#the brothers ever someone validate me

[lara-cairncross]

literally nothing brings me as much joy as the baja blast boys rn. watching em reading about em seeing them in fanart it Does Not Matter I happy stim whenever I see them hanging out like those are my sons !! my boys !! what must I do to indoctrinate people into the baja blast society !!!! please I could write an essay about why Mikey n Leo are such a great duo I’m going insane over here

[popcorn-plots]

my brother is mad because he said that cantaloupes aren't melons because they don't have the word 'melons' in them.

I asked him if that meant that tomatoes aren't fruits and bananas aren't berries by that logic.

He told me to shut up.

[gor3sigil]

Before starting T, when I socially transitionned, I was surrounded by radical feminists who saw masculinity as gross and inherently evil, something to avoid, something to make fun of, something to destroy. The other transmascs in my friend group, sometimes, told me that they didn’t knew if they really were non-binary or if they just were scared shitless of saying “I am a man”. Because they saw this as a betrayal to their younger self who had been SAd and abused.

I saw many of my masc friends and trans men around me hate themselves, not outing themselves as men because it would imply so so much, it was like opening the Pandora Box. Even when we were just together, talking about our masculinity was always coated with bits like “I know we’re the privileged ones but…”, “I don’t want to sound like I have it bad but…”, “Women obviously have it worse, but last time…” and we were talking about terrible traumas we experienced while taking all the precautions in the world in the case the walls were a crowd of people in disguise waiting to get us if we didn’t downplay the violence we faced, or like crying and being upset and being traumatized and afraid and scared and to say it out loud would make us throw up the needles we were forced to swallow every second of every day living in our skin.

Most of us weren’t on T yet, some of us were catcalled every day and harassed in the streets or in abusive relationships nobody seemed to care to help them get out of because they were “strong enough” to do it by themselves.

I was using the gender swap face app and cried for ours when I saw my father looking back at me through the screen. The idea of transforming, of shedding into a body that would deprive me of love, tenderness, and safety, was absolutely terrifying. I knew I couldn’t stay in this body any longer because it wasn’t mine, but I also knew that if I was going to look like my dad, my brother, my abusers, it would be so much worse.

5 years later and I’m almost 2 years on T, and almost 2 months post top surgery.

I ditched my previous group of friends. I was bullied out of my local trans community. But let me tell you how free I am.

I was scared that T would break my singing voice: it made it sound more alive than ever.

I was scared that T would make me less attractive: it made me find myself hot for the first time in my life.

I was scared that T would make me gain weight: it did. But the weight I put on is not the weight I used to put on by binging and eating my body until I forgot that it even existed. It’s the weight of my body belonging to me, little by little. The wolf hunger for life.

I won’t tell you the same story I see everywhere, the one that goes “I started going to the gym 8 times a week, I put on some muscles, I started a diet and now I look like an action film actor”, in fact if you took pictures of me from 5 years ago vs now I’d just have more acne, I’d have longer hair and still look like I don’t know what to do with myself when I take selfies.

But the sparkle in my eyes, my smile, tell the whole story way better than this long ass stream of words could ever.

I want to say some things that I wish someone told me before starting medically transitionning.

It’s okay to take your time. It’s your body, it’s your journey, if you don’t feel comfortable taking full doses and want to go slow, the only voice you need to listen to is your own. Do what feels right.

If you feel overwhelmed, it’s okay to take a break, it’s okay to ask for support.

Trans people are holy. Everyone is. You didn’t lose your angel wings when you came out because you want to be masculine. You are not excluded from the joy of existence, from being proud of yourself, from being sad, from being scared, from being angry. The emotions and feelings you allowed yourself to feel while processing what you experienced when you grew up as a girl and was seen as a woman are still as valid as before. Nobody can take that from you. If someone tries to, don’t let them.

It’s perfectly normal to grieve some things you were and had before you started to transition, like your high soprano voice or even your chest. Hatching is painful. You can find comfort in things that don’t feel right, so making the decision to change can be incredibly scary and weird and you deserve to be heard and supported through this. Wanting top surgery doesn’t make the surgery less intense, less terrifying, less painful to recover from. When it becomes too much you have the right to take a break and take some deep breaths before going on.

You don’t have to have a radical, 180° change for your transition to be acceptable or valid or worthy of praise. Look at how far you’ve come already. It doesn’t have to show, you’re not made to be a spectacle, you’re human and it is your journey.

Oh, and last thing, you know when some people say “Oh this trans person has to grow out of the cringy phase where you think that you can write essays about being trans or transitionning or just their experience because it’s weird” ? If you ever hear this or see this online, remember all the people whose writing you read and, even if they were not professional writers, helped you more than any theorists did ? If you want to write, do it. It won’t be a waste. It can help people. Or it won’t, and even then, if it helped you, that’s enough.

Love every of my trans siblings, take care of yourselves. You deserve the world.

[astonmartinii]

but daddy i love him [guilty as sin part two] | charles leclerc social media au

pairing: charles leclerc x fem sainz!reader

when an unstoppable force (the sainz men when they feel aggrieved) meets an immovable object (charles and y/n)

MASTERLIST | SERIES MASTERLIST | TIP JAR

carlossainz55

liked by landonorris, marcmarquez93 and 783,409 others

carlossainz55: never forget where you came from

view all comments

user100: insert cricket noises here

user101: who on your PR team said this was a good idea?

user102: they need to be fired, sorry not sorry

landonorris: i love your dad (tell him to stop beating me at golf)

carlossainz55: if he never lets me win he's definitely never letting you win

landonorris: so unfair i thought i was the third sainz sibling :(

carlossainz55: i'm an only child

landonorris: oh-

user103: i need this man to choke i'm being so serious rn

user104: that's so unbelievably fucked

user105: the fact his dad is probably co-signing this shit is insane that's YOUR DAUGHTER

user106: also someone give lando a lil slap around he's on the wrong side of history on this one

yourusername: scandal does funny things to pride

carlossainz55: if the scandal is betraying your family that's all you

yourusername: if we're talking about betrayal then that's your specialist subject mr. i've cheated on every girl i've ever been with - and while we're on the topic of betrayal, yes i was the one who told them

carlossainz55: i've never cheated why are you stooping to lies?

yourusername: you did it right in front of my face when i was a part of this family

carlossainz55: so you've always been comfortable going behind my back

yourusername: that's the thing, when you're treated like you don't exist by your family you learn that blood is not thicker than water

carlossainz55: i can't wait for charles to cheat on you

yourusername: btw i already called marca, they know any of those allegations from you or dad are false - good luck!

user10: obvs i know they should be doing this in private but MORE DRAMA FOR ME BABY LETS KEEP THIS GOING

user107: thank you for the validation y/n i KNEW THE SHIT STIRRING COMING FROM THAT PAPER WAS THE SAINZ CAMP

user108: and they've got the nerve to be talking about stooping - the call is coming from inside the house

maxverstappen1: ugly twins

carlossainz55: really?

maxverstappen1: i said what i said and i mean what i said

carlossainz55: i would say she's not going to fuck you bro but you really never know with her

maxverstappen1: she would never, homewrecking is a trait only the male sainzs seem to have

user109: OOP

user110: max is a real lestappen queen fighting the battles he knows charles can't

yourusername

liked by pierregasly, maxverstappen1 and 893,405 others

tagged: charles_leclerc

yourusername: if you know within one glimpse, its legendary

view all comments

user114: i love how she goes from fighting her brother in one comment section to just showing off her hot bf

user115: tbf charles does have a face you'd go to war for so i get her

user116: i'd abandon my family for that face

yourusername: finally someone who fucking gets it

charles_leclerc: you made me believe in love at first sight

yourusername: awwwwww you're such a sweet talker the REAL smooth operator

pierregasly: i can verify it was love at first sight cause the man did not SHUT THE FUCK UP about you well... ever

charles_leclerc: is it a crime to love my girlfriend?

pierregasly: apparently!

yourusername: he's too cute to go to jail :(

charles_leclerc: they'd ruin me

yourusername: that's my job 🤨

pierregasly: you keep that to yourselves

user117: does this girl need to shade carlos on every single fucking post... yeah we get it he's the only reason you're relevant but god you reek of desperation

oscarpiastri: is this carlos' burner account?

user118: are the grid just sat around waiting to be tagged in to the fight against carlos?

oscarpiastri: what's he going to do? crash into me? he does that every weekend anyway

user119: uh oh carlos oscar is finally fighting back off track what are you going to do

user120: don't worry i'm sure he'll post a selfie with lando and try the whole carlando shtick to get some more PR points

maxverstappen1: oh this was not the shit slinging post i was hoping for

yourusername: something tells me you're having way too much fun with this

maxverstappen1: yeah you might have been abandoned by your family but have YOU considered that this is letting me express all my mean girl energy off track so i am level-headed on track

maxverstappen1: actually i don't even think i'm being mean tbf

yourusername: i'm glad my suffering could be your therapy

carlossainz55: BOO HOO you're not suffering ... it's something called the consequences of your actions (read: actions being a snakey slut)

yourusername: bro over here acting like i committed fratricide

maxverstappen1: TAP ME IN

maxverstappen1: not this man talking about the consequences of actions. kids, here's a little life lesson: if you spend all your time at your current job talking about how you have a much better job waiting for you and how you're too big for this job and plant stories about your co-workers, you can't be surprised that that same job doesn't want to keep you

carlossainz55: i am better than charles

yourusername: lying is a sin

maxverstappen1: and you're going straight to hell

user121: you guys might be mourning the loss of charlos (whatever the fuck that is) but i'm celebrating the absolute shit ton of LESTAPPEN we're getting

user122: max was like oh my bff is dating charles here's my excuse to be nice about him again

user123: if we're being real here the biggest crime of this whole situation is the fact that charles can't really dig the knife in

user124: @ silvia i have maybe £4.50 and a greggs sausage roll to my name but PLEASE LET CHARLES TAP IN

f1

liked by charles_leclerc, oscarpiastri and 1,298,006 others

tagged: oscarpiastri & carlossainz55

f1: f1... the sport that gives you just as much drama off track as we do on track!

view all comments

user125: at this point even before the whole carlos ousting his sister i think oscar was about 👌🏻 this close to rocking carlos nascar style we should let him do it

user126: i will personally pay his legal fees tbh

oscarpiastri: i'm only 23 i don't need two F1-related legal cases to my name

yourusername: i've watched legally blonde about ten billion times let me represent you

oscarpiastri: yeah sounds legit

user127: THAT'S IT WE NEED PROXIMITY CHAT IN F1

user128: the way we know there was a shit talking session like no other after this race

maxverstappen1: i don't kiss and tell but well - yes!

user128: okay since this is clearly a safe space... who was there please spill mr. verstappen

maxverstappen1: ME! charles, pierre, oscar, checo, alex and george!

user128: why the fuck were the last two there?

georgerussell63: i was on official GDPA duty 🤓

alexalbon: that's a lie we're just very nosey

yourusername: they're the biggest PTA moms ever don't even lie

georgerussell63: yes i'll make allergy friendly cupcakes for the bake sale but i'll also spit in them and gossip about your cheating husband - sorry about it!

alexalbon: he's not

georgerussell63: i'm not

user129: carlos slagging off y/n but she's really brought the grid together

user130: george and alex being like we do not care about that but we do want the latest scoop

alexalbon: oh don't get it twisted we're firmly team y/n

user131: we even got the f1 admin in on the drama

carlossainz55: she's probably fucking them as well

yourusername: BORING get a new bit babe

carlossainz55: if i see whore i'm going to say whore

yourusername: aren't you still in that damn stewards office?

carlossainz55: tell your little lap dog to keep his front wing away from my car and maybe i wouldn't

oscarpiastri: suck my dick

yourusername: now that's true poetry

user132: oH!

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, alexalbon and 763,409 others

tagged: charles_leclerc, logansargent & oscarpiastri

yourusername: florida !!!!!!!!!!! is one hell of a drug. no seriously what is in the water here i keep picking up these little guys everywhere i go

view all comments

user135: she's really like i AM spanish and i will colonise this grid

user136: stealing all the lil cuties for her cause

oscarpiastri: proud to be a part of this weird little circus thing we've got going on

yourusername: oh dibs on ring master

logansargent: i feel like my name is written all over tight rope walking

yourusername: okay yes skinny legend

maxverstappen1: obvs we're a cruelty free circus so no lions but if there were lions, that's me babe

maxverstappen1: SOME people could learn... cough, cough trophy hunters

charles_leclerc: idk i'll just take the one where i can sit there and be pretty

yourusername: and you would be the best at it

oscarpiastri: which one does the least? i'll take that one

user137: bro can we slow the fuck down i was just getting over osc telling carlos to suck his dick now we're talking CIRCUS?

user138: for real couldn't it have at least been cabaret i wanna see ALL of that

charles_leclerc: 🤨

carlossainz55: i think a circus is a perfect way to describe your desperate attempt to stay relevant

yourusername: don't you have a job to go to? oh wait...

carlossainz55: as if i'm threatened by a group with the likes of logan sargent in it

logansargent: bit harsh, i'm a nice guy (unlike some)

yourusername: carlos here's a little bit of a wild thing i'm about to introduce to you.... people have friends?

yourusername: also you WISH you had a face card like logie

carlossainz55: i have friends?

yourusername: no you have PR strategies, there's a difference

carlossainz55: bro learnt the word PR and ran with it

yourusername: tell me one person who would let you crash on their couch?

yourusername: QUICKLY.

fernandoalo_oficial: and don't even think about mentioning me

user139: she hit him with the bianca del rio

user140: OOP and also nando just popping up out of nowhere to diss carlos and never say anything again

charles_leclerc: the drug in question being puppy fever

maxverstappen1: tell me you didn't get a dog

yourusername: boy do i have news for you

carlossainz55: are you trying to baby trap him

yourusername: first woman in history to birth a dog you heard it here first

charles_leclerc: you simply can't be babytrapped when you would literally jump off a bridge if asked to

user141: @myboyfriend TAKE NOTES HONEY ^^^

charles_leclerc

liked by maxverstappen1, landonorris and 1,745,093 others

tagged: yourusername & oscarpiastri

charles_leclerc: two kids in one month? someone stop us

view all comments

user142: y/n really lost an apartment and a brother and gained about 27 f1 drivers and a dog

user143: glow up of the century some might say

liked by charles_leclerc

yourusername: soz it's a coping mechanism

charles_leclerc: and that's okay <3

maxverstappen1: anything to help with that emotional CONSTIPATION

yourusername: have you tried to live with those narcissistic and emotionally unavailable men?

maxverstappen1: you're asking the wrong person that question honey

yourusername: girl are WE good?

maxverstappen1: no

yourusername: BUT THAT'S OKAY

charles_leclerc: not to rain on this parade but i think therapy would really be a positive move here

user144: i feel bad for charles cause i know these hoes are the type to just tell each other EXACTLYYYYY when they make poor decisions

maxverstappen1: true, no smart bitches would let their bff live with THAT man

yourusername: and let their bff constantly chat shit and ruin their image

maxverstappen1: can't ruin my image if i'm spitting FACTS

user145: max will nawt let this go

maxverstappen1: i'll forget you but i'll never forgive the smallest man who ever lived

yourusername: GIRL

maxverstappen1: whoops, one sec. spoiler alert: y/n unleased poetry. trigger warning: c*rlos s*inz

olliebearman: ollie bearman erasure

charles_leclerc: GASP OLLIE I AM SO SORRY

yourusername: no he actually is he's crying

charles_leclerc: it's the pregnancy hormones

olliebearman: it's okay i swear

charles_leclerc: I'M A TERRIBLE FATHER

carlossainz55: i could've told you that for free

olliebearman: why are you in our family buisness

user146: charles is channelling all of his carlos rage through ollie oh my

olliebearman: i am a happy conduit for my father who is in the ferrari PR jail

yourusername: can we send carlos here and throw away the key?

user147: charles is really out there like keep my girl's name out of your mouth cause even the bitch who stole your seat for a weekend is my SON

user148: y/n wasn't joking about with this grid domination

user149: but also i'm glad all of this fun stuff is happening amongst all of the shit that's been thrown at her from her family

oscarpiastri: a leclerc and proud (i race like my dad and throw shade like my mum)

yourusername: the best way to be

charles_leclerc: proud of you, you're such a good dog brother :)

oscarpiastri: i've just learnt to be patient after alpine and lando

yourusername: you still took your shoes being leo's personal bathroom really well

oscarpiastri: he's too cute to be mad at

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen, charles_leclerc and 824,109 others

tagged: charles_leclerc

yourusername: first mother's day with my boys

view all comments

user150: gonna enjoy this super wholesome post before... he... ruins it

user151: manifesting a y/n post without that bitter old hag in the comment section

charles_leclerc: the best mother for our fur baby and our miscellaneous other children

yourusername: only the best with you :(

charles_leclerc: ugh i love you so much

yourusername: i love you even more

user152: they're so fucking cute

user153: damn carlos i too would be angry if my baby sister and my teammate outshined my third PR relationship in six months

user154: the sainz family have generational levels of hating, but one does it for good (poetry) and one does it for bad (anything carlos ever says)

oscarpiastri: happiest mother's day to my grid mum! here's to reading them to filth xx

yourusername: OSC!! i always knew you were my favourite aussie

danielricciardo: did my enchante PR mean nothing?

yourusername: i mean i wear it all of the time... but it's osc ...

danielricciardo: true, i broke my hand before i could even think of accidentally hurting him

user155: also babe is looking so unbothered, moisturised and free we need the skin care routine

oscarpiastri: the tears of carlos sainz

yourusername: and cleansing your life of toxic family members

user156: okay clearly oscar was done with the whole "i'm so chill" bit cause since his adoption by charles and y/n he's been non stop on carlos' neck

oscarpiastri: i'm a ride or die for my mum cry about it

maxverstappen1: as the kids would say ... mother is mothering? @olliebearman did i do it right?

charles_leclerc: stop trying to steal my kids

maxverstappen1: BRO I'M TRYING TO COMPLIMENT YOUR GIRLFRIEND

charles_leclerc: that's literally my job 🤨

yourusername: tbf i'll take as many compliments as i can

charles_leclerc: are mine not enough?

yourusername: when you've got a self esteem this low, you gotta take what you can get

charles_leclerc: oh :(

user157: max and y/n fighting over who trauma dumps more about their upbringing

carlossainz55: this bit is very tiring. you'll be a terrible mother and all these people you think are your friends will drop you as soon as they know who you really are.

yourusername: you done?

carlossainz55: as you loveeeee to point out, i don't have much to lose anymore so i really wouldn't test me

yourusername: trying to make me homeless and stealing all of my money wasn't enough?

carlossainz55: charles will know the truth soon enough and you won't have us to come crying to

yourusername: i'll take those chances thank you

user158: hold ON what do you mean stole all her money

yourusername: i was never allowed my own bank account so all my earnings have gone to them!

user159: okay that's it WE RIDE AT DAWN

fin.

note: oh girl life has been BUSY!!! i just got a new job and have been looking desperately for a flat to move out to. also i've had family visiting and going here, there and everywhere. but i hope you enjoy! this was a lil more light-hearted lol (until the end) so enjoy the addition of the leclerc family lore xx

ALSO i wanted to say a massive THANK YOU FOR 6,000 FOLLOWERS love you all <3

note: hiii extra note from me here. first, i will fix this tag list at some point idk why it's not working rn. secondly, i have been made aware by multiple people that there is a series just like this one down to characters and the name of the series on here and i can't lie i'm bummed about it. as i said on the first part (?) this is an idea i've had since the release of TTPD (and people will back me up on this) so it bums me out that there are blatant copies coming out! i'm all for inspiration but sometimes there's a difference between taking inspo and copying especially when my masterlist was posted ages ago and my first part was posted on the 9th of may.... anyways that's all i have to say! enjoy xx

taglist: in comments!

[agustdtown1]

SHUT UP ‘N LISTEN | JJK

PAIRING: street racer!brother’s bestfriend!jeon jungkook x fem!reader

SUMMARY: Trust was broken, and wrong decisions were made. You were now left alone facing the consequences of your own actions, realizing it was never a good idea to fuck around with your brother’s friend. But maybe that was another lesson you were meant to learn.

WC: 17.3k

WARNINGS: brother’s best friend trope, angst, like a loooooot, unnecessarily dramatic dialogues that I think were a bit too much but that worked out for the plot at the end. Fluff because I didn’t want to end it on a sad note again. Way too much feelings and emotions. Smut +18, unprotected sex, fingering, oral sex (both receiving), a lot of begging, slight dom!jk, choking, making out, smacking, praising, pet names (doll, good girl, princess, baby, sweetheart, etc.), jk calls reader his good little slut, big dick!jk, mentions of belly bulge (very brief), doggy, missionary, jk begging a little bit towards the end. Let me know if I’m missing anything.

A/N: it’s finally here, the part 2 of shut up and drive, it took me some time to finally get it done, but I’m happy with the results. Also it was initially intended to be max 5k but I got a bit carried away and ended up being this super lengthy one shot so I apologize in advance. Anyway, enjoy your reading!

part 1 | masterlist

Most people experience a variety of emotions throughout their lives; happiness, sadness, anger. You can find happiness in the simple things in life, like buying your favorite food, your favorite drink, or when you go out with your friends. Sadness usually comes along when something bad happens, like losing a loved one or missing an important moment. Anger is presented in the form of violence most of the time, but it can also be delivered through words; hurting just as much as any punch would. Nonetheless, there’s also another emotion that has a huge impact on people, one that can conquer your body in the most unexpected moments.

Fear.

Usually defined as an unpleasant feeling that installs itself in the deepest part of our hearts and souls; fear is that one emotion capable of paralyzing people when faced with dangerous situations. Regardless of it being an abstract concept, like any other feeling, anyone at any point in their life has experienced that same emotion.

It is fear that you feel when you notice a stranger following you at night; it is fear that you feel when encountered with a wild animal. It is fear that goes through your body when someone tells you they have bad news.

And it was that same emotion that you felt when your brother verbalized the one thing you were trying to avoid.

“How long have you been fucking my best friend behind my back?”

It felt like your heart dropped to your stomach the moment that question flew out of Taehyung’s mouth. Nothing would have ever prepared you for it; for the inevitable confrontation you oh so much wanted to avoid.

But life can be funny sometimes, and it would put you through situations that would cause you an unbearable amount of anxiety and fear.

“You’re not gonna say anything?” His voice was the perfect example of exhaustion and disappointment; two emotions you didn’t want your brother to experience.

It took you exactly ninety-eight seconds to regain your ability to speak, only to scramble to find a poor excuse that would get you out of the mess you got yourself into.

“I don’t… um, I don’t really know what—”

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?” Taehyung cut you off. “Is that what you were going to say?”

The words were caught in your throat, making it impossible to give him the answer he was expecting. But then again, would you be able to respond wisely if given the chance to speak properly?

“I’m sorry.”

The answer to that question would be no; you were not capable of forming a valid argument that would make your brother dislike you any less in that precise moment.

“You know, I thought you would finally be honest.” Your brother sighed, shaking his head in disappointment, “I guess I was wrong.”

No man will ever be worthy of messing things up with Taehyung; a mental statement that you prayed would be proven right, but ultimately it seemed like you were the rightful culprit of a crime you didn’t realize you committed.

“Tae, listen…” You began saying, but your brother was not ready to hear whatever you had to say.

“You wanna know what’s funny?” He asked rhetorically. “I’m not even mad that you guys are together or whatever.” Taehyung chuckled, humorlessly. “But you lied to me, and that’s not something I can take lightly.”

You knew that, and yet you decided to go behind his back to mess around with one of his closest friends. In hindsight, the outcome of your web of lies was fully deserved, however, it was hard to accept the possibility of the rupture of you and your brother’s bond.

Hoseok and Jimin, on the other hand, could only stand there and watch everything fall little by little. It saddened them, knowing that the messy situation the three of you were involved in would not be easy to deal with, and most likely would end up badly. Trust was broken, and wrong decisions were made. None of them pondered over enough to realize the weight of the actual problem. But alas, that’s the lesson you were meant to learn.

“Guess loverboy can drive you home tonight, right?” Taehyung’s bitter tone was like a knife digging in your soul. “I’ll talk to you guys later.” He turned towards the two other boys, before retrieving his car keys from his jeans’ pocket.

With nothing left to say, Taehyung started his way back to his car.

“Tae, wait! Don’t be like that.” None the wiser, you tried to reach out and stop him, but someone else got a hold on you before you could.

“Let him be, I think it’s better for everyone if he cools down before you talk to him.” Always the voice of reason, Hoseok intervened at the right time.

It was hard to watch Taehyung walk away, knowing that he would probably let his anger and frustration out the wrong way. It was true that your brother would usually need some time to calm down and come around, just like Hoseok said, however, you also knew that Taehyung could be a bit impulsive and reckless sometimes. His well-being has been put to the test an uncountable amount of times, and more often than not anger would cloud his vision and the only thing he would see is red, which would cause a much bigger problem than him just being upset.

Truth be told, there was not much to do. It was either making the situation a whole lot worse by pushing your brother to his breaking point, or waiting until his anger and frustration had subsided. The latter seemed to be a better option, and so it was decided that you would let it go for the time being.

