#now he’s 25 and he’s like. ‘would i be able to live normally? what if i don’t want normal? what if this is who i am now?’

[fourthclone]

honestly, roche is so easy sometimes bc if you give him the smallest amount of praise and comfort he’s yours bc he’s just been that affection starved for a good while

[sleeping-sirens]

2:25 am

“hyuck?” you whispered, voice coming out in defeat. you’ve been trying to calm down your erratic heartbeats since earlier. to no avail. calling haechan’s name was your last hope. it seemed right.

“mmh?” he hummed a simple answer from behind you. you knew he was still awake even if only your backs were facing each other on the bed. his breathing was calm and slow.

“my heart is beating so fast…” you blurted out, calmly. just that, no introduction, nothing.

“i thought that’s how humans live?” he joked which made you roll your eyes. the bed sheets rustled in the calm of the night before you felt a dip beside your pillow.

“haechan, it’s beating so fast. like…not a normal kind of fast.” you sounded very serious, yet calm which triggered his worries.

“baby, it’s nearly 3 am,” his fingertips grazed your right shoulder blade, awakening a strip of goosebumps to trail down your spine. “are you okay?”

“no. my heart is beating fast, i can’t sleep.” you almost whined and he quickly turned your body to face him.

“do you want me to cuddle you until you fall asleep?” he smiled down at you. his fingers reached out to move a strand of hair away from your eyes.

“i want to…” you bit your lower, unsure of how to control your feelings. “but…”

“but?? you’re rejecting my cuddles? goodnight.” he swiftly turned his back to you, crossing his arms on his chest.

you stared at him in awe, smiling like a fool. “hyuck.”

no answer.

“donghyuck.” you called him by his full name in a teasing manner.

you heard a quiet scoff reverberate from his chest.

“baby.” you carefully extended your hand to his shoulder, applying a gentle force to lure him back to you.

“go to sleep.” he managed to mumble. not quite sure how long would he be able to deny you after hearing you call him the most desperate yet sweetest baby ever. he pursed his lips together as he waited for your next move.

he all but let himself cry out a whine when you retreated your hand from his body.

“aren’t you gonna ask me why is my heart beating so fast?” you asked as you lied on your back, hands placed gently on your abdomen.

“nope. just got rejected. so i don’t care.” he teased you so hard, he even started questioning himself if he were overdoing it. but he actually wasn’t, to you. he wouldn’t be haechan without teasing.

“haechan,” you started to explain in defeat before he cut you.

“-haechan doesn’t wanna talk to someone who rejects his cuddles-“

“it’s because of you,” it came out as a sigh, you wondered if he were able to hear.

“-you’re lucky i still love you even-”

“it’s because of you.” you repeated yourself, now firmly. you turned your head to his side, pressing your lips together and fiddling with your fingers.

“what?” he sounded confused and uncharacteristically at a loss of words.

“my heart beats so fast because of you. haechan i love you. it scares me how much i love you.”

and this sentence is all it took for him to turn around and face you again. he could only make out small bits of details of your face thanks to the street lights seeping through the window.

“scared?” his hand found solace in the apples of your left cheek, thumb swiping gently across your skin. “you don’t have to be scared.”

“i know, i just…i love you so bad, i-”

his thumb slid down to your lips to shut you. “and i reciprocate your love a thousand times.” his eyes glistened. you grabbed his hand in yours before pulling his palm to your lips and placing a sweet kiss inside.

“but i get it, i do get how scary it can be because all the time all i wanna do is keep you by my side, protect you with my all, never see you cry and many other things that i’m incapable of doing all the time. so i get how that can be scary,” he reassured with a smile and a nod. he spoke quietly, soft and like hot honey. he understood you and this feeling alone could not compare to anything in this world.

you closed your eyes as you took him all in. his voice, his breaths, his warmth, him. you squeezed his hand, slowly sliding it to where your heart was raging. you both stayed quiet for a second, him feeling your heartbeat under his fingers and you basking in the comfort of the proximity of his body. your fingertips tingled when you opened your eyes and found him looking at you fondly.

he was head over heels, extremely happy to know that he’s got such a pure soul by his side that only keeps loving him as they grow older. three years into the relationship and the honeymoon phase has never faltered. what better could a man ask for?

“you don’t have to be scared, just love me, please. keep loving me and i won’t ever make you regret it.” he pulled you to his embrace and wrapped his arms around you like his life depended on it. after placing a gentle kiss on your forehead, “ever.”

head empty, thoughts full of haechan. happy belated birthday my love🤍

[dragonridernoobie]

Glad to see a undertale au author still up and running.

Thoughts on writing a feral underfell bitty sans (possibly abandoned, escaped from a bad place, neglected? Who knows) the reader finds injured and patches them up + befriends them?

Some bitty fics include feral bitties travelling together, like a horror or classic sans with a fell.

Basically, go nuts, no strict requests. Interpret it how ever you like :)

Hope you like this request, idk just enjoying the fandom.

Enjoy the rest of your day/night ^-^

I am so happy to do this! It reminded me of a picture I found on Pinterest that I wanted to adopted fell san bitty. Here is the picture. Also, I'm gonna do it with fell and horror since they where abandon for there looks and attitude.

To anyone else reading this: You will adopt him, and if you don't, I will find out where you live and kill you. Then I'm gonna bring you're ass back from hell and make you write a sorry letter to a fictional character.

Enjoy <3

FellSansBitty X Reader X HorrorSansBitty

It was just a normal day in Ebbot city. All you wanted to do was get a coffee and some treats but mother nature decided that you where gonna deal with nature and threw the biggest Strom the city has seen.

You where currently running down the street, you're jacket over you're head to stop getting wet.

While on you're way back home, you ran by a alley you passed a million times. Though, this time was different. You heard crying. You stopped and tried to listen over the heavey thunder and rain but you couldn't.

When you got closer, you where able to hear it clearer. When a loud thundering boom made it's present, you heard a whimper. When you followed the noise, you came across a wet, broken down box. On the front it said "bitty for sale." There were numbers also scratched out.

25$, 15$, 5$, and free. You looked inside and you saw a bitty. Bittys where interduced to human kind when monsters arrived above ground.

Humans took them quickly and made more of them. They are now used for therapy, friends, pets, and teatchers for the disabled.

Though there were times when bittys did stuff they were not meant to do. Like bitting, talking back, and actually running away from their owners. People called then "broken bittys."

When that stuff happened, people would take them and dust them or put them down in human words. You did not believe in that way since it was wrong, and living things should have free will.

So when you opened the soggy broken box open, you came face to face with the bitty. It looked up at you, scared but also hissed at you in fear.

You used your best smoothing voice to calm into bitty and reach your hand out. Showing it that it can get on your hand if it wants.

When another loud thundering boom was heard, it quickly grabbed you're hand and you slowly raised it up.

Now that it was in your hand, you quickly brought it underneth your jacket and got a closer look at it

It looked like....

FellSanBitty

It looked like a little cherry. It had a big furry black and yellow jacket and shorts.

It had red eyelights.

It looked at you while you stood up and quickly ran to you're house.

Once you reached you're house, you where quick to grab a towel and help the bitty dry off.

It grumble and snapped at you, saying it can do it it's delf

Once it was dru, you interduce youreself. "Hi, my name is (Y/N). What's you're name?"

"....sans...but I like being called red...."

You nod and ask him if he wants food.

You make him some grilled cheese and give it to him.

He complains that the grilled cheese was too cheesy, but he was lying that he hated it since he was eating it faster, then he could chew it.

You had to tell him a few times to slow down.

While he eats, you asked him why he was in that box.

Red stopped eating and looked at the ground.

"No one wants a mean looking bitty..."

Obviously you don't like that so you pet his head and say to him. "I don't think you look mean looking. I think you look tough."

Red looks at you surpised. He looked at you like you were joking, but how you were petting him, you wernt joking.

He blushes and pushes you're hand away.

"I ain't cute."

You chuckle and nod. "Of corse you're not."

"I said I ain't fuckin cute! Now stop fucking petting me!"

You guys are gonna have a instresting relationship.

Pretend that's you're hand.

HorrorSansBitty

When you got a better look at the bitty in you're hand, it looked hurt.

It had a hole in its head, torn up clothes, and seemed to be shaking from the cold.

You held it aginst youreself and ran home.

Once home, you quickly grabbed a towl and help it dry it off, being mindful of its hole in the head.

Once dry, you asked him for a name.

"......sans......but people call me horror."

You nod and ask if he wants some grilled cheese.

His eyes seem to shine at the sound of food and quickly nods.

You make some and give it to him.

You watch him devour the grilled cheese in seconds.

You had to tell him to slow down.

Once he was done eating, you asked the hardest question.

"Why where you in that box?"

Horror stopped eating the crumbs and looked down

"No one wants a broken looking bitty."

You're hurt by his words but after a bit, you take 2 fingers and pet his good side of his skull.

He immediately looked at you surpised but smile and purred.

You just got a skeloton cat bitty.

[robinsno1lesbian]

Can you do where reader is reading a smutty book and is ignoring robin while being to into the the book until robin takes the book and recreates the scene on reader or havens her read the book while she goes down on reader <33

𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 ⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩 .𖥔˚

- r.b. x reader

summary: everyone has their guilty pleasure. yours just happens to be a steamy sapphic romance novel. (2.6k)

warnings: SMUT!! (mdni), vaginal fingering (reader receiving), rough-ish sex, dirty talk, pet names (baby, love, good girl), slight praise kink?, established relationship, basically reader gets caught whilst horny over a sex scene in a book.

a/n: i found this in the depths of my drafts and figured it would be good enough to be posted to the summer fic collection. that being said i didn’t beta read. just made the header and called it a day. so. spelling errors are guaranteed here.

you love your girlfriend. of course you do. robin is everything you could've asked for: kind, generous and so caring with you.

everything is perfect with her: from the way the freckles on her nose look under every ray of sun that falls upon her face up to how her voice sounds when she talks. robin does a lot of talking but it would never occur to you to get annoyed by that; you love it. you could listen to her raspy voice for hours, no matter what she's actually talking about.

that's until now: for the very first time in your life you can't put all of your attention on robin buckley's voice. the sound that normally seems like music to your ears -low, husky even, and with these all too familiar cracks whenever she picks up her pace of speech- is something you can't quite focus on right now.

not because what she's talking about bores you, but because of the book you're holding up in front of your face.

you got it at a bookstore when you were out of town: you would've never been able to gather the courage to pick up such a book in the little store in hawkins. you doubt they even sell this type of book in the small town you live it.

either way, when you first saw it you knew you had to get it. you had paid for it in a rush then, all red in the face as you handed the woman behind the counter the money and quickly walked out of the shop.

now you're laying on your bed, your parents are out and the only person around is robin, who surely wouldn't judge you for reading a sapphic book.

obviously you want to make good use of this one chance you've got to read it. so, while robin was pacing back and forth through your room, you got it out from the spot where you kept it hidden under the pillows.

you're now about 25 pages into the book and, with what's currently described on the pages in front of you, it's getting harder and harder to keep a straight face.

you try to get yourself together, you really do, but you've never read anything like this before. never had the chance to, really, with the lack of representation in literature.

you almost drop the book on multiple occasions and there is a familiar heat pooling between your legs at the images your mind creates; fantasies of robin doing these exact things to you.

your current state doesn't go unnoticed by your girlfriend like you had hoped it would: "and then" she says when you turn another page. "i told him he can't just walk around yelling the word boobies like that but, you know steve, he's- hey"

you smirk at the book, not even aware that you've been called out.

"earth to y/n" robin steps a bit closer and pokes her index against the book cover. that's when you finally look up. "uhm- what? sorry i-" an amused expression flashes over robin's face when she sees the blush on your cheeks.

"were you even listening to half of what i just told you?" your blush deepens and you tilt your head. "something about...steve?" robin makes a face and flops herself onto your bed. your mattress bounces under the impact. "you sound a little too uncertain about that" she says teasingly and leans forward until her head is in your way of reading and she can scan the pages. "your book must be really interesting" you pull it away from her quickly and press it against your chest. "oh?" robin raises a brow with a grin plastered over her cheeks as if she knows exactly what's going on. "well now you'll have to show me"

you immediately shake your head eratically. you know robin wouldn't judge you, but still. she already knows the effect this has on you, so showing her means admitting that you're into what's happening: while you and robin have had sex before, it's never been like it is in the book: it's always been passionate and loving with robin, it was never so rough, so loud, so hot. your girlfriend, however, just rolls her eyes at you and chuckles. "pretty please y/n" she pleads "it can't be that bad now. and, besides, i'm your girlfriend. you know i won't judge you, right?" "i know" you tell her and hide your face behind your palms to cover your burning red cheeks. it gives her the perfect opportunity to snatch the book from where you've put it down. "robin!" you exclaim and reach out to take it from her again, but her eyes are already scanning the words on the page. "god" you groan when she smirks knowingly and throw your face into the pillows. "robin stop it!” robin puts a hand onto the back of your thigh and you turn to face her. her hand is still holding the book but something about her expression has changed. "it's not embarrassing at all" she finally whispers. her fingers reach out and she traces your jaw before they settle on your chin. "y/n" robin rasps "look at me"

when your gaze falls upon her face she gently pulls you towards her. the book has left you wanting for the past minutes and you gladly give in when she puts her mouth on yours.

“come here” she murmurs, closing the distance between the two of you. you part your lips immediately, kissing her with all the built up hunger.

“wow” she leans back just enough for the distance to settle heavy upon your heart. “so you liked it that much huh?” robin concludes.

you bite your lip. the evidence must be written all over your features so you don’t even bother to make up some lame excuse for your racing heart or the way you’re nearly panting under her gaze.

“is this” she taps the book. “what you want?”

once again, all you can do is nod at her, amazed by the sudden shift in robin’s energy when she leans in closer.

“yeah?” she rasps when she drags her lips over yours, just the brief, gentle ghost of a touch. “you want me to give it to you?”

all you can do is whimper. it’s enough.

-

robin is behind you. you’re on all fours for her, ass up and back arched. still, you can feel every inch of her exposed skin pressing against yours from behind. you can feel where her pebbled nipples are pressing against your shoulder blades, where her breath hits your earlobe in quick pants.

“you like this?” her voice whispers.

you can hardly hear it at all though. all you can hear are the wet noises two of her fingers are drawing from your soaked cunt.

she’s deep. deeper than she’s ever been, pressing two of her long, delicate fingers against your g-spot from behind.

usually, you’d be facing her whilst she makes love to you slowly. you’d spread your legs wider and she’d curl her finger inside you until you’re moaning her name.

usually, she’d whisper sweets words of praise to you until you’re shaking with the build up of your pleasure.

this isn’t what you usually do. this is different. it’s raw and rough. it’s oddly hot.

“yes” you whimper, your eyes rolling back so far in your head you can see the ceiling above.

“yes?” robin growls, while pushing her fingers even deeper.

“oh my god” you moan. this isn’t any of the usual love making. this is her fucking you. it’s her ruining you on your sheets, your moans and the sound of skin slapping against skin echoing through your room.

she presses her hips against you hard from behind, draws them back as she simultaneously pulls her fingers out from your slick folds, and then snaps them back immediately the moment she pushes back inside you. like she’s really fucking you.

it briefly occurs to you that you’ll have to invest in a strap-on, so she can really fill you up from behind and fuck you into oblivion, but any thought is cut short with another deliberate curl of her fingers against your g-spot.

“oh my god, robin -baby- yes!” you whine. the sound is so desperate and dirty you press your eyes shut in embarrassment.

robin, on the other hand, can’t seem to get enough of it. her free hand traces your spine as she whispers: “that’s it. that’s my girl. don’t hold in those pretty noises, baby, i wanna hear you”

as soon as a third finger slips into your tight pussy and she starts pumping them in and out, you can feel your arms starting to give out underneath your body. she’s never fucked you like this and your previous reading session had already left you wet and aching.

now, ever thrust of her fingers inside you feels like fucking heaven.

it’s not like you hadn’t hoped for this to happen; for the book to be an inspiration for what robin does to you bed. for it to be fuel to your fantasy when robin isn’t around to take such good care of you and all you have is the image of your girlfriend. and, still, this is better than anything you could’ve ever dreamed of.

and, yet, here you are: the relief of robin’s fingers deep inside your pussy. she’s pressing and curling and exploring your depths with three of her calloused finger pads.

your forearms tremble under the weight they’re currently holding up.

“robin robin robin” you chant, rocking back and forth with each of her thrusts. your head falls forward into the pillows, which do nothing to stifle the obscene sounds that you’re making.

“robin please”

“that’s my girl” robin hums proudly. “take it. let me make you cum. come on”

you can feel her kissing your sweat stained back, but it’s all white noise in comparison to how good she’s fucking you.

you borderline scream when her fingers start rubbing your clit, fast circles to match the brutal pace she’s set. robin herself is panting too, breathlessly rutting up against your ass. you wonder if she’s soaked through her panties by now. you know it’s easy to get your girl wet and with how she’s moaning, you wouldn’t be surprised if her arousal has left a visible, wet patch of her crotch.

in the end, it’s the sound of her voice that sends you over the edge, ragged and desperate as she asks you to cum for her.

“come on baby, cum. you can do it. be a good girl and cum for me”

everything else fades to back except for the burning hot pleasure that builds and builds in your core until the tension snaps and you come with a shout of her name.

robin is still thrusting deep into your convulsing pussy as you hold onto the duvet for dear life, clutching the soft fabric tightly into your fists.

you’re vaguely aware that you’re gushing for her, hot fluids soaking her wrist and the bed underneath you. robin has never managed to make you do that. she watches in amazement, even slows down the movement of her fingers inside you to let you recover from the intensity of your orgasm.

“holy shit” she whispers in awe. “holy shit holy shit holy shit baby”

“yeah” you nod breathlessly. “holy shit”

robin withdraws her fingers from your throbbing heat. immediately, you let your weight drop onto the mattress. immediately, robin is there to hold you.

“you did so good” she whispers. “so so good for me, my god, y/n”

you hum, happy to feel her arms as they wrap around your back.

“you’re gonna have to bring home those books more often” robin chuckles, gesturing to the long forgotten book.

you huff into the pillow. maybe she’s right. maybe you do have to bring home more romance books.

[spookypete-94]

Dark Horse-Pete's Place

Part 5

PriceXFem!reader

Reader is a single mother, working double shifts at a restaurant. Father of the child starts to become a problem while reader is at work and Price offers a solution. Slight age gap between reader around 25 and Price around 35. Will be around 3-5 Chapters once finished (Probably will be more about 6-8 chapters total now)

rested on your inner thigh as he drove back to Abel's school to pick him up. Silence echoed through the car, but it was welcomed after the physical activities that had just taken place. Your head leaned back into the head rest of the seat, rolling slightly from the laxed state you were currently in.

A rumble from John brought you back to attention. "Ya' alrigh' love?" he asked.

Turning your head to look at him you smiled and nodded. "I am." Hand reaching down to squeeze his. His eyes returned to the road, pulling into the school lot where Abel awaited outside the front with a group of kids. Noticing the car, he picked up his bookbag and what looked to be his bag of goodies he had acquired from his field trip. A grin placed upon his face stretched ear to ear.

"How was your day?" The normal question you asked as soon as you saw him at the end of the day.

"Great!" he said rustling around his bag. "I got something for you, John." Reaching forward you noticed he had an opal stone in his hand. It matched the one that was on your left finger.

"I thought it looked like Mom's and should give it to you. They had a bunch of fossils and rocks."

Leave it to your boy to remain so kind, thinking of others even when he is given money for himself. John's long calloused fingers passed the stone back and forth between his fingers.

"Was nice of you Abel," turning around in your seat fully to take in his beaming face entirely. "Did you get anything for yourself?"

"Couple of dinosaur models," he answered reaching back in the bag to show them to you.

John was only able to look at the stone, feeling shell shocked by the gift unable to explain why. The gift caused the gears to turn in his head.

"Thank you," John murmured quietly, turning his head over his shoulder to look at Abel. Still beaming his happiness on you both.

