#it also doesn’t have an exam. which is certainly a good thing.

[the-irrelevant-trumpeter]

ugh i hate being in year 12 and having to think about what subjects to drop or pick up and what i want to do at uni

[apricityxoxo]

Help and Care

✧.* Simon "Ghost" Riley x Fem! Reader

✧.* wc 5,786 (teheeheee)

✧.* summary: he definitely didn't need help, he doesn't need someone to care for him. no one has ever helped him before, and no one ever cared so why would they start now. he doesn't care, he definitely doesn't need help. so why does he keep ending up in the infirmary with the beautiful nurse? and why does he keep coming back to you?

✧.* contents: fluff, a bit of angst, and a sprinkle of suggestive dialogue

here's the whole story! it took me a while but I hope you all enjoy it, sorry I'm a perfectionist. I had a lot of fun writing this but let me know what you all think. i might write a pt 2 to this idk. Also pls excuse the medical and military inaccuracies

enjoy

Help. He hates help. He can’t stand it. When others look at him, when he looks at himself, he doesn’t see himself as someone dependent on others. Why else would he enlist, he didn’t need help, he learned that the hard way. No one ever helped him and he adjusted, so why would he need help now? People are dependent on him; they rely on him. When someone is injured, scared, or dead it’s up to him to fix the situation, to solve the problems of others, to carry the fallen.

When Price told him to go to the nurse he was upset, actually, he was pissed. He was not a child who scraped his knee playing football at school. He was a soldier; he was more than a mere man. He knew how to endure, he knew how to carry his weight, and he knew that he didn’t need to see the nurse. He knew what was wrong with him, he just bruised his ribs. He didn’t need some old woman with a bad attitude to tell him what he already knew.

He endured and he resisted the pain for exactly two weeks, but the pain was only getting worse. He was confused and didn’t know what to do, he hoped that no one had noticed and he didn’t want people to start. He didn’t want questions or concerns, he wanted relief and nothing more.

He thought no one would notice and he was so wrong.

Training.

Simon hated training the new recruits, they were cocky and they didn’t know their place. They thought after joining and passing the initial physical exams, they were done.

They were most definitely not done. They needed to adjust, physically and mentally, to fit in. Many people think the initial physical and mental exams are where new recruits break, no they break here, during training…with him. He hated it but knew why Price asked him to do it.

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Price usually did rounds during training, he watched the recruits and the techniques of the other task forces. The smell of sweat, dirt, and blood filled his system and that smell drew his attention to Ghost. Today he felt the need to check on Ghost and see how he was doing. Ghost was a good teacher even though he didn’t realize this, Price did though.

Ghost was mean, harsh, and disciplined, and the people he taught tended not to last long, however, the ones who did turn out to be great because the one thing that Ghost teaches best is endurance.

When Price was watching him train, he started to get upset and confused. This was most definitely different from the big and bad Ghost he was used to. He thought at first that "maybe Ghost was pulling his punches?" When he paired Ghost up to train some of the rookies, he thought maybe Simon was finally going soft.

Usually after training, the rookies would be sore, and in pain, sometimes they might even need to be excused to nurse. However, these past few weeks the rookies have been surprisingly...fine. Maybe even better than fine and it's been making them cocky, it's boosted some of their egos.

It would probably boost his ego too, Price chuckled. If he were to beat the big, brutal, scary Ghost while still a rookie. However, they are starting to get obnoxious because they are taunting and boasting, which is certainly something that Price could not have. It was starting to piss him off. Price was going to tell Ghost that if he didn’t put these pricks in line, there were going to be consequences.

That was the plan, but then he took a closer look and that’s when he saw it.

He saw the way that Ghost taking more hits than normal, he was slow to react and he was even slower to respond. His stance was off as well, usually his form made him feel like a giant among men but now he looked like he was shrinking himself, like it was his first day of training. Ghost wasn’t pulling his punches, he wasn't holding back, he was weak.

Now he was pissed.

Price knew.

Price knew exactly why Ghost wasn’t as strong as he usually is, why his punches aren’t as powerful as they normally are. Ghost was a disobedient bastard and Price was pissed.

“STOP! That’s enough training for today, soldiers.”

“Ghost, come now!”

“Yes, Captain” Ghost replied in his thick Manchester accent.

“The hell is wrong with you Lieutenant!”

“Nothin' Capt’n, I'm just-”

“You’re just hurt, did you go to the nurse?” Price knew the answer.

“I didn’t feel the need to go to the medical facility Capt’n”

“You didn’t feel the need to go?” Price asked Simon and looked at him like he was crazy. Since when did his soldiers feel the need for an opinion?

“If you don’t get your ass to the medical facility right now, you’re going to be training these pricks for three months straight. You understand?”

“Yessir!”

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Unbelievable!

He doesn’t need to be here. As he walks to the nurse’s offices, he feels everyone's eyes on him. He’s rarely ever here and because of that it draws the eye, lots of them. He thanked his balaclava every day because without it, based on the face he was making, some might think he was actually nervous.

He doesn’t want some old hag telling him what to do and degrading him for not coming sooner. Some old nurse or doctor telling him everything he already knows just to insult him and show off their vast vocabulary just to try and make him feel small. that’s what they all do, that’s what his father did.

He approaches the front desk and the older woman tells him to go to office number 222. He makes his way over, navigating the hallways,  and he finds the office. The sign is decorated with small pink flowers and a white cat with a red bow. He resists the urge to roll his eyes.

Before he goes and knocks on the door, he dries his palms on his pants, desperately hoping to get over this.

Knock-knock.

Some time passed but then he heard a soft voice say…

“Come on in”

He opened the door and he was surprised that the soft voice matched a beautifully soft face. A face with beautifully unique features that worked together in harmony to make the beautiful woman that sat before him.

God damn.

Those were the only words on his mind.

It wasn’t an old woman who looked like she had a chip on her shoulder and carried a deep grudge, nor someone who looked like they were going to insult him… no. definitely not.

It was a young woman.

A beautiful young woman.

A beautiful young woman with the most inviting features. Absolutely gorgeous, he’s never seen a woman this beautiful ever on this base. He feels like she doesn’t belong here, her face is an exact contrast to the environment he surrounds himself every day. He has a million questions he wants to ask her, and he feels the strong urge to get closer to her. He’s such a creep. He doesn’t even know her name.

He feels his mouth goes dry and his hands sweat. Gross. He hasn’t felt this way since Secondary School, he feels like a dork and he doesn’t know what is wrong with him.

“Good afternoon, how can I help you!” Her voice was cheery and if he was a little bit more nervous, he wouldn’t notice the shock on her face and the tremble in her voice. He was used to that reaction; it was probably due to his appearance. her voice matched her face and he felt his heart beat faster, he finally was going to die.

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He was just staring at you, he was just looking. You’ve heard rumors of him, of his personality. The big bad Ghost, the professional killer who lacks mercy for anyone. He was just staring at you and it was freaking you out. What’s wrong with him, why is he here in the nurse's office? Did he hurt someone? Or worse…

He’s still staring.

“… excuse me, is everything alright?”

“Erm…yeah, sorry” he responded and if your mind weren’t running a mile a minute you would have heard the way he sounded nervous.

He clears his throat and then replies “Captain Price has recommended I take a visit down here.” God his voice was so deep. He was so smooth, he had a thick accent that wasn’t like any of the others you heard on base. His voice was not at all soft but the way he spoke made something bubble inside you. 

Wait. ‘take a visit down here’

Oh. He needed help. 

“Oh… okay sir, what seems to be the problem?” You try your best to put on your customer service voice and hide the fact that you're wondering what this man might need help with. 

“Erm… last deployment I bruised my ribs real bad, don't know how…”

You try to listen, you have to pretend to do so. You're writing as he describes his symptoms. He has stomach pain, difficulty breathing, tenderness in his abdomen, and bruising. He describes his symptoms and you feel so bad for him and at the same time, you feel disgusted in yourself. 

Disgusted because instead of being focused on how he describes his pain, you focused on his attractive ass voice. You can't help it, you're just a girl. 

No, You need to remain a professional.

“Okay Lieutenant Riley, if it's all right with you, I’d like to examine your abdomen.”

“Yeah… that's fine” he sounds hesitant you feel bad… you feel like you need to reassure him.

“Don't worry lieutenant, I'm sure everything is going to be just fine.” you try to reassure him and when you do, you unconsciously give him a soft smile.

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Well, you have to ask him to take off his shirt. That was something that didn't occur to you. He doesn't have to comply, you could do the whole checkup with his shirt on. You hope he doesn't so you save yourself from embarrassment. 

“Sir, if you do not mind, may I ask you to remove your um… t-shirt?” you ask, trying your hardest to remain professional. It's completely reasonable for a medical professional to ask a patient to remove their shirt when they had an abdomen injury.

“You don't necessarily have to I'm sure I can find a way to…”

“I don't mind” Lieutenant Riley cuts you off as he agrees.

He sits on the examination table and removes his shirt.

You think you just died. You are short of breath and you think you died because there's an angel right in front of you. If you were anywhere else you would admire his powerfully built body, but you were more concerned with the bruising on his stomach.

You feel and you touch his body, extremely concerned about his well-being. His stomach was black and blue, his stomach was sore, and he could barely bend over. 

You were worried but also shocked because this man worked and trained in such a condition for about a week. You knew of Simon Riley and you knew of his reputation and this just supported the fact that he's an absolute abled-bodied unit… it was almost scary.

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“I believe you have a few broken ribs…sir.” You say almost scared of his reaction. He needed x-rays, actually he needed time off. 

“I'll recommend you an off-base X-ray Tech to take pictures of your abdomen, I also recommended to your captain that you take time off to heal. After we get your x-rays, I recommend you visit me every two weeks so we can look over your progress ” You tell him, distracted as you look over all your notes.

“Oh ok, every two weeks, and how long will it take to heal…” Luitenent Riley asked, he sounded nervous and you started to feel bad for talking to him so nonchalantly about his condition.

“Um should take about two months to heal. Ribs tend to heal rather quickly, however, since they weren't treated earlier it might take a while longer. Don't worry I’m sure you'll feel better rather quickly.” You try to give him a little bit of comfort. You give Luitenent Riley instructions, stating how to take care of himself and treat his injuries. 

He collects his stuff and is getting ready to leave before he turns around looks you up and meets your eye. 

“Thank you so much luv, ‘preciate it.” He tells you, in a soft accented voice.

“It's not a problem Luitenent.” You tell him and you feel your heart pick up its pace.

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Week 2 

He was supposed to visit today, you were expecting him today. You had all of his notes laid out and you were just waiting. 

Waiting.

Waiting. 

Other patients came and went but you were still looking forward to one specific client. The first time he visited you had no time to admire his large and confident stance when he walked into the room. He walked into the room with utter confidence as if he knew it would have an effect on you.

AND GAHHH LEEE

When he removed his shirt, you don't know how you controlled yourself. You knew he was a big man with a hefty build but you were not expecting what you saw. Your eyes were blessed with a solid, broad-shouldered, athletic man.

The literal definition of manly, if he wasn't in the military you were sure he would be off somewhere chopping wood or something. If you weren't at work you're sure you would be lying in bed kicking your feet.

When he spoke to you he had such a deep and low baritone voice that was heavily accented. You never had a thing for accents but he was something else completely. Low and intimidating, his language was professional but you could tell that he was trying not to curse and use slang. It's embarrassing to think about the things you'd do to hear him, swear or even say your name. In your head you know you’d sound like a rabid dog if he’d said it in that attractive ass voice-

Then you hear your name and think you might die. Actually, it was your last name and your medical title. But still—

It’s him.

He’s here. 

Remain professional! you scream and shout at yourself.

You greet him and try to make small talk, asking him how he’s doing, how he’s feeling, and what he’s been doing with his time off. It's hard, he's such a beefy and attractive man. You can't even see his face but based on just the way he walks, you know he's fine. 

Admittedly, working on this base that’s far away from your home made you forget how to act around an attractive man…

“Been reading too, I'm trying to distract myself. If ya have any recommendations just let me know.” he interrupts your thoughts and you relate to him. It gets boring between deployment he tells.

“What do you usually do between deployments?” you ask, sincerely.

“Train, train myself then train with others.” He replies.

You don’t ask anything else, you know that he must miss training every day. The way he says it makes you feel bad. You know many of the soldiers find solitude when they work on themselves and train. It calms them and helps them recover, it's almost a form of therapy. Simon can't do that, not with his injury. You feel a pang in your chest. 

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You go over his notes and x-rays. You give him a checkup and note that he’s healing rather quickly, based on the other scars you know that this isn’t his worst injury. 

You catch his eyes when you are going over everything with him and explaining your notes to him. He’s looking at you with his golden green eyes, staring you up and down. You feel sort of embarrassed because you don't feel cute at this moment. You didn’t put makeup on in the morning, just gloss on your plumped lip and curled your eyelashes. Your wash day is coming up too so you wrapped your hair in a colorful scar today.

The way he looked at you was the way men would look when you would walk into a club. When you had a full face and your hair was freshly done. When you had a tight and short dress that would accentuate your beautiful curves. When you knew that you looked stunning that's the way he was looking at you, right now.

His visit was finished and you put the date for the next visit in your calendar. Before he leaves he thanks you.

“I don't like doctors but I appreciate all you've done for me, miss.”

“Thank you Luitenenent, if you ever need a book recommendation you can always come see me.”

“Thank you.” He tells you and even though you can't see his face, you feel a smile radiate off him.

You feel like he’s such a kind man.

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Week 4

Today, on his next visit, he’s not as kind.

You know why. You can tell that he's antsy, that he wants to get back to work. He’s rushing the process and wants to do everything you told him not to do. He wants to disregard all the instructions you gave him. You’re used to that, soldiers want to get back to their daily routine and they’re itching to do something strenuous during the healing process.

You would be fine with that if it were not for his shortness with you. He was annoyed and that was completely acceptable but there was no need to be curt and downright rude to you.

His answers were short. After each question, while trying to make small talk he replied with a ‘Mmhmm’. He didn't make eye contact with you and when you would suggest activities for him to try and distract him, he would roll his eyes and brush it off. 

He didn't want to chat and you feel like this is not the same man, who came to visit last time.

Today’s visit was short, there was clearly no need for small talk on his end and no time for the flirting you wanted to do. 

You did yourself up today too and now that you think back at it, it feels like a waste of time. You enjoyed the visit you had with him last time you were looking forward to today's visit. However, that feeling quickly dissipated, when Luitenenent Riley came in with a bad attitude and short tone. You had no time for this today, you think you even returned that same energy. So the visit was short and he left with a slammed door following behind him.

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Lunchtime came around and you were most definitely looking forward to it. After a long day, that wasn't even over, all you wanted to do was eat. You grab your book and sit in your designated corner to eat in the loud cafeteria.

You feel relaxed when you start eating and open up your book. The loud cafeteria with the chatter of men and women surrounds you. It's kind of calming when you think about it. The laughs, small talk, and clattering cutlery fade in the background around you. This is just what you need after such a long and tiresome day. 

You try to focus on your book but then you are interrupted by someone clearing their throat.

“Is this seat taken?” You glance up from your book, you find him standing there, his presence commanding attention even in the busy room. Lieutenant Riley is looking down at you with a food tray in his hands. He refers to the seat across from you and you shake your head no. You try to avoid eye contact when he sits down, still feeling annoyed from earlier. 

He lifts his balaclava over his mouth and you both eat in silence. There’s a growing tension around you both. 

You eat your food and busy yourself with your book, however you can feel him looking at you. He ate in silence, his eyes occasionally meeting yours before darting away.

It was irritating.

Earlier he was being rude and barely talking to you and now he was acting timid, the audacity. You started to pick up the pace and eat your lunch faster.

Then he interrupted his silence with his deep sultry voice.

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior earlier. I was disrespectful to you when you were only trying to help. I'm sorry. I've honestly been sick and tired of sitting around and doing nothing that I took out my anger on you and for that, I apologize.” It sounded like he practiced this. It makes you smile thinking about the Ghost practicing an apology in the mirror. You can just imagine him practicing and it warms your heart that he put this much energy into an apology.

“Thank you for your apology.” You reply in a soft voice.

There was silence for a while but it was interrupted by your voice.

“Um…I know it's hard, not being able to do the things you used to be able to do. I'm sure soon you will be able to get back to your routine and do everything that you want to do… and more. If You need to talk to someone, you can always come and see me. ” You tell him, a bit timidly. All you want to bring comfort to him and reassure him.

“Thank you,” he replies.

“No problem Luitenent” you respond.

“Call me, Simon.”

That was the end of the conversation. There was a soft smile on your face, and you both sat in a comfortable silence, taking quick glances at each other.

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Week 6

This next visit was much more casual than the previous two. Throughout the whole week before this upcoming visit, he’s been stopping by your office. 

In the beginning, he would just stop and say hello and indulge you with some small talk. Nothing more than checking in on you and asking how your day was. However lately, he’s been getting comfortable here. He’s claimed the large decorative leather chair in the corner of your office, closest to your desk. 

He would just sit there and talk to you about anything and everything. Conversations went from favorite foods to his most recent reads to how long you’ve been an RN. 

The other nurses in the building have gotten used to his presence in your office. When they come to visit or drop something off, his presence doesn’t throw them off anymore.  They’re used to the large man sitting comfortably in your office. 

Today was no different, he stopped by in the morning and you both got to chatting. An hour went by when it felt like mere minutes. Time flew by so fast that you almost forgot about his checkup.

