#sometimes i think about six months ago me watching current me type things like this out

[johnslittlespoon]

"i'm just a girl" me, a 23 year old man, whispering to myself as i research b17 turret machine guns to see if a metaphor i want to use in my gay wwII pilot fanfic makes sense (i've never held a gun in my life)

[moollllaaaayyy]

03.25.2023

It’s so weird to me that a woman who can hit her chronically ill, currently sick HUSBAND over the head with a HOT frying pan with grease in it will not pul a 5 year old child’s very loose tooth...

My mother has become someone I don’t know. She has changed so much in the recent and previous years, but this passed 4 months has been... fucking insane. 

She has cheated on my father for the 4/5th time. He is finally, FINALLY done. He has suffered so much mental, physical, and emotional abuse from this woman. The lowest blow? The man she cheated on him with was my older brother and sisters sperm donor. I have said his name more this passed two weeks more than I have ever in my entire life.

She didn’t even think about what her older children would say, or how they would feel? She claims that we hate her. But, we have no idea who this woman is. She has betrayed our entire family so much recently. This woman has become so narcissistic and condescending. 

She is the type of person you can have a lot of normal, funny, “dramatic” conversations with. Something serious comes up and it is fucking game over. 

I’m 26, and I fear telling her about a new job, a new lifestyle. There was a time this past summer I thought I was pregnant, and she found out through word of mouth and made me feel guilty. Like... I am twenty fucking six years old and I have THREE other fucking children. The man I’m with is going to be the man I’m with for the rest of my life. He is the father of my children, and would’ve been the father of that child. 

Someone dies? She wants to know the nitty gritty fucking details, but can’t give someone a hug and console them. My uncle whom I was super close with passed away ten years ago 2023 January, and the first thing this fucking bitch says to me when I walked in the door after my dad told me he died, “Eric would want you to finish your finals. He wanted you to do well in school.” 

I didn’t even say anything. I lost my best friend and THAT is what she says to me??? I will never forget that. I will never forgive her for that. I was a fucking junior in HIGH SCHOOL. 

It is so hard to cut the ties with her, but each day I feel like its more and more forced and it is making me fucking miserable. It’s easy to listen to my dad and let him confide in me - which I am so glad he does, but the more he reveals that I found out she did to him when we were growing up disgusts me. I have no idea who this woman is, and that scares me.

I have so much unresolved trauma from her and her alone that I just.... sit here with it. And I will probably continue to sit with it. 

One time, her and my older sister were arguing and my mother knocked over a tv and dressed out of anger.

She gets so angry sometimes that she takes a knife and stabs the wall or the kitchen counter. 

My dad was sick with this super weird illness he is dealing with and very well managing, and she fucking cooked breakfast for my little brother and sister and they were either talking or arguing or she was just mad because she can’t fucking deal with stress, and she fucking hit him over the head with a hot, greasy frying pan. I don’t know man. I remember being a teenager and getting in between them two during an argument just trying to get her to leave my dad alone and she looks at me and says “what do you think you’re going to do?” For the first time, I stood up to her and said “I don’t think you want to find out.” And that was when she stopped and left him alone.

I hate it. I’m 26 years old and my parents are making me feel like a fucking 10 year old trapped in a loveless, loud, mean marriage. I feel like I need to choose sides, but nobody is making me necessarily feel that way, I just know that I need to. My mom and I haven't been close in recent years, and my dad and I have gotten very close. My car exploded and we worked together and he has been driving me and my kiddos around for the past couple years now. 

I am hurting. I am hurting watching my older brother and sister go through the emotional damage this is causing and having to make decisions to protect themselves and their children. I am hurting for my kids because they don’t know why they can’t go over and see Mimi and Pappy much anymore. I am hurting for my younger siblings that they have to witness the roughest, most dangerous, scary situation. I remember hiding my baby sister in my room during arguments. I remember ripping her from a room so fast.

She already struggles with speaking when she is stressed. She has SEVERE anxiety, and she gets overwhelmed VERY easily. She is traumatized. She witnessed the unfolding of the worst of it a couple weekends ago. My little brother say my dad hit my mom. Saw them hit each other. 

I am their safe space and it breaks my heart. Their PARENTS SHOULD BE THEIR GOD DAMN SAFE SPACE!!!!!

Goodnight. I can’t breathe. 

[survey--s]

475.

How often do you eat your favourite food? I have pizza about once a week and steak every few months.

Have you ever fallen asleep on public transport? (including planes) Yeah, a few times.

What room of the house are you in right now? I’m in the living room.

What was the last tv show you watched? The Simpsons.

Have you been using Apple Music? I tried it a few times, but it didn’t really appeal to me.

Do you pay rent for the place you live? How often? No, we have a mortgage which we pay monthly.

How do you feel at this particular moment? Anything on your mind? Sore. I pulled a muscle in my neck at work the other day and it still bloody hurts lol. Everytime I move my head I can feel it pulling.

Where was the last place you went on vacation/holiday to? Who’d you go with? Uh, I forget the name but it was somewhere in the Peak District and I went with my husband and the dog.

Does the place you work have music playing? What sort? I work outdoors lol, so no. I do play Spotify in the car between jobs though.

List all the colours you’re currently wearing. Black, grey, cream and white.

What’s your favourite type of donut? It depends on my mood - I love those cinnammon sugar ones you get at fairs and stuff though.

What do you usually eat for breakfast? Lately it’s been peanut butter and bananas on toast.

Do you have any candles in your bedroom? Do you light them often? Not in the bedroom but I have a wax burner downstairs and have it lit whenever I’m home and awake. Currently the scent is Posh Honey Truffles.

When was the last time you went out for dinner? My mum and I went out for lunch a couple of weeks ago.

Have you seen all the Hunger Games films as of current? I saw the first two.

What was the last thing you said to someone else in person? I can’t remember.

Do you use Windows, Mac, Linux, or something else entirely? Windows at the moment.

How many times do you call someone on the phone a week? Maybe 2-3 times.

Have you cooked anything today? What was it? I guess. I had toast for breakfast and a donut for lunch lol. Dinner was from-frozen roast potatoes with gravy. 

Do you have a lot of cousins? What are their names? I do but I’m not going to list all their names as some of them are pretty unusual and it would be too identifying.

What does your shampoo smell like? Shampoo, lol. It doesn’t really have a particular scent.

What about the body wash or soap you’re using at the moment? Acai berries. Have you ever had an exotic or unusual pet? No, just cats and a dog.

Any movies you’ve seen recently that you’d recommend to me? Uhh, I haven’t seen any new movies recently.

Why did you last go see a doctor? To get a sick note from work. That was years ago though.

What was the last thing you bought online? Dog food. Where do you usually park your car? Somwhere on the front street - we do have a driveway out the back but the back street is in really bad condition and I hate driving down there as I always seem to end up with a puncture lol.

Does your mail get delivered to your house or do you have to collect it? It gets delivered directly to us.

Are you more logical or creative? Logical, I think.

Do you cut tags out of clothing so they don’t itch and bother you? Sometimes, yeah.

What is your dream job? Do you think that’s attainable for you? Working with big cats and no, not unless I go back to school which I can’t really be bothered to do lol. I love what I do though.

When was the last time you looked at Facebook, Twitter or etc.? About two questions ago as I had a notification pop up.

Have you ever been on a train? Where did you go? Sure, hundreds of times - trains are just a normal way to get around in the UK.

How many times a year do you go on vacation? At the moment, zero - I take time off six times a year but we never really go anywhere as it’s so expensive at the moment.

Can you curl your tongue or do anything else cool with it? Yeah, I can curl it.

What was the last job interview you went to? The interview for my previous job.

Do you ever just feel like you need to be alone for some reason? At least once a day, otherwise I end up getting really stressed.

When was the last time you wore something totally inappropriate for the weather? Does this happen often? Today lol. It doesn’t happen often but it went from 4 degrees yesterday to 15 degrees today and I was WAY too warm lol.

The last time you went out of the house, where were you going and what did you do? I was at work all day - I had nine dogs to walk then came home, fed the animals, had a bath and I’ve just been messing about online ever since.

When was the last time someone cancelled plans on you? Were you annoyed? I don’t remember the last time that happened.

Do you have a friend that has a tendency to “dump” you whenever they get a new partner? No, I am not friends with teenagers.

Would you ever want to go on vacation with just one of your parents? Sure, that was totally normal for me growing up. I’m going away for the weekend with my mum in October actually.

In summer, do you prefer to wear dresses or shorts and tops? I prefer dresses but they’re not very practical for my job lol.

Has someone ever tried to start an argument with you over Facebook? What happened? Sure, mostly I just ignore it.

Have you ever had an unusual type of milk (eg. oat, rice, almond)? Yeah, I’ve tried soy, oat and almond milk before.

If you could experience life as a Disney princess for a week, which princess would you pick and why? Ariel, duh. How many cans of soda would you say you drink in a week, if any at all? 7-10 cans a week on average.

When you’re at home, do you spend most of your time in your room? No, I’m pretty much always downstairs in the living room.

If you like to sleep in late, have your parents ever told you off for doing so? When I was a teenager, maybe. How much stuff do you take with you when you go on vacation for a week? Too much, lol.

How old is your oldest living relative? Uh, I have a step-grandma who’s in her nineties.

Could you willingly live on a vegan diet? No. I’d give up meat but there’s no way I’d willingly give up cheese and butter.

If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, are you sad that there’ll never be another book or movie? No.

If you’re an only child, do you wish you had siblings? If you have siblings, do you get along? I did want an older brother when I was a kid, but as an adult, I’m quite happy to be an only child.

How long have you had the shirt you’re wearing? Uh, about two years.

What happened last time you got drunk? It was on our wedding night - we had lots of cocktails, got fish and chips, sat in the hot tub and had sex lol.

When’s the last time you straightened your hair? About three months ago.

Do you bite your toe nails? No.

Last thing you said out loud? Toby, are you baking biscuits?

Last time you laughed your head off? I can’t remember.

What do you want right this second? Food LOL I need to go and get something in a minute.

How are you sitting? With my knees curled to my side.

Your mood? Hungry.

Did you sleep alone last night? Nope. I share my bed with my husband and the dog.

Do you plan on sleeping in tomorrow? Yeah, for sure.

Do you find piercings attractive? It depends on the person and the piercings.

What were you doing last night at midnight? Sleeping.

Will you have sexual intercourse within the next two weeks? Maybe.

How many cigarettes have you smoked today? None.

Do you have a hard time admitting you’re wrong? Yeah, for sure.

Do you like potato chips? Yeah, probably too much.

Do you give out second chances way too easily? Nah.

[nev3rfound]

blame it on the neighbours : b.b

having recently moved in next door, you and bucky become fast friends. however, there's something looming between the two of you and it comes to light when it's revealed you're in the hospital. (1.7k)

masterlist / permanent taglist / etsy shop - requests open!

requested: yes! by the very sweet @didsomeonesaybucky warnings: bucky freaking out if that counts? descriptions of hospitals

(everything on my blog is my own writing. if it is shared on another page or website without being credited, it has not been approved to be shared by me. all rights reserved.)

Ever since you moved in and became Bucky's next-door neighbour, he could tell things were going to be different. In the first instance, he could hear you in the corridor, chatting away happily to your other neighbours, offering baked goods. He watched cautiously through the peephole, still having to yet meet you, he merely observed from afar.

When he finally met you, it wasn't the interaction he quite hoped for.

Standing in front of his door with a tray of cookies in hand, you release a shaky breath having heard from your other neighbours that the occupant in apartment 4F wasn't the friendliest. But you would simply have to judge that for yourself, you told them.

"He's a bit of a strange one, dear." Your neighbour, Clarissa in 2F warned you as she accepted the container of muffins you had made that morning. "Doesn't really leave or go out much, I think I've only ever heard him say morning once in the six months he's been here!" Her words echo in the back of your mind as you lift your hand up, knuckles lightly tapping the door.

With wide eyes, Bucky hesitantly walks toward the door and stares straight through the peephole. His breath halters, watching as you stare down at your feet.

Taking a deep breath, Bucky glides his fingers over the several locks across his door and slides through the small gap in the doorway with an attempted smile gracing his lips.

"Hi," You start, now lifting your eyes up toward this mysterious neighbour who is definitely not what you anticipated. "I, I'm Y/n, I moved in next door a week ago," Motioning to your apartment, Bucky forces his eyes to glance across down the hall before averting them back to you, taking in your features up close as you rub your lips together.

"Yeah, I heard you moving in." Bucky comments, internally cringing at his choice of wording. "I mean, I," His words falter at the sound of you chuckling softly to yourself. "can I start again? Is that alright?" He asks, grateful that you nod. "It's nice to meet you, Y/n. I'm James."

"Well, it's lovely to know my other neighbour, James. I, these are for you." Thrusting the tray forward, Bucky pushes his door open further with his foot to accept the tray, forgetting he didn't have his glove on.

Your eyes wander down to see his left arm is entirely metal. "Thanks." He mutters, feeling your eyes burning into his arm.

"I'm sorry," You quickly say, looking up at his face. "it's rude to stare, my Mom would scold me if she were here right now."

Bucky shakes his head, moving his leg to catch the back of the door. "Don't worry 'bout it." He brushes it off, but he notices your eyes wandering around the bland corridor and your lips parting.

"You don't happen to know any good places for dinner 'round here?" You move the conversation on, causing Bucky to raise a brow in response. "I'm kinda new to the area and I was wondering if you knew any good spots." You shrug your shoulders, hoping he couldn't read your mind and know that sentence was a complete lie.

"Erm, yeah." He sheepishly tells you, hearing Doctor Raynor droning in the back of his mind about putting himself out there, and not on those godforsaken dating apps again. "There's a great sushi place I know of."

Your smile brightens at his suggestion, and Bucky can't ignore how his lips rise at the sight. "Great, wanna join me then since you know it so well?" You suggest nonchalantly. "And you can always enjoy those as a dessert afterwards."

Looking down at the tray of warm cookies, Bucky tries to hide the sound of his stomach grumbling against the tray.

"Sure," He reaches into his apartment, grabbing his things including his gloves before following you out. "so, what brings you to Brooklyn?"

*

It's been several months since you moved in next door, and Bucky couldn't be happier that you plucked up the courage to knock that day.

Every week you two hang out, sometimes you join him and Yori for lunch who spends most of the time trying to convince Bucky to ask you out (only to be scolded when you're absent.) Sometimes you'll cook dinner, dance around your apartment and watch movies or wander around the city whilst Bucky tells you old stories; just like normal friends do, right?

It was truly blissful, but there was still so much about each other you had yet to learn.

Running his fingers through his combed hair, Bucky tugs on his blue henley before heading out.

As he locks his front door, he carries out dinner that he promised to make for you tonight.

"Oh, James." Your neighbour in 2F, Clarissa, stands in front of her door with her handbag and walking stick.

"Hi, Clarissa." Bucky forces a small smile, having heard her conversations regarding his past, muttering about having a murderer in the building shouldn't be allowed.

"Heading into Y/n's I take it." She hums, eyeing him carefully as he nods in response. "She should be back later, told me she had to go to the hospital." Waving herself off, Clarissa turns the lock in her doors.

"The hospital?" Bucky speaks up as the containers in his hands begin to slip, his mind going a hundred miles an hour. "Y/n's in the hospital?" Trying not to yell, Bucky steps closer, causing Clarissa to clutch her handbag tightly in front of her chest.

"Yes," Clarissa states calmly, but Bucky notices the keys in her right hand begin to shake.

"Thanks." Bucky mutters, stepping away as he darts back into his own apartment and grabs his coat, barely able to process his thoughts before rushing down the stairwell with nothing but you on his mind.

Reaching the entrance to the hospital, Bucky hands the driver some money without any words being exchanged. Bucky knew he looked like hell; he couldn't focus properly on anything. He had only seen you last night, the two of you in his apartment painting his living room walls, laughing together as you accidentally flicked paint across his cheek.

The reception area was crowded, voices bounced from wall to wall as Bucky strode toward the desk where a woman sat, staring blankly at a screen.

"How can I help?" She asks, briefly glancing up at Bucky before focusing on her screen once more.

Suddenly lost for words, Bucky homes in on a man crying in the waiting area, loudly sobbing into his hands as a nurse stands over him.

"Y/n Y/l/n, I'm looking for Y/n." Bucky forces the words out as the Nurse simply nods whilst typing away, humming a tune to herself.

"Oh okay," The Nurse pauses as her eyes scan over the monitor.

Clutching the edge of the desk, Bucky can hear the plates in his metal arm whirring as his grip tightens, nearly tearing the panel off as the silence becomes insufferable.

"So Y/n is currently in the operating theatre." The nurse tells Bucky nonchalantly, glancing up to see something change in his expression.

"No," Shaking his head, Bucky steps back. "she, I, I we were going to have dinner." It sounds pathetic to him, saying it aloud. But seeing you, having any moment with you made him feel human again, almost normal.

"Yeah, crazy how schedules fall." A heavy sigh leaves the nurses lips, unaware of the cool gaze that is locking in on her.

"Do you know when she'll be-" Before Bucky can finish his sentence, he's caught off guard by someone calling his name from the corridor.

"James?" You chuckle, walking toward him wearing your uniform adorned with your badge.

"Doll?" Bucky stutters, stepping closer as he tries to stop the tears in his eyes from forming. "You, you're okay?" He mumbles, looking you over, keeping his hands on your arms.

"Why wouldn't I be?" You ask, evidently surprised. "Everything okay, James?" Lowering your voice, you peer down to look him in the eyes whilst his head hangs low.

"Clarissa said you were in the hospital." Bucky huffs in annoyance to himself. "I, I didn't put it together," He mumbles. "I forgot that you,"

"That I'm a Doctor?" Holding back the laugh in your throat, you sigh before tugging Bucky closer into your embrace. "I'm okay, James. I'm only sorry you came all this way."

Keeping you in his arms, Bucky doesn't want to let go. Whilst your face rests in the crook of his neck, he allows a few stray tears to fall in relief. "I, I made us dinner." He eventually says, feeling you pull back to look at him, your eyes softening at the trails left on his cheeks.

"Oh, James." Raising your hand, you cup his cheek. "I'll be off work in an hour. I'm so sorry I should've said something or let you know sooner."

Shaking his head, Bucky takes your hand from his cheek and runs his fingers over your knuckles. "Don't worry 'bout it, Y/n. I'm just glad you're safe." He tells you, wishing he could say something else, but for now, that was enough.

"Did you make,- Your eyes light up in excitement, but Bucky cuts you off before you can finish your sentence.

"Yep." Bucky chuckles as you do a little dance. "You're such a dork sometimes, doll."

"Yeah," You admit, slipping your hand from his as you bury them in your pockets. "but would you have me any other way, neighbour?" Raising a brow to him, Bucky shakes his head. "Thought as much."

"I'll keep dinner warm for you." He smiles, hearing the word neighbour circle his thoughts. Yet, for once, Bucky forces his intrusive thoughts aside as his lips brush across your forehead. "Be good, Doc." He can't help but laugh to himself at the sound of your heart beating rapidly whilst externally, you remain cool.

"I'll try my best, Barnes." You salute him, watching as he walks back out of the hospital, knowing he's one step closer to calling you his girl.

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[itgirlification]

supermodel | jjk

the last three months have been hell for you, but Jungkook seemed to be living his best life.

pairing: ex-bf!jk x thick!reader

warnings: explicit mentions of body image and insecurities, infidelity, anal sex, oral (male receive), foul language (kinda), etc.

now playing: supermodel by sza

part two part three

Exactly three months ago, your and Jungkook’s 2 years relationship officially ended. Unofficially, it ended about 5 months ago. And for about one month now, Jungkook’s been seeing someone else.

Your heart and mind told you not to do it but you couldn’t help calculating. Three months ago, you were still dating, two months later, he started dating someone else. That must mean he’s known her for a while. Did he cheat on you with her? Well, it’s not like it matters now anyway, does it?

Her name was Yuki, an undeniable Japanese beauty. You were still in college, studying music and she was a famous model who appeared in internationally known magazines. You assumed she met Jungkook during a photoshoot since he was a professional photographer who often worked for companies like Vogue and Playboy. You couldn’t help but compare yourself to her.

It wasn’t the fact that he moved on so quickly that hurt you the most. It was the fact that he knew all about your low self-esteem and how you lack confidence. Especially about your body. And he still went and dated a model, of all professions in the world. He was definitely over you.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he did it on purpose. But thankfully, you knew better, he looked too happy for that to be even considered. He forgot about you.

You’re making yourself sadder by remembering all the times he assured you you were beautiful and your body was nothing to be ashamed of. The times he let his fingertips run over the lines of your stretch marks, whispering in your ear how much he loved them and how they reminded him of Tiger stripes. The times he caressed your jiggly thighs and told you how sexy he thought they were.

Then your mind would drift back to the phone in your hand, the Instagram page of Yuki Sakurai opened, careful not to accidentally like anything and expose yourself. Not that she’d notice anyway, she had 3.7 million followers, while you had a private one with 500 followers and no posts, and she gets around 300 to 700 thousand likes on each post, depending on whether she posts random photos or pretty pictures of herself. Or newly, your ex-boyfriend, Jungkook. Oh, how crazy everybody goes whenever she posts him. People love them together. You couldn’t blame them. Two attractive people? Of course, they’re gonna look great together.

Fucking great.

That the end of your relationship with Jungkook would look like this was semi-predictable from the beginning. He did admit to you that he never thought he’d date someone that looked like you when you first dated. And your heart broke a little. But he also made up for it in those two years, it was a beautiful relationship nonetheless.

While you weren’t exactly his ‘ideal’ type, he was definitely yours. You always heard from other women ‘when in a relationship, the man always has to love the woman more than she loves him. Otherwise, it won’t work.’ You never really got the saying until your breakup with Jungkook happened. It was the fact that you clearly loved Jungkook more than he loved you that lead to this.

“Oh my goodness!”, your roommate, Jane, dramatically exclaimed. “Will you stop feeling bad for yourself and do something? That’s not what hot girls do, sis.”

Jane was a lovely girl with a not so lovely temper. She always means well and you got along perfectly as soon as you met. Which was around 3 and a half years ago.

She looked over your shoulder to see what you were looking at. You obviously didn’t want her to see you snooping around your ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend’s Instagram but it was too late.

“Seriously, yn?”, she took your phone in her hand and threw it on the bed. “Let’s go somewhere, you can’t do this to yourself anymore. I’m not letting you.”

Jane was clearly worried about you at this point. The only thing you did these last few weeks was eating, shower, cry, sleep and miss a whole bunch of classes. This wasn’t good at all.

“Where?”, your question was short.

“To the mall? Or the nail studio? Anything that’ll get you out of this fucking dormitory.”, Jane sighed, pulling the blanket off of you, making you whine a little. “C’mon, go put on some cute outfit and we’ll go.”

You felt bad since she was trying hard to make you feel better. But it didn’t really work.

You nodded, standing up from the bed, nonetheless. You picked out a cute two-piece dress, that brought back blurred memories of the time you went on a date with Jungkook, wearing the same two-piece. Bet Yuki would look cuter in this...

‘Shut your petty ass up, yn. It’s embarrassing, the way you’re stuck on a taken guy who wants nothing to do with you’

You wish you could change the way you think, even if it’s just for an hour or two. You wish you would stop imagining Jungkook judging you when he saw you naked or when you told him that you wished you could cut off some of your fat with a pair of scissors.

