#most of the relationships happening in my save would be so fucked up in real life

[bunnyboy-juice]

spent the first hour and change at work deleting some old files and am having a grand ol time laughing at myself for not realizing i was a lesbian sooner

[eachuisge-cc]

Any other animal hybrids in your lore?

not really. I just really enjoy designing cat people in any universe (I've got khajiit ocs in skyrim, cathar in swtor, a couple tabaxi in various d&d campaigns, etc) so I needed some for my ts4 world lol. the cat people aren't even actual hybrids in my lore, they're literally just a sapient species of cat that evolved into an evolutionary niche normally occupied by hominids in the same way hyenas evolved into one normally occupied by canids.

there are satyrs though, if that counts. I may very well make other animal-related addons, especially in relation to the digitigrade legs, but that's going to lean more into the fae side of things than what the cat people have going on. they're just kinda their own thing.

I kind of lean into the chaos inherent to playing the sims with all packs + some really excellent mods so my world is an ungodly casserole of scifi and fantasy and cyberpunk and whatever the hell's going on in strangerville (which isn't really what the ts4 devs intended to be going on in strangerville because the grocery-store-brand-stranger-things angle was the least interesting direction they could have gone with it). star wars aliens just kind of exist and nobody questions it. magical creatures are walking around. sometimes people are cyborgs. it's a fun time.

[not-neverland06]

Hey! Love your writing and love Flux!! I was hoping to request a kind of angsty/fluffy fic with the worst!wolverine where the meet her in the void and maybe Logan knew her just not very well and he’s finally letting himself open up and be close with her (likewise with reader/flux towards logan) and they get into an argument or maybe logan has a nightmare and he ends up stabbing her with his claws and maybe the aftermath of him beating himself up and sabotaging the new relationship until reader finally snaps him out of it and says it was an accident and she still loves him?? Thanks!!

mistake

Logan Howlett x fem!reader

a/n: I want to thank you for this request because I've been having the worst writer's block in the world. I was worried about having to go into another unofficial hiatus, but this made something in my brain click together and I knocked it out in two hours. my life is yours 🙏🙏 Summary: You know him. Or, you knew him. And you never blamed him for what happened in your world. It wasn't his fault that everyone you loved died and you barely escaped with your life. But you never actually thought you'd have to see him again. You don't know what to do when all these feelings resurface with his appearance.

No one truly knew who you were back in your universe. After the horrific incident at the mansion, you had run. You’d run as fast and as far as you could from the slaughter of your friends. You’d barely escaped with your life, and from the amount of blood and gore they’d left behind, most people just assumed you were dead. 

It’s not like anyone cared about you. Scott, Ororo, and Jean had been the real heroes. But it didn’t matter because they were still mutants at the end of the day. It didn’t matter how many people they saved. How many lives they positively changed, no one would ever see past the fact that they were mutants. 

Being one of the newer members of the recently disbanded X-Men gave you enough anonymity to get through daily life without being recognized. It did not, however, protect you from being sucked into the shit fest that is the multiverse. 

You’re not sure what it is about you that just attracts bad luck. You don’t know if it’s some hidden power that’s a part of your evolution. You’re just apparently perpetually fucked. The TVA had determined that you were interfering with the proper flow of your timeline or some bullshit. 

Now you’re here. Stuck in the void with nothing but decay and drunk former superheroes. If you have to watch one more Captain America ‘rally the troops’ you’re gonna kill him yourself. You’ve considered switching teams and joining Cassandra Nova at times. If only so you don’t have to deal with Johnny Storm and the rest of the dipshits. 

You get along with Laura, at least. She likes to tell you about her Logan and you like to dodge her questions about yours. She doesn’t need to know that not every version of Wolverine has a golden heart and story worthy of tears. Yours was a fuck up, plain and simple, but you never thought the incident was his fault. 

As much as others tried to push the blame on him. The people who raided the mansion were determined. There was no other way that day was going to end up. You’d just have one less X-Man. But people always love a martyr more than a victim. 

After a couple of years, you get used to the monotony. Your days are only occasionally broken up by dodging Cassandra’s henchmen and trying not to get sucked up into the soul destroyer. Other than that, you spend your nights getting drunk with Gambit and pretending you know whatever the fuck he’s talking about. 

“Laura! I managed to find some chocolate!” You run into the hideout looking for the girl. It’s rare to find good food that isn’t already a month past its expiration date. You weren’t planning on sharing the candy with her but you figured she’d smell it on you and it’s not worth the fight. 

Instead, you stop short as the familiar blue and yellow uniform you’d always try to force on him comes into view. He’s stealing Gambit’s liquor and you know that’s not going to go over well. What you don’t know is why you are so sure that this is your Wolverine. 

You’ve never had a Wolverine in the void. Not once. This could be any one of the hundreds of thousands of variants. But you see that look in his eye. That familiar watery gaze shows just how much he hurts, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. 

“Logan?” You breathe his name out in disbelief. Bypassing the Deadpool standing nearby. You’ve dealt with enough of those in your time down here. He takes a step back, fixing you with a distrusting look. 

He keeps the bottle of alcohol clutched close to his chest like he thinks you’re going to take it. You track the movement and you scoff. “Right,” you shake your head and stop short. “Of course, the only thing you care about is still getting fucking drunk.”

He glares at you, taking a step forward like he thinks it might actually intimidate you. “Do I know you, bub?” He reaches forward, probably to jab his finger in your chest. You drop your gaze to his outstretched hand and narrow your eyes. 

The material of his suit fluctuates, pulling back and rippling over his arms like liquid and not spandex. He doesn’t notice the manipulation of matter until it's his skin you target. It melts off his adamantium bones and he stares down in horror. 

You know he's scared because he’s watching his body dissolve but he’s not feeling any pain. You could make it hurt, but that’s not what you want. You just want to see if he’ll remember you now. If there’s anything half-decent left in that alcohol-rotted brain of his.

“Flux,” he grits your X-Man name out through his teeth like it hurts him to say it. 

You nod and his skin and suit go back to normal, like you’d never tampered with it in the first place. “You do remember me, then?”

“Thought you fucking died with the rest of them.” Your face drops before you feel an astonished smile on your face. 

“You know, it’s a comfort to know nothing about my world has changed. You’re still the same spineless dick that left us all to die.” You shake your head and storm out of the hideout. You don’t know how long they’re planning on staying but you pray they leave soon. If you have to deal with him longer than a week, you’ll just kill him. 

You step outside just as Laura’s coming back from the bonfire. She greets you with a stiff smile and you wonder what’s got in her in a mood. It only takes a glance over her shoulder to find the reason.

Logan is sulking by the fire, nursing yet another bottle of whiskey. He’s drinking it like water and even with his healing, his liver should have turned to mush by now. “I can see why you didn’t tell me about him,” she mutters as she passes by you. 

You know she tried to be quiet but you can see the way Logan’s head tilts slightly towards you. He’s heard her and you know it has to sting just a little.

You glance down at the leaves under your feet, eyes glazing over as you feel the guilt sink into your stomach. You shouldn’t feel bad, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t hurt him, technically, just reminded him who you were. But you still feel bad for what you said. 

You’ve never blamed Logan for what happened. And if you did, you would be a hypocrite. Because you survived too, and you left them all behind. You ran like a coward. You could never blame him when you failed to save them just the same. 

You take in a deep breath and steel yourself. You’ll just apologize, walk over there, and explain to him you didn’t mean what you said. You know he’ll be a dick about it. Claiming he doesn’t want your apology. You’ll just leave him alone after. 

You’re about to step forward when he barks out a gruff command, “Don’t fucking stare at me like that. I don’t want your company.” He turns back to the fire and takes another swig from his bottle. 

You roll your eyes and walk towards him. “You can be as miserable and self-pitying as you want, just let me say one thing.”

His head whips towards you so quickly you’re surprised you don’t hear it snap. “I’m not fucking pitying myself,” he grits out. You quirk your brows in amusement, glancing towards the bottle in his hand and the clear way he’s sulking. He turns his attention back towards the fire, intent on ignoring you again. 

“I don’t blame you for what happened,” you tell him. You ignore the warning look he shoots you, taking a seat beside him even if he doesn’t want you to. “I-” you choke on the words, struggling to admit to yourself what you’ve never wanted to. 

“Don’t.” You know it’s meant to be a warning. But when you look at him and see how completely broken he is, it sounds more like a pathetic plead. 

But you need to say this. As selfish as it is, you need to say this to someone., Need to unload this guilt you’ve carried for so long. “I was there, Logan. I could have saved them and I didn’t. I fucking ran.”

“Kid, don’t do this-”

“Jean was still moving,” you blurt out. You feel the way your heart speeds up at the admission. Your fingers shake and the air around you stills. 

His face drops and he slowly turns towards you. You’re afraid to look at him. You feel like a bunny staring down the snout of a wolf, there’s no escaping this. You’ve created this trap for yourself. 

“What?” He demands. His voice has lost that tremor of vulnerability. Instead, he sounds like he did when he first found out what had happened to you all. That same deadly level of calm that makes you want to bolt again. 

“She,” you stare into the fire until your eyes burn. You don’t know if it’s from the light or the smoke but the pain focuses you. “She was shaking on the floor. There was blood everywhere and she could barely breathe. They had gassed us with something. None of us could use our powers, it’s the only reason they got a one-up on us.”

You can feel yourself slipping back into that moment. You feel the warmth of the blood on your skin. It seeps into your suit and makes the material cling to you. Your gut is split open and the only thing holding your intestines in is your hands. 

Jean is in front of you. Her hands are twitching by her sides. There’s blood pouring out of her lips, dribbling down her tongue and cheeks. Every breath is a rattle so deep you feel it in your bones. 

Each inhale sounds like someone dragging glass through the membrane of her lungs. Her chest rises and sinks shallowly as she gasps for air. She’s practically convulsing, eyes twitching every which way.

The gas has faded from the halls. The people have left, satisfied with the carnage. You’re alone, surrounded only by the blood and bodies of your friends. None of the others are moving. Some of them are so mangled you can’t even tell who they are anymore. 

Jean’s eyes lock onto yours. The only anchor she has. And you can see it, the frantic, wounded animal gaze on her face. She knows she’s dying. She knows there’s nothing she can do about it. 

You can only stand by and watch as your friend dies. You could be her comfort. You could be the last face she sees before she dies, distracting her from the sight of her dead fiancee behind her. 

But what do you do?

You hold your guts in your stomach and you run. You can’t look at her. You can’t look at any of them. You can hear her croaking behind you. And even when you’re out of the mansion, when you’re in a hospital somewhere getting repaired and Logan’s on a rampage, you still hear her. 

You feel something heavy on your arm and it’s like you're being forcibly dragged out of a trance. Logan’s looking at you with something you’ve never seen before. But it’s something you’ve always desperately craved. 

It’s like he’s seeing you, really seeing you. For the first time in a long time, you feel that ache of guilt ease away ever so slightly. It doesn’t disappear, but you’re sharing the burden with someone else and it’s a relief you’ve desperately craved. 

“You’re not a bad person for leaving, kid.” He swallows roughly and you place your hand over his. He doesn’t look completely comfortable with the touch, slightly flinching away from it, but he doesn’t move. “If you hadn’t, you would be dead.”

You squeeze his hand, forcing him to meet your gaze. “I never blamed you for what happened.” emotion is so thick on your tongue and in your throat that the words come out a whisper. “Their deaths weren’t your fault, and what happened after wasn’t.”

He clenches his eyes shut and jerks his hand out of your grip. You sigh, knowing you’ve lost him. “I slaughtered them.”

You scoff, “They slaughtered us!” You nearly shout, anger bubbling hot in your gut. When you heard about him killing those who had hunted down your friends, you’d celebrated. And when you heard the way the public was crucifying him, you realized that no matter what you did they would never love you. 

You would always be nothing more than a mutant to them. 

“And the people who didn’t hurt them? The innocents I killed?” 

You don’t have anything to say to that. You just stand up, placing a hand on his shoulder as you pass by him. “I never blamed you, Logan.”

You don’t see Logan again after that. At least, not while you’re in the void. What was left of your little resistance was sucked up into the purple cloud of death. Only you and Laura are left with the carnage. 

Logan and Wade have disappeared to who knows where. It stings, to be on your own again. Sure, you have Laura, but she’ll never understand the pain of what happened to your universe. 

As much as it hurt, at least with Logan, you had someone to share the pain with. You could share your burden with him. You feel lonely and cold. Like there’s a part of you missing. You finally figure out what that ache is when the TVA comes to collect you and you see him again. 

He’s standing behind Wade as he enthusiastically tells you and Larua all about his world. But you can’t take your eyes off Logan, or the tentative smile on his face. Whatever had happened during that fight with Cassandra Nova had changed him, for the better. 

You smile back at him and it feels like taking a breath of fresh air after years. 

Apparently, whoever this world’s Flux had been, she was fucking insanely rich. And dead, which sucked for her but was great for you and Logan. 

It’s not hard for you to fake some government identities and explain that you’d been mistakenly marked as dead. It’s apparently pretty common in this universe. Superheroes are blipped out of existence all the time. You couldn’t get all of her assets as some had been liquidated, but you did get her giant ass house. 

You let Logan and Laura stay with you until they decide where they want to go. It’s better than living with Wade and his coke-fiend roommate. Laura finds her groove pretty quickly, it is her world after all. But you and Logan struggle to figure out what to do with yourselves. 

Neither of you has an interest in being X-Men again, and it seems like they’re not incredibly present in this world either. You also hadn’t been the best of friends, even before everything went wrong, back home. 

You’re not strangers, you’re not friends, you’re that awkward place in between. Each day is another opportunity to get to know each other. The progress might be slow, but you know that you’re getting closer to something real. 

It’s why you don’t feel any qualms about running into his room when you hear him shouting. You burst into his room and the door slamming against the wall isn’t even enough to wake him up. 

He’s writhing around in the bed, sheets twisted around his waist while sweat beads down his forehead. The noises he’s making remind you of a wounded animal. There’s something heartbreaking about this. 

He doesn’t get peace even when he’s sleeping. It makes you hurt for him. You want to smooth over the aches and pains he carries and burden yourself with them. 

The thought snaps you out of your reverie and you’re shocked by the revelation. You’d been growing closer to him, but you hadn’t thought you were growing this close. You feel so strongly for him, but you’re not ready to put a name on what it is that you feel for him. You just know that right now you want to make him feel better. 

You approach the bed cautiously, taking a seat beside him. The bed ripples and jolts underneath you as he tosses and turns. You place a gentle hand on his arm and shake, “Logan,” you whisper. You don’t want to startle him too bad. 

But he’s not responding to anything. It doesn’t matter how much you shake him or call out his name. Finally, you can’t handle it anymore. You get on your knees, sitting over him and bringing your palm down across his face as hard as you can. 

In a second he’s shooting up. You don’t even notice his hand until you see the way his vision clears. The visceral panic fades and something is aching in your gut. “Oh god, no no no,” he says the word so many times it stops sounding real. 

You look down and see the blood dribbling down his palm, the claws buried in your stomach. It’s almost funny, how perfectly aligned they are with the scar that already lived there. The reminder of your friend’s death being erased and reformed by Logan’s hand. 

He pulls his wrist back and you quickly snatch it up. “Don’t!” You shout, jaw clenching against the pain. “Don’t pull them out, I’ll just bleed out.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” You know he’s worried, that’s why he snaps at you. But it doesn’t help the way you feel yourself fighting back tears.

He sees them drip down your cheeks and his face drops. His other hand, the one not in you, comes up and cradles your cheek. “What do I do?” He whispers, and he sounds more desperate than you do. 

You know he doesn’t want another death on his hands. But there’s something beyond that. He doesn’t want to be the reason you stop breathing. There’s a startling clarity when you’re slowly dying. 

He cares about you. Just as deeply as you do for him. You can’t make him go through this pain again. Can’t let him suffer alone, not when he’s made so much progress. “Slowly,” you tell him, guiding his claws out inch by inch. 

It’s hard not to black out. You’d barely felt it when he’d gotten you the first time. You think it’s because of how fast and sudden it was. But this, having them oh so slowly slicing through your insides is the worst form of torture. 

But you don’t heal like him. You have to close your eyes, focus on the pain, and forcibly reknit your skin back together. It’s a clever manipulation of your powers, but it’s a slow one. You could never take serious damage on the field because you wouldn’t be fast enough to repair yourself. 

This is easy to repair. But that doesn’t make it hurt less. It feels like an hour before he can safely draw them the rest of the way out. The second he does, you’re sinking into his arms with a pained sob. 

He clutches you so tightly to his chest you worry your back might snap. He keeps muttering apologies into your hair, hands desperately grasping at every inch of you he can hold. You’re too tired to say anything. 

You realized you should have. You should have told him you don’t blame him. You were the one who snuck into his room. You should have been smarter. But it doesn’t matter how many times you tell Logan not to blame himself, he always will. And you were too tired to try anyway. 

You only realize what’s happening two days after the incident. You figured he might need some space to process what happened. And honestly, you did too. It was awful and incredibly draining. You’ve felt fatigued ever since. 

But when you try and approach him and he just brushes past you like you weren’t even there, you know something is wrong. You watch his retreating back with a disturbed glare. You connect the dots quickly, already knowing what he’s doing. 

He doesn’t want to be responsible for hurting another person he loves. He can’t handle a loss like that again, even if it’s not by his hands. He wants to make sure you don’t want him, that you don’t care for him. Like that might ease the pain and guilt. 

But it wouldn’t. It would just make him feel worse. It would make you feel worse. 

You don’t waste a second, following him up the stairs and barging into his room before he can slam the door shut. It bounces off the wall and he lets out a deeply irritated sigh. He doesn’t turn to look at you, just walks over to his nightstand and rummages around through the doors.

You know he’s not looking for anything. He’s just trying to ignore you long enough for you to give up. It’s not going to happen, he should know better. 

You take a step further into the room and the smell of chemicals slams into you. Your nose wrinkles in disgust. It smells like he pumped Lysol into the vents. Your eyes dart to the bed and you sigh. 

Your blood, you’d completely forgotten. He must have been cleaning it up the morning after. You can’t blame him for wanting to get rid of the remainder. But this seems excessive. 

“Strong nose,” he mutters. You hadn’t realized you’d spoken aloud and you glanced over at him. “I can still smell it, even after cleaning.” He takes a seat on the bed and you hate the way his shoulders are slumped. 

