#she thinks its cool to use those words randomly

[justvoidsdumbstuff1]

Rizzler Dash

(I'm so sorry for making this, I couldn't stop myself😔)

[yurislotusgarden]

Hii!! I have a request if thats okay!! :) i love your works btw! Keep up the good work and dont forget to drink, eat and sleep well!<3

So i was thinking of Chuuya, Dazai, Nikolai, and any others if you wanna add with a reader with a ability who can talk, see and hear ghosts! I think its very cool and it barely has any recognition.. Its like toritsuka (from saiki k!) but the reader is less pervy.. and if its okay; can the reader be female? Its okay if its not!! I dont mind!!

So the reader has this ghost ability thing and they used to get bullied and shamed for it because people caught her talking to nothing but she was talking to ghosts, so she became insecure of their ability and sees it more like a curse. So technically a socially akward reader?

If you arent taking requests then you can ignore this!!

Also can i be 💞 anon?

ʚїɞ Separate! Dazai Osamu, Nakahara Chuuya, Nikolai Gogol x Gn!Reader

ʚїɞ Keep in mind English is not my first language, so you may find mistakes!

ʚїɞ word count: 3208

ʚїɞ Tw’s: None! Just pure fluff, pet names used, reader’s gender is not specified in any way bcs of how I wrote this

ʚїɞ We're gonna ignore how long it has been since I posted, dear 💞 anon I'm so sorry bcs of how long this has been in my inbox ;-;, I decided to wait with writing this until I watched some of saiki k so I could understand the ability at least a little, Nikolai's part is damn short bcs I didn't really have any ideas for him </3, Only Dazai's part was proofread, I'm gonna edit this post later on to correct mistakes on Chuuya's and Nikolai's parts since the person who grammar checks my works is on a short break rn

ཐིཋྀ He loves it

ཐིཋྀ This idiot didn't even realize that you have an ability at first because you didn't show any kind of signs😭

ཐིཋྀ He thought you didn’t have one like Ranpo but was told by Kunikida that you do, however, what it is was gonna remain a mystery until you decided to tell him yourself

ཐིཋྀ He found out on a mission where you guys had to chase down a guy with the ability to create a smokescreen

ཐིཋྀ Was about to say that it's over for the day because the guy was gone before you two could realize it (He had a plan to get the man anyway but didn’t feel like it) but then saw you talking to… air???

ཐིཋྀ Like you were just standing there while looking up and seemingly talking to someone

ཐིཋྀ You ignored his ass when he asked wtf you were doing

ཐིཋྀ The brunet was confused until you finally turned to look at him and said that you know where the guy went

ཐིཋྀ You had to briefly explain your ability when you  walked to where the guy ran off to

ཐིཋྀ He does anything to make you more open about your ability because he adores it <3

ཐིཋྀ He wishes you showed your ability off more AND HE VOICES IT OUT

ཐིཋྀ Odasaku is his guardian ghost so you told him without thinking about it since most of the time a person doesn't know the ghost protecting them

ཐིཋྀ He actually teared up when he realized you were serious and that Odasaku was watching over him :(

ཐིཋྀ He told you about Oda after that

ཐིཋྀ He randomly asks you if you see a ghost nearby when you two are outside (does it inside buildings too)

ཐིཋྀ He does it a lot

ཐིཋྀ Please hit him

ཐིཋྀ Dazai said that he wanted to kill your past bullies and you didn't believe him -he was serious-

ཐིཋྀ And no, he didn't find dirt on those people, not at all

ཐིཋྀ And he totally didn't use it later, not at all :)

ཐིཋྀ He once asked if you ever used it to cheat in school (let’s say you had a normal enough life like Tanizaki’s or something) and when you said yes he nearly yelled out “That’s my girl!” with a grin Kunikida scolded him for being loud, and for not doing his paperwork

ཐིཋྀ Sometimes he hears you talk without looking over and assumes you’re talking to him before realizing that no, it’s actually to a ghost that’s in the room

ཐིཋྀ Once Kunikida and he had a mission but the brunet was not getting up from the couch, so you walked up and after a few seconds you told him that there was a ghost, butt naked, right by his face

ཐིཋྀ He did not look up to see if you were lying or telling the truth, he just jumped up from that couch without a second thought before he was gone out the door. He only realized that you lied once they were back and you were laughing at him with Ranpo

///////////////////////////

Seiji thought he had everything planned out. He really was sure that there was no way to find him after he ran away from the two detectives. After all, who would search for a running thief in the damn sewers when there were so many better places that could’ve been used to hide in the area?

The plan was in fact a good one, in fact. Kuwahara made it look like he was going towards the warehouses nearby to camp out, while in reality, he came down to the sewers using the ladders, as there was one of the many entrances underground right behind a warehouse.

He was so sure that he wouldn’t be found, that he wasn’t seen, so pray tell, why was he standing face to face with the exact two people he was meant to avoid. The atmosphere wasn’t nice, it was cold, and the smell was even worse, Seiji was trying heavily not to let it show on his face since the two people that were after him seemed to be completely unaffected by the environment they were in. What he couldn’t hide instead, was distress. He did not plan on getting caught any time soon, and yet it looks like he’s 8 seconds away from being behind bars.

“How- How did you guys find me?!”

///////////////////////////

This was not what Dazai meant when he said that he would show you how useful your ability can be (you refused more against it being useful than anything else he said about it, so that’s what he settled for), but it kind of worked so he wasn’t complaining.

“How- How did you guys find me?!”

Kuwahara Seiji, a 25-year-old thief that uses his ability to make himself invisible for all of his plans, making it hard for the police to identify him.

“It was kind of easy, actually!~”

“You’re talking as if you had any part in finding him.”

Dazai really didn’t. Once the criminal ran away after throwing a smoke bomb on the ground, (The brunet has to give it to him, It was annoying as hell and many people would give up on going after him once the smoke settled down) the two of you had no idea which direction he went off to, as there was a few possible exits from the warehouse you first caught him in.

His solution? Asking you to question a ghost nearby if they saw the man. You were really skeptical about that, he could tell.  What he also noticed was how confused you were about his question. You didn’t understand why he would want that, at least at first. It was soon after that you realized he meant.

You can see invisible things, ghosts can see other invisible individuals as well, rendering Kuwahara’s ability useless when it comes to you chasing him down.

He realized that little advantage of yours some time back while lazing around on his favorite agency couch.

Your ghost acquaintances can be quite the helpers when it comes to investigating stuff. He heard from Kenji, that not too long ago, you had solved a case that was meant to take around a week, in a day, simply because it just so happened that a ghost was on the crime scene when it happened. You had an easy time getting clues and proving the words of the ghost to the police with their help.

He knows that a few times like those won’t stop you from being so negative about your ability, he’s aware of the impact your bullies had on you mentally even if you try to not show it, but all of those instances give you a step forward to seeing what Dazai and the others do.

“Oh c’mon ‘donna! I was the one who gave you the idea of asking someone!”

“We would be able to track him down anyway. Asking someone just made it faster.”

Catching him in the end was not hard at all. Kuwahara tried to sneak away using his ability once again, but you could still see him without him realizing it. You could see where he was walking off to, making it possible for Dazai to nullify the guy's ability and catch him before leading him to the police vehicle near the warehouse you guys were under.

“See? I told you your ability is really useful and fun!”

“Where do you see the fun in my predicament?” He could tell you were just done with him for the day, besides being confused.

“I mean, you’re almost never alone, right? You always have someone to talk to!~” He knows it’s annoying to see ghosts all the time without the option to just… not be able to do that.

A sigh came from you before answering, “Exactly, complete silence for me is a rare blessing.” in an exhausted tone.

“I would love to never be in complete silence.” He wished that you could have some sort of an on-and-off switch.

“Samu… That’s because your voices would be quiet-” “I do NOT have voices, bella!”

“Sure, continue being in Egypt.”

“What-”

ཐིཋྀ Thinks it's very cool actually

ཐིཋྀ Imma put you down as a florist in this one, or just some small/calm kind of job

ཐིཋྀ When he first met you, he didn’t think about whether you have an ability or not since it wasn’t his business in the slightest

ཐིཋྀ Let’s say that you’re a florist and the ginger came in to buy flowers for Kouyou for example. It just so happened that one of the ghosts hanging around in your workplace was feeling silly, and had been pranking the customers the whole day, Chuuya being no exception

ཐིཋྀ When you were at the back getting the bouquet he ordered the day before, his hat was randomly taken off of his head and was floating in the air

ཐིཋྀ Bro was so confused because he knew his ability was off at the moment

ཐིཋྀ Every time he got the hat back onto his head it just floated back up😭

ཐིཋྀ The menace of a ghost stopped only once you got back out of the backroom and scolded them

ཐིཋྀ Chuuya was confused because ‘Who the fuck were you talking to???’

ཐིཋྀ He asked that exact question and even though you were visibly hesitant and nervous, you still explained your ability since he already saw it anyway

ཐིཋྀ You did not get the reaction you expected, which was being made fun of as that was what you were used to, but he instead complimented it <3

ཐིཋྀ Make sure you don’t let a name slip when it comes to your past bullies because you will see them on the news, missing :)

ཐིཋྀ On one of your first dates/early stages of dating, he gave you Marigolds which you lightly laughed at, causing him confusion before you explained their meaning to him

ཐིཋྀ Yeah, he settled for mostly giving you Cyclamens, Blackthorns, and Bluebells alongside your favorite flowers after that, just for fun

ཐིཋྀ Going with the florist thing or just generally, he would help you around with his ability if there’s something heavier to move around 

ཐིཋྀ He would voice out how often he actually wants to see you, albeit embarrassed, but he will show it in lil gestures a lot more <3

ཐིཋྀ I can just imagine him putting his hat on your head and sliding it down over your eyes before giving you a peck on the lips as a goodbye if he was at your workplace and he had to suddenly go

ཐིཋྀ He would try to slowly get you to not be so insecure about your ability

ཐིཋྀ I feel like one of The Flags would be his guardian ghost which could actually make this man cry at the thought :(

ཐིཋྀ Alright but if you met a past bully of yours, or someone newer,  that would try to shit on you for your ability, just tell him, and he will beat them up happily <3

ཐིཋྀ Or just go and have a nice talk with them about their behavior if you don’t want him to beat them up, I can promise that they will never again be rude to you if they value their lives (Or you will see them on the news or hear about them being in the hospital if they don’t ^-^)

///////////////////////////

“Are you sure that you don’t have work right now?”

“Yes, so shut your pretty mouth up and show what else you need to be moved.”

Renovation. A simple small renovation of your small shop was all that you planned. Moving some of the furniture, and changing the place of a few products for easier finding. You had thought that it would take a few days to take care of it since you planned on doing a few things every day so as to not close up the shop for a whole day unnecessarily (and you didn’t feel like doing everything in one day).

The problem was, he was supposedly not meant to know about that. Chuuya found your graphic open on your laptop and saw the renovation plans before realizing that you didn’t speak a word about that. At first, he was confused. Why didn’t you tell him? He could certainly make it faster by helping you.

Yet soon after that, he realized why. You didn’t want him to know because you knew that he would help and, therefore not do his work, something you were always worried about when he stopped by your shop. Well, he was never one not to help you, especially when there’s such an occasion. he wants a thank you kiss besides being a gentleman, your honor

“Is it really that hard to focus on your job instead of helping me move the furniture?” You sighed, pointing to a bookcase and then pointing to a place where a table stood before. “You’re gonna get in trouble.”

“I’m not, besides- HEY!” Looking up, his hat could be seen slowly floating away. He ignored you stifling a laugh as he chased after the hat. Chuuya would ignore it and just continue on with moving your stuff around, but the last time he did that, the hat was later found in a pot, making him have to wash it as it had a lot of soil on it. (A lot of his subordinates wondered why he didn’t have his hat on the next day, he didn't explain it to anyone)

“Can you tell them to stop?!” He could only guess how funny the situation looked to you. To anyone else, it just looked like the ginger was chasing after a floating hat, but you could see the menace that was taking the object away, so it ended up being funnier to you, if you nearly laughing was anything to go by.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dear.”

“You’re so mean!”

You hummed softly before answering, “I would prefer to be called entertained.”

“It has nothing to do with what I said, doll.” Was said by Chuuya just as he finally got hold of his hat. Even if the ghost was still holding onto it, at least the hat wasn’t continuously floating away toward the flower-bare pots with just soil in them again.

“Let them have some fun in a while, Chuu, they don’t do it too often.”

“Yeah, and it just so happens that they decide to have their little fun almost every time that I come here.”

“They love you.”

“I wish they didn’t.” 

“It’s better than if they disliked you.”

“Why?”

“There’s a customer that they don’t like for being rude to me,” The ginger frowned at that information but you continued on, “And they are rude back to him every time he comes by my shop.”

“What do they do?”

“Y’know, pull on his clothes and hair, steal his things, and make them completely dirty on purpose, make him think he heard or saw something and that kind of stuff. Pretty sure they stole some of his money from the guy’s wallet.”

Chuuya was quiet for a moment before speaking up. “I think I prefer my hat being occasionally stolen…”

“Exactly!” You shouldn’t smile like that after what you said, but he’s not gonna comment on that one.

“...So the bookcase is the next to be moved, isn't it?

ཐིཋྀ He fr felt betrayed that he didn't know immediately 

ཐིཋྀ Like he could know you for 5 minutes and be offended that your ability wasn’t one of the first things you said about yourself

ཐིཋྀ He finds it so fascinating that you can contact the dead so easily

ཐིཋྀ Don’t tell him who his guardian ghost is, no matter how much he asks

ཐིཋྀ Just hit him every time he asks, I promise it works to keep him from asking for the next 3 hours <3

ཐིཋྀ You can bet that he talks to Fyodor and Sigma about your ability (He asked you to tell Sigma that there’s multiple ghosts watching him all the time, he believed. Sigma did not sleep for the next 5 days at all because of that thought)

ཐིཋྀ You said it to him again because at some point there was a ghost actually following him, but Sigma didn’t want to believe it

ཐིཋྀ He’s gonna ask a million times for you to join him in pranks if you won’t agree the first time

ཐིཋྀ Just imagine telling someone a ghost-related thing that they can’t prove is not true

ཐིཋྀ You caused someone to be in hospital after they didn’t sleep for way too long

ཐིཋྀ You told Fyodor that there’s a ghost hanging around him all the time, but didn’t say whether it’s the guardian one or some random one, you just left the rat to ponder on which one you mean (Nikolai died when he found out)💀

///////////////////////////

“WAIT! What do you mean there’s some ghost stalking me?!” Nikolai could tell that Sigma didn't expect to be told something like that today, but again, who would?

“I didn’t say stalking, I said following you around as they seem to be interested in you.” Why did you smile so innocently at that? He doesn’t know but he does encourage you since it gets more reactions from the bi-colored-haired man.

“It doesn’t make it better?!”

“I think it does! Some ghosty is interested in our little Sigma!” He had to add something to the fire, what kind of a person would he be if he didn’t?

“Don’t call me that, Nikolai!” 

“But whyyyy?” It was Thursday, the day that the white-haired clown dubbed ‘the best day to prank Sigma!’, even though he says it every week. He also deemed himself lucky as you finally agreed to help him prank the younger man again after rejecting him multiple times.

“Because I’m not little! And I won’t believe you guys again.”

“I don’t agree,” You spoke up, “Even the ghost agrees that you’re small!”

“See Sigma? We even have your beloved ghost on our side!”

“That’s no ‘my’ ghost, and I don’t believe that they said it. [Name] could be lying for all I know!”

“But do you have any way of proving that it’s a lie?” Nikolai couldn’t wait until he took the bait.

“...”

“Exactly!” You grinned before speaking up again a moment later, “They actually have a cute nickname for you that I’m thinking of using now…”

“Should I be scared?” Nikolai regrets not getting you into the pranks earlier, after all, the younger one had no way to prove you wrong. Sigma looks genuinely frightened that it may be real this time.

“No… It’s really a cute nickname that the ghost calls you by because they didn’t know your name when they first started following you around.”

“Stalking.”

“No.”

“I wanna know it! Tell us, dove!” Was it a nickname he could use himself? Or were you lying about it being a cute one and instead it’s weird? He doesn’t know which option he would like more. If he was being honest, Nikolai was feeling like you were telling the truth and not lying again like the last time.

“Cotton.”

“Cotton? Where did that come from?”

“That’s adorable! Let’s call him that!”

“I think that’s a perfect idea, Niko!”

“No!”

Nikolai can already tell that he’s gonna have a lot of fun with that nickname in his vocabulary now.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨ Taglist ୧⋆ ˚｡⋆

@sukiischaotic

Marigolds - Often called “flowers of the dead”, are symbols of positive emotions, like joy and excitement. They also represent energy, good luck, warmth, creativity, prosperity, passion purity, divinity, and the connection between life and death. These flowers' fragrance is said to attract souls to the altar.

Cyclamen - symbolizes the eternal cycle of life, which makes it the perfect flower that means 'forever'. In Japan, cyclamen holds a special place as the holy flower of love, causing it to be a popular choice for Valentine's Day

Blackthorn - Fate, protection, hope against adversity, good fortune, strength, overcoming adversity, purification, and protection

Bluebell - Loyalty, constancy, humility, gratitude and everlasting love

Keep in mind that flower meanings may somewhat be different depending on what site you look at, so excuse me if anything in the meanings is wrong! (hopefully not)

[descendantsramblings]

Thank you baby, sorry for messing up that post the first time, I might be stupid, so your ask is a touch cut off on both sides

Anyway, back to the show

And I decided that this takes place in 1985 even though we don't have a set year so I could reference '84 movies. Do y'all even know what a VCR is? Is that gonna confuse y'all? I had blues clues on a bright orange VHS as a kid and I miss it every day.

Scales

Morgie le Fay x Reader

Pronouns used: they/them/theirs

Summary: Morgie could think of about 100 things he’d rather do that coparent a dragon with Merlin Academy’s sweetheart

Warnings: Morgie is a little OOC due to being in a bad mood (and hating dragons), Swearing, reader is implied to be shorter than Morgie (idk how tall Peder is and don't really care so sorry if I made y'all reallll short with that), this reads pretty platonic so sorry if that's not what you wanted, Reader calls Morgie "Daddio" but i assure you it's not how you think

Word Count: 3.5K

   There was no class that the sorcerer hated more than “Care of Magical Creatures”. The only magical creature he had any interest in was himself, he was a lovely magical creature, a shape shifter. He knows how to care for himself, what other magical creatures could he have to learn to care about? But this? This just made the class even worse. Of course, Merlin would clock him on how often he was skipping the day that Dragon Parenting week started. Maybe graduating wasn’t worth it, he could fail his senior year, he’d be okay with that. If it meant he didn’t have to pretend to care about a dreadfully scaled little creature, he could fail. He’ll graduate next year, that’s fine by him. Who cares what his dreadfully evil mother would say about him failing? He does, he cares about it. Guess Morgie is stuck here.

   Madam Harleen is wandering around her classroom, a bright pink clipboard in her hands as she does. “Now, one big part of this project is making sure that you have a randomly assigned partner. I took the liberty of using a RNG to make sure that each of you were fairly assigned to your co-parent for the week.” His eyes roll back into his head, of course she would. As long as he didn’t get Bridget Hearts or either of her exhausting little friends, Morgie could care less. The last thing he needed was to deal with Uliana complaining about him hanging around one of them while he was caught up with handling a creature so absolutely dreadful. Maybe they could find a cool one, if they went first they could. Morgie had peaked into the box of dragon hatchlings as he passed Madam Harleen’s desk, there were some pretty cool looking ones. As long as he didn’t get stuck with the scrawny little purple and orange hatchling he would be okay.

   “Mr. le Fay and Mx. (L/n),” Madam Harleen is obviously proud of the duo as she says it, looking between the two teens. Of course, who else would Morgie be paired with except for sunshine itself? (Y/n) (L/n) with their sweetheart personality and gentle hands and adoring smiles. The only royal in this entire school who was somehow nicer than Bridget. Today was on its way to ending him. Or at least his reputation, he may as well just go ahead and ask Hades to send him to the underworld. There was no way that Uliana would ever let him hear the end of this, if he could even get through it. Yet here they come, with that stupid bouncy walk and the gentle smile as they make their way to his side. Falling beside him with one of those big sugar sweet smiles. “So,” they reach out a hand for him to shake, “Are you so entirely excited for this project like I am? Because I love dragons, they’re the absolute cutest.” As they realize he isn’t going to shake their hand they draw it back, letting it fall weakly at their side. “Not really.” A frown meets their lips momentarily before something seems to flicker through their eyes. Frown quickly replaced by another excited smile, “Well, if you don’t like dragons, does that mean I can pick our hatchling? There was one I absolutely had my eyes on when we walked in.” 