You were beyond ashamed of yourself. Why wasn’t it easy for you to just stay by yourself? why were you so desperately in need of Jungkook by your side to the point where you’d lock yourself in your room for a month just because he isn’t there?

You needed Jungkook. You became so attached to him in those two years, because you always saw him as a permanent, a forever. Not just a temporary, not just a distant memory. You already saw him as the father of your children, as the man you’re gonna marry.

You were so blinded by the fact that you had him, that you forgot you could lose him anytime.

“I’m done, let’s go.”, unenthusiastically, you announced to Jane, who was already waiting for you.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here!”, In contrast to your spirit, hers seemed to be all roses and daisies. “Lord knows you need it...”

__________

“Look at this cute ass skirt, girl”, Jane pointed at a chic, wine mini skirt she was holding. “You know, when I saw it back there I wanted to have it, but it’d look so much better on you”

You took a few seconds to admire Jane’s beauty. She was about 3 cm taller than you, had a great posture, and almond, dark brown eyes that suited her dark skin tone perfectly. Her body leaned more towards the slimmer side.

“Shut up! No, it would not”, you let out a small giggle. “It would look gorgeous on you, buy it.”

She smiled a little at your laughs. She was happy to see you at least a little cheerful again. “Yeah, but I think it’d look better on you. I’m entitled to my own opinion, am I not?”

You knew this debate was gonna go back and forth, because of her stubbornness. “Let’s both buy the skirt.”

You ended up doing so, added by a bunch of bags full of clothing. This may’ve turned into your new coping mechanism. Who needed therapy when you can go on a shopping spree?

Two hours were spent in boutiques and clothing stores and Jane decided she was tired, wanting to visit the local spa.

“No, seriously, these Riverdale seasons just keep on getting worse and worse. Netflix needs to step up their game ASAP”, Jane ranted, making you laugh at how serious she takes it. “It’s getting embarrassing. I’m being for real.”

The two of you were sitting in the whirlpool at the spa, relaxing your whole bodies a little.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I don’t watch these new Netflix shows anyways. Been stuck on the vampire diaries for the last 7 years”, you chuckled, knowing you hated trying new things. “Can you pass me one of those magazines?”

Jane nodded, grabbing a random one from the table next to her and handed it to you, without looking at it.

The cover of it caught your eyes immediately. How could it not, when your ex’s new girl looks absolutely dazzling on the front page of it.

‘Supermodel Yuki Sakurai talks summer fashion tips, struggle with self-love and most importantly, her hot, new boyfriend the media is going crazy over’ was the headline of the Harper’s Bazaar Magazine cover.

You felt your stomach getting sick and your breath getting heavier, but you still flipped the pages until you found the one with her interview. You began reading it, skipping the boring parts.

‘Int: so, we see you have a new boyfriend. Tell us, how did you guys meet?

Yuki: Yeah, he’s an amazing guy. We actually met about six or five months ago at one of my photoshoots, since he’s a photographer and we exchanged numbers and stuff, and then we made it official mid last month.’

About six or five months ago? You were with him back then, but her answer was too unclear to find out if he cheated or not.

“Woah, yn, you okay?”

You entirely forgot about the fact that you were with Jane, let alone somewhere other than your bed.

Before you could react, Jane snatched the magazine out of your hand.

“You really can’t escape them, huh?”, She sighs, taking you in her arm. “It’s gonna be okay, baby. In a few months, you’re gonna look back to this and think wow I really was stuck on a guy who’s scared of microwaves and cried like a bitch when Iron Man died.”

You laughed, punching her arm playfully. “You know, I actually love these things about him. Shows his sensitivity and the way he perceives things.”

Jane looked at you as if she didn’t believe you were actually saying that stuff. “Girl, you’re overanalyzing this. Let’s just throw this shit in the trash, okay?”

She put the magazine aside.

“I just don't know what I did wrong.”, You murmured. “I know we weren't the best, but we didn't even fight that much. We could’ve talked it through.”

Jane pursed her lips and cooed. “You know, relationships are complicated sometimes. The reason why he broke up, to begin with, is probably not your fault.”

“Well, what if it is? I mean what if I was too fat or too ugly for him?”, you asked. “If he wanted a skinny girl so bad, I could’ve lost weight for him, I don’t get it.”

Jane looked at you like you lost your mind entirely. “I can’t believe you just said that! Even if that was the reason, which it wasn’t, you shouldn’t make yourself suffer because of it. That’s his loss. You’re beyond gorgeous and you have an amazing body.”

“You’re just saying that.”, tears slowly started coming up in your eyes. “But the thing is Jungkook knows all about my insecurities. Why would he do that to me? I know he knows that I’m still not over him.”

You usually didn’t like crying in front of other people, but you didn’t really care at the moment, besides that was Jane. You trusted her with your life.

“Girl, men are trash, I can’t believe you’re crying over one right now, seriously.”, she wiped your tears and held your face between her hands. “You know, honestly, I’ve read so many articles about how models actually hate themselves and have like the lowest self-esteem so in conclusion, no matter how miserable you are, his new girl is even more miserable.”

You knew Jane didn’t mean it in a harmful way, but it sounded harsher than needed. “I don’t hate her, she probably doesn’t even know about me. I’m just really insecure. He upgraded from me. He’s dating a whole model now.”

The situation just felt like a deja vu of these last few weeks laying in your bed, even though you were at the spa with your friend. You were supposed to have fun, yet you didn’t feel like having any.

“Why would you feel insecure when all you’ve seen of her are Instagram posts and red carpet pictures? She’s supposed to look beautiful, it’s her job.”

To a certain extent, Jane was right, but that didn’t really help your situation, you still felt bad about yourself. You stayed silent.

“C’mon, this isn’t fun anymore. Let’s leave.”, Jane mumbled.

_______

it’s been two days since the incident at the spa and you felt a little bit better now.

Those days were spent reading the same three book series you’ve read your entire life, overthinking, hot Cheetos, Indian takeout, and Netflix. It really wasn’t as miserable as it sounded.

You were just taking a little rest before term break ends and you have to go back to the shithole college again.

Jane was using the time until college starts again, but in different ways than you were. She was planning on going to some frat party in an hour and forget about the world’ for a minute. Or till 4 in the morning, where she will most likely drunk call you and ask you for a ride back to the dorms, because the friends she went to the party with were shit-faced as well and were in no way capable of driving anywhere without the cops stopping them.

Going out partying on a Friday night was a Jane tradition. In the past, you’d sometimes go with her, but you mostly spent your time out with Jungkook doing something more fun than partying could ever be. Now you can’t do that anymore, but laying in bed is more ideal than a party for you at the moment.

“How do I look?”, Jane twirled around to show off her black cocktail dress. She looked beautiful.

“You look beautiful.”, you responded to her question. “Are you leaving now?”

“Hm”, she said, to which you nodded. “You sure you don’t wanna come with me? It’s gonna be really fun.”

You shook your head no.

“Alright”, she shrugged, making her way out of your bedroom. “But I told you, it’s gonna be fun.”

You chuckled, rolling your eyes. “I’ll stay here, I have shit to do.”

“Yeah, right, like binge-watching the vampire diaries and taking 5-hour naps”, she said in a sarcastic tone. “Anyway, bye-bye, Vic’s already waiting for me in the car.”

Victoria was perhaps one of the most obnoxious people you know, yet she was too much of a nice person for you to talk shit about her. The voice of your intrusive thoughts couldn’t help but to, though.

“Alright, bye, take care and say hi to Vic from me.”

After Jane left, an hour went by like it was just a couple of minutes. You were starting to get real bored and decided to watch some regular tv in hopes to find something you enjoy. You ended up not finding anything fun, but you still watched it, because you didn’t have anything else to do.

A few moments later, the doorbell rang and you were suddenly worried. Either this is a serial killer or Jane forgot something.

But to your surprise, it was neither, but it was none other than

“Jungkook?”, truly, those were the only words you were able to mutter out at your shocked state. “What are you do-“

At the speed of light, you were interrupted by your ex-boyfriend pressing his lips to yours. He didn’t say a word.

You weren’t expecting him. Not knowing how you were supposed to feel at the moment, you just let it happen. You were sure your mental state couldn’t get any worse than that, no matter how this will affect you in the end.

“Is Jane home?”, for the first time in 3 months, you’re hearing his silky voice again.

Jungkook knew Jane always had some type of special hatred for him with her killing stares and her bitter comments. You didn’t notice either though.

He also knew she must hate him even more after your breakup. Or maybe she liked him more now since she was able to get rid of him without killing anyone.

“No”, your answer was short and it made a weight fall from Jungkook’s shoulders before he continued kissing you.

It wasn’t anything you haven’t done before, yet it felt like it’s been ages since it last happened. Your mind drifted to the thought of Jungkook and his model girlfriend. You were asking yourself what their sex life was like, if she was tighter than you or if she had stretch marks and scars.

Jungkook’s lips were moving south, giving your neck wet kisses, while you were wondering why he broke up with his model girlfriend. Or if he even did. You felt selfish for not caring.

Removing your clothes one by one, you were left in your underwear, while Jungkook only had his boxers on.

This body was yours. You knew it inside out. Where he liked to get touched and where he preferred not to. You knew him better than anyone else. You were sure.

You already moved to your bedroom, since Jungkook effortlessly carried you there. You were sat on his lap, facing him and your hands were in his messy hair. His hands were around your waist, he was slightly smiling into the kiss, as you started grinding on him. He loved how easy it was for him to turn you on. You were still his.

Cutting off the kiss, he looked you in the eyes, while his hand was on your cheek. “Say aah.”, he said.

You widened your mouth obediently, which was followed by him collecting as much saliva as he could in his mouth and spitting it into your mouth.

“Swallow.”, demanding, he spit on your face, his eyes become darker with every passing moment. You did as he said.

You looked at him with big eyes. He knew you loved it. You’ve always had a thing for him degrading and humiliating you during sex.

He started grinding on you almost desperately. You knew exactly what he wanted.

Getting out of his grip, you dropped to your knees and freed his hard dick from his drawers. You reached for it and started pumping it, and licking it. Your spit was leaking down his dick as you used it for lubrication. Then you started sucking on it, just the way you used to.

Jungkook’s groans and satisfied sighs were enough to make you even wetter than before. You enjoyed giving more than receiving.

Your mouth was wet and warm around him, giving him a feeling of familiarity. You lick over the tip a few times, then proceed to fully take him into your mouth.

The bulge in your throat could be seen and the way your eyes were tearing up a little wasn’t bothering you at all. You loved giving.

Jungkook started thrusting in and out of your warm, welcoming mouth, his tip hitting the back of your throat multiple times.

“Fuck”, a throaty moan left Jungkook’s mouth, giving you hints that he was about to cum. And he did, releasing in your mouth before you swallowed it. “Shit, baby, that was so good.”

You felt your face heat up and a sheepish smile made its way to your face. Your throat was sore.

The two of you were on the bed again. To you, it felt like it was the times before your breakup again, when you’d purposely start an argument just for the makeup sex because Jungkook wasn’t giving you any anymore. It was like sex was the only thing to look forward to.

You felt attached to Jungkook to a point where it was dangerous. You weren’t okay when he wasn’t around. He affected every part of your life and God knew it wasn’t always a positive thing. Maybe it was the fact that he took your virginity. Maybe because he was your first boyfriend, the first guy that made you believe you were worthy of love and that someone was actually capable of loving you. One thing you knew was Jungkook had an expansive influence on your life.

While you were practically drowning in your own thoughts, Jungkook was busy taking off your underwear.

“You okay?”, Jungkook calmly asked you, looking at your riddled face.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m okay.”, you sounded distracted, Jungkook wasn’t sure about asking you what it is though. He didn’t feel like getting personal.

So he shrugged it off and started kissing you again, his dick was unsurprisingly hard again as he played with your tits. He drew lines over the stretch marks of your thighs and kissed them.

“Can I fuck your ass?”, Jungkook’s raspy, tired-sounding voice casually asked, to which you quickly nodded, knowing that Jungkook’s favorite position had always been anal. He was massaging and gripping your ass firmly.

“This is gonna hurt at first, but I promise it gets better.”, He warned calmly into your ear, while putting some lube on his dick and just went right into your ass, slowly thrusting so you don’t feel as much pain.

He was right, it did hurt a lot when he first put it in, but the pain just changed into pleasure in a matter of time and his slow-paced thrusts helped with the adjustment.

“Fuck, I missed this ass”, he practically growled into your ear, as he kept on thrusting in and out, steadily gripping your wide hips with his big, veiny hands. “It just doesn’t feel right when I’m inside her ass.”

You knew your confidence shouldn’t rely on Jungkook bringing his girlfriend down, but you couldn’t help but feel good about your body when he said that. It’s been a while since you felt even a tiny spark of confidence. You weren’t so fond of him mentioning her while he was inside of you.

Your soft moans rang through the whole room like sirens, while he watched your ass jiggle against his pelvis, thrusting in and out faster every second. He missed this.

You had always thought you were indecisive, but you knew exactly what you wanted. You just couldn’t have that, so you’d eventually have to settle for less.

Jungkook wasn’t to blame for it, you just couldn’t concede your shortcomings. The movie’s villain wasn’t always the real villain.

Your hands traveled to your pussy to make sure you’d orgasm as well, when you heard Jungkook’s breathing getting heavier and his thrusts getting gentler than before, indicating that he was gonna cum soon. You were certain he could make you cum with just anal, but you wanted to cum with him.

With furrowed eyebrows and drops of sweat dripping down his body, Jungkook looked down at your arched back. The whole scene was sticky, especially when Jungkook presses his upper body to your back, whispering sweet nothings into your ear and kissing the spot.

It was kinda odd, having sex with your ex-boyfriend you were crying over just a day ago. There was a certain intensity to it though. Like your long-lasting nostalgia was finally fulfilled.

You’ve realized you couldn’t imagine yourself being intimate with anybody else. Jungkook already knew your body, how it looked without the material protecting it, the strawberry skin, the slightly sagging breasts you swore you’d surgically remove once you had the chance to but didn’t. He knew where you liked being touched, he was the first one to even touch you in those places.

You were unsure what you’d do with yourself when he leaves.

Jungkook’s thrusts slowly started stopping and you too felt the familiar sensation in your stomach.

Suddenly, you two were nothing but desire, fear, and pleasure. And faster than you could process, you came together.

For minutes after your orgasm, you were just laying on the bed, thoughtless. Maybe a little regretful. Not you, but him.

You weren’t facing each other, but you could hear each other’s breathing. Your stomach was filled with something you’d describe as post-sex melancholia.

All of a sudden, Jungkook stood up from the bed, startling your resting self a little, but you decided to keep quiet, wanting to see what he was going to do.

He made his way to the door to leave what he thought was your sleeping body laying there. You couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

“Where are you going?”, your soft voice suddenly rang in his ears. “Don’t you wanna stay?”

He didn’t know how exactly to tell you. You’ve always been a gullible little girl, you were the type of girl to think fucking equals love. Little did you know that wasn’t the case at all.

“Yn.... you know I can’t”, Jungkook responded, you knew it wasn’t gonna be good when he said your name like that. “I got a girl at home and I don’t wanna mess shit up with her.”

There it was. Your suspicion was corroborated. He was still going out with the model and you were a certified home wrecker. Great.

You physically felt your heart breaking. “Bu- but why are you here then?”

You were incapable of being mad at him at the moment. It was your fault for letting him in, again. After breaking your trust and your heart.

“This was a mistake”, he declared, not looking into your eyes. “I’m sorry, yn...”

He’s moved past your room now, already at the exit of your dormitory. He was about to leave.

“You already ruined shit with her when you came here and fucked me.”, your voice was small, but your words were heard.

Without looking back, he left.

And you went back to your room, standing in the middle of it for a minute in silence before your brain fully processed what had happened and your tears started pouring.

[jamestrmtx]

Wish Upon a Night Sky - [Beastars | Various x Reader]

[Female, Sheep Reader | Slow Burn]

Summary:

After calling upon the decision to test the waters between carnivores and herbivores, things at Cherryton Academy turn far more tense than they already were. Unsurprisingly, there are those who poke fun at the decision, both with good and bad reasons at hand. Calling the academy out on such high of a risk's understandable, but mocking carnivores for making friends with their opposites isn't.

Having been sheltered through seventeen years of homeschooling and the rigid rule of never going out at night, you far from expect being allowed to attend there after your eighteenth birthday. Regardless, you don't plan on cowering back. Your want to expose yourself to the real world, meet new people, and live through new experiences outweighs that fear, transforming it into strength.

Act One | Man's Best Friend

[Previous] | [Next]

Already messy files almost end up scattered on the floor, yet you manage to salvage them right on time. Your hands and legs shake just as fast as your heart beats; even breathing is a challenge with how stressed your mind is. Being around a large number of people wasn't the norm in your home; you'd been used to being a close family of six since you were born, and nothing more. Spending time with others beyond relatives was a rarity, as was the idea and agreement of having you study your final year in Cherryton -- far outside the safety of your home. Now that you're eighteen and near to graduating, your family's given you three simple rules to follow: never step out of campus at night, never join acting, and never show daintiness. All three of them emphasize the word 'never'; not a single space for protest or bargain is left in those rules. You knew the consequences of going out at night, as well as the risks of calling forth unwanted attention by choosing not to dress how you were told and letting any sort of bubbly nature out. Being forbidden to join acting was by far the only thing they hadn't explained to you by full.

"Your dorm is through here," Jack says, pointing with his eyes and snout over to a busy hallway.

While the person giving you the tour isn't exactly the type you were warned of before being admitted into this school, he isn't exactly of your type either, but more of a happy medium between the two: a dog. Not quite a carnivore and not quite a herbivore, he's what you learned to be an omnivore -- a kind you were taught to be wary of just as much as a wolf or a lion. Even then, his presence is about as warm and welcoming as sun rays on a cold, winter day, and you find it hard not to smile when he continues to show you around the place. He only ever stops when he sees he's left you far behind, a product of you losing yourself in your thoughts and the new world around you. 

His excitement is one you wish you could manifest just as much as him, though the reminder of how you had to behave at this school leads you to brush and bury those ideas away and hold yourself back.

"Are you okay?"

Jack's question paired up with his careful tone help pull you out of your daydreaming. How concerned he looks makes you take note of the expression you're carrying. Oftentimes, you scrunched up your snout and furrowed your brow -- whenever you became lost in thought, mostly. To any outsider like him, it would seem as if though you're bothered by something, so you hurry in your reply, words leaving you in a rush, "I'm okay." Your smile returns as you meet his eyes. "I just… I got caught up with something else."

"Nervous about staying here?"

"About everything, honestly."

He lets out a laugh at that, and his gaze brightens as he motions for you to follow him once more.

Your next destination is what appears to be the rooms you were informed of at the beginning of your visit -- judging by the rows of doors laid around, along with one of them left open, displaying a bunk bed in the background. There's a student by the dresser, combing her fur without so much as bothering to look at you or Jack. She's far too focused on her brushing to acknowledge she's left the room visible to those wandering outside, though -- with her being a wolf -- you assume she's confident in herself. Or you believe so, at the very least, as based on the rumours your parents and every other family member taught you.

You halt when you notice Jack stops right by that door and see him gesture over with his head for you to step inside. 

"Is this allowed?" you blurt out, rushing to cover up not a minute after that question leaves your mouth. "O- Oh gosh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like that."

"It's alright," he says, chuckling. "I know you're homeschooled, so if you have any questions about how things work here, feel free to ask me!" He stops for a moment and seems to recall something along the way. "And you can come over to my place, too, if you need more help with showing you around."

"How bold of you to invite a girl into the boys' dorm, Jack." 

A feminine voice comes from behind him, and -- soon after -- the wolf from earlier appears next to the dog. She directs a cheeky grin at him, then a friendlier smile at you. "You're my roommate, aren't you?" she says, nodding her head in the direction of your dorm. "What are you standing there for? I want to get to know you!" She sounds about twice as cheerful as Jack acts. "I was told about your arrival almost three whole months ago, so the wait has been long enough."

"...You're Juno?" you ask, making memory of the list handed over to you just a few hours ago. 

She nods, eyes softening. "(Y/N), right? It's... nice to have a herbivore who won't look for a change of dorms the second she sees me."

Already feeling guilty, you can only hope she hadn't heard you earlier ago. It was a known fact you tended to speak without thinking sometimes (if not, most of the time), so you make a mental note out of it and set up a goal to improve on that throughout the rest of the year. You thank Jack and say your goodbyes before following her into the room.

At the sound of the door closing, you breathe a sigh of relief with the knowledge you've made it this far without screwing up too badly. The next thing in mind is to try sparking up some conversation, but only when you make enough mental preparation for it -- aware your thoughts might run haywire and tactless again. "But... Why would they do that? Isn't it normal at this school?"

Juno shows you around the room and stops next to one of the beds, bottom one being the only one out of all the others around to have some of her possessions settled down on it. "It's allowed," she replies and continues with, "And though it's not too uncommon for both carnivores and herbivores to be placed together... Things got a lot more tense after a student's passing." Her ears droop along with her tail, and a hint of gloom clashes with her friendly demeanor. "That's why you're the only other woman in this room, and why I…" Her body shudders as she lets out a breath. "Why I try not to walk alone in the halls anymore." She takes another breath and lets it out with a huff. A hushed swoon then seems to take her over, replacing her sadness about as quickly as her ears go back up. "Although... I guess I wouldn't have met someone wonderful, if some students hadn't cornered me for being a carnivore not long after I arrived here."

The wolf sighs, then faces you with droopy eyelids and a softer smile. "Tell me, (Y/N)... Have you ever fallen in love? It's the most incredible feeling I can describe!" She sits down on the bottom bed, though she scoots aside, leaving you some space next to her. "They say your last year at school's the last chance you have for experiencing an emotion so strong, but I like to believe it will carry on as long as your love is powerful enough for it!"

While you're a bit lost as to what point she's trying to make, you smile and nod along as you wait for her to continue speaking. 

After all, having two friends at the beginning of your final school year didn't sound like a bad idea. Hopefully, your lonely days would start to change; your conversation with Jack and your current one with Juno have been -- without much exaggeration -- the most interaction you've had during all your eighteen years of living. Knowing you were finally free to meet as many people as you'd want as well as study over brand-new things and the relationships between both kinds made your worries and doubts more than worthwhile. No matter how often your family and distant acquaintances warned you otherwise, you needed to grow, learn, explore, and see more outside what was taught to you at home. 

You hear Juno out until she asks if you have a special someone yourself; the question turns out to be a bit of a difficult one to answer with how little people you knew to this day. So far, the only experience you remember similar to that of having a crush on someone was by reading stories of adventure and challenge when you were younger. All of these were confiscated by your family whenever you gained too many ideas, fell for a character, or whenever a book so much as mentioned the word carnivore between its pages -- in a light aside from that of hostile and negative.

Although it feels like nothing short of wishful thinking, you hope your current circumstances change soon with the new path being offered out to you; in that, you carry a strong and unshakable desire over.

And, who knows? 

Maybe one day you'd be able to sneak out and watch the night sky, too -- and with a friend or two by your side, preferably.

"I don't, but…" You trail off to consider her question; overwhelmed by the changes and influenced by her energetic self, you find it hard not to follow along with her. "I wouldn't mind having one -- if that opportunity ever came around!"

[Previous] | [Next]

[sheep33hallow]

Eyes, Nose, Lips Ch 1.