He’d seemed so much more comfortable with himself lately. It’s like one accident has undone all his progress. “Logan,” you start, taking a step towards him. He holds his hand up, still not looking at you. 

It’s driving you insane. You wish he would just meet your eyes. You feel like you could change his mind if he would just see you. Maybe that’s why he won’t. He won’t let himself be happy. 

“Look, that night just made me realize what a huge fucking mistake this was.” He gets up and slides something out from under the bed. It takes a moment for you to register what it is. A duffel bag, packed with all his essentials and what little clothes he owns. 

He’s going to leave.

You act without thinking. Pure panic making your powers surge out. Logan grunts and the bag falls out of his hand. “Quit it,” he snipes, bending over to pick it up. But he can’t because it’s so heavy it’s making the wooden floor splinter and crack under its weight. 

“You don’t get to just leave when things get hard, Logan.”

He stands up, hands propped on his sides. There’s a challenge in his eyes that makes you nervous. “Fuck this,” he scoffs and brushes past you. 

It’s beyond manipulative to use your powers against him. But sometimes, someone is such a fucking idiot, they need a little outside help. You slam the door closed and the handle disappears, locking you both in his room. 

He turns towards you with a fierce glare on his face. “Open the goddamn door before I break it down.”

“You can try,” you taunt, a nasty tone to your voice. You’re sick of this. You’re sick of running from what you want. You’ve been miserable and alone for years. You want to be happy. For the first time in forever, you want something. 

And you want Logan to be happy with you. You can’t force him to feel the way you do. But you can stop him from actively preventing this. “Stop acting like a goddamn child and just talk to me!” You shout at him. 

There’s a disbelieving look on your face. You don’t understand why he won’t let this happen. Why does he have to fight so hard against any semblance of happiness in his life?

“I’m going to hurt you. That is all I do. I hurt the people I love and I cannot hurt you too.” Your eyes widen in shock at his outburst. Beyond anger, there was so much fear in his voice it was almost enough to make you miss what he’d said. 

“You love me?” You can see the realization dawn on him. The fact that he let slip why he’s so hesitant to be around you. You know he wants to leave, his eyes are darting around the room for an escape route, but you’ve blocked them all. You can’t let this go, not now. 

“Logan,” you snap, demanding an answer from him. 

“Fuck you,” he mutters, something vicious on his face. 

He’s going to hurt you. He’s going to lash out and say something cruel so that this doesn’t happen. You know him because you’ve been him. He will take every possible route to get out of this if it means he doesn’t have to face his feelings. 

You roll your eyes and take a step forward. You jerk him towards you and throw yourself on him before he can say something stupid. The kiss is brief, just enough to snap him out of this ridiculous headspace he’s in. 

When you pull back he looks dazed, but he’s relaxed in your hold, sinking towards you. You grin up at him, “I love you too, dumbass.” You lean up to kiss him again but you dart back at the last second, a mean glare on your face. “Pull some shit like this again and I’m going to melt your dick off.” 

You kiss him before he can respond, but you feel the smile against your lips. You can taste the defeat on his tongue as he wraps his arms around you and tugs you into his chest. He’s not going to push you away and you’re not going to let him. 

end. — I do not own the characters or the comics/movies Wolverine/X-Men, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

General Taglist: @evasmlp

Logan Taglist:  @nonamevenus @smexy-bucky-waifu @wh1sp @peony-always @corvusmorte  

@mrs-ephemeral  @wolviesgirl @allllium  ♡ 

[santaasi]

die with the smile

pairing: jj maybank x fem!reader

summary: a love once haunted by nightmares finds solace in a sunrise, where promises of healing and hope turn dreams of a future into quiet, steady certainty.

warnings: !major spoiler for obx4 final!, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, establish relationship, talking about death, mention of panic attacks, no use of y/n, jj calls reader angel, english isn’t my first language

word count: 3.9k

a/n: requested by this ask. thank u for request, love <з. and to everyone else – i'm waiting for your requests too.

ᯓ★ now playing…

lady gaga, bruno mars – die with the smile

IT WAS SUFFOCATING. After everything that happened in Morocco, it felt like your chest had been crushed under an unbearable weight. Breathing no longer came easy. Each inhale was a jagged reminder of the past, a sharp sting of memories you couldn’t escape. You hated sleep, hated the moments when your mind would surrender to the dark. Every night, the desert came back to haunt you, its endless stretch of sand suffocating. You saw JJ lying there, motionless, his body a broken promise beneath the burning sky. And surrounded by the Pogues, Rafe fucking Cameron, his hands digging JJ's grave, burying the love of your life six feet under.

You could still hear your voice, a fractured thing, torn from your throat as you screamed for them to stop. You fell to your knees, pleading with them to hear you, begging them to leave him there, to not let him go. But no one listened. John B, Sarah, Kiara, Pope... they just stood there, frozen, like they couldn’t see the life slipping away. Of course, it was just a dream — your brain's cruel joke, twisting everything you feared most into a nightmare. But in the stillness of the night, when you woke with your heart pounding and the cold sheets tangled around you, it didn’t feel like a dream at all. It felt too real. Too close.

And so, for three months, you lived like this. In the hollow space between waking and sleeping, where the line between nightmare and reality blurred beyond recognition. Three months of restless nights, clinging to coffee mugs as if they could fill the emptiness, while your eyes begged for sleep. But when you did manage to fall asleep, the dreams would return, relentless, each one leaving you more shattered than the last.

It wasn't as bad as it had been in those first two months, when every moment was suffocating with fear. When you couldn’t bring yourself to leave your house, couldn't bring yourself to stop waiting for that phone call from the hospital. The one that would confirm the thing you couldn't bear to imagine — that JJ was gone. Everything had felt like a fever dream: tracking down doctors, finding anyone who could help, getting him back to Kildare, the hospitals, the bills you could never afford, the ones that now you had to face. Your parents never asked you to repay the money, but you knew how much they'd given up for it. They'd been saving for years. It felt wrong to let it go without giving something back.

And then there was that month of rehab, where the days stretched on like a never-ending ache. Sitting next to JJ's hospital bed, listening to the faint beeps of machines as nightmares still held you in their grip, tormenting you while you tried to hold onto him in the real world.

You hadn't cried once. Not in those two months. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to — weeping felt like you were digging his grave in advance. Like if you let the tears fall, you’d lose him all over again. But now, he was here. With you. Alive. The JJ you knew, the one who cracked jokes, who lived without fear, without hesitation. And you tried to return to who you were before, but it was harder than you'd expected. He made it seem so easy, slipping back into his old self, but you felt like you were still drowning in the wreckage of what had happened.

For weeks, you sat beside him, feeling his skin warm beneath your touch, hearing his laughter echo in the spaces between you. But still, in the quiet moments, the fear lingered. Every time you closed your eyes, you feared waking up in another cold bed, alone. But each morning, you’d find him there, by your side. He was here, alive, and you began to let yourself believe it, piece by piece.

Slowly, the days started to fill with color again. It wasn't easy, but it was better. Breathing no longer felt like a battle, and with each passing day, you felt yourself letting go of the haunting fear, the dread that lived just behind your ribs.

And you never left his side. Once, it had always been JJ who took the lead — who reached for you first, who kissed you first, who pulled you close. Now, you were the one to reach for him, to thread your fingers through his, to press a soft kiss to his lips or his forehead. It was like you were holding him tighter, making sure he was still real, still here.

"If I had to almost die for you to get this clingy," JJ teased one evening, grinning up at you as you curled into him on the couch, "You could've told me sooner, you know. I didn't know I had a personal koala bear all this time."

You smiled at his playful jab, though your fingers gripped him a little tighter. You tucked your head against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. It was like a song, a reassurance that he was here. That he was alive.

You were learning how to laugh again. How to joke. How to be you again. Or at least, almost. Because even though the world felt like it was beginning to make sense again, you couldn't shake the nightmares. They were still there, lurking in the shadows. Every time you closed your eyes, you feared that the night would swallow him whole once more.

But for now, he was still here. And in that moment, that was enough.

The chateau had become your sanctuary, a fragile semblance of home. But even here, in the quiet of its walls, you couldn't escape the void that followed you, the weight that pressed on your chest every time you woke up without him beside you. The comfort of falling asleep wrapped in his arms didn't seem to be enough anymore. It didn't stop the dreams from coming.

Every night, they came like a storm. JJ, dying in your arms, blood staining his chest. JJ, sinking beneath the waves after falling off the boat, reaching for you, but you couldn't reach him. JJ, spiralling off his dirt bike, tumbling into the dirt, and you couldn't save him. And then, there was the desert. Always the desert. You couldn't escape it, no matter how hard you tried.

But in the moments before the nightmare took hold, when you woke to the warmth of his body next to you, his hand resting lightly on your waist, his breath soft against your neck, you could calm yourself. You could breathe, steadying your heart before the panic could rise. He was there. He was alive. And you would cling to that reality until the night came again, bringing with it the horrors you couldn’t outrun.

JJ, of course, remained blissfully unaware. He slept soundly, his chest rising and falling in the peaceful rhythm of someone who had earned a brief reprieve from the chaos. And you — you would lie there, bathed in moonlight, brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead, needing to touch him, needing to see that he was really there. That he wasn't slipping through your fingers. Over time, the nightmares began to fade. They became less frequent, their grip less tight. But just when you thought you could breathe freely, just when you thought the storm had passed, it came crashing back.

Two weeks of peace. Two weeks of deep, uninterrupted sleep. But that night, everything changed.

The dream returned. The one you feared the most. JJ, lying motionless in the sand, his clothes stained with dried blood, his body pale under the desert sun. The wind blew the sand into your eyes, blinding you, choking you, as Rafe stood above him, digging, his hands moving with the unholy rhythm of a grim reaper, burying your love beneath the earth. You fell to your knees beside the pit, the hot sand searing through your clothes, but you didn't care. You couldn’t look away. You couldn’t look away from the hole that was swallowing everything you loved. With each shovel of sand, the pit grew deeper, and with it, your heart.

The faces around you were blank — pale, cold. John B, Sarah, Kiara, Pope... they stood there, frozen, as if they were burying someone they'd never known. No tears. No grief. Just... emptiness. It broke you. It shattered you, piece by piece.

"No! No! Please! Enough!" you cried out, your voice cracking as you scrambled to your feet, your body shaking. You turned to them, your heart a fragile thing, desperate for anyone to react, to feel something. "Do something! He's not dead! JJ's not dead! John B! Sarah! Please!"

The tears fell freely, hot against your cold cheeks, choking your breath. Everything blurred around you, and all you could see, all you could feel, was his face. His beautiful face, pale and cold under the relentless sand. You reached for him, your fingers trembling as they traced the outline of his cheek.

"I love you, JJ... Please, don't leave me... don't you dare leave me," you whispered, your voice barely audible over the roar in your ears. You pushed the hair from his face, trying to pull him back to life with your touch. "Please, Jay, wake up. I love you. Please..."

The heart-wrenching sob that escaped you felt like it was tearing you apart, even as they began to throw the sand over him. As they buried him. Covered him. And the world turned dark.

Someone's hands grabbed at you, pulling you away, but you fought them, kicking, screaming, dying with him as the earth swallowed your love.

"No! Please, no!" The words tore from your chest like jagged glass, but it didn’t stop. It never stopped.

Then, a voice — soft, familiar, grounding. A warmth that pulled you from the nightmare. "Hey, hey, angel..."

You gasped, eyes snapping open, panic seizing you as the darkness of your dream lingered. The bed was empty. The space beside you, cold and vast. Your body trembled as sobs wracked your chest, but then arms wrapped around you, strong and steady. They held you close, pulling you into warmth, into the comforting scent of the sea and something more.

"Wake up... come on, angel, it's okay," the voice coaxed, his words gentle but firm, a tether pulling you from the depths of your nightmare.

You turned, eyes still blurry with tears, and looked over your shoulder. You half expected to see nothing. To be alone in the darkness. But then you saw him. JJ. JJ. His face was the same as it always had been — familiar, comforting, real. The soft smile on his lips made your heart stutter, and you found yourself reaching for him instinctively.

"JJ… you're here," you exhaled, your body relaxing, your mind calming for just a moment. But then the overwhelming relief struck you, and suddenly, you were gripping him as tightly as you could, clutching him like you'd never let go. You turned in his arms, wrapping yourself around him, pressing every part of yourself against him, trying to absorb his presence with every cell of your being. You needed to feel him, needed him to know how deeply you'd been shaken.

"I thought you were… you were… I saw…" you choked out, the words barely a whisper, breaking apart in fresh waves of tears that trembled through you. You buried your face in his neck, shuddering as his hand ran soothingly down your back.

"Shh... I'm here, love," he murmured softly, pulling you even closer. "I'm with you, and I'm not going anywhere." His hand traced gentle circles in your hair, his voice a soft balm over your wounds.

JJ knew how much you’d been struggling. He saw it in your red, swollen eyes each morning, in the tired shadows that lingered beneath them. He noticed how you would sometimes drift off mid-conversation, lost to a place he couldn't reach, as if carrying something too heavy to share. He felt it every time you’d reach for his hand, holding it tighter than you used to, grounding yourself in his touch. And he felt it every night you stayed at the chateau, choosing to lie beside him rather than in your own bed, pressing your ear against his chest just to hear his heartbeat.

JJ Maybank wasn't oblivious. He understood what haunted you, and he wished with everything in him that he could erase it. Because he knew — if it had been you, if you were the one hovering on the edge of life and death... he couldn’t even let himself think of it. You were his everything, his only certainty in a world that had never offered him much. And knowing you were hurting like this, knowing he was the reason, that was the worst thing he could imagine. It was worse than the death he’d nearly met.

And so he tried to help you in every way he could. He stayed close, always nearby, holding you tight whenever you needed it. He whispered sweet promises in your ear, spun dreams of the future for you both, reminded you every day just how much he loved you. He did everything he could to show you that he was here, that he wasn't going anywhere.

But seeing you now, shattered and trembling in his arms, feeling your tears soak his shirt, it tore at him. It was like a raw ache, a knife twisting deeper with every sob you released. You were suffering because of him, and he could feel the guilt clawing at his chest. He’d never wanted this — not for you.

As your breathing began to calm, your hold on his shirt loosened, and he shifted back slightly to meet your gaze. Your face was swollen from crying, your eyes rimmed red, and he felt a tenderness rise in him that he could barely contain. He lifted a hand to your cheek, thumb grazing your skin as he leaned in, gently brushing his lips over yours, a silent promise, as if he could kiss the fear away.

"I'm fine," you whispered, though your voice was trembling and raw. JJ just shook his head, unconvinced. He bent down, picking up his hoodie that had been lying on the floor, then draped it around your shoulders. The familiar, comforting scent of his cologne surrounded you, filling your senses, and you closed your eyes, sinking into the warmth.

"Let's go for a walk?" he asked softly, his voice gentle but insistent. You managed a small nod, slipping out of bed to follow him.

The sun was just beginning to crest over the horizon as you reached the beach, bathing everything in a soft, golden light. JJ's hand was intertwined with yours, and his thumb traced delicate patterns along the back of your hand, grounding you. The breeze tugged at your hair, the salt air filling your lungs as you took slow, steady breaths, savouring the tranquility of the moment.

When you reached your favourite spot, tucked away behind the rocks, JJ settled down, pulling you between his legs, his arms circling you. He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of your head, and you felt a soft, involuntary smile tug at your lips. His heartbeat thudded against your back, steady and reassuring, and you let yourself melt into the safety of his embrace.

For a few quiet minutes, you both watched the sun rise, bathing the ocean in warm, shifting hues. Then JJ's voice broke the silence, low and hesitant.

"You know... for a second, I thought I was going to die," he murmured, his voice thick with an emotion he rarely let himself show. "When I blacked out, I thought... this was it. That y'll would leave me there in Morocco, that I'd lose everything."

JJ swallowed, as if trying to steady himself, and you could feel the tension in his arms as he held you tighter. He’d tried to laugh it all off before, hiding behind jokes and smiles, but now — now it felt real. The memories weighed down his words, and you could hear the unspoken fear beneath them.

"JJ, don’t," you whispered, your own voice catching. You pulled his hoodie closer around you, burying your face in the soft fabric to push away the memories of that day, the endless days that followed. His arms tightened around you, his cheek pressing against your shoulder, his breath warm against your skin as he drew you closer, as if he could shield you from the memory.

"No, I need to say this… I need you to hear it," he continued, his voice barely above a whisper. He took a shuddering breath, and you felt something wet land softly on your shoulder. A tear.

JJ gave a small, shaky grin and shook his head, leaning in close to murmur in your ear. "You've been with me through everything, angel. You saved me. You kept me alive."

The words settled into you, quiet and profound, and you turned to look at him, seeing the vulnerability he was baring, the weight he'd been carrying alone. You looked back at the horizon, feeling a deep ache inside, a pull that was both painful and reassuring, like your heart was finally finding its place.

You closed your eyes, concentrating on nothing but him — the feel of his arms, the warmth of his breath against your neck, the way his fingers tightened protectively around yours. You wanted to wrap yourself in this moment, to sink so deeply into him that you’d never be apart again.

"When I woke up for the first time… I heard your voice," JJ's voice trembled, breaking as fresh tears spilled down his cheeks. "The way you told everyone that I wasn't going to die... the way you begged me not to... not to leave you..." His words cracked, and you felt the weight of his pain seep into your bones. He was broken, and it tore at your heart.

You intertwined your fingers with his, feeling the soft, trembling pulse beneath his skin. "I couldn't die... every time I slipped away, all I could think about was you," JJ whispered, his voice raw with emotion. "That I couldn't leave you. That I love you, and I don't want to leave you..."

He gently cupped your chin, lifting your face toward his. His eyes — red and swollen from crying — met yours, and in that moment, you saw how deeply connected you were. You were both raw, broken open, and yet, still whole together.

"I love you so much, that even at death's door, I fought with everything I had to stay here with you," he murmured, pressing his forehead to yours. His hand slid down your cheek, brushing away the tears that refused to stop falling. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that I put you through this, angel."

You felt your heart shatter for him, your lip trembling as his words hit you like a wave. Your hands moved instinctively to his face, cupping it gently, and you shook your head. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault that life had dealt him such a cruel hand. It wasn't his fault that he had been made to suffer in ways no one should. You knew he didn't deserve this. He deserved better — so much better.