   Hazel eyes roll in their sockets, a hand waving the excitable royal off, “Yeah, sure , whatever you want. Just don’t make me get up.” What Morgie is pretty sure is a squeal slips from their lips, (Y/n) bouncing out of their seat and over to the box up front, leaning over it with this big sweet smile. It could almost be admirable, something that Morgie would never admit out loud. The person who swallowed the sun in real life. An actual picture of the love of life, painted out right before you. There was something about them that was almost beautiful, or at least they could be. Maybe, if they weren’t coming back to him with the scrawniest little purple and orange hatchling cuddling against their chest. Its head against their chest as if it was listening to their heartbeat. Maybe it was, Morgie was almost sure that their heartbeat had to somehow be prettier or sweeter than other people’s. His sounded different, surely there were other people who had different heartbeats too. Perhaps that was just due to him being a shapeshifter? 

   “Okay this little tag on his collar says he’s a boy, isn’t that fun?” Morgie looks the dragon up and down, nose scrunching with distaste. “Honestly I always saw myself as more of a girl dad.” His comment earns him an eye roll and a giggle, “You know, Morgie, you’re really taking all of the fun out of this.” Now he’s the one laughing, glancing between the royal and the dragon. It hisses at him, a minor puff of fire coming with the sound which makes the boy jump, laughter dying for a look of shock. “There was never any fun in all of this. And that thing hates me.” “He’s not a thing, he’s our son, at least for a week.” The comment makes the boy look even more disgusted, staring at them as if looking for the second head they seemed to be growing. “He’s a pet at best, we do not have a child together. We will never have a child together. Don’t word it like that.” 

                               ╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

   He’d been away from (Y/n) and that dreadful little creature for a few hours now. If Morgie was lucky, they would recognize he was ignoring them and just take all the work, that was his hope at least. But of course, since Merlin and maybe even the gods above hate him, sunshine incarnate found him while he was sitting with his friends. Calling his name like a song as they come up behind him, that awful little dragon curled up against their chest. He pinches his eyes closed, head falling back with a groan as they approach, that perfect little smile on their face. “Okay, so I had him in all of my classes today and I already went and bought dragon food and things of the like since you were nowhere to be found. So I think it’s more than fair for you to take Viper for the first night, and I’ll come get him when your classes are over tomorrow for my night with him.” 

   Morgie doesn’t mean to let his jaw fall the way it does, his intention wasn’t the way his brows raise. But no one spoke to his friends like that, outside of them- they could actually be impossibly bossy with each other. “Yeah, no thanks,” he attempts to turn back to the poker game before them when he feels a hand snag his shoulder, forcing him to stay facing them. Okay, maybe sunshine was more of a rainbow. There was definitely some rain hidden behind them. “No. You aren’t scary enough to trick me into doing all your work for you. You get Viper tonight, I am not doing everything for you. I might be friends with her, but I am not Bridget. No one is pushing me around.” Maybe rain wasn’t the right word, fire. This was fire, and Morgie might be able to get something out of fire. 

   “Viper? I don’t remember agreeing to that.” There’s this odd look of satisfaction on their face as (Y/n) drops the dreadful collection of purple scales into his lap. “I thought you would like it, serpent boy. You’re both snake themed.” Of course they thought like that, why would he ever think otherwise. “Have fun with our kid, Daddio, I’ll collect him tomorrow! He better be alive and well,” Something about their voice is almost mocking, it draws a smirk to the boy’s face. Maybe Merlin Academy’s sweetheart had some tricks up their sleeve. Less of an angel than people thought, huh? He looks down to the dragon, the thing glaring up at him from its perch on his lap. “Well, I bet they’d be mad if I released you, wouldn’t they?” His hand reaches towards it and the dragon snaps its jaws, Morgie quickly recoiling. Wonderful, it hates him. 

                            ╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

   The last three days have been torture for Morgie le Fay, and not in the fun masochist way. (Y/n) (L/n) was exhausting, nothing he did was right. Of course, to be fair, nothing that he tried to do was correct. He knew that. Morgie had no interest in parenting a scaled flame thrower. He hated that thing, and Viper hated him right back. If it bit him one more time he was positive he would lose a hand. Morgie was good with animals, of the normal variety. The type of animals he could shift into were wonderful. But the only villain that the dreadful thing liked was Maleficent, the girl holding it more often than not when they were all together. Morgie likes to believe it was because she could turn into one of the dreadful things, and honestly he was starting to see her as less likable because of it. 

  But, he didn’t have to see it today. Tonight was (Y/n)’s night with it, he was free for just one night. No fights in the morning, no loss of sleep due to an overgrown lizard hoping on his feet and biting them.  At least, he was supposed to be free. So why was sunshine standing in his doorway, holding the creature he oh so dearly despised? Morgie drags a hand down his face, letting out a groan. “Why are you here, (Y/n)?” The perky smile they give him would be comforting if he wasn’t positive that they were planning something. “Well, Morgie, I think we got off on the wrong foot, all three of us,” they force their way into the dorm as they speak, that smile never faltering. “You, me, and the overgrown lizard?” “Baby dragon.” “Whatever,” he sighs, leaning against his door as he takes in the sight. They stand in his dorm like they’re meant to be there, smile ever so warm and bright.  Sunshine in the dark, villainous room. It was nauseating. 

    “So anyway, I thought that maybe the three of us should try bonding. I can’t tell for sure but I think that Viper agrees with me. So I am going to leave him here, and then I’ll be back with stuff for the three of us to have a movie night.” “Absolutely not,” Morgie scoffs, staring at them as if they had gone and lost their mind. “No, it’ll be fun Morgie. Plus everyone knows that you and Hook have a VCR hidden in here and I just bought ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ on VHS.” He stares at them, waiting patiently for them to do something that lets him call their bluff. But they’re smiling, toying with their fingers as the dragon sits beside them, pawing at their leg. “You have Elm Street on VHS? You like horror movies?” They nod, an eager and fast motion that he was sure made them dizzy. “Yeah, who doesn’t? I also have jiffy pop and cold cokes. If you’re down that is,” there’s this longing hope in their eyes that seems to make his stomach churn. “You, little sunshine and rainbows. Mx. Giggles and cupcakes and tutoring, like horror? Like genuinely like horror movies?” “Is that so hard to believe?” It was. They were the picture of perfect and proper. Shouldn’t they be all over “Sixteen Candles” and “Footloose”? This would let him call their bluff, surely they were just trying to look good in front of a villain. 

   “Alright, go get it then.” A squeal comes out of their lips, the royal literally bouncing on their toes as they clap in excitement. “Perfect, you watch Viper and I will be right back!” They’re running out of the door before the boy can argue, typical. The little dragon jumping from where he was in the center of the room to the door, clawing at it with little barks and whines as if it was a puppy. He was kind of cute like that, not in the way an actual puppy would be, but still kinda cute. He’d actually gotten a little bit bigger since the two of them took him in, all (Y/n)’s doing Morgie was sure. They had been the one to pick out the food, and seemingly the only one who could get the thing to do any tricks. It could care less about listening to Morgie. The sorcerer was beginning to wonder if this was how Maleficent’s mother felt, having a little dragon refuse to listen because it hates you. That would be something. 

   “Get off the door,” the boy groans, throwing himself on his bed. It doesn’t seem to care what he said. “Dragon, stop,” he groans, shaking his head as it seems to get more aggressive. “Dragon! Stop scratching the door!” Though he can’t see it, Morgie can feel the way that his eyes flash into snake eyes, something that only seemed to be involuntary when he was angered. Why did that stupid lizard need his project partner so badly? What made it hate him from the second they met? This is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. He was a sorcerer of dark magic, a shapeshifter, that stupid animal should like him more than Mx. Sunshine and lollipops. What is this thing’s problem? 

   When the door’s catch clicks, Morgie lets out a soft sigh, thankful that (Y/n) was back to make the creature stop. “What the fuck?” Hook hollers, jumping back as the dragon hatchling shoots past him, somewhere between running and flying as it tries to get away from them. “Mate, your awful little pet got out,” he snaps, making a b-line for his bed as he strips from his jacket. He hated that thing. Morgie was absolutely positive that he hated that thing, so why is his stomach dropping to his feet? In a flash, Morgie had clambered to his feet, dashing to the door and snatching it back open. 

    (Y/n) wasn’t expecting Morgie to snatch the door open in their face, his own a mix of terror and shame. “Morgie, what in the world-” They don’t get to finish before he snatches the VHS and snacks from their hands dropping them on the table the boys kept by the door before pushing past them. “The dragon wouldn’t stop trying to get to you and then Hook opened the door and the little thing got out.” “You let him get out?” They could feel fear running through their chest as they realized their new companion, their biggest grade of the semester, was godmother knows where. This was bad, this was insanely fucking bad. “Hook let him out, not me!” “This is so fucking bad,” they nearly whimper, staring down the hall the opposite way from where they came to see if maybe Viper would still be visible. “You swear?” 

    They turn to him as if he’s crazy. “You are focused on the wrong thing right now, le Fay. Now come on,” their hand encircles his wrist, dragging the boy down the hall. He would normally fight it, but they looked so scared, and he felt so guilty, so his feet keep pace with theirs. Where do dragons hide anyway? Where would a dragon go if looking for them? Not their dorm, it went the wrong way for that. “Courtyard,” it's straight forward, gentler than he’d ever spoken to them as they pause for a second. “What?” “We hand Viper off in the Courtyard. If he’s trying to find you, that’s where he is.” A smile breaks across their lips and for a moment they let them both stop to breathe. “What?” It only gets bigger, all bright and sunny again, “You called him ‘him’, and his name. You haven’t done that all week.” He stares at them, his own little smile cracking out across his lips, “Yeah, well, it matters to you.” (Y/n) stands on their toes, tapping the tip of Morgie’s nose, “I think we’re growing on you, serpent boy.”  He hums, rolling his eyes but he can’t break the smile, “Yeah, whatever you say. Now come on, let’s go get our dragon.” 

   The two should have let go of each other by now, they know that. Yet (Y/n)’s hand stays firmly on Morgie’s wrist as they make their way to the courtyard. Both teenagers were hyper aware of the fact that something had changed between them, some little weight lifted from both of their shoulders. Not that they’d mention it, not now anyway. They aren’t supposed to exist in the same world, the week would be over and so would any idea of friendship that might be blooming in their minds. A villain and someone who was friends with Bridget could never be friends. That was law. They get to the courtyard in a comfortable silence, the only one that had ever existed between them. Of course, the little dragon wouldn’t just be out in the open, they should have both known that. But that doesn’t stop (Y/n) from getting a little anxious, eyes whipping around the yard wildly in a panic. 

   “Morgie, he’s not here. He’s not here, we lost him. We’re gonna fail and I’m going to lose him. This is awful.” He doesn’t realize he’s reaching out to them until his hand lands adoringly on their shoulder, forcing the royal to turn to him. Once they are, his hand slides to rest under their chin, tilting it upwards. “Hey, he’s probably just hiding because he got scared when you weren’t here. Let’s split up, check the bushes on either side of the yard. I bet you half the bag of haribos in my room that he’s just curled up somewhere.” They nod, taking a deep breath as they step away from him, turning to go check the left side of the courtyard. Leaving him with the right, and the speed he makes towards the bushes shocks even him. This little dragon meant far too much to them, he couldn’t be the thing that let it get lost. Even if it was Hook’s fault, in a way it was his, wasn’t it? He never tried to care for Viper, never tried to bond with it. So of course, he wouldn’t want to be around the sorcerer. He caused this, and if they couldn’t find him, Morgie would own up to that. Maybe Madam Harleen would give (Y/n) a do over? 

   Not that they would need one, when he checks his third bush in the courtyard, something hisses at him. A tiny puff of fire coming with the sound. “Viper,” the name comes out on a sigh of relief as he reaches down for the little dragon. Delicately lifting him up and against his own chest. “You had us worried sick, you know that?” At the comment, (Y/n) turns around. Their face lights up as they stare at the little dragon, the hatchling fighting in Morgie’s arms to get to his preferred owner. Sunshine itself bounces up to Morgie, relieved and excited hands reaching out for him to hand Viper over. He waits until they’re close enough and softly slip the hatchling into their hands. Watching with a strange adoration as they nuzzle their nose against the top of Viper’s head. “Don’t you ever do that again.” Like a mother scolding their child who ran off in the mall they reprimand the little creature, smiling up at Morgie when they’re satisfied. “Thank you.” 

   “Thank me? I’m the reason he got out.” “But, you cared enough to help me look for him. So whether it was for him, or me, or our grade. Thank you.” He smiles back, reaching out to scratch Viper between the wings. “Yeah, well you can make it up to me with movie night.” They smirk, raising their eyebrows, “Maybe. Depends on what type of Haribos you’re hiding in that room of yours.” Of course they would harp on that, the creature of sugar and sun that they were. “Happy colas, but if I pull them out and Hook sees he will for sure demand that I share with him.” He’s met with a hum, and a playful glint in their eyes as they seem to be plotting something. “Yeah well, we can hide them between us. I’m sure you’ll end up clinging to me anyway. I bet you’re a bitch when it comes to horror movies.” He should be offended, he know he should, but instead Morgie’s body is racked with laughter. “Oh you do swear! Who would have thought? Does your mommy know you act like that?” “Oh shut up!” They’re laughing too, smirk falling to a real laugh. “Does Bridget know you act like that? I thought I was the bully here.” He catches a playful smack to the shoulder, laughing as they grab his hand, “Come on. Let’s go before the Jiffy pop gets all gross.”

[tickly-trashcan]

Troublemaker {Jay, Zane, Cole, Kai, Lloyd}

A/N: AUGHGHH this was so fun to write and i realized only after that i basically just made a repeat of my other ninjago fic but.... i love these guys so i think its fine LOL im really glad this was the first prompt because it got me super motivated and now im even more excited to write!! it was hard deciding who to make the lee so i just. picked them all basically and i am so so happy i finally got to write Lloyd with the other four because im not sure if i had yet??? anyways i hope you enjoy and i hope you have a lovely day/night!!

Summary: On a peaceful day, Jay decides to be a menace.

Word Count: 2.4k (under the cut!)

It was a rather nice day out. There was a cool breeze to compliment the warmth coming from the sun, the area was quiet and calm, and the Bounty was docked by a beach, meaning the only sound was distant waves. It was actually a great day… too great.

Most of the ninja were taking advantage of the calm and taking time to relax. Ninjago wasn’t always this calm, so they enjoyed the peace.

At least, they tried to.

Jay, for some reason, was bored. He had been tinkering with spare parts that his parents had sent him all morning, and he was finally tired of it. Perhaps it was the fact that he was naturally much more energetic than the others, or perhaps it was just the odd calmness that the day had granted him, but he couldn’t sit still or relax.

So instead, he decided to go and bug the other ninja.

He wandered around the Bounty, looking for anyone. Nya and Sensei Wu had gone off to the city that day, meaning it was only the ninja on board.

Jay found Zane in the bridge. He was plugged into the main computer, tapping away at a few buttons as the screen flashed. “What’re you up to?”

Zane turned his head slightly, trying not to shift the wires too much. “I’m trying to upload our recent route into the Bounty’s system so we can have it in the map database.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Pixal agrees,” Zane said, gesturing to his head. “I’m almost done, then I’ll take a nap. I feel a bit drained from the upload.”

Jay furrowed his brows. He came here looking for some sort of entertainment, not Zane heading off to snooze. Jay walked over to him and leaned on the back of the chair Zane was sitting in. “Do you want to watch a movie? We could use the computer.”

Zane shook his head. “Nya would kill us if she found out we watched a movie on this. She says we can only use it if it’s important.”

Jay grinned. “I can think of a lot of important movies.”

Zane didn’t respond, making Jay groan. He leaned over Zane and began to press some random buttons, making him gasp. “Jay, don’t! You could cancel the upload!”

Jay stuck out his tongue. “Fine… Poke, poke, poke.”

Jay began to poke at Zane instead, making him squirm. “Jahay! Stop it!”

“My hands need to do something! If I can’t press those buttons, I’ll press yours!”

“My buttohons are all intehehehernal! Stohohop!!”

Jay chuckled, poking at Zane randomly while avoiding the wires. He eventually gave up on the random poking and just scribbled his fingers against Zane’s sides, making him shriek and nearly fall out of his chair. 

The computer dinged from the upload being complete and Jay stopped, now poking the computer’s dashboard. Zane scrambled to shove Jay away, still laughing. “Since when are you so grabby?! No more buttons!!”

Jay relented and laughed, running out of the bridge before Zane could scold him any further. He bumped into Cole on the way, who was coming back from the kitchen.

“What’s the hurry?”

“Zane kicked me out of the bridge!!” Jay whined, hoping for sympathy. Cole only chuckled.

“I don’t blame him.”

Jay opened his mouth to retort, but his eyes landed on a cookie that Cole was holding. Cole noticed Jay’s gaze and grinned. “Want some?”

Jay nodded vigorously and Cole immediately held the cookie high above his head. Jay gaped at him, making Cole laugh as he waved it around. “That is so not fair!”

“Someone else must’ve eaten them all; this was the last one,” Cole drawled, starting to walk away. Jay chased after him, trying to grab at the cookie as Cole chuckled. Cole was taller than Jay, so holding it above his head made it impossible for Jay to even try and grab it. “Isn’t snickerdoodle your favorite?”

“I just want a bite, Cole!”

“Should’ve grabbed it first, then.”

“Okay, now you’re just bullying me!”

Jay held onto Cole’s hip to try and boost himself up, making Cole jerk. Jay noticed this, taking a brief moment before flashing Cole a quick grin.

“Jay, don’t you dare,” Cole barely managed to speak before Jay shoved his hands under Cole’s arms. Cole immediately cackled, folding forward as he snapped his arms down. Jay was quick to snatch the cookie and run, laughing at Cole as he yelled at him. “Get back here!!”

He shoved the cookie into his mouth and ducked into one of the training rooms, silently chuckling as he heard Cole storm past. Jay looked up and saw Kai hanging off of a bar by his hands and staring at him with a raised eyebrow. “Should I be concerned?”

Jay shook his head, wiping his lips of sugar as Kai nodded slowly in doubt. He went back to his pull-ups, and Jay was not surprised at all that Kai chose to ignore his antics rather than involve himself. But Jay being Jay, he was going to try and get Kai involved somehow. “How long have you been training? I thought you’d be taking the day off.”

“I was, but I got bored. I can only play video games for so long before getting restless.”

Jay hummed, walking over to Kai. Kai scooted down the bar a little bit before continuing, eyeing Jay suspiciously. “If you think this is going to help you beat Cole in arm wrestling, you’re wrong.”

Kai huffed. “That’s not why I’m doing it! And even if I was, I’d have to be able to do this with one hand to beat Cole.”

“Then why don’t you try?”

Jay knew exactly how to taunt Kai. He knew how to taunt all the ninja, in fact, but Kai just happened to be the easiest. Kai pursed his lips in thought and Jay walked a bit closer. Kai couldn’t scoot any further on the bar, but he watched Jay like a hawk. It was almost like he knew Jay was up to something.

“C’mon, try it one-handed! I bet even I could do it one-handed if I tried…” Jay drawled.

Kai furrowed his brows. “Oh yeah? I could do it one-handed in my sleep!”

“Then do it!”

Kai didn’t move his hands. He hung there for a few moments in contemplation, and Jay finally grew bored. “You’re taking too long. Let me help.”

Jay grabbed Kai’s left hip and squeezed, making Kai shriek and jump. He let go of the bar with one hand and swatted at Jay, giggling frantically. “Jay, whahahahat the hehehell?? Stahahap!!”

“Prove that you can do it one-handed!”

“But yohohohou’re tickling mehehe!!”