Pairing: Naruto Uzumaki/Sasuke Uchiha, Narusasu

Tags: Yakuza, Naruto wants to kill Sasuke’s husband, Naruto wants Sasuke, past mpreg, no cheating, breastfeeding, Yakuza Leader!Naruto, Uzumaki Clan, Uchiha Clan, age difference, ABO, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics

AO3 Link:   https://archiveofourown.org/works/32556586/chapters/80754973

Sasuke was sitting upstairs on the chaise in the library breastfeeding his child, when he was rudely interrupted by the man he was hiding from.

“Well, well, well. So this is where you’ve been?” A man named Naruto, a business associate of his father’s, leaning against the doorway as he spoke.

Sasuke couldn’t help, but roll his eyes. This man seemed to always know when Sasuke was feeding his child. He had never seen the Alpha go to the second floor before, so he thought he’d be safe up there. His father usually does business in the basement or the dining room.

“Yeah, sure.” He said with all of the sarcasm he could muster, but he saw Naruto’s smile just widen.

“I didn’t see you downstairs. So your mom graciously gave me permission to say goodbye to you before I left.” He walked further into the room, sitting in a chair a good distance away from Sasuke.

He used to grab a blanket to shield his feeding from the Alpha, but for the last two months, he saw no point. He saw Sasuke’s chest the first time. The only time, he actually believed it was an accident. Afterwards, it started to feel calculated.

“You didn’t have to sit down to say goodbye.” He adjusted his hip a bit, his buttcheek feeling a little numb. His son could eat forever.

“I wanted to check on you too. You never answer my calls or text messages.”

“For one, I didn’t give you my number, you asshole, and two, I have a child to attend too.”

Naruto never showed a sign of guilt wherever Sasuke brought up the fact that he never gave him his number. It only seems to make him crave Sasuke’s attention more.

“I’d come over and help you with Karu.” He always offered help.

“Naruto, you run your own syndicate. I doubt you’d be able to help either.”

“I would make time.”

That made Sasuke chuckle. “Honestly, Naruto, I do believe that.” Naruto was his lowkey stalker at this point.

Not really wanting his mate dead, he told him no, but those blue eyes held his gaze and just nodded before heading toward a meeting his father was holding.

He has been married to his own Alpha for two years, known Naruto for one and been a mother for six months. Naruto made his interest clear to Sasuke the first time they met, and Sasuke, feeling giddy that he was still sexy while pregnant, was glad to tell he was already mated and with child.

Naruto’s reply was a whispered, “I can kill him.”

He learned from Itachi later that Naruto was half Russian and Japanese, and he grew up in Russia with his parent’s running their own gang. Naruto moved to Japanese permanently a few years ago under his Father’s orders to start his own syndicate and to find people they could work together with to do international dealings with.

It was always nice to meet other people who had similar backgrounds to him, but the man was also 7 years older than him. HIs own husband didn’t grow up the same way as him, so sometimes that was a little annoying, but their marriage was a business deal in the first place.

His mate was an undertaker and had relations to dirty cops that his father found valuable. Contrary to what some may think, his omega status wasn’t controlled by his parents. They talked at length about the marriage, and he was always told he could say no.

He was 27, and didn’t have any prospects that caught his eye. Also, his mate was nice and a gentleman. Just, who would have guessed a year later, he would have met a man with more connections than his husband and a willingness to mate a pregnant omega on sight.

“So just let me kill him, and your next child could be mine.” He joked, a dark humor joke that was also not a joke.

“You don’t need to murder my mate to get me Naruto.” He sighed. An old conversation, he seemed to always humor.

“No, but in our type of world, it makes things go faster.” He leaned over his knees. Hands clasped under his chin. “I think Karu is done.”

He looked down and saw Karu was indeed done. No longer sucking, just staring at Naruto. Sitting up and adjusting his shirt back over his shoulder, he moved Karu over his shoulder to be burped.

Karu was a sweet child. His mother said he was just like Sasuke at that age. Quiet and observant. He was thankful for that. He was exhausted as it was, he didn’t think he could handle an energetic child. He looked over at Naruto. A child with Naruto, would be energetic. That man always had energy to spare.

He looked back over at the Alpha in the room. Him watching Sasuke. Always watching Sasuke. He never hid it, his mate even noticed it whenever they had parties or celebrations within their Yakuza community around Tokyo. As long as he never physically touches Sasuke or Karu, his mate would stay silent and after a year of knowing each other Naruto never gets close enough to touch him. Always a distance.

A distance that Sasuke wonders if it will close at some point. Mating with Naruto is far from unappealing, but he has no complaints with his current mate to leave and like Naruto said, murder does make things go faster in their world.

Once Karu burps, he grabs his favorite blanket to be swaddled in and places him in the bassinet next to the chaise. Keeping one hand on him to rock him gently, he speaks to Naruto.

“It’s been a year, Naruto.” He says. Tucking his feet under his butt.

“It has.”

“You’re definitely a man, who knows what he wants and usually gets it.”

Naruto just smiles.

“I am also a man, who has high standards.” Straightening his back a bit as he speaks.

Naruto straightens his back as well. Placing his hands on the wooden armrest.

“Let’s see which one of us breaks first.” His voice sounded refined. A sign of well-bred Omega.

He watches Naruto’s eyes narrowed to slits. He thought there was some red in there, but the distance made him unsure, but Naruto’s aura, which was usually chaotic joy, started to feel heavy. Almost, ominous.

“Oh sweetheart.” Naruto croons. Leaning back to one side of the chair. “I was cultivated to exceed expectations.”

[arcturusreads]

PLEASE DROP A PT 2 OF PRAYERS FOR THE PLUMBER

Prayers for the Plumber Part Two

You can find part one here

I hope you enjoy this one! And I might just have a part three in mind...

It had been a full day since the Hayes clan had descended upon Meredith house. Thankfully, the kids had gotten along well enough and there hadn’t been any issues with them. Bailey had been basking in the fact that there were more boys in the house that he could talk to.

With Irene and Cormac both at work, Meredith was currently keeping an eye on all five of the kids not that Cormac’s son really needed adult supervision. The two of them were set up in the living room finishing off their homework whilst her own kids were in the back garden playing. Relishing in the calm and quiet, Meredith had sat herself down on the dining table with her paperwork and tablet, fuelled by a large mug of coffee she was sure would see at least three refills before her work was done.

She’d lost herself reading a research paper when someone had cleared their throat. Jumping a little she looked up to see Liam and Austin standing by the table, sheepish looks on both of their faces.

“Sorry, Dr Grey,” Austin murmured.

She shook her head smiling at them, “Don’t worry about it, I should have been paying more attention. And I thought I told you both to call me Meredith.” It was odd having two kids who were living with her call her Dr Grey, she wanted them to feel comfortable around the house. “Is everything okay?

Meredith couldn’t help but be slightly concerned. Cormac had often spoken about how independent his kids now were. They liked doing their own thing, didn’t need anyone to keep an eye on them and were fairly self-sufficient. So, hackles were raised when they had decided to come over to her.

“Uh, yeah. Actually, we were wondering if we could talk to you…” Austin began to trail off, feeling slightly awkward and stupid that he should even ask her.

When Cormac had first brought up the like of Dr Grey at home, the boys were immediately curious. They didn’t take a whole load of interest in Cormac’s colleagues but they knew that he didn’t really speak to a lot of them when they were in Switzerland. He wasn’t particularly close to anyone but Dr Grey was something that he couldn’t seem to stop mentioning. The boys were pretty sure that Cormac didn’t even realise how much he brought her up in conversation.

So, after the second week of hearing about her, Austin and Liam had decided to do some snooping online. Typing in the words Meredith Grey came up with multiple articles on the woman that the boys were pretty sure was the one their Dad didn’t stop going on about. She was successful and obviously busy so Austin felt like an idiot for disturbing her.

“Yeah, sure. Pull up a chair,” she nodded to the two seats on one side of her.

Feeling a little relief wash over them, the boys took a seat, glad that Meredith hadn’t just turned them away.

“Da said that you lost your husband a couple of years ago.” Liam hadn’t been quite sure how to bring this topic up and couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty at the mention of it. He had seen the way his dad got when their mom was mentioned.

A sad smile crossed Meredith face, “Yeah, it’s been around six years now.”

Before Liam could carry on, Austin interrupted. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“No, no. It’s okay, did you guys want to ask something?”

The ache of losing Derek had never completely left her. There were days where it hit her like a tsunami wave, where it took every ounce of her strength to get through the day when her kids were the only reason that she was able to survive. Today, that ache wasn’t all-consuming. There were two kids in front of her that had lost their mother, they’d watched her die. So, if they had questions they wanted to ask, or just wanted to talk to her about it then she could be there for them.

“Have you dated someone since then?” Austin looked down at his hands as he asked.

That wasn’t the question that Meredith had been expecting but she still answered. “I have but it took some time. Dating other people… it’s never once meant that I stopped loving Derek. He’s always with me.”

Austin slowly nodded as she spoke. It was the answer that he had wanted to hear. Abigail had told both Liam and Austin to make sure that their dad eventually moved on when the time was right. At the time, they’d agreed, wanting to do anything their mother had wanted them to do. They’d also spoken about to their aunt. Irene had been worried that Cormac would end up spending the rest of his days lonely, especially as the boys got older and went to college. They’d all come to the conclusion that within the next year they were going to get him on a dating app.

The reality of it was different though. Cormac hadn’t been with anyone since Abi had passed away. He hadn’t shown interest in anyone, so their mother’s final wish had been pushed to the back of their mind. Until recently when the boys could tell that the mere mention of a certain General Surgeon was enough to change his demeanour.

They knew, in their heart of hearts, that their dad would never stop loving Abigail. They saw the way he still looked over the old photo albums, a softness taking over his eyes. They heard the way he spoke about her like she was still the breath of fresh air in his life. Hearing it from someone else though, someone who had lost the person they were meant to spend the rest of their life with, gave both of the boys a little more comfort.

“Could I ask you something else?”

“Sure,” Meredith had pushed her work to the side, giving the boys her full attention.

Austin looked out of the kitchen window, glancing at the three kids playing out there. It had only then struck him how young they must have been when their dad had passed away. He wondered how many memories of him were actually solidified in their mind.

“How did you kids take it? I’m sorry if I’m being nosey but…”

“But you want to know and that’s understandable. You aren’t being nosey.” Meredith sighed, thinking back to the first time she had told them. “Zola’s the only one who really remembers Derek. Bailey was too young, and I only found out I was having Ellis after he had passed away. Zola was the one who found it hardest to get her head around, it took a lot of reassuring that no one was ever going to replace her dad. I wouldn’t ever want that but my kids… sometimes I think they’re smarter than me.” She laughed, they were Derek’s kids, alright. “They want me to be happy, Ellis wants me to find my second Prince Charming but it’s not always going to be straightforward. For them or for me.”

“We think dad wants to date!” Liam suddenly blurted out.

His brother quickly jabbed him in the ribs, making him wince. “What? It’s true!”

“Oh,” Meredith was a little shocked. The past couple of months, she had thought there was something going on between them. Neither of them had outwardly mentioned it, of course, but she had honestly thought that there had been something there. Meredith quickly schooled her face into a neutral expression.

“Would that be okay with the two of you? Because I’m sure your dad wouldn’t want to do anything that would make you both uncomfortable.” Meredith couldn’t help it, but half of her mind was on the conversation and the other half was trying to figure out who the hell Cormac was considering dating.

The boys looked at each other. They’d had their own conversations about it when Cormac had been at work, or after one of his long conversations about Meredith. They hadn’t liked the idea at first, hated it if they were honest. But over time they’d realised that this is exactly what their dad needed and what their mom had wanted. Plus, they were pretty sure that if he started to dare someone then that should have less time to yell at them. They smiled; both having come to the same conclusion.

“I think after talking to you about it, we’d be pretty cool with him dating.”

[magalidragon]

15, please

Ooooh this one I was really thinking about do we go full fluff or angst or what? Sooooo let us return to a universe that may have been forgotten....Princess Daenerys and her bodyguard Jon (spoiler alert) from my weird mysterious angsty fic bird on a wire. Well in that one he is FORMER and in this one it is set a bit before. Forbidden Love! 💗

Moodboard to come! Enjoy and thank you for the prompt!!

Romantic One Liner Prompts

15. “I’ve missed you so much.”

"Daenerys you look a bit peaky, are you feeling well?"

"I'm fine, mother."  She really needed a drink.  And not the ancient Dornish red they were currently drinking with their meal.  It was the weekly family dinner, something her brother instituted the second he became King, in effort to "foster better familial relationships."  It was basically his way of trying to turn them into as normal a family as possible, when they were anything but that.

She lightly touched her fingertips to her temple, a dull ache forming.  It would rage later, she had no doubt, but for now she could only ignore it and listen to Rhaegar wax on about a dull meeting he had with the Minister of Finance, Willas Tyrell, who was near her age but a bit of a wunderkind in finance and politics.

The empty seat across from her was ignored by Rhaegar, and her mother, and it irked Dany.  Viserys was back in the hospital, not that they would acknowledge it beyond simply saying his doctors thought they had his medications worked out and he would be home soon.  She took a deep breath, crumpling her napkin in her lap.  "You know Muna, I am a bit under the weather, I think I will retire early."

Rhaella glanced away from Rhaegar, who was annoyed she'd interrupted him.  Her mother furrowed her brow, concerned.  "Of course darling, I'll send something to your room later..."

"No thank you, I'm not hungry."  She tossed the napkin onto the chair as she stood, shooting a dark look at Rhaegar, who ignored her and sipped his wine.  "Perhaps it's the weather....or the company."

"Daenerys," Rhaella began, sighing.

She shook her head, rolling her eyes.  "Forget it Muna.  Rhae, always a displeasure."

"Daenerys," he began, but it was their mother who cut him off.

"Rhaegar, please.  I'll not have to fight right now."  It was the Queen Dowager who now looked exhausted and peaky, touching her fingertips to her head.  She waved her hand.  "I will see you later Daenerys, I'll check in on you."

I'm not a child, she wanted to say, but bit her tongue, nodding curtly.  She left the dining room, one of the smaller ones they used solely for family functions-- not that there were any of those beyond weekly dinner-- entering the corridor.

Maegor's Holdfast, where the official family residence happened to be, was free of security during non-working hours, to give the resemblance that they lived in a normal home.  If your home happened to be multiple levels of an ancient castle built by dragonriders.  It was a joke to her, an illusion, something out of a movie.  This is not the home you're looking for, type of thing.

Her heels clicked on the stone floors, barely covered with carpets, chilly in the late evening.  She shivered, an impressive feat given her dragonblood that normally kept her hot, and wondered where her security detail happened to be lurking that evening.  She could call them, if she wanted to go out, but this late they might say no, they couldn't guarantee anything.

Trapped would be a word for it.  Caged, another.  They meant the same thing, but that wasn't it at all.  Daenerys felt like her wings were clipped.  She could flit about and pretend she could fly, but she really couldn't.  Not unless she escaped from under their noses.

She went to her room and picked up one of her dump phones, texting missandei.  A moment later she had the address for a party, should she want to go out.  But she didn't.  She sighed, walking through the big open doors onto her terrace.  Her suite was in a tower, because that's what she wanted as a girl, and overlooked the Blackwater Bay, in the direction of Essos.

Wishing she was at Dragonstone, she closed her eyes, allowing the cool night breeze, salty from the sea, to brush through her hair and across her skin, like a lover's caress, gentle and soft.  On Dragonstone the air might have a burnt, ashy tinge to it, curling your nose, but she loved it.  She missed it.

Her eyelids flickered up, spotting the ships in the harbor, scanning the horizon, to the Dragonpit ruins and then to the Sept of baelor.  She could slip out easily.  Ser Gerold, their Chief of Security, was probably asleep in his bed in the Lord Commander's tower.  Arthur would likely be on duty for Rhaegar well into the night, Barristan was her mother's keeper and then there was Jamie Lannister floating about somewhere.

She named off the Kingsguard in her head, the ones that all had their assignments, some off duty that night, some no doubt in a control room, buzzing in anticipation there might be a plot afoot to kidnap the Princess or assassinate the King.  It had happened once.  Actually, twice, if she included that time Rhaegar's car had flipped on the way to Summerhall.  They said it was an accident, but she knew better.  It was Baratheon supporters.

Her nails dug into the stone, her heart empty, achy.  "Brienne might let me leave," she murmured.  Brienne was their newest guard, she was eager to please.

At her feet, her massive leopard-sized cat Drogon fussed, emerging from wherever he'd been hiding.  He yowled, clawing her feet.  "Is this how you greet me?" she teased, leaning down to lift him up.  She hefted him up and down a couple times, chuckling.  "I think you need a diet, young man."

Drogon yowled, protesting.  She knew he was just saying he was big-boned.  She kissed the top of his head, scratching under his chin.  He clawed into her arm, demanding he be put down, and she obliged lest her arm become a new scratching post for him.  He sauntered his fat butt back into her room and over to the tapestry of the three Targaryens and their dragons, pawing at the edge.

Her lips twitched, heart leaping hopefully, and soon her relief washed over her, the tapestry pushing aside and the secret passageway opening to reveal him.

"Oh," she exclaimed, pushing away from the stone wall, hurrying towards him.  Her arms flung around his neck, embracing him tight, her face buried in his dark curls, inhaling the scent that had been fading from her sheets and the oversized sweatshirt she'd stolen from his apartment, with each passing day.

He gripped her close, his exhale hard enough to knock her earrings aside.  He swayed, with her in his arms, her toes touching the tops of his feet, lifting her slightly off the floor.  "I've missed you so much," he mumbled, voice raspy.

"I've missed you too."

Falling back to her feet, she pushed his hair aside, tucking it behind his ear, fingertips stroking down his recently cropped beard.  Regulations being what they were, he had to make sure it wasn't unkempt, which he sometimes preferred it to be, especially when he was gone for a long time, like he had been.  His eyes crinkled with his warm smile, his own hands mapping her face, both reacquainting with the other, until she could take no more.

She cried out, muffled, kissing him before she could stop herself, fingers digging into the back of his neck, her mouth opening easily under his, desperate.  He held her tight, hands branding her hips, pushing her towards the nearest surface, which happened to be a chaise lounge near the door.

The chaise’s soft silk fabric brushed over the back of her legs when she reclined onto it, pulling him over her, kissing hard and demanding, pouring her happiness at seeing him after so long into the kiss.  He broke it, when the need for air forced them apart, and touched his forehead to hers, whispering.  "I was worried about you, that security breach last week."

It was just a drunk, the Aegon's Hill Academy frat boys daring each other to try to jump the fence, but of course he would see it as a legitimate problem.  "I wasn't even here, I was with Missandei," she murmured.

He frowned, tracing his finger down her nose, thumb skimming her swollen bottom lip.  "I wish you wouldn't do that without me."

"Because you want to party too?" she teased, but she knew what he meant.  He was her protector, her shadow, and she was never fully usafe unless he was near her.

He smirked.  "No, because it's been six months."

"Six months," she sobbed.  She had barely spoken to him, sneaking messages when she could.  She laughed again, rolling her eyes.  "Remind me to tell Lord Commander Hightower to never approve your military leave again."

"Better tell your Minister of War to stop fighting with the Free Folk at the Wall."

Her nose wrinkled; she detested Rhaegar's pick for Minister of War, Lord Tywin Lannister, and only knew he gave ihm that position because it meant he could keep an eye on him.  Better to have him near than across the continent, her brother said.  Dany would prefer he be in jail.

She nuzzled into his chest, needing to hold him, listen to his heart, and reassure herself he was there with her and not traipsing about in the snow thousands and thousands of miles away.  "Will you be back on my detail?" she breathed, her heart stilling as she awaited his reply.

He moved so she could stretch over him, so he could play with her hair, and he nodded. "Aye, I believe so.  Last I heard."

"We have to be more careful, I think Viserys knows."

He stilled his movements.  "He...is he good?"

She shrugged.  "Who knows...they keep medicating him.  Regardless, if he says something...I don't know."

"We'll be more careful."

They couldn't be any more careful at this point.  They hardly looked at each other, every interaction strictly professional.  He was her bodyguard, nothing more, nothing less.  She treated him like she did everyone else.  Little did they know that five years ago, since Captain Jon Snow, reserve Night's Watch, walked into the solar and Ser Arthur introduced him to her as her newest lead bodyguard, she had been hopelessly in love with him.

Well, not exactly five months.  It took some time.  He was annoying the first six months.  Then she started to become friends with him.  They grew close.  Closer.  Until about a year in she'd kissed him, when he'd found her after she'd given him the slip, at a warehouse party in Vaes Dothrak, while they'd been over in Essos for a 'goodwill tour.'

It was wrong.  They both knew it.  They both couldn't stop it.  He'd get reassigned at the least, fired at the most, and she didn't want anything to happen to him.

It was a matter of time.

Someone would find out.

She was sure that this latest assignment of him from reserves to active duty for the last six months might have been a sign.  Except he was a drug, she couldn't stop it.  She loved him and he loved her.  "Jon," she murmured, pressing her nose into the shadow dent between his shoulder and collarbone, idly pressing a kiss against his steady pulse.

"Hmm?"  He pulled lazily at her hair, twisting braids around his fingers.  She could die and be the happiest she'd ever been.

Lifting her face to his, she whispered.  "Make love to me."

He smiled slowly and leaned down, kissing her so tenderly, she thought she might break.  Except she wouldn't, because she was a dragon.  She relaxed against him and he lifted her up, carrying her across the sitting area into her bedroom suite.

Some time later, she lay against him as he slept, and stared out the open doors to the balcony and beyond, the moon full and as silver as her hair, glowing into the darkness over them.  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, ignoring the sound of reality beating at the door, and returned to sleep, where in dreams she could be Daenerys and he could be Jon.

And not the princess and her bodyguard.

[whump-town]

If The Lord Don’t Forgive Me

Bi!Hotch returns

I brought Charlie around for round two because sometimes you just need sweet, wholesome gay love. And it’s sweet baby (okay sweet like sour gummy worms but it is sweet and, hey, I cut the whump out just to keep it that way so you’re welcome)

There is cussing, the slight implication to sex (but not graphic and far more like “men sometimes have sex”), homophobia (I know, I know why can’t I let them live in peace?? but I have to get something out of this too and I LOVE angst), child abuse (ugh... :( sorry Hotch but if you’re showing that pretty face in a fic, I’m gonna bring up the fact that your dad hit you...), and probably something else but I doubt it’s that bad

Anyways-- cut to the gay shit but let me hit it off with some “Work Song” by Hozier because... I’m the author and I can do what I want 

My baby never fret none About what my hands and my body done If the Lord don't forgive me I'd still have my baby and my babe would have me

Despite it only being eight o’clock in the morning, Aaron Hotchner feels today has aged him immensely.

The morning started with Emily knocking over an entire bookshelf. The decision to move her into his apartment was stupid and on a whim but he’s never truly felt the consequences of that until today. Which is good considering she’s been living there for nearly three years (straight from “dead” in London to living in his house)  but that is not where the focus should be placed. No, it should be placed on the fact that the crash caused him to jump. A normal, knee jerk reaction but not good when in the middle of shaving.

So, he’d come running out of the bathroom-- face stinging because he’s just jerked a razor across it-- to find the living room in shambles. Emily standing on the other side of the room looking to the point of tears but only managing the barest morsel of containment and Jack, school clothes covered in milk from his cereal, lower lip trembling, and little fist clenched for some semblance of control over the tears pouring down his face.

