#i must be doing something wrong if this asshole is enjoying life more than me. what do you MEAN we both have anxiety.

[gootube]

band au eva and skuggy is a crack dynamic i think about more than i should

[dadbodbuck]

i had a bad day and then @tommystummy started talking about bucktommy arguments and this scenario came up and i latched onto it like a moray eel. please enjoy some raw, unedited tommy kinard angst

Tommy doesn't like talking about it. It being the roughly five years he worked under Captain Gerrard, alongside Howie and Hen, when he was deeply closeted and a major asshole. He can make his excuses, he can try to convey the feeling of looking into someone's eyes and only seeing your father's. He can admit to the humiliating nightmares he used to have of his father storming into the fire station and screaming at him. Neither of those are reason enough to be callous towards people who were being tortured in their own workplace.

Howie and Hen were much quicker to forgive him than Tommy was. In fact, it seemed like it only took one mumbled apology for them to shrug it all off. Water under the bridge, they had said. Just don't do it again.

And God, Tommy never did. After that, after finally taking his sexuality out of the box deep in the animal part of his brain, he told himself he would be different. He expected it to be hard, and on some level it was, but—

Tommy kissed a man for the first time (since high school) forty-eight hours after he was reassigned to the 217, quick and dirty in a bar in West Hollywood. Something in Tommy’s chest clicked into place when he heard the soft, deep moan of a nameless man wearing body glitter. He couldn’t go back even if he wanted to.

Before, he’d been afraid of this exact thing. He’d kept his hands to himself because he knew that his closet wasn’t resealable. It was one-and-done. Gerrard’s boys would have eaten him alive. But Howie and Hen wouldn’t. They didn’t.

It still took him a long time for him to tell them. They didn’t talk often, but they did keep in touch. Tommy owed them so many favors he’d probably be repaying them for the rest of his life, but they seemed more interested in just being his friend. A distant one, but a friend nonetheless.

Distance was fine. Distance was easy. Distance allowed for Tommy to keep his comfortable walls in place, even if he redecorated them a little.

It took him three months to realize how debilitating loneliness was. He was out, now, but without the close, albeit sterile and toxic, friendship of the boy’s club at the 118. Tommy longed for connection. He thrived on it. Something deep, and routine, and constant.

But nobody was volunteering. So Tommy resigned himself to his old hobbies, cars and Muay Thai and basketball, and introduced karaoke trivia to the routine, because he’d always loved singing but never had the guts to do it while he was closeted. It was nice. If anyone noticed Tommy’s near-compulsive schedule of activities, they never mentioned it. The years passed. Howie and Hen grew even more distant. Tommy liked their Facebook posts. He did their favors. He was still lonely, but he successfully put the version of himself he had been on a shelf in the deepest recesses of his brain, never to see the light of day again.

He was a good person now. He was good. He was good despite the skeletons rattling in the closet where his love used to be.

Then, Evan.

No other preamble necessary. Then, Evan. With his broad chest and blue eyes and insane, insane ideas.

Really, was Tommy not supposed to fall in love with him?

Things are great for a while. Idyllic. Peaceful, and exciting, and sweet, and so goddamn sexy, and safe. Tommy feels safe in Evan’s arms.

The problem, of course, is that Evan has this idea that he has to know every part of Tommy. All of him.

“I want to love all of you,” Evan murmurs, as a creeping sense of dread settles in Tommy’s chest, “Even the parts you don’t like.”

Tommy chews on his words, but Evan must sense something is wrong, because he props himself up on an elbow and leans over Tommy, brow scrunched in concern.

“There are parts of me that aren’t worth loving.” Tommy settles on, eventually.

He watches Evan’s heart break in real time, and it does nothing to soothe the growing irritation in his chest.

“I don’t believe that,” Evan frowns, “I think even when you were making mistakes, you were worth loving.”

Tommy huffs a dry, sarcastic laugh. “I beg to differ.”

He doesn’t elaborate. Can’t. Evan doesn’t like this. “Tom, that’s—that’s not how this works. You don’t get to pick and choose which parts of you I’m allowed to love. I don’t care what it is. I love you.”

Tommy isn’t going to win this argument, so he doesn’t even try. Instead, he forces himself to relax, and sighs. “Okay. Sorry, honey.”

He can tell Evan isn’t buying it, by the disbelieving set to his mouth, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he lays back down and presses a gentle kiss to Tommy’s shoulder. It feels a lot like another declaration.

“I love you too,” Tommy says, bringing one of Evan’s hands up to his mouth to kiss his knuckles. Evan revels in physical touch—it’s one of his favorite love languages, although he enjoys pretty much all of them. Mostly, Tommy thinks Evan was just love-starved for a long time.

Tommy is positive beyond doubt that Evan was never like him. It takes little talking to Howie and Maddie to confirm that he’s always presented his heart on a platter, warm and bleeding for whoever wants to carry it. There’s no universe where a callous man like Gerrard would have turned Evan into what Tommy was. Evan has never been a coward.

Tommy hopes that’ll be the end of the argument, but the next day, Evan sits down on the couch and says, “I know talking about your past is painful for you, and I don’t want to force you to tell me anything.”

Tommy senses a conjunction and chooses to remain silent.

“But,” there it is, “I don’t take back what I said.”

“I’m not having this conversation with you again,” Tommy grunts, knowing he’s closing himself off.

“Then let me say it,” Evan presses, “There is nothing in your past that would change how I feel about you.”

“You don’t know that,” Tommy says, through gritted teeth, “You don’t know what I was like to Howie and Hen when they first joined the 118. I said things I shouldn’t have. I let Gerrard and his cronies get away with even worse. I let them get hurt, and I did nothing, because I was a coward.”

Evan looks at him with big, sad eyes. “You were scared.”

“I should have done the right thing anyway,” Tommy argues, “You think Howie and Hen weren’t scared? You think they weren’t terrified? Hen got up in front of everyone and gave us this big speech about how proud she was to be gay, to be black, to be herself. And all I did was stand there with this pit in my stomach. Like if anyone looked over at me they would just know, and then I’d be a pariah. Like her.”

“Tommy,” Evan says, dismayed, “She’s forgiven you so many times over for that. Beating yourself up about it does nothing.”

“It holds me accountable,” Tommy says, “It keeps me from being that person again. I hate the person I was back then. You would have hated him, too.”

“Maybe,” Evan shrugs, like it’s just that easy, “But I try not to hate people. I certainly don’t hate my loved ones for making mistakes. And that’s what you did. Make a mistake. Now, looking back on it, I can see that version of you. That Tommy, who was afraid and in pain. I still love him.”

“Stop!” Tommy snaps, but makes no move to get away from Evan. Evan’s hand stutters, but makes its way to Tommy’s shoulder, thumb rubbing over the joint.

“I love every version of all of my loved ones,” Evan says softly, “I love the version of Bobby who almost drank himself to death. I love the version of Eddie that fought people in the street. I love the version of Chim that punched me. I love the version of Maddie that ran away from me—several times, I might add. I love the version of Hen that almost ended her own marriage when she betrayed Karen’s trust.”

There’s about thirty different stories Tommy wants to explore in there, but Evan doesn’t let him get a word in edgewise. “And I love the version of you that stood by and watched because he was too scared to intervene.”

Evan leans in to plant a tender kiss to Tommy’s cheek. “I love him, and I love the Tommy who was in Iraq, and I love the Tommy who was almost a high school dropout, and I love the Tommy who loved to go hiking after middle school, and I love the Tommy who was late learning how to walk but early learning how to read. It’s not hard. He’s you.”

“I don’t want him to be me,” Tommy confesses, throat tight.

“But he is,” Evan murmurs, soft and soothing in Tommy’s ear, “He’s right here. And he’s doing right by people now. He learned how to be brave. He made amends. Hen and Chim didn’t forgive you because you killed that old version of yourself, they forgave you because you made an effort.”

It’s the first time Tommy’s ever heard it phrased like this, and something about the way Evan says it makes his eyes sting. Evan pulls him into a hug, tucks his face into the crook of his neck, and lets Tommy cry. Rubs his back through it. If Tommy pretends, he could be rubbing the uniform-clad thirty-five year-old firefighter, or the fatigued back of an eighteen-year-old soldier, or the thrifted cotton tee of a middle schooler, or the just-too-tight romper of a toddler. All the Tommies that never got this, all the Tommies that desperately wanted it.

For the first time since his mother died, Tommy is held while he cries, and after nearly thirty years, something in his chest stops aching.

[genderqueerdykes]

in honor of aromantic spectrum awareness week, i thought i'd take the time to talk about how much my personal life and feelings improved after coming to terms with the fact that i'm aromantic. before i accepted this, i found myself in several romantic relationships where i was deeply unhappy, uncomfortable, and made to feel like i wasn't a good enough partner because i just couldn't do or feel certain things.

i've never enjoyed kissing, and cuddling gets uncomfortable for me within the first few minutes of doing so. even hugs are deeply uncomfortable to me unless i really know and care about someone, and even then, hugs only come when that person asks for them. it never occurs to me to touch people this way, the most you'll get out of me is a pat on the shoulder, back or knee.

i ended up dating several people who were very much romantics, and heavily focused on that aspect of our relationship. it kind of felt like torture to me, i felt like i was being forced to live every day like it was Valentine's Day- every day had to be filled with hours of cuddling, kissing, and telling the other person how much i loved them. while not all romantic partners are like this, it wore on my psyche quickly to be paired with folks like this, because i understood how important it was to them, but i just couldn't keep up the performance.

i thought something was "wrong" with me for years and that i just wasn't in touch with my emotions, or that i was somehow embracing some toxic aspects of my masculinity without realizing. it took me ages to remember that i came out as aromantic when i was much younger, but after criticism from my friends, including a friend who was asexual, i stopped identifying with the label, because i was told that aromanticism wasn't real, and that that just made me an asshole.

nearly a decade and several uncomfortable romantic relationships later, it finally clicked that there wasn't something wrong with me, but there was something wrong with the situations i was getting myself into. sure, i love being partnered- i have a queerplatonic partner that i've known for a decade and have only gotten closer to over time. but we've never been romantic. we don't exchange romantic platitudes, and i realized; i've never been happier with someone else than i am with this person.

why is that?

oh. because they don't expect romance from me. they are also on the aspectrum and don't have a romantic partner, either.

this relationship has brought me more joy than any romantic partnership i've ever attempted to pursue. that doesn't mean there's something wrong with me- i was just looking for happiness in the wrong places. i was miserable not because i'm aromantic, but because i was getting into romantic relationships.

romance can be a source of misery. romance does not inherently make everyone happy. we are not all looking for romance as a species. in fact, chasing it makes many people miserable. too many people spend their lives looking for "the one" that they can kiss, cuddle, hold and say all of those mushy things to when they may not even want that to begin with.

i've never been more at peace with myself since finally, fully accepting that i'm aromantic. i love who i am, and i love how i love. i am not loveless, i experience platonic, queerplatonic and other forms of love. but loveless aromantics aren't miserable, either. we are all embracing ourselves in a way that's true to us. we are refusing to warp ourselves to a society that tells us that we all must have homogeneous feelings.

i am aromantic. i am here. my aromanticism is queer in a society that expects and demands romance of me, and this is true of all aromantics, cis, trans, gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, and otherwise. we are here, we are not going away any time soon, and we will not be silent because our identities make some people uncomfortable. we are happiest being who we are.

happy aro week, this goes out to every last arospectrum person out there, appreciate yourselves this week. you deserve it.

[honeygrahambitch]

Jimmy Price stormed into the lab and shut the door closed behind him, making both Brian and Beverly direct their attention to him.

He looked as if he had committed a crime and needed to make a confession.

"I'm going to share something with you but it can't leave this room."

Beverly lifted an eyebrow unimpressed by his theatrics and closed the magazine she was reading.

"Fine."

"You're the Chesapeake Ripper?" Brian asked more for his own amusement but his smile faded when Jimmy's scolding glare was directed towards him. "Alright, alright, go on."

"So you promise you won't tell."

"We pinky promise we won't tell." Brian emphasized.

"I went to grab my sandwich from the fridge. The one that my wife has packed for me. And, after I bit into it I realized it wasn't mine."

"Huh?"

"Not to speak poorly of my dear wife, but the sandwich I grabbed was so excellent that it couldn't have been made by her."

"Asshole." Beverly commented.

"Wait, whose sandwich did you get then?"

"Well, we can do some profiling work regarding that." Jimmy went on. "Caramelized duck. Blue cheese. Fig marmelade."

"You ate Will's sandwich." Beverly concluded instantly and grabbed her magazine.

"Wait, Will can cook like that?" Brian inquired confused.

"Idiot, Hannibal must have prepared it for Will." Jimmy explained as the dread returned to his facial expression. "Oh no...I ate Will's sandwich..."

"C'mon, you can tell Will you bit into it and realized it wasn't yours, he won't be mad about the fact that a bite is missing."

"The problem is...it was so good I couldn't stop."

Beverly closed her magazine again as she and Brian sighed.

"Listen, I will give Will my sandwich."

"Sounds like a fair trade, pal. A ham and cheese sandwich for a Michelin star one. You are lucky Will doesn't care about this kind of things."

Jimmy wanted to say something more but he stopped as Will entered the lab holding some papers, Hannibal right behind him.

Jimmy looked at his friends with the kind of look that says "What the fuck is HE doing here?"

Beverly and Brian had to make an inhumane effort not to laugh at the situation.

Jimmy felt the weight of his crime even harder now that Hannibal was in the room. The man had put all his love into that sandwich for Will and he had eaten it with no hesitation. And poor Will was probably starving.

"Jimmy? Did you-" Will started but Jimmy cut him off before he could finish.

"YES. Yes, it was me. I apologize, I just couldn't stop, it was amazing. It was the best sandwich I had in my life and I-"

"What are you talking about? I am asking you about Alison Brown's blood work." Will was grateful that for once he was not the weird one in the room.

"Yeah, she had diabetes. I ate the sandwich Dr. Lecter has made for you." He confessed again, giving more context.

"Did you enjoy it?" Hannibal asked.

"So much."

"I am pleased to hear that."

Hannibal had already killed Jimmy in three different ways in his head. He had eaten his Will's food. At the same time, he was pleased with the good review. And it gave him a good reason to take Will out for lunch. Will would not starve himself while he was there to help him with the case.

He made the quick decision not to end Jimmy's life that evening.

"You're fine. Hannibal is not the Chesapeake Ripper, you won't die." Will said as he returned his attention to the file he was holding. "Now, what was wrong with Allison's kidney?"

Hannibal eyed Will in a way that held more meaning than Will's colleagues would ever be able to understand. The fact that Will made that comment being completely aware he was the Ripper, made him smile.

[multific]

Mine, Yours

Alpha!Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish x Omega!Reader

Alpha/Beta/Omega Universe

Warnings: swearing, oral, +18!!!

You felt his anger.

Your alpha was angry.

