#so. hopefully i'll get something new by the end of summer

[getdownsaturdaynight]

If I disappear from the net for a few weeks, I’m either immersing myself fully in Cult of the Lamb, or I’m playing VLR an eighth time. Or getting through the 30+ albums on my music queue. Or... sleeping. I like sleeping. Sleeping’s great.

[23victoria]

off the table

pairings: lewis hamilton x fem!reader

word count: 13k

warnings: SMUT (wrap it before you tap it), toxic relationship, cheating, miscommunication, cussing, best friends to lovers, idiots in love, mentions of educational burnout, semi-double pov

authors note: listen to off the table by ariana grande ft. the weeknd 13k words is insane to me, this is the most i’ve ever wrote, i had so much fun writing this honestly, i pray it’s not shit…cause that would be embarrassing, ignore any typos please, also a little self indulgent (not all the way, trust)okay i’m done, hope you enjoy!!

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f1 masterlist 1k celebration

You met Lewis when you were just seven years old. It was a typical summer day, the sun high in the sky, casting a golden glow over the park. You were new to the neighborhood, shy and unsure of yourself, clutching the handles of your bike as if it were your lifeline. The other kids seemed so confident, racing around on their bikes, laughing and shouting as they sped down the dirt paths. You stood on the sidelines, watching, wishing you could join in but not quite brave enough to take the first step.

That's when you noticed him—a boy with wild curls and a bright smile, his bike skidding to a stop in front of you. "Hey, do you want to race?" he asked, his voice filled with enthusiasm. You hesitated, glancing down at your bike, then back at him. He must have sensed your uncertainty because he grinned and added, "I'll go easy on you, I promise."

Something about his easy confidence made you smile, and before you knew it, you were racing side by side with him, the wind whipping through your hair as you pedaled as fast as you could. You didn't win—Lewis was too fast for that—but it didn't matter. For the first time since moving, you felt like you belonged.

From that day on, you and Lewis were inseparable. Every afternoon after school, you'd meet at the park, racing your bikes until the sun dipped below the horizon. He told you about his love for karting, his eyes lighting up as he described the thrill of speeding around the track, the roar of the engine in his ears. You didn't understand it entirely—karts seemed like a bigger, scarier version of your bike—but you loved listening to him talk about it, the way his passion seemed to pour out of him.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

As the years went by, your friendship with Lewis deepened. You became each other's confidants, sharing your dreams and fears late into the night. You told him about your dream of becoming a doctor, and he listened with the same intensity he showed on the track. In return, he confided in you about his aspirations in racing, how he wanted to be the best, to make his family proud.

There were moments, though, where something unspoken lingered between you—moments where his gaze seemed to linger a little too long, where his touch seemed a little too tender. But you never noticed, too caught up in your own world to see the way his feelings for you were evolving.

One day, when you were both fourteen, you were sitting in your room, studying for a biology test. Lewis had come over to help you with your homework, but you ended up talking about everything except schoolwork. "Do you ever think about the future?" you asked, lying on your bed with a textbook open in front of you.

"All the time," he admitted, glancing over at you. "I think about racing, where I'll be, who I'll be with."

You smiled, oblivious to the hint of something more in his words. "I bet you'll be famous," you teased, nudging him playfully. "I'll be able to say I knew you before you were cool."

He laughed, but there was a wistfulness in his eyes. "What about you? Where do you see yourself?"

You shrugged, turning your attention back to your textbook. "Hopefully in med school, maybe even Harvard if I can get in. Saving lives and all that."

There was a pause, and when you looked back at him, you saw something flicker in his expression, something you couldn't quite place. But before you could ask, he smiled and said, "You'll get in. I know you will."

You didn't know it then, but that was one of the many moments where he almost told you how he felt. But your casual mention of Harvard, of a future that seemed so far from his own, made him hesitate. How could he confess his feelings when it seemed like your dreams were leading you in opposite directions?

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

When you were sixteen, Lewis's karting career began to take off even more. He was spending more time at the track, traveling for races, and you were busy with school. But despite the distance, you stayed close, texting each other daily, finding time to hang out whenever he was home.

One evening, after one of his races, he invited you to a celebratory dinner with his family. You were honored, knowing how important these moments were to him. As you sat across from him at the table, laughing and talking with his family, you felt a warmth in your chest, a sense of belonging that you couldn't quite explain.

After dinner, as you walked back to your car, Lewis caught your arm, stopping you. "Hey, can we talk for a minute?" he asked, his voice unusually serious.

"Of course," you replied, a little surprised by his tone. You turned to face him, and for a moment, you just stood there, looking at each other in the dim light of the streetlamp.

He seemed to struggle with his words, his hands fidgeting in his pockets. "I've been meaning to tell you something," he began, his voice low. "It's just... we've known each other for so long, and you've always been there for me. I don't know what I'd do without you."

Your heart swelled at his words, and you smiled, completely missing the deeper meaning behind them. "You're my best friend, Lewis. I'll always be there for you, no matter what."

He looked down, a slight frown tugging at his lips. "Yeah, best friends," he repeated, his voice softer now. "But what if—"

Just then, your phone buzzed in your pocket, interrupting the moment. You pulled it out, glancing at the screen, and saw a text from a boy in your class that you'd been talking to. "Sorry, it's just Josh," you said, quickly typing a response.

When you looked back up, Lewis's expression had shifted, the vulnerability from moments before gone. "No worries," he said, forcing a smile. "I just wanted to say that I'm really proud of you. For everything."

You felt a pang of guilt, sensing that you had missed something important, but you pushed it aside, giving him a quick hug. "Thanks, Lewis. That means a lot."

As you drove home that night, you couldn't shake the feeling that something had changed, but you couldn't quite put your finger on it. Meanwhile, Lewis watched you leave, the words he had almost said hanging heavy in the air. He had been so close to telling you how he felt, but your mention of Josh had stopped him. How could he compete with someone who was already making you smile in ways he only dreamed of?

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

As you started high school, you started dating Josh. He was sweet, attentive, and everything you thought you wanted in a boyfriend. Lewis, ever the supportive friend, smiled and encouraged you, even as his heart ached every time he saw you with someone else.

He watched from the sidelines as your relationship with Josh blossomed, always there to lend a listening ear when things got tough. And when Josh broke your heart, leaving you devastated just before prom, Lewis was the first person you called.

"I can't believe he did this," you sobbed into the phone, your voice thick with tears.

"I'll be right there," Lewis replied without hesitation. Within minutes, he was at your door, pulling you into a comforting embrace. He held you as you cried, his hand gently stroking your hair, murmuring soothing words into your ear.

"You deserve so much better," he whispered, his heart breaking alongside yours. "Anyone who can't see how amazing you are doesn't deserve you."

You pulled back slightly, looking up at him with tear-filled eyes. "Why can't all guys be like you, Lewis?"

He smiled sadly, wishing he could tell you that he would never hurt you the way Josh did, that he would cherish you and make you feel loved every day. But instead, he just said, "Because they're not smart enough to realize what they have."

In that moment, you realized how much you had taken Lewis for granted, how he had always been there for you, even when you didn't deserve it. But you still didn't see the depth of his feelings for you, too caught up in your own heartbreak to notice the way he looked at you, as if you were the most precious thing in the world.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

When it came time to apply for college, you were determined to go to the one with the best medical program, whether it was Harvard, Yale, Duke, or John Hopkins. You had worked so hard throughout high school, dedicating countless hours to your studies, extracurriculars, and volunteer work. It was your dream, and you weren't going to let anything stand in your way.

Lewis, on the other hand, was focused on his racing career. He had already been scouted by several teams, and it was clear that his future was on the track. You were both proud of each other's accomplishments, but there was an unspoken tension between you as the reality of your diverging paths began to sink in.

The day you received your acceptance letter from Harvard was bittersweet. You were overjoyed to have achieved your dream, but the thought of leaving Lewis behind filled you with a sense of loss. You had always imagined that you would be there for each other through everything, but now it seemed like your lives were pulling you in different directions.

"I got in," you told Lewis when you saw him later that day, your voice filled with a mix of excitement and sadness.

He smiled, pulling you into a tight hug. "I knew you would," he said, his voice proud but tinged with something else. "You're going to do amazing things, Y/N/N."

"But I'll miss you," you admitted, your heart aching at the thought of being so far away from him.

"I'll miss you too," he replied, his voice quiet. "But we'll stay in touch, right? It's not like we're never going to see each other again."

You nodded, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over. "Of course. We'll text and call all the time. And I'll visit whenever I can."

He smiled, but there was a sadness in his eyes that you couldn't ignore. "Yeah, we'll make it work."

As the summer passed, you and Lewis spent as much time together as possible, trying to make the most of your remaining days before you both went off to pursue your dreams. There were moments of laughter and joy, but also moments of quiet reflection, as you both grappled with the reality of what was to come.

On your last night before leaving for college, you and Lewis sat on the roof of his house, staring up at the stars. It was a tradition you had started when you were kids, a way to escape the world and just be together in the silence of the night.

"I'm really going to miss this," you said softly, your voice barely above a whisper.

"Me too," he replied, his gaze fixed on the sky.

You turned to look at him, your heart heavy with a mix of emotions. "Promise me we'll stay close, no matter what."

He finally looked at you, his eyes filled with a depth of emotion that took your breath away. "I promise," he said, his voice steady and sincere.

You smiled, reaching out to take his hand. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Lewis."

He squeezed your hand gently, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. "You'll never have to find out," he said, his voice filled with a quiet determination.

As you sat there together, the weight of unspoken words hung between you, but neither of you said anything more. There was a part of Lewis that wanted to tell you everything—to confess his feelings, to ask you to stay—but he knew it wouldn't be fair. You had your own dreams to chase, and he couldn't ask you to give them up for him.

So instead, he kept his promise, supporting you from afar as you embarked on the next chapter of your life. You texted and called as often as you could, sharing stories of your experiences at Harvard, while he told you about his progress in racing. The distance was hard, but you both did your best to stay connected.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

College was everything you had hoped it would be. You excelled in your classes, made new friends, and even started dating again. But no matter how busy you were, there was always a part of you that missed Lewis. You missed the way he made you laugh, the way he could always make you feel better no matter what was going on in your life.

You visited home during the holidays, and every time you saw Lewis, it was like no time had passed at all. You fell back into your old routines, spending hours talking and laughing, as if the distance between you had never existed.

But there were moments when you noticed a change in him—moments when he seemed quieter, more reserved. You didn't think much of it at first, chalking it up to the stress of his racing career. But as time went on, you began to wonder if there was something more.

One night, during your winter break, you and Lewis went for a drive, just like you used to do when you were younger. The streets were quiet, the city lights reflecting off the snow-covered ground. You talked about everything and nothing, enjoying the comfort of each other's presence.

As you drove past your old high school, memories flooded back, and you found yourself laughing at the thought of how much had changed since then. "Can you believe it's been four years since we graduated?" you asked, glancing over at Lewis.

He smiled, but there was a hint of sadness in his eyes. "Yeah, it's crazy how time flies."

You sighed, your smile fading as you thought about how much your lives had diverged since high school. "Do you ever miss the way things used to be?" you asked, your voice filled with a touch of nostalgia.

"All the time," he admitted, his voice quiet.

There was a moment of silence as you both reflected on the past, and for a brief second, you thought you saw something in his expression that made your heart skip a beat. But before you could say anything, he turned away, his gaze fixed on the road ahead.

"I've been thinking," he began, his voice hesitant, "about how different our lives are now. You're at college, I'm racing in F2... it's like we're living in two separate worlds."

You frowned, unsure of where he was going with this. "But we're still friends, Lewis. That hasn't changed."

"I know," he said quickly, "but sometimes I wonder if..." He trailed off, as if struggling to find the right words.

"If what?" you prompted, your heart pounding in your chest.

He shook his head, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "Nothing. Forget I said anything."

You wanted to push him, to ask him what he was really thinking, but something in his tone made you stop. Instead, you just nodded, deciding to let it go.

As the night wore on, you found yourself growing more and more frustrated with your inability to understand what was going on with Lewis. You had always been able to read him like a book, but now it felt like there was a wall between you, something unspoken that neither of you could break through.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

The next few years passed in a blur of classes, exams, and racing events. You and Lewis remained close, but the distance between you became more pronounced as time went on. You both pursued your dreams with a single-minded determination, but in the process, you began to drift further apart.

There were moments when you wondered if you had made the right choice, if maybe you should have stayed closer to home, closer to Lewis. But every time you thought about it, you pushed the thoughts aside, telling yourself that you were doing what you were meant to do.

Lewis, on the other hand, struggled with his feelings for you more than ever. He watched from afar as you continued to excel in your studies, as you dated other people, as you lived a life that seemed so different from his own. But he never stopped caring about you, never stopped being there for you whenever you needed him.

And though he never told you, he knew deep down that he would always love you, even if you never felt the same way about him.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Your life took a different turn when you least expected it. You had always been focused, driven, and passionate about becoming a doctor. The years of studying, the late nights in the library, the relentless pursuit of knowledge—it all felt like it was leading you toward a future you had envisioned since childhood. But as time went on, something inside you began to shift.

It started subtly at first, a creeping sense of exhaustion that no amount of sleep seemed to cure. The long hours in the lab, the constant pressure to excel, the never-ending cycle of exams and practicals—it all began to weigh on you. You could feel the burnout setting in, the stress gnawing away at your enthusiasm. You told yourself that it was normal, that every med student went through this phase, that it was just another hurdle to overcome. But deep down, you knew something was wrong.

Your friends noticed it too. They saw the dark circles under your eyes, the way you seemed to retreat into yourself, the way your laughter had become rare, replaced by a quiet, pervasive anxiety. One of your closest friends at the time, a fellow student who had always been attuned to your moods, suggested something radical: "Why don't you try something different for a while? Just to take the pressure off."

You were taken aback by the suggestion. "Like what?" you asked, genuinely curious. You couldn't imagine stepping away from your studies, even for a moment. But the exhaustion was so overwhelming that you were willing to entertain any idea that might offer some relief.

"Have you ever thought about acting?" your friend asked, a mischievous smile playing on their lips. "You've always had a flair for drama, and you're great at expressing yourself. It could be fun, and who knows? It might help you recharge."

The idea was so out of left field that you laughed. Acting? You had never seriously considered it. Sure, you had participated in a few school plays when you were younger, but it was always just for fun, never something you thought of as a career. But the more you thought about it, the more the idea intrigued you. Maybe stepping away from the rigid structure of medical school could be exactly what you needed. Maybe exploring a different side of yourself could reignite the passion that had been dwindling for medicine.

On a whim, you decided to give it a try. You signed up for an acting workshop, just to see if you had any talent or interest in it. To your surprise, you loved it. The freedom of expression, the creativity, the way you could lose yourself in a character and forget about the stress of your real life—it was exhilarating. For the first time in months, you felt genuinely happy, like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders.

Encouraged by the positive experience, you started attending more workshops, getting involved in local theater productions, and even taking a few acting classes on the side. It was all just for fun at first, a way to balance out the intensity of your studies. But the more you immersed yourself in the world of acting, the more you realized how much you enjoyed it.

Then came the fateful day when everything changed. One of your acting instructors, who had been impressed by your natural talent, mentioned that a casting call was being held for a new movie. It was a big-budget production, with a well-known director at the helm, and they were looking for fresh faces to fill the lead roles. Your instructor encouraged you to audition, insisting that you had the potential to land the part.

At first, you hesitated. The idea of auditioning for a major film seemed absurd. You were a med student, not a professional actress. But something inside you, that same part that had pushed you to explore acting in the first place, urged you to go for it. What did you have to lose?

So, with a mix of nerves and excitement, you prepared for the audition. You worked on your lines, practiced your delivery, and did your best to channel the emotions of the character you were auditioning for. The day of the audition arrived, and you walked into the casting room with your heart pounding in your chest.

To your amazement, the audition went better than you could have imagined. You felt a connection with the character, a sense of ease in front of the camera that surprised even you. The casting directors seemed impressed, and you left the audition feeling a strange mix of exhilaration and disbelief.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

A few weeks later, you received the call that would change your life. You had landed the lead role in the movie. You couldn't believe it. This was supposed to be a temporary distraction, a way to relieve stress—not the start of a new career. But here you were, about to step into the world of professional acting.

The decision to accept the role was not an easy one. It meant putting your medical studies on hold, something that terrified you. You had worked so hard to get where you were, and the thought of stepping away felt like abandoning a part of yourself. But there was also a part of you that was excited, that saw this as an incredible opportunity, a chance to do something completely different.

You’re pacing your dorm apartment, the walls suddenly feeling too close, the air too thick. You can’t breathe. The call is stuck in your mind, you’ve been offered the lead role in a major movie—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But the timing couldn’t be worse. You’re just a year away from completing your medical degree. A year. After all the sleepless nights, endless studying, and grueling rotations, it’s all so close to paying off. And yet…

You drop onto your bed, head in your hands, and your thoughts spiral out of control. What if you’re making a mistake? What if you take the role and regret it? What if you stay in medicine and never know what could have been? You feel your chest tightening, panic creeping in. You need to talk to someone. You need to talk to him.

Without thinking, you reach for your phone and press Lewis’s contact. As the phone rings, you silently beg for him to pick up. “Please, Lewis, pick up. Please, please, please…”

The call connects, and you hear a groggy voice on the other end. “Y/N/N? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” His voice is laced with concern, but there’s a hint of sleep still clinging to his words.

Your heart drops. You forgot. You completely forgot that he’s in Belgium for the race at Spa. You glance at the clock, realizing just how late it is over there. “Oh my God, Lewis, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I completely forgot about the time difference and your race tomorrow…”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he says, his voice softening. “I’m awake now. Are you alright? What’s going on?”

You take a deep breath, trying to steady yourself, but the words tumble out in a rush. “I got offered the lead in a major movie, and I don’t know if I should take it. I’m just a year away from finishing med school, and it feels insane to stop now. But at the same time, this is such a huge opportunity, and I’m spiraling, and you were the first person I thought of to call.”

There’s a pause on the other end, and you can almost hear him processing what you’ve just said. “Lead role in a movie? Acting? You’re an actress? When did this happen?”

You blink, realizing you’ve never told him. Your heart sinks a little further. “Oh… yeah, I guess we haven’t talked in a while, have we?”

Silence hangs between you for a moment, heavy with unspoken words. “Yeah,” he finally says, the word carrying more weight than it should. “We haven’t.”

You clear your throat, trying to push past the awkwardness. “I was feeling burned out with all the studying, and a friend suggested I try something new to take my mind off it. I took an acting class, just for fun, but then one class turned into two, and before I knew it, I was hooked. And now… now I’m being offered a lead role in a movie. Crazy, right? How things change so fast…”

He exhales slowly, as if trying to absorb everything you’ve just told him. “Yeah… yeah, it is crazy.” There’s another pause, but this time it feels different—more contemplative. “Look, Y/N/N, I know this is a huge decision, and it’s not one you can take lightly. But I also know you. You’re not someone who backs down from a challenge. You’ve got this incredible intuition, this ability to know what’s right for you, even if it’s terrifying. If acting is something that excites you, something that makes you feel alive, then maybe it’s worth exploring. You’re not giving up on medicine; you’re just… taking a detour. Following your heart. And whatever you decide, I’ll be here to support you. I believe in you.”

His words wash over you, calming the storm inside your mind. You feel a warmth spread through your chest, easing the tightness that had gripped you just moments before. “Thank you, Lewis. I really needed to hear that.”

“Of course,” he replies softly. “I’m glad I could help.”

You smile, feeling a sense of peace settle over you. “Good luck with your race tomorrow. I’m sorry again for disturbing you.”

“Don’t be,” he says, his voice tinged with affection. “I’m always here for you, no matter what. And thanks—I’ll need that luck.”

A comfortable silence falls between you, the kind that only exists between people who’ve known each other for years. You can almost picture him on the other end of the line, smiling that soft, reassuring smile of his.

“It’s really good to hear your voice,” you say, your tone almost wistful.

“Yeah,” he echoes, a hint of something unspoken in his voice. “It is.”

You close your eyes, letting the moment linger, not wanting it to end. But eventually, you know it must. “Goodnight, Lewis.”

“Goodnight, Y/N/N.”

The call ends, and you’re left in the quiet of your dorm room, the weight of the decision still pressing on you, but somehow, it feels a little lighter now. You sit on your bed, staring at the wall, thinking about the offer, about your career, but mostly about him—about how much you miss him, miss his voice, his presence in your life.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

In the end, you decided to take the leap. You paused your medical studies, packed your bags, and flew out to the film's shooting location. It was a whirlwind experience—long hours on set, learning the ins and outs of the industry, working alongside seasoned actors who had been doing this for years. It was challenging, but also incredibly rewarding. You discovered a new side of yourself, a side that loved the thrill of performing, the camaraderie of the cast and crew, the magic of bringing a story to life on screen.

When the movie was released, it became an unexpected hit. Critics praised your performance, calling you a "rising star" and predicting a bright future for you in the industry. Offers for other roles began to pour in, and before you knew it, you were being whisked off to auditions, meetings with agents, and photo shoots for magazines. Your life had completely changed, and you were caught up in the whirlwind of it all.

As your acting career took off, your medical aspirations took a backseat. You told yourself it was just temporary, that you would return to your studies once things settled down. But the more time you spent in the acting world, the more you realized how much you loved it. Acting allowed you to explore different aspects of your personality, to tell stories that resonated with people, to connect with audiences in a way that was deeply fulfilling.

But with success came new challenges. The pressure to maintain your newfound fame, the scrutiny from the media, the constant demands on your time—it was all overwhelming. There were moments when you questioned whether you had made the right choice, moments when you longed for the stability and sense of purpose that medicine had provided. But then you would step onto a set, feel the rush of excitement as the cameras rolled, and you would remember why you had chosen this path.

You also had to navigate the complexities of your relationships. Some of your friends and family were supportive, thrilled to see you succeeding in a new field. But others were skeptical, worried that you were throwing away years of hard work for a career that was far less stable and predictable. You had long conversations with your parents, trying to reassure them that you hadn't abandoned your dreams of becoming a doctor, that you were just exploring a different side of yourself for now.

And then there was Lewis. His racing career turned out to be everything you imagined it would be. He’s a four-time Formula 1 World Champion, and despite all the fame and glory, he always made time for you. He had always been your biggest supporter, no matter what you decided to do. But even he had his doubts. "Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked one day, as you sat together in your apartment, reviewing the script for your next film.

"I think so," you replied, uncertainty creeping into your voice. "I never expected this to happen, but now that it has, I can't imagine walking away."

He studied you for a long moment, his expression unreadable. "I just want you to be happy, Y/N. Whatever that looks like."

