#should probably boot that personal blog back up but my life is so boring

[selkiefinalist]

[chrisevansgoodgirl]

killing peggy carter

summary: you want revenge bc steve’s a bitch. (happy times, save for steve’s disappearance. everyone’s alive tho)

warnings: a darker steve. rough smut, a little questionable at times. a lot of angst bc i was in a mood.

pairing: steve rogers x reader, peggy carter x reader for a sec, and some steve x peggy ( 🤢 )

word count: about 9,800

a/n: not tagging anyone bc no one asked for this, i literally just wrote it like forever ago and decided to post it bc i haven’t posted in forever. also, if you go back far enough on my blog, you will see that i watch riverdale and honestly, i came up with this title before jughead wrote his emo story in the finale.

When Steve left, it was nothing short of devastating.

Your world had stopped. How could it not? You had been under the impression that someone was in love with you as much as you were in love with them. And god, you were so damn in love with Steve Rogers.

It had been a year and it still hurt just like it had that first day. You were better at hiding it now, using that as the only entertainment in your life. Being an Avenger wasn’t the same as it used to be. The world was good, you weren’t needed. Especially not while all these feelings of anger and resentment were growing inside you.

When Steve left, he took a lot. He took your heart, your soul, your fucking will to love and let yourself be loved, and he took your ability to be a hero. No hero had the darkness you had. No hero stayed out most nights dancing in sweaty and noisy clubs, being groped by strangers she couldn’t even take home because she was the definition of damaged. You had trust issues for days, and they weren’t going anywhere any time soon, if ever.

Bucky tried to help and sometimes, you had the energy to fake it. It always made him so happy to see you smiling or just talking to other men who clearly were attracted to you. But nothing would come of it. You couldn’t believe a word that any one of them said.

Steve used to look at you, tell you he loved you, tell he needed you, that he couldn’t do any of this without you. Then he had the chance to go back to Peggy Carter and he took it in a second, no hesitation. He didn’t even say goodbye.

You stayed out on the lake for three months, figuring he’d just gotten tied up. He would come back, you told yourself that every night. What finally broke you was when Nat and Bucky sat you down and told you it wasn’t going to happen. You’d always known but with confirmation from the two people that knew him best, you had to face reality. He’d left you and he wasn’t coming back.

It was a huge hit to your self-esteem. Maybe if you had been prettier. Smarter. Stronger. Better. But you were just you. Petty, small, aching. Ironically, that was how he had found you as well. The Avengers liked to bring in team members who had already been through too much. You hadn’t realized how vulnerable your past trauma made you to their type of coercion. You would do anything any of them asked. With Steve, it was different. More. And he had always known.

There was this pain in your chest that never went away. Sometimes you woke up gasping in the middle of the night, usually after a nightmare. It was as if there had been a hand around your neck. But there wasn’t because you were as alone as anyone could possibly be.

You didn’t mind it anymore. Hell, it was the only thing that you still had left of Steve. You burned everything else and not even that made you feel better. This was all much to Bucky’s dismay.

You would never tell a soul that you couldn’t part with his sketchbooks, that you had them hidden in a box underneath your bed. It was no one’s right to know. This pain was your own, the only thing you still had possession of.

You hadn’t been touched in his absence, even by yourself. It reminded you of all those times he would kiss along your skin and sing praises to your beauty. Sometimes, you wished you were ugly. Sometimes, you wished you could just get so ugly that no one would even want to look at you.

But that was not the case. You were that beautiful, strong, and caring woman Steve had fallen in love with, so they claimed. You were their responsibility. Their project. They would get you through this if it was the last thing they did. Nat, Bucky, and Sam tried merely out of their loyalty to Steve. Tony followed that lead and that meant Peter tried as well as he could. Wanda, still consumed by her own lost love, attempted, but she was probably the only person who could see you for what you were.

Thrown out trash. Abandoned, sharp pieces that could and would cut anyone who tried to help. You hated all the rest of them for not seeing it. You hated all the rest of them because in their eyes, you were still Steve’s girl.

You no longer had a boyfriend, a family, or friends. He took all of that away from you. And one day, when you were so sick of having nothing to do but feel sorry for yourself, you decided that you were going to return that favor.

Steve Rogers deserved to be just as heartbroken and empty as you. It drove you crazy. He had been the one to pursue you. He had been the one to insist that you were his, even said you were the best thing to ever happen to him.

Talking Bruce into helping was laughably easy. You claimed to need closure. You claimed you just wanted to know that Steve was happy. You wanted to tell him you forgave him. Bruce hadn’t seen you look this happy in a long while so he did what anyone would and said yes.

You wanted to wait. Steve was always so sentimental, the anniversary of the day he met Peggy was probably a day of extreme affection in their house. He probably made her breakfast, bought her some piece of jewelry that she wouldn’t even like, and spent all day telling her how much he loved her. You wanted to crash the party.

Part of you wished there was another way to do this, but there just wasn’t. Killing Peggy was the only way to take anything from him, and you had these dark fantasies that he would then kill you in retaliation. What a beautiful way to go, you hoped he would strangle you. You hoped he would set you on his lap one final time, wrap his hands around your neck, and stare into your eyes until you were gone.

Peggy was a great person, that much you felt bad about. But hadn’t Steve practically murdered you? And you were a great person before all of this. An eye for an eye. Did he think you were just going to disappear? No, he wasn’t going to get away with this any longer. He wasn’t going to get his happiness after he had ruined your whole life.

You wanted some years on them, you told Bruce ten years. Steve would be just shy of 50. You wondered what he’d look like. When he left, he had just started to get some gray hairs. You could remember that morning vividly. You wouldn’t have noticed if the sun hadn’t been shining in through the blinds perfectly onto his blonde hair. He blushed about 7 shades of red, but you promised him you didn’t mind. Because you loved him. He said he loved you back. Like an idiot, you believed him.

You arrived in his time with little care to how you looked. You weren’t here for anyone but him. You didn’t mind that everyone was staring at you oddly because instead of some huge, ugly dress, you were wearing black pants, a low-cut t-shirt, and a leather jacket.

You did need a weapon, however. Guns were cowardly. Poison could be fun. A knife, though. A knife would certainly get the point across. You tucked it into your boot and then you were on your way.

You found Peggy’s house easily. Bruce had made sure you knew where you were going and what to do if they had moved or anything like that. You’d known they would be in the same place. You’d known Steve would want to live in this domestic, pathetic lie.

There was a window that looked into the living room. It was mid-day, you figured Peggy was at work. What did Steve even do? Was there a specific activity he liked pairing with all the pure nothingness he was doing while his best friend suffered in Hydra’s hands?

You saw him sitting in a recliner in what you assumed was the living room. His hair was almost all gray, he’d cut it much shorter. Like how he used to have it, before everything with Tony and Bucky. Like how he had it when you met him. His beard was just as light and he had a few prominent wrinkles on his forehead and around his mouth. But that was as far as his aging went. His arms were still huge, his shoulders so broad, and you had the strongest feeling that that ass had held up.

You were about to go in, make your presence known when you realized he was reading a book. Your favorite book. He must have taken it with him because that looked distinctly like one of your many copies you hadn’t seen for quite some time.

You were furious, shaking and seeing red. No matter how hard you tried to breathe, you just couldn’t. You were going to cut Peggy’s heart about and show it to him. You were going to cover that ugly house with her blood. You were going to wreck him just as much as he wrecked you.

You watched Steve for three months and came to the harrowing conclusion that he was severely unhappy. Peggy would come home and they wouldn’t speak. They would sit down for dinner and say maybe five sentences to one another. They went to bed together, sometimes they had sex. You never stuck around for that because not only was that a major violation of her privacy, but damn, they were fucking boring.

When she woke up in the morning, he wouldn’t get up until she was gone. Then he would go for his run, you followed a couple of times as best you could to see if there was a piece of this puzzle you were missing. When he returned home, he would read or watch television, he went for a second run a few hours later, and returned home to do absolutely nothing but await her return.

Should this have made you happy? It didn’t. He would rather be unhappy with her than happy with you. But that was for one reason: his pride. He didn’t want to crawl back to you and admit that he made a mistake.

Your goals changed. You wanted to make him admit it. Not with words, he would never do that. But Steve was a faithful man. If you got him to stray, it would be indisputable.

You waited one morning until he was out on his run, then snuck into the house. You went through their kitchen, sometimes you moved things just to be a bitch. You went through their bedroom and discovered that Peggy had a terrible contraption that had the audacity to call itself a sex toy. That would be nice to throw in Steve’s face.

You tossed it onto the bed and got undressed as you made your way to the shower. Steve wouldn’t be gone much longer. And he would know something was very wrong when he saw your clothes.

You washed your hair, used Peggy’s soap, and only had to wait a couple of minutes after that. You heard him call out her name a few times. But then he got to the bedroom and you heard his steps hesitating.

“Peggy?”

He wouldn’t say your name, not ever. Because he could be wrong, he could be delusional. And to admit that he was still thinking about you after all this time, that was his idea of a loss.

You didn’t grab a towel as you pulled the shower curtain back and shut off the water. Dripping wet, you carefully padded across the tile floor and then out to the bedroom.

His eyes widened and he dropped to his knees. “What...what are you doing here?”

You shrugged, glancing around. “Thought I deserved a vacation.”

“Y/N, I am so—”

“Pathetic? Weak? Yeah, don’t worry, I know.” You moved closer to him, eyeing him pitifully. You were glad that you hadn’t crumbled. Months ago, you would have given anything just to hear his voice, just to see his fucking eyes. God, you hated him now.

“You’re angry, I understand.”

“Angry?” you scoffed. “Add dumb to the list.”

“I’m sorry that I hurt you—”

“You didn’t hurt me, you piece of shit. You destroyed me, you ruined my life. For all intents and purposes, you killed me. And I’m here to get my revenge.”

His eyebrows pulled together. “Revenge?”

You reached out to touch his face, trailed your fingers along his bottom lip. “Yeah, payback. I’m going to make sure I make you feel what you made me feel.”

He glared up at you. “Are you threatening me?”

“Yes.”

He finally stood, towering over you.

“Mmm, how I’ve missed this body.” You pressed yourself against him and as much as he acted like he didn’t like it, he never pulled away or tried to push you back. You were getting him wet and his shirt was starting to cling to his abs. You let your hands wander for a moment before they dropped down to his pants.

“Stop,” he said quietly.

And you did because you were never going to allow him to lie. Your turned up to him and stepped back.

He looked torn apart, confused. “Why are you here?”

You shrugged. “Why not?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Well, it’s all you’re getting. You don’t need any other answer.”

“So, what’s the plan? How are you going to get your revenge?”

“I know you, Steve, I know that you believe in being a good and faithful man. I just want you to fuck me. That’s all.”

“Well, you know that’s not going to happen. You know I would never—”

“Cheat? So, then you’ve never fucked Peggy?”

“What?”

“You never left me, you never told me we were done. You, like the coward you are, just didn’t come back. Every time you’ve been with her is a lie, a cheat. You are a cheater.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?! You keep acting like there was just one thing! There were a million things, Steve. You ruined everything that we were building. And you can apologize all you want, but until I return at least half of it, I’m stuck here with you.”

“I won’t fuck you.”

“Yet,” you pointed out. “Well, I should be going.”

He grabbed your arm. “Go home.”

“I am home, baby. You’re here and you’re my home.”

He frowned.

You yanked yourself out of his hold, bending over to grab your clothing all over the room. He wasn’t going to fuck you but that did not mean he wasn’t going to look at you. So, you gave him quite the show, just like you had in the past upon his request.

You disappeared into the bathroom as if it was so natural, as if it was your own. He made no moves to follow and said nothing. As you dried yourself off, you decided now was as good a time as any. “See that terrible thing on your bed?”

You heard him step a few times, then nothing.

You scoffed. “Maybe it has to do with your age.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Still. Pretty creepy you came back to a much younger Peggy.”

“I came back to the one I left.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself.” You sauntered out and sent him one last smile before exiting the bedroom.

Peggy and Steve had a fight, so Peggy ducked out to some small diner. If you couldn’t get to him, you decided you were going to get to her. Peggy was sweet from the second you began speaking to her, feigning concern for her situation.

The first night you guys went out together, you wanted her to talk shit about Steve. She didn’t, she just got drunk and tried to get you much the same. You were taking her home because you truly were fearful of what would become of her without your help. And she kissed you. At first, you were startled, you pulled away out of fear and shock. She wasn’t Steve. In all your life since you’d met him, you never thought someone else was going to kiss you.

But then she looked terrified. Had she been reading you wrong? Had she messed everything up? Nah, you were adaptable. You kissed her back, explained you’d been hurt by some loser and it had been a while. She understood, or said she did, and then she was disappearing inside.

You were left wondering if Steve heard you, but not many lights in the house were on. He probably wasn’t home. Confirmed by your unlocked hotel door when you returned home just a couple of hours before sunrise.

Knowing it was him didn’t mean you weren’t going to pull your gun as you entered. He was sitting in one of the chairs at the tiny table near the tiny kitchen.

He arched an eyebrow. “That necessary?”

“I should have shot you the second I got here.” But you still tossed it onto the bed. “You know...this paints quite a scene, doesn’t it? You’re here, angry at me for being out late.” You let your purse fall to the floor, then your hideous cardigan. You had only shown up with one outfit, so shopping was necessary to keep up appearances. You didn’t know a lot about the 40s, but you didn’t want them to start burning women at the stake again because of you.

You made your way to him, straddling his lap as you took his face in your hands. “Are you upset that I broke curfew, daddy?”

He didn’t even bat an eye, but you knew that would get to him. “Where were you?”

“Out with your future wife.” One of many kickers, they had yet to get married. Peggy said it was because she wanted to wait. “Thought she would be willing to talk shit about you...thought it would make me feel better.”

“And? Did she give you anything you can use against me in the future?”

“Nah. She didn’t want to talk about you at all.”

He glared. “When are you going home?”

She shrugged. “Whenever I feel like it.” Your eyes moved over his face as you felt the deeply etched lines on his skin. “You don’t look 50 but I never thought... You remember when I found your gray hair?”

“Yeah... Thought you would leave me...that you’d want someone your age.”

“I like you like this, you know. Twice my age.”

“Have there been others?”

And just like that, the end of your friendly conversation. You pulled your hands away from him but stayed on top of him. “Others?”

“People...men you’ve let close.”

You scoffed. “Why would I do that?”

“I wanted...I thought you would move on.”

“People lie,” you pointed out. “You told me you loved me every day and then you just left. I can’t adequately explain to you how tired I am. I can’t do it again, I can’t even let myself try. I can’t get close to people the way I was close to you. I can’t move on. I can’t love someone else. I can’t do anything but hate you as much as I loved you.”

“I wasn’t lying—”

“You left. If you loved me as much as you said you did, you wouldn’t have been able to.”

“I do love you—”

You immediately pulled off him, rushing to get your feet back on the floor. No, no fucking way, he was not going to lie to you again. He was simply not allowed to anymore. You would not tolerate it.

“Y/N—”

“Get out of my hotel!” You pointed to the door. “Now, Steve, or I swear I will shoot you.”

He scoffed. “For what? Loving you?”

“You piece of shit.” You didn’t wait for him to say anything else. You stormed to the bathroom and locked the door before he could intrude yet again.

He knew you wouldn’t come back out, not while he was still there. All he could do was leave. For safe measure, he at least unloaded your gun and set it on the bedside table. Maybe if you had to find it and load again, you would lose some of your anger and not ended up taking a shot at him.

How dare he? He had no right to say that to you, no right to use that word. It meant nothing coming from him because there was the implied ‘but’ along with it. Before, he just loved you. Period. Now? He loved you. But what? He loved Peggy more? He loved this time more?

You thought you had been angry before. Even though the time you were spending with Peggy was diffusing that somewhat. Still, you never lost sight of what you wanted. Needed. The idea of Steve’s heartbreak was the only thing that could get you up in the morning.

He threw you off for a few days. Every time you tried to leave the hotel room just to do something a tad evil, you would end up in bed crying. Steve thankfully didn’t try to come back, you hated the thought of him seeing you like this, letting him know that he could still do this to you.

Peggy called. You gave her the number, just in case, and she used it to express her concern for you. It wasn’t like you not to want to hang out or to just be around and bump into her “randomly”. She invited you out for breakfast the first day, then lunch the next. You said you weren’t feeling well.

An excuse she stopped taking the third night. She wanted to go dancing with you, all while her asshole boyfriend stayed at home. How could you say no? You shouldn’t, this was the entire reason you were here.

You would kill her tonight. This time was a drag and you wanted to get home. To a place where you could wear pants or a t-shirt. A place where there weren’t so many preppy men in pastels or college sweaters.

Peggy picked you up, she wouldn’t stop staring. Had it been any other day, you might have even questioned why. But you weren’t going to enjoy this as much as you thought you would. It sucked, and honestly, it made you hate Steve even more. He was your downfall, he was also her downfall, but at least he would soon be utterly alone.

It had been hours. You were just trying to dance and let the music fill your mind, but this music was shit. If you had to hear one more man sing about wanting to hold a woman’s hand… Truly, you missed the filth of your time.

Peggy was the one that wanted to leave. Peggy was the one that wanted to walk away from all the noise of the city. Peggy was the one that took you to some sleazy motel, where she gave you the briefest of looks when she’d stopped you both on the sidewalk. She was also the one that kissed you when you didn’t say anything because what did you have to actually say?

Nothing. Not one thing. You had no idea how this plan had spiraled so terribly. You were meant to come here, kill her, throw it in Steve’s face, then bolt back home like none of it ever happened.

But you couldn’t kill her, not anymore, not after seeing what a miserable life she had with Steve. You hoped she would leave him, and not just to hurt him, but to help herself. You remembered the life she had in your world, the one she had created with your husband. It was so much better than the hell she was living in here.

So, you let her take you to a room. You let her kiss you, you let her tear your dress off, push you onto the bed, and crawl on top of you. Her lips moved everywhere over your legs, arms, and stomach, and they felt like fire because they belonged to someone who wasn’t Steve.

You hated how guilty you felt. You hated that your mind was seriously considering this a betrayal, cheating. But you were trying to be kinder to yourself. It wasn’t your fault that you had fallen so hard for someone and that you had made plans because someone had promised you forever.

She knew you were thinking about him. Not Steve, of course, but the someone you had once mentioned. She didn’t mind, she just promised she would try to make you forget. You forced yourself to be present, you turned off your mind when you could. She didn’t ask a lot of you, in reality.

She wanted to be on top, she wanted you to say her name and wouldn’t let you come until you asked nicely. It was probably around the third orgasm that you stopped feeling so awful, that all of those familiar sensations weren’t triggering memories and bitter resentment. That was what she gave you with her mouth alone and didn’t move until it was evident that your thoughts had simply melted away.

When she crawled back up to kiss you, she buried her fingers inside you. At that point, who the hell even was Steve Rogers? A distant, dull pain. Peggy was here, on top of you, biting your lip, telling you to come one more time, because she knew you had it in you.

She told you that you were beautiful, that she’d never seen a body like yours. She told you that you made her feel things Steve couldn’t, that you were fun and warm and kind, and she loved spending time with you.

You were covered in sweat, your skin painted with her lipstick and bites and other marks she left all over your skin. She hadn’t come yet and refused any offers you made her, she claimed she just wanted to focus on you for a moment.

When she finally pressed her soaking center against yours, you were in an odd amount of pain. You longed for something, so much, but you had no idea what. She pulled your hair, began kissing your neck, and rolled her hips hard. You pulled her hair back, pressed your hips up when she pressed down, whimpered her name, and told her she felt so good. It was when she started fucking you harder and faster, and you were getting really close once again, that you got the sick idea to rake your nails down her back. Hard enough to leave marks.

After her finish, she collapsed onto her side next to you. The way she looked at you was kind of scary, like you were worth a lot more than you knew you were. She also looked satisfied and you hadn’t seen that look since you’d shown up. And what a fucking crime that was. Yes, Steve was a dick, but fuck, that man could seriously fuck. Why was he denying her that?

You shoved her onto her back and sat on her face because you didn’t want to be thinking about him. She kept you there until you were shaking and so fuzzy you couldn’t even sit up on your own. A tad haphazardly, you insisted on getting your mouth on her. After some convincing on your part and a few pitying laughs from her as you nearly fell over the edge of the mattress because you were still dizzy, your tongue was sliding against her skin and her hands were locked in your hair.

She needed to get home, back to her boyfriend before he started to worry. You stuck around for a bit, reluctant to return to your apartment. Maybe this was it, maybe this was all you needed. Maybe it was just time to fucking go home.

You truly worried about all of the Bucky lectures you were going to get, all of those Natasha looks, those small ‘tsk’ sounds when Thor was not only upset but disappointed in you, the judgmental eyebrows Tony would be sending your way, and those puppy dog eyes from Peter. Goodness, you were sure Peter missed you. Bruce would never trust you again, no surprise there, you had lied to him. You hadn’t thought about the consequences of your actions when you first did this. You hated, at the time, that you didn’t care if you hurt anyone.

Game over. You weren’t going home not without having scored some points, but to win, you would just end up losing more. More, you now understood that you had taken all of it for granted. Yes, your friends were constant reminders of Steve and they had been acting like you were some mission they needed to complete, but at least they loved you. That was more than a lot of people had and you would let them know about all these epiphanies if they didn’t kill you as soon as you returned.

When you made it back to your apartment, it was only to get the necklace Wanda had given you a few years back for your birthday. It was this huge stone you never remembered the name of, something you rarely took off regardless of that.

The last thing you expected was to find Steve. He looked furious and maybe, just maybe, you were going to get the satisfaction of seeing that you hurt him before you left. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He was at the table again, jaw set, glaring at the wall straight ahead of him. You were trying to think if you’d ever seen him this angry, if you’d ever even heard stories of it. Probably not. He liked to act like you were so damn delicate. Though, maybe he had been onto something.

“Hey,” you snapped after receiving no response, “Why the fuck are you in my hotel room?”

Finally, he turned to you and for the first time ever, you were scared of him.

You kept your distance, you even began moving toward your bedside table where you had your gun stashed.

“I hope you’re not looking for this.” He reached down for a moment then tossed it onto the table noisily.

Shit. “Steve…”

“You fucked her.”

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

He stood quickly, storming over to you. For a moment, you had been stunned, and it was enough for him to get several upper hands. It wasn’t as if he needed them to begin with, but with your delayed scattering back, he was able to grab you and pin you to the wall. You were completely defenseless in stupid, impractical heels and an ugly, impractical dress.

“Tell me you didn’t fuck her.”

You said nothing.

He scoffed harshly. “I fucking smelled you all over her…and now I smell her on you. You left those scratches on her back because you wanted me to know.”

“Honestly, I thought I would be gone by the time you found out or by the time you decided to confront me. In fact, if you leave now, I’ll be gone and you’ll never have to see me again.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“What? Isn’t that what you wanted?”

He didn’t say anything, instead, he grabbed the neckline of your dress and tore it open. He paid no mind to your startled shoving at his chest. His eyes moved over your skin quickly, you could tell he was getting angrier with every bruise he found.

You were going to play this off, bat away at his feelings just long enough for you to escape. “Steve, I—”

He grabbed your jaw and you immediately shut up. “Go take a shower.”

Your eyebrows pulled together.

“Now.”

“No, you fucking—”

“You can do it on your own or I can do it for you. But to be clear, I will not ask again, and I’m gonna count to ten before I really lose my patience. One, two, three—”

“Steve,” you tried softly. He was still holding you there, so tight that the idea of moving was laughable.

“Four, five—”

“Steve,” you were a tad more frantic, pushing at his forearm.

“Six, seven.” He finally pulled away from you and you bolted to the bathroom without a second thought. He told you to leave the door open and you listened because you no longer had the desire to push him.

You came out in a towel several minutes later. Most of your shower was spent just trying to calm down, the rest was using any product you had to try to get rid of her scent. You didn’t want to risk further angering him with any lingering mentions of Peggy.

He was just feet away from the door when you stepped out and once again, he showed no hesitation in ripping away what covered your body. He looked you over again, briefer this time, obviously displeased with what he saw. He’d hoped most of it was just the lipstick Peggy always wore.

“Are you wet?”

“What?”

“Your pussy. Are you wet?” He was condescendingly slow with every single word and your hand suddenly itched with the need to smack him.

“No.”

“Well, you’re a liar, so I don’t believe you,” he countered. “Check.”

“What?”

“Check,” he repeated. “Now. And if I have to keep repeating myself, you’re not going to like the way this night plays out.”

You averted your gaze as you brought your hand to your center. Your breath caught audibly as you ran your fingers through. Yes, he was an ass, but your body would never stop craving his touch.

“Show me.”

Begrudgingly, you brought your hand back to him.

“Wow, how did I know you were lying? Touch yourself. Keep touching yourself until you come.”

You snorted. “Eww, no—”

He slammed his hand against the wall behind you and you fell silent again. “The same rules apply. Do it or I will do it for you.”

He had never spoken to you like this. Sure, there were the bad missions. There were the times when he just needed to fuck you to forget all the shit he had to deal with. But there was never a moment where you wondered if he would lose control, if he would hurt you unintentionally. Right now, maybe it wasn’t so much that you thought he would. You had known him long enough, loved him long enough, that you knew exactly what kind of man he was. Maybe, right now, it was that you wanted him to hurt you.

Nothing could be worse than when he left you. Nothing he did was going to hurt more than when you went back home and you were, once more, without him. Meaning that you wanted to take everything that you possibly could from this moment. All the pain, all the bruises, all those emotional scars that would add to the ones from before that you had idiotically convinced yourself you could ever get rid of.

He knew you were considering your next move and arched an eyebrow at your continuing silence.

You shook your head. “No.”

One of his hands shot up to wrap around your neck, the other hand went to your cunt where he slid two fingers into you with embarrassing ease.

You brought your hands up to his forearm and dug your nails into his skin. The harder you scratched him, the harder he would choke you—it was something established early on in your relationship. And if he was choking you, you couldn’t moan or whine like he wanted you to.

For a moment, you both stayed still. For an entire second, it wasn’t that he had left you, that you had to track him down, that you fucked his girlfriend and he was fucking furious about it. For a second, it was just you and him, like it was all the times before.

The problem was pride. It wasn’t like before and neither one of you wanted to let the other pretend. He hurt you. You hurt him. Before no longer mattered. So, you shut your eyes and turned your face away from him.

He thrust his fingers just slightly harder than you would have liked, slightly harder than he would have liked. It would sting in the morning, but you wouldn’t hate it. Crescent-shaped cuts would be found everywhere on his skin and he would mourn that they were healing too fast. Both of you knew that this was it. The end.

You were wet, that obscene sound drowning out your choked noises. He absolutely loved this, loved you. He had thought being with Peggy again would make him feel like he was finally home. It took him so long to figure out that he was wrong, to realize that you were one of the few people that actually felt like home. You and Bucky, Nat, Sam, Tony, Wanda, Thor. Not Peggy.

And he could no longer pretend when he felt you tighten around his fingers. He was fucked up and he ruined things a lot of the time. It was just in his DNA, even the fucking serum couldn’t fix that. But prior to leaving, he’d never ruined anything with you. He hadn’t realized how much he missed fucking you because he always did that right.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered.

Instead, you pushed harder at his arm and turned further away from him. Your hips started to buck against his hand, and he knew you wanted this, but he knew you were not going to give in without some fight.

“Open your fucking eyes, Y/N.”

You were not going to. After all the hell he’d put you through? Fuck that, fuck him. You were never going to give him anything he wanted ever again.

He yanked his hand away from your pussy and grabbed your jaw to turn your face to him. He knew that wouldn’t work alone and in a move of desperation, kissed you. A move to get you to let your guard down—a weak move that would not work. As his knee came up to your cunt and you began grinding against it, he started biting your lip.

You buried one hand in his hair and started pulling harder than you should have. He released your jaw to do the same to you. This was much different than how he usually touched you. He’d always been rough, but this hurt, actually hurt.

You rode his thigh with no assistance from him. He let your face go and dropped your hair in search of another tactic. You were no longer kissing, you instead rested your head on his shoulder, eyes still squeezed shut. Even when he grabbed your ass painfully, and when he smacked you after all you did was scream. Even when he grabbed your breasts and pulled on your nipples.