Standing there, the three of them each taking each other in, had felt surreal. Bit by bit, they all came together. Emily wiped her nose and rubbed the tear that fell off her face. She went to get him a band-aid and he went to Jack. That setback was only a step in the wrong direction.

Truthfully, that old bookshelf needed replacement about twenty-years ago when he built it. Its bitter fall was only a matter of time and he has yet to mourn it. The mess of the shelf was easy to clean up. He’d need to take the larger pieces to a dump or ask Morgan if he knows what to do with it. The books just got stacked on the floor and the wood splinters swept up and Jack advised to stay away from there until he or Emily could really go at it a little better and make sure there was nothing left.

The hard things came afterward.

Fighting with Jack to wear other clothes. He’d picked his current milk-soaked clothes out and Jack is reliant on a schedule. Changing clothes is a deviation and no matter how patient Hotch had tried to be, he was finding it hard to keep his cool. So he’d caved rather than lose his temper over something as simple as a second grader’s clothes. So, Jack went to school today in green overalls and blue rain boots that are a little too big. He’d looked silly but he’s seven so it’s technically still cute for him to do.

As for the nice cut he’d dug into his jaw, Emily had come to inform him that the only band-aids in the house are scooby doo. So, he has wood splinters in his living room, blood all over his shirt, Jack in poorly matching clothes, and a fucking scooby doo Band-Aid on his face.

Coffee is the only thing he knows can fix this.

“Uhm--” Leave it for today to also be the day he is confronted head-on with the very repressed sexual attraction he feels for men. “Can I--” his palms are embarrassingly damp. “Can I just get a-- a large black coffee?” The muscle in his forearm flexes and he can’t really force his fingers to grasp his wallet.

The man in question raises his eyebrow but takes the order. “Alrighty,” he answers. “Do you want creamer? Sugar?”

Hotch can feel his throat tightening in and his face heating up. Thank God he’s never been the type to flush visibly or else he’d be in some trouble. He forces his eyes on to the nametag pinned to the apron over the other man’s chest. Charlie, it reads. Hotch glances back up. “Yes-- Yes, please.” If he were a blusher, he’d be beet red.

Charlie smirks at the stammered manners. It’s cute. “You got a name, suit?”

“Ho--Hotch.”

Charlie raises an eyebrow at that but he’s not going to comment. It’s unprofessional and Hotch is more than likely a nickname. He lets it go. “Hotch” comes in enough that Charlie gets used to the strange nickname but to the staff of his shop he refers to the cute stuttering agent as “suit” and it’s easy to understand why.

“A-- A date?”

Charlie is gay but he’s not sure what “suit”/”Hotch” is. He’s thinking at least a little curious because getting the poor man into a stuttering puddle of anxiety and stammering is as simple as deviating from their typical “cream and sugar” discourse.

Charlie smirks, he thinks the stammering is cute. “Suit” is such a composed guy that it is cute. “Well, yeah. Unless the terminology has changed, yeah, suit, a date.”

Hotch’s throat feels impossibly tight. He’s aware of Charlie, very aware of him and his jaw and how hard the pads of his hands are and-- “I’m--” I’m not gay “Ugh, wh-when?”

Oh. Well, he wasn’t expecting it to be that easy. “Hmm, good question. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” Charlie sucks his lip into his mouth, thinking. He snaps his fingers with a sudden idea. He bites the Sharpie’s lid off (the one he uses to write names on the cups) and hurriedly scribbles something on a napkin. “Here’s my number. Text me and we can work that out.”

That was… months ago.

Things have been steady. Good.

Pulling in a deep breath, Aaron Hotchner plunges his head under the luke-warm water of his bathtub. Goosebumps have broken out across his skin but the cold kills the ache in his overworked muscles. Besides, he’s entirely too distracted by two things: (1) he’s too fucking big to fit comfortably in this bathtub. Knees bent, his thighs are out of the water making this bath entirely useless. (2) The very unnervingly attractive coffee shop barista who’s shop he goes to, all the time. Who just so happens to be on his way over right now, for dinner.

“Wow.”

Startled by the sound, Hotch jerks and gets a mouthful of water and suds. Coughing and pulling at his burning nose, Hotch scowls at the intruder. None other than Emily Prentiss standing at the side of the tub, one hand on her hip, and the other extending a towel to him. “Emily!”

She raises an eyebrow of indifference as if he’s the one acting oddly. “You can hold your breath for an impressive amount of time,” she says. She moves the towel in front of him, trying to get him to take it from her. He won’t move his hands from where he’s placed them over his groin.

“Emily, get out!”

“Why are you making this a big deal?” she groans, rolling her eyes. “Hotch I have seen you naked!.” She puts the towel near the edge, where he can reach it without it falling into the water or to the floor. She makes a show of planting her hand over her eyes and turning her back. “Such a baby,” she mumbles. “What is the big deal?”

He ignores her.

She hears the water moving with him as he stands, large splashes as he disturbs the surface. “You’re welcome by the way,” she mumbles. She’d thrown the towel in the dryer so it would be warm for when he got out. Contrary to his dramatics, she does love him. He’s her friend and in the same ways that he takes care of her, she makes sure someone takes care of him. “Besides,” she says, turning around despite his disapproving huff of a sigh. “I came to tell you Charlie is here.”

Hotch freezes. Ah… that’s why she’d come in. That deer in the headlights look that she doesn’t see nearly enough of. It’s silly, if not endearing, that Hotch gets so nervous for these dates. Charlie is pretty clearly head over heels for him and it’s a little surprising. Charlie all bright and cheery, a hard extravert. Perfect, always early to their dates, Charlie.

“He’s early,” Hotch stammers.

Emily nods. The date is at seven-thirty and it’s not quite six. “He knows,” she informs him, settling her hips back against the sink. She’s not watching him throw on his boxers but she’s just… standing there, talking as he drops the towel and makes quick work of drying himself off and pulling his legs into pants. “He also knows you’re in the bath so don’t go breaking your neck. I don’t want to tell your seven-foot-tall, beefcake of a boyfriend that you’ve managed to kill yourself in here.”

Hotch huffs, rolling his eyes. It would be just his luck that he breaks his neck in here while buck ass naked, with Charlie in the living room no doubt. Though, that is a bit of a ridiculous thought to care about.  Here Emily is standing, casually watching him pull jeans over his boxers, having already seen him in his full glory. Charlie, even, has seen all of what he has to offer. He’s spent the majority of his life in the company of Jessica. She’s seen him in hospital gowns, bare assed which is strangely humiliating (and there’s the bonus of the repressed memories of Jessica catching him and Haley multiple times).

They’ve all seen him naked but that’s still not something he wants to deal with.

“You really do look strange in jeans,” Emily informs him as he’s shrugging on his shirt. Charlie had warned him against his more traditional polo. Evidently, he’d look like a “stiff” if he chose to wear a polo to the park. He shoots her a glare but it’s true. No matter how many times she sees him in regular clothes… she just can’t get used to it.

Charlie isn’t mean to him when he wears jeans though.

“There you are,” Charlie greets when Hotch steps out of the bathroom. The strange, beautiful thing about Charlie is that he doesn’t really care that Hotch’s life is crazy. He’d been unsettled by the grisly things that seem to occur so brutally to Hotch but he was quick, startlingly so, to remind Hotch that none of what Charlie had just been told sounded like it was Hotch’s fault. Despite Hotch’s swayed narration.

He’d thought it might be a bit strange to have Emily living in his apartment but Charlie also knew about the details leading up to that decision. The loss of Haley putting a strain on Jack’s independence and pattern of life. Being a single parent and a federal agent pulling Hotch every which way. Haley’s father, Roy, falling ill and commanding more of Jessica’s attention. Then, the fateful fall out with Ian Doyle, Emily moving to London, and the internal bleeding that had almost killed Hotch.

The last of which had been the end all be all. Emily came home and she found herself drawn back here by the less than stellar track record of her family. The abrupt decision landed her here, with Hotch, and it’s been beneficial for everyone involved.

Charlie feels a little safer knowing that when he has to go back to his own apartment, Hotch has his own apartment full of Jack and Emily waiting up for him. Even though he’s only been with Hotch a short while, he’s becoming more and more aware of the trouble that seems to follow his partner.

“Your hair is still wet!” Charlie kisses Hotch, fingers slipping easily through the soaked hair at the back of his head. “I won’t take you out in the cold until you’ve dried it. The last thing I need is you getting sick on me.”

Jack nods seriously hearing this. He’s seated beside Charlie on the couch, the two having been discussing superhero comics. It was turning into an argument when Hotch had come out (who would win between Batman and Ironman-- Charlie says Ironman and Jack Batman). “You can’t get sick,” Jack informs him firmly. “You promised you’d make pancakes for breakfast Saturday.”

Hotch raises an eyebrow, shaking his head. “All I’m good for to you people is my cooking skills.”

Charlie sucks in a breath, making a I don’t know about that, sort of face. “Just your pancakes, Aaron.” Charlie pats Hotch’s thigh the opposite of tender just downright taunting. “I love you but you can not cook or bake. You literally burn everything.”

The chorus of grunted seconding of that statement behind him feels like a betrayal but he really is bad at cooking. And math. And remembering general the most basic things. So, true but hey! “I’m going to go dry my hair,” Hotch announces, shaking his head. Sure, laugh it up now. They all need him. It’s funny now… brats.

“Get some gloves! There’s a wind chill!”

Emily huffs a laugh and Hotch turns around to catch it. He smirks at the sight of his living room, melancholy swelling in his throat. His family genuinely looks like his lesbian best friend, his ex-wife’s older sister, his son, and his 6’5 ex-college football player turned coffee shop owner boyfriend. It’s a little crazy and yet… comforting because at eighteen when he’d packed up his meager belongings to go to college, he didn’t think he was capable of having any of this.

As Charlie pulls him out the door-- hair dry-- Jack’s actively talking to them both. Something pointless but childish and so, by reason, very important. Emily’s reaching into his jacket and stuffing a pair of gloves into his pocket, throwing a scarf at his head. Jessica’s calling after them too and as soon as the door shuts Hotch pulls in a deep breath.

“They’re smothering,” Charlie informs him as they step off the porch. He offers his hand out to Hotch, scowling down at the icy steps.

Hotch hums in agreeance taking Charlie’s hand out of necessity for touch not help. “You’ll get used to it.” The implication of his statement comes to hit him centerfold but Charlie seems unaffected and Hotch is reminded that not even ten minutes Charlie had said that he loved him. “I love you but you can not cook or bake. You literally burn everything.”

I love you. I love you. I love you.

“Aaron? Did you hear me?”

Hotch blinks stupidly, looking up, and shaking his head. “No,” he mumbles regretfully.

Charlie shrugs it off. “I asked if you were hungry, yet.” Though a year is not altogether that much time, especially when compared to their ages, Charlie would like to think he has an understanding of Aaron. He does know that for certain, actually. He squeezes Aaron’s hand within his own and smiles over at him. He’s got layers, Aaron, and you have to pay a price to understand each and every one.

Somehow, that enchants Charlie. He loves it. There’s nothing he wouldn’t give up to have another layer.

“No need to pretend to be,” Charlie explains as they separate to get into his car. “You either or you aren’t. I just wondered if you wanted dinner now or after the walk.” Charlie wants his opinion. He desperately wants to understand what is going on in Aaron’s head. The thoughts he has when he gets silent like this, his restless fingers digging and rubbing.

Hotch hums, reflexively drawing his arms to his chest after he buckles himself into the car. He fidgets anxiously as he tries to figure out the correct answer. What it is that Charlie wants to hear. Charlie likes to eat early, that’s something he’s noticed. However, if Charlie’s asking him then maybe he doesn’t want to eat early. Would Charlie be hungrier after a walk? If they eat now it’ll be cold outside by the time they can get to the park. Then Charlie’s going to be mad at him because it’ll be his fault for having chosen to eat early and go to the park late. Maybe then Charlie will finally realize how stupid this whole relationship is, that he can do better, someone who isn’t like him, and--

“Hey.” Charlie doesn’t reach out and touch him. That’s a lesson he’s learned over the last few months. Hotch doesn’t mind physical touch but he’s easily unnerved by it when he doesn’t know it’s coming. Considering how lost in thought he just was, there is no way he would have seen it coming. “We can just go after, okay?”

Hotch immediately calms, “okay.” His shoulders fall from where he’d slowly, stiffly brought them up. He nods his head, looking down to his lap, while Charlie drives. He has to calm down.

He looks over, catching Charlie’s smooth movement. His arm is on the center console, palm up in a common gesture waiting for Aaron to take his hand. He blinks for a moment, mind slowly turning over exactly what this is. Glancing at Charlie, Hotch slowly lifts his hand up and shyly slots his fingers between his. Smiling when Charlie doesn’t even react much more than a pleased grin.

Oh, he thinks calmly. He likes holding Charlie’s hand. He likes Charlie. The way that he just fills the silence without ever expecting Hotch to return the vigor. Simply requiring Hotch remain engaged with the occasional hum of understanding or scowl of confusion. And Hotch loves that so much more-- that he never has to find the words to explain that he doesn’t understand. Charlie just knows.

“You can’t.”

Charlie frowns, turning to glance at Hotch. “What do you mean?” That’s where the compensation occurs-- Charlie is awful at remembering things. He forgets his dry cleaning, appointments that he set up, holidays, birthdays, weekend plans-- everything. Hotch seems to forget nothing.

Hotch looks out the window of the passenger side, feeling the cold seeping in from the door, but docile and contently closes his eyes to narrow his attention to Charlie’s thumb rubbing lazy patterns on the back of his hand. “On the twenty-third you have interviews for waiters. Your morning, at the very least, is packed.”

Charlies frowns, well shit. “You know,” he says, giving Hotch’s hand a little squeeze. “If you just came to work with me, I wouldn’t have to have those interviews. It would fix so many of both of our problems.”

Hotch turns his head, smirking at Charlie. Not true. It would fix some of their issues-- how much time Hotch’s job steals from them, Charlie’s need for more staff. However, Charlie just wants him working there because Charlie thinks Hotch would look hot in the apron (actually, he knows Hotch is hot in the apron).

They arrive at the park and the two get out. Charlie immediately regrets coming out in this weather.

The grass crunches under Hotch’s feet but he enjoys the way the snow muffles so much of the noise around them. Leaving nothing but the few courageous birds watching them from their perches. It’s a safety Hotch finds entirely enrapturing. Enough to not mind the cold at all and how Charlie’s been fussing with his own clothes since they set off.

Hotch is just walking along. His hands are cold but not enough to ache and with Charlie’s covering the majority of his right hand, he can slip the left into his pocket. It’s not until Charlie squeezes his hand to get his attention that they stop, that Hotch pulls his attention to his partner and away from the scenery.

Charlie pulls him by the lapels of his dark jacket, turning him so that they’re standing facing one another. The toes of their shoes bumping together. “Come here,” Charlie instructs, words a cloud of condensation around them. He wastes no time in pulling the hat off of his own head to pull it down over Hotch’s. Smiling when it smushes his overgrown bangs against his forehead. “I don’t want you getting an ear infection out here. Gotta keep you healthy.”

Hotch shyly grins, looking down at the ground, “I’ll be okay.” He still turns his cheek into Charlie’s palm, letting him wrap that hand around the back of his neck, turning his chin up to kiss him. His lips are cold and the tip of his nose feels frozen. “It’s not that cold.”

Charlie shrugs and Hotch doesn’t pull the hat off.

“You outta be disgusted by yourselves.”

Hotch flinches, recoiling from Charlie and bowing his head rather than to look up and see who it is shouting at them. But Charlie is not new to this little game and he straightens his back and raises a questioning brow. “Oh? Should we?” He glares down at the woman on the track, it’s clear she’d been running before she decided to come nosing her way into their business. “I’d appreciate it if you left us alone, ma’am. We aren’t hurting anyone.”

She scoffs.

Charlie stands still, unwavering. They’re big men. Hotch may be a force to be reckoned with but Charlie is not, by any means, small. They’re the same height and the woman in question is a petite blonde. They’re intimidating. She rolls her eyes, shaking her head disgusted but stalks off. Whispering under her breath about hell and how their time will come.

“What a hag,” Charlie grumbles, rolling his eyes and reaching down between them to take Hotch’s hand. He steps to move on but he feels the resistance in Aaron. His hand now loosely holding on to Charlie, fingers lightly hooked together. “Aaron--”

Hotch forces himself to take a steadying breath-- drop his shoulders, unclench his jaw, inhale slowly. His eyes peel up off of the ground and he knows he hasn’t moved fast enough. Creases of worry have broken up Charlie’s handsome face, tension that doesn’t belong there. “I--”

Charlie shakes his head, discouraging Hotch’s lame excuse. “What she said…” Charlie can’t tell Hotch that what she said shouldn’t affect him. That he should brush it off and not worry about what a small minded bitch has to say about them but that’s not fair. None of this ever really is. Not when it comes to Aaron. “She doesn’t matter, Aaron. You. You matter to me, okay?”

Hotch furrows his brows, letting out an aggravated puff of air as he fails to work through the shame burning his chest.

Charlie looks around them, tapping his fingers as he contemplates what he should do. “Do you--” How, in all of Virginia did he manage to get the one DILF, Unit Chief with the inability to make a decision or admit what he needs? He means it fondly, of course, but sometimes he’d like to lovingly shake some sense into this man.

Taking a calming moment, Charlie knows that his ability to play out this next scene is vital to his afternoon. If Aaron detects even a fraction of impatience, anger, or frustration he’ll shut down and then Charlie is going to have to spend days if not weeks working Aaron back to where he is now.

“It’s cold out here,” he states calmly. Aaron glances at him, sniffling and rubbing at his wind burned nose. “I’m hungry, I-- I forgot my lunch at home this morning.” Even though Aaron bought him a bright, hunter’s orange lunch box that sits painfully on his kitchen counter so that he has to see it. “What do you say we turn back for the car and surprise Jack with an early return? Order pizza? Watch some Scooby Doo?”

Aaron sniffles again, glancing at Charlie and then to the path they’re clearly meant to be headed on. “But…” he clears his throat. He can’t stand being like this. The anxious partner. The fucked up partner. He was with Haley. Now he is with Charlie. And, well, everyone knows how Haley played out. “You-- You wanted to walk.”

Charlie shakes his head, smiling and playfully poking Hotch’s chest. “No, I want to spend time with you.” Though he’s terrified Aaron will recoil from it, he makes the careful decision to touch him. Smiling when Aaron just looks back at him, searching for something but Charlie isn’t mad so Aaron won’t find what he’s looking for. He strokes Aaron cheek, “I’m cold. You’re cold. We can walk if you want but…”

Hotch looks back down the trail and shakes his head. No, he doesn’t want to walk.

Charlie feels pretty proud of himself. He’s pretty good at this.

And Jack is thrilled to have them back.

Hotch feigns hurt when Jack runs straight past him to Charlie. “Am I chopped liver?” But his light, fluttering chest betrays him and he can’t help a soft smirk as Jack holds Charlie’s hand. Charlie nodding, listening to Jack as he kicks his shoes off.

Emily appears at the mouth of the hall, frowning at the sight before her. She’s in different clothes from when they left. One of her dating apps having finally come through and delivered her plans for this lovely evening. She was just about to call Hotch to tell him she was going to have to call Jessica to watch Jack. “What are you doing back?”

Before Hotch can overthink the question Charlie smirks and motions over his shoulder, “it’s like ten degrees out there. Way too cold for a walk, don’t know what I was thinking.”

Good enough excuse for Emily, she doesn’t care. She has other things on her mind. “I have a date.” Both Aaron and Charlie look surprised. Which is annoying but she won’t engage them in conversation because she’s better than that. “So, I will be out of your hair this afternoon.”

Well, kind of. She steals some of their pizza before she leaves. Even sits down for an episode of Scooby Doo before her date texts and says she’s ready.

“Well, boys,” she leans down and kisses the top of Jack’s head. Wishing him a  good night and a whisper to make sure he’s extra good for his father when Hotch puts him down tonight. “I’m off. I will see you in the morning.” She offers Charlie a cordial head nod and Hotch gets his hair messed with as she passes.

“Be careful,” Hotch calls as she shuts the door.

It doesn’t take long for Jack to fall asleep and Hotch can feel himself slipping with Charlie leaning against him, his hand on the inside of Hotch’s thigh. Warm and comfortable, he doesn’t want to get up. But he manages to get Jack to bed with minimal fighting-- they agree to keep his nightlight, the hall light, and the bathroom light on. Emily even sends a text to confirm that she hasn’t been murdered by her date, he rolls his eyes but appreciates the sentiment.

It’s a good night, all things considered.

For a while, at least.

He’s in bed. Boxers shifted low on his hips as lays atop his beaten, threadbare comforter. The thick, heavy heat of an August night settling thickly over his bones. A blanket of sweat shining on his chest, just barely visible from the light of the hallway peaking into his cracked door. Downstairs, his parents roar on. He can make out every word spoken but if he hums just enough and presses his fingers into the thin mattress until it hurts he can numb out the world.

Nothing.

He thinks about Scott from his biology class. His booming laughter, already having hit his growth spurt and though only sixteen standing over them all in a man’s body. Thick with muscles that Aaron had felt when Scott had pulled him in for a tight, jovial bear hug. Perhaps he’d imagined it but for a split second Aaron had seen a flash of something-- warmth that he, himself, still can not name.

Closing his eyes, he brings back the heat of his stomach. A smile pulling at his lips as he thinks about how it felt pressed to Scott’s chest. Swallowed by the other’s boy’s body. The ache between his hips increases. It’s bad and it’s ugly but it’s Scott that he thinks about. It’s Scott that he wants.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Aaron scrambles upright, both hands planted on the bed as he scurries away from its edge and anywhere near where his father might be able to grab one of his frantically moving limbs. Still, a rough hand is thrown out and Aaron yelps in surprise as his body is yanked to the edge. He can’t hear the words being thrown at him, just looks at his drunken father screaming. Sees his mouth move but knows nothing of their meaning.

He’s wrenched up and out of bed, scrambling to keep up with the direction in which he’s pulled down the hall. To the large, cast iron clawfoot tub in the bathroom. He’s thrown chest first into it’s cold edge, his fingers wrapping tightly around the biting cold of the rim. He knows his fate long before his father’s broad hand grabs onto his hair and hauls him up just enough to push him down into the cold, soapy water.

His ringing ears hearing the slurs being thrown at him. Faggot. He screams as his father punches his exposed chest, causing him to gasp, the bubbles of air hitting his face. He’d used that word before. Thrown it at another boy the way rocks had been thrown at him for doing the same thing-- being too small, wearing weird clothes. He wonders exactly how it is that he can change because he tries. Good Lord, he tries so hard.

“Aaron.”

His vision blacks out for a moment and he’s lifted from the water. Everything feels strangely familiar. He can’t feel the cold water. Can’t feel the water dripping down his face.

“Aaron!”

He can’t expel the water in his throat. The hand on the back of his head tightens as water and his dinner come up, hot and wet against his chest as he’s moved mid-choke. His head goes under and he screams, grabbing frantically at his father’s hand on his head.

“Aaron--”

Screaming Aaron fights weakly against the hands touching him. It takes a moment for the uncoordinated sweeps of his arms to connect with nothing. For him to get a proper amount of space to breathe. The ringing numb of his ears slowly dies and he feels the world creeping back in around him. He blinks into the darkness, chest heaving  First, the dull clicking of fan in the corner of the room. It sweeps left to right, pauses, and comes back right to left. Then the hobbling, swinging of the fan above him. Cold air.

