare to live in. The only thing you think about is being good enough for us.”

Leo finally manages to twist free, Raph releasing his arms at the last second when it becomes clear the parasite doesn’t care if its host’s elbow or shoulder gets dislocated. Leo rolls away and comes up on one knee, hand braced beneath him, the other white-knuckled around a knife. 

He can hear the Krang becoming agitated, because Mikey and Donnie refuse to be still. The vines holding them snap and give one after another, faster than they can be replaced. There’s something stirring inside of Raph, too, a fire in his chest that wants to roar to life. 

Leo strikes again. Despite everything, even with all the horrors they’re surrounded by, Raphael wants to smile. 

When they started training together, Leo was the first of the four of them to perfect a technique. Raph lifted him up onto his shoulders in victory and let him crow about it for the better part of an hour, flushed with joy and pride. Since then, Leo has never once landed that particular move wrong. 

An outsider wouldn’t clock that he placed his hand nearly four inches too far to the left, but Raphael knows those four inches made a fatal difference between a bad puncture wound and a severed artery. 

Leo has no true autonomy left but there’s a sliver of him awake behind the wheel. He’s still fighting tooth and nail in there. 

There isn’t any force in the entire goddamn universe prepared for how tricky and stubborn Raph’s little brothers can be. 

“I’m listening now, Leo,” Raph says, alight with how much he loves him. “I’m here. You’re not alone. You’ll never, ever be alone.”

Leo strains forward, dropping the knife and grabbing at Raph’s arm instead. Between one blink and the next, his eyes go from pink to shining gold. 

Raph seizes him, holding his face in the cradle of both hands, his heart soaring around in his chest like a bird. 

“Yes! That’s it! Come on back, big man, Raphie’s got you!”

With a slam, Leo goes to his knees, scrabbling desperately at the fleshy mass on his face. His fingers dig into the slime, but he can’t get a solid enough grasp to tear himself free. His chest is heaving, whole body shaking. He’s fighting so hard but it’s not quite enough. 

And Raph’s ninpo reacts to a sibling in distress the way it did when Raph used it for the first time, breaking past the Krang’s seal like it’s nothing. It surges forward in the shape of a river, finding the familiar place inside of Leo where his connection to their ancestors lives, and making a temporary home there. Raph’s armor limns his brother in rosy red, swelling from underneath his skin in a powerful flood and pushing the parasite out. It loses every inch it had to cling to while Leo continues to pull. 

Finally the worm is ripped completely away, shrieking as it goes, and Leo gasps. He drops the squirming creature and scuttles away from it, gulping in unobstructed air. The corner of his mouth is torn deep and bleeding sluggishly, and his face looks pale and hollow. 

But his eyes are the color they’re supposed to be, and they’re looking right at Raph and seeing him, a connection as meaningful and important as any mind meld.

Because he’s Leo, the first thing he says is, in a croaky, exhausted voice, “Do you have a sword I can borrow?”

Raph barks out a laugh, tears in his eyes. Earlier today he had reached a point where he thought he’d never smile again.

In this moment, he feels like he could hold up the whole sky and grin while he’s doing it. 

Purple and orange spark madly all around them, a lightning storm and a forest fire ready to rain merry hell upon any unfortunate soul in their path, just enough to keep the General busy while Leo finds his footing. 

Raph wants to scoop them all into his arms and carry them someplace safe from all of this, but he knows he can’t. That place doesn’t exist yet. They have to fight for it. 

Leo breathes in deep and lets it go, takes the swords that Raph passes him in hands that don’t shake, and reaches out for his brothers’ light with a light of his own. 

A gale rushes down from the mountain, leading the charge.

“Hey, ugly,” Leo calls out hoarsely, pointing a blade at the Krang. “I’ve been dying to tell you this all day. The decor in here fucking sucks.”

“Oh my god,” Raph says, half despair, half delight. 

Landing beside him, twirling a glowing bo, Donnie stands shoulder to shoulder with his twin and says, “I would cite you ‘time and place’, Nardo, but honestly you have a point.”

“No because it’s so distracting,” Mikey pipes up, dropping weightlessly into a crouch on Raph’s carapace, narrowed eyes glinting in the dim light like a smug cat’s. “Presentation matters! Zero out of ten, would not be held hostage here again.”

“At least it matches the Six Flags Fright Fest he's got going on upstairs.” Leo indicates his own temple with the hilt of one sword. “There’s something to be said for consistency, am I right?”

It’s as much of a hint as it needs to be. The Krang isn’t stupid, which is a big part of the reason why he’s been such a difficult opponent. He understands within the space of a few seconds what Leonardo is saying—what it means for him to have any idea what the Krang’s headspace looks like. This whole time, there has been a subtle, calculative undermining at play right under his nose. 

He clenches those claws into fists that have enough power to bring down skyscrapers. 

“You really don’t know,” the Krang intones ominously, “when to shut your mouth.”

“Says you and everybody else I know,” Leo replies, unflinching and fearless. “Get some new material.”

Raphael gets it now. Maybe he always has. He understands what Splinter was thinking when he looked at Leo, still growing up but ready at sixteen for the beginning of something greater, and decided he should be the one to lead. 

His brothers would follow him anywhere. Raph would walk straight into hell without looking back if that’s where Leo decided to go. 

——

It’s an instant relief to have those singing silver blades back on their side. Leo’s portals open and close with dizzying speed, moving his brothers like chess pieces around a board, somehow keeping track of it all. For a moment, it’s easy to think they might win. 

And then the Krang blows them all away with the flick of his finger. 

Raph thought his world had ended when he was too late to save his brother in the warehouse. Then he realized the world was actually ending in slow stages all around him when he had to leave his brother behind again at the mercy of a monster. 

It turns out the end of the world happens here. On the quiet, abandoned expanse of Staten Island, listening to his little brother’s wrecked voice over the comms say, “Casey, get ready to close the door.”

“I’m ready, sensei!” Casey reports, prompt and reliable. “Tell me when you’re home free!”

There is a split-second of hesitation from Leo—the barest pause, practically nothing—that sends Raph’s heart straight into his throat. Donatello jerks all the way upright from where he was nursing what’s almost definitely a broken wrist, and Mikey goes dangerously still. They heard it, too. 

“Yeah,” Leo says, just barely too late to be believable to the siblings who know him inside and out, “I’ll tell you.”

“Belay that order, Casey,” April cuts in sharply, every inch the Commander she was in another world. “Leonardo, think twice before you lie to me. What’s your play?”

There’s another pause, and Raph can imagine in crystal-clear detail the way Leo’s throat works when he thinks he’s in trouble with their sister, the way he’s probably clenching and unclenching his hands while he wars with that stupid self-inflicted mission to never make himself vulnerable to anyone for anything. 

The little brother need to be liked wins out. Leo admits, “I can’t think of how else to make him stay there.”

The ground falls out from beneath Raph’s feet. 

“No!” Mikey shrieks, fully at his limit of shit he’s willing to deal with. “No no no no!”

“Sensei I can’t just—I won’t just trap you in the Prison Dimension!” Casey says, horrified at what he was almost tricked into. “There has to be another way!”

“We’ve tried everything,” Leo rasps. “I don’t know what else to do. I can’t let him—let him get you. Any of you. I have to stop him while there’s still a chance.”

“It’ll be a real shame if you save the world from the Krang this way, only for me to destroy it myself when I rip the universe apart to drag your sorry self back here,” Donnie bites out. “And I will, Nardo. I swear to every imaginary higher power you can think of, I will.”

“Leonardo,” Splinter says sternly from April’s end, the leaping panic in his tone well-hidden from everyone but his two eldest, “you will not sacrifice yourself for us today even if it means the world ends tomorrow. That is not what our family does. We are taking you home one way or another, Baby Blue.”

If being in trouble with April is bad, being in trouble with Splinter is cataclysmic. Leo is a daddy’s boy through and through. 

He hesitates again, seconds they don’t have to spare inching by, then says, “How?”

Before anyone can answer there’s a ring of metal and a heavy slam, and his line goes silent. Leo is fighting for his life a thousand feet above their heads, but at least he’s fighting. At least he’s willing to wait for help.

He sounded afraid, Raph can’t help but think. He doesn’t want to go, but he will if he has to. 

“I’ll get him down,” Mikey says, planting his feet, ready to move mountains. “I become a badass mystic warrior at some point, right? Might as well be now.”

“Wait, Uncle—Michelangelo,” Casey blurts, self-correcting a beat too late, “you can’t, when you did it last time, you didn’t survive.”

“If future me can open a portal through time and space and send my entire nephew through safe and sound, all by myself,” Mikey says, “then this me can do at least half of that with my brothers here to help.”

“The math is sound,” Donnie says, eyes trained unblinkingly upwards. “We haven’t met a single universal constant that we haven’t been able to turn upside down and inside out just for fun.”

“I’ve got ‘em, Casey,” Raph adds, his heart going out to the kid who stands to lose his whole family all over again if the wind blows the wrong way. “I’m the biggest, big enough to carry everybody if I have to. Nothing bad’s gonna happen while Raph is here.”

“Oh,” the boy says, very soft. “I remember you saying that.”

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!” Leo shouts suddenly, his comm coming back on with a burst of static and a strange ambient whine that must be what the inside of the portal sounds like. “Now, please, now!”

Mikey lights up, a tiny self-made sun of burning, shining gold. He grits his teeth and lifts his hands, trembling under the pressure of the cosmic forces he’s wrestling into submission. Donnie wraps both arms around him and braces his little brother with his entire body, absorbing as much as he can. The feedback is halved instantly, and when Raph steps in and holds them both, it’s reduced even more. 

With a little huff, Mikey works his shoulders, like this is nothing more complicated than the tricky recipe he once found for an eight layer Doberge cake on one of those unreadable walls-of-text baking blogs. If he can figure out that, he can do anything. 

Lightning and fire and rock-solid, steady earth stretch out their hands, reaching past the open gateway and through empty space, searching for the windy blue thing that doesn’t belong in this darkness. 

The wind reaches back eagerly, desperate to be grabbed up and taken home and held forever. 

Inside the Prison Dimension, bright chains flare into existence—some to tangle around the Krang and immobilize him, still more to wrap around Leo’s chest and haul him back through the door while it’s still open, at a reckless, break-neck speed. 

It would have been dangerous for a squishy human, but Leo lands on the surface of the Technodrome in a roll and manages to find his feet. 

“I don’t have a sword,” he blurts, panicked. “I don’t know how to get down.”

Mikey clenches his fists. Ready to open up the portal that killed him in another world, after all, if that’s what it takes to get his big brother down here where he belongs. 

Then Donnie says, “You don’t need to have a sword, dumb-dumb. I have one.” 

It materializes in his hand, a purple construct of one of the matching lightsabers he made for his and Leo’s eleventh birthday. They were very quickly confiscated but Leo laughed like a maniac for the three minutes they had them, and Donnie kept the schematics for a rainy day. 

“Will that work?” Mikey asks, too breathless to sound as terrified as he probably is. 

“It’ll work,” Donnie says shortly. “A sword is a sword. Now’s not the right time to be a snob, Leon. Come here.”

Leo makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan and feels for the shared space between them where their ninpo lives, where the mountain and the bonfire and the lightning and the wind all live. Raphael can feel it when that mischievous blue energy finds a brand new rule to bend and decides sure, that sounds fun.  

Runes etch themselves into the handle of the Genius Built lightsaber. 

Raphael shouts, “Casey, now!”

At the same time the looming portal above their heads sends a shockwave over New York City, popping and sparking along the edges like a downed transformer as it shrinks and shrinks until it closes around the Technodrome, a flash of bright cyan heralds the abrupt head-on collision of Leo into Donnie when he swaps places with the sword construct his twin was holding. 

They go down in a haphazard pile of limbs, groaning where they lay on the concrete, and then groaning again when a hundred pounds of little brother gleefully joins the pile with an enthusiastic flop. 

The explosion above them is an afterthought. April and Splinter and Casey are all talking over each other on the comms, frantic for confirmation that they all came out of this alive. That they haven’t lost anything they won’t survive losing. 

“We’re all here!” Mikey says, crowing it to the wide-open, smoke-filled sky. “We won!”

Raph should probably elaborate on that for his dad, sister and nephew’s sake—let them know that everyone’s really okay, describe the little miracles Mikey and Donnie just pulled out of thin air like it was nothing, tell them about Leo trembling like a leaf in the wind but tucked securely into his twin’s side and absorbing the warmth of another living person like it was something he’d always taken for granted before— 

But there’s something else he needs to do first. 

“Noooooooo,” three little turtles protest as their biggest brother rounds out the turtle pile, flattening them to the ground. 

“Tough luck, bozos,” Raph rumbles. “I ain’t lettin’ a single one of you out of my sight ever again.”

Mikey giggles, half-hysterical, a contagious, familiar sound. Donnie shuts his eyes to hear it better. Leo hides his cold face in Raph’s neck and doesn’t say anything else at all. Raph holds them all tight, and imagines a universe where he’s strong enough to never lose them.

Maybe it’s this one. 

——

Casey, who is both medically trained by Leonardo’s future self and entirely immune to the slider’s particular brand of treatment-avoidant bullshit, turns out to be a godsend. Leo uses every trick in the book and still winds up in a bed in the infirmary. 

For someone who craves attention as much as he does, it would make more sense for him to milk a hospital stay for all he’s worth. But it’s always been exactly the opposite, Leo escaping at the first possible opportunity and hiding out somewhere until negotiations are made. 

After all these years, Raph finally has him figured out. 

Leo’s face is still puffy and red where it’s healing, but it’s inevitably going to scar—through the right side of his mouth and down his chin, where the parasite clung the hardest. And for the three days that they’ve been home, Leo ducks his head when anyone looks at him, talking to his hands or his knees instead of to their faces. 

Don’t look at me, Leonardo is screaming with his whole body. Raph doesn’t need a mind meld to hear that, loud and clear. 

Too bad, he thinks, not unkindly. His heart aches as he sits on the side of Leo’s bed and watches his brother tuck his chin immediately. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” he says, lifting Leo’s face again in one large hand, gentle and implacable. Leo resists briefly, but gives it up for a bad job when Raph rumbles at him.  

“Don’t,” Leo manages. 

“Why shouldn’t I?” Raph challenges. “I missed you.”

Leo’s eyes are downcast and wet, his mouth screwed stubbornly to one side in a manner that probably hurts, given the stitches. Raphael is a professional at outlasting moody little turtles, and he’ll sit here until the next apocalypse if that’s what it takes. 

Eventually, Raph’s patience pays off. Slowly, gingerly, Leo opens his hands. He lets Raph take them and squeeze strength and warmth into them, and clings back for as long as it takes to cobble together the remarkable courage he needs to look his big brother in the eye. 

“I lost the key,” Leo starts damningly.

“You got it back,” Raph says, ignoring the nauseous lurch in his stomach at the memory of the warehouse, Leo pinned to the floor, the escape pod activating and leaving him there alone. His nightmares always start right there these days. “We’re the ones who couldn’t keep hold of it.”

“I almost hurt you,” Leo says, a note of desperation entering his tone. “I almost—”

“You didn’t,” Raph counters firmly. “You have no idea how much more incredible it is that you didn’t.”

“I was so mean.” Tears drip down his face as he finally loses the battle not to cry. “When the Krang was in my head he saw everything and he said—said you must hate me, and he did all of you a favor getting rid of me, and I thought—I thought that makes sense, because I was so mean, and I’m nothing but trouble, and I don’t contribute, and even when dad gave me the chance to step up and be something I still wanted—I just wanted—”

Little Leo, who invented games of make-believe so Raph could feel like a hero. Little Leo, forever finding ways to make recalcitrant Donnie play, pleased as punch every time he pulled it off. Little Leo, who could listen to Mikey ramble for hours without getting bored or short-tempered, his bedroom walls an ever-evolving art collage of his little brother’s best work. Little Leo, who just wanted to be held and held and held. 

Raph lifts Leo into his arms, as easy now as it was when he was three and nine and twelve, and holds him. Leo shakes with how hard he’s crying, even though he’s not really making any noise. His hands scramble to grab onto Raph’s shell and he lets Raph squeeze him into something young and small and hurt and loved. 

As a general concept, Raph disagrees with murder—but he thinks he could make an exception for the monster who forced his way into Leo’s brain and turned it into an echo chamber of all the worst things he had ever thought about himself. 

An eternity alone in the dark with nothing but his failures is as close to justice as they’ll get. It’s kind of poetic, right? is all Mikey will have to say about it when it comes up a week from now, a mean-spirited little smile on his face. 

“I’m sorry,” Leo chokes out. “I’m sorry, Raphie. I’ll do—I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll be better, I swear. I’ll never let you down again.”

“He said he would live the rest of his life making up for it, making you proud,” Casey said.

“Blue, this thing you think you gotta make up for—this price you think you gotta pay for existing—it doesn’t exist,” Raph tells him in a tone that brooks no room for argument, barely managing not to grind his teeth together. If anyone else had said anything even half as bad as Leo had said about Leo, he would’ve punched them straight through a wall by now. “You mean more to me than what you contribute to the team. Even if you brought nothing to the table, which is not true, you’d still be stuck with us forever. Non-negotiable. You could be a hateful little brat every single day of your life and I would still take a bullet for you, no questions asked. Are you hearing me?”

“Hearing you,” Leo mutters, knowing better to disagree with that tone.

“All I want from you is you. All I need is my Leo. Whether he’s feeling goofy or annoying or pissed off or scared—I want every shape of him. Every version. Don’t you dare,” Raph adds, punctuating this by a little rattle of the Leo he’s holding, “make me go a single day without him ever again.”

Leo is fully hidden beneath his chin, so there’s no way for Raph to tell what his face is doing. But he hears the little punched-out breath, and feels it a second later when Leo’s white-knuckled grip on his shell loosens, just a bit. No longer convinced he’ll be ripped away for some imaginary offense.

It’ll take more than one conversation to fix everything, but they’ve got more than one. They’ve got a million. They have the whole rest of their lives on each other’s team. 

“I missed you, too,” Leo whispers, like they’re four and five years old again, huddled under the blankets after bedtime and telling each other secrets. 

Back then, monsters were easy to conquer. Nothing scary or sad dared to follow little brothers to Raphie’s room. A warm nest and a turtle pile was the answer to every heartache. 

Some things stay exactly the same, Raph thinks fondly, amused by the way Leo’s already drifting off. He settles in for a nap on his plastron, Leo tucked securely under one arm. He gives it about thirty seconds before Mikey and Donnie stop listening outside the door and sneak inside to complete the pile, and starts the count in his head. 

He makes it to twenty-seven before the mattress gives tellingly beneath two pairs of hands, and he smiles. 