“If you can do it in your sleep, you can do it while I’m tickling you.”

Kai whined, but his pride kept him from giving up. He struggled to pull himself up, both from the tickling and the sheer amount of strength it took. He almost managed to get above the bar, but then Jay grabbed his other hip. Kai fell flat onto the ground with a squeal as Jay laughed.

“You fell so fast! Oh, my— Oh, that was so funny!!”

As soon as Jay was met with a glare from Kai, he scurried away.

Jay was trying hard not to laugh as he snuck around the Bounty, now hiding from three of the ninja. As much as he loved messing with them, he very much did not like the repercussions, and now he was avoiding them at all costs. There weren’t very many hiding places left, however, so Jay quickly decided to duck into their shared bedroom.

He checked if it was clear and breathed a sigh of relief, finally allowing himself a small snicker of triumph. The door opened and he whipped his head around, expecting any one of them to be there. But it was only Lloyd walking in with a plate of cookies. He and Jay made eye contact and stopped for a few moments, both knowing they were caught.

“You say nothing, I say nothing,” Jay quickly spat. Lloyd nodded, shutting the door behind him as Jay sighed in relief.

“They’re all totally pissed at you,” Lloyd said, offering a cookie to Jay, who took it gratefully. The two of them sat down on Lloyd’s bed after Lloyd set the plate of cookies down.

“I’m hardly even doing anything! They just can’t handle my humor, I guess.”

Lloyd downed a few cookies, making Jay raise an eyebrow. “Easy there, you’ll give yourself a stomachache.”

Lloyd grinned. “I built up a resistance to stomachaches when I was younger. I could eat that whole plate if I wanted.”

“Oh really? How resistant is it?”

“It’s basically steel.”

Jay reached over and began to poke at Lloyd’s stomach, making him flinch and huff. “Doesn’t feel like steel. Feels pretty squishy, actually.”

“It’s a fihihigure of speeheeheech! Jahahay!” Lloyd giggled, swatting Jay’s hand away. Jay smirked.

“I don’t get what you mean. If you’re resistant to sweets, shouldn’t you be resistant to tickles too?”

“I dohohon’t think thahahahat’s how it works! STAHahap!!” Lloyd fell back on the bed, trying to curl up while Jay followed him, chuckling.

“If it’s like steel, is it shock resistant too?”

“No, Jay, dohohOHOHON’T!! Nohoho, not thahahat!” Lloyd squealed when Jay began to use small sparks of electricity to tickle him. Lloyd was quickly in a fit of hysterics as Jay laughed with him, not even hearing the door as it opened.

“Looks like we found the troublemakers of the day!” Kai announced loudly, making Jay immediately freeze. Lloyd continued to giggle softly, shoving Jay away as he quickly tried to bargain with the three that were staring at them with hard glares.

“Cole, I only ate one cookie!”

“You did not! You ate at least four!” Jay immediately tattled, trying to get at least some of the wrath taken off of him.

“Trying to save yourself in this situation is hardly feasible, Jay,” Zane pointed out, crossing his arms. Jay gulped and tried to make a run for it, only to be caught by Kai and practically tackled to the ground.

“I suggest you run while you can, Lloyd!!” Jay squeaked out, but Lloyd was already in Cole’s clutches and spilling nervous giggles and squeals.

“Zane, can you get his arms?” Kai asked, making Jay shake his head frantically. He heard Lloyd burst into bubbly laughter from the bed, already begging while Cole tickled him.

“Zane, can you leave my arms alone??” Jay pleaded, but Zane was already pinning his arms down while Kai cracked his knuckles. Jay’s eyes widened and he chuckled nervously. “C’mon, you guys know I was just messing around, right?”

“Don’t worry. We’re just messing around too. Right, Zane?”

Zane nodded with a small grin. Jay looked at him and was about to try and bargain, but Kai’s hands found his underarms before any words could be spoken. Jay snapped his mouth shut and nearly exploded from trying to keep his laughter in, not wanting to give any of them the satisfaction of him laughing.

“Why are you holding back? Laugh!” Kai taunted, raking his hands down Jay’s inner arms before scribbling underneath his arms. Jay arched his back and shook his head, his face turning bright pink from holding in his laughter that was trying to force its way out.

“Zane, wanna help?”

“No!!” Jay gasped out when Kai pulled his hands away from his underarms and instead went towards his tummy. Zane nodded, clawing at Jay’s ribs while Kai scribbled all over Jay’s tummy.

Jay couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore and was quick to break into a fit of shrieks and hollers. Combined with Lloyd’s own frantic cackles, the room was rather loud. Neither of them were quiet when they were tickled, so it was quite the party for everyone’s ears.

“Yohohohou guhuhuys suck!! It tihihickles so bahahahad! This isn’t fahahahair!!” Jay whined, trying to pull his arms down when Zane targeted his underarms. Kai had finished warming up with the frantic scribbles and was now honed in on teasing and pinching Jay’s lower tummy, occasionally squeezing his hips as Jay practically screamed.

Lloyd wasn’t faring much better. Cole had Lloyd pinned in his lap and was holding him there with one leg while he tickled him relentlessly. He squeezed Lloyd’s hips and thighs with one hand and had the other hand shoved under Lloyd’s arm, sending him into complete hysterics as he tried to squirm away.

“I’m sohohohorry, Cohohohole!! I’ll nehehehever do it agahahain!!”

Cole hummed. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

“I prohohohomise— NOHOHohoho!! Anywhehehehere but there, plehehehease!!” Lloyd hollered when Cole suddenly had both hands clawing at Lloyd’s ribs. He threw his head back and nearly pulled both of them off the bed as he squirmed. Cole chuckled at Lloyd’s reactions, glancing over his shoulder for a brief moment.

Jay was wiggling and flopping as much as he could, bargaining and pleading as he was tickled to bits. At some point, Kai had managed to slip his hands under Jay’s shirt and skitter his fingers across his bare tummy.

Cole eventually relented from tickling Lloyd, patting his back lightly while Lloyd didn’t even try to move out of his lap. He hiccuped with giggles as Jay was given a break as well, immediately curling up and swatting at Kai and Zane.

“That wahahas so uncahahalled for,” Jay said after a few moments, squawking when Kai wiggled his fingers at him again. He scooted away while Kai laughed.

“It was so not uncalled for. You’re lucky we didn’t give you chores instead,” Kai said, a small bit of triumph in his voice as Zane and Cole nodded in agreement.

Jay pouted, but he didn’t say anything else in protest. Lloyd timidly pointed over to the cookie plate. “There are still some cookies if you want some.”

Cole chuckled, bouncing his leg a bit so Lloyd jolted in his lap. “A peace offering, huh? I’ll take it.”

Kai grabbed the plate and passed it around. Everyone took a cookie and it did seem to work as a peace offering because the group was chatting as if nothing had even happened. Jay made a mental note to himself to have a stash of cookies in order to get himself out of trouble later on.

[icanbeyourjedi-writes]

It Was Just A Dream Chapter One

Summary: Think of the worst day of your life, and times that by ten. Finding Frankie hanging on to life by a thread was not something Alex Miller ever thought would happen.  When he goes to rehab she thinks things will be better, that was until her step-brother Benny who just happened to also be Frankie’s roommate got called back to action. And now Frankie is her responsibility.  And she has no idea what the hell to do.  Words: 6311  Rating: 18+ SMUT, Adult ThemesWarnings/Triggers:  Addiction, Falling for Your Brothers Friend, Language, Reader is somewhat described--longer hair, but no race/eye color/body type--   A/N: I don’t know much about addiction, just the things that I googled. This is completely an AU. I had the beginning of this story pop in my head randomly and thought it sounded fun to explore. Sure we all love Frankie was that sweet puppy dog…but what if he had his own inner demons he had to battle with.  The ‘coke charge’ was mentioned in TF and I kinda wanted to explore that side of him. 

Just A Dream Masterlist

**This is written as first person, and its my first time writing in first person, so please be gentle with me. I also include Frankie's POV which will be Bold and Italics

**Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story. **

It was an early June morning.  The rain outside gently tapping against the windowpane.  The window still cracked open from the night before letting in a cool breeze that fills the space.  The coarse hair under his chin tickled my bare shoulder.  Small goosebumps rise on my arm as he lifts his head and places a kiss on the exposed skin.  A sigh of content makes him smile.  His skilled, calloused fingers trail up and down the curves of my body.  His lips find my shoulder again as his hand wraps around me, his large hand finding a home on my bare stomach.  Those long fingers of his inching lower and lower, giving me every chance to tell him to stop.  Instead I wiggle back, closer to him pressing my body against his.

His thick member pressed against me, just begging to let him in.  Grinding against him, letting him know that I want it too.  His hand wraps around the meat of my thigh, lifting it up and angling himself to get closer, the tip just teasing my entrance now. At what feels like a snail's pace he begins to push himself inside. Filling me with exactly what I wanted, and him being embraced by the warmth he so desperately craved.  I could get use to this wake up call, and he seems to enjoy it too.

“Mmmhmm” I sigh.  Eyes still closed, caught in that hazy state.  Somewhere between dreamland and reality.  I moan again as he pushes further, my hand that was gripping the bed sheet moves behind me searching for him.  Cupping his cheek, he turns and places a kiss to my palm before my fingers slide further back finding those luscious chestnut brown locks.  I’ve always been jealous of his hair, how soft it was, those curls that formed perfectly at the nape of his neck, you’d have to kill me before I’d ever actually admit to that though.

He takes his time, slowly pulling out before snapping his hips to fill me again.  His tights slapping against the back of mine with every thrust.  Unlike last night, there is no rush.  No hurry, no fear of getting caught.  Slow, and lazy letting us both enjoy this time.  His deep throaty grunts against my skin, and breathy moans of his name fill the space in between thrusts.  Fingers tangled into his hair, he thrusts harder and deeper, hitting that spot just right, working me closer and closer to the edge.  Pulling his hair only makes him work harder to fill my every need and desire.  I pull his hair, bringing his lips to mine.  Moving my body just enough that he starts to hit that spot, that spot only he has found. He swallows my moan, my walls tighten around him gripping him like a vice.  Feeling very ridge of his thick cock.  One…Two…Three more strong, deep thrusts have him spilling into me, painting my walls with everything he has to give.  My fingers still tangled into his hair, holding him close, terrified if I let him go he’ll float away.

He continues to slowly rock his hips, riding out the high he’s just given me.  Our lips move as one, the kisses slow, tender.  Bodies tangled together, he has taken my breath away literally and figuratively.  I have to pull away at some point, turning my head away from him to try and catch my breath.  His lips brush over the shell of my ear, his deep baritone voice asking if I was ok, and nod a yes to him before turning to find his eyes and I know that this is what heaven is.  He kisses my cheek, kissing every inch of skin he can working his way down to my jaw, my neck, my shoulder.  My skin burns with every kiss, every nerve being brought to life.  Feeling his teeth graze against my skin before he bites down.  His teeth are digging in and there is a loud banging on the bedroom door, my eyes fly open.

Sitting up, I see Frankie leaning against the doorframe of the now open door, “Rise and shine…” he smiles, my face is in complete shock and he must have noticed, “shit Lex, are you ok?”

I don’t answer him right away, he calls my name again.  Shaking my head, trying to figure out how just moments again that man who was balls deep, worshiping my naked body is now fully clothed leaning against my doorframe. “Hmm? Oh yeah, yeah.  I’m great.  Just a uh just a dream” I finally respond. 

SIX YEARS EARLIER

I just settled down on the back patio, a good book in hand and a rush cup of coffee, which some might say was more creamer than coffee. But I don’t care, it had been a long week in the office, and I was ready to sit and relax on a Saturday morning. The familiar ringtone of ‘I’m bringing sexy back’ started to play, a ringtone that he picked just to annoy the shit outta me.  Before I was even able to say hello after pushing the green button, his panicked voice came through the speaker.

“Alex, I think I lost Fish…” I hear him running around his house

“How in the hell do you lose a fully grown man Benjamin?” I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose.  I was tired, and I didn’t wanna deal with this shit today

“Gee, I don’t know Alexandra…”he says my name sarcastically “...maybe, it could be because I was distracted by this banging redhead I brought him from the bar last night”

“Ew, eww, ewww…gross Ben” I stop him before he can continue “I don’t need to hear or know any of this information.  Step-sister or not, I don’t need or want to know the details of your sex life.  That is a line we do not cross”

My name is Alexandra, or Alex Miller.  I joined the Miller clan when I was about 8 years old, same age as Benny, Benjamin Miller.  And a few years younger than Will, our older brother.  My mom was a widow and met Mr. Miller on an on-line dating site before on-line dating was cool.  Sure, we Miller kids became close over the years, but you are never that close to share that kind of information, real siblings or step siblings.

“When was the last time you saw him?” I ask 

“This morning, when the sun was rising. I was brining Stephanie some coffee” he sounded so proud of himself for remembering the girls name, “I walked by his room and he was still laying in bed, it’s been about an hour since I last saw him” he sighs “can you please help me find him”

“You last an hour?” I try to joke with him

“Not the time for your little jabs Miller. Help me find him” 

“Of course, call if you find him first” I end the call and slide the phone into my leggings pocket, dumping the coffee into the sink and throwing the rest of the coffee in the sink.  Grabbing a hoodie and the car keys I jog to my car.  It was time to find Fish.

Before I back out of the driveway I remember a text from him earlier in the morning, I didn’t think much of it.  He had been sending a lot of random one word texts to me lately

Fishie 🐟: Lexi, I’m sorry

He was the only person in the world that was allowed to call me that

I knew where he was, it’s the same place I would go when the world and life became too much and I wanted to escape. I showed him this park the first time we met.  It was after Benny’s first deployment, and they brought home Frankie with them.  There weren't many places to escape to in this small town, everyone knew where you were all the time and it at times can be a lot.  This park was a place I could go that was just far enough from downtown that I was able to escape and take a minute to breathe.  

There wasn’t many cars when I pulled into the lot, many of the cars were parked near the trailhead, none of them were the car I was in search of.  I glance towards the back, near the picnic tables and the lake, spotting his truck and I move my car and park in front of his.

Killing the engine I take a deep breath.  Thoughts of why I didn't text him back run through my head, but what was going to say? Sorry for what and then never get a response. He had nothing to be sorry for. I open my door and walk towards the drivers side window of his old beat up Chevy.  Peeking in, I don’t see him. Empty beer bottles, and a few pill bottles tossed on the floorboard and my heart starts to race.  I step to the bed of the truck, nothing.  I move back to the front of his truck, place the back of my hand to the hood, it’s cool to the touch and I realize he’s been here for a while. 

“Shit, Fish…where the fuck are you?” I say into the emptiness around me, I am trying to not panic after what I saw in the truck.  But it’s useless as not only panic, but fear sinks in

I turn and start to walk towards the tables and the waters edge.  The closer I get I notice a body, about his size, he’s slumped over one of the tables and my feet run towards it.  Seeing a black hat, I started to yell his name.  The limp body becomes more into focus the closer I get, that stupid Standard Oil hat he always wears coming into view, the tan jacket he would let me wear some nights.  Yelling his name, trying to get his attention to no prevail I run faster.  His back was leaning against the table, his body slouched.  Head down and arms at his sides, palms face up.  Getting closer I see his eyes closed, and his face flushed, he looks ghostly.  I touch his forehead to find him clammy and barely breathing. I grab his wrist in search of a pulse.

“Fuck, Frankie…Frankie, wake up” I rub his chest, pushing harder the louder I yell his name trying to get him to wake up, nothing is working and I reach into my pocket, grabbing my phone.

“9 1 1 what is your emergency?” a calm voice answers

Francisco Morales, or Frankie to most.  Catfish or Fish to those who knew him best.  Or Fishie to me, is a highly trained and skilled pilot in the special forces branch of the Army.  He is an expert pilot with medals to prove it, that was up till a few months ago  He suffered an injury in a routine training exercise that went bad.  A shoulder injury that just wouldn’t heal.  A doctor had given him pain meds to help, and after a surgery he was given stronger meds.  Those pain meds slowly lead to other drugs, which lead him to cocaine. When he got caught his entire life started to fall apart.  Tom, his Captain, had tried to get him another chance, but by the third time he was out.  Tom did everything he could, and finally was able to convince to be medically discharged, because of his injury, so he could still receive his benefits.  Saying the addiction was their fault, which he did have a point.  Benny offered him his spare room to help him get his life back together.  But over the course of the year, taking care of Frankie became more than he signed up for.  He was more of a parent then a friend and Benny didn’t know what else to do.

“No...no…I don’t know what he took.  He’s barely breathing and his pulse is very weak” I say between sobs, trying to keep it together just enough for help to arrive. I was in way over my head “just please, please send help!”

“I have police and fire on their way ma’am.  They are moving as fast as they can.  How long has he been unresponsive?” the voice on the other end was annoyingly calm,  I knew she had to be, but it was pissing me off

“I DON’T KNOW!” I scream into the phone, “Just please hurry.  Fish…hey Fishie, I’m gonna need you to wake up now, please. WAKE UP” tears begin to fall, I rest my forehead against his.  A silent prayer being said, to whoever would listen, the police sirens growing louder and louder through the valley of the mountains.  I look up seeing the red and blue lights flash off the rocks moving towards us, “they are here, someone is here” my voice cracks

A young woman officer is soon by our side.  I reluctantly slid away from Frankie, letting the officer start to work.  Watching as the officer pulls something from her pocket, popping the top off on her leg, she shoves the nozzle into Frankies nose.  Everything was becoming a blur, it felt like time was standing still, I felt frozen in time while the world around me was pushed to fast forward.  Fire and paramedics had shown up at some point, and they moved him to a stretcher.  Frankie’s eyes were open and he was fighting to get out of the bed.  The paramedics having to restrain him against the bed, getting him to stop thrashing around.  I feel his eyes lock onto mine and they push him away, and I know he can see the tears I feel falling.  Will wrapped his arms around me letting me fall into him, my face buried into his chest.

Benny was being interviewed by an officer, they were trying to piece together what he took and what led to this moment.  I hung onto Will, while the same questions were being asked to me.  A search of the truck while Frankie was in the back of the ambulance being taken care of.

Over the years Frankie had become like family.  Anytime the boys were home for an extended period of time, Frankie would tag along.  The Miller home became his home.  Frankie and I had become close, I was someone he could trust, a safe place for all his secrets.  Things about life, he could never talk to the guys about.  He hated talking, he hated how people would feel sorry for him, except for me.  My feelings towards Frankie never changed. If he wanted advice, I was there, if he just wanted to vent I was there. 

I had developed a crush on him, and if you met him you’d understand.  His soft brown eyes, his boyish smile, with a stupid little dimple.  He had a calm and steady demeanor about him. The way he would look at me when he talked, or when I would go on about some stupid celebrity gossip he didn’t care about.  He looked at me like I held the answers to all the questions, and it made me feel special.  But he was off limits, he’s my brother's best friend and teammate, he was family.  I know Benny and Will, despite being step-brothers, are the most protective people in the world and would kill any man that broke my heart.  I’ve kept this little crush a secret, or at least I thought I did, I always felt like Will knew. 

Frankie’s vitals were normal, the police didn’t find a reason to arrest him so he was released. He refused to go to the hospital. Frankie walks to his truck, the three of us standing watching and waiting for him. He digs his hands into his pockets looking for his keys which you have in your hand.  

“I’m not going to the hospital” he says matter of factly, “where the fuck are my keys” he growls looking directly at Benny who throws his hands up in defense 

“Don’t look at me”

“He doesn’t have them” I say, gripping the key so tight it’s starting to leave an inaction “Frankie”

“Don’t” he looks at me and I can see the betrayal in his eyes “spare me the I should be better and give me my fucking keys Lexi. I want to go home” 

“You were knocking on death's door when I found you Francisco” I never called him that, he’s always been Fishie or Fish. He knew he had let me down anytime that name was used. “You were barely breathing, I couldn’t find a pulse. What did you want me to do? You don’t want to go to the hospital, that’s fine. That’s your choice, but there is no way in hell I am letting you get behind the wheel and possibly kill someone, or yourself because you weren’t paying attention” I grip the keys tighter. I am surprised at how strong my voice is despite my heart breaking inside. 

