#i've done all kinds of things i never managed to in the past

[hurlumerlu]

When it comes to the entire hitman/police shenanigans, I'm inclined to believe it is not that deep. I feel like the show did a great job establishing that fact in the very first scene. <- (this isn't me being snide, I think establishing the tone from the begining was a great call, and i've been trying to make a post about it but it's not coming along)

When it comes to Kant though... I think he's simply lying to himself. But before we go to that, I'd say he's also trying to convince himself that Fadel & Bison won't come back. Style wants to see Fadel so bad, because - as has been pointed out, notably here - he is a very hopeful character who still believes that things will work out (he knows what genre he is in!!!). Kant wants to believe Bison won't come back, because that would mean Bison is safe from Kant, and that Kant doesn't have to continue actively breaking his own heart (and also that Kant is safe from Bison. lol). Hence his comment about "people having to save their own butts first": it doesn't matter that F&B love them, what matters is that they stay safe - away from S&K. I think he's also managed to convince himself that, as long as the captain is busy chasing them, he won't have work for Kant. I do not know how true that is, but it's not a totally unreasonable assumption.

Now, the lying to himself part: I believe Kant is doing exactly what he was doing at the start of the show: pretending he has any decisional power over whether or not he works for the captain. In the first episode, we saw him ignore a call - just like he did in ep6 - and then go to the captain anyway - just like he did in ep6. And he was saying the exact same kind of things, too: i'm done, my records are clean, this is [going to be] behind me. But the captain could easily reel him back in then, just as he can easily reel him back in with another job, and I'd argue that Kant already knew that then and that he knows it now - he just cannot face that truth. I think the idea that his past crimes will always hang around his neck, threatening to pull him back in, to sully all of of his relationships (romantic entanglements, his friendship with Style, Babe's respect and trust, etc) is simply a little too much to bear. So he doesn't look at it. He lets himself believe that this is the last job (just like last time was), that the captain will keep his word (unlike last time), that he just has to do this one more thing - it's never going to end, not until Babe is financially secure at least. But he has to believe it will. Because what else can he do?

(worth noting though that kant is chaffing more and more under the captain's yoke. he's already threatened to out the man for the way he uses him - i assume that's what he meant by "your bullshit" - and covertly asked Bison to run away with him. he's growing tired of the lies and I think that sooner or later they won't be enough to keep him docile)

Ok, genuinely asking cuz I think I missed something??

So the captain is using Kant (and Style) to get evidence, not on Fadel and Bison, but specifically because they want whoever is behind them, right? That's the whole reason for this ruse to begin with.

So, like, okay he's still the police and they're pretty sure there's going to be an attempted murder, so they have to be there to try to prevent it. But if they actually arrested Fadel and Bison, their boss would probably go to ground and be impossible to find.

(Especially if the captain/police don't know about the dysfunctional psudo family relationship that Fadel and Bison have with Lilly.)

So, did Bison and Fadel only get away in episode 6 because they captain intentionally let them go? Is he still hoping to use Fadel and Bison to get to their boss? (Was the motherfucker just a hilariously dramatic act for show?)

If so, why does Kant think he's done? At first I thought it was because he thinks the brothers have been caught, but he tells Style, "You have to get over it. You can't ever get together with him. Move on." which suggests that Kant thinks Style has the opportunity to try (ie. he knows Fadel hasn't been arrested yet).

Clearly, Kant understands that Fadel and Bison's arrest is an inevitability, that it's only been delayed because they're not interested in taking out only the people on the field. So he should know that Fadel and Bison not being arrested means the ruse is very far from being done.

Maybe Kant means it like: I'm done, I can't do it anymore, my heart won't let me lie to Bison again. ;A;

But even so, at this point (the day after the botched shooting), Kant hasn't discovered anything more than what he gave to the captain when the captain refused to agree that Kant was done the previous day, so like... why does he think he's done???!?

I'm just feeling very confused as to what, exactly, the captain's plan is now... Cuz surely the police know that Fadel and Bison are going to be suspicious about the undercover police presence at the charity event. Which therefore puts their moles (Kant/Style) at risk of not only being discovered, but being fed false information. Is the captain so confident in Kant (and Style's) seduction that they think Bison and Fadel will come back with NO caution?

Or am I just taking it all too seriously and this is one of those "accept the suspension of disbelief" moments? Should I just assume the police people aren't actually that smart? This is, after all, a comedy.

[ranger-kellyn]

first time ever going to the end to fight the dragon!

[hairmetal666]

Steve has done interviews before. Like, a lot of interviews. YouTube, podcasts, print, TV stuff. Not as a brag, or anything, just. He's been an influencer for a long time, for better or worse, and it's part of the deal.

Usually, he's comfortable in front of the camera. Usually, he's poised and well-spoken. But today, this time, sweat pools under his arms and beads along his hairline, the lights beating down on him in a harsh glare.

"Steve Harrington," Murray Bauman crosses his legs, smiles big for the cameras. "It's been a while."

He smiles too, tries to seem like he's not about to have a panic attack. "I've been a little busy."

Murray laughs and it's then that Steve understands how screwed he really is. Murray's show, it's all glitz and glamour on the surface; mixed drinks and hijinks until the celebrity guests lose their inhibitions, admitting things they probably wanted to keep secret.

It's just that, before, Steve didn't have any salacious rumors to worry about, and now--

"You've had a rough year, Steve, yeah?"

"Not my best, for sure." He leans back, tries to seem calm, unbothered.

"I was sorry to hear about your divorce. I think that announcement really took a lot of people by surprise."

His hands clench, but he manages not to shift or bounce his leg. "Thanks for, uh. Yeah. We were also sorry it didn't work out."

Murray nods, face full of sympathy. "You and Nancy, you'd been together since high school? That's almost--what? 15 years?"

"It's--" he clears his throat. "About that long." Steve takes a sip of the drink next to him, an apple martini that's both too sweet and too strong.

"Am I right to assume that you didn't see it coming?"

And isn't that a question? Sure, now in hindsight, he can see the fractures that lead to the end, but six months ago did he--it's all so--what if all along--

"All marriages have rough patches," is what he says. "We just couldn't come out of ours as a couple."

"Do you know what I've found really remarkable about this phase of your life? The content and tone of your videos in the midst of the maelstrom of rumors and gossip didn't change at all. 'Your kids' as you call them, are still as bright and vibrant as ever. You're laughing, dancing, cooking, having a great time."

"I needed that--that normalcy you know? And the kids, they're such an important part of my life, having them around helped."

"Including Nancy's brother, Mike?"

Steve laughs and it's not fake. "Totally including Mike. My relationship with Nancy has nothing to do with my relationship with him."

"He's kind of an antagonist--would you say?--in your videos, though."

"We have conflict sometimes, but it's never serious. We know how to play it up for laughs."

"So, nothing's changed between you?"

"Not at all."

"The cheating rumors." Murray's smile is soft, but all the air still leaves the room.

"What about them?" It's more combative than he means, but--

"Did Nancy cheat on you with Jonathan Byers?"

He swallows and it hurts. She did cheat, is the thing. It's not public information, still only speculation, but--

"You can't believe everything you read, Murray."

"So, she didn't cheat?" There's a glow to Murray's eyes that tells Steve he already knows the answer.

"Like, I said before, marriages are hard. We spent a lot of time apart because of our jobs. It took a toll."

"And she was traveling with Jonathan, yes? He's been her photographer for the past decade, from what I understand."

"They were co-workers, but we're all close. And those rumors didn't help our relationship, for sure. It's--not easy to hear that a bunch of people think your wife and close friend may be having an affair, that people 'ship' them. Even when it's not true, it creates--"

"Tension? Distrust?"

"Both, probably." He takes another drink as he nods. "After a while you do start to wonder if there's truth to it, and you're too ignorant or too--too trusting to see it."

"And it eroded the relationship."

"It certainly didn't help." He takes another drink.

"And how about your relationship with Jonathan's brother, Will. Has that been impacted?"

"Of course not. Never. Whatever happens between Nancy, Jonathan, and I, it has nothing to do with the kids. They know that.

"You talked about it."

"Yes. Extensively."

"I know there's often speculation on the relationship you have with them; if you're really close or it's all for the cameras."

"Murray." He leans forward. "We've talked about this before. I met Dustin through Mike, and the whole group followed. I've known them all since they were 8 years old. They're--I mean, not to be cliche, but they're my family." He sips the last bit of martini.

"And where does Eddie Munson fit into that family?"

The question shouldn't be a surprise, but he almost does a spit take, has to fight to keep it together.

"Eddie?"

"Yes." Murray's smile is chilling. "Your close friend Eddie Munson. Musician. Plays Dungeons and Dragons on YouTube. You made out with him in a music video. Ringing any bells?"

"I'm familiar with Eddie," his grin is rigid. "I don't know what that has to do with my marriage ending."

"Well, the rumors weren't all about Nancy, were they?"

"Eddie and I have--we became mutuals online years and years ago. I used one of his songs in a video and the kids are obsessed with his dnd stuff, so. We've become close."

"Friends?"

"Isn't that implied?"

"After that music video, I don't think so."

Steve rolls his eyes, lets the irritation show for the first time. "He asked me to be in his video. There's nothing scandalous about it."

"What's your relationship with Eddie right now?"

"Like I said, friends."

"Do you want it to be more than that?"

"Eddie's really important to me."

"Is that all?"

"Not really sure what you want me to say here, Murray."

"You were married to a woman for years, but now there are questions about your sexuality."

He grits his teeth. "My sexuality isn't anyone's business aside my own. People can say shit on Twitter all they want, that doesn't mean they know me. But--the end of my marriage--it definitely gave me the space for self-discovery, I guess? In a way I hadn't had before."

"And is Eddie a part of that self-discovery?"

"Yeah, as one of my closest friends, he is."

"Do you have feelings for him?"

"That's--that's not--I'm going through a divorce. My focus isn't on starting another relationship right now."

"You, famously, tattooed your initials on the inside of his thigh during an Instagram live. That's pretty intimate."

"We were just having a little fun."

"Huh. That seems like more than 'a little fun' to me. So, how's Eddie doing with the increased attention?"

It takes Steve a second to track the change of subject, mind still stuck on the tattoo, on how the ink had looked on Eddie's pale skin.

"It's hard." Steve eventually answers. "Of course he enjoys bringing his music and dnd to a wider audience, but the focus on his personal life is--it's a lot."

"Well, he should have thought about before letting you tattoo him for your 850,000 followers. Does he want a relationship with you?"

His throat is dry, burning, he wishes he had more martini. He wishes he'd never taken a sip. "You'd have to ask him. I'm just taking it day by day, you know? That's what I need right now."

"We're getting to the end of our time, but you know I have to ask. Your best friend, Robin Buckley, she very famously unfollowed both Nancy and Jonathan on all social media when news broke about your divorce. Can you tell us why she unfollowed them?"

"I have no control over Robin's accounts. I didn't even know she followed Jonathan ever, and she and Nancy have a relationship outside of me, you know? I can't say what happened between them."

"She's been in your videos with Eddie. She like him?"

"Very much. It's kind of annoying actually. They keep ganging up on me."

"Much to everyone's delight, I'm sure. So, what can we expect from the newly single Steve Harrington?"

"There are a couple things in the works, but only time will tell."

---

He walks through his front door an hour later, and Eddie's sitting on the couch, playing a soft melody on an acoustic guitar. He stops when he sees Steve, setting the guitar aside, and standing.

"How'd it go, baby?" He asks. His soft smile is so beautiful, Steve gets a lump in his throat.

"As expected." He crosses the space between them, lets Eddie pull him close.

"He ask about us?" Eddie's breath tickles his ear.

"Of course."

"And you--"

"I want--it should be just for us. We should be able to announce when we're ready. Not when Murray-fucking-Bauman asks."

Eddie kisses him, then, sweet and slow, making him lose his breath.

"Whenever you're ready, I'll be right by your side."

"You sure? All my mess--"

"Is mine too. Afraid you're stuck with me for the long haul, Steve Harrington."

[katsu28]

i saw requests were open and i simply could not resist

holding both their hands while holding their gaze gently, just before leaning in for a kiss + oscar maybe? honestly whoever you want to write it with, i’ll be happy!!!

you’re the best, love you, hope you’re having the most beautiful day ever💛💛

marissa babe i love you loads, thank you so much for this request <3 i've melted into a puddle writing this i kid you not

oscar piastri x reader, 1.8k. request something from here!

You’ve gone back and forth between canceling your date three times in the past two hours now. 

You should be showering, getting ready, finding a cute outfit, but instead you’re pacing a hole in the floor of your room, staring at your phone on your desk. 

You’ve been going out with the sweetest guy, Oscar, for a bit, and you like to think things are going well. He’s so kind and so cute, and you still can’t quite wrap your mind around the fact that he likes you enough to have gone on five dates with you. 

But for some reason, he makes you so unbelievably nervous. You feel like a bumbling fool around him whenever you’re together, tripping over your words, laughing a little too hard for a little too long at something that probably wasn’t even that funny, but you can’t help it. When Oscar is around, it’s like some little person in your brain wrenches away control from any rational thinking and just goes crazy. 

The worst part is, you don’t even know why. He’s just your type, he makes you feel like you’ve known him for much longer than you have, and you thought that would put you at ease. 