It couldn’t be that bad, right?

“Y/n…” a familiar voice rang through your ears, making you snap out of your thoughts. “Can we—?”

“Take me home.” You interrupted Jungkook harshly.

Maybe it was the way he was acting so cautiously; or perhaps it was the fact that he didn’t even attempt to explain what was really happening to Taehyung, but the idea of being near Jeon Jungkook for a second longer irritated you beyond belief.

“What?” He seemed to be taken aback, “I mean, yes, I’ll take you home, but first I wanted—”

“I don’t wanna hear it, just take me home.”

The hurt look in his eyes almost made you apologize, but the moment of weakness was short-lived; the frustration and worry you were feeling at that moment were enough to blind you, preventing you from seeing how your cold attitude was affecting him.

“Hoseok…” You started saying, “You coming with us?”

The brown haired man shook his head, sporting a soft grin on his face to break a little bit of the tension surrounding you.

“Don’t worry about me, Jimin’s gonna give me a ride home.”

Looking to his right you found the blond guy nodding his head, confirming that he would take care of Hoseok.

“Alright then.”

You started your way towards Jeon’s car, not really waiting for him; the sooner you got out of there the better. That place was starting to become a horrific nightmare the more you stayed there anyway, and it wasn’t really worth it to wait a second longer.

Jungkook was right behind you, like a silent follower, not uttering a single word due to the fear of being ignored. And somehow he was right about protecting his heart from your cold demeanor, for it was your silence he would get if he had started a conversation in the most inconvenient of times.

But how can you blame him? Had you been in his shoes, conquered by fear of losing the person who makes you feel more alive, along with your best friend, at the same time, you would be scared of saying and doing the wrong thing too. The only difference is that Jungkook wanted to fix things up for the first time. He wanted to redeem himself and be the bigger person for once; changing his usual I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude and not ignoring his responsibilities. Because as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was just as guilty as you were, and it was time for him to be held accountable for his own actions and decisions.

Nonetheless, there was still that emotion that would prevent him from initiating a conversation that was already set to happen. Fear was, for lack of better words, fucking him up, just like it did you moments ago.

You could feel his burning stare at every red light you were encountered with, yet you refused to look his way, not giving him the satisfaction of staring at his doe eyes that would lure you into giving him the chance to explain himself. That, however, didn’t prevent him from finally gathering the courage to speak.

“I still wanna talk to you about tonight.” Eight words uttered with fear; a sentence verbalized with the utmost caution, only to fall on deaf ears. “I know you’re not in the mood to have a conversation right now, and you’re most likely mad at me, but I just want you to know that I’m sorry it happened this way.” A sigh escaped his lips, leaving him with a heavy weight on his chest, not fully finding the right words to say. “Things went wrong, that much I know, but neither of us had a way of knowing all of this would go down tonight.”

A humorless chuckle abandoned your mouth, cutting Jungkook’s speech off.

“An apology is not enough to fix all of this, Jungkook.” You started saying. “Taehyung must hate me right now. And for what? Me fooling around with his friend when I should’ve kept my distance.”

Anger, sadness and regret can be demonstrated with a variety of physical acts, but all those emotions can be also delivered through words, hurting as much, hurting even more. Like a knife digging in the soft material of a pillow, your response cut deep in Jungkook’s heart.

An interesting reaction, taking into account that the boy has never, not even once, shown an ounce of weakness around you. It is true that he was softer than most guys when he was with the people he trusted and loved, but there was a slight switch in his attitude when it came down to you. Was it infatuation? Was it stupidity? Jungkook wasn’t sure, but he knew well enough that the things you were saying stung more than they should.

“You say that as if you regretted everything that happened between us.” He dared to speak once again, after pondering what his response should be.

“Maybe I do.”

Why does it hurt so much the words that were flying out of your mouth? Why was the situation affecting him in ways that it shouldn’t?

“Maybe I regret everything, maybe I wish nothing ever happened between us.” You didn’t actually mean it, but people tend to say things that hurt others when they’re angry. “It doesn’t matter if I do, though, you knew this shit wasn’t even worth fighting for.”

Jungkook stopped the car abruptly, ignoring the honking of the van behind you.

“Not worth fighting for?” He repeated, clearly offended. “Are you hearing yourself? You’re acting as if all of this was just my fault”

“I know it wasn’t all on you, I played my part too, but why does it matter so much to you all of a sudden?” You inquired with a venomous tone. “You were the one who said this wasn’t anything serious to begin with. You told me not to get my hopes up because we were just friends who happen to fuck all the time.”

That conversation was engraved on your brain, memorized to the very end. It hurt to repeat the words Jeon said to you, it hurt to remember every single detail of that night, but it was time to accept that neither of you were meant for the other.

He wasn’t yours to take, he wasn’t yours to keep.

And yet you wished that at the end things could be different.

“So it was all meaningless to you?” Jungkook demanded an answer of you.

His heart was beating fast, his hands were starting to sweat and there was a frown falling upon his eyebrows, making him look sort of adorable. For you at least, Jungkook has always been like a big puppy in search of attention, seeking for people’s affection and love when he couldn’t even love himself enough to commit to someone. He was an interesting guy, that much you could admit, but it wasn’t enough to go through the hassle of giving it a try to an already nonexistent relationship.

“You just wanna end things like this?” Jungkook’s mind was going crazy, he couldn’t comprehend how you could act so nonchalant and heartless about it. “I just… I can’t just let you—”

“There’s nothing to end.” You cut him off. “You can’t end something that never started.”

Like cold snow falling upon his face in a swift motion; like a hundred knives digging in his soul and ripping his heart out; like the most saddening ballad cutting deep in someone’s mind to bring back the memories of a past lover.

It all hurt the same, it all happened as fast. It all was just equally awakening.

“Is that what you want?”

Jungkook’s dead voice wounded you just a little, but it wasn’t enough to stop your answer.

“Yes, that’s what I want.” You confirmed.

Without wasting any other second, Jeon started the car again, letting out a heavy sigh while maintaining a hard grip on the wheel.

And for better or for worse, not a single word was uttered the rest of the ride to your house; representing the finish line of a race that never even started.

Seven days, four hours, twenty minutes and thirty-two seconds. That’s how long it has been since the last time you heard the voice of your brother, or even knew anything about him, for that matter. Seven days since you last saw him; seven days since one of your biggest fears came true; seven days since Taehyung looked at you right in the face with an expression full of discomfort and disappointment, one that he has never shown until now. Seven days since Jungkook tried to talk you out of ending things with him.

Seven days have passed and not much has changed, besides the fact that you have felt lonelier than before. The monotonous routine of attending lectures, studying, going to work and then coming back home alone was damaging your mental health and your stability was starting to decay. Sadly, you didn’t have anyone else to blame but yourself. It was a hard pill to swallow, but in the end it was all the consequences of your impulsive actions.

Had you thought about everything more thoroughly, the outcome would have been way different. No one would have felt betrayed, because you wouldn’t have had the need to hide anything from anyone to begin with. No one would have gone home feeling broken or with a heavy weight on their shoulders.

A lot of things would have been different, but rather than dwelling on the matters that have already happened, you decided to keep your mind at bay.

Work and school kept you occupied, but it didn’t relieve the pain that was poisoning your weak heart whenever you received a message or a call from someone who wasn’t Taehyung. His two friends kept you updated about how he was doing, but it wasn’t enough for you; you needed to hear it from the guy himself. Which seemed to be a task rather difficult due to the current situation.

Jungkook tried to reach out to you a few times after that night, but on the fourth day of calling and texting you nonstop, he finally let go of the idea of fixing things up, with one final text where he poured his full heart, just for you. If Jeon had been any more honest at some other point in his life, he didn’t acknowledge it. For him that long text was his truest self, his bare feelings abandoning his body with the hope of reaching you on time. Nonetheless, you two were living in different realities, it seems. You didn’t even dare to read the message, opting to block him and ignore how unhealthy and wrong it was to act that way.

It was unfair of you to treat him so poorly, but your pride stopped you from seeing the bigger picture. You were at fault, in the same way that Jungkook was; both of you took the decision to intertwine your bodies that one night, and both of you decided to maintain the secret encounters. It was a crime committed by two bodies, but that sadly left three broken hearts behind. Two at fault and one caught in the crossfire.

You’ve caught yourself wishing you would’ve done things differently; no secrets, no betrayal. No guilt, no fear. However, it was that same predicament that led you to meeting Jungkook, and as much as you didn’t want to admit it, you were grateful for that. Behind his fuckboy persona there was a kindhearted guy that not everyone knew, but that you wish could be yours; Jeon was, for lack of better words, the type of guy that any girl would love to have as a partner, but alas you wouldn’t be the one to experience it.

And that cold and saddening truth was what prevented you from ignoring your pride and reaching out to him.

“Y/n…” a distant voice called your name. “Y/n!”

Looking up from your long-forgotten class review, you stared at one of your closest friends, Eunbi. She was a 5’6, black-haired girl, with the personality of a fifty-year-old woman trapped in the body of a twenty-three-year-old girl. In better words, she was your best friend. You met her during orientation and you two hit it off right away; have been inseparable ever since.

“I’ve been calling you for a solid minute.” She chuckled lightly. “You okay there?”

You sighed, taking off your glasses to rub your eyes. An annoyed groan wanted to leave your mouth, but you were quick to suppress it before making any unwanted noise while being at the library.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just tired I guess.”

Eunbi looked like she knew you weren’t completely honest, however, she didn’t push any longer for an answer and you were grateful for that. You weren’t in the mood to explain the whole disaster you were into with your brother and his best friend.

“Wanna stop here and go grab some coffee? I’m kinda tired too.”

You wanted to decline and keep studying, but truth be told, if you kept up the act of trying to busy your mind with anything to keep it away from the topic you didn’t want to speak about, it would damage you more than it already has. So the distraction was greatly appreciated and a decision was rapidly made.

“Yeah, I could use some caffeine.”

Both of you abandoned your comfortable seats at the library, gathering your belongings to start your way out to the nearest coffee shop. The breeze caressed your skin with its refreshing wind; there has been a sudden change in the weather that has put the barely tolerable heat on pause. The gray clouds were adorning the sky, which in result made you curse under your breath for not having an umbrella with you.

“Seems like it’s going to rain.” Eunbi lamented, for she didn’t bring anything to protect herself from the water either. “We better hurry to get there before it starts.”

Your gaze moved slowly down from the gloomy sky, observing your surroundings with a deep sigh trapped in your throat. The saddening weather didn’t help you to cheer up, but maybe the tall guy waiting for you a few feet away would.

It took you a few seconds to realize that it was your brother who was waving at you while leaning on the hood of his car. Taehyung seemed relaxed and nonchalant, clearly not aware of the immense joy that he had brought upon you by just being there, due to finally seeing him after so long.

“Tae?” A small whisper fell from your lips. “Eunbi, can we raincheck? I um… My brother’s here.” You looked over your friend on the side, while smiling apologetically at her.

“Of course, don’t worry about me. We can have that coffee another day.” A soft smile was all you received after that, while your friend made her way home.

Uncertainty was quickly taking its place in your chest, making it a bit difficult for you to be calm and collected. There was a weird feeling making your fingers tingle, while your skin got coated with goosebumps; one that you rapidly disclosed as fear.

You feared the reason your brother was at your university. You feared the inevitable conversation you most likely will have with him, but above all, you feared the outcome of said conversation, scared it might break you more than the whole situation already has.

Your heart was pounding rapidly against your chest while you were, albeit reluctantly, walking towards Taehyung. His soft grin didn’t mirror your awkward grimace, already creating a tense atmosphere between you two.

“What… What are you doing here?” Your question came out rather strongly, in comparison to how nervous you were. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

Taehyung nodded, looking down at his feet for a brief second.

“Am I not allowed to come see my little sister?”

No, when you haven’t contacted her in a whole week, you’re not.

“I guess so.” You finally answered, opting to take the easy route and avoid arguing at all costs.

“Get in, I don’t want you getting sick because of the weather.”

A simple sentence that held a lot of meaning behind. Not only was it the fact that Taehyung finally had the courage to present himself in front of you, but he also continued to care for you, even when the prospect of the bond shared between the two being more than broken by now was a possibility he strongly believed in.

Regardless of the initial surprise that painted your face and that invaded your heart, you followed his words and entered the car, tossing your things into the backseat. The ride to your house was filled with an awkward silence, neither of you daring to talk due to not knowing what to say to make things better. Your brother would often sigh and look at you, only to give you a tight-lipped smile and continue driving.

It was safe to say that things were far from being like they used to be, at least for now. It had never been a problem to start and maintain a conversation with the older guy sitting next to you, but it seems like now it was a complete torture for the both of you to be in and share the same space.

A pang of guilt struck your chest for the awkward situation you were found in. A little voice at the back of your head telling you that it was all your fault, and that you should do something quickly to fix it up.

The truth was that you, once again, didn’t know how. It was uncharted territory, not even once in your life had you been in a predicament such as the one you were currently living. It was safe to say that you didn’t know what to do.

Despite being clueless and frustrated, you finally found the courage to form a coherent sentence to break the uncomfortable silence. And it was with a shaky hand fisting your skirt and trembling lips that you finally spoke.

“So… It’s not like I’m complaining or anything, but why exactly did you come to pick me up?” You inquired, staring right at him “You’ve never done that before.”

Truth be told, Taehyung didn’t think this through, he didn’t even imagine he would get this far; the only thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t like the current situation. It was already hard to digest the news of you and his best friend being somewhat together —at least from his perspective that’s what it was—, to add the burden of not being on good terms with you to the pile of concerns that Taehyung had.

On top of that, he felt guilty. Guilty for being so hard on you, guilty for not letting you explain yourself, guilty for not caring enough about you and Jungkook’s feelings before shutting both of you out. But then again, it was a normal reaction, one that was expected from him.

It was due to that that Taehyung decided it was finally time to talk with you and sort everything out, the only thing he didn’t foresee was how awkward and hard it would be to communicate with you after a week.

“Well…” He drifted off, stopping at a red light. “We need to talk… But I think it’s better if we do that once we’re at your place.”

It was decided, and silence had, once again, conquered the space inside Taehyung’s expensive car. You didn’t bother to try to break it this time, opting to save all your energy for the, most probably, draining conversation that you and your brother would have in a matter of minutes.

The moment you saw your building becoming nearer and nearer you let out a sigh of relief. Being trapped in such a small space with such high and thick tension engulfing both of you was making you feel upset. You were thankful for the fresh air gracing your face once you stepped out of Taehyung’s car, however, your joy was short-lived due to the cold droplets of water falling rapidly from the sky.

“Hurry up inside.”

Both of you made your way quickly towards the entrance, not sparing a second glance to your landlord at the door, but rather walking straight into the elevator.

Once you were in the warm insides of your apartment, you finally let your shoulders slump, while a tired groan abandoned your lips. Taehyung followed suit, taking his shoes off at the door and walking towards your living room.

“Make yourself at home, I’ll go change.” You shared before going into your room.

Comfortable clothes, that’s what you were seeking for. If a disaster was bound to go down, at least you would be wearing your soft pair of pajama shorts and that one shirt you stole from Jimin when you were over at his and your brother’s apartment.

It was a matter of a few minutes before you encountered Taehyung once again. His eyes were locked on his phone screen, looking rather entertained by whatever he was watching.

“I’m back.” You informed him, while taking a seat next to him. “Do you… perhaps wanna talk now?”

Hesitance and curiosity were invading your mind and soul at the moment, making you feel uneasy. You shouldn’t be so aggravated or feel so anxious, it was your brother sitting beside you, not a stranger. But then again, you weren’t prepared for the conversation, and instead of taking things easy, you were overthinking every single thing about it.

“I don’t really know how to start this.” Taehyung avoided looking at you, which in result caused you to feel hurt. “I wanna say a lot of things but I don’t think I have enough words to express them.” He chuckled lightly, fidgeting with his fingers while looking right into his lap. “I’m gonna start with the obvious. I was mad, that night at the race, I got really upset. I don’t know what pushed you to make the decision of hiding such a thing from me, but it really hurt Y/n.”

You knew that already. You knew that you fucked up and that it affected Taehyung more than he would like to admit, but it was the path you chose, the only thing left to do was walk through it and accept all the consequences.

“There was no need, you know?” It was then that he looked at you. “Like I told you that night, I wasn’t upset about you two being together and I never would. What you do with your love life or who you decide to be with is none of my business. I can’t stop you from liking someone, even if that someone is my best friend.” Taehyung let out a sigh, searching for the right words to say. “I got mad because you lied to me. I don’t like when you do that or hide things from me, it makes me feel as if you don’t trust me. And I really don’t want to think that’s the case.”

“It’s not!” You were quick to say, already fearing he would get the wrong idea. “I swear I trust you, you are the only person I actually confide the majority of my life to.” You sighed, feeling a heavy weight on your chest. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”

“I think it’s partially my fault. Maybe I haven’t been doing a good job at being a trustworthy brother.”

You wanted to say no, to make him stop thinking that way about himself, but he didn’t give you the time.

“What I want to say is… I might have been mad at you, at Jungkook and at the whole situation, but I’m also sorry for how I reacted.” Taehyung finally let out the words that were bugging him ever since that night. “I’m sorry I shut you out completely for this long, and I’m sorry for not talking things through sooner. I can’t control the decisions you make, and most importantly I shouldn’t be upset about the guys you get involved with. I just…” Taehyung drifted off. “I was just worried about you getting hurt that I didn’t notice the big mistake I made. I didn’t take into account your feelings and how my words would hurt you and for that I’m so fucking sorry.”

Seven days, five hours and fifteen minutes. That’s how long it took to finally hear your brother’s voice again. That’s how long it took to finally sort things out. That’s how long it took Taehyung to say those awaited words.

Seven days passed, and not even once you stopped thinking about what would happen if you were to have the opportunity to explain everything.

Until now.

“Taehyung,” You whispered, “you don’t need to apologize, I should be the one apologizing. It was so fucked up of me going behind your back and messing around with Jungkook.” You sighed. “I didn’t think things through and it almost cost me your trust and love, and for that you have no idea how sorry I am.”

Taehyung smiled softly at you, reaching out to squeeze your hand.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He said.

“I’m not, I’m just being honest.” You lightly argued. “Still, I’m sorry for lying to you, for hiding things from you, for… For messing around with your best friend. You didn’t deserve any of it.” A tight-lipped grin was sent his way. “I promise I won’t do anything like that again, I value our bond more than any quick fuck.”

Taehyung hissed, retrieving his hand from yours.

“When you say it like that it sounds weird.”

You chuckled, poking his side in a playful manner.

“Hey, I’m trying to be serious here, don’t ruin the moment.” You complained.

“I’m sorry, but it’s weird listening to my little sister saying she had a quick… well, that.” He grimaced, shaking his head to prevent himself from getting any unwanted mental image of it.

“It’s not like you don’t do it.” You scoffed, feeling suddenly defensive. “But that’s not the point of this conversation. What I really wanna know is… Are we good? Do you forgive me?”

Taehyung smiled at you sweetly, “Only if you forgive me too.”

It was a no brainer. You would do anything to go back to normality, to have your brother in the same way you have always had him. To not be scared of saying or doing the wrong thing; to finally be free of lies and secrets.

“I do.” You responded cheerfully.

You found yourself wrapping your arms around his torso, while resting your head on his shoulder. One of Taehyung’s hands came up to caress your hair, sweetly, while the other was softly patting your back. You were finally where you needed— wanted to be, and somehow it still felt weird.

There was a feeling of something missing, like a part of you was still holding onto an invisible string, tying you to someone whom you weren’t ready to face just yet. It didn’t take much to figure out why you were feeling that way, but it only served to leave you with more doubts and confusion.

Why was your heart calling his name? Why was your soul hurting for him? Why was your mind thinking of him?

All those questions were left unanswered, although you already knew the reason. The line between accepting the hard truth and ignoring your feelings was so thin that you didn’t even notice when you crossed it, but you definitely felt it. Like salt rubbed on a fresh wound, your heart ached just as much when the thought of Jungkook finally letting go of you was presented in your mind. That’s mostly why your heart, mind and soul were so desperately seeking his presence.

Maybe that’s even why you would tear up at night while staring at your phone. Waiting for a text, for a call, for anything that would let you know that even in some twisted reality, Jeon Jungkook felt the same for you.

“Youf shouf call hif.”

Eunbi was stuffing her face with a fresh baked bagel, not really minding how little you could understand about what she was saying, due to her full mouth.

“Could you please swallow your food before speaking? I can’t understand you.” A grimace took place on your face, while watching your friend enjoy her food.

You weren’t against Eunbi being so openly in love with whatever she was eating, but there was a limit for your patience when it came to eating etiquette.

“I said…” She finally swallowed the bite she took. “You should call him.”

A confused look was sent her way, while you took a sip of your iced coffee.

“Whom?” You asked, looking at her quizzically. “Be more specific, I just told you about what’s been going on in my life and I mentioned a lot of people.”

It took some convincing but Eunbi finally got all the gossip out of you. It was weird at first, to confess to someone else rather than to the people involved in the problem about everything that happened, let alone about your painfully obvious feelings. Because, although you weren’t ready to openly admit it yet, Eunbi didn’t need to know much to understand what was really happening in that complicated heart of yours.

“Your brother’s friend.” She answered after taking a sip of her drink. “That guy, Joncook.”

“Jungkook.” You corrected her with an annoyed sigh. Whether she has been purposely pronouncing his name wrong or she seriously couldn’t remember it, you didn’t know. “I already told you his name is Jungkook.”

“Potato, potahto.” Eunbi shrugged, cleaning her mouth after finishing her food. “Point stands. Call him.”

“Why would I? Didn’t you listen to anything I just said?” You asked thoroughly confused, “Clearly he’s not into me, otherwise he wouldn’t have said that it was a no strings attached type of thing.”

Eunbi wanted to hit you in the head to knock some sense into you. It was obvious, not only to her but to anyone who came across you two during those months of secret encounters. Jungkook, the rebellious and cold hearted man that anyone deemed as the raunchiest fuckboy, but that surprisingly most people would be willing to fuck. That’s who Jungkook was, but for Eunbi, for his friends and even for your own brother, Jeon was just a guy afraid to show his real feelings for you.

Almost too sickeningly cute, with his doe eyes and dumb smile, ready to go to the ends of the Earth to make you laugh or at least get a grin out of you. It was so painfully obvious to anyone but you how badly in love he was. It wasn’t infatuation, although at first it was a huge possibility; it wasn’t a simple crush despiste starting as one. It went beyond that, beyond the weak barriers of taking a liking of his best friend’s sister. It was more than just saying that he thought you were attractive, although he clearly thought that.

Jeon Jungkook had it bad for you. But how could you be able to see that?

The only face he would ever show you was one full of indifference, overconfidence and nonchalance; adorned with a smug smile and a pair of darkened eyes that warned you with a simple look that pure chaos was about to ensue. However, he did treat you differently than most girls. Jungkook would never get out of his bed at one in the morning just because your friends ditched you at a bar at the very last minute and you were too scared to call an Uber or a taxi.

He’s never remembered the coffee order of the girls he’s hooked up with, but oddly enough he remembers the exact amount of sugar you like in yours; Jungkook wouldn’t even remember their names. But yours? Yours was embroidered on the very front of his brain, not willing to erase it, not willing to forget it. Your order would be the first thing that comes to his mind every time he’s at a coffee shop, and more often than not he’s made the mistake of ordering yours instead of his, only to realize what he did a second too late. Your name was always at the tip of his tongue, risking his opportunity to fuck a random girl he met at a party. All because he almost said your name.

All those things were unmistakable, not easy to be looked over or ignored.

But once again, how could you be able to notice that the man was head over heels for you? When you wouldn’t even let your heart accept its own feelings.

“Do I really need to say it?” Eunbi deadpanned, staring at you with an annoyed look. “My god, Y/n, you’re not usually this dumb!”

“Excuse you?” You look offended, and rightfully so, but you were also ignoring the fact that your friend was just trying to make you see the obvious. “You’re being mean right now.”

“And you’re not being reasonable.” She sighed in exhaustion. “At least think about it, alright? If what you told me it’s anything to go by, that boy has it bad for you.”

Thinking is all you did, thinking is all you knew; it seemed to be like an easy task, but in hindsight it was way more difficult. It took you two more days to actually come to the conclusion that Eunbi may be right, and for those two days your mind didn’t have a peaceful moment to even worry about your upcoming exams. Your brain was completely fried at that point, full with possibilities and theories of what the outcome of finally confronting Jungkook might be.

The first possible outcome was the least feared out of the thousands.

If you were to reach Jungkook through a text, he would not reply. Now, that wasn’t really that bad, and in a more down to earth mindset, it would be completely deserved. Your not so reasonable side of your brain reassured you that he would and most likely will reply to any text you send him. Why wouldn’t he, after all?

The second possible outcome was one that you didn’t want to acknowledge.

If you were to call him, Jungkook would hang up after telling you to fuck off for not reaching out sooner. Seemed fitting and a very Jungkook-thing to do, but still you wished for that scenario to be false.

The last one was the worst among the assumptions swimming through your head. If you were to finally confess your feelings… he would reject you.