He’s not there in that tiny, suffocating town. In that too-big house with too many places to be seen and not nearly enough to hide.

“You fucking scared me,” pants someone behind him.

A large hand plants itself between his shoulder blades, the bed dipping as weight is moved across it’s top. His body flinches but he’s only minutely aware of the physical movement and, slowly, the rest of him leans into the warmth of the palm. Tears swell as he turns over his shoulder, eyes closed, and going blindly where he knows arms will enclose him. Protect him. “Charlie,” he finally recognizes. His face finds the other man’s shoulder and he feels, rather than hears, the sob that leaves his grimacing lips.

Charlie wraps his arms around Hotch’s shoulder, pulling him closer.

Hotch gives himself over, leaning completely into him. Gently, Hotch feels Charlie moving parts of him to adjust them back onto the bed. “Do you want to talk about it?” Charlie lays back, pulling Hotch’s knee so his hips cant against Charlie’s. The inner side of Hotch’s thighs lies laying across his. There’s no need to open his eyes, to fight. He knows he’s safe.

His tears have slowed but there’s no denying something big has happened. Lately, Hotch has noticed Charlie pushing for him to open up more but Charlie and Hotch’s childhoods are nothing alike. It’s hard to tell him about the dozen times his father put him in the hospital, each time with a better story than the last, and always Hotch’s fault. Had the whole town believing Hotch to be some miscreant kid.

And he was bad but not the sense that was ever true. He’d smoked and drank but that was small-town stuff. Everyone gets into that sort of thing one way or another. He’d had sex but no one he and his partners knew about that, his male partners, anyhow. The first time he’d slept with Haley he’d been proud to have fallen for a woman.

There was an old run-down barn that he’d take boys out to. There was one wall, facing the woods, that was strong enough to support weight and you could lean up against it. He’d been caught only once and the old farmer had beaten him with the wooden end of a rake. The other boy had managed to run off. Hotch’s pants had pooled against around his ankles and the other boy hadn’t taken his completely off his hips. That was a mistake Hotch only made that one time. Not that it would have mattered.

After that day, everyone knew what he was.

Which is what bred his nightmare. Though, that night had gone nothing like his dream. He’d come home with welts and broken ribs from the beating that old farmer gave him. As soon as he opened the door, he knew what was waiting for him. It was from the first floor that his father had dragged him, by his hair, to the second floor. Where Sean’s dirty bathwater sat cooling all afternoon.

But Hotch won’t tell Charlie about that day. It’s not worth it. So he changes the subject. “We need to clean the sheets,” Hotch finally sniffles. His voice is rough from the night’s activities and he remembers what they’d done before he’d fallen asleep and knows that surely did not help. Under his left hip, there is dampness to the old cotton sheet, like something wet has been drying. Sheets probably should be replaced but these are the back-up sheets and the goods ones are in the dryer.

Charlie hums, a vibration that Hotch can feel all the way down to his toes. “That would be your mess,” Charlie informs him matter-of-factly. Pressing his lips to Hotch’s forehead. “I did try to clean you up if you recall.” Charlie’s fingers have wrapped protectively around Hotch’s body, thumb lazily rubbing back and forth over his bare hip. “You told me to fuck off so…”

He remembers. He was still sensitive, shaking with exertion, and hadn’t taken kindly to Charlie dragging a slightly too cold wash rag over his ass. First of all, it was way too wet and secondly, it was cold. What was he to do other than protest?

Charlie’s chest shifts underneath his head as he bends to look at the clock. Yawning deeply Charlie pulls the blankets back over them both, rubbing at Hotch’s hip. “Let’s get some sleep,” he mumbles around another yawn that manages to overtake his breath. “Don’t be afraid to wake me up,” Charlie mumbles. “I want you to wake me up, capeesh?”

Hotch closes his eyes and turns a little more into the warmth of Charlie’s body. Trying to think of nothing. To slow the rapid progressions of his thoughts. There is no way that this was a good idea. A relationship. A life. He brought Haley into his world and looked at what happened. He’s a swirling storm of trouble, sucking in the best parts of the world and ruining them. He’s a liar.

“I love you, Aaron,” Charlie whispers, straining his neck to kiss the top of Hotch’s head. His hand holds Aaron still against him. “I don’t want you to be lying here suffering afraid to talk to me.”

I love you. I love you. I love you. That’s not good. It can’t be. He’s not worth that. Charlie is great. He’s gentle and he’s kind and he’s loving and Hotch can’t even decide when they should eat. If a walk in the park is better than a movie.

“You have not tricked me.” He wonders how Charlie sees so clearly into his mind. It’s not mind reading, Charlie can feel his pounding heart and tense muscles. He’s always so tense. “I love you completely, entirely, enchantingly by choice.” Charlie sighs softly. Content. He wishes desperately to bring Aaron the same peace that Aaron brings him. It's a content, pleased sigh that leaves his mouth and that confuses Aaron so much. No louder than a whisper, seemingly more to himself than to Aaron Charlie whispers. “There are worse life sentences than to be tricked into falling in love with you.”

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of wildfire relief, @jesusonthetortillas​ donated $10, and requested pre-series pining!Sam, with diary discovery. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

After his little lesson from Sabrina, the hot librarian's assistant, it's not hard at all for Dean to find what he's looking for. He drops Sam off at the library the way he usually does, and flirts with Sabrina on his way out like he usually does, but instead of going to his shift at the construction site like Sam thinks he's going to, he circles back around, through the library stacks on the main floor, and waits like a dingus by YOUNG ADULT – ADVENTURE, watching the back of Sam's nerdy, nerdy head where he's hunched at the computer banks, getting up to no kind of good.

It wouldn't have come to this, Dean thinks, if Sam weren't so—he doesn't even know how to think about it. He doesn't know when to pin it down. They were doing okay. Sam ran away, a few years back, but since then he's—well, he's always bitching at Dad and bitching at Dean half the time too, but he's done good in school, he's done his part with the hunting. It was sometime at that last school. September in Maryland. Dad was gone a lot of the time, because Dad always was, and Dean went with him on about half the hunts but Sam got to stay behind, got to just call in research tips and last-minute lore checks, and Dean thought he was pretty happy, as much as Sam ever seemed happy. Chill, just doing his homework at the rickety desk, not complaining any more than usual about Dean's usual dinners of fast food or Kraft or Top Ramen. Seventeen and getting tall and mellowing out, and finally hanging out with his little brother was just fine. Dean thought.

That was two towns ago, three months ago. Dean picks his nails with his pocket knife, leaning on one elbow by the Hardy Boys. Sam's still working away on the computer. Anymore he always is. After school he's always angling for Dean to bring him to the library and if Dean won't drive him then Sam walks, even when it's raining, like it is half the time in frickin Washington, anyway. Always finding a free computer and settling in and disappearing onto the internet. Not coming home until the library closes, and moody if Dean's there when he walks in, and Dean just—he thought they were past all this crap. He thought that maybe Sam had—settled. Figured out how things were, how things had to be.

Well. Either way. Sabrina, with the glasses and the sexy dreads and the legs that very much went all the way to the floor under those wide-legged pants she was always wearing—she gave Dean a computer lesson, free of charge, and he's got a way in, now. Sam won't talk to him, won't hardly look at him. Dean chews the inside of his cheek, watching Sam type on the battered public machine. Sam's not the only one who knows how to research a case, in this family. Dean's going to figure this out. He's gonna fix it.

A bell rings, at five o'clock, like the end of a school day. Sam jerks like he's been shocked and looks up at the ceiling, clearly annoyed. He's been engrossed for two hours, typing away, reading. Real frickin' boring, on Dean's end, but he stayed put. Like staking out a house for a job—nothing to do but wait. He takes a few steps backwards, makes sure the shelves hide his face, and there's a general rustling as people leave—a mom and her kid, and tears because the kid's favorite book wasn't here—and when Dean looks again the computer banks are empty, and Sabrina's checking out the last few patrons, and Sam's—gone. Walking home in the rain, little goth that he is. Fine with Dean, if it gives him a few minutes.

When he settles into the chair Sam was in it's still warm. He opens up Netscape Navigator, the library's homepage welcoming him in a friendly kinda way—big yellow smiley face, that's fun. He goes to where Sabrina taught him, in the menu at the top: view, and then History, where it turns out the computer saves all the webpages you went to just in case you need to find them again, and there—oh, jackpot. Gotcha, Sam.

All kinds of crap. A weather website, a bunch of Ask Jeeves searches, something called DiffEQandU. Some mythology stuff, too, and Dean goes to one that turns out to be a history of kitsune. That's something, at least—Sam doing his important homework, in there with whatever other crap he's been working on.

The last bunch of results are all pages from some website called Livejournal, which Dean's never heard of. He clicks one at random and is brought to—huh. A splashy red page, with a big picture on top of kids graduating from high school in those dorky blue robes. He scrolls down, skimming, looking for the important details among the mess, but it's hard to tell what it is. A forum, it looks like. Kind of like the ones Dean's been on where people trade car parts, or swap ghost stories. A square box, dated yesterday, that says WHEN IS HARVARD'S APP REVIEW???, and a panicky paragraph where some chick might die if she doesn't get in. Another, the day before, with questions about the SAT, and a link that says 43 comments that, when Dean clicks it, brings him to a bunch of apparently teenagers all giving each other tips from some test they're worried about taking.

College. Dean's stomach curls into a knot. It's all—college stuff, applications and tests and deadlines. The usernames are all weird shit: tmntpizzadelivery, quistis4ever, willyshakes. Dean can't tell—is one of these kids Sam?

Sabrina's nearly done with her line of book nerds. Dean rubs a hand over his mouth and clicks away, tries another of the Livejournal results in the history. Another forum, this one apparently about—soccer? Jesus, Sam. Another forum, this one about Conan the Barbarian, and that one's at least easy to snort at, with people's shitty drawings of Red Sonja and excitement about a possible remake. There are personal pages, though, too—one titled Delaware Sucks, in which some girl complains about her life—one titled trent reznor rules my soul, featuring a goth kid who won't shut up about Nine Inch Nails and his bitch of a mother. Another, with a plain blue-and-grey color scheme, with the title on the road, and a new post from today—from an hour ago—with the text just reading, I don't know what to do anymore, and six comments underneath, waiting.

"Hey—ready to go?" Sabrina says.

Dean jerks in his seat. Sabrina's raising her eyebrows at him, behind her glasses, a little smile curving her mouth that promises something a little better than book dust and computer lessons. "I'm always ready," Dean says, grinning, and gets her to roll her eyes—yeah, he's in there—but his eyes drag back to the webpage, the posts. He scrolls down, quick—post after post, waiting to be read. "Real quick—borrow a pen?"

She has one—she's a sexy librarian, of course she has one—and he uncrumples a receipt from his jacket pocket and writes down the URL, careful to get it right. rearviewmirror.livejournal.com. He wants to click on the comments, but.

"Come on, the movie's starting soon," Sabrina says, and Dean closes Netscape, folds the receipt very carefully into his pocket, stands up. He's got a date to make out with a hot chick in the back of a movie theater, and maybe a little more, and Sam's whole Eeyore routine has to take a number. Dean will figure it out. He's got an easy way to run a stakeout, now.

*

December 4

Still can't decide. Anyone else going through this?

current mood: agonized current music: motorhead (AGAIN)

Comments:

teenagehamburger: Yes!! I still don't know where I want to go. Mom wants me to stay close to home, but Delaware sucksssss. Where are you looking?

       rearviewmirror: Anywhere. TBH I'm still not even sure I should apply.

               teenagehamburger: WTF?? Of course you should!! College is the big escape, remember?

 December 1

He's driving me INSANE

current mood: annoyed current music: motorhead (again)

Comments:

bloodofreptile: lol you got it bad

       rearviewmirror: right now I just want to hit him with a brick, actually

teenagehamburger: LOL!! Sorry :(  :(

       rearviewmirror: Sigh. I guess it could be worse, right?

             teenagehamburger: Definitely!! He could be the cute cheerleader from 4th period who doesn't know I exist….

                     coppertonebuttgirl: oh, sorry hammie, that sucks <3

 November 29

The thing is, I don't even want anything crazy? I just want to be—me. Just me, without anyone breathing down my neck. Trig teacher says I could get in to one of the top ten, but I just want to go *anywhere that's not here*

current mood: restless current music: Pearl Jam (home alone!)

Comments:

bloodofreptile: i hear you lol. why don't they get that the rules and hovering and all that shit just makes us want to run faster?

    rearviewmirror: Exactly! My teacher keeps talking about college like it's a place to expand your mind and stuff, and that's fine, but lately I just want to expand my horizons. Kind of ironic?

         bloodofreptile: yeah lol haven't you lived like everywhere?

               rearviewmirror: Feels like it.

teenagehamburger: Is You Know Who going to college too?

 November 18

I feel like it shouldn't be this hard. Normal people have it easy.

current mood: indescribable current music: silence

Comments:

coppertonebuttgirl: feel free to talk to me anytime <3

 November 3

Dad's gone again. Didn't say goodbye. We went to the movies and he gave me a beer, and we watched the stars for an hour in the parking lot even though it was freaking freezing. Happier than I've been in a while. Don’t want it to change but it has to change.

current mood: current music:

Comments:

teenagehamburger: OMG, that sounds so romantic?? I can't believe you were drinking!! Aren't you underage?

     bloodofreptile: lol relax it's not a big deal

           teenagehamburger: I'm just saying!!

coppertonebuttgirl: wish it wasn't hard for you <3

bloodofreptile: dude you've got to say something

     rearviewmirror: I literally can't.

          bloodofreptile: ok but it's gonna drive you crazy. do you even know if he's gay? start with that maybe

*

The posts go on, and on. Reading backwards through time, it's a strange piecing-together. rearviewmirror is active in about ten communities and Dean reads through all of them, that week, bringing an illicit cup of coffee in to the library when he doesn't have a construction shift. He reads with his hand over his mouth and by the time he has to get off the computer he's got a headache, every time, his throat dry and aching.

The journal's been active for six months. Dean clicks through the pages to the very start and reads it in the right order, his heart pounding oddly in his ears. I don't know what this place is. A journal, I guess, considering the name. I just need somewhere to talk where no one will listen.

It's not a pouring-out, like some teenage girl doodling hearts around her crush's initials. He holds back. Never says exactly where they're living, never mentions names. To figure out who it was, you'd have to be one of two other people, and Dean knows that Dad can barely turn on a computer, much less go onto the internet and pore over some teenage angst-fest. Dean spends half his time wishing he were the same. Maybe if he hadn't asked Sabrina for help.

At home, Sam's the same as he always is. Comes home after his own stint at the library, eats the dinner Dean gives him. He reads, most of the time. Does his schoolwork. Dean says, careful one night, "Hey, True Lies is on. Wanna watch?" but Sam only gives him a strange, uncertain look and says, "No, I have a paper due," and he shuts himself into their bedroom with the door very firmly closed, and Dean sits there on the couch alone with a beer and Jamie Lee Curtis being sexy as hell on the fuzzy TV, and he—he doesn't know what to do.

He remembers that day, the looking at the stars day. It was November 2. A nasty anniversary, in their family, and yeah, Dad left. Dean got it. He'd thought Sam did, too, by now. It was better to have Dad gone, on a hunt, than trying to drink himself to death at home in the apartment. At least he was working, that way, and not hurting himself. To distract both of them, Dean picked Sam up from the library and they went straight to the movie theater—the Blair Witch sequel, with Dean providing running commentary about how dumb they were about dealing with ghosts, which at least made Sam grin and elbow him to shut up, even if he was laughing too, the liar—and, yeah, afterward they'd picked up Taco Bell, and then after that Dean swung through the liquor store drive-thru and they parked out, and he let Sam have a beer, and they both sat on the trunk and leaned back against the cold glass or the rear window and didn't really talk, much. The stars, big above them. The night, quiet. Sam was pressed against his side, chilled out and not bitching about anything, and Dean tucked his hand behind his head and he was pretty content with the world, right then. His brother, here, and a six-pack waiting, and nothing happening right then that'd hurt them. Sam smiled at him, that night, before he went to bed. It was sweet—like he used to be, when he was little—and Dean had ended up falling asleep on the couch, watching the public access, but his dreams that night were—good, like they never were on the night of November 2, and it had felt… okay.

do you even know if he's gay?

The college prep—that wasn't a surprise. It hurt but it didn't shock. All his worrying, all his whining, wanting to be 'free'—whatever free meant—it was all part and parcel of the last decade. Dean should've known better. Sam wasn't mellowing out. Sam was a stubborn little shit and he'd always wanted to have a life that wasn't—this.

The gay thing. That hit different. One of the communities Sam followed was for lesbian and gay youth, talking about their coming out experiences. Sam didn't post there much but he commented, asked questions. How do you know? What does it feel like? The hamburger girl was from there, a lesbian chick trapped in some Delaware high school. Encouraging, commiserating. They talked about how college would be their big escape, their chance to go to a big city and find their way. Meet people. Only apparently hamburger girl was crushing on the cheerleader from fourth period, and Sam—

Dean makes an excuse the next day. Saturday: no work for Dean, no school for Sam. Alone in the apartment together, all day, after Dean's week of reading—he can't face it. "Where are you going?" Sam asks, eight a.m. with his hair fucked up and coffee clenched between his hands, and Dean looks at him in his pajama pants and his ratty hand-me-down shirt, skinny and tall and hiding things Dean can't handle, and he says, snappish in a way he doesn't mean to be—"Out, Sam, for christ's sake—" and sees Sam's expression shutter before the apartment door slams behind him.

He goes for a drive, out of town. Cold, threatening rain like it always is, but it won't snow. Out—past the airport, past the suburbs, out to Black Lake. They killed the nymph that was drowning people out here, him and Dad, when they first arrived. Sam stayed home. Sullen on the other end of the line when Dean called to say they'd finished the job, and they were getting burgers for dinner, and did Sam want one. Whatever, Sam had said, like even answering was an imposition. That was November, too.

He sits on the hood, heels braced on the bumper, arms locked around his knees. The lake looks cold. He wants to sink into it, wants to feel that freezing shock, like the polar bear dive he did on a dare back in Illinois. The way the brain just goes blank, tv-static filling up everything and washing all the shit away. All the weird crap you don't want to think about, frozen, and the only thing to focus on just—getting out.

He's not going to dive into the lake. It's nine in the morning and he's wearing his only pair of boots. He hasn't gone out with Sabrina all week. He's been piss-poor at the construction site and McMillan nearly brained him with a hammer yesterday, because Dean wasn't paying attention, and the foreman screamed at him in front of the whole crew. None of that feels close, right now. He breathes the wet-clogged air, cold and mossy, turning his ring restlessly on his finger.

Back at that high school they went to in Raton, Mrs. Encinas in 6th period English told Dean he'd be smart, if he didn't just give up all the time. All he needed to do was take the time to read between the lines, to actually interpret what he was reading and not take things on face value. He made some joke. He doesn't remember what it was, now. Like he didn't know what the fuckin Great Gatsby was saying, when he hoped and hoped and never got what he wanted. When happiness always felt like it was about a thousand miles away, on the other side of a lake he couldn't cross, and hope went out like a snuffed light. Dean can read what's not there. He's done it his whole life.

The problem: Sam's little online journal went back six months. They've lived in four towns, in that time. He never uses names, never puts up anything that'd really identify him. They were in Maryland, August-September-first of October, and it was a comment right at the end of August, on the community for gay kids, talking to the hamburger girl: I like someone, too. He doesn't know. He. The same he that carried forward, through all his journal entries, from Maryland to Washington across whole breadth of the country. He likes classic rock. He drives me nuts. He gave me a beer, and I wanted—

Dean curls forward over his knees, sliding his hands into his hair, breathing hard between his knees. He can read between the lines and he wishes that he couldn't. He wishes—god. What? That Sam would just meet a nice girl and fuck her and get it out of his system? Except how he was writing, it wasn't like it was new. It was something he'd been thinking about. When did you know? had read one of the forum posts, and in the responses, among all the dumb teenage crap about formal dances and jerking off to the wrong person in the music video, there was a comment by username rearviewmirror that said, I broke my leg and he carried me to the car and I wanted to kiss him.

Sam broke his leg in July, the summer he turned fifteen. He'd been trying to stay quiet but he'd had this trapped whimper in his throat that he couldn't stop, and Dad had stayed behind to cover their backs and it had been left to Dean, to scoop Sam up, his whole body quivering with the shock—to hug him close between the trees, humid Georgia night making every place their skin touched slick with sweat—to let Sam cling to his neck, shuddering, and to put a hand on his back and whisper, hey, Sammy, it's not even that bad, huh? no bone sticking out, you did good. we're gonna get you a cast and I'm gonna draw you a great picture, okay, Cindy Crawford with her tits out, right there on your shin and Sam had been so shaky that his laugh sounded like he was crying, but he'd nodded against Dean's neck and chattered out sounds cool, Dean, and when Dean got him to the car Sam hadn't wanted to let him go—so they crawled into the backseat together, Sam still half in his lap and with his arms still tight around Dean's neck. Dad got into the front and frowned at Dean in the rearview, and Dean nodded, and when the car leapt forward Sam gasped and gripped at Dean's shirt when his leg got jostled, and Dean put his hand in Sam's hair and said, it's okay, you're okay, and Sam—wanted to kiss him.

He can't square it. It's like there's some twinned version of his brother, in this place Dean never knew existed. All these secrets he's been hoarding, this other person he's been. These wants that make him a stranger.

He goes back home with stuff for lunch around noon. Sam's reading, in the bedroom. "Got pb&j or grilled cheese," Dean calls, down the shotgun kitchen through the thin-carpeted hall, and Sam calls back, "I'm not hungry," which is a goddamn shit of a lie. He grows like an inch a day, he's never not hungry. Dean braces his hands on the counter and counts to five, in his head. He puts the bread away, and puts the cheese in the fridge. He goes into the living room and turns on the TV and it's college football, which is boring as hell, but it fills the apartment with noise. He wishes Dad were home. He wishes he were hunting.

The Huskies lose. Sam hasn't come out of the room, as far as Dean can tell. He's had—four beers? He looks at the table. Five. It's getting toward dark and it's raining, a-fucking-gain, and Dean's still wearing his jacket and his boots and his ears are cold, because the heater in here sucks, and he's shredded the label of the beer everywhere, everywhere. He brushes it off his knees and that just means it's gonna get ground into the shit-brown carpet, but—who cares. He's got other things on his mind.

He gets the last beer out of the fridge. Should've bought more. "Got some spare cash," he says, to the dark hall. There's a halo of light around the half-closed bedroom door. "Thinking pizza for dinner."

Silence.

Dean pushes the beer bottle against his forehead. "C'mon, Sam. It's not going to kill you to prefer pepperoni or sausage. Just say something."

"Doesn't matter," is the response.

Dean squeezes his eyes closed, slams the bottle down to the counter. It's four steps to the bedroom and the door flies open under his palm. "Just fucking say," Dean says, and Sam's looking at him with big eyes, curled up on the twin bed with his back up against the wall, books spread open all around him. Homework, of course. "Just say it, okay? What do you want?"

Sam stares at him. "I don't care! Get—whatever, pepperoni. Jeez, what's up with you?"

"Sure you don't want sausage?" Dean says, kind of nasty, and Sam frowns, shakes his head. Goddamn it. Dean drags a hand over his face, sags against the door frame. He's—a little dizzy. Oh—okay, so maybe he should've eaten, sometime since this morning. "Damn it, Sam," he says, his stomach twinging.