[number1jeonginstan]

can you write about an au where when ppl meet/see their s/o they instantly feel like they need to consummate their bond? and seungmin meets y/n? (its fine if not tho)

A/N: Thank you for your request and sorry for it taking so long :( I really hope you enjoyed it! While writing this, I started getting an idea of making this into a series, so one for each member meeting their soulmate and stuff. I thought it would be neat, but I don’t really know if you guys want that or not, if you do, please tell me! ALSO, I told you guys I will be back on that writing grind (I always keep my promises!!) 

WC: 2.6k

Minors don't interact, 18+

Pairing: College Student!Seungmin x afab! Reader

Warnings: kinda public sex, but not, unprotected sex (are we surprised?), cumming inside of op even though it was their first time, idk what else to add…

The air was thick outside, a light drizzle was hitting the ground as Jeongin and Seungmin were eating their lunch.

“Did you guys fuck?” Seungmin asked bluntly, dipping another fry in the ketchup in front of him. “You know we have to as soon as we touch, it’s so embarrassing though” Jeongin groaned. “How is it embarrassing? She now knows what your dick looks like and you guys can live happily ever after!” he chuckled as Jeongin took a sip of his milkshake. 

“Dude, I don’t understand why we have to have sex as soon as we see our soulmate, the world is a twisted place. Like hypothetically, what if the dude is a virgin and the girl isn’t, or the dude has a micro? Even worse if they are both virgins, like imagine losing it to someone you don’t even know and then having to spend your entire life with them” 

Seungmin just nodded along as Jeongin continued to go on and on. “Like think about it if I didn’t have sex with them, I would have a painful ass boner until we are either 100 miles apart or until I fuck her, not to mention, I can only have sex with them for the rest of our lives and we barely know each other.” 

“I think you are reading too much into it, was she at least nice?” 

“Yeah” Jeongin scratched the back of his neck “she was super sweet, I’m actually going to her place after this for a movie date” 

“Awww, Innie is finally getting play, even though it is forceful” 

Jeongin just rolled his eyes, popping another fry in his mouth. “I better get going, I don’t want to be late”

Seungmin watched him get out of their shared booth, only to almost run into someone and apologize. Seungmin just chuckled, knowing how clumsy his friend was, only to look up and see you. 

He knew you from a few classes, you were also taking photography, but he didn’t believe it was your major seeing as you were only taking the required classes with him. 

Jeongin profusely began apologizing, telling you he really didn’t mean it, you just giggled, telling him that everything was okay and it wasn’t your fault. As you turned around, you spotted Seungmin, and you stopped and looked at him for a second. 

“You are Seungmin from my photography class right?” Seungmin was confused, he didn’t think that you knew him, let alone knew his name. “Oh um, yeah Professor Lee right?” he asked, trying to make it seem like he didn’t know exactly who you were. 

“Yeah, I just wanted to say I love your work. When you showed us your portfolio, I was genuinely blown away. Like seriously, the way you capture the essence of everything around you is breathtaking.” 

Seungmin could feel his ears getting redder, blushing slightly at the way you described his photos. No one had ever admired them the way you were describing them at that moment. “Thank you so much” he stuttered slightly, still a bit embarrassed.

“That actually leads me to my question,” you said, picking at your nails slightly. “Oh? What’s your question?” He asked, placing his chin in the palm of his hands, trying to show to you that you had his full attention. 

“I’m a Journalism major, and I’m trying to work on my photography so I can better capture the essence of what’s going on at that moment in time. That’s why I’m minoring in it, but I feel like I’m just not there. Like sure, I have the camera and everything, but I feel like I’m not conveying the feeling or emotions of the event like you do, so I was going to ask if you could help me?”

You rocked back and forth on your heels waiting for his response, and he simply nodded “Yeah, I would love to help you” 

You grinned “Um, do you want to give me your number, or I can give you mine so we can figure out a time if that’s okay, or if you don’t want to give me yours we can always meet up after class” you continued to ramble on. 

“Give me your phone, I’ll put in my number and just text me right now so I can make sure it went through” 

You simply nodded, handing him your phone. He put in his number, sending a text from your phone to his.

“See, I got it,” he said, holding up his own phone. “Why don’t I text you when I’m free and we can coordinate from there!” 

“Thank you so much Seungmin, like seriously, I really appreciate it!”

Just before he could reply, your friend that you were with called you over to your booth, causing you to wave him goodbye and run over to her. 

“Who was that?” she asked you, looking over the menu in front of her. 

“He’s this really cute dude from my photography class, he said he would help me so I can take better pictures” You grinned to yourself, you had finally got the boy's number you had been fawning over for the semester. 

10:21 PM

Hey, it’s Seungmin Wait, you already know that  You know what, ignore the first two texts  And that one And that one  Shit.  Ummm  I just wanted to say that I am free tomorrow at 2 pm if that works with you. If not, that’s totally fine, we can find another time Anyway, have a good night! 

You giggled at the texts he had just sent you, something about him being flustered over text made you so happy. 

Seungmin rolled around in anguish waiting for your text, he wanted to know your thoughts. Maybe you thought he was crazy sending all those texts and ghosted him or no longer wanted his help. He was about to give up and go to sleep until he got your text. 

10:34 PM

Oh hey Seungmin! Yeah, I think 2 works for me! I’ll bring my camera and stuff, and I’ll text you a good location Also, text me your coffee order, I’ll bring you some

He felt like a schoolgirl with a crush. You were so cute, asking for his coffee order, he just wanted to pinch your cheeks, but that would be weird, right? You guys barely knew each other, he would just watch over you in class and that’s all. 

It was the afternoon and you had set up your camera. You had found this abandoned field a few months ago while just walking around listening to music. You thought it was the perfect spot to practice taking pictures with more emotion. 

You had placed a picnic blanket in the grass big enough to fit 4 people as well as a blanket since it was getting cooler and you didn’t know how long you guys would be there. 

You were waiting for Seungmin, the ice in his Americano slowly melting, the condensation slowly making the cup wetter. When your phone finally showed 2:05, Seungmin showed up. While you were wearing jeans, a white blouse, and a sweater with apples all over it, he was dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and a flannel. 

“Sorry I’m a little late, I was trying to find this place,” he said, placing his camera bag onto the blanket. He took a step back, fully looking around taking in the view. “How did you find this place? It’s secluded, but absolutely stunning” 

“I was just walking around one day and stumbled over this spot”

You handed him his iced americano, and he took it from your hands graciously. “So, I was thinking that we should practice different emotions, but the same scene, so why don’t we do that?” He took a sip of his drink and then placed it back on the grass.

You simply nodded, getting your camera, and waiting for his instructions. He turned to you and pointed in front of him. It was just some dandelions, it was nothing special, but he went on to explain. 

“Dandelions are one of the very few plants that can grow anywhere and everywhere. Some might see them as a weed, but others may see them as a beautiful flowers that can withstand thousands of weather conditions. Now, think about what you want it to look like as you take the picture”

You did as he said, trying to fully understand the flower in front of you. You took the picture with the intent you had in mind, and you did it. The flower looked bright and powerful compared to the grass that surrounded it. 

“Seungmin I did it!” you jumped up and down, showing him the hug. Before he could react, you gave him a hug, trying to express your gratitude. As you pulled away, it was like a switch had flipped in you. 

For some reason, you could feel yourself get wetter. It was something you had never felt before, it felt uncomfortable, and the only thing you could feel was lust. The same was for Seungmin, all he could feel himself get hard the second you touched him. It wasn’t even just a random hard-on, but it felt so painful like he had to cum that second or else he would die. 

“Seungmin, do you also feel that way?” You asked, feeling a bit scared, but your entire body was tingling like there was no other sensation. You could feel your wetness slowly drip down your thighs and there was no stopping it. “Yeah, fuck, I think it does” 

“Can I please?” he groaned, he couldn’t bear the feeling of not being next to you, on top of you, inside of you. It’s like he could smell your wetness and had to indulge himself in it or else he would die. “Wait, I don’t have a condom, I don’t think we should”

Before he could even continue speaking, you stopped him, shutting him up by kissing his lips. “If you don’t fuck me right now, I think I might just explode” 

You continued to kiss him, taking off your own sweater and pants, leaving you just in your blouse and underwear as he took off his flannel and pants. “But, what if?” 

You stopped him, “I’m clean and am on birth control, if you are clean too then what’s stopping us? The only way this sensation will stop is if we are a hundred miles away from each other and that will take hours, so please just fuck me” 

He groaned, going back to attacking your lips. He laid you on the picnic blanket you had brought, thanking your prior self for bringing it. He moved down to your neck, to the curve of your breasts as he continued to kiss them, pulling down the strap of your bra and blouse in one tug to give him access to your breast. 

He began to tease your nipple, pinching it with his finger as he began to bite marks on your neck, claiming you as his. “Seungmin please stop teasing, I need to feel you in me right now” 

That was all he needed, he pulled his shirt off, throwing it somewhere in the distance as well as his boxers. His cock was long, slightly thick, with two veins at the underside of it. You could feel your mouth water as he began to smear the pre-cum leaking from his tip onto the rest of his throbbing cock. 

“Fuck baby, look at what you did to me just with a hug” he groaned. “I could say the same for me,” you said, pulling down your underwear to show your soaked core. 

He looked at your pussy in awe, you were so wet he could easily slip in with no prep. “Fuck, so wet just for me” 

You just nodded, playing with your clit, trying to give yourself some sort of stimulation. “Please Minnie, need your cock so bad” you pleaded, your doe eyes looking up at him. Before he could even register what he was doing, he aligned the tip of his cock, with your hole, slowly putting his cock inside of you. 

You moaned at the sensation, you had never felt so full in your life. Once he had fully sheathed his cock inside of you, he let out a long and sultry moan. “Fuck baby, this pussy is everything” 

Before you could moan in response, he began to fuck you like there was no tomorrow. Your legs wrapped around him, wanting to feel him hit that spot inside of you. “Fuck baby, fuck Minnie you feel so good” you moaned. 

He lifted your hips slightly, causing him to hit that one spot inside of you. “Oh fuck, fuck, fuuuuuck” you babbled, feeling so close. 

He could feel your walls tighten around his cock, he could tell you were close, so he brought his hand down to your clit, slowly circling it in tandem with his thrusts. That was all you needed to cum. 

You came screaming his name, your legs wrapping tighter around him, not wanting him to stop thrusting into you. “Fuck baby, if you keep doing that, I’m going to cum inside, please let me go” he whined.

You didn’t budge, feeling slightly overstimulated, but that didn’t stop you from begging him to cum inside of you, to fill you with his cum. That was all he needed to reach his peak, his load shooting inside of you, causing you to cum once again, your walls milking him dry. 

He slowly pulled out of you, covering you with the blanket you had brought and wrapping his arms around you. 

You were both covered by the second blanket you had brought. You were thankful for it, it was shielding the both of you from the cool air that would be nipping your skin if you didn’t. 

“Who would have thought the dude I was looking at all of class for the past semester was actually my soulmate?” You said out loud, your head buried into his chest.

He cocked his head slightly to look at you. “What do you mean, I was looking at you in class all the time, I never saw you looking at me?” 

You turned your head up to look at him “So we are both idiots who could have done this earlier if we actually talked to one another?” You asked, giggling a bit about how stupid the two of you were.

“Yeah, I guess so” he chuckled back, placing a kiss on your head. “Shit, my friends are going to tease me relentlessly for this, fucking my soulmate in the middle of a field” He groaned out loud. 

“You guys tell each other when you meet your soulmate?” you asked, a bit confused 

“Yeah, we have a group chat, Jeongin was the first to find his and now I’m second, I wonder how the rest of them are going to find theirs” 

“You should invite me to them,” you said, kissing his lips once again. 

“Baby, if I didn’t they would have kidnapped you and introduced themselves to you” 

You just laughed, running your fingers along his face. “Now that we have gotten over the whole “need to fuck like bunnies” how about we do this again?” 

Before Seungmin could even realize what you meant, you slowly moved on top of him, slipping his already-hardened cock into your soaking pussy. 

“Fuck baby, I’m always ready for round two,” He said, groaning at the way your walls clenched his cock, you were made for him.

[discokicks]

WHISKEY, TANGO, FOXTROT - ROY KENT.

PART FOUR OF ACES AT THE WATER'S EDGE.

(series masterlist!) (AO3!) (series playlist!)

pairing: roy kent x fem!reader (no use of y/n!) summary: it's your first game of the season at chelsea and rebecca’s got some press for you to do. however, thanks to rupert, the reporters will have some questions you’re not exactly ready for. the same could be said for 2012 roy kent, who’s abusing his new avoidance power to the fullest extent. but, as the two of you continue to work and get closer, you realize that there might just be something else there.

word count & rating: 15.4k (holy fuck this is why it took 6 months), R (language per usual) chapter warnings: swearing, references to sex, minor allusions to sexual harassment, mentions of alcohol, the beginnings of sexual tension (slow and steady wins the race), rupert is a dick, roy kent has got around and everyone knows it, keeley and rebecca are wine drinking pr besties, men are trash (but we know this) author's note: long time no see and happy olympics season! it felt fitting to post this now, so I got motivated to get my ass into gear and write. there's A LOT to this one, so buckle up. and make sure you stay until the end bc baby we're cooking with gas now. this took a lot out of me, so i hope you enjoy! love u tons! -mags

LONDON OLYMPICS, LATE JULY, 2012.

You’re up 1-0 when you retreat into the locker room at halftime during your third game of the Olympic Tournament against North Korea.

Despite the fact that you’re winning, it was a terrible showing from each of you, except for Mel, who’d been your lone scorer of the night. She’d had a breakaway and had managed to single-handedly beat three defenders for a pretty impressive goal. You’d practically jumped into her arms during the celebration, glad that someone was able to break the sleepy curse that had seemed to be placed on your team.

Your captain Katie O’Connor stands tall at the front of the room, ready to rip you guys a new one. She was the more… passionate of your three captains, potentially coming off as abrasive when things weren’t going your way or if she felt that things could be better. It was only because she cared so much. You all did.

“We should be beating them by four at this point,” she says, pointing out the door. A mumbling of agreements goes through your team, knowing that it’s the truth. “We’re playing like it’s fucking high school out there. It’s the fucking Olympics, act like we belong here, for fuck’s sake.”

The amount of ‘fucks’ that Katie drops instantly has you thinking of someone else. God damn it, he was probably watching, wasn’t he? You could only imagine the things he was thinking, or saying, for that matter. 

You know you shouldn’t care as much as you do, but… as much as you hate to admit it, you want to impress him. Or at least make it look like these training sessions have been worth it. There was something about him that made you want to prove yourself. It wasn’t that he demanded you to do so or that he’d value you less if you didn’t, but you wanted to. Unfortunately, you cared about his opinion. How tragic was that?

Curiosity gets the best of you. Before your coach can come into the locker room, you fish through your bag and take a peek at your phone, just to see if he, or anyone else, has said anything.

Sure enough, you see that you’ve got two texts from Roy Kent that were sent five minutes ago, right when you finished the half.

What a fucking atrocious half. I fucking dare you to hit the post one more time.

A scowl pulls at your lips, but you know it’s true. It wasn’t anything you hadn’t already thought yourself. He had an extraordinary talent for knowing how to be exactly the brand of jackass that pissed you off, though. It only became more apparent as you read the next message.

You could learn a thing or two about footwork from Rivera.

You scoff, glancing over at Mel, who, while she sat next to you, was staring blankly at the wall, undoubtedly in her own little world. Before she notices you looking, you’ve turned back to your phone and to his messages. “Asshole,” you mutter, but type out your response.

maybe i’ll get her to coach me then. she isn’t as much of a dick to me.

The response comes before you can put away your phone. Not your coach, he says, then sends another message. Relax out there. You’re somehow playing nervous and stiff at the same time. You’re a fucking anomaly. But before you can frown too hard at that, he says, You know how to see the field. So take a breath and fucking see it.

You throw your phone back in your bag with a huff, mind reeling as you attempt to think back to what the field looked like before the half. The last three possessions had you following Mel as she took the ball up the field. The defense had started favoring her side due to her dominance throughout the game, leaving… 

…Katie on the left side. And while they hadn’t left her open—

“Did you call me an asshole a second ago?” Mel asks from beside you, having broken out of her own trance. You flinch at the sound of her voice, instinctively flipping your phone over and against the bench you’re sitting on. 

She courteously spares you the weird look you know she’s holding back. “No,” you reply. You motion to your phone. “Roy’s texting me.”

Mel nods in understanding. “Gotcha. What’s Coach Kent have to say?”

“He’s being an asshole,” you repeat. “He says we’re ‘atrocious.’ Making fun of how much I’m hitting the post.” You turn to her. “He’s got good things to say about your footwork, though.”

Mel grins. “I knew I liked him.”

You scowl again at that. “He’s also telling me I need to see the field better.” Mel raises her brows at the look on your face, cueing you to go on. “I think Katie’s been open-ish for the last three possessions. They’re favoring your side.”

The two of you look back to your teammate once more as you consider this. “We could keep trying to draw the defense out,” Mel offers. “We scare them a little bit, hit her when she’s coming up.”

“She can beat that fullback in a heartbeat,” you agree.

“It’s worth a shot,” she says. “We can’t play any shittier than we already are.”

You nod at Mel with faux enthusiasm. “That’s the spirit.”

And that’s exactly what you decide. Mel jumps to her feet and explains your plan to Katie and the team, drawing up the X’s and O’s on the locker room whiteboard. You glance around the room cautiously, forcing yourself not to read into your teammates' expressions too deeply. 

But it’s hard. Especially when you’re an overthinker.

It’s a title you’ve resigned yourself to, much to Roy’s pleasure. Whether you wanted to admit it or not, it was the truth. And while you were still working to get out of that lifelong mindset, it didn't seem to be getting any easier. 

But your over-analyzing leads you to a result you like: all of your teammates seem to be on board with your ideas. You can’t deny that that feels good.

You especially can’t deny it when your coach walks into the locker room to see Mel’s play on the baker and says, “Well, you ladies are way ahead of me.” Because that’s exactly what she was going to draw up.

That feeling has you giddily awaiting the moment you can grab your phone before you head back out to the field to send a text to your newfound trainer. 

i’ll have a shot on net in the first ten minutes, you type to him, confidence radiating through the text. and it’s not gonna hit the post this time.

Your message reaches Roy when he returns to his phone at the beginning of the second half. He can’t help the chuckle that escapes him as he settles back into his couch, shaking his head when he glances up at the massive TV in his sitting room, the broadcast showing a close-up of you with a new sort of fire in your eyes. It’s a look that illuminates his dim and quiet flat, one that he can’t seem to part with until they cut away from you.

Within four minutes and fifty-five seconds, you draw the defense over to you and Mel, who wails the ball over to Katie’s side of the field. Katie has possession of it for five seconds before she catches her defender off-guard and sends it in between her legs to you. 

