#like with my musical i wrote that was kind of a given bc i was writing that as a (not always healthy) coping mechanism

[killerlookz]

You and Your Friend | Joost Klein, Ski Aggu

description: joost klein x f! reader, ski aggu x f! reader- Upon seeing each other for the first time in a year after a hook-up, lingering tension remains between you and Joost, leaving his friend Aggu to decide to play matchmaker for you two in a rather unusual way.

content: 18+ smut, mdni, threesome, unprotected PiV, cream pie, oral (both m! and f! receiving) spitroasting?? i think that's what its called, a little orgasm denial, f!overstim, a tinge of jealousy (less than I originally planned cos its been a min since i wrote something without angst lol), drinking, aggu being a complete sneaky little bastard/kind of convoluted plot bc of it, mentioned that reader has moved to LA but no nationality or country of origin is assigned to them. not super proofread

THIS FIC CONTAINS RPF AND HAS BEEN TAGGED AS SUCH... IF THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE DO NOT INTERACT, PLEASE BLOCK THE RPF TAG AND MOVE ON. DO NOT SHARE MY WORK ON OTHER SOCIAL MEDIAS OUTSIDE OF TUMBLR EITHER IN SCREENSHOTS OR IN ITS ENTIRETY.

word count: 9095

The bitter taste of liquor drips down your throat, an uncomfortable warmth invading your abdomen as the liquid reaches your stomach. Your muscles tense, your eyes forcing shut, an involuntary twitch trembling through your nerves. With a groan of disgust you slam the shot glass down on the marble counter in front of you, your eyes finally opening as you do so.

Music thumps around you, pouring from expensive speakers throughout the impressive expanse of the house you currently stood in. Party-goers intoxicated on the finest substances money could buy surrounded you, their loud voices almost rivaling the music.

Since moving to Los Angeles parties like this had become your thing, mansions in the hills that you could't dream of affording had practically become your second home. Vague connections with the music industry, and being a friend, of a friend, of a friend had managed to get you in just about anywhere. You were working your way up to becoming a well-known socialite, minus the usual rich parents and nepotism.

Parties like this were usually your thing, making drunken connections and inching your way up the city's social totem pole, all while having the time of your life. Today seemed different, the liquor wasn't hitting you the same, the music didn't sound right, and engaging in conversation felt like a chore. Being fresh-faced and hot in Los Angeles, you had become far too used to the world being yours, but not tonight. Tonight the one thing you wanted was too far out of your reach.

Last year one of your friends suggesting a surprise vacation had landed you in Berlin, and a night of clubbing had landed you in bed with a particular Dutch musician. His name was Joost, relatively unknown outside of the Netherlands at the time, he and a friend who called himself Ski Aggu had been out celebrating having a number one hit in Germany. It felt like fate that he had ended up at the same club where you had been, and it didn't take much for him to charm your clothes off. Both he and Aggu were far different than the musicians you had met in the states. Confident, but not full of themselves like you had been used to, both men had actually given you the time of day, they were interested in you beyond what you could do for them sexually. Truth be told you would have been happy to go home with either of them that night, and you wondered if Aggu had been the one to take you to bed if you would even be in the predicament you were in now.

You and Joost had kept vague contact since the night you hooked up, how could you not? He was an exceptional lay, fucking you like the two of you were long lost lovers, making you cum over and over until you collapsed into a whimpering mess in his arms. It felt far too sweet for a one-night stand, and, perhaps stupidly you had thought there was something more there. Hence, your lingered contact, an occasional text here and there to catch up on how things had been, a phone call on an even rarer occasion.

You hadn't exactly expected him to blow up in the way that he did in the year since you last saw him, a spot competing on Eurovision, and a subsequent disqualification put fame right at his finger tips. Still, even with his newfound success, and much less "low-key" life, which had resulted in your contact with him reaching a screeching halt, you still refused to believe that you were nothing more than a one-night stand. That fact alone had made tonight just about impossible for you. Never in a million years had you expected Joost to be in the States, let alone one of these parties, this was your territory. But, there was no denying that was the case as you tried your hardest to prevent your gaze from wandering across the room towards where you knew he had been standing. You tried your hardest to rack your brain on who he could have known here, but after his stint as a Eurovision contestant, you shouldn't be so surprised, sure he now had connections far wider than you could imagine. Though, you found it charming how he still traveled with that same group of friends he had when you met him in that tiny club in Berlin. And certainly seeing Joost again would be a much more charming experience if he had actually bothered to glance your way at least once tonight. But you had no such luck.

Leaving your empty shot glass on the marble countertop, you decide to drag yourself off to another part of the home, somewhere where it isn't so crowded, where you can have some space to think, to breathe. Usually on nights like tonight, ironically enough thinking was the last thing on your mind, but now, you had felt like you needed somewhere to escape to where you could hear your own thoughts. Maybe then, in the comfortability of your the presence of nobody else but yourself could you once again bring out that messy party girl who was screaming to be let out of you.

An empty bedroom had become the perfect place for you to wallow in your self-pity for the time being. The music still thumped in your ears, albeit more muffled now, and the voices of party goers were nothing but a dull hum. You let yourself fall onto the large bed, your body hitting the thick, surely all-too-expensive comforter. You stare at the ceiling, contemplating your next move, never in your life had you felt like this when it came to a guy. Never had you let yourself second guess whether you were worth a man's time, of course you were worth it. But with Joost, you couldn't help but lose the self-assurance you always had, for once, you found yourself actually caring about what someone else thought of you. Your stomach churned at the thought, getting all self-conscious over a guy you barely knew was surely a major blow to your I don't give a fuck reputation. For the first time since you had moved to Los Angeles, you had been humbled.

"Oh, shit." A vaguely familiar chuckle travels from where you think the door to the bedroom is. The accent in the voice is apparent, even in those two short words, enough for you to be almost-certain of who now occupies the bedroom with you. Almost-certain isn't enough, however, and straining slight due to your tipsy nature you sit up from where your back rests against the bed.

Your suspicions are immediately confirmed upon getting a glimpse at the other person in the room.

"Aggu!" You grit your teeth, attempting a smile, and immediately you regret your decision to address him by name, positive he had probably completely forgotten who you are. You cross your legs and sit up straight.

Aggu smiles back, leaning against the door frame,

"Am I interrupting something?" He asks, a little confused, but amusement still written all over his face. "Waiting for Joost?" He laughs. He did remember you.

"Joost?" You scoff, trying your hardest to pretend that the idea of you wanting anything to do with Joost was ridiculous, "No." You shake your head, hopefully hiding your bitterness behind a polite smile, "I didn't even know he was here."

Aggu smirks, forcing a tension into the room. Watching as his lips curl your jaw clenches, your fingers digging into the thick fabric of the comforter.

"Blödsinn." (nonsense) His tone is disapproving as his arms cross, you don't understand a what he says, not that you can concentrate much on whatever comes out of his mouth with the way his bicep muscles strain against the tight fabric of his t-shirt. You wonder briefly if he has always been this fit, if you had been too busy drooling over Joost last time you saw him to realize.

"Sorry," Aggu chuckles, clocking your lack of comprehension, "I mean to say you're full of shit."

"What," Your eyes widen, muscles tensing, "No, I'm not." You're instantly defensive, which you're sure gives yourself away entirely.

"I have working eyes under those ski goggles" He uncrosses an arms, pressing a finger under his eye, tapping twice. There's an odd sweetness about his condescension towards you, like he's slowly, wordlessly beginning to understand your situation.

"Hm?" You hum, barely loud enough for him to hear, your eyebrows furrow for a moment- right, your face returns to a more relaxed expression, you had forgotten about his ski goggle shtick, and perhaps you could consider yourself lucky for the only two times you had seen him in person had been without his goggles.

"Unless it's me you've been oggling all night." You and him both know that isn't true, you can tell in the way he speaks, it's more of a suggestion. You shrug, letting a sheepish look fall on your face in pretend innocence.

"Joost and I... only hooked up that one time," You say, your voice indicating you had little regard for the situation, perhaps you weren't such a bad liar after all, "But maybe I wish it was you who I had gone home with instead." At least that wasn't entirely a lie, at least even now Aggu seemed willing to give you the time of day, even if he had only stumbled into you on accident.

You let your eyes widen, suddenly looking up at Aggu from your spot on the bed through batted lashes, a pout forming on your well-glossed lips, and there she was, that messy party girl inside of you, finally crawling her way out. Slowly, you uncross your legs, letting your thighs part slightly, though not quite enough to get a glimpse of anything up your skirt.

"Ja?" Aggu's eyebrows raise as he slowly lifts himself from against the door frame, walking towards you. "Guess you don't feel the same about that night as Joost does then."

"What do you mean?" The words fall from your lips before your brain can even catch up, and she's gone, the simple sentence knocking you down once again. Had Joost actually enjoyed that night as much as you did?

"Joost isn't the type to kiss and tell." His arms crossing again, he's much closer to you now, "But after a night like that I think he had to."

"A night like..." You're suddenly worried about what Aggu had heard about that night, trying to remember if anything particularly crazy happened, nothing stood out, though maybe you and him did not have the same threshold for what would be considered "crazy."

"Don't want to say too much," He trails off for a moment, letting his mouth once again curl into a smirk, "Just something about the best sex of his life."

Your entire body is hot, burning, the best sex of his life? You could say the same, and the expression that forms on your face threatens to let Aggu know as much.

"Yeah?" You let a smirk settle on your face, your confidence finding you once more, "Can't say he's the first I've heard that from."

"So, you're really not waiting for Joost up here? No plans to relive that night?" Aggu asks, like he didn't believe you the first time you said so. You simply shake your head in response. "A shame for him then." Aggu says matter-of-factly, "Not interested in topping your performance from last time?"

"I'm afraid he's the one who isn't interested." Your vulnerability surprises you, but you cannot say your intentions are entirely pure, thinking if you told the truth, that his best friend didn't seem to be interested, your chances with Aggu would increase tonight. If you can't have one, why wait around and deny yourself of the other?

Aggu shakes his head, "You sound certain."

"Believe me," You sigh, "I've got the memo, no response from him in weeks and he hasn't even looked at me since he got here, I'm certain."

"Maybe I wouldn't be so sure," He teases, "Jealousy is an excellent motivator,"

"Jealousy?" You perk up, interested, immediately picking up what he was putting down.

Aggu nods slowly, "And if it doesn't end up as a motivator, I'm sure we'll have a good time either way." He seems so much taller now that he stands right in front of you, lustful eyes staring down at your spot on the bed, "I get my best friend laid, I get laid, and you get laid, looks like we all win."

And why have one or the other when you could have both?

"Right," You murmur, choked in the moment, "Winners." Your luck had suddenly turned, the prospect of what was in store for you tonight makes your muscles tense, your thighs squeezing together, forced shut from their parted position.

Aggu's hand slips to your chin, his thumb pressing against your lips, you're like putty in his hands the moment he touches you.

"Ah," He smiles, noticing the way you melt under him, "You weren't lying when you said you wanted me to take you home."

"Not at all," You breathe out, your muscles relaxing, allowing yourself to enjoy the warmth of Aggu's touch. You lean into his hand, and pucker your lips, pressing a kiss to his thumb. Aggu drags his finger against your bottom lip, pulling it down and forcing your mouth into a pout,

"C'mon," He urges, "Let's go downstairs before we take things too far."

You nod, staring up at Aggu silently, waiting for him to help you up. He does so quickly, reaching a firm hand out for you to grab.

The music becomes more apparent as Aggu leads you out into the hallway, even more so as you head back down the stairs to where the bulk of the party-goers reside.

It's almost embarrassing how quickly you're able to spot Joost, though not fully allowing yourself to wallow in the shame of how desperate you were for him, you chalked it up to him not having moved too far from the last place you had seen him.

Joost doesn't seem to notice you and Aggu, however, as the pair of you step in the room, your hand still in his.

Sparked with an idea, you rip your hand from Aggu's, instead turning toward him. You ruffle your hand through your hair, before lowering your fingers to your lips, swiping a thumb hard enough to just barely smudge the color that stains them. Lowering your hands even farther you slip one of the straps of your top down, letting it hang off your shoulder.

"What's that for?" Aggu asks over the music.

"Giving myself the I just had sex look."

Aggu snakes a hand onto your waist, "Maybe I should have just fucked you upstairs then."

His straightforwardness knocks the breath from you for a split moment,

"The time will come," You say sweetly, reaching a hand up to ruffle his hair, attempting to get him to match your mild state of disheveled.

Aggu's eyes flick towards Joost, who's sitting on a couch across the room with his friend Apson, who you remembered vaguely from last year.

"Why don't we go take a seat, hm, looks like there's room for only one more."

You bite your lip, ready to fully lean into the jealousy act.

With his arm around your waist Aggu walks you over to where Joost had been sitting, still even with the assurance of someone who knew actually knew Joost leading you, you can't seem to quell the small pang of anxiety that rings somewhere deep inside you.

Finally it seems Joost takes his first good look at you tonight, a look of amusement on his face as he sees you walking over with Aggu.

"Where have you been, man?" Joost laughs, averting his gaze from you, speaking solely to Aggu.

"Around," Aggu responds flippantly, "Hey, you remember y/n, right?" His grip tightening around your waist, "You two met last year." With his free hand Aggu points between the two of you.

Joost's eyes widen, clearly unsure of what game Aggu was getting at here,

"Ja- uh ja," Joost clears his throat, his eyes quickly darting to you, "Nice to see you again." He nods, an uncomfortable smile pressed to his lips.

"You too," You respond cautiously, feigning disinterest, only a polite grin gracing your lips.

Aggu takes a seat next to Joost before grabbing your hand,

"C'mon sit down," He urges, pulling you onto his lap. After you're settled on his lap Aggu turns towards Apson, "Hey, Appie you remember y/n too right?"

A large grin forms on Apson's lips, a chuckle threatening to spill from his mouth,

"Ja, oh I remember." You watch as Apson gently judges Joost, his elbow poking at Joost's ribcage. You suppress a smirk as you realize how far news of you and Joost's hookup had spread in his friend group. Joost sends Apson a quick glance, one that says knock it off, but it doesn't tame the smile on his face.

"So," Joost speaks quickly to avert the topic from Apson's recollection of the night you and Joost had hooked up, "How have you been?"

You nod, humming pleasantly, "Good," you pause for a moment, racking your brain for what else to say, "Life's been, fun. How about you, things seem interesting in your world."

"Interesting is-eh, definitely a correct word to describe it." He agrees, "I'm grateful though, you know, with everything, it's cool."

"Absolutely," You lean back on Aggu, letting your back rest on his chest, letting your ass settle in his lap, "You must be tired from everything, no?"

Joost shakes his head, "Overwhelming a little," He pauses, "But not tired, I have good stamina." Oh he sure did, that you knew for sure.

"I see Aggu has been busy too," You pull the conversation away from Joost, "You have a new album coming out soon, right? Oh what's it called again?" You ask, turning your head down towards Aggu, placing a hand onto his chest.

"Wilmersdofrs Kind," Aggu smiles, a hand sneaking its way around your front and onto your thigh.

"Ah, and what does that mean?"

"Wilmersdorf's Child." He answers, "You know, Wilmersdorf, is an area of Berlin, maybe next time you're in Germany I could show you around." His grip tightens on his thigh.

"Oh Aggu," You gush, "You are such a sweetheart. I'd love for you to take me sightseeing." Normally, acting like this towards someone you barely knew would make your stomach churn, but the way you notice Joost clenching his jaw when you flick your eyes in his direction makes all the over-the-top flintiness worth it. Besides, it wasn't like it was a challenge to flirt with a man as good looking as him.

"Speaking of traveling," Joost pipes up, "Have you ever been to the Netherlands?"

The muscles of your mouth pull upwards, funny how eager Joost seemed to talk to you now that you were sitting on Aggu's lap, the pair of you flirting aggressively.

You shake your head, "No, never." Keeping your responses short, you don't want to give him too much too soon.

"Have you ever thought about coming to the Netherlands?"

"Depends," You bite your lip, "Do I get to have you as my tour guide? Or are you too busy for me now, Mr. Eurovision." You tease.

"Never too busy, If Aggu doesn't mind me co-opting his tour guide position." Joost shoots Aggu a glance, the pair of them communicating silently, though you cannot quite read either of their expressions.

"Never too busy?" You ask, "Could have fooled me."

"Y/n," Aggu lightly scolds, gripping your thigh

"Um," Apson speaks all of a sudden, "I think I'm going to go-uh- over there, I think Alanis was calling my name." Apson loosely points in a random direction, one where Alanis certainly is not standing. But without another word he's hurrying off the couch. The three of you watch as he scurries off into the direction he pointed in before returning to the conversation.

"What?" Joost furrows his eyebrows, and in an instant you're ready to abandon the whole jealousy act now that you have an opportunity to let Joost know exactly how you had been feeling. But Aggu's fingers gripping into the flesh of your thigh make you think twice, perhaps letting your frustrations out right now would further harm your chances of the night ending the way you want.

"Nothing," You purse your lips, "Just seem like you have a lot on your plate."

"I don't mind making time for you, if that's what you want." And all of a sudden your mouth goes dry and you're not so sure you're talking about traveling anymore.

"Yeah," Aggu interjects, "I'm sure she'd like that," His hand traveling closer to your inner thigh, forcing your body to tense up, "And, I don't mind sharing my position as tour guide." I don't mind sharing are not exactly the words you want to hear out of Aggu's mouth, after all the entire point of this was to make Joost jealous. But you trusted Aggu to read Joost better than you could, even if it did disappoint you how quickly he loosened up on the jealousy act.

"Joost," Aggu speaks again, "Why don't you move over so y/n can actually have a seat."

"Oh," Joost whips his head around to look behind him, realizing with Apson's absence the seat next to him is open. "Ja, sure."

You turn towards Aggu, confused, but all he responds with his cocking his head in the direction of the now empty seat between him and Joost.

Admittedly, a little disappointed, you lift yourself off of Aggu's lap, settling onto the couch. Still, Aggu's hand immediately returns to your thigh.

You're suddenly very aware of yourself, your position between Aggu and Joost, and you wonder if this had been the plan the whole time, if Aggu had intentionally wandered off upstairs in search of you, if he even had any intentions of trying to make Joost jealous in the first place. Had they planned to share you this entire time, from the second they laid their eyes on you tonight?

The thought has you sucking in a sharp breath, one that clearly concerns the both of them,

"You okay?" Aggu asks, caressing your thigh.

"Yeah," You assure, nodding, more than okay, but you decide to pounce on this opportunity to get the two of them away from the crowd, "It's just kind of loud, do you think we can continue this conversation upstairs?"

Joost and Aggu share knowing glances, "Of course," Joost affirms.

You're back in that bedroom, those four walls suddenly feeling familiar as you find yourself back on the bed once more.

"Aggu, can you close the door? It's still kind of loud..."

Aggu, having just barely walked in the room obliges, shutting the door behind him as he passed through the doorway.

Your body tenses at the sudden realization of you being alone with Aggu and Joost, unsure of how to take this where you want it to go. But as your eyes flick between the two of them a familiar feeling sinks in you, the world is yours once again. You settle into your spot on the bed, feeling a little bad for whoever this bedroom actually belonged to. You lean back, propping yourself up with your forearms, your legs still hanging off the bed.

"Are you two just going to stand there?" You giggle, a little surprised that both of them seemed to be frozen in place. Joost looks around, unsure of himself, his line of sight meeting Aggu as he turns to the side.

Aggu cocks his head towards you, "You first," He smirks in response to Joost's uncertainty, "Show her how bad you want her." Want you?

"Yeah," You catch your bottom lip in your teeth, "Come show me." You let your eyes settle on Joost. He seems so much taller than usual as he walks towards where you rest on the bed. You can't help but part your legs almost instinctively, allowing him to stand between them once he gets close enough.

You await his next move as you stare up at him through your lashes. Joost quickly looks back at Aggu once more, motioning with his head for him to come closer,

"Sit behind her, so she can lay on you." It felt a little strange to be talked about in the third person, but it only affirmed that tonight was about you, both of them there for no other reason than to please you.

Aggu agrees, making his way to the bed, sitting behind you, resting on his knees, positioning himself so one leg is on either side of you. His hands are familiar as they find themselves on your torso,

"C'mon," Aggu urges, "You can lay back, Hasi." (bunny)

You let Aggu prop you up with his body, no longer relying on your forearms for support, you're more upright now. Aggu's breath is hot against your neck, the tickling sensation sending shockwaves through your nerves, forcing a twitch from you.

"She's so sensitive," Aggu chuckles, noticing the way you squirm from nothing but his breath grazing your flesh.

"Don't I know it," Joost smiles, clearly remembering this wasn't the first time you had found yourself in such a position with him. Joost reaches a hand forward to hold your chin between his fingers.

