#i wish the round rooms were... better. but. alas. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hoshigray · 10 months ago

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𝐇𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞, 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐝 | satoru gojō

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Is it possible to wish to be in the embrace of someone who makes you want to throw them off a cliff? You seem to think so, and the same goes for Gojo. But alas, good things always come to an end, even when not meant to be...

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Gojo x fem/afab! reader - explicit content; minors DNI - modern + college AU - frenemies to lovers + mutual pining - Gojo and reader are at least age 20 - implied fwb relationship - catching/awakening feelings - oral (m! receiving) - ball massaging + sucking - sex in a shared room; college dorms (alone) - cowgirl position on a chair - breast fondling + sucking + nipple play - protected sex (psa: wrap it up, or get tf up) - pet names (baby, cutie, pretty, princess) - heavy depiction of a blowjob - cameos: Haibara and Ijichi - fluff + angst; misunderstandings - humor bc i'm [not] funny.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 7.6k

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: second part, let's goooo!! i loved ur support and comments from the first story, so hope y'all are excited for this part :DDD and ty so so so MUCH for 5.5k like??? i kiss you on cheek, every single on of you, hehehe~

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“If you’re not gonna help, then leave my dorm!”

“Ehhhh, hell no! It’s cold as fuck outside; you want me to freeze to death?”

“They’re…still going at it.”

“Yeah…give it a minute, and we’ll just go to the library without them?”

It’s coming down to the last week of January; university students are finally settling in with their new schedules and getting used to the groove of the spring semester. Or some run around trying to keep up with the new semesters and the change of weather already getting on people’s nerves, wanting nothing more than spring to come quickly.

Three weeks in, and you already have stuff to do, one of them being an argumentative presentation assigned by Professor Yaga in your Contemporary Issues class. You and three other people are tasked to find sources for a topic issue you find interesting and then present a discussion-based presentation on two sides of the topic (two people in favor and two people against).

Unfortunately, the groups were to be randomly assigned. Luckily, two friends you knew in the class, Haibara and Ijichi, were picked to work alongside you! However, the bad part was that another person you knew was assigned to work with you, and he happens to be the guy getting on your last nerves right now, sitting on your couch while clicking through the television channels with the remote.

Your roommates weren’t home today. The club fair was occurring at the quad, so Mei Mei and Utahime had to go out and represent their clubs for the afternoon. Shoko is having an intense study session with Geto for an exam on the first of February, so they’re at the library now.

That leaves you alone at your dorm, using this as a perfect opportunity to invite your group over to work on the project.

“You can freeze your nuts off and become the next Jack Frost for all I care; if you’re not going to do your part of the work, get out!”

Well, minus you yelling at your partner, who clicks his teeth before turning to you. His round sunglasses shone from the light reflected from the living room windows.

Satoru Gojo was your number one nemesis within these campus grounds; this was a known fact to everyone, especially the other group members who nervously examined you two bicker. Being in the same space as him is enough to make you wish you could pull your hair out or put him in the nastiest headlock you could do. Worse, being assigned to the same group as him for your project almost made you want to rip your ears off.

But you had to suck it up; at least you were the first group to start a presentation. Better now than worry about it later, right?

“Pssh, fine, I’ll get up and—Oh! Wait, you guys have Digimon on Hulu? Ahhh, sick!”

Nevertheless, you can’t say that when your supposed partner acts like a child glued to your TV screen instead of doing the work he promised to do. You grit your teeth with a twitching brow, “Why you…”

Across from the common area was the kitchen, where Haibara and Ijichi sat at the dining table. The two sophomores could do nothing but feel the tension between you and Gojo grow with every passing second, suffocating the younger duo. Haibara eyes Ijichi from across the table and whispers, “Wanna make a run for it now?”

The black-haired second-year didn’t reply, only a hurried nod before the two grabbed their coats and stuffed their laptops back into their backpacks. The sound of their zippers alerts your ears, turning to them to question, “Huh? Where are you two going?”

Haibara takes it upon himself to deliver a half-lie as he zips up his jacket. “On second thought, Ijichi and I are thinking of taking the shuttle to the library to work instead.”

Huh? The library? Were they leaving because of the belligerence between you and Gojo? God, you hoped not. “Wait, you guys don’t have to do that. I already made you guys walk all this way here; it’d be rough to have you leave for somewhere else…”

Ijichi comes with the assist after putting the sling of his messenger bag around his shoulder. “It’s okay, Y/n. We found material from the library we could use as sources, so we’re heading up there to take some notes while they’re there.”

“Yup!” Haibara exclaims in agreement, and the two walk past you to put on their shoes by the front door. “Maybe you guys can find sources of your own while we’re gone, and then we can converse and share what we found when we come back. Sounds good?”

“I suppose so…” you couldn’t shake the feeling that they were leaving to avoid being in the same room as you and Gojo. The guilt is hard to endure since you didn’t mean to make the younger boys uncomfortable. “See you guys, then.”

“Cya!” And with that, the door closes on their way out, leaving you and Gojo alone in your apartment.

Well, this is just great; you’ve driven your group members and friends away and are now stuck with the nuisance of a partner who still keeps his attention on the television. It takes everything in your power not to pop a vein. But with one calm breath, you steady yourself and stand tall.

You walk in front of the TV, blocking it from Gojo’s view. The white-haired boy throws his hands up in exasperation, but you couldn’t care less. “What’s the big idea?” He questions you as if he has a right to at this moment.

You cross your arms across your chest with narrow eyes. “Haibara and Ijichi just left.”

“Uhh, yeah, I heard the door,” he maneuvers his body to try and see the children’s show blocked by your figure. “Doesn’t have to do with me—“

“It does have to do with you.” You interrupt him, taking two steps and bending to stare him down. Your face is a foot away from his. “You’re supposed to be here to work with Haibara on the ’no’ part of the argument while me and Ijichi do our part. You’ve only been here for thirty minutes, and the only thing you’ve done successfully is take off your shoes at the door and read your manga books on the couch.

Gojo chuckles – oh, how you hated his laugh – as he puts his hands behind his head, spreading his long legs from their crossed form. “You heard them, no? They’re going to research on their own and then come back. Besides, you know I’m not one to start stuff right away. I’m a procrastinator, remember?”

“You’re annoying; that’s what you are.” You straighten up with a heavy sigh. God, I wish Utahime and Shoko were here. They’d help me out with this white garbage…

“Ahhh, lighten up, Y/n. It’s not like the presentation is on Monday; we got until Friday to come up with everything.”

“Yeah, I’m aware of that, smartass. And you’re right: I do know you. And I know you tend to do things at the last fucking minute. But not this time!” You watch him try to put his feet up on the coffee table, and you quickly intervene by kicking them off.

“Tch. Look, you knew what you were getting into being partnered with me. And relax; those two said they’ll be back to discuss the material later. They already left – nothing I can do about it.”

Your hands rest at your hips, tapping your foot with visible frustration. “Oh? And I wonder why they left in the first place, Gojo. Mind telling me how?”

He quirks up a brow with a smug grin — a telling sign that you’d get ticked off with whatever he’s about to say. “I don’t know, Y/n. Why not ask the nagging control freak talking to me right now, huh? Maybe their short height and angry temper are affecting the mood of those around them to be miserable like them.”

You almost did it — your hands nearly gave into your intrusive thoughts and were about to lunge at the snow-haired guy’s neck to wring around like a rag doll. But you played it off with a clap, rubbing the palms together to distract your temporary violent thoughts.

You sucked your teeth and turned on your heel. “Forget it. I’m gonna go take a nap.”

He scoffs, “Good, maybe your tiny brain needs it to calm down.”

“Choke and die, Gojo!” You say down the hall, already at the door of your shared bedroom. Before slamming the door shut, Gojo’s patronizing laughter can be heard to your dismay. With gritted teeth, you march to your bed to throw yourself on the mattress.

“Ughhh. That Satoru Gojo,” you curse his name under your breath as if he’d hear you through the walls. “So unserious…”

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

To be quite honest with himself, Gojo doesn’t necessarily hate you.

The white-haired boy lies on his side on Utahime’s bed, watching you nap. He did knock on the door – believe him, he did. He even gave you the good old ten-second rule, waiting for your response. But then you didn’t, which gave him the initiative to waltz in and see you in your slumber.

You slept so peacefully; your face at peace, and your faint snores were the only things his ears picked up on. It was as if your little nagging show from earlier was hard to comprehend when seeing your tranquil state in front of him. It used to be rare to see you like this. Keywords: used to be.

For the past two to three weeks, your relationship with Gojo has become more…intimate. Ever since he took your first kiss and drew your virgin curtains, the two of you have gotten a little closer than before — both platonically and physically. Something that Gojo never thought he’d experience with you, his tiny, cute frenemy.

Gojo has known you since freshman year; you were two in the same enrichment group to prepare you to transition into college life. Personally, he wasn’t much for the program; he found it a waste of time, a mandatory prerequisite that he felt he didn’t need. He’s all about experience, wanting nothing more than to get on with his day, go to classes, hang with friends, and repeat.

“Hello, my name is Y/n. It’s nice to meet you all!”

And then came you, the person sitting across from him at the round table your group would always meet at. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t enamored by you the second he saw you. Gojo rarely finds someone who could easily pull his eyes to them — not saying the girls who’d usually crowd and admire him weren’t pretty. There was something about you that kept him wanting to know more – to engage more – about you.

One thing he knew from you was that you carried your character with pride. Your achievements, your personality, your kindness, and your mannerisms — all of which were displayed elegantly and were a breath of fresh air to look at. You stood out to him more than all the other kids in the group, his eyes always finding a way to steer from the professor’s advice to your alluring, listening face.

Another thing Gojo liked about you was that you weren’t afraid to stand your ground, especially when discussing with your peers or him. Sure, you were always respectful and would respect other people’s arguments. But, God, the way you said things so constructed and nuanced, it had the tall other glued to you whenever you spoke.

He’s not going to lie; he’ll admit that he’d try to tick you off and get you to get a little angry with him when it came to arguing. He couldn’t help it. He just liked the thought of you layering out of your poised appearance to the point you’d glare at him whenever you saw him in the halls. And it had him giddy knowing he’s the one that made you angry because you looked cute.

And that was the other thing he really liked about you. The more you two interacted, argued, hung out with his friends, or attended classes together, the more Gojo’s fascination for you turned into that of a school-boy crush. He wouldn’t admit to anyone of this (minus Geto and Shoko if his life depended on it) because it certainly wasn’t something to be known. He was okay with what you two had right now, being the friend who loves to push your buttons to see you nag at him.

That was until you two started sleeping together. Because holy fuck, the past weeks you two have been sneaking time to have each other’s bodies close made Gojo’s mind go crazy. So fucking crazy like the feeling of you on him is borderline addicting. Your whiny cries calling out to him when he scrapes your sweet spots, your nails scrape on his chest, your half-lidded eyes when you look at him, or how you whisper his name only for him to hear.

This was the kind of relationship you two brewed, a secret thing only between you two. And Gojo was satisfied keeping it like this because it was what you wanted. No need to flaunt it around; it was no one’s business. Besides, he likes having you to himself, seeing a side of you that only he could imagine and experience.

The sensations of your body under his touch, the various tunes of your voice, and the beauty exhibited in your gaze. It was all addicting. You were addicting.

“Who told you to lie on my roommate’s bed? You know she’ll kill you if she ever saw you.”

It was so addicting that he didn’t even notice you awake until you spoke to him, the erotic memories of you clouding his brain dissipating at the indication of your voice. He smirks, “Oh, I’ll be fine; not like she can hurt me with her tiny self.”

You’re too groggy to roll your eyes, sighing as you turn to your side to face him from across the room. “How long was I out for?”

“Almost an hour,” he replies, switching to sit criss-cross on Utahime’s bed. “I got bored watching TV and knocked.”

“How long have you been in here?”

“Maybe twenty minutes?”

“Just watching me sleep?”

“Yeah.”

You let out a scoff, shaking your head. “Weirdo.”

He snickers at you for recognizing his silliness. “Whaaat? There’s not much to do aside from looking at you. I got bored of the TV.”

“What about your manga?”

“Got bored of that, too.”

“Anyone on your socials that you’d wanna talk to? Girls? Friends? Your teammates?”

“Mmm, nah, none I’d wanna talk to right now.”

Your brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Hmm?”

“What do you mean ‘right now’? You make it seem like I’m keeping you from interacting with your outside life. If you’re bored, talk with whoever you want. Maybe bother Geto…No, nevermind, he’d probably be annoyed since he’s studying.”

Gojo examines you, silently removing himself from your roommate’s bed and treading towards yours. He takes off his sunglasses and places them on top of your dresser before sitting on his knees on the floor. He rests his hands and chin on the edge of your bed, his sky-blue eyes locked in with yours. God, you were so beautiful to look at.

“I meant that I don’t want to talk to anybody.” Now that he’s closer to you, his voice dials to a whisper. “Not when I got you here to myself.”

He notices your brows drawing upward at the sentence. “To yourself?”

“Mhmm,” he hums, bringing a forefinger to trace your brow. A sensual touch not to startle you. “Just you and me.”

You give him a look as if you think he’s trying to pull something. “Don’t tell me you were making me mad at you earlier just so Haibara and Ijichi could leave, and I’d be stuck with you.”

His smile broadens with every word, his dimples out to see. “No, although I hate that I didn’t think of that myself.” His hand goes to your cheek for his thumb to stroke gently. “Would it have been a bad thing if I did?”

You don’t reply, only placing your hand on his. Your eyes are still on his blue orbs, and – you don’t know this because Gojo has the perfect view of you – the light from the window made them shine charmingly as it highlighted your face.

“No��I don’t think so,” you murmur, gaze gradually venturing down to his lips. “I like being around you…Satoru.”

He heard his name leave your lips, an invitation to what he wants to do, his eyes fixated on your lips before closing them and drawing in closer. “Me too…”

The kiss was soft and gentle like he always starts with, waiting for you to give him the okay to kiss you again. And when you meekly lick his bottom lip, he gives in to your request and claims your lips again.

Your moans were so sweet to his ears — his favorite thing to hear — especially when he becomes a little devilish and sucks on your tongue to make you whimper a little louder, turning him on even more. It serves as the perfect distraction for him to snake a hand into your shirt, his hand already making itself home and cupping your breast in your bra.

You break the kiss with a gasp, and massages to your mound make your breath shaky. “Mmmah…you sneaky pervert,” you name-call him sweetly.

“Can’t blame me; I just know that you like to have your tits played with.” Gojo sneers, tweaking your nipple to hear you gasp again. “Hey, remember you said you’d suck me off next time?”

“Huh?” The question threw you off before you could fall deeper into a euphoric haze.

“Don’t ‘huh’ me, you promised!” He whines to you like a hurt puppy. “After I ate you out for twenty minutes straight last time, can I just have your mouth on my dick once?”

“I never told you to eat me out for twenty minutes!”

“You crying and telling me not to stop said otherwise!” He stands his argument, even if you warn him with a glare. “Just suck it, please. I haven’t felt your mouth in a while.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. You didn’t expect to deal with his childish tendencies, but it is Gojo we’re talking about. You sigh, “…Fine, Satoru.” And then the white-headed boy beamed at the confirmation, immediately standing up and heading to your desk. It was an abrupt change of pace for a second until he brought your desk chair out.

With glee, Gojo flings his jeans and boxers with ease, his half-hard cock out for you to see. He sits on your chair with spread legs, “I’m ready~.”

You roll your eyes, yet the smile on your face sneaks without you knowing while leaving your bed and crouching between his legs. “You’re such a big baby sometimes…”

Your hand finds its way to the body of his dick, gliding it up and down to feel the veins under your palm and fingertips. Gojo hums to your cold fingers, hitching his breath when you tease him with a blow of air.

Your free hand comes to his balls, massaging his testicles in a way that has his leg jerk. He tries to fight it, but the squirm on his legs says otherwise. “Hahhh, fuck…quit it…”

“Hmm? What, you don’t like it when I tease you?” You peer up at him with a smug grin before using your tongue to lick on the glans slowly, and he covers his mouth before a gasp comes out after lapping on his frenulum. “But when you do it to me, it’s not a problem, huh?”

“Mmmph, shiit, Y/n—Ohhh…!” Another jolt of the hips after you lick and kiss one of his balls, teasing the skin with a kiss and tiny chews that would have him choke on his breath. “Jesus, fuck! Y/n, baby, you’re driving me crazy….Aishhh!!

“Oh, really?” God, you were such a fucking tease. But he fucking loved that so much. “What should I do?” You ask him before sucking on his balls again, and a hand comes to your shoulder to grip.

“Mmmm…Blow me off, princess,” shivers crawl up his spine as you place kisses from the base of his cock towards the tip. “Please, I wanna feel you…”

You giggle at his reply, finally taking in his cockhead to your pretty lips and sighing through your nose as you hollow your cheeks to take in more of him.

Gojo sighs at your licks and sucks on his girth, his erection becoming accommodated to your oral cavity wonderfully. You unhurriedly prompt yourself to take in more of him until your lips reach his pubes, your throat now full of him, and the warmness of your gummy walls makes him squirm more.

Bobbing your head at a moderate pace, you suck him off to that of a pleasurable cadence. You still use your hands to stroke him, Gojo melting to your touch even more. He throws his head back when you attack his tip again with the onslaught of licks and laps, the hand on his balls roughly kneading them jerks him to moan aloud.

Fuck, it feels so fucking good having you suck him off like this. How your tongue moved up and down on him was so dangerous, prompting him to place a hand on your head for support. As if that would help, you don’t show him mercy when you suck him harder and faster. The noises coming from your mouth sounded so erotic and pornographic, the heat on his face brewing out more.

“—Khhmm, fuck, man, I can’t…Ahhh! Y/n, I’m gonna cum if you keep licking it like that. Stop, st—Ahhaaa!!”

But like he said before – you’re a tease (if not worse than him). You remove Gojo’s dick from your mouth and throat at once, the groan he exerts fueling the fire in your body. You stand to withdraw your shirt, bra, and panties to the ground, knowing Gojo’s watching every move. “Don’t get mad at me; I know how much you wanna cum inside.”

You pull out the condom from the pocket of your skirt, placing the rubber on his cock after removing it from the wrapper. He couldn’t help but laugh, “Seems like you’re more of a pervert than me if you had that ready while those two were here earlier.”

“Shut up,” you playfully kiss him with a sneaky bite to his bottom lip. Then, you mount and align your cunt on his dick, the glans kissing your wet labia. “Hmmm, fuck…”

“Relax, cutie,” he kisses you on the cheek while his hands fondle your breasts.

You slowly descend your slit onto him, the tip of his cock pushing into the entrance of your vagina. A couple of exhales and inhales keep you steady when inserting him into you, not letting the pain distract you from the task at hand. And the both of you moan in unison when it makes it in, your hips leisurely coming down on him until your ass rests on his thighs.

You grind on him with the roll of your hips, evoking choked intakes of air from him as a hand goes to your ass with vigor. His face to your chest while the other hand plays with one mound. His lips found a nipple to pop into his mouth to suck on.

With a slow pace, you rock your hips onto him. Your legs bent for your feet to be on his knees, the chair solid enough to withstand you bouncing on Gojo’s dick with repetition.

“Hoohhh, ohhhh, mmmm,” your hums are expressed in tunes. The curve of his cock is so fucking good, scraping your insides with precision. You couldn’t help but increase the speed just a little bit.

Gojo keeps sucking on your nipple; the grazes of his teeth and pushing the bud up to the roof of his mouth only fuels more quivers to travel down your bouncing figure. Both of his hands now under your skirt to feel the flesh of your ass under his hungry grasp. He kneads your asscheeks with every thrust to your chasm, and your shrieks get louder by the second.

“—Mmmph! Shit, shit, you feel so good, pretty,” he finally lets go of your hardened nipple, burying his face to your chest. “So fucking good for me…fuhuuuucck!

You could feel your cunt contract around him; every graze to your sensitive spots prompted your walls to grip around him. He hisses, looking up to see your expression as you ride him out. Fuck, you looked so good on top of him like this. He’ll add this position to the list of things to do again with you.

You peer down to see that Gojo is staring at you, and you quickly bring a hand to cover his eyes. “—Ahhahhn, d-don’t look at me like that! Yer soo embarrassing…!”

He only chuckles at your shy demeanor, especially during this. But he humors you, not fighting your makeshift blind for him to see you wholly. He’s seen it all already — felt it all, too. And he could never get enough.

“Ooooh, Satoruuu—Nnaaahh!” He loves how you say his name, your hand traveling to his hair to grab in tuffs. “Oh, fuck, ‘toruuu, I’m gonna cummm…!”

“—Hnngh! Yeah, baby?” Oh, he knows. The way you’re grinding to and fro on his pelvis tells him so. “Go ahead, princess. Clench on me and ride it out.”

And with that, your hips go to an erratic pace that has the both of you holding for dear life. The squeeze of your inner walls clenching on him almost makes him choke on his spit, the nails of his fingertips forming crescents on your skin. And you scream at it, slamming your ass onto him as you both climb up to orgasm.

Within seconds, it hits the both of you like a train. This had to be Gojo’s favorite part of the entire thing, experiencing having your folds clamp and flutter around him as you cry for him. It took everything in his power not to come with you because he wants to have you on him a little longer. You just felt too good to let go — too addicted to your body to be done with one round.

When the contractions subside while your slurred howls get quieter, Gojo gives you a few minutes to let your body be free from the aftershocks. He knows your body is extra sensitive now, rubbing circles on your back and placing chaste kisses on your clavicle. You hum under his lips, letting the wave of your crescendo exude out from you quietly.