Five minutes in, you live up to your promise and send the ball into the corner of the net, the crowd roaring as Katie shakes you back and forth in excitement and Mel jumps on your back. One of the cameramen runs up to you to catch your celebration, and you stare down the lens with a satisfied smile and point in a way that tells Roy that you’re looking directly at him. 

He couldn’t stop himself from grinning even if he wanted to. With yet another shake of his head, Roy reaches out for the phone he’d thrown onto the couch cushion next to him.

I told you. Fucking anomaly you are, you stupid fucking Yank, he writes. Stay pissed off. It’s a good look on you, Fourteen.

When Roy sends that text, he keeps his phone closer to him this time, and somehow, his dim and quiet flat feels just a bit lighter, even if for a brief moment.

PRESENT DAY, MID-AUGUST, 2023.

Before you can leave the Richmond facilities post-Saturday afternoon practice, you’re suddenly called into Rebecca Walton’s office.

It’s a day before your first game of the season and after your rather animated talk with Roy in the Boot Room yesterday, you’re feeling a bit lighter. You slept better last night (though you don’t see yourself hitting REM any time soon) and don’t feel like you’re being dragged down by the massive weight of… well, everything. It’s a feeling you’re taking in stride and one you’re welcoming with open arms. 

Practices before game days were typically a bit easier-going, and you and your fellow coaches had decided to make sure the team was up to date and understood the best plays to run against Chelsea tomorrow. They knew who to stop, what defenses to watch out for, and what trick plays to expect. While you hadn’t lent your voice to the conversation as much as you probably should have, especially after being yelled at for it yesterday, you spoke more than usual. While that still wasn’t a lot, it was enough. And that made you feel good, above all else.

That feeling goes away the second you walk into your boss’s office to see her and an incredibly familiar face staring at you from the couch area. Your lips part the second you see her, hand unsubtly slamming against the doorframe, not just to stabilize yourself, but to keep you from dramatically heel-turning out of the room, to never return.

By the way that Keeley Jones is looking at you, you can tell she’s just about on the same page. You suppose she’s got the better end of this deal, simply because your arrival doesn’t seem to be a surprise for her. At least she had a warning about the foreboding awkwardness of this situation. Your boss didn’t exactly grant you that luxury.

Then again, you figure Rebecca had no real way of knowing just how strange this might be for you. She didn’t know the extent of your history with Roy, and the only person who may was sitting right next to her, probably having shared more of that history than either of you cared to admit.

However, what you’re not expecting from Keeley, is the way she gapes at you, then turns to Rebecca to whisper, “Fucking hell, you didn’t say she was hotter in person.”

The shock and confusion flowing through your body makes you blink slowly at them to readjust, and you lean back on your back foot. You manage to stammer out, “I-I’m sorry to interrupt, I can come back--”

“No, no,” Rebecca says, beckoning you in after she finishes rolling her eyes at Keeley, “come on in and join us! We just opened a bottle.”

Join them? You glance at the open bottle of wine on the coffee table, then back to them. Is this why you were called here? To indulge in some post-work girl talk with your boss and Roy’s first real, and only public girlfriend? Ex-girlfriend, you remembered, but still.

You’re sure the discomfort you feel is broadcasted on your face, and that becomes especially apparent when Keeley offers you a small, kind smile. However, the action is sweet and it makes your over-anxious mind ease slightly. If she’s not going to be weird about it, you certainly aren’t either.

Besides, you have no idea what she actually knows about you and Roy. He would be the type to tell her nothing. He was the type to tell her nothing.

However, something about Keeley’s demeanor tells you that’s probably not the case.

When you realize that you’ve been standing like a freak in the doorway for just a moment too long, you snap out of your haze and return the smile, nodding gratefully as you enter Rebecca’s office.

“We were just discussing the game tomorrow,” Rebecca tells you as she reaches for the spare wine glass on the table. She eyes you with a wry grin. “I’d ask if you drank, but that bar cart I saw in your apartment gave you away.”

A surprised laugh escapes you at the rather forward comment, but it helps you relax slightly as you make your way to them. “Yeah, well. It was probably looking pretty sparse when you saw it.” You reach your hand out to Keeley, continuing to smile softly as you introduce yourself.

“Keeley Jones,” she says to you, though there’s a mutual understanding that this is just a formality. You both know who the other is. “Bad week, yeah?” she asks.

You reach for the wine glass Rebecca offers you and send a look of confirmation to Keeley. “You have no idea.” Your smile stretches as you look over at Rebecca and sit down. “These last couple of days have made up for it, though.”

Rebecca returns it. “That’s wonderful to hear.”

“I can imagine it’s been a little different than West Ham,” Keeley says. “We know what Rupert likes to pull. All that shit he’s been saying about you leaving?” She shakes her head. “I don’t know how people aren’t seeing through him.”

The smile you wear falters slightly. “I, uh… haven’t really been keeping up with any of that,” you tell her. “Figured it wouldn’t be great to hear anything that anybody’s saying about me, y’know?”

“Totally get that,” she replies kindly. However, she hesitates. “...But you… haven’t seen anything that’s been going around?”

“Um…” you trail off, shifting in your chair. “No? Why? Is it really that bad?”

Rebecca and Keeley exchange a look. “It’s just—” Rebecca cuts herself off, looking back at you. “Remember how I said you wouldn’t have to do any press if you didn’t want to?”

Any remnants of the demeanor you had when you sat down completely drain from your expression. “Oh, my God. It is that bad, isn’t it?”

Keeley shakes her head, holding out her hands. “No, no, it’s really not. It could be so much worse,” she assures. “I mean, it is that bad with those weird little shits online who always have a problem with successful women in sports, but what else is new—”

“This is the worst of it,” Rebecca interjects, putting a hand on her friend's arm. She passes you a tablet as Keeley goes quiet and you take it cautiously. 

It’s a video of Rupert at a press conference, one you presume was taken this morning. The season kicked off tomorrow and Ted, Rebecca, and the rest of the team had been stuck doing interviews all day, something of which you weren’t sad to have missed out on.

You press the play button in the center of the screen to watch Rupert point at someone off-camera. “Yes,” he says. “Daniel, what have you got?”

Daniel, presumably, asks, “I was just curious how the team’s feeling with that coaching shake-up so close to Opening Day?” You hear a murmur go through the audience of reporters. “Losing someone like that and then watching her get picked up by Richmond must be tough on you guys, no?”

Rupert seems to take this in and sit with it, nodding slowly. “I won’t lie to you, Daniel,” he says after a moment. “I wasn’t happy with the note that we ended on. She had concerns toward the end of her tenure about her role on the team and with certain aspects of AFC culture. She knows just how talented I think she is, and how excited we were to have her working with us. And we had a wonderful couple of months working with her. But, unfortunately…” He shakes his head scornfully, like all of this was genuinely upsetting him. “...there were just some differences we couldn’t get past. The team was remarkably sad to see her go, but I don’t believe it’ll affect our performance this season.” 

He lets his answer hang there for a moment, but tragically, he’s not done. “Perhaps Richmond was willing to offer her some things that we weren’t able to. Perhaps their values align more with what she wanted out of her AFC career.” And then, with a nonchalant shrug, he adds, “Perhaps she just wanted to coach with her old friend Roy Kent.” Your lips part at that, brow furrowing in disbelief as the reporters chuckle. “Who knows? I wish her the best and I wish Richmond good luck. I hope they’re a better fit for her.”

The clip cuts off there and you glance up at Rebecca and Keeley who are both bracing for impact. “What the fuck?” 

If either of them find your words unprofessional, they do nothing to indicate it. However, there’s something about them that tells you they’re more than comfortable with that kind of language in the workplace. “Yeah,” Keeley says. “So, like I said. It could be so much worse.”

“He was the one who was unhappy with how it ended?” you quote. “He’s upset about the differences we couldn’t work past? How about you address my concerns with AFC culture and get upset with your—”

You cut yourself off before you can say too much, focusing your attention on the plant in the corner of Rebecca’s office to stabilize yourself. What a fucking asshole. What a self-serving, lying, fucking asshole. He’s not worth the tears. Don’t give him that satisfaction.

You understand why you were called in now, why Rebecca prefaced the video with that question. You’d neglected to personally get ahead of Rupert and make a real statement on your choice to part with West Ham and sign with Richmond. Now you were paying that price— the price of being afraid.

“What—” Your voice cracks as you attempt to speak, and you clear your throat. “What type of press do I have to do?”

Rebecca’s sigh is empathetic. “We think it’d be smart to send you out with Ted tomorrow after the game. Make a statement, answer a few questions,” she says. “That is, if you’re open to it.”

Your brow raises skeptically. “I can say no to that?”

Rebecca chuckles. “You can say no to anything,” she tells you. “Roy refuses to do any sort of press and he’s managed to be completely fine. Labeled as a bitter, old recluse, but he doesn’t seem to care.” Typical. But then, she adds, “We do think it’s your best move, though.”

You know it’s your best move. You know it’s what you should have done at the beginning of all of this. You know that there’s nothing that you want to do less. But somehow, having that small, offhanded-out Rebecca offered makes it all sit a bit easier with you.

“I think so too,” you finally agree, sighing shakily. Rebecca and Keeley grin at you encouragingly, watching as you reach out to take a hearty sip of your wine. “So, what’s the plan?” You look over at Keeley. “I assume that’s why you’re here.”

Keeley’s face lights up. “Exactly why I’m here,” she replies. “We’re gonna PR this shit so fucking hard nobody is going to know what hit them.”

Her enthusiasm makes the corners of your mouth rise despite everything else. “Can’t say I’m great in front of a crowd,” you warn.

“It’s rare to find people who are,” Keeley responds easily, flicking her hand like she’s brushing off your comment. “That’s why we’re going to make this as simple as possible.”

You nod. “Okay. Hit me.”

“Okay, three things you’re going to want to address,” she begins, tapping on her fingers. “The first is clarifying the ‘note that you ended on’ and those differences with the team. You don’t need to get into specifics if you don’t want to—”

“I really do not,” you tell her.

“Got it,” she says, and the look on her face tells you she really does get it. “Don’t get into specifics. Just say that you’re also upset things didn’t work out, but that it was nothing personal. Truly just leadership differences, like was first said. Even if it wasn’t.”

Your eyes narrow in question. “So, just lie?”

“Welcome to PR, babe,” she replies, and her grin gets more genuine when she sees you chuckle. “Alright, second; we’ve gotta say something about why you chose Richmond. Something that goes beyond our stale press release statement.”

“I didn’t think it was stale,” you offer.

“Aw, thank you!” The smile drops from her face. “But it was. All press releases are. They’re just words on a page, which is so fucking boring. And they get no feeling across. Which is what we need from you,” she says with a point. “You just need to actually say what we’ve already said.”

Once again, you nod. “So, you need it once more, with feeling?”

Keeley blinks back at you, then glances at Rebecca. “My god, I fucking love her.”

The smile that pulls at your lips is involuntary and smaller than the encouraging one that appears on Rebecca’s. “I told you that you would,” she says softly to her, but it’s just loud enough for you to hear. She then turns to you once more. “He brought up AFC culture and our values, but don’t even touch that.”

“'Values' is a loaded word,” Keeley says. “He used it for a reason, but if we’re looking to ignore all this, we shouldn’t be using those types of words.”

“Right,” continues Rebecca. “We’re not looking for a fight here. You don’t want to engage, we don’t want to engage. I think we can all agree we’re looking for this to be over and done with and forgotten about, yes?”

“Yes,” you confirm.

“So, just agree with his comments. Leave it neutral. Non-confrontational,” Rebecca says. “Make it easy. Even if you’re not disappointed to have left the club, say that you are. If you want to touch on ‘culture’ reference AFC culture as a whole. The culture shock of transitioning from womens to mens sports.”

Neutral, you think. Non-confrontational. Easy. You can do that.

After a moment, you nod in confirmation at Rebecca. Then, you refocus on Keeley. “What’s the third thing we need to address?”

Keeley folds her hands awkwardly. “That would be… uh, your friendship with Roy.”

Your face goes hot almost instantaneously. “Oh,” you say softly. You scratch the inside of your wrist, finding it increasingly hard to keep Keeley’s gaze, especially as she continues to sit in that tension with you. “Do I have to? Address that, I mean? We were just friends. A ton of people in the football world are friends with each other. I don’t…” The lie sours your tongue and you glance over at Rebecca, hoping for her to throw some kind of life preserver to you over here. “I didn’t think anyone knew about that. It wasn’t like we were Matt Damon and Ben Affleck or whatever. Our friendship wasn’t mainstream news.”

“Some intern at The Sun found some photos of you two after the 2012 Olympics at a club,” Rebecca explains. Your entire body flushes as you remember that night. “They resurfaced and became relevant after your move to Richmond.”

“Okay, but, if it’s the night I think they’re referring to, we were out with our teams,” you attempt to reason. “There’s no reason other than media speculation that people would think we were… what was implied.”

Keeley points at you. “And that’s exactly what you’re going to say if you’re asked about it.” Then, with a good-humored shrug, she says, “If you want to be petty, you can talk about how this speculation wouldn’t be happening if you were a man.”

Rebecca looks at her friend. “That’s actually not bad. Because it wouldn’t be.”

“None of this would be,” you say to the two women in front of you. The tone you’ve taken is scornful, and while they may not know all the reasons why… they get it.

Keeley reaches forward to grab the bottle of wine at in the center of the coffee table and tilts it to offer it to you. You nod almost immediately, mustering up a small smile as she pours. “So, our plan is to send you in with Ted after tomorrow’s game. They’ll probably, mainly, have questions for you because that’s the drama right now, so I’ve written up something that we can practice and workshop.”

“Ted’s won the press over and is practically on a first-name basis with all of them,” Rebecca continues. “So, he’ll be a lifeline if you need him at any time.”

Keeley nods at the glass she just poured for you. “So, drink up. Because we’re going to run through this shit and roleplay.” She pauses for a moment, catching herself. “The press conference, I mean. Not the sexy kind.”

“Probably better for HR reasons,” you reply.

As that joke slips out of your mouth, you can feel your comfort level with them rising. Something about them is just so… welcoming. You’re in a room with your boss and Roy’s ex-girlfriend. You should be guarded. You should be censoring yourself. But as you continue to sit here, you can’t see yourself doing so.

Perhaps Richmond was willing to offer her some things that we weren’t able to. Perhaps you were right, you fucking prick.

Keeley snorts softly and nods in agreement and you notice the smile that grows on Rebecca’s face. “I’ve heard the HR is rather easily swayed, so we might be able to get away with it,” Keeley responds, grinning as she sees you laugh.

Rebecca claps her hands together. “So. Non-sexy press conference roleplay?”

They both turn to you, and after a hearty gulp of your wine, you sigh. “Let’s get to it.”

LONDON OLYMPICS, LATE JULY, 2012.

You finish the game against North Korea with another win under your belt and return to utter chaos when you get back to the dorms.

While you were the only scorer of the last half, everyone stepped up their game in the ways that they had to. Things still weren’t perfect and there was plenty for all of you to work on going forward, but you were proud of the way your team had turned things around. 

When you return, it’s just past midnight, and all you want to do is go to bed. The game had drained you completely dry, and there was nothing more appealing than the idea of tucking into your horrendously uncomfortable dorm bed. Luckily, unlike last time, Mel’s on the same page as you.

She’d fallen asleep on your shoulder on the bus ride back for about an hour and spent the other three complaining that you weren’t paying attention to her. And why weren’t you paying attention?

Because Roy fucking Kent wouldn’t stop texting you. After you’d read over the text he’d sent to you during the second half (and ignored the weird feeling in your stomach and heat on your cheeks at him calling you an anomaly, God, why did that word land with you so well?), you’d returned to gloat. Hit the post again, he’d said. You hadn’t.

Things had gotten carried away from there. What had started as a slightly antagonistic and taunting back and forth had devolved into a conversation about the sleeping accommodations in the dorms (big-time footballer in his posh london flat doesn’t even have the decency to drop off a mattress topper and some extra pillows? you’d complained to him), then to about which countries you wanted to visit (Australia. For no other reason than to meet a quokka, he’d told you), then to what the fuck a quokka is and why he knew about them (that’s the stupidest looking animal i’ve seen in my life. i want 10 of them, you’d said), to whatever you’d landed on next.

You’d put your phone in your pocket the second you’d pulled back into the Village, helping the team unload everyone’s stuff. Everyone seemed completely dead, something of which you celebrated, simply because it meant there was no team bonding preventing you from going to sleep as soon as possible. The only thing that was doing that for you was Mel’s incessant questions about Roy.

“I really think you’re lying to me about this being a weird sex thing,” she says, readjusting her grip on the bag slung over her shoulder. “Because there’s no other reason that you two should be talking as much as you are.”

You make a face at her. “It’s not a weird sex thing,” you say for what feels like the seventeenth time that night. “We’re just friends. Or, you know, whatever the closest thing to a friend Roy has is.”

“That’s exactly my point,” Mel replies. Her voice echoes through the quiet night air surrounding the dorm’s courtyard. “Roy doesn’t do friends. He hasn’t for as long as I’ve known him.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know him.”

“I don’t. And I say that’s because he won’t let me get to know him. Because he doesn’t do friends.” She shrugs. “I mean, ask Jack or anyone who’s played with him. They’ll say the same.”

When you approach the doors of your dorm building, you make a teasingly innocent face at Mel. “Maybe I’m just different.”

“Right,” she says dryly. “Or he wants to fuck you.”

“Why are you trying to ruin this for me?” you whine as you open the door. “I’m actually, like, kind of having fun with him and this training thing we’re doing. He’s a good guy.” 

Mel shoots you a blank-faced stare. “You were calling him an asshole less than six hours ago.”

“Because he is. But he’s a good guy too,” you respond. “He’s like… I don’t know. Like Ron Swanson or Harrison Ford. Total curmudgeon but in a fun way.”

Mel’s lips purse. “Well, now I can’t stop picturing him with the Ron Swanson mustache.”

You grin, sidestepping fellow Olympians who hang around in the lobby of the dorm. “Have fun sleeping tonight.”

A heavy, exaggerated, long sigh leaves her as you approach the elevator. “Just be careful,” she says, putting her hands up in surrender as you look at her incredulously. “Even if you are just friends. And even if you’re not. As your actual friend, I have to tell you to be careful. All men suck, but athletes tend to suck ten times more.”

“I’ll be fine,” you reply in a sing-song fashion. The elevator doors open and you and Mel step in. “I appreciate you, though.”

“You better,” Mel scoffs. “I’m getting gray hairs thinking you’re doing weird sex shit with Chelsea’s Finest on a random pitch in the middle of London.”

You roll your eyes. “Oh, my God, can these things close any slow--”

“Hold the door!” shouts a voice from the lobby. On instinct, you reach out to stop the doors that were finally closing, feeling Mel’s elbow in your side. The voice gets louder as it gets closer. “Thank you. Did not feel like waiting for this thing again.”