“Oh!” You exclaim. “I'm such an idiot, I almost forgot why you were here Simon.” you shoot up from your desk and walk over to the examination table, slapping it twice with a big grin on your face

“Alright Simon, let’s get this over with!” You sell him with a large smile on your face. 

Simon slaps his knees and pushes himself off of the deep and comfortable chair. He makes his way across your office looking at all of the flowers around your office and the Sanrio Characters you have scattered around. 

When he gets to the examination table, just as you're about to move out of the way, he grabs your waist and moves you to the side. He lets his hands linger and he makes eye contact with you as he sits on the chair. 

You're certain he’s smiling under that stupid balaclava.

Cocky bastard. 

You clear your throat and attempt to focus on your work. The checkup only lasts a few minutes, he’s getting so much better. You would be so excited to tell him that he can start getting back to his normal routine, but you're distracted.

Distracted because he’s so touchy. First, he touches your waist, he must know that it has some sort of effect on you because then he touches your clothes. 

During the checkup when you need to do something basic and mindless, he grabs the corner of your coat and rubs yours between his fingers. When you speak to him he’s doing the same with your black scrubs.

“You can start getting back to your regular routine, like training and stuff. Don’t rush it or anything, just …baby steps'' you say, you move yourself to stand in between his legs.

“That right?” He asks but he’s not focused on what you say. He’s focused on your plump lips and you think it’s turning you on. His eyes slowly make their way back to your eyes. 

“Mmmhhh! But nothing too rough.” You reply looking back at him. You feel his hands make their way up your waist. 

“Not even a little rough?” He asks. You both start to lean closer and he takes one hand off of your waist and takes it toward his mask. 

Oh god! What is he doing? Is he going to show his face? Kiss you! Or maybe—

Knock Knock

The loud knock draws your attention away from Simon and you pull yourself away from between his legs.

You clear your throat and attempt to fix yourself even though you two have done nothing. 

“Come in!” You shout, voice cracking a bit. 

One of the more intimidating on-field military nurses enters your office. Unlike you, this nurse is trained for the field and it shows. She is tall with broad muscular shoulders, and she confidently walks into the room with a skeptical look on her face. 

She takes a look at both you and Simon before addressing you. Telling you that your presence is wanted somewhere else. 

“Oh okay… I’ll be there in five ma’am.” You reply and she makes her way out of your office with a raised eyebrow at Simon. 

“Okay, Simon! your next check is in two weeks and that’s your last one, congratulations.” You address Simon trying to make it seem like you don’t remember the moment you two had before you were interrupted. Simon stands and makes his way over to you, stops right in front of you, and towers over you. If he was anyone else you’d give them hell for popping your personal space bubble.

“Alright…Can I see you tomorrow?” he asks, looking down at you. 

“Are you injured?” You ask sarcastically. 

“Got a paper cut. That’s what I get for reading” He shows you his thumb and starts to chuckle. You laugh right along with him. You look up at him and nod, you smile while biting your lip. 

“See you tomorrow Si”

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Week 8

Two months.

He’s known you for two months and he still doesn’t know how to act around you. This past month he’s seen you almost every day constantly visiting you. He feels like every day he’s getting to know you better and better. You’re a genius, graduating high school and college early which explains why you're so young. You love this little Japanese cat thing that’s called Hello Kitty. Your favorite flowers are tulips, and that’s something that stuck out to him. 

Tulips stuck out so much that he used his last day of time off to go out off base and buy you some. Today is his last official visit with you but he most definitely doesn’t want to make it his last time seeing you. He wants to see you more, a lot more. He wants to see you outside of work, he wants to see you outside your work clothes. He wants to see you in jeans, a dress, in his bed—

He shakes his head, trying to stop himself from thinking like that. It’s disrespectful to you, he hasn’t known you for longer than a couple of months, and he can’t think about you that way. 

It’s hard not thinking like that. He thinks about his third visit with you, when you both were rudely interrupted. He thinks about what your waist feels like, what your face looks like. He thinks about it often, especially at night–

He cringes at himself, he feels like a teenage boy who’s never touched a woman. 

He tries to distract himself by looking at the tulips he bought for you. They’re closed and pink with long green stems. They’re beautiful just like you. He doesn’t understand, how someone can be so effortlessly beautiful. 

When you wear makeup or no makeup: beautiful. When you have your hair down and natural, sleek and bone straight, or up in braids, buns, or a scarf: beautiful. He can’t begin to comprehend it. 

Not only are you beautiful on the outside you have the personality of a goddess. You’re kind and compassionate but not afraid to snap back when someone gets out of line. That’s what makes him nervous, the doubts start flooding his mind. 

He’s still staring at the tulips when Soap enters his room. Unannounced. 

Soap comes into his quarters and scatters around the room. He looks in draws and under furniture, he's scattering stuff around as if he lives here. He is tossing his stuff around and looking in places he shouldn't be. Ghost hasn't even looked up, hasn't even acknowledged his presence. Ghost rolls his eyes so far back into his head when he hears Johnny whining to himself. 

“What’re ya lookin’ for Johnny?” He inquires in an irritated tone. 

“Lookin’ for my char–” He cuts himself off as finally looks up at Simon. He sees Simon slouched over his bed looking at the pot with pretty pink tulips and a wide, knowing, mischievous grin appears on his face. He looks like the Cheshire cat.

“Look at you Simon, those for that bird you've become so fond of…”

“Watch it Johnny” Ghost finally looks up, he's not pleased. Johnny continues like a mindless, careless, idiot.

“I've heard the rumors, some field nurse says she saw you two in her office…alone. Good on you Riley. Yer getting old now, ya deserve something like that. Herd shes a beauty too. ” He laughs obnoxiously at his own jokes. He slaps Ghost on the hard on his back and continues searching around his room

Ghost sits in silence for a while, thinking about Johnny’s words, he knows that he is joking, he’s not serious.

‘“Whatdya mean by I deserve something like that?” He finally inquires, the question was practically running around his mind. Johnny continued searching around the room as he answered his question.

“Well you know, ya have had a hard life. Yer always helping people, always trying to be the best, and ya never really had that soft life. I know ya don't think it but yer a good man and you deserve a good woman. We don't live forever so think ya should take the risk and do what you have to do… Are you sure you don't have my charger? He asked after giving some of the most meaningful advice that he'd ever heard.

“Get out,” he replied annoyed by his short attention span.

“Maybe Gaz has it,” he says and leaves the room as if nothing happened.

Those words resonate with Simon and he thinks about them for a long time. The time of the appointment was getting closer and closer. He couldn't stop thinking about it, about what he was going to say to you. He wanted to make it meaningful, he wanted to ask you out on a date. 

He wanted your friendship to continue and he wanted your relationship to grow and become more and more personal. He hasn't done this in a long time and he wanted it to mean something. 

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15 minutes.

He had 15 minutes to figure out what the hell he was going to do.

As he made his way down the familiar hallway toward your office, every step seemed to quicken the pace of his heartbeat. The clock was counting down, each second would go by, getting closer to the moment. In his hands, he held a bouquet of vibrant tulips. He knows that he is catching the eyes of the people around him but each person he passed seemed to fade into the background.

It felt like when he visited you the first time, his hands were sweating and he was nervous. He says ‘hello’ to the woman at the front desk. Even though her attitude has always been rude and uptight however he thanks her every day for sending him to office number 222. The number that completely changed his life.

Now, standing just a few steps away from your door, his mind blanked, and his carefully rehearsed words were completely forgotten. Doubt starting to flood his veins. His hands are sweating again, and his heart is beating a mile a minute. He doesn't know if he can do this, he feels like it is a mistake but his feet won't stop. 

They won't stop because even though his brain is telling him to stop, his heart won't let him.

It's been years since he's ever felt this nervous, he felt like he was going to have a heart attack. He finally arrives in front of your door and holds the flowers behind his back. He gets ready to knock and says a silent prayer to whoever or whatever higher being is listening.  

He knocks.

He waits a beat and then he hears your beautiful voice say “Come on in.”

Right as you say that without thinking Simon impulsively rips off his balaclava off his face and opens the door. He watches as you slowly look up and he swears he sees a natural glow around you. 

“Hi, how can I help you?”

He doesn't respond, instead, he slowly brings the tulips to his front and presents them to you with a soft smile. You look at the man and he watches as you raise an eyebrow, it's like he can see the clogs turning in your head. Then he sees the pieces being put together in your head and your face lights up.

“Simon?” You ask with a gorgeous smile.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚⋆❀⋆˚୨୧⋆｡ ˚⋆

giggling and kicking my feet

[lostgirlmuseum]

Pulse 💗

Summary: Bucky can hear your heartbeat through the wall, and he can tell everything isn’t alright.

Pairing: Bucky x gn!Reader

Words: 600 (exactly 600, holy moly)

Warnings: None really, just mentions of anxiety and adhd. Wrote this within an hour, sorry if its bad

A/N: Self indulgent fic alert! This goes out to all my peeps who struggle with ADHD/anxiety. It sucks, but hang in there!

Divider credit: @saradika

Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Come in,” you called, not looking up from the papers on your desk.

A brief second passed, and the door creaked open. A cautious Bucky peeked his head in.

“Hey, are you okay?” He asked.

You suddenly became aware of your leg bouncing 70 miles an hour, and forced yourself to stop. 

“Yes, why?” You replied, ignoring the urge to get up and walk around.

“Well, I—” he hesitated, and brought his hand to rub the back of his neck, “I was passing by and I heard your heartbeat going really fast—super hearing and all that,” he awkwardly chuckled.

“120,” you stated, glancing at your watch.

“What?”

“My heart rate is 120 right now.”

“That’s pretty high for just sitting,” he responded, having a hard time hiding his concern.

“Well, y’know, anxiety,” you breathily laughed, but it wasn’t that funny.

“What are you anxious about? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Nothing.” You sighed, lowering your pen and facing him. At this point he was now in your room, perched in front of your door.

“Doesn’t seem like nothing.”

“Seriously, I’m kinda freaking out over nothing right now.”

“C’mon, you’re always telling me I’m valid for having concerns, you are too.”

“No, I mean there is literally no singular thing I’m anxious about right now—it’s just physical anxiety, the general feeling that I’m going crazy, or dying, I don’t know, both I guess. That sounds so dramatic. I really am fine. I mean, I’m not fine, but I am, yeah?” You rambled on and on, and cursed yourself when you noticed your leg had started bouncing again.

“I don’t think you’re okay, do you want me to bring you to Dr. Cho?”

“That’s sweet of you, but I don’t think there’s much she can do. The worst of this should pass in thirty minutes anyway, it’s just my meds.”

“Oh.” 

You could tell Bucky wanted to ask more, but wasn’t sure if it was polite.

“I have ADD. ADHD, whatever you want to call it. So I take medicine so I can focus on certain tasks, like these reports. And it does help me focus, but it’s also a stimulant, so it also gives me a lot of anxiety, which is totally awesome!” You scoffed.

“Why do you keep stopping your leg from bouncing?”

“I don’t know, I don’t want to annoy you.”

“If bouncing your leg makes you feel better, it doesn’t bother me.”

“I feel like I’m embarrassing myself,” you whined. 

Beep.

You looked at your watch.

“Oh, look at that, 126!”

“Do you—would…would a hug be something that would help you? Calm you down?” He offered, casually putting his arms out for emphasis.

“Sure, Bucky,” you smiled, and stood up to meet him halfway. You knew it wouldn’t fix it, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.

Bucky wrapped you in a big embrace, and you were shocked by how warm and teddy-like it was. You gave a small sigh, and rested your face in his neck, knowing you weren’t going to be the first to let go.

He held onto you for longer than you expected, just calmly swaying together in your room. 

To your dismay, he eventually let go of you. You were about to thank him and return to your work, but he gently grabbed your wrist and brought your watch to his sight. 

“107. Good, but I think we can do better than that,” he sweetly smiled, and wrapped you back up into his arms. 

“It might take a while.” You mumbled into his shirt.

“As long as it takes.” He cooed.

A/N: Should be either A) studying for a history exam I have tmw, or B) writing my stupid essay that the rough draft is due tmw, but I wrote this instead bc I’m procrastinating  HELP ME

[velteris]

I’ve seen a fair amount of posts complaining about this arc in Frieren and… we are all entitled to our own opinions etc which is why I will be launching into a Defense of Frieren’s Exam Arc :) Keeping it manga spoiler free since it seems like most of these complaints are from anime-only viewers.

For me the main draw of this arc is the world building. We’ve spent all this time with Frieren and Fern as our main perspectives on magic. Because it’s Frieren, the magics we’ve been hearing about have mostly been a little silly and sweet. But now we’re finding out that 1) “mage” is largely still a combat designation, and 2) Frieren and Fern are actually incredibly jack-of-all-trades when it comes to their magic repertoire. The “magic is visualisation” part is starting to be really leant into and we’re seeing more humans as well who seem to specialise in one magic (steel flowers, rocks, clones, ice and water…) It’s cool!! It’s objectively cool! I love being able to see this range that we wouldn’t have had otherwise! Also it’s fucking fantastic to see how much of a BEAST Fern really is when compared to other human mages. And she doesn’t even seem that aware of it.

Coupled with that is being able to see different people’s philosophies toward magic. I think a lot of viewers are kind of down about the sudden huge influx of side characters who they don’t really care about. But these philosophies—Land’s maximum wait-and-watch, Wirbel and Ubel’s vastly different approaches to killing—keep expanding the world and highlighting Frieren and Fern’s own perspectives. It’s soooo good seeing them react to situations not of their own making and people not of their own kind.

We get to see human society that isn’t a village in the middle of nowhere! We get to see Frieren being forced to socialise! We get to see Fern away from her emotional support elf! We get to see how society has changed since the demon king was defeated! I love that Himmel and co ushered in an era of peace, which it is, and yet the world is still full of conflicts. Truly the story continues after the hero is finished.

To address a few specific complaints I’ve seen brought up:

Frieren isn’t about all these nonstop shounen fights.

Agreed! Which is why it’s cool as hell that Frieren’s main badass shounen strategy is “sit very still for 10 hours”. That aside? There actually hasn’t been much actual fighting. You could probably count up the minutes in which actual spells are being cast and it’ll be something like 2 minutes max in the latest ep20. And that’s because it’s not about who beats who, it’s about the philosophies, the worldbuilding, the ways of thinking about magic. This is not a power-measuring contest, much as Genau would like to make it. And the random lucky draw-ness of the Stilles only plays further into that. It is possible to pass this exam without coming into conflict with others, and certainly without battles to the death. It hasn’t ever been about the shounen fights.

The good part of the show was about the delicate melancholy and that’s totally missing here.

I agree that it’s one of the strong points. But the thing with the melancholy is that it only works when juxtaposed against other moments. A story that’s composed of a bunch of unlinked wistful slice-of-life episodes will eventually fall apart because it has no momentum, no driving force. And ten years to Ende is too long to go without at least some conflict. Also, again, ten-hour bird meditation session?

Anyway, there’s melancholy, but how sad it would be if there was nothing but introspection and wistfulness. Frieren is bringing the memories of Himmel forward with her into the future. That means she has to be moving forward, forging new relationships with unrelated people, going into situations that she hasn’t been in before. A Frieren stuck in the past would be against the themes of the show, of remembering and yet moving on.

Why should I care about them spending ages trying to catch a bird?

You don’t like Stille? 🐤 fweet?

Actually I care lots about this funky thing. Indestructible and goes supersonic fast. That’s fucking hilarious. Bird that simply cannot be contained. Genau is a dick for setting up this kind of exam when, Your Honour, my client Stille does not deserve to be imprisoned.

Too many irrelevant side characters who it’s hard to care about, and they’re gonna be thrown away at the end anyway.

Again, it’s the worldbuilding. And also, mild spoilers for stuff that won’t be covered in the anime, but at least one of these side characters does come back and we get more delicious main character development as a result. Though frankly many of these characters are deeply compelling and interesting to me so I don’t rly get this complaint. Give me more Lawine.

Where’s Himmel? What do these exams have to do with the hero party? Frieren is good because of the links to the past.

Frieren is good because of the links to the past, which affect how Frieren responds to the present. The whole point of Frieren is that Frieren’s life continues. And through her new experiences, she comes to understand and reconnect to the emotions she didn’t realise she felt about her past. I don’t care what Himmel would think of the mage exams, I care what Frieren thinks of them now. And the answer is that she doesn’t really give a damn but she’s in here anyway because Fern strongarmed her into it, and then she was forced to adopt two more kids along the way, and all of that is something she never would have done if she was still hermiting in the Central Lands. Somehow we are still getting Himmel flashbacks anyway? So? He’s still haunting the narrative guys. Just because Frieren isn’t saying “that’s what Hero Himmel would do” out loud in these circumstances doesn’t mean his ghost isn’t here.

Even so, Frieren clearly recognises the name Serie. Do not fear. There is going to be more about links to the past.

I miss Stark.

Fair enough. It’s okay, he’s just on vacation rn. Having an appy juice.

It’s taking too long. The arc is too slow.

It’s only been three episodes… I’ve seen people going “it’s already been three episodes!” but what? Really? Is that considered an excessive amount of time now?? Given the amount of story covered I think it’s quite reasonable? There’s still 8 episodes to go in which we cover the remaining exam stages. Have some patience like Frieren. The payoffs are being set up; they’ll resolve before the end of the mage exam arc. In the meantime, let’s enjoy theorising about the soft magic system and hollering for full auto Fern.