"What do you wanta' do today?" John asked. "Anywhere you want to go?" Still looking over at Abel.

"Pete's Pizza!" Abel exclaimed to him. Pete's Pizza was a restaurant with an arcade with kids games. Generally, you took him on his birthday, but figured it was fitting to celebrate today.

"Pete's Pizza it is." Placing the car into gear once more and starting in that direction.

Standing back on your wild night out, you watched Abel with John most of the time. Their interaction heartwarming. Your ex never gave you the chance to witness this opportunity…maybe if he had things would be different between the two of you.

They both played the games for a few hours before ordering pizza. Making sure it was Abel's favorite to end his perfect day. Walking outside, it was that perfect balance between spring and almost summer. The sun lazily going down behind the buildings of the city, casting long shadows on the sidewalks, the streetlights coming on.

This was always your favorite time of the day. Normally, this was the time you bonded with Abel the most, ending it on your way home from work. Instead, you got to spend more time with him today, making core memories. You wish it could be like this all the time.

It was the drive home you realized you didn't know how this would turn out. Would John want to stay with you at your place? You were just freshly married as of today. Or would he want to go back to his place of residence and live the life you knew little about.

Seeming as he could tell once again stressing, John reached over and took her hand placing it on the center console with his. Thumb stroking over the ring. Practice he seems to do often. John started asking questions about what Abel saw today, his favorite part, what he would do again if given the opportunity. For not having children he was slipping into this role quiet well. Listening to Abel speak, and John's swiping motion soothing your worried brain once more.

Once home, a later hour than you are ever unwinding, you started the bed time routine.

"Love, let's watch a movie on the couch. All of us, let the boy pick." John offered up instead, not wanting to end this good day entirely. Settling down on the couch, you placed yourself in between John's legs leaning into his chest while Abel laid down on the other side. Abel was already in his pajamas, snuggling a blanket and a pillow tuned into the tv.

John's large hand began betting down your hair, smoothing it against you.

"You don' have to work anymore if you don' wan to…" his voice lolled underneath of you, hot breath brushing against your ear. "Make enough you could stay home."

It had caught you off guard, glancing over at Abel you see he had fallen asleep more then likely why John was starting this conversation. Keeping a low octave matching John's, "You've done more than enough. Allowing me to use your lawyer is a debt I can never repay."

"Lawyer is free. And you're already doin' somethin' else for this old man," hand slipping from the top of your head and pressing against your stomach. "35, and want one of my own," his brown pits of honey looking up at Abel. "Love that kid like my own but want as many as you're willin' to give me. Don' have to work anymore." He repeated. Laying your head back against his chest, allowing him to rest against the top of yours.

"Can't leave Kate hanging… She's done so much for me."

"So go part time. Work lunch while Abel is at school. Be off when he's done."

Thinking it over, it would be a way to make your own income still. Abel being away at school even when you move into the new house, boredom would more than likely set in.

"Not a bad idea…"

"There will be times I won't be here," his tone direct. "But we can have nights like this when I am. Everythin' is going to be taken care of one way or another. Want to meet with the lawyer on Monday before things start to get rollin' though… And if you're ok with it, I'd like to take Abel out this weekend to go fishin' with me and the other boys."

"Boys," you said jokingly, knowing which "boys" he was referring to. "You're not much older than them."

"Old enough that they are my boys still. Act like children sometimes…most times but act right when the time comes." A warm smile on his face while he spoke of them. Returning to his original thought and conversation, he gave a light shake of his head. "Will only take him if you’re comfortable. Figure getting to spend time with him is important right now so he learns to trust me… and maybe hanging out with men who are good men might not be a bad idea." His last comment sly, trying to give a dig at your ex.

"You just called them boys a few seconds ago," a light laughing scoff leaving you.

"My boys are men compared to him." A dark undertone coating his comment. "Know for a fact none of them would ever treat you like something stuck to the bottom of their shoe."

Hesitant still, but giving the first answer that came to mind wanting to end the conversation about your ex. "If Abel wants to go, I'm more than willing to let him."

His hand resuming to pet your hair once more after your answer. Abel stirring at the end of the couch caught both of your attention. He was still sleeping but looking rather uncomfortable in his corner.

"Goin' t' take him to bed. Sit tight," John said leaning forward from behind you and slipping out. Watching his large figure bending down and picking Abel up as if he weighed nothing and carrying him off. Abel's head slouched against John's shoulder making you smile. You couldn't help but wonder if his actual father does the same thing for him at his house.

It wasn't too long before John was back in the living room, long shadow stretching out on the floor first before his he entered the room. He stood in the doorway of the living room off the hallway, a smile on his face while he looked at you. There was something dark about this smile, but his eyes glinted with mischief.

"He's tucked in," arms extending up as he leaned against the door frame, "Still out like a light."

"What are you askin'?" shifting slightly, a coy smile on your face, fully knowing what he was suggesting.

He didn't answer, instead he almost sauntered to you before he pounced on to the couch. Pressing you against the cushions, mouth and teeth attached to your neck and shoulder working their way up to your ear.

"You sang earlier, think you can be quiet this time? Can't be waking Abel now…" He was teasing you, a hand already in the top of your dress, the other reaching up your skirt not giving you the chance to answer. Fingers pinching a rosey peak of your breast and hooking your already come soiled panties from earlier and pulling them down. When you arrived home he didn't even give you the chance to change... he didn't care. Burying your face into his shoulder biting down to be able to stay quiet, saving yourself the embarrassment of waking your son.

The happiness from today left John blinded. He was unaware of the tail that had followed you both most of the day. In the shadows your ex had followed you to the courthouse, out to the new house property and bearing witness to the acts of a new marriage.

Rage building within him, but what really made him upset was John entertaining Abel… and you just standing by idle allowing it to happen. Playing games and sharing dinner with him. Here this man you barely knew, swooped in and saved you. Made sure you and Abel were safe and was willing to lay down and bleed for you. And bleed he shall, your ex thought. A plan was forming in his head… but he just needed John to step away for only a moment before he would swoop in. Sink his claws into you and surely Abel will follow.

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Captain John Price Masterlist

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[nobedofroses]

October 1st

pairing: Din Djarin x gn!reader

warnings: suspense

words: 709

a/n: decided pretty last minute to do this, but here is day 1! I would not call this kinktober but I am planning to post everyday this october with a range of different types of prompts but starting with Strange Noise from this list by @raven-cincaide-words (it's on there as day 25, but since I'm using multiple lists, everything's out of order). Excited to get started, hope you enjoy! Directory

🎃🎃🎃

It started when you were asleep. The sound woke you slowly at first. You stirred out of a dream that involved a strange creature in the distance, moving and making a sound. A sound that sounded vaguely familiar but that you couldn’t place. 

Then you woke and the sound was still there. It startled you. You weren’t used to unidentifiable sounds in the little structure that you, Din, and Grogu were living in. It was small enough that you were familiar with every single sight, feel, smell, and sound in it. But not this one. 

Heart beating quicker, you reached out for Din in the dark. His strong arm was warm under your hand and you squeezed it a couple times, wanting him to wake quickly but quietly, just in case. 

Din woke up quicker than you. He always did after years hunting and never letting his guard completely down. Normally, you were glad that he felt like he could with you and Grogu, able to even remove his armor for comfort like sleep. But now you wanted the hunter, the man that would protect you and Grogu from anything that could come your way. 

“What is it?” Din asked, moving close so he didn’t have to speak above a whisper. 

“Do you hear that?” you paused, letting him listen. 

You couldn’t see his face in the dark, but you could picture his expression. Brows furrowed, eyes squinting in concentration, and the firm line of his mouth. 

“It’s inside. Clearly it doesn’t know we’re here or it would be less loud. I’ll take care of it,” Din told you, shifting slowly to grab his helmet on the bedside table. Always there, security and safety in one gleaming piece of beskar. 

In seconds, Din was walking through the doorway with helmet and gauntlets on. You were standing as well, planning to walk behind Din to Grogu’s room so you could ensure the little one’s safety. Behind Din so he could act as your shield. His words. 

The two of you parted in the hallway and you rushed into Grogu’s room as Din rushed to the noise. As your eyes fell to the empty little bed, your heart fell out of your chest as you finally realized what the sound had been. Eating. 

One second before you fell to your knees in despair, Din’s voice called out, “He’s in here!” 

You were in the kitchen the very next second, ready to do anything to save Grogu. But a very different, much less devastating sight was before you than you expected. 

Grogu was standing, completely unharmed, in front of the conservator and surrounded by half eaten and strewn-about food. He must have had a bite of everything you had in there. He was covered in something sticky and the crumbs that had stuck to that, but none of that mattered as you scooped him up into your arms and hugged him close. 

“Oh thank goodness you’re okay,” you breathed, heart rate slowing down for the first time in several minutes. 

“He’s covered in food. He ate everything,” Din countered, although his tone was more tired than frustrated. 

“You must be going through a growth spurt, huh? Are you still hungry or should we clean you up and get back to bed?” you asked the little green child blinking up at you. 

He made one of his cooing sounds and you knew it was a sleepy one. So you said, “Alright, a quick wash-up right after you move all this stuff to the waste bins. Din, I can take care of him if you want to go back to sleep.” 

Grogu waved a hand over your shoulder, moving everything to the correct bin in seconds. Din watched the movement before responding, “No, I’ll do a security check then join you.” 

You nodded with a small smile, knowing that even something harmless like this set off his protective instinct and let him do what would help him go back to sleep peacefully while you did what would help you. You turned your attention back to Grogu, “Let’s get you cleaned up. And while we do, we can talk about what you should do if you get hungry in the middle of the night again.”

🎃🎃🎃

[darkeunology]

♡ Love is the Warmest Colour ♡

Word Count: 3228 (I'm amazed it's this long)

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of gunshot injuries, normal Criminal Minds violence, kidnapping, torture mentions (No explicit details)

Summary: In a world where soulmates feel each other's pain, you and Derek seem to be oblivious to each other's pains.

Not proof read. Not sure how I feel about this one tbh.

Soulmate: Noun: A person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner. 

Everyone in the world had someone who was destined to be their soulmate. It was a tale told to every child as a bedtime story, the exact way soulmates were known to each other. Shared pain - all soulmates in the world feel each other’s pain, Every scratch, punch or bump, soulmates feel it all but are never left with the physical marks from the injuries. 

Maybe not so surprisingly, a lot of people never actually found their soulmates, getting injured close enough to your soulmate so that both of you would realise anything was quite rare a feat, most people gave up trying to find their soulmate by their 20s, not wanting to waste their life trying to find the person suited best for them. Including you, once you’d hit 25, you’d given up - you thought it would be great if you did ever find them, but you weren’t holding out hope for it anymore, you’d now just ignore any of the pains you’d ever felt from your soulmate, which annoyingly for you, was a very common occurrence. 

—---------

As a child, a common question that was asked during class was ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ Everyone else in the class would always have an answer to this, Vet, Astronaut, Writer, Fireman, to name a few, but you never once had an answer, never a clear one anyway, you had no idea what you actually wanted to do in life, and even once you’d finished high school, you chose to not go to college, instead choosing to unfortunately bounce between jobs, starting out at retail, before moving to waitressing until eventually moving to the job you were in now, a barista at your local coffee shop. 

It wasn’t quite the life you or your parents had ever imagined for you, but you were happy enough; sure, you were living paycheck to paycheck, and you weren’t really able to treat yourself as much as you’d wished to, but it worked for you, and now, being in your 20s, you weren’t really sure how you could do anything else with your life. 

It wasn’t until the day you very nearly died when you decided you wanted to do something different. 

You’d just finished a lunchtime shift at the coffee shop, planning to go to the store quickly before you went back to your apartment, a good friend of yours coming round to have a girls night together after a long week at work. You never managed to make it home that night. Whilst walking to the store, a van stopped next to you, a young man poking his head out the window, asking you how to get to the highway from where he was. After quickly telling him where to drive, you turned your back to the van, about to start walking again when you felt yourself be grabbed from behind, a large hand covering your mouth to stop a scream from escaping - no matter how hard you tried to fight off the hands on you, nothing would loosen his grip as he pulled you into the back of the van, landing a quick, hard punch to your head, knocking you out immediately. 

When you finally woke up, you were tied up on what felt like a dentist’s chair. All your clothes except for your underwear missing from your body. A shiver ran through your body from the chill in the room you were in, the chill getting worse when the men who kidnapped you walked into the room you were in, menacing smirks lining their faces. 

Once your friend hadn’t been able to get in contact with you after you’d failed to get back to your apartment after work, they called the police, knowing that you would never be late coming home without letting her know beforehand, she knew deep down something had happened to you, especially with the news recently of young women being kidnapped and murdered in the are you lived in. She’d seen on the news that the FBI had already been called in after the last murder after seeing the press conference on the news the other night, she told them everything they needed to know and hoped that they’d be able to find you in time. 

Unsure of just how much time it had been since you’d been kidnapped, all you could focus on was the pain running through your body from the hours of torture you’d had to endure. It felt like you’d been here for days when in reality it had only been a few hours. The only thing that had kept you going the whole time was the hope that your friend called someone when you never showed up to meet her at your apartment. That hope finally coming true when a tall, dark skinned man jogged into the room, FBI vest on his body and a gun held firmly in his hands, “I’ve got the victim.” he spoke into his comms before placing his gun back into his holster, walking up to you, a gentle smile on his face, “Hey, sweetheart. I’m agent Derek Morgan with the FBI. You’re safe now alright. Medics are on their way down.” he spoke gently, his hands moving to carefully untie you from the chair. 

Derek stuck by your side every moment until they put you in the back of the ambulance, keeping you comfortable as everything buzzed around you, only leaving you when the ambulance left for the hospital.

He was the one good thing you tried to focus on whenever you had nightmares about the kidnapping. It took months of therapy, months of being scared to leave your house alone again before you were finally ready and able to do something about your life. You guess it’s because of what you went through, but you decided that you wanted to do what was done for you, you wanted to help people in the worst moments of their lives; so you went back to school, studying criminal profiling and psychology, graduating 3 years later before luckily managing to get a position in the BAU, the same unit who saved you nearly 4 years previously.  

—--------

Derek remembered when he was told about soulmates by his parents, his sisters told him afterwards that they all had the same talk when they were the same age. He was told one night as he was being put to bed, his parents telling him that there was one special person in the world who was a perfect fit for him, a person who he might never find but someone that would never be better for him. He was told that was how his parents met each other, his dad being hurt during a police job with his mother luckily being close enough to him that they knew almost in that moment they were meant for each other. He was told that any physical pains he would ever have would be felt by his soulmate and any pains his soulmate had would have, he would feel himself. 

As Derek grew older, he never really put much thought into soulmates, he knew how unlikely it actually was that he’d ever meet his true soulmate, with just how big America was, and the fact they might not even be American. He just figured that if he was going to find his soulmate, it would happen naturally - so, like most people, he dated anyone he wanted to, not caring, nor worrying if they weren’t his soulmate. 

At night sometimes, as much as he would never tell people, he would often imagine what life might be like with his soulmate, or just exactly how he would meet them. He mildly envied the people who had actually managed to find their soulmate, wondering how they got so lucky with how large the world is. 

Sometimes Derek would think he didn’t even have a soulmate, he often wouldn’t feel any random pains, only sometimes getting a pain in his foot, almost like his soulmate had just stubbed their toe somewhere - or sometimes a harsh pain in his arm, maybe a needle injection or someone hitting their shoulder too hard as they walked past them. 

So, even as Derek was for some reason in a lot more pain than he normally was, he didn’t really think too much of it. He was used to pain from his job so it didn’t really feel like much to him, he thought you were just going through a bad day. 

He never connected the pieces, even after his pain stopped once you’d been rescued. 

—-------

Nervous was an understatement as you stood in the elevator going up to the BAU office, you hid it behind a gentle smile as the doors opened, asking the first person you saw how to find Aaron Hotchner’s office. 

After getting your directions, you headed through the glass doors into the main office, walking up to Hotchner’s office to the curious looks of the other members of the team. You knocked on the door, walking in once you’d heard a ‘come in’ from the other side of the door. 

“Hi. Aaron Hotchner?” you asked, a smile on your face as you held your box full of your things in your hands, 

The man nodded behind his desk, standing and walking round the other side to be able to shake your hand, something you were just able to do with the box you were balancing. “Hi, yes. You must be Y/N,” he spoke, waiting for your nod of acknowledgement before he continued, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Everyone else has just gone into the meeting room. I’ll show you your desk then we’ll go up to meet everyone.” he explained, a small smile on his face the whole time, before he led you out of his office, quickly showing you your desk so you could place the box down before leading you up to the meeting room, walking in before you, “Everyone, meet our new agent, this is Y/N L/N.” he spoke to the team, 

It took a moment for everyone to introduce themselves, Derek was the last to speak, “You seem familiar,” he spoke after he’d said his name. Everyone else took that to mean something different, since they all knew what Derek was like most of the time, so they were surprised when they heard Spencer speak, “Yeah, he’s right.” Causing the rest of the team to try and remember why two of their team knew your face. 

Sighing lightly, you glanced at Aaron, who already knew of your past, he nodded gently, signalling that you can tell them if you wanted to, “I must just have a familiar face.” you spoke, shrugging your shoulders. 

Thankfully for you, the team dropped it. Derek still giving you looks every so often, trying to figure out where he knew you from. 

—----

It had been a few weeks of working in the BAU, you’d managed to fit into the team really well. Already going on many girls nights with JJ, Emily and Garcia. You got on with the males in your team as well, but nowhere near as well as the girls. Garcia being the one you told everything to, including the day you were kidnapped and rescued by the BAU, and opening up to her about the small feelings you had for a certain Derek Morgan.

You’d also had a lot more pains from your soulmate in the past few weeks, nothing too bad, just some hard hits every so often, one being a nasty hit on your ribs one day at the end of a case, you standing with Emily and practically doubling over in the sudden pain that shot through your abdomen, “You good?” Emily asked, concern laced through her voice, 

“Yeah.” you gasped out, “I don’t know what happened, that just really hurt for a moment.”

“Must be your soulmate.” Emily spoke, you nodded in response, 

“Yeah, it must be.”

When you and Emily found out that Derek had been shot in his abdomen, luckily only causing a harsh bruise due to his vest, Emily was the only one who connected the dots about the pain you felt that day, deciding not to tell anyone else about her thoughts. 

—-----

“You alright sugar?” Garcia spoke when she saw Derek, noticing the obvious look of discomfort on his face, 

“Yeah, baby girl. Just got an awful headache, I took painkillers ages ago and it just hasn’t done anything.” he spoke, rubbing his temples, he knew from the fact that painkillers hadn’t worked that it would be a soulmate pain, 

“Soulmate maybe?” Garcia spoke, 

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” He spoke, smiling at Garcia before getting back to work. 

It wasn’t until he sat down at his desk and saw you taking some painkillers when something clicked, “You good Y/N?” Derek asked, grabbing your attention and the attention of Emily who was sitting nearby at her desk. 

“Really bad headache. Painkillers are only helping a small amount.” you sighed. 

Emily was only looking towards Derek, a knowing look on her face, watching as Derek looked towards her, realisation slowly showing on his face, “Let me know if I can do anything to help.” he spoke, before turning back around, his only thought being that his soulmate was potentially his colleague. 

—----------

Oftentimes when you’d come into work, you’d go into Garcia’s bat cave, getting her some coffee and having a little chat before the work began.

A knock on the door interrupted you and Garcia this morning, “We’re meeting now. We have a new case.” JJ spoke as she poked her head in, her face looking grim. Both of you stood, grabbing your coffee mugs and heading over to the meeting room, being the last two to come in,

“We’re going to Florida.” JJ spoke, turning on the TV on the wall, “There’s been a series of murders, all women in their late 20s, all being found dumped in remote areas.” 

“Any sexual assault?” Derek asked.

“All of them had signs of sexual assault, yes.” JJ answered. “Newest victim is Stephanie Leigh, she was kidnapped yesterday evening after a night out at a local club.”