You’ve never felt this way with any other person before. Maybe that’s why you’re acting this way. This thing you have with Oscar is special, however new it is, and you’re afraid of fucking it up. You haven’t even kissed yet, but you’re afraid of fucking that up too. 

At that moment, your phone buzzes with a text from none other than Oscar himself. 

Oscar: Can’t wait to see you tonight. Miss you :-)

You’ve only gone four days without seeing each other and he misses you enough to tell you so. Fuck, he’s adorable. 

You have to go now, because the moment you finish reading his message you’re grinning like an idiot, giggling alone in your room at an eight word message and a stupidly endearing smiley face. 

Unfortunately, your nerves and anxieties have come to bite you on the ass. Now you’ve only got a little more than an hour to do everything you should’ve been doing to get ready for dinner instead of sitting around being indecisive. 

How you manage to get ready and out the door on time is a miracle, and before you know it you’re in an Uber on your way to meet Oscar. The driver is a kindly older man, rather talkative, which normally you weren’t very fond of, but his stories about his grandkids do wonders at providing a distraction from your thoughts. 

You almost forget you’re on your way to meet Oscar until you get out of the car and spot him across the street, slouched against the wall of the restaurant scrolling on his phone. 

He looks devastatingly handsome in a simple black t-shirt and jeans, both of which fit him fantastically, if you say so yourself, hair fluffed to perfection even though you know for a fact he probably hadn’t done a thing to it.

As if he senses you’ve arrived, he glances up, beaming brightly at the sight of you. He raises his hand in a wave, pocketing his phone immediately and coming to meet you at the other edge of the sidewalk.  

“Hey, stranger. Long time no see,” He says warmly, effortlessly folding you into a hug. You let yourself melt a little bit in his embrace, cheek pressed to his firm chest. “You look really pretty.” 

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” You reply. He smiles bashfully, the tips of his ears turning pink. “Shall we?” He offers out the crook of his elbow and you loop your arm through his, happy to follow his lead into the restaurant. 

Dinner goes well, all things considered. You’re frustratingly aware of how Oscar makes you feel the entire time, but you think you’re playing it off fairly well.

Or at least, if Oscar does notice, he doesn’t say anything. He’s absolutely perfect the whole time, polite and engaged with your stories, and funny in that dry sort of way of his that you’ve come to like. 

You insist on splitting the bill once it comes and he doesn’t waste time by fighting you for the check like a lot of guys always seem to do, but he does call dibs on paying for ice cream at a place down the road he’d spotted on his way in, which you agree to. 

He slides his hand into yours almost shyly at the start of the walk over, peering over at you through that one swooping curl of his that never seemed to stay put, as if to ask if it was okay he was holding your hand.

Your relationship (if you could even call it one at this early stage) is still new to the point where both of you aren’t quite sure what’s okay and when. Your response is to simply lace your fingers through his and squeeze. 

You quite like holding his hand, even if it does make you worry about if yours is too sweaty. 

Oscar opts for double chocolate chunk as his scoop of choice, which surprises you a little bit. You thought he would’ve gone for vanilla, but he always finds new ways to surprise you. He even pokes fun at your choice in flavor, bumping his shoulder against yours with that big smile that makes your heart dance in your chest. 

You find a nice place to sit and eat your ice cream on a bench in a cute little park across the way, and everything is going swimmingly, but then he asks. 

“This might be a stupid question, but are you alright?” 

You nearly choke on your ice cream at his words. You’ve learned that Oscar is usually pretty blunt, but you’re still trying to get used to it. “Am I—what?” 

“Are you okay? You seem…different. Was dinner alright? I’ve never been there before, but one of my mates keeps going on and on about it so I thought—” 

So he had noticed. You shake your head firmly, placing a hand over Oscar’s. “Dinner was lovely.”

“Ah. Okay. Is it something else then?” To his credit, he looks genuinely concerned that something’s wrong, even with ice cream smudged at the edge of his mouth. You have to fight the urge to wipe it away for him. “You don’t have to tell me, but you can if you want to. I’m a good listener.” 

You could tell him. It would benefit you to tell him, but for some reason, you hesitate. 

How are you to tell Oscar that he makes you feel like you're not yourself when he's around? That you get so nervous in his presence that you always feel like you're doing or saying the wrong thing? 

That every time he holds your hand or touches your cheek or texts you silly updates about his failed attempts at keeping a plant alive, you have to fight the urge to scream because you like him so much it scares you and you're afraid you’ll chase him away if you let him in on it. 

How do you tell someone all that without sounding completely and totally mental? 

You’ve only been on five dates, for fuck’s sake. For all you know, he could be planning on telling you it just won't work out between the two of you as soon as you get home tonight. You know he wouldn't do that because he's way too nice, but it doesn't stop you from jumping to conclusions.  

You must take longer than you think to respond, because Oscar says your name again. He’s fully facing you now, one hand on your knee when you come back down from your thoughts, brows furrowed. 

“I like you.” You blurt. 

He blinks a few times, then smiles. “Well, that's good, ‘cause I like you too.” 

“No, Oscar, I—” You pause a beat, trying to gather your thoughts into something more coherent. “I really like you. Like, so much that I feel like I’m messing everything up.”

“You could never mess anything up,” Oscar says fondly. So, so fondly. Your heart feels like it's about to leap out of your chest at his sincerity. “I really like you too. It’s a little scary, actually.” 

“Oh, thank god. I thought it was just me,” You breathe, shoulders sagging in relief. 

“That’s it, though?” He prods, cocking his head to the side curiously. 

“Uh…yes? I’m sorry, were you expecting more?” 

“No, no, of course not. I just—I thought maybe you were acting differently because you didn’t like me anymore. Got tired of me, or something like that,” He admits sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck.

His shoulders hunch in on themselves, brows knit in something akin to embarrassment as he stares off at something in the distance. “It sounds stupid now that I hear it out loud, actually. Forget I said anything.” 

“Oscar,” You hum, just as soft as the way he’d reassured you moments earlier. His eyes shift over to meet yours, rich, warm brown like fresh coffee looking wide eyed back at you. You ease the nearly half empty paper cup out of his grip, taking both his hands in your own. You don’t miss the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. 

“Hm?” He sounds flustered, gaze flicking down to your lips momentarily before coming back up. It’s only a split second, but you know what it means. 

He wants you to kiss him. You want to kiss him. You haven’t yet because you’ve been scared, but you don’t feel scared anymore. You’re not at all sure where this sudden burst of confidence is coming from, but you’re sure as hell not about to let it go to waste, so you lean forward, pressing your lips against his gently. 

It’s like he’s been waiting for this moment, because as soon as your mouth is on his, he sighs, tilting his head accordingly so your noses won’t smash together. You can taste the chocolate from his ice cream on his lips as they move against yours, and it’s not a perfect kiss by any means, but Oscar’s kissing you back, so it feels pretty perfect to you. You’re rather sad when you have to pull away, but air remains a necessity. 

Oscar’s eyes flutter open slowly. “That was…” 

“Nice?” You supply hopefully. 

Oscar bobs his head quickly, agreeing wholeheartedly. “Really nice. We should do it again. Can I…?” Now it’s your turn to nod, and he wastes no time in kissing you again, maybe a little too excitedly, because he knocks both your ice creams off the bench and onto the ground with a sad splat. He pulls away just enough to look at the splatter of melted dessert already starting to seep into the cobblestones under your feet. “Oh. Crap, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” 

“Forget the ice cream,” You mumble, already chasing him for more. You reach around to tangle your fingers up and into the hair at the nape of his neck as a means of pulling him closer. 

Oh, this newfound confidence is really working out for you. 

He lets out a hitched exhale, swallowing hard again. “Yeah, yep. Forgetting the ice cream.” 

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[theonottsbxtch]

SET FIRE TO THE RAIN | LN4

an: i'd like to preface this by saying this is purely fictional and i don't believe lando would behave like this, i've been in many situations like this or where i've watched goregous girls be brought down, if you ever find yourself in a situation like this, talk to someone and if you're too scared to do that. my inbox, my messages are open to talk, i know how difficult it is and i'll always be there for you, every step of the way. love you all <3

summary: based off of this request , the story of a girl who manages to set fire to the rain by finally cutting off a pattern.

wc: 2.6k

warnings: toxic relationship

She had sworn off men.

The last one had hollowed her out in ways she hadn’t thought possible. They’d met at university, and from the start, there was an intensity that made her feel alive, as if the world had cracked open just for them. He was charming, magnetic—a rare kind of brilliance that pulled people in without effort. But beneath the surface, there had been something darker. She’d noticed it in small moments at first, like the way he’d make her doubt her own memories or twist her words into knots she couldn’t untangle.

With him, everything good came with a price. A beautiful night could end with his cutting silence, or an ordinary conversation could spiral into accusations and resentment. He knew exactly how to keep her on edge, to keep her second-guessing herself, until she wasn’t sure where her own thoughts ended and his began.

By the time she realised how deeply he’d tangled her sense of self, it felt too late. She was trapped in a constant push and pull, desperate to hold onto the parts of him that had once felt like home, even as they chipped away at her sanity. She left university more bruised and broken than she’d ever been, feeling like a stranger to herself.

For months after, she found herself replaying conversations, picking apart moments, wondering if somehow she had been the problem. She promised herself she’d never let anyone pull her back into that place—she was done with love, or whatever twisted version of it she’d believed in.

But then she met Lando.

And he was different, at the start at least. There were no telltale signs, or maybe there were and she'd missed them all. But with Lando, she felt like a whole new woman.

Meeting him felt like something out of a story she’d stopped believing in. He was bright, alive, a force of nature. She’d been swept up almost instantly, drawn not just to his charm but to the way he seemed to move through the world. Lando was a Formula One driver—a rising star with an infectious grin and the kind of life that felt thrillingly out of reach. He wore his confidence like a second skin, turning heads everywhere he went, and somehow, for reasons she still didn’t fully understand, he’d turned his gaze toward her.

Their first days together were a whirlwind. He flew her out to races, their weekends a blur of city lights, roaring engines, and late-night conversations where he shared his dreams with a vulnerability she hadn’t expected. She felt as if she was breathing for the first time in years. Lando seemed genuinely interested in her—not just in her beauty or her laughter, but in the way she thought, the things that kept her up at night. He listened in a way her ex never had, his attention a gentle but steady presence that quieted the shadows of her past.

With Lando, she was lighter, bolder. She found herself laughing more, breaking free from the cautious habits she'd formed to protect herself. Even the constant travel, the media attention, the risks that came with his career—none of it scared her. If anything, she was excited by it, captivated by his life at full throttle. She told herself that this was what real love must feel like: exhilarating and limitless.

And yet, as the months slipped by, small things began to nag at her—a flicker of irritation in his eyes when she questioned him, a quiet possessiveness in the way he’d tug her closer when others looked her way. They were tiny cracks, the kind of things she could overlook. But her instincts, dulled as they were by the thrill of his attention, began to stir, whispering that all wasn’t as perfect as it seemed.

She brushed off those whispers. She had promised herself she wouldn’t let fear drive her life, wouldn’t let a good thing slip away just because of shadows in her past. Lando was different, after all. He had shown her sides of herself she thought she’d lost forever.

But sometimes, late at night, she couldn’t ignore the familiar tightening in her chest, a flicker of unease she couldn’t explain. It was nothing—just a bad memory she needed to bury, she told herself.

She was safe, she was happy.

And that was all that mattered.

Until it didn’t.

It started in the small, invisible ways. A slight edge to his voice when she couldn’t make it to a race. The way his grip on her hand tightened a fraction too much when she was talking to someone else, even just a friend. She told herself these things were normal, the quirks of a man under constant pressure. Lando’s world was built on speed, danger, and fierce competition. It made sense that he’d be intense, that he might sometimes hold her a little too tightly.

Then came the nights when he’d disappear after races, unreachable, only to return hours later with excuses she could barely piece together. She’d lie in bed, watching the clock, her mind twisting in circles she’d thought she’d left behind. When he finally came back, he’d laugh off her questions, brushing them aside with an easy charm that was starting to feel a bit too practised.

“You worry too much, baby,” he’d say, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear with a smile that was all show and no substance.

She wanted to believe him. She’d fought so hard to let her guard down, to believe that love didn’t have to mean hurt. And for a while, she’d manage to push the doubt aside. After all, wasn’t it better to be with him, flaws and all, than to be haunted by ghosts she couldn’t let go of?

But the cracks widened. One evening, after a long dinner with friends, he pulled her aside, his voice low and edged with irritation. “I don’t like how you were looking at Oscar tonight,” he murmured, his eyes narrowing.

She blinked, caught off guard. “Oscar? He’s your teammate, Lando. We were just talking about your race.”

“I don’t care what you were talking about. You don’t need to give him that much attention.” The words were soft, but there was an edge beneath them that sent a chill through her.

It was like something inside her split open, letting old fears seep through the walls she’d so carefully built. She tried to laugh it off, to remind herself that Lando was nothing like the man from her past, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was slipping, that she was losing her footing on familiar, dangerous ground.

The excuses she made for him started to feel heavier, harder to carry. She was left questioning herself, wondering if maybe she was the problem, if somehow, her history had left her too damaged to hold onto happiness.

But deep down, beneath the doubt and the fear, she knew something was wrong. It wasn’t just her past haunting her this time; it was Lando. The way he seemed to light up her world only to cast shadows over it moments later. The way he made her feel seen and invisible all at once. She could feel herself changing again, growing cautious, careful.