However, since you wanted to be such a tease, why not be a tease back? At least, that’s what Gojo thought before he threw your cunt another snap of the hips, his cock jabbing into your delicate walls that haven’t recovered yet. A sharp cry comes from your puffy lips, the hand covering Gojo’s eyes finally freeing him to see you.

He grins with hooded azure eyes, “Sorry, cutie, but I didn’t get to finish. Wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t get to have fun of my own, right?”

You chew on your lip with trenched brows before bringing your face to his. “Don’t you get carried away like last time, Satoru.”

“No promises, princess~” he sings to your ear before humming into your lips.

As mentioned before, Gojo doesn’t hate you — he just hates that he can’t fully express liking you.

But having you on top of him like this, in his embrace, is a nice change of pace he’ll happily get used to.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“Okay, everyone, class dismissed! Thank you for your time, and see you all on Friday.”

Professor Naga closes up the last class for today, and the students all get up from the seats of their elevated rows to pack up and leave. The clock is ten minutes before seven o’clock, the winter darkness already claiming the sky with a sheet of night. Students are either famished and heading to the dining hall for food, going straight to their dorms or homes, or staying behind for last-minute conversations.

Gojo was one of the latter, deciding to stay behind to chat with the group for a bit. After packing his backpack and putting on his coat, he slings from the table to jump to the row below him, where you were talking with Haibara and Ijichi.

You watch his stunt, ready to lecture, “Jesus, Gojo, what’s all that for? You could’ve just walked around.”

“Ehhhh, why would I do that? That’s so lame.” He comes and bends close to you enough to slang his arm around your shoulders.

But you click your teeth and try to maneuver away from his tall figure. “You’re lame,” you mutter under your breath.

However, Gojo’s ears perked with furrowed brows. “What did you say?”

“You heard me, you lame white furby!” You repeat yourself with a huff and the snow-haired student gawks at your brazenness.

The two of you argue again; students passing by silently exit the class, others stand and watch, and Professor Yaga can only sigh at yet another altercation between you two.

However, it quickly dissipates when Haibara laughs from his seat. “You two, there’s never a dull moment.”

You and Gojo blink at the dark brunette before removing Gojo’s hand from your shoulders. “Hmph, it’s not like it’s my fault; he’s the one who starts it.”

“Oh, what could I possibly do to make Y/n so upset with me this time?” He pushes up his sunglasses, snickering at the scowl you send him.

Ichiji, being the passive second-year he is, meekly changes the topic from the row below you three. “On some brighter news, at least we did well on the presentation.”

“That’s right!” Haibara happily agrees with the statement, leaning against the chair with his hands behind his head. “Professor Yaga seemed really pleased with our arguments; I don’t think he intervened even once. Plus, he said many good things about how we handled the topic. Nice one, team!”

The raven-haired one hums at the other’s exclamation. “I think most of it goes to how Y/n and Gojo bounced off each other’s arguments. How you two pulled up examples from the articles yet remained dignified with your viewpoints was cool to witness. I even saw some students be engaged with the conversation, many amazed with how Y/n refuted Gojo’s arguments elegantly and respectfully.”

But most of all, what the two sophomores wanted to mention was that there was no yelling. To them, the professor, and all the students of this class, you and Gojo presented your presentation without a single tone of malice, no pointless teasing, no name-calling, nothing! It was a civil conversation between two opposing sides. To everyone’s surprise — and thankful stars — today was a success.

You chuckle nervously at the praise. “Oh, come on, you two, don’t let me and Gojo take all the credit. You guys did your part. Especially you, Ichiji; you were an exceptional help for my side and finding sources I could build off from.”

Gojo, on the other hand, rolls his eyes. “Psssh, don’t butter them up like that; without us, they would’ve failed this presentation big time. No offense.” He was forced to say that when you called him by his last name and hit him with your elbow.

None taken, the two younger friends say to themselves unbeknownst to each other.

The tall one continues, “Besides, you were the one who did most of the work. I slacked off until the last minute when you whipped me into shape.” Gojo brings his hand on top of your head for a pat. The action surprised you enough to flinch a bit. “Nice work like always, Y/n.”

Were the stars aligned differently, or did Gojo just compliment you? It certainly took you aback, especially the two others who silently kept their observation to themselves.

You could only look at his complacent look for a few seconds before you realized the warmth of your cheeks became stronger. Averting your eyes, you remove his hand from your head. “Thanks, Gojo…” you express gratitude. “You weren’t so bad yourself.”

A cheeky smile, his dimples prominent to blind you. “Awww, would you two look at that? They’re complimenting me, too~” Another bump to the chest has him cackling like a child, and you shake your head with rolled eyes.

The two younger students observe the scene before Haibara forcibly stretches and yawns to catch the two’s attention. “Man, I’m so hungry; I skipped lunch to prepare for this presentation. Me and Ijichi are gonna meet up with Nanami at the dining hall. You guys wanna come?”

You instantly beam at the proposal; who are you to refuse a dinner with your friends? “Sure! I’d love to…Oh! Wait, let me use the restroom and fill my water bottle.”

You rummage through your backpack for your water bottle before exiting the classroom. The boys watch you descend from row after row, and Gojo says, “Don’t take too long; I’ll convince them to leave without you.”

“Hmph, go ahead and try! They invited me; I don’t know who told you to invite yourself.” You stick your tongue out at him before opening and closing the door behind you.

Gojo watches you with a smile still plastered on his face for a few seconds before Ijichi makes a tiny cough to catch his attention, the sunglasses-wearing junior turning to look back down to the other two. He notes the albeit cheesy-smiling faces they harbor, and he lifts a brow. “The hell are you two smiling for?”

The raven-haired sophomore squeaks at the sudden firm tone, “N–Nothing!”

“Pfft, oh come on, Kiyo; let’s not act like we didn’t see what we just saw.”

Gojo catches the nuance of Haibara’s comment. “Saw what?”

“You’re over here talking about our faces, but you’re the one who’s smiling at Y/n as they leave the door?” The brunette sophomore sends a wink to his junior, whose face doesn’t change at the comment.

“And your point is?”

“Well, it seems — to me, at least — there might be something going on with you and Y/n?”

Gojo was prepared for that, opening his mouth to interject quickly. However, the dark-haired other beat him to the punch. “Now that you mention it, Gojo and Y/n have been kind of…stable? There's still the usual arguments, but those haven't happened as much since last week…”

“Right!?” Haibara points at Ijichi with exclamation, making the other second-year flinch. “For some reason, things seem to be a little quieter with the two of them now, not to mention them hanging out way more often. Everyone’s been talking about it; even Geto and Shoko asked if Gojo had done anything that made Y/n passive?”

“I asked Nanami about it on Monday; he thinks maybe Y/n finally knocked some sense into Gojo’s childish brain to have him be so civil to engage without yelling their head off.”

“Pffthaha, I wouldn’t go that far. Y/n did just kick him in the shin yesterday for scaring them from behind.”

“Ahh, yes, well, that was deserved.”

“You two realize I’m still standing right the fuck here, right?” No, they hadn’t because the two discerned the twitch of Gojo’s brow after conversing about the tall, white-haired boy.

“But it’s true!”

Another voice enters the set, making Gojo raise his head, and the other two turn to their left. It was some girl and her friend. Gojo knew of her; she sat next to him during class. Again, he knew of her, meaning she had no significance to his knowledge.

And yet, she speaks to the three boys. “You and Y/n have gotten a lot more close these past weeks compared to previous semesters—“

“Real close, too!” Their friend adds on from behind. “It’s as if you two are like a couple.”

“So…Are you two….a thing?”

Gojo could tell from a mile away what this was. Obviously, the first girl has a thing for him — he can see the anxiousness from the twiddle of her thumbs and avoidant eye contact. Although he wasn’t interested, he couldn’t even answer the question the way he wanted. What the hell could he say: that you two are in a secret relationship? He knows you’d have his grave ready before he could finish that confession.

And he can’t say the two of you are in any relationship either; it’s not what you would’ve told them. To everyone else, you and Gojo are friends who would preferably be caught dead rather than lying in bed together. So, might as well keep that facade up.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” he starts with the push of his sunglasses. “Y/n is a pretty good friend, and I’d like to keep it at that.”

Haibara and Ijichi turn from Gojo to look at each other and shrug. Before turning back, something caught their eye that caused the two sophomores’ skin to turn white.

Ijichi tries to prevent Gojo from speaking further. “G-Gojo—“

However, the tall one doesn’t listen. “I mean, sure, they got a nice personality and are independent…Kinda pretty, too, not gonna lie. But they’re not really my type. I mean, have you seen them? Just a little person who likes to find trivial stuff to yell at me over. Angry at the world around them, I’d say.“

“Go. Jo.” Haibara says the junior’s name through gritted teeth, bringing his hand up by his neck and drawing an imaginary horizontal line back and forth — a gesture for Gojo to not say anymore. But unfortunately, the sign wasn’t seen, and the words kept pouring out.

“And to be honest, can you imagine? Me and Y/n, a couple? Jesus Christ, that would be fucking exhausting to deal with, especially with someone so boring and too uncute like them. I’ve seen prettier, been with better. I feel sorry for the poor bastard who does end up with them—“

“SATORU GOJO!”

Now — that sudden burst of yell from a loud, masculine voice — that was what got Gojo’s attention. It’s what got the attention of everyone else in the room. The snow-haired student jerks to look at the professor standing at the front, the older man with a deep frown. “What?

The professor doesn’t answer him. Instead, he points to the left of him with his chin with a huff. With common sense, Gojo turns behind him to see where the older man points. And at that moment, he felt his very being drop to the soles of his feet. Haibara and Ijichi took a slow breath in unison at the immediate tension.

Behind him stood you, a lone figure holding their water bottle within three arm’s length away from the group. But that was sufficient enough for you to have heard everything said.

Breathing suddenly felt impossible for Gojo; his entire body was stiff under your gaze. His shades could hide his eyes, but he wasn’t sure it could shield the instant shame that slapped him across the face from you.

And that was another thing: the look you harbored was indecipherable — the true definition of disengagement. There were no widened eyes, quivering lips, or shaky hands. You stood plainly and looked as though you were detached from the entire situation. And that was what scared him the most.

This was strike one.

He dared not move when you began walking up, and your eyes then shifted to ignore his presence. “Hey, Yu,” the brunette straightened his posture at the use of the first name. “I think I’ll have to decline on that dinner offer. I’m a little tired and have a paper I need to work on…Maybe next time?”

“Uhh, yeah, sure, no problem.” He answers with a sweat.

Wait a second. Gojo tries to call for you, “Y/n—“

“Ijichi,” but you immediately shut him down and directed your attention to the other sophomore friend as you put on your coat and stuffed your water bottle back into your bag. “Be sure to submit the presentation template and sources to the course site before the end of the day, please.”

“U–Uhh, already done, Y/n.” He squeaks while reassuring.

Wait, please. The tall one tries again, “Wait, Y/n—“

“Good.” You sling your backpack on, refusing to look at the person trying to talk to you. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, then.” And with that, you turn on your heel and head down the row to leave.

No, wait, stop— “Y/n, wait!” This was strike two.

Gojo doesn’t hesitate to call out to you. At that moment, he follows you to the class steps where you were a row down left from the door. He grabs your hand without thinking, the size of your palm captured by his slender fingers. He knew it was a risky move, but he had to — he had to get you to talk with him right now, if not ever. Because the latter is something he isn’t ready for, something he didn’t think would be a possibility.

And yet, he will learn this lesson of being prepared for the impossible when you rapidly turn to him. Strike three.

SLAP!

Have you ever seen someone get smacked in the face so hard that their sunglasses come off? The remaining two girls who witnessed it know for sure now. Haibara and Ijichi won’t admit to it as they immediately turn to the other side of the room when they saw your hand move. But please believe they winced at the sound of the impact. The same goes for Professor Yaga, who was too stunned to speak, yet it was a valid outcome.

Gojo didn’t move a single limb, allowing the stinging feeling on his cheek to course through his facial muscles. His eyes were glued to the carpeted ground; he knew that’s where they were supposed to be. And you snatched your hand away from his grasp, leaving his fingers to suffer in forced loneliness.

“You…you think it’s all fun and games to say stuff like that when I turn my back for a few minutes, huh?” He can see your hand palpitate from his peripheral; the anger depicted alone was enough to interpret. And the tremble in your voice? It felt like an arrow to his being. “…Look at me.”

He’d be a fool to have you repeat yourself; he has lost that right to toy with you now. With a slow inhale, Gojo rotates his head at you, azure eyes tracking up your figure to your face. And when it lands at that destination, his heart is shot down.

Tears stream down vexed, watery eyes. Your brows furrowed, and your bottom lip chewed in a terrible attempt to stop it from quivering. The rise and fall of your shoulders as you moderate your breathing, trying so hard not to let your temper dwell into a deeper phase of ugly. It was bad enough you’re crying in public, in front of your peers, your teacher — and it was because of him.

“From this day forward,” you fight your sniffles to say your statement as clearly as possible. “Don’t you ever talk to me, Satoru Gojo. Enjoy your life without something as boring as me.”

And with that, you dismiss yourself from him and the class altogether, the room silent even after the slam of the door closed. No one says anything, too shocked from the event to utter a letter.

The silence aids the ringing in Gojo’s ears, his breathing still having trouble maintaining a balanced front. The cheek you slapped burned with pain; he’s sure the skin is as red as a cherry.

Oh, fuck.

He brings a hand to his face, his body fighting the trembling. The ringing in his ears worsens, along with the pounding in his head that beats like a drum. His eyes stuck to the ground below him, choosing to focus on something inanimate and not living.

Fuck, fuck, fuck—

All he could think of in this time and place was you. Memories flashing right before him, of you and only you. He can hear the way you say his name, both in vexation and in sweet tunes. Your smiles, your frowns, your huffs, your whispers. When your eyebrows scrunch whenever you express worry for him, how you’re never afraid to stand up against him when making a point, the smile that’s been blinding him for many days and nights — the smile he wouldn’t mind seeing for eternity.

All those memories were one stab to his heart after another. And every time a recollection ended, a flash of your crying face would return to haunt him. Tears that weren’t meant to be there but were, and warm feelings you expressed with him were gone the moment he saw your eyes void of feelings for him. At least, that’s what he saw.

He hurt you. That was the only revelation that haunted him where he stood, making his voice falter from confidence. It was a revelation he never meant to bring about. And now that it exists and he sees the damage, nothing would be better for him now than the ground beneath him swallowing him whole.

“What…the fuck…”

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mercurycft · 6 months ago

Text

𝐔𝐆𝐇 — 𝐋.𝐖

## reader x leah williamson !! enemies to lovers

hiiiiiii pookies! hope you enjoy this little angsty smutty fic! hopefully ill have some more bits out for you guys over the next few weeks - life is just crazing atm and i spend 99% of my time at work :( anywayyyys - i hope you enjoy this! its a long one - love always - RG x

masterlist here

contains : NOT PROOF READ BC I CBA!!!! angst, enemies to lovers, arrogant!leah, top!leah, oral r receiving, fingering r receiving, caught red handed, foul language.

3.5k words

it's a hot may monday in london - the type of hot that sits at the back of your throat and grabs at your skin harshly. today, you wake up to the day’s first rays of sun peaking through the blinds, a stark contrast to the usual grey, early morning skies. you sigh into the space around you, already feeling sticky and uncomfortable as you roll over, your hand brushing against the empty space in your bed and reaching for your phone to silence your alarm.

you get up - against your will, and begin to get ready for your day. shuffling about your flat, nerves brewing in the pit of your stomach at the mere thought of having to walk into work today, you try to distract your mind. taking your time for your usual routine - overly aware that you have given yourself more time than needed.

it’s your first day back to work. your first full and proper day back in london, and you already find yourself wishing it was the last. you loved your job - loved the people you had met; the people who had become some of your closest friends in the entire world. you worked hard, got your degree and that led you here.

well, truth be told you like most of the people you've met.

leah williamson, however, did not fit into that category. she was arrogant, dismissive. the type of woman that always seemed to be looking down her nose at you - like she was better than you. you tried your hardest to like her; to look past her abrupt and oftentimes rude exterior and personality but you just couldn't.

the way she spoke to you, how she held herself whilst she walked around the grounds - god it had you riled up. nerves raging at the mere thought of being in the same room as her for a prolonged period of time. but alas, you had to remain professional.

you couldn't jeopardise your job, your income - to spite a woman who somehow seems to make it her life mission to aggravate and annoy you. so, instead, you smiled sweetly. spoke extra calmly, all in attempted to be the bigger person.

she didn't make it easy for you with her tanned skin and deep blue eyes - the accent which rolled off her lips gracefully and caused a smile to threaten at your lips every time she spoke.

you weren't the best at staying focused, clearly. finding yourself staring absentmindedly into the bathroom mirror, toothbrush still between your lips whilst the thought of her trickled through the depths of your mind. disgust and attraction tangoed in your stomach; rattling around your organs until you finally ripped your eyes away and continued to get ready.

an hour later you were in the carpark, head leant against the headrest and hands still fixed at the 10 and 2 positions. you spent the next few minutes preparing yourself - taking deep breaths and assuring yourself you would be calm and collected from the minute you walked in.

so you were, armed with your bag slung over your shoulder and a ring-binder tucked beneath your arm you entered - smiling at the few familiar faces around you; all kitted out in their newest and finest training kits. they were earlier than usual, some of them having arrived last night and a couple this morning.

in an ideal world, you would've had time to settle into your day before she arrived. but this is clearly not an ideal world. after exchanging pleasantries with the girls loitering in the foyer, you said a brief and collective goodbye and headed towards your office.

through the double doors, round to the right and through the hallway. it wasn't far, but by the time you had rounded the corner your shoulder had began to ache from your bag and the folder had started to jab into your side. you knew the route like th eback of your hand, having wandered through these halls on numerous occasions after the last few years.

so, your head stayed tucked into your phone. too focused on the screen below you to notice the body slumped against the wall beside your office door, or the way it shifted to face you as you neared.

"you're late." you knew who it was before your eyes even lifted to meet theirs.

"williamson, to what do i owe this pleasure?" you exhaled, rolling your eyes out of view when you turned to unlock your door.

"you're late."

"your watch is fast."

this was usually how your interactions went, you tried to keep them to a minimum - but when you did talk, this was pretty much the usual.

"have you had a chance to look over the new schedules yet? i've had them emailed to you." she continued, paying to mind or attention to anything previously spoken.

"oh yes, please come in." you sneered as she followed into the room behind. you flicked on the lights and put your folder down on the desk, along with your bag. they hit the wood with a thud and you turned around to face her as she continued speaking.

"well, did you?"

"considering you just watched me walk in, what do you think?" you threw back with a raised eyebrow and a wide expression.

"arsehole." she muttered as she left, turning away from you like a toddler and almost swinging the door off of its hinges on her way out.

"oh captain williamson how you have hurt me. prick." you whispered below your breath sarcastically, face screwed up in a childish manner as you slumped into your seat with a grumble.

it wasn't always like this, bitter and short. there was a time when you and leah actually managaed to tolerate eachother, you were almost friends. then, when leah suffered her ACL injury - the dynamic did a full flip. she was knocked by the full force of her harsh, new reality. she was angry at the world, angry that the one thing she loved most was ripped from beneath her feet in a matter of seconds.

you, in charge of her recovery, were the closest and clearly most obvious thing to blame - so she did. every set back, every minor issue - was thrown onto you and your apparant incompetance to care for your players, your team. you paid it no mind, plagued with sympathy for her.

you had assumed once she recovered and her time spent rebuilding her strength was completed, that maybe she was ease up. that she would stop the snide comments or glaring stares across the room. you assumed wrong. instead she insisted on acting like a child, everyday. at first you tried to rise above, not letting her have an affect on you but everytime she spoke you felt your stomach physiclaly recoiling; twisting with anger. so eventually, you came to terms with it and you stopped taking it.

——————

the day drags on, your various appointments come and go and you can finally feel the end of the day nearing. people had started popping their heads in to say goodbye's and exchange see you tomorrow's and now it was just you and a few others who remained in the building. today had dragged and the thought of your bed was the only thing keeping you going. it was nearly 6pm when you had finally finished the reports and notes you needed to complete and just as you start to gather up your things the door ahead of you flies open.

“are you taking the piss?” leah. you inhale deeply at the sound of her voice bellowing through the room - careful to remind yourself of where you are.

“hm?” you dont even look up, seemingly unbothered by her presence and still flicking through the documents and papers littered across your desk. you can feel her fume from across the space, the humorous thought of her literally bursting into flames threatens a pinched smile to tug at your lips.

“i’ve been ringing you since lunch!”

“oh, i haven’t noticed.”

“why do you have to make it your daily goal to fuck me off, y/n!” she pauses and a weighted silence brews between you. “funnily enough it’s actually your job to pick up your phone!” she continues, hands waving about beside her. “especially when it’s me calling you! don’t you think that when you see my name flash up, that maybe you should fucking answer. your. pho-”

“no, leah!” your hands hit the desk palm flat with a smack, the fire behind your eyes fuelled by the sting across the skin. she’s loud, but you can be louder. “i dont, because funnily enough, i don’t answer to you!”

after starting you couldn’t stop, eight months of tongue biting and insult swallowing has come back to bite you in the back side - and now, the words came vomiting out with no sight of when they will stop.

“you don’t pay my wages!” you hold one finger up, pointing at her viciously. “you don’t get to come in here and bark orders at me!” quick breath. “you may be ‘captain williamson’ out there, on that pitch.” your finger moves to point out the window at the grassy area beyond the building. “but in here, through that door-” it moves to punctuate your sentence. “you are just leah! and i don’t know what gives you the right to come in here, day in day out and berate me!”

