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rafescoke · 4 years ago

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Maybank ; Rafe Cameron

masterlist

Request: how about y/n is jj’s older sister and shes dating rafe but they keep it a secret bcs rafe is a dick he doesn’t want to be seen w a pogue. jj knows that his sister is dating rafe and he kinda hates rafe for keeping they relationship as a secret. then sarah threw a party n invited the pogues n they play truth or dare n a random kook dared rafe to sniff coke on some random girl’s belly n rafe accepted it without thinking abt what y/n thinks n they fight @rafeswh0ree

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x reader

Summary: Rafe would do anything to protect his title, even if it causes the girl he loves to stray away.

Warnings: Pure angst, mentions of substance!

A/N: you know the drill. . . send requests!

(Y/N) doesn’t want to remember the day her little brother found out about her relationship with a certain kook prince.

Being a year younger than (Y/N), it’s funny how he acts like a total older brother to her; always so protective, and not letting any boys touch her.

It was a Friday, and (Y/N) had sneaked out to meet Rafe by the beach. The night sky was almost perfect; the moon was illuminating them, and the waves were calming.

Rafe pressed a kiss against her lips, mumbling how much he loves her when the sound of a backpack hitting the soft sand startled them.

“What the fuck?”

(Y/N) scampered from Rafe, fixing her fallen top and running towards JJ who was already making his way back to his bike. His eyebrows were furrowed, his heart banging.

(Y/N) pulled his shoulder, “JJ, stop. It’s not what you think!”

“Wait, wait, what do you mean? Did he drown and you had to give him CPR?” He scoffed, prying his shoulders away and walking backward slowly. “This is so low of you, (Y/N). Fuck.”

JJ noticed that something was different with his sister a few months ago. The sneaky texts under the table, the sudden smile at her phone screen. . . he had thought of the actions as nothing more than (Y/N) contacting her friends.

And when he saw her in Figure 8 two weeks ago, in a fancy restaurant he works part-time in, she had told him that her new friend had brought her there.

As if she would ever have a kook friend.

Of course it wasn’t a kook friend. It was a kook boyfriend.

“JJ, please! Why are you like this?”

JJ turned his heels to look at (Y/N) properly. His nostrils were flaring, and his eyes were wild. Trying to contain his anger, “Your fucking boyfriend is a drug addict and I’m not letting you date someone who choked my friends before!”

He waited, and extended his hands. “It’s me or Rafe. Stay if you want to stay with him, and come with me if you want to come back home.”

“You’re crazy,” she whispered, letting a tear rolled down her cheeks. She thought of many scenarios where JJ will eventually find out about her and Rafe, but this wasn’t in her list.

“Me or Rafe.”

(Y/N) remembers exactly the way JJ walked away disappointedly, his head hanging low and his hands balled up in a fist.

It took her weeks to regain JJ’s trust and fix their relationship, and though JJ still hasn’t accepted Rafe, he’s okay. He’s quiet, sometimes seething at the boy, but he knows how much (Y/N) loves him.

“Hey,” Rafe smiles, placing a kiss directly on her cheeks. Her hot body from the scorching sun slowly tempers down, and she melts into his touch.

Pulling him close, she nestles into his chest. “Sarah’s having a party tonight.”

“Yeah? You’re coming?”

“We’re coming, Rafe,” she sighs. The sprinkling water from the fast motion of the boat hits her on her face, and she wipes them away before looking up to this handsome face.

She rubs her thumb against his cheeks, feeling him soften. “If I ask you something, can you not be mad?”

“Is this about letting everyone know about us?” He asks, his hands resting above her hips. He removes them and wraps his face, sighing.

(Y/N) bites her lips, already knowing the answer to her question. “Never mind.”

“We talked about this, (Y/N).”

“I know, so I’m not going to fight with you on this again,” she sits up straight, inching away from him. “I mean, after almost a year of dating, I think you’d—”

“You’re forcing this.”

“I’m not!” She stands up, groaning. “God, you’re starting a fight again!”

The silence between them grows again, both sulking and shouting in their heads. After a while, (Y/N) moves to the front deck of the boat and Rafe curses silently, knowing that the plan he had about strolling by the stream with the girl he loves is a failure.

But it’s not his fault, is it? He just can’t show her off. It’s bad enough that her brother’s aware of their relationship, and Rafe had to make sure that son of a bitch never opens his mouth to anyone.

“Hey, yo, JJ, got a minute?”

The blonde waiter grunted, eyeing Rafe with so much hatred before placing a cold mineral bottle on the table.

“Rafe, don’t cause any scene,” Topper warned, staring at the both of them. He could sense something was wrong, but he didn’t put this mind into it. He thought of it as nothing more than Rafe’s daily fights with the pogues.

JJ didn’t reply, not wanting to see his smug face what more to talk to him, but as he tried to return back to the kitchen, Rafe gripped his wrist tightly.

“Just a minute,” he smiled.

JJ quirked his head to the back of the kitchen where the workers usually smoke. Rafe nodded, letting go of his wrist, and whispered something to Topper.

“What do you want?” JJ asked once they were in the back alley, watching as Rafe lighted a cigarette and bringing the stick to his lips.

“How’s (Y/N)?”

“Isn’t that your problem?” The blonde boy scoffed, “Hey, man, look. I appreciate this family bonding activity you’re trying to have, but you’re no family. I care about (Y/N), and I’m in no way letting her be with you.”

What angered JJ more wasn’t the fact that he didn’t reply, but it was the superior look he plastered on his face. He felt the urge to slap and hurt him more than anything else.

“If there’s one thing we can agree on—” he said, blowing a puff of smoke. JJ inched backward, not wanting the smell of tobacco to linger on his uniform or he’ll be in trouble. “—is that we both care for her. I understand if you don’t want anyone else to know about me and (Y/N), and I hope it will stay that way.”

“You don’t want me to tell anyone else?”

“Yeah,” Rafe smiled. “It’s bad enough I have to pull you away in the middle of my lunch. Can’t afford to do that with more people.”

“Is it because you’re embarrassed to be seen with her?”

“Can you do that for me?” Rafe asked, ignoring his last question.

“Fuck you, Cameron.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Rafe laughed, patting his shoulder and watching as he flinched away. “I think I’ll see you around more than we both want to, Maybank.”

“Hey,” (Y/N) whispers, placing a hand against his shoulder. “What’s wrong? You’re in a daze.”

“You’re not mad at me anymore?” He asks, tilting his head up. That was quick, but he likes it. She can never be mad at him for more than 30 minutes.

She crosses her arms, “You want me to be mad at you?”

He shrugs and pulls her to his lap. “You’re hotter when you’re mad.”

. . .

If there’s one thing Rafe’s sure of, he hates parties when he will be the one to clean up the mess the next morning.

Ward and Rose are out for the weekend for their anniversary, and Wheezie is somewhere for a summer camp she has been begging Ward to go to.

Like always, Sarah Cameron takes this opportunity as a way to host the biggest party of the year, inviting all of her pogue friends and letting Rafe do the honor of inviting the kooks.

(Y/N) walks in with her best friend, having to pretend to not be so familiar with the whole house as if she’s not dating the son of Ward Cameron.

“Yo, this house is huge.”

“Yeah,” (Y/N) agrees, walking towards the drinks area and grabbing boozes for her and her friend. “Hey, I’m going to see someone, can you wait for me down here?”

Before she can walk away, Sarah Cameron appears excitedly and pulls her into a tight hug. “(Y/N)! What a surprise! JJ’s outside, if you’re looking for him.”

“Trust me, I’m not looking for him,” she laughs, “Have you seen Rafe? I, um, I called him up before for some stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s on the porch,” she replies, and before (Y/N) can make a move, she holds her tightly. “Be careful. He’s got the heaviest stuff with him.”

As if she doesn’t know that.

She smiles, muttering her thanks before heading towards the porch. It’s hard to pretend to not know who Rafe is after spending her whole year with him.

Sure enough, Rafe is sitting by Topper’s side with his other friends surrounding them, his hair messily parted and his nose red. She sighs, knowing exactly what state he’s in.

“Yo, Maybank,” Topper laughs, pulling the empty seat beside him. “Come sit.”

Rafe looks up to the sound of her name, and before she can register the look on his face, he bows down again.

“Hey,” she greets, sitting beside Topper. “You’re okay?”

“This party’s the shit,” he answers, obviously in a drunken state, and pats Rafe’s back. “Yo, yo, you got the same ring as my boy right here.”

Topper grabs the gold ring hanging from (Y/N)’s necklace, bringing it closer under the light and taking Rafe’s hand. “Wow, are you guys soulmates?”

The boys around them laugh, and (Y/N) pulls her necklace away before anyone can guess anything. She watches as Rafe grunts, still so busy trying to separate the powder in lines.

“Wanna try a line?”

“She can’t, Topper.”

All eyes are on Rafe now, who’s rubbing his nose and licking his lips. Rafe never stops anyone from doing a line and even asked Wheezie if she wanted to try one before, so the words that came out of his mouth appear as a shock to all of them.

“Why?” (Y/N) asks, tilting her head to one side. If he doesn’t want to show her off to his friends, he might as well stop trying to control her life. She looks back to Topper, “I’ll try a line, Tops.”

Topper smiles, giving her a rolled-up 100 dollars bill and pushing his chair back to allow her in. (Y/N) takes the chance to brush her back against Rafe’s front, hearing his ragged breath all the sudden.

She bends down, giving Rafe the perfect view of her back, and snorts a line. She falls onto Rafe’s lap as he pulls her close, breathing into her sweet smell as she throws her head back from the sudden tingling in her stomach.

“Stand up,” he orders in her ears, “Stand up, (Y/N).”

Before Rafe can push her off, she stands up quickly and makes her way back to her previous seat. She only tried coke once, way before she met Rafe, and she had thought of it as nothing more but the last time she tried the substance. She prefers drinking to get her mind off since then.

“You’re joining the game later?” Topper asks, glancing down at her short skirt. (Y/N) mindlessly pulls her dress down, and throws her head back once again.

“What game?”

“Truth or dare,” he smiles.

“I don’t play children’s games,” she fakes yawn, “Are you playing?”

“I don’t think so,” he replies, licking his lips. “Like you said, I don’t play children’s games.”

Whatever Topper’s doing to get (Y/N)’s attention; it’s just not working. She’s way too head over heels for the boy beside him, who’s still red and flustered from the brief teasing she had for him a few moments ago.

“(Y/N), wanna grab a drink?”

Both (Y/N) and Topper look up to Rafe. He’s trying his hardest not to look at her again and busies himself with the powder. “You don’t look quite comfortable with Topper.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she replies, watching as his head snaps back to her. She licks her lips, “We’re alright, aren’t we, Tops?”

Topper nods, more than ready to have a fling with the pretty girl beside him, pogue or not pogue.

“Okay,” Rafe replies, “Whatever you say.”

Whatever (Y/N)’s doing to grab his attention; she’s doing a great job at it. Rafe’s jaw tenses at the sound of her laughter, and he has to look the other way when Topper’s hands sneak their way to around her shoulders.

He’s almost glad when Sarah comes to tell them something about the game starting. He sneaks to beside (Y/N), giving her a soft touch on her back, and off he goes to sit on the opposite side of her.

His mind’s still woozy, and he’s struggling to even open his eyes. The booming music still thrums against his eardrums, and the drinks he had earlier keeps every muscle of his active and ready to do anything crazy.

“You’re playing?” Someone asks him from the right.

What else can happen from a silly game of truth or dare?

“Yeah.”

Rafe hopes (Y/N) isn’t playing, because he knows the stupid things his friends would ask her. Always being the topic of his friends’ conversations, he’s clear with their intentions towards (Y/N).

And he’s not making any of it a reality.

“Topper, truth or dare.”

“Truth,” he answers, and Rafe’s eyes snap back to (Y/N). Surprisingly, her eyes are already on him, her stare so pierced that Rafe has to shift his position to ignore the aching in the pits of his stomach.

Rafe doesn’t care enough to listen to whatever his best friend’s saying, and his eyes stay on (Y/N). The girl smiles at him, and his eyes trail down to her chest.

Of course she would wear something like a top that doesn’t cover half of her chest.

He looks away, biting his lips.

“(Y/N)! Truth or dare?”

(Y/N) groans at Topper, crossing her arms and yelling ‘I’m not playing’. Her friends moan at her, pressuring her to keep the game going, and after a few pleas and more groans, she sighs.

She’s so easy to manipulate.

Rafe stares at her again, licking his lips.

“Dare.”

The crowd cheer, but the volume is down to mute to Rafe, who’s too busy having her glued to his brain. She looks wonderful under the dim lights, and Rafe wants nothing more than to have her screaming under him.

“I dare you to make out with the hottest person in the room.”

“Change the game,” Rafe says to no one in particular, sitting up straighter. “Change the game.”

“Yo, what?” Kelce asks, “What’s wrong with you?”

Rafe ignores his friend, and stares at the girl.

(Y/N) stands up from her seat and walks towards Topper, and Rafe can feel his heart stopping. His fear is coming to reality, and she’s so close to Topper they’re practically kissing.

He lays his head against the cushion, his heart aching.

“Yo, Rafe, it’s your turn!”

Rafe sits up straighter, rubbing his eyes and looking around the group as everyone else stares at him. He groans, feeling so tired and not having a clue where he have gone to a few minutes ago.

It might the aftermath of the coke, but it doesn’t feel as good as always.

How long did he pass out?

“Truth or dare, Rafe.”

“I’m not playing,” he mumbles, rubbing his temple.

“If you’re backing out now, you’ll have to pay a hundred bucks.”

What the fuck?

“Since when?” He asks, looking up to the random girl he has seen around the country club a few times. “That’s not the rules.”

“It is now.”

“Fine. Dare.”

Anything to put an end to this game.

“I dare you to do a line on Jessie’s back.”

The room grows silent, and Rafe can feel all stares at him. He blinks, trying to register what he just heard, and laughs. “Just a line?”

(Y/N) bites her lips. He wouldn’t do it, would he?

Somehow, JJ finds his way behind the couch (Y/N) is sitting on. He places a hand comfortably on her shoulder and watches her jerk. “You’re okay?”

She doesn’t reply, but JJ knows the answer all too well.

Rafe’s friends clear the table off from drinks and Jessie lays her bare back against the glass table. Rafe doesn’t look up to her to ask for permission or to give her any reassurances, and it feels as if he wants to do it too.

JJ’s grip around her shoulder tightens, “You should go.”

She shakes her head, staring at the scene before her.

The intoxicating powder is poured by an excited Topper directly on Jessie’s stomach, and (Y/N) feels sick to her core. She feels like screaming, because why wouldn’t he say no?

It’s not like a hundred bucks would be too much for him to stop playing.

Rafe dips his head to the same level as Jessie’s head, and (Y/N) stares at the girl bites her lips the same way (Y/N) does when Rafe’s close to her.

Except he’s close to someone else.

The crowd erupts into a loud roar again as Rafe finally stands up from the lines, his head becoming more bumping and his respiratory rate increasing.

The kook prince doing a line on some hot girl in Figure 8.

What a headline.

His eyes look up to the people around him, but (Y/N) is nowhere in sight.

“Where is she?” He asks Topper. His hands found themselves wrapped around Topper’s shoulders for balance.

“Where is who?”

“My girlfriend,” he answers, not thinking much. “I have to go.”

“What girlfriend, Rafe?” Topper laughs. “Man, you’re in too deep. The game’s not finished.”

“I’ll pay the hundred,” he replies and makes his way out of the party. His sight is becoming so blurry that he falls by the side of the pool a few times before he sees the sight of her climbing JJ’s bike.

“Hey, hey, where are you going?” He asks, standing in front of the bike and not letting JJ turn to the exit. “The party’s not finished!”

“Fuck off, Cameron,” JJ replies, blocking Rafe’s view of his girlfriend. (Y/N) stares down to her lap, not wanting to look him in the eyes, and Rafe’s breath hitches at the silence.

“What did I do?”

Before Rafe can hear any explanation, JJ pushes him down to the side road and he groans from the sudden impact. He looks up to the blonde and lunges for him, only for them to end up by the side of the road.

“Oh my god, stop!” (Y/N) yells, trying to pry her brother away from Rafe. “JJ, he’s not thinking straight. Let’s just go!”

“Don’t get near (Y/N) ever again!” JJ yells, his eyes flaring up in anger and his knuckles turning purple. “She deserves someone better than a cheating fuck like you!”

Out of all the responses Rafe can give to JJ, he lets out the coldest laugh, and the sound of his voice carries throughout the dark neighborhood.

“I’m cheating? She was cheating on me too!”

“What are you saying?” (Y/N) scoffs, “I wasn’t cheating, Rafe, I’m not you.”

“Yeah? The kiss with Topper?”

“That wasn’t a kiss! I gave him a peck on his cheeks!”

“That doesn’t excuse the fact you didn’t kiss me.”

“Is that why you’re acting like a dick? Because I didn’t kiss you when Tops asked me to kiss the hottest guy in the room?” She laughs. This whole thing seems funny all of a sudden after hearing Rafe’s side of the story. “I thought you want us to stay lowkey.”

“Whatever, can you get your fucking bodyguard off me?” Rafe replies, “And don’t call him Tops. It’s like you’re begging to get fucked by him.”

JJ makes a move again, but (Y/N) quickly pulls him away. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hands, and Rafe wishes he hadn’t said the words out loud.

JJ finally lets go of him and walks to his bike, feeling so tired but pumped at the same time from the brief fight with Rafe. He wanted more than anything for them to break up, but what just happened isn’t exactly what he had in mind.

“So you’re going?”

“There’s no reason for me to stay, Rafe,” she replies. “You don’t even want to admit that we’re dating. Are you embarrassed of me?”

When he doesn’t reply, (Y/N) pushes his chest that he staggers backward, still so woozy and lightheaded he feels like fainting.

“Are. You. Embarrassed. Of. Me?”

Rafe stays silent, looking down to the ground and wishing the world would just swallow him up.

“Go to hell, Rafe,” she replies, and Rafe inches backward when her gold ring he had bought for her to match his own ring rolls down to his feet. He quickly looks up to her.

She’s not breaking up with him, is she?

If he felt like he has gone through hell before, this feeling is a lot worse.

Part #2

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#rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron smuts #rafe cameron imagines #rafe cameron one shot #drew starkey #drew starkey x reader #drew starkey imagines #outerbanks #outerbanks x reader #outerbanks one shot #outerbanks imagines

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emilieautumnarchives · 3 years ago

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Stark Raving Sane: 100 Things You Don't Know About Me

Archived from EA Online. Posted July 21, 2022.

Your girl during the Opheliac recording sessions. I’d been wearing the cheek heart for a couple of years already.

Dearest Inmates,

It’s been quite a (past several) month(s), and I’ve had so many “important” things gavotting in my brain that I couldn’t decide which ought to come out first. And so, I’m choosing the only sensible option and not posting any of them. Instead, let us take refuge in a moment of flippant frivolity with this list of, yes, 100 things you definitely don’t know about me (and one you might).

If you follow along below, you’re going get all sorts of knowledge treats, from bizarre jobs I’ve had to achievements of profound embarrassment (see the piano bar thing). Is this worth your time? No.

Shall we begin?

I’ve been skydiving three times.

My fingers are double jointed (I’ve had to come up with some violin techniques of my own to manage).

My first job was at age 7, refilling the ink in the markers at an art studio. (I could fill hundreds of pens without spilling a drop, so I clearly missed my calling.)

I am chill as ice in a crisis.

However, I am terrified of swimming pools (that’s going to be a problem later this year, wait for it).

I passionately hate sweating.

The very first time I travelled anywhere was to perform in England at age 12. (I vividly remember the painfully shy and friendless me going wild at being away from home for the first time, running up and down the hotel hallway all night long, trickling tea out the 20th floor window to get people to look up at me, and getting into a great deal of trouble for all of it. To which I ask, HOW was I not diagnosed as bipolar until age 27?)

My favorite flowers are gardenias.

I’ve been “asked to leave” an upscale piano bar and was “not welcome back.”

One of my greatest dreams is to go to the tea fields in China and be allowed to help pick the leaves. I don’t know if that’s a thing, but I’m determined.

I’ve never smoked a cigarette or done drugs of any kind, and can confidently state that I never will. (Do people still say “done drugs”?)

I am extremely introverted by nature and still have occasional trouble leaving the house to encounter other humans (though I try not to indulge myself in this).

The Opheliac album was written and recorded before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and sent to an asylum, not after.

I suffered from chronic, blinding migraines from my early childhood until my early adulthood (which means that I’ve had to do a good many violin competitions without being able to see). The migraines morphed into ulcers by my early 20s because your girl had zero stress/anger management skills at the time (solved).

I love reptiles, and have raised iguanas, chameleons, and frogs.

I was supposed to die of leukemia at age 2 (or so the doctors forewarned). I didn’t. (This is the “thing about me” you might already know.)

I was given my first pair of tweezers at age 11 (but not told what to do with them, which lead to many, many years of questionable eyebrows, and I think I’ve only just now figured them out, she says nervously).

I used to design and program websites for a living (before I could survive from music alone).

I’ve written two screenplays and the pilot for a TV series (you’ll be hearing more about this soon;).

When I was small and my family was losing their home, I offered to make jewelry and sell it in the driveway to help raise funds so we could stay. (My offer was not received kindly, so we’ll never know if I could have single-handedly saved the proverbial farm with my beaded earrings, will we?)

