#the movie was so much better than expected i am happie

[n8mar3m0m0]

gk movie!

[julietsf1]

The Idiot I Call Mine - Lando Norris x BestFriend! Reader

summary: best friends are supposed to share laughs, inside jokes, fries and the occasional late-night drive. what they’re not supposed to do is flirt like it’s a competitive sport or make you question every unspoken rule of friendship. at least, unless your name is Lando Norris apparently. (7.1k words)

content: fluff! friends to lovers; flirty dynamic; mutual pining

an: whaaat? a fic about another driver? yes loves. this is me coming forward as a secret Lando fan. I hope you'll enjoy as much as I did writing this :)

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Lando Norris has this annoying habit of always being right. It’s not even about anything important—it’s just little things. Like the time he guessed exactly how long it would take before I caved and ordered dessert, or when he said I’d end up watching a rom-com tonight even though I claimed I wanted “something deep and meaningful.”

“See?” he said smugly, leaning back on the couch as the opening credits of The Holiday  played. “I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Hardly,” I shot back, tossing a piece of popcorn at him. “You just know I have a weak spot for Jude Law. That doesn’t make you psychic.”

“No, but it does make me an excellent best friend.” He winked, plucking the popcorn off his lap and popping it into his mouth like the show-off he was.

I rolled my eyes, pretending I wasn’t fighting a grin. Lando and I had been inseparable for years, the kind of best friends who finished each other’s sentences and shared a borderline unhealthy obsession with late-night McDonald’s runs. But lately, something had been… different.

Not bad, exactly. Just different. Maybe? I wasn’t even sure to be honest. 

“You’re staring again,” Lando said, breaking into my thoughts. He was sprawled out on the couch, one arm draped over the backrest in a way that felt entirely too casual and yet completely deliberate. His green eyes sparkled with mischief, and his smirk was the kind that could make even the most confident person question their sanity.

“I wasn’t staring,” I lied, grabbing a handful of popcorn and shoving it in my mouth for good measure.

“You were absolutely staring,” he teased, leaning closer. “What’s on your mind, hmm? Thinking about how devastatingly handsome I am? It’s okay—you can admit it.”

“You’re such a joke,” I said, trying to sound unimpressed but failing miserably. “Devastatingly handsome? Please. You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

“Exactly,” he said, flashing a grin. “And yet, here you are, spending your Friday night with me. Interesting choice.”

“I’m here for the popcorn,” I deadpanned, though even I didn’t believe myself. “And because you begged me.”

“I didn’t beg,” he protested. “I suggested strongly. There’s a difference.”

This was us—lighthearted insults, jokes at each other’s expense, and an ease in our conversations that felt like home. If there was something different lately, I told myself it was just my imagination running wild. 

“Speaking of choices,” I said, leaning back against the couch. “What’s the deal with you and your phone wallpaper?”

“What about it?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“Oh, come on, Lando,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “You really expect me to believe you just happened to pick a picture of me for your wallpaper?”

“It’s a great photo,” he said with a shrug. “You look happy. And let’s not pretend your wallpaper isn’t me.”

I froze, caught. He was right—my wallpaper was him, but that wasn’t the point.

“That’s different,” I said quickly. “You look stupid in yours. It’s funny.”

“Ah, so I’m your personal clown now?” he asked, his voice dripping with mock offense. “Good to know my humiliation brings you joy.”

“Always,” I said sweetly, tossing another piece of popcorn his way.

The movie played on in the background, but neither of us was really paying attention. We were too busy pushing each other’s buttons, like always.

“Hey,” Lando said after a while, his tone a little softer. “You’re coming to dinner at Mum’s next weekend, right?”

“Do I have a choice?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not really,” he said with a grin. “She’s already planning the menu. Something with pasta, probably. You know how she gets when you’re coming over.”

I smiled despite myself. His family had always treated me like one of their own, and his mum had a knack for making me feel special in ways that were both comforting and overwhelming.

“Well, in that case,” I said, pretending to think it over. “I guess I can clear my schedule.”

“Good,” he said, nudging me with his elbow. “I’d be bored without you there.”

It was moments like this—simple and familiar—that stuck with me longer than they should. The way he said things so casually, as if they didn’t carry any weight, even when they somehow did. 

“You’ve got something on your face,” I said suddenly, trying to distract myself.

“Where?” he asked, leaning closer.

“Right there,” I said, tapping the corner of my mouth.

He smirked, deliberately licking the spot where I’d pointed. “Better?”

“Ugh, you’re insufferable,” I said, shoving him away. But I was laughing, and so was he.

“You love it,” he said, and for once, I didn’t argue. Because maybe I did.

As the night went on, the teasing continued, each remark more loaded than the last. By the time the credits rolled, I wasn’t sure if it was the movie or Lando’s lingering glances that had me feeling so off-kilter.

“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” he said, breaking the silence as he stood to clean up the popcorn bowl. “Something on your mind?”

“Just thinking,” I said vaguely, not meeting his gaze.

“About?” he pressed, leaning against the counter with a smirk that said he already knew the answer.

“Nothing important,” I said, grabbing my phone and pretending to scroll.

“Liar,” he said, his voice playful but probing. “You’re terrible at hiding things, you know that?”

I glanced up at him, my heart doing that annoying fluttery thing it had been doing lately. He was standing there like he had all the time in the world, his green eyes locked on mine, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

“Goodnight, Lando,” I said finally, brushing past him on my way to the couch.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” he called after me, his voice laced with amusement.

…

“You know, for someone who claims to be an athlete, you spend an alarming amount of time eating,” I said, glancing at Lando over the top of my menu.

“Carbs are fuel,” he replied, flashing me a grin. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand that we could’ve gone somewhere normal instead of whatever this place is,” I said, gesturing to the overly fancy restaurant. The kind of place where the wine glasses sparkled brighter than the chandeliers, and the menu was full of words I couldn’t pronounce.

“You’re so ungrateful,” he teased, leaning back in his chair. “Do you know how hard it was to get a table here? I had to name-drop myself.”

“Wow,” I said dryly. “The struggle.”

“Exactly. And now you’re here, about to enjoy the finest pasta in town, thanks to me. A little gratitude wouldn’t kill you.”

“Gratitude? You dragged me here under false pretenses. You said this was a ‘low-key spot.’”

“It is low-key,” he argued, gesturing around. “For Monte Carlo standards.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t stop the smile creeping onto my face. This was just how things were with Lando—effortless, easy, and borderline ridiculous.

“Alright, what are you getting?” Lando asked, lowering his menu.

“Fettuccine Alfredo,” I said without hesitation.

“Of course you are,” he said, smirking. “Predictable.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I shot back. “What are you getting, then? Something groundbreaking? Life-changing? Revolutionary?”

“Tagliatelle al tartufo,” he said with a mockingly posh accent.

“Wow,” I said, feigning awe. “Truffle pasta. You’re really pushing the boundaries, Norris.”

“Don’t be jealous just because I have sophisticated taste,” he replied, the smirk never leaving his face.

“‘Sophisticated’ is one way to put it,” I muttered, pretending to study the menu again. “Another is ‘pretentious.’”

“You’ll be begging for a bite,” he said confidently, setting the menu down.

“Please,” I said, scoffing. “You’ll be stealing mine before the plates even hit the table.”

He leaned forward, his grin widening. “You know me so well.”

The food arrived soon after, and, as predicted, we switched plates halfway through without even discussing it. It was second nature by now, like so many other things about us.

“You know,” Lando said, twirling a forkful of fettuccine, “if this whole racing thing doesn’t work out, I could be a food critic.”

“Sure,” I said, deadpan. “Because people are dying to know what Lando Norris thinks about pasta.”

“They would be,” he said, undeterred. “My palate is unparalleled.”

“Your palate consists of pizza, chicken nuggets, and whatever I’m eating,” I shot back.

“And yet, here we are,” he said, gesturing to the table. “Me, enjoying this culinary masterpiece, and you, enjoying my company. Life is good.”

It was shaping up to be another night of easy conversation and mindless teasing until a voice interrupted us.

“Lando?”

I looked up to see two women standing at the edge of our table. They were both tall, blonde, and effortlessly elegant, the kind of women who looked like they belonged in a magazine spread rather than real life.

“Oh, hey!” Lando said, his face lighting up in recognition.

I glanced at him, watching as his entire demeanor shifted ever so slightly. He straightened up, his grin widening just enough to make my stomach twist.

“We haven’t seen you in forever,” one of the women said, her smile bright and practiced.

“I know,” Lando said, leaning back in his chair like he had all the time in the world. “It’s been a while.”

“You look great,” one of them said, her smile bright as she leaned in a little too close.

“So do you,” Lando replied, his tone polite but just warm enough to make me suddenly very interested in my water glass. The conversation floated around me, full of laughter and inside jokes I didn’t understand.

“And who’s this?” one of them finally asked, her gaze flicking to me with polite curiosity.

“This is Y/N,” Lando said, gesturing toward me with a casualness that felt too deliberate. “My best friend.”

Best friend. There it was again.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes.

“Likewise,” she replied, her tone perfectly pleasant.

They didn’t linger much longer—just enough to leave their mark before excusing themselves with a wave and a promise to “catch up soon.”

“Old friends of yours?” I asked once they were gone, my voice light but with a slight edge.

“Something like that,” Lando said, taking a sip of his water.

“Something like that?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged, his smirk returning. “They’re sisters. I, uh… may have had a thing with both of them. At different times, obviously.”

My fork froze midair. “Both of them?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, laughing. “It’s not that weird.”

“It’s incredibly weird,” I said, shaking my head.

“I mean, it didn’t overlap or anything,” he added, as if that somehow made it better. “But yeah… sisters.”

I stared at him, equal parts amused and horrified. “That’s… impressive? I guess?”

“Thank you,” he said, grinning like he’d just been handed an award. “Think I should call them again?”

“Sure,” I forced a laugh, stabbing at my pasta. “And then ask if they have any other sisters you might’ve missed.”

He chuckled, clearly oblivious to the sarcasm in my tone. “Good idea. Always room for a hat trick.”

My stomach churned uncomfortably, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I focused on my plate, hoping he wouldn’t notice the way my mood had shifted.

…

The paddock was its usual chaotic self—teams rushing to prepare for practice sessions, fans peering over barriers for a glimpse of their favorite drivers, and media personnel darting between interviews. I decided to escape the madness for a bit, heading toward the staff catering building for a much-needed coffee.

The line was mercifully short, but as I joined it, I noticed someone already waiting near the front. Tall, dark-haired, and wearing a Ferrari polo with his name—Marco—stitched neatly on the chest. He turned slightly, catching my eye and offering a polite smile.

“Busy morning?” he asked, his tone warm and conversational.

“Something like that,” I replied with a small smile. “You?”

“Always,” he said with a soft chuckle. “But coffee makes it manageable, no?”

I nodded. “A universal truth.”

Marco stepped aside to let me order, a gesture so casual it almost went unnoticed. As I gave my order to the barista, I felt him glance at me again—not invasive, just curious.

“So, not Ferrari,” he said after I stepped back to wait for my coffee.

“Is it that obvious?” I joked.

“A little,” he admitted, his grin widening. “You’re far too relaxed to be one of us.”

“Should I be offended or flattered?” I asked, tilting my head playfully.

“Flattered,” he said easily. “Relaxed is a good thing.”

We fell into an easy rhythm as we waited. Marco was effortlessly charming, asking questions without prying and tossing in a few self-deprecating remarks about Ferrari’s chaos.

“You’re here with a team?” he asked eventually.

“A friend,” I said vaguely.

“Lucky friend,” he said, his tone light but genuine.

I laughed softly. “That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”

Marco opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, a familiar voice cut through the hum of conversation.

“There you are.”

I turned to see Lando approaching, his expression relaxed but his eyes sharper than usual.

“Hey,” I said, surprised. “I thought you were doing media.”

“Finished early,” he said, stepping closer. His gaze flicked briefly to Marco, who stood quietly by my side. “And I figured I’d find you here.”

“Good instincts,” I said lightly, though something about his sudden appearance felt… deliberate.

Marco offered his hand to Lando, ever polite. “Marco. Ferrari engineering.”

“Lando,” he replied, shaking his hand. “McLaren driving.”

Marco chuckled. “I know who you are. Good to meet you.”

“You too,” Lando said, his tone friendly but with an edge I couldn’t quite place.

The barista called my name, and I turned to grab my coffee, giving them a moment to exchange polite words. By the time I returned, Marco was stepping away with his own drink.

“Enjoy the rest of your day,” he said, offering me a small wave before disappearing into the crowd.

Lando watched him go before turning back to me. “Who was that?”

“Marco,” I said simply.

“And what was Marco talking to you about?” he asked, his tone too casual to be entirely innocent.

I raised an eyebrow. “Coffee, mostly. Why?”

“No reason,” he said quickly, taking a sip of my drink.

I studied him for a moment, noting the way his shoulders tensed ever so slightly. “You’re acting weird.”

“I’m not acting weird,” he said defensively.

“You’re definitely acting weird.”

Lando sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright, fine. I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, genuinely baffled.

“He was flirting,” Lando said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I blinked. “He was being nice.”

“Nice,” Lando repeated, his voice laced with skepticism. “Sure. That’s one way to put it.”

“Lando, he’s just a guy who works for Ferrari,” I said, shaking my head.

“Exactly,” he said, as if that proved his point.

There was a beat of silence as I processed his words.

“You sound jealous,” I said finally, testing the waters.

“Jealous?” he scoffed, though the flicker of something in his eyes gave him away. “Hardly. I just think you can do way better than some guy who chats you up in the coffee line.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Am I?” he asked, smirking now.

“Yes,” I said firmly, though the warmth in my chest betrayed me.

We walked back toward the McLaren garage, his mood lightening with every step. By the time we arrived, he was back to his usual self—chatting with the mechanics and laughing at some joke I’d already missed.

But his words stayed with me, replaying in my mind as I sat down with my coffee. My coffee which Lando had somehow already drank half of. 

…

The McLaren lounge was a rare oasis of calm in the chaos of a race weekend. Engineers hustled past the windows, radios crackled with updates, and somewhere in the distance, an engine roared to life. But in here, it was all plush couches, soft lighting, and a distinct lack of urgency.

I was curled up on one end of the couch, flipping through a magazine, while Oscar and Lando lounged on the other side. Lando, as usual, couldn’t sit still. He was draped sideways over the armrest, absently spinning a water bottle in his hands.

“Alright,” Lando announced, breaking the comfortable silence. “Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?”

I looked up from my magazine, narrowing my eyes. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

“It’s an important question,” he insisted, his grin wide and mischievous.

I pretended to ponder for a moment. “One horse-sized duck. Definitely.”

Lando gaped at me like I’d just declared something outrageous. “Terrible answer. Absolutely terrible.”

“It’s the smart answer,” I shot back, sitting up straighter. “You outmaneuver one big target instead of exhausting yourself trying to wrangle a hundred tiny ones.”

“Do you even know how terrifying a horse-sized duck would be?” Lando asked, his voice rising in mock disbelief.

“And do you know how terrifying a hundred duck-sized horses would be?” I countered, raising an eyebrow.

Lando leaned forward, his grin widening. “Oh, come on. You’re telling me you’d rather face one giant, angry duck with a wingspan bigger than this couch?”

“Absolutely,” I said confidently. “Ducks aren’t that scary.”

“They can bite, you know,” he shot back, gesturing dramatically. “One snap, and you’re done for.”

I smirked, leaning closer. “I think I’d survive. Besides, I have a secret weapon.”

“What’s that?” he asked, his eyes narrowing playfully.

“You,” I said, deadpan. “I’ll just toss you in its path and run.”

Lando gasped, clutching his chest in mock betrayal. “Wow. That’s cold, Y/N. I thought we were a team.”

“We are,” I said, grinning. “But only if you pick the right answer next time.”

For a moment, he was quiet, his grin faltering just slightly as he met my gaze. It wasn’t much, just a flicker of something softer beneath the banter. But it was enough to make my stomach do that annoying little flip I’d been trying to ignore.

“Lando,” Oscar interjected, his tone casual but pointed. “You’re staring.”

“I am not,” Lando said quickly, his ears turning the faintest shade of pink as he looked away.

“You are,” Oscar said, leaning back with a smirk.

“You’re imagining things,” Lando muttered, crossing his arms.

Oscar snorted but didn’t press the issue, instead grabbing his phone and scrolling through it idly. But the look he shot Lando wasn’t lost on me—or Lando, for that matter.

As the banter settled into silence, I decided to grab a drink from the catering area, leaving the two of them alone.

The moment the door swung shut behind me, Oscar struck. “Mate, you’re not exactly subtle, you know.”

“About what?” Lando asked, feigning innocence as he fidgeted with the water bottle.

Oscar didn’t even look up from his phone. “About Y/N.”

“What about her?”

Oscar set his phone down, leveling Lando with a knowing look. “You’re acting like a lovesick puppy every time she’s around.”

Lando scoffed, though the tips of his ears betrayed him again. “That’s ridiculous. We’re just friends.”

“Sure,” Oscar said, dragging out the word like he was savoring it. “That’s why you light up like a Christmas tree whenever she walks in the room.”

“I do not,” Lando said defensively, but his voice lacked conviction.

“You do,” Oscar replied, leaning back with an exaggerated sigh. “Mate, you’re glaring holes into the back of her head every time she talks to someone else. And don’t even get me started on how you were watching her during the duck-and-horse debate like she’d just solved world peace.”

“That’s—” Lando started, then stopped, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s not like that.”

“Right,” Oscar said, his smirk firmly in place. “It’s exactly like that, but go off.”

Lando opened his mouth, then closed it again, clearly searching for the right words. “It’s… we’ve known each other forever. It’s Y/N.”

Oscar nodded, as if that made sense, but his smirk didn’t waver. “Don’t you think it would be time to change that soon? You two are exhausting.”

Lando shot him a look, but there was no real heat behind it.

“I’m just saying,” Oscar said, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “You’re completely gone for her. Admit it already.”

Lando groaned, leaning back against the couch and running a hand through his hair. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Yeah,” Oscar said, grinning now. “But I’m right.”

Lando didn’t respond, his gaze drifting to the door where I’d just left. And for the first time, he let himself wonder if maybe—just maybe—Oscar was onto something.

…

The moment we walked into George’s celebration, the energy hit like a wave. The room was packed with familiar faces—drivers, engineers, and friends—dressed to the nines in that effortless way people in motorsport always seemed to manage. String lights twinkled across the ceiling, soft jazz played over the speakers, and a steady hum of conversation filled the air.

“You’re going to owe me for this,” I teased, glancing at Lando. “Dragging me here after wasting twenty minutes deciding between two identical shirts.”

“They weren’t identical,” Lando replied with a roll of his eyes, his hand resting lightly on the small of my back as we weaved through the crowd. “One had a darker stitch.”

“Completely life-changing,” I said dryly, though I couldn’t help the small smile tugging at my lips.

“See? You get it,” he shot back with a grin, steering us toward a booth near the bar.

The way his hand lingered, warm and steady, was something I tried not to think too much about. It was just Lando being Lando—playful, touchy, and completely oblivious to the little flips my stomach insisted on doing whenever he leaned too close.

We found our way to a booth not far from the bar, where Alexandra and Charles were already seated. Charles was gesturing animatedly about something, while Alexandra sat with her usual poised grace, sipping champagne. When she saw us, her face lit up.

“Enfin, vous êtes là !” Alexandra exclaimed, waving us over. (Finally, you’re here!)

“Lando a changé de chemise trois fois,” I replied, throwing him a look. (Lando changed his shirt three times.)

Charles chuckled, leaning back with a smirk. “Toujours dramatique, hein ?” (Always dramatic, huh?)

“English,” Lando whined as we slid into the booth. “You’re ganging up on me in French. It’s not fair.”

“Pauvre bébé,” I teased, patting his arm lightly. (Poor baby.)

“Whatever that means,” he muttered, though the grin tugging at his lips made it clear he wasn’t upset.

The conversation flowed easily between the four of us. Lando, of course, dominated the chatter, weaving an elaborate story about George’s awkward rookie days. His expressions were so animated, his gestures so over-the-top, that even Charles—usually the calm and composed one—was cracking up by the end.

“That’s not true,” I said, nudging Lando with my elbow. “You’re exaggerating again.”

“I’m not!” he protested, his green eyes wide with mock innocence. “It’s all true. Every word.”

“Sure it is,” I replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Back me up here!” he said, turning to Charles.

Charles raised a brow, taking a deliberate sip of his drink. “I wasn’t there, but… I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Alexandra laughed softly, glancing at me. “Toujours l’acteur dramatique, ce Lando.” (Always the drama actor, that Lando.)

“Hey,” Lando said, pointing at her. “I know that wasn’t a compliment.”

I smirked, leaning closer. “It absolutely wasn’t.”

He gasped dramatically, his hand over his chest. “Betrayed by my own friends. I’ll never recover.”

“You’ll survive,” I said, brushing him off, though the warmth in his gaze lingered just a beat too long.

Lando eventually excused himself to grab drinks, leaving me to chat with Alexandra and Charles. As soon as he was out of earshot, Alexandra leaned in, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Il est tellement évident qu’il a un faible pour toi,” she said softly, her voice full of amusement. (It’s so obvious he has a thing for you.)

“Quoi?” I asked, my cheeks heating instantly. (What?)

“Ouvre les yeux,” she said, smirking. (Open your eyes.)

Charles chuckled, sipping his drink as he watched the exchange. “C’est écrit partout sur son visage.” (It’s written all over his face.)

“Stop,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re imagining things.”

Alexandra raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue, her expression saying everything her words didn’t.

At the bar, Lando was cornered by Carlos, who leaned casually against the counter, his expression smug. 

“You know,” Carlos said, his tone casual, “you’re not very subtle.”

“What are you talking about?” Lando asked, though his focus kept drifting toward the booth where I was sitting.

Carlos raised his drink, gesturing toward me. “You’ve been staring at her all night, hermano. Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?”

Lando stiffened, his grin faltering. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Just tell her,” Carlos said, swirling his drink lazily.

“It’s not that simple,” Lando replied, his voice quieter now.

Carlos raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Because if I mess this up, I lose her,” Lando admitted, glancing toward our booth.

Carlos tilted his head, studying him. “You’re scared. That’s what this is.”

“Of course I’m scared,” Lando muttered, running a hand through his hair. “She’s my best friend. If it doesn’t work—”

“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” Carlos interrupted, his voice softer now. “But you’d better do something soon.”

Carlos’s smirk softened slightly, but before Lando could reply, Liam Lawson appeared at the bar.

“Who’s the girl with Charles and Alexandra?” Liam asked, nodding toward the booth. “She single?”

Carlos grinned mischievously. “Yeah, she is—go for it.”

Lando’s head snapped toward Carlos, his glare sharp enough to cut glass. “Carlos.”

“What?” Carlos said, feigning innocence. “Just giving the kid a shot.”

…

Liam approached with the kind of confidence that only a Red Bull driver could pull off.

“Hey,” he said, sliding into the seat across from me. “You’re Y/N, right?”

I blinked, momentarily surprised but recovering quickly. “That’s me. And you are?”

“Liam Lawson,” he said, extending a hand.

I shook it, his grip firm but not overbearing. “Nice to meet you.”

“How do you know George?” he asked, leaning forward slightly, his elbows resting on the table as if he had all the time in the world.

“Through Lando,” I replied, keeping my tone polite but measured. His easy demeanor was almost disarming, but there was something about the way he looked at me that made me hyper-aware of my surroundings.

“Ah, Lando,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Lucky guy. You two seem pretty close.”

“We’ve been friends for a long time,” I said simply, taking a sip of my drink and trying not to overthink his comment.

“Well,” he said, tilting his head slightly, “his loss if he hasn’t made a move yet.”

That caught me off guard. My gaze flicked to his, searching for any hint of a joke, but he was entirely serious—or at least good at pretending to be.

“Excuse me?” I asked, my voice betraying my surprise.

Liam grinned wider, clearly enjoying himself. “Just saying. If I were him, I wouldn’t be sitting over there, letting someone else steal your attention.”

The comment was bold, and I didn’t quite know how to respond. My thoughts were a mess of confusion, flattery, and something else I didn’t want to name. Before I could formulate a response, the familiar sound of Lando’s voice cut through the air.

“Liam,” he said smoothly, stepping up to the table. His tone was calm, but his green eyes held a sharpness that made me sit up a little straighter.

Liam glanced up, raising an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

“Christian’s looking for you,” Lando said, his tone casual but firm. “Something about debrief notes.”

Liam frowned, clearly reluctant. “Now?”

“Yeah,” Lando said, nodding. “He seemed pretty keen.”

Liam hesitated, his gaze flicking between me and Lando like he was weighing his options. Finally, he sighed, pushing himself to his feet. “Alright. Nice meeting you, Y/N.”

“You too,” I replied, watching him leave with a mixture of relief and something I couldn’t quite pin down.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Lando lingered for a moment, his hands shoved into his pockets as he avoided my gaze.

“That,” Charles said, his tone thick with amusement, “was the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard.”

Lando shot him a glare, his ears turning faintly red. “Mind your own business, Charles.”

Charles just smirked, raising his glass in mock surrender. “Whatever you say.”

I didn’t say anything, but a flicker of suspicion settled in the back of my mind.

Had Lando just…? No. That would be ridiculous. Wouldn’t it?

“Let’s get a drink,” Alexandra said, pulling me to my feet.

…

As Alexandra and I made our way back toward the booth, she nudged me gently, her eyes glinting with curiosity.

“Lando looked like he was about to breathe fire earlier,” she said casually, sipping her drink.

I laughed softly, trying to deflect. “He’s always protective. It’s nothing.”

“Protective?” Alexandra repeated, raising an eyebrow. “That was not protective, chérie. That was jealousy.”

I opened my mouth to respond but stopped short as we neared the booth, Lando and Charles’s voices filtering through the hum of the room.

“It will just be awkward, mate,” Lando said, his tone low and almost resigned.

“Just talk about it,” Charles replied simply.

“It’s not that simple,” Lando muttered. “She will never be more than just a friend.”

The words hit me like a punch to the stomach. My chest tightened, and the air around me seemed to still. Alexandra’s hand touched my arm gently, but I barely noticed.

