#i've been in tears on and off for the last couple of days

[starman-john-tracy]

Pink Hair, Does Care [RP]

@scramjettracy:

The sight of John’s rage collapsing in on itself and leaving a small pale ball of insecurity was like a bucket of ice water over Scott’s slightly giddy enjoyment of the Sudden Overwhelming Pinkness. The rush of guilt made him shiver… some big brother! His initial concern had been for Gordon - having been on the receiving end of similar tricks, he knew full well that the prankster wasn’t cruel enough to do anything that would cause more than short-term inconvenience. The immediate priority therefore had been to cool down the fiery reaction until John remembered that - to deter him from doing anything too drastic before he did. Angry-John could take very good care of himself and his preferred methods of revenge tended to be subtle but extensive. Unforgettable… But the shocking pink had blinded him to the fact that Angry-John hadn’t even entered the room today. Only Terrified-Insecure John with a scary mask on. Scott slid out of his chair and landed on his knees next to John’s, resting a hand on the arm of the chair he looked up into the flushed, LOST looking face of the little brother he’d tried to persuade so very many times that the mean kids were losers and not worth his tears. “It’ll come out.” “What if it doesn’t?” “It will. There’s a heavy duty shampoo we got when Alan had regrets about his attempt at red - it’ll fade it out in a couple of washes. You just might look a little blonde for a while…”

Anguished eyes watch his older brother crouch beside him, and, maybe with just a little of the hereditary Tracy Drama, John dumps the full weight of his forehead onto Scott's shoulder to hide his face. The sigh that gets breathed into the fabric of big brother's shirt is hot with misery.

John wonders if the fact his hologram doesn't just pass straight through is as weird for Scott as it is for him.

"Blond I can probably live with," John mumbles into the fabric, keen to avoid Scott's scrutiny. "...I've got an astrophysics lecture to give in Edinburgh in two days, what was he thinking."

John gets enough whispers as is; the son of that famous, billionaire ex-astronaut who wasted multiple degrees and an exceptionally promising placement with NASA to go off and do who knows what with his time. Squandering all that fortune, living as a recluse, the last Tracy brother you'd ever see at events. And sure, he's got the typical Tracy jawline and handsome eyes, but John's well aware his face is just a little thinner, more delicate, than his brothers - that his red hair and their mother's beautiful bone structure make him seem a little alien. Unapproachable. Weird.

John's mind may be purely logical, but his traitorous heart stutters from beat to beat.

"You don't think I'll have to-" and John hates to suggest this, "-cut it short?" It's exceptionally hard to picture himself with nothing but a buzzed layer of fuzz, but anything has got to be better than facing a room of Laser Communications majors with pink hair.

"You know I'm going to divert the hot water away from his shower for this, right?" John doesn't really think Scott'll try to stop him - Revenge On Gordon is practically a collective Tracy pastime. It's just unfortunate that Gordon would probably notice if John switched their shampoo bottles over. The kid would look just swell in matching neon.

[missrosegold]

Boyfriend's dog is getting put to sleep on Thursday. Please send her good thoughts everyone. It's going to be a horrible day.

We already lost her brother earlier this year. This year has been fucking horrible for dogs.

[youremyonlyhope]

why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up

[kittlyns]

I had yet another long, strenuous day yesterday and didn't finish work until super late and then I couldn't fall asleep until well past 2am cuz I was in so much pain from standing literally all day

[therealbeachfox]

Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.

It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.

To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.

This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.

Join me below, if you would.

2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.

Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadn’t even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.

It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all. But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.

But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.

The next day, we’re on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that she’s surprised the two of us aren’t up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.

“Everyone else?” Goes I, “I thought they would’ve shut that down already?”

“Oh no!” goes she, “The courts aren’t open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. They’re doing them all weekend long!”

We didn’t know because social media wasn’t a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as I’d read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.

"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, it’s a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but we’re not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?

The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.

We had slightly miscalculated.

Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone who’d gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.

“Isn’t City Hall closed on Monday?” I asked. “It’s a holiday”

“Oh sure,” they reply, “but people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.”

“Oh cool,” we go, “Backup.”

“Make sure you’re here if you do,” they say, “because the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.”

And all this shit is super not-legal, so they’ll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.

00000

We don’t get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.

It’s… incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of others’ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.

At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, “That’s Newsom.” He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.

Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.

So dusk is starting to fall. It’s February, so it’s only six or so, but it’s getting dark.

“Should we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?” we ask.

“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” One of the volunteers tells us. “We’re not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. We’d need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.

Monday is the last day to do this, after all.

00000

So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.

The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people who’re up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.

“Uh.” We go. “What the fuck is -this-?”

So.

Remember why they weren’t going to be able to have people hang out overnight?

Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties that’d gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.

It’s 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least weren’t likely to loose job protections any time soon.).

Then it starts to rain.

We had not dressed for rain.

00000

Here is how the next six hours go.

We’re in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. It’s around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and you’ve got a makeshift raincoat! So you’ve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.

Everyone is so happy.

Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.

People online start making delivery orders.

Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because they’re just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.

A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all we’re sinning and to please don’t. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against God’s will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.

The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how “Not even DOGS do such things!” Which… Yes they do.

A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that we’re willing to come out in the rain to do this while they’re not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.

Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall we’re on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when we’re on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when we’re on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.

00000

We have Line Neighbors.

Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. They’ve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. He’s worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. They’d started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.

The most perky energetic joyful woman I’ve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. She’s their local friend who’d just gotten their message about what they’re doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.

Behind us are a lesbian couple who’d been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. “We met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because it’s our first love city.”

“Then they announced -this-,” the other one says, “and we can’t leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.”

“I told them why,” her partner says, “I don’t care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.”

My husband-to-be and I look at each other. We’ve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? We’re potentially taking a spot from another couple that’d been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.

“This is as much for you as it is for us!” says the lesbian couple who’ve been together for over a decade behind us.

“You kids are too cute together,” says the gay couple’s friend. “you -have- to. Someday -you’re- going to be the old gay couple that’s been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.”

We stay in line.

It’s while we’re on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. “Can we say we’re with you? His uncles are already inside and they’re not letting anyone in who isn’t with a couple right there.” “Of course!” we say.

The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but there’s free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so he’s having a great time.

We pass by a statue of Lincoln with ‘Marriage for All!’ and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.

It’s about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.

They’ve promised that anyone who’s inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. We’re safe.

We still have a -long- way to go.

00000

They’re trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways I’m not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.

It’s after we’ve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. “It’s an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you don’t have to do it there!”

We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.

We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.

I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.

The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.

Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.

The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.

A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. She’s done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. “Oh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today I’m acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-“

The guy behind the counter has been there since six. It’s now 1:30. He’s still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. “Alright, go to the Rotunda, they’ll direct you to someone who’ll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, they’ll direct you to -that- line.” “Can’t you just mail it to us?” “Normally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, we’re not going to be allowed to.”

We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.

If you’ve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, you’ve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.

That’s for the people who didn’t bring their own wedding officials.

There’s a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. They’re doing the whole damn thing. There’s at least one more Rabbi at work, I can’t remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.

We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)

I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I can’t get the ring on my husband’s finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.

There really isn’t a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that we’d made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands who’d cheered for us generally.

Then we're married.

Then we get in line to get our license.

It’s another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayor’s office.

Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked “THANK YOU!”s that have been piled up against it.

We make it to the marriage records office.

I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then we’re done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.

It's almost 3PM.

00000

There are cheers, there’s rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. It’s no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. There’s barely even any news vans.

We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading ”Congratulations!” jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.

I’m at the BART station, we’re waiting for our train back south, and I’m sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. “Hey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just… I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud of what you could do. I’m- I’m just really glad, glad you could get to do this.”

He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.

Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.

We get back to our car and climb in.

It’s 4:30 and we are starving.

There’s a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.

We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what we’d just done.

We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.

The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsom’s marriages.

My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. “No! No one knew that they’d go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! I’ll just be there for the next one!”

00000

It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didn’t even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was “marriage really isn’t that important, aside from the legal benefits. It’s just confirming what you already have.”

But maybe it’s just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after. The way I described it at the time, and I’ve never really come up with a better metaphor is, “It’s like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each other’s support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.

It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.

I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible. It’s been twenty years and we’re still together and still married.

We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. We’d done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husband’s collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.

Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.

It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldn’t negate it that time.

Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"

And that was that.

00000

When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didn’t expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldn’t see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.

I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before I’d barely started by 30s. I never thought I’d be in my 40s and it’d be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers would’ve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.

I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.

I never thought I’d live in this world.

And it’s twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.

I don’t have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you can’t predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.

The future we’re resigned to doesn’t have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.

And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those who’re against it will brave.

[thistlekiss]

.

[thingswhatareawesome]

¨

[witherby]

*raises hand* more littlest Wayne please 🥺

You got it!

The Littlest Wayne: Jason's Experience

You're a weird baby.

At least, that's what Jason thinks. You don't really cry about anything, you don't whine much except when you're maneuvered uncomfortably or rudely woken up from a nap before you're ready. But even then, it's almost a complaint for the sake of complaining, and not really a full-blown fit.

( It's great for allowing your new, vigilante family to sleep through the night. Horrible for their collective paranoia, which makes them get up to check and make sure you're still breathing through the night anyway. )

You're not deaf — Bruce had you taken in for a full examination and health screening while the ink on your adoption papers were still drying — so that's not why you're quiet, either. Aside from being a touch underweight, likely from whoever cared for you before, it seems like you just don't have much to be upset about.

Jason thinks that weird as fuck. Nobody is neglecting you or anything, but there are times where the lack of hunger cues make one of your brothers realize you haven't eaten since breakfast, or that nobody has checked your diaper in four hours and you've just been chilling in a wet nappy. This makes his monitoring of your general well-being increase ten-fold, to the point that he's the one that spends the most time with you aside from Bruce.

Dr. Leslie insists that some babies are just Like That. Alfred does, too. Their lack of concern helps him be less concerned. But it's still there. Surely there's something a baby would cry about; you're a fuckin baby, and that's, like, your primary job besides eating and sleeping.

He finds out that there is, in fact, something to cry about when he comes back from a week-long job as the Red Hood, having needed to leave the Manor to track down a criminal organization quickly gaining traction that he didn't like the looks of. When he wraps up the last of those loose ends, he steps into his apartment in Crime Alley and digs out his personal phone, switching it on to find dozens of messages from Bruce and his brothers.

Replacement: Dude, u need to get back here ASAP when ur done. The babe is straight tweakin

Eldest Daughter Syndrome: Heyyy lil wing 👋 no rush no rush, but swing by when you've got a sec! Our newest member misses you 🍼

Ninja Wannabe: Todd, your presence is required. Father's newest ward is screaming incessantly without you to entertain their mindless brain. I've retreated to Bludhaven to spare my ears until your return.

B: Stay safe, Jaylad. Adjusting to you being gone is a little tough for the baby, as I'm sure your brothers already told you. I just want you to know that there's no obligation to hurry back. They're okay, and the screaming isn't as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

Alfred: Good day, Master Jason. There is an entire batch of double-fudge brownies with your name on it upon your safe return. Best wishes.

You must be screaming the manor down if Alfred is bribing Jason with junk food, let alone a whole tray of it. He hurries out of his armor with half-concern, half-amusement, showers, then speeds off. In less than an hour, he's pulling into the driveway and parking his bike, and Tim was not fucking lying when he texted him.

Turns out it was good that you weren't a huge crier, because you had pipes that put opera singers to shame. When Jason steps inside, the faint, high pitched whines he heard through the door turn into full-fledged wailing. It's just a matter of following it down a couple corridors before he reaches the day room, which was recently repurposed into one of your play areas. He locks onto the image of one very distressed Dick, face flushed and cotton stuffed in his ears as he desperately jangles a set of plastic keys over your body.

"C'mon, baby bat," he croons, sounding near tears himself, "I dunno what you need. Calm down, honey, please."

You lie on a playmat in front of Dick, paying the toy no mind. Your eyes are squeezed shut, tears are running down your cheeks, your face is ruby red, and your tiny fists are clenched as tight as possible as you kick your legs and wail, and wail, and wail some more. It would be impressive if it weren't concerning.

"Whoa," Jason blurts, stepping fully into the room. Dick spots him and slumps with visible relief, like a puppet with cut strings. "They've been like this the whole time?"

"They were completely fine the first day! But next morning, we saw them looking around for you, and...well." Dick gestures helplessly to your thrashing form. Jason tuts and scoops you into his arms, wincing a bit at your shriek, and starts to gently bounce you.

"Hey, there," he mutters, "what's all this now, weirdo? You didn't have me around to spoon feed you gross baby mush or wipe your butt, and now you're making it everybody else's problem? Huh? That's rude as hell."

Your cries continue a little while longer. Jason continues to talk to you, to call your antics silly, to soothe you, until you finally crack an eye open and register just who it is that's got you in their arms. You stare at Jason kinda like he's an alien, brows furrowed and nose scrunched, but then your wails dissolve into sobs, then little hiccups, then just the occasional sniffle. One of your hands unclenches to latch onto his shirt instead, and you mush your face into his chest.

And you just. Completely stop it. Bruce, Dick, Tim, Alfred, and Damian had fallen all over themselves for days trying to soothe you, and a couple minutes of staring at Jason had completely eliminated the problem.

"You gotta move back to the Manor," Dick blurts from where he remained on the floor, wide-eyed and hands clasped together. "Please come back. Please. I am begging. On my hands and knees if you need it. I will do all your chores for the next year. Do not leave again."

"Not my fault I'm the favorite," Jason huffs, but the protective way he holds you, the concerned way he's checking over your face and throat to see if you hurt yourself crying for so long, the continued bouncing he does for you, all points to him moving back home. He makes the arrangements the next day.

And if Jason makes sure future missions he has to go on don't last more than two days, well, that's no one's business but his own.

You're still a weird baby, though. Even if Jason being your favorite is pretty cool.

[ckret2]

Chapter 51 of human Bill Cipher is once more the Mystery Shack's prisoner: Dipper and Mabel try to figure out what the Axolotl's poem means; Dipper gets the hang of astral projection; and... whatever's going on up there happens.

####

Ford and Dipper came back into the shack through the gift shop; Ford didn't want to risk crossing paths with Bill. While Dipper went into the house, Ford went down—returning to the safety of his subterranean study.

Once Ford had put on the old black trench coat he'd worn during his multiversal travels and gotten comfortable at his desk, he pulled out Journal 5 to document the events of the last few days. In a cheap ballpoint pen, he wrote, I've lost my #1 Grunkle pen (and favorite coat) to the waters of Lake Gravity Falls. And then, deciding this didn't adequately express his feelings, he drew a small frown. That coat had served him well for decades, and he'd really liked that pen. It did write excellently, and it had reminded him of his gniece and gnephew.

He spent three pages documenting the eclipse—what happened, what readings he'd taken, what he and Dipper observed—and then another four pages talking about Bill. What he'd told them, why Ford had dismissed it; his claims about a trans-dimensional axolotl distorting gravity with its migration; the statue, the rescue, the breakdown.

The act of writing always helped Ford clarify his thoughts and untangle mysteries; it wasn't until he was writing that he realized the limbs Bill had said he couldn't feel were the ones that had broken off the statue.

He listed the rules of the chess variants he could remember Bill inventing. He drew Bill huddled in front of the board, grim, tear-streaked, exhausted; and then scratched out his face, embarrassed at the thought of immortalizing such a raw moment for his private viewing.

He wrote, There's still a slim possibility that the entire "eclipse," start to finish, was Bill's masterfully-orchestrated scheme to make us pity and trust him; but it's unlikely. Although Bill is fiendish enough, he isn't currently powerful enough, and his lies certainly aren't elaborate enough. If he could pull off such a byzantine ruse, then he could just as easily escape—and if he can escape, why hasn't he? Bill may be insane, but he's never been THAT irrational.

And so, even as twisted as Bill's idea of "friendship" is... for the very first time, I'm convinced that he was telling the truth all along when he said he wants me as his friend. It's not an act. He risked his life to save someone who's an active threat to him.

And at the end of it all—though I'm grateful to be alive in spite of my own stubbornness—do I like him any better for it?

Ford leaned back and shut his eyes, sifting through the inner tumult of anger and old hurt that defined most of his memories of Bill, looking to see if anything had changed.