“All of these women were killed two days after they were kidnapped, meaning we have under 48 hours to find her alive.” Hotch spoke, his face serious like always, “Wheels up in 20.” he finished, getting up from his seat first as everyone else followed. 

—--------

You and Derek were in the car driving to the club where the recent victim was taken from, 

“I think I figured out where I remember you from.” Derek spoke, filling the silence that had surrounded you both for a while, 

“Oh yeah.” you spoke, knowing that Derek probably had, and dreading having to tell him he was right. 

“I think around 4 years ago, maybe more, we were called out to a local kidnapping case, the local cops were investigating someone kidnapping local young females and murdering them after torturing them for a few days, normally 2, but he’d accelerated his timeline on the last victim. We’d found the last body then a few hours later we were told of someone else being kidnapped - it was you.” He turned to look at you for a moment before putting his eyes back on the road,

“You were the one that found me first.” you spoke. Silence filled the car again for a moment, “I never told any of you purely because I just wanted to try and forget about it. I figured some of you might recognise me, but I hoped that you’d rescued so many people that you wouldn't necessarily remember one person you’d helped. Clearly though, you knew, and I think so does Spencer.” you looked towards Derek, “I’ll tell everyone else eventually” 

“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” he spoke quietly, 

“Don’t be.” You shook your head, “I needed to thank you anyway. All of you really. But you stayed by my side from the moment you found me until the ambulance left,” you paused, looking back at Derek, “I don’t think you realise how much I appreciated that.” you finished quietly, a sad tone in your voice. 

Derek turned and nodded gently at you, not saying anything else until you guys arrived at the club, continuing on with the case you were working. 

—--------

“I think we found our guy.” Hotch spoke after Garcia had finished her round of research she was given, the team headed out, finding the warehouse where the unsub should be holding the missing girl, rushing to get there before he murdered her just like the others. 

Spencer and you went round the back together along with some swat agents and other cops, checking each room until you saw the unsub running from you both, alerting the agents who were left outside, Derek being one of them. 

“We found the victim, she’s alive.” Emily spoke into the comms, just before Hotch spoke, 

“Offender running on foot northwest, me and Derek are in pursuit.” Spencer, you, Emily and Rossi all ran out of the warehouse, knowing the victim was safe with the rest of the police and the medics, hopping in one of the SUVs and going out to find Hotch and Derek. 

All in one moment, the most intense pain you’d felt before rang through your shoulder and your leg, causing you to yelp out in pain, making everyone else in the car jump, “Y/N!” Spence exclaimed, being the one sitting next to you in the back, “You okay?” he asked, at the same time Hotch spoke on the radio, 

“Shots fired, Agent down. I need medics to my location.” he practically shouted, the message finishing just as the SUV turned the corner to the alley they were in, Derek on the floor with Hotch knelt next to him. 

Confusion rung through you, the realisation never actually hitting you due to the pain in your body distracting you too much to think straight, “I can’t believe you’re a profiler and you haven’t figured it out yet.” Emily chuckled lightly, looking towards you with disbelief. 

“What?” you asked dumbly, 

“Get out the car and go to your damn soulmate.” she spoke again. You didn’t even think twice once the realisation hit you in the face, you jumped out the car, kneeling on the other side of Derek, one hand cupping his face, 

“Hey sweetheart.” he spoke, a small smile on his face even through the pain of the wounds. 

“Hey soulmate.” you smiled, “That hurt quite a lot you know?” finishing with a chuckle, Derek also chuckling before groaning in pain. “Sorry.” you whispered, noticing the pain he was in. 

“I’m taking you on a date once I’m better.” Derek told you, one of his hands coming to hold yours which was still on his face. 

“You better.” chuckling, you leant down and laid a small kiss on Derek’s forehead as the rest of the team watched on, smiles on their faces, relieved that the two of you finally figured it all out, even if you needed Emily to spell it out for you to realise.

[chronicangel]

Spooky Anecdotes to Share at Nighttime

Words: 8179 Date posted: October 25, 2024 Summary:

The twins haven't been back to Gravity Falls in over five years, and Candy, Grenda, Pacifica, Wendy, and Soos realize that they haven't caught them up on everything they've missed. Cue an anthology of spooky stories that may or may not have happened! (And that may or may not be inspired by something...)

I wrote this as part of a larger project I'll be posting next summer, but I also wrote it as part of the Gravity Falls Halloween Zine 2024! @howtokillavampire put this event together and I am thrilled to be able to participate. Tumblr doesn't have an inbuilt dividing line function, so I used these star dividers by @cafekitsune. And if you see this thing again on AO3 next year and recognize it, no you didn't!

“Well, dudes, the power is like, totally shot,” Soos says as he re-enters the living room, earning groans from everyone gathered.

“But we’ve been waiting for this Ducktective reboot for years!”

“You have,” Dipper says. “I thought that the original ending was satisfying enough.”

Everyone in the room glares at him, and he holds his hands up in surrender. “Look dawg, I get it, but with this crazy storm, the power is probably gonna be out for the rest of the night,” Soos says, punctuated by a roll of well-timed thunder.

“Curse you, weather!” Mabel yells dramatically, shaking her fist toward the ceiling. The weather only responds by flashing with lightning back, and she pouts. “Well, we’re all here. What are we going to do now?”

And indeed, they are all here. At some point between their last visit to the Falls and this summer, the long rust-colored couch had been dragged into the living room out of Ford’s old bedroom, and Mabel, Candy, Grenda, Pacifica, and Wendy are all sitting on it, with Wendy’s long legs stretched out on the chaise in front of her. Grunkle Stan’s striped yellow recliner had been stuffed into the corner, and he sits in it in his usual boxers and wife beater, still clicking the remote at the TV like he can force it to come on with no power if he tries hard enough.

The only person who hadn’t crammed into the living room for the pilot of the new Ducktective show was Ford. He hadn’t exactly been a part of their Ducktective watch parties that first summer, what with the finale airing only a few days after his arrival from his 30-year multidimensional journey and his insistence that it was a children’s show, and telling him that Pacifica had never seen the original either didn’t tempt him. With the power being shut off, Dipper wonders what he must be doing in the basement.

“Hey, I think this might be the first time that we’ve all been in one place since you two got here for the summer,” Wendy points out. Dipper thinks back to their welcome back party, but yeah, now that he thinks about it, Pacifica had only gotten there after Candy and Grenda had left.

“Y’know, this would be a good opportunity to catch up,” Candy says, tilting her head in consideration in a way that leans it against Mabel’s shoulder. “We haven’t seen you in over five years. There are so many stories to tell!”

“Oh! Let me go first!” Grenda yells, and it’s loud enough that even Grunkle Stan winces from halfway across the room. “This actually happened right after you guys left…”

Grenda doesn’t normally like flying. She and her parents have flown to visit her grandparents in Pennsyltucky for Christmas every year longer than she can remember and she’s always hated it. Her ears always feel like they’re going to explode, and it’s miserable having to sit still for so long—and that’s not even six hours! She’s stuck on this plane for ten until they touch ground in Amsterdam, and then there’s another flight after that to get to Austria.

But maybe part of that hatred has been rooted in the fact that her grandparents’ house is the most boring place on earth, filled with lace doilies and tea towels and those weird little porcelain cats that all old ladies seem to have for some reason. She’s not even allowed to wear her shoes in the house! And half of the time her grandfather slips into German without realizing it, which she guesses is actually a good thing, since it means she speaks enough German to get through dating an Austrian prince okay.

And that’s the critical difference between flying to see her grandparents and this flight, she thinks. With her boyfriend waiting on the other end of the flight for her in a fancy foreign country, her usual nerves are by-and-large replaced with excitement—which doesn’t make it any easier to stay still for a long flight, but at least makes the horrible pressure in her ears feel worth it. She’s going to spend a whole week with Marius in his palace in Austria, and maybe she’ll even get to kiss him on the mouth!

She keeps herself distracted for now with one of her mom’s age-inappropriate romance novels that she’d managed to sneak into her carry-on bag before they left for the airport. Since the sleepover where she read the first Wolfman Bare Chest novel, she’s been hooked.

Elijah stared at me with cold eyes, and I stared back. He wasn’t going to get me to bend this time.

“This is not what we agreed to,” he said firmly. I pursed my lips rather than replying, because I knew that if I tried to say anything then my voice would come out all shaky and then I would cave. I was so tired of caving.

He seemed to realize that I wasn’t going to budge, and I watched as several emotions passed over his face. Anger. Guilt. Fear. I had never seen him look so afraid before, and I wondered what he was afraid of. Me? But why would he be afraid of me? Hadn’t he realized by now that I was just Becca, and I wasn’t going to hurt him? That I couldn’t hurt him, even if I wanted to?

Admittedly, Grenda didn’t care for the switch to Becca’s perspective in the fifth book, and she has mixed feelings about Elijah as a love interest. Where Gerard was a creature of passion, Elijah is a cold, calculating predator of a man, and sometimes it’s impossible to tell whether he really likes Becca at all. But isn’t that so compelling?

She can’t wait to talk to Candy and Mabel in the group chat about the latest development in the series when she’s back on the ground.

Her cheeks flush as the scene starts to get steamy, but before she can get very far, a flight attendant pushing a cart leans over her with a too-big smile through nude lipstick and bright white teeth. “Hello, Miss Grendinator,” she says, with the sort of neutral accent that only journalists and flight attendants have. “Have you taken a look at the dinner menu? We’ll be doing dinner service soon.”

After Grenda places her order, she glances out the window. She hasn’t been paying it much mind because she’s been so absorbed in her book, but the sky really is beautiful from up here. It had been storming on the ground when they took off, but now that they’re above the clouds, you couldn’t possibly tell. It’s crazy how the stars still look so far away—she doesn’t know how big a lightyear is, but it must be more than 20,000 feet.

Wait…

She squints. It’s hard to see in the dark, but she swears there’s something on the wing, a barely moving shape almost like an especially short and hunched over man. She leans so close to the window that her forehead presses against the cold glass, and yes, there is definitely something out there!

It looks like a man in a really cheap costume from the Summerween Superstore. Its body is covered with the sort of flat, lumpy texture you’d expect to see on a coat for babies, like wool that was exposed to too much heat or maybe just some synthetic fabric that was meant to look like wool. Its face is much like a man’s face where all of the features have been made huge and exaggerated, with a nose that must take up at least half of its face and almost clownish lips. And it looks like it’s… tampering with the wing? She doesn’t know enough about planes to know what exactly it’s doing, but she’s sure it’s not supposed to be doing it!

“Here you go, Miss Grendinator,” says the same flight attendant, offering her a tray with her meal on it. It’s some sort of chicken dish with mixed veggies, and they don’t have Pitt Cola on this flight, so she’d just gotten water to drink.

“There’s something on the wing,” she blurts. The attendant’s eyebrows knit together and her smile grows a little tighter.

After a second of just staring at her, the attendant bends over to look out the window. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything,” she says, with that sort of customer service voice that makes it sound like she really does think it’s her fault and she really is sorry for it. Grenda whips her head to look out the window.

Sure enough, whatever was there before is gone. All that’s outside now is clear skies and twinkling stars and the blinking light at the tip of the wing. Could she have imagined it? Maybe she’s been accused of having an overactive imagination in the past, but that’s usually daydreaming about cute boys, not creepy monsters!

“We’ve got a long flight ahead of us. I’d recommend eating your dinner and trying to get some rest,” the flight attendant offers with an almost pitying expression, and Grenda presses her mouth into a flat line. She is not crazy. There was something out there! But it’s clear from her face that this flight attendant isn’t going to believe her.

She glares down at her tray the entire time that she’s eating, and it doesn’t take very long to shovel down the dinner, which is bland and not especially filling. She’s heard jokes about airplane food, but jeez! Haven’t they ever heard of salt and pepper before?

She glances at her book. Is it really possible that she was so caught up in reading that her imagination ran wild and just made up some weird creature on the wing of the plane? That’s so unlike her, though…

When she looks out the window again, she almost jumps out of her skin to see that not only is the creature back, but its face is pressed right up against the window like hers had been when she first saw it.

So it’s gaslighting her, huh? It’s just like Elijah! For just a moment, she contemplates if this thing is a viable romantic prospect, but it’s ugly and she has a boyfriend anyway, so there’s only one remaining solution: She has to fight it.

She glances around the rest of the plane. Most of the other passengers are settling into their seats to sleep, and those who aren’t are distracted with their own books and in-flight entertainment. There aren’t any flight attendants in sight.

Perfect.

As an unaccompanied minor, she has the entire row of seats at the very back of the plane to herself on an otherwise packed international flight, so she doesn’t have to interact with any other passengers to stand up. There’s nothing between her and the wing, and she gets onto it without any complication. The wind makes the loose strands of hair from her ponytail blow into her face. “Hey! You!”

The creature turns to stare at her, with its wide yet drooping eyes. There’s an almost sad quality to its face, and she thinks again of Elijah, but she shakes those thoughts away as she rushes at it with a fist drawn. Her punch lands in its gut, and it feels like punching a stuffed animal. The weirdest part is that the creature doesn’t even make a sound, like it was written into a TV script and not given any lines of dialogue so that the producers didn’t have to pay it as much… or something.

The creature is as good at wrestling as any monster in Gravity Falls, although she’s not currently in Gravity Falls and that’s not even where her flight left from. Actually, where did this thing come from? She’s heard people say Keep Portland Weird, but she didn’t think Portland’s weird was quite the same as Gravity Falls’ weird, and even if it was, an airport is barely even a part of a city, if you think about it. The creature uses her distraction to its advantage to land a punch on her face, and she yells.

“Do not bruise my face! This is my boy kissing face!” She yells, and she lugs the creature over her head with both arms, standing on the edge of the plane and staring down at the clouds below. How far must they be from the ground? Well, not her problem!

She throws the creature off the wing and marches back onto the plane victoriously, and all of the other passengers clap and cheer for her.

“And yeah, I pretty much saved the day. I mean, who knows what that thing would have done if I didn’t take it out?” Grenda says with a self-satisfied little smile, arms crossed over her chest and nodding a bit.

“Um, how did you get onto the wing of the plane? You sort of brushed over that part,” Candy says.

“I don’t really remember,” Grenda rushes to answer.

“Also, if you were 20,000 feet off the ground, I’m not sure you would have been able to stay conscious outside of the pressurized cabin of a plane…” Candy adds, and Grenda glares at her.

“Why are you casting doubt on my super cool and true story?”

“Well,” Wendy cuts in, and everyone turns their heads to stare at her. “If you want to hear a super cool and true story, I’ve got one. This happened a few years ago, in my last summer in Gravity Falls before I moved…”

People have this misconception about Wendy. They think that she’s lazy. They think that she’s not willing to work hard. The truth is that Wendy just cares a lot about her time and what she does with it, and so she doesn’t like to do things that she doesn’t want to do. That’s normal, isn’t it? What eighteen-year-old girl doesn’t refuse to do the things that she doesn’t want to do? But when something aligns with her interests, she doesn’t care how hard it is. How else would she have gotten through all that monster hunting with Dipper and Mabel?

This is not one of those instances.

For the most part, her dad doesn’t bug her about participating in the whole family logging business so long as she’s still doing something productive with her time. That’s why she likes working summers at the Mystery Shack so much—it looks like she’s being productive because she’s technically at a job, but she very rarely actually has to do anything.

But the Mystery Shack is closed for the week because Soos and Melody are out of town visiting Melody’s family. She was going to lie about it and spend the week crashing on Tambry’s couch, but Gideon stopped by the Shack to see if the twins are visiting this summer and then his dad was at Skull Fracture with her dad, and now she’s here. She seriously hates that kid.

At least her dad doesn’t actually have her chopping down trees or anything. It’s not that she can’t chop them down, it’s just that she hates how sweaty she gets and her brothers always make fun of how many pieces she has to chop the trees into to lug them back to the house by herself as if she can’t still beat up every single one of them. Seriously, though, she needs to buff up… For now, she’s marking the trees that her dad and brothers are going to come out and chop down tomorrow with spray paint.

She sprays a white X and a circle on another tree and grumbles to herself, “The next time I see that kid, I’m gonna punch him in the head.”

Her eyes catch on a flash of white on a nearby tree and she raises an eyebrow for a second because it’s not like her to walk in circles, but then she realizes it’s not spray paint, it’s a piece of paper.

The note looks like it was written against the bark of a tree, with the lines all jagged and uneven in black pen. “DON’T LOOK… OR IT TAKES YOU.” It? There’s all sorts of weird monsters and beasties in Gravity Falls, and sure, she never looked in Dipper’s journal all that much, but she’s pretty sure she’s never heard of one that takes you anywhere.

She rolls her eyes. “Robbie, this is lame even for you,” she says, crumpling the note up and dropping it on the ground. She doesn’t normally care for litter, but even if the paper was a bad prank attempt by her friend, something about it gives her bad vibes. She looks around. “Are you hiding behind one of these trees? C’mon, dude.”

She tucks the spray paint into the holster at her hip and walks deeper into the forest. It’s not intimidating because Wendy isn’t easily scared and she’s spent her whole life in these woods.

It doesn’t feel like very long has passed at all before it starts to get dark, and that’s weird, isn’t it, because it was, like, the middle of the afternoon just a few minutes ago, she’s pretty sure.

“Okay, fine, whatever dude,” she announces out loud, rolling her eyes again. “It’s getting dark out. I’m going home. Get lost in the woods for all I care.” One night in the woods won’t hurt Robbie, especially not when he’s being a weird jerk.

When she turns around, she almost runs face first into a building that she knows wasn’t there a minute ago, with another page right in front of her face. She takes a step back to squint at it. This one has a crude sketch of a coniferous tree, with a man nearly as tall as it next to it, that says “FOLLOWS” to the side. Okay, yep, this is definitely some sort of paranormal junk. She did not sign up for this today.

She leaves the page right where it is and turns around to walk away, and that’s when she notices that she’s not in Gravity Falls’ forest at all anymore. She knows that forest like the back of her hand, she was literally born and raised there, and this is completely different. Except for a small clearing of birch trees that Dad always warned her to stay out of, Gravity Falls is all redwoods, firs, and hemlocks. The only Pines in Gravity Falls are Stan and his family, and yet that’s what surrounds her as far as the eye can see.

The smart thing to do would be to buckle down in this building and wait for this… whatever is happening to pass. That’s what got her through Weirdmageddon, and that’s what’s gotten her through a million other weird things in her life. Wendy Corduroy knows when to walk away, but she also knows when to refuse to budge.

But something about this whole situation just has her totally off-kilter. It’s like, this is the place that she should know better than anyone else, and now it’s just completely wrong.

So she doesn’t just walk away from the building, she runs. She springs forward and launches herself into the comforting cover of the trees and she keeps going. She goes North toward where the Corduroy cabin should be, and she runs until she sees another building.

The building is not her house. It’s some rundown brick building unlike anything in Gravity Falls, the sort of place that she and her friends would have broken into to party like wild animals a couple of years ago. There’s another note.

“CAN’T RUN.” It feels like it’s mocking her, and she feels an irrational surge of irritation at Robbie. She knows that this isn’t just some prank by her jerky friend at this point, but without anyone else to get annoyed at, he’s the temporary victim of her ire.

“Alright, fine!” She yells at nothing, turning around to face the forest. She glares at the trees that are wrong and the dark that’s too early, and she grabs the hand ax that she keeps on her at all times to hold it out threateningly in the air. “Bro, I didn’t even want to be out here, so I am so not in the mood for supernatural kidnapping! Whatever you are, just come get me already!”

For a long minute, there’s nothing. The forest is completely silent, and that’s another eerie difference from Gravity Falls, where it seems like there’s always some critter making itself known. Just as she’s about to accept that there isn’t anything person-shaped to blame for this situation and she’ll have to start problem-solving Dipper style, which mostly involves a lot of anxiety and sweating, something person-shaped emerges from the forest. Well, she’s using the term person-shaped a little loosely there. The man—it looks more like a man than anything else—is at least eight feet tall, with arms down to his knees and a completely white face. Or, well, lack thereof.