And you knew just exactly why. Graves thought it would be a fun prank to start flirting with you. While you were sitting right next to your mate!

Philip must have gone insane, you knew he liked to tease the boys but this was a new level.

But soon, he messed up very very badly.

When he said "I bet you I would be a better Alpha to you." it was over.

Everyone saw it coming when Johnny threw a punch at him. Graves didn't even have time to react as he fell backwards with his chair. Simon, who sat next to him just took another sip of his drink, unbothered.

"Say that again and I will make sure you will regret even being born!" Johnny was mad, you have never seen him so angry.

It both scared and turned you on.

Another punch was thrown at Graves because he said something you didn't hear. Your focus was now on Johnny.

You stood up, making everyone look at you.

"Let's go home." you said but Johnny didn't listen. You knew it was time for the big guns. "Alpha, please take me home." you said with your best submissive voice, and it finally worked.

It almost even made Simon stand up but he had to remind himself, you weren't his.

Johnny quickly scooped you up and ran out of the bar.

Simon also stood up, leaving Graves on the floor as he headed to the bar to ask for another Bourbon. 

You heard Johnny mumbling something to himself, you understood a couple words such as, dickhead, asshole and something about a hole in his head.

But you knew better than to say a word.

You just let him carry you back home, rubbing his back to hopefully calm him a little.

Johnny had only one weakness, your Omega, you.

And although you were a strong woman, you also knew that Johnny liked the innocent type. He had a thing for protection, much like other alphas.

So, you often liked to play the part of damsel in distress. 

You were convinced Johnny thought you were genuine during those moments, and you didn't want to burst his bubble. Plus, you very much enjoyed seeing him be so though and strong.

So, when you arrived home, and Johnny didn't want to let go of you, you knew that the curtains were up, it was your time to shine.

"You are mine! How dare he?!" his pupils were blown, and his eyes looked foggy, your Johnny was only a shadow of the Alpha in front of you at this moment.

"Alpha," your voice came out a lot softer than you anticipated. You felt a shiver running down his back as you looked at him and he watched you. "You protected me." he silently nodded. "Can I reward you?" he slightly tilted his head, not understanding.

But when you sank down to your knees, the fog lifted from his eyes and it became dark. 

"Can I reward my Alpha for keeping me safe?"

Johnny quickly grabbed you and walked into the living room, he sat down on the couch and placed you in front of him, in between his legs.

He ran his thumb down your cheek and moved to your lips.

"Suck me, Omega." he said and you never felt more wet in your entire life.

You didn't need to be told twice, you were quick to undo his pants and get him naked.

He got rid of his shirt, while you remained fully clothed. 

You had only one goal in mind and that was to please him.

It was so easy to do as well.

No matter what you did, he loved it.

He enjoyed everything you can possibly do. Even if you say you have done it wrong, he would tell you the opposite. 

In his eyes, you can do no wrong.

Much like right now.

He kept on groaning and praising you as you tried your best to fit his length into your mouth.

"You don't have to fit all of it, Love. Yes...Yes just like that." he said as you worked your fingers on the part which you couldn't fit.

He smelled amazing, your alpha was truly a sight to behold. Especially when your eyes locked with his as you kept bobbing your head, your tongue flat against his length. 

His eyes were filled with lust, you felt his hips jerk as you moved down once more, keeping your eye contact the entire time.

You knew he was about to come. 

You want him to, you were ready for it.

You wanted to tell him that it was okay to come, if your mouth wouldn't have been full with his cock.

The only warning he gave before he exploded was that he grabbed the back of your head, fist full of your hair as he groaned loudly and pulled you forward.

You watched as he threw his head back against the couch and let go of your hair, you swallowed to remainder of his essence and allowed him to come down from his high.

You slowly stood up and he watched you with half-open eyes as you took off your dress and stepped out of your panties.

"Shower?" you asked and he simply nodded, you smiled at him as you tried to move out of his reach but he was faster.

He pulled your back against his front, his head in your neck as he growled.

"You are mine." he said in such a deep voice, you were already soaking wet. 

He bit down on your shoulder a little bit as you felt his length harden against your back once more.

You were in for a long night. 

Taglist: @fleursirvart @greenarrowhead @thisismysecrethappyplace @sincerelyfan @theoneanna @aestheticsandmarvel @rororo06 @castellandiangelo @destynelseclipsa @spilledinkindumpster @capsiclesdoll @puknow @alwayshave-faith @alex12948 @lxdyred @imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl @anonymoussherlockandmarvelgeek @praline357 @trshngyn @avengers-r-us @violet-19999 @top1bbgloak  @manduse  @jacalineiscomingforyou @mandoloriancookie @noname2246

In case you want to help out a dreamer: patreon.com/multific  

~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

DO NOT STEAL, REPOST OR TRANSLATE ANY OF MY WORKS 

[pouroverpaloma]

paloma I have revivified my tumblr from its decade-long sleep to beseech you: please talk about Rolan with me because I have Thoughts® and Feelings™ such as: As the eldest sibling do you think he has an oversized and detrimental sense of responsibility that continues to impact him negatively? like during his apprenticeship, do you think he actively avoided Cal and Lia to stop them from either storming the tower themselves or worrying over him when they were supposed to be enjoying being safe in the city, etc. do you think that sense of responsibility extends to Tav or is Tav the person that makes him feel like he doesn't HAVE to be in charge and on top of everything.

also this is hazelrah on ao3!!! I cannot stop commenting on your fics to save my life

Omg hi Hazel!!! ♥️ both Thoughts® AND Feelings™, what a treat you’ve brought for me

As a preface, I’m of the opinion that Lorroakan intentionally isolated Rolan. That’s one of the reasons Lorroakan didn’t let Cal and Lia stay in his fuck-off massive tower. Narcissism and disdain for others also drove that decision, because he’s an asshole, but I really think Rolan can’t be the first apprentice he’s abused. He knew he could never break Rolan’s will if his siblings were there to support him, and, let’s be real, Lia would clearly kill him with hammers the moment he raised a hand to Rolan. He had to get him completely alone.

As for Rolan—I think his gut knew right away that something was very, very wrong with his apprenticeship, even if intellectually he’d talked himself into staying. I think he did the time-old dance of hiding abuse from your loved ones because you don’t know how to explain it, you think you can’t leave, and you’re frankly embarrassed it’s happening to you at all. Imagine him talking about his apprenticeship back in the grove, right? Now imagine him behind the counter in act 3. The whiplash between his aspirations of greatness and the awful reality of life in the tower must have been extraordinarily soul-crushing, on top of everything else. And he just couldn’t let them see that he’d dragged them all to Baldur’s Gate on a false promise.

All that to say: I imagine Rolan told himself that hiding the truth from Cal and Lia was for their own good, but really, he was ashamed and afraid of failing to make them proud.

Because yeah, he feels way more responsible for them than they could ever know or understand. He’s convinced that he has to earn his place in their family by demonstrating his utility. Rolan is caught in that awful trap of trying to deserve what he already has. It’s a self-defeating cycle because there’s no end state: he already has Cal and Lia’s unconditional love from the very start, so nothing he does can ever make him feel like he “achieved” it. He can run himself into the ground trying to earn their love, but he already has it and he’s too caught up in his own self-loathing to see it.

The thing that finally gets his head out of his ass, of course, is Tav. We see him starting to make the turn at the end of the game, when he’s master of the tower and stepping into his confidence, but from there, I think falling in love really shakes his foundations. It forces him to begin to self-reflect in a way he’s never been emotionally safe to do before.

As for how all of this plays out once they’re together! I think their dynamic is a case of unstoppable force versus immovable object. I think he’s going to devote himself to taking care of absolutely everything for them (because nothing could ever be Good Enough for Tav but goddamn it he’s going to try anyway) and Tav is going to devote themselves to taking care of absolutely everything for him (because Rolan deserves rest and gentleness and adoration maybe more than anyone ever has). This kind of all-consuming care manifests in different ways for each of them, some complementary, some adversarial. They get nauseatingly competitive about it but the sex is phenomenal.

And finally—after a while—he begins to understand that he doesn’t have to handle everything by himself in order to be lovable. He can let go of the reins and let Tav be capable sometimes, and it actually makes Tav happy when he does. Somehow, the sex gets even better.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Unsolicited 15

Warnings: bad self-thought/talk, bullying, insults, low self-esteem, money problems, oral/noncon, coercion, cum, some untagged sexual and dark elements.

Wouldn’t mind some feedback! Lloyd was driving me nuts so I had to do it. Thank you in advance 💜

Masterlist

You’re silent as you take out the pre-cut ingredients for an omelet and set to the task, paying passive attention to the instructions housed in the leather folder. You know how to make a goddamn omelet. It’s one of the few things you know for sure.

You thought you knew your husband, thought you knew how life would go, thought you knew at least one person you could count on. You were wrong. Like everything else, it’s turned out horribly wrong. Now here you are, making breakfast for some perverted creep who would care more if the eggs were burnt than about you.

You huff as you put a pan flat and try to light the burner. You flick the button over and over, growing frustrated and hitting the stove with your fist. You growl and hang your head. You’re not going to cry.

“Take it easy, doll face, or I’ll have to take that out of your allowance,” Lloyd teases.

You ignore him and try again. It lights. You focus on the task, straightforward, simple, safe. You go back to the fridge and count out three eggs. You place them on the counter as Lloyd comes up to meet you.

“No one likes waking up to that,” he says.

“What do you care?” You snarl as you search the cupboards and pull out a bowl.

“Well, you seem kind of upset.”

“Isn’t that what you enjoy?”

He doesn’t reply as he taps his fingers on the counter, looming, watching you as you do your best to tune him out. He bends to lean his elbow on the marble and squints up at you.

“Lot of gals wouldn’t take it so well. You’re holding it in and it’s not gonna be pretty–”

“Enough,” you snap as you find the whisk and slam the drawer, “and why the hell don’t you put some clothes on?”

He stands straight and shrugs, giving a playful smirk, “thought you might need something to distract you, I don’t know.”

“Why the hell are you asking me all the questions. You must be loving this. You saw me humiliated again. You were right, all along. I’m not good enough for that asshole– and where the fuck did you get a gun?”

“Talk about a lot of questions, sweet cheeks,” he tuts, “you’re right, let’s not get too deep.”

You sigh and add a touch of milk to the eggs and beat them to a smooth yellow. You feel him, lingering. It’s so fucking annoying. You need him to go away. You peek over as he leans on the counter, his focus still on you. You let the whisk rest on the edge of the bowl.

“Right, you need to leave me alone,” you grab him by the dick and trap him against the counter, pumping him as he gasps.

“Woah, slow down, baby, what–”

“Shut up,” you reach down to cup underneath and give a gentle squeeze, kneading him until he groans. He hardens against your impatient grasp.

“Wait, you don’t just–”

“Daddy, be real pretty and quiet for me,” you mock him as you roll your palm over his tip and make him twitch, “that’s it, let me hear it.”

He bites his lip, eyes round with shock, helpless as you stroke him, standing close as heavy breaths puff from his nose. He looks down and his lashes flutter as he braces the counter, dumbfounded by your sudden assault. You’re not thinking, just doing, anything to get some space from the idiot.

He latches onto your arm, a pathetic attempt to stop you, and you speed up. The friction is hot and dry. You bring your hand to your mouth and lick it, quickly resuming your motion as he pushes his head back and grunts. You speed up until you see the muscles in his neck and chest clench and he grits his teeth.

“That’s it, cum,” you snarl and he lets out a croak, spilling on command as he shudders and his cum drips beneath your fingers and slicken his length. You keep on until he’s trembling and you let him go without pretense.

You turn to the sink to rinse your hand with warm water and dry off with a dish cloth. You toss it at him and elbow his side as you dump the sliced green onion into the egg. 

“Go on, I’ll bring you your breakfast,” you dismiss him with a curl of your lip.

“Wha…” his voice trails off.

“You got what you want,” you continue to pour in fixings, “and I’m busy.”

He doesn’t move right away. When he manages to stand on his own strength, he wipes himself with the dish cloth, strings of his release up his stomach as he exhales heavily. He doesn’t say a word as he retreats and you scowl at your task. Thank fucking god, if he stayed another second, you might have strangled him by the neck instead.

💎

You maintain a wordless trance as you go about the morning. You serve Lloyd at the table and go to tidy the kitchen. You return when he’s finished and get him a second coffee at his request. That’s easy. Taking his orders. It gives you thoughts that aren’t your own.

When you find the table empty, you’re relieved. You continue down your daily checklist, wiping the table and pushing in his chair. You vacuum the elaborate rug in what he refers to pretentiously as the parlour. You replace his glass from the night before with the rest and carry on to the next room.

It’s after noon, you’re tired, hungry, and just as Colin deemed, miserable. You look up, startled at the sudden silent presence. Lloyd is all in black, a jacket zipped to his chin as he has a black bag hooked over his shoulder. You lower the duster and meet his gaze.

“I got a job, you got yours. I’ll be back,” he says.

“Okay.”

“Don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“I didn’t ask.”

He raises a finger, his hands gloved in leather. He points at you, “when I get back, I want that attitude gone. You get one gimme. I won’t put up with that shit a second time.”

You consider him, your jaw steel as you bite down. You nod, “yes, daddy.”

He drops his hand, “good girl.” He turns but stops halfway, “and to offer what little comfort I’m willing to, this place is secured by the square inch. That fucker won’t be back.”

“I can handle him.”

“Yeah, well I’m telling you, you won’t have to.”

You swallow and accept it. It’s not exactly a glowing declaration of affection, but what it is is as close as he’ll ever come to genuine humanity. 

“Thanks.”

“I’m off,” he raps his knuckles on the door frame and swiftly strides away. 

You listen to his footsteps, followed quickly by the front door. You wait until you’re certain he’s gone. You go out to the entryway and peer around. You tiptoe to the side table and slide open the drawer. It’s empty.

You sit on the stairs and set the duster down, rubbing the wrinkle in your forehead as you think. That’s not a good idea as everything hits you at once. Colin and his true feelings, Lloyd and his covert career. Questions you don’t want the answers to; how long had Colin been repulsed by you? Why the fuck did Lloyd have a gun? And what were you doing here?

You drop your head into your hands and suck in a breath. When you let it go, it all comes out. The tears, the grief, the angers, the fear, every emotion drains from you until you're crumpled on the floor. Is this what rock bottom feels like?

[pixeldistractions]

warnings: oh, it’s long. but it’s chatty, so it should go fast...

Jordan was enjoying a pleasant evening at camp and he really didn’t want to bring the mood down. There was absolutely no way Colette had anything pleasant to say.

So…

Colette: declined. Colette: declined.

He would let her complaints go to voicemail, like he usually did.

Then, a short while later, a call from Milo, which was unusual because he’d spoken to the boys only an hour ago.

“Hey, what’s up, buddy?”

But it wasn’t Milo. It was Colette.

