#mention: encounter in teen years?

[disappearingground]

Jenny Lewis: ‘My friends have heard some of the stories, but there’s some good ones I’ve been saving’

The Guardian June 4, 2023

The US singer-songwriter and former Rilo Kiley frontwoman on touring with Harry Styles, being happily single and the importance of joy – mostly in puppy form – in your life

By Kathryn Bromwich

One of Jenny Lewis’s many appealing traits is a certain kind of rock star insouciance. So when she was announced as the support act for Harry Styles’s North American tour in autumn 2021, prompting many of his fans to respond with: “Who the fuck is Jenny Lewis?”, the singer-songwriter created a Spotify playlist of the same name. It showcased the many highlights of her 20-plus-year career in music, from her days as frontwoman of indie rock band Rilo Kiley, through various side projects, to her current solo career making shimmering pop songs infused with country and 1970s rock (“The more she goes on … the more she sounds like one of the greats,” wrote Kitty Empire in these pages, about her last album, 2019’s On the Line).

Despite their initial misgivings, the fans “were amazing from show one”, says Lewis. She had just come out of the pandemic and total isolation – “I hadn’t even gone to a restaurant or done anything” – and found herself on the biggest stages she had ever played, arenas filled with thousands of new young fans. “I got pure love and support and total attention,” she recalls, speaking over Zoom from her home in Los Angeles, sunlight streaming in through the wall-to-wall windows behind her. “They make signs at the shows to get Harry’s attention, but about four shows in, someone in the crowd had a sign that said: ‘I’m here for Bobby Rhubarb.’”

Bobby Rhubarb is Lewis’s two-year-old cockapoo, a present from a poet friend named Serengeti and the subject of the first single from her fifth solo album, Joy’All (“I need a dog that’s hypoallergenic / In the poodle milieu and photogenic”). The song, Puppy and a Truck, came out of an online songwriting workshop organised by Beck and is a sweet, moving bop about being single in her 40s and finding a deep sense of fulfilment in her new life. “I don’t got no kids / I don’t got no roots,” she sings at the end, in a tone that could be read as wistful, or liberated, or both.

Shit gets real, there’s a lot of suffering, and how are you going to weather it?

This balance of emotions is a central tenet of Joy’All, an album that came out of lockdown and Lewis’s first opportunity to stop and process everything that had happened to her in the preceding years. “I think going through a big tragedy, or the loss of both of your parents, or the end of a long-term relationship,” she says of this time, “the common theme as a human being is just: shit gets real, there’s a lot of suffering, of varying degrees, and how are you going to weather it?”

During her time alone, she experienced “a spiritual shift – I realised that the pursuit of joy is a really important thing”. She found this in Bobby Rhubarb, who brought new rhythms to her daily routine and reminded her of the things that truly matter – “Like play and going on a walk.” She read books by Hermann Hesse, Raymond Chandler and Ram Dass, consumed “a lot of murder content” and grew two massive weed plants (“pleased to meet you, Mary Jane”, goes new track Love Feel).

Joy’All is an uplifting, layered album filled with ear-worming hooks and memorable lines, preceded by a spate of career-best singles such as Psychos (featuring what she calls the “ultimate Tinder profile description line: ‘I’m not a psycho / I’m just tryna get laid’”) and Giddy Up, a Kacey Musgraves-esque country-pop tune about taking a chance on romance, and cognitive dissonance. Throughout the LP, difficult events are balanced out by joyous ones: “the essence of life / is suffering” goes one line, later becoming “the essence of life / is ecstasy”. The pain of a breakup sits alongside the thrill of a new liaison; there are references to an encounter at an after-school party that “almost destroyed” her, but also to listening to Marvin Gaye with an “ice-cold Modelo”.

On our call, Lewis is engaging company, with a sparkling intelligence and a warm, easy laugh. With her feathered red hair and a T-shirt bearing the logo of the Beastie Boys label Grand Royal, she exudes an energy halfway between Stevie Nicks and Natasha Lyonne, interrupting herself with a joke when she feels she is coming across as too LA (she divides her time between there and Nashville). She was born in Las Vegas in 1976 and by the 1980s had a thriving career as a child actor, with roles in TV shows such as The Twilight Zone, The Golden Girls, Baywatch and Murder, She Wrote, as well as films including Pleasantville, Foxfire – opposite a young Angelina Jolie – and the now cult classic Troop Beverly Hills.

Lewis learned a lot during those years: memorising lines, accessing emotion while performing (“You have to think of the worst possible thing to make yourself cry, which is such an interesting thing for a brain that is still forming”). But by the early 00s she was out of that world. She has spoken openly about the trials she faced in childhood: her absent musician father, Eddie, and the heroin addiction of her Vegas entertainer mother, Linda. Lewis’s deceptively cheerful-sounding 2019 track Wasted Youth is about her mother spending her acting earnings first on buying, then selling drugs: “I wasted my youth / On a poppy, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo / Just for fun.” Their relationship broke down, with Lewis becoming estranged from her father and mother for many years. She reconciled with them before their deaths in 2010 and 2017 respectively.

Having some time and distance has given her perspective, allowed her to see things from their point of view as well as her own. “My attitude is good, in that I accept my mom for who she was. I understand that it was probably really hard for her and she did what she had to do to survive. I appreciate all of her choices, even if they weren’t the greatest choices.” She understands now that some addicts don’t get clean. “The recovery rate for heroin addicts – it’s a very small percentage. So the more I’ve learned about that, the more I can accept the whole thing.” She is still unearthing memories from that time; a memoir is in the works (Patti Smith’s Just Kids is a touchstone). “My friends have heard some of the stories, but there’s some good ones I’ve been saving,” she says, rubbing her hands together.

There were also, she adds, many amazing moments in her youth. “I think sometimes the good ones get overshadowed. But my mom was so charismatic and funny and cool. She was a hipster.” One moment in particular springs to mind: “She was in this rehabilitation centre after surgery and I went to visit her. And when I got to her room she was passed out with a peanut butter sandwich listening to Tame Impala. I was like: ‘How is she so cool?’ There were these absurd moments – the context was very serious, but there was always something funny going on.”

Lewis’s upbringing has been an endless source of material. Many of her songs with Rilo Kiley were verbatim accounts of the incredible characters in her mother’s orbit. “Blake [Sennett, Lewis’s then boyfriend and bandmate] and I would get together, he’d be playing guitar and I would just start reciting this stuff. He’d go: ‘Where the heck did you get this?’ And I was like: ‘Ah, never mind.’” A Better Son/Daughter is still the song she gets approached about most. “I’ve seen some tattoos [of it] as well,” shes says, “which is always incredible – it’s like, was that a mistake? But people really connect with that song and share their experiences with depression and addiction and their relationship with their parents.”

As well as the fans who have been with her from the beginning, Lewis now has a cohort of admirers who were too young to appreciate the music at the time. Early 00s female pop-punk acts such as Paramore and Avril Lavigne are now being reappraised; echoes of Rilo Kiley can be heard in the catchy, emotionally literate breakup songs of Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift (the band’s hit Portions for Foxes was included in a list of 18-year-old Swift’s most listened to iPod songs). “It’s like the spin cycle on your washing machine,” cackles Lewis. “It’s the cool cycle: 20 years and suddenly you’re cool. You’re like, wait, you hated this shit back then.”

In addition to Rilo Kiley, Lewis has also been part of duo Jenny and Johnny – with former partner Johnathan Rice – and all-female indie supergroup Nice As Fuck, whose debut performance was at a Bernie Sanders rally in 2016. “I keep leaving behind versions of myself,” says Lewis. “The actor version, the girl in a band version, the start a band with your boyfriend version, the all-girl New York punk band version. I’m constantly starting these things and then moving forward.” While she loves collaboration and has learned a lot from it over the years – she has worked with the Postal Service, Vampire Weekend, Bright Eyes, She & Him, and Ringo Starr, who played drums on Heads Gonna Roll – for now she is happy having autonomy over her own work. “My relationship with my songwriting started out very solitary. I’ve only co-written with a couple of people. Mostly my boyfriends, whoever I’m going out with at the time. But now I’m totally free to do whatever I want to do creatively. What is interesting to me in a song might not be interesting to a collaborator, but I don’t really care because I’m writing more for myself.”

Maybe Elon Musk can throw a giant festival on Mars called CancelFest, where all the cancelled people go

Musician Ryan Adams did some early production work on her last album; he was later accused of sexual misconduct by several women. Lewis has talked about this on numerous occasions, standing in solidarity with his accusers, and is understandably keen to move on. “There’s a broader conversation on behaviour among rock’n’rollers and the bigger conversation of what to do with people who misbehave,” she says, choosing her words carefully. “I think we should all be accountable for our own behaviour. But I don’t think you can cast people out completely. There has to be some sort of rehabilitation process.” Her eyes crinkle into a smile. “Maybe Elon Musk can throw a giant festival on Mars called CancelFest, where all the cancelled people go.” She turns serious again. “It’s such a complex question. I don’t have an answer. There are some shady characters in the world but I sometimes hope they’re on their karmic journey, and they will figure it out, if not in this lifetime in the next – in a Buddhist context. But I don’t believe people are all bad.”

Like everyone who lived through the dubious gender politics of the early 00s, Lewis still has some thought patterns of her own to unlearn. “I think my generation, we assumed there was only one spot if you were a woman. So in being ‘just one of the guys’ I was kind of getting into the club. And you’d be very protective of your role within that because there were so few women.” On the Styles tour, when she introduced her song Just One of the Guys, she dedicated it to all the tomboys in the crowd. “I could feel my band cringing when I said that. And I thought: ‘Oh wow, I guess tomboy is not a term that we use any more.’ And then I looked it up and it’s got a totally negative historical meaning.” So she is adapting. “Here’s the thing: things are changing, language is changing. We just have to learn and accept the fact that we may not understand right away. I don’t have a problem with addressing people in a way that makes them feel comfortable. I don’t understand why people get pissed – do you want others to feel bad? It doesn’t make sense.”

One way in which society isn’t moving forward as fast as she would like is the pressure to have children and be in a relationship. “If you’re not, and you’re in your 40s, there’s this old maid thing. But I feel better now than I have felt in my life. I’m totally single and I’m in complete control of my creative output and my schedule – not to say that, you know, I don’t have my romantic dalliances.” She is on a dating app, largely for entertainment value (she points out the remarkable number of men who include photos of Larry David among their own pictures). She went on a date recently, which “ended up being very fun, even though he wasn’t the one”, she laughs. “He was wearing a Star Wars T-shirt when he walked up and I was like: ‘Oh, I’ve never seen Star Wars. This just can’t work.’”

Lewis has addressed the fact she doesn’t have children in a number of songs, something about which her feelings fluctuate. “The other day I had a visceral reaction to reading that Robert De Niro [just had] a baby and he’s 79. It’s the luxury of being a man or a Peter Pan – I also consider myself to be a sort of Peter Pan figure.” Most of her friends don’t have kids, but now some of the men are reaching their mid-40s and starting families. As a woman on the road for many years, there wasn’t a moment where she felt the need to stop and take care of a child.

“I’d never imagined myself as a bride or a mother. And, of course, there’s a little bit of fear when you come from a relationship like I had with my mom, which was very complex. So I didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care, and then when it’s no longer an option, there’s a sense of Fomo. But ultimately, I made this choice. And I’m totally good with it.” Her affection gets lavished on Bobby Rhubarb. “She gets all of my love and I treat her in all the ways I wish my mom had. So I just snuggle the shit out of her.”

In an interview with the NME a few years ago she talked about how, with confessional songwriting, you “can’t put the worms back in the can”. Are there any songs she wishes she could take back? “No. There are some interviews I wish I could put back in the can – not this one! – where I’m spouting off about cancel culture like a dumdum anyway, but I honour the work. Even songs that have been written about me that aren’t flattering. What you say later in an interview, that’s on you. I’ve talked about some personal things that I really wish I could take back, but no – the work is in amber for ever.”

[steevejr]

it’s very interesting being an adult (28) working with teens (16-20) and having moments when you can feel this teen, in interacting with you, just learned about how to behave appropriately in a situation they’ve never once encountered before. it’s palpable.

[foldingfittedsheets]

I’d like to entertain and enliven you now with the saga of my Slut Era.

I’ve always been a serial monogamist and my shortest long term relationships clocked in at three years. So perhaps that’s why when I finally broke it off with my ex I went insane on dating. Part of it was definitely just that between anxiety and loneliness I wanted to fill up my time.

This happened when I was living alone for the first time, no roommates, just me and my little cat Leeloo. I didn’t want to come home to an empty house so instead I set up dates.

Most of these were disastrous. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea and I had a lot more first dates than second because they’d seen enough, including the one where people aggressively complimented me.

But after a few months I had four people I was seeing simultaneously. I was up front with all of them that things were not exclusive, and they all agreed, so no infidelity took place here, just a lot of hijinks.

Here’s who was on the dating roster:

• An apprentice woodworker that we’ll call Jill. I honestly thought at 26 years old that her being 21 wasn’t a problem age gap and I quickly learned that there was a vast gulf of both maturity and life experience between us. Jill described herself as “heteroflexible” and had just dumped her first boyfriend to flirt it up with me.

• A married woman looking for a friends with benefits. We’ll call her Alice. I insisted on meeting her husband first to be sure I wasn’t part of a cheating mess and he gave me his blessing when I stayed over at her house. Years later when he and Alice had divorced I would go on to sell him and his new fiancée an engagement ring and we both realized at the end how we knew each other and it was wildly awkward. Alice was nice, but a hardcore vegan who insisted I brush my teeth if I so much as ate string cheese before I could kiss her. She was also unhappy in her marriage and was feeling out if I’d want to get serious.

• A bartender dubbed Snakebites, so called because of her signature piercings. She cooked me a steak so raw it was still mooing and some of the best asparagus I’d ever had. In our singular sexy encounter she bit my nipple and I never got over it. Really don't bite someone if you don't know their preference and work up in pressure. We weren’t terribly compatible but neither of us were willing to admit it yet. Truthfully I considered still dating her solely because I desperately wanted her bathroom. It had all black tile, black toilet, black sink, a rain shower in the corner and a jacuzzi tub. I may not have loved her but god I loved that bathroom.

And finally,

• My beloved, who I would go on to marry, who was dealing with a lot of personal stuff at the time. Obviously that meant I liked them the best of all the people I was seeing because we were both disasters at the time.

So that’s the cast of this little misadventure. Now, our story begins with Jill.

Jill was someone who heightened my anxiety. Each of the three times she came to my home she brought and left more stuff. A self help book, a ramen kit, the entire Teen Titans collection of DVDs. It was like she was trying to move in. She also liked to deride my taste in things, frequently calling me a pleb when I mentioned a band or show I liked.

She was working on a gorgeous little decorative table in her woodworking program. The main wood for the top had a beautiful dapple of knots like jaguar spots, and when she showed me a picture I exclaimed how pretty it was.

“Do you want it?”

“Oh- I mean it’s lovely, I wouldn’t mind having it, but you should sell it and make some money!”

But she was adamant. She’d give me the little side table. At about this time, Alice was starting to get awfully lovey for a FWB. I knew she wasn’t happy with her husband but I also knew we were not a good fit. Fun fact: Alice and her husband were step siblings with a pretty hefty age gap. They got together when he stumbled upon a kink photo shoot she’d done with vegetables. None of their family was happy about the relationship but they weren’t related by blood so it was fine.

So I was fending off more overt romantic advances from Alice, and feeling increasingly like I needed to break things off with Jill. Snakebites wasn’t ever initiating communication and I decided to pull a lot of plugs at once.

I ghosted Snakebites, told Alice that I thought we should cool it, and in a move worthy of a rom-com I asked my beloved if I could pretend we were exclusive to put off Jill. They agreed and I texted Jill to let her know that I was no longer single.

I was not prepared for Jill’s response. She. Was. Devastated. She flew off the handle. She’d just been waiting for the right time to tell me how she felt about me! How dare I do this to her!

What about the table?!

“You should keep the table, it’s gorgeous, you’ll be able to sell it, but I don’t expect a free table.”

Silence met me after that text. I worried and fretted and eventually headed home.

There on my doorstep. The table.

It was a small little end table, reeking of oil and polish, but very beautiful. I brought it inside. The little drawer didn’t even have a knob or guide rails. But it did have a handwritten bill proclaiming that it was costing me $500.

“I can’t afford a $500 table, Jill!” I texted.

“Well you kept saying how nice it was. I spent a lot of time on it.”

“I’m not saying it’s not worth $500” (it wasn’t, it was a tiny side table made by an apprentice) “but I can’t buy a $500 table.”

“Make me an offer.”

I stared at the little table. I did actually like it, but I worried about the repercussions of entering into this deal. Hesitantly I typed back, “$300.” I didn’t think it was worth that much but I didn’t want to insult her too badly.

This suited her for the night. But the next day she informed me she needed a new bed, and that she’d take her $300 in credit toward a new mattress. I spent the whole next day basically wrangling with her over what she wanted and eventually she spiked back up to demanding $500 for the damn table.

“Let me just give it back,” I begged. It was not the first, second, or even third time I’d asked to return the thing but this time she finally relented and gave me her address. Since she lived with her parents still I’d never been over.

I called up my beloved and said, “Hey, I need moral support, can you run an errand with me?”

They agreed which is how we loaded up a self help book, a ramen kit, the entire Teen Titans DVD collection, and the table from hell into my little car together. Jill had said to meet her at one o'clock. I intended to drop everything off at noon and be done with this madness.

But while my beloved and I were on the doorstep leaving everything I heard, “Jill? You’re home early,” through the door. Her mom opened it to peer at us in confusion.

“I was just bringing Jill’s stuff back!” I chirped in alarm.

With little tact and a lot of speed we left her with Jill’s collection of things and then I sped out of there like my tail was on fire. I handed my phone to my beloved as I zoomed away instructing them to block Jill’s number. I was free. The tabletross around my neck had been returned.

It was about a month after that when my beloved and I officially began dating exclusively. I had wrapped up all my messy dating threads and it was a relief to be in a relationship again. They went on a trip to Mexico shortly after we made it official.

So I knew they were out of town. But next morning I walked out to my car and beheld a lipstick kiss pressed to the drivers side window.

I was petrified. I had just dumped three girls at once and had an extremely messy back and forth with one of them. Did I have a stalker?!

Of the girls, Alice seemed like likeliest candidate, being of a stronger lipstick variety girl than Jill or Snakebites. We had ended things a bit stiffly, but still cordial. She just laughed when I asked if she knew anything about it. “Nope,” she said, “but good luck.”

I’d rather have walked over broken glass then text Jill, and I’d firmly ghosted Snakebites so I was scared to reopen communication to ask if she was stalking me. I had to drop it. But it haunted me, that lipstick kiss.

For months I was jumpy, wondering which of my spurned lovers had done it. And why. Was it a threat? A goodbye? I lay awake thinking about it, worrying about how everyone I’d dated knew where I lived, which car was mine.

Finally, nothing else happened and I moved on. The kiss would remain a mystery and I had to be content with that.

It was a year later when I finally started filling my mom in on my dating escapades that I finally got closure. She was hooting and laughing as I went over the table debacle. Then I paused and added, “And then this kiss showed up on my car.”

“Did you like it?”

“What? No! I’m pretty sure one of them was stalking me! Who else would leave a kiss on my car?”

My mom started bellowing with laughter. “I did!” She wheezed.

Apparently. My mother had been driving by my place. And decided that a cute little gesture would be to leave me a kiss. And then decided to never mention it to me even though she’s never done anything like that previously.

“It scared the crap out of me!” I yelled while she collapsed with helpless laughter. “I thought I had a stalker! How could I possibly have known that was you?!”

“How could I have known you’d just broken up with three girls at once?” She wheezed in rejoinder and like. Fair play.

So that’s how my mom convinced me I had a stalker and I got out of buying a $500 table.

[cxrrodedcoffin]

✟ 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐲 𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫 ✟

Kinktober fic 2: Charlie Mayhew ✟ Blasphemy + Church Sex

𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛��𝐜𝐤 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠!

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: dom!charlie, priest!charlie (duh), aspiring nun!reader, tattooed!reader, religious themes (obvi), catholicism, extremely blasphemous activities, mentions of mental health facilities and sobriety, mild religious trauma mention, baptism, submersion in holy water, semi-public sex, oral sex (fem receiving), penetrative sex, unprotected sex, sex in water + in a church, fem + afab reader, breath play, hickeys, nipple play, cream pie, mentions of scars, use of “father” as an honorific in both a professional context and sexual context.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 3.7k

When you first visited the church to inquire about taking your vows as a nun, you weren’t sure what to expect. It had been so long since the last time you’d set foot in a church, but the moment you crossed that holy threshold a childhood full of memories came rushing back to you.

The church was not a place you ever thought you’d consider your home again once you reached adolescence, but now, after a decade of poor decisions and enough casual sex to put an end to global inceldom if you so wished, you found yourself back in a house of worship for the first time since childhood.

A six month-long stint in an in-patient psychiatric treatment center had been the catalyst, your first extended period of time being both sober and celibate since your teen years forcing you to face some hard truths about the way you’d been living your life.

You decided to see if there was any ounce of the faith you blindly held as a child still left somewhere deep in your subconscious, seeking out the nearest convent you could only a few weeks after your discharge from the facility.

Each step you took down the arched corridor to the church administrator’s office brought back flashes of the past, both bitter and sweet, the kaleidoscope of colors fanning in from the stained glass windows drawing a familiar sense of melancholy you had half-expected to reappear.

One thing you certainly were not expecting out of this visit was to meet one Father Charlie Mayhew. The curve of his jaw was the first thing you caught a glimpse of as he stepped out of the administrator’s office, the striking momentary glimpse of his side profile nearly knocking the wind out of you.

You squeaked out a faint “Sorry!” as you took a step back, your eyes locking with his. His cheeks creased in a charming smile, the black fabric of his clerical shirt pulling taut over his muscular forearm as he held the office door open for you. Your mind finally registered the flash of his white tab collar at his neck, prompting you to straighten up as a sign of respect.

“Thank you, Father-”

“Mayhew.” He finished, giving you a gentle nod as you returned the smile and slipped past him through the door frame. It was a small encounter, mere seconds of interaction, and yet you couldn’t shake the image of his smile from your mind for the rest of the day.

That was six months ago, and in the time since, every interaction you’d had with him had only worsened your attraction to him. He was equal parts charismatic and enigmatic, sharing fascinating details of his hobbies and interests and how they brought him closer to God, yet remaining at an arm’s length, keeping parts of himself closed off from you as well as the rest of the clergy.

Today was the day you were to begin your official commitment to your religious journey, ready to begin the years-long journey to take your vows. There was one final requirement you had to complete, needing to amend the oversight your parents had made in never getting around to having you baptized as a child.

You’d spent the majority of the day working on your studies, doing everything you could to distract yourself from the nerves growing in your tummy over your baptism ceremony. You weren’t nervous about the ceremony itself, it was a private ritual to be held before only God, you, and the priest performing it at an hour late enough that most of the convent would be fast asleep. The only problem was that the priest performing your baptism was none other than the man you’d become desperate for, Father Mayhew.

You had completed your post-dinner stroll around the campus, the sun set well below the horizon as the moon rose high in the sky. It was almost time, and when you returned to your dormitory, you stripped from your robes and hopped into a cold shower the moment the door shut behind you. Cleanliness was next to Godliness afterall, and the heat in your cheeks caused by your wandering mind needed to be quelled before facing the man at the center of your wildest fantasies.

When you had finally calmed yourself to a manageable level you stepped out of the shower, quickly wicking the water droplets off of your skin before pulling the flowy cotton nightgown over your bare body. You didn’t bother with undergarments, knowing they’d be just another layer of soaking wet fabric you’d have to peel from your shivering body in likely less than an hour.

You made your way down the hallway of the dormitory, your simple black ballet flats clicking gently against the sleek tile floor. After what felt like forever, you finally arrived at the connecting door of the chappel, pausing momentarily to gather your nerves one last time. The large wooden door creaked as you slowly pushed it open, moonlight shining through the tall stained glass portraits lining the walls of the hall. The flicker of candlelight pulled your eye to the baptismal font, flames dancing in the reflection of the pool.

Charlie stood tall, his hands folded behind his back as you slowly closed the space between you, stopping when there remained only a foot of space.

“Good evening, Father.” You greeted, barely above a whisper. He returned the greeting and you couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes lingered on your damp hair. You realized it was the first time he’d seen it completely uncovered since that first day you met six months ago, and you had to fight the urge to attempt to cover yourself. You were supposed to be in as natural of a state as possible in order to properly cover yourself in God’s protection, that was why you agreed to a full immersion baptism in the first place. There was no need to hide yourself from him tonight.