"you know thats-"

"all i do is listen to you speak, and comment and now fucking shout at me! in my office! and i am sick. sick! of hearing your voice ringing in my ears because you think you are better than everyone else! well earth to leah - the sun doesn't shine out of your fucking arse!"

too consumed by the anger radiating between you and the words flying off your tongue, you hadn't noticed how you had now moved from the safety of your desk. instead, you stood no more than a metre before her. skin on fire as you stared into her eyes and let all of the compressed anger bubble to the surface.

you both shared a moment of hefty quiet, chests heaving in sync as you collected your thoughts and your mouth opened again.

"you are rude." a step closer. "you are arrogant." another. "you are nasty." one more. "and you are truly, utterly and entirely a giant pain in my arse." you had travelled closer than intended during your rant, and now you stood inches from her. jaw clenched and breath shuddering when your eyes levelled once more.

the rage you felt overpowered every ounce of logic left in your brain, and you felt a wave of disgust crash over you when you found yourself softening at the smell of her sweet, vanilla perfume.

you were adamant this time, this was the last time she spoke to you like that. of the last time she spoke to you at all, you didn't really care.

"you're a bitch." she spat back into the small and enclosed space between you. you felt your breath catch in your throat as you realise that there may well be a possibility she's right.

maybe its the adrenaline pumping through your veins and intoxicating your bloodstream, or maybe its the way her hair has started to fall in front of her eyes as she heaves for breath in front of you, but t he air feels electric, and you sense the same awareness in her.

without a word exchanged, she steps forward and reaches for you. you don't know what you expected - but instead of pushing you away she pulls you towards her. you stumble slightly, unable to shake off her grip and leaning into her fingertips unintentionally.

there's a pause, a shift.

the air surrounding you suddenly too thick to inhale, grazing the back of your throat as your lungs are deprived of their need for oxygen. her eyes bore into your own, and you're sure, just for a split second - a wicked smirk pulls her lips into a lopsided and overly cocky line.

then she's on you, her lips against yours - fierce, unforgiving. you move with no real method, lips fighting against each other and teeth clashing. her teeth pull against your bottom lip roughly and you hiss, stomach contorting at the feel of her smile against the now sensitive skin of your lips.

you shouldn't want this, this shouldn't be happening. the little voice inside your head, the voice of reason is silenced when her hands move to your waist - gripping at the fabric of your top and leading you backwards towards your desk. your lips don't leave hers, worried if you come up for air you'll miss even a moment of this.

the edge of your desk hits the back of your thighs, and shes quick to hoist you up to perch on the surface. your legs spread and her frame holding ground between your thighs, your hands grabbing at whatever skin they could find as she kissed you feverishly.

her hands roam under your shirt and caress the skin of your back roughly - her soft skin juxtaposed with the way the pads of her fingertips graze across the small area. you busy your hands by sliding up the back of her thighs, feeling the skin uncovered by the shirts she adorns. you drag your nails against her urgently, encouraged by the way she moans into your mouth, her hands gripping your back and pulling your front against her.

begrudgingly breaking the kiss, she trails kisses along your jaw, nipping at your ear roughly with a grunt, and then down your neck. she can taste the salty sweetness of the skin, her own stomach flipping when you arch your neck to give her better access. your hands now wrapped around the back of her neck and twisting into the short hairs that reside there. your breath comes in short bursts as she continues the attack on your skin, hitching when you feel her teeth graze along the skin of your throat and her tongue following in their path to soothe the area.

she pauses as you gasp, her fingertips finding the hem of your top and toying with it before she lifts it up and over your head. you hear a grumble rise from the depths of her throat at the sight of you tucked into a pale lace bra, her hands quick to tug the fabric down and expose your breasts - the wave of air causing your nipples to harden.

you pull her down towards you, encouraging her mouth as she took one in. swirling her tongue around it and sucking gently. your chest rose into her, begging her for more when she bit down softly - a jagged cry slipping past your lips. she continued like this for a few more minutes, working you up with her tongue and fingers as she flicked and alternated between your nipples.

your bliss was interrupted by her hand flat against your collarbones, pushing you down until your back laid flat against your desk - not caring for the way the sheets crumpled beneath the weight of you.

she didn't give you time to catch your breath, instead she continued her path of kisses and sloppy tongue movements down the length of your body until she knelt on the carpet below you. her thumbs dipped into the waist of your trousers and underwear and began to tug them down your legs, her mouth attached to every part of the skin she revealed until she had them pulled down and pooling around your ankles.

she takes the moment to admire you from this angle, the way your skin creases and your chest rises and falls. your hair littering the space on the desk around you and hands firmly clenched beside your frame.

you're too concerned with studying the ceiling above you to catch the smirk settling across her lips again when she notices how you glisten in the light - her face level with your very evident desperation.

the fingers gripping your thighs were warm and strong as if she was trying to permanently transfer her fingertips onto your skin. her hot breath made your skin tingle and your core ache, you lifted your hips up towards her, pussy clenched tightly around the nothingness as your mind filled with vulgar images of her lips wrapped around you, her tongue on you.

as if she could read your mind, her tongue darted out to lick you lightly - her arousal clouding her mind when you moaned, pressing your hips forward into the source of the friction, begging her for more.

"fuck," she practically purred, her voice low and sultry.

she gave in again for just a second, allowing her tongue to lay flat against your clit - savouring the way she felt your clit pulse and throb against her tongue before pulling away and swallowing you entirely.

you don't have time to complain before she's on you again, her tongue teasing your sensitive clit. circling the nerves gently before pulling away with a little suck and then diving back in to repeat the process again. you try to stay quiet, hand laid against your mouth in an attempt to muffle the noises that you couldn't fight away. the odd moan or whimper tumbling from your lips cautiously.

completely consumed by the way her tongue flicked across your bundle of nerves, you hadn't noticed when she removed one of her hands from your thigh. you did notice, however, when you felt her push a single finger into you - her pussy clenching around her digit and a guttural moan slipping past the skin of your hand.

your body felt as if it had been set ablaze, every nerve ending on fire, every muscle taut and aching for release. when she feels your relax around her, she begins to move her finger in and out of you, slowly at first, then with increasing speed and urgency. her tongue continues its relentless assault on your clit, circling and teasing until you're sure you'll go insane from the need. your hips arch off the bed and your hand grips the edge of the desk beside you, as you meet her thrusts with your own rhythm, breath coming in ragged gasps.

you reach down, gripping her hair tightly, urging her to go deeper, faster. you feel her moan against your skin, her breath hot as it fans across the exposed skin of your pussy. you feel her finger curl, hitting that spot deep inside you that sends shudders of pleasure through your entire body. you're so close, so impossibly close, but you need more. you need her.

you arch your back, lifting your hips closer to her touch as you beg, "harder, please." the words are barely out of your mouth when you feel her press a second finger inside you, stretching you, filling you in a way that feels both foreign and achingly familiar.

her fingers move in tandem with her tongue, curling and thrusting in a perfect rhythm with the hand between your legs. you're lost in the sensation, your mind a haze of pleasure and need. too lost to remember where you are as the coil in your stomach tightens and twists at the pressure of her fingers inside you.

as if sensing your rapidly approaching release, she leans back, her breath hot against your leg. chin glistening with your arousal. "that's it, love. let go."

her fingers move faster when she feels your legs start to shake beside her head as you feel yourself begin to unravel, the tension coiling in your belly finally giving way to a powerful orgasm that sweeps through you in waves. your body convulses, your muscles tensing and releasing as pleasure ripples through you.

you cry out her name, your voice raw and desperate, as you arch your back and come apart in her hands. she murmurs words of encouragement, her breath warm against your skin, her fingers relentless in their pace. and then, finally, she slows, withdrawing her fingers from you, allowing you to catch your breath.

you both sit in an oddly comfortable silence together, inhales mirrored between you both whilst you try and navigate what just happened.

before either of you can speak, or even figure out what to say - the silence is interrupted by a knock against the door beyond you both. you raise up into a sitting position almost quicker than the speed of sound, leah lifting into a standing position between your still-spread legs with a finger pressed against her lips to silence you and wide eyes.

neither of you speaks, trying to breathe silently at the revelation of a body on the other side of the door.

"by the way, this office is not soundproof.." the voice speaks out through the door, their words barely coherent through their laughs. the pair of you now embarrassed and wanting the earth to open and swallow you whole at the presence of your friends outside the room.

"shit.."

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writingsbymo-mo · 1 year ago

Text

Wakey, Wakey Sleeping Beauty

Ran Haitani x gn!Reader

Rating: Explicit (Minors DNI)

Contains: somnophilia, consentual somnophilia, mentions of breeding, creampie, smut

You wake up only to find Ran's bedroom door open. Will you cum before he wakes up or will he best you again? Horniness ensues

Note: no specification of genitals on reader to keep as gender-neutral as possible

Hope you enjoy 💕

It's the middle of the night when you wake up with your throat drier than the desert. You left your room, tiptoing groggily to the nearest bathroom, pouring a glass of water from the faucet and taking a swig. 'Much better,' you thought to yourself. On your way back, you noticed a bedroom door cracked open. Ran's bedroom.

You stepped towards his room, careful to miss the creaky boards. You softened your gaze as you entered. There, he laid in only his underwear. Sheets tousled off his body, hair sprawled over his pillow, with breathy snores leaving his lips. "So beautiful," you whispered, brushing the back of your hand on his cheek. You couldn't wait to ruin him.

The two of you have already tried fucking each other while the other is sleeping which soon turned into a competition of who will cum first. You hoped this round would be in your favor.

Tossing your clothes aside, you climbed into his bed and crawled your way towards his thighs, admiring the intricate design of his tattoo in the dim rays from the city streets. Your fingers slip under the hem of his boxers, pulling them down enough for his dick to pop out, a good eight and a half inches when soft. He's always been a shower, not a much of a grower.

Leaning forward, your soft lips reach his pink tip, giving it a frather-light kiss. His breath hitched as his dick twitched against you, causing you to smile, grabbing his length and giving him a few pumps. You savor the bitter taste, letting your tongue slip over his leaking slit, offering a few kitten licks as you eyed his face. His brows furrowed in his sleep; breaths steadily picking up. "You like that, huh?" You purred, barely over a whisper, "want to be inside me? Wring you our for all your worth big boy?" Oh, how you wished he would wake up and beg to stuff himself inside you right now. But alas, he's blissfully dreaming. You grab some lube on his bedside table and squirt a good amount all over his dick, coating it as you align the tip to your entrance. "Can I cum before I wake sleeping beauty up?"

A breathy moan escapes you as you lower yourself onto his dick. You sat for a moment, adjusting to his sheer size. "So big," you muttered, gummy walls squeezing him.

Steadily, you raised your hips until just the tip was barely in then slammed back down with a jolt. "Fuck....Ran...." The pace increased with intensity. Sounds of skin slapping g on skin echoed in the room. His dick was throbbing, constantly leaking into you, forming a ring at the base. You ground your hips into his, crying out as you shuddered in pleasure, the pressure building between you two. You shifted your gaze, smiling at the way his face reacted every time your pelvises met.

Faster, and faster still, your walls grip him. Chills Ran down your spine as your eyes rolled back. You swear you heard your name but you were too lost in the pleasure you were feeding your desires. So close. Closer.

"Oh fuck Ran...g-gonna....cum!"

A set of hands grabbed your waist, slamming you down on him. Your vision went white as you convulsed, screaming his name, your walls squeezing him like a vice. Warmth filled you with a deep growl from beneath you. "Fuck...darling..."

Thick globs of cum oozed from you. He came so much, you swore he intended to breed you.

"R-Ran..." You collapsed onto his chest, catching your breath as exhaustion washed over you. "Shhhshhh," he hushed, brushing a few strands of hair out of your face, "you did well sweetheart, now get some rest. You deserve it."

Ran smiled and kissed your forehead the moment he heard the first snore escape your lips. "Sleep well."

#personally went with future/bonten ran in my mind 😅#ran haitani x reader #ran haitani #haitani ran #haitani ran x reader #haitani ran scenarios #ran haitani smut #haitani ran smut #tokyo rev smut #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers smut #tok rev #tokyo revengers scenarios #tokyo revengers x reader

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i-write-sometimes-maybe · 1 year ago

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Come Back To Me- Emily Prentiss X FemReader!

Synopsis: Emily comes back from the dead, and your world just flipped upside down again. Or right side up?

Warnings: mentions of death and depression, angst but I make it better. lmk if I missed any.

Word Count: 3.7k

A/n: I decided to post my other OneShots here and hopefully open the floodgates to more requests, hope you enjoy! All likes, comments, and reblogs welcomed!

☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎☁︎︎

It was approaching another month. Another month that you desperately wished didn't arrive. One more month since your other half was taken, no ripped, from you.

Emily was your everything, the only light to be found amongst your plethora of darkness. Single-handedly, she swooped in and saved you, saving you from things that you didn't even know you needed to be saved from.

Alas, after every broken sob that came from you behind closed doors, you began to hide your heartbreak from the team. It was proven difficult, not just because they're a group of profilers but also because they're your family. The closest thing you have to one. Though, you started to become better at hiding your pain. Pushing through your heartache for the sake of your job and the others.

Even though you and Emily were together, you felt as if you had no right to mourn her more than the others. Thinking it'd be selfish of you to make the others see and deal with your pain on top of theirs. No, you'd bury it deep within you like you did everything else.

After all, the one person you could open up to was gone.

The days never got easier, but you didn't let on to it. You had finally gotten used to the fact that she was gone just enough for you to not break down at the mere thought of Emily, only while in front of anyone else of course.

The thought of another month arriving took hold of your thoughts, leaving a shell of you sitting at your desk in the bullpen.

You could hear the light conversations and shuffling of paperwork from your coworkers around you. Aside from Spencer, he was overanalyzing your daydreaming, a habit of his you've learned to ignore.

Suddenly, Hotch and JJ pulled the team into the round table room.

Confusion overtook everyone as there was no mention of a new case to be solved. A stoic Hotch stood in front of the tv with a worried-looking JJ standing beside him.

With one look, you knew that something was wrong and they were afraid of something. You were a profiler after all. But what they were afraid of, you had no idea. And that terrified you more.

You kept looking between the blonde and the brunette standing just off to the left of you, stealing a glance around the room to see everyone else as equally confused.

Derek was the first one to break the uncomfortable silence, "What's going on? Everything alright?"

Hotch lowered his head just slightly as he spoke next, "Seven months ago, I made a decision that affected this team. As you all know, Emily lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle. But the doctors were able to stabilize-"

Your stomach instantly churned and dropped, leaving you feeling as if you were to be sick. You heard the words Hotch was saying, but you couldn't process them.

A ringing began in your ears as you began to realize exactly what he was saying. Tears instantly violated your eyes, coming to the surface with the threat of falling.

You couldn't look away from Hotch, "No." A pathetic attempt of a whisper left your lips. Or at least you thought it did.

This can't be happening.

"She's alive?" Garcia spoke with disbelief.

"No." You whispered once more, a single tear escaping.

Spencer almost didn't want to believe it, "But, we buried her?"

"No." You spoke a little louder, you weren't sure what emotion you were feeling at this moment.

A movement at the doorway, the one you walked through just moments ago, grabbed everyone's attention. Looking up, you saw something, someone, you thought you'd never see again. If it weren't for the others around you, you would've sworn you were dreaming.

"No. No!" You stand from the table, the emotions and pain becoming too difficult to bare.

"Y/n-" Emily tried talking to you, to get you to hear her.

But you need to leave, you don't want to risk the team seeing you break down again. You disliked them witnessing the first time it occurred, the moment JJ and Hotch came around the corner in the hospital to tell everyone that 'she never made it off the table'. You always, and still do, thought that there were dozens of other ways she could've worded it, and she chose that.

"NO." You all but shouted.

You go to exit through the other door in the round room but Hotch attempted to stop you by standing in front of you, "No! Y-You, stay away from me!" You say as you push past him.

He lied to you. He lied to you about the most important person in your life. And that's enough for you to want to leave this place and never return.

You rushed down the stairs, quickly coming up to your desk. You opened the bottom drawer and swapped your gun and badge for your bag. You can feel the team watching you from the windows, but that's not enough to stop you, not even close.

You hear rushed movements, unsurprised that someone came after you. What you weren't expecting was the person that was behind you. Emily came up to you. Normally under any other circumstance, she would've been plenty to stop you in your trail, but not now.

And what did surprise you, was that she was standing in front of you. In the flesh. The Emily Prentiss that you buried just months ago, standing in front of you.

The tears are completely streaming down your face, "Y/n, please wait," Emily tried.

This was already too much to bare, but hearing her voice so close to you, that's an entirely new type of difficulty, "No! You should've known that I can't handle this," Your eyes scanned her in disbelief. "You, you- UGH!" You were frustrated with everything.

Frustrated with yourself due to being unable to express your thoughts in feelings in quite literally any way. Frustrated with Hotch and JJ for lying to you, frustrated with Emily for leaving you, frustrated with the team for you don't even know why at this point.

You just had misplaced emotions everywhere at this moment.

You tried walking away from her.

She came forward and tried to touch you, "Y/n please-"

Fear, maybe longing, flashed in your eyes as you flinched away from her touch, after all, you are looking at a ghost, "I said no. Just- you- no. No."

You pulled yourself away from her and walked out of the BAU, leaving not only Emily confused with your reaction but everyone else too.

~Time Skip~

Your phone buzzed on the coffee table, with you laying on the couch just watching as it moves ever so slightly with each buzz.

You had quickly become annoyed with the sound of your ringer, so you shut it off. You wanted to shut your phone off completely but you knew that was a bad idea for many different reasons. You knew the team would panic, panic being an understatement, if they couldn't even get one ring on your phone. That and you knew Garcia was tracking your phone just so they knew where you were.

Instead, you opted to watch it buzz. Leaving the texts unchecked and the calls unanswered.

You may have been a little dramatic but you couldn't find it in yourself to care.

———

Emily was standing, well pacing, in Hotch's office as he sat at his desk, "I just don't know what to do. She won't answer my calls or texts,"

"She's not answering any of ours either." He didn't want to let on that he was worried, this being entirely out of character for you.

"Hotch, it's been a week. She hasn't come to work." Concern practically dripped from Emily's voice.

He briefly pinched the bridge of his nose, "I know. I didn't think she would react like this."

"I didn't either, did I mess up by not telling her?"

"No. We did what we had to. Not only for the importance of the case, but it kept her safe too."

He tried to reason with the thoughts raging through the brunette's mind, ultimately failing.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm going to head over to her place and try to talk to her."

Of course, he felt that maybe Emily going wasn't the best idea. Maybe Rossi or Reid could go. But he knew that she wouldn't listen regardless of what he said anyways.

"Okay, keep us posted."

She rushed out of his office with your apartment in mind, "Will do."

It took Emily all of twenty minutes to get out of the BAU and to the front door of your apartment.

Oddly, she hesitated for a mere second before knocking. A feeling of relief came to her when she heard your voice on the other side.

"Who is it?" Your voice was weak and hoarse, presumably from your exhaustion but also because you haven't actually talked in quite a few days.

"It's me, Emily."

You regretted your choice of calling out instead of looking into the peephole.

You jumped up from the couch, with more abruptness and energy than you've had in ages, instantly going to the door, "No one's home. Go away." You quietly paced back and forth behind it.

"Come on Y/n, you can't hide forever."

"Sure I can, maybe if I hide long enough everyone will think I died." You couldn't care less about the childish sentence that left your mouth.

"That's not fair, I did what I had to."

The door flies open, "Really?! That's the best you could come up with?! God, Emily!"

The moment her eyes landed on you, she took the opportunity to get a better look at you. She hasn't seen you in months, just like you hadn't seen her. But your flushed and tear-stained face isn't what she was expecting. Emily was expecting you to be tired, a bit different maybe. But not like this. The dark circles that claimed home under your eyes weren't budging, becoming a new part of you because you never were able to get actual sleep since she was gone.

You tried to slam the door shut but she stops it, you don't have enough energy to fight it. You sigh loudly and sharply but it doesn't phase Emily.

She glanced around your apartment, the usual tidiness and comfort nowhere to be found. In your defense, this didn't happen in a week, the clutter occurred from the sheer lack of energy and motivation to clean anything over the past several months.

"Y/n, you have to talk to me." Her hands are out front of her, bracing for something, though it's as if she's almost afraid of approaching you.

You cross your arms, "Oh? Now you're all for communication?"

"Look, I know you're mad-" Okay, maybe you weren't expressing your feelings entirely in the right way.

"Mad? Mad?! Emily, I'm not fucking mad, I'm fucking destroyed."

She has a questioning face but lets you further explain.

The tears you so desperately tried to hide returned faster than before, "Every damn day for months, I cried the hardest I've ever cried in my life. I cried so hard because I thought that the love of my life, the other half of my soul, was gone. YOU DIED," Your arms were flailing in attempts to hide your shaking form. "And- and then when I thought I finally found a way to not cry every damn hour, you just, walk right in? Like nothing happened?! What the fuck?!" You wiped the tears that you had felt during your rant.

"Y/n, I'm sorry. I truly am. I wanted to talk to you, to reach out, but I couldn't." The pain in her eyes beginning to match yours.

"The worst part of it all," You took a stuttering breath. "I didn't get to say goodbye. Every day, I had to walk by your portrait that was screwed into the wall, as if it was mocking me." More tears fell on your face.

Emily took a step forward towards you, and in turn, you took a step back.

"I want to believe this is real. That you are standing right in front of me. But I can't bring myself to. I can't savor this to just lose you all over again." A broken sob left your lips.

Despite your, very pathetic, attempt at keeping Emily from getting close to you, she moved your hands aside and pulled you into her.