You kept your eyes shut the entire time and he was growing furious. He wasn’t going to let you feel anything even resembling pleasure if you weren’t going to give into him. He pulled away and grabbed your hips.

You opened your eyes then, concerned about what he was doing to you next. He grabbed your shoulder and shoved you onto the bed before you could say a word. You were on your stomach, facing away from him, busy lamenting the loss of your finish. You heard him undressing as you attempted to regain your breath and composure.

He was on top of you before that happened, yanking your legs open before he crawled up, hands stopping on either side of your head. He wasn’t going to tease, he was going to fuck you like the brat you were—hard, mean, unforgiving. He lowered his hips until his cock was lined up with your entrance and then thrust in.

Your scream must have scared the hell out of the neighbors. You wouldn’t be surprised if the cops were being called right then. It wasn’t a pleasurable scream, you certainly liked that he was inside you, but that was just your body. Your heart ached in a way that it never had. You’d thought you were never going to feel him again, but it wasn’t some beautiful feeling of reconnection. You were at square one, you would have to crave his body all over again once this was over. You would go through those same agonizing withdrawals that had truly destroyed you those first few months.

Steve grabbed your hair again and shoved your face into the mattress. He didn’t care about taking it slow, making sure that you, his precious, sweet girlfriend, were okay. He felt just as torn up as you and he couldn’t afford emotional consideration when he was so fucked up. He only knew what he wanted, for you to look at him like you used to. He would do whatever he had to do to get it. Part of him didn’t care how low he would have to go. He wasn’t Captain America here, he didn’t have to live up to the same standards.

You blindly reached back to try to catch his arm, but your attempts never even touched him. He didn’t seem to care about what you were attempting, he just fucked you. He held you down as his hips slammed against your ass and he moaned loudly, shamelessly, selfishly. You finally caught a hold of his arm and used the heel of your palm to push, but since you were out of breath and had been for quite some time, you doubted that there was any real force behind it.

“Can’t breathe, baby?” he wondered, hips still snapping, the head of his cock reaching that delicious spot inside you.

You dug your nails into his skin even though it was an uncomfortable stretch and your muscles were screaming. You were screaming, too, despite everything, despite the lack of strategy in that, but this felt too good not to. You hadn’t been fucked like this in so long, this was what you knew you would never get from someone else. This deep, soul-level connection was a one-time deal. No one else was ever going to be able to give you this.

“If I let you up, you better fucking look at me. I’m not kidding, Y/N. I’ll fucking hold you down again until I fucking come.”

Once his hand lifted from your head, you turned up and gasped for air. It was a short-lived relief as soon as his hand pressed into your neck and angled your head back. It wasn’t that you were scared, and you should have been because you wholeheartedly believed his threat, it was that you were happy to have an excuse to give in. He was stronger than you, right? No one could blame you for giving in, hell, you were just trying to save yourself. Right?

Your eyes met his and his hips stuttered. A ragged breath fell from his lips, you felt it on your hair. That hard look in his eyes softened, he looked a lot like that man that had promised you he would come back to you.

“I love you,” he breathed.

Your eyes instantly filled with tears and you clamped your mouth shut. Both hands were buried in the bedsheets because you needed something to hold, something to tear at, something to destroy to cope with the burning anger that was consuming you.

“I’m sorry, I love you.” His body moved erratically against yours, desperate for all the things he’d longed for since he’d left you. The two of you were sick together, desperate, twisted people that proved it in bed. Peggy wasn’t like that and he was drowning trying to act like he was normal, like he was that same man that she had been with what felt like centuries ago.

He collapsed, chin pressing into the bend of your neck, and you felt his cum spilling into you. His arms wrapped around you, holding you tight as he rode out his finish. He didn’t stop, however, now he wanted to get you off. He wanted to feel those same pathetic, proud things he experienced whenever he played your body like an instrument.

You didn’t resist, what would be the point? You fucking deserved an orgasm, at the very least. You were ashamed to admit that you wanted it, needed it. You hadn’t honestly felt alive since he left you, but this reminded you what that was like.

He groaned when he felt you tightening around him, his hand wedging between you and the mattress to get to your clit. When he did, it was over and you crashed like a wave against the shore, and you saw stars, and you felt all those things you felt when you were happily in love with a man you thought loved you back.

So, in conclusion, you felt lies.

If he thought he could fuck reality out of your mind, he was sadly mistaken. You were coming down when your hand started sliding across the mattress. Your gun was not the only precaution you took—you’d known Natasha for years and she would strangle you if that was your only form of protection.

He was kissing down your spine when you located your knife, and he had just started to speak when you turned back and just stabbed. You had a general awareness of where he was, you knew you weren’t going to kill him, and you didn’t want to. You just needed to get away, before he started talking, apologizing, making more promises.

You didn’t wait to see where you stabbed, you simply clawed away from him until you could jump from the bed. He cried out and you heard him grabbing for you, but you couldn’t stop for anything. On your bedstand was the necklace you had shown up for, you grabbed it, along with your long coat and then you were on your way out the door.

Running around completely naked in the 40s, clutching a trench coat you knew you weren’t going to leave without, shoeless, dripping sweat and cum—you’d never thought your beautiful life with Steve Rogers would take you here.

A Bucky Barnes lecture was the last thing you wanted, but it was the only thing you would be receiving for probably several months. Well, when he was done with his silent treatment. He was furious when you returned, he didn’t say a word to you. Everyone else had completely fawned over you. They hugged you, pet your hair, told you how proud they were that you came home.

Bucky just stared at you and when they all parted so he could speak to you, he simply stormed out of Bruce’s lab. But yes, Bruce was a tad betrayed, your expectation on that had been correct. You apologized profusely and brought him coffee every day, several times a day until he stopped looking at you like a kicked baby animal.

Tony was disappointed, but not to Bucky’s extent. He simply could not fathom the hold Steve had on you still, told you as much. You admitted that you were wrong, and well, with Tony, that was really all he needed. He wanted to be right and he wanted you to tell him that you learned your lesson. To the untrained eye, he would look like a narcissist. But you knew him better, you knew he was just scared of losing you. Again. He merely wanted to know that you were sticking around and that was what you conveyed when you told him you had made a mistake going in the first place. He dropped it, like it never happened.

Natasha didn’t let you out of her sight for almost two complete weeks. She watched you and you felt her watching you, but she wasn’t going to pry. She was angry, but she was still handling you with gloves on. She wasn’t going to push you emotionally no matter how badly she wanted to. She also wasn’t going to ask questions, scared that prying would move you further away. You told her you saw Steve and that you got what you needed, she nodded, and that was the end of it. She still watched you, but she was slyer about it. She made sure you were in your room when she woke up and went to bed, but she took up Tony’s pretending routine as well.

Wanda didn’t need to ask anything; she knew because she read your thoughts. She knew because she had been outraged that you left without a goodbye, so she felt entitled to those thoughts. Not because she needed to know what happened but because she needed to know if you were going to try anything else again. She stopped being mad at you one day when you were making Bruce coffee. You hadn’t heard her, you were there in the kitchen, stuck in your own thoughts. She hugged you tight, didn’t say a word, but just like that, it was over.

Almost everyone had gotten over it in record time. You knew you were an asshole and you apologized, and you meant it, but even if you hadn’t, it wasn’t like they were ever going to hold it against you. Sometimes, knowing that, it made you feel worse because these people loved you and just like Steve had done to you, you hurt them. In the exact same way. You left.

Sam was in a much more difficult position. He felt a duty to you as one of Steve’s closest friends, but he also felt for Bucky. You’d really hurt Bucky and Sam could forgive you for being reckless, psychotic almost, even selfish. But the look on Bucky’s face when they discovered that you were gone was a hard thing to shake.

He stopped ignoring you after a couple of days, but the conversations were short, shallow. He didn’t ask about your time there and he didn’t ask about your feelings after. It was all small talk and polite conversation, it seemed like you barely knew each other at all. But sometimes, you would catch him watching you, like he was looking for signs of something that he couldn’t ask you. He wanted to know if you were still torn up by this Steve thing.

You were. You cried a lot, as if it happened all over again. Technically, in a way, it did. But you didn’t show them that, it was no longer their burden to bear. You had caused them pain when they tried to take yours away. You waited until you were alone or out of the tower, you cried quietly and quickly. You did not allow yourself those days where you would just hole up in your room. You were always awake early, asleep late, and you took care of yourself because you owed them all at least that.

You knew when Bucky was less angry, but you weren’t going to approach him. You were totally fine just waiting for him to let you know when he wanted to speak to you, which was one random morning after you’d finished sparring with Nat.

He was waiting outside the gym, muttered that he wanted to speak to you, and even Natasha had the good sense to get lost. It wasn’t going to be pretty, that much was clear. It was in his tone, his eyes, his tense posture.

He took you back to your room and ordered you to sit on the foot of your bed. He paced for a long time and you didn’t say a word or make a sound. When he finally looked at you, you seriously worried he might kill you. He was angry all over again, had worked himself up with his thoughts but you weren’t sure why entirely.

“Did you see him?”

You nodded.

“You talked to him.”

“About…everything? Um, no, not really.” There hadn’t been that conversation. Any attempts on Steve’s part were expertly diverted by you, with all your ill intentions and knowledge of how to get under Steve’s skin.

He nodded curtly. “So, this was for nothing then? You put me through all of this shit for nothing?”

“Bucky, I’m really so—”

He was storming out of the room before you finished your sentence.

You didn’t see him for two days, and when you did, it was clear again, you would be getting more silence. You told yourself you couldn’t be that hurt. You’d hurt him first, that meant he had the right to express his feelings even if that resulted in him not speaking to you.

Several days later, Bucky dropped his Winter Solider persona and became a worried, bitter mother hen. You were sick, it wasn’t something that you thought was a big deal. He’d come to speak to you again and with his enhanced hearing, heard you puking in the bathroom.

When you were done, he forced you back into bed and got Bruce. Bruce did the usual, it wasn’t as if anyone was worried, he was just too scared not to indulge Bucky. Speaking of, he was off in the corner of the room, claiming that you’d probably gotten some kind of time-traveling bug. He was being dramatic, and you became aware of what exactly had drawn him and Steve together all those years ago. Extra bitches.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Bruce assured. “Her temperature is fine.”

“Take her blood, test it for time-traveling bugs.”

You rolled your eyes, and because Bruce had heard of the Winter Soldier, he did as was directed. Even though you were pretty sure that Bucky wasn’t serious. Not completely. Once Bruce had the excuse of focusing on your blood, that left you and Bucky alone.

“Why did you even go?”

This was not going to go over well. “Um…I had a plan…”

“A plan,” he repeated. “To do what?”

“I was sort of…kind of, just a little bit, going to kill Peggy.”

His mouth dropped.

You rolled your eyes. “I know that was stupid—”

“You’re insane!”

You glared. “Bucky.”

“You didn’t do it, right?!”

“No,” you huffed. “I should have, would have been putting her out of her misery. He’s such a fucking tool.”

He dragged his hand down his face, holding his jaw as he leaned over in his chair and pressed his elbows to the tops of his thighs. He was silent for a very long time before saying, “Yeah…he is. Did he hurt you?”

The bruises had been painfully obvious, there was no way to hide them, and you knew they could all guess what they came from. You felt your skin getting hot as you shook your head. “No. He wouldn’t do that, Bucky.”

He scoffed. “I thought that…but he did leave you and I never thought he could do that.”

“He’s…not different,” you claimed. “Just…”

“A fucking tool.” He nodded. “I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“No, I’m really sorry, Bucky. I’m not just sorry for leaving and upsetting you. I’m sorry for everything, I’m sorry that you wasted months trying to make me feel better and then I just left. I’m sorry that I took you guys for granted, I’m sorry that I didn’t know how fortunate I was to have people who love me as much as you guys do. I know I betrayed your trust so it’s not going to mean much, but I will never do anything like that again.”

His eyes flit up from the floor to your face. “I do love you. So fucking much. You’re my only connection to him. And you left and I didn’t have that, I didn’t have you and I didn’t have him, and I was just…lost.”

You felt those familiar pricks in the back of your eyes, but you told yourself not to cry, you didn’t have the right. But just as soon as his eyes filled with tears, you couldn’t hold back your own anymore. He practically flung himself off the chair to rush to you, arms wrapping tightly around your shoulders.

You weren’t sure how long you both stayed there, just clinging to each other. This felt like the end of all the tension, though. This felt like a fresh start and you and Bucky were just going to have to move on without Steve. You pondered that for a while. You would have to try to find him a girlfriend or a boyfriend so he wouldn’t try to find you someone. It was going to be a little give and take, probably a major power-struggle every now and then, but it was going to be good.

The only reason you two pulled away was because both a frantic Bruce and Natasha ran into the room. They’d made all the noise two people could possibly make as they did so, crashing into each other because the doorway wasn’t big enough for the both of them.

They were wide-eyed, out of breath, both looking like they had just seen a ghost. But a much different ghost since they both regarded one another with a look of confusion.

“What is it?” Bucky demanded. “Wait, she doesn’t really have a time-traveling bug, does she?”

“Oh!” Bruce scoffed awkwardly, “I’d say so!”

You narrowed your eyes. “What the hell does that mean?”

“That can wait!” Natasha declared.

“No, it certainly cannot!” Bruce insisted.

These were two people who were normally soft-spoken, not because they were meek or soft in any general sense—hello, Black Widow and the Hulk—but in that they didn’t like drawing so much attention to themselves.

As they both started hissing arguments back at each other, Bucky sighed.

You glanced at him and he shrugged at you in response. Things were all better one second, but the very next, the world was ending.

Both Bruce and Natasha turned back to you with resolute looks on their faces. Natasha only spoke loudly this time because she was hoping to yell over Bruce, “Steve is back!” And Bruce yelled in a completely indelicate manner because he was shocked, horrified, extremely concerned, “You’re pregnant!”

Oh, shit.

Natasha and Bruce took a second to process what the other said and then gasped, turning to one another to share a look. They faced you again and decided to repeat the news only, Bruce screamed about Steve being back and Natasha more so framed it as a shrieking question you’re pregnant?!

You glanced at Bucky.

His jaw was set, his eyes narrowed just slightly. He merely nodded once then stood, throwing his hands up in the air. “Well, I’m gonna fucking kill him.”

Yep, the world was most certainly ending.

[khaleesiofalicante]

I really said fuck classes who needs notes anyway (i do I have 5 tests in the next two weeks)

before I post my live blog here, I feel like people really underestimate how bad rumors are and how much they fuck with your mental health. they don't lose sleep over them, they don't think twice. but these things are harmful as fuck. they leave wounds that take so long to recover from because you keep on thinking about these lies who to others are "just words"

I've been there. it's not fun. I wish I had the courage back then to stand up to those rumors which I have now. these things never leave you. others might move on but the healing process is a journey that is long and hard. I wish more people understood just what effect their words can have.

Yeah, he knew a thing or two about family members going overboard with glitter.

IT'S RAFAEL CENTRIC GHSYGUJDUYDFUIKFDUIDFIUDF

TAVVY

TAVVY

TAVVY

DCSUIHDCSUIDUYUDICUIVSDUIHFVSUILFBUHKIFSV

I feel like I keyboard smash A LOT

“You will never drink even if you are not riding the bike,” Dad had pointed out – all Consul Voice and threatening glares. “The legal age for drinking in New York is 21.”

“But it’s 15 in Idris!”

“Well unfortunately for you, we are in Exile,” dad had grinned.

DAD ALEC UHIKSFDUIHKSGUIKSDVUIHKDVUHIKSVD

Max had a habit of ‘borrowing’ things and selling them on eBay. In his brother’s defense, Bapak had so many clothes that he never noticed when things disappeared. But Rafael did since he had a habit of wearing his father’s clothes.

The warlock – not the shadowhunter.

He wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those sweaters.

Now that Rafael was 18, he was almost as tall as his father.

The shadowhunter – not the warlock.

I AM SCREAMING

I love how he's clarifying which one he's talking about

“Do you know I used to have a crush on Lily Chen?” Tavvy blushed. “But then I found out she made out with Helen once and it kinda got weird.”

Ah yes. I remember. Does Rafael know that Alec also walked in on them?

ARCHITECT TAVVY

SDHDVUHDFSV,YDSFVUYVSFFUSVFUVFS

SHADOWUNTERS ATTENDING MUNDANE COLLEGES

“Dude, college kids don’t give a shit,” Tavvy laughed. “You could walk into a lecture covered in runes, holding a seraph blade and they wouldn’t give you a second look.”

“Cause they are chill?”

“Yes. But mostly cause they are dead inside,” Tavvy chuckled.

Surprisingly that's exactly what my grade 6 prefect told me (DAMN WHY AM I ALWAYS REMEMBERING GRADE 6 IT'S BEEN YEARS. that was a horrible year *shudders*)

ANJALI IS A CENTURION

LMAO THIS IS WHAT RAFAEL MEANT WHEN HE SAID HE WOULDNT WANT TO GO TO THE SCHOLOMANCE FOR PERSONAL REASONS

I still ship them.

“The meeting is going to go perfe-What is SHE doing here?”

Well, that was a quick change-

Unlike Aunt Maia, Lily did not like to be called Aunt Lily. So, Rafael respected her wishes. Max of course continued to call her Aunt Lily and sometimes Abeula Lily since his brother had a pathological condition of pissing people off.

THAT'S SO MAX OMG JHSXUHSCUHISDHUHUKIDVS

great now I miss Raphael

I HAVE A CLASS IN 7 MINUTES STOP MAKING ME CRY

that is so thoughtful of him though...

tears.

“There are no photos of Raphael,” Lily sighed.

“Because he is a vampire?” Tavvy asked sympathetically.

“Because he is Raphael,” she grinned. “Vampires can most certainly take photos. You should follow me on Instagram. My handle is simp_for_carstairs.”

Of course, it is. No one is surprised.

Tavvy picked one up, took a large bite and it threw it back immediately. “Holy shit, that’s spicy!”

“White,” Lily and Anjali snorted at the same time.

white people and their bland foods smh

“She is not wrong,” Lily nodded seriously. “I’m a Jem Carstairs fan first and a vampire second.”

As she should be

UHDSUHDFSUHFDH ANJALI AND RAFAEL COMPETING ABOUT WHO'S LILY'S FAVORITE

He observed Anjali’s long dark hair spilled over her shoulders as her eyes stayed on Lily – sharp, protective and beautiful.

"Beautiful"

I AM NOT LETTING THIS GO

I'm THE DAMN CAPTAIN OF THIS SHIP

FUCKING RUMORS

I'm GONNA KILL SOMEONE

“Shadowhunters are awful gossips,” Anjali said. “Let’s not waste our time with this nonsense.”

There was something in her voice. Something he couldn’t put his finger on.

No, wait I want to know what was in her voice.

But no. It couldn’t be. They weren’t dating.

YET

Rafael was sure there was something more than friendship between them. But David was polite to a fault and Max was an oblivious little shit. So, obviously nothing had happened yet.

OH MY GOD THESE TWO

But this was different. He would tolerate rumours about himself. But he would not tolerate rumours about his family.

I and Rafael will beat up the people who spread these rumors together :D

“She once told me she likes sipping tea more than drinking blood.

I-

same.

NOT THAT I DRINK BLOOD-

RAFAEL LMAO NO

"I hate her she's so annoying"

continues to daydream about her and how tall she'd be without those boots, lies to tavvy about her dating someone

Why did he do that? What was the purpose? Did he not want other people to date just because he wasn’t dating anyone?

And he calls Max oblivious.

oh class started

shit

IDC IDC I'LL STILL BE READING

LEXI AND SELENA ARE AT THE ACADEMY

JACE HYPER FIXATING ON THINGS BECAUSE HE'S BORED IS SUCH A MOOD

“David and I added rosemary to this one,” Uncle Jace wiped his hands on his apron. “It has definitely improved the taste, hasn’t it?”

“Save me,” David mouthed from behind the man.

LMAO POOR DAVID

“Empty nest syndrome,” Rafael chuckled. “I’m glad neither Max nor I had to leave home. My fathers are much worse.”

He remembered his first sleepover at the institute. His parents had waited for “an excruciating hour” before crashing the institute and joining the sleepover themselves.

yup, that's them.

“David,” Rafael grinned. “Are you afraid of my father?”

“What? No! He is the just a regular person…who can throw me in the silent city any time he wants,” David rambled and then shook his head. “Where is Max?”

He tried to sound nonchalant. But Rafael noted the way the other boy’s eyes fluttered every time he said Max’s name.

Just the way a crooked smile appeared on his brother’s lips every time someone said David’s name.

Idiots

ok, there is so much to unpack here.

DAVID HAS A VALID REASON OK??

These two are such IDIOTS HUSDUHISCUIDSVCUIHVSDUHI

“Max said Bapak is biased, and that he needs an unbiased tutor. Uncle Ragnor volunteered,” Rafael chuckled. “God bless the poor man.”

“Max isn’t that bad,” David replied.

“Looks like you’re biased too, David,” Rafael winked and picked up a spare bow from the training room.

of course, he is.

G-FORCE KJHSDCUISDYUKDFSUYKDSVYUSFD

oh shit

oh shit

WHO DID WHAT THIS TIME

what's the rumor and who do I need to kill

He didn’t know her well. But she knew a lot about him. Just as she knew a lot about the twins. She was one of those people who was oddly invested in his life just because Rafael happened to the Consul’s son.

what is her problem?

what the fuck

I need a minute

I need a minute to digest that

I'm so glad I closed my camera in class

what the actual fuck did she just say

tell me I'm hallucinating

times like these I wish I was Jared 19

no, because I'm actually speechless right now

Paige and Irene need therapy

OH SHE WENT THERE

“Paige, that’s enough!” the Dean snapped at her. “How dare you talk to him that way? You talk about warlock corruption but where all of you when Valentine exploited Jace and Clary? Where was this moral obligation when Valentine lied to his children and played with their feelings as if they were nothing but toys to be controlled and manipulated? I’m sick of shadowhunters victim blaming children instead of holding people like Valentine accountable.”

THANK YOU

SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK SIMON

I feel like we all focus so much on the "incest" and hate on clace we forget that this part of the story was literally an abuser seeing that the victim was recovering and took the only thing which made him happy from him

I can't believe this

“Children have been suffering for a long time now, Paige,” Uncle Jace said now, his fists balled at his sides. “Where were you when Alec proposed the child protection bill? We didn’t see any of you supporting it.”

“We had other priorities,” the older woman replied. “People were dying! It was not the right time for a new law. We could have always signed that bill later. There was no rush!”

OTHER PRIORITIES MY ASS BITCH FUCK YOU

hey just realizing Rafael is the token straight

I'M SORRY IM TRYING TO DISTRACT ME

“The Cohort who made children kill themselves to prove a point?” Uncle Simon asked dryly. “That Cohort?”

I am so close to either crying or killing someone or both.

This was Max’s spot since it had the best Wi-Fi coverage.

yeah trust me I spend all the time in the guest room because it has the best wifi coverage or the study.

MAX IS SMOKING TOO

YOU FUCKING IDIOTS

oh wait

oh they might be alec's

yeah

For the next thirty minutes, Max paced around the room, threatening to portal all the shadowhunters to hell.

Then he went on about a plan to attack the cohort and portal them all to hell too.

He kept talking about portalling people to hell.

MAX YES LET'S DO IT!!!!

But here is the thing about people, they don’t get to you. You get to them.

They simply say something and leave. They probably don’t even mean the things they say or lose sleep over it. But it wasn’t the same for you. You obsess over it. You stay awake at night and let it consume your dreams.

YES! To others, it's just words. meaningless. to you, the effect can be so so deep. it's not easy to always brush them off.

NO MAGNUS

THAT'S IT

MAX AND I ARE PORTALLING PEOPLE TO HELL

WE'RE DOING IT

why do we hurt others?

my teacher: ill take a test on this chapter. all 20 units

me: softly crying because people are little shits and they hurt others.

“Fuck everyone else,” dad hissed. “They’ve hurt our family enough.”

EXACTLY. LEAVE THEM ALONE.

“I am simply being honest with you,” Dad interrupted. “I could never be okay when you are away from me. But I will manage. Max is going to raise hell though. So, that’s going to be fun.”

AS HE SHOULD

Neither Rafael nor Max would never admit it out loud, but on the day of that sleepover, on the day their parents had crashed the institute bcause they had missed the kids too much…Rafael and Max had been only a moment away from calling their parents to come pick them up.

He's right though.

it'll take time. lots of it maybe.

BUT THE ACTUAL AUDACITY.

It fucked with his mind so much.

Rafael...ALRIGHT WHERE ARE MY FLAMETHROWERS

“DAD! BAPA! WAKE UP! RAFE IS TRYING TO RUN AWAY!”

MAX REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF MY LITTLE BROTHER

He had forgotten about the bloody paperwork. Shadowhunters on their travel year had to notify the Clave and get their paperwork in order.

Well, it shouldn’t be a problem since the Clave was standing across the hall.

EXACTLY

Because it was killing him. It was killing him not to be lying on the couch, his head resting on his Bapak’s lap just like every other Saturday morning.

It was killing him not to touch, not to love, not to care.

GET MY FLAMETHROWERS AND CANNIBAL GOLDFISHES WE HAVE SOME WORK TO DO

(goddamn every class I have taken so far the teacher has told us there is a test coming up it's 9 am in the morning.)

His brother growled at that like the little feral animal that he was.

that's adorable actually.

“Fine,” Max rolled his eyes. “Does this mean I can also travel? There is a Twenty One Pilots concert in Sydney and-”

“Nice try,” Dad said. “But no. You are staying here.”

“Excuse me, but what about my healing?” Max demanded. “I’ve been traumatised by this thing.”

“You can go to therapy,” Rafael winked at this brother.

Therapy is boring but useful so-

He needed to survive this. So, he decided to go back to the place he had learned how to survive in the first place.

He needed to go back home.

UGLY CRYING WHILE TAYLOR SWIFT PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND AND MY HISTORY CLASS IN 2 MINUTES

I'm so proud of him for this...

I still say we kill these people.

JOAQUIN AND JULIETTE

UHISDCUIHFSDUGUIDFVDSDVFJHGDFVHUKDVHUKVF

Camilla Alvarez.

well well.

OH THEY KISSED

“Right,” Rafael had said. “Gap year. Besides, I do talk them. My brother threatened to paint my room in hot pink if I don’t text him every day.”

hands max a pint of paint HAVE AT IT

Max: Also – New Rumour. Dalliance between Lily and Tavvy.

Rafe: OMFG WHAT

Max: They are running with it and freaking old n*philim out.

AS THEY SHOULD UFUHIFUIHFUIHKFU

THE CENSORED N*PHILIM I'M SCREAMING

“He is hot.”

He laughed out loud. “Yeah. I hear that a lot.”

“Your dad looks kinda scary,” she pointed out.

Rafael laughed again. “Yeah. I kinda hear that a lot too.”

I'm liking this ship...

I'M STILL LOYAL TO THE RAFAEL AND ANJALI SHIP

but I'm happy for him. I'm glad he's getting the space he needs

Dad: Jst found legal age fr drnkng in Buenos Aires is 18.

Rafe: ????

Dad: I hv friends thr.

Rafe: ???

Dad: Thy r watchn u.

Rafe: Creepy but okay.

HJSDCGUIHJGSDCYUICVXUHVUHKDV

THE BOY'S DRINKING Y'ALL

Do it

MILA IS GOING TO NY!!

I like her. she's nice.

He was leaving soon. He didn’t see the point in lying to her. “I ran away from home. Kind of.”

“Why?”

“I hurt someone I love,” Rafael confessed. “The person I love most in the world.”

honey, it wasn't your fault... hugs

Shit. Why wasn’t Bapak going to the accords signing? He had been there for every single one since the very first time.

no no no no is something wrong?? I'm worried.

“You look taller,” Rafael told his brother who hadn’t grown an inch.

LMAO

Max and I are vertically challenged.

“Rafe, go to talk to him. Or I will tell everyone you’ve been smoking in the balcony!”

So, he was going to pin this on him, huh? This little shit.

well-

“You’ve progressed from freaking to fucking,” he pointed out.

“That’s not the fucking point, Rafael!” Max said in exasperation.

“You did it again,” Rafe pinched Max’s cheek. “My little brother is all grown up now. Linguistically I mean.”

