#like even if the Great Plan doesn’t mention those bits yet

[goatbeard-goatbeard]

I’ve seen the plans

companion post // previous piece (Uriel)

can’t stop thinking about the absolutely bone-chilling implications of a pre-Fall angel seeing the plans for humans. fallen angels are involved in those plans! a lot!

[pedroscurls]

just the tip (one-shot)

summary: you're ready to take the next step with logan, but you're still a bit nervous. pairing: old man!logan x fem!reader content warnings: explicit smut (18+, mdni), inexperienced reader, missionary, fingering, unprotected p in v sex, creampie, logan can't control himself, implied age gap (but no mention of age), no use of y/n. word count: 3k a/n: ok, this is yet another one-shot of complete old man logan filth. it never really is just the tip, is it? 🤭 i'm just so obsessed with logan and can't figure out which version of him i want to write on most days lol. honestly, idk where this idea originated from, but here we are... i just have a fantasy of old man logan showing me the ropes ya know... anyway, hope you enjoy! 🙂‍↕️

Logan doesn’t know what he did in this life to ever deserve you. Someone so sweet, so patient, so kind, so pure. He doesn’t even know why someone like you would ever be interested in someone like him. He knows he’s no longer in his prime – his hair now a gray shade, beard overgrown with more gray than brown, crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, wrinkles around his face. 

And you… You’re obviously much younger than him – everyone is much younger than him – but your innocence and your purity makes you seem so much younger than you really are, despite being very mature for your age. You smile so sweetly at him, gaze at him with such kind eyes that he doesn’t ever feel deserving of you. 

But you had approached him first. All shy and unlike the rest of the girls in your group the night that you both met. You seemed so out of place, like maybe you had just been dragged along for the night because you were quiet, reserved, even when you had three drinks and one shot of tequila already. 

The rest of your group was loud, outfits way too revealing that everyone had eyes on them. They craved and yearned for the attention, but you were fine with being in the background. This wasn’t usually how you spent most Friday nights, but your friends had convinced you and you owed one of them a favor. 

You weren’t the prettiest in the group and you certainly never got the attention of anyone else when you were with them, but you didn’t mind. Your friends never made you feel less than you were, always the ones to reassure you and give you the confidence that you lacked. 

And that night was no different. They had given you the confidence to approach Logan who was keen on spending just a couple of hours drinking his problems and nightmares away. Alone. 

But when you sat next to him and flashed him that sweet smile paired with those kind eyes, Logan knew he wouldn’t have the strength to turn away from you. He tried to act like he wasn’t interested, tried to act like talking to you was an inconvenience, but it never deterred you. Instead, you remained seated next to him all throughout the night even well past the time the bar was closing. 

“Your friends left you,” Logan told you. 

“That usually is the plan,” you admitted. 

His head tilted. “The plan is to go home with a stranger? Sounds dangerous if you ask me, bub.”

“I don’t usually do this.” 

“Do what?” 

“Go home with a stranger.” 

“Ain’t going home with me,” Logan whispered. “I don’t do this either. Too old for this, actually.”

Logan didn’t miss the way your face fell at his words. All night, he kept asking himself why did you pick him? What was so special about him that you decided to spend the rest of your night talking to him? 

“If I did invite you back to my apartment, would you say yes?” You asked quietly, your kind eyes now filled with hope. 

“Don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart.” 

Sweetheart. 

You didn’t push him, wanted to respect his decision and his boundaries. So instead, you grabbed a napkin off the bar counter and a sharpie before writing your name and phone number. “Call me?”

“Sure,” Logan lied, staring down at the napkin. 

Once outside the bar, you pulled out your phone. “Well, I better call a Lyft now. It was really great talking with you, Logan.” 

“Let me take you home at least,” he muttered. 

“Oh, you don’t have to.” 

“I’m a driver,” he chuckled lowly. “If you called a Lyft, there’s a high chance that it’d be me who takes you home anyway.” 

“Okay,” you smiled up at him and Logan felt his heart race even faster at the sight. 

And since then, you and Logan had developed a friendship that soon turned physical. Heavy make out sessions and lingering touches, but you hadn’t taken that extra step, hadn’t gone the full distance. 

–

“I think I’m ready,” you tell him, hands resting on his shoulders as you sit on his lap. 

“For?” Logan asks, head tilting as his strong hands rest on your upper thighs. 

“To have sex with you.” 

Logan clears his throat, can feel his manhood stir beneath his pants. He stares into your eyes, tries to search for any uncertainty but you look determined. You look like you’ve made up your mind. 

“Sweetheart,” he sighs. “You know I’m fine with what we’ve been doing. I don’t want to push you or make you feel like you need to do this for me. We’ll go at your pace.”

“I trust you,” you admit quietly. “I’m not… experienced like other women my age should be, but–”

“Inexperienced or not, I don’t care about that.” Logan lifts you off his lap and sets you on the couch instead, his hands immediately moving to cover the center of his pants. “We don’t have to–”

“I want this, Logan. I want you. All of you.” You bite your lower lip and move to settle on your knees on the couch, staring up at him. “I’m not a virgin, but I haven’t been with many men before.” 

Logan’s eyes narrow at you. “Oh, that so?” He isn’t sure why he feels jealous at your words, imagining other men who've had you in their bed. He’s had a taste of you, knows exactly what to do to get you to come and you’ve done the same to him. And yet, he hasn’t had you in a way these other men have. 

You nod at him, so innocent and pure written on your features. He can sense your nervousness, but he can also smell your arousal. It hits his senses all at once and his gaze darkens. “I just don’t want to disappoint you.” 

“Oh, sweetheart,” Logan smirks. “I’ve seen the way you suck my cock,” he growls. “You ain’t gonna disappoint me.” 

You feel the heat rise in your cheeks, feel the wetness begin to settle between your legs, dampening your panties at his words. You loved when he would talk dirty to you; it only excited you even more. “Y– You like that, huh?” 

Logan nods and stands up from the couch, lifting you into his arms without issue. “Of course,” he whispers, taking you to his bedroom as he walks into the room with you in his arms. “I love the fact that you like doing it too.” 

You nod in agreement. “I do love it.” 

Logan grins and sets you on his bed, watching as you prop yourself on your hands with your lower lip pulled between your teeth. And he wants so badly to respond and tell you that he loves you, but he doesn’t. Everyone that he’s ever loved was taken from him, so he doesn’t say anything. 

“I know, you’re like a crazed animal.” Logan chuckles. 

You pout up in his direction and gently reach out to tug on the waistband of his pants, pulling him to stand between your legs as your free hand moves to massage his crotch. 

“See what I mean?” He groans, hardening even further with every graze of your hand. Logan gently takes your hand from him and shakes his head, lifting you further up the bed as he climbs atop of you. “You sure about this?” 

You nod and move your hands to rest on his chest, feeling the muscle flex beneath your fingertips. “Yes,” you say almost breathlessly. “I’m just a bit nervous.” 

Logan’s gaze softens and he looks down at you. You had broken through his hard exterior, had nestled your way into his heart, and even Charles had taken notice. You make him feel young again, like not all of the world’s responsibilities are weighing heavy on his shoulders. With you, he feels free, at peace. You manage to quiet all of the voices in his head, but he’d never tell you that. 

“We’ll go at your pace,” he whispers, moving his hand down your side. 

“I’m just nervous I won’t be able to take all of you,” you admit. 

Logan chuckles and leans back on his knees to gently tug down your shorts and panties. He tosses it carelessly to the side and instantly, he smells your arousal hit his senses. He looks down at your lower half, sex glistening with your wetness. “It’ll fit,” he says lowly, hands moving up your legs. “We’ll make sure it does.” 

“Maybe just start with the tip?” you ask, grabbing the ends of your oversized t-shirt above your head. You lie back down, hair splaying on his pillows as your body is now fully exposed and on full display for him.

Logan nods, pulling off his white tank-top over his head. He stands up momentarily to push down his pants, his manhood now standing at attention and leaking at the tip. He reaches down and strokes himself once, twice, before he settles himself between your legs. 

“Gonna get you ready for me first,” Logan whispers, his large hand splaying over your abdomen as it slides down towards where you need him the most. He hovers above you, lips resting just near your ear as he slowly slides his middle finger past your folds. It slides in with ease, your slickness allowing for easy entry. Logan gently nips on your earlobe, grunting in your ear as you let out a quiet whimper at the intrusion. 

“Logan,” you moan quietly, moving a hand to rest on his large bicep, gripping it tightly. This isn’t the first time Logan’s fingered you, but the anticipation of what’s to come has you clenching around his digit unintentionally. 

“Already so wet f’me,” he whispers into your ear, slowly adding another digit into your depths. Logan ruts against the mattress, trying to find his own relief as he slowly begins to pump his fingers in and out of you. 

You turn your head and bury your face against the crook of his neck, teeth grazing against his skin. “Logan,” you whimper, gasping quietly as you feel another digit enter you. 

“That’s three already, sweetheart,” Logan growls as he thrusts his fingers in and out of you. When he feels your teeth gently bite down on his neck, he groans, thrusting his three digits inside of you as he begins to curl his fingers within your depths. “Come f’me, honey.”

“Logan, I–” you shut your eyes tightly and arch your back, your breasts pushing against his chest. Your walls tighten even further around his digits, your hips rolling upwards as you ride out your high. 

Logan smirks and pulls back slowly, looking down at you as your chest heaves up and down. He pulls his fingers from you and looks down at it, his digits glistening with your arousal. He brings it to his lips and sucks your arousal from his fingers, eyes staring into your own once your eyes open. “Ready?” 

You nod, biting your lower lip in anticipation. “Just the tip, okay?”

“Sure, sweetheart.” Logan says, leaning back on his knees as he reaches down to grasp onto the base of his manhood. He leans in closer, running his tip along the length of your sex, applying pressure to your bundle of nerves.

You look down between your legs and bite your lower lip. The sight of him holding onto the base of his length as he rubs his tip up and down the length of your sex, until his tip catches against your opening. “Logan…” you whimper, reaching out for him but he just uses his free hand to grab a hold of your wrists, pinning them above your head. 

Slowly, Logan pushes his tip into you, feeling your tight walls immediately surround him. He groans and then pulls back, running his tip once more along you. Logan’s grip around your wrists tighten, pressing them further into the mattress as he pushes his tip – and only his tip – inside of your depths. Logan looks down and slowly pushes further into you, hearing you quietly gasp as a few more inches past his tip enter you.

“Logan, wait, baby–” 

Logan growls and then suddenly slams all the way into you in one stroke. The warmth of your walls surround him, so tight and so wet as his lower half presses firmly against yours. “Fuck,” he groans, his now free hand coming up to rest on your cheek. 

You feel your toes curl at the intrusion – nothing Logan did would have ever prepared you for the size of him. You can feel every inch and vein of his length inside of you, throbbing and stretching you. It’s so much, all at once, that when he pulls back only to thrust back in all the way, it causes your eyes to flutter. 

“I said–” you moan. “Start with the tip…”

“Couldn’t help myself,” he groans, leaning down to kiss the tip of your nose. “You feel so good around me, sweetheart.” Logan feels your legs wrap around his waist, your ankles locking together at his lower back. 

You nod in agreement, tears stinging your eyes. Logan’s so deep and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. You keep your eyes open and trained on him. He hadn’t removed his glasses, now staring at you from the top of his glasses. You try to wiggle your hands free, but Logan’s grip just tightens even further. 

“Logan, oh god,” you moan, his slow thrusts now picking up speed. He pulls out to his tip and then slams back into you, his tip kissing your cervix with each thrust. His hand moves from your cheek to grip your hip, fingertips digging into the meat of your flesh. 

He knows that he probably won’t last any longer, the feeling of your tight walls gripping him, the way he’s easily sliding in and out of your depths due to how wet you are for him. It’s in moments like this where he doesn’t know why you still stick around, why you still continue to choose him. Logan releases your hands and grips your hips in both hands, pulling back to look down at you. Logan continues to thrust into you, the sound of his skin slapping against yours echo off the walls of his room. 

Your hands immediately move to grip his sheets and he can feel your walls begin to tremble once more, can feel you begin to tighten around his length. Logan groans, eyes moving along your frame, his gaze lingering at the sight of your breasts bouncing with each sharp thrust he delivers. He knows his grip around your hips will leave marks and the thought of you walking around, going about your day with marks of him suddenly makes him feel territorial, suddenly has this desire to make everyone know that you’re his. 

“Logan, I’m gonna–” 

“Yeah, baby,” he groans. “I know, come f’me.” 

And just on cue, your legs tighten even further around his waist as your walls tighten around his length. He can feel you shaking, can feel just a rush of wetness. “Logan!” 

He groans. He’d never get tired of hearing his name escape your lips at the height of pleasure. Logan’s hips stutter, feeling a tightness build in the pit of his stomach as he chases his own release. He releases your hips to rest his hands on the mattress near your head, slamming his hips into yours – once, twice, three times before he releases inside of you, his seed filling you. He should have asked first, should have thought about using a condom, but when he pulls out of you and watches his seed trickle out of you, the guilt disappears immediately. 

You stare up at him and then follow his gaze down between your legs, watching his spend come out of you and drop down onto his mattress, staining his sheets. “You’ll have to wash these now,” you tease, your voice almost breathless. 

“Worth it,” he whispers, leaning down and gently pecking your lips. 

“Was that– Was I okay?” you ask quietly, your hands slowly moving to his hair. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” Logan says softly. “We’re gonna be doing more of that.”

 An excitement flickers in your eyes and you grin, leaning up on your elbows to gently capture his lips with your own. “And just so we’re clear… I don’t mind that you came inside.” 

Logan pulls back and looks down at you. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” you nod. “I like knowing that I can still feel you.” 

Logan smirks and he can feel himself slowly begin to get hard again. His regenerative powers aren’t all that quick anymore, so he’s surprised that his manhood is stirring awake, yearning for you yet again. 

“Next time we do this,” you begin quietly. “Can I ride you?” 

Logan groans as he moves his hips, his tip slowly brushing against you. He slowly lies on his back and reaches down to stroke himself, eyes running across your frame. “Come on, then.” 

“Wait,” you bite your lower lip. “You’re– How?” 

“You make it easy,” he winks, reaching out to gently tap your hip. “Take what you need, sweetheart.”

You move to straddle his hips and Logan looks down to see his release trickle out of you, dripping onto the hair at his base. He stares up at you, feeling you slide down his length and he watches you tilt your head back, a moan escaping your lips. Logan bites his lower lip, hands moving to your hips as he gazes up at you. Logan knows that you’re way out of his league, that you deserve to be with someone closer to your age, but fuck – he’s going to keep you for as long as you allow. 

Because Logan knows that he’s so deep in his feelings for you that he won’t ever choose to let you go. 

And now, as you’re slowly rocking your hips, he’s going to keep this image in his mind until the day he dies. 

His girl. His.

[0silver0dreams0]

"Whispers of Devotion"

Yandere House of the dragon x ModernReborn!Reader Pt. 3

Summarized: Gradually, as time passes, the girl she once was begins to transform into a woman. Those around her take notice, and the actions of those in her life start to bear consequences. As tensions rise, rivalries deepen, and complex feelings begin to intertwine.

Warning: hatred, love macking, mutual masturbation, clues of incest, forbidden love and stalking.

<< Pt. 2 — masterlist — Pt. 4 >> (Coming Soon)

When will they finally leave you alone? Letter after letter after letter. They just don’t understand—you don’t want them anymore. Jacaerys, Rhaenyra, Daemon, even that insufferable boy Lucerys. You burned their letters in the fireplace without hesitation. You don’t care about them; you only wish for their suffering and demise, imagining it vividly before see them with your eyes. But you force yourself to set those thoughts aside. They are a distraction, and distractions displease your mother. Every minute of your day is accounted for, each task meticulously planned to maintain the illusion of perfection. If you falter—if you make a single misstep—Alicent will not forgive you. She will punish you, lock you in your chambers for hours, sometimes days, leaving you isolated with nothing but your thoughts.

You live to please her. To earn her approval. To become the daughter she expects you to be.

8:00 - Etiquette lessons 9:00 - Dance lessons 10:00 - Bath 11:00 - History lessons 12:00 - Go to the Great Sept with Alicent 13:00 - Have tea with Alicent 14:00 - Valyrian lessons 15:00 - Lunch with your family 16:00 - Watch Aemond train and encourage him 17:00 - Talk to Alicent about everything that happened during the day 18:00 - Sneak into the kitchen to eat something 19:00 - Pray Alicent doesn’t notice you ate something 20:00 - Read 21:00 - Prepare for bed 22:00 - Sleep

It’s almost noon, which means it’s time to accompany Alicent to the Great Sept. Yet, as the clock ticks closer to the hour, temptation claws at you. There’s a small gap in your schedule, just enough time for a stolen moment. You glance around to ensure no one is watching before slipping away to the gardens.

He’s waiting for you, leaning casually against a stone column, his armour glinting faintly in the sunlight, he was there, with his brown eyes, his blonde hair, Ser Alaric. The sight of him brings a rush of warmth to your chest.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says softly, though the smile on his face betrays his words. “I could say the same to you,” you tease, stepping closer. “But I’m glad you are.” He reaches out, brushing his fingers against yours—a touch so fleeting it almost feels like a dream. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Princess. If your brother finds out…”

You tense at the mention of Aemond. He must never know about this, about you and Alaric. Aemond’s protectiveness would turn violent in an instant, and you dread to think what he might do.

“He won’t find out,” you assure him, though your voice is quieter than you intended. “I won’t let him.” Alaric studies you for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he nods. “Just be careful. For both our sakes.”

Before you can respond, the sound of footsteps makes you both freeze. Your heart leaps into your throat as you whip around to see Aemond standing at the edge of the garden, his sharp gaze fixed on you.

“(your name),” he calls out, his tone neutral but his eye narrowing slightly. “What are you doing here?” You force a smile, stepping away from Alaric as casually as you can. “I had a bit of free time before prayer. I thought I’d take a walk.”

“And you, Ser Alaric?” Aemond’s voice hardens as he shifts his attention to the knight. “I was ensuring the Princess’s safety,” Alaric replies smoothly, bowing his head. Aemond’s gaze lingers on him for a moment before turning back to you. “Mother is waiting. You should go.”

You nod quickly, glancing at Alaric one last time before following Aemond.

When you arrive at the Sept, Alicent is already there, her gaze darkening the moment it lands on you.

"You’re late," she says, her tone sharp and clipped. “I apologize, Mother. I—” “I’ve no interest in your excuses.” She steps closer, her expression cold and unyielding. “You’ve been acting irresponsibly of late—sneaking off like a petulant child. I won’t allow it any longer.” Her voice is calm but cuts through you with the precision of a blade.

“After prayers, you will return to your chambers,” she continues, each word deliberate. “And you will remain there until I decide otherwise. Perhaps solitude will instil the discipline you so clearly lack.”

You open your mouth to object, but her piercing glare stops you mid-breath. Any protest dies on your lips.

The prayers are long and stifling, each moment stretching painfully under the weight of her disapproval. When they finally conclude, Alicent herself escorts you back to your chambers, her grip firm as though she fears you might slip away.

The heavy door shuts behind you with a finality that sends a shiver down your spine, followed by the unmistakable sound of the lock turning.

Left alone, you search your bed, hoping the books you’d hidden earlier might still be there. They aren’t. In fact, none of your hidden belongings remain. Realisation dawns—she must have discovered them. That’s why she was so angry.

With no distractions to occupy your mind, you lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Maybe sleep will offer a reprieve. But the hours drag on, the silence pressing against you like an iron weight. Just as the last light of day fades, a soft knock breaks the stillness, startling you.

“Aemond?” you call out hesitantly.

The door creaks open, and your brother steps inside, a tray of food in hand and a book tucked under his arm.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you whisper, though relief rushes through you.

“And leave you to starve?” he replies simply. He sets the tray down on your desk before sitting beside you on the bed. “Mother can be harsh, but she forgets—you're human, not an extension of her will.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, taking a tentative bite of the bread he brought. “But if she finds out, she’ll punish me even more.”

“I’ll speak with Father,” he says, his voice calm but resolute. “Perhaps he’ll see that Mother has gone too far.”

Your fingers graze the book he hands you, and for the first time in hours, a faint smile graces your lips. “You’re always looking out for me,” you say softly.

Aemond’s gaze lingers, his voice low but steady. “They don’t see you for who you are. To Mother, you’re a pawn; to them, a symbol. But I see you.”

Your breath hitches, his words stirring something deep within you. Before you can reply, he gently brushes a strand of hair from your face.

“I know how she treats you,” he continues, his tone measured but intense. “Always demanding, always expecting. But you don’t have to bear it alone. I’ll always be here.”

“Aemond…” you begin, unsure of what to say, but he interrupts with a faint smile. “Rest. If she troubles you again tomorrow, come to me—or Father. I’ll handle it.”

Without waiting for a response, he rises, his movements deliberate. At the door, he pauses, glancing back with a rare softness in his eyes.

“Remember, I’m always here.”

The door clicks shut behind him, and you’re left with a strange mixture of comfort and unease. Aemond’s presence was your refuge, but his intensity… it left a lingering weight in the air.

It was already dark when you decided to take a bath. Perhaps it would help ease the tension gripping your body. Surely Mother wouldn’t mind—not if it was just a few minutes to the bathing chambers nearby.

The corridor was silent as you slipped out, your footsteps a soft echo in the stillness. You moved swiftly, heart racing with the thrill of disobedience. Reaching the bathing chamber, you let out a quiet sigh of relief, pushing the heavy door shut behind you.

But before it could close, a hand shot out, stopping it. Panic flared as another arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you back, and a hand covered your mouth before you could scream. Your heart pounded, every nerve on edge, until the faint scent of leather and cedarwood registered.

“Relax,” came a low, familiar voice, its velvety tone tinged with amusement. “It’s just me.” You pull his hand away and whirl around, your expression a mix of relief and exasperation. “You scared me half to death!” you whisper fiercely, mindful of the echoing corridors outside.—”

“Forgive me, my lady. I couldn’t resist.”

“This isn’t funny,” you muttered, crossing your arms. “If Mother knew you were here—”

“She’d lock you away again?” he finished, his smile fading as his brown eyes softened. “I know. That’s why I had to see you. I couldn’t bear the thought of you trapped in that room, alone, while she wields her control over you.”

His words sent a rebellious spark through you, a flicker of validation in the face of your mother’s suffocating expectations. But just as quickly, the reality of your situation weighed it down. “Alaric, you shouldn’t be here,” you whispered, glancing nervously at the door. “If Aemond finds out…”

At the mention of your brother, Alaric’s expression hardened, his jaw tightening. “Aemond won’t find out. And even if he did, I’m not afraid of him.”

“You should be,” you murmured, your voice barely audible. “He’d kill you if he thought—”

“That I cared for you?” Alaric said quietly, his gaze piercing.

Your breath caught, and you looked away, heat rising to your cheeks. “You shouldn’t care for me,” you muttered. “It’s not safe—for either of us.”

“And yet, here I am,” he said softly, his hand reaching out to tilt your chin up, his touch gentle but insistent. “I don’t care about the risk, (your name). I’d rather face Aemond’s sword and your mother’s wrath than stay away from you.”

The weight of his words struck you, before you can stop yourself, you close the distance between you. Grabbing his arm, you pull him back, your heart pounding. His eyes widen in surprise, but he doesn’t hesitate. His hands find your waist as you lean in, and his lips meet yours in a kiss that drowns out every rule, every fear, and every consequence.

It wasn’t just a kiss—it was desperation and lust, a silent scream against the forces trying to pull you apart. For a fleeting moment, the world dissolved. No Mother. No Aemond. No suffocating expectations. Just Alaric and the reckless hope he represented.

When you finally pulled away, your breaths came fast, and your cheeks burned. Alaric’s eyes locked onto yours with an intensity that made your knees weak, his thumb brushing the curve of your jaw.

“I…” you started, but your words faltered.

His lips curved into a faint smile, tender yet resolute. “Say the word, and I’ll stay. No matter what.”

You shook your head, your voice barely above a whisper. “No. Not tonight. But… tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” he echoed, one brow lifting in curiosity.

“Here,” you said firmly. “The same time, the same place. I’ll find a way.”

He studied you for a moment, as if weighing the risk against the determination in your eyes. Then, he nodded. “Tomorrow, then.”

With a final lingering kiss to your forehead, he stepped back toward the window. “Don't let her break you. Be careful, (your name).”

“You too,” you whispered, watching him slip into the night, his silhouette vanishing into the shadows.

As the quiet of the chamber settled around you, your fingers brushed your lips, the memory of his kiss still vivid. The enormity of what had happened began to sink in, but instead of fear, a strange exhilaration coursed through you.

The following day dawns with an air of tension you can’t quite shake. As you dress for your morning lessons, the memory of last night lingers like a forbidden dream. You replay every word, every touch, every moment with Alaric, but reality presses in too soon.

When you enter the dining hall for breakfast, Alicent’s gaze immediately locks onto you. Her expression is stiff, and her tone, when she speaks, carries a sharp edge.

“Sit,” she says curtly, her eyes flicking toward the chair opposite her.

You do as instructed, lowering yourself into the seat. Aemond is already there, silent but watchful as always, and Viserys occupies his usual place at the head of the table. His expression, however, is uncharacteristically lively this morning, his gaze softening when it lands on you.

“Good morning, my dear,” Viserys says warmly, his voice cutting through the tension.

“Good morning, Father,” you reply, a cautious smile tugging at your lips.

He waves a hand dismissively toward the plate before you. “Eat well. And don’t worry about that ridiculous punishment. You’re free to go about your day as you please.”

You blink in surprise, your fork pausing mid-air. Alicent stiffens visibly, her lips pressing into a thin line.

“Viserys—” she begins, her voice tightly controlled, but he raises a hand to silence her.

“She’s done nothing to warrant being locked away, Alicent,” he says firmly, though his tone remains even. “Our daughter is a credit to this family. She carries herself with grace and dignity, and I won’t have her treated like some wayward child.”

Alicent’s hands clench in her lap, her composure barely holding. “It’s not about grace or dignity. It’s about discipline. She’s been sneaking off—”

“And you dealt with it, as you always do,” Viserys interrupts, his tone softening but leaving no room for argument. “But she’s learned her lesson, hasn’t she?” He glances at you with a fatherly smile.

“Yes, Father,” you reply quietly, your gaze lowering to avoid Alicent’s piercing stare.

“Good, then it’s settled.” Viserys returns to his meal, clearly considering the matter closed.