There was a sore, tender spot in his emotions, a place beginning to rot with remorse; when he prodded at those emotions, he found that it was shame over his own harsh conduct of the last couple of days. But he was only ashamed of how cruelly he'd acted; he wasn't ashamed that Bill was the one he'd done it to.

Outside of that tender spot—regret over his own behavior—nothing else had changed.

No. I still hate him. I'm grateful to be alive, but I hate him. He hasn't undone anything he did to my family and me, and he never will. Forgiveness can't be purchased with favors.

I'm only relieved at the certainty of it. Bill has committed an act that can't possibly be a lie. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he's shown me the truth; and the truth is he'd rather see me alive than dead. Whatever other lies he may tell, I can hold on to that fact.

Bill's miserable eyes peered out at Ford between the scribbles he'd drawn across his face. It was truly a pity that Ford had to hate him. Pity that Bill hadn't been somebody better. He could have been better.

Ford couldn't find it in himself to be embarrassed that he'd filled four pages talking about the monster he'd already wasted so many more on. Bill had been right about him: You might hate me to my face, but behind my back you're as obsessed with me as ever. The only thing Bill didn't understand was that hatred and obsession weren't mutually incompatible.

####

"Hey, Dipper," Mabel said, unfolding the living room sofa bed. 

"Hey, Mabel," Dipper said, passing through living room on his way to the stairs. He climbed up to the attic.

He came back down from the attic. "Mabel. Why's Bill asleep in your bed."

"He really needed a nap," Mabel said.

"Okay but why on your bed?"

Mabel pouted. "Dipper, do you realize he's never slept on a real bed? Ever?"

Dipper tried to imagine sleeping on a couple couch cushions on the floor every night. "Yeah, okay, that does kinda suck." Even if it was Bill's own fault he wouldn't sleep in the living room.

By unspoken mutual agreement, having a Bill in the bedroom followed the same law as finding a centipede in the bathroom. The law was "that's the centipede's bathroom now." So once the folding bed was set up, they sat on it to serve as their hang-out spot for the evening and caught each other up on what they'd done the last couple of days.

After Dipper & Co. had left, Grenda had come over to take advantage of the low gravity to retrieve the kite that had been stuck in a tree near the Mystery Shack since last summer (it was, tragically, too tattered to salvage), and then they'd gone over to Candy's house to photograph each other performing feats of impossible strength. (Mabel would be sending some pictures to their parents to confuse them, and adding the rest to her summer scrapbook.) She'd spent the next day breaking the trampoline world record until Soos came outside and said gravity was probably too low for it to be safe to be up in the air anymore, if Bill's warnings about being off the ground when gravity hit zero were true; at which point Mabel had hung around inside air-swimming until she suddenly slammed against the ceiling, and then the ground. She was fine. She just had a couple of bruises. She showed Dipper her bruises.

In return, Dipper told Mabel about how their quest had gone: the checks for micro-rips, Bill's increasingly frantic warnings, the lake—

("You got to see a bajillion magical axolotls and I didn't?!")

—the cliff, the Axolotl, Dipper's near-death experience, and what he now knew about his out-of-body dreams.

"Seriously?" Mabel hissed, eyes bugging out. "And he had us looking up lucid dreaming books! What a jerk!"

"I know! He could have just ignored the whole thing, we didn't even think it was anything but dreams."

"And I'd thought he was being so helpful, too! Like he was really trying to make up for giving you 'nightmares'!" Mabel laughed in disbelief and flopped down on the flimsy mattress. "All that because he just didn't want us to know how it was really his fault? Biiill, ugh."

His fault. Dipper hesitated, wondering whether he should tell Mabel what Bill had said about Mabel's Fault; then decided against it. Bill had probably been telling the truth when he'd said he only wanted all the credit for Weirdmageddon.

But—Dipper did tell her about Bill saving their lives. He would have felt like a liar if he hadn't—like he was trying to trick his sister into thinking Bill was worse than he already was. He hoped Ford wouldn't mind; but how could he not tell Mabel?

"He could have just let you die and didn't?" Mabel turned that over in her head, processing this sudden shift in Bill's behavior. "Wow. I'm impressed."

He also told her about their previous encounter with the Axolotl. Considering the other lies Bill had told recently, anything he said about them meeting the Axolotl was dubious at best; but Dipper could remember the Axolotl, so maybe some of it was true, even if Bill had twisted as much as he could. ("The Axolotl said hi, by the way." "Aww. Tell him hi back!" "Yeah, I... don't know how to do that.")

Dipper laid out his journal between them on the folding bed, and Mabel read over the couplet a few times. "'Sixty degrees that come in threes, watches from within birch trees'..."

"It's got to be talking about Bill," Dipper said. "Equilateral triangles have three sixty-degree angles. I just don't know why the Axolotl wanted to talk to us about him."

Mabel frowned at the lines. "I think... I remember meeting him too," she said.

"You do?"

"Kinda. Like in a dream," she said. "We were in some kind of futury space race car. And he had a really comfortable beanbag chair."

"Yes! I remembered the beanbag chair, too!" And he hadn't mentioned it in his journal. "This is great! Talking about it must... must cause us to remember, somehow. Maybe since the universe where we met the Axolotl doesn't exist anymore, our memories of it are... detached or something? Psychically floating around between dimensions until we try to remember them?" He took in Mabel's skeptical frown and shrugged. "I don't know!"

She scrunched up her face. "Ugh. Last summer's first-grader time travel was complicated enough. This is like college-level time travel. Maybe we can ask Bill how it works?"

She said it so easily, like she thought it was actually a good idea. Right after she'd heard about the lucid dreaming thing, too. "I don't think he'd help." Dipper lowered his voice. "He really didn't want Grunkle Ford and me to find out about the Axolotl—and he kept telling me not to think about what the Axolotl told me. He's trying to cover something up."

"Oo-oo-ooh." Voice dropped to a whisper, Mabel said, "Do you think it's some kind of Space Axolotl conspiracy?"

"It could be," Dipper said. "All I know is he was trying to tell us something important about Bill. Some kind of prophecy, or... maybe a warning...?"

He trailed off. Mabel had stopped listening to Dipper. She was rereading the couplet Dipper had written, moving her lips like she was murmuring under her breath—but whatever she was saying, it was much longer than the couplet Dipper had written down. Distractedly, she said, "Do you have a pen?"

"Yeah, here." Dipper quickly handed over the pen he kept in his vest.

Mabel clicked it, went to the bottom of the page, and wrote: A different form, a different time.

Dipper sucked in a sharp breath as the words snapped into place in his mind. "That's it! That was the last line! What else do you remember?"

"That's it," Mabel said. "It was free form poetry with a bunch of rhyme pairs."

"I don't think free form poetry rhymes."

"Pbbbt." Mabel blew a raspberry and shoved Dipper's face. "Whatever! You know what I mean." She pointed at the last line. "Do you think the poem's about why Bill's here? He time traveled to the Mystery Shack in a new body..."

"Exactly! Bill must be back here for a reason. He's got all those powers—or, used to, anyway—and he knows more about the multiverse than anybody on Earth... Maybe there's some kind of big threat coming, and Bill's the only one who can stop it, and—and the Axolotl wanted us to know...?"

"I like the sound of that," Mabel said. "That'd basically make him a hero, right?"

Dipper grimaced. "I mean. I guess? But we're talking about Bill. If he does help us stop a threat, it'd be like if a serial killer picked up a hitchhiker and killed him, and then it turned out the hitchhiker was an even worse serial killer."

"That still sounds kinda heroic to me."

"Pfff, okay." He looked at his journal. "But... what is he here to do?"

Mabel considered what they'd already written. "Maybe we can use him to spy on our enemies through birch trees!"

"Thaaat's probably not it."

"No, I think I'm on to something. I can feel it."

There was a lot of empty space between his couplet and Mabel's line. "There's more we're missing, though. Maybe the rest of the poem describes the threat? Or what we need to get Bill to do?"

"I can't remember anything else, though."

"Me neither."

They stared at the page together, waiting for something to come to their blank minds. Mabel looked at the fish tank. "Hey, Primrose! Do you know anything?"

The pet axolotl in the tank ignored her serenely.

Dipper said, "'Primrose'?"

"Yeah, last summer Grunkle Stan said her name is Freakface, but I thought she deserved a cuter name. She's primrose color!"

"Ford says he originally named him Nikola."

Mabel gasped. "Nikki..."

Dipper twisted around to look at the axolotl. "Do you know anything? Do you... get messages from the Axolotl's heralds, or anything...?"

Nikola slowly opened his mouth, and slowly closed it.

Mabel said, "Hey. The Axolotl's one of those dimension-crossy time-travely guys, right? He probably wouldn't have given us a prophecy in the wrong timeline and then made us forget it unless he knew we'd remember it in time in the rightdimension!"

"I guess," Dipper said uncertainly.

"So we don't need to worry about it! We'll remember it when we need to."

"Unless this timeline's going to branch, and the only one where we survive is the one where we put all our effort into trying to remembering—"

"Shhh!" Mabel put a finger over Dipper's mouth. "Uh-uh. No college time travel. We'll be fine!"

Dipper pushed her over. "Okay, but we should at least try a little to remember what the Axolotl told us."

"What if we work on it separately?" Mabel propped herself up on an elbow. "Instead of just sitting around thinking about it. And whenever we remember a line, we can tell each other and see if it makes anything click."

"That might be faster," Dipper said, stroking his chin. "We're already remembering different lines."

"Yeah! And that lucid dreaming book said something about focusing on a problem before you sleep so you can figure it out in your dreams! We can just work on it in our sleep and we'll remember it all in no time!"

Dipper laughed. "What? No way, I think lucid dreaming is just one of those made up pop psychology things. I didn't get it to work at all." Either it didn't work or Bill had deliberately recommended a terrible book.

"I did! I can remember like... eighty percent more dreams. And I can tell when I'm dreaming a lot more often!"

"Huh." Or, maybe Dipper just wasn't doing it right. "Maybe I need to start over from step one. Do you know where the book we were using went?"

"Over here!" Mabel had set a couple library books on the end table next to the sofa bed; she pulled out the second one, which had a glittery pink bookmark with a cat on it stuck two-thirds of the way through. "Just don't lose my bookmark."

"Thanks." He'd reread the first step before bed. "We should probably be getting ready for bed anyway, huh?"

"Seriously?! It's barely bedtime!" And when the adults weren't watching, official bedtime was an hour and a half before Actual Bedtime.

"I'm exhausted. I just hiked up and down a mountain and faced down death."

Mabel pointed at Nikola. "You faced down a big salamander."

"Close enough."

They went upstairs, brushed their teeth, went to their bedroom...

And stopped in the door. Bill was still asleep. "Oh. Right," Dipper said.

He was curled into a ball on his left side, facing the wall, covered with only the zodiac blanket and his borrowed/stolen top hat sitting on the side of his head. He didn't use a pillow; he'd pushed Mabel's pillows and dolls behind himself to form a squishy makeshift fortress.

"Please don't wake him up," Mabel whispered. (She'd already set up the folding bed for herself; she'd clearly planned on this.) "He's had a really really hard time the last couple of days, and I think he needs as much sleep in a real bed as he can get, and it's just for one night, and I'm sure he'd rather sleep than do anything evil—"

"He said something, didn't he?"

Mabel paused. "Yeah. I think seeing his body really messed him up."

Dipper sighed. "We were trying to keep him away from it." He didn't want Mabel to think they'd forced him to stare his own death in the face. "But he did that... eye thing and looked through the trees, and..."

Mabel nodded.

Well. Dipper couldn't kick him out now. For Mabel's sake.

As children, occasionally when they got hotel rooms with a bed too few, their parents would stick them in one bed with a barrier of pillows in between them. At age thirteen and without two crabby parents trying to get them to just go to bed after a long plane flight, they unanimously vetoed that plan. Dipper decided against asking Stan if he could sleep in Ford's unoccupied bed, both because he suspected Stan would just go upstairs and drag Bill out of the room and because he didn't want Stan to think he was scared of Bill. He wasn't scared of Bill. Not anymore. He could handle one measly night in the same room as him. Anyway, somebody had to make sure he wasn't unsupervised in their bedroom all night, right?

Dipper and Mabel quietly set a floor mirror and old lamp next to Mabel's bed, draped a sheet between them, taped on a pink poster that said "WARNING! TRIANGLE ZONE!" and was covered in stickers of triangular objects, and decided Dipper was adequately shielded. If Bill did get up during the night, he'd probably trip through the sheet and wake half the house before he got anywhere near Dipper.

Dipper went to sleep with a baseball bat in his hands.

####

"Okay," Bill said, hands on his sides, "what am I looking at here?"

The feral band members of Sev'ral Timez turned toward Bill, eyes reflecting in the dim light. They were squatting around Bill's petrified corpse like a pack of apes examining a sleek black monolith.

"Hey girl," Creggy G. said.

"Hey," Bill said. He looked down at himself. His onyx black feet hovered over the ground and the yellow glow from his exoskeleton illuminated the clearing. "Lemme cut to the chase, is this gonna turn into a raunchy dream? My corporeal love life is about as cold and dry as Antarctica, I keep hoping one of my dreams will get a little hotter and wetter—"

"Nah, G," Deep Chris said. "Mr. Bratsman got us fixed."

"Aw."

"We're here to pay you reverence for freeing our minds from the chains of the conventional," Greggy C said, gesturing to Bill's corpse. Leggy P was kneeling and bowing to it and Chubby Z was posing for it. "We want to help free you like you tried to help free humanity."

Bill's eye narrowed. He tapped a finger against the edge of one brick as he considered this offer. Finally, skeptically, he said, "Fine. I'll bite. Why should I think you can help me?"

"Because we can give you the understanding your heart's been missing, girl. You're just like us," Chubby Z said. "A horror never meant to exist, born of a dream to construct the perfect golden idol, forced to dwell within an unnaturally-fabricated human shell."

Bill tilted his head thoughtfully. "I'm with you so far."

"We want you to join us," Deep Chris said. "Cavort with us in the silvan night, G. Shun the harsh light of the spotlight for the healing salve of moonbeams. We'll get drunk on the sweet fermented summer berries, uncaring of how the brambles prick our flesh. We'll dance in a frenzy of ecstasy and only sleep when the morning sun lifts the dew from the flowers and the sweat from our skin. It'll be straight Dionysian, boo."

"We can kiss the hot trees," Creggy G said.

Bill grabbed his shoulder. "Oh, you're the human that keeps making out with birch trees! I knew your face was familiar!" He paused. "So... are there any eligible ones around here?"

"Sure, girl, just downstream."

"If I'd known, I would've polished myself first."

"Say you'll join us, Bill girl," Deep Chris said. The band crowded around Bill to either side, posing around him—the backup dancers for the star singer. "You'd be one of us."

"We're already exactly the same," Creggy G said, holding up a mirror so that it reflected his and Bill's faces beside each other. In Bill's human face were two empty white eyes with pinprick pupils and pale blue irises, exactly the same as the eyes of the Sev'ral Timez boys.

He sat up with a gasp, hands flying to his face. There were still green boughs at the edges of his dreaming vision, blending into the wooden boards of the Mystery Shack's attic. Before sleep had fully fled his mind, he seized up the zodiac blanket draped over his body and stared into his embroidered eye.

The eye stared back at him. Through it, he could see his horrified sleepy face, and his normal slitted yellow eyes. His connection to the blanket's eye disappeared as he finished waking up.

He heaved a sigh of relief and flopped back down. He'd been lucid, but he hadn't been in control of that dream. He still needed practice.

He rolled toward the light of the window, groped around beneath it until he found his journal, grabbed up his crayons, and flipped pages blearily until he found the first blank one. He started writing down his dream, pausing only briefly as he tried to figure out how to translate "Sev'ral Timez" before settling on a sufficiently goofy way to misspell "several times" in Plaintext.

He made it halfway down the page before he stopped. Hold on. This wasn't his beautiful journal. These were not his beautiful crayons. He checked the cover and grimaced in displeasure when he saw a pine tree rather than a hand. Dipper's journal. Bill ripped out the page, ate it, and set the journal and Mabel's crayons back on the table  under the bedroom window.

"What was that," Dipper asked, "some kind of Morse code?"

Bill yelped and twisted around. Dipper's soul was hovering above Mabel's headboard, watching over Bill's shoulder.

"Hey! Back, foul ghost!" Bill snatched up Mabel's pillow and swung it at Dipper.