“Ugh, are you kidding me? You’re just some sort of… Skinny… Guy.” She groans. What a waste of time.

She knows too much about the supernatural to waste time and give Skinny Guy the opportunity to do something creepy, especially with all those weird notes around. Ax still in hand, she lunges at him, swinging the ax down as hard as she can at his chest, which is about as high as she can really reach on him. With a wet noise that might make someone with less resolve wince, he collapses to the ground, and admittedly she might just be taking out frustration as she double- and then triple-taps him, just to make sure.

Chest heaving, she straightens up and looks around. She doesn’t know what was up with those notes, but whatever the problem was, she’s clearly solved it by taking this guy out, because the sight that greets her is Gravity Falls’ familiar redwood forest and the sun just starting to touch the tops of the trees as it starts to set. When she looks back at the ground, the body is gone, and that gives her bad vibes but she’s not about to go looking for it. Content that her supernatural adventure is done with, she pulls the spray paint back out to get back to work.

“Woah, Wendy! You totally took out that monster!” Mabel says, with practical stars in her eyes. Dipper got over his crush on Wendy a long time ago (for real this time), but even he has to admit that she’s still the coolest person he knows.

“You killed a man,” Candy says, though not with quite as much horror as the statement probably warrants. Wendy just shrugs like that idea doesn’t really bother her, which it probably doesn’t.

“Is it true that there aren’t any pine trees in Gravity Falls?” He asks.

“Just you, man,” she laughs, reaching out with a hand to ruffle his hair through his hat (which used to be her hat, but they still haven’t switched back and he’s starting to think they’re never going to).

“You guys are only telling stories that happened, like, forever ago,” Pacifica cuts in, and Dipper tilts his head curiously at her. The valley girl inflection (it’s not really an accent) that she had played up when they first met only really comes out when she’s annoyed now, and he can’t see any reason old stories should bother her so much. “I have a story, and this, like, just happened.”

The transition to public school had not been especially easy for Pacifica. Part of that was just how unfair it felt. Her parents were by no means poor, and they almost certainly could have afforded to keep paying for her private tutors. That would involve sacrificing any of their own comforts, though, and Pacifica had long realized by the time that they put her in public school that the things she wanted and enjoyed would always be first on the chopping block.

Whatever. She had determined quickly that she would just have to become the queen of Gravity Falls High School the way she’d become the queen everywhere else she’d spent any significant amount of time. Of course, that was easier said than done.

When Pacifica had become the queen bee of Gravity Falls’ teenage population years ago, most of that was because of her parents’ money. People want to be around you when you’re rich, and it doesn’t matter how awful your personality is as long as you have enough money. In fact, her parents had led her to believe that people would only be more inclined to follow you if you treated them poorly because then they would feel like they needed your validation. That seemed to be her father’s strategy, anyway, and she could say from personal experience that it was definitely working for him.

And it wasn’t like her parents didn’t have any money anymore. For all intents and purposes, they were still probably the richest people in Gravity Falls save for maybe Old Man McGucket. But for the first time in her life, that money and her family name had more negative connotations than positive ones. People remembered how her dad had tried to side with Bill during Weirdmageddon, and they didn’t care for it.

Plus, by high school, most of the social cliques that people were going to find a place in had already been formed, and she was on the outside of all of them. It was surreal, in a lot of ways. Here were people that she had known all her life, and it turned out that she didn’t really know anything about them.

So that sets the scene for our story. By senior year, the only other students who talk to Pacifica are Candy and Grenda, and even they barely talk to her. It’s not like she can blame them. Before Dipper and Mabel came along, she wasn’t exactly the nicest to them, and she hasn’t made that much effort to make it up to them since—not nearly as much effort as she should.

It’s not a big deal. She’ll be graduating soon and then she’s out of here—out of public school and probably out of Gravity Falls. It’s not like she has many other options.

That’s why it’s so weird when she’s practically cornered in the hallway by some boy whose name she doesn’t even know. “Pacifica, would you like to go to prom with me?” He asks, and she looks him up and down. He’s not especially tall, or at least not especially tall compared to her. He has maybe an inch on her. His brown hair and brown eyes are extremely plain, but his face isn’t bad. He’s cute, she guesses.

Still. “No.”

“No? Well, why not?” He asks, like the fact that she’s said no is the most confounding thing in the world. She rolls her eyes.

“You don’t even know me. I mean, seriously, why do you want me to go to prom with you? Because you couldn’t find anybody else who was willing to?”

He rolls his eyes. “You know, if you weren’t such a bitch, people would probably like you more,” he says, and she bristles. “I’m asking you because I think you’re interesting. Most of the girls at our school are fake-nice. You’re not. Is that a crime?”

The retort that he’s not interesting enough himself to go out with her dies in her mouth behind pursed lips as she narrows her eyes at him. Really, Pacifica’s not even that interested in the prom. Years ago, it felt like something to look forward to, but now it just seems like a waste of time.

But does she really want her entire high school experience to boil down to people ignoring her and ignoring people back? This is not how she planned for this to go. Plus, the guy isn’t terrible to look at. He’s definitely cute enough to be seen in public with, with curly hair that definitely needs to be brushed and long eyelashes.

“Ugh, fine.”

The guy lights up and she rolls her eyes again. Geez, what a dork. If she’s smiling a little bit when she walks away, it’s out of amusement at how ridiculous he is, that’s all.

When she tells her mom about it, Prscilla is less thrilled. “What? You are not going to prom with some peasant.”

Pacifica rolls her eyes. “Mom, nobody says ‘peasant’ anymore, you sound ridiculous. Plus, it’s not that big a deal. It’s not like I’m dating him or whatever, we’re just going to prom together. You should be excited for me.”

“Excited? Excited that my daughter is throwing her life away to be seen with some gold digger? It’s embarrassing enough that you work at that horrid diner!”

“I highly doubt that he’s a gold digger,” she says, rolling her eyes again. Sometimes when she talks to her mom she worries she’s going to get dizzy. “Most of the people in Gravity Falls don’t want anything to do with us or our money. It’s a nice thing that this boy is willing to be seen in public with me after everything.”

“Oh, so now it’s your father’s fault?” Priscilla says sharply, and Pacifica would point out that she didn’t mention her father if she thought that would work. Her mother loves little more than to talk trash about her husband and pretend that it was Pacifica. “You are not going to prom with that boy. I forbid it.”

Pacifica just stares at her for a second. “You forbid it?” She asks, incredulous. “What are you going to do, lock me in my room?”

“Maybe I will!”

Ice runs in Pacifica’s veins. Her parents rarely threaten her anymore—mostly because it doesn’t work—but this is exactly the sort of thing that she knows Mom would do because she’d done it a million times during Pacifica’s childhood. It almost activates a sense of fight or flight, and she can’t entirely stop herself from talking back.

“I wouldn’t even be stuck going to the prom with some third rate loser if you and Dad actually cared enough to keep me out of public school in the first place! But no, maintaining his platinum membership at a country club he only plays golf at once a year was more important than my education. I’ve put up with four years of public school, and if I want to have a fun time at prom with a boy who asked, I’m going to go! And if you want to lock me in my room, just try it and see what happens.”

She and her mother stay glaring at each other for a minute before she storms off and up the stairs to her bedroom. She needs to get ready, anyway. She hadn’t bought a dress because she wasn’t planning on going, which means she’s going to have to recycle an old gown from one of the lavish parties her parents forced her to go to—and they do that much less these days.

The dress that she chooses is extremely simple—pale lavender fabric that hugs her body without any of the dramatic embroidery or expensive fabric that she would normally wear. She puts on simple makeup to go with it, and overall, it’s a softer, cleaner look than she usually goes for.

“Oh, I should have known that it would look cheap,” her mother moans from the doorway with a glass of wine in hand, and Pacifica rolls her eyes as she turns to face her. Seriously, there’s no way she won’t get dizzy after enough of this. “Don’t go. Just stay in with me.”

“Pass,” Pacifica says immediately. If the prom had sounded like a potential nightmare, spending the whole night with her mother after she’s already started drinking (well, that’s the most redundant thing she’s ever said) is even worse. “Mom, can’t you just tell me that I look nice and to have a good time?”

Her mother just stares at her, her lips pressed into a thin line, until Pacifica’s phone chimes with a notification. “He’s here,” she announces. “I’m going now.”

She brushes past her mother in the doorway, and she thinks the only reason Priscilla doesn’t spill her wine on her dress on purpose is because it’s white wine.

It turns out that Pacifica’s date is actually a really nice guy. He makes her laugh on the whole drive to the school and he doesn’t throw a fit when she demands to lead when they dance together. The best part is that when she makes snarky comments at him, he’s always locked and loaded with a quick reply. He reminds her of someone, and that thought makes her cheeks flush and she locks it away before anyone who might be listening to this story later can linger on it and draw conclusions.

She wonders what Dipper and Mabel must be doing at their own prom, or if it’s even happened yet. She thinks about texting them, but she can’t think of a justification for why she’d ask. Plus, her date is pulling her over to a table and sitting her down, and it seems rude to text another guy even if it is so not like that. “Look,” he says, holding out one of the ballots to vote for prom king and queen to her. She stares.

At the bottom of the list are their names, and she doesn’t understand how that’s possible. Don’t you have to, like, sign up for that kind of thing? She asks him such out loud, and he laughs. “I signed us up when I asked you. I figured that Pacifica Northwest of all people would want the opportunity to be prom queen.”

Well… does she? Five years ago it would have seemed like only the most natural thing in the world that she would be prom queen. She wouldn’t even have questioned it. But now? Pacifica takes pride in a lot of things. She’s a waitress at Greasy’s even though it infuriates her parents. She’s friends with Dipper and Mabel Pines. She tries as hard as she can to be a good person, even though it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done and it just keeps being hard. Does being prom queen measure up to any of that?

It turns out that the answer is yes, because she gets voted prom queen and it feels like the most magical thing in the world. It feels like she’s floating as she climbs up onto the stage, and as she stares out at the sea of students she thought hated her and has perhaps incorrectly hated back, clapping and cheering for her, for a moment all of this feels worth it. It feels like this is what all of that work she was doing was meant to culminate in. Is this what Mabel gets out of being nice to people all of the time? It’s like a special kind of high.

The moment passes as something heavy and wet hits the top of her head all at once, and a shudder rips through her entire body. She looks down to see red seeping into her dress, slicking her skin, sticking in her hair. It’s going to take forever to wash all of this out. Then it hits her—that horrible metallic smell. Pig’s blood.

Pacifica’s story is cut off with a petrified squeal from Waddles, who dives as though to hide under the couch except that he’s too huge to fit much more than his snout under it. “Oh, Pacifica, that’s awful! Who would want to dump pig’s blood all over you?” Mabel says, holding a hand over her mouth and looking more than a little queasy.

“But Pacifica,” Candy says before she can answer. “You didn’t win prom queen.”

“Well that’s what it felt like,” Pacifica snaps, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest.

“I thought that you were going to private school on a scholarship,” Dipper says, only to shrink in on himself a little when Pacifica shoots him a withering glare. He hates being on the receiving end of those things.

“The Northwest Scholarship for Northwests to Northwest Private School? Dipper, I know you’re smarter than that. It was just my parents’ obnoxious way of saying that they were paying for private tutors. They stopped when they decided they didn’t like me anymore.”

“Aww, it’s a good thing that we rescued you!” Mabel says, leaning over to wrap her arms around Pacifica.

“Mabel, you didn’t have anything to do with that,” she says, but she doesn’t try to get out of the hug.

“But I did!” Soos cuts in, and he reaches up with a hand as though to ruffle Pacifica’s hair before she shoots him a withering glare and he just brings his hand back to himself. “Is it my turn now? I have a super cool story, too.”

When Soos and Melody got engaged, she had sat him down and gently told him that she thought they should move out of the Mystery Shack. “Stan and Ford are going to be done sailing all around the world eventually, and they’re probably going to want to retire in the home that they built,” she says, and as much as this makes sense to Soos, he still doesn’t like the thought of leaving the home portion of the Mystery Shack empty.

“I don’t know… Don’t you think a home needs, like, people in it?” He says, gesturing at the empty house around them.

“Soos, we’re still going to be here every day, and Stan and Ford are still going to stop by sometimes. But once we’re married and having kids, do you really want them to grow up in a tourist trap?”

Really, that idea doesn’t sound so bad to Soos. He can only imagine how much cooler his childhood would have been if he had grown up in a place like the Mystery Shack, hearing stories from Mr. Pines about all sorts of made up spookums. Melody must see this on his face, because she adds after a second, “Abuelita is getting pretty old, too. She’ll need someone to take care of her, and you know as well as I do what she thinks about the Shack.”

He thinks about how sad Abuelita had seemed when he told her that he was going to be moving out to take on maintenance of the Mystery Shack full-time. She had been proud, of course, that Soos was achieving his dreams, but he’d lived with her his whole life and they both expected he’d be with her until she died. Plus, she really does hate this place.

“Okay…” He agrees hesitantly, already wondering if he can push off the whole moving thing at least until Dipper and Mabel are 18 and they can move into the Shack. What can he say? A home just needs people in it or it turns back into being just a house. And the Mystery Shack will always be more than just a house to Soos.

If there’s anything Soos loves about Melody (and, well, there a thousand things he loves about Melody, actually), it’s that she is not pushy.

They both seemingly forget about the whole moving thing entirely for a week, until Soos gets a letter informing him that he’s won a mansion. Did he enter a competition to win a mansion? That seems like the sort of thing that he would have remembered doing.

“Hey Melody, take a look at this,” he says, holding the letter out to her. If he entered a competition to win a mansion and forgot about it, he’s sure Melody will remember. She’s way better at remembering stuff than he is!

“Huh. It’s probably just some scam letter. I mean, I’m pretty sure the only mansion in Gravity Falls is McGucket’s Hootenanny Hutt, and he’s not looking to sell it last I checked.” Soos is sure there are other mansions in Gravity Falls, because he’s pretty sure the Northwests still have one somewhere and he sees Pacifica at the diner all of the time. She sees his hesitation and sighs. “You wanna check it out, huh?”

“Maybe this could be exactly the opportunity we were looking for. We’d have room for Abuelita in a mansion. And for seven kids.” Of course, the number of children they want to have is still something they debate back and forth, but if they had a mansion, he thinks it’d only be natural to try to fill it, right?

Melody looks at him skeptically for another minute and then finally says, “Okay. We can drive up there and check it out after we close up for the day, alright?” He grins and leans down to press a kiss against the top of her head. He seriously has the best fiancée in the entire world.

After Soos’ last tour of the day, he looks at his phone and sees that Melody has texted him to let him know that she’s heading to the address in the letter ahead of him and he should meet her there when he’s free. Somehow, it doesn’t occur to Soos that they only have one car.

His old pickup truck has been threatening to die for years, and he should take it as a sign when the engine sputters and kicks off at the big, creepy gates to the big, creepy mansion. That’s not really Soos’ vibe, though. His vibe is more go with the flow than that, and he figures he’s already come this far, so he just walks up the rest of the hill with a flashlight in hand, because spooky stories are always better with a flashlight.

The mansion doesn’t bear no resemblance to McGucket’s Hootenanny Hutt, formerly the Northwest Manor. It’s tall and imposing, with a million windows and pointy bits on the roof for seemingly no reason. The path to this mansion is even creepier, though, with trees that look totally dead and… dude, are those actual graves?

“Melody?” He finally calls out, looking around for any sign of his fiancée. There’s not exactly an abundance of places to hide outside, unless she’s behind one of those spooky-looking trees. He checks behind the spooky-looking trees, just in case, but sure enough, she’s not there. He guesses she must have gone into the mansion without him and shrugs. Well, if she got inside then they probably do have some legitimate claim to the place, right?

The interior of the mansion is just as spooky as the exterior. There’s dust and cobwebs everywhere, stairs to a small second story landing, and three doors leading to other areas of the mansion, but when he tries them, all three are locked. As he heads back down the stairs from the second floor of the room, he hears a weird noise, and he stops mid-step to listen closer.

That’s when he sees some sort of ghost or something.

It doesn’t even seem to notice him, drifting by with a key in its hand that it conveniently drops before disappearing through one of the locked sets of doors. In an incredible bout of luck, Soos happens to unlock the correct doors on the first try—the ones on the first floor.

He doesn’t have much time to examine the second room of the mansion before another ghost (or maybe the same ghost, but like, it came downstairs?) lunges at him. Oh man, he should have paid more attention when Dipper was telling him about that party at the Northwests’!

There’s a horrible, haunting sort of cackling noise echoing through the halls of the mansion, and then a sound like Abuelita vacuuming the walls. Suddenly the ghost is gone, and a familiar face stands in front of Soos instead.

“Old Man McGucket? What are you doing here?”

“I was up in my mansion when I heard what’n sounded like some sort of undead hootenanny comin’ from down over yonder! Fortunately, I just finished my latest invention: the Ghostsucker 3001! I figured this would be the best time to test it out, so I snuck into this here mansion and sure enough it was just chock fulla ghosts. I’ve been suckin’ ‘em up fer hours.”

“Woah, dude, that sounds sick,” Soos says, taking a step closer to squint at McGucket’s machine, which looks a lot like the Neutron Neutralizers from Phantom Bust-ifiers.

“Eh… would you… like to join me?” He asks, with a hopeful tinge to his voice. “Wouldn’t ya know it, I just so happen to have a second one of these things.” It seems like he pulls the second Ghostsucker 3001 out of thin air as he holds it out to Soos, who looks up at him with a grin and swings the machine onto his back.

This part of the story is kind of boring, but basically, he and McGucket go through the rest of the mansion and, like, take out all of the ghosts, including the big bad ghost at the end of the mansion who did, like, some kind of magic thing? Honestly, he doesn’t remember that part very well. There was this wicked ghost baby, though.

For a second, Dipper holds his breath like he thinks there’s going to be more to the story, but Soos just crosses his arms and nods like Grenda had after her story. “Well, what happened to Melody?” Mabel eventually asks.

“And why did McGucket have a second Ghostucker 3001 just lying around?” Dipper adds.

“What happened to the mansion?” Candy tacks on.

“Oh, dude, those are like, really good questions,” Soos says, laughing. “I guess I should have thought of that.”

“This is ridiculous!” Candy says, throwing her hands in the air in frustration. “So Soos is a Phantom Bust-ifier, Pacifica is a prom queen, Wendy is an unrepentant killer, and Grenda is completely unaffected by altitude?”

“Well, yeah, that about sums it up,” Mabel says.

“That’s it. It is Candy’s turn to tell a story,” Candy says, with a wicked sort of grin that makes Dipper nervous.

He was right to be nervous. The story that Candy tells is so dark, so grotesque, so horrifying that he doesn’t think he’ll ever completely be able to stop thinking about it. Waddles runs away to another room squealing even higher than he had after Pacifica’s story, Soos and Grenda huddle together in fear, Pacifica looks like she’s going to be sick, and Mabel retreats to Sweatertown. Even Grunkle Stan’s snoring from his recliner stops as he wakes up just to stare at Candy. The only person who seems totally unbothered is Wendy, but Dipper can’t imagine the sorts of circumstances that would really freak Wendy out.

“Did that really happen?” He asks, even though he’s not totally sure that he wants to hear the answer. What if it did?

“Well, no,” she answers. “But neither did anyone else’s!”

There’s a creak of the floorboards at the entrance to the room and everyone screams. Dipper is the first to spring to his feet and turn toward the door, only to see Grunkle Ford standing there.

For a second, he stares at all of them like they’re insane. Then, cracking open the can of Pitt Cola he must have come upstairs for, he asks, “Why are all of you sitting around in the dark? That’s very bad for your eyes, you know.”

Dipper is also the first one who manages to find his voice to answer, and he’s proud of himself for how far he’s come from the anxious preteen he was that first summer. “The power is out. You didn’t notice?”