Back to eyebrows, now that I’ve nailed them (she says now oddly arrogant), if I’m having my makeup done on a film set or photo shoot, I’ll let the makeup artists do everything up to the brows, which I’ll then do myself.

I plan to get a PhD in neuroscience in my much wiser age, say perhaps 80-ish.

I’ve had one massage ever and being touched absolutely freaked me out and I’ll never do it again.

I am absolutely obsessed with crosswords (but only the most difficult ones, meaning that, if I can solve it without cheating, I’m not interested).

If you call one of the most prominent corporations in Chicago, the voice you’ll hear on all of the automated prompts is mine (it takes an entire 2 days to record ALL numbers, letters, commonly used words, phrases, etc.)

I once very nearly burnt down a house doing a “magic spell” in bed.

My father was raised in an orphanage in Germany before immigrating to America. (That one wasn’t about me was it, but hey ho.)

I’ve been full-blown punched in the face, bloody nose and all (school bully didn’t appreciate my sticking up for another girl).

I locked myself in the bathroom and cried when Carl Sagan passed. (Also for Jim Henson, also for Steven Hawking. Yes, I am always looking for a father, I’m aware, no need to point it out.)

Oh! How could I forget! Years later, I was punched in the face AGAIN and given a fractured nose, this time in a stage combat class with a less-than-conscientious gentleman student for a fight partner (this is why my snout is a bit crooked).

At 8, I shoplifted a bar of surfboard wax just to see how easy it was (it was very easy, and I turned right around and brought it back).

I was temp working as the receptionist for a major radio station when I received an email from the music programmer and show host, asking if “EA’s album” (my teenage one) could be sent to him at the station so that he could play a song from it on air. The next morning, I handed the CD to him personally as he passed my desk to go to his office. I’ve never seen anyone more baffled.

I’ve never kept track of my periods, preferring, apparently, to be surprised. I always am.

As a child, I rarely wore shoes, and would show up to orchestra rehearsal barefoot. It was only when a conductor said to me in front of everyone, “we really have to find you some shoes” that I even noticed.

I have the math skills of a 5th grader (at best).

I temp worked for two weeks as the head of reception for the Starbucks headquarters. (Pros: I got to go into the testing room on breaks and concoct my own drinks, my signature being an iced soy mint thing. Cons: I had to physically make the coffee for the entire office. Not stressful.)

I’m a maximalist who dreams of being a minimalist but accepts that it’s never going to happen.

I used to make all of my own clothes before time became scarce/non-existent, all because I had it in my head that I could never wear the same thing as anyone else, but must always be utterly unique. (It would take me a few more years to learn that what made me unique had nothing to do with what I wore.)

I used to make my own kombucha (as in three months ago, when I thought I’d have time for one more task - turns out I don’t). All of my cultures were called Jeffrey. The last batch is on the Asylum kitchen counter, and Jeffrey has grown to fill the whole jar. I don’t know what to do with him.

I’ve had apartments I’ve lived in broken into and robbed three times (one of which I was in when the intruders...um...intruded).

I’ve passed an entire night in a booth at a 24-hour Dunkin’ Donuts (following one of the break-ins mentioned above, when the sledgehammer the intruders had used left me without a doorknob and I knew they were going to come back - they did).

All of the costumes I made/wore whilst performing with Courtney Love were sewn by hand using scraps from curtains, bedsheets, and a wedding dress obtained from a Salvation Army shop on Chicago’s South Side where I lived at the time. (The wedding dress creation became the cover of my “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun / Bohemian Rhapsody” EP.)

I once worked as a house painter (interiors).

When I meet a really nice stranger (which is often), I’m buzzing about it the rest of the day. (I feel like it’s my reward for pushing myself out of my introverted comfort zone.)

I’ve bought something off of a 3AM infomercial (it was a makeup airbrush system and it broke).

I once (alright, several times) hid in a small closet for three hours so that people knocking on my room (when I lived with four gentlemen in a basement) would think I was out. Fun fact: They knew I was in there the whole time. They always knew.

My childhood idol was Queen Elizabeth I. I particularly admired that she never married or had children.

My favorite Shakespeare play is Twelfth Night (everything thinks it’s Hamlet for obvious reasons).

My favorite authors are Virginia Woolf, Daphne du Maurier, and Shirley Jackson (that they are all women is nothing more than a joyous coincidence).

I plan to live in Somerset (UK) in the future, which happens to be my ancestral home on my British side.

My first crush was on Felix Mendelssohn, who had been dead since 1847.

I once went to a New Orleans psychic to ask about my sexuality. (And then performed at the House of Blues three hours later.)

I was hanging out in a jazz club with violinist Nigel Kennedy (eons ago, aged 16-ish), and he handed me his kazillion-dollar Stradivarius so that I could have a turn soloing with the house band. And guess what? I couldn’t accept it because I’d just had my hand bitten trying to save an eel’s life and had temporary nerve damage in said hand.

I don’t have a driver’s license because, whilst on my learner’s permit, I was plowed into by an SUV running a red light through an intersection, and I determined not to try again. (With so many other challenges I’d like to rise to, I think it’s fair to pick my battles.)

I still have the hospital gown and the red crayon from my psych ward stay where the Asylum book was written. Also the spiral notebook. Also an IV tube and a teabag wrapper.

I cook for my dog twice a day. Alright, mostly Scorps does, but I do when he’s away, such as right now.

My favorite color is sage green.

I grew up swearing that I would never sing, and only started because I had developed vocal nodes (don’t ask) and, unable to afford the surgery recommended at the time, thought I might try to heal myself by strengthening my throat somehow, i.e. singing my own secret compositions strictly in private (not science based, just had a hunch, I was a teen without internet, and also it worked).

The “dog who found me” was a Weimaraner called Ernie.

Until I was 25, I thought that literally everyone had synesthesia (which I didn’t know had a name) and saw/heard/thought things in exactly the same way I did. (I still don’t believe that the number 8 isn’t green to everybody.)

I am a gold belt in Karate.

The quality I most value in a person is loyalty.

A higher-up at Ford Models once approached me/gave me her card/asked me to call her about pursuing modeling. I thanked her for the compliment, but told her she needed to see something. And then I stood up. “Ohhhhhh,” she said. (I’m 5’4”.)

While on a US tour, I was stopping into a Walgreens when a scout from American Idol approached and tried to get me to join the auditions being held across the street. He never asked what I did for a living.

The first thing I ever won was an art contest at age 6. The prize was a Christian Bible. I read it.

The second thing I ever won was a grade 4 school typing competition.

Which should confirm your suspicion that I have never been popular.

Or had actual friends.

Until my 20s.

I wrote much of the Opheliac album in a tiny notebook whilst working as a greeter in a real estate office. I would show people the building models, write in a corner when they left, then go and record all night.

I still have the tiny notebook. I’m holding it right now. It has “I Know Where You Sleep” in it.

During that time, I supplemented my greeter income to pay my basement apartment rent by making sarcastic collage art and selling it on eBay. I still can’t believe anyone bought them. A massive thank you to those misguided people.

I recorded all of “Marry Me” in my basement bedroom years before I met any of you.

I’m often told I sound South African. I always say “thank you,” then explain that I’m just eccentric.

Annie Lennox is the only singer I have, in my youth, consciously tried to copy.

As a child, I was utterly determined to solve the puzzle in the Kit Williams book Masquerade, and spent countless hours toiling over it. I was devastated when I learned that someone had already dug up the treasure.

I used to have a golden stripper pole in my living room because I was developing an act where I pole danced whilst playing the violin. When I moved house, I couldn’t get the pole down. The landlord charged me for it.

I’ve studied broadsword fighting.

I struggle not to break a dish each time I see something published without an Oxford comma where an Oxford comma NEEDS TO BE FOR THE SENTENCE TO MAKE ANY SENSE!

That said, I no longer actually get annoyed at almost anything because I have come to experience every moment as a flipping miracle that took 4.54 billion years to create, whether I actively “enjoy” what I am experiencing or not.

I have a weird technique to get things done when I am overwhelmed and getting everything done seems/is actually impossible: I add another thing. Learning German for example. That way, the newly added thing will be the thing to go in a pinch, not everything else. Another example: I am more overwhelmed than I have ever been ever, which is why, starting TODAY, I am committing to a daily blog post here at SRS for one week. Can I do it? Probably not. But that will mean that I am most likely getting all the other things done.

I dislike sports or even games where there is a winner because that means someone has to be a loser and that makes me sad.

Which is one of the reasons I really like puzzles.

Having already lived far longer than I ever expected to, I’ve become completely fascinated by the fields of health span and longevity, and have changed so very much about my daily life by putting what I have learned into practice. Focusing on, heaven forbid, sleep is an enormous part of this. (I may write about this further in another post, but in the meantime, check out these books by Matthew Walker and David Sinclair.)

As a child, I performed in retirement homes quite often, to entertain the residents and gain performance experience. It was wonderful.

I also often performed at inner city schools in Los Angeles, where I had the privilege of playing for/learning about/getting to know kids my own age who might not have had the opportunity to see a violin up close or listen to Mozart live before. It was incredible.

My favorite word is “rubbish.”

My favorite biscuit is a McVities Chocolate Digestive. Sadly, I never eat them anymore because no sugar. But I do wear them as a watch.

I once took a hip-hop dance class. I don’t want to talk about it.

One night, whilst walking in Russia with my crew (still one of my greatest honors to meet the Russian Plague Rats on tour), two men appeared behind us and grabbed the sweatshirt hood of one of my crew members, then attempted to pull him into a dark alley. Without thinking, I lunged at them and shouted “BACK OFF” in a voice that sent them running. My crew member still believes I saved his life. And I still believe there is a demon inside me.

I was once told I looked like a horse. I was so confused by this that it didn’t even hurt my feelings. Also, I’m a horse person.

Speaking of which, I’ve trained a three-year-old thoroughbred ex-racehorse to jump 5-foot+ Olympic-grade fences and not kill me.

I’ve never been on a vacation.

I once prank-called the operator using a payphone at an ice-skating rink (I very honestly just wanted to know what it would feel like to do something “bad” at age 7). We ended up talking for 20 minutes. I hope she’s doing well.

I also play the viola (which I learned only so that I could play Bach’s Brandenburg 6th), as well as the treble viola de gamba.

I once asked the school librarian for the scariest book she had (I practically lived there). Bless her, she very, very reluctantly handed 8-year-old me Pet Semetary. I loved it.

I’ve been told multiple times that I have a great handshake (it’s apparently “very firm and comforting”).

When I ask people how they are doing, I legitimately mean it, and always feel honored if they entrust me with an honest answer.

I’m terrified of the telephone (traumatic stalker experience as a teen, working on it though because it’s getting quite old), and I don’t do email. If someone needs to find me, they’ll find me. But it won’t be easy.

My nom de plume is Lydia deWinter. And now I can never use it again.

Bonus Fact: I have no regrets.

I now pass the spoon to you, my dear Ratties! What are 100 things people don’t know about you?

For me, the secret value of this exercise has been the recollection of things that I had forgotten, and my little “story of me” seems richer for the remembering.

#2022 #stark raving sane #blogs #blog #musical era #emilie autumn

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zodiyack · 4 years ago

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Niffler’s New Discovery

Requested by anon: May I request a the youngest Shelby sister x Newt Scamander story? The Shelby sister is nothing like her siblings. She’s shy, reads books like they’re oxygen, loves animals, and doesn’t drink, smoke, or anything like that. She doesn’t even swear, she’s so pure. She also loves his animals. And Tommy acts like her father but she loves her brother very much. Same as her other brothers. They find out she’s dating him and get all overprotective. Sorry if this is too specific. I just love the idea of a Shelby sister who’s nothing like her siblings. Because most of the Shelby reader fics always have them smoking and all that. Which they are fun to read, but it’s nice to see something different. Feel free to pick the Scenario. :)

Pairing: Newt Scamander x Female!Shelby!Innocent!Reader

Warnings: Swearing (not from reader ofc :)) slight suggestiveness (also not from reader), fluff, ✨m a g i c✨

Words: 1,303

Summary: (See Request...also I thought the gif was cute, so anon, I based it off the gif kinda)

Taglist: @matth1w, @redspaceace-writes, @fandom-puff, @darling-i-read-it, @simonsbluee, @sebastianstanslefteyebrow, @marquelapage, @stuckysslag, @psychkunox, @i-love-superhero

Masterlist | Fantastic Beasts (AWTFT) Masterlist | Peaky Blinders Masterlist

At first, they had no problem keeping their relationship hidden from her overly protective family, but the troublemaker Newt constantly had to chase down and return to his case was the thing that exposed them. The bloody Niffler just loved things that shined. Who could blame it though? It was it’s nature.

Just as it was the Shelby brothers nature to react the way they did. Violent, perhaps, but of their nature. Their possessive, over the top protective, shitty, big brother, nature.

And it all started, one late afternoon...

The older Shelby trio, not counting Ada with her age advance over John, returned home after a nice night out at the pub. Sure, the sun hadn’t set yet, but Pol wanted them to return home a little earlier today for a family meeting. The meeting included everyone, minus the innocent angel whom the Shelbys called their sister.

It was the perfect time to have Newt over. The perfect time to explore the secret world hidden inside his little brief case. If only they knew the pesky Niffler had been waiting.

“Are you sure they won’t suspect anything of my presence?” Newt hesitated, one foot hovering above the wooden flooring of Y/n’s bedroom, the other resting on the rooftop outside her window.

She ushered him in the rest of the way, making sure to lock her door after checking that no one was around. “Positive. Family meetings take a while, so we’re good on time. How about you? Are you sure this is good with the council?”

He had a guilt-ridden look across his face as he looked around. “There are some things the council doesn’t have to know.” A nervous laugh rumbled in his throat before he cleared it and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Uh huh... Well, just promise me that you won’t get into any serious trouble for this, alright Newton?” The blushing hufflepuff gave his lover a quick nod, as well as a smile in return for the little peck she placed upon his cheek, pinkening his skin further down his neck- it was no surprise that Newt was terribly new to receiving affection from anything other than his beasts that resided in his case.

“S-shall we be going?” He broke the tension, gesturing to the case in front of them.

“Boys.” Polly stopped the bickering that had started up between John and Tommy, her eyes drifting toward the ceiling, the trios’ following. “Your sister’s been awfully quiet.”

John cackled, “Oh no, maybe she snuck out, went to have a quick fuck with some guy off the streets, didn’t she Pol?” His rather sarcastic tone suggested his knowledge that the referenced behavior was most certainly unlike his little sister, but the immaturity of John Shelby simply couldn’t resist making a joke.

Polly, however, was in no mood for John’s incessant kidding. Her hand met the back of his head, a disapproving furrow of her brows telling him to stop talking. “I’m being serious, you idiot. It’s more quiet than usual.”

“And what about it, Pol?” Tommy spoke after taking a drag from his cigarette, an eyebrow quirked.

“If she really does have a boy up there, he better pray he’s out the window by the time we get up there.”

Tommy’s brow, lowered after asking Polly how she’d respond, lifted back once again. “There’s no God for him to pray to, Arthur. The boy is fucked, plain and simple.”

“In more ways than one.”

John’s childish cackles were hushed into silence, a slap sounding throughout the room prior to their ceasing. A hand rubbing the back of his head, John glared at his aunt, yet continued the discussion of what to do with Y/n nonetheless.

The past ten minutes had been spent trying to block off any and all exists for the pesky little Niffler. Each time it attempted to escape the bedroom, Y/n or Newt were quick to block it off. It amazed Y/n how many places the little creature could scurry off through. Unfortunately, with their wild-goose-chase, footsteps turned to stomps...well, really running, but downstairs it was more likely to sound aggressive, such as the hard thud of a Blinder’s boot on the floor of the Garrison.

It was inevitable; the possibility of being caught, but the fact seemed to slip their minds as they both tried to corner the Niffler, as well as capture it once more. Every shiny thing, ranging from jewelry to bullet casings, or things that caught her eye, made into décor (gifted from her brothers, as she would never touch a gun unless need be) were being stolen as the creature evaded capture.

Newt shot Y/n a sorry look each time one of her belongings were snatched up by the Niffler. It touched her heart, truly, it did, but now was not the time to swoon. Y/n froze as the Niffler wandered over to a bottle. Wine? Champagne? She didn’t know; Y/n never drank- the bottle was a gift from her sister in law, which she couldn’t turn down without upsetting her, so it soon became another...decoration.

Atop the bottle was shimmery, gold-like, wrapping. Of course it caught the mischievous little shine-thief’s eye. It pulled and pulled, Y/n and Newt made eye contact as the uneasy feeling in their guts mirrored, until POP!

The door broke open with a loud bang, Arthur standing confused before getting both a Niffler and a cork to the space between his brows. While Y/n flinched, Newt only looked away in shame.

“What. The. Literal. Fuck. Was. That?” John gapped. His usual remark would be to poke fun, but he too was in great shock, he couldn’t even think of anything humorous.

“A- ...A Niffler.” Newt stuttered. His rather shy demeanor was rarely common around Y/n, so she new he was slightly uncomfortable the second his hand lifted to itch the back of his neck as his eyes found interest in the floorboards.

“Did I fuckin’ ask you?” John narrowed his eyes at the timid wizard.

It was unusual for Y/n to get angry, but the unjustness of John’s attitude toward her lover didn’t sit well with her. “Leave him alone!”

Now there was more to be shocked about. “I- what?”

“You heard me, John. You, Arthur, and Thomas. Leave Newt alone. He didn’t mean for this to happen, so he shouldn’t be harassed by you three. Want to question him? Have Pol do it, but the second you come to my room and bully my lover is the second you cross the line.”

Tommy, amused, let out a little chuckle as he raised his eyebrows.

“Something funny to you, Thomas? ‘Cause I don’t think any of us are laughing.”

“No, sister, nothing is of humor to me.” He muttered despite dawning a lopsided smirk. Tommy looked at his brothers and nodded his head toward the stairs before walking away. Although he was leaving, he never said he wouldn’t poke at the boy some more. Now just wasn’t worth it; he was already shaking in his boots as it is.

“Tommy- where- where’re you goin’?” John did a double take, following shortly after.

Arthur rubbed the red spot where he’d been nailed by the creature and it’s new favorite possession, proved by it cuddling the cork close to it’s body on the floor where it had landed after hitting Arthur. He excused himself politely before walking in the same direction as his brothers, still rubbing at his soon-to-be-bruising injury all the way down.

Newt took the opportunity to grab the niffler and tickle Y/n’s possessions from his tummy before running over and tucking him in the case. The anger faded from Y/n’s eyes as she watched her lover. “It looks as though the Niffler has discovered something new.” Newt chuckled lightly, easing up slowly.

“New indeed.”

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unlikely-course · 3 years ago

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D’you think the attempted tooth-pulling is the closest we’ll get to a sex scene? <-THIS is the dumbass sentence I was writing when it finally hit me. It’s like pulling teeth. with them. To get them to admit what they feel for each other. Literally, Allison is having her teeth pulled rather than have an honest emotional conversation with Patty. Get it? Good. Let’s get into it.

Lord but the show does love its little metaphors. This week’s even more so than usual. Pickup from last season’s Allison is fast food and this one’s Allison is cigarettes, Allison is now liquor. In fact we get so direct that it seems less for us and more like the universe is trying its damnedest to spell it for her: you both drink the same amount, but Patty gets stuck with the hangover, Allison. You do not because “Kevin is rubbing off” on you.

And it works! We see real time she has a “my actions…affect Patty negatively….especially if I leave” realization complete with flashback montage. Beautiful! We love to see it. Now if only she could have another reflective flashback montage to realize a few other things! Including the fact that you maybe should not sic your terrible husband on Patty’s girlfriend! Even if it would solve one problem it would create like three new ones at least. God but it’s wild that we only have two episodes left. There’s no time for anything! Especially everything happening with Neil and Diane and whatnot. I’m not even sure what exactly is happening with Neil and I’m in no mood to guess. Diane however I’m much more concerned about. That convo in the diner with her and Allison—“I always felt like I had a girl.” I had to go like stare into the back patio for a while. My heart.

Tammy was funny—I truly think she was so hoping Allison would be able to give some dumb explanation for the footage, she just wants this to not be a thing so badly but she’s also incapable of dropping it. Still, Allison almost certainly confirmed to Tammy that she was involved. And I thought the guilty little way Allison straightened up when Tammy came in was great—she’d been so oriented to Patty before. You ever think about how much more they’d touch if Patty would allow it?

Anyway I do agree with Tammy that Patty’s been weird lately. I think the end of 2x03, when Patty tells Allison to be Gertrude, it kind of…took all the fight out of her, almost? There’s such an air about her of “this might as well be happening.” She’s resigned to losing her. I think it’s made her much more likely to openly be fond of Allison (why pretend she doesn’t enjoy her, at this point?) while at the same time made honest conversation about certain things much less likely. I’ve also been mulling like…the haircut and that new coat she has in 2x05. They’re not very big changes but all I can think is “she’s moving from moxie-filled sitcom sidekick to police procedural girlfriend.” Patricia do you know what happens to girlfriends on those shows?? Especially gay ones???

Anyway next ep looks dicey for sure. At least we know kitchen scene is in there? And like…it’ll probably work out for them because it’s the second to last episode? I must admit I never considered the bad ending route but the chance I suppose is never zero. It would be weird. The season as a whole is much more diffuse than the first, not as tight or precise—makes sense, given there must have been some pivoting with the cancellation. Still good though, and definitely with many things to say and saying them well. Have no blessed idea what it’s going to do with two hours on the clock though.

