#tell me why i have more time to draw in spanish than i do in art

[acesluvrxx]

“it’s the second week of school, how many drawings of ace could she POSSIBLY—“

[seonghw4ffles]

falling asleep on his arm

" i said i love you to death "

playing pretty u ..

ateez hyung line x gn!reader

au: a table of four in a class lecture

genre: fluff, a whole joke, trolling, comfort, js two young silly loverbirds

w/c: 1.8k

summary: no matter how much you try to stay awake you fell asleep anyway...... on your untrustworthy boyfriend. (except for seonghwa's ngl)

tw: physical bashing out of love, "i hate you" = i love you, minor swearing, immaturity, rocket ship drawings

note: BARELY PROOFREAD!! i slept in robotics class and i wish this happened to me 😭😭 and WHY is my ult bias the SHORTEST ONE

the time passes and the class gradually comes closer and closer to its end. that's what you kept telling yourself.

"it's still twenty minutes into a double session, dammit," you whisper to yourself, slamming the table so slightly.

"y/n?? are you sleepy?? little snoozle pook can't stay awake :3" your boyfriend teases, leaning over to your side, to look at your front with some baby ass face.

"oh shut up," you laugh, placing your falm right on his face and pushing it away.

for a while, you kept fighting your heavy eyelids, all to no avail. if you were a candle, you would have already been a plate of soup.

you fold your arms against the surface of the table and you close your eyes. you're just closing your eyes. you're listening, but maybe just rest your eyes for a little.

you trusted yourself a little too much. you fell into slumber, without the intent. but you know what else you didn't intend? sleeping against your boyfriend's arm.

; SEONGHWA — ☆

he's just so sweet

he's talking to mingi, when he feels weight on his right

"y/n?" he says, right before discovering that you're asleep

oh he freezes

his heart goes ballistic

he's a stone he literally DOES NOT MOVE

you make this very uncomfortable position feel so nice :(

he's so much better at freezing when you sleep on him,, rather than when he is asked 'english or spanish'

my guy feels so so lucky that you're on him

he's so distracted by gazing at your effortless beauty, with your natural, rested face

he keeps staring at you like a loser he's just so immersed

he's so worried for you and your sleep schedule, so he tries his very best to keep you asleep

and when mingi from his opposite side was gonna say something to him, he immediately gets shut down

"aye seo-"

seonghwa widens his eyes as a gesture, and stares at mingi demonically.

make a sound, and he will burn down the entire campus.

yeah and mingi just goes back to his business

seonghwa turns back to you, now with softened eyes

the way you look so comfortable on him makes his heart flutter

and then you move and mumble, and he turns pale, as if your consciousness is his biggest fear

"oh.. seonghwa…" you mutter.

when you try get up from his arm out of embarrassment, he immediately takes his other hand and gently wraps it around your hair, softly pushing you back down on him.

he gently caresses you a little bit. "please sleep more," he whispers to you in a voice of worry.

you smile, and your heart beats a little faster as you feel his hands embracing you. the way he allows you to do these things. it's so sweet, the way he makes it so obvious that he loves you.

; HONGJOONG — ☆

okay this guy just trolls you

he immediately sees that youre asleep. "y/n?" he mutters, and no response.

surprised or not,, he only said that to make sure you're ACTUALLY asleep, and oh this kids taking it to advantage

ngl he's now drawing on your notebook with his other hand, conquering the edges and the sides wholeheartedly with a BLUE PEN

all youre beautiful and colourful and neat pretty notes are now absolutely demolished with his DOODLES in BLUE PEN

and its definitely rocketships (that consists of two circles and a big fat oval 😓😓)

im sososo sorry i js have a spot in my heart where i believe in a childish immature 12 year old hongjoong

he's all smiling as he does all this, knowing you're gonna beat him up, but thats the fun adrenaline part

OOOO he has an idea

he opens his large pencilcase, before taking out a stack of posted notes that he had never used before. his smile is so grimacing that it's almost terrifying

he writes down: 'shh i am mewing' on a sticky note

and then he carefully, so carefully sticks it to the back of your sweater

along with many other sticky notes and now youre back is just full of tiny yellow papers

oh hes having a bit too much fun rn hes losing it😭😭

he's mega uncontrollably laughing but no sound comes out of him

but then he accidentally wakes you up HELP

oh hes so fucked

he holds his laughter as you start to breathe deeply, slowly rising from your sleep

"hongjoong…" you mumble, to your boyfriend, stretching

you notice that hongjoong's being weird. he's refusing to speak, frozen in place, and shoving his fist in his mouth

what is happening

you're confused as you look to the notebook in front of you, and you realise

"joong, what the fuck," you mutter, and he bursts out laughing HELP EMEJDNDKSN

"IM SORRY I COULDN-"

"YOURE SO ANNOYING WTF"

youre both screaming whispering as you speak, of course, due to A VERY SPECIFIC unforgivable lecturer

and youre in FURY while hes just laughing silently but maniacally

"when do you grow up," you smack his back. he giggles, turning to you with a wide smile.

"never cus you love me too much," he replies.

you smack him harder, now giggling too.

despite him being annoying, his childlike self is what brings you peace. someone who sees with a youthful perspective embraces all the beauty of the world. he makes you believe in eternal joy, that everything is magnificent, and your worries are always so little when you're with him.

"uhm.. y/n…," wooyoung states with a giggling voice from your other side, and you feel his fingers prickling your back.

you immediately look back, and you see sticky notes in his fingers

its full of 'shh i am mewing' and 'im stupid' and doodles of questionable rocket ships

is he… is he trying to stick these disgraceful notes on you?

"what the hell are you doing??!?>?!?>!?>"

"huh?"

oh you jump him

"WAIT Y/N WAIT IT WASNT ME I WAS TAKING THESE OFF NO WAIT PLEASE" wooyoung screams

"YOU ALWAYS DO THIS"

"NO SERIOUSLY IT WASNT ME IT WAS HONGJOONG"

"YOURE BLAMING THIS ON HONGJOONG??!??"

joongie now has his fist so much deeper into his mouth, facing the other side and just crying at this point

oh and ur being a bit too loud

"WOOYOUNG AND Y/N BEHAVE" the lecturer yells

you both settle down just for the sake of the lesson

you side eye wooyoung like CRAZY and he replies wide eyed with a massive shrug mouthing "WHAT DID I DO"

hongjoong leans into the conversation maturely and says "guys calm down, and wooyoung apologise cuz thats so rude"

wooyoung bursts into tears

; YUNHO — ☆

he just immediately tries to wake you

oh as soon as he knows he immediately wants wakes you up

he leans into you as you sleep, like he's observing every part of your pretty face

"bebbbbiiiiiiiiiiiiiii"

he loves, loves your face so much

like you look so beautiful

and for fun, he blows your face

he just blows on your face, and your hair flies but you STILL dont wake up

your cluelessness entertains him

he pats your head,, messing with your hair

HELP WHY ARENT U WAKING UP

so he starts singing lullabies to you

not really lullabies but kick back yk chainsaw man opening cus why not

and he's NOT sweetly singing to you with a soft voice but rather the opposite

he's emphasising every syllable to annoy you

happy de ume tsukushite rest in peace made ikou ze ykykykykyk

"what are you doing" you say, louder than expected with your eyes still closed. you jumpscared him a little

bro he JUMPED at your sudden response

and then his fright turned immediately to joy and smiles and he starts poking ur face as you're on his arm :3

HE TREATS YOU LIKE A CUTE LIL DOG LMAOOOO

he LOVES to annoy you

he mercilessly just pokes every part of ur face out of ur severe cuteness

"boop oh who's a cutie little patootie boop boop oh its you ofc boopboopboopboopboop"

"stop"

"no"

you wrap your fingers around his wrist and push him away, like you're more than just frustrated. even though you refuse to lift your head from his arm; he knows you're having fun, really. and you know he knows.

"i hate you," you say, with a tone that heavily matches the phrase.

"i love you too <3"

; YEOSANG — ☆

he loves to mess around with you

"dude what are you doing," he says, interrupted from the lecture as soon as he realises the weight on his arm from your side

you don't reply, and he immediately finds that you're sleeping

it was all silent but the lecturers voice, but we don't talk about that old grumpy hag piece of shir

yeosang catches san who's sitting beside you, staring and wildly amused by the situation

san is no1 yeo(y/n) shipper frfr

yeosang is KNOWN to be playfully refusing affection half the time, so why not mess with you now

he leans his head closer to your hair and sniffs, before immediately making the most disgusted nasty nauseous ahh face

he starts moving his arm that you're on as if he doesn't want you on him

that's also while he makes unappealing sounds for the attempt of waking you, imitating the sounds of throwing up to the smell of your hair when he thinks deep down that it isn't even CLOSE to smelling bad

HELP

san is astonished and does a hand gesture of concern, mouthing "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU" in the most silent and respectful way possible

and then you wake up.

you hear these weird noises that sound like yeosang's voice as you shuffle yourself out of sleep

your brain starts working again

youre completely ASHAMED of yourself for falling asleep on his arm

and not only that, you SWEAR you heard him making gagging sounds as if you're gross

but for a second, just a second, you denied it cus hes ur nice and pretty boyfriend

"yeo-"

and immediately out of the gate he WIPES HIS WHOLE ASS ARM ON YOU as if you're some sort of unhygienic monster

"ewwww *gags*"

.

you're pissed. oh you're SO pissed rn like you JUST woke up and THIS is how you're treated???????

you instantly look around the room, and you're eyes land on a seat in the corner.

"yk, the empty table looks real sexy today"

yeosang chuckles wickedly. "too bad that im sexier"

san loses it and dies of some fuckass laughter

'hehehahahuhu' nah bro you get up to move u don't care what the teacher says getting out of here this kid has violated you 9487393 times

"wait y/n wait im joking wait come back"

yeosang's lightly laughing as he catches your wrist with his absolute sleeper build strength that he so easily pulls you back no matter how much you fight

you regret standing up cuz now you're locked

"you're a jerk," you huff, feeling his arm around your shoulder now tightened beyond an extent.

yeosang laughs. "i know," he teases, pressing his forehead to yours with a wide, pretty smile.

you love the way that this bond is so full of warmth and enjoyment. you love the way he has a soft side for you. you love the way he loves you, and you love him too.

[cl6udias]

✷ drunk in love

cw: nsfw content, fem reader, mentions of piv, i dont speak great English so some words might be used wrong, etc.

over spring break you watched a few “videos” to get a better idea of what you and luke should be doing in bed because i mean neither of you are very experienced so you wanted to try some new things so when you got back to camp you suggested a new position to luke and he was more than happy to oblige.

it wasn't anything like super crazy though, just that your lower back was raised off the bed by your pretty pink pillows, allowing luke to cock to hit deeper.

his thrust were slow, caluclated, drawing little whimpers from you with each thrust. he was asking you something, however you have turned into a cock-drunk mess. his question struggling to resonate in your mind. all you could focus on was the rhythmic squeak of your bunk, the coil in you stomach threatening to break, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips already leaving bruises…

and then everything stilled. there was a foreign pressure on your lower abdomen. the sensation sending goosebumps throughout your body, your warm walls instantly clenching as your eyes shot open to be met with him already staring at you.

"that got your attention, huh baby?”

"luke...wha–" you could only let out a whine as he did it again, you clenched around him making him let out a choked moan.

"look," you did as you were told and followed your gaze down until you saw it. there was a small bump protruding from the skin of your tummy. your eyes widened as he thrusted his hips forward to demonstrate, his cock visibly moving inside you. "looks like my dicks about to break ya open” he chuckled.

he began to thrust his hips forward again, using his finger to trace the outline over your stomach, enchanted by the sight of his dick ramming into you. “lu-muph!”

“awh did i fuck my poor baby dumb?” he cooed as he pressed down on your stomach again and this time you saw stars, toes curling as your jaw dropped , you’ve never came so hard before. so i guess it was safe to say your little research helped.

authors note: again im sorry if the english is bad :) also tell me why i was helping my parents at their restaurant and one of the customers mocked my accent while i was taking their order and the thing is we live in hawaii and like you could tell they were tourists so like who has the audacity to mock someone who actually lives hear when you on our land which we dont even want you on like wtf (i have a spanish accent but still) also i saw something like this with this like idea but i think it was for nate jacobs (is that his name?!?)or something idk credits to them i guess

tag list: @alexandria-millie @pipravi4life

[illicitlimerence-writes]

secret keeper | m. schumacher

pairing: mick schumacher x driver!teammate!reader word count: 2.1k words (i really wanted all of these to be short lol sorry) request: don’t think so! prompt: doing secret santa ⎯ “just tell me who got me.” from this prompt list. not my prompts, credits to the person who created it!warnings: kinda crack!fic, idk. language, really fluffy, seb being great, special appearance by the spanish speaking gang (i had to). reader speaks spanish in this. a/n: here’s day 2! i hope you like it, pls let me know what you think! reminder that my requests are closed.

my masterlist

(you'll know why i chose this gif later lol)

doing secret santa was the most exciting part of the year for her. it was something so silly and it made her so happy, the thought of having someone actually think deep about what they felt she’d really enjoy was a thrilling one.

something she didn’t quite like about secret santa was that first part. the secret. whilst she did like surprises, and there were only a few limited options as to who might give her something, the anticipation was too much for her. 

her teammate, mick, had made a bet with himself, to see how long it’d take her to either figure out or start interrogating everyone until they told her who her secret santa was. at first he gave it ten minutes, but he laughed to himself as he watched her.

they were doing the standard start-of-year interviews, the drivers’ goals and predictions, and the secret santa name draw. mick had already finished his, and was waiting for her so they could go and have lunch together. normally they’d wait longer to do the name draw, but last year the organizers had left it till the last minute, and they didn’t want to risk it this time. plus, they’d have a whole season ahead of them to think really well about the gift.

“okay, (y/n), i’ve got this santa hat here-” the interviewer said, showing her the hat.

“ooh, christmas in march, i like it!” she laughed.

“and in here there’s the names of the other drivers available for the gift exchange,” she nodded at the interviewer.

“i like that we’re doing this right at the start of the season,” she chuckled, grabbing the hat by the white fluff, the pom pom hanging down, “but i can assure you, more than one person will wait until the day before to get their gift,” the people around her laughed, mick did, too. “why are you laughing? did you feel called out?” she asked mick, raising an eyebrow. a camera panned to him, shaking his head at her.

“i already know what i’m going to get,”

“ooh, tell me, tell me!” she rushed to him, moving her hair away from her ear. he leaned in, presing his lips close to her ear.

“no.”

she rolled her eyes, slapping the back of his head. 

“did you get seb?” she asked walking back to the spot where she was supposed to be, where all the cameras were ready to record her. she hadn’t arrived in time to see his secret santa segment, so she’d have to find out another way.

“i’m not going to tell you!” he laughed, as the interviewer shook her head.

“you’re not supposed to tell each other, or anyone,” she clarified. 

“ugh, fine.” she laughed, “sorry,” she apologized, and placed her hand in, “wait, then he should leave! or he’ll know who i get,” she pointed an accusatory finger at him. “what if i get him?”

“someone else already got mick,” the interviewer clarified, and her shoulders slumped a little, it wasn’t a lie that the two of them were the closest friends and teammates, but she wouldn’t let that discourage her. 

“dang it, what am i going to do with all those treats i got for angie, then?” she teased, mick laughed. “so sorry, i know this is taking way longer than it should’ve. i promise i’ll focus now.” she nodded, “you can stay, just promise not to tell anyone,” she told mick, who pretended to zip his lips together.

she ran her fingers through all the folded pieces of paper, finally picking one that called to her. she unfolded it, her eyes opening wide as she read. 

“hell yes!” she skipped from one foot to the other, jumping in excitement, “i got seb!” she declared happily, showing the paper to everyone. “ha-ha!” she mocked mick, who only rolled his eyes as he laughed. the two of them were the best of friends. they grew up together, and had been teammates since they were in f3, somehow they always found their way back to each other. suddenly her eyes snapped open, “did you get me?” she gasped. mick shook his head. “did he get me?” she asked the rest of the crew behind the cameras, who only laughed at her eagerness, but didn’t answer. “fine, if you could just tell whoever got me that my favorite color is blue, that would be great, thanks!”

-

months passed and as the end of season approached, her relentlessness to know who her secret santa was came back with as much as before. this time, mick wasn’t her only victim.

it started in mexico city, when she was walking alongside charles and lando, and someone from charles’ team approached him.

“hey, charles, just to remind you that the deadline for the secret santa gift is in brazil.” he said, leaving them after that.

“you haven’t turned in your gift?” she asked, she’d done it the week before, when she was finally done packing the perfect gift for sebastian. her mentor. 

“i honestly forgot about it,” he said, lando laughed, drinking from his water bottle. something shifted in her eyes as an idea popped in her head.

“well, i could help you!” she offered, blinking slowly to gain his attention.

“really?” he asked, feeling like a weight was being lifted off his shoulders, “thanks i honestly didn’t know what to get-” he was about to say the name of his secret santa, but lando elbowed him on the ribs.

“you can’t say it!” he scolded him, chuckling at her enraged face.

“lando you ass! he was about to tell me!” she grunted, grabbing charles’ face and directing his eyes to her. “tell me charles, who’s your secret santa?”

“no! i can’t say,” he shook his head, feeling something in the pit of his stomach as her eyes narrowed. 

“did you get me? do you know who got me?” she asked, shaking his shoulders dramatically. lando laughed, charles was trying his hardest to keep a straight face. 

“no, and no!” he said, she grunted, and moved on to lando.

“do you know, norris?” she asked.

“no. i don’t know. and i didn’t get you.”

“you didn’t?” she asked, at least if he denied it she could tick him off his list.

“i don’t know,” he said, shrugging and smiling sheepishly. 

she punched his shoulder and walked away, both drivers hurried after her. 

-

finally, in abu dhabi things got a little bit sweeter. the dinner to honor sebastian was a perfect opportunity for her to really tick people off her list of suspects, up until that point the only person off her list was herself. she hadn’t made that much progress. she had to be smart about it, she couldn’t just straight up ask someone about it, much less if her friends were listening to her.

thankfully, as they were about to leave and were all gathering to take a picture, they all started talking about their agendas for the next day.

“i’m doing the secret santa thing early tomorrow, thankfully,” she heard fernando say, in spanish, he was talking to the other spanish-speakers of the grid. she thanked the stars for her stubbornness, and her parents for listening to her when she said she wanted to learn as many languages as she could. spanish, of course, french, italian, english, and german. this was her shot, and if she were alone, she would’ve grinned like the grinch. she approached them, slowly, and listened to them. “after that i’m completely free.”

“free of what?” she popped in.

“media duties,” he explained, smiling.

“ugh, i’m busy all day. i think they left my secret santa segment for last.”

“well, of course, everyone knows how much you love that thing,” checo said.

“that’s true, i know,” she chuckled. “did you guys struggle to get your gift?”

“not really, mine is an inside joke with max,” checo shrugged, the name slipping from his lips without him noticing.

“aw that’s nice,” she smiled, feeling carlos looking at her.

“i’m not going to tell you who i got.”

“why? did you get me?” she tried, but carlos shook his head.

“i don’t mind, if it will help you sleep better. i didn’t get you,” fernando admitted, she looked at him gratefully.

“see, carlos? that’s what a good friend does!” she pointed at fernando, “thank you.”

mick called her name, she excused herself and walked to him, feeling his arm around her shoulders. 

“what are you doing?” he asked accusatorily. 

“we can tick checo and fernando off my list,” she gave him a smug smile, clearly content with her work for the night.

“you’re just not letting this go are you?” he asked, amused at her stubbornness, it didn’t surprise him, he knew her like the back of his hand, but it was still nice to see her trying her hardest to figure this out.

“this all can end if you just tell me who got me.” she said, leaning her head against his shoulder as everyone else gathered around, getting ready for the group picture. 

“you’ll know tomorrow. don’t worry.” he reassured her. she sighed.

-

the next day, mick and (y/n) were like two kids, she’d wanted to watch seb open the present she got him, and had convinced mick to help her make it happen in a way that wouldn’t be so obvious. it didn’t take that much to find a way to stay and watch seb.

they just found him as they walked pass, and asked if they could stay. the lady in charge of all of the f1 media just asked them to stay quiet.

“oh, this is very nice,” seb smiled as he took out the first present, “didn’t we have like $30 limit?” he chuckled, (y/n) and mick laughed too. the last gift was a dead giveaway, a picture of her, mick, and seb. when the two young drivers were just kids, barely starting karting against each other. it was from the first time they met sebastian in a “professional” environment. “oh, well, i think i know who this is from,” he grinned, his eyes darting to the two of them, with mick confused and (y/n) with a big smile on her face. he showed the picture to the camera, a different camera panning to the two haas drivers. “judging by their faces i’d say this is from (y/n),” he guessed. 

she nodded her head, and walked to him when he opened his arms for her. they hugged each other, she was going to miss him so much. he’d always been there for her. all throughout her career and her personal life. she looked up to him, admired him and everything he worked for, what he stood for. 

“thank you, dear, i loved all of my gifts,” she smiled, proud of herself. 

“thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” 

-

after an excruciatingly long day, it was her turn to film her secret santa section.

“i really hope you add a special montage of every time i’ve risked my life, and others’, trying to figure out who got me in this gift exchange,” she only half-joked, but it helped ease the mood with everyone around. mick, as usual, was sitting next to her, on the other side of the cameras.

“we’ll make sure of it,” the f1 producer nodded, making a mental note to check all the footage. once the cameras started rolling officially, she got her signature smile on, “(y/n), welcome to the 2022 f1 secret santa. i know this is something you’ve been looking forward all year long,” she nodded her head, “i won’t make you wait much longer so, here you go,” she was handed a small box, and her first instinct was to shake it to see if it made any noise.

“i hear a faint jingling.” she said, unwrapping the blue ribbon around the black box. “it’s blue! thanks santa!” she smiled, remembering the comment she’d made about her favorite color. “oh, whoa-” her eyes widened as she saw the gift. it was a necklace, with the outline of a track hanging in the middle. “it’s spa!” she giggled, recognizing the twists and turns. “oh my god, this is so nice, i-” her eyes widened as she stared at it, a light flush had creeped its way up to her cheeks. “oh, gosh, i-” she was at a loss for words, she was expecting maybe a gift that was partly a joke, or something small. this was too much. “i don’t think i can accept this.”

“do you have any clue as to who it might be?” they asked her, she was still too shocked to think.