“Let’s begin.” He extended his hand to you, giving a reassuring smile as he guided you to the edge of the basin, taking each step into the lukewarm water. When you reached the center of the small pool, you observed the way the water level barely reached his knee but was fully up to your upper thigh, making your height difference glaringly obvious. You shivered, not only from the slight temperature of the holy water around you, but also the intimidation that his stature brought as he looked down at you.

“Cross your arms over your chest, please.” He instructed, taking a step closer to you so his torso was mere millimeters from being flush with yours, his right arm wrapping around your waist to cradle your lower back just above your tailbone.

“I’m going to do a short reading, then guide you to fall back into the water. You’ll only be under for a second, and I’ll pull you back out.” His voice was low, dulcet tones pairing beautifully with the atmosphere the dim lighting of the room created and you felt that familiar sin rising between your thighs, unable to remove your gaze from his immaculately sculpted facial features. You nodded in understanding, holding your arms across your heaving chest, hoping they disguised the evidence of your rapid heart rate and increasingly labored breaths.

“The Lord will cleanse the baptized from their impurities and idols, and give them a new heart and spirit. Through faith in Christ's death, God makes the baptized one with himself. May our sister lead a life worthy of her vocation, and preserve the unity of the Spirit.” He chanted, executing the sign of the cross before his free hand wrapped behind your shoulder to cradle you, exchanging a slight nod before you shut your eyes and allowed your body to fall back, holy water engulfing every inch of you for only a moment.

His strong arms lifted you out back out of the water, helping you find your footing on shaky knees, all the while your eyes remained shut. You hadn’t anticipated how sheer your shroud would become once it had taken on water, the lightweight linen clinging to every curve and contour of your body. Your whole frame shivered, painfully aware of the fact that your nipples were glaringly pert against the soaked fabric.

“You can open your eyes.” His hands remained around your waist, squeezing slightly with the lighthearted words as he waited for your response to finally being cleansed and fully protected.

Charlie couldn’t deny that his natural desires were running rampant at the sight of you, all wet and shivering on trembling legs like a fawn who’d slipped through the ice of a frozen lake, barely making it back to shore. Your nightgown was exceedingly translucent as it clung to your most intimate parts, the dark outline of your tattoos being what shocked him the most despite the allure of your breasts.

He hadn’t anticipated a girl with a face as angelic as yours could possibly be hiding markings such as these beneath the long sleeves he’d only ever seen you in. But then again, he doubted you’d ever anticipate the deep scars that adorned his back either. You weren’t the girl who had chosen to get those tattoos anymore, but he wondered if the girl you were now still had such a strong penchant for pain.

When you finally opened your eyes, ready to face the embarrassment of your exposed chest, you were surprised to find Father Mathew’s gaze not fixated on your breast, but rather your arms. You were so used to your tattoos, they barely even registered in your mind when you saw your reflection in the mirror each morning, so you had completely overlooked the fact that no one in the parish knew about them.

“I-I was a very different person when I got them.” You stumbled over your words, feeling a strong sense of insecurity about the way you’d dishonored your body in the eyes of the church.

“I find them to be an exquisite decoration of the temple that is your body, you know I don’t believe in the enforcement of many of the strict rules of the old church. You don’t have to justify yourself to me.” His right hand left your hip, finding your arm and lifting it to his mouth, plush lips placing firm kisses over the prominent vein at the base of your wrist before making his way further up, following the trail of your tattoos.

You mewled like a frightened kitten, so incredibly touch starved after a year of celibacy that you thought you might cum just from the heat of his mouth against your sensitive skin. As he pushed the sopping wet fabric of the bell sleeve further up your arm, your eyes fluttered shut, knees going weak again. You couldn’t believe he was touching you this way, even just chaste kisses along your limbs forcing the heat in your core to reach a boiling point. You couldn’t do this.

“Father, stop.” You tried to be as stern as possible but it came out as nothing more than a halfhearted sigh of defeat, your eyes pulled into a desperate plead. You wanted more, needed him so deep inside you that he might fill the God-shaped hole in your heart, but you were preparing to take a vow. That was the whole point of this, the very reason you were here with him in the first place.

“Now that you’ve been baptized, you are cleansed of your past sins and will be forgiven for those you commit going forward. We are and always will be sinners.” The look in his eyes was nothing but carnal, all reservations you held melting away with his insight.

“Fuck it.” You replied, a bit of the old you peeking through for a split second. Hearing that filthy word leave your cherubic lips set something off in him, causing him to drop your wrist and use his strong grip to pull you by your waist until you were completely flush with him, his mouth quickly finding yours in a kiss so forceful you wondered if your lip would bruise.

His hands were everywhere, squeezing and groping at your tender flesh through the fabric, almost fighting with the garment as it clung to your skin. You quickly grabbed for the hem still floating against your thighs in the water, peeling it as high up as you could before being forced to break away from him to pull it over your head. The sheer weight of the soaked gown was almost too much for you to lift, your arms shaking as you attempted to move it over your head.

Charlie took the bunched fabric from you, lifting it the rest of the way so you were finally free, completely nude in front of his still fully dressed state. You felt more vulnerable than ever before, so exposed in such a holy place, all the while he still held all of his modesty beneath his sleek black clerical shirt and slacks, barely saturated by the low water level.

“Good lord, you’re straight out of a renaissance painting.” He eyed you up and down, admiring every detail of your trembling body before his eyes settled on your breasts. His mouth began to water, the need to have his mouth on you again overwhelming his every thought. He closed the space between you once more, pushing you until your back hit the side of the pool.

“Up.” He mumbled against your neck, slender fingers gripping into the flesh of your hips as you jumped, his firm hold guiding your ass up onto the ledge, your feet dangling in the water. He pushed your thighs apart and pulled you to the very edge, just teetering on the slick tile. He took a step back, ripping the tab collar from his neck and starting to undo the buttons of his shirt. You instinctively began to close your legs, his eyes boring into you like a beam of sunlight.

“Keep them open.” His tone was more stern, hand reaching out to push your knee to its previous position.

“You hold heaven’s gate between your thighs, angel. Give me a chance to take it all in.” His voice was like smoked honey, smooth and intoxicating simultaneously, his nimble fingers expertly undoing the last of the buttons on his shirt before peeling it off of his toned arms. He made quick work of undoing his slacks, pushing them along with his underwear down his thighs, his hard cock slapping against his lower stomach before bobbing teasingly between his muscular thigh.

You had to fight your jaw from dropping at the sight, his cock just as mesmerizing as the rest of him, all flushed pink and dripping, his shaft taking a slight curve to the right, prominent vein running down the entire length of the left side, and the blushed tip glistening with precum. He nearly laughed at the look on your face, pushing the sound down in his throat to prevent any misinterpretation of his amusement.

He was enamored by you, this anomaly of a woman, equal parts innocent and sinful, all wrapped up in a package he couldn’t resist any longer. He sank to his knees, creating a wave in the water around him as he crawled those last few steps to you, still barely submerged up to his waist.

He placed an open-mouthed kiss to your inner thigh, sucking hungrily on the plush skin in a trail leading straight to your pussy, blushed purple and red bruises blooming in his wake.

When he reached your cunt, he took a deep breath and exhaled a slow stream of air over your labia, observing the way your breath hitched and your stomach muscles tightened, reactive like a born again virgin.

He gave no warning, practically diving into your folds, tongue lapping hungrily at the nectar dripping from your entrance, like Samson drinking from the rock basin after nearly dying of thirst.

His large hands held your thighs apart with a determination you’d never felt, the pads of his manicured fingers digging into your skin hard enough to bruise. Your hands moved to his perfectly quaffed hair, undoing the gelled style with the run of your dainty fingers through it, finding the tresses at the nape of his neck and pushing his face closer still to your cunt.

He was relentless, alternating in broad strokes and pointed flicks against your clit until your thighs shook, teetering dangerously close to both the edge of the pool and your first outsourced orgasm in over a year.

He replaced his right hand with his shoulder against your thigh to keep you spread wide open, his index and middle fingers broaching your entrance only to be quickly wrapped in your tight warmth, your neglected walls clinging to any stimulation they could get. One, two, three curls of his fingers against the velvety soft patch inside of you had you riding his face without inhibition, your cries of pleasure dulled only by your own hand clamped over your open mouth.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had cum that quickly, his actions drawing an unceremoniously fast reaction from you and you almost felt betrayed by your own body, unable to control your own sober actions for the first time in God knows how long.

“Need to feel your perfect cunt around my cock.” He panted through labored breaths as he finally pulled away from your overly sensitive clit, the bottom half of his face glistening just the same as your cunt.

He rose to his feet, taking you by the hips again and helping you back into the water, a chill running up your spine at the change in temperature. Your feet had barely touched the tile at the bottom before he was hauling you to the steps, gently pushing down on your shoulder to sit on the middle step.

“I want to see your angelic face while I ruin you.” He took your ankles in his grip, forcing your legs up to your chest as he knelt on the step below yours, aligning the head of his shaft with your weeping entrance. He brought his right hand up to the side of your face, thumb brushing along your jawline before dipping lower, his fingers wrapping firmly around your throat as he entered you fully with a single thrust. You gasped, the corners of your mouth pulling into a devilish smile at the sudden show of control, reveling in the feeling of his thick cock stretching your tight walls.

The holy water around you splashed with every rock of your connected hips, surrounding the place you were intertwined most intimately. Charlie dipped his head down to your chest, taking advantage of the way your back arched away from the edge of the step to take your pert nipple in his mouth, sucking gently at first until it devolved into hungry grazes of teeth and flicks of his expertly trained tongue. His grip on your throat tightened, his forearm pressing down on your other breast as he braced himself against the tile with his free hand.

You threw your head back, crying out in soft whimpers as he moaned against your breast, the upward angle of his thrusts causing the head of his cock to repeatedly hit the soft, sensitive spot deep inside of you, bringing you hurtling toward another orgasm.

“Come on, angel, show God how good this carnal sin feels.” He pulled away from your nipple just long enough to groan out the most blasphemous sentence you’d ever heard in your life, and you almost screamed from how hard he thrust up into you, swearing he had hit your cervix.

“Please, Father!” You moaned, pawing at his back, feeling the raised skin of his scars against your gentle fingertips. You made a mental note to inquire about them after, too lost in the feeling of him drawing you closer and closer to your orgasm to ask questions in the moment.

He rose back up from your chest, an animalistic open-mouth smirk on his face as he squeezed the sides of your neck tighter still, the lack of blood flow to your brain giving you a high you hadn’t quite experienced before. His eyes burned into yours, locked in a gaze you weren’t sure you’d ever be able to break as he gave a few more brutal thrusts into your aching cunt, finally reaching that euphoria you’d been craving from the moment you met him.

“Oh, God!” You cried out, watching the flicker of satisfaction in his eyes as you clamped down around him, forcing him to slow his pace inside of you. His hips began to falter, your cunt milking him relentlessly until the coil snapped, spilling his warm load deep inside of you. Watching the way the vein in his temple strained as he groaned above you gave you the same sense of satisfaction, knowing you could bring him to such a vulnerable state before the God you both served.

When you’d both caught your breath he pulled out of you, milky white cum swirling into the water. You’d almost feel ashamed if it weren’t for the afterglow you resided in, head still spinning from the deliciously pleasurable acts you’d just participated in.

“I have to drain the pool and refill it for tomorrow’s morning Mass, and you need to be back in your dorm before Mother Superior wakes up.” He stated matter-of-factly as he took your hand and helped you out of the pool, still shivering in the cold night air.

“Can we do this again?” You questioned meekly, apprehension setting in as you felt him pulling away from you.

“I’ll come by the dorms tomorrow during your lunch hour.” He squeezed your hand, giving a final reassuring smile as he handed you your now partially dried gown, nodding toward the door before you exchanged goodnights. You spent the rest of your night laying in your bed, slipping in and out of sleep, too distracted by your anticipation for what was to come to ever slip into a proper slumber.

—

tagging my maywhores <3 (i just came up with that what do we think??): @xxbimbobunnyxx @babygorewhore

please comment or message me if you’d like to be tagged in my charlie mayhew fics going forward!!

[saturngalore]

adeyemi locs set 🥭

ever since i made my “for the culture” post, i always wanted to have more very unique afrocentric hairstyles in my game that were huge and just seemed perfect for editorial stuff. and i finally got the chance to create some myself with these dreadlock twist hairstyles as my last hairstyle of the year! i really wanted the hair to have different sizes and styles (because some of too big for cas without height mods) so i created 5 versions for a little variety and flexibility. im also so excited to say that these hairs work for both feminine and masculine frames!! im 70% sure that the inspo hairs for this set (here, here, and here) are of yoruba origin and/or west african influence so i chose the yoruba name, adeyemi or adéyẹmí for the hair. in yoruba, adé means “crown” and yẹmí means “it befits me” so together, it means “the crown suits me”. i thought it was an absolutely perfect name for this hair especially since @invisiblequeen also mentioned crown/royalty when i first showed them the hairs too!! tysm to my lovely testers and to really anyone who actually reads my (rambling) intro paragraphs…happy new year!😭💗🫶🏾

base game compatible (bgc)

maxis palette (24 swatches)

teen-elder

both frames (if it’s weird somehow, pls lemme know!)

not hat compatible (some accessories can fit!)

custom thumbnails

disallowed for random

slightly high poly warning for v5 (10k)

all lods

please tag me if you do use my cc! i would absolutely love to see it! also, please let me know if you encounter any issues with my cc! here’s my tou. i hope y’all enjoy it <3

download via simsharefile (sfs) or on patreon - ALWAYS FREE!

tysm to cc rebloggers! @public-ccfinds @sssvitlanz

[kryptznnn]

♛- Hypnotized

🃜🃚🃖🃁🂭🂺🃜🃚🃖🃁🂭🂺

🃜🃚🃖🃁🂭🂺🃜🃚🃖🃁🂭🂺

➸ INTERESTS; - pro-hero! katsuki bakugo x f! intern reader

➸ BACKGROUND; - (requested submission by @nivphcyo) As you reached your early twenties, you successfully received a part time job as an intern within a specific pro-hero’s company. More specifically one you’ve had a crush on since your teens, so you do everything in your power to make him see you the way you do him.

➸ WARNINGS; - wc. roughly 1.5k, employee x boss trope, friends with benefits, working environment, age gap (48 & 22), smut, slight dirty talk, daddy/sir kink, overstimulation, p in v (unprotected), orgasm mention (both m & f), oral sex (f!receiving), marking/hickey mentions, kissing, romantic gestures, romantic tension, sexual tension, indecision, etc.

➸a.i; - thank you for the req!! sorry it’s short but i hope you enjoy it and it’s within what you expected, i had fun writing it!! xoxo

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

song recommendations:

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

His eyes hadn’t left your figure as you walked into his office for the second time this week. Your heels clicking onto the clean tile floors as he watched from his desk, slowly covering his mouth with his hand before dragging it down and looking away.

He soon stood up, buttoning the single button he had removed on his tuxedo jacket before walking over to you and leaving his hand out to shake. You took it and shook it politely, now making eye contact with him before he let your hand go and looked away.

Katsuki Bakugo was one of many things, a pro-hero, a model, a former teacher, a former husband, and a current businessman. Out of all of his professions has he never encountered a problem as great as the one in front of him today. You were a problem, you always had been since you first started several months ago.

As he went over your files and heard of the others within his firm speaking of you he hadn’t taken much thought into it, but when you came into his office all cheerful and happy he knew. He knew how much of an issue this could’ve spiraled into if he didn’t get control of himself.

He was too old to be dealing with this, far too old. The only thing that could make others not tell it either was possibly the fact that his natural hair color was so light, practically camouflaging the grey hairs that made their ways out from his scalp. He could tell of course, he always has been able too, and even as he let his beard grow out slowly he could tell. The small dashes of grey and sand that seemed to mix together within his beard proved it.

By some miracle that he might’ve prayed for, he gained a compliment from you on your first encounter, complimenting his hairstyle along with his beard. You spoke of how it suited his figure and level of maturity, that you liked it, and honestly the way you spoke he was sure you had purred the words out instead of spoke. Whatever it was had him hooked, he was hooked onto you even though he knew he shouldn’t have been.

If anything you were a little under half of his age, and towards some alarm it hadn’t bothered you, but it had to him entirely. Let alone the fact you were his employee, working towards his firm to support his work as a pro-hero, knowing he would retire soon enough further down the years.

He wasn’t sure what had switched within you or what caused you to make such a drastic thought, but when you began to come to work with different attire it awoken something in him. Your skirts getting shorter or tighter, wearing your tuxedo jacket less and less within the firm unless there was a change in weather. He hated it, he hated what you were doing and he hated how it made him feel.

He also hated how whenever you would walk into his office and did that little thing you’d do with your hands or face before letting your hair down slightly. You were teasing him, you both knew it, you loved it and you loved watching his expression. The two of you had already knew he was drawn to you, so overall if you were flirtatious or teasing there was nothing he could do to stop you or say to stick professional, because deep down in his dark desires he loved it.

He wasn’t sure if it was just lust or love, maybe a mixture of both, but he didn’t want anything else to do with anyone unless if it was you. He was just as quick to call you into his office to listen to your reports as much as he was jealous when you would be on break with other men in the firm. He would always keep his eye on you from afar, gritting his teeth as he watched you laugh with them, sway your hips, flip your hair to tie it back, reapplying parts of your makeup.

You knew better than to do things like that when he had his eyes on you, of course you didn’t actually know that, he just assumed you did. He thought the ideas and hints between the two of you were made clear without sharing any words, but apparently he was wrong. This alone has now brought the two of you here, into his office late at night after everyone’s shifts had finished.

He now was quick to offer you a seat in front of his desk as he walked over to the large glass window behind him, serving as a wall as he looked down towards the dimly lit city. He took a sharp deep breath attempting to push down the sinful thoughts he had of you earlier before speaking.

“L/n, you are one of the hardest working women I have here in my firm, and you’ve also been here for nearly a year now.” He started, still looking out the window but speaking loud enough for you to hear, your eyes were glued onto his back with furrowed brows, thinking to yourself what he must’ve been waiting to say or break the news to you.

“But I’ve also taken notice of your sudden relationship with one of the other male coworkers recently, and must ask if things have remained professional between the two of you.” He spoke, slightly turning his head over his shoulder awaiting your response, you immediately began to stutter before speaking.

“Of course sir, there’s nothing happening between us. We just joke around too much about personal stuff and other things.” You spoke in a worried tone, shaking your head slightly as you raised your hands to speak with them. He only looked back out to the window again before speaking, huffing as he did so.

“So him speaking this morning of how he was going to quote on quote ‘Fuck you senseless until you can’t think’ was also a part of the joke?” He said, his voice laced with anger. If anything even if he wasn’t turned around you could see the thick vein that would appear out of his forehead and throat out of frustration.

Honestly you were taken aback by his saying, not even aware that he had said nothing like that. You wore a shocked look on your face, thinking back to him and shuddering at the feeling of him saying those things with the other guys. You quickly realized that your silence might’ve been taken as an answer and stood up in a rush to defend yourself.

“No sir, under no circumstance was I even aware that he had said any of those things about me. I am entirely sorry, I’ve let this strain out too far, I never knew he was that type of person.” You stated, now standing up and attempting to make your way over to him slowly.

He caught onto the click of your heels again, his attitude less angry now as he could smell your perfume from behind him. This wasn’t fair, no matter how hard he tried or how upset he was at the world he could never be with you. It was as if the universe itself was teasing him instead of you, taunting him with something he had been craving, desired, but couldn’t have.

You were everything to him, and he knew it, you were intelligent and charismatic, if anything your personality was the entire opposite of his and he adored it. You gave him hope, and just by several conversations with you or about you he realized exactly what you were to him. There was even a time where he had opened up to you about his ex wife, to which you laughed at her traits and compared yourself to him, saying you would never do such things or even dream of acting that way.

And he seconded it, believing every word you said and even added that whoever you were with in the future would be lucky to have you. Then refraining back to business as he always had when the tension between the two of you became too strong. Now he had to stand here and settle this with you, his feelings included.

“I trust you.” He spoke, now turning around slowly to look at you. You only looked at him with a worried expression as your heels clicked to a stop, looking into his eyes with a slight frown. You only replied in agreement before speaking again, this time your tone hinted seriousness.

“I like my men much more older than me anyways.” You added, smirking slightly as you watched his body stiffen as his breath hitched. He quickly made his way around you before taking a seat at his soft chair at his desk, his back now facing you. You only raised a brow and made your way over to him waverly.

This was wrong, he thought to himself about everything, anything that could die down the feeling of excitement he felt when you spoke those words to him. He was old enough to be your father if he wanted, let alone the fact you worked for him, it was forbidden, everything about it was.

A large emphasis on was, because as of right now he had you spread across his desk. Your back laid flat on the harsh cold wood as your legs were spread. Your face was flushed and your hair had been a mess, let alone the lipstick you wore, as it was no surprise that your clothing had been practically forced off, scattered across the floor behind you as he ate you out.

Your small moans and mewls were like music to his ears as he hummed in satisfaction listening to you. He was intoxicated by you and everything you did, so when his grip on your thighs tightened from how hard you gripped his hair and your rambling had gotten louder he wasted no time in applying more pressure. The sight from his point of view was for sore eyes, watching as beads of sweat trickled down your throat and forehead out of concentration, and your hair sticking to parts of your face. Even every now and then when you would whimper and throw your head back as tears rolled down your cheeks, he loved it.

“Sir, I’m so close, please- fuck.” You whined, your legs now taking the initiative to press closed, nearly closing his head in between as he held your legs spread, only humming in response to which your body shook, feeling the vibrations in your clit.

Sooner than later your orgasm had washed over you harshly, your back arching as you mumbled over and over lines of curse words. Attempting to wash over your high you practically began to ride his face, heavy moans and grunts leaving your throat as you seized, now attempting to sit up straight to look at him.

He had a large grin plastered on his face, a mixture of saliva and your remains coated his lips before he licked them and yanked you closer to him. His now unbuttoned shirt was being removed as he wore a wife eater underneath, you placed your hand on his chest, quick to roll it up as he removed it.

For someone within his late forties his body was to kill for, he might���ve lost a lot of things or changed on various occasions but his body and physique wasn’t one of them. You quickly looked away flushed and drew your hand away, only for him to pull it back and place it back over his torso.

“You asked for this remember? Now help me out.” He spoke, now drawing your attention back to him before unzipping his pants, his painful erection now springing free as he pulled down his underwear. You took action before he could, your cold hands dragging down before making your way to it, hearing him hiss as you pressed your thumb over his tip.

It had leaked of pre-cum and if you hadn’t known any better when you picked up your head to look at him it seemed as if he was embarrassed by it. You wasted no time before aligning yourself against it, rubbing up and down on it attempting to coat it in your slick before pressing it towards your entrance.

Quickly catching you by surprise Katsuki slammed into you, his thrusts quick and rough as you yelled at the sudden movement towards how sensitive you were from your primary orgasm. Your hands made way to his shoulders, practically hanging onto him for dear life as he bent down and whispered into your ear.

“Whatcha think? Gonna be my little work slut? Huh?” He asked, pulling back slightly as he was answered with your moans getting louder before playing with your nipples with one hand, as he placed the other one down on the desk beside you as leverage. The way you moaned several names towards him and cried underneath him gave him his answer, especially with how quickly you were nodding now. He was surprised at first seeing and listening to you, muttering the words ‘daddy’ and ‘sir’ repeatedly, it had awakened something in him he hadn’t expected.

He only chuckled at you before releasing your nipples from his grasp and pushing down on your lower abdomen, his large hand finding way over your pelvis. His smirk had now widened as a realization came to mind before he spoke again.

“Can you feel me right here? Yeah? You feel daddy inside you?” He asked with a coo, almost as if to mock you before your tears become more, nodding to him as your nails were now digging into his skin as your legs were left lifted into the air. Somehow by your surprise your left heel had still remained on your foot, your stockings now full of sweat and having a large tear in the middle between your legs.

“Please, please sir, I can’t” you whined, now changing the name you had called him prior between daddy and sir. He only persisted you could as he angled himself deeper inside of you, hissing as he felt you continue to tighten around him, your gummy walls weakening him.

It hadn’t helped that now it felt as if he was destroying you from inside out, his tip brutally brushing against your cervix with each thrust. Causing your curses and babbles to become louder and louder as he lowered his hand to play with your clit as your leg had now recoiled back. Your knee had been bent entirely and you could feel your heel brush against your bottom as he did so.

You felt yourself about to give out before being snapped back into reality as a familiar feeling brewed in your lower belly. The feeling was more intense than before as you now began whining and repeating the same actions as before. Katsuki could already tell that you were close, but he still kept his eyes locked onto your face.

You looked pretty, he thought to himself, beautiful even. Worn out and flushed beyond the point of coming back, heavy breathing and salty skin from your sweat and small hickeys that danced across your collarbones. Without any thought he leaned down to kiss you, his eyes closed as you kissed him back, his tongue asking for entrance which you obliged as he explored your mouth.