"What?" Give him this—maybe he's sneaking around, maybe he's lying about half his life, but Sam doesn't shrink back from an argument. He's still in his pajamas. He shoves his notebook away, lifts his chin. "What?"

"Been doing some reading," Dean says, and watches Sam's face scrunch disbelievingly. "Rearviewmirror? You don't even like cars."

It's weirdly satisfying to watch Sam blanch. He's been so unaffected the last little while it's almost a relief to get a real reaction. His mouth parts, his eyes go big. He stares at Dean in total silence except the rain drumming on the roof, and then he says, "That's—private."

"Not that private," Dean says. "You're putting shit on the internet for any asshole to read, Sam. It's not a pretty princess diary with a sparkly lock."

Sam's face is white. He licks his lips, his back rigid against the wall. "How did you—you never—"

"I know how to use a friggin computer," Dean says, and watches Sam close his eyes. "So? Got a lot to say to a bunch of strangers. Might as well say it to me. I mean, I'm your brother, right? Family."

It comes out hard but his voice cracks, on the last word. He swallows and some of the anger dissipates. Sam's jaw flexes and he tucks his hands behind his neck and his knees drag in, like defense. Like he needs defense. Against Dean. Like it's Dean who's wrecking things.

Dean's legs go out from under him. He sits down. Right there, in the doorway to the bedroom, the frame hard against his spine. The rain's loud and he doesn't—what is there to say? "You should've told me."

That's really it. Sam looks at him. Disbelief. "How?" he says, and Dean tips his head back against the wall, looks at the popcorn ceiling, says, "I don't know, it's not my damn secret. But you should've."

"Yeah, that would've gone great," Sam says, sarcastic.

Silence. The rain. Dean drags his hand over his face again, clears his throat. "So. You're—queer." For some reason it seems like the simplest thing to start with.

Sam snorts. "I'm not, like, jerking off to JC Chasez," he says, bitter.

"Who?" Dean says, but shakes his head. "God, whatever. Jesus, Sam, I can't—don't talk about you jerking off. You're not—you don't date chicks, either. Ever. So you're—"

"I don't know," Sam says. Kind of firm. Dean closes his eyes to not look at him. "I don't know, okay? But that's not what—" Pause, while he drags in a breath that's audible across the room. Dean curls over, his forehead between his knees. It's too big to hear. Sam blows out air. "You read the whole thing?"

Frail. Cobweb soft, like if Dean breathed too hard it'd break. Dean folds his hands over his head. "I read the whole thing," he says.

"Don't—" Sam says, quick, and cuts himself off. Dean can't stand it—he looks, peeking up, and Sam's made himself small, there at the head of the bed. His mouth is small, his lips between his teeth—his eyes, big and scared. "Dean. I wouldn't—I swear. I wouldn't—"

"Kiss me?" Sam flinches like from a raised fist, when Dean's all the way over here. Dean licks his lips, dropping his hands so they dangle useless between his knees. "Or, what. Leave? Either way it's pretty fucked up, for me, Sam."

"Oh my god," Sam says, very quietly, and—christ. Looks like he's gonna cry.

"Sam," Dean says, and no matter how pissed he is, that's not—Sam fights back. Sam always fights back, he's frickin' annoying that way. He's not supposed to crack like this. Dean rolls up to his knees and Sam's looking away, neck craned unnaturally so that his face is pointed at the broken-blind-covered window so that Dean can't see, but Dean can—Dean can see his teeth so hard in his lip that the skin there's white, and his chest shaky, and his fist clenched in the thin fabric of his pajama bottoms, and, and—"Sammy," Dean says, again, and Sam's eyes close and there is—shit, shit, a tear, running fast out of the corner of his eye, streaking down his cheek so quick that if Dean could blink he might've missed it.

Dean's gut hurts, like he took a punch from a werewolf and he's gonna be bruised for the next three weeks. He doesn't have anything to say to make it better, not when it's this screwed up. This isn't Sam bitching about Dad or whining about crossbow practice or pouting about a move. Sam's been thinking about this for two years and he's managed to talk about it with people, online at least. Dean's coming at it with a week's slow raw realization and he doesn't know how to make it—not how it is.

He gets over to the bed, on his knees. Sam won't look at him, like the view of nothing through the blinds is the most fascinating thing in the world. There's a wet shining trail, down his cheek to his jaw. A damp circle on his t-shirt. Dean says, because he can't think of what else to say, "You really—you want—" and even then, can't articulate it. A kiss. Sex. A kind of close they've never been. He says, slower, "Is that why you want to go?"

Sam drags in air. Sounds like it hurts.

Dean drags his teeth over his lip. There are books all over the bed. He pushes them away, and Sam's notebook. He pushes up—knee on the mattress, and sinking down to his hip, and Sam's close enough to touch, now, and he jerks and looks at Dean like he's an alien. A ghost. Something that can't be real, only they both know that it is. Dean touches Sam's hand, fisted there in his pants, and Sam jerks again, his stiff shoulders back against the wall, and he shoves Dean's hand but no matter the crazy growth spurt Sam's been having Dean's still stronger, still has the reach—he grips Sam's wrist and yanks, gets him off balance, and then he's right inside Sam's grapple and has his hand flat on Sam's chest, pressing him harder against the paint, and Sam stares at him wild-eyed with his breath both fast and deep and Dean leans forward and presses their mouths together. It's a bad kiss—he barely hits on center, and Sam freezes—but there's the touch of warmth, Sam's lips—soft—and the shocked air hitting Dean's face—and Dean drags in breath through his nose and resettles, fits his mouth to Sam's soft open lower lip and makes it better, his head tipping, easy pressure there, just the faintest amount of suction so that when he pulls back a millimeter there's a little smooch sound, and that makes it—real.

He kissed his little brother. No getting around that. No pretending. His nose brushes Sam's cheek and Sam's not really breathing, and Dean—fuck, Dean does it again, pressing in and letting Sam's wrist go so that he can get a hand on Sam's jaw, tipping him so it's good. Sam makes a tiny noise and breathes out hard against his mouth, and when Dean kisses him for a third time Sam meets it, his lips moving finally out of that still shock, his fingertips brushing Dean's arm all careful, his heart pounding under Dean's hand.

Dean pulls back. An inch between them—not enough but all Dean can seem to manage. He swallows. His lips are tingling, and his eyes are closed and he doesn't want to open them, and his fingers—jesus, he's got them tangled in Sam's hair like Sam's some easy hot chick he's picked up at a dive bar, pressing her up against the wall in the bathroom hallway, knowing how the night's going to end.

"We can't," Sam says. Sam. His voice, steady and familiar. "We—Dean. This isn't—"

"No," Dean says, god knows why. He pulls back, though—pulls his hand out of Sam's hair, stands up. His legs wobble for a second. He has to open his eyes and so he drags in a breath and does, and Sam's sitting there with his shoulders high and tight and his hands fisted on his knees and his hair a little fluffed on one side, a little screwy. His mouth parted and his eyes—fixed on Dean's face, looking all over it. Like he's memorizing a trail map, for an unknown stretch of land.

"I'm drunk," Dean says. It's not true. Five beers—he's buzzed but he knows what he's doing. Sam doesn't contradict the lie. "Acting nuts. Sorry, Sam. I—"

"I want pepperoni," Sam says. His face isn't white anymore. He's flushed, dark pink in the hollows of his cheeks. His eyes are dark, wide and fixed on Dean, and there's still that shining trail on his cheek but it's drying. "Order from that place on Melrose. Garlic knots, too."

Dean backs up a step, pins on a smile. "What, you think I'm dumb? Like I wouldn't get knots," he says, and Sam doesn't smile but he nods, brief and fast like Dean's picking up a play in some con they're running, and Dean snaps a finger-gun at Sam—fuck, what is he doing—and turns out of the room, says—"Okay, dinner in thirty minutes or less or your money back!" and walks through the kitchen and out into the living room and out the front door, and closes it behind himself, and leans against it and stares blindly out into the rain, the setting sun still sparking some tiny golden bit of light out to the west, past the horizon.

He licks his lips and tastes salt, not his own. Sam's hand, on his arm—skimming, brushing light through the thickness of his jacket. Like he wasn't sure he'd be allowed to really touch. He drags in the rain-soaked air. He'll drive, to get the pizza. He'll drive, and he'll give Sam time. When he gets back he'll offer Sam half the pie and a beer, and there'll be some movie on TV that Sam probably won't want to watch, but maybe he will. They'll be—brothers. Dean knows how to do that. It feels like it's all he's got left.

*

It's—not easy but it's not all that hard, either. There's a brutal week where Dean's torn between walking on eggshells and wanting to wrestle Sam to the ground, and Sam goes perfectly silent—not pouty withdrawal or furious silent-treatment, but as still and quiet as though he's not even there. Dean can't bear it. It takes Dad coming home to break it—Dad, and christ, when he calls to say he's coming back Dean completely freezes and his mind fills up with—with—but then Sam looks at him and takes the phone out of his hand and says, his mouth's full—what's up? and after that it's like things… settle. It's not okay but it's livable.

rearviewmirror.livejournal.com goes quiet. Dean checks, occasionally, over the months that pass. When he's looking up some random piece of lore for Dad, when they're hunting alone and Sam's stuck back at whatever shitty hotel they stored him at, and Dean's on research duty because Sam's in high school and can't answer his phone. Dean types in the address and checks, and it's still that last post. Anyone else going through this? He hopes, sincerely, not. It's too fucked up for anyone else to bear. At least the Winchesters have practice.

They run PT. Sam does his homework. Dean watches TV. Hunting focuses things. There's stuff to kill and people to save and things aren't falling apart any more than they ever are, so—Dean deals.

Sam leaves.

*

It's January. Dean's in a library, alone. Dad's working a job north of Boise and he sent Dean down to Wendover to take care of a haunting, and Dean's done and Dad called and said two more days and there's this raw wounded spot where Dean should be able to turn, to look over his left shoulder and say—but it's empty there, and so he's in a library.

Sam started posting again, when he got to school. Small stuff. That he was sorry for the long break. That he'd ended up at a university after all. The hamburger girl doesn't respond anymore but the Nine Inch Nails boy does: thought you were dead, he says, no-caps like he's so goddamn cool, and Sam says, Just working some stuff out.

Sam likes his professors. He plays pick-up soccer with some of the guys from his dorm. His roommate snores. He doesn't listen to music at all. There's nothing—real. There's none of the sadboy shit, nothing about what he's feeling, no pondering of what it all means. He picks up a few different Livejournal friends, clearly people from his classes, who crack jokes about Ancient Civ and Linear Algebra. He joins a community focused around civil rights litigation. He might as well not be there.

Dean reads it all. If Sam's not calling then Dean's gonna check in whatever way he can. When Sam left Dean made sure he had at least one good knife in his bag and he said don't forget the salt when Sam hiked his backpack onto his shoulder, and Sam snorted and looked at him like a gunshot but he nodded, and Sam's not dumb, he knows how to take care of himself, but. Dean's the big brother, here. He's within his rights, to check and make sure baby bro's not being a dumbass.

January and it's fuckin cold, in Wendover, but the library's too warm. Dean keeps his coat on anyway, scrolling through the comms. He's kinda turning into an expert, navigating the pages, recognizing the shorthand. He hasn't made an account. Doesn't know why he would. He finishes his scan of the comms Sam's part of and doesn't really see any relevant posts, and no comments from rearviewmirror that he can find. He chews his cheek and goes back to the main page, thinking—okay, he can get out of here. Beer and dinner, and finding a motel that doesn't look toxic, and waiting for Dad to call. Not the worst night he could have. He refreshes, one last time, just in case, and there's a new post. He reads:

January 23

Done with class for the week. Feeling restless.

current mood: current music:

Comments:

lawblog69: we should go out!!

bloodofreptile: go get laid

Dean snorts. At least the NIN kid is consistent. He refreshes again and there's a new comment.

bloodofreptile: go get laid

    rearviewmirror: Not really in the cards.

He takes a breath, sitting there at the computer bank. It's quiet in here—the good people of Wendover aren't much for the library, apparently—but he feels like someone's right there. Like he could reach out and touch, when it's just words on a glowing screen. Still—the speed of the comment—Sam's… sitting there. Right now, on a computer in Palo Alto, looking at the same thing Dean is.

He refreshes.

bloodofreptile: go get laid

    rearviewmirror: Not really in the cards.

        bloodofreptile: still holding onto that? very hufflepuff. how long has it been?

              rearviewmirror: my whole life

Dean presses his knuckles to his lips, hard enough that he can feel his teeth pressing back. Jesus, Sam. He refreshes—another comment, from coppertonebuttgirl, agreeing about the restlessness but apparently she's off to a date with her boyfriend, and Sam responds and says sounds nice :), and jesus, Sam, Dean thinks. Off to have the big college experience like he wanted so bad, off to have that new shiny life, and after five months away he's still all sadsack, still not actually living.

He clicks the comment box. He types, unaccountably mad. He hits submit, and gets a warning that it'll show as anonymous. He waits, and refreshes, and reads:

Anonymous: Just go hit a bar. Live a little. Thought you were supposed to be smart, college boy.

     rearviewmirror: Since when does smart have anything to do with it?

Dean rolls his eyes. He can hear Sam's voice saying it, nettled and trying to sound like he isn't.

Anonymous: You're on here mooning after Cindy Crawford when Claudia Schiffer and Tyra Banks are out there in the real world. Have a beer, get over it.

A pause. Dean has to refresh twice. The librarian walks by with her cart of books and gives him a distracted smile, and Dean's so addled he doesn't actually process and then return it until she's already gone.

rearviewmirror: I don't think it's something you get over. It mattered. It still does, to me.

Dean chews his thumbnail. Sam's face, turned unnaturally, looking out that window at the rain. The wet track, on his cheek.

Anonymous: Matters enough that you're never going to move on?

    rearviewmirror: I didn't think you could move on from family. Maybe I was wrong.

The air goes out of Dean's chest. He turns away from the computer, entirely, swiveling the chair so he's looking out at the lonely bookshelves. He flexes his jaw and swivels back around. Hits refresh.

The thread of comments is gone. He blinks, confused. He doesn't think he was hallucinating—been a while, since he was that tired and drunk. But—oh—in its place, a single comment, under the brief conversation with the NIN kid:

rearviewmirror: Tell me if it's you.

Dean licks his lips. He closes out of the browser, picks up his notepad and keys. On the steps outside it's cold, cold, fucking cold, and this town is bleak. He walks down to the Impala, waiting there in the iced-over grey snow, and braces his hands on the hood, and blows out a long purling winter-dragon breath, and then fishes his phone out of his pocket. Another new phone, but he's got Sam's number memorized, and he almost calls before he chickens out. If it's not actually wanted—he imagines that conversation and he's just not constitutionally capable, right now, of facing how goddamn awkward it'd be.

He texts: It's me.

The response, after seconds: Where are you?

The shitty part of Utah. That's saying something. Easier, like this. Like it's not him kicking down a doorway right into Sam's head.

I don't have class tomorrow.

Could be random, if he didn't know who he was talking to. Dean leans his elbows on the hood of the car, looking at the little box of black-and-white text. He chews his lips and thinks. Before he can respond, another message:

I don't want to move on.

Dean tips his head enough that he's pressing the edge of the phone into his forehead. His fingers are cold. He sniffs, his nose dripping in the icy weather, and types, careful to make sure he gets it right: I'm nine hours away.

Less, if he goes over 100 in the boring parts of Nevada, and if he doesn't stop at all for a catnap.

Stop in Reno for a nap. You get weird when you drive all night. Text me when you're close.

Dean works his jaw, standing there in the cold. He's got nothing to do, for two days. He's got most of a tank of gas. He's got—nothing. Nothing. He gets in the car, and he drives.

It's only 9:30 when he gets to Reno. There were parts of Nevada where he drove very, very fast. He pulls into a truck stop, gets more gas and parks out near where the semis are lined up, the drivers early-birding the night away. Still cold here but less so. He twists around so his back's to the passenger door and looks out the driver window at the neon signs of the truck stop, the cars going in and out of the gas islands. He ate a little but his stomach was all twisted up and he couldn't get much down. A beer would go easier but he doesn't want to be drunk. Well. He does. This is insane. This is—completely stupid.

He pulls out his phone, looks at it. Dials and holds it to his ear, and it rings three times—long enough for him to change his mind four times—before there's an answer, and Sam's voice says, "Dean?"

His voice. Dean closes his eyes, tips his head back against the cold glass of the window. "Long time, no speak," Dean says. It feels rusty.

Sam's quiet for a second, on the other end. "Not really, though. Right?"

"I guess so. It's not the same." Dean listens to the little acknowledging sound Sam makes. There's silence again, for seconds that he counts—one and then two and then three. He listens to the cooling tick of the engine, through it, and then says, before he loses his nerve, "I shouldn't come. Right? This is nuts."

There's some noise, staticky. Like something passed over the mic on Sam's phone. After a beat, Sam says, "You should do what you want to do."

"Oh, should I," Dean says, and it comes out sarcastic, but he doesn't really mean it to be mean. Sam doesn't take the bait, staying quiet on the other end, and Dean opens his eyes again, watching a huge truck muscle past the gas island, watching the normal world go by. He rubs his eye. "I've been—it's been weird, Sam."

Understatement, but he doesn't know why he says it. That kind of stuff isn't for Sam to worry about.

"Go to sleep," Sam says, instead of responding. "An hour or something, just enough so you won't drive off the road. Text me when you're close."

Same thing he said before. "It'll be like three in the morning when I'm close," Dean says, and Sam says, "I'll be awake," and then the line disconnects, and Dean's left there alone again on the bench seat, but it—feels different.

He sort of sleeps, sort of doesn't. He's got a talent for going to bed wherever and whenever he has to—on spare tires and on forest floors and in a closet, once, with a propane tank as his pillow—but his brain won't shut up. He drifts in and out, for the hour Sam asked him for, and then he gets out of the car and goes into the 24-hour c-store and buys a big cup of coffee and a Hershey bar, and points the hood west, and follows the yellow dashed line home.

He texts from a gas station outside Sacramento. Sam texts back in less than a minute with an address. Dean glances at his map of California and responds: 45 minutes, and it's more like thirty when he pulls up to the—yeah, the motel, and he makes a sound that's sort of like a laugh except it doesn't feel like one. He turns into the parking lot and the headlights flash the building, and there, sitting on the sidewalk with his back to a pillar.

Dean parks. Sam has his arms folded over his knees, but he unfurls, stands. Dean gets out of the car and Sam's—jesus, ten feet away, his face totally visible under the streetlight. His hair's a little longer. "Did you get taller?" Dean says, and Sam huffs, his head ducking, and—fuck everything else, it's Dean's little brother, and he drags Sam into a hug, folding his arms over Sam's shoulders even if he has to lift on his toes a little to do it. Sam goes stiff for half a second, but he hugs back, and Dean turns his face in, Sam's hair in his nose like it always is, and feels him—warm, and safe. All Dean ever wanted for him, pretty much.

"You have to get the room," Sam says, when they pull apart. At Dean's eyebrows he shrugs, the corner of his mouth curled. "What? My scholarship doesn't include seedy rent by the hour stuff."

"Oversight much?" Dean says, but he goes in, and he gets a room. Two queens, because that's what the tired miserable little desk clerk says they have available. Means Dean doesn't have to think about other possibilities, and it means that when he dangles the keys off his finger and Sam half-smiles at him, when they've walked down the cold sidewalk side by side, when Dean opens the door and finds the different motel room, same as the first—Sam sits on one bed, and Dean sits on the other, and they look at each other, and it's like it's two years ago and they're just two kids, waiting for Dad to come home.

Sam is taller. Taller than Dean, now. His hair long enough to fall in his eyes, which it does constantly. Newish sneakers, and old jeans, and a hooded sweatshirt, and a denim jacket over the top of that. Not warm enough for the Bay in winter, but Dean bites his tongue before he says anything about it.

"How are your classes?" he says, instead.

Sam's cheek sucks in, like he's chewing it. After a second he says, "You don't want to talk about my classes, man." His head tips. "Anyway. You read about it, right."

It was a mistake not to stop for beer. Dean needs something to do with his hands. "Your algebra professor sounds like an asshole," he says.

Makes Sam smile before he ducks his head, looking down at his lap. "I thought—" He swallows, audibly. He shakes his head, his hair falling down and hiding his face. "Only reason I started posting again was that I wondered if you might still—if you'd check."

It's quiet, honest. Dean hasn't talked to Sam in person for half a year and he's off-balance. Expecting Sam to snark, to be dismissive, to roll his eyes. Small hours of the morning, maybe he's too tired not to be honest. Maybe he's growing up. Dean's not prepared for that.

Sam looks up at him when Dean's silent for too long. His teeth dig into the corner of his mouth and he drags his hand through his hair, gets it off his forehead. "I said I didn't want to move on. You know what I meant, right?"

Dean huffs. "Yeah, I'm not an idiot, Sam," he says, and Sam's eyes tighten. Dean leans back on his hands, tips his head back on his shoulders to look at the ceiling. "Thought this was the whole point of getting out. Getting away, making a whole new life. Being someone else."

"I'm still me," Sam says, unseen. "And it wasn't the whole point. I want a life. That part—whatever, that doesn't matter right now. But I never thought the other thing was going to go away."

He stands up, so Dean can see him. Dean looks at him down his nose, and Sam's—god. Tall. That keeps being his first thought. Tall, and maybe not a stranger, even if he's real damn strange. Sam steps closer, in the little space between the two beds, chewing his lip again. He's gonna make a sore there. "Dean," he says, and Dean raises his eyebrows in response. "You came."

"Yeah," Dean says, rueful. "Well. I'm Cindy Crawford."

Sam's face ripples—a frown, surprise—and then a huffed little laugh—and then he steps between Dean's knees and touches his chest, his jaw. Leans down, slow, telegraphing like they're practicing a fight, and Dean stays exactly where he is, leaned back on his hands, and Sam's mouth touches his—softly. Not hesitant. Dean lets his eyes close and feels it. Puff of air against his face as Sam lets out a tense breath and then another kiss, the damp inside Sam's lip catching against Dean's, and Dean kisses back then, reaching up and getting Sam's jaw, his jacket, fisting the denim and pulling Sam closer. There's a stagger—Sam's knee landing on the bed by Dean's hip, and Dean gets an arm around his lower back and kisses him again, tasting him. Salt, and when Dean kisses him again and presses his mouth open, licks inside, there's coffee-taste, Sam's tongue—slick, tentative—he stayed up, to wait for Dean—his kiss clumsier now, like he doesn't have much practice.

Dean pulls back a few inches. Sam's half-draped on him, his weight nearly in Dean's lap. His eyes are dark but big with surprise, like he didn't expect Dean to go with it. "Sammy," Dean says, and Sam—shudders, his hands closing hard around Dean's shoulders. Okay, Dean thinks, filing that away. He drags a thumb over Sam's jaw, where he's got a barely-there prickle of stubble. "What are we doing?"

Sam shakes his head, licks his lips. "This," he says, holding the side of Dean's neck. "This."