“no. well, i mean the only person that pops in my head that might be this thoughtful is either mick or seb, but i guess maybe charles, too? i know he’s sponsored by a jewelry company,”

“you’re so close,” they told her. 

“pierre?” she guessed, it didn’t really make sense, he didn’t know that spa was her favorite track, well, to her knowledge.

“not quite,” she sighed.

“i don’t know. i-” she turned her head, seeing mick looking at her, throughout the entire time he could feel his eyes on her, it wasn’t anything different. but she saw a faint blush on his cheeks, his ears. “oh my god. no. are you shitting me?” she asked him, directly, not even looking at the cameras. “it was you? it’s been you this entire time?” she asked. and mick couldn’t hide it anymore, he smiled, nodding. “mick!” she ran to him, he stood up as she approached him and she jumped in his arms. “thank you, i love it,” she said.

“i’m glad you liked it,” he said, suddenly becoming shy under all of the stares.

once she returned to her spot, she couldn’t wipe the grin off her face. her fingers were playing with the chain that now hung from her neck. 

“how’d you know it was mick?” they asked her.

“well, not many people know that my favorite track is spa. i mean, they probably wouldn’t think it is given my bad luck there,” she said, referring to the fiasco last year and her dnf of that year after having a great race. “and he blushes a lot,” she added, chuckling. 

they hurried the rest of the video, as she thanked him once more, this time in front of the cameras. 

-

“i should’ve known,” she said as she shook her head. “i knew there was a reason you weren’t telling me.”

“ah, well, i had to keep the secret,” he chuckled. 

“i really love this, mick, thank you. you really didn’t have to get me something so…”

“oh, you’ll just have to wait and see what i’ve got in store for christmas,” he smiled, leaving her stunned there as he kept walking.

“what do you mean? you got my gift already?!” she asked, rushing to him again.

“i don’t know,” he shrugged, “maybe,” he said as he got into the elevator.

“what is it? can you give me a clue?” she asked.

“hmm… i can just say you’re going to love it,” mick smiled, already looking forward to their christmas trip, one that could possibly change the course of their friendship, possibly changing to something more. being her secret santa wasn’t the only secret mick was keeping.

[tieronecrush]

꒰ა ONLY ANGEL ໒꒱

javier peña x f!reader

chapter four: i can see you

series masterlist

rating: E (18+ only, MDNI)

summary: After his return to the US, Javier is trying to settle back into a normal life without the pressures of Colombia and the DEA, but he finds himself feeling isolated with no one to spend his nights with. Now a newly appointed criminology professor at Texas A&M, he is drawn to you, a post-grad student in one of his classes. You’re intelligent and witty, sweet and kind, and he can’t get you out of his mind. To cope with his growing loneliness and to rid himself of thoughts of you, he signs up for an “arrangement service” to connect him with somebody—a sugar baby—he can care for. After he is matched up with Angel, he finds himself developing feelings quicker than he ever expected, but what happens when he finds out Angel is really you?

series warnings: power imbalance (prof and student), sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship, discussion of money, criminal activity, judicial systems, graduate school, smut, daddy/papí kink, praise kink, degradation, self deprecation, discussion of self worth, multiple sexual or romantic partners, sex work, cursing, use of spanish, likely more warning so read at your own risk!

word count: 9.6k

a/n: this chapter is A LOTTTT of filth and as always thank you to bestie @northernbluess for beta-ing <333 love ya!

It’s the first class after Javi had you on your knees in front of him, the rest of the weekend was spent circling back to that image and having to take a cold shower or adjust himself in his jeans when he met up with some old friends from his days as a sheriff. The other thoughts that alternated from the image of you on your knees, soft and supple lips around his cock, was his view from between your legs, pleasure contorting your face and pulling you to a place where you fully let him give your body the treatment it deserves. There’s a phantom feeling of your come all over his face, the visual of you squirting for him bringing him to the edge when he spent Sunday night with his hand around his cock.

What would you feel like, writhing underneath him and making all those sweet little sounds he’s been replaying over and over in his head, while he gives you his cock over and over until you’re screaming?

You were now a craving that couldn’t be satiated; even if he had your mouth again, even if he got another taste of you, even if he got the chance to fuck you properly, it wouldn’t ever be enough. He’s always going to want one more orgasm, one more little moan of his name, one more time spilling into you and watching you take it wherever.

This is why he is buzzing as he walks through the halls to the lecture room, stalking up to the door and peeking through the small window. A glimpse of the back of your head sends a hot rush of his blood south, rolling out his shoulders and taking a breath to calm down. He languidly makes his way down the stairs at the end of the rows of seating, slowing his pace even more when he starts to reach the row you’re occupying. The sound of your voice rises above all the other students in his ears, and he bites back a smile as he’s reminded of the short phone call from the evening prior.

“Will you draw something else for me, bebita?”

“I can but that means I won’t be paying too much attention in class, Professor Peña.”

“Eh, doesn’t matter so much. Can just fill you in when I see you next. Call it private tutoring…” He grinned when he heard you laugh on the other side of the line, feeling like a schoolboy crushing hard. Javi was sitting on his couch, laying back and listening to you, trying to ask questions that gave long-winded answers so he could listen to your voice. “D’you have any other hobbies, bebita?”

“Hm, I mean, I guess so. Haven’t had a lot of time to do much these days cause of school. But I’ll sound like a grandma if I tell you about all those so let’s leave it at I like to doodle in your class.”

“No, no, I wanna hear about it all. What else is there besides drawing?”

“Well, um, I like embroidery. Like those pieces of fabric in the ring with designs on them? Those are fun to make when I’m watching TV or a film. Helps me focus, I guess. Actually, a lot of my hobbies are just things that help me focus so maybe I have a bit of an attention problem—”

“Don’t seem to have an issue paying attention to me, cariño.”

“Yeah, but you’re a distraction in and of yourself. I can barely pay attention to anything you’re saying during lecture cause I’m just looking at you, which is why I had to start doodling to have something to help me focus.”

“I see. Alright, so drawing and embroidery, anything else you like to do?”

“I guess anything I can make really. I find new mediums that look fun to do, buy all the supplies, and do it once, and then don’t touch it again.” You laughed again and Javi smiled and shook his head.

“Well, how about you make me something from all those different things? I want some Angel originals, hermosa. Show off how much I like art.”

“Javi, you’ve got no clue about anything to do with art.”

“Yeah, but I would know they’re yours. That would make them the best.”

It was silent for a moment, Javi awaited your answer to his loosely termed commission.

“Alright, deal.”

When he comes back into the lecture hall from his trailing thoughts, the student next to you is speaking, trying and failing to keep her voice at a low enough volume for Javier not to hear her.

“I heard that Professor Peña used to not be the most ethical when he was in the DEA…like slept with prostitutes to get information. Can’t even imagine the shit he must’ve caught there,” she says as if it’s the juiciest information she’s been told, likely wanting someone else besides you to overhear and question it.

You scoff at the girl sitting near you, rolling your eyes before your brow creases slightly in disapproval, “Y’know, you really shouldn’t be making assumptions about people based on campus rumors. And even if he did do that, he clearly did something right cause he stopped all of those criminals, and probably helped the women too. A lot of people talk to be able to get other opportunities.”

Anger flashes in your chest, burning red like heated iron to brand your heart with Javi’s likeness.

No, no feelings. Nothing more than what you have going on with him, no getting any more attached and making it messy.

But how can people just say shit like that? Without any care that the person they’re talking about is in the room, likely overhearing everything?

Javier doesn’t deserve the treatment. He’s so caring, and intelligent, and giving, and—No. No more.

You’re drifting back and forth between frustrations and telling yourself to calm down for the rest of class, and it’s clear on your face to Javier. He overheard everything, especially your quick defense of him. He knows the extra meaning behind your words, or at least hopes that there’s something else there — maybe a bit of his infatuation or school-age crush reciprocated. Eyes stay glancing over at you throughout his lecture and discussion, no comments or questions from you as you hurriedly take notes or scribble out something in the margins of your paper.

Fingers twitch at the sight of your tense shoulders, creased brow, and avoidant eyes. He so badly wants to walk right over, kiss you to release all of the pent-up frustration, and thank you for your defense. What he would give to be able to sit right next to you, huddle together in your own world like in the booth at the bar over the weekend.

He doesn’t get to catch you before you jump up at the end of class that day, quickly leaving after getting dirty looks from your seatmate. Javier is tempted to call the other student down to speak to him, but that feels a step too far, so he quells down the need to protect you and moves on for the day.

It isn’t until the second meeting of the week that he finally gets to see you again, his calls going to voicemail for the two nights following that day. He’s in the hallway, speaking with another professor within the department when you come down the corridor, a sweet autumnal plaid mini dress on with a cardigan over it. He licks his lips at the sight of your thighs covered with translucent black tights that tuck under the ankle of your Dr. Marten boots.

The other man’s voice slowly fades out as Javier focuses on you, attempting and failing to steal his gaze away as you walk past him. Eyes lock with a teasing knowing behind yours, the corners of your lips twitching up as you laugh to yourself that he looks like a dog to a bone.

“Hi, Professor Peña and it’s nice to see you again, Professor Quinn,” you slow down on the other side of the two men, Professor Quinn returning your smile and waving you over for a conversation.

“So lovely to see you again! Lizzy has been asking about you, she misses her favorite babysitter. How have you been? Are you in one of Professor Peña’s classes?” Professor Quinn looks between the two of you, friendly small talk coated with tension that only you and Javier can feel. The secret you share licks flames in your gut, stirring an excitement that you know so much more about him than other students, than his coworkers, than most people. That excitement has anxiety constricting in your chest briefly, afraid of what might happen if you allowed yourself to feel any claim over Javi.

Don’t get so attached. It’s work, a job, and there are other men on your schedule. No one else is like Javi, but canceling on anyone else to spend more time with him is too close to blurring the lines.

Javier looks at you, his heart in his throat as he is the recipient of one of those smiles from you, the one that had him crushing from the first sight of it and the same one he can’t get out of his head when you’re apart. Before Professor Quinn feels the need to repeat his question, Javier clears his throat and nods curtly.

“Yeah, my first graduate-level course. Got to get to the lecture in about five minutes actually.” Javier steps to leave but you hold up a hand.

“Oh, sorry, Professor Peña, but do you mind waiting one moment? I’d like to talk to you about the upcoming assignment on the way to the lecture hall.” Javi has a burning need to say he’ll talk to you after class, to cover any suspicions of his colleague from the prolonged eye contact between the two of you, but he can never deny those eyes of yours — and you seem to know that fact already.

He waits to the side while you quickly finish your conversation with Professor Quinn, who taught you during your undergraduate years and whose daughter you babysat for date nights during the school year and nannied over the summers you stayed in San Antonio.

There’s a flash of jealousy in Javier’s chest, no logic behind it, but he can’t help but feel like he wants to be the only one to know you as a student and outside of class. It’s silly, especially because this relationship is completely innocent, but he can’t stop the feeling from rushing over like a wave.

With a smile, one that he convinces himself isn’t quite like the ones you give him, you say goodbye to your former instructor and turn to Javier. Closing the gap to catch up with him, you start to walk side by side, appropriately inches apart despite the surge of wanting that trails down your left side and his right.

“So what did you want to talk to me about? The upcoming assignment? Is it the midterm research paper?” Javier maintains his professionalism, only glancing at you a few times while his mouth waters at the sight of exposed skin at your collarbone and the scent of your sweet perfume.

“Actually, I kind of just said that…” your voice goes to a lower volume, but still audible to him, “I was hoping that you’d maybe have some appointments left for your office hours? Maybe for a little tutoring session? I have my Spanish midterm coming up soon.”

Javi bites back his smirk, shaking his head to himself at your coded questions. Slowing to a stop in front of the door to the classroom, he turns to you, his boots clicking on the linoleum tiles as he rests a hand on his hip to consider.

“You can have the last one for today,” his voice drops to a low, hushed rasp as you lean in ever so slightly to hear him better, “Y’know, been missin’ you these last few days, bebita. Better have a good excuse.”

He punctuates the statement with a wink and a smirk, a teasing lilt obvious in his voice. A strong hand engulfs the door handle before you can reach for it, opening it and nodding for you to step in ahead of him.

“Ladies first,” he reminds, licking his lips as you look up at him with a quick, whispered reply.

“Think you know I’m not always a lady, Javier.”

He can’t stop watching you the whole class. He knows it’s an issue, that surely it’s obvious at points of the entire hour-and-a-half lecture. He knows that you notice his stare, quick flicks of eye contact, and subtle winks sent his way as the corners of your lips curl up in a smirk.

All he can think about is getting you alone — finally alone again — and teaching you a thing or two, like you requested, of course.

When he glances at you next, you’re staring down at your notebook, oblivious to his attention; the end of your pen is tapping against your bottom lip, your brows knitting together in what looks like confusion while reviewing your written notes. Javier watches as you slip the end of your pen between your lips, licking his own while he sees them pillow against the plastic utensil. The gloss swiped across them shines in the fluorescent lights, and with a flash of the image of your lips around him a couple of weekends ago, his trousers tighten and his mouth dries out.

You look up from your desk to meet his gaze, sharing a knowing smile before he stutters out the next point of his lecture. Clearing his throat, he shakes his head to himself and peels his eyes away from you, keeping them away for the rest of the session to attempt to calm down before he has to walk out in front of all the students with a bulge in his tight trousers.

At the end of class, he announces that he’ll be rescheduling his office hours to this afternoon, to start shortly after he releases everyone for the session. You quickly catch his eyes, the corner of his mouth ticking up with a subtle smirk and a quick wink while the rest of the students pack up their things. Some linger to ask quick questions, but you’re out the door before he can grab your attention again, his eager stance deflating. He wanted you to stay, to talk to you before sitting through all his other office hour appointments before he’s able to see you.

It’s about an hour of talking through fifteen-minute appointments with other students, both graduate and undergraduate, about their upcoming midterm assignments or exams for his courses. He can’t help but roll his eyes each time these students ask for extra credit or make-up notes for the classes that they have missed — most of these kids haven’t bothered to show up since syllabus week. The clock to the left of the door ticks away, and he sweeps up the conversation with the sophomore sitting across his desk once fifteen minutes exactly hit, ushering him out the door and promising another meeting before the midterm, but that he has another appointment to get to.

Taking a breath once the student is heading down the hallway, he combs his eyes around the area outside of his office, his attention being pulled to quick footsteps down the corridor. His eyes take in Dr. Martens, slightly beat up and well-worn, black sheer tights snaking up your legs to the mid-thigh hem of your skirt. Trailing up your dress to the exposed skin at your collarbone, Javi licks his lips.

“Sorry, I’m a little late, Professor Peña. Rushed over here when I realized what time it was sitting in the library,” you apologize, a soft smile on your face holding back the playful glint in your eyes.

“No problem, the last student ran a bit over his appointment time. Please, c’mon in.” Javier gestures for you to walk ahead of him into the open door of his office, watching you glance around the space as he shuts the door behind him. At the click of the handle into place, Javi strides over to you and grabs at your hips, leaning down to catch your lips in a heated and rushed kiss.

His larger frame looms over you, your hands finding his shoulders as your body relaxes into his grip. Javi guides you backward to his desk and around it, pressing you up against the edge of the wood.

“Fuck, bebita, jus’ couldn’t take my eyes off of you the whole fucking day. Look so sweet in your dress. Wanted to rip it off you and take you right there. Let everyone know whose girl you are,” he rasps against your lips, dragging his own along your jaw and working a love bite underneath your ear. A whimper pulls from your throat, leaning your head back for easier access as you squeeze your thighs together.

“Bet you’d like that, huh?” The smirk in his voice is evident, cockiness coating his words as he asks the rhetorical question. “Mi zorrita (My little slut) wants everyone to know who makes her feel so good, doesn’t she?”

“Y-Yes, I want everyone to know that it’s you…” you sigh out when Javier’s lips suck at your collarbone, hunched over you while his bulge presses into your thigh.

“You’d do that if I asked, like a good girl. But you’re all mine, bebita. Don’t want anyone else having you like I do.”

Guilt burns in your chest when he says that; you know he isn’t seeing anyone else, he’s said as much. You’ve dodged the question, avoiding the confrontation of telling him he’s one of a few because then you’d have to explain how he isn’t one of the few — how something with him is different, deeper, makes you long for him when he’s away.

And confessing all of that makes your stomach turn.

Instead of responding with words, your hand curls into his hair, the other resting against his chest and pulling him back up to your face. Kissing him hurriedly, you take the moment of distraction to push him back and down into his desk chair. You fold over him, keeping your lips attached to his and sighing when you feel a rumble of a moan from him when your hand at his chest drops down to palm him through his pants.

“Y’know, you asked for a Spanish lesson, bebita. D’you still want to learn something?” Javier asks, his head pulled back to rest against the seat back. You give him a ‘yes’, kneeling in front of his seat and scraping your nails against his strong thighs.

“Eres mío? Eres mi buena chica? Qué vas a hacer por mí? (Are you mine? Are you my good girl? What are you gonna do for me?)” Javier brushes his fingers against your cheek as he looks down at you. You take a beat to translate his questions in your head, a smirk growing on your face while you unbuckle his belt and undo his button and zipper on his trousers.

“Te voy a hacer sentir bien. (I’m going to make you feel good).” Javier grins down at you when you answer, sighing in relief when you pull his dick out from his boxers. His hand is still at your face, eyes darkening when you look at him.

“Una chica tan lista. My smart girl,” he exhales the last syllable when you swipe your tongue up the underside of his cock, his fingers running against your hair and moving to the back of your head. “Ahora chupa, mi zorrita. (Now suck, my little slut.) Show me what you can do.”

Following his instructions, you take Javi into your mouth, teasing the head of his cock with your tongue. Your hand wraps around the base of him, slowly stroking as you feed more of him into your mouth, all the way until he hits the back of your throat.

Exhaling out of your nose, you take a moment before starting to bob your head in time with your hand. The sounds coming from Javi sitting over you are delicious, the actions and the noises making your saliva drip from the corners of your lips and down his shaft, squelching with the motions of your hand. The hand of his at the back of your head starts to guide you, pushing you down an inch further to press the tip of him into your throat.

“Fuck, bebita, taking my cock so fucking well. Such a good girl for me, my dirty girl.” You hum in acknowledgment and squeeze your thighs together, readying yourself to deepthroat him when there’s a sharp knock on his office door. Javi’s hand holds your head still, looking down at you and whispering expletives as he glances around the room. The knob starts to turn when he calls out, “One sec!”

You pull off of him and open your mouth to whisper, but Javi shakes his head and holds his index finger up to his lips.

“Quiet, baby. There’s nowhere else for you to go, jus’ get under the desk and I’ll get rid of whoever it is quick, okay?”

You nod and crawl into the alcove of his desk, sitting on your knees with your back to the panel that hides you from the rest of the room. Javier wheels his desk chair closer to the desk, his legs on either side of you trapping you in. Eye-level with his still aching cock, your mouth waters, and breath hitches when the door finally opens and a voice comes booming in.

“Javier! Agent Peña! Big Man on Campus! How the heck are ya?” Dean Banks greets Javi with a laugh, striding into his office confidently. He rolls his eyes at the Dean, clearing his throat and scooting one leg closer to you under the desk.

“Dean Banks, nice to see you. I’m fine, how are you?” The polite conversation sparks an idea in your head to distract Javier, licking your lip and leaning in closer. You blow a warm breath over his cock, watching it twitch with the sensation and making Javier’s leg jolt.

“I’m doing great — we’ve gotten some glowing midterm reviews for your courses so I thought I would stop by to give you the good news! And to check in and see how you’re doing with the first full semester you’ve had here so far.” Dean Banks wanders around his office, staying in front of the desk as he pokes at all the books on the shelves lining the walls. “Haven’t gotten mixed up into, uh, those extraneous circumstances we discussed have you?”

Javier opens his mouth to answer at the same time you take him back between your lips, plunging your head down to take half of him in one quick go. The words catch in his throat and he quickly clears it to cover up the noise.

“No, absolutely not, sir. Been focused on, uh, teaching and setting all of my students up for—success. I was just finishing up with my office hours before you walked in.” Javier’s hand searches for you under the desk to pull you away, but you grip both of his hands in your position of power, holding them down as you continue to suck his dick hidden away from view.

“Hm, didn’t see any students walking out in the hallway or out of your office. Must have missed them.” Dean Banks turns his back to Javier and he glances down at his lap to look at you with a glare, mouthing ‘Knock it off’.

In an act of defiance, you take full advantage of the dynamic to make eye contact with him before taking his cock in its entirety down your throat. You gag around it and Javier coughs and groans out of a sudden reaction. The Dean turns around quickly, a puzzled look on his face.

“Y’alright there, Peña?”

Javier nods quickly, wiping the subtle sweat built up by nerves on his forehead and takes a deep breath while you continually take him deep in your throat and move your head up and down his length.

“Yeah, yeah. Just got a, uh, a….headache.”

The Dean nods and claps his hands together, walking toward the door, “Well I won’t keep you for any longer then, better get home and get some rest. Glad to hear there are no issues with your new course. Chat soon, Big Man.”

Javier rolls his eyes again at the Dean’s back when he exits and pulls the door closed behind him. It’s another beat before the coast is clear enough and Javier wheels his chair back, you walking on your knees to keep him in your mouth. His chest is breathing deep, looking up at him through your lashes. Unimpressed anger is painted across his face, a stern shake of his head before his voice comes out low and intimidating, making your thighs squeeze together to feel your panties cling to your wetness.

“Thought that was funny, bebita? Doing that while we had company? Pequeña mocosa. (Little brat.)” Javier ticks his tongue in his mouth and pulls you off of his cock, strings of spit connecting you to his still-aching cock. “Y’know, I should just bend you right over this desk and fuck you full of me, so you have to walk around all day with me dripping out of you. How’s that sound for payback, huh?”

Your mind is reeling with the thought of him fucking you against his desk, a whimper sounding in your throat and your thighs rubbing together for any bit of relief. A hand of yours moves to go between your legs, desperate to touch yourself, but Javier quickly grabs it, hooking your other hand with his larger one and bringing them both above your head.

“Oh, but mi zorrita would like that though, wouldn’t she? Not much of a punishment. Guess I’ll just have to fuck your mouth and come down your throat then.”

He stands from his chair and kicks it away behind him, tugging you closer and to sit taller by your hands above your head. The unoccupied hand grips his cock at the base, positioning himself in front of your face, tapping the head of his cock against your plush bottom lip.