Into the elevator walks (quite possibly) the hottest man you’ve ever seen in your life. He’s got the quintessential surfer look to him, but in a way that works. He’s blonde (while you’re definitely more into dark hair, you can’t deny just how good he looks), at least six-three, and is built like a lean brick house. His curls fall into his eyes that squint into a smile as he looks at you and Mel.

“Oh,” he says as he walks in. “Congratulations on the win today.”

You and Mel stare at him in awe, snapping out of it as you realize that you’re gawking. “Thank you,” you manage to get out. You try to place his accent and what sport he could possibly specialize in, but your brain malfunctions. “I would say the same to you but I’m… uh--”

Luckily, he seems to catch on and saves you from your misery. “I’m Luca,” he says, holding out his hand for you and Mel to shake. “France. Swim team.”

“Nice to meet you, Luke,” Mel says, finally recovering from her trance. “You have any events today?”

“We did,” he says, though he seems to be talking more to you than to Mel. “Placed silver, so we can’t complain.” When you two congratulate him, he nearly brushes you off. “I have heard your team is looking like you’re going to go all the way this year. It is fun to watch.”

“We’re having a good run,” you respond, and he nods at you with that same breathtaking smile. “We’ll see what happens though.”

“Yeah, you are good.” Luca pauses for a moment, then shrugs coyly. “You’re American, so you are not as good as France, but you are up there.”

You see Mel’s head tilt out of the corner of your eye. “Easy now,” she warns with a light-hearted smile. “We beat them by two in our first match.”

Luca throws his hands up, grin turning teasing. “Just telling the truth. I must support my own.”

“Well,” you say, brow furrowed. “We’ll see when we get to the finals.”

“Oui. I believe that we will,” he responds. You notice that he’s leaned in closer than you had previously anticipated and the realization makes your face heat. “We should put a wager on it.”

“You want me to bet on my own team?” you ask rather bluntly, hearing Mel cough to cover a laugh.

“I suppose, yes,” Luca answers. The elevator stops at his floor and his eyes flick to the number on the small screen. “If France wins in your little tournament, you must purchase me a drink when these games are over. But if you win…” He trails off with a shrug as the doors open. “I’ll buy you one. It is only fair, no?”

You blink at him, trying to make sense of this entire situation. Is he flirting with you? Setting a friendly bet to get a drink? Just trying to be a jerk by referring to your Olympic Games as a ‘little tournament’? Then again, he was French, so many that’s just the way he spoke.

Yet another nudge from Mel finally has you answering. “I’m the one playing,” you say slowly, cautiously trying to read him. “I feel like I should have a better prize for winning.”

Luca seems to consider this but shrugs once more. “Those are my terms. Even I cannot make exceptions for beautiful women. Do you accept?”

Okay, so maybe he is flirting with you. This beautiful, French, god of a man is potentially flirting with you. You wish he’d upped the stakes by asking you to dinner or something to offer something more direct, but this is what you’re getting. As he exits the elevator, he puts a hand on the door while he awaits your answer. 

But, you don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s like, you don’t know if you’ll want him as a prize if you win, or as a consolation if you lose. But, you figure, it’s just fun. And he’s hot. So why not.

“I’ll consider it,” you decide, mirroring that grin of his.

Luca nods at you, motioning to the hallway behind him. “The deal expires soon. And now you know where to find me.” The smile returns. “So find me if you’re interested.”

And with that, your movie-star-looking, strange Frenchman saunters off down the hall, leaving you with a million questions and an American soccer player who’s gaping at you.

“That was the hottest man I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mel says, staring at the now-closed doors. “I’m not even into that and… And he… And you said you’d consider getting a drink with him?”

“He made a bet with me,” you argue. “He didn’t ask me out. And even if he did, I didn’t say no.”

Mel looks at you like you’re both insane and the dumbest person alive. “I think we need to get you checked for a fucking concussion, because… what?”

“He didn’t!” you insist, suddenly doubting your own instincts. “Did he?”

The elevator stops and Mel makes a break for the doors. “I can’t even look at you right now.”

You watch helplessly as Mel walks toward your dorm, muttering things about you under her breath that you can barely hear. The second you step off the elevator to follow, you feel your phone vibrate in your pocket. 

Get some sleep, Fourteen. You’ve earned it. I’ll see you on Wednesday.

You find yourself smiling down at your phone, and for a moment, all thoughts of missed signs and Mel’s words go quiet. you too, you reply. big game tomorrow. and you know i’ll be harassing you like you did to me, so you better bring your a-game.

Before you can open your door to tuck in for the night, you get a response. I’m counting on it.

PRESENT DAY, MID-AUGUST, 2023.

Returning to Chelsea is like having one foot stuck in a dream and the other in a nightmare.

On one hand, it’s nostalgic. It’s loud and boisterous and you can’t escape the blue even if you tried. The field’s in the same pristine condition as you remember and the liveliness of it all engulfs you completely. It makes you think about everything that happened here and how easy it used to be.

But, on the other hand… it makes you think about everything. Those aforementioned easier times were a precursor to your downfall, and it all started here. It was the catalyst. Somehow, this place that had been in your life for an inordinately short period of time still had the same effect on you as it did eight years ago. And when you stare out at the field, you can't help but wonder what if.

As those memories start to creep into your head, you suddenly begin to feel very hot and incredibly overwhelmed. The tunnel you’re standing in is quickly going from something familiar to something more liminal. You swear it’s getting smaller too.

But on a day like today, you know you really can’t be panicking about the past. Your team’s on the field and your coaches are waiting for you to join them. There were more pressing things that were worthy of a panic attack.

You force yourself to take a deep breath and turn to the light emanating from the field at the end of the tunnel. You’d never talked yourself out of a panic attack at the prospect of more important panic, but at this point, you’d take what you could get. Focus on the clamminess of your hands. Focus on how bright the field is and how much it’s hurting your eyes. Focus on running through the new plays you now know like the back of your hand. 

As you walk down the tunnel and go through your maniacal little sense check, you decide to focus on something that you hear. And what you hear snaps you out of whatever state you’re in and makes it all quiet down a little bit. Because as you realize what it is you’re hearing, a very different feeling of… something takes over. 

“—HERE! HE’S THERE! HE’S EVERY-FUCKING-WHERE, ROY KENT! ROY KENT! HE’S—”

It’s nostalgia. It’s dread. It’s pride. It’s irritation. It’s… so many fucking things all at once and you can’t possibly stop yourself from smiling at it. The twinge you feel pulling in your stomach stays with you as you suppress that urge. Damn it.

Despite his final years being spent at Richmond and despite his new coaching status, they still adore him. You’d jokingly called him a “Chelsea Legend” more times than you could count, but it was true. It’s what he was. Not that you’d ever say that out loud.

By the time you make it to the field, Roy’s standing up from the coaches’ bench to show his thanks to the stadium. The cheer is resounding, the song continuing amongst it and you swear under your breath as that feeling lingers. 

It doesn’t go away as he turns to sit back down and meets your gaze instead. And, in typical Roy fashion, while he refused to show any emotion when thanking the city that supported him for years, a fraction of a smile makes its way onto his face when he sees you. 

(God, you hate yourself for noticing.) 

Looking away, you take another steadying breath and make your way to him and the rest of your team. The Richmond pullover you’re sporting rubs against your neck uncomfortably, but before you can fix it, you realize something: the cheers are getting louder. Confused, you look up at the jumbotron, knowing that that type of volume couldn’t possibly be for you. 

Lo and behold, it’s so not for you. It’s for Zava in the owner’s box, who’s staring at the camera like a professional wrestler, egging the crowd on. Right. Of course. Fucking Zava. You take a seat next to Roy as you stare up at the screen. 

“You think we have a chance?” you ask him, and you see him turn to you from the corner of your eye. “I’ve heard Rupert’s been putting in work there.”

Roy huffs. “Fucking twat puts in work everywhere but the things that matter,” he mutters, looking back to Zava. Your brows shoot up in agreement. “Let’s hope Zava’s not stupid enough to fucking fall for it.”

“Rupert knows how to stroke an ego,” you reply, glancing over to Jamie, who was warming up on the field, unsubtly making a very conscious effort to not look up at the screen. “He knows how to get what he wants. Speaking from experience.”

Roy scowls, and it’s a bit deeper than you were expecting. But, before you can dwell on that, he’s moving on. “You alright?” he asks. 

You know it’s meant to be casual on his part, but there’s an undertone of concern that you try to ignore. “Yeah,” you say through a sigh, hesitantly meeting his stare as you feel it boring into your cheek. You sigh again. “I’m good.” There’s a bit more conviction behind your voice this time, and it seems to satisfy him enough. “I’m nervous, but y’know. It’s a game. I’m always nervous before games.”

“I know,” he replies. “I’ve been waiting for you to throw up.”

It’s your turn to scowl now. “I only do that for big games. This is basically summer league.”

(While your sarcasm was flat, it didn’t go unnoticed. This was, in fact, a big game. Perhaps one of the biggest of your life. You’d thrown up twice today. But he didn’t need to know that.)

Roy looks unconvinced, but you’re thankful when he doesn’t press you further. “You know what to do today,” he tells you, and the assurance in his voice is palpable. 

You do know what to do today. You’ve got to prove why you were hired. Be the coach you know you can be. Get over that crippling anxiety that’s eating you alive. But instead of getting back into that, you say, “I know.”

“Fucking shook on it, too. Means you have to do it.”

You refrain from rolling your eyes and slump back into your chair. “Yeah, Roy, I know. I made that rule up. I got it.” With another sigh, you say quietly, “Just let me get there.”

His eyes remain on you. You think he’s going to say something else, but before he can, Ted whistles, calling everyone to attention. As the team rounds up, you and Roy stand.

Instead of saying whatever he was about to, he offers you a nod. 

You got this, he tells you silently. 

And despite the weird, horrendous, painful nether space your relationship currently exists in, the action does make you breathe a little easier. 

You send him one back in thanks.

What doesn’t make you breathe easier, however, is the score at the end of the half. What makes it even worse, is the unprofessional, pedantic Kent Rule that Roy has placed on the team that doesn’t allow anyone to speak in front of Trent Crimm.

Roy’s arms cross over his chest as soon as the writer enters the room, your players quieting down in suit. Your head tips back in annoyance, bracing for whatever’s about to come.

But nothing happens. The team remains quiet and wildly awkward and Trent aptly reads the room. Before he can leave, however, Ted’s calling for him to stay and is asking for Roy to chat.

Roy sends you a glance, then follows his head coach to the back of the room. While the players continue their talks in hushed tones, Beard inches over to where you stand. 

“Did I see a playbook in your bag earlier?” he asks quietly, making you flinch in surprise. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you were listening in to their conversation.”

You shoot Beard a look. “I was not,” you say, even though you so totally were. “And yeah? I, uh, take that with me everywhere.”

Beard nods. “Are they your plays?”

“Most of them,” you reply, shifting uncomfortably. You hadn’t talked about that book with anyone since you coached your college girls, and anyone you had shown it to over at West Ham hadn’t given it the time of day. “Why?”

“I want to see them,” he says, shrugging at your surprised expression. “If you want to show them to someone, that is.”

A small smile pulls at your parted lips, and you nod back at him. “That’d be—”

“CRIMM!”

Roy’s voice startles you again, and this time, it gets Beard too. You both turn to see Roy walking back toward the showers, Trent hesitantly following in tow. Ted offers a small smile to both you and Beard as he returns.

“That’d be great,” you whisper to Beard, finishing your sentence. “Thank you.”

The next few minutes are just as awkward as the previous ones. No one knows exactly what to do, or how the conversation behind you is going to play out. You know how hard it is for Roy to let go of things. Forgiveness was never something he excelled at, especially when it came to more personal topics. Not that you were any better at it.

You look around the locker room, watching each of your players whisper animatedly amongst each other. You were down by one and there were no signs of giving up. Each of them knew they were still in this. Even more so, you hadn’t heard any unkind or unsupportive words spoken since you got into the room. 

Your mind takes you back to the second summer scrimmage you coached at West Ham. You were also down by one at the half, and the atmosphere couldn't have been more different. Blame was being shoved down everyone’s throat, clinging wherever it would stick. Nathan Shelley had reprimanded three players within a minute and all of this was for a scrimmage. Nothing about that game mattered or counted. This, of course, was remedied the second you started winning, and the locker room was a wildly different place when you ended up winning by three.

While West Ham seemed to like each other, there was no sense of camaraderie there. It was nice, but nothing was kind. Richmond seemed like a family. You were starting to see that now. 

It wasn’t something you were able to embrace right now, but there was a growing piece of you that was… hopeful that you’d be able to at some point.

At that realization, you feel your body relax for a moment. Only for it to tense back up again as you’re scared for a third time, by Roy and Trent coming back to the group. As soon as he gives the green light to the team that Trent’s safe, the locker room erupts into relieved chaos.

Jamie starts shouting about the passing lanes. Sam yells out something about Chelsea’s lack of defense. More and more voices begin to speak up to offer their insight, and while they’re all on the right path, nobody’s said the right thing yet.

You can feel the words rising in your throat. Your mind continues to spin. Every thought you’d held on to, every tip you wanted to say, every nerve you had about saying the wrong thing was bubbling within you and you could feel yourself about to burst. 

No more being quiet. No more being afraid. No more being passive.

I know that you know them on the field. But they fucking don’t. And they won’t know it until you fucking show them.

You can feel your hands begin to shake back and forth in anticipation of whatever it is you’re about to say. However, you don’t realize that someone’s been watching you until they step beside you.

“C’mon,” they chide, making you jump, “Fucking say it.”

You don’t have to look to know that it’s Roy, but you still turn your head. His eyes fall from yours, to your hands, then back to your face. He’s familiar enough with your tells to know what’s going on. One part of you is grateful to have that. The other part wants to kill him.

The expression you wear reads hesitance, and you’ve only got about three minutes before the team needs to head back out.

As he continues to stare at you, you can hear his voice in your head. This is your job. You signed up for this. You’re a coach. So fucking coach. 

You take a deep, shuddering breath and ball up your fists to stop the shaking. Fucking say it.

So, amidst the noise and the yelling and the bickering, you do.

“EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

The silence that takes over the locker room is immediate and deafening. Every single person stares at you in shock, jaws agape and eyes wide as if they couldn’t imagine looking anywhere else. 

Every person but one. And if you were to turn and shake the sudden anxiety of having all attention on you, you’d see him smiling softly to himself, something like pride gracing his typically stoic expression.

It takes a moment before you realize they’re all waiting for you to say something. You glance over at Ted, who, while still a bit taken aback, nods at you encouragingly. 

You’ve got the floor, Coach. Let’s do it.

“You’re all right,” you begin, motioning to each of them as you speak. “Yes, Jamie, they’re blocking the passing lanes. It’s a straight-up wall once you get into the midfield. And yeah, Sam they’re not marking you guys. Because they don’t have to. You’re all just…” You search for the word, throwing a hand up when you land on, “...running around aimlessly out there because you’re trying to see what’s going to work. But you know what will?” 

They all just continue to stare at you. Whether or not it’s because nobody has an answer or because they can’t believe you’re actually talking like this, you don’t care. Because you answer for them. “You make them mark you. Force them to break down that wall. Draw them out, and then pass through the cracks,” you tell them, offering a small grin as you continue. “I know you guys. And I know it hasn’t seemed like it because I’ve been… quieter. But I know the type of team you are, and each of you are so, incredibly good at what you do. You’re way better than what you’re doing out there. Like, way better.”

Your team remains quiet, but you know they’ve snapped out of their surprised trance because they’re smiling at you. And they look on board. Your grin grows as you notice. “So, let’s go out there and start this season off right, huh?”

That gets them up and out of their seats. The boys erupt in a cheer, clapping as they gather around in a circle, each of them putting their hands in the middle. Dani’s voice echoes through the locker room as he yells, “For Coach’s first game!”

Another round of cheers follows before Ted looks over at you. “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he tells you, and you feel a sense of relief wash over you. “Alright. I second everything she said. Now get out there and show them what you’re made of. Okay, four on three!”

Hands go up after their chant, and the team runs out of the room with a type of energy that you’re not sure you’ve seen before. You hang back for a moment to take a breath.

A hand clamps down on your shoulder, and you turn to see Ted smiling at you. “Nice to hear your voice, Ace,” he says, squeezing it softly. “I hope we’ll hear it some more.”

You send him a thankful smile, nodding in affirmation. “You will.”

Ted squeezes your shoulder once more, heading out behind the team. Beard nods in your direction, looking vaguely impressed in the way that only he can, before following suit. 

That leaves you and Roy in the locker room, and somehow, for the first time, you feel like you can completely relax. A shuddering breath leaves your lips, chest heaving down as you do so. You hear Roy huff when he moves to stand next to you. 

“Well,” he says. “That was one fucking way to do it.”

“I have no idea what I said,” you tell him. “I blacked out after I yelled at everyone to shut up.”

You get a huff of a laugh out of Roy for that one. “You did fine.” He doesn’t miss your dubious look. “I’m serious. You did well.”

“Yeah?” you ask.

Roy nods, expression turning a bit more earnest. “Yeah, Fourteen. You did well.”

The nickname makes a lump form in your throat, and it takes everything in you to ignore it. It’d been a while since you’d heard that one like this. It settles like cement in your stomach and you wish you could shake the feeling. He keeps his gaze on yours until you blink away, focusing on anything but him.

“Thanks,” you manage. Again, because he’s being nice, you suppose you can be too. “And, uh… thanks for pushing me. To do that, I mean.”

Roy nods, albeit a bit uncomfortably. “You needed it.”

“Yeah,” you say again. You hold his stare for one more second before returning his nod, the tension in the air easing within the moment. “Let’s go win a game, Coach.”

You don’t see the way Roy hides a smile as you turn to exit, the reflexive words of ‘not your coach’ on his tongue. But, he bites them back because, well… he is a coach. And so are you.

And as strange as all of this has been for the last week, it hasn't actually felt real to him until now. You’re here. You’re here and working with him and you’re not going anywhere.

The idea of it doesn’t make Roy panic as much as he thought it would.

(Though, unfortunately, that idea is what gets Roy to freak out. But he figures he’s got a bit of time to work that one out.)

LONDON OLYMPICS, EARLY AUGUST, 2012.

“You ever date a swimmer?”

It’s a question you pose to Roy seemingly out of the blue in the middle of one of your many footwork drills of the night. It was all he’d wanted to focus on for tonight’s training session, especially with your quarter-final game against New Zealand on Friday. While the idea of practicing again tomorrow was still up in the air, Roy had insisted on this practice being solely about fixing up what he viewed as your one weakness.

Roy looks up from your feet in confusion. “What?”

“Have you ever dated a swimmer?” you repeat, enunciating your words in a mildly obnoxious manner. “Perhaps a French person? But any swimmer will do.”