And with each passing day, the Lando she’d once trusted felt more and more like a stranger.

But leaving? That felt impossible.

After all, who else would love her like he did?

No one would.

At least, that’s what her ex had said. It was what Lando insinuated, so it had to be true.

The words echoed in her mind on the quietest nights, when she lay beside him, his arm heavy over her waist, pinning her down in more ways than one. She’d stare at the ceiling, tracing the same lines over and over, feeling trapped in a strange in-between—a place where she was too afraid to stay but too afraid to leave.

When she’d first heard those words from her ex, they’d cut deep, etching a truth she carried like a scar: No one else will love you. No one will understand you the way I do. She’d almost forgotten how it felt to hear them again, subtle and soft, woven into Lando’s comments, his sideways glances, the way he’d sometimes pull her close and murmur, “You’re lucky I put up with you, you know.”

And, to her shame, she’d nod, a small part of her believing it. Maybe she was lucky, she thought, to be wanted by someone as thrilling as him. Who else would have taken her on whirlwind weekends, whisked her away to foreign cities, painted her life in colours she’d only dreamed of? Who else could make her feel this alive and desired? Surely, she should be grateful.

So she stayed, clinging to that fragile, half-real world they’d built together. She ignored the voices of her friends, who’d started to ask if she was okay, if she was happy. She brushed off their concerns with a laugh, told them Lando was just “passionate,” that he had a fire in him, that life with him was thrilling, intense. But the truth was that he didn’t bring just fire; he brought a burn that left her raw, exhausted, a shadow of the woman she’d thought she’d become.

The turning point came one rainy night, it hardly rained in Monaco, after an argument that had started small but escalated, Lando’s anger flaring as she’d barely managed to keep herself from shrinking under his words. He’d stormed out, slamming the door behind him, leaving her alone in the dim light, the sound of rain pattering against the window like a quiet reminder of everything she was losing.

As she sat there, a familiar sense of dread settled in her chest, mingling with the weight of words she’d heard too many times before. You’re lucky I’m here. No one else would deal with you. No one else would want you.

But this time, she felt something else—a flicker of defiance, an anger that had long been smothered by fear and doubt. She realised, with a clarity that shook her, that these words weren’t truths but weapons. Weapons used to keep her in place, to make her question herself until she couldn’t see straight.

Maybe she was more than what he saw in her. Maybe she was more than the broken woman her ex had left behind.

The rain outside was pouring harder now, pounding against the window, drowning out everything but her own heartbeat. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the weight lift, even if only slightly. She didn’t know if she had the strength to leave, but she knew she couldn’t stay—not like this.

Being with Lando felt like trying to set fire to rain.

Every time she reached for warmth, for comfort, her hands came away empty. Every promise he made seemed to evaporate just as quickly, leaving her cold and reaching for something that was never really there. Loving him was an exercise in futility, like trying to hold a flame in a storm, only to be drenched by the downpour of his moods, his shifting affections, his quiet, calculated disapproval.

He came home that night, soaked from the rain, his eyes darker than usual, his expression unreadable. She could smell the sharp tang of whiskey on him, the subtle tremor in his hands as he reached for her. She took a step back, though, bracing herself.

“Where were you?” she asked softly, not even expecting a real answer. She’d stopped expecting those a while ago.

He shrugged, a hint of a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Out,” he said, as if that was explanation enough. He glanced at her, his eyes sweeping over her with a mix of amusement and something colder, something she couldn’t place. “Why? Did you miss me?”

There was a time when she’d have laughed, played along, swallowed her doubts and insecurities just to keep things smooth between them. But that time was gone. Now, she felt nothing but a quiet emptiness where her laughter used to be.

“Maybe I did,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “But not anymore.”

A flicker of something crossed his face—surprise, maybe, or the sting of wounded pride. He scoffed, leaning back, crossing his arms as he studied her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She swallowed, steadying herself. “It means I don’t want to be kept in the dark anymore. It means I’m done waiting for you to be someone you’ll never be. You talk about how lucky I am, Lando, but the truth is, I think I deserve better than… than this.” Her voice cracked, and she felt her face flush with both fear and defiance.

He laughed, a low, mocking sound that sent a chill through her. “You think you can do better than me?”

She met his gaze, her hands trembling as she fought to keep her voice steady. “Yes. I think I can.”

It was a small, simple statement, but as the words left her mouth, she felt something shift inside her, like a flame catching despite the rain. She knew he’d try to reel her back in, try to make her doubt herself, to make her think she’d never be enough for anyone else.

But she’d felt enough of the fire and the rain, the illusion of warmth that left her soaked and freezing. She was done waiting for him to change, done trying to be enough for someone who would never be satisfied.

He watched her for a long, silent moment, his face unreadable. Then, with a harsh, humourless laugh, he turned and walked away into his gaming room, leaving her standing alone in the dim light, the rain pounding against the windows like a heartbeat.

And as she stood there, she realised she’d already begun to let go. For the first time, she wasn’t afraid of the emptiness, the quiet. She was ready to face it, to feel the cold and the rain, knowing that someday she’d find her own warmth again.

This time, she wouldn’t look back.

She packed her bags, and unlike with her ex, she didn’t cry. She didn’t find an excuse to stay.

With each item she folded and placed into her suitcase, a sense of liberation washed over her. Clothes, books, the little mementos she’d collected during their whirlwind romance—all of it felt heavy, like anchors that had dragged her down into a darkness she no longer wished to inhabit. This time, she didn’t hesitate to let go.

The silence in the apartment felt almost deafening, but it was a comforting kind of silence, the kind that echoed with possibilities rather than the suffocating weight of past memories. She moved methodically, her hands steady and sure, and each zip of the suitcase felt like another step toward reclaiming herself.

When she finished, she stood in the middle of the living room, looking around at the remnants of their life together. It felt surreal, like a movie set she’d walked onto without ever really belonging. There were the photos of them at races, beaming smiles and happy moments frozen in time, and the framed poster of him in his racing gear, his helmet in hand, looking ready to conquer the world. But now, instead of warmth, those images filled her with a sense of finality. They were remnants of a story that had come to an end.

Her heart raced as she glanced toward the room he was in, half-expecting Lando to return and confront her, to wrap her in his familiar embrace and whisper sweet words that would lure her back into his web. But she shook the thought away. She wouldn’t fall for that crap again. This was her moment, the beginning of something new, and she refused to let fear creep back in.

Because she loved herself.

And in order to love herself, she had to choose herself.

So she did.

the end.

[rueclfer]

Ok bet.

Can i request an Aizawa x Reader one shot, where they’re a couple but they’re keeping it on the DL (as aizawa is private and an underground hero) but reader is a more well known hero so fans start shipping reader with hawks, then p.r or management says this yn x hawks thing is good publicity and good for their brand/marketing/image etc So reader and hawks (for publicity) start to pose as a couple and attend many events together etc and it starts to mentally and emotionally affect Aizawa. He goes on forums and social media and all anyone can talk about is how perfect hawks & reader are together.

Make it angsty. 💋

OKAAAYYYYY ouch ouch ouch avoidant aizawa stay away from meeeeee

(written under cut)

everything is fine // shouta aizawa

all that was familiar to shouta had dissipated within the span of a few days. for the past few weeks, your schedules had completely clashed and he found himself waiting for you for most nights of the week- staying up with a perpetually full pot of coffee and his ringer on full volume.

neither of you expected your hero work to take this kind of a turn.

he's teaching from the mornings to afternoons while you're patrolling with hawks- your "pr-partner," or "work-husband" as he'd like to call himself.

in the evenings, shouta is alone in his office grading papers while you're in meetings one after another at the hpsc's office.

late at night, shouta is on patrol while you're prepping for more paparazzi photos with hawks for your pr team to upload.

it's a never ending cycle, but nothing comes easy when your partner is in the limelight with japan's #2 hero, and even worse when all the media can talk about is your blossoming "relationship" with him.

shouta's eyes darts up from his phone once he hears the front door swing open.

there you were in the flesh, but you weren't dressed for a gala or fancy dinner. you look like you, and for some reason, it gives him a sense of relief.

"where did you end up running off to?" he drops his phone in his lap, an amused smile tugging on the corners of his lips. "without your phone?"

"walk in the park. with keigo." you shrug, kicking off your shoes

the tightness in shouta's chest returns.

"keigo, huh?" he mutters. "another stunt?"

"not really, but could be?" you casually shrug. "if anyone saw and and snapped photos, but it was just to talk about how dystopian it's all been." you breathily chuckle, hanging up your keys.

"you're telling me. i've seen my partner on my social media feed with another man more than i've seen them in person for the past month." he releases a dry laugh.

it comes out harsher than he intended. he bites his tongue in regret the second the second the sentence leaves his mouth.

you stop in your tracks and look at him. he averts your gaze by nonchalantly returning his attention to his phone, hoping you missed the tone in his voice.

"what do you mean by that?"

"it's nothing." he exhales, hoping to avoid the conversation altogether. "have you eaten yet? i can make something for you."

"i'm fine..." you mutter warily "...but are you?"

"i'm fine."

a beat a silence passes between you two as tension fills the air. your palms are suddenly sweaty as he continues to avoid your eyes, looking at every other corner in his apartment before hitting yours.

"you know, this pr thing between keigo and i has done wonders for my rankings. it's not all about him, you know?"

"well, when have you ever cared about that?" his brows furrowed for a moment. "keigo and his team are only using you for their benefit. you know that right?"

your eyes flash with hurt, and he feels his stomach drop. he knows he should apologize now and rush towards you with his arms around you, but he's hurt too.

he's hurt too.

"not everyone's content with being an underground hero, shouta." you snap back. "i like validation. i like the interviews. i like the public's attention. sue me."

shouta can't help but let out a bitter laugh.

"it's all yours, sweetheart. not like you can get it here, right? with me?"

shouta starts to get up from his spot on the couch. you hate when he gets like this. jealous. snappy. avoidant.

you never fight light this, but when you do, it lasts days. you can give him space and regularly check in, but he would rather pretend like nothing happened before talking about it.

“stop.” you block his way from entering the hallway. “seriously, what’s your problem? why are you acting like this?”

you’re chest to chest with him, and he’s breathing deeply as if he’s trying to compose himself. he still won’t look you in the eyes.

"if this is what you want, then i’m not going to stop you, okay?" he finally says. "it's just not me, and you know that."

"and i'm not saying it has to be?"

"i love you, but i can't watch and be a part of whatever this is."

you stay silent, looking into his eyes for another solution, but you could read it in his face.

this is good for you. you want this. it hurts me, but i'll let it.

shouta releases a deep sigh and pushes past you and into the bedroom. you two don't speak for the rest of the night.

[sophsicle]

I'm Sorry I'm the One You Love

Part I (Part II)

Sirius Black isn't in love with James Potter. Though sometimes Remus looks at him like he is. Like Sirius is sad and pathetic and...he doesn't even know, pining?

But he isn't.

Well.

Alright.

Sad and pathetic, perhaps. Depending on who you ask. On when you're looking. But he isn't pining. And he isn't in love with James.

That would be too easy.

Sirius thinks he could bear just being in love with him. Thinks that's a pill he could swallow. Unrequited feelings and all that. He'd mope around and write sad songs and drink too much. But eventually he'd get past it the way people seem to do with those kinds of feelings. But he isn't in love with James, is the problem.

He's fucking consumed by him.

"Sirius."

"Don't start."

Remus huffs, but, mercifully, goes back to his coursework, shaking his head while he does. Sirius, on the other hand, keeps staring at James and Lily. They aren't doing anything really, Sirius doesn't reckon Evans is one for big, public displays of affection. But then, maybe that'd be better. James and him don't - they've never - done that. Kiss or anything. So. It probably wouldn't feel so much like a kick in the fucking teeth the way watching them now does. Leaning into one another, heads nearly pressed together, whispers traded back and forth, secret smiles, nudging feet. James and Sirius have done that plenty.

Remus sighs again. "Why don't you talk to him?"

After a few seconds Sirius manages to pull his eyes away from the grotesque spectacle on the other side of the library. Why the hell are they sitting there anyway? Surely they could have sat at the same bloody table?

"I talk to him every day," Sirius says blankly. Which earns him a deeply unimpressed look.

"You know what I mean."

"I don't."

"You do."

"Don't."

He gets an eye roll this time. "Fine," muttering as he picks up his quill. "Have it your way then."

Remus has freckles splashed across his nose and cheeks, and just about the longest eyelashes Sirius has ever seen. He's obsessed with them, to tell you the truth. He's asked Remus if he uses some kind of potion for them but the other boy only scrunched his nose up, giving Sirius a look he didn't understand.

Remus's eyes flick up again now, meeting Sirius's, finding him staring. Sirius doesn't look away. He isn't embarrassed. Not about this. Not about most things, honestly.

"What?" Remus ask warily.

Sirius only shrugs. "Astronomy Tower? Tonight?"

Remus holds his gaze for a long moment before dropping his head again. "Fine." He doesn't sound overly enthusiastic but then, he never does with Sirius.

Sirius has never kissed James. Not even once. Though he's thought about it a few times. Sometimes he wants to ask James if he's thought about it too. Just so he knows. He's never kissed James.

But he has kissed Remus.

Loads.

He thinks he might be an expert at this point.