"I promise…" JJ's voice was tight with emotion, but he pressed on. "No, I swear... I will never make you go through this again. I swear it. I swear that after all this, I won't give you any reason to worry. I will always be here for you." His blue eyes searched yours, holding you captive with their intensity. The weight of his words felt heavier than anything you'd ever known. "I will be with you, no matter what. And I will build us the house you always dreamed of. A white house with big windows and a garden, where we’ll play with our dog — our dog, which we’ll name JJ Jr. And then... maybe a child, or two, or three...”

You couldn’t help but laugh softly, shaking your head, though tears still lingered. It had always been a dream, a fantasy you shared with him, but now, seeing the determination in his eyes, it felt like a possibility. It felt like something you could reach out and touch.

"I'll give you the world, angel. I'll give you paradise," JJ continued, his voice thick with promise. "I'll do everything in my power to make sure these stupid tears never fall from your beautiful eyes again. Do you believe me?"

There was a pause. His gaze was so sincere, so full of hope, searching for any sign that you believed in him, in what he was offering. You felt a warmth spread through you, a quiet certainty in your chest. You smiled softly, your heart swelling with a love so deep you thought it might burst.

Without thinking, you pressed your lips to his, soft and slow. You let your kiss speak for you — every unspoken word, every emotion that had built up inside you over the months, the fear, the longing, the desperation, and finally, the relief. This kiss was all of it, and more. You poured everything into it, every promise, every fear, every hope, every part of you that you'd been holding onto for so long.

You held him like you'd never let go, feeling the weight of time slow down, knowing that in this moment, you were safe, you were here, and he was here. Nothing else mattered — just the two of you, together.

"I believe you, Jay. I've always believed you, and I will, because I love you," you murmured, your words soft as they met his lips. He responded with a deeper kiss, pulling you into him as if he could anchor himself to you, as if he, too, was letting go of something.

You giggled as he playfully knocked you down onto the sand, its warmth wrapping around you like an embrace. The sand, once so haunting, now felt soft and grounding beneath you, no longer a symbol of loss but one of hope — a new beginning waiting to be written.

JJ leaned over you, his blue eyes softened by the first light of dawn, eyes that were once wild and filled with fear but now were steady, full of promises. "I love you more, angel," he whispered, his voice like a lullaby against your skin, "and I'm not going anywhere."

He leaned in, capturing your lips again, and this time, every kiss melted the edges of past wounds, pushing away the darkness of every nightmare and sorrow you'd held. Here, with his arms around you and the sky lightening into the day, it was easy to believe in something beautiful, something lasting. You kissed him back, savoring each touch, each brush of his fingers against your skin as he held you closer.

For the first time in months, you let yourself imagine a future unshadowed by fear. A life filled with morning sunrises like this one, laughter echoing between you, the warmth of a home you’d build together. As JJ pulled you even closer, you felt a quiet certainty settle in your chest — a certainty that happiness was no longer a distant hope but a promise waiting for both of you, right here, right now.

thankx for reading <3

i was literally crying while i was writing this and i felt like this for the first time in my life. so, i hope you liked it. you can always share your opinion in comments or my inbox :3

- your santi 🪐

masterlist

[concededlesbian]

can you write hcs of lover girl ellie williams, fluff and smut if you’d like <3

Lover girl!Ellie Modern AU Headcannons

Creds to @angelgbc for the third pic (correct me if I'm wrong though)

Ellie Williams x Female Reader

Content: Fluff and Smut

Rating: Explicit

Proofread?: Could've been if my friend responded to my message (jk I love her)

A/n: The grammar and punctuation is probs really fucking shitty because this is literally me just ranting. This is also my second time ever writing a headcannons list. Also I didn't know if you wanted this to be set in a modern environment or the canon one. I can make another version set canon one tho.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★

SFW

Lover Girl!Ellie has craved a relationship since her first crush when she was fourteen.

Lover Girl!Ellie honestly thought she would never find love because she usually drove girls away due to her coming off as dry and uninterested.

That was until she met you.

Lover Girl!Ellie met you by sitting at a table with you in a crowded restaurant. She was waiting to pick up a to-go order and there were no empty tables to wait at. Ellie saw that your table was the most empty because you were the only one sitting there plus you also seemed to be waiting.

Ellie had approached you and asked if she could sit at your table and you smiled and nodded.

You guys sat in awkward silence for like 5 minutes before you broke it by complimenting her Savage Starlight shirt. She looked down at the faded shirt with the phrase "Endure and Survive" above an assortment of characters and groaned in embarrassment. "Oh yeah- I uh- got this shirt in high school it's so cringey."

You smiled at her response and responded with "Well, I think it looks cute on you."

Ellie immediately got flustered because, God, your smile was so pretty and you were complimenting her. Ellie replied with a "thank you?" She then immediately regretted how bitchy her questioning tone sounded.

Ellie mentally scrambled to save face when she saw how your smiley expression fell at her response.

"Sorry, I don't know why that came out that way. Thank you- like for real."

Ellie desperately wanted to make a good impression on you and was about to compliment your smile, but her words got stuck in her throat when her order was called out.

Ellie immediately got up to get her food, but before she walked away, she turned to you and asked if she could get your number. You looked a bit surprised at her question but nodded and took her phone to type your number in.

Lover Girl!Ellie excitedly texted Jesse and Dina that she successfully got a pretty girl's number.

Lover Girl!Ellie wrote about you in her journal for a week straight before you two started dating.

Lover Girl!Ellie found pictures of you from your social media (curtesy of Dina) and proceeded to draw you NONSTOP.

Lover Girl!Ellie finally texted you first and made small talk that somehow morphed into her explaining all her interests to you in depth.

Ellie literally thought she scared you away when she looked back at the paragraphs that she sent but was surprised when you asked her out on a date to the carnival.

Lover Girl!Ellie spent days planning for the date before it happened.

Lover Girl!Ellie who got you flowers on the day of the date.

Lover Girl!Ellie literally wanted to win you so many stuffed animals at the carnival.

She ended up getting you three

And you ended up getting her five

Lover Girl!Ellie playfully rolled her eyes and got defensive when you teased her about winning her more gifts.

Lover Girl!Ellie shut down your teasing by kissing you.

Lover Girl!Ellie asked you to be her girlfriend on the second date.

Lover Girl!Ellie as your girlfriend loves spending time with you.

Like she is all up in your personal space. Sometimes when you're laying on your stomach in bed she'll fully just lay on top of you.

"You're so warmmmm." She would sigh out every time.

Lover Girl!Ellie literally always wants you around.

She's taking a shower? She wants in the shower or in the bathroom with her.

Anytime Ellie's about to run an errand she ALWAYS asks if you can come with her.

"I'm going to the store. Can you come with me?" And all she has to do is pick up a jug a milk.

This girl would literally ask you to come with her to walk to the mailbox.

Don't even get me started on how she acts when YOU'RE going somewhere.

"Where are you going? Can I come with you?"

Cue her rushing to put on her converses and trailing behind you like you have her on a leash.

Lover Girl!Ellie is also a fien for physical touch

Her favorite thing to do is hug you from behind and rest her head on your shoulder while casually talking to you.

She also boops your nose repeatedly when she wants your attention.

Lover Girl!Ellie also "kiss taxes" you anytime she does you a small favor.

She always surprises you with it too.

Like, you'll ask her to peel an orange for you, and as she's handing it to you, she'll say "Kiss tax" and give you a quick peck on the cheek or lips before you can even think.

Lover Girl!Ellie loves kissing you

Lover Girl!Ellie that will buy things that that remind her of you.

"Ellie, why did you buy an ashtray? You don't even smoke."

"The design reminded me of you." She responds with the cutest smile ever.

You have to convince her to just send you pictures of things that are a reminder of you because you're honestly scared for her bank account.

Lover Girl!Ellie LOVES to bring you up in conversations.

Her favorite line is "That reminds of when my girlfriend..."

Lover Girl!Ellie insists on wearing little things that are yours just because she wants a reminder of you everywhere she goes.

Lover Girl!Ellie compliments you so much but gets so shy and awkward when you compliment her back.

Like she'll find anything to compliment you about but the minute you compliment her, she gets flustered and tells you to shut up (lovingly ofc).

"You look so pretty when you're cooking, Ellie." "Dude, shut up I'm literally just cutting vegetables."

Oh yeah, as much of a lover girl she is Ellie will still call you "dude" or "bro" even though you're her literally girlfriend, you are NOT an exception. Those words are ingrained in her vocabulary.

Also on the topic of nicknames...

Lover Girl!Ellie calls you over the top petnames to annoy the shit out of you.

"My pretty sugar plum princ-" "Ellie I swear to fucking God."

But when you give her a taste of her own medicine she gets SO flustered.

You once called her "pretty princess" and she was wide-eyed and speechless

Lover Girl!Ellie loves to share anything she enjoys with you.

If she likes a type of food, she'll want you to try at least one bite.

If she likes a show, she'll want to finish it with you.

Lover Girl!Ellie also writes sweet ass poems about you.

The type of poems that describe you as the joy in her life and compare you to the most pleasant things and experiences.

Lover Girl!Ellie keeps a list of your favorite things/interests in her journal.

Lover Girl!Ellie loves cuddling.

She doesn't care if she's the little or big spoon; she wants to cuddle.

Once again she loves being close to you.

Lover Girl!Ellie also values going on dates ever since she got with you.

Her favorite part about going on dates is planning them with you.

You once canceled a date last minute and Ellie was deadass mad at you for two days.

You made it up to her by taking her to a record store and paying for her vinyls.

Lover Girl!Ellie loves to show you off in public

Lover Girl!Ellie always looks at you with so much love and adoration in her eyes.

Because you're her girl

And, she is yours.

NSFW

Lover Girl!Ellie is obsessed with skin-to-skin contact.

She's so nasty about it too like she loves the feeling of your sweaty skin sticking to hers.

She prefers tribbing or scissoring over using strap-ons.

When she DOES use a strap, she prefers a missionary position because wants to wrap her arms around your body and whisper sweet words in your ear.

Like imagine her thrusting deep inside of you while calling you her favorite girl.

Lover Girl!Ellie is a dom switch in my eyes.

She's so soft though.

She rubs your thigh soothingly while grinding her clit against yours when you two are scissoring.

She runs her fingers through/strokes your hair when she has you on all fours and is thrusting from behind.

Lover Girl!Ellie loves dry-humping you.

It's like top-tier foreplay to her.

Like if things get heated while you two are kissing, she'll start rubbing her clothed pussy against yours.

There are numerous times when Ellie has either cum or made you cum in your pants while making out.

Remember when I said that Ellie will lay on you when you're laying on you're stomach...

Sometimes when she's horny, she lays on you, leans into your ear, and asks if she can use your ass to get off.

If you say yes, she practically fights her pants off and starts rolling her hips on your ass.

Even though you're not getting any stimulation, the sounds of her soft moans and the feeling of her thighs tightening around your hips as she gets closer to her orgasm leave you soaked.

It also doesn't help that Ellie will praise you like her life depends on it.

"Fuck you feel so good, Babe..." "You're such a good girl, wanting to help me cum."

When Ellie to cums, she fully falls forward, her tits pressed against your back, wraps her arms around your body, and moans and pants in your ear as she rides out her orgasm.

Afterwards, Ellie will finger until you're creaming on her fingers because she knows this experience leaves you so fucking horny.

Lover Girl!Ellie loves when you eat her out.

The sight of your face buried in her pussy is one she'll cherish until she's on her death bed.

She loves to stroke your hair and tell you how good you're making her feel

Most of the time eating Ellie out ends with 69-ing because she always wants to make you feel as good as you're making her feel.

Lover Girl!Ellie also loves to plan dates with you when she knows she's fucking you stupid.

Like she's asking you if you want a restaurant date or an outdoor date while her strap is nestled deep inside of you.

When you don't answer her, she says "C'mon Babe, focus." with a cocky smirk plastered on her face.

Then she'll make the strap rub against your G-spot every time you try to answer.

"Mmm, I didn't get that baby."

Lover Girl!Ellie also has thing for overstimulation.

She loves the vulnerability and trust she feels when fucking you and wants to make the experience last as long as possible.

She wants to make love until you're both sore.

When you calm down from a previous orgasm, she rests her head on your stomach, looks up at you, and asks "Can you give me one more babe?"

Obviously, there's a safe word you can both use at any time.

But the look of adoration on Ellie's face as she pushes you to another orgasm is enough to motivate you for another round.

Lover Girl!Ellie always provides aftercare.

She holds you tight in her arms while whispering words of encouragement.

Then she gets cleaned up with you, puts on a comfort movie/show, and cuddles you until you fall asleep.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★

A/n: SORRY if this is shit! I literally finished this at 1 am and had a pounding headache. Also sorry for taking a decade to finish a fucking HCs list it's rough out here.

[galactic-rhea]

Why is it that you people refuse to see Padme is in an abusive relationship when the evidence is right there lmfao

Not to impose my opinion onto you,anon, but:

A) It cheapens the narrative, a lot. If it was always abusive, if she was always in danger and under Anakin's thumb, then why would be the Mustafar scene be such a painful shock? Why is him force-choking her what actually tells you "Damn, he's really gone insane"? He just massacred the Jedi, including kids, and yet is that scene of Anakin hurting her what takes you by the shoulders, and makes you look in concern and realize "Damn, it really is over"?

Also cheapens the OG too! Why? Because Vader saved Luke out of love, love for the son he had with Padmé, love because "That's wonderful", he doesn't personally know Luke, there's no much of a reason to love him if he didn't already love Padmé and their marriage. He loves Luke unconditionally because he's Padmé's son. And Luke is able to sense that.

Star Wars is all about love, actual love. And if the twins didn't came to be from what was an actual devotedly in love couple, it just feels empty and cynical.

B) The only actual evidence in the movies is the scene I mentioned , in which Anakin was in this weird evil manic sleep-deprived drugged state lol In AOTC Anakin is nothing but a dork cringefail (that also happens to murder a whole village, but when it comes to Padmé, he treats well). And I'm assuming you read my answer about the Clovis arc, so even if you want to accept that as absolutely canon and in character, up to that point there wasn't evidence either. Even the Clovis arc treats Anakin's reaction as an outlier, and even then Anakin let's her go, because he actually can let go of her if she doesn't want him anymore. In the 2003 shorts they just look dovey-dovey. I can't speak of the novels and comics, but only by the movies? There's nothing.

C) Why would I actually want Padmé to be abused???? She already was done dirty by having so much of her development/scenes cut, and on top of that you want to add an abuse narrative? It's not as if over the 70% of women in media have an abuse narrative one way or the other, because writers apparently think giving a woman a history of abusive relationships, rape or something similar is making her deep and call it a day. And your excuse can't be "because is realistic".

She already had an awful life and died because she couldn't stand the idea that the only person that really saw her as herself turned against her, she didn't get to raise her kids, she didn't get to finally have a break from her job, she didn't get to have that lovely family she wanted, she had a full-time job since 14, she was manipulated by the evil guy that groomed her husband, she didn't even get to spend that much time with the love of her life at all, and after she died she became nothing but a figure of speculation because her real self was a secret only Darth Fucking Vader knew, and it died along with Anakin.

And on top of that you want me to have her as an abuse victim too scared to leave her husband despite him being away for most of the time? Sorry, no. Your alternative is just too cruel.

...Besides, an abusive relationship could never have such a banger as Across the Stars, that track is just too beautiful! /Hj

[grimesgirll]

“wouldn’t kill ya’ to smile, wouldn’t it, baby?”

your gaze goes upward from the fire you’re building to the man standing before you.

“fuck is there to smile about?” you quip quietly, pursing your lips and turning your attention back to the task at hand.

you should’ve known that would set off your ex boyfriend. the boyfriend who should really be your ex right now. you feel him behind you and eventually in front of you when he leans down to gently grasp your face. shane tilts your chin upwards in his hand while you simply glare.

“been gettin’ real tired of your attitude.”

“makes two of us.”

something in his eyes clouds and you can nearly see the frustration bubbling beneath his surface. “you know you could really have it worse somewhere else, girl.” he lets go of your chin. “you should be happy to be here and not out there alone.”

you can’t argue with him. after these past few weeks, you’d endure whatever macho act he manufactured just to make it to safety. anything at this point to get to richmond. wherever noah’s family was posted up had to be better than cannibal country or cop city.

playing the role of shane’s personal diplomat is exhausting but it’s kept conflict from escalating more than once. without you, he would’ve for sure gotten himself killed by now. it goes both ways as you can count on more than one hand the number of times he’s saved your life.

“we had a home. we’re gonna find a new one. until then you better be thankful to have someone looking out for you.” the man explains to you. “someone takin’ care of you.”

you snort. “you should be happy i let you fuck me.”

your boyfriend’s nostrils flare. “wanna repeat that?”

you don’t spare him a glance. “be happy i haven’t left you already. if it wasn’t the fucking end of times, our relationship would be toast.” you say that like it isn’t already.

but you didn’t leave him. how could you with the world falling apart around you?

and with your newfound sense of responsibility to lori and carl, staying with shane made the most sense. why not keep trying with someone who held you at night and fought tooth and nail to protect you.

that isn’t everything though.

he narrows his eyes at you. “wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t always findin’ one.”

“you fucking lori was a problem that i found?”

he throws his hands up. “why the fuck do you keep mentionin’ lori? that’s fucked,” he scolds your name. “that’s my daughter’s mother.”

“i’m not blaming her, i’m blaming you.” you discern. “you’ve been an asshole ever since everything happened.”

“c’mere.” shane pulls you to your feet and drags you away from the fire, leaving the task to sasha who’d been sitting nearby. shane has you on your feet and moving towards the back of the rest stop your group was posted up l in. “let’s take a walk.”

“shane! i’m about to make dinner over the fire,” you complain and pull back your arm but shane just wraps you in his embrace and wills you towards the grassy picnic area facing the forest.

“c’mon, one step at a time, baby. don’t make me carry you.”

“fucker.”

“watch it,” shane warns and steers you towards a dusty wooden gazebo where rick is standing with a radio, trying to get a signal from the looks of it.

“any luck?” shane calls out like he didn’t just forcibly walk you from the fire circle out here.

the bearded man turns around. he doesn’t have to shake his head or give you two a word to answer his friend’s question. an icy blue stare goes over you and shane.

“what’s going on?”

“oh, we just thought we’d see what you were up to. see if you were busy.” the ex-cop with his arms wrapped around you from behind declares.

rick drops his radio into his back pocket. “‘m not.”

“perfect. this one wants to thank you.”

rick’s dark brow goes up in question and you shake your head, asking, “huh?”