“It’s endearing, truly, how quickly you answer the phone for your son.”

“What are you doing on Milo’s phone? Where is Milo?”

Colette’s voice in his deeply-buried memories shouted, Answer your phone, you asshole. He’s dead. Why aren’t you here? You need to be here!

Several combined nightmares flashed through Jordan’s head—that he didn’t answer Colette’s call and something was wrong this time, that something happened to one of the boys, that he wasn’t there, that he didn’t get to say goodbye. Again.

“He’s fine,” Colette said. “He’s playing basketball across the street. But you wouldn’t have answered if I called you from my phone.”

Exhale.

Maria watched him with wide eyes. He patted her shoulder as he got up, mouthing, It’s okay.

He walked off into the dust where they couldn’t hear.

“You blame me for not answering? You usually don’t have anything productive to say.”

“What was so important you can’t answer?”

“My whole life is important,” he said.

“What if something happened?”

“I read the texts, I listen to your nasty voicemails. I talk to them every day. I talked to them just an hour ago. I knew it was just going to be your usual nagging.”

“So, this is what we do now? You send my calls to voicemail, then answer back hours later with a text?”

“It works for me,” Jordan quipped. “How’s Milo’s homework?”

Milo had shown him his most recent report card already, and it was solid B’s and C’s. She couldn’t fault him on that.

“It’s a passable idea only because you’re not here to help him properly,” she said.

“Hate me if you want,” he said. “But you don’t have to punish the boys because you want to punish me.”

“I'm punishing the boys? Oh, that's rich.”

“You are, because you like being mad more than you like being happy.”

Colette huffed. “You don’t know anything.”

“Did you actually want something? Or you just called to insult me? This is why I don’t answer your calls.”

“When did you get so snotty? If you were this spunky when we were together, maybe we wouldn’t have broken up.”

“Yes, we would,” he said.

“Yes. I did want something. The boys said you’re coming back in December? Is that true? Don’t promise them things if you don’t mean it.”

“I mean it,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know yet. A month, at least.”

“Fine. I’ll set the court date.”

“We don’t have to go to court.”

“Yes, we do,” she sneered. “I want a child support schedule. You need a lawyer. There’s a way to do this and you’re doing it wrong. They won’t give you any custody if you don’t have a place to live. That camper is not a home. Not even summers, not even for a few weeks. And my boys aren’t going to sleep on the floor of whatever skank you’ve hooked up with.”

Jordan bristled at the idea of Colette calling Maria a skank.

“You must be fucking someone by now,” she said. “We haven’t had sex for almost a year. And I knew you were with that blonde skank. The photographer. I watched her channel, and she was going on and on about you.”

God damn it, Ingrid. “It’s not real. None of that is real. She’s a writer. She makes shit up. I’m not with Ingrid. I never was.”

He worried then that Maria had been watching Ingrid’s channel, too.

“To be honest,” she said, “I just don’t believe you.”

She must have sensed something was going on, and he hadn’t been totally honest with her. He didn’t know how much information he owed her, but she was the mother of his children and she had to find out eventually. He was surprised, but proud, that the boys hadn’t spilled the beans already.

“So, I have been seeing someone,” he began.

Seeing someone? It was rather more involved than that by now, since she was here with her child, since they were living together, since she left her entire life for him, since he made an irrevocable promise not to break either of their hearts for now and all of eternity? What do you call that? Quite more than just “seeing someone.” They made vows.

“It’s not Ingrid. Her name is Maria and you don’t know her.”

Colette was so silent on the other end that he thought the call disconnected.

Then she finally asked, “How long?”

“Since August.”

“Do the boys know about her?”

“Yes, they do.”

“Those little fuckers.”

“Don’t be like that,” he said. “It’s not their fault. I asked them to let me tell you first.”

“Then what took you so long?”

He couldn’t think of a good answer, but she didn’t wait for one anyway.

“You met her at work?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah. I did.”

“I knew it, you always loved going in there. Must have been some reason, since the money was shit. How are you seeing someone from work if you don’t live here anymore?”

“She’s here now,” he said. “She moved here. She’s living with me. We’re living together.”

“Living together. Ha! She’s living with you, in your camper? Wow.” Colette cackled into the phone. “She sounds like a real winner. Let me guess: bleach blonde, fake tan, tramp stamp, missing a couple of teeth?”

“Fuck off, Colette.”

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” she said. “Whatever, I don’t care anymore.”

He could imagine the way her nose swung up, a single sharp intake and a huff.

“Good, how was your date with the doctor? Everything you ever dreamed of?”

Silence again, a few breaths too long. “He drives a Porsche and his dick is bigger than yours.”

“He sounds like your soulmate, better hang onto him,” Jordan said.

“Since when do you believe in soulmates? Oh, God, never mind, I don’t want to hear it. See you in December.”

click

Jordan knew there was little chance Colette actually went on that date. She should, though. She honestly should.

— “boxes and squares #5.2: come down from the clouds” (10/10)

previously: the blonde photographer // the boys know first // they made vows

Next -> // 5.2 start // index

author’s notes: and that concludes chapter #5.2!

Also I think it makes for a decent transition into #5.3, in which Colette will have the spotlight entirely to herself! (She’s going to love that.)

Chapter #5.3, “hindsight is a bitch” will begin after a short break.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I used to question why I can’t enjoy zk total AUs. Okay, the characters have no future and no chemistry in canon, but what bothers me so much if their relationship takes place somewhere entirely different? And then I realized.

The girl/woman they write about is not Katara. A miserable, hapless and meek damsel in distress, with less backbone than a jellyfish, who silently allows her asshole friends/family to boss her around (even Cinderella protested more – at least she asked for permission to go to the ball and after getting a “no” went there anyway) is not Katara (who never hesitates to tell loud and clear if she doesn’t like something). A cynical and bitter girlboss, so desperately needing to embrace her dark side (and showing no other sides to begin with) is not Katara. A very, very sexy (horny, actually) femme fatale who only lives to screw with hot boys is not Katara. Some sunshine girl next door, so sweet that you’ll get diabetes, and all caring without any goal of her own is not Katara (come on, she’s a model of a well-written female character exactly because she has her own goals). A “strong” woman who suffers in her horrible marriage but only ever throw tantrums instead of doing something about it is not Katara.

The boy/man they write about is not Zuko. Some perfect confident smart person who controls every situation imaginable and is effortlessly cool, James Bond style is not Zuko (he was only truly cool in “The Blue Spirit” I guess, all the other time he was mostly dramatic and I love it). A dream guy who knows all radfem manifests by heart and follows them to a T is not Zuko. A guy who resembles a plushie more than a human being because he’s so soft and uwu and harmless and pure vanilla concentrate, poor victim who never ever did nothing wrong and needs all the comfort is not Zuko (he really is an abuse victim, but this did not make him good in the slightest – other things did). A sexy bad boy with tsundere vibes (“he bullies you because he secretly loves you” bullshit and all that jazz), who a main girl must fix with sex, is not Zuko. A malewife soccer mom, greatest with the kids and household, is not Zuko. A sex god (a rock-drill, according to how his actions in bed are described) in any of these cases is not Zuko (well, I don’t know anything about his sex life, but this is not his main trait anyway, he’s repeatedly shown to be interested in other stuff more).

Anyway, I don’t know all these people and honestly, for some reason they are boring as fuck.

Oh, and this all applies to many zk “in-canon” fics too, actually.

Facts. Also bonus points for acknowledging that Cinderella had a spine, people keep forgetting that on their bullshit "classic disney sucks" takes and it pisses me off.

[tiny-wooden-robot-fics]

Against the Tide - Twenty-One

Rating: Explicit Pairing(s): Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez x Original Female Character, Silvio Ricci x Original Female Character Characters: Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez (Bleach), Silvio Ricci (Ikemen Prince), Olivia DuBois (Original Female Character of Color) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergent, Pirates and Princes, Slow Burn, Action/Adventure, Worldbuilding, Angst, Some Subtle Racism, Sexual Tension, Political Subplot

Previous Chapter: Twenty | Next Chapter: Twenty-Two

Chapter Masterlist

Summary:

“I owe you a thank you,” she says to him. “For persuading your father to hear Barnes out.”

It’s Silvio’s turn to shrug. “I don’t need your thanks.”

His words are cold, and it twists something small and painful inside Olivia’s chest. “Silvio?” She calls his name softly, speaking to him the way one might speak to a wounded animal they’re trying not to scare away.

Read on AO3

As expected, Jarron Barnes doesn’t look happy. 

“You should wipe that look off your face,” Silvio tells him. “You got off easier than I was expecting you to.” He spares a quick glance at Olivia. “And you’re lucky she decided not to mention anything about the kidnapping.”

Barnes doesn’t reply, but his sour expression tells them both everything they need to know about how he feels. 

“It’s not forever,” Olivia says, her tone slightly more sympathetic. She understands how frustrating this must be for him; though his methods were wrong, his motives were not. “Silvio’s right - you were lucky not to get any time in prison, and since probation is just a few short years, you can still enjoy life on Vora and be there to witness the birth of its new government.”

“Small comfort that is when somebody else is taking credit for my ideas,” Barnes mumbles, shooting a pointed glance at Silvio.

“Nobody’s taking credit for your ideas, asshole,” the prince snaps. “And even if everything you suggested comes to fruition, you won’t be solely responsible for making it happen. Have some self-awareness, why don’t you?”

Barnes opens his mouth to respond, but Olivia speaks first. “We could go back and forth like this all day,” she sighs, “and nothing would come of it.” She turns back to face Barnes. “Like I said, it’s not forever. Take care of your restitution, be on your best behavior for the next five years, and do what you can to help Vora and support it.”

Once again Barnes falls silent. Then, without warning, he turns to Olivia. “I guess I do owe you a thank you,” he starts sullenly, his words quiet and his eyes looking at the ground somewhere near her feet. “For not saying anything about the kidnapping.”

Olivia shrugs. “There was no harm done in the long run,” she explains, “and while you went about getting things done the wrong way, your intentions weren’t all bad.”

For some reason, her words make him chuckle. “Yeah… I can see why you’re such a hot commodity around here.” 

She’s still left wondering what that means after Barnes is led away, leaving her alone with Silvio. 

“I owe you a thank you,” she says to him. “For persuading your father to hear Barnes out.”

It’s Silvio’s turn to shrug. “I don’t need your thanks.” 

His words are cold, and it twists something small and painful inside Olivia’s chest. “Silvio?” She calls his name softly, speaking to him the way one might speak to a wounded animal they’re trying not to scare away. 

He isn’t looking at her. She can see his jaw twitching, evidence of the way he’s clenching his teeth. For a moment silence hangs between them, and then he speaks again. “What the fuck do you even see in him, Livvy?” The question comes out quickly, the words jumbled together almost as though he’s forcing them out. 

Olivia’s first thought is that he’s questioning her about Barnes. When what he really means sinks in, however, she draws in a sharp breath. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah,” Silvio replies. This time he does look at her. “At least tell me what I lost to.”

“It isn’t like that, Silvio.” 

“It is, and you know it is,” he scoffs. “So tell me what you see in him.”

“He’s kind,” Olivia starts quietly. “It may not seem like it to you - or to many other people - but he is. He looks out for the people in his care. He remembers all the little details about the men on his crew. He knows all the things that make up who they are, and he treats them accordingly. He’s generous, he’s clever, he’s thoughtful… he’s more prone to sentiment than you might think---”

“You’re right,” Silvio interjects. “I shouldn’t have asked. I guess I didn’t really want to know after all.” He shakes his head. “But what now? How do you build a life with someone like him?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Is that another question you don’t really want to know the answer to?”

Her question gives him pause. He looks briefly away from her, his eyes on his parents standing at the other end of the large meeting room where Barnes’ inquest was held. The room is starting to empty out, and he sighs as his gaze lands back on her. “I never got over you,” he says. There is something he’s let creep into his voice, something Olivia wonders if he’s aware of himself. It sounds like pain. “I never let myself get over you because I always imagined you’d come around. I thought…” He trails off, then starts again. “I thought the life you have now was just something you needed to get out of your system. Something you’d enjoy for a few years until you’d had a sufficient taste of what it was like. I should’ve known better than that, I suppose. You were never meant for a life like this.” 

“But there was always a part of me that was thinking you would come around,” he continues. “Or maybe that part of me was just engaging in wishful thinking. I slept with other women, but I never wanted anything serious. I couldn’t, because what if you changed your mind and came back? What if you decided one day that you did want to marry me?”

His words are like a knife, seeking out the most tender parts of her heart and slicing them to ribbons. 

“Don’t give me that look,” he mumbles grouchily. “That looks suspiciously like pity, and I hate that shit.”

“I’m sorry,” she says softly. 

“I know you would’ve been miserable with me,” Silvio admits with a sigh. “I knew that back then, and I know it now. Nothing has changed about any of this except the fact that even though I never really had you, I lost you to a man everyone kept telling me was better than me in every way. I lost you to a man who, on paper, should never even be able to compete in the same league as me. He’s a fucking pirate, Livvy. Do you know how humiliating it was to lose the woman I love to a fucking pirate?” 

His present-tense use of the word ‘love’ doesn’t escape her notice. “I wish you would stop saying it that way,” she tells him. “I’m not a prize to win or lose, Silvio. I’m a human with feelings - feelings that even I couldn’t predict.” She inhales deeply and lets that breath out in an exhale, hoping that it doesn’t sound too much like a sigh. “You have to know that I didn’t foresee things turning out like this.”

“I know,” he relents, grudgingly. “But a whole hell of a lot of good that does me now… right?” He sighs, and before Olivia can respond he’s speaking again. “I suppose if nothing else, I have him to thank for my closure.” To her surprise, he offers her a bitter smile. “So thank him for me, yeah? Thank him for being the reason I could finally move on and let you go.” 

Olivia isn’t sure what to say to that. He’s smiling, but it’s bitter and full of sadness, and it makes her heart ache. “Silvio--”

“Let’s make a success of this - Vora’s new government,” he interrupts her breezily, already turning away from her. “One last thing we get to do together, right?” 

He doesn’t wait for her to answer. 

--

“You know,” Prisca starts, “I seem to remember not long ago, there was a headstrong young woman that worked for me who swore up and down that she wasn’t interested in anybody. Less than a year ago, that was… But rumor has it that that same young woman’s part of a set now.” She smirks at Olivia over the rim of her coffee mug. “You happen to know anything about that?”

“‘Long months in close quarters make for unpredictable events,’” Olivia mutters, echoing her mother’s words from what seems like a long time ago. “God, I can’t believe my mother was actually right about me… though not in the way she thought she’d be.”

Her expression makes Prisca laugh. “Mothers have a way of doing that, you know. It’s purely to piss us off.” 

“I’ll say.” She takes a sip of her own coffee. It isn’t quite dawn, and the tavern is still quiet, most of its patrons having stumbled up to their rooms or back to their ships less than a quarter of an hour ago. Olivia knows the peace and quiet of this time will be short-lived; soon Prisca will have a morning rush, and the cycle of business will begin anew. 