“Open, angel. If you’re gonna be a brat, una mocosa, m’gonna fuck you like one.”

No more protests are had from you, opening your mouth as wide as possible and humming around Javi when he slips into your mouth. He sighs, tilting his head back toward the ceiling with a quiet moan. After a second of being still, halfway filling your mouth, he looks down at you again and starts to thrust his hips — slowly and shallow at first before his patience snaps and he moves quicker and deeper.

His cock hits the back of your throat each time, a bruising pace making your core throb with a burning desire, imagining the same feeling but inside of your pussy. You moan around him, choking when he gets the deepest you’ve had him ever, gagging harshly and swallowing around him to attempt to recover.

Javier is blinded with pleasure, soft begs of your name repeatedly falling from his lips before he gives you another hard fuck to your throat, one last gag before he’s pulling back and spilling ropes of his come onto your tongue. He pulls out, the last few painted across your lips as he looks down at you, breathless while his chest heaves and drops your hands from his grip.

“Fuck, bebita, such a little fucking slut taking me like that.”

In the midst of your own recovery, you stick your tongue out to show him before swallowing his spend, coughing quietly. Javier quickly grabs a few tissues and sits in his desk chair, gingerly wiping off the evidence of his punishment from your face. It’s silent between you two while you watch him focus on the task, reaching a hand up to wrap your fingers around his wrist.

“M’sorry if I was too rough, angel. Caught a bit too caught up there…” he avoids your eyes, tossing aside the Kleenex and tucking himself back into his trousers.

“I liked it,” you confess, standing up from your knees and straddling his lap in his chair as you sit down. “Liked it a lot, actually. I wanna be that for you, like an escape. Turn your brain off, 'cause we both know you overthink everything.”

You run your fingers through his hair and he chuckles, nodding before he kisses you sweetly.

“Thank you, bebita. Such a good girl for me. So sweet,” he muses, giving you another kiss, “Now how about we actually learn some Spanish for your exam?”

The next week is spent either on the phone with Javi in the evenings, when you’ve returned home from any other dates scheduled, or out with him, finding hole-in-the-wall bars and restaurants to avoid any eyes from around campus. Each time you see his name on your caller ID, or see his truck pull up outside of your apartment complex to pick you up, your heart starts with a quickened pulse, dopamine firing in your brain and giving you that stuck in lov—

No feelings. You remind yourself each time you get that serotonin increase, simply excusing it as you enjoy your time with him and the pleasure he eagerly gives you whenever you give to him.

It’s hard not to allow yourself to feel around him; Javi makes it so easy to indulge. Little moments like him calling the mechanic and getting the cost of your repairs brought down, driving you over to pick it up and paying for it himself to make sure they didn’t haggle anymore; ordering your favorite drink if he arrived at a bar or restaurant before you, or getting you something new that he thought you would enjoy; a hand on your back or waist or encompassing your own, guiding you without overpowering. Small gifts given; new books purchased when you’ve browsed bookstores he’s found for you, new favorite dresses or lingerie filling your closet that Javier claimed were as much gifts for himself as they were for you.

His care was ever present, not overwhelming until it came to the point that you thought about him and how much he was there, integrated into your life and habits and moments of joy.

Absolutely terrifying. But you couldn’t stop.

And he was feeling like he couldn’t stop either.

He didn’t know if he was overdoing it all with you, new to this sort of arrangement and its usual boundaries, but he hoped that the fact that you kept laughing and smiling, initiating kisses or more with him, that you were enjoying yourself as much as he was.

There were tiny snapshots where he caught himself thinking about, feeling more for you. When you sneak into his office on the days you have other classes, steal minutes with him before you have to go across campus or he has to go teach or to a department meeting. To-go cups of black coffee on your handful of morning dates at the weekend, a reminder that you made observations about him just as he was you. When you stood up for him, defended him when the other student was spreading rumors. Sure, they were true, and he’d told you as much, but to hear your subtle protectiveness was warming his long cold heart. 

He hadn’t felt like this before, and he never thought he would have the chance. Colombia had jaded him, hardened him to stone, but you were slowly chiseling away to reveal his moldable core, reshaping him into a person he knew before and at the same time, a person who was only becoming familiar these days.

Could this be love? If he didn’t know how you felt or where you stood? He never thought he was in love before, and this confirms those thoughts. Never has he felt like this, never has he been so clumsy and boyish in his relationship at times.

It’s a Thursday evening, and his classes for tomorrow are scheduled to have a break to give them more time to study for midterms. Fiddling with his phone in his hands, he wonders what you might be up to, going back and forth over whether or not to call.

Before he can think anymore, he’s finding your contact, brought straight to the top of the list when he changed the name to ‘Bebita’, and hits the green phone button.

The line rings a few times, cutting out with an answer and a rustle over the microphone before he hears your voice.

“Hi, Javi.” He can hear you sigh, sensing an edge of stress or impatience in your tone.

“Hey, bebita. You busy tonight? I wanna see you.”

“Oh, Javi, I don’t know if I can make tonight work. I’m using this weekend to study for all my midterms and to finish writing all my essays due next week and…I don’t really have time, m’really sorry,” you sound timid, exhausted and it makes him on edge, his brain immediately centering on how he can make you feel better.

“Do you need help with anything, cariño? Can I do anything?” He sits up on the couch, standing in the next moment to pace near his boots and his keys laid out on the counter, ready to pounce when you say the word.

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know…I feel like I can’t even think about making my dinner right now. I’m sorry.”

The coating of your voice and the sniffle through the phone are unmistakable; you’re on the verge of tears attempting to think of what he can do, the avalanche of stress you’re feeling. A crack sharpens across his heart, hands craving to hold you close and to fix it all for you.

“Oh, bebita, dulzura, you don’t have to apologize to me. I wanna spend time with you, help you. Don’t need to be going out or doing anything else than just sittin’ with you,” he nests his phone between his shoulder and ear while he slips his boots on, “Do you mind if I come by? If it stresses you out, you can tell me to leave but if I’m there maybe I can find something to help with.”

It’s quiet on the line while you consider, another sniffle nearly sending him out the door without your actual answer.

“Okay, yeah. You can come over. But I look like a mess and my apartment looks like a tornado went through it and I might cry in front of you.”

Javier chuckles and shakes his head while he grabs his phone with his hand to keep it against his ear. His free hand grabs for his keys, plucking his jacket off the coat rack and already walking out the door.

“Don’t worry about any of that, bebita. M’here to help you, I wanna take care of you,” he hears a hum of acknowledgment from you, “I’ll be there in like half an hour, alright? Gotta make a couple stops while I’m out and then I’ll be there for you, okay?”

“Okay…” you say quietly, “Thank you, Javi.”

“I’ll see you in a bit, angel.”

Exactly thirty minutes later, a knock raps on your front door, strong and short. Glancing up at the entrance, you see the lock turned and call out loud enough to be heard in the hallway.

“It’s open!”

The door unlatches and swings open, the rustle of bags hitting your ears before the sight of Javi hits your eyes. He juggles the thin plastic handles of the grocery haul in his hands, shaking his head as he pushes the door closed behind him with his boot-clad foot.

“Don’t like that you're keeping your door unlocked, bebita. S’not safe, what if I wasn’t me?” The strict, skeptical agent shows through — paranoia in his eyes while he sets down the bags on your counter, walking back over to lock the door and shrug off his black leather jacket. Underneath his outerwear, the black short-sleeve button-up clings to his torso and stretches at his shoulders. It’s tucked into his usual jeans with his belt on display, and one look exchanged with him reminds him to kick off his shoes — baby blue socks with small figures of different types of dogs patterning the surfaces of them.

“Hello to you, Javier,” you chuckle and turn back to your books, continuing to read over the chapter summary you were engrossed with before his entrance.

His sock-covered feet pad softly over to you at your dining table, taking in the sight of you before he stands behind you, leaning down to kiss the top of your head.

“Hi, bebita.” He smiles when you lay your head back to look up at him behind you, grinning and giggling when he leans over again to kiss you. “Missed you.”

“I’m just giving you shit.” A laugh leaves your mouth in quiet breaths when he rolls his eyes, steps back to your kitchen counter and starts to unpack everything. You pull yourself away from the table to follow him over, shaking your head at all of the snacks, drinks, and extra pens and notecards spilling out of the bags. “Gosh, Javi. How much stuff did you get?”

He glanced at you sheepishly, shrugging, “Didn’t know what you might want, so kind of got everything I thought you’d like.”

One hand lands on his bicep closest to you, turning his attention to you for you to lean up and kiss him sweetly. You can feel your heart in your throat at the expanse of his thoughtfulness, truly wanting to come over to help without any other expectations.

“I like your socks, by the way.” Another kiss is stolen before you’re back to the table, plopping down and attempting to fall back into studying. A long sigh leaves your lips and Javi frowns when he looks over at you, hyper-focused on all the text laid out in front of you. He putters around your kitchen, poking through to find plates and silverware to keep from asking you; dishing up the takeout he got after putting away the snacks and drinks, he walks back over and sets a plate down in front of you.

“Pause for a few minutes, angel, you gotta eat. And I got your favorite from that Thai restaurant we went to last week.” Javi takes the seat at the corner next to you, pulling away your books to clear a spot for you to eat. The look on your face is painful when you pick up the fork as if any more energy expended for a task other than studying is too much to handle.

“Thank you, Javi. Really. I think it would have been one of those eating shredded cheese from the bag or potato chips over the sink kind of nights if you didn’t come.”

“No need to apologize, bebita. M’always here for you,” he speaks tenderly with a smile, the two of you making light conversation while you eat. Before he clears the plates back to the kitchen, he takes your hand lying on the surface and toys with your fingers. “You can tell me to fuck off and I won’t be offended, but I’ll stick around for a few minutes in case you need me, okay?”

Immediately you shake your head and grip his hand in yours, “No, please stay. D’you mind helping me study? Like quizzing me or something? I want….I want you to stay here. Please.”

Javier holds back a wide smile, giddiness kicking up inside him. He clears his throat and nods, squeezing your hand. He stands up and bends forward to kiss your forehead, “Course I’ll help you study, angel. Let me clean up all this and then we’ll get started, yeah?”

It’s for the next couple of hours that Javier studies with you, asking you sample exam questions from the textbook and quizzing you with the notecards that you’ve made. He keeps you supplied with snacks and hydrated with water, intermittently joking with you to keep you relaxed.

It’s about eleven o’clock at night, Javi’s been here for four hours, and the rest of the weekend is ahead of you both. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, newly made notecards in his hands while you pace the kitchen in front of him. A hand runs through your hair, tugging and sighing when you can’t remember.

“God, I don’t—I don’t know…” You continue your pacing and shake your head, feeling your heart rate increase and your throat start to constrict with anxiety. The hand in your hair moves to press against your chest. “I really don’t know, shit, can you—can you tell me please?”

“Lombroso’s concept of a born criminal is atavism.”

The next few cards you also forget or get wrong and after the last incorrect answer, you stop in the tracks of your pacing. Angry tears of frustration burn at your eyes, words caught in your throat, and breaths come out short and harsh. Javier looks up at you when your movement stops, brows knitting together with concern when he sees the tears in your eyes and hears the clipped inhales and exhales.

“Bebita, c’mere.” Javi pats his lap and you shuffle over, straddling his legs and sitting in his lap to face him. “Let’s call it for tonight. We have all weekend to get you feeling confident for the exam, but trying to push yourself anymore tonight is only going to make you feel worse.”

“But—"

Javier shakes his head and brings his hands up to cradle your face, thumbs swiping away the few tears that have fallen.

“No, no ‘buts’. There’s no need to be getting upset about it. You’re exhausted and overworked, you’ve been doing this all day. And you know all of this, I know you do, angel. You’re too tired to concentrate and you need to rest.”

“God, I wish I could turn my brain off. This is all I’m gonna be thinkin’ about.”

“I can help with that, bebita.” Javier’s hands run up and down your thighs, snaking around to palm your ass with a gentle squeeze.

“Oh, yeah? And how would you do that?” You play dumb, feigning innocence to his suggestion. Brow cocked up, mouth pursued in curiosity.

“Hm, think we both know what I would do, but m’happy to tell you.” His hands roam again, trailing up your sides to cup under your breasts through your flimsy t-shirt. Your nipples pebble underneath the material when his thumbs brush over them, a satisfied smirk on his face at the sight. “I’ll take you into your bedroom. Kiss you, play with you until you’re dripping for me. And then I’m gonna use my mouth on you, jus’ like the first time, and make you come for me over and over until I think you’re ready. And when you’re begging for me, I’ll give you exactly what you want, bebita. My sweet zorrita is gonna get exactly what she needs — a good fucking.”

Your hips start to grind into his lap, nodding slowly as you listen to him and whining quietly as your eyes close. His hands stall your motions, bringing your attention to him as he admires you from below.

“Let’s go, baby. Think you need it now,” he rasps out, helping you up from his lap and following close behind you. His hands stay at your hips while you walk ahead of him at a delayed pace, his lips kissing and teeth biting at your neck. Trailing down the hallway, he slowly undresses you, leaving each article of clothing on the floor in your wake. Once the two of you reach your bedroom, he turns you toward him and kisses you hurriedly, moaning against your lips when he feels your hand palm him over his jeans.

Javier pulls himself back from you, shaking his head as he steps you backward to hit the edge of your bed, pushing you to sit and nodding to the center of the mattress. You scoot back a bit until he stops you in place, getting onto his knees at the side of the bed and hooking your legs over his shoulders.

He unbuttons a few of the top buttons on his shirt, loosening the material around his shoulders, and licks his lips as he takes in the sight of your glistening cunt.

“God, bebita, you’re always so ready for me. Whenever I want you. Do I get you that worked up being around you, hm?” His tone is cocky as he speaks, dragging two fingers through your folds and collecting some of your wetness. He slips those fingers in his mouth, working his tongue around them and moaning at the taste of you. The fingers pull out of his mouth with an audible pop, and you get onto your elbows to look at him in the eyes as he pushes those same fingers into your entrance.

“Fuck, Javi…” you moan, rolling your head back as he fucks you with his fingers, shallow and slow at first. He’s mesmerized by the view of you taking it easily, sweet little sounds hitting his ears in a satisfying way. “M-More, please. Pretty please.”

“Only because you asked so nicely, angel.” He chuckles and adds another digit, picking up his speed and getting as deep into you as he can. His other hand uses its thumb to run quick circles on your dripping clit, moaning to himself when your noises get louder and higher pitched. “You close already, bebita?”

“Yesyesyes, fuck, m’gonna come—“ You clench around his fingers, gripping the duvet under your hands.

“Ask, baby. Gotta mind your manners, mi zorrita.”

“Ple—please may I come, Javi? M’so close, oh my god,” you tack a whine at the end, lifting your hips and huffing out a breath when he pushes them back down.

“Go ahead, bebita. Come for me—" You moan his name loudly and squeeze your eyes shut, your walls gripping around his fingers tightly. “Oh, yes, fuck. That’s it, angel, that’s it.”

He works you through your orgasm, your breaths evening out after a minute. Once you’ve come down, you realize he’s inching closer between your legs, lips dragging along your inner thighs. Before you can get a word out, his mouth is on you, sucking your clit harshly. Your whine raises in pitch, hands tangling in his hair to push him away.

When he lifts his head, his dark eyes find yours as he licks his lips.

“Gonna let me taste this sweet little cunt, angelita? Make good on all my promises,” he challenges you and you breathe out a ‘yes’, all the permission he needs to put his head between your thighs.

At his first full taste, a switch flips and he devours you like a starving man — sucking, licking, fucking you with his tongue. You’re writhing under him, one strong hand splayed against your lower tummy to keep you down.

“Javi, oh fuck, feels so fucking good—oh my god, you’re so fucking good at this. Has anyone ever told you that?” You ramble the closer you get and Javi smirks against you, the words egging him on to give you more.

He pulls two conservative orgasms from you with his mouth, sucking your clit and licking into your walls with his tongue. Your brain is slowly shutting off, study materials are completely forgotten, and limbs light as air as you lay back on the bed.

Javier stands from the floor, a soft groan and clicking of his knees drawing your attention to him. He strips down from his own clothes, standing in his underwear and nodding to you on the bed.

“Scoot up, baby — that’s it, good girl.” He smirks when you move languidly, reaching out for him when he climbs onto the bed on his knees. Your arms fall to rest stretched above your head, putting you completely on display for him.

“How d’you want me, Javi?” you purr and it nearly sends him reeling, but he shakes his head and smirks down at you.

“Jus’ like this, babygirl. Wanna be able to see you, watch your pretty face as I take care of you.” Javier reaches his hand toward you, instructing you to lick. He takes the same hand and wraps it around his cock, stroking himself as he spreads your legs with his other hand. Settling between them, he drags the head of his cock through your folds, nudging your overly sensitive clit and chuckling darkly when your thighs twitch.

“Javi, please—" He shuts you up with further teasing, slipping himself inside, just the tip. He hisses from behind his bared teeth, rolling his head back to recover before he gives a few pumps of his hips and pulls out of you completely. The next move he teases your clit again, sliding his cock down to prod at the entrance of your tightest hole before moving back up to your cunt slipping just the tip inside of you again.

Under him, you're twitching and writhing with whines and whimpers, gripping the sheets.

“Javi, please, need you.” You choke out, a soft sob of a moan when he keeps fucking you with only his tip, refusing to give you any more inches. The next word leaves on an exhale before you can think about it, “Daddy…”

“What was that, bebita? Didn’t quite hear you.”

“Daddy, fuck me, please.”

Javier stills for a moment, processing exactly what you said while you’re silent, anxiety heightening with each tick of the clock and his lack of response. His hips are still shallowly fucking you, involuntary whimpers escaping your mouth.

“Daddy, huh? You wanna call me that? Got you so cockdumb before I’ve even given it to you.” His eyes are nearly pitched-black, desire evident in his roaming, worshiping hands.

“Yes, yes please, daddy. I need you, please.” The words catch in your throat and you arch your back for him, tits slightly jiggling with the motion.

“You wanted to work on your Spanish, huh? No daddy, bebita. Llámame Papí (Call me Papí). Say it, bebita. Say it for me, buena chica.” His acceptance of your knee-jerk word spill has your mind melting, clenching your walls around the tip of his cock that’s buried inside of you. “Say it.”

“Papí…” you exhale, the noise choking in your throat when he thrusts hard to fill you up to the hilt. A sobbing moan leaves your mouth when he pulls nearly out of you, only to start a punishing pace fucking you hard and deep.

“That’s right, bebita. M’taking care of you, right? Just like a papí should. You call me that as much as you want, angel. Like hearing it come from you.”

Javier grunts at the strain of how hard he’s fucking you, the sounds of your whines and his groans mixing into a melody with the slaps of skin together. It’s filthy if anyone was looking in, but the thought of that makes him fuck you harder, relishing in the sound of your wetness squelching around his cock.

“God, mi bebita, you are taking my cock so well. You like it? Am I filling you up?”

“Yes—oh my god, taking care of me…”

“That’s right, bebita, M’gonna take care of you. You wanna come on my cock, angel?”

“Yes please, daddy…”

Javi’s hips stutter at you saying it, starting again harder and faster, “Not daddy, bebita. You wanna call me that, you call me Papí, baby. Let me hear you say it.”

“P-Papí, oh my fuck, feels so good. So full, Papí.” You’re rambling under him, incomplete and incoherent thoughts, “Oh, fuck— Just there— Papí, papí, papí, ohmygod right there!”

The name is dripping with sweetness from your lips, snapping something into his brain. He’s desperate to provide for you, to take care of you in any way you need. Right now, that is fucking you dumb enough to forget about your stress. Tomorrow, it’ll be getting you coffee in the morning and helping you reevaluate your study materials.

Underneath him, you’re feeling something of the same, enamored with the man above you. The same one who drove around town to pick up things he thought you would like, feeding you, helping you study. The one who smiles at you in the halls, and calls you his babygirl behind doors. Now, he’s fucking you into oblivion and melting your brain to mush to give you what you need. He grips your legs and presses them to fold at your sides, the adjusted position bringing him deeper than before. The head of him hits that special spot inside of you, over and over until it’s driving you to the edge fast.

“Oh, fuck! Papí! Please—Please, please, please. Gonna come, please may I come, Papí?” Your brain turns on its entire leftover power to ask politely, knowing your manners would still have to be minded with your cockdumb mind.

“Such a good girl, so polite. Come for me, bebita. Let me feel your tight pussy grip my cock.” Javier groans when you let go as soon as you get his permission, relishing in the look on your face with a perfect ‘O’ mouth and walls sucking him in further as his thrusts slow down. The tightness of you brings him to his own peak, feeling precum dribbling out inside of you as he gets as close to the edge as possible.

“Oh fuck, fuck, angel. Gonna fucking come, where d’you want me?” His brow knits together with a look of pain, and you breathlessly answer.

“Outside, please, Papí. Anywhere else you want.”

He nods and pulls out of you, using his fist to fuck himself, painting his come across your torso in long ropes. Javier moans your name over and over under his breath, squeezing his eyes shut as his chest heaves with relief.

It’s quiet, nothing spoken while you both crash down. In a moment of clarity in his post-orgasm haze, he stretches over to your nightstand to grab a few tissues, wiping you clean of his spend. He tosses it in your desk trash bin, searching around the floor for his clothes. When he picks up his boxers, you make a small noise of protest and grab his attention.

“Don’t—Um, would you—" You can’t get the words out, shyness clawing at your throat. Javier fills in the blanks, smiling softly at you as he drops his boxers and climbs back onto your bed over your lying form.

“D’you want me to stay, bebita?”

You nod and smile sheepishly, wrapping your arms around his neck and grinning wider when he leans down to kiss you chastely.

“Can you ask me, angel?”

“Will you have a sleepover with me…Papí?” you giggle as you tack on the name at the end, Javier smirking and nodding his head.

“Of course I’ll stay. And if you keep pulling that out all the time, there’s going to be a lot of fucking in random places. Jus’ does something for me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhmm. Think you know that, bebita. Mi bebita.” 

“Well, that does the same thing for me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhmm. I like being your bebita.”

“Siempre, Bebita. Always gonna be it.” Javier punctuates the conversation with another kiss, laying down completely next to you and wrapping you up in his arms. His fingers play with your hair, laying your head on his chest as you close your eyes.

A thought pops into your head, picking up your head to look Javi in the eyes.