"Ow—Hey! How did you hit me, I'm in the mindscape—"

"I said back!" Bill swung again, chasing Dipper off the bed. "Back into your fleshy tomb!" He climbed off the bed, stumbled into Dipper and Mabel's trap, tripped through the sheet and probably woke up half the house.

He yanked the sheet off and flung the pillow at Dipper by its corner. "Now get back in your body, go to sleep, and leave me alone."

"I don't know how to get back in it. I just wait until it happens by itself," Dipper said, floating irritably over his sleeping body, arms crossed. "Why do you think I just wander around every time I have this dream?" He paused. "Right—it's not a dream, is it."

Bill sighed heavily. "Try putting your body on like..." He almost said like an exoskeleton, remembered his audience, and amended himself: "Like it's clothing. I usually start with the hands. Just like putting on gloves!"

Dipper looked at the cold fingers wrapped tightly around the baseball bat. "How do I put hands on like gloves? There's no opening or—"

"Just try it, would you?" Bill sat tiredly on the edge of Mabel's bed.

Dipper shot him an irritated look, but pressed his ghostly hands against his fleshly ones, passing through the skin until one set of fingers rested inside the other. A fingertip twitched. 

Bill gestured with one hand, continue. "Now the sleeves."

"I know how to get dressed." Dipper laid down in his body, forearm into forearm, shoulder into shoulder—until he was wholly back inside. He sat up, awake. "Huh."

"There, see?" Bill said. "And if you want to take it back off, just do the same thing in reverse. Like degloving your body from your soul!"

"Did you have to phrase it like that?" Still, Dipper tried it, peeling out of his body from the fingertips up. He left his body sitting upright as he hovered over it.

Bill chuckled tiredly. "Lookit your face, staring at nothing. Stupid looking."

"Shut up." He slid back into his body, more quickly now that he knew what he was doing.

"Great," Bill said. "Now that you know how to get back in your body, never do that again." He flopped back onto Mabel's bed and rolled over to face the wall. "It's a pain in my base having you wander around all night."

"Then you should've thought of that before you ripped my soul out of my body," Dipper grumbled. "Can you reattach me to my body?"

"Sure, easy." He lifted a hand to point down at his regrettably human form. "Not like this, though. Wanna help reattach me to my body?"

"Never in a million years."

"Then come back in a million years. There's nothing I can do for you until then." Bill dragged Mabel's zodiac blanket back over himself. "So sorry. Go to sleep. Leave me alone."

Dipper bet Bill could do it and was only saying he couldn't to try to trick Dipper into helping him. But he lay back down—clutching his bat again—and shut his eyes.

After a moment, Bill asked, "Where's Mabel? Sleepover?"

"Sofa bed in the living room."

"Right."

And then there was silence.

Several minutes passed. Dipper nearly fell back asleep. He heard Bill climbing out of bed and creeping across the room; but the footsteps didn't approach Dipper's bed, so he didn't open his eyes.

A few minutes after that, Dipper heard him come back, walking more heavily. He cracked open an eye to see what Bill was up to.

He was carrying Mabel, who was still asleep; his arms were trembling from her weight, but even at that Dipper hadn't known Bill was that strong. With a quiet grunt, he set her on her bed, then haphazardly tossed her sheet and zodiac blanket over her. He picked up his top hat from the bed and put it on; and then he wandered off, footsteps quiet as a ghost, and Dipper heard the creak of the door as he left the bedroom.

That was a lot nicer than Dipper had expected from Bill. Maybe he did care about Mabel in his own way.

Mabel rolled over and latched on to one of her dolls. Dipper shut his eye and fell back asleep.

####

(My favorite part of writing this was Bill dreaming about Sev'ral Timez saying the most absurdly flowery things imaginable. Anyway, let me know what y'all think about this week's chapter! And reminder that I MIGHT skip next week or the week after because the next couple chapters need heavier editing than usual.)

[lucidfairies]

LET'S PLAY

pairing: ghostface!Abby x reader x ghostface!Ellie

synopsis: you've always been afraid of scary movies, but when abby recreates one of her favorites with some help from her best friend... lets just say you face your fears.

warnings: fear kink (?), threesome, pussy eating, strap usage, gendered pet names, double penetration + anal [r! receiving], face riding [e! + r! receiving], scissoring [a + e], very brief gendered talk ("but my sweet girl can take it, can't she?"), unrealistic squirting

wc: 2k

a/n: hi guys! to be fully transparent with you guys, I've been extremely busy over the last couple of weeks and have no chance to write. on top of that I'm extremely under the weather right now, so this is the only Halloween shot I have written. 😭😭 I'm really sorry that it worked out this way, maybe I can finish and post the others later on!

it was halloween. finally halloween. and the conditions were perfect. the dark night sky was filled with grey clouds that stuck out from the moonlight, fog had been gathering all day, so that once trick or treating started for the little kids and partying started for the older kids, it was just right. you had different plans on your mind, though. tonight it would be just you and Abby, with movies, popcorn, and definitely some costumes.

in all honesty, halloween scared you in the slightest. the movies that Abby often wanted to watch were gruesome, and you wound up with your hands over your eyes, merely listening to the shrieks and stabbings. abby loved it, though, so you found it in your heart to get over it.

that fear, however, resurrected itself when the clock passed eleven, knowing she was supposed to be home at nine-thirty. you had texted her a number of times at this point, even called her, with no response. it was more than strange; in all the years you and abby had been together, she had never, ever missed a halloween.

at a certain point you sighed and got off the couch, accepting that she apparently just wasn't coming home. you went down to your room, changing and laying down to sleep. you tossed and turned, not used to a bed without her body in it. after a while, you laid on your back with a huff, grabbing your phone to text her again.

before you could press send, you heard an aggressive jingle of the lock on the front door. it didn't stop, and you were slammed with the feeling that someone was trying to to get in. someone was trying to to get in. a bat hid behind your door, and you ran over to grab it before leaving your bedroom. you looked over your shoulder, into every room, but you didn't see anything. the kitchen was dark once you walked into it, and as you went to flick the lights on, you felt a strong hand on your hip that pulled you back, covering your mouth with their other hand.

the bat was ripped from your hands by a second person, and you screamed, but the hand covering your mouth was gloved and masked the sound. you could feel the captors heart beating and their chest rise and fall.

“sorry I'm late,”

it was abby. abby who followed you through your house and abby whose hand was over your mouth. the lights flicked on and you were faced with a different person, dressed in a ghost face mask and it's matching rags. you pushed out of abby's grip and turned to face her, realizing that she also had a mask on.

“what the fuck abby?” you quietly shrieked. “what was that? you scared me.” the light caught the knife in her hand, and suddenly a pit developed in your stomach. it was fear, flat, undoubtable, fear. “why do you have a knife?” she walked towards you slowly until your back was against the wall.

“don't worry baby, we're just gonna play,” her large body encased you. “you remember ellie, don't you sweet girl?” you nodded slowly, tears welling up in your tear ducts. “my poor baby, don't cry, we're gonna be real nice to you.” when she said that, you finally came to the realization as to what was happening. this is why abby loves the scary movies. she likes the control; the fear. you relaxed. “do you trust me, pretty girl?” you looked at her through the mask and nodded slowly. “do you trust me to not hurt you?” you nodded again.

“let's play then, baby.”

that's how you ended up here, on your back, with ellie on your face and abby between your legs. ellie had a hand in your hair, forcing you to look up at her while you ate her out. she was grinding down on your tongue, chanting your name as she chest rose and fell quickly. she had definitely already come, but she was using you to get off.

abby, however, had a strap buried deep in your cunt. you two hadn't used a strap before, you didn't even know where she got it, all you knew and could think about was how much she was filling you. the mask was still covering her face, but you almost got off to it. she had your legs pushed up to your chest, drilling her hips into your ass over and over, going even after your orgasm had lit up your body.

finally she let up, but you knew you weren’t even close to done. ellie got off your face and they both looked at each other, as if they were coming to a conclusion by just looking at each other, then they both looked over at you. abby discarded her mask and tossed it into the pile of clothes, loosening the harness from her hips and throwing it along with everything else. “get up,” ellie said, replacing you as you stood up. “sit on my face, sweets. face abby like the pretty thing you are.” the position was weird, but somehow it worked. you were backwards on ellie’s face, but her skilled tongue still managed to find everything you needed just right.

abby lifted ellie’s leg up, shifting herself between her lifted leg and her dripping center, rolling her hips down until they were both moaning. with the hand that wasn’t keeping ellie’s leg steady, abby grabbed you by the throat and brought your lips to hers, moaning into your mouth as your tongues met. ellie was so good at eating pussy, you almost didn’t want to pick between her and abby. maybe tonight meant that you could have both of them whenever you wanted.

ellie fucked you with her tongue while her thumb found your clit, spreading your wetness and her saliva over it and rubbing in rhythmic, slow circles. you were all but pushing all your weight onto abby, who was still riding ellie’s pussy. now, though, her head was back, neck exposed. you regained your headspace slightly, just enough to run your lips along her neck and suck. your lips traveled to her tits, marking her in a way you hadn’t before.

you stopped as soon as you felt your orgasm building quickly, instead opting for your previous option of grabbing her for support. it seemed as if you both were in the same boat, because her face scrunched up in focus, like it did every time she came. your head was on her shoulder as you came, whimpering at just how good it felt. ellie didn’t let a drop miss her tongue.

abby stood up, and you zoned in on how both of their pussies were covered in each other’s cum. your pupils were wide, your mouth was basically hanging open with drool. abby looked at you and chuckled. “wanna clean me up, sweetheart?” you got up from the bed and kneeled in front of her, assuming that’s what she wanted you to do, and waited for her to spread her legs. she leaned against the wall and propped her leg up on your shoulder, letting you lap at her until everything was gone. it tasted so good, so much like abby with a hint of ellie. it was the perfect blend.

though you wanted to lick up ellie too, she had already cleaned off with a bed sheet. “I have one more thing to try, if you’re up for it, baby.” you nodded profusely, and both girls looked at each other with a smirk. “get on the edge of the bed in doggy.” you did as told, putting your knees on the edge of the bed and arching your back so that your face was in the comforter. “good girl,” abby cooed, reaching down to pick up her harness and clip it on again. ellie also pulled one out from the jumble of clothes, and you wondered where hers was going to go. in the bedside drawer, abby pulled out a small bottle of lube, which she must have snuck in at some point earlier in the day to prepare.

earlier, when all of this started, you didn’t need lube, so you couldn’t understand what that was for. until both girls walked behind you. you felt the tip of one of their straps rubbing against your ass and you leaped forward, ill prepared. “this is gonna be a big stretch, baby, but my sweet girl can take it, can’t she?” you hummed at abby’s words, sucking in a harsh breath as her strap entered a new place. it was certainly different, but it felt so good. it was just the stretch you wanted, and it got even better when you felt ellie running the tip of her strap up and down your folds.

when ellie pushed her strap into you along with abby’s, the earth froze. “fuck, babe, look at your slut,” from what you could see, they were both admiring the way your stretched for them. You weren’t going to deny that it hurt a little, but with the way they were looking at you and the way ellie kept hitting exactly where you needed to plus the stretch of both of them, it made up for the slight discomfort.

once they gained a rhythm, you had them railing you at the same time, strokes hard and fast, with ellie’s large, skinny hands wrapped around your waist to keep you up. your hands grasped the bedsheets tightly, listening to your body as you neared closer and closer to finishing. there was another feeling building, one you hadn’t felt before, but you made an effort to ignore it. The closer you got, the noisier you became, moaning and grunting with every thrust until you were twitching on the edge of release.

the weird feeling that you were ignoring came back hard and fast, sitting somewhere strange in your bladder. it was like the urge to pee, but with some form of pleasure to it. they pulled it out of you with their harshness, making you squirt hard as you finished. you rolled your hips back at how strong your orgasm was, tears running down your face and creating a pool on the comforter.

you felt strangely empty as they both pulled out, unclipping both of their harnesses yet again and tossing them. “you did such a good job angel. let’s get cleaned up.” you all showered together, then abby surprised you with matching pajamas. ellie was packing up her stuff and you frowned.

“stay,” you said, and she looked up at you and smiled. “we can watch a movie. you can leave in the morning. don’t drive home in the dark.” she sat her backpack down and climbed into bed with the both of you. abby rolled over to grab the remote and turned on scream, just for the irony.

taglist: @inukastan1 @elliecoochieeater @pepperflakess @hastasupern0va @jazzys19 @purring4elliewilliams @decaffeinatedclodbagelweasel @lonelyfooryouonly @heyimrye (if your not tagged it said your account did not exist, I apologize)

[tetsumie]

"𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐎 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐘" 𝐏𝐓 𝟐

read part 1 here!

pairing: kuroo x reader & bokuto x reader

genre: hurt/comfort

content: the boys call you clingy but they don’t mean it

a/n: hello ahhh it's been awhile since i've posted but i'm trying to get back into the habit of writing again! someone in my inbox had requested me to add bokuto to this list so i tried my best but i hope you all enjoyed this and feel free to stop by my inbox to leave a comment, tell me your thoughts, or just lmk how it's going hehe :,)

kuroo tetsuro

"i'm home," a mumble echoed out into the empty living room.

at the sound of the door opening, you make your way out of your shared bedroom to greet your overworked boyfriend, kuroo.

"hi baby," you replied with a tired smile on your features.

the door closes and kuroo slides off his slacks, loosens his tie, runs his fingers through his hair, and sighs in exhaustion.

"hey."

"have you eaten dinner yet?" you start to ramble. " i can warm up dinner and we could maybe share a meal together?"

"we haven't spent much time together in a while so you know.. i was just thinking... we could do something small together?"

you continue to ramble about how you spent all evening trying a new recipe you saw on tiktok that really fascinated you.

but kuroo is not having it.

all he wants to do is just go to bed and forget the past couple shitty days he's had at work. today, especially, was stressful considering how nothing had gone his way and the higher ups just wouldn’t stop giving him a hard time.

he kept his frustration, tiredness, anger all bottled up for the past couple days and they were all about to boil out.

on top of that, your constant rambling isn't helping. you keep talking and talking and talking and his mind is beginning to get cloudy and his anger is about to boil over.

his voice rises and he finally speaks, "god y/n.. can you just shut the fuck up and stop being all up in my space? you're so fucking clingy just leave me alone."

oh.

you mouth shuts up mid sentence and you're looking down at your feet, too embarrassed to even look him in the eye after hearing his true feelings.

"sorry, i just wanted to spend some time and talk and relax with you..." your voice goes quiet. "you've been out really late for the past couple days so i was just hoping-"

however, kuroo's outburst isn't over yet. if anything, your little comment voicing your concerns seems to have make him a bit more upset.

"yeah, i've been out late because of how suffocating it is here at home with you. god, it's like you just can't take a fucking hint! just leave me the fuck alone!" he says and your eyes go a bit glassy.

"r-right," you say as you're turning around so he doesn't see the tears forming in your eyes. "sorry, i'll respect your wishes and give you your space."

seeing your hunched figure walking away brought him back to his senses.

what the fuck did i just say to them? oh my god.

"y/n wait i'm sorry-" he begins but is cut off.

"kuroo, i think you've said enough tonight."

the sound of his last name coming out of your mouth leaves a bitter taste in his mouth and he knows he's fucked up immensely. the door to the bedroom closes, indicating that you're clocking out for the night and you can't deal with this conversation any bit longer.

kuroo sits himself on the couch with his head in his hands, shaking his head.

what the hell did i just say to them? it's not even their fault... i just... how the hell do i make it up to them?

kuroo walks to the door and places three subtle knocks on the door, begging for permission to enter. he's greeted with no acknowledgement or response.

he turns the knob and to his surprise it opens. there, he sees you fast alseep in your comforter in a fetal-like position. he goes into the closet, changes into his pajamas, and immediately climbs into bed.

he brings you close to his side of the bed, specifically putting your head on his chest. he begins to stroke your hair and places gentle kisses on your head, mumbling soft "i'm sorry's" and "i love you's."

he's praying to whatever deity out there that this would blow over by tomorrow morning or something.

but kuroo wakes up the next morning to his worst nightmare: you're not in bed with him. he feels his blood run cold and he's running the worst case scenarios in his head.

he rushes out of the bedroom to see that you're nowhere in the apartment. he sees a bright colored post-it note stuck on to the fridge with a note scribbled in your handwriting.