"Lay back a little more," He says, a request to both you and Aggu, one to which you both oblige, letting your body slip down further as Aggu adjust's his position. "Good," Joost smiles before patting your thigh with his free hand, "Now bend your legs for me, schatje." The nickname makes your heart skip a beat, recalling his past use of the word. You oblige without a word, kicking off your heels and pulling your legs from where they hang off of the bed, shuffling further back against Aggu so you have enough room.

Your skirt slides up your thighs as you bend your legs, knees now pointing upward. Joost removes his hand from your chin, sinking down to his knees in front of you, his eyes more at level with your crotch now than with your face. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, but it had been so long, you're left feeling exposed, especially as the flimsy fabric of your lacey thong left very little to the imagination.

A content smirk rests on Joost's face as he slides a hand up from your ankle to your calf, taking his time to caress your skin. As Joost slowly teases the lower half of your body, Aggu takes it upon himself to work on your upper body, his hands sliding to the bottom hem of your shirt.

"Arms up," He simply says, and no questions asked, your arms are in the air, allowing Aggu to pull your top over your head. Your back briefly parts from his chest to allow him to fully take your top off, discarding it somewhere on the bed. Your decision to forgo a bra tonight only leaves you even more exposed.

Joost's averts his eyes from your inner thighs, a look of content settling on his face,

"Missed seeing this pretty body," His hands slip up higher on your legs, "Imagination could only get me so far."

The implications of Joost's statement makes your head spin, he had been thinking of you, just as you had been thinking of him.

"Isn't she pretty?" Joost prompts Aggu,

Aggu hums in response, though it comes out more like a low growl as his lips near your neck, "Absolutely gorgeous."

Sitting up a little higher on his knees, Joost begins to press small kisses to your legs, beginning just above your ankle, up to your knee. Each tiny peck against your skin increases the tightness that builds in your abdomen, desperate to feel Joost against your heat as his head inches closer, and closer.

By the time Joost reaches your inner thigh, his small pecks have turned into sloppy, generous kisses, using his tongue more than he was his lips. Aggu made similar work of your neck, nipping at your flesh with his teeth before carefully soothing each bite with his tongue, finishing off each blooming red blemish with a prolonged kiss.

Only a few minutes into this ordeal and you were already a mess, squirming and whimpering before either man had properly touched you.

You feel Joost's hands on your outer thighs, pushing your skirt up to your hips. Your panties or what little of them there is are on full display, Joost's tongue darts out of his mouth, wetting his soft pink lips at the sight.

A hand falls from where it rests at the hem of your skirt, lightly grazing your fabric-clad crotch, causing you to suck in a gasp. Joost chuckles at your reaction, his hand returning to the thin lace. Joost presses a thumb to your clit, rubbing slightly through your panties. The sensation is barely stifled by the fabric, his circular motions sending jolts through your entire body, each action only making you crave him more.

With each gentle rub you feel your arousal growing, the tight lace pressed against your hole growing damper by the second. You buck your hips forward, desperate to feel more of Joost.

"So impatient," He clicks his tongue.

"I think a year is long enough for me to wait," You sigh.

"What do you think Aggu?" The mention of his name has Aggu pulling away from your neck, "Should we make her wait any longer?"

"Nhn-nhn," Aggu's chin bumps against your cheek as he shakes his head in disagreement, "Give her what she wants." A breath of relief exits your lungs at Aggu's words, "I want to hear how pretty she sounds as you fuck her on your tongue."

"Can't argue with that," The pads of Joost's fingers finding their way to the crotch of your panties, swiftly pulling them to the side. The air that surrounds you is cold against your wetness, forcing you to clench around nothing. "Relax," Joost mumbles, "It's just me," head creeping forward toward your inner thighs.

A sudden kiss against your clit forces a sharp breath down your throat. Joost continues to tease with small kisses until his tongue flattens against you, licking through your soaked folds, the action completed by his lips capturing your swollen bud, lightly sucking.

His tongue was just as perfect as you had remembered it being, immediately forcing you to buck your hips forward to feel more of him. Joost is able to read your cues, pressing his tongue harder against you, his movements becoming more forceful as he continues to lick at your folds.

In the meantime, Aggu had returned his lips to your neck, continuing his pattern of biting and sucking. The sensation of both his and Joost's mouths working on such sensitive parts of your body is enough to make you worry about cumming entirely too prematurely.

Aggu's hands make their way around to your front, his large palms groping at your breasts, squeezing at the supple flesh. While one hand continues to palm at your tits, the other pinches the hardened surface of your nipple between his fingers. The feeling forces you to arch your back, pushing you further onto Joost's tongue. A strangled squeak is all that can escape your throat in response.

Joost's tongue laps at your slit with all the intent to bring you to orgasm as quick as possible, eager to give you just exactly what you want. But you're determined to make this moment last as long as possible, unsure of when the next time you would have the pleasure of being with two men such as Joost and Aggu at once would even be.

Still, your desperation to deny your orgasm for as long as you can, doesn't stop the way your legs shake under Joost's touch. His tongue so skillfully applying the perfect amount of pressure to where you need him most.

Joost momentarily stops his careful licks to fully press his mouth to you, once again letting his lips surround your clit, first softly kissing, then sucking at the sensitive nerves. Your hands find themselves tangled in Joost's hair, dancing between pulling at the strands, and pushing his head further down on you, begging him to apply even more pressure.

Joost presses his tongue to you once again, licking down to your aching hole, first teasing around it before dipping in. You groan at the sensation, hips bucking as you fuck yourself on Joost's tongue.

Aggu takes advantage of how low Joost's mouth is on you now, a hand trailing from your breast down to your mound. Careful to not get in Joost's way, he places a single finger to your clit, rubbing soft circles.

You cannot believe the pleasure you're feeling, unlike anything you had experienced before. Both Aggu and Joost seemed exceptionally skilled at what they were doing, as if they had known your body forever, knowing exactly what to do to push you closer and closer to the edge.

It's almost a struggle to keep your legs open, the only thing keeping your thighs parted was Joost's head between them. You don't know how much longer you can hold out, not with the way your entire body trembles with pleasure, both Joost and Aggu trying their absolute hardest to reach that state of bliss.

"You close, sweetie?" Aggu mumbles against your neck, the vibrations from his vocal cords sending shivers down your spine. You don't really even have to respond, not with the way your unrelenting moans speak for you. "It's okay, you can let go baby, I'm sure Joost would love to feel you cum against his tongue."

Aggu's words conflict you, wanting to cum for Joost's sake, but wanting to hold out for your own. Your eyes screw shut, knowing you won't be able to hold off much more.

Aggu's once-soft circles against your clit soon speed up, becoming rougher, all but begging you to cum for him and Joost. Your body is so tight, your pussy clenching around the warmth of Joost's tongue, with a final whimper you're sent over the edge, squirming in Aggu's gentle grasp as you reach your high.

"That's right," Aggu mumbles, sensing your orgasm, your body trembling above him. You cannot control the sounds that escape you, they're dirty, like something straight from a porn, except for you they were real, one hundred percent the result of Joost and Aggu's touch.

Your twitching begins to slow as your orgasm rolls over you, your breathing becoming labored, head falling back against Aggu's shoulder. Your legs quickly fall from their bent position, hanging off the bed once more when Joost finally removes his head from between your thighs.

Joost's glasses are fogged, and the most content look is pressed against his lips, which glisten from your release. His tongue glides over his glossy lips, before pulling in with a happy hum,

"Just as good as I remembered."

You need a moment, unable to speak as you catch your breath, slumped against Aggu's chest.

"Don't tell me you're tired out already," Aggu chastises.

"No," You sigh, your chest rising and falling rapidly, "Just need to catch my breath."

"Oh," Aggu whines, almost mocking, "Can you catch your breath while you get on your hands and knees for me, schatz."

You nod quickly, lifting yourself from Aggu's chest and rolling over, plopping stomach first on to the comforter. The mattress dips slightly as Aggu shifts positions before getting off the bed to stand behind you.

"C'mon," Aggu taps your ass, "You can get up."

Slowly, you rise up from your position laying flat on the bed, resting on your forearms you get onto your knees, arching your back, forcing your ass into the air.

"Good," Aggu muses, his hand smoothing over your ass, allowing himself a moment to ogle at the sight in front of him.

The mattress dips again, the movement drawing your curiosity, raising your head. Joost now shared the bed with you, shuffling to sit in front of you on his knees.

"Think you can take us both?" Aggu asks, the sound of metal snapping behind you, which you recognize as a belt buckle unclasping.

You swallow, head trailing up to look at Joost, his hands reaching for the buckle of his own belt. You blink a few times, processing the thought, both of them at once.

"It's just a simple yes or no schatje," Joost removes one hand from his belt to place his palm to the top of your head, lazily petting down your hair and to your cheek. You lean into his touch, nodding,

"Mhm," You hum, "Please." You arch your back a little more, head slipping down, leaving Joost's grasp.

Joost's eyes leave yours, flicking to where you presume Aggu is, giving him a nod.

"Okay," Aggu sighs, his hand settling at your waist, "Let Joost start first."

You continue to stare at Joost through heavy lashes, watching as his hands play with the large metal buckle of his belt. You bite the insides of your cheeks at the prospect of what's to come, Joost's fingers slowly slipping into the waistband of his jeans, then his boxers, pulling them down at the same time.

Your breathing loses its pace for a split moment as Joost's cock springs free from the confines of his clothing. He grips the base, palm slowly sliding up its length until he reaches the tip, his thumb circling the slit, spreading the small clear pearl of pre-cum around the soft pink flesh.

"Up on your hands, a little higher," Joost says, your current position so low on the bed making what he wanted to do impossible. Eager to take him in your mouth, you straighten your arms, resting the weight of the front half of your body in your palms. "Perfect," He mumbles, hips rocking forward until the tip of his cock reaches your lips.

You let your tongue slip forward, just barely parting your lips, licking the slit ever-so-slightly, gathering the salty taste of pre-cum in your mouth.

"Come on," Joost says sweetly, "Open those pretty lips," Guiding his cock with his hand on the shaft, he drags the tip over your lips, urging you to open up. You have no desire to tease him, simply lowering your jaw to take him into your mouth.

You let your lips capture the tip, sucking slightly, immediately making Joost groan before you've even taken him all the way in. His hips buck forward, pushing himself further into the warmth of your mouth. As he pushes into you, you point your tongue upward, licking a stripe against the vein that runs down the bottom of his cock.

He doesn't push all the way into you, stopping about three-fourths of the length of his cock before rocking his hips backward, pulling out of your mouth.

At the same time, Aggu's hands find themselves at the waistband of your skirt, slowly pulling it down to your mid thighs, your panties following shortly after.

Aggu mumbles something in German, but from the tone of his voice, you can assume whatever he had to say was good. His palms find there way to the back of your thighs, both his thumbs pressing against your cunt. The feeling of Aggu touching your already sensitive pussy causes you to whimper, sending vibrations down the length of Joost's cock as he pushes himself back into your mouth, making him mutter.

Using his thumbs Aggu spreads your folds, then running a single thumb through your arousal, teasing slightly. As his thumb just barely hovers over your entrance you instinctively rock back, wanting to feel him inside you.

"Joost was right, you are impatient." He teases, "Lucky for you, I can't wait any longer."

You're unable to respond, not as the most of the length of Joost's cock is down your mouth, tip teasing your throat. Both Joost and Aggu at once already felt all to overwhelming, and Aggu wasn't even inside of you yet.

You jolt forward once you feel the tip of Aggu's dick, slip through your folds, gathering your wetness. Your sharp movement forward forcing Joost further down your throat, causing you to gag and quickly pull back.

"Careful," Joost warns, "Don't need to take so much." Despite the dirty situation you're in, Joost's caution to keep you comfortable is oddly heartwarming, only urging you to want to pleasure him further.

With no warning from Aggu, he pushes into you, causing you to once again moan around Joost.

"Fuck," Aggu mumbles, already seeming content, with just the tip inside of you. With a strong grip on your waist, feeling like his fingers are about to bruise your soft skin, Aggu continues to push his hips forward, slowly allowing you to take him. Your eyes shut tight as you stretch around his length, your fingers gripping the comforter at the initial sensation.

Both you and Aggu let out a deep breath as he bottoms out into you, having finally adjusted to him. Just as slow as he pushed into you, Aggu rocks his hips back, pulling out, allowing you to feel all of him against your walls.

Aggu groans, "So good," He sighs, "Already is perfect, sweetie." He thrusts into you again, a little harsher this time now that you've adjusted to him. His thrusts push you further onto Joost's cock as he's attempting to pull out of you, causing Joost to pause for a moment, allowing each of their paces to adjust to match each other, so they aren't playing an awkward game of tug-of-war with your body.

After a few strokes each of them are able to synchronize with each other, both of them fucking into you, and pulling out at the same time.

Your knees are already weak, your wrists sore from the position you're holding yourself in. Every single sensation feels all too overwhelming, you could just collapse right then and there, into a trembling mess on the bed. Though you won't give up so easily, needing at the very least to be fucked by Joost too, no matter how bad you'll be squirming and whimpering under him.

Joost soon begins to lose pace with Aggu, his breathing becoming more present, his heaves in and out filling the room. You're sure he's going to be finishing down your throat any second, but in a move that surprises you, he entirely pulls out of your mouth with a final groan. The action forces you to look up at him, wondering why he had decided to stop. His lips are parted, glasses slipping down his nose as he looks down at you, you can see his eyes full of lust even through thick lenses.

You pout slightly, your gaze being enough of a question to prompt an answer from Joost,

"Focus on Aggu, liefje," He urges, chin cocking upward in Aggu's direction, "Didn't want to spoil my turn with you." His mouth quirks up in a smirk. Lazily, you nod, unable to even really think about that now, not as Aggu slams into you at a now more vigorous pace,

"Might get that turn soon," Aggu grunts, his tone indicating a clenched jaw and gritted teeth. The sound of Joost's breathing escapes your ears, now only able to focus on the filthy noises Aggu's movements produce. The sounds of your slick coating Aggu's cock with each thrust, the smacking of his hips to your ass, his low grunts and your strangled moans, it makes the booming music from downstairs sound like nothing more than a dull whisper.

Joost looks down at the two of you in amusement,

"You're so good," He beams, "She's good isn't she?" His question pointed towards Aggu

"Fucking perfect," He agrees, "So wet and warm," His palms tighten on your waist, "Pussy squeezing me just right."

You're drunk on their simple praises, and as Aggu's newfound grip on you only pulls you further back onto his cock, you're unsure of how much longer you'll be able to hold off. With each forward thrust Aggu hits the perfect spot inside of you, fucking you like he knew your body intimately.

"Aggu," You sigh, "I think-"

"Uh-uh." Aggu tuts, cutting you off, "You can't"

His small command is enough to almost bring tears to your eyes, unsure you could control your impending orgasm at all.

"I'm sure Joost would much prefer if you'd make a mess on him instead," Aggu coos, "Think about that, baby, could you hold on for him?"

You can't make any promises, but an unsteady hum of agreement leaves your lips, your fingers digging so hard into the comforter they ache.

"Don't worry," He breathes, "I'm almost there." The slaps of his thighs against yours losing a rhythm, his strokes becoming long and lazy. You're almost there too, and as you clench your jaw and shut your eyes you can only hope that he finishes quick enough that you don't have enough time to reach your orgasm.

And in almost an instant your wish is granted, Aggu reaching his orgasm with a drawn out groan. He stops thrusting, keeping himself bottomed out in you, his hips pressed right against your ass as he finishes into you, warm ropes of cum coating your walls. He can't keep his balance much longer, nearly folding over on top of you as his chest rises and falls against your back.

Your pussy clenches around him, aching at the now lack of stimulation. Aggu steadies himself, placing his hands on either side of you to relieve some of the weight on your back. As Aggu regains his composure he places small, slow kisses to your shoulders, before slowly lifting him self up.

You whimper as Aggu slowly pulls out of you, feeling his release drip down your folds.

"All yours," Aggu lets out a low chuckle, "I'll leave you two lovebirds alone once I catch my breath."

Lovebirds didn't exactly seem like an apt word for you and Joost now, but still the phrase brings a slight warmth to your cheeks.

Joost chuckles back, his palm finding your cheek,

"You need a minute?" He rubs soft circles to your lips with his thumb.

"N-no," You stutter out, truthfully, needing him as soon as possible. Despite Aggu stopping, you know the second Joost touches you'll be close again once more, and you're desperate for your orgasm.

"Okay" He whispers, "Get on your back, liefje. Lay against the pillows."

You let out a sigh of relief at Joost's preferred position, at least letting you relax into the bed. Your legs slightly confined by your clothing still pulled at your thighs, you slowly crawl up the bed, turning over to lean against the thick, surely unnecessarily expensive pillows.

You return your vision to Aggu once more who's slipping his belt back through the loops on his jeans, then ruffling a hand through his hair, his composure mostly regained by now. A large grin spreads against his face, "Enjoy your night." He winks towards the two of you, leaving the room.

"Is that Aggu's idea of playing matchmaker?" You let out a tiny laugh. Joost chuckles in return, furrowing his eyebrows,

"Yeah- I-uh think so. Is there a match here to be made?" Joost moves closer to you, a hand pressed against your thigh. His words make you tense,

"I don't know," You sigh, "Was pretty mean of you to ignore me when you got here tonight." You're half teasing, half serious.

"Ignore you?" He asks, an eyebrow raising.

You let your lip fall in an exaggerated pout, nodding.

"Oh," He whines, almost mockingly, "I'm sorry," He shakes his head, "I didn't hurt your feelings." His hand raises higher up your thigh, "Arme meisje." (Poor girl)

His patronization is sweet in an odd sort of way, knowing that beneath his mocking exterior he is actually apologizing for ignoring you.

"Let me make it up to you now, hm?"

"I'd like that." You breathe out, settling further onto the pillows.

Joost smirks, "I'll do that then," His hands finding the waistband of both your skirt and panties, slipping them down the rest of the length of your legs. Once the remainder of your clothes are discarded, Joost works on his own, pulling the white graphic t-shirt he wears slipping over his head. He's just as gorgeous as you remember, wanting nothing more than to feel every inch of his soft flesh. You marvel at his half-naked body, littered with tiny tattoos.

"Come here," You whine, needing him closer.

Joost obliges, leaning forward to hover over you, his hands placed on either side of your body. You're close enough to kiss him now, and you want to, straining your neck to life your head up so your lips can meet his. Joost gets the memo, saving you the strain and lowering his head just enough until your lips touch. You forego small pecks, immediately engaging him in a passionate kiss, one that only riles you up further. You can just barely taste yourself on his tongue, causing you to groan into this kiss as you steady yourself with your hands to push forward and deepen it. His lips are soft against yours, it feels good, you wonder briefly if it would be possible for him to make you cum just by kissing you,

The two of your are already so worked up, wordlessly agreeing to skip the teasing and foreplay as Joost taps your knee, urging you to bend your legs for him. You agree, getting a small glimpse of how sore your muscles will be tomorrow as you move your legs.

Joost breaks the kiss to sit up and watch as he lines himself up with your entrance. He's positioned between your legs, resting on his knees, grabbing the base of his cock.

"Ready?" He sighs, the tip sliding through your folds, causing your body to tremble, pussy fluttering. He only needs a nod from you to begin, pushing into you.

Immediately the pressure is building up inside of you, and with the way that Joost groans above you you know that neither of you are about to last particularly long.

Like Aggu, is first strokes are slow, getting you used to the way you stretch around him. Though it's hard to keep a slow pace as he slips against your walls, slick with a mixture of his saliva, your arousal, and Aggu's release. Soon enough his thrusts build up force, immediately pumping himself into that perfect spot inside you.

You're taken back to that first night the two of you hooked up, his prior experience with you only making him more skillful with his thrusts.

With the pace he builds up with his thrusts, his glasses slip all the way off his face, lightening the dirty moment with a small laugh from both of you as they land on your chest.

"Sorry," He chuckles. You grab the glasses from your chest, gently placing them beside you on the bed.

"Don't be," You grin, "Just a testament to how hard you're working."

And working hard he was, the both of you drinking in the sensation of each other.

"Fuck, liefje," He groans, "You're even better than I remember."

You have to admit you feel the same, as hard as you had tried in the last months to remember the sensation he brought you, nothing could top the real thing.

"Fuck how am I supposed to go back to the Netherlands without this." He cracks a small laugh.

"Guess you'll have to take me with you." You tease,

"Don't tempt me, baby. I'll have you on the next flight out there."

Your briefly imagine the prospect, it was hot, being reckless in such a way, leaving your whole life for some dick, though you couldn't put it past yourself.

With another stroke, your jaw clenches, your body suddenly feeling much tighter than before, a sharp sensation building between your thighs.