“Ah, of course,” Ford says, like he’s drawn a conclusion that no one else has reached yet, which he does a lot. “I had a back-up generator set up for the lab in the basement after my first year in Gravity Falls. This town gets a lot of geomagnetic storms! Very interesting… I suppose I spent so much time down there that I forgot to install one upstairs. Maybe while we’re docked for the summer I can start working on that…”

Everyone looks at each other for a moment, and then Stan and Mabel grin at each other. “Sixer, we’re crashin’ your lab,” Stan says, and it’s clear from his tone that there’s no room for argument—not that Ford actually tries to argue. Mabel and Stan pick up the TV to lug it into the basement while the rest of them follow, the girls who haven’t already been to the basement lab peering around curiously.

It turns out that the premier of the new Ducketective series isn’t even playing tonight—they’re playing a marathon of all of the old series first, and they’ve only missed the first couple of episodes. They fill in Pacifica and Ford and end up staying up all night watching, and Ford is forced to admit that he was wrong and the show is amazing.

FUPNR'W UMWMC ZUU DHS UVIMC WI KXVPWWM.

[beardedjoel]

closer | part sixteen

joel x f!reader. non-apocalypse au  

series masterlist | main masterlist | ao3  

chapter summary: you and joel deal with the aftermath of your parents’ discovery about you two. 9.7k words.

chapter warnings: 18+ MDNI, age difference (joel is 42 and reader is 25), inexperienced reader, soft!dom joel, angst, unprotected piv, rough sex, creampie, spanking, dirty talk, praise kink, mirror play, nipple play, multiple orgasms

Shit shit shit. 

Your body starts to go into panic mode as you stand frozen, eyes locked with your father’s. He’s standing outside on the patio, flashes of confusion and anger on his face. You suck your bottom lip into your mouth and exhale shakily before following Benny over to the fence line where he’s excitedly trying to get to your dad. 

Every step feels leaden as you watch your dad retreat inside, presumably letting your mom know what he saw and waiting for you to come talk to them. 

“Fuck,” you whisper to yourself as you open the door to their house and let Benny inside. You see your dad next to your mom in the kitchen, talking closely to her in a hushed but frustrated tone, his hand gestures all over the place as he speaks. Your mom looks scandalized, almost disbelieving of what your dad is telling her with her brows pinched tightly together. You suck in a breath through your teeth and approach them a little closer. They both stop and stare at you expectantly, but you have no clue where to start with this mess.  

“Are you going to explain what your dad says he saw, or what?” your mom asks, quickly placing a hand on her hip. Great start, you think to yourself. 

“It’s not - it’s not what you think,” you blurt out, knowing it sounds like a complete lie, because, well, it is one.

Your parents don’t even bother to answer for a few moments, looking at you through quirked brows. 

“Wh- why are you guys home so early?” You don’t even know why you ask, it sounds like a deflection and you aren’t necessarily even trying to do that, you just don’t understand how you ended up in this horrible situation that you’ve found yourself in. 

“I’m not going to entertain this very obvious deflection you’re doing, but we got an early start home, and since we heard about the storm the other day, we wanted to check in on everything as soon as we could. But it seems you were doing just fine, doesn’t it?” your mom answers, and normally her question would maybe have a hint of jesting behind it, but right now it just feels biting. She crosses her arms over her chest, only adding insult to injury - it’s an instant tell that she’s holding back her emotions. 

“O-okay, so I can explain…” you start. “We - Joel and I- ” you feel your cheeks burn at all of the things you have been doing with Joel as you try to sum it up for your parents. “I was just there to grab something…” you say before you can even think about it. Why the hell you aren’t coming clean to them after you’ve been caught so red handed is beyond you. Self preservation tactics, or whatever.

Your mom presses her lips together, her expression calling very obvious bullshit on you. “You don’t think your little outfit gives it away?” she snips, looking you up and down as you sport Joel’s boxers. Why you had thought your lie could have possibly passed when you’re dressed like this is beyond you - rational thinking went out the window the moment you’d realized you had gotten caught.

“Not to mention the fact that I saw you two… er, kissing when you were leaving his house?” your dad says awkwardly.

You avert your eyes and bite your lip, deciding to just tell them everything. Well, as many details as are appropriate to tell your parents. 

“Can we just sit down?” you offer, to try to make the situation less tense. You think it might be easier to speak if you didn’t have your knees wobbling beneath you. 

“Sure,” your dad breathes out, sounding exasperated. The three of you make your way to the living room and once you sit on the couch, you feel a bit more relaxed and able to have a real conversation with them about this. They sit on the other couch opposite of you, still with unimpressed looks on their faces. 

“Listen, we just want to know what the hell is going on,” your mom says in an even tone, and you feel a little relief pass through you that she doesn’t seem completely angry at you. 

“It started a few weeks ago -“ you start, before your dad cuts you off. 

“Weeks?!” he calls out, and you nod with a gulp. 

“Y-yes, we’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks, well more like a month, really. Um, it just happened, I don’t really know how to explain it…”

Your mom purses her lips at you. “You know we’re open minded people, and I know you know this, but his age, sweetheart,” she says, and you sigh, having thought this is exactly what she would say if she found out. 

“I’m very aware of Joel’s age, and it’s not weird to me,” you say, trying to put your foot down despite your wavering voice. You’re on completely shaky ground, feeling it slipping from underneath you by the second. 

“Maybe not to you, but for us, it’s well, odd to say the least,” your mom counters. “He could very well be our friend. You’re seeing someone our age.”

“Not to mention, there’s a certain… dynamic, a shift of power that comes with someone that much older. We just want to make sure you know that,” your dad chimes in, and you feel your heart sink. Joel doesn’t have that kind of dynamic with you, does he? At least, not outside of the bedroom. He’s never treated you as anything but equal, always trying to respect and listen to you.

“He’s not… like, manipulating me or anything if that’s what you think,” you quip back, furrowing your brow at them. They’ve turned batshit insane if that’s what they’re even possibly suggesting about Joel.

“Not saying he is, simply that it can happen even if you don’t know it. Someone older, with more life experience, typically holds more power. That makes sense to you, right, honey?”

“Yeah, dad, I hear what you’re saying. I promise Joel is good to me, please you guys,” you plead, starting to feel your cheeks burn and tears threaten behind your eyes. 

“Okay, okay, we believe you,” your mom says, holding her hands out in a calming gesture. “Can we hear a little more? I just want to understand what’s really happening here,” she asks, and you nod slightly. 

“A-alright. I thought he was really… attractive, when we moved in,” you tell them, stopping to get your embarrassed stammering under control for a moment. “We talked the day he fixed the cabinet and I think we flirted, I don’t know. It all happened so fast, we talked more after that and then we realized we wanted to see what would happen between us. I couldn’t believe he wanted to be with me too, uh, but he does, and I guess here we are.” You looked at the floor the entire time you rambled to them, and now you look up and try to gauge their reactions. 

Your parents share a few glances as they take the information in piece by piece. “Oh… kay,” your mom says, processing. You can tell there are dozens of questions on the tips of both of their tongues, but they’re trying to be delicate about it. 

“Honestly, we aren’t the most upset you didn’t tell us about it. We just don’t really understand why this is happening. I just don’t know how I feel about the fact that you two let this go on while we invited him into our home,” your mom concludes, and your dad nods in agreement next to her. 

“Aren’t you the one who is always trying to set me up with people? This is why I didn’t tell you guys, I knew you’d just… ugh. God forbid I find someone on my own,” you spit back angrily, feeling hurt by her words. 

“Yes, someone who is completely age inappropriate for you, sweetheart.”

“Who cares. If we like each other, if we want to be together. I’m an adult, this would be different if I was sixteen or something.”

“Well yes, of course it would, but that’s hardly the point, right? We know we can’t tell you who to be with or not be with, but we still want the best for you. And is this the best for you?” your mom says, her tone softening slightly and her sincerity in her eyes.

“I’m… happy when I’m around Joel. Come on, you guys loved him before you knew about all of this.”

“We did, he seems like a very kind person. I just… need some time to adjust to all of this. It’s a big change, and I want you to think about what we said. Just be careful. Sure, we have our own feelings about all of this, but that’s my biggest concern - that you’re being careful with yourself.”

They’re the second people to tell you to be careful, Tommy having been the first, and you feel irritation clawing up inside of you. There’s nothing to be careful about, you think angrily. Joel has never done anything to make you worried about the things they’re telling you, so why is there a pit in your stomach now as you hear their words?

“I am being careful,” you retort, leaning back with your arms crossed. “He’s kind, he’s so good to me, I lov-“ you snap your mouth shut before the words can come out. Your parents can tell that you were just as surprised by your almost admittance as they are, and both of their eyes widen and soften at you. You haven’t said it out loud, you’ve barely said the word in your head before. Love. Such a heavy word, so full of promises and implications. You certainly aren’t about to say it in front of your parents before telling Joel yourself if that’s really how you feel about him. 

“Oh, honey,” your dad says, almost looking at you with pity, and you fucking hate it. 

“Stop, I don’t want to hear it, please,” you shake your head, averting their gaze again, feeling your ears starting to burn hotter along with your cheeks now. “Just, s-stop looking at me like that.”

They both stay silent for a few moments, letting you have time to process. You wet your lips and look back up at them with a new determination. 

“I know that you two aren’t exactly thrilled right now. And you know that I’m always happy to do everything you want and dream of for me. Right now this is what I’m doing, though, because Joel feels right for me. So I’m going to keep seeing him, and take whatever time you need to accept that, but it’s happening.” You hold your chin up as you watch their reactions, slightly surprised but fading into a quiet acceptance. 

“Alright. We need to let you do things for yourself, you’re old enough, after all. You know we just care about you, and if this is what you want right now, then… well, okay,” your mom says. It’s not exactly full support from them, but you can tell they understand there isn’t any room for you to budge when it comes to Joel. 

“Thank you,” you say solemnly, dipping your head a little bit to show it. 

“This does explain some of your behavior lately,” your mom says. “I'm assuming Joel’s the one who…” She reaches to her neck, lightly touching it and you want to curl up into yourself from embarrassment even remembering the day they’d seen your hickeys from him. 

You simply press your lips together and stare at her, refusing to give a confirmation, which she in turn takes as a yes from you. She sighs, long and drawn out, and your dad takes her hand from where he sits next to her. 

“A-are you guys angry at me for this? I know it seems crazy, and not telling you about it when it’s someone that you know… I was scared,” you say tentatively.

“I’m not going to say I’m thrilled about this. Your mom and I, we just need a little time to process that you even have a… boyfriend? Jesus, that sounds weird picturing your boyfriend as that man,” your dad says, pushing himself into a downward spiral with his words as he pinches the bridge of his nose. Now your mom is the one squeezing his hand in comfort. 

You feel your cheeks heat up a bit again, your whole body getting hot from his words and the fact that he seems almost embarrassed about the whole ordeal. 

“I-I’m sorry,” you say, hanging your head. “And yes, I guess Joel is my… boyfriend. I don’t really like that word, but we agreed that we’re together, er, exclusively.”

That gets your mom’s attention, her eyebrows raising in surprise. “You did?”

“Just the other night, yeah. I didn’t want to see anyone else, and neither did he, so we just…” you shrug a little, still feeling very small from this conversation with them. 

“Good to… know,” your mom says, long and drawn out, her eyes distant as she thinks over all of this new information. She clasps her hands together and makes eye contact with you, a kind half smile on her face. 

“Can you let this settle for a bit? Let your dad and I talk some more and just… process all of this?” your mom asks, and you nod quickly, trying to hide your hurt. 

“Sure,” you say simply, standing up and leaving the room, the need to breathe air that isn’t in this room growing to desperate levels. It wasn’t a complete catastrophe, but you can tell that it was surely not something they were expecting in the least. 

You rush up to your apartment, taking a shower to calm yourself down and have some time to think things over. You’re determined not to let anything your parents brought up affect the way things are with Joel. You suddenly realize that what would help you right now would be to just talk to Joel and see what he thinks about what your parents said. He always says the right things, and right now, you need a dose of that and a good look at his gorgeous face.

You quickly change into new clothes, feeling slightly better now that you’ve freshened up, and head out to Joel’s house. You knock softly but rapidly on Joel’s door, a ball of nervous energy as you wait to see if he’s still home. The door swings open, and Joel looks at you, perplexed but happy to be seeing you again so soon. 

“Baby? What’s goin’ on, you look a little… flustered,” Joel says immediately, inspecting your tense expression. 

“Let’s go somewhere,” you say, and Joel reads into your words, seeing that it’s something you need right now and he decides to not question it any further just yet.

“Alright, hop in the truck, I’ll grab the keys.”

Joel takes you to a park nearby with walking trails and tons of foliage, keeping you two in the shade as the early evening sun beats down while moving towards sunset.

“Alright, I let you be quiet the whole way, what’s goin’ on?” Joel asks as you shuffle along next to him. 

“My parents found out,” you say, just trying to rip off the band aid. You dare a glance at Joel to see his reaction, and his eyebrows are raised, but he doesn’t seem completely scandalized. 

“Oh, that’s, uh-“ Joel brushes a hand across the back of his neck and stops walking to turn and face you. “You okay?” he asks, grasping your hands in his. 

“That’s a complicated answer right now, but the short version is, yeah, I’m okay,” you tell him, and he smiles encouragingly, pulling you along to continue walking with him. 

“How bad was it?”

“Well, my dad saw us making out in your doorway, so pretty bad,” you say bluntly, and Joel chokes a little. 

“Jesus,” he whispers to himself. “And he ain’t gonna kill me?”

You laugh heartily, the feeling like a breath of fresh air. You knew Joel could make you feel better after this horrible afternoon. “You’ve met him, he’s not that type of Southern dad with the shotgun and all of that,” you say. Joel smiles back at you and it helps the aching going on in your chest just a little bit.

“So they’re currently in the skeptical phase of everything, I think they’ll come around, but they didn’t love our, uh, age difference,” you tell Joel, starting to feel nerves twisting in your stomach at bringing up the things your parents had insinuated about your relationship.

“S’normal I think, to worry about that,” Joel says with a little shrug.

“They tried to tell me things… stuff that isn’t true, about couples with age gaps. And I told them that it’s not like that, you’re not some master manipulator or anything.”

Joel nods thoughtfully, just letting you vent out what you need to say for now.

“Like, that there’s some power dynamic, or whatever. The older person has some power over someone younger. I don’t know if I believe that. Maybe for some people, but not us, right? I’ve never felt -” you cut yourself off to take a breath and Joel takes your hand. You’re practically on the verge of begging Joel to tell you that’s not how things are, that your relationship isn’t wrong, that he would never dream of manipulating you.

“Let’s sit, hm?” he says, guiding you off the path to sit underneath a tree together. You plop down onto the grass with a heavy sigh, putting your head in your hands.

“Alright, there we go, just try to relax. I know it’s a lot,” Joel says soothingly, rubbing the back of your hand with his thumb. When you steady yourself and glance back into Joel’s dark, searching eyes full of worry for you, he continues.

“To answer your question, no, I never thought of it like that. Never thought of usin’ my age as some kinda tool in gettin’ any kinda control over you. Hell, I tried my best to stay away from you at first, worryin’ about the exact stuff your parents were talkin’ about. Never wanna put you in a place you feel, uh, unbalanced, or anythin’,” Joel explains to you, and you take in his words carefully, considering them.

“Really?”

“I’ve felt it’s my responsibility a bit, to make sure of it. Someone younger, and, no offense my darlin’, but someone a bit impressionable like you, I wanted to be careful.”

“I never realized…” Your brows draw together, deep in thought. “Well, thank you for being thoughtful about it, then,” you tell him, a small smile on your lips now that fades quickly when you have a thought occur to you. 

“It isn’t wrong, like the way we act when we’re, y’know, in the bedroom? That’s not the kind of power stuff they were talking about, is it?” you ask timidly, thinking that Joel seems to understand more about this topic than you do.

Joel contemplates your worries for a moment, scratching his beard. “I’d say that’s different. Lots of people like that same stuff, whatever ages they are. I’m not gonna lie to you, darlin’, but our ages certainly play into it - doesn’t mean that’s wrong though, m’kay? I think your parents are more worried about and talkin’ about outside of that, how I treat ya as a person.”

 “Okay, yeah. Makes sense.” You nod at him as you absorb his words, feeling a slight bit of relief as you take a shaky breath. “I’ve never thought you treated me wrong though, I hope they get a chance to see that.”

“Thank you, darlin’. Y’know I never wanna do anythin’ wrong to you, right?” Joel asks quietly, his voice scratchy and rumbling next to your ear. You simply nod and flutter your eyes closed for a moment, trying to let go of the stress that’s eating away at you right now.

“So what now then, hm?” Joel asks, putting an arm around your shoulders and pulling you a little closer.

“Just have to wait it out,” you say with a sigh. “They’ll come and talk to me about it some more, but they need… time, I guess.”

Joel threads his fingers through yours and squeezes. “I’ll be right here, whatever you or they need. If they got twenty questions for me, or whatever, I’m right here to answer ‘em.”

“You’re a little too good, you know that, right?” you say, teasingly, giving him a suspicious look.

“We both know that ain’t true,” he says, a smirk crossing his face. “You’ve seen how bad I can be.” He laughs at his corny, over exaggerated tone, and you roll your eyes and shove your shoulder into his.

“Oh, I sure have.”

—

After Joel drops you off, you head straight up into your apartment, still not feeling ready to face your parents again. If they need time, you’ll just have to give it to them, and let them come to you with whatever they need next.

You skip dinner with them, opting to order yourself takeout from a nearby Chinese restaurant and distract yourself between your books and television. You can’t help but feel a continuous sinking feeling about the way everything went down today - sure, you could have told your parents sooner, but you and Joel had just decided to try things more officially not even a few days ago. It just hadn’t made sense to inform your parents that you were fucking the next door neighbor if it wasn’t going to amount to anything more. Despite all of the reasoning, you could see your parents were hurt and confused, always having prided themselves on the three of you being relatively open with each other. This was just something beyond that this time, something private that didn’t belong to them. Until now, that is.

A soft knocking on your door forces you to pull out of introspection and get up to answer it. Your parents are both standing there, and it feels so… formal. As if they’ve come to dole out their final judgment on your relationship with Joel. You swallow hard and give them a half smile, feeling anxiety curling in your gut.

“We’d like to talk a little more, if you’re okay with that,” your dad starts, and you give them a curt nod, biting your lip before opening the door wide for them to step inside and sit down. This add on apartment is only one room, so they both sit on the sofa while you curl up cross legged on the bed facing them.

You fight the urge to immediately apologize for the damage you’ve done, reminding yourself to be strong and stick to what you want, not letting them convince you otherwise about Joel.

“So, we talked all day about this, and we want to invite Joel over for dinner,” your mom blurts out, folding her hands in her lap. You start, nearly choking on air as you look at them with rapidly blinking eyes.

“S-sorry, you… want to invite him to eat dinner with us? With you guys?” you say, your mouth hanging open skeptically after the words leave your mouth.

“Mhm. We figured… what the hell,” your mom says with a shrug that says “fuck it”.

“We can already tell that you’ve given all of this a lot of thought, you’re an adult, and we should respect that. If you’re even remotely serious about him, we want to get to know him a little more. The man lives next door, for Christ’s sake,” your mom tells you, and your mind is reeling a bit, trying to comprehend their final decision being so positive.

“Wow,” you stutter, at a loss for words for a few more moments. “Um, alright. Thank you guys. I think that might be… nice? Very awkward, but nice, possibly.”

Your parents give you playful smiles in return, and it fills you up with relief, that you’re seeing a glimpse of their usual selves again.

“Very… awkward…” you mumble, mostly to yourself, already setting yourself up to mentally prepare for this hell-ish meal you’ll be enduring.

“We aren’t going to be awkward if you aren’t,” your dad says teasingly, lightening the tension in the room.

“I can not make any promises.” You let out a long sigh. “But I appreciate the effort from you guys. Thanks.”

