#i’ve had this in my drafts for (checks watch) two months. whoops

[kitamars]

omg new (fake) leaks dropped

[rawmeanderson]

bring you back to me ― part viii

ft. jeff skinner plot: when your high school sweetheart gets traded to the same city where you now live and work, your best friend just can’t mind her own business ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ warnings. swearing, drinking, all sorts of nsfw stuff 👏🏻 word count: 6.4k 118 days later, here I am and just lazy as always, hence the fact that I’ve got no gif for you gays again, whoops. i’m sure no one is surprised that this is pm unedited. thank you everyone for your patience in me getting this chapter out for you guys. it was a long ass off season, but now i’ve got my writing mojo back, so I hope you guys enjoy!! 💞 visit my masterlist (there’s a link in my description!) to sign up for email alerts or to view the master document with all parts of the fic for easy binge reading!!

It startles you to the point that you jump slightly when your phone starts vibrating violently against your desktop. With your heart leaping still, you grin when you glance at it to see Jeff’s name across the screen, ringing again a second later. You answer the call and lift your phone to your ear, rotating in your chair to face away from the computer, welcoming the distraction.

“Hey,” you say casually, still smiling as you bring your hand up to chew on your thumbnail. 

“Hey, beautiful,” he responds, and you hear the sound of his car door shutting. “How’s work?”

“Uneventful. Are you out of practice already?” Your words come as you check your watch to see the time. 

“Yeah, coach let us go a little early today,” he tells you, and you hear him try to stifle a yawn. 

“Are you gonna head home for a nap?” you ask with a soft laugh, pushing your hair out of your face.

“Yeah, probably,” he admits, earning a snort out of you. 

“I hope you know that I’m crazy jealous.”

The after practice phone calls had come every day in the week that followed Jeff’s return from the road trip. It had become part of the easy routine the two of you had settled into. You’d stayed together a handful of nights, gone to one of his two home games that week. Being together was just easy.

“Do you want to go out for drinks tonight? Some teammates and their girls are going out, so I just figured it’d be a good time for you to meet everyone,” he says following a short pause. You know he’s driving, you can hear the soft clicking of his blinker and the hum of the radio. 

“Uhm, what time? I’m grabbing dinner with some colleagues, so as long as it’s after that, yeah, I’d like to go,” you tell him, despite feeling a little nervous about meeting more of his teammates. 

“Yeah, that should work. Do you think 9 would be a good time to shoot for?” 

“I think so, yeah, we should be done by then,” you say, leaning back in your seat a bit more. Your stomach is growling, and you’ll be happy to take your lunch break once you’re off the phone with Jeff. 

“Great, I’ll send you the address later,” he tells you, and you can hear the smile in his voice. “You wanna stay at mine after?”

A wide grin spreads across your face, and you laugh quietly. “Yeah, sure,” you say, feeling heat rise up the back of your neck as you wonder if the hickeys you’d left on his chest a couple nights early was still there. 

The two of you talk for a few more minutes until he reaches his parking garage, and you say your goodbyes as he gets into the elevator. As if on cue, your stomach growls loudly the second you hand up, and you step out of your cubicle to see if Lydia had had lunch yet. 

You and Lydia ended up going out for sandwiches around the corner from your office, taking your time to get back to work. You told her about going out with Jeff to meet some of his teammates, and asked if she’d want to go with you, figuring she’d jump at the opportunity. She declined your invitation, which was a surprise, but you didn’t push for a reason. It was a nice lunch though, considering you hadn’t seen much of her in the last few days. The two of you solidified plans for the game you were going to in a few days, and you eventually went back to your desk to finish out the work day.

Somehow, the rest of the day went by quickly enough. Dinner was nice, considering it was with work friends you didn’t see very often. After eating, you hung around for a while, catching up as you finished your glass of wine. By the time you went your separate ways, it was earlier than you expected, and you texted Jeff to let him know you were on your way to the bar.

Since you were staying in the city overnight, you’d just left your car in the garage at work, sure that Jeff would give you a ride to work in the morning. You ordered an Uber to the bar, and in the backseat of the car, you reapply your lipstick and try your best not to feel nervous at the prospect of meeting more of Jeff’s teammates. 

When you walk in, it’s easy to spot everyone, and Jeff’s back is to you as you approach. There’s an empty glass in front of him and another that’s only a third full in his hand, and when you’re close enough, you run your hand over his shoulder and lean to kiss his cheek. He looks at you and a grin spreads widely across his face as he greets you. Shrugging off your jacket, you glance around the table, and you’re happy to see some familiar faces. As you get settled into your seat, Jeff goes around the table to introduce everyone. 

Ten minutes later and you’ve relaxed a little, chit-chatting with a few of the girls. You feel a little out of place, considering you’re still in the same black slacks and blouse that you’d worn to work earlier. Jeff’s hand is resting on your knee under the table, and it’s more than a little distracting. He finishes his second beer and squeezes your knee lightly to get your attention.

“I’m gonna go grab another drink, do you want anything?” he asks, grinning at you still and you notice a slight flush coloring his cheeks. “Yeah, I’ll go with you, I want to see what they’ve got on tap,” you tell him, tucking your hair behind your ear as you slip out of your seat. 

The bar’s not very crowded, but there’s a short wait to order drinks and Jeff’s arm slips around your shoulders easily. You take the time to look at the draft listing on the wall, humming in thought quietly as you try to decide what you want. 

“How was dinner?” he asks, warm as you lean into him slightly.

“It was nice, a good chance to catch up with some colleagues I don’t see very often,” you respond, tilting your head up to look at him. He drops his head to kiss you quickly, and you smile against his mouth, grateful that you’ve got this quick minute to catch up. 

The two of you talk softly for a few more moments before it’s Jeff’s turn to order. He asks what you want and once you respond, he pulls away to step up to the bar. You fish your phone out of your pocket, texting Lydia the name of the bar in case she’d changed her mind about wanting to come out.

Someone behind you said your name, and you jumped slightly, turning to see who it was. You were greeted by a familiar face you hadn’t seen in a while, a friend from work that had taken a position in another city a few months earlier. 

“Oh my god, Peter, hi!” you exclaim, grinning widely as you take a step closer to hug him quickly. “I didn’t know you were in town! I just had dinner with Vanessa and Gayle!” You’re practically beaming, still shocked to see him.

“My mom’s birthday is this weekend, so I figured that warranted a trip home. My brother dragged me out tonight,” he says, pointing over his shoulder. “How have you been? You look great. I wasn’t even sure it was you when I saw you, I know you and Lydia usually stick to Stella’s.”

The mention of Stella’s makes you snort softly, reminded of the number of times Peter had picked you and Lydia up after a night of drinking. “Trust me, I’d love to be at Stella’s right now,” you say, shrugging with a laugh. “I’m out with my boyfriend and his teammates, so I didn’t get to pick the bar.” You pause, glancing over your shoulder to see Jeff approaching you. “Oh, speaking of which, here he is.”

Jeff is clearly sizing Peter up as he hands you your beer, arm sliding around your shoulders in a rather protective manner as you thank him quietly for the drink. Peter looks rather surprised, clearly recognizing Jeff, and it’s an interesting few seconds to watch unfold.

“Uh, Peter, this is Jeff,” you say, breaking the short silence. “Jeff, Peter. We used to work together, but he transferred to an office out of state a while back.” Jeff clearly relaxes when he realizes Peter is someone you actually know rather than some random guy that wouldn’t leave you alone.

“Nice to meet you, man,” Peter says, offering his hand which Jeff shakes. 

“Yeah, you too,” he responds quickly before glancing down at you. “I’m gonna head back to the table, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” you assure him, smiling quickly as he pulls away. As polite as ever, Jeff tells Peter to have a good night before taking off, and Peter gives you an impressed look that makes you snort.

“We’ve clearly got a lot of catching up to do,” he teases, making you roll your eyes with a grin as you take a sip of your drink.

“Yeah, we do. How long are you in town? I’m sure Lydia would love to see you too.” 

“My flight takes leaves Monday morning. Let me see what I’ve got going on family-wise, and I’ve still got your numbers, so I’ll start a group chat to see if we can find a time to grab lunch or something,” he says, warm smile on his face. “I’ll let you get back to your friends though, yeah?”

You nod, taking a step forward to hug him tightly. “Sounds good. I’ll see you soon then,” you tell him, pulling back and already starting back toward the table with a wave.

Retaking your seat at the table, you rejoin the group midway through a debate over the Office versus Parks and Rec, and you’re content to listen as you take drinks from your glass here and there. You nudge Jeff with your knee gently under the table and from the corner of your eye, you see him grin as he nudges you back, his hand settling on your thigh a moment later. 

Half an hour later as you’re finishing your beer, Jeff leans to kiss the side of your head, asking softly if you were ready to head out for the night. You tell him you’ll be ready to head out in another ten minutes or so, and he nods, finishing off his beer as well. His hand had moved a little higher on your thigh without you really noticing, and you can’t help the slight smirk that tugs at the corners of your mouth. 

“You can go ahead and order a ride home if you want,” you tell him, enjoying the bit of color in his cheeks brought on by the beer. He nods and fishes his phone out of his pocket, and after a moment, he says the car will be there in five.

After slipping on your jacket, the two of you say your goodbyes, and you’re glad that Jeff had thought to invite you. Meeting more of his teammates made everything feel a lot more real, and there’s a content grin on your face as you headed out to the street, Jeff’s arm around you as you walked.

“Did you have a good time?” Jeff asks, kissing your hair softly as you lean into his frame. His eyes are on his phone, checking the make and model of the vehicle you were keeping an eye out for.

“Yeah, definitely,” you assure him, nodding quickly. “It’s nice getting to meet everyone, and running into Peter was a nice surprise too.” It’s then that the car pulls up, and Jeff is quick to open the door, letting you slide into the seat before joining you. He greets the driver and is already pulling you back to his side.

“You said you used to work with Peter?” he asked, and you looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. The question was innocent enough to come off as small talk, and you laugh it off softly as you rest your head on Jeff’s shoulder.

“Yeah, he worked in a different department though,” you explain, trying to stifle a yawn. It’s warm in the back of the car, enough so that it’s making you a little drowsy. “He’s a good guy. We made out a Christmas party one year, but Lydia was always far more into him than I was.”

Jeff makes a noise that you can’t determine the meaning of, and you snuggle in closer to his side.

“What, you jealous?” you ask, teasing tone to your voice. He shrugs, chuckling softly.

“Nah. I mean, I’ve made out with you at more Christmas parties than he has, so I feel like I’m in decent shape,” he responds, earning a laugh out of you.

“Yeah, you are, don’t worry,” you tell him, tilting your head up kiss his cheek softly.

The rest of the drive passes quickly, and you stay tucked into Jeff’s side. You’d only had the one drink, but Jeff had had a few more, and he was still tipsy, it was obvious in the way he toyed with your hair idly and the way he couldn’t seem to get you close enough.

In the elevator a few minutes later, Jeff crowds you up against the wall, grinning all the while as his hands settle on your hips. Before the doors are even closed, his mouth is on yours, kissing you sweetly as he squeezes you, hands moving up like he can’t keep them off you. You laugh quietly against his mouth, hand resting on his chest. When he pulls back, you grin, enjoying the sight of his flushed cheeks as his hands start to wander along your waist over the fabric of your blouse.

“You look awfully happy,” you tease, laughing again as he leans in again, this time attaching his lips to your neck. Your head immediately lolls to the side, a breathy sigh leaving you as his mouth moves over your pulsepoint.

“I am,” he says, words mumbled against your skin. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve got you all to myself for the rest of the night.” The words make you roll your eyes as a grin tugs at your mouth, and before you can respond, the elevator chimes before the doors open.

Jeff untangles himself from you with a begrudging sound, like it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done, and you chuckle as your hand finds his to tug him out of the elevator with you. As he fishes for his keys, you hug him, leaning into his chest and nuzzling into his collar bone while he gets the door open.

Inside, you slip out of your jacket and kick your shoes off, sighing softly as you hear Jeff moving around behind you. He says your name a second later, and you turn to look at him, grinning at the fact that he’s already reaching for you. Your arms start to slip around his neck, but his hands catch your wrists, pinning them above your head as he presses you against the wall just inside the door. It catches you by surprise, earning a gasp out of you as you instinctively arch to press closer to him.

When he kisses you, it’s rough, hungry, and you moan against his mouth as he keeps you pressed against the wall. His hand on your wrists is tight, but not uncomfortably so, and the fact that you’re not able to touch him has you growing impatient pretty quickly. Jeff tastes like beer, but you hardly care, and you let your teeth catch on his bottom lip, something that never fails to get a groan out of him. 

You’re already panting by the time he pulls away just enough to kiss down the column of you throat, sucking at your skin. He’s nosing along the collar of your shirt and one hand leaves your wrists to drop to your waist. His hand slips under the hem of your top, hot against your skin as it moves up to brush his fingers along the band of your bra. 

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he murmurs into your cleavage, groaning into your skin. His tongue slides over the top of your breast and you shiver, breathing his name as your clit throbs. You arch your back, trying to press closer to him and he releases your other wrist to tug your shirt off over your head.

He grins down at you as he drops the fabric to the floor next to your feet, and the darkness in his eyes sends heat down your spine. You can’t stop yourself from reaching for him again, hands cupping his face as you pull his mouth back to yours. The kiss is rather sloppy, with Jeff humming against your mouth in a way that makes your insides turn to mush as heat pools between your thighs. 

“Jeff, bedroom,” you breathe against his mouth, arm slipping around his neck despite the fact that you should be pulling away to drag him toward his room. 

“Wanna make you cum first,” he responds, mouth barely leaves yours as he speaks. The quick statement makes your cheeks flush, and you do your best to ignore it. You don’t have the chance to respond before he’s pressing his body against yours firmly so you’re pinned back against the wall again.

You squirm slightly, legs pressing together, and you can already feel that you’re soaked. It’s so easy to get lost in the kiss that you’re mind goes blank as his tongue slides along yours, barely even aware of the fact that his hand is moving to unfasten you’re bra. He pulls the fabric away from your body and he leans back to look down at your newly exposed skin. Jeff looks incredible then, lips parted and slightly swollen, catching his breath as he takes the time to admire your tits.

He realizes he’s staring, and his eyes lift to yours and he’s smirking as he drops his head again. Jeff leaves another line of hot, sucking kisses down your sternum as his hands move over your waist like he can’t touch you enough. His mouth ghosts over your nipple and you gasp, hand sliding up his neck to run your fingers through his hair.

When you glance down at him, he’s looking up at you, and you can feel your flush creeping down your neck as you let your head rest back against the wall. A curse leaves you as he sucks a mark into the side of your breast, humming contently as he does so. He unfastens your trousers and you arch your hips toward him as pushes the fabric down your thighs. You kick them off easily, somehow managing not to trip as you toe them away. Jeff pulls back to look at you, cocky grin on his face as you squirm, pulling him back to you.

“Fuck, I love you,” you tell him, kissing him hard as you start unbutton his shirt. His hand slides up your waist to cup your breast, thumb rubbing over your nipple firmly and you make a needy whine that gets caught in your throat. Your fingers are shaking as you work at the last few buttons, cursing under your breath impatiently.

“Love you too, baby,” he murmurs, pulling back with a wide smirk in response to the sound you made. He leans away enough to slip out of his shirt and drop it to the floor, and you lick your lips as your eyes slid down his familiar frame. “I’ve been thinking about having you like this all day.” His words are soft, but there’s no mistaking the dark tone of it and he’s looking down at you as he presses closer.

When he kisses you again, he slips his hand into your panties easily, both of you groaning in unison when his fingers slip between your folds. Your hips immediately push toward his, and your arm loops around his neck for support as you swayed on your feet slightly. When you glance up at him, he’s watching you, and your clit throbs as his fingers sweep over it lightly. 

Your hips rock against his hand slightly and you moan into Jeff’s mouth as his tongue slides over yours. His other hand drops from your waist to tug your panties down, and you shimmy enough to get them down to your ankles so you can kick them off. Jeff makes a sound of appreciation and you laugh softly, arms tightening around his neck to keep him from pulling away.

“So wet, sweetheart,” he breathes against your mouth and you nod slightly, biting his bottom lip as two of his fingers tease at your entrance. You can hear the sound of your arousal as his fingers just barely dip into you, and you huff with impatience.

Jeff’s smirk is obvious, and his mouth leaves yours to press a kiss to your cheek before moving down your jaw. He sinks two fingers into you and you sigh with relief, head falling back to rest against the wall behind you. Taking advantage of your new position, Jeff’s mouth settles on your pulsepoint and you curse under your breath as his fingers curl inside you.

“Fuck, Jeff,” you whine, feeling his fingertips against your g-spot. He lets the blunt edge of his teeth drag over your skin and your eyes squeeze closed as his thumb rubs a circle against your clit. Your toes curl against the floor as your hips rock firmly against his hand, wanting his fingers deeper inside you. 