"I think I'm close," You're disappointed you aren't able to hold out much longer, but with all the anticipation of the night, you can't exactly blame yourself.

"Good," He exhales, "Good, that's okay, make a mess on my cock baby. I'm close too."

You cannot deny him of that, not when he clearly wants it so bad. His thrusts become more pointed as he reaches his orgasm, they're sharp, and small, barely taking the time to pull out by any substantial length before shoving himself back inside of you. He leans forward a little more, hitting into you at a new angle, the base of his cock dragging against your clit as he pulls out. The newfound sensation is enough to throw you over the edge with ease.

A few pathetic curses leave your mouth, before your vision starts to blur, your orgasm gripping control of your entire body, dulling all of your other senses.

"I'm cumming- fuckfuck." You whine, your pussy beginning to spasm around the length of Joost's cock, gripping him just right to send him into orgasm.

"Shit," He grits, "Me too," His movements sloping entirely as his release starts to pour into you.

Your body trembles under him, tingling with complete and utter pleasure as the two of you both ride out your highs, uncontrollable smiles plastered on both of your faces.

With a few final pumps Joost collapses on top of you, trying his best to keep the full weight of his body off of your chest. Though the weight of him on top of you is comforting, especially as you wrap around your arms around him, his naked flesh sticky with sweat. Despite him being inside of you, you still desire to feel him closer.

A familiar feeling creeps into you, one you cannot tell if it is good or bad, but you know tonight will only force the crush you had developed on Joost in the last year to become more insatiable. You had gotten lucky tonight with Aggu deciding to get between the two of you, but now you needed to figure out on your own how you could possibly make him yours.

"So," You sigh, "Still willing to be my tour guide?"

[fanfictilltheend]

❤️‍🔥Violent Heart Part 2:  ♪Remember when I moved in you, and the holy dove was moving too ♫ (or the VERY DARK Stepdad!Mechanic!Covict!Joel x Afab!you one)❤️‍🔥

Hi I apologize that a lot of these reference pics are just of white girls. I tried to find "aesthetic" images that go with the story but so many of them are just of white people and I want to call myself out for this because in the fic's only descriptors are that she has hair and is AFAB -- nothing about race. I also realize that all of the girls in this are skinny too and Y/N's body type is never specified. Sorry fam!! These images are just to get the creative juices flowing and don't truly depict anything from the fic!!

A/n: It’s here!!!!!! 18+ Only. This took me 7 freaking months so you mofos better like, reblog, and comment. This is both my most and least personal fic I’ve ever written and it is dark and relies heavily on plot (smut this time tho!!) READ ALL OF THE TAGS DO NOT COME FOR ME UNLESS YOU DID THIS FR FR. This ones for my dark joel fangirlies(guys and NBies) and the daddy issues fam ily ❤️‍🔥 (also not me naming my fic in part after hallelujah by leonard cohen but there is a reason!!!!!!!!!!)

Summary: Part 2 picks up with Y/N at age 20 and how her relationship with Joel has changed and gets steamier.  SMUT and feelings <3 Also check out this playlist of music that’s in the fic!!!!

Tags (PLEASE READ): Afab!you, pov change, Infidelity, threats, age gap, dressing Joel up (swear I wrote this before he wore that outfit to the SAG awards — the mr.Darcy-core one), racist comment (from Y/N’s douchey boyfriend), douchey boyfriend, confidence issues, feelings, voyeurism, masturbation (m and f), kissing, penis in vagina sex — unprotected (wear a condom), lightest hint of ass play, scar worship?? kinda??, daddy issues, daddy kink, using music lyrics to move the plot, multiple orgasms (m and f), religion and god discussions, stepcest (kinda bc technically he is divorced from her mother), tagging psuedo-incest just to be safe!!, use of y/n

Word Count: ~13k

PART 1

AO3 Link

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

If you’re being honest, you’ve always had a little crush on Joel Miller. How could you not have? The first day you’d met him had been like some kind of fucked up yet extremely satisfying whirlwind of a daydream. He’d come in, broad and tall and strong, and saved you from your evil (though you do love him somewhere deep, deep down) older brother’s onslaught. Protected you like a knight in shining armor from his punching, beating fists. Treated and touched you so tenderly, so many miles different from how your own father did that you’d been hit with whatever the pleasant opposite of whiplash is. And the way he finally punished Aiden after years of his reign of terror, the violence of it, the justice of it. You didn’t have words for it then, but the way you looked into Joel’s eyes when he was doling out that righteous punishment became some kind of strange secret understanding between the two of you. Maybe it was the first sign of love? You aren’t sure.

As a kid, he’d given you what you like to think of as quiet butterflies. They were always there when he spoke to you, looked at you, touched you, beat the shit out of your father and brother for you, but they were faint enough that you could ignore them. It was a comforting, fluttering kind of love, a gradual understanding of your loyalty to one another. But then puberty hit and the insects became incessantly loud when you thought of, wrote to, or talked to him. They ate at your heart day after day while Joel was in prison – the longing, the missing. Aiden told you that you were obsessed with him. Your mother told you to forget him, that he would forget you. But somehow, he didn’t. You wonder if those bugs live in him too. You wonder if they are quiet or loud and if they gnaw .

You think that they are probably loud. You think this for a few reasons. The first is that you know for a fact, you can feel it in the lining of your soul, and from the evidence of his constant correspondence and care for you, that he is just as obsessed with you as you are with him. The second reason is the fact that you think but aren’t one hundred percent sure is that the last time you’d hugged him he’d gotten a little hard (you don’t want to think too much into that because he is only a man who had been deprived of touch for a long time – but still you wonder…). And the third is the way he looks at you like you are the universe like you are the last drop of nectar and he is the last butterfly left on Earth in a famine. 

That’s how he’s looking at you now in the passenger seat of his old, clunky pickup. You know that he wanted to drive, but you wanted to show him how well you could because he had never seen. Never had the chance to see how well you had fixed, maintained, and took care of his baby and of course he gave into you like he always does. He's smiling at you quietly, but his eyes contain multitudes. Right now mostly pride at your driving.

Joel is a bit different than how you remember sitting near him in the truck the last time you were together, him as a free man, you as a little girl. Somehow, even though you are obviously bigger now, he still seems massive and broad and stronger than ever. His biceps are huge – probably from all the time he had to work out in prison – and peeking out under his blue t-shirt that you brought for him, you think you see the outlines of some tattoos. You look a little closer. On his right arm is text in curvy black ink. You think it reads, “Sarah.” You smile softly at that. On his other arm is a strange orange shape that you have to squint at to understand. The edges of the object are jagged but they form a shape like a badge – and then you know what it is! It is the guitar pick you made for Joel as a child. The one that had pricked his finger and drawn blood and he stuck it in his wallet. You can’t articulate how honored you feel that Joel loved you enough to tattoo something you made for him on his body, permanently, forever. 

“ Well , the light only turned green damn near eons ago,” he complains about your driving, but you know he is just teasing.

There is hardly anything wrong you can ever do in Joel’s eyes. He grins at you a bit lopsidedly and you smile back. You also can’t help but notice the greying of his brown hair. It’s a bit longer than it used to be too and the length gives it a little bit less of a shaggy look. You think it suits him, makes him look a bit older and more distinguished than when he first came into your life twelve years ago. 

Objectively, you know it’s weird to think that your ex-stepdad who is a convicted felon is hot, but it’s just something you’ve always known and thought like that the sky is blue or that orange is your favorite color. You know it’s weird to think of someone who was? – is? – supposed to be a father figure to you that way, but it’s already second nature at this point. You’ve had a few boyfriends (luckily all of them had treated you right), but none of the feelings you’ve ever had for them have compared to the cosmic-sized love and affection you have for Joel and you’ve never known anything different. The years you spent longing, missing, loving, obsessing over, and aching for him in every way under the sun, can’t be healthy, you know this, but they have eclipsed practically every other relationship in your life. No one has ever made you feel as safe and protected and loved as Joel has. No one else has ever looked at you the way he does. No one else’s entire existence has revolved around you the way his has. The sheer devotion in his gaze is enough to make the butterflies inside you scream and beat their wings against your insides like hungry bats. 

And you especially know you shouldn’t have these feelings about another human being violent enough to be capable of taking a life – inebriated or not. You’re grown now and know the man he killed was a scum-of-the-Earth child predator, and secretly you’ve always wondered if there was more to the story than Joel told the police in the official court transcripts you’d read as an adult, maybe even something to do with you since you had been there that day in the repair shop when they met , but you haven’t pressed because you’re sure the whole thing is quite traumatic for Joel and if he ever wants to tell you, you know he will. And more importantly, you don’t really care. Drunken, violent idiot or not, you were already deeply invested and never intended on wavering in that. You’re not sure there’s anything Joel could do to get you to stop loving him and that both terrifies and excites you. 

“Okay, whatcha wanna eat?” you ask, reaching out to rub Joel’s shoulder gently. “Now that you’re free you can have whatever you want! On my mom’s credit card of course. Swear I won’t tell her.”

Joel grins.

“Deal,” he tells you. “I was thinking of a nice steak dinner.”

***

You pull into the fanciest restaurant you can find in the tri-state area and sit down to order a regal, all-American, full three-course steak dinner (though you’re both woefully underdressed – not that you care – though the host gives you a dirty look). All the while, you tell Joel about your major (psychology) and how you want to become a counselor for abused children.

“That’s sort of beautiful, sweetheart,” he tells you with a genuine smile that used to be so hard to coax from him, but now seems to float over to you so easily and gently like a kiss from something as soft as the wings of a butterfly. “Wanting to help defenseless children. You’re kinda like a guardian angel for them, ya know? Damn proud of ya! Also, these mashed potatoes are goddamn delectable!” he exclaims after taking an experimental bite. “Have I mentioned that prison food is shit?”

You smile bashfully and want to tell him that he is your guardian angel (you wonder if he thinks the same of you) and inspiration in a backward sort of way for wanting to help kids in the first place since he was so good at protecting you for the most part (though you obviously don’t believe violence is the correct answer in your line of future work). But kids need protectors. Somehow you know that deep down you forgive him for all of the violence he caused because you would forgive him for anything. And him being proud of you? You don’t think there’s a better feeling in the world than that! You burst with pride. Your real father never said that to you, but Joel doesn’t feel like your father now. He is something different entirely. Something that entirely belongs to you.

“And you’ll meet my boyfriend, Max, tomorrow,” you nod as Joel moves onto the steak and lets out a soft moan at how good it tastes. “He’s heard a lot about you.”

Joel’s face flattens.

“And who is this kid exactly?” he sneers a little, attacking the steak with his knife. 

You smile internally at the obvious jealousy he’s trying to hide from his voice.

“Hey, Max is a decent guy!” you insist in his defense. “He’s pre-law. Real smart. He’s gonna be an important person someday, I know it. You’ll get on.”

That last part is a bit of a lie since you’re not sure the two will actually like each other. 

Joel examines your face, looks deep into your eyes.

“All I know is, just because someone is important, don’t mean they’re good to you or for you for that matter.” 

You can’t help but think of your father, the most “important” man you know and how much of a degenerate he is compared to someone ostensibly average like Joel who didn’t even have a status symbol like a college degree and how perfect of a man you think he is, despite his obvious flaws. You blush a little, scrunching up your nose. 

“Just lookin’ out for you, sweetheart,” he continues, smiling at the way you do. “He ever fuck with you – he ever break your heart, you know just where to send him, alright?”

“Yeah, Joel,” you grin. “Don’t need you getting any more jail time though, alright?” “You may have made a valid point,” he concedes with a smirk. 

***

When you two enter your shitty, one-bedroom apartment it’s already dark outside. Joel actually grins when he notices his and your guitars have both been mounted on the wall. 

“We can play ‘em tomorrow,” you tell him excitedly. “If you want to, I mean…”

“Hell yeah, I do,” Joel smiles. “Wanna hear ya singing for me, honey. I missed that.”

You smile to yourself.

“You can have my bed, and I’ll take the couch,” you decide, getting back to business. 

“No way, babygirl. I ain’t taking your bed.”

“Joel, you’ve literally been on a prison mattress for eight fucking years! Can’t imagine that’s been very comfortable.”

“That’s exactly why I won’t mind the couch. That’ll feel like heaven to me. Don’t want you messin’ up your back, sweetheart.”

You open your mouth, but Joel beats you.

“And that’s that,” he insists. 

“Alright, alright,” you concede, knowing by the look on his face he’s not budging. If one thing, Joel has always been stubborn, but you like that about him. “D’you wanna watch a movie or something?”

“Actually, baby, if ya don’t mind, I’d like a quick shower. Been dreaming about taking a real, private one for ages.”

“Yeah, of course!” you nod, motioning toward your bathroom door. “Towels are under the sink.”

Joel makes his way inside and soon steam is billowing out the bottom of the door. 

You busy yourself with some homework, but just as you walk past the door to grab a glass of water, you think you hear Joel singing.

You listen more closely over the fall of the running water and make out him singing the chorus of an old ABBA song with a deeper, sadder tone to it,

♪ “ Slipping through my fingers all the time / I try to capture every minute / The feeling in it / Slipping through my fingers all the time / Do I really see what's in her mind? / Each time I think I'm close to knowing / She keeps on growing / Slipping through my fingers all the time…” ♫

You feel like such a sap, but you feel a tear forming in your eye at the way Joel must be thinking about his and your relationship and everything he missed in your life. You aren’t mad at him, but his absence hurt in a way you didn’t know you could feel. And you’ve never blamed him, really, but the lack of him for eight years of milestones really did kill a piece of you. You can’t help but imagine a butterfly at the bottom of your stomach with its wings pulled off. That’s how you felt all that time without Joel – like a butterfly without wings. A writhing worm of a human being, senseless and lost in a giant world full of forces you couldn’t control. 

You listen to Joel’s beautiful, deep voice until you hear him turn off the tap and you scurry away and act innocent. 

Joel emerges from the bathroom then with nothing but a white towel around his waist, steam from the shower floating lazily into the room behind him like precession. And oh, wow, is he ever a sight to behold. His hair is wet, dark brown flecked with grey, and starting to get curly from the moisture. You also can’t help but notice his broad chest, the expanse of it, the dark curls of hair, his bulking, muscular tattooed arms, his soft, hairy tummy, the V-shape of muscle that descends beneath the towel, his happy trail. You are overwhelmed by the soaking beauty of him. You’d seen Joel shirtless before, sure, but it had never felt like this . 

“Gon’ grab some of those clothes you bought for me and then maybe we could watch something?” Joel asks as you try so fucking hard not to stare at him.

“Sure!” you squeak, staring down at your notebook at the kitchen counter. 

You think you see a smirk from Joel, but you're not sure because your gaze is averted as he grabs some clothes to change into and disappears back into the bathroom.

When he reemerges, dressed in a wifebeater and shorts that accentuate his form, you two sit next to each other on your cushy sofa and surf the TV for something to watch. You feel Joel’s hairy knees against your jean-clad one and your heart flutters.

“Can’t believe I’m really here,” Joel says softly as you pass re-runs of Full House, a dog show. “Like I gotta fuckin’ pinch myself to know it’s not a dream.”

Suddenly you feel a large, weathered hand on your cheek.

“Missed you so much, babygirl,” he murmurs, looking into your eyes, massaging the line of your jaw ever so lightly, trying to hold your skittish gaze. “More than I even have words for.”

First, you avoid looking at him a bit bashfully, but then you stare up cautiously into those big brown eyes that feel like a familiar kind of home and you’re such a goner. You lean into his warmth, the warmth of his hand.

“Missed you too, Joel. So much,” you admit, never wanting this moment to end or him to let go of you. “More than anything.”

He leans forward a little and for a second you think…but then he’s leaning in and planting a heavy kiss on your forehead. A kiss that has weight to it – not those soft, weak ones that Max gives you haphazardly when he’s drunk or high – the only time he’s brave enough to be vulnerable with you. This kiss says something, means it so sincerely too. 

“Love you, honey,” he tells you. Then his face falls. “Sorry I…wasn’t quite there to say that to you enough in person.”

“It’s okay, Joel. I forgive you,” you insist. “I love you so much, dummy. More than you even know!”

But you truly do appreciate the sentiment. 

***

You settle on an old, black and white classic, Paper Moon, that’s playing on the TV Land channel.

Joel wraps a big arm around you and you snuggle close. You’re pretty sure there isn’t a better feeling in the world than being this close to him. Even after all these years he still smells like Joel; like home (and, if you’re being honest, a bit like your vanilla shampoo) .

You lean against him, your cheek pressing into one of his firm pecs. You begin to feel sleepy, drunk on the steady sound of his heartbeat, alive and beating against you and really here . 

You nod off.

***

At first, you don’t believe it, but you feel someone with strong, firm arms lifting you into the air, cradling your back and the insides of your knees in a bridal-style carry. The movement wakes you, but you don’t open your eyes because the safety and security you feel is too good to give up. Joel carries you to your bedroom and lays you down gently in your bed. You’re still in day clothes and shoes so Joel takes off your worn sneakers with a feather-light touch and places them at the foot of the bed – you can tell from the soft thumps it makes. He maneuvers you so tenderly under the covers and tucks you in with love and care. You wonder the last time someone did that for you and pull up a blank. If anyone ever did that for you it was probably Joel. Maybe your mom did when you were really young. Certainly your father nor Aiden ever did – your father hadn’t liked to touch you except out of anger – kind of like you had some kind of weird, contagious disease. Aiden’s hands had almost always hurt too, but not Joel’s – never his. 

He breaks you from your thoughts by pressing another kiss to your forehead. Your eyes are still closed so you aren’t sure, but you think he watches you for a second and lets out a long sigh. 

Then you hear your bedroom door close softly so as not to disturb you. You smile, you can’t help it, and drift back off into a peaceful sleep.

***

You wake up to a mumbling, grunting sort of sound. You look over at your clock and read 3:42 a.m. You sit up. You can kind of hear some muffled noises coming from outside your room. At first, you feel a little concerned – like maybe Joel is in pain or something as he is the only one who could be making the noises. The walls in your apartment are paper-thin. Like you could hear him sneeze clear as day if he were to because sound travels through the shitty walls so easily. You should have told him that. But what the fuck is he doing up at 3 a.m.? 

You creep (and you mean creep) silently to the door of your bedroom and open it the tiniest crack. The way your apartment is laid out, the back of the sofa is the first thing you see and the back of Joel’s head about six feet away. He doesn’t sound in pain the way he’s groaning and then you understand exactly what he’s doing. Of course the man is jerking off! After being in prison, stuck around people for so long of course he wanted a good, private wank. He isn’t looking at anything from what you can tell, no magazines or anything. Must be using his imagination. You wonder what he’s thinking about, if he’s gotten good at that over the years.

You should turn around, slink back into bed, and cover your ears with a pillow so the man can have some privacy. But, fuck, the way he’s grunting. His voice is so fucking deep and sexy and then he lets out a soft, vulnerable moan and you feel heat envelope your whole body. You think you hear a soft fuck roll off his tongue and your heart almost beats right out of your chest. You can hear the lewd slapping of his fist on skin getting louder and more intense. Then you hear a soft take it, fuck. And Jesus, you are so fucking wet between your thighs. You ought to be ashamed. Instead, you reach down your hand feverishly beneath the band of your jeans and soaking underwear instinctively to stroke yourself ever so slightly. You sigh in relief, but you are fucking gushing, your fingers covered in your slick. You can’t see anything besides the back of Joel’s head, technically, so this couldn’t be that wrong, could it? He lets out a soft groan, you can tell he’s holding back so as not to be heard, but the desperation in the pathetic little noises this hulking man is making is turning on every switch inside you. Oh how you want to go over there and take him in your mouth, to taste him. God you are so fucked up! You’re still touching yourself gently, not really fully going at it yet, considering the possibilities that could follow if you went over there. But before you can decide to do anything, Joel positively whines, moans, and grunts fuck, unh, and you think but aren’t sure, babygirl, and finishes.

You stop dead still in what you’re doing. Did he really say “babygirl” or was that just your horny-ass imagination playing tricks on you? You’ve never heard Joel call anyone babygirl except you. Was he really thinking of you? On the one hand, if true, mega fucked up. On the other, wow, incredibly hot. You think about going over there and asking him to finish you off or something as crazy as in all those dumb romance novels you used to read in middle school, but just as quickly as the idea comes to you, you hear another noise: loud snoring. Joel is asleep.

Typical.

You snort to yourself. That was so quintessentially Joel. You don’t want to disturb him now. The moment has passed. And only then is when you remember you have a fucking boyfriend. 