His words stuck with you, a reminder of the person you had always been, the person you were still trying to figure out. You loved acting, but there was a part of you that missed the structure, the challenge, and the sense of purpose that medicine had provided.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

As your acting career continued to flourish, you made a promise to yourself: you wouldn't close the door on medicine entirely. The years of hard work and late nights studying had shaped you, and you were determined to find a way to honor that journey, even as new opportunities emerged in the entertainment world. It was during one of those opportunities that you first met Jensen. The encounter happened at a charity gala, an event you never imagined attending before your acting career took off.

You stood quietly in a corner, nursing a glass of champagne, your eyes scanning the room filled with celebrities and high-profile individuals. You had been invited because of your rising status in the industry, a status that still felt surreal at times. The room buzzed with energy, laughter, and the clinking of glasses, but it was Jensen’s presence that captivated you. He had an effortless charisma, a magnetism that drew you in from across the room.

Jensen, with his boyish charm and magnetic charisma, made his way through the crowd effortlessly. When his eyes locked onto yours, it was as if the world had stopped. He approached you with a confidence that was both alluring and intimidating.

"Hello beautiful, I'm Jensen," he said, his smile dazzling.

"Hi, I'm Y/N," you replied, trying to match his confidence but feeling your heart race.

From that moment on, your life transformed into a whirlwind romance. Jensen's world was intoxicating—red carpet events, glamorous parties, and moments that seemed too perfect to be real. He was attentive, always making you feel like the center of his universe. The late-night phone calls, surprise visits, and stolen moments of affection made you believe that you had found your fairy tale.

Your relationship with Jensen was the epitome of Hollywood glamour. Photographers captured your every move, and tabloids buzzed with stories of your romance. At first, the attention was thrilling. You felt special, adored, and on top of the world.

But as the months passed, the cracks began to show. Jensen's demanding schedule meant that he was often away on set, leaving you feeling lonely and neglected. The glamour started to fade, replaced by the harsh realities of a high-profile relationship.

Jensen's charm, which once made you feel special, started to feel suffocating. His possessiveness grew, and he began to dictate your choices. What you wore, where you went, who you spoke to—all became subjects of his control. At first, you brushed it off as his way of caring, but soon it became clear that his love was conditional.

The late-night arguments became frequent. Jensen's temper, once hidden behind his charming facade, surfaced. He would lash out, accusing you of not understanding his pressures and responsibilities. You tried to be supportive, to be the perfect partner, but nothing seemed to be enough.

You began to feel like a prisoner in your own life, trapped by the expectations and scrutiny of the public eye. The relationship that once made you feel alive now drained you of your happiness.

The turning point came one night when you discovered Jensen's infidelity. You found messages on his phone from a woman named Claire. The words were explicit, leaving no room for misinterpretation. Your heart shattered as you realized that the man you thought you knew had betrayed you.

Confronting Jensen was one of the hardest things you had ever done. He denied it at first, then tried to downplay it. But the evidence was irrefutable. The betrayal cut deep, leaving scars that would take years to heal.

Despite the heartbreak, you tried to salvage the relationship. You didn't want to believe that the fairy tale was over. You attended couples therapy, made compromises, and tried to forgive. But the trust was gone, and without it, the relationship was a shadow of what it once was.

The final straw came when another woman, Lisa, contacted you. She had photos and videos of Jensen with her, and she was threatening to expose them to the media unless you paid her a significant amount of money. You were truly at your breaking point.

The humiliation, the betrayal, and the constant pressure became too much to bear. You decided to expose Jensen and the women who had been involved with him. You gathered all the evidence, and with a heavy heart, you released it to the public.

The reaction was immediate and explosive. Social media was ablaze with shock and outrage. Jensen's image, once so pristine, was shattered. The world saw him for who he truly was—a man who had deceived and manipulated those closest to him.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Your phone buzzes incessantly on the nightstand, the screen lighting up with each incoming call, text, and notification. It’s been going on for hours now, ever since the news broke. The media is in a frenzy, and your family and friends are no different. Everyone wants to know if it’s true, if the rumors about Jensen’s infidelity are real. But you can’t bring yourself to face it. You’ve been lying in bed, numb and drained, staring at the ceiling as if you could will the world away.

Each buzz feels like a jolt, a painful reminder of the life you thought you had, the relationship you thought was solid. Jensen had been controlling, isolating you from everyone you cared about, but you never imagined it would come to this. The betrayal cuts deeper than you ever thought possible, and the pain is almost numbing in its intensity.

You roll over, burying your face in the pillow, trying to block out the noise, the world, everything. But then, amidst the endless stream of messages and calls, a name flashes across your screen that makes you freeze. Lewis.

You haven’t spoken to him in what feels like forever. Jensen had made sure of that, keeping you away from your friends, especially Lewis. But seeing his name now stirs something inside you, a mix of longing, relief, and an overwhelming sense of loss. You reach for the phone with trembling hands and answer, but you can’t bring yourself to say anything. The words are stuck in your throat, your heart pounding painfully in your chest.

“Y/N/N?” Lewis’s voice is soft, laced with concern, and just hearing it makes the tears you’ve been holding back start to fall. “Y/N/N, are you there?”

“Hi, Lewis,” you manage to choke out, your voice cracking as you try to keep the sobs at bay.

“Y/N/N…” He says your name again, but this time, it’s different. It’s like he’s trying to reach out and hold you, even though you’re miles apart. “Where are you? I’ll fly to you right now. Just tell me where you are, sweetheart.”

You close your eyes, the endearment hitting you like a wave. It’s been so long since someone called you that with genuine care. “I just… I just want to be alone,” you whisper, barely audible.

“Y/N/N, no,” he says, his voice more urgent now. “You’ve been through so much, and I’ve been worried about you for the longest time. Please, don’t shut me out.”

“Lewis, please…” You’re crying again, harder this time, the words coming out between broken sobs. “I’m… I’ll be okay. I just… I need time. I need to be alone. And I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry for not staying in contact with you. I should have…”

“Shhh, shhh, no, no, Y/N/N,” Lewis interrupts, his voice firm but gentle. “It’s not your fault, okay? It’s not.”

“But it is,” you protest weakly, your guilt and shame threatening to swallow you whole. “It is, Lewis. I pushed you away. I let him push you away.”

“Y/N/N, listen to me,” he says, his tone softer now, soothing. “It’s not your fault. You don’t have to carry that. I’m just so sorry you’ve had to go through this.”

You’re silent, your chest heaving with the effort of trying to breathe through the pain. You want to believe him, to let go of the guilt, but it’s so hard. Everything feels so heavy, so overwhelming.

“Y/N/N?” Lewis’s voice breaks through your thoughts, anchoring you. “Talk to me. Please.”

You swallow hard, trying to find the words, but all you can manage is a whisper. “I have to go.”

“No, Y/N/N, don’t…” He sounds desperate now, almost pleading. “Please don’t hang up.”

“Lewis, it’s okay,” you say, though your voice is shaking. “I just… I need to turn my phone off and go away for a while. I just wanted to hear your voice before I go.”

“Go?” Lewis’s voice is strained with worry. “Y/N/N, you’re scaring me. Please, don’t do anything—”

“I’m not going to harm myself, Lewis,” you quickly reassure him, though you can hear the fear in his voice. “I just need to be away from everything—the phone, social media, the public. All of it. I need space. I need silence. I need some peace.”

There’s a long pause on the other end, and you can almost feel his struggle, his desire to reach through the phone and hold you, to keep you from slipping away. “Okay, Y/N/N,” he finally says, his voice soft, filled with a tenderness that makes your heart ache. “I just want you to know that I care about you so much. I’m here for you, no matter what. Always.”

Your throat tightens again, and you fight to keep your voice steady. “I know, Lew. I know.”

The silence that follows is both comforting and painful, a shared moment of understanding and loss. You can almost see him, the way he would look at you with those concerned eyes, the way he would hold you until the pain wasn’t so suffocating.

“Goodbye, Lewis,” you whisper, your voice breaking.

“I’ll talk to you later, Y/N/N,” he replies, a quiet determination in his tone that you know so well.

The call ends, and you’re left staring at the screen, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on you. The hurt is still there, raw and painful, but there’s a small sliver of warmth now, too. Hearing his voice again, knowing he’s still there for you, gives you a fragile sense of comfort.

You turn off your phone, letting the silence envelop you. The world outside fades away, and for a moment, it’s just you in the quiet, trying to piece together the shattered fragments of your heart.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

For the past year and a half, you distanced yourself from everyone, including Lewis. You buried yourself in work, traveled alone, and avoided any situation that might bring back memories of what you lost. Your heart ached, but you told yourself it was better this way. Safer.

You threw yourself into your career, taking on projects that challenged and inspired you. You even went back to school. You traveled to places you had always dreamed of visiting, finding solace in the beauty of the world. You spent time in nature, hiking, meditating, and rediscovering yourself.

The media had a field day with your disappearance. Speculations ran wild, but you remained silent, focusing on your healing. You took up new hobbies, learned new skills, and invested in yourself. Slowly, you began to rebuild your confidence and sense of self-worth.

You emerged from the shadows stronger, wiser, and more determined than ever. Your hard work paid off, and you made a name for yourself. Your projects received critical acclaim, and your name was on everyone's lips for all the right reasons.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Tonight was your first public appearance since exposing Jensen. The Met Gala was the event of the year, and you had been meticulously preparing for it. Your stylist had outdone herself, and when you looked in the mirror, you saw a vision of elegance and strength.

As you stepped onto the red carpet, the flashes of cameras and the shouts of fans filled the air. You walked with confidence, your head held high, and a smile that spoke of triumph and resilience.

"Y/N, you look stunning!" the photographers called out.

"Over here, Y/N! Give us a smile!"

You obliged, posing for the cameras and greeting the fans. It felt good to be back, to be seen and appreciated for who you had become.

The crowded after-party buzzed with energy, laughter, and the clinking of glasses. People mingled, dressed to the nines, chatting and dancing in the dimly lit room. The atmosphere was electric, but you found yourself standing still, feeling a mix of excitement and trepidation. You hadn't seen Lewis in years, and the sight of him now, just a few feet away, sent a shiver down your spine.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Lewis Hamilton, your former best friend. Lewis had been your rock, your confidant, and your best friend. He had been there through thick and thin, always ready with a comforting word or a warm embrace. It had been years since you last spoke to him, even longer since you last saw him, and the sight of him brought back a flood of memories. You hesitated, unsure of what to do.

Lewis spotted you and made his way over. His presence was as comforting as ever, and when he reached you, he placed his hand on your arm and leaned in close.

"Hi, Y/N," he said softly, his voice a soothing balm to your nerves.

"Hi, Lewis," you replied, trying to steady your racing heart.

His eyes held a mix of emotions—concern, relief, and something deeper. His presence was both comforting and disconcerting. The familiar warmth of his hand on your arm, the concern in his eyes, and the gentle tone of his voice—all of it felt like home. And yet, there was something else, something new, stirring within you. It was an unfamiliar sensation, one that made your chest feel light and your heart beat loudly in your ears.

You stood there, staring into his eyes, and your mind began to drift back to the countless moments you had shared with Lewis. The late-night conversations, the laughter, the shared dreams and hopes. He had always been your anchor, grounding you when the world felt too overwhelming. You remembered the way he would listen to you, truly listen, making you feel heard and understood. No one else had ever made you feel that way.

Lewis had been there during some of the darkest times in your life. When you first broke into the entertainment industry and faced the pressures of fame, he was the one who kept you grounded. He had a way of making you see the bigger picture, of reminding you of your worth and potential. His encouragement had been a constant source of strength for you.

As your mind wandered, you recalled the moments of pure joy you had shared with him. The spontaneous road trips, the late-night drives, the silly arguments that always ended in laughter. Lewis had a way of making even the mundane feel magical. He brought a sense of adventure and excitement into your life, and you cherished every moment you spent with him.

And then there were the quieter moments, the times when words weren't needed. Sitting in comfortable silence, watching the sunset, or simply being in each other's presence. Those moments had a depth and intimacy that you hadn't experienced with anyone else. It was in those moments that you felt truly seen and understood.

But as your relationship with Jensen took over, you had drifted away from Lewis. The demands of your high-profile romance consumed you, and you found yourself distancing from the people who mattered most. Lewis had tried to be there for you, but you were too caught up in the whirlwind to notice. You regretted that now, more than anything.

Standing here, face to face with Lewis, you felt a pang of guilt. You had shut him out, pushed him away when you needed him the most. And yet, here he was, looking at you with the same warmth and concern as always. It was a testament to the kind of person he was, loyal and kind.

But there was something else in his eyes tonight, something that made your heart race. It was a look you hadn't seen before, a depth of emotion that went beyond friendship. It made you feel vulnerable, exposed, and yet strangely exhilarated. You weren't sure what it was, but it made your chest feel light and your heart beat loudly in your ears.

You tried to make sense of this new feeling. It was a mix of longing, anticipation, and a hint of fear. Longing for the connection you once had, anticipation for what could be, and fear of the unknown. You had spent so long guarding your heart, protecting yourself from more pain, that this new sensation was both thrilling and terrifying.

As you stood there, lost in your thoughts, Lewis gently guided you to a quieter corner of the room. The noise and chaos of the party faded into the background as you focused on him, on the way his presence made you feel safe and cherished.

"How have you been?" he asked, his voice filled with genuine concern.

You took a deep breath, trying to find the words to convey everything you had been through. "It's been... challenging," you admitted. "But I'm doing better now. I've been healing, focusing on myself."

He nodded, his eyes never leaving yours. "I'm glad to hear that. I've missed you, Y/N/N."

Those words hit you like a punch to the gut. You had missed him too, more than you could ever express. The realization made your heart ache with a mix of regret and hope.

"I've missed you too, Lewis," you said softly, your voice tinged with emotion.

There was a moment of silence as you both took in each other's presence. It was as if time had stopped, and all that mattered was this moment, this connection between you. You felt a spark, a flicker of something more, and it both excited and scared you.

Lewis reached out and gently took your hand in his. The simple gesture sent a jolt of electricity through you. His touch was familiar, comforting, and yet it ignited a new flame within you. You felt a warmth spread through your chest, a sense of belonging that you hadn't felt in a long time.

"I know things have been tough," he said, his voice low and earnest. "But you're stronger than you think, Y/N/N. You've always been strong."

Tears welled up in your eyes as his words touched a deep part of you. You had been trying to be strong for so long, to prove to yourself and the world that you could rise above the pain. Hearing Lewis acknowledge that strength made you feel seen and validated.

"Thank you, Lewis," you whispered, your voice breaking. "I don't know what I would have done without your support."

He squeezed your hand gently, his eyes filled with a mix of pride and affection. "You've always had it in you, Y/N. You just needed to believe in yourself."

His words resonated with you, echoing the journey you had been on over the past year and a half. You had fought hard to rebuild your life, to find yourself again. And now, standing here with Lewis, you felt a renewed sense of hope.

As the night went on, you found yourself drawn to Lewis in a way you hadn't expected. There was a new layer to your connection, something deeper and more profound. It was as if the time apart had only strengthened the bond between you, and now it was evolving into something more.

You couldn't deny the way your heart raced when he looked at you, the way his touch sent shivers down your spine. It was a feeling you hadn't experienced in a long time, and it scared you. But it also filled you with a sense of excitement and possibility.

You spent the rest of the evening talking, reminiscing about old times and catching up on each other's lives. The conversation flowed effortlessly, just like it always had. And yet, there was an undercurrent of something new, something that made your heart flutter.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

As the night drew to a close, you found yourself standing outside the venue, the cool night air a welcome contrast to the warmth of the party. Lewis stood beside you, his presence a comforting anchor in the midst of everything you were feeling. The two of you had talked throughout the evening, catching up in a way that felt familiar yet distant. There had been laughter, shared memories, and a surface-level exchange about how your lives were going. But there was something deeper weighing on your heart, something you couldn’t ignore any longer.

“Lewis,” you began, your voice soft and hesitant, “I’m sorry.”

He turned to you, his expression shifting from the relaxed smile he’d worn all evening to something more serious, more concerned. “What for?”

You swallowed hard, gathering your thoughts, knowing this was going to be difficult but feeling an overwhelming need to say it. “I know tonight we talked a little bit about our lives and how we’re doing, but I just wanted to say… I’m sorry. For not staying in contact with you throughout college as much as I should have.”

Lewis frowned, his eyes searching your face as if trying to understand where this was coming from. “Y/N, that wasn’t—”

“No, please, let me finish,” you interrupted, your voice shaking slightly as you pushed forward. “And then, when my career took off… You were there for me, supporting me, and I was with Jensen, and I cut you off.”

“Y/N, that wasn’t your fault,” he said quickly, his tone gentle but firm.

“I know,” you nodded, tears welling in your eyes. “But after everything that happened, I didn’t speak to you at all. It’s been three years, Lewis. Three years since it all fell apart, and tonight was the first time I’ve talked to you in years. And we didn’t even really talk. We just… surface talked. And you deserve more than that. So… I’m sorry.”

Lewis looked at you, his eyes filled with a mix of emotions—shock, hurt, confusion. Your words had opened up old wounds, bringing to the surface feelings he’d buried deep down. He was struggling to process it all, his heart racing as he tried to find something to say, to make sense of the flood of emotions you’d just unleashed. But before he could respond, you suddenly seemed to panic.

Your breath hitched as you realized the weight of what you’d just said, the vulnerability you’d exposed. “I—I shouldn’t have brought this up. Not here. Not now,” you stammered, your voice trembling. Without waiting for him to say anything, you turned and walked away, your steps quickening as you headed for your car. “I’m sorry,” you whispered again, but it was barely audible.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Lewis stood there, frozen, watching as you slipped away into the night. His heart ached, the apology you’d left him with echoing in his mind. “She’s sorry?” he murmured to himself, the words feeling hollow and incomplete. There was so much more to say, so much more he wanted to understand, but you were gone before he could even begin to process it.

As you sat in your car, your hands gripping your purse, you felt a wave of regret wash over you. “What did I just do?” you whispered, your voice laced with self-recrimination. “That wasn’t the time or place… I’m such an idiot.” You stared blankly ahead, the headlights of passing cars blurring as your mind replayed the scene over and over. You couldn’t believe you’d brought up something so deep, so personal, in such a casual setting. And then, you didn’t even give him a chance to respond. You just walked away. Again.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Meanwhile, Lewis remained rooted to the spot, his thoughts a chaotic swirl of confusion and hurt. Your words had ripped open old scars, bringing back all the pain of losing you, the ache of your absence in his life. And now, you’d said you were sorry, but what did that mean? Was that it? Was that all you had to say after years of silence?

“She’s sorry…” Lewis repeated, his voice barely a whisper. It wasn’t enough. It didn’t explain why you’d cut him off, why you’d let so much time pass without a word, and why you’d left him standing there without so much as an explanation.

As the chauffeur approached him, telling him his car was ready, Lewis felt a sudden rush of determination. He couldn’t let it end like this. Not again. He couldn’t let you walk away without at least trying to understand, without at least saying something—anything—that might bridge the gap that had grown between you over the years.

“Follow that black SUV that just pulled off,” Lewis instructed the driver as he climbed into the car.

“Okay, sir,” the driver responded, nodding as he pulled away from the curb, keeping the distance between the cars minimal.

Lewis leaned back in his seat, his mind racing. He didn’t know what he was going to say when he caught up with you, but he knew he had to try. He couldn’t let you disappear from his life again, not after everything you’d just unearthed, not after the years of silence and buried feelings that were now clawing their way to the surface.

He watched the road ahead, his heart pounding, as the chauffeur followed closely behind your car. He didn’t care how long it took, or what he had to do—he wasn’t going to let you slip away again. Not this time.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

You had just returned to your penthouse after the Met Gala after-party, exhausted yet exhilarated by the night's events. The gown you had worn now lay draped over a chair, and you had just managed to slip into a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a loose-fitting t-shirt. The clock on your bedside table blinked 3:40 AM. You were about to crawl into bed when a knock on the door startled you.

"Who the fuck?" you muttered to yourself, rubbing your eyes as you made your way to the door.

Opening it, you were met with the sight of Lewis, looking disheveled and intense. You blinked, trying to process the unexpected visitor.

"Lewis? What are you doing here?" you asked, your voice a mix of confusion and concern.

He didn't say a word, just walked past you into the penthouse and sat down heavily on your couch. You stood there for a moment, stunned. This was not like Lewis. Closing the door behind you, you walked over to him, trying to understand what was happening.

"Uh, okay. What's going on?" you asked, your voice tentative.

Before you could say anything else, Lewis turned to you, his eyes blazing with a mix of hurt and frustration.

"You're sorry... Sorry, Y/N? After all these years of not speaking to each other and being best friends, that's all you have to say to me? Sorry? I deserve more than that. No, fuck that, I need more from you," he said, his voice trembling with emotion.

Your confusion deepened, and you took a step back, trying to gather your thoughts. "Lewis, I—what do you want me to say? I mean, friends drift apart, a lot of shit happened" you began, but he cut you off.

"Friends?! Friends, Y/N? I've known you since we were kids. I know your favorite movie, your favorite color, your favorite flowers—yeah, flowers, because you have three. I know how you like your eggs cooked, I know you love ketchup but hate tomatoes on anything. I know you're allergic to mosquito bites, and you hate when people say something and then say 'never mind'. I know you, Y/N, everything about you. You're my person, my Y/N. We are not just friends, Y/N. At least not in my eyes."

You stood there, speechless, as his words washed over you. He continued, his voice growing more desperate. "So yes, I'm mad at your 'I'm sorry' after three years of not hearing from you, having to call your parents, friends, your siblings, hell, even your assistant to know how you are doing. So, sorry if I feel like the girl I've been in love with since forever deserves to give me more of a conversation."

His words hung in the air, heavy and charged with emotion. You stared at him, your mind racing to comprehend everything he had just said. There was a silence, thick and palpable, stretching between you both.

"You... love me?" you finally managed to whisper, your voice barely audible.

The room seemed to close in around you as you waited for his response, your heart pounding loudly in your ears.

.•☆.°.•.*₊ ♪ ♫ .• ☆.°.• .

Lewis’s silence was deafening. He stared at you with a mixture of vulnerability and determination, his usual confidence stripped away by raw emotion. You could see the pain etched in his features, and it mirrored the tumultuous feelings inside you.

"Yes, Y/N," he said finally, his voice hoarse. "I love you. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. And it’s not just some fleeting feeling or a phase. It’s been there, in the background, every day, every moment we’ve been apart. I’ve watched you build your life, your career, and I’ve cheered you on from a distance. But it was never enough for me to just be on the sidelines. I wanted more, I needed more, and I didn’t know how to make you see that."

You took a deep breath, your mind reeling from his confession. The realization that Lewis’s feelings for you were not just platonic but something deeper, something that had been lingering all these years, was overwhelming. It made you feel exposed and vulnerable in ways you hadn’t anticipated.

"I... I didn’t know," you said softly, your voice trembling. "I had no idea you felt this way."