He’s sucking a mark against the side of your breast as he slips a third finger into you, and your back arches as you cry out for him. The heel of his hand starts grinding firmly against your clit with each motion of his fingers, and you curse again, barely able to tell which way is up by that point. Jeff keeps close to you, mouth eventually moving against your collarbone as he curses into your skin. 

You’re grateful that he’s clearly not in the mood to do much teasing, quickly setting a rather rough rhythm as his fingers fuck into your cunt. With your arm around him, your nails dig into his shoulder and you arch in an effort to get more skin to skin contact. You almost hate that it’s so easy for him to make you unravel for him like this, barely even inside the door, but right now, it feels way too good to even care. 

Your body feels like it’s on fire, sure that you’re flushed from head to toe as you squirm impatiently, hips moving against his hand. He’s standing so close to you, using one knee to keep your legs open, and when you rock against him, it’s impossible not to notice the line of his cock through his pants. Your hand slides up his neck to tangle in his short curls and your mouth drops open, but no sound comes out.

“You’re already close, aren’t you?” he asks, voice low as looks down at you. Forcing your eyes open to look at him, you nod, feeling yourself tighten around his fingers as a smirk slides onto his face. 

His mouth crashes into yours in a rough, needy kiss that you moan into. Jeff licks into your mouth and you melt back against the wall, hips still grinding hard against his hand while his fingers curl roughly inside you. 

His mouth leaves yours to look down in you, eyes moving slowly over your kiss swollen lips and taking in your dazed expression. The motion of his fingers picks up, taking you by surprise and nearly knocking the wind out of you. You press your lips together to stifle a filthy groan, and Jeff’s other hand lifts to cup your breast, teasing over your nipple to make you arch for him.

“I wanna hear you, sweetheart. Wanna hear you say my name when you cum,” he says, tugging at your nipple teasingly. His smirk is back, and you’re so close that you can’t even respond to him, eyes rolling back as your face creases with pleasure. “Shit, Jeff, oh my god,” you pant, the last syllable dragging out into a whine as you’re finally pushed over the edge. 

The orgasm hits you hard, body tensing as your nails brush over his scalp. Clinging to him desperately, your curse again under your breath, rocking down to practically fuck yourself onto his fingers. Your throat’s dry from all of the whining and moaning you’ve done and your voice sounds wrecked as you breath his name. It feels like every nerve in your body is raw and exposed, and you’re grateful to have the wall behind you to lean against. 

Your heart is thundering in your eyes as your orgasm slows, Jeff’s fingers still rocking against your core, gentler now like he’s guiding you down. It’s impossible to keep your eyes open any longer, so you let them close, already trying to guide Jeff’s mouth back to yours.

“I love you, holy shit,” you murmur between lazy kisses. You have to pull away frequently for a quick breath, he’s grinning at you when you open your eyes again.

“Love you too, more than anything,” he responds, sounding relaxed and sincere.

With a sigh, you bring a hand up to push your hair back, still trying to catch your breath as he pulls his fingers from you. You can see that the three fingers a slick with your wetness and you lick your lips. Like he’s read your mind, he slips the three digits into your mouth, and you immediately moan again at the taste of yourself on his thick fingers. Jeff’s breathing seems to pick up as he watches you, and you look up at him through your eyelashes as you suck his digits clean.

“Time to head to bed?” he asks you as he pulls his fingers from your lips, leaning to kiss you again, just as hard as he had earlier. You hum loudly, nodding as much as you can without breaking the kiss. Looping your arms around his neck, you rock your hips toward his to make him moan. 

With a frustrated sounding sigh, Jeff pulled away, and you laugh as his hand slid into yours to pull you toward his room. The line of his cock straining against his pants is obvious by then, hence his urgency. You can tell that his shoulders are tense, and there’s a slight flush creeping up the back of his neck that makes you grin. 

Closing his bedroom door behind you, his hands are on you immediately, gripping your hips and pulling your body against his. Breasts pressing against his chest, you tug at his bottom lip with your teeth as your hands move to unfasten his pants eagerly. He groans into your mouth when you drag his zipper down, hand stroking him through his boxers. You push his pants down his hips easily and he pulls away to kick them away, eyes lifting to yours again.

He’s grinning a bit, and his hand comes up to cup your jaw, guiding your mouth back to his. His arm loops around your waist, keeping you close as he walks you toward his bed, patience clearly dwindling. When the back of your thighs hits the mattress, Jeff kisses your shoulder after pulling back, reaching for the drawer of his nightstand for a condom. 

You sit on the edge of the bed, leaning back with your weight resting on your hands as you watch him. He glances at you over the shoulder, shaking his head quickly, and your eyebrows raise in confusion.

“Turn over for me,” he tells you, sending heat down your spine. You move quickly, feeling how slick you are as you shift, knees and elbows pressing into the bed. 

You don’t realize how close he is, because when Jeff’s hand settles low on your back, you jump slightly, both of you laughing a second later. His hand moves up your spine slowly and you shiver, already pressing back toward him.

“I could get used to this view, sweetheart,” he murmurs, sliding down his hips and opening the condom. The words make heat rise up your neck despite the goosebumps rise along your skin.

Biting your lip, you glance back at him quickly and he has the audacity to smirk at you before smacking your ass firmly to make you yelp in surprise, the noise fading into a moan. Given your reaction, he does it again, as your head drops and you rock back toward him with an impatient sound. 

“Fuck, Jeff, c’mon,” you mutter, teeth clenched as you feel your clit throb.

“So goddamn needy, huh, y/n?” he responds, pulling you closer to the edge of the mattress. You glance back at him, licking your lips as you see him roll the condom on his length. You’re so desperate for him by then that the sight of his cock is almost enough to make your mouth water. 

About to make another impatient noise, you feel his hand grip your hip as he starts to drag the head of his cock along your folds. A shiver runs down your spine again, and you moan as you rest more weight on your elbows to pop your hips a little higher for him. The display of eagerness makes him chuckle softly, positioning himself at your entrance and using the hand on your hip to pull you back onto his length.

A string of curses leaves you as your head falls forward, a high sound getting trapped in your throat as he fills you. Your grip on the sheet tightens, and you breathe his name, already trying to press back toward him more. His hand soothes over your back gently, calloused fingers moving over the bumps of your spine, and you can feel your pussy throbbing around his cock as you wait for him to move more. 

“Jeff, please,” you murmur, eyes falling shut as he grips your hips with both hands.

“Please what, baby?” he asks, the cockiness in his voice making you want to scream. 

“Shit, want you to fuck me,” you respond, voice low as he thumb brushes over your skin lightly. 

He hasn’t taken you like this before, you realize, and you’re not used to not being able to touch him, kiss him, or pull at his hair. That lack of contact seems to be making you extra needy as you grind back against him as hard as you can. That earns a curse out of him and he sighs easily, rutting against you enough that his cock drags over your g-spot to make you moan.

You shift slightly so your chest is pressing against bed and he repeats the motion, harder this time. The new angle is exponentially better, and you push your hair out of your face, mouth dry from how heavily you’ve been breathing. He’s settling into a rhythm, but it’s not nearly enough for you, not yet, and you rock back to meet his hips roughly. Groaning his name, you twist the sheets beneath you, your skin feeling absolutely electrified as his hand moves over your back slowly. 

He has a way of making you feel so stunning, just from how he always takes the time to savor you like this. It had taken a while to get used to, not to feel the need to cover yourself when he acted like you were the most perfect thing in the world.

“Harder, Jeff, please,” you whine as your cunt tightens around him. It’s like you can feel every ridge and vein of his cock as he sinks into you, each movement slick and leaving you desperate for more.

His response is to grunt, slapping your ass harder than before and your clit throbs for attention. Another curse leaves you, and he does as you’d requested, hand returning to your hips to start pounding into you. You’re absolutely soaked, you can feel it, hear it even, and you’re so focused on trying to catch your breath that when he spanks you again, you cry out in surprise.

“You feel so fucking good, baby, and you look incredible, taking my cock like this,” he tells you, humming under his breath a second later. You nod as best as you can, face half pressed into the mattress in an effort to quiet the constant moans that were leaving you.

He felt so much thicker in this position, and with your hips popped up like this, he was hitting all the right spots that had you teetering on the edge of an orgasm all over again. You’re grateful for his firm hold on your hips, because you’re not sure you’d be able to keep yourself upright otherwise.

Your body is tense, knowing you’re toeing the edge now and damn near desperate for it, your pussy squeezing tight around him. Shifting your weight slightly, you move one hand to settle between your thighs to give your clit the attention it’s aching for. Jeff makes a sound approval, groaning as he adjusts his hold on your hips as your eyes roll back. 

“Mmph, god, Jeff,” you breathe, gasping out a curse a second later. Your toes curl as you cum, eyes squeezing shut as you all but sob into the mattress. 

Jeff fucks you through it, hard, still squeezing your hips tightly to keep you in place despite your efforts to grind back against him for more friction. His thrusts seem almost targeted, hitting your g-spot with each motion and you’re practically slumped against the sheets as you babble out his name, nearly incoherently.

Still rubbing rough circles against your clit, your hand is suddenly drenched and Jeff curses behind you, his rhythm faltering slightly. You’re still gripping the comforter like your life depends on it, hips starting to ache from holding the position for so long, but fuck, it just feels too good to even attempt moving. You know he has to be close, the dropped rhythm always so telltale, and you’re panting his name with a throaty groan.

Your head is buzzing by the time you’re able to tell which way is up, forehead pressed to the mattress as you try to catch your breath. You’re less dazed then and pressing back toward Jeff as he slides a hand higher on your waist, his short nails grazing over your skin. 

“Want you to cum for me, baby,” you murmur, voice low. When you push your hair back out of your face, your hairline is damp with sweat, your body hot.

He groans and squeezes your waist, your name leaving his lips as slams into you again before grinding hard against you. A slew of curses leaves him as he cums, your clit throbbing from hearing how wrecked he sounds. You rock back toward him to savor feeling off him coming undone for you, groaning as your pussy tightens around him. He’s breathing heavily, his hold on you loosening as you grin to yourself lazily, feeling satisfied as he pulls out.

“Shit, y/n,” Jeff says, sounding exhausted as he taps your ass with a chuckle before stepping away. You laugh with him easily, grinning as you let yourself fall onto your side, the muscles of your hips feeling sore for holding the position for so long.

Stretching out along the bed, you watch Jeff move about, removing the condom before putting it in the bin next to his nightstand. He glances at you, eyes taking in your naked frame as if you hadn’t been naked this whole time, and he’s smirking like he’s proud of himself. You scoff lightly, amused, and nudge at his thigh with your foot, feeling dampness against your calf where it rested on the edge of the bed.

“Shit, why is the blanket wet?” you ask, yawning as Jeff opens a drawer of his dresser to grab clothes.

“Uh, I think you squirted,” Jeff responds, glancing over his shoulder at you. He looks quite smug and you raise your eyebrows. “You want leggings?”

“Huh. Well, that’s new,” you say before nodding in response to his questions. Jeff tosses you a pair of leggings as well as panties from the drawer that had turned into yours. A shirt of his comes next and you grin at the fact that he’d done it automatically.

Finally confident that your legs will work, you stand to get dressed, and by the time you’re pulling your shirt on, Jeff is settling into bed. With a tired sigh, you join him, getting cozy between the sheets and he quickly moves to hold you, pressing his face into your chest.

Your hand comes up to push through his slightly damp curls and you grin contently as he nuzzles into you. He lifts his head a second grinning up at you then pressing a kiss to your mouth. 

“I love you,” you murmur, kissing him again.

“Love you too, baby,” he says, stifling a yawn and settling his head on your shoulder. 

You’re still playing with his hair with one hand as you reach for your phone that you’d left on the nightstand earlier, making sure you’d remembered to set alarms for the morning. “It’s only 11, did you want to watch something before bed?” you ask, kissing his forehead before yawning yourself.

“You can put something on if you want, but I can’t guarantee I’ll stay awake for more than 20 minutes,” he tells you, already sounding quite sleepy. You nod, chuckling as you pull away enough to turn off the lamp on the nightstand.

The two of you end up staying awake longer than expected, curled up together and talking quietly in the dark. He’s warm and familiar, head still settled on your shoulder with his arm around your waist securely. It seemed like that was his favorite way to sleep and you surely didn’t mind, toying with his hair idly. 

You made plans to grab breakfast in the morning, and you fell asleep thinking about breakfast pastries and the sweet man you’re curled up with.

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

as usual, an unrealistic list of things I’d really like to get done over the three-day weekend, which is not super likely to go well considering I’m posting this at 5 fucking p.m. but whatever:

gaming-related

I have exactly a month left on my (so far unused, whoops) PC Game Pass subscription, so I need to go over my wish list again and identify

which games have achievements

each game’s average playtime so I can prioritize

which ones interest me the most (emphasis on spooky games because...it’s spooky season)

try Fallout 76 once it finally finishes downloading, because I played the free weekend on Steam before and this is Microsoft, and...I think my character should just be on their servers but I don’t actually know hahahaha yeah that super didn’t work, maybe in a week when our billing cycle restarts I’ll try redownloading and reinstalling it, and anyway I did download and test a couple other Game Pass games

cancel my current SWTOR subscription so I’m not still paying for that while focusing on Game Pass games

play one of a few Flash games on my to-play list, if there’s something short

misc/housekeeping

check out my current backup situation and see how hard it would be to modify, I mean at some point I have got to set up an actual system but for some reason that’s intimidating so if what I currently have is at all usable, I should add to it

and then verify my drivers. I don’t know what’s wrong with my PC and I’m really not sure how to figure that out but since Memtest86 ran for three fucking hours and came back clear, it seems like this is the next major step in the troubleshooting process okay I actually didn’t do this but I did try some other things that also didn’t work

finish claiming all the Black Panther comics

a tiny bit of room cleaning? maybe?? I actually already did a very tiny bit, and this is something (one of...many things) I could do while on a call with friends, which is also in my plans

open a couple packages from one of said friends, which keen-eyed readers might note was in a to-do list ages ago oops

check Tumblr drafts

work on modifying or fixing some masks that currently aren’t working well

send an email that’s been on my to-do list for...a while

actually another email would be a good one too

keep trying to get Hazy to learn that letting people handle her paws results in good treats, so we can make an appointment for a Petco nail trim (and ideally clip them ourselves, sometimes)

ah fuck I still need to finish my will

creative

mildly edit the short fic I posted a few days ago, give it a title, and toss it on AO3

as always, some typing would be really really good

so would...some writing...

make some more potion bottles with, uh, random stuff I’ve collected on recent walks around the neighborhood (other potion bottles with other random ideas I’ve had wouldn’t be a bad idea either...and I would like to try one of the Youtube tutorials I found for making tiny hourglasses, but I guess that’s probably not a priority)

do a little reorganizing in my giant to-do lists for a) 1/6-scale projects and b) lyrics for titles

doing more research on parts for a 1/6 female Loki is really not urgent but...I might want to...and some things are on sale right now...

repair Tiny Loki’s tiny mask

rewrite my paper list of prioritized projects, which I needed to do anyway, but now I’ve also lost the original and that’s very annoying (also make a pocket for it in my notebook so this is less likely to happen again)

make designs for a few new Pride Cap shields, maybe? it really would not take long to make just a few, and now is when I should be adding stuff to Etsy if I have any hope of like...holiday sales

for that matter, now would be an extremely good time to at least start planning what kinds of holiday-specific things (and/or other new listings) I might be able to make in time to list them on Etsy

mental health

write up a post for the ADHD Reddit and maybe other related places

experiment with Notion and Airtable as organizational options

research some bullet-journal layouts to see if anything seems like it would work for me

in general, spend some time just kind of...brainstorming the type of system that would be useful for me in keeping my shit together, so I have a better idea of what I’m looking for (also probably helpful to list like...the big problems I’m trying to fix)

see if Penzu seems like a good option for a keeping-my-shit-together strategy I have in mind from my latest therapy session, and if not, do a little research on other journal-type possibilities

shopping I probably shouldn’t be doing

make a Michaels order tomorrow when both coupons will be active, because...there are some Halloween things that are somehow already sold out at the nearest store but I still want them...and they’re available at the store all the way across town...so...

possibly go to an estate sale benefiting the rescue group where we got Scully and Hazy, which is also all the way over on the other side of town but if I’m going over there anyway, I might as well

some stuff in my Etsy cart that I don’t want to miss

ditto eBay, I think mostly in my cart but also check watch list

AliExpress is also having some sales and yes there are more tiny things I want to buy for Loki’s arcane workshop, shut up (but also if I’m going to buy another Hot Toys body, this time for Thor, I gotta...take some measurements)

politics

call legislators

I really don’t know why I bother but I’ve found a bunch more articles recently that I’d like to throw on Facebook

for that matter at some point I’m probably just going to do a Facebook post like “hey, if you care about me at all, please consider voting Biden,” which also probably won’t make a difference but like...there’s a tiny chance it might

actually write those Sierra Club letters to voters that I meant to do like...two weeks ago...and maybe also some postcards, idk

maybe go to a thing Monday afternoon

also maybe just like...look through my links and folders to see who’s doing textbanking? like I don’t necessarily have to do any of it this weekend, just figure out what’s available?