Rejection as a whole seemed like a terrifying experience. People would often avoid getting to that point, whether it would be them facing rejection or being the culprit of someone else’s broken heart. You had been on both sides, had gone through both experiences; it wasn’t anything you would like to live again. Hence to why you were trying so hard to suppress your feelings.

Poor and weak heart of yours, it didn’t choose who you love, but it certainly chose who you hurt. And as it turns out, it wasn’t only your brother who got caught in the crossfire.

Ever since you were a kid, flowers made you feel at ease. Their smell, their texture, even their bright colors. Anything about flowers was as relaxing as a day at the beach, at least for you.

You grew to be that one girl completely enamored with nature, and your fascination for flowers was only enhanced once you realized that people would use them as a token of love and appreciation for others. It was romantic, it was pure, it was honest. Gifting flowers to those who you loved and appreciated, to those who you held close to your heart, was such a kind and lovely gesture.

It was the purest act of love you could come across.

The meaning behind every kind of flower was such a wonderful thing to discover. Daisies were often a symbol of happiness and purity; whereas hydrangeas symbolize comfort in times of sorrow, especially at funerals. Orchids often represented beauty and strength, as well as the flowers birds of paradise. Roses, often associated with deep passion and love, had variations in meaning due to their colors; they could represent innocence and purity if they were white, or friendship and warmth if they were yellow.

However, among all those types of flowers, the ones you were holding in your hands at the moment were the hardest ones to carry with you. For no other reason than their meaning.

Striped carnations were often known for representing regret and remorse. They were used to apologize for past actions or mistakes.

It seemed fitting, so you bought the bouquet when you passed by a flower shop on your way to Jungkook’s house.

It took you way too long, but it was after one decisive night in that lonesome room of yours, fighting back the tears while finally reading those soft and beautiful words Jungkook used to pour his heart out, to confess his unmistakable love for you, that you finally made the decision. It was now or never, whatever the outcome of this might be, you’d face it and endure it.

So it was with shaky hands and wobbly legs that you carried yourself to Jeon’s apartment, holding the flowers tightly, afraid that they might disappear if you loosen the grip.

Several seconds passed with you standing outside his door, fearing that if you knocked reality might finally hit you in the face with the bitter truth: Jungkook didn’t want you anymore.

“Are you gonna stand there all day, or you’ll finally let me get in my house?”

That husky and seductive voice. It was hard to miss and hard to mistake it for anyone else’s. That particular voice tone has been playing in your head ever since the night everything went down. It was obvious who it belonged to, and the undeniable fact only made your nerves reach a whole new level.

“See, I wouldn’t usually complain about a pretty girl standing outside my door, but I really need to get these bags inside.” Jungkook didn’t seem bothered by your presence, and even if he did you would never notice.

Maybe you made the right choice to come and finally talk, or maybe you didn’t.

Truth was that as it has been stated many times before, you were very oblivious, so it would be no surprise if you read the room wrong. But then again, he called you pretty, right? Wouldn’t that count for something?

“I— Yes! Fuck, sorry, I didn’t know you weren’t home.”

First apology of the night; many more to come.

“Would you mind helping me get my keys?” The dark-haired man in front of you turned around, just the right amount to insinuate that you grab the keys from his back pocket. “The left one.”

Hesitantly, you reached out and dug into his pocket to retrieve the keys and give them to him. There was a light and soft touch when your fingers brushed that sent a slight shiver through your body.

It has been so long since the last time you were this close to Jungkook that you were already forgetting his touch, his smell and the way he could mesmerize you with a single look.

“Come on in.” Jeon led the way inside his house. “Get comfortable while I put this away.”

Jungkook was quick to make his way to the kitchen, getting the groceries out of the bags and setting everything in their respective place. It was hard for you to loosen up and get comfortable in a space that became foreign to you. Had it been any other time, you wouldn’t have thought twice before sitting on the couch, or even following him to the kitchen to tell Jungkook about your day while he loaded his fridge with meat and veggies. But now it was different. Now you felt an increasing tension between you two, which made you stand stiff in the middle of his living room, rethinking your decision of finally confronting him.

It was not that you were a coward —maybe you were— but more so the fact that you didn’t know how to have a proper and serious conversation with the guy in question. The talk you had with your brother was orchestrated by Taehyung himself, you only chimed in to apologize profusely, which shouldn’t have been enough but seemed to be more than sufficient for your brother. However, this time the ball was in your court, you were meant to do the talking while Jungkook was expected to listen attentively or at least pretend he was.

Maybe you should’ve thought this through before putting your plan into action, but it was too late to back down now, and in all honesty, you weren’t sure if you were capable to postpone this conversation any longer.

“I gotta admit, when Taehyung told me you were planning on paying me a visit I didn't believe him.” Jungkook’s voice rang through your ears once again, he walked back from the kitchen, becoming aware of your quizzical look. “Oh, he didn’t tell you we were back on friendly terms, I see.” He chuckled, beckoning you to sit on the couch with him.

Not only did your brother omit the fact that he was back to being friends with Jungkook, but also he couldn’t keep his mouth shut about your plans of finally talking to Jeon, which made you upset by default. You thought that by now secrets and hiding things would have been out of the picture between you and Taehyung, but it looked like it was only you who decided to go down the path of honesty.

“You two… Is everything okay between you and my brother?” It was only fair to ask, although you already knew the answer.

Jungkook nodded, looking away from you.

“He called me a few days ago to talk, and well…” He drifted off. “I would say that everything’s back to normal.”

“That’s good.” You nodded.

It truly was. It might not seemed like it, but you were equally concerned about their bond being broken as you were about yours with your brother. It would deeply pain you to know that they couldn’t continue to be the best of friends after the incident. It sent you a sense of relief that they were on good terms again, at least you didn’t have to worry about ruining their friendship anymore.

“Are those for me?” His sudden question made you blink repeatedly. “The flowers, I mean.”

Looking down at your lap you realized that you were still tightly holding the bouquet of striped carnations.

“Oh… yes, they’re for you.” Your hands moved slowly to softly place the bouquet on Jungkook’s palm.

“Why thank you.” He seemed surprised. “Usually I’m the one gifting flowers, not the other way around, so this is a first. Although, I don’t know if I should feel flattered or concerned that you’re giving me…” Jungkook stopped for a moment to look at the flowers more attentively. “Striped carnations.”

Of course he knew the meaning of the flowers. When has Jungkook not made you feel like a total idiot due to his undeniable intelligence?

“Yeah, well…” You drifted off, not really knowing what to say.

The dark-haired guy let out a soft sigh, while the ghost of a smile took place on his lips.

“Why are you here, Y/n?” Jungkook asked, silently urging you to answer honestly. “We both know you’re not here just to deliver these.”

You took a deep breath, avoiding his eyes for a second. In theory, it shouldn’t be this hard to answer his question or to start the speech that you have been memorizing all these days, but it was easier said than done. It was as if all the words in the English language had vanished from your brain, and you were left with dumb sounds that wouldn’t help your case.

“Maybe I should change my question.” Jungkook placed the flowers on this coffee table, before speaking again. “Are you sure you want to go through this today? It’s obvious you came here to talk about us, but how I see it, you might not be ready for it yet.”

You shook your head, squirming in your place to find a more comfortable position.

“I wanna do this, I really do.” You assured him. “I just don’t know how to start.”

The tattooed man nodded, carefully sliding a bit closer to you.

“Maybe you can start by telling me why you gave me those flowers.”

Jungkook, bless his heart, always knew how to get the best out of you. It was easy for him to get people to talk about things they didn’t even know they needed to let out. It almost made you think he had some sort of magic going on that would compel others to be open about their feelings.

“They… They symbolize regret.” You finally answered. “They’re usually given when you want to apologize to someone.”

It was certainly easier to explain the meaning than to actually do it, but it must count for something, right?

“Mhmm.” He hummed, waiting for you to continue with your explanation. “Why give them to me then?”

“Because I want to apologize to you.” There, you finally said it, there was no going back. “I’m sorry, Jungkook.” Taking a deep breath you continued. “I’m sorry about what happened that night, I’m sorry for the way I treated you afterwards; I’m sorry for putting all the blame on you when I was just as guilty. I’m so fucking sorry for the things I did and said.”

You felt like you could finally breathe, like a weight was slowly lifting off your shoulders.

“You didn’t deserve any of that.” Tears were starting to cloud your vision. “I didn’t mean it when I said I wished I didn’t meet you. It was so stupid of me to say it, getting to know you has been one of the most complicated yet amazing things that have happened to me. And I’m truly sorry that I wasn’t able to show it.”

Jeon reached out to wipe away the tears that were starting to run down your cheeks.

“Please don’t cry.” He begged, almost too quietly.

It pained him how aggravated and distressed you were, right in front of him. Jungkook knew it was only right for you to apologize but it wasn’t fair that you were suffering so much when he was at fault too.

“I’m sorry too.” He finally apologized. “I did things wrong, I shouldn’t have agreed to hide all of this from Taehyung. I knew we weren’t doing the right thing, but I let it slide because it meant I could have you longer.”

Jeon regretted how things went down, but it would be a lie if he said he didn’t enjoy his time with you. Jungkook knew that the moment the truth was out, it would only complicate everything for the both of you; not to mention that he was scared that Taehyung would prohibit him from being near you. Jungkook was so weak for you that he couldn’t stand the possibility of losing you so easily. And so it was decided that it would be kept as a secret for as long as you two deemed necessary. However, he didn’t really think that the outcome would be so painful.

“I just… I couldn’t bear not being with you. I couldn’t let you go.” Jungkook confessed. “I’m sorry. A lot of things would’ve been different if I did.”

“No.” You shook your head. “Even if you tried, I wouldn’t have let it happen.” You brushed the tears away, trying to keep your composure. “Could you please forgive me? I don’t… I don’t want you to hate me”

You were silently praying that the answer to your question would be yes. It scared you that he reserved the right to reject you and move on with his life. After all, it wouldn’t surprise you if he did, it would be rightfully deserved.

However, Jungkook once again proved to you that he was way different from what you picture him to be.

“I already forgave you, sweet cheeks.”

His smile, oh how much you missed his smile. It was the rainbow you needed to see after a storm. Like a warm blanket during a snowy day. Like the comfort you seeked when everything outside was falling apart.

It was so him, and it almost brought you back to tears when you finally saw it. Shining so bright and pretty on his face.

“And I’m afraid that there’s nothing you could do to make me hate you.” His hand reached out to cup your cheek, making you lean into his touch. “Would you be willing to forgive me too? I know I hurt you with the things I’ve done, but–”

“Yes. I forgive you, Kook.” You smiled at him softly.

“That means we’re good, right?”

If only it was that easy.

There was one thing that was still bothering you and it was the unmistakable feelings for the boy in front of you. Confessing has always been hard, but when it comes to confessing your feelings to Jeon Jungkook, it was ten times worse.

“Actually, there’s something I still need to talk about.” You approached the matter carefully.

“What is it?” Jungkook felt uneasy, he didn’t know what else you had to say, but it was making him nervous. As if he knew something bad would happen. “Are you still upset?”

“No! No, no, it’s not that.” You assured him. “I… it might be a dumb question but… That text, the one you sent me the last time you tried to reach out to me.”

Why was it so hard to say it?

“Did you mean it, all of it?”

A sigh abandoned Jungkook’s lips, and the hand that was once holding your face, slowly retrieved to fall on his lap.

That was it, he was gonna reject you. That was the thought running through your head. His lack of response set a crack in your heart, making you feel vulnerable, making you feel dumb. It was obvious what his answer was going to be, why did you even have to ask?

“You read it?” Jungkook finally spoke. “I thought you simply decided to ignore it.”

You sighed, feeling ashamed of your actions.

“I did at first. I mean, I only got to read it as of recent because I… might have blocked you.” You cringed after finally confessing what you did. “I know it was childish, trust me, but I was mad at the time and I thought it was for the better.”

Jungkook simply nodded, showing you a reassuring smile.

“So yes, I read it, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t surprise me.” You looked like in his eyes. “That’s why I’m asking… Did you really mean it?”

The words adorning your screen late at night while you were reading the long paragraph he sent you were engraved in your brain. It was all memorized at this point. You spent night after night reading every single word while tears were spurting out of your eyes, lamenting that you didn’t open his message sooner.

I would never forgive me for the pain I’ve caused you.

I’m sorry for being a coward and not saying this to your face.

You already knew how sorry he was, not only because he apologized only a few seconds ago, but Jungkook also poured his heart and soul into that message, letting you know how deeply sorry he felt for what he put you through.

This is me being honest, this is me being true to myself.

The confession was the hardest part to read, but it was equally shocking and relieving to know that…

I wish I could say this to you, face to face.

He indeed…

But I can’t hide it any longer.

Felt the same…

I love you, Y/n.

For you.

“I did. I meant it, with my whole heart.” Jungkook smiled at you, sweetly, delicately, lovingly. He wanted to express his love for you in any way he could, in every gesture, every word, every smile. “I don’t know if I might regret this later or not, but what I know is that I don’t want to act as if I weren’t so madly in love with you.”

His answer drew a gasp out of you. It was one thing reading his confession and getting to know his real feelings for you, but listening to him say it out loud was a new, different experience.

Jungkook looked at you as if you held the world in the palm of your hands, as if you were the remedy for his pain; as if you were the only person worth fighting for. And maybe you were. He’s never felt any sort of feeling that could come close to the emotions he has experienced and continues to experience with you. His heart has never beaten so hard to the point of feeling as if it were to escape from his chest. It only felt like that when he was around you.

You were the reason for Jungkook's many sleepless nights, when Jeon could only think of every little detail about you that he loved so much. Your laugh, your smile, the way a frown would be adorning your face when you try to concentrate, or how adorable you look while playing with any pet you come across.

It was so hard for him to get you out of his mind; so difficult to erase the feeling of your skin burning against his, of your lips traveling all around his body to leave marks that he prayed would last a lifetime, because maybe that way, at least a part of you would stay within himself.

“I know you might not feel the same.” His husky voice echoed through the walls of his living room after a moment of silence. “And I didn’t say all those things in hopes you would reciprocate my feelings. I just couldn’t keep hiding it anymore.”

His words were running through your mind, as a distant noise. You wanted to say a lot of things, to scream from the top of your lungs that you loved him just as much, or maybe even more than he did you. But your brain and mouth weren’t connected, as it seems, because instead of putting an end to both of your sufferings, you opted to ask him:

“How long have you felt this way?”

Jungkook sighed, reminiscing about all the moments where he felt like falling in love with you. There weren’t that many, in all honesty, but every single one of them felt like the loveliest of dreams.

“I’m not entirely sure.” He confessed. “Maybe it was when I first met you and you were so nervous around me that you even tripped over your feet and fell onto me.” A smile was slowly appearing on his face, “Or perhaps it was when I picked you up from your friends house that one night. You were absolutely hammered and babbling about one of your friends doing a backflip while drinking a shot.”

“I was a complete mess that time.”

It was embarrassing to remember that night. You drank and ate so much that you ended up emptying your stomach the moment you walked in your house. The majority of it was a blur, but despite your clouded memory you could still remember the silly things you were saying to Jungkook.

It also happened to be the first time you almost confessed your feelings for him.

“You say that, but back then I thought that you were the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, with that green dress and your rosy cheeks.” Jungkook reached out to caress your face with his thumb. “The way you smiled at me that night… it was so hard for me not to kiss you until I lost breath.”

His words felt like a warm hug to your heart. Love is always a nightmare when you fall alone, and for so long you felt like it was only you who felt the chemistry between the two.

“Truth is, that I don’t know when or how I fell for you, it just naturally happened.” He smiled at you, cupping your cheek once again. “And I think it’s your fault I fell this hard.” Before you could protest, he continued. “How could I not develop feelings when you’re such a lovable person, Y/n. So caring, kind and beautiful through and through. Anyone would be lucky to have you in their life and call you theirs.”

“Do it then.” A clear and determined glint was adorning your eyes. “Have me and call me yours.”

Your bold request surprised both of you. Jungkook wasn’t expecting you to say such a thing, let alone that you would indirectly confess that you wanted him in the same way he did you.

“What’d you say?”

“If you’re willing to have me, I want to be yours.” The anticipation was killing you, making all your senses be on the lookout for any sign of discomfort on Jungkook’s face. “I like you, Kook, and I mean it with my whole heart.”

Jeon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had already accepted the fact that you didn’t reciprocate his feelings. A one sided, unrequited love was all he got, but perhaps life finally decided to give me a breather and let him have the ounce of happiness that the boy desperately craved all along.

“You mean… you feel the same?” He asked carefully, waiting for your answer impatiently. “You lo—, no, you like me too?”

With a soft nod and a bright smile, you answered: “I do. I do like you, and I do love you, Jungkook.”

The words felt foreign coming from your mouth, as if you never imagined yourself proclaiming your love for the boy on countless nights. Reality, however, was way better than any hypothetical scenario where Jungkook would run to you to say it was mutual.

You could see the exact moment when your words finally made sense in his head, when he finally realized that this was not a dream and that you, in fact, felt the same for him.

“You better not be joking.” Jeon teased, still being a bit apprehensive that you might laugh at his face as part of some twisted prank to break his heart. “This is… not how I imagined this would go.”

“Me neither, but I can promise you that I’m being as serious and honest as I can be.”

“I believe you.”

And he really did; deep down Jungkook knew that even if life would want to turn on him and watch him suffer, you would never play a part in that. Your words felt sincere, despite the hesitation in your voice and your fidgeting fingers.

Jungkook was sure that he could lay his heart in your hands, and let you take it away to make it yours, and he would never have to worry of you hurting it.

“Now, does that mean we’re good, right?” He asked once again, with a bright grin on his face.

“Yes, we’re good now.” You giggled, sliding closer to him.

“So, can I kiss you now?”

You stopped in your tracks, with your wide-eyed gaze and tingling fingers, ready to feel his skin on yours.

It has been a long time since the last kiss you two shared, you would be lying if you said you weren’t needy for his kisses or his touch, and so, without a second thought you leaned in, stopping just a few inches from his face.

“Do it.”

Jungkook didn’t need more than that. Your words were enough to make him lose his composure and crash his lips against yours.

A warm sensation spread all around your body, filling you with ecstasy and the serotonin you much needed, also luring you to take more and more of him. Your hands started a slow trip up his torso to finally wrap around his neck and pull him closer than before.

Jungkook was holding you with such delicacy, as if he were scared that you would break. It felt like a lifetime since the last time he had you like this and the boy was afraid he would do something that could ruin the moment. Days and days Jeon spent replaying in his head those moments full of passion and need that you two loved to share; the times where he would have you in his arms, silently claiming you as his, while his lips traveled across your skin to paint your flesh with hues of red and purple. Back then, Jungkook could only hope that said marks would fade slowly, letting him enjoy the way your body had proof that the only man able to take all your inhibitions and make you reach the sky was no other than himself.

Now, feeling you like this, touching you like this, without the fear of someone seeing you and starting rumors, without the worry of hiding from your brother, and with the clear understanding that both of you feel the same for the other, Jungkook could finally enjoy the moment to the fullest. His warm hands engulfing you in his tender touch distracted you from his desperate lips running up and down your neck, and from his teeth sinking into your flesh.

A moan escaped from your mouth, parting your lips while a rush of heat conquered every inch of your skin. It was becoming difficult to keep the moment nice and romantic, without turning it into a hot mess of kisses and inappropriate touching.

“I love you, Y/n.” Jungkook whispered into your ear, before pulling slightly away to look right into your eyes. “I really do.”

His soft gaze ignited a bubbling feeling at the pit of your stomach, making you want to stay like this forever, just staring at each other with tender smiles. But a part of you knew it wouldn’t be enough, you wanted more, craved more, so it was no surprise when you pushed Jungkook to rest on the back of the couch while you moved to straddle him.

“Show me.” You asked. “Show me how much you love me.”

A sly smirk took place on Jungkook’s face, while his hands acted automatically to be placed on your hips and hold you down on his lap.

“I’m not sure you can handle it.” He teased. “That you can handle me.”

The tattooed man was looking for a challenge, to start a play of who can handle more before they get so desperate that clothes start to fly out all around the house.

“Try me, then.” You argued back. “I promise you, you’ll be surprised to find out how much of you I can handle.”

A scoff passed his lips while his hands tightened the grip on your hips.

“You sure you want this night to go like this? Don’t you prefer we take this slower?” Even if there was a light mocking tone attached to his voice, concern and worry were also adorning it.

Jungkook was still scared that tonight might be just a dream and that once he closes his eyes you would slip through his fingers to never be found again. He didn’t want to make or say the wrong thing, and it worried him that falling into old habits would do the damage he was trying to avoid.

“Do you want to take things slower?”

It was a possibility you never considered, but coming to think of it, maybe it was better to take it easy before rushing to do things you might not be ready to do just yet.

It was a fresh start after all, but maybe that didn’t implied fucking on the same night you two finally confessed your feelings for the other.

“I want you, but I don’t want to ruin this chance we have now.” His answer warmed your heart, making you smile at him. “I don’t want to make old mistakes and make you think I’m only using you for your body.”

“I know you’re not, at least now I do.” You assured him. “I want you, Jungkook, and I want this with you, but if you’re not ready that’s completely fine, we don’t have to do anything.”

He shook his head, wrapping both of his arms around your waist to hold you close to him.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay with this.” A kiss was softly placed on your lips, before Jungkook suddenly stood up with you in his arms, carrying you to his bedroom. “But if we’re gonna do this, let’s do it somewhere comfortable.”

“The couch was comfortable enough.” You giggled, holding onto him to make sure you didn't fall.

“Maybe, but my girl deserves better than that.”

The last time you were in his room was when Jungkook decided it was a good idea to stay in, instead of going out with your friends. He managed to convince you to stay with him, as he promised you a night full of food, drinks and his head buried in between your thighs.

Back then you didn’t care to observe the little details that made Jungkook’s room so him.

His walls were painted with a somber hue of blue, adorned with pictures of him and the rest of his friend group or his family. Your brother appeared in most of the photos, as Jungkook cherished every single moment they have spent together. There was even a picture of him and his dog, Bam, which was currently at his parents house, framed on the nightstand. The rest of the room was as any guy’s room would be; clothes scattered across the floor, that you would often steal from him whenever you were at his place; messy desk with cans of beer and energy drinks, as well as his computer and a pair of headphones; two vapes were also left on the desk, next to a pair of rings and a watch.

The bed was adorned with a single pillow and white sheets. He didn’t need much as he lived alone, but anytime you were over Jungkook would try to accommodate his house to make you feel comfortable.

“Sorry for the lack of pillows.” He apologized when he put you down on the soft mattress. “I didn’t know you were coming over, or I would’ve gotten the one you like so much.”

“It’s not like we’re gonna use it right now, so we’re good.” You chuckled tugging his shirt to bring him down to you. “Now, please do something, I’ve been waiting for way too long to have you like this again.”

“So impatient.” He smirked, running his hands up and down your sides. “Let me take my time with you, like you said, it’s been too long.”

Jungkook started a trail of kisses down your neck, while his hands pushed up the fabric of your shirt to knead your hot skin.

“We need to take this off.” He didn’t waste a moment to take your shirt off, admiring your upper body with hungry eyes. “Fuck, I missed seeing you like this, baby.”

Jeon didn’t give you time to reply before his mouth attacked your lips once again. There was desperation and neediness coursing through both of your bodies and it was palpable how bad you wanted one another, which in result made the two of you act clumsy while getting undressed.

Jungkook struggled to take off your bra and pants but he finally did, leaving you only in your underwear. His hands ran up to fondle your tits, feeling them and tugging at your nipples while his lips were rapidly traveling down to the place where you needed him the most.

“So fucking perfect, you have no idea how much I wanted to have you like this.” He confessed, placing wet kisses all around your inner thighs.

“Jungkook…” You called for him in a breathy voice, while squirming in your place.

The sensations he was sending right to your core were making it impossible for you to stay put.

“Please…” You begged.

“Please, what?” He asked. “What do you want, beautiful?”

It was hard for you to talk, especially with his mouth so dangerously close to your soaked cunt, but you managed.

“Please touch me.” You moaned out, hands traveling down to pull his hair and get him closer to your core.

“Is this not enough?” Jungkook inquired, playfully. He didn’t relent, getting out of your grasp to do as he pleased. “Do you need more, baby?”

A nod was all he got, but that wouldn’t cut it, not for Jungkook.

“Use your words.” A harsh smack was delivered to one of your thighs, making it jiggle. “Come on, be good and tell me what you want.”

Groaning you rested your weight on your shoulders to look down at him with desperate eyes.

“Please touch me here.” Your hand moved rapidly to caress your center through your wet underwear. “I need you so bad.”

“That’s all you had to say, sweetheart.” Jungkook didn’t waste a second longer on teasing you, instead he made sure to take off your dripping panties, putting them to the side and forcing your legs to stay wide open. “Look at that, so pretty and wet for me, huh?” He ran his fingers through your folds, smearing your juices all over. “This is just for me, right baby?”

You nodded vehemently, chasing after his touch.

“Yes, only you can get me like this.”