[lunarbuck]

The Kiss (prof!bucky x f!reader)

AU- Professor/Student

Pairing: professor!bucky x f!reader (any race)

WC: 4.2k

Summary: You’ve always had a crush on Professor Barnes… little did you know he has been hiding some feelings of his own

Warnings: age difference, fluff, oral (f receiving), smut (p in v), pet names (Sir, sweetheart, baby), praise

A/N: this is my entry for @the-slumberparty Week 4 challenge! the AU I got was professor/student and I've been wanting to write this for a long time!!! I hope you guys enjoy <3

full masterlist

“That’s it for today. You’re all dismissed.” Book bags and jackets zip loudly as the small lecture center begins to empty. You start packing up your things, but you don’t get out of your seat yet. This certainly has been your favorite of all the classes you’ve taken in the past four years. White Collar Crime, taught by Professor Barnes, is one of the most interesting courses you’ve taken, and you also love the professor. 

Prof. Barnes is a lawyer by day, and a lecturer by evening, as he says. And though he’s often incredibly busy with cases, it's easy to see how passionate he is about teaching. You watch as he packs up his belongings, a few students quickly asking him questions about the upcoming exam. Prof. Barnes used to seem scary and intimidating to you, but after a few weeks, you started catching glimpses of his grin, of light in his eye, and you’ve been a goner ever since. 

His features are sharp, and he always looks so put together. His brown hair is clipped close on the sides and kept short on top, which suits his personality well. His broody exterior is one that most people fear, but it just draws you in, and you can’t seem to stay away.

You grab your things and start toward the front of the room. Typically, you make up a question as an excuse to talk to him, but today you have a real one. You’re the last student in the room, and Prof. Barnes is already watching you approach.

“Hi,” you greet, rocking back and forth on your heels momentarily. “Last week, you mentioned being able to go over our exam answers with you, so we know what to study. Could I schedule time with you to do that?” You do your best not to let your eyes drift from his, but it’s tough. His shirts are always perfectly tailored to him, showing off his broad shoulders and strong legs. 

Prof. Barnes doesn’t smile, but you can see the warmth in his eyes, which is better, in your opinion. “Of course. Do you have time now? This was my last class of the evening, so we can just go right to my office.” Your heart stutters in your chest at his words. You’ve gone to his office hours a few times, but there’ve always been other students outside or in the office with you. You’ve never been alone with him like that.

And as it turns out, you don’t have anything going on for the rest of the night. “That works for me,” you say, grinning. Prof. Barnes leads the way out of the lecture hall and to the building where his office is. Even though neither of you speaks the entire way, you’re buzzing. He walks close enough that sometimes your arms brush, and you can smell his cologne. 

When you arrive in his office, Prof. Barnes instructs you to sit across from him at his desk while he gets everything ready. The office is filled with books and papers, organized in a way that doesn’t quite make sense to you, but you can imagine it’s perfect for Prof. Barnes. Your eyes trail over the spines of the books, and you notice that not all are law books, but many of them are classics. 

“So, here’s your last exam,” he says, pulling your attention back to him. Prof. Barnes has laid out your scantron page as well as the exam itself, and has your grades pulled up on his computer. “You did very well, which I’m not surprised by, and the questions you did get wrong, the whole class struggled with.” Your mind short-circuits as he speaks. He’s paid enough attention to you not to be surprised by your good grade? The class itself isn’t very big, all things considered, but there are 50 students, and this isn’t the only class he teaches.

“Oh, thank you, Sir,” you reply shyly, surprised that that’s what you called him. You’ve never addressed him that way, but you love how it felt. The corner of his mouth tips up into an almost smile as he suppresses a slight shiver.

“You don’t have to call me that,” he adds, flipping through the exam booklet. You quirk an eyebrow, silently asking him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He finds the first question you got wrong. “So here’s what you said,” he points to your answer on the scantron. “What do you think the right answer is?”

His bright blue eyes watch you as you think, tracing over your features like he’s trying to analyze you. You try not to shrink under his gaze.

“Differential association?” You suggest, not entirely sure of the response, but the way Prof. Barnes’ eyes light up tells you you’re right.

“Correct,” he says, marking down your answer on a new sheet of paper. “Good girl.” The words slip out, almost as if he didn’t mean for you to hear them, but you did, and they go straight to your lower belly, lighting a spark. Prof. Barnes doesn’t acknowledge what he’s said, opting to continue through the other questions you missed. 

Each time you answer a question correctly, he smiles a little more, and looks a little more pleased. But all you can focus on is how he called you ‘good girl’. It echoes through your head, making your heart beat faster and heat lick in your belly. 

As you answer the last question, Prof. Barnes’ tongue traces over his lower lip. Your eyes track the movement, and you suck in a breath. He nods, indicating your answer is correct and clasps his hands on the desk.

“You’re more than ready for the exam,” he tells you, keeping eye contact. “You need to give yourself more credit, and trust that you know the answer. You’re smart. Trust your gut, okay?” You nod, unable to tear your eyes away from his.

“Thank you, Sir,” you say, voice breathy. Alarm bells go off in your head that you’ve definitely alerted Prof. Barnes to the state that you’re in, but honestly, you don’t care. You’re sure women throw themselves at him constantly, probably even some students. He’s handsome in that classic way, strong features and bright eyes. He knows he’s attractive; he knows people want him.

He’s close enough that if you leaned in a bit, you could kiss him. You’re desperate to know what his lips would feel like against yours, what he’d taste like. Would he hold your face to lead the kiss? Would his fingers tangle in your hair?

Even though you don’t want to, you stand and gather your things. As you walk toward the door, you hear Prof. Barnes approach. He reaches the door before you and stands in front of it, blocking your exit.

He opens his mouth but closes it immediately like he isn’t sure what to say. His eyebrows furrow, and he takes a deep breath. “You liked it,” he states, as if that’s enough information for you to go off of. When you don’t respond, he continues. “You liked when you called me ‘sir’ and when I said you were a good girl.” His voice doesn’t waver, but he fists his hands like he’s holding himself back from something. 

Your lips fall open, stunned at his observation. The way he’s speaking to you now makes the coil in your belly tighten, thinking about how he’d called you a good girl only fueling the feeling.

“You’re easy to read,” he continues. “You always stay after class to ask me questions. You come to my office hours when we both know damn well you don’t need the help. You bit your lip when you called me ‘sir’. You shivered when I called you ‘good girl’.” Your breathing has sped up, causing your chest to heave.

You don’t know what to say. You’re not sure you’d know how to speak even if you had the words.

“You thought I wouldn't figure it out, didn’t you, sweetheart?” He steps toward you, grips your jacket, which you’ve been clutching to your chest this whole time, and tugs it from your arms. “You thought I hadn’t seen you, that I hadn’t noticed you.”

You nod as he closes the distance between you. His smell invades your nostrils, making you feel dizzy.

“Well, I noticed, sweetheart.” Prof. Barnes places his hands on the sides of your jaw, thumbs brushing over your cheeks. He’s giving you time to pull away, giving you an out. But you don’t want it. You rest your hands in the bend of his arms and nod, giving him the permission he needs.

Prof. Barnes leans in and kisses you, pressing his lips gently to yours. He tilts your head slightly like you imagined he would, but you could never have imagined how soft his lips are. How good it feels to have his breath wash over your cheek. He tastes like coffee and something sweet, something distinctly him. He pulls you closer, removing the small space between your bodies, leaving you pressed against his chest. Prof. Barnes’ left hand leaves your face, shifting to cup the side of your neck before sliding down your back. It settles on your lower back, pressing you into him even more. 

You whimper into the kiss at the feeling of him, of being so close, and he takes the opportunity to nip at your bottom lip. When he pulls away, you’re breathless. “You taste so sweet,” he muses, a smile growing on his face. “Just like I knew you would.”

For the next two weeks, Professor Barnes cancels class. Even when he’s busy with a case, he never cancels; he just switches the class to online. You can’t help but feel like it’s because of you. Because of the kiss. 

The kiss.

It plays on repeat in your head; it follows you into your dreams. How his lips molded to yours and his hands held your head, how they pressed you into him. It was all so perfect; it felt so right. But maybe it didn’t feel that way for Prof. Barnes. After he’d kissed you, you’d stayed for a little longer, wrapped up in him, but he got a call and had to leave right after. He’d kissed you on the way out, saying he’d see you soon, but you haven’t. 

You were supposed to have Prof. Barnes’ class today. It was supposed to be a review day for the exam next class, but again, class is canceled. Once you finish your morning classes, you have no reason to stay on campus, so you start walking back to your apartment. Your phone buzzes, and when you pull it out, you find another text from your roommate begging you to go out tonight. You’ve been trying to get out of it, but you’re in the mood for a distraction, so you give in.

Later that night, you find yourself at one of the bars near campus. It’s not as packed as you thought, so you go to the bar and almost immediately get the bartender’s attention. He leans over the bar to hear you better, but you don’t miss the way his eyes roam over your figure before reaching your eyes again.

“What can I getcha?” He asks, giving you a smile. You rattle off your order and something for your roommate and make pleasant, if not flirtatious, conversation with the bartender. He’s cute but not really your type. Your type these days has been older, broodier, more intense…

You need to stop thinking about Professor Barnes. You need to get him out of your system.

The bartender, whose name you’ve learned is Troy, sets your drinks down in front of you with a wink, and you smile in return, sliding the cash over to him. Your roommate grabs her drink quickly before running off to say hi to one of her other friends, leaving you at the bar alone. You turn around to find somewhere a little less crowded when you feel someone’s eyes on you. 

It takes you a second, but your gaze connects with two familiar bright blue eyes, and your breath catches in your throat. 

Bucky

She saw me. 

I watch as the bartender gets her attention again, and though I can’t hear what they’re saying, I see her smile at him. I clench my teeth at the sight. The bartender slides something across the bar to her, and she looks surprised but accepts it, tucking it into the back pocket of her tight jeans.

She looks incredible tonight in her fitted shirt and those jeans that make her ass look perfect. The bartender gets pulled away to do his job, and I watch as the woman that has occupied my thoughts for so long turns back around and finds me in the crowd.

She is like a ray of fucking sunshine, so bright in my life, and as she walks toward me slowly, I can practically feel her warmth already. She approaches me tentatively like she’s worried I’ll disappear the moment she gets close enough to touch.

“Professor Barnes,” she whispers, but I hear her despite the noise of the crowd. It’s pathetic, the way my cock hardens just at her voice, but she has me wrapped around her little finger, whether she realizes it or not. 

“Sweetheart,” I reply. I don’t miss the way she shivers, the way heat flares in her eyes. 

“Where’ve you been?” She asks, fiddling with the straw in her drink. She’s avoiding eye contact, but I want to see her beautiful eyes. I stand, towering over her, and that gets her attention. She tilts her head up, and I have to stifle a groan at the sight of her looking up at me with those doe eyes.

“Did you miss me, sweetheart?” She nods just a little as if her head did it without her mind’s consent. I let my fingers trail up her bare arm, her skin soft against my calloused hand, until my hand cups her jaw. She leans into my touch, and I brush my thumb over her cheek.

I lean in, getting close enough that her shaking breaths fan over my face, and whisper, “I missed you too.” She tilts her head to try and kiss me, but I hold her face still. We’re in a bar on campus full of students. I can’t risk us being seen like this. Even touching her is dangerous.

“Oh.” She sounds defeated, and my chest squeezes. I’m not rejecting her. Quite the opposite, actually.

“The things I want to do to you, sweetheart,” I tell her, leaning my forehead against hers. “I cannot do in this bar.” Her breath stutters and her eyes glaze over with need. She quickly downs her drink and finds her roommate to tell her she’s leaving. When she returns to me, her nerves and excitement pour from her, and I feel myself beginning to smile. 

“Where are we going?” She asks, her tongue darting out to wet her lower lip. I tangle my fingers with her and tug her toward the door. My car is parked a block away. I didn’t drink. I didn’t come here to drink, so I’m good to drive.

The drive to my place is only about 10 minutes, but it feels like hours. I grip the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles go pale. I’m desperate to taste her again, to feel her writhing against me. I’d wanted to take her right then and there in my office, but it was too risky. I’m so close to having her after waiting for what’s felt like forever.

We pull into the driveway of my house, and I watch her take a deep breath. I can tell she’s nervous, but I also see the way she’s watching my every move, the way she so clearly wants me.

I shut the front door behind her, and I’m on her. I press her back against the door and kiss her. She tastes so fucking good, so soft and sweet against my lips. She grips my jacket as my fingers tangle in her hair. My tongue swipes across the seam of her lips, and she opens for me with a moan.

“You’re so sweet, baby,” I whisper against her lips. She shudders, arching against me. My cock is hard in my jeans, and I grind against her to show her just how much she affects me. I kiss her again, drinking in the way she reacts to every touch.

“Please,” she moans. I pull back slightly and take in the way her face is twisted in pleasure. 

“Please, what, sweetheart?” She furrows her brows in frustration, and I can’t help but smirk as she does it. She’s so worked up, but I want her begging.

She pants for a moment before finding her words. “I just need you,” she whispers. “Please, Sir, I need you so bad.” Her voice comes out a needy whine, and the way she calls me sir nearly sends me over the edge.

“Good girl.” I press a bruising kiss to her again before I pick her up princess-style. I walk her up the stairs to my bedroom and toss her on my bed. I can’t believe I haven’t done this sooner, that I tried to deny myself the pleasure of seeing her on my bed, panting and wanting. 

I shrug off my jacket and toss it aside before approaching the bed. She looks up at me with big doe eyes, those eyes that watch me every time we’re in class, the ones that I’ve seen in my dreams. I lean over the bed and grab her ankles, tugging her until her legs hang over the edge.

She watches my hands as I run my hands up her legs, appreciating every beautiful curve of her body. My fingers tease the skin above her waistband. I move to unbutton her jeans, waiting for her to tell me to go on, and once she nods, I peel them off her.

I am breathless, utterly hypnotized by her as I kneel at the foot of the bed. Her panties are simple, lacy and black, and when I run my thumb up and down over her pussy, she lets out the most beautiful moan. 

“You know how long I’ve wanted this?” I ask, rubbing a circle over her clit. She shakes her head, fisting the sheets. “Since the day I saw you, I’ve wanted you. Every time you came to my office, I wanted to kick everyone out and put you over my desk. I’ve wanted to keep you after class every day, have you moaning my name so loud it would echo in the lecture hall.”

When she lets out a strangled moan, I pull her panties down and revel in how gorgeous and wet she is. I tuck her panties into my pocket and run my hands over her bare skin. She shivers and tries to pull her legs together, but I don’t let her. 

“I’ve wanted to taste you since I saw you. You gonna let me taste you, sweetheart?” I ask, adding a teasing tone to my voice. 

“Please,” she begs. “Please, Sir.” I grin at her pussy and dive in. The second my tongue swipes over her pussy she arches, her fingers digging into my hair. She lets out a string of expletives as I suck her clit and explore her perfect cunt. 

She tastes so much better than I ever could have imagined, and I know I’ll be addicted to this forever. She is so responsive, so sensitive to every swipe of my tongue, and all it does is make me work harder for her. I graze my teeth over her clit, and she jolts but pulls my hair more, guiding me to exactly where she wants me.

I work her up more and more until I feel her trembling beneath me. “You wanna come, sweetheart?” I ask, sliding a finger into her pussy. She’s hot and tight around my finger, and I feel her clench around it.

“Yes, please,” she replies, voice breathy from the pleasure. I click my tongue in mock-disappointment. I nip at her inner thigh, soothing the bite with a kiss.

“Please, who? Who’s making you feel good? Who’s gonna make you come?” She squirms a little and tries to get me to keep eating her out, but I don’t give in, no matter how much I want to keep tasting her.

“Please, Sir,” she amends. “You’re making me feel so good, please, Sir. I need you so bad.”

“Such a good girl,” I groan. I double my efforts on her clit and slide a second finger inside her, hitting a spot that makes her twitch.

Her legs tighten around my head as she comes, and it takes everything in me to not come right along with her. I ease up when I notice her getting too sensitive and kiss my way up her body. 

“You’re perfect,” I tell her, sucking a mark on her neck. She helps me pull her shirt and bra off before she starts working my shirt off as well. A moment later, we’re both naked, and I love the way her eyes trace over every inch of me. 

She pulls me in for another kiss, and I lean on my forearms, keeping myself hovering just over her.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” she tells me between kisses. “Wanted you for so long.” I grin into the kiss, then pull away to dig through my bedside table for a condom. She watches with hooded, lust-filled eyes.

“This okay?” I ask, rolling the condom onto myself. I don’t think I’ve ever been this hard in my life. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone how I want her. 

She nods enthusiastically. “Please, Sir, please fuck me.” My head lulls back at her words.

I line myself up with her pussy and push in just a little, watching her face contort. Inch by inch, I sink inside her wet heat, and once I’m fully inside her, I let out a low moan. I give her a moment to adjust before I pull out and slam back in.

I know I should be gentle, that I should warm her up to this, but I can’t. There will be time for gentleness, and now’s not that time. I set a brutal, deep pace, and she takes it like the good girl she is.

Her fingers scrape down my back as she urges me on, legs wrapping around me to keep me close. I knew she’d be able to take it. I knew she’d be good for me. I tell her over and over how perfect she feels, how good she’s taking me, and every word of praise makes her squeeze tighter around me.

“Oh my god, I’m so close,” she moans. 