They peel Sam's jacket off, and then Dean's. Sam's still in that hoodie, soft black, and Dean gets his fingers just under the hem of it, barely grazing Sam's stomach, kissing him again—tangled up close on the edge of the bed, Sam's thigh slung over his. Sam keeps touching his face, his chest. His amulet, swinging forward between them when he urges Sam down to his back on the mattress, a knee between Sam's and his hand still there on Sam's belly. Sam grips the amulet and breathes out hot against Dean's face and lifts up for another kiss, which Dean gives him easy, and it's—god, it's good. The lights on, the room warm, Sam wanting underneath his hand. His mouth, slick and open, learning how to press back, how to give as good as he's getting. Dean kisses his cheekbone, his jaw, settles his hand flat on Sam's stomach to ground him, says, "Sammy, you've done this before, right?" Sam hitches breath, nods. Dean sorta laughs, lifts up so he can actually see Sam's expression. "More than once?"

"Twice," Sam says, and when Dean raises his eyebrows he frowns, vaguely indignant. "Jenny Morrison, just before graduation." He licks his lips. "And—a guy. After student orientation, here."

"Playing the field, huh?" Dean says. There's no reason it should make his stomach go molten hot. He rubs Sam's stomach, feels the rise of his breath. "You like it?" Sam nods, again. "What'd you do?"

Sam's cheeks are dark, brick-red. He licks his lips again and Dean ducks back in to kiss him, knocking his mouth open, tasting inside. Earns himself a small deep noise and Sam's hand sliding through his hair where it's too short to grab. He nudges Sam's nose and sits up, peeling off his overshirt. "C'mon. What'd you do? Didn't put that up on your journal, how am I supposed to know?"

"It was a rush party," Sam says, looking at him. He pulls his t-shirt off over his head, making sure his amulet stays put, and Sam blinks heavily, his lips parted. Jeez—it's weird. Hot. Sam wants him, Dean thinks, and it sends a rush of blood south. "He's—uh. Pre-med, smart."

"Not looking for his biography, Sammy," Dean says, and spreads his hands on Sam's hips, pushing up. The hoodie moves, the t-shirt underneath rucks up—Sam's pale here but still that faint all-over tan, darker than Dean's skin. He licks his lips. "What'd you do? Jerk each other off?"

Sam nods, again, his mouth open. God, Dean can imagine it. On some dorm-room bed, their heads leaned together, Sam's mouth open just like this—panting, his hand fumbling down—fuck, fuck it's hot, Sam nervous and into it and trying, making sure. "You liked it, huh?" Dean says, stroking his thumbs over Sam's bare belly.

"Yeah," Sam says, thin on not enough air, his knee drawing up. "But I—I thought about—when you kissed me—" and Dean kisses him again, groaning. Jesus, Sam's gonna kill him. Thinking about some shitty nervous freaked-out kiss when another guy's got his tongue in Sam's mouth. Sam grabs his shoulders, sits up, and Dean accommodates him easy, letting Sam touch him back—Sam's hands sliding down his chest, around to his ribs, grasping. "Dean," he says, panting.

"Let's get this off, huh?" Dean says, pulling, and Sam yanks the hoodie off in a second flat, his hair all ruffling up behind it. The shirt comes with it and there's just Sammy's bare smooth skin, that same pale tan all over. Small brownish nipples, slim muscles. His body. Dean dips and kisses his bare shoulder, licking there, biting, and Sam's nails dig into his ribs so he does it again, swinging a leg over so he's straddling Sam's lap, taking his time. He scrapes his teeth over the swell where Sam's collarbone dips into the arch of his trap, and Sam grips his neck, his back arching. He's hard. Shit, he's nineteen, he has to be hard. Dean slides his fingers down Sam's belly to his belt, tucking under the waist of his jeans, but Sam grips his wrist, then, groaning, saying—"Wait—wait—"

Dean drops his head to Sam's shoulder, groaning back. "We waited," he says, but Sam's hand is on his shoulder, pushing him back, making him look. "What?"

Sam's pink. "Have you—with a guy?" Dean rocks back but Sam's holding him close, looking all over his face. "Dean. Have you—"

"Yeah," Dean says, and watches Sam's ears go red. Sam doesn't need to know when, but it was all in the last year. Three dudes, hookups that were way too easy. They were good—turns out that Dean just likes sex, any way someone will give it to him—and he learned what it felt like to have a dick not his own in his hand, how it felt to slip a cock into his mouth and make a man groan. He hadn't thought about Sam while he was doing it, not really, but he's thinking about it now, and Sam's eyes have dropped, his lips between his teeth. Jealous? Dean smiles while Sam can't see and breaks Sam's hold on his wrist, and slides his hand down, and cups the crotch of Sam's jeans where he's swelling them out. Sam jerks, eyes flying open. "Means I know what I'm doing. Yeah?"

"Yeah," Sam breathes, and then it's—undoing his belt, and unzipping, and then—god, he's still got his sneakers on. Dean backs off and kicks off his boots, deliberately, and Sam blinks at him hot-eyed with his chest heaving and his jeans half-open looking like a friggin porno, but then he gets with the program, and the shoes thud to the shitty carpet and then they're practically racing, undressing, and when Dean kicks his boxers off to the side Sam's—naked, half on the bed, staring at him. Dean stares back, circling a hand around Sam's ankle. God, to look at him, in the lamplight. Long legs, hairier on the shins and lightly furred on the thighs, and a decent dark bush around a dick that's—jesus, that dick. Big, bigger than Dean's, bigger than—Dean licks his lips and looks up with an effort and Sam's staring right back at him, focused between his legs, his mouth parted. "Like what you see?" Dean says, and Sam doesn't answer, just reaches for him, and Dean crawls up the bed and settles on his elbow above Sam with their legs brushing bare, Sam's dick hot against his hip, and Sam kisses him with both hands on his face, his thigh dragging up against Dean's, his lips almost trembly.

Dean soothes a hand down Sam's ribs but Sam's—fuck. Shaking. They haven't even done anything. "Sammy," Dean whispers, between Sam's needing brief kisses, and Sam shakes his head and kisses him again and then ducks his head down, his nose brushing under Dean's jaw. Dean pulls Sam closer—tips, so they're on their sides—and pulls Sam's leg over his hip, pushes in, and—ah, shit, shit that feels good, Sam's big dick brushing in against his, dragging heavy and hot. "Oh," says Sam, small, and Dean slips his hand further and grips Sam's ass, the muscle tight and small—pulls in, and pulls again, encouraging, and Sam grips Dean's shoulder underhand tight enough to hurt but follows, pushing in with the rhythm Dean's urging. He's breathing fast, hot against Dean's throat, but he's got it—humping in, meeting Dean, making their dicks slide, his cockhead smearing wet against Dean's belly. Dean hums, kissing Sam's temple where he can just reach it, just enjoying the—insane way it feels. He lets Sam's ass go and Sam keeps going—good, good—and he licks his fingers sloppy, and reaches down between them, and for the first time he gets a grip on Sam's dick, feels the heft of it. Sam makes a sound like he's been shot and Dean says shh, easy, slicking his hand down to the base, squeezing hard as he pulls back up, and Sam makes another gulping strange sound, his thigh clutching hard around Dean's hip, his hand crushing Dean's lower back in closer. "That feel good?" Dean says, and Sam—comes. Fast, humping in, spurting up Dean's belly and his own, the slick getting all over Dean's dick, hot and wet, the sensation enormous. Dean squeezes him through it, knowing, and Sam humps in again and grabs his ass, nails digging in. Dean tips his head back, feeling it. God, it's good. Sam. His brother.

He swallows. His dick's throbbing, wanting more, feeling left behind. Sammy shudders and Dean licks his lips, pushes Sam back so his shoulders hit the bed. He flops—boneless, shocked—and Dean drags his hands over Sam's ribs, frames his hips. His dick is still big, flushed and wet, his balls clutched up high, and Dean licks his lips and says, "Okay," to no one, and leans down, and gets Sam's dick in his mouth.

A shock, Sam's body practically lifting off the bed. "What," he says, somewhere Dean can't see him—"What are you, oh—" and Dean thinks, oh, what if no one has done this? What if Jenny just opened her legs and she and Sam humped awkward and teenage in some backseat—what if pre-med only wiped his handful of Sam's jizz on the mattress and passed out—what if Dean's the first one, here, opening his jaw wide, careful of his teeth, slicking down, getting the whole fat length of it in his mouth. Only—he can't, fuck, Sam's too big. He fists the base, pulls off, spits and slicks the wet down. When he glances up Sam's up on his elbows, staring, and Dean grins at him, jerks it again, swallows. He can taste Sam's jizz, leftover from coming before. "Hang on," Dean says, and goes back down, letting the head bust his lips open, slicking tight down to his fist, dragging his tongue hard against the underside, suckling easy. Sam takes his statement as an order and grips his head, his shoulder, his hips cringing up into Dean's mouth, and Dean heaves in air, feels Sam firming up again, thick and needing and good.

He's only done this a few times but he—shit, he liked it. Likes it better the other way around, of course, but like this—his dick pressing into the bed, throbbing—Sam splitting open his mouth—yeah, it doesn't exactly suck. He bobs up and down, making sure to pay special attention to the soft ridge at the head, and Sam's making insane noises, now, up above him, petting his head and his shoulders and gripping, trying to shove up. Dean leans into his hip so he can't, fists his dick, pulls off gasping and licking his lips. Sam's still staring, down the length of his torso, and Dean jerks him through the goopy mess they're making—his spit, Sam's precome, what Sam's already come. "You like it?" Dean says, and Sam—rolls his eyes, the little shit.

"You're smug," Sam says, and Dean raises his eyebrows and says, "You're damn right I am," and lets Sam's dick go and goes down, down, no fist in the way until Sam's dick hits the back of his throat and he gags—breathes through it—slurps up with tight lips and then goes right back down, getting his throat used to it, learning the feel of this massive, awesome dick. Sam moans, pushes his hips up, and Dean lets him, rides it—lets Sam fuck up, lets him get a rhythm, like fucking—Sam, fucking his face—and Dean reaches down between his own legs and fists his own dick, finally, groaning in relief and making Sam shudder as the vibration rumbles through Dean's open throat. Sam grips his head with both hands, holding him down, and Dean drags in air through his nose and holds there, filled up with Sam and choking, spit flooding out of his open mouth—the world dark and just Sam's taste, his smell—and Sam makes a little sound—and Dean grunts and lifts off, breaks Sam's hold and crawls up his body, straddling his hips and dragging his dick against where Sam's is all sloppy-hot, dripping wet. Sam gasps up at him and grabs his hips, his ass, fucking up into him, and Dean grips both their dicks in two hands, fucking into the tight wet channel he's making for them both, and Sam pulls at his ass, spreading it, rocking his hips to help, moaning and looking helpless up into Dean's face, and Dean leans down and breathes against him and Sam still comes first, creaming them both, his dick flexing and twitching in Dean's grip, and Dean braces one slick hand on the bed and fists himself seriously, jerking fast, and Sam moans and kisses his jaw and pulls at his ass with those big hands, his fingers slipping low, dipping—and Dean jerks and spills, his belly seizing, his thighs clamping around Sam's hips, Sam's lips open and dragging wet against his throat, his fist gripping the bedspread so hard that his fingers cramp.

Sam's stroking his hips, repetitive and soft, when he's done panting. Dean swallows, shifts his weight. He's slumped on top of Sam, his face buried in Sam's shoulder. Wet between them, sliding, and he releases his dick and slips his sticky hand out, bracing on the bed enough to get some air between them. When he lifts up Sam's eyes are half-closed, but he focuses on Dean's face right away, and his hands stop their stroking and just squeeze, warm and tight. "You okay?" Sam says.

"My line," Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes again, squeezes again. Dean sits up more but Sam doesn't let go. "C'mon, we should clean up."

Sam's eyes tighten, just barely. He sits up, keeping his grip on Dean, and Dean rocks back but doesn't tip over. He gets a hand on Sam's shoulder to keep his balance and Sam says, steady, "Don't freak. Okay?"

"Who's freaking?" Their dicks are still pressed wetly together, though Dean's basically soft, now. Sam's still plump, thick. He swallows. "C'mon, we're gonna get cemented together," he says, and Sam's mouth purses but his grip goes light, and it gives enough room that Dean can lift off, get his feet under him. Jesus, there's enough jizz on him that it's rolling down his belly—he claps a hand to it before it can drop, smearing it over his abs. "You come like a geyser, dude," he says, not really complaining, but Sam's cheeks are red when he looks back up, and he feels—shit. He doesn't know.

He goes to the bathroom. Fluorescent light, pink-painted sink. He wets one of the five-cent washrags and wipes himself up, and he's not turned on anymore so his thought is mainly that it's just gross, and that bed's going to be wrecked, and also, what is he doing. What is he doing.

Sam's hand appears, reaching around him. He jumps. In the mirror behind him, Sam's tall, looking over his shoulder. Looking at Dean, even as he wets the other rag, cleans himself up. Dean chews the inside of his lip and can't really turn away. Sam's got red marks on his shoulder, where Dean was biting him.

"Stay," Sam says. He tosses his wet rag back into the sink and settles his hands on Dean's biceps, squeezing. When he steps forward his dick presses into the small of Dean's back and his chest is warm, damp. "Tomorrow at least. We've got the room. Stay."

"You want your dick sucked again?" Dean says, and that time it is mean and he did kind of mean it to be, and Sam's eyelids dip and his jaw clenches, but he only slips his hands away from Dean's arms to his ribs, holding him. It feels… Dean shakes his head. "Sam," he says, but there's not really anything that can go after it.

A big hand slides up and over, flattening on his breastbone. "It's not just this," Sam says, meeting Dean's eyes in the mirror, and it makes Dean's cheeks go hot.

He covers Sam's hand with his. He shivers, for some reason. He says, "I should take a shower, I've been in the car all day," and Sam says, "Okay," and Dean takes a shower and Sam sits on the closed toilet, watches him through the clear curtain. Gives him a towel when he comes out. Takes his hips, when he's dry, and presses him to the tiled wall, and tips his head up, and kisses him clean.

Five in the morning, or later. There's a clean bed and Dean hasn't slept in a day. He lays down and Sam lays down with him, a few inches away until Dean relents and turns over, and Sam curls up behind him, holding on, his mouth against Dean's shoulder. There's going to be a call from Dad, at some point. Dean's going to have to meet him somewhere, because there's going to be something bad that needs killing. He can't stay. He's wired and tired, all at once.

"Sleep," Sam says, and Dean turns his head against the pillow, knows he will.

"Hey," he says, and Sam makes a quiet noise. "If you put this on your journal, maybe bloodofreptile will finally shut up about you getting laid all the time."

"His name is Dennis," Sam says, and Dean laughs, weirdly glad. Dennis. Yeah, that fits. "And this isn't going on the internet."

"Probably a good idea," Dean says, and Sam says, again, "Dude, go to sleep," and Dean tips back into Sam's warmth, and does, and it's the best sleep he's gotten in a year.

[cinnamon-roll-seth]

Not A Player || JJ Maybank

OBX Masterlist

Request: can i get a jj maybank x bookworm!reader who works a bookstore and she's like super smart and thinks jj is just a fuckboy but jj really likes her has since forever and basically jj just trying to prove to the reader he's not what she thinks with maybe some reader being friends with pope fluff and a happy ending

You remembered the day you met JJ Maybank as if it was just yesterday. You were working at your family’s bookstore when two energetic boys stumbled into the small shop. One of them being your childhood best friend, Pope, and one you’d never seen in your life.

You parents were fond of Pope and would allow him to come and borrow books as he pleased as long as he always promised to bring them back, which he always had. That particular day he’d come in to exchange the current book for another. His friend didn’t look too thrilled to be following him down the aisle toward the counter where you stood and you could tell he wasn’t the reading type.

“Hey Y/N. I just came to get a new book,” Pope had greeted you before noticing your questioning look towards the blonde boy in front of him, “This is JJ by the way.”

“Hi!” You smiled towards the kid who’d seemed to just realize you were there. He looked you up and down before leaning on the counter and flashing you his dazzling smirk that made all of the ladies go crazy.

“Hey beautiful. You want to be the Juliet to my Romeo?”

You rolled your eyes, “Do you try that one on all the ladies? Romeo and Juliet both died so no thanks.”

“Do you really have to flirt with every girl you see JJ? I thought you were just talking to that chick from Figure Eight?” Pope asked his friend annoyedly.

JJ shrugged, “She dumped me for some kook kid.”

“Sounds like she made the right call. You know, if you want to be a player so bad you should get into video games, that’s what they were made for.” You say sarcastically.

“I am not a player. And I’ll prove it too.” He bites back. You rolled your eyes again and handed Pope’s new book to him, watching as the two boys walked out of the store.

From that day on JJ came into the bookstore every single day. He was determined to show you he wasn’t just a player. He’d go on and on about all the romantic things he’s done for girls. Sometimes he’d bring in his current lady friend and walk her hand-in-hand down the aisles being all sweet and affectionate. You still weren’t convinced.

It also didn’t help that the two of you had fallen into a routine of sarcastic remarks toward each other.

“Wow Y/N you look like a sexy librarian. You could star in a porno and the guys would go crazy.”

“Wow JJ, how flattering.”

Spending so much time around JJ It didn’t take long for him to fall for you. He loved the way that your eyes sparkled when you talked to children that came into the store, or on slow days when you’d sit on the couch reading and you’d get so into the book in your hands that your nose would twitch every so often, or how you’d go on and on for hours about your favorite books. He loved the way that your hair always smelled like strawberries and cream or the way you always had a piece of mint gum in your mouth or how you’d always respond back to him with snarky remarks.

You also had started to have feelings for the flirtatious blonde boy. Watching him with other girls made you feel just the tiniest bit jealous but you tried to ignore it. Sure JJ was VERY attractive and you couldn’t deny that he was a charmer but you still weren’t quite convinced that he wasn’t a player and you didn’t feel like being used.

JJ hadn’t been into the bookstore for almost two weeks and while part of you was relieved because that made it easier to ignore your feelings the other part of you was a bit upset. Did I do something wrong? Did you decide he doesn’t care if I think he’s a player or not?

You turned the ‘open’ sign over to ‘closed’ and reached over to shut off the light switch beside you. You were just pulling your keys out of your purse to lock the shop door when your phone began ringing. Pope’s contact picture displayed across the screen.

You answered the call and put your phone up to your ear, “Hello?”

“Go to the dock by John B’s house.” He replied before hanging up. You stared at your phone in confusion before shaking your head and dropping it back into your purse. It was windy and thundering and no doubt would soon begin to rain, what on earth would he need you to go to the dock for?

Despite the threatening weather you obey his orders, walking the short distance to John B’s after locking up the store. You’d only hung out with John B a handful of times with Pope and you’ve only been to his house maybe three times but regardless you still knew the way there. You were very confused and the tiniest bit worried about what you would find and swore to punch Pope if you were about to walk into a prank.

You were definitely NOT expecting to see JJ standing at the end of the dock waiting for you. A picnic blanket was spread out at his feet and about a dozen or two lit candles were placed around it. His normal casual attire was replaced with a fancier looking ensemble. He looked like a kook, you almost giggled at the sight of it.

“JJ what the hell are you doing?” You ask walking towards him.

“Y/N, I’ve spent the last six months using other girls to prove something that I should’ve been proving to you personally. You’re beautiful and sweet and smart but also sarcastic as hell and I love that. During the time we’ve known each other you’ve become the only person I care about proving myself to and that’s what I want to do. I want to prove to you that I’m more than a player.” He replies, stepping closer to you while your jaw almost drops at his words.

“You did all of this for me?” You ask. He nods.

“I packed this bag with a bunch of your favorite candy and snacks, stuff I picked up from listening to you talk. And Kiara let me borrow her portable DVD player. I brought an extra blanket too. And one of my sweatshirts in case you get cold. I don’t really know much about romantic movies but I saw you reading The Notebook a few weeks ago and we had a copy laying around the house. It was my moms.” (A/N: I know I’ve used The Notebook in two different fics now but I don’t know shit about romantic movies so that’s really the only one I can think of lmao)

“JJ this is the most romantic thing anybody has ever done for me.” You say softly.

“I like you Y/N. I really really like you.” He tells you honestly.

“I really really like you too JJ.”

“So what do you say Y/N Y/L/N? Will you go on this date with me?” He holds his hand and you laugh, grabbing ahold of it.

“Of course I will but I think we should relocate,” You point towards the dark water, illuminated by the dim light on the dock, where you can see little water droplets falling.

“I swear I have been watching the weather for two weeks and it wasn’t supposed to storm tonight,” He groans, leaning down and blowing out the candles before grabbing the picnic blanket and bag.

About two minutes into your walk it begins to pour so the two of you run hand-in-hand to the closest shelter, the bookstore in which you met. JJ pulls out the dry extra blanket and lays it on the floor in the little reading area while you turn on the electric fireplace, illuminating the area while providing heat to your soaked selves. He gets the movie ready while you pull out the snacks and finally the two of you get comfy on the blanket and watch the movie, talking and laughing throughout the whole thing.

“You want to go outside and kiss in the rain?” He asks, looking over to you suggestively, while the credits roll down the screen.

“A rain kiss? How cliche Mr. Maybank,” You smirk, “Let’s do it.”

I am SO sorry it took this long to post! I meant to post it on Wednesday but I wasn’t feeling good and yesterday I was just super busy! Anyway I really really like how this one turned out! I hope y’all liked it 🥺❤️

OBX Taglist (Open): @copper-boom @tovvaf @drewswannabegirl

[rosy-wooyoung]

[03:26]

You deeply sighed, the tightness in your chest didn’t subside as you wished it did. Biting your lower lip as you felt your heart burning, torrents of tears escaped another time from your eyes, flooding your cheeks to pool on your oversized t-shirt. You let your head fall back into your pillow and clutched the stuffed panther plushie to your chest, bringing you a slight wave of comfort as you remembered who gifted it to you a few months ago.

Yeosang. Your dear boyfriend of a couple of months now, and he gave you the panther on your six month anniversary at the amusement park you decided to go to to celebrate this great day. You still remember the sweet, shy smile he had plastered on his face when he extended his hand towards you, the big green eyes of the stuffed toy almost begging you to accept his gift. You gladly took it and cherished it for a lot of time, even until now. A few months later, you still had it in your room, bringing a soft smile to your boyfriend’s face when he noticed it whenever he came over your house.

Everything started changing when you moved into another building for your last year of college, your dorm was now further from university, and the journey to go there or meet up with Yeosang was exhausting. You started seeing your friends and boyfriend less and less, everyone getting caught up in their work or assignments, barely even finding the time to eat. This whole change affected not only your body but also your mental health. Being far from your boyfriend, your remedy, was something that plunged you into a never-ending dark circle. He was your happy pill, your stress reliever, and not being able to see him as often as before left you with this uncomfortable feeling of loneliness and misery.

Tonight, it was another of those nights where he wasn’t there, nor did he call. He was probably still at the company, dancing and practising like a mad man to get everything done perfectly. You had sent him a message dozens of minutes before your current situation, but you were left with no answer. Even if he didn’t do anything wrong, it hurt you that he didn’t respond, but you also understood that his job was keeping him pretty busy. You knew it when you signed for this relationship with your sweet Yeosang.

You didn’t even notice that you fell asleep in your bed, curled up to the side with the panther still between your crossed arms. Your face was nuzzled into its head, desperately trying to find the faintest smell of Yeosang on it. Whenever he visits you but you have to study, he keeps the plushie tucked under his chin as he watches you studying and revising. He was there when you would go through a panic attack, shushing you and softly pampering you with hugs and kisses to calm you down. Just thinking about his gentle actions built up tears in your eyes, and here you found yourself crying on your own again. Today just wasn’t your day, and you couldn’t wait to go back to sleep again, too tired to even stand up and change into your nightgown or take a sleeping pill to speed up the process. You closed your eyes and cried, hugging the stuffed toy against you as your tears dampened the material.