The tension at the table is palpable as Alicent pointedly cuts her food, the sound of her knife scraping against the plate unnervingly loud. Aemond exchanges a glance with you, a subtle flicker of support in his eye, but says nothing.

After breakfast, Alicent corners you just outside the hall, her voice low and sharp.

“Your father may see you as flawless, but perfection comes with a cost,” she hisses, her gaze cold. “You will not jeopardise what we’ve worked so hard to build with your recklessness.”

You swallow hard, nodding quickly. “Yes, Mother.”

Her glare intensifies, her tone biting. “You are the model of what a princess should be, and you will act accordingly. The court looks to you for inspiration, and I will not have them see weakness. Your lessons will continue, every one of them, and I will ensure your Septa does not coddle you.”

“Yes, Mother,” you reply, your voice steady but soft.

She studies you for a moment longer before sweeping away, her skirts rustling angrily behind her. The encounter leaves you standing tall, not because of fear, but because you know the weight of perfection that has been placed upon you—a weight you have always borne with grace.

The day stretches on, a never-ending cycle of lessons and expectations. Each moment is meticulously scheduled, a testament to your role as the perfect princess. Etiquette lessons are followed by hours spent discussing history, with each lecture becoming more and more of a blur. Valyrian is mastered with grace, the elegant words flowing from your lips as if they were second nature. The pressure to be flawless weighs heavily on you, but you bear it with an air of calm, never allowing it to show.

Throughout it all, Alicent remains a constant presence. She watches your every move, her sharp gaze never leaving you. You know she is pleased with your progress, but there is always a lingering sense of expectation in the air, as if the tiniest misstep would undo everything.

Even as you move from one task to another, the thought of Alaric flickers at the edges of your mind. The stolen kiss, the promise made—these moments linger in your thoughts like a secret thread woven through the fabric of your day. You push the thoughts aside, knowing you must focus on your duties. There is no room for distractions, not when you must remain perfect in every way.

Lunch comes and goes, a quiet affair with your family. You speak with your mother and Aegon, though your words are carefully measured. They don’t know—none of them do—but you catch Aegon’s eyes occasionally, a silent understanding passing between you. Afterward, you attend more lessons, this time under your mother’s watchful eye. Her gaze is always on you, sharp and piercing, but there’s also an unspoken encouragement there. She expects greatness, and you deliver it.

As the afternoon wanes, you move to your final task of the day: another meeting with Alicent. She inspects your progress with a critical eye, praising the things you’ve done well and reminding you of the things that still need perfecting. Her voice is firm, but there’s a gentleness there, too, the kind that only a mother can convey.

The hours pass like this, one after another, each duty completed to the highest standard. Finally, the evening arrives, and with it, the promise of a brief respite. Dinner with the family is a quiet affair, the room filled with the soft clinking of utensils and murmured conversation. You eat in silence, your mind elsewhere.

Afterward, you retire to your chambers. You change into your nightgown, the fabric cool against your skin. You look in the mirror for a moment, seeing the poised princess staring back at you. No mistakes. No cracks in the façade. Everything has been handled with perfect care.

You make your way to the bath chambers, the solitude of the corridors a small comfort. As you approach the door, you hear a voice from behind.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Alicent’s voice is sharp, and you freeze mid-step.

Turning slowly, you face her, the tension building in the air. “I’m going to take a bath, Mother,” you answer calmly, offering her a small, composed smile.

Alicent looks you over, her gaze lingering on your attire. “In that? Why are you dressed like that? You know it’s improper to go without the servants’ help.” Her tone is questioning, but not unkind.

“I didn’t want to trouble them, Mother,” you reply smoothly. “I thought I would go on my own this time, just to... clear my thoughts.”

Alicent studies you for a moment, her expression unreadable. “Very well,” she says, her voice softening slightly. “But you must remember to call for help if you need it. Don’t forget your place, (your name).”

You nod quickly. “Of course, Mother. I won’t be long.”

She gives you one last scrutinising look before nodding, satisfied for the moment. “See that you don’t. You’ve done well today, but there’s always more to be done. I’ll be watching.”

With that, she turns and walks away, leaving you alone in the quiet of the corridor. You exhale slowly, the tension in your body relaxing. Without another word, you slip into the bath chambers, and then you hear a sound outside the window. It’s him.

You approach the window, heart racing, and peek through the gap in the curtains. Alaric stands there, his presence unmistakable even in the dim light. His gaze meets yours, and the weight of the promise you made to each other the night before hangs in the air. The excitement builds in you as you move away from the window, quickly securing the door.

Moments later, the door creaks open just enough to reveal Alaric slipping inside, his eyes scanning the room before settling on you. His gaze lingers on your nightgown, the soft fabric clinging to your form in the dim light. You feel his eyes on you, heat rising in your chest. Neither of you speaks immediately—words are unnecessary now. The anticipation crackles between you, and it’s clear that tonight will be different.

He steps closer, the air thick with tension, and the space between you is filled with a promise of more. You meet his gaze, your heart pounding with the realization of everything you’re about to risk. But you don't care, and you know that neither does he. Without a word, you begin to unlace the ties of your nightgown, letting it fall to the floor at your feet, leaving yourself exposed completely to him. He watches you, his gaze intense, and then, without hesitation, he closes the distance between you. His lips crash against yours in a kiss that’s both hungry and desperate, a mix of desire and an unspoken understanding of the consequences. The kiss deepens, pulling you both into the moment, where nothing else matters but the heat between you, a connection neither of you can deny.

“Wait, I don’t want to be impure, even if I love you too much, and I need you so much that even words can’t describe it,” you say, voice trembling with a mix of desire and guilt. “I don’t want to disappoint my family by being impure before the wedding.”

Alaric watches you, his eyes dark with an intensity that both comforts and unsettles you. Even though you know he’s hungry, his gaze softens with concern, a frown tugging at his features. “Then don’t do it,” he says, his voice low and steady, almost like a promise. “We can always do other things.”

His words are a balm to your anxious heart, yet there’s something deeper in his tone, an unspoken suggestion that he’s willing to go to great lengths to keep you safe, to protect you—his obsession so deeply rooted in his care for you, and yet, there's a hint of something darker behind his gaze.

You hesitate, your hands shaking slightly as you look away, unsure if his care for you is truly all it seems. "But what if... what if I'm not enough for you?"

Alaric steps closer, his presence overwhelming as he lifts your chin gently with one hand. "You are more than enough," he says, his voice softer now, almost a whisper. "And no matter what happens, I'll make sure you're never alone."

His lips brush your forehead in a tender gesture, but the warmth doesn't quite reach your heart. You can feel the weight of his gaze, the unspoken promise of his love—and perhaps something more—pressing on you.

"You don't need to worry," he adds, his words both comforting and possessive. "I'll take care of everything. You just need to trust me."

And before you can say anything, he runs his hand down your body, touching your tits, your belly, all the way down to your private parts. You feel his fingers on your clitoris, circling, you want to moan, but before you do, his other hand goes to your mouth. As his head moves down your neck, kissing and sucking, but not leaving any marks. You were feeling so good, you don't know what he is doing down there and then he move away his hand of your mouth, and grabs yours, and guide to his dick and star to make moves.

"Just let me make you feel good too, all right, my lady?" Alaric’s voice is soft yet commanding, a tone that leaves no room for doubt.

You nod silently, your mind hazy and overwhelmed. You don’t fully understand what you’re doing; all you know is that you feel so good, so utterly consumed by the moment, that everything else fades into the background.

You barely notice what he’s doing with your hand or how quickly he’s guiding it. His touch is deliberate, firm, yet somehow gentle enough to keep you entranced.

You don’t have any idea what’s happening; the world around you blurs into pleasure and nothingness. All you know is the sensation—the warmth spreading through you, the dizzying rush of emotions—and the way he looks at you, as if you’re the only thing that matters in his entire world.

Pt. 4 >> (Coming Soon)

Author’s note: My apologies for the delay, I’ve had a busy few months, but I’m here now, and I hope to release part 4 very soon. Tomorrow, I’ll be posting some headcanons that I hope you’ll enjoy.

Taglist: @ursinaw @dakota-rain666 @laura-naruto-fan1998 @pookiedragonfire @jjggdfvvy @maryldrsstuff @1soultaken @ceramic-raven @eissaaaa @moodyblueberrytree @xadaboo @labryel @zoeyburton @hopingtoclearmedschool

[lemonlover1110]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐑 𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑

Toji Fushiguro

Pairing: Toji Fushiguro x f!Reader

Summary: Toji Fushiguro is hired to kill a woman- An absurd amount of money for her head. But she's simply too beautiful for him to not have some fun first.

He forgets about his job until the tables are turned on him.

Warnings: MDNI, Smut, Vaginal Sex, Oral Sex (f. and m. receiving), Spitting, Vaginal Fingering, Creampie, Attempted Murder, Toji is a hit man, Mentions of murder and a gun and knife

Discord +18 - Twitter - Ko-Fi

Toji doesn’t question any of his jobs as long as the money he’s paid is good. That’s why he didn’t question why someone was willing to pay ten million yen for the head of a twenty-something year old woman. He doesn’t ask much details when he’s about to do a job, just the name and a picture of the person.

When Toji got your picture, he almost felt guilty for even looking at you without your permission. He had never seen someone so drop-dead gorgeous, and he felt tempted to decline the job, thinking that such pure blood couldn’t be on his hands. But he knew your looks have nothing to do with this. With the little information he got, he knew you were a sorcerer. He never got if you were part of a clan or not, or any actual reason for your death, but they wanted you gone.

Toji thinks with his dick a lot, but this wasn’t one of those instances. He felt bad, sure, but he wasn’t going to turn down that much money for a woman he had never met. So he made a plan, and now he sits at a bar, drinking water as he waits for you to step into the place. With some help he figured out what your weekly routine is. And on Fridays you decide to go out for a drink. So he patiently waits for you to enter the place. 

Time feels so slow as he glances at the door, waiting for you to step into the place. It’s still quite early, but he’s been at the same spot for half an hour, not attempting to make conversation with anyone else. A couple of women have come up to him, trying to initiate something, but Toji shrugged them off. He’s only looking for one person, and none of those women are nearly as stunning as you are.

“Waiting for someone?” The bartender asks, and Toji hums in response. He doesn’t share any details though. There’s no need. Toji keeps looking at the door, and his eyes light up when the door opens and you walk through. He’s a minute closer to getting the money he was promised.

His eyes follow your body as you immediately approach a table, walking over to your friends. You wear a little black dress that hugs your body extremely well, it almost makes the man forget why he’s there. You simply look stunning, even better than the picture he was shown, which he didn’t think was possible. But he remembers why he’s here.

He didn’t expect you to meet up with your friends, so he has to slightly change his plans. He tears his eyes off you when you look back, he hadn’t noticed your friends had been looking at him and had begun to point at him. Great, now he just looks like a creep, however, he doesn’t worry too much about it. There’s no need for formalities, really. He could just get you alone, kill you, and bring your body to the person that hired him. That’s what he does every single time but tonight he doesn’t want to do it like that. 

Someone so beautiful deserves a little bit more. It’s a horrible mindset, but Toji is a horrible person.

“Hey.” He hears, and he turns his head to look at you. You’re smiling at him, and he wonders what you’re going to say. You know he was staring at you, yet you don’t look like you’re about to call him out for it. Quite the opposite. “Is this seat taken?”

“No, go ahead.” His voice is stern as he speaks. You notice how he holds a glass of water, or perhaps it’s straight vodka. You’ll never know because you’ll never question it. He watches as you tell the bartender your drink of choice to start off the night. You look at the handsome man that’s next to you before confidently saying,

“My friends told me you were checking me out.” You tell him. Each year you get older and realize there’s no point in holding back. You don’t lose anything by telling him that you find him attractive. Worst he can do is reject you, “And I have to say, you’re very handsome.”

“Hmm… I am?” He raises a brow while he turns to look at you. He licks his lips, once again looking over you. He brings his glass up to his lips and takes a sip, which is when you figure out that it’s water since he had no reaction to the liquid. “What’s your name, darling?”

You tell him your first name, which further confirms he’s got the right woman. You bat your eyelashes at him, hoping he introduces himself without you having to ask. As your glass is placed in front of you, he says, “That’s a very beautiful name.” 

“What’s your name?” You end up asking when he doesn’t introduce himself. You bring your drink up to your lips and begin to sip while you wait for the man to say something. He takes a long time to speak a word. He’s debating if he should use his real name. It wouldn’t be smart for him to do so, but in the end it won’t matter. 

At the end of the night, you’ll be dead.

“Toji.” He answers. You smile at him as you think of what to say next. You really aren’t interested in a conversation, in fact, you only want one thing from him. Of course, you won’t immediately just ask him to leave the place to have sex, you’ll talk to him a bit more.

“I haven’t seen you around here before, Toji.” You say, and the way that his name rolls off your tongue has him hooked. He feels his face get warm, and he can only imagine his cheeks getting a pinkish color, so he turns his face away from you. The lighting of the place isn’t great, yet he’s scared that it’ll be noticeable in the low light. 

“You come here a lot?” He asks, and you end up humming in response. 

“Every Friday night. Just to unwind with friends after a long week.” You share. He didn’t know that detail. He doesn’t usually ask for details, mainly because that makes his victims too human. Toji will do anything for money and he doesn’t feel guilty. But having you tell him something as simple as that won’t make him feel his best about his job. “How about you? Why did you decide to come here?”

“I’m new to the area, and saw this place.” He shares. 

You two begin to converse and find out about each other. You tell him miniscule things about yourself, while he does the same. Majority of the things that he tells you don’t seem genuine though. It’s believable enough, but it just doesn’t seem honest. Yet you don’t care. 

You get lost in insignificant conversation so much so that you don’t feel two hours pass by. You’ve had a little too much to drink by then, and have gotten a bit too touchy with Toji. Your hands are on his arms, and you lightly slap it when he tells a joke that isn’t all that funny. He finds himself laughing as well.

“How about we…” You begin to whisper in his ear. Toji’s hands are on your waist, helping you maintain your balance as you stand. Instead of finishing your sentence, you begin to kiss Toji’s face. He’s forgetting about his task. Your lips finally press against his, and he allows himself to get lost in the soft skin. A complete stranger is kissing him, and his palms are getting unreasonably sweaty. Toji has had one night stands before– Too many to count, but he’s never felt like this while kissing them. Maybe it’s because he knows that after this, it’ll all be over.

He shouldn’t even be thinking about sleeping with you, but when you say, “Let’s go back to my apartment” when you pull away from his lips, his mind is hazy and he hums in response. Maybe it’s your cursed technique or something similar that has such an effect on him. But he has to remember what he was hired to do. He won’t let some momentarily feeling get in the way of his prize. 

After closing your tab, the two of you begin to walk to your apartment. Your place is not too far away, it’s a five minute walk from the bar. Which he already knew. You happily talk to him, and from your speech he can tell that you’re sobering up, but you’re not planning to stay sober for too long. 

You get to your place, and he walks in, unsure of where to go next. You walk past him and go to the kitchen to grab two glasses of wine and open a bottle. You don’t care to ask if he actually drinks. You’ll just pour two glasses, talk a bit more, and then have sex. At least that’s what you think will happen.

“Please, take a seat.” You tell him, and he awkwardly looks around before going to the couch and taking a seat. His eyes inspect the place, noticing how it’s a bit disorganized. Next to him is a pretty white dress that most likely was going to be your choice for the night. He notices how sheer it is and how small it looks, which makes him glad you chose the black dress. Had you worn that dress, he would’ve died on the spot. You walk up to him with two glasses filled to the brim, “Sorry for the mess. I wasn’t expecting any guests.”

“It’s fine.” He responds, taking the glass from your hands. You take a seat right on his lap, after all, the plans you have with him involve more than just sitting on his lap. There’s no point in holding back. He feels his face get warm, and he distracts himself by looking at the glass of wine. “Man, you’re really trying to get me drunk.”

“I did overdo it a bit.” You tell him, taking a sip from your glass. He puts his glass down on the end table, his hands focusing on roaming through your body. “Not much of a drinker, now?” 

“Alcohol isn’t really my thing.” He comments, his fingertips feathering over your thighs before they go up to the hem of your dress. His fingers begin to trace lazy circles on your skin, completely forgetting what he’s here to do. You end up putting your glass on the coffee table, focusing completely on him. 

“Hmm, so what’s your thing?” You say, lightly biting down your bottom lip. 

“Pretty girls like you.” He responds, his lips placing a kiss on your jaw before his teeth begin to nibble on your earlobe. You smirk, your hands feeling the well built body that hides behind a thin black shirt. You get off his lap and get on your knees on the hardwood floor. God, he’d curse himself for being so dumb. He has a gun in his pants, and a pocketknife in his pocket. Yet he isn’t thinking about that when you’re undoing his belt and pulling down his pants. 

Your eyes glance at the gun, but you don’t say anything about it, instead you smirk knowing that he hasn’t noticed the fact that you know. Your hand wraps around his cock and you slowly begin to pump his length. “I hope I’m special.”

“Oh, you are.” He answers before your tongue begins to swirl around the tip of his cock. He watches as you do so, biting his bottom lip. Your hand keeps stroking his dick while your tongue keeps licking the tip of his cock, until you finally wrap your mouth around his dick.

It’s too much for you to take it all, so you take as much as you can in your mouth, your hands moving the parts that you can’t fit inside. You bob your head slowly, your eyes looking up at Toji who is clearly enjoying this. His cheeks are pink while he bites down on his lip. It makes you wonder if he’s touch-deprived or if you’re just really good at this. 

“Oh, fuck–” He ends up throwing his head back after awkwardly holding eye-contact with you for a couple of seconds. He’ll admit that you look better than ever while your mouth is wrapped around his cock, but looking at each other while he gets head is just awkward. Especially when he has very specific plans to kill you, and he won’t back down. Obviously, his plans have been pushed back. He’ll get his dick wet and then do it. As horrifying as it sounds.

You take your mouth off his cock, your tongue running down his shaft and going to his balls. Your mouth begins to suck on his balls while your hand pumps his cock. His eyes are rolling to the back of his head while you work your magic. Fuck, this isn’t even supposed to be happening. But it is and he’s so close to coming.

Your tongue licks up to his tip, and your mouth wraps around his cock again. Your eyes once again focus on his face, although it’s thrown back as he grunts. “S’ good. Love your mouth.”

His cock twitches and he releases in your mouth. So much cum fills up your mouth, and some of it dribbles down to your chin. You take your mouth off his cock and he finally looks at you. He brings his thumb down to your chin and picks up his cum, then brings it to your lips. He swipes his thumb on your tongue. His hand then goes under your chin and he turns your head. “You’re so beautiful.”

You get off the floor and grab his hand. You pull him up from the couch and begin to guide him to your bedroom. Your bedroom is even more disorganized than the living room, but he doesn’t notice because all that’s going through his mind is the fact he’s about to fuck you, and it feels like a dream. 

Your hands go to your side and you pull down your zipper, beginning to take off your dress. He watches, his eyes lighting up as he sees that you’re only wearing panties. His hand goes to your back and he pulls you closer to him. His lips meet yours for a brief second before his lips go down, from your neck to your breasts. His lips wrap around your nipple and he sucks, while his hand plays with the other.

He detaches his mouth from your nipple and kisses his way to your other nipple before his lips wrap around your other nipple. You softly moan while he does so. When he unlatches, he picks you up and puts you down on the bed. He spreads your legs apart and pushes your panties to the side before he gets on his knees.

His tongue runs through your cunt before it focuses on flicking your clit. You softly moan while his fingers go up to your mouth. He shoves his fingers in your mouth, getting them wet with your saliva before he brings them down and runs them through your folds. He pushes his middle and ring finger inside of you and you loudly moan.

“Oh, Toji-” You shut your eyes as he curves his fingers just right. The pad of his fingers brush against your sweet spot repeatedly. His tongue works just right, and you bite down your bottom lip so you’re not so loud. The walls are thin, and the last thing you want is for the neighbors to hear this. “You’re doing such a good job.”

And his ears are happy with what you say and with the moans that leave your lips. Oh and his tongue is also happy because you taste so fucking good. He’s definitely happy he’s getting to do this. At this point he’s completely forgotten what he came here to do. 

“Fuck– It’s so good!” You arch your back, feeling as your orgasm begins to build up. Your thighs begin to squeeze his head, and your mind begins to get cloudy. You definitely don’t regret bringing him over. 

Toji’s mouth begins to suck on your clit as your orgasm gets closer and closer. It’s so fucking good for the both of you. You get louder and louder with every passing second, until your legs spasm, reaching your orgasm. You moan his name really loud, and it’s the sweetest melody that he’s ever come across.

He takes his fingers out and detaches himself from your clit, standing up. He begins to get undressed, taking off his shirt before his pants follow. He makes sure that weapons are hidden by clothes before he completely focuses on you. You truly look like a goddess as you lay down on the bed, and he’s mesmerized. He’s never seen someone so beautiful before.

“You’re so beautiful.” He comments stroking his cock before he runs the tip through your folds. His other hand goes to your lower back and he lifts your upper body. His lips meet yours, his tongue going inside your mouth and pressing against yours. He slowly pushes his cock inside of you, and you moan into his mouth.

His cock definitely feels bigger than it looks, and it feels so good. You pull away from the kiss, and he brings his lips together, gathering up saliva before he spits in your mouth. It’s so fucking nasty but you love it, swallowing it. “Oh you’re such a nasty bitch.”

“I am.” You answer. One arm is wrapped around his shoulders, while the other goes down, your hand playing with your clit. “Your dick’s so good.”

“Oh? Is it?” He questions. He picks up speed with every thrust, getting lost in your cunt. His lips meet yours again in a sloppy kiss, muffling any sounds from the both of you. This feels so fucking good, by this point he’s forgotten about the ten million yen prize. He doesn’t want to leave you after this. “You’ve got such a sweet little pussy.”

Your eyes are rolling to the back of your head as you feel another orgasm approach. He just hits every spot and it makes your body feel so good. Every movement is enough to send you over the edge, and he’s relentless. You pull away from the kiss to moan, “Oh fuck! Toji!”

You reach your climax, your pussy feeling incredible around him. So tight and warm. He rapidly keeps thrusting in and out of you, chasing his release. He’s moaning your name, coming so close to finishing. 

His thrusts get sloppy until he finally comes to a stop, filling you up with his cum. He shouldn’t have done that, but he doesn’t care. And neither do you. He pulls out and lays down beside you on the bed. Now would be the perfect time to grab a weapon and do the job.

But he isn’t thinking of that. He catches his breath and turns his face to look at you, admiring your beauty, “You’re so beautiful.”

“Thank you.” You answer, smiling at him. He’s decided that he’ll push his plan to tomorrow morning.

The next morning Toji wakes up next to you and his mind is all over the place. He doesn’t exactly remember much. Maybe that you had sex a couple more times until you both passed out— That and that he pushed back his plan of killing you. 

He’s been stalling his plan simply because you’ve captivated him, and he can’t afford that. Not with the amount of money that’s on the line. You seem to be sleeping peacefully next to him, which would allow him to grab a pillow and just do the job. But he doesn’t. 

He gets off the bed, grabs his clothes and begins to look for the bathroom. Once he finds it, he uses the toilet. Once he’s done he looks over himself in the mirror. When did he become so pathetic for a woman? Last time that happened was too long ago. It’s just extremely disappointing that he pushed his plans back because he found the woman too beautiful. But for some reason so much weight has been lifted from him.

He notices the mouthwash on the sink and opens the bottle, pouring some on the cap and then bringing it up to his lips. While he rinses, there’s a knock on the door. “Uh… Give me a sec!”

But the door opens. His eyebrows furrow and he turns to look at you. You’re just wearing your panties, your hands behind your back as you sweetly smile, “Good morning, Toji!”

“Good morning.” He’s rather cold this morning. You take small steps to get closer to him.

“How’d you sleep?” You question.

“I’m still tired.” He confesses and you chuckle.

“You wouldn’t be so tired if you had drank the wine.” You tell him, and he finds himself confused.

“Does wine help you sleep or something?” He questions. When you’re close enough, your hands come to the front, but you’re not empty handed. Toji feels the barrel press against his abdomen, and that’s the weight he felt that had been lifted. He puts his hands up in the air.

“The great Toji Zenin was after me, I feel honored.” You begin, and Toji is bewildered. “The sorcerer killer… I want to know who hired you, but I also want to keep it a surprise.”

“You knew?” He asks the obvious, causing you to laugh.

“Of course I knew. I was surprised you didn’t do it faster though. But I’m glad. You were a good fuck.” You tell him, and he slowly blinks. Reality slowly settles. He has a gun pressed against his abdomen— His gun. He’ll most likely die, but he can’t begin to plead for his life because he can’t seem to find the will to live. There’s no point. He’s been outsmarted. “I’m glad you didn’t drink the wine either.”

“Not only beautiful, but also smart.” He’s actually blushing, and he can’t seem to care enough to try and turn his face to hide it from you.

“Any last words?” 

“I think I’ve fallen in love.”

[puck-luck]

new beginnings | july 29 - august 4

note to the masses: this is a big week for honeytrev. don't let the fact that it's the shortest chapter yet (19.4k) fool you. enjoy ;) always looking forward to hearing y'all's feedback

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64:90 – HONEY

If Trevor has noticed that Honey is weirdly silent today, he hasn’t mentioned it. Part of that is probably based on the fact that they’ve been hanging out with the group all day, so Trevor is doing the thing that she asked him to do a couple of weeks ago– leave her alone and not make it so obvious that they’re together.

Honey’s staring is obvious. She’s been elbowed by Bea twice, with a hiss from the girl to “stop looking at him so much!” Honey has also been poked by Quinn, who will pointedly look from her to Trevor, then back to her, and shake his head. 

She can’t help it. There’s a lot on her mind and Honey feels a little bit like she’s losing control of herself. She’s become completely aware of herself in the wake of what happened yesterday, but she’s not… freaking out. Yet.

Honey hasn’t told Bea what happened. She knows she should, but she can’t say it out loud. How embarrassing is it to say that after she’d gotten thoroughly fucked, and Trevor had tucked her head into the crook of his neck, she’d caught a whiff of the sweat on his skin and kissed it, all before clocking the way she’d thought God, this is so great. He’s so great. I love…?

‘I love’ is as far as she’d gotten because she’d cut herself off, realizing how that sentence was about to end. 

That is too far. Here’s why: (1) Honey doesn’t even like Trevor like that. (2) She’s only known Trevor for two months. (3) Trevor is leaving at the end of the summer. (4) Trevor has no plans to come back, which means that barring some psycho coincidence, Honey will never see him again after August 25th. She does not think that about Trevor. She will not think that about Trevor.