#I do think Patty would be a good nurse but I almost don’t want that to be what she really wants just for like the hours alone #take a break babes!#kcfh #kcfh spoilers #kevin can f**k himself #kevin can fuck himself

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jonesyjonesyjonesy · 3 years ago

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Wildflowers (pt. xiv.i)

a john paul jones x fem!oc fic

summary: Julia Morgan knew nannying for three girls who had recently lost their mother would come with many challenges. But she never thought their father, the enigmatic musician John Paul Jones, would be causing her the most trouble. And while Julia is not in the business of saving broken men, her tenderness might be meant for more than little girls and wildflowers.

table of contents │ previous chapter

masterlist│ko-fi

notes: tropes, tropes, and more tropes

a/n: Text editor be damned. The girls need Julia Morgan. Part one of two. As a reminder, the tag list is opened. 🥰

pt. xiv.i, wild rose

"I’ve been watching and I just know, Julia. I just know that you are not alone in this."

The corner of my eye twitched. The band of the falsies Pat had given me kept dipping below my lash line. A tear started forming in my right eye.

“Bloody hell,” I spat and ripped them from the crepe skin of my lids. The release of the glue was a tiny piece of heaven.

I didn’t have the heart to toss them overboard and instead set them on the handrail. They looked like angry black caterpillars that were curling up, waiting to die.

A solemn summer breeze glanced over the lake and gave me goosebumps I rubbed my forearms for warmth. Wished I had a cigarette to accompany me. I had my sea legs by now and I undulated with the delicate waves of the current. But I was done with it. The romanticism I had built up from watching the boats trembling with people and music was kaput. I wanted to go back to the dock.

I coughed deeply once more, marijuana still scratching at my lungs. My head throbbed from too much alcohol. Hangover even before getting into bed. Getting old, Julia. I grabbed onto the rail, framing my little lash caterpillars between my hands, and looked out at the mountains ghosting over the glinting, winking water.

This night that had started out so promising was now miserable and here I was alone on the aft deck while up above people danced up above and inside –

I didn’t want to think about inside. She’d had her hand on the inside of his thigh last I’d looked. And he’d been so taken with her touch, whispering in her ear and making her laugh. Without my eyes, I’m sure it would make it easier for him to unwind just as I’d encouraged the night before. If I had stayed, he would have been slightly abashed and withholding and I could have stayed snug between Robert and –

“There you are.”

I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s hard not to when I think about it.

Where to start, where to start…I guess it’s inevitability. That’s the word. Like how the planets orbit the sun. It was inevitable in that heliocentric way. Around, around, around. Inevitable, inevitable, inevitable.

Although the night before I had refuted Pat’s (and Robert’s and Mr. Grant’s) impression of what was happening between John and I, I cherished that it was known. They saw, felt a potential. That night, rather than hopelessly reach across the bed, I clutched the question in my palm and dangerously imagined the next night. I had to wonder if anyone had bothered to say anything to him about me. I didn’t know habits of infatuation from the male perspective, but from what I could tell, it seemed men never said anything to each other unless it was coded in nods and coughs. Was he being told that there was an obvious quality about us? Did he feel an inevitable feeling about us? Or was he literal when he called me friend? Was our affection for one another deeply entrenched in his tragic desperation for connection?

The day of was a warm and lazy. Room service breakfast, basking on the great lawn, wasting the day away. The exact way to spend a life.

There were moments all throughout the day of that inevitable feeling tucked in pockets. A glance, a shared laugh, his accidental grazing of my hand with his which made us both hold our arms tighter to our sides. The way we intonated Tamara’s name in the same way when she was being indolent. The look we shared after that seemed like neither of us wanted the other to see. Am I making sense? These things feel universal and yet so impossible to put into words.

Inevitable, inevitable, inevitable.

Inevitable like in the goodbye John gave toward the end of dinner before he went upstairs to get ready. “Well,” he let a telling, paternal sigh to stand. “I’m off.” The girls all moaned as he stood and gave each one a kiss to the crown of the head. “Don’t be too upset, you’ll have an extra special night tonight.”

“A surprise? Is there a surprise?” Kiera eagerly asked, shooting up in her chair like a flagpole.

John leaned over her, one hand to the back of the chair and the other on the table. “Julia’s going out tonight. So…”

“I’m in charge?” Tamara smiled and batted her eyelashes.

John scrunched his nose and pinched her chin playfully. “You wish. No, you’ll get some visitors tonight I think you’ll quite enjoy.” He turned to look at me with a sneaking smile. “You want to tell them or should I?”

I smiled back although my thoughts garbled together when my eyes met his. “You can, if you like.”

He rolled his head back to the girls and grinned. “Or do you a have guess?”

Jacinda’s eyes flickered easily, quickly. “Pat and Bonzo?”

Kiera looked to her sisters, her mouth agape and smiling.

John shrugged. “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Will they bring a surprise?” Kiera asked.

“Kiera,” Tamara tutted with a roll of her eyes. “They’re the surprise.”

Kiera frowned. “People aren’t a surprise. Presents are a surprise. That’s a surprise, daddy,” she said instructionally.

“You’re spoiled. And I love you dearly,” he replied with a saccharine tone and leaned in to give her a thick, wet kiss on the cheek.

“Where are you going, Julia?” Jacinda asked me.

I hesitated before replying, “I’m going to go watch your father perform tonight.”

The corner of her mouth turned up and her eyes glinted curiously. If I didn’t know better, I would have told her exactly what I said to Pat the night before: “I know what you’re thinking and no.”

“Why does Julia get to watch you and we don’t? That’s not fair,” Kiera pouted.

“Oh, you’d be bored to tears,” he said, gaze falling to his feet. Then, as if the devil ran his finger down his spine, he lifted his head and looked to me with a smirk. “Very boring stuff.” It was only a brief look, but long enough to send a flicker of feeling through my belly.

“Plus, much too late for little ones to be about,” I added.

John laughed, “Yes, there are too many unsettling and spooky characters around past your bedtime.” His eyes darted to his watch. “Alright, now I’ve got to be off. You all better be asleep by the time we’re back tonight, alright?”

A chorus of affirmatives from the girls.

“And I’ll see you later,” he said to me, drifting away from the table with slow feet.

“Yes, I’ll be one of the crowd. Holding a lighter maybe. Isn’t that what people do?” I teased.

John blushed on my behalf and chuckled, “Oh, Julia, you have much to learn.” He turned to go but stopped short and looked back at me once more. “Let tonight be the start of your real education.”

I returned his blush with a deeper shade of crimson. I had done the studying in the studio with him, listening to his records and his playing, hearing him talk about people and concepts I didn’t know. Or was our time together the studying and the night ahead the education?

The girls and I finished up our dinner, including a rather splendid dessert of ice cream sundaes (I’d have to apologize to Pat and Bonzo for the inevitable sugar high). By the time we returned to the suite, John was long gone, save the fresh scent of his aftershave wafting out from his bedroom. God, I was so used to him and his being, his presence. Only natural, considering I lived in his house and took care of his girls. It added to that inevitable feeling. It would just be so easy to pivot into something deeper than friendship. No worrying if the children would like me, no worrying that I wouldn’t be ready for the responsibility of motherhood.

And this is where I had to grab the emergency brake. This felt deranged. What was yesterday a crush was now a full-fledged life plan. I had to wind it back. Put my head down. Focus on what was in front of me and that was bath time, which ran extra-long that night. I hid my anxious, flying thoughts behind the cover of Where the Red Fern Grows while the girls listened with rapt attention as bubbles popped around them. Once they all resembled raisins rather than little girls, I sent them off to their room to put on their pajamas so I could disappear to change.

I had laid out the dress hours ago, tenderly, spread across the bed as if the woman wearing it had disapparated suddenly. The long, white dress, printed with lively poppies, purple bellflowers, and fern leaves, looked exactly like what someone in Montreux shouldwear. A partial wooden-buttoned bodice and tie at the waist. Almost tropical. I had bought the dress specifically for the trip, although it was more of an aspirational garment, something that I didn’t expect to pull out, but would be nice for an impromptu dinner or an evening walk alone along the waterfront.

As I did the ritualistic contortion, bending my arms around my back for the zipper, I started to question if the dress I had thought was so lovely in the shop window was at all fit for the night. I seemed to stick out like a sore thumb wherever I went. I thought of myself as a smart dresser, not necessarily stylish. I cared for my clothes and cared that they suited my figure, but I no longer obsessed over trends as I did as a younger woman. Here, the crowd of musicians and their sycophants dressed in trends that were exponential of what you would see on Carnaby. With so many people saying “look at me”, no one was at all unique.

7pm on the dot, the Bonhams and Robert arrived. Bonzo was markedly grumpy until he was greeted with a thrill of cheers and kisses from the girls and was unceremoniously ushered into a card game. That left me with Pat and Robert, both of whom shuffled me with eagerness into my room.

“That’s just a smashing little thing, don’t you think?” Pat said, pulling up the skirt of my dress and admiring the fabric draped over her hand.

“It looks lovely,” Robert replied as if it were consolation. “But have you got anything shorter?”

I balked, “Shorter? No.”

“Damn,” he grunted. “You see, John’s the type to check the boot of the car before the headlights, if you catch my meaning,” he said and pulled the skirt so it tightened around my backside.

Pat thwapped his hand away from the dress. “Oh, stop that.”

“I’m just saying, if you know where the eye will go, it’s something to capitalize on,” he said with a shrug and cheeky smile before plopping down on the end of the bed and spreading his legs out long.

“Don’t listen to him,” she said and put her hands up in front of my chest. “It makes your tits look great and that’ll be more than enough.”

I had to laugh at their comedy routine. “You’re being awfully presumptive about all this,” I said.

“About what, darlin’?” Robert asked, picking at his nails.

“That…you know,” I began sheepishly. “I don’t know what you all are seeing, but inside of it, it’s just a comfortable friendly sort of thing.”

Robert and Pat stared back at me like I was a child saying they hadn’t broken a teacup even though the handle was still between their fingers.

“And I work for him. So this – what you’re implying or trying to do through…the dress and the…it’s really all appreciated, but it’s altogether inappropriate,” I said with firm finality.

They blinked and then burst into laughter. I screwed my lips together to keep the pinprick of embarrassment from welling in my eyes.

“You’re so precious, Julia,” Pat gushed. “Just precious.”

“Show us the shoes now,” Robert demanded from his throne on the bed.

I tried to ignore their reaction and showed them the woven leather heels that seemed satisfactory, even though Robert remarked that they looked ginormous when I held them up. “Don’t talk about that, I’m sensitive,” I said dryly before clipping them on.

And then it was off to the vanity, which clearly had been on Pat’s mind. She plopped a large makeup case adorned with golden threaded elephants down and began to unload every little thing in her bag of tricks. Robert got up and came behind me, running his hand through my hair. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, I was just –“ I began.

“Just a slight curl, a little spray,” Pat rattled off.

“You’ve got to go big with the hair,” Robert replied.

I stared at my reflection, rendered speechless. The two of them squabbled over my hair as if I wasn’t there, just a form for them to style. It felt ridiculous to be prodded and preened by their fingers, evaluating the pros and cons of what hairstyle would suit the evening.

“Don’t worry, Julia. You’re in very good hands. You just need to sit and let me do my work, alright?” Pat said in her sweet way that now felt rather condescending given the moment.

“I just prefer something not too flashy, you know, I don’t want –“

I was silenced by Pat’s hands running over my face with some sort of balm or cream that had a sharp and unnatural floral scent. It was abundantly clear that I would not have a say in what was happening to me, so I kept my mouth shut and let them take over. As the saying goes, idle hands are the devil’s playthings, and it became too easy to let my love-addled brain turn to anxieties of the evening.

Meanwhile, Pat worked and Robert commented endlessly. Brushes and fingers, creams and powders, the heat of a curling iron at the back of my neck. I watched the mirror out of the corner of my eye in terror at what was becoming of my face and my hair. Glimpses of big, thick curls weighed down with product and shocks of frosted orange on my eyelid. I must have been paling pitifully because they kept arguing over if they should add more rouge.

After what felt like a lifetime of this torture, Pat spoke up. “Close your eyes.”

Her fingers drifted into my eyeline, holding the wispy lashes that would plague me later in the night. “No, no, no,” I held up a hand. “I haven’t worn those since the 60s, please.”

“Oh, come on, they’ll look nice,” she retorted, making no move of retreat.

“Everyone wears them,” Robert added. “And Pat puts them on perfectly, you won’t be getting that lazy eye look.”

“Shut up, Rob.”

I dodged left. “No, please, I don’t want them on.” Then right. “I don’t want to look all done up.” I shot up off the tufted stool and backed away from the pair. “I just want to look like me and I don’t wear those.” For the first time, I saw myself directly in the mirror and almost burst into tears. Pat had done a formidable job, but I hated it. I looked so young. I felt transported almost immediately to the time of my life that was just knee socks and wet knickers, when being bold and outlandish was my currency and despite all the risks I was taking, I felt so safe. Right up until I wasn’t. My reflection was just a little girl. I didn’t want to look like a girl tonight.

I grabbed at a lock of my hair and heard it crunch in my hand. “This is ridiculous. I look…ridiculous.”

“You look fantastic! What are you on about?” Robert said with brash enthusiasm. “You’ll be right up there with the best of them, Julie.”

“I’m not looking to be best in show,” I said, my breath quickening. “I don’t do this sort of thing. I feel like a fish in a fur coat.” I lunged for my hairbrush and began undoing the thick strains of curls. “I’m sorry, I know you worked so long, but this is just too much. I look like too much.”

Robert tried to retrieve the brush from me. “You’re spoiling it!”

“Rob, leave her alone,” Pat interjected and guided him toward the door. “Go wait outside, will you?”

They had a quiet conversation in the doorway that I ignored as I paced around the room, tugging on the crunchy curls with the brush. I had about half of my head done, curls softened as much as they could, when Pat spoke up. “Are you alright?”

“Fine.”

“Julia…”

“You’ve all made this such a big thing and it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything, Pat,” I replied tersely and returned to the vanity. I began working on a curl that had become extremely knotted. “And now I have to appease it unless I want Mr. Grant to eat my kidneys for breakfast tomorrow.”

“Oh dear,” she muttered and came up behind me.

I worked tirelessly on the hair, not minding the pain it was bringing to my scalp, until I felt her hand on my shoulder. The tension in my back melted and I dropped my hands into my lap.

“This is supposed to be fun,” she said apologetically. “And if it’s not then –“

“I’m nervous,” I blurted. “I’m so bloody nervous I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

A sympathetic smile crept onto her lips.

I dropped the brush onto the vanity and curled over onto my fists. “I don’t want this. This feeling. I just don’t want it anymore.” This was ostensibly the first time I had admitted to someone that I was feeling something for John beyond what was acceptable. An untenable, complicated, and illicit feeling.

Pat’s hand drifted down my back. She nudged herself onto the lip of the stool beside me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Julia.”

I looked up and found her looking right back at me in the mirror.

“If you don’t want to have them, then don’t go tonight.”

“What?”

“Don’t go. You don’t want to feel the things you’re feeling, don’t go.”

I looked at her incredulously. “I can’t do that.”

“You could,” she replied. Then, her lips curled up into a mischievous smile. “You just don’t want to.”

I let out a limp laugh. She was good at seeing right through me. “I don’t want to look foolish. I already feel so foolish.”

Pat didn’t reply at first. She grabbed the brush and began to work out the curls in my hair again. “Julia, I wouldn’t be here egging this on if I thought you were going to look foolish.” She separated the pieces of my hair into relaxed curls easily with her nails. “I know you feel like you’re sitting on your heels just watching everyone because you’re the outsider. But what you don’t know is that I feel the exact same way. I think most of us do when we’re around the lot of them. I watch and I listen just like you do.” She sighed and reached for a clean eye shadow brush. Gingerly, she pushed the brush into the crease of my eye and began to buff out the orange. “The only difference is…I know them much better than you do. Their mannerisms and habits. I’ve learned over the years how to read them.” The eyeshadow miraculously diffused into a color resembling the golden light of afternoon. “And you need to hear me when I say this.” She gripped my shoulders and locked her eyes in mine through the mirror. “You listening?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been watching and I just know, Julia. I just know that you are not alone in this,” Pat said. “I see the way he looks at you.”

I flushed desperately. “Pat, please.”

“I know, it sounds like fluff, but listen to me. I wouldn’t just say it to stoke your ego. This is too…this is too big for that. I know that. We all know that. I mean…we all know how huge this is for him,” she said, despondency inching into her voice. “I’m not going to play games when I know how important this all is.”

I touched one of her hands and leaned my head against hers.

Pat smiled, almost shyly. “And I’m sorry I made you look like a tart.”

“Not a tart, Pat, no!” I cried, enveloped in laughter.

“Well, the look on your face made it seem like I’d tarted you up completely!”

The two of us laughed ourselves silly and, once it abated, I conceded to the lashes now that the “tartiness” had been tamed. And I had to admit, she was right about them. They really pulled the look together and gave my eyes an allure that couldn’t be quite captured with mascara. The final touch was the lipstick. We agreed upon a dark terra cotta that added striking contour to the cupid’s bow of my lips. With a final fluff of my hair, Pat helped me to my feet and admired what had become of the past sloppy hour.

Pat clapped her hands together and squealed, “Oh, the girls will just die.”

Upon walking into the living room, the intense card game was only broken up by Robert’s cry of, “Wow, look at you!” The girls dropped their cards and gasped delightedly. “I’ve got to say, I had my doubts, ‘specially after that outburst, but you look just –“

“Winsome,” Bonzo finished.

“Winsome?” Robert repeated.

“Yeah. Means pretty,” he replied as if it were the most obvious fact in the world.

Kiera and Jacinda approached me, both touching the skirt of my dress and admiring it. “You look like a fairy,” Kiera said. “Like you sleep in a flower.”

“No, you look like the flower itself,” Jacinda argued.

“I’ll take both and then some,” I replied, leaning down and kissing each of them on the cheeks. “Be good tonight.”

Even Tamara, who was usually not one to offer a compliment unprompted, shyly added, “You look very pretty, Julia,” and that sent me over the moon.

“Thank god you came when you did,” Robert said, getting to his feet. “I was just about to get conned out of my ascot.”

I eyed Bonzo. “You better not be running a card table here. They’re too young for gambling.”

Bonzo gave me a toothy grin. “No card table, promise. Cross my heart.”

“Don’t listen to him. He’s got his fingers crossed behind his back,” Robert said, lithely dodging Bonzo’s hand going for his crotch. “Oooo…too slow.”

I gave Pat a pleading look and she nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Boo…no fun at all,” her husband replied.

Robert bounded over to me with an eager smile. “You ready then, Ms. Morgan?”

“Yes, let me just grab my –“ Pat appeared at my side with my ivory beaded purse. “Oh, thank you.”

“You have fun and you don’t worry a pin about us, right, John love?”

Kiera had already made her way over to Bonzo, climbing over him to reach the pile of cards on the side table. “Yes, hurry back!” he grimaced.

“Don’t hurry back. Don’t for god’s sake,” Pat amended.

I smiled at her the way I would at Auntie Gin. With an uninhibited amount of adoration. She had mothered me as I had needed right in that moment. And now she had to let me go. “You come get me if anything goes wrong, won’t you?”

“Nothing will go wrong,” Pat waved me off.

“But I mean it, if anything –“

She started to scurry us out of the suite. “Go, go, go. Girls, say goodnight to Julia!”

“Goodnight, Julia!” the girls said in unison.

Robert and I were forced out the door by Pat. She paused, pretty eyes narrowing. “And good luck.”

I didn’t have time to respond before the door clapped shut in my face and Robert tucked his arm under mine. “Come on, love. We’ve got somewhere to be.”

Robert calmed my nerves immensly on the way over to the casino. Everything I said could be turned into a tongue-in-cheek joke and, for better or worse, he was doing a bang-up job of making me feel gorgeous. By the time we made our way into the venue, I held my head high amongst the overly-trendy crowd.

The concert, or jam as John called it, was being held in one of the smaller spaces. It was much more casual than I had anticpated, with cabaret style tables populating the space and a very lively bar scene in the back. The stage at the front was crammed with gear; a few men milled about double checking cords and microphones. And there was a distinct smell of patchouli and tahitian vanilla wafting about, heightened by the inescapable humidity of bodies in Swiss summer.

Moreso than ever, I realized the unrivaled power of Zeppelin. It was not just a word, but an aura. An aura that was hard to miss when it was embodied in the towering, golden-haired banshee, Robert Plant. We were borne quickly to a more secluded section for the artists and shown to a primely located table toward the front. Even amongst his peers, eyes followed him as if he was untouchable.

“Y’find this suitable, then?” Robert asked as he pulled a chair out for me.

“Me? I mean, it’s perfect.” We had the best view of the entire stage, set up and back from the crowd and all the way to the front of the VIP section.

He shrugged. “It’s alright.”

“Never good enough when you get the best, is it?” I murmured, taking a seat.

Robert didn’t respond; he was making eye contact with someone across the room, gesturing with his hand toward the table in a back and forth motion. I tried to follow his gaze but didn’t see anyone of note, but was distracted by the knot of anticipation in my stomach. There is something so special about the time before a show begins. All the instruments full of potential energy, the audience abuzz and waiting. At any moment, your idle chatter and drinking could be interrupted, exchanged for a musical catharsis.

“I want you to keep an open mind tonight, Julie,” Robert murmured in my ear as he settled into the seat beside me.