It takes the edge off. Makes him feel less like he's going insane every time he sees James. Like he wants to eat him and not in a sexual way, not really, more like in the way wolves want to sink their teeth into the necks of rabbits. Want to snap their spines. Want to feel them go limp. Want to swallow them whole so that there's no difference anymore. Between them. Between us. I've made you part of me. Bone of my bones. Blood of my blood. Skin of my skin.

See. It's not love. Sirius doesn't know what it is but it's not that.

After a few more seconds he kicks Remus under the table, causing the other boy to look up in exasperation. But this time when their eyes meet Sirius smiles the way he knows Remus likes. Feeling his insides grow warm when Remus smiles back - even if he's a little delicate about it.

Sirius isn't in love with James Potter.

But he might be in love with Remus.

[clairecrive]

Hello!! Could you write a Alfie Solomons x reader where he goes to a meeting with Tommy only to find him and reader arguing/negotiating about something, meanwhile Arthur's bleeding out and her refusing to help Arthur until Tommy lets her win? I feel like Alfie would have instant heart eyes!

A/n: this has been sitting in my drafts for a while. It's more of a blurb, but it was fun to get back to it. I feel like Alfie's really into badass women. especially ones that make Shelby's life hell. let me know if you wanna be tagged in my next pieces. enjoy <3

MASTERLIST

"Love at first blood"| Alfie Solomons x reader

"Now, Mister Shelby, I'm sure you'll agree with me but alliances should be equal otherwise you'll risk for your partner to look for a more advantageous deal elsewhere."

"Is that a threat?"

"Merely stating a fact, I'm sure you know more than me on the matter. Do you not?"

"Aye."

"So, you'll agree to my terms then?"

Tommy's mouth opened as if to speak but Arthur's groan hijacked his attention. While his eyes never moved from y/n's, Alfie could see his jaw clenching. And he knew it for it was, a telltale sign of a decision made.

"Provided you aid my brother here."

"But of course. A deal is a deal." Magnanimously, she ripped out a piece of fabric from her long skirt and went to wrap it tightly on the oldest Shelby's leg.

"Here," she said making one last knot in the bandage. Arthur groaned in response. Not many people could put the fear of God in such a reckless man like him. You, however, were on top of that list. If he could, he'd crawl far away from you.

Words were good and all and y/n knew that after her little demonstration, the deal was closed; still, she spat on her hand and offered it to Tommy to do the same.

Once the pact was officially sealed, y/n nodded in Tommy's direction and turned around to leave.

That's when she noticed a man standing at the threshold. He wasn't very tall nevertheless, he managed to portray an imposing aura that, y/n was sure, worked perfectly in his line of work.

The cane and the wide-brim hat were enough to confirm his identity. Y/n had never met Alfie Solomons. They didn't run in the same circle, to put it simply.

Running into the Shelbys had resulted from an unfortunate series of events caused by incompetent men in her life. She wasn't so keen to repeat that experience.

However, if she had to be honest, she had to admit that Solomon's piercing eyes intrigued her. Especially the way he was looking at her, with a mix of admiration, fear, and interest.

"Fucking hell," the man of the hour spoke, and oh my god. His voice.

His fucking voice.

She tried her best to conceal her body's primal reaction to the sound. However, she couldn't help but stay put and wait for what he had to say.

"I've never seen such a small fucking thing put the fear of God in a man," Alfie pointed his cane in their general direction before tipping his hat to her.

"You should never underestimate a woman, Mr. Solomons," y/n quipped with a sly smile.

"Ah pet, am not a fucking fool, am I?" he chuckled with mirt.

The tension in the room was palpable and it wasn't the kind that had been previously present. Oh, no. This one was fire.

It was only Tommy clearing his voice that broke the eye contact between you and Alfie.

"Well gentlemen, my business here is done. I'll leave you to it," she nodded at Alfie as she walked past him. "Thomas, the pleasure was all yours as always."

The last thing y/n heard before leaving was the wonder in Alfie's voice as he demanded to know who was that fucking vengeful angel he had just met.

[band--psycho]

Harvey Specter x Reader - Fight

Please be kind, reblogs are always welcome and greatly appreciated!

Thank you all for the continued support!

It's been a while since I've written for Harvey!

I hope you all enjoy this! 💛

Requests are open so if you have any ideas/requests, you're more than welcome to send them over.

I do not give permission for any of my works to be copied or translated onto this site or other platforms

For my ongoing A-Z Challenge and for @shamelesstrekkie13 who requested this story a few months ago (Part 2)

Masterlist / Harvey Specter Masterlist / Join My Taglist

Warnings: Angst, Harvey being mean

“Hey handsome,” Y/n said, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips as she looked at the man she loved, who’d recently been working himself to the bone for his new client. 

“Hey baby,” Harvey greeted back, looking up momentarily to smile at her before his eyes went straight back to the paperwork in front of him.

Her smile fell slightly. 

This case had been a nightmare, and the client had been nothing but an arrogant, pain in the ass.

For the last month, Harvey had been working diligently on this case, but the last few weeks were when things got really stressful. 

She didn’t know why. She couldn’t know why. Client Confidentiality and all, but she’d seen a change in Harvey. 

And this last week had been the tipping point, all he’d done for the past week was work; he’d barely even slept, and it showed, he was snappy with pretty much everyone, Louis, Mike even Donna…of course Donna and Mike understood why, this case was huge for not just Harvey but for the firm too, but he needed a break. 

Y/n tried to never intervene with Harveys work, she knew better than anyone how a case could take over ones life, she had fallen victim to it more than a few times, allowing the case and the clients to take precedence over everything else, including herself and Harvey was always there by her side, to pull her out of the work she’d buried herself in so deeply. 

Now it was her turn to do the same for him. 

To help him the way he’d always helped her. 

“It’s late,” she continued as she made her way into his office, stopping just a few inches away from his desk, “We should go home.”

Harvey leaned back in his chair, a small sigh falling from his lips as he once again pulled his eyes away from his paperwork to look at Y/n, the dark circles under his eyes evident now that she was closer to him. 

“You go, I’m gonna stay here,” 

“Harv-”

“I’m okay,” he assured her; with a smile she knew was fake. 

Harvey was not someone who got stressed easily, in all the years she’d known him, she’d rarely known it to happen, and of course he would never admit that he ‘the great Harvey Specter’ was in fact stressed and exhausted. 

“No you’re not,” she stated softly, moving around the desk so that she was standing next to Harvey. 

Two lawyers dating was never easy, the long hours, the schedules, it was hard to spend quality time together but they’d always managed it, no matter what was happening at work. 

She missed him. She missed how his fingers would brush against her waist when he held her close, missed the forehead kisses he would give her just as she was falling to sleep, missed hearing his laugh when they’d watch a shitty comedy show; she missed being close to him. 

She knew it was selfish, but she couldn’t help how she felt.

Being this close to him, she saw how big and dark the circles under his eyes were; if she had the strength she’d just pick him up and remove him from the office, take him home and let him rest. But she was not that strong, so she was going to have to work on trying to persuade him.

She reached her arm out to him, placing her hand on his cheek, caressing it softly,“How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

A few moments of silence passed, before Harvey pressed a soft kiss on the palm of her hand, Y/n thought that meant that he was listening to her and that he was going to come home with her and get some much needed rest. 

That was until Harveys hand lightly grabbed her wrist and placed it back into her lap. 

“I’ve got work to do,” he replied simply, turning his attention back to his paperwork. 

Y/n took a deep breath, trying to work out what she could say to him that wouldn’t aggravate him and would get him to listen to her.

“Harvey, you need to sleep,” she pointed out, the worry in her eyes growing with every moment that passed between them. 

“I do sleep,” he answered bluntly; his tone catching Y/n off guard completely. 

“Not for more than a few hours you don’t,” she challenged back, it was going to take more then his blunt tone to make her leave.

Why wouldn’t he just listen to her? Why couldn’t he see that all she was trying to do was help? Why did he have to be so difficult?

“I’m fin-”

“No you’re not,”

“Sorry, when did you become a therapist?” He snapped, the fury in his eyes evident as he looked at her once more, “I said I’m fine and I meant it” 

“Look, I know you’re tired but you can’t keep snapping at people like this,” she reasoned, or at least attempted  to. Y/n knew if he kept going on like this, he would end up making an enemy of everyone in his firm.

“I will snap at anyone who interrupts me from doing my goddamn work, and that includes you,” 

“You’re not going to get any work done unless you rest properly,” she was trying so hard to keep her cool, to keep calm, he was exhausted and stressed, he was just snapping at her because she was there. 

But she could feel her anger slowly beginning to build; she knew how he felt, she understood why he was acting and talking the way he was, but it didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt. 

“Well you’re always pretty well rested and I’m still a better lawyer than you,”

That. That comment felt like a slap in the face to Y/n. 

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down and stop herself from lashing out and adding fuel to an already growing fire. 

“Harvey-” 

She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence, before he was already talking again, his pupils dilated and his tone harsh, “What? You want me to apologize for telling the truth? There’s a reason you work at Rand, Kaldor and Zayne and not here,”

And that was the tipping point.  To get snappy at her was one thing, but to mock where she worked, her profession that she worked so hard for was another thing entirely. 

She wanted to shout back at him and she was going to, until she realised there was no point; all her shouting would do would cause an argument, one where they just took cheap shots at each other until one of them said something they couldn’t come back from. 

She wasn’t going to do that. 

She didn’t have the energy. 

So she walked towards the door of Harvey’s office; only turning around to look at him and say one simple sentence. Her voice was a calm as she could get it, but it still had a hint of anger laced in it, “You know why I don’t work here,” 

And then she left Harvey.

Alone in his office. 

And Y/n tried not to let her anger turn into tears as she headed towards the elevator, leaving the firm.

Tagging:

@little-diable @rebelwrites @xacatalepsyx @wild-rose-35 @withmyteeth @yn-ymn-yln @cyberhexed @maximoff-xmen @vintagecarsandrecordplayers @wretchedmo @mayans-mc @fangirlsfandomsss @happilysparklyunknown @samanthaofanarchy @mrsamerica @navs-bhat @tinystudentmiracle @that-one-enthusiast @malfoys-demigod @siriusblack15 @nd264 @taintedstranger @theestorm

[winonaparadise]

Maybe I’m somehow super unaware that I missed it but where’re you posting GWH nowadays? ;3;

Thank you for asking, and thank you for reading GWH! Unfortunately, it basically doesn't exist right now outside of like, the things I'm trying to make behind the scenes. I lost a lot of steam when the new format I worked really hard on lost a lot of traction and didn't sell as much as i had hoped (not anyone's fault besides my own and, maybe also Elon Musk's for kind of fundamentally destroying twitter dot com as we knew it) and also the second installment of it being 90% finished and then just being entirely lost to a hard drive failure also really just sent me into a spiral. And I also kind of just started hating my own work and art after that, have been working to try and improve, and keep my chin up despite watching a lot of my peers find success before me. Which is admitting one of my very selfish, ugly thoughts - but I do feel like maybe my webcomic was stupid and a waste of effort because it was never "legitimized" via publication like a lot of others surrounding me have been.

I've been kind of struggling with what to make lately. I have tried a lot of things that didn't really take off and it's left me confused about what to do. I feel like every shot I take at something isn't really met with much enthusiasm (again, nobody's fault but my own but if you want to blame this one on Musk as well sure why not) and I don't know how else to gauge if I'm doing the right thing. I think and write something for GWH almost every day, though. I am slowly chipping away at this vague idea of a "visual novel" version that will hopefully allow me to tell a contained story in one piece rather than falling off like I've done in the past. I really, really want to make that.

And in all total complete probably unsurprising honesty I'm just very depressed. Like seriously-considering-suicide-every-week-depressed. I'm sorry if that is a flippant way to express it, but I don't know how else to than to try and couch it in some flippant language. I don't have a lot of money, my health hasn't been very good, and I spend days and sometimes weeks entirely by myself. Making stuff is very difficult with these conditions and unfortunately (fortunately?) the cure to at least some of that is probably making more stuff! It's just taking some time and I really apologize for that. I hope you can forgive me and you'll like whatever I manage to make next. Thank you.

[pingnova]

I met a quiet old man while browsing the plant books and accessories at the trading post this spring who asked what I was looking for. Most white people came to look at the jewelry and the expensive woolen blankets, so I guess it was a little unusual how closely I was examining all of the books on plants.

I held up a deck of native plant playing cards and said I was a forager, looking for more guides on local plants. He nodded thoughtfully and said there was a lot of medicine in wild plants. I smiled awkwardly, not sure why he was talking to me. But I reciprocated: "What are you looking for?"

He said he wasn't sure. He pointed to a few books on flowers, not necessarily edible vegetables. "They're beautiful," he said unsurely.

I nodded to encourage him. "Plants aren't just for eating, they're for appreciating too. We need beauty and nutrition."

Now he smiled, mostly hidden by his mustache, and told me he had a community garden plot he had tended for the past thirty years. Wow, what dedication.

Abruptly he says he has one year to live. He's at the trading post to find parting gifts for his son and grandchildren. He says this all very calmly, he's clearly been preparing for some time. And I stare at him because he seems so well and I've just met him. The idea of him dead is disturbing and shameful.

"Oh," is all I can say.

"I think this year I'll fill it with flowers."

He says it so warmly. I remember he was talking about his beloved community garden patch. I'm filled with heaviness and disbelief that he is soon dying and here wasting time talking to some random about growing flowers. But I manage to stammer something.