It hadn’t helped how you moaned into the kiss when you reached your orgasm, quickly making his cock twitch from inside you. His heavy pants and worships of praise and slight degrading quickly came to an end after you reached your high, quickly pulling out of you before reaching own orgasm, stroking himself shortly before his release coated your lower belly.

As you both breathed heavy and looked at the mess you had made around his office you smiled slightly at each other. You soon laid out back on his desk as you now felt tired, feeling him wipe on your lower stomach with some sort of cloth before kissing you there.

This was going to be the first of many incidents within his office as his intern, that you both knew.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

✴🕷 please do not copy, plagiarize, edit, or translate any works submitted by me. all works are originated and all other pictures used within those works are online images. thank you!! @kryptznnn

[kingsoowolves]

study break | lsh

pairing: high school best friend!Sohee x fem!reader

word count: 4.7k

a/n: I kept thinking about sohee's freckles and how best friend!Sohee would loooove to cuddle with you on study breaks and this came out. This work made me realize how much I like writing banter during smut. I'm a little crazy, me thinks.

contents: best friends to fwb to lovers. smutt and some fluff. Sohee is a teasing little shit. cheating, reader has a boyfriend, mentions of said boyfriend during sex (so trigger warning for all of that). switch!reader and switch!sohee. they are both on the last year of high school. fingering, sex without a condom, cumming inside.

for reference: I mention the Suneung in this, which is the korean exam for university entry, also known as the college scholastic ability test (CSAT).

you can also read this work on my ao3, if you'd like.

You’re in that limbo zone between light and heavy sleeping, the start of a dream forming in your mind when a firm arm encircling over your waist pulls you from it, waking you up. You sigh as you feel the stiff body press against your back next and then a face nestling in between your shoulder and neck and a nose breathing in the smell of your hair.

You pat the hand resting on your belly and ask, “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Lee Sohee’s gruff voice affirms from your neck. “Just wanna cuddle.”

You chuckle and let your body sink against his chest, your hand resting atop of his to intertwine your fingers between the space of his. “Okay, loser. Let’s cuddle.”

But despite Sohee’s statement of just wanting to cuddle, soon enough he crosses a leg over your body, glues his hips to yours and starts pressing short soft kisses on the back of your neck.

You open one of your eyes to stare at the clock on Sohee’s nightstand, the display showing it’s already near 06:30 p.m., which means it’s time to go. Then you untangle your hand from Sohee’s hand and press it against the mattress beside your pillow to move yourself up and out of it. “I should go home. My parents may be wondering where I am.”

“Wait,” Sohee whines, his arm tightening around you and keeping you on the bed with him, his sleepy face looking adorable and stuffy. “Can’t you stay for dinner? You can shoot them a text. They won’t mind.”

You crane your neck back to look into his eyes. “Sohee, I should go. We’re not going to study anymore. And you’re already–” you press your lips together and look down to where his pelvis is pressing on your ass, at the obvious bulge inside his pants. “You’re hard. And last time we said it was going to be the last time.”

Sohee smiles at you when your eyes focus back on his face and moves his hand to tuck in a strand of hair behind your ear. “We always say that. And it never is.”

He’s right. It never is. Though, the first time it happened it really was an honest mistake.

Since you’ve gotten to your last year of high school, you’ve been having study sessions with Sohee, your best friend since elementary school. Sometimes you go to the school library after your classes, but most times the study encounters happen in your home or his. A couple of months ago, when you guys were studying at his place and you were drowsy from pulling an all-nighter the day before because of the biology exam you had in that morning, Sohee suggested you take a study break to sleep it off. Just thirty minutes so you could get your brain working again.

Half an hour later, you were cuddled together on his bed with Sohee’s erection pressing up on you, much like you are right now. Back then, you made a snide remark about how he was a virgin who got hard from just being close to a girl and he counter attacked saying you were too much of a chicken to do something about it. You were never the one to back down from a challenge, so one thing led to another and… you did it.

It wasn’t planned. It was just a spur of the moment thing, a stupid mishap you could blame on your teen hormones and teen stress over your classes. After that, you both silently agreed on pretending it never happened and life went on like normal again, your friendship remaining intact. Except for the fact that when you laid on your bed late at night, you could see Sohee’s face contorting from pleasure behind your closed eyelids and hear his whiny moans of your name ringing inside your skull.

After the second incident, which happened only ten days later, you labeled it a mistake and promised each other it would never happen again. After the sixth time, you started to take the pill so you could do it raw. And on the eighth time, it didn’t happen during a study break, but when he dropped you off at your place after a day with your friends in a carnival. You still remember trying to muffle your moans to not disturb your parents upstairs while Sohee ate you out in the downstairs bathroom.

So, if your numbers are correct, right now is the fifteenth time. And Sohee is right. It never is the last one, not really.

“We can’t keep doing this, Sohee,” you state while he caresses your cheek. You try not to lean into his touch, but you fail miserably.

“Come on, baby,” he whispers, thumb rubbing under your bottom lip. “Aren’t you stressed from studying so much for the Suneung? I’m stressed, too. Let’s get rid of that stress together.”

Your eyes drop to his lips and the wistful words that are coming from them, his voice enticing you to do all the wrong things. “Sohee-ya–”

“I think you just need to be fucked nice and deep and then you’ll be all good again,” Sohee continues, descending his hand to your uniform shirt to unbutton it. “And Sion-hyung hasn’t been able to do that lately, right?”

Sion would be your boyfriend for two years now. The one who went to study computer science at Seoul National University. The one who you haven’t seen for over three months. The one who, despite meeting you for a few school breaks here and there, has been more and more distant each day, taking hours to reply to a simple text. The one who didn’t even care to fuck you the last time he saw you. That Sion. He’s just one more of the many reasons you shouldn’t be doing this.

“No,” you reply, licking your lips and gulping down your saliva as you watch Sohee’s hand wandering from your opened shirt to the bottom of your skirt. “He’s been b-b-busy.”

“I know. Poor guy, too busy to fuck his own girlfriend,” he says, the sarcasm dripping from each word. He flips your skirt up and grabs a handful of your now exposed ass, watching the way your flesh pours in between his fingers. “You must be feeling so needy, right, Y/N-ah? Because of his disregard towards you. You're lucky you got me.”

“Shit, Sohee,” you whine, moving an arm to rest on his shoulders. Your upper half is twisted up while your legs remain laid sideways, but you don’t care because Sohee starts grinding his clothed dick in between your butt cheeks and it feels amazing. “Keep doing that.”

At your request, Sohee presses himself more forcefully against you, his right hand beginning to toy with the waistband of your panties while his left one holds your face. “Yeah, Y/N-ah? You like it when I hump you like that?”

“I like it so much,” you whisper over his lips, staring into his eyes, the cute mole on his right waterline almost disappearing when he squeezes his eyes and huffs while he moves against you. “I like it better when you fuck me, though.”

Sohee’s gaze glints at your confession, at you giving up so quickly, offering yourself on a silver platter to him. That’s all he ever wanted.

“I can do that,” he says. He drops a light slap on your right butt cheek, making you jolt, more from the shock than from the force he applied, his fingers massaging over the spot right after. “You want me to fuck you, baby?”

You nod fervently, moaning when you feel Sohee’s hand finally pressing on the crotch of your underwear over your clothed cunt. “Yes, please. Please fuck me, Sohee.”

Sohee smiles at your desperate state, then leans in, muttering against your lips, “Anything for my best friend.”

You move your hand to the back of his head to crash his lips against yours. You’ve been addicted to the taste of Sohee’s mouth ever since the first kiss. You love the softness of his plump lips against yours and how his tongue is quick to invade your mouth and lick every crevice of it. You love the breathy moans he releases while kissing you and how his protruding canines dig on the flesh of your bottom lip. But you love it even more when he makes you stop the kiss with a moan because he stuck his hand inside your underwear.

“Fuck, Sohee,” you groan, hitting your head back on the pillows while he spreads your juices all over your cunt.

“Shit, you’re always so wet for me, baby,” he says while he watches his fingers playing with your pussy. “Do you also get this wet for your boyfriend?”

You bite on your lip while you tug on the hair on his nape and Sohee squeals. “Shut the fuck up.”

Sohee scoffs at you and moves his hand to the front to rub at your clit, making you support your hips in the air. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

In spite, you move your hand down the front of his body to reach for the bulge in his pants, outlining it with your open palm. Sohee moans and the circles he’s drawing on your clit falter a little as he looks at your hand palming him. “Instead of trying to rile me up, you should be doing what I asked you,” you say, undoing the button on the top of his pants and opening his fly. When you reach inside to grab his cock, he moans again, resting his forehead on your clavicle while you pump him. “Fucking me.”

Sohee rasps his teeth on your skin and moves a hand up to nudge on your shoulder, moving you until your back is against his sheets and your legs are open with him kneeled in between them. Then he moves the same hand to shove his pants and boxers down, making his cock and your hand spring free from them. His dick stands red, angry and pretty under the warm light of his bedside lamp and you lick your lips while you watch the precum falling from its tip.

“Riling you up is part of fucking you, baby,” Sohee says while his other hand keeps working on your cunt, his fingers slipping down to prod at your hole. “Ever heard about foreplay? Or your boyfriend never cared to get you ready before putting it in?”

“Quite the opposite,” you counter, closing your fist tighter around his length and fastening your pace to see the way he closes his eyes and opens his mouth, trying so hard to contain his sounds. “He never needed this much time to get me there.”

Sohee puffs air from his lips and smiles smugly at you, bending down at the waist to press his chest against yours. “As if that fucker could ever get you this soaked in so little time,” he spits, serious eyes set deeply on yours and two of his fingers finally inserting inside you, coaxing a moan of his name from your lips. “Or have you moaning his name like that,” he continues, massaging your walls with hard and measured swipes of his fingers. “Or get you to plead–”

“Fuck me, Sohee, please,” you groan out, an unknown source forcing the words out of your mouth, probably propelled by Sohee’s digits inside of you.

Sohee’s wicked smile grows even more and he rests his forehead against yours. “Exactly, baby, exactly that.”

Once he’s satisfied that he made his point, Sohee tugs the waistband of your underwear down until it’s off your body, throwing it somewhere on his room floor. He gets back to you instantly and you spread your legs to give him space while he settles above you, your hands on your knees, waiting for his next move. He presses his forearms beside your head and brushes hair out of your face whilst his cock nudges the inside of your thigh and you move a hand down to grab it.

“Condom or no condom?” Sohee asks and you look at his eyes for a brief moment before moving your gaze back to the image of your hand moving up and down his length leisurely.

“I’m still on the pill,” you say, your peripheral vision catching how Sohee tries so hard to hide his smile on the curve of his elbow.

Then he’s also sliding a hand down to grip at the root of his dick and you let go of it just as he puts it over your pussy, his tip brushing against your slippery folds. “Fuck, you already feel so good like this,” he says, breath fanning your cheeks.

“You always feel good, Sohee-ya,” you admit back and Sohee gazes at your eyes when he finally slips inside of you.

You both moan in unison at the feeling and Sohee stills when he’s buried to the hilt, a hand gripping your hip while the other presses down on the mattress beside your head. He lets himself feel your drenched warm walls enveloping him for a moment. You scratch your nails at his lower back and clasp your free hand around his wrist, wrapping your legs around his waist to move him impossibly deeper inside of you and rutting your hips against his to feel pressure on your clit.

You still maintain eye contact through it all and once Sohee starts to move his hips backwards and forwards, he grabs your hand that’s around his wrist and pins it beside your head, interlacing his fingers with yours. You stretch your head upwards slightly and that’s enough to have him leaning down to kiss you. It’s a messy kiss full of spit, teeth and tongue, but with him thrusting deep and slow inside of you and his hand connected to yours, it means everything.

Then a particular hard thrust has you biting his lip and whining. And just like that the moment is gone and Sohee is back to teasing mode, his eyes glinting with mischief when he asks next, “Do you let him hit it raw, too?”

“God, you yap too much,” you exclaim, moving your hands to shove at his shoulders until he’s on his back, his cock slipping out of you. You climb on top of him and put it in again, then clasp your hands over his on both sides of his head, immobilizing him. “Stop ruining the mood.”

You watch Sohee visibly weakening from the change in position, his eyes droopy and his teeth sinking on his bottom lip. This way he hits a new angle inside of you that always makes your eyes roll to the back of your head, but you set a serious gaze down his face while rolling your hips into his and he stutters out a hoarse moan that inflates your ego.

“Fuck, I love it when you get on top,” he says, his eyes focusing on how the ends of your pleated skirt scrape his lower abdomen every time you move, covering the view of his cock inside you.

“Then shut the fuck up and take it,” you reply, snapping your hips harder over him and looking at how he scrunches up his eyes and opens his mouth in a groan.

Seeing Sohee like this, under you and completely at your mercy, with pink cheeks, heat blooming at his neck and his mouth closed – if not for the moans and whispers of your name he occasionally releases –, he’s never looked more beautiful. Not that you’d ever tell him that. So you concentrate on the moles that decorate his pretty face and start riding him quicker and sharper, applying more force into the palm of his hands and dropping moans of your own.

After a while, Sohee opens his eyes to look down at your skirt again and you feel him trying to loosen one of his hands from your hold. But he always gets so powerless when he’s under you that he doesn’t have the strength to do it and he ends up just pressing his blunt nails on the back of your hands. In turn, you press your knees tighter around his waist and drop some of your weight into the palm of your hands, keeping him still.

“Wanna see it,” he whines, his pleading eyes looking from the bottom of your skirt to your eyes and back again. “Please, baby–”

“No, you don’t deserve it,” you reply sternly and he whines again.

Sohee being sullen and subby is really a sight to see. There’s no resemblance of the man that teased you and made you mad a few minutes ago. Right now, there’s only a whiny pretty boy being confined below your body, his bottom lip jutted out as he tries to plant his feet to the mattress, trashing his legs when he isn’t able to do it.

He looks truly majestic.

“Quit moving around,” you command before bending down to kiss his puffy red lips.

You kiss him slowly, accommodating his lips between yours and then stroking them with your tongue until you lick your way inside his mouth. You take your time with it, savoring the taste of Sohee and swallowing all of his throaty sobs, releasing one of his hands so you can move your palm to his face, tipping his head back so you can kiss him better. Sohee whines one more time and you think you’ll never get tired of the sound of it whilst you feel his hand creeping down to your ass, his fingers pressing into your flesh when he starts to help your flow, moving you up and down his shaft.

Once you’re done tasting his mouth, you move your lips to his cheek, kissing every mole on his cheeks and the one on his waterline, your hand going down to unbutton his uniform shirt so you can press your mouth to the beauty spots on his clavicle and shoulders next. When you start adding your teeth into it, Sohee becomes restless, finally being able to get rid of your firm hold so he can press his fingers on both sides of your waist and buck his hips up to meet the roll of yours.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he says while you nip at his pulse point. “If you keep doing that, you’ll make me cum.”

You snicker at him and pull back to look at his face, one hand pressing on his cheek and another on the collar of his shirt. “You like it when I kiss you, pretty boy?”

“Yeah,” he breathes out, his gaze stuck to your lips. “I like it. I like– I like you.”

Sohee kisses you then and you push his confession to the back of your mind while you taste his desperation on your tongue and ride him faster. When he releases a groan that halts the kiss, you sit up and grab his hand on yours, moving them to the bottom of your skirt. He quickly takes the hint and bunches the fabric up, securing it around your hips so he can watch where you two are connected.

“That’s what you wanted to see, Sohee-ya?” You ask, making a show of decreasing your movements and rolling your hips slowly, the sound of your cunt squelching around his cock filing both of your ears.

“Yes, fuck,” he moans, griding up and into you to get you to speed up again. “You look amazing taking my cock like this, baby. You make me so crazy, fuck.”

“Your cock feels so good inside me, Sohee,” you say, leaning forward slightly to feel his pubic bone press on your clit. “God, I hate you so much.”

He smirks, bucking up with a sharp thrust that has you moaning and weakening in his hands. “No, you don’t.”

No, you don’t. You don’t hate him, not at all. And that’s the damn problem.

You’re already tired and slowing down, your back aching and your thighs burning. So when you suggest to change positions again, Sohee has you pressed under him a beat later, his body crowding yours to the mattress as he drops kisses on your face and chest, his dick sliding in and out of you in a quick rhythm. He tugs down the cups of your bra enough to attach his mouth to one of your nipples and your back arches off the bed as you feel him lavish your hot skin, his hand rubbing around your other nipple and then pinching it.

You feel you're almost there, the flames spreading from the tip of your toes and fingers to your wrists and ankles, your breathing coming ragged as your brain gets mushy, your cunt starting to convulse around Sohee’s dick. 

“Sohee-ya,” you whimper, locking your ankles over his ass and tugging at his hair.

Sohee sucks on your nipple one more time and gazes up at you. “You’re close, Y/N-ie?”

You nod, stretching your neck and squeezing your eyes, your hands becoming edgy on his shoulders, fingers trembling. “Gettin’ close.”

“Hmmm yeah,” he groans, rearing back slightly to once more gaze at the way his cock spreads your pussy open and how it gushes around him. “Feels so good, right? It’s like your cunt was made to take my cock, baby.”

You nod again and your pelvis starts to shoot up in time with his movements, your bottom lip trapped behind your front teeth. “Yes, made for you.”

Sohee glances up at your words and then bends down again to rest his forehead against yours, an elated look taking over his features whilst he cups your face with one hand and slides the other to rub at your clit. “Made for me, baby.”

You breathe deeply while he starts the little revolutions on your clit, and you try to contain the string of moans that threaten to get out of you. Sohee still has his stupid uniform shirt with his stupid nametag pinched to it and every time he moves, it comes to your line of vision, making you acknowledge over and over again who’s fucking you, the three syllables of his name taunting you.

One snap of his hips and the nametag is on your eyes. Lee Sohee.

Another snap. Lee Sohee.

A third snap. Lee Sohee.

A fourth one. Lee Sohee.

The fifth one. Lee Sohee.

You grit your teeth together and cover the thing with your hand, closing your eyes while you press it into Sohee’s chest, hoping the pin attached to the back of it digs on his skin. However, you begin to feel the letters of his nametag on your palm, branding your skin repeatedly, still in the same pattern of his cock sliding inside you and his hand drawing circles on your clit.

Lee Sohee.

Lee Sohee.

Lee Sohee.

Lee Sohee. Lee Sohee. Lee Sohee. Lee Sohee. Lee Sohee. Lee Soh–

“You should break up with him,” Sohee says suddenly, breaking you from your trance.

You snap your eyes open to see his irises close to yours, giving him a confused look with a scrunch of your eyebrows. “What?”

“Break up with him,” he repeats. “If you were mine, I’d fuck you like this every day. I’d never neglect you like he does.”

You shake your head slightly, your sanity starting to slip away from you because of his cock, his hand and his words. “Sohee–”

“I’m serious, Y/N,” he says, pressing harder into your nub and thrusting faster deep inside you, the sound of your skin continuously slapping together ringing on your ears, the walls of your cunt contracting. “Be mine. I want you to be my girl.”

You shake your head again whilst his words register inside your mind. “No, you’re just saying that because you’re about to c–”

“I’m saying it because I mean it,” he presses on. “I love you, Y/N. Please be my girlfriend.”

It’s hard to think clearly with Sohee’s cock hitting the spongy spot inside you and your impending orgasm licking at your sides, making you flex your thighs and your brain becoming foggy. But the earnestness dripping from Sohee’s eyes and the way your heart swells and constricts inside your chest with every word out of his mouth gives you the answer you’ve known for so long. You just chose to hide it from yourself and from him.

You love him just as much. Maybe even more.

“Yeah, okay,” you stutter out and Sohee smiles, his eyes turning into beautiful crescent moons you feel the need to kiss. “I’ll be your girlfriend, Sohee.”

He seals your promise with a kiss, then pulls back to whisper against your lips, “Then cum on my cock, my pretty girlfriend.”

You feel some sort of shame burning on the apple of your cheeks that his words are enough to make you snap. But it is soon washed over by the intensity of your orgasm, how it quickly trickles to all of your limbs and makes you grind up harder and faster into Sohee’s dick and hand, how it so powerfully cascades down on you until you’re nothing but a moaning mess getting railed by your new boyfriend.

When you come back from it, Sohee is kissing your face and his cock is twitching inside you and you know he’s getting there, too.

“You look so beautiful falling down for me, baby,” he mutters, thumbs skimming on your cheeks. “I’m gonna cum for you, too, okay? Where should I?”

“Inside,” you request, locking your arms around his neck to keep his face close to yours. “Mark me as yours, Sohee-ya.”

“Oh, fuck,” he exclaims, fucking you even faster, his hips stuttering with every hit of his tip on your g-spot, his face falling to your neck and his whines getting muffled by your skin. “You’re mine, baby.”

It doesn’t take long. Only a few more thrusts of his hips and he’s there, spilling hot cum inside of you that makes you moan with him. He keeps moving, though, getting you both overstimulated in the process, and only when you press a thumb hard on his clavicle, he whines in fake pain and stops, pulling out and letting his limp body fall beside you.

You look at the fan spinning in Sohee’s bedroom ceiling and wait for your breathing to slow down, thinking about what you just did. Then you start to feel your bra digging on your skin uncomfortably and you pull the cups back to their place again, adjusting it on your chest. When you look to the side, Sohee already has his dick inside his boxers and pants again, his fly still open, and he’s shifting closer to you to snuggle. He crosses an arm over your front, his hand closing around your upper arm on the other side and his lips dropping a kiss to your temple.

You sigh into his hold and move your head to look into his eyes. “Sohee-ya,” you whisper.

He looks tired in his post orgasm bliss, his eyes half-away closed already. “Yeah?”

You drop a kiss to his nose and say it. “I love you, too.”

Sohee smiles and pecks your lips languidly, his mouth not leaving yours for a few seconds. “I know,” he says when he pulls back.

His hand then slides down from your arm to in between your legs, his fingers finding the moistness of you and his cum there. You whine out at the feeling of him touching your abused cunt.

“Fuck, baby,” he says, sitting up to look at it. You sit up, too, and watch as his eyes become hazy because of the way your fluids are mixed together. “God, you look beautiful with my cum slipping out of you.”

You chuckle at him. “You’re such a pervert.”

Sohee looks at you with a glint in his eyes and a wicked smile on his lips, showing off his cute canines. “Should I take a picture of it and send it to Sion-hyung to make it easier for you?”

You slap his right shoulder with your full force and he cries pitifully. “Don’t be an ass. I already said I’ll break up with him.”

You get up, flicking your skirt down to cover the smudge of Sohee’s remnants on your thighs and catching your panties by the foot of his bed. You put them on and feel how the liquid soaks through them and stains them. Then you start to button your shirt back.

“Wait,” Sohee grumbles, moving down to sit at the bottom of his bed and pawing at your waist until you stand in between his legs. He hugs you and looks up, resting his chin on your stomach. “You’re already going home?”

“Yeah.” You slip the last button inside its case and straighten the collar of your shirt. “I told you, my parents are probably searching for me.” Then you hold Sohee’s face and kiss the four moles on his cheek before dropping your mouth to his for one last kiss. “Besides, our study break is over, loser.”

If you liked this work, please consider sharing your thoughts with me on the replies or on my ask box. thanks for reading! 🧡

[puffins-muffins]

Control - The Beginning

Pairing: Jax Teller x Female!Reader Word Count: 7,300 Summary: You return to your hometown as a successful defense attorney to represent SAMCRO President Jax Teller, the former love of your life, in a murder trial. Years after your painful breakup, unresolved feelings resurface, and the lines between your professional duty and personal desires blur. Warnings: 18+ only please, cursing, cheating, mentions of parental death. A/N: So, this is my first Jax/SOA AU-ish fic. This establishes Jax & Reader's beginnings as teens/young adults. Feedback is so greatly appreciated! Beta'd by just myself, all mistakes are my own. I am also new to posting like this so apologies now if I've missed anything. We'll learn as we go. Please be kind.

Jax Teller leaned against his bike in the Charming High School parking lot, his leather kutte draped over his broad shoulders. With a lean, muscular build, he exuded an aura of danger on two wheels. His sandy blonde hair was a tousled mess, falling just below his ears and framing his face in a way that highlighted his rebellious charm. One flash of his boyish, crooked grin sent girls swooning, but when you walked past, you didn’t even glance his way.

Curiosity piqued, Jax straightened up. “Hey,” he called, his voice smooth yet laced with cocky confidence. “You too good to say hi?”

You turned your head slightly, raising an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“I’m Jax Teller.” He starts. “You’re Jimmy’s daughter, aren’t you?” his eyes narrowing slightly as recognition dawned. “I saw you at the clubhouse a few weeks ago when your old man patched into our charter.”