Lewis’s eyes softened slightly, but the pain was still evident. "How could you? I kept it hidden, buried under layers of friendship and missed opportunities. I thought maybe if I stayed out of the way, you’d figure it out on your own. But the longer I stayed silent, the more I realized that I was just hurting myself. And when you disappeared, I thought I’d lost my chance forever."

Your mind flashed back to those moments when you were close, when you shared everything with him. You remembered how he always seemed to be just a step away from being more than a friend, but you had never let yourself acknowledge it. Your focus had been on your own life, your career, and Jensen. Now, standing in front of Lewis, you saw the depth of what you had missed.

"I was so caught up in everything that happened with Jensen," you said, tears welling up in your eyes. "I pushed everyone away, including you. And now... now I’m not sure what to do with all of this. I didn’t know how much I missed you until you were back here, but I’m still trying to understand what this means."

Lewis stood up and walked towards you, his gaze never leaving yours. "What it means, Y/N, is that I’m here, laying it all out for you. I’m not asking for anything other than the chance to be honest with you. I need you to know how I feel, and I need you to decide if there’s a place for me in your life—beyond just friends."

The emotion in his voice was almost palpable, and you could feel the weight of his words pressing down on you. Your heart ached with the complexity of the situation. You had been through so much, and now faced with this raw, unfiltered declaration of love, you felt torn.

As the silence stretched between you and Lewis, you felt a tumult of emotions roiling within you. The weight of his confession had struck a chord deep inside, stirring feelings that had long been buried. His words had opened a floodgate, and as you stood there, the realization that you had harbored a deep love for him all along became crystal clear.

"I love you," you said softly, the words escaping your lips almost as a whisper but carrying the weight of years of unspoken emotion.

Lewis’s eyes widened in shock, his mouth slightly open as he struggled to process what he had just heard. "W-What?" he stuttered, his voice barely above a whisper. The disbelief in his tone was palpable, and for a moment, he seemed frozen, as if he couldn’t quite grasp the reality of the situation.

You took a deep breath, trying to steady your racing heart and the tears that threatened to spill over. You locked eyes with him, your gaze unwavering. "The recent years apart made me realize just how much I truly missed you. I was so naïve and stupid when we were younger. I didn’t see how you looked at me or how you treated me. You were always there for me, through the good and the bad days. Even when I wanted to rot away, you were there, holding me up."

Tears began to slip down your cheeks, and you reached up to wipe them away with trembling fingers. "Tonight, seeing you again after all these years, my whole mind and body were flooded with emotions. It made me realize what I knew deep down: that I love you. I’ve always loved you more than a friend. I’m so sorry for all the pain I’ve put you through. I know I can’t make it up to you, and you have every right not to forgive me. But I am so sorry, Lewis. I love you. I really do. I’m in love with you."

Your voice broke as you spoke, and the tears you had been trying to hold back began to fall freely. The intensity of your emotions was overwhelming, and you felt a mixture of relief and sorrow as you poured out your heart.

Lewis’s eyes were wide with disbelief, and his own tears began to form as he processed your confession. He stood up slowly, the gravity of the moment clearly affecting him. Without a word, he walked towards you, his steps filled with purpose and urgency.

When he reached you, he cupped your face gently in his hands, his touch both tender and fervent. He leaned in, closing the gap between you, and his lips met yours in a passionate, urgent kiss. The kiss was filled with all the longing, love, and frustration that had been building up over the years. It was a kiss that spoke of pain and hope, of dreams lost and found.

When he finally pulled away, his eyes were filled with a mix of wonder and joy. "You have no fucking idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say those words to me," he said, his voice choked with emotion. "I’m not even sure if this is real or if my mind is just playing tricks on me."

You managed a soft, tearful laugh, the joy and relief mingling with the sadness of your confession. You reached up, gently cradling his face in your hands. His hands were still on your face, his touch grounding and reassuring. "It’s real, Lewis," you said with a trembling smile. "I love you, Lewis Hamilton. I always have."

Lewis’s expression softened, and he returned your smile with a mixture of adoration and relief. "And I love you, Y/N L/N. Always have, always will."

With that, the intensity of the moment took over, he closed the distance between you, his lips crashing onto yours in a fervent, passionate kiss. The kiss was deep and urgent, fueled by the years of longing and unspoken feelings that had been bottled up. Your bodies pressed together, the heat of the moment making you both lose track of everything but the electric connection between you.

As the kiss continued, Lewis’s hands roamed over your back, pulling you closer to him. You could feel the strength of his arms around you, and the warmth of his body pressed against yours. The kiss was a dance of passion and tenderness, each of you exploring the newfound closeness with a mix of fervor and delicacy.

With a sudden surge of energy, Lewis lifted you off the ground, his arms strong and steady as he cradled you against him. A surprised yelp of joy escaped your lips, but it was quickly swallowed by another deep kiss. You wrapped your legs around his waist, feeling the thrill of being held so securely.

Lewis pulled away briefly, his breath mingling with yours as he looked into your eyes with a mix of desire and determination. "Bedroom," he murmured, his voice rough with emotion.

You nodded, guiding him towards the bedroom with a sense of excitement and anticipation. "It's this way," you whispered, your voice breathless. As he carried you through the penthouse, his lips never left your neck, trailing kisses that sent shivers down your spine.

When you reached the bedroom, Lewis gently laid you down on the bed, his gaze never leaving yours. The room was dimly lit, casting soft shadows that danced along the walls. The atmosphere was charged with a mixture of passion and vulnerability, the culmination of years of unspoken emotions.

As you lay on the bed, Lewis’s hands roamed over your body with a mixture of reverence and eagerness. He kissed your neck, moving slowly down towards your collarbone, his lips brushing against your skin with a tenderness that made your heart race. His touch was both soothing and electrifying, igniting every nerve in your body.

You reached up, your hands working on the buttons of his shirt with a sense of urgency. The fabric fell away, revealing his well-defined chest. You traced your fingers over his skin, savoring the warmth and strength beneath your fingertips. Lewis responded with a soft, appreciative murmur, his hands continuing their exploration of your body.

You continued to undress him, your movements growing more confident as you removed his pants and underwear. Each layer of clothing that fell away seemed to bring you both closer, the physical closeness mirroring the emotional connection that had finally been acknowledged.

His kisses were searing, each one more urgent than the last. His hands roaming your body with a hunger that left you breathless, igniting a fire wherever they touched. His mouth moved from your lips to your neck, kissing, nipping, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. You arched into him, the need for more overwhelming.

Without breaking contact, he settled between your legs, his hands sliding under your shirt, lifting it over your head. As you unclasped your bra, Lewis’s eyes were filled with adoration and desire. "You’re beautiful," he whispered, his voice husky with emotion. He leaned down, capturing one of your nipples in his mouth, his tongue swirling around it while his fingers teased the other. You moaned, your back arching off the bed, the sensation sending jolts of pleasure straight to your core.

Lewis trailed kisses down your body, his mouth hot against your skin, until he reached the waistband of your panties. He looked up at you, his eyes locking with yours as he slowly pulled them down, the anticipation building with every second. He spread your legs wider, his breath hot against your most sensitive area. When his tongue finally made contact, you cried out, your hands gripping the sheets. He licked and sucked, his tongue exploring every inch, driving you wild with need.

"Fuck, you taste so good," he murmured against your skin, his voice husky with desire. "I can't get enough of you."

You gasped, the sensation of his mouth on you too much and not enough all at once. "Lewis, please," you begged, your voice trembling with need.

"Patience, love," he whispered, his breath hot against your skin. "I want to savor every moment."

He looked up, his eyes dark with lust, before diving back in, his tongue working in tandem with his fingers. He slid one, then two fingers inside you, curling them just right, hitting that perfect spot over and over again. Your body responded immediately, the pressure building, your breaths coming in short, ragged gasps. When the first orgasm hit, it was like a wave crashing over you, your body tensing, then shuddering as the pleasure rolled through you.

But Lewis wasn't done. He continued working his fingers in and out of you, relentlessly, not giving you a moment to come down from your high. His tongue flicked over your clit as his fingers worked you, the sensation almost too much. You could feel another orgasm building, the intensity of it taking your breath away. When it hit, it was even more powerful than the first, your body convulsing with the force of it. You screamed his name, your vision going white with the sheer pleasure of it.

"You taste so sweet," he murmured, his voice thick with desire. "I could do this all night."

He pulled back slightly, his eyes locked on yours. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice soft with concern.

You nodded, still trying to catch your breath. "More than okay," you managed to say, your voice hoarse with pleasure.

He smiled, a wicked glint in his eye. "Good. Because I'm not done with you yet."

He climbed back up your body, capturing your lips in another searing kiss. You could feel his erection pressing against you, the need in him just as fierce as your own. Without breaking the kiss, you flipped him onto his back, straddling him, your hands running over his chest, feeling the hard muscles beneath your fingers.

"You’re so sexy," you murmured against his skin, your voice thick with desire. "I can't get enough of you."

You kissed him, your lips trailing down his neck, over his chest, worshipping his body. You moved lower, taking his thick cock into your mouth, your tongue swirling around the tip before taking it deeper, your hand stroking what your mouth couldn't reach. He groaned, his hands tangling in your hair, his control slipping.

"God, Y/N," he groaned, his voice rough with need. "Feels so fuckin’ good, sweetheart."

You continued sucking his cock, taking your time to pleasure him until he was teetering on the edge.

But he didn't let you finish. He pulled you up, his eyes burning with lust. "I want to come in you," he said, his voice rough. He flipped you over, positioning himself at your entrance. He pushed in slowly, the sensation of him filling you making you gasp.

He moved with a steady rhythm at first, his thrusts deep and powerful. The pleasure built quickly, the sensation of him inside you driving you wild. "Who's my good girl?" he whispered in your ear, his voice sending shivers down your spine. "You like that, right?"

You could only moan in response, the pleasure too intense for words. He moved faster, his thrusts harder, each one hitting that perfect spot inside you. He leaned down, taking one of your nipples into his mouth, sucking and biting gently. The combination of sensations was overwhelming, and you felt another orgasm building, the pressure intense. When it hit, it was like an explosion, your body shaking with the force of it.

But Lewis didn't stop. This time he put a pillow under your lower back, throwing your legs over his shoulders. His thrusts were relentless, powerful, driving you to the edge again and again. You could feel another orgasm building, the intensity of it almost too much to bear. When it finally hit, it was like a tidal wave, crashing over you, leaving you breathless, dizzy with pleasure.

Even though you had come, Lewis hadn't. He continued to move, his thrusts never losing their rhythm, overwhelming you with pleasure. You could feel another orgasm building, the sensation almost too much. When it hit, it was like a white-hot explosion, your body convulsing with the force of it.

"Lewis, I can't... it's too much," you gasped, your body trembling with the intensity of the pleasure.

"You can take it, baby," he whispered, his husky voice filled with love and lust. "You're a good girl, right baby. Take it for me.

Lewis finally let himself go, his thrusts becoming erratic as he chased his own release. When he came, it was with a deep groan, his body tensing, then shuddering as he emptied himself inside you. He collapsed on top of you, his breath hot against your skin, his body trembling with the aftermath.

He rolled off you, pulling you close, his arms wrapping around you. He pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, his fingers tracing patterns on your back. "Are you okay?" he asked, his voice soft, concern lacing his tone.

You nodded, still trying to catch your breath. "That was... incredible," you managed to say, your voice hoarse.

Lewis smiled, his eyes softening. "You were incredible," he said, his hand cupping your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin. He kissed you gently, his lips soft against yours, a stark contrast to the rough passion from earlier.

He got up, disappearing into the bathroom for a moment before returning with a warm, damp cloth. He cleaned you up gently, his touch tender, his eyes never leaving yours. He tossed the cloth in the damper and climbed back into bed, pulling you into his arms.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked again, his voice filled with genuine concern.

"I'm perfect," you said, snuggling closer to him, your body still humming with the afterglow of your multiple orgasms.

Lewis’s fingers traced gentle patterns on your skin, his touch soothing and tender. He looked at you with a smile, his eyes filled with a mixture of contentment and adoration. "I never imagined this would happen," he said softly, his voice filled with wonder. "But I’m so glad it did."

You smiled back at him, your heart full and your soul at peace. "Me too," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "I’ve never felt so complete."

He continued to hold you, his fingers tracing gentle patterns on your back. "You're everything to me," he said quietly. "I want you to know that."

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, the depth of his words touching you deeply. You had always known that there was something special between you, but hearing it aloud made it all the more real.

"You mean everything to me too, Lewis," you whispered, your voice thick with emotion.

Lewis smiled, pressing another kiss to your forehead. "Good," he said, his voice soft. "I want you to feel safe and loved, always."

You looked up at him, your heart swelling with emotion. "I do," you said, your voice thick with feeling. "I love you, Lewis."

He looked at you, his eyes shining with emotion. "I love you too," he said, his voice steady and sincere.

You lay there in each other's arms, the tension and passion of the night giving way to a comfortable silence, the only sound the soft beat of your hearts in sync. The world outside ceased to exist, and in that moment, there was only the two of you, wrapped up in each other's love and warmth.

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[getitoutofmymindwrites]

The landing | joel miller x f!reader, 13.2k

Summary: You feel him before you see him. He’s still taking up space in your micro-universe. His sole presence creates ripples through the atmosphere as he walks towards you, softly nudging you to turn your head from your spot to look behind you. Or The one where your orbits finally collide for the final showdown.

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, NO SPOILER (read A/N), ANGST, cheater!joel, discussions of infidelity, mention of food consumption, yelling, crying, the briefest mention of smut thoughts, sprinkle of fluff (blink and you'll miss it), as always let me know if I missed anything 👀

A/N: Ok, *deep breath* I know I can't make everyone happy unless I write alternate endings 😅 and I understand that infidelity can be a very triggering concept. I gave them the ending I felt they both deserved, but if you're looking for a story where they are at each other's throats for 13k words, maybe this is not for you and you are more than welcome to kindly move on. I won't spoil the ending in the Warnings, so proceed with caution, you know what the main theme is all about. All I can tell you is that this part of the story is divided into two main scenes because I didn't want to drag it out with one little scene after another. *she says after spilling 13k words🙄sorry about that👀* As always, I would love to read your thoughts on the last part and please keep in mind that writing is almost always self-indulgent.

P.S. I want to thank each and every one of you for the love I received for this mini-series, I never thought it would engage so many people. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. You've all been so kind and sweet to me, so this journey filled my heart with joy! I love you all, take care of yourselves and I'll see you -hopefully- in the comments! Oh! My asks are always open if you want to know more about their story. I could even write drabbles or one-shots about anything you'd like to know in particular. Ily, bye 😘

P.S. I deliberately left the last two lines without clarification of who says what, I leave that up to you. 🤍

Dividers by @cafekitsune @saradika-graphics @plum98

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

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FOUR YEARS AFTER THE FALL

Are you still falling?

You’re not sure anymore. Maybe you’re just used to it. Or maybe you just learned how to fly. It certainly feels like everything has slowed down. Sometimes it feels like floating. As if you’re a feather, so lightweight, swirling around aimlessly. But you can never touch the ground. Gravity can’t quite pull you down. Every time you feel like you’re finally landing, a force of nature pulls you back up.

Maybe it is a soft, warm, summer breeze, a memory of Joel.

Maybe it is a whirlwind, a contact from the lawyers.

Maybe it is a snowstorm, sign the papers, please.

Maybe it is the whispering of a gentle wind, the possibilities of what might have been, or the lack of real closure.

But it’s nice here. Even between the earth and the sky.

You never thought you’d enjoy leaving the big city and making a home for yourself on a ranch. But you loved it. You loved the peace and quiet, you loved this new community of people, you loved taking care of the horses, riding them, being around them. And then there was the house. A place you could almost call home. It was beautiful, rustic, warm, inviting, lacking none of the comforts a modern house needs, because you can’t quite get the big city girl out of you. The entire land had a soft, yellow-golden light enveloping every tree and every rock, everywhere your eyes reached, as if the sun shone differently here.

The days are easy. The chores are more than enough to keep you focused, there’s always something to do around here. It feels good to be busy, to keep your mind from dwelling on the past. You welcome the exhaustion of a full day’s work that accompanies your body when night comes.

Evenings are mostly good. You shower the day off, you cook, you chill on the couch with a good book or a film and more often than not, as the time passes and you feel more comfortable sharing the privacy of your home, you have friends over for dinner and drinks.

Nights though, nights are hard. At night, you pray that you are tired to the point of exhaustion so that you can sleep through it peacefully. Sometimes it works, but most of the time, not so much.

Time has intensified and lessened your emotional burden simultaneously.

The sharp pain that feels like thick acid being poured into you mellows in an inexplicable way. It still hurts, the pain oozing out of your every single pore even in a physical way. Only now, it has transformed into a sweet, slow poison conquering every hollow of your body, every vein leading from your heart to the ends of your limbs.

It’s almost a welcoming feeling, this pain, reminding you that you’re still alive, that he was real, that everything that happened was real. Because sometimes, sometimes, when you let yourself relax, when you let your guard down, all of this feels like a dream. Sometimes, you wake up in the middle of the night, confused, reaching with your hand for the other side of the bed and finding it empty. And for a split second you get that feeling. The feeling of how it used to be with him next to you.

Then you remember.

You know why this is happening and who’s responsible for it. This is a mix-up. This is what your treacherous brain does to mess with your resolve. It blends the bad stuff into the good, creating the strangest of concoctions. The clear image of black and white, neatly and perfectly hung in the center of the walls of your mind is now splashed with colorful memories from your life together, like a Pollock painting. You do your best to resist, to bring back scenes from all the vivid recollections of the night your life changed forever but your uncooperative brain pops another memory up, a good fuckin’ memory, like a projector, illuminating those bare imaginary walls with laughter and touches and whispers and scents and warmth. It’s relentless.

This dichotomy creates an uneasiness inside you, you choose to reject and pretend not to notice. Which in turn leads to self-contempt because, as always you can’t lie to yourself. You may lie to others but deep in your core you have to be honest with yourself. That is something you’re owed. To be aware, present in the reality of your life. So, you know, you know, you just sweep things under the carpet as a copy mechanism. You know what you should do.

You should confront him. You should demand answers and then finally say what you need to say to him. Not for him, not for his sake, but for yours. But you can’t. You've lost count of how many times you've picked up the phone and your thumb hovered over his contact to call him but you just can’t bring yourself to do it. And every time you tried to text him, to start a conversation, it felt too awkward. The only acceptable subject of discussion initiated by you was the progress of the divorce papers. You were unable to even remotely insinuate a more meaningful encounter. And he didn’t make any advances either. Not that you gave him any room to try and talk to you, but still, he seemed more settled with that, rather than not.

Maybe that fact itself was your cue to let it all go. He’s probably moved on. You don’t cheat on someone so blatantly and then want them back. Obviously, this whole delaying of the divorce is a power play, like everything else, it seems.

Good, yeah, that’s it. That’s it.

Now, let go. Move on. You solved it. Let go.

But this annoying little voice is scratching the walls of your weary brain, nudging the limits of the carefully made up serenity that’s hanging by a thread.

You should confront him. For your peace of mind, for your equilibrium.

But it’s nice here. Even between the earth and the sky.

Joel, will you please sign the papers?

It’s early in the evening and you’re in the garden in front of the house near the porch, on your knees, plucking a few weeds from the ground. The fatigue of the day’s work has begun to take its toll on you, your shoulder is slightly trembling as you rest your weight on one palm to dig around with the other. Sweat covers your torso, rolling down between the valley of your breasts and the hollow between your spine, leaving your t-shirt clinging to your skin, your hair sticking to your forehead, which is lightly covered in a thin layer of dirt at some places as you keep wiping your forearm over the little beads of salty water that concentrate over your brows.

You feel him before you see him. He’s still taking up space in your micro-universe. His sole presence creates ripples through the atmosphere as he walks towards you, softly nudging you to turn your head from your spot to look behind you.

There's an overload of sensations before you shift your body around to confirm what you already know in your bones. You can smell him, taste him, feel him on your suddenly tingling skin, all at the same time.

You turn slowly and your breath hitches on your throat. You just stay in place, frozen, time infinitely stretching as you take him in from where you kneel on the ground. He stops abruptly the second his eyes meet yours and you could swear he’s holding his breath, his face completely unreadable.

He looks.. he looks like your Joel and nothing like him simultaneously. Soft yet imposing. Handsome yet battered. Determined yet lost. His clothing is simpler, dark jeans, green flannel over a black t-shirt and laced boots, as if he just returned from a working site. His curls are longer, framing his handsome face in a ridiculously good way, more white hairs nestle in his beard that is not that trimmed. Neither of you speak quite yet, taking each other in.

Your mind, your bizarre, ridiculous mind is working on figuring out what day it is. Why does it matter? Did you have an appointment? This is unexpected and a long time coming all at once, regardless of the day of the week. What comes next? Do you draw up an astrological map to determine if it's a compatible date for you to meet? Get it together.

Your facial expression must be pretty funny because Joel smiles awkwardly while scratching one side of his bearded cheek; hey, it’s me.

No, shit, you mentally respond, as if you could ever forget him. Furious is the word that best describes you because these are his first words? Hey, it’s me? And that feeling escalates into an explosive retort because you now realize that you had expectations. His first words? Who cares what his first words are? Were you expecting a tearful reunion, masterfully staged and executed like a romantic film? The guy betrayed you in your own house, sorry, his house. Wake the fuck up.

“Did you sign the papers?” you spit as you rise from your spot and he reacts as if you have punched him in the stomach. His face falls; you see a series of micro-expressions pass over his features before he settles on the last one. Has he been hurt? Did you hurt his feelings? Did he also have expectations?

“Uh-”, Joel raises his brows in genuine surprise, things probably not going the way he expected or hoped.

“It’s nice to see you, too.”, he replies with mild mockery.

Your eyes snap shut and you laugh in anger, lowering your chin to your chest and then looking back up at him, your eyes blazing, your brows mimicking his previously surprised expression, “Are you serious right now?” you cross your hands defensively over your chest.

You stare at each other for a good minute, both of you taking a moment to compose yourselves and regain your balance.

You break first, dropping your head back to your chest, looking down at the heel of your shoe scraping the ground beneath you, exhaling audibly.

“Hey,” Joel tries again, after speaking your name tenderly, your name on his lips, his head dipping down and to the side to try and get your attention back to him, his gaze filled with a mixture of warmth, regret and fear, “hi.”

You shake your head from side to side in repentance, what a great start this is, you keep thinking, “Hi.” is all you give him, still not looking at him.

“Hi,” he repeats, “it’s really nice to see you, bab-, shit, sorry.”, he winces, covering his mouth with his palm, embarrassment creeping into his features. You let out a quiet laugh, exhaling through your nose. You don’t comment on the slip of endearment that leaves his mouth, you don’t correct him, accepting privately that you liked it, you missed it, you longed for it.