“Are you gonna be going to the department event next week?”

“That’s what you’re thinking about right now, angel?”

“Yes, now please answer.” You poke his chest, giggling when he pinches your side playfully.

“I will be there, yes, Bebita. I’m assuming you’re going too?” He asks as he closes his eyes, exhaustion overcoming him slowly.

You smile and bite your lip, tracing shapes against his skin, “Well, would you wanna pick out my dress for it?”

That grabs his attention, his eyes shooting open with a grin growing across his face.

“Gonna let me choose what I get to see you in, Bebita? Don’t know if you want that, 'cause I could have you walking around in nothing.”

You snort out a laugh, shaking your head before laying on his chest again and closing your eyes to sleep.

“We both know you wouldn’t do that. Would you really want all those people looking at me? Thought I was all yours, don’t you wanna keep me to yourself?”

“Damn, you’re right. Guess I’ll have to pick out a pretty dress and then I can take you home and have you walk around in nothing for me.” He smiles and kisses the top of your head, sighing out a tired exhale. “Now, sleep time, Bebita. You dream of the pretty dresses I’ll get for you, no exams, and I’ll be dreamin’ about you in nothing.”

A laugh escapes your lips, nodding in agreement, “Goodnight, Javi.”

“Night, Bebita.” There’s more he wants to say, burning in his chest, but he knows it’s too soon — too much right now and it would scare you off. Instead, he holds you closer and kisses your head again, drifting off contently with you in his arms to take care of.

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[atalentedwriter]

— love is a million things

paring: e-1610!miles x blackfemspidey!reader (both spider people)

a/n: i don't speak spanish i'm sorry but i used the most accurate translator i could find. if i made ANY mistakes, feel free to hmu and tell me i will certainly change em. gif from @luvjunie

sypnosis: in which the reader is in love with miles but there's really no way of winning if in his eyes, you'll always be just a friend (he loves gwen not you) (ノへ￣、)

wordcount: 1,870 words and 9,904 characters

genre: fluff, teenagers, romance, unrequited love, angst, slightly suggestive but not really

translations: "no lo parece" - "doesn't seem like it." "dime ya las pistas." - "just tell me the hints already. "dime otra pista." - "tell me another hint."

"I'm just saying, love is a million things. Sometimes it feels good, sometimes it doesn't." You say as you sit on Miles' bed, the male looking at you from his desk, turning around in his chair and shrugging you off.

"Yeah right, and have you ever experienced love to know what that feels like?" Miles asked and you paused, hesitant with your response before you bite your lower lip and nod.

"I'd like to think I have, yes." You say, looking down at your feet and then up at Miles who looked at you intently. Wow, he had really beautiful eyes.

"Oh yeah? And did it feel good or bad?" He questions as a small frown forms on your lips. "Sometimes...a lot of times..it...- it differs okay, it differs but that's besides my point-" you say and he laughs, your heart fluttering at the sound, despite knowing him since the first day he walked into Brooklyn Visions, his laugh and voice just did something to you.

"How'd that end out for you? The guy didn't like you back or what?" He says, turning around to his desk as you grab his pillow and hold it up to your stomach. How are you gonna describe him to him without him figuring it out?

"Well, let's just say, there was 3 of us in the situationship.." you start off and you notice his ears perk up. "Oh?" He asks. You roll your eyes. "Not in that way silly, it wasn't poly or anything it was more of an unrequited love situation."

He picks up his sketchbook and turns back to you. "That must suck." He said, looking up at you. "It did.." "How did you get over it." You frown. "I didn't, it's hard to stop loving someone when everything they do makes you fall back in love with them."

He laughed again and shook his head. "That's so corny." He rolled his chair over to where you sat on the bed and open his sketchbook, placing it in your lap.

"Another drawing...of Gwen..." you seethe.

"Yup, I really think I got her suit down but I'm just relying on memory here." He says as you bite your cheek. "I mean I'd like to think she still kept her hair, I mean it's a bit weird to walk around with someone's handprint in your head- gosh I still get ptsd from that da-"

"Why do you bother liking her?" You blurt out.

uh-oh. word vomit.

"What?" Miles asks, taken aback as he looks at you.

"I mean, she's in a completely different universe Miles, it's never gonna happen." You say, your words coming out a bit ruder than you had wanted it to.

He frowns and looks at you. "Well damn (y/n), sorry. I can't control what I feel." Miles said as he picks up his notebook from your lap and rolls away back to his desk, his eyebrows furrowed and a frown on his face.

"oh my gosh.." You mutter out, running your hand over your face before you look up at him. "Miles I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

"Then what did you mean it like?" Miles asks, not bothering to look at you.

"I just- don't want to see you get hurt. You're my best friend okay and...I care a lot about your feelings and...-"

"No lo parece." He grumbled under his breath, and thanks to your enhanced senses, you picked it up.

"Excuse me?" You say, as a hothead, you were already getting defensive but you sighed and unballed your fists. That's why you liked Miles, why you needed him around, he calmed you down without you both even knowing it. "It's just....sigh..interdimensional love never works out, I've seen it in the movies-"

"Pfft-"

The small muffled laughter catches your attention. "What?" You question as you look up to see Miles staring at you, hand over his mouth. "Are you laughing at me? I'm pouring my heart out to you man."

"Sorry, I just can't take you seriously everytime you talk about movies like that one time we got stuck in that elevator-" he starts.

"I thought we were gonna run out of air!" You counter, whining as he starts laughing at you. And just like that, you were back to your regular state, neither of you guys can be mad at each other for long.

You stayed silent for a few seconds before you look up at him to find the boy already staring at you and it sends butterflies down your stomach. "Hey Miles..?"

"Hm?" He hums, rolling his chair to get closer to you until he was sitting right next to the edge of the bed where you currently were.

"Um, what would you do if you loved someone- in this dimension-"

"Ouch.." the boy playfully said and you rolled your eyes.

"But they loved someone else.." you finish.

"First of all love is a very strong word." Miles starts off and narrows his eyes at you, causing you to straighten your back at his gaze.

"Well in this context it's accurate, like I'd do crazy things for this man...like a lot-" you start, and Miles rolls his eyes.

"I don't need to know what you'd do twin." Miles jokes as you smile before he crosses his arms. "Does the guy know you like him?"

You look at Miles and shake your head. "No."

"Have you given him hints you like him?" Miles raises an eyebrow and you bite your lip.

"What kind of hints?"

"Touching."

"Define that, cause we're touching right now." You motion to how his arm that was on his knee was barely grazing your leg. He looked down and then looked up before breaking out into a grin.

"If that's your definition of touching then you're super touch starved." Miles laughed as you sigh.

"Dime ya las pistas." You say, agitated.

"Okay okay, so touching, just subtle touches...like...this." Miles looks down and moves his hand and places it on your lap, using his thumb to work on rubbing small circles on your inner thigh, rubbing his hand slowly but subtly on your lap before looking up and smiling at you. He was flashing that oh-so-beautiful smile at you.

The fact that you were wearing shorts made it easier to feel his warm skin on yours. The sparks that this simple movement sent coursing through you made you wonder if he was using his zap on you.

"See, you're blushing." He says, cooing at you jokingly.

"Am not!" You counter as you snap out of your trance, looking at him. Had it not been for the melanin on your face right now, you would've been red like a tomato. Lord, this man knew just how to touch and rub your skin. (pause, what are you thinking about? 🤨) Your cheeks were hot.

"Or like this." He moved his hand from your lap and you almost whined at the absence of his hand on you but then he moved his hand to your arm, caressing it softly.

Your eyes followed his hands, almost in a trance-like state before you look back up at the boy.

"Now that's just one tactic.." he said as he started talking but you couldn't hear a damn word.

His beautiful face so close to your skin and the fact that he still hadn't stopped caressing your arm, ugh. You hated this, he was so lovable, it was hard to just let go of these feelings especially since this man never gave you an ick! His dorky nature fit him and was cute on him and his teenage awkwardness was even more adorable. And he's so attractive when he's spiderman- hold up, what was he saying again?

"...kiss me." He spoke out, ending his sentence.

"What?!" You say, shocked, where you daydreaming or something?

"What?" He asked as he raised an eyebrow. "Were you even listening to what I was saying?"

"Somethin' kissin' or somethin' i don't know.." You mutter out as he laughs.

"You're unbelievable. I meant you have to be bold with your actions but not too bold and you have word vomits a lot so don't just like tell him to kiss you or something like that." He said as it dawned on you.

"Oh, that made much more sense."

He bit his lip and smiled causing your eyes to flicker down to his lips that looked just too kissable. Damn. You looked back up to find him already looking at you with an unreadable expression on his face, just now realizing how close he was.

"What..?" You say, your voice coming out breathless. He looked down, shaking his head before looking up at you with a smile, your eyes meeting.

"...You're like...the weirdest girl I've ever met." He spoke out which caused you to put your hands on his chest and push him back.

"Whatever!" You say, snapping out of the trance he had pulled you into once again.

He chuckled and moved back but only momentarily before leaning back in again, confusing you. He put both arms at the side of you, resting it on the bed as he leaned in closer.

You thought he was going to kiss you, it looked like it and so you tensed up unknowingly to which the boy raised an eyebrow, cracking another one of his contagious smiles.

"Relax, I'm just getting my markers." He moves up his right hand to show the markers he already had in his grip, he was just leaning in for them, you felt stupid. "I'm not gonna hit you or anything." He says, leaning back into his chair as you sighed.

"Dime otra pista." You say. You can't belive Miles was teaching you how to rizz him up.

"Well another one would be like teasing or like going out of your way to talk to them and eye contact is a big one." Miles concluded, resting his leg horizontally on his other one.

A few moments of comfortable silence passed with Miles looking at you and you just looking at your lap.

"Miles...?" You asked as he hummed again in response. "Do you ever plan on leaving Brooklyn? And have you ever thought about what would happen if you do? Like with spiderman and stuff?" You ask as he takes a moment to consider your question.

"Well.." He pauses. "I'm not sure, I do know I want to study outside Brooklyn for university that's for sure, I mean there's people out there that can-"

"Teach me stuff I want to know." You finish his sentence for him and he pauses and looks at you.

"Freaky." He says with a grin as you giggle. "But it'll all fall into place, I'm sure, I don't want to worry about the future too much yknow?"

"Yeah.." you mutter and look at him again.

"What about you?" He asks, tilting his head to the side.

"I'll go wherever you go Miles.." You reply subconsciously as you smile at him.

"Okay you've gotta get better life goals for yourself." Miles jokes as you two fall into a heap of giggles, leaving you with a new-found goal already.

You were going to confess to this man.

[lolotheparagon]

Rating Every TNBA Redesign Cos Why Not

The New Batman Adventures was the last season of the infamous Batman the Animated Series, although it moved to another less strict network. Because the producers wanted to do crossovers with the Superman animated series, they gave the series and its characters a more streamlined style to it. Now I dont wanna blame Bruce Timm entirely since there were many artists on staff back then who did the redesigns but because I hate this coomer, Im going to anyway. In BTAS, you can tell each character apart and they have their own unique outfits and looks to them. But here, these are some of the most unimaginative superhero/villain designs Ive ever seen. Although some did surprise me and were not that bad. So, for a bit of fun, here's my look at each Batman character's redesign in the final (and worst) season of the show.

(Not counting Robin cos he's a different character to Dick Grayson or characters that had very little changes like Clayface or Harley Quinn)

Batman

The big emo rodent himself. For his redesign, I like the more sleek look to Batman's cape...thats it. His original design is really hard to perfect. Its got everything. Why tamper with perfection?

Batgirl

I actually kinda like Batgirl's redesign. The yellow gloves and boots really help her stand out and its the one of the few times the darker toned outfits actually accentuate a design rather than ruin it. Too bad Bruce Timm couldn't stop salivating over her and the rest of the women in this show. So next time you see someone consider Bruce Timm this legendary storyteller of Batman, give them a healthy reminder that he shipped this college girl character with her mentor/surrogate uncle figure FOR YEARS.

Alfred

Its like they sucked away all of Alfred's snark and replaced it with a cardboard cutout. Literally, he looks so sterile and empty. Who had the idea of making Alfred look more bored and done with everything? Also whats wrong with his chin??

Commissioner Gordon

Good ole Commissioner Pringle got off pretty much unscathed but I think they made him a touch too old considering they gave him a more lanky body, which makes him look more feeble and weak. Dude looks old enough to be Babs' grandad

Joker

Ohhhhh boy. So Joker's redesign is infamously considered by fans as one of the show's worst redesigns, to a point even the showrunners were like yeahh. And thats not unwarranted. He looks like an inverted Dr Draken and im so glad they redesigned him again for Batman Beyond and onward.

Seriously he's A CLOWN WHERES THE MAKE UP?!!

Two-Face

I know Two Face is just a redrawn version of the original design with the TNBA streamlined art style but I want to draw special attention to the monster side of Dent's face. Notice in the original it looks more manic and feral? Heavily contrasted with the conflicted, guilty look on Dent's normal side? But here, in the redesign the monster side is less scary and Dent looks way too bored and angry. The overuse of black lines doesnt help.

Catwoman

She looks like Harley Quinn or Barbara wearing a catsuit. Starting to see a pattern here?

Baby Doll

Its a tough call cos they both look very good but Im gonna lean towards the redesign cos shes got that creepy doll look down to a T (Annabelle would be proud) whereas her original design looked more like a Tiny Toons character.

Scarface and the Ventriloquist

I like the redesign cos of the exaggerated style of the rest of the show perfectly captures Scarface since he's, yknow, a puppet and having the Ventriloquist be shown to be scared and submissive really does show how the puppet is ironically the puppetmaster.

Penguin

Actually I like both of them. They both give off that sophisticated element Penguin is known for and after so many reiterations of him being this crass Scouse-talking crime boss, its nice to see versions of him going back to his rich asshole roots.

Bane

In the original, he has a luchador-style mask and wrestling suit fitting his Spanish roots. Here, he straight up looks like a gimp. Its really bad. Embrace your heritage, Bane!

Riddler

They went from Frank Gorshin to Jim Carrey for Riddler (fitting cos Batman Forever came during TNBA's development) and I love that. So I love both of them. Nice to see a villain with some fucking colour in TNBA cos im tired of seeing all this black outfits. Also his cane being an extended question mark instead of a question mark on top of a regular cane is genius.

Mad Hatter

Both of them fit Hatter's deranged stalker vibes perfectly, but I wish they kept the colour scheme for the redesign cos Hatter's new colour scheme looks too rounded and doesnt stand out.

Poison Ivy

Killer Croc

Finally, now he looks like an actual crocodile instead of whatever the hell he was supposed to be!

Scarecrow

Okay, who the fuck decided to make Scarecrow look like the Babadook? Cos I want to give them a raise. Holy mother of piss, that is terrifying. That shit belongs in the Arkham games. I still prefer the old design cos it has that perfect blend of goofy and gothic. He looks like a Cacturne now that I think about it.

Mr Freeze

HONEY WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU?!! WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE A FUCKING FUTURAMA HEAD?!! WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?! YOU HURT MY HUSBAND, TIMM, NOW ITS PERSONAL

[rallamajoop]

On Donna (and Claudia) Beneviento

So, having spent the last couple of months absorbed in the world of RE: Village, somehow what’s really got my inner-canon-sleuth going this time is the issue of timelines. Just how long was Miranda posing as Mia before she was found out? Just how old are each of the Four Lords of the village? The game’s not telling us, but can I puzzle it out…

There are probably no ‘canonical’ answers to questions like this, at least in the sense of ‘answers the writers have agreed on and written down.’ Even putting aside all the usual complications of writing for games, RE: Village is a horror title structured around a gothic fairy tale: genres built on dream-logic and atmosphere. You may as well ask the ‘canonical’ backstory of Cinderella’s evil stepmother, or Dracula’s three ‘brides’: there isn’t one, because that’s not the point.

And yet, RE: Village provides just enough tantalising hints that I can’t resist the challenge of hunting answers that are, if not definitive, at least consistent with all the (limited) information we get. Which is how I wound up writing up this whole spiel about the four lords and who joined the family when (now up over here) – only to realise that the section on Donna Beneviento alone was getting so long it really needed its own post – so here we are.

Here's what stands out about Donna: Miranda has (very canonically) been experimenting on her villagers for a full century. Her daughter’s death in the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919 is as explicit as anything in this game gets. The four lords and their household crests are presented like an institution that’s been around for generations (Do Not Ask why a small Romanian village needs as many as four lords. It’s a fairy tale, and that’s the wrong question).

And yet, Donna herself logically can’t have joined Miranda’s family any more recently than 1996 – a mere 24 years ago.

We know this, because it’s the year of death on Claudia Beneviento’s grave (1987-1996) – and that grave already existed when she was adopted by Mother Miranda. What little we know about Donna’s past comes from her gardener’s diary, and he talks about both in entries only days apart. There’s no year provided, but the dates are November 10-29. It could have been 1997, it could have been 2019 – but it’s a year I’m old enough to remember either way.

So did it really take Miranda that long to ‘complete’ her little family collection? Or could there have been a previous cadou-empowered Lord or Lady Beneviento? And should I be reading so much into a date on a gravestone, which for all I know should have read 1896, and which made it into the game by accident? I have no idea, but we're going with it anyway.

But wait: we have more dates! We never meet the gardener himself, but he’s given the name Josef Simon in the note he left on the Iuthier house in the village. And if he left that note in person, he must have been still living in the village as recently as 2017, because (and this is where it all gets deep into nerd-analysis territory), there’s a child’s drawing on the wall of Iuthier’s house dated to that year.

Why does this matter? Well, his last diary entry ominously ends with him taking an invitation to visit Donna’s house to see his ‘departed wife’. And that’s all the more ominous, considering the Duke’s statement that ‘none of her playmates have ever returned’ – not to mention, well, everything that happens to Ethan down there. The looming implication is that the gardener died soon after writing that last entry – meaning those entries were written after he’d shut up the Iuthier house, meaning that Donna only became her mould-empowered self as recently as 2017 (or even more recently still).

(God, do you see why this shit had got me so hard? It’s like solving one of those grid-based logic puzzles where if Mary is wearing a red hat and Adam wasn’t in the house on Thursday, which of the household could’ve been present at the time of the murder? This isn’t even supposed to be a detective game, GDI!)

But before we get too far down this particular rabbit hole, it’s worth remembering we don’t know for sure that the gardener died within days of Donna joining Miranda’s family. Or, to take a slightly darker angle, we don’t know for sure that the gardener who kept that diary was the same gardener who shut up the Iuthier house after 2017. Maybe ‘Josef Simon’ is a completely new gardener, who kept that old diary around to remind himself why he should absolutely never breathe too deeply over Claudia’s grave, or accept any of Mistress Donna’s invitations to come inside for tea…

Claudia Beneviento herself is a figure so mysterious that I’m a little suspicious her grave (let alone those bizarre dates) only exists at all due to some miscommunication between the writers and the environment asset team, or as a relic of a couple of very different stories getting awkwardly redacted into one at the nth hour (notes that came with the artwork say that her house was originally conceived as belonging to a doctor, the doll-theme only added later, which isn’t surprising). Taken at face value, a woman in mourning dress with a creepy doll obsession and a 9-year-old’s grave in her garden screams that Claudia was Donna’s daughter, whose tragic death she never recovered from. It fits with the greater themes of the game too: Miranda and Eva, Ethan and Rose, Donna and Claudia?

Only problem being that the gardener’s diary suggests that Donna's personal tragedy was something else altogether.

If the gardener is to be believed, Donna’s story is that of someone who shunned others from childhood due to ‘the scar over her eye’ (a birth defect?) choosing instead to talk to people only through the ventriloquist’s doll made for her father – then cut off from the world even further by her parents’ tragic deaths. (Notes on the artwork go further, suggesting that her parents committed suicide at the waterfall, but this never made it into the game.) Where does a dead 9-year-old girl come into that? Is she Donna’s sister, her cousin or aunt? It’s damn hard to find space for a daughter in the gardener’s account, but the fresh bouquets on the grave suggest she was at least someone important. It all feels like a story that’s been hastily patched together at the last minute (and very likely, it was).

Donna’s powers present a similar dichotomy: hallucinogenic plants and autonomous living dolls? The only common theme there is ‘spooky shit’. (God, it’s like Heisenberg and the lycans all over again!) I don’t mean any of this as a serious critique of the game or story: Donna’s house stays with people for a reason – horror’s often more effective because it’s incomprehensible – but Donna-the-character is a cypher.

Speaking of Donna's medical report, that confusing line about how she "divided her Cadou among her dolls in order to control them from a distance" is (inasmuch as I am qualified to translate it) a little clearer in the Japanese version. A more literal translation might be more along the lines of "has shared her own cadou with her favourite doll to control it from a distance" ‒ which certainly adds context to why it's Angie's remains you bring back to the Duke. What's in all those other dolls is open to question: more experimental cadou, or is them moving just another illusion? We'll never know for sure.

That's about it for hard info. Still, for what it’s worth, have some rampant speculation!

Suppose Donna and Claudia were sisters, Claudia the treasured ‘normal’ sister, to Donna’s disfigured recluse. Suppose Claudia died, and their grief over the loss of their one 'proper' daughter led Donna’s parents to throw themselves over the waterfall, leaving her all the more alone. Yeah. Just let that settle in for a moment.

Alternatively, suppose both of Donna’s parents (and perhaps even her ‘normal’ sister) lost their lives to Miranda’s quest to integrate all four noble houses into her own twisted family. The success rate for cadou experiments was notoriously low. Suppose she resorted to Donna last because her deformity made her that much less desirable – only for Donna to survive, to be ‘adopted’ by the very woman who murdered her whole family.

Now imagine Donna living under the shadow of inevitably being supplanted (yet again) when her new ‘mother’ manages to revive the true daughter she really wanted all along…

Now there are some horror stories for you.

As a side note, I’ve seen some articles claim Donna had a female family member called Bernadette who died in Miranda’s experiments. This isn’t based on much: the only evidence is a 21-year-old “Bernadette B” mentioned in one of Miranda’s case notes, shortly before the success story of “Alcina D”. Notably, “Alcina D” is recorded as being ‘of noble birth’, while “Bernadette B” is simply noted as ‘no occupation’, which doesn’t really support the idea the B stands for another important family. Being nearly as old as ‘Alcina D’, Bernadette would have lived and died generations before Donna and Claudia. So even if B does stand for Beneviento (and it probably doesn’t), it doesn’t add much to Donna’s story.