........hmm this is all a terrible idea, probably, in part because my brain is looking at this absurdly long list and still going “oh shit, oh fuck, we’re forgetting something major aren’t we!!!”

[squishydoesstuff]

Alright, surprise, this has been sitting for a few months... whoops. Alrighty, here’s a kinda bad boy Seoho (if you couldn’t already tell, I’m a little biased... I swear I’m actually funny in person) 

titled “This is going to kill my heart” in my drafts.

tags: @moonchild-saturn

word count: 2853

Warnings: Mentions of violence, someone gets punched and then kicked, mostly fluff, kinda bad boy au???

Esperanza woke to the sound of her alarm going off on her nightstand. How unlucky, I wasn’t miraculously transported to another dimension.  Sighing heavily, she reached over and shut the alarm off. She swung her legs off the bed with a long groan. “Why did I have to take an early shift? Why can’t I just say ‘no’ for once in my life?” As much as she may have loved working at the shelter, the early mornings were not always great.

Crossing the room, she pulled an outfit from her closet and started her daily routine. Checking her appearance, Esperanza fixed her flyaway hair. I don’t exactly want to have a rat’s nest for hair. Once satisfied, she returned to her bedroom. God, this is a mess, I’m going to need to clean later. Grabbing her backpack off the floor, she checked inside. Everything was still there, ready to go. Esperanza pulled her shoes on and grabbed her phone off the charger. Looking down, she noticed a text from her friend, Luna.

“Are you working today?” it read.

“Yeah, early shift.” Esperanza quickly replied before zipping her phone away. Leaving her apartment, she locked the door behind her. Starting her trek to the shelter, Esperanza pulled out her headphones. She really wasn’t looking forward to this morning. I swear if Ryan shows up today, I might actually tear my hair out.

Sighing softly, Esperanza stepped out on the sidewalk. The sun was barely over the horizon. She paused momentarily to watch and felt her mind calm. Continuing forward, she reached the shelter within minutes. Pulling her keys out, she unlocked the door. Stepping inside she closed the door behind her and flipped on the lobby lights. “Cindy, I’m here.”

An older woman called from the back, “Esperanza, I’m in the back.” Setting her bag down at the reception desk, Esperanza walked to the back. Opening the doors, she stepped into the kennel room. Almost immediately, she felt herself begin to sneeze. The ironic part of her working at an animal shelter, Esperanza was pretty allergic to cats. Not bad enough to be a real concern but she always sneezed around them. Cindy turned to the young woman as she entered, “we had a cat get picked up yesterday so I asked them to bring them here. I already put a file on your desk for him.” Stroking behind the cat’s ears, the older woman looked fondly at the small cat in her arms, “I think we should name this one Mochi. He’s very affectionate for being a stray.”

Esperanza nodded. “I’ll start putting-” she sneezed into her jacket. “Sorry, I’ll start putting his information into the system.” Opening the door, Esperanza exited quickly, rushing to find a tissue.

Arriving back at the reception desk, she pulled a tissue out before looking up. Are you kidding me? Fan-freaking-tastic. Coming down the sidewalk was the human incarnate of a headache to Esperanza, Ryan. Esperanza groaned as he pushed the shelter door open, before quickly covering it up as her blowing her nose. “Ryan, what a pleasant surprise.”

The male smirked at the woman as she moved to sit down. “It always is when I see you here. Best way to start the day.”

Esperanza rolled her eyes, “Ryan, we both know I work here, it’s not a surprise to see me here in the mornings.” Pulling the files over, she turned to the computer at her desk. Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll go away.

“Hey, you working at an animal shelter is bad for business. You’re cuter than any puppy here, I want to take you home instead.” Esperanza froze slightly, shifting uncomfortably. Leaning over the counter, Ryan grinned at the girl, and not in a pleasant way.  “You know,” Ryan began, “you never gave me an answer about me taking you on a date.” Just my luck, he doesn’t know when to stop. “And I think I see a blush, so you obviously like me.”

“Actually, I think her blushing is because she is uncomfortable. That is what’s obvious here.” A new voice spoke from the corner of the lobby. Esperanza looked up to see a man she didn’t recognize cross over to her and Ryan. Physically, he looked intimidating. He was taller than Ryan and the cut across his cheek didn’t exactly make him look like the most gentle person. “I suggest you leave the poor girl alone. Forcing her to interact with you makes you look desperate.”

Ryan stood there, mouth agape at the male who had seemed to challenge him. “Who do you think you are to tell me to leave her alone? You certainly aren’t her boyfriend, she would never go for someone like you,” Ryan snarled.

“My name is Seoho, and I am actually her boyfriend. What’s your name? Just so I know who’s ass I’m going to kick for tormenting my girlfriend. And probably dozens of other women.” Realizing this was a fight he wouldn’t win, Ryan spun and turned to leave.

“Thank you,” Esperanza spoke softly, “Seoho, right?” The man in front of her jumped at Esperanza speaking suddenly.

“Ah, yeah.” Seoho turned. “Does he come in here often,” he asked, pointing over his shoulder.

“Seems like almost every day I’m here, he somehow shows up. I swear he just watched the entrance to see when I come in.”

“What’s your name, I haven’t seen you here before?” Esperanza looked up.

“Esperanza,” she smiled. “Wait, what do you mean by you haven’t seen me here before?”

“I come in here every weekend to check on some of the dogs here. I would consider adopting but I don’t think I could afford that. Is Cindy here?”

“Yeah, I can go get her, she’s in the back.” Esperanza quickly stood up and ran to the back. Jesus, he is terrifying. And also incredibly attractive. Esperanza pinched her cheek with a squeak at her last thought. Stop, you don’t even know him! Knocking, Esperanza opened the kennel door a crack, “Cindy, there’s a ‘Seoho’ here. He asked if you were here?”

The older woman rushed to the door, “Tell him to come on back! I’ve already got Otis out for him.”

Esperanza stood shocked for a second, it was clear that Cindy was happy Seoho was here. Are we talking about the same Seoho here? Returning to the lobby, Esperanza spotted Seoho in the same place as when she left. Clearing her throat, she spoke as she sat back down, “Cindy said you can go back. She has Otis out for you.” The black-haired male thanked her quickly before leaving her alone.

She didn’t see him again before she clocked out.

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

Arriving home after her shift, Esperanza threw her shoes off at the door before dropping onto her couch. Pulling out her phone, she opened her messages. Luna is going to want to hear about this.

“I just got home. You’ll never guess who showed up today (that was sarcastic).” Esperanza hit send as she moved to get a water from her kitchen. Her phone dinged as she sat back down.

“Let me guess, Ryan?”

“Yeah, but there was this new guy as well. He stood up to Ryan when he started the usual flirting. I had never seen him at the shelter but it seems like Cindy knows him pretty well.”

“What’s his name? Wait, even better, was he cute?”

“His name was Seoho. I don’t know how to describe him really. He seemed kind of… like, bad boy. But not like the exaggerated type that is actually bad.”

“Last name?”

“Don’t know. Please don’t tell me you’re going to try to find his social media.”

“...not at all. But seriously, I want to see what this guy looks like.”

“Maybe someday. Want to meet up this weekend?”

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

Arriving at the restaurant, Esperanza looked for her friend outside. Spotting her, the smaller woman waved as she walked up. “How was your week?”

Luna shrugged as they walked into the restaurant. “Same as always. Work is boring. What about you? Have you seen Ryan, or that Seoho guy again?”

Esperanza laughed at her friend’s question. “I haven’t seen Ryan since the incident, by the way, that’s what I’m calling it now. Seoho’s come in a few times. He’s nice, but still kinda scares me.”

“Or maybe you’re scared that you’re starting to like him,” Luna teased, drawing out the last words. Esperanza shook her head at Luna’s comment.

“Come on, let’s eat. I’m starving.” The two sat down and continued talking. The evening was peaceful and it was clear the two were having fun.

Well that is, until they weren’t.

“Well well well, if it isn’t my favorite shelter girl. Where’s your boyfriend this time?” It was Ryan. How the hell does he constantly find me? Esperanza looked desperately at Luna.

“You’re Ryan, right? Esperanza’s told me a lot about you. Especially that you don’t know what boundaries are.” Esperanza placed enough cash on the table for the check and tip, they were getting ready to leave anyway, might as well hurry it up.

“Sorry, but we were just leaving.” Turning, Esperanza grabbed Luna’s arm. Gently tugging, Esperanza pulled her friend away from her tormentor. “Let’s not start a fight in a restaurant please.” The duo walked out, unaware of the male scurrying to follow after them.

Out on the sidewalk, the two paused. “Thanks for helping me out back there, he doesn’t really know when to stop.”

Luna shrugged, “No problem,” and they continued walking.

Esperanza felt a hand yank her wrist and she stopped to pull her hand out of the grasp of whoever grabbed her. Ryan.

“Please, just leave us alone tonight.” Esperanza pleaded to the man holding her.

“Leave you alone?” Ryan laughed, “don’t be ridiculous. You still haven’t answered me.” The male leaned forward, “Eventually, I’m going to lose my patience for asking nicely.” Esperanza leaned back away from the male, turning her face away from him.

Suddenly, Luna spoke up from her side. “Alright, that’s enough! Her answer is no, now leave her the fuck alone.” Ryan looked at Luna before his face fell into a frown. Standing back up, he looked Luna over up and down.

“So not only do you have your boyfriend mouthing off to me, your friend does too? You should learn to control them.” Luna’s temper snapped at his remark and she swung her fist hard, directly into his nose. Dropping Esperanza’s wrist, Ryan grabbed his nose with a groan. Glaring up at Luna through his hands, he took a step toward her.

“Woah, what’s going on here?” A low voice came from behind Luna. Taking the opportunity from the distraction, Esperanza shuffled away from Ryan before she glanced around her friend to see two men approaching them. The slightly shorter one looked familiar but Esperanza couldn’t quite place why.

That is until she saw his face. Looks like that someday Luna would meet Seoho is a lot closer than I thought. Recognition crossed Seoho’s face once he saw Esperanza’s face. Catching his eye, she quickly ducked her head to avoid his gaze.

Looking back at her friend, Esperanza realized Luna was still glaring harshly at Ryan. “Luna, I think that’s enough.”

“No, this asshole thinks it’s okay to harass you, and then says you should control me because I stand up for you. That’s not right.”

Realizing exactly what the situation was now, Seoho quickly stepped forward. Glancing at Esperanza, he whispered to her. “How is it I always somehow catch you in these situations?”

Turning over his shoulder, Seoho nodded his head at his friend pointing towards Luna. “Wow, I thought I made it clear last time that if I saw you harassing anyone, I would kick your ass.”

As Seoho spoke, the other dark haired male stepped forward before gently placing a hand on Luna’s shoulder. “I suggest you let Seoho handle this.”

Luna stepped back before whirling to the male next to her. “Wait, that’s Seoho?!” When the man next to her nodded, Luna turned to her friend, whispering viciously. “This is Seoho? This is the guy you’ve been seeing at the shelter?! You said he seemed like a bad boy, you didn’t mention he was cute! Or that he had friends that are hot!”

The smaller woman merely blushed at her friend’s comment as she watched Seoho tower over Ryan. “This is the last time I will say this before I make you. Leave. Her. Alone.”

Esperanza gasped as Ryan threw a punch toward Seoho. However, the taller man easily dodged it and hit Ryan across the face. “Alright, looks like I’ll have to make you.”

Seoho rolled his shoulders back before launching a kick into Ryan’s side, knocking him to the ground. “Stay away from Esperanza or any other woman until you learn how to be a decent human being.”

Turning around, he rejoined the trio who stood watching. Walking up to Luna, he held out his hand. “I don’t believe we have met before. I’m Seoho and my friend is Gunhak.”

“Luna. I’m Esperanza’s best friend.” Placing her hand in Seoho’s she shook it gently before dropping her hand back to her side. “I’ve heard some things about you. You visit the shelter pretty often it seems.”

“Uh, sorry to interrupt, but it’s getting late and we were on our way home. If you don’t mind, can we continue?” Esperanza uttered shyly.

“Ah, sure.” Seoho paused before looking at his friend, “Actually how about we walk you home? Make sure nothing else happens?”

“Okay!” Luna rushes before her friend could object. “Some company would be nice, come on.” The four of them walked down the sidewalk in relative silence.

Eventually reaching an intersection, the two women stopped. “This is where we go different directions. You guys can head on home now if you’d like. It’s not super far from here for either of us to get home.” Esperanza rambled as the two men looked at each other before shaking their heads.

“No, we can keep going. Seoho, you go with Esperanza, I’ll go with Luna. My place is this direction anyway.”

No it’s not, Seoho thought to himself, it’s the complete opposite direction. Gunhak caught his eye with a warning glance before he could say anything. Oh wait, he wants to walk with her. Seoho nodded in agreement with his friend, mouthing “get to know her. She’s your type”

The two of them watched as Esperanza and Luna said goodbye.

Esperanza nodded her head towards a turn off the sidewalk, “my apartment is this way.” Silently she led the way for a while before Seoho decided to speak up.

“I have a question for you.” When Esperanza nodded, he continued. “Why do you always seem so scared—or shy—around me?” The question made Esperanza freeze and she found herself almost colliding with Seoho’s chest.

Face flushing, the young woman tried to force a response out but no words came. She sighed softly before glancing at the ground. “Because I think I like you, and that terrifies me.” When Seoho didn’t respond, Esperanza looked up at his face to find a shocked expression. Shaking her head, she began to walk quickly. “Actually, let’s just forget I said anything.”

Seoho reached out and grabbed her wrist gently. “Wait,” he murmured, his tone soft. Pulling Esperanza back toward him, he smiled fondly down at her. “Why would I want to forget the girl I like telling me she likes me back?” Blushing hard, Esperanza turned and hid her face in her hands. Seoho slowly pulled her hands away from her face, taking them in one of his hands. With his free hand, Seoho gently brushed Esperanza’s hair out of her face, placing his hand on her cheek. He leaned forward, searching Esperanza’s face for any hesitation before kissing her. Pulling away after a moment, Seoho gazed down at Esperanza’s face before pulling her completely into his chest. Silence fell over the two for a minute before Seoho decided to break the quiet around them.

“Does this mean I can now officially be your boyfriend instead of being your pretend boyfriend?” This pulled a giggle from Esperanza as she slowly pulled herself away.

“Yes, you are now officially my boyfriend.” Intertwining her fingers with Seoho’s, she tugged him forward. “Come on, you’re supposed to be walking me home.”

Seoho whined softly at Esperanza’s comment, “Well, now I don’t want to walk you home because that means I have to say goodbye.” Esperanza turned to see him pouting as they walked.

“I have to go home at some point, and I’d prefer not to walk alone.” Sighing, the black-haired male tightened his grip in Esperanza’s hand before nodding. Looking to the young woman at his side, he saw her glancing up to the sky. “I miss being able to see the stars. You can't see them very well from the city.” The two continued to walk side by side, her looking up at the stars in the sky while he looked at the stars in her eyes

[andwhatdostarsdobest]

Take a chance | Part one [t.h]

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Warnings: for this chapter, none I don’t think. It’s all set up and secret pining. 

Summary: Making friends is hard enough, let alone when you have a massive crush on one of them. But what do they say, things always have a way of working themselves out in the end.

Word Count: 2.8k

Prompt: ‘Take a chance. Live a little.’

That picture has mad boyfriend vibes.  This was meant to be my submission for @madmadmilk summer writing challenge but whoops life happened and its now September... This is part 1 of five, I think. I haven’t posted in a while and I’ve had this in my drafts so thought i would just post something. 

happy reading, lovelies

masterlist part 2

You always loved people watching, wondering where these people had been and where they were headed. Each person has their own life, their own problems and their own people that they care about, trying to figure all that out had become a sort of game to you. You imagined the man walking past in a clean-cut navy suit, with a briefcase in hand and a disgruntled expression, had realised he had picked up his partner’s bag by mistake, and was now power walking to get to his next meeting after collecting the right notes. The group of teenagers, school shirts untucked, and ties pulled loose, laughing hysterically because one of them had called their English teacher Mum and the others wouldn’t let it go. The woman in her 50’s wearing the bright scarlet coat with the fur trim, on her way back from a meeting with the executors of her husbands will, who died under mysterious circumstances.

Okay, that last one may be a bit of a stretch, but it was fun to theorise about the exotic lives people lead. Especially when your own was far from that definition.