“Come for me, sweetheart. Come all over my dick.” I keep doing what I know she likes and watch as she falls apart beneath me. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than this. Than her. Once she comes down from her high, I switch our position. I turn her over and hike her ass up, keeping her head low on the mattress. My mouth waters as I press into her again. Her jaw drops open, and her eyes squeeze shut, and I start fucking her again.

Each sound she makes goes straight to my cock. Every moan, every whimper, brings me closer to the edge. I grip her hips hard, but I don’t care if I’m leaving marks. I want her to see them, to run her fingers over them as she thinks about the way I made her come on my cock. 

My hips start to stutter, my thrust getting sloppy as I get closer and closer to coming. I wish I could fill her up and see my cum drip out of her, but I know we’re not there yet. I haul her chest up, pressing her back to my front, and snake my hands around her. One of my hands cups her neck, not choking her but gripping it, and the other teases her breast. My fingers tweak her nipple, and she jolts in my hold.

“You like it when I fuck you like this?” I ask, punctuating my words with deeper thrusts. She moans but doesn’t answer. “Answer me, sweetheart,” I say, practically scolding her.

“Fuck, I love it so much, Sir.” Her voice is strung out with pleasure. The hand that has been playing with her breasts falls to her pussy, and I tease her clit, pulling another orgasm out of her. She’s so loud when she comes, and it pulls me over with her.

I come hard, my vision blacking out on the edges, and we collapse together on the bed. 

We watch each other as we come down from our highs. She smiles sheepishly at me, and I kiss away any doubts that might be clouding her mind right now. “That was perfect,” I tell her, kissing her nose. 

“Thank you, Sir,” she replies. I pull her close to me, wrapping her in my arms. 

“You know you don’t have to call me that,” I remind her. She tilts her head up to keep eye contact, and I love the light that shines in her beautiful eyes.

“What should I call you then?”

“Bucky.” She smiles at the nickname my friend gave me when we were younger.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Bucky.” She giggles as I kiss her, and I lock that sound away, keeping it somewhere I’ll never lose it.

“Nice to meet you, sweetheart.”

please message me to be added to a taglist! must be 18+

Everything tags: @peaches1958 @pono-pura-vida @emi11ie @paulasocean @silverfire475 @lovingchoices14 @nekoannie-chan @late-to-the-party-81 @chibijusstuff @midnightramyeoncravings

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@buckyb-stan

[lightlycareless]

Wait I'm curious if naoya has a scar from y/n (yk from that night) cuz if he has one I'd would be really funny (and sad a little) after they make out to be asked how did he got that scar on his face 😭😭😭

Heya anon!

I almost forgot about that hahahahahah but anyways, I decided to write a little something of how I think it would go down because why the hell not.

Now, forgive me if this is not that proofread, it was just a quick something I wanted to share after all the angst :> specially after the last chapter I posted :))))))

I hope you enjoy this small thing I wrote 🥺 nnnnghhhhhhhhhhh I love me some fluff. (also, this is in reference to something that happened right over here. That is very, VERY nsfw so proceed with caution)

Naoya and you were cuddling together after a long, hard day of work. He’d just gotten back home from missions, tired of being away from home and overall dealing with people who he didn’t even like—while you from overseeing most, if not all, tasks around the estate—with him absent most of the time, you were also left to tend to his own duties, which were just overwhelming as yours.

So, it’s safe to say both were exhausted, missed one another very, very much, and wanted nothing more than to bask in each other’s warmth.

However, as much as both wished to relax, it would have to take setback when a peculiar sight catches your interest. It’s subtle, almost unnoticeable, the thin streak of discolored skin splayed across his cheek, but to your observants, worrisome eyes it’s all too obvious.

“Did you always have this scar?” you ask, raising your hand to his face and gently pressing your thumbs against it, admiring the contrast between surfaces. While his skin was naturally soft, his scar felt smoother, the aftermath of a rather deep injury…

“No” he responds, instinctively leaning into your touch. “But it’s been a while since I’ve had it.”

You frown, failing to remember when it happened, you think you would’ve noticed if Naoya ever came back home with a bandage or a nasty scar on his face, yet you can’t recall…

“A mission?” you ponder, and he shakes his head with a chuckle.

“No. Actually… I got it from you.” Naoya reveals, and then, your heart sinks, almost as if the thought of you hurting your husband was too big to comprehend.

Sure, you won’t deny that the beginning of this marriage was far from ideal, rocky beyond any questionable doubt… but even then, you never imagined yourself capable of hurting someone, or at least… doing so without eventually discussing it.

How it managed to slip your mind was surprising, or how he never brought it up to conversation…

“When?” you eventually ask, Naoya sighs.

“The day before my exam—the grade one, the first one, remember?”

You frown, looking back on your memories, and then… there it is. That one awful night where you didn’t want anything but stay as far away as possible from your husband.

This was just one of many examples of how much this relationship has changed, for when you once cowered in fear in his presence, retaliating whenever possible, however possible, now can’t imagine a day without him.

And certainly, wouldn’t dream of hurting him.

“Oh…” you murmur, guilt now weighing heavy in your mind. “I didn’t think it actually…”

“No, don’t think about it” he says upon noticing the turmoil in your eyes. “It was long ago and besides… I think I deserved it.”

You press your lips together.

“That doesn’t mean it was right.” you respond. “…even if we were different back then.”

He supposes that statement fits with a lot of things that happened in the early stages of this marriage—specifically the ones he did.

Even if they’ve moved past this difficult stage of their life, Naoya knows that he’ll never be able to make it up to you—no matter what he did, there’s always going to be something in the back of his mind telling him you’ll never truly forgive him.

That he’s not good enough, and that you’re better off with someone else.

But that wasn’t true. If you staying with him and showing concern for his injuries wasn’t proof enough that you’ve forgiven him… then perhaps you needed to remind him.

“Does it still hurt?” you ask.

“No, it never did, really— wasn’t that deep.” He adds with a chuckle. “Didn’t know you had it in you though.”

You pout and this just makes him laugh even more, fluster you even more… before going completely quiet.

No words, no gestures, just both gently looking at each other’s eyes and enjoying the presence of the other, as if nothing outside that room mattered.

After a few seconds, you decide to lean forward, pressing your lips against his cheek and kissing his scar.

Naoya’s heart warms at your gesture, and the consuming urge to embrace you tightly against him overcomes him.

“I’m sorry” you say, leaning deeper into his chest, you’re so close to him you could literally heart the alluring sound of his rapid heartbeat.

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault” he whispers, pressing a kiss on the top of your head. Even when he was the one hurt, Naoya still finds it in himself to comfort you… The thought alone makes you hug him tighter, heart quickening as you bask in his care. “Besides, it’s a nice scar—I can proudly say my wife did it to me after one particularly rough night…”

“Ah! How—what a pervert!” you gasp, pulling your face away from his chest and looking up to him.

“Am I not telling the truth?” he chuckles.

“I guess that’s one way to put it…” you huff, sighing before leaning back into him.

…

…

“Does it bother you?” Naoya inquiries upon hearing the gears in your head, you sigh once more.

“I won’t be able to stop seeing it now” you confess. “It’s all I’m going to think about when I see your face.”

“Well, if you must… there is a way you can make it up to me” Naoya says, and you swear you could hear him smile.

“Be serious!” you gasp upon catching his intentions, looking up to him “Can’t think of anything else, can you?!”

“Who said anything about that?!” He laughs back “I was talking about—this”

Naoya leans forward, pressing a kick peck on your lips.

“And this”

Another kiss.

“And this too”

One more.

“And that as well”

And another, and another, and another—too many for you to keep count, far too embarrassed to even do so.

“Stop it!” you’d whine when Naoya pressed your cheeks together, forcing a pout out of you. 

“You’re adorable—did you know that?” He chuckles, kissing your pout. “The cutest, most adorable wife ever”

“Is this your idea of making it up to you?! By embarrassing me?” you manage to mutter, tightly closing your eyes as he continues to kiss you. “Stop it! You’re making me all red!!”

“You make it too easy” he jests “And that, amongst other things, is what makes me love you so, so much.”

It’s unfair how he always managed to experience a wide range of emotions in less than a second—from being flustered by his customary and excessive display of affection, to completely enthralled by it, relishing in his love and how lucky you were to have found your soulmate.

It was rough. Almost impossible to find this side of Naoya, help him put down his walls and become vulnerable.

But now that it’s here, you’ll do everything in your power to protect him, to take care of him, love him. You never want him to suffer ever again.

This time, you’re the one leaning forward, doing your best to kiss him through the silly position he had you—and Naoya simply finds your attempts even more adorable.

He gives you one last kiss before cupping your face and making you look at him.

“While I’ll always regret the way I treated you in the beginning of this marriage… I’ll never regret meeting you” he says “With you I’ve learned what it is to be happy, to be cherished just by who I am and not what I represent. With you, I can completely be myself without fear of being humiliated…

With you…. I’ve learned what it is to love and be loved.

And I find it unfair that someone as amazing as you has to suffer for things we did in the past, back when we didn’t know each other, when we had the whole world against us.

So, I don’t want you to dwell in my scar, Y/N. It’s… nothing from a past we’ve long moved on from, you know? If anything, I should be the one carrying that burden… and I probably will, for the rest of my life.” He pauses, you press your lips together, holding back tears. “I want you to focus on our future, what lies ahead for the two of us. Because I, for once, can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Your heart skips a beat at his words, finding them to be nothing but the perfect representation of your relationship with him.

Naoya has given you so many things you’ve only dreamed of, considered unobtainable—like one of those situations where everyone around you was bound to experience them, except you.

Until he came along, and then, that’s when you realized how lonely you were, to the point where the mere thought of being without Naoya hurt too much to even consider.

In more ways than one, he made you whole, he introduced you to a world of completely different experiences. With him you smiled, and you laughed, but you also cried, felt what it was to be in an ocean of loneliness—and yet, you don’t resent him, because you’ve learned the most important lesson of them all: to forgive, and be forgiven.

It takes lots of effort to overcome such difficulties, but with love and patience, everything is possible.

And just as Naoya said, these are things of the past. He had long paid for his actions and redeemed himself, and there was no use in pondering on them if they’re going to sway you away from the future.

From the adversities and blessings, the two are to face together.

“I love you” you say back “And I also can’t wait to live out the rest of my life with you.”

Eternity seems too short of a time to be with him, but you wouldn’t want it any other way.

[ceterisparibus116]

Hi DD fandom, I don’t usually do this (never have, actually), but I just want to...address this post real quick. I’m NOT trying to put anyone on blast here (and if anyone sees the original post, please be kind), but as a visually impaired person, there’s a lot I want to say.

1. Logic Games

Let’s address the logic games section of the LSAT. I might be misinterpreting, but it sounds to me like OP is saying Matt would struggle with the logic games, such that even with near-perfect scores on the other sections, he’d only net a 160-ish over all.

Now to be fair to OP, the LSAT is definitely not the most accessible thing in the world. And the logic games specifically are solved, generally, by diagramming things. That’s obviously difficult if you’re blind.

However, there are workarounds. “Blind LSAT-takers have historically used tactile mats, raised-line drawing apparatuses or Excel spreadsheets to tackle Logic Games.” Source. Now, I’m not saying those accommodations are easy to get, and maybe Matt wasn’t able to get them. But it’s certainly possible that he was.

Now let’s assume he wasn’t able to get any accommodations.

Even without those accommodations, the LSAT is a skills-based exam. This is key. The LSAT doesn’t test natural ability; it tests your ability to perform specific skills. And there are only a handful of possible types of logic games. You can only see so many “arrange the people sitting in the bus,” “arrange the flowers/trees growing in a garden,” “arrange the order of songs on a playlist,” and “arrange the order of speakers and which room they’ll occupy” prompts before you start to identify the patterns. Some are harder than others, with more variables to consider, but there are not that many variants overall.

Because the LSAT is a skills-based exam, all Matt needs to do, even without accommodations, is figure out a way to organize the information in his head. Now, it’s easier to organize the information in a diagram vs in your head, but all that matters is that the information is organized. It doesn’t matter whether it’s organized on paper or mentally. So saying logic games are “easier” with diagrams than without doesn’t mean that someone who uses diagrams will always score higher than someone who doesn’t; instead, it’s a question of time. It will take Matt more time to learn the harder skill of organizing the information in his head than it would take someone else to learn the easier skill of organizing the information in a diagram. But both skills (organizing mentally vs on paper) are sufficient to get a good score on the LSAT if you just put in the time.

And given that Matt has apparently wanted to be a lawyer since childhood, I have no doubt that he put in the time to master that skill enough to get the score he knew he’d need to go to the school he wanted.

2. Matt’s Personal Statement

This is the slightly more concerning issue. Personal statements are a chance for applicants to show why, aside from LSAT scores and GPAs and letters of recommendation, they would make a good lawyer. They are not the place for a personal sob story, except for two reasons:

a) using the “sob story” to demonstrate how the individual has persevered through hardship; and

b) using the “sob story” to explain certain less-than-outstanding aspects of the application.

In other words, Matt could say: “I’m exceptionally devoted to my studies and motivated by my desire to help others in need, as proven by the fact that even blindness failed to stop me from pursuing law school, despite the fact that law is a vision-intensive profession.”

It’s also possible that Matt could try to artfully say, “My LSAT score wasn’t stellar [if that’s true, which I question, but never mind for now] but that’s only because I’m visually impaired and lacked appropriate accommodations - not because the score actually reflects any deficiency in my reading or logic skills.”

Personally, I find it much more in-character to headcanon that Matt would go the first route rather than the second.

But what is not an option (at least, not a respectable option) is for a person to use their sob story to attempt to manipulate the school into using them as a diversity poster child despite having an inadequate application.

Do some people do that? Maybe, sure. Is that an appropriate thing to do? Absolutely not. Law school, beginning with the application process, is about being a good advocate for other people - it’s not about manipulating the system so you can get a “spot” to which you are not actually entitled. And how do you become entitled to having a “spot”? By having the skills good advocacy requires.*

Ultimately, attempting to shortcut the system to accept a person who is not a good advocate (but who has a great sob story) is depriving future clients of adequate representation.

Not to be dramatic, but Matt would rather die.

*I’m not saying that the application process is the perfect measure of the skills that will make you a good lawyer. But it’s sure better than letting people in based on how compelling their sob story is rather than based on their actual relevant skills.

3. Diversity Poster Boy

Now let’s address the broader concerns with the idea of a diversity poster boy. These concerns relate to society as a whole, not to any particular headcanon or to Matt as a fictional character, so I’m stepping out of the DD world for this part of the discussion.

What happens when we talk about diversity poster kids? What happens when we talk about people using hardship (including disabilities) to get an edge over people with more privilege? What happens when we talk about institutions like law schools accepting candidates not based on their qualifications but based instead on meeting some kind of diversity quota?

The result is that when people do overcome hardship and even oppression to get a spot at the table, everyone else says, “Oh, you’re the diversity hire.” People refuse to consider that maybe you’re there on your own merits, because the first thing they see about you is your diversity, and they assume that the only way you got to where you are is via manipulation.

Think about what it’s like, as a disabled person or any person of a “diverse” background, to live with that day after day. Where every accomplishment is tainted by people whispering, “But you didn’t really earn that, did you? You just flaunted your disability.”

I hope I don’t have to spell out how exhausting that is.

Now if there is hard evidence that people who are otherwise unqualified for a position are being accepted purely to meet some kind of quota...that’s one thing. We should absolutely be talking about that, especially in the legal profession - because it doesn’t do a client any good to have a lawyer who’s “diverse” if that lawyer doesn’t know how to actually help them.

But just throwing these terms around, detached from any statistical analysis, like this is just A Thing That Happens All The Time...we need to stop. It’s not helpful or funny. It’s harmful.

So please, let’s be careful.

[heliads]

A short reader with the Avengers loves to wrap himself in a blanket like a cocoon or a burrito and lie all over the compound despite her young age but everyone calls her old, a kind of fluff And if I am allowed to add some details, it is often like she’s a sun ball in the compound, but in the needy moment, her character changes to firmness and horror, as if she is another person, like a cinnamon roll that may kill you.

me when i am a cinnamon roll that also kills

masterlist

You feel like doing absolutely nothing at all. It is the most wonderful feeling at all for a teenager, a student, someone born for greatness but forced to take exams. There is also the side detail that you happen to be an Avenger, which also severely multiplies your exhaustion after each and every mission. 

That being said, the whole Avenging business tends to be pretty fun. You get a special uniform, something that always makes a girl feel important, and you get to save the world at least once a week. Maybe you’ll never have a normal life again, but let’s be real, who’d want normalcy if they could have all this?

See, you say ‘all this’ like you’re really taking advantage of all the countless resources being an Avenger has to offer, but in truth you suppose you’d say that your favorite part of this sort of life is what happens behind the scenes. Anyone can talk about the missions, the technology, the danger, but what you love most is what no one outside of the Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D. knows about.

What happens in the Tower is best of all. That’s when the alter egos are finally dropped, when masks are taken off and weapons tossed aside. After all, where else could you see Black Widow and Thor, God of Thunder locked into the most intense game of table tennis you’ve ever seen in your life? And has anyone in the world ever seen what happens on Avengers game nights?

No, the team dynamics are superior beyond anything else. Seeing as you’re still in school, the other Avengers have offered numerous times for you to spend the hours that aren’t on missions or in training back at your home, but you have to say that you’d choose this every time. For one thing, your family just doesn’t understand what it’s like to live in this sort of world.

For another, you happen to like this quite a bit. That’s why you head directly to the Avengers Tower every day after the final bell rings. You can’t say that your friends from class don’t get it, either. If they could, anyone would gladly trade their normal lives for the thrill of being an Avenger. You just happen to be lucky enough to do it for real.