“what? you don’t wanna thank rick? don’t be rude, baby.”

you owe the man your life a million times over.

rick had saved you, shane, judith, carl, and the others so many times. he’d led you through the debilitating winters and the most nightmare inducing storms you could imagine facing in the end of times. metaphorical or not, rick had seen you all through more than you’d ever pay him back for.

the man who stayed up with you while you settled judith and helped you soothe the little girl who didn’t belong to either of you.

the rugged man looks on from shane to you not quite comprehending. it only takes the feel of shane’s hand on your ass to understand.

fuck. not now, shane, you plead internally.

“i want you to show our friend rick how grateful you are that he’s gotten us this far. huh?” shane places a steel hand on your back as he shoves you forward towards rick, nudging you onto your knees when you’re dawdling too much for him to tolerate. “go on.”

“shane.” the man above you warns.

“no, rick.” your boyfriend stops him, dark irises widening. “i see the way she looks at you and the way you look at her. don’t feel bad about it.” he chuckles. “think about it as payback for lori.”

a “what the fuck” is breaching your lips before you know it.

“why do you talk to her like that?” rick questions, chest puffing out slightly. “everything she’s stood you through.”

shane shrugs. “i’m just thinkin’ it’d help us all relax. lower tension, y’know. after we were almost slaughtered like cattle back there.”

your mind flashes to terminus. you hadn’t seen rick, shane, and some of the other men of your group tied up and prepared to have their throats slashed, but the scene made your stomach flip.

rick looks down at you, maybe considering the fact that he does have a lot of steam to let off. nearly a year’s worth to be honest.

“you been thinkin’ about me?” he inquires with a step closer to you, dipping his hand to cup your face.

beneath your leader, you feel small. ten feet tall, you’d feel insignificant compared to rick. that man has more guts and drive than you could ever admit to. more than shane could ever dream of. the thought scratches an itch you didn’t realize lay dormant.

“yes,” you exhale sweetly, almost giving away your giggle when shane has to pick up his jaw. “especially ever since the prison fell.”

“really?”

you nod. “thank you, rick.” you express your gratitude with parted lips. “you take such good care of all of us. if you really want to use my mouth, i would blow you.”

shane is stuttering a curse and rick just whistles.

“good girl,” shane praises. “never knew you had it in you.”

you wait on your knees for rick, beaming up at him.

rick has the look of a man considering letting his best friend’s girlfriend - who he has at least fifteen years on - blow him. he thumbs your soft lips, trying to convince himself not to. even under that newly acquired hardened exterior, rick is calculated.

it’s not until he lowers his hands at his sides and croons a, “only if you want to, darlin,” that has you undoing his belt and yanking down his pants.

you slow your roll once you come into contact with his underwear. beneath those dark blue boxers is a rock hard cock.

a noise escapes you that you hope your boyfriend doesn’t hear. rick is bigger than shane. you want to burst into laughter. shane had to have seen the outline of rick’s thick cock sometime during their years together in some locker room somewhere.

thoughts of if he’ll fit or not consume you momentarily until your hands are moving automatically and you’re met with the real thing. you feel hands in your hair and tense.

“down and up. you know how to do it.”

shane is behind you with his sturdy hands on top of your head, ready to guide you down onto his friend.

“just let her do what she wants.” rick snaps at the other man, exhaling at the feel of your hand around him.

“fine.” shane throws his hands up and goes to lean against the rest stop information board.

ever the sore loser, shane pouts but lets you sink further on your knees to begin by trailing a stripe from rick’s balls up to the tip of his cock. back down you go again to lick circles around him, working a pattern with your tongue.

the noises coming out of rick have you agreeing with shane - he really needs this. after everything, rick deserves to close his eyes and let you descend below his shaft to suckle first one side, then the other, while he lays his hands in your lustrous hair.

eventually you’re lapping around again and you circle your tongue around him, eyes widening in surprise at his moans.

shane snickers. “you like her mouth, rick? me too. don’t blow your load too early, bud, i know you probably can’t help it.”

you feel the man in your mouth tense above you. he ignores shane, snapping his hips lightly into your face instead. despite the initial humiliation of the situation and the shane of it all, you find yourself getting excited. a wet patch forms and you can tell by how hard you grind down onto yourself as rick starts to twitch.

“needy slut,” shane comments.

you roll your eyes, not missing a beat as you bob up and down on your leader. his spit covered dick disappears in and out of your mouth. you do your best to fit what you can of his length that is too large for your mouth.

rick doesn’t have a problem though. all he needs is to dig a little deeper in your hair and angle his cock down your throat. you’re so startled you gag but at the same time you moan and whimper around him.

a cry around him from a particularly harsh jostle of his pelvis against your face is what it takes to start spilling in your mouth. your foggy brain can barely decipher what to do next but you remember that you’re wearing one of your favorite sweaters and suck him dry.

rick isn’t out of your mouth when shane is nearly shoving him out of the way and grasping onto you, directing your head towards his now nude dick.

“my turn,” shane takes rick’s spot instantly, not sparing you more than a breath or two before his girthy cock is against your lips.

“that’s not good for her knees, man.” rick is saying but shane just laughs.

“you weren’t sayin’ that when you were in the one in her mouth.”

shane is taking up your mouth before you know it and you gag immediately when he drives like he’s aiming for your uvula.

your noises muffle around his cock but the sheriff looking on still hears them - is still affected by then. every pump of his fellow ex-officer’s hips made you gag, forced to swallow the burning feeling building up in your throat.

rick can’t take his eyes off you. after receiving the same treatment, he’s still mesmerized by the whole thing; the spontaneity of it, how absurd it all was, how soft and plush your mouth had been, how perfect you are.

“never knew you were such a whore,” shane groans with a gasp of your name, pushing your head down when you start to slide up and off of him to say something. “fuck, you’re so good for me, baby, always have been.”

his grip is buried in your long hair. rick observes with his half hard cock in his hand, eyebrow arching lightly at the sight of shane’s face. your boyfriend tightens his grip and before you know it his cock is thrust into your throat. a few more slams of his hips and he’s holding you firmly while you gulp down his length - and his release.

shane backs out of your mouth only to snake a rough hand down your pants.

“shane!” you’re nearly squealing when he thumbs down your panties and moves towards your sensitive patch of nerves. your face is overtaken with a blush again as your leader palms his hard on on the bench next to you.

whispering low in your ear, your boyfriend hums;

“now, you wanna show rick how grateful you are with your pussy?”

[pedrospatch]

what he didn’t do

Preoutbreak! Joel Miller x Female Reader

summary: You’re very recently divorced, but that doesn’t stop a certain handsome, brown-eyed neighbor from taking you out on a date.

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. divorced reader, no massive age gap (no specific age is mentioned, but reader is in her early 30’s and Joel is 35) slow burn, 10 year crush kind of deal. reader talks about her past relationship. mentions of food and alcohol. soft, caring Joel. first date fluff.

word count: 5.1k

a/n: so um how are we all doing after today, we still alive out there? 👀 no one asked for this, this fic is purely self indulgent, my lonely single ass is convinced that pre out break Joel would be just the most amazing gentleman on a date, he would be so perfect and just take the best care of you and treat a girl right…so here is what i whipped up.

He’ll treat me right, put me first, be a man of his word

stay home ‘cause he wanted to

always fight for my love

hold on tight like it’s something that he can’t stand to lose

Joel wasn’t all too sure how it even happened.

Earlier that afternoon, he’d gone on over to your place to deliver a piece of mail that the postman had accidentally put in his mailbox instead of yours. While Joel was there, you’d kindly asked him if he could recommend a good plumber that you could call because you had a stubborn leak under the kitchen sink that you needed to get looked at sooner rather than later. Wanting to save you both the hassle and the expense of having to hire someone, Joel had told you to hang tight for a minute and rushed back over to his house, only to return with his yellow toolbox in hand so that he could fix it for you, which he’d done in fifteen minutes flat—and now, just a few hours later into the evening, he was getting himself ready to take you out to dinner. 

And the real fucking kicker of it all was that he had been the one to ask you out, proposing the offer while his head had been buried in the cabinet underneath your leaking kitchen sink. At least that way, if you had rejected him, you wouldn’t have been able to see the look of complete and utter embarrassment on his face. But much to Joel’s surprise, not to mention, his relief, you’d eagerly accepted the invitation and even suggested tonight would be the perfect night if he didn’t have prior plans or commitments.

Hell, even if Joel did have prior plans or commitments, he would have canceled them for you without a single ounce of hesitation.

He’d discovered he would do just about anything for you.

Joel shrugged into the light tan, button up shirt that Sarah had helped him pick out earlier just before he’d jumped in the shower. At thirteen, she lived with her nose buried in fashion magazines lately and she didn’t trust him to successfully choose a proper outfit for the occasion on his own without guidance. It had been well over a few years since Joel had been on a date, as she had so kindly pointed out to him while she’d rummaged around through his mess of a closet. Although he insisted that it wasn’t a date, his teenager had scoffed and called him out on his bullshit. “Well, what else do you do you call it when two single adults go out to dinner together alone?” Sarah had challenged him as she held up a couple of different shirts up against his chest, searching for the perfect one. “Especially when one of those two adults has had the most obvious crush on the other one for what, like ten freaking years now?”

“It wasn’t that obvious,” he’d muttered to her in response. Peering at her curiously, he couldn’t help himself as he had asked her, “Was it?”

“Dad, your crush on her has been about as subtle as a brick to the face.” Letting out a huge laugh, Sarah had shoved the shirt she’d selected into his hands and tossed the losers right back into his closet. “Here, wear this one with those dark jeans, the bootcut ones. Don’t roll up the sleeves like you always do. And for the love of all that is holy, at least make an attempt to run a comb through that hair of yours,” she’d advised on her way out the door, leaving him to it.

Joel sighed and buttoned up the shirt, then tugged on his dark blue jeans and a pair of black leather boots—the only pair he owned that weren’t totally worn down to the soles. He finished getting dressed and proceeded to roll up the long sleeves of his shirt up to the middle of his forearms, tucking in the cuffs as neatly as he could. He could already hear his daughter scolding him over it, but screw it, Joel wanted to be comfortable, especially now that warmer weather had arrived in Austin. 

After rubbing just the slightest hint of his favorite sandalwood cologne on his neck and on the insides of his wrists, Joel finally left his bedroom and made his way downstairs, trying his absolute hardest to pay no mind to the nerves that were threatening to creep up on him. He entered the living room where he found Tommy sitting on the couch with Sarah, a plastic blue bowl of popcorn nestled between the two of them. Sarah, who had been busy shuffling through a stack of movies in her lap, looked up when she heard him walk into the room and narrowed her green eyes at him. “Come on, man! What did I say earlier about the sleeves?”

“You told me not to roll ‘em up. But I chose not to listen to you,” Joel quipped, eliciting an annoyed sigh from her. 

Tommy smirked at him. “So motherfucker, you finally did it, huh? You finally asked her out on a date.” His smirk widened. “Only had to wait, what, about ten fuckin’ years?”

Joel glared at his younger brother. “How did you even—?” He stopped abruptly and his dark brown eyes flickered over to Sarah, who shot him a guilty smile from where she sat. “Really? You just had to tell him?”

“Sorry,” she apologized, sheepishly. “It slipped.”

“Damn, big brother. Y’know, word on the street is that she just signed the divorce papers at the courthouse earlier this week,” Tommy remarked, taking a swig from his bottle of Lone Star as he leaned back into the couch. “You’ve got some real big fuckin’ balls to ask a freshly divorced woman out on a date that quick. I’ve gotta admit that I’m actually pretty fuckin’ impressed with you, Joel. Didn’t think you’d have it in you.”

“It ain’t a date,” Joel muttered out the lie, picking up his keys from the coffee table. “We’re just goin’ out to dinner is all.”

“That’s a date,” Tommy and Sarah stated together in unison.

Joel let out a heavy sigh, deciding that it was better for him to ignore their antics rather than to play into them. “You.” He pointed an index finger at Sarah. “Might not be school night, but I don’t want you stayin’ up too late. And you.” He turned his attention to Tommy. “I don’t want you havin’ any of your little female friends over while I’m out tonight, especially not while Sarah is home. That understood?” 

“Yes dad,” both their voices chirped together once again. 

Rolling his eyes, Joel bid them a quick goodnight and left the house, making his way across the lawn and over to your place. You lived in the smaller, single story yellow house right next door to his.

You’d moved in next to Joel and Tommy several years ago—Sarah had still been a toddler then and he had just started getting used to life as a single father. Joel would never forget the first time that he laid his eyes on you. He had been in his driveway, taking a look under the hood of his old truck, a hunk of garbage Ford Ranger from the nineties that he’d finally gotten rid of a couple years back and replaced with a Chevrolet Silverado instead; it hadn’t been much of an upgrade, but at least it didn’t break down on him as often. Joel had noticed a moving van in the driveway of the house next door, but he hadn’t given it a second thought. He had been so engrossed in what he’d been doing, but at some point, he looked up from the engine and turned his head at the precise moment that you happened to walk by with a cardboard box in your arms. You’d caught his gaze and offered him what had to be the most beautiful smile he had ever seen in his entire fucking life. Joel had just set his wrench down and was about to head over to offer you some help when a man emerged from the back of the moving van with another box. He gave you a quick kiss on the cheek as he led the way into the house. 

Turns out, that man had been your husband.

To say Joel had been sorely disappointed by the fact that you were married had been an understatement to say the least.

It hadn’t taken all too long before Joel met his new neighbors, although he often saw more of you than he ever saw your husband—the man traveled across the country for business and he would be gone for several days, even several weeks at a time. You were a homemaker and to help make life a little less mundane, you’d started something of a daycare in your home, offering to help fellow neighbors who needed someone to watch their younger children during their nine to five work schedules.

When Joel found himself putting in a brutal number of hours in at his construction job, he had struggled to find someone who was willing to look after his then three year old for such extended periods of time. You’d happily volunteered to help him out and you would watch Sarah from sunrise to about sundown for him without a problem. When she started kindergarten two years later, you continued to help Joel out, going as far as taking her to school for him and then picking her up afterwards. You’d never had any children of your own, but you still had maternal instincts, and as Sarah grew up, whenever she would need a woman’s guidance, she would go straight to you without hesitation and you were always there for her no matter what, no questions asked. 

Joel couldn’t have been more grateful for you.

He’d seen and spoken to you just about every day for the last decade—he’d even go as far as saying that the two of you were good friends, though since day one, he found himself longing for a hell of a lot more than just your friendship. Joel had thought he would have to shove his true feelings for you down for the rest of his natural born life, that is, until several months ago when he’d noticed the moving truck parked in your driveway one late afternoon as he and Sarah came home from one of her soccer games. Nearly in tears, Sarah had immediately hopped out of the pickup before Joel could even cut the engine and ran over, demanding to know why you hadn’t told her that you were moving—that’s when you fessed up and explained to her that you weren’t going anywhere, but your husband was.

Through whispers in the neighborhood, Joel discovered that you had filed for divorce and although no one knew the exact reason why, many suspected it had been your husband’s constant traveling for work that had done it. Denise, the nosy blonde woman who lived across the street from him swore up and down that he must have had some kind of adulterous affair behind your back—Joel simply told her she needed to lay off her dramatic daytime soap operas. 

Regardless of the reason why, you were now officially single.

And Joel was taking you out to dinner.

Whether it was an actual date or not, that hadn’t exactly been established. 

He made it up the front porch and inhaled a deep breath, exhaling it slowly through his nose before he knocked on your front door. When you opened it just a few seconds later, all of the wind had been knocked out of his lungs by an invisible force.

You wore a sky blue sundress with a sweet, white floral pattern printed all over it. Thin straps tied together at your shoulders and the hem of the skirt fell right to the middle of your thighs revealing a lot more of your silky smooth legs than he had ever seen before. You’d kept your makeup fairly light, and your hair fell loosely and naturally around your shoulders. Joel noticed you wearing a silver necklace, a butterfly pendant hanging from the chain. He recognized it, because he’d bought it for you, although it was Sarah who had gotten all the credit. She had given it to you as a gift for your birthday that passed by a few months ago. 

“Hey!” You beamed at him. “You’re right on time.”

“Hey.” Joel swallowed dryly. “You look really beautiful.”

You smiled shyly. “Thank you. You don’t look so bad yourself,” You returned the compliment, admiring the way the sleeves of his shirt hugged his biceps. “I have to hand it to you, you definitely clean up well, Joel.”

“Next time that you see Sarah, you’d best thank her. She deserves the credit,” he stated, eliciting a small laugh from you. “Are you all ready to go?”

You nodded, grabbing your purse and keys from the small glass table beside the door. You stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind you; after making sure that you’d locked it properly, you followed Joel across your front lawn and over towards his driveway. He led you to the passenger’s side of his dark blue Silverado and opened the door for you, holding his hand out to help you climb up into the seat. The gesture prompted you to shoot him a strange look.

He frowned a little. “What’s the matter?” 

“No, nothing,” You quickly assured him. You placed your hand in his larger one, the contact causing a jolt of electricity to shoot up the length of your spine. 

Joel helped you up into the truck and closed the door before making his way around the front of the vehicle and climbing into the driver’s seat. He shoved the key into the ignition and the pickup roared to life. He watched as you put on your seatbelt and then reached out, giving it a tug to make sure you were buckled in well enough. “Just makin’ sure you’re safe is all,” he uttered softly as you tossed him another puzzled glance. He reached over his shoulder for his own seatbelt and buckled it in before finally pulling out of the driveway. 

Out of his peripheral vision, Joel could see you wringing your hands together in your lap in something of an anxious manner—were you nervous?

In an effort to comfort you and ease the nerves, Joel reached out and turned up the volume of the radio. He normally kept it on his favorite country station and was just about to ask what station you preferred when you let out a tiny, excited gasp and turned to him, a radiant smile breaking out onto your face. 

“Oh, I love this song!” You told him, bringing your hands together in an enthusiastic clap. You then started singing along to the familiar lyrics. “Heads Carolina, tails California, somewhere greener, somewhere warmer, up in the mountains, down by the ocean—”

Joel turned briefly, raising an eyebrow at you. “Nineties country fan, huh?”

“Duh,” You replied playfully. “Nineties were and will probably always be the golden age of country.”

He grinned, turning his attention back onto the road. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Biting back another smile at his words, you turned to look out of the window, nodding your head and tapping your foot along to the beat of the song as you watched the streets of Austin pass by in a blur of lights and people. 