Drawing your attention away from the people, the glass of the café window came back into view, condensation coating patches of it. You had drawn a small smiley face in it earlier, although as the droplets dripped from the eyes and mixed with the curve of the smile, it didn’t look so happy anymore. That felt weirdly more accurate though.

“What do you think, Y/N?”

“Y/N?”

Two voices filtered into your subconscious, “huh.”

You turned your head back to the two boys in front of you. One brown haired and one blond. Both irritatingly handsome.

The brown-haired boy tilted his head, “are you alright, Y/N? You’re being quiet today.”

The blond boy chuckled, “she’s just people watching, aren’t you.”

You had only known Tom and Harrison for three months, but you were always surprised by how much they remembered about you. Even the smallest details. They were annoyingly good about remembering those. You tried to keep up, listening intently every time they mentioned something new about themselves, but they seemed to know stuff you were sure you had never told them. You weren’t sure how they were doing it. You suspected witchcraft.

“Because she thinks they are more interesting than the people right in front of her,” Harrison continued.

“Hey, I don’t think that,” you retorted.

“Oh no, I’m sure,” Harrison said, quickly followed by a wink. He often needed to make sure people knew he was joking, his sarcasm often got him in trouble.

You couldn’t help but blush slightly, warmth spreading across the apple of your cheeks. It’s not like you fancied Harrison, you just weren’t used to it. You weren’t exactly the most promiscuous of people. At least you could maintain eye contact with Haz though, if it was Tom that winked, your brain would have flatlined for a few seconds.  

Tom’s fingers curled around his mug, his bruised and calloused knuckles prominent against the white ceramic.

Oh my god, Tom’s hands. The dreams you had had about those; entangled in your hair, squeezing slightly too hard on your hip, entwined with your own. Your breath hitched just thinking about it.

He brought the cup up to his mouth, pausing mid-way.

“Well she wouldn’t be wrong, Haz. I know tax reports more entertaining than you.”

Tom instantly erupted in laughter, his eyes crinkling and his tongue sticking out. He pulled his neck back into him as his body rocked. Haz landed a punch on his shoulder, coffee sloshing up the sides of the mug from the movement.

“I’m so sorry, Movie Star, what was that?” Haz stared down his best friend.

Tom was still shaking from laughter, his coffee dangerously close to spilling on his lap.

The boys had these moments when it was blindingly clear they were completely comfortable around each other. They said things that you would only dare say to your best friend. They were totally in sync. You loved watching them, feeling free to truly be themselves. Especially as they spent a lot of time in the public eye and you could sense they were concealing something, holding themselves back partially. But it did feel like just that, you were watching, a spectator at their best friend show and for the most part you didn’t mind at all. But have you ever tried to third wheel a pair of best friends, it’s worse than hanging out with any couple. They are just so many inside jokes and little looks, memories and experiences that you don’t understand, you’re not a part of. Sometimes you can feel a little lost but that’s natural. You know it will come with knowing them longer.

You didn’t ever want to interrupt their friendship. You just weren’t sure how to act in moments like these. You tended to sit back and let them relish it.

Maybe you should get involved or maybe you shouldn’t. You were never good at making decisions.

“Don’t call me, Movie Star,” Tom replied, his laugh now coming out low and slow.

Haz turned in his seat to face Tom, the leather rustling underneath him.

“Is, Movie Star, not good enough anymore? I’m so sorry,” he placed his hand on his chest, “what would you prefer? Mr Holland, Spider-man, a god among men?”

“Well, I am Spider-man so yeah, that works,” Tom raised his eyebrows and brought his mug to his lips, sipping gently at the coffee whilst looking into Haz’s eyes.

The cheeky shit.

Harrison rolled his eyes, “the big man.”

You watched them play fight, noting the slight smirk on both of their faces throughout, signalling they didn’t mean any harm by what they were saying.

God, Tom looked hot when he smirked.

“Care to weight in, Y/N,” Tom directed at you, a mischievous look behind his eyes.

“It’s so hard to be boring when you’re a movie star,” you say, sarcasm evident in your tone.

“Hey, you can’t both gang up on me,” Tom said, placing his mug back on the table and then combing his hand through his hair. You watched his movements intently, the veins on his hands tensed against his skin.

You caught yourself before the staring became weird and uncomfortable, forcing your eyes away from the beautiful boy and focusing on the small vase of pink flowers in the middle of the table. If you could, you would watch Tom for hours. Watch the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the way he would drink from a bottle without it ever touching his lips, watch the muscles in his back shift as he stretched at the end of the film. You weren’t sure if this was borderline creepy but there was something about him that was so entrancing. Somehow everything he did was able to capture and keep your attention. You knew you weren’t the only one either. You saw the way other people looked at him when he walked in a room or engaged them in conversation. Not that you were jealous, he wasn’t yours to be jealous over.

Can’t help but wish he was.

Tom was not what you expected. Maybe that’s why you couldn’t get him out of your mind. He intrigued you in a way no one had in a really long time.

In a really really long time.

“Anyone else hungry? Think I’m going to get a snack,” Tom said.

He pushed himself out of his chair and faced you and Haz.

“I’m offering,” he added.

Haz placed his hand on his stomach knitting his brows, trying to determine if he was hungry or not.

“Nah, I’m alright, mate,” he said.

Tom turned to you, “Y/N, can I tempt you with some food?”

“Not hungry, but you can get me another drink,” you replied.

Tom beamed, “sure, same again?”

“Yes, please.”

Tom patted his pocket, checking his wallet was still there and then headed towards the counter.

You settled back into your chair, sighing heavily.

You wished you could be as relaxed around Tom as you were with Harrison. A big part of you fizzled with a nervous energy when he was around, although you never realised until he left when you felt your shoulders drop and you stopped grinding your teeth.

But then I guess you didn’t have a thing for Harrison.

“So, how have you been, Y/N?” Harrison asked.

“Not too bad, uni has been hectic but only a few weeks left now.”

“Did you manage to get your final assignment finished? Last I heard was you spamming me with messages saying how close to death you were.” His lips turned up into a small smile.

You chuckled.

“Yeah, I finished, thank god. I think I started to lose my mind for a bit there but it’s all done now.”

“Good to hear, is that all your assignments done now?” Haz questioned.

“Got a couple left but they are practically done so I’m not too worried.” You picked up your mug and drained the last few drops of your coffee, ready for the one Tom was getting you.

“Now that you’re finished with uni, does that mean we will be seeing you a lot more, then? You’ll stop being so boring and staying in all the time.” Haz asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Hey, I’m not being boring, I have work to do,” you countered, your mouth hanging open in mock offense.

“So, you say…” he continued to tease.

You picked up a crumpled-up napkin from the table and flung it in his direction, but it never reached him. Instead it fluttered back down to the table, only causing more laughter to erupt from his body.

“Look,” you began, trying to regain some of your composure, “not all of us can rely on our unnecessarily good looks to get us jobs.”

“I don’t do that.”

“Haz, you’re a model, that’s literally your job.” Now you’re the one shaking with laughter.

“Fuck, yeah, you got me there.”

You brought your hand up to your face, covering your mouth, trying to stifle the laughs. Harrison grabbed his drink- not being a fan of coffee he had gone for a coke- and unscrewed the cap, taking a swig. Even with the bottle covering most of his face you could see the pink wash over his cheeks.

A faint shadow casted over Haz, you looked up and saw Tom. He was balancing a tray, laden with food and drink on one hand, whilst trying to shove his wallet into his pocket with the other. The tray wasn’t lying even on his hand and hot liquid trickled down the side of the mugs. You jumped up taking the tray from him and set in down on the table. When you looked back up at him he greeted you with a warm smile, crinkles forming around his eyes.

Tom looked between you and Haz, titling his head slightly.

“I feel like I just missed something,” he said.

“Oh, nothing much, just me being an div,” Haz said.

“Just the usual then, mate,” Tom snickered.

“Exactly.”

Haz jumped up, “here mate, take my seat.” He wriggled past the low table and stood next to Tom.

“Wait, where are you going?” you questioned.

“I’ve got that casting call remember.” Haz whipped his jacket out from the seat just before Tom sat on it. He walked around to where you were gaping at him and planted a gentle kiss to your forehead.

Panic set in, it wasn’t often that you were left alone with Tom, usually you could count on someone else to be a buffer to your anxiety. When you were alone you were worried that he would finally catch on how you feel, there is only so long you can stare at someone without talking before it becomes weird. Having a crush on a friend can be impossible at times. It’s like you forget how to act around them, suddenly everything becomes a what did they mean by that?  Are they flirting? No, surely not, but what if they are? What if they think you’re flirting? There is already an established connection there and you don’t want to disturb the equilibrium between you but then everything they do takes your breath away. It feels like too much of a risk.

It wasn’t particularly a problem at the start, you always thought Tom was attractive, but it takes you time to get to know someone. You must know who they are as a person before you start to crush on them. But then you got to know him.

What could you do though? You wanted to be his friend. If nothing else came from it (and you were almost certain nothing would) you still wanted to be his friend.

“What no kiss for me?” Tom teased his friend.

Haz brought his hand to his open mouth, “oh, I’m sorry darling, please forgive me.”

He leaned over and kissed the top of Tom’s curls.

Tom held Haz’s chin, “I can’t stay mad at that face.”

All three of you let out breathy laughs.

“Alright I really gotta go now.”

Haz slung his bag onto his shoulder, “don’t you two kids have too much fun without me. Actually, forget that, it’s impossible to have too much fun without me.”

Tom shoved his friend light-heartedly, “alright, get lost.”

Now the two of you were alone, you took a shaky sip of coffee.

Tom leaned back in his chair, spreading his body fully out, his feet sliding underneath the table. You both settled into silence for a few moments whilst sipping your drinks.

You knew you needed to sort your feelings out. You couldn’t go on like this forever. Maybe you should tell Tom but then what would he think? What would Haz think? You valued them both so much as friends, the thought that that could all be stripped away was scary. And there was the being vulnerable thing, which had never been your forte. Laying yourself bare like that, waiting for someone else’s response sounded terrifying.

That was a problem for another day though, for now it wouldn’t be so bad if you watched the way Tom’s fingers flexed around his mug and the way his tongue glided over his bottom lip after he took a bite of food, right?

“Oh hey, Y/N,” Tom said through a mouth full, “if you’re free tomorrow.”

He swallowed down the sandwich.

“I was wondering if you wanted to come over, we could watch a movie or something, order some food.”

Tom always got distracted when watching films, checking his phone every half an hour, which would usually bother you a lot. But you could never find it in yourself to get mad at him. Besides you liked showing him your favourites and watching his reactions at pivotal moments, when he was watching at least.

“Yeah, sure, sounds fun. That film I was telling you about just came out.”

You waggled your eyebrows at him, sinking into your chair.

“Perfect,” he took a swig of coffee, looking at you over the rim, “it’s a date.”

What? A date? Hahahah, what? He doesn’t mean an actual date. It’s just a figure of speech, yeah just a figure of speech.

“Uhhh.” You tried to scrabble for a semblance of thought.

“Harrison?” you muttered, your brain still processing.

“Huh,” Tom raised an eyebrow.

“I mean Harrison is going to be there too, right?”

“Oh no, Haz is going out tomorrow.”

He noted the dumbfounded look on his face.

“If you don’t want to come then-” he trailed off.

“No, no, I do,” you chimed in. “I do,” you whispered to yourself.

Tom perked up at that, “great, I’ll text you a time later or something.”

“Yeah.”

What is going on? He had never invited you to hang out alone with him before. Best not to panic. Oh who are you kidding, you wouldn’t be able to stop panicking.  

This was just two friends hanging out together, right? It had to be.

But then he did call it a date and you had never heard him call a casual hang out a date before.

No, no, no. You’re being silly, reading too much into this, it definitely wasn’t a date. Why would Tom Holland, who could have any girl ask you out on a date? It just wasn’t plausible. No, this wasn’t a date.

Then why did he call it a date. Guess you had a date with Tom Holland tomorrow?

Fuck.

Tagging some mutuals who may be interested below:  @tomhollandthirst @uglypastels @spidey-pal @spideyfield @onedustyboi @h-osterfield @starkravingparker @mysteryavengers @aw-hawkeye

[kenzieam]

It’s Time - (Bucky X OC)

Rating: M (language, eventual smut, angst)

Genre: Drama/Angst

@captstefanbrandt @iammarylastar @kiiiimberlyriiiicker1995 @notimetoblog @captain-ariel-barnes @jaamesbbarnes @lancefvcker @bitsandbobsandstuff @softlybarnes @lovelybbarnes @buckitybarnes @bucky-plums-barnes  @moonbeambucky @badassbaker @citylights221 @empress-of-boujee @tbetz0341chook007 @shynara51 @diinofayce @casestudy-mw  @jewels2876 @damnaged-princess @everythingisoverrated @allmyfanficfaves @melgoodwin @clarabella960 @curvybihufflepuff  @angryschnauzer @wowspideyholland @sergeantwhitewolf @smilexcaptainx @plaidcat4815

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An AU story with Bucky Barnes and my new OFC, Nika, please let me know what you think!!

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It's time.

Two little words, glowing on my phone screen; an innocent text, that manage to stop my heart.

Even though I've been expecting this for the last eight months, I'm still not ready.

Taking a deep breath, I dial the familiar number. He answers on the fourth ring.

"Lev."

"Clint."

For a long moment, neither of us speak.

"Are you coming home?" He finally asks.

"Does she even remember me?"

"Her only daughter? Of course she does."

My cuticles are suddenly very interesting. "Do I have time?"

"Yeah. If you hurry. I'd give her maybe a week."

"Does she want to see me?"

He sighs then, and I feel a small twinge of guilt. "Yes, she's been asking for you, she doesn't understand why you left in the first place."

"You know why-"

"I know, and before the cancer started rotting her brain Mom knew too, but now she's asking..... Can I tell her you'll be here soon?"

Dammit. "Yeah. My manager owes me, I'll call in my vacation time; let me find a flight and I'll call you back with the details."

"Thanks, Lev."

"Sorry I wasn't there."

"Don't worry about it."

"Is he going to be there?"

Another sigh. "He's one of my best friends, of course he'll be around."

"I don't want to see him."

Clint is silent for so long, I wonder if the call dropped and glance at my screen to check.

"It's been five years, Lev. You're going to have to let it go."

"You know I can't."

"You don't know the whole story, and if you weren't so goddamn stubborn I could've told you it a long time ago."

"Clint, don't. Don't go all big brother on me."

"Six minutes older."

"Big whoop."

I hear mumbling in the background, Clint's reply is muffled. "Lev? I gotta go, Nat needs help with the baby. You still have to meet your niece, you little puke.”

“I’ll call you back.”

“Just leave a message if I don’t answer, sometimes it takes awhile to get Lou to sleep.”

“Alright.”

“Bye, you little shit.”

“Bye, ass-munch.”

My smile fades as the call ends. My Mom is dying, end stage cancer and, from the other side of the country, it’s been easy to avoid that hard truth. She always loved Clint more than me anyway, but that’s hardly an excuse. Now it’s time to face the music.

A few minutes noodling around on my laptop gets me a round-trip flight leaving tomorrow morning.

My call to my manager is short and saccharine sweet. I have the next three weeks off, with the option of taking another week; it definitely pays to hoard your vacation time.

My neighbor across the hall agrees to watch Grimshaw for me, and I pet his sleek black fur one last time before handing him over, earning a nip for my trouble. The former stray is smart, even for a cat and he knows what’s up. He never gets shuttled over to the neighbors unless I’m leaving for an extended period of time, and he makes sure I know he’s displeased.

It doesn’t take long to pack, and I’m yawning under the covers not long after. I’m stubbornly refusing to consider what’s going to happen once I get home, and what my chances are of running into him.

***************************************************************************************************************************************************** The flight doesn’t take nearly long enough, and far too soon I’m walking through arrivals, wondering if it would be uncouth to pop into the airport bar for a few shots of liquid courage.

“Hey stranger!”

The first real smile I’ve cracked all day appears as I turn to the speaker and am swept up into a bone-cracker of a bear hug, suddenly surrounded by familiar cologne and strong arms.

“Hi, Steve.”

“That’s all? Hi, Steve? Haven’t seen you for years and it’s ‘Hi, Steve?”

“Oh! Steven! My beating heart! I’ve missed you so!” I wail dramatically, pretending to swoon and falling against his broad chest, looking up into his amused face before reaching up and clutching at his cheeks, pinching them and pulling him down for a loud European style set of kisses. “Better?”

“A little.” He teases, slinging an arm over my shoulder and pulling me to his side. “Did Clint tell you I was picking you up?”

“No, he just said he wasn’t going to be able to and he’d see who he could find. I was thinking I’d probably get a cab.”