"i'm staying at a friend's house for the next couple of days. i just need time to think for a bit. there's some leftovers from last night in the fridge so make sure you eat those.

love u always, y/n"

kuroo's hands shake as he's holding your post-it note.

of course, they'd leave. i treated them like shit and hurt them so badly of course they want to leave. but even after everything, they still love me… i don’t deserve them.

kuroo begins to spiral and the next couple of days aren't any easy for him.

every attempt at texting or calling you has lead to no response. he goes to sleep without you next to him, holding back tears every time. every morning without fail, he pats the vacancy next to him in hopes that you'll be there but to his demise, every time, you're not. work feels even more lethargic than usual. before, he used to look forward to coming home to you but now you're not even at home so what's the point in even trying. counting down the hours until he gets to leave his cubicle has become futile.

i just really want them back. please come back home.

but when he comes home from a pain achingly long day of work, he doesn't find you and his mood plummets even more.

that is until one day, kuroo is able to leave work early where he comes home and hears the familiar noise of the coffee maker brewing. his eyes shoot up from his slacks to look over at the kitchen where he sees you in all your beauty, fidgeting with the knobs on the coffee machine. your eyes both lock and you immediately look away.

kuroo thought you were gone for good. and the fact that you were only a couple feet away from him made his heart swell and his eyes water. there's so much to say but his not a single word is escaping his mouth.

"you want some coffee? i just started a new batch," you finally say to fill up the silence of the room.

he gulps, "sure yeah."

you grab a coffee cup and pour him a fresh cup of coffee and slide it to him across the kitchen counter, avoiding getting too close to him.

too nervous to even touch his drink, he begins to address the elephant in the room, "y/n, i'm so sorry for what i said that night. i had no right to speak to you in the manner."

"it's okay," you say in a curt manner. "i get it."

he shakes his head and tries to get closer to you to convey his feelings but is stopped when he sees you take a step back. his heart cracks.

"no it's not okay sweetheart. i've been so busy with work and i just got super overwhelmed with everything and-"

"kuroo, you know you don't have to make any excuses right?" you interrupt his train of thought.

he's confused now. "excuses? y/n what are you even talking about- "

"just end it with me already... i know you want to," you say, looking down at the fresh cup of coffee in your hands. "you made that very clear."

his world freezes.

the world becomes completely silent.

his mouth is slightly open, caught off guard. he doesn't know what to say.

however, you interpret his silence as him putting down the excuses finally and admitting that he doesn't want to put effort into this relationship with you anymore.

hell, he doesn’t even want this relationship with you anymore.

"right, if you won't i will so it's easier for the both of us. i think we should-"

"don't you dare finish that fucking sentence," he moves close to you all of a sudden and his familiar lingering cheap cologne smell takes up your senses. the gears begin to click in his head before you can respond to him.

kuroo's arms envelop you in his embrace. "i want you. only you. i'm sorry i made you think otherwise."

the tears you've been holding back for the past couple minutes standing in front of him overflow and you feel like the world is about to end.

you push kuroo off you slightly. "i know you've been busy with work and i just wanted to spend some time with you. i never meant to come off as clingy but clearly you thought so so-"

"i'm just a complete douche,” he interrupts. “you were trying to help me out and make me feel better and i was so caught up with work, i couldn't appreciate that."

"i never want to ever make you feel that way again. you never deserved to hear any of that from me and everything i said couldn't be far from the truth. your presence has never been a bother and if anything, coming home to you is the best part of my day.”

“i shouldn't have let my emotions get the best of me and i'm so sorry that it did and that i hurt you in the process. i hate that i’m the reason behind your tears and i’ll do everything to make it up to you to show you how much i love you."

the tears from your eyes continue to flow and he delicately wipes every single one from your eyes kissing your cheek every time without fail.

"are you sure you don’t find me suffocating? you said that you hated being home with me though so i just thought-" you start to say.

"i will spend my entire life reassuring you that it isn’t true. i promise you are never suffocating me and your presence never fails to make me feel better on a shitty day. i will do anything to regain your trust and faith in me,” he adamantly speaks with his hands in yours.

hearing his determined resolve, the tears flow even more.

"i love you so much, tetsu."

"i love you too baby," he smiles and delicately kisses your lips. "now let's go out. how do you feel about going out for dinner? i’ve got a lot of making up to you to do."

"i'll never say no to that."

bokuto koutaro

the msby jackals lost 2-0 sets and the entire team was taking the loss hard but no one as hard as bokuto.

"bokuto-san, what do you think went wrong today's game?" an interviewer asks with his notepad out, scribbling notes.

"er, uh, well, today was just a rough day and i had a tough time keeping up with the opponent's plays today... it just was not a good day."

"i have one more question," the interviewer asks.

"go ahead," he gruffs out.

"you are known for your infamous line shots especially during deciding moments of the game. you missed multiple of these shots during today's game. were you distracted during this game? is it because of your new relationship status or were-"

bokuto is now riled up. who the hell does this interviewer think he is to corner me and bring in my personal life???

"i'm leaving, fuck this shit," he spits out, trying his best to maintain his composure.

in frustration, bokuto storms out of the press conference room, slamming the double doors, heading towards the locker room to grab his stuff but is stopped by you, running after him.

"kou! wait up!" you say from a distance and he stops in his tracks to look at you. he's still internally raging from the provocative behavior of that interviewer and he feels like he just might lose it.

"what do you want," he says in an aggressive manner that catches you off guard.

you’re aware of the recent loss of the msby jackals. you know that's probably taking a toll on his confidence as a player so you're trying to be as supportive as you can.

"you wanna come back to my place? i was thinking we could watch that one disney movie you like and we could bake something together too? what do you think?"

"why do you always want to fucking hang out?" he says in the lowest tone of voice you've ever heard from him.

it sends shivers down your spine.

"huh?" you're just confused at this point.

"why are you so fucking clingy all the time? it's always 'kou come over!' or 'kou let's watch a movie!' or 'kou let's take a nap together!' like don't you fucking get that i have a genuine career that i'm working really hard to be successful in?"

so that's what he thinks of me.

"i know you want to be a pro volleyball player and i want to support you the entire way. i was just trying to be there for you and help you relax..." you trail. "i get today was really rough for you.."

"that's the thing you don't get it, y/n!" he says exasperatedly. "if you did want to be supportive for me and my career, then you would stop being so all up on me and give my space!"

he walks into the locker room, slamming the door, shaking you up.

in defeat, you begin to leave the stadium with tears brimming your eyes. as you get in your car, you put your head on the steering wheel and suddenly, the tears start to stream out.

"i'll give him his space. i'll just stop everything. i'm nothing of importance to him or his life so it's best if i just stop." you convince yourself.

bokuto, on the other hand, is in the locker room, holding back tears of frustration as he punched one of the lockers.

fuck, what am i even doing right now...

"bokuto-san! let's head out for the night," shoyo's voice can be heard before he can be seen in the locker room. "we're gonna go get drinks and dinner at that new barbecue place that opened up."

he looks up from the bench and smiles at shoyo along with the rest of his teammates that are nodding along in support.

"yeah, sure. fine with me," kou responds with a small smile on his face.

as bokuto and the rest of the jackals are out and about, he keeps looking at his phone in hopes of getting a message or something from you but you're completely radio silent after the spat between the two of you.

he knows you both had a disagreement but he thought you knew that he was just frustrated and upset with the game. he didn't think it was a reason to just go silent on him.

he sends a text to test the waters.

kou <3: babe, we're good right?

he puts his phone down and engages back in the dinner with the rest of the jackals.

an hour has passed yet still no response. it's starting to make him fidgety so he decides to spam you.

kou <3: hello?

kou <3: baby wya???

kou <3: where is the loml at :((

kou <3: BABYYYYYYY

kou <3: POOKIE PLS TXT ME BACK :(((

y/n is typing...

y/n: sry i was getting ready for bed.

you sounded distant. you clearly were upset but was it still about the argument? c'mon you knew he didn't mean what he said... right?

kou <3: ITS OKAY BABY! can i come over? i wanna spend the night with u :,)

kou <3: i miss you

y/n: maybe not tonight... i think it's best if we're by ourselves for a bit

bokuto's hair significantly drooped down, seeing as how he got rejected to hang out with you for the night.

as bokuto heads over to his apartment for the night, he stares at the bedroom ceiling with his thoughts. he misses laying next to his baby. that's when he starts to replay everything that went down between the two of you.

he genuinely can't figure out what went wrong.

he prays that this whole thing will just blow over by tomorrow because he misses you incredibly and just wants to spend time with you.

unfortunately to his demise, you kept shutting down all of kou's efforts to come over. you refused to pick up his calls, resorting to half assed texts.

this whole argument was festering and bokuto had to fix it immediately.

you, however, want nothing more than to spend time with your boyfriend but his words kept running through your mind on loop. anytime you would be sitting alone with yourself, his words kept playing themselves on loop in your brain, making you overthink the post couple months you’ve spent together.

has he always thought of me as clingy? have i always been a bother to him? have i always been super annoying in his eyes?

that was until you heard a knock on the door.

you open the door and see kou standing there in a hoodie and a pair of khakis with a large bouquet of assorted flowers in his hands. his eyes lock with yours while yours widen in surprise.

"k-kou! what are you doing here?" you say in surprise.

"what, i can't see my partnet now?" he retorts lightheartedly. "let me in."

too stunned to even reject him, your hand inherently finds its way to the knob, widening the door so bokuto can fit through into your apartment.

he tries to hand you the flowers but you stand there, hands refusing to move from their sides. "c'mon babe, i got them for you! do you not like them? man, i knew i should've gotten the roses instead."

"no no! thank you so much kou.. i'm just surprised that you even got this for me..." you trail off looking away from him.

he sets the flowers on the kitchen counter and tilts his head in confusion. "what do you mean, y/n?"

"listen, i know you don't really like spending time with me and that you feel obligated to but honestly, we really don't have to hang out or anything like that," you begin to say. "i know i can be a lot sometimes and i'm really working on trying to give you space."

that's when it all clicks in his head for him.

"baby, is this about what i said that day in the gym?" he questions.

you turn away, refusing to even look him in the eye because you know the moment your eyes lock with his, the tears will start streaming down your face.

"baby, no, please," he goes over to you to give you the warmest yet tightest hug possible. "i’m also a very clingy person so i should've known how much my words must have hurt you. i've been so stupid to not see how badly my words must have impacted you, my love. i'm so so sorry for saying and acting the way i did. it's unexcusable."

"no kou it's fine i just-" you say but are interrupted midsentence.

"no, y/n it's not," he says, tears brimming his eyes ever since coming to terms with how hurt you must've been feeling this entire time. "i'll do anything to get your forgiveness and for us to just... be close again. i'll do anything, i mean it."

tears are streaming down both your faces and you can't help but form a wobbly smile on your lips. "pinky promise?"

"pinky promise," kou says as he locks pinkies with you and kisses the top of your head. "now let's cuddle because i've missed being near the love of my life."

© tetsumie 2024 all rights reserved 

[wosofutbolfan]

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

Alexia Putellas x Explorer!R

8.5k Fluff, Fun, Minor Angst

Hi Guys,

This is pt4. in the 'I Would Climb Every Mountain With You" otherwise known as Explorer!R Universe. TW: description of killing an animal.

Highly recommend you read those 3 first, as this is entrenched in lore. Pt 1 can be found here.

It's developed from an ask I received from @karsonromanoff so thank you so much for the idea! I hope I did it justice and I'm sorry for the delay and the words. ha.

This is the first time I've written since my dad died. I'm not being emo or heavy about it but I am asking to please, be kind. I know there's nice people out there but often they're drowned out by the loud haters.

So throw us a comment, like or reblog if you enjoyed. I'm just trying to get back into something that brought me joy. I know I enjoyed writing it.

Also, may be weird for a fic about a spanish gay footballer, but you probably need a good working knowledge of Bear Grylls to understand 80% of this. ha.

As has become tradition, here's the song running though my head when writing! Yes, my music taste remains to be that of someone born in 1962. God love Helen Reddy.

“Vamos Ale! I don’t like to make Miguel wait…” you shout from the kitchen, bag resting on the countertop as you try to fix your bracelet with your left hand,

“Deja de preocuparte, a él no le importa, I will be one minute…” you head called back from the bedroom where your wife had been getting dressed for 2 hours now.

Yes.

Your wife.

Sometimes you couldn’t believe it.

Sometimes the weight of the band on your finger catches you by surprise and you’d remember.

Sometimes Alexia would place her hand on your bare thigh and you could feel the cool metal on your skin and you’d remember.

Sometimes you’d get called “Mrs Putellas” at a school talk, or at the Doctors, and you’d remember.

It felt so natural that sometimes you’d forget that you weren’t always Alexia's wife.

But now you are. And had been for almost 6 months. And married life couldn’t have suited you more.

Your wedding ring was your new favourite accessory, you never took it off.

In a fire you would save Alexia and your ring.

Maybe even your ring first.

It was embossed with the imprint of grass that Alexia has been collecting from each pitch of each game she had played in since you had met. The intricate design brought tears to your eyes as soon as you saw it. Made even worse by the inscription “’cause you are my goal”. 

You would be embarrassed if Alexia hadn’t cried like a toddler when you presented her with the ring you had made for her, which had rock from each of the 7 peaks you had scaled, as well as a granule of sand from the Dead Sea set within it. Integrated into the metal, visible but smooth to the touch. 

The inscription 'every mountain high, every valley low' on the inside of the band.

You knew you’d done good and you knew your Ale well enough to anticipate the absolute mess she would be when presented with it, ensuring you had a pocket full of tissues for the inevitable waterfall.

You weren’t wrong.

You had to assure a passing couple on the trail you had chosen that she was fine, not having a medical incident and you were definitely not mid break-up but in fact exchanging wedding bands early because you knew your fiance well enough she didn’t need her teammates to witness this much of her soft side.

Though you tried, they still saw enough on your wedding day to tease her for the last 6 months with no sign of slowing down.

Though right now your wife's behaviour was nothing but unexpected. You had agreed to attend one of Alexia's events this evening. Since getting married you had felt more of a duty to attend and make up for the years you’d left her carrying her own handbag whilst you trotted over mountains on the other side of the world. 

She insisted that you didn’t have to. Like she always did. You weren’t one for the fancy dresses and the flashing cameras. But you saw the gleam of hope in her eyes as she insisted she would be fine on her own.

You couldn’t let that sparkle dim.

Also you had to set off for a camp in a few days and you had gotten seriously stuck in the honeymoon phase meaning that an evening without your wife by your side wasn’t something you could stomach.

Not that you would admit to being so clingy.

But it wasn’t like Ale to take so long to get ready, neither of you being particularly fussy, usually she would throw on some light makeup, smack your bum whilst you ate nutella off a knife under the hob light, procrastinating getting ready until she dragged you and dropped you into the ensuite, steal a kiss and a spray of perfume, and wait for you whilst watching old football clips in the living room.

But now, as you still struggled to attach the clasp of your bracelet and you had one eye on the poor Barca driver, Miguel, waiting in your driveway, you started to grow frustrated at your wife's sudden vanity.

You smelt her perfume invading your senses as you felt her arms envelope you from behind, moving your uncoordinated left hand away and easily attaching the clasp of your bracelet for you, pressing a kiss to your neck as she did so.

“Finalmente… Let’s g-...” you spoke as you turned in her embrace, finally taking in her attire which stopped you in your tracks.

“Boobs”

You had suddenly turned into a 14 year old boy and you couldn’t explain it.

You had seen your wife naked hundreds of times.

Hundreds of fantastic times.

But here she stood looking, regal. Her hair falling lightly over her face, her dark sparkly dress with wide shoulders and only what you could describe as a boob portal you had been rendered speechless. Mouth gaping open like a fish.

“...Amor?...” you heard the delight in her voice. “Are you listening to me… my eyes are up here.” she jokingly clicked her fingers in front of your face which took you out of your breast-inspired trance.

“Ale you are so beautiful” you looked deeply into her eyes but you didn’t miss the blush rising from her neck. And you meant it. She was. Wow. 

“Do you like it?” she asked, shyly, “You don’t think it’s too much? It’s just the first event we’ve gone to together since we got married and I wanted to…”

You interrupt her but pressing a kiss to her lips, and, well, if you slipped a little tongue in there then fine. She was your wife after all.