Joel studies your face, but makes no comment on your silence. “You look...” he pauses for a split second before deciding to continue, “you look really good.” He hesitates, he doesn't want his compliment to come across as a feeble attempt to patronize you, because he really means it. You do look good, all sweaty and muddy and human and real. You are real. If he took a few steps forward, he could actually reach out and touch you, feel your skin under his fingertips, smell your heady scent, perhaps discreetly lick the remnants of your sweat from his thumb after carefully removing the strands of hair sticking on your forehead. But he doesn’t do that. He doesn’t do any of that.

You don’t quite know how to respond to that, any answer crossing your mind seems stupid or cheesy or dismissive. How do you respond to a compliment from the man who made you worship in his altar, only to have your faith ripped out of your heart?

His eyes keep roaming over your face, your figure, memorizing everything he can, like a blind man who has finally found his light, while he fidgets with an envelope in his hand which reminds you-

“Did you sign the papers, Joel?”, is what escapes your lips before you can think twice.

“No.” and now it’s his turn to lower his head, his eyes avoiding your gaze, as he looks down at his feet.

“Joel!”, you exclaim infuriated, rolling your eyes at him, knitting your brows together in a sign of frustration.

“No, no, it’s not like that. I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you want.”, Joel raises a hand in your direction to stop you from what seems to be a fair assumption, his palm up, facing you in an unspoken surrender. “I thought that- me, not signing, was a way of showing you how deeply sorry I am, how much I wanted to fix our marriage, but I understand now,” his voice wavers slightly, “that I need to respect your wishes. It’s the right thing to do. If this is still what you want, I’m gonna sign it.”

You don’t reply to that last part, only pointing out that “You didn’t have to come all this way to tell me that.”

“No, I didn’t.” Joel agrees.

“Then why are you here?” you insist, reluctant to entertain the idea that he has actually come all this way to apologize.

“Because I owe you an explanation.” is his honest and direct answer, sending little jolts of electricity through your nerves.

“Joel..” you sigh in exasperation. Not in warning or frustration, not really, but in something else. A feeling you can’t really put a name to, the closest you can come to describing it is that of a burden, woven deep into your heart, blossoming rapidly with each beat. There are so many things left unsaid; it makes you feel helpless, like you’re drowning. You want the dam you’ve built around your soul over the years to break so everything you've been holding back can finally pour out of you, but there’s just so much of it, of everything, that you’re terrified. Will the overflowing tank of emotions be completely empty? Will there be anything left unsaid? Untouched? What if the remnants left behind keep licking around your wounds, their waves pushing, shaping what’s left of you into something new, unrecognizable?

And what if, the tank will indeed be completely empty? What you’ll be left with, then? Nothing? Just.. empty? Will you remain empty? What, if anything, will take its place? Will you recognize your new self? Will you like yourself? Will you be able to live in harmony with this shell of a person? This you; you know. You hated and pitied and caressed and comforted and forgave and nurtured you into some version of a new you. But this? Everything will be torn apart, the wounds will be freshly opened, accessible to be examined in detail, plucked and bled and bruised in an all-too-familiar way.

Joel’s voice snaps you out of your trance, “No, I do. I owe you more than that, actually, but that’s the least I can do. And I wanna do that while I’m still your husband. I want to explain myself as your husband. Apologize to my wife, as her husband. Then I’m gonna sign anything you want me to.”

“And if I don’t wanna hear what you have to say?”

“Then I’ll just sign the papers and leave you in peace.” Joel confesses in all his honesty.

You just nod, looking down on the ground. You take a deep breath to ground yourself. You can do this. You want to do this. You need to do this.

You walk towards the house and sit down on the steps of the porch, as he looks at you awkwardly, not knowing where to stand. You gesture with a tilt of your head for him to come sit next to you. You can do this. You realize that you didn’t invite him into the house and you feel a bit rude for that, but it's beyond your empathetic capacity to deal with him being here and to let him into the house as well. “I just like it out here, it’s calm and-”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, whatever makes you feel comfortable; I know you don’t want me here any longer than I have to be..” he interrupts you as he sits down next to you, his one side pressing against the end of the stairs, where the railing begins. He places the contract between your bodies, on the wooden floor.

It makes you uncomfortable, his statement, you always want people to feel welcome and relaxed around you. You internally chastise yourself for worrying about his feelings instead of yours, but you can’t help it, it’s embedded in your DNA. “It’s OK, Joel, I don’t mind, we can talk.”

Joel nods, but he remains silent. You don’t break the silence, giving him time to collect his thoughts. He chuckles defeated, shaking his head while rubbing his hand over his face.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, you don’t look that mighty to me anymore.” you blurt out before you can stop yourself and you immediately regret it. It didn’t sound so insulting in your head. You only meant to say that he doesn’t intimidate you anymore. Which is sort of a lie and a truth at the same time. You used to find him imposing, even his mere presence had the ability to make your skin crawl, your heart flutter and your words get catch in your dry throat, you were in awe of him. Every time you laid your eyes at him, even when you were straddling his lap or gazing at his profile as he slept beside you, you always felt as if you were looking up. You admired him.

His heart loses several beats to that. He can read between your lines now. He has lost your respect. Your admiration. The time when you looked up to him in awe is long gone.

“You know, my therapist warned me about this.”, he chuckles bitterly.

“Your-” you can’t hide your shocked expression from him as you search his eyes for any sign of him joking around, but you find none. “You’ve been in therapy?”

“Yeah, I-, I spent two years hating myself,” he chuckles deprecatingly, “and then I realized it was time for me to stop being an arrogant prick, so I spent another two doing it all over again with the help of my therapist.”

You laugh wholeheartedly at that and it’s the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen in his entire life. “OK, somebody’s off to a good start. Go on.”

“You mean about the therapy?”

“I mean about you admitting you are an arrogant prick”, you say playfully.

He really laughs now, his eyes crinkle up at the sides. You used to love that. You feel your heart warming up. “You can thank Maria for that.”

“For what?”

“For kicking my ass and pushing me to help myself.” Joel admits. “She’s a good friend.”

“Yeah, she is.” you agree through your laughter, the image of Maria actually kicking Joel’s ass is priceless.

“I missed that sound.” Joel is looking at you softly, as if his gaze could break you.

“Hm.” you simply smile at him, not finding it in you to respond with a snide remark. The time for that feels like it has passed, like it’s irrelevant at this point. All you really want is to have an honest conversation, irony be damned.

You both look at your feet in silent consideration for a minute or two. “I thought you’d be mad at me.” Joel reveals.

You exhale through your nose, the edges of your mouth turning up in a gentle smile. “Four years is a long time to be mad at anyone, Joel. Even you don’t have that kind of power over me.”

“Good. I have enough burden on my shoulders as it is..”, he mumbles and you decide to change the subject.

How do you admit that you are still mad at him but in a different way? How do you describe the deep scar his existence has carved into your soul making it almost unbearable to even exist without him? How do you explain that you’ll always carry him with you, no matter what? How do you instill in him that you still believe in the best version of him, the best version you know he can be, the best version of him you once lived with. Yes, you’re not mad at him for the reasons he thinks you are. You’re mad at him because the way he made you love him is stronger than any hurt he’s ever caused you.

“So, what did your therapist warn you about?”

“She, uh- she tried to prepare me for this.”

“Oh? What did she say?”

“That I should not be prepared.”, he laughs in earnest. “That I should not obsess about what I want to say and just be open and have an honest interaction.”

“I like her, already.” you say with a straight face.

He smiles softly, looking down at his boots, while he rests his elbows on his knees, one palm encircling the other. “Yeah… I had some digging to do; I still do for that matter and will be for a long time it seems.”

“Anything you wanna share?” you reply, raising an eyebrow as if you had no idea why he was here.

“Oh, boy-” he squirms in his seat, already overwhelmed by the turn of the conversation, his chest almost vibrating with anxiety, he can barely swallow, small beads of sweat starting to form around his temples. You reluctantly reach for his forearm, trying to calm him down. “Hey, Joel?”

His whole body stiffens at your touch and he wishes his clothes would evaporate so he could feel your skin against his. He fixes his eyes on your delicate fingers lightly squeezing his tight muscles underneath the fabric. “The worst part has already happened four years ago, so-” you shrug, “just breathe.” Joel keeps his eyes on your hand, his heart rate dropping slightly; you ground him. You retract your arm and keep your hands to yourself in an effort to maintain a respectable distance between you. You shouldn’t have touched him at all.

“I think- I think I understand now.” he begins, still feeling the ghost of your touch on his forearm. “How I made you feel, what your words meant. You always did that, you know. And I found it so fascinating and so exhausting at the same time.”

You look at him, confused. Joel continues, “You always chose your words carefully. You had a reason for every single thing you said. In retrospect, I realized that you were handing me everything on a silver platter, but I was too self-absorbed to see it at the time.”

You nod in agreement, gesturing with your head for him to keep going.

Joel takes a deep breath, holding it inside his lungs for a while. His exhalation is controlled, measured. “Fuck. Okay. It was not just the fact itself. It was not just the cheatin’.”

Your stomach clenches violently at his words. The time has finally come and although you know what happened, you where there, when the words come out of Joel’s mouth it's as if you're pulled back to that threshold all over again. It really happened. You feel your hands sweating. “Go on.”, you pronounce carefully, already anxious your voice is going to betray you. You can do this.

“I don’t want to sound all full of myself-” Joel hesitates.

“You won’t.” you interrupt him with conviction. The truth has never frightened you. You welcome it. It feels like a form of catharsis, it feels like you’re finally being seen. Every nerve in your body is on fire. You’re ready for this, for the truth, if only he gives it to you. Please, set me free.

“I was your everything.” he whispers, almost embarrassed, his eyes not meeting yours. You don’t respond to that, not until he looks at you, although the admission shoots straight through your heart. You stare at the side of his face, almost forcing him to turn to you. He does.

“You were.” Simple. True. Clear as the light of day.

“And I ripped that from you.”

“You did.”

“In the worst possible way.”

“Hmhm.”, you don’t trust the stability of your voice.

“And no matter what I say, I can never take back what I did. I humiliated you, our home, our relationship, everything. I-” his brows furrow in an expression of disgust, “I disrespected myself. I burned everything down. I left nothing for you to hold on to, nothing for me to hope for, nothing.”

His chin trembles and his voice wavers as he continues. “The words to describe how sorry I am have not yet been invented. And even if they had, they still couldn’t take the pain away; what’s done, is done.”

He closes his eyes and rests his head on the railing. “I don’t know what I wish for anymore. That you had never met me, so you could be spared all this pain? But I can’t. I can’t wish that, because I’m so grateful to have met you. I married you, I had you. That is what has comforted me all these years, what has got me through all those sleepless nights.” He looks absolutely devastated, desperate.

It feels genuine, because he’s not directing it at you, he’s not trying to convince you, he’s not trying at all. “I have not thought about my pain or what I want from all this for a long time. All I pray for is-” his glistening eyes are searching frantically on the ground, his brows knitted together in a painful grimace. You rest your head on the palm of your hand, your elbow on your knee. Watching this moment like an outside observer, you realize that he's trying to live up to your standards, reminding you of a child trying to impress his parents, only to fail regardless of the outcome.

“Look, Joel, couples break up, divorce, all over the world, all the time. And I guess, they all thought their partners were their everything until they finally weren’t.”, you rationalize, putting everything that has happened into some kind of perspective. It is not the end of the world. It is the end of your world. He doesn’t have to carry this burden on his shoulders for eternity. All you need from him is to understand, to acknowledge what he's done to you, how broken you’ve been.

But if he acknowledges that, if he truly comprehends the tremendous pain he’s put you through, won’t all that anguish be transferred to him? Isn't it unbearable for a truly repentant man to know that he has deliberately caused so much pain?

“But, you see; I wanted that, I needed to be your everything.”

“It certainly fed your ego..” you grin at him.

“No, no- I craved that- that look on your face when your eyes were on me, like there was nothing else, no one else around you, but me. You drove me to be better, to move forward; I felt I had a purpose. You were my purpose.”

“Well I didn’t do much of a job then, did I?” you smile defeated.

“No, honey, this-” he’s determined to make you understand that it wasn't your fault, even if it is the last thing he is going to do. He licks his lips trying to formulate his thoughts, “-what happened, had nothing to do with you, I- I was just- I got in my head..”

You shake your head dismissively, “It’s a terrible burden to put people on a pedestal and expect them to-”

“But you see, baby, that’s the thing. You didn’t.”Joel dismisses your comment and if a bucket of ice-cold water was thrown over your head you wouldn’t feel so frozen. You search his eyes for meaning, because deep down it stings to hear that you could give more. Is that what he’s saying? You didn’t love him enough? Joel catches on and rushes to explain. “You-” god this is so hard, he’s struggling, can’t he just rip his heart open and let you examine it? “You loved me so much, baby and you never asked for anything in return. You let me be who I was. You accepted me completely. You set me free.” His eyes are blown wide, burning into yours with intensity. You look so lost, how does all this fit in with what he did then?

“Darlin’,” he expands further, “we live in a competitive world. Everyone aims to control each other, from business partners to lovers and spouses; everyone manipulates, everyone tries to tell you where to look, what to do, how to act, how to fuck, how to love. Except for you. You let me be. You put your heart in my hands and you set me free. And I took advantage of that and I am truly sorry. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know. That’s how fucked up I am.” you look at him dumbfounded.

“I can’t connect the dots; I don’t get it, Joel, I’m sorry, I-” you run your fingers through your hair, scratching your scalp in frustration. What does he mean?

Joel winces mid-sentence because he can’t escape what’s coming. This is his last resort. And he knows it is going to sound cruel and he doesn’t even mean the first part the way you're going to perceive it, but for lack of better words, for lack of the better person he could have been, a person who should have never put you in this position in the first place, here goes.

“She made me feel wanted; you made me feel free.”,

he spits out in a hurry, praying to whatever god is listening, that you won’t even catch it, knowing full well that these may be the last words you'll ever let him speak to you.

You are utterly, completely, perfectly shocked.

Then you feel it for the first time in what feels like ages. That old friend consuming you. Rage. It burns your lungs, twists your guts and pierces your heart like a thousand needles. Everything becomes crystal clear. You’re so infuriated, that your mind goes blank. A million words and nothing at all come to your mind simultaneously.

“Let me- let me rephrase that, because actually it was never even about her, I just-” Joel begins, in a vain attempt to stop the tide from crushing you both.

Your palms become clenched fists in front of your mouth, pressing against it, crushing the velvety skin of the inside of your lips against your teeth until you draw blood, in an effort to control yourself. You inhale sharply, keeping your eyes fixed on the land in front of you, blurred by the tears gathering in your waterline.

“She- what?” are the only words you manage to choke out.

“Baby, it doesn’t matter, it was never about her, she was a means to an end and-” your eyes bulge out of your sockets at the statement, “I know- I know how that sounds- just-” his palms come together in a prayerful gesture, begging you to give him a chance to explain.

“A means to an- what the fuck are you talking about, Joel?” the veins on your forehead swell under your skin, creating a map of the river of wrath flowing aggressively through your body.

“It was never an affair sweetheart, but a transaction; one I initiated. She was only a boost to my ego.”

..she made me feel wanted..

..a boost to my ego..

It's all starting to make sense now, and it's the last thing you expect to be confronted with. You've always imagined either a heated affair, a secret love story, him realizing he had found his soul mate in someone else, or him getting bored with you, finding you too much or too emotional or too unlovable. It turns out that you were accused of the one thing you never were.

“Are you-, oh god,” you can hear your heart pounding in your ears now and it takes every ounce of strength not to vomit, “are you saying that you fucked someone else; you fucked your secretary for fuck’s sake, you fuckin’ cliché of a man, because I wasn’t jealous of you?”. Your throat is so swollen, you try to scream your words at him but they only come out in wrenched whispers.

You stand up abruptly, dizziness causing you to close your eyes tightly as you see a million white dots behind the blackness of your eyelids. Your whole body vibrates with rage. You steady yourself on the railing and then begin to pace back and forth, your hands unable to stay motionless, but moving over your face, through your hair, lowering and squeezing the sides of your waist as you lean slightly forward in a subconscious way to soothe yourself.

“Oh my god, oh my fucking god,” you laugh hysterically now, as angry tears run down your cheeks, as if you've been let in on an inside joke. “It’s my fault, everything is my fault-”

Joel is frozen in place, he’s not sure if he should get up and try to reason with you or stay where he is.. or run for the hills. He’s witnessing the unleashing of a caged animal. His tongue feels heavy and numb in the cavern of his mouth but he dares to speak again, “That’s the exact opposite of what I said, sweetheart,” he tries to explain in vain, “I’m sorry if that’s what I-” but you’re not listening to a single word he utters.

“People kept telling me, urging me on, all my life;” and you slap your palms on the sides of your thighs, looking at his direction, but not really looking, “I should be more controlling, more pushy, more..” your voice begins to fade, muttering to yourself through your teeth. “They warned me, you know, that the lack of pressure in any kind of relationship would be perceived as a lack of interest.”

Don't trust completely; hold something back; men like the illusion of power; show them you need them; make them jealous; be jealous, like a manual to a pre-installed setting.

Do you agree to the Terms & Conditions?

Press ‘Enter.’

“But I didn’t listen. I never listened. Because in what world do we choose a leash over freedom?” You turn to look at him now, addressing him as if you were talking to a third party, an outsider, asking for advise or affirmation.

Maria’s words come back to Joel’s mind, words that he had long forgotten about, finally fitting like missing pieces of a puzzle to the bigger picture.

“Maybe the wrong Miller is on a leash..”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means that freedom is for those who can bear it.”

“I was really stupid, was I not? What on earth made me think that this time would be any different, what made me think that you’d be any different? You’re just- you’re just another man-” you spit your vile angrily as your eyes sweep over him. The look in his eyes is devastated, he feels shuttered, reduced to nothing.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid little girl. When the fuck will I learn? When the fuck am I going to accept that I don't really belong? When?”

Joel is staring at you bewildered, he never felt more helpless in his life. A thousand new thoughts and questions form in your head, things you didn’t even begin to imagine would cross your mind.

“Did you use her?” you ask with renewed vigor, a surge of energy running through your body.

Joel’s cheeks burn with humiliation but he has already admitted it once, what will it do to him to say it one more time? “Yes, I never had any feelings f-”

“No,” you interrupt impatiently, you don't care about his feelings right fuckin' now, “that night, did you use her? On purpose?”

Joel looks lost for a second but the cogs in his head finally turn and “NO! No baby, I wasn’t even aware of you coming home earlier than expected, no. Don’t even entertain this idea; it wasn’t intentional, I swear to god.”

Oh. There’s a new question for Joel. Why did you leave your business trip early? He had never thought about it before, solely focused on everything else that had happened, which now made him wonder, “Did you- did you know?”

“What?” you frown, lost in your own thoughts, not following his line of logic.

“Did you know? Is that why you came back early from your trip?”

You’re still a bit too far gone in your head to think clearly and try to prevent the next question from coming, “Of course I didn’t know, Joel, did it look like I did?” is all you say with a bite, annoyed.

“Then why-” Joel insists, pressuring you for an answer, but he doesn’t get to finish his sentence.

“I- fuck- I need a minute.” you declare and start to walk towards the house.

Joel waited on that porch for almost an hour, watching the sun set behind the mountain, afraid to move, barely breathing in case you stormed out and threw him back where he came from as if him standing still would somehow make him part of the landscape; as if he belonged.

And you certainly delivered.

He hears the screen door open, his back still to the house. You are standing behind him, your arms crossed stiffly over your chest, your face tilted down, to avoid his gaze. He could see the red-rimmed and swollen eyes of yours, despite your efforts to hide them.

“I can’t do this-”

“Please,” his whole face contorts in agony, “please, hear me-” you both speak at the same time.

“-tonight.”

“What?” his voice matching the look of confusion on his face.

“Maybe another time, but not tonight.”

“I-” he doesn’t know how to articulate his thoughts without sounding like an idiot. He drove all this way, four hours straight, to finally get things straight. His brain has short-circuited, unable to put a plan into action. Should he check into a hotel or a motel or whatever the fuck is around here in the middle of nowhere? Should he go back to his place? Do you really want to talk again? You sort of said you did. You said maybe. Fuck. What does he do?

But honestly, what did he expect? That this would be over in the course of one evening? Of course he would have to come back. His eyes are fixed on yours like a deer caught in the headlights. “I came all this way-” he mumbles, choking on the last part, already regretting the words that came out of his mouth.

“Well, too bad.” you spit emotionless as you turn and head for the safety of your house, leaving him stunned on the goddamn porch.

Joel returned the next evening, but you weren't there. He made the four hour journey and came back empty-handed. And you weren't there the next evening, or the evening after that. But he kept on driving the miles, hot wheels under the Texas sun. He didn’t check in anywhere near your small town. He went back home and then back to you again.

The last time he found nothing but a closed door, he finally got the message, so the next time he left the house, before he turned on the ignition, he texted you, as a sign of respect for your boundaries.

Is it all right if I come and see you?

Backspacebackspacebackspace

Is it OK if I come and talk?

And the answer was

Not today.

So, every day he texted you. He didn’t mean to be intrusive, he just wanted to remind you that you were never far from his thoughts, that he was always ready and eager to finish what he started.

You denied him for quite some time. You couldn’t bring yourself to face him again. The confessions he made have knocked you off your axis. Just when you finally felt like everything was falling into place, he dropped this bombshell, making you rethink everything you thought you knew and had sorted out in your mind. You just couldn’t wrap your head around what you’d heard coming out of his mouth. How could he think like that? Why couldn’t he just talk to you? You used to talk about everything; what the fuck happened? How did you not see that coming?

You were sure that he would give up, that he would stop bothering to contact you at all. Was it the monster of self-deprecation? Was it a deep disappointment in human beings and their general lack of persistence in trying to nurture and repair a relationship, or at least trying to give it a proper closure? You didn’t give it much thought afraid of the answer you might get. But you kept saying Not today, until one day, for some reason-

Can we talk?

Yes.

Joel’s heart is beating through his chest so rapidly, he has to cough to regain some of his composure. He almost drops his phone, trying to confirm the most convenient time for you before you change your mind.

That was the first Yes after the day you saw him again. You weren’t sure what you wanted to talk about; if you could pick up exactly where you left off. You weren’t even sure you could look him in the eye again, but you had to see this through.

When you hear the sound of his engine and tires on the dirt road, you take a deep breath and walk out of the house to wait for him on the porch.

“Come on in, I’m cooking dinner.” you announce as you open the screen door for him to enter the house.

“Are you sure?”, Joel is taken aback, he thought the inside of your house was strictly off-limits to him. You were also cooking dinner as if he was an old friend visiting you. He couldn’t help but wonder if he should lower his defenses or not but with the way you looked tonight you didn’t give him much of a choice.

You’re wearing a pair of warm cream jeans, paired with a white front tie shirt, the first few buttons left open, giving him a glimpse of your tanned sternum. It almost looks like a man’s shirt, just messily tied up over your soft skin, revealing bits of your stomach. Could it be another man’s shirt?