“Nah, baby girl. As soon as he said you were flying in I volunteered.” His arm tightens, pulling me closer and he plants a loud kiss to the top of my head. Out of all of Clint’s friends, Steve has always been the big brother, the big affectionate goof not ashamed to tell you he loved you, that always answered the phone, no matter the god-awful hour and was halfway out the door to pick you up before your drunken ass could even remember which party you were currently at.

He scrunches a handful of my hair. “What’s this? Channeling homeless 80’s hair-band?

“Shut up.” I slap his shoulder hard enough to hurt my hand, but of course it doesn’t faze the gorilla. “I had a hair appointment booked today, but I’m here.”

“You look like you did in school, last picture I saw, you had some sleek French model bob thing.”

I feel a twinge of guilt, that was almost a year ago. “Nah, it grew out. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in projects lately; my only regular date is my masseuse to try and loosen up these knots I get from bending over a drafting table all day.”

“Clint said you’re almost a partner?”

“Bro exaggerates.” I stop short, grinning widely at the vehicle Steve has led me to. “Nice wheels, Rogers.”

His grin back is equal parts pride and bashful. All through high school he’d talked about owning a vintage Porsche, and the black piece of art in front of me sure looked like one. “Got lucky and found the ad just as the guy posted it, it needed a little body work, but not much else. Got it reasonable enough, guy wanted room in his garage for his new toy.”

Stowing my bags in the front, trunk, I remind myself, he holds my door open like a gentleman then runs around the front, sliding into the driver’s side with his typical grace before turning the key and grinning widely at me. It was infectious and I can’t help but grin back, squeaking in surprise when he lays a few blackies screeching out of the parking lot.

“So how is work going?” Steve asks, downshifting, the hum of the engine immediately addicting.

“I’m a senior architect at the firm, but I doubt I’ll be partner anytime soon.”

“Why? You’re amazing, Bean. I saw what you’d draw in art class.”

“My personnel file calls it a ‘bellicose attitude’, I’m sure if I wasn’t the one bringing in 40% of the contracts myself, and if they hadn’t head-hunted me, I’d of been skidded months ago.”

“Why the attitude? Just do your thing, sweet; don’t pay attention to the peasants.”

I sigh, rubbing my forehead. “Half of the people there are just concerned with prestige; they just want to design the newest ‘in’ thing, not for the art of it, but the fame; I’m not an architect for the glory, I love architecture.”

“Come back home, there’s plenty of firms in Manhattan that would love to have you. Get out of Seattle before you’re completely disillusioned.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Steve rolls his eyes, fixing me with an affectionate exasperation. “You can’t do that forever, Bean. It’s been five years.”

“Do you and Clint compare notes?” I grumble, pointing out the windshield. “Stop at that Starbucks and I’ll buy you a Caramel Macchiato to shut up.”

Smirking, Steve pulls into the parking lot and kills the engine but before I can climb out he grabs my hand, stopping me. “It’s hard not to, you guys were perfect for each other. He’s spent the last five years kicking his own ass over it, and we miss you here, please just talk to the guy.”

“He slept with another girl, Steve. Or did you forget? Got her pregnant too.”

A dark emotion sweeps across Steve’s normally cheerful face. “That’s your side of it.”

“What other side is there?” Even as the words leave my mouth I feel a hot flash of shame. That had been part of the reason I’d left in the first place, to avoid this; to stop from breaking the gang up by demanding they choose sides.

“Are you happy?” He asks suddenly.

“What?”

“Working across the country, in a city where you have no family? Sure, you’re an architect, your dream; but this is the first time you’ve been home since Clint and Nat’s wedding.... four years ago, has your anger been worth that?”

Suddenly, I wasn’t sure anymore. The wave of nostalgia I’d been holding back hits me full force then and I have to look away, blinking back unexpected tears. Steve’s hand is warm over mine.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just.... just talk to him, Bean. Clear the air if nothing else. If you still feel the same way after then you can go back to Washington with a clear heart, but it’s obvious you’re not over him.” He cups my chin, turning my head to look at him and waits patiently until I raise my eyes. He smiles gently, grinning wider when I manage a wet smile back.

“Love you, Bean. I’ve missed you; we’ve all missed you.”

“Love you back, doofus. You want sprinkles?”

“You’re buying? Of course.” He pulls away, reclining into his seat with a groan and flaps his hand at me. “Hurry up, I’m thirsty.”

His Macchiato occupies him the rest of the way and I find myself staring out the window as we drive, finding less changes than I expected to the old neighbourhood. I was used to constant design and construction back in Seattle, this is exactly what I remember from high school.

“Nothing’s changed.” Steve beats me to the punch, slowing to a stop to let an old lady cross the road, carrying a reusable shopping bag. He sticks his head out the window. “You need any help, Mrs. Proctor?”

Her reply is muffled, but Amelia Proctor was ancient when I was young, and muttered back then too. I catch a ‘no, dear boy, but thank you’ then she’s past us, moving like creeping Jesus.

After he closes the window I grin. “Mrs. Proctor’s still around, huh?”

“Yep, and she’ll still chase you down with her cane if you cut across her flower garden. How many times did you do that?”

I can’t stop a giggle. “At least once a week, it was a game; she loved it.”

“You two were terrible; poor Mrs. Proctor, if it wasn’t you, it was him.”

He’s treading in dangerous waters again, and I look away.

I don’t look forwards again until he turns the car into the driveway, I’m staying at Mom’s while I’m here, same lapis blue exterior with white trim, same swing on the wrap-around porch. Clint’s car is parked in front of the garage doors. I glance down the street, his house is just a half-block down, brick-red with grey trim. He and Nat bought that house from the Foster’s right after they got married, would they stay there, or move into this house, our childhood home?

“There she is!” My door is yanked open and arms pull me out into a tight hug.

“Sam Wilson.”

“Lev Barton.” He lets me go only far enough to kiss my forehead then yanks me back again, finally releasing me with a loud sigh. “You look good baby girl, except for that hair.” He cuts a glance at Steve and I wonder briefly if Rogers texted him to have that line ready.

“Shut up.”

His laugh is infectious and he slings his arm around my neck, pulling me close and almost off my feet. “I’m kidding, you look like you did in high school, it looks good.”

He’s the second person to say that, first Steve and now Sam; I hadn’t really had time to think about it these last few months, who else is going to wax nostalgic on me?

“Baby sister!” I hear the familiar voice and duck out from Sam’s arm just in time to be swept up by Clint. It takes my breath away just how tightly he grabs me and I feel a rush of fresh shame; what kind of sister have I been, letting him deal with all this himself?

“I’m sorry.” I murmur in his ear and he knows immediately what I’m talking about.

“It’s okay, Mom’s always been hardest on you, I understood why you’ve stayed away.” He turned his head and pressed a kiss to my hair. “I’m just happy you’re here now.” He steps back, glancing over his shoulder, his face splitting into a huge grin as Nat appears, a pink blanket wrapped bundle in her arms. My sister-in-law and childhood friend steps closer, looking every inch a glowing new mom. She tilts the bundle so I can see and I feel my heart immediately burst.

“Ohhhh.... guys, she’s adorable.” I find myself cooing, making ‘gimme’ fingers. Carefully my new niece is placed in my arms and I’m completely suckered.

She’s got Clint’s blond hair and Nat’s nose, fist curled against her downy-soft cheek. She’s already a few months old but she still looks like a tiny doll to me.

“She’s so little.”

Clint wraps his arm around my shoulders again, looking down at his daughter. “Yeah, she’s just a little shit,” he grins, sidestepping Nat’s playful smack.

“Is Jax still around? I’m getting her name tattooed on my wrist.” It’s a split second decision, but that’s how I roll.

“Yeah, he’s still downtown.” Clint answers, shaking his head. We may be twins, but we’ve never been alike. Clint’s got Mom’s hair and eyes, while I’m darker, like Dad. Clint treats his body like a temple, whereas I’ve closing in on an even dozen tattoos. Clint’s never had so much as an earring, while I’ve had a whole gamut of piercings, up to and including one only my infrequent boyfriends have ever seen. “Can you see Mom though before you run off defacing yourself further?”

My mood stutters a bit as I’m reminded why I’m here in the first place and Clint sobers as well, pressing a kiss to my forehead in apology before stepping away. Nat takes his place and smiles as her new daughter stirs and blows a few bubbles in her sleep. I just grin like a damn fool down at her for a few minutes, breathing soft-baby smell and sighing.

“Eloise Arabella Barton.” I grin.

“You’re not tattooing all that, are you?” Nat sounds doubtful.

“No, just ‘Lou’, it’s almost as cute as her.”

Clint reappears, face sombre. “I just called the hospice. Mom’s having a good day, did you want to go?”

I gently hand Lou back and take a deep breath. “Just let me put my bag in my room, then yeah.” I glance over at Steve and Sam, standing nearby. “You guys?”

Sam shakes his head. “I gotta run, Wanda’s on bedrest. You have to come by and see her, Bean.”

“How much longer does she have?”

“Five weeks. And she hates every minute of it. First pregnancy was fine, now the second one is dragging her down.”

“Must be a boy, then.”

“Ha Ha. Text me later Bean, before Wanda opens the bedroom window and starts screaming your name.”

“I will.”

Sam turns and starts jogging away; he, Wanda and their adorable daughter Zoë live the next street over.

“Steve?”

He shakes his head. “I have to run by the site, check out the new crew.”

I nod, trying to hide my disappointment. Steve would have been a good buffer between me and my Mom, now I’m going in alone. “Business going good?” I feel bad for not asking sooner about Steve’s construction company.

“Yeah, it’s good.” He seems reluctant to answer, “Buck handles most of the grunt work now, I handle the clients end of it.”

I nod. Steve always was the most even-tempered of us all, the one who easily made and kept friends, the ‘never met a stranger’ guy. His business partner, the man I’d avoided for five long years, was a whole other story.

He leans forward suddenly, presses a quick kiss to my forehead. “Say hi to your Mom for me and I’ll see you tonight.”

“What’s tonight?”

“Didn’t Clint tell you? He’s having a barbecue to welcome you back.”

“What?”

“It was a surprise, you big dummy.” Clint deadpans behind me. “If Bean knew about it, she’d catch the first flight back to Seattle.”

My immediate flash of panic is quickly overwhelmed by the thought of seeing all the old neighborhood again. Surely it’ll be big and busy enough that even if he does show up, I can avoid him.

Steve shrugs in a ‘sorry, not sorry’ way and turns away, calling goodbye over his shoulder before roaring off.

“Dick.” Clint shakes his head, grinning. “C’mon. Nat’s feeding Lou; hop in the car and we’ll go see Mom.”

I never did get to put my bags inside, so I set them just inside the porch and walk over to Clint’s vehicle.

“You need a minivan now, Dad.” I tease.

“Nah,” he replies easily, buckling his seat-belt and gesturing into the backseat. “This is the ultimate in soccer-mom SUV chic, minivans are so last season.”

We fall silent as we get closer to the hospice and I find myself picking at a small mark on my jeans. The shaking in my knees gets worse as I follow Clint inside the building, smiling dutifully as I’m introduced to the receptionist, then follow my brother down a maze of hallways. He knows the way and if I wasn’t about to have a panic attack, I’d be able to focus more on how downright beautiful and peaceful it is here. Soft lights and music, green spaces and small waterfalls, it’s a nice place, considering you only come here if you’re going to die. Dad’s estate has been footing the bill for here, and I can see now why it costs so much.

He stops in front of a room and holds up a hand. “Wait here.” He instructs before disappearing inside. I fidget and wait, pulling at my poor cuticles a little more before he reappears. “C’mon.”

I follow, swallowing hard but I’m still not prepared for the sight that awaits me. Always fashionably lean, Mom is positively gaunt now, her hair thin and colorless, a far cry from the perfect weekly blow-outs she always had. Dad had been a successful business man up to his surprise death from a heart attack when Clint and I were sixteen, and Mom had always been the polished, glamorous wife, doting on her favored son and tolerating her free-spirited daughter. Spare with her compliments and sharp with her judgements, her and I had never really gotten on. She’d been smart though, learning the business quietly from Dad, taking over when he died and selling it for an embarrassing profit a year later, she’d ensured herself a comfortable life, and now, a comfortable death. I knew there were trust funds set up for Clint and I, but I’d never looked into mine, preferring to make my own money.

Her eyes, bleary with heavy painkillers, nonetheless lock onto me like a missile.

“Levka.”

I’ve never gone by my full name. Supposedly, when we were born, Dad got to name Clint, and called him Clinton Edward after some childhood friend that died young, while Mom got to name me. She had a degree in Russian Literature that she’d never to my knowledge used, other than bestowing me with my incongruous handle; Levka Valentina Barton.

She reaches for my hand, breaking me out of my thoughts and I give it before I can think twice. Her grip is weaker, but still stronger than most men. I sit in the chair Clint pushes forward for me and try to think of what to say.

“Mom, I-”

“Don’t, Levka.” Her voice is surprisingly strong. “You and I have never been ones for idle chitchat, at least not with each other.”

I shift guiltily on my chair, wondering if I’m about to get my proverbial ass handed to me by a woman with no fucks left to give.

“I wanted to see you before I go,” she continues, as matter of fact as if she’s leaving for a weekend at the spa. “I’ve always been proud of you, Levka; even when I didn’t show it.”

I nearly fall off my chair in shock. Mom has never, ever told me she was proud of me.

“You are as strong as your name, and you have always been strong in your convictions. Perhaps that’s why we’ve never gotten along, but I’ve always admired how you make your own way. I want my grand-daughter to have strong role models in her life, to grow up knowing independent women like you and her mother; therefore, I’m leaving you my house-”

I glance in shock at Clint, but he doesn’t look surprised.

“-and I hope you will move back home and help raise Lou, help mold her into a eloquent and respected young lady.”

I’m gasping like a fish out of water and Clint steps closer, resting his hand on my shoulder.

“I hope you’ll forgive me, Levka; for not being the best mother to you. I want to be able to see your father again and tell him we are okay.”

Okay, now I’m crying. I feel Clint’s hands on my shoulders and for the longest time, I can only hold Mom’s hand against my cheek as I try to form words. That’s all I’ve wanted, all my life from this woman, acceptance. “Yes Mom; of course.” I manage tearfully a few minutes later.

Almost immediately Mom nods and closes her eyes, sighing peacefully and for a micro-second I panic, thinking she’s gone ahead and died, but Clint leans forward over me, gently disentangles our hands and presses a kiss to the top of my head.

“She does that,” he explains quietly. “Falls asleep really easily. The painkillers. She’ll be out for hours.” He pulls gently at me. “C’mon, Bean.”

I let him pull me to my feet, let him lead me outside like a child and, when we reach his vehicle, I break down completely, and cry like a baby on his shoulder.

Later, on our way home, I’m better, lighter than I’ve felt in years, and unable to stop grinning like an idiot.

“I should have come home sooner.”

“Nah,” Clint’s smile is bittersweet. “Up until last week she still would have torn you apart; that’s how I knew it was time, she finally wanted to make amends.”

“I’m sorry about the house, I’ll put you on the deed too-”

“Don’t worry about it, Bean. I have my home, just do what she wants and move back, please?”

I chew my bottom lip, I can’t answer that right now. I have a life in Seattle; okay, it revolves around work and a small group of acquaintances, but it’s still my life. If I moved back I’d be settling right back into my old life, my old friends... there would be no way in hell I’d be able to continue to avoid my past. But Mom’s words echo through my head, and it’s her fucking dying wish. After my entire life wanting the woman’s approval and love, I’d do damn near anything now that I had it.

“I have to think about it.”

Clint nods, dropping the subject. After a few more minutes he pulls into the local grocery store parking lot. “Well,” he grins, reaching across me and grabbing his wallet from the glove box. “Now that Steve’s let the cat out of the bag, come help me grab supplies for the barbecue, I have no idea what hipsters from Seattle like to eat.”

“Ha Ha,” I grumble, but follow him anyway.

By that evening there’s paper lanterns strung across the backyard and a few dozen people are milling around, grazing at the snack bowls and standing in loose groups, drinking and talking. I recognize most of them, went to school with half of them, and am being dragged around by either Clint or Steve, depending on who’s manning the grill at the time, being introduced to the rest. Nat and Lou are surrounded by cooing women and Wanda is reclining in an outdoor chaise lounge, Sam waiting on her hand and foot, to my endless amusement.

I’m actually feeling quite relaxed, my second Dirty Corona going down way too easily and thoughts that this could be my new normal flitting casually through my head when it all comes crashing down.

“Levi.”

There’s only one person who calls me that, pronouncing it like ‘when the levee breaks’ and there’s only one person whose voice gives me chills, even after all these years. I take a deep breath, steeling myself and turn around.

“Bucky.”

[suit-lady]

At One Hundred Two.

Pairing: Tom Holland (Unrequited) x Reader

Summary: Inspired by 102 by Matty Healy. In which Tom has fallen in love with a close friend who has no idea... and then falls for someone else. And in which Tom has to learn to let go.