“What? Show the world what they're missing out on? I am so proud to stand by your side, my love.” you whispered into her lips, as you toyed with her wedding band. 

You couldn’t help yourself…”and your boobs are fantastic.” 

She barked out a laugh as you leaned back into where you left off, but she took a step back, her heel clicking against the tile floor, to which you let out an annoyed grumble.

“Oi Oi, Mi Amor. What about poor Miguel, he is waiting, Si?” she teased.

“He doesn’t care… Cálla y bésame.”

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You took a deep breath and leaned back on your chair at the round table you found yourself at. Alexia had been pulled from your side which she had stuck to like glue all evening,  to go and present the final award of the evening which she had just done, very sexily if you do say so yourself. All confident and boob-y.

You smiled, imagining her now making small talk backstage, eyes bored but a smile plastered on her face as she tried to make her way back to your table.

Your other table-mates seemed to take the opportunity of the break in the ceremony to raid the free bar put on by the charity. Which seemed very uncharitable of them. But, as you toyed with the rim of your glass, who were you to judge?

Stomach full from a mediocre-mass produced meal and head happily fuzzy from the bubbles you had consumed you found yourself oddly satisfied as you sat here. In this conference room-turned auditorium in the middle of Barcelona, here, loudly and proudly as Alexia's wife.

Mrs Putellas.

You couldn’t help but smile to yourself, you felt weirdly grown-up. With your wife, your house, and your business. You blinked and missed yourself becoming so settled and for once in your life you weren’t terrified of the idea.

You saw the glint in Alexia's eye. When Irene and her wife would come round for dinner and bring their kid. She’d surrender all hostess duties and sit on the living room floor, crawling around at the beck and call of whatever imaginary game the 5 year old insisted on. You’d seen her perfect her lion roar in that very spot. It probably matched the glint in yours when you were grocery shopping and a child being pushed in a trolley would go past shoving cookies into the trolley without their Mother seeing.

Maybe, you thought, maybe it was time…

“It is you! I am so sorry to interrupt. I had to come over to introduce myself. I am such a fan…”

You glanced around, expecting Alexia to be standing over your shoulder and smiling politely at the person who had approached your table to meet her… but you were met with blank space and then you engaged your silly brain and realised the person was speaking English and looking at you and…

Oh My God.

It’s Bear Grylls.

“Oh My God. You’re Bear Grylls.” 

You let out. 

Stupidly.

Standing and thrusting your hand out like an idiot to your legitimate childhood hero.

You and your brother would watch his series for hours as children. Sat cross-legged 2 inches from the TV on your living room floor, eating up every second of his adventures. Your mum had to stop you from eating a woodlouse once in your garden because you’d seen him eat a cricket in the Amazon the evening before. Your brother smacked upside the head for trying to drink a cup of his own wee for the same reason.

Now you were a well-seasoned adventurer yourself you knew that all of that was for theatricks. 

You had spent more than 7 weeks wandering the Amazon yourself once, and not one drop of urine passed your lips. Not one 8 legged insect had you gulped down in one.

But still.

Hero.

He took your hand graciously, as you both sat back down you prepared to barrage him with questions but before you could he jumped right in…

“I have been wanting to meet you for years. But my team said you had disappeared off to Spain and couldn’t be tracked down. Please, I've been desperate to know. .. Tell me all about summiting Orjas del Salado…”

So you told him, and you asked him about his adventures, and you chatted for what could have been hours, sharing stories and advice with Bear-fucking-Grylls.

He blushed as you pointed out his for-TV tricks and you thanked him for being a portal into the wider world from your living room.

At some point you felt Alexia return, a strong hand on your shoulder. You paused your monologue about Patagonia and giddily took her hand in yours, introducing them to each other. 

Polite pleasantries exchanged you could tell she had legitimately no idea what was going on or who this middle-aged English guy at your table was, but judging from your excited eyes, she didn’t need to interrupt.

It didn’t take too long for someone from his team to pull him away for an interview with the charity. But as you stood to say your goodbyes he made an offer, “You know, me and the production company are making a special about survival in the Alps… I would love for you to be a guest star.”

You stood there like a gaping fish for a moment. “Really?” you asked, in wonder, your 7 year old self spinning around in glee in your chest. Alexia smiling up at you from her chair at the joy in your voice.

“Of course! I would be honored, it’s especially about how to survive in an Avalanche situation. Obviously, with what happened in Nepal…you are an expert in that fie…”

At that point, Alexia stopped her polite silence she had been maintaining whilst you had your moment with your childhood hero. And abruptly stood, clutching your hand hard in both of hers, stern look on her face.

“No.”

From the look on his face you gathered that this successful upper-middle class white English man had not been told no too often, and a beat of silence followed which Alexia was more than happy to fill.

“Sorry Señor Oso. She doesn’t do snow now. Thank you for the offer though.”

She said it with such finality that even you didn’t think to question it. Her mis-translation brought a smile to your face. Her hands still encompassed yours, her eyes didn’t leave his face. As though daring him to rebuff her.

He looked at you as though to confirm she could answer for you. Of course she could. But you knew this refusal wasn’t just about you, but about her also. You knew the anxiety it would cause her for you to put yourself in that situation wasn’t worth anything on this planet.

Nevermind the trauma it would dredge up for you. So obviously, you agreed.

“Sorry Mr Grylls. Not my rodeo anymore. I’ve got some contacts though who you could work with” you politely confirmed your refusal and felt Alexias hands lessen their grip on yours in relief.

“No, no, of course. Sorry. But no. I would really love for you to be involved in the series. We have an episode about promoting women in outdoor pursuits. It's still on the drawing board, but if you are interested I’ll get our people to liaise with each other!”

“That sounds amazing but… I don’t have any people for you to…”

“Don’t be silly Mi Amor” Alexia interrupts again, hand still in yours and the other expertly reaching into her clutch and pushing a card into his outstretched hand… “We have people. Please, Oso, be in touch.”

Smiling vaguely and confusedly at your wife, still clearly mildly terrified of her, he takes the card as he's dragged away by his handler. He's probably still in hearing distance as you squeal in glee and throw yourself into your wife's arms, making her spin with the momentum.

“Ale, Ale, Ale!!! Do you know who that was….” you exclaim.

She can’t help but laugh aloud at your antics, soft look on her face as she lifts you lightly off the ground to stop your spin.

“Si Mi Amor, ese era el hombre oso de la televisión. Tu favorito.” she replies with a smile on her face, speaking softly, somehow, in the middle of this event where she was the guest star, making you feel as though you were the only person in the universe.

“No.” you corrected “..eres mi favorito.” You sealed your words with a light kiss to her lips, chaste but warm.

“Ah, Si. And you have had some wine. You always get soft after wine.” she lightly rolls her eyes with affection at your gushing over her.

It’s your turn to roll your eyes as you pull her into a soft sway, your childhood hero quickly forgotten now you’re in the company of your wife.

Though the giddiness in your bones from your encounter remains.

“Si the wine.” you agree moving your lips close to her ear as you whisper, breath dancing against her cheek, your hand moves to her chest and you feel her breath falter at your closeness,

“but also your boobs.” and you quickly poke her exposed chest between her breasts before she can stop you, and you move away from her pulling her behind you as you rush off to the bar.

“Amor!” she cackles.

“Vamos Ale! A La Barra!”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Estoy Muerta.”

You grumble in complaint into the chest of the warm and moving pillow that you had clearly settled on in the night.

“Shh Ale.”

“Me estoy muriendo y a mi esposa no le importa.”

“You are not dying Ale. You are hungover and over 30”, you mumble in reply, moving away from resting on her chest, the heat becoming too much for your own fuzzy brain.

“Explain to me how that is different.” she doesn’t take kindly to your light chuckle in reply, as you move your hand to cover your eyes from the sunlight starting to bleed through the curtains.

You peek an eye open and see the remnants of your previous night strewn across the bedroom floor.

You take in the glorious dress of your wifes thrown across your chest of drawers. You recall unzipping it with your mouth after making very good use of the boob portal. Much to Alexia's delight.

You had probably taken it a little bit too far at the bar. Your giddiness let your binge-drinking brit out a little too much.

You had a flash of memory at dancing on a table at a dive bar in the town centre, before being brought down by Alba who you had called and demanded come and dance the night away.

Meanwhile Alexia had been in the corner trying to drunkenly explain to Mapi a set of complicated tactics that they should try out at an additional training session in the morning.

“I thought you had scheduled extra training today Ale” you teased after taking in her pasty complexion as you rolled over and settled back down onto your, cooler, side of the bed.

“I hate you.” she replied, quite seriously, as she moulded herself against your back, taking your hand in hers and burying her face into the back of your neck.

“Of course you do, dear, it feels like it.” you tease again, wiggling yourself and making her grumble again.

You rest there for a few moments, before you’re dragged onto your back again and pulled into Alexia's embrace as she moves you around like her own personal teddy bear.

You go with the flow, quite used to your wife's clingy nature, especially when she didn't feel well.

But your silence doesn’t last two minutes before she rolls you over again, now onto your back, “Oh bloody hell, where are we going now.” you mumble, as she rests her head on your chest this time, nuzzling into your breasts.

“me estoy poniendo cómodo.” she mutters into your bosom, “allá. ahora estoy cómodo”. You run your hands through her hair, smiling down at your wife who is practically purring at the attention.

“Bebé…”, you make a noise of affirmation.

“Will you…” you know what she wants, and you know she must be feeling bad if she’s asking for attention.

“Si, my love. voy a trenzar tu cabello. One big plait or lots of little ones?”. 

“The tingly ones por favor” she mumbles into your chest. Your heart expands at her adorableness, never quite learning the English for ‘french plait’ they became known as the ‘tingly ones’ in your household, because of the feeling she would get as you plaited her wet hair after a game, hands working through her scalp. 

It brings a smile to your face and you can see the lovesick smile on hers where it is squished against your chest.

You start to section out her hair as she lies still, your ministrations slowly putting her to sleep, working methodically in the quiet morning.

Moving strand over strand in intricate braids, lightly tugging her scalp and undoing when it's not perfect and redoing, giving her an extra scratch to the soft skin behind her ear when you get there, knowing it's her most sensitive spot. Receiving a sleepy purr in satisfaction as your reward.

You hear the animals from the national park outside, feel the sun starting to warm the room around you. Her chest rising and falling against yours hypnotising you further into the moment. You’ve got grand plans, brunch and a walk along the beach in your mind, maybe a lazy afternoon swim, hold on no. Maybe a lazy afternoon skinny dip. Yeah.

That sounds good.

You’ve almost finished tying off the last plait when you are startled back into the moment by the buzzing of your wifes phone on the bedslide table.

You fight back a smile at the groan that is emitted from your fully grown-pro-athlete-wife.  It resembled that of a teenager who’d been asked to clean their room or no dessert. When she doesn’t go to make a move you nudge her shoulder.

“Ale. Ale, your phone."

“No.”

“Yes."

“No."

“C'mon Ale.” you reach across and pick the phone up. “It could be important. It could be your secret wife wondering where you are.”

She rolls off you at your tease, throwing you a glare that resembles more of an angry kitten than anything, “It could not be, she knows where I am. I snuck out whilst you were dancing on the tables in that last bar to make plans for dinner.”

“Ah, Si of course. My mistake.”

She surges up and gives you a completely unnecessary chaste kiss, as though even the joke is too much and she has to confirm she’s kidding. The phone has stopped vibrating against the bedside table and the silence that settles over you both is welcome.

“How are you so okay? I feel like I have been run over by a truck.” she states as she rubs her face, finally sitting up to start the day.

“You are old.

“I am 2 months older than you.”

“Two, very long, months my darling.” you tap her cheek lightly as you move to get out of bed, throwing on one of her oversized t-shirts you find on the floor.

“Seria, how?” she asks again, now sprawling across the space you have vacated.

“I am English. I once did a vodka shot through my eyeball in the park. I was 14.” you state, plainley, eyebrow raised in challenge as she just looks at you, open mouthed.

“Ojalá no hubiera preguntado.” she mutters, as her phone starts to ring again.

“Ale, phone.” you say, just to annoy her.

“¡lo sé!” you hear thrown at you, as you head downstairs to set some food out for Billy-the-Goat, and make a coffee for your dying wife.

Soon after, you feel her presence behind you as you stir her coffee, turning as you feel her hands wrap around your waist and presenting her coffee and she takes it from you as though it's a ballon d’or. She takes a sip before she presses a kiss to your head.

“That was my agent.”

Your heart drops, and you can’t help the petulant whine that leaves your lips.

“No, Ale! I wanted to spend the day together. Try that new brunch place Alba told us about. Have a swim, just be together. Whatever brand needs you can wait. Tell them no, please” you finish your little monologue with a pout, and you feel a childish frustration rise as a laugh teases against her lips.  You don’t get very far when a kiss is pressed against your lips.

“Well that sounds like the perfect hangover cure Mi Amor. Do you not want me to tell you what it is before I tell them no though?” there's something in her taunt, a glint in the eye that makes you think twice as your mouth already wraps around the refusal.

You take a moment too long apparently, and she takes things into her own hands as she clutches her coffee happily and spins around, “I’ll tell them no! Don’t worry Mi Amor…” teasing lilt in her tone. Whatever the news is, it has pulled her from her hangover.

You wait a beat

Another.

“Fine, What is it!” you groan out in defeat, hands raised to the sky, Alexias t-shirt riding high on your thighs as you raise your arms.

Your wife turns and is distracted momentarily by the flesh on display. Before you cough and she remembers what she's supposed to be doing. Coy smile on her face returning.

“That was my agent…” you huff out at her drawing out the anticipation. “Or should I say our agent.” your brow furrows in confusion as she continues… “she has been contacted by a muy interesado oso.”

Realisation starts to dawn on you, memories of the previous night flashing in your mind and you can’t help the grin that forms.

“Si, Mi Amor. It turns out he really meant it. She said they were willing to offer anything to get you on. She’s getting the details now and will contact us again after our day together today to see if you are interested”.

“I am interested!” you exclaim with glee, Alexia throwing her head back in laughter.

“I know Amor, but let's let them sell it to you. You need the details. Though… I am sure it is no more dangerous than ojos de vodka.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hola, love!” you shout into your empty hallway, hands full of groceries, you shuck off your trainers, hearing them thump against the wall as you struggle into the kitchen.

Tonight was the premiere of “Man Vs Woman” , the special episode of your and Bear's adventure. After the offer was made you met with the TV production company via Zoom to go through ideas.

You pretended you didn’t know Alexia was standing just outside the door to your study, listening and clearly deciding if she thought it was too dangerous or not. At least that's what you deduced from her interrupting with a cup of tea every time a particularly hairy idea was mentioned.  

When you brought this up with her you pretended you didn't see her blush creeping up from her neck. Because you’re her wife and it was the wifely thing to do.

The concept was a really cool one. You were excited from the start. The idea was that you and Bear would both be dropped in an inhospitable environment with a map and a knife and nothing else. Neither of you would be told what type of environment but you had assurances in your contract that it wouldn’t involve snow. You had 28 days to get to the muster point. Whoever got there first won.

Simple.

Convincing Alexia it was really cool. Less simple.

“Amor what if there are animals!”

“I know how to avoid dangerous animals. And there will be a medical team on standby,”

“What if you fall and cut yourself on your knife."

“What if you get tackled and break your leg?”

“That's different. What if you lose your map and can’t find your way out and you have to live out there forever”

“I will always find my way back to you.”

“What If-”

“Ale.”

You stopped her rambling with a kiss and when you pulled away you looked deeply in her eyes.

“Que pasa I miss you too much?” eyes wide and vulnerable.

There we go. Her real source of anxiety.

You had spent more time apart than most couples but since you scaled down your travels you had fallen into a sweet domesticity you could admit was a struggle to pull yourself from. 28 days plus the week before to get to the location is longer than you’d like. But it was an adventure of a lifetime. Maybe… maybe your last adventure? The thoughts had been creeping in more and more recently.

Of early mornings chasing more than sunrises, maybe rising due to a baby's babble instead?

You’d made sure that Alexia really knew how much you’d miss her the night before you flew out. On reflection maybe you should have rested your muscles a little more before such a physically demanding month but. Be serious. Look who your wife was. 

You are not God's strongest soldier.

So, off you had gone. Competing against your childhood hero for all of womanhood. And you couldn’t lie. You loved it.