That doesn’t stop you from closing your door softly, crawling back into bed, and reaching your hand down beneath your panties to touch yourself. You stroke your clit, imagining it is Joel’s rough hand rubbing against you. Holy fuck. You haven’t been this wet since you used to touch yourself thinking about him in the past. It’s like he can reach every part of you, every layer in a way that no one else can. You know the whole thing is so fundamentally fucked up, but you can resist sinking into your favorite fantasy. The smell, the touch, the feel of him. You imagine the noises he was making so beautifully on the couch, feel heat coil through your entire body, and immediately cum hard without even sticking a finger inside yourself. 

The pleasure you feel is so unparalleled and real you have to cover your hand with your mouth not to scream out your powerful orgasm. 

Sweat drenches your whole body as you come down. 

God, you are so fucked.

***

The next morning you wake up to the wafting smell of someone cooking eggs. You emerge from your room a little sheepishly from last night’s events to find Joel behind the kitchen counter making eggs and toast. 

“Mornin’, babygirl,” he grins, his eyes shining like he’s excited about something.

And then you realize: that something is you.

You grin back.

“Good morning, Joel,” you beam at him.

You were so afraid things would feel awkward after what you heard last night, but nothing ever feels awkward with Joel. In some ways, he’s still just your average dorky, friendly old ex-stepdad, convicted felon. In other ways, everything about him sets your heart on fire, but it would be stupid to ruin what you have with him because you think it’s remotely possible he might be interested back. You know this is dramatic, but if he flat-out rejected you, you think you might die. Truly. Like those butterflies inside you would beat their wings so hard they’d burst your heart.

“‘Membered you liked ‘em poached,” he nods, breaking you from your thoughts. 

He scoops two poached eggs onto one of your plates and grabs a piece of toast from the toaster which he smears with butter like how you used to eat toast as a kid. You can’t believe he remembered.

“Thanks so much,” you tell him.

He grabs a few eggs and toast for himself and sits beside you at the counter. 

“Nice to be able to cook me ‘n you some real food,” he remarks. “If I eat one more cup o’ noodles in my lifetime I swear to God Almighty…” he trais off.

He’s looking at you like you put the goddamned sun in the sky. Your heart melts as you stare at his features, the faint curls in his hair. Oh, how you want to reach out and touch him. But that just isn’t how you operate. You won’t ruin what you already have.

The butterflies in your chest howl. 

***

` You lay out the day’s schedule to Joel. You have plenty of time to hang about (you see him eyeing the guitars), and then you need to go shopping for some actual clothes for Joel since the things you brought for him don’t constitute a proper wardrobe. Then you will go out to dinner and meet Max. 

Joel grunts a nod at that last part. He doesn’t seem too thrilled.

“Wanna show me what you’ve been playing?” he asks hopefully as he gets up to put both of your plates in the sink,

“‘Course!” you nod enthusiastically. “Max says I need to work on my fingerpicking so I can’t promise it’ll be all that good.”

Joel rolls his eyes.

“Show me what you’ve got.”

***

You sit down on the couch right next to Joel, each of you holding your respective guitars in hand, across your laps. 

Joel looks ecstatic to have his guitar back in his hands. He fiddles with the tuning and finger-picks a faint melody.

“Haven’t played one since the prison band. But then some dumb motherfucker clobbered another sorry son of a bitch to death with a saxophone so that ended our music privileges,” Joel explains. 

“Jeez,” you reply.

Joel is sitting so close you can feel his body heat. You just want to hear him sing, but he insists on hearing you.

“Joel,” you try as innocently as possible. “D’you remember how to do an A-flat? I forget and I need it for my song.”

“Sure, baby. Lemme help ya. Now put one finger on this bit of the 4th fret here,” he begins, snaking a big arm around your shoulders so he can maneuver your fingers to the correct position. 

His touch is electric. He feels so good and warm. You feel the intense urge to climb into his lap and embrace and stay there forever. His big caloused hand full of scars places your fingers correctly for the chord. The same hand that must have jerked himself to completion last night…You can’t help but wonder how much cum there was…The truth is, you know how to make an A-flat. You just wanted to feel him.

He backs away and you whine internally at the loss.

“There we go,” he says soothingly, reaching out to rub your shoulder. “That one can be tricky. Now where is my performance?”

Your nerves are squirming around inside you but you begin to play and sing to the best of your ability. 

You look into Joel’s eyes.

♪“ You've got a heart on fire / It's bursting with desire / You've got a heart filled with passion /  Will you let it burn for hate or compassion?” ♫ you sing. 

Joel watches you intently, sitting up straighter. 

��� “What's the point with a love / That makes you hate and kill for? ♪

You sing as best and as seriously as you can. You look up and think you maybe see a tear in Joel’s eye.

When you finish, it’s clear Joel is finding it hard to select the right words to convey what he’s feeling. 

“I–” he tries. “That was…well, let me just show you how I can answer that if anyone ever could to a performance as beautiful as that.”

You blush. 

He begins to finger-pick a familiar tune, Instantly, you are transported back to eight years old in the back of Joel’s old pickup truck, listening to one of his many cassette tapes. It’s “I’ll Never Find Another You” by The Seekers. The original version of the song is pretty happy and upbeat, but the way Joel sings it slowly in his deep and weathered voice makes you feel sad and achy inside. The emotion behind his voice is palpable.

♪ “But if I should lose your love, dear / I don't know what I'd do / For I know I'll never find another you / Another you / Another you…” ♫ he trails off.

It’s your turn to tear up a little. It’s crazy to know he means every word he’s singing too. He sings like every word is his last breath. When he finishes you are crying a little.

“You oughta record an album,” you sniffle, leaning into his shoulder, throwing him a side hug.

“Wanted to be a singer,” he replies with a small grin, leaning his head against yours. “Back when I was young.” 

You sit back up straight.

“You did? I never knew that.”

“Don’t tell nobody really,” Joel replies, looking a bit sad you left his immediate proximity. “Just a stupid dream ‘n all that crap.”

“‘S not stupid,” you tell him. “You really have a beautiful voice, Joel. It’s like if I could take it, hold on to it, and keep it forever in my chest pocket next to my heart, I would.”

“That’s where I keep you, baby,” he tells you honestly.

He reaches up a big hand to yours and guides your own to place it right on his heart over his plaid shirt. You can feel it beating steadily below your palm to the rhythm of something as delicate and ferocious as the beating of butterfly wings.

“Right here.”

***

You take Joel shopping. At his insistence it is nothing fancy, just the local department store. That doesn’t stop you from dressing Joel up in ridiculous outfits of your choosing. You make him try on a Hawaiian shirt, some golf polos like your dad liked to wear, a pinstripe suit and he lets you because saying no to you has never been in his vocabulary. He acts grumpy on the outside, but you can tell he is amused. You know in the end, you’ll just end up buying every flannel shirt and jeans combo they have in the store, but it’s just fun anyway. You watch the fabric hug his torso, his tummy, the slight bulge at his waist. At one point he comes out shirtless and you try very hard not to swoon as you stare at the hair lining his chest and his adorable little tummy that you for some reason have the urge to bite. The band of his Hanes boxers sticks up past his jeans and he looks so good. He even lets out a genuine smile. The middle-aged sales attendant who is helping you even takes a good look at him which makes the butterflies inside you swarm possessively. 

Finally, you make him try on a proper white-collared button-down shirt and black dress pants with matching black shoes and he looks so good you’re actually at a loss for words when he asks you what you think. They hug the curves and lines and planes of his body so nicely. All you can do is ask him to put on a black tie to match and he does at your behest following some customary griping that he would never wear such a monkey suit in the first place. The effect that a fully dressed-up Joel has on you is not one to be reckoned with. He might as well be wearing the men’s version of lingerie for how it makes you throb and ache between your legs. He looks like a force of nature, commanding and tall. It makes you weak. All you say is,

“Looking good, old-timer.”

He snorts.

When you finally ditch all the fun clothes and grab the essentials, Joel offers to go pick up the car while you pay. He tries to give you his eight-year-old credit card, but you insist on treating him on the condition he buys the “monkey suit.” After a bit of prodding, he gives in and you go to the sales attendant to pay at the counter. 

“Your dad is really cute,” the sales attendant giggles to you as she rings up the pile of clothes. 

Your cheeks go a bit red. You don’t really care enough to correct her.

“He’s my guy,” is all you say absentmindedly as you fish out your wallet from your purse.

The sales attendant hands you the receipt and on it, you see a scrawled phone number.

“For If he’s single,” she explains. “I’m Barb from sales.”

You look her over. She’s close to Joel’s age and conventionally pretty with long brown hair. The exact kind of woman Joel should be dating should he choose to get back in the game. Your stomach twists and the butterflies howl inside you.

You take the receipt, thank her, and join Joel back in the car (who is more than happy to be driving this time). 

“What took so long?” he asks casually. “You two writing a novel in there?”

You think seriously about what you should do. You consider letting the bugs have their way and tearing the receipt with Barb’s number on it to shreds. But you want good things for Joel. The chance of you two ever being together the way you wish is so far-fetched that you know you shouldn’t even be thinking it. A literal pipe dream. He was your stepdad for christsakes. He literally fucked your mother! (Gross!). Barb is exactly the kind of woman Joel should be going after if he’s up to dating right now. You hand him the receipt begrudgingly. 

“Sales Lady likes you,” you sat flatly. “Name is Barb.”

“Oh,” he says softly like he’s a bit flattered. 

He looks back at her through the glass door of the store and she waves at him. He waves back politely. You feel your stomach twisting into knots. 

“You think…you think you’re gonna call her?” you finally ask as casually as humanly possible, dreading the answer. 

Joel looks over at you, his gaze sweeping over you. Then looks back at Barb through the window. He looks her up and down.

“Nah,” he says with a smirk, looking back at you. “She ain’t my type. Only need one girl in my life right now anyways,” he winks.

Was that Joel flirting? With you?

Regardless, you smile back and then sigh in relief and grin to yourself as you two drive away. 

Much to your satisfaction, Joel crumples up the receipt and throws it out the window for good measure. 

***

You get ready for dinner, to go to a nice Mexican-Japanese fusion restaurant that Max picked out. You wear a red dress that accentuates your figure and matching heels and to your shock, Joel reemerges from the bathroom in the white button-down shirt and black dress pants you picked out for him (you had been sure flannel would be part of his ensemble). God, he looks good. A part of you wants to ditch Max and just stay here with Joel forever. He looks you over, his dark eyes sweeping over your frame. You think there is a tinge of possessiveness in his voice when he says,

“ Christ, you look beautiful, babygirl.”

***

You arrive before Max and sit down at the fancy white table-cloth-covered table next to Joel, a booth facing you. Max finally makes an appearance a half hour late and sits down across from you, sweeping his hair out of his face, sliding into the booth. Joel is frowning and the butterflies beat their wings inside you nervously.

“Sorry I’m late,” Max announces, puffing out his chest a little and smoothing out his collared shirt as he looks down at his watch and then over at Joel. “Hey, baby,” he says to you. Then, “And, uh, nice to meet you. Joe, was it? Heard a lot about you.”

“Joel,” Joel replies flatly, eyeing Max.

Max is a good-looking guy, everyone says so, but he looks more like a little boy than you’ve ever thought as he squirms uneasily in his seat under Joel’s unrelenting gaze and launches into a tirade about his frat’s inter-mural lacrosse team practice and how his team should have totally won the scrimmage and that’s why he’s late. And of course, he was the one to score the most goals.

“And the taxi cab driver was a nightmare. Only spoke Spanish. It’s like, if you come to this country speak fucking English, am I right?”

You notice Joel’s jaw tighten and his fingers clench. 

“Max, that’s so rude!” you tell him, frowning. “We’re at a fucking Mexican restaurant!”

“Anyway,” Max continues, rolling his eyes at the interruption like he barely even heard you, smirking. “Where’d you go to school? What do you do for work, Joel?  Besides making license plates, I mean. Kidding!” he insists as you stare daggers at him. 

Joel leans forward ever so slightly but you slip your leg over his to hold him back and he calms down a fraction. It’s like when you touch him, everything tense in him melts away. 

Joel sits up straighter in his chair and looks at you, stretching his arm across the back of your seat protectively like it’s a casual thing and not an unconscious sign of possessiveness.

“I’m a mechanic,” he grunts unceremoniously to Max. “I mean, I was anyways…Didn’t go to school.”

Max frowns ever so slightly. 

“You didn’t go to college? You must’ve gone to trade school at least?”

“Nope. Picked up what I know over the years. Not everyone gets a free ride from their parents,” Joel smirks.

“Free ride?” Max snaps. “I’ll have you know I spend every summer interning at a law firm!”

“Yeah, your dad’s,” you can’t help but snicker.

Max’s cheeks turn a bit pink.

“At least I’m not a psych major,” he shoots back. “I mean, no offense, babe!”

“What’s wrong with psychology?” Joel snarls, his eyes darkening. “You ought to be proud to have such a thoughtful and intelligent girl like Y/N studying such a topic.”

It’s your turn for your cheeks to go pink. 

“Joel–”

“Who said I wasn’t?” Max sneers. 

That makes you feel a bit better. 

“I’m just saying, she could have inherited the second-best law firm in the tri-state area from her pops if she was pre-law like me,” he smirks.

Your smile fades, used to hearing this kind of shit from him. He knows you and your father don’t get along at all, but not the full extent of it. He also knows you don’t have an interest in pre-law. But you swallow down how you really feel.

“It’s fine, Joel,” you tell him, placing a hand down on his thigh.

It’s not that you enjoy the way Max has been talking to you, but you are so used to it from the men in your life that it feels like the common denominator must be you. And sometimes it feels like maybe they have some kind of point. And fighting back only makes things worse. You’ve learned that over the years the hard way.

“It’s not fine!” he snaps like he’s trying to get you to see sense, looking deeply insulted on your behalf. Your heart thunders in your chest. “This boy has never worked an honest day in his life and he’s telling you what you ought to be doing? Bet his hands are soft as a baby’s ass. He doesn’t know shit about you, babygirl.”

You may not know the hardship of labor that Joel has taken on in his life, but your hands are not smooth. They are full of scars. And Joel is right. Max’s are soft like silk. You look down at the most prominent, ugly scar on your middle finger. You don’t even know which man in your life gave it to you. But you do know it means something. Shows you survived something. Survived your stupid father too, not that Max seems to care.

But Max never loses. 

“Whatever,” he smirks dismissively. “Sorry I’m not some, like, common blue-collar worker. But I guess I should be taking advice from someone who became a fucking convicted felon ‘cause they drank too much one night,” he shrugs with a terrible sneer.  

You know it’s over then.

But Joel surprises you. Doesn’t immediately strangle Max like you thought he might. Simply stands up tall and silent over Max’s frame which has suddenly begun to shake ever so slightly in obvious fear, his blue eyes widening. Joel’s fists are clenched tightly at his sides. 

“Wouldn’t mind them sendin’ me right back in, ” Joel growls low. “Drunk or not.”

You shiver and Max positively cowers. 

“Got something to say? Don’t wanna take it outside?” Joel leers, smirking ever so slightly at the trembling boy before him. “I’d even let a little boy like you take the first swing.”

“Your stepdad’s a freak, Y/N,” Max stammers, not taking his eyes off of Joel. 

“Joel, it’s fine, okay?” you growl, not wanting him to actually hurt your boyfriend. Let alone in public! “Shouldn’t talk about Joel like that though, Max! Jesus!”

“Babe, I’m sorry, okay?” Max tries, eyeing back and forth between you and Joel. “I’m just trying to look out for you. I don’t get what you see in him with a real Dad like yours! Your dad has so much to give you!”

Look out for you? So much to give you? What could he possibly give besides a stupid law firm and two black eyes? 

Max looks a bit desperate. Him apologizing for anything is actually a new concept for you. Your heart twitches ever so slightly. He must actually like you a lot. But Joel would never do anything to hurt you if it was in his power. At least not intentionally, unlike your real father. 

“That’s it. I’m leaving,” Joel snarls moodily, turning around. “Don’t want to do things I might regret to Mr.Future-Corporate-Lawyer over here. Have fun with him .”

Joel looks deeply hurt. Like you are choosing Max over him or something. That’s never what this has been about, has it? Doesn’t Joel know you’d do anything for him? That the hurt on his face hurts you more than anything you’ve ever felt. Ever.

“Joel, wait!” you decide and disappear after him, leaving Max behind at the table.

“Babe, what the fuck!?” Max yells, but you don’t care. “Come back here!”

***

You ride back in silence, Joel’s hands turning white against his grip on the steering wheel. 

When you break through to the front door of your apartment, Joel finally snaps, the anger on his face directed at something that feels like you for the first time in your life.

“You really love that little son of a bitch, don’t you?” he sneers, uncharacteristically harshly towards you. 

“So what if I did?” you shoot back, a little shocked. “It’s none of your business, Joel. What the fuck?”

“It is so my business,” he snaps back. “That kid is no good for you, Y/N. He doesn’t understand you. You deserve someone much better than that who will actually go to the ends of the earth for you. He wouldn’t do anything for you.”

There is a desperation and vulnerability in Joel’s words and tone that you’re not sure you’ve heard before. He sounds like he had been waiting the whole car ride to say this, maybe even his whole life. You aren’t sure.

“Max does give a shit about me,” you try to convince yourself, getting angrier. “I mean at least he was there for me while you were gone.”

Joel flinches.

“How do you know what’s so good for me and what’s not when you dipped out of my life for eight years?” you continue harshly. “Because why? It wasn’t because you were drunk, was it? It was because you couldn’t control your anger. You never could.”

He stares at you.

“I controlled it for you,” Joel says so quietly you almost miss it. “ You are the only reason I did any of it.”

“What?” you stammer, not sure you want to hear more. “W-what do you mean, Joel? Any of what?”

A million thoughts begin to run through your mind, but you push them aside. Theories about the case and your ideas of Joel’s true nature all threaten to drown you but you push them away.

“Do you want to know why I really killed that sick son of a bitch?” Joel asks dangerously after a long moment of silence. You stare at him, your body frozen. He looks down at his hands, flexing them like he can still feel them punching or around that disgusting man’s throat. “Why I killed him all those years ago? It was no accident, I’ll give you that. Manslaughter, my ass. I killed that scum of the Earth because he threatened you . To do terrible things to you with those disgusting hands of his. So I broke each one, but it wasn’t enough. I killed him because I didn’t want you to get hurt and because I didn’t want you to live in fear of him. I was tired, Y/N. Tired of being afraid for you in a world that doesn’t let you do shit except fight back. I loved you so much, Y/N, it hurt me. It scared me, but I couldn’t let him hurt you. I’d die before I let anyone hurt you again, not him, not your father, not Max, not anyone. You have to understand. I love –” 

And then it’s all over. You’re not sure who moves first, but you think it might be you. The butterflies are rustling and thundering and screeching inside you and you kiss him. And Joel kisses back, devouring your mouth in his. You grab the back of his graying brown hair and pull him as close to you as you think is humanly possible. He cradles the back of your head so gently you almost lose your breath. And you are kissing and kissing and kissing and kissing. There is nothing else in the universe except this kiss. You have never felt anything like this in your life. It is like every butterfly inside you has gone silent. It is like the world has stopped just for you and something new is forming inside you.

Joel killed that vile man for you. To keep you safe. Like he always said or showed that he would. He gave his life away for you. He did the unspeakable for you.

He bites down on your bottom lip and all your brain can manage to coherently think is: more, harder .

But then Joel is breaking away from you slowly.

NO! your heart cries out, the delicious pleasure and pain draining away from you. The butterflies swarm dangerously inside your chest, worse with every inch he travels from your lips.

“Joel,” you whine. “What? You…you don’t want–”

“Don’t even say that, Y/N,” he growls dangerously. “Of course I want you. How could I not? I have spent my entire life wanting you in some capacity, baby, but I ain’t no good for you either, alright? I…” he says slowly like it takes every inch of his body to agree to say this. “I am not a good man, Y/N. I never have been. I’ve done wrong in every chapter of my life. You deserve someone much better. I don’t want to hurt you. Physically or mentally. Our history… The damage I’ve done…” he trails off.

“You don’t understand,” you swallow, tears forming in your eyes. “You have already loved and hurt me more than any human being on planet Earth. And yet somehow there is nothing you could do that would keep me away from you, don’t you get that? The Joel Miller I love is not a good man and I don’t care. I want all of you. All of the pretty and crooked pieces you try to hide away from me. You killed a man with your bare hands, arguably one of the worst things a human can do, and I don’t care. I still want you, Joel. Maybe even more because of it. No one has ever loved me the way you do and that is the love I want and it terrifies me.”

A single tear falls down Joel’s right cheek. You reach up to wipe it away, but Joel grabs your hand on the way reflexively, so you help him wipe his own tears away. 

“I love you,” you whisper.

“I would move the Earth for you,” Joel whispers back.