Now, they’ve ventured out on their own. It’s a Monday, so Trevor and Honey are at the fruit stand, like always. She’s resolutely trying to ignore her thoughts and her feelings– actually, she’s trying to push them away… and failing.

Honey has one slight problem when it comes to Trevor, other than the one that she’s been lamenting for the past twenty-nine hours. The problem right now is that Trevor is very pretty. 

It starts with his hair. Honey has been looking at it a lot more since those interviewers asked Trevor about his routine and how he gets his hair the way that it is. He’s lucky. All he does is run his fingers through the hair, almost compulsively, and it falls perfectly. Honey has to tame her hair, but Trevor has it easy. She hopes that their kids get his hair.

That. What is that? Honey demands of herself, wishing she could reach up and slap herself across the face. Unfortunately, Trevor would have a problem with that. He would be very confused and Honey would not be able to explain herself. She doesn’t even want to try. They aren’t even dating– do you know how crazy she’d look if she started spouting shit like “I love you” and “I hope our babies get your hair?” She wrenches her eyes from Trevor’s profile and focuses on the pile of melons in front of her.

Their fruit stand shopping today is like Bea’s favorite term for when she and Honey hang out and do nothing together– ‘parallel play.’ Honey is silent, looking at the fruit in front of her. Trevor is silent, looking at the fruit in front of him.

It’s difficult to keep her eyes from his profile for long. Honey sneaks a glance and catches a glimpse of the ridge on Trevor’s nose. It’s such a straight and strong nose, very Greek, except for the curve at the top. That’s got some Romanness to it. Honey loves that nose. The few times that they’ve actually slept over together, Honey will wake when Trevor twitches in his sleep and she takes the time to admire his profile then, too. Ugh, now that she thinks about it, it’s that kind of indulgence that got her here.

Sweet, perfect Trevor. Patient, caring Trevor. He has no idea what’s going through Honey’s head. He has no clue that she’s over here thinking about how much she likes him, and then reminding herself that she can’t like him. 

Honey is starting to come around to Bea’s thinking, now that she’s feeling… what she assumes Bea is feeling, too, even though she hasn’t said it back to Quinn yet. She doesn’t fight it when he says it– Honey absolutely would fight it if Trevor said ‘I love you.’ 

Like, there’s no way, right? They’ve known each other for two months. Two months. Sixty days. No one should be allowed to love anyone, here. It was absurd when Quinn said it and it’s still absurd when Honey thinks it. 

But then, she looks at Trevor again, and her mind quiets. She likes to look at him, she likes to be with him, he smells nice, he’s kind when he speaks, and he’s good in bed. What more could she ask for?

Thomas used to be like that, too. 

At the thought, Honey stalls. She feels a bit sick to her stomach. It’s true– Thomas used to be just as amazing as Trevor is. She thought about their babies, once upon a time. Wanting to tear herself away from the thought of Thomas, before it ruins her day even further, Honey turns back to Trevor. She’s about to reach for his hand, but they’re full.

He holds two baskets in his hands, pursing his lips and alternating the baskets like he’s weighing them. Honey doesn't even know what is in the baskets– his fingers are covering the contents. She’s staring at the shadows that his eyelashes cast on his face.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Trevor says. He looks up and turns to her, soft smile on his face when they make eye contact. “What do you think, Hon?”

I like the way you say my name, Honey thinks. She blinks, feeling her face flush. She absolutely cannot look at Trevor’s eyes anymore– he’ll recognize the look on her face and think something about it, and then he’ll say something about it, and then she’ll have to explain herself, and there are no words to describe what’s going on in her mind.

She finally looks at the baskets in his hands. Raspberries or blueberries. “I don’t know,” she supplies uselessly. “They’re both good.”

Trevor shifts them in his hands so he’s holding both between his fingers. “Okay. Both it is.” He digs his wallet out of his pocket and hands it off to Honey. “Can you get my card out?”

Honey swallows hard, feeling discomfort crawl up the back of her throat. He’s so comfortable with her. He just hands his stuff over like it’s nothing, like they share everything with each other. “Yeah, sure.” She plucks the wallet from his fingers and flicks through the pockets.

“Do you want me to get you some peaches?” Trevor offers, sliding the baskets of berries into her mesh bag, which he's been carrying over his shoulder ever since they got out of the car.

A possessive feeling washes over Honey. That’s her bag that he’s carrying. She wants to remind him that she doesn’t need his help– the other half of her, the part hidden deep in her chest, wants to leave everything as is. Everything is going so great with Trevor. But, for some fucking reason, Honey just can’t give into the desire at the pit of her heart.

“No, I'm okay,” she says.

That catches Trevor’s attention. He catches her eye. “You love peaches. You were telling me last night that you'd run out.”

Honey feels slightly trapped. She did say that. Shit. “I mean, we can look at the peaches,” she mumbles, ducking her head.

Trevor furrows his eyebrows, although Honey is too busy staring at the cracks in the sidewalk and misses it. “Honey, are you okay?” He asks.

Honey sighs and rolls her eyes. “I'm fine. Let’s just look at the peaches.” She shoulders past Trevor and picks up one of the better looking fruits. 

Trevor’s fingers prod at hers like he wants to hold her hand. “Baby,” he says. “What's wrong?”

Honey snatches her hand back and snaps, “Don’t call me that.”

The look on Trevor’s face stings a lot more than Honey wants to admit. He physically recoils, like she’s slapped him, and the deepest pits of Honey’s chest are screaming at her to take it back. She wants to. She wishes she could rewind five seconds and let him take her hand, to avoid the look on his face if nothing else, but Honey can never seem to avoid sabotaging herself.

Honey can’t believe she loves Trevor. It’s not that he’s not lovable– evidently, she feels as though he’s very lovable. It’s just that... isn’t she past this? She went into this summer so certain that she’s not looking for what Trevor is giving her, and now she’s fallen headfirst for it. This is against every plan she had for herself over the past five years. The plan was to avoid feeling the way Thomas made her feel, and now Trevor has Honey’s heart in the palms of his hands, and everything is out of Honey’s control. She can’t even control her own feelings.

She’s blindsided. It crept up on her and now she’s reeling from the fact that she loves Trevor, without making a conscious decision to love him at all.

God, you get fucked on the pool table one time, and your whole life changes. What is in the water at that damn rental house?

Honey wants to scream in frustration. She wants to throw this peach at Trevor’s head because it’s his fault that she feels like this. He had to be fucking perfect. She wants to start bawling and wrap her arms around his neck and hide and be comforted by the way he smells. There are a hundred different things she’s feeling, none of which she wants to be feeling, and her brain is short-circuiting.

Trevor rubs over the back of his neck, his eyes meeting Honey’s sporadically and never for more than a second. He’s taken a step back from her and Honey thinks that he looks a little… afraid. “Did I do something?” He asks. He clears his throat, then clarifies, “To upset you?”

Honey’s brain goes with the third option. She wells up and rubs the heels of her hands over her eyes, having long since dropped the peach back in the pile. “No,” she admits miserably. “I’m being stupid. I just– everything seems like a lot right now. Too much.”

“You’re not being stupid. What’s too much?” Trevor asks. “Other than everything. If you could narrow it down.”

“This,” Honey tells him tearfully, gesturing between them. “It’s a lot.”

His lips press together in a thin line before he speaks. “Good or bad?” Trevor pushes, closing the space between himself and Honey. 

She wants to grab his shirt and tug him even closer, but her arms only rise to cross over her stomach in a tense hug. She shrugs, her chin wobbling a bit. “Both,” Honey whispers. Her eyes burn and she sniffs, looking towards the brick wall of the grocery store.

Trevor nods, calculating his next move. She can see the wheels turning in his head. “Why don’t we go home?”

Home, Honey repeats in her head. How can he call her place home? How can she love him?

Trevor talks on. “We can sit in silence and I’ll just cuddle you a bit, if that’ll help.”

Honey’s lower lip juts out. Sitting in silence and cuddling is what got her into this mess. “I don’t know,” she replies, voice cracking embarrassingly. It registers that Joan is not-so secretly watching this whole event unfold. Honey swipes her thumbs beneath her eyes and covers her mouth with one of her hands.

“Sweetheart,” Trevor tries, but he shuts his mouth abruptly when an indignant whine leaves Honey. That’s no better than ‘baby,’ even though her stomach usually flutters when he uses both terms. Trevor takes a deep breath and shifts her bag to his other shoulder, reaching for the car keys. He holds them out to her wordlessly, so Honey takes them.

She starts the car while she waits for him to pay for her fruit. A sinking feeling creeps over her when it computes that he’s paying for her, again. He’s taking care of her. Again.

It’s another minute after Trevor returns to the car before he speaks. “Can I just sit with you?” Trevor asks. “I just– I want to be there if you need me.”

Honey hides her face in her hands. She doesn’t know how to respond. 

Yes, of course, please sit with me, I do need you there. No, I don’t want you to see me like this. You deserve someone who doesn’t have to fight an internal battle just to love you. 

The thoughts joust in her head. “I don’t want to decide.” She sounds pitiful. “I don’t want anything. But I don’t not want anything. I don’t know.”

“Let’s just drive around for a bit,” Trevor suggests. “We’ll go down the parkway. You don’t have to decide yet. We can ignore everything for a minute. Is that... better?”

Honey shrugs. She really feels helpless and unsure. Not even ignorance is an appealing feeling. This has been eating at her since yesterday and it’s just about consumed her entirely. “I guess?” She asks.

Trevor holds eye contact with her and quirks his lips in a dissatisfied, but well-meaning smile. He looks sympathetic. “Let’s just get you home. I think you might feel better if you’re in your bed.” He starts the car and drives out of town, toward her house. 

The drive is silent. When they get to Honey’s house, she heads upstairs and he puts her fruit haul away. Trevor has started to learn what her system is, after doing this a couple of times, and it’s another thing that reminds Honey how much she likes him.

She goes upstairs and burrows in her bed, already feeling comforted by the warmth of the covers and the soft pillows around her. 

Trevor climbs the stairs to her room and peeks his head in the door, laughing fondly at the sight of Honey. She pouts at him, then Trevor walks across the floor and leans down to kiss Honey’s forehead. “I’m going to go,” Trevor tells her, speaking under his breath. He presses another kiss above her eyebrow. “It doesn’t seem like it’s helping… to have me nearby. I think I’m making you more anxious. Can you promise me something? Before I go?”

Honey nods.

“You’ll call me.” Trevor smooths Honey’s hair behind her ear. His eyes are a clear and earnest green, shining with admiration.  “If you need anything, promise you’ll call me?”

Honey nods a second time, trying to lift the corners of her mouth in a convincing way. 

“Whatever you want,” Trevor continues, bumping the tip of his nose against Honey’s cheekbone like a gentle, tender headbutt. “Even if it’s not me. If you need Bea, then you give me a call and I’ll drag her out of Quinn’s bed for you. I’ll drop her off on your doorstep, wearing nothing but his bedsheet. Does that sound okay with you?”

Honey tries and fails to hold back a laugh, imagining how annoyed Bea would feel and how silly she’d look. All in all, it would make a hilarious scene in a movie. Honey might just take Trevor up on that. Still giggling a bit, she nods a third time– it’s a much more confident movement this time.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” Trevor asks with a tiny smile on his face, proud of himself for drawing a laugh from Honey. He cups Honey’s cheek and meets her lips in a chaste kiss.

His final kiss feels a lot like ‘I love you.’

Honey wishes she hadn’t thought that. Now she can’t even promise to see him tomorrow. She pulls the covers over her head and listens to Trevor chuckle before he descends from the loft and leaves her alone.

65:90 – TREVOR

Trevor barely slept last night. He was tossing and turning, checking his phone every few minutes in case Honey needed him. He wanted to burn the world down when she’d gone quiet and hugged herself. She had looked so small and insecure and Trevor never wants to see her like that again. He wants to take all of her problems and bury them deep in the dirt, where no one will ever find them.

But there was nothing that he could do. So he left.

He didn’t want to. For a minute, Trevor had stood at the bottom of the loft stairs and thought about staying. He could’ve sat on her couch silently until she appeared, venturing out for dinner or something, and then they could’ve talked about it. 

After taking pause, Trevor had shaken his head and moved along. Honey probably would not have liked to walk down the stairs and be surprised by Trevor, who she had told to leave a few hours earlier. So, he left the house and drove down the parkway for a little while on his own, trying to decipher what very little Honey had said.

Trevor doesn’t feel any better about it, even after running through every possible scenario in his mind. He’s not quite sure what upset her, or what caused the regression and confusion, but it seems like going away from her was the best option. She’s not upset anymore.

On the other hand, she’s not exactly talking to him. It’s not an intentional ‘I’m-ignoring-you-and-I-hate-you’ silence, but Trevor feels disjointed nonetheless. He’s adhering to her ‘Let’s-not-make-this-obvious’ rule although he’d like nothing more than to throw his arm over her shoulder and walk alongside her under the fluorescent, jarring white lights of this Target in Winston-Salem. 

That’s how Bea and Quinn are standing. His arm is over her shoulder and her elbow is bent so that she can hold his hand, even though the angle is awkward for her. They didn’t even amend their position when a fan came up to Jack and asked for a picture with him, which he declined, but it did stroke his ego a bit. That’s good, because now he’s in a good mood. Trevor was surprised that Bea and Quinn didn’t inch apart when the boys were recognized– Honey certainly would have sprung away from him. 

He understands, though. Honey’s whole life was derailed by some photos and some gossip. It’s not like he can offer her the most private existence, but he thinks he can keep her mostly away from prying eyes if that’s what she wants. She doesn’t have to jump away from him. 

Surely they won’t hide their relationship forever, right? Eventually, Trevor will be allowed to flaunt her and show Honey off like she deserves. 

It’ll be really awkward if Trevor is the only one doing the first dance at their wedding reception because she doesn’t want to be seen by the public. There are very few things that Trevor won’t budge on, but a big party after the wedding with all of their friends is one of those things. 

“Litchton should have a Target,” Bea says, running her hands over a rack of dresses. “I miss the vibe in stores like this.”

Inviting the boys to Target had been Bea’s idea, according to Quinn. It’s not that Honey didn’t want them to come, but Trevor knows that this is a thing that she and Bea do together. They’ve gone to Target together on this day every year since leaving Charlotte because it’s the anniversary of when they finished apartment shopping. They’re very sentimental over things like this– the girls have all these little traditions that they allow the boys to experience. It’s nice. Trevor enjoys being around them.

He wishes he could be closer to Honey, though. She’s looking through the racks of clothes and she’s got a little crease between her eyebrows.

“Wouldn’t be Litchton if there was a Target,” Honey replies, eyes flickering up to look at Bea in the mirror. “You don’t like the Food Lion?”

“You know the Food Lion has a different vibe than this,” Bea laughs.

Honey scoffs out a laugh and begins to rifle through the hangers again. She shakes her head as she laughs, then the frown returns to her face as she evaluates the clothes. 

It would be so nice to stand behind her and wrap his arms around her middle. Trevor doesn’t care about the clothes. He just wants to hug his pretty girlfriend and get rid of that line between her brows.

Trevor pulls his phone out of his pocket and composes a message. 

You want a coffee? He texts Honey. I can go grab one for you.

She doesn’t check her phone right away. It’s a few minutes until she does, after Bea and Quinn went to go look at makeup and Jack and Luke went to look at the beer. Cole is looking through a stack of t-shirts and Honey finishes up with the rack of clothes she was on. Trevor is standing next to Cole, at a safe distance away from Honey, but he’s watching her.

The corners of her mouth twitch upward when she reads the text. 

No, but you’re sweet.

Trevor is quick to reply, hoping to catch her before she slides the phone back into her pocket. 

Taste sweet too. Will I see you later? ;)

The wink is to make her laugh. It works, but only barely– instead of laughing the way that she probably wants to at Trevor’s comedic props, she side-eyes him and types a very short reply:

LOL.

Then, she puts her phone away and disappears around the back of the aisle.

Trevor turns to Cole.

He holds up a pink t-shirt with a unicorn and a rainbow on the front. “Do you think this would look good on me?” Cole asks.

“Yeah. I’ve always said that you seem like the kind of guy to wear a crop top,” Trevor says. “The pink with the unicorns and the rainbows would really work for you.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll get a matching one for Honey,” Cole says with a nod to himself. “Do you know what size she is?”

Trevor blinks in surprise, then has to school his reaction. Cole asked his question so nonchalantly that he was probably just wondering aloud. 

“I don’t know. Maybe just get her a medium to be safe. Take a receipt when you buy it so that she can return it if she hates it. You know she’ll probably hate it,” Trevor tells him.

“Yeah, I know. But she’ll like it ‘cause it’s our thing, like how Bea and I watch the same dating show because it’s good and funny. Honey and I will have the same shirt.”

“What if she returns it?”

“Meh, she won’t,” Cole replies with a shrug. “She actually likes us a lot more than she says. I don’t think it was Bea’s idea to invite us to come to Target.”

Trevor furrows his brow. “You don’t?”

Cole shakes his head. “Quinn and Bea take credit for a lot of things, but I saw the texts on Quinn’s phone. Honey said, like, ‘If you guys want to come you can’ and that was it. I’m glad, too. It’s been a while since I was in a Target like this. I feel like we’re back at NTDP shootin’ the shit and being annoying kids.”

“Yeah, we’re like a real friend group,” Trevor laughs, speaking somewhat sarcastically. Of course they’re a real friend group. They’re together for the entire summer. “Imagine that.”

Cole shrugs again. “I just think it’s nice. I miss Michigan and being home for the summer, but this is really nice. I think we should come back next year.”

“I don’t know if Jack will let us kidnap him again,” Trevor says. 

“He won’t have a choice. Quinn will want to see Bea again and I think all of us will want to see both of the girls. If Jack doesn’t come, though, maybe the girls can come to Michigan.” Cole balls the shirt, and Honey’s matching one, up in his fist. “Let’s go find the dudes.”

As they continue shopping, Trevor mulls this over in his mind: he’s not the only one who wants to come back to Litchton and continue to hang out with these girls. Cole and the other boys, Quinn by name, have been thinking about it too. Trevor might just call a rental house family meeting and broach the subject.

66:90 – HONEY

“Let’s go outside,” Trevor proposes. He pinches Honey’s bare sides with his spindly fingers and kisses over the curve of her breast. “We can go look at the stars.”

“Trevor, dear, you’re the one laying on top of me,” Honey points out, teasing him with the pet name and tweaking his nose between her knuckles. “I couldn’t get up if I tried.”

“Well, you’re also under the covers, so I’m not the only thing keeping you here.” Trevor catches one nipple between his teeth and bites, then switches to the other and repeats the same action, then rolls to Honey’s side and reaches for the t-shirt that he’d dropped off the side of the bed before he and Honey had made good use of their nakedness. He pulls the t-shirt over her head and squeezes her hips before he throws the covers off of both of them and goes to find his own clothes.

Honey tucks the covers underneath her armpits. “I feel like I’m in a movie,” Honey says. “I’m one of those one night stands who wears your sheets like a strapless dress.”

“You’re not quite a one night stand,” Trevor replies with a laugh. He pulls a shirt over his head and ruffles his hair once it springs free. “But if it makes you happy, then you can keep pretending, baby.”

Honey doesn’t correct him this time– she probably never will again. After a day or so of freaking out over the whole “I love you” thought, Honey decided that it was a nonissue. So long as she never admits it or allows herself to think that again, everything will be fine. Therefore, Trevor is still allowed to call Honey ‘baby’ and ‘sweetheart.’ 

Honey swings her legs over the edge of the bed and leaves her hookup-bedsheet-dress on Trevor’s mattress. His t-shirt falls over her hips, but she still needs shorts. She reaches past Trevor and digs through his underwear drawer to find a pair of cute boxers, which she’ll steal for a while.

Trevor sidles up behind her and wraps his arms around her middle. “You don’t really think you’re a one night stand for me, do you?”

He kisses her cheek right as she shakes her head and says, “No, Trev. You know I don’t think that.”

“I don’t know much of what you think at all,” Trevor says, pouting slightly. “I know we’re hooking up. I know that I think you’re my girlfriend. I don’t know where you stand, Hon.”

Honey rolls her head back onto Trevor’s shoulder. “Do we have to talk about it now?” 

“I just want some confirmation that you like me,” Trevor teases. He kisses down Honey’s neck and blows cool air over her clavicle. “Since every time I show you affection, you laugh at me.”

“Trevor,” Honey complains. “That’s just not true.”

“Okay, fine, last time when I said you liked me, you kissed me. But I want to hear you say it,” Trevor whines. He squeezes Honey a little tighter. “Tell me!”

Honey giggles and wiggles away from Trevor. “Absolutely not.” She sneaks to the door and listens to the hallway, waiting for any noise from the boys. She’d gotten into Trevor’s room without any trouble, but getting out is another story. 

“Anyone out there?” Trevor asks. 

“I don’t think so, but you’ll have to go first.” Honey puts her hand out, which Trevor takes. He kisses the back of her hand when he nears the door, then swoops in to take Honey’s lips. 

“Meet you in the car?”

“Yeah, give me three minutes.” Honey puckers her lips and pecks Trevor’s mouth. “Then I’ll join you.”

“And you’ll tell me that you like me?” Trevor asks. “While I chauffeur you around and find a pretty place to look at the stars?”

“In your dreams,” Honey says. 

“We do a lot more than talk about how much we like each other in my dreams,” Trevor replies. “Unfortunately you and I already did the other stuff in real life, so I’m just waiting on those three words.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Honey tells him. If only he knew just what she was thinking– Trevor would be over the moon. She likes him so much that she dared to discover that she loves Trevor, in this bizarre turn of events. Maybe Trevor’s asking Honey if she likes him because he, somehow, has figured out that she’s in love with him. Ughhhhhh.

Trevor slips from the bedroom first, giving himself a head start. Honey primps her hair in the mirror above his dresser while she waits her three minutes, which gives Trevor enough time to start the car and get the AC running before she joins him.

They escape from the house without running into the guys, although Honey can hear them talking in the distance. They probably look out the window once Trevor starts driving down the road that leads up to the house, but Honey shields her face from the window so they can’t see her even if they tried to be big snoops. 

Cole especially has a problem with snooping– he texted Honey from Quinn’s phone yesterday. She’s not sure if he read all of their messages, but she’d glad that they hadn’t been chatting about Honey and Trevor’s relationship that day. It would have been very weird for Cole to read messages about Honey and Trevor being together and all mushy when they regularly refer to themselves as 'Zegras Haters.'

It takes them all of ten minutes to drive to the reservoir where they spend their lake days. Trevor parks in the same lot where they always park, but instead of going down towards the boat piers, Trevor slings his arm over Honey’s shoulders and walks toward the swimming piers. 

It’s dark out and night has fully fallen, so the piers have been closed for ages. There’s no one around. 

“How romantic is this?” Trevor bumps Honey’s hip with his own. “This date is so much better than dinner.”

“This is a date?” Honey asks. “But we already fucked. Why am I buying the cow when I already got the milk for free?”

“Because you’re a wonderful farmer who enjoys animal life,” Trevor says. He drags Honey down when he sits, his feet dangling over the edge of the pier. “I think you’re a very benevolent owner. I am never afraid of you sacrificing me to make burger patties on a whim.”

“You’d make a very tasty burger,” Honey assures Trevor, patting his cheek kindly and settling down against his side. Her feet dangle over the water as well.

Trevor leans over to kiss her and Honey redirects him, clasping his hand with both of hers and looking out onto the water.

“It’s nice out here,” Honey says. “It’s still. The water is.”

Trevor lets out a half-chuckle, smiling with a dipped head. “It is nice out here.” He leans against Honey, pressing his thigh against hers. “But I think it’s the company that makes it nice, not the weather. If it started raining right now, I’d still want to be here with you.”

Honey awws internally. He’s a sweet boy– so sweet that it rots her gut and makes her heart thump. He’s got a rocky exterior, although Honey managed to penetrate that within seconds, even despite her better efforts to keep Trevor at an arm’s length. He’s so good to her.

“I have to tell you something,” Honey says suddenly. 

“Oh, yeah?” Trevor asks, quirking his eyebrows. “Sharing a big secret with me?”

“Mm, huge,” Honey says. She grins at Trevor and pinches his chin between her thumb and index finger. “Come closer, I can’t say it out loud.”

Trevor’s smile widens. He shuffles closer, leaning in so he’s about two millimeters from Honey’s lips. “What’s up, baby?” Trevor whispers. “What’s the big secret?”

“I…” Honey trails off, touching Trevor’s waist. 

“You…?” Trevor questions, tilting his head and eying Honey’s lips.

“I like…” Honey continues to tease him, balling her fingers in the fabric of Trevor’s shirt. 

Trevor wiggles his eyebrows. “You like… me? Is this the big reveal?”

“I like… the idea of going for a swim,” Honey announces with a big shove.

“Hey!” Trevor goes flying off the edge of the pier and swallows a mouthful of water while exclaiming at Honey. He splutters when he resurfaces, shaking his hair out of his face like a dog.

Honey’s laughing aloud, clutching her stomach. “Oh my God, the look on your face, Trev,” she giggles.

“Oh, you’re funny,” Trevor says. “You’re very funny, Hon.”

In a flash, he fixes his fingers around her ankle and tugs her into the water with him. Honey is submerged in cold, nighttime water. Her clothes are saturated with the water immediately and Honey can feel her socks, and her shoes, grow heavy.

“Trevor!” Honey shouts. 

Trevor swims closer and wraps his arms around Honey, treading water and keeping them afloat. “What, baby? You said you liked the idea of a swim. I wasn’t going to be the only one in the water.” Trevor finishes his sentence with a kiss, palming Honey’s ass over his soaked boxers.

Honey frowns. “Trevor,” she complains. “Ugh, you’re so mean to me. You got my shoes all wet.”

“You started it,” Trevor tells her. He nuzzles against Honey’s neck and kisses up to her mouth. 

“Ugh, but now I have to put my shoes in the dryer,” Honey says. “Maybe I’ll use the dryer at the Nook so that I don’t break my own, but I bet Ada would get mad at me.”

“I don’t know how Ada could get mad at your pretty face,” Trevor murmurs. 

“I don’t think she cares about how pretty I am,” Honey replies. She kisses him briefly, then swims back to the pier and pulls herself up. “Neither will you when I drip all over the interior of your car.”

“Nah, you’re always pretty to me,” Trevor says, paddling after her. “I think I’d think you’re pretty even when you’re deathly ill.”

“I hope you never see me when I’m deathly ill,” Honey scolds, cutting her eyes at Trevor. “I’m notoriously grumpy when I’m sick. Bea hates it.”