I glanced at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This is the bird then?”

Our table had been flanked by a stocky, beared fellow who carried a glass in either hand. His eyes were squarely on me, but the question was for Robert, as if I were a sort of specimen being observed in a lab.

“Richard, Julia,” Robert said as means of introduction. “Julia, Ricardo.”

“Hello,” I greeted timidly.

Richard’s blank look transformed into a knowing smile. “It’s a pleasure,” he said with a nod and set the drinks down in front of us. “Heard you’re a fan of the green fairy.”

I frowned until I caught his meaning and looked at the drink in front of me. A chartreuse, bubbling liquid in a champagne coupe. “You’re trying to get me knackered?”

“Best way to be under the circumstances,” Richard replied.

“Richard’s our tour manager,” Robert explained. “Responsible for most all the knackering.”

“Oh, brilliant.”

Richard laughed gruffly and crouched down at the edge of our table. “Well, it’s nice to meet you finally. Heard a lot about you.”

I looked to Robert and shook my head. “That’s what everyone keeps saying and it’s starting to –“

“Oh, hush, Julia. It’s a compliment,” Robert admonished me.

“Depends on who you’re hearing it from,” I said with pursed lips.

“Just good things,” Richard shrugged, eyes shifting every which way. “Good, pure things. Promise. Listen, after the show, head out to the docks. There’s going to be a yacht taking off right after the show, s’not gonna wait except for Maria and her crew.”

Robert nodded. “Got it.”

“You better be there,” Richard said to me with sharpness. “Alright? S’not an invitation. S’a requirement. No running off or tucking in early.”

I looked to Robert to see if I should laugh.

“Hey, cool it, alright?” Robert warned. “You’re scaring her.”

Richard seemed almost affronted. “I’m not scaring her. Am I scaring you?”

“I’m just not used to the way you all communicate,” I answered, trying not to let the nervousness permeate my voice.

“See?” Richard grinned. “Not scaring her. Not at all. Alright! I’ll be around if you need anything.” He stood up and jerked his finger toward the back. “Over there.”

Robert sighed. “Thanks, Richard.”

“Don’t mention it,” he replied and looked at me again. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yes,” I smiled and, as soon as he was out of earshot, added, “if I value my life.”

Robert laughed and put his arm around the back of my chair. “He means well.”

“And I thought Peter was bad…” I grumbled.

“It’s his job to keep us happy,” he replied, swilling his drink quickly. “By any means necessary.”

I swallowed. “Sounds like people who cross you end up with a bounty on their head.”

He snorted. “Yes, you could say that.”

I tasted my drink carefully, the anisey wormwood striking my tongue and hardening my jaw. “Don’t get me drunk.”

“Just enough to loosen you up, Julie Andrews.”

It was at that moment the stagelights shifted brighter while the house lights dimmed. There was a relative calming hush as the group of ragtag musicians filled the stage. I immediately straightened up in my seat and leaned forward. As if he was trying to hide in others’ shadows, there was John, crossing over to the bass guitar sitting on a stand at the edge of the stage. With his every movement, I noticed something new in him. The stagelights brought out the cherry undertones of his lucious hair, showed off different contours of his figure I hadn’t seen, gave him a clear confidence. While his stageclothes were rather tame compared to those hanging in the studio closet, they suited the occasion well: a yellow floral shirt with bishop sleeves, blue bell bottoms, a pair of sensible brown platforms (as oxymoronic as it sounds).

I drank in his every motion as if I was thirsting in the desert and he was water. John pulled the strap of the bass over his head, was distracted by another musician and looked over his shoulder with a laugh, and put his pick between his teeth to turn one of the tuners. Once he was done, he gave a look around, took a breath, and began to pluck out a woozy, cheerful set of notes.

God, he was so fucking dear to me up there.

I’d been so consumed in watching him, that I hadn’t even noticed the lady of the hour, Maria Muldaur, move to the front of the stage and begin her song. “Well, I tried to run my game. She said, ‘Man, that’s the same old thing that you’ve played before…’”

Her plangeant croon captured the attention of the room. The olive-skinned woman exuded ease and glowed in her rainbow wrap top. And though her bounty of dark curls adorned with a red flower were demurely seductive to the audience, my eyes were constantly enraptured by the slick and inconspicuous bassist in the back corner.

“Play something sweet…something mellow…Play something I can sink my teeth in like Jello…”

I couldn’t get my heart to stop racing. This was an education. The feeling of music pulsing and winding, right there in front of me letting my brain turn off from the world and just thrive in an aural imagination.

As they moved into the second song, Robert touched my shoulder. “Relax, Julia.”

I was sitting stock straight, hands encircling my drink, and a stupid little smile on my face. I knew John couldn’t see me, probably wasn’t even looking for me. But I hoped he could feel me. I was sending everything I had across the room to him. I relaxed into Robert’s hand and smiled sheepishly at him.

“Midnight at the oasis…”

Robert needled his finger into my waist and I laughed.

“Send your camel to bed….”

“Send!” Robert and I whispered to each other in unison.

I didn’t have much to compare it to, having never been to a concert where the main attraction to me was the bass guitarist, but I was enthralled watching John. He was focused and precise at every turn. His watchful eyes I had grown so accustomed to scanned the band as if it was his obligation. And every now and then, he let the fun he was having show on his lips in a smile, wondering at the surprising gifts the other musicians were giving him. I watched with wide of eyes as possible so it would be singed in my memory forever.

“Look at you. All starry-eyed.”

“I’m not starry-eyed.”

Robert wrapped a curl of my hair around his finger. “Yes you are. Glimmering.” He didn’t take his eyes off me, watching me watch the stage. “You know, it’s just John.”

I was in so deep I could have stamped on his foot for that remark. “And I’m just Julia.”

He tsked me. “No, no, listen, listen. Like I was saying earlier. You need to keep an open mind.”

“You propositioning me?” I asked.

Robert furrowed his brow, affronted. “Me? No.”

“Because I know you’re married,” I replied, yanking the lock of my hair off his finger. I’d done plenty of research since my humiliation with Jimmy.

“I said no, didn’t I?” he said with a well-humored smile popping back on his face. “’sides, would never do that to John.” His eyes narrowed. “Or, I should say, I wouldn’t do that to John in circumstances such as these.”

I guffawed. “You’re terrible.”

“All I’m saying is that you should keep your options open, love. You never know where the night can take you. You’ve got eyes on you already.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the section. “No, you’ve got eyes on you.”

Robert shook his head vaguely, curls bobbling. “Right over there, Emerson, Lake, or Palmer has got his eyes on you. I can never remember which is which. And over there –“

“I’m not interested.”

He leaned in closer, whispering in my ear, “You’ve been cooped up all this time with only one man like Adam and Eve and you don’t know the possibility beyond the Garden of Eden.”

“I don’t know the possibility in the Garden of Eden, either,” I remarked.

He raised an eyebrow, perpetual smirk twisting up to the side. “That’s true. That’s fair.”

“And ifwe’re to continue this comparison, you seem to be the snake,” I replied.

Robert sucked in his lower lip and stiffled a laugh. “I could make so many jokes right now and I’m holding my tongue because I’m a gentleman.”

I smacked his arm. “You’re anything but.”

“I try, at least give me that credit.”

I quietly watched John another few moments, my heart swollen and throbbing. “I don’t want to keep an open mind,” I said to Robert. Plainly, clearly. With no hesitiaton. Opening my ribcage and exposing my heart. “I know what I want.”

Robert’s eyebrows jumped as he took in what I said. He saw it now. “I understand what you mean. I know that feeling.”

The rest of the performance our back and forth was warm and well-humored. My glass seemed to be conspicuously full of champagne every time I reached for it. Whether that was the work of Richard or a trick of the mind, I still can’t pin down.

“You’ve been such a great crowd tonight,” Maria announced after a particularly rousing number complemented by brass and a swinging cadence. “It’s been just a dream to be here. Another round of applause for the band!”

The audience followed her instructions wildly and heartily.

“I mean…I’ve been around the block before but…” she leaned toward the audience and held her hand over her mouth as if it was a secret. “These guys are the real deal!”

Polite chuckles echoed around the room.

“Special thanks to Mr. John Paul Jones of the Led Zeppelin who came through on a whim last night when I called his hotel room completely gassed out of my mind,” she said with a gesture to John who seemed to sink further into shadow for his unassuming bow of the head.

Robert let out a whoop. “Thatta boy Stanley!” (I decided not to ask).

John eyes darted our way, squinting, most likely unable to see past the footlights.

“Mr. Jones. Oh, Mr. Jones...” she drawled. “Mr. Jones is responsible for our next selection.”

The pianist started a distant, tinkling tune.

Maria looked over her shoulder at John briefly. “He’s not too happy about it, though.”

John rolled his eyes and slunk into his corner as the audience laughed.

“This is for a girl I used to know in Connecticut. Or Vermont. One of those.”

Suddenly my brain attuned to the song plunking out of the piano. A descending jangle that I knew incredibly well. I thought my ears must being playing tricks on me.

Maria adjusted the mic and let it rip. “Bill…I love you so, I always will…”

“He hates this song,” I muttered in disbelief.

“Hm?”

I couldn’t keep from beaming. “He – John, he really hates this song.”

Robert cocked his head. “You look awfully happy about it.”

“And in your voice I hear a choir of carousels…”

‘Wedding Bell Blues’ – probably Laura Nyro’s most famous tune. Lyrically trite, musically uncomplicated. Maria sang it in her own way, lilting and light, not with the same bristling gusto, but it was still…perfect. I could have keeled over and died right there and felt like I had lived a full, beautiful life. Despite his loathe for the song, John played it adeptly and lithely as he had everything else, perhaps with a little more humor behind the eyes. The song, for everyone to hear, was a secret just for us. I couldn’t be alone in this.

“Is this one for you?” Robert asked softly in my ear.

I felt a swell of emotion in my chest. If I had uttered one word, I would have burst into tears.

“Oh, Julie Andrews, look at you,” he cooed and wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “You sweet girl.”

Sweet, naïve girl. I was desperate to look like a woman in the mirror and yet I hadn’t felt this young and “starry-eyed” in years. There might as well have been no audience, no singer, not a single other musician.

This song was for me. The song, this whole night. All mine.

I had to take my chance.

to be continued...

✨ For more of my writing, visit my masterlist. ✨

tag list: @jimmys-zeppelin, @calico-skiess, @kari-12-10, @grxtsch, @edal-weis, @ritacaroline, @kyunisixx, @salixfragilis, @rogerfuckintaylor, @rebel-without-a-zeppelin, @jimmypages, @dollyvandal, @cassiana-it, @pinkleder, @angiesasadboy, @faisonsunreve, @sastrugie (always open for additions 💋)

#john paul jones #julia morgancore #wildflowers #robert plant #john bonham #pat bonham #richard cole #led zeppelin

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braineater444 · 4 years ago

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Memory 4: The Infancy of Ambivalence

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18+ MDNI!!

A/N: Nothing super wild happens in this chapter, everything is pretty mild. Sorry it took so long just for something so... mild. I doubt anyones reading this for the story though, soooo smuts near the end :) also my proofreading is shit so tell me if you catch any mistakes

Warnings: Noncon, Facefucking, Abuse, Violence, Reader is Still Kidnapped so....yeah

Your first week of not being able to use your hands had been interesting. Only Kakucho, Sanzu, and Mikey had been around that whole week. What they were up to, you had no idea. It hadn’t mattered either because you'd never get to know. You were only glad because none of them were touching you.

During that week though, Kakucho had become your caretaker of sorts. After the last time, you didn’t want Sanzu bathing you; shit— you hadn’t wanted anyone bathing you. Mikey said he wasn’t going to do it and Kakucho was the only one left.

He didn’t seem to have a problem with it. He’d bathe you twice a day, feed you three times, and when you needed him he’d listen. Kakucho was nice; he was so nice. Being treated kindly had become so foriegn to you in the short time since you’d arrived.

By the seventh day of him washing and feeding you, you’d grown comfortable talking with him. You’d ask him simple questions over breakfast that day.

“How’d you get that scar?”

“Car accident,” He held the toast to your mouth and you took a bite. You must’ve given him a look that was begging to know more as you chewed. “Yeah, both of my parents died, but I was young so... it's far behind me now. I couldn’t imagine grieving this many years later.”

You swallowed, “Really? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m not bothered by it anymore.”

“Does Mikey live here?” You asked before eating the eggs he held to your lips.

“He’s not supposed to, but yeah, kinda… that's why we leave you here.” Kakucho took a moment to think before saying “This place is supposed to be for meetings. He has his own place, but he probably wouldn’t come to meetings if he stayed there.” He laughed a little, he had known something you didn't.

That day, Kakucho went home earlier than usual leaving just you, Mikey, and Sanzu. Honestly, you weren’t so sure Sanzu had a home, but he’d leave sometimes? So that had to be proof that he went somewhere. Though, if someone had told you he’d get intoxicated and sleep on sidewalks...you’d believe them. Unfortunately, that night, Sanzu stayed, like most other nights.

He didn’t do anything to you that night, but you just didn’t like him being around. The air he brought with his mere presence was scary and uncomfortable. You’d go stiff when he was around, like he was some huge unfamiliar dog.

He joined you on the couch well after Kakucho had left and took the remote control from your hand.

He lit a cigarette for himself before telling you to go see Mikey in his room. You had done so without question— anything to get you away from him. Truly, everytime he came around, you felt gross.

When you stood in Mikeys door frame he silently patted the space next to him on the edge of his bed. You remember hesitating for a moment before moving and sitting next to him.

“You tired of…” He paused to pull at the large white shirt you’d been wearing over and over throughout your stay. “That?” You didn’t have many clothes, and the ones that you did have were just large t-shirts that they’d provided for you. You don’t know what they did to your pajamas that you showed up in.

Talking to him was somehow more unnerving than being in the same room as Sanzu. It was worse without reason. Mikey always looked sick and only hit you one time you could remember. You two hardly even spoke. Sitting in a room and talking with him was like… meeting with an old relative that had one foot in the grave or maybe it was like being in the principal's office knowing you were in trouble.

“Yeah.”

He nodded at your response, and looked you up and down for a moment with dark, dead eyes. He was always observing you, you noticed. As long as you were in the same room his eyes were on you like he was trying to spot something.

“I’ll get Hitto to take you out tomorrow to buy clothes.” You remember your heart racing at the idea that you were going outside. He seemed so nonchalant about it whereas you were in shock.

For a moment you wanted to hug him, but then you remembered where you were and who he was. You can vividly recall the feeling of your stomach churning at your senses coming back to you.

Why did you want to hug him?

“You know not to try to get away, right?”

“You’ll kill me if I do?”

“No, that's… too far. Rin’ll break your legs.”

You only nodded before he said you could go.

The next day you felt like a child on Christmas when Kakucho was helping you get dressed and eat. More accurately, you were like a dog getting ready to go on a walk. You hadn’t been allowed outside in what felt like forever.

Sure, you rushed through breakfast and your morning shower and the ill-fitting sweatsuit Kakucho brought you to wear was ugly, but you had been so excited. In hindsight, it’s a bit depressing, but at the time you were ecstatic. Not having been outside for two weeks and being trapped in this hell hole of all places, you were happy. It was a simple luxury during a less than simple time.

The entirety of the drive to the mall, you were buzzing enthusiasm, Kakucho must’ve seen it.

“Are you okay? You seem a little…”

“I’m fine- I- I’ve never been in a truck like this.” You remember trying to play it off. In your defense, it was a nick truck. “Hitto…” You waited for a reaction from him, and all he did was nod. “You can’t take me home, can you?”

He snickered at the question. “No, I can’t.” He hadn’t seemed even half as affected by it as you were.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, sorry.”

The rest of the ride was noiseless, not even the radio played. The air had gotten thick, the silence was heavy. You could only stare out the window and try to ignore how awkward you’d made it.

When he parked, for ten seconds neither of you moved.

“Look at me,” He rested his hand on your thigh, and for some reason your guard remained down. You only did as he told you to. Your eyes met with his and you didn’t see any malice, just sympathy. “You know, I don’t think you deserve this, right?”

You nodded, using your sleeves to dab your eyes dry before tears could fall.

“But, the only home you can go to is back at the base with us. Even if there was somewhere else for you to be, I’m not the guy that would take you.”

The all too familiar painful lump in your throat had started to form again and you wanted to just break down right there. He’d been able to keep a straight face, you were trying (and failing) to hold back tears.

“I’m not your savior.” It was just like him to be blunt.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice was stretched thin, and your sleeves were starting to get soaked by the tears you’d been wiping away. His words had felt like knives being dragged across your skin—he was never as good as you wanted him to be.

“We can still enjoy this, though, okay?” He talked down to you, the way Sanzu never would. “We’ll buy nice clothes for you to wear around the house, perfumes, and stuff for your room… That’ll make it better.”

It did. For a moment you’d felt better.

It was nice having Kakucho hold everything as you walked from store to store. You’d really only pick up baggy clothes: knits, sweats, maxi skirts, anything else that hadn’t felt too revealing. Kakucho would choose things for you too.

“I’m not wearing that.” You told him when you saw the slip dress he’d picked out. It was indigo with a big black butterfly that would wrap around your waist if you were to wear it. It was the first thing he’d chosen for you and you hated it.

“You’re not gonna get away with wearing this !” He lifted his arm that had all your baggy clothes tossed over it.

“Hitto why?” You whined. You thought that maybe your clothing was the one thing you could have control over. You’d thought wrong.

“You know why,” His brows were furrowed.

“I don’t wanna wear that…” You argued holding back tears again.

“Come on, it’s a nice dress.” He held it up so you could look at it. Of course it wasn’t an ugly dress. The material shimmered in the store lighting and you could tell it was expensive. At the time, you couldn’t have cared less. “Look!” He held it to your chest. “It goes down to your ankles. You can wear socks and one of those turtlenecks under it. It won't be that bad. No one will hurt you in this dress.” He smiled.

You knew at the time that he was lying, still, you smiled and nodded with tears in your eyes. If he had noticed you on the verge of crying, he hadn’t said anything.

A level of shame flowed through you as he laid that dress on top of the rest of your clothes at the checkout counter. It must’ve been visible.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” The cashier asked. Had she heard you and him arguing? Could she see that you were in danger? Or was it the tears you were holding back? You’d never know.

You had to gather your voice to lie, “I’m fine.”

She looked hesitant to accept that as the truth, but she hadn’t prodded any further. She only gave Kakucho a suspicious look as he paid. She seemed to dislike him without reason, but she was right not to.

As much as you wanted to mouth a silent “help me” to her, you didn’t.The fear they’d instilled in you greatly overpowered your desire to be free. You felt frozen. You only watched as she bagged your clothes and then followed your escort out the door.

She’d stuck with you for the rest of that shopping trip. You regretted not saying anything. Maybe it would’ve cost you? Maybe it would’ve saved you?

You’ll never know.

The rest of the shopping trip went by and you didn’t argue with him about anything he picked out. When the clothes started to get too revealing, you'd decided to stop shopping for clothes entirely.

You’d shopped for soaps, perfumes, and small things to put in your room, but you knew that if you had to watch him pick up anymore clothes you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from crying.

“I’m so late,” He’d said when you made it back home. “So much shit to carry up…”

He called Takeomi to help him after he rejected your offer to carry some of the bags. He’d mumbled something about you healing properly, but it had been more inward than directly to you.

Takeomi smelled like cigarettes and expensive cologne. The elevator ride up with him and Hitto smelled like cigarettes and expensive cologne.

“How was it?”

“Fine.”

“D’ya eat?”

“Yes.”

Takeomi let out a soft “Ugh” and Hitto snickered to himself.

“She try to run?” Mikey asked when you got in the living room.

“No.”

Rindō let out a noise of disappointment from the couch.

“Fuck you.” You rolled your eyes at him before going upstairs to your room. Being back in that place had made you exceptionally irritable. You just wanted to be alone.

Sanzu was fast asleep on your bed. You tried your best to shake him awake but it had been useless. He only “woke up” to swat your hand away, and then fell right back asleep.

Clearly, you couldn’t be alone.

You just sat on the floor in silence. You hadn’t even moved to acknowledge Hitto and Takeomi dropping your bags off. For hours you sat alone with just your thoughts and nothing to do.

“Go away.” You’d said to Ran when he stood in your doorway.

“It won’t be that bad. I swear I’m not like my brother.”

“I don’t want to do that right now.”

Your protests hadn’t mattered. Sanzu sleeping hadn’t mattered. The fact that this was supposed to be a good day hadn’t mattered. Ran didn’t care.

He stood above you, a strong hand gripping your hair and pulling your head back. He was never the type to enjoy your attitude.

“Open your mouth.”

You not complying immediately led to a harsh stinging slap on your cheek, but being slapped in this place was too normal now. It was no longer a thing you would fold to. Sure, it hurt like hell, but it’d happen far too often in the two weeks you’d been there and it just seemed too weak for you to go down to it.

Ran must’ve known. He told you a second time, and you didn’t listen. In a split second he had you lurching forward, held up only by his grasp on your hair. Your eyes watered but you still stood your ground.

“Open.”

When you didn’t do as he said again, there was only another harsh kick to your stomach in response. By that time, the tears had started to fall and your resolve was crumbling, but you didn’t give up. You should’ve given up.

“Are you gonna listen?”

You shook your head, brows furrowed, tears racing down your cheeks; trying to maintain some semblance of toughness… like an idiot.