“Wasn’t hard to see it coming though, Livvy,” Prisca asserts. “He’s been head over heels for you since that first day he asked me if you were for hire.” 

“I’m sure that isn’t true.”

“It is,” the older woman insists. “A body only had to look at him whenever you were in a room to know how he felt about you. He may have busied himself with other girls, but I’d bet everything in my money chest he was just passing the time until you came around.” She looks past Olivia’s shoulder, to the open door of the Sundance. “And if you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask him yourself?”

Puzzled, Olivia turns and follows Prisca’s gaze. “Oh,” she says softly, when she spots him standing in the doorway. 

“Come on in, Grimm,” Prisca calls, as she pushes away from the table and stands up. She addresses her next words to Olivia. “I’m gonna get started on peeling the potatoes,” she tells the younger woman. “Take your time - I’m just getting a head start and there’s no need for you to rush and join me.” With one last knowing look and a smile, she heads in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Hi,” Olivia says, when he’s seated himself in the chair Prisca vacated. 

“Hey, beautiful.” 

The way he looks at her when he says it makes her want to cover her face. She raises her mug to her face instead, taking another sip of her coffee. “Would you like some coffee?” She asks, poised to go to the kitchen and pour him a mug.  

“Don’t mind if I do,” he smirks, reaching over and plucking her mug from her hands. He never breaks eye contact with her even as he raises it to his lips, and Olivia has to once more fight the urge to cover her warm face. When he’s taken a sip and pushed the mug back into her hands, he speaks again. “She’s right, y’know.”

“Hm?” She’s busy looking down at the mug in her hands. She lifts it to her mouth, placing her lips over the place where his lips were just seconds ago. There is something about the gesture that makes it feel almost as intimate as the things they get up to when they’re in bed together. 

“She’s right,” he repeats, when he has her full attention again. “Thought it would hurt my ego to say it, but I guess I’m not the man I used to be.” He chuckles. “I wanted ya from the day I met ya, and not just to have in bed. I knew if you’d have me, I’d never touch another woman… wouldn’t even wanna look at another woman.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to come around,” Olivia replies softly. 

“What for? It was worth the wait,” he grins. He reaches out, and Olivia thinks he means to swipe her coffee again. He bypasses the mug and lifts her hand to his mouth to press a kiss to the back of it. “Don’t ever let me wake up from this dream, yeah?”

He stands, letting go of her hand to cup her cheek in his palm. Olivia knows what’s coming when he leans down, but it’s still a pleasant surprise when he presses his lips to hers in a gentle kiss. “I’ll come find ya later,” he promises, the words whispered into the corner of her mouth right before he pecks her there. 

“Try to stay out of trouble,” she smiles after him as he leaves. 

He smirks back at her from the doorway. “Now why would I do that?”

--

“Livvy!” Prisca calls from the front. “You got a visitor.”

Her first thought is that perhaps it’s Grimmjow again. She knows it hasn’t quite been two hours since she saw him last, and she is almost loath to admit that even the smallest bit of time spent away from him now feels like an eternity. 

“Coming,” she calls back, rinsing the soapy plate in her hand and setting it carefully in the drying rack with its mates. Quickly drying her hands on the towel hanging from her apron, she makes her way to the front. 

She lets out a gasp of surprise when she sees who her visitor is. “Daisy!” 

The young woman beams back at her. “Hello, Lady Olivia,” she says, dipping into a curtsey. “I wanted to see where you worked.”

“You came all the way here by yourself?” Incredulously, Olivia looks around. The tavern is only about half full, and no one seems to be paying the younger woman any mind. 

“Kenny brought me,” Daisy answers.

“Oh.” She tries not to let the word sound like what it is - a sigh of relief. “Where is he now?” 

“He went on, to the Hellcat,” the younger woman explains. “Said he was going to go see the Captain, but that he would come back and collect me after a little while.”

Olivia nods in understanding. “Would you like something to eat or drink?”

“Some coffee would be nice,” Daisy says shyly. “It smells really good.”

“Wait right there,” Olivia smiles. “Actually, pick a table. I’ll bring coffee and join you for a bit.”

When she gets back with the tray of coffee, she finds Daisy sitting at a table in the back corner, her hands folded in her lap as she quietly observes the other patrons. Olivia joins her, pouring coffee and pushing one mug towards Daisy while keeping the other for herself. “Help yourself to whatever you like,” she says. She points at the small silver pitcher and the bowl. “Cream and sugar if you take it that way.” Daisy thanks her and prepares her coffee. “Ahhh,” she breathes, after the first sip. “It tastes even better than it smells.”

“Prisca’s been making this coffee for years,” Olivia smiles. “She’s got it perfect.”

“I’ll say.”

“So… things seem to be going well with Kenny,” Olivia starts. 

Daisy’s cheeks flush pink. “I really like him,” she admits, her voice soft. “And he… he really likes me.”

“I can tell.” Olivia resists the urge to laugh, thinking of how inseparable the two of them were on the journey home from Vora. 

“He’s gone down to talk to the Captain about something,” Daisy reiterates. “And I came to ask you something.”

“Oh?” Curious, Olivia raises her eyebrows and inclines her head, indicating she’s ready to hear whatever it is. 

“I wanted to ask you,” Daisy fidgets in her seat a bit, looking down into her coffee. “If it would be okay for me to come with you when you go back to Vora.”

Surprised, she stares at the younger woman. “With me?”

“Yes,” Daisy nods. “Maybe not as your lady’s maid if you don’t need one. Just as… a helper.”

Still a little stunned, Olivia shakes her head. “But… Daisy,” she starts gently, “you know I’ll be there for at least two years, right? This isn’t just a visit where I’ll be staying for a few weeks and then coming back to Clario. This is,” she pauses, the gravity of the words hitting her hard. “It’s not a permanent stay, but it is long term.”

“I know,” Daisy nods with a smile. 

“What about your mother? And the queen? Weren’t you training to take over for your mother before you left Clario?”

“I was. But in my absence, my mother began training my sister. She’s only a year younger than me, and she would have learned anyway.”

Olivia chuckles; she can’t help it. “Oh, Daisy,” she sighs helplessly, when her laughter has subsided a bit. “It seems I’ve rubbed off on you in more ways than one, and for that I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Daisy chirps brightly. “My mother wasn’t upset, you know. She says life at sea must have done me good because I’m less timid and mousy now than I was when I left.” She smiles. “And believe it or not, she really likes Kenny too.”

“I’m glad to hear it, on both counts,” Olivia says sincerely. “And if coming to Vora is what you want, then I’ll be happy to have you along. Is that what Kenny’s gone to see the Captain about?”

Daisy nods. “He wanted to ask if it was ok for me to come along on the Hellcat.” 

“I’m sure the Captain will be alright with it,” Olivia tells her. “He’s very fond of you.”

“Though not as fond as he is of you,” Daisy laughs. 

“Now I’m sure of it,” Olivia laughs with her. “I’m definitely rubbing off on you.”

Previous Chapter: Twenty | Next Chapter: Twenty-Two

Tag List: @chrissie2003 @kryptoniteforsale @pamakali

[landofzero-archive]

Absolute - The Pure Land 11

(Location: Absolute Stage)

(An hour later. The world’s biggest idol festival, Absolute, is now commencing.)

Gatekeeper: ………

Ibara: It seems like this Absolute is going to be very turbulent, Uncle.

Nonetheless, as the saying goes, “those who enjoy gambling enjoy losing.”

No matter what happens, the system is set up so that you, the owners, will turn a profit. Sooo, I’m not worried about the business aspect of things.

Gatekeeper: …… Little Ibara. Yer alive?

Fuun. You’re still a cheeky brat that flirts with life and death.(1)

In that way, you’re not similar to that Boss at all.

Ibara: “You’re alive?” That's my line. NEGI-shi was worried about you, Uncle Gatekeeper.

Actually, it’s a shame that you’re alive. I was just thinking of getting my hands on your sizable inheritance after you died, Uncle.

Gatekeeper: Haa, it's not like I'll get killed by this disorderly rabble that’s lost Priest, its head.

Inversely, since Priest disappeared after SS, there was a period of time where I also let my guard down.

Of course, I lectured those assholes who attacked me telling them “Don’t fuck with Uncle,” and disciplined them by dropping my fists on their heads.

Ibara: And in reality, you must have done something a hundred times worse than that, huh…… As always, I feel sorry for your enemies.

Gatekeeper: Kukuku. That’s why yer shouldn’t try to pull anything stupid against me, Little Ibara.

The clean freaks of the world have the wrong idea about things.

You can’t erase dirt like me. Because the world is filthy down to it’s very core, no, the world itself is a massive pile of dirt.

To erase all the dirt would mean erasing everything in this world.

The people who want to make the world a more pristine place are the ones with a screw loose in their head.

Ibara: I’d like to somewhat argue against that sentiment. Well, as you can tell from my costume, I don’t have the time for unnecessary discussions at the moment—

Let’s just get straight to the point and ask you what you want to hear.

Although, I’m sure it’s not necessary to ask. The fact that you’re alive and talking so haughtily—

Gatekeeper: Oh. Come to think of it, you brats were also going to perform in Absolute. I was so uninterested that I forgot.

I’m going to say something yer not going to like. When you wear a stage costume like that, you look even more like that Boss when he was younger.

Ibara: I suppose all young children’s faces look the same to you, Grandpa.

Additionally. Appearance-wise, I’m sure he looked more like His Excellency than I do?

Gatekeeper: Don’t lose yer temper. If yer do that, I can’t help but think yer cute …… And?

Ibara: A moment ago, I conducted business with Shaka-shi.

Essentially, I plan to settle this matter by accepting all of his terms and agreements.

Gatekeeper: Fuun, what did that Shaka guy say? Well, I assume I already have a pretty good guess as to what it is?

Ibara: He wanted freedom.

In this land of the free, America, he was simply a slave stripped of his freedom more than anyone else. (2)

And we, Eden, are here to release him from those circumstances.

Gatekeeper: Kukuku. That asshole Shaka is also foolish. He can’t do anything other than singing or dancing; he’s just an amateur who easily gets exploited in the business world.

And yet, he’s trying to set up a match in “our ring” called business.(3)

Ibara: Please don’t lump “us” together. You and I are different.

“I”’m different from you, who snuggled up close to the person you loved more than anyone else and swore your loyalty to him, but couldn’t even reach his heart in the end.(4)

Gatekeeper: ………

Ibara: At first, it was a contract. I was merely the employer, and His Excellency was just a useful tool.

However. Now, that cold and dry relationship is starting to change slightly. Truly, only a little.

The emotions that filled my heart when I heard Shaka-shi’s arguments earlier was probably not merely anger at having my property stolen.

Yes, I would like to think that’s the case.

Gatekeeper: So that’s how it is. As much as possible, let us be yer example of what not to do so yer can achieve your own success.

I’ve said it many times before, but I have high hopes for yer, Little Ibara. If that’s the case, then yer, all of yer, could maybe reach a different future from the Boss and I.

…… God, what a foolish sentiment.

Go on, now. There’s still things you have to do here.

Ibara: Yes. The long-awaited performance by Shaka-shi, the previous winner of Absolute, is about to begin.

This Absolute has been a bit lacking in cohesion and excitement since Priest, who held a great influence over the competition, has died.

If the previous champion, not to mention a huge star who’s won six times in a row, appears, that relaxed atmosphere will be blown right away.

Or rather, everyone might get too excited and an outburst would occur, so please do your best to keep things under control, Uncle.

Gatekeeper: That’s what I came here to say. Yer really should summarize more briefly, yer always so roundabout.

Well, it doesn’t matter. That’s fair, and Uncle Gatekeeper will give you a late New Year’s gift.

Ibara: Thank you very much, Uncle.

Gatekeeper: I don’t need any thanks. It’s not even worth one sen. (5)

For the flow of the story, I’ll act like an uncle and say this. It’s fine if yer an idiot, as long as yer all alive and well— that’s the best thanks yer can give me.

Ibara: I see. My, my, that’s nice and very cheap♪

TL Notes:

The phrase originally used for “flirting with life and death” is “不貞不貞” (futeifutei) which is just the word for being an adulterer written twice. Futei is also a homophone for “不逞” which means insubordination so there’s potentially a pun here as well.

Mod hated writing this line as much as you probably hated reading it. Yes he really used to word “slave” (“奴隷” dorei) here.

He specifically uses the word for a sumo wrestling ring here! “土俵” (dohyou)

Ibara’s using his very rare personal pronoun 俺 (Ore), which is a rude, typically masculine personal pronoun. He usually uses 自分 (Jibun) which is an impersonal, somewhat militaristic way of referring to oneself.

One sen is one-hundredth of a yen. For reference, as of May 14th, 2024, that’s worth 0.0000064 of a US dollar. The sen became invalid as currency in 1953 due to inflation, along with other coins worth less than one yen (like the rin).

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[nicnacsnonsense]

I posted 734 times in 2022

That's 137 more posts than 2021!

427 posts created (58%)

307 posts reblogged (42%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@nicnacsnonsense

@ymfingsteadilyon

@chocolatepot

@scribeofpnakotis

@poetic----nonsense

I tagged 659 of my posts in 2022

Only 10% of my posts had no tags

#ofmd - 365 posts

#stede bonnet - 233 posts

#edward teach - 111 posts

#izzy hands - 58 posts

#gentlebeard - 49 posts

#blackbonnet - 46 posts

#mary bonnet - 44 posts

#atlok - 25 posts

#the legend of korra - 24 posts

#lucius spriggs - 20 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#and i think we’re all agreed that either those historical expectations don’t apply in ofmd or they do but stede’s largely oblivious to them

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I wonder if Ed’s repeated instances of overlooking Stede’s hints at his trauma and emotional turmoil is because when the conversation moves in that direction, Stede switches communications styles.

90% of the time, Stede’s communication style is pretty direct and explicit. Stede means exactly what he says, and if there is something he means, then by golly he’s going to say it. Stede is really out here just saying shit like it’s nothing; telling Blackbeard to suck eggs in hell, calling Izzy a complete asshole right to his face, and telling Ed he’s a good man who wears fine things well. Absent any other pressures this appears to be Stede’s preferred communication style.

Except when he gets to talking about his own hurt, where suddenly he’s all cautious forays and gentle implications. This is obviously a pretty deeply-set trauma response from having been bullied and harassed his whole life anytime he showed softness or vulnerability. This means now Stede is super careful about who he lets see that vulnerability and even if he is confident that someone is a safe person he has to fight past that learned response which can be extremely difficult if he’s not given an explicit invitation to share.

Of course, Ed doesn’t know Stede has this trauma response because he doesn’t know Stede has any significant amounts of trauma. He probably just sees Stede being completely out there about everything else and figures that nah, if there was something really wrong, Stede definitely would’ve said something.