The tattooed guy dipped down, placing a dangerous kiss right under your navel, so close yet so far away from where you needed him the most. A fire was ignited in between your legs, and Jungkook was the perfect remedy for that. His lips traveled down slowly, coming face to face with your dripping cunt. He took his sweet time licking up and down your folds, his wet tongue felt wonderful against your burning flesh, making you elicit the sweetest of sounds just for him.

“Fuck, that feels so good.” Moan after moan, your composure and sanity were slowly disappearing, leaving you with an ardent need to grind against his tongue. “Faster, please…”

Your boy couldn’t deny any of your wishes, and so his pace quickened in a matter of seconds, running his tongue up and down as fast as he could, only momentarily stopping at your clit to suck on it before continuing with his ministrations. Jungkook was avidly eating you out, enjoying the taste of your juices on his hot tongue and the feeling of your entrance clenching on it whenever he let it slip in. It was like heaven on earth, like a much needed meal he waited for so long. And just like a starved man, Jeon did his best to devour you until there was nothing else from you that he could take.

“Don’t stop, I’m so fucking close!” You could feel his fingers opening your folds to make their way inside your cunt, pumping in and out at a slow pace. “Oh my god!”

Your hands were still pulling at his hair, desperately trying to get a good hold on him to bring him closer and closer to you.

“You taste so freaking good, baby.” Jungkook pulled away to inhale some air before diving in again and smothering his face with your soaking folds. “Fuck, best pussy I’ve ever had.”

His nasty words were making your eyes flutter shut, with a stream of curses falling off your lips. It was ridiculous how good he could make you feel with his mouth and his fingers, you always wondered how he knew exactly what to do to make you see the stars. Jungkook was so good at reading your body, even better than you ever could; his touch was delicious, charged with the right amount of passion to throw you over the edge.

“You getting close, doll? Wanna come on my tongue, hm?”

“Yes, please! I’m so close.” You begged, breathlessly. “I just— fuck, need it… need to cum, please.”

A chuckle vibrated against your cunt, making you shiver. His fingers slipped out of your hole, leaving you empty and needy.

“Go on, pretty, cum for me.”

It was almost automatic; the moment those words left Jungkook’s mouth, the waves of your pending orgasm finally crashed over your body, making your legs shake and leaving your skin coated in goosebumps. Eyes fully shut and mouth widely open, not caring about the obscene sounds coming out of it like a chant. Jeon’s name was repeated over and over like a broken record, just like a fervent believer would pray away their sins, so vehemently, so desperately. His name was attached to your brain, making it the only coherent word leaving your lips.

“There you go, that’s my good girl.” He caressed your sides softly. “You look so beautiful when you cum.”

His praise made your head feel fuzzy and the fire between your legs was fueled once again, ready for another round.

Slowly you opened your eyes, blinking away the tiredness and trying to focus on the boy in front of you. His face became clearer and clearer, providing you with one of his breath-taking smiles.

“You good there?” Jungkook asked, sweetly, while a tender kiss was placed on your lips. “D’you wanna take a moment?”

You shook your head, still recovering your ability to speak properly.

“I wanna…” A whisper ran through his ears, prompting him to lean closer. “Want to…”

“What do you want, my love?”

My love.

Jungkook has never called you that before, and if you were to be true, it felt fucking amazing to hear him say it.

“You, I want you.” It was your final answer, looking right up at him with a fierce glare.

Your hands reached out to palm him through his boxers, feeling his hard erection twitch under your touch. The dark-haired boy hissed at the sensation of your fingers wrapping around his cock, while giving it a light squeeze.

“You don’t— shit, you don’t have to.” Jeon reassured you. “Let me… take care of you.”

“But I want to.” You argued back, slipping your hand inside his underwear. He felt heavy and warm, and so painfully hard that it made you feel bad that he had to stay confined in the small space of his boxers while he ate you out. “Let me taste you, baby.”

You were craving his cock ever since you stepped into his room; the mental image of his dick pumping in and out of your mouth left you salivating, almost whimpering at the thought.

“Please, I wanna make you feel good too.”

Jungkook closed his eyes for a brief moment, pondering if he should let you have your way or if it was better to turn you around and fuck you into oblivion. He reasoned, at the end, that he could do both. Jeon would let you have your fun for a moment, and afterwards he would completely destroy you with his cock.

“How can I say no to such a pretty baby?” He grinned at you, getting in a more comfortable position while taking his underwear off. “It’s all yours, sweetheart.”

Scrambling quickly to rest on your hands and knees, you took his cock into one of your palms, slowly stroking him and smearing the drop of saliva you spat onto his dick, to make it easier for you to move your hand.

It was such an amazing sensation, your small hand struggling to wrap around his thick cock, fighting your own urge to pump him dry until he was whimpering and begging. Maybe another time you’ll be able to see that side of him, but tonight you were determined to make him cum in your mouth, and so deciding you wouldn’t waste a second longer, you took his red head in between your lips, rocking your head slowly to take more and more of his length. Little by little you were able to fit almost all of him inside your throat, choking a little bit when his tip reached a bit too far.

“Fuck, that feels amazing, baby. Keep going.” He moaned, looking down at you and the way his dick disappeared inside your mouth with ease. “Just like that, don’t you dare stop.”

Your pace increased, ripping moans and groans out of the boy. Your heart swelled with pride for making him sound and act like that; it took you way too long to be in such a position once again that you were fearing you didn’t have the same effect on him anymore.

“Faster, doll, I know you can go faster.” His hand weaved through your hair to get a hold on your head and guide your movements. “That’s right, fuck, your mouth was made only for my cock.”

It truly was, his dick fit almost perfectly and without further complications. The way you were so eager to take him in, without flinching or gagging was truly amazing for the man in front of you. Jungkook was mesmerized by your ability to suck him off until he didn’t have much to give.

“Shit, stay still for a moment.” He ordered, placing both hands at each side of your head. You did as told, waiting for his next move. “There you go, I want to fuck this pretty mouth of yours.”

His hips swayed beautifully, thrusting in and out of your throat. His cock was reaching places like never before and brought tears to your eyes due to the effort of keeping your jaw relaxed and opened for him.

“That’s it, such a good little slut, letting me use you, huh?” He teased, smirking right at you. “You like it when I use you like this, don’t ya?”

It was as clear as day that you did, no need for an answer, yet you tried to nod, which only caused to boost his ego due to how much you struggled to move.

“Mhm, I know you do, baby.” His pace increased and so did his moans; it was difficult for the tall guy to be quiet, especially with the delicious feeling of your mouth on his cock.

All of a sudden he pulled away, letting you recover your breath and positioning you to lay back down again.

“As much as I’d love to keep fucking your mouth, I’d rather stuff this pretty pussy with my cum.” Jungkook leaned down to suck on your neck, making sure to leave a mark on a very obvious spot, where everyone would be able to see it.

Feeling like you belonged to someone, like you were a nice piece of jewelry owned by a man like Jungkook, it should have caused you a very different feeling from the one you were experiencing. Your eyes shouldn’t be searching for him, impatiently, to see that look of determination in his orbs that would tell you that you belonged to him and him alone. Your hands shouldn’t reach out to touch his back, sinking your nails into his flesh just like his teeth did in your skin; a weak attempt to reciprocate the feeling, to make it clear who was the only girl who would make the great Jeon Jungkook so desperate and needy. But they did, and you enjoyed it; you loved the hiss coming from his mouth and the shiver coursing his body. You adored the way his eyes softened for a brief second, while looking right into yours and straight into your heart.

It was like a stroke to your ego, knowing it was you who he craved, who he needed. It was you, and it would continue to be you for a long time.

Jungkook finally pulled away from your neck, standing tall in front of you and guiding himself to slide up and down your folds, coating his cock with your juices. His tip was nudging at your clit every time he went up, making you gasp and shudder.

It was a torture, feeling him so close yet so far from your entrance, the worst part was that he enjoyed getting you like this; Jungkook loved toying with you. And it was so unfair how much the boy could make you crave his touch, but not give it to you.

“Just put it in, for fucks sake.” A frustrated groan abandoned your lips.

You couldn’t handle the teasing anymore. However, you didn’t think about the consequences of your words and how bad it would end for you for demanding such a thing.

Jungkook stopped all of his movements, slowly drifting his gaze up, to look right into your eyes. His gaze darkened, making you recoil in your place, while your legs started to close in anticipation of his next move.

Jeon moved to get close to your ear and whisper, “I’m gonna let it slide just because I’m as eager as you to fuck you dumb, but be careful with what you say, princess.” Slowly, he pulled away, to then harshly open your legs and slap your clit with his cock. “Turn around.” He ordered.

It took you a few seconds to register his words in your brain, but finally you did as told, albeit reluctantly, because you wanted to see and feel him from up close while he fucked you into oblivion.

“Don’t turn your face.” He caught you trying to look over your shoulder, guiding your head to look right into the pillow.

“But I wanna see you.” You whined, not fighting him anymore.

“Shoulda thought about it, before acting like a brat.” A slap was delivered to your ass cheek, making you flinch and whimper. “And be grateful I’m being nice enough to fuck you, despiste your nasty attitude.”

Jungkook positioned himself with your entrance, anticipating the tight grip of your warm walls.

“I’m sorry.” You apologized quietly, in an attempt to make him relent and change positions.

“Too late for that, baby.” He chuckled while thrusting all the way into your tight cunt, not giving you time to argue any longer. “Fuck, this is heaven.” His head lolled back, placing both of his hands at each side of your hips to guide your movements.

“Oh my fucking god!” You exclaimed, feeling his veiny cock reach every crook of your insides.

Moans and whimpers were falling from your lips uncontrollably, due to how good Jungkook’s dick felt. He hasn’t moved yet since he thrusted in, but the sensation alone of being filled to the brim with his length was enough to make you see stars.

“Mo-Move.” You stuttered, trying to bounce back and create the much needed friction. “Please, move!”

Jungkook could only smirk, enjoying how vulnerable you were at the moment, completely at his mercy. He controlled your body and pleasure perfectly, knowing the spots and touches that would get you shuddering in pure bliss.

“Now you remember your manners, doll?” He grunted, slowly retrieving from inside your pussy, all the way out until your walls could only wrap around the tip. “How convenient.”

You wanted to argue and clap back, but it was impossible to form a coherent thought while being tortured like that. Jungkook didn’t care that he was also stopping himself from feeling the ridiculously amazing sensation of fucking into you, as long as he could teach you a lesson and make you regret your words and actions.

“Please, please, please.” You cried out, trying to move, but giving up after the tall man stopped you with a harsh smack. “Jungkook…”

The way you said his name made the guy feel some type of way, but still not enough to give you exactly what you wanted.

“You gotta ask me nicely, princess, and I might give it to you.”

He wanted you to ask nicely and ask nicely is what you did; gathering enough strength to softly utter the words, you tried to clear your throat to finally speak.

“Please, Kook, can you fuck me so good until I forget my name?” Such a sweet tone for such a lewd request. “I need you to fill me up with your cock, please.”

The tattooed guy leaned down, wrapping one of his strong arms around your neck while dipping down to whisper in your ear.

“Mmm, you sound so fucking pretty when you beg for me like that.” His gentle lips kissed up and down your jaw. “You did good, baby. I think you finally deserve it.”

Without previous warning, Jungkook thrusted all the way in again, filling you up to the brim, however, this time he didn’t torture you with a slow pace or any sort of teasing. Jeon didn’t waste a second longer and commenced to rapidly pound into you, until you could only whine and whimper.

His arm wrapped around your neck was slightly obstaculazing your breathing, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. It felt immensely good to be fucked nice and hard while every single inch of Jungkook’s body was engulfing you.

“Fuck, you feel amazing, baby.” He moaned. “Clenching on my cock, so good.”

His free hand traveled down in between your legs to rub your clit, making you so sensitive and causing even more moans to fall from your lips.

“Sh-shit, oh god!” You exclaimed with a trembling voice. “So big… so deep.”

A chuckle rumbled from Jungkook’s chest. He has always loved how dirty you would get for him, speaking nonsense about his size and how good he fucks you. It was truly an ego boost.

“Yeah? You like how deep I go, baby?” He panted, due to all the effort he was putting into destroying you with his cock. “You love when I fuck you like this, don’t you?”

You could only nod, it was hard to form a coherent sentence at the moment.

“Look at you,” he laughed. “You can’t even talk.”

You couldn’t protest, couldn’t even move. The only thing you could do was relax and allow your body to enjoy the way Jungkook was so avidly thrusting into you. Your arms and legs were starting to give up, feeling too tired to keep your body up; you just wanted to lay down.

Jungkook could feel your exhaustion, and so he quickly unwrapped his arm from your neck, to then turn you around and get you in a comfortable position, all of this while still fucking you senseless.

“There you go, better?” He asked, genuinely concerned about your wellbeing.

“Mhm.” You hummed, closing your eyes while your hands fisted the sheets. “Don’t stop…”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Jungkook felt like dying with the way your walks were clenching on him. Your pussy felt heavenly, so warm and so tight only for his cock. He knew he had already ruined you for any other man you could possibly meet in your life —not like he’s gonna let that happen, anyway—, and he loved that fact. The dark-haired boy enjoyed how you would only crave him, need him, beg just for him. This side of you, no one knew, he was sure that not even your past boyfriends got to see you like this. So free, so dirty, so beautiful and tempting. It was only him, and Jungkook could only wish it continued to be like that for a long time.

Amidst Jungkook’s wandering thoughts, he didn’t realize you had opened your eyes once again, looking right into his own, with such a fierce stare. Your hands started a slow trip from his thighs up to his chest, caressing his honeyed skin which was glistening with sweat; shining just right under the moonlight. Your nails softly scratched his flesh, making the boy tremble under your touch and lean into your hands to feel more of you. It was getting to that point where he no longer held power or willingness to be dominant. Jeon was starting to lose himself in you, in the way your cunt was wrapped around his cock, in the way his length would poke your stomach because of how deep he was; in the way your mouth was softly calling for him, accompanied by obscene noises that he only loved hearing if the came from you.

“You look so fucking pretty, Y/n.” The lack of a pet name sent a warm hug to your heart. You knew he was being serious; no teasing, no mocking. Jungkook was speaking from his heart, completely enamored with the view of you; panting underneath him while your body welcomed his embrace so perfectly. “I could never get tired of looking at you, my pretty baby.”

There were not enough words in the English language that could help you express how grateful you were for having a man like Jungkook in your life. But perhaps there was no need, since you knew that showing it was always more effective than saying it.

Your hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him down to mesh his lips with yours. His swollen lips moved slowly and gently, a stark contrast to the way he was fucking you. His cock was wildly ramming into you, while his lips were softly caressing yours. His tongue quickly made its way inside your mouth, starting a fight with your own to assert dominance, nonetheless, it was futile, that fight was already won by him and you could only back down and enjoy his touch.

“I’m so close.” You moaned, wrapping both of your legs around his waist to make him go even deeper. “I need to— fuck, I need to cum.”

Jungkook shook his head, heavily breathing while gathering his thoughts to talk properly. The feeling of it all was making him feel dizzy.

“Just… Just wait a bit longer.” He ordered you.

You groaned, fluttering your eyes shut while trying your best to hold it until he told you to let go. It became a torture once again. You knew you wouldn’t be able to wait for too long, especially with the change in pace and how deep his cock was reaching. His tip was nudging at that sweet spot of yours, making your whole body stutter and whine so perfectly that it made Jungkook grunt into your neck.

“I’m almost there.” He announced, manically pounding into you. “Just a bit more, princess.”

“I don’t… I don’t think I can wait… anymore.” You cried out, fisting his hair while your hips were desperately moving on their own volition, searching for some sweet release. “I’m gonna cum.”

It was not a warning anymore, it was a fact. Your orgasm was rapidly approaching, making your body tremble with the waves of your awaited release. Rather than holding yourself back, you finally let go, enjoying the sensations and pleasure your orgasm brought with itself.

Jungkook hissed at the way your pussy clenched on his dick, making it almost impossible for him to keep moving.

“Oh, fuck.” He cursed, looking down at where your bodies were joined, feeling a bit lightheaded from how good it felt. Your cum was coating his cock, making it shine so perfectly. “That’s my good girl, make a mess on my dick, come on.”

His encouraging words only made it even difficult for you to come down from your high, but the boy couldn’t care any less. Jungkook rejoiced in the feeling of pride for making you feel that way, to make you so vulnerable and weak that the intensity of your release would make you go dumb and turn you into a babbling mess. Not a single thought was behind those beautiful eyes of yours at that precise moment, and Jeon loved how lost you looked, reaching out in need of his comforting touch to ground yourself after such intense orgasm.

Your hands found his, intertwining your fingers to form a hard grip.

Jungkook kept fucking into you, desperately searching for his own release, not stopping for even a second to catch his breath. He needed to cum and needed it now.

“Can I cum inside you?” Jeon was so quick to ask when he felt his orgasm building up in the pit of his stomach. “Please… I wanna fill you up.”

It was such a different side of him. The whiny and needy side of him you loved so much. His begging got you weak in the knees and made your stomach flutter with adoration.

You nodded, gently caressing his face while kissing his lips once again.

“Look at me, please.” Jungkook begged so sweetly. “Keep your eyes on me, I need to see you.”

“Let go for me, baby.” You smiled up at him, staring right into his eyes, while noises full of passion echoed through the room.

His whiny moans rang in your ears, making you feel fuzzy inside.

“Fuck, so good.” He moaned, resting his forehead on yours, his eyes never looking away. “I love you, Y/n. I love you so fucking much.”

“I love you too, Kook.” You said, breathlessly, feeling his warm cum filling your already sore pussy. “Just like that, so good.”

Jungkook kept rocking into you until his legs couldn’t hold him up and he ended up crashing into you. His strong arms slowly wrapped themselves around your frame, keeping you close and safe. He hid his face in the crook of your neck, with his hot breath hitting against your skin. A stream of incoherent curses were coming out his mouth, making you giggle. Neither of you dared to speak for at least five minutes, silently deciding to enjoy each other while recovering from each of your intense orgasms.

It truly felt like heaven on earth, whether it was because of how long you two have been apart, or because of Jungkook’s amazing skills; whatever it was you felt amazing and finally complete. The missing piece of the puzzle was finally here, making your life ten times better and brighter.

Jungkook was the first one to break the silence, with his babbling and groaning.

“What was that?” You asked him to repeat himself.

“I said…” He sighed, pulling away from your neck. “I’m fucking spent.”

“Me too.” You giggled. “But it was worth it.”

“Damn right it was.”

Jungkook finally pulled out, watching his cum slowly flow out from your cunt. Two of his fingers gathered the liquid coming out of you and pushed it back inside, making you gasp in surprise.

“We can’t afford to waste any drop now, can we?” He smirked at you while his fingers danced slowly inside you. “You always feel so warm, baby, no wonder why I love your pussy so much.”

After a few seconds, Jungkook retrieved his fingers from inside of you and wrapped his pink lips around them, liking every drop of both of your cums.

“So sweet.”

A part of you wanted to push him to lay down and ride him until your legs couldn’t keep you still, but you were so tired and exhausted that even the idea of putting any effort into making Jungkook lay down made you groan.

“Come here, baby.” Jeon wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you into his side, making your head rest on his firm chest. “Let’s rest for a bit before I fuck you again.”

You hit him softly in his stomach, causing both of you to giggle.

“Just how much stamina you think I have?” You asked.

“Not so much, to be honest.” He joked. “But it’s bold of you to assume I would make you work for it a second time. I’m not that mean, baby.”

“Yeah, that’s what you want me to think.”

You looked up at him, only to realize Jungkook was already staring at you. His doe eyes were looking right into your own, making their easy way into your heart. Jungkook had a way to always make you feel special whenever he looked at you. He did it back when you two were nothing more than a quick fuck, and he did it now when your souls were finally intertwined.

“I meant it.” He started saying. “I really love you, Y/n.”

“I know, Kook.” You assured him. “And I love you too, just as much.”

A soft kiss was delivered to your forehead. “I just wanted to make it clear. I spent too much time hiding my real feelings that I’m scared you’ll get the wrong idea and feel like I’m not being honest enough.”

Your hand flew right up to rest on his cheek, caressing his cheekbone tenderly.

“I understand the sentiment, but there’s no need to hide from each other anymore. I can feel your love now, Jungkook, and it’s one of the most amazing sensations I’ve ever had.”

Your words helped the boy to feel at ease. Jungkook was on high alert for any discomfort he might cause you unwillingly; he feared you would simply leave his side if he such as said that your hands were starting to get cold. That kind of feeling was something you didn’t want the boy to experience and you were more than happy to reassure him over and over again that what he felt was not only reciprocated but it was also enough for the both of you.

“Let’s sleep a little bit, I’m too tired to even talk.” You snuggled into his side, hiding your face in the crook of his face while your arms wrapped around his torso.

Jungkook smiled fondly, looking down at your already sleepy figure.

“Rest well, princess.”

Taglist 🏷️

@aphrwodite, @r1r111, @cholychi, @artificialsuicid, @tatamicc

[maybeiwasjustjade]

Genuinely, perhaps 99% of me, believes that the only reason Condal and Hess made HOTD Aegon a r*pist/have adult Aegon’s introduction the aftermath of the SA of a maid, was because they knew that if Aegon was just a drunk and a cheat—like almost all Westerosi men—he would be too tragic of a character not to root for, and they really couldn’t have that. No, Aegon has to be the monster to Rhaenyra’s saint, because if you took away the act that made him monstrous, he’s so easy to root for, and the TB/TG divide would be significantly larger.

Cheating and visiting brothels are quite common in Westeros, with the vast majority of male characters doing one or the other or both. Drinking is even more so. Aegon would still be palatable with either or both traits because it doesn’t make him worse than Rhaenyra. Rhaenyra had three bastards with Harwin because Laenor’s gay, so it makes her affair understandable and valid. Aegon was forced to marry his own sister as a young teen, and clearly despises the whole targ-incest tradition. Why is it a crime that he doesn’t find his little sister sexually or romantically attractive???

Aegon’s basically a Greek tragedy made flesh. The eldest son conceived to be a long-awaited heir, yet simultaneously cheated out of a birthright. Born wanted yet unwanted, the heir who is not an heir. Meant to be loved, yet raised without it, with a mother’s disdain and fear as his only companion. His father stopped wanting him sometime after his second birthday (probably around the time Jacaerys was born), and his mother never wanted him anyway. His mere existence is a threat to a crown he never wanted, yet nobody cared when they placed it on his head. He wants love but no one loves him, and contrary to popular belief, that lack of love didn’t just stem from adulthood. He was a little boy once too, who very much didn’t deserve that level of apathy.

Married to his sister despite his clear disdain for his family’s incestuous tradition. Forced to father children on her at the grand old age of sixteen (and she fourteen). The only thing he ever really loved was his dragon, and the children he had. And even those he loses to tragedy, and someone else’s doing.

It’s not at all a surprise that Aegon’s defining trait is his love for Sunfyre. A ridiculously strong bond, born from years of having only each other. Moreover, a dragon is the symbol of power, which Aegon has little of. He can’t protect himself from his own family’s abuse or machinations, and unless he claims the crown everyone he loves will die. Dragons also represent freedom, and the ability to just fly away. And if there’s one thing Aegon wants more than anything in the world, it’s to run away from his family and the accursed throne.

In that, he’s not so different than a young Rhaenyra (pre-personality change anyway). Young Rhaenyra hated having to conform to societal standards. Hated having no choice but to marry, and to whom. She too wanted to fly away to freedom. There’s too many parallels between the two, even down to their ages pre-timeskip. Rhaenyra was about 18, and Aegon now is only 20. Yet Rhaenyra at 16’s only problem was whether her infant brother would replace her as heir, while Aegon’s was being forced to play house with his sister and newborn twins.

Perhaps misogyny and society would always be Rhaenyra’s greatest opponent, and the same Aegon’s ally when it comes to their claims, but it was not the only issue. Precedent declared that Aegon would be heir ahead of her, yet it was Rhaenyra’s position and honor that Viserys defied law for, even when she committed high treason against the crown thrice. She got everything; Aegon had nothing. He’s the underdog of the story, not her. So had they not made him an on screen r*pist (unlike Daemon who was off-screen one and merely an on-screen pedo and wife-killer), it would’ve been very hard for the writers to push their “Rhaenyra good, TG bad” narrative. Those two would’ve had too many parallels and foils for it to work, and they really couldn’t have that, could they.

No, Aegon has to be the villain; Rhaenyra has to be the hero. It’s a black and white war, good vs evil. That’s the story HOTD is trying to sell, and not at all the complex tragedy of a family tearing itself and its dynasty into pieces over greed and idiocy.