Another sob escaped you when you realized she didn't vanish. Her scent and the feeling of her stroking your head made you realize, this is real, and she is here, with you.

At this realization though, your knees gave out, and you are no longer able to muster the energy to keep you upright. More broken cries and sobs came from you as Emily dropped to the floor with you, her hold never faltering.

Your fears of her vanishing again were clear in the way you held onto any part of her you could.

As your sobs and cries shifted into stuttering breaths, you began to feel the embarrassment roll over you. You knew you shouldn't be embarrassed for your emotions, especially for showing them in front of Emily. She was always the only one you never hid from. But you were feeling many different things at once, and you couldn't help it.

You pulled back from her and silently wiped your tear-stained face, you knew it wouldn't make a difference though.

It took you a second to remember the reason why Emily returned to begin with, "So, how's the case?"

Guilt took over you again, you made this about yourself, ignoring the much bigger picture that was happening. How could you do that? Leave in the middle of one of the biggest cases the BAU has had in some time.

Emily was clearly confused by your sudden shift, "No no, how are you?"

Sighing, you tried to get the topic off of you, "Emily, we can talk about that later. I've missed a lot of what's happened on the case."

"We haven't made much progress, well, we haven't made any progress. So, I'll ask again, how are you?"

"I'm okay."

"Wanna try that again, 'cause I'm right here." Not a thing changed, she still saw straight through you.

"Before I answer that, I have a question for you."

"Anything."

"If we had caught Doyle on our own, would you have come back? Would you have come back if you didn't have to?"

She paused for a second, "I'd like to think that I would've, yes."

Her political voice was clear as if she were speaking on trial, "Oh, stop the bullshit Emily, I'm not Strauss," She looked a little surprised. "You don't need to be posh when speaking with me. If the real answer was no you could've just said that."

She sighed before speaking, "I won't lie and say I didn't embrace the slight break of things at least a little bit, but it was just as much hell for me as it was for you," You waited for her to explain more because her tone told you she wasn't done. "You mourned the loss of one, I mourned the loss of six. Every day, I lived in fear that Doyle or one of his men would find me and finish what they started. Or worse, they'd find you. And that's why I couldn't tell you. There was a chance that if they found you, going on normally and living your life, they'd know I wasn't actually gone. And they would use you to get to me. And I wasn't going to risk that."

Your tears returned when you saw Emily fighting off her tears, trying to at least keep herself together. That was another way you two were alike.

"I understand why you did what you had to, I really do. A part of me just couldn't help but feel every possible thing." She searched your eyes for something, and she likely already found it.

"Your turn." You knew what she was talking about.

"No, I'm not," You looked at your hands in your lap. "It felt like a huge part of me died with you that day. A part of me that I was certain wouldn't come back. I became reckless on cases, anyone could tell you that, just hoping that if there was anything that could go wrong, it would happen to me. If anything was to happen to someone on the team, it would be me. I guess, I thought that if something did happen, it would bring me to you." You were terrified to meet Emily's gaze, you know the type of look she'd have and you couldn't bare to see it right now.

"Y/n, I-"

"Don't be sorry, please don't be sorry for me." You whispered, looking up to see her with the exact look you didn't want her to have.

"I'm not-"

"Emily, that's the face you make when you have to talk with a victim's family. I know that tone. I don't want you to treat me like one of them because I'm not, nowhere close."

Yes, you did lose the love of your life. Yes, you were utterly lost. And no matter what the hell you were currently feeling, you got her back. She was here and in your arms. And that is what sets you apart from any family of victims.

"I know that," She spoke as she just slightly nodded her head. "Believe me, I do. And I know I'm just a broken record but I'm so sorry. Y/n, I didn't want to go without saying anything to you but I didn't have a choice."

"I know, I was just being selfish. I just wanted you to come back to me, I wanted this to just be a nightmare and I'd wake up and see you sleeping next to me." Emily brought her hand up and caressed your cheek as you finished your sentence.

"Well, I'm back now. And I know we can't take back the time we lost but we can make up for it, we can continue where we left off or we can even start over if that's what you want."

Your eyes search hers, the same russet brown that you longed to see for ages, but you weren't looking for anything in particular, you just missed her. At this moment, seeing and holding her, you said to hell with it. You pulled her back to you and rejoined your lips, deciding that you were ready to be done with the past. After all, it was irrelevant now.

The world was drowned out with her lips on yours, nothing else was important and nothing could pull you from this moment. That is until your phone went off again. You pulled back from Emily with a groan, and a small chuckle came from her.

"You should probably answer that." She followed your eyes to your buzzing phone that was on the coffee table.

You sighed, "Yeah, I don't want Morgan breaking down my door if you guys decide to come for me."

You crawled a few feet's distance towards your phone, a smile coming to your face when you heard Emily's laugh at your comment.

You turned around, leaning against the coffee table as you answered the phone, "Hey, you."

Emily tried to make it seem like she wasn't listening to the call, but she wasn't trying too hard and you saw straight through it.

Garcia squealed as she heard your voice, "OH! Oh my god! Lovey, are you okay? I don't know what I was expecting but I'm glad you picked up! How are you doing?" You chuckled at her antics, her asking a million questions a second.

You looked up at Emily, "I'm okay, now."

"Oh! I'm so glad! As much as I'm glad you're having this reunion, there's been a breakthrough on the case." Just as Garcia asked you if you could come in, your eyes snapped to Emily.

The moment she saw your look, she knew that both of you were needed, of course, she heard what Garcia said but that's unimportant.

Before you made your leave for the office, you opted to shower and change out of your clothes. You may not have been dirty per se, but it was nice to refresh and rid yourself of the past few days.

The smile that came to your face when Emily rested her hand on your thigh during the drive back to the BAU was entirely involuntary, but it was welcomed. There was plenty you two could've been talking about during the drive, plenty to catch up on, but you both just decided to enjoy the silence the both of you shared and enjoy each other's presence.

All eyes were on you when you and Emily walked back into the bullpen, and instead of speaking you just flashed everyone a sheepish smile. You may have blatantly ignored both Hotch and JJ, not quite ready to face them and be the bigger person, and listened to Garcia as she announced the newfound information.

With everything coming together, the team set a plan in action. Of course, you didn't like that Emily was their main play, you just got her back.

Luckily, all went well, except for Doyle being killed but you counted that as a win. But you, Emily, Declan, and everyone else on the team were safe.

"Let's go home." You placed your hands on either side of her face in an attempt to ground her, you knew that what just happened was a lot for her.

She just nodded in acceptance and took your hand, following you back to the car. Everyone else on the team just watched as you both walked away, they would catch up with you both later, they knew that you both just needed each other right now and the paperwork could wait.

Yeah, the last seven months were hell, but that doesn't matter anymore. All that heartache, all the tears, they're irrelevant now that you have Emily in your arms again.

🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮🝮

Taglist: @inlovewithgreta @v3nusxsky @just-your-casual-nerd @pebbleswritessometimes @bigolgay @scream-queenlover @darkth1ngs @sgelessoanddoveykissing. Y’all are my Taglist so you get to see all my characters 🥰

#emily prentiss #criminal minds #paget brewster #she comes back from the dead #hurt/comfort #oneshot #sapphic #fanfic #season 8 emily #fem reader #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss x female reader #emily prentiss x you #emily prentiss x y/n

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chouxsardine · 11 months ago

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The Lucky Ones -- Danny Wagner x reader

Summary: Does superstition still work its magic when it comes to love? --a spontaneous new year tradition leads to confessions between you and Danny

Pairing: Daniel Wagner x reader

Word Count: 3229

Warnings: mention of alcohol, cussing, superstitions, slight allusion to previous abusive relationship, insecurity

Genre: fluff, COTTON-CANDY-GRAPE LEVEL OF SWEETNESS, friends to lovers

Author's note: Here is a VERY LATE Danny's Birthday/New year fic and also my first time writing Danny! Inspired by the viral tiktok trend about amusing new year traditions. I find them very interesting. I wish everyone a belated happy new year and all the best wishes. Please enjoy :))

🎧: The Lucky Ones by Lana Del Rey (by now titles from song is canon lol I'm so sorry)

-------------------------------------

You have always been a superstitious person, not religious, not believing in magic or the supernatural, just superstitious. Yes, you do believe ghosts exists, and you try to cover your eyes and ears when watching horror films. You hold awe and veneration for some “higher power” like your primitive ancestors. Since childhood, you have always been meticulous about the details, from the direction in which your slippers are pointing at when you take them off before bed to what to eat for breakfast the day of your school theatre showcase. Growing up, many people misunderstood your behavior as symptoms of OCD, but only you know that it is merely the result of your obsession with coincidences and the compulsion to recreate the happiness they have brought to your life; far from being diagnosed as an disorder.

You are going to spent the New Year’s Eve with Danny. You have known each other since you were little kids and have been best friends for over two decades. Friends and families have been teasing you two about being together, and almost everyone thought at least one of you was going to make a move during Christmas. But, alas, nothing happened as the days passed, and here you are, about to draw an end to another year of your friendship. Your feelings for Danny have certainly have developed beyond just platonic level, but you also didn’t want to ruin the precious friendship you have built throughout the years. Plus, you have to admit that you are waiting for a sign. Ah, yes, it is your superstition at work—you believe that there will be an omen indicating the time is ripe to confess your true feelings for Danny. It is not very often that he gets a break from touring and returns home. For now, you just want to be close to him, spend quality time together, and create more memories.

It is safe to say that you nearly jumped off the couch when you saw the trend about “eating twelve grapes under the table at midnight of New Year’s Day for good luck.” How are you only seeing this the afternoon of December 31st? You are already at Danny’s, and the only food you brought over is your renowned passion fruit cheesecake.

“Danny? Do you have any grapes left?”

“What?” Danny yells back from downstairs.

“Do we have any grapes?” You look around the room. The fruit bowl on the counter is filled with limes, which are for making margaritas later. Oh, you should have known better.

“I don’t think so. Do frosted grapes count?” Danny enters the living room and opens the fridge door.

You watch expectantly as Danny opens the freezer section. To your disappointment, there are only five freezer-burned round objects that could hardly be identified as grapes huddled together in a ziplock bag.

“What’s wrong, y/n? Suddenly craving some grapes?” Danny asks amusingly.

“No…well, yes,” You defeatedly close the fridge door and show Danny the post you just read. “It says you’re supposed to eat grapes for good luck.”

“Hum…”Danny’s eyebrows knit in concentration as he skims the article. “I think grocery stores are still open today.”

That’s the thing about Danny. Although you try to hide your superstitious behavior from others, you are never afraid to be yourself in front of him. Instead of thinking you are weird or childish, Danny finds your “little rituals” cute and endearing. He never presses on with questions, which only makes you more willing to explain them to him. And Danny is one hell of a listener.

Nothing compares to the last grocery run of the year. Maybe last-minute Christmas shopping comes in a close second. You are prepared for sensory overload when you see the preoccupied parking lot.

“Looks like everyone forgot something for their dinner,” Danny pulls open the passenger’s side door. Panic suddenly struck you.

“What if everyone has read about it and grapes were sold out?”

“I guess we will find out in a minute.”

Your worries almost became reality. There were only a few bags left on the fruit shelf, and they were obviously being picked over—from the plastic packaging, you saw a few were squished and watery, the ones near the bottom looked withered and brown. But you were positive that you could knock together twenty-four grapes from them.

“I swear you’re my lucky star, Danny. I bet there would be none left if you didn’t come with me.” You sigh in relief as you put all the remaining three bags into the cart.

“That’s a lovely to hear, y/n. Anything else we need for auspiciousness?” Danny asks half-jokingly.

“Actually, we do!” You remember the title of the little pop-up link as you scrolled to the end of the article and saw it mentioned collard greens and black-eyed peas.

Collard greens were easy to find; the panic threatened to twist your stomach again when you didn’t see any canned black-eyed beans.

“Kidney beans…chickpeas…romano…lentils….” Your eyes move fast down each row. “They only have bags of dry beans and we don’t have time to soak and boil them!”

Danny is scanning the label with you until he reaches to the top shelf and grabs a can of mixed beans.

“Look, there’s black-eyed peas in mixed beans. We can just pick them out,” Danny suggests.

“Oh my god, that’s genius!” You perk up immediately.

“Just making good use of my height advantage, I guess,” Danny beams.

On the way home, you are humming along to Queens playing in the radio and clutching the grocery bag containing a bundle of collard greens, a can of mixed beans, and three bags of grapes in your arms, as if you are taking home a puppy from the shelter. Danny couldn’t help but smile at your little expressions of contentment; he loves how you are always able to preserve the childlike innocence to appreciate all the tiny beautiful things.

As soon as you get back home, you dive into further research. By dinner, you had watched a dozen of different videos and five more articles about how exactly one should eat the grapes, answering your question of which colour grapes should you eat (both are fine, and you made sure to buy both red and green ones), whether you should eat them at the countdown to the new year or the first minute of the new year (the latter) , and whether you should sit under a table while eating it (answers vary on this one, but you decided to do it under the table anyways).

Danny is washing the grapes at the kitchen sink.

“Y/n, do you want to pick out the twelve you’re gonna eat?” He asks as he drains them in the strainer basket.

“Oh yes! Thanks for washing them, Dan,” You scamper over. Danny looks so cozy and relaxed in his sweater. His curls tied back into a small pony tail, a few stubborn strands framing his face. The hot, attractive drummer on stage that has the fans screaming and swooning is so different from the huggable human-sized teddy bear that you get to see a lot more often, but it still has the little girl inside you all rosy-cheeked and fluttered nonetheless. For a moment, you are lost appreciating his profile, his lips slightly pursed, long eyelashes casting shadows as he looks down in concentration. The grapes look delicate in between his strong and lean fingers.

“Y/n?”

You are pulled back from your thoughts and bump right into Danny’s mossy brown eyes staring at you. You feel your cheeks getting hotter. Is it still normal to feel the butterflies even after you’ve been friends for so long?

“You are doing this together with me, are you?” You ask as you hold up two grapes to the light, turning and inspecting them as a gemologist. You never wanted to push your own habits and rituals onto others. You have learned from that mistake in past relationships and have since been careful about not coming across as the superstitious version of the lunatic “horse girl”. Although Danny has been considerably supportive about this—buying the grapes with you, coming up the clever solution with the beans, and now this grown ass man is leaning over the kitchen counter and being the judge of a “grape beauty pageant” —the insecurity deep down still peeks around the corner.

“Of course, my dear. I wouldn’t say no to some good luck for the new year.” You can tell Danny’s smile is genuine. Upon seeing the curve of his lips, you could heard the bubbles of second thoughts in your mind popping.

“Look, we even got the cotton candy kind of grapes, those are your favourite.” Danny holds up a bunch of particularly green and shiny grapes.

You almost let out a chirp at the sight of it. You must’ve ignored the label as you hurriedly picked them up at the store. As the name suggested, they do taste like cotton candy. When your teeth break open the skin, the juices are like pure honey pouring down your throat. “And they make the best frosted grapes too!”

“You’re right. We can make another batch with the left overs to ‘replenish our frosted grapes arsenal’.”

You feel a warm, tingling sensation on your palms. Itchy palms are a good sign, right?

Half an hour to the new year, you have already situated yourself under the bar table in the kitchen, the only table in the entire house that is high and spacious enough for two grown adults to crouch under.

“Mind your head!” You extend your hand to pad the underside of the table as Danny gets down on his knees and scoots next to you, almost bumping his head.

“Ooops, close call,” Danny sat down cross-legged. “You know what, I just realized my house probably wasn’t the safest if there was an earthquake or something.”

“Shhh….Danny!” Out of your superstitious habit, you immediately put your fingers on his lips to shush him without much thinking. “Knock on wood!”

Danny pliantly knocks three times on the table above his head, laughgin at your seriousness.

You withdraw your hand, the softness of his lips lingering on your finger tips. “I don’t think this little table is going to do much anyway if it really comes to that,” you said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

The phrase came out his mouth so naturally, without a single second of hesitation. It transported back you into the time in kindergarten when you were pushed aside while waiting for you turn to play on the slide, you looked up through tear-blurred vision; the time when you were on a camping trip and you were nervous about stepping off from the canoe onto the river bank; the time in the scary escape room where your palms were all sweaty and your teeth were biting your bottom lip so hard that it almost drew blood…all these times, there were always a pair of steady hands beside you and a calming voice saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

You quickly blink a few times, getting back to reality and focusing on the two plates in front of you. It must looked like the weirdest “Girl Dinner”—a forkful of boiled collard greens, one tablespoon of black-eyed peas rinsed and drained straight out of the can, and twelve grapes (six green and six red).

“Okay, enlighten me on how to do this,” Daniel asks.

“So I looked into it a bit more. We are supposed to eat each grape along with each chime of the clock once it strikes twelve, but realistically I don’t think anyone can do that without choking, so we just have to make sure we finish all of them by 12:01. Then we eat the veggies and the beans.”

“Uh-huh, weird combinations,” Daniel muses.

“I know. That’s why I got us champagne afterwards to wash it all down.” You point to the two glasses not very far from you.

“Damn. All teed up.”

“Oh I almost forgot! One more very important thing: you are supposed to think about the wishes for the new year as you eat the grapes, one for each month!”

Your palms grew slimy again as your eyes glued to the counting down on the phone screen.

“Oh my gosh, Danny we are doing this��six, five, four, three, two, one!”

You close your eyes and start popping grapes into your mouth one by one. The excitement and adrenaline crush down the twelve preformed coherent wishes in your mind into word soup. Apart from the recurring ones like “health,” “safety,” and “happiness,” the letters spelled “Danny” again and again. Wishing Danny to stay happy and healthy, luck and success for the band and touring, hoping you get to see Danny more, spend more time with Danny, be with Danny….

You swallow down the last bite of your grapes as you open your eyes. You see Danny looking at you, smiling, his cheeks still puffed like a hamster from chewing. There is something magical about seeing the person you wished for right there the moment you open your eyes. It is like seeing the fairy godmother popping up on your birthday cake after blowing out the candles. You giggle as you both devour the greens and the beans, and your glasses clink together as you gulp down the champagne, releasing the satisfied “ahhh” exhale afterward.

“Oh wow.” You hold up the phone. The both of you watch as the seconds tick to 00 and the minutes change from 0 to 1.

“Happy New Year, Y/n.”

“Happy New Year, Danny.”

You two still sit in the not-so-comfortable position under the table, listening to the echoes of the chimes and the sound of fireworks in the distance, savouring the imaginary freshness of the new year, taking it all in like sniffling the smell of ink on the crispy pages of brand new books. Suddenly, you feel the warm feeling slipping away from you, as if visualizing a red line dropping on a thermometer. You don’t know if it’s the sight of the empty dishes and glasses or the adrenaline ebbing away, you aren’t prepared for the previously tamed insecurity to suddenly resurface. The aftertaste of the grapes turned sour in your mouth and made your skin crawl.

“What’s wrong, y/n?” Sensing the change in your mood, Danny turns to you, immediately finding your hands and soothingly brushing circles on your palm with his thumb.

“Danny, are all these…am I…too much?” Your voice are incredibly quiet, fearing it will break. Before Danny can answer, you continue, “do you think this is too….childish and crazy?”

“Okay, y/n, take a deep breath,” you felt the warmness of Danny’s hands steady on either side of your cheek, grounding you in his loving gaze and gentle touch, “you’re not going to cry on New Year’s Day, that’s not good.”

You take in a shaky breathe, trying your best to ease the stinging feeling in your eyes as the tears threatened to spill.

“Good girl. Now, talk to me. What happened? Why are you sad all of a sudden?”

“Danny, I just felt like…” you are plagued by the flashback of the hurtful words of your ex, it still stings as you recite them, “I need to grow up and quit these stupid superstitious nonsense, quit fooling around like a five-year-old…and, and treating everyone around me like one!” You inhale deeply again to regulate your breathing.

“No, y/n. Look at me, and listen.”

“You don’t make eye contact with the microwave timer when it’s has 13 seconds remaining. You always try your best not to step on cracks on the pavement, which makes you sometimes do those goofy strides. You always visit every wishing well in the cities we travel to.”

Your eyes widens as Danny recounts each of your weird little habits chapter and verse. Wait, he remembered all of them?

“I don’t give a fuck what other people have said about them, and I wish you don’t either.” Danny always tries not to swear in front of you, so you know he really means it when he pulls out those words.

“They are what makes you…you. They are an essential part of being y/n, and that’s important. You should never second-guess or change yourself just because some asshole yaps about it. Remember that one time you told me you always cling on superstitions because you feel like good things don’t often happen to you in life, so when they do, you want to remember the way they come and try to make sure they visit the next time?”

You nod, your heart melting.

“Hearing that breaks my heart, y/n, because I think you deserve all the good things in life. It’s my wish that in the new year, this beautiful, kind, and wonderful girl in front of me will stay away from toxic people, keep the people that love and cherish her close, and always prioritize her own well-being.”

“My wish and my luck is seeing you be happy, you know that? I’m the luckiest man in the world when my girl is the happiest.”

“Danny…” You lean into his touch, closing your eyes for a few seconds to savour the moment. You feel like an air ballon fueled by the love in your heart, free and fearless.

“I really like you, y/n,” he said, “as a friend and more than a friend.”

“I like you too, Danny. My feelings are mutual.” The words automatically fall out your lips, as if they have been prepared for this moment for years.

“Yeah? You know what my other wishes are? I hope y/n can be my girlfriend. I want to prove to her how lucky and deserving she is of all the good things.” He is looking at you as if you are the most precious being in the whole world, and in this moment, you truly are.

“I think…I can make that wish come true.” You say timidly, your hands also cupping his jaw. You can feel the pulse on his neck, eager and quick.