“What about tomorrow night? If he’s free,” you mom asks, and you let her know you’ll reach out to Joel to ask. Your stomach flutters as you send Joel a text once your parents leave you alone and you wait for his response.

He replies a few minutes later, and you know it’s going to be a long day anticipating this dinner.

Joel: Sounds great 😉

You’re going to be sick, you’re sure of it, you think as you sit on the couch in your parents living room, rapidly bouncing your leg. Joel should be arriving any minute, and you’ve just gotten finished helping your parents prepare the dinner you’re going to have to eat while you endure whatever conversation they’re planning to have with Joel. They’re not the type to interrogate him, necessarily, but the thought of them interacting now that they know about you two is making you queasy.

Perfectly on time, there’s a knock on the front door, and your parents are still in the kitchen, so they call for you to answer it. You gulp down the lump in your throat and stand, smoothing your sundress slightly before padding over to the door and opening it.

Joel is standing, looking like the picture of the perfect boyfriend, a lopsided smile on his face. He’s holding a colorful, summery bouquet of flowers and a bottle of white wine, dressed in a thin, plaid button up shirt and jeans. Your eyes nearly roll back in your head at just how unbelievably sexy he looks right now with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and clinging tightly to his muscled arms. Focus you hiss at yourself internally before daring a quick peck on Joel’s lips, hoping your parents are still out of sight.

“Hi,” you say shyly, and Joel’s smile deepens, clearly amused at your mild discomfort. 

“Hi,” he echos, raising his eyebrows. You motion him inside and he follows you, kicking off his shoes at the entryway. He looks around to inspect the room, despite having been inside this house many times now between your sneaking around and his work on your parents’ bathroom.

“Hey, Joel,” your dad calls, peering his head from around the kitchen entrance for a brief moment.

“Hey there, Patrick,” Joel calls back. 

“C’mon,” you mouth quietly to him, having him follow you into the kitchen.

Your parents both turn from their spots at the counter, where they’re finishing up getting dinner served.

“Hi, Joel,” your mom says, slightly colder than usual as she continues tossing the salad she’d made.

Joel dips his head in greeting, mumbling out a “hello,” to her. For the first time, you can see that Joel is nervous, too, and it makes your heart melt and beat a little faster in your chest.

“For both of y’all,” Joel says softly, offering up the flowers and wine. Your mom smiles sweetly at him, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, a detail you notice immediately. 

“Very sweet,” she comments, and your dad takes both out of Joel’s hands, immediately going for a vase in one of the cabinets to display the flowers. 

“Why don’t we open this now?” your dad suggests, getting out wine glasses and pouring from the bottle that Joel brought. 

You and Joel take the glasses to the table and sit down, your parents following right behind you. You all sit in silence for what feels like ages to you, despite it being only moments.

“Thank y’all for the invite,” Joel finally says, breaking the ice.

“Thought it was… necessary, given the recent discovery,” your mom says. You wish she wasn’t putting on this show, acting like she needs to have some tough exterior to suss Joel out, when she’s already met him several times now.

“Right…” Joel replies with a quick clearing of his throat. “Listen, since it’s obviously the, uh, elephant in the room, why don’t we just dig right into it.” You feel your chest tighten, the inevitable right at hand now, and you’re impervious to stopping whatever uncomfortable conversation comes next.

“We just want to get to know you better, that’s all,” your dad chimes in.

“Whatever you want to know, I’m an open book,” Joel says, the epitome of charm with a polite smile and easy going facade. You give him an encouraging squeeze of his leg under the table, knowing your parents can’t see it from their side of the table.

“Alright… forgive my, uh, directness, but wh- what was it… why someone twenty years younger than you?” your mom spits out, every word precariously placed on her tongue. You glance up at Joel, and one of his brows lifts a bit in surprise. He lets out a nervous chuckle and rubs his neck.

“Wasn’t my goal, if I’m honest. Not some serial dater of young women, if that’s what you’re thinkin’.” He lets out a slightly amused sigh. “Saw her laugh once and I was done for. Surprised me just as much as you guys,” Joel says, shrugging his shoulders before glancing over at you. When his eyes catch yours, you can’t help but smile brightly at his comments about you. You’d never thought to ask him more about when he’d first noticed you, and now you think you might have to get every detail when you two are alone.

Your mom hums quietly to herself, debating on her next words. “She does have a great laugh,” she finally says, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “And you thought to yourself that it was a good idea to pursue it still, even realizing… she’s young and impressionable? I don’t necessarily mean that in a… judgemental way, I just want to understand it.”

“Okay, I’m right here. Calling me young and impressionable like I’m not even in the room,” you blurt out, your muscles tensing. 

Your parents, and even Joel give you a skeptical look, and you huff. “Now darlin’...” Joel says quietly, and you snap your eyes to him. His eyes go a little wide, seeing the irritated look on your face, but you let him continue to answer your mom’s questioning.

“You’ve raised a really smart daughter, and she made a lot of choices for herself throughout this whole thing,” Joel says, and you nod next to him in agreement. “Happy to take whatever blame for it too, ‘course, but I hope y’all see that, is all.”

Your mom motions to you, and says, “She swears up and down you’re one of the good ones. We may have certain… reservations still about this, but thank you for that.”

Joel nods humbly, the appearance of a little color coming onto his cheeks. “Of course,” he says quietly, his eyes casting down to his lap before they look into yours again. You give him another lovesick smile, half forgetting where you even are as you get lost in his eyes again. Your hand rests on his leg again, and he brushes his fingers over it, but doesn’t take it any further than that, clearly trying to restrain himself. 

“Alright, let’s eat, we have all night to talk, don’t we?” your dad suggests to break a bit of tension, and a few minutes later, you’re all sitting down with your food and glasses of wine. Everyone seems to be loosening up a bit, yourself included, as Joel and your parents make small talk while they get to know him a bit better.

As promised, Joel is an open book with them, patiently answering their questions, whether it’s regarding you or other things about his life. He’s perfectly polite as needed, thanking them multiple times for dinner, helping keep everyone’s wine and water glasses full, and even taking dishes over to the sink to help clean up.

“No, no, none of that.” Your mom stops Joel with a gentle hand on his arm as he tries to start rinsing dishes off, guiding him back to the table to sit down. “You’re a guest.”

“A welcome one, at this point, I hope,” he jests, having had the entire evening to get more comfortable with your family, even to the point of teasing them, apparently.

“Joel,” you chide him quietly with a small chuckle.

“Didn’t know if I’d be saying this tonight, but yes,” your dad replies. “I’m not going to say this feels normal or anything, but as long as you’re in our daughter’s life, making her happy… we’re happy with that.”

Joel gives both of your parents an appreciative smile. “I’m awful grateful to hear that. Hard to expect just anyone to understand what’s goin’ on here, but I’ve found a special one,” Joel responds, giving a quick wink in your direction.

Your parents shoot you a knowing glance, clearly believing in Joel’s intentions more by the minute. You feel all the tension you didn’t realize you’d been holding the entire evening slowly dissipating as you watch them becoming more friendly with each other. By the end of the night, both of your parents hugged Joel goodbye, and agreed they’d have to do this again sometime. It felt like a massive weight off your shoulders, a way for you and Joel to move forward with things even more easily now. You feel excitement building at the prospect, and you’re almost giddy when you return to your apartment after helping your parents clean up from dinner. Now that they know, and even seem to accept him, you two are free. Sure, sneaking around has its merits in terms of it being secretive and hot, and you’d be sad to lose that small factor, but you know Joel can make up for that in his many other ways.

With all of those thoughts swirling through your head, you can hardly wait to get your hands on him, having sat next to him, watching him be so restrained tonight. You want to be the one to let him unleash all of it. You quickly decide that you want to pay him a visit and give yourself over to whatever whims he’s harboring after spending the evening only receiving a quick peck and touch on the leg from you. And if you know him at all, there will be a lot of those.

You’ve never used it, but you finally decide to put Joel’s extra key that he gave you to good use. You let yourself in quietly, praying he’s not in the main living area so you can surprise him exactly as you’re hoping. You don’t see or hear any sign of him on the main level, so you approach the stairs, and think you hear the water running from his bathroom. 

You start stripping your clothes off the second you reach his bedroom door, confirming that he’s in the shower. 

“Joel…” you call out quietly, and there’s a second of silence before Joel calls back your name in questioning. 

“That you?” he asks from inside the bathroom, and you answer by stepping into the doorway, the room already steamy and inviting from Joel’s shower. 

Joel’s eyes spot you standing completely naked through the glass door of the shower and he stares, taking it in as you approach him. You slide open the shower door, step inside, and waste no time gripping Joel’s face hard and slamming your lips into his. He groans into your mouth, your tongues and lips clashing over and over. You’re pulled under the stream of water with him, completely soaking you as his hands start to explore as much of you as he can touch.

Joel pushes you back into the wall of the shower, his cock already hard and jutting out, pressing into you. The feel of his thickness pushing on your stomach makes you moan out, the thought of it being inside of you all you can think about now. 

“Fuckin’ Christ baby,” Joel breathes, pulling off of your lips long enough to stare down at you, skin glistening and flushed now from the shower. “Need you,” he whimpers out uncharacteristically. 

“Have me, then,” you say quietly, tracing a finger up his chest and curving your hand along his shoulder. Joel’s lips hungrily attach themselves to yours again and your body slams back, Joel’s strength pushing you further against the wall until his hands are lifting you enough to slide his cock between your legs. You cry out in pure bliss before he’s even entered you, just the touch of his head brushing your clit and sliding into your slit. 

“I’ll have you anytime I want, isn’t that right?” he says, close to your mouth. You push your hips into his in response and kiss him again.

“Yes, Joel,” you whimper dutifully, wrapping yourself more tightly around him.

“Any way I want?” he asks, sliding his thick head over your clit again, making you bear down on him a little harder.

“Mhmm,” you moan out.

“I do good tonight, baby?” Joel asks with a raspy voice, resting his cock at your entrance and pushing in slightly. You gasp at the sensation and nod.

“They adored you,” you manage to say through his continuous pushing into you, filling you inch by inch with his length. “T-thought you might need to relieve some s-stress after tonight, though.”

“So thoughtful, aren’t ya? Sweet little thing,” Joel grumbles into your shoulder, fully inside of you now. “Wantin’ me to use you, hm? Think I’m stressed and want me to fuck it out on you, baby?”

“Please,” you say, thrusting your hips within his grip to create some movement inside of you.

“Anythin’ for you, darlin’,” Joel says, smirking at you before you’re slammed back against the wall again, his hips moving quickly inside of you. You cling on, hands and legs wrapped around him slipping along his back from the water as you cling on for dear life while he fucks you so hard you can barely keep up, quickly losing your senses to the pleasure.

“Yes, Joel, oh m-my god -” you whine, unable to do much else other than take what he’s giving you and moan every time you feel him pressing hard against your walls.

“S-so good at takin’ this cock, like a dream, baby,” Joel purrs as he continues his hard pushes into you, filling you fully each time. “L-like a fuckin’ dream.”

“Keep fuckin’ me baby, gonna turn the water off,” Joel demands suddenly, swinging the both of you to reach for the faucet. You do your best to grind your hips into him despite the awkward angle you’re now at and his hold on you. He groans as you roll your hips down onto him with each movement.

The water stops running and Joel holds you up with one arm while sliding the shower door open with the other, carrying you out and rushing to set you on the counter, immediately pressing a finger to your clit and rubbing in quick circles. You’re both dripping water everywhere but neither of you can seem to care about the mess you’re making. 

He continues his fervent pumps into you and you crash backwards, your head hitting the mirror behind you as you moan even louder now. You barely even register the thunk of your head, so caught up in the flush creeping over your whole body as Joel begins pulling a climax out of you. He watches on with a satisfied grin as you completely fall apart for him, body tensing up around him as your legs pull him in. You cry his name, seeing stars in your vision and warm, exploding pleasure over your entire body.

You’re barely coming down from your orgasm when Joel pulls you flush with his body, sliding you off the counter and lowering himself to the floor, settling you on top of him as you straddle his hips.

“Wanna see you ride this cock, baby,” he breathes out, squeezing your ass with a firm grip as you begin riding him in a delirious haze. He boosts your hips up on every upward thrust, and pulls them down hard, filling you up completely with every downward stroke. The contact on your oversensitive clit sends you whimpering as you roll your hips, your body already desperately close to another climax.

“Fuck, baby,” you cry out, tears threatening your eyes at how close you are to release, but it’s just out of reach, the feeling of another high teasing you multiple times. “I n-need…”

“Tell me what you need,” Joel says, grabbing your face roughly by the jaw and sliding the hand down to your throat, squeezing gently. You moan in his grasp, trying to roll your hips even harder to get yourself off. 

“Need to come, Joel, oh my g-god,” you whine. Joel continues his hold on your throat, pulling his face up to your chest and taking one of your tits in his mouth, sucking hard. His tongue swirls around your nipple and you lose control, shaking on top of him, your movements getting more erratic by the second. 

“Such perfect tits, baby, wanna suck on these all fuckin’ day,” Joel mumbles into your skin before showing attention to the other hard bud, biting gently. You cry out, his sucking and nipping sending you over the edge you’d been teetering on as you moan out in strangled cries through Joel’s grip around your neck.

“J-joel!” you scream, the climax hitting you so hard your vision blackens as you bear down on his hips, a spasming, leaking mess on top of him.

“So fuckin’ pretty when you come for me, you filthy little fuckin’ thing,” Joel says, praising you through your high, grunting as he pushes into you hard. “Good girl…” he coos as you come down, his grip on your throat loosening until his hand snakes around to the back of your head and gently strokes your hair. He pulls your head down onto his shoulder, bends his knees, and begins fucking up into you. You moan through the sensitive aftershocks of your climax as Joel thrusts into you, intent on chasing his own pleasure now.

“So t-tight, sweet girl,” he mumbles in your ear, his breathing choppy and desperate now as the last tremors of your climax send your cunt tightening around him. “G-gonna come, sweetheart.”

“Fuck, Joel, come inside me,” you whimper, feeling yourself tightening around his cock once more as he buries himself deep, the warmth of him spilling into you. He groans out your name and holds you tightly to him as his hips jerk upwards a few times.

“Oh… angel… you perfect thing,” Joel says quietly, continuing to hold you as he lets himself rest inside of you for a few moments. You stroke his cheek, running your fingers through his beard and he hums in pleasure. His hold on you loosens, and you pick your head up, only to hover your head above his and lean down, kissing him deeply. 

You roll off of Joel and next to him on the floor, the both of you lying quietly, catching your breath. You drape a hand across Joel’s chest, and he tucks an arm under you, holding you in his favorite spot right under his shoulder. You lay for long enough that the water from the shower is drying off of you two along with the sweat you’d worked up, but neither of you dare move from where you’re holding each other, too enraptured in the feeling of this moment.

“Hey… tell me more about when you first saw me,” you say softly into the silence, grazing your hand lightly over Joel’s chest.

“Wanna hear me talk about how much I wanted you, hm?” he asks with amusement in his voice. “Need a little ego boost?”

“Yes, please,” you reply in a sing-song voice, eliciting a chuckle from Joel. “You said you saw me laugh…” you prompt him, eagerly awaiting his next words.

“Mhm, you were on the phone, laughin’ your head off under that tree in your parents’ backyard. I’d seen you before all that, but in that moment, I was so fuckin’ angry that you looked like the cutest thing I’d ever seen. Wanted to make you smile like that,” Joel says wistfully. Your heart lurches a bit and you find yourself smiling brightly, thinking back on those days. You’d wanted him so badly, and still do, of course, but you’d doubted so heavily that it would be possible to even get his attention. If that version of you could see yourself now… you wonder if she’d even recognize the person laying on this bathroom floor right now.

“You do. Make me smile like that, I mean,” you tell him, giving his arm a squeeze. “Although, nobody makes me laugh harder than Sofia, sorry. That was probably her on the phone that day. But I bet we were talking about you.” 

Joel chuckles. “Oh, that so? Talkin’ about me? Hopin’ and plannin’ to seduce me, I’ll bet,” he teases you, and you scoff in response.

“Yeah, probably, actually,” you say with a laugh. “Okay, more, more,” you say, wanting to fuel your hunger for more information about how badly he’d wanted to be with you. Even though you’re laying naked with him after he showed you how badly he wants to be with you, you figure a little extra reassurance never hurt anyone.

“Jesus, girl, insatiable as always. Jus’ for information this time.” Joel scratches his head a bit, thinking of where to begin. “I mean, I just couldn’t avoid it anymore. Had to come talk to ya. Such a pretty girl, saw you watchin’ me all the time, figured… there was a chance.”

You smile smugly at the recollection. “You made me so nervous,” you say with a sigh.

“I don’t still?” Joel asks, a twinge of disappointment in his voice.

“No, you do, actually.”

“Be serious, darlin’,” Joel demands, and you shrug.

“I am,” you insist, “Being around you is fucking… intense, Joel. Makes me nervous all the time. You’re unpredictable, but in a really good way, promise.”

“Hmm,” Joel responds, reaching his other arm around you and toying with your hair between his fingers for a few silent moments. “I like that I make you nervous.”

“You would,” you say teasingly, and Joel gives you a warning, questioning look. “Big macho man, wants me to be so nervous and afraid of him.”

“Hasn’t stopped you from being a naughty fuckin’ thing though, has it? Always tryin’ to piss me off with your teasing,” he grunts, tugging slightly at the hair he was stroking moments ago. You gasp slightly, already feeling your body tingle with anticipation that comes when he starts getting a little rough with you.

“How could I stop, when what happens when I’m bad is so…” you gasp when Joel pulls again at your hair, your neck craning back, revealing the soft skin there, and his lips find it immediately. “So… fucking… good,” you whimper out as he sucks lightly, his tongue flicking your neck all the way up to your ear.

Joel suddenly stops, pulling his mouth off of you, looking at you with hungry, glazed eyes. “See? Fuckin’ putty in my hands, no wonder you’re nervous,” Joel says gruffly, his nose nuzzling your neck now, causing you to twitch slightly as he resumes all the pleasurable sensations he’d ripped from you moments ago.

“Just… don’t stop this time,” you say quickly, breathing into the feel of his lips kissing down your neck again.

Joel’s hand moves quickly, snaking across your body and reaching for your ass, squeezing it hard enough to leave a mark before delivering a swift, hard slap across it.

“Good girls say please,” he says, and once again, you’ve forgotten his favorite part - the begging. Maybe forgotten on purpose this time, you think to yourself with a coy smile as the sting of your asscheek continues, fueling your desire.

“Please, don’t stop,” you breathe out, emphasizing every word this time. Your body pushes into him, one leg draped over his as you grind on his bare thigh for several moments as Joel nips at your neck, moving down to your chest.

“Oh, so fuckin’ wet still, baby, you’re just a mess for me, aren’t ya?” Joel coos, feeling the slickness from between your legs promptly rubbing onto his thigh. His hand squeezes your ass again, pulling you into him harder with each movement of your hips. 

“C’mere, I have an idea. Get up,” Joel says, pulling away from you, and helping you stand up. “On the counter,” he says, helping boost you up so that you’re sitting on the edge. “Spin ‘round now,” he commands, and you give him a questioning look without moving.

“You wanna come again? Then listen to me,” he snips, and you immediately turn yourself around so that you’re facing the mirror. Joel wraps an arm around your chest, standing right behind you and letting you lean into him. 

“There you go, baby, get comfortable, eyes on the mirror,” Joel says, rubbing his hands along your chest and neck, lightly massaging you. You let out a sigh, watching his hands roam over your body from your reflection in the mirror. “Good girl, just relax,” he adds as you melt into his body. 

“What is all this, Joel?” you ask quietly, still watching through half-closed eyes.

“You’re gonna watch me fuck you with my fingers, just the way you like. See yourself fall apart for me, the way I see it every single time. See how fuckin’ crazy you make me,” he says before nuzzling your neck, his facial hair brushing the sensitive skin there causing you to let out a quiet, breathy moan.