And on a final note, did anyone else notice that of all the four lords, Donna is the only one who gets called by her first name? Like, Heisenberg is ‘Heisenberg’ even to his mother, brother and sister. I don’t think anyone but the Duke ever says Dimitrescu’s name aloud (let alone calls her ‘Alcina’). But Heisenberg mentions his other two siblings twice, and both times they’re Donna and Moreau. Not Beneviento and Moreau, or Donna and Salvatore: Donna and Moreau.

Now, maybe he’s just lazy (Beneviento is a bit of a mouthful), but while everyone else in the Duke’s spiel is called by their last name, Donna gets to be Donna Beneviento. Naturally, she’s ‘Mistress Donna’ to her gardener too. Possibly Angie is part of the reason ‒ logically, she's a Beneviento too, and we need some way to distinguish the two of them ‒ but it certainly speaks to how she's thought about, by family and by the writers.

No other first name is spoken aloud at all, AFAIK – you have to find Miranda’s experiment reports at the very end of the game to learn Moreau and Heisenberg’s first names (‘Alcina’ is at least written on her diary as well, much earlier on, as well as in Miranda’s separate case notes on experiment 181).

I doubt there’s much significance behind this detail, but it does kind of back up the idea that Donna may be the baby of the family – the youngest in years and the youngest when she was turned. And somehow still the most mysterious, for all that we arguably have more information about her past than any of the other three.

Please don’t take that as suggesting she’s just an innocent little baby, though. There’s a tendency in fandom to portray her as perfectly talkative and functional with the right audience (never mind that she speaks only a few words in the whole game, and canonically preferred to ‘talk’ through her Angie even to the gardener who’d known her since childhood, and who clearly cared for her deeply). Her backstory is tragic as fuck however you fill in the blanks, but all those fucked up murder dolls didn’t come from nowhere.

It's probably a mistake to treat Angie as a separate entity at all, when she's functionally Donna's own alter ego: very plausibly her way of acting out her own childhood trauma, from which she never recovered or matured. And trauma exorcised into a new vessel isn’t trauma that’s gone away.

[thecurrator]

𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐮𝐩 𝐟𝐨𝐫 @lumiambrose: Itoshi Sae!

Compatability: ███████▒▒▒ 70%

Sae only approaches someone if they interest or benefit him in some way (as seen by him choosing Shidou for the U20 match). And the only thing that really interests him is soccer, so it's likely that you found him interesting and tried to get to know him better.

He makes a sour face whenever you become loud and goofy around someone who matches your energy, as if it annoys him somehow. Let's be real, he's never going to act goofy in his entire life, so he won't be matching your playful energy. But he doesn't mind it, maybe even secretly likes it as you drag him around with your friends, laughing and enjoying an activity together.

He also struggles to make friends, so he does treasure the few that he has. It's obvious by the way he was so loving towards Rin before the incident™. So yeah, he's extremely loyal to the people he chooses to care about. On that note, he certainly appreciates your loyalty towards your loved ones. You both have a mutual trust to always have each other's backs.

He doesn't like your laziness, but as he grows fonder of you, he would be more willing to do small things you can't be bothered to do yourself. Acts of service is one of his main love languages, so he brings you tea and cut fruit often. Quiet moments between the two of you are common, where you'll be on your computer or reading a book and he'll be doing the same. He likes that you both can share a space in comfortable silence like this.

He also doesn't like your sudden switches of dependence to independence, as he's very consistent, but it'll be okay as long as you communicate your feelings. On the flip side, he likes your logical thought process when it comes to your career. He takes his own career very seriously, so it'd be hard for him to get along with someone who doesn't do the same.

Beaches make up some of his core memories, so he really likes them as well. He'll take the initiative to invite you to visit beaches during his holidays, maybe camping depending on which beach you both go to. After sitting and watching the sunset, he'll lie down with you and stargaze. He doesn't know any constellations, so maybe you could help with pointing them out.

He doesn't have much interest in art, but he can enjoy it. He would be so flustered if you drew him and showed him the sketch (but you wouldn't be able to tell from his deadpan expression save for a slight blush). This inspires him to propose doing an activity where you both draw each other. He'll even put on some soft Spanish music in the background while you both work. His drawing probably comes out looking like a cartoon, inspired by "Chibi Maruko-chan", so your drawing of him is guaranteed to look better.

Your love for psychology helps with communicating with him. He's very blunt, but also tends to hide his intentions when he thinks it'll do his loved ones good, so you might have to read between the lines sometimes. He doesn't have much interest in how other people tick, but after knowing him for a while, he'll come to you to ask for help in understanding the people close(r) to him. For example, why is Shidou is like that™?

Gift-giving is definitely his main love language. He mainly buys small things for you like little trinkets and your favourite snacks. Not because he's stingy with his money, but rather he finds the little things more meaningful (there was a time when he bought Rin popsicles after all). The more extravagant gifts are saved for special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries. He doubts that you'll be able to out-give his gifts, but you're more than welcome to try.

I am a firm believer that Sae is an INTJ (personality-database.com is dead to me) so you both share the same MBTI type! While you're a T type, he's definitely an A type, so again, there would be a difference in lifestyle there. You both do share a dislike of failure though, so that's something you both can agree on. For the most part, the way you both process information and handle important decisions is the same, leading to an understanding relationship.

"Curvy in the right places? I don’t have a pilates princess physique but damn does volleyball do wonders for my thighs and ass."

I'll just leave this here.

Fixation: Buttocks. “You’ll know an athlete’s ability by the shape of their buttocks.”

[harrygoeswest]

Trigger Warnings: sweary sweary language, sexual content

Word count: 14,704

Chapters fifteen, sixteen & seventeen

eighteen

We had a few more drinks at The Swan before we called it a night, but at Harry’s house a raucous and carnal adventure began. It started in the hallway as soon as the door was closed, and reached its magnificent end on his sofa in the living room. We never stopped on our journey, even if we were not moving - the desire we had for one another just did not cease, a feat that used up every last ounce of energy until I was settled on top of him, his skin tacky and sticking to mine in every place it could find.

The room was hot, as were we, with every possible window opened to let in as much fresh air as we could, even though it was humid and uncomfortable. Somehow, it didn’t matter to me. I was blissfully unaware of the temperature and the state it brought my physical being to while I was with this man.

I was unabashedly staring at him, using my fingers to travel the lines of his beautiful face. He seemed content - he was looking at me with this tiny smile, his eyes moving over my own face while his fingers drew pictures on my naked back. I wasn’t paying attention to what he was drawing, nor did it even occur to me that I maybe should have been. If he was trying to play a silly little game, it was the last thing on my mind.

“Estoy obsesionada con tu cara.” I’m obsessed with your face, I whispered as my index finger brushed over his lips.

He seemed to take a deep breath, and his lips pulled upwards further. Around his exhale, he said, “No se que dijiste.” I don’t know what you said.

I pulled back a little, failing to hide my glee. “Muy bueno. ¿Quien te enseñó eso?”

Harry gave a small grunt. “Don’t push your luck.”

I giggled. “I said very good, where did you learn that?”

He gave an understanding hum. “That’s a secret. What did you say before that?”

“That’s also a secret.” I said, and pressed my lips tightly together.

“But now you’ve got two secrets and I’ve only got one.”

“Harry, los secretos no deberían ser como el dinero.”

He tipped his head with a frown.

“Secrets shouldn’t be used like money. It’s how problems start.”

He took another deep breath and nodded, stroking his hands up and down my back. “I see what you mean.”

“You do?”

“I do. Secrets can be transactional which, while when they’re little like ours can be irrelevant, it can also lead to trust issues and overreaction.”

“Right, yeah.” Why did he have to talk in riddles? “I think our secrets should be our own, and if one day we want to share them with each other we can, and if we don’t we shouldn’t have to.”

“Is this your way of cementing that you won’t ever tell me about the incident at the dentist?”

“Maybe.” I muttered. “But it also means you don’t have to tell me if you’re learning Spanish from a less reliable source than me.”

“What if it was your mother?”

“Then you’d be in good hands. Although I will admit I’d be jealous of you spending time with my mother over me.”

Harry cackled, squeezing my body tighter to his. “I have to admire your honesty, Floss.”

I watched him for a minute with a scrutinising look. “Is it my mother…?”

“No tienes que preocuparte.” You don’t need to worry, he said as he poked my nose, but he said it in such a way that made me suspicious it still could be my mother. 

“You need to work on your accent.” I said in rebuttal.

“So I’ve been told. Maybe that’s something you can help me with.”

“Or maybe you should just get a better teacher.”

He giggled, delighted by the sudden irritation in me. “I’m gonna tell your mum you said that.”

I gasped. “It is not my mum teaching you Spanish.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sé que nunca te dejaría hablar con un acento tan tonto como ese.” I know she would never let you speak with an accent as rubbish as that.

“Florence, don’t be petty.” He was still quite obviously entertained.

“Querido, no tienes idea de cómo soy cuando estoy siendo mezquina.” Darling, you have no idea what I’m like when I’m being petty.

He narrowed his gaze at me, still smirking, so I did the same back to him complete with chagrin. I then rested my head against his chest to avoid the imminent neck ache I could feel manifesting, and Harry smoothed his hand over my hair.

“You’re funny when you’re grumpy.” He said in a whisper.

“Now who’s pushing their luck?” 

He giggled, his chest vibrating beneath my head. I could hear his heartbeat thumping in my ear - it was calm but a little irregular, I assumed from the delight he took on at my irritation. Still, it was a nice thing to listen to. I could’ve fallen asleep right there and then.

“I like having you here.” Harry said suddenly, words spoken after an extended period of silence. “Like this.”

I took a deep breath, the hairs on my body suddenly standing on end. For some reason I couldn’t move.

“Bought this stupid big house ‘cause I wanted Oscar to have somewhere with a lot of space to grow up in, but it can be so lonely. When you said last week that you didn’t like being alone… I really resonated with that a lot. I felt seen. But not exposed, more like understood. I finally felt like someone related to the same feelings that I did - you managed to put it into words for me. And now for us to be able to do this, and for me to be able to have another person in the house, it just feels nice. It feels right.”

I shifted my head slightly so that I could see his face, and he looked down at me with a surprisingly ambivalent expression.

“Well, I’m glad I could help in some way. If you stop teasing me about my mother I might come over more often.”

“I’ll never tease you about anything ever again if you stay here with me next Friday as well?”

“I will come over every Friday until the end of time if you keep to your word, just… not next Friday.”

He pouted.

“Geri’s kind-of-but-not-really emergency girl's night?”

“Oh yeah,” he sighed. “Two weeks… that’s a long time to wait for you.”

“You’ve waited longer.”

“But it’s different now.” He whined. “I want you all the time.”

“Well… maybe we could have a lunch date in the week?”

He smirked. “Like a naughty lunch date?”

My mouth fell. “Is that all I am to you? A tool for your pleasure?”

“That’s not all you are to me. But I do rather enjoy it…”

I rolled my eyes. “Rather than thinking about when you don’t have me, why don’t you make the most of my company now?”

He nodded fervently. “I can do that.”

In the next breath his lips were on mine, and while I hadn’t meant him to take it quite so literally, I certainly wasn’t going to push him away. Not when I enjoyed drowning in him so much.

I don’t know how long we were like it - just kissing and groping like the world was close to ending -, but it was some time. I was wired up, fired up, and ready to be filled up. My core was sweating with anticipation and I was ready to take him the way we both really wanted to. I was on top of him now, his shaft between my legs but not inserted, and causing all kinds of problems to my state of mind.

“F��llame de todas las formas posibles,” I was breathless and eager as I spoke, clinging to him with every limb I could.

“You’ve said that before.” He heaved into my mouth.

“I’ve also told you what it means.” I said against his lips, eating at them like an ice-cream.

“You might have to tell me again.”

You’d think with it being such a dirty phrase he might’ve retained the meaning, but apparently not. “F-,”

My phone began to ring from wherever I’d abandoned it when entering the house. I pulled away, a little startled, and looked towards the front door.

“Leave it.” Harry begged, his kisses moving down to my throat.

They made me delirious, and I was very close to ignoring the call to carry on with our salacious adventure. But I refrained.

“I can’t, what if it’s Ruby?”

Harry sighed, nodding as he dropped his head against my chest. “No, you’re right.”

I took hold of his face and pressed my lips to his, and then clambered off him to retrieve my phone from its hiding place. The stone floor in the kitchen was a shock to my bare feet.

I just missed the phone call, but it was from my parents’ home phone. I immediately called it back. Harry appeared just then wrapped up in a blanket, and wrapped it around me so that we were cocooned inside together. I laid my head on his chest again.

“Mummy?” Ruby answered on the second ring.

“Ruby?” I asked, looking at the time on my phone. It was nearly midnight. “What are you doing up so late, are you alright?”

“Mummy, I can’t sleep.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, poppet. Where’s Grandma and Grandad?”

“They’re asleep. Grandma didn’t feel very well so she went to bed and Grandad looked really tired so we had to go early too and now I can’t sleep. But I don’t want to wake them up, not if Grandma isn’t very well.”

“That’s really good of you, Rubes, well done. But you really need to go back to bed and try to get some sleep. Can you do that for me?”

“I tried, Mummy, but I’m scared. Can’t you come and stay with me? I don’t want to be on my own.”

I took a deep breath and looked at Harry. He cocked his head at the sad expression on my face. “Yeah, I can come to you. I’ll be there really soon, alright? But you need to be in bed when I get there.”

Harry slowly nodded, apparently understanding what was happening.

“Okay, Mummy. Thank you.”

“No problem. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I put the phone down and sighed, resting my forehead against Harry’s chest.

“What’s the matter with her?” Harry asked softly.

“She can’t sleep, and it sounds like Mum and Dad are sick so I should probably go and keep her company.” I met his gaze again. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. She’s your baby - nothing more important than that.”

“We can definitely have that lunch date in the week to make up for it.”

Harry smiled. “You’ve got yourself a deal, señorita.”

I giggled and gave him a gentle kiss. 

“I’ll walk you down to the house.” He said against my mouth.

“You don’t have to do that, it’s not far.” I shook my head, pulling away and out of our little cocoon to collect my discarded clothes.

“I don’t care if it’s not far, it’s the middle of the night and I don’t want you out walking alone.”

I stared at him for a minute, a little taken aback by the sternness in his voice. “Okay.”

He nodded once and smiled. “Good.”

No more than ten minutes later, Harry and I had walked along the main road the short distance to my parents’ house on the square that wasn’t a square. We shared one last goodnight kiss before he left, and I let myself into the house as quietly as I could. 

Downstairs it was quiet and dark, although the shadows that lingered on the walls from my mother’s many trinkets and collectibles were still as creepy to me as an adult as they were when I was a child. I made my way upstairs, and the lamp in Ruby’s bedroom was turned on. She was in bed like I’d asked her to be, facing the door with her eyes wide open. Bongo was curled up fast asleep in his dog bed in the corner of the room. I shut the door behind me.

“Hola, querida.” I whispered.

“Hola, máma.” She replied in a quiet voice.

“¿Cómo estás?”

“No buena. My brain won’t go to sleep.”

“I’m sorry, poppet.” I sighed, stroking my hand over her soft hair. “What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t even know. I… I feel like everything is going to change and I don’t like it. I like things the way they are now - just me and you, and Grandma and Grandad and Bongo, and living here and doing the things we do together. I don’t want that to change.”

“Oh, baby. You don’t need to be scared - sometimes change can be a good thing. And I’m not saying that things are going to change. I certainly don’t intend on moving you away from here, or from your grandma and grandad. But take Oscar, for example. You didn’t see him coming and now he’s one of your best friends. That’s a change for good, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… But Oscar is different. He hasn’t changed my life, not really. He’s just in it now, when he wasn’t before. I don’t want someone to come and ruin the way we do things. I want to keep it this way forever and ever.”

This felt like a very mature conversation to be having with a seven-year-old. It also felt like a bit of an insult to Oscar and the friendship he’d provided for her, but who was I to argue. I was going to have to tread very carefully with my words. “Well, I can tell you that, for now, nothing will change. As far as I can see, nothing has to change for the foreseeable future. Everything will stay as it is. I promise.”

“You do?”

“I do. Now, I need to go and find some PJs from my old room. Can you wait two minutes for me to come back?”

“Okay.”

“Good girl.” I said, and kissed the top of her head.

In my old bedroom, I found an old t-shirt that I forgot even existed - a tie-dye red, yellow and turquoise Red Hot Chilli Peppers crop top. Never mind using it just as a pyjama top for the night, this was coming home with me tomorrow. I paired it with some old PJ shorts that clashed so much they’d make your eyeballs bleed. Apparently 16-year-old me thought that was a really good look.

I opened the window in Ruby’s room when I returned, and slipped under the covers beside her. It was perhaps a little too warm in there, but for the sake of my daughter’s sanity, I would suffer through it for the night. She was asleep within ten minutes.

In the morning I woke before Ruby, and I could hear one of my parents moving around downstairs, so I went down for an early breakfast. My mother was tidying the kitchen up after last night’s dinner.

“Buenos días.” I said quietly so as not to startle her, and sat at the table in the window.

My mother looked over her shoulder with a frown, and did a double take. “Buenos días… ¿Qué estás haciendo aquí? ¿Tu cita con Harry no fue bien?” What are you doing here? Did your date with Harry not go well?

“No… mi cita con Harry iba muy bien.” No… my date with Harry was going very well. “Ruby me llamó a medianoche diciendo que no podía dormir. Así que lo acortamos.” Ruby called me at midnight saying she couldn’t sleep. So we cut it short.

“Oh… lo siento, querida.” My mother pouted, stroking my cheek with the back of her hand. “I guess this is what the struggles of dating with children will be like.”

I hummed, my chin in my palm.

“Was Harry alright?”

She’d continued in Spanish, so I did too. “Yeah, he walked me here. I guess with having a child of his own he understands that they come first. We had a good evening regardless, it hasn’t changed anything.”

“Well that’s good. I honestly think you’ve hit a gold mine with that one - he’s a saint.”

“Mm… all men have their flaws.” I said dryly.

“What’s his?”

“He drives a Range Rover.”

“Oh,” my mother scoffed and swatted my arm with the tea towel in her hand.

I laughed, delighted with myself. “Bromeo, todavía no lo he encontrado.” I’m joking, I haven’t found it yet.

“Your father’s is that he constantly says he’s going to fix something and then never bloody fixes it. Or still, after 40 years of marriage, leaves the toilet seat up. Or doesn’t lock the shed door when he’s finished with it.”

All of those things seemed very discernible rather than complex. “Well, 40 years down the line and you’re still married to him, so he can’t be that bad.”

She sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter. “You’re right - he’s not that bad at all.”

“Anyway, what were you going to do with Ruby today?”

“She was coming to the salon with me, wasn’t she?”

“Oh shit, yeah.” We both needed haircuts. “She might still want to do that.”

“Well, we can ask her when she wakes up.”

So, we did. I helped my mother make a big breakfast for the four of us, which easily roused my sleeping daughter and father. Ruby sank an entire glass of orange juice as soon as she sat down she was that dehydrated, and practically hoovered up her breakfast. At least I could always count on her appetite.

“Ruby, what do you want to do today - do you want to stay with me for the day at the salon?”

“Yeah! Can Bongo come?”

“Of course he can.”

“Mummy, will you be coming?” Ruby asked.

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know, poppet. It wouldn’t be very useful of me to be there, to be honest, so probably not.”

“Oh… but can I still go?”

“Of course you can - I can pick you up later? I’ll need to come back for a haircut after all of Abuela's appointments are finished anyway.”

“Okay!”

While Ruby was finishing up downstairs, I headed upstairs to have a shower and get dressed. I texted Harry while I was changing.

Floss 09:41 Did you have any plans today?

I waited for a response while I sorted my hair out, but never received one. Eventually, my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Are you running away from your child?”

“Ha ha.” I said bluntly, and then spoke as quietly as I possibly could. “No, she wants to go with my mum for the day, so I’m free until about half four.”

He hummed, a short and thoughtful noise. “I think I know lots we can do in that space of time.”

“That’s good - you can tell me later.”

“Do you want me to pick you up?”

“I need to go home and change first - all I’ve got is yesterday’s clothes and a t-shirt from when I was a teenager.”

“What t-shirt is it?” He asked, flirting.

“I think you’d like it. It’s a crop top.”

“Will you wear it today?”

I laughed and immediately regretted it. “Not today, no. Maybe some other time.”

He sighed, the sound of faux disappointment. “Fine. I’ll be at yours in half an hour?”

“Sounds good.”

I collected my things and made my way downstairs - everyone was still in the kitchen. 

“Mummy, what were you laughing at?”

“Zara - she said something daft. Right, I’m going to head home to change and then run some errands. I’ll be back later to come and get you from the salon, okay?”

“Okay. Will you be going shopping?”

“Maybe… or I might save that for later so we can go together.”

“If you go before you pick me up, can you get me some sweets?”

“Oh, yes.” I said with a grin, and pecked the top of her head. “What sweets would you like?”

“Um…” she put her finger to her pursed lips, like a caricature in thought. “Surprise me!”

I giggled. “Alright, my darling, I will do that. Be a good girl for Abuela, okay?”

“Yes!”

“Buena. I’ll see you all later on.”

My small family said their goodbyes to me, and I quickly departed the house to walk home. 

It was another hot day, which meant another tear-up of my wardrobe to find something appropriate to wear. I didn’t know what Harry was thinking for us to do if he wanted to pick me up, but I assumed it meant escaping Bibury for a few hours, which I was more than okay with. Whatever it was, I’d be with Harry, which meant it could only be perfect.

nineteen

Harry picked me up as we arranged, wearing the same cream linens as yesterday with a white vest and a weird kind of pale blue Hawaiian shirt. I’d never looked at him and immediately thought ‘dad’ until now. He leaned over the centre console to give me a kiss once the door was closed, pushing his sunglasses into his hair first.

“Long time, no see.” He joked.

I laughed as I clipped in my seatbelt. “Gonna be like this for a while, I think. At least until Ruby is over whatever weird spot this is that she’s in.”

He hummed, pulling off. “We’ll manage.”

He drove us out to the Sherborne Estate and parked up a little out the way. I thought we’d be doing the same walk as I had done on Ruby’s birthday, but when Harry pulled a picnic basket out of his boot I grew a little confused. There was no way we’d be carrying that around with us for hours.