“You know it’s also good luck to kiss loved ones on new year’s day, right?” He whispers as he draws your chin to pull you close. Without any hesitation, you attach your lips to his. The kiss is soft and loving, with the residual sweetness of cotton candy grapes.

Because you were closing your eyes and making your wish, little did you know, Danny was watching you every time he popped a grape into his mouth. Every wish he whispered silently in his heart is related to you. He hoped that you’d be by his side for all the twelve upcoming months. He would be the happiest man in the world if even one of your wishes included him.

It turned out that good things don’t always need a sign to happen. True love is always on the hunt; it may creep up on you or catch you by surprise, but either way, it will always find you in the end.

-----------------------------------------

Yeah! you made it! Thank you SO MUCH for reading :))

any comments and feedbacks are greatly welcomed and deeply appreciated

Do let me know if we want a tag list :D

Some more of my works: Mariner's Complex || Permission to Fall

Ticked (all my boxes) || Love is a four-legged word

#danny wagner x reader #danny wagner fluff #greta van fleet fanfiction #gvf fanfiction #danny wagner

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usyrps · 3 months ago

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A CORONATION IS ABLUTION, BESTOWED THE REALM IN THE EYES OF THE SEVEN. his mother's faith weighs on him as her presence does, and her voice comes instead of his own when he deems to speak. in soothe, he had not spoken much since the crown had been placed 'pon his brow, and the days had come and gone swiftly, lost in heeding his council members — when he opens his mouth, he wishes it were sunfyre's golden flame that would seep from betwixt his maw and burn down the keep, the city, the world. all that comes are the hoarse ramblings of a drunken king.

in the ill half-light of dying candles, amidst the king and queens chambers, this eve of blackest hue turns shades of red, deeper than the wine swirling in his cup. ❛ do they ever tire of their ambitions? ❜ the king rants into the air, more to himself than his wife, who surely has no shortage of her own desires. her house had waved his half-sister's banner in oath, yet she wears his ring. he does not begrudge her this, in his apathy, but his grandsire does. that, too, had been addressed at the meeting.

QUEEN BIANCA SAID, THE ODD THING ABOUT AMBITION IS THIS: YOU CAN ACQUIRE IT LIKE A FEVER, BUT IT IS NOT SO EASY TO SHED.

@zeitkeist speaks to him across the room, the shadow of her swaying on the wall and blurring with his own. THIS IS THE QUEEN IN CHAGRIN, IN CONTEMPLATION. she admonishes him. he knows, but does not care. for the better half of their marriage, he had not endured much of her company, nor she his own. when they had been privy to each other, it had been with their skins worn like armour, the formalities cold. gaze turns to his wife's irked figure, a brow arched in what might be gnarled amusement, wrought of frustration.

❛ i am not prone to sickness, ❜ aegon scoffs, throwing one leg over the other as he leans into the plush of the settee, ❛ even as a babe, fever never came for me. ❜ even as a child, his heart had been hollow, with none of his sister's whims nor his brother's vocation, only his own craven appetites. his council sees this, as does his hand, as does his wife. he cannot appease them with his silence, nor sway them with his words, and so he is bound to displease them all.

that his words keep spiralling is a testament to the fine constitution of the wine. that he manages to stand and stumble forth is testament only to his own tragedy. ❛ the blood of the dragon does not burn. ( arm wraps 'round the high frame of the bed, before he loses balance and clutches the edge of it to sit, ) are we not gods, above the caprice of men? ambition seems trifling now, that they've already crowned me, us. what have we left to do? ❜ he laughs, droplets of wine spilling upon the myrish rug, ❛ does the realm envisage me a god, i wonder— ❜

BIANCA GRIPS HIS JAW TO MAKE HIM LOOK HER IN THE EYE.

HER CLAWS SINK INTO HIS JAW WITH MORE KINDNESS THAN HE IS DUE. for a moment, in the haze, he imagines his mother's hand upon his cheek, and all he can feel is the sting of it. this is different. bianca demands of him his gaze, not his dignity. aegon think to snap at her, grasp her wrist, breathe his own fire — alas, she has right to seethe, for his frivolity. throat works to swallow, unshed tears sparkling with the violet of his eyes, ❛ i'm— i'm sorry. ❜ she knows this yet he confesses all the same, as though she might grant him penance. she wouldn't, and she does not. ❛ it evades me, the purpose of this. i've no wish to pursue their ambitions... ❜

#zeitkeist #zeitkeist ft. bianca di angelo.#「 𝓐. 」 scripture — the light / this fire that devours.#「 𝓐. 」 arc : default.#uhhhh you made me go insane with this dynamic. so now you reap what you sow <33

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gogglemouse · 8 months ago

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"Maud Muller"

"Maud Muller, on a summer’s day, Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But when she glanced to the far-off town, White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast,—

A wish that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse’s chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

“Thanks!” said the Judge; “a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed.”

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

And listened, while a pleased surprise Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed: “Ah me! That I the Judge’s bride might be!

“He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine.

“My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat.

“I’d dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day.

“And I’d feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door.”

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still.

“A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne’er hath it been my lot to meet.

“And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.

“Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay:

“No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

“But low of cattle and song of birds, And health and quiet and loving words.”

But he thought of his sisters proud and cold, And his mother vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well, Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth’s bright glow, He watched a picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Muller’s hazel eyes Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, “Ah, that I were free again!

“Free as when I rode that day, Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.”

She wedded a man unlearned and poor, And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again She saw a rider draw his rein.

And, gazing down with timid grace, She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinet turned, The tallow candle an astral burned,

And for him who sat by the chimney lug, Dozing and grumbling o’er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw, And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only, “It might have been.”

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all, Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away!" -John Greenleaf Whittier

#poetry #poem #maud muller #april is poetry month #for of all sad words of tongue or pen #the saddest are these: it might have been

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dellb1969 · 1 year ago

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1981 Tekakwitha Children’s Home

If memory serves me right, it was here that I spent much of my second round of the sixth grade. Unlike the previous attempt, I was actually more present this time.

I was in class, I was doing the work and I was getting good grades. I have to think that it was because I was in a more structured environment. My house parent was vested in me and he cared, taking his role quite seriously. It was unusual to have that show of strength presented to me so openly and blatantly.

His name was, Charlie.

I had a room to myself and I preferred it that way, I hung posters on the wall and I wanted a plant. I asked for a clipping of a plant from one of the staff members and I grew it in water like I had seen my grandmother do many times.

When the plant was ready to be transplanted I chose a hanging basket and Charlie hung the hook and plant for me. When the other boys made fun of me, he defended me by telling them of the process in which it took the plant to grow and how I did that by my nurturing it to life and to grow roots.

It was a different world having an uncomplicated life of sorts, one where normalcy was a possibility. The problem with a child coming from chaos is that I didn’t have all of the skills to exist in normalcy. I coped better in a chaotic life where I had to troubleshoot my problems with the limited resources and knowledge that I had.

Still, I did my best while I had the chance. One of my good friends there was the same boy who I was forced to witness his rape by the same two teenage boys that raped me an hour before. It was like an unholy bond that we shared and I could see the differences it made in him some eight years later when our bedrooms were in the same unit.

When we would walk past that room, he would run the six feet to put distance between the door and him. I noticed my own behavior as well, I’d walk all of the way to the opposite side of the wall. Once I asked him as we walked past, ‘do you ever think about what happened in there?’

He reassured me that he didn’t.

Our friendship was a different one, changing after I witnessed him coming out of his bedroom closet looking exhausted and carrying a lotion bottle and a pillow. I didn’t know why or more so that I really didn’t want to know.

In a few more years he would be sentenced to prison for committing a rape that was so heinous and grotesque that I still cringe to this day thinking about. Yet, I can tap into his psyche and understand it a bit. There’s something that as even a victim of rape cannot be forgiven.

I was spinning out of control here during this particular stay, my preoccupation with alcohol was at an all time high. I wished that I was older. I began to hang out with the high schoolers, I found that I related to them more.

My time here went into the Christmas holiday and soon the next spring.

I had a girlfriend whom I really liked to be around, she was two years older than me. She had this curly hair and one of the sweetest smiles I had ever seen, she lit up when she smiled. When we were together and alone on the playground we were the only two people that existed. We’d sit on the swing together, holding hands. I was really drawn to her innocence and tomboy attitude. Alas, I was too young for her. She liked high school boys, again I wished to be older.

In a matter of weeks I would be in juvenile detention for being a general nuisance and that time I broke into the sanctuary and stole two cases of wine and wafers, I held a big party behind the gymnasium until the wee hours of the night. Yes, I had to go.

#childhoodsurvivor #childhood abuse #childhoodtrauma #emotionalabuse #emotionaltrauma #physicalabuse #childhood trauma #sexualtrauma #sexualabuse #teen alcoholic #alcoholism

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moderngeekdom · 10 months ago

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ECHO: Was it all that bad?

OK, so it's time we talked about the latest Disney+ show for the MCU: Echo.

I wish I could say I binged the series in it's entirety, but alas, life got in the way and I had to split up viewing between two days. Not that that was difficult, seeing as how it clocked in at a mere five episodes. Still, I was able to watch the first two episodes then had to let a couple days pass before I could make time to watch the remaining three.

I'm not sure that break was all that advisable to be honest.

See, the first two episodes, while being filled with call-backs to other series, were the most well executed and it really felt like the producers and writers knew what they were doing.

Episode 1 especially had some excellent fight choreography, pacing, and story building. Episode 2 followed suit by pushing further into Maya's family and past.

But then episode 3 happened, and while I appreciate the overall story being told, the inconsistencies and poor plotting and pacing started to creep in. If I had hope that this was going to be an overall well excecuted series at the end of episode 2, those hopes were dashed by the end of episode 3.

Despite the train sequence in episode 3, and the roller rink sequence in episode 4, there wasn't much dynamic storytelling to fill out the last 3 episodes. I guess when you have to truncate six episodes down to five some things need to get rearranged and squeezed together. Let alone a good portion of the story probably got left on the editing room floor.

But here's the thing: realistically, I get it. This series was shot during the pandemic and had to deal with all sorts of mandates and limitations. THEN their budget got slashed and they had to make do. So I get it, all of my qualms with the show make sense within that context.

So lets talk about the series knowing that it's issues are completely understandable:

Overall, I liked it!

It's a nice, street-level anti-hero story. Alaqua Cox is great, she has an excellent screen presence and can be incredibly intimidating when she wants to be.

Personally I felt that Chaske Spencer's Henry worked, despite being a bit over-the-top.

Cody Lightning's Biscuits was a nice addition; a well-meaning cousin just happy to see his family after so many years. Always good for levity and a bit of comic relief.

Tantoo Cardinal was top notch as Chula, and I can't remember a single thing I haven't loved Graham Greene (Skully) in. Presumably when Echo lives on in other series, hopefully Skully will at least make an appearance!

Rounding out the main cast we have Devery Jacobs as Bonnie, Zahn McClarnon as Echos's dad, and Andrew Howard as the smarmy henchman Zane.

Of course, we can't not talk about Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin. He was spot on, per usual, and a great relief that Marvel made sure to bring him over from the Netflix series. Kingpin chews every scene he's in, even when it feels like he got shoehorned. D'Onofrio does such a great job adding gravitas to the character that you get a sense he genuinely enjoys playing him. Which is only further proven by the fact that he's publicly stated how he hopes to continue to portray Kingpin for as long as Marvel and Disney will let him.

All the better for us fans.

All-in-all I have to say the cast was excellent, especially when you consider many of the main members weren't as heavily experienced as the veterans. But those veterans helped bring everything together, and they all seemed to play along nicely with one another.

The story itself was also, I feel, a good one worth telling. It was a great way to bring Echo out of someone else's' series and into their own. Most of the elements made sense, although the obvious reworking of episode 4 kinda made some beats a bit confusing. The sit-down between Maya and Kingpin in Maya's old house for example...necessary, but forced. Still, despite it's awkwardness and what the scene did to the overall pacing, I'd say all the main beats were accomplished, and the show only got muddied due to the small details, or lack thereof, and some of the timing.

If this show hadn't been produced during a pandemic. If it had a decent budget and the proper amount of time to tell a full and complete story. If it had been taken seriously by the Disney Execs. If it hadn't had to deal with all of it's internal problems...it'd probably have been great. As it is, however, it's just adequate bordering good. Totally watchable, and I'm grateful it exists, but it's issues overshadow its quality.

Hopefully we'll get to see more Maya Lopez in future street-level MCU projects. Till then, I'd recommend watching Echo, but be sure to temper your expectations.

3/5 Stars

#television #rating: 3 #MCU #Marvel #Echo

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troublcmakcrs · 1 year ago

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Craig rolled his eyes at Clyde’s reaction, the way he jumped and squeaked and latched onto the offered hand, but there was a certain twist in Craig’s lips that revealed his good humor, a humor that Clyde probably wouldn’t appreciate, given the circumstances. “I’m teasing you, dude; you won’t need a knife.” Maybe some of Tweek’s morbidity had rubbed off on him over the years. Whenever that little freak had been in a half-decent mood, he still had a propensity for cracking dark jokes, laughing about the things that sparked paranoia in him so that they would be easier to deal with. Maybe Craig had unconsciously latched onto that as it had been a sign of relative safety back in the day, but whatever—he was not about to examine it this very second.

“You’ll see, the people there are actually pretty nice, just trying to make a living. They can’t help that they ended up in this shit part of town, it’s what they could afford.” In all areas that seemed rotting and ruined, there were pockets of life, wonderful little gems buried under all the garbage and other shit, proof that humans were capable of finding joy and pursuing dreams, even in the most unfortunate circumstances.

“Just another block or two,” he assured, but then he slowed down to gaze at a building across the street. It was brown brick with a white sign dangling off a metal post. Red lettering read Q-something Outlets, probably an old clothing shop, if he had to guess. He nodded toward it. “I wonder what they sold there. I bet it was cool before everything went to shit.” Sentimentality got the better of him, his seemingly macabre fascination with urban decay giving way to something a touch sweeter. “I like coming out here and thinking about what was here before, you know, it’s kind of nostalgic.” Nostalgic for a time that never existed for him and never would again, an idealized version of a somewhat distant past, warm and comforting but staggeringly unrealistic.

He picked up again, reason winning out over dreams. “I wish I could come by here more often without fear of getting jumped, but it is what it is.”

They rounded the bend, and a panel of dark iron bars hung open a few buildings down. “That’s it,” Craig said, grinning, pointing. He tried to slip his hand out of Clyde’s but found the other had him in a vice. “You’ll have to let me go when we get inside. You’ll want both your hands free, trust me.” He had been joking about holding Clyde’s hand, anyway, and didn’t really expect the other to take him up on it, but alas, his being a huge baby had won out.

On the inside of the window, there was a sloppy but cheerful rendition of a cheeseburger painted. Looking past that revealed an evening-dark dining room with a few other forms hunched over tables or milling about near the counter. “See?” Craig radiated smugness, knowing Clyde couldn’t pass up the smell of grease and grilling meat inside. “Do you wanna go in, or are you still afraid to get stabbed?”

Clyde paced himself alongside Craig as best as he could. His much shorter legs had to work double-time to keep up. However, despite his apparent physique and appetite for trans fats, matching the other’s speed wasn’t that difficult. Sometimes Clyde appreciated the little extra oomph necessary to travel by foot. Craig could have also been slowing himself down to aid Clyde’s efforts, too. None of it mattered. What did concern him, and what caused him to question the importance of bringing a firearm, was the seedy setting Craig dragged them both through.

Clyde had just shoved both of his hands nervously into the pockets of his worn out letterman, which often served as a security blanket rather than a substantial source of heat. He was fairly capable of producing enough bodily warmth to maintain a comfortable temperature all on his own. But– he liked having the option of an extra layer to hide under.

Clyde’s round peepers popped wide open as he gawked up at Craig. ❝A knife?❞ he squeaked. Oh, what the fuck were they getting into? He felt his stomach flop and his eyes dropped to the ground, still peeled open as he watched the concrete roll under his feet. Maybe if he didn’t acknowledge the boarded-up windows and broken glass and graffiti and smells– Oh Jesus, the smells were almost the worst part; trash, car exhaust, and rotten sewage. Clyde began to wonder if Craig wasn’t leading him to certain doom. His eyes pulled back up, hearing Craig say something about holding… holding hands?

❛You can hold my hand if you’re scared,❜ should have pissed him off. But if anything, Clyde felt a little wave of excitement tingle all the way down to the tips of his fingers. He looked at the hand directly in his line of sight, but–upon drawing his attention away from his toes–he also immediately became aware of their surroundings once again. Clyde bit down on his bottom lip to hide its quivering.

❝Fuck you, dude. I don’t need to hold your goddamn hand.❞ But his wavering tone betrayed the certainty of his words. A soft whimper escaped his mouth when a loud clang sounded out from an alleyway they had passed only moments ago.

Fuck. Shit. Instinctively, Clyde’s grubby mitt shot out and latched onto the gracious hand Craig extended his way. He sniffed back the snot that started to dribble from his nose as his eyes welled up with his trademarked Big Baby tears.

❝Uh, how much further do we have to go, Craig?❞ he whined as he sought out the comfort he often found in other’s steady blue eyes.

#ic :: ( craig )#int :: ( thread )#ver :: college ( craig )#x lordofdarkness 42069 x

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runawaymarbles · 5 years ago

Text

an incomplete list of things that really happen in Moby Dick, an absolutely wild book that I have just finished after four months

Note: events are in the order that I think of them and not the order in which they occur in the book:

Ishmael goes to an inn and they say “there are no beds but if you want to share with this cannibal that’s cool.” Ishmael shares with the cannibal, whose name is Queequeg, and after establishing that he is not going to get eaten, seems to fall madly in love with him.

Quote: "How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts’ honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cosy, loving pair."

Quote: “He pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be.”

Fellas is it gay to kiss a man's nose, cuddle in bed with him, compare yourselves to honeymooners, declare love after 24 hours, and then declare you’re married repeatedly throughout the book?

Backing up a bit, it’s apparently taken for granted the Pacific Islanders are cannibals? But Ishmael also does not seem to have a problem with this, and at some point straight up defends cannibalism (at one point going on a “we’re all cannibals because MEAT IS MURDER” tangent, which is a bit rich for a dude whose day job is killing whales.)

He regularly refers the Polynesian characters as savages, but then will occasionally remind us that he thinks all people are savages, singling out Achilles and, for some reason, German painter Albrecht Durer.

(Occasionally Queequeg will be like “wow Christians are weirdos” and Ishmael will be like “oh shit... he’s right. Why are we such weirdos.”)

At one point while they’re still on land, Ishmael becomes convinced that Queequeg has killed himself, because he’s locked himself in their room. The landlady tells someone to get a sign made that says “no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;” because, quote, “might as well kill both birds at once.”

It turns out that Queequeg has not killed himself, he is just squatting with a statue of his god held over his head and refuses to move a muscle until sundown. This is how Herman Melville thinks Ramadan is practiced.

Sidebar: Melville seemed under the impression that Ramadan was a Polynesian thing?

Ishamel drags capitalism at every opportunity

and if there isn’t an opportunity, he makes one

“Paying for things sucks but getting paid is the best even though money is terrible and people who chase money are all going to hell”

On one of the ships they run into, one of the sailors has declared that he is the Archangel Gabriel, and basically recruited most of the crew into a cult. This is never mentioned again.

Instead, Melville gives us entire chapters on: whale heads, whale tales, why whaling is a noble calling actually, rope, etc.

At one point Ishmael flat-out says that if you don’t respect whaling he will fight you

There is an entire chapter about the color white, in which he lists other white things he thinks are scary. They include: great white sharks, polar bears, albatrosses, the Andes mountains, and albinos.

There is also an entire chapter about whale penis. At one point, if I read that chapter correctly, a dude makes the whale penis into a suit? Or possibly climbs into it? It’s all very euphemistic at that point.

After they kill a whale, they have to do something known as “squeezing sperm.” (He’s referring to parts of the sperm whale, not actual sperm." Ishmael REALLY LIKES squeezing sperm, and goes on about how how sometimes, when squeezing sperm, he accidentally squeezes the hands of his fellows by accident, because they are also squeezing sperm, and Ishmael really likes that and wishes they could hold hands more.

“Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!” - Ishmael, chapter 94.

He admits that sure, maybe over-whaling could lead to fewer whales, but whales are so big and have been here such a long time that there can’t be any risk of them ever being endangered: look at Elephants! Elephants are doing fine!

The previous chapter did not age well.

There is a dude named Peleg with very strong @dril vibes who, when accused of being a little off his rocker, declares “say that again to me, and start my soul-bolts, but I’ll—I’ll—yes, I’ll swallow a live goat with all his hair and horns on.”

At one point Ishmael’s boat almost gets run over by the ship, and he’s like “is that normal???” and everyone is like “yep” and Ishmael is like “cool if anyone is looking for me I’ll be writing my will” and goes and does that. Which is hilarious because he established in the first chapter that he does not own Anything.

Ishmael is so invested in measuring whales that he tattoos’ whales dimensions onto his arm because he doesn’t have anywhere else to write it down

He’s also really offended that pirates are more famous than whalers.

Queequeg gets a fever and has the carpenter build him a coffin, but then he gets better so they turn his coffin into a buoy. This buoy is the reason Ishmael is the only one not to go down with the ship, so in a way, Queequeg did die to save him. Huh.

Captain Ahab decides that what he needs to kill Moby Dick is a Special Harpoon. He has the blacksmith make one. They are still on their wooden ship at this time and, despite over-explaining every other detail, Melville does not seem to clarify how they did this without burning the ship down.

Ahab also decides he needs to temper it in blood, and asks the harpooners if they’ll contribute some, and they’re like “yeah, whatever, man.”