“I— I need some air,” I managed, turning away before she could respond.

The ache in my chest grew with every step I took, his words echoing in my head.

She will never be more than just a friend.

And just like that, everything I thought I’d imagined felt painfully real.

…

I turned my phone face down on the table at Gigi’s, willing myself not to glance at the screen again. The missed calls from Lando were piling up, his name lighting up my notifications every half hour like clockwork. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to him—I did. But every time I thought about his voice, his laugh, his damn words, the ache in my chest tightened.

She will never be more than just a friend.

I shook my head, forcing the thought away as the waiter arrived with my order. The smell of rich, cheesy pasta wafted up, comforting in the way only food could be. I twirled a forkful absentmindedly, hoping the carbs would somehow fill the space that had been hollowed out the night before.

The familiar growl of an engine outside pulled my attention from my plate. I glanced toward the window and froze.

The unmistakable silhouette of Lando’s Miura parked just outside, sleek and shining even under the soft glow of streetlights. A moment later, the door opened, and there he was, stepping out effortless as usual—but his expression wasn’t the easygoing grin I was used to. He looked… worried.

Before I could decide what to do, he spotted me through the window, his shoulders relaxing ever so slightly. He pushed through the door, his eyes locking onto mine immediately.

“There you are,” he said, relief evident in his tone as he approached my table.

I blinked, caught off guard. “Lando? What are you doing here?”

He pulled out the chair across from me, sitting down without asking. “Looking for you.”

My heart twisted. “Why?”

“Because you’ve been ignoring me all day,” he said, his voice quieter now.

I looked away, focusing on my fork. “I had my phone off that’s all.”

He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, studying me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

“I knew I’d find you here,” he said finally, his voice softer but steady.

I glanced up, frowning. “What?”

“You always turn to cheesy Italian food when you’re upset,” he said with a small smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s your thing.”

The casual observation caught me off guard, a mix of warmth and frustration bubbling in my chest.

“So what?” I said, my tone sharper than I intended. “You’re some kind of expert on me now?”

He sighed, leaning forward, his elbows resting on the table. “Y/N, I know you better than anyone. And I know something’s wrong.”

I didn’t answer, twisting my fork in the pasta and pretending to be engrossed in my meal. But the usual comfort it brought was absent, replaced by the uncomfortable weight of his gaze.

“You’re not yourself,” Lando said after a moment, his voice quieter now. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly, my tone clipped.

“Don’t lie to me,” he replied, his tone more serious than I was used to.

I set my fork down, the clink of metal against porcelain louder than it should have been. “Maybe I just don’t feel like talking.”

His eyes softened, his frustration giving way to concern. “Y/N…”

“Lando, I’m fine,” I interrupted, though the words felt hollow.

He didn’t push further, but I could see the gears turning in his head. He sat back, glancing down at my half-finished plate of pasta before gesturing to the waiter.

“Can we get the check, please?” he asked, pulling out his wallet.

I frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Paying,” he said simply, standing as the waiter approached.

“For me?”

“Yes,” he said, looking down at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “Come on.”

“Come on where?” I asked, my brow furrowing.

“You’ll see,” he said, extending a hand.

I hesitated for a moment before letting him pull me to my feet.

The warm night air hit us as we stepped out of Gigi’s, the soft sound of waves in the distance mingling with the faint hum of the city. Lando didn’t say anything, his grip on my hand firm but gentle as he led me toward Larvotto Beach, just a short walk away.

“Lando, seriously,” I said as we reached the sand. “What’s going on?”

He stopped, turning to face me, his green eyes brighter under the moonlight.

“We need to talk.” he said simply.

And just like that, my heart started racing, even though I had no idea what he was going to say.

The beach stretched out before us, quiet except for the rhythmic crash of waves against the shore. The city lights glittered faintly in the distance, their reflection dancing on the dark water. Lando walked beside me, his shoulders tense, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets.

For once, I didn’t fill the silence. I didn’t trust myself to. My thoughts were a whirlwind—last night’s overheard words still fresh in my mind, colliding with the unexpected intensity of this moment.

We walked like that for a while, the sand soft beneath our feet, until Lando came to a sudden stop. He turned to face me, his green eyes catching the moonlight in a way that made my stomach twist.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he said, running a hand through his hair.

I crossed my arms, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure he could hear it. “Try the beginning.”

He huffed out a soft laugh, shaking his head. “The beginning’s too far back. I’d be here all night.”

“Good thing I don’t have anywhere else to be,” I said, my voice quieter than I intended.

For a moment, he just looked at me, his expression softening. “Y/N, I have a lot of friends. Like, a lot of friends.”

I blinked, confused. “Okay?”

“But none of them get to me the way you do,” he said, his voice dropping.

I stared at him, my breath catching. “What are you saying?”

He glanced out at the water, like he was searching for courage in the rolling waves. “I mean… you’re not just anyone to me. You never have been. You’re the first person I think of when something happens—good or bad. And the idea of upsetting you? It’s unbearable.”

My throat tightened as his words sank in.

“Like today,” he continued, his voice cracking slightly. “You ignored my calls, and I couldn’t stop thinking about whether I’d done something wrong. Whether I hurt you somehow. Because if I did…” He stopped, exhaling sharply, and shook his head. “I can’t stand the thought of you being upset because of me.”

I didn’t respond, too caught up in the flood of emotions his words were pulling from me.

“When you’re upset, it breaks my heart,” he admitted, his voice softer now. “And when you laugh… it’s like my entire day gets brighter. When you’re sad, it feels like my world’s falling apart.”

“Lando,” I started, but he held up a hand, shaking his head.

“I’m not done,” he said, his words tumbling out now, faster and more frantic. “I’ve been feeling like this for so long, and I thought I could just push it aside or pretend it didn’t matter, but it does. It matters so much. And if I messed up—if I’ve ruined this somehow—I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“You didn’t—”

“I’m in love with you,” he blurted, his eyes locking onto mine. “I think I’ve been in love with you for a while now, but I’ve been too scared to admit it. And I know this might change everything, but I can’t keep pretending I don’t feel this way.”

I froze, his confession slamming into me with the force of a tidal wave.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t even know if this makes sense. I just… I can’t lose you, Y/N.”

Without thinking, I stepped closer, grabbed his face, and kissed him.

For a second, he was completely still, caught off guard. But then he kissed me back, his hands slipping to my waist as he pulled me closer. The kiss was soft at first, tentative, but it deepened quickly, making the world around me disappear.

When we finally pulled apart, his forehead rested against mine, both of us catching our breath.

“So… I’m guessing you feel the same?” he asked, a small, nervous smile tugging at his lips.

“You’re so slow sometimes,” I murmured, shaking my head with a laugh.

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a yes,” I said, smiling.

The relief on his face was almost comical. He pulled me into a hug, his arms wrapping around me tightly like he never wanted to let go.

“I’ve wanted to tell you for so long,” he murmured into my hair.

“And I’ve wanted to hear it,” I admitted, my voice muffled against his chest.

He pulled back just enough to look at me, his brow furrowing slightly. “But… yesterday. Did I say something? Did I—”

I hesitated, my stomach twisting. “I overheard you talking to Charles.”

His face paled. “Oh.”

“You said I’d never be more than a friend,” I said, my voice wavering.

Lando winced, rubbing the back of his neck. “God, Y/N, that’s not how I meant it at all. I said that because I thought I didn’t stand a chance. Like… you’re so important to me, and I didn’t want to mess up what we already had by wanting something I thought I could never have.”

He looked at me with a mix of regret and hope. “I’m an idiot. It wasn’t because I didn’t want more—it’s because I didn’t think I could have it.”

“You are an idiot,” I said, my lips twitching into a small smile. “But you’re my idiot.”

He laughed softly, shaking his head. “Yours, huh? Bold claim.”

I tilted my head, my grin widening. “Think you can find someone else to deal with you the way I do?”

He raised an eyebrow, stepping closer. “Deal with me? You mean worship my charm and tolerate my perfection?”

“Oh, please,” I shot back, rolling my eyes. “The only thing I’m worshipping is the patience I’ve built up putting up with you.”

His hands slid to my waist, pulling me slightly closer, his smirk turning more mischievous. “You love me. Admit it.”

“Not a chance,” I said, even as my pulse quickened.

His gaze dropped to my lips for the briefest moment before meeting my eyes again, his voice softening but still teasing. “You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

Before I could respond, he closed the gap, kissing me again with a fierceness that took me by surprise. This wasn’t the hesitant, nervous kiss from before. It was confident, teasing, like everything we’d been holding back had finally snapped into place.

I kissed him back, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt to pull him closer. His hands tightened on my waist, grounding me as he smiled against my lips, murmuring, “Still denying it?”

I broke the kiss just long enough to catch my breath, raising an eyebrow. “You think one kiss is going to make me fold?”

“Two,” he said smugly, leaning in for another without waiting for an answer.

I rolled my eyes but didn’t stop him, meeting him halfway this time. His lips curved into a grin mid-kiss, and I could feel his stupid, insufferable smugness radiating off him.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” I asked when we pulled apart, my voice laced with mock annoyance.

“Unbelievably,” he replied, his grin widening as he rested his forehead against mine. “And don’t pretend you’re not.”

“Maybe I am,” I admitted, smirking. “But if you keep talking, I might start regretting it.”

He laughed, pulling me closer. “Alright, no more talking. For now.”

“Good,” I said, leaning in again, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore fading into the background as everything else fell away.

The weight of everything unsaid was gone, replaced by the warmth of realizing we’d both been fighting our way toward the same truth: we’d always belonged to each other.

When we broke apart, Lando’s grin turned mischievous, and I immediately knew he was up to something. Before I could react, he scooped me up effortlessly and started toward the water.

“Lando! Don’t you dare!” I shrieked, squirming in his arms as laughter bubbled out of me.

“Payback for all those times you called me an idiot,” he teased, stopping just as the waves lapped at his shoes.

He finally set me down, his smirk smug and unapologetic. “Admit it. You love me anyway.”

Figures. I’m in love with someone who steals my fries and once confidently argued that dolphins were just “sea dogs.” I wouldn’t have it any other way though.

[gyuswhore]

Fifteen to Forever

"I can’t not be happy when I know I have you."

PAIRING: hockeyplayer!choi seungcheol x f!reader

SYNOPSIS: Fifteen was the age you had met Choi Seungcheol at a school hockey game. Forever was the age you would find yourself spending with him.

CONTAINS: fluff, angst, smut (MINORS DNI), growing up, tears (a lot), distance, this is so emotional you will be in your feels, kissing, p in v sex (unprotected), clit stimulation, handjobs, happy endings bc we love them, i think that's it

WORD COUNT: 6k

masterlist

[AN]: thank you so much @ressonancee for birthing the idea of hockey player cheol in the first place, reading over some of the bits and helping me w some of the plot!!! ty for letting me ramble in your dms lol. hockeyplayer!cheol WILL reappear in other fics bc I'm obsessed with the idea, for now, I hope you enjoy this angsty fluffy creation <33

It wasn’t until the last echo of the slammed car door had faded that you realized, yes, mom, I do actually want you to go in with me. 

But alas, as the last tresses of exhaust from her car fade into nothingness, you accept that you’d have to do this alone. Gripping the straps of your brand new backpack helps you ground yourself as the increasingly erratic breathing takes over you. It sinks in now that you’re alone. 

There’s a honk, and you realize you’re still frozen in the drop-off zone, the mom in the Subaru not appreciating the 7 AM delay to drop off her own high schooler. You wonder if her kid would let her drop them off inside. 

Scurrying into the entrance of the open gates, you find the courtyard full. Huddles of teens laughing and yelling despite the early morning hour, not a spare square foot on the grass. You try to find someone who looks like an adult but fail, hoping you’ll be luckier once you’re inside the building. 

You do find yourself lucky as you find a line of teachers at the entrance, ready to greet the new batch of freshmen on their first day of high school. There are a few other kids who look as tense as you, but you feel better with the way the administrator pats your shoulder as she hands you your schedule, assigning you to a lanky sophomore to show you around the building that’d become your second home for the next four years. 

Jeonghan tells you his name as he leads you into your homeroom, where you deposit your bag before going back out. He’s peculiar, you decide. He tells you to never walk without looking at the floor on Monday mornings to save your shoes from the occasional start-of-the-week breakfast hurl. He tells you in the cafeteria that the lasagna was horrible, but not the sloppy joes; the sloppy joes were good. He tells you in the gym that the coach would let you off if you rubbed a little eyeliner under your eyes, “he’s an empath.” 

By the time he’s listing off clubs and teams, you feel a little less nervous, pushing you back into your fuller homeroom with a sign-up sheet and a goodbye. You don’t get to say thank you. 

Kwon Soonyoung slips into the empty seat next to you, introducing himself a little louder than you’d anticipated, but you suppose you needed the enthusiasm. He innocently slips you his home number and hopes out loud that you’d be the best of friends. 

You get in the car that afternoon, responding with a wider-than-expected smile at your mother inquiring about your day. 

“It was great! I think I’ll like it here.”

You found it strange that the rink was so packed for a high school hockey game, but that was before you saw the ten-foot banner and face paint. Soonyoung sits on your right as Jiwoo places herself on your left, both donned in blue and yellow, sandwiching your uncoordinated outfit. For whatever reason, you’d thought movies exaggerated the hype around high school sports, yet the support for the boys entering the rink roars into your ears to prove you wrong. 

They win, and with the way the rest of the team pats him on the back after sending in the last puck, you assume it’s all thanks to the boy with the Choi on the back of his jersey. 

He removes his helmet, hair flopping into his eyes as you realize you know him. He was always in the cafeteria with Jeonghan, the boy who gave you a tour on your first day, along with many other boys from his year. It was hard not to notice them with the ruckus they were always causing, yet you found them easy to drown out with the rest of the noise. 

“What’s his first name? The guy with the 08 on his back?” you ask Soonyoung. 

“Oh, that’s Seungcheol. Dude’s a fucking progidy or something.”

“Prodigy,” Jiwoo corrects. 

“Yeah, that. Jihoon said the only reason they got to finals last year was ‘cause of this guy.” 

You watch as he drinks from his bottle from the benches, smiling at his coach and teammates as they debriefed. At least you were guessing that was happening; the only thing you were thinking about was how you could hear his laugh from where you sat. And how it was making you smile, too. 

You stare at your worn shoes that glow in multicolors as the beats in the gym warp and stagger through the speaker. You’re on your third punch, finding yourself awkward without something to occupy at least one hand. 

You had danced a little with Jiwoo, watched with bright eyes as Soonyoung dance off-ed yet another senior to his victory, giggled as you let another freshman, Jun, take Jiwoo away for the next dance. You now lace the edges of the party, taking a breather as you down the remnants of your punch, already trailing the memorized path to the snack table. Maybe you’ll try some of the lemonade this time. 

There’s already somebody occupying the lemonade cooler when you get there, back to you as you patiently wait for him to finish up. He moves away, leaning against the table. He takes a sip from his cup, and you move forward to fill your own. 

It’s Seungcheol. You recall his name as you recognize his face. He somehow looks as haphazard as you last saw him from yesterday’s hockey game. 

If he had come in with a tie, it’s long gone as he has his collar popped and shirt unbuttoned the first few steps. It doesn’t end there as you note the hair that dresses his eyes, soaked in what you cannot imagine is water with the way you saw someone with a similar build typhoon across the floor with nearly as much vigor as Soonyoung has had tonight. 

He’s downing the cup in haste, and you take a sip of the slightly tart drink as you debate if you should say something. 

“You did really well yesterday. Congrats,” you decide to say. 

He emerges from his cup to acknowledge you sipping on your own lemonade, “Oh, thanks. Were you there?” 

“Oh, yeah, I was. First hockey game, went with my friends,” you let out a little chuckle, not understanding why you suddenly felt so awkward. 

“Cool,” he answers plainly, mouth glistening and posture stagnant. “You’re friends with Soonyoung, right? Seen him hang around Jihoon a lot.”

“Yeah, he’s — he’s friends with everybody,” you laugh a little, and you hear him laugh with you. 

“How do you handle him? He’s giving a run for everybody’s money out there,” he gestures to the dance floor with a smile. 

“He mellows out after a while; he’s just excited,” you say, understanding his bewilderment.

“How’re you finding high school so far?” he asks when he runs out of things to say, yet forgets that he can easily excuse himself. But he doesn’t.

“Pretty alright. I’m having fun so far.” You don’t need to ask him the same, knowing well that the sophomore was having the time of his life.

“Good to hear, hope it stays that way for you.”

It’s another painful five seconds before you see Jiwoo waving at you from afar, pointing at something Soonyoung is doing. 

“Uh, I’ll see you around, my friend’s waving me over–”

“Oh, sure, uh, I’ll see you around.”

You give him one more tight-lipped smile as you wave from waist length before retreating. 

“Wait!” 

You turn around at his voice. 

“I never got your name.”

Seungcheol took you on your first not-date in the spring.

Not-date because neither of you had labeled it as such, but you were pushed to reconsider when both Jiwoo and Soonyoung insisted.

He had brought his car that you slipped into after school to drive to the movies, where he bought you popcorn and paid for both of your tickets. He held your hand as you walked out of the theatre, wide-eyed and all smiles as you discussed the film you had just sat through for two hours. 

His palm fit in yours like it belonged there, and maybe it was your fifteen-year-old brain talking. Still, you never expected to be this comfortable with him — especially after the possible insinuation your friends had instilled. 

He drove you home that night as you searched for a million excuses to stay a little longer in his car as he parked in front of your door. But alas, you open the car door at the end of the night and are surprised to find him doing the same as he walks around to where you get out. 

“I had a lot of fun today,” you say in your rehearsed line.

“Me too,” he smiles. “The weather’s getting nicer, we should see the cherry blossoms next weekend. If you wanted to. We can take the car again.” 

He didn’t kiss you, at least not on the lips as he hugged you at your front door and pressed his lips to your cheek. 

You were quick to squeak out your goodbyes after that happened, slamming your door shut as you vaguely heard him drive off. 

With a hand to your racing heart, you count to ten. Perhaps you’d reconsider that not-date after all. Besides, you had cherry blossoms to look forward to. 

Choi Seungcheol kissed you, really kissed you, when he brought the team to the cup they missed out on last year, throwing himself at you as soon as you appeared before him. He was sweaty, half-dressed in his gear with his skates still on as he embraced you tighter than anyone ever had before. 

He put his lips on yours the second he saw your face as you pulled away, unable to help himself despite the groans and retches of his teammates, despite the fact that an entire bleacher’s worth of people saw you both. 

Not that either of you cared; you were just happy he didn’t have his mouth guard on (and that he kissed you before you couldn’t help it yourself).

It was in your junior year and Seungcheol’s senior year that you began to hear the absurdities about the strength of your relationship, that you wouldn’t make it, that high school sweethearts never do. 

With shaking hands, you grip your boyfriend’s arm as he has a conflicted look in his eye. 

“No,” you say. You wonder where all of this strength was coming from when you all wanted was to cry. “You’re gonna go. You will go. I won’t let you throw all of this away because of something that’s never gonna waver.” 

He’s silent as he refuses to meet your gaze. The voices were getting to him, his older college friends laughing when he suggested that his relationship would last both college and the distance it would bring. He realizes he’s not so sure anymore. 

He sits cross-legged in front of you on your bedroom floor, mentally prepared to walk out for the last time. 

“You’re supposed to be happiest about this; I don’t understand why you insist I leave. And so far away?” he looks slightly bewildered. 

“Because you’ll regret it if you don’t. This isn’t about me, Cheol, it’s about everything you’ve worked for all these years—”

“Us, what about us? I’ve worked on us, too.”

“Why have you gone years without listening to a word what other people say to only listening to them now?”

“Was it just me, then? Because it feels like I’m the only one worried about our future together—”

“Choi Seungcheol, stop right there.” Your voice is brittle, and you don’t know how long you can keep the tears at bay. 

“I…I don’t know what to think,” his shoulders slump even lower. 

His hockey scholarship would take him so, so far away. He thought you were strong enough for this, but with every anecdote, every comment, every dejected “have it your way” to his resilience, he wonders if the both of you would be forced to fight a losing battle if he left. 

There were sports universities here at home, but there was no you with his scholarship. 

“I’ll tell you what to think. Will you listen to me?” 

Slowly, but surely, he nods. 

“You can get the scholarship you’ve always wanted, and we can stay as we are, although a little farther away.”

He looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t.

“I believe in us. And if you don’t right now, I’m ready to believe for the both of us. We’ll get through this.” 

In the end, Seungcheol believed you over everything the world told him, praying he wouldn’t let you or himself down as he laid with you on the last night he’d call his bedroom home. 

Graduation was a happy endeavor, momentarily forgetting what lay ahead as he enjoyed his last hours with all his friends in one place. The heavy feeling returned as the night progressed, agreeing to spend the night with him, tucked under his covers as you listened to his heartbeat. You wonder how long it will be until you're able to do this again. 

As you lay in his stripped bedroom, there’s little either of you say, an unspoken agreement to not sleep, not tonight. He has an early morning, but he doesn’t really seem to care as he continues to fiddle with your hair, kissing you at intervals like he's trying to bring back the feeling when it begins to fade. 

There’s little you can talk about when you’re trying to memorize each other’s scent. You remind yourself to give him your sweater when morning comes, already noting the hoodie you need to remember to pick up, the lone one he left you in his closet. 

But as the first rays of sun peeked through the blinds, sending stripes of sun into the bedroom, you tried not to feel the hard clench of your heart as the bare room came into sight. Despite the snoozing of alarms, the multiple knocks on his door, and the dawn of a new day, you let yourselves have an extra five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. 

Just you and him before it would be you, and it would be him.

Seungcheol called you more than you called him. It was everywhere, even if it was just to say a quick “I love you” before a game, to hear your voice before he went to class, to listen to you complain about an assignment before he had to do his own. 

As resilient as you showed yourself to be, you’d be lying if you said there was a part of you that was afraid of how much faith Seunghceol held for the both of you, but at ease you were with the constant bugging he’d do and the bugging he seemed to appreciate back. 

By Christmastime, he’d texted you his itinerary for the holidays, explaining how he couldn’t spare a second to things like thinking. Most of his list involved spending all day rotting indoors with you. 

As much as Seungcheol had hoped you’d pick a college nearer to him, he was less scared when you finally announced your college decisions close to graduation. The past year had proved a lot, mostly that you both were stronger than the distance. Which is why he was the first to congratulate you when you got into the college of your choice, despite the fact that you’d be even farther away, leaving home in what felt like the opposite direction to him. 

You were scared too, mostly of how Seungcheol would react, but seeing the smile break out on his face when you told him gave you all the reassurance you needed. That summer brought you the best memories of your teenage years, with Seungcheol, preparing for you both to leave. Except this time, the air was less tense, fewer tears shed, fewer solemn goodbyes at airport gates, and less desperation in both of your hearts. A surety that you’d come back to each other. 

Seungcheol was offered a contract with his dream hockey team when you were on the cusp of your final year. He told you nearly two weeks after he received the first email, not believing it until he was pestered to do so by the representative. 

You cried on the phone that night, the ache in your chest unbelievably present as you wished you could hug him at that moment. He denied his own tears, but you knew his glassier-than-normal eyes weren’t just through the camera lens. You told him you were proud, you told him this was only the beginning, that you needed to sit in the bleachers with his jersey on for every game he’ll ever play, that he was about to have an entire career to be proud of soon. 

He let a couple tears slip. 

And when he showed up to your graduation, sitting next to your family, you gave him the biggest hug you could muster from your bones. That year may have been the last you’d have to endure apart, but it was somehow the hardest. 

It was in that moment, when you pulled away to look at his smiling face, that the years registered in your mind. 

You’re fifteen again, seeing Seungcheol for the first time, donning the features he hadn’t grown into yet, the features you hadn’t grown into yet. You have to tiptoe to meet his lips now, see a man where there was once a boy, the deep set of maturity behind his pretty eyes. 

When he drops the last of your boxes into his — your shared apartment, you’re brought to the stark realization that you're going to stay here.

It’s when you’re unpacking your toothbrush, placing it in the cup right next to his that you realize you could do whatever you wanted with each other without having to work around flight schedules. It’s when he’s hobbling around wooden planks and screws in the bedroom, putting together the brand new queen-sized bed to replace his too-small twin, that you realize that you weren’t here for the week, or for the month or for any set amount of time; you were here forever.

At least that’s what you hope as you watch him collapse the last of the cardboard boxes to recycle, shoving in the corner of the entryway, leaving that job for tomorrow. 

By the time you emerge in the living room after a shower, Seungcheol has already begun to unpack the delivery food on the coffee table. It’s an array of delicious smells, slightly soggy food, and mounds of styrofoam and plastic wrap; a feast for your tired, tired bodies. 

The dumplings are amazing, and the warm feeling in your chest expands as you realize you can now order them whenever you like. 

Seungcheol picks out the chopped chilies from his food, migrating them onto your own plate as he talks about his next practice session without interruption. 

A thought occurs to you in that moment as you watch him down his cola. “Hasn’t coach put you on a diet plan?” 

“Yeah,” he says normally. You merely stare at him, not understanding how any of this junk could be any good for his form, especially when you know he’s good about abstaining when it comes to training. 

He smiles at the questioning look on your face, setting down his utensils, “It’s our first meal, in our first home. I think we deserve to share this with each other.” 

A smile breaks out on your face at the thought of this being your first meal, the first of many meals together in this home. Of all the meals you’ll share in every home after this, every day. 

And while Seungcheol finds himself sacrificing his diet to enjoy all of this greasy grub with you, you will also find yourself occasionally sharing his awfully bland chicken breasts and salads. All to share with each other. 

Walking into the bustling restaurant in your uncomfortable shoes and your arm around Seungcheol’s, you’re quick to find the group you’re looking for. 

The noise is a dead giveaway, and you quickly realize they haven’t changed. 

You hear Soonyoung before you see him, his distinct laugh echoing the loudest across the sea of mingling heads. A loud banner hangs at the end of the room with your high school grad year. 

You detach from Seungcheol as he finds his junior friends, and you find yours, taking both Soonyoung and Jiwoo into a bone-crushing hug. It’s been a while since you last saw them. The crowd of familiar faces greets you, making small talk with everyone as they introduce you to their partners and even their children. You’ve grown; all of you have. 