899 notes - Posted June 20, 2022

#4

Less of Ed swooning over bearded, plainly dressed Stede, and more of Ed going, damn, I must love him if I still want to fuck him while he’s dressed up like that. More of the Ed who heard about the fancy man in pristine white stockings and lavender velvet breeches and ordered his men to drop everything and follow that ship. More of the Ed who damn near fainted when Stede expertly folded his silk pocket square and told him he wore fine things well. More of an Ed who has always had a thing for a man in lace and frills and had never been much attracted to any kind of rugged manly look even before years of only really socially interacting with other pirates left him sick to death of it.

965 notes - Posted August 26, 2022

#3

When Ed asks Stede to teach him the ways of an aristocrat, he doesn’t really want to be an aristocrat (as he will discover in episode 5). What he really wants, what he’s really asking for, is “teach me how to let myself enjoy the finer things, how to embrace the things that being me joy.”

Likewise, when Stede says he wants to be like Blackbeard, it isn’t really about being a pirate. What he’s asking for is “teach me how to be someone people respect and like, how to be able to walk into a room and have people be excited to see me.”

And the real trick of it is, the solutions to both those things are exactly the same. Find someone who understands you and loves you for being exactly who you are.

1,372 notes - Posted July 23, 2022

#2

OFMD AU where:

Mary does not hate the ocean

She doesn’t like the ocean either, you understand, but she doesn’t hate it.

When Stede gifts her the model ship she’s just like, fine, you know what, sure let’s do it. She is ready to try literally anything at this point

She does have one condition: if Stede gets to live out his dream life at sea, she wants to explore her passion for painting and hire an instructor to come on board with them. Stede happily agrees. Enter Doug.

Revenge was Stede’s dream name for a pirate ship, but that seems inappropriate for a family vessel, so he goes with his second choice, Royal James.

The Royal James has the same crew as the Revenge does in canon. Stede is not aware when he hires them they are pirates. They are not aware that Stede isn’t a pirate. This causes some confusion when Stede shows up to take command with his wife, their kids, and her painting instructor in tow. Ultimately, Lucius manages to suss out what’s going on and the crew elects to keep the whole being pirates thing on the down low for the moment.

Stede reads his kids a bedtime story every night. After about the first week he notices that the crew is always conspicuously hanging about while this is happening, and story time gets moved up to the deck. Pretty soon everyone starts showing up for story time, even Mary and Doug.

The crew does discuss the possibility of mutiny once. Oluwande is against it; he didn’t become a pirate by choice and he’s not giving up a respectable job with kind employers who pay well to go back to it. Wee John expresses concern for the children if they mutiny. The Swede insists that of course they wouldn’t hurt the children but Wee John is still concerned that the whole thing might be traumatizing for them or something. At that point Jim stands up and leaves, making it clear they do not support any mutiny. The idea fizzle out pretty quickly after that.

There is one aspect of a pirate’s life at least some of the crew would be reluctant to give up, but over the course of a couple of careful conversations across a few different days, Lucius is able to confirm that Mary & Stede don’t have any problem with any of the crew being gay. Stede is especially supportive. Huge ally, Stede. Because even though he’s not gay, he’s for sure interested in women, he absolutely could see why a man might be attracted to another man. Men are very attractive creatures! Even though, again, he personally prefers women. Lucius decides to leave that one to work itself out.

Louis adores Karl. Accordingly Buttons, who is Karl’s friend and can even talk to him, becomes Louis’s new hero.

Mary and Stede decided against bringing an official tutor on board for the children. Instead Lucius helps with their reading & writing and Mary and Stede split any other subjects between them. One day as Stede is teaching the kids math, he sees Frenchie kinda leaning over trying to watch and Stede invites him to join the lesson as well. Soon after everyone in the crew is invited to join in on any of the lessons Stede is giving that they want to. Not everyone is interested and no one is interested in everything, but he does have some takers. Mary is pretty skeptical at first, but Doug convinces her it’s a good idea and she ends up opening up her lessons as well.

The crew also teach the kids things. Practical things about sailing and maintaining a ship, of course, but also things about their own unique interests and skills. Roach teaches them about cooking, Black Pete how to whittle, Frenchie and playing music, etc. Mary does have to put her foot down when Jim starts teaching Alma how to throw knives. Even Stede backs her up on that one.

Miraculously, this harebrained scheme of Stede’s appears to be working? The kids are certainly having fun and Stede… Mary had known he was miserable before, obviously, but she had never fully appreciated what a stunted shell of a person he’d been worn down to until now. Because now he’s thriving, he’s happy and full of life and actually seems to fill up the space he’s taking now. Mary still isn’t in love with him, she never will be, but she doesn’t hate him any more either. She thinks they may be friends now.

Mary is really blossoming too. Not hating her husband has lifted a huge weight off of her, and exploring her passion for painting has really allowed her to find herself. And then there’s Doug, who is so sweet and so supportive. He really understands her, and she’s so happy having him around.

They encounter a Spanish vessel and are boarded under suspicion of being pirates. Unfortunately the Spaniards do not speak ecclesiastical Latin, but fortunately Olu does speak Spanish pretty well.

Not that well.

Jim ends up having to out themself — first as not a mute, and then just goes all in with not a man as well — but they are able to convince the Spanish that they aren’t pirates. Good. However, the Spanish captain is a total asshole and stabs Stede in the gut as they’re leaving just because he can. Less good.

Roach does what he can to treat Stede, but says it’s really bad, and they need to put into port as soon as possible.

The closest port is Nassau, aka the Republic of Pirates. Mary is initially against going there, figuring the next closest port would be less risky for everyone, including Stede, even if it’s further away. The entire crew ends up outing themselves as (former) pirates to convince her they can handle Nassau and everything will be fine.

Everything is not fine.

Blackbeard is also stopped at the Republic of Pirates at the moment and he takes an instant shine to Stede…’s ship. Definitely the ship. He decides to take the Royal James and add it to his flotilla, but that does leave the problem of the Bonnet family. He can’t kill them; he doesn’t kill kids unless they’re, like, really bad kids. He’s not a bloody monster. But just leaving them at Nassau is probably as good as a death sentence for this lot. So he decides to let them stay on the ship until he can drop them off at a different port. In fact, he’s feeling generous, so as long as they don’t make too much trouble he’ll sail them back home to Barbados even.

Mary and the kids will be staying on the Royal James, but not Stede. Stede is going to be brought aboard Ed’s ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, as further insurance of good behavior. And Stede will be staying in the captain’s quarters with Ed because of… reasons. Very good reasons Ed doesn’t feel like sharing at the moment.

Oluwande and Jim also switch over to Queen Anne’s Revenge so Stede has some friendly faces to watch out for him. Black Pete really wanted to go over to Blackbeard’s ship as well, but Lucius felt he was most needed with the kids, and as much as Pete wanted to join Blackbeard, he wanted to stay with Lucius more. Awwww.

In exchange for Stede, Olu, and Jim, Ed sends Izzy, Fang, and Ivan over to the Royal James, with Izzy intended to be the new captain.

Izzy is a terrible captain, and everybody hates him.

Still, a standard throwing-him-overboard mutiny seems a bad idea with Blackbeard right there. Instead Mary and Lucius tag team him with a combo of girl power and bitch energy. Toxically masculine toxic bottom Izzy completely buckles under the pressure of that much fem dom.

Mary is the captain now.

Izzy runs crying to daddy, but Ed just finds the whole thing hilarious. Mary agrees to give up the Royal James upon reaching Barbados and to stay with the flotilla until then to protect Stede’s safety, but refuses to directly engage in pirate activity to protect the safety of her children. Ed finds those terms agreeable and Mary is allowed to stay captain. This is the last straw for Izzy and he leaves in an absolute snit. All that settled, they sail onward.

And onward.

See the full post

2,654 notes - Posted April 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Thinking about Stede and how he’s concerned about his crew being potentially traumatized by violence and how encouraging and supportive he is of their creative endeavors and how he stood up for Ed against a room full of passive aggressive bullies and how he stood up for Buttons and Karl (RIP) against Jack being a violent bully and how he sat there with Ed as he was having a breakdown in that tub and reassured him that he was a good person and that Stede was his friend, and thinking about that one post that says something like you grow up to be the hero that wasn’t there to save you, and I’m just having a moment here, okay.

2,676 notes - Posted April 19, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[angelphylaxis]

Last ten character building questions for miles

You sicko but damn if I must then so be it 😩✌

Putting it under a readmore because damn i be milesposting

48. Who would they say ‘yes’ to if invited to do something they abhorred / strongly didn’t want to do?

I would say luna (his wife) but honestly that has been proven wrong thus far - if only because the things he abhors/doesn't wanna do are horrific things like "don't be mean to your squire" and "eat your vegetables". all the women in his life with his best interests at heart would be hard pressed to convince him but it wouldn't be impossible. like he MIGHT do it if they annoy him enough about it but he's gonna be a bitch the entire time.

49. Would they eat something they find gross to be polite?

Never in a million years, unless the world depended on it. even then?? Man barely touched anything other than white bread for 10 years.

50. What belief / moral / personality trait do they stand by that you (mun) personally don’t agree with?

I personally condone everything Miles has ever done and will ever do. He is a perfect moral pillar and always acts rationally forever.

(Miles may be Just Like Me FR but man he does forget about the rammies bro. Fantasy is a fun vehicle for you to fuck around and find out without consquences - greatest hits include stealing a dragon egg, telling a celestial creature to eat a guy, walking up to an angry dragon without armour on, selling a guy to a dragon, flirting with cerulean, playing uno with a horse. list goes on)

51. What’s a phrase they say a lot?

"Darling" in every conceivable way. I don't think he has any other catchphrases, aside from, "have you considered joining a union"

52. Do they act on their immediate emotions, or do they wait for the facts before acting?

When i made him miles was always supposed to be the cool calm collected emotionless aloof guy but man did that not happen at all. I will say he does put on a brave face for stressful situations but ANY slight on him absolutely destroys any mind for reputation or coolness. Just ask him about blueberries.

53. Who would / do they believe without question?

Weirdly I would think he would believe Palar (or other villains) without any hesitation, especially in cases where he's particularly heinous and asshole-ish. Any confirmation that he is as sick and twisted as Miles thinks he is and he's bought in 3000%. Ironically I'm a very trusting person but Miles is a Doubter(tm)

54. What’s their instinct in a fight / flight / freeze / fawn situation?

I had to look up what fawn meant in this context and whoo boy is miles a fawner. The more he ingratiates himself the more he's rubbing his hands together like meheheh they are right where i want them. And then he can go back to his WIFE and complain about them. He's done this at least four times in game so far.

55. What’s something they’re expected to enjoy based on their hobbies / profession that they actually dislike / hate?

If i dare split this up into the stages of his life I think the answer would probably be the same.

As a squire/knight in training he hated anything to do with glory or praise. Mostly because it would just get him bullied but he considered that shit pompous and cringe.

As a playboy/sex worker he disliked the sex part itself. Catering to people and seducing them was most of what he enjoyed, either as a ego-stoking measure or simply to pick up customers.

Now i think he rather hates being the hero. Man helps people as a means to an end (getting through the day) but boy it's a hassle. Can't people save themselves every once in a while. Why does he have to do it all the time?

56. If they’re scared, who do they want comfort from? Does this answer change depending on the type of fear?

It's happened several times in game now where Miles has some sort of horrible world-shattering fear that he's been confronted with and every time he has an overwhelming need to be comforted by the woman who raised him. Not to say his beloved wife can't, but mummy issues are something else.

57. What’s a simple daily activity / motion that they mess up often?

Boring answer? Digestion. Can't feed himself, can't cook, can barely eat, don't even get me started on his movements. Dry as a desert down there. I don't have much of a fun answer I guess he sucks at being nice to people.

58. How many hobbies have they attempted to have over their lifetime? Is there a common theme?

I don't remember if Miles has any hobbies at all that aren't just. Reading cool stories about heroes. He's a sucker for an unlikely hero. Other hobbies include childcare and being a feminist.

[cph-dreaming]

# Jonathan’s life (Jonathan meets Philip)

“Maybe my nearly sixteen-year-old me would have thought more about being gay had he paid more attention to how he reacted to the many derogative synonyms to the word. I know they say that things have changed for the better over the last ten years but someone must have forgotten to hand out that memo to the boys at my school. Words like ‘stupid’ or ‘idiot’ or ‘moron’ were rarely a part of their vocabulary. Instead it was ‘wanker’ (ok, bad example, love that word), ‘homo’ (don’t go there), ‘cocksucker’ (definitely don’t go there), and ‘faggot’ (I’m gonna kill you). Until this day I don’t know why I reacted so strongly to those words but they were hateful, despicable, they were only there to hurt. And I was hurt when I was on the receiving end because I danced classical ballet, something I loved more than anything else, because ballet apparently is totally gay. At least the first ‘faggot’ thrown my way became the last.

I’ve never been scared of a fight. Sometimes I think I should have been when I looked at my face afterwards, but hey. Since I was eight my uncle has spared with me and trained me to hold my own and when I got older, he taught me more and more of the dirty little tricks that’ll give you the upper hand and win a fight, even when you’re the smaller and weaker part.

So, ‘faggot’ turned into a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder. And it wasn’t mine. Of course, I got into trouble. Of course, I got suspended. And of course, my mom didn’t talk to me for a week because she was so disappointed in me. Nothing made me feel sorry for the asshole who used the slur, though. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t seek out fights and I don’t enjoy them. But from early on I’ve understood that the choices we make have consequences and if someone choses to call me a ‘faggot’ I’ll make them pay, or at least try to.

After that day people stopped calling me names to my face because of my ‘gay’ dancing. They might have done so behind my back but that has never bothered me. Only small insignificant people talk about you behind your back and they’re not worth listening to. And I had shown everyone that I’m not a victim.

The best thing that happened that day, though, was that I met my best friend. Pip had witnessed the whole thing, not only the fight but he had also heard the homophobic slur used against me. (He was actually the reason I only got suspended and didn’t get into any more trouble with the school’s strict no violence policy because he went to the principal and witnessed on my behalf). When the fight was over and the asshole lay whimpering and crying on the ground, Pip stood behind me laughing and then he started to clap his hands. I was still high on adrenalin and didn’t realize what was happening and when Pip patted my shoulder, saying “Way to go, PrettyFace!” I was ready to smack him one as well. But when I turned around, I was met with largest smile, a smile I have loved ever since, and I couldn’t help smiling back at him. I had noticed Pip in the in the hallways before, he had transferred from another school a few months before the fight, but you know, only in that ‘there’s a new face, ok, registered’ kind of way and I had never talked to him. So I was rather taken back when he put his hands on my shoulder and proclaimed, “You’re a hero, thank you!” Then he took me by the hand and led me to the nearest bathroom where he helped me clean myself up. There was something strangely intimate about it when he held my hand under the running water and gently washed the blood of my knuckles. I was standing there, not really knowing what to do or say. I only stared at him in the mirror. Pip was still smiling. Eventually he found my eyes, laughed again and said, “All good, PrettyFace, dry your hands, we’re done.” Then he turned around and left the bathroom with a “See you later!” before the door closed behind him.