“Bea doesn’t like you as much as I do.” Trevor pulls himself onto the pier as well, then whips off his shirt and wrings it out. “That’s just a fact.”

“I don’t know, Trev. She’s known me longer.”

“Not quite as intimately,” Trevor says. He pulls Honey closer, looping his wet shirt over her shoulders and dragging her forward. He bends down and kisses her. “Wanna sneak back into the house and spend the night with me?”

“Maybe we go straight to my house instead?” Honey asks.

“I don’t have clothes there,” Trevor points out.

Honey eyes Trevor. “You don’t need clothes at my house, Trev.”

“Oh!” He exclaims. His teeth glint under the moonlight, smile wolfish. “If you want me naked, just say so.”

“I will claim no such thing.”

Trevor hums. “You don’t have to say it out loud. I know the truth. You need more milk from your cow.”

Honey laughs. “That sounds so gross when you say it like that,” she groans.

Trevor draws Honey’s t-shirt up as much as he can before she shoves it back down, covering her stomach and the underboob that Trevor exposed. She glares at him, but all Trevor does is grin. 

With his hair all wet and stringy like that, and his nose dripping with water droplets, and his skin glimmering under the moonlight, Honey can’t do anything but take back her glare and kiss him again.

67:90 – TREVOR

“When do you guys leave?” Honey asks, reaching into the communal pile of laundry and coming up with a t-shirt. “Whose is this?”

“Mine,” Luke says.

“We leave tomorrow,” Quinn adds. 

Honey folds the shirt and hands it to Luke to put in his pile. She frowns. “What about–”

“We’re not leaving until after the softball game, don’t worry,” Bea assures Honey. “I already signed the boys up to play, anyway, so we can’t miss it. Earl wouldn’t be happy with us if we left early and took three of his players.”

“I’m surprised you’re going to Michigan with the guys,” Trevor tells Bea offhandedly, folding some of Cole’s socks into a little ball and launching them at the boy. “Are you ready to hang out with Ellen and Jim while the boys are on the shoot?”

“I don’t think I’ll be hanging out with them that much,” Bea laughs. “Q said I could come to the shoot if I wanted.”

“Big Jim will take you golfing, probably,” Cole says. “He’s finally got someone he can beat.”

“He’ll be sorely disappointed when I turn him down,” Bea replies. “I’d rather tan at the pool.”

“You can do whatever you want at the house,” Quinn says directly to Bea. “Don’t let Mom and Dad pressure you into doing something you don’t want to do.” He pats Bea’s behind before grabbing another article of clothing from the pile.

Doing communal laundry has become a once a week thing. It’s easier for them to do laundry together than to each do laundry for themselves– plus, this way, there are at least five people doing the folding. The pile of clothes disappears much quicker when they’re all helping out, rather than when Trevor would do his laundry alone.

“What’s the schedule like for the shoot?” Honey asks.

Jack shrugs. “We’ll be there all day, probably. We have to do a lot of media so they can stagger the release. Then Quinn and Bea are coming back on Monday so that Bea can go to work–” He pointedly side-eyes Honey, who shrugs with one shoulder and smiles to herself. Trevor presumes she made a big deal out of Bea missing a week of work to hang out in Michigan, not that it truly matters. “And Luke and I will hang out at the house with Mom and Dad until next Thursday.”

“We’ll be without you for a whole week?” Honey laments sarcastically, grabbing Jack’s left hand with both of her own and holding it close to her chest, like she’s clutching at her pearls. “Whatever will we do!”

Jack pulls his hand free and sneers at Honey. “Fuck off.”

“He’s excited to go home,” Cole says, grinning widely and reaching over to punch Jack’s arm. “Jack might never come back, actually. You know it was a big fight to get him here in the first place.”

“I’ll come back,” Jack groans, lips tilted down like they always are when people start to poke fun at him. “It wasn’t that big a deal when we first got here.”

“We had to triple-belt you in the backseat,” Trevor says. He snorts out a laugh and grabs a pair of Jack’s underwear from the pile– they’d all decided separately that they’d do their intimates on their own time, but Jack seems to have missed the memo. Well, that, or he just doesn’t care.

“You didn’t have to,” Jack grumbles. “You just did it to piss me off. It’s like how you made me take the first shift driving, even though I’d just woken up.”

“Technically, it wasn’t the first shift,” Trevor corrects. “After all, Coley and I had to drive down to N.J. to pick you up.”

Jack’s face stiffens and sours. “I don’t want to hear about your technicalities,” he says.

Trevor shrugs, smug because Jack can’t manage to form a proper reply… likely because Trevor stated only facts and Jack can’t be delusional when faced with facts.

“It’s okay, Jacky. I’m not so emotionally repressed that I can’t admit when I’ll miss someone,” Honey tells him in a sickeningly sweet voice, petting over Jack’s shoulder. “I’ll say it enough for the both of us. We’ll miss you so much while you’re gone for one whole week. I mean, what’s Trevor going to do without you?”

To seal her joke, Trevor makes a kissy face at Jack. 

Jack doesn’t take the joke well, even though everyone else is chuckling at the unfolding events. He curls his lip at Trevor, looking judgmental and offended. 

The conversation lulls after that. The pile is down to the last ten items– all pairs of Jack’s underpants– and everyone disperses.

Cole and Bea disappear upstairs to make some bowls of ice cream for the group, Honey and Luke head off to the foosball table to compete in something new for a change, and Quinn sits down in the middle of the sofa and kicks his legs up on the coffee table in front of him. He whistles as he sits, the opposite of intimidating, so Trevor decides to join him. Jack is still folding his own laundry.

“Hey, man,” Trevor says, knocking Quinn with his elbow as he hops over the back of the couch and settles down on the cushion next to Quinn.

Quinn side-eyes him. “Hey.”

“What’s up?”

“Why are you talking to me,” Quinn replies in a monotone voice.

Trevor rolls his eyes. Can’t he talk to his friend without a fight? “Because you’re so approachable,” he tells Quinn sarcastically. “No, really. I was going to ask you about going to Mich.”

“What about going to Michigan?” Quinn asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Are you excited to go back?” Trevor asks. His questions start easy– he doesn’t want Quinn to refuse to answer him right away. He gives himself four questions before Quinn frowns and leaves the couch.

Quinn looks at Trevor. “Yeah. Michigan is fun.”

Well, he’s responding, but he’s giving Trevor absolutely nothing to work with. Trevor might as well cut to the chase now and evict Quinn from the couch with his questions.

He will refrain– Trevor wants to get full use of all four of his questions.

“Did Jim get the boat ready for y’all?” Trevor asks. 

“Y’all,” Quinn repeats with a scoff. “Careful, Z. You’re starting to sound like Honey.”

“Not Honey,” Trevor says with a look over his shoulder. He wants to make sure no one is listening in. “I’m just picking up the colloquialisms of the locals.”

Quinn’s eyes widen and he laughs. “The colloquialisms? We’ve gotta get you out of here. You’re starting to sound smart. That’s against nature.”

Trevor rolls his eyes. He’s smart. He reads books. It’s not Litchton’s fault that he seems intelligent. “Well, did he?”

“He’s been keeping the boat warm all summer,” Quinn says. “Just because we aren’t there doesn’t mean Jim and Ellen can’t enjoy the water. They’re still doing all the normal shit, just without us.”

“Bro, you’re so dry,” Trevor complains. “I’m just trying to talk with you.”

“No, Trevor, you’re trying to butter me up so I don’t walk away when you ask me about Bea. Go ahead and ask. I know you want to.”

How does he know? Is he a psychic? A mind reader? Does Trevor hate Quinn– possibly. He gets closer and closer to saying yes every day. Just when they make headway… they stop.

Fine. Three questions is enough for Trevor.

“Why did you invite her?” Trevor asks, trying not to sound as blunt as the question is. 

“To Michigan,” Quinn clarifies. “Why did I invite her to Michigan?”

“Yeah,” Trevor says.

Quinn starts to laugh, loud. “Because she’s my girlfriend, Trevor. Yeah, I’m going to take her home with me and my brothers.”

Trevor checks over his shoulders. Honey is watching him, one eyebrow raised. Everyone else is minding their business– everyone else being Luke, as Jack has gone upstairs to put his laundry away and Bea and Cole have not returned yet.

“Yeah, but, like, you’re breaking up,” Trevor says. “Why would you take her home if you’re breaking up?”

“God, you guys are all obsessed with me and Bea breaking up,” Quinn groans. “It’s not the end of the world. We’re on the same page– her and me. That’s it. We’re the only people who need to know about our relationship.”

“That’s fine, I just don’t get it,” Trevor concedes, frowning at Quinn. “I’m asking because I want you to explain it to me.”

“I don’t know why you need to know so bad,” Quinn deflects.

Trevor shakes his head in frustration and leans in close. “My girlfriend cares a whole lot about Bea’s happiness,” Trevor hisses lowly. “So, yeah, I need as much information as I can get. For her.”

“Don’t act like you’re asking this for Honey,” Quinn says. “You’re nosy, bro. You’re asking this for yourself.”

Trevor pauses, staring at Quinn. “Look, I know I get on your nerves, man. I get that you would hang with any of the other guys over me,” he informs Quinn in his lowest, deadliest voice. “But we’re still buddies. We’ve known each other forever. I’m allowed to ask about your life. So, really, Quinn. Why did you invite Bea to the lake house?”

Quinn’s eyes drift over to the aforementioned girl, who is now bounding down the stairs with two bowls of ice cream in her hands. She beelines for Honey, handing over the bowl in her left hand, and begins eating one of the scoops in her own bowl. Her eyes are rapt on the foosball table and Quinn’s are stuck on her. He smiles slightly and Trevor thinks that he’s forgotten about the question.

“We just want to spend as much time together as we can before I go,” Quinn replies.

Trevor looks over his shoulder, following Quinn’s gaze. Bea has turned to them and sticks her tongue out at Quinn, a bit of ice cream still coating the muscle. She smiles wide.

Next to Bea, Honey’s got a look of determination on her face that is unrivaled by any of the competitive men in the house. Her lips are pressed together, teeth gnawing at the inside of her cheeks, and her knuckles are nearly white against the rods that control her foosball team.

God, she’s gorgeous. They spent nearly twenty-four hours together yesterday– and into this morning– and Trevor still hasn’t quite gotten his fill of her. They should go upstairs. They should go upstairs, to Trevor’s bed, and never leave it. They’ll teleport back to Anaheim together and Trevor will only teleport out of bed to go to the rink for practices and games, otherwise he’ll be stuck to Honey’s side like gorilla glue.

Quinn’s words make a lot of sense. It’s the first of August. They’ve only got twenty-four days left together. Why wouldn’t Bea go to Michigan with the boys? 

“Yeah,” Trevor breathes out. He nods, but it’s mostly to himself. “I get it.”

When Luke gives up on foosball and runs to take his own laundry upstairs, Trevor gets up from the couch and joins Honey. 

“Are you free tonight?” Trevor mumbles, tugging on her belt loop discreetly as he adjusts the pronged scoring unit on the end of the table. He straightens out the goalie so that he’s standing tall.

“Are you trying to come over?” Honey replies.

“I thought we’d try again on the whole ‘I like you’ thing,” Trevor teases. “No lake this time. Just you, me, and my tongue on your pretty pussy. How many times do you think I can make you come before you say that you like me?”

Honey blanches and looks around the basement. “Someone could hear you, Trevor.”

Trevor looks down. “Do you think we could tell them sometime?” He’s fiddling with the foosball players now, rounding the other side of the table and taking two of the rods in his hands. He’s sheepish when he continues and as quiet as he can be without anyone other than Honey hearing him. Cole has finally returned downstairs, as has Jack. “I want– I miss touching you.” 

Honey makes a soft noise in the back of her throat. “We can… talk about it. Later. Saturday. When everyone’s gone.”

“Cole won’t be gone,” Trevor points out, but he’s smiling. Honey is willing to have a conversation about going public– that’s a good sign.

Honey stares at him with a reproachful eye. 

“I’ll dispose of him,” Trevor amends, trying to hide his smile from the girl. He doesn’t want her to know how excited he is that they’re moving forward in their relationship. If he can just get her to admit that she has feelings for him, then they’ll be golden.

“Good,” Honey tells him curtly. “Now drop the ball– I’m gonna kick your butt. Whoever loses has to pay Griffin for the weed we’ll consume while the Hugheses are gone.”

68:90 – HONEY

“Stop heckling me!” Jack snaps. His head turns towards the bleachers so quickly that he might have given himself whiplash. He points the end of the bat at Bea and Honey, glaring ferociously. “How do you expect me to bat when you’re yelling constantly?”

“Aren’t you an athlete?” Honey calls back. “You can’t handle a little heckling from the audience?”

“My audience is always behind the glass!”

“Stop making excuses!” Bea shouts, shaking her fist above her head. “Hit the ball!”

“Yeah, hit the ball!” Cole echos from second base. 

“You guys should be ejected,” Jack grumbles with a scowl. 

“We’ve been coming to these games a lot longer than you have, Jack,” Honey tells him. “You’re just some eye candy for the ladies. Right, ladies?”

Scarlett hoots next to Honey, clapping enthusiastically. 

Litchton’s annual softball game usually goes one of two ways: not enough people sign up to play and they dissolve the game after three innings or…

Well, they’re in the fifth inning now and the concession stand– Sarah and her husband’s traveling bar cart from the wine shop– is almost out of alcohol. Honey, Bea, and the ladies practically monopolized the shooters that Sarah brought. The seven of them had finished all thirty of the shooters by the time the third inning ended. It’s not as crazy as it sounds, to be fair. It was only four shots each, plus an extra for Honey and Bea. The founding ladies of Litchton had claimed that they were too old to take the remaining shots… even though they had been the ones to choose the stronger drink before the game started. They could’ve had wine or beer, but Scarlett had moseyed behind her daughter’s cart and nabbed the entire pack of tiny vodka bottles for the price of “Sarah, I put clothes on your back and food on your plate for the first two decades of your life, these drinks cost less than that did!”

A lot of the game’s success can be attributed to the boys. It’s not that the other players aren’t good, it’s just that they know each other too well to be competitive. 

Earl can’t run anymore, so he’s the permanent pitcher. He stands on the mound and trash-talks every person who comes to the plate, especially the people in town that he’s known their whole lives. The best part is that he always knows exactly what to say to piss those people off and break their focus.

Some of the outsiders– specifically Quinn, Trevor, and Cole– are able to escape Earl’s teasing. They brush it off easily. Quinn handles the jibes about Bea well, chuckling and shaking his head before choking up on the bat. When he hits the ball to the back corner of the field, where Sacha’s husband stands every year despite needing a cane in the winter months, Quinn blows Bea a kiss as he jogs through the bases. Earl doesn’t bring Bea up after that.

Cole escapes because he’s Vera’s favorite– Honey is nearly certain that she’d told Earl something that morning, banning him from talking bad to her Sweetie. Honey can hear it now, imagining Vera taking out her curlers and eying Earl in her vanity mirror, saying, “Now, I better not hear you talk bad to that young man on the field today. He has been nothing but kind and sweet to us, helpin’ with inventory and unloadin’ things for the store. You oughta treat him with some respect.” There’s no confirmation that Vera actually said anything to Earl, but the man only grunts with a stink-eye when Cole comes up to bat. Vera claps and hollers each time he hits the ball and Cole runs through the bases like Rocky, arms raised above his head.

Honey will admit that she was nervous when Trevor came up to bat. Earl knows about her and Trevor– the same way that, apparently, he knows about Bea and Quinn. Her heart was racing when Earl opened his mouth, but all he’s been doing is spouting trash-talk about Trevor’s appearance: his tattoos, his hair that’s too long (well, Earl is an army man and a boomer, so…), his short shorts, and that stupid athletic brace he’s wearing around his ankle. She’s glad that Earl isn’t saying anything, but she also knows that he could. Honey didn’t ask him to keep her relationship hush-hush. All she’d done was say that she didn’t know if Trevor really felt… all that way about her.

Maybe her hesitation had been enough of a sign for Earl to keep quiet. Honey has always liked him and he’s always liked her, in his grumpy old-man grandfather-figure way.

Jack and Luke are a different story. Luke blushes too easily and always greets Earl sheepishly, ever since he’d been called out for chopping his own wood instead of buying some at the hardware store. That makes him an easy target. Jack is too darn cocky for his own good, which is perfect for Earl. With the help of the girls on the sideline, who find it hilarious to giggle about Jack until he’s pouting and shouting in their direction, Earl is able to get under his skin and strike him out. It’s been that way for the last three innings. Jack hasn’t had a good hit since the ladies on the bleachers stopped drinking.

He’s winding up and glaring at Earl again, probably ready to claim that he didn’t hit the ball because the sun was in his eyes, when Bea lays herself down along the bleachers and puts her head on Honey’s lap.

“What are you going to do while I’m gone?” Bea asks conversationally.

Honey brings her hand to Bea’s hair and traces it absentmindedly, leaning back on her other palm and lifting her face to bathe her features in the sunlight. It feels nice, like a physical touch, but that’s probably only because Honey is tipsy. “Look at your picture and cry, probably,” Honey teases. “Because I’ll miss you so much.”

Bea’s lips curl into a soft smile, her eyes glinting with affection. “I love it when you’re sweet to me,” she decides. “Sometimes I really think you’re tired of me by now.”

Honey snorts. “I don’t think I could get tired of you, Buzz. If I could, I think we’d know it by now.”

“Where are you going?” Rosalind asks Bea, leaning forward and patting her knee. “You didn’t tell us anything about a vacation when we were knitting this week.”

“It’s a recent thing,” Bea says, waving her off. “I didn’t know I was going on Tuesday. The brothers and I are leaving for Michigan tonight, they have a couple of appointments for their jobs and they wanted to visit their parents. Quinn asked if I wanted to come, so I said yes. We’re heading out after the game.”

“Are you flying?” Sacha asks. “It’s a bit late to be flying, sweetheart. You oughta be on your way if you’re driving down to Charlotte.”

Bea plasters a big smile onto her face. “We are driving,” she says. She pulls her lips back into a grimace, but there’s still a hint of excitement in her expression. “It’s a little over 9 hours and we’re leaving after the game. The boys are going to drive about three hours each and then Q and I will split it on the way back.”

Perhaps Honey and Bea don’t talk enough, or Honey doesn’t ask the right questions, because she had no idea that they’d be driving. Bea’s going to be exhausted on Tuesday when she gets back to work and for once, it won’t be because she was up too late in bed with her boyfriend. 

“That’s a long drive,” Honey says. “Are you going to be okay coming to work after that?”

Bea laughs. “Baby-Honey,” she says as if she can’t believe Honey’s concern. “I’ll be fine. Q and I planned the road trip perfectly. We’ll be back at, like, 7:30 on Monday. We’ll get a full night of sleep and everything.”

Honey wants to sass “Oh, you will?” because she knows that Bea and Quinn have never been very committed to a full night’s sleep, but she won’t say that in front of the ladies. Instead, she just nods and watches Luke switch places with Jack– he’d struck out yet again. 

“Oh! You girls might tell me,” Gillian says suddenly. “All Emma-Kate said was that her date was ‘good.’ She won’t say anything else! Where did they go? What did they do? Was Luke kind to her?”

“He is a sweetheart,” Bea tells Gillian. She sits up from Honey’s lap, turning to face the elderly woman. Her back is to the game now, but Honey is still watching. Earl has already made Luke turn bright pink and he swings and misses the first pitch.

“C’mon, Lukey, you’re better than that!” Honey calls, cupping her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice.

Luke glances her way, but doesn’t interact. 

“Stop heckling!” Jack shouts again, from the dugout this time. “Don’t make me come over there and eject you myself!”

Honey sticks her tongue out at Jack before returning to the conversation around her.

“...then they got ice cream at Sweet Scoop, duh, and they hung out at the rental house for a while. I think they watched a movie,” Bea tells Gillian.

Gillian quirks an eyebrow. “They hung out at the house? I know what you kids mean by that these days. My Emma-Kate is too young for that sort of thing.”

Honey titters, pressing a hand to her lips to cover her mouth. Emma-Kate has been in college for two years and even before that, when she would hang out with Honey and Bea while she visited Litchton in the summers, she was very interested in the romantic lives that the girls lived. She was enthralled with Bea’s ability to date guys casually and feel so confident in herself and she was captivated by the way Honey felt perfectly fine without male attention. Emma-Kate has been capable of making her own romantic and sexual decisions for a long time– at least, it feels that way. She’s 20 years old now, but she’s been asking questions since she was 15. Honey is pretty sure that Emma-Kate has ventured into that world by now.

“All we know is that they held hands after getting ice cream,” Honey tells Gillian. “I didn’t see him kiss her and Luke is a gentleman. He probably wasn’t doing all of that with Emma-Kate, especially not the first time he met her. They’re both smarter than that.”

“Okay, I wouldn’t say it’s about being smart,” Bea jumps in, turning her head and frowning at Honey.

Honey rolls her eyes. Of course Bea takes issue with her words, even though Honey has never insulted Bea’s intelligence. She’s a very smart girl. So what if she sleeps with people– Quinn– the first time she meets them? “This isn’t a slight at you,” Honey tells her. “I’m just saying that Emma-Kate and Luke probably didn’t rush into it.”

“Probably not,” Bea agrees. She looks at Gillian. “He might’ve kissed her goodnight when he dropped her off, but I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you.”

Gillian continues chatting, as do the ladies around them, but Honey and Bea fix their attention on the softball game. Luke managed to hit a single, so he’s on the first base. Cole is on third. Quinn and Trevor are on the field this inning, but they’re due to switch soon. Trevor is in center field and Quinn is on first base, playfully blocking Luke from stealing 2nd base. Jessie’s husband Tyler strikes out, which is the final out of the inning, and then they switch.

Thus starts the sixth inning. They’ve been at the game for what feels like forever, since the morning. It takes time to choose the teams and the positions and, in the many years that they’ve been doing this, no one has made a move to make teams beforehand. Every year, the town swears they will and every year, they forget. It’s been long enough that Honey is starting to wish she was out there– she used to play softball, way back when. She could show these guys a thing or two.

“Actually, I have something I want to ask you ladies about,” Bea says suddenly, swiveling around to straddle the bench and face everyone. 

Honey turns to her, intrigued. She eventually turns all the way around so that she, Bea, and the ladies are forming a circle. Her back is to the game, but she can hear Earl chirping Trevor for his white crew socks, now riddled with dirt. 

“I’m not asking this because of anything,” Bea clarifies seriously. “So don’t go assuming and don’t go talking to anyone else about it.” She points a finger at each of the ladies, waiting for them to nod before she continues. “How long did it take for your husbands to say ‘I love you?’ Or did they even say it first? How did you feel about it?” 

Honey feels like her blood actually runs cold. Obviously, Bea is asking this because of the things that Quinn has been saying for a few weeks. After deciding the whole ‘I love you’ thing was a nonissue, Honey hadn’t even told Bea about her thoughts. 

But she knows now, because as soon as Bea finished asking that question, she made eye contact with Honey to come to a silent understanding about her question– which Honey understood the implications of without making eye contact with the girl. When Bea looked over, though, she caught the way Honey’s eyes widened, her cheeks flushed, and her body tensed up. It wasn’t a voluntary reaction, but Bea caught it nonetheless. Since she can read Honey as well as Honey can read Bea, she seems to immediately know what Honey’s reaction signifies.

Bea narrows her eyes at Honey and parts her lips as if to say something, but she snaps her mouth shut and furrows her brow even tighter for just a moment before turning back to the women, who have started talking.

“I don’t think I have a good answer for you, since Earl and I were married after two months of dating. He says he knew since the moment he saw me, but I don’t think we actually said we loved each other until the wedding. He just wanted to take care of me in case he died during the War,” Vera says with a laugh. “It was a very controversial relationship at the time. We were the talk of the town.”

“I remember that!” Rosalind says. “We all thought you were crazy for marrying him. I don’t care if you both grew up in Litchton, you were crazy for marrying a man so soon! Especially not that grump, he’s been the same since he came into this world.”

“He’s a man of few words, not a grump,” Vera corrects.

Honey stifles a smile, dipping her head and looking at her knees. Earl is a grump. Vera’s been using the same statement to defend him for fifty years.

“Did you say it back?” Bea asks.

Vera nods. “It was our wedding. I mean, I felt like I loved him after that first dance at Scruffy’s. God created us for each other and He decided to put me and Earl together at that exact moment. God chose Earl to walk alongside me and help me grow, and when you meet that person, you know. It’s not just fate, you know, it’s God’s grace.”

She means well and Honey knows that Bea can understand what she’s saying, even take it to heart. The problem is that Honey doesn’t believe in the power that Vera, Bea, and the other ladies do. Nothing brought Trevor to her– it all just happened. By chance, he came here. By chance, he ran into her at the fruit stand. She’s not sure why Trevor chose her– not when Bea is right there and so much easier to deal with than Honey is– but he did. And he continues to do so. 

Honey’s chest grows a little tighter. 

The ladies are nodding solemnly. Bea hums, but her eyes slide over to Honey. She’s always been really good about this– steering the conversation away from religion when Honey grows too uncomfortable. It reminds her of the past. 

She used to believe. She really did. Honey went to church with her parents and knew Bible stories, even verses. She would pray. All of that changed when the rest of her life turned upside-down. Before she came to Litchton, Honey felt like she was crying out into a void, with nothing but her own voice echoing back at her. Her calls for guidance went unanswered and the silence was suffocating… and Honey’s belief was completely shaken. 

In the first year, Bea tried to reassure Honey with the typical phrases: “God has a plan,” “Everything according to His will,” and so on. They’d gotten into a screaming match one night in Honey’s house, in the dead of winter, and Honey had finally broken. It’s one of her worst moments, one of those things that happen that you immediately regret. She doesn’t even remember what she said– something about how she told God she needed him and he was radio-silent, unwilling to take away her pain– but Honey remembers the look on Bea’s face and the way she’d dissolved into tears, hugging Honey and apologizing for the hurt, unable to let go. Bea always cries during a fight, and even when she has to confront someone in a calm setting, but that was different. Bea never tried to sway Honey about that again, and Honey has never tried to convince Bea that she’s right.

Honey wishes things were as simple as divine intervention. Maybe then, she’d be able to give Trevor all the things he wants without questioning herself. It’s just… more complicated than that.

“What about you all?” Bea asks, looking around. “You didn’t get married after two months. You didn’t know right away, did you?”

Scarlett laughs. “God, no. Sammy didn’t catch my eye until we’d grown up and gone to college and gotten our jobs back here. I’d known him my whole life, but I never thought for a second that I’d love him. Our dating was very casual, you know, because I had to see my options.”