[macfrog]

sweet child o' mine | pt. iii

now taking name suggestions for my joel's duck doodle. must rhyme with a curse word. most creative wins.

pairing: neighbor!joel x fem!reader

summary: as your pregnancy progresses, you and joel are getting closer. dangerously closer.

warnings: reader is literally pregnant so typical pregnancy symptoms & descriptions of stuff like extreme nausea and gagging (reader throws up off-page, no graphic description past sore throat/esophagus afterward), body changing, nerves around birth/becoming mom, another sonogram (gender reveal...?), baby kicks felt, labor pains shhh, age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), joel is dating someone who isn't reader, our girl hates nye (she's valid), tommy uses colors to represent gender (he is Wrong), joel is for sure emotionally cheating at this point and reader knows it, joel kisses someone who is not his partner again, f masturbation, memories of the hot dirty sex they had whew, a SPRINKLING of breeding kink, praise kink, size kink, another parent dies (i love parents i promise ????), jealous!reader, protective!joel, alcohol consumption, cursing, a LOT of angst, lots of fluff, lil bit of smut, and duckie has the best comedic timing of any character in this entire series. :) DISCLAIMER: this series covers some issues which i know may be sensitive and possibly triggering to some. warnings will always be as thorough as possible, but if there’s ever anything you feel i’ve missed, please let me know. feel free to drop by my inbox anytime.

word count: 11.4k (sorry. lots to cover lots to do.)

pt. i / series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🩵

December.

The days are funneled by a quick pinch of dark, the breeze heavy in its sail. Houses lined with twinkling lights and windows pierced by pointed trees. Crooning from every radio station, teary-eyed movies on TV, and spiced apple everything.

You hate every fucking minute of it.

“Wait a second,” Tommy sits forward, leaning in, “you never do nothin’ for New Years?”

You shrug, lifting your eyebrows. “Nope. Just don’t like it much. That a crime?”

He considers it as he hands his empty tumbler up to Joel, his head lolling some. He’s on his…fourth drink of the night, right? Though, if you take into account his earlier argument – I’m eatin’ as I go. It don’t count. – it’s probably more like two. But it’s whiskey, so –

Never mind.

“Yeah,” Tommy finally decides, “kinda. The hell’s wrong with you, girl?”

“Tommy.”

Joel’s voice is a warning, edged by the sharp clink of three glasses pinched in his fingers.

His brother laughs amiably in response, though, nodding to your mock-offended expression. “At least you’re spendin’ it right this year. Last one before lil’ Dickie comes along, huh?”

Maria slaps his shoulder, rolling her eyes. “It’s Duckie,” she hisses, glancing over to you.

“Shoot,” he says, chuckling. “I knew that. My mistake.” And then, hand out towards you in an apology which makes your shoulders jerk with laughter, “I did know that, I swear.”

Tommy and Maria flew in a few days ago; the younger Miller adamant that he’d spend one last New Years with his big brother before he became a father. The night they arrived, they showed up on your doorstep – a hamper filled with diapers and muslins and baby socks hanging from Maria’s arm. They’ve asked to hang out with you every day since.

They’re good fun. Tommy likes you, at least, enough to tease you as much as you figure a brother might. He’s definitely the louder of the two – sometimes you swear you notice Joel cringing at him, something caught between a laugh and a frown on his face. And Maria’s sweet; she’s asked probably six times every hour since she first saw you if you’re feeling okay, if you’re tired, if you’re hungry.

Joel text you yesterday morning. Tommy and Maria wondering if you feel like coming over for NYE. No pressure, he added, I lie pretty good.

A smile snuck its way across your lips before you had the chance to tame it. Sure, you typed, I’ll bring the newspaper.

What Joel’s told them, about the wedding and the baby and everything since, you’ve no idea. You guys almost talked about it when he told you they were flying down after Christmas, but before you got the chance to ask him, Vanessa pulled up out front.

Not exactly a conversation you felt like having with the dude’s girlfriend hooked around his right arm.

She smiles at you, now, as you shuffle to the edge of the armchair you’re curled up in. Joel’s armchair – the plaid blanket cradling you, the leather soft and crinkled beneath. Your eyes quickly drop from hers when his hand reaches for your mug, your fingers crossing as you pass it up. “Let me come help,” you say, pushing from the chair.

He holds up a palm, shaking his head once. “Stay. I got it.”

“Thanks,” you murmur, settling back. Vanessa resumes smiling. You wish she’d fucking quit it. You wish you’d fucking quit focusing on her.

Joel knocks the mug gently against your shoulder with a small, almost sympathetic smile, and heads for the kitchen – leaving you sat between Tommy and Maria on one couch, and Vanessa on the other. You tuck your heels under your thighs, picking at a hangnail as you wait for the conversation to thaw.

Maria makes some comment about Austin in the winter: how different it is to Jackson, and the three of you nod and hum in agreement before the chatter fizzles to nothing again. You glance over to the clock, watching the hands chase one another to twelve.

This isn’t what you imagined a get-together with Joel’s family would feel like. Tight, tense. So tense that you can feel the weight on your chest, closing your lungs. Talking about the weather and the holiday traffic, talking about nothing to avoid talking about everything.

Tommy’s chin lifts, after a second too long of silence. “Hey, Joel!” he barks. “You ain’t shown me this nursery yet!”

Joel leans around the doorframe, half-distracted. “Barely even started it, little brother. Crib only got delivered yesterday.”

“Sheesh,” Maria’s eyes widen, “you sure are prepared.”

Vanessa laughs when Joel rolls his eyes and vanishes again. “You got no idea,” she says, “I have never seen him so…pedantic, right?” She looks to you, still smiling. So sweet, you worry your lips are pursing at the sight of it. Your neck tensing. Your eyes watering.

“Yeah,” you reply, nodding shyly and swallowing back the saccharine. “I think he’s more nervous than he’s letting on.”

Joel’s voice calls from the kitchen again: your name. When you answer, he says, “Why don’t you take Tommy up, show ‘im what we got so far?” and then, leaning back around the door, “She picked the color ‘n whatnot.”

“Ah,” Tommy says, palms pushing down on his knees, “so you’re the brains, then?”

You mirror him, accepting Joel’s request. As though you had any choice in the first place. Standing beside the younger Miller, you mutter, “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

He holds a hand out to usher you ahead, following you upstairs. Past the tousle-haired boy in grayscale, past the German shepherd, past the Christmas Day portrait. Wandering like you know the house inside out, like you might’ve picked the exact coordinates of each nail the picture frames hang on yourself.

Like the photographs pinned to the walls aren’t still as alien to you as they’d been that day you first set foot in here, the dress Joel would come to tear from your body slung over your arm.

You twist the gold handle and unveil a homely little room, painted by you and Joel just last week. The soft blue drying into his knuckles, random splatters on your palms and your jeans. The giggles drawn from your chest; the thief either the chemicals from the paint, or the man rolling it over the walls – and you’ve a pretty good idea of which.

Tommy sniffs roughly, nodding. Taps the toe of his boot against one of the two bulky boxes leant against the wall, a crib printed on one and a rocking chair on the other. His tipsy head bob bob bobbing. “Alright. ‘s nice, ain’t it?”

You settle against the window, the glass cold at your back. “Real nice, yeah. Be even better once it’s done.”

“What’s yours look like?”

“Mine?”

“Nursery at your place. Your one pink, ‘case it’s a girl?”

You snort. “Mine is a little greener. More…I guess it’s duck egg. Had some leftover paint.”

He clicks his fingers and points to you. “See what you did there. Duck egg. Duckie.”

“Hm. Wish I were that poetic. I just like the color.”

Tommy stuffs his hands in his pockets, wanders around the bare room. The faint lingering of whiskey putting up its best fight against the clean bite of fresh paint, the sweet scent shaking from him when he nods some more at the blank walls and naked windows. He clicks his teeth and asks, “How you holdin’ up, anyways?”

“How am I holding up?”

“Yep. With, uh…” he nods to the door, eyes wide, “…Vanessa,” he whispers. Louder than he must think – probably echoed, if anything, by the palm he curves around his mouth.

You cross your arms protectively, shoulders bunching. “She’s fine,” you say, voice deliberately low. You both ignore the crack in it when you add, “I like her. She’s – she’s taken this all like a champ.”

Tommy leans on the window ledge, a rugged hand you reckon you’d know was a Miller’s just by looking at it. Same rough-cut quality as Joel’s, like they’re torn from the same sheet of sandpaper. He props the other on his hip. “But, boy – it’s gotta be complicated, right?”

“I guess. But she’s real sweet about it. And Joel’s been great, too.” You sniff, the memory of your kiss flashing behind your eyes. The steady drum of Duck’s heartbeat, the gleam in Joel’s eye when he looked down at you. The guilt seeping from your skin like beads of sweat, prickling along your spine and fizzling against the cold windowpane.

Tommy blinks at you, liquor-glazed eyes scanning. His shoulders jerk, a loud huh propelling from his throat. When your head cocks in confusion, startled from your daydream, he spills. “He ‘n I had a mighty long talk when he told me.”

You feel yourself leaning in, magnetized to him – body hunched as though you’re gossiping in the corner of a house party. Inhaling secrets with the tinge of alcohol on Tommy’s breath. “Oh, yeah?”

Tommy hums. “Just wanted to make sure he’d thought it all through. Not you – I always knew he’d take care a’ you and Duck. But…involving Vanessa,” he lowers his voice again, glancing over to the warm light spilling in from the hallway, “I just wanted him to be sure.”

Your blood begins to warm, heat flooding through your body as you step closer, murmuring, “What’d he say?”

He flicks his head, seeming to toss his initial response to the wind. “You know Joel. He is his own man.”

Your face screws, head jerking back. “What’s that mean? He is his own man?”

A voice from the doorway interrupts. A shadow swimming in the golden light. “Who is?”

Tommy steps away from you, loosening his arms as his big brother drifts into the shadowy room. Dusting the conversation under the rug. The smell of whiskey backs off. “Speak of the devil. Nice paint job, Joel. Missed a couple spots, but – I’ll let you off.”

“Uhuh.” Joel’s eyes thin, his body slanted against the wall. Arms crossed, bottle of beer hanging from his fingers.

Tommy swaggers forward when Joel holds the bottle out, taking it with a wary glance at the tall figure. A dog meandering back to his owner, tail between his legs and ears flat. It takes his gritty voice to jolt you back to the room, splintering your gaze from Joel’s toned arms and huge chest. “Looks real good, you two. ‘s one lucky kid.”

Joel’s jaw lifts, his eyes landing on you. Dogs are terrible liars. “He talkin’ your ear off?”

You smile; recognizing the softer Joel you’ve grown used to over the last three months replacing the stern, cold version you once knew so well. “Only a little.”

“Tommy,” he says then, “Maria needs you for somethin’.”

The denim-donned Miller nods knowingly and heads out of the room, thud of his boots receding downstairs.

“Maria okay?” you ask, making space for Joel as he settles beside you.

He shrugs. “Only said that to get him outta your hair.”

You frown. “You sent me up here with him in the first place.”

“So I could come up ‘n check on you. Know this must be a lot – the two of them, tonight.”

“I’m fine. Promise. I’m a big girl.”

You both sigh, turning to look out at the dark street. Your arms cross, sitting somewhere above the tiny slope of your bump – a new development you’re still getting used to. Your stomach feels tighter, a little more solid than usual when you touch it. A little more…real. There’s someone in there, right? Like, actually there. They’re changing the way you look, the way you feel.

“This is it, right?” you say, staring at the white lanterns illuminating Alice Brown’s rose bushes. “This is the year.”

“The year,” Joel agrees.

“Mhm. Become a mom. Become a dad.”

He purses his lips. “Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve had bigger years, kid.”

“Let’s hear it, old man. Let’s hear about your biggest year. God knows you’ve had plenty to choose from.”

He sucks a deep breath in, eyes tracing the silhouette of the houses across the street as he thinks. “Senior year, nineteen ninety-three. Asked Stacy Moore as my date to the prom ‘n she said yes. I was so nervous that I forgot my bow tie. Was a pretty good year.”

You hum, agreeing, and then, “I see your ninety-three, and I raise you: two thousand and one. There was this bike I wanted for-fucking-ever; it had, like, little beads on the spokes – would make this ratatatat sound whenever it moved. Tassels hanging from the handlebars, all iridescent. I begged my mom the entire year for it, and on Christmas morning I woke up, and…” You lift your hands, air puffing from between your lips. “Santa Claus delivered that year, dude.”

“Well,” Joel clicks his teeth, shell hardening only a little, “thanks for making me feel old as hell.”

“You’re welcome.” You beam back at him, breaking into a laugh when he does.

The two of you stand a little distance apart, denying yourselves the innocent brushing of shoulder against shoulder, the nudging of elbows and swaying of hips. Admiring the empty sky and emptier street, bathing between the cold moonlight of outside and the warm lamplight in.

And from somewhere deep in your belly, somewhere tucked behind your ribs, beneath your slow-growing womb: an urge to ask about her. To bring her up. To tend to the curiosity that Tommy poked a clumsy, drunken finger straight into, tearing it apart at the seams.

Like pressing on a new bruise, satiating the hungry need to know where you were hurt, how you were hurt, when you were hurt. A bent fingertip, pushing heavily into a sensitive splatter of dark purple; the burst blood vessels hissing in response, whispering, You don’t know, and you don’t want to know.

But you defy them. You do want to know. Want to satisfy the disturbed thrill you felt, leaning into Joel’s brother. Hands turning over one another, wet bottom lip trembling as he rounded the corner on some sort of…what was it, a secret? Some sort of truth, a long-buried revelation about the other woman. She’s a witch, have you spotted her crooked nose? She’s plotting something, I swear. She’s up to no good.

Your eyes lift again, focusing back on the dull color of the outside world. The bland canvas of reality. She’s not a witch, nor some genius mastermind. She’s a boring, relatively normal woman. Kind, thoughtful. Naïve and a little too eager to please; too willing to forgive a situation which warrants no such kindness or empathy.

She’s just…fine. Lukewarm. And you’ve no idea why that pisses you off so much.

Which, incidentally, makes the bruise sting all the more.

“Maria, Maria,” Tommy’s voice claws its way upstairs, “turn it on, turn it – Joel? Joel! It’s midnight, Joel, you two better come on down, now! Have we missed it –? Have we –?”

The sound of cheering slowly bubbles to life behind his drawl as the TV volume picks up, the tittering of Maria and Vanessa chiming in.

“…five, four, three, two, one…Happy New Year!”

Joel’s looking over his shoulder, waiting for footsteps or voices or a girlfriend who never shows. And he ignores his brother, for he is his own man, and turns to you instead. Bracing himself on the ledge, he blinks down with a plain grin on his lips. “Happy New Year, Mom,” he whispers.

You return his smile, taking his hand when he reaches out to you. “Happy New Year, Dad,” you reply, squeezing his palm.

He pulls you in for a hug, kissing your cheek briskly as you hook your arms over his shoulders. His beard scratches your cheek, grazes the curve of your shoulder, and you don’t mind. Your small, swollen belly presses against his; the tiny curve safe in the midst of your embrace.

Outside, the sky crackles to life with the distant spatter of fireworks, color shattering across the black canvas – red, blue, green and gold, dissolving as quickly as they explode into the now-January night. A burst of purple light washes between the two of you, and you turn your head on Joel’s shoulder to watch as the sparks rain over your neighbors’ roofs.

“I should get goin’,” you whisper, feeling his heartbeat a little too strongly against your own. Becoming suddenly aware of the weight of your frames locked together.

“Glad you came,” he says as he leans away. “I know this ain’t…I know we’re all tryin’, but you’re tryin’ the most, and I appreciate it. I hope you know that.”

“I know it,” you tell him, rolling your eyes. “Now, go. Go kiss your girlfriend.”

He chuckles, making for the door. “You want me to walk you home?”

Your eyes close serenely, the image of him doused in flickers of gold burning behind your eyelids. “I’ll survive the walk across the hedgerow, Miller.”

Joel nods once and leaves, plodding downstairs to be greeted by his open-armed girlfriend, a peck between them, arms crossed behind his neck. The lyrics of Auld Lang Syne slurred against his lips.

And you think – You know what? If it’ll rip you apart from her, if it’ll keep her bright red lips and her shining curtain of hair away from you, if it’ll stop her sucking in your air and your smell and your attention for thirty fucking seconds –

Then, yeah. Walk me home. Stay for a drink. Sleep in the goddamn guestroom.

Walk me home.

You slip out of the front door when the two couples are in the kitchen, missing Joel’s calling your name – or perhaps just ignoring it altogether.

“Spread the love at St. David’s this Valentine’s Day…”

Joel slows alongside a wall of cerise hearts, each one fluttering like wings whenever the hospital doors slide open and the breeze sneaks inside. Slips scrawled with names and messages: Love you M! and J + A, crude drawings of stick figures holding hands. Your lips curl into a smirk, watching him flick through each one as you palm your round stomach.

You just saw Duck for the second time. The last time, Freya was kind enough to mention, before they’re tearing you in two. Sorry, she mouthed when your expression dropped, and went back to twisting the probe over your stomach. Silently.

You’re getting better at it, you think. Playing Mom. Like some little game of make-believe, which is only real for as long as you’re looking it square in the eye – attending doctor’s appointments, updating the neighbors on your newest list of symptoms en route to your mailbox.

A little surer on your feet, now that you’ve found a balance to it: taking it as seriously as it warrants, a dry little pill stuck on the cliff of your throat, and making it easier to swallow with humor like water, a huge gulp anytime the fear claws its way up your spine.

And no more panic, since at least before Christmas. Only a little flustered this afternoon when Freya asked if you wanted to know the sex.

It felt too big a thing to hear, too real. You’re only just getting used to the backache and the bleeding gums. (And why didn’t you know that your gums would bleed? Isn’t that something they should fucking warn you about? Congrats, you’re pregnant: prepare for blood seeping from your jaw.)

No. No, thanks. Your head shot around to Joel. No, right?

He shrugged. Makes no difference to me.

Are you sure?

I’m sure, kid. Promise.

‘cause we can find out. I mean – if you want to.

He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, tapping you amiably on the shoulder. I don’t. You’re good.

You don’t?

No, I – He sighed, a hand dragging through his hair. If you want to, I want to. If you don’t, I don’t. Alright?

Freya bit back a laugh, the closed fist over her lips doing little to hide it. You guys should write a book on co-parenting.

But then she left the room again, closed the door on that same old little bubble – the three of you perched on the bed, you and Joel blinking up at the grains of your child onscreen – and you cried. Again. More.

Everything clearer, everything even more human than before: the globe of their skull, the tiny slope of their nose. All glowing in the dark waves of your womb, twinkling like the most beautiful constellation you could ever come across. Their ankles were crossed, feet forming a tiny heart shape in the top corner of the sonogram. Your hand lifted to point it out to Joel, and before the words found voice, you choked and broke down again.

He held you, lips to your hair, body solid as a rock as you melted into him in waves of salty tears. Smiled that honey-glazed smile and said he was so proud of you, said, look what your body’s doin’, darlin’, look what you’re growin’ – which only made you weep more.

And you pretended not to wait for it – for the moment when you might tilt your head up and your lips might line with his, and he might close the achy space between you again, might shush your cries by stealing the air from your lungs and the beat from your heart.

But he didn’t.

Which is fine.

Right?

“Somethin’ on your mind, kid?” he asks now, eyes still glued to the sea of hearts.

Your stare snaps from him instantly, unaware it was even held there. You tug on the hem of your sweater and pull the sleeves over your hands, mumbling, “Fine, I’m – I’m just…Come on, man. I’m hungry. I didn’t eat lunch today.”

“’n whose fault is that?”

You glower at him. “How considerate,” you seethe, “Vanessa’s a fucking lucky woman, you know that?”

He ignores you, a dumb smile on his face. The usual. “Let’s leave one for ‘em.”

A hot temper begins to boil below the surface of your skin, squeezing between your teeth in a fist-swinging breath. Also the usual these days, apparently. “For who?”

“Duckie. Somethin’ to mark the second scan. Last time we see them, before –”

Your hand flies up, eyes closing with a wince. Shut the fuck up. “Enough. I know.”

Joel hms, still smiling to himself. His beard has grown out a little: thicker, darker, gray sewn through like little whip stitches lining his jaw. He fishes a heart shape from the tub along with a pen, which he twirls annoyingly around his fingers as he thinks.

You sink back against the clinical white wall, an offensively bright color, holding your cheeks up in something of a smile when a nurse wanders past, nodding to both of you. Your face drops back to a scowl as soon as she’s over Joel’s shoulder, and your eyes meet his again – his brows raised, expectant.

“What?” you ask, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

He holds the slip up. “What we gonna write?”

And whatever charm the moment may have held, withers instantly. You throw your arms up petulantly. “You wanted to do it! Pick something. See you soon, or something, I don’t fucking know.”

“I don’t fucking know,” Joel muses, creases by his eyes when he smirks. “Poignant.”

“That’s what you should write,” you step closer, shoving your shoulder into his as you study the trembling hearts on the board, “if you can spell poignant, write that.”

“Hilarious,” he mutters, bending to scribble onto the shape, shielding his work from your view when you hang around his shoulder to pry. Cupping over the message until he’s straightening up, tossing the pen back to the desk, stealing a pin from the tub.

“Let me read,” you protest, tugging on his flannel sleeve.

“I will,” he says, shaking you off. “Patience, darlin’.”

Joel turns to the wall and pins the heart higher than the rest, in a spot clear of its own on the corkboard – thick arms stretching higher higher higher and pulling your gaze with them. As he steps back, he takes you gently by the waist and positions you in front of his body, your shoulders brushing against his chest. Your ribs hold your heart back from hammering into his.

You push up onto your tiptoes and squint at the note, which quivers when the hospital doors pull open again. “Mom and…Mom and Dad f…You fucking…”

Joel dodges your batting arm, snickering with you as he turns to make for the exit. “You don’t like it?” he tosses over his shoulder.

The heart stares down at you, black ink carved into the paper, watching as you turn and hurry after him, giggling. “Mom and Dad fuckin love you? So much for my potty mouth. And the –” another wheezing laugh you’d otherwise be ashamed to let him hear, “– the drawing? It looks – it looks more like a giraffe than a duck. Or, like, you know those long-necked dinosaurs?”

Joel’s head tips back, his own laughter caught up by the breeze when you wander outside, slipping your wrist around the crook of his elbow. Something infectious about it, something which stirs your own laughter until you’re walking arm in arm to the truck with a man who, six months ago, you’d barely look at twice over the fence.

The blind rage bubbling from your empty stomach seems to dissipate, dwindled to nothing in the face of that same man – his swollen cheeks and crows-feet eyes. And you say, “You’re disgustingly sentimental, you know that? Like, sickening.”

And Joel smirks, the way he always fucking does, and says, “You love it. Can’t lie to me.”

“I love it,” you concede, nudging into him as he opens the door for you.

The drive home is quiet, but not uncomfortable. There’s another thing you’re getting good at: being around Joel without need for snide remarks, without feeling your tongue curl under the weight of some snappy quip, loaded and aimed. Being around him and talking about Duck, asking how Tommy and Maria are. Forcing your teeth and tongue to carve out words which ask how Vanessa is, what she’s up to, when he’s seeing her next.

None of this is ideal, that’s for sure. Joel’s girlfriend aside, you’ve spent the last five months cohabiting your body with a stranger who lives most peacefully in the eye of a raging tornado of hormones – flitting between fits of giggles and pulsating joy in your veins, to waves of tears and an anger so hot beneath your skin that you wonder if your emotions might dry up completely by the time this is all through.

It's tough. It’s scary. And some nights you lie in bed, alone, wet eyes fixed on nothing, waiting for someone to burst into the room and announce that it’s all a prank. Just a silly joke. You and Joel can go back to tossing newspapers and casting glowers.

But for now, sat in the passenger seat of his truck – the seatbelt warped around the curve of your belly, the Eagles lilting softly from the radio – it feels like you’re making a home out of that tornado, too. Feeling the swirling walls of wind toss your hair like the breeze through the truck window; the chilled caress of the evening around your outstretched arm, soaring down the highway.

Yeah, you think. I can make something outta this.

“You know what I’m craving?”

Joel’s watching the light, waiting for green. “What’s that?”

“A fucking bagel. Cream cheese, pastrami,” you groan.

He snorts, cringing when he adds, “Pickles?”

A moan tears from the base of your throat, head lolling against your seat. “I could orgasm just thinking about it.”

The light turns, and Joel swings right. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he mutters, turning the wheel with one palm. “I got bagels back at the house, if you want one.”

You stare at him, jaw loose, saliva pooling behind your bottom lip. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He smiles, shaking his head. “Let me make you one, ‘fore you go home. Big day, ‘n all.”

And you hate it – hate the way your cheeks fill with a genuine happiness, something swollen and achy, impossible to ignore when it lifts your eyes and hurts your teeth. Appreciation, or admiration, perhaps, that you figure you’ll only ever have for him. You don’t know what the fuck to call it.

So you sum it up into three words. “That’d be nice,” you whisper, and Joel places his hand over your knee, shaking it lightly as he drives on.

It stays there, until he’s pulling into his driveway.

He pushes the front door open and steps back, an arm extended to let you by first. An after you, ma’am, between his lips. And you turn to make some mocking joke, the beginnings of some comment about how gentlemanly he is, when you’re socked square on the nose by a heavy-fisted, bitter scent.

“Oh, fuck,” you gasp, stumbling backwards across the threshold and onto the porch again. Your throat constricting around nothing, your tongue twisting, your stomach lurching.

Joel catches you just in time to stop you from falling on your ass. “The hell’s the m–? Oh.”

“Hi!” Vanessa calls from the kitchen, leaning around the doorframe to wave you both in. “Almost ready! Take a seat.”