Of course, not many people would count your life as lucky. You happened to be born as something different than human, something odd, something uncanny. You started manifesting signs of unnatural abilities around the time you entered high school. If freshman year wasn’t stressful enough as is, trying to navigate the fact that you suddenly had inhuman abilities was definitely the icing on the cake.

The nice thing is that S.H.I.E.L.D. found you out pretty quickly. You were doing your best to control your newfound abilities, but the first few times that your powers showed themselves ended up more bad than good. That’s when they stepped in to lend a helping hand, and also see if you’d be interested in joining the whole Avenging business.

Although your powers have certainly seemed like a burden at times, you do have to admit that they’re pretty cool. Quite literally, as it turns out– you have the ability to create snow and ice out of nothing. You can spin webs of frost from your fingertips, shoot daggers of ice as sharp as a blade across a room, and conjure up snowstorms so thick that even Tony’s Iron Man suit can’t see through it.

Needless to say, joining the Avengers and finally having access to training facilities where you could test the limits of your powers was one of the best things that could have happened to you. At last, you had a grip on what you could do and couldn’t. Being able to use those abilities to save the world doesn’t hurt, either.

Now, you hang around the Avengers complex all the time, do your best to bother the others, and generally have a good time. Missions come fairly frequently, as the world seems to try its hardest to mess up whenever possible, but it doesn’t stress you out all that much. You have no doubt that’s because the other Avengers try to shelter you as much as they can, but they’ve been letting you into more and more secrets as you get older.

Right now, though, you’re not all that concerned with trying to figure out what they’re keeping from you. Most of the time, it’s just bureaucratic nonsense, and you could do without that anyway. If they want to distance you from the red tape and meaningless jumble of rules that no one follows, good for them. You’re perfectly fine just cruising through whatever troubles life tries to throw your way.

At the moment, you’re draped across a couch in the central living area of the Avengers facility. The latest round of exams just ended in school, thank everything, but now you’re completely wiped out from the struggles of trying to self teach far too much content in far too short a period of time. You might spend your free time taking out aliens and other superpowered individuals, but a terrible math test can still beat you up like nothing else.

The door opens across the room, and seconds later you’re greeted with the sight of Tony Stark, hands still stained from grease as he checks in from another long session spent in the lab.

He raises an eyebrow when he sees you. “Sure you’ve got enough blankets, Y/N? I think you could still add another layer or twelve.”

You glance back towards yourself and chuckle. You’ve snatched quilts from every sofa within a three room radius and piled them up around you in a veritable fortress of warmth. “Sue me, Tony. I’m freezing all the time. Downsides of ice powers and all that.”

Tony grins. “You know, I think my grandmother does the exact same thing, she turns up the thermostat to the inferno setting and everything. Are you sure you’re cold because of your powers and not your old age catching up to you?”

You make a face at him, but you can’t even pretend to be mad for long. “Maybe it’s the stress of looking so good for my age.”

It’s a long running joke between you and the other Avengers. You’re the youngest Avenger here, even including Peter Parker, your favorite resident Spider-Man. You might only be a month or two younger than Peter, but you definitely hold it over than him every chance you get. Regardless, the other members of the team like to kid about how you’re so much older than them just to make a point. Decades you have on them, centuries, and they won’t stop extolling your extremely long lifetime. The joke has yet to get old, and so do you.

You happen to think it’s very funny, and so do the rest of the Avengers. That’s why Tony just laughs and reminds you to use your retirement fund to get some tea or hot chocolate if you’re still cold before he heads back to the lab.

You’re still grinning after he leaves. You like this life more than anything, even if it happens to come with a side of danger. This consequence makes itself apparent about half an hour later when your phone goes off, the text from Maria Hill announcing an emergency mission briefing happening as soon as you can get over.

You groan and allow yourself one last precious moment of rest before throwing off the blankets with a flourish. You’re in a good mood again by the time you make it over to the briefing room, already excited at the thought of a chance to beat up some bad guys. You might be the only one with a smile on their face, too; all of the other Avengers show signs of frustration at being dragged from their normal daily activities by the summons.

That’s just how it usually is around here, you suppose. You stay sunny whenever possible, you do your missions, you get into trouble and get out of it just as quickly. This life is a carnival ride, you just have to learn how to stop getting sick from the flashing lights and spinning.

Maria Hill keeps her briefings short and sweet. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been monitoring some ex-HYDRA arms dealers located near the city for a while now. They just popped up on the Avengers radar today, turns out they managed to get their hands on some alien tech. Protocol states that this requires an immediate mission to repossess the alien goods, especially from HYDRA agents.

Therefore, the team will be heading out in a matter of hours. A simple plan for entry and seizure is drawn up, everyone memorizes their roles, and then you’re suiting up and getting ready to go. You’ll be entering with Nat, Steve, and Clint, targeting the weapons while Thor and Tony go after the agents. 

The ex-HYDRA goons are located in a rusting facility left over from an ancient metalworking factory setup some decades ago. You enter through the back with your team, the sound of the combat team’s firefight serving as a distraction. Most of the arms dealers are headed towards the conflict, but a few agents still linger by the weapons as guards. Your subteam takes them out without too much trouble.

Steve directs everyone to start grabbing the alien tech, taking care to handle it as little as possible. When you’re about halfway through the boxes, though, a slight issue makes itself known. Turns out the HYDRA arms dealers caught onto your plan, and about half of their staff has now slipped away from the fight with Tony and Thor to get the rest of you to leave.

Their numbers are more than anyone expected, either. You turn around slowly, watching scores of enemy agents file into the room. Their weapons are raised and aimed directly at you.

Quietly, you speak to your team. They haven’t seen the arms dealers enter the room, too focused on trying to get the alien tech packaged away for easy removal. “Guys, I think we’re in trouble.”

They realize the situation at last. Nat curses under her breath. “Call for backup,” she says.

Steve shakes his head. “Won’t get here in time. Tony and Thor are still stuck with the other half of the attack.”

Clint groans, reaching for his bow. “This is going to take some time.”

“Not necessarily,” you say sweetly, “Step back, will you? I’d like some room to work.”

Clint looks at you questioningly, but does as told. You eye the advancing waves of enemy agents, then do the one thing no one ever, ever wants to see when they’re trying to kill an inhuman:  you smile.

You can see the fear flicker across the faces of the arms dealers, but by the time they realize that attacking you probably isn’t the best idea, it’s too late. You spread your hands, focusing on each and every enemy agent currently your way, then pull with your powers. When you look up, no one is trying to kill you anymore. No one is even moving, because no one is alive.

Steve’s jaw is currently on the ground as he surveys the damage. You froze the very blood in the veins of the enemy agents. Their useless hearts try to pump solid ice, but fail under pressure. The arms dealers fall in waves like a stone dropped in a pond. Soon enough, they’re all on the ground, and all within the span of about ten seconds.

Natasha nods solemnly, eyes wide. “Alright. That worked very well.”

“Scarily well,” Clint comments.

You smile. This time, it isn’t a threat. “Glad to hear it. Oh, I get to update my record in the S.H.I.E.L.D. files for the quickest time to complete a mission. That’s so great!”

Steve chuckles under his breath. “Still just as sunny as ever. Okay, you heard her. Let’s get going.”

The alien tech is boxed up soon enough, and then you’re headed back with the team, another successful mission in the books. Although the other Avengers were shocked at what you did at first, they know you, and that means they’ll trust you with their lives for far longer than just today. As you look around at your gathered friends, you know one thing for certain. This sort of life is going to be the best for as long as you’ll have it.

marvel tag list: @thatfangirl42, @rogueanschel, @mycosmicparadise, @ellobruv, @callsign-scully, @thatfangirl42, @amortensie, @23victoria, @with-inked-solace, @gods-fools-heroes, @sher-lokid7, @amortensie, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @w1shes43, @deafsuperhero

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Mark Goldblatt

Published: Feb 7, 2023

Several years ago, in the pre-pandemic world of in-person meetings, a newly hired colleague at Fashion Institute of Technology proposed an LGBT-themed sociology course before the School of Liberal Arts. This is a necessary step in getting the course approved by the college-wide curriculum committee. It’s a time for constructive feedback and occasional tweaking before the final committee vote.

It was a good course. The proposal was clear and concise, indicating not only a command of the relevant literature but a sensitivity to students’ interests, expectations, and ability to handle the workload. But I noticed an apparently minor, easily correctable issue. Among the learning outcomes listed was a requirement that students develop a greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ perspectives and rights. That struck me as problematic. I happen to think that such acceptance is a good thing, but to stipulate it as a learning outcome raises a knotty question. If a student masters the course material, turns in the required work, and passes the exams, but doesn’t exhibit that acceptance, is he going to fail?

After expressing my general admiration for the course, I raised my misgiving in the following way (and this is nearly an exact quote): “We need to keep in mind that we’re a state university. Our mission is to pursue, ascertain, and disseminate objective truth, and to equip our students to do the same. Given that mission, I don’t think we can list a learning outcome that requires students’ assent on a matter of personal morality. The other learning outcomes are fine. You don’t need that one, so I’d just cut it.” My colleague was fresh out of graduate school and not yet tenured, which (theoretically) put her in a vulnerable position. Nevertheless, she became apoplectic; so angry, in fact, that she had difficulty getting out her first sentence. “I can’t believe people still think that way!” she spluttered. “Queer Theory has deconstructed objectivity!”

Her words hung in the air as I glanced around the room. Not a single faculty member, not even those in math or sciences, seemed fazed by her categorical statement. Since I was a tenured professor, I was reluctant to debate an untenured colleague during a school meeting. So, I let the matter drop. The course was approved without revision by the School of Liberal Arts, and went on to gain approval by the curriculum committee. And that is how my college got into the business of winning converts.

That moment haunts me as I begin my final semester before retirement—not only because faculty on the state payroll have deliberately crossed the critical line from pursuing the truth to professing The Way, but also because the Enlightenment sensibility that finds such mission creep objectionable seems to be passing from the scene. The “deconstructive turn”—as the critic Christopher Norris once called it—is nothing more than a verbal sleight-of-hand. It invites us to tease out secondary and tertiary senses of words to show how a text contradicts what it seems to be saying, free-associate our way to philosophical banalities or outright non-sequiturs, and finally glaze the mishmash with a layer of impenetrable jargon. If a reader is foolish enough to attempt to make sense of what is being said, he’ll get bogged down before he can figure out nothing is being said at all.

When Jacques Derrida, the renowned “father of deconstruction,” was awarded an honorary degree by Cambridge University in 1992, 20 of the world’s preeminent philosophers—including W.V. Quine and Ruth Barcan Marcus—signed a letter of protest, in which they argued:

M. Derrida describes himself as a philosopher, and his writings do indeed bear some marks of writings in that discipline. … In the eyes of philosophers, and certainly those working in leading departments of philosophy throughout the world, M. Derrida’s work does not meet accepted standards of clarity and rigor. … M. Derrida seems to us to have come close to making a career out of what we regard as translating into the academic sphere tricks and gimmicks similar to those of the Dadaists. … Many French philosophers see in M. Derrida only cause for embarrassment, his antics having contributed significantly to the widespread impression that contemporary French philosophy is little more than an object of ridicule.

The claim that Queer Theory has “deconstructed objectivity” means only that a certain number of academic performance artists have doodled with a cluster of words related to the concept of objectivity in order to gain university employment, win friends, and influence a distressingly large number of gullible fans. But no epistemological breakthrough has come of their efforts: if it had, it would be self-refuting since it would consist of an objective truth about the impossibility of objectivity. (At a lecture I attended 40 years ago, a debonair British postmodernist stated that Derrida had shown us how it was possible to formulate a consistent argument with a contradiction in it. When I inquired how, in that case, we could recognize an inconsistent argument, the question was met with actual hisses from his acolytes. I’m still waiting for an answer.)

Objectively true statements are still made on a regular basis. The statement “Objectively true statements are still made on a regular basis” is itself objectively true. And Queer Theorists make objective truth claims all the time—as when they cite statistical evidence of harms visited upon the LGBT community or proving the reality of climate change. One of the silent faculty members at the meeting I mentioned, also near retirement, had devoted his entire distinguished career to combatting the effects of global warming. You’d think he’d be miffed at the suggestion that such effects were not objectively real. But no, he just sat in silence like everyone else.

Either he didn’t understand or didn’t take seriously the implications of what our new colleague was saying. The latter possibility seems the far likelier one. My sense, based on hundreds of informal conversations I’ve had with STEM faculty, is that people working in the hard sciences tend to roll their eyes at the alleged insights of postmodernism. They inhabit a world in which truth is still gauged by correspondence between belief and reality, and in which reality exists independently of our beliefs about it. Generally speaking, they don’t give a rat’s ass about discourse communities and meta-narratives. They want to know if the equations balance, if the instruments work, and if their hypotheses match empirical outcomes. In other words, they are interested in discovering if what they believe to be true is objectively true. They are certainly not interested in the ethnicity, sexuality, or gender identity of the people making truth claims.

Put all of that together, and you’ve got the makings of a schism. The humanities and social sciences are undergoing a mission reversion—they’re returning to a pre-Enlightenment view of the purpose of higher education. Prior to the Enlightenment, universities were sites of religious instruction that trained clergy. Harvard was founded in 1636, a mere six years after the settlement of Massachusetts Bay, to ensure that future generations of New England Puritans would be served by learned ministers. That goal is found among Harvard’s original “Rules and Precepts”:

Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome [i.e., at the base of the boat, to keep it steady in the water], as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning.

That’s a version of what we’re seeing with the rise of the subjectivist movement in the humanities and social sciences. It is a new secular faith, a version of The Way. Instruction in radical progressive curricula is baptism by accreditation. It’s witness and testing. You gather for three hours a week to dwell in the spirit, commit yourself to individual rituals and collective causes, despair the fallen state of humanity, call out and cast out demons, immerse yourself in sacred texts and memorize venerable chants, then venture forth to spread the gospel. The end is performative, sacramental. Let me tell you the many ways you’re oppressed so that you may be a river to the masses.

Increasingly, that is the state of the humanities and social sciences at public universities in the US. Whatever you think of that development, it signals an existential crisis for higher education because instruction in the STEM fields at American universities remains traditional, objectively focused, and globally competitive. The reversion of the humanities and social sciences to religious preparation cannot coexist indefinitely with the Enlightenment mission of STEM instruction. Something has to give.

What, for example, becomes of science textbooks that report that only female mammals give birth? (Pity the poor seahorse, hitherto famous as the only species in which the male gives birth. But for how long?) You cannot be told in your morning sociology seminar that the pursuit of objectivity is an instrument of white supremacist culture, which must therefore be deconstructed, and then be told in your afternoon biology class that identical twins are objectively always the same sex.

It’s natural to expect the demand for severing ties to come from the professoriate on the STEM side, from a desire not to be sidetracked in their pursuit of objective truth. More likely, though, as evidenced by that liberal arts meeting at FIT, the demand will come from the humanities and social science side, caused by the unbearable adjacency of reality-based standards and scholarship to the postmodern insistence that the demand for objectivity is oppressive.

Entrance into STEM fields requires rigorous standards of assessment, as does progression and graduation. Rigorous standards of assessment, however, don’t produce equity or (objectively!) diverse student populations. Asian students are currently overrepresented in STEM, black students underrepresented; male students are overrepresented, female students underrepresented. According to the tenets of progressive activism, demographic imbalances of that nature constitute de facto proof of racial and gender bias since in an unbiased system every demographic would be proportionally represented. How long will student activists, encouraged by humanities and social science faculty, tolerate this alleged injustice on their campuses?

The disintegration of academia is coming. Whichever side precipitates the break, it will be a necessary development. Higher education is a serious intellectual endeavor, and nothing is less intellectually serious in contemporary academia than the suggestion that the pursuit of objectivity has been discredited. Empirical observation, mathematical inquiry, inductive and deductive reasoning, and falsifiability are the sine qua nons of higher education. As courses of study in the humanities and social sciences depart from such things, they cease to be higher education in the Enlightenment sense.

[ Via: https://archive.is/vQvgg ]

==

It's pivotal moments like this that inform what comes next. That realization something was really wrong here, with that hesitation, that second-guessing, that telling the truth might upset them, that it would just be easier to let this one slide, that instinct to just go along to get along, and the creeping recognition a group delusion was going on.

Who would have thought that the downfall of western academia could be powered by the worst, most pretentious and puerile French philosophy which can be encapulated as an academic formalization of the Equivocation Fallacy, and language games worthy of a 7 year old who just discovered a book of knock-knock jokes?

It was a mistake to think that nobody would take this seriously. It was a mistake to think that it wouldn't leak out of the bogus Fantasy Studies domains within Humanities which they'd invented and credentialed themselves in. And it was damn sure a mistake to give them a seat at the grown-ups table as far as knowledge claims and knowledge production.

To paraphrase Sam Harris, those who reject objective reality belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of knowledge.

Denying objective reality should be regarded as an announcement they do not live in it. This is a definition of delusional, not a definition of intellectual.

[notsosilentsister]

Letter to a new teacher

Your students looked a bit lost? I had students complain about me to my supervisor because my lesson had been so confusing that they had checked out after 5 minutes. They haven't done that in a while, so I guess, things can get better! Teaching can be hard on the ego; lord knows, it was hard on mine, especially during the first years. Got a lot of mixed feedback from the beginning, definitely cried about it on one occasion or two. But the truth is, finding a style that works for you is just a lot of trial and error, and you get quite a bit of a margin of error in most institutions. The stakes are not actually that high. Take a moment and consider, seriously, what is the worst that could happen?