“I know,” you nod. “I’ve always known. I–”

But he is kissing you again before you can say another word, like a man starved. You hold onto his cheeks, your fingers caressing his stubbly beard. 

“ Joel,” you whine when you break for air.

“I wanted this so badly,” he says softly, grinning a lopsided grin. “Can’t believe this is real.”

“Me too,” you giggle.

You have to lean up a bit, but you press your forehead to his gently.

“Oh, baby,” Joel smirks. “You���ve made me the happiest man alive, ya know that? You like

it when I go a little rough, honey?” he smirks down at you in satisfaction, reading your mind.

You have to stop yourself from getting lost in the warm pools of his brown eyes, your panties soaked.

He reaches an affectionate hand down to rub your side softly.

“This okay, babygirl?” he coos, massaging his hand down your torso.

“I’d let you do anything to me, don’t you know?” you snicker. “Pain or pleasure, it’s all the same to me. I like all of that. I just want you so bad.”

“Think a safe word is in order,” Joel grins, leaning down to kiss your neck. “How about ‘butterflies?’” you suggest. 

“Sounds good to me, baby,” he grins, looking genuinely happy for the first time in hours. 

He leans down and places a calloused hand around your throat, not squeezing (yet – you hope) and plants soft kisses and bites down your expanse of skin. 

“All mine,” he mutters into your skin. “My beautiful babygirl.”

You feel his erection pressing against you through his black dress pants which makes you moan softly.

His hand trails over your crotch and he starts rubbing over the tight fabric of your red dress.

“That okay?”

“Yes,” you whine. “Want more, Daddy.”

Oh shit. You don’t mean to say it like that! You know it is about ten levels of fucked up to call Joel that, but how is it your fault that in every fantasy that’s how you think of him? You figure you’re probably past the point of weird and every other standard of decency, but you’re still afraid.

“Sorry…” you mumble. “I–”

“No, no, baby,” Joel says quickly. “It’s alright, you can call me whatever you want. I don’t mind, sweetheart.”

“You think it’s weird,” you mumble again, further stupid tears forming in your eyes.

He snickers. 

“Baby, I think we’re beyond weird at this point. Let me show you how turned on it makes me.”

Joel takes your hand and places it on his crotch. He takes your left hand, the one with the scar and you cringe a little, but he is rock-hard.

That’s good because you’re positively drenched.

“You’re okay, sweetheart. Daddy likes that more than you know, alright?”

You take your hand back, smiling, but you cover your scarred finger, shocked he will allow this fantasy for you.

“Whatcha hidin’ from me, baby?” he asks, noticing the positioning of your hands.

“I hate that scar on my finger. ‘S so ugly,” you admit.

Joel looks flabbergasted. 

“That’s the last damn thing I think of when I look at you. Ugly? Who in the fuck told you that?”

“How it got there is ugly. It’s marred skin, looks gross,” you mumble.

Joel moves to take out his cock, and when you nod he unzips and unbuttons his dress pants, pulling out his length. You have fantasized about his cock for god knows how long so you are more than excited to see it. He reaches to place your left hand with the scarred fingers around the length of his dick, which is thick, but longer than you expected. The leaking head is almost purple and your mouth begins to water as you stroke him gently.

“It’s part of you,” Joel tells you, his eyes connecting with yours. “I love it. It shows you survived. Gonna jerk off to it, Daddy loves it so much. And when I’m done you’re gonna love it too. Swear I’ve got so many over the years I can barely even count ‘em. Even got a few on my middle finger. Maybe even one from a certain guitar pick you made me. Nothing like that could ever make me stop wanting you, ya know that, right?”

You smile and take your time stroking him, wanting to show him how much you love and care for him, scars and all.

He grunts softly, closing his eyes, but then shoos your hand away with a feverish kind of want. 

“Yeah, touch yourself now, baby. Daddy wants to see how wet you are for him. With that scarred finger. C’mon, now. ‘S gonna make you feel so good.”

You do as you’re told and reach down underneath your dress and begin to touch yourself, especially with your middle finger. You stroke your clit and then your dripping wet slit. You moan softly as Joel’s eyes rake over you, taking in every sigh and groan you emit. The butterflies are forming something big inside you, which presses against the inside of your tummy and ribcage.

“Daddy,” you whine.

“Enough, little one,” Joel whispers. 

He takes out your hand and begins to suck the slick off of each of your fingers, groaning deeply, making intense eye contact the whole time.

“Fuck, angel,” he moans, having a tough time keeping himself together, you can tell. “Taste and smell better than like how I pictured. Like you were fuckin’ made for me, I swear.”

He reaches a hand of his own down to stroke himself and his moans become more desperate. Finally, he sucks on your middle finger covered in your slick and groans so deeply you feel like you might cum untouched. He stares into your eyes. 

“ Mine, ” he growls possessively. “Oh, shit! Gonna–”

Then he takes your left hand and leads it to meet his throbbing cock. You stroke him, harder this time, fisting his thick length, moaning softly and that does it for him.

Joel cums all over your hand, oozing white globs of cum over your fingers, once, twice, three times. 

“Fuuuuuck, babygirl,” he groans. “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry! Couldn’t help it. Yeah, suck it off, baby. That’s it,” he commands, and you do, licking up all of his cum, even the part that got on your middle finger. 

When Joel comes down he still looks half-crazed with desire.

“Sorry about the, uh, early release. It’s been a while since anyone touched me,” he babbles in embarrassment, his cheeks flushed pink. “But I don’t wanna hear shit about your gorgeous hands ever again, you hear me, babygirl?”

“Yes, Daddy,” you nod, snickering. 

He looks like that one word has set his entire universe back in order again. You honestly don’t care at how fast Joel came. You love how much it shows he wants you. And his heady taste is making you weak. You could taste him for days and days and never get tired, you’re sure.

“Can still get you off though, don’t worry. Shoulda let you cum first, but I couldn’t help it with the things you do to me. Goddamn. Can Daddy eat your pussy, baby?”

You grin, but then your face falls. 

“Didn’t shave,” you admit, feeling dirty. 

Max hates your hair down there.

Joel looks at you in confusion.

He laughs, his face scrunching up.

“Oh, sweetheart. You think I care about that? Only little boys give a shit about things like that. Not men.”

You shiver.

“Really?”

“Of course I don’t care. Didn’t ya hear what I just said? C’mon now. You can lie down on the couch.”

You follow instructions, pulling your dress over your head to reveal white lace panties and no bra. 

You move to take the panties off, but Joel stops you, staring at the lines and curves of your body. 

“Jesus, fuck,” he growls, taking you in.

You think you see his cock twitch ever so slightly. He palms his softening length instinctively.

“Beautiful,” he snarls, pushing you back on the sofa. 

You happily fall backward. 

He lies on top of you, his white button-down shirt pressing against your naked body tantalizingly. 

He bites your lips roughly and you groan against him.

“Daddy’s mouth,” he commands against you.

“Yeah, duh, Daddy,” you snicker.

As if he even needs to say it! 

He kisses down your neck expertly and you begin to shiver and whine, your pussy aching with need and neglect.

He stops at your breasts, sucking and biting each one.

“Daddy’s tits,” he declares, snaking a finger over the lace panties that protect your clit. “Of course,” you respond, moaning softly, grinding needily against him.

He continues lower, licking down your breasts and over your tummy which he plants with kisses that tickle and then one hard bite on your hip that leaves behind teeth marks.

“Daddy’s body,” he impresses upon you.

“Yes, Daddy. Only yours.”

“No more of that little shithead, Max,” he snarls, an inch above your clit.

“No more Max,” you repeat as he presses kisses down your pussy, still covered by soaked white lace panties. 

“Only Daddy.”

“Only you.”

“Good girl,” he growls.

He finally removes your panties and begins to eat and suck your clit and pussy so hard and enthusiastically, swirling his tongue around your bundles of nerves that you grow exponentially closer by the second.

“Joel,” you whine. “Oh my God.”

It doesn’t take long. The second his calloused hand is pressing a finger and then two inside of you it’s over. You were so needy for him that you could have even cum from just his mouth alone, but his hands are what send you over the edge. And something different happens as orgasm crashes down upon you. The butterflies all join together and transform into something bigger and softer, caressing your insides, cooing. It feels like a breathing white dove is spreading its wings inside you, the tips of its feathers brushing against your rib cage. And you cum harder than you ever have in your life. 

Pleasure engulfs you in currents, facilitated by the gentle flapping from deep

inside your body.

“ Joel,” you moan. “Oh my God. Daddy, pleaseee–”

“Please what, baby? Make my princess cum again? I would eat that pretty little clit and

pussy every day for the rest of my life if I could, fuck. God, so perfect and you’re so fuckin’ tight. Look how fucking hard you make me, angel.”

He takes one of your hands and places it on his half-hardening cock. Not going to lie, you are partially shocked at his recovery, but another part of you seems to know that if there was anyone in the universe that could do that to him it had to be you. 

“Never got hard again from anyone I’ve ever fucked before…” he trails off dreamily like he can read your thoughts. “You’re so gorgeous, babygirl.”

“Not so bad yourself, handsome,” you tell him lazily, pressing a kiss to the side of his mouth as you pull him closer to you. 

The heat from his body keeps you so warm and tender and for a moment you lie on the couch, Joel’s still-clothed body pressed to yours.

“Can you fuck me, Joel?” you ask, squirming against him needily.

“You can’t say that shit to me, baby,” Joel groans, his cock getting harder. “Not quite ready yet.”

“Lemme help you out,” you offer, pouting. 

You reach down and stroke his half-hard length and then bend over and press a gentle kiss to the tip of his cock.

Joel swears, staring down at you with so much adoration it pours off his face. No man has ever looked at you like that before. You’re certain. Perhaps no man ever will again? Not like that.

“Shit, baby,” Joel babbles stupidly, his eyes threatening to swallow you up in that beautiful shade of umber. “Never gonna forget this moment,” he grunts as you begin to suck his cock properly, feeling it slowly get hard enough to throb between your lips with each thrust of your head and gluck of your throat. 

You stare up at him, your eyes wide and wanting and Joel lets out a soft, vulnerable moan as you begin to really suck him and take him down the walls of your throat.

“ Unh , babygirl, fuck,” he whines and you have never quite heard Joel so desperate before. “Gotta pull out or I’m gonna cum. Holy fuck.” 

It sounds just like it did the night you accidentally spied on him jerking off. 

“You’ve been thinking about me a lot, huh, Daddy?” you ask, releasing Joel from your mouth like he wanted, though his hips buck forward ever so slightly with desire, the tip of his cock just barely scraping against your mouth. He grunts.

“Maybe so,” he replies, looking a little guilty. “Don’t know how not to these days.”

“Heard you on the couch last night,” you whine yourself. “Had to touch myself ‘cuz of it, Daddy. I’m sorry.”

Joel reaches out a hand to cup your crotch and rub against your slick pussy.

“That’s so fuckin’ naughty, baby,” he groans. “Look how wet that made you. All for me.”

You steal a glance at his cock and find that the tip is weeping too. And he is so fucking big compared to the size of your hand. Fuck!

“You were thinking about me, weren’t you?” you whisper.

“All about you, baby,” Joel nods in agreement, his hips twitching ever so slightly. “‘Bout touching you just like this.”

He slinks two big fingers inside you and you moan deliciously, the feathery wings of the newly-formed dove fluttering against your insides. 

“Gotta stretch you a bit more,” he grunts into your throat, pushing in a third finger. “Daddy’s so big and you’re so tight, angel. Don’t wanna hurt ya. Not too bad at least. Not yet…That’s it, pretty girl, fuck,” he grins when you slide back on his thumb in pleasure which had traveled to the rim of your asshole “Good girl, so good for Daddy. So naughty too. Don’t think Daddy won’t punish you.”

“Want you to hurt me, Daddy,” you moan. “When you fuck me. Please fuck me hard. I want all of you – pain and pleasure. One hundred percent Joel. Joel, please, I need–” 

And Joel does stop for a moment.

“Never hurt you in a way you didn’t beg for,” he tells you seriously. “You know that right, baby?”

You stop your rutting against him and look into his eyes.

“Are you kidding? You would protect me with your dying breath. I know that, Joel. Never been afraid of you since I’ve really known you. Not once. I mean: fuck; you gave up your whole life for me. To keep me safe, for fuckssake. In every word you say and don’t say to me I can feel how much you love me.”

 “I do love you so much, babygirl,” he whispers, nuzzling your forehead. “If I had to, I’d do all of it all over again if it meant I’d get you. I’ve made mistakes, big ones, but protecting you, loving you was never one of them.” 

Warm tears trail down your cheeks, but Joel licks and kisses them away. 

“Wanna feel me inside you?” he asks. “Don’t wanna go too fast, but I need you, baby. Needed you for so long…Sweet little pussy’s just cryin’ for Daddy, huh? Gonna fit me just like a glove, I just know it — if you wanna…”

“Yes, please, fuck me, Daddy! Please, Joel Wanna feel you—ah!” you moan as Joel shoves his entire length into your pussy in one hard thrust eagerly. “Oh my God, please fuck me harder!” you moan, reeling from the deep blend of pain and pleasure of him sinking inside you, clenching down around the thickness of him. “Joel, please!”

He pauses, sweat glistening on his brow, sneering.

“You really want harder?”

You shiver. The way he says that makes your heart beat wildly in your ears.

“Because babygirl, I would treat you like porcelain if you want it so. I will never hurt you, my angel, my gift from god, my goddamn sweetest heart please know I will break my fucking hands before they would hurt you, before I would ever hurt you in a way that you didn’t want, no matter how much it hurt me. Do you understand me?”

“Of course, Joel. But you want it too,” you smirk. “You aren’t innocent in this, are you?”

“Fuck, of course i’m not innocent. I want you, babygirl. In every way there is to want another. Want every inch of you, inside and out. Wanna mark you up so the world knows you’re mine, honey. Want everyone to smell me on you and know I marked you, moved in you, darlin’, please, see, I’m no fucking Hemingway, I didn’t go to college, I’m not like you with words, but I need you to understand that I mean this with my whole chest and heart. Really, I’m not a big talker, never was, babygirl, but I need you to understand I—”

  “I do, you dumbass fucking fool!” you shout, giggling at his desperation. “I’d understand you even if you were speaking another language. You’ve made your intentions loud and clear. I don’t want a Hemingway, I want Joel Miller!”

You pull him in for a kiss and he thrusts in you again a second time and you end up moaning clumsily in his mouth, but you can feel him smiling , smiling like some dumb idiot against you and maybe you called him the correct insult because he is a dumbass fucking fool for you. And it turns out you must be one as well because you are smiling like an idiot for him too.

“ Joel,” you moan as he begins to move inside you, hitting deep places that Max or any of your previous exes never went. Pleasure is tracing itself along the line of your stomach. “Oh my god, I love you so much,” you babble and you’ve never meant that more than you do now.

You can feel Joel coming apart above you, plowing into you, sighing deeply. His grunts and moans and thrusts spur on the intense pleasure. 

“More!” you moan. “Oh my god. Harder, please, I need–”

Joel plants rough bites on your neck and kisses too like he’s trying to consume every inch of you. 

He places a large hand around your throat questioningly and you nod.

“Beg for it,” he commands in his deep, sexy voice — the voice that’s been in every wet dream you’ve ever had. You think you might just pass out from the sound alone. 

“Choke me, Daddy,” you whine as pathetically as you possibly can, batting your eyes. “Oh, please, I could cum from just this, but I want more. More of you. All of you.”

“As you fuckin’ wish, baby,” he snickers in amusement. “Bet no little boy ever fucked you like this, huh?” he growls, continuing his rough pace, slamming against your walls, his eyes growing wild.

“They don’t compare to you, Joel. It’s always been you. In every orgasm. Fuck, never felt like this! Shit! Shit!”

Joel reaches out his large scarred hand and applies gentle delicious pressure to your throat. You know even something like this can be dangerous, but you crave that feral look of violence in his eyes and the power that comes with it. You want him to own you completely – every inch of you. You want him to mark you just like he said he wanted to because he is yours and you are his and has it ever really been any other way? You can’t remember properly from the pleasure rushing through you, the white dove inside you spreading and fluttering its wings, cooing softly. You think it’s only ever been what you feel now.

“Joel, Joel, fuck!” you scream, orgasm building in you.

“I know, babygirl. I know,” he coos himself into your mouth.

He pulls you closer, presses his nose to yours, his lips to yours, biting and kissing like a starving man possessed. He looks into your eyes and it’s there! That look of pure predator closing in on its prey, that look of ownership but also the most intense love you think you’ve ever witnessed. You would recognize that look anywhere. Your starved brain cries out for oxygen beneath his iron grip. 

“Gonna cum again, angel,” Joel growls. “Gonna make you cum so hard you’re never gonna forget who you belong to. Whose pretty pussy this is.”

He is pounding so hard against your cervix and his dick is so big inside you and the pressure of his hand squeezing around you is so overwhelming and the scent of him could make you faint straight then and there, but you let go and feel yourself cumming in enormous waves as you squeeze down around Joel’s prick, the pleasure more intense than any single bodily experience you’ve had.

“ Daddy ,” you whine breathlessly, tears trickling out of your eyes. “Oh my god!”

“You’re mine, babygirl, always have been–FUCK!” he shouts into your throat, collapsing on top of you.

And then you feel him starting to empty himself inside you, painting your sensitive insides with trustful after trustful of hot cum. You’ve never felt so helplessly full and sticky in your life, the brilliant pleasure billowing through every inch of you. You want to feel like this every day, stuffed full of Joel’s cock, so close to him you can feel his heartbeat against yours, the one true place you belong. 

“So beautiful, babygirl,” he whispers in an exhausted type of awe.

When your words come back you reply,

“Shut up, you’re the hot one,” through a snicker. 

You look down at your body, covered in purple bite marks and bruises forming like galaxies across your body. 

Joel snorts. Then he sits up on the couch and you lean your cheek against him. You lean up to kiss his cheek and he blushes ever so slightly.

“I said a lot of stuff, Y/N, but I want you to know that I meant all of it,”

“Yeah, you probably said more in the last hour than you’ve ever uttered in your entire life,” you tease, sitting up.

“I’m serious,” he snickers.

“I am and was too,” you nod. “I’m so glad that you’re here with me — that we did this. I know that our…origin story is weird and unconventional and some might argue straight up wrong, but I need you, Joel. I don’t care about that or think I could go back to pretending to be what we were.”

“You think I’d want you to act like that?” he asks incredulously. “You think I want this to just be a one-time thing?”

“Of course not,” you smirk. “But as close as we are I can’t actually read your mind. I mean…how are we going to be together realistically?”

“I’m not sure,” Joel admits, frowning a little. “For now it has to be a secret unless you want your mother or brother in jail for murdering me this time around. But someday, I dunno. It’s dumb…”

“What?”

“I just have these thoughts sometimes about you ‘n me. I…” Joel’s cheeks turn a bit pink. “Had a lot of time to think in prison, you know? And I’d Imagine us living on a ranch somewhere quiet out in the country with a flock of sheep. I could work at the tractor and auto-body repair shop that’d be out there, you know, in this dream of mine, and you could be a counselor at a local school if that’s what ya wanted. I don’t know, l know it sounds silly, but nobody would know or bother us there. But I want you to finish school and have the best life possible, babygirl. I’d wait a thousand years for you, but if you didn’t want me anymore the way we are now, I’d respect that. And if you’d allow it, I’d still be there for you just in a platonic sense — or just there for you however you want because I can’t imagine my life with you in it. I’d do whatever it takes, brokenhearted or not. I just can’t be separated from you like that again. A day longer in prison and I could’ve keeled over and died. And it’s crazy how much I mean that.”

“I don’t ever want to be separated from you again, Joel,” you agree. “I know the original plan was for you to find work and get an apartment of your own and I would love for that to still happen, but with you being intimate with me in every way – even if it has to be a secret. I don’t pretend to know what the future holds, but I need you in mine. I’ve never needed something more than I need that. Understand?”

Joel pulls you into a hug and leans his chin on the top of your head. He kisses it then your forehead. You lean up and plant a kiss on his throat and then his Adam’s apple.

“Don’t mean to get too ahead of ourselves now. We can take things a day at a time,” he mumbles into your skin.

You yawn contentedly, the tiredness clawing at your eyes, so unbelievably spent.  

“I like hearing about your dreams and I’d go anywhere with you, Joel. But I am kinda dead from how good you just fucked me. Take me to bed?” You ask exhaustedly into his chest.

“Of course, babygirl,” he smirks down at you.