You shrugged, barely reacting. “Yeah, that’s me. So what?”

Jax smirked, intrigued by how unimpressed you seemed. “Just surprised I haven’t seen you around more,” he said, stepping a little closer. “You’re not into the whole MC thing?”

You quickly glanced him up and down, a playful glint in your eye. “Not really my scene.” 

Jax tilted his head, genuinely interested. “That why you won’t give me the time of day, huh?”

You shrugged again, a smirk creeping onto your lips. “Maybe you’re just not as charming as you think you are.”

His grin widened. Most girls would’ve melted under his attention, but you? You gave as good as you got. He liked that. “You might be right, but that’s not going to stop me from trying, darlin’,” he replied, adding a flirtatious wink. “Can I take you somewhere?” he asked, gesturing toward his bike.

You scoffed, glancing down at his bike and then back at him, your tone teasing. “With you? On that? No thanks. I only ride with my dad.”

“Alright, Pep, another time then,” he said, his tone light and flirtatious, making you bite back a smile.

“Pep?” you asked, confusion furrowing your brow. 

“Pepper,” he explained, grinning widely. “You’re kind of spicy, and I like that. I think that nickname suits you.”

After rejecting his ride, he hopped on his bike, strapping on his helmet, ready to leave. “We’ll see how long it takes before you’re begging me to give you a ride.” he said, his voice dripping with innuendo. 

You flashed him a smirk, determination in your eyes. Cool, calm exterior. “Oh, don’t hold your breath, Teller.”

But inside, a rush of conflicting emotions surged through you. His words caused your stomach to flip. The easy banter was just a front; beneath it lay the undeniable pull between you, and you felt it tugging at your heart. As you watched him take off, you couldn’t shake the feeling that you’d be craving that ride sooner than you’d like to admit. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After that first encounter, it was like a slow, steady burn between you and Jax. At first, you made it a point to keep your distance, though it was impossible to ignore the magnetism between you. He’d always find an excuse to talk to you in the halls, leaning against lockers like he owned the damn place. You’d roll your eyes, give him sass, but there was always that spark — the kind that lit up the air around you both.

Then came the day he convinced you to ride with him. He pulled up to your house one Saturday afternoon, engine rumbling beneath him, and shot you that devil-may-care grin. “C’mon, Pep. You’ve been avoiding this long enough.”

You narrowed your eyes at him, one hand on your hip. “I told you, I don’t do rides, Teller.”

But there was a challenge in your voice, and Jax heard it loud and clear. He just revved the engine, making it purr, his gaze never leaving yours. God, he was cute. “One ride with me. You don’t like it; I’ll never ask again. Please.”

You didn’t respond right away, but the way your heart thumped in your chest betrayed you. Something about Jax made you want to push your own limits, and this was no different. Relenting, you grabbed the helmet he offered and swung your leg over the bike behind him, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist. His body was warm and solid beneath your hands, and you could feel his heartbeat through his leather.

The bike roared to life, and before you knew it, you were speeding down the back roads outside town. Wind whipped through your hair, the world a blur of color as the adrenaline pumped through your veins. Every time Jax took a sharp turn, your grip on him tightened, but soon you weren’t holding on out of fear, you were holding on because you didn’t want to let go. The rumble of the engine, the feel of the wind, the pure freedom - it was intoxicating. And the way Jax handled the bike, confident and effortless, only added to the rush.

He’d glance back at you every now and then, smirking when he saw you weren’t just holding on anymore; you were leaning into it, craving more of that wild thrill. And with every ride, it became more than just adrenaline. It was the way he made you feel when you were with him, completely invincible, like nothing in the world could touch you.

The weeks turned into months, and a montage of memories built up between you two. Sneaking out at night, the hum of his bike your only soundtrack as you wrapped yourself around him, laughing into the wind. Bonfires by the old quarry, where he’d pull you close with that cocky grin, his touch always gentle with you.  Late-night rides to nowhere, where you’d hold him a little tighter, whispering sarcastic comebacks into his ear even as your heart betrayed you, racing faster with every mile.

Then there were those unexpected moments, the quiet ones that caught you off guard. Like when you found yourselves perched on the roof of Teller-Morrow, cocooned in your own little world. In those instances, a different side of Jax emerged—one that was introspective and thoughtful. He would often pull out a notebook, jotting down his thoughts and feelings, exposing a vulnerability that stood in stark contrast to his tough exterior. As he lit a cigarette, you would lean into him, savoring the warmth radiating from his body. You’d tease him playfully, the banter punctuated by that same smile tugging at the corners of your lips. And when you thought he wasn’t paying attention, your gaze would linger on him just a little too long. 

It wasn’t long before you realized something had shifted. The thrill of the ride was more than just the speed and adrenaline. It was the way Jax’s hand would find yours when you weren’t paying attention, the way he’d look at you like you were the only thing that mattered. It was the sound of his laughter, the way his eyes softened when he saw you, the fire and sass he loved to tease but never tried to tame.

One night, after a long ride along the coast, the two of you sat by the edge of the cliff, the ocean crashing beneath you. Jax was beside you, leaning back on his hands, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “You know,” he said after a long stretch of silence, his voice low, “I didn’t think you’d ever actually give in.”

You turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Give in to what?”

He grinned, that playful glint in his eyes. “To this. To riding with me. To… us.”

For a moment, you just looked at him, the sunset painting his features in warm, golden light. You couldn’t deny it anymore. The exhilaration wasn’t just from the rides, it was from him. 

“I guess you’re not the worst company,” you admitted, rolling your eyes even as you leaned into him, your head resting against his shoulder.

He chuckled softly, his arm slipping around your waist, pulling you closer. “Yeah, well, you’re my Pep. No one else like you.”

And that’s when you knew you had fallen, not just for the rides, but for the boy who had made you feel alive in ways you hadn’t expected. The boy who saw through your sarcasm, who called you Pepper because he liked your fire, and who made your heart race faster than any ride ever could.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Senior year was a whirlwind. While you were focused on your classes and keeping up with your honor roll status, Jax was slipping further away from school. He barely showed up anymore, spending most of his time at the garage or with the club. There were days when you’d catch glimpses of him, riding in with Opie, that familiar roar of their bikes, the MC patch on his back more of a constant presence than his textbooks.

You had always known Jax was different, more interested in bikes and the MC life than anything school had to offer. But now, it felt like he was already halfway out the door while you were still trying to figure out where the future would take you.

The contrast between the two of you was glaring. You were getting acceptance letters from universities across the country, each one congratulating you on your achievements. It felt surreal, but there was this gnawing ache every time you thought about leaving Charming — leaving him. You had spent the last couple of years with Jax as your constant. The idea of being somewhere without him felt like cutting away a part of yourself.

One afternoon, you met Jax at the garage after school, where he was elbow-deep in the engine of a Harley. He looked up when he heard you approach, wiping his hands on a rag, that familiar grin stretching across his face. “Hey, Pep,” he called, dropping the rag and walking toward you, pulling you in for a quick kiss. “How was your day? Ace another test?”

You rolled your eyes with a smile, nudging him playfully. “Actually, yeah. I got into Berkeley.”

Jax’s face lit up with pride. “Damn, look at you. That’s huge, babe.” He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, squeezing you affectionately.

You leaned into him, inhaling the familiar mix of leather, grease, and smoke. “Yeah… but it’s kinda far, Jax. And I don’t know if I want to go that far. I was thinking maybe San Fran or even Fresno. Somewhere closer.”

Jax looked at you, brow furrowing a bit as he leaned against the workbench. “You’re gonna throw away Berkeley for Charming? Why?”

You shifted, feeling the weight of your answer before you even said it. “Because of you,” you admitted, voice soft but steady. “I don’t want to be miles away from you, from everything I know, my dad. I want to study law, stay close, and—”

He cut you off with a kiss, pulling you closer, his hand resting at the back of your neck. When he pulled away, his eyes were soft but conflicted. “You’re too good for this place. You’ve got this big, bright future ahead of you, and I don’t want to be a reason you hold yourself back.”

You searched his face, trying to understand where this was coming from. “You’re not holding me back, Jax. I want to be near you. Law school, everything — I can do that here.”

He let out a long breath, running a hand through his long hair. “I don’t have a plan. Shit, I’m barely gonna graduate. I’ll probably work at the garage, help with the club… I don’t know where I’ll end up, but it’s not gonna be college, that’s for sure.”

You grabbed his hand, intertwining your fingers with his. “I don’t care about that. I care about you. You don’t have to have some perfect plan. We’ve got time to figure things out.”

Jax smiled softly, but there was something behind it, a flicker of doubt, maybe even fear. He pulled you close, resting his forehead against yours. “You deserve more than just ‘figuring it out.’ You deserve everything. And I don’t know if I can give you that.”

You held his face in your hands, making him look at you. “You’ve always been enough for me, Jax. Always. I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me to.”

Jax only kissed you, this time slower, deeper, like he was holding on to something he was afraid to lose. When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours, his voice barely a whisper. “I could never tell you to go. I just… I don’t want to hold you back.”

You kissed him back softly, the noise of the garage fading into the background. “You won’t,” you promised.

But even as you said it, there was a part of you that knew things would never be that simple, not with the club, not with the way Jax was already tied to a world that didn’t leave room for easy choices. Still, in that moment, with his arms wrapped around you and the world at your feet, you believed that somehow, you could make it work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Two years into undergrad and everything felt different. The late-night rides and stolen moments that used to bring you and Jax together now seemed like distant memories. You were buried in textbooks and case studies, drowning in deadlines and long hours at your internship. The law classes were brutal and balancing your workload with everything else left you running on fumes. You’d chosen a college about an hour outside of Charming, far enough to give you space but close enough to keep Jax in your life.

But even with that proximity, things were… different. The once easy connection between you and Jax felt strained, pulled thin under the weight of time, distance, and the lives you were both living now.

You were sitting at a small table in a coffee shop near your campus, your laptop open and legal notes scattered everywhere. Your phone buzzed, a text from Jax lighting up the screen. Hey, been trying to call. Busy?

You stared at the message for a moment, guilt swirling in your chest. You had seen the missed calls earlier, but your study group had gone long, and then there was work. You typed out a quick reply: Yeah, sorry. Studying. You okay?

His response came fast. Yeah, just haven’t seen you in a while. Miss you.

That simple sentence hit harder than you expected. You missed him too, desperately. Lately, it felt like missing him was all you did. You weren’t the same girl who had spent nights riding on the back of his bike, laughing into the wind. Now, you were someone constantly pulled in a dozen directions, and Jax was being swallowed up by the club. He was taking on more responsibilities with the Sons, more rides, more late nights. And you knew what came with that lifestyle - the danger, the temptations. You’d heard about other women. Nothing concrete, but the rumors alone were enough to keep you awake at night.

You texted back, I miss you too. Maybe I can come by tomorrow?

Yeah. I’ll be at the clubhouse. Be good to see you.

The next day, you drove back to Charming, your stomach knotted with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. You parked outside the clubhouse, a place that used to feel like a second home, but now felt distant — like you didn’t quite belong in Jax’s world anymore. You walked inside and immediately saw him at the bar, his back turned as he talked with Opie.

“Hey,” you called, and he turned, that familiar smile lighting up his face as he saw you.

“Hey yourself!”  he said, walking over to wrap his arms around you, a tender kiss placed on your lips. The feel of him, solid and warm, instantly melted some of the tension inside you. For a moment, it felt like everything could be okay, like you were still those two kids who fell in love years ago. But as soon as he pulled away, reality slipped back in.

He led you back to his clubhouse room. Both of you sitting on the bed, his hand resting on your leg as if to anchor you both. You made small talk, catching up on each other’s lives, but the conversation felt stilted. There were gaps now, things unsaid between you, like the life he was leading in the club, the hours he spent with them, and the stories you heard but never wanted to ask about.

“School’s killing me,” you admitted. “I barely have time to breathe, let alone come back here. It’s just... a lot.”

Jax nodded, but you could see the distance in his eyes, the frustration he was trying to mask. “Yeah, you’ve been busy. I get it.”

You sighed, looking into his eyes. “Do you? Because it feels like… I don’t know, like we’re both living these separate lives. When’s the last time we spent more than an hour together?” There was always this heightened tension between you two now.

Jax’s jaw clenched, and he leaned back, rubbing a hand over his face. “I know, I know. But it’s not just you. I’ve got a lot going on too, with the garage, the club and everything…” he trails off.

“And what does ‘everything’ include?” you asked, your voice quieter, a trace of the hurt you’d been holding back slipping through.

He looked at you for a long moment, eyes shadowed with a mix of guilt and defensiveness. “What are you asking?”

You hesitated. This was the conversation you’d both been avoiding, but you couldn’t pretend anymore. “I’m asking if there’s someone else, Jax. I’m asking if the club has taken more than just your time.”

His expression hardened, but there was a flicker of something else beneath it - regret, maybe. “There’s no one else, Pep. Don’t be ridiculous.” He snapped. “But this life… it’s not easy. And you’re not here as much. I’m not saying that’s your fault, but it’s how it is.”

You nodded, blinking back the sting in your eyes. “Yeah, I get it. You’re right. We’re both busy, and it’s hard. But we’re growing apart, Jax. And I don’t know how to fix that.”

He reached for your hand, squeezing it gently. “I don’t want to lose you. But I don’t know how to fix it either.”

There it was — the raw truth neither of you had said out loud until now. You still loved each other, deeply, but it was like trying to hold on to something that kept slipping through your fingers. The connection that had once felt so unbreakable was fraying at the edges, and neither of you knew if you could tie it back together.

You leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder, his arm wrapping around you like it always had. For now, in this moment, you could pretend that everything was okay. But deep down, you both knew that things had changed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another year had passed, and your relationship with Jax was hanging by a thread. Between the LSAT’s, your paralegal job, law school applications, you were constantly thinking about the future. A part of you still wanted that future to include Jax, despite all the cracks.

The tension between you two had been building for months. He’d invited you to a big MC party, but things between you were so fragile that you weren’t sure if going was the best thing. The law firm you worked for was in the middle of a huge case and you didn’t think you would be able to get away from the piles of research you had in front of you. Just as you were grappling with whether to go, your phone buzzed, Jax’s name lighting up across your screen.

Hey Pep, you coming to see me, or what? ;)

The pull between duty and heartache twisted in your chest. The case you were working on was critical, your future in law depended on it, and yet, a part of you longed to see him, to feel connected again. But you couldn’t ignore the creeping sense that you no longer fit in his world. The MC lifestyle felt more alien with every passing day.

Your fingers hovered over the keyboard. I’m slammed with work right now… not sure if I can make it.

The moment the message left your screen, a wave of anxiety hit you. Would he be disappointed? Relieved? Part of you wanted him to push back, to make you feel like you still mattered enough for him to want you there.

A few seconds passed, then your phone buzzed again. His response appeared almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for your message just as eagerly.

You’re always slammed with work. But this is important to me. Come on, it’s just one night. I miss you.

Your heart clenched. He was good at that, making you feel guilty for choosing anything that wasn’t him or the MC. You read the message repeatedly, feeling the weight of his words.

"I miss you."

It was what you wanted to hear, but at the same time, it left you more torn than before. School, the case, it all seemed so distant now. Your mind flickered back to the last time you'd seen him, the strained goodbye, the unsaid things between you two. Maybe one night wouldn't change anything, but what if it did?

The screen dimmed as your phone idled, but you couldn't take your eyes off the words, wondering if you could keep walking this fine line between your past and your future.

You typed out ‘I'll try’ and stared at it for a long moment, your thumb hovering over the send button. It felt like a compromise, a way to keep one foot in each world without fully committing to either. But as you sent it, a pit formed in your stomach. You knew deep down that it wasn’t just about this one night—it was about all the nights before and all the ones that could come after.

Your phone buzzed again almost immediately.

That's my girl. I’ll be waiting for you.

His words sent a familiar warmth through you, but there was something bittersweet about it too. His girl. You weren’t sure if you even belonged to him anymore. Jax had a way of making you feel like nothing had changed, like the years apart hadn’t put a canyon between who you were and who you’d both become.

You sighed, glancing at the stack of case files on your desk. The logical part of you said you should stay, focus on the case. But another part, the one that still longed for the way things used to be, pulled you towards him. Like always.

You decided to work for another hour, hoping the mountain of research would drown out the thoughts of Jax and then head to the party. But time slipped away from you and when you finally glanced at the clock, a surge of panic shot through you. You were hours behind. Cursing under your breath, you threw everything into your bag and bolted out of your dorm.

The drive to Charming was long and familiar, each mile pulling you back to a life you’d tried so hard to leave behind. You hadn’t heard from him; you knew you were hours later than you planned, and he probably thought you weren’t coming. You decided to surprise him at this point, to see his face when you showed up after all. Maybe you could feel like you still belonged in his world, even if only for one night.

The roar of motorcycles echoed faintly in the distance, a sound you knew all too well. You parked a little way down from the clubhouse, your heart hammering in your chest as you walked toward the sounds of the party.

The parking lot was crowded with bikes, the familiar smell of leather and gasoline hitting you as you approached the entrance. The music was loud, people spilled out from the doors, laughing and drinking. You weaved through them, feeling the weight of old eyes on you, some curious, others familiar.

As you stepped inside, the chaos of the party washed over you. It was everything you remembered - loud, wild, and unapologetically SAMCRO. You scanned the room, looking for him, the anticipation of seeing him again made your heart race.

As you navigated through the crowded room, the air thick with smoke, alcohol, and the unmistakable roar of laughter and loud voices, you couldn't help but notice the women, Crow-eaters as they were not so affectionately referred as, draped over several members. They were scantily clad, their bodies pressed close to the bikers, and you felt the sharp sting of being out of place. Their boldness, their ease in this world, it was a stark contrast to the careful, controlled way you lived your life now.

You tugged at the hem of your jacket, suddenly hyper-aware of the more conservative clothes you wore and the way you didn’t fit in. You were polished, buttoned-up, and in a crowd like this, it made you feel like an outsider. The club girls knew their place, their roles in the MC hierarchy clear, but you used to think you belonged here. Now it felt foreign, like you were intruding on a life that had moved on without you. You weren’t one of them, and as much as you tried to pretend this night was about reconnecting with Jax, the reality was painfully obvious. This just wasn’t your world.

When you finally spotted him, it wasn’t the reunion you imagined. There he was, in the corner, alone with another girl, a girl too close for comfort. She was laughing, her hand on his chest, and his expression wasn’t one of protest.

Your stomach dropped. You’d heard rumors swirling around for a while, whispers you hadn’t wanted to believe, but this? This was undeniable.

You stormed over, heart pounding. “What the hell, Jax?”

He looked up, startled and shocked, and you saw the guilt flash across his face. The girl backed off immediately, sensing the tension, but it was too late. The damage was done.

“Pep, wait—” he started, but you weren’t having it.

“Wait for what? For you to finish whatever this is?” You could hear the anger and hurt in your voice, and it took everything not to lose it right there in front of everyone.

Jax stood, frustration mixing with his own guilt. “Shit, Babe - It’s not what it looks like. She’s no one, I swear—”

“Then why was she all over you?” You could feel your hands trembling, the betrayal sharp in your chest. “Do you even care anymore, Jax? Or am I just holding on to something that doesn’t exist?”

He stepped closer, grabbing your arm gently. “Of course I care. Pep, you know I love you and I’m not screwing around.”

You wanted to believe him, but that image of him with her was now burned into your mind. Still, as you stared into his eyes, the same eyes that had looked at you with love for years, you found yourself softening. Maybe it was out of habit, maybe it was out of hope, but you nodded, letting out a shaky breath, not wanting to do this with an audience. “Jax, this can’t happen again.”

He nodded quickly, pulling you into his arms. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll do better. I swear.”

After the confrontation, he had come to you, apologizing, trying to explain away the situation as a misunderstanding, a mistake. And in that moment, you wanted so badly to believe him, to let the history between you two be enough to erase the pain of what you’d seen.

You stayed and he held you close that night, whispering promises that felt hollow. His arms around you were familiar, but they no longer felt like home. You could feel the space between you two, even as he lay beside you, his breath steady as he fell asleep.

You stared at the ceiling, your mind racing. Everything about this night, this life was a far cry from what you had imagined your future would look like. It didn’t matter how many times he apologized or promised to change. Something between you had shifted, and no amount of love was going to fix it. You knew deep down, as you lay there in the dark, that this had to be the end.

It wasn’t just about the girl he flirted with or the way he had laughed with her like you didn’t exist. It was about the path you were on, the future you were fighting for. It was about who Jax had become and who you had grown into. Jax had chosen this life, and in exchange, never fully choosing you. The club would always come first, and that realization cut deeper than anything else.

Your heart felt heavy as you got dressed quietly, careful not to wake him. The thought of leaving without saying goodbye tore at you, but you knew this had to be done. You had to walk away before the weight of staying crushed you.

You leaned down, placing a soft kiss on his lips, your hand resting on the side of his face, memorizing the feel of him one last time. His lips moved slightly under yours, and for a moment, you thought he might wake, but he didn’t. Part of you was relieved, saying goodbye right now would have been too hard.

Standing over him, you took a deep breath, knowing this might be the last time you’d ever see him like this, your Jax - peaceful, vulnerable. Your eyes lingered on him before you turned and walked out of the room, your heart breaking with every step.

The drive out of Charming felt endless, every mile putting more distance between you and the life you once knew. It gutted you to leave him behind, but deep down, you knew it was the only way to save yourself. You had outgrown this world, and it was time to let go of the one person you thought you’d never lose. As you merged onto the highway, the sun barely beginning to rise, you wiped away the tears that had silently fallen. This was the end, and even though it hurt like hell, you knew it was the right choice.

It had been a few weeks since that night and the heaviness in your heart had only deepened. You spent countless hours wrestling with the decision to end things with Jax. The memories of laughter and love felt like distant echoes, overshadowed by the harsh reality of your lives drifting apart. Tonight, you’d finally decided you were going to have the talk - the one that would sever the last ties binding you to him.

As you gathered your things, the clutter of books and notes on your desk only reminded you of the life you were trying to build apart from him. The stack of law books felt like a barrier, protecting you from the emotional storm you knew was about to hit. You took a deep breath, steeling yourself for the words you would say.

Just as you were about to walk out, a firm knock echoed through your small dorm. You paused, quizzical. You weren’t expecting anyone, and a twinge of anxiety twisted in your stomach.

“Hey,” came the gruff voice from the other side, and your heart dropped. It was Jax.

You opened the door, and your breath caught in your throat at the sight of him. He looked pale, his normally vibrant eyes clouded with something heavy. His usual confident demeanor was replaced by an unsettling vulnerability, and it sent a jolt of panic through you.

“Jax? What’s wrong?”

He stepped inside, his presence both comforting and terrifying. “I—” His voice cracked, and he took a moment, visibly struggling to find the right words. “It’s your dad. He… he’s gone.”

The world around you seemed to tilt on its axis. “What do you mean, gone?” you stammered, heart racing. “What happened?”

His gaze dropped, and he rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture that made your stomach churn. “There was a deal that went south. He got caught in the crossfire. They got him to the hospital, but it was too late.”

Shock flooded your body, a cold wave that left you feeling numb. “No. No, this can’t be happening.” You stumbled back, your vision blurring as tears threatened to spill over. Your father had always been your rock, the steady hand guiding you through life, it had always been just the two of you. “What do you mean caught in the crossfire? He was just… he was fine. I just saw him!”

Jax stepped closer, his expression pained, his own tears threatening to spill over. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

You shook your head, refusing to accept the reality he was laying before you. “You don’t understand. This is… I can’t… I don’t even know how to process this.” The words tumbled out, a desperate plea for understanding that fell flat.

He reached for your arm; his grip firm yet gentle. “Please, let me help you. You don’t have to go through this alone.”

The warmth of his touch ignited a swirl of conflicting emotions within you. He was the last person you wanted to turn to, yet in that moment, the desperation for comfort overpowered everything else. You felt so fragile, and the thought of facing this tragedy without him was daunting.

He cupped your face and in that moment, it was like the ground dropped out from under you. The room spun, and suddenly, everything—the fight, the tension, even your plans to leave Jax, seemed insignificant. Your dad was dead, and the club, the same club that had taken so much from you with Jax, had taken him too.

You collapsed into Jax’s arms, your tears soaking his shirt as you clung to him. And just like that, all your plans shattered. You weren’t thinking about law school anymore. You weren’t even thinking about breaking up with him. All you could think about was the fact that your dad was gone, and Jax was the only one who could understand the weight of that loss.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You and Jax made it through your father’s funeral, now bound together by grief, but even in the depths of your sorrow, it was a fragile connection. He had become your lifeline, holding you close as you navigated the crushing waves of loss. The club surrounded you, providing support in ways you hadn’t expected, ensuring that you wanted for nothing as you buried yourself in your studies during your last year of undergrad. You moved through life on autopilot, the world around you fading into a blur as you focused on school, pretending that everything would somehow work itself out.