“I know a little spot.” He said with a smirk when he noticed the look on my face.

I lifted my head slightly. “Okay.”

I hoped his ‘little spot’ wasn’t far, because I was not wearing suitable clothing for a long walk. I had on a blue and white vertical pinstripe skirt that barely reached my knees, a white cropped t-shirt with a peach embroidered on the breast and some white hi-top Converse.

He took my hand to lead the way, in the opposite direction to where I would usually go. I supposed that was a good sign.

Harry led me through the trees that lined the estate, taking extra caution to keep me on my feet; ensuring I didn’t fall on my face. At this point we both knew it was a very high possibility that that might happen. The sun shone through the treetops so that everything had a golden glow and a lushness to it. The floor was covered in bluebells and thick ferns, spread wide and far right to the edges of the woodland.

Only a few minutes into the woods Harry stopped, picked the biggest bluebell he could find and handed it to me. The sentiment made me blush, and he pressed a kiss to my temple when I didn’t immediately say anything.

We walked a little further, in a direction that was completely lost on me. I was hoping and praying that wherever we went, that by the time we were home I wouldn’t be covered in grass stains and stinger rashes. If I’d have known we were going walking in the woods I would’ve put my jeans on.

The trees and grass grew thicker the further in we went, brushing around my ankles and my knees so that it tickled like feathers. I clung onto Harry’s hand as if my life depended on it, my gaze permanently fixed on the floor.

After maybe 20 minutes of walking, Harry suddenly stopped. I looked at him with a frown, but he didn’t meet my gaze. He just pulled back a thick mass of green leaves and dark branches and nodded me onwards.

“Tú primero, querida.” You first, darling, he said, and even though he wasn’t looking at me, I could still see that proud grin on his face.

I rolled my eyes and squeezed around his broad frame through the bristly bushes.

I found myself, somehow, inside a small, grove-like clearing. It was bright and open, no trees above us, filled with colourful wildflowers and bright green grass. There was a single park bench at the far end almost lost to the greenery around it, so it was obviously a known part of the estate, but there was no one else here. It was just Harry and I.

“Como demonios…” I muttered to myself as I stared around the private sanctuary, utterly bewildered. How had I lived here my whole life and not known that this place existed until now?

“What d’you think?” Harry asked, an excited lilt to his question.

“Er,” I laughed once, breathy, “I think it’s a pisstake that I’ve lived here forever and never knew this was even here, and that I’m being shown to it by an outsider.”

“An outsider?” He giggled. “Is that what you think of me?”

“Well, you’re not a local.” I argued.

“No, perhaps not. But I was married to one.”

His comment stunned me. That was the first time I’d heard Harry so much as mention Lottie since I’d known him. It seemed to come from him so easily that it took me by surprise.

“What?” He asked when I didn’t say anything. “Does that not count?”

I cleared my throat. “Oh, er, no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Do you not like it?”

Christ alive, Florence, get a grip.

“No!” I stressed, turning to face him. “I love it, it’s beautiful. I just can’t get over the fact that I didn’t know about it.”

“It is signposted.” He chuckled as he placed the basket on the ground.

I’d obviously missed that.

“Will you be happy with a picnic here?”

“God yes.”

Harry and I set up our picnic in the middle of the little grove, consisting of finger sandwiches, an abundance of deli meats and cheeses, more fruit than I knew what to do with and a half-bottle of champagne I couldn’t possibly try and pronounce the name of. His picnic blanket was made of a tartan fleece material and had a lining on the underside that was covered in sand. He’d obviously taken it to the beach with him at some point. I tried not to imagine the sand somehow finding its way into my shoes and between my toes. The mere thought made me want to cringe.

“There’s no way you had time to make all this up before you picked me up…” I said as I took a bite out of a salmon and cream cheese sandwich.

“What if I did?” He challenged.

“Well, you obviously didn’t.”

He chuckled. “No, I was hoping we’d get to do this anyway, so I made it up yesterday before I collected Oscar from school. If for some reason we couldn’t have it, I’d have just taken Oscar to the park and we’d have had it there instead.”

“Oh…” I pursed my lips. “Feel like I’ve kind of ruined your day with Oscar. That would’ve been nice.”

“Don’t talk bollocks.” He shook his head. “I did this for you.”

I tried to hide my smile and failed. “You did a good job. I’m a very happy girl.”

“Good.” He grinned, and leaned over to kiss my lips. “And, by the way, I really like your outfit.”

I looked down at myself. “You do?”

He nodded. “Look like you’re about to step onto Centre Court at Wimbledon.”

I was confused. “Don’t you have to wear loads of padding and funny hats at Wimbledon?”

He blinked at me a couple of times, equally confused. “Are you thinking about cricket…?”

“Is that not what they play at Wimbledon?”

Harry giggled. “No, Floss. Tennis is played at Wimbledon.”

“Oh,” I whined and hid my face in my hands. I should know that - my mother loves Freddie Flintoff. Un hombre tan fornido… she’d sigh out anytime he appeared on the telly, which roughly translated to ‘such a strapping man’. Dad would then grumble and call him a prick.

We carried on eating, with me trying extra hard at not saying anything else stupid while we chatted about our children and our work. I ended up lying on my back as I listened to him tell me a story about one of Oscar’s first accidents when he was around two. Lottie wasn’t present in the story but I couldn’t figure out if it was because she just wasn’t there, or because he didn’t want to mention her in the context, or because she’d already passed away. I guess Lottie wasn’t really integral to the story, but my mind did drift to her a lot.

By the end of his anecdote, Harry’s head was in my lap, both of us with our eyes closed because the sun was so bright, and I had one hand stroking through his hair while he held my other in his own. It was quiet apart from our light chatter - you couldn’t hear anything for miles apart from the odd bird and maybe a slight irregular breeze. I couldn’t remember ever feeling a peace like it.

I sat up on my elbows at one point, feeling the urge for a strawberry. I found the packet, keeping Harry where he was as I fished a few out and into my hand, and took a bite out of the largest one I had. I could feel his eyes on me, and I didn’t shy away from looking at him.

“Can I have one?” He asked in a near whisper.

I had a strong urge to say no, but refrained. “Of course.”

I took the next largest strawberry and fed it to him, his hand still around my wrist and his eyes still on mine. He ate the whole thing down to the stalk, and when he was done his lips were smattered with pink juice. It all felt kind of erotic, and I couldn’t help myself as I leaned over him and pressed my lips to his, kissing the strawberry juice away. His mouth tasted sweet over everything else, and I wanted to stay with him like that, with my mouth on his mouth, for the rest of the day. We kissed like that for a long time - him with his head in my lap and me folded over him, my right hand stroking his chest while my left played with his hair -, until I was uncomfortable and practically inviting back ache to pay me a visit.

Eventually we switched so that Harry was on his back and I was lying on top of him. Our lips never parted, at least not until I could feel something (you know the thing) between my legs and I wanted, no, needed, to taste that instead. I kissed my way down his front, pushing his unbuttoned shirt aside and lifted his vest up so I could marvel at his body. I kissed every inch of his chest, and I left a nice little love bite just under his right pectoral.

The whole time, Harry was talking in whispers - I couldn’t understand what he was saying and I wasn’t entirely sure he’d registered what I was doing.

I continued on down the length of his body until I was between his legs and my teeth were grazing his lower abdomen. He groaned loudly when I started brushing my palm against his crotch and lifted his head up.

“Are you really gonna do that here?” He asked breathlessly, but it wasn’t a defensive question. It was more like shock.

I had momentarily forgotten where we were, but considering I’d basically already tried to do this once before, when we were walking Bongo in the field behind my house, I was surprised he had to ask. Nevertheless, “Do you want me to do it here?”

“I really want you to do that here.”

I think I was smirking, but I couldn’t be sure. I continued showing his abdomen, which was very beautifully defined and toned, by the way, the attention it deserved while I unbuttoned and unzipped Harry’s linens. He was hard when I took him out, throbbing in my hand, warm to the touch and a kind of iridescent pink in colour. It made my mouth water.

And so, in the middle of that luscious grove I’d never heard of, surrounded by beautiful wildflowers and tall grass and with the sun at its highest and hottest, I gave Dr Styles head until he was writhing and ready to go. His hands were in my hair, holding it out of the way and tucking it behind my ear. It became so hot that I had to tie it up at one point. I also had my fingers in his mouth more than once, his tongue licking its way around my digits like they were an ice cream. We were making the most obscene noises - if anyone did discover us like that I would be mortified, but I was equally excited.

I can’t quite remember if he stopped me or if I stopped myself, but I do remember him sitting up a little to pull me towards him, my legs straddling his hips.

“Please tell me you have a condom?”

He smirked. “There’s one in the picnic basket somewhere.”

Without taking myself off him in the slightest, I leaned over to rummage through the basked one-handedly. I found it tucked away in one of the pockets that had the side plates in it, and I ripped it open, took it out of the foil and rolled it down Harry’s length. Then, I lifted my bum up, holding Harry’s dick in one hand and readjusting my underwear with the other. I didn’t even take my knickers off, I just moved the seat aside and sank down onto his thick length.

That familiar unified groan oozed out of us, and Harry sat up while he waited for me to adjust to him. He propped himself up on one hand, the other placed at the back of my head above the nape of my neck with a somewhat rough grip. His kiss was greedy and sloppy and he grunted into my mouth with such menace that I was getting wetter by the second.

I started rolling my hips over him, and I told him to lie back at the same time. He seemed reluctant, but he did what I said. As I rocked back and forth over him his hands travelled my thighs and my chest like an eager sea captain. He slipped them under my t-shirt to fondle my boobs, and I gripped his wrists when he did so. 

My pace grew faster and faster, Spanish words tumbling out of my mouth in high-pitched and breathless succession.

“Me haces sentir tan jodidamente bien.” I said, followed by, “Nunca me había sentido así antes.” To him and his basic knowledge of Spanish, that would sound like… well, not very much at all. I felt like I was opening up the floodgates. My head was rolling as if my neck were broken, I could barely concentrate.

Harry lifted his arse off the ground in time with the rolling of my hips, his length pushing deeper inside of me. His hands lowered to my bum, squeezing and gripping in silent encouragement to go faster. “Tell me what you’re saying.” He begged.

“Santa mierda,” Holy fucking shit, I hissed, a reaction to his movement.

“That’s a naughty saying.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course he somehow managed to retain the swearing phrases. I doubt he’d been taught them by his elusive Spanish teacher. “The fact that you know that tells me you’re not taking your lessons seriously.”

“I take them very seriously.”

I looked down at him and he was just watching me - his head in amongst the pretty grass, hair a knotted mess and body writhing with pleasure. His skin had a glowing sheen to it, hairline a little damp in the same way his chest glistened with sweat. He looked gorgeous. I wanted a picture of him like that, and I’d probably put it somewhere completely inappropriate, like the ceiling above my bed.

“What did you say?” He asked again.

“I said I’ve never felt this way before.”

He seemed to let the air leave him, tight chest relaxing. “Me neither.”

That made me smile. I wrapped my hands around both his wrists, and I forced one of his hands under my top to play with my tits again, and then with the other, I put his fingers in my mouth.

“Jesus Christ,” He muttered, watching me with an extreme intensity that I felt like I was suddenly performing. But I liked it.

I wet his index and middle finger until I was satisfied, a string of saliva following them when I took them out of my mouth, and guided them to between my legs. He did exactly what I needed him to, and rubbed against my clit in a way that made me squirm because it felt that fucking good.

Barely a minute later, the two of us unravelled together in the hot early summer afternoon, and I collapsed on top of him, heaving from exhaustion. He kissed me, slow and tender, until I got my breath back and he wasn’t so amped up. 

Harry cleaned himself up while I ate the rest of the sandwiches. Apparently shagging in the middle of a field can work up an appetite. Who knew? After we were completely done eating we packed everything up and walked back to the car, hand in hand and a little smitten.

“Can we still do lunch in the week?” Harry asked. I was holding his hand, keeping it in my lap as we drove back into Bibury.

“Sure,” I said, looking over at him with a smile, “what day?”

He pursed his lips. “How about Tuesday?”

“Sounds good to me. Just let me know on the day what time and I’ll come to you.”

Harry grinned, and he brought my hand up to his lips and kissed the back of it. “Deal.”

I turned slightly in my seat, resting my head against the backrest while I watched him. He’d calmed his tousled hair on our walk back and he looked a lot less flush in his face. He concentrated on the road, but occasionally, when he felt it was safe, he’d glance my way. That was another photo I wanted to take and keep, so I did. I fished my phone out from between my thighs and I took a picture of him like that. He didn’t even blush.

“That gonna be your new phone background?”

I gave a bitter laugh. “Only if you’re happy with Ruby murdering you.”

He shrugged. “Would be alright. I think I peaked today with what we just did.”

“You think that’s peaking?”

“Well, for now. There are… other things I’d like to do with you. But I don’t think you’ll let me anywhere near you in a dental room. Basically what I’m trying to say is that if I died today I’d die happy.”

I gave him a scrutinous look. “I don’t think that’s true, is it?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know… Oscar?”

Harry pressed his lips together. “Yeah, alright. That’s fair.”

Harry dropped me off at home so I could change, and then I drove around to Mum’s salon to get my hair done and take Ruby shopping.

“Hola, querida,” My mother grinned at me as soon as I walked in the door.

“Hola, mamá.” I said, pecking her cheek as I passed. She was doing Ruby’s hair, putting it into plaits while wet. “Hola, mi amor.” I said to Ruby as I sat down in the chair next to her.

She grinned but didn’t say anything or move her head. She’d probably been told to sit very still.

“¿Entonces que hiciste?” What did you do, then? Mother asked me.

“Fui de picnic con ya sabes quién.” Went for a picnic with you know who.

She smirked, tied the last of Ruby’s braids with a tiny elastic band, and then looked straight at me. “Parece que la pasaste bien.” You look like you had a good time.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “¿Sentido?” Meaning?

“Parece que te han arrastrado a través de un seto hacia atrás.” You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.

I screwed my face up at her.

“Me alegra que te diviertas. Te lo mereces.” I’m glad you’re having fun. You deserve it.

“Abuela, can I get up now?” Ruby asked.

“Sí, querida. Vamos.”

Ruby stood up from the chair, and I stood too.

“Do you want to wash your hair?” My mother asked me.

I shrugged. “I don’t need to.”

“Alright, sit down then.” She nodded to the chair. “I’ll just give it a trim, yeah?”

“Por favor.”

“Mummy, did you get my sweets?” Ruby asked, sitting beneath the vanity table between my feet.

“I didn’t have time to go shopping, muffin. But we can go together now and you can pick something really naughty for dinner. How’s that sound?”

“Oh, yes! Can we do hot dogs?”

“If that’s what you want to do we absolutely can. And you can pick a new film to watch as well, yeah?”

My mother pulled my hair. She knew I was probably buttering her up.

“Yay!”

“Oh,” Mum leaned over my shoulder, “they’ve announced the dates for the county fair. It’s the weekend the kids break up for school - you should get together with Geri and Harry and arrange to go.”

Ruby was already looking at me, a blank expression on her face. I tried to play my worry off as nothing. “What do you think, Rubes? Do you want to go to the fair this year with Milly and Oscar?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“¿Qué quieres decir, tal vez?” What do you mean, maybe? My mother scoffed. She only said full sentences in Spanish with Ruby when she was irritated. “They’re your friends - don’t you want to go with them?”

“I do.”

“So why ‘maybe’, then? Aye? What’s all this ‘maybe’ nonsense?”

My daughter mumbled something, looking at the floor.

“I can’t hear you, Ruby.”

I didn’t very often hear my mum take a stern tone like that with Ruby.

“I don’t want Oscar’s daddy to go.”

I rolled my head back and took a deep breath. Ruby’s random and sudden dislike for Harry was beginning to upset me. Quite a lot. I could see things with Harry going a long way, and it would be a real shame if it couldn’t go any further than what we were doing now - sneaking around and behaving like teenagers - because Ruby didn’t want me to have a partner.

“And why not?” My mother demanded. “What has Oscar’s dad ever done to upset you?”

Ruby looked at me, then at her abuela, and then back to me. I knew what she was saying, without saying anything at all. And I also knew that if she did say it, my mother would lose her temper.

“Ah, come on.” I said, brushing my hand to try and make light of the subject. “It’s alright. We can just go on our own, can’t we Ruby?”

My daughter looked at the floor again and started playing with her feet.

“Ella se está volviendo egoísta, Florence.” She’s getting selfish, Florence.

“Ella está aterrorizada por el cambio.” She’s just terrified of change, I argued.

“El cambio es una parte natural de la vida. No puedes seguir mimándola porque es tu bebé.” Change is a natural part of life. You can’t keep coddling her because she’s your baby.

I knew my mother was right. We were both right, to some extent. Ruby needed to learn that in life things change when you least expect them to, even if we don’t like them. I also knew that she was the only thing I had - she was my entire world and I hated seeing her upset. But sometimes we have to upset the ones we love because it’s for the better.

Eventually I would have to tell Ruby that Harry and I were seeing each other. We hadn’t broached that subject with each other yet, but it was coming. I had no desire to see other people, and from what I could understand, he didn’t either. And whenever the time came to tell Ruby, she would just have to accept it.

twenty

Ruby was very quiet with me for that whole following week. I was somewhat offended, considering I wasn’t the one who’d challenged her on her opinions of the not-so-new dad in town. I was hoping that perhaps she’d change her mind about how she was feeling after the dressing-down from her abuela, but I knew that was optimistic of me. The only way Ruby would be changing her opinion was if it came from her own volition. She really was Latina in that way.

She spent most of her time in her room when we were at home, and I could never really hear much from her. Every time I went to put her to bed she was already in it and fast asleep, or if I went to check on her she would just mumble something incoherent and turn away from me.

It all escalated again on Tuesday.

I had to cancel my lunch date with Harry because I had too much to do and not enough time to do it. Unusually I was the first one to the school to pick Ruby up. I think that was a combination of both manic clock-watching to make sure I left on time and trying to get into my daughter’s good books.

Geri arrived shortly afterwards and started talking about Friday.

“We’ll be there straight after work, mate, don’t worry.” I said calmly, Geri thinking Zara and I had forgotten. Well, Zara might have done, but I hadn’t.

“Okay, good. ‘Cause I’ve bought a fuck load of alcohol and I intend to drink it. Preferably with the two of you, but I will do it alone if I have to.”

I gave Geri a concerned look. I hadn’t forgotten the conversation I’d overheard between her and Owen at Ruby’s birthday party. That felt like a lifetime ago, but it was there, in the back of my mind. Something else must’ve happened. “I promise you we’ll be there. Can’t have you drinking alone on a Friday night.”

“Well, you do it all the time.”

How rude.

In the next minute Harry’s car pulled in, and I tried my best not to behave like a teenage girl at the sight of her crush walking down the corridor. Geri was talking about my Friday nights and how dull they must be with Ruby at my parents and being alone in my home. I couldn’t wait to shatter that little imaginary scenario when I told her about Harry. I could tell my friends about him - that didn’t bother me at all.

When Harry approached us he stood on my right, and I felt him brush his finger along a short length of my arm. My hairs stood on end as he did and I tried not to shiver.

“Harry, will you tell Floss here that it’s not healthy to spend Friday nights alone every week.” Geri demanded.

I scowled at her, and then turned my attention to the dentist.

He looked at me with a kind of charged smile. “Geri’s right - that’s not healthy.”

“Thank you, Harry.”

“How I spend my Friday nights is nobody’s business.” I retorted.

“Well, you’re welcome at my house anytime, Floss.”

I whipped my head around and glared at him. He seemed perfectly at ease and it irked me. Were we children now? Why was I being teased? Why was Harry joining in?

Milly appeared in front of us then, and there were no other children even on the playground or remotely visible anywhere. How was she always the first one out the doors? Did she teleport here?

“Hello, darling.” Geri said breathlessly.

“Hi.” Milly smiled.

“Ready to go?”

She nodded, and so Geri took her hand and started walking away. “I’ll see you on Friday night, Florence!”

I rolled my eyes and gave her an irritated wave. Harry started giggling, so I smacked his arm.

“Ow.”

“If there’s anything you need to learn, it’s that you shouldn’t wind me up.” I warned him.

“Why don’t you just tell her we’ve been seeing each other?”

“I will be. On Friday. When Zara is also present.”

“You haven’t told Zara?”

“No, we have this rule. If we have news all three of us have to be there to share it. One isn’t allowed to know before the other.”

Harry’s brows lifted, and I was convinced he thought we were mental. We were, actually, a little bit mental.

“I’m sorry about lunch, by the way. I was really excited this morning and then a billion cars turned up and ruined it for me.”

“It’s alright,” He said with an easy smile, and his fingers were stroking up and down my arm again, “things like this are gonna happen, aren’t they?”

I gave him a solemn nod. “Do you want to try again tomorrow?”

He appeared to wince. “I think for now we should just ditch the idea of lunch dates. I was being greedy - it’s not going to work. I’ll just have to wait until next week, won’t I?”

I grunted. “Unless you somehow manage to convince Ruby you’re an angel so we can have dinner together, yes. We’ll just have to wait.”

“But I am an angel.”

“No you’re not.” I said, turning back towards the playground.

Ruby and Oscar were walking together, but they weren’t behaving like they usually did. Well, Oscar was. Ruby appeared to still be sulking. The two approached us together, but Ruby didn’t stop walking once they’d reached us. She carried on marching all the way up to the car.

I sighed and rubbed my cheek.

“Is she alright?” Harry asked, concern very apparent in his tone.

“No.”

“Why, what happened?”

I shook my head. “She got a bit of a telling-off from my mum on Saturday and she’s just been like this ever since.”

“That’s not like Ruby. Or your mum…”

“Tell me about it. But she’s not talking to me, either.”

Harry was silent for a moment, and I wondered if he understood what the problem was. “It’ll sort itself out, Floss. Just give her some time.”

I hummed, the sound dead. “I hope so.” I gave him another downhearted smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow to pick her up.”

“Alright, love.”

“Bye, Oscar.” I forced a better smile and a wave.

He did the same to me, and then we went our separate ways.

I unlocked the car for Ruby before I got there, and she wasted no time getting inside. The journey to Mum and Dad’s, though short, was silent, and I hated it. She didn’t comment on anything, she didn’t say anything about her day, she didn’t ask me a question. Nothing. If a pin ever did drop in that moment it would’ve been deafening.

At my parents’ house she ran straight up to her room there without even saying hello to anyone. I went straight to the sofa and curled up in a ball next to my dad.