***

You don’t let go of Joel all night long, burrowed up against his chest, his heartbeat against your ear. And he doesn’t let go of you either. After the most intimate night of cuddles and snuggling you’ve ever experienced as well as the deepest and most restful sleep you’ve had in ages, you wake up to Joel gone from the bed. You frown, having wanted more than anything to wake up in his strong arms. Fear grips your insides as you wonder if he finally realized last night was a mistake and that you were never meant to be together in the first place (what you fear more than anything). A stupid vulnerable tear comes to your eye, but then you cock your head and hear music playing. Guitar music. 

You think of your apartment as shitty, but truthfully you care deeply about your little private space and one of the things you do actually love the most about it is the tiny balcony that overlooks a measly courtyard and part of the city. That’s where you find Joel in the deck chair holding his guitar, strumming it lazily.

“Mornin’, beautiful,” he says, fingerpicking a melody that scratches at the back of your mind with familiarity. 

“Morning, handsome,” you tell him softly, plopping your smaller hand down on his shoulder. 

The city hasn’t woken up yet, the soft glow of morning shining beams of light onto you and Joel, filling you with warmth. You sit down in the deck chair next to him, bathing in the sunlight.

“Whatcha playing?” you ask curiously, crouching to sit up on your knees.

“You know the song ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen?” Joel asks in that beautifully deep voice of his. 

He isn’t even singing yet but you could listen to him forever. 

“‘Course,” you nod. “It’s a classic. You used to play it for me once in a blue moon.”

“Know what the word ‘Hallelujah’ actually means?” he asks. 

You think about it for a second.

“It’s about praising god and all that, right? Why d’you ask?”

He pauses, both his words and fingerpicking. 

“Babygirl,” he begins and you can tell he’s about to say something serious. “You know I’m not too good with words, but I need you to know this: I’ve never had much to thank god for in my life, except for Sarah, you know? But then He took her away…”

You place your hand on Joel’s and he looks at you sadly, but appreciatively. He flips it over and holds it in his giant paw of his own marked-up hand. 

“And I was so fucking angry. Nothing left in me. The only good part of me gone. I was a broken man. And I hated Him. But then He, despite the shit I’ve done…He gave me you . And I know our road hasn’t been easy or fair, and the pain you’ve felt and I have felt but…I guess what I’m trying to say is you are the reason I believe that any type of…goodness— of holiness— can exist in this universe. And I’m not a religious man, I don’t believe in most of that dogmatic type of shit, and I don’t think you do either, but I do think someone or something is up there and I wanna thank them for you. Does that make sense? Do you wanna hear what I mean? I just feel so damn grateful.”

A tear you hadn’t noticed was there rolls down your cheek. 

“Of course it does and of course I do,” you tell him.

You think perhaps this is the closest thing he can do to bearing his soul to you. 

And then he leans over and kisses the tear away and begins to fingerpick the familiar melody.

♪ “I heard there was a secret chord…”♫

You listen to his deep weathered voice as the sun grows higher in the morning sky, casting both light and shadow over Joel’s wrinkled, handsome face. The light trails over you too. You feel the dove inside you cooing contentedly, dusting its wings gently against the edges of your insides. 

♪There's a blaze of light in every word / It doesn't matter which you heard / The holy or the broken Hallelujah…”♫

When he finishes he places his large, scarred, calloused hand in yours and you hold it between your own scarred fingers.

“Thank you, Joel,” you tell him, meaning every word. “I think there’s hope for us, you know? I don’t believe in hippie-dippie type stuff, but something in this universe did bring us together. And I’ll be forever grateful for that too, ya know?”

Joel squeezes your smaller hand, his big fingers engulfing yours as the dove coos louder inside you.

“Babygirl, you know that I ain’t a good man, or a rich and educated one like maybe you thought you’d end up with, but I am less of a broken one because of you and I’m never letting you go. If we’re together, I think we have a chance.”

A/n:PLEASE COMMENT LIKE REBLOG IM BEGGING IM PLEADING IM CRYING DID THE SMUT LIVE UP TO YOUR DREAMS????

PART 1

PART 3 (coming soon)

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

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@denileisariver @lochnymph  @mewantpeepaw. @fandomdaydreamer  @r3dheadedwitch

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@lunpycatavenue

[heyftinally]

https://www.tumblr.com/heyftinally/748388217187958784/i-love-bitching-about-taylor-swift-and-im-glad?source=share

Hi I saw this on my dash and wanted to say I agree with your anon and your reply so much. The thing that annoys me the most isn't that she stays silent about x issues it's that she constantly claims to be a massive ally/activist for x groups/issues but when it's actually time to be an active ally she says NOTHING. It's clear in her doc she only said all that she did about being an ally and how actions speak louder than words to make herself look good bc people were calling her out, not bc she actually cared. What has she done since that doc was made in 2020? She hasn't done many actions and even with just words she's been mostly silent on things.

It's like her constantly claiming she is a massive feminist and cares about women's issues but when many women [along with trans men and NBs] had to deal with abortions being banded/illegal on a federal level in the USA she didn't say anything until after the decision was finalized why bc she's billionaire rich and worldwide famous so it wouldn't effect her. Her fans claim her speaking up before hand wouldn't have done anything and that is the dumbest shit I've heard given her fame and power status. She only cares about feminism or any women's issues when she gets to be at the center of it and she just uses it as a weapon so others can't hate on her.

Let's not even get started how she's the appitmy of "white feminism" [or how I see it caring about feminism only when it benefits herself] bc she screams feminism but I didn't see her saying anything when a poor innocent young woc was getting racist death threats from HER fanbase bc of a tweet SHE made. Wasn't the actresses fault that one line joke was made blame the writers of that netflix show! This situation alone tells me she hasn't "changed/learned" like she claimed in her doc.

She's the exact same as she was back in the day when she was silent on the fact white supremist groups idolized her and claimed her as "one of them". She was silent for years on the matter and only said something when she changed from typical southern country gal to liberal pop girlie and her older pop fanbase was like umm what is this? I honestly don't understand how ANYONE over looks the ws group situation. It's very alarming. She's not a kind of done some questionable things person it's VERY red flag things she has done or in this case not done.

When it comes to the music portion it's just like you said if she wasn't shoved down our throats 24/7 and treated like the greatest artist who ever lived we wouldn't care so much her music is average and her latest album was awful. All the lyrics I've seen on SM are so wtf? Who wrote this? THIS is the "greatest writer of our generation"? Outing her ex as someone with mental health issues and how you just wanted him to "easily get better" so you could love him? Outing yourself as awful [yet again] by saying the things your other ex did was just "bad jokes" and you thougut you could fix him bc racism, misogyny and SAing workers on stage at your concerts are just "bad jokes". Romanticizing 1800s America. Acting like you had a lower class upbringing with many bills to pay when really you had a rich upbringing and your daddy bought your way into the music industry.

Also her putting out 20+ versions of one damn album so she can make as much money as possible and have as many streams as possible is so 😵‍💫. It was such a cash grab when she had the backs of midnight vinyls be a puzzle picture that forced fans to buy 4 vinyl copies of 1 damn album or it just looked like an incomplete shelf piece for fans.

Lastly it's just like you said most of us who dislike her don't dislike her because she's a women it's bc she's an awful person who uses x issues and people to further her own agenda and only really cares about herself and will step on anyone just to make herself look better and more of a victim. The only victim thing she has actually dealt with was her music being bought from under her BUT now she owns her own music and found a way to make it a huge cash grab for herself so she could get that billionaire status. 🤩 She needs to stop using feminism as a means to try and stop people from calling her ass out for being problematic!!!

The post anon is referring to is here, for those wondering

Anon, you are so very, very right, and I personally want to give you a round of applause: 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

One thing I want to elaborate on (because I find it endlessly funny/ironic), is where you said "She was silent for years on the matter and only said something when she changed from typical southern country gal to liberal pop girlie..."

Taylor Swift was *never* a "southern country gal". She's from Pennsylvania. A big white McMansion with a swimming pool in Pennsylvania. All those old songs about summer nights in the country? The cowboy boots? Sweet Tea (referenced in an unreleased song)? Yeah, lies. She painted the image of a good ol' Tennessee princess pretty darn well, didn't she? I'll admit, she fooled me for a while on that, too. But no, she built her career on fraud from day one.

The rest of your ask I'm going to hit point by point, because it's beautiful and made my day and you deserve it.

Performative is her middle name. I about choked when she - a self proclaimed LGBTQ+ ally (side note: you don't get to just decide you're an ally, it's not that easy) - got up on stage in a known LGBTQ+ safe state to make a statement about queer rights, and somehow left queer people out of the statement. It was all "it's so hard for us as friends, family, and allies to see our loved ones face such hatred". As if being an ally is harder than being the queer person actively afraid of getting hate crimed???????? She somehow managed to center herself even when actively talking about an oppressed minority group she has nothing to do with unless she can profit off of us. And she can't even put us at the center of our own oppression. If I hadn't stripped her of her ally status before, that would have done it.

If Taylor Swift can make the impact that she does on economies, the environment, and social trends, she could absolutely speak up about human rights and make a positive change in the world. But she doesn't. Her feral mob loves to brag about how much power they have, but they/their hive mind leader never uses it for anything good. They're just her minions to go bully whoever she's decided deserves her high school mean girl nastiness next. So many artists with ⅛ the reach she does make positive change every day, and she can't be bothered to pay someone to tweet her fake support for oppressed minorities or to stand against a genocide. And it's because she cares about money above all else. Her fans accept the bare minimum of scraps, so she's able to play both sides - before it was the white supremacists and people who weren't raging bigot trash, and now it's homophobes/racists/genocide supporters and people who don't see those things as bad enough to stop supporting someone who happily aligns herself with bigots. It's pure self serving greed.

Is her music shit? Yes. Has it been shit for a while? Yes. But there's alose a lot of music I don't like, for one reason or another. I've never been a fan of "Hey There Delilah" even though it was a MAJORLY popular song. I'm not much of a fan of Maroon 5, or Post Malone, or Yungblood. But unlike those bands, if I turn on the radio at any point, I *will* hear a Taylor Swift song withing twenty minutes. And another one twenty minutes after that. Despite having her blocked/filtered on every social media possible, I see more about her than artists I actively follow the personal accounts of. That's a PROBLEM. Because it's not just that I think both she as a person and her music suck - I'd ignore her as much as I could if that were the case - it's that despite ACTIVELY trying to avoid her, I'm forcibly subjected to her shitty music and shitty actions daily. And her shitty actions aren't just annoying! As a queer person who has queer, black, and disabled friends, her bullshit actively impacts our lives. One of my disabled friends was totally blindsided by this recent "asylum" bullshit, and was so shocked and hurt because, in a different time, they would have been sent to an asylum. They're physically disabled with a degenerative condition. They would have been sent away, drugged up, and forcibly given electroshock and brain surgeries until they died/were murdered. And Taylor Swift is using that aesthetic - disabled people being exploited, abused, tortured, neglected, and murdered - to be "edgy". In turn, she's minimizing just HOW bad that abuse was. That waters down disabled history, and considering disabled people still have to fight SO hard just for basic respect, nevermind access rights and fair treatment, it's an overall thoughtless and disgusting thing for someone with so much money and access to feedback to do.

The multiple releases of albums is nothing short of a scam that her fans keep falling for. I've never in my life heard of an artist doing such a thing. Sometimes you'll get a platinum or deluxe edition if they hit a milestone with that album, which usually has 4-6 new songs and some new art/bonus pictures/a mini poster/etc inside. And that's it, that's the only "duplicate" album we got. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift will release the same album five times in one day, each with one different song and a different cover. She's actively preying on consumerism to line her already fat pockets. At least donate the money to charity! Pick an album = pick a charity? Nope, because she's incapable of not scamming her fans. Case in point: all the Eras merch that requires a masters in chemistry to wash without destroying you $60+ shirt.

She truly has such a huge victim complex that it might ACTUALLY be bigger than her ego. She's no feminist - she'll tear a woman to shreds as soon as it serves her purposes. Hell, she'll tear ANYONE apart just because she's bored. Whether it's siccing her fans on an actress for reading a script she didn't like or basic her ex (AGAIN) for the "crime" of having a mental illness, all she cares about is how other people effect her. She's incapable of compassion, yet weaponizes is and cries big white woman crocodile tears any time her conniving bullshit comes back to bite her in the ass. Then she begs for all the compassion she never shows anyone else. Hell, remember the fan that DIED at her Brazil show? Yeah, that poor girl's family had to CROWD FUND to afford to bring their daughter's *dead body* home for the funeral. Taylor Swift posted a half assed "thoughts and prayers" on her Instagram story - gone forever in 24hrs. But as soon as she gets called out for dating a known racist who gets off to abuse porn? She has every defense in the book as to why "poor little Taylor" doesn't deserve all that mean ol' accountability for her actions. And if she doesn't have the defense? Doesn't matter, her fans can - and have, and will - justify everything up to and including racist harassment, stalking, and death threats!

Genuinely, my dislike of Taylor Swift can be summed up in this: she's a shit person with shit music who uses her disgusting amount of power and money to do nothing but serve herself, regardless of who she hurts in the process. And the rest of us are forced to watch it happen because if you don't worship the chair she farted on people act like you're either stupid, a piece of shit, or both. And then those same people will go on tumblr and post "eat the rich" and "be trans, throw hands" memes as if they didn't just give $300 to a billionaire who couldn't give less of a fuck about any minority to ever exist.

Anyway, thank you again for this, anon. You cleared my skin, watered my crops, and gave me a small amount of faith in humanity back.

[fabeong]

Questions from the Fic Writing Game :)

✅ list one or two favorite lines you’ve written and explain why they’re your favorite

💕 what's your favorite part of your writing process?

🔚 have you ever completely changed the direction a piece was going?

🔥 what’s something that’s currently going really well?

Oh mate, you’ve really chosen some good ones here thank you 💕

✅ list one or two favorite lines you’ve written and explain why they’re your favorite

MATE. Ok you know how this says one or two lines yeah sorry I’m dropping a paragraph but I think you might like it 👀

(Under a cut bc I go on a ramble whoopsies)

“I know your surname is Toktra, and it means to search for” Florentius spoke softly, thoughtfully; the memories rose all too easily to his lips. “Your hometown is on the north… no, north-eastern tip of the Alik’ir desert, though you haven’t been back in years. You like cloudy weather the most although you’ll accept the sun because it hurts vampires, and your favourite colour is yellow. You find any flute music intolerable and you joined the Vigilants at thirteen years old, to this day still the youngest they’ve ever accepted. And…” suddenly he was fighting against a smile, only as soon as he looked over at Isran at last he lost it and collapsed into helpless laughter. “And you’re allergic to figs, as we found out at that pastry stall in Bruma, and your face-“ “Went so numb I could barely speak.” Isran finished the memory for him, a smile somewhere between reluctant and irrepressible fighting onto his lips. Florentius nodded, his chuckles finally subsiding though his chest ached. When had he last laughed like that? The last thing he expected was for Isran to speak again. “Your first name is Silas.” His voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible over the snowfall outside. But Florentius heard him. “But it’s technically your father’s name. It’s an old Cyrodillic naming tradition where your first name is your father’s, your second is your given name, the third is your family name, and you have another name too, it… it indicates where you’re from but I don’t remember-” “Eboratum” Florentius whispered before he could help himself. He stared at Isran, frozen in place and unable to believe what was happening. “Eboratum.” Isran exhaled slowly, but it seemed like he could no longer stop. “Your favourite food is medium-rare venison and you were frightened of graveyards as a child. You love autumn because of the changing colours of the leaves and you had to kill your best friend when they were infected with vampirism and tried to infect you. You know how to swim but you don’t like to do it. You used to have long hair that almost reached your elbows, and it always looked so soft I wanted to ask how you looked after it. You come from Venda’s Watch, half a day’s ride south of Bruma, but you studied in Cheydinhal at the Great Chapel there and… and you ran away from Arkay when you were thirteen.”

So I’m a huge fan of the “to be loved is to be known” idea, and I get to really indulge in it here, plus 🥰🥰Florentius and Isran backstory 🥰🥰

💕 what's your favorite part of your writing process?

ooh that’s a tricky one tbh. I think the most satisfying part is honestly when I finish a fic’s first draft?

🔚 have you ever completely changed the direction a piece was going?

Oh i absolutely have 😅 one example that really comes to mind was a fic I wrote many years ago that started out fully meant to be a cozy, comforting, coming-home-to-your-lover sweet fic and then after I wrote the soft intro my brain just went “…but what if that was a dream? And reality was anything but sweet?” And I completely went off into a hurt-no-comfort narrative with another evil plot twist at the end 😈

🔥 what’s something that’s currently going really well?

Honestly there’s a lot going on rn but one positive thing is I finally got confirmation my job will keep me on past Xmas 🎉 which is kind of a double-edged sword bc I’ve already decided I don’t want to stay too much longer but still yay for job security ✨

[sunskate]

You’re putting words in my mouth. I’m not remotely implying that maintaining tension while skating to ‘soft’ music isn’t difficult, of course it is. But it’s like skating to Romeo and Juliet after the age of like, 20…it’s just not authentic any more. The same way the hand kissing choreo in Seasons is cringeworthy rather than sweet - it’s a mood forced upon performers who have already done that style more successfully in the past.

Wuthering Heights is deeply unpleasant, yes, I’m well aware of the plot and character arcs given that it’s my all time favourite book. The toxicity is exactly why I wanted them to do it. It’s vastly more complex to try and portray than a true love story to sweetly romantic music. They were good enough actors post-Carmen to make it work, and I don’t think many teams since then have been good enough. Pride and Prejudice they could do in their sleep, which is why I think it would’ve been a retrogressive step.

answering anon asks by nature isn't a back and forth conversation- i have no way of knowing who you are or what you meant besides the words you wrote 😅 i post some anons bc they have a different opinion than mine. i'm not arguing when i put my opinion underneath - i'm just saying what i think, and ppl can read both if they like

my original question was would you trade any of their programs for a Pride and Prejudice one? i didn’t restrict it to any period of their career - there were seasons where it wouldn’t have been a step back. you wanted to talk about them in their later career, i wanted to talk about Mahler - why are you mad? we're passionate about skating and clearly pretty opinionated. and that’s why i have this blog, so i can talk about it, and whoever’s reading this is kind enough to indulge me. no disrespect intended if i don’t get everything you meant, go off on a tangent or have different preferences

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 6

THIS EPISODE WAS SO GOOD!!! the fact that it was a musical episode is totally the cherry on top; i love it when series come with their own music (cough cough me @ project sekai). but overall it was also really funny, and had some great character moments, too.

i'll save my thoughts on strategy and where the season might be headed for my next power ranking post (whenever that is :,( ), but were some of my other thoughts/highlights.

specifically the phrase "fuck my life" and Yul saying it made me cackle. seems like Emily ISN'T Yul's manager, but she might still kinda take on that role this season? we'll see. the lack of phones is really having an effect on the plot.

they hate her so fucking bad

okay, i guess i forgot to consider this angle when i was saying it would've made more sense for them to vote out Fiore. however, having started with 18 participants, the merge will probably happen at, what, 10 people? (modern Survivor describes the merge as "at least 11," but obviously this isn't survivor.) sure, Hunter is a bit of a challenge beast, but he can't protect all three of them every episode. if this trio is only 3/10 of the votes, you could literally split the votes on Ally and Tess in a 3-3-4 if you can get everyone else to unite against them. you know what you should be worried about? THE VILLAINS ALLIANCE HAVING 6/"10" VOTES AT THE MERGE!!! sigh. why am i relying on Jake to be smart (/j)

i'm more impressed that there was hot water in the first place. this thing is in the middle of a field, no?

i'm finally starting to see how Yul can be a hilarious "love to hate him" kind of villain. he had some of the best lines this episode hands down.

TREVEK BECOME CANON???

there was absolutely no reason to put the apple on the stick other than to fit in. love this for her.

idk if this is a winner's cut moment or not. glad that the money would go towards schools and NOT the police force, though.

man, now i want to go back and check the other episodes to see if Tess has had the "Cyan Team narrator" role the whole time. in Survivor, that's indicative of a deep run. ...i really need to stop applying Survivor logic to everything.

and why are you thinking about what would make Oliver laugh, Kristal? ',:)

i appreciate the s1 callback, but Trevor doing this dance move gives me so much second hand embarrassment that i keep inadvertently closing my eyes every time i have to "see" it again. anyways, given how most of the episode songs had lyrics related to the Team's emotional state, it's interesting to see that Trevor is singing a romance song. trevek become canon pt 2?

this was an interesting parallel. with Kristal laughing at Derek's joke, it seems like they were trying to show how she's growing closer to Derek, in a way which Trevor might fear is romantic. were there supposed to be romantic undertones to Alec being the only one to laugh at Connor's joke? and, if there were, was that just a fun nod to the aleconnor shippers, or will it actually be canon/relevant to later in the season?