His jaw ticks, his tell that he’s angry. His hand flex’s in a fish, he’s frustrated, tired, angry and ashamed. “Fuck. And how exactly do I get home? Walk?” He knows he isn’t getting the key, unlike the guys I don’t back down from him

“I’m taking your truck” Will finally speaks up, he had known Frankie the longest. They went through basic together. Other than me, Will is the only one he seems to listen to. Years spent alongside each other, and Santiago Garcia, they have been through some shit. The kind of shit that bonds you in ways normal people wouldn’t understand. “You can ride with me, or Alex” 

“What about Ben?” He asks 

“I have shit to fix,” Benny sighs

The three of us knew the answer. There was no way he would be getting in the car with me. The look of disappointment was enough for him to stay away, he didn’t want to hear my lecture to him. Riding with Will would give him what he needed, look out the window, air in his face and being able to blare the music so loud it would drown out his thoughts. Riding with me, it would be anything but that. 

“Fuck, fine…let’s go Will” he walks past us, bumping my shoulder as he does, he avoids eye contact with me and it breaks my heart even more. “Will, no talking” he yells as he waits for Will at the door 

Will wraps his arms around me, I give him pleading eyes and he seems to know what I’m asking without me saying a word “I’ll try” he whispers before walking to the truck and starting it. 

The cool breeze on his face was just what he needed. The final notes to ‘smoke on the water’ begin to fade on the truck's speakers. Will’s hand reaches to turn the volume down. Frankie opens his eyes and turns his head to face Will whose eyes remain focused on the road ahead. Will was determined to get him to talk, he was just waiting for the right moment. 

“Jesus Christ, just say it already. I know you want to” Frankie sighs, his own voice yelling inside his head

“Say what?” Will replies, his voice calm 

“Please…” Frankie scoffs, “that I’m a loser, a huge fucking disappointment. How I am letting people down. That I should be better. You know all the things Lex would be telling me right now” Frankie closes his eyes. ‘Maybe I should have just gone to the hospital’ he thinks to himself 

Will’s focus remained on the road, he sighs and takes a deep breath. This isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation. Will had this talk with him the first time he was caught with pain meds that weren’t his. 

“She’s right, you should be” 

“I have nothing left Will. All I have ever known, all I have ever been good at is being a pilot. I know how to fly and I know how to kill. I’m useless here, maybe I shouldn’t even”

“Fuck that Fish, you better not finish that thought” Will pulls to the side of the road slamming on the breaks and turns to face him, “you are not useless, you have so much to live for”

Frankie rolls his eyes, “like what? My girl left me before I even landed. She heard the words ‘drug problem’ and she ran. I’m basically homeless, I live with Benny.  I’m jobless, I’m useless.  Face it Will, I am useless and nobody needs me”

“Monica was a bitch” Will says, Frankie shakes his head in disagreement 

“She was smart. She got out when she could, she didn’t let me drag her down” Frankie looks down, his voice grows quiet “something my Mom should have done with my Dad” 

There is a long pause, the silence is deafening. His heart pounding in his chest. Will stays silent 

“He died on my birthday ya know. I was 12, maybe 13. When she came to tell me, it wasn’t like she was sad or anything. It was relief?” He says it as a question because even after all these years, he still doesn’t understand the feeling his mother had. “She said something about us not having to worry anymore. Shit…” he rubs his face “I’m just like him” 

Will stays silent, he didn’t know this story. Frankie had always stayed quiet about his life as a kid. Saying joining the Army was his way out of a shit situation. Will knew he had to help his friend, his brother. But he’s tried, this time Frankie was going to have to be the one that asked for it. Will looks at Frankie, Frankie’s hands shaking “Fish…”

“I need help”

I haven’t heard from him for a few days, it wasn’t out of the normal. But I expected to hear something from him, maybe a ‘thank you for saving my life’ would have been nice. He was mad, I was mad, and it turned the rocky road even rockier. Will mentioned they talked but not much more than that. It was a Friday night, and I just poured myself a glass of rose, getting ready to Netflix and chill alone. There’s a gentle knock on the door and I sigh, I’m in sweats and an oversized shirt, I don’t want to answer the door. 

When I do, I see Frankie standing there, hands in his pocket, like a nervous high school kid knocking on the door of his crush. He’s rocking back and forth not looking at her just yet. 

“Hey” he says shyly, his eyes traveling up from my bare feet to my eyes 

“Hi” I cross my arms 

We stand there in awkward silence, I notice Benny sitting in the car, and I look back to Frankie chewing on the inside of his cheek, “Fish, what are you doing here?” I finally ask

“I’m gonna get the help I need” he finally looks at me again. He stares into my eyes, “I’m sorry you found me like that. I didn’t mean to hurt you” 

“Frankie…” I swallow hard, uncrossing my arms and taking a step towards him. Wrapping my arms around his waist 

“I’ll see you soon” he says hugging me tentatively and I can feel his heart racing 

“I’m happy for you” I pull away, his hands hold my waist, his eyes watery as he looks at me “you’ll be ok, I’ll see you soon” I try to smile

I’m happy for him, he’s going to get the help he needs, I just hope this time it works. He nods, quickly adjusting his cap. Then he leans in and kisses my cheek, he turns and runs back to Benny, his face must have been a mirror image of mine. Shock is probably an understatement. 

“Shut up Ben” I hear him say closing the car door

White walls.

White floors. 

White bed sheets. 

Everything in this place is white, and Frankie hates it all. It’s sterile, the only pop of color is the small garden outside his window, and that nurse Nicole who has been getting to know him.  In more ways than one. Frankie hated it, he wanted out, he wanted a hit of something…other than Nicole…she was great, sure. But he needed something stronger, something to take the edge off. 

He wondered if this was what hell was like. Listening to people's sob stories of what ended them up here in this white prison. An older gentleman with dark gray hair, and sober blue eyes was going on and on about what brought him here. Frankie wasn’t listening just like he wasn’t listening the first dozen times he heard this story. He was focused on the rain drops hitting the window outside. 

“…I should have done this a long time ago.  I pushed away everyone who cared about me, and wanted to help me.  I didn’t think I needed help, we are all soldiers, we don’t ask for help.  I just hope that when this is done and I get out of here they can find it in their hearts to forgive me” the man says, finishing his speech and the small group claps for him

It had been a little over three weeks here, meaning Frankie only had a week left.  He had spent every class sitting in the back on the hard uncomfortable chairs listening to people share their stores of what brought them here.  He wished he was anywhere else, he would have even being back on the battlefield was better compared to this.  This was a nightmare. He was counting down the minutes, the seconds until the little bell would chime letting him know it was time for lunch.  He was trying to remain low, stay out of the way and do as little as possible just to get this done and over with.

“Mr. Morales…” the instructor speaks. Karen was her name? Maybe, he didn’t know. He didn’t care.  She was nice, going along with Frankie hiding in the background, but if he was going to graduate and be able to leave this place, she was going to need him to open up.

His eyes widen, heart races “hmm…what?” everyone still seated in their seats “Would you care to share with us today?” she smiles at him

“Well, uhh….” all eyes are suddenly on him, “I would but, you know it’s time for lunch”.  The little bell chimes again, and Frankie claps his hands together. “Saved by the bell” and there are a few awkward chuckles around him.  People slowly standing and moving their chairs to the side.  Frankie stands and folds up his chair, his name being called just as he reaches the door.

Karen standing in front of him, “can we chat for a minute?” she asks with a look that no wasn’t going to be taken as an answer

“I would, but see it’s taco night, and if you don’t get there early you get stuck with all the broken shells” 

A little ironic, broken shells for the broken man.

“Frankie…” she sighs

“I…uh…I, you’re not gonna take no will you?” he asks and she nods in agreement, “Shit, fine.  He walks towards her desk, grabbing a chair along the way.  It was times like this he wishes they would have let him keep his hat.  His safety net, he wanted to put it on and pull it down where you couldn’t see his eyes. 

“Why are you here?” she asks

“I had heard this place and some great food,” he laughs, and she doesn’t even crack a smile, “tough crowd.  Ok, My friends said I needed to get help”

“What do you think? Do you think you need help?”

“I don’t know” he leans back and crosses his arms

“Then why are you here?” she asks again, “if you don’t know why you are here, if you are here just for your friends, and you don’t want to be here…why stay? No one is forcing you to be here” 

That’s a lie, there's guards at the front door.

“It’s not like I can just walk out the front door.  I already tried that.  I don’t know, I might need help, but this addiction isn’t my fault.  It’s also not my fault that the one person…the only…that someone who cares about me, that I care about found me” he wipes his eyes, not wanting to let the tears actually fall “I didn’t ask her to come find me”

Lie.  He sent that text to her, knowing she could come find him.  She always did.

“And why didn’t you share that, that’s why we are here.  We are here to help you.” 

“Everyone has been saying that, maybe I don’t want help.  Look, I don’t mean to be an asshole.  But what does sharing stories do? Like George, and the, I pushed people away bullshit. His story is nothing like mine.  I don’t care about these people, and they sure in hell don’t give a fuck about me” 

“Because, everyone here is a lot more like you than you think.  For example, Steve you should talk to him” 

“Steve?” Frankie asked

“Yes, the gentleman at the end…the one you just called George. His name is Steve” 

The next few days were spent getting to know Steve.  Frankie hated sharing anything personal but the two of them did have something in common. Steve happened to be a fighter pilot for the Air Force, getting hooked on painkillers after he had retired. Karen was right, this guy was actually pretty ok. They exchanged information, Steve letting him know that he had a friend who could help with the addiction.  

It was finally day 30, the day he was counting down too since he got to this place. He had just finished packing up his shit when there was a gentle hand on his back. Nicole, she wanted to make sure she was able to give him the proper send off. 

He pushes her so she’s bent over his bed. Lifting her white dress, and sliding her panties to the side. Unzipping his own jeans, he pushes into her in one swift motion. A hand covering her mouth as she moans out his name. He wasn’t going to miss this place, he wasn’t even sure if he was going to miss this. Yeah, she was good and always ready for him. But she wasn’t the girl he wished she was. 

His back towards the door, and he continues to rock into Nicole when there’s a knock on his door. He turns to see it slowly being pushed open and his friend, Santiago Garcia standing there. Santiago leaning against the frame, arms crossed and a smirk on his face. 

“Some things never change, do they Cat?” Santiago sighs 

Frankie hadn’t seen Santi, or Pope since he was kicked out of the Army.  Pope wanting to spend time with his girl and the possibility of starting a family. Frankie pulls out of Nicole practically shoving her face first onto the mattress. He quickly tucks himself back into his jeans, smiling at Pope. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Frankie asks. He’s happy and slightly confused

“I’m here to bust your ass outta here” he chuckles, “but that doesn’t seem to be the only thing ready to bust” 

“Shut up Cabrón” Frankie watches as Nicole adjusts herself and moves out of the room. He knows he should have felt guilty but honestly he really didn’t care. “Where’s Ben?”

“Had some shit to take care of. Will and I came to get you, he’s up front taking care of some paperwork. I don’t know he told me to come get you” he shrugs 

“You know you always sucked at lying right” Frankie bends over to pick up the duffle bag and walks out of the bedroom heading to the front door where Will was waiting 

“Hey…hey wait, what about that little chick?” Pope calls after him 

“You want me to what?” I ask in disbelief, watching as Benny makes himself at home on my sofa

Frankie was coming home today, and I had planned a small party for him. Just a little something, some pizza and being around his friends. This was all planned before Benny told me he would be leaving a few days after Frankie got out. 

“He needs to stay with someone for a while, they don’t want him to be alone in case of a relapse” Benny says leaning his head back, “please…I can’t not go, I don’t have a job that allows me to say ‘no’ to them” 

“I…I, why me?” I stutter out the words

“He trusts you” Benny manages to say just as the door opens and Will walks in 

“Hey” he says awkwardly, somehow knowing that Benny just asked you 

It was the most awkward pizza dinner of my life. No one really saying anything. Frankie staring at his slice of pizza picking off the toppings. I had picked up a mushroom and pepperoni one just for him. I knew it was his favorite and watching him sit uncomfortable breaks my heart

“So who was that cute little blonde you had in bed, Fish?” Pope asked, leave it to him to make it even more uncomfortable 

Frankie gave him a look, the term ‘if looks could kill’ was 100% true and Santiago is lucky he wasn’t six-feet under right now. 

“She was a nurse, at least that’s what they call them there. More like a maid if anything” Frankie groans pushing his plate away “I gotta pee” 

I watch as he gets up and walk down the hall towards the bathroom. Santiago going on about how he walked in on him and the so-called nurse. “She was fucking hot too” I roll my eyes, and look back to Benny. 

“I really don’t need to hear this” 

Trying to tune out what they are saying, I too start to pick at the crust of my half eaten pizza. I really don’t need to know about his sexcapades anymore then I need to hear about Bennys. The only difference, I am jealous of this girl I don’t even know. The conversation slowly turns to what they are going to do with Frankie. How do deal with him, the addiction that they are sure wasn’t solved in the 30 days that he was there. 

“Has anyone even asked him what he wanted?” I finally ask, listening to them talking like he isn’t even there. 

“It doesn’t matter, the doctors said he needs to be with someone, at least for a while” Benny sighs 

Frankie comes back, setting a coin on the table.  “If you want to talk about me like I’m not even here. You might want to make sure I can’t hear you. Or better yet, I can make it easier on you all and not fucking be here” 

“Frankie…wait” I grab the coin from the table and stand up, “what the fuck is wrong with you guys?” I turn and chase after him 

He doesn’t have a car, his home for the last few years is too far to walk. He has no money and can’t afford a cab. He opens the front door and stops leaning against the small fence on the front porch. His hands grip the top post, his head down, he wants to disappear but has no place to go. 

“Hey…” I say softly, closing the door behind me and moving closer to him “you forgot this”

I hold the silver coin towards him. A large ‘30 days’ written on it. He looks at me, his eyes flicking from the coin to my eyes and I feel frozen. He lifts his hand grabbing the coin from me and throwing it into the yard, “this doesn’t fucking mean anything” his voice cracks “why did you have to find me? Y’all would have been better off” he looks away. Staring out in front of him 

“Ok…” I sigh, confused and hurt by what he said. I didn’t mean to say that. It just kinda can out. I didn’t know what else to say. His eyes turn to me, angry and watery. I swallow hard, and try to think of the next word. “Do you want to stay here?” 

What the fuck kinda question is that? He literally just told me I shouldn’t have found him. He just spent 30 days in a rehab facility. He seemed so happy when he told me he was going to get help and now. This isn’t the Frankie that left saying he wanted help. 

“Not really…nothing against you. But I don’t understand why I can’t just stay at home. Well, Benny’s home” he turns his body and leans against the fence. Crossing his arms. “I am tired of people telling me what to do. I had a whole month of it, tell us your feelings Frankie, here’s what we’re eating Frankie…” 

“Because Morales, the docs at the rehab facility want you to stay with someone incase of a relapse. You can stay here or head back to rehab. I’m sure Nicole would be happy to welcome you back” Benny had joined us, sitting on the swinging bench

“If you want to stay here…I’d like you to stay. But I understand if you don’t” I tell him, giving Benny an evil glare. “I promise to give you your space. And you can have Nicole stop by if you want” 

“Oh my god, enough with Nicole. She was a good time that’s fucking it. It’s not like I’m gonna marry her.  I’m not doing this because you're telling me too” Frankie groans in defeat

ANN: A huge shout out to @musings-of-a-rose for helping me with this and giving me confidence to post this in first person. I am still terrified of it. @theewokingdead and @heythere-mel for listening to my random ass ideas at all hours. I love each and every one of you.

Looking for more of my fics check out my masterlist. And check out other writers at @littlemisspascal and their library for all Pedro Characters

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Could I request uhhh

Hunte x gn!reader who's alternative and wants to get Hunter to wear some of their clothing style?

That's all I can think of rn :'3

ɴᴜғғ-ᴋɴɪғᴇ-ɴɪᴄᴇ

ofc clem, love alternative clothing lol, and don't worry about it (Also not me doing some research lol)

Requests | Open (read rules on pinned first)

Fandoms | The Owl House

Platonic or Romantic? | Romantic, can be seen as platonic (I think)

he loves your style, its so cool, and for what?

hed love to try on some of your clothes, he thinks you look so cool in them so he will to right?

ye she will it fits his aesthetic and personality perfectly

you two match a lot, sometimes on purpose sometimes not

honestly really easy to get him to wear your clothing style, he just thinks it looks cool and nice and (i used a lot of the same words in this oml)

he likes the baggier clothes, not a big fan of his figure (my hc)

plus its big and comfy and warm, who could not like baggy clothing

and there's the fact that hed probably lift up his shirt randomly and have you wear it with him

like if youre cold and he welcomes you into his sweater/hoodie

skulls, black, 'creepy stuff', etc are his thing (another hc)

he likes darker things, with the few exceptions of stuffies, flowers, and cuter things

either he's wearing dark colors, skulls, snakes, etc or pale pink, blue, green, etc with flowers, bees, and all that stuff (another hc)

its whatever he feel like that day lol

he just seems like the type tbh

also like weird things from the human realm (biblically correct angels, ENA, platypuses, glow-in-the-dark things, etc) seem like some things hed like

if you somehow bring some of those things back for him hed be over the fucking moon

he's keeping it safe forever and not letting anyone touch it

[the-magnificent-otaku-draws]

Hey, I just saw your Ryan and min adopt baby hazel au. I just gotta say is SO cute to make one day! My question to this is....how did Ryan and Min adopt hazel. I'm just curious to know. :3

I'm glad you like it, but its not really a fleshed out AU yet, it's more like little cute ideas I think of randomly. The one thing I am certain of is that Ryan and Min still make music and travel,it's just that they visit home more often. Mainly for holidays but sometimes to just chill at their parents place for a week or two. At the start of the AU they're both pretty new to it so Min-Gi's parents and Ryan's sister help a lot.

Min's parents are pretty nervous at first, they're still getting used to him not following the life path they expected him too, but once they see how clearly dedicated he is and how serious he takes being a father they back him up 100%. They're the type of parents to start suggesting those life plans that are supposed to add money to their kid's bank account as they get older and say they should play classical music for her so she's grows up to be just as smart as he is (Their exact words). They smother her just as much as they did with Ryan and Min,Jeong-ja especially. She brags to her friends that she's the first one to have a granddaughter who's learning so fast and takes as many pictures as she can so she can make sure she's there for EVERY big milestone

Ryan's parents are a little less involved, not because they don't want to be but Ryan is just kind of hesitant to go back to his old home and see them. He felt neglected by them as a kid and he's scared Hazel is gonna get lost in the mix of having so many people in the house. But his mother Yuki is trying to get better. Sometimes she struggles since she's not used to focusing on one kid at once but Hazel likes her. Yuki's awkward quiet is a nice break from all the fussing from everyone else so she ends up falling asleep in her arms a lot. Ryan's dad is actually pretty chill, Ryan doesn't really see it but they're a lot alike so Hazel almost instantly clings to him. His little brothers - Michael and David - are in middle school at this point so they don't really deal with her much. Marie - one of his sisters- says they should get babysitting duty eventually but after David tried to put her bottle in the microwave for 10 minutes instead of 1 it was a hard no

Now Joyce and Marie are the ones who are the second most involved in their families. Marie is the more ''mature'' one, at least she thinks so,she tries to be more practical with Hazel. When Ryan and Min aren't home she's in charge of things like bottles and baths,but she's also the aunt that gets their niece fancy baby clothes that they out grow in like a week. She says she doesn't want her niece to be a fashion disaster like Ryan (Her exact words) so she goes all out,not that Hazel notices. She also tries to get Hazel to say 'auntie' as her first word but she's competing with her sister for that

Joyce is basically the responsible but fun aunt,or she tries to be. She doesn't want to admit it but sometimes she does try to compete with Marie as best aunt, its a sister thing. When she's not doing that she's pretty cool, playing with her and taking her places like the park or the beach. She lets her do more ''risky'' things,which really just means playing anywhere where her clothes might get dirty or she might end up with her tripping over herself. Joyce doesn't let her get seriously hurt though,she just doesn't wanna hold Hazel back from exploring. Most of the time when they can't go out she just talks to her. Sometimes Ryan ends up walking in on Hazel just babbling baby talk and Joyce nodding along and listening like they're in a serious debate. It actually helps her learn how to talk faster than other kids, something Joyce brags about whenever she can

I might make another post talking about the actual dynamic between Ryan,Min and Hazel later on when I do come up with something but lemme know what you think so far

[anonymous-nobody-ghoul]

1. Whatever font is there when I open Word or Google Docs. I don't care when I'm initially writing. I just want to get it down. When I'm posting I'll usually change it to something different if I feel like it.