(The harpooners are all POC who write off all shenanigans as Weird White People Shit, and seem to be the only ones with the braincells.)

The other character with one brain cell is Starbuck, the first mate, who really wants to go home to his wife Mary, and his son, “boy.” I am not convinced he knows his son’s name.

Ahab makes himself a nest on the mast so he can look for Moby Dick and a bird steals his hat

Some out of context quotes:

“Hark! The infernal orgies!”

“Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair.”

“Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says he’s queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; he’s queer, says Stubb; he’s queer-- queer, queer; and keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all the time-- queer-- sir-- queer, queer, very queer.”

“Alas! Dough-boy!”

#moby dick #herman melville #i'm not sure if this book was great or absolutely terrible and i think it might have been both #op

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needleandhammer · 4 years ago

Text

Fruition

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x Female!Reader

Word Count: 6216

Summary: You're the Governor's daughter and you've caught the eye of Boston's most eligible bachelor.

Warnings: Explicit sexual content. Unprotected sex. P in v. Reader's first time having sex. Cunnilingus. Dub con. Possessive!Ransom. Sort of Dark!Ransom. Historically inaccurate. Slight breeding kink. 18+ only!

A/N: Period au. I kept the time period and nobility ranking real vague because I'm not about to research and actually world-build a mashed 19th century American colonies and Victorian period au :D It's not quite as dark!Ransom as I had intended, mostly soft. Inspired by Bridgerton, yes. And the amazing debauchery of @stargazingfangirl18 for their Soft Dark 5k challenge. Congrats and thank you for such amazing stories!

Yet another season of balls, picnics, and courtship.

“Have you heard the news? The young Drysdale is to be named heir to the Thrombey estates.”

“That makes him heir to both Thrombey and Drysdale legacies.”

“Do you think he’s in search of a wife?”

“It’s Drysdale we’re talking about. The only thing he’s in search of is someone to warm his bed for one night.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. All that inheritance must require a wife to keep in order.”

“I wouldn’t mind warming his bed even for one night.”

“Shh! That’s scandalous!”

You heard your name and looked up to see your friend Vincenza approach. “Have you heard? Drysdale is to be—“

“Must I endure an entire evening of talk about that boorish man?”

She giggled at your complaint. “But it’s the talk of the city. Lord Thrombey has replaced his own son with his grandson as heir. And…” She glanced around, leaning close to you to whisper. “I heard that the transfer of inheritance was all due to Drysdale’s uncle’s inability to produce a child.”

Your brow folded, unsure whether such a decision was fair. “Well it’s not our business, Vinnie.”

“But that’s the thing!” Her whisper grew breathless with excitement. “It’s all of our business. Well, those of us not determined to narrow our marriage choices in the name of love.” She shook her head at you with good nature. “If Drysdale is to produce an heir, he needs a wife! It’s certain that all the available ladies of Boston will be trying to earn his favor.”

You sighed as Vinnie hooked her arm around your elbow, both of you weaving slowly through the ballroom.

It wasn’t like you weren’t used to this, hearing gossip about the infamous Drysdale son, the eldest grandson to the retired Lord Thrombey. How such a noble scholar could be related to the notorious heartbreaker sometimes stretched your comprehension. And even more ridiculous, autumn found you as Drysdale’s target for humiliation. You knew such a flirt had no intentions of settling down, yet, he had endeavored to make sure he danced with you at every ball thus far this season, and even called on you at your city townhome. You were quick to inform him that you were uninterested, yet he seemed unbothered. In fact, upon your firm rejection, Drysdale seemed to make it his goal to visit your brother as often as possible - as the two were college pals - ensuring you encountered him several times a week. Drysdale was not outright courting you, but he made his attentions evident to you. Most frustrating of all, he seemed to have a knack for cornering you under the guise of innocently keeping his friend’s sister company. It irked you that your family could not see what you saw.

You caught sight of your brother waving at you, so you led Vinnie in his direction.

Perhaps Vinnie was correct and you were closing doors that were better left open in the opulent realm of nobility courtship. Your chances of marrying for love were slim, but that didn’t mean you could not at least try to maneuver your way closer to those slim chances. Even in Boston’s ruthless high society of meddling mothers, envious debutantes, and arrogant “gentlemen.” But you were the Governor’s first-born daughter – beauty praised by all, poised and sharp, and most accomplished at a number of activities thanks to the Governor and your mother encouraging a diverse array of talents since you were young. Theirs was a happy and long marriage resulting in five children, and supported by a successful political career that you were proud to celebrate. You had no doubt that no matter the pressures of society, your parents would support you if you opposed an incompatible proposal in your search for the right person.

As long as you navigated the nobility’s courtship rituals with the wits you inherited from your own mother, there should be no reason you should lose the romantic interests of countless eligible bachelors, or heaven forbid, fall upon a scandal that may prevent a proposal of love.

Well, there was one reason you might end the season in scandal, by way of delivering a swift knee to the vulnerable private area of one particularly irritating gentleman in full public view of hundreds of good folk who have gathered to enjoy the Senator’s autumn ball. Alas, you were not going to bring that kind of shame to your parents.

The particular reason, the gentleman who irritated you so, was currently greeting your elder brother quietly, whilst his penetrating gaze remained on you. Determined not to be ruffled by his attention, you kept your shoulders back and chin high, sweeping your eyes through the crowd and dancers.

Your attention returned to your group of family and friends when your hand was captured. By him. Hugh Ransom Drysdale Thrombey.

“My, don’t you look breath-taking. It is my pleasure to get to see you tonight, Miss Y/L/N.” Drysdale’s eyes flowed down your form, and much to your chagrin, his smirk widened. No doubt the warm flush on your bare collar would be apparent to him.

You couldn’t help yourself, with those glowing azure eyes of his so clearly admiring your figure. The man was completely inappropriate.

“Yes, it surely is.” You offered a pursed barely-there smile and tugged your hand. He tightened his grip upon your fingers, raising them to meet his lips. You cursed yourself for choosing the delicate lace gloves this evening, as you felt his warm breath feather through the lace onto your skin. He deliberately kept his lips upon your fingers for longer than necessary, curved in that signature smirk.

“Mr. Drysdale, if I may have my hand back. I must obtain a beverage for my sister.”

Mischief twinkled back at you from his eyes. “Allow me to accompany you. I’m sure your brother and mother would both enjoy a drink,” he was quick to close down the objection posed on your lips.

Your brother thanked Drysdale with a clap on his shoulder and motioned for you to go on. You could only give Vinnie a frown as she preened at you with excitement. You proceeded without protest, knowing your brother’s attention was occupied, searching for a Miss Amarea Dane, whom you were certain you would welcome as sister-in-law very soon.

You smiled quietly to yourself, once again dreaming of following in your brother’s footsteps and finding a match so certain and true, so compelled by love and affection, rather than simply honor and title. To think, it had been Drysdale who had introduced the couple.

Suddenly, a man backed up straight into your path. You couldn’t avoid stumbling aside and directly into the arms of Drysdale.

“Watch yourself, Chen. Maybe go easy on the wine,” Drysdale called to the man who raised an empty glass at him with a laugh.

You attempted to straighten up, aware you were surrounded by several people and had just fallen into the embrace of Drysdale, who was notorious for seducing the city’s ladies.

“Let go,” you insisted quietly, dropping your gaze to your wrist which he held on to.

Drysdale gave you stern glance and led you close behind him, keeping his grasp on you hidden as he pulled you through the room.

When the two of you made it beyond the side entrance, you tried retrieving your hand.

“Mr. Drysdale, let go.” You had not wanted to draw attention with so many guests around you. You would die of embarrassment to allow anyone to see Drysdale’s hand on yours beyond the required polite greeting.

“Come, my lady. You cannot blame me for wishing to acquire your attention all to myself.”

“You are being most inappropriate.” You huffed as he pulled into the gardens. “Let go of me this instant.”

“So eager to return to your suitors? I’m sure I saw at least five gentleman who have called on you this month.”

“How can you know of the gentlemen who have called on me?” You dug your heels into the gravel, drawing up short when Drysdale stopped and rounded on you.

“Well, Barber makes no secret of his admiration for you. Or that idiot colonel’s son? And that Wilson fellow makes such noise at the gentlemen’s club about his intent to propose.”

You smiled at his apparent crossness. “Are you tracking my proposals? Are you requesting a fee for updating me about the intentions of my suitors?”

Drysdale stepped closer, his sharp jawline clenched. “So you’re pleased then?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” You bit back a gasp when he tugged you forward, his hands on your waist which pressed against his front. “If you don’t let go—“

“What will you do?” His smirk returned and your fists pushed against the solid muscle of his arms. “What would you do?” He asked again, dipping his face close to yours. “If someone saw the Governor’s honorable eldest daughter, the pearl of the city, alone in the dark with a man?”

“How dare you? You better let go or my brother –“

“Would only be too happy to welcome me into the family.”

You did not miss his meaning. If you were discovered in this position by anyone, your brother would demand that your honor be redeemed by marriage to Drysdale. As handsome as the man was, you had no wish to pair the rest of your life with a man who flirted with dozens of women each season and broke just as many hearts.

“Well I am certain, sir, he would never force me to marry someone so crude as yourself. He is familiar with your outrageous behavior, so he knows you would make an ill match and I would never consent to it.” You tried leaning back from Drysdale, feeling a growl work from his chest. You couldn’t show him fear, no. You had enough of this man making your life miserable just because he was bored.

He didn’t relent, his palms flexing around your waist tighter. “You think that just because your father protects you, you are beyond the pressures, the claws of people of our standing?” He chuckled darkly. “I assure you, if it was between your happiness and ensuring your family avoids falling from grace, your parents would not hesitate to throw you to the wolves, to sacrifice your childish dreams in order to uphold their status. That’s what you’re searching for, isn’t it? Behind that pretty face are the same silly fancies as all the other girls. Dreams of love.”

“I don’t expect you to understand, so mock me all you want.” You continued struggling, determined to not back down from his burning gaze, but drawing short of breath all the same to have him so close. “Everyone knows you’re too busy fooling around and playing with women who, yes, want to find love. I only pity them for believing you have the ability to give that to them.”

He whispered your name low in warning, his voice sending a flutter down your stomach. You arranged a fierce scowl at him.

“It’s the truth. All you care about are your family’s riches and living like you have no responsibility to your community. Well, go on. Find some poor woman and give your family an heir so you can secure your fortune and continue your wild ways in comfort. But rest assured, I’d rather be thrown to wolves than end up paired with a man like you.”

Your squeak of shock was cut short when Drysdale crashed his mouth on yours. He molded your lips, swallowing your gasp as he sucked your lower lip. You felt suffocated with an intense heat blossoming from your stomach and growing further as you sensed the wet lick of his tongue.

Drysdale knew every time he pushed your buttons he got to enjoy your soft features lighting up just the way he liked; and at the same time he suffered your blatant disdain. For months he had told himself he was only after some entertainment in the form of your admittedly beautiful displeasure directed at him to liven up the droll season. Yet, here he was, unable to restrain himself from touching you, your warm smile haunting his thoughts, the silk of your skin an insufferable craving that occupied him at every hour.

You tried to twist out of his arms, but he held you pressed against him, a soft whimper from you further igniting his desire to wrap you up and make sure no other man witnessed you like this. Breathless. Vulnerable. So, so sweet, just as he imagined you would be.

You were unsure how to respond, failing to escape from his hold. So you fought back with your mouth, lips pushing against his, much to Drysdale’s delight. He barely allowed you to draw breath as he tilted his head, hand caressing the back of your neck to keep you close, quickly sneaking his tongue into the hot cavern of your mouth. He felt you tremble at his invasion, your hands gripping his jacket. He opened his eyes, appreciating the moon’s gleam on your cheek, your lashes fluttering. Despite your drawn brow, he could tell you were no longer opposed to his ministrations. He groaned when your tongue whirled against his.

It was the familiar quiver in your core that struck you and had you thrashing until you had pushed Drysdale away. You could not allow this man to awaken desires within you. You covered your mouth, panting, feeling tears sting your eyes.

You heard your name from him.

“Don’t!” You kept your face hidden with a hand, as though you could hide what had just happened. “Don’t every come near me again, Drysdale.”

“You can’t mean that.”

You stepped back before he could reach you. “I’m sorry. I am to call you Thrombey now, correct? You’ve inherited a title and doubled your worth. Well, don’t for one second think that makes me care for you.”

You rushed out of the garden, praying he wouldn’t catch up. Drysdale breathed deep. Your words stung him.

He shook himself, making a vow. Darling, you’re not getting away from me.

------------------

No, no, this could not be happening. It was still early in the day and your life was ruined. Or, it would be very soon.

“If you don’t accept my proposal, I will ensure that the whole city hears about your little moonlight tryst with Drysdale. We all know he’s not the type to step up for a woman’s honor. So you’ll be left with a scandal and no further suitors, you can be sure of it.”

That was the threat from Mr. Mildred, the colonel’s son who creeped on the edges of parties and was known to mistreat the help of his household.

You couldn’t stand the thought of marrying Mildred. Yet, what were your options? Your parents would heed your wishes, but the shame of a scandal would be hard for your family to recover from. You father’s reelection might even be impacted. Boston may be a modern city but progress was slow when it came to the rules of courtship amongst upper social circles. And your marriage prospects, well, very few bachelors would come calling once they heard you described as a loose woman.

It had been too much to hope that no one witnessed what happened in the garden.

You stood, restless and angry with yourself. How could you have melted into Drysdale’s touch? That was just as agonizing to you as Mildred’s words. Ever since you first met Drysdale, heard of his leisurely bachelor ways and his aversion to marriage and family, you had vowed to never fraternize with anyone of his nature. He was everything you did not want for a stable, loving family and spouse.

So many months, you had been forced to hear him mock you with pleasantries, intrude on your homely comforts, charm your mother and sisters, monopolize your brother’s time. And yet. His broad form hovering close to you as you practiced pianoforte. His many glances with those sky blue eyes during park strolls. The low purr of his voice that followed you into your dreams. Drysdale had managed to worm his way into your subconscious. At one point, you had thought he was tolerable, kind, and perhaps capable of sincerity; but that night in the garden had shown you his true colors.

Two days later, you fared no better. Your mother summoned you into the parlor, sharing that she had encountered Mr. Mildred at a tea party and he mentioned a dreadful whisper he believed to be about you and a gentleman together without chaperones in the Senator’s garden.

Had Mildred run out of patience already? Your mother’s tight frown was your answer. You apologized profusely, tears escaping as you tried to hold yourself together in the presence of someone you had sworn never to disappoint.

Apparently, Mildred informed your mother that such a whisper had not spread far, but he could not be certain of preventing its spread.

You were interrupted by the house maid, bringing a letter to your mother informing of a dinner visit.

The rest of your day, your head ached with the decision you had to make. Drysdale would not be affected by the gossip but you would not remain unscathed for long. Even with the respect your father received as Governor, your prospects grew slimmer than ever. Yet you could not accept a sacred vow of lifelong marriage to the conniving Mildred.

And Drysdale, well, you told yourself you would not entertain the idea. You had rejected his advances once already. You told yourself he had only courted you to add to his conquests and he only continued to antagonize you to alleviate his boredom.

It wasn’t until you entered the dining room that you realized your mother’s dinner guests were the Drysdales, including Lord Thrombey. You lowered yourself into a seat next to your sister, forcing a smile at Lady Drysdale before her strident tones returned to a conversation with your mother. Movement to your other side prompted you, but your smile fell flat to see Ransom Drysdale beside you. He only nodded to you, though you caught his eyes glinting with purpose before he turned to your brother.

It was halfway through dinner that Drysdale made the announcement. He had requested your father’s permission and was proposing to you this very night.

You scarcely noted your two families’ reactions, excusing yourself from the table and winding up in the dimly lit back yard of your home.

“Why?” you asked as soon as you heard footsteps behind you. Turning to Drysdale, you demanded, “Why are you doing this?”

He watched you, eyes dark and framed by thick lashes. His jaw tensed and then he stepped up to you, looking down at you.

“As you said. I have to earn my inheritance. I need an heir for my grandfather. For that to happen, I need a wife.”

You shook your head, his words striking at your heart.

“You’ll do just fine, I suppose,” he finished.

“No!” You shoved at his chest, barely swaying him. “You don’t get to do this. This is my life.”

“I heard what Mildred was going to do,” he said, swallowing hard. “If I didn’t propose, you’d have to marry him. Or –“

“I would deal with the gossip however I see fit! How could you come to my home and propose in front of our entire families. How could you—“

He wrapped his hands around your biceps, dragging you close. “You can’t say no.”

Helpless, you could only silently deny his ruthless words with an anguished shake of your head.

“You can’t say no to me. No matter what you tell yourself about how merciful your lovely society friends will be. We both know if you don’t accept my proposal…” He glanced away with a chuckle before eying you, his grin cocky, sneering. “And don’t even bother thinking you might escape from this by actually marrying Mildred. He’ll back off as soon as he hears the new Lord Thrombey has proposed. Either way, looks like you’re not going to the wolves.”

One hand grasped your neck and jaw, drawing your lips to his. He could sigh with relief. He had not been able to rest ever since tasting you.

“Drysdale –“

“Ransom,” he whispered, rubbing his lips to yours before reclaiming them in a deeper kiss that consumed all of your senses. You couldn’t gather your wits to question how he managed to force all thoughts from your mind. Surely your anger was the source of the sparks lit in your breast as you felt his tongue sweep into your mouth roughly. You sagged against him. Ransom’s lips released you, trailing along your skin.

“Call me Ransom.” His order came firm as he dropped kisses down the corner of your mouth to your ear. It pained him to be the cause of your tears, but he would be damned if he let that weasel Mildred sully your name, or get to twist his fingers in your dark tresses, learn your curves, taste your lips. No, Ransom would be your villain.

“R-Ransom,” you gasped out, so aware of his body heat rolling against you, his thick arms encircling you.

“Accept my proposal.” He knew he had crushed his very slight chances of being on the receiving end of your kind heart, forcing your hand like this.

He pressed his forehead to yours, warm hands framing either side of your face. His thumbs stroked away your tears, and you were struck by the earnest plea in his eyes.

"Alright."

He took a deep breath and stepped back from you, his face a cool mask. "Let us inform our families."

This may be another game to him, an easy means to an end. For you, it wasn’t a choice.

--‐-------------------------------------------------------------------------

You made it through your short engagement and overly grand wedding by devoting your entire energy to convincing your family that you were the eager, blushing bride. You offered minimal answers as your dear sister asked about how Drysdale – no, how Ransom had claimed your heart. You dutifully picked out wedding bouquets with your mother and responded to the well wishes of your father’s friends.

All the while, your busy schedule served as an excuse to avoid your groom-to-be. With middling success. Now that he had claimed your hand, and more, proved your dreams were all for naught, he couldn’t resist reminding you to your face how naïve you had been. Worse, he took advantage of his status as your fiancé.

He took the opportunity at every lunch to sit close to you and toss that triumphant smirk your way. He invited you to the park with your family, leading you ahead and lacing his fingers through yours as he put on a show of holding you steady upon the walkways. He played the love-struck bachelor, dragging you between the far shelves of your father’s library and exploring your mouth with a frenzy that left you dizzy. Your resistance was no match for his determination to overpower you, to flaunt his victory. Yet, you could almost see the arrogant curl of his mouth morphing with each kiss as his eyes softened. And each time, you grew more hopeless - conflicted - as his touch grew familiar, satisfying a part of you which you could not control. You were truly out of your depth when it came to Ransom.

It mattered not. You could not take back your word. The Governor’s daughter that you were so proud to be could not collapse in your own despair. As far as anyone was concerned, you and Ransom had both discovered an unlikely, passionate love for one another and wished very badly to wed.

You should have been exhausted after the early day of wedding celebration you had endured with Ransom, the incomparably handsome and gallant groom. And after many hours riding out to Halifax, the Thrombey country home. Your new home.

But a new challenge was upon you this late night - your wedding night. At least, that had been your sole problem up until Ransom had deposited you in your marital chamber and excused himself. You had absentmindedly, nervously, glided around the room to admire the woodwork. Only to notice a parchment corner peeking from the drawer of an antique desk. Which led you to open the drawer and pluck at the papers with your name upon them.

The pearl of the city. An apt title, yet it fails to define your beauty, Y/N…

…Is it a gift or a curse that I should be visited with visions of your sweet face as I sleep…

Barry speaks highly of you, his sister, and your affinity for family, your desire for a true love. A shame that such an exquisite soul should be beyond my grasp. No, I have earned this torture. I could never deserve you, nor offer you what you deserve…

So many lines speaking of admiration for your character, yearning to learn what would be worthy of your affections, admissions that you were too sweet, too good to be burdened with him. Words hinting of curiosity, of desire for a future with you, a family unlike the one he grew up with.

…I can only laugh at myself for daring to dream God might have mercy on me and lead me into your arms, and lead us to the dreams you and I share…

The sound of the door swinging open had you looking up to meet Ransom’s gaze. He slowed in his entrance, seeing the pile you clasped in hand.

“Those are mine,” he said, voice tight. His hands curled with your big eyes shining upon him full of question.

“My name is on them. They’re mine,” you countered.

“Forget them,” he commanded. “They are only…”

“Fancies? Silly dreams of…love?” you asked. “You’re a talented writer.” You smiled seeing his flushed cheeks, his averted, shy grimace.

“I used to sit with my grandfather for long hours. Reading. Discussing stories.”

“Did your grandfather also help you practice writing love letters?”

He smiled without mirth. “No. I figured I wanted to make a fool of myself so I documented foolish musings.”

You closed the distance between you. Your face was uplifted, beseeching Ransom to meet your eyes. He could not ignore your presence, attention intense on him and almost more than he could bear.