NOT a surprise. i need to see the "i want you died" poetry he wrote about Fiore after last season.

of course you were, you fucking fruit (affectionate)

the anguish: i love my gf :D let's frolick through a field together

"trust me dude i'm the divorce man"

GABBY?????

mood but also damn is Ellie really leaning into the villain thing this season. this doesn't even help her win the season, she JUST wants to see him suffer.

i forgot that the s1 contestants didn't know that Nina was her own separate being yet

they were NOT lying, Aiden's VA is a great singer! Tom's backing vocals and Ellie and Gabby's harmonies(?) were also really nice too, though. this was probably my favorite song of the episode just bc i think Cyan had the strongest singers. all of the rocking, shoulder-moving dances are also impossible not to imitate.

well, there's the thumbnail. their choice of thumbnail made me laugh bc i remember, back when i was watching s1, seeing all the thumbnails of Aiden kissing both James and Hunter and thinking that Aiden was going to be some sort of troublemaking flirty antagonistic character only to be blindsided by his actual characterization. i'm sure the s1 watching me would have only added this to her arsenal of evidence, although hilariously idk if i would have been able to tell the other character was Tom at the time. anyways, i was pretty certain from the start that this must be part of the performance. although, while i'm happy that Aiden seems to think that James will be okay with the performance, i wish we could have cut to James somehow just to confirm that that was true. i don't want the next time we see James, whether in the finale or some other time, to show that he was actually really jealous and upset at Aiden for kissing another man while in a committed relationship. also gabbielle(?) super cute in the bg :D

he's so fucking stupid... (/pos)

bold of you to say this to Ashley, who has been in a two year relationship with the guy who went home in episode 2.

i also really liked this song :D i understand why they made Jake and Ally the main singers, because they best encompassed what the theme of the song was about, but i think i actually liked Ashley's vocals the best. i wish she'd gotten to sing more. also for a moment i thought Marcus had a trans flag on his hat. it's still close enough. trans Marcus canon.

this was probably my least favorite performance of the episode, although idk how much of that was just how much i hate Alec's outfit. glassesless Alec scares me so bad... no hate to the VAs, obviously, i think they have nice voices! it's actually the way that they didn't sound like they had confidence in their singing abilities that made the performance feel a little shakier to me. i do think that this song had the best lyrics in terms of encapsulating each member of their team, though. i really like how Yul and Riya are the ones to sing "i'm going to chase it" as a duo, because they're the ones chasing fame and the limelight, and then Grett sings that she can't ignore it, because eventually she's going to have to realize that her entire relationship with Yul was a result of him clout chasing. Connor only singing "live in the moment until i die" is also very fitting given his placement... in both seasons. L.

really surprised that Riya (or anyone else) didn't even mention Yul's foot injury as part of this equation. Riya just said that she didn't want to lose any more challenges, and Yul's bad foot could totally lead to a loss. maybe i'm just overestimating the extent to which that foot injury will stick around, though.

season 2 characters are REALLY suffering out here.

HELP??????

love to see Alec and Fiore's kinda sorta dual redemptions. i have high hopes for them.

and those were my initial thoughts, which got way longer than i expected. thanks if you wound up reading towards all the way down here. i have no idea who the leakers are, obviously, but i really hope that they stop acting up soon so that the series can continue. i would hate to have the artists have to take a pay hit and/or stop making the series just because of some people's impatience and delusions of power, or have the honest patrons lose out on being able to watch the episodes early to protect from others' immaturity. see ya!

[dokpetra]

I need to remember: it can actually be good to fall off my relentless productivity train for a couple-few days bc

When I'm at the point where I fall off from working hard on music every single day:

1) I'm usually at a point where I'm squeezing an empty toothpaste tube for ideas

2) and at a point where I need rest more than I realize, (burnout is not fun and it is better to stop before I get there) AND

3) for me at least, it's a near-given that once I have gotten as much downtime and rest as I truly need, usually between a day and a week, the ideas start flowing again and I get genuinely excited to get back to it.

It's a matter of trusting myself on that last one. Making songs has been the thing I want to be doing ever since I wrote my first song when I was like 14, I doubt that bug will ever truly leave me.

See I tend to go by the philosophy of "to get where I want to be I need to be doing my craft daily, and I need to do it even when I don't feel like it, and when it isn't actively fun". However I am autistic which for me in this context means that I take that kind of advice too literally and end up using art as a stick to slap myself with when I actually genuinely need to just chill for a second and focus on the other things in my life.

It is a balancing act. For a long time I was way too far in the other direction, spending months or years away from the craft and feeling like crap about it. Dreaming wistfully and doing nothing about it. I can tell that my past being that way informs the fire currently lit under my large and wonderful butt. However that doesn't mean I must now and forever be a machine in service of The Songs. I am a human. A busy human yes but if I take a few nights to watch my shows and play my games and go to bed early, that may very well set me up even better once I'm rested up. To write even cooler songs than I would had I not taken a quick breather.

And like .. a breather for me usually means I'm still in the DAW tweaking things every day. Just not pulling a whole shift down in the music mines.

This would all look very different if I didn't have to be working 40 hours a week at my day job. I try not to think about how much more music I would finish if I didn't have to work 9-5. If my dreams come all the way true, maybe I will know what that's like some time!

[shuffleoflove]

i was looking through my notes app and found some notes i wrote while reading edge of great (the jatp novelisation) in feburary 2021 so i thought i'd post them bc i miss the time when i was so obsessed with jatp i could quote large parts of it from memory:

okay it's thicker than i expected this is a good start

multiple povs?! oh my god yesyesyes

i've read one page and I'm already loving it because i was expecting it to just be a retelling of the action with barely any insight to characters thoughts other than "i was feeling sad :(" but it's giving so much more than that

luke says sunset curve were all "vibing" shdhfnd

the dialogue is slightly different in some places but honestly i don't hate it

a pink flower in a vase next to rose?? the dahlia symbolism is here already people

bobby is a cheesy hopeless romantic confirmed

[luke about trying to be modest] "it was a new look for me, i'll admit." avdhfdhdhd

alex interrupts reggie trying to flirt with rose avdbfjdd i'm loving the new dialogue

THE HOT DOG CART IS BASICALLY CALLED SALMONELLA I-

luke makes a joke about staving to death oh god the dramatic irony

julie's literal first words are "my best friend flynn is amazing" 🥺🥺

JULIE SAID FLYNN WAS HER OTHER HALF 🥺🥺😭

loz feliz performing arts high school??

julie calls carrie cute?? girl-

i've been spelling dirty candi as "dirty candy" this whole time. whoops.

trevor has literal platinum records but the thing julie decides to point out is that one of his songs was in a car advert shdjdjfjf

nooo they took out flynn shouting demon at carrie

julie mentions flynn and how amazing she is at nearly every given opportunity

"flynn and i were always straight with each other" this is meant to a dramatic moment but i'm laughing at this ahdjdnem

julie is a writer!! not just of lyrics/poems, she writes other stuff too!!

she describes the garage as being full of ghosts when referring to memories of her mum... i'm living for all the dramatic irony

ahh julie and ray are speaking in spanish to each other so much more than they did the show

the teacup and spoon rose had been using before she died were still there 🥺

julie says that she felt like her mum was telling her to play the cd ahhh

the first thing she says about the guys is that they're cute JULIE AHDJFK

wavy hair reggie yesss

julie says oh my god instead of oh my gosh

julie doesn't know luke's name so she's calling him floppy acdjfjrks

her reasoning for letting the guys stay in the garage was because she thought it was what rose would've done 🥺🥺

ALEX'S POV HELL YEAH

they took out reggie losing his shirt this is so sad 😔

[alex about julie playing wake up] "i couldn't remember the last time I felt so moved by music that wasn't actually my own."

okay i get why they changed povs but i kind of wish we'd gotten julie's pov while she played wake up

the first episode took up about 1/5 of the book jesus-

they skipped the bit about the only thing scarier than one girl crying being two girls crying 😔

flynn: "instagram" alex: "what-stagram?"

flynn hugs julie after she tells her about playing music again awwww

noo they cut out the scene where ray comes in to the studio ffs stop cutting scenes please

alex: "it tingles in weird places" alex, literally one line later: "well, it did."

according to alex the other describe him as "warm and fuzzy"

also so far everyone's pov has called luke out for being too cheesy

reggie: "i'm gonna guess death breath"

alex is now describing luke as the puppy reggie never had

alex calling luke and reggie his family 🥺😭

when julie went into her room and found the guys messing around she was on her way to text flynn 🥺 this book just makes me love their friendship so much more

reggie is described as having "a mop of hair" god i wish 😔

dahlia symbolism count: 3. so far it's been a vase next to rose, the curtains in the studio, and the flowers in julie's picture of her

luke: "our instruments are attached to our souls." reggie: "and sometimes our belts."

okay so the book confirms that julie found therapy helpful but she just didn't want to go back because she thought others would see her as fragile, which imo is a lot better than in the show when she just seemed like she hated it

they merged alex asking if julie got back into music with luke showing her bright which i get because if they kept everything in the book would be pretty long but... idk i kinda liked how it was just julie and luke when he showed her bright

julie describes the wow performance as being like a superbowl half-time show

list of celebs who've been name-dropped so far: weezer, the smashing pumpkins, katy perry, and harry styles

julie wanted to kiss kayla?!? wlw julie confirmed

YES TIME FOR REGGIE'S POV

reggie's internal dialogue is using way more words than necessary and as an autistic person I relate to that so i'm gonna use this as proof reggie is autistic 😙✌

reggie says how little julie's smiled since they met and is now describing her smile in detail 🥺🥺

me, seeing that reggie's pov is already over: :(

me seeing that it's alex's pov and he's about to meet willie: :D

avxhfjfldnd alex was so mesmerised by how beautiful willie was he forgot to speak 😭😭

damn they took out willie asking alex if he's into guys if he wanted a picture with fake marilyn monroe (they changed it to spider-man)

y'all willie gave alex a hip bump I'm dying over here

"wait, how can i see you again?" god this is killing me i love them 😭🥺

"even if you don't have questions" willie is hardcore flirting and i respect that

"i liked the sound of that" god it's been a few minutes and alex is already whipped agshdndm

dahlia reference number 4 (this time it's a mug)

instead of calling julie "insanely talented" luke calls her "annoyingly talented"

julie canonically uses the word "bonkers" and idk why i love that so much

ahhh i'm already halfway through the book and it's still episode 3

FLYNN'S POV OH MY GOD YES YES YES

i'll look at the pictures first though

okay now onto flynn's pov

maybe this is just me, but why does everyone say "mother" instead of "mom" all the time? it seems weirdly formal but whatever

flynn calls flying solo "our song" (meaning her and julie's) 🥺

svdbfjff whenever alex went to meet willie he just said he was going for a walk

wait, walks? plural?! alex and willie had more interactions and we didn't get to see them?! livid 😤

willie wanted to show alex the museum because it was one of his favourite places... god I'm soft

"i would've followed willie just about anywhere" stoppp this is too much for me 😭🤧

"together. i liked the sound of that." awwefdhehrhe

alex's catchphrase seems to be "I liked the sound of that" rather than "okay"

"so close that I could feel his breath" why did I think they were gonna kiss 💀💀

willie: "feels good, right?" alex: "yeah, it does." alex, in his head: "i was talking about the screaming, but i was talking about being here, now, with willie, too." oh god oh fuck-

"wagging an eyebrow" girl why is that worded so weird 😭💀

nah there's no way luke doesn't know what a sample is

yess we're back to luke's pov 😎

the book confirms that it was luke who wrote "hi bobby" on the mirror but i still refuse to believe it because of the one tumblr post i saw comparing all the boys handwriting and saying it was reggie (also the writing it too neat to be luke's 😌)

they cut the entire julie-sneaks-around-while-flynn-distracts-carrie bit 😔 (and also the guys mooning trevor)

"and the truth was, [julie] was becoming important to me. i hated to let her down." awwww 🥺🥺

sbdjfkfl reggie called the hgc creepy and alex got defensive because it "was willie's place"

when luke said they were "overdressed" they all tucked their shirts in

ffs not the eyebrow wagging again (this time from flynn)

so julie considers carrie as her frenemy and not an actual enemy... inch resting...

"the awkward "joke" just sat in the air like dead fish" abdhfjf what are these metaphors

HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT WILLIE'S POV?!?! I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT HOLY FUCK AHHHHH

awww when alex asked about the lifers being "sworn to secrecy" willie wanted to telm him about caleb owning everyone at the hgc's souls but he couldn't 🥺🥺 if I catch anyone posting willie slander it's on sight 🥊😠🥊

OKAY WHAT I'M LIVID - they reduced the whole "do this forever"/"there's a lot to like here" thing to just the dialogue. literally no mentions of the lingering glances or luke's "you got a crush on willie". fucking disgraceful. i hate it here.

THERE - WE LITERALLY HAVE PROOF THAT WILLIE DIDN'T KNOW CALEB WANTED THE GUYS TO JOIN HE HGC WILLIE ANTIS CAN GO HOME NOW

willie watched the guys getting stamped and said it felt like his stomach was filling with lead SEE I WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY WILLIE SLANDER IN THIS HOUSE

willie noticed alex looking into the crowd before leaving and wondered if he was looking for him... do tell me willie who else could he possibly be looking for

"alex said, looking stressed (then again, when did alex look not stressed?)" avshdnfmfr

julie describes nick's voice as "soft" and "graveled"

apparently julie has had a crush on nick since kindergarten, and in kindergarten nick cried because he couldn't get the lid off of his glue stick

luke says that knowing he let julie down at the dance hurt more than caleb's jolts 🥺🥺

the boys' little "sorry" song has it's lyrics written the same way the other songs, the ones actually in the soundtrack, do. tell me jatp why the sorry song isn't on the soundtrack right now 🔫😠

literally no mention of alex's dancing what in the homophobia

according to julie, finally free is about the power of connecting through music, but i still choose to believe it's a gay anthem about coming out

when julie saw her dad cooking breakfast and humming finally free she "almost died from how cute it was"

wait i just realised throughout this whole book there's been barely any mentions of julie and luke sharing the mic, and nothing about luke and reggie sharing either, and julie waking through luke in bright was just ignored. disgusting.

julie canonically thinks ray is the best dad ever 🥺🥺

that being said I'm pissed the book cut reggie from this scene

julie describes herself as being "charmed" by luke being nervous jskdkkdhs

flynn's pov again babey 😎

lmao nevermind the chapter was two pages long

also the whole perfect harmony sequence is just cut and all we hear is julie mention it to flynn... bruh

reggie and alex both see how hard luke is simping for julie and just give each other shit-eating grins whenever he mentions her dgehdjdj

when willie tells alex he can't explain why he's spying on him alex says "and to think i had felt there had maybe been something between us" fuckk

alex wondered if willie had ever had feelings for him or if he was playing him the whole time 🥺😭 bby nooo

they cut girls amirite... no one talk to me...

y'all... i think, other from julie, alex has had the most pov chapters... interesting...

the boys were literally so distressed about flynn eating pizza when they could smell it and not eat it and said they'd die of deprivation sgdhdjfkd

alex: *was choking back a sob*

willie: *was choking back a sob*

me: *was also choking back a sob*

😃 wtf... when willie says he cares about alex and hates that he brought them all into this mess, alex snaps at him... bro wtf that is not what happened and doesn't fit in with what alex was feeling in that moment at all... fuck this book

julie hugs flynn in the book at lot more than in the show so maybe it does have rights after all...

they've made a "face the music" pun at least 5 times so far in this book

wait - luke says that julie played his parents unsaid emily implying she sang it?? yo...

"but there was nothing I could say, nothing I could do, to make things better. so instead, I watched her go." why does that line hit so hard

"i pulled him in for a quick hug" lmao girl no

I JUST REALISED they cut the "i would've still followed you" scene 😭 the homophobia of it all 💀💀

'"i won't forget you," he said before spoofing out. Me either.' god don't do this to me today 🥺🥺

"with my smoothest dance move" now THAT'S the alex i know and love

the promoter and his assistant have names now: frank and tasha

the book's nearly over and i just realised there were barely any reggie pov chapters 🥺 not only is he my comfort character i also really liked his internal dialogue... oh well 😔

they really let there be spelling mistakes in this book smh

"who knew sunset boulevard smelled like cat pee and old takeout containers? not very glamorous, given that this was my hollywood rockstar dream."

"the music filling me like air - like joy" god I love that line

julie feels the need to point out how good luke looks in his tuxedo avdhdndmd

"i'm gonna miss you." "not as much as we're gonna miss you." oh god oh fuck-

wait THEY GRABBED HANDS ON STAGE??! AM I MISSING SOMETHING!?!?

"are you real?" "we were always real. But now... maybe... we're here?"

okay so i finished it and it was fun to read overall but i felt like past episode 3 was very rushed and condensed (makes sense since episode 3 finished past the half-way point of the book) and it stopped being as well written (barely any internal dialogue and descriptors), and some moments were mischaracterised heavily (including a lot of the willex) and juke just didn't seem developed at all. also i wish reggie had gotten more pov chapters since he's, y'know, a main character. i'm pretty sure he got, like, 2 :( also a lot of the music scenes lacked emotion but since this is an adaptation of something with music without music i'll let it slide. it was still nice to read either way.

[rpfisfine]

do you hate miles?🤨

i was wondering when someone would send me an ask like this yeah i dont like him to be honest. i know ppl on here have largely moved on from the fateful 2016 interview and it has been discussed to death and yeah he immediately said he was joking etc etc but i dont think its weird to think you shouldnt have to feel pressured to like completely forgive and forget and absolve the sins of a male musician saying something that made a female reporter feel unsafe or objectified or 'caught in an increasingly distressing situation' or act like its some sort of unheard of and unimaginable offense that has never happened before in the history of music interviews and one someone’s favorite musician who can do no wrong in their eyes could definitely never get caught up in (esp given how gross in general the music industry is towards women). OR even go so far to say the reporter did it all for attention i cant believe this is even a discussion that has ever been had in any form ever like genuinely nothing makes me angrier than ppl who literally turn into blatant sexists whenever their favorite white guy's reputation is even mildly put at risk ive literally seen one person on here say the whole interview was made up and exaggerated and that she just wanted to 'join the me too movement' which is like Okay man i think you might just not have any respect for women in real life maybe. even watered down and not as extreme its a take thats more prevalent on am tumblr than i thought or previously imagined and i hate how bad it makes the fandom look like i trust that everyone on here is a reasonably intelligent and empathetic human being who has at least a basic tumblr education on the fact that victim blaming is bad so we dont rly need to turn around and immediately go 'she just misunderstood what he was saying' or 'she just didnt get his sense of humor' like Alright

i hope im articulating all this reasonably well like i think its literally fine that ppl have accepted his apology and moved on and are able to enjoy him as an artist and/or as a person too thats awesome and im happy for the ppl that i follow that have this kind of relationship with him. even if it wasnt for the interview thing he stil wouldnt be for me i used to be a pretty big fan of his music when i was younger but nowadays since ive found different music i dont rly pay any attention to him. im glad he was able to spark alex creatively but thats as far as my enjoyment goes of him to be yonest

also ive just realized now that all this makes me look kind of contrived given the fact that ive written milex before and i dont rly have like an impenetrable explanation i literally started writing for jamex around the time the car album came out bc i found out all my fav jamex fics had gotten deleted by their author so i wanted to fill the void and then one day i was like wait am i good enough yet to write a functional milex fic (plus i was hoping to get more ppl to notice my writing and milex offers a pretty easy way to do that) so then i wrote 2 and i was like ok i am cool. i dont intend to write another fic for them

hope this makes sense i probably forgor to say like 10 other things i wanted to say but thats okay

[lgcjiho]

hello friends this is long overdue but i wanted to put out a general plot call for both jiho and @lgcsomin! (but i'll put a post up on her eventually) i've been slacking severely with writing and plotting bc i was travelling, moving countries, figuring out life, etc etc etc. ANYWAYS, welcome to all the new people who i've missed welcoming <3

with that being said, please

LIKE THIS POST for general plotting bc jiho needs more friends and people to interact with and talk to that aren't his members (no shade to the other v&a members)

i'm also available on twitter or d*scord (young_story) if you would prefer that, just lmk your user. i'll be including a re-intro to jiho under the cut since he's been around since forever and i haven't made an update post in ages. i wrote one up months ago and never got around to posting it LOL and i think it might help with plotting? idk dfjsdfjhsdfkj.