Bea nods very seriously, which makes Honey want to laugh. Scarlett and Bea are two peas in a pod, just born in different generations.

“I think once we started going steady, I started to fall in love with him. He said it first, but it was about… golly, I can barely remember. Six months, maybe? We’d been together for a little while, and he was always slower than me and I sure as hell wasn’t going to say it first, so I think it was about six months. That was a good day,” Scarlett says. “And I did say it back to him, after he���d finally grown the balls to do so.”

“I think William told me he loved me around six months, too,” Sacha adds. “It wasn’t a big deal. We were talking on the phone after dinner one night because he was on a work trip in Philadelphia and I was in Charlotte still, working as a secretary, and he said it when we said goodbye. Casual as can be. I said it back and then I hung up and then I realized what happened and I called Vera– ‘cause she was the only married one of us at the time– and we talked about it all night long.”

“Oh, that was so fun,” Vera says. “I felt like we were gigglin’ at a sleepover and Ma was about to come in the room and tell us to be quiet, or else.”

“Ma loved that ‘or else,’” Rosalind laughs. “That’s what I had to say to Doug. We’d been datin’ for almost a year and he still hadn’t said it, so one day I put my fork down at dinner and I said, ‘Doug. Do you love me?’ and he said ‘Yes, ma’am,’ ‘cause you know Doug is all proper and respectful like that given how his mama was, and I said, ‘Well, you better say it more or else I’m leavin’ you for someone who will!’”

Honey laughs at the way Rosalind delivers the lines, looking out at the field and catching Doug’s position at shortstop. He’s one of their regular customers at The Reading Nook, now that he’s retired from his job as a dentist and found himself with too much time on his hands. He’s always reading James Patterson books. They keep having to order new ones so that he doesn’t run out or reread the same one twice. 

“And he’s said it every day since,” Rosalind finishes with a grandiose smile.

All eyes turn expectantly to Gillian. 

“I’m not retelling that story again for y’all to laugh at me,” Gillian complains. “You’ve beaten that thing like a dead horse.”

That is definitely not the saying, but Honey isn’t going to correct her.

“C’mon Gilly,” Vera says. “It’s not that bad. We only laugh because you’re still embarrassed over it.”

“What happened?” Bea asks, lips splitting into a smile. “Is it bad?”

“No,” Gillian replies. “It’s not bad. I just happened to say it first. And Art was asleep, so I got away with it. The girls will never let me live it down.”

“Because you packed up all your stuff and high-tailed it over to my apartment to hide from him!” Sacha laughs. “You came all the way to Charlotte just to escape three little words that your boyfriend didn’t hear you say.”

“But he could have,” Gillian argues. “And he would probably think I was crazy!”

That piques Honey’s interest. “Why would he think you’re crazy?” She asks.

Gillian sulks, snapping her mouth shut.

“They’d only been datin’ a month,” Scarlett reveals, patting Gillian’s back and rubbing it. “But it’s fine, because we all trip up and we all make mistakes and you’re still together to this day.”

“Because he didn’t hear me,” Gillian insists. “I’ve never been so lucky that construction tires that man out. His head hits the pillow and he’s done for the day. We hadn’t been dating long enough for me to know that. I was just going into his room to say goodnight– I was staying over because the kitchen in my apartment had caught fire in the middle of the night and I was scared it was going to happen again, I wasn’t sleeping in the same bed with him like you girls do nowadays– and I said, ‘See you tomorrow, Art. Sleep well. I love you,’ like some damn fool!”

“I’m surprised you didn’t wake him up with all that noise you made, running away,” Vera says. “But you’ve always been very lucky, so it’s alright.” She turns to Bea. “I know you said no assuming, so I’m just asking you a question.” She raises an eyebrow. “Is this about a certain young man who comes to church with you every Sunday?”

Bea smiles, then zips her lips, locks them, and throws away the key. 

The ladies cajole about it, saying that that’s not fair, they told their stories so Bea ought to too… but Honey is elsewhere. She chuckles to herself to save face and make sure the ladies don’t notice that she’s stuck in her own head. 

She watches Trevor on the field– they must be in the next inning by now, since he’s back in the center of the grass– and can’t seem to string anything together into a coherent thought. Her head is full of fuzz and fog, thoughts crowded so closely together that she can’t distinguish a single letter, word, picture, or idea. 

Bea bumps Honey’s shoulder. “You okay?” she asks quietly. 

“Yeah,” Honey answers. “I was… caught off guard by that.”

“Because…?” Bea trails off, her eyes flickering over to Trevor.

Honey shakes her head. “Nothing happened with him,” she says. “I don’t know.” She grows quieter, although Honey knows all of the ladies at least suspect that she and Trevor are an item. “Even if it did, he’s… he lives in California.”

Bea exhales at her words, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opens them again, she touches Honey’s knee. “Yeah. That’s about where I’m at, too.” There’s a pause, then her lips quirk into a smile. “With a few notable differences.”

Like the fact that he’s already said it, Honey thinks to herself, but she doesn’t say it out loud. She knows that’s what Bea is thinking. They continue to look out at Trevor, who’s standing in the field with his hands folded on top of his head, elbows pointed out from his body. He’s standing very casually. The other team is a group of high schoolers, middle-aged dads, and Jack and Luke. Trevor seems very assured that nothing will reach him.

The crack of the bat says otherwise. Trevor’s arms drop to his sides and he seems to wake up, looking skyward. Honey and Bea jerk their attention towards the space between first and home base, where Jack is running. He points at them as he passes, shouting, “See what happens when you’re not heckling?”

69:90 – TREVOR

There is a lawn mower running in Honey’s backyard. It wakes him up. Trevor knows it’s not Honey who’s driving it because he’s got his arm wrapped around her waist and his lips are smushed against the back of her shoulderblade. There’s a bit of drool pooling in the corner of his mouth, probably cooling against Honey’s skin, but Trevor can’t be bothered to move. Honey is warm against his front and he likes that they’re both naked in bed. 

“Who’s that,” Trevor questions, although the slurred and sleepy words fall flat when they leave his mouth.

“It’s Griff,” Honey replies. Her voice is as thick as Trevor’s and, to his dismay, she starts to shuffle out of his arms. “He told me he was coming today.”

“No,” Trevor drawls, elongating the word and rolling flat onto his stomach as he occupies the space where Honey was. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I have to go pay the guy, Trev. He doesn’t mow my grass or supply me with weed for free, I’m not Bea,” Honey says. She sits on the edge of the bed for a second, legs curved over the side of the mattress. She takes a big deep breath before she stands, like she’s bracing herself for the day.

Trevor cracks an eye open and watches Honey pull on those old boxers she loves, then a tiny white tank top that does nothing to hide her nipples. He moans into the pillow, annoyed that their day is apparently starting and that Honey is planning to go talk to a man in such scant clothing. If this guy is her weed dealer, he’ll probably look at her tits, too. “Put on your robe or something,” Trevor complains. “I don’t want this guy to see your tits.”

“Griffin doesn’t care about my tits, babe.” Honey scratches gently over Trevor’s back, soothing him with her nails. 

Trevor moans more softly this time, muffled against the pillow. He can feel his cock stir against the mattress, just from Honey’s touch. “Just come back quick, I wanna go back to sleep. Can I put my cock inside you while we sleep? You’re so warm.”

“Mmm… let me think about that. Probably not this morning,” Honey says. “Stay here while I talk to Griffin, okay?”

Trevor pushes himself up onto his elbows. “Wait, is this the same Griffin who’s the cop?”

“That’s the one!” Honey replies cheerfully. She leaves Trevor alone in the bed, traipsing down from the loft with quiet steps. 

Trevor buries his face back in the pillow, Honey’s pillow, and wraps his arms around it. It smells like her– all vanilla and laundry detergent. She washed her sheets on Thursday. She’s almost militant with her bedsheet schedule; she washes them on the 1st and the 15th of every month, normally. She’s had to wash them more often since Trevor has been around, given that her sheets usually get sweaty and wet when he’s around. 

Not that he’s bragging. It’s merely a fact. 

He dozes off while Honey is gone, only coming back to full consciousness once the bed dips and Honey tucks Trevor’s hair behind his ear. “I’m going to have to douse one of my shirts in perfume for you before you leave, aren’t I,” Honey teases softly. “I wasn’t even gone ten minutes and you’re holding onto my pillow for dear life, Trev.”

“Missed you,” Trevor sighs. He stretches, holding onto Honey’s pillow with one hand as he rolls onto his back and spreads his arms to the side. “Cuddle me.”

“So needy,” Honey laughs. She pulls the tank top over her head and tosses it to the foot of the bed, then discards her boxers. Trevor bites his lower lip as he takes her in, then Honey climbs back into bed and curls up into his arms. “What do you want to do today?”

“I want to go back to bed for now,” Trevor replies. The clock on Honey’s nightstand says that it’s not even 8:00. “We can sleep ‘til whenever, but I don’t want to leave this bed until, like, ten.” He kisses over Honey’s face, even as she giggles and tries to push him away. “And then we can do whatever you want.”

Honey groans. “Ugh, I don’t know if I can fall asleep again. Usually, once I’m up, I just get up.”

“Well, that’s okay, we can go make breakfast if you want,” Trevor offers.

“No,” Honey says, pressing her palm against Trevor’s bare chest. “No-no. We’ll take a little nap because it’s what you want to do, and then we’ll smoke a little bit because it’s what I want to do. Griffin brought the goods over this morning. The mowed lawn was just a perk.”

Trevor snuffles out a laugh. “Do you think it’s weird that you get drugs from a cop?”

Honey frowns. “No. Griffin can’t smoke it, and it’s not like they can burn it, and the old guys don’t know how to get rid of it. They just let Griff take care of it. It’s not like there’s a lot of weed running rampant in Litchton, so this is a luxury.” Honey puckers her lips and waits for Trevor to kiss her before continuing. “Plus, we have texts from him about selling the weed. So if he ever arrested us, we could literally prove that he was the dealer. He’d be caught up in it too.”

“You’re evil,” Trevor tells Honey, although he doesn’t mean it. “Blackmailing a cop.”

“We’re not blackmailing, it’s a mutual understanding,” Honey says with an eyeroll. “He’s a friend. Hey–”

“Hey,” Trevor interrupts, grinning stupidly when Honey cuts her eyes at him.

“–Speaking of friends, do you think Cole is going to be lonely without you at the house today?” 

“I think he’s okay,” Trevor says with a laugh. “When I left last night, he was in the hot tub with a beer. He’s probably doing just fine. He lives alone most of the time, so an empty house is probably very refreshing.”

“Hmm, I’ll believe you,” Honey decides. She narrows her eyes suspiciously at Trevor for a moment, then cuddles even closer to Trevor. She plants a kiss securely between his pecs, along his sternum– right over his heart– and rests her head there. She closes her eyes.

Trevor pulls her closer and falls back asleep.

The next time they wake, Honey’s head is tucked into Trevor’s neck and she’s laying with her leg over his hip. Her tits are pressed up against Trevor’s torso and, really, how can he be blamed for having half of a hard-on whenever she’s around? She’s making little noises against his neck. They’re not quite snores, but that’s the closest comparison. Her arms are wrapped tightly around his waist, preventing Trevor from going anywhere. Not that he would.

With a look at the clock, Trevor can see that it’s past 9:00. He reaches over to the nightstand and finds his phone, which he hasn’t opened since he got to Honey’s house last night. He’d actually turned it off– if Cole needed anything, he’d have to call 911 or one of the Hughes boys. As Trevor turns the phone back on, the messages start to roll in.

And they keep. Coming.

Message after message comes in. Trevor watches them appear, watches the tiny red bubble at the corner of his message app grow and grow. At first, he’s concerned that something happened. He waits for the messages to stop popping up, then enters the app to check the damage. 

His mind goes in a number of directions– something happened at home, something happened to his family, someone died, he got traded out of nowhere, he’s going to have to move to another city and cut his time in Litchton short…

Save for four texts, which are from his mom, Jamie, and Cole, every message is from Bea.

One hundred and twenty six messages.

All from Bea.

Trevor presses his lips together in a thin line, clicking on her messages and scrolling to the top.

As he reads through the barrage of messages, Trevor feels like he’s seeing red. Every message is from Bea’s stream of consciousness– he’d be fine if Bea had sent over a hundred messages about “oh the car broke down,” “we have a popped tire,” “i think we have to stop for a hotel because xyz happened”... but all of them… every single one… is a complaint, question, or thought about the car ride.

To name a few:

Jack won’t vacate the front seat :( I can’t even hold hands with Quinn so unfair

We’re on potty stop #3 and it’s only been 2 hours THIS IS SHIT

We r never going to make it to Mich

omg Luke just started driving and I think I am afraid for my life

Why does Jack skip every song on the playlist after like 1 min…

Trevor they are SO LOUD I can’t even fall asleep how do u deal with these fuckers

Also why aren’t you replying :( 

I know you’re with Honey, u guys should save me from this :((

Quinn fell asleep I’m bored

Ohio is the worst state in the world to drive thru

I don’t like the merge lanes

Ok now Jack is driving and NOW I’m scared for my life… if I don’t text you that we made it, assume that we didn’t.

ok we made it TTYL give Honey a kiss for me

Those are just a few. The rest of the messages are similar or the same– and Trevor knows that being on road trips with the Hughes brothers is hard, especially when it’s your first one and it’s nine hours long– but this is not what he wanted when he and Bea exchanged phone numbers.

“What are you reading?” Honey murmurs, lifting her head and craning her neck to see his phone. 

Trevor is doing his very best to stay calm, but he feels a lot like a pot of water that’s about to boil over. He knows that his reaction is irrational and over the top, but Bea sent him more than one hundred messages overnight. He thought he was getting traded. He thought someone died. He thought that he’d have to leave Litchton– leave Honey– to deal with whatever big news had overtaken his phone. Instead, he had gotten worked up and anxious about nothing. It was just Bea. Just Bea! 

Bea, who is Honey’s best friend but a constant thorn in Trevor’s side. He can’t deny that she’s a nice person, or a good friend, but she seems to derive some sick sense of pleasure from annoying him and it’s too much. He didn’t sign up for this. He doesn’t want to be Bea’s middleman. He doesn’t want to be the person she texts when she’s annoyed with the brothers, just because he’s known them his whole life. He doesn’t want to have to hand over his phone to her when Quinn is away so that they can call.

Trevor shoves the phone into Honey’s hands. “I know she’s your best friend, but I can’t fucking do this,” he tells Honey. He detangles himself from Honey’s grip and leaves the bed, finding his own boxers and a pair of sweatpants. “This shit can’t be happening. I don’t care enough about what Bea is thinking to tolerate a hundred and twenty-six messages about nothing of importance.”

Honey raises her eyebrows in surprise, holding Trevor’s phone delicately in her hand. She blinks at him, then brings the phone to eye level and begins to scroll. Her brows are pursed as she starts reading, but occasionally she’ll smile or laugh or roll her eyes in reaction to a text. 

Trevor just stands there, breathing hard and trying to hold onto his temper. The silence is awkward, and Trevor feels silly about his stance. Honey is laying comfortably on the bed, toying with her hair with one hand and moving through the texts with the other. The covers are sliding down her body and Trevor can nearly see one of her piercings, just a breeze or a shift away from being revealed, and that is doing nothing to aid his continued frustration. He is determined to hang onto this irritation, but it’s getting harder with each passing minute.

Finally, Honey removes the phone from her eyeline and looks at Trevor with an amused smile on her face. “Not liking my best friend is a dealbreaker, you know,” Honey says.

Trevor almost immediately deflates. “I like Bea just fine,” he groans, rolling his head back and running his hands through his hair. “I just hate it when she blows up my phone.”

“Baby, how often does she blow up your phone?” Honey asks, starting to laugh. “I’m sure she was only texting you because she wasn’t going to say these things out loud with all of the brothers in the car. She hates confrontation.”

“But I’m the only one with her number, so she only ever texts me, and she’s not shy about it because she doesn’t care if she’s annoying me,” Trevor explains, feeling childish even though it’s true. “And I hate it.”

“Why are you the only one with her number?” Honey scrunches her nose up in confusion. She sits up and reaches for her tank top at the foot of the bed. 

“You’ll have to ask her,” Trevor says. He’s momentarily distracted by Honey’s chest and the way her breasts move when she pulls the shirt on. “It’s stupid. Like, she won’t give her number to Quinn because then Jack will want it. If Jack wants it, Cole wants it. If all of them have it, then Luke feels left out. I was her middleman at the beginning of the summer, but like… it’s not like she has to organize hookups now.” His voice turns to a grumble and Trevor looks down at the ground, a little embarrassed by his complaint. “She could give her number to Quinn, at least. He could keep it a secret from Jack.”

“Quinn doesn’t have Bea’s phone number,” Honey repeats, her voice flat and full of doubt. She scoffs. “They’re dating.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Trevor says. He crosses back over to the bed and sits across from Honey, crossing his legs like he used to in kindergarten. 

Honey blinks at Trevor, thinking hard. She purses her lips. 

Trevor would pay buckets of money to know what she’s thinking right now. “I guess it’s not that big a deal,” he says after a minute. He leans over and presses a kiss to her lips, pretending like her pursed-thinking was an invitation.

She bats him away. Again, she picks up his phone and goes to unlock it, but she stops short at the wallpaper. 

Oh, yeah. He’d forgotten about that.

“When did you take this picture?” Honey asks, voice controlled and neutral. There’s no way to know which way this will go.

It’s an image of the trail where they did their first hike, after they’d gotten to the peak and she’d started to let down the guarded, exterior walls that kept her safe. It was the first day that she’d really told him about herself– that her favorite movie was 13 Going on 30 solely because of the scene where Billy Joel’s “Vienna” plays, that she’d gotten the job at The Reading Nook because Ada had known her since she was a kid exploring Litchton on her own, that she didn’t talk to her parents anymore and she left Charlotte because of “something that happened” (which Trevor now knows), and that she learned how to play pool from a bunch of the dads in town. In the picture, she’s a few yards ahead of him, surrounded by greenery. She’s standing on a tree branch, one they’d crossed to get over a ditch, and her hair is tied into a knot at the base of her neck.

“On our hike,” Trevor answers. “When Ada made you hang out with me because you were mean to me when Jamie left.”

Honey looks up at the ceiling and sighs. “Oh, Jamie. I miss that guy.”

Trevor goes to agree, but he remembers that Jamie kissed Honey before Trevor did, so he doesn’t. Instead, he narrows his eyes. “Do you?” He asks.

Honey pays him no mind, except for rolling her eyes and holding up her index finger to silence Trevor. She clicks around on the phone, then holds it up to her ear.

“What are you doing?” Trevor asks, leaning in so he can hear the phone ringing.

Honey shushes him and pushes him away. “Hi, Bumblebea,” Honey says sweetly. As she continues, her tone turns on its head. She snaps, “Stop texting my boyfriend. You’re getting on our nerves. You can text me all you want, but he’s tired of it.”

She continues on, ranting about how Bea is perfectly capable of giving Quinn her contact information, even if it means Jack, Cole, and Luke start texting her regularly. Trevor, though, doesn’t hear any of it. Honey called him her boyfriend.

He’s going to fuck her so good tonight.

Why wait ‘til tonight? He thinks.

Trevor touches Honey’s thigh, but she bats him away again and points a threatening finger in his direction. Even the glare on her face isn’t enough to deter him– he wants to be good, he does. He wants to be patient and put off the kissing and touching and fucking until she’s off the phone, but Honey said Trevor was her boyfriend and she has never said that before. 

He’s more insistent this time as he shuffles forward and fills the space between her neck and her shoulder with a messy kiss. His hands are on her waist and Honey leans back against the headboard, bringing her free hand to Trevor’s hair and yanks him away. 

She flashes him a warning glare and continues talking, telling Bea off through the receiver.

Trevor sits back on his heels, but he lasts all of a minute before his eyes drift to Honey’s naked bottom half. If he could just spread her legs a little bit, he could get right between them and… well, be a good boyfriend.

Honey closes her eyes and sighs, listening to something Bea is saying on the other end. Trevor seizes his opportunity, spreading her inner thighs enough to make room for his head. His thumb spreads her folds once and he nearly gets his tongue on her clit before Honey bops him on the head like a whack-a-mole.

“Ow!” Trevor exclaims, retreating and kneeling back on his heels like a scolded puppy. He holds the back of his head, wincing.

“Would you behave? I am on the phone!” Honey hisses. She sounds more like a mother being bothered by her child than a girlfriend receiving head from her boyfriend.

Trevor pouts, making his eyes nice and big as he continues to rub the back of his head. 

“No, I don’t know, Bea. He just tried to fucking eat me out while I’m on the phone with you,” Honey snaps, practically snarling into the phone. Her eyes don’t leave Trevor, keeping him in place.

Trevor is close enough that he can hear Bea’s laughter through the speaker. “Probably because you called him your boyfriend, silly,” Bea exclaims.

Honey’s eyes widen. “No, I didn’t,” she says, disbelief written all across her features. Trevor nods and leans in, but Honey places her hand on his chest and keeps him in place. 

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Is Trevor drooling all over you right now? More than normal?”

Trevor’s hands are on Honey’s thighs, palming the skin there and stroking it lightly with his thumb. He’s staring at her, eyes fixed on her pretty mouth. That’s the mouth that just confirmed that they’re boyfriend-girlfriend. Trevor thinks he might paint a picture of it and hang the picture up in his apartment back in California, so that he can look at her lips every day. He’s going to need something to look at if she’s still in Litchton during the season, but he might be able to convince her to visit once a month…

“Not– more than normal,” Honey replies, but her voice is a little shaky and high, like it is when she starts to lie. She’s bad at lying.

Trevor rolls his eyes and takes her free hand from his chest, bringing it to the back of his head. He pouts at her, patting her palm over the place where she smacked him. Honey’s fingers tighten in his locks like a reflex, scratching his scalp in a satisfying massage. Trevor sighs, then leans forward to kiss Honey’s neck again. Boyfriend. Girlfriend. He likes that.

“You definitely called him your boyfriend. Trevor can vouch, I wasn’t the only one who heard that. Ask him.”

“I did not call him that,” Honey insists. She glances to Trevor for confirmation.

He does not give her the answer she wants to hear. He’s too giddy with excitement, feeling like he could jump as high as the moon. His smile, and the kiss that he slathers onto her collarbone, are answer enough for Honey. 

Her hand drops and she ends the call, cutting Bea off in the middle of a sentence. It’s only a moment before the phone starts to buzz again, but they both ignore it. 

Trevor even tosses it across the room, not caring if the screen cracks and breaks. Honey is his girlfriend and he’s her boyfriend. Trevor kisses over her neck again, humming against her skin. He’s just about to say… something, although he’s not sure what, since his head is full of excitement and too overjoyed to properly think, but Honey speaks instead.

“Wait,” Honey says, her throat sounding tight. Her voice seems a little strangled. “Stop.”

Wait. Stop.

The joy falls to the back of Trevor’s mind immediately, and his thoughts flood with something else. Wait. Stop. He pulls away, really pulls away, and sits all the way on the foot of the bed. 

Honey pulls the blankets over herself and covers her face with her hands. She takes a deep breath and swallows hard, then scrubs her hands over her face. She continues to cover her mouth, but Trevor can see how her eyes are somehow dazed and moving with thoughts, like she can physically see everything going through her head, and she’s unable to focus on one thing.

Normally, Trevor is okay with handling Honey’s anxiety. She can calm down from a touch or a soft question, but… he doesn’t know what to say. Wait and stop, said in that choked voice, echo through his brain. Over and over. Wait. Stop.

Honey’s eyes finally fix on a point in front of her, slightly to Trevor’s right. She stares at one spot on the floor, near her dresser on the opposite wall. She takes a shaky breath, still covering her mouth with her hands, and closes her eyes. Her eyebrows draw together, creating that wrinkle that Trevor always wants to kiss away, and she shakes her head.

Trevor feels like there’s cement in his throat, drying quickly and unable to swallow. 

He doesn’t know how long they sit like that.

But it’s a long time.

“I don’t like that word,” Honey says quietly, after all that time has passed, her voice barely more than a whisper. Her hands leave her mouth and cross her chest, hugging herself. Trevor can see goosebumps on her arms. She turns her head and one shoulder moves upward, kind of like a shrug. “It’s… it’s what you are, but I don’t like that word.”

The edges of her lips turn down and Honey meets Trevor’s eyes. She steals a glance at his expression, then her gaze falls to his hands. They’re clasped in his lap. He’s squeezing his thumb to try and ground himself. She looks like a cornered animal, like one of those scared dogs in the shelter. 

Trevor just– he doesn’t know what to do.

The confirmation is there. She’s not denying what she said. Honey admits that Trevor is her boyfriend, but there’s no pleasure in hearing her say it this time. In saying it, she seems to lump him in the same category as him. The other one. The one who ruined everything.

“I’m never going to do that to you,” Trevor breathes. His voice grows a little louder. While Trevor was serious before, now his tone is grave. He continues, and it’s more than a promise or a swear– he’s pledging. “I will never try to hurt you. He and I, we’re not– we’re not the same. I might, y’know, be stupid and make you upset but I’d never– not on purpose. And nothing like that.”

Honey sniffs and nods. “I know,” she says. “I–” She cuts herself off and shakes her head, taking a deep breath to center herself. She raises her hands and wipes under her eyes, removing the line of moisture from her waterline. When she speaks again, Honey’s voice is much stronger. “I know you’re not him.” She presses her lips together.

Trevor waits for more, but nothing comes. Instead, Honey meets his eyes and she wells up again. Her frown turns into a pout and she holds out her arms.

Trevor collapses into them and falls back on the pillows, keeping her close to his chest. He kisses over her face, on all the teardrops that managed to escape. He’s so– so happy. His heart is bursting at the seams and he really wishes he could tell her how much he loves her, but that’s probably a bit much for her right now. Calling him her boyfriend and having to reply to a declaration of love? She’d start convulsing and breaking into sparks like a malfunctioning robot. But he does– he does. He’s relieved, and happy, and he’s holding Honey in his arms, and it’s okay.

Boyfriend and girlfriend. August 3rd might just be the best day of Trevor Zegras’ whole life. Honey is his– she said so.

After he’s done peppering her face with kisses, he holds her tight. He listens to her breath and strokes her hair, letting her take all the time she needs to process the change.

“You asked on Thursday if we could tell them,” Honey says eventually.

“Mhm,” Trevor hums, confirming that he remembers.

“I don’t, um.” Honey’s voice falls to nearly a whisper. “I don’t think I’m ready for everyone to know just yet.”