As the months passed, acceptance letters from several schools filled your mailbox, a testament to your hard work and determination. But the joy of those accomplishments felt overshadowed by the grief that still clung to you like a heavy fog. Each letter was a reminder of a future you were hesitant to embrace. You were torn, unsure of where to go. Part of you wanted to stay close to Jax, to the familiarity of Charming, while another part yearned for a fresh start, a chance to break free from everything that haunted you.

But while you clung to Jax for comfort, the distance between you was palpable. You knew he was there, physically present, yet your relationship had become stagnant, a shell of what it once was. Jax provided a familiar solace, but it wasn’t enough to bridge the gap that had formed. The love that had once burned brightly now flickered like a candle, struggling against the grief that surrounded you both.

Everything came to a head one night at the clubhouse. As you paused outside Jax’s door, your hand froze on the doorknob, heart racing at the faint sound of laughter inside - his laughter. But he wasn’t alone. With a deep breath, you pushed the door open, and everything seemed to freeze around you.

There he was, sitting on the edge of the bed, shirt half unbuttoned, lips locked with some woman you didn’t recognize. Her laughter mixed with his, a sound that shattered your world once again. Time felt suspended as the reality of the moment set in.

“Jax!” The sound of your voice echoed painfully in the room, causing their laughter to halt abruptly. His eyes widened in shock, but they quickly filled with shame as he processed your presence. The woman beside him blinked, confusion dancing in her eyes, but you ignored her, shaking with betrayal as you stared at him. You didn’t even recognize him anymore.

“Shit! Pep, I—” he started, his voice thick with regret, but the words evaporated in the tension that filled the room.

Anger boiled within you, raw and relentless, as you stepped forward, heart racing. “You said you loved me! You promised you’d do better!”

He shifted uncomfortably, guilt etching deeper lines on his face. He couldn’t meet your gaze, knowing he had fucked up royally. The realization of what he had done hung heavily in the air, a small part of him recognizing that he had sabotaged your relationship out of fear. Fear of feeling stifled, of the stagnant love that no longer felt like home to him either.

When he reached out to touch you, desperation tinged with shame, you yelled. “Don’t! Don’t fucking touch me!” The slap was swift, fueled by raw emotion, landing with a force that surprised even you. The sound echoed in the room, sharp and definitive, as Jax's head snapped to the side, his face flushed with the imprint of your anger. The room seemed to hold its breath, and everything inside you unraveled.

The warmth and safety Jax once provided had turned cold. You could see the regret in his eyes, but it wasn’t enough to undo this betrayal.

That’s when Opie appeared, his expression a mix of sadness and empathy. He stood silently, a protective barrier between you and the pain. Without saying a word, he placed a hand on your shoulder, grounding you as everything inside you threatened to collapse. Jax remained quiet, his shame on full display, knowing he had lost something precious but feeling powerless to reclaim it.

“I’ll take care of her,” Opie said quietly, his voice steady. He didn’t need to say more; Jax knew better than to push. The hurt in his eyes was evident, but it was too late for apologies.

“Pep, please,” Jax finally managed, his voice hoarse, but it lacked the strength of conviction. His eyes were desperate, but beneath that desperation lay a deep-rooted acknowledgment of his failures, the realization that he had successfully pushed you away.

“Stop,” you snapped, tears streaming down your cheeks, anger morphing into deep-seated sorrow.

He stood there, paralyzed, unable to find the words that could ever justify this.

Opie stepped forward, his presence a comforting weight, trying to navigate you out of the room. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

You turned away from Jax, feeling the ache of loss settle in your chest like a stone. Only a silent farewell passing between you. It was done. You and Jax were over.

As Opie led you away, the weight of everything crashed down on you. You had lost your father, and now, Jax too – his love that once brought you to life felt distant, unreachable. The noise of the clubhouse disappeared into the background, leaving you in a world where the only constant was your grief, and you didn’t know how to move forward.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leaving Charming felt like tearing a piece of your heart out. You had chosen the best law school you could, deliberately picking one as far away from California as possible. It was a decision that both terrified and relieved you. You needed to escape the memories, the grief, and, most of all, Jax.

As the day of your departure drew closer, the reality of it settled in, leaving you with an emptiness that clashed with your determination. You packed your things meticulously, each item a reminder of what you were leaving behind. But as much as you wanted to flee from your past, a part of you still ached for closure.

So, you agreed to meet Jax for a final goodbye, knowing it was something you both needed, even if it felt hollow. You chose a secluded spot in the park where you used to share lazy afternoons, a place where laughter once rang in the air. But today, the atmosphere was heavy with unspoken words and lingering sadness.

Jax was already there when you arrived, leaning against his bike, arms crossed, looking every bit the man you'd fallen for. His eyes locked on yours, and for a moment, neither of you said anything. The silence felt thick, filled with all the things you couldn’t say anymore.

“So, this is it,” Jax finally said, his voice quieter than usual. There was no edge, no teasing, only rawness.

You nodded, unsure of how to respond without unraveling. “Yeah, it is.”

He looked down, running a hand through his hair, the same way he always did when he didn’t know what to say. “I get why you’re going. You need to do this.” Jax replied, his eyes searching yours for something - understanding, perhaps, or forgiveness. “It’s just… hard to believe you won’t be here.”

You swallowed, your heart tightening in your chest. All you could muster was a simple nod of understanding.

For a solitary moment, it was like time rewound, and you were back to being the two of you, before everything got complicated. Before the weight of the club, the violence, and the grief. It would have been so easy to fall into his arms, but you held yourself still, knowing that this moment wasn’t about holding on, it was about letting go.

Jax straightened, stepping closer, his blue eyes still searching yours. “I wanted this life for us, you know? A real future.” His voice broke, just slightly, and it hit you harder than you expected.

“I know,” you whispered, your own emotions threatening to spill over. “But that’s not where we’re headed anymore.”

He reached for your hand, his grip firm but tender, as if it was the last connection keeping you from drifting apart. “Just… promise me one thing.”

You looked at him, your throat tight with unshed tears. “What?”

“Don’t forget about me, alright? Even if I’m just a memory, don’t forget.”

The weight of his words settled deep inside you. You could promise that, but you weren’t sure how much of Jax would be left in you once you stepped onto that plane. Still, you nodded, because in that moment, it was the only thing you could give him.

“Goodbye, Jax.”

His jaw clenched, and he pulled you into a hug, strong and secure. The scent of leather, smoke, and something distinctly Jax, washed over you, making you dizzy with the realization that this was truly the end. And when he let go, you didn’t look back.

As you walked away, each step felt heavier than the last, there was no turning around. Not now. You had to let him go, even if part of you never would.

Part 2 - The Reunion

[lexirosewrites]

i don't know if i've mentioned this idea before, but i'm popping into slick sunday thinking about single parent omega steve and alpha eddie.

steve, who is a little wary about dating after his "fling" abandoned him when he found out he was pregnant. it's been four to five years on his own, raising his daughter the best he can. he still has robin (thank god; he doesn't know what he would do without her) but he's hesitant to bring anyone new into the fold. romantically, at least. they do just fine on their own. his biggest fear is his little girl getting attached to someone who won't stay.

enter eddie, who first sees steve from afar and is instantly enamored. he needs to talk to him, learn more about this beautiful omega who, he assumes, is another volunteer at the event they're both at. he realizes that isn't the case a few moments later when steve's daughter runs into his arms. in eddie's mind, pretty omega + young pup = someone already claimed. he's not close enough to look for a ring, or necklace, or bond bite, but he assumes. his first mistake.

after that first encounter, eddie sees steve around a lot, actually. almost always at some children's event or another, eddie always a volunteer and steve always with his daughter. sometimes there's a woman with them, a pretty alpha that never strays far from steve and carries that pup around like she's hers. eddie thinks he kind of sees the resemblance. another assumption enters his brain. his second mistake.

things change, though, one day at the library. eddie is hosting a d&d event for some local teenagers. geeky geniuses that truly give eddie a run for his money. they're taking a brief break from their campaign when steve comes in with his daughter, alone. the pup lights up at the sight of the teens, waving and bouncing excitedly. steve smiles and starts chatting with one of the boys, another picking up the pup and spinning her around. the interaction is brief before eddie watches steve wave to the others and direct his pup to the children's section of the library. eddie catches a glimpse of the two pulling a couple picture books off the shelves before he's calling the party back into play.

post-campaign, and a little while after steve and his pup have left with a new book, eddie has to ask. he didn't know the teens he hosted d&d for at the library knew the omega he's seen around lately. he's informed that they've all known steve for years. he used to drive them around a lot and looked out for them when they were younger. he'd always been there when they needed anything. eddie had wanted to ask about the pup's other parent, maybe the alpha he saw him with, find out if steve was with anyone, but he ultimately decided it wasn't an appropriate question to ask the teens. it was a little invasive, and as his uncle wayne would probably put it, absolutely none of his damn business. though he would very much like it to be his business.

from there, eddie uses this is an in. he gets up the courage to finally approach steve and talk to him, mentioning the teens and d&d and how eddie had been volunteering at a lot of the events steve took his daughter to. he didn't mention the alpha woman from before, or the pup's parent. he stayed away from any relationship questions at all, using every ounce of self control in his body. he had resolved to be friends with steve, that's it. he didn't want to press.

it doesn't take too long, though, for eddie to finally discover the truth. the alpha from before was steve's best friend, robin. his pup's other parent wasn't in the picture. he hasn't dated anyone since before his daughter was born. eddie wants steve so bad, but after hearing what happened with the pup's father, and how steve has since practically sworn off dating, he respects that decision. he keeps himself at an arm's length. he and steve are friends, and nothing more. he doesn't push that boundary, no matter how much he may want to.

anyway, blah blah blah, steve eventually realizes he's allowed to have things for himself blah blah blah he and eddie get together whatever.

skip to a couple months into their relationship. they've not officially been together long. they don't even live together. steve wanted to take things slow and eddie was more than happy to oblige. steve's daughter knows eddie well by now (again, steve and eddie were friends. eddie's hung out with them many times) and eddie had recently been reintroduced to her as steve's boyfriend. the pup was, obviously, ecstatic about this. she loves eddie. eddie's fun. and he always makes their little family so happy.

so anyway, they're all sitting in steve's living room. there's a cartoon on the small tv, and steve's pup is drawing at the coffee table. she's armed with a thick stack of pretty construction paper (provided by eddie), crayons, markers, and glitter glue. steve and eddie are on the couch, cuddled together and talking. eddie occasionally looks over to watch as the pup draws, in love with the determined scrunch on her face that reminds him so much of steve. after a while, he finally asks what she's working so hard on.

she looks up with a smile, holding up a piece of paper with three stick figures and mounds of glitter glue. "it's our family," she says simply, beginning to point at the figures. "that's me, that's daddy, and that's you."

eddie can already feel the tears bubbling up as he asks, "i'm in your family portrait?"

"obviously," she replies with a dramatic sigh and roll of her eyes. "why wouldn't you be? you're, like, my dad, right? you're gonna marry daddy, and that makes you my dad too. we're a family."

and there it is. eddie's crying, nodding quickly. "oh yeah, absolutely."

steve and eddie had never even discussed marriage before then, but that night, eddie knew he would marry steve in a heartbeat if he let him. and that was also the night that steve realized he had nothing to worry about. his daughter loved eddie, and eddie wasn't going anywhere. he was in it for the long haul, and had already proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he loved steve's pup as if she were his own. maybe everything would work out for him after all.

-

this got WAY longer than i anticipated but that seems to be a common theme for me 🫠 anyway, happy slick sunday, friend! i hope you enjoyed my little ramble about this story that is very near and dear to my heart :))

I LOVE🥺💕 single parent fics will always tie my heartstrings into knots and make me want to cry. they’re just so beautiful😭😭😭

[akutasoda]

hello, jing yuan, aventurine, sunday and boothill with a teen!assasin reader who was ordered by their master to kill them but couldnt and [character] took them in due to their young age and frankly them being pitiful

Reader was practically forced onto assasination, is hardened and doesnt show much emotion due to their past

youthful assassinations

synopsis - they meet you through some awkward encounters after a failed assassination and yet they take pity on you and try to help

includes - jing yuan, aventurine, sunday, boothill

warnings - gn!teen!reader, fluff, slight angst, maybe ooc, mentions of killing etc, wc - 1.3k

jing yuan ★↷

↪ being the arbiter general of the luofu meant that he would have a great deal of enemies or people out to get him. but out of all the people he would expect to be sent after him, the last in that list would be a teenager. admittedly a rather skilled one.

↪although, no amount of training for you could defeat someone who had many, many years more experience than you. normally, anyone who made an attempt on his life would be sent rather promptly to the shackling prison with a hefty sentence. but fortunately for you, jing yuan took pity.

↪he could take a wild guess that you didn't choose to do this, there was something about the fact that you were so young that made him decide that you had no free will - which he would be correct about.

↪admittedly, the main reason he decided not to take action against you was because he took pity - but another reason was because he admired the skill you had, he just thought it was wasted under your current work. he could tell that your current skill could be used much more effectively, and morally better, under his guidance.

↪naturally, you were incredibly cautious and adamant about giving up your job to be taken in by the one you were ordered to kill. but ultimately you decided to go along with it, it was a much better outcome than going to the shackling prison or simply returning to those that sent you out on the mission - you had a feeling they wouldn't be so kind to you after failing.

↪it was extremely awkward between the two of you at first. jing yuan was very persistent however, he wanted to help you and he was sure you'd come around to him in no time. although he did find it rather difficult to figure out what you were feeling because he truly couldn't tell with you.

↪jing yuan tried his hardest to help. he knew it was a difficult task but he was determined to make sure that your life got set on the right track. slowly but surely he would build up your trust - very slowly because you weren't so eager to give up anything about yourself.

↪your skill was certainly impressive for your age and jing yuan definitely thought it was much better used in the cloud knights, or even another retainer, than some unlawful assassin work. and eventually, he felt like he had another child to look after.

aventurine ★↷

↪the IPC wasn't exactly the most liked company in the galaxy, far from it. so naturally being a higher level member of the IPC meant that some people would be hunting you down. so having someone go after a stoneheart wasn't all that uncommon. although a teenager skilled in assanation was definitely a surprise to see.

↪unfortunately, you were practically set on an impossible mission. trying to kill someone who was luck blessed upon them wasn't exactly going to end well for you. fortunately however, you were lucky enough for aventurine to take pity on you.

↪he knew what it was like to be forced into something as a child, although it was quite the different experience between the two of you. but he still felt bad, you clearly hadn't had the choice to begin with and he wanted to help someway.

↪getting you to join the IPC wouldn't exactly be the greatest upgrade for you, if anything from his own personal experience it would only make it seem better but would be worse. however aventurine knew that your ‘employer’ wouldn't take your failure well.

↪so unfortunately, aventurine managed to land you a job at the IPC. except you were to work directly under him as a fork of bodyguard, that way the IPC’s grasp wasn't as bad as it normally would be to a regular employee.

↪aventurine understood why you didn't show much emotion, he couldn't blame you. all he could do was hope that eventually you'd start trusting him, he knew it could take ages but he never had someone genuine in his corner back then, so he'd be someone in yours.

sunday ★↷

↪head of the oak family. a title that carried a lot of responsibility and consequently, a lot of risks. some risks did include some people choosing to hunt him down, some people such as your ‘employer'. sunday never expected for a teenager of all people to be the next to go after him.

↪no amount of skill you possess could actually prove a threat to him, and it took him no time at all to discover who your ‘employer' was and the intent of them sending you after him - thanks to a certain gift from a certain aeon.

↪which is also how he knew immediately that you were practically forced into this job and the whole assanation thing as a whole from a young age. admittedly, this did stir a tad bit of sympathy from sunday and so he took pity on you.

↪your skills were impressive for someone of your age and so sunday thought that you'd be better suited to working alongside the bloodhounds or some faction in penacony, not the lousy people that you worked for before. although he did also think that you deserved to have time away from the whole ‘assassination’ business.

↪sunday knew that you would be rather closed off and emotionless, he didn't care all that much though. he understood that you had quite the past and so he expected that from you. he would just have to try his hardest to help you break out of that shell to at least him.

boothill ★↷

↪boothill had many, many people either chasing down his own bounty or simply hunting him down. although, you were certainly the first teenager that had been sent after him - and no matter how skilled you were, he certainly wouldn't let himself get caught by you of all people.

↪boothill was initially quite impressed by the skills that you held at such a young age, you kind of reminded him of his old self at a young age. he reckoned that you could definitely hone your skills even more as you grew up but clearly not under whoever at that moment.

↪galaxy rangers often worked alone, and boothill adhered to that. however, he could clearly tell that you had been forced into assassination and knew that if you continued on with however, it wouldn't end up so well off later down the line.

↪and so boothill offered you the choice to travel with him. he definitely thought that he could help you more than those lazy scoundrels that sent you after him could - you could even help him with bounty-hunting but that could come later.

↪he knew that you weren't so open with him and he respected that. naturally you wouldn't be close to someone you just met, especially considering your past, but the fact that you took his offer showed that you had some kind of trust or faith in him.

↪the person that became boothill had a daughter, he never got to see her grow up. you could never be her but he wasn't asking you to be. boothill saw you the same way his adoptive parents saw him, a child, or teenager even, in need of help. in need of a parental figure. and that's exactly what he aimed to be for you.

taglist - @little-miss-chaoss, @frankiesteinn

[tr4gictea]

I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS FOR REQUEST BUT I DON'T WANNA OVER BEAR YOU SRRYY

What about a teen gn reader who looks average (in term of strength) but could OBLITERATE a ruin guard in like,, one punch

How would the characters react to that???

genshin + weak looking but strong!teen!reader

❥Masterlist

Tags: slight fluff, mention of injuries

Including: Xiao, Dehya, Lyney

word count: 1,203

A/n: Heyyy, guess who's not dead! sorry I haven't been around for like a year or two things for me have gotten busy but things are slowing down for me right now so I'm gonna be focusing more on writing now! I hope you enjoy :D

You had always heard stories of adventurers finding new civilizations, fight cool monsters, and traveling around the world. You were gonna be like one of those strong adventurers and be marked down in the history books. Though your training and honed your skills to your very limit yet your body stayed the same, growing at its normal pace. Sure you could punch through a brick wall but, you also looked as if you spent your days reading inside. But after a while you had come to accept that you would remain average size until you joined the adventures guild.

The adventure’s guild always had interesting commissions, from the mundane to the deadly. You joined looking forward to getting super hard missions where you could explore a abandoned temple and fight the spirt that lives there! Or a commission about a missing person who has been kiddnap by dozens of treasure hoarder and you have to fight your way through them! As Katherine hands you your first commission you read the page telling you to deliver mint to some guy. 

You look up at kathrine with a “are you joking” face. She only smiles at you and asks if you have any questions. You insist to kathrine that you are a strong individual and you can handle your own. She shakes her head saying that this is the best commission for your skill level. You went back and fourth with Kathrine about the commission before she gave up and gave you some hillcurl camp to clean up on the west side. Snatching the commission out her hand you rush off to complete it. 

It wasn't the intense adventure you hoped for but it was better than nothing. So you head out to the camp and when you get there you spot three hillchurls, easy enough. When you finish off

the last hillchurl you heard the sound of gears churning behind you. 

“WATCH OUT!” a mystery voice calls out. Quickly turning around you are faced 13 feet tall ruin guard. It lifts up its giant geared hand attempting to slam it down on you, you dodge out of the way by jumping back. This is the first time you've ever encountered a ruin guard and there was something you wanted to try with it. 

Throwing your weapon to the side you take a running start at the ruin guard. You can hear the stranger yell at you to get back when you leap into the air lifting your fist up pull it down right on the machine’s head. It flies back into a rock wall 12 feet away from you. Landing on your feet you watch as the ruins guard light flickers for a second then goes dark. Turning to the mystery person you are met with a look of…

Xiao: Shocked but doesn't care that much

Xiao was patrolling the area around Yaodie Valley when he came across you fighting hillchurls. You had an adventurers guild uniform on but you looked far too weak to be fighting such monster, and at such a young age. But you looked to be holding yourself well so he didn't bother you. Until he saw out of the corner of his eye an old ruin guard started to shuffle and activate. 

He yelled at you warning about it but to his surprise, you dropped your weapon and took off running towards it. He was about to intervene when you sent the ruin guard flying into a wall. He stood there for a second spear still out and in his fighting stance but, confused as hell. How did such a weak-looking child punch that machine like it was a stuffed animal. 

“Uh, Mr. Adeptus?” You said trying to get the man's attention. “are you okay?” Snapping out of his trance he circles around you checking for wounds, none were found except for some red on the fist. And without any word he disappears. 

Dehya: Worried but Amazed

While traveling to meet her newest client she stumbles on you collecting stuff off the ground while a ruin guard towers over you. You looked no older than 18 and even tho you had a weapon didnt look like you could fight. She shouts a you watch out and unsheft her claymore. As she is running towards you she sees you turn around send the metal heap flying into a stone wall with a singular punch. Stopping her in her track Dehya looks at the scene before her with her mouth agape.

“Hey kid!” she yells at you. “Are you okay?!” She began checking your body for injuries. That was quite a punch but she needed to check that you didnt break anything from that. 

“If i move your fingers like this do they hurt?!” She asked while bending your fingers slightly upwards.

“No ma’ma,” you resond 

“I've just never seen someone knock out a ruin guard with one punch! How did you even do that without break your hand?”

“I drink a lot of milk.”

Lyney: Excitement

Today was a day Lyney had all to him self, much to his dismay. Lynette was off on a solo mission and Freminet teaching some of their siblings how to dive. Lyney would have joined but those lessons were too slow paced for him and he'd end up getting board and leaving the group behind.

So now he was outside of the city walls looking for something that could entertain him. When he saw the slashing of a weapon out the corner of his eye and turned to see a teenager fighting a couple hillchurls. They looked skilled enough to take on a couple monsters but, defiantly not strong physically.

He was about to head out and look for something more interesting when he heard the gears of a ruin guard turn. He spun around to see you face to face with one of these machines. He saw you jump back nearly missing the hand crushing coming down on you. As he got out his bow to shoot the thing down he stopped himself as he saw you run and jump off a rock and landing a punch on top of its head sending it flying backward.

You turned to face him and his bow was still in his hand with a shit eating grin on his face.

"My archons that was amazing!" He exclaimed while throwing his hands up and trotted right up too you. "How did you manage to do that?" He was lifting your arms up and down like he was trying to find something to tell him how you knock the guard out in one punch. "Or is it just raw strength... Punch me."

"What?" He said that as if it was just a normal request.

"Punch me right here in the stomach, I wanna see something."

"Sir I just knocked out a whole monster and now you want me to punch you?"

"Yes, I don't know what's so hard to understand. you can take down an ancient machine with one punch but you look so... normal!" Rude. "I don't mean that in a bad way but I want to see how this is possible." for the rest of the day he spent it with you testing out your strength on different things. He should have more days to himself if it's gonna be like this one!

Requests are now open again :D

[midnight-in-town]

About Yor: she isn’t dense, but most likely indoctrinated by Garden

So I wanted to address this for a long while now, because I’ve seen one too many posts talking about Yor like she’s just an aloof assassin who doesn’t care about things outside her direct environment, which is why sometimes she says dense things. 

I’m well aware that she’s a fan favorite so people don’t mean her harm, yet I think the whole story actually hints at way more than her being dense, especially considering her background and who she still works for. 

In other words, since Yor was trained but also half raised by Garden’s leader, the Shopkeeper, it’s likely that, considering how they operate and what they’re about, they instilled in her a conditioned dependency since childhood or teenage years that would make her unable to learn things on her own without asking for their opinion, making it very hard for her to turn against them ever. 

Want a striking example? Her encounter with Melinda Desmond. 

Not only did she not know who Melinda was (but I mean, that at least could be understandable)...

...but she also didn’t know what a First Lady is. 

Sure, it’s funny on first glance, but after thinking about it, what does it betray? That Garden probably made sure over years Yor would never get the slightest basic info and understanding on what politics of this country are all about. Because if their strong soldiers start to get opinions of their own, then they could start disagreeing with Garden and turning on them. So, “let’s prohibit people having free thinking, so that they can remain good little pawns” as we “fight for peace in our country”.

In fact, for Yor, until a short time ago (when she met Loid and Anya), all she did was thought and decided for her by Garden and, to this day, she still voluntarily asks them for their agreement when she opens up her close circle little by little: she asked them if it was okay to marry Loid and then she asked them if it was okay to befriend Melinda. 

To be honest, that’s a scary ass thought process to envision, when Yor’s an independent working lady well into her 20s, but this shows how deep Garden’s indoctrination runs in Yor, since they got hold of her as a child/young teen. 