"It can't all be vegetables. Soft and beautiful things are important too. Especially in hard times."

Now he fully turns to smile at me. Again in my shock I think he's too content. Shouldn't he be raging? Crying, screaming, anything? But his mustache is white, he mentioned an adult son and grandkids, he seems well enough now and reasonably confident in his plan for a full season of flower gardening. Rapid-fire I conclude he's already done all of this and doesn't need it from me. Right now he's just discussing how important and sacred plants are with a likeminded young stranger.

He finally says, "Flowers are a soft landing after a long battle."

I choke out some kind of agreement so I don't accidentally cry. I wish him some kind of luck and awkwardly crabwalk away. I'm not really the king of social interaction even when its not emotionally loaded.

I bought my cards and books on vegetables and looked at the lone few on flowers he had been perusing. I'm in my twenties and don't plan on dying anytime soon, but how much time do I spend being as fast, efficient, and artless as possible in order to "survive" when that survival is never even in question. I have anxiety, I have ptsd, I'm an activist. All necessary and inescapable works of life. But this man had a season to live, death certain, and wanted to spend it growing flowers.

I went back to the register with a small book on flowers. When I'm hunting a forest to learn the native vegetables, I no longer ignore the blooms. If the battle is long, I want to grow flowers too.

[sinsofsummers]

cool about it

3.4k | boston!joel miller x f!reader

summary: it’s that day again. you don’t know why joel’s so withdrawn, but you help him manage it in the best way you know how. based on 'cool about it' by boygenius. warnings: angst angst angst, angsty smut (sorry), 18+, mdni, implied age gap (joel 50s, reader late 20s) grumpy & sad joel, drug use, alcohol use, oral (m receiving), p in v, creampie, shoulder kisses, pet names & slight praise, body worship kind of, feelings but also joel is bad at feelings, established...situationship. thing. pining (but don't tell them that). romance?? how dare you accuse them of such treachery note: i am so sorry...this is pure unbridled self-indulgence. pls forgive me. also this is set in boston qz, reader and joel have a similar relationship to the one he has with tess, but she doesn't exist in this au (i'm so sorry). also i am kind of so proud of this one

It's been years since you met him, since you've begun to crack his otherwise hard exterior, helping him shed every icy layer to reveal the tired, aging man beneath it all. You've both gone to unbelievable lengths to protect one another against any trouble, or enemy, or plague, that has cast itself in your way. Each night concludes with your limbs tangled together, hands tucked safely within each other's reach. A promise, so quiet it's hardly binding—I've got you.

You've never defined exactly what it means when he calls you sweet pea, or when his lips drop a chaste kiss to your forehead in the morning, or when his hand lingers on your elbow a little longer than normal in the QZ. It never needed to mean anything, so the two of you never spoke about it. You belong to him; he belongs to you.

And yet, every year, on the exact same morning, Joel Miller wakes up a stranger to you. His eyes return to the icy dark depths that you met him with, and his hands find purchase in his pockets rather than absentmindedly rubbing circles on your skin. Every year, without fail, he retreats to his past, a place he won't ever let you see, despite your every wish.

i came prepared for absolution, if you'd only ask

A few years after you met him, you had tried asking him to explain, to let you into his head. It wasn't an attempt at intimacy, or a vulnerability that resembled anything that you hadn't seen from him before, but he'd done nothing more than shake his head.

"M'fine," he'd said. The entire day, every time you asked, no matter how softly, his answer remained unchanged. "Don't feel much like talkin'."

So instead of talking, you'd resorted to letting him come back to you on his own time, in his own way. With rough hands pushing you down to lay on your back, his eyes far away even as he brought you to the edges of bittersweet ecstasy. His kisses were always softer, more distracted. But it was the only communication you ever got out of him on those days.

When he rolled over at night, his hands curled into loose fists, you let him be. He never refused your touch, but you knew enough to recognize when it wouldn't come as any comfort to him. Not on those nights. Never on those nights.

The closest you'd get to falling asleep in his arms on those nights was with a hand placed purposefully between your chest and his back, just close enough that he might lean into it, should he shift in his sleep. And in those soft brushes of skin against cloth lay a million questions.

Forgive me, you'd begged inwardly one night. Forgive me for not understanding, and I'll forgive you for not sharing.

When the sun rose on a new morning, he was always back to the man you were used to, that you had grown dependent on. When his hands reached for you, and when his mouth painted swirls on your chest, you knew that it was out of want for you, not to distract himself from the ghosts of his own past.

He always praised your body's reaction to him, and you always relished in the way that his hips rocked against yours, stretching you out for him—tongue, fingers, his hard intrusion—on those mornings after.

You'd left it at that, for a year or two.

once i took your medication to know what it's like

He'd been resorting to more intense solutions when you decided to do it. When that day came as it always did, you watched as he drowned out the hours with whiskey and pills. You never knew where his supply came from or who was responsible for getting him his drug of choice; you could only sit idly by and watch his features droop from the effects of the dangerous combination, shuffling to your shared bed before he'd pass out until the sun rose on the next morning.

It only took three instances of this before you'd resolved to go through the day exactly as he would, as if it might help you understand. Perhaps it wasn't anything you were meant to understand, but you'd grown weary of seeing him motionless for hours on end. Usually, you never said anything. You didn't really believe he would take enough to cause any real damage; you were blindly faithful in his will to live.

"Joel," you'd said one year. That was all. One syllable, so familiar, and yet it bled with enough warning in your tone that he paused. Don't.

Glass raised, the rim already pressed to his lips—the lips of which you knew every crack and curve—pills already dissolving on his tongue, he'd paused. His eyes never looked at you, though. He sat there, frozen but for the whiskey sloshing gently in the glass before he resumed, swallowing the dark liquid in one go. With hardly a glance in your direction, he'd collapsed to the bed.

You didn't know exactly why you did it, or why it had been that year that you'd become fed up, but you couldn't ignore the fear that struck your chest when you saw him hit the mattress. Before you knew it, you'd swallowed the pills, scowling at the burn of whiskey down your throat.

It had never been your choice of liquor, but you braved the sting in your foolish hopes that it might tell you something about the gray-haired man in your bed. Like drinking his whiskey might envelope you in his arms and whisper his secrets to you.

Laying down beside him, you'd curled up to his side. He was already deep in his drugged slumber; he wouldn't be conscious enough to move from your touch. With a hand on his chest, poised over his heart to reassure yourself that he still had one, you closed your eyes and succumbed to the heavy press of sleep.

When he woke, saw your own empty glass and pill bottle left open on the table, he shook you until you startled awake. Eyes bleary, the effects of the drugs wearing off, you caught him staring down at you, his nose brushing your cheek and his lips a hair's breadth from touching yours.

"Don't ever fuckin' do that again, sweet pea," he snarled, but his words held no malice. You tried to ignore how big his eyes were, pupils blown wide.

You'd wanted to snap at him, to tell him the same thing, but you heard the desperate begging in his voice. The unspoken please. So rather than causing a scene, you'd nodded slowly and let your fingers brush the hem of his shirt. "Okay," you'd whispered. "I won't. Never again, Joel," you repeated, a mantra as you slipped your hands underneath his shirt.

Sliding his arms under your body and pulling you to him, he pressed a kiss to the tip of your nose, then your cheeks, both of your eyelids. He finally bent to your lips, chasing the taste of you and finding only his own mistakes on your tongue.

The day had passed. He had survived. With the gentle lull of his hips slotting against your own, he had breathed shakily into your mouth as your hands wandered along his skin. Like clockwork, Joel Miller had returned to you, if only for a short while.

i ask you how you're doing, and i let you lie

One day, the pills ran out. The whiskey didn't do anything on its own, so Joel was stuck to find something else to distract him. Whether you were the one that flushed his pills or found who was supplying him, you'd never admit. It was much too close to a confession of something than either of you were comfortable with, so you'd stayed quiet. Helped him find a new vice.

These days, you've lost count of how many years you've seen him withdraw into himself, a shell of the man you know. You've stopped trying to follow where his mind goes when the sun rises on that early autumn day, and he's never made the attempt to explain. For just one day a year, the two of you are silent except for a few mumbled words. Your hands rarely touch on those days, always a few centimeters from each other as he sits at the table.

A reminder. That you're there, that he's there, and that the day will pass. It always does.

His new vice becomes you before long, and you can manage that. He's never particularly rough on those days, anyway; he just needs your body to distract his mind. It takes him a bit to sink into the comfort of your curves, but you always help him get there. Until he's twitching under your hands and letting his eyes flutter closed as you expertly undo his jeans.

You never make him fuck you when he's like this, but you're happy to oblige when he slips a hand between your thighs, reaching for your core and always finding it ready for him. If it pleases him, you let him take whatever he needs.

With whispered moans that make your chest constrict and rough fingers pressing bruises to your hips that he'll kiss away the next morning, he gets through the day.

Today, you know it's not one of those mornings. He's already been awake for a while when you open your eyes, based on his tense posture as he sits on the edge of the bed. He's facing the window, which means his back is to you, withholding his face from yours.

Of course, you don't need to look at him to know what his face will look like. His chin is tucked toward his chest, and his eyes will be closed, hands clenched together as if in prayer. But you know better than to think of Joel Miller as a spiritual man. Whatever faith he might have had all those years ago has withered into scraps. His only faith is in your constant presence in his bed each night.

You sit up slowly, and the sound of rustling sheets makes him twitch his head to the side, the sight of his jaw ticking the only acknowledgement of you being there. With slow movements, you move to sit behind him, your legs on either side of his hips but never close enough to touch. He's gotten better at allowing for a few more moments of contact, and you think this means he's making progress.

How could you ever be sure, though? When he still won't reveal the pain of today?

"Did you wake up to see the sunrise?" you ask gently, leaning forward and bracing your hands in front of you, waiting. His response will determine how you'll distract him for the coming hours.

As usual, Joel doesn't say anything, but his back reclines an inch. It's all you need.

"I'll bet it was real pretty," you continue, trying to keep your voice soft. This is one of your many routines; you lift your hands and press them to his back, just enough for him to feel your fingertips. You don't know if he listens to anything you say, or if he even cares. This part is just for you. This is how you get through these days.

You lean just a bit further, letting your forehead rest on his shoulder. Your hands slide around his middle and your stomach flips selfishly at the feeling of his muscles tensing beneath your featherlight touch. Reaching down for his lap, you rest your palm against his jeans, feeling him twitch against your hand. There he is.

Maybe it's sad, maybe it's fucked up, but fuck what anyone else would say. This is what he needs, the only thing that helps him stay out of his nightmarish memories, whatever they may be. You'll never ask him to show that side of himself, not anymore.

Pressing a kiss to his shoulder, you deftly work the button on his jeans, pushing the zipper down and reaching into his waistband until his half-hard cock comes free. It rests heavy in your hand, and you're comforted by the weight of it. His shoulders are too broad for you to see it, but you're not bothered by this. With another kiss, this one landing on the soft skin of his neck, you give him a languid stroke.

Joel's chest rises and falls as he breathes, and you can feel his arousal stirring as he grows firmer in your grip. His hands begin to unclench, but his fingers remain flat on his tights, never touching you outside of where your legs are hooked to his, your chest flush with his back.

The room is silent except for his breathing, every second getting more shallow. You can feel the tension in his back release a little, and you let your thumb rub a slow circle over the slit on his tip, precum just starting to leak onto your hand.

You stay like this for a few minutes, one arm wrapped around his stomach and your other hand on his cock, tugging slow enough not to overwhelm him, and fast enough to keep him pulsing in your hand.

Only when his hips buck involuntarily do you let go, moving from your place behind him to the floor. Your knees hit the wood hard, but you ignore the pain as your hands slide up his thighs.

His own hands remain still on his jeans, and he lets you interlock your fingers with his own. A small mercy. Today might not be as bad as the years before, and you dip your head to lick a stripe from base to tip before closing your mouth around the head of his cock.

Joel's fingers twitch in your grasp, and you squeeze back, hardly noticeable. Just enough to act as thanks. Thank you for letting me do this. For you.

You never look up, afraid of what his eyes will betray when your mouth is around him. You know this is only a distraction, a slow respite from his thoughts. So you ignore the impatient pulse between your thighs and take him as deep as he'll go, your hopes lifting when you hear his shaky sighs.

One of his hands released yours and lands on your head, smoothing your hair as his hips fight to keep still. Your head bobs up and down, your spit mixing with his precum to leave a shining mess on his shaft.

He pats your head softly, the wet sounds of your mouth on him the only noise in the room. But then he's opening his mouth, and he's combing his fingers through your hair, and he's mumbling, "thank you, sweet pea," just quiet enough that you think you're imagining it.

Maybe you did. He doesn't say it again, and you don't look up to see how wrecked he looks. You're content to remain on your knees the entire day if it means he can relax, let go of whatever's haunting him.

But then he's pulling your head back, his cock leaving your mouth with a wet pop. Hands under your arms, he tugs you to stand in front of him. This time you do let yourself look at him, but his eyes don't lift to meet yours. He tugs your shorts and panties from your body, and once you step out of them he splays his hands on the backs of your thighs to pull you onto his lap.

His head is still tipped toward where your bodies rest against each other, rocking your pelvis against the length of his cock with a shuddering sigh. But you don't mind the view; you sit just a few inches taller than him in this position, so you can brace yourself against his shoulders, your chin resting against the top of his head.