“Seungcheol’s here too. You guys were together in high school, right?” somebody asks you at some point during the night. “He graduated before us, though; wonder who he’s here with.” 

You don’t blame them for assuming, considering both of you have been in your own circles all night. That, added to the obvious assumptions of high school sweethearts, you only laugh a little as you reply with a wider-than-usual smile. 

“Oh, he’s here with me,” 

You go home with a permanent smile stuck to your face, talking more animatedly than usual in the car ride home. Seuncheol mirrors your smile as he listens. 

Your good mood prevails for the rest of the night, even as you slip under the covers, ready to end the night on a happier-than-usual note. Seungcheol is reading his book when you crawl under his arm, head on his chest, and your arm slung across his torso. You feel his lips on the top of your head, the faint sound of his book being placed on the bedside table.  

“What’s got you so smiley?” he asks with one of his own.

You shake your head as you reply, “Nothing. I’m just happy I saw Soonyoung and Jiwoo.”

“I’m glad you saw them too. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

You hum in response, suddenly remembering a conversation you had. “You know, Jess asked me who you were there with.” 

“Figures,” he shrugs before laughing a little.“How much did she hesitate before asking you?” 

“Looked like she was holding it in for a little bit. Don’t blame her, though. She probably thought we ended it in epic teenage fashion.” 

He snorts at that, “Probably would’ve if you didn’t talk some sense into me.”

“Probably would’ve if you didn’t trust me like you did,” you crane your neck to look at him. 

“Glad I wasn’t that far gone,” he whispers, a faraway look in his eyes despite looking directly at you. “Haven’t doubted us ever since.”

There’s that warm feeling that spreads throughout your body, an overwhelming feeling of contentment coming over you. There was nothing, nothing, that could convince you to be anywhere else, especially anywhere that wasn’t in his arms. 

“Sometimes…well, a lot of the times, I think about us,” you start. “I thought us hitting six months was enough to tell me I’d be with you forever.” 

He smiles at the thought of high school you, starry-eyed, awkward little kids. He remembers the way you blushed when he kissed you for the first time in front of the whole school, the heat that had risen to his own face at the time. 

“And then we hit a year, and then two years,” you remember every surprise for every anniversary, from when you’d collect your allowance for weeks to get him something he’d like. 

“And then college happened. I tried being so positive, but I had never been more scared for us. I hope we never have to go through something that hard ever again.” You almost sound like a child not wanting to go to the doctor’s office, but with the way you feel yourself tighten your grip around him, you don’t think it’s any different. 

You can feel your eyes begin to well, and your voice begins to shake. It was nearly comical how quickly the smiles were turning into sentimental tears. 

Seungcheol places a kiss on your lips, and you know it was meant to be reassuring, but it only wrenches open the floodgates. The tears begin to make their way down your face, sniffles muffled as you go back to burying your face in his chest, his shirt soaking the wetness. You can feel a rumble in his chest as he laughs at your state. He’s also squeezing up your sides and placing kisses in any place he can reach. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” you murmur into his shirt. 

“It’s okay. Today was very reflective,” he reassures, letting you stay hidden. 

“I just—” you sniff. “I just wanna stay happy like this all the time.” 

It’s only then that he guides your stained face away from his shirt to bring you to look at him, wiping the remnants of your tears as you try to keep the fresh ones at bay. “We’ll be happy, even when we’re sad. I can’t not be happy when I know I have you. I love you too much for that.”

“I love you,” you whisper into his lips, arms around his neck as you pull yourself to him, chest to chest. You kiss him properly, pecking him a few times to have your fill. 

And then he’s pulling away, ever so slightly to bring a bare millimeter of gap between your lips. His hands burn where they rest, one on your waist, one on your thigh. He’s breathing hard. Both of you are. 

“I’m gonna say something so not fit for right now,” he breathes.

You can’t help but freeze in his hold as you register his words, hesitating before you ask. “What?”

“Marry me.” 

It comes out as the same whisper, directly into your lips as he utters the words. Like he was keeping a secret from the walls and the furniture, like they were only meant for you; because they were only meant for you. Your heart stops, and you vaguely wonder if you’re breathing at all. 

“I—” he takes a long, shaky breath from his nose. “I was supposed to do this a little differently, but…”

You watch him reach over into his bedside drawer, the one you never touch, and bring out the smallest velvet box. Opening it reveals the prettiest, most delicate diamond you’ve ever seen, the jewel glinting and sparkling even in the dim bedroom lights. 

That’s when you let out a tiny gasp, feeling the tears return, dripping down your face one after the other. “Choi Seuncheol, you bitch.”

You’re sobbing at this point, and it has him sitting up straighter, leaving the box to the side as he lurches for you when you pull away. 

“Wait, fuck, sorry, I thought,” he exhales in frustration, hands trying to pull yours away from your face as you cry into your hands. He sounds desperate. “I got carried away, I don’t know what I was thinking—”

“No, it’s not that,” you finally manage through hiccups. 

“Yes, of course, I’ll marry you, I’m just fucking emotional.” 

You hear him laugh again, no doubt out of pure relief, as he nearly doubles over at the situation. 

You’re a little calmer as you continue to sniffle, watching him with a half-disgruntled, half-amused expression, “Put it on, stupid, or do I need to cry again for you to do that.”

You don’t need to tell him twice as he slips the ring on your finger, the perfect fit, the perfect jewel, the perfect ring. 

Bringing him closer, you kiss him again, lips pressed hard on his as you try to communicate every last emotion into it. You’re out of words, and you hope he knows what you're feeling. You know he knows; he always knows. 

He’s reciprocating with the same vigor, arms coming up to wrap around you so tight it pushes you flush against his body. He nips at your lip, running his tongue over it for good measure before letting it enter your mouth. You let him take the lead, let him guide you through every motion, every step forward. 

You’re putty when he pulls off your clothes for you, feeling your heart scream in protest whenever he pulls away to get rid of the obstructions. Your emotions were in a delicate place, and you suddenly couldn’t handle not being able to feel him against you consistently. 

He does well to make it quick, moving back on top of you to occupy your mouth once more. He tries to migrate lower, latching onto your neck to continue his ministrations there, but you don’t let him as you pull his face back to yours again.

“I love you,” you whisper against his mouth before latching onto his lips.

He lets out a low grunt, pulling away for breath as he whispers it back, “I love you more.”

If you won’t let his mouth move, you let his hands do whatever they wish, feeling them move lower against your sides to reach your hips. His thumbs draw circles on them as he slowly moves his hands to where you can feel the arousal grow. 

His fingers hit your bare heat as he plunges them into your folds, encasing your clit between his fingers. He drags them up slowly before moving back down, all the way to your now sopping hole to brush against the opening. 

You sigh against his lips as he pushes his finger in slowly, lips releasing yours as you throw your head back to feel his digit around your walls. He pushes a second one in without hesitation, and you know he’s just as desperate as you right now. 

He’s only two fingers deep, and yet you feel yourself beginning to come undone. He always knew what to do when he wanted to stretch you out faster, always knew what to do when he wanted to draw the pleasure out, keep you writhing for hours. 

Right now was different; it felt like he was holding himself back to the point where it was almost painful. If he wasn’t worried about the stretch, he would’ve buried himself inside you already, and yet, when he feels you clench undeniably hard around his fingers as you orgasm, he feels like he might’ve cum himself. 

His low moans echo off the walls with your louder, more desperate ones, riding out your high as you feel him bring his other hand up to rub your clit in fast circles, making the pleasure last. Coming down from your high, you feel him pause for a moment as he peppers kisses on your face, down your jaw and neck, finally coming to press his lips against yours. 

“You okay?” 

You nod in response, already grasping at his boxers to yank them down. Despite having just orgasmed, the satisfaction is yet to come, needing to feel him inside you before you combusted entirely. 

He helps as he discards himself of the final obstruction, letting you stroke his painfully hard member in your hands. The face he makes is heavenly as you watch him feel your hands wrapped around him. The impatience takes over as he finally removes your hands, instead pinning them beside your head as he guides himself to your entrance. 

Seungcheol goes back to planting himself onto you entirely, knowing exactly what you wanted from him, needing to feel him against you so flush and tight. He lets you wrap your hands around his neck as he finally begins to push himself into you, letting his tip graze the beginning of your entrance. 

He breathes into your neck in deep, deep exhales, trying so hard not to cum before he’s even entered you entirely. He takes his time pushing into you, focusing on your fingers as they play with his hair, your palms running down his shoulder blades in a pathway. He closes his eyes as he sheaths himself in you completely, continuing his steady breaths to not come undone before you. 

He begins to move when he feels like he’s gotten a hold of his bearings, feeling you hold onto him as he starts thrusting into your cunt. The sounds you make are bliss; the feeling of every inch of your skin on his is making him lose his already lost mind. 

Your arms drop when they can’t hold onto him any longer, your hands remaining on him regardless, in some way or the other. Seungcheol takes hold of your hand, emerging from the crook of your neck to bring it to his mouth. He kisses it, your palms, the back of your hand, your fingers, directly over the rock he slipped on you himself. 

The tenderness of his actions makes your brain rattle against your skull, the building feeling in your abdomen coming so close to collapsing into release. You find yourself pushing yourself up on your elbows, face finding the crook of his shoulder as you push yourself back into him when pulled back in the slightest. 

You’re so close now, so, so close. “Cheol,”

“I know, darling. Cum for me, baby, I’ve got you, I’ve always got you.”

You release to the sound of his voice, the words that tumble from his desperate mouth, the feeling of his own cum shooting inside your spent walls. He continues to thrust into you as you both let out the loudest moans of the night, letting yourself get wrapped up in the feeling of each other before you lose your peak. 

You register nothing as you feel him drop his weight on top of you, letting the moment pass. 

Despite having had nights rougher, more lengthy than this, you somehow feel more spent than you have at the end of any of those escapades. The answer comes to you in the few minutes it takes for you both to catch your breath, Cheol being just as fatigued as you despite his athlete stamina. 

You feel him continue to press his lips onto your skin, letting you do the same to him in between kisses. Neither of you speak for another few minutes, letting the heaviness of your hearts come forth in the showers of love you seem to want to give each other. 

He’s grasping your left hand, toying with the ring fitted there. “I can’t wait to spend forever with you.” 

A picture of the both of you hangs on the wall in your bedroom, dim yet decipherable in the low lights. There’s a moment where you have a flash of that same photo on multiple different walls. Different shades of neutral, in different rooms in different houses. It’s the same picture. 

You think of what forever might hold for the both of you, separately and together. You let the prospect of every step, every change, and every milestone wash over you in waves that keep coming, crashing back to feed into another. 

Change, you rehearse. There had been lots of it, and yet you had merely scratched the surface of what life was about to throw at you. You knew that, Seungcheol knew that. But you found yourself, in that moment, convinced in entirety that change is good, whether it feels good or bad. 

Distance makes the heart grow fonder; you didn't realize the meaning of the phrase until you had to live apart from the love of your life. Painful, difficult, sometimes agonizing, yet also necessary, you conclude. You wonder if your love would ever have grown this deep if you hadn’t felt life without each other. 

You think of how far you’ve come, how you’ve grown with each other. There was an encompassing of gratefulness that came with every step you had taken, and with every step you would take henceforth, you knew that for certain. 

Perhaps you would find yourself voicing these emotional thoughts to him, but not now. The unspoken was louder than anything you could say. 

“I can’t wait to spend forever with you, too.”

taglist (strikthru could not be tagged): @rubyreduji @vampirexlotita @simqly-yunjin @tomodachiii

[38riku]

𝐁𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐕𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒 𝐏𝐓.𝟑 ˗ˏˋ ꒰ 🎂 ꒱ ˎˊ˗

includes pomefiore (separately). no warnings. fluff. i should've did this by dorm but i didn't think i'd make more than one part.

read part one. part two.

𝐕𝐈𝐋 𝐒𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐍𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐓

you've come to wish me a happy birthday? heh, as you should. come, sing my praises now that my beauty has been tempered by another year of age.

it isn't unordinary for Vil to receive compliments. he's cemented himself in the limelight and his adoring fans never fail to comment on his beauty and talent.

so, when he jokingly (not so jokingly) asked you to sing his praises, he expected a sarcastic "your perfection is unattainable" or something along those lines.

but, of course, you managed to surprise him.

"you deserve everything your heart desires." what a cheesy line. it was a staple in romance movies that hasn't seemed to die out despite its repetition. he now knows why, albeit because it came from your lips and not that of someone just doing their job.

"and as your beauty matures each and every year, may your tenacity strengthen and elegant vigor continue to shine brightly."

Vil clicked his tongue, a ghost of a smile creeping on his face as he did his best to maintain his composure.

"I almost feel guilty that such heartfelt words are directed towards me and not a lover of yours."

You laughed, as if the thought of a lover was unbelievable. If only you were aware of the many admirers after your tender heart, would you still find it amusing?

"Don't be silly Vil. You're the fairest of them all, the only one worthy of these words."

You had him stumped. The way you said such things as if they held little to no weight.

For a moment, being the fairest of them all wasn't appealing. He is the fairest in your eyes, which amounted to more than you could ever imagine.

𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐓

merci! your dulcet tones are the greatest gift I could receive. you may consider your sentiments most appreciated.

rook was satisfied with your simple 'happy birthday' although it wasn't so simple to him. your smile was blinding, genuine glee filling your eyes as you greeted him with more joy than usual. to think the day of his birth elicited such excitement.

"i hope you like your present."

"any gift from you is a priceless treasure my dear. the mere fact that your thoughts were captivated by me makes my heart flutter."

he adored your flustered expression but wasn't interested in teasing you too much today. opening the large box, he audibly gasped at the sight. "you've truly outdone yourself. i am undeserving of such a magnificent piece."

he inspected the hat, humming in satisfaction at the handiwork and embroidery. a small chuckled fell from his lips as he heard your gentle sigh of relief.

walking toward you, he removed his usual hat and placed it on your head, wearing the new one it its stead. "we make a magnificent pair, do we not? even with a piece as fine as this my beauty is lackluster to yours."

"it's your birthday rook. i should be the one complementing you, not the other way around."

he laughed at that. your compassion and generosity made his heart soar to heights unknown.

"your beauty deserves to be appreciated no matter the occasion. your presence alone fills me with comfort. you have a voice that is sweeter than the chase of a hunt. i am inclined to speak on your physical appearance, but, I am unsure that you'd be able to handle such honeyed words."

after all the time you've known one another you still weren't used to his flattery. it's not his fault, you were positively stunning in every aspect of the word.

it's his day of celebration after all, and he'll spend it as he sees fit. surely you will allow him to fawn over you? he can't think of a better way to spend his birthday.

𝐄𝐏𝐄𝐋 𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐌𝐈𝐄𝐑

you, ah, you want to celebrate my birthday? s-sorry, I'm not used to hearing that from anyone other than close family. thanks.

"tada! happy birthday!"

you removed your hands from his eyes, moving to stand in front of him with a knowing smile. "a feast fit for the birthday boy. well, a meal, since it's just the two of us."

yes, just the two of you. that's probably why his usually strict house warden was a bit more lenient with him missing an etiquette lesson.

hopefully he didn't think it was something more than two friends sharing a meal. that's all there is to it, right?

"thanks! this looks amazing."

"remember that takeout i shared with you and the guys not too long ago? it's the same place. i figured since you liked it so much we can try more stuff!"

golly, weren't you just a ball of sunshine. if he was to thank ace and deuce for anything (which isn't much) meeting you would be top on the list.

he couldn't remember the last time he was able to enjoy the simple pleasures in life like cheeseburgers, chicken tenders, fries, onion rings; but boy was it the most fulfilling meal of his life.

spending the evening with someone close to him, eating, joking around, and enjoying each other's company. you might not think it's much, but, the time you shared cured his home sickness, even for a little while.

it was his first time celebrating his birthday away from home after all.

"one more surprise." you place a finger on your lips, winking, before disappearing in the kitchen.

in your absence, he did his best to calm his beating heart. you laid it on thick and didn't even know it! don't you know where he's from, a meal is a way to a man's heart?

did you know that? was this a cover for blatantly pursuing him? no, there's no way, just wishful thinking on his end.

his thoughts came to a halt as you reappeared with a singular piece of pie in your hands and a candle. placing it in front of him, you quickly lit it, and ushered him to make a wish.

usually, he wishes for the same thing every year, but, just this once, he wished for something utterly selfish. something that, when he blowed the candle, he looked toward you sheepishly, denying to tell you because it "wouldn't come true."

one day it'll come true. one day, he'll be the apple of your eye, and sweep you off your feet.

© 2024 — 38riku. Do not copy or repost or plagiarize my work. All Rights Reserved.

[mynameisnotfiveweenies]

You've always been beautiful | Katsuki Bakugou x Chubby!Reader

Summary: After a bad date, Bakugou comforts you

Being in love was hard. Being in love with Katsuki Bakugou was even harder.

We went to middle school together and he was an ass. He thought because he had an amazing quirk that made him better than everyone else, I didn't like that. Izuku is my best friend and a target for bullies. I would take no shit. I stood up for Izuku many times, using my water quirk to counteract Bakugou's explosions. He turned a nasty shade of red whenever I did that.

Izuku learnt how to stand up for himself in UA and developed into an amazing hero so I wasn't needed as much to fight off the bullies, which meant me and Bakugou became nothing but classmates. That was until I began to fall for him.

It was easy, natural. I first started noticing him, like really noticing. The way he would train in class, the way his back muscles would tense under his costume when we would be in class, everything. I didn't tell anyone. There was no way he would like me or even find me attractive, so I kept it to myself.

It was around the middle of third year, when I had turned eighteen, that I started dating. I was on the usual apps and met a few people from there, most of them nice, some neutral and one guy a complete dick.

This one guy, lets call him Pete, was an asshole. I have always been big. Despite the training and the diet, I was big. It rarely bothered me and it never effected my training. I was happy with the way I looked.

I dressed in a maxi length, bodycon dress that clung to my hips, ass and my belly. I wore a cropped denim jacket to keep the cold out. I felt confident and wore light makeup and hoop earrings.

I came down from my dorm room and passed the living room, where everyone was having a movie night. I couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed and my cheeks heated up.

Mina was the first to notice me as I tried to sneak passed and wolf whistled. "Damn mama!"

The whole class turned then and the whistling continued.

I couldn't help but glance at Bakugou. He did not whistle but he eyes were fixed on me. I placed my hands in front of my belly and walked quickly to the door, wanting to escape his gaze.

"Shut up!" I exclaimed as I opened the door.

"Use protection!" I heard Mina shout and I giggled out the door.

We agreed to meet at a restaurant. I turned up ten minutes late and found him siting near the window.

"Hey!" I greeted and he looked up.

He looked at me with wide eyes as I sat down.

That's when I knew, he didn't think I was going to be big.

My pictures did not hide anything, I showed everything as I had enough of being turned down because of my weight. He seemed to expect someone smaller.

The first red flag was when I ordered.

"I'll have a burger please." I shut the menu and handed it to the waitress with a smile.

"Really?" He said, his eyebrow turned up.

"Yeah?"

He didn't reply but his eyes were wide, I held my tongue.

The food was really good but he barely spoke. He kept glancing at me.

We ended the date and I couldn't wait to get out. I knew he wasn't interested and made me split the bill.

We were outside, he was waiting for a taxi. I said, "Thanks for the date."

He scoffed, putting a cigeratte between his teeth. "Well, you should really warn your dates you're fat in the future, by the way."

Despite everything, it stung.

"Yeah?" I said, my anger building. "Well you should warn your dates you're a short asshole, by the way."

I turned on my heel and walked away. My anger made me walk fast until I got closer to the dorms and I began to cry.

It was stupid. I liked how I looked but the comments were hard sometimes. I had been told my whole life that unless I lost weight, no one would ever love me. I believed for a long time. I tried everything, every diet you can think of. I starved myself, made myself sick but this is it. I am just big. I train everyday and eat well to be a hero for fucks sake, I am not unhealthy. But, a small part of me still believed that.

I made it to the dorms and sat down on the porch steps, sobbing.

I kept crying until I heard the front door open, I wiped my tears as quickly as I could. I looked up and saw Bakugou standing there, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Can you cry any louder?" He said before sitting next to me, sighing.

I chuckled humourlessly, wiping my eyes. "Sorry."

He looked at me curiously, "What no 'fuck off'?"

I shook my head, "Not in the mood to fight tonight Bakugou."

He stayed quiet for a bit before, "Does this have something to do with your date?"

I looked over at him for a minute. "Do you really wanna hear about it?"

He nodded, serious. Weird.

"Well, the guy was obviously expecting someone who looked very different from me." My throat caught and I breathed evenly. "He barely spoke and kept just...glancing. I ordered a burger and he was all like 'really?' You know? Insinuating I should eat a salad or something."

Bakugou scoffed, his face contoured in familiar anger.

"I ignored it and carried the conversation. At the end, I said thank you and you know what he said?"

I looked over at Bakugou, tears in my eyes. He inclined his head. I looked away.

"He said, 'next time you should warn your dates your fat'. Like the way I am and the way I look should come with a warning label...its not like I hide it, all my pictures you can see I'm big."

We stayed quiet for a while and I silently cried.

"Y/N..." Bakugou began and I looked over. He didn't look angry now, he looked murderous. "I hope you know you deserve a lot better than that asshole."

I began to speak and he cut off me off. "Just because your big doesn't mean your unattractive. If anything, you're even more attractive for it."

I stayed silent, taking it all in. It was strange, hearing Bakugou be so nice to me.

"You've always been beautiful, even when we were kids. Don't let one asshole make you this upset."

My stomach clenched as he spoke, taking in his words. Oh my god. I couldn't believe it.

I looked at him, my mouth parted slightly. "You mean it?"

He looked forward, refusing to meet my eyes but nodded.

I grinned, leant forward and kissed his cheek lightly. He tensed up but I stood up before he could say anything. He looked up at me, a slight pink to his cheeks that made my stomach erupt with butterflies.

"You're beautiful too, Katsuki." I said and then quickly escaped back into the dorms.

The look on his face, rosey cheeks and lips parted made me burst with hope. Maybe, just maybe, my crush on him is reciprocated.

A/N: I really enjoyed writing this! As a big girl myself I love writing this kind of thing, send in your requests!

[matchayogitea]

New Year Magic ∼ Steve Harrington x Reader (One Shot)

As someone who often has a hard time during the Holidays, I quickly wrote this today to vent. Happy New Year, everyone.

Summary: You don't like New Year's and you don't really care to celebrate it with people, so you're home alone. Until an unexpected guest arrives and changes your mind about this holiday you dislike so much.

The streets were empty, and rightly so. It was the evening of December 31st, an evening you dreaded, every year.

You had never cared for New Years, but as time went by you felt your distaste for the Holiday growing stronger and stronger. The reason? You felt like the promise of a New Year that would make your life better was an empty one. A failure. At times, you thought something must be wrong with you. How could everyone celebrate and party while you felt so differently? So sad?

Sighing, you turned away from the living room window. Your parents had left an hour earlier, to celebrate with some friends, and they had tried dragging you out with them but you had pretended to be feeling sick so they would leave you alone. They just didn't understand you.

Your friends didn't seem to understand you, either. Except one. Steve Harrington, whom you'd grown close to in the past year as you found yourself battling monsters and weird supernatural phenomena, hadn't tried to convince you to go to a party with him and other people you knew. He had seemed to accept that it just wasn't something that would make you happy.

And you knew it was for the best, because he would definitely be kissing someone as midnight came around - and your heart would be crushed. Because you liked him, a lot. You had tried so hard to keep from falling for him, but you hadn't been able to stop yourself, and now you were paying the price. Just because Steve was single at the moment, you knew it wouldn't last. Not after New Years Eve.

Whatever. He was too good for you anyway. You had to accept it and move on. Even if it hurt like hell.

As you sat on the couch and grabbed a book absent-mindedly, you glanced at the clock. It was only 10 PM. Better start reading and forget about everything else.

Until someone rang the doorbell.

You considered ignoring whoever it was. Probably a friend of your parents', or some other annoying visitor. But they rang again, and again, and you finally discarded the book to go check.

You definitely weren't expecting him.

"Steve?" You gingerly opened the door, a smile making its way on your face as you noticed how handsome he looked in his long, black coat and matching scarf. "Wrong address, party's not here," you joked.

"Hey, Y/N. Are you alone?" he asked, glancing behind you.

"I am… my parents are out. What's up?"

"Can I come in?"

"Sure…" You didn't know what was going on, but you let him in. It was freezing outside, not snowing yet but the promise was in the air.

"Thanks. Well, I…" He paused, as if searching for the right words. "I brought some food. Actually, it's just chocolate, but I guess you already had dinner. I brought a bottle of wine, too. No, wait-" You had opened your mouth to speak, but he kept going. "I just can't be at some stupid party while you're home alone. I would rather spend time with someone I care about than a bunch of drunk idiots. I mean… if that's ok with you…"

His cheeks were flushed, you weren't sure if it was because of the cold or something else, but you felt yourself blush, too. "Steve… that is really thoughtful, but you don't have to spend New Years with me like a loser. I know you like parties, and-"

"I'm tired of all that, Y/N. I would rather watch some dumb movie and chill at home with you."

His gaze was so warm, and he looked amazing, and he smelled so nice.

You were a goner.

"Ok, then, if you're really sure… make yourself at home," you replied, grabbing his coat and gesturing for him to follow you into the living room. "I don't know if anything's on TV. I was reading."

After placing wine and chocolate on the coffee table, Steve sat on the couch and grabbed your book. "The Never ending story? Really? We just watched the movie," he grinned, looking up at you.

"Exactly, I want to know the real story. And everything that couldn't fit into the movie," you explained, throwing a pillow at him. He laughed and you felt your chest grow warmer. You didn't know why he had decided to show up, but you were happy. Truly happy.

--------------

It was almost midnight and there was only a tiny bit of wine left, that you guys had saved to welcome the New Year.

Both of you were currently laughing like hyenas at some comedy that was on TV.

"It's not even that funny, why… are we laughing so much?" you asked, trying to calm down. Steve had drunk a bit more than you, and he was completely gone. "Look at his face!" he replied, pointing to the actor.