Again, he kicked you in your stomach. That time, it felt like he was trying to lay waste to your insides. The only thing that had stopped you from crumbling to the ground was his vice grip on your hair. You held your hands out to block his legs and sobbed.

“I’m sorry please- I’m sorry!”

“Good girl.” His grip on your hair let up and he petted you like an animal. It was demeaning but you still held your mouth open in wait as he undid his pants.

“Look at me,” He demanded as he slid his cock inside of your mouth. You didn’t have any more room for defiance. Being kicked in the stomach was a feeling you'd never grow okay with. “You think you can do it yourself?”

When you nodded, he let go of your hair. You hadn’t realized how much tension he’d been putting on your roots until he’d released you and it was almost euphoric.

You’d tried your best to get him off on your own. You put in so much effort. You took him as far as you possibly could in your mouth—about three-fourths of his length. You bobbed your head and slurped aimlessly. The wet sounds and the weight of his length on your tongue; it’d all been like torture. You wanted this gross ordeal to end.

He shook his head, and immediately you came to a stop. You apologized before he even spoke. The pain in your stomach hadn’t gone away and you didn’t want him hurting you anymore than he already had. Tears fell from your eyes in anticipation, but nothing painful happened. With one hand he was jerking himself off with your saliva and the other had held your face and swept your tears away with his thumb. He wasn’t like his brother.

“Relax, you tried.” His voice was soft and should’ve been more disarming than it was. Still, you looked up at the man tense as ever. “I’ll do it, okay” You only opened your mouth again and it had been greeted with that all too familiar weight on your tongue and a hand on your hair.

He’d use your mouth violently. Your nose had been slammed into his stomach so many times, and there was a line of drool falling from your chin to soak your sweatsuit.

You gagged and whined everytime he hit your throat, but he’d just moan and tell you how this was so much better. His moans mixed with your sputtering and it was a nightmare come true. When he fucked your throat, he had been able to get deeper than you thought possible and several times you had to force yourself not to vomit. He’d probably have beaten you bloody if you let it come up.

“Fuck- oh my god- fuck” It was breathy and he was holding you closer than ever before and shallowly rocking his length up and down your throat. You couldn’t take it and started to hack at the discomfort even going so far as to struggle against his hold on the back of your head. You wriggled against him and pressed your arms against his thighs; you couldn’t breathe.

When he came, he’d been deep down your throat, but a violent cough had his cum shooting upwards. Most of it landed on your tongue, but a small portion of it had gone straight to your nose and was leaking out. You yelped in shock and Ran let you go almost panicked himself, but when he saw what had happened a small smirk spread across his face. He saw you were about to spit it out onto the hardwood floor and shook his head, “Swallow it.”

You obeyed without as much of a second thought. After that, he tucked himself back into his pants and left you in that room. You wiped your nose on your sleeve and it had only served to stop his semen leaking from your nostrils, the smell was there to stay.

“Go blow your nose,” Sanzu chimed from behind you, laughter riddling his tone.

“I can’t.”

“Ask Hitto to help you.”

Your time without your hands had barely begun, but it was clear from the start that it'd be its own hell.

#tokyo rev smut #tokyo rev x reader #tokyo revengers smut #tokyo revengers x reader #tw: noncon #ran haitani smut #ran smut #bonten smut #tokyo revengers fic #ran x reader #tw: kidnapping #tw: abuse #series: memories before final curtain

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youryanderedaddy · 4 years ago

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Hello, do you accept order? If yes, you could make a single one shot of Yandere! Brat Spoiled, please...

What would it be like if Yandere were the son of wealthy parents who always have everything they want, when they don't always get what they like, always act like a spoiled brat (and also his parents are afraid of their son, as they have already seen what he is capable of when he gets angry)... that's where the reader comes in. She is a new student at school, a nice and kind person, so the yandere knows her and falls in love so strongly that she never felt that way in life, but the reader is always rejecting her advances for being a spoiled brat and the way he treats the people around you.

What happens next?

Title: Eat the poor

Tw: non - consensual touching, obsessive/possessive behavior, violence, low-key bullying, blackmail / coercion, reader is in university

Part 2

It had started during your very first year of college, back when you still felt motivated to go to school and meet new people. You had heard the rumors about him before ever meeting his gaze and oh, did they disappoint.

You met Gabrielle for the first time when the snowdrops bloomed and the birds returned home – in the early autumn, at night, in a small crowded room reeking of alcohol, sweat and cheap cologne which you quickly realized wasn’t his. The man smelt like the cigarettes he never got bored of and sweet caramel. He was wearing a big leather jacket and a pair of dark jeans, yet the simplicity of the outfit seemed to suit the expensive brands displayed on the clothing. In a way the student represented the typical youthful boyish beauty with his golden locks, eyes the color of the sky and frame tall and well – built. Yet his face remained motionless the whole night and his body stayed still despite the mass of bodies dancing around in rhythm. But then some poor unfortunate fool managed to bump into the male, spilling his drink all over him, and his pretty face quickly twisted into a mask of disgust and anger.

“You stupid piece of shit!” The male yelled shortly after as his fist connected with the stuttering boy’s stomach. His clear eyes were now two wild thunderstorms pouring rain and lightning over the tipsy guy who was nervously apologizing and promising to pay for the damages done. “Do you know how much this costs?” Gabrielle spat with venom and pushed the other onto the floor, bringing his black sneakers to that white shirt until there was a mark of dirt formed on the otherwise clean fabric. Everyone else in the room had stopped drinking now and all the eyes were pinned onto the two men yet no one had the courage to do anything. Your own heart was beating hard in your chest at the sudden display of unnecessary violence but you had always been a calm kid, a kind soul too scared of its own shadow to learn how to fight properly. So you had no idea what to do.

“My father can have you expelled, you know.” The blond man suddenly spoke out in a quiet eerie voice as he pressed his foot harder into the shorter boy’s stomach causing him to whimper and squirm. “Unless you are willing to beg for my forgiveness, that is.” The bully proposed with a sly smirk on his pink lips as he glared at the victim underneath. The student on the ground was clenching his eyes tight so no one could see the tears in them when he shook his head no. You finally decided you couldn’t let this inhumane scene go any further.

“Stop this madness right now!” You shouted manically, drawing all the attention to yourself as you made your way between the two men. Gabrielle immediately pinned his burning gaze on you in unhidden intrigue. “This is too cruel. He didn’t mean to bump into you. Please, leave him alone.” As much as you had wanted to curse at the spoiled rich boy there was this suffocating feeling in your lungs telling you to be careful and play the mediator. The others quickly started gasping and some were already gossiping at your reaction proving your point that the guy was indeed dangerous.

Then he looked you straight in the eyes with his deep blue ones. He chuckled softly before smacking his lips in an unpleasant way, his “tsk” sending shivers down your spine. You had fucked up. “Well, well, well… Looks like the new girl wants to play hero. How cliché.” The bully grinned as he let his gaze roam up and down your body, your cheeks turning red in return when having realized he was handsome even while doing something so vulgar. “But if you do want to help him so badly…” The golden – haired man paused for a moment pretending to be deep in thought. “Maybe we could have a little deal, bunny.” He moved his leg away from the sobbing boy and stepped in front of you. From this close you could feel the warmth of his skin and the sweet aroma of burnt sugar it radiated. Gabrielle tilted your chin up almost gently and whispered in your ear “Kiss me.”

You tried to break free from the uncomfortable pose but the student simply squeezed your jaw line harder, his eyes cold and calculating, following your every move. You mind went blank and foggy at the forced intimacy and you couldn’t think straight with his breath on your neck. It felt like the time had slowed down just so the sadistic snob could mess with you a little longer. You opened your mouth to voice your protests but fortunately you didn’t have to say anything because at the very same time the host of the party appeared, ready to stop the fight.

“Gabrielle, I’d have to ask you to leave.” The dark – haired junior growled enraged as he pushed the taller male away from you. You couldn’t help but smile at him in appreciation. He was the only one brave enough to help you after all. “You are ruining the party for everyone. ” The stranger continued. The blonde seemed irritated at the sudden interruptance yet it was obvious he was powerless against the owner of the house. Still he grit his teeth and signed in annoyance as he turned to face the host. “Fuck you, Jackson!” The man cursed but eventually moved towards the door, red with anger. “My father will hear about this.” He looked at you as he reached for the golden doorknob, his features softened. “See you around, bunny.”

This was the first time you met Gabrielle. You already wished it was the last.

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

After the incident the snob seemed interested in you, blatantly so. He would eye you up in the halls like you were a shiny new toy in a claw machine and try to strike a conversation no matter how much you ignored him. The man never once apologized for what happened at the party but at least he didn’t bring it up so you counted it as a small victory. You gradually understood just how much power and money the heir had. His father owned casinos, hotels, banks and apparently even the university you two were studying in received major monthly donations by the big businessman. This explained why everyone was so scared of the blonde, especially when he did nothing but flaunt his status at the slightest inconvenience. And now he wanted you.

In your eyes the boy was just an annoying brat who lived off daddy’s hard work, there really wasn’t much to him that intrigued you. The male was handsome, pretty even, but his grades were terrible and his interests were bland and shallow, mostly involving expensive brands and grand parties. But the worst thing about him was his personality. The snob treated his friends like servants and his enemies like dirt, but you he rather saw as a challenge. Gabrielle would ask you out every time you were unlucky enough to run into him. The first time the man gave you so many roses you couldn’t even count them, the second he demanded your affection with a silver necklace in hand ready to cover your neck in his mark of ownerships. You couldn’t recall all the other gifts the blonde used to try and court you with but you remembered refusing each and every one.

“Why can’t you just give me a chance?” He exclaimed one day after you had just returned the expensive bracelet you had found in your locker. It was a dark winter night and the heir seemed irritated with you for the first time, his eyes a deep electric blue just like the sky. The man had you cornered against the wall but you were used to his pathetic attempts at intimidation. Yet today there was something different in the air around him, some small voice at the back of your head wondered whether this time he wasn’t just joking around. “Are you still angry about that little wimp I expelled, bunny?” Gabrielle asked contemptuously yet his pupils remained cold and distant. Once again he was too close for your liking, too close for you to function properly, but that was probably exactly what he wanted. You to be compliant and obedient like all the others who crawled and kneeled at the very sight of him. “Or are you sulking because I beat up Jones after he asked you out, hmm?” What? The blonde man was the one who gave Tony the black eye? But he had told you it was just a street fight… Why had your friend covered for the bully you both hated?

“Why would you do that to him?” You whispered, staring at the twisted boy in front of you. Your heart was beating fast and your blood was boiling hot in your veins but you couldn’t let him win by showing him how much his actions affected you. Gabrielle reached out and cupped your cheek gently before smirking mischievously. “He was trying to take something that belonged to me.” The heir said casually as if he was talking about the weather. His fingers were cold against your warm skin and you fought the urge to vomit right then and there. “I am not yours.” You spat out with poison and pushed his hand away from your face. Next thing you know his knee was separating your thighs, lifting your short black skirt up, his breath lingering on your neck. “S-stop.” You stuttered and tried to squirm out of his hold but the man easily caught your wrists and brought them above your head, pinning you further into the wall. He was stronger than he looked and you felt so small and helpless in that moment you could have cried if your stubbornness hadn’t prevailed.

“What don’t you like about me?” The blonde suddenly spoke out, his voice unnaturally broken and needy, bordering on a whine, crying out in desperation. You weren’t sure whether he was trying to manipulate you now or if he actually wanted you to answer so you decided to be honest anyways. “I hate the way you treat other people. I could never love someone as cruel as you.” You inhaled deeply, ready to voice all the painful thoughts you had kept inside since the beginning of the semester. “You are spoilt rotten. Metaphorically and literally.” The man was breathing sharply like a wounded animal after hearing your words and as much as you wanted to sympathize with him, you couldn’t bring yourself to after everything he had done to you and your friends. He was irredeemable. “Let me go.” You finally demanded, hoping to use him weakened emotional state to your advantage.

Instead Gabrielle clenched his teeth and squeezed down harder on your already bruised wrists causing you to whimper in dull pain. His eyes were wet but the tears had finally stopped just like his willingness to show you his vulnerable side. The man had tried being nice and sweet to you, patient, then mean and patronizing, and neither worked. So obviously it was time to become the terrifying bratty monster everyone was so keen on believed he was.

“Have you noticed how many people seem to go missing after talking to you just once?” The heir whispered in your ear as his free hand traveled down to your waist, drawing you into his hard chest. You groaned at the sudden realization that the snob was actually right, less and less guys seemed to show up to your shared lectures in the last few months, but you had always assumed they just needed a break from school. University was stressful after all. “Did you…” You started off but couldn’t find the right words. Did you force your father to expel them? Did you harm them? Maybe a part of you didn’t want to know the answer. “I did.” Gabrielle responded before you could even finish the sentence. The sly smirk you knew way too well adorned his lips and it wasn’t hard to see he had already won. “And I will keep doing it until you agree to be mine and mine alone.” The man stated confidently as he sucked the sensitive skin of your neck until you arched your back in shock, your eyes rolling up to the ceiling. “N-nhgg.” You whimpered as you felt his teeth dig into your warm flesh leaving a scarlet mark for all to see. “Come on, baby, we both know you are too good to let them suffer because of your own selfishness.” He taunted you as he left a line of small wet kisses along your exposed collarbone. You wanted to argue, to yell at him how you weren’t the crazy, selfish one, but deep down you knew it was pointless. Gabrielle had power and you had nothing to bargain with. He could have anyone yet he wanted to torment you. “Give into me. I promise I can make you happy if you let me.” The blonde uttered softly as his lips brushed against yours, almost touching them, following your reaction with his clear eyes. Your own were puffy and red from the tears but he didn’t seem to care much about your misery and discomfort. The man wished to own, not to please, but you couldn’t do anything. And of course you wouldn’t let him ruin the lives of the innocent. Of course your stupid heart was too good and human for your own good. So you closed your eyes and slowly connected your lips with him even though they tasted almost metallic, like blood and defeat.

“I knew you would come around, bunny.”

#yandere #male yandere x reader #yandere male x reader #yandere oc x reader #yandere male #yancore #yandere oneshot #yandere oc #male yandere #yandere concepts

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endlich-allein · 4 years ago

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Interview with Till about his life: he fought with his father, killed his beloved dog, swam on a wild river and worked on suffering. How Till Lindemann's mind works

"I will finish you off" and why you fought for the German army.

Werner Lindemann wanders around the room, interrupting the silence with strange questions, writing something down. His motive is to get to know his son and make him a friend. But it's complicated. Generational conflict.

"My island of tranquility is shaken every day. The day before yesterday, a guy pulled on my socks because his were torn. Yesterday he didn't put out a single lamp in the house. Now, with voluptuous delight, he spits cherry pits into the cat's fur. Is this grown boy really an adult?"

The apprenticeship in Rostock, where you have to do window production after graduation, is the limit of boredom. Till Lindemann moved to his father in the countryside so that he could forget about the hustle and bustle of the city and not fall under the article for anti-social attitudes. He thought of a new life, in which there was no pointless work, and arranged an attic in his father's house.

In the mornings over coffee, he scolded life that everything went according to schedule. And listened very loudly to music - electronics and metal. My father didn't understand and grumbled: “I matured late. Naturally, I wanted to listen to the music I liked, but I could not get my hands on these records. For example, my father did not understand when I bought the Alice Cooper record for a month's salary.

Werner Lindemann was a children's writer who went through the war.

At the height of his career he disappeared for weeks on literary tours - his fame spread to teachers and librarians across the country. His father pecked at Lindemann for refusing to work and promised to turn him in:

"My willful child. What doesn't fit his standards is rejected as nonsense or crap." So he took a job as a carpenter, where he made shovel cuttings and cart wheels. The head foreman constantly drank vodka during the day, didn't want to be annoyed with questions and addressed the long-haired Lindemann with the nickname: "Mozart!" This suited him.

Werner Lindemann talked about war, hard existence and limitations. For example, about a grenade splinter that remained in his body. Lindemann did not believe in all these stories - but categorically did not accept service, war and murder:

“After that I objected: “I would hide, I would not go to war. Why did you even let yourself be dragged into this? You could have hidden."

And he said: “It didn't work out. They searched for it and it took away."

Then I said: “I would rather go under arrest. Never in my life, I would go to the front line to shoot people. It's against my nature. It would be better if I went to jail."

Much of the time father and son were simply silent, even while watching television.

"He regularly made me feel guilty, to say the least, he placed himself on a pedestal towards me: I shouldn't complain. At your age, I ran barefoot through the stubble, and in my stomach - a potato in a uniform."

The only acceptance is Mike Oldfield's music: "One day my father came to grumble again. At that moment I was listening to Mike Oldfield, and he sat down and said: "That sounds interesting."

For me it was like a quantum leap: my father sits in my room, listens to my music and thinks it was good. Probably because of melancholy. He was sitting in a rocking chair that I made myself - at the time I was working as a carpenter on a farm. I, too, always sat in an armchair, immersed myself in music and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes."

The conflict was intensified by a fight. Lindemann bought a Trabant car, installed speakers in it and tested the sound - loud as usual. “Then my father came and I had to turn off this fucking music. It was kind of loud for him. He was then fiddling around his cases of flowers, and then suddenly the situation escalated. I think he slapped me while I was still in the car.

He leaned toward me and hit me with the back of his hand. I made some bullshit remarks like, "Leave me alone," something like that. That was a provocation to him, and he said: "If you do that again, I'll hit you for real." And I said, "Then you'll get it back. Because you're crazy. Don't you dare to hit me anymore."

And then he hit me with his palm again. He wasn't controlling himself.

He was exalting himself. Instantly he introduced himself as a boxer - he had boxed in the Hitler Youth - and I just... I thought I didn't hit him, I just pushed him away. And then he stood in front of me again, "Come on, I'll finish you, you haven't got a chance!" Somehow. After that, he went up to the attic and threw all my stuff out the window.

It happened over the weekend, my sister was there, a lot of screaming, serious drama. Then I packed my things, put them in the car, went to a friend's house and never went into his house again. At first I lived with this friend, and a week later I bought myself a house in the village."

His father's book is about his son, which the son will only open up after the death of the father.

Lindemann is a late child. He was born when his father was 36. The gap in their relationship was felt in everyday life and perception of the world. Werner Lindemann woke up early in the morning, worked with the circular saw under the windows and did not understand when his son slept until noon after a working week.

Lindemann's parents then lived separately, but kept in touch. Mom worked as a journalist and discussed her texts with his father. "She still lived in Rostock and always came to see him only on weekends. Mostly on Sundays she came back quite early, because she couldn't stand the stress of being with him, either."

In 1988, the book “Mike Oldfield im Schaukelstuhl Notizen eines Vaters" In this book, Lindemann Senior describes the relationship with his son (whom he calls Timm in the book), who settled with him at the age of 18. The book was written in the 80s and laid on the table until the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany were reunited.

Werner Lindemann wanted his son to take up writing too. But this only amused him, although as a child he wrote poetry. At the age of 13, little Till Lindemann and his father were returning home along the bumpy road to Mecklenburg. They talked about career self-determination:

"You should already have thoughts about what you want to become, boy." My answer: "I don't know yet, maybe a fisherman on the high seas."

But immediately, no matter what I said, objections arose: “But then you have to get a certificate of maturity. But then you will be away all the time. But then you won't be able to start a relationship."

There was always a “but”.

At some point it got on my nerves, as usual. And I said: "Worst case scenario, I'll just become a writer.

I still remember how alienated his face became. "And what do you think then, what do I do! It's a very hard job! In fact, it's not even a job, it's a passion. And it's a job that's supposed to be enjoyable."

I said, "I don't know anybody who works with pleasure."

"Yeah, that's the problem. You have to look for a job that gives you pleasure." Then I say again, "But some people never get to choose..." This gigantic discussion happened because I didn't take his profession seriously. At the same time, he was completely lost, funny!"

Lindemann thoughtfully read his father's book, in which he comprehends their relationship, after his death. Faked for hidden anger and indecision. For example, in a situation where their dog Kurt was bitten by a fox. The father was frightened because of rabies: “At the same time, we did not even know whether he was bitten by a fox or not. The father immediately called the huntsman. But I said: no one will enter this courtyard and shoot the dog. I'll do it myself if I really need it. At some point I really had to kill the dog."

Lindemann is not a monster. The animals he fiddled with are an important attribute of childhood. He had an aquarium and hamsters, brought mice and rats home, and was friends with dogs. “Like many children of new buildings, he felt the need for someone alive, in need of love,” said Werner Lindemann. Sometimes the appearance of an animal in the house was surprising:

“This guy will never say what he's up to. He appears on the doorstep at the same time as me. He gets out from his vehicle, throws his coat open and puts a young black shepherd in my hands. "Your Christmas present!"

Till's father is speechless. My son stands before me like the sun's little brother. Touchingly concerned, he directs me into the house, working out a plan for the animal husbandry, accommodation and diet of our new pet housemate.

With confusion, a question flies from my lips, "Wheredid you get the dog from?" "Timm" is gibbering, "Imagine, the mason in the barnyard wanted to hang him, simply wanted to strangle him with a rope, said he was a worthless eater..."

Werner Lindemann died of stomach cancer in 1993, when his son was 30. They didn't finally reconcile, but Till visited him in his last days and was there for him with his mother: "They couldn't be without each other, even though they lived apart. Unreal, but my mother never had another man afterwards. To this day she can't let go of him."