You are barefoot. The nails of your toes are painted in a fresh glossy black color. Your hair is casually tied up in a messy bun, loose strands falling around your beaming face. Joel has to restrain himself from pushing you against the wall and fucking you on the spot, by clenching and unclenching his fists. His mouth is salivating at the sight of you, excitement building in his groin. It's been so long since he's felt this way, a different kind of hunger is growing in him at a rapid pace, as if something buried deep inside his masculinity has just awakened from hibernation.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” you quirk back at him, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, what you’re both doing. “I’m starving. Coming?” you leave him at the entrance and go back into the house.

“You have a beautiful home.”, Joel admits as he takes in his surroundings, thinking that this is going better than he expected. He also can't help but prepare himself for the fact that this might not end the same way.

“Thank you.” you laugh nervously.

“What?”, he catches the note of disbelief in your voice. “I'm serious, the light is just right, it’s open and warm; it actually reminds me of you.” he says matter-of-factly.

“No, no, I know you mean it, it’s just- I guess it’s high praise, coming from you.” you admit. You always admired what he did for a living and how good he was at it and him seeing your place for the first time gave you another reason to feel kind of nervous.

“Oh, come on, none of that now.” he dismisses the compliment, his voice wavering slightly at the praise.

“Well it’s true, you are excellent at what you do, I mean, the house you built is a work of art and that’s a fact.”

“Which one?”, although he knows exactly which one, he presses on.

“The one we used to live in, together.” You can’t call it your house. You cannot. The mere thought of it makes your tongue feel like it’s on fire.

“Oh.”, Joel smiles as he presses his lips together in a thin line, “You mean our house. It was built out of love, that's why. It's the one I'm most proud of.”

“Hm.”, is all you give him. Déjà vu brings back memories out of the closet -pun intended- for both of you.

“Ok, now you really have to tell me. What is it?”, Joel crosses his forearms over his chest. He has to know.

“What do you mean?”, you try to buy some more time, cause you’re not so sure you want to go in there.

“You had the exact same reaction when I mentioned that, four years ago.”

“Ah, that.”

“Yeah, that.”

“It’s just- it always felt like it reflected your personality rather than mine. Or at least ours.”

Joel looks at you perplexed.

“I’m not complaining, I mean, how many people can claim that their husband built them a house the size of a small hotel as a wedding present?” you chuckle while you continue as nonchalantly as you can muster, “I would have lived in a cave with you, Joel, you didn’t have to go to these lengths to house two people. If you want my honest opinion, this was an ego project. I let it slide because it made you happy. And I liked you happy.” Joel looks stunned, his eyes darting back and forth between yours.

“Baby, I- I wanted to make you happy, to give you the best I could-”

“Joel, I’m not judging you. I am not. But you didn’t show me a single blueprint while you were designing the damn thing. You didn’t ask me what I wanted or how I imagined it. Sure, you equipped it with all the best stuff money could buy, but you never asked me what I thought about it. Not really.”, you see the hurt in his eyes and it unsettles you, but now the rabbit is out of the hat. “Again, I’m not judging you and I’m not being ungrateful, all I’m saying is that for some reason you needed your shinny new wife to live in a shinny new castle. It was a prestige thing. Just think about it.”

“Jesus..” Joel mutters, pinching the sides of his forehead with one hand, feeling defeated.

“Hey,” you give him a wry look, “I tried to avoid answering that question for four years. You were the one who insisted.” you defend yourself, clearly amused by his reaction.

“What else do I need to know?”, Joel wonders in a desperate manner.

“Well.. for how long can you keep coming back?” you joke absentmindedly.

“For the rest of my life..” Joel answers a little too quickly, not a hint of playfulness in his voice.

Your heart tightens at his eagerness, forcing you to admit a consideration that you have had more than a few times before. “You know,” you look over at him, lost in thought, almost like reminiscing, “sometimes I wish I had met you before your company took off.” You snap out of your daydream and consciously look at him and he looks pained as if some kind of realization has hit him. You change the subject for the sake of both of you. “Anyway, speaking of which, how is work? I heard you closed that deal, after all.” you grin mischievously.

“Yeah, I did.”, his voice takes on a strange timbre, almost like regret. But you’re not so sure about anything these days, so you let it pass. He puts the envelope with the contract on the counter in the kitchen and sits down in the chair next to the table already set for dinner.

“Good, that’s good. Let me guess, you’re all over it? First in, last out? Is it almost done?” you word vomit to cover your nervousness.

“Uh,” Joel rubs the back of his neck, “I wouldn’t know.” is all he gives you, clearly trying to avoid getting involved in the discussion.

“Um, you don’t know?”, you laugh lightly in confusion. “How is that possible?”, you ask stirring the vegetables in the pan.

“I’m not involved in the project and I have no idea about the status of the construction;” Joel answers your question and continues, revealing, “I quit. Sold my shares and got out.”

“Yeah,” you draw the vowels, still not looking in his direction, “right. Big, mighty Joel Miller left his enterprise-” you laugh mockingly, but you are met with silence. “You’re joking, right?” You turn to look at him, not believing what you have just heard. You feel your blood freeze in your veins.

Joel shakes his head in denial, “I’ve actually left the city and the only reason I haven’t sold every asset in my name is in case you want to claim any of them. They’re all yours if you want ‘em.” Your mouth is slightly agape, as you try to process what has just been delivered to you.

You open your mouth to protest but he beats you to it, by raising his hand to stop you. “I know you don’t want anything from me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want them either. Not without you. Just take them. Burn them for all I care, liquidate them and use the money as you see fit.”, Joel insists, trying to find ways to convince you.

“You can do that yourself, Joel.” is all you say; you don’t give a damn about his money. Joel nods and leaves it at that, he knows better than to talk about money right now.

You’re curious where he lives now, but you’re not sure it’s appropriate to ask, so you don’t. You prepare dinner and make small talk about simple things like your lives over the past four years. Joel asks you about the ranch, the horses, the chores; you ask him about Tommy and Maria, their newborn son, whom you haven't had a chance to meet yet. None of you dare to break the bubble of normality in which you have effortlessly found yourselves.

It feels like coming home after a long day, the way you both fall into a comfortable silence. Joel speaks your name softly, drawing your attention and your gaze back to him. “What are we doing here?”

“We’re eating?” Just a little longer, let me have it just a little longer.

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “no, I mean, what are we doing?” he gestures with his fingers between him and you.

You look at him and then at your plate, playing around with your food, lost in thought. How do you acknowledge that? How do you confess that you’re trying to stretch time? How do you admit that you’re scared out of your mind of how it's all going to end? How do you even come to terms with the fact that you’re not sure you want any of this to end? How do you accept how natural it feels to have him back in your life? How do you admit that after four years the pain has never stopped, but the force, the roughness of it has changed into something softer, yet persistent; never quite going away, lingering.

How do you admit that all the good memories are emerging, because that’s what the mind does, that’s how it protects you, that’s how it helps you survive another day, that’s how it tricks you into falling back into a comfortable routine with him. Even if what binds you together now is his betrayal. How do you admit that you’re afraid of what will become of you once you've finished confessing your truths?

Will he cease to exist for you? Will you cease to exist for him? Will he ever bother to contact you again? Do you really want him to? Will you matter to him or will he move on, start again and shake off the last vestiges of your life together?

Or maybe- maybe he has moved on with his life and that's why he's doing all this, putting all this effort into it. Maybe he is preparing a new, clear path for himself and whoever is in his life right now. Is it her? Is it still, her?

You’re spiraling, lost in your thoughts, biting your lower lip anxiously, like a snake eating its own tail. “Baby?” his baritone voice snaps you out of it, he must have called you several times before you heard him, suddenly aware of hot, fat tears streaming down your face, his thumbs gently brushing them from your cheeks.

You let out a shuddering breath; it’s the first time he’s touched you, in so, so long. And here he is again. The familiar, old friend. He’s pounding on your door now, relentless as he is, screaming for you to let him in, lead the way, take charge, take care of you. You can almost feel his maniacal banging, vibrating through your chest, let me in, let me in, let me in.

Let me in, better angry than scared.

Better angry than scared.

Your shoulders slump, your head feels unbearably heavy. The world has stopped moving. The world is moving too fast. You savor his features as he leans further in, his intoxicating scent filling your nostrils, his eyes pleading, the brown of his irises inviting you to let him in. Joel’s face is that of a man still in love as he continues to caress your skin and you let him.

You let him, because you are a weak person.

You let him because you have been deprived of his touch, of any touch really, for far too long.

You let him because you want to have something for yourself, selfishly.

You let him, because for once you just want to take. Take, take, take.

You let him because you just want to be held and touched and loved.

And even though your mind knows that you shouldn’t want all that from him, your heart allows you that little moment.

“Joel, I’m tired.” you begin, your voice breaking as fresh tears run down your face and onto his thumbs. “Tired to my bones. All I want is to be honest with each other. Do you think we can do that? Can we talk like two adults with nothing left to lose? Can we just be truthful to each other? I know there’s too much history between us, too much hurt and resentment but we both have to try and put it all behind us. I can’t go on like this.”

There’s a stillness in him, realization and clarity dawning on him. He thinks he understands now and it shocks him somehow, as a fact, that there are still things to uncover, to revel in, to acknowledge. Every time he thinks he’s reached the end of this journey, a new sun rises over the horizon.

You don’t need the specifics of his action, at least not right now, or not anymore. What you need is closure. True, honest closure. And that can only come from him baring himself to you. “Yeah, yeah, we can do that. We can do anything you want, baby.”, he squeezes his eyes shut, knowing where to begin, but resisting the thought. He leans back in his seat, dropping his hands from your face as he lets out the breath he seems to be holding in and begins.

“Remember that night before your business trip when you came to my office?”

“Uh, yeah? I guess.”, what a strange thing to mention, you think confused. “What about it?”

“You came to me for sex.”, Joel says bluntly, no need to beat around the bush. This is it. This is how he loses you. Once again.

You stare at him and then, for some reason, look down in embarrassment. You’ve fucked him in almost every way you can think of and now the very admission of that fact makes you feel like an exposed nerve. It dawns on you, how far away this era has slipped away. You feel vulnerable as if you’re talking to a total stranger about your most intimate moments. At the same time, you still know exactly how to touch him, how to please him and a light warmth begins to shimmer inside you.

“Well, that’s one way of putting it, but- yeah..”, you admit, still nervously picking at your food with your fork.

Joel sees your apprehension but he presses on. This is what you asked for. “And I refused you.” The look on your face betrays your confusion. Where is he going with this? Only now, he sees more. He can finally see more. The hurt. The disappointment. “What happened next?” is his next question and does he really think that you can remember all these years later? Does he honestly believe that you can recall yourself leaving his office defeated and crying yourself to sleep? “I don’t remember.” you lie, shrugging your shoulders as convincingly as you can muster.

“You said you loved me and then you left.”, Joel reminds you.

“You- you remember all that?”, your eyes are wide and the look on your face vulnerable, Joel wants to pause it all and hold you in his arms.

“I can’t seem to forget anything about you,” he reveals, “believe me, I’ve tried.”

“What’s your point?”

“Why did you do that?”

“Uh.. why did I do what?”, you narrow your eyes in confusion.

His eyes are piercing yours, provoking you to figure it out on your own.

“Loved you?” He shakes his head almost imperceptibly.

Your eyes widen again, in surprise this time, as you finally see what he means.

“Walked away?” You’re fucking shocked to the core, your voice choked, you’re not sure you spoke out loud.

“Why didn’t you insist?”

Your mouth is wide open, you’re speechless, you flatter your eyelids in search of the right words. This is your second encounter and once again he says what you least expect him to say.

“You refused” you remind him now, “and I respected that.”, your hand moves to rest on your chest, palm open, to calm your racing heart.

“I didn’t want you to.”

“You know how that sounds, don’t you?”, you mock with a nervous laugh.

“Oh, please,” Joel is quick to respond, his brows knitted in a dismissive frown, “like you could ever force yourself on me.”

You genuinely are at a loss for words, your gaze unable to stay in one place, your mind running a million miles an hour.

Apparently you both are, because Joel is no better at explaining how he feels. “I wanted you to-”, he stops, his eyes still searching yours for the right words, pleading with you to feel him.

Oh my god. Oh. My. God.

It dawns on you. All at once. You see it all playing out. You know exactly how this conversation is going to go. “-claim you? You wanted me to claim you?”, your voice rises, as does your tone. You feel the presence of your abandoned friend again. You don’t want him here. But he creeps in through your veins, nonetheless. He is not giving up. If the pounding doesn’t work then he’ll poison you, slowly and persistently.

“From who? You were supposed to be mine!”, you exclaim exasperated, immediately correcting yourself “-not that I owned you, you know what-”

“That! That’s what I’m talking about!” Joel points his finger at you, “That’s what I needed. To be yours!”

“But you were! Are we really haggling over semantics? Of course you were mine! I just never wanted you to feel suffocated by me. You were not my possession Joel, you were my partner!”

“I swear to you, I would die a happy man, baby.”

“I- I tried so hard to control myself-” you mutter to yourself, rolling your eyes back to your head as you shake it in denial, “-all that hunger inside of me, eating me up-”

“What?” is Joel’s turn to look like a lost puppy. What the fuck is going on here?

“You,” you point a finger at him, “you were my first and last thought every passing day, it wasn’t even healthy anymore, Joel. But- I saw that look in your eyes sometimes, a hunger, one I thought mirrored mine and then it was gone in the blink of an eye and I thought that something was holding you back; I- I was holding you back. I thought- maybe I was undeserving..” you divert your eyes from him, embarrassed at your feeling of inadequacy, “So, I accepted what you gave me if it meant I could have any part of you.”

“Oh, baby..” Joel’s hiding his face in his palms and his heart breaks as he realizes where you both stand. How did the two of you get to this point? How could his judgment be so clouded, how could he be so blind to what was happening under his own roof? How could he be so arrogant as to seek validation, one he didn't even need, from someone else? Someone whose validation he didn't even care about. It didn't matter to him. She didn’t matter to him. How could he not sense the insecurity tantalizing your very core to the point of feeling inadequate? If only you had told him sooner.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you mirror his thoughts with your voice.

“What should I say to you? I couldn’t put it into words, even now I'm not sure I can. It was an all-consuming feeling, an absolute necessity, an overwhelming need that was impossible to handle. I wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared to deal with it. I loved you with such force that it became an obsession. I couldn’t even entertain the idea that you might not want me back in the same way. I felt helpless, vulnerable. How could I come to terms with this? With the realization that I had fucked someone else just to get a rise out of you or to prove to myself that I didn't need you that much after all?”

Joel’s palms are clenched into fists on his thighs, trying to keep himself from pressing his lips against yours. Feelings and desires that had been buried in his subconscious for too long came back as he tried to make you understand.

“A r- so, you did fuck her on our bed on purpose.”

“You asked me that before, darlin’, I promise you I did not.”

“Then how would you provoke me if you didn’t mean for me to find out?” you look at him incredulously.

“I-” Joel winces, “it wasn’t a conscious thought, I just kept fantasizing about you finding out and burning the house down for me and that single image made me so h-” Joel shuts his mouth abruptly, not the best idea to describe to you how fuckin’ hard he got, fantasizing about you while fucking someone else. You, bursting into the bedroom all raging and furious, turning the whole place upside down reclaiming what was rightfully yours.

Him.

What a sick fuck he was. “I swear to you, no. I’m not that fucked up. It was a gigantic lack of judgment, I was fuckin’ drunk, my mind was a mess at that point. That whole week was-” he’s biting his tongue hard to stop himself while rubbing his forehead with his fingers, “I was just being an idiot.”

“The week I was gone?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing, ‘snothing.” and he doesn’t elaborate. “Just a bad fuckin’ week.”

The atmosphere suddenly feels suffocating, as if all the words that have spilled out of both your mouths are hovering over your heads like a black cloud. You need some air to clear your mind, so you make your way out of the kitchen without looking back and walk slowly to the porch, sitting on the steps at the bottom of the stairs. You know he will follow. Your bare feet touch the soft soil beneath you and you try to ground yourself through the little patch of earth you call your own. It doesn’t quite work. There’s a beautiful golden glow, a last gift from the parting sun, warming your soul. Everything is going to be all right.

“Strange fantasies we both had.” you say as Joel seats down next to you, the contract once again a barrier between you. “You kept fantasizing about me finding out about your affair-”.

“It wasn’t an affair-” Joel corrects you. “Fine, fine. You imagined that, while I kept fantasizing me holding you so tightly while we fucked that our flesh became one; that’s how deep I needed you inside me, that’s how obsessively I wanted to carry you with me all the time, isn’t that totally fucked up?” you laugh dejectedly.

“I guess we are the same kind of fucked up. If only we could admit it to each other..”

“Did you really feel that I didn’t love you enough?” you whisper, almost too scared to be heard and to get an answer.

“I think we loved each other too much. I think we were both too afraid of losing each other. I think,” Joel pauses for a moment to gather his thoughts and calm his voice, “in our efforts to keep each other we did the exact opposite. More me than you, for sure. I have handled things badly and badly is an understatement.”

“You were always so patient with me. You’d always wait for me to come to you, to take my time. I needed the savage in you, or I thought I did at the time. That desperate thing I felt creeping out of you in stolen glances or bitten lips between your teeth, or when we fucked; no one has ever fucked me like you did. I did see all of you then, you know. And I think you saw all of me. If I made you feel confident or safe enough, you would have talked to me. And if I wasn’t so self-absorbed I would have asked.”

You never thought you’d hear these words from Joel, but all this time of self-reflection has changed him in a way that reminds you of the Joel you fell in love with. The one you could see behind all those layers of self-protection, the one you’d always hoped would emerge for you. And then he goes on, and you wish you knew what was coming so you could protect your heart from being torn to shreds.

“Maybe-” he closes his eyes looking pained, “maybe I was a narcissist. Maybe you gave me all you had and I kept wanting more, maybe I needed every part of you for myself. Maybe I needed you on your knees, on a leash, at my mercy, just to have the illusion of the certainty that you would never leave me. Maybe freedom is for those who can bear it, after all. Hell, maybe I was the one who needed the leash in the end. Maybe you gave me too much credit, my love, when you deemed me worthy of freedom.”

His words are earth-shuttering, obliterating, final. There’s nothing left to be said, at least nothing of substance. Final. The fucking word plays over and over in your head. Final. This is final. You could swear that you have felt every possible kind of pain during these four long years but new depths of agony are being discovered right now. The acid in your stomach makes your throat constrict. You feel petrified.

Joel can sense your distress, his words have been of no comfort to you. Your skin looks pale, covered with a thin layer of cold sweat; you look physically ill. Your forearms rest on your knees and he gently cups your elbow to check in on you. Are you OK? You smile weakly at him, the expression not reaching the corners of your eyes.

“You know I would give anything to take it all back, right?”

Your laughter is more lively now, not with malice or sarcasm, but with a sense of humor.

“Yeah, yeah, I think I do.”, you shake your head in twisted amusement, tilting your head up, to let the last rays of the sun warm your face, maybe bring back some of your lost color. It's getting dark now, the day is coming to an end, the curtains of the last sunlight are almost closed. Your eyes are closed too, your head still tilted back as you laugh to yourself, “You did that backwards, too, you know.”

“What?”

“You have burned everything to the ground, only to realize that you want to get it all back in one piece. I mean it’s- it’s-” you struggle to find the right words but Joel offers one of his own.

“Ridiculous..”

“I was gonna say pointless.. But that’s the thing, Joel. Choosing to be with someone is like faith. You believe because you just know. You don't have to find evidence to prove your choice at every turn, otherwise it’s just exhausting. You choose to trust yourself.”

“Trust me as your partner, you mean, not yourself.”

“Joel, it was never about trusting you..”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand..”

“I’m not sure how to explain it- uh..”, you raise your shoulders and your brows in unison as you shake your head slightly, searching for the words. “Trust is a personal journey. ‘Trust’ doesn't mean ‘trust in you’, I’m not trusting you. No one can be sure of anyone. ‘Trust’ means that I have faith in myself, that even if you hurt me, even if you abandon me, I will not fall apart. And..” you shrug your shoulders, hugging yourself with your hands, “look at me, Joel..”, you finish, suggesting that you’re still here, still standing.

“I am, baby; I am..” Joel replies, taking in the sight of you as if it were the last time he’ll ever have the chance to, utterly compelled by your inner glow.

“I’m not mad at you Joel, not anymore. And I believe you, I really do. But I can’t get that scene out of my head. I just can’t. I can still hear the sounds, I can even recall the way you smelled when you were standing next to me.”

His hands are shaking.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, really.”

“I know.”, his voice is barely audible.

“I think you’ve done enough of that yourself. Maybe it’s time to forgive yourself?”

“Do you?” Do you, really? Do you forgive him after all that has been said? Do all these confessions illuminate the facts from a different perspective? Does it change what he did and what you went through? And if so, does that mean you're letting him go? Are you leaving him behind? Is he leaving you behind? Why is it so hard to let go? Why do you choose the safety of the known, even when it hurts you?

You choose not to answer and instead firmly insist, “You have to forgive yourself, Joel, it’s okay.” Be the better person. If not for him, then for yourself. Let him go.

“I can’t do that.”, Joel is adamant, shaking his head while he rejects your request.

“Yes, you can.” you urge him again. “As I can and do.” Let him go.

Joel never thought he would listen to those words coming out of your mouth. He doesn’t deserve them. He hasn’t earned them. “You forgive me?”, he repeats in utter shock and disbelief.

“Yes.” Loud and clear as daylight.

“I- You can’t- I don’t- I don’t deserve that.” Joel feels like he’s drowning in your so graciously offered Holy Grail, desperately trying to keep his head above the waters of your absolution.

“I can’t be the judge of that, Joel, hell, I can’t be the judge of anyone. The way I see it, you chose your actions and I chose mine. You chose to hurt me and I chose to walk away. We both lost something. Have we not suffered enough, Joel?” you ask him honestly.

“I don’t want to presume, but- isn’t it a great burden to carry on your shoulders when you try to move on? All this anger, all that bitterness?” you search his eyes for an answer but he doesn’t give you one.

You continue, hoping to get through to him. “Your feelings are your burden Joel and it doesn’t matter if I forgive you. That’s why it is you who needs to forgive yourself.”

His eyes still refuse to meet yours, stubbornly glued to the ground. “I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing this for me. We need to move forward, both of us.” is the last thing you say to him, not knowing if he even listened to half of what you just said.

You both fall into a thoughtful silence, but something you said is bugging him. He can’t quite figure it out, so he turns to look at you, to savor you while he still has the chance. He knows that his time is limited.

You’re just sitting there with him, trying to comfort him, you of all people. You seem lighter now, fidgeting absentmindedly with your fingers as if some of your burden has already been lifted. And as his gaze sweeps over you, he sees it again. He sees the white shirt hugging your body and he knows what’s troubling him.