The only thing about her sentence that disappoints Trevor is the way Honey says it– like he’s going to be angry with her. God, he’s elated that they’re even together. If Honey isn’t ready to tell, then they don’t have to. Trevor can’t imagine telling her no, or fighting her on this, after she took such a big leap today. 

“That’s okay,” Trevor says. “We don’t have to tell them yet.”

“Just give me a couple of weeks,” Honey says. “I think I can–”

“No rush,” Trevor interrupts. He kisses the top of her head. “Take your time. Just don’t change your mind about today. I really, really want to be your boyfriend.”

Honey blushes and hides her face in his chest. “Fine,” she mumbles, voice muffled by his skin. “I’ll consider keeping you around.”

Trevor laughs and kisses her again. He really hopes she’s up for that Very Good Fucking he’s planning to give her tonight, maybe after a romantic dinner that he cooks just for her. Plans for the day be damned– all Trevor wants is to be with his beautiful, thoughtful, brave, sexy girlfriend, no matter what they do.

70:90 – HONEY

“No, put your hands on my boobs,” Cole commands with a huff, grabbing Honey’s wrists and pulling her into place. “This is supposed to be weird, Honey. I want you to touch my tits.”

Honey bites down on her lower lip to stifle a laugh. She presses her face between his shoulderblades. 

This morning, Cole had gifted her a pink shirt with a unicorn and a rainbow on the front, then produced a matching one for himself. Since then, they’ve been taking pictures in the shirts. Honey knew she should’ve been more suspicious when Trevor texted that Cole was asking for Honey to bring her polaroid over. 

“Why are you laughing?” Cole demands, whining a bit. “The picture is supposed to be serious.”

It’s a version of a prom pose, but Honey is standing behind Cole. As per Cole’s request, her hands are on his pecs. His hands are on top of hers, keeping them in place. They’re standing sideways, so that Trevor can capture an over-the-shoulder gaze from the pair. He’s sitting on the couch, so the angle is low and looks up at them, making them seem taller.

“You are so strange,” Honey tells him. 

“Smile for the camera,” Cole replies pointedly. “No teeth.” He straightens his spine and rolls his shoulders back, smiling so that his dimple deepens. 

“Yeah, c’mon Honey, give us a smile,” Trevor quips from behind the camera. 

She plasters on a fake smile, but her glare is still deadly. 

Trevor snaps the picture anyway. 

Cole snatches the developing polaroid from Trevor, bouncing with excitement. “Hey, this is nice,” Cole says once the picture is clear enough. He hands the photo over to Honey and grins. “What do you think?”

She has to stifle a laugh again. Trevor managed to capture a moment that is steeped in absurdity. Cole stands tall, smiling thoughtfully. He’s proud, eyes glinting. His stance is secure, as is his grasp on Honey’s hands.

Honey, by contrast, is clearly not in the mood. Her lips are pressed together in a tolerant line, although her gaze is annoyed. She looks like she’s just putting up with Cole– to be fair, they’ve been doing these poses for the better part of an hour, and this is one of the saner ones. They did the Titanic pose (Honey was Jack), one where Cole lifted Honey onto his shoulder and knelt down on one knee, then another where Honey was perched on Cole’s knee, a back-to-back smoulder, one where Honey had to dip Cole like they were ballroom dancing, and a number of others. She’s probably almost out of film.

“I like the pictures, Co, but can we stop doing this?” Honey asks. “I’m not, like, a huge photo person.”

“Okay,” Cole agrees easily. He gestures toward the stack of photos in front of Trevor. “Choose your favorites. You can keep them.” He wiggles his eyebrows and pretends to wipe tears from his eyes, continuing in a fake-weak voice. “To remember me by.” He recovers quickly and claps Honey on the shoudler. “I’ll take the rest. I’m going to go take a dump.”

As he walks toward the stairs, Honey turns to Trevor and makes a face. “He’s so–”

“We like to say that he’s expressive,” Trevor interrupts with a smile. “He’s very good at overexaggerating his feelings for comedy.”

Honey laughs. “That’s– yeah, that’s actually a good way of saying it.”

Trevor reaches forward and picks a photo out of the pile. It’s the one of them standing back-to-back, giving intimidating glares to the camera. Their lips are puckered “like they’re in Zoolander,” as per Cole’s instructions. “I think this one is my favorite,” Trevor says. He hands the picture to Honey. “You should keep it.”

Honey takes the picture and studies it. Her eyes flicker up to Trevor, who is unabashedly watching her. “Oh my God,” she groans when she catches him, rolling her eyes and dropping her arms to her sides. She’s trying to sound serious, but there’s a smile trying to fight onto her face. “Stop.”

“Sorry,” Trevor apologizes, shit-eating grin on his face. “Can’t help it.”

“Fix your face,” Honey tells him, still trying to prevent herself from laughing. He’s positively helpless when it comes to Honey. He’s been staring at her every chance he gets since yesterday, when she’d accidentally called him her boyfriend. 

“Cole’s going to be in the bathroom for ages,” Trevor says, reaching out and looping his fingers through Honey’s belt loops. “He’s taking a shit, it’ll be a while. C’mere.” He pulls Honey onto his lap and kisses her, sliding his tongue into her mouth and making a soft noise of content.

Honey returns the kiss, shifting on Trevor’s lap so that her knees bracket his thighs. She brings her hands up to cradle his jaw, thumbs caressing his cheeks gently. When she pulls away, she complains, “You guys always tell me things that I do not need to know. Cole’s bathroom habits are one of those things.”

“Do you want to know about my bathroom habits?” Trevor asks, knowing that it’s going to bother her based on the way he’s chuckling.

“No,��� Honey decides, squishing Trevor’s cheeks between her hands. “I am very against learning your bathroom habits. In fact, I would prefer to be blissfully unaware of all of your trips to the toilet.” Honey smiles and pecks Trevor’s lips. “This should be our last conversation about it until there’s, like, a medical emergency.”

Trevor laughs and leans up to peck Honey’s lips in return. “Okay, baby. Whatever you want.”

They kiss again, and Trevor pushes his hips up against Honey’s core. It makes her giggle against his mouth– he’s not satisfied after the previous evening? He didn’t get his fill after drawing five orgasms from Honey throughout the night, using everything he could to bring her over the edge? Honey couldn’t even walk by the end of the night, and her legs were a little bit sore this morning. She’d stretched after getting out of bed, trying to regain total control of her limbs. 

When Trevor pulls away, his head falls back onto the couch cushions. He admires Honey, pure content on his face. His hands slide to her behind, fingers sliding into the back pockets of her jean shorts and staying there.

Honey smooths his hair out of his face and returns his smile. Her eyes are hooded and she tilts her head to the side as she looks at him. As much as she hates the word, there’s still a thrill that runs up her spine when she remembers that Trevor is her boyfriend and how delighted he was when she’d stood by what she said.

“Can I take a picture of you?” Trevor asks sweetly, blinking up at Honey. “You look so pretty.” He reaches up and touches a bruise at the base of her neck, which she’d explained away to Cole in a terrible, stammering ramble. Luckily, he’d bought it. “Especially with this,” Trevor adds.

Honey tenses slightly, shrugging her shoulder and displacing Trevor’s hand. “I don’t know,” she says. “That’s kind of… y’know.”

She doesn’t really have the words to explain it, but Trevor’s request sends a shiver up her spine, the same way she shivers whenever she thinks about the misuse of her image in the past. She tries not to remember how it felt to have her photos, and videos that she and Thomas took, spread throughout the community that surrounded her. Trevor’s community is much larger than that, given that he’s famous, and all. Maybe without the hickey, she’d let him. I mean, it’s small… and from this angle, you can’t really see it. She could. Honey is trying not to let all of her fear consume her because, really, Trevor isn’t like Thomas.

Trevor doesn’t let her hesitation bother him. “That’s okay,” he says, bringing his hand further to touch her cheek. “I don’t mind. I’ll just take a picture of you in my mind, if that’s okay.” He pinches her behind, nonverbally telling her that he’s teasing. Trevor even winks.

Honey laughs. “It’s not that I don’t want you to,” she tells him, bringing her arms to his shoulders and twining them around his neck. She plays with her fingers behind his head, pinching the skin as she tries to explain herself. “I like that you want to take pictures of me because you think I’m pretty, but there is the whole ‘Thomas’ element.”

Trevor nods along, understanding as always. 

“I’ll let you take a picture if you pinky-promise to burn it when we break up,” Honey decides, pulling a hand back and sticking her littlest finger out.

Trevor’s jaw drops. “When we break up?” he scoffs. “What are you planning? I’m not pinky-promising you until you take that back.”

“Oh my God,” Honey laughs, rolling her eyes and turning her head to the side. She sticks her tongue into her cheek and looks back at Trevor. “If we break up,” she amends, overexaggerating the opening word. 

“I still don’t like it, but that’s better than ‘when,’” Trevor teases, finding Honey’s pinky and looping his own around it. He kisses the intertwined fingers and then puckers his lips for her to meet, only briefly. “I promise to burn the picture in the very unlikely event that you break up with me. Because I…” He holds up a finger before Honey can interject. “Do not have any plans to break up with you for the rest of our lives.”

Honey laughs again. “Would it kill you to be subtle?”

“Uh, yeah,” Trevor jeers. “I’ve got the world’s best girlfriend, I’ve got to make sure she knows how I feel about her.” He sticks his tongue out at Honey and grins, kissing her again.

“I hate you,” Honey tells him between kisses.

“Oh, I bet,” Trevor replies, voice dripping with sarcasm. He takes hold of the camera at his side. “Gimme a big smile, baby.”

Refusing to give him what he really wants, just to reinforce that Honey does in fact “hate” Trevor (probably one of the bigger lies she’s told him, if she’s being realistic), Honey looks down at him with the tiniest quirk of her lips. She’s certain that her eyes are not nearly as unimpressed and menacing as she wants them to be, rather, tinged with the affection that she can’t hold back for the boy. Her lips curl further into an amused, knowing smile and her cheeks flush, almost aching with soreness from how often she’s been laughing and grinning when Trevor is around. 

Trevor takes a minute to snap the picture and Honey is pretty sure she knows why. He wants to get it just right, so that he can remember this moment exactly as it is. Her look, and this picture, is the kind of thing that is worth the suspension of time, to him. He’s so… good to Honey. There’s a connection between them that can’t be defined. It’s quiet and persistent and irresistible, no matter how hard Honey tried in the beginning of the summer. She’s fallen for him harder than she thought she would for any person, given her history. And he– well, he’s not ashamed about telling her how much he feels for her.

“I’m going to put this in my wallet,” Trevor announces once the polaroid has printed, flapping it in the air and blowing on the image.

Honey catches his hand. “Don’t do that,” she complains. “This is a modern polaroid camera, not an old one. It’ll develop just fine without waving the picture around.”

“But it’s more fun this way,” Trevor replies.

“But you might ruin the picture this way, and you’re not carrying a warped picture of me around in your wallet,” Honey insists, wrenching the photo from Trevor’s grip and setting it down on the table in front of them. 

“Let’s do one of us kissing.” Trevor changes the subject, lighting up at the idea. He wiggles his eyebrows. “I’ll keep that one in my nightstand.”

Honey draws her eyebrows together in faux-offense. “Right next to the lotion and the tissues? I don’t think so.”

Trevor heaves out a sigh. “Fine, I’ll just have to rely on my memory.” He drops the act immediately and starts to smile again, pulling Honey forward at the waist and catching her lips. 

They kiss for all of one second before Cole starts to bound down the basement steps again and Honey has to scramble to the side, smoothing a hand through her hair. She makes herself comfortable on the couch and kicks her feet up, while Trevor grabs the remote and turns on the television.

“Oh, sick, what should we watch?” Cole asks, rounding the couch and stepping over Honey’s legs so that he can plop down between the pair. He ruffles Trevor’s hair with his right hand, then extends his arms over the back of the couch behind both Honey and Trevor. He makes himself right at home and seems none the wiser that Honey was just on Trevor’s lap, lips locked and tongues meeting. “I just started watching Arrested Development again. You good with that, Hon?”

“Mhm,” Honey agrees, covering her lips with her thumb and staring at the TV.

“Cool.” Cole wrestles the remote from Trevor’s hand. “Gimme that,” he says, just before wrenching it away and navigating through the pop-up keyboard on the screen. He leans forward, squinting at the TV and choosing letters carefully.

Honey sneaks a peek at Trevor and finds him already looking. He winks and she has to hold back a giggle, knowing that Cole will press her for more information if she starts to laugh. She looks back at the screen and pinches at her bottom lip, still feeling the phantom touch of Trevor’s mouth. He’ll probably be a gentleman and walk her to the door when she leaves, although Cole might try to join them. If they’re alone, Honey will be sure to steal another kiss to tide her over until the next time they see each other.

[a-spes]

T H E B L O O D O N M Y H A N D S - One shot.

Words count - 3,2k.

Tags & Warnings - Natasha Romanoff x reader, angst / comfort, a form of self-harm, mentions of death and blood.

Summary - When you kill someone on duty for the first time, Natasha is the one being here to stop you from falling.

— — — — —

You haven’t been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent for long, barely more than three years. It may seem long for some people but, in that kind of job, it is not. Although your training ended up a long time ago, your teammates are still calling you a Rookie because even after years of duty, you still have a lot of things to learn, some the hard way.

You guess this nickname will stick with you until a new recruit joins the agency. It has been three years that no one passed the entrance exam so you are still seen as the newest addition which pisses you off sometimes. It is frustrating to not be taking seriously just because you are a bit less experienced than your teammates, some of them only been on the agency for one more year than you but are acting cocky with it.

However, despite your teammates’ attitude, you are convinced you are right where you are supposed to be : even if some days are rough, you love this job. Honestly, you never planned to join the agency but now you are here, you don’t want to leave.

You have always dreamed about becoming a police officer, not some kind of governmental spy. You ended up here thanks to a bit of fate and, mostly, thanks to the help of one of your professors. At the police academy, you were doing great, you were among the best of your promotion, that is why Mr. Andrews suggested you to take the entrance exam for the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. Before that day, you had never heard about the agency, but you still decided to give it a try, it was the least you could do to thanks him for everything he did.

Surprisingly, you succeed the exam and earned a place at the academy, alongside with two of your classmates. You weren’t sure it was what you wanted to do, but it was probably your only chance to give it a try so you went to the academy, thinking you could always leave if it doesn’t suit you. Yet, it has been the best decision you made.

Surely, you doubted it sometimes, thinking about quitting because the training was so hard, both physically and mentally, that you thought you couldn’t take it anymore. But you stayed, not being alone helped you a lot so, even if you doubted a lot your decision, you never regretted it.

Until today.

One day was enough to change everything. The first rule in the job is that you know nothing. Every mission is different, every mission could go wrong at any moment, it is impossible to be prepared to what it could bring to you. After three years of duty, you tend to forget about that rule. Up to now, everything went smooth, except for a few injuries you got, you were lucky.

It was supposed to be a routine mission, not much different than the previous ones. Your team was supposed to take back some important documents, so you needed to infiltrate the hotel the guys who stole it were staying.

“I get it”, you whisper in the communication device.

But when you are about to leave the room, you hear the voices of two persons. You don’t have much time, so you decide to quickly hide under the bed, you wish there was a better place but all you can do is waiting here, praying they won’t notice your presence. However, it seems fate is not on your side tonight.

After maybe ten minutes of waiting that felt like an eternity, you eventually feel someone pulling you from under the bed by grabbing your legs. You may be a qualified agent, but they are way more experienced than you are. You were listening to their conversation but yet, you couldn’t have guessed they knew you were here the whole time. Racing heart and irregular breath are the signs of panic, but you can’t let those take the control of your body, fear is a synonym to death. Take a deep breath, think and attack before they can.

It is quite easy to escape the man’s grasp because he wasn’t expecting you to be so fast. But the man wasn’t the problem, it was the woman with him. She was aiming that gun at you while you were fighting with her mate, not shooting yet because she could’ve killed him instead, but as soon as you stand up, she doesn’t hesitate anymore.

It was a reflex.

She missed the first bullet because of the circumstances, because she couldn’t clearly target you so the bullet passed closed enough. Except she doesn’t look like someone that misses an easy shot and you don’t look like someone who wants to die so you shoot first.

It was a reflex.

It is the first you kill someone on duty. Three years of duty during whose you ensured that you wouldn’t kill anyone. You get them out of the way, you hurt them, sometimes you knock them out like you just did with that guy but you never took a life. But tonight you did, for the first time. Tonight, you didn’t aim for that woman’s leg but for her chest, right where her heart is, she died almost on the spot. It feels awful.

On the way back to the base, you are silent. Your teammates don’t even notice how quiet you are tonight. The two sitting on the front of the car are talking, the last one is humming some music. The mood is light because the mission was a success: you did bring back those documents. So why aren’t you joyful? You don’t know, but tonight you don’t feel like joking, laughing and jumping around as you usually would.

Tonight, you won’t celebrate with your mates because there is nothing to celebrate. A woman died. It doesn’t matter which side she was on or if she was aiming that gun at your head because you shoot and it makes you no better than the people you despise. When you joined the Academy, it was to save civilians, to make something good about your life, you wanted to feel useful and make a difference. So from the moment you became an agent, you avoid killing people. A part of you knew that, one day, wouldn’t let you choose but you didn’t think much about it; if after three years you didn’t kill anyone, it’ll may stay that way until you end your career.

Oh, how naive you were.

Maybe you are too gentle for that world. Your mates kill people and you never saw them hesitating, so what’s wrong with you? Can’t your mind just shut up? It is not that a big deal, is it? It is supposed to be your job, you did what you had to, right? So why does it still feel wrong?

You are a person that easily slip on other people’s shoes. Those people called villains are nothing more than people that got lost at a moment in their lives, people that were failed by the system or made a wrong choice, does it mean they deserve to die? Some of them, maybe, but definitely not that woman. She was barely older than you are, she had a whole life to live but she will never get you because of you, because you decided she didn’t deserve to live.

It is something your superiors often blame you for: your inability to shot when it is needed. It is not because it led to failed mission, but because it caused you a lot of injuries that could have been avoid. They never understood why you were so reluctant to do so, sometimes they are angry, sometimes just disappointed. But tonight you eventually did exactly what they are expecting from you. That’s what you are repeating to yourself but it doesn’t make you feel any better, if you hate the idea of disappointing Agent Romanoff, your superior, you probably hate your actual situation even more.

This moment is playing again and again on your mind, making you oblivious of your surrounding. The sound of her body falling is covering your mates’ voices. The way her chest raised one last time before she stopped moving, the way her eyes were wide open and the blood. Everywhere. On the ground, on her suit, on your hands. A bit of your own, but mostly of her, who knew a body contains so much blood? Not you.

When you are finally back at the compound, the redhead is here. Even if you are not a trainee anymore, you are still a rookie until they decide otherwise and she will probably be your mentor for a few more years. And being your mentor means that wherever you are, she is. Today was your first mission alone. Well, you weren’t really alone, you had your usual team by your side but she wasn’t here. At first, she didn’t want to let you go, wherever she is, you are, but she let herself be convinced. This mission couldn’t wait more, neither could the emergency call she got.

The mission was easier than some you did by the past, she knows you are capable but still, she can’t get over that strange feeling, being scared for you security. She knows she can trust you but can she really trusts your mates? She is stressing over the fact that, for the first time, she isn’t here to protect you.

She is now regretting her choice, it was irresponsible from her to agree to such a demand. She has no idea what exactly happened during the mission but she heard that things didn’t go as smoothly as they were supposed too. She is pacing back and forth on the garage, waiting for your team to come back. She tried to get more information from Fury, but he doesn’t know much more than what he already told her.

A few hours later, the team is eventually back. When her eyes catch you, she is relieved: you seem fine. Her relief only lasts a moment as she quickly notices something is off with your attitude. You ignored her, didn’t even looked for her as you would usually do.

“What happened?” she asks to one of the agents that was on the mission. She grabbed him by the arm, forcing him to look at her, she is taking the whole situation seriously.

“She fired”, he replies, shrugging.

The man doesn’t really understand why it is such a big deal to you, after three years, you should be used to that kind of things happening in a mission. However, Natasha immediately understood.

She rushes to find you but it is already too late. She can’t find you on the locker room, neither she can on your dorm or on the common areas. It is on the shared bathroom that she eventually finds you. She can’t help but being worried. She was really young when she killed for the first time, but she still remembers how it feels, years don’t take away the guilt and the disgust. The difference is that she never got a chance to think too much about it, she was raised to kill, it felt almost normal after a while, she got used to that feeling You, however, are not of that kind. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are: you are not a murder.

“What are you doing?” she asks, frowning when she saw you here.

Scrubbing. That is what you are doing and the only thing left in your mind, you are just obsessed with the idea of cleaning your hands. So you are scrubbing. You are scrubbing until the water turns clear but it doesn’t, it stays red and bloody. It seems there is always more blood on your hands.

You are so focused that you didn’t even hear the woman coming in. Your ears are ringing and your vision is blurry because of the tears in your eyes, the only thing you can see clearly is the blood, all this red. You are using a nail brush in hope it would help you get it of the dirt? but it doesn’t. It just hurts.

A pain that you ignore.

A pain that you feel like you deserved it, like it is the only way to get those memories out of your mind, even if it is just for a moment, you are glad to be able to focus on something.

However, Natasha is not. As soon as she realizes what you are doing, she steps in. She turns the water off, wrapping her hands around yours to make you stop, as her attempts to talk to you failed. She slowly takes the soap and the brush from your hands, putting it on the sink.

For a few minutes, you remain silent. You don’t even dare to look at her in the eyes, how could you? The guilt and the shame make you avoid her gaze, a part of you being scared about what she could say or think. Maybe she sees you exactly as you do right now: pathetic and horrible.

“Let’s clean those wounds”, she eventually says in a quiet voice that surprises you because you thought she would be angry and yell at you. Or maybe it is what you wished she would do. It is easier to hate yourself when people do too.

But she doesn’t.

On the contrary, she is sweet and caring, an attitude that is rarely hers, Agent Romanoff not being someone showing that she cares the usual way. She is usually demanding with the people she cares for but she understands that tonight you don’t need that. Right now, what you need is someone by your side, someone to guide you through that situation.

So she makes you sit on a stool. You don’t protest, there is something good in not having to think about what to do next. She comes back with a few seconds later with medical kit. She sits in front of you and, in silence, she starts to take care of your hands. You scrubbed them for so long and with so much pressure that the blood at the end wasn’t the woman’s anymore. It was yours because the brush scratched your hands.

“Here we are”, she says once she is done. She cleaned your wounds with alcohol and then applied bandages on your hands. She seems to want to add something, but she hesitates. “Do you want to talk about it?” she eventually asks.

You shake your head, no. You don’t want to talk about it, you don’t want to hear about it, you don’t even want to think about what happened today. If it was possible, you would like to erase this day from your mind or turn back in time so you can change the outcome, but you can’t.

Natasha sighs but she doesn’t push, she knows it is not the solution. Instead, she guides you to her quarters.

“It is not my room”, you remark when you get here. It is a one person room, one of the privileges of being a superior.

“No, it’s not”, she acknowledges, “but I am not leaving your side.”

“You don’t need to do that, I am gonna be fine”, but she doesn’t let you go. As you try to leave the room, she firmly hold you by the arm. You staying here wasn’t a question, not even an invitation, it was more of an order.

“No, you are not. And after what happened I don’t trust you, at least not tonight”, she tells you and she is not joking at all. She has that serious expression and you know she won’t take no as an answer. You want to be alone, but deep down you are relieved you won’t spend the night alone.

She helps you take off your suit. She then helps you to put on some of her clothes, a short and a t-shirt, so you are ready to go to sleep. It is already late, midnight was long gone. She guides you to the bed, it is a bit small but it is just for one night and you don’t seem to protest, you just let her guide you, your mind being far away.

The two of you are leaning in the bed in silence. Her chest pressing against your back, her head near to yours. She is holding you firmly, as if she was scared you could run away. You stay in that position for a moment before your voice breaks the silence.

“I- I don’t even know her name, I barely saw her face and-” you eventually say, feeling the need to let a bit of what is in your mind out. You are exhausted, but you can’t even close your eyes to try to sleep, those memories and thoughts keeping you wide awake.

“it’s okay”, she whispers in your ear. She is not sleeping either, too worried about you for that. She already knows that she is going to stay awake the whole night to keep an eye on the woman she is holding in her arms.

“No!” you yell. You can’t stand how calm she is. “No it’s not, how could it be okay? I killed her. I killed a woman and I don’t even know who she was.”

“It happens, sometimes, you have no choice”, she continues to talk in a quiet voice, soothing you by stroking your hair. She knows nothing she could say right now would make it easier. You need time and support, all she can do is being here and let you know she is.

“I do, I should’ve aimed for her limb or…”, you start, but you can’t even finish your sentence. You feel your throat tighten, your voice broke on the last few words.

“You did exactly what you had to. You did exactly what you had to stay alive. I know it is hard but you will get through it, okay? And I am gonna be here, with you, the whole time”, she whispers again in your ear, her voice calming a bit the storm in you.

This is how you eventually fell asleep. In the comfort of the arms of that woman, with a feeling of security. The way her hand is brushing your hair calming your mind until Morpheus accepts you in his realm. The words she is whispering in your ears are helping to ease the guilt and the hate. However, Natasha won’t sleep. She is going to stay awake the whole night just so she can be here if you wake up needing her, no matter what time of the night it is, she wants to make sure you are not alone because it is the worst in situations like this.

[honeybeezgobzzzzz]

☠️ Something Dread, Something Red: Chapter One

Something Dread, Something Red: Stuck in a proposal to a Marine Commodore, you escape minutes before your wedding in one last ditch effort to avoid getting married to a tyrant. Barely making it to the port of your town, you stumble across a ship just starting to leave and beg for passage off the island. You fail to notice that the people you beg for help, are pirates.

Warnings: Allusions of Domestic Violence.

To Note: “Red Haired” Shanks x FemReader

Word Count: ~2.6k

Masterlist | Next

The night is darkest at dawn. Just before the first rays of the new day strike the horizon, the night draws infinitely black, offering the last bit of night before being smothered by the sun. You love the silence it brings, giving you a break from the cumbersome and structured life you live. Yet that indulging peace is fleeting, never long enough for you to taste what you truly long for, only taunting you with something that you’d never reach. Sighing, you rest your chin on your gathered knees and enjoy what will be your last sunrise at Bonn Manor.