He reaches down to rub a few quick circles on your clit, and you let him move your hips when he's ready, lodging his cock at your entrance. You're dripping, you have been this entire time, but you'd shoved down the heady desire that had punched its way through your body until he was ready. Now, with his hand guiding his tip into your sopping cunt, you let out a breath. There he is, a voice in your head repeats.

He pushes your hips down at an agonizingly slow pace, your pussy swallowing every inch of him, the sounds of your moans colliding at the feeling. "So good to me," he mumbles, pressing a kiss to your sternum and tilting his head back, closing his eyes. "Perfect."

You know that he doesn't think he deserves your praise, but you give it to him anyway. "That's it," you hum, squirming with his cock buried to the hilt. It's all you can do not to lift your hips and drag yourself up and down his length. "Take what you need, Joel."

He never lasts long when he can feel your walls squeezing his cock for all it's worth, your body betraying you when your mind just wants to remain warm and wet and ready for him all day long, until he's ready to be done with you. But with one look at you, his dark eyes finally connecting to yours, he blinks. "Thank you, sweat pea," he murmurs again.

You lift your thumb to his forehead and you trace the lines on his weathered skin, watching as your touch releases the tension from his face. All that's left is his desire, his need for you, however distracted it may be.

Joel lets himself enjoy this, as he rocks his hips into yours, the head of his cock brushing that spot deep inside you until you're shaking in his hands, forehead tipped against his as you let your moans fill the space between the two of you. He lifts your hips, pulling you nearly all the way off of him until he shoves you back down, the delicious squelch of your pussy on his cock wrenching a knee-buckling groan from his lips. "Where?" he asks, as he does every time.

You don't need to tell him, but you do. "Fill me up, Joel," you coo, a shot of pleasure spreading throughout your entire body. "Come with me, I'm right here with you."

"That's it, darlin'," is all he groans before he's wrapping his arms around your back, tugging your chest to him in a tight embrace. His face disappears into the space between your breasts and you feel his entire body quiver with yours as you reach your peak. Warmth floods your core as he spills his release into you, your walls fluttering with the intensity of your orgasm. You pull him to you, returning his near-painful embrace.

You're as close as lovers, as close to one another as you can physically get, but it'll never be enough.

The high after he comes inside you is fleeting. Only a few minutes pass before the line inevitably returns to his brow and his frown deepens after he softens. He doesn't lift you off of him, though, so you soak up the feeling while you can.

"Better?" you whisper, eyes locked on his.

He nods slowly after a moment, his mouth set in a grim line. "Always," he mumbles gently, his hand cupping your jaw as his thumb strokes your bottom lip. He presses his thumb into your mouth to the first knuckle, letting you taste salt and old sweat and your nectar on his skin.

You know better than to believe him, but you don't argue. Not today, never today. So you lift the corners of your lips in a sad smile and pretend that it doesn't feel like water rising in your lungs every time this day comes.

but we don't have to talk about it

i can walk you home and practice method acting

i'll pretend being with you doesn't feel like drowning

tellin' you it's nice to see how good you're doing

even though we know it isn't true

Joel will never tell you what's on his mind. Never today. September 26th won't ever mean anything to you, so why would he bother? For him, it's everything and nothing all at once. Brown curls and sparkling young eyes and blood crusted on his arms and the unforgettable weight of death in his arms.

Another year older, he sighs, his heart clenching in grief. Another year older, and another year further from everything he's lost.

tysm for reading, here's a box of tissues. :') i love u all

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

QL Things That Made Me Happy in 2024

It's the end of the year, and people are doing a lot of cute things with superlatives and such, but with my limited bandwidth, I'm gonna keep it simple. Those who follow me know I am here to have a good time, and I like to focus on what brings me joy. 2025 is going to be a rough one, and I know I'm going to continue to need the QL space to help me emotionally cope, so if you'll indulge me, I want to just roll around in the good and the happy for a bit.

(Note, there is also a ton of 2024 content I did not have time to watch, so this does not capture everything good that happened this year!)

Diversity of Genre

Every year we're breaking a little bit more new ground! I'm particularly excited to be seeing more mystery/thriller, for both our BLs & GLs. Robots, vampires, animals turned human, and hopefully soon, mermen. We're getting weirder and wilder, and I am here for it.

Baby Steps in Representation

I know, I know, we all want it to get all better right now, but as someone in my fifth decade of life, I've also seen how small step after small step over the years can lead to huge changes. And in a world where a lot of people are trying to drag us backwards, it's important to keep pushing forward, and celebrate each successful step, even when it feels like it's not enough. (And keep advocating for more, of course!)

Continuing to Give Friendship Its Due

Amazing friend groups are fortunately a QL staple, and this year was no different. We got so much good friend representation this year!

Japan Being Japan

The very top at efficient story-telling, whether it be hitting your heart or tearing it apart.

Taiwan Being Taiwan

Never change Taiwan. Just keep feeding me, pretty please.

Acting Highlights

Wow, did we get some incredible performances this year. Way more than I can list here, but here's a few that came immediately to mind.

Special Mentions

ie stuff that didn't fit under one of the above categories.

A year of TayNew

Step one, be the absolute most in the cutest shit ever. Step two, queer up a found family story. Step three, celebrate owning 2024. (And we get more of them in 2025!)

Big getting his due

We've been chomping at the bit for a Big Thanakorn lead role for ages, and our man delivered! And we're gonna get more next year!

A win for creative independence

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am so fucking proud of Yin and War. They did something incredibly difficult at great personal cost, and made something genuinely unique. Jack & Joker had a lot of layers, including a lot of cultural depth, along with social commentary. That kind of thing is always going to alienate some people, but that's part of what impressed me so much. If they wanted to make something to appeal to the most generic possible audience, they would have done it. They swung big, and made an impact, and I hope it opens up so much more opportunity for them.

When talent grows exponentially

One of my favorite things about having been into QL for a while now is getting to see actors grow and develop past their initial roles. Often the raw talent is there from the beginning, but as in all careers there is a benefit from experience, the right kind of support, and the right opportunities.

2 Moons 2 was a largely forgettable series that managed to land some unforgettable talent, and both Joong and Pavel were highlights. They've both done so well, but in this particular case, I need to rave about Joong's growth in his performance as Fadel. The entire cast is rocking it in Heart Killers, Dunk is also doing incredible, but I have such a soft spot for the boy I immediately fell for way back in my first year of BL, and seeing him steal scenes from some of my all time favorite GMMTV actors. Well done, bebe, well done.

In summary

This doesn't remotely encompass everything (I didn't even get to all the delightful spice from this year!), I am limited by time and image restrictions per post, but as always, I am so grateful to have discovered this arena of media and this space in which to squee about it, and I am endlessly grateful for the people in this space who bring positivity, nuance, grace, compassion, caring, open-mindedness, humility, and curiosity to my dash.

Happy New Year, y'all.

[yes-ihavealwaysbeengreen]

My Home Is You Part 1/3

A/N: I am so obsessed with this movie, I've seen it twice. Enjoy. Leave a comment, like, or reblog if you've enjoyed it. Thank you to @kingliam2019 for requesting.

Fandom: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Pairing: Gus March-Phillips x Female Reader

Warnings: 18+ for language, Nazi's, canon typical violence, possible spoilers for the movie, and mentions of sexual assault.

Part 2 Part 3

“What’s that?” Freddy points to the lump behind Gus’s coat. 

“Nothing,” Gus shrugs, “shall we.” 

“We shall not,” Freddy shouts exasperated, “it’s moving! Unless you became the hunchback of Notre Dame in the ten minutes I left you, you got something hidden behind your back!” 

“He’s got a point, boss,” Hazy shrugs. 

Gus sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I think the jig is up,” he pushes the coat up and out you pop from behind his side, disappearing behind him with a shriek. 

“Where the hell did you find a woman?!” Freddy looks around, then goes silent putting two and two together, “Oh, I see.” 

“She’s coming with us,” Gus reaches behind him and you grasp his hand, trembling hard at being surrounded by so many men. His touch is warm, and you take a moment to breathe before stepping out from behind him at your full height. 

“Hello,” you whisper, giving an awkward wave. 

Gus lets go of your hand and claps making you jump and his face quickly turns apologetic, “Fuck, sorry about that, love. These are the boys,” he points to each man giving you a quick rundown on his merry band of miscreants. He turns to you with a proud smile, “I never did catch your name.” 

“Let me get this straight,” Freddy puts his hands on his hips, sticking out one finger towards Gus, “you find a random woman hidden in a Nazi garrison, fight your way out with her, and decide to bring her with us, without asking her name first?” 

“Probably did it a bit backward,” Gus rubs the back of his head with a chuckle, “but I’m making up for it now.” 

You clear your throat and they all turn towards you as you say your name, a small smile spreading across your face when they repeat it to you. “Welcome to the team,” Anders bows before putting his bow over his shoulder, “shall we get back to the boat, we got somewhere we need to be.” 

“After you,” Gus says, frowning when he realizes Anders is already halfway back to the boat. “That’s the spirit Lassen, lead the way!” Gus slings an arm around your shoulder and helps you walk, it’s slow and painful; your foot aches with every step but you keep it to yourself. These men have already done enough liberating you and agreeing to take you with them. The last thing they need is for you to be injured. But nothing gets past Gus. 

He doesn’t ask, just leans down and swings you up into his arms. You gasp, quickly wrapping your arms around his neck. “Wh-what are you doing?” you whisper. 

“You’re limping,” he whispers back, almost like two children sharing a secret, he grins. “I’m not about to let you hurt yourself worse before I can take a look at your injuries.” 

“I’m fine,” you bite your lip looking away, “you’ve done enough already.” 

Gus stops, the others moving around him to toss the rope down the cliff side, “Darling, I know you’ve just spent gods knows how long with the worst creatures imaginable but not all of us are monsters.” 

“I didn’t say you were,” you turn back to him, and catch your breath when you notice how close he is. “I don’t think you’re a monster at all,” you whisper, swallowing hard, “I just don’t want to cause you any more trouble.” 

“Do you know what I thought when I saw you tucked behind that wall crying and holding your ears?” You shake your head, and he grins, “She looks like just my kind of trouble.” 

The first smile in months spreads like wildfire across your face and you nod. “Ready?” Apple interrupts, “We managed a pulley to get her down.” 

Gus nods, lifting you into the makeshift pulley and working with Apple to lower you down. When you reach the ground Lassen lifts you into his arms while Gus and Apple come down and re-wrap the rope around their arms. 

When finished, Gus reaches his arms out for you and Anders smiles, tugging you closer. “I think I’ll hold on to her for a while. Give you a break,” he looks down giving you a conspiratorial wink. 

“Give me back my damsel,” Gus holds out his arms wider, “I’m not going to ask again.” 

“Who are you calling a damsel?” you ask, crossing your arms over your chest, and Lassen lets out a joyful cheer. 

“You tell him, honey,” he turns walking with you back towards the dinghy. His glee makes a ghost of a laugh appear in your throat before you toss your head back in delight. 

Apple pats Gus on the back as he climbs into the boat and you look back to see Gus smiling, a full-blown smile just for you and you rest your head on your arm and look back at him. “It’s good to see you laugh,” he mouths, and your cheeks ache from smiling as he sits down and begins to row. 

“Row row, row your boat,” Lassen mumbles under his breath, the lull of the waves and the feeling of safety making your eyes droop. “Oh, the little lamb is tired, no?” he whispers in your ear, “You rest, no one will harm you ever again.” 

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” you repeat your fathers words aloud. 

“Little lamb, with the way Gus is looking at me right now. You don’t have to worry about anyone hurting you for the rest of your life.” He rubs a hand over your arm and chuckles, mumbling, “if looks could kill.” 

“He won’t always be there,” your words are drowsy as you burrow deep into his arms, letting out a yawn. 

“Ah, little lamb, I highly doubt that,” Lassen chuckles softly, before you feel yourself being lifted into anothers arms. The scent of smoke, cologne, and leather lull you into a deeper sense of calm and you snuggle into his arms. Gus looks down, brushing a knuckle over your cheek and committing your face to memory as you fall asleep, breathing softly. “Take a picture,” Lassen teases, “it will last longer.” 

“Her cell was next to mine,” Apple interrupts, “she was always so nice to me. Tried to patch me up the best she could through the bars. I tried to return the favor, everytime they brought her….fuck I can still hear the screaming.” The men are silent, the waves crashing against the dinghy as they get closer and closer to the boat. 

“Well,” Freddy clears his throat, “she’s safe now.” They reach the boat, helping Gus aboard and watching as he disappears below deck with you. 

“Heaven help the man who tries to take her away from him,” Hayes clears his throat, and the rest climb aboard and continue on toward Fernando Po. 

Below deck, Gus tucks you into his bunk and watches the rise and fall of your chest before he moves towards the end of the bed, and lifts the blanket to remove your shoe. He curses when he sees the bruising around your ankle. He removes the other shoe and has to control his breathing when he sees the same markings; shackles. 

“Never again,” he whispers, grabbing bandages and ointments and applying them to your ankles. The bottom of your foot is no better, and he grabs the tweezers removing several shards of glass and bandaging your feet. “No wonder you were limping,” he talks to himself. He takes the next twenty minutes checking over the parts of your body he can see, treating every little cut and bruise. When he’s finished he walks over to a basin of water and washes his hands before pouring a glass of scotch and sitting down at the map. 