- Not going to the Olympics in Moscow and ending up in the German ghetto

Lindemann had the knowledge and the potential to be a swimmer. And a shyness that pounded harder three days before the competition than concerts in front of crowds of thousands. "I know how difficult it is to develop willpower and stamina and instill those attributes. In the GDR this was instilled in us by coaches and so-called functionaries."

Lindemann came to swimming at the age of eight and devoted his entire youth to the sport. He would get up for training at five in the morning and pass out in the evening. His grandmother watched him from the stands. At a competition in Leipzig she shouted at the coach, who told Lindemann off for a poor result. The grandmother took the coach by the ear and said: "How do you talk to my grandson?"

Sports tightened up his upbringing and developed self-discipline. “Drilling - probably the boy has already received this experience as a swimmer,” Lindemann's father wrote. - Once he had to take second place in a competition, but by no means first place. Of course, he got carried away, forgot about it, became the first, thanks to which he received a shouting for indiscipline. And whenever he lost in the future, his coach would torture him at practice for a long time and yelled at him: "Even if you win, you're not a winner yet!"

Lindemann swam the 1.5 km freestyle and could have gone to the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Everything was ruined when he left the hotel without permission during a competition in Florence: "I didn't want to run, but just wanted to look at the city. Cars, bikes, girls. I was caught and kicked out of the team, but then I didn't give the required results either."

Lindemann competed at the European Junior Championships, but did not go any higher. After the story in Florence, his career in sport slipped away. Perhaps an abdominal injury influenced his departure. Lindemann is gone, but he doesn't yearn: "I was relatively young. There were no good [memories] left. I was glad it was over."

"The hardest part was getting back to normal. I fell into a real hole. My home was no longer a sports school, but a ghetto in Rostock. Now I stood out through drinking and fighting. I used to be surrounded only by beautiful ladies who were interested in swimming. Now I had fierce women standing in front of me asking, "How come you don't drink?" When I was shy about approaching a girl, it was interpreted as: "Are you gay?"

Lindemann now works with a coach and swims a few kilometers before his tours to get in shape: "When I exercise, I feel a certain lightness - not only physically, but also mentally. I just feel better. The main problem is staying in shape. That's where self-discipline comes into play. Teeth grinding is important."

- Three weeks in the wild and loneliness as a creative tool

Emotionally, concerts = sports:

"How do I go on tour? Hungry. And happy. It is good to compare concerts with sport. You don't want to do both at first. You don't want to go on stage. You don't want to go to the pool. You don't want to go to the boxing ring. It all happens with reluctance. It has to be accepted somehow, that's life: spring, summer, fall, winter.

When it's done, winter's gone, the blooming begins, greenery appears, it gets bright, and you start to get a taste for it. When it's over, you feel happy. Then the body produces a sea of chemistry, a lot of happiness hormones. I think the body rewards itself."

The stage, like sports, is an embarrassment, but a necessity. Lindemann wore dark glasses in order to collect fewer views from the audience. Therefore, a couple of steps before the water, he looked at the pool with a shiver. You need to cope with yourself in order to open up to new emotions.

Lindemann's gut requires solitude and moderate solitude. This is the point:

“Loneliness is always good for a creative push - you drink a glass of wine and you feel even shitier. Art is not complete without suffering; art exists to compensate for suffering."

With his friend Joey Kelly, Lindemann spent three weeks on the Yukon River. They paddled through the wilderness in a kayak for eight to 10 hours each and lived in a tent. Lindemann didn't take a tape recorder with him, so he transferred the lyrics wandering in his head on paper.

They were catching inspiration and atmosphere:

"There were times when we wouldn't say a word for hours, but then: look there, look there! It was breathtakingly beautiful. These relatively fast-changing panoramas and skies, layers of clouds, the colors.

Except for a few bears and wolves, it's hard to see anyone else out there, it's exhilarating. Along the way we saw two hunters setting traps. No one else.

I grew up in the countryside, and I have a very strong connection to nature. I love fishing, hunting. It's an archaic experience that I like to revisit over and over again. When I'm in the city for too long, I start to miss it."

To recreate situations in the Yukon, Lindemann and Kelly trained for nine months on the Rhine river in Germany because of its liveliness.

"We went down the Rhine to where the transport ships create huge bow waves. If we hadn't had a coach with us, we probably would have been sunk by the side wave impact already during our first attempt," Lindemann said.

Together with Kelly, he had four sessions with two coaches and swam from Cologne to Koblenz [more than 100 kilometers by car]. Lindemann trained separately each week on the lakes in Mecklenburg. It's both physically challenging and savage identical to being natural.

In 2015, Till started his solo project Lindemann. On the album Skills In Pills, the song Yukon was released, in which the lyrics appeared first, and then the music.

- "My lyrics come from pain rather than desire."

The country boy is big and not much of a talker. That's how the Rammstein members saw him at the start, when they were hanging out at home. "He looked cool, like a big peasant talking one sentence an hour," keyboard player Christian "Flake" Lorenz recalled. - He always had food and vodka. He'd just steal a couple of ducks somewhere and cook them on a tray. And then, frozen like in Sleeping Beauty, there were people lying in corners and on trunks in his house."

Lindemann loves and appreciates home gatherings. This came from my father, who always had guests. “In my opinion, this is the little bit that I inherited from him. Throwing parties and gathering people. Throwing parties and getting people together. He just enjoyed being a good host. The house was always full of guests from Leipzig, from Rostock, foreign guests, even from Kazakhstan.

It was always exciting for him. He stood at the stove, cooked, bought an abundance of wine, and there was always a fire in the garden. At some point he stopped drinking, then he left the party at 21:00 and the whole company continued to feast. And in the morning he got up at four, cleaned and tidied up."

Till Lindemann is about self-digging, overcoming and childish shyness, which is covered by a pumped-up figure of a swimmer. This is how Lindemann decrypts himself:

• “And I really am like a big child - ill-mannered, but harmless. People think that I am always strong, explosive. This is not true. I am sensitive and easily hurt, but in love I am romantic and passionate."

• “At the very beginning, you sit somewhere in a dark room, open a bottle of wine and figure out how to make the lyrics popular with the music. At first you only have a vague idea of what it could be.

And when, three years after recording, mixing, and more mixing, developing the artwork, all this nonsense, then you stand on stage, and what you came up with then really works, when you manage to get 20 thousand people to raise their hands, then you experience incredible sensations."

• “Art is a kind of therapy.

When I feel that something is arising inside me, domineering and is most often dark, I need to give it a way out, otherwise it will simply crush me. So destruction and self-destruction are the two pillars on which my creativity is based.

But everyone chooses this for himself.

• “My lyrics arise from feelings and dreams, but still more from pain than by desire. I often have nightmares, and I wake up at night sweating, as I see terrible bloody scenes in my dreams. My lyrics are a kind of valve for the lava of feelings in my soul.

We are all struggling to hide behind good manners and outward decency, but in fact we are governed by instincts and feelings: hunger, thirst, horror, hatred, the desire for power and sex. Of course, there is also additional energy in us - this is love. Without it, all human feelings would fade away."

- "When you're constantly living someone else's life, it's very hard to get back into your own skin. I like that in principle, but sometimes you start to get confused - are you out of a role or not yet. You're already Till, or you're still a homicidal maniac."

- "I hate the noise. I hate the chatter. I expose myself to it, which is pure masochism. And then I have to protect myself from it. Noise makes you crazy. You die in it."

• “I think there is no God. And if he is and actually allows all the misfortunes on this earth, then he must punish me along with other sufferings. I will not pray to such a god."

This is how the members of Rammstein see Till - flexible and with a split personality:

Guitarist Paul Landers: "Till is so good that when you let him know that his lyrics should go in a different direction, the very next day he brings a new version of the song."

Guitarist Richard Kruspe: “He's a hell of an extreme man. He dives very deeply into situations where I cannot follow him. Everything he does is very extreme; I don't know anyone who does it. "

Drummer Christoph Schneider: "I would not want to be in Till's shoes: his soul is tormented by doubts and contradictions, he is equally a moralist and a monster."

June 1, 2021 - Translate by Lindemann Belgium

#very interesting #till's life #till is love 🖤#till lindemann #till 2021 #werner lindemann #flake lorenz #paul landers #christoph schneider #richard kruspe #oliver riedel #joey kelly #rammstein #t.lindemann #t.lindemann 2021

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insomniac-dot-ink · 4 years ago

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Hey! A new wlw short story is up on my Patreon. Check it out! And please consider becoming a Patron for more wlw writing and more. As a struggling artist anything helps.

Here’s a free preview:

Headlights Girl

Most humans carry the night with them. Even during daylight hours, they can shut out the sun, turn off the light, recede into themselves and into that soft secret place behind their eyes.

Did you know certain animals don’t have eyelids? Gecko’s have nothing between them and the violent sun which wishes to cook the colors of their world. They have to use their tongue. Dust and sand and rain, can you imagine? I was obsessed with lizards as a kid.

I stacked up books on snakes and lizards and skinks. I traced the way that sand snakes crested across the land, sideways and wrong. I put glue on the pads of my hand and tried to climb the walls of my room— I didn’t even get one handhold up. I went to the zoo and peered into their cages, up on my tiptoes, trying not to smudge the glass or breath too hard. I tried make out their triangle heads and slow tongue-flicks, but they shrank away from my gaze deep into their cages into the nooks and crannies. Most things do.

Most humans carry the night with them, right there behind their eyelids is an entire world of darkness and sleep. I have something else inside me, not quite, not soft, not secret. They called me “headlights girl” in the newspapers.

There have been stranger kids born in the age of spirits. I checked. Every morning of fifth grade, I scanned the papers for small articles and mentions of “oddities” growing into anomalies.

A boy with fire on his breath. A girl with leaves sprouting from her head. A kid with antennae that could taste the wind. There are stranger things than me in the age of beasts and magic. My father calls it the “Epoch of Bastards,” sons and daughters of flickering fire elementals and wind ghosts who seduced half-asleep ladies from their beds.

He doesn’t look at me much. And I know what he means. I know what he means when he calls it the Epoch of Bastards. Growing up, I played in my little puddle of carpet on the floor as he blustered in and out of rooms like gale force winds. He’d be looking for his keys or left shoe or wallet since he was going out, out, out. I think I missed him at first, in the way you miss strangers you’ve never met.

Later, still on my puddle of carpet, still on my island, I would glare at him with that sour, acid taste in the back of my throat. Acrid, smoky, I would barely blink as he passed; he’d jump when he turned too quickly and accidentally fell into my path. Later still, I would begin to wish they were both like that—blustery and calling people names.

It sometimes felt better than hearing my mom weep to herself on the couch. I wish she’d do it in her room or outside or anywhere else than that theatrical sobbing in the middle of the house, a naked heartbeat to the place. She spoke to her friends on the phone in that same watery voice, handkerchief in hand and sniffling, she spoke to them more than me.

What else am I supposed to do? This isn’t how it was supposed to be. They could barely afford to send me to That School. I didn’t want to be there either.

We weren’t the same, not really. None of us are the same age and most everyone else stayed in dorms where they bonded with secrets and whispers and hiding from matrons under flat mattresses. It wasn’t the same.

They called me The Lighthouse and Car Face and Nightlight. Sometimes they’d give me a few bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face. I did it. They’d laugh and reassure me I was as ugly as you’d think. Or beautiful. Or perfectly average-looking or have a pig-nose or blackhole for a nose. I’d never seen anything but the blinding light of my own eyes in the mirror so I could never contradict them.

A boy with antlers handed me a twenty for a kiss in the 6th grade. I closed my eyes for that too. It was chapped and dry and he runs away with a screaming laugh afterward. There are stranger kids than me, I reminded myself. So why do I feel so much stranger than the rest of them?

I’m 16 when I heel-toe my way down the stairs toward the front door. A duffel bag slung over my shoulder stuffed with a collection of loose clothes, change, a bath towel, sewing kit, a bible written in a language I don’t speak, all the tampons in the house, and a Swiss-army knife.

I hoped to stuff as many cheddar-cheese sandwiches in my sack as possible before the midnight bus came, but he’s at the kitchen table. I don’t think either of us expected it, like running into your teacher at Target and you’re both buying the same brand of toilet cleaner. There’s a beer in front of his idle hands and he glances at the bag on my shoulder.

He sighs like I cut him off in traffic.

“Gimme a moment.”

My father leafs through a wad of cash he kept in a safe in the garage. He hands me almost three hundred bucks and we nod at each other. I’m out the door before the midnight bus arrives.

I watch the headlights of the bus approach through dense summer night and think it must be like looking at like, the glow of my eyes against its eyes. Can a bus be your father? Can your father be a man after all this time? Will your mother come looking for you?

I get on the bus and kick my feet up against the seat in front of me. Scrunched into a ball, I cross my arms over my chest, and watch the trees turn into flickering bodies of shadow with each passing mile. ------------- My feet move like tides. They toss me against nameless city streets and toward empty forested slices of land. I taste the painted deserts toward the west. I dip my toes into the largest cities with lights brighter than my own. I graze my palms on neon signs and hunch my shoulders against brick walls of back alleys.

No one touches me. They don’t come close enough when I open my eyes and they see nothing but heaven or devils or an absent lightning-God father that will smite them.

I find my way to the ocean; beaches where other stragglers gather. I don’t talk much, I don’t like to, and people stare at me whether I’m speaking or screaming and clamping down on my jaw so hard it aches. Sometimes I get yelled at: Turn that off! No phone lights in here. You’re blinding me, bitch!

I’ve never seen a movie in any theatres, but I can imagine what it’s like.

I like the ocean cities best with their pale buildings built into cliffs, narrow winding white paths, and crushed seashell parking lots. I like the tang of salt in the air and the way my hair crinkles from the ocean water as it sun-dries. I camp out on beaches and bum cigarettes and hotdogs off strangers. I’m good at taking care of myself once I get in a rhythm.

Sometimes, or often, I dream of sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I dream of descending on pointed ballerina-feet to the silted black bottom. I am weighted down through the cold to where no human has ever been before. I open my eyes there, I open them all the way, lightning-bright, and in my dreams, the salt doesn’t sting. It doesn’t hurt, instead, I light up the world, the whole untouched world of whales and fish and terror and maybe I do something good then. Maybe I do something good and bring the sun to places that have forgotten it.

I meet Mags on the beach. She’s got one eye and five teeth and carries around string and scissors everywhere. She smells like seawater and roasting kelp, dank and crusted over. Her clothes are neat despite her leather-cracked skin and her arms and neck are covered with tattoos of shipwrecks. She cackles and pulls me aside the first night we meet.

“What’s your name?” Her voice is old creaking wood. I am quiet. “I could give you one.” She offers with a grin that is more empty space than anything.

I shake my head. “Nana.”

“What do you like, kid?”

I shake my head again.

Mags likes me more than I deserve. I pocket her last pair of socks when she’s not looking. She never mentions it and drags me down to the community showers to get clean with soap and shampoo. She takes me to the soup restaurant for something that isn’t burnt or freeze-dried or from a convenience store. She cackles, she spits when she talks, people glare at her as well.

I think she’s normal, not touched by the spirits, but she likes me more than most people and I don’t know why.

“You like art, kid?”

I snort. “No.”

“Why not? You broken?” Yeah. Probably.

“How am I supposed to know?” I snap.

“Lippy-wild thing. Come on, I’ll show you something worth your forked tongue.”

She heats the needle before she uses it, red hot and untouchable. She dips it into deep black inks, only black and sometimes red, she calls them the only colors that matter. She shows me how to prick the skin with color and movement. She shows me on her right foot first, all over those fine little bones that must hurt, in and out, a little bloody.

It takes her six hours to make a little shipwreck right above her big toe. It’s a schooner going under and I’m the only witness to the way she makes the waves come to life and crash against its sides. I can’t look away and I forget to blink. She didn’t seem to mind.

She washes another needle. She heats it red-hot. She dips it in ink and hands it to me.

I practice all over my thighs first, there’s enough meat there and it’s easy enough to reach: a lizard design that looks like nothing but squiggles, a wobbly stick figure on a skateboard, a tiny smudged skink with its tongue out. I practice designs in the sand. Mags takes me to the museum on Sundays. They’re free on Sundays.

Something stirs in my chest, even as the guards yell at me about how flash photography isn’t allowed in the museum. Even as I’m shooed out of exhibits for ruining the paint. Still, an ache so old it rots roars to life in my chest.

I stab in and out, gentle, a collection of stars right above my right knee. A winding sand snake next, and then finally, something good, something that gives people a reason to stare. I make it in the mirror: a ghost on my collarbone. Shadowed and intricate and simple, I put a ghost right above my collarbone and it bleeds more than the others.

I don’t want to leave the ocean city. Mags says she has to keep moving though. She gives me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“You're a gem, kid. You’ll knock ‘em all to the pavement.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “You’ll be back?”

She cackles. “Wouldn’t miss it. You know me.” She winks as she turns to the bus, my second father. “You think I’ll miss your great becoming, kid? I’ll be back.”

I want to make her pinky-promise like I’m a kid again and begging one of the other kids to tell me if I’m actually beautiful when I close my eyes. I can’t do that; I wave as she totters up the steps of the bus and is taken away with the tides of her own feet. ------------ I get an apprenticeship. Technically, Mags talked to them first and I just followed up when I had nothing better to do.

I didn’t think I’d like it much, but coach surfing and camping out on beaches is a tiring pastime. Penguin Davies and Bitch-Annie run a tattoo shop together. Davies walks like he’s never encountered land before, and Bitch-Annie has a throw-pillow that says “If you don’t have anything nice to say then come sit next to me.”

Davies is nothing but birds and dizzying M. C. Escher house-designs up and down his chest and arms. Bitch-Annie has topless mermaids and pinup girls across her shoulders and legs. She’s been asked to leave a number of stores before the children start staring or thinking thoughts.

Neither of them had ever met someone like me, it’s not that type of town. I rankle at most their questions, a cat meeting a steel brush. I brush off anything more personal than my favorite type of soda. Bitch-Annie calls me “Shadow” and I think it’s a joke. Davies says I must be possessed by the ghost of a dead star and now I’m nothing but a blackhole: take everything in and let nothing out.

Neither of them lets me touch a needle in those first six months. They have me practice on pig skin and stand by their shoulder as they work. I feel like a dental assistant except I’m the hanging light above shining into open mouths instead of anything with a pulse. I stand at their shoulder as they draw thick lines and thin dots and make hearts and wolves and names of dead lovers come to life.

They ask me to stop blinking and stand still. I almost walk out and find a new cliff to crash against, almost. No one had ever expected me to show up to something before. No one cared if I went to school or when I got home. And no one kept any tabs on me after I took that first bus. That’s how I liked it.

I should’ve left, it didn’t mean anything to me, not really. But Bitch-Annie stomped up to my attic-apartment one morning and threw pants at me.

“Get up, Shadow.” She was sterner than Mags, no hint of humor in her eyes. “I told you 9am so I expect 9am.”

“The fuck!?” I am eloquent in the morning.

“Pants, shirt, shoes, and bra if you don’t want the desk idiot staring at something other than your eyes all day.”

I grumble. I put on everything but the bra. No one ever expected me to be anywhere before. I tell myself I’ll just try it out, no harm in having a bit of a savings anyway. No harm in seeing what the fuss was about.

I wasn’t an artist of course. I didn’t understand what everyone else was seeing when they looked at the “old masters” paintings of water or war or lovers pulled apart. I didn’t feel anything in front of stain-glass windows in churches or mosaics on walls. Maybe there really was something wrong with my eyes. I don’t let up though. I put on pants for this, after all.

Penguin Davies hovered by my shoulder now.

“Mm.” He rumbled deep in his chest. He’d gone grey at an early age, he had tired eyes and quick hands. The desk kid said he’d been in medical school once, a surgeon. Davies muttered a lot, stared off into space too much, and laughed like it was always a surprise

“Perfectionist,” he muttered at me now as I start over on a crappy unicorn design. “The line’s barely off. You’re being a perfectionist, Nana.”

I scowled over my shoulder and let the full weight of my light hit him across the face. “Got a problem with it?” He chuckled darkly. His grin is crooked like a broken door handle. I tried to hide my work from him with my shoulder. “It’s not done yet.

“Look at you go. You know who makes the best artists, Nana?” He was always a bit of a philosopher. Maybe he used to study that before medicine.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up. I’m working on it.”

He gave my shoulder a light push. “The ones that don’t quit.”

They let me touch a needle gun before the new year. I tell myself I’ll only sign my new apartment lease as an experiment. I don’t have to actually stay. I’ll just run from the ink on paper and hope no one chases after girls with eyes that glow.

I don’t break my lease. I draw cartoon heroes in speedos on tipsy college girls who swear they’re sober and erotic vampires on the chests of men getting their first divorce. I have to give two refunds for a duck that turns out lopsided and a tattoo of someone’s dog which I swore really was that ugly to begin with.

There was one at the end of that next year though, another college girl with nothing but doors ahead of her. She asked for a stick and poke, that was what I’m best at anyway, she asked for a butterfly. Butterflies were easy, I could do the little ones in my sleep. She wanted one all across her back, she said I could make it look however I wanted. So I did. Wings like fringed shawls and straight heavy lines combined with wispy swirling ones. It’s dark, black ink with red highlights and gray shadows under each wing to give it movement and flight.

I hide my smile when she goes to my bosses and points at it while jumping up and down. The best thing she’s ever seen. She should pay us double. Where did you get this girl? I try not to blink so they can’t see the wetness under my eyes.

Sometimes I still stand by the bus stop to check who’s coming off. I don’t expect to see Mags again so soon, but sometimes I want to show her: Hey, maybe your work wasn’t all wasted. Maybe I did start to become.