“O-okay,” you say, finding your face going a little hot at the prospect. You certainly had never inspected yourself that closely in a mirror before.

“S’alright, sweetheart. You’re gonna see how beautiful you are,” Joel says, kissing your neck softly. You lean back onto his shoulder and nod, ready to let him show you. “Eyes up,” Joel commands, his hand splayed out on your thigh starting to move closer to the apex. You pull your head off of his shoulder and watch his hand intently as it traces up your leg. The combination of seeing and feeling his fingers sending goosebumps over your entire body is already turning you on more than you’d expected.

You watch as Joel dips his pointer and middle finger in between your legs, tracing along your slit, causing you to buck your hips forward a little as they briefly brush over your clit. It’s hard to keep your eyes open and focused already, but you see and feel Joel sliding his pointer finger inside of you, just halfway, and you clench around him.

“See? Already a fuckin’ mess,” Joel murmurs in your ear, pulling the finger out and dragging the slickness he’s gathered over your aching clit. You cry out, squirming at the touch, but the arm he has wrapped around your chest holds you firmly in place, making sure you take exactly what he’s giving to you.

“M-more, please, Joel,” you whine, seeing your hips move and push forward into his teasing fingers. He places the two fingers at your entrance, and you watch with a gasping moan as he slides them inside of you, your dripping cunt taking them with no problem as he pushes them all the way in. Watching his fingers disappear inside of you is so fucking hot, you can barely stand it. 

“Wasn’t I right, baby? So fuckin’ pretty, the way you take all of me whenever I want you to,” Joel says, his voice rumbling next to your ear. All you can do is nod and meet his eyes briefly in the mirror, silently begging for him to start moving his fingers, and he does. Pushing them in and out slowly at first, curling them right at the end of every push inwards, making you gasp as he just grazes the perfect spot inside of you briefly each time.

“M-more, more please, it’s t-too slow,” you quietly beg, and Joel smirks. He pulls you tightly to his chest now, anchoring you before sliding his fingers in and out of you more quickly, and your eyes widen, completely enraptured by the sight of him plunging his fingers in and out of you, all your slickness starting to run down his fingers and onto his hand. Joel pushes deep inside of you, his fingers curling up and pressing in pulsating movements right on your g-spot, and you cry out, your hips bucking upwards and into his touch. His thumb begins to brush over your clit and you can feel yourself becoming undone at an alarming pace. 

You now watch through a haze, and Joel chuckles deviously as he sees the look in your eye while you watch him fuck you relentlessly with his fingers, your slick spilling out and making a bigger mess by the second. You can’t even believe how god damn wet you get for this man, you’d never even thought this was possible, but here you are, dripping onto the counter below you as Joel’s fingers slip through all of it and deep inside your needy cunt. 

“J-joel…” you moan out his name as your body heats up, feeling the need for release building inside your core, right where Joel is pressing deep inside of you. 

“Yes, baby? You like watchin’ me fuck you with my fingers?” he asks with a low voice, and you nod furiously, your body slumped into his grip as you let yourself go further into the pleasure he’s doling out. “Think you could be a good girl and take another finger?” 

Your lips part slightly as a moan slips out, but you manage to respond with a breathy “mhm”, before Joel pulls his fingers out and quickly adds a third before sliding it back into you hard. You cry out, lifting your hips and watching all of his fingers stretching you, and it’s incredible. You never would have thought you’d like watching something like this, but Joel knew what he was doing to show you just how perfectly your body can take him, how much it craves his touch, what you look like when you absolutely lose yourself to him. It’s god damn beautiful, is what it is. 

“So fuckin’ tight, baby, I can feel you so close, squeezin’ these fingers. Watch yourself come all over my hand, you filthy little thing,” Joel says. With all three fingers fucking into you hard and Joel’s continued tight circles on your clit, you can’t hold on much longer, the tether holding you to reality snaps and a moan climbs out of your throat, your back arching as much as it can under Joel’s hold. Your head falls back completely, but Joel keeps his eyes glued on all of you, watching you writhe and shake under his touch as you cry out his name over and over while you come.

You manage to peer at yourself as you come down from all of it, and see the shine of sweat and glowing cheeks Joel’s left you with, and you smile giddily, breathing hard. Joel’s fingers slow down, pulling out of you as he kisses the side of your face. He brings his fingers up to his mouth, and you watch him through your reflection as he sucks every drop of you he can from them, while your mouth is curled into a sinister smile. 

“Sweetest fuckin’ thing around,” Joel murmurs when his fingers are clean, and you turn your head to breathe in the scent of him, burying your face in his neck. You quickly turn around, wrapping your arms and legs around Joel and holding onto him. 

“You liked that, baby? You understand why I can’t get enough of you now?” Joel asks. 

“Understand more why I can’t get enough of you,” you reply, and Joel chuckles.

“My sweet girl.” He strokes the back of your head gently, pulling your head into his chest. You sit for so long, listening to his heart beat and steady breathing that it almost starts to lull you to sleep. Joel brushes your hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear, and it startles you back to reality. “Let’s get you to bed, yeah?”

You nod sleepily, taking the toothbrush as Joel hands it to you, staying seated on the counter as you two brush your teeth, stifling several yawns along the way.

“Wore you out now, didn’t I?” Joel teases you with a mischievous grin as you rinse your mouth out. 

You shoot daggers at him with your eyes, but then chuckle, unable to hold it back. “You’re just that good, Miller,” you say in response, hopping off the counter and straight into his arms again.

Joel laughs at your new nickname for him, his chest rumbling your entire body with the movement. “Damn right I am,” he replies, nudging you away from him and towards the bedroom.

“Alright, c’mon, let’s go sleepy girl.”

You crawl into his bed, heavy lidded eyes peering at Joel as he settles in next to you, and for the second time in as many days, the word floats through your head. Love. You don’t shy away from it, but hold it close to you, letting it sink in, letting yourself absorb it, try it on for size. Let your heart wrap around the word and feel it as deeply as you’ll allow yourself to. Your lips part with the unspoken word on your lips, but you hold back, knowing now is not the time for it. But there is one thing you can quietly, secretly admit to yourself before you close your eyes for the night.

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” you hear before feeling familiar, warm lips brush your forehead.

God damn it, you think you just might love Joel Miller.

taglist: @paleidiot @mumma-moonchild @soph55 @chicville03​

[angelwings-crossbowstrings]

Whumpuary Day 25-26 & 29-31

Prompts: Can’t stay awake | “You’re safe.”

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Drugging, Overdose, Allusions to past child abuse

gif by @daryl-dixon-daydreams

“What the fuck are you doing?!” You shouted, keeping your eyes on Daryl while Tomi loudly rummaged through cabinets and drawers behind you. “Daryl. Daryl, stay awake.”

“M’tired.” The archer mumbled, eyelids heavy, breaths slowing before your eyes. 

“Tomi!” You snapped again. 

“They injected him with some sort of opioid. I need narcan.” Things were flying around, hitting the floor as the surgeon continued his frantic search. “How’s his breathing?”

“Too slow.” You shook Daryl again. Each time he responded, you felt a short lived relief but it never lasted long. “Daryl, stay with me. Look at me.”

“Y/N…tired…”

“I know but you can’t sleep.” Those normally sharp blues were dull, his pupils contracted to barely there black dots inside the pale cerulean. His eyes closed, head lolling forward. “Daryl? Daryl!” He inhaled sharply, giving you hope that he might regain a normal breathing pattern. 

He didn’t. 

“Can’t…can’t stay…”

“You have to. Just for a few more minutes okay?” You hadn’t seen when the man had used the syringe, only catching Daryl yanking it from his neck to angrily toss it aside before plunging his knife through the attacker’s skull. It wasn’t even a minute before the archer staggered back against the wall and slid down to where he still sat. “Tomi!” When Daryl’s eyes closed this time, he didn’t reopen them. 

“I’m trying!”

“Daryl!” His breaths were further and further apart, agonizing torture to know that one would eventually be his last. 

“If he stops breathing, you need to breathe for him.”

“Al-alright.” You could do that. You placed two fingers to his neck, counting the beats over and over, witnessing that number fall each time. “Please, please.”

“Got it!” Tomi dropped down beside the archer, foregoing any measure of sterilizing to just jab the needle into the muscle of Daryl’s bicep. 

“What now?”

“We wait. He never stopped breathing. The narcan should level him out enough to move him safely.” The nod you gave was curt and unbidden, your sole focus was the rise and fall of Daryl’s chest. “Okay. Okay, good. It’s picking up. I’ll get a stretcher. Keep watching his breathing.” Another nod. 

“Daryl, can you hear me?” Unresponsive. At least each breath was coming in at a slow, but steady pace. You could work with that for now. The wheels of the stretcher were loud in the otherwise empty hospital.

“Vitals are stable for now. I grabbed all the narcan but we need to have access to intubation supplies and IV fluids.” At your confused expression, he added, “I’ll need to insert a tube to help him breathe for a while if he struggles to on his own.”

You nodded calmly before the two of you struggled and fumbled to get Daryl onto the stretcher. Truthfully, the thought of Daryl needing a machine to keep breathing was horrifying. For that moment, you just continued to watch his chest, breaths remaining steady and unlabored. 

It took only moments for an IV to be inserted and fluids to begin running into the archer’s hand. His breathing slowed only once more and one last dose of narcan was administered. 

Hours later, Tomi concluded that Daryl was out of danger and would likely wake up at any moment. So you waited, instinctively listening for danger as employees returned to the hospital, the walkers having been cleared as well as the living threats, thanks in part to the man on the bed in front of you. 

You couldn’t wait to get him home and sleep for at least a day, snug against his side with your head over his heart, able to hear each beat and feel each breath. 

Finally, his fingers twitched in your hold, his head rolling back and forth on the pillow, face scrunching. 

“Daryl?” You stood, leaning over him. He hated hospitals. The memories of so many visits when he was a child, broken bones and open wounds at the hands of his father. You wanted to be the first person he saw and heard, in hopes of easing that anxiety. 

His eyes were clouded, tired and unfocused, when they finally landed on you. “Where ‘m I?” He slurred, still appearing to be exhausted and slightly influenced by the drug working its way through his system. 

“You’re in the hospital. You’re safe and you’re gonna be okay.” You squeezed his hand, smiling when he weakly reciprocated. 

“Tell me what happened?” His eyes were already trying to close, most likely without his permission but leaving him with no choice. 

“When you wake up. I’ll tell you everything when you wake up.”

Daryl hummed and inhaled deeply before settling into a peaceful sleep; one you didn’t fear and from which you knew he would wake. For now, though, you’d rest your head on the hand holding his and count his breaths like counting sheep until you joined him in blissful unawareness. 

[hugsandchaos]

Okay, I know I said that Danny + dark crystal = Eldritch Danny reflex transformation, but this is separate from that. Let’s take a quick step back for a quick second, because I thought this was a good idea.

Danny accidentally touches Twilight’s dark crystal, or maybe he does it on purpose not realizing that’s the thing turning him into a wolf, and becomes a giant space bird. He could either be a raven, crow, or magpie, and here’s the explanation!

Raven or Crow: Ravens and crows are known as symbols of death or something like that, so that would be a reference to his status as a halfa. His dark wings would be perfect for glowing spots or swirls of colors like stars and distant galaxies on a clear night, and they wouldn’t really affect his hair color once he’s back to normal since the feathers are dark. Unless you want to add a few small random spots of white that eventually fade back to black.

This form would also have a ghost form, which looks pretty ethereal. The “living” form has dark feathers, eyes glowing like you took the moon, duplicated it, and put it in his eye sockets with a hint of blue, and several glowing white spots on the under-view of his wings. The ghost form has white feathers, eyes so dark that it looks as if light itself can’t escape it and somehow with a hint of green, and the white spots have turned black.

Magpie: I just noticed that when Danny had bird features in a lot of fan AUs, they’re usually magpie features, which I think is pretty cool! I mean, you can just switch the colors of the feathers when you go from “living” to “ghost”, and you get the best of white and black feathers in both forms! With this one, Danny could have a few stripes of pure white in his hair when he changes back, but his entire hair color doesn’t change like Legend’s did because his feathers were both black and white.

Both ideas could have a few of the same things. Here’s a list of them!

•White spots and streaks in the black feathers to resemble stars and comets, the patterns switching colors depending on which form Danny’s in.

•Under-view of the wings reflects the night sky, even during the day. Looks really odd in ghost form, though.

• ⬆️ Both ideas are for two reasons; To symbolize Danny’s obsession of space and blending in during night flights.

•While in his living form, Danny flies just like a bird. A giant bird, but still a bird, which is a bit of trial and error given how he used to fly. While in ghost form, his core does most of the work, but he can still use his wings to push himself even further.

•Living form eyes glow like the moon, ghost form eyes are dark like black holes.

•Eyes stay the same color? Blue in living, green in ghost.

•Danny is able to mimic sounds and voices just like a crow/raven/magpie. He has fun with it.

•Giant space bird form is 25 feet tall.

Scenarios with Corvid Danny!

•Twilight tries to calm Danny down, but after looking over himself and moving around a little, Danny actually gets excited and starts showing Twilight his new space wings. Danny will want to go back to normal sooner or later, but for now, he wants to stay in this form for a bit. Still, he knows the crystal belongs to Twilight, so he asks him if he can stay in the form for “a bit” to enjoy being a giant space corvid. Twilight was a little confused by Danny’s enthusiasm, but he agreed.

•Explaining it to the group. Twilight explains that the giant space bird is Danny, and when Sky offers to turn him back, Danny refuses and explains again that he wants to see what this form can do first. And then he shows off his space wings, because that’s his favorite part about the whole situation. He has no idea why his form is a giant space bird, but he’s not complaining! Twilight says that he’s letting Danny borrow the crystal for a bit, but there’s obviously going to be a few rules.

•Danny’s not allowed to go near civilization, he’s to avoid travelers, no flying too far, no fighting until he gets used to this form to avoid mishaps, and no jumping off cliffs to practice flying! Get down from there, space nerd!

•Danny carries them and lets them mess with his feathers as long as they don’t pull. I think Sky is most likely to ride on Danny’s back for fun and anyone can climb up onto his head to get a vantage point of the area, but who’s the first to actually ask? Danny suggested it, actually! He wanted the others to see the view he did and lowered his head, then told them to climb on. Then his lifted his head back up, slowly so he wouldn’t drop them, and let them watch the view with him.

•It’s snowing. The group can’t find shelter to get the fire started and they’re tired. Corvid Danny uses his wings to make a tent for them! His wings are really big to support his weight and size, so it worked! Oh, and don’t worry! The temperature wasn’t actually bad for Danny. 1; He has feathers. 2; He’s used to these temperatures and lower. 3; His ghost half.

•Danny practicing flying whenever he gets the chance. He picks up on it pretty quickly! Half of it is from closely watching normal ravens/crows/magpies flying and copying them, and the other half is trial and error.

•Normal corvids flock to Space Corvid Danny and talk to him. They think the strange, giant bird with wings like the night sky needs investigation, and they ultimately decide that he’s friend material!

•Space Corvid Danny copying all sorts of sounds and even the group’s voices. He thinks it’s really funny, and he’s right! The group asks him to copy certain things, sometimes to make fun of each other, and it’s great.

•Space Corvid Danny VS Big Flying Monster!!!

•Space Corvid Danny talking with Twilight about how much he loves learning to see the world in this new perspective.

•The Links spotting or even making constellations in his wings. He gets really hyped up about it, and if they’re making up new constellations, they’re now obligated to make up stories based off it with him!

•The others got “animal habits” or something from their forms, and so does Danny! What are these habits? Let’s brainstorm! Definitely developing a fondness for shiny things, but his space obsession urges him to organize it into a constellation or some other space related art project… That’s all I can think of. 🙁

•Space Corvid Danny going ghost would be pretty interesting! The night sky patterns being inverted would be quite the otherworldly sight!

•He 100% gets Wild to take a few pictures with his phone.

•Danny either going to Twilight and Sky and says he’s had his fun and is ready to turn back, or he’s asked for it back and he agrees. Then he hugs Twilight and thanks him for letting him have such a fun opportunity. Twilight thought it was interesting that Danny didn’t freak out and immediately search for a way to change back, but rather want to explore this new perspective.

•As I’ve said, if it’s a magpie, Danny could have a few stripes of pure white in his hair when he changes back, but his entire hair color doesn’t change like Legend’s did because his feathers were both black and white.

•He might get the chance to be Space Corvid Danny again someday. Who knows?

Little bonus bit!

•Sam and Tucker think that Danny’s Space Corvid form is pretty neat and ask if he can still become a ghost, and he happily shows off! They climb on him, go for a flight, mess around with mimicking sounds, and overall have a great time together. Some of the Links think it’s sweet.

[kaminocasey]

25 Days of Life Day: Day One - Decorating the Tree with Rex

Summary: The war is over. Rex has never decorated a tree, and you're excited to do this with him.

Warnings: none, just fluff.

A/N: HAPPY HOLIDAYS, MY FRIENDS!!! I know this is a little shorter than I wanted it to be, but I got busy this week with work and family stuff. Excited for the next 24 days!! <3

Rex wasn’t keen on the idea of a live tree. Like, an actual tree. He told you it would shed and die eventually and you shrugged it off and smiled. At that point, with that smile, he couldn’t tell you no. In fact, from the moment he met you, he knew he’d never be able to tell you no. And now here you are, coming home with a seven foot tall tree because you batted your eyes and said you’d “formed a bond” with it. 

As you fill the stand with water, Rex reads from the directions that the tree farm salesman had given him while you were staring at the tree with stars in your eyes. 

“It says that it’s got about four to six weeks.”

“It’s alright. I know it’s not going to last forever.” You sigh, dramatically, making your husband laugh. 

This was your first Life Day as a married couple and you’re determined to give Rex the most magical Life Day ever. On the way to the tree farm, he had told you that as long as you got to spend time together, he’d be happy no matter what. It still didn’t really take the pressure off you, but he was sweet for saying so. 

When Rex gets the tree stood up, you do a small happy dance, making him smile, and pull the lights out of one of the boxes behind you. 

“Blue for the 501st, naturally.” You grin. 

“Funny.” He rolls his eyes, smirking. 

You show him how to thread the lights through the branches and he stands on one side as you pass the lights back and forth until the entire tree is wrapped in lights, just begging to be lit up. 

You’re saving that for the end, though, craving to see Rex’s reaction to your tree. 

“What’s next?” He smiles, peeking at the box behind you.

You hold up a finger, making him wait as you pull out the silver and blue tinsel. He chuckles and shakes his head, in the cute way he does when he tries not to bust out laughing. 

“I’m never living down the blue, am I?” He puts his hands on his hips.

“Never ever.” You reach up on your toes to kiss him before starting the tinsel on the tree. “Plus, you just look so damn good in blue.” 

You throw him a playful wink and he can’t help but think to himself how incredibly in love with you he is. How did he get so lucky?

You see Rex sniff the air and you smirk, knowingly. 

“That’s the tinsel. I love that smell.” You chuckle. 

“It’s definitely got an interesting smell.” He hands you more of the sparkly blue and silver ropes. 

“When I was a kid, this was my favorite part of decorating the tree.” You tell him. 

“I’ll remember that.” He kisses you on the head, admiring the way the tinsel fills the tree. 

“Now the ornaments.” You hand him an ornament out of the box and he stares at it. 

“You hang them by the loops on the branches.” You guide his hand toward the branches and he hangs it and then steps away to admire it.

Maybe to anyone else, this would look silly, but the two of you know that this is an incredible new thing for the two of you. With the war finally ending, you could partake in life stuff like a normal married couple. Which is why you’re so excited for the holidays. You want to give Rex so much. 

You and Rex finish hanging ornaments, some of them from your childhood. You tell him stories of how they came about. 

When it comes time for the very last thing, you show Rex how to hang the star on the top. And as he hangs it, you take a holoscan of him to keep this memory forever. He looks so sweet next to the tree that he wasn’t too keen on only a couple hours ago. 