He loses track of the time, his head snapping up from the table when the screaming starts. He pushes the chair out, climbing over the table to grab your thrashing body. He repeats your name over and over again till your eyes pop open, gasping you reach towards him throwing your arms around his neck and letting out a sob. “I thought it was a dream,” you sob brokenly into his skin, almost crawling into his lap, “I dreamed I was back there,” you take a deep breath, “that they were…” 

“No,” he shakes his head, pulling back to put both hands on your face, his thumbs brushing the tears from your eyes. “You’re safe,” he repeats once, then twice, “do you hear me?” 

“I’m safe,” you repeat back, the tears silently streaming down your face. From the stairs, the men stare at the scene before them. “Uh oh,” Freddy shakes his head, and the others turn to him with various questions. “Look at them,” he points back to you and Gus, “he looks at her like he just realized what love was.” 

“I didn’t know you were a romantic, Freddy,” Apple claps him on the shoulder with a laugh. “I’m not,” he shrugs, “but I’m also not blind. That right there,” he points a finger, “that’s love if I ever saw it. You just wait, I bet you ten pounds she goes home with him at the end of this mission.” 

“I’ll take that bet,” Hayes tosses over his shoulder. 

Apple raises a brow, “you don’t think they’ll end up getting hitched once we’re home.” 

“That wasn’t the bet,” Hayes grins, “he bet that she’ll go home with him at the end of the mission. I think we’ll either be dead or in jail so she probably won’t be going home with him.” 

“Never bet against yourself, Hazy,” Freddy shakes his head, “have I taught you nothing.” 

“It’s your deal,” Henry reminds him before shrugging past to go back to the deck, “let’s go, give them some privacy.” 

Their steps recede and Gus rubs the last of your tears away, “do you want something to eat?” 

“Yes,” you nod, moving from his lap and tugging the blanket around your shoulders. When you step down, you quickly look at the bandages around your feet and ankle before meeting his eyes, “thank you,” you whisper, “for everything.” 

“You don’t have to thank me,” he puts the kettle on, “any decent human being would do the same.” You sit down at the table seeing the maps and confidential files spread across the surface. Gus grabs the papers and puts them into a pile before putting down a cup of steaming tea before you. 

“I have a few questions,” you wrap your hands around the cup, absorbing some of the warmth. 

He takes a sip, blowing the top with a grin, “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” 

“What were you doing in the Garrison?” 

“Rescuing Appleyard,” he takes another sip, “we needed him.” 

“For what?” 

Gus puts down his cup, crossing his arms over his chest and your heart beats a little louder at how strained the fabric is over his bulging biceps. You quickly take a sip of your tea, burning your tongue when you meet his eyes, seeing amusement sparkle. “Enjoying the show?” you cough, the tea spilling down the front of your dress. “Shit,” he shouts, grabbing a towel and pulling out the chair beside you to sit down. You grab it and soak up the liquid from your dress, the top sinking lower with each tug. 

When you’re finished you glance up to see his eyes on your chest before he quickly averts his eyes and clears his throat. “Enjoying the show?” you smile softly when he coughs and lets out a strained laugh. 

“Very much,” he turns his head and your mouth goes dry. Neither says anything for a moment before he goes back to the pile and tugs out the map. You take another sip of tea to prevent being parched when he spreads it over the table. “We’re on a secret mission for the English government.” “Come again?” you clear your throat, sitting up straighter. 

He grins, “We are on an unsanctioned, unofficial mission to destroy a ship and two tug boats holding enough supplies to supply the German U-boats for six months. We destroy those ships and we regain control of the Atlantic.” 

“And how do you plan to do that?” 

“Explosives,” he pushes a tin of biscuits towards you, “tons of explosives. What do you think?” 

You sit there for a moment, processing everything he’s said before reaching into the tin and pulling out a ginger snap. You dip it into your cup before taking a bite with a grin, “where can I sign up?” 

[steamberrystudio]

2024 wrap-up and 2025 plans

It's been a really weird year for me and the last few months have been particularly challenging - so much so that I can't really remember much of the start of the year. There's been a lot that has happened and yet it feels like almost nothing has happened.

With a personal move in the works at the moment, and lots of lists and packing and cleaning, the last couple of weeks have felt like a blur of limbo as well.

But rather than just complaining let's jump into the wrap up and plans for 2025.

2024 Progress Wrap up

When looking back over a year of visual novel development, it can be really easy to forget progress and victories because it all smears together into an indistinct timeline.

You know stuff happened but you lose sight of the details of that stuff.

Even while writing this last night, I forgot that A Faerie's Tale was something completed and released this year. I remembered it just now while doing a final proofread of this post.

Development is such a long and repetitive process that you forget all the individual steps it took to get where you are. When I look back over 2024, I admit I feel like I somehow didn't do that much...that time slipped away while I did very little actual work.  

And of course, that isn't true. (Or is it?? Self-doubt assures me that I didn't do anything noteworthy this year.)

When Stars Collide

At the start of 2024, When Stars Collide sat at 485,000 words. I was finishing up editing Asher's route but had portions of the other routes to draft. The UI was still the old design, most of the backgrounds were incomplete and none of the additional features like the flowcharts and affinity meters were set up.  

I wanted to release an updated demo and the more new people told me they were playing the demo, the more I died inside because it was not at all reflective of the project any more. But I was missing critical backgrounds that I actually got only a few weeks before Episode 1 went to beta.

The point is that back at the start of 2024 the game was still very unfinished but I had big plans. My goal was originally to start releasing episodes in June of 2024 but editing and coding just took so much longer than expected that it just wasn't possible.

From a writing perspective, I learned that drafting and editing a game in this overlapping route style was hard. It was just genuinely so much more difficult than the separate route structure I'm used to. It really requires different processes and styles of planning than what I've done in the past. The burden of meticulously matching a timeline of events across 6 routes simultaneously is really tricky with the way I write and form the choices in my games.  

You kind of have to either never refer back to anything that happens within a choice scenario or you have to remember and track a lot of variables and conversations and events. Additionally, writing one plot line from multiple relationship perspectives is actually quite tricky. Things have to align in very specific ways but you also kind of want to make sure that each play through is interesting. You don't want the conversations within the LI-specific content to be identical but they have to be similar enough you can manage the difference with a few key variables.  

I honestly found it a really exhausting way to write. There's so much less complexity and so much more freedom when you are writing separate routes. And for that reason, the writing took a lot longer than I am used to.

One day I want to write up all my thoughts on route structure in visual novels but I haven't had time yet.

Ultimately I drafted about 172,000 words this year. The total word count of the game before I coded it was around 657,000 words - plus an additional 8-10k or so of bonus content. Of course, that shrinks when I code it but that was the total uncoded word count. So that is quite a jump from the 485,000 words I started with this year.  

I always say that working on VNs really skews your view of what "a lot" of words is. To me, as weird as it is to say, 180k doesn't feel like that much writing, which is silly because it's like writing two YA novels.   

But between the end of the Kickstarter for Gilded Shadows and the end of that year, I think I wrote about 250,000 words. That's 70,000 more words but in less time. I think it just shows how much more difficult writing WSC has been due to the structure of the routes.  

I remember having a conversation with someone once where she told me that writing a game like Gilded Shadows is *definitely* harder and more work than writing a game like When Stars Collide. GS has multiple plots and a lot more words. In WSC, the routes share a plot, they share scenes and content, there's only one plot line and there are far fewer words.  

I think it really underestimates the simplicity buff and the freedom buff that you get from having a single separate route in its own space time where you don't have to care as heavily about continuity across routes or a shared timeline of events or all of this other stuff that was such a burden to me when writing overlapping routes.  

I maintain that I'm really glad I wrote When Stars Collide the way I did. I learned so much about game structure and choices and all this mechanical stuff about how visual novels work that I'd never really had to think about for. It was really, really enlightening.  

But I will never do this game structure again. Lemme just say that.  

Drafting aside, I had to also edit all that writing which was its own special layer of hell.  

And then the art. The art has been enjoyable. I really love this game's aesthetic and the character designs. And the characters. I really enjoy them all so much. They are the most adorable crew of nerdy gremlins out there.  

But the art has had is own challenges. I've done about 20 CGs for the game so far and a lot of them are easy enough but the colour slider MC is definitely a bit of a challenge for the CGs. With GS where I recoloured by hand, there were times that I had to slightly tweak Morgan's default colours to look good in CGs. For instance, one of her skin tones looked quite odd next to Magnus, who is very pink. And I had to just slightly tweak that skin tone in his CGs so they looked okay together side by side. It was easy to test that sort of thing before the CG even got into the game.

But I colour Wil in greyscale and I don't see them in colour until I test. And each colour available on the slider is represented by a number. And there are essentially 100 of them. So testing all of those isn't really viable. I do test multiple skin tones from my saves. But in some ways it's more cumbersome to make sure all of that looks good.  

Wil also has 8 hairstyles…in two colours (which are recoloured manually because a couple of the hairstyles just don't really looks as good recoloured automatically (it's my art, not the dynamic colour slider tool).  

It's a lot of work. Hair 5 usually puts my hand out of commission for the rest of the day (so I save it for last. Ha ha). I don't regret it and again, it's something I wanted to to do as an experiment. I knew that 5 hairstyles was probably manageable and 8 was definitely pushing and I was right so no hard lessons really learned there.  It's sometimes valuable experience to push yourself right to that line and really see where the division between "feasible" and "too much" really is. Because then it's no longer hypothetical. You know where the line is.  

A lot of how WSC is set up was me testing if the line was where I thought it was.

Beyond the art, I also got all the other new features set up and experimented with a few things I hadn't been planning on. Many of those features had the core elements set up and coded by wonderful programmer friends and colleagues (Feniks and Windchimes and Jeneara) but I still had to implement all those things in the code to make them function as part of the game.  

Which, for things like the flowcharts - is time consuming. Flowcharts are like that.  

The flowcharts in WSC use a different method than the ones in GS. It's a brand new tool and I'm still learning how to use it but there are also some kinks that rear their heads (not those kind, you guys! The annoying kind that break the game!)  

I think the feature most people are most excited about would be the save screen. It's quite popular. Ha ha.  

With all of that stuff done, I was able to finally….*finally* release the official version of Episode 1 to Patreon and on Itch.  

And I released Episode 2 (minus two CGs that have been delayed by an abrupt move to a new place and me just not having time to draw right now) to Patrons in early access. (and the Itch version should go out mid-January. I hope).

So the point is…that is actually a fair amount of work that has taken place this year. And a lot of challenges that have been met and overcome.

A Faerie's Tale

Another thing I did this year was finish and release A Faerie's Tale as part of Amare Fest and with a team of friends to help out.

AFT is a concept I've had since about 2020 (prior to WSC actually). It was based on a dream I had as was always meant to be a cute little side project. But it kind of fell by the wayside in favour of my larger projects.

Being able to get it released was definitely fun. Jen and I definitely want to go back to it and release Lachan's route though - it was something we didn't have time for previously and it would be nice to get it truly complete.

Thornewood

And while I haven't specifically mentioned it anywhere outside of my server and Patreon...

The truth is...

I've secretly been planning my next project. But not really all that secretly since I have mentioned it a few times.

I've been torn, for a while, on two projects I'd like to tackle. One is called The Crown Wheel and the other is called (tentatively) Thornewood. I still go back and forth over which one I really want to do next. 

Crown Wheel is the one I *really* want to get out there. It's another story that's close to my heart with some ancient characters of mine that I really love and would love to throw out there for other people to enjoy. But…

Thornewood is a bit more solid a project when it comes to planning and plot. Crown Wheel is a little more nebulous in terms of where the story would go. I'm getting side tracked…I'll get into this more in my 2025 plans.

I have not been working on any other project regularly or in any truly significant way. I've really been working on outlines and character profiles more than anything and I typically do it late at night when I can't sleep but can't draw any more because I'm resting for the day and while I just don't want to be working on WSC because I worked on it all day.

I think I have about 13000 words of outline. I did a rough summary of each route and have been trying to expand those and detail them out a little bit more. So technically that is work I've done this year too.

2024 still somehow feels like a weird year for development. I can't articulate why but it definitely was an odd year for sure.

So What are my 2025 Plans?

That's really the big question at this point. What is in store for Steamberry Studio?

First and foremost, the plan is to get When Stars Collide fully released. This isn't as straightforward as it seems though. With the writing complete, I'm focused on the coding and art, but...

Coding expressions is currently a bit tedious because there have been a ton of group scenes in this game so far. This is because it is somewhat of a 'closed set' so when you are not 1x1 with a love interest…you tend to be with a group. This will diminish in upcoming chapters as the plot kicks off more and you also get longer scenes with the love interests. But unfortunately it does come back in the last few chapters.  

But for now I'm looking forward to heading into parts of the game that are more 1x1 or at least smaller groups at a time.  

Additionally the CG situation has been somewhat up in the air for me. I was originally planning to do CGs in every chapter but I wasn't sure if that would a) be sustainable for me and b) make sense.  

I suspected that there would be chapters coming up where there just weren't necessarily any good CG moments. So the "CGs in every chapter" thing was always going to be a bit squishy.   

I know, for instance, that chapter 6 probably won't have any because there aren't any good moments for it to be honest?  

Anyway. I am thinking that I may take a less formulaic approach to CGs and focus on making sure there are CGs in every episode if not every chapter. Maybe chapters 5, 8, 10...and then...Idk. One or two of the ending chapters. 