Warnings: Swears, I think. Uh, Tom cries? I think that’s a fair warning because bby is sad... Other than that, no?

Words: 2850 (whoops it’s way past my bedtime)

A/N: Yo I did my best to keep this as gender-neutral as possible even though the song is very much straight. So shoot me an ask if I fucked something up, thank you. Also, I’m gonna keep my tag list off this one because it’s been so long... I might just erase it and start over. If you still wanna be tagged (or if you’d like to start being tagged!), shoot me an ask as well! Thanks for supporting me xoxo Also yo I listened to 102 for the first time ever today and it had me so far in my feels my dudes so if you’ve never listened to it get fucking ready. Ps, the link is to a tumblr post because the quote from Matty helped inspire as well.

Snow fell softly around you. You were out on a midnight walk with Tom. Though you didn’t know it, he was watching you out of the corner of his eye, memorizing the way you looked that night. The two of you were littering the fresh snow with your boot tracks as you walk, talking about everything and nothing.

Tom had picked you up from your house, and the two of you were walking back to his to watch a few movies and warm up your freezing toes. When you’d first stepped outside, he’d complimented your brand new Timberlands, and you’d excitedly told him about how they were a gift from a family member and blah blah. You kept looking back at the tracks in a satisfied fashion as you walked. Tom tried to hide the smile on his face every time you did.

“Tom, you really don’t think you’re gonna finish the final paper of the term in just a few days, do you? I’ve nearly finished mine already,” you were saying, your voice muffled behind your scarf.

“Sure I do! I only need a night and a fresh-brewed pot of coffee. It’ll be a Christmas miracle.”

He felt you roll your eyes as you said, “Tom,” drawing out his name, “you at least need to get started this weekend. The draft is due Friday, and you know our instructor expects a lot from you.”

“It’s senior year, (Y/N). Relax a little.”

“Thomas Stanley Holland!” you cried, whirling on him. The outburst caused him to stop in his tracks. “You better not be getting senioritis on me already! It’s fucking December!”

Your eyes were wild with playful fury, and your nose was rosy despite your efforts to hide it from the wind. Sheepishly, Tom rubbed the back of his neck with a chuckle. He looked off to the side, focusing on the snow. He couldn’t bear to look at you; you were so adorable when you got passionate about things. From experience, he knew that it was written all over his face how he felt.

“You’re getting started tonight.”

“Sure, (Y/N). After we watch The Polar Express.”

You sighed and took his arm. “Alright then, let’s go.”

Face red from what he hoped you assumed was wind, the pair of you walked the rest of the way to his house in silence, just watching the snow fall. You never let go of his arm, and the butterflies nearly smothered him. When you arrived at his, however, you ran off to give hugs ‘hello’ to Nikki and Sam and Harry and Paddy and Dom, and Tom quietly covered the floor of the den with pillows and blankets (a “pillow nest,” as you’d call it), and put on the movie. He swapped his jeans for a pair of sweats while Nikki grabbed yours from the laundry room.

Before the movie was over, you were sound asleep. Tom held his breath as he moved his arm around you and drew circles on your arm with his fingers. In your sleep, you cuddled up to him, and Tom chewed on his lip. Why couldn’t he say anything? He hated being like this, but he was too afraid that you didn’t feel the same.

Once the end credits began to roll, Nikki came into the room to help Tom make a makeshift bed for you on the couch. Tom gently woke you while Nikki tucked a blanket into the couch and laid another one over the back for you to cover up with. Sleepily, you clung to him as you stood, too tired to keep yourself up. Tom tucked you in, whispering a goodnight that lacked the trade of “I love you”s he so badly wished for.

“You know, (Y/N) could be sleeping in your bed with you by now, if you’d just say something,” Nikki whispered as she walked Tom to his room.

“I know, Mum,” he replied with a roll of his eyes, mostly at himself. “But what if it’s not mutual?”

“I’d be surprised if it wasn’t, dear.”

With a shrug, Tom headed off to bed. He laid there, so close but so far from you. For what felt like ages, he scrolled through pictures of the two of you from the past few years. He could see himself fall in love with you over time, and his heart ached. All he had to do was put himself out there, but he couldn’t. Sighing, he eventually decided to sleep. Putting his phone on the nightstand, he checked the time: 01:02.

 -

 Months passed, and the pair of you spent more and more time together. The twins would refer to you as “Tom’s datemate” when you weren’t around because it made Tom’s face turn bright pink. After a while, Nikki and Dom had stopped casually mentioning that they wouldn’t mind if Tom married you, deciding that he’d tell you when he was ready. Before he told you, however, you went off to university and he started his acting career. They never told him, but Tom’s parents were beginning to worry that he’d lost his chance with you.

Then, when you came home for a break, Tom went over to visit you. You had been texting for hours, but the conversation had turned into something Tom figured he’d want to be in person for. As quickly as he could, he made the walk to your house. Before knocking, he checked the time: 01:02. It had become “your time” for whatever reason.

You swung the door open, wearing navy and white pajamas. “Come on in; I’ve just been listening to the radio in my bedroom.”

He followed you upstairs, and stayed in your room for hours. After you swore yourself to secrecy, he told you about all the amazing things he was getting to be a part of. He had an actual agent now, and the agent was helping him get real auditions! He might get to do this if he hears back, and he’s got a callback for that, and he’s just so happy, (Y/N), and he really can’t believe any of it’s happening, and he’s so glad you’re home so that he can share it with you, at least for a little while. With the huge smile you were giving him, he could have talked forever.

“…but anyway,” he started after trailing off, “what about you? How’s uni?”

“Oh, Tom, uni is amazing,” you said, your smile changing to one of nostalgia.

You told him about all the writing you’d been doing and all the pictures of the beautiful new places you’d been, and you even showed him a few pictures. Early in the semester, you had made a few friends who were from the area, so you’d eaten at all the best local places and there was this one place that you were sure he’d love if he visited. If he did manage to make it to your university, he could meet all your friends, and he could check out this tree that you really liked sitting under to read books and take pictures and watch people, and he could go on a walk at the beach with you and see the sunsets because the sunsets were always so beautiful on the water, and you wished the distance wasn’t so far because you missed him dearly as well, and you were so glad he’d come over.

“Wow, sounds like uni’s got you quite busy.”

“Oh, yes, but I’ve somehow managed to get hooked on someone there.” You blushed and looked away as Tom’s heart shattered.

“Oh?” Tom asked, doing his best to swallow his feelings that were forming a massive lump in his throat.

“I know, right? Who would have thought?” you said with a laugh.

Then, you launched into a description that seemed to go on for hours. Dark brown hair in gorgeous curls. Deep brown eyes that were apparently soul-piercing. Taller than you, but not incredibly tall. Fit, but not muscular. Had a laugh that was contagious, even when you were terribly sad. Smart, too, and helped you out in that one subject you’d always had trouble in. This “special someone” seemed like a dream come true.

“A dream and so much more,” you told Tom, and Tom felt like he could throw up.

You invited Tom to sleep on the couch “like old times” because you missed him. He told you he had promised Nikki to do chores early the next morning. A frown contorting your features, you walked him out. The hug goodbye was much shorter than usual; Tom apologized and made the excuse that he needed his sleep. Once he fell asleep, in his own bed, so far from you in more ways than one, he didn’t wake up until the late afternoon.

 -

 Years passed with things being just like they were. Every once in a while, you would bring up this “special someone” that you were always too afraid to admit your feelings to. You learned not to, because Tom would always bristle like the protective best friend you knew he would be once you found someone you really liked. Things were perfectly normal, as far as you knew. Many nights, however, Tom would lie awake, wondering how he could have let himself lose you.

One night, as Tom was getting ready for bed, he put on an old tee shirt. Immediately, he regretted his decision. He hadn’t seen you for months due to press tours; however, the shirt still held your smell so strongly he could have sworn you’d been in his arms an hour ago. Stunned, he half-sat, half-fell onto his bed. He was surrounded by your smell, and memories of you bombarded him from all sides.

Before he knew it, he was crying. Here he was, in love with his best friend who’d had no idea for nearly eight years. He had everything he’d ever wanted: He was Spider-Man, he was touring the world, he was supposedly loving life. One thing, however, was missing from the equation: you. He’d never had a single chance to share any piece of his amazing life with you, and he hated it. Everything would be perfect if only you were there to witness it, but you were off enjoying life doing things he’d never be a part of either. Though he tried not to admit it, it killed him.

Eventually, he stretched himself out, mentally scolding himself. He reached his arm out and tried to find his phone in the pitch darkness of his room. After finally being successful in his search, he dialed your phone number. He checked the time as he listened to the ringing: 01:02, as if it was fate. Gritting his teeth, he cursed the time. Of course. It just had to be 01:02. Why wouldn’t it be?

You answered on the third ring, “Hello Tom! I was just thinking about you!”

“You were?” Had he sounded too hopeful?

“Yeah! I’m coming home in a few weeks! We should plan to do lunch or something. I have so much to tell you about uni… Junior year is crazy.”

You started telling him about classes again, and about your ongoing projects, and about the cool things your friends were doing, and about how pretty everything was, and how excited you were for this and that and the other upcoming thing. Unable to contain the smile on his face, Tom lied there in the dark, just listening. Your voice had been his favorite sound since he was seventeen, and it still was at twenty-one. Still, after all this time, you had no idea. Tom was surprised at how oblivious you were. Maybe you’d just gotten used to the way he looked at you.

“But that’s not nearly as exciting as all the things you’re doing, Mr. Spider-Man! The trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming came out a bit ago, and I loved it! I’m so excited to go and see it with my friends come next July!”

“Yeah? I really hope you like it.”

“Even if I hate the movie—which I already know I won’t, I know I’ll love Peter Parker, since I already know I love you, Thomas Holland.”

“I love you too, (Y/N) (Y/L/N),” he said with more meaning than you did.

“But hey, Mr. Superhero,” you said, your tone getting more serious. “Have you found someone to give all your love to yet?”

“Not since signing with Marvel, no,” he responded. Before. So long before.

“Awh, Tom! Are you sure you’re looking hard enough? There are tons of amazing people out there who would love to have you.”

“Yeah? Like who? Know anyone up at your uni?”

You laughed, and Tom’s heart ached. “I’ve tried so many times, but you always stop talking to them after a few dates. I obviously don’t know what your type is.”

Tom laughed too, and ironic laugh. “Guess not.” It’s you.

“Speaking of love, though, you won’t believe this!”

Then, just like that, you’d launched into yet another story about your “special someone” who you’d admired since you’d gone to uni but never told. You just admired from afar, and this person was none the wiser. Beyond words, Tom was jealous. You’d just talk and talk and talk about your friend—you always said you’d never say anything because the two of you were close. How ironic. This friend was just so smart, so kind, so gorgeous—so absolutely perfect. Even though you were in your final year at uni, Tom had always managed excuses and had never been up to visit you. He’d done this on purpose because he never wanted to meet this friend that you’d secretly fallen in love with. Maybe, if you met this friend, they’d be able to see that he was secretly in love with you.

Eventually, you grew tired enough that you were yawning every time you took a pause between stories, and then between sentences. “Tom, I think I’m gonna go ahead and go to sleep… It’s been lovely talking to you.”

“Yeah, you too. Goodnight, (Y/N).”

“Goodnight, Tom.”

“I love you,” Tom said after you hung up.

He lied in bed, trapped in the sheets and you scent, for hours. He was plagued with more memories of you than he had been before he called you. When he closed his eyes, he could see your smiling face, but all he could hear about was the one who had stolen your heart away. He covered his face with his pillow so that his sobs were muffled. He didn’t remember falling asleep.

 -

 Months passed. Every once in a while, the pair of you would catch up, but you eventually grew away from each other. Tom was always filming when you had breaks from school, and senior year ended up being extremely hectic for you. At first, Tom had tried to keep contact with you, but it proved to be too difficult to factor in all the time zone differences when he was really the only one who cared all that much.

He started worrying about other things, like founding the Brothers Trust and using his growing presence for good. Eventually, you were pushed to the back of his mind. He wasn’t sure when, but in the craziness of all the new in his life, he fell out of love with you. He had no idea how easy it had been, but it had happened.

One break, in between the European and the American pre-release press tours, Nikki was able to tell something was different. She was folding laundry when she asked him, “Hey sweetheart, I was just wondering, do you know how (Y/N) is doing? Isn’t senior year just about over?”

The question surprised him, and his answer surprised himself even more. “Actually… I have no idea. I’m not sure when we talked last.”

At the time, he was playing with Tessa, so he told himself to text you later asking you how you were. He never did, and Nikki never asked again. She suspected that Tom would bring it up if he ever heard from you. Once a few days passed with nothing from Tom, he figured that either you’d gotten too busy for him or that he’d gotten too busy for you. When Tom blew Harry off very casually when he called you “Tom’s datemate,” Nikki was sure it was the latter.

Come April, the Hollands received an invitation to come to your graduation. Tom texted you from Dallas saying that he’d be in New York when you were getting your diploma. With little thought, he wished you a congratulations that you replied some sort of “thank you” to. He didn’t really bother after that.

 -

 It’s been months since he’s spoken to you, he still considers 01:02 to be “your time.” Every time it’s 01:02, he thinks of you. Now, however, he only reminisces for a little while before letting you go. After all, he lost his chance with you, if he ever had one in the first place.

 Fin.

[academla]

Summer 2017 Update

Hey guys! Finally, another big update post. If you haven’t read these before, I split it into sections: Academic, Financial/Professional, Social, Mental Health, and anything else I feel like. Feel free to skim! (Give this a like if you’re actually reading it because I feel like most people ignore these update posts, which is fine, I’m just curious haha.)

Academic

I go back to school on September 5. I’m super excited, but I think my underlying anxiety has been affecting me a bit.

Classes I’m taking on campus: Classics of Children’s Literature, Abnormal Psychology, and Ethics & Society (an Honors seminar).

Classes I’m taking online: History of World Civilizations Before 1500 & Child Psychology.

Here are some comments on each class so far (I’m nothing if not thorough, guys):

Children’s Lit: Well, Harry Potter is on the reading list, so I’m already there. I’ve emailed the professor already and she seems super nice, so I’m pretty excited. The syllabus is a bit intimidating; I’m sure it will be fine, though, and having a nice professor makes a huge difference.

Abnormal Psych: I’m going to have the same prof as I did for Intro, and I’m really pumped about that (so is she). I’m nervous because the tests are harder and longer, but she was very reassuring that I’ll be fine. There was a whole issue because I thought that Abnormal had service learning linked to it (service learning is basically where you get experience doing things related to the course, so essentially volunteer/internship work) and was planning to use an internship that has been in the works since the winter for that. However, turns out that it isn’t linked. My prof was super nice and said she would be flexible. I emailed my adviser in a bit of a panic, and she informed me that actually service learning is no longer a requirement of my major. So, I’m going to go ahead and do the internship for my resume, but not have to worry about the assignments and grade aspect.

Ethics & Society: I don’t know anything about this really, but I do know that the professor is well-liked and I’ve seen him a few times.

History: Okay, so I hate history. I’m quite well-rounded as a student and I know that I’m lucky that most classes, I do very well in and enjoy. But history just... I don’t even know. My history teachers in the past have all thought I was really good, and I was grade-wise; I simply didn’t enjoy it. So to make this bearable, I know I need to have a professor I like. I was going to take it on campus, and emailed briefly with the professor I was going to have, but he had bad RateMyProfessors ratings and struck me as not very personable or understanding or nice. I checked about online courses and saw that there is one being taught by the director of the Honors College that I’m in, whom I really like and has a great reputation and ratings. Unfortunately there is a $125 fee associated with online courses that I wasn’t aware of, but cost-benefit wise, I really think I’ll be happiest like this.

Child Psych: Oh GOD. Why am I so extra? I emailed the prof once and she was super nice. Then I replied, and since online courses are different from real-life ones in that you don’t really get that ‘getting-to-know-you’ vibe with professors because it’s so remote, I mentioned that I can be an anxious student. I just said basically that means sometimes I’ll ask a lot of questions or check and double-check things for reassurance. I also asked if she was a professor willing to look at drafts or not. She completely got the wrong impression and sent back an email (that was quite final too; signed it “All the best”) as though I had been a hysterical student coming to her with anxiety that I had no idea how to handle. She told me that there are personal counseling services offered by the college as well as the writing center with writing tutors. I’ve had outside counseling for 7 years, and I’m a writing tutor... so that was ironic and also a little embarrassing. Whoops. Honestly, when I get embarrassed about things like that (which I often do) I kind of remind myself that I’m just there to learn and hopefully earn that A, so what they think of me doesn’t matter that much.