You did, and started laughing again.

Till Steve noticed it was five minutes left till midnight.

"Alright! Let's finish this wine and… and say what our hopes are for the New Year," he exclaimed, pouring the little wine left. "You first!"

"Oh, I hate this. Every year's the same, anyway, people making promises they won't keep and wishing for things that won't happen and-"

"Hey, Miss Optimism, I'll have you know that this year is going to be different!" Steve raised his glass to yours. "Just say one thing you wish for. Then I'll go next."

"Fine!" You sighed, feeling cornered. "Hum… I wish for world peace."

"Come onnn! I'm talking about something you wish for yourself!" Steve insisted, wrapping his arm around your shoulder. You instantly felt your cheeks grow hot, partly because of the wine and partly because of him.

And then, because of the state you were in, you were dumb enough to say it out loud. "I wish… the guy I like would like me back," you muttered, downing the rest of the wine.

Steve stared at you for what felt like forever, before nodding. "Same. Same for me! I mean… the girl I like, in my case, not a guy…" he drank what was left in his glass, before turning back to you. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," he added, eyes dangerously glassy.

"I don't think it's a good idea…" You might be tipsy, but not drunk. And you knew there was no coming back from admitting to him that you liked him. A lot.

Steve was too out of it to listen to you, however. "It's just the two of us, come on! On a count of 3…"

"Steve, no, I don't-"

"2-"

"Stop it, Steve-"

"1-"

"IT'S YOU!" You both shouted simultaneously, and your face fell. What? It must be some joke in poor taste, right? How could Steve like you?

But he was staring at you so lovingly that it couldn't be a joke. He couldn't be that good of an actor, he just couldn't-

"Oh my God, you finally told me you're desperately in love with me!" he exclaimed, raising one fist triumphantly. "Yessss!"

"What… I…" you were stunned. You couldn't process everything that had happened so fast. "I just-"

"Ssssh! Come here!"

Steve dragged you to your feet, so you were standing in front of him, and cupped your face between his warm, large hands.

"It's one minute left till midnight, Y/N. This year, I want to spend it with you. Be with you, all the time, and never let you go."

Still incredulous, you tried to ask if he meant it, but he cut you off.

With a kiss.

The kiss.

As you wrapped your arms around him and got lost in your dream world, you only barely registered the turn of the New Year. Finally, you were happy.

[luckhound]

gintoki + relationship headcanons.

↻ pairing ✦ gintoki/gender neutral reader

↻ request ✦ I read your rules and stuff, and I hope I read it right gsusvjddn can I request some relationship headcanons for Gintoki? I can't watch the final movie for Gintama yet and I am devastateD —anonymous

↻ warnings ✦ mild suggestive content, blink and you'll miss it; terrible attempt at humour

author's note: this is several years late but i Just started a rewatch and was reminded of my love for this story and its characters. so uh, better late than never?

First of all, you deserve a medal for perseverance. You managed to do the impossible by entering into a relationship with this man, who dodges romantic entanglements without even trying to despite the many possible love interests in the source material

Now you have to deal with a cheapskate who doesn't have a single romantic bone in his body. Congrats!

Don't expect to be taken out on a date any time soon; his idea of a good time is to recline on the couch and read Jump. Unfortunately, that doesn't change even when he has a partner who he could be spending his free time with

When the two of you do go out, maybe sit down somewhere for a bite to eat, Gintoki expects you to pay. What? He should foot the bill? With what money? Any cash that so much as brushes his hands is snatched up by the old hag (Otose), or gobbled up by the brat with the bottomless stomach (Kagura), or swallowed up by the pachinko machines that the idiot hits up (Gintoki)

Rarely do you have privacy. At any given time, a revolving door of characters will intrude upon your finite alone time with Gintoki; if it isn't the rare client asking for help, it's one of his friends annoyances (or so he calls them) stumbling into you two, or some two-bit villain hatching the latest evil plan that's plaguing Edo this week

Then there's Shinpachi and Kagura, who stick to the man like gum on a shoe. Sure, you do adore them, but babysitting two kids while trying to spend quality time with Gintoki can get old—you're dating a penniless samurai, not a struggling single dad!

Don't bother expecting him to get jealous or possessive; if someone were to flirt with you in front of him, it'd go right over his head

You would have to spell it out for him after the fact, and even then he'd stare at you with those dead fish eyes, wondering what you wanted him to do about it

Wait a second, you must be thinking. All of these bullet points so far have only listed the cons of dating this bastard! Where's the good stuff? What are the pros?

There aren't any, sorry to say. You're better off dumping him like yesterday's garbage and moving on to someone worth your time

Which is probably what Gintoki would say, if forced at gunpoint to answer truthfully; he has no clue why you tied your fate to him of all people

You, on the other hand, might reply with:

He's constantly finding excuses to touch you. His head in your lap while he reads Jump on the couch, his ankle brushing yours under the table when dining out, his arm tossed around your shoulders as you walk

As much as he loudly complains and huffs and rolls his eyes, he doesn't stop you when you steal food from his plate. He'll even let you swipe some of his parfait, despite threatening to make you pay for another. It'd be easy for him to slap your hand away, but he never does

Romantic he may not be, but you know just how much he wants you by the way he can't keep his hands off you when the mood hits; his every touch elicits shivers, his mouth never strays far from yours for long, his gaze dark and intent on you

There is no one more doggedly loyal than Gintoki. No one who cares more about your wellbeing and happiness. No one else who would put you first when it matters, protect you from anything or anyone that may try to harm you

For those reasons and more, you'll deal with the many downsides that come with dating Sakata Gintoki. Not always happily, mind you, but you'll do it anyway

("Why do they even put up with him?" Shinpachi wonders aloud, watching the two of you bicker for the fifth time that day. "Stockholm syndrome," is Kagura's immediate answer.)

[thrashkink-coven]

I saw someone make a post a little bit ago about kids leaving fandom spaces and entering into religious/ devotional spaces with the same attitudes. The kids who think you can disrespect a God like Zeus because he’s problematic in some of his myths. I couldn’t agree more.

and i got to talking to Lucifer about it because I was chatting with someone who came from the Hazbin Hotel fandom (I’ve only ever seen the pilot). Lol

They were talking about giving Lucifer ducks and I was like ??? ducks? does Lucifer have a thing with ducks??? I had no idea???? Which grimoire does that come from ?

And then I go to try and research it and I’m like oh? lmfao okay. Not my Lucifer.

When I asked him, his attitude was very 🤷‍♂️

he said something along the lines of:

“whenever a person makes an attempt to contact a deity for the first time, always, their expectations and understandings are projected onto the spirit. This applies to you too. I appear to you in the way that makes the most sense to your brain and senses. But through this form, I still communicate the truth to you. I appear to you as an older man, older and wiser than you, because that’s how your brain rationalizes my ancient nature. My eyes are the color of the hottest shade of fire because that’s how your brain understands my energy. My hair is an inky black void or blonde strands of light. A morning or evening star. My voice is gentle, my hands are delicate because I embrace you tenderly. You think my light is beautiful, so I appear to you as a beautiful man. I appear to you as a planet because that’s how your brain rationalizes how much larger I am than you.

The funny thing about these people, usually children, is that there’s very little room for me to shine through because that “Lucifer” is a very large character. He’s zainy, he’s entertaining, of course. He’s a cartoon character. They aren’t interested in me or my gnosis, they’re interested in that character. Which is fine, it doesn’t bother me. I like when my name is used in art. Better to have my name said than forgotten. It happens often. Recently, they made a tv show under my name, so those people expected me to be British and cocky. They put Lord Paimon in a horror movie. He had edgy teens contacting him for months.

(he seemed to find that very funny)

Those who are genuinely willing and ready to walk the path will find us regardless of what face or appearance we use or how we are introduced. Most of these people are not occultists. They don’t wish to do the Great Work or know me as a God, so they don’t. In these cases, these people are irrelevant to me.”

so you’re okay with oblivious kids offering you ducks to invoke a cartoon character?

He found that funny too.

“Lucifer has been so many things in so many stories. Some of these portrayals are closer or further from the truth, but they are all caricatures. None of them are truly me. I may use a form that is familiar to someone who is contacting me for the first time. Maybe I’ll be the Lucifer from Hazbin Hotel to make them feel more comfortable. But when the practitioner wishes to know me, the “character” is shed in favour of a truer connection. When we first met I came to you as a light, as an enchanted garden, a serpent, a crow. You did not seek me as a character, you sought me as a concept, Enlightenment. I could take any form, either beautiful or terrible, and you would accept me. You would find value in it. I am not your favourite character, I am your favourite God. These so called “oblivious kids” aren’t offering me anything. They don’t know me, so their actions do not mean anything to me, neither positive or negative. I will always be happy to see people engaging with art, being inspired and understood by it. My name being used in media only presents more opportunities for more people to find me. If people feel drawn to that character, then that is good… that’s fine. But you know that I am so much more than just a character.”

you don’t find it disrespectful at all?

He laughed at that as well.

“I must be among the most disrespected spirits to have ever had his name known by man. I’ve had my name cursed and banished, I’ve been hated, cast away, bastardized and demonized. These people, just enjoying their characters and media, are the very least of my concerns.”

Fair enough.

[galaxy-fleur]

how would leon react to the death of his s/o?

if it's someone that used to be his partner, life long friend and the like, asking with that in mind as i am looking for some angst :'D

Ah, I see you wanna make me sad, anon... Well you've come to the right place, because I am nothing but a sucker for angst.

Honestly... Yeah, ouch, it's a painful thing to think about. Leon is no stranger to loss, and that's putting it lightly. While most people don't even think about losing someone they care about until it suddenly becomes a harsh reality, for Leon? It's more a question of 'when', rather than 'if'. It could happen tomorrow for all he knows, or it could happen 40 years in the future. Either, it will happen. It's grim, but when you have to confront your own mortality and the mortality of others around you as frequently as he does, it's kind of inevitable. Leon does not get the luxury of going through his everyday life blissfully oblivious about death or its inevitability.

In a way, it's a double-edged sword.

On the other hand, it also makes it hard to live in the present, when all the horrible 'what if's creep into his mind, one after another. His acceptance of this never-ending trail of death does not imply that he is content with it. He's not. Every loss is not any easier than the last one, no matter how many he inevitably loses. In a way, it's a testament to his heart. The way he will inevitably come to care for other people and feel for them, regardless of his own circumstances. It's something to admire about him. However, it also hurts him.

On the one hand, it makes him acutely aware of just how precious every moment he gets to spend with those close to him are. He doesn't take you for granted, in part because he understands all too well just how precious and fleeting these moments of peace and happiness are. He'll make every moment count, and he'll be open and vulnerable in his feelings. Because he is all too aware of the regret that comes from keeping things to himself until it is too little too late. Every goodbye will be accompanied by a sincere 'I love you' and a kiss that feels like the last with how much emotion he pours into it. Because, for him, it just might be the final one.

We know that Leon lives by the idea that 'it is your responsibility to those that died to keep going'. Dealing with the pain of loss in this way is not very healthy. But it's what he does. And that's also what's going to occur in this case. Lord knows he'll be a complete wreck for a long while. It simply makes me too sad to think about him having to carry something so heavy alone, so I can only hope he will have someone there for him during this process. He'll drink himself into oblivion, try and avoid all physical reminders of you, only to then cling onto every single little trace of you he has left, only for that cycle to switch again after a few weeks have passed.

So, how would he react to the loss of a significant other? Well, he'd be devastated. It's a dull ache he knows all too well, but it's so much worse when it's someone this important to him. He'd blame himself. He always does. Even if your death had nothing to do with his occupation, or it was a mere freak accident neither of you could have prevented, or even something that was long expected for one reason or another. He'll still blame himself first. Be it for failing to protect you, not being there to at least try and save, or just not spending enough time with you. Something small and mundane like him being too tired to watch that movie you wanted a week ago, or him being annoyed by you leaving that plate in the sink without washing it now feel like horrible mistakes he now regrets to his very core.

He just finds it easier to place the entire blame on himself, in a sense. Even though it simply has a detrimental effect on his mental health, he might feel somewhat in control by doing so. And that's better than feeling so utterly helpless.

Grieving is a process, and he'll have to go through every stage of it. I do feel like he is, unfortunately, likely to never move past the depression stage of grief. Unless he has someone there to pull him out of it, he is very much likely to just... never fully recover.

Regardless, I don't think he'd do anything to himself. He wants to. It's a want he knows well. But he doesn't let himself take the easy way out. He's not worthy of it. He owes it to you to keep going. So, he does. He picks himself up and keeps moving forward despite his brokenness and lack of direction. On missions, he will be notably more careless, which I believe could cause some issues. He may even be sent on a kind of 'forced vacation' because he is constantly putting himself in danger without thinking about his own safety and occasionally acting borderline suicidally. Losing someone as valuable as Leon S. Kennedy would be just too much of a loss.

Additionally, even after he recovers, I believe he will keep some of your belongings. Possibly a photo he holds especially dear, or a piece of clothing that you used to wear. It makes him feel a little bit closer to you even though it doesn't smell like you after all this time. I also think he'll make it a tradition to visit your gravestone every anniversary. He won't be able to do it for a year or two, but when he does, it will be a really therapeutic experience. He'll clean up the gravestone, leave out your favorite flowers and then have a quiet picnic of sorts, while telling you all about how he's been. I don't think Leon believes in afterlife, but... in these moments, it's a nice, wishful thought he can't help but indulge it. He wonders if you're there with him, laughing along to one of his jokes, or scolding him for not taking better care of himself.

I would like to think that his 'I don't deserve to kill myself because I owe it to them to keep going' mentality would eventually change into 'they wouldn't want me to die, they would want me to live and be happy'. With the support of those around him, hopefully. Even though the loss will always be painful, I hope that one day he will be able to look at a picture of the two of you and smile, even if it is with tears in his eyes. Instead of feeling guilty about not doing enough, I hope that one day he will be well enough to talk about your relationship with thankfulness for what he did get to do.

In any case, he will always hold a special place in his heart for you. Up until his own time comes. Be it in the heat of battle, or in peaceful sleep on his bed.

[ilovechuuy4]

ᰔ୨୧ Tell me everyday I get to wake up to that smile ୨୧ᰔ

Characters; Chuuya, Fyodor, Dazai, Atsushi

BSD Men and what they would do for Valentines~

A/N: OH MY GOD I'M GONNA SOB THIS WAS SO EVERYLY RUSHED.. I HOPE THIS ISN'T BAD RAHHH I LOVE Y'ALL THO ALSO I GAVE EACH ON OF THEM A SINGLE HC BC YEA!! ALSO THANK YOG @luvfy0dor FOR IDEAS ILY note. When it gets to chuuya's I am NO CHEF SO DON'T EXPECT MUCH...

Scenarios˚ ∘ ٭୨୧∘

Atsushi 🐯

→ Atsushi will go out of his way to get you multiple things, chocolate, flowers, stuffed bears/tigers etc. He'd spend million of dollars on you if he had it

It was around Atsushi come back from the ADA workplace as you sat on the couch waiting for your boyfriend, Atsushi, to arrive back. You wanted to do something cute for the 14th of February which is well, Valentine's Day. You sat directly to the left side of the couch, watching a movie until he arrives.

Meanwhile, Atsushi wasn't making his way home but to the energy markets and stores with a thought in mind. He was ready to make your day even better than before. He searches around the markets grabbing a lot of different things. He was going to spend money, money on you he didn't care how much every thing he got was.

As an hour goes by, Atsushi finally ended up at the cash register. His hands full of all types of goodies. A stuffed white tiger that was as large as his forearm, light red and pink roses and another flower variants, and different sweets and chocolates some in those heart boxes, some name branded. With a bright smile and about 100 dollars spend, he walks home seemed pretty proud of himself.

He didn't think of asking you to be his Valentines because well, your his S/O so why did it matter if he asked? He hums softly as he makes it to the apartment, fumbling with the keys of the front door before unlocking it, walking in and shutting the door with his foot. "Mhm, my precious baby? I'm home." He hums softly putting every thing on the counter.

You perk up and bit, standing up from the couch and skittering over to him. "Mmh, hi my love." You murmurs out hugging Atsushi. "Hey, will you uh- be my valentine?" Atsushi says with a soft smile. You smile back, kissing his cheek softly. "Of course, why wouldn't I not?" You say with a cheeky grin taking the stuffed tiger out the bag.

"Hey this looks like you, silly." You said with a chuckle. Atsushis arms wrapped around you, his face slightly buried in the crook of your neck. "Yes because I want you to think of me every time you see it, happy Valentine's baby.." He says with a laugh.

Chuuya 🍷

→ Chuuya, like Atsushi, goes all out but with the amount of money he has he definitely goes above and beyond, flower petals, candle lit house, fancy gourmet dinner cooked by yours truly and you can't forget the wine that will be neatly set on the table.

It was the time just half passed 6pm and you were on your way back to the home your boyfriend owned. The sun was already slowly setting the hues of the color filled sky shining I to the small puddles on the ground. The weather wasn't the best today but it was all fine if you get to spend the say with your boyfriend.

You take out your keys from your bag, carefully unlocking the door to the large apartment or well penthouse. Once you walk in you see your boyfriend, Chuuya, in some pants and apron, no shirt and lied was he attractive. "Oh, hey doll your back? How was work, hmm?" The ginger said with a smirk, his pearly whites showing off.

"Oh it was same old same old, what are you cooking?" You hum, letting down your H/C hair from the short/long ponytail you had to have up for work. "It's just something simple, steak with peppercorn sauce, that sound good darlin'?" He hummed out, the food looked delicious this wasnt just "something simple" you knew chuuya loves to go all out when it's days like this.

"Yea, something simple?" You said with a mock smile as you watched him cut up the freshly cooked steak that was medium rare(or well done) and then placed them on the plate along with Cajun potatoes and spicy slaw the steak topped with the peppercorn sauce. "I hope you're hungry because I made this special just for you." He said, cringing a bit at his own words as he slips it onto the dinning table.

You make your way to the dinning table and sit down, you watched as Chuuya poured y'all both a glass of wine. "Go ahead, dig in doll I'm not judgin'." The orange haired male said with a shit eating yet cheeky grin as he started to eat his own food. You had to admit, the presentation was amazing as you picked your fork up and began eat, Lord was it amazing it tasted as if you were at a 5 star restaurant reservation.

Y'all soon had finished eating, Chuuya stands and gently slips the glasses and plates along with the utensils into the sink before coming back to the table. "C'mere I wanna love up on you." He said gently patting his thigh, what was he some weirdo trying to get a cat to come? Either way it worked. You stood up and reluctantly slipped onto his lap. He left out a soft groan as he feels your entire body sink onto him, he loved it, he basically worships your body.

"Yea, this is nice." He mutters his arms around your waist and his face buried in total he crook of your neck, placing soft messy kisses on the nape of your neck. "Mmh? Yea a bet it is." You tease, running your nails through his messy orange hair massaging his scalp. "Yea, it really is. I love you doll, Happy Valentine's Day." He murmurs gently biting down on your neck.

Fyodor🔪

→ Fyodor innitonally thought valentines day was just a cringe and corny day but now that he has you he spoils you the best he can~

You and Fyodor have been dating for almost a year and a half and for that year y'all haven't really celebrated Valentine's Day not because y'all hate it just because you both don't know what to do for one another. But obviously today was different for Fyodor he wanted to make this a good Valentine's Day for the both of you.

He saw one of those videos of someone making paper roses out of book paves and took it upon himself to make at least a bouquet of these paper flowers. He started it when he was free from work and you were off with friends. He was on the very last flower, his slender fingers trembling softly as he taped and glued each one together.

Once finally finished he put them in a paper wrapping some were painted a soft purple and others were just the paper color. He only has a few different chocolates, he wasnt 100% sure what to get you since this was his first time buying Valentine's things for a S/O. He had also worked on a hand written note that was a bit cringy but his heart was put into everything and that's what mattered.

You shortly arrive home as he finished up, he stood up quickly grabbing the things and walked to greet you. "My myshka your home? How was your day out?" His thick Russian voice seeped into your ears making you smile as you took off your coat and shoes 'nd putting them in their desired places before going over to hug your boyfriend.

"It was alright they all had their boyfriends/girlfriends around so they left pretty early." You said with a slight smile. "Oh I'm sorry I wasn't their, maybe I should just come next time?" He said with a slightly closed mouth smile. "No it's alright Fedya don't worry about it too much."

"No I will come next time it's just I was busy making this stuff for you." He said taking the paper roses, the note and a few box's of chocolates off the kitchen counter. "It's not too much but it's the best thing I could have thought of, I hope you like it my love." He said kissing your hair.

You smile softly as you read the note, you could tell he put a lot of time in this entire thing, the paper roses, the note and just going out to get the chocolates. "Awe, thank you Fedya..i really appreciate it." You said as the slight smile faded into a bigger one.

"You're very much welcome, you're my everything and I wanted to try this Valentine's Day thing out with you at least once. Happy Valentine's Day my myshka." He hums before putting a slow, tender kiss onto your lips.

Dazai🤕🐌

→ Dazai is NOT like the others in this one bro his broke ass can't afford any of that he's bringing you to the goddamn cheesecake Factory ୨୧

When Dazai arrived home he said he wanted to bring you somewheres as he seemed to be in a rush, he told you to get ready nothing to fancy though. So that's exactly what you did you dressed in something slightly casual not too causal though and then helped Dazai fix up his bandages before y'all headed out.

It was about a 30 minute walk from yalls apartment to the place and ones you saw what it was you smile softly, the cheesecake factory. You love the effort he's put into all of Valentine's Day for the both of y'all. "The cheesecake Factory? Mmh thank you 'Samu." You said with a smile.

"Of course babe~ Let's go let's go inside now sweet cheeks." He said with a smile, he was definitely feeling all giddy as he gently tapped your ss to get you to go inside. Once inside the waiter greeted y'all, you assumed Dazai made the reservation prior or when you didn't know because how else would y'all get in so easily? Once sat in the back of the restaurant y'all ordered the drinks the two of you preferred.

Dazai hums softly his hand gently rubbing your thigh as y'all looked through the menu, Dazai ended up getting the warm crab dip as an appetizer for the both of you. "Dazai, my love, when did you make the reservation? I didn't see you make it any this week?" You said, cocking an eyebrow. "I did it some time, that's for me to know not you babe.~" He said with a cheeky grin as the appetizer came out.

The lighting of the place was warm and calming as you 'nd Dazai spoke about what food y'all should order, he told you to get what you wanted and he wouldn't hold you back which was pretty weird but oh well? Soon the waiter came back to take your orders. You ended up just ordering the filet Mignon with the green beans and mashed potatoes. While Dazai got the Cajun jambalaya pasta.

Y'all didn't wait too too long until the food arrived and y'all started to eat. The food was good it wasn't five star but it was a good 4.5. Y'all finished eating about 20 minutes later and y'all were completely full but Dazai had one last thing. The waiter came back once more and placed down a cheesecake that was to go.

You looked at it, reading the strawberry glaze that was made into words "Happy Valentine's Babe" is what is read, you smile softly as you feel Dazai's hand still rubbing your thigh. "Alright let's go home?" He asked with a cheeky grin as he stood up, leaving the right amount of cash on the table for a tip.

Once y'all leave, the cheesecake in a bag y'all walk down the sidewalk back to the apartment. You unlock the door and walk inside, the brunette placing the cheesecake on the dinning room table. "That was a nice date, my love." You say with a closed mouth smile.

"Mmh? Was it sweet cheeks? Well I'm glad you liked it." He said, he was so cocky but you still loved him. His slender arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you in. "But I bet their cheesecake isn't as sweet as you~" He said as he quickly pressed his lips against yours, his tongue slipping passed your lips. "Mmh, happy Valentine's Day Babe~" He muttered against your lips.

[crash-and-cure]

Every Minute, Every Hour (Yandere!Austin!Elvis x Reader)

Summary: You were out. You were out goddamnit. How was he here?

A/N: Soooo.... It’s been awhile. Writer’s block is an absolute son of a bitch. So this is based on an idea I had and requested to @venus-haze a couple months ago and which I almost completely forgot about until I got this request and I decided two birds and all that. I also acknowledge that there was another similar request made a while back, to the person who requested it don’t worry, I do have plans for it. 

Warnings: Yandere!Elvis so expect themes of obsessive, manipulative, jealous, and delusional behavior. Dubious Consent in regards to coersion being involved. Loss of virginity. Explicit sexual content depicted that includes Penetrative sex (m/f), oral sex (f.recieving), female mastubation, slight dumbification, and implied anal play. Brief depictions of choking. Touch-starvation. Mentions of Pregnancy. Referenced cheating on Elvis' part. Self-loathing. Stockholm Syndrome(?) Probably more that I am blanking on. Period-typical homophobia and closeted characters depicted. Please do not interact if you are under 18. 

Word Count: 19.8K

Masterlist

----------

You look like an angel (look like an angel)

Walk like an angel (walk like an angel)

Talk like an angel

But I got wise

You’re the devi-

It takes you longer than you would have liked to reach the radio and turn it off. And it’s only as you reach it do you realize how odd it looks from the outside when you see a customer looking at you funny. 

“Not much of a fan,” you say with an admittedly pathetic smile on your face. 

“I can see that,” he replies with an awkward smile, before going back to browsing the books. 

You bashfully turn the radio back on and quickly try to turn the knob to anything even remotely comprehensible, but it’s just your luck that this is the only station you get decent reception on in the store. With no other choice but to simply grin and bear it you put the volume on low and return to reading your book. 

You do keep an eye on your final customer of the evening, and hope he hurries up so you can finally close up for the day. Susan had been complaining about a migraine since lunch and Gina was caring for her upstairs and so it was on you to close up the shop on your own today. 

You feel embarrassed to have been seen that way but that all falls away when you hear the shop bell ring, only to be immediately followed by tiny rapid footsteps and an excited little “mama!” and you grab onto the counter before your little two and a half foot terror can knock out from behind you. Which ends up being the right call as you feel her head butt your knees and locking her arms around them nearly knocking you down.  

“Mama! Mama!” she squealed, practically vibrating, she was so excited to see you. 