Another striking example is the way she always describes her job, in an almost childish way. Her nickname “thorn princess” aside, I always found it interesting that Yor’s aware she’s an assassin but she isn’t morally anguished at all about killing people and never mentions or distinguishes any grey area in her missions. In fact...

... it’s all in black and white and she clearly thinks that the people she kills are all evildoers (which as we saw in the recent arc with the Red Circus isn’t always the case and begs the rhetorical question “why does Garden get to decide who’s evil?”), therefore “she’s not doing anything wrong”, which also pretty much betrays how she was pushed into it. 

Long ago, Garden probably baited Yor with Yuri’s protection and told her that, since they’re “about peace”, Yor’s work would just help them to “fight against evil”. As a child, she wasn’t mentally fit to understand the deeper implications and then she was mentally conditioned to always do and think like Garden tells her to, which promotes this systematic childish description of her assassin’s job. 

Finally, please take notice of the Shopkeeper’s reaction the first time she tries to argue about her work, in the ship arc: 

Enough said, Garden’s awful. I’m sure there are more examples throughout the story, but I now want to talk about future character development. 

After all, since the story obviously calls for Yor to ditch Garden, to protect what’s actually important to her (Yuri, Loid and Anya), we actually do see her changing little by little so far, thanks to her living with Loid and Anya. Her coworkers quickly mentioned that she’s more lively ever since she got married and the ship arc overall emphasizes that her family is starting to become more important to her than her job, so there is high hope for Yor. :D

Additionally, while she’s still far away from noticing that Garden mentally drove her into a corner, she now openly voices her concerns that “she’s not normal” but that she wants to understand why in order to learn how to change. 

To be fair, fighting against indoctrination is tough and takes time so I’m very proud of her for slowly realizing that she ought to decide for herself from now on. :D 

TL;DR Yor is not dense. She was indoctrinated as a child by Garden and can only (for now) see the world through the filters they taught her. 

Ironically enough, the only character who knows about her real job and could, thus, notice that Yor isn’t being critical about Garden...... actually can’t because she’s a four year old who is too young to understand that Mama’s job is wrong. Well done, Endo-sensei!

[wildflowerluver]

sweet pea

aaron hotchner x teen!reader, bau team x teen!reader

5 times the team hears about you and the 1 time they actually meet you

cw: fem reader, set over the span of three years, case mentions, broken family unit, hotchner trio, hotch is a swiftie, also refers to his daughter as ‘sweet pea’, team is nosy, eating/food, forehead kisses run the hotchner home

wc: 3.4k

༺♡༻

1. inception

child cases are always rough.

they’re not only extremely sensitive, but they hit emotionally for everyone involved. 

it’s a small town and yet no strong leads. there’s no reason for the case to be as difficult as it is, but every case the team looks into is different.

local p.d. bring in a woman named chancy solace. she was the last one to see the missing boy alive and no one wants to wait around for another death to happen to look for evidence.

hotch was set to do the interview.

he asked basic questions about the missing boy, keeping his voice calm as she recounted her day through tears. they all knew she was innocent, no doubts about it. he was set to finish up after a few moments. it was clear she didn’t know much.

as he went to stand, however, solace had stopped him.

“do you have children, agent hotchner?” her voice was broken.

hotch nods. “i do.”

“how old?”

“my son is 3 and my daughter is 13.”

the air outside the room went stale. everyone on the team knew jack. some had even met him within his first few weeks of life. he was three, that was a fact - but a daughter? not once had hotch mentioned one, let alone one with such a large age gap. jack never rattled about a big sister either.

solace frowned, more tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “then you must understand the guilt i’m feeling right now. can you imagine if you were the last one to see your daughter before she disappeared? how can i possibly have it in me to be a part of this?”

hotch doesn’t want to think about the question she posed, not at all.

“we’re going to find him. it’s going to be alright,” it was a promise, one hotch intended not to break.

he left the room after that. their only known witness wasn’t much help for the case and there was no point in wasting time.

rossi stops hotch before he can walk away.

“why’d you lie?”

there’s no question on what rossi is asking about. it’s profiling 101 that lying to a suspect, no matter innocent or not, could be dangerous.

hotch glanced at his team.

“i didn’t.”

2. first encounter

you’ve had a really, really, really bad day.

from the second you woke up, everything seemed to go wrong. school wasn’t any better and by the end of the day, the only thing you wanted to do was see your dad. he’s your favorite person and a hug from him always reassures you that things will be okay.

you text him before your last class of the day to ask when he’ll be home. if it’s even possible, a deeper frown appears on his face when he tells you no later than six. 

part of you wants to be happy from that response. no later than six means there’s no cases and he’s on top of his files. but after the day you had, you just need someone and waiting nearly four hours for him to get home is less than ideal. 

can i come to the bau?

your text is a shot in the dark. your dad keeps you out of his profession and you’ve never stepped foot in quantico. you just hope he gets some sort of semblance for what's going on if you're asking to come see him.

he responds back seconds later. ‘i’ll send an agent.’

it’s not that he doesn’t trust you to get there on your own, there’s even a direct line from the train station closest to your school, but you're still young, only 14, and you know he would feel more comfortable having an agent pick you up.

the next time you check your phone, your dad has sent a message with the name of the agent and instructions on how to prove that it’s him. it’s not him being overprotective, it’s him wanting you to be safe. 

agent anderson is easy enough to spot. you run through the procedures your dad wanted and once you know it’s the right person, you get in the car.

he doesn’t say anything when you shove your earbuds in your ears and shuffle your playlist and you’re thankful for that. you’re especially grateful that he doesn’t ask questions when you bite your lip and swipe away stray tears that have fallen down your face.

music is an outlet for you, an escape, and right now that’s all you wanted to do. 

earbuds remain in your ears as you step into the bau building. anderson leads you through security and gets you a visitors badge. you very faintly hear any of his verbal instructions.

he leaves you once you reach the right floor, pointing through the glass doors to show you where to go. with a smile, he’s gone.

you weigh your options for a moment before walking in. you told your dad you're here but you don’t know where his office is. and right now, you really do not want to deal with anyone else. but with a deep breath, you decide to take your chances and head in.

a child walking into the bau is an automatic red flag, let alone one with puffy eyes and red cheeks, a clear sign of crying.

morgan and j.j. are the first two to stand up, wasting no time in circling their desks to walk to where you stand at the bullpen entrance; j.j.’s mouth already open with an “are you alright?” on the tip of her tongue.

but before they reach you, and before j.j. can speak, hotch is out of his office and moving down the stairs.

he steps in front of them when he faces you, thus shielding you from the prying eyes of the team. you look up at your dad, eyes full of a new wave of tears.

hotch doesn’t hug you then, though he desperately wants to, nor does he explain who you are to the team. instead, he places a strong hand on your shoulder, turning you slightly before guiding you up to his office. the door is shut and the blinds are closed. the two of you are cut off from the others and all of them know not to intrude.

“who was that?” rossi questioned after stepping onto the catwalk. the commotion was noticeable.

“i think we just met y/n.”

3. phone call 

on flights home from cases, what the team does onboard genuinely varies with what time of day it is.

during early morning and late night flights, you can find most of the team asleep, trying to make up for the rest lost in the past few days. anything between that is typically a more active time.

hotch is dealt into a game of poker with the entire team. rossi acts as the dealer claiming he’s “not in the mood to get outsmarted at his favorite game.”

the entire group is laughing and chatting among themselves as they play. there’s no reason not to, it was a successful case - worth the positive mood on the jet.

hotch’s phone ringing cuts through emily’s turn.

he holds his hands up in defense and mumbles a quiet apology.

“hi sweet pea,” hotch barely has time to greet you before he gets cut off with your frantic “did you listen?”

his laugh causes the others to bring their heads up from their cards. a hotch laugh is uncommon, rare.

“i did. we finished up here last night so i listened before i went to bed and finished when i woke up,” he answers your question. 

he waits for your response, already knowing that you want to know his thoughts on the album.

“well,” hotch pauses. “if i’m being honest, i liked it more than fearless.”

j.j. and emily are the only two who have any idea what he’s talking about. a record could be set for how fast their eyes snap to each other once it clicks.

hotch is quiet for a few moments. though no one can make out exactly what you’re saying on the other end, they can hear your muffled rambling.

“yeah yeah, i liked that one too,” hotch agrees. “i think my top two are dear john and haunted, though. her songwriting is incredible in those.”

whatever he means clearly pleases you judging by the content look on his face.

“alright i have to get going,” he starts. “but i have the vinyl reserved at the record store. we can go when i get back? should be home by two.”

you agree without hesitation, several “thank you’s” being repeated. hotch won’t admit it ever to anyone besides you, but he’s excited to hear it on vinyl too. it’s kinda your shared thing.

“i’ll see you when i get home, okay? i love you.”

he hangs up after goodbyes, placing his phone back onto the table before picking up his cards. the silence lingers in the air even after he makes the motion that he’s ready to continue. “what?”

“you listen to taylor swift?”

hotch smiles, a genuine one. “my daughter loves her. have to keep up somehow.”

4. vacation 

when hotch doesn’t show up to work for a week, it takes only the first day for the team to panic. it had been a little over a year and a half since foyet had stabbed hotch and hotch had gone missing. no one was going to take chances when their boss, who typically had perfect attendance, showed up without notice.

rossi and morgan went to strauss at the end of the day. 

their interrogation on hotch’s whereabouts is in good faith, but it doesn’t take a profiler to notice strauss’ sigh at their concerns.

“agent hotchner is on vacation,” she starts. “he should be back next week. until then, i am under orders to not assign a new case unless necessary.”

the agents turn to each other in confusion as they leave. “a vacation? come on rossi, when in all the years of knowing him has hotch ever willingly gone on vacation.”

the older man shrugs. “i don’t know. maybe this’ll be good for him.”

there’s no arguing with that.

when hotch returns the following monday, no one hesitates to notice the change in his physical appearance.

his skin is tanned and he has a slight tinge of sunburn on his nose and cheekbones; a clear sign he went somewhere warm.

“hotch!” emily catches him before he can retreat to his office.

all eyes are on him and he knows it. 

“where were you?” she inquired. 

hotch sighs. “greece.” 

this catches the attention of the other team members in the bullpen. rossi seems to have found an empty chair at j.j.’s desk. even garcia had chosen this exact moment to get a new cup of coffee.

“greece?” emily stutters. “like the european country?”

hotch nods. “that’s the one.” 

morgan whistles. vacations in the bau are fairly uncommon. the looming threat of being called back for a case stops most from planning. even if the timing does work out, no one goes far; let alone out of the country. 

“and you just decided to go there for a casual vacation,” j.j.’s tone isn’t condescending, but rather showing genuine curiosity.

“it’s y/n’s birthday in a few months and she’s always wanted to go,” hotch explains like it’s the most casual thing in the world. “jack’s still a little too young so he stayed with jessica.”

he doesn’t mingle around after that, choosing to head up to his office to get set up after his week away.

“huh,” garcia murmurs. “didn’t take him for a greek island guy.”

“guess that shows just how much he’s wrapped around y/n’s finger.”

5. baked goods

you don’t have school today.

despite that, you still get up early to have breakfast with your brother and dad. once jack is picked up by the bus for school, your dad gets ready for work.

you stay in the kitchen, however, moving the cookies you made last night from one container to the other.

when your dad reappears, you wait for his hands to be empty before posing your question.

“is there any way you can give these to agent rossi?” you practically shove the container into your dad’s hand.

aaron raises an eyebrow. “rossi?”

“you mentioned he was italian,” you wait for a nod of confirmation. “these are canestrelli, they’re an italian cookie. i wanted to know if you could give these to him for a taste test.”

he smiles. “trying to expand your baking horizons?”

you match his expression. “exactly.”

with a kiss to your forehead, your dad is out the door and off to work.

“delivery,” hotch’s tone is steady as he knocks on rossi’s office door.

“from who?”

“y/n,” hotch answers as he sets the container down. “she tried to make canestrelli and wanted your opinion. i’m just the messenger.”

rossi takes the container from hotch. he opens it up before plucking a cookie out and examining it. “looks authentic.” 

if he’s being honest, even if the cookie isn’t good, he’ll still love it.

but it isn’t.

of course it isn’t.

rossi takes one bite and his eyes widen.

“i haven’t had canestrelli this good since the last time i went to italy. tell her she should be very proud and i will be happy to pay for more.”

hotch can’t hide his proud expression. “i will.”

+1 first meeting

you always wait for your dad to get home from work. it’s routine.

plus, you made a promise to jack when you put him to bed that you would send your dad upstairs when he got home.

you bake in the meantime. it’s something to pass the time and you figure having something fresh to eat would be a nice surprise for your dad.

music plays from the record you have spinning. you keep it quiet as to not wake jack up upstairs. he’s not a light sleeper, but you don’t want to disturb his rest.

the side door opens as you're mixing the flour to the batter. tonight’s bake is gingerbread. easy enough to make. 

it surprises you when your dad doesn’t call out a hello. he’s come home this late before when you’re still up and he always makes it a point to greet you. plus, you have music playing. there’s no doubt he can’t hear that.

“dad?” your voice is quiet.

you peer around the corner, stepping out a bit further when you see him, though you freeze when you notice the other people following him. 

“hi sweet pea,” his voice is tired, you can tell. you close your eyes when he hugs you and kisses your forehead. if his team is here you know it’s not good.

“what’s going on?”

he turns to you. “i can explain in a few minutes. are you okay for introductions?” his voice lowers for the last part, not wanting the team to hear if you say no.

you nod, though anxiety bubbles at the pit of your stomach at the deflection of the question.

“everyone, this is y/n, my daughter,” your dad starts. unsure what to do, you wave slightly. “y/n, this is my team, that’s dave, derek, emily, spencer, j.j., and penelope.” he points to each of the people as he rattles his name off.

while your dad kept you out of his work, you did faintly know each member of the team. he talked about them in passing and jack rambled often about something “uncle dave” or “uncle derek” did.

“why are they here?” you hope your question doesn’t come off as rude.

your dad squeezes your arm. “can you go back in the kitchen for a few? i’m going to get these guys set up and then i can explain. is jack asleep?”

you nod. “i put him to bed a few hours ago. he was asking for you.”

“thank you,” he starts. “i’ll go see him in a bit.”

the conversation is over. you feel awkward standing in the foyer where you’re clearly the center of attention. you turn and walk into the kitchen. finishing your baking seems like a good idea.

aaron enters the kitchen as you’re pouring the batter into the pans. the music is off by now, though the record stays on the turntable. he waits for you to put the pan in the oven and face him before explaining.

“there’s a mole in the bau. we’re trying to figure it out but we obviously can’t work there. i volunteered our house. we would’ve gone to dave’s but he’s having work done.” you know he’s giving you the most minimal answer possible.

“oh,” you’re honestly not quite sure what else to say.

he continues. “we’re hoping to have it cleared up soon but we don’t have a lot of our normal equipment. i wasn’t expecting you to be up for all this. couldn’t sleep?”

“was waiting for you to get home,” you shrugged. “you know i always do.” 

“yeah i know. i should’ve called.”

you turn to him. “It’s alright. i’m just going to clean up while i wait for the gingerbread to be done and then i’ll go to bed.” 

your dad nods. “let me know when you do.” he disappears out of the kitchen after that.

cleaning up doesn’t take long and you’re still elbows deep in soapy water when the oven beeps. you take it out of the pan and set it on a cooling rack before gathering your stuff. you’re honestly exhausted.

going into the living room takes a moment of mental courage. you know everyone is in there and you don’t want to interrupt them. but, you’ve missed your dad and you want him to say goodnight.

“um, i’m going to head up to bed,” your voice echoes through the room. it was fairly quiet before and you feel embarrassed for interrupting that. the first part is directed at your dad. you turn to the rest of the team. “i made fresh gingerbread if anyone wants any. it’s on the counter, help yourself. i also put on a fresh pot of coffee and that should be ready soon.”

aaron’s heart is so full that he almost forgets the case at hand.

“i’ll be up in a minute,” aaron voices.

you hum, nodding to the team as a non-verbal goodnight.

he dishes out individual assignments within the team. they’ll work as a group to start before taking shifts so others can rest.

jack’s room is his first stop. he doesn’t wake the boy, choosing to instead kiss his forehead before picking up his stuffed dinosaur, a gift, and placing it back on the bed.

you’re just getting under the covers when your dad knocks.

“come in!”

your dad steps inside, shutting the door slightly.

“hi,” you smile.

“hi,” he echoes. “good day?”

you shrug. “yeah, i guess so. i got jack from school and we spent the afternoon together. missed you though.”

aaron frowns. “i’m sorry sweet pea. didn’t think this was going to happen. none of us did.”

“i know you didn’t. i’m not mad.”

you want to continue your statement and wash away any guilt you know he’s feeling. but, your body betrays you and a yawn cuts you off.

“alright, time for bed,” his words make you feel like a child but you know he’s right.

he tucks you in and like with jack, he kisses your forehead.

“goodnight dad, i love you.”

“i love you too.”

his demeanor changes when he goes downstairs and sits with the team. he’s serious, ready to work. right now this case is his priority. he, like others, wants to wrap it up quickly and efficiently. 

emily nudges him when he sits down beside her. spencer and derek’s banter about the case is long drowned out.

“she’s a good kid.”

hotch beams. 

“i know.”

[charmedreincarnation]

I shifted using the void state!

I'm getting straight to the point because I know people don't like long success stories, but I used these two posts to finally shift to my desired reality and manifest my dream life.

Rotten’s Practical Guide to Shifting Realities

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zgrhCYyct7xV4j7d7qYFcoO8bAMx5Jqdb3NGoO81Oqs/edit

Reddit Post: The Power of the Void State

https://www.reddit.com/r/shiftingrealities/s/XMIo5TPYlM

Anyways, when I learned about the void state on Reddit, I was instantly captivated. I mean, who wouldn't be? The idea of not only using it for shifting but also manifesting my dream life for myself and my family felt like a dream come true. That's when I came across the second post I shared about the void state, and eventually, the first document I shared. They were incredibly informative and completely changed my perspective on shifting and the law of the universe.

I went on to stalk many of the recommended success stories on Reddit, exploring posts and comment sections that mentioned you. You seemed to be a common denominator in their journeys, helping them shift or guiding them with your posts. It made me happy to see your positive influence, even though your posts were from years ago and it seemed like you no longer have an account. Unfortunately, many other creators' posts were either inactive or banned due to Reddit's strict rules which is really annoying.

However, someone made a post about you, and one of your friends ended up commenting with your Tumblr account. So, I gathered a lot of valuable information from your account and a few others (like Fleur, Pink, Rem, Sexy Dream Girl, etc.) on Tumblr.

I must say, the Tumblr shifting and void community is miles ahead of Reddit and Amino. I was shocked that I hadn't come across this community before. Reddit is just starting to talk about the Law of assumption and the void, whereas you guys have been immersed in it for years. I even encountered some misconceptions on Reddit, where people still think the void can only be used for shifting and not for waking up in a whole new life. 🙄

Regardless, finding this app was the motivation I needed, and I discovered so much valuable information. I ended up using your theta wave method, combined with the first Reddit post I sent, to enter the void and shift to my dr. It's truly mind-blowing how easy it all was.

I can vouch for this process. All you need are the two Reddit posts I shared, as the guide is highly regarded within the shifting community, along with a few trustworthy Tumblr bloggers. I've been part of the shifting community since 2017, so I've seen it all, and I managed to shift within just two and a half weeks of finding these resources. Even though I was struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, I realized it doesn't have to hinder your journey.

I wanted to share my experience here, and I might make a post on Reddit too. However, they have become stricter with success stories due to anti-troll measures, and it takes weeks to even months for anything to be processed. So, I wanted to share my journey here first.

I also recommend this: https://www.reddit.com/r/shiftingrealities/s/daFCQdyHim because it helped me understand what shifting really is. Manifesting too!

Lastly I'm 26 years old, and I've noticed that Reddit tends to have a more adult audience compared to Tumblr. At first, it felt nice to be surrounded by fellow adults discussing shifting. On the other hand, seeing Tumblr mostly filled with teens and younger adults made me wonder if it's easier for them, especially without the weight of responsibilities that often come with age.

But let me tell you, age is not a factor that determines our success in shifting. Whether you're 13 or 55, it doesn't matter. This is something we can all engage in, no matter our age.

Sure, there might be some challenges that come with getting older. As we accumulate more life experiences, doubts tend to creep in, and we become more logical. But guess what? Those doubts and logical thinking don't define our ability to shift realities. They are simply hurdles for us to overcome.

Hi love! I've spent some time going through all the resources you shared, and they've been incredibly helpful! Actually i have seen that guide in so many places, and it's truly enlightening. Thank you for sharing these amazing tools with us!

And yes, I wholeheartedly agree with what you said. age and doubt really do have no place in our journey they really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

I used to engage with @theastralplaneandbeyond5487 on Amino and Reddit too. He also has an informative YouTube channel and is in his 50s, I believe. His experiences and insights are rlly helpful and further show that age is just a number in this journey.

His journey showed me that we can do whatever we we want , regardless of our age. It's a beautiful reminder that we're all capable of creating and experiencing whatever we want 🩵

Also omg my Reddit era in 2021 was so fun. I’m glad it’s still helping people though my views have definitely evolved :D!

[yanderes-galore]

Yandere Aemon Targaryen (jaeh i son) concept

Sure! Naturally I differed from canon in this. You're a member of House Baratheon.

Yandere! Aemon Targaryen Concept

(Son of Jaehaerys I)

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling/AFAB section, Obsession, Manipulation, Possessive behavior, Violence, Coerced betrothal, Forced wedding, Mentions of having kids/Pregnancy (AFAB section), Baelon is an enabler, Blood, Murder, Mentions of bedding, Isolation, Forced relationship.

When you were younger you were quite used to seeing Targaryens.

King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne were known for having many heirs.

Your father, as head of House Baratheon, naturally met with the king for certain affairs.

All Houses sworn to the crown must attend council at some point.

As a result your House was often invited to events.

Such events and meetings allowed you to meet a certain young Targaryen prince...

One who would change your life for the worst it seems.

Aemon Targaryen was one of your first experiences with a Targaryen prince.

He's the third born of the king and is always beside his younger brother, Baelon.

You had encountered Aemon during a banquet when you were young teens... which led to the prince asking you to dance with a smile.

Aemon is strong and tall, easily towering over you when you first meet him.

He's serious, cautious, careful, and modest.

Despite his strength, Aemon was never a very fierce prince.

While he was nice when asking you to dance, you noticed the prince was often very quiet.

It was as though he wasn't very social...

Turns out you were somewhat right.

Later on you learned Aemon was most into books, one day inviting you to join him as a way to get to know you better.

Like most Targaryens, Aemon has a mount.

As you grow close to the prince, you soon meet Caraxes.

The large red long necked dragon was protective of Aemon when you first met the dragon.

Although, as the dragon inspected you... he oddly seemed curious.

It was almost like he didn't see you as a threat...

You had no clue that Aemon's feelings translated to his dragon, you weren't well versed in Targaryen bonds... yet.

Your bond with Aemon started small.

When you visited him in Dragonstone or King's Landing, Aemon was always quick to greet you.

Some servants even say he could be in the middle of a task... only to drop it to meet with you.

Many would say Aemon's close to you, even Baelon would.

You always read beside him, you always watched him train...

It was thought the prince was fond of you, a Baratheon.

You felt a bit... overwhelmed when you heard such rumors.

Fond of you?

Being so involved with a Targaryen sounds... intimidating.

You try not to bring it up... but Aemon's courting only gets more obvious.

Every heir gets betrothed at some point....

As Aemon's one of the eldest and a son, it's only natural that he'd need to be betrothed as an heir.

But Aemon didn't want to take just anyone...

No, as you both grew up beside one another in your younger years, Aemon had always fallen for you.

It may go against his father's wishes... yet his mother supports his decision.

A marriage between you should make Aemon happy... and keep House Baratheon's loyalty.

Really, to you it just felt like politics.

To Aemon, this was true love.

Aemon wouldn't understand why you don't want to marry him.

You parents agree to it, you're already at Dragonstone and King's Landing often enough.

Do you not want to marry the Prince of Dragonstone?

Even Baelon encourages you, feeling you'd be the best consort for his elder brother.

Truth is, the idea of being married to the Targaryen's eldest son scares you.

That's completely understandable, too, as that would mean you'd rule alongside your husband if he became king.

While you find Dragonstone and The Red Keep fascinating places with rich history...

You don't see them as home.

Storm's End is your home as a Baratheon, you feel you have no place anywhere near the throne.

While you find Aemon an appealing prince... You aren't sure if you want to be romantically involved.

You've been scared to voice such concerns, knowing your opinion wouldn't be taken into account.

Even less so if you said you fell for someone else.