I don’t want to presume, I don’t want to presume, I don’t want to presume.

His heart beats rapidly in his chest, panic rising inside him.

“I’ve been with you for the last four years.”

“Excuse me?” your hands freeze as you turn to face him, clearly confused.

“You said you didn’t want to presume anything and I need to set the record straight. There was and is no other woman in my life except you.”

“Joel,” you blush shyly, “this is none of my business, you are free-”

“No. No. I need you to know this, it’s important to me. I meant everything I said. You have done nothing wrong. My feelings for you have never changed-”

“Joel, please..” you beg him to stop, you can’t have this conversation now, it’s too soon. No, you’re wrong. It’s too late; too soon means there’s a future ahead of you. A future where you both fit in the same universe.

“I don’t want you to think that I came all the way out here just to tie up some loose ends and move on. That is not what this is about.”

“If you expect me to tell you about my personal life..” your what now?

“No, I don’t. And I don’t think I could handle it, anyway. You are a free woman and you deserve the world. Unlike me; I don’t deserve anything and I’ll never be free of you.”

Your chin is now trembling and you bite your lower lip to stop the involuntary muscle contraction. You can’t decipher if it’s from anger for the way things came to be or from deep, excruciating sadness for how Joel feels. For how he makes you feel.

“Free woman, huh?”, you whisper bitterly, looking down at your feet, willing yourself not to cry.

“Yes, free, as you should always have been and I’m sorry I couldn’t see it sooner.”

Joel then picks up the divorce papers from the floor next to him as he’s fishing a pen out of his pocket. He stares at you and then at the blank space where his signature should be, next to yours. He splays his palm over the last page as if to straighten it out, but it almost looks like he’s caressing it. He brings the ball of the pen to the white surface and for a moment his hand lingers over it. He doesn’t dare look at you again, his resolve is not that strong. Finally, finally he signs, filling the empty spot and he hands you the contract. It’s a strange moment, the one before the signature and the one after it.

Everything seems to be the same; it is just a signature.

Everything feels completely different; it is not just a signature.

Your fingertips brush his as you reach out to take it, the touch sending shivers down your spine. Your slightly trembling hands hold the papers gently, not sure you wanna hold on to them or scatter them on the ground. Your thumb swipes softly over his signature.

You feel it, now. You feel the ground beneath your bare feet, the warmth of the earth, the weight of your footing. The falling has stopped. The feather finally rests. You have landed.

Joel moves to stand on his feet, as you keep staring at the drying ink, when you feel something fall from above onto your thumb; but you can’t see anything as it is immediately absorbed by the hungry pores of the paper, slightly smudging his signature. You look up to catch him as he dries his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

“Free as a bird, baby, ready to fly over the world.”, Joel smiles at you with a look of reverence and devotion in his eyes.

You picture the floating feather in your head and smile back at him with a serenity he hasn’t seen in a long time.

“I think I just want to walk for a while. One step at a time.”

He nods, his eyes still full of emotion and you watch as he begins to walk slowly towards his truck, when suddenly he turns his body to face you but continues to walk backward in the same direction.

“Hey!” he calls to you with a mischievous smile, raising his chin to you.

“Yeah?” you answer, your voice wavering slightly as you try to hide your smile.

“Can I take you to dinner sometime?” he asks as he reaches for his driver’s door and opens it, waiting for your answer, which never comes because you think he’s joking. But he continues to stare at you, with no expectations, quietly, earnestly, sincerely, with a soft, shy smile on his lips. Oh.

Oh.

“Joel..” is all you breathe out, closing your eyes for a moment before you look at him again, because his name is all that is left in your very being right now. Joel.

He seems lighter, too.

“Maybe, one day..?”

“Yeah.. Maybe, one day..”

previous |

Taglist: @southernbe, @orcasoul, @auteurdelabre @leggtostandon @sarahhxx03

@zliteraturehoe @msmorningstaarr @gossipgirl-03 @vabeachazn @joeldjarin

@sofiparallel

[maaikeatthefullmoon]

This week I have mostly been reading...

May 13-19th, 2024

New idea I've had, and hopefully something I'll have time to do once a week on a Sunday. Over the past seven days, I have devoured the following Good Omens fanfics, and I recommend these most heartily to you:

Completed works I've read this week:

Boyfriend Debut by snae_b Rated E - A & C are both porn actors. It sounds seedy. It's not. Holy Hell, it's not. It's one of the hottest things I've ever read, but also so, so sweet and delightful.

They Drink Tea At The End by @knifeforkspooncup Rated T - After a year spent in Heaven, A returns to C in the bookshop completely and utterly overstimulated in every sensory capacity. A wonderful, sweet story of them truly knowing each other and an excellent example of how the fandom relates to GO in so many beautiful ways.

Pay Per View by IneffableToreshi Rated E - A lovely story set in Canada, full of our so frequently seen miscommunication between A & C. And, as the author says: "Also, why the fuck is Aziraphale watching porn in their hotel room?! And taking notes?!"

Cranking Up The Heat by @vavoom-sorted-art Rated E - Well, the title says it all, really. And the fic's description: "The equivalent of that hot wings challenge, but with porn." Don't really want to say much more, as you've gotta see it to enjoy it.

On The Same Page by Chekhov Rated E - A fake marriage fic with Only One Bed. A & C are both authors, but two very different ones. Excellently written with very vividly described mental struggles with internal homophobia & self loathing.

A Model Guardian by Fuuma_san Rated E - As a former model, I found this fic really interesting. I'd genuinely love to know what the author's tie/experience in the industry is. C is a model, A is their bodyguard. An interesting tale which involves some great discussion on gender.

In The Room Where You Sleep by @mrghostrat Rated E - Another banger by ghostrat, posted in its entirety this week. In a reversal to many other fics I've seen, A is a vampire and C is a vampire hunter. *Homer Simpson voice* With sexy results. ;)

WIPs which have updated this week (which I devour as soon as I get the update!)

There Is A Light And It Never Goes Out by @phoen1xr0se Rated M - A is a researcher (puffins!), C is a lighthouse keeper on the island where A has run away to to escape his problems and do his research. The author has recently spent a week studying puffins - which is the ultimate dedication, if you ask me. Ch 9/26 posted this week

Find The Light by @klikandtuna Rated E - Headmaster A and Rockstar C. The story teases out a fraught history between them whilst keeping a tension between them in the modern day. Ch 4/? posted this week.

Terminus by @emotional-support-demon-crowley Rated T - Astronaut A is guided back to Earth by controller C after 92 years in space. There are many difficulties both of them have to face and they develop an amazing rapport. Ch 15/17 posted this week.

Oddity by @tsyvia48 Rated E - Actor C is contracted by (useless) Gabriel to guest curate an exhibition at the museum where A works. After getting off on the wrong foot, can they work together to pull off this show? Ch 22/24 posted this week.

Under The Summer Stars by @pannotbread Rated E - This wonderful fic has taught me more about physics than school ever did (mostly because I never did any physics, but...well). A & C have to share their time at an observatory because there is Only One Telescope. Not only will you learn about astrophysics, astrobiology, and astroecology, you'll also read some of the most poetically, beautifully written masturbation scenes I've ever seen. *ahem* Ch 6/13 posted this week.

Free by well, me: imposterssyndrome Rated E - A & C meet (again?) in an acute mental health ward after both having had mental health crises. A runs a bookshop but is very much under his parents' control. C has been homeless since childhood and has struggled his entire life. They do not trust each other when they first meet, but feel strangely drawn to one another all the same. Where will this lead them? This is a passion piece for me. There is a lot of lived experience in it, and extensive research from both professionals and peers. It has been a real journey for me to write it, and as I'm coming closer to the end it's becoming very emotional for me. Ch 43/? posted this week

[ilikedyourablogithere]

year of the snake so we're getting another chinese snake esper which...okay I'll let this one slide cause it is the year of the snake, it is worth celebrating but for the year horse you better not bitch out

more Egyptian espers coming? that's nice. Won't lie I would like that very much

i mean you kinda already miss the best time to do an egyptian esper based season but hey better late than never yeah? I just hope they don't take this as a sign to just drop nothing but Egyptian espers and then we just end up having the same problem next year

they're trying to do a rouge like game mode and yes more pve content please

I don't play game for pvp. heck the pvp modes we have all feel the same anyways. might as well focus of something else

and some new summoning gimmick for summer which...okay? I guess? personally I don't think new way to gacha is very impressive thing to announce but do you I guess

Well it looks like they're learning from their past so hopefully 2025 will be even better than what we have

looking forward to it

[julianalvarez9]

what could have been / mason mount

summary: nothing good comes from friends with feelings for each other that never got the chance to confess, and it's worse when one's forced to leave. knowing this could be mason's farewell to his forever club is hard, but maybe, hopefully, he doesn't have to say goodbye to you.

author's note: was sad about him leaving, then reminded myself it's not that deep, so i turned this funny at the end. angst, to fluff, to funny, one might say? not proofread like, at all. anyways, seems like i'll continue to love him unfortunately for y'all 😮‍💨

wc: 838 words

"you're leaving?".

you don't expect the words to sound so rough, even if your tone is anything but a whisper. still, mason freezes in front of his locker, where he was taking the last of his stuff, and also, a last look at the place he used to call home all these years. since being a kid, really. he thought that, just maybe, he could avoid this. he could avoid seeing your sad eyes, and he could avoid saying goodbye, because he was never good at it.

it always wrecked him a bit seeing a teammate go. every single one that left, took a bit of him, and also, a bit of chelsea. so much, that he feels he doesn't recognize the club he grew up to love anymore. so much that he doesn't see his future here any longer, although it hurts him.

"i'm sorry," he begins to say, but shuts him mouth quickly when he realizes the knot on his throat is too big to swallow. he wants to say that he would have wanted you to find out in other ways, maybe by him instead, but he knows it's a lie. mason could never have enough strength to look you in the eyes and tell you that it's over.

it hasn't even begun, he thinks, and he curses himself for losing so much time. you two had been gravitating towards each other so much these past few years, getting even closer after the shit year he had, but that was it. you two were closer.

he wishes he had said something earlier. to see if this, whatever this was, could go further. he already knew, back in january, the possibility of him leaving when summer comes. he wonders, if something had happened between you two, if you would have followed him. mason knows it's selfish to think about it, to even daydream about you leaving everything behind like he deserved the effort. like he deserved you, in the first place. but maybe that's why he hadn't said anything during these six months. because he knew he didn't deserve someone as caring, as beautiful, as loving, as you.

"just a bit over three hours in train, right?". mason tilts his head to the side, like he doesn't understand why you're asking him about the distance between manchester, his new home, and london, but he nods, anyway. the smile painted on your lips, although it's small, it's sincere. "well, if you ever need... a friend from home, i'll be there".

mason knows he should fight the urge to get closer to you than he needs to be. more than ever now, when he finds himself cutting all ties that used to connect him to this club, but still, he finds out that he couldn't, possibly, cut you out. that's why he's striding towards you, big and fast steps that take him to you in a second. he's engulfing you in a totally unexpected hug -to you, but still, you couldn't possibly say no to him, and feeling comforted in his arms, even if your heart is breaking.

"but, don't ask me to wear your shirt," you deadpan when he backs away, although still close enough to you to have his hand caressing your cheek softly, "you know i hate united" and he laughs. even if it lasts a second, the sound of it is enough to turn your cheeks flaming hot. a wicked idea crosses your mind, and you can't fight the need to make a final quip. "although, there's this player that i really fancy there..." his eyes grow wide, and you rush the punch of the joke before he can say anything, "number 6, licha, martinez!" you say excitedly, and he huffs a laugh, suddenly remembering the unfortunate encounter in the last man utd - chelsea match. 

"you're mean" mason says, rolling his eyes, and you laugh. it's impossible for him to keep a straight face after that, but he tries, looking intently into your eyes, with his forehead against yours. your words get scrambled into your brain, and you rush out to say anything that it isn't the three little words dancing in your tongue. "you have to befriend him. he's argentinian, after all. just say you want a mate".

"nah" he scrunches his nose, like the idea doesn't look as appealing as you thought, "i like the ones you make, might not like his". you know he's not being serious, because everybody knows that argentinian footballers have a master degree in the making of the famous cultural drink, but you let him get away with it, because this might be the last day you see him in a while.

"gonna make me move to fucking manchester to make you mate, i see how it is." it's mean to come as a joke, but mason's eyes light up, and he finds himself saying something he knows he shouldn't, although he can't really hide it. "it wouldn't be such a bad idea, no?".

"maybe not".

[sugareey-makes-stuff]

It's that time of turning another year older. These days, I totally appreciate chill days. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to relax and enjoy the small things like a good cuppa, reading some comics or fic, poking at cute crochet things and having some delicious food.

Since it's become a tradition to share fic recs and my heart has been pretty gone on Stiles and Derek for a while, this year I'm sharing 14 Teen Wolf Sterek fic recs that I absolutely love reading again and again. Yes...that was very hard to narrow down out of my...who the hell knows how many bookmarks I have. 😂 Anyway, whether you need a pick-me-up, want something new to add to your TBR, or you really need your fix of our dumb boys, I've gotchu! Make sure to give these authors some kudos, comments and love! [P.S. If folks are looking for their fix of HP fics...I may swoop in a little later this month to make an HP summer reading list. Lmk if that's something y'all would like to see!] Happy reading, and enjoy!

🎈 heart-flower by hoars (T, 4.7k)- Flowers, Soul Manifestation, Flower Romance, Black Cat, mental health, allergic reactions, Suicidal Thoughts, Maiming, Car Accidents, Hallucinations, Courtship

Heart-flowers are a reflection of your heart, mind and soul, if you're a romantic. Scientists call them a reflection of mental and emotional health instead. As long as you're happy or content, the flower is healthy too. But if you're distraught the petals will close or brown. It depends person to person, emotion to emotion. When Derek tells Stiles to take care of it, he means, take care of me.

🎈 A Growl-to-English Dictionary by churkey | @churkey (T, 14.9k )- Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Miscommunication, Derek Hale Leaves Beacon Hills, Derek Hale Leaves, Stiles Stilinski Leaves Beacon Hills, Darkness Around The Heart, Derek Hale Takes Care of Stiles Stilinski, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Derek Hale is Not a Failwolf, He's a Failhuman, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Werewolf Mates, Mates, Werewolf Culture

In which Derek finds his words and Stiles learns to growl.

🎈 One Hundred Miles an Hour in Reverse by suburbanmotel (M, 24.6k)- Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Baggage, Insomnia, Panic Attacks, Depression, Anxiety, Friends to Lovers, Sharing a Bed, Boys Kissing, Blood, Injury, Blood and Injury, Mental Health Issues, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Anal Sex, POV Alternating, Implied/Referenced Character Death

Stiles understands that leaving is hard. He understands because Stiles always understands. Leaving is hard, got it. Check. But late at night, alone in the dark in the quiet with the shadows, alone with his thoughts and his shallow, slightly panicked breathing, he also understands that it’s always harder for the people left behind. * Five years after everything, after everyone is gone, Stiles remains, because someone has to, right? He’s become good at staying, at being ok with staying, because he’s good at what he does and so many people need him here. So, he’s stayed and he does what he’s always done best: he figures things out. He figures things out and he makes lists, lists of spells, lists of magical herbs, lists of people who have left. He also makes lists about himself. Stiles is: the fixer, the writer, the librarian, the keeper of words and memories in Beacon Hills. He’s a healer, a helper and he remembers. He remembers everything.

🎈 Stiles Stilinski, Boyfriend Extraordinaire by MereLoup (G, 14.4k)- Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Meet-Cute, Meet Awkward, Professor Derek Hale, Fluff and Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, Romantic Comedy, alternate Derek Hale backstory, Stiles Wears Glasses, Derek Wears Glasses, Derek walks with a cane, Disabled Character, Fake/Pretend Relationship, With a twist!

“Beacon County Sheriff's Department, this is deputy Mahealani speaking.” “Oh thank god!” “Stiles?” “I, uh, I need some advice.” “Advice?” “Yeah. So, hypothetically, say you met your boyfriend’s mother and sister for the first time ever. Completely by accident. In the grocery store. And they convinced you to help them make a dinner to surprise aforementioned boyfriend when he got home after work. What would you do?” Danny paused, and then, “Stiles, you don’t have a boyfriend.” “That’s not the point! And I said hypothetically.” “Stiles…what are you doing right now?”

🎈 The Witching Hour by loserchildhotpants | @loserchildhotpants (T, 8.3k)- Radio, Romance, Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Alternate Universe - Human, Music, Humor

The radio host AU no one ever asked for but I have written anyway because sometimes when DJ’s play several sad songs in a row, I worry about their mental health and then this AU was born [Or: A radio show brings Stiles and Derek together, even though they've never met before]

🎈 Windows by dr_girlfriend | @drgrlfriend (E, 83.3k)- AU, Disability, Disabled Character, Misunderstandings, Angst, Fluff, Blind Character, Blind Stiles, Eventual Smut, Derek is a creeper, derek has no social skills, In Other Words Canon!Derek, Epilepsy, seizure disorder, Panic Attack, Happy Ending, Alternate Universe, Slow Build, Pack Feels, Slow Burn, Communication, Ableist Language, Demisexuality, Demisexual Derek Hale, Families of Choice, Found Families, POV Derek Hale, Friends to Lovers, Body Dysphoria, Alpha Derek, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Derek is a socially awkward potato, Pack Alpha Derek Hale, Good Pack Alpha Derek Hale

Derek has a new neighbor who won't stop looking. * “You’re blind,” Derek said flatly, the anger draining from him so suddenly he felt almost woozy. His vision cleared, his claws sliding back into blunt fingernails. “Thanks for the memo, genius,” the kid said acidly. “I can still fucking defend myself, so don’t take another damn step.” “Fuck, I...I’m sorry,” Derek stuttered. “What?!” The kid’s brow crinkled. “I mean — what?! You’re fucking sorry!?” His lips thinned into a harsh line. “What, is this some kinda Hallmark movie where you’re discovering the error of your ways because you don’t want to rob a blind person?! That’s fucking condescending, man. I’ll have you know that —” “Just, wait.” Derek interrupted what was apparently the start of a convincing argument as to why he should rob the kid after all, feeling his head start to spin. “This is — it’s a misunderstanding. I’m — I’m not robbing you. You’re — you’re safe, okay? I’m taking three steps back. Just — just let me explain.” “Explain why you came busting into my apartment? Yeah, go right ahead, man, I can’t wait to hear this epic tale.”

🎈 Wolves in the Timber by adeepeningdig | @adeepeningdig (T, 17.2k)- Future Fic, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Feral Derek, Deputy Stiles Stilinski, Hurt/Comfort, Dog Fighting, Rated For Violence, Full Shift Werewolves

Stiles had always thought that Derek would understand, maybe. If Derek had been around to talk about it. He would know what it was like to think that maybe it wasn’t a fluke, maybe there’s something in you, something twisted that pulls blood and betrayal and death to you, like a remnant of your mother’s disease, her monstrous confusion, still encoded in your genes. Stiles still dreams of that day in the loft, the water lapping at his ankles and the dirty light. Derek’s stricken face. He wonders if there are days when Derek wants to tear his own hands off too. But Derek wasn’t around, and now he’s a wolf. So. He’s 28 years old, it’s been years. He’s past all that. He should be past all that. There’s a black wolf panting on the floor of his apartment like an accusation. Stiles knows that there’s nothing that Lydia can say or do. He’s not projecting, it’s the truth, it’s the kinship he’s always felt with Derek, and if he could curl into his animal self, he would, and maybe he would stay there. It would be easier that way.

🎈 Way Back Home by matildajones | @matildajones (T, 14.2k)- Alternate Universe - Human, Kidnapping, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, PTSD Derek, Anxiety Attacks, Angst with a Happy Ending, End Sterek, We like Heather though, getting better

He wasn’t ever expecting to get out of that hellhole, and he always wondered about Stiles. He wondered – even hoped – that he would move on.

🎈 Bones Straining Under the Weight by weathervaanes (E, 15.6k) deaf!derek, Food Blogger!Derek, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe

One of Stiles' favorite things about life is Derek Hale's food blog. He never expects to meet the man in person. * “Derek,” he says again, and the name feels very strange on his tongue. “You don’t mean Derek Hale.” His professor’s eyebrows reach up, eyes widening. “You read his blog?” "Uh. Worship. Would be a better more descriptive word. That is Derek Hale?" Jimmy chuckles. "Good-looking guy, huh?" "You mean to tell me the Food Network hasn't snatched him up to dethrone everyone else from daytime TV." Jimmy smiles a small private smile. "I don't think TV is his medium." Stiles raises an eyebrow. "Shy?" The man laughs heartily at that. "No, I wouldn't say that. He just has particular forms of expression, like eyebrows and chili powder."

🎈 A Healing Silence by HelloWhyTheFuckAmIHere | @insecure-neurotic-control-freak (Not Rated, 36.3k)- Depression, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Stiles is Pushed Out of the Pack, Scott McCall is a Bad Friend, Sheriff Stilinski is a Good Parent, Eichen | Echo House, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Derek Hale & Lydia Martin Friendship, Reunions

Stiles is slowly pushed out of the pack following his fight with Scott about Donovan's death. After receiving a phone number from an old friend, Stiles is surprised to find that it belongs to the one person who may be able to bring him back to himself.

🎈 36 Questions by Leslie_Knope (T, 8.1k)- POV Stiles, Alpha Derek, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, First Kiss, Talking, like a lot of talking, Emotions

“So I’m doing my senior psych thesis on friendships,” Erica says, not-so-accidentally elbowing Derek in the ribs as she turns to face Stiles. “How they develop, how intimacy is fostered, stuff like that.” “That’s cool,” Stiles says agreeably. “What’s our part?” “Well, I can’t really tell you the point because that would influence the results. But it’s a set of 36 questions that you have to ask each other.” “Just the two of us?” Derek chimes in, finally, and Stiles sighs. “Okay, dude,” he says, making a face, “could you try not to look quite so offended? Like, my ego’s pretty strong, but come on, man.”

🎈 like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me by allyasavedtheday (T, 8.4k)- Future Fic, Derek Comes Back, Fluff, Emotional Healing, Getting Together, Friends to Lovers, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, POV Derek Hale, Rebuilding the Hale House, (kind of), Hale Family Feels

Stiles is the only one who hasn’t spoken yet and when Derek looks away from Isaac he finds him appraising him, a look on his face like he’s cataloguing Derek for invisible injuries. (Or injuries that have long since healed, maybe.) He’s older now, obviously, but he’s never lost that shrewd ability to appear as if he’s picking Derek apart with just one look. Eventually though, a slow smile spreads across his face. “Good to see you again, big guy.” Derek huffs a laugh and then promptly bites back a smile when he sees Stiles’ eyes light up at the sound. “You too,” he replies, his voice that strange mixture of resigned and fond that only ever seems to come out when he’s talking to Stiles. * Derek comes back to Beacon Hills almost four years after he left it. Alternatively titled: Derek Hale finally finds some peace.