Joel had chosen to take you to Antonio’s, a locally owned Italian place that was somewhere between casual and upscale dining. “Wait,” he told you, noticing you reaching for the door handle as soon as he’d parked in front of the restaurant. He jumped out of the driver’s seat and walked around, opening the door for you. Just like when he’d helped you into the truck back at his house, he offered you a hand to help you out of it. He kept his dark brown eyes on your feet, making sure you that didn’t fall or lose one of the brown sandals you were wearing. “Careful.”

“Thank you,” You said kindly to him as he closed the door behind you. Your breath hitched in your throat when you felt him place his hand on the small of your back as he ushered you inside of the restaurant where a hostess led you to a small, round table out in the back patio. You thanked her and reached for your chair, but Joel instantly stopped you.

“Let me,” he insisted, pulling it out for you. He helped you into the chair and noticed you give him another strange look, similar to the ones you’d given him when he’d helped you into the truck and when he’d checked your seatbelt. “Why do you keep lookin’ at me like that? Do I have somethin’ on my face or what?” He asked jokingly as he took his seat across from you. 

You hesitated, but then confessed, “I’ve never had someone pull my chair out for me. I’ve never had someone open the car door for me or make sure I’m wearing my seatbelt.” You offered him a small, sheepish smile. “You don’t know how nice that is, Joel.”

Joel stared at you in complete disbelief.

Before he could say anything, a younger waitress appeared at the table to take yours and his orders for beverages. “I’ll just have a cabernet, please,” You ordered, politely. Not wanting to be the asshole who ordered a beer at an Italian place, Joel asked her for a glass of red wine too. She returned moments later with the drinks and then offered to take your orders for food. Both you and Joel decided on a chicken penne pasta dish that looked absolutely delicious. As soon as the waitress took your menus and disappeared back inside, you looked up at Joel and noticed his eyes were fixed intently on you. You felt a slight heat flood your face. “What is it?”

“Nothin’,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders innocently. “You just look really beautiful, that’s all.”

“You said that already,” You reminded him, letting out a breathless little laugh.

“I know.” Joel picked up his glass of wine. He took a quick sip before adding, “But someone as pretty as you deserves to hear it over and over again.”

The night went by fast, much too fast.

One minute, you were both enjoying your dinner and digging into delicious pasta, and the next, the table had been cleared completely, and so had all the other tables surrounding you—you two were the very last patrons in the restaurant. You and Joel had been so lost in conversation that neither of you had realized it was almost eleven and the restaurant was about to close in five minutes. 

“We’ve been sitting here talking for three hours,” You gasped lightly.

Joel chuckled. “Time flies when you’re in great company.”

You looked the bill on the table, which the waitress had dropped off over an hour ago, and reached for it, but Joel was quick to snatch it away from you. 

You pinned him with a stern look. “Come on, Joel! You fixed my kitchen sink for free, paying for dinner is the least I could do—”

“A lady never pays on a date.”

Your lips parted slightly in pleasant surprise. “Oh. So this is a date?”

Joel laughed as dug his brown leather wallet out from the pocket of his jeans. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be a date if you don’t want it to be. But I still ain’t lettin’ you pay.”

“I do.” You told him softly after a minute. “I do want it to be a date,”

Joel’s eyes met yours across the table and he smiled, looking relieved. “Good. ‘Cause I would’ve been kinda crushed if you’d said otherwise.”

He dropped a couple of twenty dollar bills on the table and stood up. He noticed you about to do the same when he shot you a warning glare.

“Oh. Right.” You giggled and waited until he stood up and held his hand out to you, helping you out of your chair.

As the two made your way out of the restaurant and out to his truck, Joel didn’t let your hand go.

“Thank you again for inviting me out to dinner tonight,” You said sweetly as Joel walked you up the porch steps to your front door. You rummaged through your purse and pulled out your house keys, pausing for a brief moment as you peered shyly up at him through your eyelashes. “Would you like to come in for a drink?”

Joel’s heart skipped an anxious, but eager beat. “I think I’d really like that.”

You turned back to your door and your hand trembled slightly as you jammed the key into the keyhole to unlock it and judging by the way Joel let out a soft chuckle beside you, you were certain that he’d noticed it. You pushed the door open, closing it behind you once the two of you had slipped inside. Setting your purse and keys down, you gestured for him to follow you into your living room where you nodded for him to have a seat on the dark blue velvet couch before you walked towards the kitchen. “What’s your poison?” You called out to him over your shoulder as you began rummaging around in your cabinets for two glasses. 

“I’m partial to scotch,” he called back. He then added, “If you’ve got it, of course”

“How do you take it?”

“Neat’s just fine.”

You giggled as you prepared a glass of scotch for him and a glass of red wine for yourself. “Oh you’re just so classy, aren’t you Miller?” Before anything, you did a quick mirror check in the stainless steel toaster on the kitchen counter, making sure that not a single hair was out of place. You then took a deep breath, picked up the glasses, and walked back out into the living room. Handing Joel his glass, you took a seat beside him on the couch; you sat close to him, so close that his arm was pressed against yours. Somehow that wasn’t even remotely close enough. You wanted to be closer and hoped he felt the same. 

“By the way, thank you again for fixing the sink for me,” You told him after taking a sip of your wine. “You probably saved me a couple hundred bucks.”

“Oh, it’s nothin’ really,” Joel reassured you. He nudged your arm. “If you ever need me to take a look at anythin’ around the house, please don’t hesitate to call me. I don’t want you reachin’ out to plumblers and electricians, those crooks will see a sweet little lady like yourself and see nothin’ but fuckin’ dollar signs. I don’t want anyone takin’ advantage of you, so when you’ve got a problem, you call me first alright?”

You gazed down into the burgundy depths of your glass, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “I really appreciate that, Joel.” You brought yourself to look up at him, admitting, “Now that I’m living alone, it worries me. Having to take care of this house all by myself.” 

Joel gripped his glass tightly, a hesitant expression on his face. “Can I ask you somethin’?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. And if it offends you in any way, you’re more than welcome to just give me a good kick in the—”

“Joel!” You rolled your eyes, shaking your head at him. “Just ask me the damn question already.”

“What happened between you two?”

The smile on your face faded away, but you didn’t seem upset at him. “Well, what all have you heard?”

Taking a sip of his scotch, Joel shrugged. “Couple of rumors here and there, but I ain’t the type to believe in gossip. Would rather hear the truth from the source.”

“What did Mrs. Adler have to say about it?”

He snorted into his glass. “That you two probably could have saved your marriage had you just gone to church.”

You couldn’t help but laugh—Mrs. Adler was nice enough, but that woman could really be something else. She was always telling people they had to get right with Jesus. 

“So?” Joel prompted you. “What did he do?”

You sighed and turned your body slightly, angling it towards his. “He did quite a bit. Put me through hell, to be honest with you. But you know, I’m not the type to air someone’s dirty laundry. So, I’m not going to tell you what he did.” You paused, your fingers lightly tapping the sides of your glass. “But I’ll tell you what he didn’t do.”

Joel nodded silently, but in understanding.

“He didn’t treat me right. He didn’t treat me the way I deserved. He never wanted to spend time with me. He never wanted to be home with me, which is all I ever wanted from him. He’d travel so much for work, and when he would finally come back after being away, I would be so excited to just be with him.” You scoffed bitterly at the thought of it. “The minute he landed, he would drop his luggage off and head straight to some bar with his buddies. All I’d want is for him to just stay in with me for a night, watch a movie with me, talk with me because I missed him so much while he was gone. But he never chose me. He would never put me first, no matter how many times I asked.” You shrugged and leaned over, setting your glass of wine down on the wooden coffee table before leaning back into the couch. “It probably sounds really stupid but—”

Joel placed a hand on your bare knee, causing your flesh to erupt in goosebumps. “It doesn’t sound stupid at all.”

Finding a bit of courage, you placed your hand on top of his and continued on, “He never made me feel like I was someone worth fighting for, you know? Like my love was something worth fighting for. He made me feel like nothing, Joel. It got to the point where sometimes I believed it—I felt like I was nothing.”

Joel gave your knee a gentle squeeze. “I sure as hell hope you don’t feel that way now,” he said, his lips tugging down into a frown. “Because you’re fuckin’ everythin’.”

Your eyes flickered up to meet his and you had to silently remind yourself to breathe.

Leaning over, Joel set his glass down on the coffee table right beside yours. He turned to you and lifted his hand, touching the side of your face, his thumb delicately sweeping over the silky skin of your cheek. “A woman like you deserves the world and nothin’ less. You know that, don’t you?”

“Joel?” You whispered out his name, your heart racing in your chest at a rate that you were certain had to be much too fast for the human body to withstand. 

“Yeah?”

“Can you please kiss me?”

Joel’s hand cradled your face gingerly as he obliged, leaning in so his lips could meet yours in the kiss that he’s been aching to give you for the last yen years. He was gentle and he was sweet with it, but after a minute, he found himself lightly nipping at your bottom lip with his teeth, silently asking permission for more. He felt your lips part slightly against his and he eagerly deepened the embrace, his hand moving to the back of your head while his other found your bare knee again.

Another wave of courage washed over you and you placed your two hands on his chest, pushing him back against the soft, velvet fabric of your couch. You swung a leg over both of his and straddled his lap, your hands now clutching fistfuls of his shirt. 

Joel’s own hands went to your hips and he groaned into your kiss.

You pulled away from him, the tip of your nose lightly touching his as the two of you struggled to catch a breath.

“Let me be the one to treat you the way you deserve,” he murmured after a minute, lifting one of his hands to brush your hair back behind your shoulder; his fingertips lightly brushed against the strap of your dress, and it took every ounce of strength he had in him not to pull it down your arm. “Just give me the chance and I’ll hang the moon for you, darlin’—hell, for you I’ll hang the entire fuckin’ galaxy.”

Your heart swelling at his words, you grinned just before pressing your mouth to his once again. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Joel chuckled with a smile against your lips.

You clung to him with fervor, kissing him with a passion that had the both of you seeing stars. Your hands were everywhere, touching, feeling anything part of him you could, eliciting another groan from him as you started grinding down into his lap. Your fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel more. 

“Whoa, whoa.” Joel caught both your hands in his and let out a breathless laugh. “Hey. Slow down, sweetheart.”

You looked at him with wide eyes. “Oh I’m sorry, I-I thought you wanted—"

“Oh I do want it, trust me. Pretty sure you can feel how much I want it.” Joel chuckled again, knowing damn good and well that you could feel how hard he’d become for you as you sat in his lap. His hands toyed with the hem of your sundress. “Seein’ you in this dress all night, trust me I want nothin’ more than to have you right here, right now. But I like you way too fuckin’ much to risk messin’ this up by movin’ too fast.”

You pouted at him. 

“Oh c’mon darlin’ put that lip away.” Joel lifted his hand, taking your chin between his thumb and index finger. “All I’m sayin’ is that we ain’t gotta rush this. Trust me, you’ve got me hooked already and I don’t plan on goin’ anywhere, alright?”

You almost groaned out in frustration.

He just had to be a fucking gentleman when it came to sex, too.

You sighed in defeat, resting your hands lightly on his chest. “Fine,” You relented with a tiny eye roll, causing him to grin in amusement. You playfully poked his sternum. “But if you don’t fuck me senseless by the third date, we’re going have a problem, Miller.”

Joel groaned, feeling himself grow even harder at the way such a filthy statement had come out of a woman with the face of an angel. “Keep talkin’ like that and you’re goin’ to make it impossible for me to wait that long.”

“Maybe that’s the goal,” You winked at him.

“Just stop talkin’ and c’mere.” He pulled you forward, fusing your mouth to his once again.

[love-byers]

mike's weird language when he talks about el and their relationship

part of the equation of stranger things relationships is building the relationship through emotional connection, not physical intimacy and outright saying how you feel. it's a trope in st that the couples refuse to admit their feelings for some time before getting together. "we're just friends", "she's not my girlfriend" etc etc. the denial is super endearing. and even when the couples are finally together, this doesn't change. they're literally just the same duo same friends, but they kiss sometimes. they barely even acknowledge that they're together. it's a great trope in my opinion.

so a couple years ago i was rewatching st and made a list of everytime mike said something weird. meaning, every time mike did not adhere to this formula and stood out from the rest of the couples. i made a tiktok about it too so im basically quoting that in this post. something i stressed in that video was that because we have the other couples as source material, clearly the writers are capable of not doing this. they are capable of writing a good serious relationship, but they're choosing not to with mlvn. so keep in mind, the other couples (besides maybe stancy) do not do this and mike is supposedly, according to his own words, is madly and deeply in love with her throughout all of this and knows it.

Season 3

"Romantic time with my girlfriend."

i'll cut this one some slack, it's just that if you were truly madly in love it would be more like "I'm spending time with el". but thats all he views it as, romantic time with his girlfriend. going to his girlfriends house to make out with her. romantic time with his girlfriend. not bonding with the person he loves.

"Did you think we were never gonna get girlfriends?"

mike is hyperfocused on the word girlfriend. she's not el, the person he loves, she's his girlfriend. he doesn't say "did you think we were never gonna fall in love?" and look i get he's only like 14 here but it's the fact that he later claims he was in love with her the entire time and knew it. he literally claims it was love at first sight.

get girlfriends. he got a girlfriend. he didn't fall in love.

"It's not my fault you don't like girls!"

again the hyperfixation on girls, get a girlfriend, liking girls. mike, why are you more focused on the fact that el is a girl and your girlfriend than the fact that she's el?

"You're the most important thing to me in the world."

finn's delivery of this is so.....

and the fact that el just stares at him blankly afterwards, like she did not buy that lmao

Season 4

"That's because she's my girlfriend, Will!"

it's not "that's because i love her and want to talk to her" or something like that, it's "thats because she's my girlfriend and that's what you're supposed to do when you have a girlfriend" not "because she's el and i love her". that plays into mike's whole charade in lenora, he's just doing things he thinks he's supposed to do when you have a girlfriend.

"You're a superhero!"

that has nothing to do with who el is as a person, especially at that moment because at that time, el didn't have her powers. at the time, everyone believed they were gone, she wouldn't be saving the world anymore. but mike is still saying how incredible she is because she's a superhero.

i hate dr brenner so fucking much, but he did say something i really agree with. el kept going back to the concept monsters and heros, and he says those are things of myth and fairytale. not everything is black and white. this is real life, not a made up story with clear good and evil. and ultimately that helps her accept what happened with 001. he was 100% right there.

then here comes mike talking about monsters and superheros again like WRAP IT UP YA'LL ARE TOO GROWN FOR THIS

"You're the most incredible person in the world!"

again, he says that, but doesn't say why. he just expects her to believe him. it's such a broad statement and doesn't connect to anything about el and her personality/interests/ideas.

"Maybe I should've said something, and if I would've said that thing, maybe she'd want me there with her, wherever she is."

he wishes he'd just said it so she'd be satisfied and want him there and he'd know she's okay, he doesn't wish he'd said it so el would know in her heart that he loves her. "i love you" to mike isn't a geniune confession of his feelings, it's a thing. it's a thing that you say. it's something he thinks he has to say because that's what couples do and it's what el wants. if you fell in love with someone at first sight you do not refer to an expression of your love for them as 'that thing'.

"Maybe I was worrying to much about el. . ."

i really don't know what he meant by this. if she is the most important thing to him in the whole world and is deeply in love with her, why in the mother FUCK would he be apologizing TO WILL for worrying too much about her. there wouldn't be too much worrying when you love someone that much.

"You can fly, you can move mountains I believe that."

she literally can't.

"I love you for exactly who you are. You're my superhero."

the first time i saw this i literally thought "oh thats not..."

because it's.....not. one or the other would've been....fine i guess. but the first preceding the other is just not it. i love you for exactly who you are, and that is my superhero. is that all she is to you, mike? el expresses constant worry of being a monster, a bad person. she's afraid that she's a monster with or without her powers. but dr owens said "I'm willing to bet you're one of the good ones." fucking OWENS said something more reassuring than her boyfriend and supposed love of her life, mike wheeler.

THATS NOT ROMANTIC.

[ooffmlsorry]

Getting Drunk with One Piece Men

sabo, ace, law, zoro, sanji

A/n: Ngl writing drunk characters is my bread and butter. Idk man. It's just how I am.

Content: gender neutral except female pet names in Zoro's

SABO

Y'all become idiot 1 and idiot 2, honestly you might even fight over who gets to be idiot 1

Koala's so tired of y'all omg this poor woman deserves a vacation from the two of you

You can drink him under the table, he's such a lightweight

I'm so sorry to tell you your man's a wanderer. At least once you're going to turn around and say "where'd Sabo go????" Half of your night might be spent looking for him

Despite being drunk Sabo's still a gentleman, you two are gonna stumble down the street arm and arm, he'll walk on the outside of the sidewalk closer to the street to keep you safe, and he likes getting your drinks for you

He drinks sugary drinks and will have a HORRIBLE hangover in the morning

He's not necessarily an angry drunk but he is a loud argumentative one, when he inevitably wanders off you're going to find him loudly arguing on behalf of the revolution and shit talking the world government to anyone that listens and to anyone who won't

You're also going to give each other increasingly stupid dares and stunts throughout the night

Gets affectionate as the drunkness gets closer to tiredness and then he turns into a cuddly man baby

Y'all also both crash pretty unceremoniously. Hack is going to find you two curled up in a coat closet together with a random dog and a dick drawn on your face???

ACE

two words: GOOFBALL ALERT!! He's unserious normally but when he's drunk unless something really, really bad is going down, don't expect a serious response out of him

So LOUD!!

"Ace, why are you yelling? I'm right here."

"I'M YELLING???"

You're all of his impulse control for the night and if you don't have any either than good luck to Marco...

Will loudly brag about you to anyone who listens. Probably does a toast just because you exist and will probably say something he shouldn't

Please stay near him, he just wants you to be right next to him. If you're a wanderer you're gonna stress him out real bad and he's gonna start spiraling. He's just physically clingy, he's got his arms wrapped around you, his head resting on your shoulder, sitting on his lap would make him very happy. -10 personal space.

Lights a shot of liquor on fire and drinks it to impress you. Every. Single. Time.

Speaking of that he repeats SO MANY of the same stories he's told you before

Also wants to dance with you, you've got no option unless you absolutely hate it

Tells you he loves you once every 2 minutes. please say it back. Don't be surprise if he proposes to you a couple of times when he's drunk

Inevitably starts crying...the later it is the more likely it is to happen. Just be prepared to coddle him and be covered in snot before morning.