Being blindfolded and dropped in an unknown location was exhilarating. Learning the land as you went, with only a map and a knife in hand it was one of the biggest challenges of your life.

The team had made good on their promise and the tropical rainforest you were in couldn’t be further from a snowy mountain range.

You’d refused to let anything slip to Alexia in the 3 months you’d been back. Lips tightly sealed no matter what she tried. You wanted her to be surprised and watch it in real time with you. In all the games you'd attended since you had to deal with an injured Mapi yapping your ear off whilst you tried to concentrate on the game, probing for hints about if you won, what you won, where you were, if you wrestled a snake, how big was the snake you’d wrestled.

“Maria stop with the snake!” you’d finally snapped during the tense quarter final of the Queen's cup.

Which had worked.

For all of two seconds.

“What did the snake taste like?”

You’d originally planned to go home to England with Alexia to watch the premier with your family. But then a schedule mess-up in the league had meant that Ale had to play in a rescheduled game the day after the premier. It just didn’t work for her to come to England.

She insisted you still go, but you refused. You wanted to watch her game. And you knew she’d need you when the show was on. Even if she didn’t know that yet.

You started to unpack your groceries mindlessly, you’d picked some great snacks for the evenings viewing, you suddenly were hit with how suspiciously peaceful your house was, though, you were sure you’d seen Alexia's car in the drive.

“Ale! Love!, ¡Estoy en casa! Come help me unpack!” You shouted into your empty kitchen, back turned to your living room, you had a few hours before the show was on air, “I got that ice-cream you like! I know it gives you a tummy ache sometimes but don’t worry, I'll rub your tummy how you like afte…”

“Amor!”

You turned around at the panic in her voice, “Wha–”

“SURPRISE!”

Ale stood in your living area, face reddening, surrounded by her closest Barca teammates as well as Mario, his ever pregnant wife and his kids, your mum and brother as well as Eli and Alba. Everyone comically in paper party hats and some lop-sided bunting was up above your couch,

“HOPE YOU BEAT THE BEAR SNAKE!” it read, and you immediately knew who was on the decoration committee.

You jumped in surprise, dropping the ice cream and immediately ran into your mum's open arms, “Mum! You’re here!” you squealed into her neck, hiding the tears that had appeared in her presence.

“I am, love. Alexia literally wouldn’t let us refuse the flight. She pretended she didn’t understand English when we tried to at least pay for it. And you know I have a 265 day streak on duolingo but my accent must need work because she didn’t understand my Spanish.”

You pulled yourself from her neck with a wet laugh and transferred yourself into your wifes open and familiar strong arms. “Aleeee” you whined. She knew you meant thank you. And I love you. And you mean the world to me. But you were too British to do that infront of people.

“You need to stop pretending you don’t speak English when you don’t like what you hear.” you muttered without malice after placing a kiss below her ear.

“I know amor. I love you too. And your family needed to be here for your big moment! You couldn’t miss this with them because of me. And then also. Mapi happened and now we’re having a viewing party! There's a cake!”

“And Ice Cream Ale! Don’t worry, I’ve saved it! Though we don’t want your barriga to hu-” Mapi stands the space you'd just vacated holding up the abandoned and slightly battered carton of ice cream. She's stopped from her gleeful teasing by Ingrid covering her entire face with one big palm.

“We wanted to be here to support you.” Ingrid interrupted her girlfriend, addressing you kindly.

“We all did!” you hear from Alba in the back, already tucking into the buffet set up on the coffee table, paper hat skew-whiff on her head. You have never felt so loved. It was perfect.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, when are you going to tell her you’re ready for them?”

You are brought out of your daydream by Ingrid sidling up to you and addressing you with her familiar soft lilt.

“Huh?”

She doesn’t reply vocally, just nods her head towards your wife, who is currently having a very intense game of 2v2 in your garden with 2 of Marios youngest and Mapi.

The kids little legs making them toddle around after the small ball adorably, Mapi and Ale giving soft touches they would easily catch up with.

You can’t help but laugh out loud as Ale takes Mapi by surprise and takes a shot against her hard, the ball catching her bare thigh in a manner which must have left a sting much to the small Spaniard's disdain.

Her and the two kids start to chase Alexia around the garden, dramatically tackling her as she suddenly becomes some sort of football monster, rolling around and blowing raspberries on their stomachs as Mapi cheers her toddler army on from the sidelines.

You feel another knock against your arm, dislodging your hand which is supporting your head as you lean over the breakfast bar facing the garden. Lovesick looks clearly on your face, going off Ingrid's coy smile.

“You know, barn. Kids. Munchkins…”

“Yeah, Yeah I get it Ingrid…” you steal another look outside at your more-often-than-not-stern wife getting grass stains on her comfy shorts for the entertainment of your best friends' kids, suddenly you feel like being really really honest. You turn to Ingrid with a shy smile of your own, “soon.”

Her face lights up, teeth on display unable to disguise her smile. “Yeah?” she asks, before turning to look towards the garden, “Me too.”

You smile to yourself and drop your head onto the dark haired girl's shoulder, you both taking a moment to watch your partners play with the kids. The moment is ruined by your mum mussing up your hair on her way past,

“Come on Love, we need to wrangle these last-minute spaniards, it starts in 10 minutes!”

She had a point to be fair. A very chaotic 8 minutes later you practically push Eli into her seat on the couch after she tries to get another plate full of food for Mario’s wife, “¡Está llena de Eli! ella esta embarazada no tiene hambre!” you cheekily remind her, your wife looking up at you from her place on the floor with tender eyes.

“And you…” you turn your attention towards her as you make your way to your seat, “get up here.” you demand, patting the empty space next to you.

“I’m bueno down here Mi Amor, me and Bruno can watch from down here.” she insists. the 4 year old of Marios nestled on her stomach, her arms wrapped around his sleeping form where he attached himself to her after being forced back inside.

You hesitate for a moment, not watching to make a scene or be too needy in front of all your closest family and friends, but you knew that Ale would need to be within touching distance of you in the next hour. 

You’re about to make your peace with it when Mario glaces your way. You and Mario have worked together for years. Years before you met Ale and the girls.

You’ve battled more than just bears together. Weeks spent isolated in the mountains. And a bond like that means that you can communicate with just a look.

With just that glance he’s up and pulling his toddler into his own burley arms. Bruno remaining in his deep sleep through the change.

“I’ve got el monstruo Ale. Go sit with your wife."

She doesn’t need any more direction, the small interaction is subtle and missed by everyone, except your brother who sends you an exaggerated puppy dog look.

“Fuck off” you throw at him, finger in the air, quickly grabbed by Alexia, “Hey, I thought you wanted me to sit here!” she teases, sending your brother a wink.

“Stop ganging up on me…!” you’re about to protest further before you’re shushed by Mapi, of all people, sitting on the floor between Ingrid's legs who sits on the couch above her. “It's about to start!”

She has a point, a familiar British accent fills the living room, Spanish subtitles appearing on the bottom of the screen for the Spanish contingent. Bear’s voice is as dramatic as ever, long sweeping scenes fill the screen of intense jungle, a crocodile and an action shot of a snake thrown in for good measure.

“Serpiente!” Mapi shouts, pointing at the screen, before Ingrid hushes her and pulls her back against her legs. 

           “We all know by now that humans are masters of the jungle. But the unanswered question remains. Is it the King, or Queen of the Jungle? Find out tonight in Man V Woman.”

The title fills the screen with a dramatic crescendo of music. Your friends and family whooping as though it's the champions league final. Alexia barely contains her excitement next to you. You had been steadfast in your refusal to tell anyone the outcome.

The next shot is a recognisable one, the sound of trees being hacked with a machete accompanies a close up of a muddy puddle set deep in the jungle, until the water is disturbed by a ever-familiar battered boot stomping in the puddle, blaugrana laces pulled tight, as proudly as ever.

This prompts another wild round of jeering from the crowd around you as the camera pans out and reveals your full profile as Alexia places a loving kiss onto your shoulder, “That's my wife!” she shouts, proudly, making you laugh. 

Bear's voice over continues as you pull Alexia's hand into yours, half pulling her on top of you, she gives you a peculiar look, this being more PDA than you would usually allow in front of your English family, but she goes with it, too full of pride to be worried otherwise.

As the voiceover continues, highlights of your career flash across the screen to introduce you to the audience.

Mountains in Peru, Arctic Explorations, Treks across Siberia, all flash across the screen, mixed in with childhood pictures your mum must have supplied painting a picture of your career so far and your expertise in your career.

The music turns more dramatic as you shift uncomfortably, being the only one to realise in the room what's about to happen.

A picture of you smiling with Arjan at the peak of Everest, ice picks raised proudly in the air. You feel Alexia stiffen on your lap, ever so subtly. Stock footage of snow hurling down a mountain as Bear describes the avalanche you got trapped in.

He gives out stats and figures to heighten the drama… “your chance of survival drops 3% every minute you are trapped after the first 15 minutes… being trapped for 2 days… our guest star did the unthinkable…”

The room is bathed in a white light as the screen changes. Camera shaky and audio changing to the shouts and heavy breaths of whoever the body worn camera is strapped too. “Yahām̐, Yahām̐, she is here!”

The camera catches Arjan digging desperately, it's clear now the camera is strapped to a rescuer on the slopes of Everest, the TV production company having access to the footage through a sister company who were filming a documentary about altitude rescue at the time.

It shakes as the man helps dig, grunts of exertion as the spade digs desperately. A flash of colour and your snow suit is revealed, face pressed up against the rock you had found shelter near.

Arjan clears snow from your face desperately and puts his head close to yours, “She’s breathing!” he pulls you up and your hand, satellite phone frozen in place, falls from the side of your ghostly white face as the camera fades out.

The whole segment couldn’t have lasted more than 32 seconds. But it had felt like time had slowed. You could feel from her placement on you that Alexia hadn’t taken a breath. Her eyes remained wide as she stared at the screen.

There was a heaviness in the room around you. 

The voiceover continued, explaining the challenge to the audience but the silence continued. Eli glances at her daughter worriedly, every few seconds.

Just as you thought the tension couldn’t get any more intense… “That's what Alexia looks like when she visits England for Christmas and mum won’t let us put the heating on.” your brother jokes, awkwardly, a crooked smile on his boyish face. 

The room is silent, your mum hiding a smile behind a hand only you notice. He goes to speak again, probably to apologise when-

Alexias' laugh shocks even you, bubbling up from deep within her chest. She closes her eyes, a stray tear escaping at the pressure. Laugh still rumbling deep in her chest, slowly the room joins in, as though they’ve been given permission, and soon your in a choir of laughing spectators, your brother blushing deep red at the attention.

“Thank you�� you mouth to him across the room, as you wrap your hands around your wife, whos body still shakes with the odd giggle.

He tips an imaginary hat at you in return.

Because he is an idiot.

The challenge begins, unhelpfully, with you throwing yourself out of a helicopter into the rainforest, “Oh Dios Mio” she mumbles, heard subtly under Mapis, “Cool!”.

You press your lips against her shoulder again and mutter into her skin; “I am here, I am warm, I am Safe.” Like a mantra, you feel her nod and grip your hand tighter.

The thing about being in the environment completely opposite to an avalanche inducing mountain range, was that it was hot. Hot and wet. The camera follows both you and Bear as you struggle through the elements seperatly, deciding when to camp down and preserve energy and when to try to gain more miles.

Bear goes hard, and Mapi looks up at you aghast as you decide to build a shelter and bunker down for seven days straight. The heat zapping any energy you had.

“What are you doing! It's a race!” she exclaims, to which you laugh and zip your mouth closed with your fingers, cocking an eyebrow at her as she eagerly looks back towards the TV like a small child.

You spend two days collecting water and, seemingly, according to Mapi, wasting time cutting palm leaves and collecting bark to make twine. Meanwhile Bear is hacking down trees, making spears out of sticks and rock and throwing himself at seemingly anything that would give him a bit of protein on the move.

You’ve ridden yourself of most of your clothing due to the heat. Smothering yourself in mud from the riverbank you were camped next to, you explain to the camera its sun-cream qualities and how it’s safer than clothing as it also protects you from dehydration. 

All the while you weave and weave and weave your leaves together, quietly, assuredly.

You explain to the camera; “I am a master weaver. My wife likes it when I plait her hair. Alot. She’s cute. Sorry Ale.” you wink at the camera as your wife groans on your lap and  her teammates start to tease her, “Amor! Why!”

“Now. Let's see how this works!”  you grin and pull up a large basket to the camera.

The screen shows you scantily dressed, boots safely on a rock in the background, in the river, moving twigs into position to make a run for the fish to swim directly into your basket.

You explain the contraception, set some bait and say your goodnights to the camera, crossing your fingers for a full basket in the morning.

Cheerful music begins as the camera fades back into your campfire, fish on a stick roasting and cooking heavenly, your muddied but smiling face coming into view.

“Bear can eat his roaches and drink his wee. I’ll be here with my fish buffet!” You joke, under your shelter, camera panning to tens of fish in your basket waiting to be smoked.

The next scene shows Bear explaining the protein benefits and the unusual flavours of a witchetty grub as he struggles against the rainstorm. 

The music begins to ramp up. Graphics on the screen showing both of your progress. Bear has made much more progress than you. But struggling physically. He’s developed a terrible case of trench foot but was still making steady progress with his machete.

You chose to travel up the river. Walking along its bed you are able to make more direct progress, but it’s more energy draining wading through water. You have, however, had a relatively strong diet over the last 3 weeks.

You’re sitting on the river bed, tending to your basket of smoked fish you’re carrying with you for energy when you suddenly remain completely stock still. Dramatic music begins. Your head raises subtly and then out of nowhere.

“Serpentine!”

A snake strikes at you from the shallows, clearly after your basket, or you, or whatever it can get its fangs in. You react quickly, crouching down to your knees, keeping a low centre of gravity to keep your balance as your right hand reaches into the shallows.

You and the snake strike at the same time, and you throw yourself to the side as you bash a jagged rock against its head.

The next scene shows you taking a mouthful of grilled snake; “Tastes like chicken!” you joke at the camera. Before popping a piece of charred snake skin into your mouth.

You feel Alexia shudder in your arms.

"I'm never kissing you again" she lies.

Mapi slowly turns around, mouth agape, gobsmacked look on her face. “Snake!” she whispers, in disbelief. “You beat a snake!” You can’t help but laugh and lean over to turn her head back to the TV.

“Told you you’d find everything out tonta.”

The map on screen shows the last day of the challenge, Bear's voice over explaining distances to the muster points, as well as geographical challenges. The screen swaps quickly between the two of you, running, climbing and swimming to where you both believed the finish line to be.

You were making good progress, as was Bear.

A close up of a Brazilian flag on the edge of a waterfall.

A close up of you throwing yourself into the river.

Bear gripping a cliff edge and heaving himself up. The camera shows the bottom of the flag pole as he pulls himself up. The camera pans up. And the flagpole is bare.

The screen changes to you.

Standing, still relatively scantily clad in your battered boots, your hiking shorts cut down to short-shorts and thin vest muddied and holey, fish blood staining your arms,holding the flag proudly up in one arm.

The room around you erupts. “She did it!” “¡Jefe de la Jungla!!!!” “I always knew!”, “She killed a snake!”. You find yourself at the bottom of a pile of bodies as Alexia's teammates celebrate in the way they know how. Which is apparently to throw themselves at you in a pile up.

“That's my wife!” Alexia chants proudly from within the pile, laughing gleefully, all earlier angst forgotten.

The screen goes blank, and the image shows you and Bear embracing, laughing as the voiceover continues; “... at least this time. It's a Queen of the jungle… or should I say. La Reina de la Jungla.” Bear quips, as Alexia groans, forever hating her nickname, and the screen cuts to black.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s hours later, many more plates of food, celebration toasts and questions from Mapi about the snake later. That you're finally in the quiet of your bedroom in your wife's arms.

Your mum and brother are set up in the spare rooms and you have all got plans to meet up with the Alexias family at the game tomorrow before going out for a meal.

Your head is settled on her chest as she plays on her phone above you, struggling to calm down from the evening's events, and as usual, struggling to sleep before a game.  You play with her wedding ring on her spare hand. Feeling the cool metal beneath against her warm skin.

You feel her swipe furiously through her phone, getting more agitated as time passes, grumbles that are not-quite words emitting from her chest.

“Hey. Love.” you sit up and pull her phone away. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing.” she replies, bottom lip out in a pout, pulling her phone back into her hand.