I’ve been loved. My father, my mother, my sis and my uncle. Yes, I have been loved. But that day in the bathroom was the first time I experienced the pure and simple act of compassion. From this strange and smiling boy. So when Pip waited at the gates after school and said “There you are, let’s grab a coffee” I wasn’t really surprised. I just nodded and followed him. I wasn’t a coffee guy at that time but I wasn’t there for the coffee, I went with him because I wanted to know more about this boy. But when we arrived at the coffee shop which wasn’t far away from our school I nearly forgot all about him. I was mesmerized. How had I not been to this place before? It wasn’t a combined bookstore and café but there were bookshelves everywhere, worn-out couches and arm chairs, and that indescribable feeling of dust from years gone by. It was a place I would end up visiting many times the next years.

We went to the counter and ordered our coffee. Pip went for a cortado and I asked for a large latte with as much milk as possible and we found two arm chairs by one of the windows. I looked fascinated around the place.

“You know you can take any book you want with you? As long as you bring another book to replace it with”, he told me.

“How is that possible? Don’t people just steal the books?” I asked.

“Some might. But most people here respect that books have to be treated with curtesy and reverence and the only way to do that here is to respect the system.” Then he smiled, “Besides, who wants to steal tattered Harry Potter books when everyone’s already got them at home.” I laughed.

“By the way, I know that you’re Jonathan but I don’t think you know my name.” I shook my head feeling a bit embarrassed that I didn’t when he knew mine. “I’m Philip”, and he reached out his hand. It took me a few seconds before I realized that he wanted me to shake it.

“So, you read?” I asked, trying not to show that he made me a little nervous.

“I do”, he simply said. The he looked at me in a surveying manner. “I can see that you do too.”

Of course, everyone in my family knew that I liked to read. Words are in my blood. The first eight years of my life my father read to me every evening before I went to bed. Ever since I have read almost any book I could get my hands on but it wasn’t something I shared with anyone. At school my grades were a testament to the fact that I could read but mostly my classmates thought it was down to the fact that my mother was this hotshot journalist, not my affinity for stories and knowledge. I don’t think that anybody knew that I actually loved reading more than anything. Except dancing.

“As a reader you will understand why today brought me so much joy”, Pip said.

I was blank. Reading and fighting didn’t really go hand in hand in my book, not unless you read about fights, that is. It must have been the confused look on my face that made Pip laugh again.

“Sorry, I’m not laughing at your bruised knuckles”, he smiled. “For a moment, try to see what happened today through my eyes. I have only seen you around the school from afar after I transferred but I have eyes and I’ve seen enough to find out your name. Here’s this young man, not only tall and handsome, but very, very pretty, who moves delicately as a dancer, who is a dancer, and when some douchebag has the audacity to call him that despicable name, instead of gracefully ignoring it, he transforms into a roaring Aragorn and cuts down the vile orc who thought he was home free by picking on someone he felt was inferior to him.”

Pip paused before he shouted, making everyone in the room turn their heads, “The irony, the comedy, the fairytale!”

“Glad I could entertain you”, I said. I didn’t really know what else to say. I wasn’t sure how I felt being reduced to some character in Pip’s story, even if I was the hero. Today wasn’t a story I was especially proud of writing.

“Hey now, don’t give me that face.” Pip looked at me again as if I was this new specimen he had to study. “I honestly think you’re fucking cool! From the outside you’re the prototype of a victim, well, apart from your height and your muscles, but a dancer with a captivatingly pretty face. You know what I mean. And then you show those fucking dickheads that they can forget all about messing with you ever again. And you know what? That brings a lot of hope to the rest of us schoolyard prey.”

The sincerity in Pip’s voice made me blush. It wasn’t only the words but also the pain imbedded in them.

“That’s some mighty praise there, Philip.” I smiled at him despite my burning cheeks.

“You deserve it, Jonathan.” He emptied his coffee before he smiled back at me. “Interesting, isn’t it, how a homophobic slur can lead to friendship.”

Normally I would have said something like ‘wow, body, stop right there, we’re not friends’ or ‘easy now, one day at a time’. But I didn’t. In fact I didn’t say anything at all. There was no need. Pip had said it all. Sometimes a faggot becomes a friend.”

[likeagoddamnadult]

There's a whole lot here to unpack, especially when it sounds like something shitty/abusive may have happened with OP's ex. I can't address that, because all I've got to go on is what OP has to say. But about the actual question being asked, whether telling your friends you love them makes you The Asshole... I have Thoughts.

My thoughts come from having been on both sides of the unintentional friendship pressure dynamic, and fucking it up spectacularly more than once.

We're often told to tell people how we feel, and that sharing ourselves with others is how we make good friendships and romantic relationships happen. Intimacy is good! But there's a difference between sharing (I feel this way and I'm letting you know) and dumping (I feel this way and I'm going to tell you in excruciating detail and now there's the implication that you're supposed to do something with this). For instance, telling our friends we love them and such becomes manipulative and controlling when we're giving them the impression, correctly or not, that they're our entire support system. Because then, even if we've asked for others to be honest, they can feel like anything negative they say can wreck us completely, so they downplay things in their own minds as not a big deal. And resentment builds behind the scenes, until something finally pushes them too far, and them, bam, everything we've ever done wrong is proof that we're terrible and must be shunned.

And it sucks to think everything is fine, and then suddenly it isn't, and apparently never was, and wow, these are terrible people who hated us all the time and were lying... When no, that's not it at all. They were trying to be kind, and it backfired.

I had a friend who I'd known for years. We went through some traumatic shit together, and so we ended up leaning on each other for emotional support and not really setting any boundaries. We, in fact, took pride in our utter lack of boundaries as a sign of how close we were. Only after several years, things started feeling unbalanced. Every time I got excited about new friends or partners, my friend would spiral into depression because they just knew they were going to lose me, or they just knew somehow the new person was bad news and I needed to cut them out of my life... and I would panic and try to reassure them that no, no, I would never leave them, etc.

I ended that friendship a few years ago, because things were dysfunctional as fuck, and I was unintentionally pushing them into things they didn't enjoy, but were too eager to please me to push back against, and at the same time I was too afraid of them having a mental health crisis be upfront and say, "Hey, when you do this thing, I feel really uncomfortable," or, "Please stop bringing up this thing that triggers me." (I was also triggering them right back on some issues. They were not and ARE not the asshole for how our friendship turned out -- it was fucked from all directions and neither of us was coming at it from a healthy place.)

I'd try to back away and ask for some space for myself, but they unerringly seemed to pick times when I was trying to gather the courage to be like, "Hey, I need a break to calm my tits and let go of some of this growing resentment which is my own damn fault," to say something like, "So I was doing an exercise in therapy in which I had to draw circles around myself and put people in them based on how much I trusted and relied on them, and in the closest circle, it was just you and my [least abusive relative who enables my more abusive relatives]," and I would instantly be overwhelmed with guilt and grit my teeth and continue to have increasingly unfun interactions, because it was just me and the person who kept trying to play happy families with them and their abuser, and at least I wasn't actively making their life worse, right?

...Right?

Never mind that I was continuing to feed into patterns that were hurting me, and were therefore unsustainable, without giving any indication there was a problem. Because that's different. Somehow.

And eventually I had to be like, "Okay, I need out of this friendship. You are not a bad person, but my mental health is suffering, and I need to not be doing this." And I felt like a terrible person, and they kept hounding me for more details and demanded to know what they'd done wrong. And it was very hard not to dump that big list of everything they'd ever done that upset me on them, but I had to, because there was so much buried resentment there that it would've caused me to go scorched earth on them, when the actual things themselves were, at most, kinda shitty, and not signs they were irredeemably problematic and evil. That shit is still simmering in my brain, years later and letting go of it is an ongoing effort. It took every ounce of restraint I had to keep the messaging to, "I feel bad, but this was not healthy, and I genuinely like you and wish you the best, just not with me."

I don't think they were trying to manipulate me. They were lonely and needed someone to cling to, and I'd been in that exact same position, and I'd clung right back to them in specific more than once. But the end result was that I was terrified that if I asked for what I needed to be happy in our friendship, they would literally kill themself.

When they informed me that they'd learned that just because I had been their best friend, it didn't mean I was their only friend, and they had so many people who agreed with them that I was terrible and unfair and owed them an explanation... Well, I'm pretty sure they meant for it to hurt me, but what I felt was overwhelming relief. They had support. They'd be okay. And I could take my life back.

And this is why even innocently sharing gratitude and affection for your friends can be seen as manipulative, when it's coupled with the idea of being someone's primary means of emotional support. I did not know this, and I am far from neurotypical, and it took it happening to me for me to understand... and that's why I'm explaining this the way I am, in case someone else out there is as clueless about this as I was for the first 35+ years of my life.

The messages other people pick up from us when we do this stuff, regardless of what we intend, are contradictory and confusing. "Please tell me if I do something wrong, or I will be very hurt, BUT since you're my primary emotional support if you hurt me BY telling me I did something wrong, I'll have no one else to turn to, and WHO KNOWS what might happen then."

It's an incredibly shitty position to be in, and it feels like there's no safe course of action.

So by all means (and I'm not directing this specifically at OP, who I don't know -- some of this is me yelling at my past self) tell your friends you love them, and you're grateful for their support, but watch how you say it. Pay attention to how often they say similar things to you, or to each other. Are you always the one initiating the affectionate remarks? Are you pushing for more closeness, more time with them, etc, when they seem happy with how things currently are? Are you making big emotional gestures and they're responding with some variant of, "Yeah, we think you're great!" and nothing more than that? You may be putting pressure on them without intending to.

Tell people you love them if you do in fact love them. Tell them you'd love to spend more time with them. Never tell them anything that implies the task of propping up your mental health is all on them. And if they seem less than immediately and overwhelmingly enthusiastic about more time or meeting IRL or being closer in any other way, be as chill as you possibly can about it, and back off. Find an interest that they're not part of. Try to have neutral-to-positive social interactions with people who aren't them. Don't worry about making a completely new group of friends, and don't pull away from that person or group entirely, but just a few positive interactions outside the group can help your brain come to terms that you do not, in fact, need these specific people to have good things in your life. And they'll pick up on that, and that takes the pressure off them, which will make it more likely (not guaranteed! but more likely!) that you'll have genuinely good and unforced interactions with them that can lead to you being closer as a group.

tl;dr - Sharing good. Dumping bad. Emotional intimacy is a balance people find over time, not a thing you can speedrun by taking a great big FEELINGSDUMP on someone. Don't make one person or one group the center of your mental stability, because it ends badly for everyone.

AITA for telling my friends i love them?

okay, hear me out before writing this off as fake or “trying to make the other party look bad”. i promise this is a genuine problem i need to have figured out.

i (20) am autistic so i have a hard time telling when i do something wrong, and it’s difficult for me to make friends. however, i was part of an online friend group for ~3-4 years. i was the oldest and the others (17-19) all knew each other irl, so it felt a little awkward (to me) for me to be there, but i considered them my closest friends and my only safe space to be myself.

in the time we were friends, i made some mistakes, some of which i’d rather not get into for personal reasons. but recently the group decided they didn’t want me there anymore, so i was kicked from the discord server and they all blocked me. i was sent a long message about why, and that’s where my confusion starts.

in the message, they brought up some things that didn’t make sense to me as a “bad” thing.

1. they said i’d talked to them about drugs and alcohol “while [they] were still minors”, which is true, but misleading when it’s just said like that. what i actually did was infodump about safe use, because it happened to be one of my fixations at the time, and sometimes mention being high in my channel, but nothing more than that. as for them being minors, some were 17 and some were 18, so it’s really not that different to having DARE come and talk to you about drugs, at least in my eyes. i never encouraged them to use, i never told them to use, and i never gave them resources to use. i only talked about safe use.

2. this is where my title comes in. they told me i was guilttripping and manipulating them by talking about them being my “longest friends” and telling them i loved them. point blank, nothing more to it, that’s what they said. along with that was an added “we know that’s not how you meant it but the effect was there”. this is what i don’t understand and why i need to know if i’m actually a bad person for this or not. yes, i’d talk about them being my longest friends, because i was grateful they had stuck around so long. i’d tell them i loved them just off the bat, whenever i wanted to tell them. it was never about guilttripping or manipulating them, it was always about wanting to show that i appreciated them.

3. this one is a hard one i think. they said that i’d “never disproven [my] ex’s accusations”. i don’t really want to get into what happened which my ex since i know i made mistakes in that relationship, but what’s important to note here is that i had sent my ex’s accusations to one member of the group who’d then sent me a text telling me that they believed i was different now.

this is the text copy-pasted:

“it's definitely a rough situation. but since i know *y'all*, i definitely believe your side. not to mention, you acknowledged your mistakes and the things you did. and i think for all the statements they made about "they knew we had [this traumal", they should've had proof of y'all discussing that. like i can say my girlfriend knows i have body image issues, but i could totally be pulling that out of my ass, you can't just take my word for it. they can't just say things without proof, especially if the things they say could *ruin* y'all's life.”

but in the message as to why i was no longer in the group, they said that actually they didn’t believe me at all, which completely contradicts that text.

and yeah, that’s my explanation of the situation. i genuinely don’t know if i’m the asshole or not, and i’ve been beating myself up about it. this whole situation has made my trust in friends go down, especially since i trusted that group with everything about me. any advice is welcome too.

thank you for listening. have a great day. :)

What are these acronyms?

[narcolini]

when the crows come home, 5

parts: one / two / three / four & ao3 link

angel reyes x gn!reader, part 5 of ?, 6038 words, 18+ (alcohol use, mature language, etc etc)

a/n: accidental unavoidable break between chapters OVER and now they’re flirting heavy heavy (and throwing the “friends” boundary into the wind) so. enjoy!!!! (ps. next chap will start off where this is left so 👀)

taglist: @drabbles-mc​ @cositapreciosa​ @yourlocalspacewitxch​ @ashlingiswriting​ @marissa53115​ (i think you wanted to be added to the angel taglist, but if i’m wrong let me know!!) 

A few days a week, that’s what you’d agreed on. A few days, maybe a couple weekends, just when Chucky needed the help. Just enough to keep you going until you can find something else. Money in your pocket, yeah?

‘I know you like doing shit with your hands,’ Angel had said, when he was trying to sell you on it. ‘Plus, maybe you could learn something about bikes while you’re there?’

‘Yeah,’ you’d replied, ‘I know what that’s code for, and I’m not cleaning your bike, tontín.’

‘I’m doing you a favour, asshole. It’s a good gig.’