So I've explained something badly, I've lost the class? Just means I'll have to explain it again. Maybe not the most efficient use of lecture time, but I'm sure some students would need a repetition anyway. If it's a key point, it's never enough to explain it just once. If it's just a footnote, I make a note not to put it on the exam and move on.

Honestly, the mere fact that you're paying attention to whether you've lost your audience already puts you heads and shoulders above some instructors I could think of from my personal experience. Explaining something in a confusing manner is an easy mistake to make, but it's also an easy mistake to correct. The students are bored? Well, some are going to be bored no matter what I do. The subject either holds some intrinsic interest for the student, or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, any bells and whistle I could use to get at least some momentary attention will only take a student so far anyway. It's true that a bad teacher can kill even the most motivated student's interest in a subject, but for that it usually takes somewhat more than just being dull. Also, ultimately every learner has to find their own way to the matter; to truly grasp something, you need to feel a personal resonance. I can tell you why something is interesting to me - I can't tell students why it should be interesting to them, because I don't know all their lifes and all their plans, and even if I did, I can't make that personal connection for them. If they're only here to get a certificate, binge all the knowledge the night before the test, to vomit it up on cue with the full intention to shed it all like so much ballast once they've handed in their exam, I'm not going to stop them, I actually think they should have that choice. (I've always side-eyed the sort of teacher who goes into it with the aspiration "to shape young minds"; I think the young minds should always be free to reject getting shaped. I've certainly had my share of students who clearly walked out of my lessons with perfectly pristine minds, and they should be free to do so - but of course they were clearly extremly bored!). You know which student is certainly not going to be bored? The student who's always on their toes, because they feel their instructor might call on them any minute and tear them apart in front of the whole class. They're not going to actually learn anything either, because the fear takes up too much mental capacity to process new information properly, but they are probably not going to vote that class "best class to nap through" in the yearbook (not gonna lie, I was pretty insulted about that one for a week at least). Obviously I'm not saying you'll either have to bore or terrodrize your students. Obviously good teachers manage to to do neither. But it can be a tricky balance to strike (some students are quite sensitive and feel easily over-taxed, others will feel easily understimulated if you don't challenge them once in a while, it's not always immediately obvious who's which type), and what I'm saying is, there's definitely a worse side to err on, in my humble opinion. You clearly want to see yourself as someone who holds themselves to certain standards. You might be surprised, but so do I. I actually think it's hugely important that teachers do. But these standards can't just be external standards alone - external standards are moving targets, in some ways you always could be doing more, there are some students who will always need more than you're capable of - your standards have to be internal ones, they have to reflect what's most important to you, and they have to be workable for you. My standards for example: Don't make students cry. I made a student cry once and it was the worst, it made every subsequent failure pale in comparision. Don't stand by while a student hurts (insults, mocks, undermines) another. Don't punish students for your own mistakes, always admit when you're wrong. Don't play favourites. These to me are the four mortal sins of teaching, the things that can really cause lasting damage. Dull and confusing is not optimal, but it happens, and the students will survive. These are the things that I need my students to trust me with: That I know my stuff That I give a shit That I don't take things too personally. Maybe they'll sometimes find me dull and confusing, but my experience is, if they trust me with these three things, I can work with them well enough.

[seherstudies]

Hi Seher-senpai,

I take it you study Japanese at university?

Feel like sharing what it's like?

I only took a course back when I was a uni student at a uni of applied science. Since then, I've been dabbling in self-studying but that is kind of hard to keep up at times... I'd like to get back into "proper" studying, so I would like to ask whether you have some tips?

Anyways, thanks for your blog, I just found it and scrolled a little through it. Always cool to meet other JP learners 😊

Sending some good vibes from Bavaria

-Bee

Sorry that it took me some time to get back to you. Life is busy at the moment, oh and servus aus Österreich! :)

I take it you study Japanese at university?

I do! I am a Japanese studies major, so they come in the bundle haha

Feel like sharing what it's like?

Sure thing! Beforehand, I have two types (?) of Japanese classes, Japanische Theorie (Theoretical Japanese), which is held in German, and Japanische Praxis (Practical Japanese), which is entirely in Japanese

The pace can sometimes be a bit too fast for me, sometimes we would do an entire chapter in one lesson.... But overall, I enjoy most parts of my classes!

In Theory, we learn about grammar passively and you could also say about how to translate Japanese into German and it's also profs way to check if we understood the grammar. The exams of the class kill me though. In a semester we have two kanji and two translation exams and I don't know which one is worse lmao The first two few years we only worked with textbooks (we used Bunka Shokyu Nihongo 1+2 and now we use the Advanced Tobira) but now, I am in my last year, we moved on to different types of texts like song lyrics, essays and learn more about slang, spoken Japanese and that sort. I am grateful for that because Tobira can be quite dry at times. It’s definitely my favourite out of the two simply because the prof makes it a heap of fun with his random, while educational, rambles or anecdotes.

Praxis we should learn how to apply the grammar studied in Theory, so we do a lot of grammar exercises (complete the sentences mostly). It certainly helped with building a strong foundation, but I do wish we would… actually use the language in class more ya know. The only “speaking” we do is by reading sentences out loud and I am not sure about my peers, but it certainly doesn’t help me learn how to speak Japanese. We are not learning Japanese to be able to communicate but simply for class where we cover topics you will most likely never have a conversation about. At least I know I will never talk about robots. But I have the feeling that is an issue with most language classes...

I'd like to get back into "proper" studying, so I would like to ask whether you have some tips?

Good question. I had to think about it a bit ngl and I hope some things will be useful to you in a way.

Build discipline while you still have a lot of motivation. The first one or two weeks use apps like Duolingo or Lingodeer simply to build the habit of daily learning. Even better if you can set a specific time every day. For example, every day after dinner it is Anki/Memrise/Lingodeer/etc. o’clock. You HAVE to do a bit every day - even if it's just for 3 minutes. If you teach your brain that sometimes you can skip, then it will try to find excuses to skip another day and soon you will slip.

Have different activities for different levels of energy/attention. This kind of latches on to the previous point. Have core activities you do every day for the sake of progress and on days where you are more motivated and alert, do something that requires more effort and have a set of relaxing activities for your low days to keep your TL floating around in your head.

consistency > efficiency. The best method is not the most optimized one or what someone says is more efficient but the one you actually enjoy and stick to. This also goes when you choose media to consume, read/watch what you enjoy. Keep a healthy mix though: Each medium has it's own speaking style. You won't learn everyday Japanese if you only watch dramas or anime, so include a variety like drama, anime, podcasts, Youtube videos, news etc.

Choose a resource for grammar, vocab etc. and stick with it until the end unless you really don't like it. This video (~12min) by Robin McPherson goes more into depth of the 'Paradox of Choice' and what it means for language learners in this day and age and how you can counter choice paralysis. Japanese is a popular language. Therefore there are many resources out there and it’s easy to start doubting our decision. You see the next shiny thing and want to try that out and often we don’t even think twice about purchasing another textbook because you have heard something good about it. I highly recommend the video!

I can also recommend you this video by Livakivi on how to learn Japanese but it's a general guide. His videos are great! The most important part though is having fun with the language though. Best of luck!

[lavienbleuuu]

Human brain ingredients in the existence of bad people in our life.

After acknowledging that it’s PFC’s responsibility (still intercorrelated with other parts of the brain), here’s come the intriguing part. Let’s assume that the current technology is very sophisticated that we can create a superhuman ability to increase the PFC capabilities to the maximal point, what would it be?

What will be guaranteed with that inhuman PFC capabilities?

Because we should agree that the fact you wouldn’t create a bad decision if you know it’s a bad decision isn’t it?

What we can infer from the research experiment on our PFC activities when doing a cheat.

I’ve seen some research on how our brain reacts when cheating on something (it can be an exam, a girlfriend, or anything ) in our PFC. There’s one researcher who gave a test to 50 people where they have to finish a task of a problem, but at the same time they got the cheat sheet (if they use it will be considered cheating)

And at the end of the experiments resulting like this:

For those who didn’t cheat their PFC activity is monotone and has no pulse at all.

Meanwhile, for the rest who uses the cheat sheet, their PFC activity looks like a spike.

One possible inference from these results is that the PFC plays a role in decision-making and impulse control and that individuals who engage in dishonest behavior may exhibit different patterns of PFC activity compared to those who do not cheat. It is also possible that using a cheat sheet activates the PFC in a way that is different from simply trying to solve a problem or task without the use of external aids.

Further research would be needed to confirm these inferences and to better understand the relationship between PFC activity and cheating behavior. Additionally, it would be important to control for other factors that may influence PFC activity, such as individual differences in cognitive abilities and problem-solving strategies.

A good decision-maker doesn’t guarantee the character of someone.

A good decision-maker refers to someone who has the ability to make thoughtful and well-considered choices. This may involve considering multiple options and their potential outcomes, weighing the pros and cons of each option, and making a decision based on logical reasoning and careful analysis.

While being a good decision-maker is certainly an important skill to have, it does not necessarily guarantee the character of someone. Character refers to the unique qualities and traits that make up an individual’s personality and identity. It includes attributes such as honesty, integrity, compassion, and courage, which may not necessarily be related to decision-making ability.

Therefore, while a good decision-maker may be able to make choices that are logical and well-considered, this does not necessarily mean that they will always exhibit good character. For example, a good decision-maker may choose to act in a dishonest or unethical way, even if this goes against their own moral principles. In this way, a person’s character is not solely determined by their ability to make good decisions, but also by the values and beliefs that they hold and the choices they make based on those values and beliefs.

How does being aware of your “moral compass” can help you not create a bad decision?

Your “moral compass” refers to your internalized set of values and beliefs that guide your moral reasoning and decision-making. This can include things like your personal moral code, your religious or spiritual beliefs, and your cultural and societal values.

Being aware of your moral compass can help you avoid making bad decisions because it provides you with a framework for making moral judgments. By understanding your own values and beliefs, you can more easily identify which actions and behaviors align with your moral principles, and which do not. This can help you make choices that are consistent with your moral beliefs, rather than acting in ways that go against your own values.

For example, if your moral compass includes a belief in honesty and integrity, being aware of this belief can help you avoid making decisions that involve lying or cheating. By recognizing the importance of honesty to your own moral beliefs, you can make choices that align with this value, rather than acting in ways that go against it.

Building your own identity to help your character development.

I’ve seen some insights about the correlation between identity, character development, and decision-making.

character → decision making → create an Identity of yourself

but you can do it also deductively or with a reverse approach, by

creating your own identity → decision making → build a character

The tipping point is when you create your own identity or a new brand of how you perceive yourself, you will think twice about whether you’re going to create a decision or not because of the identity on yourself that you’ve put on it. One thing is for sure, we need to differentiate identity and label this will be another topic because I believe “labeling” is a two-sided sword because there will be no one that enough to be labeled in one label, myself is too big to be constrained by the label. One of example how identity can help you to create decision is by one of story that also inspired me to bring this topic is Afutami (one of my favorite book author), she put the identity for herself is as imperfect environmentalist, here are some of the thoughts when she put herself as imperfect environmentalist

Is it the Afutami (the imperfect environmentalist) would do?

What would imperfect environmentalist do if they see this

What for I am doing this, why do I have to create my own identity as imperfect environmentalist?

When I have a conversation with my psychology friends at the University of Indonesia, she tells me about this theorem, and because I think it’s relevant and make sense so that I put this theorem to my medium.

According to Bronfenbrenner’s theory, the microsystem is the immediate environment that a child interacts with on a daily basis, such as family, friends, and teachers. The mesosystem is the connection between different elements of the microsystem, such as the relationship between a child’s family and school. The exosystem is the broader environment that a child is not directly involved in, but still affects their development, such as the community in which they live. Finally, the macrosystem is the cultural and societal context in which a child is raised, such as the country they live in and its cultural norms and values.

So basically, it’s true that we all developed by our closest system or circumstances. I think this is one of the roots of why our parents don’t want to put us in a bad environment because everything is intercorrelated in our character development journey. By being aware of our position, environment, and our existence, we can try to find a way to build our own character.’

“Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.” — L. Frank Baum

[thisfairytalegonebad]

forging an unbreakable bond, chapter 2/3

Title: forging an unbreakable bond Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Word count chapter 2: 1400 Summary: Ignis is the first one to be connected to Noctis. Gladio and Prompto follow years later. A prequel to pieces of a whole (previously titled three times they could feel each other, which is still the series' name)

Read chapter 2 below the cut, or on AO3 here.

“Nervous?” Ignis asks the night before Gladio officially gets sworn into the Crownsguard as Noct’s Shield. Not that he hasn’t been Noct’s Shield before that, but now he’ll finally gain access to the Prince’s Armiger.

“Nah,” Gladio says casually. When that just earns him a raised eyebrow, he grins and admits, “Alright, maybe a little. Can you blame me, though?”

Ignis smiles at him and takes a sip of his drink. Since Gladio found out earlier that day that he passed his Crownsguard exam, Ignis is treating him to a night out.

“No, of course not. It’s a special occasion, I’d say it’s natural.”

“Yeah,” Gladio says, draining the rest of his beer. “Hey, what’s it feel like?”

Ignis isn’t due for his Crownsguard exams for another year, but once it’s his turn, it’ll be a purely formal thing. After all, he’s been hooked up to Noct’s Armiger since they were children. Gladio used to be a little jealous when he was younger - as Noct’s Shield, he was supposed to be first .

Now that he’s older, and closer to both Noct and Iggy, he doesn’t really mind anymore. Really, he can’t think of anyone more deserving of being the first member of Noct’s retinue than Ignis, even if it’s not yet official.

Gladio doesn’t need to specify what he’s asking about - the connection to the Royal Armiger is always the most discussed topic among the new Crownsguard members, and everyone’s eager to know what it feels like.

“It feels… hm, it’s hard to describe. I hardly remember a time without it,” Ignis says, touching his fingers to his chin in thought. “The connection to the Armiger feels vast, powerful, even though I can wield but a fraction of its true strength. The magic feels almost alive, and once I learnt how to control it, it was as though it became a part of my own body, my own self.”

Gladio knows that Ignis has always been gifted when it came to magic. Once he’d been connected to the Armiger, he’d been put into magic lessons with Noct, and apparently, he’d taken to it as if he had been born with it. Unsurprising, considering Ignis rarely doesn’t excel at something.

If he’s honest with himself, he’s a little worried about what his own proficiency with magic will be like. His specialties lie in protection and brute force. He can’t imagine being particularly good at magic, but luckily, not all members of Noct’s retinue have to be.

“And you can feel Noct, yeah?”

“I can. It’s certainly the most notable part of the Armiger connection, and also my favourite. Noct is simply… always there. I can always feel his presence, no matter how far away he physically is.”

Damn. That does sound nice, Gladio thinks. People wouldn’t guess it, but he’s kind of sentimental, and the thought of that sort of constant companionship makes him feel all warm inside.

“And you?” he asks.

Ignis blinks at him as he takes another sip. “Me?”

“Am I gonna be able to feel you, too?” Gladio clarifies. After all, they’re gonna be sharing the same connection.

“I… haven’t considered that,” Ignis admits. “I cannot say for certain, after all, there’s never been another person before.”

Gladio shrugs. “Well, guess we’re gonna find out tomorrow.”

He wouldn’t mind if he could feel Iggy too. It’s a nice thought, the three of them, always connected no matter the distance.

----

Noct is clearly nervous. Gladio can almost see him vibrating out of his seat with nervous excitement as he watches his father perform the ritual for each of the new Crownsguards.

Gladio would be lying if he said his own nerves weren’t acting up, but it’s all excitement. He’s been the Prince’s Shield from the day Noct was born, and he’s here to stay. Getting permanently connected to him in a magic ritual is just another obvious step. No big deal.

He catches Noct stealing glances at him and flashes him a grin, hoping to reassure him. Noct offers a shaky smile in return, but it’s clear he’d rather just get it over with.

Lost in his own thoughts, Gladio watches the rest of the Crownsguard pledging their loyalties to the King until it’s finally his turn.

He catches Noct’s eye as he walks up to the crystal on steady legs and gives him a small nod.

The corner of Noct’s lip twitches upwards ever-so-slightly, but where just moments ago, there was a nervous, shaky teen, there now stands a proper Prince who holds Gladio’s gaze without a hint of uncertainty.

Gladio kneels before him and starts reciting his oath, the oath he’s practiced so many times he could recall it in his sleep.

“I, Gladiolus Amicitia, Son of Clarus and Orchis Amicitia, Shield to Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum, hereby pledge my undying loyalty to the Crown of Lucis. And vow to provide my arms in times of war, my art in times of peace, and my service in times of need. I promise to defend my liege against all that desire him harm with word, deed and force. From this day forward, as long as I draw breath, I am bound to you, Prince Noctis, and you alone.”

Noct was nervous about messing up his part of the oath, Gladio knows from Ignis. But as he stands before Gladio, looking down at him with pride, his voice doesn’t waver as he delivers his reply to Gladio’s pledge.

“Let all here bear witness, that I, Noctis Lucis Caelum, son of Regis and Aulea Lucis Caelum, and 114th heir to the Lucian throne, hear and accept your oath of loyalty, given in good faith. In turn, I vow to defend and support you and yours, with word, deed and force. Those that keep and hold this oath true will be rewarded with my favour. Those that forget this oath and break faith shall be repaid with my judgement and dreadful wrath. Now, arise, Gladiolus Amicitia, so that our bond may be forged.”