2. I could write by hand. I actually used to exclusively write by hand when I started in middle school and until I found an app to write on my phone. Even then I had a specific notebook filled with ideas and little blurbs. I just recenty typed them all onto my computer. Also only I only write with pencils. I make to many mistakes not to.

3. I pretty much only write during class or when I'm putting things off. I also have to put on music that doesn't have words or I'll get distracted or can't write.

4. For feral in a good way, its "broken." And in a bad way, its "moist."

5. If I have an idea in my head and I write it down, I'll never be able to imagine the story in my head again. The first time I was like "That's a great idea! Let me write it down!" And I have never been able to imagine that story again in my head. This has proven true for every story I have in my head that I have written down. Unfortunately that is the same for the stories I am currently writing...

6. My family will find it. I do NOT want to explain any of it to them. Except my sister. She's cool.

7. Love people being able to see and like what I write. I hope I'll live up to their expectations.

8. Without dialogue for sure. I've actually done that before for an english class and it was so fun! I'm very used to have a TON of dialogue in my stories. My teacher challenged me to write a story without dialouge as extra credit. If I can find it I'll post it.

9. I believe in ghost. If just for the fact that its cool as hell.

10. I don't believe that a piece of writing has ever "haunted" me. I either look fondly on something, hate it, or just forget it. While it isn't really a piece of writing I do have something of mine that "haunts" me. A thought I had for years in my head whenever we were driving away from bad weather. I said it once outloud when I was in a friends car. "Its like we're running away from the clouds." My friend and her mother were "haunted" by those words. We are no longer friends for some not so happy reasons. I'm "haunted" by the fact that anytime she might be driving away from bad weathe that she might once again think about what once was. Just like I do.

11. I actually had to look up what "kill your darlings" meant. I don't know if I do that really. I do have some alternatives for certain scenes I write. I actually have a whole different prolouge to "Safe Space" because I was writing it and didn't like how it was exactly. I scraped the original prolouge and rewrote it entirely. However, I still have the original prolouge cause I still liked it. It just wasn't what I wanted for "Safe Space."

12. My first wish would to never be stuck trying to think of a certain word and getting stuck again. I have literally stopped writing stories, mid sentence, because I couldn't think of a certain word I wanted to use. I do the same for school assignments as well. My second wish would probably be getting rid of my writing superstition. I want to be able to visualize more to "My Crazy Love" and "Safe Space." I've only got what I visualized before I started writing them. My third wish would be the ability to WRITE IN THE SAME PERSON WITH OUT RANDOMLY CHANGING THE PERSON I'M WRITING IN.

13. I struggle writing emotional stuff. I basically put myself into the shoes of my characters and if I can't imagine myself with those feelings (i.e. vulnerability, sadness, love) I can't write it. On the other hand, I've never had a problem writing violent or gorey scenes.

14. I do not lend my books put anymore. Even when I was a kid I didn't lend books out to anyone. I lent a book ONCE to a friend (same as 10) after she beged and promised she would take care of it. She returned it with the spine broken! I didn't lend books to anyone again. Except when my mother made me lend my younger brother my books. The first time I was forced to, it was the first Artemis Fowl book my teacher got for me. He somehow ripped the pages from the front cover and spine. He also damaged the front cover by somehow ripping holes into it! My mom "fixed it" with BLACK ELETRICAL TAPE. When I had a breakdown over it, she said she'd buy me a new one and I didn't let her cause I'm emotionally attached to my posessions. The second time was with my 1984 book that he took camping with his GF. It rained in the night and the entire book was water damaged. I do have books I'll never get back. My sister and I gave all our manga to a friend after my mother made us get rid of it cause she thought I was a lesbian. When I turned 18 I asked for them back and the friend said that her mom had "accidentally donated them" and that she would give me all her money to make up for it. I said no and just wrote off thousands of dollars spent on those manga.

15. I personally try to keep my books as pristine as possible. It's just how I personally like to keep my books. I don't mind what people do to their own books. HOWEVER. If you do that to a library book or a loaned book we can never be friends. Dog-earing is on thin ice with library books, but don't EVER do that to any books I won't lend you.

16. I've used empty gum wrappers, recipets, other books, feathers, random ripped paper, business cards, and full sheets of paper as bookmarks. You pick.

17. For "My Crazy Love," it was originally an X Reader, not and X OC. Also Elizabeth and Daniel had different names. Elizabeth's was obviously (y/n) and Daniel was James. The characters were based of my and my friend in middle school. We used to talk about Creepypasta all the time and made our own characters that were siblings not by blood. The backstories for our characters are actually are based on our lives. However, the friend decided calling me a whore randomly was okay and so I kicked him in the nuts and said we were no longer friends. I also originally posed "My Crazy Love" on Deviantart and Quotev when they were the most popular fanfiction sites. You can find the original chapters 4-9 + a "Halloween special" right now on quotev. Jack is also based on a kid I knew from school. Why? I don't remember. I think I was just trying to think of a person who would know both Elizabeth and Daniel and he just fit the bill. I could have also been pissed off at him for some reason.

18. The whole story of "My Crazy Love" came from 1) my role playing with the real life Daniel and 2) a Creepypasta fanfiction I read about the reader in a mental asylum and escaping to Slender Mansion after seeing Slenderman watching her in the asylum. It was on Deviantart and I cannot find it anymore. I was just like, "that would be fun to write about" and so I did. It was as cringe as you think a 6/7th graders writing about Creepypasta with their Mary Sue-ish OC turned x Reader you can think. (If you have a specific passage you want to know about let me know and I'll try to respond with how it came to be.)

19. I started writing when I could start writing in kindergarten. I loved making up short stories and telling people them. As I moved from elementary to middle school I started writing short scary stories. Then one winter, I wrote a fanfiction about Black Butler x Alice in the Country of Hearts crossover on like 20 front and back sheets of printer paper. I didn't know what fanfiction was at the time and just wanted to write about a chatacter that reincarnated everytime they died as different Alice in the Country of Hearts characters to help the Phantomhive line. It wasn't even romantic, just a kid having fun.

20. I'm choosing to publish my perfect WIP. I most likely won't ever have someone I love romantically. I just get infatuated with someone for like a week then I'm not anymore. I have my animals and my family and I'm perfectly fine with that. Hell, I'll just get my friends to all buy houses in the same neighborhood and have a little family like that.

21. I never want to quit writing and would never dream to never have started. It brings me great joy to write, even if nobody else liked it or even if I never post it. I just love getting stucked into the world and zoning out into the story. Its relaxing and therapeutic for me.

22. I have different folders for different stories. Then I have separate docs for each chapter, the chapter revamps, and any chapters that had different scene versions. So I'll have Chapter 1 as a doc, then a sepreate doc for Chapter 1 Revamp, and another doc for Chapter 1 Alternative. I also have a doc with all the chapters in one with a table of contents and cover page. I call it the book doc.

23. Normally I'm writing in one of my classrooms during a lecture. I always make sure to sit near the door and if possible the last row. I also like to sit with at least one empty chair between me and another classmate. I always write on my laptop with a external mouse plugged in because my touchpad buttons don't work without nearly breaking my finger to get them to register. I work in crome if I'm writing in Google Docs. I will always have at least one tab open on crome for music that I listen to with my maroon skullcandy bluetooth headphones. If I'm writing on Word I'll open the previous chapter, the current chapter, and the book doc open at the same time. I do the same for Google Doc just also with my drive folder open as well. I usually sit crisscross, on my knees, or sitting one one leg with the other resting on the seat and my head resing on that leg in my seat. I don't know how to "properly" type, but I can type quickly with multiple fingers. Then I have one of two writing styles. Get so sucked into the world that I don't notice the passage of time, OR writing feels like its taken forever and it's not even been 5 minutes. If need be I'll go and reread the previous chapter(s) to get my ideas flowing.

24. I start of with the beginning pretty much fully fleshed out and some middle parts fleshed out. I only start writing after a while of my imaging the story in my head. I just have to figure out everything alone the way. I never have a really good idea if any about how the story is going to end.

25. In "My Crazy Love," Dennis and Tina are dating and only started dating as a result of Elizabeth and Daniel's first trip "downstairs" and the resulting cafeteria bloodbath. If Elizabeth and Daniel hadn't gone the Tina and Dennis wouldn't have meet. Tina was on infirmary duty when Dennis was attacked and was assigned to watch after him. They became close and started dating, but keep it on the down low as its not allowed.

26. The characters are me, just as I am them. They are apart of myself, and I use them to get through my emotions. It's why its so easy to write violent scenes for me cause I get easily angered. It's easy to get out of their heads cause I'll just distract myself or get interrupted at the end of class.

27. The most stressful character to write for was Daniel before I changed his name from James to Daniel. It was just a constant reminder of a friend who betrayed me when I kept having to write his name.

28. To be honest I love writing for all my chatacters. Well, except the ones your meant to hate cause I hate them. It's fun being able to shape and mold them to my will.

29. I get most of my inspiration from other writers, from songs I listen to, and from my own emotions. If I'm in a funk I'll put on some music thag fits the mood I need to express, or I'll reread some stories that I like, or just wait until I'm in the same emotional space as the characters to write.

30. I have written about my dreams, but I've never taken inspiration from them. All the dreams that I have and remember are bad dreams about being abandoned in some post-apocalyptic nightmare after saving my family or having to find my sister but being unable to. I'm actually a lucid dreamer, but I can't change what happens. I just know I'm dreaming. I have written in my dream, but just about what's going on in the dream or like a dream contract thag I have to write to further the dream along.

31. I am sincerely greatful for all the love I have received from what I have posted so far of "My Crazy Love" and "Safe Space." It brings me great joy that the silly little stories in my head also bring joy to others. I hope everyone will continue to enjoy the stories I post just as much as I enjoy writing them.

32. "And I will skin you alive, burn you into a roast, and hack you into pieces to feed to the most savage animals I can find and laugh at your demise!" from Sar61_Sanz6's "The Rule of a Queen" on Ao3. I found this fic because I was listening to "Queen of Mean" from Decendents 3 and wanted to read a songfic based on it. I got what I wanted an more! I just love a goody two shoes breaking character and becoming badass. Plus its a crossover with Batman and has a poly relationship. Love rereading it whenever I get into a bad mood. Or want to feel powerful.

33. I knit, crochet, sew, and bake. Some of you may have seen the pictures of my Solar Lunacy Y/N cosplay and Aya Drevis cosplays that I sewed. I also sew plushies and I sew them by hand. They don't really crossover into my stories. I have made an Eyeless Jack plush before that I still have.

34. It's a comma? I'm shit at grammar so I just let whatever doc I'm using to autocorrect what I'm writing.

35. When I'm writing for school I just do not write transition sentences. I really do not care for them and I get good grades so. As for my stories... I just write how I feel like and don't really care about any rules. If it sounds and looks good I'll keep it.

36. So much about random shit. I know about a lot of animes that I haven't watched or read. I know a lot about Greek mythology. I obviously know a lot of murdery and torture stuff. I know a lot about certain mental health issues. I know a lot about gay shit. Just so much, yet not enough.

37. Probably that I'm very screwed up and very knowledgeable about random crap. I've got a lot of personal writing that's not very happy stuff. And I have written so many different research papers about random crap that I still remember.

38. Chapter 4 of "My Crazy Love" has a section that was written when I was very upset. So it is a bit different from the other chapters. I get very depressed sometimes and when I get tired I'll write comfort stuff. I was feeling a certain type of way and so I wrote it and decided to keep it. This is typically how all my emotional scenes happen.

39. I just what to finish the story. That's what keeps me going.

40. Here's one of my own creation.

I've got enough negativity in my mind to last me a life time;

So don't tell me you want to die.

I got enough problems of my own; I don't need yours as well to hang on over my head.

That kind of talk make people you love leave you;

Makes them doubt themselves and there love.

Make them think they aren't worth it;

That they don't deserve it.

So stop with all the negativity;

We don't need it.

Come and join the family;

Just forget it.

Why does one persons actions make you want to die?

Just forget about and it come into the light.

Weird Questions for Writers (because writers are weird)

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

2. If you had to give up your keyboard and write your stories exclusively by hand, could you do it? If you already write everything by hand, a) are you a wizard and b) pen or pencil?

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

5. Do you have any writing superstitions? What are they and why are they 100% true?

6. What is your darkest fear about writing?

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

8. If you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

11. Do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve?

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

14. Do you lend your books to people? Are people scared to borrow books from you? Do you know exactly where all your “lost” books are and which specific friend from school you haven’t seen in twelve years still possesses them? Will you ever get them back?

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

20. If a witch offered you the choice between eternal happiness with your one true love and the ability to finally finish, perfect, and publish your dearest, darlingest, most precious WIP in exactly the way you've always imagined it — which would you choose? You can’t have both sorry, life’s a bitch

21. Could you ever quit writing? Do you ever wish you could? Why or why not?

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

23. Describe the physical environment in which you write. Be as detailed as possible. Tell me what’s around you as you work. Paint me a picture.

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why?

29. Where do you draw your inspiration? What do you do when the inspiration well runs dry?

30. Talk to me about the role dreams play in your writing life. Have you ever used material from your dreams in your writing? Have you ever written in a dream? Did you remember it when you woke up?

31. Write a short love letter to your readers.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

33. Do you practice any other art besides writing? Does that art ever tie into your writing, or is it entirely separate?

34. Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?

36. They say to Write What You Know. Setting aside for a moment the fact that this is terrible advice...what do you Know?

37. If you were to be remembered only by the words you’ve put on the page, what would future historians think of you?

38. What is something about your writing process YOU think is Really Weird? If you are comfortable, please share. If you’re not comfortable, what do you think cats say about us?

39. What keeps you writing when you feel like giving up?

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

[radioblonde]

BRAT 2.0 RELEASE NIGHT

omg It's literally everything.. and more. I couldn't possibly find the words to explain how its got me feeling, so just listen to it whenever and wherever you're reading this nd feel that shit!

these remixes r golden. I got heavy into music yearsss ago thru Tay Swift, so I'm not used to a good remix from my fav.. like ever. SO here r my fave brats:

literally how did they encapsulate such a rare dynamic on Apple lyrics w/ The Japanese House?? ++ feelings fluctuating from the original album/song to this remix. It's so cool how the lyrical story is paralleled across albums, between songs. widening the scope of the lyrical landscape is so genius..charli u never cease to inspire me baby! I have this friend who suggested I listen to Japanese House earlier this year,, we met super randomly and shortly after they pmo to Chappell Roan lol

Is Everything Romantic? this songggg once again reminding me that everything is, even instead when it feels like everything might j be fleeting or momentary. Songs like these r why I started writing. Making some of my own, or remembering stories like a timestamp that I couldn't stand leaving as history,, rather than a reminder of everything I’ve feared to lose without the permanent ink. I also love Caroline Polachek. Her art is freeing. To all of those I've known that now know of her, you're very welcome. she's prob my proudest tiny desk discovery, alongside CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso.

Never in my life have I heard a track like Club classics with bbtrickz

"I must confess, I'm under stress.." eazzily and inexplicably topping me and this list. rewind u will be cool 4evaa. I just feel like diving into and living in the production forever.

brat szn is alive and ready for more! the apple is closer to the tree than ever xddd I'm still gagged! I think I prefer 2.0 <3

[frostbite-the-bat]

random rant about a classmate below because i am still goin wacky zany over this and the fact nobody listened when i tried to explain like. yknow. the actual. facts. and i thought despite these things being an interest of mines, i was bad at them and knew very little, at least this was reassuring that i am not as well uneducated about these things. what was it over?? my classmate being just SO SURE that dragons exist

like im thinkin abt how hard i was fucking holding back she was like" DRAGONS EXIST OTHERWISE - WHY DID WE CREATE THIS WORD?? HOW DID WE COME UP WITH THEM!! IT MEANS FOR SURE THAT BACK IN THE DAY PEOPLE SAW DRAGONS AND SO IF THEY ONCE WERE REAL IT MEANS THERE COULD STILL BE ONES AROUND!! SRSLY!! HOW DID WE COME UP WITH THIS ? THATS BECAUSE WE DIDNT!!! HUH YEAH!!! IF THOSE LIKE DINOSAURS EXISTED ONCE IF MAMMOTHS COULD EXIST ONCE THEN DRAGONS AND THESE GUYS COULD TOO!! LIKE!!! THEY FOUND SOME DRAGON IN REAL LIFE IN SOME JUNGLE!! IT doesnt fly but it glides BUT!! IT'S LIKE A LIZARD AND IT CAN ALMOST FLY SO THAT MEANS IT'S LIKE THE CHILD OF A DRAGON THAT ONCE EXISTED!!!!"

and i may be typing this in all caps lock but all of this is stuff she actually said and i was just there hyped to talk about how to train your dragon and then happy to educate about dinosaurs and evolution but oh my god literally nobody in the room understood the fact that just because you want to it doesn't randomly exist and language evolved as we went so we now have words to describe things, even fictional ones, and people in history were dumb and often didn't even know they had bad vision and would quickly jump to conclusions like OHH MYSTHICAL ANIMAL and sooo much more shit i will not even get into but nope that dont matter because i guess if the word "Dragon" exists and people in Them Medieval Times :tm: knew about dragons it is 100% proof that they had to be real. she. she. even pulled out like. a photo of a fossil - a dinosaur's jaw imprint and i cannot tell what it was she was far away but she was like "SEE!! SEE!! DRAGON!!!" oh my god and i thought i was wacky zany for being like "hmm yknow itd be cool if these things existed for real! id like that. but theres just no actual evidence and people are a bit dumb. still cool to think about!" but this is next level. she even thought that because birds evolved from dinosaurs, it means we evolved from them too

oh my gOOOooOOoOooDDDDDDDDi am goIGN INSANEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE what is she on first she turns out to be a tradwife, then transphobic of course and then this what the fuck is she reading :skull:

this.... convo stemmed from us poking fun at marriages we have been to (instead of partying at one i went inside, ate all the cake and watched how to train your dragon) and then religion, for some reason? i said that well yknow if that stuff were real all of us would be descendants of incest because it was all adam and eve at first and how ridiculous it is. and like "no calm down despite us humans being like the same species and evolving from the same damn thing we are not THAT closely related like no you and your boyfriend can date and such it only becomes an issue if you are very closely related. are you okay." and then she just randomly went on this rant like i was losing my shit i was tryna explain how shit actually works but no :skull:.

like. and what does she mean by dragon anyway. big scaly lizard, bat wings on its back, can breathe fire???? if these fuckers existed not even a 1000 years ago we'd!! have evidence of it!!! theres a lot of undiscovered shit but if we can find fossils from millions of years ago dug up like that we'd easily find some shit like a dragon!!!! my godddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

[py-dreamer]

OK SO.

MK is absolutely failing, mans makes the cheesiest remarks but their just cheesy enough + sunshine energy makes it juuuuuuust endearing enough. (cough cough Red Son) But it only works when he finds something in the heat of the moment, if he tries to flirt with someone randomly it will be so awkward, someone pls save this monkie boi

Mei I think has some game. She's a cool confident biker girl who is also a dragon and a famous streamer and very protective of her loved ones. She has a very welcoming personality, strong demeanor and sure, might come off as a little much but I bet she could absolutely pull someone off if she wanted to at like a party or something.

Tang is a wet cat. He is pathetic and lazy. He is lame and we love that for him, but that doesn't mean he isn't. He is a scholar surrounded by books and legends and he would use references that would absolutely fly over other's heads. BUT sometimes he would babble out the weirdest but also cutest metaphors and means well. Just cute enough to capture the heart of a certain chef but not enough to pay his tab.

Sandy is so undeniably sweet. He is an absolute gentleman who respects boundaries and is emotionally available AND he has a boatload of cute cats. And courtesy of huntsman: has "very big muscles". This precious bean already completed the journey and should absolutely reap the rewards.