🌸Check out my Patreon for the full story! 🌸

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gojology · 4 years ago

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Fireworks.

the request :

pairing : not technically a pairing.. but lets just say gojo x female reader warnings : angst and cursing, no editing. wordcount : 2561 a/n : this physically hurt me to write thanks anon. aha all jokes aside i’m so sorry for not making this quick enough, i finally got enough time to finish it and it’s not even that good :( thank u SO much for ur kind words omg u got me feelin like <333333333

You stare at him, and he stares back, you’re sure he’s unblinking behind those shades of his. You knew what would happen after this confrontation, after all, you were the one who had asked him to meet you here. It’s a small, calm park. The atmosphere is still, and the shrill sounds of cicadas are the only thing penetrating the deafening silence between the two of you. “Hey.” he finally speaks up, sounding a bit too impatient for your liking. You flinch a little, and your fist tightens. It was like he never learned how to introduce himself politely. You take a deep breath in and exhale, your breath comes out in clouds of smoke. You remember when Shoko had given you those cigarettes one day and Gojo slapped it out of your slack hands, Geto and Gojo laughing at your flushed face, your heart twists. Truth be told, you didn’t even know why you were thinking the world was ending- it wasn’t. Breaking up with your fellow peer was awkward to say the least, but there were only 4 of you in the jujutsu class, yourself included. It would be undeniably dreadful to see his lanky figure dotting around the back of the class with Geto, and to have to work with him for everything else. “Hey.” you reply, your words dripping with venom. “C’mon, cut to the chase.” he waved his hand a few times in the air as a dismissal of the conversation, a half eaten lollipop dangling dangerously from those limp long fingers. It makes you hate him even harder. Couldn’t he read the room? “I don’t have time for chit-chat, you know?! The strongest needs some rest. I’m human like the rest of us! Sheesh, Jujutsu is so demanding....” “We need to break up.” is all that slips from your lips, and even you’re shocked it came out that carelessly. You wanted to stop resisting, to stop holding back and let loose the long river of hatred and misery you had for this man- no, a boy, he was a boy. A strong wind blows against your warm face, and the lollipop drops onto the grass without another word. Gojo gapes at you dumbly, and in return you look down to study that glistening in the moonlight lollipop, it’s pink and ants are already crawling on their new found prey. Your shoes are slightly dirty, and you could see- “Are you serious?” he scoffed as if it was a joke. It’s not, and you hate being taken like a joke. You weren’t, and that’s all Gojo Satoru did- take everything as a joke, everything was childs play to him. You were looking for a serious relationship, and him? He was looking for sex and quick make out sessions. “Wait- you’re not joking?” he laughs again, but it trails off, you doubt it actually affected him. “Of course I’m not joking. Why would I joke about shit like this?” you spat back. You didn’t care about his feelings right now. You deserved some sort of medal for dealing with him, any sort of compensation really. it seemed to you like the relationship didn’t quite matter for whatever reason. If he wanted to be fuckbuddies he could’ve just said so- But you still can’t wrap your head around why he kept you, he didn’t throw you away, and you falter. You wanted to be his girlfriend in some ways, in others you wanted to punch him in the face with as much cursed energy as possible. Gojo takes his glasses off, slipping them into his jacket’s pocket. It seems like he doesn’t want to talk, but you press on. “I’m fucking tired, Satoru. You treat me like bullshit. I’m not your-” you take a short breather, tears beginning to dawn at the corner of your eyes. “I’m not your fucking doll. And I never, ever WILL BE. I’ve hung onto this stupid fucking relationship long enough and the amount of dedication you poured into this isn’t enough. I deserve better.” Shit. You hated rambling like that. Scratch that, you hated confrontations as a whole, this would be sure to take a toll on you later. Turning your back on him, you allow those tears to finally fall. Tears that had been shut in long enough had finally seen the light of day. You wipe the trails away with the already wet sleeve of your hoodie, a large trembling frown adorned your features. You can’t hide your sniffling even if you tried, and before you know it you can’t even prevent the floodgates from bursting. The tears seeped into the dirt, creating some sort of rhythm as they fell from your cheeks. “Hey-” he places those hands on your shoulder that made your knees go weak, it’s gentle, and he slightly caresses you. It’s strangely intimate for the situation you found yourself in, but you’re still mortified. Why did you enjoy his touch? It feels like you’re in this position for ages, his hands on your shoulder, your back facing him. Somehow, someway, you can taste salty tears and you didn’t remember drinking any, for a split second you feel disgusted, at you, at him, at the world. A small noise leaves your throat. “It’s okay.” he finally spoke, was that a hint of sorrow? Never mind that, he was actually taking this seriously. What a turn of events. He took it better then you certainly thought, especially since this would be a definite blow to his big ego. You turn to face him, maybe as an act of superiority, hell like you knew. Peculiarly, there are tears in his eyes as well. Crocodile tears, probably. He’s most likely trying to guilt trip you- hah, like you’d fall for that. You knew better. “It’s okay.” he repeated again, brushing those tears away with his roughed up thumb, you’re mortified. Why were you allowing him to touch you? A calm silence settles between the two of you, but shortly after you hear the rustling of cloth. Gojo’s taking his jacket off? About to speak, your mouth snaps shut as he placed the impossibly large jacket around your body, small compared to his. Instinctively, you allow it, but your mind is cursing you for not lashing out on him- why did he still care about you, anyways? Gojo takes a step back, and you realize you’re now wearing his jacket. His gaze directed at yours, eyelashes fluttering. Your lips are tingling, and for some unbeknownst reason you wonder how a kiss would feel right now. A part of you still wanted the relationship. “Take care.” And with that, he twirled around with a hint of flair, hands shoved deep into his jeans pockets; wind howling against your ears as he did so. He was finally leaving you, but that wasn’t what you envisioned, you wanted to leave him- not him leave you. You watched him stroll off, heading to where ever he came from. That was how your first, and last relationship ended. ‧₊˚✩彡. The thought of this abandoned relationship nestled at the back of your head, and it had been for several years. It was like it happened yesterday. His glasses still resided on your nightstand, sitting on the same spot that you had hastily dropped it on all those years ago, gathering dust quickly as you couldn’t quite look at it. Gojo’s jacket was at the very back of your closet, and you’d advert your gaze to somewhere else- anywhere else, whenever you saw the wretched pitch-black sleeves that were twice the size of your arms. You had taken a rather looked down upon jujutsu path, one that you knew only one other person had done before you. Nanami Kento was his name, from what you remembered. Sure, you still kept in touch with Shoko, but that was about it. Today was one of those days, Shoko would invite you to some sort of establishment to eat, perhaps make small talk about what had been happening in your life, and that was that. Admittedly, you missed that childish relationship with her so badly- but you could never tell her about that. Japan at night was always a treat though, that was certainly a fact. Perhaps Shoko was thinking about other things when she took you to the Japanese night market, though you didn’t blame her- after all the fireworks festival was today, if you remembered correctly. Stalls filled with games and cheap street-snacks wafted about in the air, sweet tangy sauce, noodles, your stomach grumbled as you thought about taking a bite on the horribly unhealthy junk food. “Here, Y/N. I’ve heard this takoyaki is really good.” You and Shoko had finally found an empty bench to sit at, and for some reason the muddy green color painted onto the wooden bench made your stomach lurch- it was the same shade that you saw nearby when breaking up with Gojo. Shoko gives you this lukewarm yet kind smile, enough for you to give her a small grin to her in return, and you take the still hot container out of her gentle hands. You plop the doughy deliciousness into your salivating mouth, and immediately you’re giddy. Savoring the taste of the thick brown sauce coating your pallet. You had to admit, Shoko, Geto, and... Gojo had amazing taste in food. Your tastebuds had instantaneously dulled as soon as you parted ways with the trio. “Shoko-” you mumble, your mouth still stuffed, you cover your mouth and try to lower the sound of your chewing. “This is really good! How much was it?” Shoko’s eyebrow quirks, and she leans in closer to you, “What was that?” About to repeat yourself, you drink in the scene around you first. Cheerful children roaming the streets; too past their bedtime. Angsty teenagers and the many lanterns strung highly above everyone’s heads, how bright everything was. Then you see it. Someone large, atleast, significantly larger as opposed to the general crowd bustling in the streets. You couldn’t be mistaken, he had the same wild white hair- except it’s gelled up into spikes. He’s wearing a mauve darkish-purple uniform, it seems, a cute shopping bag swinging side by side as he took long strides. One thing you had to note was a blindfold, though. Gojo’s not wearing those classic shades that was practically his signature. You peer over at Shoko, who’s now frantically waving at Gojo, humming, his chin tipped towards the clear canvas of a sky, dotted with many white stars. He seems livelier somehow, an aura of friendliness radiating instead of arrogance, and you drop your takoyaki in suit. He notices you. And then he notices Shoko. “...’Scuse me. Comin through.” he maneuvered himself through the already annoyed crowd, muttering quick polite apologies before finally freeing himself from the tight bundle of people. A large toothy grin is displayed for the world to see on his face, you feel like you’re about to vomit everything you had eaten today. Your eyes scan the bag he’s holding, it contrasted heavily from the dark color scheme of whatever he was clad in; pastel yellow with a cute light green mascot chewing happily on mochi. In bubble letters above it were the words, “It’s a good day for yummy food.” “Shoko!” he exclaims joyously, giving her a quick hug. “Hey, haven’t seen you in a while outside of work.” Then, Gojo glances at you, atleast that’s what you assume he’s doing, the blindfold was really confusing you. He politely smiled, not as big as the one that he gave Shoko, though. “Long time no see, Y/N.” You clear your throat and nod in agreement. “You too.” Polite chatter between the two of them ensued, and you steadily got more bored as the time went on, checking your phone and stealing quick stares at the two of them. You want to comment, to be included, but you doubt anyone really cared for you right now. “...How are you?” you say bluntly, blinded by boredom, and immediately you regret it. Shoko chuckles awkwardly, looking at you with those tired eyes of hers. “Was that for me or Gojo?” Fuck it, if you were gonna go out, you might as well do it now. “Gojo.” “Shit. Putting me in the spotlight like this?” he stands back up from leaning down to talk to Shoko eye-to-eye, now turning to look at you, pausing. “You’re even more straightforward then I remember, and I thought that was impossible.” “Yeah.” you finally say after too many seconds of silence. It seemed like he was hinting at something. “I guess we just grow as people, even though I thought that was basically impossible for you.” you cheekily retort back, crossing your arms over your chest with a smug smirk now proudly playing at your lips. “AND you got sassier? Never quite grew outta the brat phase.” taking a seat between the empty space between the two of you with a huff, his right leg placed above the knee of his left, his thumb plays with the hem of his blindfold, pulling it just a bit so that you could see his snow white eyelashes, alongside with a singular eye. It’s like time stops as soon as you see them, and it’s like Shoko isn’t closely surveying the two of you, obviously perplexed with this sudden increase of the intensity of conversation. You see a split second of something flickering in those eyes of his, you’re not quite sure what it could quite be.. Vulnerability? “Can’t believe my eyes.” pulling his blindfold back down. They’re still as breathtaking as you had imagined them to be. He shrugged, leaning back into the bench casually. For a while, the three of you just watch the stall directly in front of you- it’s a goldfish stall. Gojo had gotten you one when the two of you were still dating. Shit. Why weren’t you over such a silly relationship? It wasn’t like you still had feelings for him, but there was still this emotion you couldn’t shake off. It clung onto you like a leech. “It’s been so long since we’ve relaxed with each other like this.” Shoko mused aloud, turning to look at the two of you. The words are so faint, you’re barely able to hear her subtle voice. At this point, colorful fireworks started bursting into the air- every shade of color could be seen. Vibrant greens, blues, reds, a loud crackling is all the ear can hear, aside from the loud cheering of over joyous children. Both of you are unanswering. Vaguely, you remember the first time you saw the fireworks. Lo and behold, you remember wisps of Gojo’s white hair that you twisted and played with, your legs wrapped around his head. You felt on top of the world. Now, you found yourself at the bottom of it. There’s a grateful, albeit, sad smile on your face. It wasn’t like it was all sunshine and rainbows for you, no. You felt bitter. Hatred, even, that Gojo matured without you. “Yeah. I miss this.” you say through gritted teeth. If you were to be honest, you did miss them. Geto, Shoko, Gojo, running around pelting each other with scrunched up paper. Not just Gojo. But you guess he’s a big factor as well.

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noctuaas · 5 years ago

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THE DEVIL COMES IN MANY FORMS

synopsis; you and me and the devil makes three.

pairing; ukai keishin x reader

content; nsfw/smut, age gap, bad power dynamics, fem!reader, semi-public sex, slight religious reference, unprotected sex

word count; 2.4k

a/n; big thanks to @hazydazyboy for letting me write about his sexy concept in this fic !!

Ukai Keishin considered himself to be a good man. Sure, he drank and smoked, and when he was younger he got into his fair share of fights, but he was honest, and fair, and good. Everyone would agree. Everyone except you; you seemed to beg to differ.

“Those are bad for you, ya know?”

You always flirted with Ukai: stealing glances for just a little too long; spouting off innuendos when he was just a little too close by; blatantly hiking your skirt up a bit higher whenever you helped with practice. It was all harmless in your mind; Ukai was young and handsome, and it was entertaining to see if he would ever react. He never did. Not until today; not until you stole the cigarette straight out of his mouth, took a drag, and then snuffed it out in the tray.

“Yeah, well. You seem pretty bad for me right now too, missy.”

He said it under his breath; you weren’t even sure you were meant to hear it. But you did. You did, and he realized this.

Maybe the words were a silent committal; a subconscious ‘fuck it’ that signalled you had finally broken him. He was going to play your game.

Ukai approached, and the intrusion on your space made your grip on the edge of the counter loosen as you sat up straight. Your legs wanted to squeeze together, but instead they were inched apart until Ukai’s waist fit right between your knees. You watched intently where his hips pressed into the countertop—it was the only thing that separated you two—before letting your gaze level out.

He was dangerously close. You breathed the same air, inhaling what he just let out, almost like you stole it from his lungs. When you were this close, you saw more than you ever had. The bridge of his nose had a tiny mark, and crooked to the right almost unnoticeably, like it had been broken when he was younger; there was a spot on his left eyebrow that looked like he had once shaved a slit there, and the hair never grew back perfectly; his caramel eyes were a lot darker than you remembered, though maybe the blown pupils were a result of circumstance.

Your heart pounded, in more than one place. How shameful of you, but you couldn’t help that you might have had a fantasy or two that started like this.

“Well, pick your poison,” you finally muttered. If you were given any more time, you probably would have gone red and hidden your face; a comment that bold was a little out of line for you. But Ukai did not give you time.

Your hands had to grab onto the front of his shirt when he kissed you, for fear that with how far he was leaning into you, you might topple backwards. He wouldn’t have actually let that happen with the hand he slipped behind you.

It was the same hand that drug you flush to the edge of the counter. The little bit of space between your bodies was eliminated quickly, and your breath caught ever so slightly.

“Now,” Ukai mumbled against your lips, pulling back and waiting until you were looking him in the eye before continuing. “You’re gonna tell me as soon as you want me to stop. Alright, pretty girl?”

He was genuine. You could see it in his eyes. He wanted you, but he would not do a thing you didn’t want him to do. You would not stop him though; you wanted him, too.

It was one more kiss on your lips before he was lapping up your jaw and growling in your ear. You reflected on how his tongue tasted so strongly of his cigarette smoke, yet you didn’t find it offensive; it mixed almost sweetly with a hint of chapstick left on his lips.

Your mind didn’t linger though, because he was tugging your earlobe between his teeth and slipping his hands around your waist under the thin fabric of your shirt. His fingertips were marred by callouses, a fact you never realized to the fullest in years past. As his hot, open-mouthed kisses travelled down, his hands rose to meet them, your shirt lifting until it was coming off over your head.

Ukai’s mouth trailed the hill of your breasts, following the edge of your bralette. The lower he dipped, the hotter your skin seemed to burn. His fingers slid slowly under the hem of your bra, giving you time to protest, but instead you arched into his touch.

He didn’t bother taking the bralette all the way off of you; he only shoved it up far enough to free your tits so he could latch onto a nipple. It caught you off guard and made you let out a muffled squeak.

“Louder,” Ukai commanded; he barely pulled away, not even bothering to look up at you. Something about the way he said it stirred your stomach and made you clench your thighs around his waist. Your reaction made Ukai grin cockily, gently holding your nipple between his teeth.

When he turned to give your other tit some attention, his hands fell to the waistband of your shorts. He fumbled a little to tug them off, too preoccupied with his mouth to even bother detaching himself long enough to look at what he was doing. Once they were discarded to the floor, you felt everything so much easier. The bulge of his cock through his jeans was so much more obvious, and shit, he was already really hard.

It also became obvious just how wet you were already getting just from this little bit of foreplay; you wouldn’t usually be so turned on at this point, but there was something so hot about the fact that you were hooking up with your friends volleyball coach in his store. What was it they said; it’s better when it feels wrong?

Ukai hooked a finger around your underwear, sliding his knuckle along your pussy.

“So wet already,” he muttered, finally straightening up to look you in the eye. “You think about this a lot?”

The question made you want to shrink away in embarrassment. Yes, you replied in your head, but you didn’t have to say anything for Ukai to know the answer. Your burning cheeks told him everything he needed to know.

“You’re more of a little slut than I thought.”

The comment made your toes curl and fingers fist into the fabric of his shirt on his shoulders. You took the opportunity to tug at it, asking ever so nicely with your eyes, and pulled his hands away from you long enough to discard it before getting back to business.

He didn’t bother removing your underwear the same way he didn’t bother taking your bra off; they were simply shoved to the side to expose your needy cunt. And needy it certainly was. It graciously accepted his middle finger, and Ukai swore the feeling alone made his cock twitch in his pants. And then he added another, and you squirmed and whimpered, and he immediately knew we wanted to have you cumming around his fingers.

You were thankful he was the only one who worked the store. Even in the back, a spare employee could have heard his fingers pumping in and out of you; it only took a few minutes for you to be wet enough that your pussy squelched with every movement.

You weren’t sure how he got you so close in such a short time. His pace was nothing brutal; in fact, it was borderline leisurely, but he curled his fingers in just the right way that had your knees already lifting and walls tightening. Ukai certainly knew what he was doing.

Ukai dropped to his knees. Not that you noticed with your eyes screwed shut like they were. You didn’t notice until his left hand was keeping your underwear out of the way as he lapped at your clit. His tongue moved in rhythm with his fingers, pushing you to the cliff that was your orgasm, until you were teetering over the edge.

“Fuck, Coach Ukai!” you gasped out when you finally crossed the threshold. Your arms almost gave out, and the only thing that kept your thighs from clamping around Ukai’s head was his left arm that braced against your leg. Instead, your hips bucked against his tongue, forcing him to ride you out on your high (not that he wouldn’t have done it on his own).

One hand had instinctively shot into Ukai’s hair when you came, causing his signature headband to fall away as you gripped onto him for dear life. You let him go as he rose to his feet again and his blonde locks fell into his face.

He looked unlike anything you had seen before; eyes dark and vast like a trench under the ocean, and they told of a hunger from deep within; hair ruffled and messy, reminiscent of a wild animal riled up after a fight; and chin dripping liquid sex, his tongue flitting out to make him appear like a parched man downing water after being lost in the desert.

“Just Ukai,” he said before parting your lips with his slick-coated hand. You opened your mouth, relishing in your own taste on his fingers. “Got it?”

You hummed your understanding. It was an honest mistake that you had called him ‘Coach’; you were just so used to it.

“Good girl.”

You hadn’t expected to get off from this little adventure, let alone before Ukai did. You could practically see his cock throbbing through his jeans, and found your hands fumbling with his belt without a second thought; you wanted his cock, now.

Holy shit. You didn’t know what you were expecting, but it wasn’t that; there on the underside of his cock, right below the reddened head, was a barbell piercing. Curiously, you wrapped your hand around his dick and ran your thumb over it. The metal was surprisingly shiny, and despite being shoved in his pants all day, still slightly cool to the touch.

“Ever seen one?” Ukai smirked when he asked the question.

You shook your head ‘no’.

“I think you’ll like how it feels.”

Your gaze flitted back down to his cock momentarily. There was excitement in your eyes.

“Alright, pretty girl, stand up. Over the counter,” Ukai instructed you. He turned to grab a condom from a shelf near the counter—having an array of products in stock was a perk to running a store—but before he could even crack open the box, the sound of you clearing your throat had him turning back. You had your chest laid on the counter, peering over at him with your lip between your teeth as you shook your head ever so slightly.

His cock twitched at the prospect of going in on you raw. He knew it wasn’t a great idea, but then you told him you were on birth control, and he gave in to temptation.

Upon his return, Ukai kneaded one of your ass cheeks in his hand, holding your underwear to the side again so that he slid into you with ease.

“Fuck,” he groaned. If he hadn’t been so absorbed with how warm and tight you were around his cock, he would have heard the way you whimpered and gasped below him.

His thrusts started out slow, trying to make sure you had time to adjust, but in practically no time he snapped his hips into you rapidly; how could he not when you felt so much better than he ever could have imagined? Despite all the sex he’s had, no one else had ever felt as much like heaven as you did.

If your hips were the altar, your precious cunt was the tabernacle. You sang like the choir every time he moved, and he would be content to listen for the rest of his life.