“There, there, Y/N,” a deep voice startled you, making you open your eyes the second you recognised the familiar voice. Yeosang was in the doorway, his hand still on the handle as he had just opened, worry filling his eyes. “Yeo-Yeosang,” you struggled to utter his name, and he dropped his bag on the floor in a thud, pacing towards you. He kneeled down on the carpet next to your side of the bed, a hand travelling in your hair as the other cupped your cheek. A wave of guilt washed over you as the concern didn’t leave your boyfriend’s eyes, who was completely unaware of the reason for your current state. The last thing that you actually wanted to do was to be a burden, and that’s how you were currently feeling without controlling it.

“Baby, talk to me,” he gently mumbled as he stroked your cheek with his thumb, “what’s been making you upset? Tell me, I can see that you’ve not been feeling well for the last couple of days.” His words touched your soul, and you inhaled deeply, earning a soft nod from your boyfriend. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk, let’s just calm you down for now, okay? Okay, breathe in,” he said as he inhaled, softly blowing the air out of his lungs with you. You imitate him as much as you could, but the calming action would sometimes get interrupted by some choked sobs. And when you did so, Yeosang would just card his hand through your hair and massage your scalp, his eyes never leaving yours as he tried his best to make you feel safe and calm just by his gaze.

“You’re doing so well Y/N, keep breathing profoundly, I’m here now,” he whispered before kissing your forehead, his action making you close your eyes. “I...I-I missed yo-you,” you said as your voice wavered, another tidal wave of anxiety ready to crash onto you. “I missed you too, baby, I really do,” He said as he kissed your knuckles, his lips lingering on your skin, “but I’m here now. Let me just-” he softly spoke as he stood up, going around the bed to get on his side and laid under the covers. He opened your side of the covers and you slid under, huddling with him as he kissed the crown of your head. “I’m not going anywhere Y/N, you can sleep without a worry,” he said in your ear as he squeezes you tightly against him, your cries easing off as his body warmth created a comforting shell around the two of you.  “Thank you, Yeo,” you mumbled against the fabric of his shirt, eyes struggling to stay open as the number of shed tears exhausted you. It wasn’t the same type of tiredness, you actually felt like you could get rid of it just by sleeping. And that’s what you did.

Your boyfriend’s hand in your head kept on softly massaging it, the action lulling you to sleep. He laid one last kiss on your forehead as your entire body slumped on his, a sign that you had fallen asleep. Yeosang sighed, looking at you as he tried his best to think of a way to get your mental health to change paths and go on a brighter, more positive one. He rested his cheek against your head and thought for a while, but not for too long. Sleep took over his body as well, peacefully sending the two of you into the arms of Morpheus for the rest of the night.  

[disastermages]

y’all asked for part two of the au where xiao xingchen raises wei wuxian

--

“Take it easy, A-Ying, Shuanghua won’t let you fall off.” Xiao Xingchen says, even as he keeps both of his hands on his nephew. “Just focus on going in circles.” The sword only hangs a few feet off the ground to begin with, just low enough to nix any possible injury as Xiao Xingchen starts moving the three of them slowly.

Shuanghua hums in the back of his head in answer, working to steady the wobblings of Wei Ying’s feet, refusing to even dip underneath his weight. “One must trust their sword before they can begin to fly.” Xiao Xingchen says, navigating a turn as they circle back around to their tent. Wei Ying already understood the basics of talismans and temperature regulation, sword riding had to be next, right?

He’d learned on Cangse’s sword, and if it hadn’t matched his sister’s energy, Xiao Xingchen wasn’t sure what would have, he’d fallen off of it more times than he cared to remember only to be put right back on it. At the time she’d told him she was making sure he could hold on through anything.

They make a few more passes around their little camp before Xiao Xingchen brings them to a stop again. “I’m going to let go now,” Wei Ying looks up at him now, his eyes big in the face of Xiao Xingchen’s smile, “Shuanghua is going to take you around a few more times, let him lead and concentrate on keeping your balance.”

“Uncle Xiao,” Wei Ying starts, but Xiao Xingchen only puts his hand on top of Wei Ying’s head.

“Shuanghua hasn’t ever let me fall off, A-Ying, it won’t let you fall either.” Wei Ying looks scolded for a moment, and Xiao Xingchen still doesn’t take away his hands. If Wei Ying really didn’t want to, he wouldn’t force him, but he hadn’t made any moves to get off either.

“Okay.” Wei Ying says finally, his eyes focused on Shuanghua’s blade while he readjusts the position of his feet, one right behind the other, just like Xiao Xingchen had taught him.

“Okay.” Xiao Xingchen says, taking both of his hands away completely, and stepping back before he directs a jolt of spiritual energy into Shuanghua’s pommel.

He doesn’t need words to tell Shuanghua to take Wei Ying to the treeline, but no further before circling back around, though he still watches them until they disappear around an evergreen only to reemerge from behind a different one a few moments later. There’s an even bigger smile on his face as he turns to start packing up their things, Shuanghua was having fun, and after the first few passes, so was Wei Ying.

His own sword had surprised him. It wasn’t that Shuanghua disliked children, it just simply hadn’t vibrated with interest at the suggestion of playing with them the way Cangse’s had, but it already taken to Wei Ying without a second thought. Xiao Xingchen was grateful for it.

Wei Ying and Shuanghua are already on their way back to the treeline when Xiao Xingchen calls his sword back, beckoning it with his hand and chuckling to himself when he hears Wei Ying’s delighted surprise when the sword begins moving backwards.

“Did you have fun?” Xiao Xingchen asks as he lifts Wei Ying off the sword and holds him up to eye level for a moment. He was heavier than he’d been six months ago, his eyes were brighter, and he was somehow even more energetic than he’d been that night. Good, that was a good thing, even if Xiao Xingchen was exhausted by the end of most days now.

“I didn’t fall off!” Wei Ying says, grinning and watching with rapt attention as Shuanghua sheathes itself across Xiao Xingchen’s back, the humming in his mind fading back into peacefulness. Shuanghua would be a good sword for Wei Ying to learn with, it was steady and firm in it’s position, even when it wasn’t in his hand, but Wei Ying would have to build that kind of relationship with his own sword one day.

This won’t be the first or last time Xiao Xingchen wished he knew what had happened to his sister and brother in law’s bodies and their swords, maybe Wei Ying could have carried one of them, maybe even Cangse’s if Xiao Xingchen commissioned a new grip for it, one that would fit Wei Ying’s hand when he was old enough.

Those thoughts wouldn’t reveal the locations of neither the bodies nor the swords, and Xiao Xingchen knows that. It could even be better that way, he thinks, for Wei Ying to have his own sword to name and bond with, rather than chasing after the bond the sword had had with the parent it belonged to.

Suddenly there are hands on his face and Xiao Xingchen is pulled out of his head. “Uncle Xiao looks sad.” Wei Ying’s eyebrows are knit together when he speaks and Xiao Xingchen shifts him onto one hip to run his thumb between them and smooth out the crease.

“Uncle Xiao isn’t sad, A-Ying,” Xiao Xingchen says, pinching Wei Ying’s cheek just a little, “I’m only thinking about how you won’t want to ride on Shuanghua anymore when you have your own sword in a few years.” It was true enough, there had been a few times where Xiao Xingchen had felt selfish enough to want his nephew to stay as small and sweet as he was now.

Wei Ying was only going to get bigger and older, soon enough Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t even be able to carry him like this anymore. Would he let him call him A-Ying still? Or would he want Xiao Xingchen to call him by his courtesy name?

Before those thoughts can truly take root, Wei Ying speaks again, squirming in Xiao Xingchen’s arms to try and get him to look at him again. “My sword will be friends with Shuanghua!” Wei Ying declares, holding onto the lapel of his uncle’s robes now, tugging just a little bit.

A flood of relief hits Xiao Xingchen then. Of course it would be that easy, Wei Ying made friends everywhere they went, his sword, though currently nonexistent, should be the same, shouldn’t it? “My nephew is smarter than his uncle sometimes.” Xiao Xingchen says, pressing his forehead against Wei Ying’s as he starts walking back towards their tent.

“Can my very wise nephew help me finish packing so we can make it to the next town before sunset?” Xiao Xingchen asks, setting Wei Ying down on the ground and kneeling before him, smiling when Wei Ying nods his head and sets about packing what he can manage. They should have left an hour ago, but he’d needed to teach Wei Ying what he could during their down time.

And perhaps, Xiao Xingchen thinks, it had only been a little selfish of him to let the ride go on longer than truly necessary.

~

They meet Song Zichen when Wei Ying is six and Xiao Xingchen has been asked to assist on a nighthunt under Baixue Temple’s jurisdiction.

“You don’t leave your nephew somewhere safe while you’re nighthunting?” Song Zichen asks, eyes cast down to the boy walking between the two of them. His temple had offered to watch the child, but Xiao Xingchen had refused and taken Wei Ying’s hand in his.

“The safest place for Wei Ying is with me.” Xiao Xingchen says, squeezing Wei Ying’s hand in his and glancing down at him. Back when Xiao Xingchen had first taken him, he’d tried leaving Wei Ying behind under the care of innkeepers and village aunties, but it never went over well. Either Wei Ying would wait by the door the whole night for his uncle to come back, or he would have nightmares that the same monsters that had taken his parents had come back for Xiao Xingchen too.

Xiao Xingchen couldn’t and wouldn’t fault his nephew for his fears, even if he did promise that he would come back each and every time he’d left him before.

“I hide behind rocks and in caves when the monsters come out.” Wei Ying says, sounding just the smallest bit insulted that it was implied he shouldn’t be here. “I can climb trees too.”

“And then Uncle Xiao has to come get you down when you climb too high.” Xiao Xingchen says fondly, looking over when he hears Song Zichen snort, his own hand covering the smile on his face.

“He’s laughing at me!” Wei Ying says, tugging on his uncle’s hand, though he doesn’t look the slightest bit mad, especially since he’d been trying to get a reaction out of the man since they’d met him. “Song-gege is laughing!”

And what a wonderful laugh it is, Xiao Xingchen finds himself thinking. He should probably scold Wei Ying for the over familiarity, but before the words can even come out, Song Zichen is already turning his attention back to Wei Ying, the smile still on his face.

“Apologies, I was only thinking about the sight of your uncle climbing after you in his nice white robes.” Even in the barely there moonlight, Xiao Xingchen can see Song Zichen’s shoulders shutter just a little and he hopes the color on his face isn’t as obvious as the heat spreading across his cheeks.

“Perhaps Song Zichen will get to see it for himself tonight.” Xiao Xingchen says, though something else entirely burns in his throat as he walks ahead and pulls Wei Ying along with him, only managing to look back once to see if Song Zichen was still following them.

His nephew truly could make friends anywhere they went.

~

“I didn’t figure you to be the fatherly type, A-Chen.” His grandmaster’s voice says from behind him, and he freezes before he turns slowly towards her. He’d noticed her, of course he’d noticed her, but he’d been ordered not to speak to her if he did when he’d left the mountain.

Baoshan Sanren stands with her arms behind her back, her face strict, but softening when her eyes take in Wei Ying’s face the same way it did when she looked upon her youngest disciples.

“Grandmaster.” Xiao Xingchen greets, bowing at the waist and peeking over to see Wei Ying do the same. Baoshan Sanren inclines her head before she comes closer, her eyes looking between Wei Ying and himself as though she were trying to solve a puzzle. “Wei Ying is Shijie’s son.” Xiao Xingchen explains, resting his hand on the back of Wei Ying’s head.

“Cangse? She’s here as well?” Slowly, Xiao Xingchen shakes his head, hoping that his grandmaster will understand without him having to say it.

There’s a split second where Baoshan Sanren’s eyes widen with understanding and her shoulders fall, but it’s gone as fast as it had come, her gaze entirely focused on Wei Ying now. “She always did so well for herself.” She says finally, blinking something away as she looks at him again.

“Have you found anyone to forge his sword yet, Xingchen?” She asks, coming to kneel down in front of Wei Ying, perhaps to look at him better, but then Xiao Xingchen sees her take something out of her sleeve and offer it to him.

Wei Ying looks back at him to ask permission and Xiao Xingchen nods his head once, his hand dropping down to his nephew’s shoulder.

“Not yet, I’ve just started looking.” He answers honestly, something warm uncurling in his chest when he sees that Wei Ying has only been given a piece of candy.

“You may both visit the mountain in a year’s time, I’ll have something made for him by then.” Baoshan Sanren says, no room for any kind of argument in her words as she rises back to her feet. “My grandchild will have a proper sword.”

Xiao Xingchen’s throat is too tight to speak as he nods, moving to bow again, but when he looks up, Baoshan Sanren is already gone, leaving Wei Ying looking up at him with eyes as big as plates.

“Was that really her? Was that our grandmaster?” At eight years old, Wei Ying should be too old to be pulling at his uncle’s sleeves like he is, but Xiao Xingchen can’t deny him this.

“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen answers finally, when his throat has loosened, “We should tell Uncle Song your sword is taken care of.” He means to ask if Wei Ying has any questions, about the mountain, about Baoshan Sanren, about his sword, but the words stick and Wei Ying is already talking. Xiao Xingchen suspects that if his nephew does have questions, they’ll come in the middle of the night as usual.

[plus-size-reader]

The Set Up

Robin Buckley x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1590 words

Warnings: none 

Summary: Steve trying to set you and Robin up when he sees in you the video store

Inspired by this imagine by @myriadimagines whom I may be a little obsessed with. Check them out babes. 

——————————————————————————————————

Steve had been known to force Robin into situations she didn’t want to be in sometimes, mostly due to her introverted personality and his outgoing nature. 

However, it wasn’t until Steve saw you that he knew that he had to get to know you. Though, not on his own behalf.

You were exactly Robin’s type, something that Steve had learned since she came out to him that day in the bathroom. 

For all intensive purposes, the two of them were best friends and that meant that Steve thought it was his job to set her up. After all, of the two of them, King Steve had much more experience with the ladies. 

Experience that he was determined to get her to benefit from.

So, when you came in to rent the newest installment of Friday the 13th, Steve saw it as his opportunity to feel you out and talk up his best friend for all she was worth. 

This was his chance to get some information from you without being interrupted or scolded like a child for misbehaving. 

Luckily for him, Robin was doing inventory in the backroom or else Steve would have been in a world of hurt from her. She hated when he did things like this. 

“Can I help you find something?” he started, approaching you from behind one of the aisles, making you jump slightly at his sudden arrival. You hadn’t really been expecting someone to make conversation. 

Even so, you smiled. 

“Not really. I’m just looking around” you hummed, smiling at him as best you could. You had seen him around a few times when you stopped in but you’d never really spoken to each other. 

Though, now was as good a time as any. 

“Yeah, that’s good. That’s really good” he tried, ignoring how awkward he had made this whole thing. After all, his intentions had been there just fine but it wasn’t working out like he’d planned. 

“Well, my friend Robin likes to look around sometimes too. Maybe she could help you out?” he offered, grinning ear to ear as he looked at you. You had no idea what he was doing, but you couldn’t help but grin as well. 

Clearly, this guy had something he wanted from you beyond just wanting to help out. 

“Maybe” you allowed, recalling the blonde he was talking about. 

You had always found her very attractive of course, because you had eyes, but you were sure that she wouldn’t care for you. 

Surely someone as beautiful and interesting as her wouldn’t give you the time of day. 

If only you knew. 

“Yeah? She’s in the back. Let me go get her” Steve hummed, hyped up at the chance to actually get Robin a date. Flirting wasn’t really her strong suit and he just knew this would work out. 

...If she gave this whole thing a chance. 

Then before you could argue, Steve was gone from your side, practically skipping toward the backroom where she was currently and against your better judgment, you stayed put. 

“Guess what?” he sing-songed, not even bothering to announce himself to the woman in the room, shuffling thorough a new shipment of films. She was busy, but gave up on her task immediately. 

She knew Steve well enough to know that she wouldn’t be able to get anything done until he got whatever it was he was doing out of the way. 

He could be such a nuisance sometimes, but she couldn’t help but love him. 

“What is it?” she wondered, not liking the mood he’d brought into the space. She had no idea what he was doing, but knowing Steve, it could have been anything.

...But nothing could have ever prepared her for what came out of his mouth next. 

“I have a surprise for you” he beamed, tapping her a few times dramatically as he shuffling back and forth on his feet. He was so excited, but before he could continue with his antics, Robin urged him to get on with it, rolling her eyes. 

They had a job to do, though Robin was doing most of it at this point. 

“A surprise? Are you gonna take this over?” she teased, flinging one of the cases at him, which he caught shockingly even due to the close distance between them.

Usually his reflexes weren’t that good. 

“Nope, but you aren’t gonna care about that in a second” he assured, reaching out to take her wrist in his hand, yanking the smaller girl over to the door where he’d entered a few minutes ago. 

Through the small plastic window, you were still standing there, turning cases over and reading the summaries...waiting for her. 

“What did you do? How is this a surprise?” she asked, ignoring the heat that flooded her skin as she looked at you, looking as perfect as ever. If you happened to look up, you would have seen the two of them stalking you like freaks, and that was enough to make her panic. 

Though, Steve didn’t share in her concern of your opinion. 

He had seen the way that you reacted to the idea of getting to talk to Robin and he knew for a fact that the two of you would make the cutest couple anywhere. 

All he had to do was convince Robin of that simple fact. 

“She’s waiting for you” he grinned, bumping her slightly in the ribs with his elbow, proud of himself for making this happen. As far as he was concerned, Steve could take credit for any relationship that came from this.

After all, he knew that Robin would never talk to you on her own. 

“I hate you” she breathed out, no hesitation at all. She couldn’t stand that Steve put her in these positions, though, she would be lying if she said that she didn’t want to talk to you. 

She’d been admiring you from afar for a while, all things considered. 

“You love me” he grinned, shoving her toward the door more aggressively. You had been waiting for quite some time now and you needed help finding whatever film you were looking for. 

Who better to help you than Robin herself? 

“Get going, your lady awaits” he urged, getting her out of there as quickly as possible. Her future awaits, and there was no putting off destiny, or so he told her as dramatically as possible. 

...And as much as Robin didn’t want to, she decided to leave her friend there in favor of a long awaited conversation. 

Now, you had been waiting here for a little while but all desire to leave faded away as soon as you saw her approaching. 

“Hey, my dumb friend said you needed some help” she introduced, gesturing over her shoulder to where she knew he was, pressed against the door. There was no way he was going to miss getting to watch this. 

He had been waiting months for her to talk to you, and there was no chance he was just going to pass that up. After all, you seemed really interested in talking to her, so there was no way it was going to go south. 

Steve was confident in that. 

“Not really. I think he just wanted me to talk to you” you laughed, setting the case you’d been studying down on the shelf in favor of giving her all your attention. 

It was a fair assumption, but it nearly knocked Robin on her ass with how confident you sounded. She was practically fumbling around like an idiot through all of this, and you couldn’t have been cooler. 

How was she supposed to compete with that? You probably thought she was a total loser. 

“Yeah, sorry about that. He’s kind of a dingus” she laughed, glancing over her shoulder again when Steve was giving her a thumbs up. He really was just a dork. 

Not that you seemed to mind. 

“That’s okay. He’s got the right idea” you allowed, waving at him which immediately caused the brunette to sink down to the floor, out of view from either of you. 

Small talk wasn’t doing much for either of you, as you clearly both wanted to experience more with one another. However, you knew that what you were about to do was a long shot at best. 

Still, you knew that if you didn’t, you would always regret it. 

“Did you maybe want to get some food sometime?” you tried, rocking back and forth on your heels as the words left your lips. The zest in which you asked even shocked you but that wasn’t enough to make you regret it. 

You knew that it would all be worth it if she was willing to accompany you. 

...And of course she was. 

Robin had been waiting for an opportunity like this forever, and now that it was really happening, she practically had to pinch herself. This was really happening wasn’t it? 

“I get off a six, maybe we could grab something then” she suggested, trying her best to seem as chill as possible even though she practically felt ill with all the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. 

So, as calmly as you could, even with the hammering of your heart against your rib cage, you agreed to come back then and get some dinner. Then, you left, just in time to miss the epic fist bump between buds that Robin and Steve shared over the whole thing.

She had gotten the date, and you both had King Steve to thank for it. 

[nocompromise-noregrets]

2, 7, and 15? :)

woohoo! :D :D :D

2. what languages do you speak? English (first language), German (semi-fluent), French (can get by, studied it at school *mumblemumble* years ago), Latin (can understand the types of documents I encounter at work but beyond that am pretty lost), then in terms of tourism, which is not so much speaking the language as knowing a few phrases so as not to look completely like an ignorant Brit abroad, Finnish (about six words, can order a beer and apologise for being English), Danish (ditto), Dutch (ditto) and Czech (about three words XD )

7. current obsession? Same as it's been for 18 months (18 years) - Tolkienverse, particularly the LotR and Hobbit movies, and particularly all the component parts of my ridiculously sprawling Empty Vessel-'verse :D (also Evans and Pace, damn their inconveniently handsome faces)

15. a story of a teenage wild night? ahahahaha oh my god. So I was definitely un-wild as a teenager; I was very shy, very straight-laced, and very very afraid of getting in trouble (for no real reason, my parents were lovely, I was just like that; I still am, to some degree). I also lived in the middle of nowhere, so I literally did nothing at all until I went to sixth form at sixteen. However, once I did that, I fell in with a few somewhat less straight-laced types, including a couple of lads called Dave and Mike who were (still are) somewhat eccentric to say the least, and would turn up on the doorstep to 'kidnap' me and take me to the pub, usually without notice (this was long before mobile phones were a thing). If I took too long to lace my boots up, one of them would scoop me up over his shoulder and put me in the car. Mostly we just went to the pub, where I drank a couple of halves of cider, being also terrified of being drunk (that particular fear didn't outlast my first term at uni), but sometimes we'd head off into the surrounding countryside in the dead of night for a bit of 'trigging'. This was a game made up by Dave and Mike and their friends, and involved going and finding an Ordnance Survey triangulation point or two (they are flat-topped concrete pyramids about five feet tall with surveying symbols carved into them and they were used to help survey the countryside for the making of maps), and then climbing on top of them and throwing shapes, usually drunkenly, although the designated driver, often me, was always sober. And then eventually we'd go home. I met back up with Dave and Mike (and my childhood best friend Karen, who's married to Dave these days) for the first time in 20 years a couple of years ago, and they haven't changed a bit. We didn't quite get the chance to go trigging, but I wouldn't mind betting they'd still be up for it, given half a chance. (the first time my mother met them, they'd come over to see me while she was out, and they'd discovered that you could lift the doors to the kitchen cabinets off their hinges and swap them round; when she came through the front door one of them, I forget which, was lying on his stomach on the larder door on the living room floor watching TV. I was beside myself thinking I was going to be in trouble, but although she was thoroughly bewildered, she only laughed, and she still mentions it sometimes now. The parents have just had their kitchen redone, and I am kicking myself for not asking them to hold on to the larder door so I can present it to Dave and Mike as a souvenir XD )

YAY, thank you for asking! Reliving those not-all-that-wild times always makes me rather nostalgically happy. <3333333

Anyone else want to ask me some random and rather cute questions?