Although, when pressed by Aemon, you eventually crack.

Aemon does his best to be understanding, in some ways he's very similar to his father.

He understands you're scared, betrothal can be unnerving.

Aemon's even willing to be patient with you.

However... He isn't calling off the betrothal.

How could he?

He loves you and thinks you'll make a wonderful ruler... you'll bring pride to both of your families.

Aemon loves you with his entire being, he's dedicated and begged his parents to set you up with him.

You'll be wed in a month or two and that's final.

If you have another lover... Well, it's time to cut ties.

It's that or Aemon will do it for you.

He can't have you being unfaithful, can he?

Aemon is nice and considerate... but only gives you the illusion of choice.

He makes it sound like he'll postpone the wedding, that he'll wait until you're ready.

Yet it's never getting canceled.

If you were seeing someone before him, Aemon will most likely want to discuss with them.

If they don't seem to stay around... Baelon also has some words for them.

Although he comes with more blood.

It isn't long before you hear about it, your lover having been cut down in a supposed duel.

You know it's a lie.

Aemon doesn't look concerned in the slightest... and Baelon never seemed to like them.

Dragons do not share.

Aemon is not willing to let another House claim your heart.

He may be considerate and careful...

But he is quite serious when courting you.

Aemon would try to ease you into the betrothal as the days go by

He offers gifts, suggests dragon rides, and overall tries to show that he'll be a good husband to you.

Yet you keep denying him.

Speaking of dragons, Caraxes becomes increasingly used to you.

The dragon knows his rider has claimed you, making the dragon fond of you.

You aren't a Targaryen, not in the slightest, but the dragon never tries to burn you alive.

Caraxes won't let you ride him alone, but as long as you are with Aemon, Caraxes is alert and attentive.

It's as though the dragon and Aemon mirror emotions.

In a similar way, you notice Aemon get more possessive as the wedding date ticks down.

This isn't new for Targaryens... their links to dragons make them go mad.

Aemon is a good man to you.

Although, he begins to lose his patience if you keep trying to run from him.

You cannot run from your responsibility.

Storm's End is no longer your home.

Aemon is adamant on telling you where your home is.

Your home should be with him, by his side.

It's an honor to marry a Targaryen, a dragon rider who rules these lands.

If Aemon had to bind your wrist to him with pretty silks or even cold chains to keep you with him...

He may just do it.

Aemon isn't a very violent man.

He's strong yet always seemed to be one to negotiate unless it wasn't an option.

Aemon would never hurt you, he loves you too much.

He just wishes you'd stop hurting him.

Even during the ceremony Aemon makes sure to keep you where you're supposed to be.

Baelon promises his brother he'll watch you and prevent any escape attempts.

Even if tears threaten to spill from your eyes... Aemon's there to wipe them gently.

He tells you there's no need to cry... you both were destined for this...

Yet you can't bring yourself to be happy... not when Baelon killed your lover... not when Aemon threatened to tie you to his side...

Aemon says he loves you, sealing the deal with a kiss...

Yet you're just scared for what your life is to become.

AFAB Section

After weddings, the bedding ceremony usually commences.

Aemon is gentle during it, whispering sweet nothings as he kisses your skin.

By the end of it he cuddles you close, whispering how you'll be a good queen for him.

The Smallfolk are supportive of your marriage, King's Landing erupting in excitement.

Many are excited for Aemon to have an heir, be that a young prince or princess.

You do your best to put on a smile, to pretend you too are excited to see what the future will bring.

But you aren't the happiest.

Aemon is loving, yet you already had a love.

Now, for the sake of being a queen, you are to have Aemon's heir...

You barely had any time to grieve.

Aemon becomes protective of his wife... but he isn't the only one.

Caraxes can now sense Targaryen blood deep in your system once Aemon beds you.

You are growing a babe and the dragon seems to notice.

Aemon often takes you to Caraxes to get used to his mount.

The dragon, in response, always sniffs and chitters at you.

Aemon then grins, holding his beloved wife close, even as she stares blankly at her stomach.

You may not even know you're pregnant until Caraxes notifies you both.

Which leads to Aemon kissing your forehead, praising you for being his love.

I imagine Aemon would take you to Dragonstone to keep you safe.

It's quieter than The Red Keep in King's Landing.

You don't particularly like it as it makes you feel more isolated than you were.

Aemon is a seemingly good husband to you.

Even if you still dislike him coercing you into being his wife.

Unlike his father, Aemon doesn't mind when you have a daughter.

To him, Rhaenys is a beautiful baby girl, and she's yours.

Aemon would love any babe if you were the one who gave him them.

Once Rhaenys is born, Aemon rarely wants to leave your side.

Even as Rhaenys grows up, Aemon is already introducing her to dragons.

Having Rhaenys is probably the final nail in the coffin for you, now you truly are bound to Aemon.

After all, you can't seem to leave your daughter.

Even as she claims her dragon Meleys... or marries Corlys Velaryon... you adore her, even if you're disinterested in Aemon.

Aemon always talks about how you two should have a son... his grip on your waist tight.

You never say anything, accepting that you belong to Aemon, that you've been claimed by a dragon.

A beast.

I have a feeling even when Aemon dies, you're still tied to Targaryens more than Baratheons.

After all, you have a daughter to look after.

A daughter who loves you very much...

She's all you have now... and deep down... maybe you accept that.

[jentrovert]

Love to Hate You ♡

(Charlie Dalton x Fem Reader)

Enemies to Lovers Oneshot!

Warnings: Swearing, 1950’s stereotypes (purity, clothing style, cigarettes), mentions of neglect, immature high school drama, talk of paddling at school, dumb pranks, kissing, romance, teen partying, suggestive flirting, mention of a diet, moral grayness, parental issues, arguing, drinking, jealously, reader possesses slight anger issues, Neil lives and all is well.

Synopsis: The highly regarded Welton Academy has two buildings, one strictly for girl students, and the other for young boys. By a turn of events, they all end up having to share study hall together in the afternoons. (Y/n), your typical rich, hyper-feminine prima donna, thinks she’s in charge of Welton Academy. With her squeaky clean reputation and unwavering confidence, surely no one will ever see her sweat. However, being the drama queen that she is, she takes her first encounter with Charlie Dalton as a personal attack. Teenage chaos ensues. ~

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈•ﾟ｡ *

Authors Note: Hello! I just got into DPS, and I don’t write very much, so be gentle. This was originally supposed to be a dumb little blurb I wrote without intent to post. Short and silly. Obviously it’s based on the movie, but I also made it my own. Reader is referred to as a female, woman, and girl. She/Her pronouns used. It’s mentioned once that the reader has hair, but other than that, if something doesn’t feel neutral as far as the reader’s appearance, please let me know. Feel free to request! :)

Dramatic Princess Society

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

To say you were a diva was a staggering understatement. Everyone who graced your presence could see that you were in control of any room you happened to wander into. You weren’t a princess; you were the princess. A fond nickname you’d developed as well. You were never afraid to say whatever was on your mind, and you figured that really wasn’t such a bad thing. You just knew what you wanted, and that was all.

It didn’t help that your wealthy parents constantly fed into your ego, insistently showering you with lavish clothes and gifts to distract you from the fact that they only saw their child a few times a year. The only time your mother really gave you any guidance or contacted you at all was to ask about your diet or your clothing size, which was honestly fine by you. You had a social hierarchy to rule over, and that kept you plenty busy. Yeah, you were vain, and maybe even a bit too proud, but if anyone had the right to be, it was certainly you.

Your parents had pushed you into doing all sorts of extracurricular activities throughout your childhood and adolescence. They put a lot of weight on status and education, so failure just wasn’t an option in their eyes. You were meant to sit above everyone else at all times with a crown fixed on your head. Maybe if you could accomplish that, then you’d have to be good enough in their eyes.

What most people didn’t usually see, however, was the bleeding heart beneath all of that pompous prestige. Just below the surface, there was a young girl who wanted the same thing every other teenager so desperately did: to be accepted. But no one was going to knock down that wall you’d built.

On par for the course, you attended Welton Academy, one of the most distinguished prep schools in the country, made strictly for young women like yourself. The catch was that just across the lake from your school, there was another high school identical to your own, except it was made for young men instead.

The girl’s building was a fairly recent addition to the school grounds themselves. The schools weren’t necessarily close in proximity, but they were close enough that you could always see the opposing building. On the rare occasion of a mixed assembly, the Welton staff were always swift to pull you in opposite directions when the event had ended. There would be absolutely no one partaking in any premarital activities on their watch. The adults around you were very strict in that regard.

“What do you think the boys are doing over there right now?” Your roomate Maddie wondered aloud, her elbows propped up on the seal of your dorm window as she ogled dreamily across the lake.

You gave a teasing scoff as you turned away from your chemistry work to face her. “Probably using binoculars to stare at our building.”

“You think?” She chirped in almost a hopeful tone, glancing over her shoulder at you.

Your eyes nearly rolled out of your head. “That would not be a good thing, Madison. They’re a bunch of little perverts, and everyone knows it.”

“Maybe I should wear prettier night gowns,” She mused, ignoring your input completely.

You groaned. “Gross. Please just close the shutters.”

“At least you said ‘please’ for once,” Madison grumbled, doing just as you’d told her before deciding to turn in for the night.

You sighed, playing with a strand of your hair. “Madison. They’re just boys; I promise you, they don’t have anything special.”

Once you heard Maddie’s mischievous giggle, you already knew where she was about to go with that statement.

“Oh, I’d beg to differ on that one.”

You waved a dismissive hand in her direction.

“Well, maybe if you weren’t so uptight, then boys wouldn’t be so scared of you all the time,” She laughed.

You looked over at her again, brows raised. “Ha! That’s the way I like it,” You hummed, shrugging your shoulders as you inspected the polish on your nails. “But who could really blame them? I’m pretty intimidating, if I do say so myself.

Now it was Maddie’s turn to roll her eyes. “Whatever you say, princess,” She said, bowing theatrically before flopping back on her pillow. “Can you cut the lights off already? You’ve been looking at that forever.”

“Oh, I have to say ‘please’, but you don’t?” You huffed, but obliged anyway.

Cutting off your lamp, you followed Maddie’s lead and crawled beneath your own blankets, curling into a cozy little ball. Your eyes lingered on the ceiling for a while before you finally drifted off. You couldn’t stop yourself from wondering if there really was anything interesting about the boys over there. You doubted it, but you wouldn’t know unless you saw for yourself. Perhaps they could make things a little less boring in your current life. As much as you appreciated all the praise from your female peers, it was getting a little tired.

The next afternoon, it was nearing the end of the school day when you were sitting in Mrs. Newman’s class, daydreaming about your next salon appointment before dismissal. That’s when the older woman made an extremely important announcement to the class. Apparently, the boy’s library was under some new renovations, and as such, all of the boys who still wanted to attend study hall were instructed to use the girl’s library in your building until construction was over.

Your eyes widened when you heard the news, and you’d never admit it, but your heart also sped up a little at the thought. A few coy giggles echoed through the room as Mrs. Newman spoke.

“Now, ladies,” Your senile instructor boomed, scanning the room with a very firm look on her face. “I expect nothing but professional behavior from you all, and anything to the contrary will not be taken lightly. Do you all understand?”

“Yes, Mrs. Newman,” The class cooed in unison, not sounding nearly convincing enough.

You never thought you’d live to see the day Welton Academy would actually allow males and females to mingle. Hell had finally frozen over, you thought.

Newman kept a narrow eye on all of you as she dismissed class, but none of you seemed to pay her any mind. You were all too busy laughing and gossiping about what it would be like to merge study hall with boys. You must’ve heard your name being called a hundred times as you made your way to your locker.

“(Y/n)! (Y/n)! Did you hear?! We get to be with the boys every single day for the next few weeks!” A freshman girl named Rachel beamed as she approached.

The mundane expression never left your face. “Duh, of course I did. That’s all anyone’s talked about for the last five minutes.”

She deflated a bit. “Oh. Right. Um, I like your makeup today, by the way… Always, really.”

“Of course, Rach. You know me,” You remarked, stopping to fiddle with the combination on your locker. You could see her grin from your peripheral as she started to turn away.

“Alright, well, I’ll see you later, (Y/n)!”

You wiggled your fingers in her direction as you sorted through the books you wanted for study hall. You liked Rachel; she had great fashion sense, but she was a little too boy-obsessed for you, even worse than Maddie. You refused to give young men so much of your attention. They should be excited to see you, not the other way around. You’d never judge her or anyone else for it, but there was no way you were going to be dubbed a ‘tramp’ and end up being an outcast from your social groups. At least that’s what your parents told you would happen. So a boy would need to have something truly magical in order to make you break a sweat over them.

As you gripped your stack of books and began making your way to the now highly sought-after library, a small group of girls began trailing close behind you, a couple of them throwing affirmations your way about your hair or outfit. A few of them you knew, a few you didn’t, but at least you never had to worry about sitting alone.

“(Y/n), I love your pink socks.”

“Thanks. You know I just can’t be bothered with their horrid dress code. The patterns on the skirts are bad enough.”

“(Y/n), where did you get your bag?”

“Don’t remember. I just grabbed one this morning.”

“(Y/n), are you going to talk to any boys?”

“They can come up and talk to me if they want.”

“If they dare,” Maddie laughed, amplifying the string of constant giggles behind you.

You had your hand on the library door, ready to push it open, when a high-pitched voice startled you by crying, “Wait!”

You pulled away, immediately recognizing a sophomore named Jenny as she rushed over, peaking her head through the window of the large double doors.

“Ohmygosh,” She whispered. “They’re really in there.”

The group laughed, but you simply nudged her aside. “Please, Jen. Of course they are.”

“Oh! Let me pick where to sit!” Maddie begged with her sad brown eyes.

You thought about it briefly and ultimately caved in to her request. She cheered as she took a turn looking through the window, scanning each male specimen with great precision. A few women were in the library already, but not too many just yet. You tapped your foot impatiently, staring at the side of Maddie’s head while you waited on her decision.

“Pick cute ones to sit by!” A little red-headed girl commented, and the rest of them whispered amongst themselves in agreement.

You huffed, stamping your foot a bit as you began to push by your classmates. “For God’s sake, women, can we pull ourselves together a bit? Maddie Garcia, you’ve got two seconds before I pick for you.”

“Okay! Okay!” She squealed. “Um… That one! That table right there.” You stepped beside her, observing the large table that she’d pointed out. It was only half full, with one side harboring a fairly normal-looking group of young men, and the other side vacant.

“Fine. Perfect.”

Giving the entrance a quick shove, the group began filing in to the library one by one. Maddie and Rachel stayed by your side in order to get a closer look at the scope of people, and the rest of them hung behind you shyly. If the boys weren’t looking your way already, they certainly were after you haphazardly dropped your pile of books on the table. The rest of the girls sheepishly sorted out which chairs to take, making sure to leave a space between them and any boys. Almost instantly, you began burying yourself in your chemistry book, ignoring the girl’s whispering and the boy’s eyes that were burning holes in your head. You couldn’t believe all that fuss was just for them to not even talk to a single male in the room. You simply had no time for the nonsense.

After a while, everyone seemed to settle in and get back to their books and homework like normal, but every minute or so, Maddie would tap on you and ask, “What about that one? Is he cute?”, only for you to look over and shrug. More and more students came through during the hour. The library had stayed surprisingly quiet, so you figured the boys must be on their best behavior in the new environment. They were very careful not to say anything too loudly about any of you, though you knew what they were probably talking about when they lowered their voices. It was fine by you as long as they weren’t being overly distracting.

Your friends, on the other hand, weren’t doing anything with their time except yammering on; their books were open to a random page in the hopes that none of the teachers would actually notice. That day probably set a record for how many students attended study hall in Welton history, and the ironic part was hardly anyone was studying.

“Hey, (Y/n)?” A girl named Tayla asked, catching your attention.

You looked up at her in acknowledgment, so she continued. “How do you always keep from getting in trouble during Mr. Baker’s class?”

You thought about it for a second and laughed. “Well, you see, if you misbehave in a male teacher’s class, but you simultaneously wear a skirt that’s two sizes too small, then they won’t paddle you. None of them would dare make you bend over in a skirt that short.”

And you were right; teachers wouldn’t paddle you if your clothing seemed too short, so you always made sure wear clothing from previous school years if you were planning on causing problems. It may have been a shoddy thing for you to do, but so was hitting your students with an object, you thought. At least this way you could laugh about it.

A few of them giggled, one calling you a ‘genius’ in a playful manner. However, you could see from across the table that a few of the boys had suddenly turned rather crimson, and you knew it was likely from your conversation. You couldn’t fault them, because you weren’t exactly being quiet. Though you wouldn’t concern yourself with it either. If they were embarrassed, that was their problem.

A toothy smile graced your lips as you returned to your book, feeling oddly triumphant in your “advice”. But alas, you couldn’t revel in it; you had chemistry work that desperately needed your attention as well. Your parents would have your head if your grades proved any less than perfect.

You’d sat at the head of the table, trying your best to focus for at least a few minutes once everyone had gone quiet. However, rather than focusing on chemistry formulas, you’d slowly started to take notice of a young brunette who sat opposite you. He wasn’t doing anything particularly special, just chewing gum and trying to kick one of his friends under the table, not paying much mind to the new female table-mates. One of his classmates had called him “Charlie”, which was a name you actually recognized. You’d definitely heard a few of the girls talk about him before, and his not-so-appropriate stories.

You took a moment to observe the details of his face and the way he interacted with his friends, your work now long forgotten. He seemed so confident and loud, clearly a class clown as well. His boyish features were pretty charming, if you had to admit it. Soft and mischievous at the same time. The uniform looked handsome on him too. His looks and mannerisms definitely made you want to get to know him a bit better.

Suddenly, the same male you were admiring cleared his throat in a loud, dramatic sort of fashion, catching everyone at the table’s attention. He made quite a show of folding his hands out in front of him on the table, leaning toward you with direct eye contact, so you knew that whatever he was about to say, he was talking to you.

You cocked a brow at the boy, clueless as to what he could possibly be drawing so much attention for.

“Ma’am, since I don’t see any paint or an easel in front of you, I’m going to have to ask that you refrain from staring, please. Not that I don’t enjoy it, but it is very distracting at the moment,” He explained in mock concern, smiling in almost a taunting sort of fashion.

Your eyes blew wide, your jaw all but dropping to the floor as everyone who was listening turned to see your reaction. A few other tables had heard the disturbance as well. Your back suddenly straightened, and you opened and closed your mouth a few times in an attempt to defend yourself, but nothing came out. Normally, you’d fire off something snarky in return, maybe even insulting, but instead, your mind was rendered completely blank. It was strange, really. Sex and everything related to it were extremely taboo, especially with the way you’d been raised. It was one thing when you were talking to your female peers, but having a male address you in that sort of manner was kind of petrifying.

Your cheeks burned with humiliation from all the giggles that met your ears. His gaze never left yours as a huge smirk began to paint his features, causing you to avert your eyes. You couldn’t remember when you became so shy.

“I, uh...” Your eyes darted around to various on-looking students. “Whatever,” you muttered, propping your book up in a way that would block most people from seeing your face.

A symphony of “Ooo’s” echoed from all around you, the group of boys laughing as they playfully punched their friend on the shoulder. Only one boy in a vest who sat closest seemed to give Charlie a displeased look. Some of your own friends began poking you and laughing themselves. Your skin was on fire. You hardly even interacted with men in your day to day life, much less experienced this. You were mortified. You could only take it for a few more moments before you stood straight up from your chair, slamming your chemistry book. Charlie and a couple of your friends were the only ones who noticed the tantrum you were throwing, and Maddie stood to follow you as you made your way out of the library.

You practically stomped out of the room, never once looking behind you. “Who the hell even is that? Who does he think he is talking to me that way? This is why they shouldn’t be over here,” You ranted, directing it toward Maddie, even though she hadn’t caught up to you yet.

Before the door could shut behind both of you, someone had flung it open once more. You turned to see if the rest of the girls were following you, only to be met with his face again. You groaned and began walking faster to your locker.

“Hey!” The boy laughed, hurrying to catch you. “Hey, hold on-”

You didn’t answer, the click of your heels being the only noise you made. Maddie didn’t say anything either, but she watched the two of you with suspicious eyes.

“Wait a second,” He urged, attempting to grab your sleeve before you swatted him away.

“Who do you think you are, exactly?” You snapped, suddenly spinning on your heel to face him. He nearly tripped over his feet to stop himself from running into you.

“Uh, I think I’m Charlie,” he stated, taking a couple steps backward.

Your eyes narrowed. “And what do you want? Why are you trying to humiliate me?”

Charlie stared at you for a second, then let out a small chuckle as he began rolling his sleeves up to his elbows. “Ah, I see. You’re one of those types.”

“Excuse me?” You seethed, digging your nails into your textbooks. “One of what type? Nobody is like me, not even close, so get that straight.”

The male put his hands up in defense. “Now, I didn’t mean it like that, babe.”

Throwing him a fake laugh, you rolled your eyes and continued the journey to your dorm. “Babe? I’m not your babe; my name is (Y/n). Now go torture some other girl.”

Charlie stuffed his hands in his pockets as he watched you walk away, glancing over at Maddie, who had yet to follow you again. "Well, now I have to torture her,” he said.

“Good luck with that. She’s, like, the queen of Welton,” Maddie laughed. “Although, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody work her up that much before.”

Charlie hummed, fixed on the spot you once stood. “Well, then the king himself will just have to take that as a challenge.”

.

The next few days went by with you avoiding study hall like the plague, no matter how much any of the other girls begged you to go. You were sick, you were hungry, you were tired—anything it took to avoid him until you were certain the whispers had died down. You hated his cocky demeanor. You were the only one who should be cocky at Welton. Of course, the rumor of your “crush” had made its rounds by now, much to your dismay. Maddie told you she’d heard some of the boys talking about it as well. The majority of girls just couldn’t shut up about how cute you’d be together with one the “poetry nerds”.

You must’ve been asked a dozen times if you and Charlie were dating, and for once you wished people would stop paying so much attention to you. That was the point where you’d had enough. There was no way you were going to let people think you had a thing for that clown, absolutely no way. You knew he just liked to flirt with every girl anyway, so his advances meant nothing to you. He had embarrassed you on purpose, and you were going to make damn sure you returned the favor someday. These were your school grounds, not his, and not anybody else’s either. Mr. Nolan, the old bat, could take that fact and shove it for all you cared.

The day you finally went back to study hall was on a Friday. There was a chemistry test on Monday morning, and no matter how much you detested it, you really could’ve used one of the boys’ help to study. This chapter of Chemistry was your weak point, and you’d heard a lot of good things about a boy called “Meeks” and his godlike abilities in that realm. You’d seen him sitting around Charlie on that fateful day, which troubled you at first, but once you thought about it for a while, an idea started forming in your brain. That’s where your friend Rachel came in.

Rachel had an affinity for lizards, frogs, and any other small creature that crawled along the ground, which was just perfect for you. You just hoped Charlie loved lizards as much as she did. By the time Friday afternoon had rolled around, you all but dragged Rachel out and down to the library. You could tell she was very unsure, but went along with you anyway.

You stopped and turned to her right outside the doors. “Did you catch one?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, crouching down to fish through her bag.

After a moment, she stood, holding out her hand to reveal a small lizard gently clenched in her grasp. You grinned a wide, maniacal grin, carefully taking the creature from her hands. He was small enough that he would hopefully go undetected for a while, which is exactly what you wanted.

“Thanks, Rach. Alright, c’mon, let’s go,” You instructed, holding the creature in one hand behind your back.

“Ok—ay,” Rachel replied, trialing behind you with your chemistry books in hand.

You strutted right through the room and towards Steven Meeks’ table, ignoring any whispers you heard along the way. Sure enough, Charlie was sitting right beside the Meeks boy, laughing at something his friend had said.

Perfect.

As you approached, most of the table’s attention had turned your way. Charlie immediately plastered that smug look across his face at the sight of you. You scowled at first, but quickly switched your expression to something nice and welcoming as you looked toward Steven, leaning down to his level once you were beside him.

“Hello, gentlemen. Do you mind if I steal your friend Steven for a moment? Rachel and I are seriously clueless when it comes to chemistry, and we need some help for our test Monday,” You explained in a sugary sweet tone, intentionally placing your hand on Meeks’ shoulder. You knew they would fold like wet paper at your request.

The group exchanged several glances with one another, during which, you took the opportunity to place your lizard friend into Charlie’s uniform coat, carefully planting him where he’d likely go down rather than out the top.

“Uh, yeah, alright, sure,” Meeks agreed, gathering up his things and rising from his chair. Rachel chuckled awkwardly, giving a timid “Thank you” to the boy for his help. You couldn’t distinguish whether she was nervous about what you’d done or if Rachel actually had a thing for Meeks. Either way, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting to witness the events that unfolded when Charlie realized something besides him was moving in his clothes.