“Rosie! Rosie!” you say, equally as happy to see her though you do a far better job at reining it in. She takes your hands in hers as you crouch down to look at her, and take stock. Her hair is askew with the ribbons you had tied in place this morning holding on for dear life in her beautiful curls, her face is smudgy with what you’re hoping is chocolate, and one of her socks is just gone, but both shoes are in place so you can only imagine how your little hellion managed that. Overall this is the best condition Rosie has returned to you in, after a long day with Jenny.

“Mama, Aunty Jenny took me to the Candy store!” she says, showing off the candy bracelets on her tiny wrists. 

“Really,” you say, shooting a look at your friend for giving her so much sugar before bed. The woman in question has the courtesy to at least look a little guilty about it, before giving a small laugh. 

“Mm-hmm. And we saw Danny at the playground and we-we saw Uncle Lee’s friends, and then we listened to a lotta music, and we saw a movie about a wizard and there was no one else in the whole room, and then-then…” she rapidly rambles on but you pepper her face in kisses before she can pass out from the lack of oxygen. She giggles uncontrollably and tries to squirm out of your grip, but you gotta get in one good raspberry on her cheek before you let her go.

“Alright, why don’t you go upstairs and help Aunty Gina finish up dinner,” you tell her with a smile on your face. Her “help” in the kitchen is typically watching and holding spoons and spatulas on a step stool, but she’s at an age where she believes the whole dish would fall apart without her important contribution to it, so she goes rushing to the stairs. 

But she quickly comes running back while taking the uneaten bracelet off of her wrist. “Danny said to give this to you for your birthday,” she declares. Ever since meeting Jenny’s nephew she’s seemed to hang on to every word of his, and though you’ve never met the boy he seems to be a good kid, always polite and saying hello through your daughter, but has, as you've heard, an extreme affinity towards spinning a few too many fantastical stories. But your daughter is far too young to see him as anything but a friend so you doubt you have anything to worry about as of right now. 

She’s always so eager to tell you about everything, and you’re just as eager to listen. Your folks never wanted to hear anything from you, and you pray that your attentiveness will pay off one day when she is never afraid to come to you with your troubles. Maybe if you had that with your mother you wouldn’t be where you were.

“Well tell him I said thank you,” you say, as you pull it on your wrist, placing a small kiss on her forehead before she books it back to the stairs behind the counter. As you stand back up, to your surprise you find the customer now at the counter with a good stack of books. 

“Sorry to bother Miss…ummm…” the customer says nervously. 

“Love,” you clarify for him. “Y/N Love.”

He gives a shy smile at that, “Well Miss Love, I’m ‘bout ready to check out so…” he says gesturing to his tower of books. 

“Of course,” you answer and you begin to ring him up. He’s got quite a few so at least he makes the extra time staying down here somewhat worth it. 

“Whatcha readin’ there,” he asks you, pointing to the open book you’ve left to your side. You show him your copy of We have always lived in the castle. “I-is it any good?”

“I would say so,” you answer. Though that ending did hit a little too close to home, you think to yourself. 

“So umm, d-do you like to read?” he asks hesitantly as he quietly adds a copy of the book to his pile. 

“I’d be in the wrong business if I didn’t,” you joke, and he laughs a little too hard. “How ‘bout you?” you ask, wanting to not have an awkward silence, as you’re not even halfway through the stack. 

“Yeah, I-I love reading though I don’t got a lotta time for it these days,” he says with a guilty smile on his face. 

“Why’s that?” you ask, since it seems to be the only way this conversation could go. 

“I-I just started my residency at Charity Hospital,” he says bashfully rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m Sam by the way,” apparently realizing that he hadn’t made the proper introductions. 

“Y/N,” you say, giving him a small nod and a smile. “And congratulations on your residency,” you're almost done with the final few books, but you may or may not be taking your time to finish them up, wanting to prolong the conversation you’re having for a bit. 

“Thank you, and I- well, umm… I couldn’t help but overhear your daughter, but umm… Happy Birthday,” he says ducking his head, a bit embarrassed at his own admission. 

“Oh, thank you,” you say, your face heating up slightly that he had heard. 

“Your Husband’s a lucky man,” he says, though he does steal a quick glance at you, no doubt trying to gauge your reaction.

So this is what it’s about, you think to yourself. “I’m actually not…” you trail off, and hope that he gets the message. 

“Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” he stated before his eyes widened as he realized what he just said. “I-I mean not glad like I’m happy that you-you’re not married, bu-but glad li-like I’m relieved that I hav-haven’t been trying to build up the courage to talk to a cute girl for the past few weeks only to find out she’s married already.” he blathers on and you can’t help but laugh. 

Your heart does flutter a bit at his confession. Everything about this feels like it should be perfect. Unfortunately for the both of you, you finally get a good look at his icy blue eyes that are a little too familiar for comfort, and it feels like your throat closes up. 

You can feel your stomach churning (and not just from the baby that fills it) and cold regret for not buying an extra pair of socks as you sit at the Greyhound terminal in Nashville, your feet starting practically turning into ice blocks. That cold November morning you had made a show of telling everybody you were gonna make a quick trip down to the shops for some eggs, now you’re almost a full state away praying that the bus gets here soon, jumping every time a set of headlights passes by and you're just barely keeping dry underneath the metal canopy. 

But for as cold as you are physically, your chest starts to heat up at the prospect that you’re so close to freedom from an even colder gaze. When the bus does get there you hardly sleep a wink afraid to let your guard down even now. You know how well he could sabotage your plans if he was so inclined, from small things like spoiling the surprise party you had planned for him to the major of ruining your chances to get into another school. 

You know he’s half a world away yet that still does little knowing what the most loyal of his are willing to do for him. It’s not until you finally make it to the train station in Atlanta that’ll take you down to New Orleans that you finally give in to your heavy eyelids, willing to trust strangers with your safety, aware they can’t hurt you any worse than those you know have done. 

You shake your head as you’re brought back to the present, and you hear him say something, “I’m sorry what?” you covertly wiggle your toes as you try to ground yourself and get sensation back in them as though you were just getting them out of the cold.

“I was just sayin’ there’s this club down on Bourbon that I been meanin’ to check out since movin’ down here, and I was hopin’ a local such as yourself could show me ‘round these parts,” he says, a nervous but hopeful smile on his lips. 

For a moment you can almost imagine saying yes to him, how he would take you out on the town, how he would kiss you, how he would throw your daughter up in the air. How maybe you could be happy with him.

But like a looming black cloud, in spite of the lowered volume, you hear what the new station is now playing, clear as a bell.

Oh please come to my arms and say you'll love me forever

For with the dawn, you'll be gone 

It’s almost as though He’s following you, serving as a constant reminder of what you did, and that you’re never allowed to imagine being with another man. You wordlessly turn off the radio before you’re forced to listen anymore. “Uhh, I-I’m sorry, I-I really don’t go out much,” you say, trying to shut this down as gently as you could. 

“Oh-uhh, that’s fine I umm,” he says, pivoting hard. “I’m more of a movie guy myself, I hear he’s got a new one out, and we can go and watch anything but that,” he gives a small laugh pointing to the radio, but quickly drops it upon seeing your grim expression. 

Without knowing it Sam just shut the coffin on any potential happenings between the two of you. “I’m sorry, it’s late and I gotta close up for the night,” you say softly, and he’s smart enough to take the hint. 

“O-of course,” he says looking down at the books he has in his hands. “But can you promise you’ll think about it?” he asks as he reaches the door to look back at you. 

Even before you open your mouth, you already know that your next words are going to make you lose a customer forever. “There’s nothing to think about,” you say, trying to feign apathy. Harsh as your words may be, you know this is far kinder to him in the long run as opposed to getting more involved with you. 

You watch him leave the store with a sagging shoulders and a long face, before you feel a hand meet violently with the back of your head, and you swivel around to see Jenny with an exasperated look on her face. “So a handsome, single, doctor who loves to read, and doesn’t mind that you already got a kid, asks you out and you say…” she trails off, seeming to only get more offended with every dreamy quality he had. 

“Don’tchu get like that Jenny,” you defend yourself, as you stomp to the door in order to flip the sign to closed and lock up for the night. “I’ve got a daughter to worry about and I don’t have time for a boyfriend right now.”

“Well newsflash Y/N,” she argues, “Rosie needs a daddy.”

You feel your hackles rising at that statement. “No she doesn’t,” you state firmly, not wanting to raise your voice, because you know better than anyone how easy it is to be overheard.

She deflates a little at your obvious fury at this line of questioning, before letting out a long tired sigh. “It’s just that… when we were at the park today… she asked me why she didn’t have one. And she… she just kept pressing,” she says obviously ashamed that she hurt you, but wanting to get across her reasoning. “What am I supposed to say to that? Especially when you won’t tell nobody what happened. I only got her to drop it when I took her to the candy shop.”

You feel guilty for snapping at your friend. Jenny Hodge had been an absolute godsend since you met her almost a year ago, when she and her new husband, Lee, had moved down from Alabama. Her arrival had coincided when Rosie started becoming aggressively mobile and insisted that running was the only way to get around anymore. And because she felt she needed practice with being a Mama before she had one of her own, she insisted on being your one and only babysitter, in exchange for free books every so often. 

The story around the block is that you are were the young widow who “tragically” lost her husband in an accident before he ever had the chance to meet your beautiful daughter, and with no one in the world left to turn to, you ended up on your “spinster” aunt and her “good friend” Susan’s doorstep. And Jenny, since hearing your story, has by far been your most fervent supporter outside of this house, with her support primarily coming in two flavors: 1) helping you with your daughter so she isn’t so cooped up in the store while you work and 2) trying to set you up with any moderately successful man.

“Y/N,” she says softly. “I get that it’s hard to get back out there, but you need to think about the bigger picture, because it’s only a matter of time before she starts asking you.”

You know she’s right, and that’s the worst part about it. Your little Rosie Love is a stubborn one, not to mention smart, always has been. Didn’t want to walk because she wanted to run. Hated her diaper so much she learned how to unpin it when she was barely a year old. Wanted to try to feed herself when she first took to solid food, and would snatch the spoon out of your hand when she could. She’s broken out of every play pen she’s ever been in. Hell, she was almost two weeks overdue, and the doctors were forced to induce you, she didn’t want to come out until she was good and ready.

She, like someone else you knew, is capable of throwing a wrench into any plan you make. For as endearing as it can be, it is all the more frustrating knowing exactly where she gets it from. 

With a long defeated sigh, you concede to her point and thank her for both her input and for being a good friend this past year. And maybe someday you’ll be ready to find another husband.

She has a wide cheshire-cat like grin as you say that, “And I’mma ‘bout to be a better one,” she practically sings. “Lee’s friend is in town, and I think you two would hit it off.” 

“And I think we wouldn’t,” you state, putting books back where they belong. 

“C’mon Y/N, I thought we were past this,” she whines.

“I did say someday, not today,” you emphasize.

“Y/N, your birthday’s comin’ up soon, and it ain’t like you’re gettin’ any younger. Besides Lee and I are already trying for a baby, so I ain’t gonna be so available much longer neither,” she says in a soft voice holding your hands in hers. “And you need to find someone you can rely on too, it’s not like you wanna end up like your Aunt Gina”

You say nothing not wanting to say anything incriminating about the relationship between your Aunts, as for all that you trust Jenny, you don’t trust her enough with somebody else’s secrets. 

“Just promise me you'll think about it at least,” she pleads, hands clasped over your own. 

What is it about people that, not trusting you when you answer the first time, and thinking given enough time you’ll come around? 

Yet you're no better as you let out a long tired sigh, before ultimately agreeing, if only to get her off your back. Or so you tell yourself. 

She tells you a bit about the man she has in mind for you, or more accurately she keeps insisting how perfect the two of you would be together.  In her mind it’ll be love at first sight, how he’ll love and accept Rosie as his own immediately, how she guarantees that you’ll be married within a year and be trying to give Rosie a little brother or sister. You have to bodily shove her out the door by that point lest she get into any more specifics in her attempt to sway you. 

Jenny’s a little older than you, but she is very much a romantic at heart, you suppose, though that’s the benefit of things going right in your life. 

But your story went wrong. 

“Why you in such a hurry to get out girl?” your accomplice would ask as he handed you the money (He had made it a point of order that you were never to handle any) the day before your escape. 

“There’s someone else,” you say simply, because it’s true and if they were to ever betray your trust this would be worse on them than on you. 

You got away with quite a bit back in the day like getting out of trouble for making out in a dark empty classroom by claiming to have been caught by surprise by your monthlies and now you couldn’t bear the thought of being seen like this. Or when you got hired by the library for the summer after you approached the front desk and claimed to be the new hire ready for her first day of training and nobody really bothered to check in with anybody else. Even that one time when you confidently strolled backstage at a music hall He had wanted to perform all to sneak them in through the back door and convinced just enough people that his band was meant to perform that night.

Your ability to make up stories on the fly and map things out in your head had led you to believe that you would make for a pretty good mystery writer. You had even tried to go to school to be one, though you told everyone it was to be a teacher, a far more respectable and womanly job.

Well not everyone.

He certainly knew. 

Knew about your talent for planning and story-telling, and was practically always in awe to see it in action. But this recognition came at the expense that he was aware of your tricks and he always knew how to throw you off just enough to make any plans you made go belly up. Whether it was something relatively small like figuring out you were planning a surprise party to the major… like when you tried to end things the first time around.

He called you almost every night when he was on tour, and you had done your best to relay all that was going on back in Memphis. And in spite of his insistence that he wants to hear about it, you suspect that he wasn’t being truthful. He especially seemed disgruntled when you made any mention of doing anything with anyone else. Your friends, his friends, even your own family weren’t safe from his ire.  

When He was here you would do everything together, yet now that you tell him about all that you’d been doing, there is a slight but noticeable edge when he speaks to you over the phone. Everytime you mention how you went to the movie theater or you went to the record store or the bookshop, it was almost always met with a solemn “we used to do that together.” 

You would have gone with him, had your parents let you, and He knows that so you don’t understand why he’s so sore about the fact that you’re not simply sitting on your hands back home waiting for him to return. 

So in an effort to spare his feelings you asked him about the things he was doing, you even go out of your way to say how happy you were when he was telling you about all of the fun things he had done on the road. You’re happy to hear it all and you thought 

You miss him just as fiercely but you don’t want it to stop you from living. 

But when you got your acceptance letter, you saw the writing on the wall. You both were going in different directions: you were going to be studying, were barely going to be home and his star just kept growing and growing each day taking him further out and making him harder to reach. You know you wanted this and you begin to suspect you may want it more than you want to stay with him, if staying with him meant being alone all the same. 

This was only confirmed in the weeks leading up to Prom when you couldn’t get a straight answer out of him of whether or not He would be able to make it. It was on you to practically plan everything down to what he would wear, while his whole contribution was to show up- maybe?

Whether He did show up or not that night, you thought the result would be the same with you officially breaking things off between you two. But you still held out hope that at least if he did come you would have one last good memory. 

And to your relief He does make it, but he’s a little off the whole night. Not in the sense that his mind is elsewhere, more like he’s trying to commit everything about the night into memory, and looking at you with sad eyes when he thinks you’re not looking. 

It all comes to a head when you’re parked outside of your house, and you’re sitting in a loaded silence with him at the wheel. He’s gripping onto that thing for dear life and you’re wondering if maybe you should save it, but you think you know yourself well enough to know that if you don’t say it now, you won't say it ever. 

So as he’s opening his mouth to say something, you cut him off with his name. 

“...I-I got accepted to Southwestern,” you blurted out to him and He looked so confused at your admission, but you push through. “I start in the fall, so I’m not gonna be home much anymore, and with y-you being on the road so much, I think it best that we-”

“Marry me,” he blurts out, panic etched across his face.

Your jaw is left practically on the floor as that was the last thing you ever expected out of his mouth. 

You would later find out that he went to Prom with the same intention as you did but it was in that moment that he realized you weren’t going to wait for him to come back did he want to lock you down. But you didn’t see that in the moment. 

What you saw at the time was the declaration that he was just as committed as you were, and so overwhelmed by the love you still felt for him at the time, you had no choice but to give an emphatic yes to him. 

“We’re gonna figure this out baby,” He promises with a kiss. 

That was the first time you tried to leave him.

“-Danny’s a real good singer Aunty. He told me he lives in Neverland and one day he would take me and-and he told me this is the only place in the whole word that they sell peanut butter cups,” you would hear as you made your way up the stairs connecting to the apartment above the store. You look into the small kitchen where you see your little girl sitting on the counter talking her aunt’s ear off idly dangling her little feet while holding a spatula you're not entirely sure is necessary. Gina looks over to you and gives you a playfully exasperated look, and you simply shrug your shoulders before moving into the small kitchen to pepper your little one's face in kisses. 

“Alright sticky missy,” you announce, blowing a raspberry on her cheek and swiping the utensil out of her hand as she trills in delight. “You go wash up for dinner now, ya’ hear, and go wake up Aunty, I think she’ll feel alot better seeing you.”

“Ok Mama,” she says. She is utterly fearless as she slides herself to get off of the counter, and lands on her feet below. You can’t help the swell of pride that bubbles up in your chest seeing it, how brave your little girl is. You hope that you can take it as a sign that you’re doing ok at this motherhood thing. 

Gina likes to say that you were just as bold at that age with the confidence of someone so sure they can take on the world, and in quieter moments she’ll lament how you lost that in you. You would be offended if you didn’t already know when exactly you lost it. 

She had always been your favorite Aunt until you were about twelve and and your father would coldly tell you she died and was in hell now. Rather than a funeral, the family got together to destroy her things and swear to never speak of her again. 

That didn’t stop her from visiting you one last time and telling you she was moving down to New Orleans with her friend Susan. She would take you to your favorite bookstore one last time in Memphis and promised that if you ever needed a place to stay, to not even hesitate to come, because she knew better than anyone what your family would do to girls who stepped out of line. 

For years the only evidence that she was even alive was the annual birthday and Christmas gift you would get from her all under the guise of Nancy Drew books stamped with the name of a bookstore all the way in New Orleans. You cherished them and it’s one of the few things you took after your parents kicked you out. 

You only wished you had taken the offer when your father had kicked you out and you were forced to rely on someone else. 

“So I hear you broke another heart,” Gina idly says as she starts scooping some rice onto a plate.

You let out a long sigh, “When did Jenny find the time to tell you?” You’re more amazed than annoyed considering she didn’t leave your sight once down stairs. 

“Jenny?” she says, raising a brow. “No Sue told me earlier how Lou from King’s Cafe ‘s been askin’ after you.”

Lou who always had extra beignets to give away when you took Rosie for a walk in the mornings. He recently asked if you had ever been on the Algiers ferry, and how beautiful it looked at night.

…You’ve been taking a different route to the playground since then. 

“Is my love life just everybody’s business,” you ask frustrated that you weren’t even given a five minute break from this. 

“In this house: yes,” she states, a grin on her face. 

“Gina if this is about me movin’ out, you can talk to me, I’m a big girl,” you insist, trying to deflect and not have to think about it anymore. 

“Sweetheart,” she says solemnly, placing a hand on your cheek. I may not be your mama, but I do think that you need to think about what’s best for Rosie,” she insists as she puts place mats down on the table. 

Gina’s a little closer to the situation than Jenny, as she had asked no questions as to why you all of a sudden needed a place to stay far from your parents with nary a husband or boyfriend in sight to take responsibility for the baby growing within you. She had also been the one to help spread the tragic young widow narrative, and for as much of a gossip she can be, you know she’s a steel trap for secrets that matter. 

“What does me getting, or not getting, a boyfriend have to do with Rosie?”

“A boyfriend? Nothing,” she dismisses. “A husband on the other hand…”she says with a smile.

“Don’tchu come talkin’ to me ‘bout gettin’ a husband,” you say, handing her another plate of food. 

She laughs at that, “It’s not just about you gettin’ a husband, it’s about Rosie gettin’ a father,” she insists amused at your mulishness. 

“Not you too,” you mourn what you thought was going to be a quiet evening. 

“I’m just sayin’ that every child deserves two parents,” putting the lid back on the pot. 

“She’s got three mama’s,” you counter.

“No,” she says waving the wooden spoon in front of your face. “She’s got one mama and two grandmas that spoil her rotten behind your back.” You open your mouth to protest, until she quickly follows up with, “Oh speak of the devil herself,” as you see your little troublemaker dragging Susan by the hand to the table, whom you had to bully into taking a rest to somewhat alleviate the migraine she had been having for most of the day.

Your daughter can talk for hours if left unchecked and you're eager to hear all of it as she bounces from subject to subject at the dinner table. You had always felt somewhat guilty intruding on their space, but Gina insists nothing of the sort and Susan jokes that the two of them are getting the full kid/grandkid experience through you and Rosie, since the traditional way ain’t for them.

Between bites she regaled the three of you with all that she did today which included seeing a dog, the playground being shiny, spinning around so fast on the merry-go-round she almost went into space, made friends with some of the ducks, saw another dog, Danny gave her his popcorn, got a lot of candy from the candy shop, and gave some jelly beans to the last dog she saw today, but only the green ones she doesn’t like, and then feeling bad about it and giving it some of the red ones to even it out.

She doesn’t mention anything to you about asking Jenny about why she doesn't have a daddy, and you breathe a sigh of relief at the first break you’ve had all day. Some may say you indulge her too much, but all three grown women at this table know exactly how it feels to have their thoughts and feelings ignored, and you all had come to the mutual understanding that Rosie would never have to feel this way in this house.

“Mama, I forgot to tell you,” Rosie states after she shoveled the last of her food into her mouth. “Barbie got a new job today!” she delights as she thrusts the doll in your face. 

“Really?” you say trying to match even a quarter of her excitement. “Is she mmm… a firefighter?”

“No!” she squeals, delighted in the game you play with her. 

Making a big show of putting a finger to your temple and closing one eye, apparently deep in thought, you ask, “Is she a… detective?” 

“No that was yesterday!” she’s practically buzzing to tell you, but holds it in to keep this game going.

“Oh!” you say, pretending to have a lightbulb moment. “She’s a wizard!” You know your daughter well enough, so you’re reasonably confident in your guess knowing that Jenny took her to see that Disney movie today. 

“No,” she laughs, “She’s an actress, but she also sings in all her movies.”

“O-oh,” you say, genuinely caught off guard by that. “Why’s that?” It’s certainly not an unusual thing for a little girl to declare, but for your daughter it most definitely was. When she declared what Barbie was going to be it was always influenced by something she saw that day. Sometimes she was a baker, sometimes a ballerina, even one memorable time a bus driver, but this is a first. Even when she has seen movies with actors in it she didn’t quite understand the concept that those aren’t their real jobs on screen, and she would pick that, which is why you guessed wizard.

“Because Danny does that,” she declares, as she starts to make Barbie dance on the dinner table.

And then it made sense, your daughter’s friend, Danny, who according to Jenny, has a penchant for making up stories. To your daughter the boy’s been a cowboy, a soldier, he’s as strong as superman, can play any instrument, and now apparently is a famous actor. 

You give an amused huff, “I see Danny’s at it again,” you state, as you take her plate. It’s a literal miracle that Jenny’s impromptu trip to the candy store didn’t spoil her appetite, and but you don’t know how much of an appetite she’ll have for dessert so you decide to just split a slice of King cake with her. 

“At what mama?” she asks as Gina wipes some of her food off her face. 

“He’s telling stories again,” you say as you bring Gina and Susan their dessert plates. 

“No he’s not,” she states, furrowing her brow, and you can’t help but quirk a smile at how stressed she looks as you sit down. “I saw it myself.” 

“I’m sure you did, but Honey, it's just… sometimes boys have a habit of telling… tall tales,” you suppose that’s the nice way of putting it. It’s a fine line you walk with her, wanting to have her believe in herself most of all, but also wanting her to not believe everything she’s told, especially by boys. You’re the textbook example of what happens to supposedly smart girls who get in too deep with charming boys.

“But it’s true mama,” she insists, raising her voice a bit. 

“Sweetheart, I think he means, he wants to be that when he grows up,” you try to gently justify, as you subtly try to nudge the fork closer to her. 

“No mama, I saw it,” she asserts, getting progressively more upset defending her friend. “He is a famous actor and he was singing and dancing at the theater.”

“And I’m sure he’s gonna be a big star one day when he’s all grown up,” you try to assuage how worked up she’s getting. “But I don’t think he’s one right now.” 

“No mama!” she yells at the top of her lungs, angry tears streaming down her face. “You’re a liar!” You feel your stomach drop to the floor and she herself looks shocked at what she just said. She proceeds to cry even harder before turning tail and running straight into the room you share with her and slamming the door as hard as she could. 

When you were far enough away, and somewhat comfortable in your new environment in Your Aunties home, the first thing you did was read nearly every book about motherhood you could find. You were determined to do this right as you had made the unilateral decision for your baby to only have one parent. So you decided as a means of making up for it you would be all the parent she would need. 

Doubt creeps into the back of your throat that you made the wrong decision and that you in fact were not enough on your own and that she never would have done that if He were around. 

“You want me to go talk to her?” Gina would ask after hearing your door slam shut. 

As bad as you want to say yes from the exhausting day you’ve had so far, you’re not about to foist your duties as a mother off onto her right now. She understands but you don’t miss the pointed look she gives to Sue, as she walks away to clean up dinner, and you bury your hand in your face hoping if you wish hard enough this day will finally come to a close. 

“I remember the first time I yelled at my mama,” Sue off-handedly says after a few minutes. “Always too scared that that wretched woman would beat me black and blue if I was ever less than perfect,” she takes a sip of her tea. “And she did just that when I got fed up with all her teasing about me getting a boyfriend.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“What I’m gettin’ at is… I was never comfortable enough with my own mother to be angry with her.”

“Am I bad at this?” 

“You’re still new at this Hon,” she reassures you. “There's a big difference.”

Despite the fact that Gina was the one related to you by blood, Sue’s the only one in the world who even has an inkling as to what exactly you left behind. And that is only because she was a front row spectator to it.

You had managed to get permission to leave the hotel room for a few hours while He was on set that day. He had brought you down from Memphis, not wanting you so far out of reach and yet you were still pretty much kept confined. You had long since exhausted the books you had brought for the trip, and you were practically itching to get out. 