He’s still staring at you like you have three heads. “The fuck are you on about?”

You throw your hands up in a shrug. “I’m just asking. I find it hard to believe that amongst the slew of hook-ups I’ve read about, you haven’t slept with a swimmer.”

Those furrowed brows raise in interest at your statement. “Oh, you’ve read about those?”

Your eyes roll. “So not the point of what I was saying. Answer my question.”

“Foxtrot,” he says, watching you look at him in surprise. “Now shut the fuck up and finish your drills.”

“You really want to use our newly-established one Foxtrot of the hour on a simple topic like this?” you question.

Apparently, he doesn’t. “No, I haven’t dated a swimmer,” he finally tells you, exasperated. He glances down at your feet. “Stay on your toes. That fucking left foot of yours is always fucking flat.” Still staring at your feet and ignoring the way you roll your eyes, he inquires, “Why the fuck are you asking? And why do they have to be French?”

“I think I got asked out by one yesterday,” you say. Roy’s gaze meets yours with a speed that nearly makes you stumble in the middle of your drill. “But I can’t tell if he was being a weird little jerk or if he’s just French.”

While his lips twitch up at the last part of your statement, he seems more stuck on the first. “You think you were asked out?”

“Okay, it was strange,” you reply, sounding a tad defensive and slightly breathless. “He was kind of like, negging me? Which, you know, I’m now used to because I started hanging out with you.” Roy shoots you a look, but you carry on anyway. “But he was all, ‘oh yeah, you’re good. But not as good as the French team.’ And then he was like, ‘how about this, if France beats you guys, you have to buy me a drink. But if you win, I’ll buy you one.’ So, I’m kind of confused.” You stop your footwork as Roy’s stopwatch goes off and you take a moment to catch your breath. “And I’m honest enough to admit that I was only entertaining it because he was hot, but I truly can’t tell if he’s flirting with me and asking me out because he thinks we’ll win, or if he’s trying to get free drinks out of me because he thinks we’ll lose.”

“He was asking you out,” Roy says bluntly, continuing to look unimpressed. “He did a fucking horrendous job of it, but yeah. He’s interested.”

You nod, absorbing this for a second before throwing your hands up. “Why do guys do that?” 

“Do what?” he asks. “Ask girls out?”

Your expression quickly matches his. “Yes, exactly. I’d love for you to explain what happens when a man loves a woman, Roy,” you deadpan, biting back a smile as you see one grow on his lips. “No, dickhead. Why do guys think that… that’s the way to ask someone out? Like, I love a little banter as much as the next girl, but you gotta be good at it. And if you’re not good at it…” You shrug. “I don’t know. If you’re bad at flirting, you’re bad at flirting. That’s okay. That just means you’ve just gotta be direct with how you’re feeling.”

There’s a brief moment where Roy seems to consider this, but shakes his head soon after. “Some don’t know how.”

“Well, they should take classes from you or something,” you reply. “Because you’re the most direct guy I know.”

Roy’s scowl deepens. “Thanks.”

“That’s a compliment,” you say, pointing at him. His expression doesn’t change. “I’m serious. I appreciate it. You’re never afraid to tell me shit. It’s admirable.” A wry grin spreads across your face. “Flirting with you must be a three-sentence interaction.”

He casts his eyes up to the night sky. “Fuck’s sake, you’re on one tonight.”

“No, I’m curious. How do you do it?” you press with raised brows. “You told me when we met that if you were trying to ‘chat me up,’ I’d know it. So, c’mon. How does the magic happen?”

Though you were sure that it was impossible, Roy somehow looks even less impressed. “Foxtrot,” he all but snaps at you, making a low noise at the way you crush your lips together to hold back a laugh. “And I’m fucking serious about it this time. Using my one for the hour, or whatever the fuck.”

“Fine, fine,” you say, honoring your established rule with a surrender. “You don’t want to waste your succinct flirting charms on me, I get it. I won’t push you.”

Roy scoffs under his breath, fidgeting with his stopwatch. “They wouldn’t be.”

The words make you pause. “What?”

The stopwatch in his hand beeps as he finishes fiddling with the buttons. “You said they’d be wasted on you.” His eyes flick up to catch yours. “I can guarantee it wouldn’t be a waste.”

He speaks so casually that you almost don’t know what to do. You can’t tell what he means. Would his efforts not be a waste because he… likes you? That he wouldn’t even try if he wasn’t interested? Or is he just so confident in his abilities that he thinks he could get you that easily? That he could turn it on within minutes and make you rethink your entire, weird little friendship that you’ve started over this week? Because, to your knowledge, Roy hasn’t shown any sort of sign that he’s interested in you.

Or has he? Was Mel right again? Have you been reading this situation wrong? Was his bickering and negging his strange way of trying to flirt with you? Getting in your ear during drills? Texting you during games? Calling you an anomaly?

You nearly shake the thought out of your head. He’s Roy Kent. He’s quite literally known for being stoic, for his confrontational personality, and for his hotheaded tendencies. You’ve seen all of those traits since you started training together and nothing’s tipped you off that it could be anything more than friendly. Or whatever his version of friendly is.

You’ve also seen the kinds of women he dates. They’re actresses, singers, models, heiresses-- rich London elite. The shitty little one-bedroom you’ve got back home cries out in shame in the back of your mind. The Team USA Nike campaign that you were barely a part of for the World Cup taunts you. Actress, singer, model, and heiress you were not.

You’re not sure if he sees the look of confusion on your face, but you turn away before you can confirm anything. “Right,” you say, drawing the word out slightly. You kick the ball you’d almost forgotten about toward him. “Anyway. I’m bored of these drills. I need to do something else or I’ll go insane.”

Roy receives your pass, placing his foot on top of the ball with a quirked brow. There’s a hint of a smirk on his face as he attempts to gauge your reaction, momentarily throwing you off. “When have you ever had a say about what goes on in these sessions?”

“Well, never. But I think that says more about your coaching style than it does about anything else, despot.”

Roy rolls his eyes for the umpteenth time that night. He’s found that it’s something he tends to do frequently when you’re around. “I told you that footwork’s the only thing we’re working on tonight.”

“Yeah, but I’m bored,” you repeat. “Don’t you have like… I don’t know. Games we can play?”

“Games?” he parrots. He almost sounds offended. “What, are you five years old?”

You completely ignore his comment and gasp, pointing at him. “Let’s play knockout.”

“Again, I ask, are you fucking five years old?”

You look at him, pouting as you slouch over. “C’mon,” you practically whine. “It’s totally a footwork drill. But it’s fun. And it’s better than you just standing there menacingly with a stopwatch like you’re Frankie Dunn.”

Roy looks at you, then hesitates. “You’re a terrible fucking negotiator.”

That moment of hesitation lets you know that you’ve almost got him. While you may be a terrible negotiator, you’re something else: observant. The thing you’ve learned about Roy is that he physically can’t back down from a challenge. You know that there’s something ironic in that, but you figure that’s why you two have worked together so well so far.

So, your eyes narrow and you allow yourself to step forward to do just that; challenge him. “And you’ve got South Korea in a couple days. From what I saw last night, you need the practice.”

Roy’s head tilts, the beginnings of a dangerous smile twisting the corners of his lips. “Is that right?”

“I recall a lost possession toward the end of the first half that easily could have been avoided,” you say, sticking your leg out to kick the ball out from beneath his foot. The faux passive tone you’ve taken on nearly dissolves at the way his eyes darken. “For the amount that Chelsea's Finest goes on and on about footwork, you’d think he’d be better at it.”

Something between you two shifts the second those words leave your mouth. You’re not sure if it’s the way he’s looking at you (or continues to look at you, God, you don’t think he’s blinked yet) or if it’s your new proximity, but things feel completely different from when you started. The stare you’re holding is charged. It’s not just a challenge anymore— there’s something else there. It makes your mind whirl.

Roy’s voice is low when he asks, “What would you have done differently?”

It’s not what you were expecting, but it offers you a reason to look away from his piercing gaze, take a breath, and shrug. “I don’t know,” you say. “Crossed my mark up a little. Probably would have sent it up the field. Your striker was practically begging to be passed to.” You glance back up at him, with a smile that borders on teasing. “Definitely wouldn’t have hit my mark as hard as you did when you lost the ball.”

“He fucking dove,” is his response, sounding only slightly annoyed. But, when he sees you chuckle, he comes back to, “Who was open upfield?”

His question is genuine, like he’s actually interested in hearing your answer. “I don’t know. Didn’t recognize him. I think he’s a rookie,” you reply with yet another shrug. “But if you led him a little bit, he would have been open.” Roy’s brow draws as he hums something affirmative. When you realize he’s actually thinking about the play, considering what you’re saying, you can’t help but throw in, “Plays like that happen when you’re thinking ahead, Coach.”

Your tone has Roy glaring down at you, and you can feel the look sear through you. “And the goal that happened immediately after that was all instinct.”

“Maybe,” you say noncomittally. "But it could have been better if you all had thought ahead."

That tension between you shifts again, but this time, it’s in a way you’re really not expecting. When Roy looks back at you, there’s something disbelieving in his eyes. As if he can’t figure you out. But it’s also something almost… fond. “You really watched the game last night.”

It’s a question that comes out sounding like a statement. You’re not sure why he looks so surprised or why the emotional state of this conversation keeps going back and forth, but you say the only thing you can think to: the truth.

“You watch mine,” you reply as if the answer was obvious. “And believe it or not, I like watching you play.” Roy blinks at you, obviously not expecting that. For good measure, you add, “Being on the field actually gives you a reason to be a dick, so.”

That same searing stare returns, and it fixates on you long enough to make you itch. You don’t break it, but you rock back and forth on your heels, thinking for a second, maybe you said the wrong thing. Maybe it was a little too real, or a little too friendly.

But before you can sweat it too much, Roy dips his head. “Fuck,” he mutters, shaking his head in disbelief. “Fucking hell, fine. One round of knockout, you fucking child.”

“Seriously?” you ask, not even trying to hide the excitement in your voice.

“Yeah. Get the ball. Let’s go.”

You beam at him, running to go grab the ball you’d kicked away from him previously. When you turn back, you find he’s moving to get his own. “If I’d known you’re this easily swayed by flattery, I would have started being way nicer to you earlier.”

“Don’t push it,” he calls out. Despite the fact he’s not facing you, you can picture the look on his face. “And don’t be fucking nice to me. I want to see you pissed.”

“But we’re playing knockout,” you say, as he turns and kicks his football in your direction. “How can I be pissed?”

Roy smirks. “I’m sure I can find a way.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can too. But why do you want me pissed?”

“Because you play better when you’ve got something to prove,” he tells you. Then, he shrugs. “That, and… well, I wasn’t lying.” 

You scrunch your brow. “About what?”

“It’s a good fucking look on you,” he says, meeting your gaze once more. “I might have to piss you off more often.”

Oh. Right, right, right. Totally. Ignoring the way that that makes your cheeks go warm, you reply, “Well, like you said. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

That’s when Roy smiles at you. It’s accompanied by a chuckle and while it’s not a full grin, it’s something warm and mildly sweet. However, for the first time, you’re stuck by how good he looks. You’d always thought he was good-looking, but you’d never been attracted to him. But for some reason, right here, right now, some switch has flipped. 

The realization churns your stomach and makes you physically look away from him. “C’mon, let’s play,” you say, hoping your forced nonchalance hides anything you’re currently feeling. “I like watching you lose.”

Roy huffs, sounding just a bit incredulous. “Whatever you say.”

PRESENT DAY, MID-AUGUST, 2023.

You walk away from the Chelsea pitch with a tie. And frankly, you’ll take it.

You’ve never seen a team more excited about a draw. They’re rowdy as they gather back into the locker room, and you feel a hint of a grin rising as you watch them from the hall. The petty part of your brain again has you comparing what this would have been like if you still worked at West Ham. Shelley would have berated your players (and likely his coaching staff) about how pathetic a draw was. West Ham was the superior team of the league, after all. Their record had to show for it.

It’s then that a sudden realization comes crashing down on you. Fuck. West Ham. PR. You have to do press with Ted.

As if he could hear his name rattling around in your mind, your head coach steps in beside you. He nudges your elbow with his. “You alright there, Ace?”

You nod quickly, like that’ll hide the panic you know is written across your face. “Yeah, Coach. I’m alright.”

When he folds his hands behind his back, you know he isn’t buying what you’re selling. “You still okay to do this with me?” he asks, motioning to the press room down the hall.

“I’ve done press before,” you reply, though your mildly defensive tone tells him that you’re not certain if you’re assuring him or yourself. At the way he dips his head, you sigh in defeat. “I’ve done this before. Just… never at this level. Or for these reasons.”

Ted nods in understanding. “You know you don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

“I know,” you say, because you do.

“And I’ll be there beside you the whole time. I can take over whenever you need me to.” He nudges you again. “I ain’t too bad with all this press stuff. And I’m more than happy to make a fool of myself if it gets too tough. Really give ‘em something to talk about.”

That gets you to look up at him wearily. “I’m scared to know what that means.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t think we’ll get there,” he says, earning a chuckle from you in response. A beat passes before he looks at you again. “You ready?”

A long, sharp sigh exits your body. When you inhale, you turn back to him. “Yeah.”

“Good,” he says, nodding toward the room. “Let’s go quiet ‘em all down.”

You surprise yourself with an involuntary smile, but it gives you the confidence to follow him.

The press room is abuzz as you approach it and they get even more lively when you enter. You can hear your name being said from every direction and the chaos makes your hands shake. You’ve done this before, you tell yourself. You used to be good at these. It’s part of being a coach. You wanted this. You know how to do this.

Ted, who’s been leading the way, steps out to allow you to go up the stairs first. You clasp your hands together as you walk up, praying that this isn’t the moment your feet choose to fail you and make you trip. Luckily, you avoid disaster and make your way to the further of the two chairs on stage.

You look out into the sea of reporters, eye each of the cameras, and continue to play with your fingers as if it’s the answer to calming your nerves. You don’t realize things have gotten started until you hear Ted’s voice.

“Alright, alright, alright,” he greets the room, and you can’t help but envy how easily the words come out. “Afternoon everyone. What have you got for us today?” All hands in the room immediately go up, each reporter’s eyes shifting from you, to Ted, then back to you. Everyone’s got the same question on their minds. Everyone, except the guy that Ted picks, apparently. “Yeah, Alec. What do you got for us?”

Alec The Reporter stands. “How are we feeling about starting the season with a draw, Coach?”

Thank you, Alec, for starting with the easy question. “Well, I mean, I think we both would have liked a win,” Ted replies, looking over at you. You try your best at a smile and nod along. “But we’re proud of our boys. They turned it around after that first half, due mostly to the insight of our new coach over here. So, I think we’re feeling good about this start.” 

Alec sits down, satisfied with the answer. Before Ted calls on the next reporter, he glances at you. You nod once. You’re ready.

Ted points at a blonde woman toward the back of the room. “Sarah, how are we doing?”

Sarah The Reporter stands now. “Very well, thank you.” Her attention is immediately on you. “Coach,” she says, addressing you. “How was your first game with Richmond?”

Easing it into it, are we? You clear your throat and keep that smile plastered on your face. You can practically hear Roy yelling from the locker room for you to loosen up. “Not echo Coach Lasso, but I’m feeling good. Definitely would have liked a win, but it’s not a loss.”

You don’t think you could have given a more generic, neutral answer if you had tried. Maybe simply answering with ‘good’ would have been worse, but you doubt it. Sarah’s not done with you. “I was more referencing the dynamics of the team in your first game. The culture, if you will.”

Then come right out and say that then, don’t be weird and coy. You fight back a scowl and in doing so, your grin cracks slightly. The phrasing isn’t lost on you. Dynamics. Culture. They’re all words Rupert used just days ago. Stick to the script. Talking points. Don’t let them bait you.

“The Richmond culture’s definitely different,” you reply, perhaps putting too much emphasis on the word. To save yourself, you add, “But I think that’s to be expected when coaching Men's sports. Bit of a different world over here.” You offer a shrug, hoping your smile returns to what it was. “I’m very grateful to the Richmond team and staff for welcoming me with open arms into the warm environment they’ve created.”

You hope Rebecca and Keeley are somewhere cheering you on. That was sweet, neutral, and non-confrontational. Everything you wanted to be. Everything you should be in this line of questioning.

Ted nods at Sarah, cueing her to sit down. He points to a reporter in the front. “Marcus, yeah.”

It’s Marcus The Reporter’s turn to stand. And he comes out swinging. “No use in beating around the bush,” he says, eyes on you. “Do you have any response to Rupert Mannion’s comments about you and your tenure at West Ham?”

This is it. You feel Ted’s foot nudge yours encouragingly as you nod at Marcus and take a breath. Just as rehearsed. You got this.

“There’s not much to say that Mr. Mannion hasn’t already,” you answer slowly. “Unfortunately, some things like that just don’t work out. I too was not happy with the note that we ended on and wish it could have worked out our differences. But that’s all it was. Differences. There aren’t any hard feelings or any sort of bad blood between us. West Ham is a great team that I was honored to be a part of for the time that I was allowed. I’m sure they’ll have a fantastic season and can’t wait to meet them in a couple of weeks.”

You nearly let out a sigh of relief when you finish, thankful that that’s fucking done. The lies don’t sit right on your tongue and feel as though they’re rotting your teeth, but you don’t care. You got it all out, didn’t slip up or trip up, and can hopefully put this to bed.

However, unfortunately for you, Marcus doesn’t seem to be satisfied. Because he’s got a follow-up question you’re not at all prepared for. “And what of Tom MacDonald’s recent comments?”

The world stops. It comes to a complete, emergency-braked fucking halt and you feel as though someone’s punched you in the stomach. You feel like you’ve been ambushed, but you know that if you could have been prepared for this, you would have been. This must have happened today. Perhaps, even moments before this. You can feel Ted’s eyes on the side of your face almost immediately.

He… made comments? He spoke about you?

You can feel your throat constricting, but manage to get a couple words out in a relatively neutral-sounding tone. “I’m not sure what comments you’re referring to.”

“In his post-game interview about a half-hour ago,” Marcus says, glancing down at his notes to read. “He said, quote, ‘My best wishes are to Miss USA and her new Richmond team. I hope she finds her place with them, as I don’t think she ever really found hers here. But, you know, I guess you can’t really know until you really try to get to know the lads in the locker room and in the Coaches' Offices, huh?’”

Your breath’s been stolen from you. You can feel your nose and eyes start to burn as you stare Marcus down, steeling the look on your face. Refusing to show any type of emotion or reaction to that, you gather yourself.