lee jiho, leader of v&a and also v&a's subunit agito, main dancer, lead vocal, born october 31, 2000, 23 years old

mock kprofiles / about page

he was scouted while in line for the men’s washroom at his school’s music festival and he thought he was being scammed at first. he actually put off calling the recruiter dude back for a long time until someone joked that he had the looks to be an idol and he suddenly remembered it and called as a joke and to sate his curiosity

he had no dreams whatsoever of being an idol and was pursuing a career in business, hoping to open his own cafe one day.. it's still his dream but he's put it on the backburner for now because he's found that he really does enjoy being an idol

was convinced by a close friend to audition since he’s always been good at singing + dancing even if he was usually just fooling around with friends either at karaoke or when they booked a studio for fun

he auditioned with singing (he sang iu’s hold my hand) and doing a little freestyle dance that was requested of him and surprisingly passed the audition and became an official legacy trainee in january of 2018

his parents were kind of ??? when he told them and originally weren’t very supportive because it was so sudden and he’s not usually *that* spontaneous but as he started settling into being a trainee and enjoying it, they’ve come around and now are his biggest fans

also it probably helped that jaesun and jaehwa were in the company (they’re cousins on their moms’ side)

during his trainee days, he really stuck to himself and only worked to better himself. he never really saw anyone as a rival and only saw his past self as his rival and wanted to continuously become the better version of himself. he was always Peak Introvert so the way he made friends was that he was awkward enough that extroverted people would come and take him under their wing LOL

he was pretty popular from the very first season of future dreams and was one of the front runners for all seasons he participated in, and eventually was confirmed to debut in season 3 of future dreams, and later debuted as the leader of agito on august 27, 2021

was entirely shocked that he was given the leader role because he’s such an introvert and didn't think he did too well during all the times he was in the leader position but has since sort of stepped and grown into the role and loves it now

he’s notoriously confident in himself, and has always been though it might have been slightly Extra before, he truly thinks he deserves to act that way now LOL

i always liken him to a cat (his official emoji on bubble and translation accounts is 🐱) but specifically a cat who’s owner has told him “no, don’t you dare” as he holds eye contact and then immediately smacks the bottle off the table without a second thought

he’s currently working on writing and producing songs, wanting to write and produce a full song for agito one day (i want him to become the bang chan/hongjoong of agito) as currently has the most credits for lyric writing in all of the new gen of legacy artists

is notoriously known to spend the majority of his waking hours in his personal studio (the v&a members tend to come and drag him home at night)

aside from v&a stuff, he’s publicly known for being a model and also for putting out a lot of covers on v&a’s youtube channel

he recently put out a studio choom dance cover and he’s very proud of it and is somewhat interested in possibly acting more but he's happy with what he's doing and what he's accomplished so far

some plot ideas

he's pretty well known as a workaholic so more people to text him and force him to do things other than work on days off would be nice tbh

friends from his trainee days! or even friends from uni that knew him before he became a trainee and joined legacy and are surprised to see him around

if you're a fan of him, he's always very warm and accommodating and does his best to give advice and be a good sunbae

honestly people who dislike him could be a fun dynamic bc he would be confused (not as to why people hate him but he doesn't really know how they would know enough about him to hate him LOL)

making friends at the convenience store at night when he steps out to get 2am ramyeon bc his stash has run out

admittedly i'm rly bad at coming up with plots but i would love to brainstorm and see where that takes us

sorry this is so long dshjfbkhfjs

[thenightisland]

fic writer Q&A thing for @tragediegh under the cut bc it's long as my answers to things always are lol

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2 on my rote account, 21 on the other, so 23 total

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

across both accounts: 274,901 (47,220 in rote, 227,681 on the other one)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

realm of the elderlings at the moment, but i was writing for sherlock as recently as this spring (i feel like that explains a lot about me tbh lol)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

the sherlock ones are redacted for the purposes of this post, and i only have the two rote ones, a safe place in the world and no other homeland.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try to and largely fail lol. i am bad at publicly interacting for some reason. i will talk at length to people in DMs but otherwise i mostly lurk. even the few responses i've given on rote pieces greatly outnumber all the times i've responded to comments on my other account. i never know what to say to people. but i keep every comment i get saved in a file bc they make me feel better and i read through them a lot. @commenters i promise i'm not ignoring you to be standoffish i'm just Bad At It but i love you all so much

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i don't tend to write anything that doesn't have a happy ending. in rote it's a guarantee even if there's some suffering along the way, and in my sherlock days i spent years primarily as a fluff writer so even before i expanded into longer more serious projects the happy endings were always the point for me.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

rote wise technically only one of them /has/ an ending. but in general my endings are always happy and i'm not sure how to rate one happiness over another.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

despite being involved in fic since 2012, i have dodged that bullet

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

not really. i hate writing it lol if something i write has a sex scene in it, it's going to usually be blurry and impressionistic and is mostly a vehicle for a specific chunk of dialogue or internal monologue that i wanted to include. it's an ordeal to write. those scenes take literally 4-6 times longer to write than any others. miserable.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

crossovers no but i love me an au.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

oh yeah several. mostly into chinese and russian for whatever reason.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

no and i wouldn't even know where to start. i'm such a solitary creator lol

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

i write for exactly two fandoms i'll leave you to your deductions lol. my first pairing that i was obsessed with enough to now label a ship was armand&daniel from the vampire chronicles though (there's a reason my name is thenightisland)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

i don't really have any active WIPs when it comes to fic (original stuff is a whole other can of worms). i usually can only focus on one thing at a time, but the other day i stumbled across some notes from like six years ago for a bbcs sound of music au that i would like to get back to eventually.

16. What are your writing strengths?

for rote i've been told i do a good job with characterization and imitating hobb's style and tone. based on the yelling i get on both accounts i'm good at closing lines. in every piece i just want to write That One Line that i know will make people feel crazy. i'd like to think i'm good at writing dialogue. everything i write both in fic and original stuff is built around conversations i want the characters to have and it's my favorite thing to write.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

sensory/physical details/set dressing. i get very in the character's head and disregard the surroundings in favor of internal monologue. i know that's because i'm a very internally focused person and so often wander around totally unaware of stuff outside myself (it's the autism lol). which means in writing i'm more willing to gloss over anything i deem irrelevant to whatever is happening emotionally between the people talking. the end result is there are certain details i draw attention to while disregarding everything else. (what color are the clothes? unless it's symbolically relevant, no idea. what are they eating? who knows. what does the room look like outside of the corner they're in? it's a mystery.) i am also the worst about what i dubbed "crutch words" where i'll get hung up on a certain word or phrase and overuse it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i've never done it and could probably only manage some bad french

19. First fandom you wrote for?

sherlock lol

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

this may be recency bias but i really like the stuff i've written for rote lol. similarly there was a sherlock fic that i started back in 2017 and was posting as i wrote it and then just. stopped and didn't come back to it until 2022 when i looked back over it and was like wait i like this (this is also why i don't start posting stuff until it's 80%+ complete already, to avoid that ever happening again lol). it was a book length fic and incredibly self indulgent and it's still one of my favorite things i've written. but rote fics allow me to do more with the actual prose bc there isn't the expectation of that specific Fic Tone in the writing and there isn't the weird loathing most fandoms have for first person pov so i'm very fond of my rote stuff.

[mintywolf]

AO3 Tag Game Thing

Tagged by @astoriacolumnstaircase. Thank you!

How many fandoms have you written for?

Ever? I mean my first ever was a Sound of Music sequel that I wrote in kindergarten. But if you mean like posted online, five. Chronologically: Phantom of the Opera, BloodRayne, Final Fantasy X, Fire Emblem Fates, and Critical Role. On AO3 right now though I only have FE and CR because some of those were before I came to AO3 and I also have a(n admittedly bad) habit of destroying old or unfinished works that I don’t think I’m going to come back to. :\ (RIP The Heretic’s Daughter, you just never found your audience.)

What’s your favorite fic on your Ao3?

The one I’m most excited about is A Long Road Home, although it’s a comic that I’m crossposting to there from tumblr. Definitely the one that’s taking the highest level of dedication and the one with upcoming plot developments that I’m most eager to get to!! I’ve been really happy about how kindly it’s been received by the fandom and how many people seem to be enjoying it. I am too.

Although I’ve kind of moved on from the fandom I’m still pretty proud of Nohrian Lullaby, because it’s a complete novel (with illustrations!). While it stands on its own it was however the first part of a planned trilogy but now that I’ve gotten into Critical Role I think I’d have a hard time going back to it, haha. It was Fire Emblem’s voice cast that led me to CR but now that I’ve gotten to know them all I feel like I’d have a hard time approaching e.g. King Garon and Queen Mikoto with the solemnity they have in the game knowing now what Travis and Marisha are like at the table. XD

Have you posted elsewhere? If yes, which of those fics is your favorite?  

I’m most proud of Guardian (another comic) because that was a huge undertaking and in order to do it I had to forcibly overcome the SEVERE executive dysfunction that had been hindering me for my entire life. (Absolutely trashed my school performance and for some reason none of the adults around me seemed to think that this might be a symptom of a larger problem? I was just repeatedly told “But you’re smart! You just need to work harder!” and could not figure out why I just couldn’t.) But when I started working on that and was kind of floundering at the beginning having a hard time keeping up with it, I told myself that if I wanted to see it exist in the world, then I had to be the one to create it, and basically brute-forced myself out of a lifetime habit of destructive procrastination. I taught myself to break a huge task (200+ page comic) into smaller tasks (one page at a time) and set a schedule to make that workable (day one sketch, day two lineart, and so on). And now I sincerely don’t allow myself to procrastinate anymore. If I’m given a task to do I know to get it done ASAP before it starts to seem unconquerably huge and that is honestly as much as an accomplishment as the comic itself. It’s still a struggle but it has improved the quality of my life by a lot. (Still have not received diagnosis or treatment for whatever is causing the executive dysfunction! But at least I’ve managed to wrestle that beast to the ground and am continuing to hold it there.)

How many bookmarks do you have on AO3?

I only recently figured out what they are for, haha, so 6.

How many unread comments do you have?

None! See the above procrastination thing. I have already replied to them all. :)

Any subscriptions?

About as many as the bookmarks. Currently I’m most looking forward to updates from Consequences of a Bleeding Heart and The Madness from the Salt. :D

Any favorite tags?  

Laudna & Imogen Temult, Laudna/Imogen Temult, and within those I tend to comb through for AUs with an interesting premise. (Judging by my bookmarks my definition of “interesting” seems to trend towards “vampires” haha.)

I don’t know if she’s still active on tumblr but I’m gonna tag @auronlu bc she has had a very respectable fic writing career! (Feel free to ignore this, however.)

[shytastemakerthing]

heyyy can i get a romantic matchup? ID REALLY LIKE AN ENSTARS ONE but if u dont do those, a twst one is good :3

im kitten, i dont use pronouns (so just use my name). i dont use labels either, but im feminine. im 17 (so nobody younger than me pls!!), currently in IT classes, 162cm, virgo and entp/intp. also 8w9

umm Im a vampirekin and have a strong affiliation w rabbits and cats. i can be really blunt (sometimes i dont mean it sometimes i do) and am pretty aggressive. i love play-fighting w friends and getting into joke arguments nd stuff.

i hate hatee having 2 give advice like I cant deal w ppl venting 2 me. I can b rude Mostly jut since if i dont like you 4 whatever reason Im not going to hide it Im just not going 2 Be nice. Cuz of this I dont get approached a lot bc ppl say i look mad/intimidating a lot!!!

VERY umm bimbo oriented. very clumsy, Very bad memory and attention span, But who cares I love acting cute and acting pretty and stuff. I love cute things tbhgd sm and I just want 2 squeeze. Cute ppl. As a bimbo i still Have my days 💔where im just Depressed man and Thats most days. but i am good at Just Living and Not acting like that..! Tho when im Very bad w mental health I tend 2 just get sick and not leave my bed and just cut everyone off LOLL

Any ways I love fashion and dressing cute and DESIGNING CLOTHES!!!! I love designing plushies and characters and stuff I need like a creative output and I have 34983 ways of that (designing plushies, characters, outfits ect. sewing, vtuber rigging, sculpting, painting, ect). i usually dress in v-kei, gyaru (kogal), ouji and lolita.

i love any love languages recieving tbh Maybe like words of affirmation I need lots of reminding that they R a willing participant of this Relationship. PERSONALLY i lvoe spending time and doing acts of service, im rlly Not an affectionate person so im probably not going to initiate physical contact and Im RLLY bad with words so im not probably going to do words of affirmation either .......

Hmmmm what else I love music. so much different types. breakcore, classical, eurobeat, game osts, pop rock, industrial metal, esp anything super weird and experimental.

jut stuff i likee would be active cities, being clean, good food, nighttime, CATS AND BUNNIES, pigeons<3, (i want to own a pet cat, bunnies and a pigeon lol), collecting things and baking

i DISLIKE dogs (despite being pretty dog-aligned by personality), my room having any sun in it, dirty/messy/gross ppl. i hatee violence sm I get uncomfortable hearing or seeing ppl/animals get hurt Its just gross and scary.

abt relationships ... I will die for my Partner i will straight up Fight someone for them. idc if they r bad person or if They did a crime rlly Thats so girlboss of them . I want to go out a lot on dates and stuff I dont wanna just go to the same places I want 2 explore and go to new places nd stuff. also Ermmm i dont rlly wanna Date someone shorter thn me Like. They just look like a child at that point..

thx :3 sawrry i wrote a lot lolz. lolll tyy So muh

A/N: Hello and thank you for your request! Don't worry about it being so long, the more information that I have to work with then the better! It only lets me get even more ideas for a match-up! Speaking of, I do hope that you like yours and enjoy!

Tw: None

I match you with.........

Ritsu Sakuma

From one vampire to another, you both are quite literally made for each other in that regard. He sees you and he can feel warmth flooding through his ice cold veins, how the moonlight illuminates your figure makes you look just ethereal. He is stunned into silence but soon regains himself and Ritsu can't help but to approach you.

Now given his sleeping patterns, it is a little hard for the both of you to meet up for any kind of outings, these would mostly be happening later in the evening and into the night given his aversion to sunlight, but he manages to work his schedule just right between his unit work and when he sleeps. He will always make time for you.

Another cat lover! Perhaps the both of you would like to go to a cat cafe for one of your dates? It would be something that he would find both enjoyable and relaxing, especially if you get to be there with him.

His schedule is quite busy sometimes given the work he has with his unit, Knights, but if you would like, you could always join him when they have practices and lives. Honestly, the thought of you being in the crowd and cheering him on makes this young vampire smile.

Speaking of his unit, the others absolutely adore you and they protect their own, and given that they now see you as one of their own, they will protect you just as you protect Ritsu. It is what a Knight does, after all.

Ritsu is big on giving you those words of affirmation. He may not be too much of a talker, and he really isn't that down on himself, but he would never want you to be down on yourself. He wants you to know that he is committed to this relationship no matter what it takes.

Overall, two vampires are able to join each other under the light of the moon. It is something that he will always love. With your similar interests and hobbies, it just makes the time that you spend with one another so much better and so much sweeter.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

i would like to know which Beatles song is ur fave and why? (if u could exp.in detail bcs u know about music theory)

hi anon!!! My favourite Beatles song is Eleanor Rigby.

I don't think my reasoning is very music theory heavy, though I love the Vivaldi influence of the arrangement. I think a really good way to gain an appreciation for the strings is to listen to the Love version because it's got an instrumental intro! I like how sparse it is, it allows to really take in each part separately.

That being said the melodies are very cool and that's partially due to the fact they're not fully in major or minor modes but a different thing namely a combo of Aeolian and Dorian mode (both are somewhat like minor, but not quite. It has to do with which specific chords are present in a given key, mostly). The non-standard mode usage really creates that mysterious feel the song has, which I love. I'm also a huuuuuuuuge sucker for the vocal layering at the end ("All the lonely people / Where do they all come from?" at the same time as "Ah look at all the lonely people").

I also think it's sooooooo good at building up tension like the way it leaves you waiting for that huge "AHHHHHHHHH" climax is soooo *chef's kiss*.

That being said, the main reason the song is my favourite is the lyrics.

I wrote an entire essay that basically elaborates my interpretation of the song, which I hope serves to illustrate how much I love it. It's actually an absolute pet peeve of mine when anyone calls the song pretentious because NONE of it is trivial and nor is any of it unimportant or frivolous. I kind of Adore it as a Paul McCartney song specifically, a song by this guy who just loves watching people.

Of course the boy watching people from trees notices people like Eleanor. <3

[carewyncromwell]

Jsckos inability to focus is such a mood schu I literally have to walk around when I cashier bc just standing there is impossible lol ( I have ADHD and autism) anyways I love him

Aww, thank you, sweetie!! <33 I have ADHD too, so the way I wrote Jackson in that drabble is directly from my own experiences, trying to focus in classes that didn't engage my interest.

In high school, I took a beginner's Psychology class, where my teacher did perhaps one of the best things a teacher had ever done for me in my entire school career by actually hosting our classes outside next to the creek behind our school, rather than keeping us in his sterile, all-white classroom. The teacher in question had read multiple studies that people who study outside are less likely to suffer from depression than those who study inside -- and well, our students being depressed would be unsurprising, given that our entire school, like so many others in America, had been designed like a prison with no possible visual distractions anywhere. Even all of the school's windows were positioned at the very top of the walls, way too high to see out of. And contrary to what many administrators apparently think, having nothing else going on in the classroom doesn't make you pay attention to your teacher's lessons more -- on the contrary, studies show student productivity, attention span, engagement, and creativity are generally all better in an outdoor setting.

Now, admittedly, my brand of ADHD means I'm very prone to hyperfocus, so I find truly multitasking very difficult. Doing two completely different and equally challenging assignments at the same time would be incredibly difficult for me. Trying to troubleshoot my Wi-Fi while simultaneously writing down a grocery list -- yeah, no, I'd have to focus solely on one or the other. What I do find helpful, though, is having some sort of mindless "busy" work for my hands, eyes, feet, etc. to do while I'm focusing on that thing I'm really focusing on. It can also kind of "wake my brain back up" if I've gotten into a rut or I've lost track of what I was doing.

In Jackson's case, he's read these poems by Edgar Allen Poe so many times that he's memorized them, so he's not taking in any new information or challenging his brain too much by rereading them. Brewing tea is something he's done countless times too, so he can do it largely on autopilot. And walking around to do these things involve more physical movement than deep, involved thought. So all of those things help keep his mind present and aware enough to finish his potion, which is his primary focus.

For me, while I'm working on a challenging word game on my phone, I might occasionally pop over to my Tumblr app to scroll absently through some pictures and then go back to my game, or I might also put on some music or some background TV noise while I'm working on that puzzle. The word game at that moment is my focus -- it's just the stuff around it that keeps my brain flexed enough to do the mental exertion needed to focus on the primary thing.

[50cal-fullauto-astarion]

I NEED YOU TO KNOW HOW UGLY THE SOUND I MADE ABOUT THIS WAS SLKJLSK. EXCELLENT FORMAT, 10/10, NO NOTES.

4. How do you choose which fics to write?

in general, i don't really have a rhyme or reason for how i choose which fics i write slkjs. I try vaguely to keep to some kind of schedule, but by and large it’s just whatever is inspiring me the most at any given second, or the one I’m most driven to work on by whatever reason is at hand. I can kind of trick myself into it by going through music I associate with whichever fic I want/ought to work on and force my brain into gear though, so that might be sort of an answer dghd.

17. Do you have a writing routine?

NOPE. I wish I did, bc having a structured routine for shit has been insanely beneficial to my general overall well-being, but my hobbies get put on a back burner depending on my energy reserves and mental states (basically how bad do I feel after work DFHD). I really don’t have much free time to myself, so I have to be ✨ precious ✨ about it 😭

77. Why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?

MANNNNN. I think my main reason is bc all my life my goal was to Get Published with my original work, and the insane amount of pressure it put on me to perform. I had this brutally dead set goal in my early teen years to be traditionally published by 16 like my favorite author at the time, but 16 came and went, then 20, then 25, etc. It was incredibly disheartening, and at the height of one of the worst periods of my life in 2017, in the middle of an extended mental crisis I should’ve been hospitalized for, I stopped writing altogether. Stopped doing anything, basically.

I had like zero joy in my life and nothing to look forward to, and my family was in such a state of poverty that I didn’t even have a flip phone. I spent like 3 years brutally isolated with no outlets, and almost died. I’m being melodramatic, but nah seriously, see above re: hospitalized.

Shit cherry on top of a shit cake was that I was forced to miss my best friend’s birthday party, and she reamed me as I deserved, and I stayed up for 3 days straight with guilt, finally playing Fallout New Vegas to keep me occupied, and holy shit that unlocked my brain. I had been given a new phone at that point, and I would pirate music off of really questionable apps and write these enormous fanfics in my notes every free second I could, and I finally had something to look forward to again. And best of all, there was no pressure to perform or even share. I wrote tens of thousands of words of dog ass or godly fic and it was just for me.

This shit is really corny but yeah I love fanfic bc it saved my life ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ dfhjjd