And it is, and it was nice of him. Kind, even. He didn’t have to help you out like that. You never expected it from him, you didn’t think he’d have thought about it at all after all your complaining that night. But he’s not who he used to be, he’s considerate now. Learned how to think outside of himself.

He was right, too, you do like the practicality of it; tidying, sorting parts, fuck, even the math is fun. Helping Chucky with the books makes you feel useful in a real, tangible way. The whole setup is more rewarding than your last job, and way less fucking stifling. You spend more time outside than inside now—even the scrapyard office has an ever-open door—and that suits you just fine. It’s perfect, and something you’d never have considered without Angel’s suggestion. 

You like it so much, that you’ve been here two and a half weeks already. You’ve even come in on the off days Chucky made you take, just for something to do, and, well, because it’s easier to find the Reyes when you’re on the clubhouse’s doorstep. 

‘And this one,’ Chucky continues, bringing your attention back to the scratched phone-screen in his palm, ‘that’s at the strawberry farm. See, her hair matches the ones in the basket, look.’

‘That’s sweet, Chuck.’ You smile. ‘You should go there when you visit. Recreate the photos with her.’

Cherry’s the woman he’s met online. The love of his life, as he’s decided to call her. From the length of time this show and tell has been going on, you must be the first person to say yes when he asked, Wanna see her?

‘I will, I will.’ He’s nodding, with his eyes still down at the screen. He clicks to the next photo, then the next, then stops. It’s the oldest looking phone you’ve seen in a while, but you figure touch screens don’t mix well with wooden fingertips. ‘Oh, this one’s real special,’ he says. ‘This was the first time I saw her with her hair curled.’

‘Very pretty,’ you reply, glancing just long enough to seem genuine about it. ‘I think it suits her straight, though.’

He hums, but it’s more like a chuckle, something passed in a nervous way that makes his head bounce between his shoulders. ‘Everything suits her.’ He’s going rosy-cheeked thinking about it. ‘Sometimes,’ he adds, ‘I call her my goddess.’

‘Wow.’ You laugh, nudging his elbow. ‘I think you’re the guy girls dream about, Chucky.’

You’re fond of Chucky already. He was easy to befriend, easier to keep it seems. Once you’re in, you’re in, with him, and you appreciate that a lot. He barely knows a thing about you, besides the basics, and it feels like he’d do anything for you already, not that you’d take advantage of it. Well, you’ll try not to anyway. But it’s nice to have someone else to rely on, even tentatively. The longer you’re home, the more ties you knot into place, the less likely you are to float off again. 

‘I think I hear bikes, Chuck,’ you tell him, as soon as you notice the rumble of engines yourself.

‘Right, yes.’ His phone locks, Cherry tucked back into his pocket at last. ‘I’ll get the gate.’

You nod and watch him leave. Through the dust-stained window of the office, you follow him, half-walking, half-jogging across the yard towards the gate. When he pulls it open, it’s Gilly first, then Angel, both decked in the usual shades-helmet-kutte combo. They’ve already been by once today, but they were in the clubhouse while you were knee deep in scrap iron, so this is the first chance you’ve had to say hello.

Creeper is waiting for them too, apparently, because he’s already standing under the bike shelter as they pull up. 

‘The fuck did Bish call us back for?’ Angel asks him, loud enough for you to hear it from your spot in the office.

You screw up the burrito wrapper you’d been picking from and toss it, brushing your hands down your jeans until they’re clean. The denim’s stained already, oil and grit and more dust, always fucking dust. You go home with it under your nails, in your hair. Stamped across your cheekbones. 

‘Gotta table again,’ Creeper replies, as you step into the yard. 

Neither Gilly or Creeper have noticed you exiting the office, but Angel does almost immediately; his eyes catch onto you on the recoil of his head shake, his obvious disappointment at Creeper’s news melting into nothing once they do. Then, it’s just amusement, and relief, maybe. Comfort. You smile before he’s even said anything.

He nods in your direction. ‘You ever do any actual work around here, biche?’

‘You ever heard of union-protected lunch breaks?’ you quip back, arriving in the shade of the shelter. Angel’s bike sits in front of you, and you feel familiar enough with it now to chance a touch, toying with the grip of the nearest handle. ‘It’s not my fault you only show up when I’m on them.’

Creeper snorts beside you. ‘Union,’ he repeats, knowing as well as you do that it’s ridiculous. The scrapyard doesn’t even file its taxes correctly. 

‘Yeah, keep lying,’ Angel jokes, while standing and removing his helmet at the same time. He clocks you fiddling with the end of his handlebars, but says nothing, before slinging his helmet over the opposite side. 

‘I was showing off my Cherry,’ Chuck explains. He’s finally arrived behind them, having taken far too long to re-close the gates. ‘We got a bit carried away,’ he says, blushing again.

Gilly laughs, and not in his usual goofy way, but in a way that makes you feel hot suddenly. Protective. 

‘She’s very pretty,’ you say, directly to him, before turning back to Chucky. ‘You make a nice couple.’

‘Right,’ Angel snorts, ‘the one from the forum. Señorita Catfish.’

‘She’s real, you dick, not a catfish.’ You want to add, I’ve just seen about four hundred photos of real, but instead you settle for a prolonged look that says: shut up, shut up, shut up.

He shrugs back at you, head shaking in a silent, What? I didn’t do anything? 

Chucky waves it off, already heading back to his work. ‘It’s nothing,’ you hear him say as he goes, ‘they’re always on my tail about this.’

Yeah, you’d noticed.

‘C’mon, cabrón.’ Gilly slaps a hand to Angel’s chest, before pulling him forward by his shoulder. ‘We’re gonna piss Obispo off.’

At that, the three of them start for the clubhouse in long, boyish strides, each nodding a goodbye to you as they pass.

You follow anyway, two steps behind, and stop once you’re at the bottom of the short staircase they’ve climbed. It always feels like a point you can’t pass without invite, so you lean against the railing to catch Angel before he reaches the door. ‘You still good to help me move tomorrow?’ you ask.

He pauses, looking down at you from the added height of the porch. He looks tired, even from this distance, which you hadn’t noticed before. It’s in the soft creases of his eyes. ‘You got the keys already?’ 

You pull the keyring from your pocket and jingle them by your head. ‘Picked ‘em up on the way in.’

He smiles, nods. ‘Yeah, course. I got you.’ Then he’s through the door, after Gilly, with a half-wave back in your direction. 

Meetings meetings meetings. It must kill him, really, coming whenever Bishop calls. 

Who knew that drug-running requires so much fucking bureaucracy? From where you are, they’re more talk than action at this point. Always sitting around and taking votes on things. No-where near as exciting as it is in the movies, no matter what tales Angel spins. Before anything else, all that shit seems careless, hopeless. Straight up stupidity, sometimes. 

It had come up eventually, of course, what the club really does. Angel hadn’t wanted it to, but there was only so much time you could spend around him and the guys before someone fucked up, and wow, they just came right out with it. It was Coco first, you think, who mentioned dope. Gilly who let slip about dropping bodies by the border. Creeper with his guns, Taza and the stories he told after a single beer. In fact, Obispo was the only one careful with what he said around you, and that’s largely because he doesn’t speak to you much at all. Just spares a glance. Nods. 

You got a polite hello and a handshake when you first met him, and that feels like a victory now, something to cherish. 

But you weren’t clueless anyway. You’d guessed they were more than charity runs and social events long before anything had been said aloud. 

‘You knew?’ Angel had asked. ‘And you’re chill with it?’ 

‘I’ve not run for the hills have I? It pays my bills now, Angel. I have to be chill with it.’

It’s more than just drugs, he’d explained. More than heroin and guns, and all the other underground shit they do. ‘We stay afloat anyway we can. Keep the club going, keep the heat of our backs. Get shit from other clubs too, now.’ 

You’d stopped him once he'd mentioned the cartel. That, you didn’t need to know. Any detail that could get you killed, he can keep. 

Christ.

‘Can you check this?’ Chucky’s by your elbow suddenly, pencil tucked behind his ear. ‘Think I fudged the numbers again.’

‘Sure.’ You take the open book from him. ‘Make me a coffee and I’ll finish the rest for you.’

Turns out, you have a knack for money laundering, too. 

Chill with it? Shit, you’re helping them get away with it. 

*

There’s one good thing that came from the disaster that was your old job: Marie. Specifically, the friendship with Marie that led you to meet Nela, her sister, who had an apartment with a room to let, and a very generous, within your budget, price. You’d said yes as soon as it’d been offered. Any fool would have. It’d get you away from home, back to your independence, and it won’t break the bank. What more could you want? 

‘We’re done now, tontín.’

Angel’s pulling the last of your boxes from the bed of his truck, grunting like you’ve filled them with bricks, when you get back to him. 

‘The fuck you got in here?’ he asks, leaning the weight of one against his chest.

‘Oh, that’s my collection of dumbbells.’ You take the other from beside him, knowing he’s rolling his eyes at you, feeling the gesture through the back of his head as you follow him up. ‘I should’ve asked Zee,’ you joke, ‘he’d have complained less.’

He snorts. ‘EZ’s too busy not having sex with his almost girlfriend to help you.’

You watch his shoulders as he climbs the staircase, up the one flight to your new apartment. He’s been making jokes about EZ’s new relationship since her name was first mentioned. As far as you know, they haven’t put a label on it yet, but all Angel does his roast him for their lack of fucking.

‘There’s nothing wrong with going slow, Angel.’

‘Nah, nah,’ he looks back at you briefly, ‘there’s slow, and then there’s pining for the same girl your whole damn life. He does that a second time and he’ll be fucking, eighty, or some shit, before he gets his dick wet again.’

‘God,’ you cringe, ‘you’re fucking gross, man.’

He laughs at your disgust which just makes you laugh in return. He gets away with everything like that. No matter what dumbass, high school comment he makes, as soon as he’s laughing, you are too. 

‘Listen,’ he argues, and you can hear the smile in his tone without seeing it yourself, ‘I’m just looking out for him. I want my brother to be getting the best puss—’

He comes to an abrupt silence, stopping as soon as he crosses through the open front door. Luckily, you were a stride away, so you don’t crash into the back of him, but rather scoot around the side of him, into the hall-slash-living room. 

It’s Nela that’s surprised him. She was in her bedroom before, getting changed after work, and now she’s in the kitchenette to the left, stirring a steaming microwave meal.

You know what he’s seeing, because you had the same reaction when you first met her. Camo everywhere, on every piece of clothing—even her pyjamas—blue hair, five face piercings at least. Half-lidded eyes like she’s drowsy, or bored to death. Or both, maybe. Something about her just says: look away, keep looking, forget you ever saw me at all. 

Honestly, you quite like it, and her in general, but Angel is much less accepting of people you can’t read on a first-glance. 

‘Hey,’ he says, clutching the box over his chest like a shield. ‘I’m Angel.’

Without looking from her food, Nela offers a simple, ‘Sup.’

‘That’s the last of it,’ you tell her, gesturing with your head for Angel to continue toward your room. You watch him trudge down the hall, disappearing into your doorway, before adding, ‘We won’t be in and out anymore.’

‘Cool.’ She shoves a spoonful into her mouth. ‘I sleep like the dead, anyway.’

You smile at the side of her face. ‘Well,’ you nod, ‘that’s good.’ You aren’t overly fond of tip-toeing around. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

She offers a thumbs up, before crossing in front of you, steaming food held up to her chin as she goes. It’s a curry of sorts. Not something you’d choose for this time of morning, but to her it’s dinner, you suppose. And, well, to be honest, the scent of it is making your stomach rumble still. She makes it to the couch, eating readily, just as you slip into the part-open door of your new bedroom. 

‘They’re bout’a make a Netflix special about you.’

‘What?’ 

Angel’s by the bed, having dumped your box of books onto its mattress. He turns at your question, brows knitted in an exaggerated way. ‘Cause that chick is absolutely,’ he stresses the word, ‘gonna kill you in your sleep.’

You laugh, more from shock than humour, and reach to push the door shut behind you. ‘Don’t be fucking rude!’ you chide, but you’re half-laughing as you say it, making it lose all force. ‘She’s nice!’

‘Yeah,’ he nods quickly, ‘oh, I’m sure.’

‘She works nights at the hospital,’ you argue, matching his hushed tone, ‘I don’t think she’s slept yet.’ 

‘Doing what?’

‘I think she’s a porter.’ 

His eyes widen. ‘So, like, moving dead bodies and shit?’

‘Shut up, oh my god.’ You slap his arm, then push him aside with your hip to get at the bed. ‘You’re ridiculous, Angel.’ And you’ll never get anything unpacked if you stand here arguing about it. 

‘You never heard of Craigslist horror stories?’ he asks, by your side still. ‘I’m worried, carnale.’

Worried in the dumbest of ways. ‘She’s Marie’s sister,’ you explain, ‘no craigslist involved.’

His arm brushes yours as he shrugs. ‘Who’s that?’

‘From my old job.’

He laughs once, a sort of surprised huff of air. ‘That’s Marie’s sister?’

‘Yes?’ You look from the box you’ve opened to stare at him, a book in each hand. ‘God, not everyone is a clone of their sibling like you and EZ. Nela’s cool. End of.’

You take the books to the shelf left by the previous tenant and stack them there. You thought maybe if you started right away, it’d be less daunting, but a few books in and you already want to stop. When you return to the bed, the box looks fuller than it did before you touched it. 

‘Sorry,’ Angel continues, having abandoned all thoughts of helping, ‘did you not see the stuffed bird? She’s got a fucking eagle on the coffee table.’

It’s an owl, stuffed and positioned onto a curving branch. Apparently, Nela has an interest in taxidermy. Marie says her room’s full of it. 

‘Angel,’ you start, turning to face him, ‘you traffic heroin into—’

His hand goes over your mouth, which you hadn’t expected, forcing the end of your sentence into the warmth of his palm. He looks over his shoulder like you’d shouted it, like Nela might come running in with DEA on speed dial. 

Eyes rolling, you pull at his wrist to get free. ‘Sorry, you do CHARITY work,’ you say, in the general direction of the room down the hall, before looking back to him pointedly. ‘Better?’ 

His head’s shaking because, of course, you’re the ridiculous one here. 

‘Relax, idiot.’ You shake his wrist, which you’d forgotten to let go of. He’s been on edge lately, meaner and snappier, and more judgey than usual, but comment on that and you’ll only put yourself into the line of fire. ‘It’s a nice, cheap room, and it’s out of my parents’ place,’ you tell him. ‘If I die and get made into a wall-mount, I’ll have gone happily, okay?’ 

He chews it over, and the pause makes you realise he was serious, under the absurd reaction to your new roomie, he really was worried about this, about you starting fresh. He still is, even. Any slight possibility of it being a change in the wrong way, is enough to have set him off.

Hm. You swallow against the feeling the realisation stirs up, pushing it back down into your chest.

‘Alright,’ he says eventually, and your hand on his wrist falls, because he’s moved to hold you by the waist instead, both hands to either side of you. ‘But if you do,’ he says, very seriously, with his gaze on yours, 'I ain’t buying you at auction.’