“Dick."

I CAN'T WITH THESE TWO

When he had gone back to Buenos Aires, the place was completely different - even the shadow market.

There were no abandoned children in the streets. There were no racist and ignorant leaders exploiting innocent downworlders.

There was only growth.

His father had done that. Alec Lightwood had helped Joaquin and his people create a new world in Buenos Aires.

This shows how much people can flourish under good leadership if they really try.

YOU KNOW I'M SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING THESE NOTES DOWN, NOT CRYING OVER THIS.

“I will protect our family. I will protect our friends. I will protect those who ask for my protection. But I will not tolerate their hate. I will not turn my head and pretend it doesn’t hurt. Because it does hurt and that’s not okay.”

Rafael smiled at that. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s not okay.”

“The accords is important. But so am I. There is no point in signing a treaty that is meant to value equality if I have to sign it while being surrounded by those who refuse to respect me or my identity. I simply cannot do it, Rafael. I hope you understand.”

I'm sobbing like YES YOU DONT OWE THEM SHIT. THESE UNGRATEFUL BITCHES.

“It’s taken me a while to realize this. But I don’t owe the nephilim anything,” Bapak said firmly. “It’s about time they realize that too.”

YES EXACTLY

“I’ve known shadowhunters for a long time, Rafael. Good ones. Bad ones. All kinds of them – and shadowhunters have always defined themselves by their love. Not by your weapons. Not by your runes. Not by your last names. Not by your laws. Shadowhunters have always defined themselves by love. So, don’t ever let them take that away from you.”

I want this on a T-shirt. These damn shadowhunters and their love.

“Like the Accords Hall kiss?” Rafael grinned.

“It’s the stupidest thing your father had ever done – which is really saying something,” his father laughed. “But it’s also the bravest thing I’ve ever seen him do. And that’s how I knew.”

affectionate sigh that's alec.

“Good. Max is sitting in the porch and singing All by Myself,” Tessa chuckled and closed the door. “Just thought you should know!!”

Rafael giggled at that. “He must have given you hell.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Bapak shrugged, and Rafael raised an eyebrow. “Fine. I might have promised to buy him a car when he turns 18.”

“You’re hoping he would stop aging by then, aren’t you?” Rafael chuckled.

Max is so dramatic I aspire to be like him.

Blue banners when the lost return, the shadowhunter rhythm said.

Rafael had returned home – and he was no longer lost.

I'm ok I say as I cry during my history class

I'm so proud of him.

“Well, that needs to be rectified immediately,” Dad said in the Consul Voice and literally yelled. “I am about to kiss my son – on both cheeks! You better gossip about this too!”

“Oh my god, stop!” Rafael giggled and tried to escape.

“YAS!” he heard Uncle Jace yelled from somewhere. “GIVE US A FOREHEAD KISS TOO!”

THEY ARE SO DRAMATIC I LOVE THESE IDIOTS SO MUCH.

THEM ADDING TO THE ACCORDS AS THEY SHOULD OMG

“The hell is hate speech?” someone asked.

Do you not have a dictionary you uncultured swine

“There is a very clear difference between free speech and hate speech,” Cristina Rosales pointed out. “The fact that you don’t seem to know that is all the more reason for us to include this provision.”

YES CRISTINA

“By the angel,” an old man gasped. “There is no need to be so emotional. The younger generation can be such snowflakes.”

What if I just strangles him

“Discriminatory language?” a woman demanded. “What does that even mean?”

“Calling vampires bloodsuckers,” Lily Chen answered.

“Calling warlocks demon spawns,” Ragnor Fell pointed out.

“Calling werewolves fleabags,” Maia Roberts declared.

“Calling faeries half-breeds,” Kieran Kingson all but yelled.

The fact that they have had to deal with this shit for YEARS. (also why Kingson? isn't Kieran the king?)

THE QUEEN HERSELF IS HERE Y'ALL

“Which one of you shitheads said hate speech is harmless?” Anjali demanded, her voice booming over everyone and everything else.

YES ANJALI

Anjali had a grin of her own. “While that might true, Paige, there is most certainly a law on child protection. You didn’t just hurt Magnus Bane. You also hurt his son. Section 7 of the Child Protection Bill states that any person who physically or emotionally injures a child through ill-treatment, neglect, abandonment or abuse is guilty of breaking the covenant.”

“Damn straight!” someone yelled from the crowd – it sounded suspiciously like Kit.

CALL THESE BITCHES OUT YES

“Rafael is not a child!” someone yelled again. A lot of them this time. “It’s still not illegal. The law doesn’t say so!”

“By the angel, for someone who is obsessed with the law you people seem to know nothing about it,” Anjali said in exasperation. “The child protection law defines a child as a person under 18 years OR younger. The incident happened when he was still 18. It’s illegal.”

YES ANJALI FUCK THESE PEOPLE

“I’m the Inquisitor’s daughter,” she said. “Next time, think twice before you quote the law at me.”

SHOW THEM, QUEEN

How did she know his birthday????

ahem

“So, if you do hurt him emotionally, you can still be implicated. You will face charges and you can possibly be stripped of your runes,” Anjali pointed out seriously. “Now I ask you again. Does anyone else have to say anything about him?”

There was absolute silence then.

“Didn’t fucking think so,” Anjali spat. “I literally had to mention the stripping of your marks for you to respect another person’s basic rights. If you give half the value you place on your precious runes to other people, we wouldn’t be in exile right now.”

The Cohort looked terrified – of Anjali or their future in the Clave, Rafael didn’t know.

“People are dying,” Anjali said, her voice heavy now. “Our people are fucking dying, and you seem to be more bothered with who is sleeping with whom. Shame on you. Shame on all of you!”

She turned to the Council. The Inquisitor looked like he was going to cry from pride. Rafael’s dad looked half terrified but mostly impressed. Lily was blowing kisses at Anjali. The other downworld leaders looked quite pleased.

Shadowhunters are so fucking bigoted and narrow-minded. I'm seething right now.

also, alec looking scared-

“THAT’S THE BEST SHIT I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!” Emma Carstairs yelled.

“Goddamn, I wish Magnus was here to see this,” Uncle Jace grinned. “That was satisfying as hell.”

“No worries, I recorded the whole thing!” Kit put up his hand.

YES YES AND YES

“Fuck the Cohort,” Rafael giggled.

“Actually, I would prefer you use the word screw,” his father pointed out. “Screw the Cohort!”

“Oh my god, Dad!” Rafael rolled his eyes. “I am allowed to swear once in a while.”

“No, you are not,” Dad said firmly – this man was so not ready to meet Max’s new persona. “As your friend pointed out, you are still a child.”

Alec seeing Max curse left and right: 👁️👄👁️

"She hates me!"

“Rafael, she stood up for you in front of the entire Clave. She fought the Cohort. It was incredibly brave. I wish she had spoken to me before without causing all the chaos. So, it was a little stupid of course. But still brave.”

Stupid but brave.

YESYESYESYES IT'S HAPPENING!!!

ANJALI WHO HURT YOU

WHO DARED TO

Names. Give me names NOW

Jaime no...please no not Jaime.

please please, please

ok, I searched it up. And he can get treatment. He can live. It doesn't have to be serious. please, Jaime...

“If you ever tell anyone you saw me crying, I will drag you to Idris and drown you in Lake Lyn.”

This is such an Anjali thing to say.

OOO MILLA (Mila?) MESSAGED!!! Is there gonna be some sort of love triangle here??

me who despises love triangles (aside from TID of course): ...

BUT SINCE IT'S YOU I'M SURE IT'LL BE AMAZING. I'm still nervous about this though...

UHCUHDVUKDVHUKVHUVHM I LOVED THIS CHAPTER SO SO SO SO MUCH IT WAS A LITERAL ROLLERCOASTER AND ANJALI QUEEN I LOVE

see ya on Friday!!

OKAY I AM LOVING THIS ENERGY BUT PLEASE FOCUS ON YOUR CLASSES FJKSDFHJKSJFHKD I PROMISE THE STORY IS GOING TO BE HERE WHEN YOU GET BACK LOL.

But I am so glad you like it. Amidst all your screaming and chaos, I always find very perceptive and profound observations. It's fantastic! I love it so much!

Thank you for enjoying LBAF - and good luck with your tests!!!

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2 has updated! Christmas is ruined!

Previously, on Homestuck 2: Literally nothing happened, and a non-trivial portion of the patreon supporters gave up and quit. Can this update pull a Christmas miracle and right the sinking ship of Homestuck 2? Probably not, but let’s find out! 

We’re back in Candyland, having completely skipped over Karkat and John talking about Dave’s apparent death, because this comic is only interested in long conversations when they’re boring and not about anything at all. That’s alright, I got the gist of it.

When Karkat is finally gone, John still doesn’t move. It isn’t as though he has nowhere else to go, since there are quite a few places he might attempt to make himself useful, for better or for worse.

So, it appears to be morning now, meaning that John’s son has been missing in a war zone for almost 24 hours and I guess John literally forgot Harry existed?

Prediction: This conversation is going to end in some variant of “Where is our son?” “Oh shit!”

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid

ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid

ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

What.

So, I went back and checked, and apparently nowhere is it explicitly said that Harry Anderson was also looking for the Vriskas, so I guess he....stayed home? Which makes sense, I suppose, but maybe a “Stay here I’ll go look for them” would’ve helped. I wasn’t the only one who thought Harry was out looking for Vriska too. 

ROXY: sup

ROXY: follow me

ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way

JOHN: haha ok.

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

Is Roxy....horny? Is the solid she’s looking for John’s dick? I mean, that’d make her saying Harry wasn’t available kind of weird, but I think this framing is a fake-out.

...

What the fuck is that lamp, Jesus Christ it’s awful. Just a cat’s asshole, facing the door.

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert

JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding.

JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

Oh hey, it was a fakeout. Good job, Homestuck 2. You successfully implied something just through the art. Art which, by the way, looks a lot better than the last chapter. There are backgrounds and everything. I wonder if Chapter 15 was rushed out due to Hiveswap and that’s why it was so weak?

He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

I’m not the biggest fan of the way the narration is going JOHN IS AFRAID OF SEX WITH ROXY LIKE HE’S A TEENAGE VIRGIN AGAIN (LIKE IN HS1!) AND IT DOESN’T REALLY MAKE SENSE PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IT’LL BE IMPORTANT LATER, but okay, noted.

ROXY: u said ur house is gone??

JOHN: yep.

JOHN: completely.

ROXY: jeez

Heh. I like Roxy, still. 

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

If this comic actually uses the phrase “home” and “stuck” in the same sentence I’m turning this blog around and we’ll go right back to Winnipeg.

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

I feel unqualified to talk about how hard Roxy is pushing the June Egbert thing.

....Is that the fucking portal from Hiveswap under a tarp? Also hi Candy Callie, appearing in HS2 for the first time. One of the Calliope’s is nonbinary, I think, but I honestly can’t remember and I think it’s Meat Calliope? 

JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is?

ROXY: hmmmmmm no

JOHN: oh ok.

JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room.

JOHN: space.

JOHN: wherever we are.

ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now

ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi

ROXY: and by that i mean

ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn

JOHN: right, sorry.

JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain.

ROXY: u catch on fast egbert

Oh thing HS2 has not been great at is that it has a lot of plot mysteries that are supposed to keep us enticed but they don’t really get implanted into the audience’s head (Remember Vrissy mysteriously collapsing that one time? Probably not, she did it off screen and the boys kind of laughed it off). This one’s hard to miss.

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs?

JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done.

ROXY: well no not x actly

ROXY: were in the old meteor

It’s kind of weird how this meteor keeps popping up like this. 

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

This is an unexpected but not unwelcome direction for Callie to have gone.

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes?

Oh, wow, we’re going right there, then. This does seem like a bit of a reaction to complaints HS2 wasn’t shmoovin’ enough, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole.

JOHN: ok.

A’ight, that got a laugh out of me

JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it!

JOHN: i'm so sorry.

JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ):

I like this conversation a lot. 

ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you

JOHN: listen.

JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given.

Quite a bit, in fact.

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

Roxy and John have a good dynamic. 

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

JOHN: ...right.

John’s phone has very good coverage, since he was able to talk to Terezi in the epilogues, as we’re being subtly reminded of here with that ... before the “right”. I wonder if it still works after alt-Calliope left.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

Okay, so we are now being explicitly told that living in the black hole is fucking with the characters and is part of the reason they make such baffling decisions, like Rose not telling Kanaya about Yiffy, or naming her daughter “Yiffy” in the first place.

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

So, the plan is literally for Vriska to be such a Huge 8itch that the black hole itself gets sick of her and yeets Earth C out of its own event horizon to freedom.

This is actually a great plan. 

And that’s Hamsteak. This definitely feels like a bit of a reaction to complaints about HS2, but hey, I dig it, I guess? Definite improvement over the last chapter.

[fatesdeepdive]

Entry 1: Anticipation

Introduction

What is your most anticipated game? Not the upcoming game that you’re excited about, the game that, more than any other, made you count down the days until its release. No game has ever made me as excited for its release like Fire Emblem Fates did.

Fire Emblem Fates was first announced in January 2015. Back when that trailer was first released, I was still obsessively playing through Fire Emblem Awakening, the game Fire Emblem Fates was meant to be a successor for. The trailer hooked me and I eagerly waited for more information on this bold new entry into the Fire Emblem series. The trailer showed a battle between two armies, a monster destroying a castle, a woman dancing, and a duel between two swordsmen. Between these clips, the trailer showed a return of Awakening’s gameplay, the addictive gameplay that’d taken away hundreds of hours of my free time. This trailer told us nothing, leaving me eager to learn more about this new story.

As the months went on, it was announced that Fates would tell the story of two kingdoms at war. More interestingly, the player would be given the opportunity to choose which kingdom to support, adding a layer of moral ambiguity and complexity to the story. I loved this concept and had no doubts it would be executed perfectly. The game released in June 2015 in Japan, but American fans had to wait until January of the next year to play it.

I bought the game as soon as it came out.

And I loved it. I played through all three routes half a dozen times each. For about six months, Fire Emblem Fates was the main game I played.

I haven’t played Fates in four and a half years. I don’t know why I went from spending multiple hours each day playing it to dropping it and never going back. I’ve played Awakening about once a year since then, but I haven’t gone back to Fates for some reason.

Since its release, Fates has gained a certain...reputation among the Fire Emblem fanbase. Put bluntly, it’s widely considered to be the worst Fire Emblem game. And, to be honest...I can kinda see why. Looking back, the game’s writing was filled to the brim with problems. But still, I can’t bring myself to hate the game like other Fire Emblem fans. I still remember asking my mom to preorder it for my Christmas present when I was fifteen. I still remember devoting hours of my life to this game.

So, I’m left with this quandary. Who should I trust? Other fans, or the memories of my youth? Is Fates really as bad as people say? Well, I kinda want to figure that out for myself. And I think the only way to figure this out is to obsessively play the game.

Over the next few months, I’m going to do a deep dive through Fire Emblem Fates and post my thoughts on this blog. I’m going to go through every chapter, every support conversation, every part of this game to answer the question: is Fire Emblem Fates a good game?

Opening Cutscene

Booting up my copy of Birthright for the first time in years, I’m greeted with an opening cutscene containing much of the footage from the trailer. It’s worth noting that the two armies from the trailer have very different aesthetics, one being heavily influenced by feudal Japan and one being heavily influenced by medieval Europe. The transition from the battle to the woman dancing is done by zooming out, revealing that this battle is actually taking place inside a painting. I actually really like this, it shows that the hostilities that this game is centered on have been going on for a long time.

Another thing to note: the song the dancing woman is singing has been translated into English. I’ll be going through the Lost in Thoughts All Alone’s lyrics and analyzing them when they appear in the actual story. The dance scene leads into circling shots of two families; judging from their different styles and fancy clothing, they are presumably related to the two kingdoms at war. The eastern family has a red and white color scheme, while the western one has a black and purple color scheme.

After that, the camera pans into a deep chasm until it arrives in a land of floating castles and islands, which looks interesting. Next, the opening cutscene shows the dancer in a lake, being choked by a large dragon-like creature. As the creature pushes her further underwater, its scales turn into light and fade away, turning into a humanoid form. Finally, the trailer shows the two swordsmen clashing as the dancer freaks out, setting her up as being an in-between that doesn’t want this conflict to grow. Her necklace flies off as she panics and lands in a pool of dark blue water, bringing us to the main menu.

The opening cutscene, like the trailer, hooked me in and made me excited to play this game. Even though I know that the game is going to bungle the story beats it sets up, I’m still excited to dive right it.

While staring at the dark title screen, which features only the quiet sound of waves for background noise, I get a strange hint of nostalgia. It’s a weird type of nostalgia, though. When I replied Awakening last fall, it felt familiar and comforting. Coming back to Fates, it doesn’t feel familiar. I recognize it, and it’s nostalgic, but it isn’t comforting. It’s like nostalgia for something I’ve forgotten, if that makes sense.

Character Creation

Jumping in, I am presented with three settings each for two types of difficulty. Normal/Hard/Lunatic control the strength of enemies, while Phoenix/Casual/Classic determine whether or not units come back to life. I’ll be checking out the other difficulties in a later entry, but for now, I create a Normal/Casual save file. Yes, it’s taking the easy path. But I barely remember this game and am playing it on a deadline, I don’t have the time to restart every level multiple times.

Next comes the character creator. We’re shown the player Avatar standing at the bottom of a lake and given the ability to customize gender, build, hairstyle, hair decoration (if a girl), hair color, face, scars, and voice. None of the options look bad, but the fact that it’s just choosing from a set list of faces is a bit disappointing. Understandable, considering the fact that these assets are drawn in, but that just raises the question of why there needed to be customization in the first place.

A few oddities about the character creator: hairstyles are sorted on two axis chart of Stylish/Simple vs Wild/Slick for boys and Long/Short vs Cute/Wild for girls. I don’t have time to go into each hairstyle, some are better than the canon versions, some are absolutely ridiculous, some are just boring. The short build is the canon design for Male Corrin while the tall build is canon for Female Corrin. This is probably for the best, because Short Girl Corrin looks like she’s eight. Finally, while both choices have three voice choices, two of Male Corrin’s choices are played by Cam Clarke (Corrin’s other male voice is Yuri Lowenthal, while Female Corrin’s voices are performed by Danielle Judovits, Marcella Lentz-Pope, and Stephanie Lemelin). Later games featuring Corrin stick with Clarke and Lentz-Pope.

I flip a coin and end up deciding on Female Corrin. I go with the generic design, because I really don’t care enough to customize her. Speaking of design, Corrin’s design is a mixed bag. Regardless of player choice, Corrin always wears the same outfit: a grey, black, and white suit of armor with a blue cape. Corrin’s generic hair color is also grey, but like a pinkish grey. I do appreciate Corrin being associated with grey, gold, and blue, making them visually appear to be between worlds, but I personally think the armor looks too complicated, looking more like a striped suit than actual armor. I also don’t get why it has a neck cuff.

Also, Corrin is barefoot. Always. This does give Corrin a sort of animalistic appearance, but that design element isn’t present anywhere else in Corrin’s design. Fire Emblem Awakening was kinda infamous for the fact that none of its characters had feet on their models and I get the vague feeling this game is overcompensating.

Next, we get to the details that actually matter. Name (I went with Corrin, because it’s the canon name and I don’t relate to this character at all), Birthday, Boon, Bane, and Talent. Boon and Bane determine stat growths, but they are labeled by personality traits instead of the actual stars, which is both more immersive and slightly annoying. I made Corrin Quick and Unlucky. Talent determines what Classes are available to you. I didn’t care, so I spun it randomly. It landed on Mercenary.

Prologue: The Ties that Bind

Now that we have our character created, let’s start the game. The game starts with the dancer singing Lost in Thoughts All Alone at the shore of a lake before walking into the lake and sinking below the waves. The song continues as she goes underwater, which means she must be amazing at ventriloquism. As she goes deeper underwater, ruins start to appear, floating in the water. The dancer swims into a bright light and disappears.

Smash cut to the Western prince riding on a horse, commanding an army as they charge into battle. The Eastern prince charges through his army, wielding a sword surrounded by lightning. The anime cutscenes in this game are beautifully animated and incredibly cool to watch. The Eastern prince introduces himself as Ryoma of Hoshido and challenges the Western prince, Xander of Nohr, to a duel. Xander accepts and charges into battle, wielding a sword surrounded by shadowy purple fog. The two clash as the cutscene ends.

We then see Corrin and a Hoshidan Pegasus Rider named Hinoka fighting an enemy, This fight is rendered as an actual game cutscene. Side note, the fact that this scripted battle features Hinoka guarding an attack for Corrin is a great way to foreshadow that mechanic. Hinoka mentions that Corrin looks distracted and reassures her, pointing out that all of Corrin’s siblings are here.

The game then moves onto introducing basic mechanics. If you move your cursor away and look at the other units on the battlefield, you’ll notice that all of them have unique names and designs. Fire Emblem Fates shows both armies off to you during the prologue, which is really interesting. Still, it must be noted that the Nohrian Units are marked as enemies and the Hoshidan Units are marked as allies. This isn’t super important now, but keep it in mind.

Between turns, Ryoma asks Xander why he’s invading and mentions a cowardly attack. Xander tells him to surrender and the two fight some more, both doing decent damage. The camera pans over to Xander’s siblings. The youngest of them, Elise, mentions that, due to a bridge collapse, they can’t get over to Corrin. Her older sister, Camilla, tells her not to worry, because their royal blood allows them to manipulate dragon veins. Camilla moves over to the river and a fireball flies out of her, striking the river and evaporating it. The third of Xander’s siblings, Leo, tells Elise to stay back as they attack the Hoshidans. The Hoshidan royals remark that Camilla’s use of a dragon vein means she’s royalty and the Hoshidan prince Tamuki smirks, saying that he’s always wanted to use a Nohrian royal as target practice.

The two armies of named characters start fighting and a Nohrian general named Hans shows up with an army of reinforcements. He then refers to his own army as cannon fodder and says king Garon sent him to kill them all, because he’s very obviously an evil person. A Hoshidan general shows up and we get some more tutorials as Corrin and Takumi beat up a single redshirt. And then the level just ends.

Corrin and the Hoshidan royals run up to the bridge to help out Ryoma. Xander calls out to Corrin, happy to have found her alive and well. He beckons her to come back to her family, which angers Ryoma, who shouts that Corrin is his sister. Xander counters, saying that Corrin is HIS sister. The other royals argue over which family owns Corrin and Hinoka states that the Nohrians kidnapped her. Xander points out that the Nohrians raised Corrin since she was a child and are her real family. As the two families fight over Corrin, the screen fades to white and we hear voices yelling for Corrin to wake up.

The prologue features some good teaching of mechanics, some bad teaching of mechanics, and an introduction to the game’s plot. It introduces two countries at war and Corrin, a bridge between the two that is caught up in this war. I just have one question.

What even is this chapter? It isn’t in media res, the actual point in the game this chapter is playing off of happens differently. The fact that it cuts to Corrin waking up implies that it’s a premonition of the future, but Corrin can’t see the future in other parts of the game. At least, I don’t remember that ever happening. Sure, this chapter introduces the plot, but it does it in such a confusing way.

Awakening did something similar to this, admittedly, but Awakening is a game about time travel. That scene happened, just in a different timeline. Awakening’s use of media res both set up the plot and helped foreshadow the game’s main twist.

Also, the Hoshidans are allies and the Nohrians are enemies. In a game about a morally grey conflict between two sides made up of real, suffering people, it’s not great to start out by calling one of them evil.

These two traits, aping Awakening without knowing why it worked and failing to be a morally grey story, are going to become much more apparent as the game goes on...

[ddaenghoney]

chapter one

masterlist link in blog description.

As a successful songwriter, you want nothing more than the acknowledgment that the chart-topping musical pieces are your own creations. But contracts, relationships, and the difficulty of facing the stakes involved head on, keep your mouth shut until pressure builds too much.

Pairing(s): Park Jimin x Y/N, Min Yoongi x Y/N

disclaimer: any characters depicted do not represent the actual personality of the respected idol in real life.

Series warning(s)/genre(s): Chapter-based written fic, Slow-burn relationship(s), Fake-dating, Unrequited love, Songwriter/producer!oc, idol!Jimin, idol/songwriter/producer!Yoongi, friends with benefits, drama, romance, smut, angst, fluff (updated as needed)

Chapter warning(s): none.

Word count: 5013

if you enjoy please, please let me know!

“What if this album has my name in the credits?”

Tension shifts, where idleness and chatting of the choices presented neatly on the table became a new quiet. Glances bore like bullets, burning dots onto your back, shoulders, profile--avoiding the direct stare towards the CEO. She didn’t attend meetings like this usually. Just a divergence from normalcy due to a client canceling and her deciding to check in on the upcoming record for the most famous of the idols in the company.

Jimin’s neck remains still, eyes not focusing down at the copies of songs he was given at the beginning of session. Sitting beside the lady in charge whom only allows her eyes to address your sentence when the silence drifts into awkwardness. Her expression holds elegance, yet firm conviction set within her eyes. No words for another moment, but the ambiance feels reclaimed. No longer disturbed by your interruption of usual affairs.

“Why?”

The table hides your hands as they compress all of the tension into formed balls on your lap. Composed, composed; you left your mouth closed to consider the phrasing. This is owed to you. Your voice wasn’t as loud when you replied, “I wrote the songs.”

“So?”

You bite your tongue by choice. A way to repress more frustration.

“It’s best to keep lyrical credits to the minimum. Jimin’s name and the producers are enough mostly.” She dismisses the idea, while looking back at the papers you spent the past two months typing lines to. Her pen scribbles notes on the margins. Short ones, only a sentence of acceptance, before flipping to a new page.

At the returning conversation of concepts to fit the new album, your hands uncurl. The head stylist talks mindlessly with Jimin’s manager to go over the budgeting for the first music video’s costumes. An intern exits with an order to bring coffee from the breakroom. Your head tilts towards the dark wood, reflective only of a blurry shadow. Barely in your peripherals, Jimin’s hand settles on the table across from you.

His eyes are ready to meet yours when your head lifts back up. Face absent of a smile, but the sympathy in his eyes tells you he holds words at bay. Unspoken.

“What if it’s just one song?” Spoken for yourself.

Jimin’s eyebrows furrow at your continuation, wondering if you were truly unaware of the rolling eyes from those sat beside you. If you thought you could get a different outcome.

“It doesn’t have to be the title track, but one shouldn’t be an issue, right?”

“Your contract doesn’t require me to heed your desires.” The paper held in the CEO’s hand casts beside the stack, flurrying noise for a second. “And it states very clearly that you’re not to be credited. This is for the best interest of the idols.” She doesn’t regard your frowning, completely empty of care as she reaches for her mug.

“But hardly anyone would even notice-”

“Your name adds nothing to the credentials.”

Words evade your throat, while the air in it becomes invasive. It hitches into place, and the door reopens for the intern to walk with her heels clicking on the floor. No one speaks, but the focus on your person is apparent. Jimin’s finger taps once on the table, hesitantly, unassumingly.

You rise from the chair, ignoring the burn in your throat when he stays silent like the rest. But he does watch you exit the room, index finger leading for the others to drag into a fist on the polished table. Your sneakers make little noise as you go across the tile, frustratingly allowing you to hear the CEO thank the intern for more tea.

While you glare at nothing, the frosted glass door became closer. Reaching to pull it, you keep your jaw locked from the anger wanting to fall out, too far from reality to be prepared for the man on the other side. Your body bumps completely into him, a gasping curse whispering from your lips, followed by quick apologies when he steps back from the force. Confused eyes squint at your person as you mutter more about it being an accident, but the call behind you from someone asking what happened causes you to apologetically lower your head. A foot shift to the side of the stiffened man, then you pace down the hallway to the elevators.

“Did she get hurt?” The wheels on Jimin’s chair roll back as he starts to stand. “Or you too, I guess.”

“I’m fine.” Yoongi steps into the meeting room, regarding the CEO with a deeper bow of his head while he shuts the door behind him. “I was just going to ask about the equipment I need moved in my studio. The secretary said this meeting was finished.”