“It’s not nothing. Tell me.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Alexia.” you sigh, “We aren't doing this.. What's got you so…” you look down onto her phone and see. Yourself? It's her tiktok open and you see an edit of the show being played over… “Hot Stuff? Ale. What's this?” you glance at the comments section and see a selection from seemingly anon accounts;  

‘I have never understood Alexia more’, ‘I wonder who calls who capi.’ ,‘Capi, your wife's thighs are bigger than yours’.

“Nothing!” she grabs her phone back from your grip… you arch an eyebrow at her which crumbles her resolve in 3…2…

“Fine! It's all over my TikTok.  The comments about you. The fans have made these edits. Of you! All, wet and… muscley and… nearly undressed.”

“And you…don’t… like me wet, and muscled and… naked? Cause, love, I have evidenced otherwis…”

“Shut up! Of course I do but you're mine!”

Oh. Realisation dawns on you and you can’t help but smile.

“Don’t laugh!” she grumbles. “You’re jealous….” you tease in a sing-song voice. “I am not jealous!” she insists, “It's just… tu eres mio! And these people are all looking at you”.

“I am,” you agree, with a smile. “But, love. Try being married to Alexia Putellas. Maybe you’ll keep your shirt on at games now.” you tease, making her smile and roll her eyes.

Eyes softening as you pull her phone from her grip and plug it in for her. Settling back into her chest, nuzzling against the warm skin you find there.

“I am so proud of you.” she whispers into the now dark room, placing a kiss on your head. The moment became more serious and tender.

“I love you” you reply, softly, the moment feels weighted, and you’re not sure what makes you do it. Maybe it's the adrenaline of the evening, having completed your life's ambition, or maybe it's the wine you drank.

Though, really, you know it's because of the images of your lanky wife curling herself onto the rug in the living room because Bruno had decided she was the world's best pillow again. But you can’t stop yourself.

“Ale. I want to have kids with you.”

Her hand stops its movement in your hair and she rushes over to turn the bedside lamp back on.

“Que?” she breathes out. Hands finding their place softly on your cheeks, a look of urgency in her eyes.

“I want us to have kids. Me and you. I want that with you. Is that something you’re ready for?” you whisper, eyes looking deeply into hers.

“En serio?” she asks, as though she's afraid of the answer.

You nod in response. Moving your hand to wipe away the tears that have appeared on her cheeks.

“Sí, Mi Amor. Quiero eso contigo. Mucho.”

You're both smiling too much to kiss, but you make a good go of it anyway. And as you bury yourself into your wife's arms. Hands roaming and adrenaline of a decision made rushing through your body you can't help but think.

This is the beginning of the biggest adventure of your life. 

[evie-sturns]

dreams - Matt Sturniolo

summary: the last thing you expected when you stayed over for the night at your best friend matt's house, was him rubbing himself against the mattress while moaning your name in his sleep, you obviously have to help him out?

contains: wet dream, switch!matt, teasing, fluff.

-----------------------------------------------—————

i've known matt since middle school, hes been my best friend since then. i stay round at his house often, its like my happy place when i get to be around him.

tonight is one of those nights where i stay round at matt's, we just finished watching stranger things season 4 for the 90th time and now we're heading up the stairs to his room.

"that show, is a fucking cinematic master piece." matt scoffs, walking up the stairs close behind me.

"it came out like 2 years ago matt, how are you not sick of it?" i laugh, my brandy melville shorts riding up my ass slightly as i reach the top of the stairs.

"it just never gets old," matt replies, i swing open the door to his bedroom and jump into his silk sheets.

"why does it smell so good in here?" i groan with a grin,

"don'tt lie." matt smiles, "i'm honestly not!! it does smell good for once."

"hey- i am a hygienic man." he points a finger at me before tearing his shirt off from over his head, he sorts through his wardrobe, looking through all the individually folded shirts.

he sets on a blue loose shirt, with the text 'it's been one of those days'

"cute!" i smile at him, he smiles back before jumping into bed beside me, launching me a couple inches into the air.

"matthew!" i hit him playfully, "oops." he teases back.

i lay my head on his chest, matt fidgets with my hair, i slowly drift off to sleep with his long fingers intertwined in my locks.

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

3:38am

my eyes squint open as noises from the other side of the bed fill my ears.

matt is on the edge of the mattress, about 2 feet between us.

"fuck- mfgh, oh--" he moans lightly,

his hips repeatedly thrust into the mattress, his face is buried in the pillow but his hair flops with each thrust.

"y/n- please!" he whines,

my stomach sinks as soon as i hear my name fall from his lips,

was he having a sex dream about me?

i know matt would be embarrassed if he knew i was watching him, but i was kind of.. enjoying this? i've always thought about matt in ways i wouldn't like to admit, but he is hot.

i decide to wake him up, i place my manicured hand on his shoulder. i grip his boney shoulder tight and shake him.

"matt!" i whisper-yell,

his thrusts instantly stop, and his head snaps up. his cheeks are flushed red and his lips are a raw pink.

he looks down at the wet spot on the mattress, then back up at me.

"uh- um yeah? you okay?" matt stutters out, trying to play it off.

"what was that sweetheart?" i whisper, sitting up. matt rolls over onto his back, i take the opportunity which is in front of me and sit up, i straddle his thighs and look down at him

he attempts to string together a coherent sentence, but only random words come out "im sorry- you heard that?" he squeezes out.

i drag my nails over the large tent in his pants

matt squeezes out a loud whimper, "i think i heard something come out of your mouth while you were rubbing yourself on the mattress." i say, my voice soft.

"mm-" matt hums, rubbing his eyes

"i heard.. my name?" i tease, matt covers his face with his hands

"'m sorry- 'm so sorry" matt whines.

"tell me about your dream matt."

he shakes his head, i run my hand over his bulge again and matt starts talking

"you- were saying how- how you needed me, and-and i was fucking you- 'm sorry!" matt says, his voice barely audible and he cuts himself off.

"thats okay baby." i smile, tugging down his waistband.

"please-" matt groans.

"i know." i say, reaching out and grabbing his length. his tip is the same shade as his pink lips and leaking precum, he has veins travelling up his dick.

"you have a pretty dick matt." i tell him, pumping slowly and running a thumb over his slit.

"thank- thank you" matt breathes,

"you want me to ride you matt?" i whisper into his ear, matt nods frantically, i pull my shorts to the side slightly,

"such a whore, dreaming about fucking your best friend." i scoff, scooting up and hovering above his tip. i sink down onto his cock,

i bottom out quickly, the craving for his dick overpowering me. he stretches me well, his tip resting against my cervix.

"matt" i whine, matt lets out loud whimpers as he balls up the sheets in his hands.

"so- tight" matt mumbles, i bounce up and down on his length. "fuck! mfgh" he almost yells,

"you dream about me often matt?" i say with a light moan

"yes- yes!" matt whines, "how often" i press him, "god- every couple days?" he replies.

"i want you to fuck me, can you do that for me?" i whisper, matt nods frantically before flipping us over,

my back hits the mattress, matt doesn't waste time to start thrusting into me, just like how he was into the mattress 10 minutes ago,

his hair bounces on his forehead with each thrust, matt reaches his tattoed arm up to my jaw, forcing me to look up at him.

"im- im close" i warn him,

"i know, 'feel you clenching." matt breathes out,

i clench around him, matt reaches his spare hand down and traces small circles around my sensitive clit.

i feel my orgasm wash over me, my legs shake as i arch my back off the bed, feeling all of my built up pleasure release at once.

matt instantly pulls out and paints my stomach with warm white streaks, he flops down next to me with a groan.

matt pulls me onto his chest, breathing heavily into his ear.

"are you okay?' i ask him with a small giggle,

"more than okay-" matt sighs with a smile.

we lay in silence for a couple minutes before matt breaks it with a muffled laugh

"whats funny matt?" i sigh with a grin, exhausted and fucked out.

"i think if someone told me yesterday that i would be fucking my best friend at 4am tomorrow i would've laughed in their face."

i let out a loud laugh, "thats pretty understandable."

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

@luanetaluenta @sturnsssbow @mattfangirl @luvr4miya @luvtay111 @lolasturniolo @freshloveforthefit @ruedowney @lovingchrissposts @333michelle @h3arts4harry @sonicmacks @jamiesturniolo @chrisstopherfilmed @itzdarling @sturniolo-simp4life @daddyslilchickenfingers2 @recklessmatt @ev3rgreenxtrees @lovergirl4387 @certifiednatelover @solarsturniolo @mattsenthusiast @yomamaslays4lyfe @peachmels @alinaa131 @pepsiluvr0209 @creamoncreamoncream2 @szobofc @mattscoquette @blahbell668 @sturniolo04 @ecilphttlunar @bitchydragonparadise @thematthewlover r @sturni0l0 @ratatioulle @sturnsfav @chrisgetsmewetterxo @mattsonly @justalittle47 @mattsturnioloisbae @sunsetsturniolos @sturniolo04 @similartokayyz

[nariism]

ೃ⁀➷ MY LOVE, MINE ALL MINE ★

a/n: fluff!! neuvillette being a touch starved loser (affectionate) + lots of terms of endearment. happy belated neuvillette day! may all neuvillette wanters be neuvillette havers ≧◡≦

Neuvillette can't stand coming home if not into your arms.

The deafening silence of a sleeping home drives him mad. It used to be welcomed after his terribly loud days. Now only serves to remind him of the millennium he spent alone, of the heartbreak he had to endure with no one to hold him, and of the growing emptiness within his heart long before he knew you.

It's unlike him to come home so late, but duty calls and as the Iudex of Fontaine he must go wherever summoned.

For days he has come home well into the latest hours of the night, sliding off his shoes in the darkness of the hall and allowing the silence to swallow him up whole. Five unbearably long days of missing your smile greeting him at the door, hands all over his face and squeezing his cheeks until he nudges them away in lieu of kissing you hello.

He expects tonight to be the same. It's so late that there was not a single soul wandering the streets of the city, no one awake to witness the very tired, very cranky Chief Justice.

You always find a way to defy his expectations.

The hall is quiet when he cracks open the front door. Crushing loneliness swells in his chest and sinks into the pit of his stomach when he realizes that you must have gone to bed long ago, as anyone sane would do. But then there's a click, followed by a small flame dancing in the dark.

You ignite an array of candles one by one, each additional glow illuminating your beautiful face in warm light. Neuvillette can't stop the hitching of his breath, nor the confusion knitted through his brows.

"What are you doing awake?"

You know he doesn't mean to scold you. Soft laughter fills his ears as you saunter over to him slowly. Realization crashes down on him as you approach, allowing him to see closer what has kept you up.

"Happy birthday, my love."

It's so late that midnight passed hours ago. He hadn't even realized amongst all the chaos of his work that the 17th had come and gone, making way for his birthday.

Only you would remember. It was a talent you had, memorizing every detail about him that sometimes even he lost track of.

("Neuvillette, dear, I picked up some dark roast on the way home today." He didn't even realize he had run out.

"Welcome home, I made ragout!" He wasn't aware he was craving it until you brought it up.

"Do you want this?" It's the last cookie in the bag, saved especially for him because you know it's from his favourite bakery in town.)

He leans in and blows out his candles, eyes never leaving yours as he blinks at you slowly. You look so beautiful even now, in the dimly moonlit hall. Darkness envelops your bodies again and yet he never tears his gaze away. Not even for a moment.

"Now put the cake down, please."

"Hm?" Your head tilts, clearly confused by his request.

"So I can hold you," he quickly explains, fingers itching at his sides because of how much he aches to hug you.

You gently set the cake down on the entrance table before you get scooped into a warm embrace, pressed snuggly to his chest as he memorizes the outline of your body against his once more.

"I've missed you, my dear," he says, face burrowed into the crook of your neck.

"It's only been a couple days," you laugh, and then remind him: "I see you every day at lunch."

"No, this is different." He pulls away slightly, forehead pressed against yours as he looks into your eyes. There's something in there— vulnerability and love all mixed into a beautiful purple harmony. "I miss coming home into your arms after long days," he admits.

"Oh, love," you breathe, reaching up to cup his face the way he's so used to. "Things will settle down again soon."

His eyes close as he savours your presence, soaking up all the affection you're giving him in his moment of weakness. You've always spoiled him.

"I suppose so," he agrees, a smile finally settling on his lips. Your thumb runs along it, tracing the curve of his happiness. There's a beat of silence before you open your mouth again.

"What did you wish for?" You ask curiously, voice growing quieter as you lean in to kiss him. And the answer he gives comes naturally.

Neuvillette has always wished for things he read about in novels; imaginary promises of treasure and desire and fame, sealed with the wispy smoke of blown out birthday candles. He isn't even sure if he has ever actually wanted any of those. But as he looks at you, with the slow beating of his heart and the brushing of your lips against him, he can't think of a single thing he could want more than this.

"I did not wish for anything," he tells you honestly, giving your waist a squeeze. "I already have everything I could ever want."

© ALABOADOA 2023 — please do not translate or post my works to other platforms.

[yndrgrl]

katsuki bakugo is the only man who can help bunnygirl! you during heat.

established relationship. normal! au. first time as a couple.

warnings: nsfw, lowkey angst ngl, fellatio, praise, slight degradation, creampie

if you're here for the nsfw part, i marked it >:)

a/n: dude, idk why my last fic has that "mature" label 😭 also is this a hypersexual comfort fic? yeah.

---

"are you okay? you look hot?"

"your forehead is on fire!"

"you look red. drink some water."

you've been hearing that non-stop all day. of course, you know that everyone has good intentions, but it was so annoying.

no, you didn't feel fine, nor did you feel sick. it was a strange, embarrassing thing to admit. in a world full of truly remarkable quirks, you just had to get a basic one. your quirk was rabbit. you know mirko? yeah, well you two are in the same boat.

you have floppy bunny ears the same color as your hair, a puff ball of a bunny tail, & muscular legs. all so cutesy & alright to deal with. the behavioral traits were what got you though. increased hearing, jittery/easily scared, & most annoying of all, the heat that came with it.

though it wasn't unusual to have heat, it was definitely not something you mention in a passing conversation. heat made it hard to focus on anything except for breeding & sex. your senses are enhanced, making clothes feel itchy at all times. your train of thought always derailed to live making. that's why you were prescribed heat repressant.

no side affects & it worked like a charm.

however, this month you forgot to stock up on them, & you just so happened to run out. you would've just skipped school to get some, but it was midterms, which comes with tests & presentations that simply could not be made up. it was either fail your classes or bite the bullet.

"oi! what's your deal?" someone barked at you. ah yes, your boyfriend of six months, katsuki bakugo.

"nothing," you said with annoyance. another thing about your heat is that you get irritable because of the overwhelming feeling of needing to do a certain activity. "don't worry about it."

taken aback, katsuki reached out for you & spun you around. your eyes welled with tears of frustration & utter embarrassment, the tips of your ears were red, & every thread of your clothes made your skin crawl. "hey, what's going on?"

"i-it's nothing, just leave me alone. class is about to start." you understood how much katsuki prides himself in his academics. you're not gonna be the one to drag him down; that's not very amazing-cool-awesome girlfriend of you, after all.

he wanted to say that he didn't care & let's just ditch class, but you both knew you couldn't. the exams were too important. luckily for the both of you, the last period of the day was study hall. most kids just skip it, starting their free time early.

just a few classes, then i can go get medication, that's not bad at all, i've been through worse, you thought in attempts to calm yourself.

yeah, but imagine how could it would feel to be absolutely railed, oh fuck, imagine katsuki-

you had to cut yourself off, he was standing right beside you after all.

your relationship with katsuki has been slow, healthy, & true. the most you two have done in the span of six months is make out, grind, & grope each other clothed. both of you saw a future together so having sex didn't have to happen right then & there. if it happens, it happens, but there was no need to have it to connect.

you didn't want you first time with the love of your life to be because of your current circumstances.

"did i do something?" he asked, making your ears twitch.

"no, it's not you," you reassured, "there's nothing going on." you both entered the classroom, & you could feel katsuki's worried stare focused on you the entire time.

you took exam after exam, which, in of itself, is a long, stressful process. the bell rang throughout the school, & your classmates shuffled out of the room to go to their last period. finally, it was study hall. you threw everything into your backpack without a care. you were practically panting.

throughout the school day, the pressure building inside of you only gotten worse. you couldn't stop thinking about katsuki. his god-sent body, his perfect face, his rugged voice. god, he turned you on so much-- too much, actually.

you felt bad for ignoring all of his texts throughout the day. if you didn't, however, you had a feeling you would've sent some embarrassing messages.

as you exited your class, someone grasped your wrist, dragging you out of the school. their touch lit you on fire. you knew exactly who it was. "let me go, katsuki."