Red Son I was a bit stuck on him cause I'm gonna be honest he seems like a hit or miss guy. He is very dramatic and also a bit of a tsundere. So when he flirts it can be hot as hell or horribly awkward and will just fly over your head (cough cough Mk) But I guarantee he can be very very sweet when he really pours his heart into it and those moments where he's honest feels straight out of a romcom movie.

Pigsy, I don't think is big on flirting. Seems more like an act of service/affection through words. He won't say much but its little things like maybe putting a blanket over someone when they fall asleep at a table (Tang), making a warm drink and being there to listen. But I think in those really rare moments when he opens up, he will speak all softly and his words will absolutely melt a certain freeloader's heart all over again.

Macaque is also very dramatic. (He is a theatre kid) And I wanna bet back in the day, he wrote poems, sonnets all that jazz for his beloved king In private, he would compose the cheesiest yet sweetest songs and perform it for one pair of eyes alone. Nowadays, I feel his love language is just bullying. He will pick on his still mate Wukong to get his attention but does sometimes go a little to far. When he does though, he will avoid actually confronting the problem and just ignore it but sometimes he might extend an olive branch and a small act of service like a peach or hell do something like pigsy and lay a blanket over his king partner when they're asleep via shadow portal (Also I bet that he occasionally whispers the dirtiest, filthiest things into someone's ear)

Wukong will also use the cheesiest pick up lines. He is playful as all hell and has a very prideful demeanor to pull it off, he will absolutely use the title 'handsome monkey king' to his advantage and it does garner a few gazes. However the stage fright does get to him eventually and he will keep an arms length distance. BUT if he really does like them, I think he is very physically affectionate. Like he will wrap a tail around a wrist or waist, subconsiously gets physically closer, place an arm around a shoulder, try to fix certain bits of your outfit (like he did for a certain theatre monkey) even play fighting. Acts of service are rare but when they do happen, they have a lot of thought put into them. And for one pair of all-hearing ears, he would do a little performance of his own. Very few beings have ever heard the great sage sing and maybe only one managed a duet.

(also check out @furornocturna's fic fractured pieces make a mosaic on ao3. It has one of my favorite iterations of shadowpeach and is this just an ad to read that fic?

yea it kinda is, the fic is really good pls check it out the author deserves more love)

[archived-kin]

caught in a twin courtship

note from kin: i’m going to be honest i only really wrote this because the title is fun to say, so it isn’t as cohesive as i normally would have wanted to make it

(this is an au where the twins aren’t separated by the unknown god! instead, just their world-hopping powers were stolen, and that’s why they’re journeying to find said god - to get their powers back so that they can go home. i’ve also excluded paimon since i kind of forgot about her while writing this haha)

(this doesn’t follow canon at all since reader and the twins just kind of start wandering about after the dvalin incident rather than heading straight for liyue oops)

fandom: genshin impact

character(s): gn!reader, lumine, aether, diluc, venti, jean

pairing(s): aether/reader/lumine

warning(s): i don’t think so??

genre: fluff with a little bit sprinkling of angst

you first meet the twins in the aftermath of the stormterror battle. it isn’t a glamorous introduction by any means - it’s pretty unflattering, actually - but it definitely makes a powerful first impression.

the group - aether, lumine, venti, diluc, and jean - are on their way back to mondstadt city, making small talk here and there, but mostly just walking in silence.

then they hear a yell in the distance.

jean and lumine both drop into a battle stances, venti leaps to hide behind aether with a very unmanly squeak of fear… but diluc, who arguably should have been the most alerted by this occurrence, just gives a resigned sigh and pauses.

a split second later, a figure comes speeding up to the group. you barrel up to diluc and immediately punch him square in the stomach, yelling “why didn’t you tell me you were going after stormterror?!”

aether and venti both give matching gasps of horror at the blatant disrespect, but diluc only shakes his head and catches your fist as it goes for another blow, this one aimed at his chest, and chastises, “calm down, i left a note.”

“i left a note,” you mimic, an absolutely awful impression that has you sounding more like a mosquito than the darknight hero, “fat lot of use that is when you aren’t even telling me where you’re going!”

diluc evades another jab at his arm and firmly sets his hands on both your shoulders, effectively anchoring you to the ground. you contemplate swinging your feet at his knees and knocking him over, or maybe shocking him with your electro vision, but ultimately decide that you might as well try to preserve what little dignity you have left in front of those three people you’ve never met before

so you stop with a defeated sigh and turn to face said three people to introduce yourself

it turns out that you’re diluc’s cousin and he’s been having to baby-sit you for the last few years after your own parents left on a ‘business trip’ to snezhnaya that they’re still not back from

you’re pretty sure they’re dead, killed by the fatui, and you say as much during your introduction without even the slightest sign of distress, which is a little unsettling

lumine’s first thought is that you’re quite the interesting character, what with the casual way you treat diluc, and how you don’t seem to question whatever situation lead you to meet in the first place

aether’s first thought is holy shit, they’re cute

one twin greets you in return with a lot more enthusiasm than the other, and venti the bard wastes no time in asking whether you have access to good master diluc’s wine storage

(you’d be shocked by the audacity if you weren’t just as bad as him when it came to shamelessness)

strangely enough, the fact that aether likes you so much actually makes lumine more wary of you than she was initially

aether trusts too easily, and from experience, that usually leads to disaster - and your flippancy regarding your parents’ apparent probable deaths rather inclines her to think that you might be a very dangerous person indeed

the three of you don’t see each other for a couple of days after that - you and diluc leave for dawn winery together, while the twins depart with venti to wrap their whole situation up, and jean returns to her duties in mondstadt city

all this time, apparently unbeknownst to even himself, aether keeps finding ways to bring you up in the middle of conversation

you’d only spoken to him for a few minutes and somehow that as enough to get him absolutely fascinated

lumine would be lying if she said she wasn’t still curious about you as well, but it gets annoying after aether somehow manages to mention how ‘mysterious’ your black cloak is in the middle of a conversation about why mitachurls are able to randomly set their axes on fire

luckily for these two, they happen to run into you the very next day!

you’re in the middle of taking out a ruin guard stomping around the thousand winds temple -  a ruin guard that the twins had been meaning to take down themselves, which is why they’re here in the first place

at first they move to help you, only to stop short and watch in awe as you plunge down at the ruin guard from atop one of the enormous pillars, your polearm held steady in your grasp as your entire body seems to spark and glow with a deep purple electro energy

the sharp blade of your polearm goes clean through the top of the ruin guard’s head and shatters its core, and it sinks to the ground with a massive thud that echoes around the temple ruins, massive wooden limbs twitching and jerking as the last of your vision’s energy disperses from it

aether and lumine are basically star-struck

from there you spot them and call them over for a conversation, show them how to take apart a ruin guard’s circuits to get at the good parts, and somehow end up agreeing to journey with them across teyvat in their search for an unknown god who stole their abilities to hop from world to world as well as their apparent true power that allows them to wield all seven elements at once

the details are a little lost on you, but what you’re hearing is that you get to go on a cool adventure with a cool gal and a cool lad, so you’re pretty much all for it

diluc isn’t too happy about you up and leaving without so much as two week’s notice (partially because he has literally no friends apart from you and he’d get lonely without his little cousin bothering him all the time) but you simply tell him to deal with it and go anyway

(you do give him a big hug and promise to visit, you’re not heartless)

from then on you, aether and lumine become a dynamic trio like no other

it’s actually pretty damn spooky how well the three of you end of working together

aether and lumine had long since formed a style of fighting that meant they made up for each other’s weak spots and could attack in perfect sync, but then you come along and somehow manage to make their already pretty flawless formation even better

is it witchcraft? they honestly don’t know

considering you fit so well into their battle strategies, it follows that you’d also slot perfectly into their every day life

lumine is cautious at first, wondering if your presence would disrupt her and her brother’s long since pre-established routines, but you fit in so naturally that it’s as if you were there all long

maybe it it’s this that makes both twins slowly start falling for you - the comfort of being beside you and the familiarity that you bring are things that they struggled to find, being trapped in a world far from their own with no way to get out, and they unknowingly latch onto you like drowning men clutching lifebuoys

aether is the most obvious about his feelings - he starts waking up earlier just because he knows you do, sitting beside you as you stoke a campfire and keep watch for any approaching monsters, making quiet conversation as lumine continues sleeping. he tells you stories about his adventures in other worlds, including an encounter with a rather bigoted individual who is the reason that he keeps his hair so long while lumine’s has been cut short

he even starts taking his hair out of its braid before he goes to sleep so that he can ask you to braid it for him when he wakes up

lumine is a lot more subtle

she finds excuses to stand closer to you when, deliberately brushing her fingers against yours when handing you something. she listens far more attentively to you when you speak than anyone else, and she smiles far more in your presence, hanging onto your every word and gazing at you so intensely that it’s almost unsettling

of course, the twins notice each other’s feelings pretty easily

at first neither acknowledges it - it’d be far too messy for both to accept that they’d both fallen in love with the same person, let alone actually admit this to each other

but it gets to the point where it just isn’t ignorable anymore, and finally the twins decide to talk

it’s about as civil and sensible as they could hope for with the subject at hand, and they eventually decide to talk to you about it

and so, we come to an ultimatum. what will your choice be?

if you reject both, it’ll be hard to continue adventuring with twins who can’t look in your direction. neither resent you, of course, but the atmosphere has become so stifling that they can’t even make eye contact

it’s as if an enormous gap has opened up between the three of you. the twins are avoiding each other as well, unsure of how to handle the fact that they’re both in love with the same person and have now both been rejected by that same person. if anything, they should be becoming closer out of solidarity, but it seems that they can’t stand to be in each other’s presence as much as they can’t stand to be in yours.

the three of you still work together as seamlessly in battle as you did before, but once the final monster has been cut down and your weapons are sheathed, that connection seems to disappear again.

it’s aether who finally breaks the stalemate. he starts trying to start conversations as the three of you sit awkwardly apart from each other around a fire, and while the first few attempts end in stony silence and an awkward cough on his part, eventually you begin replying with some semblance of the humour you used to

from there things only improve - the three of you come to a silent mutual agreement to leave this behind you, and soon you’re all laughing and joking as you used to

lumine and aether both know that they cannot force you to love either of them, and they respect your choice. if anything, they’re the ones in the wrong for springing something like this on you so suddenly, and they start to feel a little guilty that they were essentially pressuring you into making a choice that you were never obligated to make

so they return to treating you as a dear friend, just as before. things are different now, of course, but they can only be grateful that you continue to travel with them and stay by their side; this situation doesn’t make them love you any less, even if you don’t love them in the same way.

if you choose lumine, aether will be understanding. the twins have been each other’s only support for longer than they can remember, and as the older brother, he’s well used to giving things up for his sister.

he’ll still be friendly and amicable, but he won’t seek you out as much as he did before. he starts braiding his hair by himself again, and stays in bed as late as he can every morning so that he doesn’t have to be face to face with you. just because he’s accepted this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

sometimes, when the sky grows dark and you and lumine have long since fallen asleep beside each other, he wonders to himself - why is it that he has to give everything to his sister? he’s given away so much, so why couldn’t the universe let him have this one thing?

but he knows, deep down, that this is nothing to do with the universe - you simply fell in love with someone that wasn’t him, his sister at that, and he’s struggling to come to terms with it.

he wants to hate you, hate lumine, hate the relationship that the two of you have formed, but he just can’t. he loves the both of you in different ways that are just as important as each other, and he can’t stand to lose either of you. he’d rather throw himself off of starsnatch cliff.

so he’ll smile and bear it, even if it’s a battle to keep himself from breaking down every time he sees the two of you lace your hands together, off in your own little word, so near and yet so far from him.

if you choose aether, lumine will become cold. at first, that is. she’s never been as empathetic as her brother, always holding grudges and developing dislike much more easily. it had taken a lot for her to open up to you in the first place, and now that you’ve rejected her, it’s going to take a while for her to return to the same camaderie with you that she had before.

lumine does not begrudge aether for being the one you chose. if anything, she’s glad - aether is always putting her first and himself second, and she’s happy that he has someone like you, who lights his eyes up in a way that she’s never seen before.

but our hearts often betray our mind, after all, and lumine can’t help but scowl and turn away every time she sees her brother wrap his arms around your waist or press a kiss to your cheek. despite her best efforts, all she can think is why? why did you have to choose him?

she can’t bring herself to hate you, though. as much as it feels like her heart is threatening to split down the middle when she sees you smile and is reminded of something that she cannot have, there is an equal joy in the fact that her brother can be with the person that he loves so dearly. if anything, the two of you deserve to be happy together.

lumine would never do anything that could take that away, and so she forces herself to accept it. it takes several days of tentative conversation and barely held back tears, but eventually the two of you seem to return to the way you were before - all friendly jabs and light-hearted banter and little jokes exchanged over crossed blades.

but lumine knows that your friendship can never be quite the same as it was before. she’ll forever be holding you at arm’s length, terrified to let you get too close lest you see how much your presence affects her. she can’t let you know how much she loves you because she will never be the one who links hands with you as you walk down a long, winding path, or the one who holds you close under a darkening sky filled with stars - because that person is aether, and she would sooner die before she takes her brother’s happiness away.

if you refuse to choose, the twins will be at a loss at what to do. they hadn’t considered this scenario - that you had somehow come to love both of them.

the confusion becomes joy soon enough, though. they realise what this means - they both love you, and you love both of them! isn’t this perfect?

neither are particularly thrilled at the concept of ‘sharing’ you with the other, so to speak, but in the end they both equally want each other to be happy as they want you to be, so the logical conclusion is that they both become your partners.

they’re not too sure how this should work, nor what sort of label to put on it, but they come to you tentatively with the idea anyway

to their joyous surprise, you agree!

and from then marks the point of no return…

aether is definitely the clingier of the two. once he realises that he’s allowed to show affection and be close to you for no particular reason, he won’t stop - it’s as if he absolutely has to be holding your hand or be standing or sitting  as close to you as physically possible. he’s always buying you souvenirs at every place you stop by, scaling trees to pick apples for you when you mention a craving for fruit, presenting you little treasures that he’s found with all the pride of a golden retriever.

lumine is a more subdued kind of partner, preferring to demonstrate her feelings with little things like making your favourite food for dinner or bringing you sprigs of flowers that she’s secretly been collecting in order to present you with them. of course, that doesn’t mean she isn’t physically affectionate at all - she presses perhaps even closer to you than aether when you sleep beside her, and somehow her hand finds yours at every opportunity she has.

the twins clash every now and then, as siblings often do, except that you’re usually caught in the middle. their arguments are little more than playful squabbles, though - things like play-fighting over who gets to hug you first after a well-fought battle, or who gets to hold your hand on the way to the next village (you have to step in and remind them that you do, in fact, have two hands)

in conclusion: why choose one when you can have both and prevent the unchosen from having endless amounts of angst?

[buckybarnesthehotshot]

Omegle (Bucky Barnes x F!Reader)

|main masterlist|

summary: bucky meets y/n on omegle (based off a request by @mrsbarnesinmyimagination )

word count: 1398

warnings: omegle. mentions of dicks, y/n is very forward with her flirting

          What business did an Avenger have lurking on a site like Omegle? Absolutely none. No Avenger had any reason to be on Omegle. Bucky couldn’t point out what circumstances led him to opening the site on his laptop, but there he was, staring at the bright orange logo of the website as he read through the terms of use.

              “Ah, what the hell,” he shrugged, typing in a few of his interest—well, ones that would be relatable to most people—before clicking on the ‘start chatting’ button.

           As soon as he did so, he began to question what the hell he was even doing on the website. Still, he waited until the screen loaded, the grey circle being replaced with the face of a woman who wore an incredibly bored and disinterested expression on her face. Well, that was until her eyes focused on his face displayed on her own screen.

          “Shit, sir, you are fucking beautiful!” the stranger exclaimed, immediately clasping her hands over her hand, her eyes widening in disbelief at how bluntly she’d just blurted those words out.  As Bucky wasn’t expecting that, his eyes widened, his appearance similar to that of a deer caught in headlights. She noticed his distress, rushing out an apology, “I am so sorry about that.”

            “Oh, it’s fine. I just wasn’t expecting that,” Bucky chuckled reassuringly, earning a small nod from the woman.

            “Right. I’m sorry. Lemme start over; hi, I’m y/n,” she introduced herself, a warm nervous smile on her face.

            “My friends call me Bucky,” he responded, a timid smile on his face too. For a second, her brows furrowed as though she were in deep thought. Nerves washed over Bucky as she did so—did she recognize him from his time as the Winter Soldier? That clearly wasn’t the case as a cheeky smile etched its way onto her face.

             “Does that mean we’re friends now?” she questioned jokingly, a teasing expression on her face.

              “I guess so,” Bucky shrugged, a grin making its way to his face.

              “That’s cool,” she mumbled, “Anyways, how are you?”

         Bucky smiled at her eagerness to continue on with their conversation before responding, “I’m doing great, actually. I got through another therapy session without being yelled at, so that’s great. She says I’m making a lot of progress.”

        “Your therapist yells at you?” she questioned, her brows furrowing as she stared at her screen in disbelief, “Wait, you’re paying a therapist to yell at you?”

         “It’s court-mandated, actually,” Bucky muttered nervously as he averted his gaze from the laptop.

        “Oh. Well, I’m sure it’s not really any of my business so I’m just going to be the one to change the topic; go ahead, ask me a question,” she sent him a reassuring smile. He was caught aback at the way she didn’t question him or grill him on why he needed court-mandated therapy, and it was a refreshing change of pace for the winter soldier.

         “Oh, uh, how are you?”  Bucky squeaked out as the woman chuckled.

            “Of all the questions, that’s what you’re going with?” she questioned jokingly, a smirk playing on her face.

        “I mean, I can go ask another one if you don’t feel comfortable ans—”

         “No, it’s fine, I swear,” she chuckled, “I’m just worried at the fact that I’ve been on this site long enough to be desensitized to the sight of…y’know—”

          “I don’t know, actually,” Bucky chuckled, taking in her slightly flustered expression.

          “Well, to put it bluntly; I’ve been desensitized to the sight of dicks,” she shuddered, as Bucky’s brows furrowed in confusion.

         “That’s something people do here?” he questioned, raising a brow in curiosity.

           “Yes!” she exclaimed, then narrowing her eyes at him, “You’re not one of those creepy guys who start conversations then randomly flash their dicks, are you?”

          “God no, my Ma taught me better than to do that to a lady,” Bucky shook his head, chuckling at her suspicions.

         “Good, I think you’re a really cool swaggy guy and you flashing me would ruin this whole vibe we have going on,” she let out a small sigh of relief, “So, what’s a guy like you doing on this site anyways?”

        “A guy like me?” he questioned, confused at the implications of her question.

        “I mean, I don’t know, you just look like somebody who has better things to do in his life, y’know? You not knowing about the whole toxic relationship Omegle has with dicks was a telltale sign that you’re new here,” she explained with a small shrug, “I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, of course.”

           “It’s fine, really. But I honestly don’t know what I’m doing here either,” Bucky Paused, “I guess I was just bored.”

            “I’m sure you could just walk out your house if you were bored. It’ll be entertaining when people start throwing themselves at your feet and worship you because you’re so hot,” y/n winked jokingly, once again catching Bucky off guard.

           “I mean, looking at you, I bet you’re speaking from experience. You probably have a whole army of people begging you to look their way,” Bucky smirked, watching her jaw hang open in shock.

          “Did you just flirt with me?” she questioned, an amused expression finding its way onto her face. Something about conversing with y/n brought out the remnants of the ladies’ man Bucky was back in the forties.

          “I’m sure you can figure it out, doll,” Bucky winked, watching a smile of disbelief play onto her features.

           “You’re throwing me off here, bud. We can’t just both be flirts,” she chuckled nervously.

             “Why not?” Bucky questioned, his voice deep and raspy.

           “Because if you keep this up, I’m gonna end up catching feelings and that’s not fair,” she deadpanned, then breaking out in a fit of laughter, “Nah, just kidding, I don’t fall in love with random strangers that I’ve known for a few minutes.”

           “And you’re sure you aren’t willing to make any exceptions?” he questioned once more, his steely blue eyes peering into her e/c ones through the screen.