“It is.” Jimin bites his lip as the CEO ignored what just occurred. Signing her name onto the corner of the paper, like she did with the songs she was most favorable of. “Jimin has his title track chosen.” She passes the paper to the manager whose hands are prepared to take the song as though Lee Yerin was gifting him a jewel.

Jimin sits back into the cushion of the desk chair, hands fidgeting on his lap, as he wonders about following you, but he stays. You’re likely to the lobby at this point, and he wouldn’t leave without a cap and sunglasses in the very least. His phone escapes his pocket as he types the passcode, looking up at the CEO as she stands.

“Finish up here if there’s more to say. I’ll go with Yoongi to his studio.”

---

You groan loudly as the automated doors behind you shut. Walking swiftly to the curbside, you begin surveying for a taxi, or a truck to hop into the back of never to be seen again. The one opportunity to speak to the CEO in front of others involved in Jimin’s album and none of them said a word in your favor. Your tongue clicks, waving an arm to catch the attention of a driver. It wasn’t like you truly expected any of them to speak for you, but all the words you prepared for the circumstantial moment crossed your mind. The fluid sentences and reasonings all turned into white noise when you actually willed yourself to attempt opening the gate into the topic. A wonder lingers if you even managed to budge it. Doubtful.

In the taxi, your phone vibrates systematically, and for a moment you worry that it’s someone calling to reprimand your behavior. Taking a breath, you pulled the device from your jeans, internally cursing at the clothing you wore that day. You hadn’t assumed you’d run into Yerin, but now that you had you wished at least that you dressed like someone charismatic enough to argue the credentials. The breath releases as Jimin’s contact I.D. flashes on your screen. The picture behind the notification a memory of an overnight trip the month earlier.

“Hey,” You answer him, turning your head to look at the passing buildings and avenues. “Did anyone say anything?”

“What, no.” He quickly interjects, as he walks down the hallway towards the balcony patio. Jimin says nothing about his manager muttering to the choreographer about the scene. “Did you get hurt bumping into Yoongi?”

“No, but I bet he hates me even more now.” You recall his surprised expression as your body ricocheted off his, as well as the other sparse times you interacted with him so far the past few weeks of his company’s merger with your own. None of them felt entirely positive, but you had other things to think about than his perception-- be it likely annoyed with you or otherwise. “I don’t know what I should do.” You sigh, while your hand grips onto the center armrest during a swift turn.

“I didn’t know you’d say something like that,” Jimin admits his thoughts, while sitting on a cold, metal chair overlooking the intersection six floors below. “Took me by surprise.”

You bite your lip at his softened tone, something about it creating a worry in your stomach, but you ignore it to joke it off. “Always looking for ways to make myself look like an idiot, Jimin. My talent.”

“That’s not true.” He frowns at his boots, free hand picking a loose thread on his sweater. “I just,” Jimin’s voice trails, considering the times this month you mentioned your contract coming to an end in the upcoming summer. Half a year or so away. Or half a year left. “I don’t know what you expected from it honestly.”

The cab comes to a stop in traffic half a block from your destination. You give a payment for the ride and exit early, dodging around the hood of a parked car. His words scrape along your temples, despite their simplicity. You pacify the meaning by attributing candidness.

“Sweetie,” Jimin knows he kicked a nerve, but he feels no desire to rephrase. “Did you go home?”

“No.” You mutter, shoving a hand into your pocket where it fiddles mindless with a tangled earbud wire. “I’m gonna go to Joon’s place for a bit.” You listen to him sigh, thinking it to sound relieved. Likely Jimin worried of your temperament following the incident, but knowing you were willing to go out somewhere public longer gives him a bit of positivity.

“How late will you be there? I think I’ll be able to leave by eight tonight.” The implications of his evident desire to meet blur in your mind. A tone of gentleness leads you to believe Jimin simply wanted to be with you. In the confines of your apartment or his. Where words can be said and actions crossed without a care about the company’s opinion.

“I’ll probably be home before that,” The amounts of paper scattered around your dining table from the past week of scrambling to finish by today’s meeting crosses through your mind. Then the disarray you assuredly left your bedroom in when leaving that morning. “It’s a mess.”

“I don’t care.” Jimin giggles, the sound sweet and healing compared to the previous topics of conversation. “I don’t have a schedule tomorrow,” He pauses, smiling on his end at the thought, “Can I stay over?”

In your mind you know this is one of the situations that you shouldn’t let concoct so simply, when the two of you have time and time again avoided definitions of what goes on between you both, even though it’s evidently deep care, never properly spoken of. You don’t bring it up as you reply in an instant, “Yeah.” And you’re smiling just as warmly as he is with the affirmation.

Your slow walk compliments the energy rising in your voice as the conversation with Jimin about the songs comes up. You bite your inner cheek, listening to him recall particular lines that he especially liked from certain songs. The people moving around you in the busy intercity take no presence, instead just reason for you to absently dodge around. The air skidding blotches against your cheeks is also forgotten, more intent spent on Jimin reinstating that you worked really hard and the pieces reflect that.

“Wow,” Namjoon shifts his jaw rested on his cheek as you enter the front door. “That’s a huge smile.” The phone is already put back in your jean pocket, the jovile goodbye said before you came into his cafe. Or bar, somewhat a bookstore; you still never really understood how he classifies the establishment overall.

“My songs went over well.” You explain giddy in step as you make it to the bar stool and sit onto your spot like usual. Namjoon stands leaning over the counter across from you, letting his employees handle the slow flow of customers at this odd middle hour of the afternoon.

“Like usual?” He raises an eyebrow, voice sufficiently light-hearted, yet sarcastic as though the idea of your work being taken otherwise was alien. “You’ll end up moving to two zipcodes down by the end of the year at this rate. Lucky.”

“Like you don’t rake up practically all the after-party customers from Jin’s club every weekend on top of your always booked party rooms for business lunches.” You watch with a still present smile as Namjoon only shrugs his shoulder. Completely aware that he himself made more than enough money for satisfaction.

“Minoring in marketing was a good idea after all. What can I say?” You both laugh softly, remembering when he would call you after his minor-specific classes to rant to you about how greedy some of the other students ideas were. “So they all got accepted this time around?”

“I’m pretty sure. Maybe not all for Jimin, but they’ll probably get used by other idols too.” You watch as he steps away to listen to your answer. Namjoon fills a few glasses of water to assist an employee scrambling to get enough cups for an abnormally large group just sat down.

“And,” He brushes off the thanks from the employee as she takes the tray of eight glasses before turning back towards you, “Are you going to be credited this time?”

At the question you pause. Curl in your lips straightens out and Yerin’s incontestable, harden statements fill your ears once more. Your finger curls against the gloss of his applewood countertops. You glance down.

“No then.” Namjoon frowns sympathetically, his face now pondering how else to go about changing that fact. He dismisses the ideastorm when you sigh,

“Maybe I should just get over that, right?” You think of years gone by where you didn’t question the lack of recognition publicized for your songwriting. It felt easy to be uncaring of it when you were in college able to pay practically all fees outright because of the massive influx of revenue from the job you weren’t expecting much from to begin with.

“Your contract is up for renewal this upcoming year. Why don’t you try and change the crediting clause then?”

“It...” You know he’s going to get irritated from the completion of your sentence, but you’re unable to stop yourself, “It’s better for the idols already established if it stays this way.”

“Jimin?”

You just bite your lip, unable to view the expression Namjoon has when you could already hear an absence of warmth in his voice. He sighs, reaching to rub his jaw while glancing to the party of business people breaking into laughter at their side of the cafe. He realizes the complexity built between you and Jimin, and feels irritated because he also knows he should’ve said more earlier on to stop it from becoming what it is.

“Other idols too.” Weakly spoken. Namjoon stops a scoff from the fact. “It’s better for the company too. If they end up having to explain why their groups and soloists suddenly stop creating their own songs then it’s going to look bad.”

“Then they can just start writing their own stuff like they’re already pretending to.” Your head perks up from the quickness of his reply, and you watch him adjust his shirt as he starts walking down the bar. “I’ll be right back.”

You release a longer sigh while he goes to chat with the group of patrons. Truth of the matter exists in Namjoon’s cander. Even if you originally were okay with not being involved in the credit, the fact is that so many idols at this point had their names written into the slot instead, pretending to be self-sufficient and creative when more often than not it was all due to your own pen.

“Did you want something to eat or drink, Ms.?” The original waitress tending to the group of businessman stepped towards you with a smile.

“You really don’t have to call me that.” You say for a countless time to the girl whose been working here for more than a year at this point. She knows you’re friends with Namjoon, and granted he’s her boss, but the formality never settles for you. She only shrugs, and you dismiss the idea of changing her ways again. “Just a latte is fine, thanks, Jinsol.”

You’re left with only a few moments to contemplate the song issue before Namjoon returns with a scoff as he rolls his sleeves up his forearms.

“Sometimes I really hate having to be professional.” He mutters, taking his half-empty glass of water and drinking it while you raise an eyebrow. His eyes are still focused with an irritated gleam at the group of men somewhere behind you. You turn on the stool to look back as well, noting their posture is more rigid than you thought it would be from their earlier disposition.

“Jerks?” You ask, facing Namjoon once more. He nods,  

“Have to be creepy when Jinsol’s just trying to do her job.” Namjoon says at a normal volume, easy to hear across the room if they were trying to listen in. He doesn’t care, just places his empty dish into the bin below the counter to be cleaned later. “Anyways,” He averts his gaze back to you, flooding your perception with his determined yet soft stare, “You shouldn’t leave it like it is. You deserve credit. It’s long overdue.”

“If you heard how the CEO shut the idea down, I don’t think you’d be saying that.” You thank Jinsol when she reaches between you both only to settle the ceramic filled with just enough foam in front of you and saunter off once more to the group of businessmen with hot drinks for them as well. “She’s not going to budge.”

“Then quit.”

You laugh even though he’s somewhat meaningful in the option. You’re unable to stop from shaking your head at the incredulousness of the idea. “I’m not that loaded that I can retire already.”

“Go work somewhere else.” Namjoon then offers, watching with his lip dragging between his teeth when you begin frowning.

“Getting a job where I’m at was my lottery, Joon.” You return your eyes to the polish of the reddened wood, “I have nothing to put on my resume for experience that would get me anything great at another company, and trying to work independent sounds like asking for disaster.”

You both loiter in the following silence, Namjoon sympathetic and you annoyed about the entirety of the situation. If back when you sold the first song, disregarding the legality clauses in favor of the couple hundred dollars, you considered the implication of your casualness to the transaction, then maybe when you got a call the following month to go directly to the company for a meeting about further work you wouldn’t have been so easy to convince. Yerin was avid in her praises of the track’s success in the recording session, and you were shocked when she told you there was chart-topping anticipation from it. Of course it felt easy to sign your name on the dotted line when she told you there would undoubtedly be more with continued work.

“Namjoon!” The voice startles you, making your grip tense around the untouched latte. Namjoon huffs in his own surprise, while glaring at Seokjin walking into the establishment and disrupting the overall quiet the place had settled into. “I need to talk to you about the event happening this weekend.” Seokjin continues while you finally take the first sip into the foam atop the espresso. He sits beside you, waving his hand with a smile, “Hey, Y/N, didn’t expect to see you.”

“Just stopped in for a drink.” You smile in return, humored by his casual sweatpants and hoodie despite his position owning the popular club at the corner of the street.

“Spiked?” He raises an eyebrow, knowing the most popular sellers in Namjoon’s coffee selection where those with alcohol hidden in the flavors of vanillas and mochas.

“Maybe it should be.” You sigh, ignoring Namjoon’s rolling eyes. “Don’t let me interrupt your talk, I’m just going to finish this and get out of here.”

“No need to rush; he probably just wants to ask me if he can sleep upstairs.” Namjoon steps to lean against the counter behind him, crossing arms comfortably across his waist. Seokjin points at his statement with a finger, nodding his head,

“That.” You laugh beside him, while Namjoon just scoffs familiarly. “And I wanted to see if there was a meeting room here available that evening for a friend that’s going to be in and out of the club that night.” You gingerly drink at your warm beverage while Namjoon’s head tilts inquisitively.

“You’re not trying to get laid here are you-”

“Clearly not.” Seokjin rests his chin on his palm, “Why would I try for that on your tables anyways? People I don’t know have eaten on them.” You nodded at the fact beside him, thinking the reasoning made sense while Namjoon cut in incredulously,

“That is the only issue with it? I keep the tables clean.”

“It’s not about sex anyways!” Seokjin shuts down in a firm exclamation. You glance back at the businessmen who were evidently confused about the conversation between the two beside you. You take a larger gulp, more than halfway through with the latte at this point, and ready to skip out to avoid whatever your friends were about to discuss blatantly. “The guy just wants a place to chill in between time spent at the club.” He goes on, the motions with his hands emphasizing the need for Namjoon to accept. “I kind of owe him, and you kind of owe me--” Namjoon opens his mouth before Seokjin’s arm shoots out into the air to silence him, “Actually! Let’s all pretend we don’t owe each other anything and do things like this out of the goodness of our hearts.”

“I like that you changed the reasoning halfway through.” Namjoon laughs, rubbing his jaw, pondering the request silently until you speak up,

“I’m going to head out.” The two turn their heads towards you as your cup clacks gently against the saucer. You slide off the high chair, as Seokjin comments curiously,

“Some of the people from your work are going, you too?” You grimace which is answer enough for him as he begins laughing from your reaction. “Come on though; weekend before New Year’s should be sort of fun, right?”

---

Your pen makes dots in the corner of crisp paper. Feet dangling from your seat, while you think of the upcoming weekend. Jimin would more likely than not go to the club if a lot of the other employees were. Whether he actually had an interest in attending events like those or not, you weren’t entirely sure. Obligation seemed to be the word, but you doubted he hated it entirely as you recall other parties and team bonding experiences the two of you had ended up at. He was amicable with all of them, friendlier to particular people, but you’ve never known anyone to have problems with him.

Though you were never really needed at those occasions.

“Working on something?” Jimin’s voice is close, then in your vision as he leans over your shoulder to look at the unstarted piece. “Or not?” He giggles when you groan, resting your head back against his shoulder. His skin glows from the revitalization of a shower, and his locks of hair are still stuck together in their dampness.

“I was going to start something, but then I started thinking about random things.” You shrug, but smile as his lips find your cheek in a soft kiss.

“That’s fine. You should take the night off from it all anyways,” His hand tangles over yours to cause the release of the pen from your appendage. “Want to watch a movie, or something?”

“Okay,” You adjust on the chair, pecking his lips with your own, leaving them to see a smile as you continue, “Let me go take a shower too though; kind of need it.” He chuckles, kissing you again longer, his thumb rubbing gently against your knuckles,

“Should’ve took one together,” Jimin states with playful bluntness, while you get up from your chair. You eye him knowingly. He is completely aware of how far away the concept of a shower would’ve drifted if you both went in following an already lustful exchange on the mess you left your bed in. “Save water.” Innocent smile, that didn’t match the gleam in his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s why.” You pat his chest, leaving your hand there when he catches it. His stare falls over your figure: legs extending bare beneath his button-up shirt that he had entered the apartment wearing.

“You’re really beautiful, you know that?” Jimin steps closer, and you do nothing to stop gentle ministrations of his lips on yours. Followed by a scattered trail on every inch of heated, fond skin, fueled from your fingertips flexing against his abdomen and the light gasp when the plumpness of his mouth passes over an already sensitive reddened blotch on your neck. He squeezes your waist, wrinkling the fabric uncaringly while his lips remain there, only pressing a lingering kiss. You bite your lip, a sigh drifts out when he moves again, finding your collarbone, all too close to the rising beat of your heart. “Movie?” He asks then nips gingerly with his teeth to smirk as you writhe. Your nails drag against his firm muscles and he groans against you.

“Yeah,” You say in a breath, though your legs tremble slightly from his actions and the ones already transpired. “I want to spend time with you.”

“Yeah?”  Jimin’s voice comes out in grain, seeming happily surprised by your statement. Your body presses to his as he hugs you, smiling against your shoulder. “You’re adorable,” A whisper lost on your skin. The embrace tightens as your arms make it around his waist. “Movie it is then.”

In a matter of a half hour, you exit your bathroom cozily engulfed in an old shirt and sweatpants to find Jimin stretched on the bed. His fingers tap quickly against his phone, focus aiming at whatever app was open. You sit beside him, reaching over his waist for the package of cookies retrieved from the kitchen.

“Work?”

“One of the members of the group that just debuted over the fall,” He explains, glancing to you with a humored grin as you fit the entirety of the small sweet into your mouth. “Don’t choke.”

“Don’t eat all of my cookies.” You counter between crunches, a hand straying to glide rifts in his brightly pink hair.

“I can’t help it; the package was open, and they were there, how was I supposed to stop?” His head leans into your hand. Jimin tosses his phone beside him. “Anyways, he wanted to know if I was going to the club thing this weekend.”

“Are you?” You ask before thinking. Something about the event seemed distant from you, unspoken of by the colleagues you run into around the company. Dodged from your ears perhaps. Jimin shrugs as he moves to snake arms around your waist and puzzle himself against you.

“Yeah, because a lot of the people from the company merging with ours are going. My manager thinks it’d be a good way to get connected with them all.” His fingers are light in their strokes along your back, a yawn slipping from his lips while your nose finds purchase nuzzling peacefully against his neck. “What about you, darling? Are you going to join me?”

Your mind startles from Jimin’s inquisition, unbeknownst to him as he continues in massaging streams along your back. While time and time again you attended company and social functions where he would go, and the same vice versa, neither of you brought up events in a way that implies going as a couple. Because you and Jimin are not.

“Like go to it with you?” Your voice tests the connotation of his words in a murmur that you hope he doesn’t hear any longing in. You’re aware of the reality, you don’t hide from it or ignore it, so you wonder why your throat feels hollow in the way it did at the meeting that day when Jimin answers,

“We can meet up there.”

You smile. The same page. You read the outcome before Jimin spoke it. The relationship has always been on the blur for each other’s benefit. The emotional attachment ends at platonic, and other occasional circumstances are in the moment for fun. The way it’s always been since you made the rule to counter the shock in Jimin’s eyes more than a year ago at this point.

“Dunno if I want to go.” Less so at his offer. You believe it unfair to think in this way, but on the same list of why not attend the party you recall the blemish in your reputation currently sporting from your attempted divergence from normalcy that noon. Like you needed the stares from other employees.

“I,” Jimin says then stops, biting his inner cheek. You hear the hesitation and glance up at him to view his eyes cast aimless at your ceiling. Clouded mind. You lift yourself from his loosened hold, locking gaze when he checks to see what you’re doing. With your forearm stabilizing a small portion of your weight against his chest, you lean pecking his lips with your own. He remains quiet, watching and wondering if you possibly missed his almost sentence despite the stillness of your apartment. You kiss again, more languid and drawn out, letting time carry the word away from the present.

“Let’s watch something funny.” You bring back the movie topic, smiling as you raise yourself to search for the remote. “Or I’ve been kind of wanting to rewatch The Incredibles, is that fine?” You take his soft chuckle as affirmation before he says yes a second later, and your eyes keep focus on the television when you turn around.

Coaxing the sealed words out of him isn’t worth the argument, or worse.

if you enjoy please, please let me know! i hope you enjoy the series, i’m working really hard on it! : )

tag list (send an ask to be added): @jaiuneamesolitaiire​​​

[strangerontheotherside84]

Reupload: Wild Child (Billy Hargrove x Reader) part 1

Disclamer: this is just a reupload since I didn’t have this on my blog originally. If you’re new: Hi! Hope you enjoy this. You can find the following 7 parts on @strangerontheotherside84

Warnings: just lots of swearing for now

-

„Did you get any of this stuff?“ Steve asked while both of you left the dimly lit classroom and entered the hallway of Hawkins High.

„Nope. Biology isn’t really my subject.“ you answered, your brain still fuming from the hour long slideshow „But then again no subject really is.“

Steve chuckled. „We are sure ready for college.“

You wanted to reply in agreement but before you could even open your mouth the two of you were interrupted.

„To be honest I wouldn’t have expected biology to be your thing.“

You turned around to be greeted by the grinning face of Billy Hargrove.

„Oh wow, Hargrove, charming and witty as ever.“ you replied unimpressed.

One could say that you didn’t exactly like each other. And that was putting it VERY mildly. Steve was actually pretty sure that you would punch Billy in the face at least once before the end of this semester.

„Call me if you need an explanation of what just happened in there.“ the curly haired boy continued to poke. You knew that he just wanted to provoke, since he could stand neither Steve or you, but as usual you just couldn’t keep your mouth shut and walk away from the situation.

„Don’t think that you could teach us anything and other than that I don’t need to hear any more about the human digestive system. Actually mine seems to work just fine given the fact that I haven’t thrown up at your mere sight.“

„Yeah that’s not actually the part that excites me the most about the female body.“ He replied quickly, his voice being even lower than usual, while making a step towards you.

God what a pretentious dick.

„Well to be honest I’ve always had the feeling that nothing about the female body really seems to excite you.“ you snapped back with a cocky smile while flicking against the earing that was dangling from Billy’s ear.

Before he could say anything you turned around, grabbed Steve, who was seemingly enjoying what had just happened, by the arm and started to walk out of that shithole of a school.

„Go fuck yourself, bitch!“

Guess that meant you’d won this round. (y/n): 1, Billy: 0. As usual.

„Ah what a nice way to be sent off into the weekend.“ you sighed at the breath of fresh air and those lovely words of goodbye directed towards you.

Now Steve couldn’t contain himself any longer and burst out laughing. „Did you see his face? I think this time you really hit a sore spot.“ „If any of us were to be hitting that spot it would probably be you.“ you replied quickly, which caused Steve to laugh even harder.

-

The bell above the door rang loudly, informing you that a new customer had entered the small record store. Since this wasn’t the most unusual thing on a saturday you kindly ignored the sound and kept yourself busy with the magazine in front of you.

Unfortunately you couldn’t enjoy the article on Motörhead much longer since whoever just entered the store was now standing in front of the counter.

Seemed like this customer actually wanted something from you instead of just listening to the newest releases for free.

You sighed and put on your friendliest smile „Hi, how can I h- Oh-“ you rolled your eyes „It’s YOU….help yourself then.“

In front of you stood none other than Billy Hargrove. You had actually hoped to not be blessed by this sight before monday afternoon in history class.

The curly haired boy scoffed „Trust me, if I could somehow avoid talking to you I would but tracigally I ordered a record few weeks ago and your MUCH nicer colleague called me yesterday to tell me to come pick it up.“

„Could have just picked it up yesterday and spare me from this interaction.“ You mumbled to yourself while checking the register for pre-orders.

„There we go.“ you said while holding up a piece of paper „The new Metallica record, pre-ordered and already payed, right?“

„Yeah.“

Without paying any further attention to Billy you went to the back, where you grabbed the record from the stack of orders that had just arrived this morning.

You made your way back to the counter and handed the vinyl to Billy. Just before taking it from your hands, he began to smirk while moving his eyes from your head to your toes.

„What?“ you asked unnerved.

„Nothing. Just surprised that THAT is what you wear when you’re not in school.“

You were never one of those boring, preppy chicks at school and would usually wear a pair of tight jeans together with your favorite sneakers and leather jacket. But on the weekends you would go all out with your outfits. Right now your hair was it’s usual teased mess, you were wearing black leather pants, your favorite Metallica shirt, a leather jacket and black boots with metal chains on them.

„Well some of us can’t get away with running around almost shirtless at school and will actually get sent home if they dress how they want to.“ you replied snappy.

„Maybe you should break the rules more often and be less of a boring, stuck up loser.“ Billy suggested still smiling at you while raising his eyebrows.

„Well I’m not sure who gave you this amazing information but I can assure you that I am actually able to enjoy myself. So no need to worry.“

„Oh come on as if you ever had sex with anybody in this town.“ he laughed.

„Well you know if the offer is shit you sometimes gotta cross the border of this shitty little town.“ you smirked „I would have told you earlier but you seem to be just fine with all these boring, stuck up losers.“ without further looking at Billy you made your way past him, pushing the record you were still holding in your hand into his chest and went to leave the store.

„What are you doing? You’re the only one here!“

What was that? Did Billy Hargrove for once in his life actually sound confused? And…maybe a little bit impressed?

„My shift is over and it isn’t my problem that Keith is late. You could say that this is my own personal stance against capitalism. Also I’m going out tonight.“ you replied without looking back while tapping the poster on the glass door. It was a flyer, informing whoever may cared, that RATT were playing a show one hour from Hawkins tonight.

[let-it-raines]

Second in Command (35/35)

Summary: Life as the “spare to the heir” isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be when you’re the supposed screw-up of the family, but people don’t know what really happens behind closed doors. 

Rating: Mature

A/N: I have apparently written over 300,000 words of this story and its sequel (and I’m not saying I won’t write some one shots in the future if inspiration strikes), but I don’t even have the words to thank you guys right now. This story started because I was bored and needed something to do, and I’ve loved writing and learning how to craft words and stories more easily and with better quality over the past few months. You guys are the best, and I thank you for every click, kudos, comment, and reblog! I’ve seen and appreciated every single one!

But seriously. Thank you for liking this insane story. I can’t believe so many of you have stuck with it and gone through all of the highs and lows of the emotions of it with me. It’s been a pleasure ❤️

AO3: Beginning | Current

Tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 

Sequel: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

Tag list: @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @kmomof4 @wellhellotragic @ekr032-blog-blog @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @captswanis4vr @kristi555 @teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @artistic-writer @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma @alys07 @andiirivera @emmas-storybook @superchocovian @in-spirational  @cs-forlife @qualitycoffeethings @shireness-says @jonirobinson64 

“Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Emma admits, straightening out her dress and crossing her legs at her ankles while the wet grass touches her skin. “I’ve never really learned what goes into playing polo, but you’re British. Shouldn’t you know how this works?”

“First of all, my dear,” Ruby huffs while she scrolls through her phone, large white cat-eyed sunglasses perched on her nose with her hair falling down her back, “you are also British now. I don’t know if you’re ever going to remember that. But yeah, I was not at all into all of this uppity stuff until you started dating someone who was, which incidentally caused me to marry an uppity man.” “Woah, woah, woah. Are you seriously complaining about meeting Graham because of me?”

“Eh,” she laughs, leaning back onto a rolled-up towel with her hands resting behind her back, “maybe. He was being annoying this morning because he couldn’t find the right boots, and I was ready to just burn all of his boots.” Emma lets out a low whistle, one that travels in the slight breeze and down the small hill so that both Andy and Sutton turn their heads from where they’re playing to look at her. They don’t look for long, though, the ball they have far more interesting even if poor Sutton can’t keep up with the older kids. She’s trying, though. She’s going to have grass stains all over her dress, but it’s fine. She’s seventeen months old. Grass stains are the least of her worries.

She doesn’t really have worries as long as someone is entertaining her, and honestly, Sutton is attached at her hip. All she has to do is talk about everything she’s doing, and her girl is as happy as can be. It’s only annoying when she’s brushing her teeth.

“So he was really annoying?”

“The most annoying. I would say sometimes I miss living in my old flat with Granny, but, you know, Graham has a few more perks than her. And he’s not always so obnoxious over his riding boots.”

“Killian has this thing with shoes,” she begins, picking at her nails before twisting her wedding band on her finger, a habit that she can never quite stop, but it’s likely because Killian likes to play with her rings when they’re sitting together. “In our closet, he has all of his lined up on this small little shelf, and then on my side I have that wall of them, you know?”

“Trust me, I know. All of the nice clothes you have are totally wasted on you.”

“I let you borrow them,” she sighs, glancing over at Ruby for a moment before looking down to make sure she can still see the kids. She should probably watch a bit of the match, but she can just fake it later. That’s what she usually does when she has no idea what’s going on. “But anyways, Killian is always fixing them. If I leave my shoes in the entryway or the bedroom, he picks them up and puts them up, and sometimes he gets so pissed over it. I can’t tell you how many arguments we get into that start off with me leaving my tennis shoes just inside the door.”

“Does he do that with the kids too?

She shrugs and looks back to Ruby before sliding her own sunglasses down over her eyes, her hair getting stuck in them for a moment. “Andy is supposed to put all of his things up, but Killian’s not about to pick a fight with a four-year-old over leaving his shoes somewhere. It’s much more fun to fight with me.”