“What’s going on? Why is she upstairs?” My mother asked as she leaned on the back of the sofa.

“She’s still not talking.”

“Really?” My mother kissed her teeth. “That’s some really petty nonsense right there, Floss.”

“Tell me about it. It’s like having a teenager.”

“Well, it’s because you let her believe it’s an acceptable way to behave.”

Of course this was all my fault. My mother was the one who upset her but I was the one getting the blame for it? But then the more I thought about it, I realised maybe it was my fault. I was the one who started sleeping with the sexy dentist in the first place. 

Curse me and my raging hormones.

“Go and get her, Dave.” My mother patted Dad’s arm. “I’m not having her come here for dinner to hide in that room all evening. She can go home if that’s what she’s gonna do.”

I redacted the fact that going home to her own bedroom was exactly what Ruby wanted to do.

Dad stood from his place with a displeased groan and disappeared to try and coax my daughter downstairs. I stayed put and stared at the TV without registering what was going on. My mother went back into the kitchen to finish cooking dinner.

Ten minutes later my dad was back, without Ruby. “She’s not coming.” He announced with a long sigh.

“No,” Mum slapped her tea towel on the counter and marched into the hallway, muttering as she went, “no soy un hostal, soy su abuela. Ella se sentará aquí con el resto de nosotros y nos mostrará un poco de respeto.”

I sat up and watched her storm about the house, terrified. I hadn’t seen my mother like this since I was a teenager.

“Ruby Fuentes-Carter!” She screamed up the stairs. “I do not invite you to this house for dinner so you can sit in that room and ignore us. Come downstairs right now! No me importa por lo que estés molesto, comerás con nosotras si te gusta o no.”

A door opened upstairs, and this little voice shouted, “¡No estoy llegando!” I’m not coming!

I put my head in my hands, an ache in my chest.

My mother went back to stomping around, making passive aggressive comments that flipped between Spanish and English, sometimes mid-sentence.

“I’m not feeding her.” She told me, pointing a finger at me, and then carried on. A minute later she came back and said, with the same stature, “I am not feeding her, Florence. If she’s going to behave like that in my house she can go without her dinner, I don’t care.”

And I knew she meant it, too, because I spent many nights in my room without dinner when I was 14 or 15. Except Ruby was only half that age, and it was really unusual. It seemed like an immense overreaction on her part to being given a little challenge by her grandma. 

I stood up and without looking at anybody said, “I’m gonna take her home.”

“What about your dinner?” My mother asked, hands on her hips and offence written right across her face.

“Mum, I’m not gonna let you feed me but not Ruby. That’s ridiculous.”

“No, what’s ridiculous is this attitude she’s got all of a sudden. All because her mamá might have someone else in her life that means she won’t get every single ounce of attention. She should be happy for you, Florence. You have been on your own for so long and you have finally met somebody who obviously makes you happy. And she’s throwing a temper tantrum because she’s ‘scared of change’. I am not having it for you. She should be over the fucking moon.

“I know you tried really hard to make sure she didn’t turn into a typical only child brat stereotype by giving her things in moderation. Trivial things, functional things. But you forgot about the other thing. You had two parents growing up as an only child, and she has only ever had you. And it’s very possible that she will only ever have you. She has no idea what it’s like to share a person because she’s never had to, and unless you put your foot down, she never will.”

And once again, my mother made an all-too-valid point.

I got mum to pack up two small plastic containers full of the dinner she’d made for us, and I took Ruby home and let her have it in her room. As soon as I’d done the washing up I went straight to bed and fell asleep, and I didn’t wake up until the next morning when my alarm went off.

On Wednesday and Thursday when I picked Ruby up from Harry’s, he told me Ruby had been just as quiet as she had all week (aside from her outburst on Tuesday with my mother). Apparently even Oscar had noticed it, because she was taking it to school with her.

I knew I needed to say something to her. She was about to spend the night at her grandma’s house and Daniela Fuentes would not take another episode lightly of whatever Tuesday was.

“Ruby, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked, gesturing at the breakfast table before we even left the house on Friday morning.

She didn’t answer me, she just sat down and looked at her feet. I took the opposite seat and leant my weight on the table.

“If we’re going to have this conversation I need you to be looking at me.”

My daughter still never shifted her gaze, and her face was sullen.

“Ruby,”

She shook her head.

I gritted my teeth. Bongo was sitting on the floor staring between the two of us. He made a small whine and then stood, moving towards Ruby and muzzling his nose into her limp hand. She didn’t so much as flinch.

“Look at me, please.”

Still she glared at the floor, and I was losing my temper.

“Ruby!” I shouted, and I smacked a hand to the tabletop.

She jumped, and looked my way. Her eyes were wide and startled.

“I don’t know what I’ve done, or your grandma’s done, to deserve whatever this behaviour is from you, but it ends right now. Right now. You shouted at your abuela the other day in her own home and it was not okay, I did not raise you to be that way and neither did she. Whatever it is that’s going on, it ends now, because she is not going to tolerate it again.”

Ruby looked at me with a stare that was so emotionless it terrified me. “Abuela upset me.”

“Why?” I asked, baffled. “All she did was question you. In her head she can’t justify your reasoning for being upset, and neither can I. You’re terrified of change and that’s fine, but nothing is changing. Nothing.”

“You lied to me!”

“No, I didn’t!”

“You said you didn’t have a boyfriend and it was a lie!”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, Ruby!”

She started to cry. Apparently all of my daughter’s frustrations and anger and sadness had finally come to the surface, and they bubbled over like hot, aggressive lava. “I know you do! Oscar told me - you’ve been seeing his daddy when I go to Abuela’s! I said I didn’t want you to have a boyfriend!”

I rolled my head back and dragged my hands down my face. “Ruby, you might be too young to understand this, but Harry and I have labelled nothing. We haven’t decided what we are yet, okay? Yes, I have been spending time with Oscar’s daddy when I can, because I like him. I like him a lot, actually. But you have always been the most important thing to me - I said that, didn’t I?”

“So why are you choosing him over me?”

“I’m not.” I was exasperated. “When have I ever done that?”

“Saturday!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said you weren’t coming with me and abuela because you had things to do. And you didn’t do them! You went to see Oscar’s daddy.”

I sat back a little. “Okay, yes. Fine. I did go and see Harry instead of doing what I said I was. I lied to you, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. That being said, I specifically gave you the option of coming with me or staying with Grandma, and you chose to stay. If you wanted to come with me, we would’ve done whatever you wanted to do.”

“You should’ve stayed with us.”

I took a deep breath, and then another. “I don’t know where you picked up this behaviour from, but it ends now. Do you understand?” I said in the sternest voice I could muster. “It is not up to you to dictate to me what I do and when I do it - I am your mother. You listen to me. Grandad is picking you up from school today, and you need to have got rid of whatever this attitude is by the time he does. Because Grandma might have lost her temper yesterday, but it is nothing compared to what your grandad can do.”

She scowled at her lap, remaining wordless again.

“Go and get in the car.”

That evening at Geri’s house I welcomed the first glass of wine she handed me. It was gone within five minutes, and she very quickly topped it up again.

“Oh, mate.” Zara cooed, rubbing my back.

“What’s going on with you?” Geri asked, sitting at the corner end of her ridiculously large sofa. “Is Ruby still playing up?”

“Yeah…” I said and gave a heaved sigh. “We had a massive fight this morning, the worst one we’ve ever had.”

“I went into the office at lunchtime and she were crying.” Zara said tightly. “Didn’t know what to do with myself. Her sandwich got all soggy.”

I laughed around at the reminder and leaned my head against her shoulder. It was true - at lunchtime, with five minutes too many to think about the state of my relationship with my seven-year-old, I’d burst into tears and cried into my sandwich until it was inedible.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I told her she needed to sort out her attitude before she went to my mum and dad’s tonight ‘cause they wouldn’t be having it. She got so upset, it was really frustrating.”

“What’s she upset about, though?” Geri was frowning. “I know she’s been in a mood all week but you never said why.”

I chewed my lip, gaze flitting between the two of them. “I’ve been seeing someone.”

Geri’s mouth fell open, and Zara’s eyes went wide, charged with excitement. “Let me guess,” Zara started, “Darren?”

“What?” I frowned. “Ew, no.”

Geri swatted our friend’s arm. “It’s Harry, isn’t it?”

I failed at not smiling. Suddenly the room filled with delighted squeals. Zara stood up and started jumping around, and Geri launched herself at me once our wine glasses were a safe distance away, tackling me into the opposite corner of the sofa.

“I fucking knew it!” Zara screamed.

“Er, no you didn’t.” I argued, regaining my composure.

“Fine, I didn’t. But still, this is great news!”

“I’m so happy for you.” Geri said, still clinging to me. A tear rolled down her face.

“Thank you… Yeah. It’s early doors but it’s going really well. And I do really like him. Like, a lot.”

“How did it happen?” Zara asked, sitting back down.

“Half term.” I recollected my wine and took another large gulp. “You know I told you he broke down and I had to go and get him?”

“That day?!”

“Well, the day after. When he came to get his car from the garage.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

I looked at Geri, confused. “What do you mean?”

“He came to collect his car from the garage and then asked you on a date? Bit dull.”

“Oh,” I chewed my lip again, “not exactly.”

Zara gasped. “You did it in the garage?!”

I blushed and giggled so much I had to hide my face. More squealing ensued.

“You dirty bitch!” Zara was cackling.

“Look, I know you two think I’m some kind of nun, but I’m not, alright?” I was defensive but I was entertained. “I’ve slept with a lot more people than you think I have.”

“How many are we talking?”

“I don’t know, I never counted.” I shrugged.

“More than ten?”

“Oh, easily.”

“Twenty?”

“More.”

“Thirty?”

I stopped and thought about it. “Yeah, probably. Thirty-one if you count Harry.”

Zara’s laughter sounded like barking. “Why didn’t you tell us you were a bit of a slag?”

I kissed my teeth. “Because you were always badgering on at me to find a long-term boyfriend and I didn’t want that. Not then, anyway.”

“Aw.” Geri mumbled, rubbing my back. “Finding out that you’re a tart has made my day. No, my whole month.”

“Maybe even her year.” Zara sniggered.

“Piss off.” I said, laughing.

“So, what’s Ruby’s problem?”

I sighed. “She doesn’t want me to have a boyfriend because she doesn’t like change. I mean, me and Harry haven’t even gone near that whole labelling stuff yet, we’re just… I don’t know, we’re still learning about one another. Really, I barely know him. Took me until last week to realise that he’s Lottie’s husband.”

“Is he?” Zara asked with a furrowed brow.

“Of course he is, you twat.” Geri rolled her eyes.

“I thought their baby was like two years old?”

“He was when Lottie died. Five years ago.”

Zara screwed her face up. “That’s awkward. Does he talk about her?”

“Never.” I shook my head.

“Anyway, back to Ruby.” Geri pushed on. “You told her you’re seeing him and she got upset?”

“Well, no. I hadn’t told her anything. It’s only been, like, two weeks, for crying out loud. I thought I’d have at least a month or two before I needed to tell her, but as soon as it happened she started going off on how she doesn’t want things to change and me having a boyfriend would ruin that. Then on Saturday at the salon Mum said something about the county fair and all of us going, and Ruby said she didn’t want Harry to go, and my mum got really arsey with her.”

“Does your mum know?”

“Oh God, yeah. Can’t hide shit from that woman, she knew as soon as I arrived in Perranporth.”

“You were glowing.” Zara giggled.

“No, that’s literally what she said to me!”

Zara threw her head back laughing. “Amazing.”

“So… yeah. My mum really likes Harry and she was really excited for me, and I think she just got upset that Ruby isn’t. Especially because until she found out that we’d started seeing each other she really liked him.”

“She just needs to get over it, Floss.” Geri shrugged.

“Everyone keeps telling me that. But you’re not the ones living with her.”

“That’s the only child syndrome coming into play.” Zara said, pursing her lips.

“Exactly what my mum said.” I huffed. “I’ve concentrated too hard on not giving her what she wants all the time in terms of materialism that I forgot about teaching her to share people… Me.”

“It is, it’s learnt behaviour. She knows that she can get you whenever she wants you because you’ve always done it.”

I gasped. “You know last Friday night, I was with Harry and she called me to say Mum and Dad were sick and she couldn’t sleep. I went right to her.”

Both Geri and Zara wore the same mirrored expression; pressed lips around a cringe.

“I literally didn’t think of that. I mean it wasn’t far so I just went and spent the night with her and she was asleep within 5 minutes of me being there.”

“She’s clever, has to be said.” Geri laughed, but it was tight and nervous.

“Clearly doesn’t get it from me.”

“I know she’s your baby and you love her. You’re such a great mum, Floss, you don’t need to debate that ever. But Ruby needs to learn that change happens. Hell, shit happens. And she ain’t gonna like some of it, but that’s the way the world works. She can’t throw a tantrum every time something happens that she don’t like. You’ll be walking on eggshells around her.”

“No, I know.” I said, somewhat resigned.

“Anyway,” Zara held her glass up, “let’s have a toast to Florence finally finding a man she really likes. It’s only taken her twice as long as the rest of us.”

I scowled at her and drank out of my glass without raising it.

“We’re really happy for you, Floss.” Geri said, and it was in a much more sincere and serious tone than we’d been speaking before.

I held her gaze for a while, and I realised that this was Geri’s emergency girls night. Not mine. I’d spent all of it so far talking about me and my own problems. We were supposed to be here to talk to Geri about hers.

“Are you alright?” I asked her directly. It was vague enough to be considered a question for everyone, but I meant it just for her.

After a moment of silence, Geri finally said. “We’re getting a divorce.”

I kept looking at Geri, but I could see Zara shifting her gaze between the two of us, head moving like a bird in a cuckoo clock. “Who is?”

“We are.” Geri moved her gaze from me to Zara. “Me and Owen.”

“What?” She shifted her body to look directly at Geri, and only Geri. “Why? What happened?”

She cleared her throat. I just rubbed circles into her back. “I, er… It was me, I asked for it.”

I rested my head on her shoulder, because it felt like she’d probably need it. Zara had no idea what was coming and I thought it would be good for at least one of us to be holding onto her when she finally told us her news.

“Really?” 

“Yeah. I… I met someone else.”

“Oh my God, who?”

“Her name is August. She’s another mum but she lives in Meysey Hampton.”

Zara’s expression shifted so many times in a single second it gave me whiplash, but eventually she just lifted her head as if she understood. “I see. How did you meet?”

“Gymnastics. Her daughter and Milly are in the same class.” Geri was shrugging but something seemed odd about it. It was like she was embarrassed to admit that she’d started seeing a woman, and I couldn’t figure out why immediately. “We were always talking, always chatting at the sessions. I thought I was crazy for a bit, ‘cause she was quite flirty and I thought she meant it in the same way us guys do. You know how girlfriends flirt with each other?”

“Fuck yeah.” I said into her shoulder.

“But I liked it. In the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t the same. She was flirting with me, and I fucking loved it. And she’s gorgeous, you know? God I felt so odd. I’d both love and hate going to those sessions when it was like that, ‘cause I wanted to see her but I knew I shouldn’t. I’m married. To a man. And I have two kids, and it would destroy us, doing that.”

“So what happened?”

“I started sending Owen. Made him feel bad, said he needed to spend some time with his daughter outside the house.”

“Oh, Ger…”

“I know, it’s bad. But I wanted August to see that we were a family, you know? I wanted her to stop. Anyway, I had to take Milly to her lesson myself one day a few months later because Owen was out of town. August was there, cheerful as ever. She started doing it again, flirting, and I ended up telling her to kind of back off. I think she was offended, but she got it. We barely spoke to each other again for a while.”

I frowned, looking at her. “But that makes it sound like you kind of ended it.”

“Yeah, well that’s what I thought. A few months later, Christmas time,”

“Hang on…” Zara stopped her, “this is last year?”

Geri nodded. “Yeah, I know. Not great. Er, yeah, Christmas time, I was out with work for our staff party, and we went to The Bull in Fairford, we had this private room for dinner, it was really nice. When we were done and leaving I noticed her, August, in the main part of the pub. Thought it was a bit weird ‘cause I think it was a Tuesday or something. Anyway, I gave her a little smile, nothing massive, I just didn’t want to be rude, and I went outside.

“Everyone else had lifts or taxis pre-booked, but I didn’t. Owen was on parent duty so he couldn’t leave the kids at home. So I went back inside and tried to order a taxi with someone at the bar. Before I could, August offered to drive me home. I did try and get a taxi again, but she was really insistent, right. Talking about saving money and she wouldn’t be a very good friend if she didn’t. She’s really persuasive.”

Zara and I shared a look.

“So August drove me home. We talked about the kids, how they’re getting on, what we were doing at the pub, how work was going. You know, normal shit that friends talk about. I threw in some shit about Owen just to remind her that I am married and technically unavailable. I think she found that funny. Just before we got into Bibury she pulled over, you know in that parking bay on Salt Way?”

I did know the parking bay on Salt Way, it was right by my house. If my memory served me rightly, it was a dogging site.

“The dogging one?” Zara asked, unfazed.

Geri let her head fall in her hands. “Yeah, that one.”

“Geri, you don’t have to… butter this up so much.” I told her, wrapping my arms around her middle. “You can say that you fancied her and something happened on Salt Way and you don’t want to take it back.”

“Shut up, Floss, I want her to finish the story in all its gory detail!” Zara whined, and Geri laughed.

“You’re not mad?”

“Mad? That you shagged a sexy MILF on the side of a road in the middle of the night while your miserable husband was at home with your children?” Zara never had hidden her dislike for Owen. “Fuck no, I hope you did it every day!”

I shook my head. “Look, perhaps it could’ve been in better circumstances… But, it happened. And it obviously happened for a reason, right?”

“I hope so. I’m splitting our family up because of it.”

“No, but seriously. What made you change your mind after she pulled over?” Zara begged, patting Geri’s hand like a needy cat.

“Oh, I was really selfish. I felt like such a shitbag afterwards.” Geri scratched her face.

“Go on, be honest.”

“It was her body.”

Zara gasped, and then purred really loudly. “Yes?”

“I have never been more attracted to anyone than I am to August. Ever. Not even Owen. I think Owen is handsome as shit, but August is like, fuckin’ beautiful. Drop dead gorgeous beautiful. She was wearing this sparkly shift dress with big silver sequins on it. And it did absolutely fuck all for her ‘cause I’ve seen her in t-shirts and jeans and that woman is curvacious. And I wanted to see her without it, I really did.

“She said she was pulling over because her engine light had come on.” Geri looked directly at me. “I know that was a lie - her engine light did not come on. I’ve had too many lectures from you to know when something is or isn’t wrong with a car.”

“That’s my girl.” I said proudly.

“I was in two minds. I knew she was stalling, and I really wanted to go home and be a good wife, but I also desperately wanted to see what she looked like naked. I got out of the car after about two minutes of arguing with myself, and I closed the bonnet while she pretended to know what she was doing, and she looked right at me, wide eyed. And I said  “What do you want from me?”  and without hesitation she said  “I want you.” Girls, I was like a woman reborn that night, I shit you not.”

“You’ve never been with a girl before August?” Zara asked.

“No, never. I kind of fancied women when we were younger. Before I was with Owen I’d sometimes watch lesbian porn, but I’d never tried anything. I didn’t know how to. I guess the term they use now is queer? That’s what I thought I was.”

“Turns out you’re actually just a lesbian.”

“Jesus Christ.” I muttered, hiding my face against Geri’s back.

“Yeah, no, that’s exactly it.” Geri laughed.

“Have you got a picture of August?” I asked, voice quiet.

“Sure.” Geri said, and fished her phone off the table. She flicked through her photos and eventually decided on one of the two of them together. It was a selfie, both of their faces filling the screen so I had no idea where they were. They weren’t dressed up or anything. Hell, they could’ve even been at one of Milly’s gymnastics events. But Geri wasn’t wrong - August was a very beautiful woman. An oval face and big green eyes, wild red hair and freckles right the way across her cheeks and nose. Her lips were small but plump, a well-defined cupid’s bow under a little round nose.

“Oh yeah, I get it.” I laughed. “She’s very pretty.”

“Yeah, no wonder you were so keen to get her out her knickers.” Zara agreed. “So, did you have sex in the car? On the bonnet? Against the car? In the bushes?”

“All of the above?” I suggested.

Geri was laughing again and it was lovely to hear. “Er, against the car, mostly. It was very confusing because we were very hot even though it was very cold outside.”

“You saucy cow.”

“Do you feel better?” I asked, resting my chin on Geri’s shoulder again.

“I do, actually. I’ve been keeping this to myself for a long time and it’s nice to be able to talk about it in a positive way. To some degree, at least. I do feel guilty about how it happened. I just also wanted to wait until me and Owen had reached an agreement.”

“That’s fair. What is your agreement?”

“He’ll be moving out, and the kids will go to him every Wednesday and every other weekend. It’s a scary time for them. I don’t know if they’re old enough to be mad at me for it.”

“I don’t wanna say that’s not gonna happen eventually, because it would be a lie.” Zara said, serious for the first time all evening. “But then when they’re adults they probably will understand. Sexuality is a difficult thing to grasp when you’re a child. It shouldn’t be, it should just be what it is.”

“Do you think my sexuality and the impact it’s had on us as a family will reflect on how they see me in the future? Do you think they’ll… I don’t know, will it turn them into, you know, something bad?”

“Are you trying to ask me if I think your actions now will cause your children to become homophobic when they understand what’s happened?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking.”

“As long as you continue to raise them the way you have been now, you know, brilliantly and with a good moral compass, then no I don’t. I think they’ll be amazing people.”

It had never occurred to me that something like that would happen. That children might be negatively affected by their parent’s coming out later on in their life. I desperately hoped that wouldn’t happen, not to Geri or anyone. She was an amazing mum, regardless of what was going on with her romantic life. Whenever her children came to realise what had happened, I hoped they would understand.

I felt rough the next morning. We drank a lot. After an evening of revelations we decided to clean up with Geri’s alcohol purchases and dance around the living room with music from our childhood blaring out of every possible speaker. It was nice to be that drunk and that free with my friends again like we were teenagers in a field with illegally-bought booze, and it was the perfect temporary distraction.

I’d fallen asleep on Geri’s sofa the long way, and Zara had passed out on the short edge. Her feet were hanging off the end and she was using my ankle as a cushion. That couldn’t be comfortable. Geri woke us up by opening all the windows in the house and boiling the kettle at the same time as she put on the coffee machine that sounded like an alien spaceship.