“V–? Hey, sweetheart?” Joel calls back, one hand around your wrist and the other between your shoulders. “What – what’s cookin’?”

She pauses, glancing back at the stove. Pulls the dish towel between her hands taut. “I…I made pasta.”

“Yeah, what kind, sweet?”

“…Bolognese.”

He can’t cover his own sigh quick enough. Thick with something which feels like anger. “Shit,” he turns back to you, “I am so sorry.”

You pull in a deep, unsteady breath, your lungs struggling to separate night air from tomato juice. A weight rolling at the bottom of your stomach, your entire body beginning to tremble with it. “I feel like I’m gonna – Joel, I’m gonna –”

“Breathe,” he whispers, voice urgent, palm slipping to cup your jaw. “Just breathe for me.”

But your throat’s tightening, swallowing hard around gags which come stronger and quicker the more you try to fight them down. “I can still fucking smell it –”

Her shadow blocks the stretch of light from the house. A nervous little thing, a timid creature’s shadow stretched wide across the porch floor. “Is…everything okay?”

“It’s – it’s fine,” Joel sighs again, torn between comforting you and letting Vanessa down gently, “it’s just – tomato is one of her…her aversions.” He’s unable to pull his eyes from you, privately asking, “Are you okay?” when Vanessa turns back to the kitchen.

“I didn’t – I didn’t know,” she mumbles, thumbnail between her teeth. “I am so sorry.”

Suddenly, your will not to throw up is overpowered by your will to tell her, “It’s fine,” sucking in a deep, sickly breath before adding, “I’m just gonna – I should go.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Joel says, his teeth guarding the words from his girlfriend.

“I’m gonna clean up in here,” Vanessa points over her shoulder, and you think she must’ve heard him, “get outta your hair. I’m so sorry, again. I would’ve never…”

Joel lets go of you as you stagger backwards, the cold air tearing down your throat to meet the burning acid tickling up your esophagus. “Please don’t apologize,” you lift a weak hand, “how could you have known? I’ll –” another sharp gasp, “– I’ll see you guys around.”

He must say your name, must try once more to pull you back to his side, but the blood’s rushing through your ears, and your heart’s pounding at the back of your tongue, and your stomach’s notching its way up your spine. You make it to your kitchen sink just in time.

He keeps you waiting all of one hour before he’s calling you. Your arm reaches over to your nightstand, fumbling in the dark for your heavy phone, the screen cold against your cheek.

“Mhm?”

“Are you okay?”

Your lungs pull a deep, slow breath. The acid painted across your throat tickles as the air passes by it, an uncomfortable, scratchy feeling.“Mhm.”

“That a lie?”

“Only a little. Is Vanessa okay?”

He takes a second to answer. Lets go of whatever he was going to say with a sigh, replacing it with, “She just left.”

“Is she mad at us?”

Another second. “Just me. Not you.”

You massage the slope below your breasts, the ache in your esophagus throbbing when you move. “Why just you?”

Ruffling, like he’s settling back into his couch. Sinking into the cushion, his body as heavy as yours feels on your mattress. “I should’ve told her you didn’t like tomatoes. ‘cause now I’m a goddamn mind reader. I mean, why the hell wouldn’t my girlfriend be in my house cookin’ a damn pasta dish while I’m out, y’know? Jesus Christ.”

“Joel,” you turn slowly onto your back, bravely waiting for the waves of nausea still lapping around your stomach to turn with you, “it was a nice thing, what she did. She didn’t mean to…She probably thought she was helping.”

“Naw, I know,” he replies, the sharp bite of his words softening again, shrinking under yours. “I don’t care about her and her helping, though, darlin’, I care about y –” He barely catches it in time. “I care about you carrying my child, and I care about making sure you don’t spend your nights fuckin’…throwing up tomato sauce.”

You gulp, neck convulsing. The backwash of bile swallowed back. Your chest floods with a heat of quick panic. “Can we…maybe…not use the word? I just –”

“Sorry, baby. Sorry. This is just – it’s a lot easier if she would just…”

Your eyes close over, a salty sting sweeping behind them. If she would just lay off. Back off. Fuck off. “…but she won’t, Joel. She loves you. ‘n you…”

The words drift off, taken by the tide, swept off into silence. And neither of you bother with trying to retrieve them – you just watch, stood safe on the shoreline, as they fold under the waves of something too big for either of you to acknowledge. Too dark, too dangerous.

So, you say, “I get it,” instead; say, “I get why you’re mad. Just – let’s forget about it, okay? Sorry for…ruining dinner.”

Joel scoffs, that old, pissed-off Joel scoff. You can see his deadened expression on the back of your eyelids. You may as well have just thrown his newspaper to the end of the earth. “You know damn well that you didn’t ruin anything. How you feelin’?”

“Tired. Throat kinda hurts.”

“Still feel like that pastrami bagel?”

“Not really. Sorry. Appetite’s gone.”

“How about a water?”

“I got some here. Thanks.”

“Okay,” Joel sniffs, “how about: you take the hint and let me come over there to see you?”

You giggle, hand over your eyes to mask your expression from the dark. “I hate you. Yeah, come over. Door’s unlocked.”

Date night – six month anniversary or whatever. Call me if you need anything.

And I mean anything. OK?

Your thumbs hover over the two gray messages, an awkward jig as your brain scrambles to offer words back. Where are you guys going? Too interested. Too weird. OK, what if I’m bored? Delete delete delete. Trying too hard. Sure, have a good n–

The ellipsis pops up and you freeze. A stupidly polite swish delivers Joel’s third text.

Boredom counts as anything, by the way.

And the fucker steals another smile from you. You notice it when you look up, clocking yourself in the mirror. Accompanied by a warmth which drips down your spine, swirls around your tummy; a fluttering you’re not sure is Duckie or something else.

Have a good night, Dad, you type back, tossing the phone to the end of your bed when you hit send. Swiping for a pillow, holding it firm to your face. Pressing so deep into the plush that even the linen won’t be able to see your grin.

Joel told you about this six-month anniversary last week. He wasn’t too thrilled about it then, either. Dinner to celebrate six months? A year, fair enough. But six months?

You swallowed your pride, swallowed the same throttling ecstasy which seeped through your pores on New Year’s Eve, on that February evening she cooked– never mind; a desperate desire to tear apart the very notion of Vanessa and her cutesy little date nights and candlelit dinners. I think it’s a fun idea, you said. Y’all should do it.

And Joel listened. Because he always fucking listens to you, these days. Listens when you tell him that you like the watermelon Sour Patch Kids best, and picks them up anytime he’s at the store. Listens to you when you tell him he should move the crib away from the window, in case the streetlights shine on Duck while they sleep.

Listens when you ramble about how sore your feet are, how heavy your belly feels, how there’s a clammy heat lingering under your skin at all times, bubbling and bubbling and never rising to anything more than steam collecting on the underside of your flesh.

Listens when you tell him to go spend time with his girlfriend. And neither of you pay attention to the jealous shadow behind your words, the hesitant quiver behind his.

He replies almost instantly, the ping like a gunshot at the beginning of a race. Pillow slammed into the mattress, body lunging forward.

You too, Mom. Don’t have too much fun without me.

You lock the phone and slide it back under your covers, smiling dumbly.

There’s still a small part of you waiting for the big reveal: none of this is really happening. A dream, maybe, something you’ll wake from with a tiny throbbing headache, a dry mouth and a new reason to avoid your neighbor at all costs.

But it seems that, each time that thought crosses your mind, you’re quicker and quicker to quash it. Realizing each time that what lies ahead – Joel, your baby, this future version of yourself that you’re yet to meet, still just a little out of reach – fills you with more excitement and wonder, than it does fear.

Mom.

It’s not something you ever imagined for yourself. Not someone you ever thought you’d be. And yet, each time you say it out loud, each time you look in the mirror and picture a baby in the crook of your arm, a toddler perched on your hip, a kid stood by your side, tugging on the hem of your shirt – she feels a little closer. A little clearer. She just has to look over her shoulder, notice you waiting. I’m right here, she says. Come find me.

Mom. Mom and Dad.

You imagine Joel right now, sat in some ritzy restaurant with jazz music and stained-glass lamps on every table, ordering Vanessa some glorified lentil soup and slapping his card over the bill before the waiter has a chance to reveal the damage to him. Your lips twist at the thought – her jewels and her long hair and her sweet little smile laced with a smug possession.

And then you slap your own wrists, hissing to yourself to shut the fuck up.

“She’s nice,” you argue out loud, thin air holding no debate. “She’s kind, and I like her. She’s good for him.”

And then the air replies. Good for him, it swirls, but you could do it better.

Your arm lifts, lingering for a beat before batting the thought away.

Three weeks. Three fucking weeks, between pushing yourself out of his embrace in bed, and pulling yourself back into it – armed with a pregnancy test and a chest full of fear. Three weeks of dodging him, of your cheeks bubbling with embarrassment and regret anytime you thought of it; of hoping to God that Alice or Diane or Steve and Kris across the street wouldn’t clairvoyantly know what had transpired that night and corner you on your own front lawn.

A one-night stand. That’s all it was. Two lonely bodies, excitement enough to convince you both that it was a good idea; a fitted suit and a backless dress crumpled together on the floor. Liquid courage lacing it all together.

Three weeks, then, of reminding yourself how it felt: how amazing you were together. Your hand between your legs and Joel’s name between your teeth.

Fuck. If only he knew. Goodforhimgoodforhim she’s so good for him but I’m better.

You did it better. You know you did. The sun was cresting the horizon by the time the two of you stopped. You hauled yourselves down to breakfast and sat at least three people apart, made forced conversation with Maria about the DJ stumbling off with one of her cousins, while the ghostly ache of Joel’s body churned somewhere deep inside you.

It travels through your veins the way that everything does right now: urgent and unforgiving. A need to be dealt with, immediately. Coursing through your body, an arrowhead pointing somewhere you know it shouldn’t. But your hands lift anyway – following it, loosening the waist of your sweatpants and skimming beneath your underwear.

Your body lights at the first touch. The first dip of your middle finger against the plush over your clit. Knees bend, thighs part. You push your underwear down your hips, settling your bottoms loose on your legs. You’re already wet. You’re already there.

Good fucking girl. She’s good but I’m better, right? Take it, baby. Does she take it like I take it? Take it. Can she take you like I did?

Quicker and quicker and quicker, your fingers heavy on your clit. The other hand sifting between your folds, dipping to collect a glimmer of wet. Yeah. Just like that. Do you fuck her like you fucked me? You feel what you do to me? Fuck no, you don’t. You’ve never fucked anyone like you fucked me.

Head back, eyes fluttering closed, lips parting to breathe answers to a man who isn’t here. To a man who, as he dips sourdough into an overpriced soup, sure as hell isn’t thinking about that time he fucked you so good he got you fucking pregnant.

Well. Maybe he is. You are, right?

Voice without body, drawl etched in your memory. Think she can take it all? You hum in amusement, waiting for him to answer his own question. Yeah, she can.

Attagirl. Your legs spread further, knee lifting as you insert two slick-coated fingers. His hands are on your thighs, following the dip of your hips, holding your waist as you guide him back inside. Attagirl. That’s my – Fuck, Joel, you’re so b– That’s my fuckin’ girl. Take it. Touch it. His thumb on your clit – his, not yours. You like that? Yeah, that’s nice, ain’t it?

The flesh of your breasts filling his palms, squeezing and nipping and rolling between. The warmth leaking between your legs: his and yours and fuck, he’s so deep and he’s filling you again and he’s groaning as more dribbles from where he splits your body around his own, holding you still until he’s done. Until he’s empty.

“Joel,” you whine, a third finger pushing in.

Between your hips. Headboard hammering against the wall. The sun hanging loose at the bottom of the sky. Gonna make me come again, baby. Do it. Do something irreversible. Change me forever. Fuck me fuck me fill me and then pull out, push back in with the wet squelch of your come mixing with mine and changing me forever. Making me brand new. Making me yours.

Another moan. Louder. Sharper.

Yours yours yours. All mine? All yours. We’re good at this. I know we are. Who fucks you like this? No one – No one – just you – just me. It’s so big, fuck, but I can take it. Been thinkin’ about this all fuckin’ day, baby. All I do is think about you. All I fucking do – You gonna come for me? – is think about you.

Know you need it. Let ‘em hear you, downstairs.

Fuck, I’m thinking about you. Come home. I need you to come home, need you to –

Fuck me, Joel, I’m –

Good girl.

– fuck me.

Atta fuckin’ girl.

She’s good but I do it so much better.

We’re good at this. ‘s do it again.

She’s not as good as me.

Again? Again.

She’s not as good. She’s no fucking good.

Your walls clamp around your fist, entire body shuddering to a stop. Breath held by something shaped like the hook of his accent, two fingers either side of your throat. The same smirk on his lips that convinced you in the first place. Fuck, baby, fuck me.

“Joel,” you cry out, the sound ripping between your vocal cords, punching against the ceiling and reverberating in your ears. Your body convulses on the mattress, back arching and slackening again. “Fuck, I’m – oh, my –”

Just feel it, baby. Feel me. You got it.

Let go.

Your lungs lurch open again, breath flooding in like waves spilling over the gunwale and rushing down to pool at your feet. A lulling rock to your movements, chest rising and falling like the steady tide. Soothing, coming down. Foam and salt carrying the flotsam away, the jagged glass of his name disappearing to sea again.

And then he’s gone.

And you’re just alone in your bedroom.

Last you checked your phone, now face-down on the carpet at your hip, it was eight p.m. Streetlights on, the sky painted by the pale dregs of daytime.

Now, you lie in near-darkness, blinking up at the ceiling. Hand sifting through a bag of glow-in-the-dark stars, comparing the different sizes, considering where to stick them, and then tossing them back in frustration.

Your front door clicks open, a pause between the sound and his voice.

“Anyone home?” Joel calls, and you lift your wrist as though he can see it from the bottom of the fucking stairs.

“Up here,” you eventually announce, knuckles rubbing your tired eyes until Catherine wheels spatter across your eyelids.

His shadow splits the light from the hallway, the long rectangle crossing over your swollen belly. “The hell are you doin’?” he asks, wandering in.

You lift the bag. “Decorating. The hell are you doin’?”

He pulls your nursing pillow from its temporary home in the crib and tosses it down on the carpet, bending to lift your shoulders and slot it underneath. “Scooch,” he says, groaning as he lays back beside you. He smells like whiskey and cologne. All woody, pine and spice.

“You got a bad back,” you warn him. “You shouldn’t be all the way down here.”

“You’re seven months pregnant,” Joel clicks his teeth, “neither should you.”

“What if you get stuck ‘n can’t get back up?”

Offense pulls his brows together. “What if you do?”

You smile in response, feeling the heat of his shoulder against yours. Sucking the scent of him through your nose. The pair of you exchanging smirks and batting eyelashes, wrapped in the cool darkness of the room. It’s juvenile and intimate.

You’re trying not to think too much about it.

“I can’t fucking figure this out. I put two of the big stars over there,” you point to the far corner of the room, streetlight splintered by the shades on the ceiling, “but it looks stupid having two so close. So, then I thought,” moving your arm to the right, “a cluster of smaller ones, right over the crib. But I couldn’t move the damn thing to climb up, so…I’ve been down here ever since.”

Joel lifts his hand, stopping your train of thought. “Please do not climb on anything, bein’ that you are…with child.” And then, when your eyes roll to meet his, he grins, adding, “Nesting got you good, huh?”

“You should see my kitchen cupboards. Never been tidier.” Your expression dissolves, voice quietens – your most desperate plea since that morning you shook hands on his doorstep. Your broken wardrobes and his lonely wedding invite. “Will you help me?” you ask.

He thinks it over less than once, dragging his gaze from the twirling star in your fingers. A quick shake of his head, like it’s obvious. “’course I will. ‘s what I’m here for.” And then he yawns, lowering a hand absentmindedly to settle on the curve of your stomach; a gentle pat in greeting to Duck.

“How was dinner?”

“Good,” Joel lies.

“Vanessa okay?”

“Good,” again.

“Sorry.”

Joel’s eyes roll, fingers pausing. “Why do you always gotta be sorry for som’?”

You shrug when you realize it’s not a rhetorical question. He’s genuinely asking. “I don’t know. Just tryna be polite. I know you’d probably rather be at home right now, not…deciding where some plastic fuckin’ stars should go.”

“For my kid’s bedroom? For you?�� He huffs something shaped like disapproval. “Do me a favor – stop with the sorrys, alright?”

“I’m not even done with the last fucking favor I said I’d do you.” Your eyes flit down to your bump.

He stares blankly. You know there’s a laugh gathering like hot air on a windowpane behind his eyes, threatening to shatter the glass.

“Fine,” you concede, “dickhead.”

“Better.”

You sigh, looking back down at the phosphorescent shape in your hands. Turning it over and over and over, matching the rhythm of his fingers tensing and then untensing on your belly. His fingers, matching the rhythm of your chest rising and falling with breath. The room quiet. The night’s eyes averted, even just for this moment.

“If it’s anything,” Joel says, “I think the stars look alright.”

Another stolen smile. Another defiant show of teeth. You place your hand on top of his: a thankful gesture, an invitation. Something in between.

Joel blinks back at you, his eyes flitting from yours to your lips. The dim light in the room swallowing the two of you whole, secluded in the upstairs of your home. And you think, Kiss me, kiss me kiss me kiss me, and you will the words over your tongue in a ragged breath – hoping that Joel might breathe them in and feel their sharp edges as they absorb into his bloodstream, each cell flipping like the star in your hand and whispering the same two words to him: Kiss her kiss her kiss her.

But right then –

There’s a burst of movement. Under your fingertips. A fluttering, like bubbles popping right below the surface of your skin.

Your eyes snap down at the same time Joel’s do; your fingers separating and hovering over your tummy.

“Did you – did you feel –?”

“Yeah. Did you?”

“Uhuh. Was that –?”

“I don’t know. Was it?”

He takes your hand, pressing it back against your stomach with his on top. Your knuckles safe in the canopy of his palm. Both staring into space as you hold your breath.

“They’re not…they’re not doin’ it, now…”

“Maybe it was just –”

“Wait! Did you feel that?”

A second burst on your womb, a tiny beat on the other side of your bump. A wide grin breaks across your cheeks, a disbelieving laugh escaping.

Joel laughs, too. “Is that – is that the first time they’ve ever –?”

“Yeah,” you sniff, tears prickling at the corners of your eyes, “that’s the first I’ve ever felt ‘em, anyways.”

“Wait,” Joel says, lifting his hand and holding a finger up. Just yours on your belly. “They doin’ it?”

Your head shakes.

When he lowers his hand, Duckie kicks again. The two of you lean in to one another, exchanging laughter. You lift your own hand, watching his expression as he waits patiently.

But then his head shakes, too. “Nothing. They’re only doin’ it when it’s both of us.”

“What the fuck?” you laugh, replacing your hand and waiting for the baby drum. “How can they even tell? What the f–?”

You shift your hands around the globe of your bump, pausing every so often to feel for Duck’s movements. A tiny fist punching, or a heel kicking, or an elbow shoving right above your navel in a way that’s bordering on painful, but numbed by the sheer thrill of it.

And for a while, it’s all you do: play tag with your unborn baby, giggling when they respond to your tapping fingers and cooing voices.

Joel sits up, leaning on his elbow to talk to his kid; runs two fingers across your shirt like a pair of legs scaling a cotton covered hill. And he laughs, and you laugh at his laugh, as if he’s a kid himself again – tearing apart gifts on his birthday, gasping and throwing his head back with glee at whatever he uncovers.

“It feel weird?” he asks, glancing up at you.

“So fucking weird,” you tell him.

“Does it hurt?”

“More…ticklish, if anything. Might get kinda annoying, if they start doing it when I’m tryna sleep, or somethin’…”

Joel lowers his jaw to your stomach, whispering, “You know what to do, Duckie. Make your daddy proud.”

You slap his shoulder, muttering, “Asshole.”

“Alright,” he says, splintered by a laugh. He pushes himself to his feet, swiping the bag of stars from your side. “Let’s get these up so you two can get some sleep.”

You groan as he pulls you upright, one last pat on your stomach, looking at you a second too long and a touch too meaningful. Too warm, too inviting.

It’s the calm before the storm, though you’re still stood motionless. Still trying to work out whether the tornado is moving away, or headed directly for you.

At five in the morning, Vanessa’s sister calls her.

“Heart attack,” Joel tells you a few hours later, the rustle of paper crinkling in your ear. The truck hums in the background. He speaks through a mouthful of sandwich. “Her dad always had a condition, but they thought they were managin’ it with medication,” another crinkle, and then, voice even more obscured, “but he got rushed to hospital durin’ the night, and…”

“Poor Vanessa,” you reply, nail drawing shapes on the curve of your bump in attempt to lull Duck into a more relaxed state than the sharp kicks they’re throwing at your ribs. Now big and strong enough to do considerable damage, your voice falters each time they swing. “Is she – son of a bitch – is she okay?”

“Shaken up,” he says, turn signal ticking over his voice. “She’ll be alright. She’s pragmatic like that. Problem is – they’re in Houston. Her whole family. So I guess that’s where the funeral’s gonna be.”

You swing your legs off the couch, heaving your awkward, nine-months-pregnant body to your feet – the irritating scratch of hunger suddenly gnawing at your stomach. “Yeah?” you say, waddling through to the kitchen. “So?”

“So,” Joel takes another bite of sandwich, “she has to – I mean, we have to…go. To Houston.”

“We?” You slot the phone between your cheek and shoulder as you fish out a couple slices of bread.

“Me ‘n Vanessa.”

“Uhuh,” you carve a knife around a jar of peanut butter, “you gotta be there for her.”

Joel sounds a little defensive. “I know. And I am. I’m goin’ to be. ‘s just – I gotta be there for you, too. For – for Duck.”

Your stomach swirls, a fire catching which lights your chest in a trickle of flame.

“You are. You will be. Houston’s only, like, three hours away.”

He sighs.

The turn signal fills the silence between you, between Joel and an appropriate answer. Clicking like the sound of a tennis match, his head spinning between his grief-stricken girlfriend, and the third-trimester mother of his child.

“I’m here,” he says, and you hear the squeal of brakes out front. “Give me a sec.”

The door pushes open as you sink back into the couch, balancing the plate on the planet beneath your breasts. Joel crumples his sandwich paper in his fist and lowers his hand over the back of the couch, scrunching his fingers over your belly as he passes.

“Thought you hated that stuff,” he calls over his shoulder, disappearing into your kitchen.

“I had a craving,” you say, ripping the first bite from your sandwich. “You made me hungry.”

He returns a minute later with a glass of water which he sets down on the coffee table in front of you. He lifts your legs, letting them fall gently in his lap when he collapses into the opposite end of the couch, heels of his palms pressing against his eyes.

You tap his thigh with the ball of your foot and he turns to you, placing a hand over your ankles. A sticky paste of peanut butter and bread between your molars, you ask, “What’shup?”

Joel holds back a smirk at your chipmunk cheeks. “Just – just worried that you…you know, while I’m gone, is all.”

You scoff, gulping. “Come on. I am not gonna go into labor in the, what – two days? How long would you even be gone?”

He seems to wince at the thought, fingers sifting through his hair – a gray sweep sat casually over his left eyebrow; flicks following the curve of his ear towards the hinge of his jaw. “Less than that, if I can help it.”

“Joel.”

He turns to you, saying your name just as deflated in response.

“You have to go.”

He rolls his eyes, thumb and middle finger massaging his temples. Crosses his arms and huffs like a teenager. “Well, I ain’t happy about it.”

You snort, unable to hold it in as you take another bite. “I ‘on’t think Vanesha’sh too happy about it, either, to be honesh wih ya.”

Joel’s jaw slackens, a choked laugh bursting from the back of his throat. He lifts a cushion and swings it in your direction. “Heartless. That’s heartless, you know that? Jesus, baby.”

He leaves on Saturday morning.

You stand on your porch, watching him shove a suitcase into the backseat of his truck, squinting in the sunlight as he stalks across your front yard. Joining you in the shade, he leans into you, shoving you lightly.

“Quit it.” Your hand locking with his, steadying yourself. Something in the back of your mind begging him not to let go.

And as if he can hear the thought: “I can stay. You know I can stay, right?”

“I don’t want you to stay,” you tell him, sweeping the hair from his forehead. “We will be fine. We’ll stay up late, eat junk food and watch TV; I’ll do audio description for Duck…”

He scoffs, glancing across the street.

“…and then you’ll be back home, back to buggin’ the hell out of us. It’ll be Monday before you know it.”

Joel’s jaw tightens. “And what if…?”

“You really think that’s gonna happen? You think your kid’s that much of an asshole?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah,” he shrugs, tongue in his cheek, “they’re half you.”

“Alright,” you click your teeth, turning away from the simper on his lips, “why don’t you just fuck off to Houston now, asshole?”

“I’ll fuck off, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Uhuh. Here’s hoping you don’t break down, or get a flat, or get struck by lightning, or anything.”

“You’re so funny,” he whispers, leaning closer.

“Hm. Now go.”

His jaw turns, beard grazing your skin. And then his lips; soft and warm, damp when he kisses your cheek. A moment too long. And he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t lean back the way you both know he should. No, he lingers – his lips by your ear, eyes flitting up to the street to make sure nobody sees.