“That’s because making up with you is more fun,” Ruby teases, reaching over and squeezing Emma’s wrist. “Our husbands are so damn weird.”

“Well, we do weird shit too, but yeah, that’s very true.”

“Mummy,” Sutton whines, running up the hill as fast as she can with crocodile tears running down her cheeks.

“Baby,” Emma sighs, getting up from the ground and walking down to Sutton, scooping her up off the ground and wiping her tears away while she scans her face for any obvious injuries. She obviously missed something when she was talking to Ruby. “What happened?”

“I fell,” she sobs, the tears still coming even if Emma is sure that she’s not hurt, that it’s still the shock and the dramatics of it all.

“Oh, it’s okay,” she soothes, letting Sutton wrap her arms around her neck and snuggle into her shoulder. “It’s okay. Do you want to come sit with Mommy and Aunt Ruby?” Sutton nods her head up and down while Emma continues to rub her back. “Andy,” she calls, and when he doesn’t turn around, she calls him again. “Andrew Killian.” That gets him to turn around, his head snapping toward and his hair whipping with it. He needs a haircut, especially if they’re going to spend so much time outside this spring and summer. He gets sweat and dirt everywhere. “Andy, why don’t you come up here and sit with Mommy and Ruby, okay?”

“But I’m playing.”

“But I asked you to come sit with me.”

“Mummy.”

Sometimes it’s cute when he thinks that he can out argue her, especially since he’s still so small, but other times she knows that they’re about to go down kicking and screaming if she lets the emotions build up. Kids are kind of like dynamite, except half the time you don’t know when the fuse is about to burn up and explode. It surprises you out of the blue and you’re the one who’s left kicking and screaming.

“Andy, please listen to me. I need to put more sunscreen on your nose so you don’t turn all red like a tomato.”

“I don’t want to be a tomato,” he screeches, running up the hill so quickly that he catches up to her as she slowly makes her way back up, Sutton like dead weight in her arms.

“Why are you so scared of tomatoes?” Ruby laughs, catching Andy when he gets up to their spot and settling him down on her lap. “I love tomatoes. They’re red like rubies, and, well, you know, my name is Ruby.”

“Tomatoes are gross,” he whines, his eyes scrunching up as he sticks out his tongue. “Daddy makes me eat them.”

“Daddy does not,” Emma laughs, settling back down on the blanket and putting Sutton on her thighs while she rummages through her bag, first pulling out a bag of fruit and handing it to Andy before she gets the lotion. “Daddy lets you eat other vegetables so you can grow bigger.”

“Like Papa and Daddy and Grandpa.”

“Or your mummy and me,” Ruby laughs, tickling Andy’s stomach while he lights up with joy, his eyes scrunching together again, this time in a much more pleasant way. God, he looks so much like Killian sometimes that it kills her. She thought Sutton was going to be her twin for a little while, but her blonde curls have definitely turned a bit more brown. Or maybe it’s a dirty blonde. It changes depending on the light. She’s got these green eyes, though, and they’re so beautiful. Andy is always saying they’re like a cat. She’s not even sure he’s ever seen a cat in person, but he knows that they have green eyes.

“Mummy isn’t as tall as Daddy.”

“He makes a good point, Rubes. It’s probably because I didn’t eat tomatoes.”

Andy groans again, tilting his head back while he pops an apple slice in his mouth.

“I want,” Sutton sighs, her lips no longer quivering as she points to Andy’s bag of fruit.

Andy digs in the bag until he finds another apple slice, handing it over to Sutton who pops half of it in her mouth before pulling it out like she’s just remembered how to chew.

“What do you tell your brother, Sutton?”

“Thank you,” Sutton whispers, the words coming out more like “tank you” and Emma’s heart flutters a little bit. Listening to kids mispronounce words is definitely one of the great wonders of the world…if you’re into things like that. If you hate kids, it’s probably not quite as cute.

“You’re welcome. I gave you a red one because you don’t like the green.”

“That’s so sweet, Andy,” she smiles reaching over and pushing his hair off of his forehead. “Now let me put this lotion on you, and then you can go back to playing with your friends, okay?”

“Okay. ‘Cause I don’t want to be a tomato.”

When the match is over, Killian and Graham come walking over to them, their gaits not quite as confident as usual even though they won (she thinks), and she chuckles to herself knowing that Killian is most definitely going to want to ice his thighs and his groin later. He gets far too into these charity matches, but that’s what happens when you’re that competitive. Besides, he may be in a bit of pain, but she’s really enjoying the way that his pants cling to his legs and sweat beads off of his forehead, a few strands falling in front of his eyes. He should get his hair cut at the same time that Andy does.

Or not. It’s kind of hot.

“Hello, love,” he greets, flashing her a smile so bright that his eyes crinkle.

“Hi, babe.”

“Oh, Emma darling,” he laughs, leaning down and briefly brushing his lips over hers, “I was talking to my little love, but I’m excited to see you too.”

“Daddy,” Sutton squeals, reaching her arms up until Killian picks her up. “Play horse?”

“I did, sweetheart. I played on a rather large horse. Have you been playing with your mummy and Ruby?”

She nods her head up and down, running her fingers over Killian’s face. “I fell.”

“Oh no,” Killian gasps, overexaggerating his sounds as he settles down next to her on the blanket. He smells a little bit like a horse, and she’s surprised that Sutton hasn’t pointed it out. She’s a spirited little thing even with her limited vocabulary. “Did you get a scratch? Does Daddy need to kiss it all better. You know, Mummy says that Daddy’s kisses are like magic?”

“Totally not something you should be sharing with your daughter there, mate,” Graham laughs as Emma can feel her cheeks flush, red forming that has nothing to do with the little bit of sun she’s gotten today despite the lotion she’s reapplied. She can’t turn into a tomato or anything.

“That is not what I meant,” Killian scoffs, his eyes darting toward Graham before she sees him focus back on Sutton. “I was simply trying to make sure my little love is okay. You okay, Button?”

“Yep,” she sighs, scrambling up to kiss Killian’s cheek. She used to not be too much of a fan of her dad, which was such a shame because he’s a good person to be a fan of, but she’s definitely turning around and being affectionate toward him. Killian’s so gentle with her and always calling her ridiculous names like Button, so that likely helps. You’ve just got to know what Sutton likes to get in her favor. “Mummy fix.”

“Well, she’s very good at making things better. I’m telling you, little love, she has magic kisses.”

“Daddy,” Andy screams, shocking everyone out of their little bubble as he runs back up the hill, determination set in his features, “your face looks like a tomato!”

-/-

-/-

“This suit scratches, Daddy.”

“It’s just for a little while, lad.”

“But why?”

“Because this is what we do on Christmas Eve. Grandpa has been doing it for a long time, and we all do what he says.”

“But I don’t like this suit. I want to wear my Rudolph pajamas. He has a nose that lights up.”

“After dinner,” Killian sighs, buttoning up Andy’s shirt and tucking it in pants even as Andy squirms. “After we eat, I promise Mummy and I are going to come up here and change into our jammies and read you and Sutton a book.”

“Two books.”

“One book.”

“Two. One I pick out, and one for Sutton.”

“Maybe,” Killian laughs, reaching over and grabbing Andy’s suit jacket off of the chair. “Arms up.” Andy’s arms fly up, and Killian slides the jacket over them until he’s fully dressed. “See, lad, you look handsome, and I’m wearing something similar to you. Alex is going to be dressed like this too.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“And I present to you,” Emma shouts from the bathroom so that Killian can turn his head to look, “Miss Sutton James all dressed up in her very pretty red dress that she helped to pick out.”

Sutton and Emma walk out of the bathroom, Sutton running in first with her hair pulled back into a short braid, a silver bow resting on the top of her head, and Emma follows behind her in his personal favorite emerald dress that she’s worn several times in the past few years. He’ll never quite get over the way it dips down to show her cleavage, and even if they’re spending the night with their families, he’s absolutely thrilled with the fact that she’s wearing it tonight.

He can always simply enjoy the view.

“Wow,” Andy mutters, smiling up at Emma. “Mummy, you are beautiful.”

He smiles a bit to himself at his son and his manners that he sometimes likes to let out. Plus, he’s definitely right, especially as Emma’s cheeks flush and her lips stretch into a soft smile. “Thank you, my handsome little man. What about Sutton? Don’t you think she’s beautiful?”

“Sure.”

He almost chokes on his own saliva as he tries to hold in his laugh, Andy’s manners going away to be replaced by indifference at his little sister. There’s only so much they can hope for when it comes to him. Last week at the Christmas party they always host for military families, Andy told everyone there that his parents were cuddling with no clothes and the room went silent for a moment before Liam lost his mind and barked out a laugh so loud that everyone else joined in, the mood lightening and the jolliness coming back. He’s still not sure why Andy said that, especially since he has not walked in on them when they’re in their bedroom, but the kid still somehow knows that.

It was mostly likely Ruby. And if it wasn’t, he’d bet that Andy saw it on a movie Mary Margaret was watching when she and David babysit. Man does he hope that Andy did not walk in on his grandparents cuddling without clothes. That would be scarring. It’s scarring to think about, and they’re not even his parents. That would be so much worse.

Sometimes he wonders if he really is thirty-six or if he’s actually still about sixteen.

“Sutton, darling,” he smiles, wiping away the few stray tears that escaped him, “you look so pretty. I like your dress.”

“Thank you,” she sighs while she does a little twirl so that the skirt of her dress flares up. “It’s red.”

“It is indeed,” he agrees before walking over to Emma and kissing the skin of her shoulder so as not to mess up her makeup before they take pictures downstairs. “You are one hot mum,” he whispers into her ear, his hands resting on her hips and tugging her closer even if he can’t kiss her right now, “and I like your dress so much more than Button’s.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Emma chuckles as she runs her hands over her shoulders, nails digging through his shirt. “I also think you look much better than Andy in your suit.” “If he hears you say that, he’ll rip it off and run around the dining room without anything on.”

“It’s a good thing they’re too busy turning around in circles to pay any attention to you flirting with me.” Emma pulls back and adjusts his shirt collar, her eyes slanted in concentration until she fixes it to her satisfaction and pats his chest. “I like when you flirt with me even though it’ll get you absolutely nowhere tonight.”

“All these years, and you still think I only flirt with you to get you to sleep with me.” “No, sometimes you flirt with me because you’ve done something that you know is going to piss me off, and you’re trying to butter me up.”

“Like bread.”

Emma tilts her head to the side, her lips ticking up even though he can tell she’s trying not to smile as she looks at him. “Did you just compare me to bread?”

“In a roundabout way.”

“You literally said the words ‘like bread.’ You compared me to bread.”

“Well, bread is a wonderful thing,” he promises, flashing her his brightest smile while he squeezes her waist. God, he loves her a ridiculous amount, and he’d like to flirt with her forever, even if he can do better than comparing her to bread. In a roundabout way, though. “It was not at all an insult.”

“I know.”

“Mummy,” Andy whines, and the both of them turn their heads to look at their children who have stopped turning in circles and are laid out on the floor spread out like starfish, “if I don’t have some cake right now, I’m going to die.”

“Woah boy,” Emma laughs, moving away from him even with his grip on her hips as she walks over to them and picks Sutton up from the floor, placing her on her hip while she tries to get Andy to stand too, “you are being dramatic. If you eat all of your dinner, you can eat one of the biscuits we made for Santa.”

“Will Santa still come if I eat them?” he cries, standing from the ground and wrapping his arms around Emma’s leg as much as he can and shaking his head back and forth.

The biscuit thing was definitely not the thing to say, especially because they’ve convinced their entire family to open presents on Christmas Day for the kids, so everyone has been hyping up Santa and all of the legends and myths of Christmas’s great imaginary friend as well as all of the traditions of the holiday. Abigail went on and on about the biscuits when they were baking them after the football match this afternoon, and he imagines that it’s that which caused the meltdown that’s about to occur.

“Santa is still going to come if you eat a biscuit. I promise. You have both been very good kids all year.” “What about when Sutton broke the lamp?”

“That was an accident, and it’s not nice to talk about things Sutton’s done wrong.” “Sorry.” “It’s okay,” Emma promises, balancing Andy’s conversation while he hears Sutton babble in her ears, the sentences far less structured but still likely important. “Now let’s go take some pictures and get some food.”

“Because it’s Christmas,” Andy yells, running out of the room with his sister trailing right behind him.

He and Emma are never going to catch up, but that’s okay with him as he twines together their fingers and slowly walks with her out the door, laughter on both of their lips and lightness in their chests.

-/-

-/-

Clothes litter the floor, reds and blue, maybe a few green polos too. Andy’s going to his first day of kindergarten…or reception. She’s pretty sure it’s called reception, but she’s always called it kindergarten. Some things simply aren’t going to change. The point is that Andy is going to school that’s more than just a few days a week or a few hours a day, and she is not at all emotionally prepared for it. She’s completely torn apart his room and his closet even though they make him clean it up with their help at least once a week, and she can’t find something for him to wear. She thought she wanted him to wear these khaki pants and a white shirt, but she decided that was far too boring and that his baby blue shorts and a little checked shirt would work better.

But then again, there’s also green.

She’s very possibly losing her mind, but if she keeps focusing on the clothes, she won’t cry.

Being pregnant and sending her firstborn off to kindergarten is most definitely not a good combination. It most likely might be the worst combination, but it’s not like she can just not send Andy off to school. That would be a horrible thing to do, and Killian would definitely take him without her if she tried.

He needs to go to school. Andy loves his nursery classes and all of his friends, and he’s so dang excited about it that it makes her feel bad that she’s so upset about him leaving. Plus education or whatever. He needs that, and she’ll get over it. She has to get over it.

What the hell is he going to wear?

Why isn’t there a uniform?

Actually, no. She would have hated having to wear a uniform, and that just does not seem like a good idea for Andy right now. He would probably rip off the jacket or something. And she knows that Sutton would once she gets there.

Nope. Not going to think about that. That’s far too much for her.

But Killian looked so damn adorable in his school uniforms as a child, and she’s sure that Andy would look like an exact replica.

She kind of wants that.

“The blue will bring out his eyes,” Killian says softly, walking into the room and picking up some of the clothes on the floor and folding them up. She’s not sure if it’s because he’s being sweet or if he simply can’t deal with her mess. “That’s what you always tell me, and it’s true for him too. So why don’t we dress him in this?” he asks, holding out the exact outfit she’d picked out…well, one of them. She picked out a lot. “He’ll wear this, and then you can stop worrying about it.”

“Killian – ”

“Okay, okay, so I know you’re not going to stop worrying, but you can stop worrying about this and move on to worrying if he and Oliver are going to get up to no good tomorrow.” “Oh God,” she laughs, walking over to Killian and wrapping her arms around his waist while he does the same, his hands moving up and down the length of her back in a motion that is always soothing, “they so are. I can’t believe they’re in the same class.” “I can. Those two would riot if they weren’t.” She feels his lips against her forehead and her heart flutters for a moment while she nuzzles herself into his chest. He’s always so solid for her, and she can’t thank him enough for it. “I can feel your bump, my love.”

“Yeah?” “Yeah. I’m still so thankful for our little surprise baby, even if the thought of being in charge of three people makes me nervous. I’ll probably go gray soon because of it.” “You’ll be a good gray, though. Salt and pepper. Distinguished, handsome, debonair.” She kisses just below the base of his neck over the hair that’s peeking out over his shirt, and she wonders if he would let her work her lips against his collarbone despite her parents being outside. “Also, this baby is most definitely the last one. We have two who got here on accident and one who made our lives a living hell trying to conceive her. And after that too. I don’t want to deal all of that again. Plus, you know, labor sucks.” “I do know that, having been through it myself.” “Hush.” “You’re the one who said it. three is a nice number, by the way. I like it.” “You better.” She can feel him tracing indistinguishable patterns on her back while she focuses on the sound and feel of his heartbeat, the very real confirmation that he’s here and with her every step of the way. “I can’t believe our baby is going to school tomorrow.”

“Me either.”

“When in the world did we allow him to grow up?”

“Well, on September twenty-third – ”

“Shut up. I remember his birth. I did most of the work there.”

“Aye, you did. Emma, it’s going to be fine. He’s going to have a great day, and at the end of it, he’s going to come home and tell us all about how much he loved his new friends and his teacher. And then he’ll probably say something ridiculous about how he’s glad he doesn’t have to go back again. Man, that will be a harsh blow.”

She laughs against his chest, her entire body shaking at Killian’s words, and she leans back, tilting her chin up to look at Killian as he smiles down at her, his eyes very obviously scanning her face. “It’ll probably only get worse when we tell him he has to go until he’s, like, twenty-two if he goes to university.”

“Maybe we leave that part out, yeah?”

“That’s probably a good idea.” She presses up on her toes to quickly brush her lips over Killian’s, letting his scruff rub into her skin, a pleasant burn if she’s ever felt one. “Are my parents still watching the kids?”

“Yeah, they’re out by the pool. Why don’t you change into a suit and we’ll go out there?”

“I like that plan.”

She changes into an old swimsuit, one that covers a little more of her body than she usually prefers, but after a few times swimming this summer, she’s discovered that her bikinis are prone to fall off when the kids grab onto her while swimming. So those are reserved for special times and when she’s tanning a bit. It’s not particularly hot out or anything now, so she’d likely be fine walking out there in some leggings and a t-shirt.

When she slides open the kitchen door and walks out onto the stones, Indy gets up from her spot in the shade and comes to greet her, wagging her tail as Emma scratches her head. Before she can close the door, though, Indy shoots inside, and Emma shakes her head at the fact that the dog is just using her for her door opening capabilities. She can hear her kids before she can see them, the splashing and screaming obvious to anyone with ears, and as she moves along the path and through the blooming flowers, everyone comes into view.

Her mom is in the pool floating with Sutton and helping her swim even with her floaties, and Andy is leaping from float to float before sticking his head underneath the fountain that they have to replenish the water supply. Killian’s putting on lotion, slathering it down his arms and his chest, making his skin and his muscles glisten, and she has a brief thought that views like that are probably the thing that’s helped to make her pregnant three times.

It’s also probably the way he looks at her.

The way he still looks at her, like she’s been in charge of making the sun shine down on them or something. They’ve been together for nearly half of her life, and sometimes when he looks at her, she swears it’s like it’s the first time. Well, if the first time had involved affection and awe and not a tiny bit of animosity as she told him to get his wet ass out of their booth. How they got this life from that moment, she has absolutely no idea. How the greatest man she’s ever known looks at her in a way that makes her stomach still flutter, she’ll likely never know either.

There are some thoughts she’s going to keep to herself. She can share the first part, though, wolf whistling at Killian and waiting for him to wink back before she joins her dad sitting on a patio swing that’s under a bit of shade.

“Hey, sweetheart,” her dad greets, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and tugging her to him so that he can kiss her temple. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay today. My nausea is calming down, but the acid reflux sucks. And I’m still exhausted half the time, but it’s getting better.” “Good. I hate that you have to go through all of that to give me my precious grandbabies.”

“I mean, if I could change biology, I totally would, but since that’s not an option, I feel like I can deal with this for a little while. Besides, look at those lovable idiots.”

Andy is now on top of Killian’s shoulders, pulling at his father’s hair despite the fact that Killian has been in the pool for less than a minute, and Sutton is wrapped around his neck while Killian’s eyes practically bug out. They’re going to kill him, but he loves them. He’s a damn good dad. Probably super dad or something.

“Or I can look at you since you’re still my little girl.”

“Dad,” she sighs, resting her head on his shoulder while her cheeks flush. “I’m hormonal. I will cry, and you’ll have to clean up the snot.” “Nothing I’ve never done before.” “True. How did you…how did you deal with me going to kindergarten for the first time?”

“Eh, it wasn’t a big deal. We got you dressed and sent you off.”

“Really?”

“God, no. I cried like a baby the moment I got back in the car and drove to work after dropping your mother off. I didn’t think it was going to be that bad, but it was so much worse.”

“That is not at all reassuring.” “I know,” he chuckles, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. “Just telling you the truth, Ems. But you’ll be fine. It’ll hurt for a little while, but then you see your kid in his element and suddenly you’re not so sad. You’re happy that he’s becoming his own little person.”

“Yeah?”

“Most definitely. Plus, he’s going to make you all of these awful crafts and gifts for every holiday, and you’re going to display a tissue paper flower pot next to a vase you got from the King of Spain.”

“So normal people stuff then?” “Yeah, exactly.”

“Papa,” Sutton yells as Killian wades their brood toward the edge of the pool, carefully placing her on the ground and telling her to be careful as she quickly walks over to the two of them. “Papa, I can swim.”

“I know,” David gasps, picking her up despite the fact that she’s soaking wet. “I saw you. You did so good, honey.”

She watches her dad play with his granddaughter, the joy on his face so obvious, and it makes her smile to herself as she listens to them have a spirited conversation. Her dad is one of her best friends, and he’s as good with her children as he’s always been with her.

So, really, he’s the best, and she’s thankful that he’s supported her since day one.

He’s a super dad too.

They spend most of their day outside until the kids tire themselves out and go to bed early, Andy’s outfit and backpack all laid out for him in the morning. When she wakes up, Killian’s not in bed, the sheets cool to the touch, and after she vomits (so it still happens in the mornings or after she naps), she takes a shower and starts getting ready for the day. It’s still dark outside, crickets chirping, but she can see the dark blue fading into something lighter as she blows her hair dry.

She’s got absolutely no idea what Killian’s doing up as early as he is, and when she walks downstairs dressed for the day in everything but her loafers, she finds him sitting in his office flipping through a book. A photobook.

Her sweet, sweet husband.

“How long have you been looking through his baby pictures?”

“About an hour.”

“Killian,” she murmurs, walking toward him and running her hands through his hair, pushing it back off of his head and scratching his scalp because she knows that it calms him, “let’s go get breakfast ready.”

“Just a moment, love. I’m almost finished with the book.”

She sighs but nods her head, nudging him back so that she can sit down on Killian’s lap, his arm immediately wrapping around her stomach and holding her to him as his free hand ghosts over the pictures. He’s looking at one of the three of them from Ruby’s wedding weekend. They’re on the beach, Andy dressed in those adorable little anchor swim trunks that she still has in a box somewhere, and he’s got this little gummy smile on his face and Killian holds onto his fat rolls as they sit in the sand. She remembers that weekend so well, and she remembers her weird obsession with those fat rolls.

“Killian, look at that munchkin.” “I know. That’s what I’m doing down here.”

She twists her head and presses her lips against her temple, the scent of his shampoo lingering. Sometimes he tries to hide his feelings when she’s extra emotional, but she always knows that he feels it too. Finding him looking at pictures is a prime example, and her heart swells for a moment, her stomach twisting.

“I’ll tell you what,” she mumbles into his skin, running her hand over his bicep, “why don’t we go get him ready, and then after it’s all over, you and I can come back here and go through all of these memories, okay?” He nods into her hair, nose pressed against her scalp. “I like this plan.”

“Good.” Killian starts on breakfast while she runs upstairs to get Andy ready for school, waking him up more easily than she ever has as he shoots up out of bed already blabbering about how excited he is to go to school today. He’s so excited that he insists on dressing himself only for his short to go on backwards and for Emma to have to struggle to get him to fix it because he likes the way that it looks. His hair is an entirely different story. He likes to keep it wild because that’s what his dad does, and it doesn’t matter how many times they show him that Killian sometimes styles his, Andy refuses.

He refuses until Killian does it for him. Kids are so weird.

“I’m going to school,” he announces, sliding into the kitchen and scrambling onto a stool while she holds Sutton on her hip. Sutton is still half asleep, rubbing her eyes with her hair still all over the place from her sleep. “Dad, Dad, Dad. Did you know that I’m going to school? Are these waffles? Do they have chocolate chips in them?”

“Blueberries,” Killian laughs, sliding him a plate with an already cut up waffle and a glass of water. “You cannot have sugar before your first big day at school.”

Andy shrugs before he starts scarfing the food down at lightning speed, and Killian has to slow him down while she settles down on a stool and picks off of the plate that Killian hands her for she and Sutton to share.

Sutton hums as she takes her bites, stuffing them in her mouth nearly as fast as Andy does, and while Killian goes to get ready, she has to keep the both of them from choking on their food while they talk to her and to each other. They don’t know that she’s having another kid yet, and she can only imagine how the reactions are going to be.

Or what it’s going to be like to keep three kids from choking on blueberry waffles all at once.

Elsa shows up to watch Sutton while they take Andy to school, and for the short ride over, Killian interlaces his free hand with hers as they listen to Andy talk all about what he and Oliver are going to do today only for Killian to tell him that no, he cannot climb a tree on the playground.

“Alright, bud,” Emma sighs as she gets out of the car and unbuckles Andy’s booster seat, her heart beating quickly in her chest while she tries to push back the nausea that’s coming back a bit, “are you ready to go inside?”

“I get to take my Andy backpack inside?”

“Yep,” she promises, grabbing his little red bag with his name monogrammed across it. It’s actually got Andrew Killian written on it because once Andy found out his middle name was the same as his dad’s first, he’s really liked saying his full name. “You get to carry it with you and put it in your cubby.”

“Good. It’s got my crayons in it.”

She takes his hand and holds on as they walk to the school entrance with Killian holding onto Andy’s other hand and Thomas discreetly walking behind them despite the fact that they wanted this to be as low key as possible.

“Those picture people are here,” Andy points out, glancing over to the photographers that are posed outside of the school. She didn’t want them here today, but she didn’t have any way to keep them away since they’re not on school grounds.

“Yeah, Andy, they are,” she whispers, tugging him closer to her side and ignoring all of the photographers until they’re inside the school doors where the three of them can have a moment to themselves just outside of his classroom door. “Alright, baby,” she sighs, squatting down to his level and brushing his hair back again while she looks into those baby blue eyes, “you’re going to be on your best behavior today, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And you’re going to listen to Mrs. Murray?”

“Mhm.”

He’s obviously anxious to go inside, his eyes glancing toward the door while he fidgets, so she pulls him into an embrace and cups the back of his head while she kisses his forehead. “I love you, Andy.”

“I love you, Mummy.”

She laughs into his hair and pulls back so Killian can give Andy a hug too.

“I love you, lad.”

“I love you too. Can I go now?”

“Yes,” Killian sighs, glancing up at her with those identical baby blue eyes, “you can go. Just don’t run.”

“We’re so getting a call about misbehavior before the day is over,” she chuckles even as she wipes the tears from her eyes.

“Yeah,” Killian sighs, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and kissing her temple, “we definitely are. I’m kind of looking forward to it.”

-/-

-/-

Her hair smells like peppermint, which is unfamiliar and yet no less pleasant than the usual smell of vanilla or flowers from her perfume that often mixes in, and he wonders if he can convince her to take home this shampoo that she bought six days ago when she realized that she forgot to pack anything other than the kids’ bath products. He’s sure that he could, that he could get her to invest in something that makes her smell like hot chocolate and Christmas, something that makes her smell like this house with the snow falling down outside at such a pace that they’ll be buried in it sooner rather than later.

Emma twitches in her sleep, a small puff of air passing through her lips and falling on the skin of his neck, warm breath tickling along his flesh that causes bumps to rise and a chill to cover him that has nothing to do with the weather. For the briefest of moments he believes that she’s about to wake from her slumber, but then she’s burying her face further into his neck, into the thick sweater he has on, and her face disappears only for it to be replaced with her hair, silky blonde waves falling down her back, the tips ending in the middle of her waist just over where her own sweater has risen up to expose the smooth skin of the small of her back and the way that her waist dips in the slightest bit right at her hips.

It’s been awhile since they’ve had a quiet morning like this where he can trail his fingers through her hair while she sleeps, his other hand free to trace along her arm from where it’s wrapped around his waist. Usually they have Andy to get to primary school, Sutton to nursery, and Collins, well, they simply have to keep her alive and well. They’ve both made efforts not to work in the mornings so they can be there for their children as much as they can. He doesn’t often like to take too much advantage of his position in life, but he does when it comes to making decisions on their schedules. His main focuses in his life are his wife and his children, and if he can, he schedules himself to be away from them as little as possible.

Back in November he’d traveled to Canada for a week with his mother since his father wasn’t feeling like traveling to North America, and it had been one of the most difficult weeks of his life. He loved not having to deal with his kids for a little while, loved sleeping in a bed by himself, but he missed them all so damn much. And he could tell how difficult it was for Emma to not have his help. She had all kinds of help, but it’s different when it’s not someone who you work with and live with on a daily basis.