What a fucking prick. What an absolute, horrendously evil, fucking asshole he is. You can imagine the look on his face when he said that. The smarmy fucking smile that accompanied it, the casual nonchalance of which he spewed that last part out with. You want to burn him. You want to destroy his life, his career, everything. The audacity he was to even bring up the locker room and the… 

You feel physically ill. You could throw up on the spot, but there’s something in you that’s keeping you from doing so. As the silence in the room festers, you feel Ted’s foot tap against yours again.

Do you need me to make a fool of myself? His eyes ask as you meet them. 

Quickly, you shake your head. You can do this. You’ve done this before. You used to be good at these. Don’t let him get to you like this. Don’t let either of them win.

You know you won’t come forward with what happened. You can’t. But you weren’t going to sit on your hands anymore. You wouldn’t be neutral anymore. Neutral. That was the word of the day. 

Fuck the word.

You allow another moment of silence to pass before you blink and refocus on Marcus. “I…” you begin, collecting yourself. You can feel the anger rise within you and you know it shows in your eyes. You’ve never been able to hide that. “I do, actually.”

(Somewhere in the Chelsea facilities, Rebecca Walton and Roy Kent are glued to different TVs broadcasting your conference. Rebecca’s unsure if she should be praying that you’ll tear West Ham apart or writhing in fear at the idea of what’s about to come out of your mouth. Roy, however, clocked the look in your eye immediately and can’t remember the last time he’s smiled this big.)

“As I said previously,” you start, straightening your back with a new, harder, more confident tone, “I’m also disappointed with the way that things ended between me and my former team. I also wish things could have been different and that I could have found my place. However, Mr. Mannion was correct when he assumed that I experienced a bit of a culture shock when I joined the club. However, I can’t blame anyone or anything for that but my own expectations for what I assumed AFC Football was going to be.” You offer a smaller, slightly more pleasant grin to the reporters and cameras. “But I can confirm that Richmond has met all of those aforementioned expectations within my first week. I’m excited to continue my journey with them and can’t wait to see where we go this season.”

Hands immediately fly up in response to your answer, follow-up questions galore. You glance over at Ted for a moment (who looks like he’s unsure whether he should be proud of you or sweating this), then suddenly find that a group of people are being ushered into the press room. You eyes lock with the man in the center, and he stares right back at you with an intensity you’re not sure you’ve seen before. Zava.

“And on that note,” you say, quieting everyone down. Relief washes over you now that you have an excuse to leave the room, “I think we’ve run out of time for questions concerning me. We’ve got something much more important to cover.”

When they all see that you’re referring to Zava, the room erupts into even more chaos. You couldn’t possibly be out of your chair faster, ready to make a break for it, and run to the bathroom. Ted’s on your heels as you exit, running in front of you to stop you as you make it to the hall.

“Woah, woah, slow down there,” he says with a soft laugh. “Runnin’ out of there faster than Tom Cruise in— well, any of the Mission Impossible movies, I guess.” You don’t meet his eye, or offer him any sort of pity laugh, something he catches immediately. “You alright, Ace?”

“Yeah,” you say shortly. God, you don’t want to cry in front of your head coach. “I’m good.”

He sees right through you. God, why is everyone at Richmond so fucking in touch with other people’s emotions? “Is there something you want to talk about? Maybe something I should know about—”

“No.” It’s a conversation ender and Ted steps back from you. You squeeze your eyes shut, wanting nothing less than to deal with this right now. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—” With a deep breath, you move away from him. “I’m fine. Really. Thank you for your help in there, Coach. And thank you for a wonderful first week.”

You even don’t hear what Ted has to say in response to that before you’re beelining for the bathroom and locking yourself in a stall, finally allowing the tears that had been welling in your eyes to fall.

Zava announces that he'll be joining Richmond and thirty minutes, later you find yourself in a 'Coaches Group Chat' reading a message from Ted.

After you'd collected yourself, you had the full intention of pretending like everything was normal. You refused to let him win or get the better of your emotions, or fucking... whatever. So, the second you received that text, you immediately signed yourself up for whatever Ted wanted you to do. 

Coaches’ Celebration at Crown and Anchor, the text from him reads. Be there or be square.

However, apparently, you’re the only one who’s concerned with being square, because none of your fellow coaches have shown up yet. There’s a group of three guys sitting at a table in the corner, yelling things at the screen every few minutes. You see a couple who are throwing darts at the end of the bar. There’s a lone man with a pint at the hightop by the door, texting away on his phone. But Ted, Beard, and Roy were nowhere to be found.

The bartop’s nearly abandoned, so you choose a seat in the middle, making sure to reserve three extras. When the woman behind the bar turns to serve you, you can tell she immediately recognizes you, and the smile she offers is warm.

“Good showing today,” she tells you. Then, she shrugs. “Would have liked a win.”

A surprised laugh escapes you. “You and me both.”

“What’ll it be?” she asks.

You hesitate for a moment, glancing at the door. “Um, I’m meeting people here. I—”

“Oh. Right. That’s tonight,” she says, with a knowing look in her eye. Your brow scrunches. “When he gets here, call me over. My name’s Mae.”

Before you can question that cryptic fucking sentence or correct her and let her know that you’re meeting people (plural) here, the pub door opens. Roy walks through, nodding once he sees you.

He grabs the stool to your left. “Nice press conference today,” he says in greeting, taking a seat. 

The teasing note in his voice makes you scowl. “Shut up. I was nervous.”

“I liked the part where you called Rupert a lying prick who needs to keep his mouth shut.”

“That’s not even close to what I said.”

Roy chuckles. “You might as well have. That was a media-trained ‘fuck you’ if I’ve ever seen one.”

God, you could really use that drink now. “I wasn’t even trained for that one,” you admit sheepishly. ”I literally don’t know where that came from. I was like, possessed by some bitchy politician or something.”

“She’d have my vote.”

“She shouldn’t. She’d start a global thermonuclear war because someone implied that she was difficult to work with.” You make a face at Roy as he chuckles. “Besides, I don’t think a Roy Kent endorsement would do her any favors.”

“Probably not,” Roy agrees. “Only person I’ve ever endorsed was you, and look where we are.”

You roll your eyes, casting them to the door. “Oh, my God. Okay, where are Ted and Beard?”

“They’re not coming,” a voice says as they round the bar. Mae stands before you once more, wiping her hands on a rag. 

You and Roy stare at her. “What do you mean they’re not coming?” you ask.

“I mean, they’re not coming,” Mae repeats matter-of-factly. Confusion takes over your expression. “They lured you two here and I’ve been given a ridiculous amount of money to keep you here until the two of you…” She glances down at her phone. “Fix your issues and…” Mae squints at the text she’s reading from. “...’Have whatever conversation you’ve been tiptoeing around.’”

By the time Mae looks up, you’re gaping at her and Roy’s already out of his seat. 

“You’re kidding,” you say faintly, praying that she’ll answer yes.

You have no such luck. “I’m not.”

“Fuck this,” Roy mutters. “I’m not getting fucking trapped at a fucking pub with you on a Sunday night because our stupid fucking team doesn’t understand fucking boundaries.”

You throw a thumb over your shoulder in the direction he’s looking to leave. “I second that. No offense, you seem lovely,” you tell Mae, “but I’m not staying here.”

“Unfortunately, you are,” Mae responds, nodding to the man who was sitting alone at the hightop, who stands up to block the door. He’s got to be the tallest man you’ve ever seen, and he’s built. You have no idea where he came from, but the sight of him alone gives you pause.

Roy’s on that same wavelength because he stops in his tracks, glaring at him. “This is fucking insane,” he says, looking back over to Mae.

“I agree,” she says, then nods to the window. “Take it up with them.”

You follow Mae’s line of sight to see Ted and Beard, sharing a pair of binoculars to stare at the two of you When they realize they’ve been spotted, Beard slowly removes the binoculars from his eyes and glares at Roy. Ted at least offers the dignity of a pity wave.

“Whatever they’re paying you,” you begin. “Roy will double it.”

Roy narrows his eyes. “I will?”

“Yes. You will.”

“Why the fuck am I the one paying? We’ve got the same fucking salary now.”

You whip around in your seat to glare at him, exasperation in your voice as you say, “Oh, my God, you played in the AFC for twenty years. I was in women’s sports for thirteen. We’re not even close to the same tax bracket.”

Roy considers this for approximately two seconds, then turns back to Mae. “Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll fucking double it.”

Mae shrugs, clearly not budging. “I’m a woman of my word, Mr. Kent,” she replies. Then, she motions to the clock on the wall. “I’ve promised to keep you here for at least an hour. What you do after that is none of my business.”

As Mae walks away, you stare at the bartop, truly unable to accept that this is happening in your present reality. There’s no way you’re doing this— no way that Roy’s doing this. This is fucking ridiculous, it’s wildly unprofessional, and—

—And Roy’s sitting down. You slowly raise your head to watch him pull out the barstool, slump into the chair, and put his face in his hands as if he can’t believe he’s actually going through with this. 

He’s giving in. He’s not putting up a fight. He’s obeying the wishes of his friends, he’s resigned to the cause, he’s… he’s putting himself in a position to have the conversation you two have been dreading since you began at Richmond.

Oh, fuck. Fuck. This is really happening.

You glance back over to the window where Beard stands, and he lowers his binoculars when he sees you looking. He sends you a simple, affirmative nod, raising the device to his eyes once more. 

“I assume you’ll be needing those drinks now,” Mae says from the end of the bar, two pint glasses in her hands.

You don’t think you or Roy have ever said ‘yes’ faster.

TAGLIST: @dark-academia-slut @tegan8314, @csigeoblue, @confessionsofatotaldramaslut, @thatonedogwithablog, @hawkeyeharrington, @jamieolivia27, @seatbacksandtraytables, @luvr-bunnyy

[taurussbabe]

Hey! How are you?

I’ve been reading your blog over the past while and been really keen to request something for Mason…

Could you write an imagine where Mason invites the reader to the pub to meet all his mates. It’s a last minute thing, so the reader meets Mason after work. But she of course looks breathtaking…but maybe the reader is so tired from work so Mason takes her home at the end of the night and they have a cosy night in.

I’m very much in the feels right now, so I’ll take annnny fluff 😂

Thank you so much, have a good day! 🥰 xx

about... it's in the request 👆🧸

pairing: mason mount x fem!reader

A/n: hii! I'm good, thank you. I hope you like this anon! 🫶🤍

word count: 1k

"Hi love" you heard on the other side of the line, instantly making you smile

"Hi Babe, what's up?"

You could hear a lot of noise around him, but you were still able to listen to him chuckle at something someone had said.

"Listen, me and some of my mates are going to the pub. Do you wanna come join us?"

"Me?" You asked, not having met his friends yet and not really wanting to meet them after a work day.

"Yeah, I want my girl to meet my friends. And I only have one girlfriend, so yeah, you." You chuckled at his comment and thought about it for a second. "Love?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here, do you really want me to come? Have you seen how I look after work?"

"You mean absolutely breathtaking?" You could hear people behind him laughing and someone say 'oh mason is in looovee', what made you chuckle

"Thank you, and if you really want me to go, I'll be there, just send me the address"

He thanked you and said his goodbyes before hanging up.

Being with mason was different than anything else you've ever experienced, he was the nicest person to you, your ray of sunshine.

You really liked him and you knew he liked you too, but you have yet to meet his friends and family, but you weren't trying to rush your it because you haven't even said 'I love you' to each other. You felt it and you knew he felt you too but you didn't want to rush things, you both were aware of your feelings and that was enough for now.

Soon after he ended the call, you received a text with an address and a heart emoji next to it.

When you left work, you texted mason letting him know that you were leaving and asking for him to meet you outside.

Once you got to the address, you fixed your clothes a little bit, trying to look more fresh and also checked yourself on your phone to make sure your hair was still looking good. You walked the rest of the way and felt someone's eyes on you and when you looked up, you saw mason. You felt your heart flutter at the sight of him waiting for you, hands in is pockets.

"Hey" he said pulling you in for a hug, placing one hand on your cheek, kissing you softly before pulling you towards the pub, but you stopped him, pulling his hand.

"Do I look good?" You ask causing him to move both of his hands to yours, grabbing one and making you do a little spin

"Are you kidding me? Most gorgeous person in this whole country, hell, in this whole world. I'm one lucky guy to have you." His words made you blush and look down, when his other hand grabbed your chin, softly forcing you to look at him. "They're gonna love you, I promise. Are you ready?"

You just nodded, suddenly not feeling brave enough to said any words.

When you walked in the pub he held your hand and gave it a soft kiss, all while looking at you with complete love and adoration.

He pulled you by your hand through the pub until you reached a table full of his friends

"Guys, this is y/n, my girlfriend" he said while dragging his hand across your back, softly caressing you in an attempt to calm you.

Everyone greeted you and you ended up sitting in mason's lap, due to the smallness of the table, along with some of the other girls who were sitting in their boyfriend's lap as well.

"Are you okay?" Mason softly whispered on your ear

"Yeah, just tired" you said and he pressed a kiss to your cheek, followed by kai making 'wooo' sounds, clearly mocking mason

"Let them be, they're in love" sophia, his girlfriend, said, softly slapping his arm. You ignored the love comment and so did mason, only laughing at her gesture.

"Well, it was fun guys, but I think we're gonna head home"

"It was so nice meeting you all" you said as mason man hugged his mates while tou said goodbye to the girls.

.

The car ride home was quiet, his hand on your thigh, softly caressing it, while humming to the song the radio was playing

His eyes were on the rode but he often switched his gaze to look at you.

"You didn't need to come home with me, you were clearly having fun"

"I know, but I wanted to, where you are is where I want to be" he reached for you hand, kissing your knuckles sweetly

The rest of the ride was spent with you both singing along to songs, before he parked in his driveway.

You walked into the house, dropping yourself on the couch before sighing loudly

"I'm gonna run you a bath, be right back" he kissed the top of your head and you smiled at him

.

You got out of the bathroom, hair still half wet and saw mason lying on the bed, only in his sweatpants, scrolling on his phone before he noticed you and patted down on the bed next to him, signaling you to join him.

You laid down next to him and he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you on top of him, head resting on his chest as he massaged your scalp.

"You know" he said, catching your attention causing you to look up at him "what they said, about being in love, they were actually right. I'm in love with you Y/n, you know, I think since the day I met you, and it's time you officially know that." He smiled at you, kissing the top of your head, making you blush slightly

"You're lucky, you know, because I happen to love you too, mason mount" he chuckled at your comment and hugged you tight, planting a million little kisses to your whole face.

The rest of the night was spent cuddling, talking about the future together, and a lot of make-out sessions.

[deathbxnny]

Hi there! I want to say tysm again for doing my Hsr MC x Genshin Impact MC s/o request. So i was rereading that post for the fourth time i think (i cant help but imagine cute and dorky stuff they would do together whenever i reread your post) and a thought popped up on what would it be like if the traveler are with the others. So can i request hcs of the rest of the Astral Express crew (Himeko, Welt, March, and Dan heng) x s/o like traveler from genshin impact

(Btw TYSM FOR YOUR SONG SUGGESTIONS, i went and play all the songs you suggest and DAMN YOU HAVE GREAT TASTE, i can honestly see myself listening to it on loop. Melanie Martinez hasnt lost her touch but then again there is no way she would, she’s too amazing. Rn im currently listening to the entire album after listening to your suggestions. I still prefer her older albums like Cry baby and k-12 but that may change with me listening to PORTALS, its too early to say but i might update on you about it

Also HI THERE FELLOW MARETU FAN! Its so nice to know there’s someone else who likes their songs as well (none of my friends like their songs T.T) What’s your favourite song from MARETU? Mine is Mind Brand, ITS SO GOOD AND IM PROUD TO SAY I LOVE IT) Hope you have a great day/night btw!

- Flower Anon 🌸

-----♡

A/N: Hello Flower Anon! Thank you so much for your request and I'm glad you liked my song suggestions! I'm also so happy to meet another MARETU fan! My favourite song of theirs is DEFINITELY "Magical doctor"! I listen to it all the time and am obsessed with it haha!<33

Content: Traveler reader, tiny bit of angst if you squint hard enough, confessions, mutual pinning(kinda), friends to lovers, fluff, sfw

Reader has no set pronouns!

((Not fully proofread))

-----♡

》March 7th

She instantly did her best to become your friend at first, when you arrived on the Astral Express. She was determined to be your guide and show you the ropes, so everyone let her do it, as you also seemed to trust her fairly quickly.

You two became inseparable quite fast and always spent time together on the Express or on missions. She comforted you, whenever you were sad about your twin and promised to help you find them eventually. Surely you could, if you did it together! Yeah... her crush was very obvious for absolutely everyone and it was honestly adorable. But it was alright, as you felt the same.

She's fiercely protective of you on the battlefield and always shields you first out of everyone. She doesn't let you get hurt no matter what, even if you can handle yourself. You two still need to find your twin together after all, so just let her help you.

-----♡

》Dan Heng

He didn't think much of you at first, until he read up more on you and your situation. And after also talking to you, he started sympathising with your situation deep down, which made him warm up to you alot over time.

Once he does, he let's you hang out with him alot in his room, where he tries finding something on your twin in the archives. Is his way of comforting you, as he indirectly promises you that he'll help you find your twin this way. He doesn't notice his growing feelings for you either, so you might have to confess first eventually.

He's very protective of you and always keeps his eyes on you one way or another. He doesn't let anything hurt you and has your back during any battles you may have. You can count on him to keep you safe that's for sure.

-----♡

》Himeko

Himeko was the one to allow you to stay and therefore quickly became the person you relied on the most. You were quite grateful, even if she didn't see it as a big deal. She always comforts you and reassures you that she'll help you find your twin with all the resources she has.

You spend most of your days with her in the Astral Express watching the stars and drinking tea. She's always so interested in everything you talk about and takes time off work you whenever you need it. It was no surprise therefore, when feelings eventually just flourished between you two.

She doesn't let you on missions without her and she rarely does them as is, so you won't ever be in harms way. She wants you to live a comfortable and peaceful life on the Express, free of any stress or worries.

-----♡

》Welt Yang

Welt understood how you felt and therefore offered to help you out with anything you may need. That also included comforting you, when you were devastated about your lost twin. He promised, to help you find them and actually has a high chance of achieving that.

You spend alot of time with him on the Express and missions, as he is very dependable and comforting to you. Any questions you may have are answered by him with ease, you could practically listen to him talk all day and you do, whenever he explains something to you. He'll be painfully aware of his feelings for you, but will only admit them to you, once he knows you feel the same.

You can rely on him during any battle to protect you. It doesn't matter if you can defend yourself or not, he'll keep an eye on you at all times. You definitely don't have to worry about anything, when he's around.