“Is there truth in these words?” you asked quietly, careful not to spook this man, this loud, cocky man who had presented you with such a convincing disdain for anything sincere.

“It does not matter.”

“It matters. Because you chose me.” You pressed your fingertips to his lip, stopping his protest. Ransom closed his eyes for moment, barely believing you were touching him of your own will. He breathed in your perfume, disoriented by your proximity, your discovery. “Why did you never…?”

“Because I’ve always known such things were childish. My own parents proved to me a long time ago love has little value in a family.”

You shook your head in protest of such cynicism. But the bitter turn of his mouth reminded you of various instances in his family's presence - his parent's demand for recognition and power, his uncle scoffing at expressions of kindness.

“Because I felt foolish for even wanting something different. You were right. Anyone would be lucky to avoid me and my family. We’re a sham. There’s nothing beneath the surface for my parents and they’ve taught me well.”

“There’s more,” you insisted.

“Well then I’m a coward because I can’t bring myself to go in search for more. You were right. I am content with my family’s fortune. I would have been fine growing old alone, but I had to trap you with me. Now, you won’t achieve your marriage of love, your desire for a warm family.”

You cupped his cheeks, forcing him to look at you. “I was the coward.” You drew him down, closing your eyes and pressing your foreheads together. “I saw more in you, but I was afraid. Afraid of risking my heart, afraid I might achieve the very thing that I have been yearning for.”

He whispered your name. You hushed him.

“Tell me. Do you truly love me?”

His breath feathered against your lips. “I love you.” There was such a raw vulnerability in his confession.

“Then that is all that matters. You and I will build the family we dreamed of. I promise.”

Like your vow had snipped him loose of his control, he yanked you in and kissed you hard.

“Be mine,” he murmured between sucks of your lips, drinking you in. “Give me all of you, and I swear, love, I’ll be your family. I’ll give you anything.”

You believed him. Cupped his head in yearning. “Yes. Yes, Ransom.”

His hands tugged impatiently at your gown, dragging the outer layers down. Long fingers pulled at your skirts. You worked at undoing his vest and shirt. Your hands trembled to feel his bare skin, the tickle of chest hair and such warmth emanating against you as he drew you close. You gasped to feel his hands squeezing your curves through your thin shift, seeking with greed for more. He walked you both to the bed and placed you in the middle, laid out for him as he had dreamt for months.

His touch dipped under your shift, setting your heart racing. As his mouth danced lower, he growled, tearing the top of your shift to expose your bare tits and mouth hungrily at them. You couldn’t stop wriggling, clutching around his neck and shoulders, arching up to his tongue that flicked a nipple before sucking.

“I’ve wanted you so long. Want to taste you.”

Before you knew it, you felt him panting at the delicate flesh between your legs, no article of clothing remotely hiding your body from him. He stopped you from closing your thighs, fingertips bruising as he held you open and licked broad stripes at your sex. You had never imagined such sensations, such a heat as Ransom so thoroughly pulled you apart with his mouth.

He watched through his lashes as you writhed, testing what you enjoyed most. His tongue teased at your entrance and then breached you to lash your inner walls. Your sharp cry had him groaning as his hard cock begged for friction. Your gasps bordered on sobs and he needed to see you fall off that edge.

His lips closed around your increasingly wet petals, shaking his head back and forth and sucking hard. When his teeth scraped your clit, your mouth froze open, your back arched off the bed and locked in feverish pleasure. Your rapture pulsed through you as he pressed his tongue flat to your throbbing bud.

“Darling, look at you.” How glorious you looked, soft and panting. Ransom climbed forward to kiss you, sharing the earthy tang of your pleasure. You hummed into his mouth, still drifting in a hazy cloud.

“Look at me, love,” he whispered. You opened your eyes. He watched you, lust and joy burning in his gaze. “You’re mine.”

You nuzzled his nose, whispered, “I’m yours.” Your breath left you as his cock, thick and insistent, pressed into you, pushing in and in until you felt nothing but full.

His lips never stopped kissing your face, your jaw, your mouth. As if he could tell the very instant the sting receded for you, Ransom moved, thrusting shallow. You found yourself wrapped around him, clinging as you had never been so desperate for another person before.

His moans and grunts joined you as he sped up. Everything he was doing, his hips clapping your thighs, his weight caging you, rekindled the thrill in you, the pleasure mounting more when he managed to slide his hand between you and swipe at your clit. You keened, unable to beg him to finish you off, but you knew he would do it. Knew he wouldn’t stop. His mouth sucked at your neck and he angled his thrust just so. You were lost to the world, grinding up against Ransom, chasing the pleasure that crackled from your core. Ransom nearly crushed you to the mattress as his rhythm rose to a frantic end and he released his seed through his swelling cock to fill you.

Your name rasped from him as he ground his hips into you with the instinctual need to ram his seed into your womb.

Long hours later, after Ransom’s need to claim you again resulted in multiple releases for you both, when you had caught your breath, you let him wind his naked form around yours.

You drifted off to his sleepy murmurs of, “I’m yours.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A month later and Ransom maintained firm control of your attentions, both mental and physical. He seemed intent on desecrating every room of the vast country home. One afternoon, the two of you had toured the family’s art collection. He had lured you into an alcove to view a Verocchio sculpture. You ended up with his face buried between your legs under the sculpture’s shadow, biting your fist to quiet your moans as Ransom’s tongue thrust into you. Right before you came, he slipped out from your skirts, bunching them at your waist and pushing you up against the wall. Your faced pressed into his neck with relief to feel his cock stretch you. Opened you up with rough jolts as your legs drew tight around him. His hips snapped urgently, quickly blazing flames within you until your explosive climax overwhelmed you. He fucked you until he came, biting your shoulder as he rutted hard to push his release deep into you, until you were overfilled and his spend seeped out and trailed between the two of you to mix with your own juices.

Tonight, his desire for you was unrestrained. Already, he had kissed and licked what seemed like every inch of your skin. Your release dripped from you and into his greedy mouth latched to your folds as you came down from your high, tugging his dark locks of hair.

“Ransom, please.”

“Yes, love?” His lips grazed a path up your stomach, then up between your breasts littered with red love bites. He rubbed his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent.

“Need to feel you.”

Ransom grinned. He pulled you upward, lifting and turning you so you rested in his lap with your shoulder blades meeting his chest dusted with fine hair. You arched your back, feeling his hard, leaking cock so hot against your skin. His fingers combed your hair aside, mouth nipping and kissing from your neck to your shoulder.

His hand cupped your sex, groaning at the soaked heat of you. He guided you, lifting up just enough to run the sensitive head of his cock through your folds. Your whine forced more precum to dribble from his slit. He could resist no longer, his cock splitting you open as he drew you down upon his lap until he was buried to the hilt in your tight heat. Soft curses met your ears. You bit your lip, grinding back and forth. Ransom squeezed your waist, held you still.

“Ransom…”

Damned, how he loved the sound of his name falling from you, needy and wrecked from pleasure. And still wanting more of him. He couldn’t begin to guess how someone like him could deserve your affections and loyalty. Good thing he was a greedy bastard, unrepentant of his actions that had blessed his home and bed with you.

Shivers wracked your spine when he cooed at you with his gravelly tone. “You want me, love?”

“Want you so bad.”

He smirked at your whimper when he swirled his groin slow beneath you. His tongue teased along your earlobe, driving a plea from you.

“Want you, Ransom. Oh, please.”

“And you’ll give me what I desire, yes? Will you, love?”

You managed jerky nods, choking when he slid agonizingly slow from your cunt and pushed back into you. Only to stop and hold himself there, speared maddeningly in you.

His breath tickled your ear. “You, love, are going to give me a baby. Yes?”

He drove his hips up, drawing a moan from you.

“Isn’t that right, darling?”

“Y-yes…Rans…ah” You stuttered with his deep, hard strokes.

“Is that what you want? Hm? Big, beautiful family with me?”

“Yes.” Your response rushed out, breathy.

“Love you. Want to fill you up over and over.”

You whined loud, his words and the drag of his thick cock inside you driving you crazy.

“Because you’re mine. You’re all mine.” His hand curled over yours, pressing your palm and fingers to your core where the two of you were joined beneath dark curls. “Feel that?”

“Oh god.” You surely felt what he wanted you to. His steely member claiming you again and again.

“Yes, feel me and you? This.” He kept your hand there, feeling every push and pull of his cock, from inside and out, so you couldn’t escape him. “Feel how you belong to me? All of you. You’re mine forever.”

“I’m yours….” You cried out as his rhythm sped up. “Ransom!”

You threw your head back, both yours and his fingers circling the nub of your inflamed clit, his harsh breaths beating against your neck as his words blended.

“Mine,” he grunted.

Your pleasure burst like a dam, your release splashed and squirted out, then throbbed with his relentless touch. The wave spread outward, tensing your muscles, buzzing upon your skin. Feeling you squeeze and flutter around him drove Ransom to the brink until all he could think of was filling you, rooting his seed into you so you grew soft and big with his child. You were the beginning and finish of his everything.

Ransom couldn’t stop himself. His strokes grew uneven but remained deep, hard, determined. His arm wrapped around you tight as he launched you both forward, driving you onto your hands and knees so he could rut as deep as possible. You moaned, overcome with the hot rush of his seed filling you and his cock pounding it deeper into you.

You both settled into the bed with tangled limbs, slowing your breaths and the ache of desire. Your toes curled, enjoying the pressure of his cock nestled in you still, content that you both were looking forward to your first child. To a family all your own.

#siris5ksoftdarkchallenge #fanfiction #ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #smut #ransom drysdale x woc!reader

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villainousshakespeare · 3 years ago

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Stalking a King Chapter 15

A HUGE THANK YOU to @shae-annelore for the gorgeous title image. I absolutely love it!!!

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14

Henry V/OFC

Multi-Chapter

Historical AU, Historical Romance, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Angst, Sexual Tension, Bathing, Smut, Oral Sex (F&M receiving), Loss of Virginity, Wedding Night

Lisabet is a high-born Lady of Orleans, France. When King Henry V conquers her city, taking her brother hostage along with other nobles, she vows to be revenged upon the foreign invader and rescue her brother. Dressed in boys clothing she hopes to escape notice in Henry’s camp, but the English King has a much more perceptive eye than she anticipated.

@yespolkadotkitty @just-the-hiddles @hopelessromanticspoonie @wine-and-whines @arch-venus25 @caffiend-queen @devilish–doll @enchantedbyhiddles @hiddlesholic @i-do-not-fangirl-i-fanwoman @kellatron55 @ladyoftheteaandblood @latent-thoughts @yespolkadotkitty@maryxglz @myoxisbroken @nuggsmum @nildespirandum @pedeka @redfoxwritesstuff @sinfully-lustful-darling @vodka-and-some-sass @wrathkitty @kingtwhiddleston @wolfsmom1 @poetic-fiasco @shiningloki @dangertoozmanykids101 @bookworm-christina @amwolowicz @delightfulheartdream @frostbitten-written @what-a-flammable-heart @tom-hlover @nonsensicalobsessions @myraiswack @loki-yoursaviourishere @ghostypau @ms-cellanies @colorfulfreakstudentpizza @mareebird @colorfulfreakstudentpizza @szycha22 @chokemedaddyloki @queenofallhobos @just-the-hiddles-reads

If Henry had but one wish in his soul at that moment, it would be that the man lounging in a chair by the window indolently eating cheese and meet with his knife would die a violent, bloody death by his hand.

He had met the Constable of France a handful of times, and never failed to find Compte Dreux a pompous, humorless man in dire need of being taken down a peg or two in his own estimation. Now that he had been the man's prisoner for some hours (oh, the shame of such a fact would never be washed clean!) that estimation had declined even further, until only the man's demise would satiate the deep antipathy in which Henry held him.

Even more than he hated Dreux, however, Henry currently loathed himself even more. However had he come to this? Taken like a raw recruit by a band of common soldiers who did not even know who he was! No, the Frenchmen had thought they had stumbled upon some wealthy lordling only, good for a ransom of some coin, but not much else. They soon learned better when he quickly dispatched three of them from their horses. One, he was quite certain, would never again obtain consciousness. In the end, alas, the score of them had proven simply too many for one single man. They had ringed him round, threatening to shoot his horse with an arrow if he moved.

It was then that his true tormentor had ridden up. The look of surprise morphing into smug satisfaction and unholy glee as the Constable realized who, exactly, him men had waylaid on the road. With a bow from his saddle worthy of any court mummer, Dreux had relieved the men of their prize, much to their consternation, with airy promises he would no doubt forget to reimburse them for their lost ransom.

Henry had been quickly disarmed and brought with a wealth of mock courtesy to Ruen and the tallest turret room of its imposing castle. Alain Dashard, completely overwhelmed by the scope of the drama unfolding behind his battlements, had quickly set about fortifying his keep as though the Devil himself were about to lay siege. Henry had been left to the dubious care of Dreux.

"I wager it doth cause you no small pain," the oily Constable now opined from where he lounged in his chair, "that you must wonder somewhere in your soul, if we did have a warning in advance that you were headed this day towards Ruen."

Henry knew where the man was going with this line of insinuation, and yet he could not stop the twist of the knife in his heart at the other's words.

"We sought not to disguise our progress, Sir," he answered in clipped tones. "T'would not take much to learn that we were near."

"Tis true, we could have stumbled onto thee," Dreux allowed with a false smile. "Or else, it surely hath occurred to thee, someone who values sovereignty of France might seek to send us word that we prepare. I hear, for as you know rumors do fly more swift than any bird doth take to wing, that you were married just some days ago. How doth thy wife, the lovely Lisabet? So beauteous and headstrong I recall, she could but come from these our shores of France."

"My wife was very well when we did part," Henry ground out with false cheer, not wanting to give the man the pleasure of seeing his arrow hit its mark.

"It may not have been mentioned to thee," Dreux went on, clearly enjoying his game, "but time was I did think to wed the chit. Her father panted hotly for the match, and Lisabet herself, I blush to say, was far from shy in her pursuit of me."

Henry could hear the taunt in the man's words. The deliberate insinuation that Lisabet had desired Dreux was unmistakable. It made the King's blood boil and his eye swim in red to imagine his Lisabet infatuated with the man before him. Still, he couldn't count the idea out. Phillipe had told him that the match was much advanced by her parents. Dreux was handsome, with severe features and dark, curling hair. He was a proven warrior and hero of France. Why would she not wish for a match with such a man?

"If all you say is truth, dear Constable," Henry said with a deceptively mild voice, "I wonder she was free for me to wed."

"I fear I chose not to advance my suit," the sigh accompanying these words was filled was regret. "Though beautiful she without question is, I found her manners lacking for my taste. I could not in the end take for my wife a bride who came unchaste into my bed. I must applaud thee for thy tolerance that thou were able to look past her fault."

It was a mortal insult, and the other man knew it. Henry clenched both his hands into fists, eyes flicking to the six guards standing near the door in the Compte's colors. They were all heavily armed and armored, as was his nemesis, while Henry lacked so much as a dagger at his belt. There was no way he could overpower them all. As much as he longed to strike the smug look off of Dreux's face, he knew he would never make it across the room to do so.

"I will not always be within these walls," Henry seethed, "and when I find myself once more set free, I will remember every word you say that I may make you eat them all at once. The Queen is of a virtue without peer, and you would do well to remember that."

"You seem quite certain that you will walk free. A bit presumptuous as all things stand now."

"You would not dare to kill a Crowned King!" Henry gasped, staring at the man. "The Holy Oil was placed upon my brow, and God himself did call me to the throne!"

"That same oil once did dampen Richard's head, and yet your father snatched from him his crown."

"My Lord, a visitor hath just arrived," the call from the other side of the door halted what would have been Henry's mad lunge towards his captor.

The Constable glanced quickly at Henry and then stood to open the door a sliver, his men all putting hands to sword hilts as he did so. In so much as he could be amused by anything at this moment, Henry found distant satisfaction that they seemed to fear him so much. Oh, how he would enjoy proving their fears worthwhile!

"What visitor? Hath he no name or rank?"

"He is a Holy Friar, good My Lord, and says he has news from the English camp."

"Well, well, what have the fates brought to our door? How looks this Friar, doth he speak the truth, or is he merely counterfeit his faith? A knight may wear a Friars Holy Cowl and yet still keep his skill at arms intact."

"I know not whether he bears truth or no," the servant hedged, no doubt aware of the Compte's quick vengeance, "but I would swear that he is not a knight. The man is older, slight, and stoops a bit. A lifetime worth of worry in his eyes."

"And comes this Friar here all by himself?"

"Why, so much bravery from the noble Dreux," Henry taunted.

"A boy alone doth bear him company."

"Well, there you have it Dreux! Bar all the gates!" Henry mocked. "A Friar and a beardless boy approach. Tis time the French did cower down in fear!"

"I cower before no one nor nothing. Go! Bring these messengers into our site."

Henry paced back and forth like a caged lion, an apt metaphor if ever there was one. He was glad that he had managed to taunt the Constable until he had the friar brought up. Whatever news the cleric brought from his camp his foe would never share it with him otherwise.

He had hoped, at first, that the churchman would prove a ruse that was meant to facilitate his escape, but the man was taking so long on the stairs, surely he must be what he seemed rather than a soldier in disguise. Would Lisabet send someone to rescue him? Most likely she was still unaware of his capture. Dreux had sent a sneering letter when he first was taken, but it was addressed to his soldier of arms, not to Lisabet. Besides, when he had set out, Lisabet had disappeared. She was just as likely to be here at Ruen Castle than amongst his men.

If he did ever get out of Ruen, whether via escape or ransom, would Lisabet even want him? Had she been riding to his enemies that morning as he had believed? Now that he had had time to think, he wondered. Lisabet was not the type to run away. Had he misjudged her?

A knock sounded again on the heavy door, and a pair of dirt-stained travelers entered. Henry stopped still where he paced, desperately trying to keep his expression neutral. The man in friars' robes was indeed older, stooped and out of breath from his climb. Henry noted him and silently cursed his name, as well known as his own. It was the youth on whom the friar leaned thought that captured all of Henry's attention. Slight and yet holding himself with an arrogance that belied his size, the boy looked disdainfully around the room.

"Good Friar, welcome sir, unto Ruen," Dreux nodded to the older of their visitors. "I hear you have word of the English camp."

"What we would speak is for your ears alone," it was the boy who replied, of course. "Send you these men away and we will talk."

"I spoke unto your master, not to you," the crack in Dreux's voice would have undone many a soldier.

"My master is undone by all the stairs," was the unaffected reply of the servant. "Have manners here in France come to this state, that we no better are than Englishmen? You offer him no wine, no place to sit?"

"I do not take well to your tone, my boy," Dreux snarled as Henry willed the youth to tread carefully. "I am no village mayor you address, but of the high Nobility of France."

"All reason more to show some due respect to God's own servants on this mortal plane."

Henry held his breath as the Constable fingered his dagger, weighing the words. This was not a man to push too far, but a deadly, vain, and quick to anger Lord used to having his way even with royalty. Would he retaliate against the insulant page, and if he did, how quickly could Henry be able to insert his own body between the enraged Compte and his slender detractor?

"You have some moxie in you, my brash youth," the Compte at last broke the tension with a laugh that allowed a fraction of the tension to release from Henry's coiled frame.

"Why yes, for I am French, Lord Constable."

"Enough, Phillipe, I can speak for myself," the friar said at last, raising his head as his breathing returned to normal. "Forgive, my Lord, my servant, young Phillipe. A headstrong lad, as you can clearly see, but he doth speak some reason nonetheless. I would be glad of drink and place to sit. And then, if you will give me willing ear, I'll tell you of the English and their camp."

"Oh, very well. Guy, go and fetch some wine. And Piere bring us also some more food. Now sit you hear, good friar and begin. I am impatient to hear all your news."

Henry watched as two of the guards bowed their way out of the room, going quickly to do their master's bidding. That left four, plus the Constable. With a great, heaving sigh, the friar sank onto the window seat where Dreux had previously been sitting. His page, after helping him to descend, wandered to the other side of the large window, hands behind his back as he peered out at the countryside as though disinterested now that his master was seen to.

"The camp, I fear, is in great disarray," the cleric began. "I know not how it came to be that way, but it is said the King has gone away, and there is none fit to assume command."

"He has no Captain there to speak for him?" the eagerness was clear in the Constable's voice.

"It seems there is dispute among the ranks," the friar continued. "The Queen did seek to seize command of all, but old Sir Roger dose dispute her claim."

"The Queen? What, you mean little Lisabet?" Dreux laughed with derision, coming closer to peer at the man. "Why even one unnatural as she would not seek so to turn things on their head!"

"And yet that is the news that I have heard. Half of the men, led by the Lady's brother, have pledged themselves to her, and were inclined to march here to Ruen and siege the town."

"A beardless boy no older than your page, and some presumptuous witch do challenge me?"

"I warned you once already watch your tongue," Henry snapped, advancing a few steps on Dreux. "I will not hear my wife disparaged so."

"You give no orders here, your Majesty," Dreux snarled. "Tis obvious you can't control the chit. Had it so fallen out I wed the brat, she would be even now behind high walls, the first of many sons within her womb, and learning where her proper place should be."

"How lucky then, for all that she chose me."

"Chose? What woman chooses her own mate? Her grasping parents saw there was a crown within her grasp and being filled with greed, cared not that they betrayed their home for it."

"You say that you have met my Lady Wife," Henry laughed, "but I cannot conceive that this is so. Noone who talks to her a single time could ere believe another sets her path. No, Lisabet alone controls her fate, and it is merely my life's greatest joy that she consented to become my Queen. Think not that your pathetic fantasy of her your simple and obedient wife would ever have the smallest chance to be. A flame that blazes out as bright as she could not so be contained by anyone. She is so far above you, Constable, and yes, above me too, I do confess, that you could climb to heaven and yet still she would look down upon you from on high."