You’ve been born on the grounds, raised in its elegant halls, and soon, you will be married in its chestnut grove. The wedding has been planned for nearly a year, your engagement? Years. Everything has been meticulously designed down to the length of a single blade of grass. Your mother is a bit of a control freak, and she hasn’t let you put in one word edgewise—and it’s your own wedding! Not that you are surprised, you’ve never once had the pleasure of even choosing your own outfits or meals.

In hindsight, it saves you many a headache for you haven’t lifted a finger in the entire process. The florist has been given strict directions on what bouquets, boutonnières, and accents should look like, not to mention the flower choice. The bakery in the heart of your island has no doubt been working overtime to supply the cake and other specialty confectionery, and the tailor has almost moved into the manor to finish the work on your dress.

Your dress.

It has been in production for nearly eight months. Your town, Kuri Island, while known for its chestnut trees, is also famed for its lacework. Leagues and leagues of lace have been stitched just for your dress, and that doesn’t even include your outrageous veil! It is enormous, beaded, and decorated with innumerable cloth flowers. Your mother really hasn’t spared any expense, tutting that this has been her lifestyle dream to see you married to a powerful man that will ensure that your noble bloodline continues to prosper.

That and the family business. The Bonn’s have a monopoly on the chestnut and lace industry on Kuri Island, ruling with an iron fist and ensuring that they remain the most powerful on the island. Your fiancé is the next in line, power-wise. As a Marine Commodore, Thomas Collins is the only man on the island worthy of your hand… and in just a few short hours, he’ll have it.

But not by your choice.

This is an arranged marriage drafted by your parents when you were just a teen, to a man very much your senior who cares little for your feelings. Worse? He isn’t a good man, or a good Marine. As much as your mother has tried to control the whispers that reach your delicate ears, you know the reputation Thomas has among the commoners. He isn’t a good man, he has a habit of cruelty to those far beneath himself, and you’ve even heard rumors of bribery. But politics and Berry have trumped over your personal feelings. You can’t refuse this marriage; your opinion can’t even leave your lips.

Just as the sun begins to rise above the horizon, your maids bustle into your room followed by additional ones to tackle the great task of getting you ready for the wedding in a few hours. Ann and Gerbera, your personal maids, hustle over to you. While Ann scans your lavender bedhead, Gerbera takes your hand and inspects your nails.

“I haven’t gone and ruined my nails,” you murmur, not taking your eyes off the glow of the morning sunrise.

“Your mother requested an inspection, my lady,” Gerbera replies, scanning your immaculate fingernails. “Lest you had made an attempt to flee during the night.”

“And where would I go?” you ask vaguely, your eyes taking on a faraway and clouded look. The maids often see it appear within your eyes the closer the wedding draws. They are not oblivious to the matter that you don’t wish to marry Thomas. They have most definitely witnessed your private breakdowns over the years as you slowly realize that your life has never been your own. They are good to you, excellent maids who take pride in caring for their lady… but they can’t even move a single finger to help you in your predicament.

“Never mind that, off to the baths,” Ann softly preens, trying to find light in the fact that you will be glowing with beauty once they are done dressing you for your wedding. You let Gerbera pull you from your lonesome and brooding perch, guiding you through your rooms to the grand bathroom that already steams with scented water. You can smell the strong scent of rose and argan oil rising from the bubbling water. You’ve been taking baths thrice weekly to soften your skin to that of the finest satin on your mother’s orders, and have started hating the scent. It makes you nauseous. This will be your last so you will bear it.

Standing in place, Ann and Gerbera delicately undo the strings to your nightdress, pulling it from your body to leave you naked. You don’t hesitate to step down into the bath. The hot water does very little to ease your growing nausea and discomfort. You know it won’t. But at the very least it feels nice on your stiff body. You have sat at your window for hours without moving, your mind spinning and descending into the dark depths of the pit of hell you’ll soon be living in.

Gerbera kneels behind you and takes your long lavender hair in hand, gently running an ivory comb through the tangled strands. You wince every time she catches a knot. Gerbera murmurs an apology each time and carefully unravels the knot of hair. Your lavender locks aren’t usually a mess, but you’ve tossed and turned all last night before getting up a few hours ago to wait for the sunrise. At the very least, once you are married you’ll have more control over the length of your hair. The extraneous length is cumbersome and almost like chains to weigh you down. Well, almost every part of your life is some sort of chain or prison.

So while Gerbera continues to tend to your hair, Ann takes to massaging oils into your hands and buffing your already immaculate nails. They take extra care in placing dabs of oil in key places on your body. Behind your ears, along your neck, and across your wrists. As you walk, the oils will diffuse into the air around you, perfuming you and leaving behind the scent of rose. A scent that drowns you in hatred. It is always rose this or rose that. Rose jewelry and rose dresses. Even a rose-themed bedroom!

If you never smell another rose after this blasted wedding you will die a happy woman…

You stay in the bath as long as you’re allowed, but the strict voice of your mother ringing from your bedroom has Ann and Gerbera pulling you from the bath and wrapping you in a towel. They dry you off in record time, no doubt saving you from a stern lecture, and wrap your wet hair in a drying towel. The three of you wince when your mother’s voice turns sharp and she nearly starts shrieking at the poor girl who added an extra rose to your bouquet.

“It’s not even seven o’clock yet and the madam is already angry,” Ann murmurs, almost hesitant to push you back into your bedroom.

“It’s a perpetual state I believe,” you reply, twisting your fingers together. “The day she is pleasant is the day the world has ended.” Toweled dry, you don a robe and reluctantly head back to your bedroom. Your mother is still harping on the poor girl who got the number of flowers wrong in your bouquet when you appear. She rounds on you like a viper and you have a brief momentary thought that she might give herself whiplash.

“You!” she barks out. “Why are you not sitting down for your hair and makeup?” You remain silent and simply lower yourself to the velvet and satin chair in front of your vanity. She continues to berate you for things you have no control over and complain over nonexistent errors. It will be all over in a few hours; you’ll trade one jailer for another.

Your hair is dealt with first. Being so long, it takes perhaps nearly half an hour to brush it out smooth and braid it. Then it is swirled and pinned into place upon your head with crystal-studded pins that dig into your scalp in a painful reminder. You’ve been complimented on how lovely the crystal and flower pins look within your lavender-colored hair, and combined with the minimal makeup being painted upon your face you are sure to look the picture of perfection.

“Heavens, Linaria, could you at the very least respect your mother enough to get sleep during the night!” Your mother huffs, fretting and tutting over the bags beneath your eyes the makeup slowly conceals. “I have worked tirelessly to perfect this wedding and I will not have you ruining it with an unsightly appearance.”

“Yes, mother,” you reply obediently. Her eyes, echoing your own but with a much harsher tint, narrow and she scoffs.

“Knowing you, you’ll make a scene at the reception or even ruin the vows. Commodore Collins isn’t expecting a wildling for a wife! He is expecting a well-bred, well-taught, and docile wife to meet him at the altar. Do not disappoint me.” Your eyes meet hers in the mirror for a brief moment before you drop your gaze. Your silence isn’t the answer she expects and taloned nails sink into your pinned hair, yanking your head back.

Yelping, your fingers dig into your robe as you are forced to look into her cruel and hard eyes.

“Am I clear? You are to behave, Linaria, do not disappoint this family again,” her warning is well and clear within her eyes. This is the last one she’ll give you. Swallowing thickly, you agree in the softest voice.

“Yes, mother,” your hair is released and you take in a silent breath of relief, grateful that she isn’t tugging on your hair still. You are sure that a few of the pins will have to be righted after her harsh hold.

“I have to greet our guests, get her ready to dress,” your mother snaps before striding from your bedroom in a swirl of heavy skirts. Rubbing your neck with a slight wince, Ann takes place behind you and quickly fusses with your hair to return it to pristine condition.

“We beg you, my lady,” Ann pleads, her fingers gently placing the pins back in order. “I fear what will happen to you the next time you go against the madam.”

“And where exactly would I go at a time like this?” you reply, looking at Ann in the mirror. “The manor and grounds are crawling with visitors, the help, and guards. I have nowhere to go. Besides,” you glance at the wedding dress on the mannequin in your room. “You think I could run in that? The thing weighs more than I do soaking wet.”

After Ann and Gerbera get your hair and makeup just perfect, they’re dismissed by your mother’s personal maids. She doesn’t trust you with your personal maids and has ordered her own to see to dressing you. So you are alone with maids that have no issue enforcing your mother’s orders. They have you get up and stand in the middle of your room, fluttering around while gathering up the layers of your outfit.

You are already in your underwear and bra, a decorative set that your mother has insisted you wear for the wedding, so when you peel the robe from your body you aren’t especially shy. Valeria, your mother’s favorite, brings over the heavy dress and with the help of Clover, maneuvers the top of the dress over your head. Despite being made from airy lace, the bones of the ballroom dress are metal and ridged, structuring the dress in the precise way your mother wants your body to look.

As you place your arms in the three-quarter sleeves with layered lace and starched silk, Valeria’s fingers are quick to work on the strings of the corset. She tightens it immediately, making a small noise of pain emerge from your lips, and only draws the strings tighter and tighter. As elegant and beautiful as you may look, you feel like you are being tied into a jail cell. Clover joins in on tugging the corset tight, and the bruising tightness only grows worse.

You want to bite your lip as your ribs begin to screech at you, not liking the pressure. But heaven forbid you turn up to your wedding with bitten and chewed lips. Clenched fingers it is. Several minutes later, after being jerked around and squeezed most viciously, the extravagant veil is being pinned into your hair. Another weight to add. Valeria departs to report to your mother while Clover remains to watch over you. Walking over to the grand mirror in your bedroom, you stare at yourself in dread.

You look like a trussed turkey heading for the dinner table.

You can admit that you look beautiful, the shape of your waist cinched in and the wide neckline decorated with fabric rose buds accented your collarbones. Months of work on the lace detailing has pulled out a wedding gown fit for a princess… or a lady from a very rich family. But you can’t enjoy your beauty, you can’t giggle or dance as the skirts of your dress swirl around your feet. You can’t enjoy anything about the dress, no matter how expensive or luxurious it is.

By some grace, an extra maid pokes her head into your bedroom with a red face. She begins rattling off a bunch of issues with minor details of the ceremony space that your mother is throwing an absolute fit over, and Clover glances at you with a worried look. You can see her thought process. She is supposed to watch over you, but the wedding will not commence without everything being perfect. Well, it isn’t like you are going to go anywhere. So Clover quickly follows the maid, leaving you in suffocating silence.

Suffocating is an understatement.

Your heart is trying to beat its way out of your chest in pure fear. You have but a mere fifteen minutes before you will be truly locked in an inescapable prison. If you thought it was hard to breathe wearing this dress it is nothing compared to the looming doom that is mere minutes away. Your eyes flicker to the balcony of your bedroom; the doors have been locked after you tried running before… but with the cleaning of the manor in anticipation for the wedding, they are no longer barred from use.

Memories of what happened to you as a result of being caught and dragged back to the manor flicker into your mind. You’ve never been in that much pain. Fear of repercussion prickles in your veins, rooting you to where you stand. Eyes catching sight of the tops of the ships harbored, your throbbing heart leaps into your throat.

“I’ll never have another chance,” you whisper to yourself, desperation winning over fear.

Date Published: 11/13/23

Last Edit: 7/29/24

Masterlist | Next

[punkpandapatrixk]

Slow Mornings~♪

Hello lovely peeps. I'm popping in to say that I'm so sorry I haven't been as productive as I’d hoped. I had all of these plans, and literally 3 years’ worth of content ideas, but my body has not been able to catch up! I’m now behind on all of the readings I’d scheduled for the entirety of October XD

The truth of the matter is a little bit convoluted but I’ve been both experiencing a series of burnout—autistic burnout, which I didn’t even know was a speciality thing—as well as being in this healing phase where my body simply wants to catch up on sleep, after years and years and very long years of being on edge. There was a meme I forgot to save that says something to this effect:

'Your body is healing from years of trauma; you’re not lazy. You deserve this peace.’

Actually, the above could as well be a mash of two—or three—separate memes LOL Here’s another good one from a sub maker that I feel captures just thee vibe I’m feeling right now:

‘Maybe you're simply perceiving how a lovely sensation of closure & calm gently fills the air around you, feeling a little sleepier than usual. Or maybe you can sense how a massively positive change is coming, seemingly eager to go with it and that's great as well.’ – The Witch of Drown Shadows

I believe many of you reading this could relate as well. A new beginning is on the horizon for sooo many of us who’ve been on a soul-search to liberate ourselves from the chains of the toxic Matrix. I hope you're doing well, and excited for what's to come before the year even ends ^o^v

Forget the grind, leave behind soul-sucking deadlines, and enjoy the slow mornings~♪

Naturally, I’m going to be more productive again once I’m done stabilising myself—all mind body and spirit aligned. I’m not saying this out of a sense of ‘obligation’; that all people ideally must be a productive member of society. No, not that. I really want to get productive on this blog because I’ve a shit ton of good content in the works XD

I’ve so much new content on career, luck, character glow-up, soulmate friendships!!!, celebrity life, life purpose and other esoteric shit I’m eager to put out \^-^/ Not to mention the fiction that’ll go on Wattpad. I’m making progress on Punk Panda Stories but slow…very slow XD

For now, I’m aiming to post one PAC every week without fail. I’m just going to expect this much from me in the meantime, so as not to burn myself out on the psychology level just yet. When you expect too much from yourself, the stress could deter any progress instead, right?

This is especially true for those who don’t necessarily have a deadline. But that’s the thing, I don’t wanna strangle myself with deadlines anymore. So I’m not gonna work like that anymore. This ain’t 9-5 corporate, girl. Stop thinking like that! Is what I’ve been telling myself. Gotta change the whole way I approach my soul-work~♪

Until the end of the year, I’m teaching myself to enjoy slow mornings™️ I’ve been starting my day with just cleaning myself and my room; having a breakfast of lemon tea w/ a dollop of strawberry jam + a CVS croissant; playing a game on my dusty-but-trusty old PSP when I’ve got the time; and reading a few chapters of an actual book.

In the afternoon, I’ve been back on teaching myself ballet and strengthening my vocals. It’s nice. I feel very healthy and like myself again, but better <3 We were born into this world to enjoy our hobbies and hopefully, ideally make money alongside those hobbies <3

Never forget that, girlies. Hard work doesn’t suit us <3

How the Boredom Epidemic Ruined Hobbies by Nicole Rudolph

[euphorajeon]

twenty-seven.

You turn twenty-seven this year.

The first time I had known of you, it was from a birthday live in 2015. I clicked on the video randomly, with zero knowledge about you and Bangtan, and I was confused. Why are these boys so loud but not the birthday boy? I didn’t know anyone’s names back then. Didn’t know your personality. Didn’t know how much you’d mean to me in the coming years.

You turn twenty-seven this year.

You were nineteen when I saw you in concert for the first time in my life. Twenty that year, actually, but still nineteen in April—the month of the concert. Your hair was so different back then, the style the one we used to say coconut head, but your smile remains the same. Wide, bright, and the light still reaches your eyes where they twinkle in glee. My memories of that night are a blur—but the brightness of your smile while being on stage, I’ll never forget.

You turn twenty-seven this year.

For the next couple of years, I watched you struggle before my eyes. You used to be so hard on yourself about your performance, crying over a minuscule mistake that no one but you noticed. It was heartbreaking to watch, especially knowing how hard you work for those performances. But over time, I watched you be more gentle towards yourself, now being able to laugh off the mistake that you do on stage. It was nice to see that you’re able to be at peace about those mistakes.

You turn twenty-seven this year.

Over the years, I have watched you go from someone who’s closed off to someone who’s not afraid of showing who you are. You used to hold onto fans’ requests and complaints like a lifeline, thinking they will leave you the second you say no. Now, you just tell those who complain to fuck off. (Not in those words, exactly. You were more gentle. Sorry that I’m not.) Also, this paragraph won’t be complete without mentioning the cursed green dishwashing gloves—that you ditched in favor of short-sleeved t-shirts two years later. Then two years after that, you let us in on the meaning of the art covering your arm. I couldn’t be more proud (and thankful.)

You turn twenty-seven this year.

And yet, your childlike wonder is still intact. For the past few weeks, I watched you feel excited over the smallest bit of things some people find mundane. The snack you’d found in an American supermarket. The kimchi and grilled fish in that Jeju restaurant. That climbing place that has you jumping around in joy. It’s refreshing to see you enjoy those small things, makes me feel like it wouldn’t take a lot to be happy. I hope you stay happy like this every day (even when Jimin scolds you for running around the supermarket searching for guacamole and tortilla chips instead of the sponge you initially planned to get.)

You turn twenty-seven today.

I hope your smile never dims. I hope your happiness doesn’t falter. I hope you have a great time today. I hope you know that we’re still here, staying with you, holding your hand, even when you’re currently away. We’ll never let go.

Happy twenty-seventh birthday, Jeongguk.

september 1st, 2024.

a/n: it's a veryveryvery late post but still, happy 27th birthday, ggukie!

masterlist

[shineonyoucrazyyandere]

Hey this is a bit of a weird one to explain but could you please make headcanons on how the main jojo's (cept for jodió ) would react with a willing!reader that's really curious about their stand/hamon and one days they develop an ability that's like the main villan of their part

For example eye lasers like part 1 Dio, Kars light blades and in puccis case they get white snake not MiH

Would they freak out? Would their attitude change in anyway?

One last thing please use gender neutral pronouns, sorry for the long ask

I could do a lil something for this. I’m hoping I interpreted right.

Yandere Joestars with willing! gn! Darling who manifests a similar ability to the main villain.

Yandere! Jonathan Joestar

He’s amazed at the manifestation of your hamon, or rather how you did so. He’s so sweetly proud of you, but the worries eat away at him at the back of his mind. How you fight and Dio fight are likely different, and he considers this in the back of his head. Not that he doesn’t trust your capabilities, he’s very overprotective basically wanting to be a big buff guardian angel.

He’d want to be there right next to you to defeat Dio once and for all. Definitely he’d tell you to keep the way you utilize your hamon on a lower level. As much as he hesitates in using it often, if it can be somehow gaged from weaker rays to stronger ones at will he might sleep much better at night. But he is absolutely not leaving your side whatsoever when working on managing it. Not even going to sleep, those are his stipulations.

Yandere! Joseph Joestar

Not lying he’s awestruck at your hamon blades, a little too giddy himself. He’s still clingy and overprotective but he knows you inside and out, and what he’s seen from Kars is another level of dangerous. He informs you to attack him like you want to viciously murder him, even makes it about marrying him if he lets you continue to help. He ends up on his tip toes through your “deadly sparring”.

He’s got a goofy grin the whole time, but there’s quite a few times he makes an audible gasp. He laughs it off and tells you not to behead your future husband just yet. It’s eerily similar to kars’s fighting style but he chalks that up to you being observant and honestly probably having a great grasp at Lisa-Lisa’s teachings. He loves you making him sweat though it’s cute.

“Jojo you need to take this seriously” you whined

“sorry sorry I can’t help it ” He teases back with a shrug

He’ll absolutely make sure to remember every vulnerable spot you do mention though. That will definitely be needed

Yandere! Jotaro Kujo

Even if you’re willing, he’s still heavily overprotective over you, at least until DIO finally burns into ashes. The way you seem to manipulate what looks like time in some capacity, may just spur Jotaro into unlocking Star Platinum the world much earlier. He only allows you to show it off to him and maybe his grandfather. He’ll verbally inform Kakyoin and the others himself of the potential that DIO could have something similar to what you have (or more in particularly Jotaro himself). Any potential complexities aside of course.

Figuring out that would at the very least save Kakyoin’s life without needing a sacrifice to figure out DIO’s stand

Yandere! Josuke Higashikata (pt 4)

He’s absolutely uncertain of you facing Kira in any capacity. It brings chills to his spine, freaks him out what that man could end up doing to you. He will protect you anyway he can and makes sure to bring the rest of the group together to plan around what similarities you have with Kira’s stand. He’s there squeezing your hand the whole time when you present your stand.

Absolutely he is actually trying for once to resist the urge to call it all off out of selfishness and find a way to kill this murderer once and for all. He hates that it had to be you of all people that had to have similar characteristics to this murderer. Especially if he would desire to target you due to adjacent abilities. Once this is over he’s giving you all the kisses he possibly could, (and a several minute hug that seemingly doesn’t want to end)

Yandere! Giorno Giovanna

This is something he absolutely wants you to rely on him for. If this gives any opportunity to defeat Diavolo along with Polnareff’s assistance, he’ll take it. He probably obsesses you the most out of all times, he knows your quirks and mannerisms. Memorizing them to the tiniest flinch of an arm, your intent, everything. Of course he keeps in mind of your ability, and inwardly applies any possible discretion that could get everyone killed.

He preferably wants to keep you away from this mess, as he’s certain you would ultimately be taken advantage of and killed if Diavolo observed you thoroughly. He can’t help but brush out your hair with his finger tips, looking into your eyes, drinking up your appearance. Any little smiles you give, assures him but he makes it certain to use it analytically as well.

For now he does pepper kisses alone your neck, and cheek. Just to blow off a little stress as you all head for an eventual final battle.

Yandere! Jolyne Kujo

She’s a mess, similar to Jotaro she wants to keep what you tell her to herself. As messed up as things are with are father, she likely also needs him to help kick Pucci’s ass. The more this woman watches you use this stand, her confidence goes up they can defeat this priest before he gets out of control. Her eyes stare into yourself with intense determination, she loves you, and she will be there every step of the way. It doesn’t even matter if your stand does similar discs or it’s something similar to a vhs tape. You’ll figure everything out together, she swears by that.

Yandere! Johnny Joestar

He reacts interestingly, he looks off coldly (not at you). More so in thought of this dangerous ability. The problems that could literally arise from bringing an alternate version of someone else here. You observe him in absolute deep thought of countless issues, including losing you most of all. He can’t have that, and he refuses to have that anyway.

Even if your stand is merely dimension hopping, or sending someone away that isn’t even in this universe. Johnny ends up freezing up out of ice cold determination to kill the president in the struggle race for the corpse parts. Though careful he could end up crushing your hand on accident just out of fury. You’ll probably be asked how you get there and might be bombarded with other hypotheticals. He’s sort of expecting a lot out of you, but at the same time it’s for your protection if he’s gonna be honest.

Johnny eventually mellows out a bit by likely laying his head on your lap. Of if he’s sitting up putting his chin on your shoulder. Enjoying your warmth as he gazes into the fire at camp in thought for the journey ahead.

Part 8 Josuke Higashikata

There’s a looming dark determination coming off him when he learns of your similar ability Tooru. Of course it puts you in the line of fire, but he and Yasuho-chan are ready to figure things out along side you. The irony of his darling having similar ability to his enemy hits deep, but everyone has a lot riding on this. He likely pats your head, maybe hums that little song you like him to sing. He tells you this isn’t just for Holly but for yourself too, he’ll somehow get around these calamities no matter what.

Honestly he probably gets a big emotional and ends up crying a bit. with you having to wipe his tears, almost like a kids. He cherishes this moment of closeness even with his fears and worries.

[mxtxfanatic]

Hello! I've seen some posts talk about JC's inferiority complex in MDZS, and there were a few things that kinda puzzled me a bit. The first was talking about how JC treated demonic cultivators post-WWX's death. That him hunting them down and capturing them were just (BS) rumors? That the original Mandarin wording in them implied he didn't really do anything that bad to those he captured? As in, no actual torture? (That he was all bark and no bite, apparently.) Even looking at when JC finally captures WWX, they spun the event to be something like "wow, yes, JC is so great at torturing people! look at him, using just a little dog to scare WWX instead of doing anything else!" What did the novel really say about all that? The other matter was more specific, to ch. 73? When JC and WWX stage their fight and then WWX's defection from the Jiang Sect. How JC then declares WWX as an enemy of the cultivation world? Did he really say something like that in the novel? What were JC and WWX's plans for their stated fight? Did JC follow those plans, or go awry? If the latter, what did he do?

These posts, in my eyes, seem to almost want to make JC look like he really wasn't as bad of a person. That his actions (in regards to WWX) weren't /that/ harmful. Almost of if the rumors in the book (and maybe in the "fandom" too), painted him much worse than he really is. Which, of course all JC stans want to make their "little purple grape" seem like he's so innocent and that even his bad behaviors actually weren't all that bad when you really look at them. (Here's me rolling my eyes.) I'm not a fan of JC, at all; I hate him, actually, lol. But the things these posts mentioned kinda make me pause. Yet given my bias against him, and my terrible memory, I couldn't really recall what truly happened in the novel.

Anon, whoever is saying any of this is just lying. Jc stans lose the battle with canon every time, so they start making up shit to make it seem like Jiang Cheng is actually a good person according to some super secret text only they have access to. Many times, they will even resort to gaslighting, such as with this example. Of all the mxtx novels, mdzs is the most translated by a variety of independent translators on top of the official, and they all say the same thing (with the exception of the official, which is another topic of discussion). You do not need to understand the original Mandarin to know the story, because every translation says the same exact thing. But if you want, we can still go through each point:

1) “Jiang Cheng doesn’t torture people! It’s all rumors!” and 2) “Jiang Cheng only goes after bad people like demonic cultivators!”

Debunked (go to the very last response in the thread): everyone around Jiang Cheng, even Jiang Cheng his damn self, acknowledges that Jiang Cheng kidnaps people to torture to death (because people seem to forget he’s a serial killer when discussing the torture). He also does not go after “demonic cultivators” at all. If he did, he would have sided with Nie Mingjue against the Jin on the Xue Yang situation. He does not. He only attacks people who remind him of Wei Wuxian or are surnamed Wen:

The owner, “No, no. It was his misfortune. The person’s surname was Wen, and that Sect Leader Jiang’s archenemy happened to have the surname of Wen as well. He’s hating on everyone in this world whose surname is Wen. Whenever he sees one, he’d grind his teeth in hatred, wanting to skin them alive. How could he give a single friendly look to...”

—Chapt. 92: Longing

3) “Jiang Cheng doesn’t torture Wei Wuxian!”

Debunked: locking someone in a room with something that makes them go blackout with terror counts as torture. Some people liking dogs does not mean that cynophobia isn’t real, and downplaying people’s actual phobias makes you a shit person. Also, Fairy isn’t a “little dog,” she is (apparently according to interviews) a Husky, and her presence is what Jiang Cheng uses to confirm “Mo Xuanyu” is actually Wei Wuxian before he brings her in specifically to torture him. Because once again, he knows how terrified Wei Wuxian is of dogs.

4) What happened during the defection?