Books were your only escape from this place. Where you could vicariously solve a mystery or meet royalty or stop a war or any other number of exciting things in your head. But inevitably you close the book and the story ends and your back in this fucking hotel room. 

You realize by getting more books you're just masking a symptom rather than actually treating the illness. You couldn’t take it anymore and had begged Him to at least let you go to a bookstore to keep you occupied, because by that point you were willing to pay the price for it. 

Sue had been the only one in the store the day but you hadn’t really taken notice of her, your eyes had been darting around everywhere trying to find Gina. Sonny was in there as well, as you were only able to bargain your way to being in here and picking out the books, but not enough to be able to enter the store alone. Sonny had been the one to pull the short straw and had been put on Y/N duty today. Usually that consisted of sitting in the hotel and making sure you didn’t go anywhere while also completely ignoring you.

Everybody knows the story of the last guy that paid a little too much attention to you. You still couldn’t look at raw ground beef without crying.

Outside of the occasional gathering you don’t really interact with anybody out of the immediate vicinity of home. It’s funny how He can put you in a room filled to the brim with his people yet make you feel so alone at the same time. It would be amazing if it didn’t make you feel so awful at the same time. 

It’s a terrible thing He does, but it’s made all the worse that so many people can see what he’s doing keeping you prisoner and isolated and yet no one will ever dare breach it 

If anything they actually help him as they all report to him practically what you did that day, do their best to talk you out of leaving the room, and even when you do insist on going off on your own, the men are quick to remind you that He won’t like it one bit. They won’t physically stop you, (they know the worst thing they can do is put their hands on you) but you know that’s where their “help” begins and ends. 

At one point you even tried to play ball and asked for His permission last time you were in LA and you had wanted to go to the Griffith Observatory. You had asked in advance, agreed to only being there for two hours, and even gave in to being essentially chaperoned from a distance. Initially He had agreed to the terms and You thought you had done good and maybe you were finally coming to somewhat of a middle ground with him. 

But in the days leading up to the trip He would ask for favors in return. They all just happened to be things you had refused to do for him up until that point. When you refused He would at first seemingly accept your answer, and then He would idly remind you of your upcoming trip before asking you again. You weren’t stupid enough to miss the connection and so you did what you thought you had to do for just the slightest taste of freedom.

Who are you kidding?

You practically begged and did tricks for Him like a dog for just the slightest bit of slack on your leash. 

You could barely move the morning of the trip both physically and emotionally drained from what he had you do the night before, but you still persevered if only to make all that you went through worth it.

It wasn’t worth it. 

Everything you saw that day was completely soured by what you had to do to get there. Every step felt like agony, and you had to make a conscious effort to not walk funny. And before you knew it the two hours were up and Red was telling you it was time to leave. 

You don’t know what’s worse, the punishments or the favors. 

You had to go the favor route today as otherwise he would have simply sent for someone to get you whatever books they could find, rather than letting you pick. You already know you’re going to get it when he finds out you went to a different bookstore than initially planned. You thought you could at the very least make it worth it by seeing one familiar face, but even fate denied you that as Gina was nowhere to be seen. 

It was cold enough to justify wearing something to cover up most of the bruises, but that didn’t mean they were all hidden. You wouldn’t know it at the time but your skittishness coupled with the bruises struck a chord with Susan before you fully checked out of the store.

“I’m sorry if this sounds like an odd question but ummm…” you say, glancing around, making sure that Sonny was too far to hear. “Does Gina work here?”

Sue immediately tenses up, and you curse your caginess, as you reassure her that you’re Gina’s niece, Y/N. She seems to relax hearing that so at least she knows that you try to maintain a good relationship, sporadic your letters may be. 

“What happened there honey?” she asks, gesturing to your wrist that has a ring of bruises on it, which you quickly move to hide. You internally curse yourself for your sloppiness. He doesn’t mean to hurt you but he tends to lose himself and be a little rougher especially when he’s worried about something else. 

He’s been a little rougher for a few months now.

“Oh-ummm,” you steal a glance at Sonny, who was making his way to the counter. “Yes I am ready to check out.” Gesturing to the three towers of books you’ve managed to accumulate.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Sue nor does she miss Sonny's statement of remembering the rules as to what you’re allowed to get, if her disapproving look is anything to go by. He’s fine with you reading but doesn’t like you reading books that will put “ideas” in your head. 

You don’t exactly know what that means as the standards seem to change depending on His mood and it’s always a gamble as to what he will or won’t allow you to have. You fear the day He grows the same hatred for fictional men that he has for any man within your vicinity. 

You're genuinely sad when it comes time to pay, (Well Sonny pays, He doesn’t like the idea of you handling money), and then Susan does something you could never have anticipated in a million years as Sonny grabs one stack and goes to put it in the car. 

You wished it had been anybody but Sonny that day. His last girlfriend, whom he swore he was gonna make Mrs. Sonny West, had made the mistake of trying to befriend you outside of gatherings. She stopped by the house frequently just to visit and even invited you out to the salon. 

And it was your mistake to believe you could have a friend that he would finally approve of. Friend or family, He eventually found something to disapprove of for everybody close to you previously. You thought that because she was already nominally part of the group, it would be fine to go.  

He made it clear by the time you got home that it wasn’t. 

You never saw her again after that and Sonny’s resented you ever since. You can hardly blame him, it’s easier to point the finger at you for not anticipating the unspoken rules, as opposed to the man who signs his checks and makes the rules. 

You know that even the slightest toe out of line will be reported back to Him in the worst light. So you had to be on your best behavior. 

“Y’know I highly recommend this book,” Sue says, sliding the book she had been reading at the counter to you. 

Wide Sargasso Sea, the cover reads.

“Oh thank you but I already paid,” you say, almost afraid of this conversation. “And besides I already have enough books.”

“Sweetheart you can never have too many,” she insists and without looking opens it up to the first page where you see a little handwritten note. She closes it up before you can see what it says and slyly slots it in the middle of a stack. 

Later on when you feel sufficiently safe enough to look at it you nearly burst into tears.

In case you need help

feel free to call

(xxx-xxxx)

Such a small thing really, but it’s the most human connection you’ve had with anyone else but Him in a long time. 

You spend the next hour or two committing that string of numbers to memory before you proceed to rip out that page, shred it, and flush the remnants down the toilet. 

Even when you were burning the number into your brain, you never thought you would have ever had the guts to use it. Back when you thought you could accept what looked to be your fate. 

It would be unfair to say it was all bad, after all there was a reason you did fall for Him in the first place. When you would read mysteries and He would listen to you criticize the culprits' plans and schemes and he would look in awe at how you would’ve gotten away with it. Or how fun it was to sneak out with him, your family none the wiser. Even when things got bad and it felt like He was the only one that would talk to you for days, you cherished it because it truly felt like he was your life line. 

When things were good they were great, it was just when they were bad did you start to recognize them. 

Things were bad a lot towards the end. 

Gladys had been one of the few willing to go to bat for you, and perhaps the only one who He would listen to. She was the only one who could set him straight when he got huffy at the thought of you having some basic independence of being able to go outside and not needing to be watched like a child all the time. 

She was the one you went to with your suspicions and early symptoms, when you were too afraid to go to the doctor that reported right back to Him. 

She had also been the only one who knew your fears about having this baby. In your mind there were a total of two possibilities for the life the baby would live. One that they would live a life like yours, isolated within the walls of the house under their fathers obsessive gaze, never to experience the outside world. Or two He would hate the baby on principle and see it as just competition for your time and attention like he did with everybody else.

She did her best to try to quell your fears, trying to assert He would never do either of those things, especially, the last one. 

But you saw it in her eyes how she knows how sour He would get when he would come home to find you playing with his younger cousins. How He gets when someone new so much as looks your way a beat too long, or has the gall to get your attention.

How you’re barely allowed to talk to other girls your own age and that’s only saved for special occasions when his friends bring their girlfriends and He’s otherwise occupied. And even then He has a penchant for just removing you from them just to have you sit with him, and you’re out in the awkward position of being the odd one out in his group.

How when you did gather up the nerve to bring up the topic of babies to him one night his answer was “I ain’t ready to share ya’ darlin’, I don’t think I’ll eva be.”

But your most hard-hitting evidence was what happened to your dog, Hardy. He had been an old stray you saw skulking around the property, and whom you took in when He was touring. Hardy didn’t have much of an interest in running around or playing fetch, just sitting by your side and eating treats. 

Everything was good until He returned. You knew it was gonna be trouble the moment He walked through the door and saw you scratching the dog’s belly. Inspite of the fact that Hardy was usually tolerant of strangers, something about Him immediately put the usually placid dog on edge. You immediately got to work on trying to find some sort of compromise in regards to him, and offered everything from making Hardy a permanently outside dog to even being willing to have him be boarded with a family member while He was home. 

You had asked Gladys where Hardy was the very next morning when you couldn’t find him anywhere, only to be told that He had taken him out for a walk. You didn’t have the heart to be told a lie when He returned alone.

He started taking you with him at that point, and you hardly knew a moment's peace after that.

Your attention is not your own to freely give away, let alone your affection, He expects it all to go to him. He did lord knows what to a dog that had had the misfortune of occupying some of your time when he was there, you hardly wanted to chance the life of a baby that would need all of it. 

However in spite of all of that, you thought with her by your side you would be able to weather his reaction, whatever it may be. Even if your worst fear came to be and He didn’t really want anything to do with the baby, you could at least have someone to love the baby just as fiercely even when you were otherwise occupied by Him. It wasn’t necessarily fair, but you could somewhat see the function of it, and in spite of the weariness he’s instilled in you by that point, you were still reasonably confident in your ability to plan for the long term.

And then Gladys died.

And you were left to navigate the hardest thing you could face alone. 

“Ain’t nobody ever talks about how hard this can be. Or how easy it is to mess up,” Sue continues as she polishes off her plate. “But maybe…” she prods. “If you had a partner to help ease the load, you wouldn’t doubt yourself so much.”

You groan at this point wanting to truly be done with this day already. “Not this again,” you bemoan. 

“Honey,” she says with a firm but comforting grip on your shoulder. “I know a thing or two about leaving bad things behind, but I do think sometimes you need to let someone else in to help you recover,” she says. And almost like they rehearsed it, Gina comes in with a mug of tea, and a kiss to Susan’s forehead as she demands she go back to bed to rest up.

You want to argue back that you did a good enough job of recovering by yourself, but that’s hardly fair to say considering how you were about as helpless as Rosie herself that first year and a half you were here. You had thought that you would’ve been out of here maybe a couple months after giving birth, and been in a completely new place with no ties whatsoever. But the reality is that there’s no possible way you or Rosie would have survived without the help they were so willing to give. 

And that’s all they’re trying to do now. 

You take a minute to fully gather yourself, as you realize you being upset won’t help Rosie in the slightest. You also pick up the slice of cake, as you don’t want her to think she’s being punished for being upset with you. 

You find her hiding underneath the blankets of the bed you share with her and you can only hear sniffling at this point. You try to approach this delicately, as this is new territory for the both of you, so you place the cake on the nightstand, crawl underneath the sheets with her, and allow for her to come to you. Luckily you don’t have to wait for long.

“Mama!” she cries as she buries her face in your bosom, her tears already soaking through the cotton material. “Mama, I didn’t mean it! Please don’t be mad! I’m sorry Mama! Please don’t leave.”

“Sweetheart it’s okay,” you reassure her, running your nails up and down her back, as it always did the trick of settling her down when she was a baby. “Mama’s not goin’ anywhere without you. I’m always gonna be with you.” You hardly put her down her first year of life, going against all the books and holding her at just about every possible moment, so you can hardly fathom where she got this idea in her head that you would leave if you got upset with her. But remembering what Jenny had told you earlier, you have the sneaking suspicion it is related to her noticing the lack of a father in her life. 

“I’m sorry mama! I’m sorry…” she repeats over and over again, and for each time you make sure to reassure her that nothing she could ever do would make you leave. 

Finally when she’s tired herself out and her eyes are red and raw do you finally speak. “Rosie, it’s okay to be mad, but it’s not okay to be mean, because you’re mad,” you say softly to her running your nails on her back, something that has always soothed her. 

She rubs her eyes and wipes her runny nose before looking up at you again, and gives a groggy “I understand Mama.” 

“Good,” you say, kissing her forehead. “Now can you help me finish this cake.” 

You see her eyes widen before she eagerly grabs the fork and dives right in. With your help, it’s not long before it’s almost entirely gone and when she takes that final bite of the cake she goes wide-eyed sticking her fingers in her mouth to pick out the errant piece. “What’s this Mama?” she says holding the little porcelain baby up. 

“Oh you found it Rosie,” you say excitedly, “This means you’re going to have good luck.”

“... Like a wish?”

“Sort of,” you answer.

She gives an excited shriek before she clasps the little figurine in her hands and whispers something almost inaudible to it, with the only recognizable words being “Danny” and “Neverland.” You’re slightly disappointed that your lesson hadn’t quite landed today, but you choose to leave it for now, as you don’t see the harm in wishing to go to a non-existent magical place. 

Once teeth are brushed and pajamas are put on, Rosie settles into bed, but not before making sure you’re not about to break your long-held tradition of storytime. She’s the type of kid who when she likes one story she demands to hear it over and over again. 

And lately she’s latched onto Rapunzel. 

The whole concept does unsettle you greatly, for how close it is to your story. But whatever qualms you have with the story you’re not gonna deny your daughter, because your problems are your own cross to bear, not hers. 

As you read it you get to the part where the witch mother casts her out of the tower and she wanders the forests with her children. You wonder if Rapunzel ever found joy in those years away from the mother who isolated her, away from the prince who could have taken advantage of her. She survived not only on her own, but kept others alive as well. WHat did she do? Did she forage and hunt for her babies, did she find a village where she could work to support her family? 

Sometimes you wonder if she did truly live happily after the end of the story, or if she traded one cage for another as you did before. 

Your daughter is long asleep by the time you reach the happily ever after part of the story. She’s still in the habit of sucking her thumb at night, so you gently remove it, and put one of her favorite stuffies in her arms. And that marks the end of your daily duties, so in theory you should be able to finally fall asleep and be done with this day. 

In theory.

In actuality you creep out of the bed you share with your daughter into the single bathroom of the apartment. Usually her steady breathing tends to be enough to get you to fall asleep, it’s been that way ever since she was a baby, but you’re left feeling agitated having had to think of Him more than usual today. 

Not just because of the song on the radio, but Rosie’s outburst reminded you far too much of her father. It feels like the worst injustice that she mimics someone who isn’t even here.

Now that ain’t my fault now is it darlin’? A familiar voice whispers in your mind. You feel a shudder run down your spine at the thought of him, not to mention the way you shamefully feel yourself pool within your underwear. You slide down the bathroom door, out of sight of the mirror, as though that will prevent you from facing what you’re about to do. You even close your eyes for good measure as your hand reaches your folds and your fingers caress the slick outer lips of your pussy. 

You had tried to ignore this part of yourself for so long. You justified it during your pregnancy, as your body had been making you want to do other stupid things like sleep right in the middle of the store or eat paint chips. Even after giving birth and your inner feelings remaining unchanged, you justified it by thinking you were just particularly lonely, and for all that he kept you isolated, you were never alone when you were with him. Or that he was the only man you ever knew that way so he’s all you had to go off of in order to satisfy these urges.

For as much as your mind curses Him for ever coming into your life, even after all these years, your body has yet to catch up. 

You’re far from unique in your desire for him, but it’s especially shameful for you as you know what he’s truly like. It’s like scratching a mosquito bite, you may know that it’ll just make the itching worse, but dear god did it feel good in the moment. 

But even that is far from an accurate description as you plunge your on fingers into your sopping channel in a poor imitation of what you remember. 

You bite your lip in an effort to keep noises at bay but it just makes you concentrate on the wet squelching sounds echoing through the bathroom as you plunge your fingers into yourself. The sharp sting of pain forcing your mind back to where you experience the most of it. 

“You’re so sweet darlin’,” he purrs, his jaw glistening from your juices having just made a feast of you for the past hour or so. He had made it a game to see how close he could bring you without actually letting you cum, something he tends to do when someone looks your way for a little too long, as though he means to re-establish his claim over you. That only he can give you pleasure like this but take it away on a whim if he chooses. 

“No more…” you beg, new tears forming and following the trail previously set, your lips undoubtedly bruised from how much you have been chewing on them throughout. “Please,” your thighs aching from the death grip he has them in, undoubtedly leaving bruises for you to feel in the morning. 

“Alright,” he says seemingly conceding. But before you can breathe a sigh of relief, he continues, “we’ll switch it up for tonight.”

He flips you over to your front, spreads your legs wide open again, and dives right back in. 

You can’t help the way you’re left trembling from the memory, but what does shake you somewhat is the when you realize that it’s not simply the ghost of the memory that is making you feel that bruising pressure on your inner thigh, but in fact your own hand keeping it there. 

Still the masochist within you that yearns for the ghost of a man you once thought you knew takes a hold and refuses to let go now that you’re so close to release. So you give in and continue your frantic movements biting down hard on your lip to prevent any errant cries from leaving, and grip onto your thigh for dear life, even now trying to deny yourself that you want him here with you.

As you’re coming down from your high, you fight back your tears of shame. Trying to remind yourself why you left in the first place. How for all the moments he made you feel amazing, they weren’t worth the amount of grief he caused you on a near day-to-day basis.

Grief he’s still causing you more like it. 

You don’t think you could have written a better love story in the beginning. You met him when your eyes locked on each other from across your favorite bookstore back in Memphis. He had oh so shyly approached you and asked what you were reading, a bit starry eyed as he listened. Back then and arguably still the concept of a man listening to you was such a novel and unique thing to experience. 

It progressed from there, hand-holding in the school hallway, shared milkshakes at the local diner, and Sunday dinners with his family. Of course there were the less than wholesome aspects of your relationship of stray hands when no one was looking and heated kisses after a particularly rousing performance.

Truly the hallmarks of the greatest love story the world had ever seen. 

If only you knew how wrong a love story can go, because your story went very wrong. 

You vividly remember your first time with him.

Undoubtedly the cruelest thing he ever did to you.

You were never supposed to find out about the other girls, well that’s not true. The newspapers sure knew about them but he had convinced you that it was all nonsense and that he would never do that to you. All of his friends knew, hell even some of their girlfriends knew, but ideally you were never supposed to find out. 

But the only chink in the armor was that there was in fact someone who had wanted you out as soon as he stepped in. Fact of the matter is that he was practically giddy as he told you what your fiance had been doing on the road up until that point. You were heartbroken and humiliated as to what he did and even more so when you learned he had been gearing up to break up with you the night he proposed, but only stopped when he realized that you wouldn’t be waiting for him, once his career settled.

He had been calling your house non-stop and sending his friends over all with the mission to coax you into talking to him. Worse still he even got your own friends in on it and now you can’t have a single conversation with any of them that doesn’t turn into them telling you how sorry he feels for hurting you and how he desperately wants you back. 

The only people, aside from his manager, that were happy at this development were your parents. They had liked him up until he started to really take off in his career, and they wanted none of the controversy, especially when it came to your squeaky clean, good girl image they had for you. 

They’ve been walking around with the smuggest “I told you so” looks ever since you announced that you were done with him. If only they knew their good girl had been sneaking in her boyfriend for the past three years and had a whole routine for doing so.

But the downside to this is that He was just as aware of the routine as you were. And despite it having been awhile he evidently remembered enough as he stood outside your window, right after all the lights in your house had gone out. 

“Get outta here,” you hiss at him, opening the window just a crack. “You’re gonna wake up my parents.”

“Baby I gotta talk to you,” he pleads, his face utterly heartbroken. Guilt eats at you, knowing how there were days you wished you could go back to not knowing at all. But then you get angry at not only him but yourself for these thoughts. 

If only all of your love for him had died the moment you found out, you would’ve had the strength to shut the window on him that night, and your life probably would’ve taken a very different course. 

But no, you’re hurt and you felt that you had to have the final word. “Talk to one a your other girls,” you say as you move to close your window but he beats you to it and ends up opening it wider, allowing for him to fully step into your space. 

“Get out,” you say severely. “Get out, or I’ll scream.” 

“Darlin’, please listen,” he begs.

“Don’tchu ‘baby’ ‘darlin’ me,” you whisper-yell. 

“I swear things’ll be different this time round,” he pleads, clasping his hands in yours. 

“I’m done with your nonsense, I want you outta my house and outta my life.” tears are already streaming down your face and you make no motion to wipe them away. If he’s gonna hurt you like this he deserves to know. 

He looks at you. Truly looks at you and sees that you’re dead serious about this, that for you there is no coming back from this. 

“Okay,” he says solemnly, looking down at you more defeated than you’ve ever seen him, unfelled tears doting his eyes, and his bottom lip trembling. 

That takes you by surprise, but you try not to show it. “Good,” you say, trying to stamp down the urge to be mad that he’s not fighting harder. There is a hurricane of emotions going through your entire being, hating him and loving him at the same time, but you recognize that you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of being able to sort through said emotions while he’s here. 

“But…”

“But?” you say, confused as to what more there is to say. 

“Let me have you,” he begs breathlessly, stepping closer to you, boxing you into the wall behind you. “Just for tonight,” he clarifies as though that’s gonna make it better.

That offends you but you can’t afford to raise your voice so you hiss at him that it’s not as though you didn’t offer when he was here. “I ain’t ever gonna forgive myself for bein’ so stupid and steppin’ out on you, I-I thought I had more time, tha-that we’d got the rest of our lives together,” he says his voice painfully small, and his eyes pleading with you to agree. 

Your heart swells hearing his words, pleading with your brain to forgive him seeing how much pain the thought of never being with you again is causing the both of you. Another, unmentionable part is also hounding your brain to accept his offer if only for the fact that you had wanted this yourself for so long.

“If-If I do that…” you say in a low voice, your face burning as to what the both of you want but aren’t saying aloud. “Then you’ll leave and never come back?” though even as you say that you’re not exactly sure how you feel over that prospect.

“Just one night sweetheart,” he begs, giving you a quick desperate kiss to your lips. “One night to know what a life with you could’ve been like, and I’ll be outta yer hair forever,” he says with a quick peck to your lips. 

He makes it almost sound romantic, not like he’s quite literally backing you into a corner, and coaxing you into something you’re not sure you want just so that you would finally know peace from him. But that's far from your mind as that little bit of contact does something to you and it’s like opening the floodgates for all the feelings for him you’ve been trying to bury. 

It feels like you're transported to almost a year ago when, he would sneak his way back into your room after having said his goodbyes to your family and parking his car around the corner out of view. How you both move your blankets and pillows onto the floor to avoid the creaky springs of your mattress, how you both keep your voices low, and muffle most sounds with the pillows, how he kicks off his shoes and unbuttons his shirt before slowly undressing you, your body being treated like a present to unwrap. 

Like this it’s easy to forget what he did, easy to forget the pain he’s caused when he’s treating you so sweetly. Kissing every inch of skin, nipping at your sensitive skin every so often, before laving at the bruising area with his tongue. You bite down on your lip hard, willing yourself to keep a cap on the filthy moans and declarations of love alike. 

You had done things with him before but it had never felt quite like this. He had always been insistent that you wait until the wedding night for that, wanting to savor you and all you had to offer before the time came. Which made it feel all the worse when you did find out about those other girls. Your friends had tried to justify it by saying that he was just getting in some “practice” for you, but that hardly made it feel any better. 

But the way he touches you, so sure of his newfound skills, it’s almost easy to forgive him. He treats you almost deceptively sweet, and for as hard as you try to keep yourself quiet, you admittedly don’t do a great job at it. But you manage to keep a good enough lid on yourself. But as it goes on it feels like he himself forgets that he had to do the same, as moans and groans alike continue to escape from his mouth. 

That should’ve been your first clue that he was up to something, but by then as he continues to bury himself deeper and deeper into you, you can’t focus on much else. Had you been thinking straight you would remember he arguably has better control of himself than you do, as he often would tease you over it. 

But in the moment that’s not what you’re thinking about. All you had on your brain was him, and how good and right he felt.

If you could go back in time you think you would’ve strangled your younger, far more naive self, as now in retrospect it became clear what he was planning on doing. He had no qualms to exposing what you had done already with him if it meant merely getting a chance to talk to you, why wouldn’t he take the opportunity to go full scorched earth if given the chance. 

He continues his steady rhythm, and when he whispers in your ear, “It’s only ever gonna be you, darlin’,” you find yourself letting out a silent scream. Your eyes screwed shut, so lost in the pleasure of it all, you would only get the tail-end of the disdainful look he would give upon failing to get you to crack. 

Still you vividly remember how conflicted you did feel in the moment, how for all that it felt good, it also made your stomach turn, for all the hurt he’s caused you yet how deceptively sweet he could be to you. It just gave you a serious case of whiplash. 

But you were so focused on keeping as quiet as possible not even being able to fathom the heap of trouble you would be in should your parents ever find out. You could hardly fathom the agent of your destruction laid within you, but it wasn’t until it was too late did it truly click. 

That devious look he had in his eyes, the one that spoke nothing but trouble. The very same look that seemingly first trapped you all those years ago when you caught it staring at you from across the bookstore. He picked up his rhythm, not allowing for you to fully recover, from the last time, as he pistons into you seeking out release for himself.

You were so dizzy in that moment you didn’t register how he raised his hand onto your night table, before quickly slamming it three times into the wall. 

The very wall you shared with your parents. 

Even in the moment you didn’t fully recognize what he had just done, everything sort of blurring together. Before you can even hope to get your bearings, he’s spinning the both of you around so that you now were on top of him, his fingers digging bruises into your hips, as he thrusts back up into you, no longer trying to feign tenderness, as he seems to rip another climax from you as he lets an unrestrained groan fall from his lips, while your inner walls tighten around him. 

Even in your haze, you realize that this is bad, and you manage to gather yourself enough to slap your hand over his mouth, but that does little to muffle the singer. Especially as it seems as though he's hellbent to be heard. “What did you just do?” you ask unbelieving, frozen in fear even as you hear the muffled shouts of your father through the wall. You feel underneath your palm as his mouth curls into a grin, as he shudders and you feel his hot seed burn you from within. And that’s when you hear the powerful footfalls of your father burst out of his room before he slams open your bedroom door. 