“Just because she’s gay now, doesn’t mean she can be a loud bitch.” Zara grumbled, rolling onto her front.

I lightly kicked her. “Don’t be nasty.”

We were fed an absolute feast by Geri that morning - a full English breakfast and all the extra trimmings you could ever think of. I felt fat by the time I was finished.

“Floss,” Geri pulled me to one side before I left to go home and shower.

“Yes, mate?”

“Did you know about… you know, before last night?”

I looked outside the open front door. Zara was already inside Mickey’s car. “Yeah, I did. I overheard you fighting at Ruby’s birthday party.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you obviously weren’t ready to talk about it, and it’s not my secret to discuss, with you or anyone else. I wanted to wait until you were ready and do it on your terms.”

Geri looked at me for a long time, and then she wrapped herself around me in the tightest hug we’d shared for a long time. “You’re a really fucking good friend. I hope you know that, mate.”

“Thank you. And so are you.” I pulled back and held her face. “Don’t let your guilt eat you up, please. Having kids is hard, but they love you and they’ll understand. Whether it be when they’re older or right away. You don’t need to be worried about anything else.”

I walked home and had the longest, coldest shower I could tolerate. It was unbearably warm again, so when I redressed, I chose the thinnest t-shirt I owned and a pair of denim shorts. Before I left to collect Ruby I tidied up a bit, putting her room in order since she’d left it in such a mess while spending so much time in there. I also put a load of washing on so it’d be ready to hang out and dry when I came back.

When I got to the house on The Square that wasn’t a square, Bongo was the first one to greet me. He seemed less excitable than usual even though he was licking my hand and all up my arm. But he was whining a little.

“Good morning my handsome boy.” I fussed him, more than I usually would in the hopes of cheering him up. “What’s going on, aye? What’s going on? Why’re you crying?”

“He’s been like it all morning, I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” My mother said, appearing from the kitchen.

How odd. I picked him up and cradled him like a baby, his big dopey eyes staring up at me. “What’s happening, aye? What’s got you so down?”

I put him down after a minute of cooing and kisses, and went to hover in the kitchen while my mother did the washing up. “What’s Ruby been like?”

“I haven’t seen her. As soon as she got here yesterday she went straight up to that room and she hasn’t been down since.”

I sighed. “Has she eaten?”

“Nope. Called her down for dinner and breakfast. Nothing. Not a peep.”

“Great. Our conversation yesterday was clearly a waste of time.”

“What did you talk about?”

“It was more shouting than talking. I told her she needed to snap out of whatever this bollocks is and she just kept calling me a liar. I told her about Harry and she said I’m choosing him over her. It’s been, like, two or three weeks, I don’t know how that’s even possible.”

“She’s just being dramatic.”

I sighed again, heavier. “I’ll go and get her, take her out your hair.”

I trudged my way up the stairs, and Bongo followed right behind me, still whimpering. I knocked on Ruby’s door and pushed it open, “Ruby?”

I looked around, expecting to see her on her bed, or in it. But she wasn’t.

“Ruby?” I asked again, peering around the door. 

She wasn’t in there. All her school bags and her uniform were on the floor next to Bongo’s bed, but there was no sign of my daughter in this room.

I tried the bathroom next, since that was logically the next place to go looking. But she wasn’t in there, either.

I called her name again, “Where are you?”

I tried my room, wondering if maybe she wanted to sleep in my bed for a change, but that was as it always was. I tried my parent’s room after that, but that room was also empty.

“Ruby?!”

I suddenly felt very sober.

I ran downstairs and into the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” My mother asked, irritated.

“Mamá, ella no está aquí.” Mum, she’s not here, I said breathlessly.

“¿Qué quieres decir con que ella no está aquí?” What do you mean, she's not here?

“¡Quiero decir que Ruby no está aquí! ¡Ella se ha ido!” I mean she’s not here! She’s gone!

The colour drained from my mother’s face.

“Did you check on her before you went to bed?” I asked, and I was panicking. A lot. “Mum?!”

“No, I was still angry with her…”

“And Dad? Did he check? Where is he?”

“He’s gone golfing… but he went alone, I watched him leave.”

“Mamá…” I started crying. “¿Por qué no la miraste antes de irte a la cama?” Why didn’t you check on her before you went to bed? “I know you’re angry and upset but she’s seven years old, Mum! She’s a child! You put your ego aside for shit like this, she’s a baby! She doesn’t know any better!”

“Florence, I’m sorry.”

“Call Dad and tell him to come home.” I said, already leaving.

“Where are you going?!”

“Where the fuck do you think I’m going?!”

I ran, yes ran, back to the house to see if Ruby managed to get home and I’d just missed her. I tore the place up - I undid all my cleaning work and looked through every room in my house to see if she was there, but she wasn’t.

I started knocking on all the doors in the close to see if they’d seen her, but no one had.

“Have you checked the field?” One neighbour asked me. He was a bit of a recluse but he’d always been nice to us. At Christmas he always gave me a bottle of wine and Ruby a chocolate selection. He used to be in the army - he had a trained dog.

I looked out at the field between the houses and I felt sick. “No, I haven’t.”

“You keep knocking on doors, I’ll take Denny out into the field, okay?”

“Thank you,” I blubbered around my tears.

“Do you have something of hers the dog can sniff?”

“Yeah, hang on.”

I ran back to the house and found a teddy from her bed, then left it with him. “Take it with you. If you find her before me I want her to have something familiar.”

The neighbour nodded, and I carried on down the close with my knocking. By the time I reached the end of the road no one had seen her. Not a single person. Wherever Ruby was, she hadn’t come home.

More coming soon!

[dinitride-art]

Will,

God, weren’t things easier when we were younger? All we had to worry about was if my mom was going to let you sleep over and… well. I guess that’s not true because you had to worry about your dad and I had to worry about you. Your mom was calling mine and I know you were scared to go home a lot. So, yeah. Maybe it wasn’t easier back then. Maybe it was worse because I didn’t know if you’d come to school crying or quiet. I always knew something was really wrong when you were quiet. You always talked to me. Lucas and Dustin… they never really understood. They weren’t there and you didn’t tell them any of it. You told me everything. We told each other everything. You told me when Dustin rolled something and tried to cover it up. I told you when Jonathan wasn’t looking so you could steal more cookies. I miss talking to you. I miss when we could tell each other everything. I miss staying over at your house and watching you draw. I miss when I was allowed to hold your hand when we crossed the street.

It’s different now. We’re older. We’ve seen things that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget. It’s like you’re slipping through my fingers. We’re too old to hold hands. We’re too old for a lot of things. Maybe if you were here we’d be able to figure it out together. How to get back to the way things were or at least as close as we can get. Hawkins isn’t the same without you. I don’t want to go through this if you’re not with me. I don’t know if I can go to school everyday and actually pay attention in Spanish without knowing I can see you there. We used to sit next to each other in every class. We used to laugh when Dustin and Lucas got in trouble for talking because we were the quiet ones. What if we’re not like that anymore? I don’t want things to change. My best friend is halfway across the country and I’m still in Hawkins.

When you left I felt like a part of me was leaving too. It’s hasn’t come back yet. It hurts, Will. I miss you so much that it literally hurts. I found out that when people wrote about broken hearts they were talking about the pain you feel in your chest when we were twelve and I thought you were gone. I never wanted to feel that way ever again but then you were there and you weren’t okay again and I couldn’t do anything at all. I thought that was the last time you’d break my heart but the past year has felt like it’s slowly shattering. I need you to come home.

Everything is worse without you here. Everyone talks like everything’s okay and nothing will ever be okay again. We can never go back to how it was and how it was wasn’t perfect but at least I hadn’t been to your fucking funeral. Now Lucas plays fucking basketball and Dustin has Steve and Nancy still doesn’t want to talk to me and El keeps sending me letters and I don’t know how to tell her anything so I don’t. I know she’s doing okay so at least I don’t have to worry about her but I worry about you constantly because I can’t get through to you and you don’t call. Did you make new friends? Are you happier with them? Does it make me a bad friend if I don’t want you to find new friends?

This is the longest we’ve been apart since we were five. I’ve known you for most of my life. I can’t tell you why but you mean more to me than anyone else does. Will, I need you to call me or write or just something, anything. Please. I don’t want to be crazy alone anymore.

Love,

Mike

P.S my mom found this old picture. I thought you might like it.

[koduflower2000]

"It's time to think outside the box 🤔🧐"

Hi! I'm Kevin, but you can also call me Kodu, if you prefer. I'm the actual guy from Twitter (X).

Pronouns: He/Him/They/Them (any of these is fine)

Age: 19 years

Nationality: Sri Lankan

Timezone: Indian Standard Time (IST) (GMT+5:30)

A straight guy who supports the LGBTQ+ community (more specifically, I'm a straight cisgender ally)

A silly child at heart

Open talker (yes, you can be friends with me if you want)

Draws art just by using a mouse.

Speed variation of me drawing is frequent (sometimes I draw faster, other times I draw slowly)

I'm currently learning Russian BTW. Я не знаю что я делаю. 😔

Also I'm learning Spanish, and a little bit of German and French for entertainment. I hope to learn Ukrainian, Arabic and Danish any time soon.

I do music (it's actually one of my favorite things to do)

I do programming sometimes (I haven't uploaded a single cool project in here at all, as I remember) (another one of my favorites to do)

I mostly don't swear, except when I feel intense emotions. (if you're comfortable with reading my posts with swear words, go ahead. I won't judge)

I reblog a lot, so if you really wanna see what I've been working on, here are some tags in which you can look around.

#koduflower2000 art - art by me

#koduflower2000 projects - will be a tag in which i present my art and music projects.

#koduflower2000 talks - mostly something i wanna say

#koduflower2000 answers - a tag in which i answer to tumblr asks in my ask box

Interests

BFDI:TPOT (Battle For Dream Island: The Power Of Two)

BFB (Battle for BFDI)

BFDI (Battle For Dream Island)

III (Inanimate Insanity Invitational)

AvA (Animation vs Animator) series

AvM (Animation vs Minecraft) series

Bluey series from ABC Australia

Chickn Nuggit (i'm sorry i didn't tell you earlier)

Minecraft

Saw and Gaty (totally okay with those ships actually)

Airy and Popcorn from HFJONE (totally okay with those ships as well)

Fanfictions (started writing one btw)

Rhythm Games

Gaming

Computers

Linux

Information and Communication Technology

Language and Culture Learning

Science

Technology

Sports

DNI list:

Basic (you already know it)

Ableists

Anti-semitic people

Racists

Homophobic people (basically homophobes)

Pedophiles (basically MAPs)

Sexists

Xenophobic people (including islamophobes)

Transphobic people (basically transphobes)

TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists, in other words, transphobic people who spread their gender opinions which are considered to be uncomfortable to trans people)

Advanced

Extreme NSFW accounts (a.k.a. the accounts with >=90% of the posts which are NSFW)

Pro-Israel people (I support Palestine, and no one can stop me)

People neutral with Palestine and the Palestinian people (Palestinian people are the best and they're considered innocent. Period.)

Zionists (If you try to interact with my account, I would like to fight you and block you.)

Proshippers (problematic ships, not professional ships)

Comshippers

People who spread misinformation against me

On thin ice

People who harass me or any of my moots.

People who think they're superior than everyone for no reason. (the only reason why i put it there is because i want people to talk with me instead of harassing me, because i already had a lot of traumatic experiences on twitter)

Blog Landmarks

tee hee moot rose! ^ ^

me too (a tribute to all my previous moots who have been disappeared from the internet)

kinda the reason why i don't interact in here as much as i wanna

the most important thing in tumblr that hits you hard like a high speed train

elements of the intro are subject to changes which occur periodically

[notnights]

Before it’s revealed, I actually think that ‘that figurine thing’ is Gangle stealing a figurine that Ragatha really likes (out of spite or maybe she feels she needs it more). The way that this ties into Ribbun (heh) is because it reminded me of Acetate where Jax begins falling for Gangle because he knows she secretly stole a Zooble part. IDK I just think it’d be neat to have him knowing about this different side of her.

Yeah my first interpretation was Gangle broke like a figurine of Ragatha’s or something. Could be anything the fact Jax then plays he’ll tell Raga anyways also tells me it’s a joke we’ll never know anything more about.

I have another funny interpretation of it for a joke I’ve been crafting but commissions are taking priority atm so haven’t finished it.

Sorry my story has found it’s way into your brain whoops. But uhh yeah I guess my idea that she broke something of Raga’s fits with that logic too.

Really interesting to over think it I guess; Ragatha is pretty kind and outwardly forgiving it’s currently hard to imagine what would be something bad enough to warrant Gangle putting everyone in danger to keep hidden from her. I feel it has something specifically to do with morals as opposed to Ragatha herself. “Oh god why would you do something like that, Gangle?” And even if it was something as simple as breaking something of Ragatha’s, Raga might value honesty more in that situation and it’s at the point where it’s worse that Gangle kept this incident hidden than confessing when it first happened. Again related to morals.

The Spanish dub makes it a little more ominous as Jax threatens to tell about Gangle’s drawings. Don’t know if they changed that detail to match lip syncing or sentence timing but the fact it was changed tells me again it’s one of those one off jokes.

Anyways… yeah again funny to imagine Jax sees Gangle do these mundane bad things and is like “I know what you are.”

[iexistforidkwhatreason]

Intro Post

My name is Alberto. Most people call me Al, you can call me whatever you want as long as it's not a really fuckin' bad nickname, both in the sense that it's offensive and in the sense that it's just not a nickname I'm comfortable with.

I'm an adult man with He/Him pronouns, I'm multifandom, and if you for some reason want to know my sexuality, I'm still in questioning.

Special interests

Mario, Paper Mario, Miis, Splatoon, Sonic (Although I'm more interested in the antagonists of the series than Sonic himself, to be completely honest with you), Punch-Out, Skylanders, Kirby, and IDFR what else.

Other stuff

- I'm Puerto Rican. English in not my first language. If you see me speaking spanish, that's why.

- I have a short temper, so if something bad happens and I start getting mad, that's why. I apologize.

- My Wii U ID is "LiterallyMiyu" and my main Mii is a redesigned Miyu. It would've been me with my name or similar to it, but the Wii U I got was japanese, and I was trying so hard to make it play games that weren't from the japanese region.

I kept resetting it so many times, it got to the point where I got tired of making my Mii again and again, so I said "screw it" and made my main Wii U Mii this goofball.

The end result was me modding my Wii U 'cuz I couldn't get anything to work. Thanks, region lock.

- I'm not active all the time. If you DM me and I don't respond in a long while, I'm either busy with something and don't want to be interrupted, sleeping, or just taking a moment off the internet.

- I draw.

- If I draw or post something that makes you uncomfy, just tell me about it or simply ignore it. Simple as that.

- We do not speak of most of the art I have drawn and the shit I have said in my teenage years. I was a massive dumbass and edgelord back then, OK?

- We can be friends, yeah, but for the love of God, do not obsess over me. I have had two people do that, and it has not been good, nor was it close to it.

- You can use my art as inspiration, but FFS, do not steal my art.

- "Can I draw something for you?" Yes, unless what you want to draw falls under the category of stuff that makes me uncomfortable, makes me mad, or makes me remember something from the past that I would prefer not to remember. If so, then no, you cannot.

- Do not talk to me about HoneyStarlightz/Lumii. I don't want anything to do with them as much as they don't want anything to do with me.

With that, I leave you with an image of my Mii.

[all-that-tmnt-jazz]

Hiii I wanna ask for a match-up pls 🥳

I'm an INFP, first off ummmm

Idk how to describe myself but I've heard people say I'm chill, adventurous, kinda reserved, friendly, and non-judgmental. I have a severe case of RBF, I tend to overthink a lot, and I try to avoid conflict though if someone that I don't like won't leave me alone, I eventually end up telling them off.

My hobbies are basically just anything artsy- mainly drawing, making stories or music, or doing crafts. I like to learn new languages (mainly Japanese and Spanish atm) and I like to watch movies! I'm totally open to trying new hobbies too :P

For looks...I'm a 5'1 female, I have green-hazel eyes and pale skin. Oval shaped face, petite body, my hair's always changing so idk about that part lmao. My style mainly centers around goth, mcbling, and a bit of emo fashion.

Oh and no pressure if you can't or don't feel like doing this! I just saw that u do matchups sometimes and thought "may as well" 😂 have a great day!

Hiii It's been a minute since I've done a match up so I'm sorry in advance if this isn't as detail-oriented as usual (I'm still going to give some details tho obvi).

I can see two for you, so here goes

Raph

- You and him share a need to do things- you being adventurous and him being rebellious - He knows that you have an RBF, but sometimes he thinks you're mad at him - (95% of the time, you're not mad at him- you're just zoning out) - He gets overthinking, and the stress that comes with it - If he sees you're bothered by someone (usually Casey/Vern/His Brothers) he will not hesitate to tell them - (Unless you get to it before he does) - He likes listening to the music you make and has tried making beats for you before - He is more than happy to help you with learning Japanese - And he would like to show you some knitting patterns if you'd like :) - He picks you up a lot because of how short you are compared to him - He knows you will probably hit him for it - He thinks your style fits you perfectly, but never explains why

Leo

- Always loses you when you guys go out together - You often wander to "Find a New Adventure" and sometimes end up in situations you can't get yourself out of - But if the situation is not some-one, they're not sure if they should be more afraid of Leo or you - (Mostly because of your RBF but we don't mention that) - He trusts your judgment and instinct, however, when people try to mess with you - There are very few people whose bad side he would want to be on. - Splinter. April. You. - Like Raph, he understands overthinking - However, as the oldest/leader, he understands the most out of the four brothers - He likes making art with you since he too has developed an interest in drawing - Sometimes, though, he just likes to meditate in the same room as you while you're drawing/making music/crafting - He knows both Japanese and Spanish and has offered to help you in studying them - He also offers to help teach you Italian once you're fluent in Spanish - He knows you don't always like being picked up, but still teases you for being short - (All in good fun, of course. Again, he doesn't want to get cussed out) - He's a bit confused by the history of Emo/Goth styles but he's learning more about it - He does like the early-2000s feel of McBling.

[purrpickle]

There was one young nun at the orphanage that Ava never forgot. Her eyes were dark, her voice soft and gentle, and the laughs Ava would pull from her with her smart-ass remarks would play in her mind over and over.

She wasn't one who kept Ava clean, or would feed her, that left up to Sister Francis, who would always frown and berate her for what her body couldn't control.

Instead, the young nun would spend hours reading to her, most often scripture but also the small books that would make their way into her room after she pestered for more enrichment. The nun's voice was soft, rolling with the Spanish or English words, more used to the Bible but still able to paint pictures in Ava's mind.

More than one night, Ava would drift off to sleep while closing her eyes to fully imagine the scenes illustrated to her, only to wake up with the bed sheets tucked up under her chin, the tingle of soft fingers gently pulling her hair away from her face and mouth making her cheeks warm, the nun having listened the one time Ava complained about her hair tickling her.

Her name was Sister Thérèse, and Ava wanted to tell her to run from the orphanage before she grew jaded, but also wanted her to stay, always. So she would bite her tongue and quip whatever came to mind, drinking in each laugh and shy smile.

And it wasn't long until Ava was fifteen, and in love for the first time.

She knew better than to voice it, instead aching for Sister Thérèse to visit, living for the few hours in the afternoon she would come to her room. Each laugh made her thrill, the smiles the nun would give her playing over and over in her dreams.

But, eventually, it was time for Sister Thérèse to leave, her vocation drawing her to the next orphanage. She told Ava this after closing the book she was reading on the second to last chapter, her smile small. She would be able to finish the book, but next week, she would be gone.

And before Ava could register her words, Thérèse was sitting forward. Her dark eyes met Ava's, the soft smile Ava classified as 'hers' making Ava's heart pound. "I wish for you to experience the world as you want to, Ava," Thérèse reached out, gently tucking Ava's hair behind her ear, "You have a beautiful soul, and the world would benefit from it just as much as you would." She cupped Ava's cheek, then pulled back, the book pulled up close to her chest as she stood.

And Sister Thérèse stood there as Ava sucked in a breath to finally respond, her dark eyes bright and a smile on her face as she answered Ava's machine-gunned questions and comments, so understanding and gentle it shattered Ava's heart all over again.

The young nun continued standing there until Ava's voice broke, her tears streaming down into her ears, then gently stepped forward to dot a tissue along her face. "You are strong, Ava," she whispered, dabbing under Ava's eyes as she bent over her, "And the Lord will watch over you."

"What if I don't want the Lord to watch over me," Ava gasped, voice breaking further, "Why can't you stay and keep being my friend?"

Sister Thérèse paused, and met her gaze. "Because the Lord has plans for us all, and I know He has plans for you."

And what she did not say, Ava saw clearly in her eyes.

She saw the regret in Sister Thérèse's eyes. The acknowledgment that Ava's life would be emptier without her, but that she hoped it would get better. That Ava was important, and would stay important after she left, and Ava wanted to believe her, but her heart was breaking and she could do nothing except suck in breaths and try not to cry as the nun moved back.

Sister Thérèse promised to be back the next day, and the next, to finish the book and wish her goodbye, and the young nun with the dark eyes and soft smile followed through.

Ava got to say goodbye, got to push through her breaking heart with a cavalier smile and a smart-ass remark that brought red to Sister Thérèse's face but also got her to laugh, one more time.

And suddenly Ava was fifteen, almost sixteen, and for the first time, her love turned into heartbreak.

But, slowly, Ava bounced back. Diego joined her in her room, and Ava decided she would live for him. She would live for him and Thérèse, and to spite Sister Francis.

Maybe Ava didn't believe in Him. But Sister Thérèse did, and maybe that was enough to last for a couple of years.

A couple of years, at least, until Sister Francis and life made Ava grow jaded and move further and further away from the earnest belief Sister Thérèse entrusted her with.

...

There was one young nun at the orphanage that Ava never forgot. Her eyes were dark, her voice soft and gentle, and the laughs Ava would pull from her with her smart-ass remarks would play in her mind over and over.

And maybe, just maybe, when Ava set eyes on Sister Beatrice in the Cat's Cradle, she was transported back there, in bed and listening to Sister Thérèse's voice roll over the Spanish words of the book in front of her, eyes dark and smile soft, Ava fifteen and in love for the first time, again.