“Joel –”

“I know.”

“We shouldn’t –”

“I know.”

But your arm is hooking around his neck, asking him to do it anyway, and his lips are lowering to yours, submitting to your request, and what’s supposed to be a goodbye kiss lasts at least a few seconds too long for it to mean anything less than a don’t go kiss.

You pull away when you feel the wet dab of his tongue against yours, realizing with an ice-cold shock where you are, and who he is, and what’s happening. Realizing how fucking stupid it’d be for both of you, how catastrophic and terrible the outcome.

A one-night stand.

A one-night stand.

A one-night –

He leans his forehead against yours, nose nuzzling your cheek. “I’ll call you when we get there.”

Your arm loosens, letting him go.

Just – letting him go.

Saturday Night Live ends just after midnight.

You arch your back into the couch, your swollen belly pushing forward. It’s an effort to get to your feet, what with the steady ache in your back all day, the weight on your front, and the fucking human being smushed into every vital organ inside you.

A deep breath feels like it inflates your lungs only halfway, Duck using the bottom half as a fucking ass cushion, and scaling the stairs takes another ten minutes – by the end of which, you’re slumped against the handrail, pausing before making off for your room.

You sink into the mattress, creasing the cool, smooth sheets. Duck stirs inside you, stretches out and throws a right hook against your bladder. You curse under your breath, hoisting yourself back to your feet.

“We gotta sleep, baby,” you hum, swaying back and forth with a hand under your belly. “Shh, ‘s okay. Take your fuckin’ fist outta my bladder, you little asshole.”

Whichever traits of yours and Joel’s have blended into the human cocktail growing in your uterus, you know one thing for certain: this kid has your stubbornness. The weight remains on your bladder, regardless of how much swaying, or pacing, or rubbing, or threatening you do.

You growl, wandering through the upper floor of your house in attempt to shift Duckie, or distract yourself, or, at the very least, tire the two of you out enough to fall asleep.

From the nursery door handle hangs a little wooden star, a tauntingly sleepy smile painted on it. You push the door open with two hesitant fingers, stepping into the still bedroom, the weak wash of streetlight meeting moonlight on the greenish walls.

You suck in a deep breath, floorboards squealing as you take your first step. Over the crib hangs a plastic mobile, soft plush shapes twirling slowly. The matching changing table slotted alongside it, a rocking chair over by the window.

You pad across a fluffy rug and lower yourself into the chair, tilting back and forth on your toes as you glance around one of the two rooms you and Joel have spent the most time in since that October morning bonded you forever. A baby duck ornament perched on a shelf above the dresser, its orange legs dangling. A multi-photo frame Joel’s mom bought you, both scans in the first two slots and the third empty, lying in wait.

Your breathing fragments, struggles, eyes slipping over to the baby clothes hanging in the closet. “You know, little Duckie,” you whisper, rubbing your bump and thinking back to Tommy’s words six months ago, “you are a pretty lucky kid.”

The hooded towel robe on the back of the door, the perfect size for a newborn. The framed prints sat atop the chest of drawers, waiting to be nailed to the wall: a rainbow, a frog, a starry sky.

“You got two houses. Two bedrooms, all to yourself. You got two parents who already love you more ‘n the whole world. And,” you gulp, “you got Vanessa. And she loves you, too.”

You glance down, watching the tiny pulse of movement when the baby stretches in your womb. Your hands scoop them up, as if holding them closer than they already are. As if already cradling them, forcing yourself to feel less alone.

Duck seems to quieten, to still; seems to consider what you’re avoiding. Reads between the lines, hears the words you’re not speaking.

Two of everything, you think, and I barely even had one.

The most evidence you have of being loved by anyone in your life is the house you live in. Four brick walls and three decades’ worth of belongings, more inheritance than memories. But they roll around like marbles – they echo against the walls when they hit them. There’s nothing binding them, no thread of love, or family, or anything real enough to hold it all together.

You’re the only living organ inside a skeleton’s cage. A lonely little heartbeat, making noise for no one to hear.

And that’s the way it has been, at least since you were eight. The absence of warmth and safety isn’t anything new to you – it left the second your parents did. The last scrunch of your mom’s nails on your head, the last kiss of her lips to your plump little cheeks. The passing over to your grandma, like you were cargo, like you were a box to be checked.

Maybe you found some distant flicker of heat in the way Joel looked at you, the day you told him you were pregnant. Maybe you saw the same glimmer of a flame that you used to see in your mom’s eye. The rosy smell of her perfume, the feel of her finger inside five of yours. Maybe, for the first time since you were a kid, you felt safe.

We’re gonna work it out, he said. I’m here. We’re in this together, alright? I am not running out on you.

Together. And yet, now, sat in your child’s nursery – a room built from scratch by Joel’s two hands and strung together by every beat of your heart – you’ve never felt more alone. The same two hands that are wrapped around Vanessa right now, consoling her, wiping her tears away, massaging her shoulders and sweeping her hair from her eyes.

And the same heartbeat which quickens now, fueled by an angry desire, an impulse scratching deep into your flesh to march all the damn way to Houston and tear the pair of them apart. Like he’s yours; like the way he touches you and looks at you and talks to you means anything more than his child growing inside you.

Like it’s you he’s touching and looking at and talking to, and not Duck. Like his attention won’t cease to shine on you, the second this little baby leaves your body.

And then, washing over the scorching hot sand of anger: a foam-lined wave of guilt. Of shame, for wishing for the breakdown of something that clearly makes the two of them happy. That makes Joel…happy.

He doesn’t owe you anything – he was never yours to begin with. Just one drunken night, a mistake until you noticed the two pale lines on the pregnancy test. And by that point, he was already hers again. You had missed him without even knowing it.

You sigh, pushing up from the rocking chair and reaching for a tissue from the changing table. Turning back, giving the room one last teary glance before closing the door, you sniff.

“You’re just…the luckiest little kid who’s ever gonna live.”

At one twenty a.m., cicadas chirping and trees rustling, the low breeze carrying the sounds through your half-open window – your back begins to ache. A blunt, gnawing pain. Feels like your period, and in your doze, you stuff a pillow between your legs and pray you don’t stain the sheets with a show of blood.

The realization comes over you as if that stifling breeze flips to freezing. You slowly come around, eyes peeling open as you think it over twice, then three times, then four. Duck shifts somewhere deep inside you, somewhere you’ve never felt them shift before.

“…No. Not right now, Duck. You gotta give me, like, twenty-four hours. Just – wait until your dad gets ho–”

A blinding pain interrupts you, the moonlit-blue room fading out of focus for half a second before you’re wide awake, clutching the bottom of your spine where you’re sure the kid just tore a fucking hole straight through your uterus.

“You’re a fucking dick,” you whimper, fingers clenching in tight fists around the bedsheets. “You’re a fucking – dick.”

One twenty-three. You go into labor.

[dontbesoweirdkira]

Hi! I love your interpretation of the yan batfam so much bdnfbfkjfnd I was wonderong how you think Dick and/or Jason would react to a rather compassionate batsis?

She's definitely not on board with their obsession but she can understand where their coming from and gives them like ACTUAL compassion.

Ik you said Dick enjoys having a positive image in front of others most of all his younger sister, so how would he react to her seeing his flaws but still, being kind? Jason strives to be "normal", so much so he spirals sometimes, but like what would knowing/experiencing genuine closeness (not pity or false pretenses) change?

Idk if either of them would redeem their bad habits, but am curious to know what being truly seen and accepted would do to them, especially by someone they care about so much. The bats can have their walls pretty high up after all

A/N: sorry about the late responses. I've been out of it the past few days.

context dick context jay

Okay so when you are dealing with yanderes... you are dealing with extremely unstable people. There are so many ways thus could go but here's just one

Dick

Maybe your compassion makes Dick chill out a bit with his unhealthy tendencies. I think initially he'd still be uncomfortable and bothered that you can see right through him. You can see all his flaws and you don't revere him like the others which is bad. It will still anger him and he'll try manipulating you into loving him like everyone does at first.

A heart to heart with him could work. You acknowledge you know he's crumbling and has really horrible coping mechanisms but that doesn't mean that you don't love him. That you respect him even more because you see just how much passion he puts into everything that he does. It isn't his fault he craves so much validation when he had the upbringing he had but he doesn't have to pretend to be someone he's not to please you. That even if he doesn't smile as much or be selfish sometimes that you won't love him any less. You give him a space to be authentic with you with no judgment.

"erm,,,okay. I'll keep that in mind."

He's a bit taken back by it and doesn't know how to exactly process what you just said. I've mentioned before that he doesn't exactly know how to just be himself because for most of his life he was always being someone that others needed.

He's still on guard for a while. He will dip his toes in the waters by maybe not smiling as much with you or rescheduling your hang out session to go out on a date just to see your reaction. Did you truly mean it when you said he was allowed to be selfish? He was fully expecting you to hate him but seeing just how unbothered you were made him go...oh!

I think this shifts his obsession with you. He's still very much yandere but i think he's much more child-like ? I mean Dick still is obsessed with you and all that jazz but before, he wanted to be the best older brother/father figure. His happiness was dependent on how much you needed and revered him. But now you're becoming his safety blanket for when he's stressed, tired or upset. WIth you he can just lay on your shoulders without speaking and you won't even mind. He can be kind of assholey or dark and you will understand he's just in a mood and what he says never leaves the two of you. You won't take away your compassion or love based on how he acts...the first non-transactional relationship he's ever truly and it's pretty great. He finally feels like a brother and not like he's playing house anymore.

Don't get me wrong, he's still your older brother who gets on your nerves but there's just this mutual appreciation there that lacks with the others.It's clear to the others that he loves you just a bit more than the rest. When it's movie/game nights, he will allow you to sit it out or not tag along to restaurants. He's very protective and defensive over you. He doesn't feel as much of a need to do all that stupid crap with you because if he wanted your time, he could have a peaceful moment on the rooftops with you instead.

Jason

Hmm..i think Jason will just always feel a bit outcasted. There are plenty of people who do care about Jason in the comics but it's hard to relate to someone who's been through what he's been. It's just so unique to him. He knows you don't truly understand what it's like to have spirits of the Lazarus haunting you in your sleep. He knows that you cannot feel the pain of being replaced by someone you're now forced to see as a brother.

When i wrote my last piece a few people took it as me saying the reader found Jason to be odd. Really what it was is that Jason put those thoughts into his own head because he internalized the joke because of his own insecurities. The reader was perfectly fine with Jason being a little off...it made sense as he would've just come back from being dead and is trying to find a bit of normalcy.

It's funny though because while he's trying to be "independent" it's painfully clear he's still very much attached to you and is still unknowingly mimicking you.

I think though if reader sat down with Jason and explained he doesn't need to change or be "normal" because you love him the way he is, maybe he will relax a bit. But i think there would always be voices in Jason's ears telling him he needs to be perfect. My version of jason is around 20-ish year old who is a bit emotionally stunted and disoriented because he's just coming out of the pit. After a few years of being integrated back into the family he'll understand that you actually do love him as a brother and he serves a great purpose even if that purpose doesn't look the same as Dick's.

[phddyke]

Hazbin Hotel is actually healing my inner ex-Christian so hard.

No joke, I nearly started cheering when Lute called Charlie and Vaggie’s love “vile and blasphemous” (and then burst out laughing when Adam immediately followed it up with “Hot as fuck though”). I know that may sound weird considering that I am, in fact, a lesbian, but here me out:

Seeing Christians being explicitly homophobic onscreen? It validates me. It makes me think “Oh yeah, I’m not crazy, Christians are that hateful!” And, call me crazy, but I think homophobia being tied in with villainy is a good thing. Neither Adam or Lute are supposed to be good people; they are very obviously the villain, and that establishes their behavior as bad. Someone on Twitter said that Lute gave them religious fanatic vibes and I couldn’t agree more.

And here’s the thing, too: it’s explicit homophobia, not some dumb metaphor. There’s no way to take it as anything else. And I really need that. I need to see Christians being explicitly homophobic onscreen in the same way that other people need and create worlds where homophobia doesn’t exist.

But me? I want my pain and suffering acknowledged. I want the harm that Christianity does acknowledged. Homophobia is real and the religious kind doubly so. I related to Vaggie so much in that episode; I felt her trepidation about going back to Heaven. Felt like a good metaphor for escaping a fundamentalist church only to be forced to visit again.

And Viv is not afraid to explicitly point this out and criticize them. Like, yes! Say it! They are hypocrites! They don’t care about people being better, they only care about punishment! They maimed one of their own and left her to die because she spared a child! They’re homophobic freaks! They would never see the good that Angel does and how he’s improved and is wonderful, they only see that he’s a drug addict and a sex worker and think he’s worthless for that even though Jesus broke bread with sex workers and people considered the dregs of society. (And of course Angel is gay on top of that.)

And another thing: not only did the Adam line make me laugh, but the second homophobic Lute line about “he blew his shot like the cocks in his mouth” cracked me up too. It reminded me of the pilot where Katie Killjoy said “I don’t touch the gays” to Charlie, which is a line that made me laugh for 4+ years straight. When I told my brother that was the funniest homophobia I’d ever heard in media, he very wisely said, “All homophobia is funny if you think about it.” And you know what? He’s right. It is funny, because it’s so fundamentally goddamn stupid, so let’s give characters ridiculous lines so everyone can laugh at how idiotic they and their beliefs sound.

[lactoseintolerentswag]

Rise Characterizations Pt. 3!!!

Now that Leo and Raph are done, it's Donnie's turn for character analysis as a writing reference. So without further ado,

Donnie Character Notes

Language Habits:

Straight up talks like a redditor who hasn't touched enough grass (affectionate)

Oscillates between very scientific paper polished, sometimes adding a dazzle of shakespearean for dramatics, or abbreviations/a shorter version of a word with a more fun connotation (i.e. "brekkie" instead of breakfast)

Uses food as surprised exclamations or curses, "oh my peaches and cream", "banana pancakes!"

Emphasizes each syllable of a long word when he's excited or trying to make a point. Conquered becomes con-qu-ered

Either exaggerates his speech or speaks in deadpan

The science terms he uses as battle cries aren't chosen at random, but rather are related to the action/subject at hand, i.e. yelling "fibonacci" when throwing his spinning tech-bo

Will overly describe an item or a situation, and often gets caught up in these observations before processing what just happened

Will repeatedly yell "help!" when he's distressed and/or outnumbered

Refers to Mikey as "Michael"

Refers to his brothers as "brethren" or "gentlemen"

Refers to splinter as either "father", "papa", or "dad" depending on the weight of the situation

Refers to his tech as his "babies"

Answers the phone with, "You're conversing with Donatello"

Uses "gesundheit" instead of bless you

Personality:

The fixer, he supplies the family with tech and resources. He always has a trinket made for the situation at hand and/or offers his knowledge/data collected. He's always prepared to help. Even with outside resources, he likes to feel useful in solving their problems (i.e., building Todd that dog park)

The theater kid, in a similar vein to leo, Donnie has his own style of dramatics. He often uses shakespeare-like language, is mentioned to regularly recite the jupiter jim musical soundtrack, and has a music mode for his battle shell. He belongs on a stage, or at least thinks he does

Not good at lying, despite the glamour he can put on in the spotlight. This may be due to the side of himself that over explains his thoughts

An over-thinker, who really tends to over-complicate things. His first theory or idea will always be the most extreme buck-wild concept. After some filtering, he still word vomits

A dreamer/big idea guy. He does have big ideas and goals. A lot of these he's able to put into place, although some go a little haywire (see Albearto). He doesn't do things in halves, and puts everything into a project

Meticulous, someone who's very detail oriented. As mentioned before he tends to over-complicates things. This may be impacted by his love for data and collecting information (he does record Everything for a reason)

Always on the edge of violence, which is surprising. Donnie's not known as being the angry archetype of tmnt, but he can get a little violent in his fighting style and does often cite his desire to use lethal force

Low empathy, which is mainly due to his issues processing and recognizing emotions. He's been pegged as unemotional, but in canon he's rather emotional and expressionate, just lacking the skills to process such emotion (he's just like me fr)

Praise motivated, as seen with his interactions with Splinter. Also desires the praise of his brothers, who he doesn't feel understand him with all the teasing that's sent towards his direction. This also pushes him to seek validation and acceptance in other groups (i.e. the purple dragons), to feel a sense of security or belonging

Ignores his own mistakes, and will often pretend like they didn't exist or ever happen. This most likely has to do with his desire for praise, so he feels bad when he fails. If he never made a mistake, he never has to feel bad

Miscellaneous:

Fourth to unlock mystic powers

Uses "Bootyyyshaker9000" as most of his usernames and passwords, with his alt. username being "Alpha-Bootyyyshaker9000"

Has a fear of bees, spiders, and of course beach balls

Breaks the fourth wall the most

Loves the smell of pineapple, hates the texture

Has a hobby of rooting around in the junkyard and dumpster diving

Uses cheat codes in video games

Mikey's next of course :)

[dantakeyoman]

You and Kiri Overhear Lo’ak Giving Neteyam Advice On How To Ask You Out (SFW / Comfort)

Reader is Fem! Omaticaya

CW: fluffy fluff, Neteyam is adorable, Lo’ak and Kiri duo strike again, all this is based on this one tik tok sound that I heard that was SO adorable, and it screamed Neteyam

“I’m telling you, that boy is obsessed! I’ve never seen someone pine over another so much,” Kiri laughed, giving you a playful shove.

“You’re just trying to make me feel better. If he liked me as much as you said, he would’ve said something already,” you playfully rolled your eyes, waving your friend off.

You two had just finished healing lessons with Mo’at, and were now on your way back to the Sully tent to hang out with the boys.

Kiri was swearing up and down that the feelings you had for Neteyam were very valid and very mutual, but you weren’t buying it.

Neteyam was a warrior, a Sully, a future Olo’eyktan.

You were just a simple girl who wanted to become a simple healer.

In your eyes, there was nothing special about you. You weren’t the best hunter, singer, or dancer.

So why would he ever like you?

A romantic relationship with Neteyam was a pipe dream. And to keep from getting hurt, you reminded yourself of this fact over and over again.

 “Well, my brother may not look it, but he’s an idiot. And a shy one at that. But that shyness and idiocy is alllll for you,” Kiri teased, giving you a few pokes in the stomach.

“Quit it!” you laughed, frantically shoving her hands away.

That was your tickle spot.

“You’re crazy! I could never say that!” a familiar voice exclaimed from inside a nearby tent.

You and Kiri quieted your giggles, turning to each other in confusion before moving closer to the home, peeking through a small tear.

“Shut it! Do you want the whole clan to hear?!” Lo’ak harshly whispered, shushing his older brother.

Neteyam.

“I’m sorry, but that’s far too bold. I’ll scare her away,” Neteyam dismissed, resting his hands on his knees, which were sat criss-cross.

Her?

You felt a piece of your heart break, and tears well in your eyes.

They were talking about a girl. One who Neteyam seemed fond of.

“We should go. It’s rude to listen in,” you whispered, your voice small and slightly broken.

Why were you feeling this way?

A lump in your throat seemed to grow larger and larger every time his words replayed in your head.

You had tried to push away your feelings, but at the first mention of another girl, it was made perfectly clear that you could not hide emotions so intense.

And Kiri was quick to pick up on this.

“Now hold on a minute. Let’s hear the rest,” she held your hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.

Little did the two of you know, Lo’ak had heard every word you said, and was now going to make it his mission to put on a show for Neteyam’s girl outside.

He knew his brother was a painful over-thinker, and would never make the first move on you.

So why not give him a little push?

“Okay, so what do you want to tell her then?” Lo’ak started again with a sigh, giving his brother tired eyes.

Neteyam groaned, raking a nervous hand through his braids. “That’s the problem. I don’t even know what to say.”

“Girls love compliments. So you gotta compliment her. Tell me a feature of (y/n)’s you like,” Lo’ak smiled, hopefully talking loud enough so you could hear

“Her eyes. They’re so big and beautiful, and have such a pretty, yellow color to them. I want to tell her this, but how should I?” Neteyam asked again.

“Just say it, bro. Walk up to her, flash her a nice smile, then say, Hey, (y/n). Did anyone ever tell you your eyes are beautiful?” Lo’ak demonstrated, making a Neteyam face at the last part.

You blushed so hard you thought you might burst.

Neteyam felt this way...about you?

“See, there you go again. You may be able to say that, but I cannot. I do not......I do not have your confidence,” Neteyam looked down at himself, hanging his head.

This was pathetic.

He needed to get help from his baby brother in order to talk to you.

He had faced his Iknimaya, Sky People, even his angry dad. But talking to you was scarier than all of those three things combined.

Lo’ak gasped, abruptly standing up from his seat. “You have loads to be confident about, bro! Just look at you.”

He smirked, walking over to his brother and giving him a firm pat on the back.

“You’re a strong warrior, a skilled hunter, and a killer with a bow and arrow. Not to mention you have the devilishly good looks of us Sully men. You’re the whole package, dude.”

Neteyam slightly smiled, thankful for his brother’s praise, but still on the fence about all this.

Lo’ak sighed, sitting down in front of the nervous boy.

“Let’s try something else. Why don’t you tell me what you like about her face? Her lips? Her hair? The way she braids her hair? What about-?” “I love all of it, okay!” Neteyam interrupted, unable to take this anymore. 

“I can’t pick one thing to like because they all are perfect to me. She is perfect to me. But I cannot just walk up to her and tell her this because what if she does not feel the same. I’d have poured my heart out, only for it to spill on the floor.”

Damn. 

Lo’ak had no idea his brother could be so poetic.

Sure, it would make him want to barf if anyone else had said it. But this was his brother, and he was happy for him.

Lo’ak smirked, realizing the trap he just led Neteyam in and giving his mental self a high-five.

Mission Accomplished.

Meanwhile, you were practically about to faint.

Your long time crush had just professed his love for you loud and proud.

And while you were over the moon with this news, Kiri’s I told you so face was starting to get on your nerves.

“C’mon. Let’s go before we get caught,” you whispered, getting ready to tip-toe away.

“You ladies can come in now!” Lo’ak cockily announced, you and Neteyam turning as pale as ghosts.

Shit.

...

taglist !!

@vane28282, @remutoast, @p1nkprint, @ladyorchidia, @anthonys-viscountess, @karmz-7319, @cantbuysophialove, @scarabruhs, @an0th3rsss, @deloe18, @mariiyoushi, @av1xar, @alexxcorona113, @may-and-lay, @overlyfancybreakfastfoods, @harshita-hiranyamayi, @qui-02, @myheartfollower, @morks-watermelon, @bangtanxberm, @adavenus, @sweetdayme4427, @lilac13

[emphistic]

"Buttface"

Things Reader Should Acknowledge: I THINK IVE FINALLY GOTTEN THE HANG OF TUMBLR (hip hip hooray!), i plan on having yuuji being sukuna's baby brother, however, yuuji hasnt been born yet

Prologue: Ever since Sukuna moved in next door, you two have grown closer. Like, impossibly close. One might even call you two "friends;" albeit Sukuna would always shut that idea down. But one thing Sukuna wouldn't shut down? — is that he loves to see you smile. And he would do anything to hear your laugh, over and over again.

A/N: this is in the same universe as "I'm Lactose Intolerant", and while the ages of sukuna and reader dont really matter here, i wrote this with the idea of sukuna being 14 years old and reader is 13 years old (feel free to change that to whatever you desire), brownie points to whoever recognizes the movie that sukuna and reader are watching

Please REFRAIN from REPOSTING MY WORK (REBLOGS ARE EXEMPTED FROM THIS RULE)

"This movie is stupid."

"You think everything is stupid, Stupid." You quip back, flicking Sukuna's forehead.

"Touché." He scoffs, and crosses his arms over his chest before leaning further back into the couch. You put your legs on his lap.

You grin to yourself, wondering if he really didn't notice that you called him by the name "Stupid". Then you think, he's probably just in a good mood, and go back to watching the comedy playing on the screen.

"I mean, how can it take you so long to figure out that someone who looks exactly like you is actually your long lost twin sister?" Sukuna moves his hand around to somehow make his point seem more valid.

"Besides, isn't this supposed to be a comedy? Where's the humor in this? This isn't funny, at all," Sukuna drones on — until you decide that you've finally had enough.

"This isn't funny? Well . . . it's not like you're funny, either." You stick your tongue out at Sukuna, in a teasing manner — to which he does the same.

"That's just what you think. I bet you didn't even know that all your friends come to me during break just to listen to me talk. In fact, most of the time, I'm not even trying to joke around, I'm just that naturally funny," Sukuna wore a smug look on his face.

"Sure, 'Kuna. They're just laughing because you have such a funny face. Sometimes I even get you mixed up with a chihuahua, you know."

"Oh really?" Sukuna glares at you, and gets closer to your face.

You copy him, "Yes — really."

At this point, the tips of your guys' noses were just centimeters away from touching. You could practically feel his warm breath on your face.

Woah.

Now you could hear your own breathing quicken.

Since when were Sukuna's eyes so red?

Your cheeks felt warm.

Why are his eyes so, so—?

"Buttface." Sukuna interrupts the silence.