LAW

First of all, it's gonna take a lot to get this man to actually drink. He's not a fan of being out of control. But he would do it, especially if someone told him he couldn't or told him not to

He also doesn't have the highest tolerance, the fact that he's tall is the only thing saving him from being a lightweight

You know he's drunk because he gets really expressive and talks with his hands a lot more.

I'm telling you this man is going to start talking about his coins. Fucking coins. And Sora. He's gonna out himself as a huge fucking nerd.

He's the most self aware drunk you've ever met. For the entire night he's fully aware of the things he shouldn't be doing/saying and still does them.

"I've had way too much, Y/N-ya. This is going to be awful."

*Gets another drink*

This also includes being all over you. If your relationship was a secret it's not anymore because he can't stop staring at you and keeps finding his way back to your side. And he does this thing where he keeps inspecting your hands and fingers??? He's captivated by them. You think he's trying to hold your hand without looking like he's holding your hand??? But it's kind of unclear????

The more I think about it the more I'm certain that drunk Law turns into a little weirdo.

If you touch him at all he's going to turn into putty, like his face is just gonna look like 🥴

Might start telling you secret dumb thoughts that he has or recalling good memories with Cora.

If Luffy or Kid is there he won't say no to a challenge, he doesn't say no anyway but it's so. much. worse.

He's gonna have to drink enough to put him to sleep or he's going to sober up and recall the horror of what drunk!Law was like

Please act like none of it ever happened. Please.

ZORO

This man is gonna fall asleep.

Can Zoro even get drunk???

Well, hell froze over and he did. Somehow.

Drunk Zoro is surprisingly friendly, he even almost compliments Sanji which is WILD

Like he kind of has something nice to say about everyone worth saying something nice about

There's still something really intimidating about him especially if anyone makes you uncomfortable

Suddenly Zoro can't remember your name and only refers to you as "my girl" or "woman"

Honestly, he can't believe you're actually dating him and he'll tell you several times

Will probably say something like "damn, I keep forgetting how pretty you are. 'S fucking weird."

Teases you a lot. He's like a kid pulling your pigtails because he likes you. As soon as you do it back you're going to get a big reaction out of him though

"OI! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR???"

"NOT SO FUNNY NOW IS IT!!"

He might play fight with you lmao, be prepared to be manhandled because he's rough around the edges but man does he love you

Like I said...this man is inevitably going to fall asleep, hopefully you were done partying by that point because he's not letting go of you. You're stuck. Sorry. You're his new nighttime plushie.

SANJI

Oh Sanji *long sigh*

He thinks he's being smooth but he's boderline incoherent when he's really drunk

He's gonna hype you up!! A LOT!!!!

Probably the most normal drunk because he's already a perv and being drunk doesn't make it that much worse

He can be a little petty though lol, not towards you but you might hear him muttering something here or there

Wants to take a bunch of pictures with you

Unfortunately over half of them are gonna be a blurry mess

Absolutely wants to dance with you

He's not drinking nasty alcohol

Honestly, he's kind of giving Brittany Broski in the sense that depending on what drink he has he's gonna gag

Sidenote: he could theoretically stomach it, Zeff didn't raise no bitch(/j) but why torture him??

So excited you exist??? Like for a moment he's gonna get philosophical and be in complete awe that the two of you exist at the same time and met??? How lucky can he be!!!?

Actually, drunk Sanji gets kind of deep after a while, especially when the two of you are alone

He's not gonna cook drunk. Big no-no. That's a hazard. But if you were drunk and hungry or wanted to sober up he'll make you a cup of coffee and something that doesn't require fire or a lot of knife skills

Would rather whisk you away somewhere quiet to be alone with you after a while. Like, he's not a wanderer per se, but he wants to be alone with you

Leans on you a lot when he's drunk

He might definitely be the little spoon that night, he gets so soft by the end of the night just hold him, okay?

[hoss-bonaventure]

i want to expand on this post just cause i can.

so much of gus and jesse’s relationship is played as an affair. this is only because it makes walt’s anger about their dynamic feel more jilted, like a lover. when he confronts jesse about the two of them having dinner he uses language an excusatory husband would use if he caught his spouse cheating such as “tell me you weren’t as his house last night?” it’s very clearly written as jesse being disloyal to walt and their partnership. now the audience knows that’s just simply not true with jesse literally saying “if you kill mr. white, you’re going to have to kill me too” when he thinks gus is suggesting killing him. he’s devoted to mr. white throughly. even when he’s being shoved into these new situations by mike and gus, there’s never a moment where he thinks about abandoning him. he’s still in the back of his mind through everything, and every character knows this except for walt. that’s what makes most of the build-up leading to gus’s death so ironic. to walt, gus is the other woman who needs to be killed for fraternizing with what’s “his”. in reality, it’s his own brutality and sadistic behavior that is putting a wedge between him and jesse. 

it’s very reminiscent of walt finding out about skyler’s affair with ted. he lashes out and throws a tantrum but he never stops for a second and asks why it happened. he never comes to the conclusion that his actions are what’s driving skyler into another’s arms. he plots to get revenge on ted, but it’s never more serious than toxic masculine how-dare-you-sleep-with-my-wife bullshit. he wants to kill him, i don’t doubt that, but he can’t. how can he? killing, torturing, and all that depravity belongs in the “heisenberg” part of his life. he cannot touch ted because he is as mundane as the life he is fronting. 

now, i will admit, the skyler affair storyline and jesse’s so-called adultery are really not that similar at all. like i said, jesse is not betraying anyone--he is still fiercely dedicated to mr. white. his unfaithfulness is only interpreted as much by walt himself, and it’s walt’s delusions drive him away in the first place. skyler cheats as a means of revenge, as a way to take back some autonomy that walt had stripped her of. however, it’s the way that walt handles these individual perfidies that’s so captivating to me. when deciding what to do with gus, he immediately decides he needs to kill him. this was his plan prior, but now it’s more dire. jesse is gone. he needs to kill two birds with one stone: win back jesse and kill gus. more importantly, he needs to show jesse that him killing gus was something he did for the both of them. so thus he embarks on this convoluted, deplorable, fucked-up scheme. and hey! it works. he successfully manipulates jesse once again, implanting in his brain that no one will have your best interests at heart but me. “gus had to go” and jesse has to agree because this pseudo-son is dying and mr. white is right there and he saved him right? he saved brock and he saved jesse and it doesn’t matter that their love has a body count. their reunion is so impactful because they’re like magnets in a way. the connection they share is so strong that it doesn’t matter how hard they fight or run away, they will cling to each other once more. but what’s devastating this time around is that jesse doesn’t have a leg to stand on with mr. white anymore. he almost fucking killed him and it turns out the “real” mastermind was gus all along. so he offers his submission as an apology, when mr. white holds out his hand he takes it because this is how he can say he’s sorry. and walt? how could he not fall in love all over again. he has jesse, freshly martyred and in his arms once again. 

[gilverrwrites]

Quick and Dirty

Pairing: Captain Boomerang/Reader

Digger has an idea, it involves highly inappropriate usage of the Speed Force Gauntlet. (Please ignore the fact that the gauntlet doesn't actually extend to the fingers - at least i'm pretty sure it doesn't)

You're currently reading the AFAB version

>[Please click here for the AMAB version]<

Rating: 18+

Words: >800

Content: Established relationship, coercion (kinda), clitoral stimulation, vibrations, dirty talk, spit, swearing.

Please remember: to do the things that make you happy.

“No. Fucking. Way.” You warn, leaning back against the wall and crossing your arms defensively. “You keep that thing away from me.”

“Oh, come on, Darlin’.” Digger is still smiling, crooked, confident, casual. He gestures to the speed gauntlet strapped to his other arm. “It’s perfectly safe. You’ve seen me usin’ it.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” You examine the glove in question. It would be a lie to say you weren’t intrigued. You didn’t know much about the speed force beyond whatever half-truths Digger rambled on about, it seemed intricate, and unsafe. But Boomerang was a good lay, and he’d used that thing to save your skin in the field more than once, so you were willing to tentatively hear him out. “If that thing goes off midway, I don’t want my bits going with it.”

“That won’t happen… Probably.” Concern did flash across his face briefly, but it was quickly hidden by his usual bravado. He stepped closer to you, not quite close enough to touch, but enough that you could smell him, that you could feel the high energy radiating from him. Or maybe that was the gauntlet. “Have a little faith in ol’ Boomer, aye. I’ll treat you right, make you feel real good.”

“Okay… but if anything happens to mine.” You point to your crotch before gesturing to the growing erection in Digger's trousers. “I’m using yours as target practice.”

That might have been a boner killer for other men, but Digger's enthusiasm when it comes to sex or showing off knows no bounds, and this is a perfect opportunity for both. His eyes glint with mischief, with victory. He licks his lips, and you know there’s no backing out now, you’re fucked.

Digger maintains eye contact as he reaches out, there’s no pleasantries. He makes quick work undoing your trousers, hooking his gloved fingers in your panties, and pulling them both down until they’re positioned halfway down your thighs.

“What, no foreplay?” You challenge, raising your brows at him.

“You’re not gonna need it.” The look he gives you is so coy, so amused. It should fuel your cynicism, but it looks hot on him. “But, since ya asked so nicely, I guess I can spare a lil somethin’.”

He rests his unarmed hand on the wall beside you and leans in, occupying your lips with his. You’re only allowed a moment to enjoy it before you feel the brisk metal finger plates of the gauntlet slide between your slit. You hiss at the contact, and Digger pulls his hand back immediately.

“Sorry bout that. Shoulda warmed it up first.” His expression flips to sheepish as he brushes his fingers against his scarf. He blows on it a few times before spitting on his index finger and continuing. “Right, let’s try that again.”

He resumes the position, one hand on the wall, one hand slinking back between your legs, and his face just inches from yours. The temperature has barely improved, but he’s able to sink his fingers back in without causing you to flinch this time.

You’re still unprepared and admittedly unimpressed thus far as he starts circling your clit. To give him a fighting chance, you close your eyes, hoping it will help you focus on the feeling.

“Aye, no no no. Keep your eyes open.” As you follow his instruction, you hear a quiet whizzing from below, a lesser sound than the gauntlet's normal powering up. “I wanna watch your reaction.”

Then it hits you, an intense pulsing pressed against your most sensitive area, like every vibrator ever invented is being utilised on you in that single moment. The wall prevents you from being able to roll your head back, so you stare at Digger, wide-eyed as your body tingles and burns.

“Shhhhiiiiit, you like that.” His voice is dripping with fervour, and it only serves to add an extra level of throbbing to your cunt. Already approaching your climax, you’re unable to find the words to respond, instead fisting your hands around Digger's leather lapels in anticipation. “You reallllly like that, don’t ya?”

A nod is all you can manage as you begin to jerk and quiver, hitting your climax in record time. It’s hot and searing, like lightning is running through your whole body.

The tips of your fingers and toes, among other things, are still twitching as you start to catch your breath moments later. You can barely comprehend whatever Digger is prattling on about. He’s waving the gauntlet around, his arm moving so fast you can’t make it out. There’s lots of brash laughter and ‘I told ya so’s. You’re finally able to fully tune in as he muses, “How many rounds of that can handle, I wonder?”

[https-lvesick]

now playing: 200 - minhyung's version by mark

summary ・ after losing the people he loved the most, mark could never move on... but is it really that bad when you return? ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤgenre ・ angst (that's the first idea that came out when i was listening to this fucking song, thanks mark) ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤcontent ・ grieve, character death, spiderverse is mentioned (and used), silk!reader again because i love her! lowkey toxic at the end but... uh... yeah... ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤwc ・ 1980

[notes] i may be a bit uh... invested in spidermark, i admit it. this idea came out when i was listening to the mentioned song lol and whenever you guys see a post "now playing" keep in mind that the fic was plotted because of the song! ngl i literally sobbed real hard while writing the first two paragraphs... i guess i was a bit overwhelmed...

and there he was again. sitting on top of a building, doing your favourite activity together, looking at the moon. his mask was discarded beside bim, his phone in hands, earbuds paired and the song he wrote for you was playing on repeat while he watched some videos of you.

if only he had been faster. you would be there too, with him. now he has no one for him. he wasn't capable of saving the people he loved the most so why is the city still counting on him? why was he doing all of this when, out of all people in the country, he couldn't save only two...

"baby, look! aren't they the cutest?" you point to a pet café, where three cats could be seen by the window.

"they surely are! oh look, they're greeting you!" his voice is joyful. the soft and lovely tone and the sparkling eyes whenever he looked at you or even thought about you were undeniable signs of his love and adoration for you.

"can we have one when we move in together?" you asked, looking at him over the phone. and who was him to deny when you looked so adorable like that?

"we surely can, love." he giggles. It was one of his many memories with you, but this one is where you mentioned moving in with him. a tear dropped at the screen, wetting the phone and suddenly, there was mark again, sobbing.

you finally graduated from high school and were going to attend the same university, so why not move in together? you've spent years together, attached to the hip, in a joyful friendship, which later evolved into a romantic relationship and you couldn't been happier. mark and you were sure you could handle each other's weird habits and were ready for that. let's be honest, you've seen each other at its worst multiple times, and nothing could make your relationship weird.

that time... when he stupidly let you go... you were excited. talking about new cute decorations you found on a website and cat's products for the new addition to your and mark's family.

but that fucking scumbag needed to target you. he needed to take you from him...

every single day mark still reminisced in that moment. he couldn't think of anything other than you. you were his first thought in the morning when he woke up and the last when he was going to sleep. he tried to focus on the good parts. when he had you. but it was hard not to remember he was the one to blame for your loss. after all, he was your superhero. your spideyboy.

his heart clenched again and, by that time, his face was completely drenched in tears. he couldn't stop thinking about you. and this was making him sicker and sicker every day.

the gadget on his suit blinked, announcing a new mission for spiderman. and that was the one thing keeping mark alive. he was trying to compensate for his loss by overworking himself.

"imma make it for you, my love..." he mumbled to himself, drying, uselessly, his face, before standing up.

honestly, mark didn't know how he ended up in this situation. suddenly the city was full of spiders, which he didn't even know that could exist.

"so wait... uh... you're... me... but from another universe?" he tried to cope, he was, really hard, but... how did that happen?

"not you, i'm me, but yeah..." the other spider said. "and there's someone else, silk. as soon as she found out about it, she was willing to help us." he smiled.

"yeah! she travels through the multiverse a lot!" the blonde girl said, swinging her legs.

"but she's a bit late, i see..." the spider who seemed the oldest, spoke, grumpy as always. mark had already noticed it...

they were discussing loudly and mark's head was spinning. when, in a million years, he could guess there were other spiders? and that there was a multiverse. and that he could travel through it whenever he wanted.

suddenly an orange portal appeared and another spider could be seen coming. another woman.

"sorry guys, i was... busy..." she reasoned, wiping off some blood on staining her suit.

as soon as she spoke, mark felt a pang in his heart because why is her voice so identical to yours? and your body proportions? yeah, he was really confused.

but, when the named silk, took off the part of her suit that was hiding half of her face, mark's blood drained. his face was terrified and the blonde girl named gwen noticed it.

"hey... you fine?" she asked, tapping his shoulder.

the spider version of you approached him with concern in your eyes. "uh... mark, right? what's wrong?"

everything was wrong! it was you! his love, his girlfriend. the woman he'd burn the world for if this meant to keep you safe. you were alive? and a spider in another universe? what the fuck was going on?

"y-yeah... i just... need some air..." he quickly grabbed his mask and put it on.

"we literally on top of a building..." the other spider named mark mumbled, watching the guy jump off, swinging on his webs.

it was kinda comic the amount of times the spiderman could be spotted up in buildings in random times of the day doing nothing. actually doing the same thing he had been doing for good seven months... thinking.

"great thing you're fine. i thought you were about to pass out." behind him there was your voice. he pressed his eyes together, trying to remember: you were not you. she was not you.

"sorry..." he mumbled. "i was... uh... having a hard time..." he tried to reason. but as soon as you sat beside him, he lost it completely. but how could he cope when she was exactly like you. when she even had the same scent he could never forget.

"you know... that grumpy man out there and me are kind of... responsible for this uh... spiderverse thing. so i kinda feel like we could take care of you. and i'm definitely in charge of gwen, so you can report her behaviour to me if needed." you laugh and mark can feel his heart warming at his favourite sound. "the point is... if you need to talk... i'm here to listen..."

oh and he wants, more than anything. he wants to tell you how much he misses you. how he wants to just leave this life of superhero and maybe kidnap you, so you can live together, far away from this mess of a life. but... it's not you... it's not.

you sighed and smiled, caressing his shoulders before standing up. maybe you got the hint, he didn't want to talk, or maybe he wasn't ready for it.

"i had a girlfriend..." he blurted out and you stopped. even if he wasn't mentally prepared to talk about you again, especially with someone who is a carbon copy of the woman he loved the most, mark knew he needed to. he needed to release this fog of blame that was plaguing his mind and heart ever since the beginning.

you kept your distance, trying to make him as comfortable as possible.

"she was... the girl of my dreams, you know." he smiled, already feeling the tears starting to prick up in his eyes. "did you ever feel like... living in heaven just by having a special person by your side?" he asked and you hummed in response. "that was it... that was what she was for me. my fucking world ever since we met each other when we were only six."

he paused, sighing deeply, wiping some tears off his face. you waltzed towards him slowly, resuming your previous position beside him.

"we were about to move in together. we were gonna attend the same university, so why not? she was so excited, she was thinking of having a cat as our child..." mark smiled lovingly and you couldn't help but do the same. "but then... a fucking bastard, who i thought was my best friend, took her from me. i wasn't... fast enough to catch her while she was falling... i..." he sobbed and you touched his back, trying to comfort him in some way. "it happened seven months ago and i still can't move on. i overwork myself as spiderman, forgetting about my normal life..." he chuckled. "in hopes that i can stop thinking about it for a second, but it's kinda impossible." and for the first time he looked in your eyes.

you could see the pain right in his soul, it's like you could read him like an open book, but there was a hint of pure love. he locked his eyes to yours and frowned, letting more tears fall.

"and it doesn't help the bare fucking minimum that you look exactly like her. from your eyes to your feet, you are her. so why here? why, out of the other many universes out there, it had to be mine?" the pain in his tone made you feel guilty.

you were taken aback by his words. speechless. you averted your gaze from his, but he was still looking at you.