All and all, I’m excited for school to start. I want to learn things and take notes and have stuff to do. I also have waves of anxiety, which I’m working very hard to combat with reality checks and focusing on the positives. Oh, and I got an A somehow on my chem accelerated summer course :)

Financial

I have worked two jobs this summer after a lot of miscommunication and lack of clarity:

A preschool, the same one I worked at during my gap year. It was unfortunate because I thought I was going to work full-time there after my chem course, but they didn’t need me because they had so much help. I ended up working Thursdays and Fridays there and Monday through Wednesday at my dad’s job. Now that all the summer help is leaving, though, they’re back to being in desperate need. Everyone there is pretty stressed (and families have been leaving).

At the place my dad works. They produce food and formula for people with metabolic disorders (primarily PKU). I was extremely appreciated there, which was nice, and I got a $4 raise on my second week! They’re desperately understaffed and having problems with their products, as well as not being able to keep up with general demand. I electronically filed faxes dating back to 2016, stuffed envelopes (my favorite), put in tons of orders (one day I put in 34 out of a total 62 orders that day), and by the end was allowed to check emails and reply to some of them. I LOVED the job. However, there’s the possibility I might be able to work there on Fridays during the school year, which I would love. It’s stressful there because there’s so much shit going on and people are basically running around putting out fires all day, but I enjoy my work so much.

During the year, I’m hoping to work at my dad’s job on Fridays, do my psychology internship (if you don’t recall, I’m going to be working at a VA hospital helping with a study on suicide prevention), and tutor! I’m a math and writing tutor. They’re two completely different trainings and types of tutoring, so it should be interesting. Luckily we get to shadow a writing tutor for awhile before being on our own.

I’m not doing well with money, guys. The entire year of 2017, I’ve only made $300 or so. I’ve spent $1,800 on school, even with scholarships, and $940 on medical things such as medication and copays. I did win a $1,000 scholarship which has been very delayed in arriving and I’m praying it will get here by the end of this week or next week so it can be applied to my account. I didn’t work over winter break, which was really my downfall; I needed the time for a mental health break, though... so I’m trying not to beat myself up over it.

Unfortunately it took awhile too for me to lock down my jobs, meaning I only got to work for like 4 or 5 weeks. That really isn’t very much money even with the raise I got. Right now I’m owing $615 per month for my payment plan, and even with tutoring and potential Fridays at my dad’s job, I’m definitely going to lose money. I’m considering taking one winter class online, so I can still work all winter break. That $125 extra fee from my web class sure didn’t help me.

But I must soldier on! I’m going to make sure that none of my money ever goes to frivolous things and never goes to waste. Money is meant to be spent and not hoarded, as my mom reminds me, and it’s okay to spend some on things like going out every so often as well, so I shouldn’t be beating myself up for that (though I still am). School was always going to suck up money. I’m trying very very hard to stay in the moment now and not stress about next semester or worse, what will happen when I get hit with that $30k bill when I transfer and don’t have even close to that much saved.

Social

I’ve changed several times throughout my life socially. In 9th grade, I was extremely social because I needed to be and I had trouble being by myself. It was a lot like that through high school. When I made online friends in 11th grade, they were my social life while drama and bullying and shit went on in real life. Recently, I had a major burst in socialness online, and eventually reached breaking point when I became embroiled in drama.

Look, I’m 20 years old. I’m turning 21 in November. I had to ask myself, why the fuck am I on vacation with family, working on scholarship essays last-minute, and spending my time in the bathroom on my phone dealing with drama with someone years and years younger who’s slandering me to people whose opinions I shouldn’t give two shits about?

That was a big reality check. Because I wanted vengeance, I did. I wanted so badly to expose someone who was gleaning attention and convincing others and spreading half-truths and ruining people’s lives. But then I realized, you know what? That isn’t my goal in life. My goal in life isn’t to tear people down because they’ve torn others down. It’s so, so difficult. I was angry. I was upset. This person violated all of my principles. And we had the evidence against them, we could have potentially won most people over, and I wanted it not for my sake but for the sake of those they had hurt so much more than they hurt me.

But I couldn’t do it. In the end, I called it off. I backed out. I told people to lay off and let karma do its work. I realized how toxic the situation was, how absurd it was for me to be living on the internet when I’m in one of the most exciting periods of my life. How utterly imbecilic I was acting, getting caught up in so much senseless, meaningless, fruitless drama.

After that, I disengaged further from large social groups. I was already overwhelmed by the amount of people always trying to talk to me, so I had to cut myself off from that. And it feels so. Much. Better.

I’ve become more introverted, really. I work all day, then I write fanfiction and watch Netflix and color in my room by myself and I love it. I have any number of people I could hit up anytime and ask to hang out or video chat. But I don’t feel that push, that obsessive need, to be social all the time. Social media became addicting. I still work on that.

I’ve stayed in touch with real-life friends and done things with them when I had the energy, money, and time. Unfortunately my ex and then long-time guy friend both asked me out, and that was incredibly awkward, and the end of that. The trouble with my school is that there are a lot of dual enrollment students who are like, 16 or 17. Much as I love them, I’ve been thirsting for someone my own age with similar interests who I can hang out with. At the tutoring training I attended, I met someone (a guy, oooh). He’s 21 and we had a really good time together. I’m hoping we can hang out once the semester starts! I also met a girl who’s only 17, but she seems very mature and sweet and I also hope to hang out with her.

Things are good socially. I’m always working on that area of my life (with regards to mental health, mostly) but I’m still going strong. I have moments of loneliness for sure. However, I’m happy with myself and happy with my life. That’s what counts.

Mental health

If 10 is completely flawless and 0 is utter breakdown and 5 is rough, I would say my summer has been a solid 7 or 8. Which is pretty damn good!

Areas I’m working on still:

Body image. My ED voice has been loud this summer. That’s probably the area of most concern to me.

Anxiety. It hasn’t been too bad, but with transitions it usually increases, and I’ve noticed myself being more anxious (free-floating anxiety mostly) and irritable in the past few days.

Worrying way too much about others’ opinions. This pretty much traces to the internet. I mean, before I went on hiatus, I had tens of thousands of people criticizing my every word and move. That takes a toll. Moreover, as a fanfic writer, it’s pretty difficult to post things to the internet without craving comments and kudos and hits. I’ve turned off viewing hits for my own sanity, and taken breathers when I felt like I was getting too hung up on the ‘popularity’ of my fics. I write for myself, because I enjoy it. Not for the attention. I just have to remind myself of that from time to time, and I try not to be competitive. It’s really the numbers that get me - the hits and the kudos. I mean, I compare myself to people in different fandoms, fandoms I don’t even write for. It’s so dumb.

All in all, I’m proud of how I’ve been doing. I do have moments of stress mainly about money, but that’s par for the course. I would say I’ve made a 100% improvement from last summer/year and intend to continue doing so, even in light of the impending stressors.

Other

My new favorite movie is Gifted. Oh my god, I love it so much. I’ve seen it like, 5 times (2 of those were illegally whoops). I’ve been fairly active on Snapchat still - add me there edye327. I don’t really have much else to say, except thank you to people who have bought me things from my wishlist that I couldn’t otherwise afford. I haven’t gotten anything recently, but I just wanted to reiterate my appreciation.

If you’ve read this all the way through, reply with the color of your favorite shirt.

Much love,

Edye

[brianhandy]

Time to Search for Marketing

My plan was for things to let up this month to leave a little more time for job hunting, and do marketing research half the time. Instead I’ve found that even finding a marketing person is a full time job, cold emailing and searches are always tough, and onboarding new folks will always be tricky (so consider instead investing in more long term contracts since onboarding is a real time cost). These two weeks’ news: marketing knowledge, searching for the right person once more, and onboarding! 

Nintendo Power praises by Chris Zukowski.

Marketing Knowledge

I watched a GDC talk most mornings the last two weeks, including:

Erik Johnson's “Making Indie Games That Sell”

Chris Dwyer's "(Opportunity) Cost Effective Marketing & PR for Indies"

David Wehle’s “No Time, No Budget, No Problem: Finishing The First Tree”

Casey Yano's "Slay the Spire: Success through Marketability"

“Put Your Name on Your Game, a Talk by Bennett Foddy and Zach Gage"

Nick Popovich's "Making Games That Stand Out and Survive"

Mike Rose’s “Making the World Give a Damn About Your Game in 2018″

Chris Zukowski’s “Build Your Own Fan Club: How to Use Your Email List”

Mike Rose’s and Chris Zukowski’s I’ve linked since I found them especially formative to how I will approach marketing now. All the talks are good for different reasons, all reinforce the same ideas of developing a relationship with your audience and all suggest, like a good friend, investing in that relationship by routinely sending them cool stuff you think they’d enjoy. Nintendo Power is cited in Chris’s talk as the best example of this yet. But having an audience that loves consuming your work, whether it’s love letters as an email newsletter for Date Everything, or a Discord server that gets secret news and updates early, investing in the community and connection that is your audience will help grow and maintain that so that when your game does launch, the strongest fans can immediately invest and help push it up the charts. It’s a great core idea, and it depends on respecting and mutually investing in your audience in a really healthy way.

Also: did some preliminary video tests with friends so we can start making more marketable content soon. Hopefully more on that soon!

Do you like filling out webforms? Yes? Great, cold emailing is perfect for you!

Searching for Marketing Folks

Cold emailing folks is still hard! I think this will be rough forever. Making a template helps so you don’t rewrite the same core every time. Tweaking it to respect someone’s individuality and showing what you care about helps too. We all have to communicate with a lot of people, and I think as long as there is respect both ways in mind and in action, using your own templates for certain emails is fine. If you’re going to say the same three sentences every time, stop wasting time rewriting them. They do their job - customize the message elsewhere.

The search has been just as rewarding as when looking for an artist though. It broke down into a few steps like last time:

Searching for portfolios I trusted. This was on Google, leading to individuals’ sites for “indie games marketing” or “mobile game marketing” keywords, then cold emailing, getting rejected, and then asking for their recommendations for more folks which had a 1 in 5 chance of getting another 2-5 names. Repeat. (this process took about 3 rounds to find/email some 10-20 people, with rounds costing probably 4hrs of time each on separate days since email replies average 24-48hrs)

Sending back and forth emails with a smaller pool of the top 5-8 individuals. Different backgrounds gave some leads for trailers and PR folks that were not marketing directly as well. This email back and forth averaged about 5 emails, taking 2-3hrs each day for about 3 days. 

Phonecalls and Skype chats with just over half of those individuals, a half hour each with buffer times for setup and notes/emails after, have narrowed us down to probably the final two candidates once again. That meant another 3-5hrs combined to talk with everyone and read some longer emails that needed 30min+ each to read and reply to.

One last round of phonecalls, another 2hrs, and we should have the final marketing candidate. That means in total, finding a candidate for this position probably took between 23 and 28 hours, or a little over half workweek but divided over two weeks. That’s not a small amount of time! I would expect any major new hire, from a zero reference starting point, to just cost a week of work over 2-3 weeks in the future. Due to the back and forth there’s not a great way to accelerate this either. It’s part of the process I didn’t really know how to make time for, but both hiring for design and hiring for marketing have worked this way so I want to make that a clear expectation in the future.

SBA’s website is fancier than I’m used to for government sites!

Business Plans & Executive Summaries

A friend introduced me to SBA - Small Business Administration, a government support agency for entrepreneurs and small businesses. It is surprisingly excellent and has given me some really good wakeup moments for facing the upcoming financial challenges and expectations. They want people who walk through their doors to be well equipped to make a sustainable business, or acquire funding to grow, and in return they want to see your business numbers so they have a sense of what markets are shrinking or growing. From the perspective of a small business, it’s a very useful tool - and they’re not only holding me accountable but teaching me where I need to focus my efforts to financially survive. I am excited to keep working with an advisor I have here now and turn an executive summary I wrote this week into more of a real business plan - useful both for managing expectations of returns, and for marketing to the best audience possible. 

Better “onboarding” (like a boat) involves “iterating” (like the photo)! Ahh? Ahh??

Onboarding

Don’t be fooled by the silly photo - this part was hard and important!

Searching for new contractors took more time than expected, but onboarding known contractors also took a larger than expected amount of time. My biggest regret on this is not taking a more iterative approach to onboarding. I passed on instructions for a new artist I worked with recently (a cool person at that!) and later learned I had not been clear in communicating my needs, the style, or the goals in the way I believed I had. My value is that it is on the communicator to deliver a message on average, and I wish I had done more checking early to ensure I had delivered the right message.

For a contracted game designer I am bringing on to do a pass on adding animal videos, I’ve asked that they show first drafts early and often at the start so we are on the same page before too much work risks being done down the wrong path. I value the concept of hiring good people, clearly communicating, and getting out of the way - but at times those last two points can be in conflict with one another. I hope to share more details soon on finding a better approach here too.

Ahh! What’s this? Secret developer options ingame? 👀 

Design & Tech

Just some fun final details! I added a debug mode to show all animals, questions, and silhouettes! This increases onboarding and test results times in a way I’ve always wanted to do, but couldn’t justify until it was slowing down the work of others. Now that’s in and has gotten me to also do a quick pass at optimizing the videos, so they’ve all been trimmed to 11sec and cropped to the size of the frame, saving us 400/600MB of video space. Awesome!

Rapid video bulk editing was done with ffmpeg for trimming and MPEG Streamclip for cropping and video quality level control. I’ve also added dynamic quality adjustors (whoops forgot that before) so low ram devices run lowres videos compared to high ram devices. Accidentally, I had set everything to low ram before. But that’s fixed!

Toggl report so far for 2020! March is work from home + halfway into the month.

Time Keeping

Toggl is my timekeeping app, and it’s been very useful lately as I bulk categorized all work that had been done on both this and my last project. When working for others, I seem to successfully track 7.5hrs/day of work (there’s a little wiggle room here as I don’t always start tracking exactly when I start - but it’s a solid approximation) and when I work for myself, I successfully track about 6hrs/day (and even though personal tracking is significantly less accurate, this is still is a concerning number). In short: I’m slacking! I really want those numbers to go up, even if I think a big part of it is also how many of those hours are focused vs unfocused work. But it’s good to see my work numbers aren’t ridiculously off the mark. It’s definitely possible for me to hit full workdays in self employment, I’m just not there yet.

Pomodoro Timer techniques on my smart watch have actually been incredibly effective lately for that focus. I’ll set a timer for 25min, then a break timer for 5min, and the wrist accessibility keeps me really focused and moving forwards to getting those hours in. With startup work especially, it’s hard to tell where breaks give the creativity needed to keep up with how the goals change, and where focus gives you the work needed to pump out a product on the current path. Lightfield capture technology was a big distraction this week among all the virus news (if we have to stay indoors, I want to develop a better and more 3d Skype!) and while that might be more profitable as a field longterm, short term it’s better to focus on just finishing the job you started. So what’s best? I think that’s something to continuously be reassessed by context, per project, and a healthy dose of gut feeling.

Was it most efficient to reuse UI for testing? Or just done to look pretty?

Conclusion

Time is short! How do we make the most of it? One of the marketing talks said 30% of your time as an indie dev should go towards marketing, starting before the project starts. And that makes sense. But how do we fill in all the other balancing pieces? Should optimizing get as much priority as finding a good marketing person? Should we spend more time onboarding someone we find, or finding someone who doesn’t need onboarding? And depending on what kinds of profits you can expect and how confidently, you can take all the time in the world. Marketing, business, and development time have this entanglement that I’m only just starting to feel directly - and beyond creating art to change the world, I am experiencing now everything about the marketing and business side of game development, and the stresses of it, directly.

Next time: I hope I decide on a business and marketing plan and a target demographic before I commit to a game’s development, rather than the end of it. It will make sustainable game development significantly easier. 

3/13/20

[howtobeacrazycatlady]

The Real World...

It’s been another bonkers week.  A Board meeting scheduled for Thursday and a high-profile workshop coming up means a whole bunch of running around and sorting various bits for both events.  

Monday was flat-out, but Tuesday found a whole new level of intense.  By the time I stumbled out the office with a headache and sore shoulders, I was a little gozzy-eyed.  It was going to be a looooong week.

I hurried to the station wondering what joys Thameslink would have in store for us this evening.

My phone buzzes with a message.  I don’t usually answer when I’m dashing to the station but it’s Marie.  Have I got a moment to chat?  

For my foster-crew….always.

Marie wonders if I’ve heard of the little cat that’s been spotted hanging around the local supermarket and skate park?  Nope, not heard anything.  Turns out she’d had at least 3 people mention it to her and she’d nipped along to see what she could do.  A pretty little tortie, friendly but wary and looking a bit rough as well as a little runny around the nose.  Marie took along a carrier to try catch her – with the intention of getting her checked over by a vet and scanned for a chip.  

And that, she explains, is when she ran into Crazy Cat Guy.