-----♡

A/N: I hope this was okay, Flower Anon! And I'm so sorry for the wait!<33

[oh-saints]

Would you write a fluffy imagine for Benji Pavard? Like having a little french session and he kisses reader after they get something right? <3

ahjjsskdkl 🤯🤯🤯 oh to be taught by ben.........

but hope you like it nonny! <3

lesson

French is notorious for being a hard language to master and knowing this, your boyfriend is more than happy to provide an extra motivation for you…

benjamin pavard x you

tw: google-translated French words so pls cmiiw

wc: 0.8k

note: this was fun to write but also the hardest bcs I’ve forgotten the French lessons I had during high school. damn, so old. but anyway, I happen to write this during my layover so this is not yet beta-read.

request still open until tonight & you can submit them here!

it was a rather slow day for ben.

having won another Bundesliga trophy, thomas tuchel granted his players a cut to their slacks for this entire day—knowing his players must’ve celebrated wildly at their favourite local pub till the wee hours in the morning—before continuing another rigorous session tomorrow.

so ben decided to surprise you at home with some of the pastry delicacies you’d come to love from his favourite bakery—which was rather hard, finding an authentic French bakery in munich—and your favourite tub of ice cream. your choice of hangover remedy was odd, he found at first, but now he couldn’t ask for anything else to cure his buzzing head.

ben was expecting you to be sprawled in your working station—which happened to be the coffee table in the living room—with sheets and papers and numbers all over the place, as usual, so he was the one getting surprised at the only sight of your laptop and your hair was not tied in a pucca bun. the latter would’ve meant you were dealing your work with stress and that would’ve been something he could take on well by now.

“gauche means left…” you spoke to yourself as you jotted down the meaning. “droit means right… so that means c'est à gauche du four?” (it’s to the left of the oven)

“c’est à côté de four sounds better, no?” (it’s next to the oven)

you were startled at ben’s voice, the owner placing down his shopping bag at the kitchen island. you panicked instantly—not because you thought it could be somebody else, but that would mean ben just found out about your little secret. the one that you’d been working on since you started dating him six months ago.

“ben!” you jumped to your feet, albeit standing awkwardly because you weren’t ready to reveal the reason why you were enrolling yourself to a French lesson. “I don’t know you’re coming home early.”

“coach dismissed us early,” ben chuckled at your weird stance, noticing your nerves, so instead of getting his usual welcoming embrace from you, he was the one who pulled you to his arms. “too many of his players left their heads at the club.”

fuck your initial thoughts, your mind was being taken over by your favourite scent—ben after showering with a bit of his perfume spray—and your favourite kind of warmth exuding from your boyfriend’s body. naturally, you hugged him back, your hands trying to reach one another at ben’s back.

“never thought you’re picking up French, ma chérie,” he placed a well-positioned kiss on the crown of your head. “tu t’en sors?” (how are you managing?)

“pas trop, non,” not really, you replied and ben smiled wider, despite you not being able to see them. for someone who was previously confused about left and right, you were doing better than average in accent and simple phrases like this. “can you help me out?”

“thought you’d never ask,” and when you flashed him those eyes that reminded him of a lost puppy, he was a goner. he didn’t think he could ever say no to that, so cute he could die. instead of dying, though, he kissed your lips. “what topic are we covering today?”

“I’m having troubles with directions...” you said sheepishly as you sat back down, him following suit. “you know I’m generally not good with them too.”

ben laughed because you were right. you and maps shouldn’t belong in the same room without assistance. but he pecked your cheeks anyway. “but I’m already proud of you figuring out how this whole feminine and masculine thing, just so you know, okay?”

a praise from the native certainly uplifted your mood again. you were on the verge of breaking down before ben stepped into the house because god damn, that was difficult. if you weren’t planning on giving him a surprise for their 1st anniversary, you would’ve given up.

but later, you realised that it was rather ben’s preferred method of teaching. he never scolded you if you got any of the pronunciations or the articles wrong, he just corrected you gently. whenever you nailed a difficult word, you’d always get praises from him. and whenever you figured out a sentence on your own, your boyfriend would always add a kiss at the end of his praise.

“bien joué, ma chérie!” well done, my love and followed by a peck, was the most common form of his praise.

but there was also times when he was truly blooming in joy and proud as you aced a more complicated sentence, both by structure and by grammar, on top of not getting confused between left and right. that was when he slipped in a longer sentence because he knew you love his kisses so much, anywhere everywhere.

“félicitations, mon amour,” he whispered after giving you a longer, deeper, more deserving kiss before diving in again for another peck. “tu l’as bien mérité.” (congratulations, my love. you deserve it.)

you really should’ve asked for his tutelage in the first place instead of subscribing to duolingo if this was what you’d get every French lesson.

[sinswithpleasure]

hey, sorry u gotta deal w the weird/dumb asks, sometimes when I read asks that authors answer to, they make me wonder if they're the same person or if ppl r just tolling. hope these ppl are able to find some creativity or ability to put their thoughts into words better soon. :/

anyways, karina looked so good at the milan fashion week. couldn't help but think about bodyguard!reader au w her. like imagine trying to keep ur eyes on the crowd around her instead of at her. karina always teases you about catching you trying to sneakily try to catch a glimpse/check her out no matter how many times you claim it's to make sure nothing is on her or it's because "that guy's hand was getting a little too close to her ass" or something.

man, imagine becoming like her personal bodyguard or being requested to work with her closely more often because she's thinks you're funny and/or good eye candy esp when she's tired of being surrounded by creepy ugly ass old men all the time.

random fic idea: you're standing in front of her changing room behind the scenes or something after a fashion show because she asked the crew if she could try on some of the dresses and other clothes she thought were really cute during it. most of the people, are gone and the few people left were those that were cleaning and packing the last of the shit up. so when a muffled scream for your help comes behind the door, you rush in thinking that someone may have snuck in somehow and waited to prey on her. however, all you find is karina practically naked and you instantly turn around beet red, stuttering out many apologies. all you hear is the clack of heels getting closer to you and no reply, but then you feel her chest press up against your back. she's giving you a backhug and feeling you all up. "k-k ka-arina-ssi, what are you doing?" "yah, i told you so many times already to call me jimin noona when we're not in front of the public, you don't have to be so formal and professional, you know?" (noona bc im younger than her and there isn't enough younger male reader fics out there. fuck, i love women older than me and like, there's just smth abt calling a older woman noona that's just so fucking hawt)

akjsdhfajs sorry if my grammar is shitty and if there's run on sentences lmao head empty,,, only karina. man, i can't stop thinking abt how pretty she would look while you fuck her pussy raw from behind. in front of a mirror with her pretty back all arched and big tits jiggling from each loud thrust against her soft supple ass cheeks.

could i be 🦈anon if you're accepting anons and if it's not already taken? :3 hope u have a great day/night btw!

Hi 🦈 anon!

Are you a psychic? It's not bodyguard, but you're sooooooo close....

I think it's so her to use her body ever so slightly to tease the guy she thinks is cute—if she already has a revealing dress, you know she'd go ahead and just bend over slightly so her poor target has nowhere else to look but at her chest.

God, she'd let all that tension simmer until she can get her man alone with her in a changing room, and whew, it'd be hard to keep quiet from there 🫣.

Doing her in front of a mirror would kill me, by the way. You're sooooo brilliant with that image.

Thanks for the ask <3

Sins.

[ananiel]

This is another fic related to the preavious feel Free to read them first before reading this for better understanding the concept(i Will also sumerize the lore relevent to this fic so that it's not necesary to read the first ones)

So Yes, You are what can be called a chosen one from an entity and You took the powers of others so that they aren't hurt by them by using your time powers to erase their memories of ever having that ability.

So what if every person has a way of hiding their powers from others like an objects that resemblences their Power. Time Will be a victorian watch You will have around your neck while maybe fire will have matches and things like that

The thing about this so called objects is that they can't be destroyed and You still can use your powers if the objects isn't near You, but once You use them the objects Will dissapear for as long as You use your powers, then it returns when You finish your actions

But as spoken before, the more use them, the powerfull You get, and maybe You get the ability to erase memories from "normal ones" too

So talking about the yanderes. They trap You and they can't take your powers away. So as a need to escape, You strat working on using them and training them better until You can erase their memories of You

So You erase your existance from their mind and run away thinking You are safe now. You met someone else, fell in love and forgot about your past "lover" thinking that You are safe and that they don't remember You

Imagine waking up one day and You feel empty, like something is missing and You instantly try to touch You watch, only for it to be gone. You wake up flabbergasted and look around in a hurry, trying to find it

Slowly, your lover walks in , caring the clock, now, your lover doesn't know about your powers or that the clock is only a way to hide them

You get up and start walking to him, but he takes a step back, holding the clock away from you

"give it back" You say in a desperate voice

"no" he simply says and puts it in his pocket. He then grabs your hand and moves You closer to him

"You don't understand, i need it-" he cuts You off by putting a hand over your mouth

"No" he says again

But it wasn't his voice, and it wasn't a difrent tone, it was difrent from the voice You knew your lover had, it didn't belong to him. It belonged to someone else, someone You hoped that would remain in your past

He seems to read your toughts looking at your eyes

"You know love, just because You erased my memories, it doesn't mean i can't get them back"

You try to brake away from his grasp but he holds You tigheter to him

"Don't You understand? You're mine" they say and then break your clock to pieces

He watches as it rebuilds itself around your neck and then he pulls You by it

"What did You do to my lover?!" You scream, voice shaky

He plays with the clock and then looks at You with a mocking look

"i forgot"

[cardiac-arresting-sweetheart]

Hey 🔥🔥

stray cat, hissing, claws, whiskers, catnip

also hi i miss you (gonna read more of the book of bill later!)

HAIIIIIIIII ^_^ YIPPEEEEEEEEEE

original post

answering for 💐 and ☀️ ^_^ (because idk bow emoji well enough to answer these yet to be honest GHHHH it's not personalT_T)

stray cat ♡ how do you feel when your darling interacts with others? do you try to isolate them?

💐 : i don't think about it much tbh.. probably because i don't see it. She's in my head. lmfao. so ? it's hard to answer. i can imagine how i'd feel though... i honestly don't think i'd get very jealous. i don't really get that jealous with Her... i am a bit possessive, yeah, but i don't think about it too much. maybe if She were with me in person or even as an online friend.. i'd probably be more possessive and want to isolate Her.

☀️: can i choose not to answer ? /silly IDK LIKEEEEEE i get jealous so easily it's embarrrassing... i don't wanna talk about it... /silly . i wouldn't ever want to isolate them because 1. would feel too bad 2. would not be the best option for xem at all!!!!!! so no to that.

hissing ♡ are you jealous or possessive when it comes to your darling? if so, what makes you jealous or possessive?

💐 : eee i kinda answered this in the last question but ya a bit..? i'm not very jealous but more possessive. i want Her to only need me. and no one else ^_^ but i feel pretty confident in the fact that She only wants me, i guess. the thought of Her being with someone does make me homicidal though. teehee

☀️: UNFORTUNATELYYYY T_T SAVE ME SAVE ME SAVE ME THE EVIL THOUGHTS!!!! lmfaooo okay. Yeah i do it's pretty bad. it's not as bad as it has been with other darlings but gawd it's annoying. like get out of my head thoughts PLEAAAAAAAASE okay i'll stop

claws ♡ how do you react to any obstacles between you and your darling? what about if they cheated on you or broke a promise?

obstacles: i just. manifest them away ^_^ that's always what i try to do. or try to communicate my way through them but sometimes that doesn't... work... or i decide that that's too direct, i guess? like... sometimes i'd rather deal with it indirectly because i worry about the outcome. not really in an anxious way it just feels like i'm being cautious.

cheated or broke a promise:

💐 : IF SHE CHEATED I WOULD LITERALLY FUCKING KILL HER. deep breaths. okay. ^_^ teehee. i would probably scream at Her for several hours and undergo The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Split in Human History (/ref) and idk if i could ever even get over that my god . but breaking a promise i usually dont really fucking care anymore because She's such a liar (it feels very funny to capitalize Her pronouns as i'm doing this because i'm full on slandering her rn LMFAOOO) lollllllllll ^_^ oh well.

☀️: um explode? I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE THAT HAPPENING i think that would cause me to die instantly idk man. I CANT EVEN IMAGINE IT?!?!!? idk!!!!!

whiskers ♡ how close are you with your darling?

💐 : Merged Souls. all i need to say. Ok let me actually explain more LMFAO. i feel like She's the one i'm closest to in all of my relationships out of everyone i've ever known. it's hard to explain. like i know Her so well and feel so weirdly comfortable with her. like She knows everything about me.. so it's hard not to feel close with Her lol

☀️: i dunno >_< i feel like we're pretty close but we could be closer. i haven't known xem for that long either soooo i dunno! just gotta give it some more time i imagine. i can be patient if i need to be... :3

catnip ♡ what are your favorite things about your darling?

... i will take this as an excuse to enter my weird poetic descriptions.

💐: i choked on Love and felt it bubble up until it engulfed me, leaving me empty from nothing but Her. i could not even see the sky, i could not reach out with my hands. yet Love was the womb - yet its warm was of viscera and blood and ugly insides. i found Her everywhere around me even as i began to regain consciousness: in the walls in the floorboards in the air. i choked on Love again but coughed it out. it stained my hands for the rest of time.

i woke up again and didn't know i had fallen asleep. i felt Her energy envelop me, and i couldn't call it warmth nor cold - simply a blazing fire, entirely its own. entirely Hers. i suffocated myself in the smoke, let Her take my life. it always had belonged to Her anyway.

☀️: it's always the sun; after years of drowning myself in the moonlight, hiding away in the day, i forgot how the light felt on my skin. like a cat, i sunbathed - basking in the radiance. i reached out and felt warmth reach back to me, cradling me as if a delicate newborn kitten. at that moment i was so close to shatter, yet i remained.

and in every phase of the sun, it maintains its own sort of beauty. i could never put my finger on it, but as i lift my head and stare back, i find it. simple as ever. oneself entirely.

^ this all makes sense to me and answers the question. Somehow. did get a little bit sidetracked however HAAH

I MISSED YOU TOO!!! (i say as we are talking live in action) ^_^ hope u have fun yippee

[gen4grl]

Wheeze, here we are at long last before I have to go into College/Life lockdown again. You won't believe how much can happen in a month and the huge projects that lie ahead, but anyways! - It's cool how you have a PHD in Silver Handling. The closest acronym I could get for that was calling it a Psy.D (precarious Silver yeeting doctorate LOL) anyways you're so right, good analytic potential AND its interesting that it's him being Giovanni's son that you point out. I like that bit too, and I'd love to hear what about it makes it so dope to you :D - Twitter is the trenches </3 glad you like it here more :3 tumblr is THE place for neurodivergent folks like us and HARD AGREE on reading game dialogue. its my favorite lore hunting technique. I cannot fight Gyms until every inch of that city has been explored. - Literally bouncing up at down at the mental imagery of Leaf sitting at a blocky computer with Bill. I can just vaguellyyyy reach out to that era through memory, of idk, images, did I ever see them in person? in dreams? all I know is that even in the early 20s the age of dial-up phones wasn't instantly forgotten. maybe at someone's house. but there is SO much 90s to project there and it can be so enjoyable. nostalgia + growing up + that one era that is more romanticized in retro aesthetic and the social culture bc that's how the neighbors eldest daughters grew up and how do we, in modern times, achieve that? - if it's controversial, nobody's yapping about it when it comes to other characters lol. Leaf is pretty consistent if you keep an open mind so taking from other media 100% makes sense. I do it too :P oooh Silver and Leaf meeting on 5 island I love that!! aw man, with the Rocket base and that Scientist I'm just full of giggling here. Pff, Archer is going to get his butt kicked by the boss's son's friend HA tfw the same kids you see running around take down TR - oh I like how you bring the environment and economy into it, solid reasoning for moving + Pallet connects to the ocean that leads to Cinnabar, no? but yeah :D great customer base, little homey place but close to Viridian and the Indigo Plateau as well, plenty of people stopping by! omg Leaf coming from the hair sprouts 😭 oh that's clever I like it! - really enamored with the Bill + Leaf aspects of your story, it's just really speaking to some deep corner of my soul's memory. im so stoked somebody else likes this haha my Leaf is a bit more politically motivated (at least in one universe lol, bc it's the anime which is an utter disaster and she wants to be Champion to clean house and heal the economy) but also someone oughta do something bc Lance is working like 5 different jobs 😭 also, I can imagine with most of your HCs centered around character relationships they might feel like a hard sell compared to cold facts and I 100% feel you. so much of my fic is just character dynamics nobody else would get it LOL. but I'm honored you have so much you'd want to yap about it. fully encourage and love yapisodes - I looked at your Silver post and you said it's only if you're playing as Red but good news, Scientist Gideon STILL asks that if you play as Leaf. He says "Giovanni's kid" not his son :D - at the time you asked that, I was writing 6.1k of a chapter for another fandom, but lately I've had Leaf on the brain again and rlly want to get a solid outline for that series going. <-- the kind of yapping better suited for DMs lol. yess, love seeing how the Pokemon world is connected in media. utterly obsessed with Gen/Evo Specials, you can imagine the cheering when Silver's episode dropped 7 years ago he's so <3 <3 <3 if you like Silver + Leaf sibs then you feel like someone I can smuggle into Dad Lance city that doesn't leave her out, but hey. oldest daughter problems maybe if we incorporate the tendency to focus on Kris/Lyra/Ethan and thanks to Masters, LILLIE?!?!? <-- understand Johto kids but LILLIE???? and every time I see Lance with Red/Blue I'm like "aight, so I gotta fill this vacancy myself"

helllloooo first of all i want to say sorry for taking so long to get to this😭 my last couple months have been a mess and i’ve been dealing with annoying health issues (in every way). i apologise if this reply isn’t as long or thorough as usual🤧

i think what i like about the silver giovanni connection so much is how well it connects johto + kanto story wise. johto to me is still a very undeveloped and lowkey forgotten region unfortunately but silvers character is easily the shining part of the region. i also think it’s cool how he’s also connected to red (or leaf) due to the whole reason giovanni abandoning him being because of red/leaf’s defeat of team rocket, ultimately crushing his ego lol - just one big butterfly effect that i thoroughly enjoy :p and as stated in my post, i like despite how hard he tried not to be, silver was quite similar to his dad until the events of the the johto story. seeing his growth makes me so happy 🤧🤧🤧✨

lmao talking of reading game dialogue … the offical pokemon twitter account made this post for fathers day (i think…? my fathers day isn’t till september 🤷🏻‍♀️)

and the amount of people in the comments literally suprised gave me a stroke like??? lacey being clays daughter is explicitly stated LOL pokemon fans never cease to amaze me 😭😭😭

you’ve really got me thinking about kantrio in the 90s now LOL. i can see them all tryna message eachother on some aol type site and someone’s dial up cutting totally ruining their convos - most likely blue cause daisy wants to talk on the phone to bill or something … hmmm… ideas are brewing!!!! actually to sound old my family had dial up till 2009… insane😭😭 i used to get so mad at my mumma using the phone cause i just wanted to play club penguin LOL - oh and thx u for the compliment on the leaf + bill dynamic <3 bill is one of those random ass side characters that still is so iconic … i have so many hc’s for him too LOL no character can escape my headcanons

oh and i am the minister at the dad lance church!!! i’ve always seen him as not just a mentor to silver but the other johto kids and definitely the kanto trio before they grew up - that saying i still think as adults they turn to him alot since … half of them don’t have dads (both in canon and my hc LOL). i think as adults, the kantrio definitely have a more friend based relationship with him but as kids he definitely helped them through the spotlight that was put on them at such a young age.

ehghhh i very much apologise for this reply, my brain feels very disconnected from my body today and i feel like this hot mess of a reply shows LOL. again, i really apologise for the late reply. i wish you the best of luck with ur studies and writing ✨✨✨🩷🩷🩷

[shyinadarkplace]

So you like Big?- part four

Pairings: Clark Kent x Reader

Warnings: There is definite size kink, future office sex?, Clark Kent (yes he is a warning), language, I can't think of any thing else. There are some dom/sub themes but nothing to crazy. I guess I should also include that Lois Lane is a pretty shite person in this whole series.