Gladio stands, blinking rapidly to combat the sudden wetness in his eyes. Looking at Noct now, looking every part like the Prince he is, Gladio has never been so proud of him.

Simultaneously, they reach out and touch the crystal together, and when Gladio’s hand makes contact with the smooth stone, it’s as if he were touching something alive.

It’s brimming with magic beneath his fingers, and he feels its power flowing through him. The sensation is incredible and nearly takes his breath away, but there’s something else rapidly spreading through his body and filling every part of him.

Noct, he realises. It’s exactly like Ignis described, and more. For all the sappy books with flowery language Gladio reads, he’d struggle to express the sensation to anyone who hasn’t felt it for themselves.

Noct can feel him too, from the way he finally smiles at him, eyes glistening suspiciously.

Once Gladio pulls his hand back and breaks contact with the crystal, the flow of magic becomes less intense until it fades to the background, still there, but not as overwhelming. Noct, however, is a presence that doesn’t change, and Gladio is stupidly glad for it - now that he knows the sensation of feeling Noct so close within him, he couldn’t bear it if it were dulled.

And finally, he notices another presence, one that rivals Noct’s in intensity. It feels different; where Noct is calm and steady, the other presence feels warm and sheltering, and it only takes him a fraction of a second to figure out that this must be Ignis.

Once he realises this, he can’t really hold back the tears anymore, the wetness rolling down his cheeks for all to see. Let them see, he thinks. He’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, and he can’t bring himself to feel shame for this.

“Aw, Gladio, c’mon,” Noct complains in a whisper as they pass each other, both making their way back to their designated positions, but Gladio can see him blink tears out of his own eyes.

King Regis speaks again to finish the ceremony, but Gladio doesn’t hear a word of it.

His focus lies entirely on the presence of the two people he is now forever bound to, and he knows with absolute certainty that he would lay down his life for either of them in a heartbeat.

----

Read the entire fic on AO3 here.

[magnumversumplus]

Rasvisr I: The Escape Room

A Fractured Fairy Tale Retelling Of: Rapunzel

Written By Joseph M.

His name was Jan-Pitr Rasvisr, but his fellows just called him Jairan. He was not a wealthy man by any means, only submitting to the people above him. He wore an pearl-black outfit from his suit to his shoes, and he spoke in a gentle, charming manner. His gestures were like silky flower petals, and the way he waved put an immediate rest to any doubts about his character.

The way he pulled people into his world so quickly was something that gathered a lot of attention from many multi-million dollar corporations seeking a charming spokesperson, and his pleasant voice–a soothing tune of words spoken with the low vibrations of a cello–was what got him the job at the US government’s Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He was initially elated to hear that he got such a prestigious job, protecting the security of the nation and ensuring the safety of the people. He could see it now: Agent Jairan. But he quickly learned that protecting the people was only half of the battle–he would also have to go into the battle for them, lay down his life and even risk disappearing if things went south, never getting honored for his achievements.

He didn’t do it for the honor, but he certainly wanted honor now. He was locked in a tower by a man he simply knew as “Jeremy,” and he didn’t know why. He was kidnapped, snatched away perhaps as part of some unknown plot. Perhaps it was for the reason only he knew of, and perhaps this Jeremy fellow knew that reason as well.

Field Doctor’s Note

Doctor’s Name: Doctor Aaron F., PHD

Patient Name: Rasvisr, Jan-Pitr

Nickname (If Applicable): Jairan

Exam Date: 12/23/1998

Reason For Exam (If Applicable): Have been with patient for seven years. Noticed rapid hair growth after a mission busting American crime group

Exam Notes: Patient shows no signs of illness. His accelerated hair growth doesn’t seem to stop. May have to put him on meds if no signs of slowing hair growth.

Jairan looked around him, but he saw nothing. He was only in a tower with no escape. The only escape was sealed shut; it was a wooden door taking up the appearance of a dungeon entrance. He felt a noticeable amount of sweat in his hair and beneath his chin, and he saw nothing around him in this prison but a wooden fold-out bunker bed with a cloth window shade for a blanket and a pillow stuffed with feathers, the exaggerated type of room he thought he would only have to see in movies.

He looked for immediate escapes, but there seemed to be none. The only viable looking means of escaping the dungeon tower he was in was the window. He estimated himself to be about seven stories up, so that didn’t seem like a good option. Besides, Jeremy was drawing near.

Jeremy wore a white hockey mask and had a gruff, off-putting snarl in his voice. He had black hair puffing up from behind the mask and he always carried a chessboard. Though he was the one taking Jairan captive, he didn’t want to bore the agent to death. They always played chess when they had the chance, one game a day.

Jairan wasn’t too good at chess, but he didn’t have the time to study now. He remembered phoning a good agent friend of his, Agent Judith Frances, just before he was knocked unconscious by a blunt object, probably by a baseball bat… or something.

Though he did send a frantic SOS, the onus was on him to find a way to get Judith up and both of them down once she arrived, which wasn’t too late after he called for her. He let down his hair quickly, billowing black strands of hair like strands of a matte black fabric dress. Once she climbed up, the onus was on them both to figure out how to get down.

The door was sealed shut, but at heart it was still at most a wooden door. Judith’s ax, swung quickly enough, broke the door down. There was a long, winding staircase leading them to the exit. The escape seemed anything but difficult–an easy get-in, acquire the hostage, and get-out operation–but Jeremy was waiting for them at the end of the staircase.

As it turns out, Jeremy wanted Jairan’s hair. He heard of the agent’s exploits, and he believed in superstitions about his hair, that it was anything more than unfortunate that he couldn’t control his hair growth. Jairan wondered if it was that way, but he didn’t know that for sure. Jeremy was stopping them with nothing but his body, willing to let them attack him viciously if it meant he could keep Jairan in whatever tower he had locked away in.

Jeremy wanted to continue to study Jairan’s hair growth because he believed that it was what was giving him all of his fortune. He had Jairan locked away in the lab below the tower some nights, operating on him and looking at what made Jairan… Jairan. He wanted to have the same fortune and luck Jairan had, but he was too quick to assume that it came from Jairan’s hair.

Jairan, annoyed by Jeremy’s last ditch attempt at stopping him and Judith from leaving the tower, forcefully tried to shove him out of the way, but he wouldn’t budge. He was knocked down temporarily, but got back up; he was a palm tree getting knocked down by a tornado. He straightened his wrinkly white shirt, put his fingers in his white jeans and looked Jairan dead in the eyes through his hockey mask.

Their standoff was seemingly an infinite quagmire.

Field Doctor’s Note

Doctor’s Name: Doctor Aaron F., PHD

Patient Name: Schwartz, William T.

Nickname (If Applicable): N/A

Exam Date: 12/22/1998

Reason For Exam: Patient attempted to escape FBI custody. Brother… Jeremy T. Schwartz… is missing. Both attacked an FBI agent, that agent is now missing. Patient shows no signs of serious injury, though was very hostile towards staff.

Exam Notes: As noted earlier, patient showed no signs of serious injury, though patient had aggressive manners. May need to transfer to a different hospital if issue persists, as present security were not sufficient to prevent patient from attacking staff.

Jairan knocked out Jeremy, sending him falling to the floor. Judith led him deep into the woods, the sunlight obscured by the gently swaying treetops that danced with the breeze. There was seemingly nothing, and then there was something… the was the NYC skyline, and until this moment Jairan had never felt so much joy upon smelling industrial smoke and hearing the bustling cars and choppers and subways until now. After all, being held prisoner would make you long for even a glimpse of the outside world, even if that glimpse was from miles away in New Jersey.

He ran towards the ever-so-beautiful skyline, a blob of metal right triangles and glass squares across a separating body of water. It was so close, yet so far, but distance didn’t matter. He was just happy to see his home, even if it was obfuscated and muddled by the greenhouse gasses it exhaled. This was Agent Jairan, “The Spy Of Spies”, “The Ace In The Hole”, The Trick Up Captain Spade’s Sleeves”, and, “Jan-Pitr Rasvisr: The Guardian Of NY’s Gates”. But most importantly, he was back for good.

[llyncooljones]

tell me how you really feel - elorcan.

ao3 || masterlist || elorcan masterlist

word count: 3240

trigger warnings: language, innuendo, slight sexual content.

tag list: @live-the-fangirl-life @rowaelinismyotp @rowanaelin @fireheartwhitethorn4ever @themoonthestarsthesuriel @autumnbabylon @letstakethedawn

her apartment, early hours of the morning.

Elide knows she shouldn’t have done it. She isn’t an idiot. She isn’t slow, nor is she stupid. She’s got a little dose of anxiety but that certainly isn’t enough to prompt her to screw up on such a massive scale.

It all started early one Saturday morning. And when she says early, she means at four in the morning in the college library whilst they are both starving themselves of sleep revising for exams that are in little more than seventy-two hours.

one year and two months ago, the library, four in the morning.

The words are blurring on the page, and she really isn’t sure whether the words she’s reading are about early childhood brain development, or whether they’re about the risk the lack of parental security poses for children in the foster care system.

She could probably guess, but she really doesn’t have the brain power to. She also just doesn’t feel like it. The idea of using anything: her eyes, her mouth, her laptop, her brain, her fucking lungs; hurts her body.

So, she doesn’t.

She’s just going to rest her head on this textbook, and she’s going to close her eyes and she’s going to wake up in a few hours ready for the day, ready for the gym session she has with her best friends every morning.

And she’s almost there, she’s almost asleep when the damnedest thing happens. A rumble akin to that of a battering ram bounces her head from the old, crinkly pages of her textbook. She restrains herself from shouting out, not because she gives a damn about whichever rude bastard just ruined her almost drifting off, but more because she knows every other student in this damned fucking library is also just trying to sleep on their textbooks and not fret too much.

The slow movement of her neck ends up hurting her aching spine, but she feels powerful as her eyes finally pull up alongside her head and she’s faced with him.

Tall, cocky, and muscular him.

Black hair, brown eyes, long legs him.

In her early childhood development classes, books the same study rooms as her, best friends with her best friend's boyfriend (does that make him her best-friend-in-law?) him.

Lorcan Motherfucking Salvaterre him.

And if she’s being perfectly honest with herself, she wouldn’t be surprised if his middle name really is motherfucking. Because from what she’s heard about his childhood through the everlasting grapevine her best friend is, it’s that his mother was in high enough during her pregnancy to make his middle name Motherfucking, and it to be a miracle he came out with a fully formed brain.

Funnily enough, he was born an addict.

This means he’s an uptight ass at parties who doesn’t drink or do drugs, who just sits on the stairs and looks at people when they try to get to the rooms upstairs.

Which means he’s an uptight ass at parties who always has the honour of helping her up the stairs to the good bathroom and holding back her hair, the uptight ass who always dresses her in one of his overly large t-shirts without managing to peek, the uptight ass who lets her sleep in his bed whilst his six-foot-seven self takes the armchair in the corner.

And this means he’s the unhappy, still-sleepy, uptight ass who gets to see her trainwreck self after a hangover, who brings her tomato juice and raw eggs and whatever else hangover cure he’s come across over the week. He’s the one who sees her with raccoon eyes, because he hasn’t quite learnt the trick of getting mascara off eyelashes whilst the subject sleeps.

And all this from Lorcan.

Lorcan who doesn’t acknowledge her presence outside of their Saturday night ritual, and their Sunday morning breakfasts-in-bed, Lorcan who sits as far as humanly possible from her in the lecture halls, who makes sure to take the seat on the opposite end from when they have dinners with their friends, Lorcan who’s an ass in general to her except when he’s taking care of her pint-sized ass and dropping her home in his too-tall truck that he lifts her in and out of, with the passenger seat permanently fixed to her height.

She would say they’re friends, he would say they don’t even know each other.

“Lorcan, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” she smiles sweetly, saccharinely, sleepily. And maybe, violently.

“Look, I get it. We don’t know each other outside of Saturday and Sunday, but I could really use your help for the upcoming final. It’s gonna kick my ass all the way to next Christmas if I don’t try to do anything.” His voice. Oh, how she platonically loves his voice, oh, how she platonically wet dreams about his voice.

“So, you decide to interrupt precious sleep, to ask for mentoring? Tutoring? Damn, Lor, new lows. New fucking lows.”

“I get it if you need your fucking beauty sleep, but what I need is to pass this fucking exam. I don’t give two fucks what I have to do, as long it ends with me passing.” His voice is rough, gravelly and dark, and even slightly sexual. But Elide is so tired she can’t read properly, there isn’t a chance in hell she can accurately discern tonal differences.

That edge to his voice isn’t unfamiliar to her, she knows it all too well. The same voice whispers in her ear about disappearing upstairs before the night is over. He says it so overtly that if she didn’t know he was joking, she’d just about fall to her knees and find out just how many inches her throat can take.

“You know what would wake me up? Do you know, Lorcan?” the answer, if she says so herself, is obvious.

So obvious in fact that they say it in perfect unison, despite never having said the word in front of the other before. “An orgasm.”

present-day, her apartment, early in the morning.

It’s been fourteen months of covert hook-ups; of fingering her under the table; of blow jobs in their friends’ bathrooms. Fourteen months of sparking sexual tension that even their most clueless of friends have caught onto. Fourteen months of his big self, pleasing her tiny one.

And now, he’s lying in her bed. In fact, they’re lying in her bed together, the covers pulled high to fight off the brutal air conditioning, with his body curled around hers, that massive hard-on of his poking deliciously at the lush curves of her.

They’re spooning in her bed, and she can’t remember the last time they didn’t sleep in the same bed as each other, can’t remember a time when his toothbrush wasn’t in the cup next to hers, can’t think of the last moment his hoodie wasn’t hanging off one of her dining chairs.

It’s either his room or hers, and whichever one you walk into, the other’s presence is painfully obvious. Elide has left her cacti tote bag hanging on the coat hooks in his hallways, and her embroidered Doc Martens are at the foot of his bed, and a bottle of her favourite perfume sits next to his delightful cologne.

Her head is resting comfortably against the muscles in his biceps and triceps, her hair falling all over her shoulders and his forearms. And her eyes are heavy even though her mind is racing, and it’s all because of the steady breaths her fuckbuddy is taking, and the slow rise and fall of his chest against her back, and the gentle reminder of his heartbeat on her shoulder.

That comforting scent of his that’s all man, and rugged, and cinnamon, and just delicious. That’s soothing and home-like to her conditioned brain.

Her eyes are still closed but what keeps her awake is as clear to her now as it would be if she were looking at it.

It’s sitting in the back left corner of her nightstand drawer, and it’s a little box wrapped in ‘woodland man’ wrapping paper. It’s maybe the size of her palm, the width of his wrist, the height of the soles of her Vans. So, it’s small, inconspicuous, and really quite insignificant.

But at the same time, it’s the most important box that’s ever existed, in relation to her and Lorcan’s situation. Because it changes everything, no matter the reaction.

No matter how many times she’s tried to convince herself it doesn’t matter, she knows it really does. No matter how many times she tells herself it’s something every friends-with-benefits relationship does, she knows it isn’t.

Underneath the neat wrapping that took her far too long to complete, is a black box with a faintly embossed logo that is written in the Old Language, and then underneath a layer of tissue paper, in a silk pouch, is a delicate, faux-weathered chain; a little medallion attached to it.

The silver oval is also faux-weathered, looking as though it has lasted a lifetime against someone’s chest, being brushed by clothes, eroded by rubbing against the sheets. Words that are smaller than others, and a face that isn’t perfect.

The necklace wasn’t supposed to happen.

She had seen it in the shop window whilst running errands in downtown Orynth, and the first thought that popped into her head was that Lorcan would love it. After that: she put it out of her mind, she forgot about it.

Until the next day whilst she was going for a run down the main high street – building up her endurance for whatever reason (whatever reason being so that she and Lorcan could go for longer without her getting out of breath so suddenly).

She had ignored it again, knowing it was wrong. Knowing she shouldn’t.

But then she did, she bought the necklace, she chose what she knew Lorcan would love, and she had it gift-wrapped to the very fucking max. She bought him a present, and it might as well have been the most nerve-wracking moment of her life.

Excluding every single moment since then, constantly plagued with the notion that he might hate it, that he might reject her, that it might be the straw that broke the metaphorical camel’s back of their relationship. Their relationship that she isn’t sure is a relationship.

A shift of Lorcan’s thigh between her own has her thoughts slipping, as the hard muscle brushes against the most intimate parts of her. With her cunt throbbing against his thigh, she makes the scariest decision.

Her sudden stillness, or maybe it’s the lack of grinding back onto his thigh, catches the attention of her fuckbuddy, and creates a sudden stillness in him as well. She hates it. They should be fuckbuddies. They should fuck, be buddies, and leave the other’s bed.

Instead, they fuck, then they fuck again, then they chat and talk like they’re married, fuck again, have breakfast, spend the day together; and so, it goes on. You get the point. She knows his habits in the way she never her ex-boyfriend's habits, he knows her moods and how to fix them like even her best friend doesn’t.

So, they aren’t fuckbuddies. Not really. They’re a couple in a year-long, hidden relationship who masquerade as fuckbuddies and keep their whole sham of a relationship (whichever way they may choose to define it) hidden from the prying eyes of their friends.

With a hand around her waist, and the other gently cupping her neck, his chest vibrates as he utters the words, she knew he would: “What you got on your mind, El?” She doesn’t respond, not for a beat, and then not for another beat. She can feel his heart racing as her shoulder blades press into the wide expanse of his chest.