Honestly, it would probably be best if you just reread Chapt. 73 because the lead-up to the defection is long and starts at Wei Wuxian having to prevent Jiang Cheng from potentially kicking A-Yuan, Jiang Cheng attempting to re-murderer Wen Ning, then him telling Wei Wuxian to return the Wen to the labor camps because he doesn’t care about fulfilling life debts if it gives him a bad reputation amongst the other sects. This quote is the end of all that convo:

Wei WuXian, “There’s no need to protect me. Just let go.”

Jiang Cheng’s face twisted.

Wei WuXian, “Just let go. Tell the world that I defected. From now on, no matter what Wei WuXian does, it’d have nothing to do with the YunmengJiang Sect.”

Jiang Cheng, “... All for the Wen Sect...? Wei WuXian, do you have a savior complex? Is it that you’ll die if you don’t stand up for someone and stir up some trouble?”

Wei WuXian stayed quiet. A while later, he answered, “So that’s why we should cut ties right now, in case anything I do affects the YunmengJiang Sect in the future.”

Or else, he really couldn’t make any guarantees on what he’d do in the future.

“...” Jiang Cheng murmured, “My mom said that you do nothing but bring our sect trouble. It’s true indeed.” He laughed coldly, talking to himself, “‘To attempt the impossible’? Fine. You understand the YunmengJiang Sect’s motto. Better than I do. Better than all of us do.”

He sheathed Sandu. The sword returned to its sheath with a clang. Jiang Cheng’s tone was indifferent, “Then let’s arrange for a duel.”

Three days later, the leader of the YunmengJiang Sect, Jiang Cheng, arranged for a duel with Wei WuXian.

They fought quite a fight in Yiling. Negotiations failed. Both resorted to violence.

Under Wei WuXian’s command, the fierce corpse Wen Ning struck Jiang Cheng once, breaking one of his arms. Jiang Cheng stabbed Wei WuXian once. Both sides suffered losses. Each spat out a mouthful of blood and left cursing the other. They had finally fallen out with each other.

After the fight, Jiang Cheng told the outside that Wei WuXian defected from the sect and was an enemy to the entire cultivation world. The YunmengJiang Sect had already cast him out. From then on, no ties remained between them —a clear line was drawn. Henceforth, no matter what he did, they’d have nothing to do with the YunmengJiang Sect!

—Chapt. 73: Recklessness

Notice how Wei Wuxian says tell the other clans he defected, and Jiang Cheng changes the statement to "let's arrange a duel." Also, keep in mind that everything after that conversation in the narrative reads like someone telling a legend: "They fought quite a fight. Negotiations failed. Both resorted to violence." The narration is depicting the duel the same way it depicted the opening prologue of Wei Wuxian's death: this is what the world was told about the defection battle after the fact, not necessarily the truth. Why do we know this isn't the truth? Well, Jiang Cheng had his non-dominant arm broken to make the battle seem real but also not to hamper his work too much:

Wei WuXian grinned, “How could it seem realistic if it wasn’t hard enough? It was your left hand anyways. It didn’t hinder you from writing. It takes a hundred days to heal a wound to the bone. It wouldn’t be too much even if you hung it up for three months.”

—Chapt. 75: Distance

Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian was gutted, something the legend does not mention at all:

Although he was stabbed in the stomach by Jiang Cheng, Wei WuXian wasn’t concerned at all. He stuffed his intestines back into himself and like nothing ever happened, he even got Wen Ning to hunt down a few malign spirits as he bought a few large bags of potatoes.

—Chapt. 74: Distance

Keeping in mind that Jiang Cheng still has a golden core, Wei Wuxian seemed to have put a lot of thought into how to injure Jiang Cheng in such a way that seemed serious but was actually superficial. Wei Wuxian treated the duel like it was staged. Jiang Cheng treated it like it was real and tried to kill Wei Wuxian. The only thing I'll give Jiang Cheng is that his "declaration" wasn't what damned Wei Wuxian; him refusing to stand by Wei Wuxian rescuing the Wen is what damned Wei Wuxian. The declaration was only the official statement that he had cut ties and everyone else could do what they wanted to his former shixiong.

So in short: stop letting jc stans gaslight you just because they're loud and repeat the same lies over and over again with confidence.

[shxtodxroki]

hi bee <3

i hope you're doing well babe and happy (early i think) birthday!

i am so excited to participate in another one of your events you have no idea

and this is such a great conccept ??? genius i love it and now i'm craving ice cream at 4.30 am

i'm all for surprises so i'm thinking

haikyu (shocking ik)

cookie dough and M&Ms

i feel like it's a great combination and i can't wait to see who and what it corresponds to

𝙼𝚎𝚎𝚝-𝙲𝚞𝚝𝚎𝚜 𝚆𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝙱𝚘𝚔𝚞𝚝𝚘 <𝟹

Cookie Dough Ice Cream: What their meet-cute would be

Haikyuu - M&Ms: Koutaro Bokuto

Summary: Two different scenarios of what a meet-cute would be like featuring you and the one and only Koutaro Bokuto <3

Warnings: Possibly inaccurate descriptions of the gym but I did my best lol

Pairing: Koutaro Bokuto x Gender Neutral! Reader

Word Count: 1.2k

Check out this birthday event here for request rules if you’d like to participate!

- Bokuto is absolutely the kind of guy you’d see in a meet-cute romcom omg he’s so perfect for this prompt <3

- Okay so I’m thinking of two adorable meet-cute scenarios with him so I’ll include both for both my gym lovers and those like me who aren't very frequent gym attendees

- So option one would be meeting him at the gym - you have a day off, so you decide to head over to get a bit of a work-out in, and as you make your way over to your machine of choice you catch sight of the absolute cutest man you have ever laid eyes on

- He’s bench-pressing and he’s sweaty and a bit red and yet he’s absolutely gorgeous to the point where you can’t seem to keep your eyes off him

- You literally stop in the middle of your walk without realizing it, only snapping back into reality when some rude passerby shoulder-checks you as you feel heat rush to your face at the realization that you had been blatantly staring at the gorgeous stranger

- Thankfully he seems very immersed in his work-out and doesn’t seem to notice, so you make your way over to your machine of choice while trying to let go of the embarrassment of acting like a lovestruck schoolkid and stopping to gawk at a stranger

- Your work-out goes on as planned after that, giving you the solitude and energy you need to get through the remainder of your tasks for the day as you wipe down your machine and prepare to leave and move on to the next item on your mental checklist

- But then as you’re leaving the super cute guy from before walks up to you and starts rambling a mile a minute, leaving you struggling to even process the flurry of words that are leaving his mouth

- “Hi I saw you earlier and thought you were gorgeous so I wanted to ask for your number but I was with my friend and he said that would be creepy and you might feel cornered or something so I figured I’d ask while you were leaving so you can walk away if you’re uncomfortable but you really are super hot and I was wondering if you’d like to go on a date with me?”

- And once you’ve had a moment to process all the words he just rapid-fired at you, you feel your face heating up even more than when you had been staring at him, and you just barely catch sight of a man with spiked black hair covering one of his eyes shaking his head in embarrassment to the side of your new gym crush as you attempt to find words for a response that wouldn’t make you seem like an absolute fool

- Eventually, you manage to spit out a somewhat casual-sounding “That sounds really nice” in response, your heart fluttering rapidly at the way his mouth spreads into a sunshine-esque grin as he scrambles to give you his number

- Sweet Bokuto was blissfully unaware that you had been borderline ogling him earlier, too, since he hadn’t been looking around in that moment and had been focused entirely on his workout, but when you two have been on a few dates you finally decide to mention it and the thought that you found him cute too just makes him so giddy it’s absolutely adorable <3

- Now if you’re not particularly interested in the gym, Bokuto would be one of those airport boys instead (I hope y’all know what I’m talking about and understand the unique spark of seeing someone cute at the airport lol) except the two of you actually connect and don’t just glance wistfully at one another before never interacting again

- You’re both waiting in an airport terminal for a criminally early flight, Bokuto for one of his team’s matches while you’re going to visit some of your loved ones

- And you’re both dressed in pajamas/comfy clothes and struggling to keep your eyes open at this hour - Bokuto in particular is all cranky because he hates being up so early and he’s not even traveling with anyone so he has no one to talk to to help him stay awake :<

- But as the two of you sit there in the terminal with half-lidded eyes in direct opposite seats, you catch sight of one another and accidentally make eye contact and it’s pretty much love at first sight oml you both think the other looks so adorable with their tired eyes and cozy clothes

- And usually Bokuto’s easily the kinda guy who would approach someone he’s interested in, but it’s so early and he’s so tired that his brain isn’t really working properly and he can’t even think of what to say to you, you’re just so gorgeous

- And you’re sitting across from him, sneaking glances but thinking that there’s no way anything could happen since you don’t even know if he lives here or is currently traveling back home somewhere else, so you don’t see the point of making a move

- But eventually Bokuto finds his opportunity, when he sleepily makes his way over to the bathroom and stops at a vending machine on his way back only for the machine to dispense two packets of his favorite chips by mistake - causing the gears to finally begin working inside his brain until a tired but distinctly and brightly Bokuto grin makes its way across his face

- And he makes his way back to where he had been sitting in the terminal while sporting that same grin, outstretching his hand towards you once he’s close enough to reach you as he offers you the spare bag of chips

- “Hey, that machine over there accidentally gave me an extra bag of chips, do you want it? I’d love to share my good fortune with the cutest person in this airport.” He offers with a silly grin on his face, one that makes your heart pound even as you try to tell yourself to be rational

- His flirting is a bit clumsy due to the early hour, and you’ve already reasoned with yourself why asking out a stranger in the airport who may not even live in the same country as you is a bad idea, but the look on his face as he offers the snack to you is just so endearing that you can’t help but take the bait, gently grabbing the bag from his hands with a soft, sleepy smile and a thank-you

- Of course, Bokuto sees this as his “in”, and as he sit back down in his spot across from you he manages to strike up a conversation - asking about why you’re traveling to your destination and going from there as he somehow manages to brush away your tiredness and ignite an incredibly pleasant interaction with you

- With him the time seems to fly by and before you know it, you’re finally preparing to board your flight, a surprisingly heavy disappointment settling in both of your chests at the thought of not seeing one another again despite only meeting an hour or so prior after having such a lovely conversation together

- But in your conversation you had learned that he did in fact live in your home country and was only traveling for work, so though the idea still has you a bit hesitant, you decide to push past your nerves and ask for his number, which he happily types into your phone while including a stereotypical and incredibly flirty heart beside his contact name 

- From there the rest is history, falling for Bokuto is so incredibly easy since he’s the kind of person who can draw anyone in and keep eyes and heart effortlessly captivated, but he knows from that first day in the airport that you’re the one he wants to dedicate his own heart to in return as his feelings morph from puppy love for you into something much, much greater <3

A/N: Aaaa first of all thank you for the well wishes and the happy birthday, today was actually my birthday and I’m really happy with how it went :> And I hope you’re doing well too! I’m so glad you liked the event hehe I had so much fun putting it together, and I was STOKED that Bokuto was the first request since he’s one of my all-time favs :> I hope you guys enjoyed this, I decided to extend my birthday event a few days since it took me so long to start on it so requests are now open until the end of May 20th, so get in your event requests if you have any, as well as any regular requests you may have! :D

Taglist: @ace-lavender

If you’d like to be added to any of my taglists, you can fill out this form here! Thank you for your support <3

[buddiebeginz]

Here’s another reason I’m confident Buddie is happening this season.

911 og and 911 Lone Star will essentially be competing with one another in a way that they didn’t before being on the same network. People might say well LS is in it’s final season so it doesn’t really matter but I’m sure it will matter to ABC if Fox can pull in higher numbers for the show they kept than ABC can for the one they took from them.

Despite all the talk about how homophobic Fox is they know Tarlos is a big draw for that show and will use them accordingly to get people to watch. They've already started using Tarlos on their social media to promote the new season.

No matter how much B*mmy fans want them to be their ship is not comparable to a ship like Tarlos. Especially not Tarlos in season 1 which had a lot of hype around them and was a will they/won’t they ship. I’m mentioning season 1 Tarlos because B/T is still a newbie ship like Tarlos were in season 1. Yet B/T hasn't had even half the development or promotion Tarlos did in season 1 of LS.

Despite how much a select few online yell about them B*mmy is just not a ship that is going to draw in a lot of new viewers. Some new people started watching the show after Buck came out but this was much more about Buck than B/T no matter what B*mmys say. Think about it you could replace T*mmy with any other guy and the reaction would probably have been about the same. That's because the big reaction (especially for people familiar with the show) was about Buck finally having his bi awakening. For those who were introduced to the show through clips of the kiss going around it was more of, oh look these two hot guys are kissing or oh look more queer rep let me check this show out.

Also listen to the things Oliver has said in interviews about the storyline. The messages he's been receiving from people have been primarily about people relating to Buck coming out later in life not about B/T. Yes some people like B/T and found the show because of their kiss but that's not the major draw and the ship is just not interesting enough (especially compared to other primetime couples and Buddie) to keep a significant amount of people tuned into the show long term.

Most primetime shows have a will they/won't they couple. For 911 that couple was Maddie and Chim for a long time. But going into s8 all of the big main canon couples are married at this point. I love all the couples on 911 and I love that they they're all settled and happy but the fact is happy settled couples don't bring in new viewers (Tim himself has even said as much before). So 911 is going to need a newer more exciting ship that will garner attention. If the intention was to have B/T be that new exciting ship I truly believe their relationship would have been handled a lot differently from the beginning.

Instead of them getting together pretty quickly I think things would have dragged out all season. Maybe after the bad date Buck and T*mmy don't meet for coffee and Buck thinks it's over only they run into one another again on a call and it's awkward. If they wanted to build the story and rope the audience in the show could have let us know there's feelings there between them both but neither wants to say anything. So they don't. Then Buck decides to go to a gay bar and runs into T*mmy again and sees him with another guy and that bothers him. And it's not until the end of the season that we get some big romantic moment showing that they do want to be together.

I'm saying all this to point out that if the plan was to build excitement for that ship 911 had time even in a shortened season and they didn't. Even if the intention was to leave us wanting more from B/T, just give us little bits of what's going on with them and fully develop them later in s8 they didn't do a great job with that either. Nearly every scene that B/T are in T*mmy comes across as a dismissive ass who just doesn't seem all that invested in Buck (including in the new deleted scene). They also had very little physical affection and often just didn't behave like a couple or even like two guys who are dating. I've seen people say that in scenes like the medal ceremony in 7x09 they would have never even known they were together if that was the only episode they saw.

My point is there is no way B/T can compete with Tarlos the only couple that can do that is Buddie. ABC and Tim know that if they even hint at Eddie coming out and Buddie canon no one will even remember that LS exists. The kind of attention that B/T has gotten will be nothing compared to the way the world is going to explode when Buddie goes canon. So many people (including a good number of B/T shippers who remain multishippers) have been waiting to see it happen for years.

This is no hate towards Tarlos and Lone Star who I love btw and I'm sad that show is getting canceled. I'm just pointing out that this is how networks think. I know Tim worked on LS for a while and I'm sure he still has love for that show and the cast but at that same time it's important for 911 to have high ratings if we want the show to continue long term.

I've been a fan of 911 almost since the show started and a Buddie fan pretty much as long. I've been hopeful in the past that Buddie could happen especially after the shooting. Which makes sense now given everything we've been told about how Buck was was probably going to come out in s4 and Eddie in s5. I lost a lot of hope for Buddie after s6 though. I wasn't even sure I wanted to keep watching tbh. Which is why I can't believe I'm at a point now where I feel more certain than ever that s8 will be our year. I know we've been hopeful in previous years but everything is pointing towards Buddie now more than it's ever been.

[leonsliga]

I need to find a manu safe space. We do need to be planning for the future and I hate to see people turning on him even though he isn’t up to form but give him a reduced wage and transitional role for one year (Thomas stay as our super sub too please and retire together) I’m not ready to let my old men go

You and me both, anon. Maybe we can create a Manu safe space here together ❤️ if there’s anything the footyblr community is good for, it’s giving us a forum to talk about what (and who) we love.

I know he’s been injured more than his fair share in recent years (the football gods are very cruel) and even the great Manuel Neuer can’t stop time, but the way a few off-matches (particularly the one vs. Barça) have some “fans” forgetting everything he’s given Bayern, not to mention all the times he’s bailed us out of otherwise lackluster performances, is something I’ll never get my head around. I know when things go south, a lot of people’s first instinct is to blame the goalkeeper, and for a very vocal minority, that means slinging every possible insult his way in every public forum imaginable. But it doesn’t make it any easier to witness, especially considering we’re talking about a legend and one of if not the greatest goalkeepers of all time. We’ve heard it all before too, haven’t we? Even years back. “He’s finished”, “hang up the gloves, Neuer”, and “the football’s left him” are common refrains whenever Manu makes a high profile mistake. And honesty, those comments always make me go:

The thing about Manu though is that if you underestimate him, you do so at your peril. He’s always struck me as a perfectionist, and he’s never one to stand still. He knows better than anyone how he’s performing and what his weak spots are in any given moment. His tireless work ethic, his unwavering composure, and his unbridled love of the game have kept him at Bayern (& at the very top of his game) for more than a decade, and just when we start to think the man’s past his prime, he finds a way to prove us all wrong yet again. After all, that man can block out the noise like no other. He’s been called Nervenstärke personified for a reason.

I know we need to plan for the future though, as determined as I am to hold on to our legends for as long as I possibly can. I really like your idea of keeping Manu on in a transitional role if it comes to that. Selfishly though, I’m still hoping he’s just going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment (which can happen, he’s human), and that he’s still got some of that Manu magic left in him. And I know Thomas isn’t getting any younger either (don’t remind me 😭), so if we can keep him on in some capacity, even if it’s means he’ll be a super sub instead of a starter, I’ll take it 😅

Also, I’m totally with you; if our team dads don’t retire together I’m suing for emotional damage. They’re the heart and soul of the club.

Anyways, to end this post on a positive note, have an assortment of happy Bayern!Manu pics:

And, as for anyone else who’s read this far, feel free to join us in this little Manu mush-fest. This is a safe space, after all ❤️

[intoxicated-chan]

Seize the Day

♡o。.✿ฺ Paring // Simon “Ghost” Riley x GN!Reader

♡o。.✿ฺ Summary // Just Ghost falling in love and worrying about the worst possibilities. But memories of you keep him going, even in the worst moments.

♡o。.✿ฺ (A/n) // Inspired by “Seize the Day” By Avenged Sevenfold, did anybody hear the new A7X song?

♡o。.✿ฺ Word Count // 1k

♡o。.✿ฺ Content Warnings // Gender neutral reader, angst, mentions of abuse, mentions of death, blood, mentions of injuries, smoking, swearing, death…

Ghost always held himself back for various reasons, mainly because he felt like he didn’t deserve it. When he feels like things are perfect, he can hear his father’s voice in the back of head… Even with the bastard dead, he’s still haunted by the years living with him. Which is why he’s so used to letting what’s given to him go.

It doesn’t hurt him as much as it did years ago but he’s used to those he loved move on or die on the field. It’s the normal, it comes with the job, and he was so used to dying almost everyday, that’s until his heart warmed around you. But he cursed at himself for getting so distracted on the job! People’s lives are at stake and he’s silently fawning over you like some highschool boy.

It’ll go away soon… But soon turned into never. He shivered at the slightest touch, he leaned into you, and he practically begged you to patch up his wounds when you don’t have an ounce of medical experience. You learned only for him.

Ghost especially remembers one day, when he asked you to stay for a bit longer. It wasn’t the Ghost like you knew. You only knew the cold hearted one, stone cold killer or whatever but you knew deep down that he does have a heart. Even haunted by his past, he still has a heart that he’s clinging onto desperately.

He still felt guilty. But why? He wants to make sure you’re the one. Are you the one he wants to grow old with? Are you the one he’s willing to do anything to be with you? Or are you willing to follow him down his path? He couldn’t have you dying, he knew you wouldn’t die on the field, you’re one of the most skilled soldiers he’s ever met, he shouldn’t have to worry.

But what if he’s the one to go?

It’s the military, there always comes a mission where he may think it’s his last. Yet when that thought comes to his head, he focuses his attention on you, watching you analyze the plan and map of the location, organizing your weapons to make sure you have spares.

Then your eyes meet with his. You don’t say anything, and all you offer is a warm smile that makes all of his bad thoughts go away for a second. It’s until you hear Price’s voice, catching everyone’s attention is when you stop to look at Price.

“Have you ever thought about kids?” You ask Ghost, lying on your back while he sat up, cigarette in hand, “I-I mean… You know! I, um…”

“Calm down, Sergeant.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound rude.”

“I have thought about the idea of kids, just never wanted the idea of something bad happening to them because of me.”

You sit up, leaning against the wall and next to Ghost, “I know that thinking…” You take the cigarette from his hand, “And You’re wrong, I know you’d make a great father.”

Ghost felt weak, but not in a bad way. It was peace, that feeling that was lost so many years ago that he nearly forgot what it felt like.

He pulled his mask down before you could see the smile and blushing face, “...Thank you, Sergeant.”

“How long are you going to continue calling me Sergeant?”

“Until the day our relationship changes.” He mumbles.

“What?”

“I said…” Snatching the untouched cigarette from your hands, “Until you act more mature.”

You playfully scoff, “How dare you?”

“Oh, how dare I?” He plays along.

“I’m more mature than you!”

“Like hell you are.” Pulling his mask up just above his lips to smoke.

“I was the one who was able to get your injured ass out of that building.”

“While getting shot and ignoring orders.” He tells, tossing his now finished cigarette aside, “But there is a way for me to stop calling you Sergeant.”

You lean in a little, “What is it?”

“When things take a turn for the worse or when we nearly meet our ends, what do you do?” Ghost eyes remain in the distance, staring at whatever his eyes laid eyes on.

“Well, I try to think of all the good things that happened, what I was given during my time in the military. Sure, it sounds like I’m ready to meet my end but it gives me hope, a reason to not die, you know?”

Oh he knows. Memories that can be cherished but they can also be the best form of torture. If one day he decides to forget it all, your warm smile will always be there, always welcoming him with open arms.

Even as he coughs up more blood. He can hear shots fired all over the place, unable to pinpoint the enemy directly. Yet it’s the last thing in his mind when he feels even more blood spill past his soaken hands.

He lets out a dry chuckle, reaching for his radio to speak, “Soap.” He chokes.

Moments later, “Ghost! Thought we lost yer there.”

“There’s a letter… in my drawer, second to last.”

“Ghost?”

“Hand that to (Y/n) for me, will you?”

“No! I won’t, you’re coming out of ‘ere alive!”

“Listen to me, Soap.”

“No!”

“Soap-”

“We’re gettin’ you out of ‘ere! Tell me where you are!”

“I can’t do that, Johnny. But promise me, you’ll deliver that letter to them.”

Ghost feels his vision blur, his body getting weaker and weaker but he smiles, “Promise me, Johnny.” He receives silence, “It’s my final wish, I dream of nothing more.”

“Even if it hurts them?”

“Keeping secrets does as well.”

He wishes he could be the one to give you the letter, but life doesn’t go the way he wants to, sometimes people don’t get a happy ending. But… but he’s fine with that, even though he knows you’ll end up… He shouldn’t be thinking about that, only that smile you gave him hours before the mission.

“Ghost? Ghost, are you there?”

Even more when he wishes it shouldn’t end here…

© Intoxicated-Chan, I do not allow my work to be copied, translated, modified, adapted, or put on any other platform without permission.

[riza-jes]

Isekai Ace or System to save yourself for the son of the Pirate King // The rebirth into an unremarkable Pirate King's son.

And…I rll gonna write my greatest idea of issekai Ace.

Just don’t know when i do it properly, but the work in progress, so maybe soon. I’ve already written some scenes and his past.

Ace is the one of many modern guy, who keep trying to do his job, safe money and has a plan to move near ocean. But now, he’s lonely barista who makes different kind of coffee with closed eyes and has friends only among stray cats.

Also, he has one specific guilty pleasure that Ace could afford almost freely — reading manga shōnen manga “Koby the Honest Hero”, where the story told of Koby and his way to become hero who could protect defenseless and weak, but the most favorite character in Ace’s opinion was the antagonist who yet hasn’t shown properly and always hidden in the shadows, the Strawhat guy who also is antagonist and someone Kobi meet in the beginning and help him to escape from Alvida.

( he didn’t know that’s was Luffy not at all)

But once after coming from work with bunch of cats feed Ace was stabbed and robbed after what he… died.

alone and white last thoughts that he won't feed the cats again.

But suddenly he opens his eyes as a newborn in Rouge's arms.

And so the story begins.

It’s a bit complicated,but the main point is partly the Ace we knew (canon One Piece) IS Ace who issekaied.

Also there is the important fact: in this “canon” of manga “Koby the hero” only once was mentioned Gol D Ace.

He is mentioned once as the executed son of the Pirate King.

Not his deeds, not his even name(the one was mentioned in private talk between Gary and Koby), just a title that's been with him since birth.

Just a line that this world will eventually erase very soon whiteout any shadows and grieve.

( similar with modern Ace’s situation, sometimes he think if he ever even buried properly? Does even somebody feel sadness of his lose? He doesn’t wanna be left alone, don’t wanna die without no one to care. Without no one who could read his panegyric and bury him as Ace not as someone nameless.)

He lives his life not fully convinced in what exactly world he reborn and who he is exactly until his fifth birthday.

So he decided to live his life, just trying to find the way for not be erased and leave something…

Well…speak of others: The Luffy in this story so as Sabo is became more CanonOP due to IssekaiAce.

Ace who just wanna have women close to him and has no interest in interfere in plot, so he trying his best(it isn’t his fault he found out his gramps/oh seas he has grandpa!/ is the same Garp as Koby’s teacher). He’s just don’t know that his Happy Babybrother Luffy is that terrifying antagonist in manga he read. And Sabo is that infamous Flame of revolution who crashes skulls and the second the most wanted person from marines. So…Ace decided even he couldn’t change his fate he still could have his family and people he cares and who cares about him. Ace thinks he hang out with unimportant for plot characters what didn’t ruin everything.

He didn’t know that his brothers loves him more than he could imagine ( Ace didn’t dare to think in that way, not when in the first time he feel such a great happiness)

He have no idea that the dark past of loneliness and exclusion for Luffy and Sabo's long caged, psychologically abusive situation is shattered by Ace's simple decision to accept those weirdos.

So smith like that

In this world many of people who’s lives crossed with Ace’s have strange feeling of “this shouldn’t go like this”, or understanding that their life’s change extremely for good thanks to Ace(for example Sabo and Luffy their darkest part will be calmed by Ace’s pure affections and love)