"no, not until you tell me what i did!" he growled at you. he doesn't even realize how wet i am for him-

you had to shut off your thoughts, but that's easier said than done.

"i told you already. you didn't do anything."

"well something is going on with you. tell me what's happening," he raised his voice, a vice grip still hanging onto your wrist. you were getting overstimulated & overwhelmed. once again, you couldn't help the angry tears from forming. you couldn't help but hyperfixate on your panties brushing against your sensitive clit. you couldn't help that your nipples were painfully perked.

you can't just admit that though. it's such a stupid problem to you. you felt so wrong & disgusting for thinking about sex all day. "you wouldn't understand!" you finally yelled back. "you wouldn't get it."

he didn't respond. katsuki continued to drag you throughout campus, leaving you with your thoughts.

god, i made him mad, you mentally cried out. hopefully he'll hate fuck you then-

you want to rip out your own brain & throw it on the concrete. it was a constant cycle of that the entire walk.

a few moments later, you realized you were in his dorm, sitting on his bed with him across from you in his desk chair. both of your hands were in his as he brushed his thumbs against your knuckles. that alone gave you goosebumps. "please tell me what's wrong, baby," he said in a hushed near-whimper. "i'm worried about you."

"you really wouldn't get it, katsuki," you whispered, finally letting a few tears roll down your cheek.

he placed his index finger underneath your chin. he gently raised your head, your gaze following suit. the two of you locked eyes, his swirling with worry & yours sprawling in uncertainty. "then make me understand."

"it's my stupid quirk," you exasperated. you tried coming up with ways of how to say what you want to say without scaring him off.

"what about it?" he asked.

"you have such a nice quirk, you know," you started, avoiding his question. "it's just so much flashier & cooler than mine. there's already a rabbit hero!"

"what are you talking about? you do have a cool quirk."

"i'm a bunnygirl. nothing more. people already know what to expect-"

"what is this really about? you brag all the time how you get to come up with new ways to make your quirk yours," he countered, not convinced with your answer. "there's something more, isn't there?"

katsuki was so good at reading people-- at reading you. the other times you've confided in him, your voice lacked clarity, stability. why would it be different now? it wouldn't, that's why.

"yeah, there is," you admitted, tugging on his hands so he'd get closer. "i just don't know how you'll react or how to even say it-"

"it's fine. just tell me, i won't get mad or judge you or whatever," he assured. you began to cry even more, staining his dress shirt.

he smelt so good, i can feel his muscles through his shirt, he's so sexy-

"i need you," you muttered into his chest.

"what was that, baby?"

you glanced up at him, eyes glossy, lips pouted. "i need you."

katsuki's breath hitched, "what are you talking about?" yes, he's had theories about your quirk & its drawbacks. was this it? was his theory correct?

more tears of frustration rolled down your cheeks as you tried to explained, "i have... you know."

his cock stirred, scolding himself mentally for getting hard during a time like this. "have what?" he wanted you to say it, confirm his suspicions.

you took a deep breath. "i have this thing every month or so, & it just makes things so much harder."

"tell me." his stern voice sent shockwaves through you.

it made you obey him automatically, robotically. "i'm going through heat." a silence followed. "it's normal for people with quirks like mine to go through this. i usually have repressants! & i know this probably makes you so uncomfortable; i understand if you don't want to be-"

-- nsfw starts here --

katsuki cut off your rambling, almost offended. "don't ever say that. i want you, all of you."

"p-please don't say such things," you begged him as you felt your pussy throb. "i'm r-really trying to hold back-"

"let me take care of you, princess," katsuki purred, finger tips ghosting over your exposed thighs. he buried his face into the crook of your neck. "do you want this, y/n? because i want you right now. if you tell me you don't want this, i'll stop."

all you could do is nod, your breath turning uneven.

"say it, y/n."

"i need you so bad. please, katsuki," you cried out as you rubbed your legs together.

he smirked into your neck before he started kissing your neck. you couldn't help but whimper. he noticed you holding back, so he bit your neck. he sucked hickeys all over your neck. your unsteady breathes turned into needy moans.

"t-take off my shirt, please-"

katsuki took in your demand by ripping it off your skin as if it were poison. he unhooked your bra, throwing it on the floor. "ah fuck," he groaned, cupping your breasts.

"are they o-okay?"

"you're fuckin' perfect, baby."

with one, he replaced his rough, calloused hand with his mouth. you grinder against his thigh as flicked your nipple with his tongue. "k-katsuki~"

he switched to the other one, giving it the same treatment. "all mine," he growled in between. he nipped at the skin around your nipples. your neck & chest were soon littered with purple marks & bites.

"let me touch you," you begged & you began to fidget with the buttons of his shirt. "take this off~"

"so needy, aren't you, princess," katsuki teased, yet he gave into you. he threw off his shirt, looming over you. goosebumps pricked at your skin, all over your arms down to your legs. you found yourself trailing your hands all over his abs, his muscular arms, around his back. it was like your hands had a mind of their own.

you flipped the two of you around, so now he was under you. "c-can i please mark you?"

he let out a laugh of amusement, making your face turn a deep red. "you don't have to ask, baby," he told you. as a response, you mimicked his actions from earlier. your lips kissed all over his neck, leaving marks in its wake. you trailed down to his chest, then his abs then his v-line until you reached the band of his pants.

the entire time, he was groaning, feeding you praises that shot straight through your core. when you stopped, he looked down at you, & there you were, staring back at him with eager, wide eyes. he could read you so well. "go ahead, y/n. pull them down."

to which you did. you hands hooked both his uniform pants & his boxers. you pulled them down, & your mouth watered when his cock sprung out. "i-it's so big," you moaned; you meant to only think that, but you couldn't help it.

his mushroom tip beaded precum, his veiny shaft twitched in anticipation. "you see how hard i am for you? all for you," katsuki told you, watching your eyes dart to his then back down to his cock.

you started licking him to test the waters. you saw as his eyebrows furrowed together, his mouth agape, narrowed eyes. your licks evolved into you sticking his tip into your mouth. your tongue flicked around his cock. you crossed your eyes & whined when you tasted his precum. thanks to his quirk, it tasted almost sweet, salty, & god, was it addicting.

you bobbed your head up & down his thick rod. the tip hit the back of your throat while spit flooded your mouth. it was hard to breath, but you didn't care. having katsuki inside of you was more important than breathing. "slow down. you're gonna make me cum, good girl."

that was enough inspiration for you. you needed his cum. you forced your head all the way down his cock, your nose buried in his pubes. your eyes watered (for the fifth time today), & you stared into katsuki's eyes. both of his hands tangled themselves into your hair. "i'm gonna fuck that slutty, little throat, okay? just tap if it's too much," he informed, but he had a feeling you were going let him do whatever he wanted.

you moaned as a way to let him know that you heard him. the vibrations quivered his tip. "mmm, fuck. you're doing so good," he praised, jutting his hips forward the drawing them back.

his thrusts at first were small, in fear he was hurting you. however, as he looked down at you, your eyes rolled back, drool spilling out of your mouth, rubbing your aching clit for some sort of release, he couldn't hold back. he started using your throat as a fuck toy.

fast & rough, & all you could do was take it. take it, even though you're crying & it's hard to breath. "i'm close," he uttered out in between moans. his sultry voice turned a pitch higher in a humiliating tease, "you want my cum, baby? huh? c'mon, tell me you want it."

you choked out muffled, "yes please" & "cum down my throat please." he laughed at you trying to form sentences with your mouth stuffed. "such an eager bitch. fine, i'll give you what you want."

he thrusted his hips forwards, keeping your head in place. you face smushed against his hips. his cock twitched as he unloaded spurts of cum down your throat.

he pulled away, & strings of saliva mixed with his semen leaked onto your skirt. you looked back up at him, finding his cock still erect. "you look so surprised," katsuki said as he caught his breath. "i'm still so hard for you. after all, i told you i was going to take care of you."

"p-please have sex with me," you barely even whispered.

"what was that?"

"please-"

"i still can't hear you," katsuki told you, stroking his dick. he really knew how to push your buttons

"please fuck me, katsuki! i need it, i need you so bad~ i need your big cock inside of me," you blurted out. you finally let you stupid, nasty fantasies get the better of you.

judging from katsuki's smug expression, he wanted you to indulge in them. "alright, alright. you've been such a good girl for me. it's the least i could do," he shrugged before flipping you over so you were trapped under him. even in your most intimate moments, he was cocky. & god, did it make your pussy wet.

as he started to pull your skirt down, your hands shot to grab his wrists. "no, fuck me now, i can't wait. it hurts too bad," you whined, your glossy lips pouting.

"of course, princess," he said with a smirk. "whatever you want." katsuki's fingers dove under your skirt to push your panties out of the way. he held your legs up, placing your calves over his shoulders.

he lubed the tip of his dick with your juices by running it through your folds. "you're so wet for me, good girl."

"it's all for you, katsuki~" you purred, anticipation practically killing you. you felt pride as he turned his head to kiss the meat of your calf in approval.

"can't let it go to waste," he told you. he lined his thick, heavy cock with your entrance. something must've taken over you because, the moment it lined up with your hole, you shoved your hips forward with your entire body.

you let out a squeal of pleasure, your pussy stretching to accommodate for katsuki's lengthy cock. "shit, baby, you almost knocked me over," he chuckled as he readjusted. both of his hands were on your hips.

"shut up & fuck me," you growled at him. his cock twitched, brow raised in amusement.

"yes ma'am," he replied, "but remember you said that." from the get-go, his thrusts were powerful, immediately finding the cervix. your nails dug into his biceps down to his wrists. moans, whimpers, & screams spilled out of your lips.

katsuki took his fingers to your mouth & demanded in a low voice, "suck."

the action made you quiet down. he found your g-spot soon after, & you felt lightheaded. with his fingers down your throat, his cock abusing your most sensitive spot, & katsuki whispering dirty nothings into your ears, you shut your eyes & released all the tension building up.

"f-f-fuck, i-i'm cumming, katsuki," you rasped, voice having a small lisp thanks to his fingers. you squirted all over his abdomen, breath heavy & uneven.

he didn't stop though. he still rammed his big fuckin' dick in & out of you, not letting you calm down from your euphoric high. in fact, his hand that you slobbered all over found their way to your clit. he drew small circles around it. "ah, katsuki!" you moaned. "it's too much!"

"you'll be a good girl, & take it, won't you? i haven't cum inside you yet," he responded while his other hand pinched your nipples.

"i-i-i'll be a good girl, katsuki~" you slurred, speaking on beat with his thrusts. he made you cum three more times then you felt as his hips became more robotic, shorter, uncalculated.

"i'm cumming," he groaned through gritted teeth. "i'm cumming. fuckin' take all of it." thick jets of hot, white cum stained your walls. his dick pulsated inside of you. you came again; who could blame you?

he took a few deep breaths, collapsing on top of you as he pulled out of your pussy. cum spilled out of you & onto his sheets. he embraced you, whispering, "round two?"

[gguk-n]

Transition (Charles Leclerc x Driver!Reader)

Part 2 of Replaced

Summary- After being kicked out of Ferrari rather rudely, Y/N must try to find a seat in the ever changing driver's market in the craziest year at Formula One till date.

{Reader's POV}

After leaving our home in Monaco, I spent the next couple of months regrouping with my team. I visited my family to clear my head; my mother always knew what to do in a difficult situation. She was the brains of the family. After a long and deep talk with her I realised what I wanted with the future. Number 1, I wanted to race in Formula One until I was 60. Number 2, I wanted a team that loved, valued and respected me as their driver. Number 3, last but not the least, I wanted to be paid more than what Ferrari was paying me.

Every team on the grid was open for picking except McLaren. Mercedes was losing their star driver, RedBull had to negotiate with Checo; the two teams I was eyeing right now. If I knew Horner and if I played my cards right, having a female driver on his team would change the dynamic and bring more spot light on the team. If Toto signed me, he would be replacing one iconic person with another; enough to make headlines.

The first race of the season hurt, I couldn't believe the next 24 races would be my last time in red, I couldn't fake the smiles. It hurt every time I saw Charles. We met for the first time since I left a day before Bahrain's media day. He looked as handsome as ever but his eyes held this deep seated sadness, you could see it. "Been a while" Charles almost whispered when our eyes met in the hotel. "It has, I've missed you" I replied. "I've missed you too" he almost cried out wrapping me in his arms. "The last few months were torture. You'll come home now, right?" he asked still holding me in his embrace. "Charles" I began, he pulled away, tears visible in his eyes, "I'll come back soon, mon tout. I need time" I mumbled. "How long will that be, mon cherie?" he asked. I wiped the tear that slipped out of his eyes, "The day I sign a team, I'll move back. I'll know my future and I'll finally be able to look at you without jealousy" I said. "OK" he nodded, kissing me for the first time since we met. "Je vous aime" he stated. "Je t'aime aussi" I replied back.

I finished P2 in the first race of the season. All the media and commentary were going crazy. It felt nice to finish P2. Max was fun to talk to post race during the cool down. He was always the more level headed one in our friendship. Max asked me about how things were between the two off us away from the prying eyes of the media who had already started to announce an imminent break up between the two of us. "He's been shit, since you left" Max spoke. "I'm sorry" I apologised. "oh no, don't apologise to me. I was just stating the obvious." he shook his head. "I heard you're talking to Horner" he commented. "Yeah, we're discussing but like I'm discussing with a lot of teams, honestly." I replied. "As you should, I think it would be fun....if we were team mates." he replied thoughtfully. "I wouldn't mind terrorising Charles in a RedBull" I laughed.

The next few races were quite memorable with me on the podium for every race. It was a proud feeling, a bitter sweet one though. Charles only saw me at race weekends but that was the nature of the sport, didn't mean that I didn't love him any less.

The talks with RedBull fell through since I wasn't able to bring in the kind of sponsors they wanted and the dream of driving in one too. Mercedes was very iffy, where Toto wanted to bring a new driver on the grid; while I was still effectively seatless. But Susie was a smart woman, she knew having me on the team after the void Lewis would leave, would do wonders since I was the first and only female driver on the grid in a really long time and having me would bring the similar kind of publicity, if not the same.

After months of back and forth, and negotiating; Toto agreed bringing a junior driver in too early wouldn't benefit anyone. I would race for Mercedes for the next 2 years and if the options opened up I didn't mind letting Toto have his little fantasy. My announcement would happen in Monza, the home of the tifosi. The perfect time and place. I had moved back in with Charles after the contract was signed. I did not tell him that I planned to announce it in Monza. Charles was just happy to have me back.

Mercedes made the announcement just before free practise, effectively ruining any plans the media had, it played in my favour and I had a ball. "You love drama don't you" Charles laughed. "What can I say? I have a knack for the theatrics" I laughed along. "Quoting Chandler are we?" Charles muttered kissing me as he said it. The days leading up to the race were crazy. As both me and Charles got ready to get into the car he said, "Can't wait to see you in black. You look hotter in black anyways" "Hope to be your teammate again in the future" I nodded as we put our helmets on. Charles won the team's home race. I missed the podium by a smidge, but knowing my future was secure didn't make the loss saddening.

As Charles got down from the podium to meet me, Arthur handed him something. "I thought, whether I finish podium or not I'd ask you this but as a 2 time Monza winner sounds so much cooler." he rambled. "What are you talking about Charles?" I questioned. He got down on one knee, the crowd went silent. "Will you Y/N Y/L/N do the honour of making me your husband?" he asked. I had tears in my eyes, "Yes" I nodded. Charles slipped the ring on my finger and kissed me. I could taste the champagne on his lips. I wrapped my arms around his neck and deepened the kiss while pulling his hair. We pulled away to a lot of hooting and screaming. "Wow" Charles exclaimed. "That's the hottest thing you've done till date, I think I'm hard" he said. "I'm staking my claim." I stated. "I'm always yours, now and forever" he replied. "Can't believe we'll have two Leclerc's on the grid next year." I commented. "Can't wait to race you Mrs Leclerc" he said kissing me again.