‘Well, duh,’ you reply, ‘I’m way above your price range.’

His smile meets the edges of his eyes, his hold tightens just enough to bunch your shirt, and then he looks past you, over your shoulder into the bathroom attached to your room. ‘I gotta take a leak,’ he says.

‘Go ahead.’ You step from his hold, waving him away. ‘Christen the place.’ 

He disappears on your blessing and you exhale, like you’d been saving the breath, once you hear the door latch behind him.

Moments like that were becoming more and more frequent. Lingering touches, joking that isn’t quite joking, flirting, really, if you had to put a name to it—not that you’d ever give him the ammunition of knowing it felt like that to you. He’s daring enough as it is, curious as you are.

You pull the short lamp from under the tangle of coats atop your bed, and step around the frame to set it into place. A new bedside for it to light up, a new window for it to stand guard over. You flick from looking at the lampshade, to the gravel driveway beneath your room. Second story, now. No lawn, no tree, no bending-grave marker of an old tire swing. Just rocks and concrete. 

The toilet flushes, door opening afterwards. You hear him step out, belt clinking as he buckles it, boots dull against the carpet as he crosses the room. 

Your cheeks warm, your gaze through the window still. You imagine him climbing into this room. Imagine him staying the night, with no parents sleeping behind the wall opposite. 

‘You want help unpacking?’ he asks, close enough to make your neck go hot, too.

‘No, I’m good.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah,’ you answer quickly, facing him again. ‘Wanna settle myself in, y’know?’

Honestly, he’d be more of a distraction than a help, even if you weren’t being tormented by the thought of him in this bed. He’s all legs, and arms, and stupid comments, that would do nothing for you and the sea of boxes you’re swamped in. You need him, and that cologne that follows him around, very, very far away, if you have any hope of getting unpacked today. 

‘Plus, I need to move fast if I’m gonna have this place sorted before tonight,’ you add.

He nods, once, then frowns. ‘We can do it a different day, if you want.’

‘No, no,’ you brush the idea off. ‘This is the day everyone can do, and I’m not having my housewarming pushed back and back until it doesn’t happen at all. Tonight’s good. Trust me.’

‘Alright.’ He pats a heavy hand onto your shoulder, then catches your chin with his thumb. The pad of it drags down your skin as he turns away. ‘See you later, biche.’

‘I hope you washed that,’ you comment, once he’s already by the door. 

He laughs. Loud and shameless. ‘Nope.’

You groan and immediately scrub your chin with the edge of your sleeve. ‘Pig,’ you call, but he doesn’t hear, and you’re smiling anyway. 

God. He really does get away with anything; recently, you let him get away with anything. 

At least you have a real starting point now. The face wash is in one of the boxes you’d stacked in the shower cubicle, so you’ll tackle those ones first. 

*

‘Okay, okay. Listen.’ EZ is quickly losing the crowd, his defence failing before it’s even begun—and partly because he’s laughing as he argues, his cheeks alcohol-warmed and round under his eyes. ‘In all honesty,’ he pleads, ‘I thought, I mean, come on, fucking Mississippi mud pie! It’s in the name.’

‘You were a fucking teenager, bro,’ Angel stresses, eyes as wide as they were when he’d first told the story. ‘Taking AP science and shit. You really thought that had real fucking, God’s earth, mud in it?’

EZ folds, collapsing back into the couch, a hand over his eyes. Defeated and amused all at once, chest bouncing with a laugh he can’t hide. ‘Why’d you think I always said no to it, man?’ 

You’re laughing with him, with all of them, from your spot on the floor. The place isn’t big by any means, and with the accidentally extended guest list you’ve ended up with, someone had to forfeit when it came to seating. You don’t mind though, you’re more in the middle of it here. 

EZ’s sitting on the couch, his feet by your knees, and Gaby’s sitting beside him, flashing the smile that had become a defining feature of hers from the second you were introduced. She’s got one hand on his lap, and the other in the ends of her hair. It isn’t hard to see what EZ finds compelling about her. She’s sweet without even trying. Worth taking it slow for. 

Creeper’s in the last space beside them with his girl, Lucia, half on his lap and half on the arm of the couch. You hadn’t invited them specifically, but you also aren’t bothered now that they’re here. They’re nice, chilled, and they brought a crate of beer with them. So. 

‘Come on.’ Gilly’s turned the focus back onto you, from where he’s leaning against the back of the one armchair that completes the living room. ‘You really don’t have anything like that?’

‘No.’ You shake your head. ‘Honestly, nothing that even comes close.’ 

That’s how this had all started; a drinking game that had collapsed into a senseless, back and forth, exchange of embarrassing stories, which had led to Angel sharing EZ’s when you failed to come up with something of your own.

You pick up your empty beer from the rug and set it onto the coffee table in front, so that you can stretch your legs under it. You’re getting too old now to sit cross-legged for long. 

‘I’ve never done anything embarrassing in my life, actually,’ you say, not even managing half the sentence before the words start bubbling over a laugh. ‘I think Angel should tell one of his own.’

Angel’s sitting in the armchair, of course, his elbows balanced on his knees, his head dropped enough that it’s almost level with your own. He’s drank enough of Creeper’s beer, and your whiskey, to have made his eyes glassy, shiny. Darker than usual, but gleaming somehow. 

‘Oh really?’ he says.

And you say, ‘Yes, really. Damelo, tontín.’

He blinks. ‘Don’t say that.’

You cross one ankle over the other, then frown at him. ‘Say what?’

Creeper speaks to the room, over the music, over the conversation you’re having, ‘Yo, didn’t Coco say he was coming?’

You don’t answer him, and neither does Angel, but EZ says, ‘Dude wasn’t picking up his phone,’ so that’s the pair of you off the hook. 

‘Don’t say shit like that,’ Angel repeats, ghosting the edge of his glass by his lips. Shining eyes on yours like there’s no-one else in the room. ‘Damelo,’ he mimics, tip of his tongue curling behind his teeth to copy the pronunciation. 

‘Guess he’s bailed again,’ Gilly comments, and he may as well be in the apartment below, because you aren’t engaged in the slightest.

‘What?’ you ask Angel. ‘I’m not allowed to speak spanish?’

He shakes his head, takes a sip, then sucks in a breath like he’s short of them. ‘Not when you say it like that, biche.’

But you hadn’t said it anyway at all. 

‘I’ve got a story,’ Gaby announces, before adding, ‘unless you were gonna go, Angel?’

‘Nah,’ he says, looking at you, but answering her still, ‘nah, you’re good.’

You turn your cheek, smiling at Gaby like that makes up for Angel’s lack of eye contact. ‘Go ahead,’ you tell her. ‘But I need another drink first.’

————————

Hours pass, bottles empty. You’d never thought you were bad at throwing parties, but you didn’t know you were this good, either. You didn’t know they could be so warm, so fun. So continuous without hitch. Mick never threw parties like this. You always assumed it’d be a no, I’ve got work to catch up on, no, the couch just got upholstered, so you never asked.

You’re taking yourself toward the kitchen now, well, the space where the appliances and countertops have been pushed into the corner of the room. It feels like a lie to call it a real kitchen, but realtors love doing that. Nela called it a glorified break-room. All it needs is the water cooler. 

God, water. That’s what you’re here for.

You redirect toward the sink and then Angel’s voice is curling into the space behind you, your name singing from his lips like he wants something. 

‘What you doing, biche?’ he asks, scuffing up the tiles.

You hold the glass above your head, an answer in itself, then turn the tap to fill it. 

‘Water?’ Angel groans. ‘Fucking boring-ass drink.’

‘Future me will be grateful,’ you say, swallowing a hiccup. 

You don’t want a hangover, you’ll have one, but you don’t want one, and any water you drink now could save you one less headache tomorrow. 

‘You should have some too,’ you tell him, before taking a clumsy swig that spills half of it down your chin. ‘Here.’ You offer him the glass afterwards, wiping your face and neck dry with the palm of your other hand. 

He approaches you lazily, feet heavy, height swaying. You’re both drunker than you realised. The thought makes you laugh, though it’s not funny on it’s own. Just fact, really.

‘Hurry up,’ you say, bouncing the words to him, ‘you’re in slow-motion, fool.’

‘Maybe you’re just really,’ he pauses, head nodding in front of you, ‘really, really fast.’ 

He takes the glass and swallows the rest of it, not as messy as you were, but still dripping water through his beard. 

Your hands are up to his face, fingertips to the wet parts, before you even think about doing it. You wipe his beard dry, comb through and down the thick of it, then brush the hair above his lip for good measure. 

‘You want shampoo, too? Conditioner or something?’ he says, arguing against your fussing, but making no move to stop it. He stands still, as still as the stupor will let him, while you run another pass over the greys of his chin.

‘I like the beard,’ you say, letting your elbows rest against his chest briefly. ‘Suits your head shape.’

‘My head shape?’ He laughs, you mirror it. ‘That’s a new one.’

‘What?’ You pull your arms back, and set your palms against the counter behind you. ‘I’m right, though?’

‘I believe you,’ he says. ‘It’s just a weird as fuck compliment, biche.’

Well, maybe you’re weird as fuck, you think, but it doesn’t make it out of your mouth. Instead, you smile, then roll your eyes and let the kitchen area feel like a different world entirely. It sinks as you do, pulling you down with it. You can hear the music still, but it’s humming low enough in your ears to be ignored. You can hear the others talking too, laughing and swearing like fucking sailors, but it could just as easily be coming from outside. It could be a part of the music, even. 

You’re standing with Angel and that’s all there is now. That and the warmth across your skin, under your clothes, the spin of the walls and your head with it. 

He’s watching you closely, glassy-eyed and hiding a smile, his left hip against the side next to you. Close enough for your thumb to catch his jeans if you wanted to. 

‘What’s that face for, Ange?’ you ask, though you’ve seen it before on other people, you know what it means; your breathing quickens with the anticipation of it.

His head drops a fraction as he leans into you, not touching yet, but so close you feel the heat of his own skin radiating off him. 

You tilt your face toward his, lifting your gaze to find him through your lashes. You wait, and he waits, both saying nothing, doing nothing, but looking at each other with an unspoken dare behind your eyes.

‘I wanna kiss you so bad,’ he says eventually, quietly, with a slight exhale like he can’t believe he’s admitting it. 

Finally. There it is. A smirk tweaks onto your features at the confession.

‘Then you should take your own advice,’ you reply. Eyes, lips, eyes again. ‘Fuck it,’ you breathe, ‘and do what you want, right?’ 

‘Yeah?’ He barely forms the word, but it’s a question still.

You nod, you want him to. The fire beneath your ribs will only blaze for so long. 

His hand goes to your face, in slow motion still, lazing and greedy with it, so you close the gap impatiently, your lips hitting his first. And, oh, that’s what it’s like, then. 

His moustache is rougher once it’s against your skin, his beard flattens entirely now you’re pressing into it. His lips are soft, active, responding to yours and asking for more. You taste the alcohol behind them, tease the parting of them with the end of your tongue.

You’re acutely aware of eyes on you, somewhere, of EZ’s voice in your direction, but you don’t care; you don’t listen. You pull at Angel’s shirt until he’s standing in front of you, top button popping un-done, with his hips to your hips and the hard edge of the countertop behind you. 

He leans back briefly, just long enough to look at you, at your mouth, your eyes, your face in its entirety, then he kisses you again, his hands moving to your waist. Your hips. Hungry at the edge of your thighs. His fingers hook into the flesh of them, just above your knees. He braces himself to lift.

You make a noise against him, a sort of, no, not that, sound. Kissing is one thing, but putting you onto the countertop, with half the club on the other side of the room, is too much. Too showy, too soon.

‘Sorry,’ he mutters, in the short gap he’s taken for air.

‘Don’t.’ You can feel yourself smiling, it aches in your cheeks. You go to say more, but it just comes out as a pant, another kiss, a tug of the hair at the back of his neck. 

He slips his tongue into your mouth this time, pinches the soft of your thighs without meaning to. You let him. You ask for it. You push yourself closer in response.

‘Okay, alright.’ EZ’s voice is louder now, right behind Angel, and then he’s torn away from you, forcibly, by a firm, brotherly grip to his shoulders. ‘If you’re trying to make us all feel fucking awkward,’ EZ says, ‘you’re killing it, bro.’

Angel shoves him, breaking from his hold and trying to look annoyed about it, but smiling anyway. You know it’s you, and not the alcohol this time, making him giddy. Hot in the cheeks.

‘Fuck off, man,’ he huffs, straightening his button-down. ‘Consider it a lesson, yeah, how to get some 101.’

He looks back at you then, standing where you’ve been left, and you thank fucking God that you’re too drunk to feel embarrassed by all this. So what, right? You’re all adults here.

EZ groans, rolling his neck out. ‘You need some new material, bro. Can’t keep saying the same shit and expecting it to be funny.’

‘Oh, it’s very fucking funny,’ Angel quips, nodding. ‘Right, biche?’

You recover quickly, crossing the kitchen in two steps to reach the fridge. The conversation needs redirecting, fast, the attention needs shifting from you and Angel—and definitely from Gaby, who hovers by the armchair, pretending she can’t hear Angel’s jibes.

‘It’s my party,’ you say, bending to pull a beer from the shelf inside, ‘my rules.’ You stand and put the drink into EZ’s chest. ‘So drink it.’

‘What?’ His brows go up, but he takes it from you anyway.

‘Down in one, go on.’ You nod. ‘Consider it payment for ruining Angel’s housewarming gift.’

Angel laughs in a boisterous, victorious way, then passes EZ the bottle opener. ‘Get to it, hermano. You heard ‘em.’

‘Assholes,’ EZ mutters, head shaking, ‘both of you. If this is a thing now, you guys are gonna be fucking insufferable.’

‘Drink the beer, pussy,’ Gilly booms, weighing in from the couch. ‘It’s not even hard, bro.’

You roll your eyes, then flick the bottom of the bottle with a clink. ‘Drink, Zee.’

There’s no thing, no unspoken change. Only a kiss that had been waiting for years to be had. Patiently, too, hidden in plain sight. You just want to give EZ heartburn to take the focus off of it.

As he drinks, you find Angel over his shoulder and watch him take to the hallway in backwards, careful steps. He points a thumb behind him, toward your room, arches a brow to ask, Shall we?

Shall we?  

You can taste him still, can feel the weight of his hands against your thighs. 

So, shall we?

‘I gotta pee,’ you lie, excusing yourself from EZ and the rest of your guests. No one had seen Angel leave, so no-one says anything as you follow after him. No-one comments as the bedroom door shuts behind you. 

He kisses you before you can speak, smiling into it now you’re alone together. 

You pull at his buttons on purpose this time, wanting to feel the skin beneath, needing to see the tattoos you’ve only had glimpses of. 

Fuck it, you think, and do what you want. 

>>>>> part six