🎈 Days Like This by rlnerdgirl | @rlnerdgirl (M, 18.8k)- Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Derek Comes Back, Post-College AU, S3/S4 Divergent

Returning to Beacon Hills is a big step for Derek. He's starting his own business, rebuilding his old family home, and enjoying the feeling of being home. When he runs into the Sheriff and finds himself invited to a Stilinski family dinner, it's not nearly as strange as he would have expected, and when Stiles starts becoming a regular part of his new life, it only feels natural. * The first thing Derek notices is that Stiles is taller. The second is that he’s more filled out. This shouldn’t be a surprise. Not living in Beacon Hills doesn’t stop the machine of social media, and it’s not like he hasn’t seen pictures, but it’s different in person. Stiles, now Derek’s height, maybe an inch taller, still has the same wide smile and loose-limbness about him that he did when he was in high school. Between the height and the muscles though, this Stiles wouldn’t make anyone second guess that he played lacrosse. The only thing people would second guess about this Stiles is the fact that he was always on the bench.

🎈 Blind Date With A Book by thepsychicclam (M, 30.4k)- Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alive Hale Family, Oblivious Derek, Oblivious Stiles, Board Games, Meddling Hales, Human Hales, Slow Build

Stiles thought the Blind Date With a Book trend was a great way to drum up business for his small bookshop. He definitely thought it was a great idea after the hot guy kept returning and buying more blind dates with books. Derek didn't know how he kept getting set up on blind dates by his family, or why he kept going on them. The highlight of his night was when the date was over and he could go to the little bookshop in town and buy something to read for the rest of the night. He wanted to read, not date.

[elbdot]

Hi, sorry to bother you. Do you still have plans for your pokemon story after the current arc? I love these characters and would be sad if you stopped the story there, I also would understand though. Doing the own story for so many years can be exhausting.

OF COURSE!!! This is far from the end, I'm always cooking up something new for the Alolan Gang :D

I apologize for the slow progress on the current arc though. The last part of the arc is once again quite a long update and ended up being more work than anticipated due to the location of the comic being set at a café in Hauoli City - lots of environmental backgrounds, even with the help of 3D Blender Background references it's still quite a load of work.

And you're right, working on the story can be exhausting, especially when updates become more complicated like this. That's why I did actually take a summer break from it and worked on all those Fakemon designs, shorter comics, commissions and some animations instead. But TODAY I went back to working on EAA updates again and I found myself enjoying the process again :D It felt good to realize that I MISSED drawing Guzma. I'm excited to get the current arc finished now, hopefully I'll be through with all remaining updates by the end of the year! And THEN I'll treat myself to some simpler slice of life episodes before moving on to another bigger story!

I'm afraid progress will always be slow due to me always working on multiple things at once. If it's not commissions, it's my books or a new video or something ENTIRELY new... But at least I'm always cooking up SOMETHING, and I'm SO happy when I see a lot of you getting excited for my other art as well! :D

Thanks for patiently waiting for my comics for so long!

[cheerstotheelites-if]

Life Update

I'm not dead, ya'll—

As you've noticed, I've been real quiet here and my last post was back in July. Uh, yikes. 😬

So, where have I been these past few months?

WELL, for starters, I've been busy with college since I managed to get back in (love you, grandma), and I've been busy making up for my bad grades because I had to repeat a year and retake some subjects I failed. So... there's that.

Second reason is that I experienced the worst dose of Depression in my life. It was last summer, and I wasn't happy and disappointed with myself and where my life was going at the time. It came to a point that I couldn't take care of myself proplerly (really bad sleep schedule, insomnia, refusing to eat to the point that I look so wasted, not wanting to take care of myself in general) and it went to a moment where I wanted to commit suicide, because I felt so ashamed of, well, me and my own failures. I had a note ready and everything, already committed to do the deed. Though, in the end, I'm lucky and grateful for the people that never gave up on me and helped me get out of that void. My Depression is still there, but I'm doing better now and hopefully continue to improve on that.

Speaking of, writing has been on hold because of that, writer's block, and dissatisfaction on my work. I like where Chapter 1 is going now, but at the same time I can't help but think that there should be something more and that the plot that follows after doesn't feel right to me. Though thankfully I've come up with a solution during my hiatus.

It's a rewrite. The answer is a rewrite. 💀

Not a full on rewrite, but just a few changes to the plot beats I initially had in mind. I'm not going to change Chapter 1, because for the life of me I won't be able to rewrite 26k+ words and the implemented code in Twine without getting a headache or two. But I will edit it a bit to make it flow better. Hopefully I'll be able to make some huge progress and update the demo soon in the near future.

In other news, I've been working on other things like that Discord server that's way overdue. I feel a bit more confident in being able to manage and handle a server, so I might as well try, right?

Sneak peek for the curious minded:

I'm still planning to add more things, besides needing to digitize the custom emojies of the RO's and Emery. Maybe a few more roles and channels will be added, but Imma see where that takes me.

I've been dabbling back in digital art too, albeit few because of my busy schedule and I am working on Halloween art of the RO's that will be posted soon. Nothing too big, but here ya go.

Aislinn and Lothric, oh how I've missed you both. 🥹

On the final piece of news, I'm working on commissions! Well, commission since it's only one for now, but I am thankful regardless. I am planning to open up headshot commissions and smaller, cheaper 500~1k word drabble commissions somewhere in the future. Though for now, if you wanna pay me $10 to write a 2k~3k drabble of your OC and another character from Cheers, then feel free to head over to my Kofi in the pinned post to commission me!

So, um, that's that. For now anyway, and I'm very excited to be able to work on this again after so long.

For those who has stuck around and has been patiently waiting, thank you so much for being here and for being so kind. I really am grateful and thankful.

– L 🫴🖤

[strangemaleswaps]

Strange Sleepy Swap

I absolutely hate family vacations. Don't get me wrong, the vacation part is pretty nice. The fact that I'm with my family is the problem. Each year we go to some new crazy location, which would've been fun if they didn't embarrass me every single moment. Normally it's some dumb place within the states, but this time we're going out of the country. I turned 18 a few months ago and just graduated high school, so my parents thought it was a special occasion. Oh, it's going to be special all right - it's the last time I'll be forced to go with them! As soon as the summer's over, I'm moving across the state for college, and hopefully I'll never see them again! But for now, my parents set their sights on Brazil. I guess that's where they went on their first trip together. But I'd rather go to much cooler countries like France or Japan.

So, arriving in Brazil, we moved through the airport - me, my dad, mom, and little sister. There were so many hot guys and good looking people in general walking through the halls. I wanted to flirt with them so badly! But my parents would probably call the police if I went out of their sight for a single minute. We took a taxi and arrived at our hotel room. I found out that there were only 2 bedrooms - one for my parents and one for my little sister and I. I can't even jerk off in the privacy of my own bedroom anymore! I unpacked my stuff anyway, just as my mom walked into the room.

"Are you hungry, kids?" I hate being called a kid. I'm 18! Nobody seems to understand that I'm a legal adult now!

"Yeah," we both replied.

"How about we visit some of the local places to see some culture?"

"Lame," I said.

"Jackson, YOU are going to go with us and YOU are going to like it!" My mom ordered.

"Fine."

Outside the hotel, my dad arrived with our rental car. We drove through the streets but ended up parking in what looked like the poor part of town. I thought we were going to a nice restaurant?

"What the hell are we doing here?"

"Language, Jackson! This is what I was talking about! What better way to see the local culture than to visit the local marketplace?"

We got out and I looked around. The roads and buildings were all run down and there was a gross scent in the air. The marketplace was thriving anyway, but the people there were all ugly. No hot guys! We bought some kind of pastry, eating it at a nearby table. It tasted awful! When we finished, we all split up to explore the rest of the marketplace; I didn't even bother to look at anything else because I knew I wouldn't find anything good.

I walked down the road and saw an open garage-like area with some people inside. Outside sleeping in a chair, was an obese guy with a belly so big, it hung right out of his blue tank top, and covered his knees entirely! His belly button was so big, you could probably fit an entire fist in there! He was probably the grossest human being I've ever seen in my life! It was guys like that that made me feel at least somewhat grateful that I'm so young and skinny.

I walked right past and suddenly he grabbed my arm. His eyes stayed closed though, so I guess it was some form of sleepwalking. I was disgusted anyway, so I jumped backwards and shouted at him.

"Get away from me you disgusting slob!" 

He stayed asleep even after that. But I definitely needed to wash my arm now. Who knows what kind of diseases he was carrying? I started walking towards a restroom, when I felt like I was being watched. I looked to my right to see a creepy old lady staring at me from between two buildings. She was so hideous, she looked like a witch! I ran inside and quickly washed my hands. I walked out of the bathroom, only to come face to face with the witch lady.

"Ahh! Who are you?"

"You don't like your family do you?" Is she trying to relate to me or something? Gross! I answered her anyway.

"Yeah. So?"

"Would you do anything to get away from them?"

"Yeah I guess. What are you getting at?"

"Nothing. Nothing you need to worry about." Anger rushed to my brain and out my mouth.

"Nothing? You can't just ask about my problems then offer to do nothing! Get out of my face you old hag!" Her smile changed to an angry frown but then back to a smile.

"Very well, you want me to do something? I will do something." She took a piece or chalk and started drawing a circle around my feet.

"What? Are you using your witchy magic or something?" I said, sarcastically. She ignored me and continued. With a full circle of purple chalk around me, she put her hands together and started mumbling something. The circle below me was glowing! Not just that, but I was actually sinking into the ground! Is this some kind of portal? If I could teleport to my college campus that would be great! Even better, a gay bar or somewhere I can freely be myself!

I sunk lower and lower until it was just my head and neck sticking out.  I looked up at her and said "Thank you." For some reason, instead of a friendly smile, it seemed like an evil smirk. As my eyes were about to fully submerge into the ground, I closed them.

When I opened them back up, I was sitting down inside, but was disappointed that the same bad smell was in the air. Looks like she teleported me, but it wasn't very far. I knew that witch was full of shit. I guess I should find my family again; it had been an hour and they were probably worried. I tried to get up but something was wrong. I looked down to see what was keeping me grounded when my heart started thumping extremely fast. Gone was my slim body, which was replaced with an overly large hanging gut. What the fuck happened to me? Is it touching my knees? Wait, I recognize that gut! It can't be! I've turned into that one gross slob! Was this that witch's way of getting revenge?

I didn’t want to, but I felt compelled to touch the gut. Unlike before, he was completely shirtless so the massive hanging blubber was visible for everyone to see. I looked at my huge sausage fingers, and poked it. It jiggled. I took my whole hand and pressed into the flab over and over. My whole belly rippled like a body of water. It was actually kinda fun and felt nice. No, what am I doing? I gotta get my body back.

Trying to get up was the hardest part. I had to summon all my strength in order to force the weight of the gut off of me, and plant my feet on the ground as hard as I possibly could. When I got my ass out of the chair, gravity took hold of my gut and I nearly fell over. Slowly, I got myself back onto my feet.

I couldn't even see the bottom of my gut but I could feel it touching my knees! I grabbed the bottom of it and shook. I stuck my hands between the overhang and my waist, and felt a river of sweat hiding underneath. I swear if I ever get back to my body, I'll never insult any fat guy ever again!

I tried walking back to the same bathroom I was just at, but it was more like a waddle. The gut was swinging back and forth, slapping my knees every time, pain with each slap. My back was killing me too. My entire body ached! How did this guy let himself go this far? I squeezed through the door and saw my face for the first time in the mirror. I had gray hair and silver stubble. I was an old man! My whole face was huge and I had a double chin. This can't be happening. I'm only 18!

I walked out of the bathroom just as my family strolled by. Finally! For once I was happy to see them! It'll be weird but I'm sure they can help me get back to normal somehow. I waddled over, approaching them, and freaked out when I saw…me! There was a college aged guy who looked exactly like me alongside them. Is he the owner of the body I'm in? He must be!

"Hey it's you! You have my body!" Everyone turned around, surprised to see me. My parents narrowed their eyes.

"What? What's this about bodies? Who are you?" My dad demanded.

"Mom, Dad, its me, Jackson! There was a witch that swapped our bodies! That guy isn't me!"

"What? Who do you think you are, talking to my son that way? Get out of here creep!" The guy in my body pretended to be just as confused as they were. That liar! Instead of taking any action, they just walked away, shaking me off as just some homeless creep. They probably assumed I wouldn't be able to catch up to them…and they were right. I felt exhausted already, but managed to shout one last sentence at them.

"Wait c-come back! I'm sorry! I'll never complain about vacations again!" The guy who stole my body turned his head around and gave an evil smirk at me. I looked to my right to see the witch again.

"You wanted to be away from them and your wish was granted. Here, you might want this." She tossed me what looked like a shirt, but it was huge. "Paolo gets especially lazy sometimes and doesn't feel like putting on a shirt. You'll get used to it, but here's one just in case."

I wanted to argue but I couldn’t. I just…gave up. I was feeling tired so I slipped the shirt on, pulling it as far over my belly as I could, and waddled over back to the garage area. My knees were killing me at this point so I stood next to the chair I was sitting on earlier, rotated myself, and firmly plopped onto it. All the pain went away and I started feeling drowsy. I rolled up the shirt a little and stuck my finger inside my belly button, playing with it. Am I getting hard? I shouldn't be so turned on but I am! I then pressed my belly in, seeing and feeling the ripples until I finally fell asleep. Haha…Maybe this won't be so bad afterall. I'm finally away from my family, and I can just sleep the day away…everyday…

[lyra-r05e]

Hi again! It's time for another chapter teaser :)

This excerpt doesn't feature Sebastian at all (sorry to disappoint). As such, there's nothing explicit in the excerpt below, but if you're new to this fic it is absolutely explicit (minors be warned).

Chapter 13: Harvest will be posted on Sunday, October 20th.

What Friends Are For

Fandom: Stardew Valley

Rating: Explicit (Smut, Graphic Depictions of Violence)

Genre: M/F, Friends with Benefits / Friends to lovers

Pairing: Sebastian x Female Player ('You' perspective)

TW: alcoholism. Please enjoy "Shane's Birthday:"

This week has been incredibly busy for you. Every day until summer will be spent harvesting your spring crops and preparing for the transition to the new season. After selling a massive haul to a delighted Pierre, you barge into the clinic with determination.

“Is it too late for a coffee?” You ask, handing your thermos out to Harvey.

“Never,” he replies, placing his mug in front of you to pour into. “What would you like in return for this surprise gift?”

“Hey now, I don't always ask for something in return.”

“True, but your coffee offerings always come with a request or an apology. I assumed the former,” he smirks and takes a sip.

“Ok fine, you got me. I have a favour to ask of you, but it's totally okay if you don't feel comfortable doing it.”

“I'm listening,” he raises an eyebrow with intrigue.

“It's Shane’s birthday today, and I want to throw him a mini surprise party. But I know he won't come over willingly, so I was hoping you might give him a call,” you look up at him and gauge his reaction.

“Oh. I know where this is going,” Harvey rubs his temple under the arm of his glasses, “you know it's incredibly unethical for me to fake an injury, right?”

“I know, you can say no. Hear me out though, I just need Shane to think he needs to help feed Kiki tonight. He'll do it, he's soft when it comes to animals. It just has to be for a good enough reason, like I passed out from exhaustion and need an IV or something. You know?” You say hopefully.

Harvey looks at you, pondering his options. It's a bit of a stretch asking him to do this, he's completely justified in refusing your request. He twirls a pen around his fingers and sighs heavily.

“I just know he won't take it seriously from me, but if you ask him-”

“Fine,” Harvey sighs in defeat.

“Really!?” You clench your fists in excitement.

“Yes, for you I'll do it,” he chuckles, “when should I call him?”

“Hmm, around 6 maybe? In case he comes over right after.”

“Sounds good. I'll let you know how it goes.”

“Thank you! You're the best,” you wave and quickly exit the clinic, energized for your birthday mission.

***

You're just about finished frying the last batch of pepper poppers when Harvey’s call comes in. You quickly answer it and tuck your phone between your cheek and shoulder to keep your hands free.

“Tell me good news, Doc!”

Harvey chuckles on the other end. “Apparently I'm a more convincing actor than I thought. He was pissed, but he's on his way.”

“He’ll get over it soon. Thanks for doing this Harvey, I really appreciate it.”

“No worries, have fun tonight.”

“See you soon,” you end the call and fish the rest of the snacks from the oil, adding them to a tray in the oven to keep warm. Between these and the pizza you got from Gus, the smell coming from the cabin might give away the surprise.

You quickly tidy up, set the table and scatter some cheap decorations to finish the gift. You turn off the lights and sit quietly on your couch to wait for his arrival.

Shane's footsteps approach a few minutes later, and he tentatively tries the door. You always leave your door unlocked, so he slips in and calls out for Kiki, who comes trotting up to greet him. He gives her a few head scritches before standing to hit the lights.

“Surprise!” You jump up with your biggest smile, earning a jolt and a death glare from Shane.

“That explains the smell. You’re unbelievable, you know that right?”

“Honestly, you should expect this from me at this point,” you laugh, leading him to the kitchen, “Happy Birthday, Shane.”

Shane grumbles, but inspects the table with curiousity. You pull out the pizza and pepper poppers from the oven, and grab a large growler of your homemade pale ale from the fridge.

“There's no one else lurking in the shadows, is there?”

“Nope, just me.”

“Good. I don't have to share.”

“I'm glad you’re hungry, I was hoping to catch you before dinner. Did you have any plans tonight?” You pass him a mug of beer.

“I was just about to throw in a frozen pizza when Harvey called. The game starts soon,” he glances at the clock on your wall.

“We can watch it here if you like?”

“You like Gridball?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Truthfully, I don't know anything about it. But it's your birthday, so whatever you want to do I'm game.”

Shane ponders his options for a moment, staring at the spread of his favourites you prepared for him. “Yea alright.”

“Sweet,” you toss him the TV remote and pile a plate with food while he finds the right channel.

“I can't believe you put Harvey up to lie like that. I didn't think he was capable of it.”

“That man will do anything for a cup of coffee, I swear,” you laugh, “what did he say?”

“He said Marlon found you passed out and carried you to the clinic, and that he was worried about your new kitten. I almost refused, but he said you trust me the most when it comes to animal care,” he rolls his eyes.

“Nice, Harvey. Pulling at the one heartstring you have,” you grin cheekily.

“Yea yea,” he takes a big bite of a pepper popper, visible steam escaping from it. “FUCK that's hot,” he struggles to avoid dropping it.

“Oh yea, I just fried those,” you laugh, “good though, right?”

“So good,” a tear streams down his face, unclear if primarily from pain or pleasure.

The two of you stuff your faces while watching the game, Shane happy to answer your questions about the rules and add quips about the players. It's nice to see him so enthusiastic about something other than chickens.

When halftime rolls around, you tidy up and pack away the leftovers for Shane to take home later. He brings your plates for the dishwasher, and refills both of your beers.

“So..” he looks at you tentatively, and you raise an eyebrow at him. “Aunt Marnie told me Sebastian was here when she dropped Kiki off.”

You tense up for a moment before continuing with your task. “I was wondering if she would. What's the rumour going around about us? It hasn't come back to me yet.”

“There isn't one. I managed to squash it for you, you're welcome.”

“Really? How?”

“She asked if I knew anything about the two of you, and I said yes. She barely knows anything about Sebastian, other than he tends to stay up late in his room. She thought it was weird he was there so early, so I told her he often hangs out with you when he can't sleep and that you’re good friends.”

You flop back onto the couch and turn the volume down while the commercials ramble on. “And she just took your word for it?”

Shane joins you on the couch. “Yea. She's uh, really team Harvey for your romantic interest,” he takes a sip of beer, glancing at you for your reaction.

You lean your head back on the couch with a groan, putting your palm on your forehead. You slide your hand down your face and take a few big sips of beer.

“Those women need to get a hobby. Seriously, why does everyone think we’re going to date? We barely hang out, sure we're friendly with each other but come on, it's not like we're openly flirting,” your frustration is evident in your tone.

“Harvey is kind, and well respected. And so are you. They want him to be happy,” he shrugs.

“I want him to be happy too, but I don't want to be responsible for his happiness,” you furrow your brows, taking another angry sip.

“Touchy subject, eh?” Shane smirks, and you glare at him briefly. “Why are you so mad about it?”

You stare into your mug and sigh, unsure how to answer.

“...Maybe you and Sebastian are more serious than you think after all?” He says tentatively.

You sigh, and meet his eyes. “I don’t want to be responsible for Seb’s happiness either.”

“What about your own happiness?”

This is easily the deepest conversation you've had with Shane. It's a nice change of pace, being able to talk openly with someone who knows about you and Sebastian. You reflect for a moment before answering him. “I want to be happy on my own first. What about you?”

“Yea, me too. I got a lot of issues to sort out still,” he stares into his beer.

“Can I be honest with you?” You turn slightly to face him.

“When are you not?”

You grin briefly before returning to a serious expression. “I…I feel conflicted. About giving you alcohol. Ever since that day…” you trail off, memories of his limp body by the cliff flashing in your mind.

Shane fidgets slightly, avoiding your eyes. “I'm feeling better, truly. I don't rely on it as much any more. It's still a problem, no doubt about it. But I feel…much more in control, now. It's not an everyday thing that consumes my every thought.”

“That's good to hear,” you place a hand on his knee for comfort. “Let me know how I can support you. If you decide to quit for example, I'll remove any sign of it from your sight.”

“Thanks. Counselling has helped a lot. And so has the time with your chickens,” he smiles softly. “Now shut up, the games back on,” he grabs the remote and cranks the volume. You smirk at the abrupt end of your heart-to-heart, straightening up and resting your feet on the coffee table to enjoy the game.

The game ends later than you anticipated, Shane’s team squeaking out an overtime win as another little birthday present for him. You grab the leftover pizza from the fridge and hand it to him as he gets ready to go.

“Thanks for everything, Farmer. This was…really nice,” he smiles warmly at you.

“Awe, you’re welcome,” you lean in to give him a big hug, but your attempt is thwarted by a hand on your forehead.

“No. No, none of that,” he stands firm, resisting your attempts to lean forward and break his strength.

“Let me…hug you…dammit!” You grunt as you lean further into his palm.

“Fucking hell, why are you so freakishly strong?” He sighs, removing his hand. You flop into his chest suddenly, and he grunts as he catches you for a one-armed embrace.

“Oof!” You’re startled for a moment, but quickly squeeze him tight. Shane pats your back a few times, sighing dramatically.

“You’re a good hugger.”

“Don't get used to it. Now let me go, would ya?” Shane feigns annoyance, but his smile remains when you break away from him.

“See you in the morning,” you wave him off as he walks home, pleased with yourself for how well the evening went. It'll be hard to top that gift next year, you chuckle to yourself.