Authors Note: THIS IS MY VERY FIRST REQUEST EVER! This whole thing comes from this lovely anon ask -"Hi Sweetie ! Can I request something fluffy/smutty with Clark Kent? He notices the reader has a size kink so he plays with her?" This is where all the good stuff happens. It is a bit of a slow burn based of an established friendship. It does get a little heavy at times but I promise there is a bunch more light hearted and steamy things coming. Thank you for reading.

Word Count:

Please do not copy rewrite, translate or repost my works. No permission is given to use my work in any capacity even with credit. I do not own Clark Kent , Henry Cavill or any of his characters.

Wednesday

  After yesterday there was nothing I wanted more than to stay home. I don’t like conflict, it makes me anxious and I feel more of it coming, but I buck up and go in. Surprisingly the day goes by without a hitch. Everyone is productive and polite. The whole office feels lighter. Hell I even hear the occasional laughter which hasn’t happened in forever. It’s nice. 

*ding*

Big: I’ve barely gotten to talk to you today. Come have lunch with me ? 

Honestly I can’t help the stupid grin that I get on my face. I text back : of course. 

*ding* 

Big: Great! Meet me in the hall gorgeous. 

Instantly my imagination takes a turn towards kinky. I mean my audiobook isn’t helping but still this is a little dramatic. I spend the next ten minutes until it’s time for my lunch break trying and failing not to imagine Clark whisking me away to some secluded part of the building and absolutely dominating me. Or the way his lips would feel as he eats me out. Or better yet what his cock would feel like. As soon as noon hits I fly out of my chair, the sound of Tiff’s suppressed giggle follows me as I  rush to meet Clark who is already waiting. He grins when he sees me. I don’t know why but that makes my chest flutter. We come in for a hug and I hear his deep slow inhale. A hum vibrates his chest as he keeps me close and whispers in my ear huskily “You smell mouth watering. Maybe you should call in the rest of the day.” I giggle and deflect  “Stop it. We both know I can’t do that.” He gets this look . “ But you would if you could?” I laugh a little again “Well yeah no one really wants to work all day Clark.” He nods gently, taking my hand as we walk. I lean against his shoulder and enjoy the feeling. The sun is warm on my skin and as we walk I find myself practically dosing. The low soft tone of Clarks voice pulls me from my head “Hey sweetheart you alright?” I hadn’t realized we were almost at Glorias. “Huh, oh yeah. Just kinda tired I guess. Haha.” He gives me a look cocking one eyebrow at me. “What?’ I ask. “Just makin’ sure my woman is alright that’s all. Come on let’s get you some food.” He says opening the door for me. I whisper a thank you and he just gives me that half smile that turns my insides to mush. 

Clarks POV 

There is nothing I currently love more than the adorable way that (y/n) is looking at me. The touches now charged with the Promise of so much more than I had ever dared to hope. The smiles a reflection of someone shedding the past and welcoming something beautiful and new. Fuck me she is so damn gorgeous. “Clark are you coming? Is everything alright?” “oh. Sorry about that. I was just thinking about how gorgeous you are.” Nessie comes over bright and cheery as always taking us to the secluded table that we always like. “I’m gonna put in y’all’s usual unless you want something else?” We both agree the usual is fine. “Alright. So what book are you reading?” I chuckle as she immediately blushes. “Uhhhh. Well it’s a romance.” (Y/N/N) doesn’t say anything else. Oh no she’s not getting off that easy. Well at least for this conversation anyway. “Hmmmmm,” I lower my voice an octave. “Okay. I’llguess then and you tell me yes or no. Sound good?” The blush deepens. “Yeah okay we can do that but you’ll never guess.” Awwwww this is going to be fun. “ Genre is Paranormal Romance?” She nods. “shifters?” another nod. “I’m going to guess bear shifters? Probably as what Lumberjacks, firemen, forest rangers?” “Yeah forest ranger.” “Okay so now we get to the fun part. size kink?” She jolts upright. “wtf Clark how do you know that?” I have been waiting to say this for a long time. “Because I know you. And you Sweetheart like them Big. Don’t you baby?” Well fuck I think I broke her. It takes her a minute to answer. “I’m not answering that.” I chuckle. “Okay. I can always test the theory. Now back to the book. I’m gonna say lumberjack bear shifter who is also a Dom. Or at least has Dom tendencies. Meets a cute curvy little thing while she is hiking one day and boom. He scents her sweet sugar cookie scent and he knows that they are meant to be. He takes the time getting to know her and they start dating. One night they go back to his cozy cabin where she learns that her big soft bear knows how to play her body like an upright bass. He even sniffs out her choking kink. He tells her how sweet she is. How good she is taking him. And so on. Am I close sweetheart?” She nods as Nellie comes over with our food. I let the food distract her and just enjoy sitting in her company as she eats and reads on her phone. I can smell her arousal. Like honey. Fuck me if I wasn’t hard from talking about the obvious smut book she is enjoying I am now. Achingly so. 

*ding*

(y/n/n) : out of morbid curiosity would you uh like to come over to my place this weekend?

Me: Did me talking about that book get you curious?

*ding*

(y/n/n) answer the question Kent. 

Me: I would love to come over this weekend. 

I can’t help the smirk that plays on my lips. I can’t wait to have her all to myself.

Holy Batmobile. Clark said he would come over this weekend. I am going to lose my mind. The rest of lunch is spent quietly, with Clark sending me heated glances that make my stomach flutter, and me refusing to wiggle in my seat as his words replay in my head. After lunch we hurry back to the office. I head over to my desk and set my bag down and head toward the back stairs. Before the stairs there is a small closet with various supplies, I stop there as an intern frantically rushes by with an overloaded mail cart, which swerves erratically as the big body of Clark trips and sends us both flying in to the closet. The door closes with a thud before either of us can catch it. “I am so sorry!” The intern practically yells as he tries to open the door. “The door is stuck, uhm I will call maintenance.” While the intern calls and talks to them I lean against the wall and sigh. Clark smirks. “What’s so funny Kent?” He doesn’t answer, just takes off his suit jacket and carefully places it on an empty shelf along with his shoulder bag. As he comes to stand in front of me I put my back firmly against the wall. Fuck. Every scene from every book or fanfiction about being locked in somewhere with the object of your desire races through my head. Clark stalks forward with all the predatory grace of a big cat. I’m pretty sure my mind blanks out as he cages me in with his body and forces eye contact. My lizard brain kicks in because all I can think is big he is big. So safe. So strong. So god damn big.

[aena-blue]

Manifestation - Bridge of Incidents/SP dating someone else!?

Hello everyone! 

It’s been a minute since I posted, but I am back to write a little on the topic of “Bridge of Incidents” and also share with you a personal story that is unfolding right now with my specific person (SP) who started dating someone else recently.

What is the bridge of incidents? It is anything that happens between you deciding you want something, until you see that desire in your reality.

The bridge of incidents could include a multitude of events, seemingly good or ‘bad’. It could be conversations, it could be meetings, it could be songs they hear, videos they see, a book they read. The bridge of incidents can include anything you could imagine and multiple things you never even thought of.

Your SP could have a conversation with a friend or a family member that makes the light bulb go off and they think “Damn, I am really in love with this person (you)”. Maybe one of their best friends is getting married and that’s what makes them realise you are the one and they cannot risk losing you to someone else.

Maybe they stumble across a YouTube video and it just hits them in their feels hardcore. Often it’s several things, gradually occurring over time. 

Another thing that happens are ‘random thoughts’ that your SP will have. But these thoughts are influenced by your manifestation. Are you manifesting them thinking about you all the time? Your SP will start thinking about you all the time, it will feel natural to them, they won’t feel forced or influenced. They’ll probably start seeing your name everywhere, things will remind them of you ALL THE TIME. For some damn reason their friends will suddenly bring up your name, all again seemingly random. But it isn’t random, this is your manifestation work influencing them. Their mom will suddenly randomly say how they liked you so much and thought you were the best fit for your SP or something like that.

Sometimes the bridge of incidents will include shit you don’t personally like and enjoy. So let’s address that. Your SP might start dating someone else. 

BUT DO NOT FRET. This happened to me. Recently! 4.5 weeks ago my SP ‘ended’ things with me because he met someone else, said the other person were ‘exciting’, they had ‘things in common’ and he wanted to pursue it and ‘do right by her’ by ending things with me. Yawn.

No like seriously. He told me this straight to my face, he even said ‘I like her more than I like you’, I looked him straight in the face and said “No you don’t”. Anyways, long story short, I didn’t push it, didn’t ask, didn’t cry, didn’t beg, didn’t plead. Simply told him that it was his decision to make and I respected that decision.

He asked if we could still be friends. I said absolutely not, we are not just friends, in fact, I told him to his face that even right now, after saying what he has said, he still wants to kiss me and hold me. He didn’t deny it, in fact he responded “Am I the only one!?” and I said no, of course not, that’s the problem and why we can’t be friends. So there we were. In a bit of a stalemate. I said I was leaving to go home. We hugged and I said I just want him to be happy (he looked away cause he clearly wasn’t) and I walked away with my head held high.

I was able to do this because I have been working on my self-concept on a daily basis and it is hella strong now. I know I am the one and only one, I know I am the best. I know that no one compares to me. I know that I am irreplaceable, irresistible and unforgettable. 

My ego was tempted to cry on the way home, but I pulled myself together instantly and said to myself, I refuse to be a victim to the 3D, I AM NOT.  I will not allow myself to go into a victim mindset. This is the bridge of incidents and I trust in the process. I made it very clear why this happened - I manifested it - as part of the bridge of incidents to get the commitment I wanted. I embraced that he was dating someone else. It did not scare or intimidate me. You know why? Cause whoever she is, she is not me. And my SP is still my SP, and I knew whatever that shit was, it was gonna blow up in his face, probably within weeks. I just knew it. And I persisted in that assumption.

She has a role to play, and that is to remind my SP how AMAZING I am. How I am irreplaceable. How no one measures up to me. How no one else can make him feel as good as me. How no one can give him what I give. I persisted in all of my affirmations and my assumptions. 

I also made sure I wished her no ill or harm, in fact, I imagined her in my head walking off in the sunset with the person who is meant for her, which is not my SP, cause my SP is mine. I claim it. But I also imagined her being hella turned off by my SP and vice versa, (sorry not sorry.) 

My plan was to go no contact and trust the process. Except, my SP never stopped texting me. He kept commenting on my posts, saying I looked “Hot” repeatedly and would send me random texts and memes on Whatsapp. It was quite hilarious if I’m honest. It didn’t surprise me, I am irresistible after all. Within a week he was full on sexting me. But he didn’t make a move at this point so I leaned back.

Part of me felt a bit bad how he was so clearly disrespecting this other girl he was supposedly ‘doing right by’ but, at the end of the day, I know she will move on to be with someone that is awesome for her and I had to take this opportunity to remind myself, that if he was disrespecting her like that, she obviously means nothing to him and it is NOT serious. This is an assumption that works in my favour so I rolled with it. 

He kept texting me every/every other day. Just would not leave me alone. 3 weeks and 1 day after the start of this story - we sexted again and he invited me over. He said “What if this is the last time?” , I literally laughed out loud in my bedroom when I read his text. Boy is delusional if he thinks it’s the last time. I went, he had one of the best sexual experiences of his life (he told me this after) and I left the next day and leaned all the way back again. (Leaning back is not initiating texts, taking a long time to text back or simply not responding at all. Staying away from social media/not posting is also part of leaning back). It’s easy to lean back when you trust and have faith in the process.

He called me up on the phone the next day (boy NEVER calls me). He was very sweet, very awkward, just ‘checking in’. He texted me a bit later asking if I wanted to come out and meet him at the bar he was at. I did.

During this meeting he was so so so so so damn sweet to me. He hugged me several times (long hugs). He’s normally very sexual towards me but he only touched my butt once. Instead it was just the hugs, he stayed close to me and there was a lot of sweet romantic kissing, rather than the usual sexually loaded ones. 

During this night he once again repeated several of my affirmations back to me (this shit works). And it was really nice to hear and see the changes and shifts in him. 

Things went a bit cold after that and I did not hear from him for a few days. Do not fear the silence. In fact, he hit me up this week to ask if I would be home on Thursday. I asked why and he told me he bought me something from my Amazon wish-list (in fact, he bought the most expensive outfit on there). My SP being generous and buying me gifts is one of my affirmations so that was a nice surprise. He bought me a really nice sexy two-piece outfit. But weirdly enough did not ask me out. But as I said before, I trust in the process and I trust in my affirmations and self concept, because they are clearly working!

So today is 1 day after I received the outfit (ended up getting it on Friday not Thursday) so that is how recent this story is. I hope this story provides some re-assurance but also highlights the importance of your self-concept work. You are all that and a bag of chips, you are irreplaceable. Know and trust in the process.

If your SP is dating someone else, make sure you frame your assumptions around that to benefit you in the way that I did. That other person could be (and probably is) exactly the thing your SP needed to experience to bring them closer to you. 

You can never predict or determine how the bridge of incidents will unfold for you. The Universe will orchestrate and arrange things in perfect fashion to get your manifestation to you in the easiest and quickest way and yes, sometimes that will include shit you prefer not to experience as the story above.

If you liked this story and want me to keep you updated on my personal progress, I don’t mind sharing, just let me know! I hope my story will be inspirational, and give hope and reassurance through seemingly negative experiences. 

In my mind, I am determined and I know that I AM in a committed relationship with my SP. This is currently the bridge of incidents in the 3D and I am okay with that. If you have any questions just hit me up!

I now offer email coaching on my Etsy Shop for anyone who needs help, assistance, guidance or just a cheerleader for their manifestation journey.

You can email me or use the “ask me” function for anything that might be on your mind, or on your heart. I am here for you all, always. Please note that the Ask Me’s are only open for dream interpretation, general questions or advice at this time.

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Much love and light to you all and to the universe 💛💜

~ Lady Blue 💙

[outcastmeforalostsoul]

Imagine believing in the fortune tellers at amusement parks. Like the movie big but not as magical.

I can’t help myself but to use them every time I come across one. I have come to believe that the things we read, we can often identify and include in our everyday lives. That being said, those fortunes tend to always blend into my life fairly well.

I’ve always been amused by them. I have saved everyone. Even from 2009. Well I haven’t come across one in a while, up until cedar point with my father over the past weekend. I was overly exited as the machine entered my vision. His name was “pappy”!

Sort of off topic real quick. Times have definitely changed as I paid for my fortune with a mobile tap function. Now I know tap has been around for years but this was an old machine. Weird but cool I guess.

So anyway back to my fortune…. As much as I want to believe it…my fortune talked about a past loved one coming back into my life. Now I don’t have many people from my past that I would still consider a loved one…but one guy instantly came to mind. I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad seen my face turn pure white after reading the fortune.

I keep thinking about what it said…so I looked the guy up on Facebook…he doesn’t do much socials (from what I can remember) so of course everything is hidden. Well everything except from a past we once shared. I’ve deleted a lot in my life but never anything involving him. I did come across a photo of him and his girlfriend, but Facebook kept saying the photo was removed. So I clicked on her name (shhhh we all snoop 😅) and I seen a different photo of her kissing someone else. Now this would actually be the first time this guy is single since we departed ways. I also want to state that I lied to him when we separated… I know lying isn’t great but I was young. Imagine being average in everything you do, not knowing where you want to go or do or how. That was me, fuck, it’s still me. I feel like I’m drifting through life, anyway back to the point. He was so perfect everything a girl good ever dream of. Cute, funny, talented, smart, clean. He was my first love (sometimes I still believe it’s the only guy I’ve EVER loved). So what did i do, I ruined it. I bettered his chances without me. Everyday I kept thinking about how I drink, partied, smoked weed and cigarettes. So I told him I cheated on him…so he would leave me. I wanted him to have everything. Never once did I think I was enough for him. So I let him go.

A couple years later this man came back into my life. Wanting to fix things and to be with me again. Doesn’t the quote go something like “if you love someone, set them free. If it’s meant to be they’ll come back to you”..soo what did I do again, I told him I was talking to someone, that it was serious and I once again let him go. Sometimes I think I’m the biggest idiot on the planet. I feel so smart and then I do dumbass shit like that (excuse my terribly potty mouth).

So I stupidly married my “serious” relationship after only 4 months of dating (it’s ok I hate myself too) and then a month into marriage we had a kid. Honestly he was the worst relationship of my life. It ended in divorce and weird situations. Now I love my kid. I couldn’t imagine life without him. But because of these mistakes, I can’t leave the state I live in. I’m stuck here.

During the divorce process I found another guy. One who made me smile and laugh. But if I’m being honest something is missing in this relationship and there’s something inside me that tells me it may not work out. But ever since I fucked things up with my first love I tend to hold on longer. I don’t want to potentially ruin a good thing ever again. I think I’m stuck in this toxic cycle.

I tell people at work often if this guy (my 1st love) ever came back into my life and said he wanted me back…that I would suffer that hardest choice of my life. But would it be a hard choice? After almost 10 years of being apart I still think about him, still love him and would honestly just love to give him a hug. To have a full day or conversation with him would change my life forever.

I know it’s messed up talking about this while in a relationship. It’s like emotional cheating….though, I’ll probably never see this guy again. So I’m unsure of what I’m writing matters. I’m just happy to but it down, out of my head.

Well I think I said everything I wanted to. So if you read all this then I guess you just wanted to know what pappy said. Who am I to deny you thy fortune?

“A new turn of events will soon come about. A happy reunion with a loved one will make life all that you ever wanted it or dreamed it to be. You have a very trusting nature and are easily taken in by so-called friends. Do not be so anxious to do favors unto others, as there is one is just waiting to take advantage of your good nature.”