You get pulled back to reality. "What did you just call me!?"

"What, you deaf now? I called you 'buttface,' Dumbass."

"Seriously, someone needs to control your vocabulary."

"Pft, I don't need any controlling."

You laughed, "Sure, Sukuna. Sure."

The movie ended, and the credits rolled. Sukuna grabbed the remote and turned the TV off, before getting off the couch.

"Want something to drink?" He peered over his shoulder at you, raising a brow.

"Ah, sure. Lemonade."

"Too bad, I ain't getting it for you," Sukuna stuffed his hands into the pockets of his sweats and walked off — to the kitchen, you assumed.

You grumbled, and threw a pillow at his back. It just bounced off, though, and you sighed.

He returned minutes later, with a glass of lemonade in his hand. Which was a clear sign he was trying to aggravate you, because he's expressed multiple times his strong detesting of the refreshing drink. (You completely disagree with him, by the way.)

"Dude, seriously?" You frowned.

"Totally serious. I mean, I couldn't resist. This glass of lemonade was just calling my name." He took a sip.

"It is so good."

Another sip.

"Shame you don't have a glass yourself."

And another sip.

You were practically ripping out your hair at this point. "C'mon, 'Kuna. If you won't get me a glass, can I just have a tiny sip of yours?" You entreated him with all your might.

Sukuna rubbed his chin with his thumb and index finger, pretending to think about his decision. Finally, he said, "What's with that name you keep calling me? And — what's the magic word?"

You huffed, "Please?"

He gestured for you to go on.

You clasped your hands together in a desperate, beggar-like manner. "Pretty please, Sukuna? Just a teensy weensy sip? For poor ol' me."

"Hmm, let me think. How about . . . no."

You gawked at the pink haired boy.

"WHAT."

"You heard me."

"Aghhh!" You jumped on Sukuna, trying to grab the glass of lemonade yourself. If he wasn't going to share, you just had to take matters into your own hands — literally.

Your attempts were fruitless, however; Sukuna just kept on raising the glass higher and higher above his head, to the point you couldn't even reach his wrist. Damn him and his stupid growth spurt.

His hand starts to shake as you try to climb him like a tree. Next thing you know, your wish is answered. You got your lemonade. Except, not in the way you had hoped. The lemonade was everywhere. On your clothes, Sukuna's clothes, the couch, everywhere.

"Oh shit." This time, you didn't correct Sukuna's obscene language.

The room became so silent that you would be able to hear a pin drop.

"Sukuna!" You whisper-shout. (You had no idea why you were whispering.)

"Don't look at me, this was your fault!" His hand still held the now empty glass.

"Me? This was all you," you retorted, jabbing a finger into the older boy's chest.

"Sureee, Y/N. Let's just forget about the fact that you were practically climbing my body."

You blushed.

"You could've just gotten your own cup of lemonade, but no, you just had to spill mine."

You scoffed, "Well, you could've shared, but you didn't — because your shellfish."

Sukuna looked at you funny, "Do you mean 'selfish'?"

"Same thing, you know I make mistakes with pronunciation."

He shrugged. Then, a great idea popped into your head.

"Your mess," you exclaim, before pushing off of Sukuna and darting away, only to be pulled back by your hood.

"Hey!" You shout, falling back onto Sukuna's chest.

"This is your mess. You caused this, remember?"

You groaned, turned around, and tackled Sukuna. You guys ended up rolling off the couch altogether. Pillows were thrown, and the lemonade spread onto the carpet.

"Let go of my foot, you big oaf!" You yelled, shoving at Sukuna's face.

"Not until you admit this was all your fault." He continued to wrestle with you on the ground.

"In. your. dreams."

You guys continued to fight, which made the mess even bigger. It felt like hours had passed. Hours where you still didn't get even a sip of lemonade. Then, you heard the sound of keys, and next thing you know; your parents walked in.

Your heartbeat hammered in your chest.

Your mom and dad took one good look at the two of you on the floor, and your mom said, "Knock it off, you two. And clean up the couch. I don't want my living room smelling like lemonade for the rest of the year." They walked into the kitchen.

You turned back to look at Sukuna, just to find him already staring at you. You guys continued to stare at each other before bursting out into laughter. Tears were basically streaming down the both of your guys' faces at this point.

Your mom yelled from the kitchen, "Ah, young love these days. So different from us — right, honey?" Your dad responded with a loud chuckle.

Looking down, you realized the position you were in. Sukuna lying on his back beneath you, while you were sitting on top of him. The expression on your face immediately soured.

You and Sukuna pulled away from each other in record timing, both of your expressions clearly, visibly flustered.

[bettsfic]

Betts. how do I stop feeling jealous of everyone and everything and just focus on myself? I'm tired of being comprised of nothing but envy.

story time:

so i was recently at Millay, which is one of the top artist residencies in the country. they have an acceptance rate of something like 3%. when i was shown my room, there was a packet of all the residents' artist bios. i sat down and read through all of them. most of them were like half a page in length, single-spaced, listing out accomplishments i could never dream of. one artist had won a guggenheim. one author had published 12 books. another author published her first book at 19 years old. these were people who were extremely well accomplished and respected in their fields.

and we all became very good friends!

and then there was me. my bio was 3 sentences listing out a couple short publications and awards and other residencies i'd done. and my honest to god first thought was, "wow, the jurors must have really liked my writing to have accepted me among all these great artists."

and my second thought was, "that's the healthiest thing i have ever thought."

i had no jealousy of their accomplishments. even though my career hadn't even begun compared to theirs, i didn't attend dinner that night with any impostor syndrome. and that confirmed for me that i had grown out of whatever place i used to be in as a person, where i was basically a raw wound wrapped in barbed wire. everything hurt me and i hurt everything in return.

jealous feelings come from an intense need of external approval, but as i've mentioned in other asks, approval and validation is a well that gets filled over time. at our introductory dinner that night, i didn't talk about my work in the hope of convincing everyone i deserved to be there, which was what i would've done a few years before. instead we all ended up talking about a TV show. the most highbrow place i've ever been in my life, and we're getting wine drunk and discussing at length a cheesy discovery channel reality series. the guggenheim winner: loves box turtles. the guy who's published 12 books: his favorite movie is Spirited Away. the girl who published a book at 19: reads One Direction fanfic. the well-lauded poet: old school tumblrina.

actually, 4 out of 7 of us read fanfic and we had some great conversations about it. sometime i'll tell you about introducing the co-director of the residency to AO3.

when you think of the most accomplished and successful writer you've ever read, remember that they are, at the very core of their being, a nerd. and if you were to eat dinner with them, you would, with enough polite inquisitiveness, be able to unlock the goofy side of them that binges Property Brothers.

so that was the big change for me, i think. i started asking a lot of questions. i stopped talking and i started listening. it seems counterintuitive that admitting to not knowing stuff shows confidence, but it does. pretending you know stuff is what looks insecure. i think for me, i put so much of myself in my work, i wanted my work to be lauded so i could feel accomplished, and feeling accomplishment would let me believe i deserved to exist. but over time, i've reframed that mentality. my work is a thing that exists beyond me and is private to those who read it. it comes from me, but it is not me. what i am is just the person i am, and my life is a series of moments i choose for myself, and i am allowed to exist.

even sending this ask shows that you've begun filling your well. it takes someone who's already come a long way to realize jealousy isn't the status quo and is a feeling to be overcome. and you can overcome it. you can reach a place where you have enough success that other people's success has nothing to do with you, and you're free to just be happy for them. and when you read work that's better than yours you feel joy at learning something new.

so put your work into the world and let it be rejected. you'll rack up a couple wins or close calls, and those will give you energy to be rejected some more. and eventually you'll be rejected so much that rejection doesn't feel like anything, and you will have won enough to realize your work has a place in the world, and that place is no bigger or smaller than anyone else's. your work is allowed to exist simply as it is, and you are allowed to exist simply as you are.

[anakinsbaee]

𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞 - m.s

Summary: In which you are hanging out w/ the triplets and your abusive dad texts you to come home

WARNINGS!: abusive parents, cussing, use of y/n, remarks of physical abuse, sad-ish?, i thinks thats all

a/n: this is my first fic, if u have any feedback pls share !!!

From Dad

“Come home, now.” 

You read the text, your heart instantly dropping. Your palms start sweating and you look around the living room. Nick's beside you, Chris and Matt and your other side of the couch. You don’t even bother telling them because you have to explain why you don’t get along with them, and that’s a whole different story. The triplets didn’t know about the situation of your family, they didn’t know how you weren’t close with your parents at all, constantly fighting them, having to hide things from them. They don’t even know about Nick, Matt and Chris at all.

You start typing fast trying not to cry at the thought of getting yelled at when you come home.

I don’t wanna go home. 

I don’t feel safe there.

“Are you alright?” 

Nick asks, looking down at your phone with a worried face.

“Who is that?” you hesitate telling him, “Oh my dad.. He wants me to come home” you laughed dryly. Matt and Chris heads turn at you. 

“What happened?” Chris asks. 

Fuck.

I don’t want to tell them at all.

“She has to go home, but it’s like literally only 8pm?” He told them

They nodded

I feel like shit whenever I have to go home early, especially because of my fomo.

“Jus’ ask him to go at like 10?”

The problem between their parents and mine is that my parents are strict, especially ‘cause I’m a girl. They don’t want me hanging out with people they don’t know either. Sometimes I feel like I envied their parents' bond with each other and their kids. They all loved each other, my parents couldn’t give less of a fuck. 

“Um, yeah I could ask. I doubt I can stay that long though.”

I threw my head into my hands, sighing loudly.

“Are you sure that’s all that happened?” Matt asked 

“Yeah, don’t worry” I smiled

Nick looks at his brothers with a suspicious look.

I got up leaving my phone, grabbing something to drink. I had to get my mind off it.

A few minutes went by and I was up against a counter drinking out of a juicebox thinking about how I can avoid coming home.

Matt comes into the kitchen with my phone.

“Here, um..”

“What?” I looked at him

“I saw your phone” He says looking down at his feet

“Yeah you always do?” I laughed a bit confused.

“No like your messages, you left it unlocked.”

No.

He didn’t.

No fucking way.

“Yeah your dad left like 8 other messages”

You snatched the phone out of his hand

“Oh my god.”

Dad

“Come home right fucking now.”

“Where are you?”

“Are you fucking slut now? Not telling us where you went?”

“I swear, are you with a guy? better not catch you with them or else I’ll fucking break your skull.”

“You’re grounded.”

Mom

“Y/N where are you? I’m serious, if you don’t come home, I won’t EVER let you inside our house again.”

“This is why I wish I never had a daughter.”

I teared up looking at the messages, although it’s nothing new, they act almost as if they care. Wanting me to come home. They just don’t want to lose someone that does everything you ask them to do.

“Is that why you couldn’t stay?” He asked quietly.

I nodded, my throat felt like it was closing up, I couldn’t breathe. 

I can’t believe he saw that.

“I’m sorry.” That's all I could say, warm tears falling out of my eyes.

“Sorry.. For what?”

“For what you saw.. And crying.”

“Don’t be sorry for anything you are completely valid in this situation. I can’t believe you’ve been dealing with them and you haven’t told us.”

“It's a burden. You can’t really help me” I said exhaling. 

“I could. You can stay here. My parents wouldn’t mind.” Matt says smiling a bit.

I smiled back.

They care about me.

Why was it so hard for my parents to?

What did I do?

I was grateful, insanely grateful.

Matt stepped closer to me and wrapped his arms around me. "I'm so sorry."

I hummed

"Thank you so much." I looked up at him as we hugged

I squeezed Matt as hard as possible like he was going to slip out of my grasp.

I can’t leave.

I don’t want to.

"I'll have to text them." I said stressed again. "We can make my dad call your parents or something?"

"Okay so like do you wanna die?" We both laughed

"We can focus on that tomorrow, I just want you to know that you're safe here. Does he know us?"

"Umm, no." I said embarrassed.

"Thats fine I understand, they are fucking insane." "Just, don't worry. Okay?" He smiled.

What is this feeling?

I felt like I was melting inside, he was so kind.

Chris and Nick entered the kitchen.

“Is she okay?” Chris mumbled.

“I mean we kinda heard everything..” Nick said awkwardly.

I wasn't even mad that they heard the whole conversation, that’s all I ever wanted.

I wanted someone to hear me

To listen to me.

i reallyy hate this!

sparkles from @bebanie

[oh-no-its-bird]

recently, i've started to see things where tobirama is reincarnated as sakura or is sakura's "inner", which is really interesting. could i get your take on this?

Unfortunatley I don't actually know much ab Sakura's inner! I learned naruto lore via fanfiction (never actually touched any canon media, oops) and have only actually read like 3 Sakura centric ones, I straight up didn't even know Sakura had a multiple personality(?) thing going for her till a few months ago (and boy wasn't that a surprise)

I think Tobirama being reincarnated as her could be p fun!! But also I think I'd be more interested in telling a story where he just straight up reincarnated as someone not existing in canon, if only bc then he could also interact WITH Sakura instead of just being her

I find that a lot of stories that try to give Sakura agency just kind of toss her entire character out the window and start from scratch, which is fun and valid! But it's more fun for me to make direct, uncomfortable eyecontact w canon her and find increasingly stupid or chaotic ways to fast track that whole "character development" thing or at least find ways to explain why she's Like That(tm)

So yeah I don't have toooo much interest in Tobirama reincarnating as specifically Sakura or her inner, but I could be into a story where he just reincarnates in proximity to her and then see how they bounce off of eachother. Maybe as a sibling? That could be cool

If he's born a girl we can zap em with the trans beam on top of the body dismorphia of suddenly being a whole child, that could be interesting. The blatant sexism of naruto canon could also make for an interesting plotline if we want to actually get into that

I kind of like the idea of him not actually remembering his previous life, at least not in full. Maybe he has weird dreams sometimes, maybe he looks at photos of the Nidaime and gets weird feelings of dejavu.

I suddenly have a very specific mental image of him getting a scar on his cheek, where one of his tattoos used to be, and just staring in a mirror afterwards at this super weird feeling of dejavu mixed w a sensation of it not being right mixed w just general body dismorphia and aw fuck why does he feel like he's both a little more right and further from himself than he's ever been?

Anyways would he be born younger or older than Sakura? Older brother him is just super overprotective, often suffering from nightmares of sensing as Sakura and some unnamed "other sibling" of his dies. It could also mean he can interact with Itachi actually, maybe they can be emotionally stunted baby genius friends or smthn

But younger sibling him could make for a surprisingly compelling parallel with Sakura and Hashirama! Especially w how Sakura later goes on to train with Tsunade n stuff

Part of me wants to say he's still names Tobirama for simplicitys sake, he can just be named after the Nidaime or smthn. But also that feels a bit cheap even if it is easier, so at least for now we'll name him Tora

Him and cat Tora can square off for name rights idk

Tora speaking oddly formally for a civilian, and having the kind of respect for your elders that come from being a second son in an elder run clan in ancient Japan. He has an awful time trying to form emotional attachments with people, including but especially his parents, who for some reason never really felt like his

But also him having a super easy time being attached to his new little sister Sakura, who he refuses to see anything bad happen to ever

So Tora and Sakura's parents being like suuper traditional, which is why Sakura is Like That when it comes to boys (she's constantly being told she needs to find a man to take care of her) Tora acts as a good figure and role model in her life, so while she's still interested in romance like canon she isn't AS boy crazy and can do a bit of thinking for herself.

And then we can get some fun conflict between Tora and his parents, who unfortunatley don't get the whole trans thing and constantly insist he needs to either drop the shinobi thing and find a husband, or if he does keep going at the shinobi thing, use it to find a husband there then drop it

Yeah he's not doing either of those things.

(they find out he's friends w the Uchiha clan heir and immediatley get weird about it, all glowing with pride that he's "attracting such good potential husbands" n stuff (Tora is PISSED))

Anyways Tora being just alarmingly good at literally any jutsu Tobirama invented. Like, ALARMINGLY good. He has that first life muscle memory, which unfortunatley is NOT a valid alibi and he's about to get his ass beat for seeming to have reverse engineered secret jutsus he shouldn't be able to know.

It isn't HIS fault that just glancing at the flying thunder god technique that one time was apparently enough for him to instinctively understand how to use it!!! Maybe this "Tobirama" guy should have just been better at making his jutsu harder to understand, this is clearly not his fault

He manages to help avoid the Uchiha massacre by being friends with Itachi, the two of them both graduating early and at the same ages, joining the same team and then ANBU together and so on.

Tora being really strong and graduating early and all that only further motivating Sakura to be a super strong shinobi, just like her big brother! Maybe she and Sasuke can even bond or have met earlier through Itachi and Tora's friendship.

Sakura and Sasuke childhood friends agreeing to try and graduate early together just like their older siblings. Not really into sasusaku but Ill say Sakura can keep her crush on him but be actually normal about it via exposure plus maybe some boy advice from Tora (he's a shinobi, so if you really want to charm him, you'll have to beat him first)

She can maybe lose it with time (and exposure to him being a dumb cringe fail kid w his brother still around) and maybe go kiss Ino idk

Anyways, Tora and Itachi friendship. Shisui is also there!! (Love that guy)

They're dynamic is just emotionally suppressed bastard (thinks hes better than you) + emotionally suppressed bastard (knows hes better than you) + upbeat guy smiling at you as he holds a gun to your head

Shisui and Tora take turns driving the car as Itachi sits in the back seat peacefully eating some applesauce (he's just happy to be here)

They're gonna blow up the hokage tower for the good of the people 👍

They're on an ANBU team w Kakashi and Tenzo and forget about going grey, they're gonna make Kakashi's hair straight up fall out from the stress

Maybe Tora can move out of his parents house the first chance he gets, and then whatever place he manages to find can be a little safe place for Itachi. Itachi accidentally ends up almost moving in w him as things at home get worse and worse w the coup. He just stays over more and more and doesn't want to return home

Circling back to the "Tora instinctivley knows how to navigate Tobirama's seals/techniques" the most terrifying point of the story is when he sees Naruto's jinchuriki seal and realizes he knows how to mess with it

Uh oh!! Shouldn't have that information!!

Anyways take some doodles

(Danzo is "that jackass who won't let me look at the nidaime's old research" and Tora has a GRUDGE.)

[ms-demeanor]

Hi there! Firstly, wanna say a huge thank you: your blog has inspired me to become more educated about cybersecurity and nutrition, and it’s the reason my brother and I now use Firefox! I came across this article and… it seemed to raise a lot of valid points about Mozilla, but I have no idea if they are true or not since I’m not that knowledgeable about tech, and they go against everything I’ve ever heard about Firefox. Wanted to ask if you wouldn’t mind giving it a quick read, if that’s not too much trouble, and explaining why it’s false/true? If you can, ofc, I realise that is a weird request, and I promise it&: not something I’d usually ask someone. I just thought I’d ask since you’re the only sort of ‘tech’ person I can think of whom I’d trust to know stuff about this. https://digdeeper.neocities.org/articles/mozilla

So this is a great example of someone reading a ToS uncharitably and extracting the most paranoid bullshit possible.

Aside from the absolute classic "oh noes they are storing info about what devices you use" (if you use firefox logged in mozilla will collect information about what device and OS you use to connect; they do this for a lot of reasons like figuring out what stuff the bulk of their users are using but also because *they can't display on your device without that data*) I want to zoom in on this as an example:

BTW, there is one really funny thing inside the account ToS (MozArchive) that I just have to mention: "We may suspend or terminate your access to the Services at any time for any reason, including [...] our provision of the Services to you is no longer commercially viable." The fuck? If you stop bringing them profit, you're gone. They really said that! To me, this is a roundabout admission that your data is being sold. And if it's not worth much (for whatever reason), then you get kicked out.

This person is highlighting the idea that they may cut you off from services if the provision of those services is no longer commercially viable. This author is saying "FIREFOX WILL BOOT YOU WHEN YOU STOP BEING A PROFITABLE LITTLE PAYPIG FOR THEM"

But. Okay. Let's go look at that section of the ToS:

These Terms will continue to apply until ended by either you or Mozilla. You can choose to end them at any time for any reason by deleting your Mozilla account, discontinuing your use of the Services, and if applicable, unsubscribing from our emails. We may suspend or terminate your access to the Services at any time for any reason, including, but not limited to, if we reasonably believe: (i) you have violated these Terms, (ii) you create risk or possible legal exposure for us; or (iii) our provision of the Services to you is no longer commercially viable. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you by the email address associated with your Mozilla account or the next time you attempt to access the Services. In all such cases, these Terms shall terminate, including, without limitation, your license to use the Services, except that the following sections shall continue to apply: Indemnification, Disclaimer; Limitation of Liability, Miscellaneous.

Bud. This says "we are not obligated to provide services to you and we may stop providing services that cost us more money to maintain than is viable." This isn't about selling your data, this is about backwards compatibility and sunsetting projects. They don't have to keep providing access to services they're no longer developing nor bend over backwards to make sure that you can keep running a version of the browser that uses the extensions they dropped support for ten years ago.

Ugh. I got to the section where they talk about cucking for manifest3 and jesus this asshole. Manifest 3 is a defacto set of web standards that are changing because google has so much market share as a browser that if they do something everybody else has to follow or they're going to break basic functionality; if they don't make these changes eventually a shitload of websites just will not work on firefox. WAY more than currently experience this problem. Nobody is happy about manifest 3 and the fact that mozilla put out a press release about coming manifest 3 changes (that was not positive!) doesn't mean they're happy about getting dragged along by the nose; this blogger would prefer something like them refusing to adopt those standards, but all that would happen is that they'd lose more users because less shit would work on firefox browsers since people write their sites for chrome first and anything else second if at all.

This writer also gripes a lot about things like "mozilla took away this functionality for the sake of security and SURE you can change that by going into the configurations but it should be an option right in the first panel of the settings what are they really trying to hide???" and they're not trying to hide anything bud they're trying to make a functional browser with intuitive menus for people who aren't power users.

Like they want to be able to do everything they want and they want to be able to see the option in front of them at all times. It's a weird combination of "I know how to configure everything about this browser" and "if a setting is ever hidden behind a readmore it's a dark pattern and is an attack on user privacy." Like they gripe a lot about privacy and then link to a bunch of pages on mozilla where they explain their privacy settings and link to tutorials on how to hide the data that they just explained they collect.

Yeah this is someone I would walk away from in order to avoid getting into a fistfight.

"FOSS licenses are nice but they don't ensure quality" nobody said they did.

"FOSS licensed softwares don't always accept user participation in development" nobody said they did

"I can't change the actual code of firefox to remove things that I don't like don't tell me to fork it it has to be all or nothing mozilla specifically has to do what I want or it's user hostile" I can see why it would be hostile to you as a user fuck you dude this is why forks *exist* (also the "spyware" discussed is basic browser tracking stuff, the realistic necessities of how email work that make it not private by default like the PROTOCOLS are not private you can't get around that, and a lot of the stuff is opt out but improves functionality for day to day users, AND a lot of the tracking is specifically for people with logged-in accounts which are not necessary to use firefox like if you hate pocket don't use it my friend! I also hate pocket it is quite simple to never use it thanks)

"There's no justification for making the source code unavailable" my dude. https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/

"If they really cared about an open internet they'd work toward killing capitalism." Friend. I think there's very little more that a web browser could do to undermine the capitalist nature of huge chunks of the web and maintain a broad userbase than what firefox is doing.

I'm reminded of the time that I saw someone losing their shit about a linux distro that included chrome as *a* browser - not the default browser, but *a* browser.

It is an unpleasant fact that a lot of firefox's funding comes from google. That's part of why google is still the default search engine in Firefox and I read some similar articles decrying mozilla's residence firmly in Google's pocket a few years ago. I don't think there's anyone at mozilla who is genuinely pleased that their cheques are signed by google, but there are a ton of people at mozilla who are happy they can keep the lights on because getting paid by google means that they can do as much as they possibly can to create a functional browser that has a significant interest in privacy by default and that can be made *VERY* private by a dedicated user.

Anyway a lot of the stuff on this post is things like "a certificate expired five years ago and broke extensions and that means that mozilla is incompetent and hates users" or "eleven years ago there was a slapfight in the bug reporting forums between a user and a mod and the fact that the user was kicked after repeatedly being told his fix wasn't going to get made is censorship."

The big beefs at the center of this post are:

Mozilla collects data on users

Mozilla limits functionality that should be up to the users

Mozilla takes money from google

and my refutations are:

it does, and it is less than any other mainstream browser and is much much more transparent about what data is collected and how to prevent that data from being collected

A lot of the functionality they're discussing is still there and the stuff that isn't is allowing unsigned extensions which, dude, put a fork in it. They're not going to budge on unsigned extensions but the bar you have to clear to get signed is really really low; like this guy is LITERALLY saying "allow the installation of malicious extensions."

Yep. They do. This point reminds me of a lot of the people on tumblr who hate ads but also hate it when people pay for tumblr. As it turns out making things costs money, and making things used by millions of people costs *A LOT* of money.

I mean FFS one of the things this writer complains about is that Mozilla has a YouTube page.

This isn't just letting perfect be the enemy of good, it's letting perfect be the enemy of *functionally existing as a large organization in the modern world.*

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoy my blog, thank you for letting me know!