Now, though, they’re resting in a house in Switzerland, he and Emma cocooned in a bedroom on the top floor of the house that’s pretty much made up of windows that allow them to see the mountaintops and the snow falling, landing on the ground and covering it in a soft white blanket that the sun likes to glisten off of in the mornings when the it rises, covering everything in a soft yellow glow that brings him more comfort than snow usually does. He usually thinks it’s a cold, wet mess, but he’ll enjoy it from the comfort of his bed.

Andy and Sutton are downstairs sharing a room, the two of them practically bouncing off of the walls to get to be on winter holiday and to sleep in a room with bunkbeds, the both of them claiming a top bunk. Collins is resting in her bassinet in the sitting room just next door to them, and she’s been sleeping since around nine last night. Of all of their children, she’s the calmest. It’s a bit of whiplash after Sutton and the whirlwind that she consistently is, but he likes the calm of Collins and the way that unless someone makes far too loud of a noise, she quietly sits by herself and plays with her toys or babbles to he and Emma. She’s almost ready to speak. He can just feel it somewhere deep in his bones.

She’s got blonde hair, too. They thought that was going to be Sutton, but no, her hair has officially morphed into a light brown. Andy’s still got a black mop of hair, that never really changed, but he thinks he’s got another Emma on his hands from the blonde wisps that continue to grow on his Linnie’s head. She’s got his eyes, though, and while he knows Emma loves that, he is so partial to Emma’s eyes over his.

He won’t ever tell Andy and Collins that, though. He loves their eyes just the same.

“You’re thinking really loudly,” Emma mumbles into his chest before he can feel her lips against his throat, softness and warmth consuming him all at once.

“I can promise you I’m not,” he whispers, his hand continuing to play with her hair. She’s barely coherent, her words slurred, and sometimes it’s like they’re still two kids who are on a trip to Switzerland drinking far too much cheap wine and eating too much junk food without a care or responsibility in the world. “You should go back to sleep.”

“Probably,” she huffs, looping her leg over his hip and resting it on the other side of him. If he wanted to, he could shift his body the slightest bit and urge them into a slide of skin against skin, but he’s okay resting like this for a little while longer. He’s watching a snowflake melt on the window anyways. “What time is it?”

“Little after six thirty.”

She groans into his skin before flopping her entire body down with all of the grace of a swan and turning her head to the side so that he can see her profile, freckles on sun-kissed cheeks and blonde lashes resting against the freckles. Goodness, does he love her. More than anything.

“Why are you awake?”

“The sky’s awake, so I’m awake.” “Nope, no, nope. It’s far too early to be quoting children’s movies,” she huffs, tightening her grip around his stomach and pressing her head up so that he can feel her lips against his chin, the softness contrasting with the harshness of his scruff. Sometimes he wonders if that’s how he and Emma are, a contrast of light and dark, of soft curves and hard edges, but he knows that somewhere along the way they managed to morph together into a blurred mixture, the softness and light staying and the harsh darkness peeking out when it’s needed.

“Whatever shall I quote then? The opera? More mature films? And no, not the dirty ones, love. Let’s see, let’s see,” he hums, tapping his fingers against the skin of her back. “Songs? Are we thinking classical or modern? Television shows? Authors? Your mother?”

“Shut up,” she laughs, gently slapping his shoulder and nuzzling into his chest again. “It’s so pretty outside.”

“Aye, beautiful. You think our old bodies will hold up again out there today?”

“Don’t you know never to call your wife’s body old?”

“I’ve never been one for following rules.”

“True. I was thinking that since it’s our last day here that we kind of have a chill day inside, eat some food, watch some movies, and then we can take the kids out to play in the snow for a little while, maybe finally get the family photo we’ve been trying to get since the first day.” “Thomas is not a great photographer.”

“Or we’re not photogenic.”

“So I can’t call your body old, but you can say I’m not photogenic.”

“Double standards, babe. I only disagree with them when it benefits me.”

He gently slaps her ass in retaliation, enjoying the yelp that she lets out, before she unwraps herself from him and sits up next to him, tucking herself into his side. It’s such a good fit, the two of them, and he often likes to think of how she can curl herself into him without there being limbs in awkward places, just her arms around his stomach and her feet tucked into his calves searching for the warmth that she’s always lacking there.

“I think I could do for a lazy day. A holiday while on our holiday so that we can recover from everything. I took a pretty nasty fall yesterday, and I would bet my bum is bruising.”

“I’m not checking out your ass right now if that’s what you’re hinting at me to do.”

“I was being serious, but it’s nice to know where your mind goes.” “My mind is always in the gutter. It’s got a nice little home set up there.”

“Do you have a place for all of your sweaters?”

“Right next to the place where you can keep your socks when you come to visit.”

“So sweet,” he snickers, rolling his eyes and twisting his head to the side to press his lips against the corner of Emma’s until he can get her upper lip between both of his, teasingly biting down for a minute before pulling back and smattering kisses against her cheek while her fingers twist the hair on his chest, a shiver running down his spine with each curl of her fingers. “You’re always thinking of me, and I appreciate that.”

“Well, sometimes I’m not. You know, I like to think about food and the ending of Game of Thrones that I’m still not over and then sometimes about the spawn we made with our genitals.”

He sputters out a laugh, tears forming behind his eyes, and he has to tuck his face into her hair, smelling the peppermint again and reveling in it. “I love you so goddamn much.”

He feels her hand in his hair, nails scratching against his scalp, and he swears he can feel her lips against his head even though he knows that he cannot. “I love you, baby daddy. Speaking of our genital spawn, I’m going to go get Linnie so we can cuddle with her for a bit.”

“She could be asleep.”

“Trust me. She’s not. I also know that she needs to eat. My boobs are full.”

“Don’t I know it?”

“You’re a child,” she sighs, kissing his cheek and pulling back from him as she gets out of bed, her feet pounding against the floor when she hops off the tall frame, and walks through the doorway to the sitting room.

While she’s gone, he takes the opportunity to use the restroom and grab a new pair of socks for both he and Emma, the cool ground reminding him of the chill that’s been seeping through the crevices of the home. It doesn’t take long before Emma has returned, Collins changed into a new set of pajamas with her hair combed through, and Emma settles into bed with her, pulling the blankets up over the two of them, completely ignoring the socks that he left out.

“Hello, Linnie,” he whispers, leaning forward and kissing the crown of her head while she smiles at him, her nickname always making her smile for some reason. “Did you sleep well? Mummy didn’t keep you up with her snoring?”

“No,” she answers, and his lips fall open as his stomach flips.

“Did she just speak?”

“Did you just say that I snore?”

“That is so not what’s important here, love,” he laughs, looking up at her before he takes Collins out of Emma’s arms and places her in his lap while he tries to convince her to say no again. She doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean he can’t at least try.

His last little lady just said her first word, and he’s so damn proud.

It’s not long before Andy and Sutton join them, quietly opening the door to see that he and Emma are awake before they barge in, jumping on the bed as quickly as they can, even with Sutton’s struggle to climb up on her own, her legs nowhere near as long as Andy’s. They’re all a mess, filling every second of silence with talking about what they want to eat for breakfast and what kind of snowmen they’re going to build outside or what movies to watch. Andy and Sutton get into a bit of a row about using carrots for the nose (“Noses aren’t orange, Andy.”), but eventually they calm down and he and Emma get everyone downstairs, fed, and dressed to go outside so that they can build snowmen with whatever kind of nose that they want.

“Andy, you have to stop squirming so we can get this picture.”

“Why do you need a picture of me when you can see me right now?”

“So I can see you later.”

“Where am I going to be that you can’t see me?” “Yeah, where’s Andy going to be?” Sutton cries, the tears obviously in her voice.

“Andy isn’t going anywhere,” Emma explains, looking over at Killian and rolling her eyes while the pom pom on her head moves and snow continues to fall down around them. “You guys are being silly, and the faster you stop and smile for Thomas to take our picture, the faster we can get back to playing.” “I was kind of hoping I could go to Hogwarts,” Andy huffs under his breath.

Okay, so maybe they shouldn’t have started reading Harry Potter to their seven-year-old quite yet, but he’ll figure it out eventually.

They eventually get their family photo before letting the kids scramble off into the snow, only making them come inside so that their non-carrot noses don’t turn blue. Emma’s been making them grilled cheese and hot chocolate, and his mind replays with decade old memories of her making him try one of those blasted sandwiches for the first time as she sat on a countertop not too far from here. He still hates them, but his kids like them.

And the hot chocolate isn’t too bad.

Neither is the company.

“Marshmallows look like snow,” Sutton sighs, poking her drink. “Can I eat snow?”

“If it’s not yellow.”

“Killian,” Emma gasps, twisting around with her mouth gaping open, “you have to also warn about green snow too. And purple. If you eat purple snow, phew, I think your stomach will explode.”

“What?”

“Cool.”

“Gross.”

“Where is the purple snow?” Andy questions, running his fingers over his chin in contemplation while Sutton continues to eat her marshmallows one by one and Linnie wanders around the kitchen hooked into her jumper so that they can keep track of where she wanders.

“On the other side of the mountain, I think,” Emma mutters under her breath as she walks over to him and hands him his mug of hot chocolate with a sweet smile. “Or we can get some grape juice and pour it on the snow outside.”

“If purple snow tastes like grape juice, why can’t we eat it?”

“They raise a good question, love.”

“They do, don’t they?” she hums, closing her eyes and taking sip of her chocolate, obviously to buy more time. “Well, I think it goes like this. If Mommy helps you make the colorful snow, we can eat it. If I don’t, that’s a no go.”

“Why would we even want to eat snow, Sutton?” Andy wonders, turning his head and propping his face up on his hand as he talks to his sister.

She shrugs, taking another sip of her drink and coming away with a line of chocolate on her lips. “Cause marshmallows are yummy, and I can’t reach where Mummy hides them.”

“I can,” he whispers, but it’s loud enough that both he and Emma can hear it. “I’ll get you some later.”

And that explains why Emma keeps blaming him for eating the chocolate candy she hides at the top of the kitchen cabinet. Andy is obviously pilfering it, and they’re going to have to start locking down their cabinets. Or find a new hiding place. The locks might be easier.

They never do end up making purple or any other colored snow. Instead they curl up under blankets and pillows and watch their forever favorite of Finding Nemo (“Why doesn’t my fish talk, Dad?”) despite his insistence that they try something else out. His kids love repetition, and he swears that if all of their movies lost sound, he could act out all of the scenes for all the words that he knows. He’s almost excited when new ones come out and he sees them for the first time, but then he realizes that this one is going to go into the memory banks as well.

Next time he’s in Australia he’s definitely going to P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney. Well, he doesn’t think that’s a real address, but if it were, he’d definitely buy the keychain.

One by one, they fall asleep, Collins breathing a steady rhythm against his chest far before Sutton spreads out on an armchair and Andy falls asleep with his nose pressed into the couch cushions. They can’t leave them that way, so in a continual team effort, he and Emma move them all to their resting places before finally getting to fall asleep themselves.

When they get back to England the next day, it’s a mess of carrying in suitcases and children, trying to balance unpacking with Indy dragging clothes and undergarments all over the house out of her excitement to have them home after being away from her for a week. He’s sure that sometime tomorrow he’ll find Emma’s bra resting next to the pool or one of Sutton’s bows resting atop his toothbrush. But they get it mostly done, especially after the kids all go to bed, and after he’s brushed his teeth and showered, he heads downstairs to the kitchen and finds Emma standing behind the island eating a spoonful of yogurt.

Her hair is unwashed and unruly, tendrils falling down from her bun, even more escaping the band that’s holding it up as she sways back and forth to the music in her head that only she can hear. She’s still got on her clothes from the plane ride, an unknown stain just over her right breast and, and he’s sure if he were to look in her back pocket, there’d be a packet of crushed crackers that she had for Sutton and forgot about before she sat down. She’s ridiculous and beautiful, and he loves her, stained t-shirt and all.

“Hey, handsome,” she teases, leaning over the kitchen counter as he walks further into the room, settling down on a barstool like he did so many times before in a completely different setting, one that lacked their children’s photos on the shelves and their wedding portraits on the walls. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Give me my entire life, he thinks to himself, knowing Emma would affectionately mutter something about him being cheesy if he were to say it out loud.

“No,” he says instead, reaching over and twining his fingers together with Emma’s over the countertop, his thumb tapping over her knuckles while he smiles at her simply because he can, simply because she makes him happy, “I’m good just like this.”

[pretendingimfamous]

September 18, 2019 part 2

I'm a firm believer that writing down my thoughts is therapeutic, because afterwards I always feel better. I'm also a firm believer that pens not black and blue are dope. Well, I've liked some blue pens in the past but the ink has to be gel so help me god. I kinda want to buy a ton of different colors but I already have so much writing utensils as it is. An environmentally conscious person would use up the millions of black/blue pens that I have and then buy more. 

This woman passing by the lobby is not smiling back at me today, I wonder what crawled up her butt? I think I'm gonna get food somewhere but I don't know what I want. i could go into town but I really shouldn't be spending any money besides for camping and rolling loud. I can eat peanut butter pretzels and maybe find something on campus? That's still spending money though and there aren't a lot of healthy options. Maybe I'll get a piece of fruit and sit on a couch munchin' and listening to a podcast and also journaling. Look at me go, I'm a journaler now and even a doodler if I do say so myself. 

If Hell's real then I think I'm going to it, but that's a problem got afterlife Delilah. I remember when I was training for one of my jobs, I was so nervous to lead the front desk on my own and now everyday I'm chillin :). That's such a life lesson right there. 

I don't want fruit, I want something warm and also ... (me pausing to look around) unhealthy. I wonder what I'll do; probably eat some pizza tbh. I'm kind of wanting mac & cheese from one place on campus but who knows if they'll have it and their serving sizes are huge so if you cheat, you cheat cheat! Pizza it is and I'll get a veggie so I have some vegetables haha. Ooh this is actually gonna be good because I'm starving. Why was i going to say I only had coffee today when I literally had a bagel, but that was 5 hours ago. Update: I ate cheese pizza and a nectarine. Maybe I should start a blog, if not an actual website then a tumblr page. Imagine it’s 2010 again and I get famous off my blog 0o0. Because I know so many people who are famous from blogs? It’ll be fun I think, if I actually do it. I should come up alternate names for my stories! I am Delilah because I’ve been obsessed with that name forever. 

Bro what the hell is up with Joshua calling me cute? Don’t like that at all! There are other ways to show appreciation for my eccentric qualities without resorting to a physical(ish) compliment. I think I know I’m reading into this too much and he was probably just using the term in the colloquial manner. I’m not ready to be in this boring class for an hour and if Luke doesn’t show up, I’m gonna mosh in a day care or some shit. There are two seats near me that he should sit in if he comes in late. I would prefer right in front of me but the seat to my left will suffice. I wonder where my dream journal is? Class has started and Luke isn’t here, that hoe better show up late >:(. I wish it poured today, I busted out the rain boots prematurely. But had I worn them yesterday, all day I would’ve been like ‘damn this is a waste’ until 7 pm when I got out of my last class. I wonder if people see me writing in my journal and are wondering what I’m writing. Imagine I stuck with what I wanted to do when I was 12 and was an English major. What classes would I go to if I did that, would I even be at the same school? I just caught somebody staring at me! Am I famous or just gorgeous. It’s raining and I’m happy :). A funny insult to tell someone is that they’re an error. I really want to take a nap but if I walk home during my break, I don’t think I’d have enough time to fall asleep. The walk would energize me too so I’d probably end up washing dishes or just sitting there and scrolling through instagram. I think someone just took a picture of me, and I’ve definitely seen him on Tinder but I don’t know if we matched. I’m going to be alone forever I think. Why did Luke skip this class? He should focus and take his education seriously and ask for my number. I looked up that my textbook costed $50 so I can tell him. I was even going to ask if he got the textbook from the bookstore and if I could take pictures of some chapters until I get mine in the mail.

[ghost-btch]

He Could Be The One~ 5 Seconds Of Summer

(Chapter One: Phoenix)

Prologue was posted right before this on my blog. I would link it but I'm scared it won't show up in the tags if I do.

Rating: literally for everyone lol

Warning: none besides the fact there may be grammatical errors, oops lol

Word Count: 1.6k

Author's note: You can read this also on wattpad, @/raineyC4. I may update quicker on there then here so go check it out on there aswell. This is my first Tumblr Fanfic so this is quite exciting, though I've been making stories on wattpad since 2016. Anyways enjoy the story!!

*******************************************

3rd Person P.O.V

   The blue-eyed blonde singer stood right off stage. Her show would start in a few minutes. She was incredibly nervous, like always. She's done this for years but the anxiety is always there. But as clique as it sounds, every time she steps on stage that feeling fades away. She shook herself and prepared to walk on. Then before she knew it, it was her que to walk on.

The big screen on the back "wall" was flashing in black and white, then red "Phoenix". It glitching as it did so to the beat of the song.

That song was ...Ready For It? by Taylor Swift. Phoenix only had about 10 songs of her own out so she did a lot of covers.

"Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him..." Phoenix began to sing trying not to smile to create an effect.

As she sang she danced around the "T" shaped stage to the song. It seemed be choreographed but really she just made them up as she went. She was a true performer.

She wore a black body suite much like Taylor Swift wore during her preformce of the song. But it had more of shorts at the bottom. And it had a few red sparkles. Her hair was slightly curled and she wore crimson red lipstick. Her reddish boots went up to her knees.

When the song came to an end the next song, I Did Something Bad, started to play.

Phoenix loved to preform this song more then even her own songs. She had managed to learn Taylor Swift's original choreography to the song from watching the AMAs preformce over and over again. It was a dramatic performance and Phoenix loved it for that exact reason.

When she finished she was at the very end if the "T" stage in the middle. She laughed and smiled like an idiot looking over the crowd. And starring back at her where around what seemed a thousand people.

"Oh my God! I can't- I can't believe this is my life! Y'all have no idea how much I've dreamed and wished for the chance to do this. I love each and every one of y'all for being here. Whether you wanted to, weather you were bored and went to the nearest concert just because, or you were dragged here by someone else. Just thank you and I hope you guys like the show so far! You seem to be, but are you?" the crowd screamed, "Okay I'm gonna take that as a yes. Anyways she next song's called 'Don't Blame Me' and oh I'm Phoenix!" Phoenix said into the mic.

****

When the song finished she was back in the place she started. A trap "door" under her lowered her to under the stage. There she had to quickly change into the next costume while the ending music of "Don't Blame Me" played to the crowd.

While this happened a red piano was rolled out onto the stage. Phoenix walked out wearing a red sequined top with a red skirt that went to her knees.

She sat down on the little bench and started to play a few keys, "So this I wrote a while back when I was in middle school. I had this friend who I'd geek out with. Eventually I realized I liked him. After awhile I couldn't take it anymore and told him in a note that I practically threw at him out of nerves," she laughed at this, "Then after about a week he gave me a small piece of paper that read 'sorry I just want to be friends'. I was devastated of course, but I just hoped nothing would change. Oh how I was wrong. He never spoke to me again. Here's a song I wrote about a year later."

She proceeded to sing a song called "Let Things Go". It was written so long ago, and she was definitely, definitely, over the kid. But she every time she sang it she felt as if it was a new scar. 'Guess scars don't really ever go away?' She thought one day.

As soon as it finished she started to play another Taylor song, The Moment I Knew.

It of course started on the piano, but when it came to the chorus she stood up. And after the chorus she walked around the stage almost acting out the lyrics.

During the bridge Phoenix looked out into the crowd almost crying as the lyrics said it too.

As it finished ahead gave a soft smile. Just two years ago in her 20th birthday this song became so real for her. She wasn't quite over this scar yet.

She walked back to the piano and when she walked out from behind it she was no longer wearing the skirt, but now a pair of black shorts.

She then jumped up onto the piano and sat on it, her legs dangling off. The music of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together started to play.

She began singing while still sitting until the "What?" part and acted out the song the rest of the song. Phoenix always had the most fun singing this song, it never got old. And by the end she was sat back on the piano.

"Liked that little costume changed?" Phoenix laughed as the crowd cheered.

She hoped off the piano, "So I was wondering if it was okay for me to do a little something different now? I won't be able to run around though, so there's a negative. But I really think you're gonna lie the positive! Just give me a second, I'll be right back."

She scampered off stage and when she walked back on she held a red guitar in her hands. She walked up to the microphone stand in the middle of the stage right before it extended out.

"So uhh, surprise!" Phoenix said into the mic smiling.

"So how about I play my guitar here for a few songs? I'll take that as a yes. So this first one is an old one. It's from an old Disney show called Hannah Montana. It was definitely my favorite TV show and this was one if my favorite songs. Never thought that eventually I'd laugh at a few lyrics because of someone. No I'm not saying who, though most of y'all probably already know. Anyways hears a song called 'He Could Be The One'!"

"Smooth talkin', so rockin'

He's got everything that a girl's wantin'

Guitar cutie, he plays it groovy

And I can't keep myself from doin' somethin' stupid..." she sang smiling at a few certain lyrics.

The girl completely jammed out to the song like there was no tomorrow. Running around in that one area when she wasn't singing. Yep definitely a performer.

"Well that was fun!" Phoenix laughed.

"Well I think it's time for one where I know y'all will have fun aswell." She said as she started to play "She's Kinda Hot" by 5 Seconds of Summer.

"Surprise!" She said right before singing.

But there was one thing that the girl had yet to find out. It was that, that very band stood only a few yards ahead of her.

The boys were just all hanging out in L.A. with nothing to do. Ashton suggest that they should just go to the nearest concert because why not? So they did. Now they stood towards the back kinda freaking out because someone was singing there song.

Then at the end of the song the music faded into "Babylon", another favorite of the blue-eyed singer.

The girl had so much fun playing this song and the audience loved it. Even the people who didn't know the original singers they still acted as if they did.

****

Phoenix changed into ripped back pants and a while shirt to sing the next few songs, all if which being her's.

Falling For You- a song revealed to be about fictional/celebrity crushes

Me- a song about her excepting who she really is

My Story- a song about her childhood and teenage years

We Don't Care About Anyone Else- a song she wrote about her friends and her, and the fact that they know they're weird but totally okay with that

After adding a leather jacket to the mix she also sang a song by Bea Miller called "We're Taking Over".

****

The last part of the concert was all the songs Phoenix felt was the funniest to sing/dance to.

Blank Space- making sure to point her tattoo of "Darling I'm A Nightmare, Dressed Like A Daydream" during that part.

New Romantics

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Then it came to almost a close:

"Well I'm sorry to say but this is the last song of the night. Thanks to all of you, you've made this a night to remember. And I hope that I was able to make you as happy as you've made me! This last song was my first single I put out. I've always been so proud of it and promised to sing it every show. It's about how my life was back in school, to what I'd hope my life would be, and now it really is. Oh and enjoy the original music video playing on the screen!" Phoenix smiled.