“What do you think?” You ask him, staring at it.

“It’s great.” He grins.

“Hold on.” You smirk, reaching behind it for the cord and plugging it in. 

It immediately comes to life even more and Rex’s eyes get wide, the twinkle of the blue lights dancing in his brown eyes. It makes your chest clench and when he realizes you’re staring, you look at the tree bashfully.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” You grin up at the six foot, fluffy Coruscanti Noble Tree. 

“She sure is.” Rex isn’t even looking at the tree anymore, though.

As you lean in to smell the fresh noble pine, it really does remind you of your childhood. You know that Rex and the other clones didn’t have a childhood, so this is your chance to give him a little bit of one. 

“I love it, cyare.” He smiles, taking your hand and kissing it. “Not as much as I love you, though.” 

When he says things like that, it completely melts your insides. Unable to help yourself, you fling your arms around his neck, kissing him. 

A knock on the door pulls you away from each other, indicating that some of Rex’s brothers have arrived for dinner.

“The guys are gonna get a kick out of this thing, just so you know.” He chuckles.

“Tell Fives if he ruins my tree, I’ll kick his ass.” You point at him as you go to answer the door. 

“I think you’re more threatening than me at this point. You should tell him.” Rex laughs. 

He has a point. You’re half tempted to put a baby gate around it just to protect it. 

“Wow, look at that thing!” Fives exclaims, greeting you with a kiss on the cheek before walking into the apartment. 

Echo shakes his head. “Try not to break it, we know how much you like shiny things.” 

You and Echo share an amused look as you let the rest of them in. When you look at Rex, you see him showing his brothers which ornaments he hung and you feel a swell of pride, knowing immediately this is going to be the best Life Day yet.

TAGS: @twistedstitcher27 @rebel-finn @rexandechosandwich @madameminor @dumfanting @corona-one @tecker @ladykatakuri @brynhildrmimi @the-sith-in-the-sky-with-diamond @zoeykallus @maulslittlemeowmeow @littlemousedroid @arctrooper69 @rexxdjarin @padawancat97 @hated-by-me @sleepingsun501 @idledreams @redheadgirl @themcuwriter @ashotofspotchka @sunshinesdaydream @crosshairsimp73 @ariadnes-red-thread @rosmariner @heyitsaloy @starstofillmydream @high-ct5555 @echos-girlfriend @sleepywych @nekotaetae @justanothersadperson93 @aconstructofamind @book-of-baba-fett @chopper-base @palliateclaw @501st-rexster @dead-poolz @nahoney22 @where-is-my-mind-tho @jediknightjana @erishimoon @witching3 @queen-of-many-fandoms @wizardofrozz  @burningfieldof-clover @rebelsriley

[vodika-vibes]

"Lost" made me feel some unexpected feelings, so...

I'd like to request another angsty thing w happy ending. It's soulmate au and both Sev* and reader somehow know their soulmates are dead, so now in this world of predetermined happy couples they have to flirt like normal people.

It's pretty personal for me, because... I had a person who I felt like my soulmate. And he's dead. And I have to live understanding there probably won't be another crazy love like this when you feel like a two halves of whole, enhancing each other, mutually healing, perfectly fitting, understanding each other with minimum of words... But maybe one day I'll meet someone who at least will be able to make me feel safe and bring some calmness to my troubled soul.

*I just love Sev. It's my third Sev request and I know you fully understand me. Sev is gorgeous.

What Comes After

Summary: You’ve been a member of this support group since you were a young teenager, as your soul mate died when you were both children. Every day is a struggle, but you’re starting to come to terms with the fact that you have to look for your own happily ever after.

Pairing: Clone Commando Sev x GN!Reader

Word Count: 1435

Prompt: Soulmate AU

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: Thank you for your request! I'm sorry for your loss, I hope this story offers you the feeling that you wanted. I once read a fic where people who were "destined" to be together chose other people because of reasons in their lives, and the vibe from the story was "the love might not burn like a wildfire, but it smolders, deep and true." And that's kind of what I wanted for this one.

You release a quiet sigh as you look up at the building where your support meetings take place. You’d think, after so many years, that going inside would be easier.

It’s not.

Admittedly, most days you’re fine.

But some days. Some days the messy scrawl on your arm, written in dull grey, taunts you.

Mom, where did I leave my backpack?

Your soulmate died when they were a child. You remember, in vivid detail, the day the vibrant blue script turned grey. You had been seven years old, and you didn’t understand what was happening.

Your teacher did though.

You remember her wrapping her arms around you and sobbing into your hair while you waited for your mom to come and pick you up. And you remember your mother gently explaining what the grey color means to you.

Not many seven-year-olds have their entire life shattered before it even begins.

As it happens, though, there weren’t any support groups for young children who lost their soul mate, your mom looked. So she had to attend meetings to get information to help support you.

You were allowed to attend the groups, with your mom or dad, when you turned 13 years old. 

And you remember how the other members of the support group seemed to crumple in on themselves when they saw just how young you were. Eventually, your parents could just drop you off at the support meeting, because the people had become honorary aunts, uncles, and grandparents to you.

When you were 17, you created an online support group for underage people who lost their soul mates. With forums, chat windows, and information to help them deal with the loss. 

You’re 25 now, and you’re the head of the Angel Support Group, a massive intergalactic support group dedicated to supporting children and teenagers as they navigate grief. All forms of grief.

And even then, you still attend your weekly support groups. It’s nice, being around people who understand your loss, even if most of them don’t really understand how your loss is different from theirs.

You open your car door and step out while swinging your purse over your shoulder. You kick the door shut and lock the car, this is a safe area but it’s a good habit to have, and you head towards the building. 

As you approach the building, you see a man hovering awkwardly near the entrance.

You’ve never seen him before and, as you move closer, you see that he’s a clone. 

More tellingly, his entire left arm is grey, and the grey seems to go under his shirt.

For a moment, you think it’s a tattoo. And then you remember that one of the recorded soul bonds is injuries showing up on their soul mate's bodies.

And he’s covered in a lot of grey.

Too much grey.

Your heart aches for him, so you stop and walk over to him, “Hello,” You greet with a small smile, “Are you here for the support group?”

He starts, and you see his muscles tense, “…yes. My brothers say that I should talk to people who might understand—” His voice is much deeper than any other clone you’ve ever met.

“In my experience, it does make everything more tolerable.” You agree.

“I doubt I’ll be welcome.”

“Why would you think that?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a clone.”

“Well, you’re hardly the first clone who’s joined this group.” You reply reasonably, “If you need help, then you need help.”

He folds his arms over his chest, “You’re a member?”

“Since I was a teenager.”

He blinks at you, surprised, and drops his arms. You see his gaze dart to the grey sentence on your arm, and some of the hostility drains from him. “A teenager?”

“Yeah, well. At the time there weren’t any support groups for seven-year-olds who lost their soul mates.” You reply lightly, “There are now.” You pull open the door, “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

For a moment he doesn’t move, and then he sighs softly, “Alright. Lead the way.”

Later, you learn his name is Sev, and that he’s a commando. You learn that he never met his soul mate, but that he’s pretty sure she was killed in a Separatist attack. You learn that he’s been having a hard time sleeping and that his brothers are afraid that he’s going to allow himself to get hurt if he doesn’t get support.

It’s nice to see the support group rally around him. 

It’s even better to see the tension and unease drain from him the more people share their stories and he realizes that he’s not alone in this. 

As the meeting leaves you offer Sev your comm code, which surprises him.

“Just if you want someone to talk to,” You explain, “It’s not a bad thing, having friends.”

He accepts the comm code gratefully, and then you both go your separate ways.

Honestly, you don’t expect to see him ever again, let alone hear from him. But he surprises you. 

He sends you a message late that night, admitting that he can’t sleep because he feels lonely, even when surrounded by people. You can understand that, so you sit awake and chat with him until you fall asleep.

It’s the start of a, slightly odd, friendship.

Sev isn’t a kind man. Calling him rough around the edges is a massive understatement and his confession that he likes fighting and enjoys killing should have sent up all of the red flags, but you like Sev despite it.

He’s not a kind man, but he is a good man. 

On the anniversary of the day that your soul mark turned grey, a day you usually spend locked in your apartment, Sev invited himself over and forced you to eat and drink, and held you while you sobbed on his shoulder over what could have been.

And on days when Sev’s temper is on a hair-trigger, you seclude him away from the world in the safety of your home, curl yourself around him, and listen to him talk about what should be.

You’re comfortable with him, and he’s comfortable with you.

So, when your relationship with him changes, it’s not a surprise to anyone other than you and Sev.

It starts late one evening, almost a year after you met him.

“Have you ever considered starting a relationship?” Sev asks from where he’s sprawled across your couch, watching you make brownies for the pair of you to share.

“A relationship?” You repeat thoughtfully as you pause mid-stir, “No, I guess not. For the most part, people expect me to be alone forever.”

“Which people?”

“My parents, my siblings, my extended family.” You say, “With my soulmate dead, I guess most people expect me to not want a relationship.”

“That’s sucky of them.” Sev offers.

A laugh falls from your lips, “Well, they’re not hounding me for grandkids, so I’ll take it. What about you?”

“My brothers hope that I’ll find happiness even with my soulmate being gone,” Sev replies.

“What about what you want?”

He shrugs, “I want to stop feeling so empty all of the time.”

You smile at him, “I can understand that.”

Sev watches you for a moment, and then he sits up, “Do you want to go on a date?”

You set your spoon in the bowl and turn to face him fully, “A date?”

“Yeah.”

You don’t answer for a moment, taking the time to carefully consider his offer. In truth, you like Sev. You’re comfortable around him, you feel safe around him. And when you’re with him the empty feeling deep in your chest seems to fade to the background.

So you smile at him, “I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He stands and walks over to you. Slowly he lifts his hands and presses them against your cheeks, and then he leans in and presses his forehead against yours. 

You close your eyes and lean into his warmth, “It’s not going to be easy.” You warn, your voice soft, “We weren’t born for each other.”

“Not that hard,” Sev corrects, “We just have to keep picking each other, over everyone else.”

“Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I might be overthinking it.” You reply as you open your eyes and smile up at him. 

Sev scans your face for a moment, and then leans in and presses a light kiss at the corner of your lips, “That’s alright. We’ll figure it out. But we should finish the brownies.”

You reach up and wrap your arms around his neck, “Deal.”

[sucrealacreme]

Supe Busters - Soldier Boy x female reader

Prologue

Summary : Vought has many secrets, project W is one of them. What happens when said project turns against them? 

I don’t remember a lot of things. I'm not amnesic or anything, no, I just have blanks for certain memories. It confuses me to no end. Did I always have those powers? Or were they given to me at the late age of 25? I have no idea who I am, why I'm suddenly super abled. The only thing I know is that I'm stuck this way forever now wether I like it or not.

I don't hate my abilities. I pride myself in the fact I can control atoms. Yeah that seems like I'm overpowered but it's more complicated. I have to know the exact formula to what I want to manipulate. Now, I'm better. I can control most things like water, iron, most metals,ect… But still, in order for me to control atoms I need to know if it's like H2O or something like that. It can be annoying sometimes. Plus, if I try to split atoms to make like a nuclear explosion, I did try to see if I could do that, stupid idea but still, I have this weird electrical pulse at the back of my head. 

I have no idea what I was made for. It wasn’t for war, nor pageants or any dancing and singing competition. So I stay hidden, in my small repetitive life. Sleep, eat, work, eat, sleep. I have yet to find people with similar experiences. But I will soon, I can feel it. 

Stillwell was in her luxurious office when she saw the results of the debate about if supes belong in the military or not. The no won surprisingly. Under the huge amounts of shock and disbelief, she barely heard her phone ringing. 

“Hello?”, said Madelynn. 

“Good afternoon Miss Stillwell. I have called you today to discuss a certain topic.”

“Oh, what is it?”

 “I’M afraid we both know Madelynn.”

The woman sighed, thinking of a way to get out of this situation. She was thinking, thinking and thinking and thinking and thin-

 “Mss.Stillwell?”

“Yes, yes sorry” 

“I think the video still needs to be seen by the world, senator. I mean, people need to know who’s ruling our military and making sure we’re all safe, right?” said Stillwell in a passive aggressive tone.

“Madelynn, between you and me, your supes belong in a circus special show. Not in the defence system”

The woman suddenly had an idea. One that would change the world forever, but still an idea. 

“We'll see about that senator”, Stillwell said before hanging up

—-----------------

Fast forward 3 years

—------------------

You're now part of an organisation known to reunite what Vought likes to call “supervillains”. But truly, you're just humans who became supes one day and who can't seem to control themselves around supes. 

Since it was revealed that supes are made and not some gifted people, questions and arguments are roaming around the community. If Vought made the supes, then who made the villains? Was it Vought or some twisted knock off? Do you have compound V or something else flowing inside your veins? And if so, why did this organisation chose us? Normal citizens with no criminal background? It's not like all of you had no family or friends or anything, no, you knew a proud and married mom of 3 children who became a villain overnight. There are even some people who were pastors, nuns or imam, nursery workers whose lives are now ruined by this thing.

But still. With the villain's accusations, you still had faith. You knew by now how supes actually were. A bunch of drugged up criminals with colourful costume but with a pristine white reputation thanks to the big V. Someone had to do something about it. Civilians were dying by the dozens every day because of supes.

 “She was on the road”, “I said get out of the way”, “It was self defence”, “It had nothing to do with race or gender”. I’ve heard those sentences thousands of times now. A-train who straight went through a girl, Sun Light who burned someone with 3rd degree burns during a chase, Homelander when he lasered a random guy, Blue Hawk when he killed an innocent young black man. The list goes on and on.

 When you discovered that there were others like yourself, and how supes just wouldn't take the blame for their actions, you decided to find the most powerful, strong, and fast people like you to build a whole team.

Your name is Y/N, you control atoms and you’re what they call a supervillain.

A/n : So it's my very first story, hope y'all like it. If there are mistakes it's totally normal english isnt my first language. Thank you for reading 😊

A/n 2 : I changed a couple things, again tell me if you have any remarks😊

[youbutstupid]

Let’s talk about the Hankels and why, despite Reid having a bucket load of trauma, this particular event is portrayed as Reid’s biggest and most traumatic event.

So, besides Hankel, Reid has been shot multiple times, held hostage multiple times, kidnapped, imprisoned, beat up, you name it. But despite all of this, throughout the show we see glances, like the ones in 12x13, of the fact that Tobias Hankel is the biggest stressor of Reid’s life, and I want to discuss why that is.

In order to do this, I want to stress that people need to understand that he was not just kidnapped and beat up: that on its own would be horrific enough, but a truck load of other things happened during and after those two days of hell.

First we have the obvious; he was kidnapped and beat up. This is horrific, this alone would traumatise absolutely anybody. Then we have the fact that he was drugged and as a result of this, he became addicted to said drugs. People don’t seem to understand how two days of drug use can turn into an addiction but addiction is a tricky disease and a whole range of factors can contribute to how fast you get addicted, such as physical health, mental health, the strength of the drug, the type of drug, the circumstances in which it was given, genetics and also Reid’s eidetic memory. Because all of these factors were working against Reid in that time; he was physically weak, he was traumatised, he was given drug store heroin laced with psychedelics which are highly addictive, he was given them at his weakest, his genetics from his mum’s side mean that he is more susceptible to to psychosis and reliance and also he will never be able to forget the relief of his first high, it’s clear to see why he got addicted.

So he is kidnapped, beaten up and then basically given a narcotics addiction, next he is forced to choose someone to die and then they get killed right in front of him. Hankel tells him if he picks a woman, then he can save the other two and his team can save the woman he picks, but his team don’t get there in time and Reid has to watch as the woman he picks is murdered and he has to grapple with the guilt of knowing he contributed to that.

Then you have him literally dying. He died in one of the slowest and most painful ways possible, he had to lie there and choke on his own saliva until he could no longer keep any air in his lungs. He is brought back and the hell carries on.

Hankel keeps playing mind games with him, using religious phrasing to tell him that he is guilty of something and should atone for his sins and at that point, Reid convinces himself that there is something he is guilty of and that is being a bad son.

Because of this, he is then forced at his weakest to walk on his injured foot, with his arms bound and find a plot on a graveyard so that he can begin to dig his own grave. The mental and physical torture of this one act would be enough to ruin anybody.

Then, he gets the chance to kill his attacker, and he has to watch as Tobias dies. This kills Reid, because he saw Tobias as completely innocent and just a product of his father who was pulling the strings in Tobias’ mind.

Keep in mind, all of the above happened in the space of just 2 days when Reid was just a 25 year old agent who was barely even allowed field experience.

After all of this, after Reid’s world and his view on life gets destroyed, everything and everyone goes back to normal and he is left alone to deal with what happened to him. He is now an addict, he has ptsd, he has track marks on his arms and scars, any innocence he had left is gone and his mind which once was his biggest saviour was now working against him. Yet, the world is still spinning, and his coworkers have moved on and no one glances at him when his hands are shaking and he is having a flashback because they have their own lives and concerns and he is left alone with this.

In the years after Hankel, he is completely alone in trying to get sober from his addiction, he is alone when he is trying to grapple with his ptsd, he is alone as he is trying to adjust to work and being back on the field and he is alone in grieving the person he used to be. People say that when you grieve, you begin to get angry that the world is moving on as if nothing is wrong, and I truly believe that is why he is so angry in the last half of season 2.

So it is clear to see why the events of 2x15 still seem to overpower any additional trauma that Reid obtains in later seasons because they literally changed everything for him.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for being frustrated with my dad's procrastination and finally calling him out on it?

I (25 f) live with my dad (50ish? Too mad at him rn to check, m) because of mental illness rendering me unable to work due to lack of treatment, until now.

Recently, after I had to be taken to the emergency room for a ruptured ovarian cyst that I'd needed checked out for years prior to it popping, I decided on a whim to bring up my mental illness during the follow-up with my doctor, which put me on a very fast track to getting diagnosed with severe ADHD and prescribed medication (more specifically 5 mg of Adderall twice daily). And let me tell you, holy shit, it was like a miracle, I didn't even know medication could act that fast.

Well, long story short, it fixed my time blindness and made me consciously aware of my dad's long-standing bad habit of perpetually putting things off until "next weekend", affecting several major things both recently and not, including my ovarian cyst that I knew I had for years but couldn't go to the doctor for on my own because my car was perpetually in use by my sister or broken down, picking up my prescribed medication for said ovarian cyst because my car broke down ages ago and he never taught me to drive a stick, fixing my car or paying someone to do it for that matter (I can't afford it on my own), teaching me to drive in the first place when I came of driving age, my prior autism diagnosis (which itself took years to ever get done), several attempts at homeschooling that fell apart because we both forgot about it simultaneously, at least one broken bone that I can remember, and yes, the ADHD that I could only get diagnosed because I piggy backed off of an actual medical emergency.

Needless to say, I am not happy about that, so with my new executive function in hand, I confronted him. I basically laid out that I didn't think it was normal to procrastinate that badly for years and that he should consider getting evaluated for ADHD too because it's hereditary and I had to get it from somewhere, and added that if they put him on Adderall too it might help him write his book.

However, my dad accused me of talking like an addict (it's only day 2) and threatened to call the doctor and make him change the dose or take me off Adderall (my dad can't do that and I'm contractually obligated to stop him if he tries). When I pointed out that the dose I was given isn't even remotely enough to cause an addiction this early and that it felt like he was upset with me for being able to confront him now, he told me to back off and that I was acting like a jerk, and he demanded I talk with my doctor about alternatives (my doctor very specifically had me start on Adderall because he didn't think anything else would be effective--and given my understanding is that the alternatives would make every other brain function as bad as my memory and executive function so they're not as bad in comparison and not even fix the lethargy and excessive sleeping, uh, I think I agree). Note, he doesn't usually act like this at all.

I know that Adderall's side effects include irritability and I've always been bad at self-evaluation when I'm mad, so I've decided to take to the Internet to ask--aita?

What are these acronyms?