To cut the long story of Crazy Cat Guy short, he hangs around the local supermarket.  He looks like a rough sleeper and he’s mentioned ‘pitching his tent’ a few times.  I first met him through Oscar, effectively, when Osc was a stray living in the bushes of the supermarket.  Richard feeds any cats that wander by and he was furious at me for catching Osc and taking him in. Richard’s feeling is that cats should be allowed to live free and ‘naturally’ ….neutering is ‘not up to humans to decide for the cat’ and they should be left alone to ‘enjoy their families together. Like lions.’  Er…OK, Richard. Trying to talk to him is often pointless but I keep chatting to him, largely to find out about any other waifs and strays that might need rescuing.  

So Marie ends up having the same conversation with Richard and going around and around.  Marie patiently explaining that she wants to get the cat to safety then get it checked by a vet and scan for a chip. Richard going on about him feeding it and it being no one else’s business but his and wishing people would leave the cats alone.

Marie clears off with the intention of returning when Richard isn’t around.

I say to Marie that I’ll let her know if Richard has disappeared as I pass by the supermarket on the way home.

He hasn’t.  And he’s agitated when I approach, going on about everyone bothering the little cat that he’s been feeding and he’s looking after it and folk need to leave it alone.  

I’m feigning complete ignorance about the little cat when suddenly I spot a young lass heading towards us with a carrier.  Ohmygoodness – EVERYONE knows about this cat and is trying to catch it!

A somewhat heated discussion ensues between Richard, the young gal and myself about getting the cat to safety.  During which time, Marie drives by!  She was planning another go at catching the cat.  Surreptitious gesturing from me has Marie not stopping but slowly turning around and driving away.  While the back and forth with Richard and the young lady (it won’t ruin the narrative if I cut to calling her by her name – Eve) is going, on I slink off with “Oooh, I’ll just see if I can find the little cat” and sidled off to the car park to chat to Marie.  

I assure her that Eve has a carrier and seems pretty damn determined to catch the cat regardless of what Richard thinks.  Marie is pleased but says she’ll head back first thing in the morning to try again in case Eve hasn’t managed to catch the tortie.  She heads off and I get back to Eve and Richard and do my best to try, once again, to make Richard understand that the life of a stray or feral cat is horrible.  It’s short; it’s rough; it’s repeated pregnancies until too weak to fend for itself, it’s constant fighting for survival – against illness, against other cats, animals and for every scrap of food it can find.  I’m also really keen to ensure Richard doesn’t turn aggressive with Eve.  She’s a tiny wee thing – feisty, but tiny!

Out the corner of my eye, I spot a lady and her daughter crossing the road from the park.  She has a cat in her arms.  

“Blimey,” I say, “This is just the most blummin’ popular cat in Flitwick EVER!” and point out the lady to Richard and Eve.  

Eve suddenly turns into Usain and BOLTS towards the woman and the cat.  A full-on sprint after the woman, carrier bouncing about and all.

A furious Richard starts to follow.  He’s got a bad leg so he’s only able to walk after them.

Eve manages to catch up with the lady and convince her to hand the tortie over. By this point, the cat is wriggling wildly so the lady happily agrees.  The little tortie is safe in the carrier.  

Richard is agitated but starts to back down in the face of, now, 4 people saying the animal needs to see a vet and be checked out.  Eve promises again and again to keep Richard up to date.  Richard starts to look like he’s heading back to the supermarket and I figure Eve is safe with the lady and her daughter so time to head home.  

My step is light and my mood high.  All the stress of a crazy day at work completely erased.  I burst through the door and greet Freya and Mimi enthusiastically “Oooh, ladies, you wouldn’t BELIEVE what’s just gone on….but the little cat is SAFE!  She’s SAFE, girls!!”  I quickly send Marie a text and let her know the young lady has successfully rescued the tortie and will take her to the vet the following day.  I resolve to track her down via the tattoo and piercing studio t-shirt she’s wearing and try not to come across as too much of a weirdo in order to get an update and, if needed, to offer the tortie a foster space with our branch.

Sean’s round that evening. I’m totally animated, waving my arms around telling him the whole story.  Tired?  What tired??

Wednesday goes into overdrive and there’s not a moment to spare to email or even call Eve via her workplace.  Another long day, I more or less slide out of the building.  All the excitement of Tuesday night buried under a to-do list spinning around inside my skull.  I get home and try to get some dinner standing in the kitchen whilst checking various Board members onto their flights for Thursday evening. Board meeting is now locked and loaded.

I get a text from Marie. Eve has posted a ‘found’ of the little cat and is keen to find a shelter space.  Would I mind getting in touch with Eve as we’d already been chatting? I was all over it like a bad rash. Messaged Eve and after several messages back and forth we’ve got ‘Tammy’ scheduled for dropping off at Marie’s on Thursday evening.

I happy dance all over the kitchen and around the front room.  Freya follows curiously; Mimi is hoping there’s a scrunchie-throwing-session in it for her.  

Thursday - blissfully working from home as it means I can get an early start on the to-do list and it’s clearing nicely.  A brief interruption of getting the total drama-queen that is Oscar over to the vet for his annual MOT.  And then straight back into planning for the workshop.  The Board Meeting is going ahead without a hitch so now there’s everything else to catch up with – including a goodly couple of hours of the Billing Team and me trying to out-passive-aggressive each other on email. I lose.

I send a text to Alison hoping to catch up on various admin things I want to check with her.  But, in the Real World, Alison is spending her afternoon rescuing a stray from Marsh Farm in Luton.  List of admin questions can wait.  “Is he OK?!”  Yes, the 4-month old kitten is now fine – dusty and full of fleas and ticks.  But safe.

Billing can go to hell. In the Real World, all that matters is that the kitten is FINE.

6.30pm - I’m keeping an eye on Board Member flights departing on time. Minor delays but so far, so good.  Whoop!  I make a start on some of the fostering admin that needs sorting. Diarising the chip and neuters for the kittens that have come through the branch.  Updating chip details.  Drafting an email on the next batch of rehomed cats and rabbits that’ll need their post adoption follow up.

7.30 - Eve collects me and we head over to Marie’s to settle Tammy The Tortie into her new luxury digs. The new pens have only just been signed off by the inspector.  They’re LUSH. It’s always lovely catching up with Marie and Eve is just terrific.  Between that, cooing over little Tammy and introducing Eve to Marie’s other two fosters, it was 9pm before I got home.

So, jam in feeding my furry crew, watering the garden, replenishing the fish pond and giving it a much-needed treatment.  Watching, transfixed, the little toad that’s moved in – so cute! Feeding the Night Creatures.  Having a good old play with Mimi who’s been cooped up all day because Oscar is home on the couch with the vapours after the ordeal of being in the cat carrier.  It’s well after 11pm before I get round to pulling my dinner together.

I sit on the couch eating way more than I should do and I ponder the frenetic Friday scheduled for the office – it’s do-able. Pah, it’s a walk in the park.  I’m back in my Real World.  My furries are all home and safe and two cats have been rescued this week. In my Real World, those little cats are sleeping soundly tonight and I’m doing what I hoped to start doing a couple of years back – I’m making a difference.  It might be small….but it’s a difference.  I’m knackered and I’m aware I’m about to doze off on the couch…again….and utterly happy in my Real World.  

[junker-town]

Grading the 2017 Winter Meetings

There weren’t a lot of trades and free agent signings, but we’ll grade what we have.

T-shirt idea, free of charge: “Marcell Ozuna was traded at the Winter Meetings, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and four days of crippling, depressing boredom that almost made me watch classic hockey games on YouTube.” Sell that sucker for $29 and have yourself a happy holiday season.

No, these weren’t the most active Winter Meetings. No, I’m not including the Giancarlo Stanton trade in the final accounting. No, I’m not expecting you to be interested in these Winter Meetings grades, considering that these were the most boring meetings since they were invented by Armand J. Winter 87 years ago. But I have a box to check off. Help me check this box off.

Man, this was a boring Winter Meetings. Straight D-. There’s the only grade you need. But on to the grades you don’t need!

St. Louis Cardinals - A

Acquired Marcell Ozuna, traded Stephen Piscotty, signed Luke Gregerson

The Ozuna trade was a splendid centerpiece, and at the risk of being “that guy,” it’s far to ask if he was an even better fit than Giancarlo Stanton. Financially, it’s not a question, and now the Cardinals can do all sorts of things with the money they didn’t spend, like acquire Manny Machado, which they’ll do any second now.

It’s the Piscotty trade that gets me, though. Not because the Cardinals were looking for a way to get him closer to his ailing mother, and this trade was a classy way of doing that. That might be true, but did you see the prospects the Cardinals got back? Yairo Munoz is a versatile infielder/outfielder who hit .316/.348/.532 in Double-A, and I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to make him a contributor, but I’m more focused on Max Schrock, a 5’11” left-handed infielder who hit .321 in Double-A, with nearly as many walks as strikeouts.

Tell me that the Cardinals aren’t going to weaponize this guy. Tell me with a straight face. He’s going to annoy Cubs fans for a decade. And if you think I’m off base when it comes to my Cardinals predictions, behold:

Jose Martinez is going to hit .300 with 15 homers for the Cardinals this year

That was in March. Martinez hit .309 with 14 homers. Don’t fear me. Fear the Cardinals. Because Max Schrock is going to fill in for someone who gets hurt and hit .294 with 20 doubles, and you’ll be focused on Marcell Ozuna like a noob.

Miami Marlins - F

Acquired whatever

The Marlins are Toys R Us, and their new owners are depleting their tangible assets to pay back their own debts. Trash.

Los Angeles Angels - B+

Acquired Ian Kinsler

When a soon-to-be 36-year-old second baseman loses 100 points off his OPS, that production doesn’t have to come back with a little rest and fresh start. There’s at least a fair chance that Kinsler will get sucked into the same quicksand that Brandon Phillips did with the Angels.

On the other hand, all they had to give up was two prospects who weren’t even in the top 20 of a widely panned system. There isn’t a lot of risk with this one, but there’s a whole lot of reward. The bigger risk was punting on second base, which is what the Angels have done since Howie Kendrick left. This is much better.

Plus, it allows me to reuse this GIF of Kinsler’s slide.

Seattle Mariners - C

Signed Juan Nicasio, did a bunch of random Dipoto trades to get international slot money, unless they were moves to trade away international slot money, look, I don’t even know anymore

Nicasio is a solid reliever, even if two years, $17 million is definitely on the higher side for him. At the very least, it’s worth remembering that the Pirates put him on waivers in August, even though he was having the kind of season that would earn him $17 million, and they just let him go when the Phillies claimed him. Then the Phillies immediately traded him for a prospect. It still makes me laugh.

There were a bunch of moves mixed in that I don’t really understand because Dipoto is the GM equivalent of the Winchester Mystery House, and if he stops making transactions, he will be attacked by vengeful spirits.

Houston Astros - B+

Signed Joe Smith

Yeah, he’s pretty good.

Oakland A’s - B

Acquired Stephen Piscotty

Piscotty is a former first-round pick who struggled for the first time in the majors. He’s locked up for the next five seasons at reasonable rates — six, if he becomes a major contributor. If he repeats his disappointing season, he becomes something like a latter-day Jose Tabata, someone whose salary doesn’t ruin the payroll, but sure doesn’t help. If he repeats the season he had in 2016, he becomes a bargain.

I’d gamble money on the 2016 scenario, too. The A’s gave up some interesting prospects, but there’s a lot of upside to Piscotty.

Washington Nationals - B+

Re-signed Brandon Kintzler

The new Brad Ziegler. Heck, you can almost rearrange Kintzler’s name to be Brad Ziegler. You have to take the “K” and move this piece here and that piece there to get a “Z,” but it’s all possible.

Solid reliever. Someone you wouldn’t want on the mound to protect a one-run lead in Game 7, but a solid reliever.

Minnesota Twins - A-

Signed Fernando Rodney, Michael Pineda

Rodney is 58 years old and still effective, but the A- has more to do with the Pineda signing, which I absolutely love. The Twins won’t see many benefits this year, but they’ll have one fewer box to check off next offseason when it comes to building their rotation. This is almost like a football team trading a second-round pick for a first-round pick the following draft. It’s not exciting, and then that later draft comes around, and it’s like, “OH, RIGHT, this is awesome.”

Assuming the money going to Pineda doesn’t hurt the Twins’ chances of signing Yu Darvish, this is a very prudent, forward-thinking move.

Chicago Cubs - A

Signed Steve Cishek, Drew Smyly, Brandon Morrow

Smyly is like the Pineda deal for the Twins, except there’s a chance for him to help the Cubs in 2018. It seems weird to consider a Tommy John pitcher a “fresh arm” heading into the postseason, but the description will probably fit here. My guess is that Smyly will move into that Mike Montgomery role, except he’ll be a little better equipped for it because of his strikeout stuff.

But the A is for Cishek and Morrow, who are relievers they might be able to trust. Was there anything sadder than Carl Edwards, Jr. being called upon constantly in the postseason and looking like a college kid telling himself “I can do this I can do this I can do this” before explicitly not doing whatever this was? It wasn’t his fault. It was only partially Joe Maddon’s fault. They needed more arms.

Here are two more arms. This is a start.

San Diego Padres - C

Acquired Chase Headley, Bryan Mitchell

I love the idea. The Padres’ payroll is currently around $65,000, depending on if you count holiday bonuses or not, and there really isn’t a way under the new CBA to use their extra cash on international prospects or to convince late-round picks to give up college. Taking on an unwanted salary is the new paying a 35th-rounder millions to ditch his LSU commitment, and I applaud their creativity.

That written, I’m not convinced that Mitchell is the best use of that $13 million? He’s on the older side, and there’s a reason the Yankees were probably willing to lose him off waivers this spring. You’re right to trust the Padres’ scouts more than me, but I’m skeptical.

New York Yankees - INC

Got rid of Chase Headley’s salary

This is probably an A, but we still need to see what they do. If they use the money to get Miguel Gonzalez and six utility infielders, this wasn’t a masterstroke of genius.

They’re probably going to use it on Alex Cobb or something, which will help them, and also, WHAT IN THE HELL, THEY HAVE GIANCARLO STANTON NOW, WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN, cripes. If you include Stanton, this is an A because they have a generational superstar at $100 million less than Manny Machado or Bryce Harper are going to get. (From the Yankees, probably. Nothing matters anymore.)

Philadelphia Phillies - B+

Signed Pat Neshek, Tommy Hunter

The Phillies have the same strategy I would have if I were running a rebuilding team: Spend money on relievers, and deal them for prospects if they’re having great seasons. They did this just a few months ago with Neshek, and apparently it was so fun that he’s willing to do it again? Interesting! But also prudent.

I would like to point out that the Phillies got J.D. Hammer back in the Neshek trade in July, and that is an excellent pitcher name.

Now pitching, number 14 ... J. D. HAMMER

HELL YES, and “Welcome to the Jungle” starts playing as J.D. HAMMER jogs in from the bullpen to humiliate the other team with a steady diet of fastballs and curveballs, which he calls J.D. HAMMERS, and the crowd eats it up, whooping and cheering every strikeout. You don’t have to watch the game to know that J.D. HAMMER is in the game; you’ll be able to hear it. No, you’ll be able to feel it through the vibrations from the ground.

Anyway, here’s what J.D. Hammer looks like:

He seems like a nice kid, but he sure doesn’t look like a J.D. HAMMER needs to look. That’s a Doug Harkey if I’ve ever seen one, and he needs to work on that. First, get a handlebar mustache. Rent one if you have to. Second ... look, we have a lot of work to do. Cancel my appointments for the afternoon.

New York Mets - B+

Signed Anthony Swarzak

Yeah, just giving all the solid relievers a B+, here. It’s better for a team to develop their own Anthony Swarzak, but it’s not like the Mets gave him a six-year deal. He was excellent last year, and if they don’t contend, they can turn this money into deadline prospects, just like the Phillies

Colorado Rockies - B-

Re-signed Jake McGee, signed Bryan Shaw

They’re close to re-signing Greg Holland, too, I believe. On the one hand, I’m fascinated with what the Rockies are trying to do. Building a Colorado pitching staff with expensive relievers is very build-the-airplane-out-of-the-little-black-box, and I’m more than curious to see just how much they can shorten the game.

On the other hand, I know that expensive relievers will break your heart, so while it’s fine if you’re the Mets signing one of them or even the Cubs signing two of them, I really think these signings (and Holland, probably) are going to constitute the Rockies’ entire offseason. I can’t get behind that idea.

If they make more moves, I reserve the right to come back here in a month and edit the grade without telling anyone.

Texas Rangers - INC

Signed Chris Martin

The stats from Japan sure are pretty, and it’s not like the Rangers haven’t had success going with a repatriated pitcher before. I can’t give it an A because I have no idea what Martin is, really, other than a very tall pitcher, but it’s an A in my heart.

I would make Coldplay puns, except I’ve managed to avoid Coldplay very successfully for the last 17 years, and I don’t really know any of their songs other than “Clocks” and that one that got them sued by Joe Satriani. I’m not bragging; I’m just bragging.