Phoenix danced around and sang like her life depended on it. She never wanted it to end. But unfortunately it did. When she finished she said "Thank you" once more and then ran around the perimeter of the stage to touch as may people's hands as she could. She did a bow and then waved with the biggest smile and went off stage.

~~~~

As the show came to a close the 5SOS boys decided to see if they could surprise the girl they just watch perform. But they had to figure out how to get back stage.

"We don't need another last time something like this happened." One said referring to a certain person.

"Hey!" was Ashton's response.

....

Tag list: @rip-lukes-balsamic @euphoric-swift //just comment if you'd like to be on my tag list//

A/N: try to guess who the person Phoenix likes hehe lol

[avengers-sweethearts]

Right Place, Right Time (Steve Rogers x Reader)

Request for @dreamsofcaliforniaadventure: Congrats on the 2000!!!! That’s such an accomplishment and your blog def deserves it!! Can I possibly have a one shot? Either Peter Parker x female reader in college scenario, or Captain America x female reader (college age)? Whatever is easier! Can be fluffy or angsty, whatever is easier for you would be so appreciated!! My name’s Morgan if you need it! Thanks so much!!!!

Summer seemed to slip away regardless how much the season was cherished. There’s just never enough time to do everything you want to do on top of the things you have to. Spending time with the people you care for, doing all the fun summer activities, working a summer job, preparing for the following academic year, maybe rest was a little too much to ask for. But alas, you found yourself packing up the car once again within a blink of an eye.

They say that high school is supposed to be the best time of your life, you just found that fact to be totally unrealistic. Not that college life is all that much better, but the freedoms that came with it are much more desirable than a building based on a bell system.

You can remember the students that led your campus tours over dramatically hyping up the college experience to be this sort of escape where you find your true self, which is true for some, but you just haven’t found it yet. Yes, it is quite enjoyable not having to wake up at 6am every morning, but college was just way different than you expected. You found yourself bored in your classes, and not knowing what to do with your spare time. It can get a little lonely, being just another person in a large crowd. It seemed like everyone else around knew exactly what they were doing, so you just tried your best to fit in. Another thing you found yourself especially focused on was how different it was living with a roommate in a more confined space instead of your comfortable bedroom at home. Not that different is a bad thing, it just takes some getting used to.

You found yourself walking around campus on a crisp fall evening, just trying to clear your head. Honestly you probably could use the exercise too, you’ve watched the Freshman 15 effect so many other students, so you convinced yourself to leave your comfort zone a little bit by taking a leisurely stroll after class rather than heading straight back to your dorm.

You reprimanded yourself for not wearing your favorite sweatpants this morning while deciding to go on this adventure on a whim. This morning you thought it wouldn’t kill to try and look cute for once since you lived in the comfort of waking up 15 minutes before class and walking over in your favorite baggy T-Shirt and stretch pants. Today was not that day. The outfit was nothing special really, just a long maroon sweater with dark leggings and brown boots that rose to your mid-calf. It was comfortable, but just not as comfortable as your favorite sweatpants would be granted how chilly it was getting outside. It did feel good, however, to walk around and feel cute for once. The compliments you got from some of your classmates was an extra boost for the day.  

Walking past the student union you saw a few of your fellow classmates heading inside. Their laughter filled the space and you overheard that they were headed for the coffee shop. Something warm didn’t seem like such a bad idea as your fingers started to feel like they were turning to ice. It was too late in the day for coffee, you knew you’d be up all night if you had the caffeine, but you deserved a treat nevertheless.  

The smell of freshly baked pastries and bread overpowered the small cafe. You couldn’t believe that you had never been here before and made a mental note to come in more often, it seemed like a cute and quiet place to get some homework done instead of being wound up in your box of a dorm room all the time.

You stood as far back as possible from your classmates in line to make it seem like you hadn’t followed them in, it’s not like they knew you anyway but it would just be awkward to explain why you, the girl that sits in the back of their English class, were supposedly tagging along for their coffee get together without invitation. They didn’t seem to notice, which was good, but the guy in front of you caught your eye a little too long for comfort as you turned the corner. You immediately looked to the floor embarrassed and decided to take a seat at a table close by to make it seem like you were on your own mission. He was not hard on the eyes needless to say and had the most beautiful blue eyes you have ever seen, and you were afraid he noticed your entrancement before you looked to your shoes.

Retreated to your table, you watched as they bombarded the barista with their complicated orders, which you could relate to but customer service sucks in general. Your classmates were nice and all, but as customers they were rather picky and you didn’t want to be on the other end of it. You heard a bit of arguing from the peanut gallery as the new found hottie was up to order.

“No I insist guys, it’s on me this time. And a warm apple cider for me please, that will be all,” you heard him direct toward the barista.

“Seriously, Steve, you did not have to do that! It was my turn to pay,” one of the girls kind of whined. So called hottie had a name.

“Omg Jessica just say thank you and move on,” another girl snapped.

“Thanks pal,” one of the guys clapped Steve on the back.

“Anytime. Now I really have to run, I’ll see you guys later.”

You acted as natural as possible behind your laptop screen as Steve walked past you for the exit. You urged yourself not to look at him in fear that he would say something. You didn’t know why you were freaking out over a guy, a stranger even, but here you were following him and his friends into a coffee shop. His friends stayed around to finish their beverages, and you stayed and finished some homework which is rather unintended. As you wrapped up the final sentences of a rough draft you decided to grab a warm apple cider to go and continue your journey for the day.

Wandering around campus with no agenda was rather different than walking with a purpose to get to class. You started to really notice the little things along with the architecture and its beauty, as well as the progression that fall has made. The yellow, orange, and red colors popping up from the leaves, the sun that's setting a little earlier, the chill in the air, your eyes were just open in a different way. You found a little nature trail and decided to walk down it for the heck of it.

The leaves crunched beneath your feet and there were trees surrounding you on each side of the path. Honestly, it was a beautiful but simple place and you could hear the peaceful trickling from the stream coming from your left. You never took yourself to be the nature admirer, but you didn’t mind finding that out about yourself. You found an opening in the trees with a conveniently placed bench to overlook the water. Pulling out your book from your handbag, you indulged in a perfect reading spot.

After about ten minutes or so you felt an even cooler breeze rush by, as well as a flash of grey. You watched as a rather muscular male in a grey tight fit under armour shirt, black track pants, headphones in, and a baseball cap go farther into the distance. Nature walks and people watching was just becoming your new thing. It was relaxing and you felt detached from your overly stressful days for once. No matter how weird or creepy it may be, you were in no way judging your new found escape.

The only thing that you found weird was you kept seeing the same runner in grey flash by every so often. You swear you even saw him wave at you once, but you pretended that you weren’t looking. You were confused as to why he was running on this same path over and over, why wouldn’t he just go to the student rec center and run around the track if he wanted to do that? You marked your place in your book, shoving it in your handbag and began walking down the trail again. It was getting dark and cold without a jacket so you decided your adventure for the day should come to an end. You were lost in your train of thought and, despite the embarrassment, you felt really good. While following your crazy escapade of the day, it was still productive and you felt refreshed like someone hit a reset button on your week.

“On your left,” you heard a raspy and sort of out of breath voice boom out of nowhere from behind you.

You jumped out of your skin as the same runner flew past you causing goosebumps to form from the chill of the evening and breeze. You grew a little frustrated with the male figure and wondered why he felt it was necessary to scare the crap out of you when there was clearly no one else around. If he were to run by without saying anything it wouldn’t have been too big of a deal. The voice also sounded familiar, but you couldn’t place where from. You almost sped walked back to your dorm wrapping your arms around yourself and clutching onto your bag. As soon as your head hit the pillow, you were out. The overabundance of fresh air must have been the cure for your insomnia for the day.

The next day you decided to go to the coffee shop before classes. You didn’t order anything, because honestly you couldn’t afford a treat like that everyday, but you just enjoyed being in the environment. It was a good way to start the day and you felt like you could take on the day after living vicariously by watching people come alive after their first cups of coffee.

The next few hours you never would have expected. Since you decided to go with the flow yesterday, you forgot to check your planner when you got back to your dorm. Although you were productive, you completely forgot about your math exam and your big English paper that was due. You managed to make it through your exam just fine, but you were having a slight panic attack when your professor was going around collecting everyone’s printed copy of their paper. It felt like he reached your desk in slow motion.

“Where is your paper Ms?” His voice echoed sternly.

“I forgot to print it off, I can have it in your office by the end of the day if that’s okay…”

“I have a no late work policy, I can’t believe you’d think you would be an exception to that rule. I don’t reward laziness,” he looked down on you. You fumbled with your words and felt your voice shake from the nerves. You couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Sir it’s really not like that, I submitted it online as well if you would please…”

“Take the grade, no exceptions,” he almost yelled as he moved along.

You fought back the tears that were inevitably forming as your professor handed out the new writing assignment and started his lecture. You could feel people staring at you as the he emphasized the due date on the back of the guideline sheet. You weren’t paying much attention anyway so you gathered your things and bolted out the door to get yourself out of your misery.

You finally let the tears escape as you walked toward the coffee shop. Somehow you thought that being in that setting would take the awful weight bearing mood off your shoulders. It didn’t seem to work as you sat down at a table. The tears just kept coming. Normally things like this did not bother you that much, life happens. For some reason you were just feeling extra self aware today and that affected almost everything. Setting your head in your hands you didn’t notice the chair across from you being pulled out.

“Hey, are you alright?” You heard as you felt a gentle touch on your forearm. You slowly lifted your eyes to see who had sat down, and to your surprise it was Steve from the other day.

“Yeah, yeah of course,” you said as you wiped some stray tears from your face.

“Honestly, if it were me in your shoes I wouldn’t be okay so you have every right to say not to be I won’t judge. That professor was a little bit more than harsh, you didn’t do or say anything wrong and he should have heard you out,” he tried to reassure you.

“Really I’m fine. It’s more embarrassing to be crying over something like this, let alone crying in public so I just need to get myself together. He was right, laziness shouldn’t be rewarded. I should have just gone to the library and printed it when I finished instead of waiting until the next day when I’m bound to forget,” you started to ramble. Silence came over the two of you and just sat in each others company which gave you time to return to a state of normal and clear your mind of all the negativity. After a while Steve spoke up.

“I don’t believe we’ve formally met. I’m Steve Rogers.”

“Y/n, Y/n Y/L/n,” you replied as you shook hands. “I promise I’m not always this emotional,” you joked.

“No I totally get it. I’m so sorry but I’ve got a class in ten minutes, it was really nice to finally meet you, Y/n.”

“You too, see you around!”

Watching Steve leave felt a lot more like déjà vu than it probably should have. You felt even more awful after he left, you probably looked like such a fool. You barely knew the guy, but you knew that you blew any chance of ever seeing him again outside of class due to today. Nobody in their right mind would ever walk into something that seems complicated. You didn’t know why you cared so much, but you felt grateful that he came to check in you yet still very embarrassed. You dragged yourself out of the coffee shop after sitting there for nearly an hour dreading everything about the day. You felt like the barista was keeping tabs on you, like you were a character on a reality TV show ever since you walked in.

“Have a great day,” the barista faked a smile. You waved as you walked away trying not to gather more attention to yourself.

Your feet pushed yourself toward the spot you had discovered yesterday, and you couldn’t complain. You plopped down on the bench and crossed your leg as you looked out on the water. The water seemed to flow effortlessly, you wondered what that felt like. To live life effortlessly. You watched as the leaves fell into the stream and were carried away by the current. Despite the day you’ve had, you were starting to feel relaxed again.

“I had a feeling I’d find you here,” you turned your head to find Steve walking up to you. “Do you mind if I sit?”

“No not at all,” you scooched over for him. “What do you mean you’d find me here?”

“Oh um, it’s just a nice spot is all.” You looked over at him and noticed the baseball cap shadowing his face and gave him a cynical look. He laughed as he quickly took it off and shoved it in his bag.

“I thought you could use this,” he handed you a warm paper cup filled with nothing other than apple cider. His fingers grazed against yours a little as he handed you the beverage.

“Oh thank you, but you really didn’t have to,” you blushed.

“No big deal. I know that it’s something that makes me feel a little bit better on a crappy day, so why not share it with someone.”

You sat and talked with Steve for what felt like hours, and it felt really good to have someone that listens and makes good company. It feels like talking to a wall when communicating with your roommate so this was a step in the right direction. It turns out you have a lot in common and he’s as much of a bookworm as you are. You both ended up pulling out your books and reading for a little while. He just felt so genuine to be around, and there are not a lot of guys like that especially on a college campus. Your teeth started to chatter as the sun started to set again, you hadn’t realized how much time actually went by.

“Here.” Steve wrapped his jacket around your shoulders. “We should get out of here, I’ll walk you back to your dorm,” you smiled at the gesture and went to grab your things when you realized you didn’t have a bookmark.

Steve grinned as he pulled out a piece of notebook paper and scribbled the word “bookmark” on it and handed it to you.

“Thanks,” you blushed again. He grabbed your hand helping you up as you put your book away and to your surprise he didn’t let go.

You walked hand in hand until you reached your building. You honestly didn’t want this moment to end, it kind of felt like a scene from a movie.

“So I’ll see you around, Y/n?”

“For sure. See you around Steve,” you said as you swiped into your building. “Have a good night.” You opened the door just enough for you to get inside, leaving Steve out in the darkening fall night. You had butterflies in your stomach and when you got back to your room you flopped on the bed.

You decided to calm you never ending nerves by reading more of your book. Turning to the page with Steve’s homemade bookmark, you flip it over to find her didn’t just write “bookmark” after all.

“Call me - Steve <3”

You were left with a smile on your face as you made his contact in your phone. College wasn’t so bad after all.

Permanent Taglist: @allfandomxreader @smexylemony @keithseabrook27 @pureawesomeness001 @desuuuu2nd @allofthebitters @musicgirl234 @taronegertonlover

[kinetic-elaboration]

The 100 Ask Game

Tagged by @thelittlefanpire --thank you! This looks like fun.

Soooo okay, first, full disclosure: I haven’t watched S5. I stopped watching toward the end of S4 for Reasons. So there might be a little bit of salt and/or confusion in some of my answers. But only a little; this blog is still a positive space and it is, of course, Show Night: a big fandom night regardless of my personal participation.

1. What Station on the Ark would you be from?

Hmm. Well I have farmers and factory workers in my family but I don't know which end of a wrench is up myself. I guess I'd probably be from one of the stations we know nothing about like Hydro or Tesla. It would be cool to be from Mecha but I'm not a mechanical person in the slightest lol.

2. What would you get arrested for on the Ark?

Probably theft. I'm not a thief in real life but I do like eating and comfort and I'm p. sure the only way to get anything above subsistence-level rations on the Ark is to do some law-breaking.

3. Would you take off your wristband when you landed on the ground?

I'm too much of a rule-follower to do it on my own but I would definitely be a sucker for Bellamy's "take off your wrist band as payment for some delicious puma meat" plan. To heck with this silly piece of metal, I want to eat.

4. What would the necklace Finn would make for you look like? (Clarke: deer/Raven: a raven duh..)

Some sort of large cat. Or small cat, not picky.

5. If you could resurrect any MINOR character who would it be?

If Wells counts as a minor character, then Wells. Otherwise...perhaps M'Benge. He looked like a promising delinquent.

6. Create a squad of 5 characters to go on missions with. Who are they?

Bellamy, Clarke, Raven, Jasper, and Monty. This is partly practical--I do think they're the smartest/most capable members of the group--but also partly about the Narrative. They're my favorites.

7. What Grounder Clan would you belong to you?

I guess Trikru based on where I live? Or again, some clan we know nothing about. I don't know anything about Trikru's non-warriors so perhaps I could be one of them.

8. What would your name be in Trigedasleng? (example: Octavia=Okteivia…just make it up!)

Skipping this one because I don't give my real name or any variants online, sorry.

9. Thoughts on Finn? Some people hate him, and others love him, so I’m curious

Okay. My general thought on Finn is that he had an appropriately sized role in the narrative--which is more than I can say about a lot of other characters, many of whom, imo, were either killed too early, or too late/not at all when they should have been, or who take up way too much screen time, or are given way too little for their worth. But Finn contributed decently well to the first season--sometimes oddly, in that, once he outlived his usefulness as a love interest, he was shoe-horned into a Peacemaker role that probably should have been Wells's. But at least he was contributing a needed and consistent POV. And while I go back and forth a bit on how realistic I find his season 2 breakdown... I think it is more realistic than not, at least narratively. He seems like the sort who would have a breakdown after a battle, and the short timespan of 2A makes it more likely, not less, to me, that he would spiral quickly into something so atrocious: no time to cool down, to get perspective, to heal. Also, he had a completely unique story, which is also pretty rare on a show that likes to reuse its plot points. (Sorry! It does though.) I can also honestly say that Finn's death and funeral still ranks as one of the most resonant and heartbreaking moments of the series, for me. I have a hard time with any sort of capital punishment story line usually but I really felt for this one and I think it was very well done.

So basically what I'm saying is that I think Finn was decently well used as a character--like B+ narrative role, docked for the random interest in peace and the occasionally annoying nature of his personality. Because he could be annoying. He and Clarke didn't have much chemistry and he and Raven had surprisingly little, too, given how important they allegedly were to each other. And one of the good aspects of his death was that, not only was the event itself well-constructed and moving, but he wasn't exactly missed, by me or by the story, after he was gone. He served his purpose. I'm glad he wasn't on the show longer. (Except for that post speculating on a Finn/Murphy redemption arc/love story, which I would have watched and cheered on for sure.)

I don't hate him, though, and it does annoy me a little that he almost always shows up in fic as the 2d villain, the shitty ex/boyfriend, the annoyance. I mean, I get the appeal of having a readily available character like that (ngl I've used him that way at least once myself) but like.... it's not my fave trope, let's put it that way.

10. Be honest. How willing would you have been to take the chip without knowing all the horrible things it does?

I've thought about this some, not so much as it pertains to me, but in comparison to some other Failed Utopia plots in other fiction, and because my sleeping beauty au involves Clarke taking the chip, and it was very hard for me to bring her to a place where I felt like she could realistically, and in an in-character way, make that choice. But it's also been a while since I watched S3 and it's difficult for me to remember at what point different aspects of the CoL became obvious to the characters. Certainly, I can see the appeal. I think anyone can. It's an interesting concept and one I actually wished had gotten more time in the show... I think anything that obviously perfect (live forever in a wonderful city, away from pain and death and hardship!) should immediately cause warning bells: what's the catch here? Taking the chip without knowing the answer to that question is an assumption of the risk sort of situation, except you can't predict what the risk is, and the stakes are enormously high. Not exactly smart, and I like to think I am smart. I also have a great fear of AI and VR, which would make me wary.

On the other hand, I'd do poorly in the impoverished landscape of the post-apocalypse, which might make the chip more tempting. Also, if ALIE and friends tortured me or someone I loved, I would take the chip like that. No question, I am weak.

11. What character do you relate to most?

I relate to the intensity of Jasper's feelings, and to Monty's method of shutting down emotionally as a survival mechanism.

Generally I wouldn't say I have much in common with any of the characters, though, and I don't really watch because I 'relate' to anyone, personally.

12. What character do you like the least?

My first instinct is to say I dislike a lot of the characters, which is true but... I also spend almost no time thinking about the ones I dislike. My fandom experience at this point is very much about retreating into the aspects of the show/canon/fanon I like, and ignoring everything else. That said... probably M/di and J/rdan because the whole concept of a Next Generation down from the delinquents offends me, and also because they're both so universally loved that it's quite hard to avoid them. Also b/c J's name corresponding to that of my fave character makes blacklisting really obnoxious lol.

13. Describe your delinquent outfit. (Would you wear something like Murphy’s jacket with the spikey red shoulder patch or have a trademark like Jasper’s goggles? Be creative, yet practical)

Mmm, something comfortable. A nice jacket, like Clarke or Bellamy's S1 jackets, or Jasper's pilot jacket. Nothing with weird patches like Murphy's S1 or Jasper's S3 jackets. A shirt with something interesting written on it like Jasper's Earth Day shirt. Big boots. A nice heirloom necklace. Multiple layers. Knitted wristlets like Clarke has in early S1. A sweater with thumb holes like Monty has in S4.

14. Favorite type of mutant animal?

All the mutants! I really feel like the show missed some good opportunities in the irradiated-animal department. Take some $$$ from the explosion budget, or the Boring Side Character payroll, and invest in some more two-headed beasts. But if I had to pick one, I'd say Lincoln's two-faced horse, because the image of him saving Clarke and Finn in late S1 is so underrated but so iconic.

15. What would your job be on the Ark?

I don't think I have many useful Ark skills. Archivist, perhaps? Member of their proto-justice system? Probably that, though I don't know what sort of jobs, specifically, make up that unit. Though I have some ideas; see: a fic I haven't yet actually written.

16. Would you have willingly pumped Ontari’s heart if Abby asked?

Gross. But probably if I had to, I'd force myself to.

17. If Lexa wasn’t Heda, but she was still alive then who would have made the best commander?

I gotta tell you, I literally do not care, nor have I have ever cared, about the commander or Grounder leadership in the slightest. They all seem pretty incompetent. They should cede their power to the Sky People, who are marginally less terrible at running things.

18. How would you act if you ate the hallucinogenic nuts like Jasper and Monty?

You'd never know from my obsession with alternate states but I have never been high, nor intoxicated in any way, so I really can't say. Hopefully calm and happy like M'Benge in the broom closet. But probably miserable and confused and afraid of my inability to corral my thoughts.

19. How would you have dealt with Charlotte’s crime? A more John Murphy approach or Bellamy Blake approach?

Interesting question. I actually think the Charlotte story line was one of the best of S1, probably the show as a whole, and I kind of wish it had played out more long term, instead of just being, in retrospect, more of an excuse for some drama. I mean that is one of the central dilemmas of a new society, as the dropship camp was starting to be at that time: what do you do with people who break the rules and/or are dangerous? They had roughly three options: execute the wrongdoer (which eliminates the problem pretty efficiently, if brutally); ignore the issue entirely through immediate forgiveness; or apply some punishment in between, like imprisonment. This situation in particular was more complicated because, first, technically, they had 'no rules' at the time (killing is just, uh, obviously wrong), second, the actual perpetrator was a child, and third, she was so obviously unstable as to seem a likely continued threat. And in addition to all THAT, Bellamy and Clarke were such tenuous leaders (Clarke wasn't really a leader at all, so really I should say Bellamy was a tenuous leader) that any option that didn't go along with the will of the majority could cause a complete break in legitimacy. So it's really a delicate scenario. One I can't say I have an answer to.

I will say I think banishment is literally the worst thing they could have done, for either Murphy or Charlotte, if she had lived, and I think the narrative bears this out. It looks like a good compromise but it's cruel and it's dangerous. Cruel because they have to assume the banished person would die in the wilderness, and if you believe he deserves death, shouldn't you just execute him? Have the courage of your convictions? Take on the full moral weight of your decisions? A hanging death is probably less awful than slow starvation or being eaten by a wild animal. And dangerous because if he doesn't die, he's an obvious target for...who's that? Your enemies in the woods? Which is exactly what happened? They brought that whole bio-weapon story line on themselves, tbh. I think it was an in-character decision for a couple of dumbass kids, but that's not the same thing as saying it was smart.

I like to think I would have sided with Bellamy early on, in being careful about what information goes out to the camp as a whole. I mean, it's not perhaps the most moral decision, but it's practical--and certainly inciting a riot, as Clarke ended up doing, is neither practical nor moral, so there's that. If the actual perpetrator had been found before Murphy was caught up in the mess... I guess some sort of middle-ground punishment is the best you can do. Imprisonment, shitty work shifts. Showing consequences for bad actions and trying to keep the group safe. Hopefully if there was enough tact in the beginning of the process, the crowd could be convinced to go along with it. I don't know, though. It's tough.

20. Who should have been the Chancellor, if anyone?

Bellamy.

Bellamy, Bellamy, Bellamy.

Honestly, watch the first season, or even, arguably, the first three, and tell me that ultimately becoming Chancellor wouldn't be a neat, logical, and emotionally satisfying conclusion for Bellamy's arc.

Obviously, it would take him some time to get there. Before then... I don't know. If I had to pick among one of the former Chancellors, I'd go with Abby I suppose.

21. Would you have been on Pike’s side like Bellamy or on Kane’s side? Or Clarke in Polis?

Oh gosh they're all terrible lol. I guess I'd pick Kane as the least of the three evils. He certainly was in the right once Pike's anti-Grounder agenda went into play, but I don't exactly think he had the ear of the people prior to the election, which is why I'm not enthusiastic. But, still. You gotta get through the Dark Times to get to Chancellor Bellamy, I guess.

22. Mount Weather had a lot of modern commodities. (example: Maya’s Ipod) What is the one thing you would snatch while there?

I'd grab up some interesting books. Possibly a stuffed animal because I like soft things. A nice piece of art.

23. What would your Grounder tattoos look like? Hairstyle? War paint?

Lol I don't care what universe we're in, I'm never getting a tattoo. Hair: probably something simple and loose. War paint: pass, as I wouldn't be a warrior.

24. Favorite quote?

I suppose Jasper's quote about wounds needing to heal before they become scars.

25. If all of the characters were in the Hunger Games, who would have the best shot at winning?

I've never read or watched the Hunger Games but I'm nevertheless going to say Raven. She's just been the deus ex machina too many times.

26. Least favorite ship? Favorite canon ship? Favorite non canon ship? NOT INCLUDING CL OR BC OR BE

Least favorite: M/rper

Favorite canon: ummmmm idk not excited by most canon ships tbh. Probably Jasper/Maya, maybe Mackson or Briller.

Favorite non-canon: Jonty

27. A song that should be included in the next season? If there had to be another guest star like Shawn Mendes on the show, who would you want to make a cameo?

HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF DURAN DURAN

Lol, Idk. Something poppy and 80s would amuse me, though. In part because the show needs to take itself at least 75% less seriously.

I don't have any opinions on cameos.

28. What would you do if you were stuck in the bunker with Murphy for all that time?

Hopefully make friends with Murphy.

29. You're an extra that gets killed off. How do you die?

Something painless and quick?? I don't know. Poison?? Nice dramatic non-bloody death?

30. A character you’d like to learn more about and get flashbacks of?

JASPER. OBVIOUSLY.

...Lol I think this question is really about plausible character flashbacks and if so.... well first off ANY flashback about the Ark is 100% my thing, and flashbacks about almost any delinquent would be great. We're still not in the realm of the plausible, though, imo.

Raven, perhaps? Always want more Raven.

31. A character you’d bang?

Raven. Even though she'd intimidate me a lot.

Monty (as an adult, ofc).

A lot of the characters are bangable tbh. Might be faster to name those I wouldn't...

32. Would you stay in the Bunker? Go up to Space? Or live on your own in Eden?

Uhhhh none of the above??

I suppose the bunker. (This answer is based on the concepts of bunker/space/alone on Earth, not what actually happened in S5.)

33. In the Bunker, would you follow Octavia? What would you do to pass the time underground?

Read a lot and make friends. Idk if I'd follow Octavia since I just don't have enough data on the season... but from my understanding of her recent arc, probably not.

34. What crime would you commit in the Bunker that lands you in the fighting pits?

???

35. Up in Space, who would you bond with first? Who would be the most difficult for you to get along with?

I wouldn't last a year in space with such a small group of people but hopefully Raven and I would hook up before I spontaneously expired.

36. How long do you think you would last on Earth by yourself?

Definitely less than a year.

37. When the Eligius ship lands what do you do?

Eligius ship? I don't know her.

38. Favorite Eligius character? Least favorite?

???

39. Would you Spacewalk?

No. But actually. Probably yes. I'd totally freak out about the idea, swear a million times I'd never do it, then get cajoled into trying by my beautiful girlfriend Raven, and I'd love it so much I'd immediately want to do it again.

40. Would you prefer to eat Windshield Bugs, Space Algae, or Bunker Meat?

Algae?

41. Would you start a war for the last spot of green on earth? What would your solution be to avoid it?

There's no way I'd make it this far in the narrative in real life. I didn't even get there in fictional life.

42. Would you rather dig out flesh-eating worms or stick thumb drives into bullet holes?

I guess the thumb drive thing sounds less disgusting.

43. Are you willing to poison your sister for the Traitor Who You Love? What would you do to stop Octavia?

I don't have any siblings (well, no siblings with whom I have a real sibling relationship) so, yeah, sure, why not lol?

44. Would you go to sleep in cryo or stay awake like M/rper?

Leave my body behind on Earth, please, where it belongs.

45. Who are you waking up first to explore the new planet?

New planet? I dunno what that means lol.

[taesugakookiess]

Sitter Vibes| Zach Herron🐺

Zach Herron x Reader Summary: You’ll see. Warning: Kinda creepy, idk. Taglist: @samithepixie​ @majesticmarais​ @jackslittleavery​ @jackaverysboo​ @jackaverybabe​ @jackaverx​ @callykim​ @heyowdw​ @blushybesson​ @beautybesson​ @lovableherron​ @clairedoe​ @trustfundbabby​ @im-on-something-different​ @ishouldtakeyoutothemoon​ @ramenavery @noodles-send-n00ds @jonahmaraismakesmyday Requested? Yes @lovableherron✨ Lemme know if you wanna be tagged🔆