“Ah, Ukai, deeper please,” you moaned and whined and cried your hymns. The higher your voice got, the closer he felt to those holy gates; ironic, really, because when he snaked an arm around you to grip your throat and pulled you back against his own chest, he had never been closer to hell.

“You have no fucking clue how long I’ve wanted to do this,” he growled into your ear. It was true, no matter how ashamed it made him. The first time you ever stirred something disgusting in Ukai, you weren’t even quite 17 years old yet; it wasn’t the first time you had helped with practice because Kiyoki couldn’t make it, but that day, when you bent over in that hiked up school skirt to grab a ball, he caught an eyeful of ass cheek (and maybe a peek of underwear between your thighs).

Ukai almost didn’t catch himself in time; you started clenching your walls around his dick, and he was done for.

“Shit,” he hissed, pulling himself out of you as fast as possible. It was all he could do to cover his head with his hand and shove himself between your thighs. His grip pulsed around your throat as he came, three hot ropes of cum seeping between his fingers.

Once he caught his breath, he placed a kiss on the side of your head and let you lay back down. You seemed to need a little more time to even out your breathing. He couldn’t help but note how pretty you were after being made a mess of.

Ukai Keishin was decidedly not a good man. The rest of the world might disagree, but they didn't know what he was doing right now. They didn’t know that every time the high school girl that crashed practice every now and then dropped by, he paid a little too close attention to you; they didn't know that one time you appeared to him in a dream, and try as he might to forget, it was the one that stuck in his mind most clearly; they didn't know that he was pulling his pants back on as you laid folded over his store counter with your underwear tugged to the side. You might be graduated now, and a legal adult, but this was still wrong. If he was a better man, he would have continued to ignore your flirty comments and pretty grin.

But Ukai Keishin was not a good man.

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apherod · 4 years ago

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Rubian Soulmate AU

I finally finished writing it ahhhh

I eventually decided that I was going for a sketch-style writing for this. Just short bits and pieces here and there, piecing together some scenes, but not fully fleshed out into a storyline (it coincides with the original story mostly anyway)

So here it is! Enjoy!

This is a Liam and Ruby Soulmate AU requested by an anon (possibly @thedarkestcrew?) ask, in which damage done to one half of the soulmate pair would translate to the other half.

Word count: 4400

===

Liam

“Where did all these bruises come from?”

I was driving through Highway 95 in Maryland when I noticed the bruises crowning my knuckles. They just…appeared, like petals floating to the surface of water. It is possible that I punched something—or someone—at some point in the last few days, or tripped and fell, and using…my fists to break the fall? But I don’t recall doing any of that.

Then again, my head hadn’t been the most reliable in these past few weeks, either.

They weren’t the first. A couple of weeks ago, I woke up with a cut on my upper arm, and the blood drenched half of my sleeve, but the sleeve wasn’t torn or cut, so it couldn’t have been me… Another one came a few days after that, when I was driving, and a sudden searing pain came to my wrist, like I was burnt by a frying pan, but that part of my skin wasn’t even touching anything. The list goes on.

I think I’m going insane.

Some people…some who are lucky enough to find their soulmates, found themselves with identical wounds on them, because when one half of that bond gets hurt, the other one suffers, too. Mom’s bruises never translated onto our birth dad. Maybe that was why he was so okay with hurting her. It wasn’t until she met Harry, did that magic—or curse—work on both of them.

But that’s exactly that—it only happens after you’ve met the person. If I’ve somehow met her, and didn’t know who she was, then I’ve really screwed up. Big time.

It couldn’t have been anyone in Caledonia, otherwise I would’ve known. No one from home, either. There weren’t even that many of us left. Could it be someone from East River? For some reason, I just couldn’t be sure… There’re this weird quality in my memory when I think of East River, glowing tinge surrounding everything, blurring details, and flaring up the edges, making it hard to see for too long.

Also, if I met her in East River, why isn’t she with me?

If she’s really out there, I felt sorry for all the pain I’ve caused her in the past few days. When I narrowly escaped that group of Skip Tracers, my arms were all cut up, real pretty. I can’t imagine the horror she must have felt when her arms just, out of nowhere, started spontaneously bleeding half of her blood out.

I really ought to take better care of myself, even if it’s just for her sake.

When I crossed the state boarder into Pennsylvania, I managed to find an old payphone, and left a voice mail for my brother to let him know where I am, and that I’m coming his way. I didn’t want to—asking for Cole’s help was one of the few things that I genuinely want to avoid—but I’m really desperate.

The truth is, just imagining him gloating about this—about me needing his help—was almost enough to make me turn around. Think about the last time I asked for his help… didn’t work out so well, did it? But whatever Cole has to offer, whatever nightmare I have to live through going back to the League, is better than being hauled back into the camp.

I don’t think they’d actually take me back into a camp, anyway.

When I got passed the wrong Wilmington, I briefly glimpsed the road sign that read US 13, and a voice suddenly rang in my head.

Turn off here. It urged.

The feeling was distinctly different from my reluctance to meet Cole—it was a drive, asking me to go somewhere, rather than run from somewhere.

Whatever it was, I can’t listen, no matter how hard I wanted to, no matter how it warmed my heart just thinking about that impulse, like it would lead me home, even though I had no idea how.

I got into the city of Philadelphia, and found my brother’s apartment soon enough. When I got into his building, a woman threw me a sideway glance that made my hair stood on their ends.

Please don’t recognize me, please don’t recognize me, please don’t recognize me… I muttered in my head while I pressed the buzzer. The door swung opened, and I was snatched inside by a forceful arm.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Cole snarled before I could even lay eyes on him properly. “Why didn’t you call me when you got here?”

He looked much better than me, that much was clear. Cole never had any wound that wasn’t his own, and from the looks of him, he hadn’t seen much action lately. His hair was clean-cut, brushed neatly away from his face. He was wearing a white shirt and dark blue jeans, with metal-frame glasses which were clearly without diopters to finish the look. In this getup, you’d expect him to be a graduate student in U Penn, not a high school dropout.

“I… I didn’t have any money to place a call.” I muttered, feeling my voice getting smaller. Gosh, I hated this. I hated that I felt like a child again. I took off my jacket, and hung it on the peg right next to his. They were two identical black leather jackets, which Mom bought us years ago—she got them a couple of sizes bigger than we were at the time, in anticipation that we would eventually grow into them. Cole did, whereas I felt like I still hadn’t.

Cole let out a long and harsh breath, and gave me a scan head to toe. “You’ve seen better days.” He commented eventually, a subtle amusement in his tone. “Even for you, this is a bit excessive…” He gingerly lifted my right wrist, and got a good look at my forearm, all cut up.

You don’t say. I wanted to retort, but didn’t. “What are you doing in Philly?” I asked as I retracted my hand.

Cole raised an eyebrow. “You really want to know?”

Maybe not. “I’d probably know eventually, wouldn’t I?” I said.

He scratched his chin, frowning. “You know what this means, right? You know where we’re going?”

“Look, if I could just find Mom and Harry…” I began, but he raised his hand and stopped me.

“No,” He snapped, “We don’t have that kind of time. My assignment here is done. I’m being extracted at midnight, which is in less than four hours, and if you think I’d let you out running into the wild and being hauled into a camp again, you’d have another thought coming.”

Choose me. I remembered the subtext of what Cole said that night when he left home, and now it was ringing in a different tone. Now I don’t have a choice.

“All right.” I sighed. “Whatever you say.”

He frowned deeper. But it took him a while to say something. “Look, I know the last time you came with me, it didn’t end so well, but things are turning around.” He said, palms down, pacifying. “I promise, just stick it out a few months.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

He bit his lip. “I just do. Trust me.” He said, then gave me a tight smile, “Tell you what, I’ll go get us something to eat, and you clearly need a shower.” He took off his glasses, grabbed the keys, then, as if remembered something, added with a grin, “Do not, drown in the bathtub.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I rolled my eyes.

Before he could open the door, though, I stopped him. “Cole,” I began, but didn’t really know how to finish.

“Yeah?” He prompted.

“Have we...” I caught myself just for a moment. What am I doing? “...have we ever been to Virginia Beach?”

Because that…memory? was so vivid, that I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there, calling me at every moment I so much as allowed my mind to idle for a second. But it also had that bright glare around it, like it didn’t really belong to me, like I was seeing it through a mirror, into a different dimension where we were all happier people.

Cole was there, looking exactly like how he was now, but Claire was also there, and that didn’t make any sense…

“No…?” Cole said, “We lived in Wilmington. We went to Wrightsville, remember?”

Of course I do, but… I shook my head. “It’s just… I kept seeing this…memory, that we were there, and Claire was there, too…”

Cole pressed his lips tight. I know mentioning Claire’s name would probably put him on edge, but it’s not like I have other people to talk about her with anyway. A part of me wanted to be a bit mean about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I didn’t have the strength.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said, voice rigid. “Just go take your shower. I’ll be back with the food.”

And he left, leaving me alone in his white and bare apartment.

I still couldn’t be sure that it was a good idea coming here. If I’m being honest with myself, it wasn’t even about my negative view on the League, or what it had turned my brother into, but that…I’m not sure how to be his brother anymore. I’m not even sure that he needs a brother.

Hell. Looking around this place, I got the feeling that a brother wasn’t the only thing he didn’t need. But then again, knowing how Cole kept his room, it was maybe a good thing that he had so few belongings here. This place…it didn’t even feel like someone actually live here; there were so few things breaking the white of the walls, it was almost glaring to my eyes.

I first went to check his bed, to see if he still has that weird habit—falling asleep with cigarettes still in his hand. His bedsheet looked clean enough; nothing charred. No ashtray, either. Maybe he quit.

Satisfied, I went to grab a t-shirt and a pair of pants from his closet, and dived into the pressurized water in his shower.

I can’t remember when was the last time I had running water. Probably…when I was in the League’s safe house? Gosh. My skin is so filthy, the water only started running clean after a good ten minutes of scrubbing, and I was scrubbing hard.

I was extra careful when I cleaned my arms, though. Not particularly because I was scared of pain, but more that I didn’t want to hurt this…person who might share this unfortunate connection with me, however low the chance might be. I didn’t want to make her suffer even more—somehow, I knew it was a her, for reasons I couldn’t quite put into words.

When I got out of the shower, I felt like my entire body had been turned inside out. My skin was glowing pink against the white tiling of Cole’s bathroom. He is an inch or two taller than me—which was sore to admit, but hey, I went through puberty in a lot worse condition than he did—so his pants hung a little too long around my ankles.

Then I finally got a good look at myself in the mirror. Damn, I looked awful. The dark shadows under my eyes were so purple, they looked almost black. Not to mention the countless scratches and bruises. There was a new one on my left cheek, just above the jawline. Whether it was mine or hers, I didn’t know.

Just as I threw the towel over my head, and started rubbing the water away from my hair, I heard it—siren. It began from a distance, a low wailing, but it was enough to set every hair on my back on its end. As I flew out of Cole’s shower, grabbed my jacket, and rushed to the window side, the siren got closer—and multiplied. The sound of them were like a harmony from hell.

Should I run? Should I stay?

I should run.

Even though they might not be coming for me, I knew better than to push my luck—it hadn’t really been on my side recently, and that woman who looked at me a second too long when I got in the building was probably proving me right. I threw the apartment door open, and on a second thought, ran for the roof instead of the ground floor.

I can reconvene with Cole later. I need to stay out of sight now. Cole’s a smart guy, he knows what to do in a situation like this.

It had started raining. I tripped on a mossy patch on the rooftop, and almost broke my jaw, but I stood up and kept running. I pushed myself over the ledge of the next building, and sprinted for the fire escape on the far end. The sound of the first bullet fired almost made me lose my bearing when I lowered myself onto the metal shaft.

They are on the other side. There were two fully populated buildings between me and those bullets, and they were firing at someone else—which means I’m not who they’re after. These are all good news.

Right?

Since when had I been that lucky after I turned twelve?

I pulled the hood of the jacket over my head, and dove into the shadow of the next alley. The gunfire had stopped, which meant that they probably got whoever they were after. I took the long way around the block, trying to get a hang of the situation, getting an idea of where I could find Cole without being spotted—

Oh, I found him alright.

Fuck. No. Fuck.

I only caught sight of him for a second before they slammed the back of that van shut, and in that brief second, he looked up, and he saw me.

No.

Christ. No. I… I got him caught. I did… I did this… Why didn’t I warn him? Why didn’t I go to him as soon as I heard the siren?

What have I done?

If you’re caught, you’re disavowed. I still remembered that phrase like it was etched into my skull. If anything encapsulates what I hate about the League the most, this is it. And now, Cole is going to be another casualty under that cold hard rule. The thought almost made my knees buckled, but instead of crashing down, I up and ran.

I ran. From this nightmare of my own making.

+++

Ruby

“Ruby!”

The scream came before the punch could land. I didn’t register what was happening in that first moment, not until the blood was dripping down my elbows, and staining the blue mats under us.

“Go to the infirmary!” Coach Johnson ordered, and I gladly obeyed. I could hear the whispering judgements forming even before I left the training room—what was that? What’s wrong with her? Where did those come from?

I knew exactly where they came from.

If Chubs was here, he’d likely yell at me for not getting these wounds taken care of immediately, but I simply…couldn’t. I ran for the shower stall, being careful not to stain the curtain, and turn on the tap.

With the water pouring out the showerhead, steaming up every bit of air around me, blurring my vision, I finally let the tears fall.

My arms didn’t hurt that much. At least, not as much as my heart. The bruises were bearable—who doesn’t get those occasionally living in the wild? I got one every other day even just from the training. But these cuts…he was in danger. Maybe he only got away with it within an inch of his life.

The only consolation I had was that I wasn’t mortally wounded, which meant he wasn’t, either. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t regret my decision of letting him go every second of every day.

If I did that to protect him, all these wounds and bruises only proved how wrong I was, how in vain my suffering had been.

“Ruby?” Cate’s voice.

I swallowed hard before answering. “Yes?”

“Are you all right?” She asked, standing outside of my stall.

“Yes.” I lied.

“Coach Johnson said you were hurt—” She didn’t buy it. “Look, if you don’t want to go to the infirmary, I can take a look—”

“I’m fine.” I cut her off. The timer on the tap beeped, warning me that the water would start running cold. My blood was dripping down from my fingers, dropping into the shallow water on the concrete floor like roses blooming in the snow.

“Ruby, I can see the blood.” Cate said dryly, then softer, coaxing. “Come out, please. Let me dress your wounds.”

Only if I could just close my eyes, and pretend for a second that the person who was waiting for me with antiseptic was Chubs, not Cate. If only I could pretend that these wounds were mine, not of the boy that I dreamt of every night for the past few months.

If only I could pretend that they were here with me, or that I wasn’t here at all.

I sighed, and brushed the curtain open. To Cate’s credit, she didn’t flinch at the sight of me. “Oh, Ruby…” She said with a tone like I was a stray cat ready to be put down. She reached out, and gingerly lifted my hand to get a better look at my arm.

“Press on it.” She handed me a towel, and sat down on the bench before patting the empty space beside her, motioning for me to join her.

I did as she said as she tore open a paper package. “This is going to hurt a little…” She gently dabbed the fabric square on my wounds, and I hissed out of reflex. I hated this. I hated showing her my weakness, and I guessed, in a weird way, she understood that. She didn’t comment on any of it, only continued to wrap my arms up in silence.

“There.” When she’s done, both of my forearms were wrapped entirely in gauzes.

“Th…thank you.” I managed to choke out.

She gave me a tender smile. “Don’t mention it.” She stood up, collecting the empty packages off the bench, and turned to leave.

Before she was out of the door, however, she turned around, and said, “You know, you get those wounds together, and you heal together, too.” She paused for a second, “You’re…not entirely helpless in this situation.”

Ten minutes after she left, I was still sitting on that bench, pondering her words. I didn’t even know what she said was true, but if it was, it meant that when I took care of myself, I took care of him, too. That, somehow, didn’t seem so bad.

I wondered how Cate knew that. She and Rob were clearly not soulmates, and I didn’t even know why she would want to date him, even without considering that fact. Rob—ruthless, arrogant, hateful—was everything opposite to what she seemed to hold dear.

But then again, she probably didn’t understand why someone would find their soulmate only to let them go on their own.

That day when I let Liam go, I made a decision that I would be whoever the League wants me to be, and make it so that they wouldn’t miss him. And for the longest time, I had kept to that promise. But not today, not now.

I just want to be myself again, even if it’s just for a moment.

So I brushed open the curtain to the stall, and allowed myself to be vulnerable again, for everyone and no one to see.

+++

His eyes traveled from my face to where the water had collected on my chest, and I raised my arms just that much higher.

His mouth half-opened for what I was sure to be a snide remark, but whatever it was never managed to pass his lips. His face froze, brows drew together, and he reached out. Before I could shift away—to where though, I had no idea; my back was already against the wall—he grabbed my wrist, and lifted my arm.

“It was you.” Cole said with a tone of half astonishment, half…anger?

“What was?” I raised an eyebrow at him, trying to hide how much I felt like a kid being caught red-handed, stealing candy bars.

He threw me a “really?” look. “Don’t insult my intelligence.” He snapped, “These are Liam’s, aren’t they?”

I almost asked “how do you know”, but that would confirm his suspicion. “What makes you say that?” I asked instead.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not playing games with you.” He huffed, “Soulmates should stick together. What were you thinking sending him out into the wild? Do you have any idea how dangerous he is to you? Or you to him? The poor bastard doesn’t even know you exist!”

“And as long as I stay in the League, that fact shall remain.” I said, more resolute and calmer than I thought possible.

He blew out a sigh of exasperation. “Look, I don’t care what kind of sainthood complex you have going on, I’m telling you—you are not doing either of you any favors, and if you think this is somehow a good idea, I beg you, think again, because you definitely look smarter than this.”

“What do you know?” I retorted, finally couldn’t keep the lid on my anger anymore. “Do you have any idea how much he hates it here? How hard he was trying to avoid this place before you drag him into this mess?”

Cole really laughed. “You think I don’t know?” He raised an eyebrow at me, and I met his glare head on. “I was the one that let him go when he got away that first time.” He tried to brush his hair back with his hand, but it gave out a weird flex before he could reach his head. “And I’ve seen enough soulmates pairs in my life to know that I never want one. Have you any idea what would happen to him if you were injured when he was on the run? Soulmates stick together so they don’t double their chances on dying, but I guess no one ever set your logic straight, did they?”

My head was so flushed with anger that I actually let him finished.

“Go find him.” Cole snapped. “And for Christ’s sake, stay together this time.”

+++

Liam

“I didn’t need freedom; I needed you!” I half-screamed, trying to get the frustration out past the chaos raging in my head. How could I—? How could she—? What the hell—?

On the receiving end of my scream, Ruby’s face was painted with grief, lined with tears that almost made my anger buckle. Almost.

“Did you just…not want to be with me anymore?” Facing her silence, my pain came out softer eventually. Please, just tell me, and I will leave you alone.

“No…” She choked out. “I… I was wrong.” She swallowed hard before continuing, and despite the anger still roaming my vein, I wanted to reach out and touch her. “We should…we should stay together. I knew I couldn’t bear to see you with the League, see them take away all the good in you that I love…”

“Is that how you think of me?” I snapped before I realized what I was doing, “That I am so weak that the League is bound to break me?”

“No!” She shook her head violently, “No, I don’t think you are weak… If anything, I think you are much stronger than me. But I was weak.” She finally looked back at me, her green eyes gleaming in the dim light of this dust-covered room. “I’m so sorry.”

Before I could react to what she said—I didn’t even know what I was going to say or do—the sound of a gunshot broke every single thought clean out of my head.

Ruby was running before I could do anything about it. She pushed the door of the shop open, and another shot blew open the window on the outside, shattering the glass all over the floor.

“Ruby!” I shouted as I dodged, crouching with my hands over my ears, but she was already up and running again, out of the door and behind the woman that was escaping the scene—with a gun in her hands.

“Ruby, stop!” I shouted again, got on my feet to catch her, but I never manage. I skidded on the broken glass, and fell, hands first, into the shards.

I heard her hiss. She stopped dead on her way, and whirled around to find me on the floor, holding my right hand on my laps, pressing it against the fabric of my jeans to try and stop the bleeding.

The blood was dripping down to her fingers. As she walked slowly towards me, the red, looking almost black, dropped on the dust-covered floor, leaving a spotting route, marking her path. When she knelt down beside me, finally close enough to touch me, I found that she was smiling. A totally mirthless, wry and painful smile.

“Give me your hand.” She said softly, almost like a whisper.

“You should treat yours first.” I said, trying to catch her hand, to see how much of a damage I’d done.

“We only need to treat one of us.” She let out a small breath, almost like something caught there. “We get them together, and we heal them together, too.”

That, somehow, broke through all the mess in my head and reached my mind. I let her take my arm, and carefully wrap her scarf on my hand, all the while her words played on repeat in my head.

We get them together, and we heal them together, too.

When she was done wrapping my hand up, the wounds on her hand stopped bleeding, too. I didn’t know why—I wasn’t even completely over that anger or frustration—but when she placed her hand in mine, a tender “there” escaping her lips, all I wanted to do was kiss her.

Instead, I gently enveloped my fingers around her hand. “There.” I said, pressing my good hand over hers.

And we stayed in that silent, that touch, just a little while longer.

+++

#tdm #the darkest minds #ruby daly #Liam Stewart #rubiam #soulmate AU #request #fanfic #writing #Cole Stewart #cate connor

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