           “Motherfu—Bucky, you’re a cool dude, but if you don’t stop making me melt, I’m going to go all the way to wherever you’re from and whoop your ass…wait, where are you from? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

            “Brooklyn. Born and raised,” he responded after giving it a bit of thought.

           “Wait, you’re from Brooklyn? How come you haven’t blessed me with your hotness yet, what the fuck?” she mumbled, earning herself a look of confusion from the supersoldier, “Oh, uh, I’m from Brooklyn too?”

          “Seriously?”

       “Yeah, seriously!” she exclaimed.

          “Well, if I’d known earlier, I would’ve asked you out on a date. You being in Brooklyn would definitely make it easier for me,” Bucky smirked, watching as y/n nervously bit on her lip before recomposing herself.

            “Stoppp,” she whined.

             “What, you don’t like the flirting?”

           “I mean, I technically kind of started it, so it’s fine,” she shrugged, “No, but seriously, I meant what I said earlier because holy shit, it’s like you get even more beautiful the longer I look at you.”

          “I think you’re pretty hot too, doll,” Bucky winked.

           “Fuck It, here’s my number,” she huffed, typing in a series of numbers into the chatbox. Well, that was one way to be forward about it. Bucky stared at the numbers for a moment before responding.

            “You just gave your phone number to a random stranger you met on the internet,” Bucky’s jaw fell open in disbelief.

             “Yes, and?”

        “How do you know I’m not some rando who’ll murder you when I get the chance?” Bucky questioned, his brows still raised in shock.

           “I told you, you’re a cool guy and I don’t know, you just have this very trustworthy aura,” she shrugged, “But if you do murder me though, I wouldn’t mind having your face be the last thing I see.”

         “You really have no regard for your own safety,” Bucky chuckled, shaking his head at her remark.

         “Mhm. Anyways, I better get a text from a random number soon—one that’s hopefully yours. Bye!” she exclaimed, cutting their conversation short as Bucky was left staring at the digits she’d typed down on the screen, thinking about it for a moment before typing the numbers in on his phone.

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: August 8th

Well, doing big posts all together worked for a while but lately I’ve been putting it off because it takes a long time to get them done. I think I’m gonna try switching back to answering asks whenever I can fit it in and posting them one at a time instead of waiting until I’ve filled out one of these major collections.

But for now, here’s more ask answers! Thank you for the questions and for all the kind words along with them ^^.

Hello!! I'm here to ask if its possible to get  the game and its dlcs on steam and play it on android?

I’m afraid not. Steam doesn’t have Android builds on their own site and Steam is not cool with keys for other sites being given out for Steam purchases, so you don’t get the Itch version from buying on Steam.

Hello! Sorry to bother you but, I had a question, if we buy the Game on itchio do we get steam keys or would we need to purchase it twice? 

You would have to buy it twice if you want it in both places, I’m sorry. To repeat myself a little, Steam doesn’t like the key trading thing. Itch may support giving keys for another site, but the reverse isn’t doable with Steam and Steam doesn’t even really want you to get a Steam key for buying somewhere else either. So we just don’t mess around with that.

hey, sorry if this is frequently asked, but is step 4 free dlc or paid for? some of your sources are contradicting each other. 

It’s free! There’s a paid wedding DLC, but Step 4 itself is entirely unpaid.

Hello! I just had a quick question, for the Baxter and Derek DLC's will we be able to confess our feelings to them or let them confess to MC? or will it only be one way? (they confess to MC)

Both type of options will be available!

Hey there! I wanted to ask whether or not the Derek DLC is still on track to be released in August since on the steam discussion board it says it will be released mid 2021. I totally understand if it isn't, I'm just really looking forward to it! If you answer then ty! And keep up the amazing work :D 

It’s not, aha. Unfortunately, 2021 wasn’t easier than 2020 as we hoped so things are still slower than planned. It’ll come out late 2021 or early 2022.

Hi! Firstly I just want to say that I LOVE Our Life. I have played a bit of similar games but this one instantly wins for the best one! Everything about it is amazing! I just wanted to ask if Derek would ever lose feelings for MC, like if they make the deal and then MC gets with Cove would he move on? and even if you don't, after "losing contact" would his feeling fade or would he still like MC? 

If you don’t really keep in touch with him and clearly move on with your life, Derek will too and he’ll be over it. But if you are still close as best as you can be, he’ll still think the MC is special. Though, he’ll always support your relationship with someone else if that’s what’ll make you happy.

Hello! Sorry if you've answered this before but: 'How's Lee related to us? Though which momma? And does she share our player-chosen last names? Also, do you know if Noelani took Pam's last name or did it happen the other way round? 

She’s related to Pamela and Pamela’s last name is the one they use, so the MC has the same last name as Lee.

Will we be able to choose which (they or he) we tend to call Qiu by more often, or will it randomly change depending on the moment? 

Qiu knows which pronoun they’re comfortable with at a time and you’ll call them what they’re happy with. And it doesn’t change between lines, it takes multiple scenes or even full Steps for it to switch. So for extended periods Qiu will be totally a guy or fully agender.

Will Step 4 of OL2 have moments?

It’ll be an epilogue like it is in OL1, so it won’t have a bunch of different Moments.

Hello! Just a quick question, is Sunset bird from OL1 based on a real location? If so what's it called? I wanna visit it +_+

ps i love your games so much <3

It isn’t based on one specific town you can go to, but there are a lot of little coastal towns in Cali that have a similar vibe!

Heyaaa ( I hope you're all well ), umm… it might seem kinda stupid to ask but did Patreon members can have a key for the dlc's ( all the steps-released dlc ) even if they became a member this month or later ? (me? saying this cuz it's my case? maybe ;-;), and once again thanks for absolutely all the amazing works on all the games ! u-u 

You wouldn’t get the DLCs for backing there. The Patreon is for extra bonus content/early access, rather than being a storefront to purchase the normal DLCs. Rarely we give them out as a side gift, but it hardly happens and if what you want is the DLCs it’s best to ignore the Patreon and  buy keys for those directly from Itch or Steam. I’m sorry for the confusion.

Hey y'all, love what youre doing w/Terry. Trans rep outside of player customization is so rare and important to see more of so thank you so much. I do have a question and its that does he have a canon sexuality? I know Miranda was said to be straight ace but I dont believe anything was stated for Terry probably because he wasnt revealed to be a guy which changes things. Im also curious if well get answers on how long hes liked Miranda since he may have liked her in step 3 before she liked him 

Terry likes women and Randy likes men! And he did like Miranda back in Step 3.

Will the Wedding Dlc release at the same time as Step 4? 

They’ll come out separately with Step 4 releasing first.

I really love Our Life so much! I've spent over 20hours playing it even though I only got it a week ago! I was wondering if I could make a fangame for Our Life with a different love interest but same plot. Next-door neighbors romance, multiple steps, etc? I'll probably make it on Google Slides though- 

Sure! I hope you have fun with it and I’m glad you love the game.

How does Cove feel about poly relationships? 

He’s got nothing against them for the people they work for, but he’s 100% monogamous and would only be comfortable with a partner who was willing to be monogamous with him.

Idk if this has been answered before but will Step 4 include the option to advance your feelings towards Cove? 

Yep, you’ll be able to determine your feelings and what your relationship is.

In step 4 will there be a chosen to say we live with Cove even as just friends? 

Yeah, you can choose to live with Cove and that can be done when you’re friends.

I just played the game with the MC and Cove being best friends and omg it’s still so damn cute like the wholesomeness of it all is too much for my heart I swear ^.^  Now with that all said I was wondering can we still marry Cove? if we only love him as a friend like let’s say we’ve made deal with him similar to the one we can make with Derek because let’s real no one could compete with what the MC and Cove have even if they aren’t in love. 

It’s great to hear you enjoyed the friendship story! You can live with Cove, but you can’t marry him platonically. Cove has familial affection for the MC if they’re best-est friends. He wouldn’t think to marry someone he loves like family and even grew up with as though they truly were siblings.

Are you still going to be making a DLC for XOBD? :] 

Yes! We’re slowing adding voiced lines and fixing errors.

It makes me laugh that Shiloh's last name is Fields because that's what I put as my last name! So in Our Life when he talked about "Ms. Fields" picking him up I was extremely confused, lol. That dude mimics personalities so much that he stole my surname!

Oh, wow, that’s a very funny coincidence, haha.

hi !! i cant seem to be able to get the scene where mc is able to propose to cove despite being at the 'love' stage and telling him i'd want to get married, are there any other details that im missing out on? the options just dont appear at the end... 

Maybe you missed telling Cove you were in love with him even if you mentioned wanting to get married or you might’ve accidentally said earlier in the game that you don’t want to progress your relationship further with Cove. We haven��t removed them, so you can get the scene again. It’s just kind of easy to miss since there’s multiple requirements. You can read a little guide in the FAQ.

wait what di you need to do to be able to propose to cove? I've been trying but haven't had much luck 

You can check out the FAQ linked above!

does cove only develop a crush on the mc if the mc is also at crush/in love with him? 

Technically, yes. We treat the non-romantic relationship options as truly non-romantic since we don’t want to bait and switch people. But there’s nothing wrong with headcanoning that Cove does have feelings developing for the MC even before the MC has.

Is there a way to make/allow Lee and Baxter to date?

No, they just don’t have enough time together.

We also got a group of asks related to Tamarack in OL2, but I’m afraid the way they talked about people with larger bodies made me not want to post their words, even if the person didn’t say they’re trying to be hurtful. I will separate out the core question and answer it though, so people can know that info.

Does Tamarack lose weight in later Steps?

No, she doesn’t. As for the other questions included, to be honest, I don’t have to explain/defend having romance options of different sizes. I’m sorry if you’re dealing with unhappiness that’s connected to body image, if that’s where the negative emotions are coming from, but even so I can’t meet you on that level and pretend it’s a problem that needs an answer. A girl who simply isn’t thin being a main love interest is just not an unreasonable concept. Also, Tamarack isn’t a lesbian. Yes, she can date a female MC, but that doesn’t undo her actual sexuality, so I’m not sure where that one part at the end was coming from.

I wonder... can we "fight" with Qiu over leader status? 👀

Not really, haha. No matter how cool your MC is, they’re never gonna replace Qiu for the other kids around. So you can either partner up with him, follow him too, or not be a part of all that group politics stuff.

So when I play the game, sometimes I mentally call Cove “Covie/Covey” and that made me wonder, how does Cove feel about being nicknamed? Not like Romeo/Space Cadet/etc. but like pet names relating to his actual name

It’d depend on his age, personality, and your relationship with him! When he’s younger he’d probably be embarrassed, when he was grown he’d probably be more casual or happy about it.

will you be able to date baxter in step 3 while at crush with cove (but not dating him ofc) sorry if this has been asked already. i really love baxters step 4 design btw!! 

Yeah, you can be crushing on Cove and date Baxter if you weren’t already dating Cove. You just can’t be truly in love with Cove and then switch to Baxter.

I just got my friend into our life, and they adore shiloh and derek sooo will there be more of them in the second game? 

I’m afraid not. But you can see plenty more of Shiloh in XOXO Droplets/XOXO Blood Droplets, haha.

I see you haven't gotten any xoxo droplets asks recently but I'm still obsessed with these boys!! I was just wondering if Nate would curse under any circumstance? 

Yeah, Nate does use certain swear words (damn, hell, bastard) on very rare occasions.

Hi there! I have a question about the wedding dlc. Will we be able to plan a honeymoon during the planning stages of it or would it be something that Cove and the mc would rather plan later on? Thank you! Absolutly love the game by the way, definitely one of my favorite games! 

The focus will be on the wedding day itself. The topic of the honeymoon might come up a bit, but there won’t be any choosing of the exact location and such.

Hi! I have two questions and it's completely understandable if you only answer one/neither and I'm sorry if you've already answered either before! First, is there a set year in which OL:B&A takes place (ex: Step 1 being set in 2010 & Step 2 being set in 2016, etc.) or is it simply up to interpretation? Second, have you guys thought about doing a coming-of-age game where the MC has a tough home life or upbringing? (like one of their parents is an addict, a parent being transphobic whilst the player has the option to be trans, or having friends that are influencing them to do drugs, etc.) That's all! Thanks for making beautiful games. <3 

There is a set timeline!

Step 1: 2006 Step 2: 2011 Step 3: 2016 Step 4: 2021 

And we don’t currently plan on making a game like that. The Our Life series exists to be a safer environment for people to play around in and if we did do a brand new series that was harsher edged it’d be something more fantastical and/or plot-driven instead of a different type of modern day slice-of-life growing up story. I’m sorry.

i don’t know if you’ve already answered this, but do you have a guess on when phase 4 will come out? as well as ol2? i’m so excited for both of them, the inclusivity in this game is amazing, you guys should be really proud of it! 

Step 4 will be coming out very soon! OL2 is gonna take until 2023 to be anywhere near completion. But we might episodically release the Steps one at a time as they get done instead of waiting for three to be finished before launch like we did with the first game.

Hello, I was curious if there was an official or unofficial discord server for the game? 

We do have a discord! You can join by clicking this link HERE.

how long do you plan to keep ol's patreon running? 

Hopefully for at least a few more years.

Are you considering ever making merch? 

Yeah, but I don’t know when it’ll happen or what exactly we’ll make, aha. It’s something we want do, just nothing is set.

hi! i just found out about your game a couple of days ago on tiktok (so sorry if you’ve already answered this question) and i was wondering if y’all are ever planning to release it on iOS? 

I have no idea. It’s hard for a small group to get Apple approval and I honestly can’t say if it’ll ever happen or not. Maybe someday, though!

Hi, I love the art style of Our life and I would like to know if the artist has a Twitter? Also, could it be possible to fund more CGs for the game from him/her? So many times, I wish there was one like when the cutscene of the sunshower. 

That’s nice of you to offer. He doesn’t have a Twitter, at least not one that’s public enough to be shared with me. And I’m afraid not. The issue is that the CGs take huge amounts of time rather than there not being a budget for it. He’s gotta make CGs for Step 4, the DLCs, and new character sprites, too. There isn’t space in the schedule for even more. Sorry for that.

Hi, how are you?!

Are you planning on accepting new writers or is it always the same people who write your stories??

Thanks!!

Our Life: Beginnings & Always won’t be getting new writers, but we will be hiring a new team of writers for Our Life: Now & Forever eventually!

perhaps this counts as nsfw and I'm sure it has been answered before but what does Cove prefer, chests/boobs or butts? or perhaps both :3c thank you for this wonderful game (and the patreon bonus moment, it was worth all the waiting and more ♥) 

He’s a “chests of all shapes and sizes” kind of guy, haha.

i was wondering- did any of the writers actually grow up by the beach? as someone who's lived in a beach town all their life it really did feel nostalgic to play through our life 1 

I was born and raised in Cali! Though, not right by the beach. We still had to make trips out, but the setting is based on my own childhood memories of small beach towns we went through.

In Derek’s upcoming DLC, will we be able to reference the pact we made as teens? (love olba and xod/xobd so much btw you’re literally amazing) 

Yep, you will be able to talk about that!

Oh, sorry about the Cole being secretly L ask, then!

If you wanted context: Death Note is about this one guy who finds a notebook that kills anyone who you write the name of in there. The guy eventually develops a God Complex and starts mass killing criminals and stuff. L is the one trying to find out who is killing all these people.

Me and my sister first joked about it because I couldn't remember how to translate a word about the way Cove was sitting, so I just did the pose, and it looked a lot like how L himself sits! Then we just snowballed from there, with more and more nonsense connections.

That’s okay! Thanks for explaining. I’m sorry I didn’t know what you meant.

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

i had a craving for some warm apple cider and it reminded me of etrry. he would fuck that shit up omg omg christian girl fall is totally alienrry he would love going to the apple orchards and shit

The first time he tries a pumpkin spice latte, his feedback makes Y/N’s stomach flutter with endearment.

Harry smack his lips as he savors the spices and cozy notes in the drink, furrowing his brows in thought as he picks through all of the different emotions the taste produces. After a moment, his entire body relaxes, and a homey smile makes its way across his dimpled cheeks. “It tastes the way a warm hug feels.”

Y/N’s lips twitch as she sips from her own drink, letting his interpretation sink in. He’s recently taken to relating flavors to feelings and experiences, and the analogies he conjures up always amuse her to no end. “That was pretty poetic of you.”

Harry simpers over the brim of the coffee cup, hugging it with both hands as indulges another gulp. “Thank you, I think.”

She can’t help but notice how big his hands are— how they easily dwarf the paper mug, and how pretty his nails look covered in sage green polish (she’d painted them that color for the sake of irony, and he’d thought the joke was hilarious). The more she dwells on every detail of his hands— the veins that chisel over the back as he tightens his hold, or the length of his nimble fingers, or the small alien hieroglyphic tattoo along the area between his index finger and thumb— the more her thoughts derail towards the graphic end of the spectrum. Specifically, how he’d had those same hands all over her body the night prior.

How they had been tangled in her hair as they stumbled towards her room blindly, too lost in the sensation of each other’s lips to give anything else much attention. How his hands had felt as they hurriedly coasted down her chest and along the bottom of her sweatshirt, pulling it off in one swift motion so he could taste every inch of her skin, his tongue leaving a sweltering heat along her cleavage. How they had gripped her knees and spread them open as he situated himself onto his stomach on the mattress, a faint white cast sheathing his irises as he’d seen the way she was already dripping in anticipation. How his palms had held her down to the bed as he’d bobbed his head between her thighs, his tongue lapping at her sloppily as he’d moaned into her clit, the sound wet and guttural as his back muscles visibly tightened while she’d tugged at his curls and scratched at his scalp. How one hand had grasped her hip desperately as the other wrapped around her throat, its first two fingers weighing on her tongue as she’d sucked on them feverishly, wisps of his name escaping her throat as he’d pounded raw pleasure into the pit of her tummy. How he’d whimpered and gasped into her ear as his nails dug memories into the skin of her waist, and how she’d caught a glimpse of his fingerprints this morning in the mirror, dusted across her flesh in the form of bruises.

Harry’s voice yanks the girl out of her head. “What are you drinking?”

Y/N isn’t really one to crave coffee during the afternoon, so she’d picked up a bottle of rosé on the way home from grocery shopping, right before going to the drive-through at the nearest Starbucks to get him his beverage. He’d seen a commercial for it on TV the other day, and had expressed his interest for it during breakfast as she’d shoveled scrambled eggs onto a plate while he cut up a green apple across the kitchen island, popping a slice into his mouth while neatly organizing the others along his circular platter. And how could she say no to him, especially when he’d been standing there with such a hopeful look in those olive green puppy eyes, his cheeks puffed out with fruit and her teeth marked all over his neck and chest.

“It’s, uhm—” She clears her throat roughly, expelling the image of Harry’s toned stomach and thick happy trail from her brain. She snaps her gaze up to meet his, and the blissfully unaware innocence behind his tone and over his features makes blood rush to her cheeks. “It’s rosé.”

Harry sets down his cup carefully on her coffee table, shifting further back onto the couch and slouching into the cushions, his legs spreading open casually as he settles in. “That’s a type of alcohol, correct?”

Y/N glances down at his thighs momentarily, where his mesh shorts are riding up dangerously high. “Yep.”

If he notices, he doesn’t to show it, seen in how his accent maintains the same nonchalant curiosity as before. He throws an arm around her shoulders easily, scooting his body closer to her own across the sofa. He’s gotten way touchier since they started sleeping together, and she can’t say she doesn’t like it. She likes it more than she should, probably.

“The same liquid in those spiked ciders you got me last time? The sour one that incapacitates you?”

Y/N scoffs lightly at his accurate description, willingly leaning into his torso and folding her legs up under herself as she props her wine glass on her knee. “Mmhm. But that only happened because you drank the entire pack like a moron, remember?”

Harry rolls his eyes at her chastising tone and flat expression. “How was I supposed to know?”

“Maybe you should have asked me before randomly drinking things from that shelf in the fridge.”

“You were in the shower.”

“You could have waited.”

“I was thirsty.”

“There’s a water filter at the sink.”

“I wanted juice.”

“There was grape juice beside the milk.”

“I wanted apple and the bottles had pictures of them on the label. My apologies for using my practical thinking skills and measures of deduction.”