You and Rachel led Meeks to a vacant table off to the left and began setting up things to study. You could tell the boy was a bit nervous around you, but he but shook it off pretty quickly. You, however, were still too distracted with watching Charlie. Once Meeks noticed this, he chuckled, gaining your attention.

“What is it?” You questioned.

“It’s just that… I noticed you staring over there.”

You shot him a chilling glare.

“I was not staring at him!” You blurted a little too loudly. A few students glanced your way before going back to their work, making you take a breath and sit back in your chair. “I apologize. Continue, please.”

Rachel held in a laugh, but said nothing.

A few minutes had gone by before you finally caught a sign of Charlie feeling around in the sleeve of his clothes. You leaned forward in anticipation, waiting eagerly for some sort of panic to ensue. However, rather than panicking, Charlie stood up, removing his jackst and flipping it to search the inside. After some investigation, he found whatever he was looking for.

“Oh, man!” You heard Charlie exclaim as he pulled something from the article of clothing. “Guys, check this out.”

He seemed excited about it, much to your utter frustration. The group all gathered around to view the animal Charlie now held in his hand, all taking turns viewing the small reptile. You were fuming, now sunken down in your chair with your arms folded.

“Yeah, I wonder where he came from, too,” Charlie articulated louder than before, peering over his shoulder at you with a knowing look.

That cocky smile of his made you stand up so hard that your chair fell backwards. You snatched your book off the desk and started to walk out, not bothering to say anything other than, “I’m going to study in my room.”

“Okay,” Rachel squeaked as she and Meeks’ eyes followed you out the door.

Charlie couldn’t stop the laughter that nearly doubled him over as he witnessed you pretty much barrel through the door on your way out. You ignored him, walking briskly to your locker to grab another book, accidentally bumping into a few people on your way. Once you stopped in front of your locker door, a puzzled look replaced your once furious one. The combination lock on your locker had completely disappeared, initially making you think someone had stolen something out of it.

In a panic, you threw open the door to see what might be missing, but rather than finding an empty space, you found the exact opposite. The second you tore it open, an absolute mountain of paper came toppling out like a waterfall, making you shriek as they pooled all around your feet. You stood staring at the ground for a moment, desperately trying to process what just occurred. That’s when you heard footsteps approaching to your right. You didn’t even have to look to know who it was.

Charlie was stifling laughter as he closed in on you. Then he dug around in his front pocket for a moment before pulling out your missing lock and holding it towards you. “Figure you’d want this back,” he offered between chuckles.

“You put these here?” It came out as a statement rather than a question.

“Yeah, kinda like you put a lizard in my shirt. Funny coincidence. Mine was funnier, but I guess we’re even now, eh?”

You studied the inside of your locker for a second more before slamming it shut as hard as you could and pivoting on your heel to face him. His expression faltered a bit when he saw the rage evident in your features.

“Babe, hold on, it was just a jo-”

“How did you get my lock off of there?!” You roared, kicking papers away as you shoved your manicured finger right in his face.

Charlie smirked. “The same way I knew it was you who got that lizard in my blazer, I’m just smart, is all.” He didn’t seem too fazed, which angered you even further. “That was pretty corny, by the way. You should know that we men aren’t afraid of our own shadows like you ladies are.”

You thought your head was about to spin around.

“Afraid of our own shadows?! Are you aware that it was a girl who got the lizard in the first place, you hoity, lame, stupid, conceited-”

“Children!” An adult’s voice boomed from down the hall, making you both whip your heads in that direction.

“Shit,” You and Charlie whispered in unison.

“What on earth is going on here?! What’s all of this mess for?!” Mrs. Newman screeched as she advanced toward you, her brow carved into a deep, wrinkled frown.

You quickly began straightening your outfit, scanning your brain for an excuse to the papers.

“Well, Ma’am, I, uh- Um, Mr. Dalton here had accidentally bumped into me, and I dropped a bunch of papers on the ground,” You rushed out, flashing her an innocent smile as you flattened your skirt.

She gave you a skeptical look up and down, then turned her attention to Charlie. “Is that so? Then what’s with all the noise?”

Charlie coughed into the crook of his elbow before he spoke, giving himself a moment to think.

���Were we being loud? I’m so sorry, Mrs. Newman; we’ll keep our voices down. Won’t happen again, I promise.”

After contemplating it for a minute, she finally let the two of you off the hook, scolding you not to let it happen again and instructing Charlie to help you clean up. Once she was out of sight, the boy grinned at you, kneeling down to help you sort through the sheets of paper littering the floor. “You lied for me, babe?”

You could hear the satisfaction in his voice. “Don’t flatter yourself. I knew if I told on you, then you’d probably narc me out too.”

He paused for a second, then laughed under his breath. “You hardly look at me when we talk like this. Do I make you that nervous, babe?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, you reached over and kicked the foot he was balancing his weight on, effectively toppling him over. Charlie was quick to catch himself, though, cackling like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen happen.

You stood to your full height, intending to leave him on the ground to fend for himself. “I told you to stop calling me that!”

“Hold on!” He cried rather dramatically, grabbing you by the hand while on his knees in front of you. “I’m sorry. How could I have ever upset the most amazing girl at Welton? A beautiful flame that I’ve tried to snuff out. Could you ever forgive me?”

It was almost weirdly poetic, but still very sarcastic.

Your expression couldn’t have been less amused than it was in that moment, but it quickly twisted into one of shock and horror as the boy leaned forward and planted a curt kiss on your knuckles, still staring up at you with a look that feigned remorse. Those auburn eyes froze you in place for just a moment before you finally snapped out of it, tearing your hand away. The recoil of your action caused you to stumble back a step, which Charlie was thoroughly entertained by, of course.

You shook your head. “Ugh! Can you just stop messing with me, Dalton?! There’s a hundred other girls here; try one of them.”

As much as you hated it, Charlie was right about one thing: You did have a difficult time meeting his gaze. Something about those eyes just made it frustratingly difficult for you to string the right words together. So instead, you scooped up your books and trudged back to your dorm, leaving him surrounded by mounds of paper that still needed to be dealt with.

It seemed that the more irate you became, the more Charlie couldn’t help but laugh. Whatever the reason was, you were not amused in the slightest. You were really about to snap, and dumb little pranks weren’t going to alleviate your feelings. As the day crawled to an end, you took a shower, ate a snack, and eventually decided on going to Maddie’s house for the weekend. You figured it would do you some good to hang out and relax rather than staying at school, and it wasn’t as though your parents cared anyway.

Madison lived close by, and her parents would always come pick her up if she wanted. They were happy to have you since they got along well with your family, so it worked out perfect anytime you needed to get away. By the time you got there and caught up with her family for a bit, it had grown dark outside. She was quiet for a while as she put her things away and meandered around aimlessly, obviously stalling for something she wanted to say.

“So,” she finally said, drawing out the “o” at the end. Your eyes flickered up from your book to see Maddie fighting a smile, her hip cocked with one hand placed on top of it. “I heard about your locker.”

Your jaw clenched. “Maddie, let me stop you right there. I do not want to talk about it. I do not want to think about it. And it was hardly a joke at all; it was just stupid. I had no idea he’d actually pull something so dumb.”

She let out a breathy laugh and picked up a book of her own, beginning to immerse herself in its contents after plopping onto her bed. “Right, so stupid. It's almost as stupid as putting a lizard in someone’s clothes.”

Your nails nearly tore the page you were pretending to read. “I asked you to drop it. I do not want to talk about that man child anymore this weekend.”

“Actually, you didn’t ask,” She hummed. “And it’s funny, since he’s all you’ve wanted to talk about for the past week.”

“Is not!” You wailed, dropping your book on the desk to look at her.

Maddie blinked at you owlishly, though she was plenty used to your antics by now. “(Y/n), I know how much you adore drama, but don’t you think you’re being a touch dramatic here? He probably just likes you.”

“Well, he has a horrible way of showing it.”

“He’s a teenage boy, (Y/n).”

“I don’t care. You all are gonna make me take up smoking.”

She pursed her lips, observing you for a moment. “Are you sure you don’t think he’s kind of cute..?”

You heard the skepticism in her voice. “... Absolutely not.”

She didn’t acknowledge the fact that you hesitated for a split second, she just smiled and went back to reading. “Whatever you say, princess. I’d say you match each other’s egotism.” She paused for a second. “I was going to tell you something else, but now I forgot what it was.”

“Mm. That’s a shame; I would’ve really been interested to hear more of what you had to say,” You drawled, sarcasm dripping from your words.

She grinned. “Shut up, you-… Hold on, do you hear that?”

You glanced around. “What? It’s quiet.”

Maddie lived in a pretty wealthy neighborhood so everyone, including her parents, had turned in by half an hour ago. It stayed generally pretty mundane.

“Listen,” She said, walking to her window and moving the curtains. Both of you stilled as you strained to hear something, and sure enough, the sound of distant music met your ear.

“Is someone throwing a party?” You asked.

“Must be that girl across the street. I bet her parents are out for the weekend.”

“Hm. And where does she go again?”

Maddie shrugged. “One of the public high schools nearby, I suppose.”

“Whatever,” You sighed, standing up. “I guess I’m going to head over to the guest room and get some sleep.”

Maddie nodded. “Alright. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be next door.”

“Thanks, Mads.”

Surprisingly, it didn’t take much for you to doze off once you’d gotten comfortable. Perhaps you were exhausting yourself worrying about nonsense. The unfortunate part was that you didn’t stay asleep for very long. About three hours went by before Maddie was shaking you awake again.

“Ugh,” You groaned in annoyance, shifting as your stirred awake. “Wha—at, Maddie? My beauty sleep-”

“Don’t you hear that? I haven’t been able to sleep forever!” She interjected.

Your eyes fluttered open as you listened. That’s when you finally processed how excessively loud the party music was playing from outside. Maddie was hardly visible in the darkness, but you could still make out the aggravated expression etched on her features.

Now you were pissed.

The absolute last thing you wanted to deal with was being woken up out of your sleep by some inconsiderate bunch of teenagers with nothing productive to do in their spare time.

“I’m surprised no one in the neighborhood has called the police on those kids or something,” She grumbled, folding her arms over her chest. “I guess none of them are as close to her house as we are.”

You kicked your legs over the side of the bed, weaving past the young girl and practically growling as you went digging around for some shoes.

“What are you doing?” Maddie quizzed, watching as you tugged some slippers onto your feet and started towards the door.

“I’m going to make sure they quiet down. Come on.”

She was quick to follow after that, not uttering a word as you padded down the stairs and out the front door. You were careful not to alert her parents of your exit, even though you knew they slept through everything anyway. Maddie almost had to jog to keep up with your pace.

As you made your way across the street, it became even more glaringly obvious where all the noise was coming from. The neighbor’s backyard was practically lit up like a rock concert. You didn’t even bother with the front door at that point and instead looped your way around the back of the house, straight for the source. You could hear Maddie faltering behind you.

“(Y/n), wait, if there are boys here, we can’t be in nightgowns! What are you even going to say? What if-!”

“Listen, I know you’re a ridiculously light sleeper, and this noise is just stupid, so I’m fixing it right now. Either follow me or don’t,” You snapped, not bothering to look in her direction.

She didn’t reply, but never stopped following you. You were on a war path, but the instant you rounded the corner, you came to a screeching halt, causing Maddie to smack into your backside.

“Ouch!” She yelped, stepping backward. “Why did you…” Maddie trailed off as she caught sight of what you were staring at—the very thing that had caused you to stop in your tracks.

“No. Way.”

Just as you suspected, there was a crowd of high school kids everywhere, some drinking, some smoking, and others dangling their feet in the large pool. You didn’t recognize any of them—none of them except two teenage boys standing by a large table of refreshments. One of them you knew as Knox Overstreet, and the other was Charlie Dalton himself, right there in the flesh, sipping on a cup of God-knows-what with his arm slung around a young brunette girl’s shoulders. They were preoccupied laughing at something Charlie had said, completely oblivious to your presence.

God, he looked just as arrogant as ever with that horrible smug look slapped across his face. To you, it looked like he thought he was getting somewhere with that girl.

You were initially shocked to see them both, but quickly shaped up when you remembered why you were standing there in the first place.

“That’s Mary, the girl that lives here. Is she with Charlie?” Maddie asked.

“Over my dead fucking body,” You mumbled, marching right towards where they stood. It only took a second for them to notice you approaching. The girl, Mary, seemed only bewildered by your clothing choice, while the two boys looked like they had suddenly seen a ghost.

You got about six feet away before stopping and jamming a finger in their direction. “I apologize, but this music is-!”

“What?” Mary yelled over the music. You could tell by her body language that she really wasn’t all that interested in what you had to say regardless. Like you were the one being a nuisance, not the other way around.

You gritted your teeth, glaring down at one of the radios that blasted on the table beside you. You all but ripped the knob off that damn machine trying to turn it off. At that point, nearly everyone had turned to look at the commotion you’d caused, but you truly couldn’t have cared less. The perplexed expression had melted off Charlie’s face, now seeming more impressed than anything. But what he was impressed by, you weren’t quite sure.

“I said,” You snarled, practically boring holes into the girl’s head. “I’m sorry, but music is over the top. I’m at my friend’s house across the street, and it’s clear as day through the walls. It’s late. We and everybody else in the neighborhood are really trying to sleep, and you’re being a bit inconsiderate with this. There is zero reason for it to be that loud all night.”

Your head snapped to Charlie when you heard his laugh, and it was all you could do not to tackle him, then it went back to the girl.

“Or maybe,” Mary said slowly, “You should try putting some clothes on before you decide to come stomp on everyone’s fun. I mean, seriously, are you a prostitute or something?” Her words were slurring together. Then she took a final swig from a glass bottle she held before tossing it in your direction.

You stepped back quickly, listening to her giggle as the bottle rolled along the grass and bounced off your foot. Charlie chose to step away from her at that point. Taunting “Ooo’s” came from the crowd of people, who were now fully engrossed as they moved closer to watch the show. You stood there stunned for a moment, in disbelief that someone had actually thrown a glass object at you. Sure, you could be catty sometimes, but you’d never done anything like that to a stranger.

“(Y/n)..?” Came Maddie’s meek voice. You could hear her take a few steps in your direction.

You ignored her and instead looked up at Mary again with a calm smile.

“Hey, alright, look, you can’t-” Charlie began to tell her, but you stopped him politely.

Her smugness seemed to diminish at your mellow reaction, which was quite the opposite of what everyone thought. She had clearly anticipated on you being angry.

But you were angry. You were literally shaking with anger. However, you opted not to express it right away. You weren’t going to give her the pleasure of seeing you scream or cry over her actions.

Still sporting your gentle expression, you sauntered around to the back of the refreshment table and stood there for a moment, all while maintaining eye contact with the young girl.

Mary furrowed her brows, almost ready to laugh at whatever you were doing, but just as she did, you reached out in a quick motion, and flipped the table completely over onto its side, emphasized by a deep ‘thud’ as it hit the ground.

Food went cascading in various directions, the radio rolled several times, and the punch bowl’s contents shot out so far that it covered almost all three of their shoes, causing Mary to shriek and jump backwards. You could tell she had some nice shoes on, too. Well, they were nice.

“Oops,” You sang, “My mistake.”

You could tell she was furious, but thankfully for her, she didn’t move to approach you.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?!” She screeched, face now glowing with anger.

“What’s wrong with me? It’s you, bitch. You’re what’s wrong.”

Noises of surprise and astonishment came from the other teenagers, some egging you on and others commenting on how unladylike you were. You didn’t care; you were ready to shove her in the pool if she tried something else. However, Maddie was there to snatch your hand and start tugging you in the opposite direction.

“(Y/n), let’s go,” She demanded.

You pulled your arm back, knocking her aside as you left all the laughter and commotion behind you. She was about to take out, but Charlie stopped her.

“Hey, head on home, I’ll handle it.”

Maddie sneered at him. “Are you kidding me? You? You think you’re going to help?”

“I’ve got it, I promise. She’ll be back at yours afterward,” He assured.

She sighed, and begrudgingly allowed him to go after you. It didn’t take him long to catch up, but he was confused to find you walking down the road rather than back toward Maddie’s house. You knew from the weight of the footsteps that it wasn’t Maddie behind you, but that didn’t concern you in the slightest. You were too busy fighting tears that threatened to swell in your eyes, the adrenaline making your emotions run rampant. You just wanted to walk and cool your head a little bit, and you were deaf to anything else going on around you.

“(Y/n)! Shit, I didn’t know you had that kind of fire, babe!” Charlie hollered, but when you didn’t stop or even slow down after a few more steps, he took the liberty of grabbing you by the shoulders and spinning you around to face him.

“(Y/N)! Where are you-“

“What?!” You yelled, not bothering to fight him as he held you. He let go when he saw the way you were looking at him, then opened his mouth to say something, but you immediately cut him off.

“What do you want with me? What did I even do to you?”

“What? I’m pretty sure you started this whole thing, not me. Besides, where are you even going?” Charlie laughed.

You glared. “Does it really matter? And what the hell is so funny? What are you so amused with all the goddamn time?!”

“You,” He stated dryly, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Me?” You quizzed. “I’m is amusing? Is that why you embarrassed me in front of my friends the first day we met?”

He pulled back. “I wasn’t trying to embarrass you, I was trying to get your attention.”

“Well, congratulations, you’ve got it!” You ridiculed. “What are you even doing here? Did you sneak out with Knox to go to that stupid party? And who was that girl hanging all over you like that? She’s awful.”

A broad, playful smirk stretched across the boy’s cheeks. “Why do you care who she was?”

You straightened, placing a hand on your chest. “I don’t. I just don’t see why you have to throw yourself on every girl like that; it’s gross.”

He stepped forward with that ever-teasing look on his face. “Oh, but it was okay when you were rubbing Meeks’ shoulder at school?”

“I wasn’t ‘rubbing’ his shoulder!”

“Yeah, and I don’t actually ‘throw myself’ at women, either,” He shrugged. “I only talk a big game. I make jokes, it’s what I do.”

You tried to fight it, but it was useless. He just looked so attractive under the warm street lights, the wind making his hair all ruffled and messy. Your resentment diminished at the sight, and instead was replaced with a pang of jealousy. The reality was that you wanted Charlie’s arm around you instead. You needed it to be you, and not Mary or anybody else. The facade had finally lost its luster. Realization was now staring in the face: you had feelings for Charlie Dalton.

“Yeah, right, Dalton. That’s what I’d say too,” You uttered, demeanor now flat.

“It’s part of my charm,” He affirmed.

“Of course…”

Charlie was so easy to admire that it made you loath him for it. A thick silence hung between you both for a second.

“I wasn’t trying to make you that angry, for the record. I was just teasing. You’re absolutely gorgeous, and everyone at school wants your attention, so I was trying to make sure I kept it to myself for more than two seconds,” He mused, scuffing his shoe on the pavement. “Although you are pretty hot when you’re mad, so I’ll admit it was a little fun.”

Chills ran down your arms, eyes drifting to the ground bashfully. “You’re crazy, Charles Dalton.”

“Hm. Then I guess we have a lot in common,” He retorted.

“Really? You can’t be serious for two seconds?”

“You can’t loosen up for two seconds!”

You wheeled around, ready to walk away from the conversation and let your crush die with it, but Charlie grabbed you again. This time he wrapped one arm around your waist and pulled you dangerously close, using his other hand to firmly grasp your chin so you’d have to look at him.

You were about to reprimand him, tell him to unhand you and to go back to that other girl, but before you knew what was happening, he’d already leaned in and smushed his lips right up against yours.

A bolt of electricity ran through your body upon contact, and the words that died on your lips came out as a small moan of surprise. He was kissing you. You couldn’t believe it, Charlie was actually kissing you. A real kiss. The sharp scent of cologne and cigarettes invaded your nose, overwhelming your senses. It took a moment for your brain to process the situation, but when it did, you relaxed against him, instinctively letting your eyes close and snaking your arms around his neck. You felt him smile against you as you pulled him flush to your body. It was sweet, meaningful. Your heart thumped wildly in your chest, making you slightly lightheaded.

Oh, you were so screwed.

You had no foggy idea what came over you, but you didn’t have to think twice about it. You began running your fingers through his chocolate locs of hair, nails grazing his scalp ever so slightly in a way that had him sighing against you. He ran his hand to the back of your neck began moving his lips feverishly with your own. You could taste whatever fruity substance he’d been sipping on earlier, but it was heaven. The way he kissed you caused your tongues to brush together a few times, and your stomach flipped each time it happened.

All the built-up tension you’d acquired over the past week was completely released in those few moments as his hands moved up and down your torso. You were fully content to stay like that for the rest of the night, but of course, it was over all too soon.

“Hey, Dalton! Why can't we leave you alone for five minutes, man?” Knox’s voice made you jump away from Charlie, ears warm from being caught.

You weren’t exactly being discreet about it by making out in the middle of the street, but you were still surprised and suddenly much more aware of the fact that you were in nothing but a nightgown.

“Hey, Carpe Diem, man!” Charlie called back to him from down the street, sporting a grin that was probably less than trustworthy.

He continued when all he got was silence in return, “Hold on a second; I’ll be right there, I swear!”

Knox rolled his eyes, turning back toward the house. “Make it quick; we’ve gotta get back before someone misses us!”

Charlie gave his friend a thumbs up, then turned back just as you shivered from a gust of cool night air. Without missing a beat, he peeled off his jacket and placed it over your shoulders, shooting you a goofy smile.

You pulled it around you while shaking your head, then leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, and watched as youthful excitement erupted on his face.

“So you were staring at me that day.”

“Mmm, let’s not push it, Dalton. You’ve been having way too much fun this week,” You warned, stifling a smile.

“Neil owes me a dollar.”

Eyeing the wet grass for a moment, you thought carefully about what you wanted to say next, but it proved difficult to come back down from the high that kiss had put you on.

“You know… I really am sorry about everything that happened,” You said ashamedly.

Charlie’s silence urged you to continue.

“You… I like you, truthfully. And I’ve never really been interested in a boy like this before. When you called me out that day in the library, it sort of hurt my pride a little bit for everyone to see how flustered I got.” Your breathing trembled. "And… I don't know, I guess I just panicked when I realized I couldn’t be cool in front of you."

It felt foreign to open up like that. Showing soft emotions was just not your forte. You were always taught to suck it up and keep going; you were to cry about things in private and smile like a lady in public. But fortunately, Charlie didn’t care about that, and he listened to you ramble with perfect patience. You couldn’t tell if you wanted to cry or throw up at that point, but you were glad you got it out.

“That’s what all this was about?”

You nodded.

“(Y/n)… You need to stop worrying so much about what everyone else thinks. I was sure you just hated me by this point.”

“Charlie, I can’t help it. I’ve worked hard all my life trying to impress everyone,” You defended, feeling a twinge of sadness as you thought back to your parents.

“Well, whether you believe me or not, I would never want you to feel like you had to earn my acceptance. Never.” He gave you a sympathetic look. “And please trust me when I tell you it’s not worth trying to be whatever your family expects you to be. You’re better than whatever they have in their head for you.”

You nodded, and he smiled. A genuine smile, not that patronizing smirk.

“I could’ve approached you so much better than I did, and it was immature to keep antagonizing you like that. I’m sorry, (Y/n).”

You shook your head. “No, I should’ve controlled my temper. You and that poor lizard didn’t deserve it either. And now I need to go apologize to Maddie for the feud her family is going to have with the neighbors for the rest of their life.”

He grimaced. “Eh, they sort of had it coming, if you ask me. I should’ve known you could handle yourself just fine.”

“Don’t encourage me,” You hummed in amusement, watching the trees sway in the breeze.

“Man. Nobody gets the last word with you, do they?” He said through chuckles. “Honestly… What you did was pretty funny. And you were right; the music was obnoxious. It was giving me a headache. Also, let it be known that none of this was my idea, by the way; Knox dragged me here.”

You smiled back at him half-heartedly. “Yeah, I’m never going to hear the end of it… Not that I necessarily deserve mercy.”

“Well, regardless of how it started out, I hope it can continue.” Charlie took your hand, kissing your knuckles just as he’d done before, mumbling against your skin, “If I had known all it took to get on your good side was to stick my tongue in your mouth, I would’ve done it a while ago.”

You took your hand away and whacked his shoulder gently. “Shut it.”

You didn’t have to look at him to know he was grinning from ear to ear.

“I’ll see you Monday! And I’ll have to properly introduce you to my friends,” He joked, walking backward toward the direction Knox had disappeared in. “They all think you’re pretty, but they’re also scared of you, so you have to sit by me.”

“Wait! Do you want your coat back?”

“Nah, I’ll get it Monday, and I’ll get you your lock back, too,” He laughed. “And next time we’ll have to do this at my place, babe!”

You rolled your eyes. “Only if you wear the nightgown next time, Charles.”