"but you know... i'm kinda relieved now... i can finally feel you here after all. i know you're not her. you're not... mine... but please, let me hug you... that's the only thing i'm asking for now... please..." he mumbled, desperately. she was the one thing that kept him close to you again. he needed it for his life.

without thinking too much you pleaded. the sigh of pure relief he let out made you cry a bit. you could tell he needed it like it was oxygen. like this would make him live again.

mark touched every part of your body, trying to feel everything of you like it was the last time he could do it. your hair, your shoulders, your waist. he buried his face in the crook of your neck so he could smell your scent once again like it was some kind of aphrodisiac.

but then he pulled away from you, cupping your face in his hands, staring directly into your soul before moving his gaze to your lips, licking his own.

his mind was telling "that's not her", but how could he get it when she looks exactly like you? right in front of him once again. it's like... you've never been gone. he had you one more time, he couldn't let you go again...

"mark..." you whispered and he closed his eyes. having you calling his name again had his head spinning. you can't do it to me... please don't... "i'm not her... i don't wanna hurt you or... having you thinking i can replace her..." no one can ever replace her. "but..."

"would you... let me kiss you?" he wasn't thinking straight. she couldn't do it to him. to your memory, but... how could she deny it when he was asking so eagerly? so... passionate. so... needed.

"would it make you feel any better?" you ask, somehow feeling guilty.

"much better..." he mumbled, getting closer.

when your lips touched, you could feel mark melting right away. his body was eager and you could tell it was the best moment ever since... his loss. one of his hands remained on your cheek, caressing lovingly, while the other flew to your waist.

it was wrong. he couldn't be doing it. she wasn't you. but how could he do the right thing? was there even wrong or right? his mind kept on telling him one thing, but his heart was so happy to have you back. it wouldn't hurt any more to have a little piece of you again. even if you could never return to his life...

[lucky-clover-gazette]

white out is probably one of the more notable episodes of she ra bc it's just catra at her absolute worst behavior, like objectively the portal had far greater consequences but i think the cold got to her in this one bc she's such a fucking menace. "looks like you're mine now adora" "always so perfect, look at you now. you're coming back to the horde under my command" "i wonder which of your friends i'll have you annihilate first" "I'VE GOT CONTROL OVER ADORA. I'M NOT GIVING THAT UP." like when corrupted she ra throws catra at the ground like a ragdoll she deserves it, 100%, no questions asked. there isn't even a time/space anomaly making catra act up, they just put her in outpost 31 from the thing with her ex and suddenly she's the homoerotic joker.

even scorpia's briefly like "ahahah maybe i don't want to have a crush on catra after all" bc she's acting like such a freak. but also scorpia spends the entire episode trying to ask catra out, and tells adora, "you two, even when you're trying to kill each other, you can tell there's a real bond" and she is JEALOUS of that?? actually you know what this is also a catradora at their worst behavior episode too, like the way they immediately start trash talking and then ditch everyone to scrap the second they see each other is beyond unprofessional. catra's favorite number is canonically 42069 (confirmed by nate stevenson) and adora knows this by heart. if those two idiots were in the same room for five minutes while adora's on loopy mode the show would actually just end, and this episode fucking KNOWS it and refuses to give us the satisfaction. bro. scorpia telling loopy adora that catra is misunderstood and shouldn't SHE know that better than anyone else is just like. wow. ouch. rude. scorpia is actually the mvp of this episode she straight up judges adora to her FACE for abandoning catra and swears not to do the same, even though honestly she probably should, because catra fucking SUCKS in this one. scorpia reveals that "catra once used my rock-hard exoskeleton as a nail file" why?? why would you let this happen?? stop simping she's not worth it!! but scorpia is still the mvp bc at the end of the episode she just straight-up realizes that catra is out of her goddamn mind and breaks the 'controlling she ra' disk for catra's own good bc clearly something about low temps and her ex makes catra go 25% more feral than usual and it's pretty cringe. it's like when i dispose of the dead fly my cat has been antagonizing for the past twenty minutes like babygirl i don't like the person you become when you're in these conditions!! and of course OF COURSE we get literally two seconds of sober wordless communication between catra and adora that's just like ohhhh adora's gonna remember this one, you're going to be doing the dishes for the first fifteen years of your relationship once this galactic war shit wraps up and you save the universe by kissing with tongue. oh my god, what the fuck is with this show. how does this show exist. how does this episode exist. how does catra exist. they put this gay catgirl in an environment under 32 degrees farenheit for one episode and it's enough to make her say some of the most toxic, deranged dialogue in the entire series. i think soup would fix her, and also a cocktail of psychiatric medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. she sneezes like a kitten and needs a weighted blanket in the evil uber away from cringefail summit as she's mentally drafting the 'i fucked up' email to her boss. she thanks scorpia and shares the blanket with her bc she's so exhausted by her own bullshit. she ra and the princesses of power season 2 episode 5 white out is for the cold gay heartbroken bitches and it might just be one of the series' best. looks like you're mine now adora, good fucking night.

[nqmonarch]

Red Flags in HSR Characters

I have a problem of simping for the most red flagged characters except I can't handle red flags. Like violence makes me nope the fuck out of any relationship, I am so scared of getting hurt in any way, shape, or form. In real life I'm fucking terrified of being manipulated into being dependent on someone because I've experienced that shit and it isn't fun. Hate being insulted, degraded, all of that.

But the red flagged characters are just too cool???

Like Dr. Ratio, sure he's a pompous shit and would probably end up degrading you which I hate but he's so cool?! So I need to find some way to make him into this weird yellow flag without making myself into some super genius because no way is that gonna happen.

So instead put him in like a tutor AU, he's teaching you and when you get something wrong he gives you such a side ways insult. Like it takes a minute to realize it's an insult, it's worded in such a creative peculiar way. The second it registers you begin doing ten times worse on every question. It doesn't take long for him to realize that being told you're shit isn't inspiring to everyone. So he takes a... kinder approach. He's still a hard ass and strict but he's actively trying to do better and you can tell, when he starts a sentence suddenly stops and then brings that sentence in a completely different direction. You both end up learning. You end up learning the material and he ends up learning how to be somewhat better at dealing with people whose ideal day isn't being insulted.

Then there's the aeons. i simp for all of them, like how can you not??? Especially Nanook (using he/him pronouns for Nanook), Yaoshi, IX, and Aha. Now first off IX isn't a red flag IX is a lovely little black hole who I will defend with my life. But the other three??? They're as red as a stop sign.

Like sure, Nanook would probably destroy you the first chance he gets. Maybe Nanook is the destruction because he wants to be destroyed. I, I don't know man. Like he's so beautiful but how the hell do you even write romance with him? That isn't just like destroying the love interest.

Maybe he's had an insatiable urge to destroy everything ever since the dawn of his existence and he can't remember why. He's always been filled with rage, hatred, toward everything that's existed. Then he sees you and it all comes rushing back toward him. Your death, the hole it filled, the only thing that could really be blamed was the universe. It was everyone and everything's fault. So he would destroy it all to protect you.

Still a red flag but man I'm trying my best, no matter what Nanook will always be a red flag. Yaoshi on the other hand... surely there's a way I can make Yaoshi into a yellow flag after all they just want to help.

Yaoshi who would save your entire planet, heal every individual part of the ecosystem and every person, just to see you smile. They would ask nothing in return and instead remain by your side, enjoying the beautiful of the world. Then the mara strikes, people begin to lose their minds and themselves and you're left to beg them for a way to reverse this. But this is the price of life.

Yaoshi assures you that this is natural but they still watch on in horror as you inevitably succumb to the mara as well. Only then do they try to figure out how to fix it.

The further I get the more hopeless I become. Then there's Aha...

They probably found you entertaining at first, a human full of surprises and excitement, someone that could survive any trial. Then you grew on them a bit more and they found himself becoming attached. Aha wasn't supposed to be attached but this of course just makes an opportunity for more entertainment! Now they're actually invested and can experience the nail biting tension of all this drama!

Just another form of entertainment, it'll be a shame when you're gone though.

Then there's all the other beautiful red flags Ruan Mei, Jing Liu, Blade, Luocha, and Aventurine and Sunday seem like red flags as well even though they're not out. Like if bad to date why do I want to date?

Their red flags are a part of them and it's hard to work around it, so sometimes you just gotta embrace it. Life's rough man. In the end it's my fault for liking red flags. I'll just stick to Jing Yuan for now, peak husband material.

[greenorangevioletgrass]

given the circumstances (part 1) | b.r.b.

pairing: Bradley Bradshaw x actress!reader

summary: your relationship with Bradley goes from 0 to 100 after a little happy accident. [Part of “The Actress & The Aviator” universe]

word count: 5.9k

Warnings: established relationship, language, pregnancy, mention of vomit/nausea, accidental pregnancy, fluff, smut [unprotected sex, oral (f receiving), dirty talk, daddy kink, hint of mommy kink?, breeding kink, size kink, creampie]

notes: they’re back babeyyyy! This is set about 1.5 years after the events in “It’s Classified”, and it fills in the gap of the blurbs I did a while ago. But you don’t have to read it first, this can be read as a standalone. I have missed writing for them so much, and I hope you enjoy reading this! <3

✨ follow @ficsbygreenorangevioletgrass to get notified for my latest words <3 happy reading and please reblog if you liked it! ✨

PART ONE

You’ve been New York-bound for six whole months, doing two shows on Broadway back-to-back. Bradley came to visit you for your musical’s opening night about two months in (and again for your second show, a modern take of Romeo & Juliet), but with your shows and his sudden deployment to God knows where for three months, the time and space apart was killing you.

Which is why you’re determined to take some time off as soon as you’re done, just to be with your stupidly handsome fiance at home in the stupidly sunny California.

Your first month or so was a bliss. You would wake up to the smell of your coffee, and saunter into the kitchen where Bradley would kiss you good morning. There’s no rigid structure to your days, save for the occasional work meetings. Most of your time is spent playing house with your fiance, redecorating the house you both barely lived in before you were called off to work. Wandering around and jotting down inspirations for your new screenplay. Treating yourself to frozen yogurts and manicures. Adjusting to life in the San Clemente neighborhood of Orange County. 

(Bradley made a joke about you joining The Real Housewives soon, which earned him an elbow to the rib. Whatever. He was more Housewife material than you anyway.)

But halfway through your second month, you started feeling lethargic and just… off. You chalked it up to the weather and exhaustion, since you’ve been back to work, going to pre-production meetings for your upcoming movie. You tried to brush it off with vitamins and heartier meals, powering through for a couple of days.

“You sure you’re okay? You don’t look so good…” Bradley looks at you in concern when you shuffle into the kitchen that morning.

You’re really not, but you blatantly refuse to acknowledge that. “I’m fine. Still tired, is all. I just need some…” the coffee scent wafts in the air—the same scent that always woke you up in a good mood these past six months—and you gag. “Oh fuck.”

Bradley’s voice calling out your name sounds distant as you dash towards the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before you puke your guts out. 

“Hey…” he holds your hair back with one hand while the other rubs your back patiently. Staying calm despite his head is running a mile a minute in panic. “What happened, sweetheart?”

Everything feels like hell from your mouth to your stomach, and you groan as you pull the flush. “I have no idea. I just… I could smell the coffee and suddenly…” you motion at the toilet. “I mean, what the fuck?”

He sighs, wiping off sweat from your forehead and brushing the strands of hair sticking on it. “Maybe it’s stress?” he guesses, although they both know it’s unlikely. You’ve been keeping it relatively chill since you got here. “Or a stomach bug? Or…”

You look up to find his brown eyes softly gazing at yours, in worry and concern and… “Or what?”

He grimaces almost apologetically, and you slowly catch what he means.

“No. No way. Nuh-uh.” you shake your head so quickly, you give yourself a headache. “I’m on birth control. I’ve never missed a day…” That’s not true. As the words leave your mouth, you remember the surprise trip Bradley took you to Big Sur one weekend where you forgot both your pills and condoms…

Fuck.

“Babe… What date is it?”

He stammers for a bit, “Um, the— it’s the 18th.”

You do the mental math, counting the time gap between today and the Big Sur trip, and your last period… and your eyes widen. Your head is swirling, and so is your stomach.

“Sweetheart, do you think you might be—”

Before he can say the damned word, you feel the bile rising again. Your pointer finger lifts up in wait, as you bury your face in the toilet and throw up once more.

His heart catches. You’ve talked about having a baby, and you’ve talked about wanting to have one… some time in the future. He didn’t expect it to happen so soon. Butterflies fill his stomach at the possibility of you carrying his baby right now at this very moment, but the sight of you looking so… defeated by your own body is enough to create a nasty pit in his gut.

“What can I get for you, baby?” he asks softly, caressing the back of your neck.

There’s absolutely nothing else to empty from your stomach at this point. It’s basically just water and dry heaving, and your eyes are tearing up from the terrible sensation.

“Ginger ale from the fridge…” you manage between heavy breaths, “...and some test packs from the pharmacy, please.”

“Okay, sure. Got it. Come on, let’s get you back to bed.” He offers both his hands and gently pulls you up. If he’s nervous or excited or both, he does a pretty good job of not showing it. He pulls up some tissues from the bathroom counter and wipes your mouth without batting an eye.

He lays you down on your side, getting you all nice and comfy, before disappearing into the kitchen, returning with a can of ginger ale and a puke bucket, just in case.

“Sweetheart?” his hand is soft and warm on your cheek, and his voice even more so. “Drink up. Hope it’ll settle your stomach a little bit.”

You sit up a little, and take small sips from the can. At least it helps alleviate the bitter aftertaste in your mouth.

“I put your phone on the bedside. Call me if you need me, alright? I’m just gonna run over to CVS. Be back before you know it.” He kisses your forehead, and you make a face in protest.

“I’m gross right now!”

“I don’t care,” he chuckles. “Just rest up. Love you.”

Of course he knows what to do. Picture perfect Bradley Bradshaw, who knows how to be caring without being overbearing. Who kisses your clammy forehead after you puke your guts out. Who is literally running to the nearest drugstore to get her pregnancy test packs right now, for fuck’s sake. He’s just… perfect.

You lie back down and smush your face into the pillow, faced with the fact that you’ll never be able to live up to that. And if you can’t… how the hell are you supposed to raise a child? How the hell are you supposed to pull your weight when your fiance can already do it so well?

“Babe?” He calls out upon entering the house a few short minutes later. “I’m back. I got the…” his words trail off as he walks into the bedroom and sees you in tears. His whole features soften up as he approaches you gingerly, sitting by your side. “Hey… what’s wrong?”

You shake your head as you sit up, sniffling a little. “What are those?” You nod at the paper bag he put down on the foot of the bed, hoping it’ll divert the conversation a little. It’s a little too big for just a bunch of pregnancy test sticks.

“The tests. And some snacks I thought might help with your stomach.”

And with that, the tears burn the corners of your eyes again and your lips quiver as they fail to hold back the cries.

“How are you so good at this?!”

He pauses in confusion, and then… it dawns on him. An amused glint appears in his eyes. “Are you… crying because I got a good bedside manner?” 

Your hands fly up to your face, hiding it from view. “I’m not! Shut up!” You really were, but he didn’t have to say it like that… and your reaction only confirmed his speculation. 

Bradley chuckles. God, he loves your silly little antics. “I mean, I had to take care of my mom all through high school, so…” he shrugs sheepishly.

You wipe your tears with the back of your hand. An uncomfortable awkwardness sets in as you remember his late mother’s terminal illness, right in the peak of his high school years. “Right. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, baby. I’m just… glad I’m doing it right?” He smiles in reassurance, wiping what’s left of your tears and kissing your nose. He lifts up the ginger ale can to your hand again. “You lost a lot of fluids to make up for. Drink up some more, and we’ll do the tests, yeah?”

You glance at the paper bag again, watching him fishing around… “How many pregnancy test packs did you get?”

“I got three just to be safe.”

You want to laugh, but you probably would’ve ransacked the test kits too, if you were the one to buy it. So instead, you nod slowly, ponderously. “Three is… three is good.”

You know how these test kits work, they’re all the same, but you insist on reading the instructions pamphlet anyway. With two other test kits to spare, Bradley simply takes another copy from another box to read.

“Pee on a stick, wait for up to 5 minutes.” You put down the pamphlet on the counter. “Easy enough.” You sigh like it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do. 

And it is. Every tick of the clock feels louder and farther from the one before, and you’re trying your damnedest not to look back onto the counter where the blue-tipped sticks are lined up. Inspecting it up close and see the lines that appear.

You sigh in exasperation, breaking the stilted silence. “I don’t even know what I’m hoping for, if I’m honest. Is that weird?”

He shakes his head a little. “Not at all. This is a weird situation to be in, I think it makes sense if we’re still not sure what we want.”

“Do you know what you’re hoping for?” You turn your head towards him. Maybe you’ll know it when you hear it. 

“Honestly? No.” Yes. He knows exactly what he wants. He just doesn’t want to admit it and freak you out even more. “I’m just thinking about you. About us…”

“What about us?”

“Just that… whatever happens, we’ll figure it out together.”

Bless him. It would be infuriating if you weren’t so comforted by it. Leave it to Bradley to always know just the right thing to say.

And he means every word of it too. Yes, he wants a baby with you now, but you don’t, or if it doesn’t turn out to be now, then… he can stand to wait a little more. For as long as you need.

“How long do we have left?”

Bradley joins your gaze towards the nautical clock on the wall. A silly little gag gift you gave him last Christmas, for your favorite flying seaman. 

“Three minutes and fifteen seconds…?”

“That’s about the average length of a pop song.”

He grins. “Exactly. One pop song, and we’ll find out.”

You nod. Listening to the tick, tick, tick of the clock. It drones on and on, and it seems to lull slower as it goes. Fuck Einstein and his theory of relativity. You pick the first random song that pops into your head and holds onto it for dear life. It’s your only way of keeping track of the time, at this point.

“I took my love, I took it down…” you sing under your breath, tentatively.

Bradley snorts. “It’s a good song.” That’s an understatement. He adores Fleetwood Mac, and this is the first song he learned on the guitar when he was 10.

“Climbed a mountain and I turned around…” you throw him a side-eye, a more than obvious invitation to join you.

Bradley has his eyes closed, though. But he nods along and sings along in his warm voice, “And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hill…”

“‘Til the landslide brought me down.” 