"What, do you now turn troubadour and wine as love sots and unmanned men may do?"

"If I had such a trick for word or song, I might indeed do as you would suggest. For there is not a woman ever born who doth deserve it more than Lisabet. She is my love, my life, my dearest self. For her sake I would seek to move the sun. It is a pity you will never know the sweet embrace of such a one as she."

"You paint a moving picture, I must say," Dreux scoffed. "Perhaps when you are buried in the ground, I'll sample that embrace you moan about."

"I fear, my Lord, that this will have to do."

As Henry watched, heart in his mouth, the friar's page smoothly slid the dagger Dreux had been using for his meal across the table and pressed the point to his throat.

"Hold, drop your swords, unless you want him dead," tip of the dagger drew a bead of blood from Compte Dreux's neck. At a nod from the Compte the guards' swords clattered to the ground. "I thank you, husband, for your pretty words."

"I meant them, every one, my Lisabet."

"Yes, yes, that all is very well and good," Lawrence grumbled, drawing Dreux's sword and tossing it to Henry. "But can it wait 'till we are out of here? I have gone through enough and more today."

"Forgive me, Father, this and all my sins," Henry grinned at his secretary. "Both those I've done and those I'll soon commit."

As his eyes met Lisabet's in a hot glance that turned her face an appealing shade of pink, Henry was barely aware of his long-suffering secretary's weary groan.

#Historical Romance #historical au #Fan Fic #The Hollow Crown #Henry V #Tom Hiddleston as Henry V #Tom Hiddleston #Romance #Love #Enemies to Lovers #smut in previous chapters #smut in future chapters #angst #rescue your man!#Henry V/OFC #Shakespeare

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springlock-suits · 4 months ago

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Woagh!

Some violence towards children happening in this round

Had to refix the bonnie arcade and recatch the rat 👍 its so funny to me that we went back to the 80s to catch a rat. This rat has time traveled with the sole purpose of getting nearly hit with a broom. We had to use the power of time travel to find a rat. Incredible.

Wooo went back to Freddy’s and the power is still on!

Wait springbonnie hold on you better not be heading for the generator right now

He wasn't! Just checking out the stage :)

Oh man wait hold up, is this game gonna keep adding animatronics to hide from? Are Freddy, Foxy, Bonnie, Chica, and Springbonnie all gonna be roaming around? Oh man,

PHONE GUY,,,,, not the original voice but phone guy,,,,

Went to the entrance via storage room vent, and stayed inside it bc I heard Springbonnie coming. I was wondering what the animatronics would do about Oz, turns out absolutely nothing. Wait is this kids name Oz, I thought that's what we're calling Oswald. What are his friends names again?

Man, I really need to try using the phone in Freddy’s one day, I keep getting distracted by running for my life

The school calendar doesn't seem to change as days pass, though I didn't take the time to count, I expected that. Whatever the day is you're first allowed in the school must be the 16th

Oh dang I accidentally escaped the house too fast, I wanted to explore more, especially the attic

Hey what happens if I call 911

Got an achievement!

Wish there was somewhere to hide in the kitchen, I want to listen to Phone Guy!

Not giving up on this, I WILL listen to the full call

Gave up on this, I did not listen to the full call. It seems a bit luck based if you can hear it in full

If you use your phone in Freddy’s it's just the voicemails

Played arcades in Freddy's with the tokens! The save the children, collect that hats, and freddy puzzle slide

Bonnie! Ah, would could lure him out,,,

Oh! A toy freddy! That's for the firecracker kid for sure! Eh, what's the prize gonna be for then,,,

Rereading the sketchbook, maybe Bonnie needs his guitar, and guitar strings, gonna go th the mill in Jeff time then

I died and now the toy Freddy is no longer in my inventory, and won't respawn at the presents, fuck. Oh that's really really bad. Gonna exit the game and try again

Oh we are doomed. Oswald is very much under the impression he took the toy Freddy already because when I interact with the presents he says "nothing else here"

OKAY. Got into the suit and crawled out and it let me pick up the Freddy? I literally did that earlier?? And it didn't work?? Oh well guess we keep moving on with this one. And not die until the ballpit is reached

Ok nothing at the Mill actually. I am simply too ahead of the game (I now have no clue what to distract Bonnie with) (I am now much more nervous to explore and try things with the knowledge an item I picked up could disappear and not show up again) (I remain a firm hater of autosave only games)

WAIT

THE FREDDY

Could I go to the library and the fireworks are for Bonnie???

No, darn, I really thought I was onto something there, I guess I'll go to backstage in Freddy’s? Bonnie's guitar notes are really the only clue I have here

New dialogue and new quest! ..."find something to fix the guitar" ,,, ah,, to the mill I go then.

The strings were there 😊. You just gotta go to the guitar first to make them appear. Alas. Also my school bully I forgot the name of was there with a camera for some reason. Guess I'll find out next school day!

Is it really time travel though? Or more like dimension travel? I little space stuck in June 1985, where Springbonnie manifests as some monster because that's what the kids feel of him. Ah. Springbonnie and the whole "time travel" thing being a pocket of fear is a bit hindered by the rat though, since it was a real living rat taken out of there. By pocket of fear I guess I'm calling this a bit of a coraline situation for oswald

They tied Chip up to a machine to continuously get hit by a mallet?? Bonnie what??

The other child's name is make. Chip and Mike. I can remember this <-lying voice

A freddy mask just fell from the attic, also a tradeable item,,

I traded toy freddy for the firecracker, I wonder what would've happened if I tried other items? Would they have worked?

Oswald hit his bully, Freddy’s is really getting to him, and his first instinct was to go back to the ballpit after doing so

I'm sticking with this being a vague Coraline situation

THERE IS A PLACE TO HIDE IN THE KITCHEN. I MISSED OUT ON THE SECOND CALL FOR NO REASON. slams table in anger or something

Oh I guess we're using the firecracker right now then

I have 4 of 5 if dad's items, I don't have the 4th, did I miss it somewhere?

Got the prize item! A handheld gaming device, also tradable

All the stickers!

Another minigame in the prize machine. Um. I have been,,, eaten alive by a silver and blue robot dog...? I collected 6 balloons, and the 6th turned it purple, what if i collect 5

Dog room doesn't spawn unless you collect all 6. Also, this minigame seems to be based on the game's map. If so I think the dog room is in the Party Room springbonnie killed those kids in

Your character sprints out of the room as soon as all the balloons are placed, dog giving chase. And of course, the letters "c" "u" appear. See you? Or are there any relevant words that start with cu

Oh Springbonnie locked the girl in the freezer, which is less horrifying than my original assumption that she was getting put in the oven

Now where can I find something to smash the door open, probably in Jeff's?

Into the pit live blog! Gonna be putting these under readmores to avoid giving people spoilers as much as I can :p

I'll be waiting through this as I go, maybe each post will be until I reach 10 images, or am done playing for a bit

What does this even mean. I guess Creepy is easy and Frightening is medium?

I guess I'm going with Frights

Had to adjust the screen size, and we have a map! Fun, can't wait to make this in Minecraft

I simultaneously don't care for and adore this artstyle, I think it's just the sprites of people throwing me off

Ooo really old county fair ad poster

I really like the look of Jeff's pizza here, I'll be honest reading the book I was just imagining it as a very empty room. Now there's like. Walls and stuff. Incredible.

A mysterious pile of pixels, and old Freddy's stuff! Chairs most visibly. I can't tell if that head is a freddy or not

They did well with the painted over mural look!

bdjsbdks

Man it's always so fun to see Freddy's in action, I like the checkered tables in the entrance

OSWALD NO

Also, June 1985! June 26th is when two kids got lured to the backroom in late hours, later to be discovered 5 kids were linked to the case (man I'm so glad I just checked the fnaf 1 hall papers so I could put them in my room, helps me remember)

Getting in the suit is the only way to progress 😔

Ok getting in the suit wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be (I don't get caught by an employee and get in trouble for it)

Springbonnie is so creature here it's so fun. And oooh holding your breath mechanic,,

Sudden darkness and screaming! This is very fun so far

I had to leave to run errands now though 😔, so I guess I'll end part 1 of the live blog here! Keeping all my thoughts in one post as to not flood dashes and tags alike bdkbsks

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deniigi · 3 years ago

Text

Lando The Nosy Neighbor AU

Title: good fences make good neighbors

Summary: Modern AU based off the premise presented to me as ‘Han and Leia move into the same neighborhood and start a feud, only to eventually overthrow the local Homeowner’s Association.’

Relationships: Pot-farmer!Han/Lawyer!Leia; Farmboy!Luke/Survivalist!Din; Lando & Breha Organa & Chewbacca

This is based off a rural community in Washington which has local cults.

Lando POV

---------------

A hippy has moved in next to the Organas.

It’s a good one, too. This one hasn’t even rented a moving truck, they’ve just come on over with all their furniture tetris-ed in on top of itself and wrapped tight with rope, blankets, and prayer.

Lando’s petunias screech for watering as the hippy throws open the truck’s door and comes staggering out, cracking his lanky back. Out of the other side comes an even hairier, even lankier person. He closes the truck door and looks right at Lando.

He stares.

It is a challenge. But of course, not one that Lando is not prepared to handle.

He points at his watering can.

Hippy Two seems to scoff.

Lando waits until he’s distracted by the first hippie struggling with the blue house’s doorknob to dump the remaining water into the pebbles under his ornamental bridge.

He returns inside and goes about his busy business, tying back the curtains.

It is always good to have someone new in the neighborhood.

It takes the hippy couple a few weeks to get settled into their new home, and in that time neither has ingratiated themselves to Lando.

The stupid one with the floppy hair caught onto Lando’s tricks at the weekly poker match held in the local bar. Lando may have lost his irrigation system, but he has not lost his dignity. It was old anyways. He’s been planning to replace it for nearly a year now. There is never a better time than the present to start making your dreams into reality.

And anyways, the floppy haired out-of-towner will get what is coming to him. Lando has already sown the seed of his demise.

Leia Organa returned home to look after her poor, sick, stubborn mother just two months ago. Breha is fine, of course, not even cancer could snuff out her fires, although she is bored of her husband and daughter trying to trap her indoors. Her immunocompromised escapades have been delightful to watch.

The Organas are always a lively group. There is never a dull moment or lack of machinations among them—especially the lady of the household. She, like Lando, appreciates a good tussle. Which is why he has pointed out to Leia that her new neighbors’ greenhouse is mighty interesting, is it not?

Lawyer Leia’s ears pricked up like a horse’s, and Breha’s sharp eyes took on new sheen.

Lando watches Leia in the mornings now, struggling to find upper-body strength and purchase on the wood of her backyard fence, among the roses and bougainvillea. She’s so tiny, Leia. Breha is not an overly large person either, and thus is no help in this endeavor to collect data on the greenhouse of questionable origins and purposes on the other side of the fence. Leia doesn’t need her, though. She needs no one. She’s seen what she needs to.

Lando pours tea from a glass pot given to him by someone in his company who wishes for their secrets to remain so and beautiful, clear amber liquid fills his cup.

He looks up to see Leia holding her phone out as far as she can without relinquishing her grip on the fence. She fumbles, trying one-handedly to document the crime before her, but alas. Even the mighty sometimes trip on the red carpet.

The phone slips. She grabs after it in slow-motion, horror filling every pore of her face.

It is gone now, that phone.

The Public Nuisances will know what she has been up to.

Lando sighs and leans back in his seat.

It is no time at all before the dropped phone is returned graciously over the white, waist-height fence that separates the Public Nuisance’s yard from the Organas’. Leia snatches her phone back and wipes it off with her hand and sleeve. The shorter public enemy, Han, he calls himself, smiles at her cheekily. He retracts his hand and gestures to the taller fence, barely visible for the fruit trees and vines, between their backyards and says something that makes Leia go very, very still.

It is, undoubtedly, a challenge. Not unlike the one that that the more polite public nuisance, Chewie, opened his and Lando’s relationship with.

Chewie has explained without mincing his words, that he and Han have come here because their last venture was lost in a snowstorm. Chewie will be damned if his precious seedlings are so callously frosted over again. The Pacific Northwest has no chance of freezing over, he says. It provides a better setting to grow stock.

Weed, he means. Marijuana. Chewie is again, not shy. He and Han make good money supplying dispensaries with their organic, hand dried leaves. It is apparently ‘artisan’ like in quality.

Lando isn’t sure he’d go that far, but yes, it is nice stuff. And yes, Leia, bastion of justice, does need to see the men’s permits.

Lando opens the window for a breeze and catches Han telling Leia that he’ll produce them if she arm wrestles him for the right to witness their authenticity. Leia agrees. Han fetches a small worktable from the house’s garage and sets it between them.

The match is over within seconds. Leia has never been so insulted in her life. She demands a rematch and, out of sheer indulgence, Han gives it to her.

He is nearly a foot taller than her. He could lift her up and over her own fence with ease if he so desired. He wins the next round. And the next one. He loses the last one by reason of having his leg deadened under the table but stands abruptly to renegade on his earlier promise.

“You watch yourself, princess,” he calls over his shoulder with his hand on his front door’s knob.

“Oh, I’ll be watching,” Leia snarls back.

Han slams the door. Chewie looks from him to Leia standing fuming in the shade of her family’s pine trees.

“Unbelievable,” she snaps at him before stomping off herself. “UNBELIEVABLE.”

Lando flicks his eyes up to see Breha’s dining room window wide open. She too, has a cup of tea. She lifts it his way and he lifts his back.

Finally, some quality entertainment once more.

Han and Leia’s hatred has become neighborhood gossip. They have begun going to extraordinary lengths to gain the others’ attention. For example, Han, in weeding his sparce flowerbeds, was careful to shove the fruits of his labor between the fence slats into Bail’s well-tended herb garden. Bail, ever the gentleman, does not mind, but of course Leia feels that her family honor has been spat upon. She collects the weeds and returns them to her owner, via mailbox. It is kind of her to put the flag down, so Han knows that he’s received a message.

The retaliation is a mural in rainbow colors commissioned by Han and painted by one of the budding young teenagers from a school about a thirty minute drive downtown. It is...psychedelic. And facing Leia’s bedroom window.

Han asked the youth who painted it to add in a figure in the center of the composition; it is a brown-haired woman dressed all in white, surrounded by thorny vines, and attempting to climb a fence. The young artist must have felt like Michelangelo in the application of those delicate strokes of artistry. They knew they were creating something holy.

Han helps that along by bracketing the figure with solar lanterns that light up at night and keep the image fully illuminated.

When Lando arrives to Breha’s side to go on a walk, arm in arm, with her and her beast of a terrier, she giggles like a schoolgirl behind her hand.

“Han is very handsome,” she tells Lando.

“He’s alright,” Lando says.

“I think he and Leia are a perfect match. Will for will. No one’s ever dared to cross her like this.”

Now that is a fact.

“I wonder if this is the start of something more,” Breha says.

“What does your husband think?” Lando asks.

Breha waves him off dismissively.

“Oh, you know. He’s convinced that Leia will kill Han in his sleep, and we will be forced to post bail, but I told him—as I’ve told you, Lando—Leia’s too smart to get caught committing axe murder. Now poisoning, that’s a different story.”

Lando wakes up and makes coffee. He turns on his computer and opens his curtains to let the light pour in and warm his hardwood floors. He stands at the window, hiding a smirk behind his mug.

Leia has had enough. She has called the Home Owner’s Association and they are standing at Han’s front doorstep.

It is about three weeks before Han and Leia have overthrown the Home Owner’s Association for interfering in their escalating romance—ahem—bloodfeud. By then, Lando’s work-from-home situation is suffering. It is impossible to focus with those two cluttering up his view with distractions left and right. He determines that, for the sake of his finances, he must direct his attention to something a little further afield.

The Lars’s vegetable stand is becoming something of an institution.

It’s about a mile or so out of Lando’s way, tucked smack in the middle of the battlefield that is the stretch of land between the survivalist cult that lives in the forest and the pseudo-Buddhists that live in their compound. The farm itself is a few acres and the Lars’s son can be seen walking around, herding livestock out of the road and into pastures.

Lando has heard whispers that this son is none other than Leia’s twin brother, but no one has the nerve to directly ask the Organas about the truth of such a scandalous idea. The most that can be said about Luke Lars-Skywalker is that he is a master of social media.

He has created a Youtube channel and an Instagram to document the practices of his family’s farm and the products they produce. He is in a twitter-war with many communities online for his videos on small-scale bee-keeping, and his family’s stand is proudly boycotted by the vegan association in the city on farmer’s market days.

It has become well-known among the farm-to-table restaurants in the city, though, and that is why Luke keeps on keeping on with his cows and his fowls and his silly camera holder.

But all that means little because Luke Lars-Skywalker is in love.

Anyone with eyes can see it.

He is in love with an ancestral enemy.

See, in this area there are not one, but two cults and naturally, they abhor and reject the others’ teachings. To the south are the pseudo-buddhist, clairvoyants who have fashioned themselves more or less as monks preoccupied with meditation, self-development, and a few fairly mystical beliefs among the rather terrifying devotion to martial arts. To the north are the survivalist whack-jobs who don’t believe in electricity or running water, but who are also, somehow, preoccupied with self development and a terrifying devotion to martial arts.

Both groups have publicly denounced the other as misguided extremists.

The rumors say that Luke and Leia’s biological father is one of the clairvoyants, and this is where the heart of the current delightful irony lays.

Luke Lars-Skywalker is in love with one of those survivalists.

Lando knows this because he has seen it with his very own eyes.

He took a trip a while back to purchase some greens from the vegetable stand and he was there for a little while, picking through the selection, when he looked up and saw Luke’s posture explode out of its lax boredom. Lando looked over his shoulder to see what Luke’s tan, freckled attention had latched onto and lo and behold.

It was a man. And not only a man, a man with a baby.

Luke stuffed knuckles into his mouth to keep from cooing as the father of the child nodded at him and meandered over to have a poke through the produce piled up on the stand. The baby, dressed carefully in layers of warm, water-resistant clothing, watched Luke right back. He smiled and grunted, waving his dark, stubby arms and Luke melted—literally collapsed into a fraction of his size behind the paystation.

The father, a white rugged guy with dark curly hair and a great deal of stubble, shifted the baby to his other arm. His worn, heavy clothing and the military-style canvas sack on his back marked him as one of the Cabin-In-the-Woods people.

Lando felt like he was watching a country romance flick in real life.

Luke gathered his courage and approached the dad and baby to ask if they were looking for anything in particular. The baby immediately held hands out to him. Luke asked the father if he could hold the little one. The father said ‘no.’

Lando nearly choked on his own spit.

“Oh, sorry buddy,” Luke said to the baby. “Daddy thinks I’m gonna eat you up.”

“He just got a bath.”

Luke gooey expression hardened in an instant.

“Excuse you. You sayin’ I’m dirty?” he asked. “You sayin’ I smell like horseshit?”

The father stared at Luke wordlessly.

“Pigshit,” he corrected.

“WHAT.”

Lando no longer needed only greens. He had to pick a cheese from this bountiful pile. Oh dear, so many to choose from.

“I said, you smell like pigshit. And he just got a bath,” the survivalist father said. “How much for the tomatoes?”

“Twenty a pound,” Luke said viciously.

“That’s steep.”

“There’s a discount for people who smell like pigshit.”

“You get a lot of those?”

“No, but I know how to wallow in the time between buyers.”

“Are you angry or something?”

“Take your damn tomatoes.”

“I didn’t pay yet—”

“Just take ‘em. Go. Go.”

“Twenty—?”

“Hey, Mr. Calrissian, that’ll be ten-fifty,” Luke said over the protests.

That was then. This is now. And Luke Lars-Skywalker has not let up on his tirade against this survivalist. Nor, it is important to note however, has the survivalist stopped coming to the vegetable stand when Luke is working it.

What is even more is that Lando can see with his own two eyes that the survivalist is not holding his baby at the vegetable stand now, as Lando closes his car door a little ways from the stand. Luke smiles at Lando as he draws near; he is bouncing at the knees. He waves the baby’s hand in greeting and the child gurgles and twists back to grab at his face.

Lando smiles and does not say anything.

He finds Chewie inspecting a sprinkler at the edge of his and Han’s yard on the way back and crosses the street to inspect it with him. It sputters. Chewie suspects outloud that their squirrels are getting stronger and more destructive by the day.

Lando asks him if he’s been the Lars’s vegetable stand since moving into town.

He has.

Lando asks if he’s ever seen Luke there, holding a baby.

He has.

Lando is smug.

“Mr. Rugged Mountain Man is falling for the farm boy,” he tells Chewie.

Chewie lifts a thick eyebrow.

“One day soon, that baby is going to go from living off the grid to living in a barn,” Lando tells him. “Mark my words.”

Chewie tells him that that is impossible without a kidnapping charge because the Rugged Mountain Man is the straightest man that he’s ever seen. Lando tells him not to judge a book by its cover.

Weirder things have happened. Han and Leia, for example.

Chewie tells him that he knows that Lando is somehow responsible for those two’s newly inescapable sexual tension and he will never forgive him for it.

Lando cannot believe his ears. Him? An instigator? Of course not, Chewie. He is but a humble spider, waiting around in his house for a fly to shake things up. He is an observer, nothing more, nothing less.

Chewie just points a finger at him.

Lando points a finger-gun back. He fires it with a click of his tongue.

#star wars #han/leia #dinluke #lando calrissian #fic #ficlet #don't mind me I'm just thinking about petty neighborhood politics

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