You can only imagine the image you make at that moment, naked sitting astride the nearly fully clothed boy you had sworn up and down for weeks you were done for good with. “What in the hell is going on in here!” your father shouts at the top of his lungs.

Everything after that happens in a blur of your fathers harsh shouts and the sharp sting that comes from your mothers hand across your face as she calls you a whore. By the time it’s all said and done you’re on your knees at the front door begging them to let you back into the house. 

“Take her with you,” your daddy practically spat at him as he tossed you to your knees outside of what was once your home. “I didn’t raise no whores, and you seem to now be in the business a collectin’ them.” 

You can almost hear the sound of a rattlesnake as his arm coils around your shoulder, laying his jacket over your weeping form like a gentleman. “Don’tchu worry baby,” he whispers in your ear. 

He’s almost angelic in his appearance, playing the savior role well, having escaped your home relatively unscathed and in remarkably high-spirits for the situation. But you don’t have much of a choice in the moment, remembering Gina’s words of how easily this family will toss aside wayward women, but it never truly sunk in that you were liable to become one. 

He would tell everybody that your daddy had thrown you out after asserting that you still wanted to be with Him in spite of all of that he’s done, and your folks practically disowned you for it. You let him say what he wants because you don’t see a point in telling the truth and if you’re being honest, part of you wants to believe it. It was a far more romantic story than what had actually happened. 

As you’re coming down from your second and somehow less satisfying orgasm, does the guilt start to creep in. Even after all these years you still yearn for his touch. 

But that is so much easier to admit than the alternative of missing Him.

It eats at you that you still think of Him like this after all that he did to you, and worse still it’s almost like you want him to come back.

Your heart practically leaps out your chest when you hear a soft knock at the door and for one horrifying second you think you’ve somehow summoned him to you. 

“Mama…” you hear a small voice whimper behind the locked door, and you breathe a sigh of relief. “Mama, I threw up.”

You don’t know if it’s a consolidation of three different people telling you the same thing in one day, the culmination of your late night loneliness for the past four or so years, or the noxious fumes of the truly unholy combination of stomach acid, red beans, and Jelly Beans that you had to clean up in your sleep deprived state, but you come to the conclusion that you can no longer do this by yourself. 

Being a mother tended to be enough of a deterrent to most men in the city, which didn’t bother you one bit, but it did make you feel all the worse when you did meet the few who were still willing even after learning about Rosie. 

Sam or Lou may very well have been as nice and understanding as they seemed to be, but because of Him, you now look suspiciously at every man trying to get close. 

Perhaps the women in your life were onto something and it is about time for you to move on with your life. Because if you resolve yourself to being for all intents and purposes a shut-in who never knew another man’s touch other than His, then you ran for nothing. 

So it’s with a semi-defeated sigh that you tell Jenny the next morning to send over Lee’s friend to the shop while you’re working to “see how it goes.” 

You do admittedly put a little more effort into your appearance than you would on an average day and you perk up every time a man who looked close to your age walked in. But if any of them were sent by Jenny they didn’t mention it. 

You only ever had one boyfriend when you were a teen, so it feels more than a bit intimidating to go into this, but you can’t deny yourself a life anymore. 

Afterall if you don’t then you may as well have stayed in Memphis. 

The day goes by and of the few men that do enter the shop, of the few that seem interested in you, none of them knew who Jenny was.  

It’s well past closing and feeling both tired and rejected, however the bane of your existence you call Jenny has yet to return, so you instead just flip the sign without properly locking up and hope they’ll be back soon. This isn’t necessarily unusual but you’re just eager for this day to end and hope that a nice cuddle with your daughter will be enough to lift your spirits. 

But for now there are books that need to be out back.

Soon you finally hear the shop bell ring, but instead of the comforting tiny footsteps or the recognizable clack of Jenny’s heels, you instead hear an unfamiliar pattern of heavy footsteps over the low volume of the radio. You look between the shelves from where you’re stocking books in the back and while you can’t make out specific details you see what is undoubtedly the shape of a man standing at the counter. 

“I’m sorry Sir,” you announce still from behind the shelf. “We’re closed for the evening, but please feel free to return tomorrow.” 

“Oh I ain’t going anywhere sweetheart,” a voice drawls.

A voice you would recognize anywhere.

You think you begin to understand at that moment why some animals will chew off their own arms to escape a trap. After all, what is a limb or two in the face of inevitable doom? And even when they do eventually die, they will at least go with their head held high knowing that they did all that they could, because better dead than captured.

But you stand there frozen, barely capable of breathing at a steady rate. You feel like every drop of blood has been drained from your body. Like someone reached into your lungs and snatched the air right out of them. Like your bones have lost all integrity and you’re only kept standing by the mere fact you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. 

He is here. 

Elvis is here.

Not only that but the footsteps getting louder tell you he is getting closer. 

Fuck.

Your mind is going a million miles an hour to try to get out of this, but all of them fall flat when you remember your daughter is not here and if you were to run that would just leave her in his clutches. So rather than act on any plan, you walk out from behind the bookshelf, because there is no point fighting the inevitable. 

You’re hoping your look isn’t so much deer in the headlights and more awestruck and in disbelief that he found you. Which is true to some extent as you thought you had been so careful all these years, so all you can muster out when you see him for the first time is a pathetic little “h-how?”

Your hackles raise slightly as you see him reach behind him, and to your surprise he pulls out an old battered copy of Nancy Drew. You’re so confused for a second until you recognize it as yours. 

One of the many that Gina would send you periodically when you lived with your parents.

One of the many that had the name of this very store stamped to the inner cover. 

One of the many you took with you when you were kicked out.

One of the many left behind at Graceland. 

Fuck.

You want to kick yourself both for being so careless in your haste to leave, but you have no time for that as he says, “I ain’t as smart as you baby, but I figured out your breadcrumbs eventually.”

He thinks you wanted him to find you. 

Didn’tchu though?

“E-Elvis…” you whisper, the single name somehow feeling wrong as it comes out of your mouth. You’ve avoided even thinking about it all these years, as though if you try hard enough you’ll be able to purge him from your mind and thus from your life. As though simply uttering it will somehow summon him. 

That theory isn’t disproven as he, as usual, wastes no time in getting straight to what he came here for, his long legs carrying himself to you as he moves to engulf you within his arms. You stave off the immediate instinct of putting your hands up and allow this to happen, remembering what used to happen when you would deny him. 

He even goes so far as to spin you around, and you lose your footing and have to rely on him in order to not face plant onto the floor. But this works all the better to create the image of the long-lost lovers joyfully reuniting after so long. 

But as he gazes into your eyes, it isn’t fully complete until he leans down to capture your lips. You would like to say you had to force yourself not to flinch away, but even you would know you’re not that good of a liar.

It’s a kiss for the ages truly, both all-consuming and yet leaving you longing for more. The pitfall of having denied getting close to anyone these past few years now show themselves full-force as you on instinct lean full-force into his touch, and welcome his kiss, even fully knowing how precarious your situation is.  

All these years you never could’ve imagined how much you could miss touch- how much you could miss his touch. The kiss itself isn’t even broken until he roughly moves you against the bookshelf and forces his thigh between yours and your left gasping for air as you feel him for the first time. 

And you can’t help the little whine that leaves your lips before you gather yourself once more to look him in the eyes. 

“Did’ya miss me sweetheart?” he whispers against your lips. 

“I…” you say, tears welling in your eyes. “I’ve thought about you every night.” 

This is not a lie.

His fond expression doesn’t crack an inch as you say that, but before you can sigh an internal breath of relief, you feel a tight grip on your wrist as well as on your jaw.

“Then where’ve you been all these years,” he says, low and dangerous. 

It’s certainly not an unfair question to ask. But you’ve been prepared to answer this question since the moment you stepped foot outside of Graceland for a quick errand.

You don’t know what he knows yet, and that’s terrifying.   

“I…I…” you say in a quiet voice, all your years of preparation failing you when you needed it the most. 

In the back of your mind, though you are loath to admit it, you think you always knew this day was coming, that he would find you, and the only thing you could do was to try to lessen the blowback you would experience. It’s why yours and your daughter’s last name is Love. It’s why you never tried to get involved with another man. It’s why you even made that goddamn deal in the first place. 

“I’m going to disappear,” you say, casually taking a sip of your tea, not truly a fan of the taste, but lately it’s been one of the few things your sensitive stomach could handle. “And you’re gonna help me do that.” You couldn’t just ask anyone for help on this, you were surrounded only by sychophants who would do practically anything for Elvis, so you had to look elsewhere to the person whose only side he was on, was his own. 

“And why would I help you?” The Colonel said, idly stirring his coffee, but obviously trying to mask the spark of interest in his eyes. For as much of a slimeball as he can be, you would be a fool to not acknowledge that he’s a decent enough businessman at the end of the day to recognize  a good deal when he sees one. 

“Because you want me gone as much as I wanna be gone,” you state. He hated that Elvis kept you around, even more so when Elvis made it clear he had no intention of staying a bachelor once he finished service. 

Truly under any other circumstance he would be the last person in this house you would confide in, but though your desires were very different they did often run parallel. Something you realized when he talked Elvis out of eloping right before he got shipped out and into a long engagement. Truly the greatest boon you’ve been given since you’ve gotten here, the lack of recognizability or association with the rockstar will serve your purposes all the better.

“Can’t argue with that logic girl,” he says, taking a bite out of the muffins you had baked this morning as a peace offering to him. “Why do you even need my help?” he questions.

“Because I need someone to make sure that he doesn’t ever find me,” you declare, you had practiced this in your head so many times, too afraid to ever voice it aloud or write it down should any of it get back to him. Even an Ocean away you still feel his breath on the back of your neck, with the only safe place being inside your head. 

You had excused yourself from following him to Germany by feigning sickness with the promise that you would join him as soon as you felt better. Which wasn’t hard to do considering your symptoms before he left, left you practically bedridden.

Ever since you figured out your… condition (it felt too scary to even think in your head, let alone voice out loud), your mind had been running rampant with all of the possibilities of how he would react. None of which you're willing to risk coming to fruition. 

“And if I said No?” he asks, but from the look in his eyes he’s all but ready to pack your bags himself. Part of you feels guilty to leave the boy you once loved with such a man, but you have bigger things to worry about now. 

“You’re absolutely free to say no, Parker,” you assure, but he’s savvy enough to know that’s not the end of it. You don’t know whether it’s you mimicking the late Gladys Presley, or something that comes natural with becoming a mother, however you do know you need to assert yourself now of all times, not just for your sake but your baby’s. “Regardless of your help or not, I’m gonna to leave. Now whether I’m gone for twenty minutes or twenty years, will all depend on you, but know that this will also determine how long you’ll be able to keep your position as Manager.” 

He seems to bristle at your words, “And how do you figure dat Lil’ Miss?” he says with a dangerous look in his eyes as you seem to threaten the only thing he happens to care about. But once you do explain it he looks at you with no small amount of respect in his eyes as he mulls over your plan. “Quite devious,” he comments, literally tipping his hat at you. “I think I’m beginnin’ to get what he sees in you.” 

You're far from proud of your plan, and the slimeball’s admiration of it doesn’t help either, but you know for a fact it will work, and Parker is gonna make damn sure that he doesn’t ever find you. 

You made that plan practically bulletproof, but you never factored into account that you would choke in the moment that it truly matters. “Elvis I…” you trail off, trying to swallow the lump in your throat, clutching your hands on his shirt to keep yourself somewhat steady, trembling from the effort it takes to maintain that makeshift barrier. You’re either about to give the performance of a lifetime or… or…

No 

You can’t think like that otherwise…

This has to work. 

Your brain is going a million miles a minute, trying to remind yourself that you have to make this work if you have any hope of getting out of this without him ever having a chance of finding her.

But in real time you watch as this notion turns to ash in your mouth. 

You feel as your blood freezes in your veins when you hear the door slam open only to be followed by the familiar little dashing footsteps. Your heart drops into your stomach as you hear your daughter stop dead in her tracks and you want to throw up at the thought of him laying eyes on her. This is truly what all your nightmares have been building up to, but even they paled in comparison to the reality of what would actually happen. 

“Danny!!!” she squeals at the top of her lungs, before sprinting right into the arms of the man you were so desperately running from. You’re too shocked to do anything about it at the moment, and only watch in horror as something beyond your worst nightmare plays out before your very eyes. 

Even when your instincts kick in to keep her away from him, he casually moves your hands out of the way as he easily scoops her up and over his head, practically playing keep away as you try to take her back. “Is today the day!?!?” she squeals, wrapping her arms around his neck as best she could, giving him a kiss on the cheek, none the wiser at the danger the two of you were in.

“It sure is baby girl,” he says with a mile wide grin on his face. “Why don’tcha go pack everything you’re gonna need in Neverland?” You don’t miss the way his eyes slide your way, no doubt trying to gauge your reaction. 

She squeals in delight, as she jumps out of his arms and makes her way to the stairs, completely oblivious to your state. 

Everything your daughter ever said about “Danny” suddenly makes a whole lot more sense, and you can’t help but want to kick yourself for not paying attention. You thought she was safe with Jenny, you want to throw up at the thought that you unintentionally sent her into the lion's den without her.

She doesn’t even have the decency to face you in that moment, seeing her right outside the window, in Lee’s arms -or Charlie as you would later learn- pointedly not looking in. 

You don’t have the luxury of being mad as you feel his attention focus back on you in that moment. 

“Now…,” he says as he brings your face closer to his, tenderly grabbing your chin, wiping away a tear. “You wanna try again, sweetheart,” he grins maliciously, knowing you’ll have no choice but to be “honest.” 

And that’s it you have only one card left to play and you pray whatever forces that have written the story of your life will be merciful and let this plan work as you hoped it would all those years ago.

You fall to your knees and begin to sob uncontrollably into your palms. It’s actually easier than you had initially hoped, it in fact takes more effort not to cry when you think about him. It’s a miracle you’ve been able to stay this intelligible up to this point.

“Elvis,” you cry, trying to sound as pathetic and heartbroken as you possibly could. “Elvis I-I-I’m so sorry,” you stutter trying to really sell it. “He-he told me that you kn-knew and you didn’t want me anymore,” you hiccup for good measure. “Ho-how you couldn’t have a baby weighing you down, and that-that if I ever came back, he would make sure I would lose her for good.”

You start to hyperventilate, but it’s far from intentional, as you know your very life is at stake in this moment. If he doesn’t believe you… you can’t think like that. 

You know him well enough to know that he won’t believe your words specifically, but he does believe in the world he’s created in his head. That regardless of what you feel, what you say, or even what you do, you love him and want to be with him- always. It’s just others preventing that from happening. It was the women who tempted him on the road, and then it was your family speaking poison in your ear, and then it was the men he couldn’t trust to not look your way. It was never you personally, regardless of how he would sometimes lash out at you, you wanted to be there because he wanted you to be there. 

In the back of your mind when you had just barely begun to formulate leaving, you knew it would be foolish to believe there wasn’t a chance, no matter how slim, that he would find you. And you knew that it wouldn’t go without punishment should he ever find you should it ever occur. So you had to formulate a plan not just to leave, but how best to set yourself up if he ever returned. 

(There have been some nights that you lay awake believing that you prepared so well not because you were paranoid, but because it was an inevitability.)

You hear his clothes shift as he kneels down before you, and he takes your chin into his hand though much gentler this time. 

“Who’s ‘he’” he demands, voice as cold as a tomb. 

He’s buying it, you think, though you have no time to celebrate. You let out a truly pathetic little blubber through your tears, purposefully unintelligible trying to sell the emotions. 

“Who?” he asks, softer this time around, but no less urgent.

“The co-” you cut yourself off taking a deep steady breath. “The Colonel,” you whisper as though you fear speaking his name aloud will bring him to this very spot.

Parker’s far from innocent but you feel a slight twinge of guilt that his downfall would be for something he didn’t do as opposed to all the things he had done. But you can’t think like that anymore, it was gonna be either him or you. 

Someone would need to suffer because of what you did, and you would be damned before it was you or your daughter. 

And so Parker is now the villain who cruelly kept you and your daughter away from him, and not that you wanted so desperately to get away from him that you practically disappeared off the face of the Earth. But it seems like a fair trade. Parker loses his job, you lose your life. Maybe not in the literal sense, but in all the ways that matter you’ll be gone. 

You don’t relax at all when you feel him gently cup your face in his hands to softly wipe your tears away. You look upon the devastatingly handsome man, as he looks as if he means to take you in his arms to never let you go.“Don’tchu worry baby,” he says, wiping your tears away. “You don’t gotta worry bout that rat bastard no more.” You let out a small cry, hoping it sounds more out of relief than out of devastation to his words. “So now you and Rosie can come home,” he states with a delusional smile on his face. 

Despite the fact that you knew this would realistically end one of two ways, you can’t help but balk at the words. You try your best to smile at his words, but even you realize how hollow that gesture is, in spite of the part you know you’re meant to play in the moment, between the two of you, only one of you is an actor.

He’s having none of it as you feel the previously gentle hand cupping your face wrap around your throat. “Now. You. And. Rosie. Can. Come. Home.” he grits out, his grip around your neck tightening with each word emphasized. 

He knows what your answer is, no doubt he’s just trying to rub salt in the wound knowing that it’s not a choice he’s giving you. This is all the proof you need that he doesn’t fully believe you, but is willing to play along. Leaving may have been forgivable, staying away for so long is another matter entirely. 

He’s just punishing you for not being as enthusiastic as you should be at the prospect of coming “home,” as you should be.

You’re not playing pretend well enough.

“Mama!” Rosie squeals excitedly and when he lets go, you turn to see her making her way back downstairs, her favorite blanket now a makeshift rucksack of what you assume to be all toys dragging behind her. “Mama it worked!” she said, as she ran full tilt toward you, holding something in her palm. “Danny’s gonna take us to Neverland today.”

You see the little porcelain baby from the king cake and you find yourself wishing you were anywhere else. But you know better than to believe in wishes.

“Can we go now?” she says, her little hand grasping one of Elvis’ fingers and shaking furiously. “Now please,” she begs, before he scoops her up into his arms and propping her on his hip. He holds her close and you're forced to face what you have been ignoring all these years. The shape of the nose, the way her lips curl in such a specific way, there is only one place she could have gotten all of that from. It feels like just your luck that your child would be practically a carbon copy of the man you so desperately tried to get away from. Really it was only a matter of time before someone figured it out. 

“Now hold ya’ horses yittle,” chucking her under the chin in a far too familiar manner, as she giggles in his arms. “Yer mama’s gotta get ready herself.”

“I… do…” you say, playing along, trying to keep a cap on your distress for your daughter's sake. “I-I gotta pack a few more things baby,” you say, giving her a kiss on her forehead, hoping she misses the tears in your eyes. “I’ll b-be right back.” you manage to stutter out.

“Don’t worry sweetheart,” his voice so saccharine sweet it makes our teeth ache. “We’ll be right here.” 

As you turn around you feel a hard smack on your ass, and you fully stop, burning in humiliation that he would treat you like that, especially in front of your daughter. 

The humiliation only further ramps up as you walk up the stairs, and you can feel the slick already gathering between your thighs. Less out of titillation you believe and more out of a defense mechanism, knowing what will more than likely happen the second he's able to get you alone.

Or is it?

It doesn’t feel real as you step into the upstairs apartment, you see Gina at the stove and Sue filling out a crossword puzzle, her glasses threatening to fall off her nose, none of which suggests they have any idea of what’s going on downstairs. You’re almost angry about that, like it would’ve been easier to walk away from them if they had also been in on it as well. 

“Where’s Rosie so eager to rush off to?” Sue asks idly, not looking up from the paper.

“Oh ummm…” you say, trying to think on your feet for a decent enough lie. “ Sh-she’s going to a sleepover with-with Jenny.” 

You’re usually a better liar than this, but him being so close again has you all out of sorts tonight. Not to mention your mind is running rampant with all the worst case scenarios possible at the moment with the most egregious being that he’s gonna take her and run, forcing you to chase him down the same way he’s undoubtedly done for you these past few years. You’re practically feeling every second tick by, fearing the longer you take the greater the chances will be that they’re both gone. 

Is that how he felt when he was away from you? A small voice in your head asks. It’s an awful roiling feeling in the pit of your stomach, and you couldn’t even begin to imagine how it would feel if the person you loved most wasn’t where you left them. Would he be so cruel to do that to you?

“Did that fella Jenny setchu up with ever show up?” Gina asks, wiping her hands on her apron. 

“Ye-yeah and… and I’m gonna get dinner with him,” you swallow, the lie tasting like bile in your mouth. As you turn to your room, already mentally mapping where the important documents were in your bedroom, preparing to pack a few outfits for Rosie, and whatever other odds and ends you would need. 

Your answer catches Gina off guard, and Sue immediately looks up from the paper sharing a look with your other Aunt. “Ain’t that a little fast, Hon?” 

“Maybe…” you say, hesitating as you try to hold back your tears. 

“Ya don’t gotta go if you ain’t ready for it,” Sue says behind you, putting a hand on your shoulder, that you flinch away from. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong If it’s still a little too early for you.” 

That’s the worst part about it. You know they would fight tooth and nail for both you and Rosie if you just asked. But you know the type of mess Elvis can and will bring into this house should you decide to fight him on this. After all they’ve done for you, keeping them out of the type of spectacle he brings is the least you can do.

“I have to go,” you say sternly. 

One look at your squared back shoulders and your far away look they know there’s no stopping this. You hold back your tears as you accept their hug and accept their well wishes. You say your goodbyes promising to be back soon, unsure if you will ever see them again, and you put on your biggest fakest smile as you let go of them, wanting to at least leave them with one happy memory.

Relief floods your entire being seeing her at the bottom of the steps, only for the dread to return seeing him there with her. Especially when you hear the story he’s telling her. You don’t miss the glance he steals your way before focusing on your daughter once again. “I thought to myself, ‘thas the girl whose gonna be mine.’”

“Like-like love at first sight,” Rosie asks, and you can practically hear the stars in her eyes.

“Exactly yittle,” he drawls out. “Took her awhile to figure it out though but she learned eventually. Now we’re all gonna go home.” His eyes slide right off her and cut directly to you. Her eyes follow him and she quickly scurries off of him to reach you. 

“You ready Mama?” she asks you as she takes you by the hand leading you to the door where you see a car parked right out front.  It may as well have been a hearse in your mind. 

You pick her up and you look down the darkened streets and you briefly flirt with the idea of just sprinting and never looking back. But the hand on your elbow guiding you to the car puts a halt to those thoughts. 

You still don’t know how much of your story he does actually believe, so you sit yourself down in the car without so much as a fuss and resolve yourself to your fate. Though that doesn’t stop you from seating yourself in the middle and placing Rosie by the window, as you still aren’t totally out of the mindset of keeping her as far away from him as possible. Neither of them seem to mind as she eagerly presses tiny hands up to the glass in awe of the nightlife of New Orleans, while he slithers an arm over your shoulder bringing you closer to him. 

As you contemplate what your life will look like from now on, you pass by so many places you’ve become familiar with these last four years, but what nearly breaks you are the unfamiliar places. Record stores, movie theaters, restaurants, and so many other places you avoided all due to an irrational belief that he would somehow be there. You did your best to limit your time in the outside world to only when you absolutely had to be out. 

Maybe that’s why you were so willing to trust Jenny and her altruistic generosity to watch over your daughter and take her places you were too anxious to venture to. 

You caged yourself into your new seemingly better life, but you didn't live at all. You were hiding. Always so afraid that he would somehow find you, you neglected to live. You put yourself in a different cage and convinced yourself you were free. 

“Mama? Mama, why are you crying?” your sweet little girl asks. 

But you’re gonna do what you’ve always done for your daughter. What you’ve always done when it comes to Elvis. You’re going to play pretend. 

“Mama’s just so happy we’re going baby,” you say with a solemn kiss to her forehead as his grip further tightens on your shoulder. 

“I know what’ll cheer you up!” she declares and completely unaware of the salt she’s about to pour on your wounds, she pulls something out of her little rucksack. “Danny, do you know the story of ‘Punzel?”

“Can’t say that I do darlin’” he says, eyeing you over her head. She sets the Grimm fairy tale book down on her lap and opens it to the worn pages she’s seemed to memorize by heart. She proceeds to read to the both of you, in the sense that she recites the story she’s heard maybe half-a-million times before word-for-word, going off pictures more than the actual words on the page to know where she’s at in the story. You try your best to focus on the book for your daughter's sake, but it’s nearly impossible to do when you feel Elvis' familiar bruising grip on your inner thigh. 

You shoot him a look and grab a hold of his wandering hand, trying to signal for him to stop and pay attention to Rosie. He gives a mirthful smile to you as he feels the slick there and seemingly tightens his grip in retribution, as though he wants to get a head start on re-establishing his claim over you. You in response bite your cheek and bear it, until at one point it nearly becomes too much and one lone tear rolls down your cheek and onto the page of the prince wandering blindly through the forest.  

Your daughter is far too sweet for her own good, as she notices this and gives you a gentle pat on your cheek, trying to comfort you the same you’ve done for her before. 

“Don’t worry Mama,” she reassures you, mirroring what you’ve done for her when a story gets her a little too worked up. “They always live happy ever after.”

You give a shuddering sigh as Elvis finally let’s go of your thigh. You clutch onto that little porcelain figure in your pocket and hope she’s right.

You make it to Memphis in record time, Rosie having long since tired herself out, is wrapped securely in your arms, but you’ll find no suh peace with his arm coiled around your shoulder as he sadistically whispers how Rosie’ll have a blast meeting the rest of his family while the two of you get “reacquainted,” of course he used more colorful language but you don’t want to have to think about that for right now. 

When the familiar gates come into view 

“Ahh, my baby missed home that bad,” he whispers, giving a deceptively sweet kiss to your tear-stricken cheek. “Why don’tcha hand the ‘lil one over to me and you just head up to bed and get ready for me?”

Despite the questioning lilt in his tone you know for a fact he’s not asking. And so going against all of your instincts screaming in your head, you let go of your daughter and watch as he takes a hold of her. To your relief she’s at the very least on the same floor as you, but you can only hope that she, at the very least, will sleep through the rest of the night, because you doubt he’ll let you out even a minute sooner than he has to. 