Y/N sighs in good-natured exasperation, shoving him with her shoulder as revenge for his snarky comebacks. “Well, look where your practical thinking skills and measures of deduction got you— bent over the toilet bowl with puke shooting out of your nostrils. Now you know that anything with the word, ‘alcohol’ on it needs to be taken in moderation. Right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good.” The young woman takes a sip from her glass, savoring it patiently as the sweet and tangy flavor filters through her taste buds. “Lesson learned, then.”

“Unfortunately.” The alien deadpans, pinching along the underside of her underarm just to feel her squirm and squeak. He smiles childishly at her reaction, giggling as she curses at him under her breath.

“You almost made me spill my drink.” She grumbles, getting comfortable once more against his warm body. “And this is the good stuff, too. I’d break the bottle over your head.”

“A bit rash, I think.” Harry snorts sarcastically, eyeing the pink moscato for a moment as it swishes inside her chilled cup, her fingers leaving smudges in the condensation. He then lilts his gaze back towards her own, his tone soft and full of wonder. “Can I try?”

“Promise not to throw up all over my floor again?” The girl quips tauntingly, jutting her chin towards her rug symbolically.

Harry exhales in surrendered embarrassment, lifting his hand and hooking their pinkies together. “Pinky swear.”

Y/N nods her head in the agreement, fending off a fond grin as she lifts the glass to his plush, rosy lips. “Go ahead, then, Area 51.”

The alien snorts softly at the nickname, well aware of its origins now that he’s learned more about Earth’s relationship with extraterrestrial components. Those documentaries on the Discovery Channel are quite educational.

Harry sifts his mouth over the rim of the glass, making eye contact with Y/N to let her know he’s ready for her to pour the drink in. She tilts the wine, watching it funnel past his lips to gauge how much is an adequate amount. She pulls back, observing as he nurses the liquid pensively, his brows creasing like before as he distinguishes all the different flavors present. He smacks his lips again, blinking slowly as he forms his opinion, licking at a drop that had escaped the corner of his mouth.

“So?” Y/N inquires, raising an eyebrow expectantly. “What’s it taste like?”

Harry cranes his sight over to her, the studious expression on his face melting into one of slight smugness, as if what he’s about to say is something amusing. The left edge of his mouth jolts upwards, a sly smirk carving its way across his face as he presses his tongue along the inside of his cheek almost arrogantly, his eyes raking down her body in an objectifying once-over. His descent stops at her clasped thighs, which he focuses on for a few seconds longer than she deems acceptable, and then his gaze travels back up to lock with her own. There’s now a different type of darkness to the jade swirling around his pupils, electrified by something he has yet to express to her fully, but seems excited to do so.

The young man leans forward, and Y/N almost falls back at the sudden closeness of their proximity. He ghosts his lips over the curve of her jaw and across the slope of her cheekbone, stopping at the shell of her ear as if he wants to share a secret. He drags his pillowy lips over the area with every intention to rile her up, his skin cool and damp from the beverage, but unbelievably warm beneath the initial shock of that caveat. His breath carries the same juxtaposing sensations— it’s cold on impact, but heats up the farther it travels across the side of her face and down to the pulse in her neck. His words are low and heavy, but sultry and smooth like the wine they’d shared; a seductive whisper that intoxicates her in a fiery manner that no amount of alcohol ever could.

“It tastes like sex. It tastes the way you do between your thighs, and it feels the way you feel when I’m buried between your legs. And if I close my eyes and savor it, I can taste you whining my name into my mouth, and I can taste you begging for it on my tongue.”

[snelbz]

Tempting the Fates {Chapter 9}

Summary: It’s the final semester of Aelin Galathynius’ collegiate career and she is so beyond ready to be done. Her schedule is packed full of nursing classes and labs designed to test her knowledge and hone her skills for the real world and her “big girl” job. However, she needs one last elective to graduate, so she decides to study a subject she’s always been fascinated by: Mythology. Who would have thought that a class about gods and goddesses living complicated lives would end up complicating her own in such an unexpected way?

A @snelbz X @theladyofdeath collaboration.

Word Count: 3378

Chapters will be posted every Wednesday.

Tempting the Fates Masterlist

Shelby’s Masterlist

Tara’s Masterlist 

***Announcement! *** After the completion of I’ll be Seeing You and Tempting the Fates, all of Tara and I’s joint fanfiction will be posted on a separate blog that we run together > @snacmc. Be sure to follow the new blog as we will start posting on there soon!

Hestia

– Goddess of the hearth, home and family

Mondays and Wednesdays always seemed to drag.

Thanks to her lack of Rowan in class, Aelin’s classes were boring and she found herself thinking of other things, rather than the notes she was supposed to be taking. Like the way Rowan’s eyes had been on her as she went down on him in the shower earlier than morning.

At his insistence, she’d begun using his shower for more than just sex purposes, as she’d so eloquently explained to him the week before. She was regularly staying over, getting ready for her own classes in the morning, just as he was. But whenever one of them followed the other into the tiled shower, it was used for practical reasons.

As well as sexual ones.

Suppressing a whine as she thought of the way Rowan had pinned her up against the cool tiles that morning, Aelin crossed her legs and checked her watch. Only another twenty minutes and then she had her break between classes. She wasn’t hungry, thanks to the protein bar she’d eaten just before this class started, and she was close to the gen ed building, so she decided she would drop by her mythology professor’s office. She had a few questions about the homework he’d assigned yesterday and face-to-face was always better to her than an email.

Once her anatomy professor was wrapping up, Aelin was tossing her books into a bag and hauling ass across campus. Rowan’s last class was wrapping up, too, and she didn’t want to miss him before he hurried off to do whatever else.

She could’ve texted him to stay put, but she didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

She made it to his building and dodged by those who were hurrying off to their other classes or their beds, and stopped at Rowan’s office door before giving it a halting knock.

It took him a second to answer, but when he did, he was handsome as ever.

His shirt sleeves were rolled up, the button down tucked into his trousers. When he saw it was Aelin at his office door, a silver brow lifted.

“Aelin,” he began, clearing his throat. “How may I help you?”

“I have some questions about the homework,” she began, voice low, even though no one else was around. “Can I come in for a second?”

Rowan moved aside before she had finished her question. With one last glance down the hall he shared with a few other first-year professors, he shut the door, sealing them into his office. The blinds were open, but on the third floor, it wasn’t like anyone could see the private meeting he and his student were about to have.

Even if he didn’t know what kind of meeting it was about to be.

“Are you on your lunch break?” She asked, leaning back against his desk.

He nodded. “Didn’t plan on taking lunch, but I’ve got a couple hours before my next class. Was going to work on some grading. Why?”

He had stepped closer, pausing beside one of the chairs he kept in front of the desk for students to sit in.

Aelin clearly had other ideas of where to sit though. With a smirk, she reached out and lightly gripped his shirt, pulling him towards her.

“You had questions about the homework,” he breathed, leaning away as she tried to kiss him.

It wasn’t that he wouldn’t kiss her. He just wanted to see her squirm.

And squirm, she did. “You know very well that I turned in the homework yesterday afternoon.”

She tried to kiss him again, but he fell away, even though his arms were around her waist.

“I don’t recall that,” he taunted. “Maybe you could remind me.”

“I turned it in just before I did this,” she crooned, and her lips found his.

Aelin kissed him, slowly, her arms snaking around his neck. She swore she would never tire of the feeling of his mouth on hers.

“Oh yeah,” Rowan muttered, against her lips. “Now I remember.”

It only took him a second to grab her hips and set her on top of his desk.

There was a clattering of something tipping over, probably a cup of pens or paper clips from the sound of it, but neither of them cared. Not as he gripped the outside of her thigh where her legs were wrapped around him, or her hand found its way into his hair. He was both frustrated and very glad she’d worn leggings today. While he wished she was wearing something with a bit easier access, it was probably a blessing in disguise that he couldn’t get his hand between her legs.

Or his mouth.

Or any other body parts.

That wasn’t stopping Aelin from rubbing against him, looking for friction, as their tongues battled and teeth occasionally clashed. She let out a quiet moan and he tugged on her hair, pulling her lips from his.

“We’re not fucking in my office,” he breathed, looking her in the eyes. “It is way too dangerous.”

She nodded, knowing and accepting the fact, but it didn’t mean she was done kissing him.

“Was this morning not enough?” He smirked, trailing his lips down her throat instead of returning to hers.

“It’s never enough,” she gasped. “Every time I’m away from you…”

Her words trailed off as their lips met. It was true. It was never enough. She was so fulfilled with Rowan, and the second he was gone, she longed for him.

“Come over tonight,” Aelin begged. “Stay with me tonight.”

Rowan groaned as his tongue slipped between her lips.

They stayed at Rowan’s nearly every night. The only times Aelin stayed at her own apartment was when she had an exam or homework she had to work on, without Rowan distracting her. Lysandra and Aedion had met Rowan over dinner a few nights before, though Aelin had insisted take out was much more her friends’ speed than a fully home cooked meal. However, Aelin had a lab due the following morning, so after dinner, Rowan had gone back home.

Alone.

“We have class tomorrow,” he replied, lips still on hers.

“So we’ll make sure we get up early.” Dragging her teeth across his jaw, she gripped his shoulders. “Bring over everything you’ll need to come straight to class.”

Rowan hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“We don’t live on campus,” Aelin said, quietly. “It’s not like I live somewhere surrounded by students.”

Rowan pulled back and met her gaze. “It’s important to you?”

Aelin nodded, arms still wrapped around the back of his neck. “I love being cooped up in your apartment. I really do. But, sometimes I wanna be cooped up somewhere else, too.”

Rowan huffed a laugh. “Alright.”

“Yeah?” Aelin asked, a soft smile painted across her light pink lips.

Rowan couldn’t help his own smile forming as he leaned forward and pulled Aelin closer to him as he kissed her, softly. They went on like that, dwelling in those slow, prolonged kisses. There was something personal, something exceptional about a long, slow kiss. Something sensual that made Aelin’s stomach feel like it was going to explode, even though it lacked that animalistic passion they had come to find within one another.

A quick knock at the door had them jumping apart, Rowan dragging a quick hand through his hair, not having a chance to reply before the door opened.

“Hey, Rowan, I was hoping you could— Oh.”

The pretty woman froze in the doorway, taking in the scene in front of her.

It was innocent enough, though Aelin’s lips were swollen from their kisses. That could easily be explained away, especially as her teeth found the bottom lip and gnawed on it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had an appointment,” she said, eyeing Aelin, who had thankfully gotten off the desk before she’d entered.

“It wasn’t officially booked,” he explained, slightly stepping in front of Aelin to keep her shielded. “Miss Galathynius had a few questions about the homework I assigned in class and about an upcoming project. She stopped by during her lunch break, since her schedule is so busy.”

Silence built in the office, and after a second, Rowan cleared his throat. “Did you need something, Remelle?”

“Maeve sent out an email about a mandatory department meeting for Thursday night,” she said, slowly, still looking at them both suspiciously. “A couple of us in the building were going to get drinks after, wanted to know if you wanted to come.”

Rowan cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. Sure. I’ll plan on it.”

“Good,” Remelle said, a little too quickly. “And check your mailbox in the office. It’s full.”

With another look at Aelin, then at Rowan, Remelle left and the door fell shut behind her.

Silence enveloped the room.

Rowan slowly turned around to look at Aelin, whose face was pale.

“You couldn’t have locked the door?” she whispered.

Rowan scoffed. “Yeah, because that wouldn’t have been suspicious, being locked in here with a student.”

For some reason, the word student felt like a jab coming from him in that moment. Aelin’s back straightened. “I wasn’t aware that the receptionist randomly barges into your office. If a student found it locked, they probably wouldn’t think it was weird, at all. Offices around here are locked all the damn time.”

Rowan sighed and nodded. He stepped towards her and ran his hands up and down her arms, pressing a soft kiss to Aelin’s forehead. “You should go. There’s only so much we can talk about homework.”

Nodding, Aelin wrapped her arms around his waist, and he wrapped her up in his own. “I’ll see you after class?”

“I’ll run by my place to grab some things and pick up dinner on the way,” he promised, tilting her chin up to look at him. “I’ll see you later.”

She nodded and rose up on her toes to press a kiss to his lips. Grabbing her bag from the chair, she adjusted her messy bun, which was only a little messier than it had been before and slipped out the office door.

Leaning back on the spot Aelin had just been sitting in, Rowan took a quick moment to breathe before setting his desk to rights and heading down to check his community mailbox. It wasn’t full as Remelle had implied, but there were a few things in it, mostly department memos and notes from other professors. He ignored her suspicious look as he made his way back up the stairs to his office and settled behind his desk to work on the grading he’d planned to do during his lunch.

He was halfway through an essay from one of his upperclassmen when his email dinged on his laptop. It had gone off a few times since Aelin had left, but he’d ignored them, assuming they were automatic replies to Maeve’s email about the meeting.

Tapping on the track pad of his laptop to wake it up, he kept reading over the essay as his email came to life, but he waited until he was done to look over at the most recent notifications.

Freezing, Rowan’s eyes flashed over the subject of the email from Maeve three times before he actually had the nerve to open it.

Meeting in my office after your final class of the evening.

We need to have a talk.

*

Aelin felt as if she had been holding her breath for hours.

Which was exactly how long it had been since she had received her text from Rowan.

As someone who was not nervous or paranoid by nature, she hated the feeling of being so freaked out that she was nearly about to vomit. She had already cleaned her apartment once, and was pouring herself a glass of wine as she was deciding what she could clean next. Maybe she would clean out the fridge.

After downing her glass of wine, she did just that, throwing open the refrigerator door and emptying out what had been in there for over a week.

She didn’t even hear the front door open, nor did she hear her roommate and cousin walk into the kitchen.

“Ace?”

Aelin yelped, jumped, and spun around, nearly knocking over her glass of wine on the counter nearby. “What the hell?” she yelled. “You can’t just sneak up on people like that! Doesn’t anyone realize how fucking rude it is to just barge in?!”

Aedion’s brows shot up as Lysandra stepped forward. “Uh, everything okay?”

Aelin’s face fell into her hands as she leaned against the countertop. “Does it look like everything is okay?” she asked, words muffled.

“What happened?” Lysandra asked, gently prying Aelin’s hands from her face.

Her eyes were still shut, as if she could shut out the world. Taking a deep breath, she released it, answering in one, quick burst. “I think Rowan and I got caught.”

She heard something hit the floor, clearly dropped by Aedion, but Lysandra’s hands went slack on her wrist. “What do you mean?”

Letting her head fall to the countertop, she groaned once before standing up straight and looking at them. Aedion had indeed dropped the bag of pretzels he’d pulled from the cabinet.

“We both had long breaks today, so I stopped by his office to see him for a minute. I didn’t mean for anything to happen. I mean… Yeah, I kinda did. I kissed him first.”

“I don’t need to hear about this. Lys can fill me in,” Aedion muttered, scooping the bag of pretzels off the floor and heading for Lysandra’s bedroom.

“We didn’t fuck or anything,” Aelin sighed after he left. “But we did make out on his desk a bit. It was barely even PG-13.”

“So what happened?” Lysandra asked, getting another glass down and refilling Aelin’s glassed wine and filling one for herself. “How did you get caught?”

“The secretary walked in,” Aelin said, staring at a spot on the hardwood. “She didn’t see anything, we broke apart before the door opened, but… I don’t know. She sounded suspicious, looked suspicious.” Aelin took a sip from her glass. “I mean, seriously, who knocks but doesn’t wait for a come in before they open the damn door? It’s rude as hell.”

“I don’t wait before coming into your room,” Lysandra said.

“That’s different, we live together,” Aelin said, unable to control her chuckle.

Lysandra smiled, but it faded as she shook her head. “That man needs to learn how to lock his office.”

“That’s what I said!” Aelin agreed, and topped off her glass before it was even halfway empty.

“So, what?” Lysandra went on. “She came in but didn’t see anything. Maybe she just always looks suspicious. I’m sure nothing will come out of it.”

Without another word, Aelin took her phone out of her pocket and slid it across the counter. Lysandra slowly picked it up and read Rowan’s text.

Got an email from Maeve. I have to go to her office tonight. Says she needs to talk to me. Sounded urgent.

Aelin had texted back. Did she say what it was about?

No, Rowan had replied. But it doesn’t sound good.

“Have you heard from him since he sent these?” Lysandra asked, setting the phone down.

“No, but we’ve both been in class.” Aelin let her head fall to the countertop again. “He’s supposed to come over after he gets out. But now I’m wondering if that’s such a good idea. What if someone sees him getting here?”

“It’s not all students, and we’re not exactly social butterflies. We don’t know any of our neighbors,” Lysandra said, clearly trying to soothe her.

Aelin just shook her head. “I like him, Lys. A lot. I can see a future with this guy, but… What if this is all too much? It’s too dangerous. We’re jeopardizing our futures.”

Lysandra’s eyes softened. “The secretive part of your relationship is only temporary. Besides, he’s head over heels for you, too. Would it really be worth it to give that up?”

“What if Rowan is about to lose his job?” Aelin shot back. “Lys, I would never be able to forgive myself. I have to do something.”

“Always the hero,” Lysandra muttered. “Look, the best thing you can do right now is stay here, drink wine, and let it all play out. Rowan is a big boy. He can handle himself.” Aelin said nothing, so Lysandra went on. “I just want to see you happy. Does he make you happy?”

“Beyond. Happier than I’ve been in a long time,” she sighed, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the counter. “I know it’s only been a few weeks, but… I care about him.”

“And it’s pretty damn clear that he cares about you, so sitting and waiting sucks, but that’s what you’ll have to do.” Lysandra crossed the kitchen and wrapped her best friend up in a hug. Aelin’s forehead fell to her shoulder. “I can send Aedion to get more wine if you want.”

Aelin nodded.

Lysandra chuckled and said, “Then that’s what we’ll do. Why don’t you—?”

A knock on the front door had Aelin’s head snapping up and she hurried from the kitchen. Throwing open the door, she found Rowan standing on the other side. Before he could say anything, she pulled him inside and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest. “Gods, I’ve been so fucking worried.”

To her surprise, he laughed quietly, and it only caused Aelin to lean back, eyes wide. “What could possibly be funny right now?”

“I’m not I’m trouble,” he whispered, arms going around her waist. “We’re safe, we’re fine.”

Aelin blinked, all anxiety fading from her body only to be replaced with confusion. “Why did Maeve call you into her office, then?”

“She just wanted to check how things were going.” He shrugged. “Being new, and her nephew, she just wanted to check in.”

“Gods, Rowan!” She shoved his chest, lightly. “You couldn’t have texted me that? I’ve been a nervous mess!”

“She’s not exaggerating,” Lysandra mumbled from behind them. “Hi, Professor.”

Rowan rolled his eyes. “Hi, Lysandra.”

As Lysandra headed towards her room, he looked down to where Aelin was staring at his chest. He tilted her chin up until she was forced to look at him. His brow furrowed and he was surprised to see silver lining her eyes. “Everything is okay, baby. Why are you crying?”

She shook her head and blinked, but wasn’t able to stop the single tear that spilled over. He wiped it away with his thumb. “I thought we got caught, that I had ruined your life.”

His heart nearly broke. “Aelin…” He wrapped her up in his arms again, holding her as tightly as he dared, as if he could keep her from falling apart. After a second, he leaned back so he could look at her, but didn’t let her go. “Being together isn’t a decision that just one of us has made. We both went into this relationship knowing the consequences. If something were to happen, if someone finds out, you aren’t ruining my life.”

Aelin snorted, and framed his face in her hands. “So we’d both be ruining your life?”

“No one’s life will be ruined,” Rowan promised. “I’m going to be with you, Aelin. Now, and when you graduate, we can have a normal relationship, whatever the hell that means. If you’ll have me, I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s a big promise to make so early in our relationship,” Aelin breathed, running her thumbs across his cheeks.

“I have a good feeling about us,” Rowan followed, melting into her touch.

Leaning down, he pressed his lips to hers, but pulled back and smirked. “But maybe I’ll start locking my office, just in case you decide to make another unexpected visit.”

Aelin threw her head back and laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck as she rose up on her toes to kiss him again.

The day had stressed them both out, but throughout it all, there was only one thing Rowan could think about: he didn’t know what his future held, but there was one thing for sure.

He wanted Aelin in it.