Even if it's just four of the remaining chapters, that's still 24 more illustrations for the game. Which I feel like is a very reasonable amount considering there are already about 20. 

Another thing I'm really going back and forth on is the nature of episodes moving forward.

Do I want to continue with 2 chapters per episode or do I want to drop to 1 chapter per episode? I battle myself on this all the time. It's such a hard call for me.

One challenge with moving into single chapter episodes is that I just feel the episodes would be less satisfying with only one chapter. Realistically the chapters aren't that small - even the short ones are more than 30,000 words each. That's...half a YA novel.

But, again, *realistically* when we reduce that to a play time, it's not that much.

People consume unvoiced visual novels at a rate of about 250 words per minute. That means 15,000 words per hour.

So 30k is just two hours of content. When you start dividing this up between "main plot" and "LI route content", you start whittling away at how much content *per character* there is. If there are 20,000 words of "LI content" - yeah, that's more than half the chapter. But that gets divided by 6 characters. And that means 13 minutes of playable content *including all the choices* for each character which isn't a lot. And most people are not going to play through every choice option.

Which means people could be getting through the unique content for their favourite character in less than 10 minutes.

By combining chapters, that means we get episodes that are 70,000 words or 90,000 words. It boosts the amount of content per character by a significant amount and that is really what I'm looking at when I consider episode layout. 

I try to think about what is going to make for the most satisfying episode for players. The drawback of 2 chapters per episode is that it's…a lot. It's a lot of expressions. It's a lot of flowchart work.  

It just takes more time.

Regardless of whether it's just 1 chapter at a time or whether it's 2 chapters at a time, I really want to move forward with steady releases and get the game fully released to players in 2025. That is obviously my primary focus going forward.   

The story is finished. It's burning a hole in my laptop. (Not really). But I want to get it released.

Having the story already written but delivering it in smaller bites to players is doing a lot to save my drawing hand from inevitable doom but it's so hard for me mentally. I know the things coming up in future episodes and I'm so keen to release it and see reactions and talk to people about it. And it's just so difficult to not be able to do that as fast as I want.

I'm trying to be patient and I hope all of you are willing to be patient with me.

In other work…

I will likely continue to plan out my next game on the side, though I don't intend to start working on it or writing it until WSC completes. It's too hard to manage two projects like that - at least for me - most of the time.

When it comes to Thornewood (the most likely contender for 'next project'), it is a 'dark fantasy' in that the setting is gritty and grimy fantasy with an underlying darkness in the world. It's not really a dark romance though.

I always view dark fantasy as including settings where the darkness comes from outside the main character interactions. The setting is dark and the stories have danger and darkness....

But dark romance is when the relationships themselves are also dark. And I feel like I don't really write dark romance. I don't write perfect relationships either but I wouldn't describe them as 'dark' by any stretch.

Either way I'm looking forward to working on something more overtly fantasy again.

I've been dabbling in science fiction for a long time now (since 2019 - that's when I started Gilded Shadows!!) and I've been wanting to move back into fantasy settings for a while now.  

Even just working on the profiles and outlines and world building for fantasy projects, it feels like the Fae and the magic are calling me back home. So I'm really eager to wrap up WSC and bury myself in a more fantasy themed setting again.

But I have a long journey to get to that point.

There's a lot to do in 2025 and I still have a lot of stories to tell.

I hope you will all be here with me for the journey.

[forever-rogue]

Hi! so i've kinda had the worst past couple of days in a long time and I have a joel request of him just trying to cheer you up in his own grumpy old man way where its not really working but he's trying his best + maybe some Ellie enjoying how shit he is at it. Thank you :)

AN | Joel being soft for reader and only reader 🥰 

Pairing | Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Warnings | Language, Mention of Injury (mild, nondescript but mentions blood)

Word Count | 2.2k

Masterlist | Joel, Main

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Joel Miller was a hard man. The years and circumstances had done that to him. Every year, with every little thing that had happened he'd retreated further into himself and became a shadow of himself. 

But then had slowly he'd come more out of his shell, more alive again. He'd never again be the same man from before the Outbreak, but he could be happy again. It was something he'd thought was impossible but he was gradually beginning to believe was obtainable. It had all started with Ellie; he might have been her savior but he was every bit her savior as well. 

And there was you. You had caused him to feel a hundred thousand emotions he thought he'd long buried and forgotten. He just wasn't quite sure how to approach that just yet. But he did what he could and tried to show his affection in his very own Joel way.

Ellie might have teased him about it, but he did his best. Even if you didn't notice, that was okay. He just wanted to make sure you were happy and to put a smile on your face.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

But right now there was no smile on your face. You'd gotten to the cafeteria and were on the hunt for some cookies. You were definitely in the midst of some pms and the cravings had hit. All you wanted now was something sweet. Your tummy had decided that it was chocolate chip cookies you were after. 

Unfortunately, there weren't any to be found. You had been positive that Vickie had baked some but they were either nonexistent or already all gone. You snooped around the counter and eventually found an empty tray that had suspiciously cookie-like crumbs on it.

"Animals," you sighed softly. People always descended on sweets first. You should have gone in the morning rather than waiting for the afternoon, "not a single cookie left."

You felt prickling at the back of your eyes, which you knew, realistically, was a dramatic reaction. But hey - hormones were weird and cravings happened.

Joel happened to walk in and noticed you staring dismally at the empty counter. A deep frown was tugging on your features, setting your mouth in a pretty little pout. He loathed seeing you upset. He was at your side in an instant.

"Everything alright?"

"No - yes," you shrugged as you turned to look at him. He still managed to make you weak in the knees despite how often you'd seen him. He was handsome in a roguish way and he'd always been kind to you, "its nothing."

"Don't look like nothin'," of course he wasn't going to let it go. You knew him better than that by now, "you look upset."

"It's noth - it's silly and you're going to laugh at me," your face burned under his intense gaze; you felt so vulnerable.

"Never," and that was a promise.

"I just really wanted some chocolate chip cookies," you confessed, so quietly that he almost wasn't sure he'd heard you. Then you noticed the way the corner of his mouth twitched into a small smile, "I know it's stupid! It's just that I've got pms and it's making me want something sweet. I was looking forward to some cookies."

"Oh," you didn't have your cookies and were upset. By proxy, Joel was now upset. His brows furrowed as a heavy sigh escaped your lips, "I'm sorry they didn't have your cookies. And that you're dealing with your…monthly stuff."

"Yeah," you sighed softly, "me too. But I'll just find something else. Thanks for listening to me complain."

"It ain't complaining," he hesitantly reached over and gave your shoulder a gentle squeeze. You tried - unsuccessfully - to ignore the tingles that surged through your veins, "I'm sure you'll find something sweet."

"Thanks Joel," you offered him a small smile, "you're very kind."

You brushed past him, giving a last little parting wave as you headed outside. Joel watched you go, a plan already forming in his mind. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It was evening before you returned home, deciding that it was time for a hot shower and then into bed with a book. You were starting to feel crummy and hoped this would help. 

But when you got home, you were greeted by a delicious smell that made you stop in your tracks. You hadn't cooked or baked anything…you'd guard went up as you walked into the kitchen.

On the table there was a huge, fresh plate of cookies. You couldn't hold back your squeal of delight as you padded over to them and eagerly grabbed one and stuffed it into your mouth. The idea that it could have been a trap hadn't even crossed your kind. 

There was no note or anything, but you knew exactly who these were from. 

Joel Miller. 

Your heart felt it could burst from sheer happiness. You were going to find later and thank him; this was one of the nicest things anyone had done for you in a long time.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It had been a few weeks since Joel had made you cookies. You still hadn't managed to properly thank him; every time you saw him he appeared to be busy or disappeared within the blink of an eye.

One day you'd do something special for him. 

That day just wasn't going to be today. You were leaving the sheepish enclosure after feeding the small herd, as it was your designated day to do so. You'd been so preoccupied with playing with them that you weren't paying much attention to the closing of the gate. 

Not until you have a piece of rogue wire scrape down your arm. A sound of surprise escaped your lips as you looked at your arm to find it bleeding.

"Oh," you stared at it until you heard a pair of hasty footsteps stop in front of you.

"What happened?" you looked up to find Joel watching you with concern etched all over his face. He reached for your wrist, hesitantly at first but when you didn't flinch away, he wrapped his fingers around your wrist and gently pulled your arm towards him, "you're bleeding."

"I scratched my arm," you looked towards the fence, as though realization suddenly dawned on you. You swore that your arm started to hurt even more, "it hurts."

"I know baby, I know," he didn't seem to have a clue as to what he had said but it was definitely not lost on you. You watched him intently, unable to contain the wild thumping of your heart as he looked you over, "let's go and this cleaned up, okay?"

"Okay," you agreed softly, trying to hold back your sniffles, "okay."

He reached for your hand on the opposite arm and tenderly took it in his hand, leading you over to his place. You'd been to his house before on several occasions but something about this felt so different.

Joel was quiet as he took you upstairs to the bathroom, motioning for you to sit on the side of the tub. He made quick work of getting all his supplies together and then patching up your wound. Not that it was much, it probably looked worse than it really was, but you appreciated him nonetheless.

"It might sting a little, okay?" He grabbed the alcohol and started to clean the scratch and you tried not to hiss at the pain but you knew it was written all over your face, "almost done. It'll feel better soon."

You nodded in understanding as he dabbed some ointment onto your arm before wrapping the wound up so it would stay clean. It was over before you knew it and you were almost sad that it was done. That meant his hands weren't going to be on yours anymore. 

He patted your knee when he was done and stood back up. You looked at him with such wide, soft eyes that Joel had struggled to hold back from kissing you. Damn.

"Thank you," your voice was soft and all he could manage in response was a nod of his head. It was then that you had remembered you still had something else to thank him for, "oh! Before I forget - thank you for the cookies. They were delicious."

"H-how did you know it was me?" his cheeks flushed pink as you beamed at him.

"It wasn't hard to put two and two together," you insisted, "I complained about not having cookies and suddenly there's a plate waiting at home? Come on, Joel. You made that almost too easy! But they were also delicious."

"I'm glad you liked them," he whispered softly, "and I'm glad your arm is okay."

"Me too," you smiled up at him, "all thanks to you, Joel Miller."

He couldn't find it within himself to muster up even a single word, too afraid he might spill his innermost secrets. Instead he brushed his knuckles along your cheek ever so gently.

He didn't have to say anything, not really. Everything between the two of you was loud and clear. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You hadn't been sick in a long time and realized it wasn't something you missed. When it came around, you were really down and out. 

Like right now. You caught something but from who or what you had no clue. 

You did know however that you felt and looked like absolute garbage and had no energy either. So you did all that you could - stay in bed and rest.

But you were hungry and thirsty but didn't have it within yourself to actually get up to take care of yourself.

When you heard someone knocking at the door all you managed to do was shout in response, "its open!"

A moment passed before the door was actually opened and you heard a pair of tentative footsteps. You listened to their path until they stopped in front of your bedroom.

You rolled onto your back and looked up, finding Joel standing there and holding several bags of supplies. He hated seeing you like this; you hated him seeing you like this too. 

"What're you doing here?" you asked softly as he cleared his throat nervously, "Joel?"

"Maria told me you weren't feeling well," he said gruffly, "I came to take care of you."

"'m sick," you coughed lightly as he grimaced, "don't want you to get sick too."

"I don't care," he insisted in a tone that suggested it was pointless to argue, "I'm here to take care of you. You realize I'm not just leaving, right?"

"Of course I do," you sat up as he hesitantly came over and sat at the edge of your bed, "you're a stubborn man, Joel Miller."

"I've heard that a time or two," he snorted in amusement, "and much, much worse."

"Hmm," you laughed lightly as you leaned against your pillows, "what if you get sick?"

"I won't."

"If you did," you pressed further, "would you let me take care of you?"

He paused for a moment before nodding. He knew that you were just as stubborn as him, "I would."

"Good," you paused for a moment before a serious look crossed your features, "can I ask you something, Joel?"

"Anything," he insisted softly, his voice dropping to a tone that seemed to be reserved just for you.

"You’re always so nice to me,” you tried to ignore the fact that warmth was rising in your face, enough that you were sure you could fry an egg on it, “but…”

“But…” he echoed, reaching over and brushing your hair out of your face before feeling your forehead, “but what?” 

“It’s me,” you waved your hand around, “you’re always like this with me. But not anyone else. I don’t think so anyway.”

“You’re right,” he confirmed, his simple and sure answer coughing your brain to scramble, “the kid keeps saying I’m sweet on you. She’s not wrong.”

“Oh,” you hadn’t quite processed the weight of his words…not until, “oh.”

“Mhmm,” Joel didn’t necessarily have a way with words, but he didn’t need to when his actions spoke so loudly. You smiled at him and he felt like he was the one that was going to melt into a puddle, “have you eaten?”

“No,” you admitted sheepishly, “too tired.”

“Well then,” he stood up, hands on his hips, “I’ll go and make some soup. Okay?”

“Okay,” yeah. You could definitely get used to this. He grabbed the bags with groceries and supplies before turning to head to the kitchen. But you could let him go just yet, “Joel?”

He turned around and raised an eyebrow, “yes?”

“Me too,” you was the only thing you could get out. Judging from the way his face lit up, you knew he knew what you were trying to say. 

“I’ll be back,” he promised, “get some rest in the meantime.”

“Okay.”