You were sleeping in since it was Saturday...also known as your chill day. Dreams, silence, peace...until...BRIIINGGGG, your phone goes off. You crinkle your face as you try to ignore the call but it continued to ring. Eventually, driven mad from the ringing, you yank the phone off the nightstand, "Hello?!" "Oh god, I need you, ASAP," Zach says dramatically. You sat up in your bed, rubbing your forehead, "What's up, Zach..." "Just come over!" He shouts before hanging up. You sigh, what was supposed to be a "chill day" turned out to be totally different. You threw your sweatpants, fuzzy bunny slippers, and a baggy t-shirt on and headed to Zach's house that was a few blocks up. His parents' car wasn't there so they must've been out. The back door was opened, "Zach," You said walking up the stairs on the deck in the backyard that led to the kitchen. "Y/n," He said quickly pulling you in for a hug. You're confused, "What's wrong?" "I'm dying. Mom and Dad went for a business trip and left me with...them," He pointed to his little brother, Ryan, and little sister, Reese. You laughed, "Zach! You had me worried. It can't be that bad." "They're never satisfied," He frowned. "I'll help you out," You smiled at him. His rosy cheeks flashed, "Thanks." "Are you Zach's girlfriend?" Reese cocked her head to the side. You snorted while squinting your eyes, "Pft, no, no way...no." "Who are you then?" "...I'm his best friend," You looked back at him. He looked like he was forcing a smile. "We're bored," Ryan noted. "Let's play a game," You suggested. "What kind?" Reese shined her adorable teeth at you. "Uhm...tag?" "Hide and seek!" Ryan exclaimed. "That should be fun," You shrugged at Zach. "I guess," He said. "Who's the seeker?" You looked around suspiciously. "YOU!" They all pointed at you before running to hide. "Geez," You sighed, "I wanted to hide." As you counted to 30, you heard footsteps in the room above you. Must be one of them, "30, ready or not here I come!" You laughed as you jogged up the stairs to the room you heard a thud in. The door slowly creaked as you slipped in, "I found you," You said looking around for someone. You swung the closet door open, no one, you thought. Until you saw the shape of a body underneath a blanket, a smile crept across your face as you yanked the blanket off revealing a ghastly clown statue. Naturally, you screamed, causing Zach, Reese, and Ryan to run to the scene. "What's wrong?" Zach quickly comforted you. "That clown statue, jeez Zach, I thought it was you," You said holding your chest. "Clown statue? I don't remember us owning a clown statue," He lifted an eyebrow. "Probably something Dad stored up here," Ryan added. "Let's go play a board game," Zach said looking at the closet. As you all went downstairs, the thought of the clown lingered. If there wasn't anyone in the room, what were the footsteps you heard? At around 7:00 PM, It began to get dark. After hours of playing Uno, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, and Monopoly, you suggested they all watched a movie. "A Scary Movie," Zach said with a sly smile. "Zach," You rolled your eyes. "Yeah, scary!" Ryan joined Zach in creepy smiles. You looked at Reese, "You alright with that?" "Mhm," She nodded. Zach turned off the lights upstairs and went to make a huge bowl of buttery popcorn. As you all waited for the movie to start, you heard the floor creak upstairs. You looked back to see where Zach was, "Zach?" He popped his head out from the kitchen, "Yeah?" Fear poked on your bones, "Zach...c'mere," You said slightly whispering. "What's wrong?" Ryan said. "Stay here," You smiled to reassure them. Zach looked confused, "What?" "There's something upstairs..." "Something?" "I heard creaking...like someone was walking," You adjusted your sweatpants. "We can check it out, it's probably nothing," He laughed. You both walked up the stairs slowly, it was dark so you squinted your eyes to try and see. The room where the clown statue was had a light on, "Did you do that?" Zach shrugged with his eyebrow crinkled, "M'nah." Bravery forced you to push the door open with a gasp. There was nothing but the clown statue standing there, with a life-like figure, it looked so real, "Ok, this thing is beyond creepy." "I'll call Dad to see if we can put it somewhere else," Zach pulled his phone out. As he dialed his father's number, you observed the statue. The artists that created it must've had god-sent tools, it looked like a human in a clown's costume. But it was so still and lifeless, you brushed the thought. "Yeah...I dunno...it's creeping Y/n out...what...what d'you mean..." Zach said before his eyes got wide and his pupils got small. He looked at you with a shocked look as if he'd been shot. "What?" You said confused yet worried. "He said...we don't have a clown statue," Zach said. Your eyes bolted to the statue. "Get out of there and call the cops," You could hear Zach's Dad saying through the phone. Your stomach dropped, the door was so close, yet so far. If this wasn't a statue...then it must be a person. Out of nowhere, Zach pushed you out and slammed the door. You both shot downstairs and pulled Reese and Ryan from the couch. "What's going on?" Ryan said. You could hear loud boots jogging across the floor upstairs, that made you move quicker. You ran outside to the neighbors' house and called the cops.

Later that night, Zach, Ryan, and Reese stayed over your house. Zach's parents' were on an emergency flight home. It turned out the police searched the house, every nook, and cranny. They couldn't find anything until they reached the basement. They found a hollow clown costume and a knife surrounded by glass. The "clown" was actually a wanted murderer and rapist. You were so happy that was got out safely. You thought about what would've happened if you didn't investigate the footsteps you heard. Fear still lingered around you and Zach when you realized whoever the "clown" really was...he was still on the loose...

Sorry I took so long guys�� I tried to take the "creepy" kinda approach with this one, hope you guys love it👍🏽 Feedbacks❓I do accept requests✔️ Oh and follow my other fan blogs, @lost-in-japann🌹  @riverdale-teenwolf🐺  More creepy fanfics?👀💙

[wherearemyglassesbro]

Why hello!I am back once more to bring you HCs for the NATM au, currently run by @gsnkhurray on their new blog @aphmuseum which is just for this au!

Okay, enough promoting for now let us jump right in again!

So the other day (lol two weeks ago cause I’ve been lazy and left this in my drafts for too long), after the art with Fran and Lud in it, where Lud was a painting/picture person, really got me thinking. Of  course, do not my writing affect how you see this au :)

~I watched This Clip a few times to get a taste for how people interact inside a painting/picture and how to enter the painting/picture and decided to just link it so y'all can see too if you haven't watched the movie~

For Lud, I think it would be pretty cool if he was a writer in his picture, sitting at a very neat, organized, polished desk in a very ratty looking room. Possibly after WW1..? Germany was poor then, as literally everyone knows, and I kinda imagine Lud being a writer, talking about his friends’ struggles out on the battlefield. Lud wouldn't have a lot of money but he would pride himself in looking clean and well kept despite his apartment being old and worn. His desk would be the only thing he had left of his old life so he’d keep it an an polished. I see him wearing something like this but...Cheaper? That probably isn't the right word.

He aint got a lot of money but he’s got brains. He’s a good writer and he does NOT like when the other figures try to get in his picture. It won’t go over well. He likes his peace and quiet! He’ll pretty much do whatever it takes to keep them from poking their noses into his business! Secretly though, he does write a whole lot about what goes on in the museum

I was kinda thinking a lot about Raj (India) lately and thought about how cool it would be if he was a painting? Something with him being part of the Salt Marches? Where you have him as the main subject of the painting and you can kinda see the ocean back behind him y’know. If you were to put your head in that painting you’d be face to face with Raj, that makes him super uncomfortable so he won’t hesitate to reach out and push you back a bit. Of course he’d never hurt anyone, he just wants his personal space! His portrait is shoulders up but he can get his arms out if he must I looked at a whole bunch of outfits for this and just decided to put a pic of a group here to show off a few different kinds of clothing. I was going to take something from the Gandhi movie but I couldn't find the exact scene i anted, its alright though 

I also really like the idea of Natalya being in a photo, showing off some of the fine Russian women who helped out in ww2 who don’t even get enough recognition at all! I think Nat would have made a wonderful sniper and her photo would be a larger one so everyone could see the details in the ladies uniforms and faces. Nat’s a sniper, and a badass woman. She’d be there with her squad of snipers and they’ll all be smiling except her cause war is not something to smile about in her book. She doesn’t really mind people coming into her photo cause that means she gets to talk to other people than the three ladies in there with her. She doesn’t talk much, but Nat likes to listen to others speak to her. Plus she always remembers something someone tells her, like if Alfred poked his head into the photo and rambled on about horses, she would be able to point him out and remember what he said, even though she had no idea what he said cause she doesn’t speak English. The ladies uniforms all look cool, I know I saw that for all uniforms and old-timey clothing but man, it really is cool to see these ladies all out there fighting like equals I kinda see her in something like this

or this with a coat

Okay, remember those funny little guys from the movie? The little Roman and the little cowboy from the miniature battle sets? I really feel like Gil would be part of one of those, showing parts of the Napoleonic Wars. I’ve been reading up on that recently, cause when I’m bored I turn to history to entertain me, and so I feel that in whatever museum they’re all in, it should include a little something from this part in history, yeah?

I feel like he’s end up being an officer of some sort so uniform one or two would be Gil already has that annoying, loud person in a small body personality so this kind of thing really seems to fit him? You gotta be careful not to step on him though man. He’s also slightly insecure about his height since his best friends are full sized figures but he takes advantage of his height to prank other people. He’ll go into Lud’s picture and knock his pencil cup over or hide his shit or he’ll put Alfred’s fake bullets in his boots or maybe he’ll even dare to go into the animal exhibits and try to ride the monkeys to terrorize everyone else

Miscellaneous hcs:

Lud is legit writing a book, or trying to, but most days he finds himself writing a lot about things he witnesses in this museum ‘...And then I was forced to watch the small Japanese man chase the obnoxious American down the hallway from my frame prison..’

Nat can understand Ivan and the two of them actually talk a lot when Ivan actually has his goddam helmet off

Lud wishes that he could throw Gil out of his picture but he’s too nice...He doesn't want Gil to actually get hurt

Raj loves when Kiku or Yao come to his painting case even though hey cant understand each other, he feels like they can relate to him the most...Cause they’re all old

Gil is the little asshole of the whole museum. Everyone knows him and they do their best to keep him away except Fran and Toni, who find him absolutely hilarious

You can tell when Lud and Gil are fighting cause German yelling will just get louder and louder, dear lord

Alfred and Gil get along well too cause they're the troublemakers

Every night, Raj rays for peace and quiet but does he ever get it?..No. Not at all

I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoy writing these! :)

[mst3kproject]

Hollywood After Dark

           I remember discovering The Film Crew as a moment of unexpected joy. It was as if the lady from Overdrawn at the Memory Bank descended from heaven in her seashell with four bonus episodes for me!  It's lacking something without the silhouettes, I admit, and actually seeing Kevin and Bill weirdly makes my brain want to attribute the voices to Bobo and Brain Guy rather than to Tom and Crow.  Nevertheless, it was a mouthful of water to a thirsty explorer – not enough to satisfy, but nothing I was going to turn down!  I still like The Film Crew episodes, too.  Rifftrax is fine, but The Film Crew feels truer to the spirit of MST3K, which is why I consider all four of their movies essential content for this blog.

           This movie, on the other hand, contains absolutely no joy whatsoever. It seems to exist in a universe where joy is forbidden.  There’s this guy named Tony who I think owns a junkyard, and a couple of mobsters hire him to transport some stolen money for them.  He goes to a burlesque club to iron out the details with them, and there he pretends to be in charge of the place in order to crush the hopes and dreams of Sandy, a dancer who likes to consider herself an artist of some sort. She inexplicably agrees to go out with him, and I guess the two of them fall in love since after the heist is done they plan to run away together.  One of the two mobsters murders the other and then stabs Tony, who staggers back to his motel to die in Sandy’s arms.  The other mobster crashes his car and the police just stand there and watch the wreckage burn.

           The title Hollywood After Dark makes it sound like this film will be some kind of juicy expose, full of Hollywood darlings behaving badly.  Unsurprisingly, it’s not the movie’s official title – that, as you will find if you consult IMDB, is Walk the Angry Beach.  In doing this blog I’ve found several instances where the alternate title was way better than the original, but this is not one of them.  Walk the Angry Beach sounds like exactly what this movie actually turns out to be: bleak, nihilistic, ugly, and never making a lot of sense.

           In a way, I guess, saying that is actually giving the film a compliment, because Hollywood After Dark is a tale of shattered dreams.  The mobsters dreamed of stealing a fortune – they both end up dead.  Tony dreamed of leaving the lousy junkyard and starting a new life with Sandy – he dies, too.  Sandy dreams of getting out of the burlesque and becoming a movie star, never having to bare her breasts or sleep with a sleazy producer again.  She doesn’t die, but her best chance for a better life was Tony and his stolen money, and at the end she has lost both. The story seems to be telling us that it doesn’t matter what you want or how you go about trying to get it, all you can realistically hope for is to claw your way along until death finally overtakes you.

           As suits this theme, everything in the movie is relentlessly bleak and depressing. People hang out on a beach that is entirely empty except for characters who have to do something in a scene. Literally the only beachgoers we see besides Tony, Sandy, and the mobsters are one little girl and a couple making out, all of whom exist only to briefly interact with Tony.  Besides that, we see nothing but empty sand.  Offices and homes are dimly-lit and grimy-looking, unattractive and unwelcoming spaces.  The lighting is absolutely merciless.  Daytime scenes are under ferocious California sunlight, night ones under spot illumination that is equally glaring and ugly.  I wish any of this were intentional, but it’s not – as far as I can tell, the harsh lighting is just because that’s all they could manage.  We get empty beaches are because they spent all their budget for extras on the serial-killer-looking guys in the burlesque audience.

           Anthony Vorno as Tony and Rue McClanahan as Sandy always sound like they’re just a couple of words away from bursting into tears.  Again, this could be appropriate for their characters but they’re so badly-written that you can’t get into it.  The decisions Tony and Sandy make do not make sense.  When Sandy staggers drunkenly out of the producer’s apartment, Tony does not go to walk her home or otherwise protect her – he hangs around to ambush and attack the producer, in an absolutely terrible fight scene in which you can almost always see the cameraman’s shadow on one of the actor’s shirts!  So he’s just gonna let her walk home alone and drugged in the middle of the night?

           Later, Sandy tells Tony she doesn’t want stolen money and prefers to stay in Los Angeles making a living by herself, even if that means working at the burlesque.  She seems to change her mind when he tells her that he will stay with her instead, but when he goes out again she offers to pack.  Does that mean they’re leaving after all?  She already said she doesn’t want to do that!  Does she now think they’re following his plan while he thinks they’re following hers?  That sounds like it’s setting up a wacky misunderstanding, but Tony dies before we can follow through on it.

           What the hell do these two people even see in one another?  Tony and Sandy both seem to feel like they’re stuck in a hole they can’t get out of.  Meeting each other just seems to give them somebody else to be depressed with.  The first thing Tony says to her is a speech about how dreams are destined to be crushed!  There is no spark between them, no sign that they bring out anything in each other, not a hint that the relationship has given either of them renewed hope!  The only thing they derive any hope from is the stolen money, which turns out to be Tony’s ruin.

           Why do the mobsters hire Tony at all?  We’re told something about one of them scoping him out by having some car repairs done, but how would that lead them to conclude that he’s a good man to transport stolen cash?  To get him to work for him, they threaten his family… but Tony doesn’t have a family as far as we can tell.  What the hell is the significance of the guy who buys the water pump?  He turns up like he’s going to be somehow important but he just recites poetry, buys a part, and leaves.  The credits just call him The Shakespearean.

           Since Sandy works at a burlesque, we are of course treated to several scenes of women dancing.  These are punishingly long and filmed so leeringly that I feel like I need a shower after watching them.  The first one features a woman in a zebra-print bikini bottom, with feathers on her nipples, and it wears out its welcome several times over.  Remember when I said in Horrors of Spider Island that after a while even jiggling butts get boring?  That goes tenfold for Hollywood After Dark.  It’s like the strip equivalent of the wrestling in Samson vs the Vampire Women in that you don’t care and it never ends.  That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, even the strip show in this movie is fucking depressing.

           When you try to actually think about the movie, it gets even worse.  Of the three women we see perform in the burlesque, only Sandy gets offstage screen time.  The other two are mere filler.  Sandy is also the only one whose boobs we never get a good look at.  The other two women wave theirs around with abandon, but Sandy dances with a top on, with her back to the camera, or with her breasts in deep shadow.  It’s implied that the audience in the club gets to see, but the audience in the theatre does not.  I’m pretty sure this is a deliberate statement on the part of the director, because Sandy has higher ambitions and should not be thus degraded.  We never find out what the other two dancers think of their jobs, but they have smiles on their faces rather than collapsing in tears at the end like Sandy does, so I guess we can degrade them as much as we like.  Ew.

           In case that wasn’t gross enough, the first of the two anonymous dancers is black and the second is Asian.  Roger Ebert used to call this the National Geographic Loophole, in which non-white boobs are considered PG while white ones are R.

           Of course there’s also the scene in which Sandy is invited to meet a producer, and it becomes transparently obvious that he just wants sex and he drugs her in order to get it.  We don’t see that, either, just Tony waiting stalkerishly outside to attack the producer after Sandy leaves.  Again, I think the idea was to avoid degrading Sandy, whom we’re supposed to see as a person tragically mistreated by an uncaring world, rather than a sex object. It’s so poorly executed, however, that I don’t even want to give them points for trying.  If you’re going to tell us that women are human beings who don’t deserve to be regarded as over-talkative sex toys, you can’t pick and choose which women that applies to.  You only make yourself look like a hypocrite, and when you do it the way Hollywood After Dark does, you’re a racist hypocrite to boot.

           This is honestly one of the top ten most depressing movies I’ve ever watched, right up there with the works of Coleman Francis.  There is nothing in it that makes you smile, or that even tries to make you smile – it’s so relentlessly dismal that it feels three hours long, even though it’s only seventy-five minutes. If it had been the first Film Crew episode I’d seen, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with the other three.  Fortunately, it was the last, so I’d already gotten some genuine MST3K-style joy out of things like Killers from Space and The Wild Women of Wongo.  Instead of a series-killer, it was therefore only a real downer ending.

[2-fast-2-curious]

Come Around

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: You’re dating Peter Parker but thirsting for Spider-Man.

Warnings: The language in this is filthy, definitely NC-17, Peter and the reader are adults and apparently being an adult means that you gain like 3498 levels in dirty talking ability, there’s unprotected sex and thigh riding.

Words: 3026

Author’s Note: I have no idea what I should title this. I spent my 23rd birthday writing this because I have no life/friends. Also watched The Punisher while I was writing and wondering if Frank Castle and Peter Parker ever cross paths when out and about fighting crime in New York City. What I would give to see that interaction… Peter Parker was such a piece of sunshine in Homecoming while Frank Castle is all doom and gloom.

On the subway back to your shared apartment, you texted Peter asking him mundane questions like if he would be home for dinner and whether or not you should wait for him to get home before starting another episode of Bojack Horseman on Netflix. As much as you hated to admit it, you and Peter had settled into a routine and become a boring domesticated couple. It didn’t help that you two hardly saw each other with his sporadic Spider-Man work schedule. The only thing you liked about Peter being gone all the time was the fact that it allowed you to keep a secret of your own.

You sighed as you entered the apartment. There was something about being inside your home that alleviated all the fatigue from your body. You wondered where this energy had been when you were at work. You slumped into the couch and opened your laptop to check on your dirty little secret. It was a blog, a tumblr blog that posted suggestive imagines and visuals for the various superheroes in the universe. Captain America was the most popular with his muscular physique and golden locks. But occasionally they would even post a little something about a certain web-slinger you called your boyfriend, those were your favourites. You typed ‘Spider-Man’ into the search bar at the top of the blog and were happy to see there was a new post.

You bit your lip as your cheeks flushed. The thought had never even crossed your mind. When you first found out you were dating Spider-Man, you were wondering how long it would take until your life was in danger. But that day never came. You probably owed it all to Peter for working so hard at keeping his identity secret. You closed your eyes, imagining what it would be like. You would probably be panicked so the adrenaline would be running through your veins, making all your senses heightened. And when Spider-Man came to save you, he would look oh so good in his skin-tight suit that showed off his masculine form. He would take care of the bad guys who had taken you and help calm you down. You’d be overwhelmed with his generosity and kindheartedness that you couldn’t contain yourself and you’d pull his head to yours in a passionate kiss. And maybe things would get even more heated when you-

You heard the jiggling of keys enter your doorway. “Sweetheart, I’m home“. Peter leaned down and gave you a kiss on your temple as you came back to reality. You watched as he pulled out a large styrofoam container from his backpack. You smiled catching a glimpse of his suit, tucked safely inside his backpack. “I stopped a stick up at a Korean restaurant in Midtown, the owner gave me japchae to bring back.“ Peter said, completely unaware of the fantasy that he just ruined.

You smiled at your boyfriend, he seemed so pleased with himself. “I’m sure you were amazing, babe, you always are.” You grabbed a plate and helped yourself to the delicious tangle of sweet potato noodles

For the next couple of day, that scenario was all you could think about. And maybe, just maybe, you had gone on PornHub and searched for erotic videos based on your boyfriend’s alias.You had fallen in love with Peter Parker but now you were beginning to realize that you also had Spider-Man as well. You fell for Peter and his goofy smile and his unrelenting kindness. But Spider-Man took those qualities to a whole other level. He spent all day helping people, putting others above himself, sacrificing his life, and asking for nothing in return. You felt that Spider-Man deserved to be rewarded, something that was a little more personal than the heaps of praise recognition he got from the general public. You wanted to give him something that was shared between just the two of you and your mind was running wild with an endless list of ideas.You decided that this fantasy was too good not to share. 

One day, you got off work early and to make the proper preparations for your fantasy real. You splurged on fancy lingerie and wore it underneath Peter’s favourite outfit of yours. A sweatshirt of his that was oversized and a pair of comfy drawstring pyjama bottoms. You finished doing your makeup just in time to see your boyfriend texting you that he would be back in fifteen minutes. You called your best friend who begrudgingly agreed to tie you up to a dining chair in the middle of your apartment. As your friend was working on getting the rope around your legs, you messaged Peter, telling him to come through the window. You told a little fib about your neighbour having a party with several loud, inebriated guests hanging out in your shared hallway.

Your friend finished tying your hands to the chair and swiftly left the apartment. The sound of your front door closing was perfectly timed with the sound of your living room window opening. Just as you predicted, Peter was in his full Spider-Man get-up with the mask obscuring his beautiful face from your view. Peter wondered why your apartment was so dimly lit and was about to take off his mask when you let out the loudest sound you could make with your mouth taped.

Peter’s head turned at record speed and the eyes of his mask widened when he saw your constricted form. “Y/N, what happened?!?!” He ripped the duct tape off your mouth and you winced, surprised how much it hurt, next time you would fashion a gag out of a bandana or something. “Spider-Man, I’m so glad you came!”

You could see Peter’s brow furrowing through his mask. “Of course, I would come, I texted you that I would be back-wait did you just call me Spider-Man?“ In all the years the two of you had spent together, you had called him Peter, even after he told you who he was and why he was always cancelling dates at the last minute despite being completely smitten with you.

You nodded. “Well, you are Spider-Man, right? Our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man? And you heard my cries for help and came here to save me.“ You fluttered your lengthy mascara-coated eyelashes for emphasis.

You knew Peter would catch on eventually. He was a smart guy and he was a superhero to boot, he knew how to pick up on context cues. “Why yes, yes I am. I’m Spider-Man and I’m here because I had a feeling there was a beautiful woman who needed my assistance. Now, why don’t you tell me what happened here?“

“Well Spider-Man, I had just come home from a bad date, slipped into my sweats when I walked into right into a break and enter happening right in my apartment.“ You smiled feeling Peter’s covered fingers running through your hair in a soothing manner. “Well the robbers tied me up, but it wasn’t long until you got here Spider-Man. Luckily they weren’t able to take anything important.“

“Aw sweetheart, I’m sorry this had to happen to you. I’m also sorry you had such a bad time on your date.“ You could tell that Spider-Man was the kind of hero who would actually listen to you complain about your non-existent love life, he was such a genuinely good person.

You sighed. “Yeah, that sucks. It’s been awhile since I’ve met a guy worth my time. I thought this one might be the one to break my dry spell.“ You looked up at Peter, strategically adjusting yourself against the restraints. Your movement caused the neckline of your/Peter’s sweatshirt to fall off of your shoulder, revealing a lace covered breast. “I even wore my best lingerie.“

Spider-Man’s eyes widened at the sight of the lace, stretched tight over your chest. He wanted to reach out and grope your chest like he would’ve normally. But one look at the red and blue material covering his hand reminded him that to you he was Spider-Man, not Peter Parker, and Spider-Man didn’t go around squeezing the breasts of women he just met.

You cleared your throat, even though Spider-Man had held back on touching you, apparently, it was totally okay to gawk at your chest like he was a teenager seeing a girl in the flesh for the first time… “Spider-Man, aren’t you going to untie me? I can’t possibly thank you properly when I’m restrained like this.”

“Oh right, sorry ma’am.“ Peter made quick work of the knots and soon you were able to move your limbs.

You got up from the chair and leaped into Peter’s arms. “Oh thank you, Spider-Man.“ You lifted up the bottom of his mask and uncovered his full pink lips. You kissed him, taking your time to test and see if kissing Spider-Man was different from kissing Peter.

Peter cupped his hands on your bottom supporting your weight. “You’re very welcome Miss.“

“If it’s okay, I’d like to do more than kiss you to thank you, Spider-Man.“ You gave him a demure smile as you took your sweatshirt off all the way. “Like I said, it’s been awhile since I’ve been well… properly fucked as to speak.“

“This reward you’re proposing sounds a bit selfish don’t you think?“ Peter ran his tongue down the side of your neck, planting soft kisses with his newly exposed mouth. “You’re going to get fucked and I’m going to make you come over and over again and what am I going to get?“

You bit your lip. “I have eyes you know… I see the way you’re looking at me. I bet you’re wondering what I look like underneath these pants, don’t you? Well, let me help out your imagination…” You hopped out of your arms and slowly shimmied your pyjamas down your hips. Bending over to give Peter the best possible view of your wet slit soaking through your panties. “See… Spider-Man, this can be beneficial for both of us.”

Peter ran a finger down the spine of your bent over form and a shiver soon followed suit. His hand continued it’s way down your bottom and gave your cheek a tight squeeze. You giggled as straightened your spine back to standing. “I like it when you touch me, especially since you still have your suit on.“ You guided Peter to take a seat on the chair you were previously bound to and straddled him. “It makes me wonder what that suit feels like against other parts of my body.“

To nobody’s surprise, Spider-Man had amazing thighs. They were thick and muscular. You had always admired Peter’s thighs and although you had thought about it a lot, the two of you had never done this before. Due to your lack of experience, your hip motions began timidly as you tested the waters of what felt right. Soon enough, you had built up a rhythm and throwing your head back in ecstasy. “Spider-Man, do you feel how wet I am? Am I soaking your thigh with my wetness.“

You continued to perform your impromptu lap dance, making his suit feel tighter by the minute. You smirked as you watched him awkwardly scratch the back of his head. It amused you how the more time you spent with Spider-Man, the more Peter Parker mannerisms snuck out. “My suit is made out of a water repellant material…“

You rolled your eyes, of course, it was, you bucked your hips and increased the pressure making Peter groan. “But I do feel how warm your pussy is, it feels so nice.”

“Even better“ Your eyes began to flutter as you felt that familiar warmth heating up your loins. “Spider-Man, I’m close…”

“Cum for me, babygirl, soak those panties for  me.“ You clung to his broad shoulders as your entire body shook.

You let out an unsteady sigh. “That was amazing.“

“Yeah? I’ll bet that’s the first time you’ve cum on someone’s thigh before isn’t.“ You nodded, rubbing your cheek against the slippery material covering his chest. Peter knew this was a new experience for you.

“I want your hard cock inside of me. I want you to fuck me Spider-Man.“ Your hands found themselves where they usually went, to Peter’s crotch, but then you realized that there wasn’t a button and fly like pants. Even your research on PornHub hadn’t prepared you for this. “Um…Spider-Man, how does this work?”

“Well, the thing is that it’s a one-piece type of deal. So there’s no way I’m going to be able to have you bouncing on my cock while I’m still wearing it.“ You moved off of Peter as he got off the chair. You smiled when you saw that his right thigh had an extra gossamer sheen due to your actions earlier.

“Oh, okay. Can I take this off?“ you asked gently running your hand down his jawline.

“Yeah sure…“ Peter agreed and shed the tight material off of his torso while you pulled the mask off of his face.

Your mouth fell when you were met with your boyfriend’s brown eyes and sweaty curls. “You’re really handsome…“

Peter chuckled. “You’re not too bad yourself.“ He pulled you close to his body and you pulled away in shock not quite expecting to feel so much of your boyfriend’s skin against yours.

“Do you…do you not wear anything underneath this?” This was completely new information for you, and not just the damsel in distress you were playing.

Peter shrugged. “I don’t really need it. The suit has netting to keep everything in place.“

“That must be some powerful netting.“ You reach down and stroked Peter’s hard cock. “There’s a lot to keep in place.“

Without his Spider-Man get up, it seemed like Peter had reverted back to being your shy and affable boyfriend. His cheeks reddened at your bold comment. “Yeah?“

“Yeah.“ Peter managed to navigate the straps and lace that made up your lingerie well enough to get you out of it. You gave Peter a quick peck on the lips and led him over to the couch. You leaned over the top of it, planting your hands on the cushions, your feet dangling. “Ever since I got this sofa I’ve been thinking of this. You’re so strong, I bet this should be a cakewalk for you.“

“I’d love to fuck that wet cunt of yours when you’re bent over like this.“ Peter used to fingers to spread the wetness between your legs. It was the first time you had been touched all night. Feeling the pads of his fingers lightly brush against your clit made you moan. You felt so sensitive, any kind of stimulation Peter gave you felt like too much and not enough at the same time.

“Wow, you are throbbing, baby girl.“ He put slightly more pressure on your clit, making your eyes close in bliss. All of the sudden, it was all gone. You turned your head, ready to beg Peter to put his hands back on you, just in time to see him licking his fingers, savouring your taste. “You are just absolutely delectable.“

“I’m ready for your cock, I want you to feel you stretching me out.“ You were getting needy. You were getting impatient and started wiggling your bottom wrapping your legs around Peter’s hips, trying to get him closer to you.

“Okay, okay. My greedy girl, I’ll give you what you need.“ Peter lined himself up and used his hands to guide himself inside you. “Oh fuck, you’re so wet. You feel so good.“ He let out a groan, no matter how often the two of you did this, he was never totally mentally prepared for how euphoric you felt wrapped around him, squeezing his length.

You simply weren’t in the mood for Peter to take his sweet time. You put more of your weight into your hands and pushed your hips back, driving his cock deeper inside of you. Peter whimpered at the sight. “Look at you, fucking yourself on my cock. You really are desperate for me aren’t you sweetheart?”

Peter held your hips still, forcing you to stop your movement, waiting for his answer. “Yeah, I’m desperate for you, please.”

“Don’t worry, I got you babygirl.” Peter began exerting more effort into his thrusts, the sound of his hips hitting your ass filled the room. Peter lean over your bent form, his hands playing with your hard nipples. His extra weight on your back pushed you deeper into the couch, further embossing your body into the structure of the couch. It meant that every time Peter bucked his hips, it caused your clit to rub delightfully against the soft velvet material.

“Peter, I’m going to…” You ground your hips, trying to get more friction onto your clit. The fabric of your couch was now completely wet.

“That’s it, darling. Let it out.” Peter whispered encouragingly in your ear. You came for him, yelling Peter’s name as he increased the pace of his movements, your arms giving out and your body falling limp against the support of your couch. Peter release came moments after yours filling you with warmth.

Your boyfriend left your spent body momentarily to go into the kitchen. Upon his return he ran a wet, warm towel between your legs, cleaning up the bodily fluids that were dripping out of you. After he was done, he wrapped you up like a human burrito in the throw blanket that you kept on the couch, laying you down. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to fuck Spider-Man.“

You yawned snuggling into your boyfriend. “Really? Because I’m not. Everyone else in the world knows you as Spider-Man, but to me, you’re Peter Parker, my boyfriend, and that’s something no one else can say. I love you.“

Peter couldn’t resist himself. “I know.“

You shook your head at your boyfriend, trying to suppress the laugh that wanted to escape your lips. “Yeah, I love you, even if that subjects me to your random Star Wars references.“