The bedroom has changed in many ways since you’ve been gone, though the most striking thing  was how your side of the bed looks as though it were converted into a little shrine for you. Small baubles and trinkets you left behind on the stand, you even find an old nightgown of yours on your side of the bed, the last thing he ever saw you in. It doesn’t fit you like it used to, having and breastfeeding a baby will do that to you, but you put it on all the same knowing he will want to see you in it. 

Looking at yourself in the mirror, seeing your breasts straining against the silk material and the bruises peeking out beneath the scandalously short hemline, it really does settle in that this was all inevitable. This is the very same image you saw the night before he left for Germany.

The same image that confirmed your decision to leave in the first place. 

This moment, feels like the dread you always felt when getting to the last few pages of a book. As things were wrapping up and you would have to face the harsh reality of your situation...

You’re back in the fucking hotel room.

You won’t even have the luxury of daydreaming of your escape, because there is no world where you leave without Rosie, and he knows that. He knows she’s the reason you ran, and knows that without her you’re never gonna run again. That’s why he went to the lengths he did to endear himself to her first before you ever had an inkling as to what was going on. 

Your thoughts turn to Jenny, and how you entrusted what you loved the most to her, only to have her spit in your face by turning around practically handing her over to him on a platter. Either she knew that he was her father and didn’t bother to question why you were so desperate to get away that you faked a whole other life, or she didn’t and handed over your daughter to a stranger. You don’t know which is worse. 

You also can’t forget how she was perhaps the most vehement about you dating again, which you can’t even begin to understand if she was working for him the whole time. But you can’t put it above him that he wouldn’t have Jenny push the issue if only to further twist the knife if you ever did take up her offer. As though to remind you that you never had a chance of moving on. 

Because it always goes back to him.

You want to hide from it all and you give into the urge, and crawl under the silky sheets of the bed, for all the good it will do to protect you. 

Monsters don’t hide under your bed. They crawl into it. Those are your last conscious thoughts as you feel the bed shift 

“Welcome home Satnin,” he whispers before you feel the sheets being ripped away from you.

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[steddieas-shegoes]

Hello ❤️ I know you’re back home and I think are doing these on an as-you-can basis. If you’re just completely done, let me know! But I got in my feelings today about always being the third wheel and of course my brain wants to whump Steve about it, so here’s two lines from a conversation I had with a friend:

“When do I stop being a last resort?”

And

“When will I get people who care the way I care?”

Again, if you’re not doing these any more, that’s completely fine! Just thought I’d submit these in case you are. Feel free to use one or the other, or both! ❤️

Hello my star ✨ I am technically not doing them, but it kinda sounds like we both maybe need this one and I'm gonna use this a lowkey plug for everyone to consider participating in the @steddiemicrofic challenge. I'm going with the first one because I believe that even at Steve's lowest, he knows he has Robin to care about him a whole lot ❤️

----------

When the dust settles, when everyone seems to find a new rhythm, when they don't always look over their shoulder and wait for the next world-ending crisis, Steve finds himself alone a lot.

When Robin leaves for college, he finds himself alone most of the time.

The kids are back in school, everyone except Jonathan and Eddie have gone off to college, and those two seem to get along just fine without Steve inserting himself into their friendship.

They still come hang out with him sometimes, usually when they wanna rent a movie using his discount, or if Eddie wants to borrow his dining room for Hellfire.

The worst part is he says yes, puts a smile on his face, pretends he's happy just to get some attention, any attention.

And he is a little happy. Some attention is better than none, especially for a lonely person like him.

He watched everyone around him have each other, while he has himself.

He talks to Robin every other night, but he feels like he's burdening her, but would never say that. He just waits for her to stop answering the calls.

It all comes to a head one evening when Eddie is over at his house late, still cleaning up after Hellfire.

Steve had a bad week at work, customers just being rude over nothing, a migraine two days in a row, and now Eddie dragging his feet to leave.

The worst part? He didn't want him to leave.

Just the thought of another night alone had him tearing up.

He made sure to stay facing away from Eddie, unable to stop the tears from falling, but at least able to stay quiet.

Not quiet enough.

"Steve? What's wrong?"

He sounded so concerned.

"Nothing. Just a little overtired. Head still hurts a little. You know how it is."

He couldn't quite laugh it off, the sound more of a choked sob than anything.

Eddie's hands were on his shoulders, turning him around so he had no choice but to look at him, his worried gaze more than Steve expected.

"What's actually wrong?"

So much.

"When do I stop being a last resort?"

He hadn't meant to say that. He certainly didn't expect Eddie's reaction: pulling him close to his chest, his grip on his back and hair enough to make Steve sink into it.

He hadn't been hugged since Robin left for college.

"What do you mean? You're not a last resort."

"I'm no one's first choice. You only come here because I have the most room. The kids only ever call if they need a ride somewhere. I think at this point Robin only talks to me so she knows I'm alive."

The words were hard to get out but he did it. He felt slightly better just knowing he'd said them.

"Fuck. We've- I've been so stupid."

Steve pulled away.

"I just thought you wanted your space. We're done fighting monsters, so you can go back to just being Steve Harrington. I don't think any of us thought you still wanted to be around us. But we've taken what we thought we could get."

"What? Why would anyone think that?"

"Because you only got involved in all this protect people. Now you don't have to."

"I protected everyone because I cared. Why would I just stop caring?"

"When you put it like that, it sounds stupid."

Steve rolled his eyes.

"Because it is stupid."

"So you do want us around?"

"Yes! I thought no one wanted me around anymore since they didn't need me."

Eddie shook his head, disappointment settling over him.

"That's so far from the truth. Dustin was upset the other day because he was convinced you were going to start telling him no when he asked for rides and he didn't know how else to see you."

Steve let it sink in, the words and the way Eddie still hadn't let go of him completely, still had his hands resting on his lower back as Steve looked up at him.

"For a smart kid, he sure is dumb."

Eddie laughed loudly, smiling down at Steve as some of the tension released from his body.

"I guess we all are."

"Including me."

"You're very loved, Steve. By all of us."

"All of you?"

"Yes. All."

[the-derpy-duck]

Tf one! Tf one! Tf one!

Gonna spoil everything please go watch the movie it’s the greatest transformers movie ever made go watch it I need a sequel please go watch it it is 100% worth it 10/10

Hey so like this movie is really fucking funny? Bumblebee is actually just insane and he’s so caring and I love him. He’s my cringy little boy who has never talked to anyone ever. He lives in the dumpster. Elita one is also funny. She’s so fucking done with dumbasses 1-3. Although the part where everyone was like ‘hey follow protocol’ when not following protocol means Jazz gets to live was a bit crazy. But it makes sense and Optimus going back for Jazz really just makes his chances of dying with him much higher. But it’s Jazz. We all love Jazz. No one wants to see Jazz get crushed. Look at him at the end of the movie he’s so happy to have his little wings he’s Jazzzzz.

If the high I felt from watching this movie is half of what people get from ecstasy then I totally get why people would do it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that much joy in that little amount of time. I could not sit still. My chest actually hurt. It was amazing. I was able to recognize characters and I was just like ‘JAZZ! JAZZ! WAIT IS THAT RATCHET? PROWL? SIDESWIPE AND SUNSTREAKER????? YESSS! ARCEE!! SKYWARP! RARARARARARA’ and I understand that I am weird for this. But it was so much fun. And I was laughing and getting upset with the characters. And the animation is so good and cybertron is soooo pretty. I love the deer and although the quintsons are a minor part of this movie I think they’ll play a much bigger role in the sequel that’s hopefully coming. I want to see more of the characters. I want to see how Megatron will interact with the other decepticons. I want skywarp to get more lines (I’m 99% sure that he was the guy who said ‘what’ when Optimus said ‘we roll out’). I want to see how the other autobots interact. I want to see Sunstreaker do literally anything. I want to see more of this story and more of this world.

D16 is great. I really like him and I like how pissed he is at Orion and how he snaps. Orion pushed him into a lot of situations he really didn’t want to be in and he’s done saving Orion. And like. He’s also not really wrong about killing Sentinel. Like killing is inherently inhumane, but if it is the only way to preserve life then it is justifiably inhumane. And realistically, what else would they have done with him? He clearly has some backing from a guard of some sorts and connections to the quintisons, so he could ruin everyone’s lives again. The way he died was extra and there’s definitely a better way to kill him (“morally” speaking. There’s not a humane way to kill a persons outside of extreme circumstances, but some ways are definitely worse than others). But his death was also so cool. Like I was expecting Megatron to just shoot him but holy shit that was brutal. Also this is me being a little silly goose but I don’t think that his eyes are literally changing colors. I think the story is being told mainly through Optimus’s perspective, and the eye color shifting is metaphorical. The yellow to orange is a lot more subtle than the orange to red. When his eye color changes it’s not just when he’s changing (which is definitely also apart of it I think) but specifically when Optimus realizes that the change has occurred. Yellow and Blue and Orange and Blue also complement each other. Red and Blue are a bit more jarring when put next to each other imo. Like it’s based on nothing but my own weird little mind. But anyways, I don’t think Optimus jumped in front of sentinel because he gave a shit about sentinel. I think he jumps in front of Megatron’s gun because he desperately needs to save his friend. But it’s too late and they are now both unrecognizable to each other. Suddenly getting power and being suppressed his entire life coupled with sentinel’s betrayal caused D16 to snap. His entire life was a lie and a person he looked up to turned out to be the biggest piece of shit on cybertron. Also a thing I found really interesting was that the high guard/future decepticons chanted D16’s name when he was beating the shit out of starscream whereas with Orion the miners/future autobots changed his name after he gave a speech and was literally kneeling to be on their level.

Sentinel prime was really fun. I predicted that he would be revealed as a traitor entirely because he’s Sentinel. But it was still fun to see it happen. Also he’s beautiful. This is the best he has ever looked. The colors look great next to each other and the wings go hard. He’s very one dimensional but he makes the other characters around him have more dimensions because he’s so simple. And he doesn’t need to be complex. Keep It Simple Stupid. The movie is less than two hours long, it doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. It knows how to use the wheel and it uses it great. Sentinel is an asshole and I really like him. The version of him that I have in my head is very different but I like asshole sentinel. Tfa Sentinel is great. Tf One Sentinel is great. I hope they both die <3

Also when D16 saw megatronus’s head? Amazing. Both of his hero’s (sentinel and Megatronus) died in that cave, literally and metaphorically. And the fact that this happened in a cave reminds of that one metaphor some dead guy came up with. Basically there’s these prisoners who are forced to stay in a cave and I think they might be tied upside down but one of them is able to leave the cave and discovers that there is more to the world than the cave and that they have also been upside down. When he tried to relay this to his friends they declare him to be a liar. It’s a basic little thing about discovering the truth or whatever I can’t articulate it very well. But that was Megatron’s cave moment. His entire life was a lie. He is existing the cave and he will never be the same. Was TF One actually just refrencing this? Probably not. BUT WAIT! The Cybertronians live underground, so that’s technically a cave. Everyone who is living in the underground city and who don’t go to the surface are in the dark. ITS THE CAVE AGAIN! AT THE END OF THE MOVIE THEY ARE ALL THAT THE SURFACE! THEY ALL LEFT THE CAVE!! I’m loosing my fucking mind if you couldn’t tell. Also the minors go into caves and they very much love sentinel. cave Cave CAVE

Starscream is really cool. We haven’t seen enough of him to get a gage on his morality or how big of a traitor he’ll be, but what’s been shown is really great. His motivations for challenging and goading D16 are unclear. Like he might be a masochist but probably not. Maybe he wants him to be the new leader. I wished that we saw more of screamer but what we got was pretty great. And I hope he gets to play a more major role in future movies. As well as soundwave and shockwave because although shockwave was really funny they unfortunately didn’t get to do much.

This version of Elita kicks ass. Scarlett Johansson does an excellent job of voicing her. Although it would have been funny if she voiced Arachnid. But she’s so cool and also funny. I loved when she told Orion that she was better than him at everything but having optimism. Her ripping off Arachnid’s leg and using it to beat her was fucking awesome. ‘I’m being gentle!’ I love her so much she’s so funny. Her anger towards being demoted motivating her to go along with the three idiots was good. I want to see more of her in general and I want to see how her dynamic with Optimus will change in the next movie. Like ‘next movie’ might not happen but I’m really hoping that it does. But even if it doesn’t the film is still amazing.

Chris Hemsworth does a great job voicing Optimus. I was really surprised and impressed. Like low key I was sort of expecting this to be a Chris Pratt Mario situation when I first heard he would be OP’s VA because I only knew him from the Marvel movies. But he does a great job. Bryan Tyree Henry does an excellent job voicing D16/Megatron. Like he might be my favorite Megatron voice. Like I love Scottish Megatron but this voice is soooo good. Every voice actor does a phenomenal job.

The animation is amazing. I love the backgrounds and the bridges that just appear. The surface of cybertron is so pretty and I love the general aesthetic. The fight scenes are so well done. They utilize transformations in the fight (like Optimus retracting his head like a turtle to dodge attacks) and that’s super cool! The facial expressions are also really good. When Optimus is telling Megatron to leave he looks so sad and it looks so real. These characters are all really expressive, including the background ones. Like I’ve seen a lot of redraws of Jazz looking at his wings and being all happy. Each background character looks unique and there are a lot of cameos and it was so much fun to look at them. A lot of love and effort was clearly put into this movie and it really shows. The eyes are so pretty, the backgrounds are so pretty, the characters become so shiny.

It’s a great movie and I think everyone should go watch it. I need this film to get a sequel.

[igglemouse]

It was a good thing that I did not spend too much time at the gym last night because of course I had to wake up and take care of Flora once again in the middle of the night.

Yeah, it's not easy, but I will say that the very sight of her, wriggling and demanding attention and care, is enough motivation to wake up at three in the morning and take care of her. Babies just have no sense of time!

But mama has to take care of herself too and that means breakfast. I'm up early enough for it any ways so why not make cinnamon oatmeal? It's easy and more importantly it is quick. You know how it is when sometimes you are just so hungry you want to eat as soon as possible? Yeah, that's how I'm feeling.

And while the taste of cinnamon oatmeal is tempting there is also another familiar feeling that I'm having this morning...

So I spent a lot of the morning in the restroom, as you can imagine, and barely ate and to get my mind off of what is going on with me I dive into work. Editing videos can be very distracting and its exactly what I need right now.

Yeah, I know, I can't run from it for long but just let me have this one day...

I'm all about distractions today actually and since it is Saturday it's the perfect time to sit down and watch a movie. Simder is our choice and wow it's just what I need! It's such an emotional roller coaster!

I can only imagine Flora old enough and watching it with her and her...brother or sister? Ah! I really don't want to think about the possibility that I'm pregnant again! I'm trying not to but...

"So what did you think?" I ask him as the credits roll, still with pregnancy on the mind but trying not to think too much about it because the idea of taking care of Flora WHILE being pregnant seems like a mountain that I can't climb.

"It was alright I guess," an expected response from him. "I'm not really much of a movie person."

"Uh huh, maybe we can watch a sports movie next time then?" He likes the idea of that while meanwhile I'm wondering how I will break the news to him.

The day goes on and soon I'm found soaking in the tub and contemplating life itself.

Okay, so yeah, I am expecting. I took the test before dipping into the bath because knowing is better than just remaining ignorant and trying to deny reality. I must accept it and now that I have I begin to think that it is better this way. At least Flora's little sibling will be close in age to her.

Actually, the more I think about it, the happier I am about it and I know Pascal will be happy to hear it. He did say he wanted another, which is easy of course for him to say.

The first person to know will be the smallest person in the house because she can't tell anyone at all! She's happy to see me too at least until I tell her she will be a big sister and then she's crying her eyes out.

To be fair, she just doesn't like being held for too long but hey this means she won't ever be spoiled as the only child at least! She's going to have to learn how to share at a very early age!

I spend time just playing with her until her little self gets tired and yawns and is ready for I hope a nice long sleep so that she doesn't bother Pascal too much.

Somehow, someway, I'll have to spread my love between two children. Right now, it seems impossible, but parents do it, right? Good ones do, I suppose. I don't want to play favorites after all.

I head to the gym because Marjorie had actually contacted me and asked if I wanted to hang out and after what happened yesterday, why not? I feel like yeah, she has some explaining to do, but maybe she just wants to hang out?

Of course the moment I step inside I'm not only greeted by the clanking of weights, the playing of some bouncy poppy music in the background, but by Marcus as well. He's working so hard that I can see the strain of his muscles and the occasional grunt. My plan was to just walk past him and look for Marjorie but the way he glares at me forces me to stop.

"Looks like you gained weight over night," he says with a scowl, seemingly ready for an argument.

"And chu are now more meaner," I say in passing and quickly avoid him. Thankfully he just laughs and gets back to working out.

Of course I find her in the yoga room doing warm up stretches.

"No tired yet?" I ask her grabbing her attention for a moment.

"Frida! no, not yet, gotta work to work, you know?"

I don't. That's not a phrase I've ever heard but before I can think about it she's continuing. "Here to work out too? You didn't get to get much in with what happened yesterday, sorry about that by the way."

"O-oh, it is good Marj, chu can't control others," there, that's good enough for me. Sometimes your friends have bad taste in men and it sucks but I can't live her life for her. "Chu know, he say something about me when I came on? He said I gained weight over night."

"You know Frida," she starts in that tone that hints that she should probably not say what she is thinking about saying. "You HAVE gained weight."

"Marj," I say low, warning her not to go down this path, but she is going.

"Marcus is a good man, he means well, he just thinks being honest about things is the only way to go and honestly, you've gained weight. That is a fact by the looks of it."

I'm not sure what to say to that or if I should say anything at all. Defensively, I want to announce that I'm pregnant again, which would explain the weight gain, not that it needs to be explained, but I'm too shocked to say anything at all.

"Frida, I'm sorry I didn't mean-"

"No, chu meant it! Bye, Marj," and I'm not sure if this is a final goodbye or not but right now I just can't continue a relationship with her. It is one thing to defend him, that I understand, make excuses for him. I probably would do the same for Pascal, but it is another to agree and also insult me. I draw the line at that. I have way too much going on in my life to deal with people like this!

Frida Varela - Next Episode 10.3

[mama-qwerty]

I debated making this post for a long time. Something's been eating at me for a while, and I couldn't figure out what until very recently.

So I haven't felt inspired to really work on my writing for weeks. The hate and anger being spewed toward the SCU in general, and the Knuckles series in particular, has really affected me more than I thought it did.

I came into the Sonic fandom by way of the movies. I love that universe, I love the characters, Knuckles being my favorite. My writing is primarily for the movieverse. That's what I'm comfortable with, and what interests me to really dig into.

Yes, I love game Knux. I've written some stuff for him, and that's great. He's fun to play with, too. But the SCU is where I 'live'.

I know the series is extremely polarizing. You either like it or hate it, and I get that it won't be everyone's cup of tea. I get that they did some things in it that were odd and didn't make much sense. I would have handled some things differently, too. It wasn't without its flaws.

But overall I found it a fun ride, and took it for what it was intended as - bonus content that likely won't have that much sway over anything upcoming in the movies. Not everyone will be able to see the show, after all, so they can't drop any major lore or additional stuff that's need to know for the rest of the verse.

I've seen more than one person claim that they hated the show so much they now hate the SCU in general. That Knuckles' portrayal was so different from what they were expecting, they're hurt and sad and angry about it. Totally get that. They feel betrayed. Understandable.

But what I'm feeling now is also a form of betrayal, because I felt accepted and welcomed into the Sonic fandom, and now that the SCU is viewed with such disgust and anger, moreso than before, I feel judged for enjoying it. I feel hurt and sad and angry that people are being so down on and dismissive of SCU Knux, a Knuckles I absolutely adore, simply because he's not being portrayed like he is in the games or other media.

Like someone came into a secret place I felt most safe and comfortable, took a look at something that made me happy, and sneered with a "You like that?"

I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm in no way policing what people can talk about, or saying they can't hate something I enjoy. I'm not saying they're not entitled to voice their opinion on something. They're as free to talk about it as I am.

But I'd be lying if I said this didn't bother me. More than I thought it would.

Maybe I'm being too thin-skinned, or over sensitive. Maybe I'm just sick of all the hate thrown around in general. Maybe I'm hoping that giving 'voice' to how I'm feeling will help me work through it and feel better.

All I know is that I'm feeling uncomfortable really engaging with a lot of the fandom right now, and it's making me really sad.

[yuyu1024]

6yrs

Pairings: Yunho × y/n

Genre/tags: lovers to strangers

Warning: pet names, cursing, cheating

~~~ [lmk if i miss anything]

Words: 1.3k

Disclaimers:

- this story is just made up

- english is not my first language, please be nice 😊

A/N: i am in my down moments lately... and i want to write something a bit sad randomly

Hope you all have a wonderful day. 🖤

------------------------------------------------

6yrs. You and Yunho have been together for that long already. From college to now as adults. He is your first in everything. He is your guy, your comfort and your safezone. He is the man you always have dreamed of.

He is perfect and He's yours.

However, these past few months have been very... off for you. Well, both of you. And you know why.

A few months ago, after you guys celebrated your 6th year anniversary together, Yunho got a call from his supervisor that he is a candidate for a promotion. That his boss is rooting for him and for sure know that after a few more deliberation with the rest of the team, you will get it.

Both of you were so ecstatic. You even jumped like a kid on a trampoline after hearing his news. Coz you know how hard working and passionate your man is with his job. You know he deserves it.

It will have its pros and cons being promoted especially when it comes to time with you or whatever. But it does not matter coz you know it is his for him and it will make him happy career wise. And you know Yunho will do a good job balancing his life and work.

But then just more than a month after he got the position, it suddenly went south.

Yunho have been going home late two to three times a week. Which is not bad coz its not everyday and too extreme. However, whenever he goes home now you feel the distance building between you two. It felt like he has been coming home to you and expecting to just pick his coat and bag on the floor, make sure he eats and then let him rest.

He have gotten so cold and quiet.

You tried talking to him during his off days. Wanting to suggest to go on a date or hang out somewhere, have fun, play games, watch a movie or something. But he either rejects you because he is tired or if he agrees, it feels so forced.

What happened? You were so lost. Unsure what to do or say. But being the girlfriend, you always made sure he feels loved and taken care off. Because you also thought that he might be just having this transition in his life because of a new environment at work.

You believed that this shall pass.

But as months go by... it gotten worse.

It came to a point that you two feels like two strangera living together. That the 6yrs of being boyfriend-girlfriend was suddenly felt like nothing.

***

"You think.... it's better... that I move out?" You blurt while starting at your plate during breakfast.

Yunho pauses and slowly raise his gaze to you. "What?" He is stunned by your sudden question.

Still looking at your plate whilst poking your food you add, "Because... I feel like... I'm not needed here anymore..." then you eyes lifts up to look at him. "Nor wanted by you anymore..."

He probably stopped breathing for a second but after processing what you said, "Y/N..."

You snort an irritated laugh. "Shocker. You still know my name..." you mumble.

"I'm sorry...." he answers lowering his head. "I'm caught up so much work that I..."

"Just work?" You ask, going back to staring while poking your food.

His head snaps back up, brows rippled. "What do you mean by that?"

"I'm not dumb." You softly say before letting go of the fork then proceed to putting your legs up your chair and  then hugging your knees. "I know... I know everything...." your voice breaks at the end.

An important detail why something is off between the two of you this past few months is that, Yunho, cheating. A woman from his work. His teammate.

You caught him one time, as you were coming home late after having a drink or two with your friends, when you saw him walking with the woman. They are not drunk. They are casually walking together, laughing and acting like they are on a date.

At first you told yourself that they are just friends. That maybe Yunho is just being respectful to the elder girl, who is obviously into him, that he cannot just publicly embarass her to tell her to move away. But then, as you follow them even more just around corner of the next building, you see them making out.

It's not just her making moves to him. Yunho was actually kissing her back. He was kissing her the way he kisses you. 💔

"You know what hurts too...?" You begin , "is that I was standing there.... obviously and in plain sight... but you weren't able to see me... or notice that someone is watching..." you wipe the first tear that roll down on your cheek. "You were to focus on her... so... taken by her..."

"Y/N..." tears starts to build up in his eyes. "I'm sorry..."

"No your not." You say, trying to hold on a bit more to not actually break apart in front of him. "Coz if you really loved me, you would not...you would not ever...."

You fail. You can't stop yourself from crying now. You cover your face as you sob and loudly whine as you express all the pain you have been keeping in for the past months.

It hurts. So painful. And yet the man in front of you can't and won't even defend himself or try to talk.

It felt like he just confessed through his silence that he did and is cheating. And probably will not stop seeing her.

"Why?" You ask. "Am I not enough? Not successful enough...? Ugly?" You take a deep breath in, "Do I not satisfy you in bed anymore? What... w-hat did I do? What made you do it? Why? Why now?"

He becomes silent.

"For fuck sakes, Yunho! Six years! We've beem together for six years and this is what I get? I know I'm not perfect but... God!" You cry it out more, facing him away. You are crying so much that you can barely breathe now and you eyes are blood shot red.

"Y/N..." he stands up and tries to reach out to help you to breathe but you move away quickly.

You stand up and jerk away from him.

"Please..."

"Please what?" You look at him, with sad yet fiercing eyes. "Stay? Why? So you can have someone to act like your 'girlfriend' when your other woman is not around to please you?"

"I... I love you." He mumbles, "please..."

"You don't." You wipe the rest of the tears off your cheek. "You stopped loving me the second you cheated. You are just keeping me around because you are used to having me around. You are just saying you love me because you need me."

"I'm sorry...." Yunho goes down to his knees and begs. "Please don't go.... I... No... I made a mistake... I... she helped me get through all the troubles at work and... it just..."

"You confided with her and not with me? As your girlfriend?"

"I know it's wrong... but... I didn't want to burden you with my own problems..."

"And look what it caused."

"Please...." Yunho crawls closer to you and hugs you by the waist. "I'm sorry... I will stop... I already told her I can't do it... I just... had to tell her to..."

"Yeah... I think it's better if I move out..." you peel him off you. "I don't think I can do it any longer..."

He is crying, looking at you. "Babe, please."

"I'm sorry." You say as you then pull out the promise ring he gave you from your first anniversary.