“Nothing,” simple, concise, evasive (and gods, does Lorcan know that).

The dark-haired man behind her doesn’t even deign her bullshit with an answer, not even an action, not even the tilting of his neck. Instead, he stares at the back of her head like he can see the lies, like he can see the truths, like he can see the love.

“No, really, it's nothing. It’s ir-fucking-relevant.” A hint of anger has crept up into her tone, like a dog on a scent, Lorcan picks up on it. She can tell by the quick indrawn breath he takes when she curses. When his arms begin to tighten around her, as his hand forms a fist somewhere under the pillows. She can tell in a million different ways that this has bothered him, and gods-damn, does it bother Elide that she knows it.

“Seriously, El. What has your panties in a bunch?” trust Lorcan fucking Salvaterre to be relentless, trust Lorcan fucking Salvaterre to see straight through every boundary, brick wall, and bullshitted response. Trust Elide fucking Lochan to become fuckbuddies who aren’t really fuckbuddies with the one person in the entire universe who will ever know her better than she knows herself.

Trust in that.

Trust, that in any awkward situation, Elide fucking Lochan will make a dirty joke, trust that she’ll fuck it all up.

“Nothing—because I don’t have any on. Which you know, Mr Salvaterre. Which you know very well.” Her sentences are punctuated with steady grinding movements against the thick muscle of his thigh, against the dark hair there that always sends her for a loop (or five).

“Elide. I am not, in any way, in the mood for this. C’mon. Be straight with me about this. Who can we tell, if we can’t tell each other.” His words hurt. Because she knows, she knows that the next words out of her mouth are going to stab him deeper than any knife could have ever dreamed of. She’s going to make a weapon of words, and she’s going to make sure that the knife can never be pulled out.

And she’s going to hate herself for it.

“See, this! This, this right here! This is my exact fucking issue. When we go from fuckbuddies to each other’s confessor, to each other’s confidant, to each other’s one and fucking lonely. We’ve become content to stay in with each other, we’ve become ten years married during the span of a year-long fuckbuddy relationship. Isn’t that so fucked!” her outburst is loud and proud and so terribly contradictory to Lorcan’s calm demeanour, his hurt expression, she watches the progression of it across the stone-hewn features of his face.

Elide had never known his face could look like that, so utterly destroyed. It sort of folds inwards, his forehead creasing with lines, his eyebrows furrowing, crow’s feet that a twenty-something shouldn’t have even more pronounced. His nose scrunching up like a toddler that’s eaten something bad.

And then she’s angry again. 

Because they’re fuckbuddies, she shouldn’t notice all the minuscule changes in his face, shouldn’t notice what she does. And yet she does.

“Well fuck me sideways, Elide. Tell me how you really feel, then. I don’t think you got it all out that time.��� His tone isn’t even angry, not even vicious. Its deeply sympathetic, understanding, and forever patient. 

Because, fuck her, he knows her in the horrifying detail. And she knows him in the very same manner. Every single secret he’s kept is trusted to her, each scar he wears is hers to weep for, all his anger is hers to understand.

“I— Lor, you know that’s not how I feel. It’s just that… well you know, don’t you. Fucking serves me right for telling you everything. After all that, I don’t want to have to let anyone in, and yet you arrived at my front door and coaxed it open without even trying to. So much so that you’re in my head fucking everywhere I go,” she stands up abruptly, shivering as the warmth of the bed and of Lorcan rifts away from her, shivering as the nerves take over her body, and shivering as she walks across weathered floorboards to her nightstand drawer and pulls out her very own poltergeist. “Anyway. You want to know: so fucking know.”

She chucks the wrapped box at his head and closes her eyes, turning her back to the hunk of man behind her. She holds herself still and he moves to sit up, her knowledge aided by the squeaking of the mattress and bed frame. She holds her breath as he pulls the paper from the tape, savouring the wrapping paper with a laugh. She loses her mind so thoroughly when she hears the crinkling of tissue paper and the slide of the string against the pouch. She just about collapses into herself when the dinging of the chain hits her ears, as she bears her soul so completely to him without even looking into his eyes.

Wringing her hands, she still faces away, her breathing in fucking shambles. So much for breathing techniques, she thinks, thanking her therapist profusely.

“It’s, uh, it’s Saint Rita of Cascia. She was, at her canonization ceremony, made the Patroness of Impossible Causes. Though she became known as the patroness of abused wives and heartbroken women. She is known as the patron—or rather patroness—saint of lost, or improbable causes, sickness, and wounds, marital problems, abuse, and mothers.

“I saw the medallion walking through downtown and it made me think of your mother, and all she went through. And then I thought of you, and what you believe about yourself. And I want it to be a sign of the future for you, a sign of what was, rather than what is. You and your mother escaped the fucking hell of your dad, and I simply will not allow you to think of yourself as a lost cause. And I know it’s stupid and you probably hate it, but I hope it reminds you of how far you’ve come a—” she cut off abruptly when she’s wrapped in, quite possibly, the tightest, warmest, most deliciously perfect hug in the history of the world.

With his thick arms wrapped around her, banded under her breasts, his chest is pressed into her back, not leaving a single atom between them. His chin is tucked against the crown of her head, and she feels the safest she ever has. 

Those soft, plush, sinful lips let loose the secrets of the world as they spill the most perfect sentence, she’s ever had the pleasure of listening to, “I love it. Lochan, fuck, I love it a little less than I love you, Elide Lochan.” 

His heartbeat doesn’t even change. Doesn’t speed up, doesn’t slow down, doesn’t skip a beat. He’s so painfully in love with her that he doesn’t even react. He’s so used to feeling this way, that it’s like unlocking a front door he’s been knocking on. It’s like sitting down on the sofa and wrapping a blanket around himself, it’s like everything he ever wished for when he was young, it’s like everything he thought it would be, and better.

Elide can barely believe what he’s saying, but the heart of her knows he’s right, knows he’s telling the most wonderful truth, and knows that she’s feeling the exact same fucking way. 

“Ditto, Lorcan Salvaterre, ditto.”

And that is all they’ve ever needed. That’s all they ever will. As they travel through life together, their love for each other.

[missluckycharms]

can you do a imagine where y/n plays volleyball and she gets hurt and h take care of her?

A/N: hiii! I hope you like this! I also had to look up some details about volleyball as it’s not really that commonly played here in Ireland, if I say something wrong pls ignore it I tried my best. The vaccine is kicking my ass rn, I got my second dose so if this sucks and there’s mistakes pls ignore that also 😭 Enjoy !!

This is college!Harry and Y/N I hope you don’t mind !!

Warnings: talks of smut, strong language and Harry being a sarcastic loveable asshole.

Today was not Y/N day.

First of all, she woke up late, giving her only twenty minutes to get ready and make her way to college, which is usually a thirty minute drive without traffic. She was like a lightening bolt running through her apartment, falling over Harry’s shoes that were just abandoned around her room and trying to find any clean clothes as Harry came over last night and as usual, he distracted her from doing what she needed to do, which was her laundry.

He was asleep while she did all this, her small huffs and puffs picking up his shoes and throwing them into the corner didn’t even cause the lazy log in the bed to move once, his body tucked up under the covers as his face smushed against her purple sheets as he let out small snores, she looked at him and silently wished that was her. She was lucky she packed her gym bag last night before he arrived over, all of her clothes, her ankle braces, her knee pads and her favourite trainers she wears for games all packed into her bag and all she needed to do was pick it up and throw it into the trunk of her car along with her book bag.

She kissed Harry’s forehead and again, he did not even move, he may of given out a slight hum for a grumbled word but Y/N didn’t have time to contemplate what he said, she was rushing out the door wearing clothes that were probably Harry’s as the joggers were nearly falling off her as she ran. She didn’t care though, she needed to be in her first lecture or her grades would go down. She made it to campus with only thirty seconds to spare, she doesn’t know how she wasn’t pulled over for driving faster than the speed limit when she saw the campus come into view. Her body ran through the halls, dodging anyone in her way as she dragged herself to the lecture hall where her professor was probably already starting lesson, his usual morning introduction as everyone set up their laptops or notepads for the hour lecture ahead.

She got a disapproving look from her professor when she slide into a row, flopping down onto the seat and apologising as she rummaged through her bag looking for her laptop. Her professor was already going over what they would be covering today when she realised she doesn’t have her laptop. Then she remembered where it is, it’s in her apartment in the bathroom.

Harry insisted they had a bath last night to relax her after she took some exams in college that day, the pair were soaked under the bubble filled hot water with her laptop propped up on the sink playing a show on Netflix as they relaxed and spoke about their day. She grabbed her notebook and pen and immediately began to scribble down the notes she would have to transfer onto her laptop tonight, if Harry doesn’t distract her again. She knows he might not, he has classes of his own today, his starting later than hers and his classes only being on four days a week instead of five like Y/N, yesterday was his day off, hence why he was being a needy little shit and clinging to Y/N like his lifeline until they fell asleep.

The day dragged out for Y/N, her usual one hour classes feeling like four hours, her notes taking for ages to write up as she tried to keep up with what was being displayed on the board, her lunchtime consisting of her bumming off her friend for a few dollars to get something to eat as she left her purse at home, her friend didn’t mind but she felt awful for asking. When the day finally ended she was relieved, all she wanted to do was get into the gymnasium and play some volleyball with her team to get all the anger she felt today, she was not having a good day and the only things that can help her with that is Harry or volleyball, and because she had training today over their at home game being played next week, she was relieved she could get some stress reliving in before going back to her place where she knows Harry will be — he hates his own apartment as he shares, Y/N only having a one bedroom one that she snagged and Harry being left with a flat thats shared between four people, there’s no privacy there, none.

“You’ve been tense all day, is everything okay?” Abbie, Y/N best friend asks as they begin their warm ups, the two sat on the floor side by side as the stretch their legs and arms getting warmed up for practice.

“Today wasn’t my day, woke up late, forgot my laptop and purse and now I have to go home and type up nearly fifty pages of notes onto my laptop — Who’s idea was it for me to study Biochemistry?” She laughs out, stretching her arms behind her head as Abbie follows suit, the pair watching as the coach shows them what to do, the pair sat at the back to avoid being yelled at for talking.

“I think that was your idea, I certainly didn’t force you to do that. If it helps, environmental studies isn’t easier, I swear I’m constantly writing up lab reports and giving presentations each week” Abbie rolls her eyes, the pair now doing lunges as they continue to chat.

“Shit! I have a presentation next week, I totally forgot” Y/N groans, squeezing her eyes in frustration as she hasn’t even started yet, her mind immediately going to how she has to type up the whole presentation while probably having Harry hang out of her. Harry is studying sports science, in hopes to one day set up his own personal training business. They usually have study sessions together as Harry has just as much work as Y/N, but Harry isn’t as much as a perfectionist as Y/N, he’ll slap together a presentation and call it a night while she has to make it look pretty and aesthetically pleasing.

After a fifteen minute warm up, the girls are already playing a mini match for practice, six players per team, Y/N being up nearest to the net with three other girls. She’s been named as one of the teams best scorers, her jumps are high and her force hitting the ball is something that scares opposing teams when they play competitions. She’s been on the college team for nearly two years now, her whole college course is five years long — she’s aiming for a bachelors degree in Biochemistry, she’s so happy she has something else to do while in here, she knows she would of went crazy if she didn’t have something to calm her down.

They play three games, Y/N’s team wining the first game and the teams tying on the last game due to the positions being switched and she was put to the back to give other players the chance to spike the ball up. She’s back up front on the third game, her body now rested from the small water break they were given in between the games, her body full of adrenaline and ready to play. The game is playing out as usual, Y/N jumping and spiking the ball up and over the net with the help of her team mates, the other team just as good as them as they all battle it out on the court. In the last two minutes is when it all goes downhill, Y/N jumps up to spike the ball, when she lands, she wobbles and falls over, her ankle rolling as she cries out in pain on the court, the coach blowing the whistle to stop the game as everyone rushes around her.

She tries to stand up, she falls back down again, Abbie and another girl holding her up as she shuts her eyes in pain. The coach takes off her ankle brace and sock with her permission, she’s now sitting on the bench as her ankle is iced and checked over by the coach, Abbie helping Y/N by refilling her water bottle when needed, her ankle now propped up on a chair with ice on it as the rest of the team begins their warm downs.

“It’s definitely sprained” Abbie says looking under the ice at her ankle, Y/N wincing when Abbie presses down lightly, jumping when she lets out a small cry.

“Yep, definitely sprained” she says putting the ice back on and sitting down next to her friend as they both laugh a little, the pain easing off with the ice as Abbie distracts her with stories and jokes.

“Y/N, do you have anyone to take you home?” The coach asks, allowing the rest to leave as Abbie stays seated with Y/N.

“I’ll call my boyfriend, thank you for your help” she says as the coach pats her on the back, telling her she can take all the time she needs off while also still being allowed to attend the games to support. She’s devastated about it, but at least she can support her team from the sidelines.

“What happened?” Harry asks running out of his car, the door slamming as Abbie wheels Y/N out in wheelchair given to them by the coach from the injury room.

“Fucked my ankle, doesn’t surprise me honestly, today wasn’t a good day” she sighs s Harry laughs a little, helping her out of the wheelchair and guiding her towards his car that’s parked only three steps away.

“You’re okay now, let’s get you home and rested, yeah?” He says laying her down on the back seat, picking her leg up and resting it on the seat as she winches in pain a little as she adjusts herself on the seat.

“Thanks for all your help, I’ll have Niall come and pick her car up later” Harry says to Abbie, closing the back door and smiling at the girl who’s waving in at her best friend who’s mortified in the back of the car, laughing masking the pain she’s feeling.

“If you both need anything give me a call” she says as Harry nods waving her off as he sits into the car, turning around to look at his girlfriend who’s looking back at him holding in her laugh.

“Only you” he shakes his head laughing as Y/N lets out a loud cackle, knowing he’s right, only her would end up fucking up her ankle even with a brace on it, it’s defiantly a Y/N thing to do.

The car ride home is filled with laughing and a few sing songs as Harry tries to distract her from the pain. He helps her into her apartment by carrying her bridal style up the flight of stairs and placing her down onto the sofa, propping her leg up on the coffee table, raising her ankle up on a pillow as he races to the freezer to find something to put on the injury.

“Okay, all you’ve got is frozen peas” he says placing the green packet down onto her ankle, the picture of peas hilarious as it rests on her skin, the swelling gone down since the gymnasium which is good, as Harry says.

“I’ll run to the store to get you some bandages soon, right now, you need some tea, the sugar will help with the shock you got” he says immediately snapping into Mum mode with her, Y/N smiling at Harry in the kitchen behind her, her head turning and resting on the back of the sofa as she watches him saunter around her kitchen.

“Do you have any homework you need completing? I got all mine done in library period we had today, I’m free to do yours if you have any” he says fiddling with the kettle and switching it on, placing a tea bag into her favourite purple polka dot mug.

“I have to transfer handwritten notes onto my laptop, I can do that” she says as Harry turns around, waiting for the kettle to boil as he looks at her.

“Nope, I’m doing that for you, you need rest! I’m here to help you, I’ll be your nurse” he says turning back around to pour the boiling water into the mug.

“I’m fine Harry, it’s just a small sprain” she fights back, Harry shaking his head as he walks in with her mug filled with warm tea, passing it to her as he sits next to her wrapping his arm around the back of the sofa.

“I’m not leaving you here alone, if you fall what will you do? Get up and walk?” He says sarcastically as she rolls her eyes laughing, resting her head back on his arm as they begin watching the TV before them.

“Also, I expect the same in return if I ever get hurt” he jokes as she slaps his arm playfully, laughing loudly as Harry wiggles his eyebrows at her.

“You’re on top for the next few weeks Styles” she says sipping on her tea as Harry laughs, reaching over to kiss her check.

“I’m always on top, darling” he whispers to her as she pulls back looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Babe, please can you be on top? I had a leg cramp this morning and it might come back” she says lowly, imitating Harry and his deep British accent as he looks at her rolling his eyes.

“I don’t sound like that” he says taking her mug from her and sipping a little from her tea as she takes it back off him with a loud groan at what he just did — he always does it to annoy her, or he’ll dip some biscuits into her tea when she’s not looking.

“Oh yeah, must be what my other boyfriend sounds like” she says riling him up, his head turning to her as she looks at the TV screen laughing behind the rim of her mug.

“You’re lucky you’re injured m’love, if you weren’t you would be over my shoulder and thrown down onto your bed and I’d show you who’s your boyfriend, or daddy as you like” he says wiggling his eyebrows as she groans into her tea.

“It was one time! I said it by accident!” She shouts, turning bright red as Harry laughs loudly, kissing her cheek as she pouts looking down at her mug.

“You know I liked it, it’s okay baby” he says resting her head on his shoulder as she cuddles into him, her empty mug on her lap as she pulls the blanket down from the back of the sofa, placing her empty mug on the floor and throwing the blanket over them both.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you” she says feeling sleepy, her day catching up on her as Harry helps her nurse her injury, his hands fixing the frozen peas on her ankle if they move a little.

“You’d probably break your neck or something” Harry says as she groans looking up at him, his dimples popping out as he laughs at his own joke.

“I’m being nice!” She says as he bends down to peck her lips, their smiles against one another lips as they pull away looking at one another.

“I know m’baby, I don’t know what you’d do without me either!” He says sighing in contentment as she rolls her eyes squishing her face into his chest.

“Harry!”