[hsvh-hp]

2024 Wrapped!

I've seen these posts floating around the site, and they look so fun!

2024 was a big year for me, for fandom. I made so many new incredible friends on here and Discord, got more involved in events, and participated in a few fests. I also finished the longfic I'd started in September 2023, which I honestly still can't believe is finally going live in less than 48 hours.

My best estimate of how many words I wrote this year (I cut a long in editing, so this number will actually be higher) is somewhere around 370,000.

This post got extremely long, so I've put the majority of it under the cut. I don't write very often (on Tumblr, anyway) about my process, or consistently promote my work. So, hopefully y'all can forgive me for indulging this one time at the end of the year.

In order that I wrote them:

🎉 Spiral Dynamics (Draco/Harry; 21.1k words)

This one was for the Fellytone game on the Drarry Discord server! Based on this stunning art by @appleslightning, there's basically some Friends to Lovers hijinks with Draco and Harry, as Draco's probation officer retires 7 years into Draco's 10 year term, and Harry volunteers to take the spot 'as a favour' without having consulted Draco first. Drama Draco's dramatics ensue. The fic also inspired this by @maesterchill, and I am grinning and kicking my feet all over again looking at it. THESE TWO, I love them, your honour.

✨ The 'Two for the Triwizard' Trilogy (Draco/Harry; 3 fics totalling 9.3k words)

A Triwizard Tournament AU, but make it Drarry. This small series was also born on the Drarry Discord in a fun game of 'haha what if'.

In Fraternizing With the Enemy, Harry sees that Draco has come to the Yule Ball with a boy from Durmstrang (Volkov? Vikhrov?) and totally only chases his date off because said date is from a rival school. Harry and Draco end up dancing and chatting, and Harry ends his night feeling like a complete goner ensnared by Draco.

The Fourth Hostage skips to the Second Task, where Draco has replaced Ron as Harry's hostage at the bottom of the lake. Under weight afterward of Harry trying to figure out What's Going On between himself and Draco, Draco takes some initiative of his own to remind/inform Harry that he couldn't have been chosen as a hostage for the Task if he didn't agree to it. They get together. 🥹

Little Hangleton and Beyond is another skip. I wanted a happy ending not just for Draco and Harry, but Sirius and the Malfoys as well. I'll expand on this later when I reflect on my favourite themes and character propaganda, but the premise for this one is Lucius Malfoy changes the course of the graveyard scene following the Third Task. Draco's been writing home about his new boyfriend, and Lucius just...can't let anything happen to Harry, lol. So, Voldemort is immediately cast back into Undeath, Wormtail is so shocked that he's easily apprehended, Sirius' name is cleared, Harry goes to live with him, blah blah, Happily Ever After.

🎉 Full Indulgence (Tonks/Fleur/Bill; 14.7k words)

This was written for @hptransfest! The prompt was basically exploring Tonks' Metamorphmagus abilities during sex, and I'd had an idea rattling around for some Tonks/Fleur that I was very excited to finally have a chance to write. The premise was that in Half-Blood Prince, Tonks wasn't coming to the Burrow in the summer to get sympathy from Molly about her feelings for Remus. She was there to ogle Fleur, and then it turns out Fleur wants her, and Bill's cool with it, and Bill gets involved, etc. It was a great excuse to write 15k of very indulgent smut.

The thing I was most proud about in this fic was that (despite me using she/her pronouns in the paragraph above) I wrote 15k of 3rd person POV smut and didn't use one single personal pronoun for Tonks. It was a challenge, but so fun and validating for a character who identified as having no gender at all.

✨ Something About Malfoy (Draco/Harry; 3.2k words)

This fic spawned as a short and sweet AU from Draco Malfoy and the Descent of the Feathered Serpent (TL;DR, the longfic I'm just about to start posting, which is Order of the Phoenix from Draco's POV).

Some backstory: when I was rereading Spinners of Fate to start preparing for the sequel fic, I was hit with the realization about Draco that, my god, this kid is such an egg waiting to crack lmao. Folks who follow the Canon in Draconis Major series will see the Trans Draco Malfoy tag on 5th year's fic. I've read multiple metas here on tumblr about how Draco (among others) are 'fem-coded' in HP, and so it makes sense to me that Draco be some shade of genderqueer along with being gay lol. He's a mean girl, and a Mean Girl™. But also still a boy.

He ended up bigender in my head, keeping his name and pronouns while just sometimes Switching Things Up externally as he pleases. This ended up a big deal in Feathered Serpent, since Umbridge takes cue from Dumbledore's insistence that BCJ snuck into Hogwarts using Polyjuice Potion that magically changing a person's appearance ought to be banned (but of course, as it truly goes with her, the control is the real point).

ANYWAY, in this fic, I pretended for 3200 words that Voldemort never came back, therefore Umbridge never taught at Hogwarts, therefore Draco could come out as trans/bigender/genderqueer exactly when he felt like it, which coincided with the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match. Poor Harry, he was not prepared for that.

🎉 Twilight Eternal (Draco/Harry; 23.9k words)

This was written for @hd-tarot, and was another fic that I had an idea rattling around for, looking for an excuse to write lol. Those who've been following me for a long time and have the sharpest of memories might remember this post from a year ago. There was an ask game regarding names of WIPs, and @omgkatsudonplease asked me about this one. I finally got to write it!!!

It's also very interesting to me to reread that ask and see how differently the fic wound up. I hadn't conceived yet that Hermione was involved, or that she and Draco were Unspeakables. I also thought it would be a Getting Together fic with Draco and Harry, but ended up with them already established in a relationship. I'm very happy with it, even if it (comparatively) didn't get much love.

🎉 WARNING: May Contain Pollen (Draco/Harry; 2.9k words)

Honestly, this is basically a crackfic lol. It started as a joke: what if there was sex pollen, but either Draco or Harry turns out to be allergic to it? And uh, yeah! That's the plot!

🚧 Beyond the Scuttling Void (Harry & Sirius, eventual Draco/Harry; 54.6k words and ongoing)

A crossover fic, using the Veil in the Department of Mysteries as means for Sirius, Harry, and Draco to isekai into another world! Surely this has never been done before! (heavy /s lmao)

2024 has been a year of getting back to fandom roots for me. One of the things I wanted to unlearn was the 'I must complete my fics before I begin posting them' mentality. This fic, since the crossover material (Skyrim) is an open world RPG, basically translates to Harry, Draco, and Sirius being able to do whatever they want. Well, Sirius ended up the prophesied Hero from the game lol. But since Harry follows Sirius through the Veil after a ten year long timejump (canon-based space/time shenanigans in Elder Scrolls/Skryim lore) the Main Quest™ is already dealt with, and Sirius is just a happily-married hero with a house he built himself, tons of friends, and two sons who he took in as orphans. Harry has to reckon a lot with feeling like a bag of dicks for asking Sirius to help him get home once they're reunited.

It's been really fun writing this fic as Harry learns how to navigate a world where magic is different, and which is basically medieval Scandinavia with dragons, elves, vampires, a pantheon of trickster gods, and spiders the size of horses lol. The lore runs deep, and Harry keenly investigates it for means to reverse his having been dumped here through the Veil. As far as I've posted, Draco hasn't shown up yet. Harry doesn't even know he's there, and likewise: Draco has no idea Harry and Sirius are there. I know where Draco is, and look forward to the three of them rolling up together like the pointing Spiderman meme. What I can say about Draco at the current point of posting is that at least now....he is safe, haha. He had to grow up very quickly all of a sudden to have made that happen for himself. He's Seen Some Shit.

So what were the most common themes in my work this year?

Established Draco/Harry. As seen in: Little Hangleton and Beyond, Twilight Eternal, and WARNING: May Contain Pollen.

I feel that for me, shifting from more Getting Together fics to Established Draco/Harry fics is a natural progression as I write more Drarry fics. Mutual pining, Draco and Harry pursuing each other, and proving themselves to each other are fun, but so is skipping all of that and letting them focus on whatever's threatening their happiness in the fic lol. Or, like Little Hangleton and Beyond, just letting them have their happiness while the rest of the plot ties up.

2. Sirius & Harry, and Harry living with Sirius. As seen in: Little Hangleton and Beyond, Something About Malfoy, and Beyond the Scuttling Void.

I really, really wish that Sirius and Harry had gotten the godfather-godson happy ending they deserved in canon. This is one of the greatest tragedies of the Harry Potter series to me (does that mean I would've trusted JKR to write it any other way? Ummm no lol). So, where possible, I set them up in a post-Goblet of Fire AU to have a happy future to look forward to.

As for Beyond the Scuttling Void, let's just say it's my post-Order of the Phoenix coping mechanism. Sirius isn't dead! He's just gone to be a hero and kill the big bad dragon. He's married and everything! He's fine, guys. Don't worry about it.

3. Lucius being a good dad for Draco. As seen in: Spiral Dynamics, the Two for the Triwizard trilogy, Something About Malfoy, and Twilight Eternal.

OKAY, this is my self-confessed delusion, my fight against the tide, and my drowned out truth lol. I love Lucius Malfoy. I hate when he's abusive to Draco, and I've just gotten numb to the prospect of him being killed off, in Azkaban, or...whatever...in post-war Drarry fic. I love when Lucius remains a hurdle to Harry because Draco, uh, kind of really loves and admires his dad.

There was a tumblr post about power fantasies that really spoke to me. Essentially, for some people killing/beating up the bad guy is the power fantasy. For some, love changing them. For some, the bad guy getting to run wild to their full potential. For me, Lucius is #2. I love writing him as a good dad, or at least trying his best through the war years, and having to reckon/own up with his failures in the end if he wants to restore full trust from Draco. I love when he learns something about Draco and will rewrite his entire worldview to suit his beloved only child (Draco & Narcissa based morality, rather than pureblood supremacy morality - although these certainly overlap a lot of the time). And, honestly? I think I love it (and him) so much because he's so underappreciated in Drarry fandom and fic. I have to feed myself on this one, guys.

So...this was 2024 for me! And I didn't even wax lyrically about the 291,000 word behemoth that is Descent of the Feathered Serpent lol. It was a very busy year for me, and fandom (especially all the new friends/acquaintances I made) helped me through some trying RL stuff. If you've read this far, THANK YOU FOR MAKING 2024 GOOD AND FUN!! I will maybe see you in a few days when I start regularly posting again. ❤️

[allthingslinguistic]

Language Guinea Pig Diaries #2: Highlights & Troubleshooting

I'm trying to improve my skills at four languages in preparation for summer travel: Italian, Dutch, Finnish, and Estonian.

Italian and Dutch I've studied a bit a while ago and I'm now trying to "activate" so I can hopefully have a conversation or two in them, while Finnish and Estonian I'm trying to pick up some rudimentary bits in. Here's the previous post in this series describing these goals and strategies in more detail.

Highlights

I've progressed from my menu of only gelato-making videos in Italian to other recipes in general, and in particular to lots of cooking videos from this popular Italian home cooking channel which was in the recommended videos after another one I watched. Maybe I'll branch out again at some point to other speakers, but for now it's nice to be able to stumble into more videos without having to think up new keywords to search. Also, I might need to make some of these recipes now...

The Dutch podcast listening is going well (though see weird issue below) and I especially like that the podcast I chose because it's the only podcast I knew in Dutch contains a mix of adult-to-adult and adult-and-child speech, which is a fun way to mix it up.

In Estonian, so far I have learned one (1) highly useful word, "tere", which this video tells me is an all-purpose neutral greeting (neutral with respect to both formality and time of day). Ooh, I've just realized while writing this post that it's probably cognate to Finnish "terve", a greeting I learned from Duolingo! (Yes, I just looked this up, seems like they both mean something to do with health.) So I've already learned one neat thing!

I'm also recognizing a few Estonian cognates from the Finnish Duolingo lessons, especially the verb "on" (which means "is"). I'm not recognizing many other words though, and I'm wondering how much of that is differing vocab and how much of that is not having learned many common words in Finnish yet (I've been especially chafing at how few verbs we've learned yet, it would be really useful to have a word like "I want" even if it's unanalyzed because the grammar is more complicated than they want to introduce early).

Youtube's algorithm has, after about a week, adjusted to the fact that I now want to watch videos entirely in Italian, and started recommending further Italian videos on my home feed (it was already doing so at the end of previous Italian videos). Tiktok's algorithm, so far, has not done this yet, and is still recommending me stuff in English, despite me aggressively liking basically all of the Estonian videos I watch and nothing else.

Troubleshooting

I've noticed that it's been easier to remember to do the podcast listening in Dutch and the youtube videos in Italian because I already have habits related to opening those apps, whereas I don't have habits around using tiktok so I kept forgetting to open it and look at some Estonian videos. But a couple days ago I moved the tiktok app on my phone to a more visible location, and now it's getting easier to remember.

Something else very weird that I noticed about listening is that when I play the tracks on my phone fairly loudly, it's relatively easy to focus on trying to listen to them, sometimes while playing a simple visual game on my phone for something to fiddle with (I've already noticed that unfamiliar languages need to be played louder than familiar ones). But when I beam the podcast over to my speaker at a distance, suddenly I very quickly start tuning out the unfamiliar language and opening up apps that involve reading and completely ignoring it. I have no problems listening to podcasts on speakers in English; in fact, it's my preferred method when I'm at home, but for some reason this causes my brain to reclassify Dutch as background noise to be ignored, even if it's the same loudness as it would be when it's played right near me. Super weird, has anyone else ever noticed anything like this?

Previously in Language Guinea Pig Diaries:

Summer 2024 travel plans and Language Guinea Pig Diaries

[arcane-vagabond]

Hey, so...

This is going to be a LONG post, so please bare with me.

I've been doing a LOT of thinking the past week about what fics I'm doing and when. I've made some decisions that some people are probably not going to like, and I completely understand that, but at the end of the day, it's my blog and my time. I know there have been some fics that people have been very excited for, but unfortunately, things change.

As of right now, Til the Summer Comes Again is getting shelved until sometime in November. I love the fic, and I want to finish it, but I do think it'll be a lot more fun to do in the winter considering it's a Jack Frost fic. This past winter was really hectic for me considering I started a new job after being unemployed for a couple of months, and with the stress of all that and the pressure for other fics, it definitely fell by the wayside. The fic idea is something so special to me, which is why I'm shelving it instead of scrapping it altogether. We will see Jack Frost!Bob again in November!

I am also scrapping my Hadestown fic (In Spite of the Way). I'm doing this because it's such a specific story, and unfortunately, I just don't see myself being able to add anything new or interesting to the story at hand. It would just be a complete retelling of the story that's already there, and that's not something that I want to do.

I am also tabling my Studio Ghibli fics. I'm not sure if I'll ever come back to them, but they've been pushed to the side for so long that it just doesn't make sense to have them on my masterlist when it's becoming clear that other things are drawing my interests away. I'd love to re-explore them farther down the line, but for now, Our Hill of Stars and The Word of the Crooked are being taken off my masterlist. Whisper in the Wind I believe will be started come early September or so and be a part of the Autumn lineup.

Now that Meet Me at the Sea is done, my focus is going to be on finishing Fool's Fare and updating the Dagger Posse Universe here and there. Fool's Fare is most likely to be done sometime in April if I had to guess, which means...

It's time to talk the Sailor-Aviator Summer Cinematic Release schedule!

As we all know, I've just announced the MMATS stand-alone sequel: Down By the Bay featuring one Bradley Bradshaw. But what else is coming this summer? Let's talk about it!

There have been a few of you waiting for my Indiana Jones!Jake fic aka Fortune & Glory, and I'm so excited to announce that it is on the roster for this summer! Tune in to follow Jake and Bucket as they try to secure the legendary staff of Moses before the Nazis do!

Next up on the roster is the long-awaited Mafia fic! Titled after the age-old idiom, Two Birds follows the reader as they unwittingly catch the eye of not one, but two mafia bosses, both standing as the dual heads of the Dagger Syndicate. Two Birds is a M x F x M featuring Jake "Hangman" Seresin and Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (No Hangster).

I'm hoping to start these fics anywhere from Mid-May to early June, so stay tuned!!

Meanwhile, I will be dedicating some time to the DPU as well, trying to wrap up some fics within that to hopefully have it finished (or down to the last one) by the summer's end.

If you've stuck around this long, I just want to say thank you. Not only for reading this monster of a post, but for continuing to read my work and for following and supporting me through everything! You guys are the best! Until next time~

[sabrinahawthorne]

What's Happening in 2025

I think it's time for an update, and a tentative schedule for the coming year - so let's do that.

Games

Development on CLASH! really slowed down in the latter half of 2024, and while the reasons for that are by and large out of my direct control, I still feel a little bad for not speaking about it for so long.

I am still working on CLASH! - promise. The state of the game is that I'm working around a design challenge (regarding Techniques and how they relate to Fighter customization) by dissecting the game to a more bare-bones version and playtesting the parts that need tweaking until I can iron out those wrinkles. Once I've made some progress with that issue, I'm going to start fitting more pieces back onto the system, playtesting as I go, and putting out further playtest materials.

I don't think I'm going to finish CLASH! in 2025. Looking back, I definitely bit off more than I could chew in trying to complete it in 2024. A project of even this relatively small scope is orders of magnitude more complex than something like Broke Wizards. So in 2025, I'm going to pace myself with it. It's still going to be my focus, so don't worry, especially if you contributed to its crowdfunding campaign. 2025 will have goodies for you, even if the game itself probably won't be done. But I'm going to give the book the time and care it deserves.

But it isn't going to be the only thing I plan on making this year! I've got a handful of lighter things I want to put out. For one, I really want to release supplements for Broke Wizards. Adventure modules, mainly, but I've also got and idea for a magical items supplement with some new rules for crafting and the like.

This year will probably see a new Yon release as well! It's going to look pretty different from A Tyrant's Throne, and it's an exciting prospect.

Keep an eye out through the year. You'll like what I've got coming.

Public Appearances

That's such a bizarre thing to be posting about. Anyway.

The only certain event I'll be at is an episode of the Dovecote with @darlingdemoneclipse! I had a blast my first time, and it made my day when Eclipse offered me another go. I'll be on the show on the 27th of January, and I hope you'll join us.

A less certain prospect is a possible appearance on @tinytablepodcast. As of this posting, Broke Wizards has made it to the second round of voting as a submission for the show! If it wins, then the wonderful folks there will do me the amazing honor of playing my game. You should join their Patreon and vote to get my game a place on the show. And to support the show, of course. They make good stuff. If they end up playing it, then I'll make an appearance for a post-mortem Q&A!

I'm very excited about the possibility, but you should listen to the Tiny Table podcast regardless.

Other Stuff

The bad news is that I'm going to be focusing a little less on writing in 2025. Not ignoring it completely - hopefully the Games section of this update is proof of that - but a little.

The good news is that I'm doing some teaching this year! I won't go into too much detail right now, but the gist is that in 2024, I was given the opportunity to teach game design to beginner designers, and I'm going to take the gig. It's nothing prestige, mind. This is a recurring job at a local arts center, and I'm by no means an expert in this field (at least compared to some peers of mine). But I do have experience as a self-taught designer, and I'm honored and delighted to have the opportunity to give new designers a jumping-off point.

Relatedly, I'm going to be spending a lot of time this year introducing new players to RPGs. This, too, is also going to be a thing local to where I live, so if you follow me you probably won't hear a lot about it. But I'm excited about it, so I'm talking about it.

A Personal Note

You no doubt know this already, given how I have been - and will be - posting about it, but I'm having surgery this summer! It's nothing serious, and it's obviously not urgent. But it's something I've needed done for a while, and it'll be the end of several long-standing issues for me.

What you also certainly know by now is that I'm holding a sale to raise funds for that surgery for the next six months. All my games are included in it, and anything I release before it's over will be added to it. I'm also pushing my ko-fi during that time.

Needless to say, I probably won't be doing much from July to September this year. Not nothing, but not a lot, either.

Thank you all for the support you've shown me this year. It doesn't go unnoticed. Happy new year.

[william-o]

I participated in the Seasons of Gensokyo Zine!

I'm back once again in a collaboration Gensokyozine to share a fic I've made for their zine! Last year I wrote two short poem pieces but this year I did something I rarely do and wrote a whole short story!

You can read my piece on its own on ao3 here! But I highly recommend looking and reading all the amazing pieces this new zine has to offer!

I have quite a bit to talk about for this piece I wrote, it's been a journey! If you're interesting keep reading below!

So I knew there was going to be another event like this this year but I had no idea what the theme would be until the announcement was made. When I heard it was going to be based on seasons it was actually pretty tough figuring out a story revolving around that. I was also determined to write more than just a poem this time around so it had to be somewhat substantial.

Thankfully in the application where we had to pitch our idea there were a few topic examples provided, one of which involved using a story involving cicadas. So I started to do some research on cicadas, and what I found as a source of inspiration was a story about Cicadas by Lafcadio Hearn. Perhaps you've heard about him? Me being a *somewhat* superstitious individual saw it as a sign that this is what I was to write about for the seasons of gensokyo zine!

With further research I discover the existence of Dog Day Cicadas. They share the name of the shot type in the extra stage of Hidden Star in Four Seasons, they have folktale of how they're a sign of the end of summer and beginning of the next season, and strictly as a bonus for myself they're green and black just like me! It sounds like a story perfect to feature Yukari!

Now one of my biggest fears about writing a fanfic is completely misinterpreting a character. So I did all I could to try to get Yukari written just right. My idea was that it was most common in Gensokyo that people hated the sound cicadas make, except for Yukari. I was however advised that I needed some kind of reason that Yukari would like the sound cicadas make, or some kind of justification. Thankfully I found just what I needed in Chapter Five of Cage in Lunatic Runagate where Yukari states "The moon was unthinkably silent compared to the Gensokyo that was constantly noisy from bickering between humans and youkai. ~ Whether it was decay or pure heaven, I hated it. I needed the noise of the city." Close enough in my book to say that Yukari prefers noise over silence whether it be from people, a city, or cicadas.

Now when it comes to Son Biten, I didn't pressure myself as much to try and get her character right as I did with Yukari. She is one of the newest characters after all so there was less material to analyze her character. Although if I were to criticize myself about this fic, it would be that she's only there to be a plot point. I'll admit, I only really wanted her in here as a way to have the great sage equal to heaven and gensokyo and an actual sage interact. I will say I did a little bit of research to Son's personality, but I more or less just had her trying to do her best pretending to live up to the title she gave herself (Even though her character is more than just that).

And for good measure at the end I threw in a poem, this time in the tanka form (5-7-5-7-7). This was overall a lot of fun to write! I tried to format the story as a whole similar to a Hifuu story as well as the "A Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet Every Sixty Years" story. Speaking of Hifuu, I did throw in a little reference to Taboo Japan Disentanglement, did you happen to catch it? Well I hope you enjoyed my little story, I'm gonna go order some pizza and I'll see you again next year! (Hopefully!)