The two of you are singing with your whole chests now, belting out the chorus to drown out your nerves, forcing yourself to stay on tempo even when you feel like rushing it to the end. Right now, it’s more like Nick Miller’s nervous singing from New Girl than a beautiful bathroom jam session, but you don’t care. Bradley is vocalizing the guitar solo part like the back of his hand, playing the air guitar and everything, and you’re so, so happy that out of all the people in the world, you’re doing this with him. 

And at that moment, you realize that your worries earlier today were misguided. Yes, Bradley knows how to take care of you, and he probably knows a thing or two about babies. But he’s on your side. He’ll be pulling the weight with you. Being good parents is not a competition—you know he’ll cheer you on like he is doing right now. He knows you’ll do the same for him, too. 

Well I’ve been afraid of changes

‘cause I’ve built my life around you

But time makes you bolder, even children get older

and I’m getting older too

You didn’t notice it at first, but Bradley also softens up on the final chorus, lost in his own thoughts. He has built his life on self-preservation, protecting himself from the lies of the people he loved, and depriving him of the love and family he’s always wanted. But maybe it’s age or the wounds healing (or you swooping into his life at just the right moment)… but he’s not gonna live forever. He knows in his heart of hearts that he wants this baby. He wants this life with you.

When you ask him to look and tell you the results, he doesn’t even flinch. He just nods, kissing your temple as he reaches for all three test kits behind you. His hand shakes a little as he picks them up, though, flipping to see the indicator side. One line for negative, two for positive.

And there it is.

“They’re…” his throat catches, his face unreadable. “They’re all positive…”

“What?”

He shows you the test kits, two blue lines all across the board. His voice wavers, with tears and smiles at the same time. “We’re having a baby.”

“Oh my God…” you walk into his arms in a daze, still not sure what you’re feeling. Are you relieved because you simply know the answer, or relieved because it’s true? Are you terrified because you want it or you don’t?

Bradley cups your face with both hands, tucking unruly strands of hair behind your ear. His brown eyes brimming with tears, blurry as he admires your beauty. The mother of his child. Gosh, he can’t believe his luck.

“How do you feel, honey?”

It tugs at your heartstrings, just how soft he is. So brave, and so gentle at the same time. You have no idea what kind of parent you would be, but you know he would make a great one. “Shocked,” you admit. He nods. “Scared.” This time, you’re a bit embarrassed, but he completely empathizes. “But…” you put your hand over his, closing your eyes as you lean your cheek against his palm, so warm and soft and right, “…happy.”

***

And after two months of a relatively slow life, things are going from zero to 100 very quickly.

Bradley manages to duck out of work early and take you to the doctor that very afternoon. Everything seems to be in order. The baby is, indeed, there— a 7-week-old blob as big as a blueberry with a heartbeat.

Heartbeat.

Your heart all but stops beating when you first hear it, much stronger than you thought it would. But there it is. Strong. Alive.

There. 

“That’s… that’s our baby…” You choke up, staring at the ultrasound screen in awe. His hand brings yours to his lips for a loving kiss.

Gosh, you must’ve cried about six times that day. Bradley twice as much (He would deny it to his grave, but you kept count.)

And then, once the novelty wears off a little and the new situation sets in… the two of you get to work.

Bradley updates the entire kitchen inventory and goes into a research (or, as you like to call it, a rabbit hole) into what you can or cannot consume during your pregnancy. You’re constantly on the phone with your agent to rearrange your schedule for the next year (he sounds happy that you’re expecting, but a little inconvenienced that he has to move some things around and even cancel your involvement in a few projects). Conversation topics at mealtimes now include baby names, nursery ideas, and childcare plans.

Bradley comes home to you huddled over your laptop one evening, brows knitted in focus. The AC is cranked up to the max in the summer heat, and you’re all bundled up in the throw blanket. He wants to squee over how cute you look. He puts down the takeout bag of Pad Thai on the coffee table.

“Whatcha got there, my little cocoon?”

“Insurance, mostly.” You look up to kiss him briefly, before you continue typing on. “I’ve been talking to them all afternoon, going through the birth plans and sorting everything out. Very exciting stuff.”

“Hell yeah! Paperwork! The thrill of calling up an insurance company on a Tuesday!” Bradley counters your deadpan with an overexcited cheer, flopping himself on the spot next to you with another big kiss. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Well,” you take a thoughtful deep breath, going through your mental to-do list and realizing… you’re pretty much all set. “How about a back massage?” You give him the puppy eyes, as if you needed it in the first place.

“Copy that, Ma’am.” He throws her a lazy salute and tugs the throw blankets off of you. He starts on your shoulders, noticing the tension under your skin. “Jeez, babe. How long have you been hunched over here?”

Before you can answer him, he’s already working the knots on the base of your neck, you don’t even know you were so tense there, and you respond with a resounding moan.

He raises his eyebrows. “I’ll… take that as a compliment, then.” He grins, ever so proud that he’s eliciting these sounds out of you.

It’s not like you were playing it up or anything. You really were tense, and his hands really do feel good. And while it does make you moan and sigh blissfully, it’s hardly your fault that it makes him think of something else, right?

“Baby…” his voice sounds like a gentle warning.

“Yes?”

His hands stop. “Don’t test me.”

“Oh, okay. Would you prefer this instead?” you grunt oafishly, a piss-poor impression of him in bed, “Fuck baby, that’s it. That’s it. Good girl…”

“Hey!” he pokes his fingers to your side and cage you in his arms so you have nowhere to go. Nowhere to avoid his ministrations.

You giggle uncontrollably, squirming as he gets on top of you, peppering kisses all over your face. A mere distraction to his real tickle attacks. “Stop! Stop! Roo-roo!”

He pins your arms over your head, his cheeks tinged pink with mischief now. “Yield?”

“I’m willing to negotiate.” You flash him a coy smirk.

He frowns. Go on. 

You raise an eyebrow. You know what I’m talking about.

He raises his, mirroring you. Interesting…

You tilt your head slightly. Well?

And just like that…

“Deal.” 

Your lips meet each other halfway in a searing kiss. The pregnancy hormones are kicking in in full gear, and you’re needier. Much needier than you already are. You want Bradley all the time, in whatever form he’s in, in whatever situation you are in. He knows this, and he finds this endlessly adorable. He would poke fun at you for that…

If only he wasn’t so god-fucking-damned enamored by you for it.

He tears off your dress, reveling in the sheer sight of you. Your curves growing softer, more pronounced in the past month alone. The very subtle but steadfast roundness of your belly. Your breasts, as they grow fuller and—

“Oh…” you whimper as he rolls your nipple between your fingers.

More sensitive to the touch.

“God, you’re so beautiful like this…” he leans down to kiss you again; on the mouth, and on the neck… his tongue gliding across your collarbones, forming the shape of your mounds, one after another…

“Roo, take me to bed…”

“Or what, lose me forever?”

He grazes the outer parts of your nipple with his teeth and teasingly licks at the hardened tops, and you cry out. Such a small little thing, but you feel the sensation in your fingertips.

Bradley smiles. A soft look despite how the situation is escalating. “C’mere, baby.”

With your legs wrapped around his waist, he lifts you up off of the couch. You think it’s just to get you up on your feet, but then he’s not letting go. “You’re not seriously thinking about carrying me all the way upstairs, right?” A teasing frown sets on your face as he hauls you out of the living room.

“Are you assuming that I can’t carry my beautifully pregnant wife to our room?”

“I’m not your wife yet, you know— oh shit!” He pins you against the wall right by the stairs, one hand cradling the back of your head, ever so caring.

He mouths your neck in teasing, his breath fanning against your bare skin. “No? So I don’t have to perform my husbandly duties now, since you’re not my wife?”

It’s kind of hot… but you can’t help but make a face at his choice of words. “You need to stop watching Downton Abbey. Just say ‘fuck.’ It’s not that hard.”

He pulls away, his comeback locked and loaded and ready to go. “You can’t tell me what to do. Who are you, my wife or something?”

“Ugh!” your jaw falls open in a mock offended expression, and you smack his ass playfully.

In turn, he squeezes yours back. Tight. Possessive. There’s a shift in his gaze, a tiny sliver, a darkening—the kind that makes you feel even more naked than you already are. You look at him with unbridled lust, and he kisses you like it’s the only way he can breathe. Like he’s been holding his breath until he can get his hands on you.

And by God, you would let him have all the air you have left to give.

He carries up to the bedroom slowly, carefully, and you hold onto him tight. Reveling in how strong he’s built, all muscles and abs and everything, and how gentle he handles you as he sets you down on the edge of the bed. The epitome of a gentleman, as he kneels down between your legs.

You can feel the heat emanating from him—or is it you?— and you try to unbutton his khaki uniform. “Baby, don’t you wanna take off your…” your words die out as his chest moves out of reach. There is only his hair between your thighs.

His tongue between your folds.

“Fuuuuck…” you bite through your teeth. And once his finger joins in, you’re done for. 

You make no effort to hold back your obscene moans, but the wet sounds coming from your pussy are still louder. Your face grows hot as the noise bounces through your bedroom walls.

Bradley pulls his mouth away for a moment, smirking devilishly at you from between his legs. “Well well well… What’s got you this soaking wet, honey?”

You bite your lip, trying to keep it together. But you’re teetering dangerously closer to your release, and you whine out, “You, Daddy…”

He chuckles darkly. “Daddy’s got you all worked up, huh?” The use of the moniker has significantly increased since the news of your pregnancy, but you’re hardly complaining. It does hit different now that he’s actually gonna be one. “I’ve been home for two minutes, and you’re already dripping down your legs…” he slaps the inside of your thigh and you’re keeling into it. “So fucking cute.”

He watches you fuck yourself on his fingers and it makes you dizzy. “Please…”

“Please what?” His mustache tickles your clit, and it drives you wild. “Please stop?”

You whimper in protest.

He adds another finger into you, and raises an expectant eyebrow. This fucking asshole. A snide remark sits right at the tip of your tongue, but the only thing that comes out is,

“Please fuck me.”

He stops, straightening up with an intrigued look about him. Then, being a little shit, he comes back up to you with a kiss. “Good girl. There we go. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

You taste yourself on his lips, his mustache wet from your arousal, too. In any other case, you would be more proactive, more feral in returning his sentiment—tearing off his clothes and stuffing your mouth full of his cock. But lately you’ve been feeling more… submissive. So easily drunk on climax that you just surrender your pleasure to your man, knowing he’ll take care of you. 

Bradley stands up to his full height, towering over you. He toes off his shoes, unbuttoning his uniform. It’s hardly a striptease routine, but there’s something insanely hot about him undressing when he’s about to fuck you.

His shirt drops to the floor, and the white undershirt soon joins. You perk up at the sound of his belt unbuckling, pants rustling down. And as his hard cock springs free from his boxers, you swallow thickly at the sight. 

“You ready?” He pumps his fist around his hard-on a few times, as he settles between your legs, still standing on the side of the bed.

A quiet little please escapes you, and then a gasp, as he pulls your hips to the edge of the bed. Lining up his cock against your entrance. He’s big, and your pussy is still aching after he edged you moments ago. It’s gonna be a tight fit.

“Honey, go slow. Please. Slowslowslowslow… ahh!” His cock slides into you in one swift movement, sending a blinding wave of pain and pleasure as it stretches you out.

He doesn’t tear his eyes off of you. He watches your face fall under his undoing, and he moans. “You feel so good, baby…” he says between heavy breaths. You’re always so strong and bold and ballsy, and it gives him a fucking power trip to see you look so… small taking on his cock.

You let out a pathetic whimper as he starts to shallowly thrust in and out of you.

“What is it, baby?” He coos, caressing your hip gently.

“Y’too big…”

“Too big?” Bradley looks down to level your gaze, a seed of a shit-eating grin plastered on his stupid face. “You want me to stop? Is that what you want?”

“No!” You buck up into him as soon as his hips halt, desperately trying to maintain the pace.

He chuckles, that cocky fuck, before he finally continues driving his dick up your inner walls again. “No? You want me to keep stretching you, then?”

You nod. Every thrust feels bigger, deeper, more than the rest, hitting that spot of pleasure just barely, and you’re willing to do anything to stay there.

“Been so needy since I got you pregnant…” he kisses your neck. “Want Daddy more now that I made you a mommy, huh?”

Fuck. The words—the exact order of the words he said sounds batshit insane. You never considered this kind of dirty talk to be hot, but Jesus…

“God, I can’t wait to see your belly all big and round… your tits too, fuck…” he groans as he squeezes your soft flesh, rubbing your nipples with his thumb. “Gonna be a mommy and show everyone who you belong to, huh?”

“Mmh…” You’ve seen Bradley being possessive, and you’ve seen him tap into his primal side, but not like this. This is a whole other beast, and it shocks you how much it turns you on.

“All mine, huh?”

“I’m all yours, Daddy. I’m—fuck. Fuck!” Your whole body is shaking. The band in your core is wound up so tight, and it’s threatening to snap. 

And through it all, he doesn’t let up. Bradley keeps that rhythm, pounding into you hard and deep. “Shit, that’s it… that’s it, baby. Come on my cock. God, you’re so fucking tight…”

There’s no stopping it now… your pussy gushes and clenches around him, as shocks of pleasure wave through your system. Your mind goes blank, and for a hot second, nothing is registering in your brain. Nothing but your man, as obscenely as he is fucking your brains out right now, 

“Need your cum inside me, Roo…”

“Don’t wanna come anywhere else. Just you, just your pussy…” he breathes out. He’s close, that much you can tell. His pace is erratic and his mouth runs wild. “Gonna keep pumping you full of my cum. Gonna keep fucking babies into you until you can’t anymore.”

You would laugh. You would tease him for being such a caveman about it. But as he comes deep inside you, his hips stuttering one, two, three more times as he rides out his orgasm… you don’t only surrender to the idea; you welcome it. 

Maybe you’re completely fucked out. Maybe you’re going soft and mellow, but nothing—and you mean nothing— is hotter than what he wants to do to you.

What he is doing to you now. 

The room falls into a pleasant silence as you come down from your high. Bradley pulls out of you, and you gush out with your own release and his. His mouth falls open in awe. “Fuck, that’s hot…”

“Huh?” You lift your head from the bed, trying to see what he’s looking at.

“Nah, it’s just…” he shakes his head with a grin. “Good thing we’re already pregnant, huh? If we weren’t, that might’ve just done the trick.”

You roll your eyes as he gives you a sweet peck on the cheek. “I think the dirty talk alone was enough to do it.”

He blushes, a deep shade of red. He absolutely can’t take it when you quote back the things he said to you during sex. “Nope! Not a single word. La-la-la-la…” he closes his ears with his fingers, waddling over to the bathroom comically.

The sound of water trickling into the toilet coincides with your laugh in the bedroom… and then it gets drowned out with the flush. It’s a mundane little snapshot of your intimate lives together.

He comes up to you and offers his hands. “Come on…” he helps you get up. “You go ahead and clean up. I’ll change the sheets.”

Leave it up to Bradley, to always take initiatives to do the small things, like changing the sheets and ushering your ass to the bathroom after sex.

As you clean up and put on some clothes in the bathroom, Bradley singing Take My Breath Away to himself in the other room, you wonder how all of this will turn out. Change is inevitable—your belly is getting bigger, this new stage of relationship is getting more real— and you’re desperate to get a grasp on these things. It’s strange to be so anxious after such a lovely evening. But it’s been so good so far… too good, maybe… and you can’t help but wonder if the other shoe might drop.

“Everything alright?” Bradley pops up by the bathroom door, already in sweatpants and a t-shirt. You must’ve been in there for a while.

You nod absently. “Yeah, just… changing.” And you’re not sure whether you’re talking about the clothes you just put on, or the body you inhabit.

“I think you look beautiful,” he says so simply. Wrapping his arms around you, feeling your small bump. He smiles into your hair and whispers, “My beautiful wife…”

“Not your wife yet…” you remind him pointedly, teasingly. It’s one of your favorite pastimes, keeping him on his toes.

He turns you around to face him, a tender look seemingly permanent on his face whenever he sees you these days. “I mean, you’re here, with me, in our house, carrying our baby…” he kisses your nose, “As far as I’m concerned, that makes you my wife, doesn’t it?”

Well, when he puts it like that… you take a deep sigh, not hating the idea. But not quite ready to concede to his argument yet. “Apart from a piece of paper.”

“Ah well. That can easily be arranged, hmm?”

Truth be told, he’s got a point. The only differentiating factor to your status right now is a little certificate, and both your signatures on the dotted lines. Not a big party or a horrendously expensive dress that everybody would have an opinion on. And to be more truthful, it was never what you wanted in the first place.

You only ever want to be together.

And you’re free to decide how you want to be together.

“Should we just do it?”

“What?”

You look up at him with a tentative smile.

His eyes light up, and his heart leaps. “I mean, sure.” He chuckles. “We can go down to the courthouse. Or, hell, I’ll drive us to Vegas right now.”

It gets a giggle out of you. Of course he would jump at the opportunity to marry you right away. “Or… we can just celebrate it with our closest friends and family? Rent a beach house somewhere, and just… make a fun weekend out of it?”

“And just… what, get a justice of the peace to marry us?”

You shrug with an easy smile. “Or we can make Mav cry and ask him to officiate.”

He chuckles, but trails off as it sinks in. It has never occurred to him that that was an option. He’s always imagined it the traditional way. A church ceremony followed by a reception in a hall somewhere. Walking under the arch of swords. Looking dapper in his dress uniform. But with his work obligations and yours, and all the nightmare logistics of guest numbers and venues and entertainment and the fucking publicity that comes with your fame, both of you are well aware that it’s a hassle. 

And it’s not even the most important part.

The most important part is you. You’d be the one meeting him at the altar. You’d be the one saying your vows and making him cry happy tears.

You would be the one. 

For him.

Forever.

“Let’s do it.” Bradley nods resolutely. “Just you, me, and our closest people. We can get married in our jammies, for all I care.”

“Maybe not jammies…” you roll your eyes in amusement. “I still wanna look nice for our wedding, you know.”

“You look nice in your jammies.” He glances down at your tank top.

“Roo.” You cover his line of sight indignantly.

But he tugs your hand away, eyes still glued to what is arguably one of his favorite sights in the world. Your cleavage. Plays it off really coolly as he teases you. “No, no. I’m serious. You look really nice in your jammies. I really wouldn’t object to—”

You swat his hand, only half-serious. “Bradley.”

“Alright, fine!” He raises his hands in surrender. “So long as I get to call you my wife.”

“Not your wife yet…” you saunter out of the bathroom, knowing full well he doesn’t care.

To be completely honest, you’re not even sure that you do, either.